THE SHERIFF'S BLOOD

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

It was suggested that the next tale be told from Jacob's view on the world.

I had no idea how I was going to do it.

Then the Sheriff's blue eyed little girl Angela sat down on a bale of hay, hiding outside in the shadows instead of celebrating inside, with the barn dance ... crying because ... well, because she felt like it.

Then her brother Jacob sat down beside her and asked if she remembered the last time he lied to her.

 

Like the other tales, this is a solo thread and I'll have a separate comments thread for comments, suggestions, complaints, horse racing tips, secret recipes and the like.

 

 

THE SHERIFF'S BLOOD

1. Barn Dance

Angela Keller was, to be real honest, a good looking young woman.

She'd been adopted when she was just a wee child, orphaned in a train wreck: she and her family came out from Kentucky, headed for the gold fields or maybe Oregon if they got lucky, Oregon and the good farming ground they'd heard was there.

They'd lived a hard scrabble life back in the mountains: thin soil and poor crops made life difficult; gamblin' and makin' moon shine whiskey was about the only way a man was going to get any scratch in his poke, and gamblin' was risky at best, so they took the biggest gamble of their lives: they sold every last thing they had but what they could pack and they headed toward the setting sun.

Their journey as a family ended when the brittle iron rail whipped free as the cars passed over it at just the right velocity, the harmonics beating the spikes loose and the rail fracturing, thrusting up like an angry snake through the floor of the passenger car, ripping through wood and flesh with an equal facility.

A blue eyed little girl was thrown sideways through what used to be a wall: she hit the ground, rolling, landed flat on her back, the wind knocked out of her, and the wall groaned and fell on top of her.

A rock beside her stopped it from crushing her: had she rolled twice more she would have broken her pelvis against it, had it not been there the wall would have flattened her like a bug under a big man's brogan: barely high enough it was, but it was just enough.

She lay there, the wind knocked out of her, dizzied and shocked and unmoving and still, and gradually the sounds died down and were gone, and all she could hear was the wind.

She remembered her Mama, all pretty like she remembered her, her Mama in a pure white gown that looked like it was spun out of summer clouds, her Mama floating above her, plain to see right through that wall, and she remembered her Mama touched her without using her fingers and spoke without using her words and hugged her without using her arms, and Angela knew her Mama was telling her everything would be different but it would be all right, and Angela smiled a little because she loved her Mama, and then she was gone, and Angela was alone, and dark, and cold, and she heard horses and she heard a man's voice and she felt the wall being hauled up off her and suddenly she could see again, it was bright, bright, and there was sky and clouds and a man with an iron grey mustache bent over her and she knew this is what her Mama meant when she said it would be all right.

The man picked her up and held her and his arms were strong and she felt safe when he held her, and even when other people came and he carried her into a warm place and someone called Doctor felt her arms and her legs and ran long fingers around her ribs and squeezed and asked if that hurt, and even when a stout, motherly woman called Nurse soothed her and brushed her hair back and asked if she could see all right ... even with all that, Angela reached for the big man with the mustache, and he picked her up and she cuddled into him and closed her eyes, and she knew with the certainty of the very young this was where she was supposed to be.

Angela blinked, raised her kerchief again, pressed it to her closed eyes.

She should be inside, she knew, in the yellow glow of kerosene lights, with the Daine boys fiddling and everyone in town dancing and she should be among them, for she was young and pretty and single, and men were forever wanting to dance with pretty young single women.

Everyone but her.

She felt the air move, felt the warmth of a human body, smelled her brother Jacob: he eased his long, tall, skinny carcass down beside her on the hay bale, ran his arm around her shoulders.

"What's wrong, Sis?" he almost whispered.

Angela leaned her blond curls into her big brother's shoulder.

He was Sheriff now, he was a man grown with sons and responsibilities and a good business breeding horses, but he was her big brother, and she took a comfort in that.

Especially now.

"Oh, Jacob," she groaned. "I'm going to be a spinster."

He laughed, hugged her tighter.

"Sis," he said, "do you remember the last time I lied to you?"

Angela drew back a little, surprised, and laughed, because she did remember.

 

"Oh, Jacob," Angela called, and Jacob -- not yet tall enough to look his Pa's shirt pocket in the eye -- looked at his baby sis.

They were behind the fine long house, in the bare dirt between the back porch and the outhouse.

Jacob knew his little sis had been hiding a combinet outside and she'd been using it instead of the back house.

He knew why she would use the thunder mug, then tentatively, fearfully, she'd creep up on the outhouse ... ever so carefully, she'd open the door, prop it with a shovel, then lean waaaaay in and carefully, delicately, pour the porcelain pot's contents down the hole -- she trembled when she did, both from the strained, unnatural posture of the long stretch, but also out of fear.

Fear that the monster would get her.

Jacob told her with a straight face there was a monster in the outhouse and he took that shovel with him to beat it with before he'd take his ease.

Angela protested that she'd never seen anything there and Jacob said it was the Slimy Monster from the Sulfur Crick and she'd never looked down the hole to see, and she blinked because he was right, she never looked down the hole in the outhouse seat, and from that day on, she didn't go inside the little building with the crescent cut in the door.

Angela used this arrangement for a little less than a week, then she considered that her Daddy would never let anything live in the outhouse and he hadn't done anything so she'd better.

Angela Keller, the Sheriff's little girl, called, "Oh, Jacob," and Jacob looked, and Jacob's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open as his sweet little sis, this pretty little girl in a ribboned frock, held up a stick of blasting powder and a Lucifer match.

"NO!" he yelped as Angela struck the Lucifer into life against the stone step; he took a step, stopped, as she touched match to the fuse, then he kind of sagged as she hauled open the outhouse door, threw the stick of powder down the hole in the seat and yelled "TAKE THAT YOU MEAN OLD MONSTER YOU!", and turned, and ran back toward the house.

She ran straight for Jacob.

Jacob's eyes were wide and she could see the whites around his pale blue irises and she scampered right on past him and behind her something went BOOOOOM and Jacob watched, impressed, and then the back door went BANG and Angela stopped and turned and she saw her Daddy, her long tall strong Daddy with the iron grey muts-tash that tickled her cheek when he pretended to chew on her ear, her Daddy running in his sock feet with his suspenders flapping in the breeze, and he coasted to a stop as debris and splintered wood and the odd blob of something rather objectionable fell back to earth.

He looked at the smoking hole in the ground and what used to be a well built outhouse, and he looked at his son and his little girl and he pointed at the debris, looked from them to it and back a couple times, and finally managed to ask, "What happened?"

Angela came strutting up past Jacob and planted her knuckles on her belt.

"I blowed up the mont-ster, Daddy," she declared with an emphatic nod.

Linn turned his head a little as if to bring a good ear to bear.

"What," he asked slowly, "mont-ster?"

"The Slimy Mont-ster from the Sulfur Crick," Angela declared loudly. "It was waiting to grab me an' Jacob had to beat it with a shovel before it left him alone an' I'm just a liddle girl an' I can't swing-it da shovel like he kin an' so I blowed it up!" Her words picked up speed as her explanation ran downhill, and she ended up with another solid nod, sending her long blond curls a-bounce with the effort.

Linn looked at the damage again, scratched his head, looked back.

"What," he asked faintly, "did you blow it up with?"

"Powder!" she exclaimed happily, to which Jacob added helpfully, "A stick of blasting powder, sir."

Linn walked over to the pair, looked from one to the other.

"Jacob, were you in on this?"

"No, sir. I told her about the Slimy Monster" -- he looked at her -- "but that's all."

Linn went to one knee, reached for his little girl, took her gently by the shoulders.

"Angela, did you just blow up my outhouse?"

Angela blinked quickly, her eyes big, round, innocent.

"I blowed up da mont-ster, Daddy. It wasn't supposed ta be in-a da outhouse. It's all da mont-ster's fault!"

 

Jacob Keller, Sheriff of Firelands County, sat on the bale of hay outside the barn dance, his arm around his little sister's shoulder.

He felt her laughing and she felt him laugh, and she nodded.

"I remember," she said quietly, smiling in the dark, and he felt her take a long breath.

"I remember how Daddy sat his butt down on the bare dirt and he held me and laughed."

It was Jacob's turn to nod, and to laugh, for he remembered the sight.

He remembered what his Pa looked like, sitting there in his under shirt, his red galluses hanging loose, the soles of his socks filthy, his backside planted on the bare dirt, as he looked at the smoking ruin of what used to be a well built outhouse, and he held his little girl, and laughed that great gusting laugh of his.

"Yes, I remember."

"Little Sis," Jacob said quietly, curling his finger under her chin and lifting, "that is the last time I ever lied to you."

She nodded, blinking, her eyes bright in the reflected light of the lantern by the barn door.

"You are probably the best looking girl here tonight. You can dance like a feather on the breeze. You smell nice and you're single and you look really good in that dress."

She nodded, her eyes big, dark, liquid pools, and Jacob remembered his Pa describing Bonnie's eyes looking just like that ... my God, he Pa said, I could have swum in those eyes!

"Let's go inside," Jacob said. "I haven't danced with you yet."

He rose, took his little sister's hand: she rose with him, and the pair went back in.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

2. INTO MY OWN SALOON

Jacob marveled at the steam crane as the steam engine barked against the load.

He had no idea what that particular stone weighed, he didn't have the least idea how much that Marion steam crane could hoist, but he knew the Italian stonecutters knew their craft, and he was content to watch from his favorite perch -- the saddle, cinched around the belly of his favorite stallion -- as they fetched another carefully-finished ashlar off the freight wagon.

He had to marvel at the wagon as well: he'd built wagons, he'd repaired wagons, he'd seen wagons with their back broke from over load, but this wagon was big and mean and hell for stout, and it offered no protest either when the big cut granite stones were set on it, nor when they were hoist off: the wagon was pulled with a team of four oxen instead of a number of horses, or even mules, and again Jacob offered not even a mental comment on this, for he knew the stonemasons knew their craft, and he knew just enough to get in trouble.

They'd laid the first stone in the north east corner, as was Masonic tradition: so it had been when they erected the three story Masonic temple, and so it was with this new Sheriff's office.

When his Pa passed away, a tornado come through and tore the blue Jack out of several buildings.

The Silver Jewel took some damage, the church lost maybe two shingles and the little whitewashed schoolhouse lost a window: the Mercantile lost its roof and some inventory, Digger's funeral parlor was absolutely untouched, but the stout log Sheriff's office caught fire and burnt clear up.

Jacob planned to replace it and already had everything out.

He'd not had the heart to sit at the desk his Pa used.

He didn't feel right parking his narrow backside in the same chair his Pa set in (never mind the Old Sheriff hadn't set in it much, he tended to be kind of hard on chairs and this one was next to brand new), and so Jacob crated up his Pa's things: his personal journals, his revolvers and gunbelt, his favorite double gun, the desk and chair and he'd crated them good and solid and had them hauled to a dryworks he knew of, a mine shaft that was just dry as a salt horn and solid with no chance of cave-in.

He'd put away his father's memories with them, or as many as he could, for it hurt too much to think of that pale eyed old lawman Jacob loved more than he'd loved anyone in his life.

He couldn't stuff all the memories in a mineshaft, of course ... there was a whole lifetime of them, and he wore his Pa's six point star, and folks said he walked like his Pa and he sounded like his Pa, and he knew he had his Pa's pale eyes ... but he missed the Grand Old Man more than he wanted to own up to.

Even to himself.

When the Sheriff's office burnt, he'd had the whole damned thing tore the rest of the way down, even the steel out of the jail cells got throwed away and he started from scratch.

His Pa used to draw maps and Jacob was a fair hand at diagrams, and he set down with them-there Italian stone cutters and he laid out what he wanted.

He drew and they discussed, they suggested and he re-drew, they figured how things might change in future and allowed for expansion, and when they were finished, Jacob set a poke of gold coin on the table and said "Get started."

They did.

The steam crane swung slowly, its engine confidently barking a rapid, quiet thump-thump-thump-thump-thump as it moved the ashlar where it was needed, steam squirting white and feathery out the back exhaust: Jacob's eyes tightened a little, just the hint of a smile, and he turned his head before he pressed his knee into Apple's ribs.

He rode without a bit -- just like his Pa, he knee-trained his mounts, and he practiced riding at a wide open gallop with a revolver in one hand and a rifle in the other, whipping in and out of the apple trees his Pa planted just downhill from his long log home, something he'd heard called a slalom.

He frowned a little as he tried to recall where he'd heard it.

His memory search was interrupted by the sight of an old friend, raising his arm in summons.

Jacob walked Apple-horse over to the red-shirted Irishman.

"Sean," he greeted him, leaning down to offer his hand, "how in the hell ye be t'day?"

Sean laughed and shook his head.

"When the mornin' sun touched ye," he admitted, "I like t' died, lad, ye look just like yer father!"

Jacob laughed. "Flattery," he declared, "will get you everywhere!"

Sean nodded.

"I would buy ye a drink, lad."

Jacob nodded. "I'll take ye up on that."

He turned Apple-horse as Sean started out into the street, his long-legged stride taking him quickly across the thoroughfare.

Sean waited until Apple was tied off and the two were within the Silver Jewel's welcome confines, until they were both bellied up to the bar, until Mr. Baxter had each of them a shot of something water clear and not over 30 days old.

Jacob raised his glass and an eyebrow.

Sean raised his glass and his voice.

"St. Florian, St. Christopher an' th' Madonna," he roared, "I am to be a grandfather!"

Jacob's grin was broad and immediate: he hoist his faceted glass a little more and then drank, downing the potent potion in two swallows.

"Well done," he grinned, seizing the big Irish fire chief's hand and pumping it once, firmly: "well done indeed!"

"My God, lad, ye shake hands like yer father," Sean breathed, then looked up, grinning, as his wife Daisy came steamboating down the hallway from the kitchen, her wooden spoon like the Queen's scepter before her.

"And did he tell ye it's t' be twins!" she scolded, shaking the implement at her husband: "Daciana read three in th' cards an' I'm thinkin' it's twins, and may th' Mither ha'e maircy on us! Havin' a baby is bad enough but havin' a litter just isn't a natural thing!" She turned and glared at Jacob. "An' shame be wid' ye f'r bearin' more young on your puir wife! Wha's tha' make now, five? She's no' a brood mare, ye scoundrel!"

Daisy was never quiet in her opinions, and it was still amusing to the usual crowd there in the Silver Jewel that this Irishwoman, this red-headed wife of their Irish fire chief, feared neither God, Devil, nor the Sheriff himself, and Jacob grinned that contagious grin of his and allowed as it just kind of happened, at which point Daisy smacked him on the forearm with that wooden spoon: "Men! Ye're a' the same! Ye're a' hands an' mouths! Ye look at a woman an' ye think one thing!"

She shook the wooden spoon in his face and shouted, "FOOD!"

Turning on her heel, wooden spoon upright before her, she marched back to the kitchen, spine stiff and disapproving, and Jacob turned, looked at Mr. Baxter, then turned a little more and looked again at Sean.

"You know," he said softly, "she's right!" -- at which point barkeep, fire chief, Sheriff and most of a dozen drinking, gambling customers all laughed in most hearty agreement.

Two fellows were nursing a short beer two arm's-lengths away, saying little, just taking it all in.

Jacob turned and looked at them and he felt the cold waters chill his back bone just a bit.

His pale eyes got a little more pale and he stepped over to them.

"Help you fellas?" he asked, his groomed handlebar lifting and separating just a little as he grinned, and the nearest man was distinctly uncomfortable at the proximity of this pale eyed, lean waisted patron.

"We heard Old Pale Eyes was dead," he mumbled.

"So you figured you'd find out for sure."

"Yeah." He looked away, looking at roulette, at poker, at anything but the lawman.

"Any particular reason?"

The eyes shifted again, dropped. "No. No reason."

"Now I am a curious man," Jacob said conversationally. "I have to wonder why a man would come into my saloon and lie to me."

The stranger looked up and the man behind him stepped out, gun in hand.

Jacob grabbed the first one, shoved him into the second, hard: a gunshot, then another, in quick succession.

The roulette hustler would later swear that he never saw the Sheriff's draw.

He would swear under oath the second man shot the first in the back

That, he did see.

The Sheriff was trying to throw that first fellow out of harm's way when the second fellow tried to murder the lean waisted lawman, and inherited a half inch hole through the bridge of his nose for his trouble.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

3. OLD, DEEP AND WET

"Potter's Field, Sheriff?" Randall Hermey asked, and the Sheriff nodded.

"Potter's Field, Mr. Hermey."

"Will the county be paying for a coffin, Sheriff?"

"Yes. They always have."

"Very good, I'll see to it right away."

"Mr. Hermey."

The undertaker froze at the Sheriff's quiet summons; he turned, gleaming silk topper still in his hand.

"Yes, Sheriff?"

"They'll not need embalmed."

"Of course."

Jacob regarded the undertaker with steady, unblinking eyes; the man swallowed, looked away.

He'd been an embalmer since he took over his father's business back during the War, when embalming was suddenly in demand: wartime dead meant a delay, if a family far off wanted their loved ones returned for burial at home: some opted to have the flesh boiled off the bone, and only the skeleton returned: others shouted "Spare no expense!" and the embalmers took advantage of this new, sudden, and very lucrative market.

The market dropped off to very little at war's end, but the skills gained in the boom time stayed with the profession, and suddenly it was not only almost common, it was becoming almost expected.

Mr. Hermey embalmed two clients for the County and presented his usual fee; since that time, the Sheriff had been very certain to remind him that it was neither needed, nor wanted -- a position with which the man disagreed, mostly because it hurt his conscience to lose so much as a nickle's worth of business ... but a long look into those hard and unforgiving eyes and he decided disagreement with that long tall lawman would be a very bad choice.

 

The Welsh Irishman slouched as he read the letter.

The rest of the Irish Brigade allowed him his privacy: he'd gotten the letter that morning, brought in on the train, hand carried to the firehouse: he'd grinned at the familiar handwriting, he'd parked his backside on the Deacon's bench outside, in the sun but out of the wind, and he'd opened the missive and read it.

The Brigade saw the man's face change -- what had been happy anticipation turned to disappointment, then dismay: they saw his shoulders slump and roll forward, and finally he leaned his elbows on his knees, his back bowed as if weighted down, and he closed his eyes and took a long breath, before re-folding the letter and staring sightlessly at the sand-bedded bricks before him.

There were a quick series of muttered conferences, concerned looks, the lift of a chin: Sean's boy, young Sean, was off to Cincinnati to learn the fireman's trade from past masters of the art, in a city where fires were sadly a commonplace occurrence: Sean himself remained Chief of the Firelands department, though like his old friend the Sheriff, he'd been saving for a retirement, and was looking forward to its proximate arrival.

Sean looked out the window at the dejected Welshman, listened to the low-voiced report of his men, who'd observed discreetly, without interrupting the man.

Sean nodded, then opened the man door and stepped out into the chilly Colorado sunshine.

He sat beside the Welsh Irishman, heard the deacon's bench creak a little as the weight of two men tasked it a bit, and the big Irish fire chief laid a gentle hand on his fireman's shoulder.

"Out with it, lad," he rumbled. "I know bad news on a man's face, an' yours is a newspaper, t' be read plain, like."

Ron Llewellyn swallowed, waved the folded sheet weakly.

"It's ... Daffyd."

"Aye?"

"He's not coming back."

Sean took a long, disappointed breath.

"It's been years now, you'd think he'd ..."

Ron shook his head, then rested his forehead on his palm, his eyes tight shut.

"He's made his life," Sean said quietly. "I'd like th' lad back as well, but ... he's ... chosen t' stay there."

"He gives his reasons. The same ones he's told us before."

Sean nodded slowly. He'd been a prideful and headstrong young man himself, once, and he'd said things in the heat of anger he regretted, especially since he spat them like venom just before leaving for the seaport, and it was not until he was halfway over the Atlantic crossing that he began to regret his hot and hasty words, and since that time mither an' feyther baith were dead and buried in the churchyard, and never, ever would he be able to go back and beg forgiveness for the words he'd said.

Sean, of all the Irish Brigade, probably understood best what it was to have hurt someone, but to have hurt himself far worse.

"He speaks of your boy" -- Sean's ear pulled back just a bit, for he heard the change in Llewellyn's voice, just the hint of a smile, if he heard right.

"He says he's a quick study and he complains not at the hardest, dirtiest jobs."

Sean nodded, remembering, for he'd pulled the hard and dirty jobs himself, proving his worth as probies and rooks always do.

"He also said he's th' fastest o' th' bunch on a ladder raise, an' th' first an' fastest up an' over the ladder with a four point hoist."

Sean chuckled, slapped the Welsh Irishman's knee with approval and amusement, for he too had been the fastest up the ladder, when it was raised in the middle of an open area, with guy ropes the only things steadying it upright. As a matter of fact, he himself had climbed the ladder, slung a leg over, stopped and pulled out a harmonica and played a quick little air -- to the aggravated shout of the training officer, and the approval of the rest of the firemen.

 

Jacob stopped and eased himself down on the Deacon's bench in front of the Mercantile.

An old man sat there, his back bowed with the weight of many years: his eyes were red and rheumy, his hair long gone to grey, and time's flow had cut channels and canyons in his face, but his mind was as quick as ever.

"You do look like Soapy," he said in a reedy voice.

"Several folk said so," Jacob nodded, looking around slowly.

"Did I ever tell you th' first time I saw Soapy?" the man asked, and without waiting for a reply, began telling the tale Jacob had heard no less than three hundred times, but the man was old and Jacob was too polite to interrupt him.

"He'd been a-fever an' he'd swore in his delirium and that pretty little McKenna girl dropped a cake of lye soap right in his mouth!" He laughed, a cackling little laugh, and coughed, wincing, for it hurt to cough: the man was dying and he knew it, but it hurt less to sit here where the sun could slant in under the overhang and toast his old bones.

"Ever after that I called him Soapy." He nodded, his watery eyes blinking slowly.

"I was intemperate." He nodded again. "I was intemperate and I was coarse in my language." He coughed again, spat.

"Old Soapy took me by the shirt front and set me briskly against the clap boards, he did." The old man's head continued to nod as if driven by hidden clockwork. "He brought me off the ground with one hand, he did, and let me tell you" -- he cackled a little, but he paid for it with another cough and a wince -- "when you bring a man's feet off the ground, you take a lot of fight out of him! It did me!"

He gave another weak, cackling laugh, coughed, winced, spat.

"I always called him Soapy after that."

His words slowed as they always did, and Jacob waited patiently, knowing the old man would be asleep in less than two minutes, and sure enough, he was.

It gave the old man a good feeling, Jacob knew, to tell him that same tale, and Jacob knew the old man's mind was worn enough, with drink and with old age, that he'd not remember tomorrow he'd told the tale today.

Two men, one in doddering old age and the other still in the green strength of his late second decade, sat together in front of the Mercantile, until the old man was asleep.

 

It was well onto evening by the time Jacob got home.

He looked around as he rode up to his fine stone house: he frowned a little, for his son Caleb was nowhere to be seen.

Caleb was always there to greet him -- he'd come running out hollering "Pa, Pa!" with the delight and spontaneity of the young, but tonight there was no such greeting.

A little tick of worry started somewhere in Jacob's gut and he leaned back in his saddle, his signal to his stallion to hold position.

Jacob looked around, frowning, his jaw thrust out.

If I were his age, he thought, where would I ...?

Ahead, and to the right, the pasture, and in the pasture, an ancient, mossy horned old bull ... Boocaffie, now older than any beef had any right to be.

Jacob expected any day to walk out and find the old bull dead, fell over and still, a casualty of old age: the ancient bull walked slowly, methodically, over to the fence, begging attention, and Jacob dismounted and walked up to his old friend and rubbed his ears and called him a few unprintable names, but in a voice ever so gentle, a voice that smiled with the memories of a little boy who used to ride this Boocaffie and play with it in the field when it was still a very young bull.

Jacob's eyes were pale as he scanned the field, methodically sweeping the pasture, quartering it like an infantryman, studying it with sweeps, near to far: he frowned as an idea came to him, and he turned, looked toward the barn.

He swore, dropped his hand from the bull, turned and seized his stallion's saddle horn, went from flat footed to a sudden saddle vault in one smooth move.

The Appaloosa was more than happy to surge in response to his rider's urgency: he galloped for the barn, which was actually quite close, but had Jacob wings, he could not have gotten there fast enough to suit him: he was out of the saddle before his horse was stopped, he ran to splintered boards and the hole in the ground: snatching the hat off his head, he bellied down beside the old well and squinted into the hole.

He saw reflected light rippling off the water, twenty feet below ground level.

"Caleb!" he called, and the ripples changed and he heard the sound of an arm, maybe, an arm being brought suddenly out of the cold groundwater.

"Pa!" a little boy's voice called, hollow and scared as it shattered off the hand laid rock wall of the hand dug well.

"Caleb, what are you doin' down there?" Jacob blurted, realizing just how stupid a question it was but not until after he'd said it, and part of him -- a hidden part, deep inside -- had to laugh at the little boy's voice that replied, "I'm gettin' wet down here!"

"Don't go nowhere, I'll get you out!" Jacob called, and he could have kicked himself for saying it: Don't go nowhere? he thought viciously. Where in the hell CAN he go?

Jacob stood and he heard his son's desperate, "Pa!" -- but he could not spare the time -- he had to get his son OUT OF THERE!!! -- he looked around --

There, he thought. By the barn!

Apple-horse paced over to the barn, following the desperately sprinting father, he seized three fence posts, took a quick double-turn around them with his loop, then took his stallion by the bridle strap and trotted back to the well.

He set the three fence posts up like a tipi, lashed them together with piggin string, then hauled himself back in the saddle for another trip -- this time into the barn -- he emerged with a length of good hand-laid Kentucky hemp line he'd gained in trade with the Daine boys a year before, and a pulley.

He lashed the tripod together with line he knew would stand the gaff, and he tied knots he knew would hold, he ran his lariat through the pulley and then bellied down beside the hole again.

"Caleb," he called, "I'm lowering the lariat. I want you to get it under your arms."

"Okay, Pa," came the shivering reply.

Jacob fed the line down, pulling with one hand, feeding with the other: he stared down the dim hole until his eyes burned, barely making out something at the bottom, something indistinguishable from the reflected ripples.

"I got it, Pa," came the echoing call.

"I'm gonna hoist you up now," Jacob said, loudly enough for his son to hear. "Grab the line above you. Climb as you are coming out. Can you do that?"

"I'm awful cold, Pa," came the reply. "I can't feel my feet."

"Is the lariat under your arms?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. You grab holt of that line and you don't let go, hear?"

"Yes, sir."

Jacob kept a tension on the line as he reached for the Appaloosa's bridle: he kissed at the horse, took a quick double turn around his saddlehorn, knowing the cat's head would hold more than his son's weight; he held tension on this brake as he mounted, then he backed Apple-horse, murmuring to the stallion.

Apple-horse backed steadily, slowly, and Jacob's heart hammered against his Adam's apple: twenty feet seemed like twenty miles, at least until a soaking wet, scared looking little tow headed boy came up into sight and hung, turning slowly, over the hole.

"Ho," Jacob said, and Apple-horse ho'd, and Jacob threw the reins over so they drug the ground: he'd trained his horse to ground-rein, and with the leather on the sod, he might as well be picketed to living rock underfoot.

Jacob swung out of the saddle, strode over to Caleb, took him under the arms, kissed at Apple.

The horse just stood there.

"Apple, come," he said, his voice level, and the stallion blinked and slashed its tail against some nonexistent biting fly.

Jacob swore, considered slicing through the reata, deciding against it: instead, he pulled out his plug of molasses cured chawin' tobacker.

He carried it as a bribe, pure and simple, and sure enough, Apple-horse bribed as well as any politician: at the sight, then the smell of the molasses twist, he paced forward, and Jacob moved toward him, his arm strong and reassuring under Caleb's, until finally he was halfway between horse and hole, and he set the boy down.

He shaved off a little twist and flat-palmed it, and Apple-horse rubber-lipped it off with a surprising delicacy.

Jacob knew it was imperative that he never, ever lose the ability to bribe his horse -- his life might depend on it some day -- but he wasted no time in getting the lariat loose and off his son.

"I was scared, Pa," Caleb said hesitantly, as if afraid his Pa was going to speak harshly to him.

Jacob picked him up and carried him into the house.

"You had every right to be scared," he said quietly. "Every right in the world."

 

It wasn't until after he and Annette, surrounded by the rest of their minor tribe, got the pale, shivering boy stripped down and into the copper slipper shaped tub of warm water, not until after he was thawed and primed with some good beef and gravy, not until after a tilt of Old Soul Saver to ward off the devil, did the details come out.

"I saw the boards over the hole," Caleb admitted, "and I jumped on 'em."

"You jumped on the boards."

"Yes, sir. It was fun. They bounced. So I jumped some more."

"What happened then?"

Caleb dropped his head, his bottom lip running out some. "The boards broke, Pa. I fell in."

Jacob nodded.

"I reckon I'll have to replace them boards," he said thoughtfully. "I should have built somethin' solid instead of just throwin' planks over it."

Caleb wisely offered no comment.

Jacob looked across the tub at his wife's frightened eyes.

"You couldn't have known," he whispered. "It wasn't your fault."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

4. I'M LOOKING FOR A WHITE WOLF

 

Jacob lay absolutely still, looking up at the nighttime ceiling, blinking occasionally.

 

His hand and his wife's gripped one another lightly, as they always did; it was not uncommon for them to go to sleep holding hands, and to wake still holding hands.

 

He'd heard his Pa say as much about he and his Esther, and Jacob began the custom when he married Annette, and they had done so every night they'd shared the same bed as a married couple.

 

He never said as much to his wife, but he derived a great comfort from this, and his wife never said as much to him, but she did too.

 

His breathing was silent, regular; hers was as well, until she whispered, "I had no idea."

 

"I know."

 

"I should have known."

 

"No way you could have."

 

Annette rolled up on her side. "I'm his mother," she hissed.

 

Jacob rolled up as well and kissed her, quickly, delicately: "You're a good looking mother."

 

"You're prejudiced."

 

"You're right."

 

He rolled back onto his back and she did too.

 

"Annette?"

 

"Yes?"

 

Their voices were whispers, yet, whispers in the nighttime hush: the silence that surrounded them was nearly complete, save for the snore of their adventurous son, who alone of all their children, imitated his father's nighttime noise.

 

"Annette, you have been and you still are absolutely the best mother my children could have, and you are the best wife I could ever have." His hand tightened a little on hers. "Don't you forget that."

 

"Is that an order?"

 

He rolled over quickly, unexpectedly, pinning her to the mattress, kissed her quickly, fiercely, passionately: he came up for air and they both shivered a little and he drove his arms under her and hugged her hard, hard enough she felt him shivering a little.

 

"I was scared when I shoved my face down that hole and I heard him," Jacob whispered, "but I knew he was alive and I knew I was going to get him out of there alive."

 

"How could you know?" Annette asked, her arms embracing him, pulling him down into her flannel covered warmth.

 

He lowered his head until his face was beside her ear: she felt his breath, hot, moist, she felt his mustache tickle her ear.

 

"I looked around when I ran to that hole," he whispered, and she felt the breath-shapes puff against her earlobe: "I looked for that white wolf and I didn't see it anywhere, so I knew it was going to be all right."

 

They held each other for a long time before finally relaxing and allowing themselves the relaxation of slumber, but when they did, they were holding hands.

 

Annette woke.

 

Something wasn't right.

 

She closed her hand: alarmed, she reached over --

 

Gone.

 

She opened her eyes, blinked, sat up --

 

Her husband stood at the window, looking out.

 

"Jacob?" she said softly, and he turned a little, or his silhouette did: she could just make out his shape as a dark outline against the faint light through the nighttime window. If her eyes were not used to the profound dark, she could not have seen even that.

 

Jacob turned and paced slowly back to bed, bare feet soundless on the polished board floor.

 

"I could not sleep," he admitted, his voice just above a whisper, but barely: "I went and checked on the little ones." She heard the smile in his voice at the diminutive. "I rolled Caleb up on his side and pulled the covers up around his chin and he wiggled a little and never woke up."

 

Annette smiled; she'd done as much, sometimes piling blankets or the extra pillow behind him to keep him off his back so he wouldn't snore.

 

"What were you thinking about when you were at the window?"

 

"I wasn't," he said, and his soft voice was suddenly serious.

 

"I was looking for that white wolf."

 

"Did you see it?"

 

Jacob hesitated for almost a full minute before he replied, and his reply was a hoarse whisper.

 

"No."

 

Next morning at the breakfast table -- which was crowded; Jacob and Annette had proven a fertile union, and though it had been said he was raising his own posse, or maybe his own cavalry regiment, he himself thought of it simply as family: they ranged from some twelve years old -- his eldest, Joseph, had been fourteen when he left for Europe, and Jacob was satisfied he'd not only lied about his age but forged multiple documents to get into that damned War over there -- to the infant that slept against the warmth of his Mama's bosom.

 

There had been no urgent summons through the night, so Jacob and his family all had a good night's rest; those of school age were quickly prepared, provisioned and packaged, for the nights were chill, as were the mornings: frost glittered on the world outside their snug home, chores had to be tended before they left for school, Jacob planned out the work to be done to build an actual structure over the offending well (now covered again, with strict orders that no one should walk upon them) -- and Annette, who needed some things from the Mercantile, made fast the cloak at her throat before accepting her husband's gentlemanly hand as she stepped upon the mounting-block and into their carriage.

 

"Wait a minute, hold it, something's wrong here," Jacob called loudly: Annette smiled, for it was something he did every morning.

 

Jacob frowned studiously at the carriage, clear full of Keller young, and his brows knitted as he made a show of counting the souls aboard their burnished buggy.

 

"No, no, this just won't do," he said, as he always did, and he pretended to frown and study some more, until finally he pointed:

 

"You. Dismount."

 

"Yes, sir," a little blue-eyed girl piped, and Jacob swung down out of his saddle and stepped over to the carriage, holding out his arms.

 

His little girl giggled as her big strong Daddy hauled her out of the carriage: he tossed her unceremoniously over his shoulder -- "Daddy, I'm not a sack of taters!" she protested, giggling as she did -- Jacob hauled back into the saddle, brought her down into his arms and frowned at her, running his bottom lip out.

 

He nodded.

 

"No you're not," he agreed, turning her around and dropping her onto the Appaloosa's neck ahead of the saddle: he ran an arm around her middle, Annette lifted her reins, Apple-horse spun nimbly in his own length, and little Miriam giggled happily, as she always did, and their little procession began their morning ride into Firelands.

 

Polly looked in the mirror with big and frightened eyes.

 

Opal tilted her head a little, frowning.

 

"How do I look?"

 

"Scared."

 

"I don't want to look scared."

 

"I know."

 

"I want to look ... "

 

Polly's expression was desperate.

 

"Opal ... I can't help it, I've never been married before!"

 

Opal planted her knuckles on her hips, tapped her foot impatiently.

 

"You're the one who set your cap for him!"

 

"I know," Polly groaned. "I just never ...."

 

"What was it Brother William said that discontented German monk wrote? 'You cannot bring fire and straw together and forbid smoke!' What did you think was going to happen?"

 

"I didn't know," Polly said, her voice thin, strained. "I never thought he would" -- she shifted her frightened eyes from the mirror to her sister. "I'm happy but I'm terrified!"

 

"I felt the same way," Bonnie said from the doorway, and both girls jumped.

 

Their violet eyed mother smiled a little. "Do you know," she said conversationally, flowing across the room and caressing her shivering daughter's fine blond curls, "you said exactly the same words I said when I looked into the mirror the morning before I got married?"

 

Polly looked at her Mama's reflection in the big, full-length mirror.

 

"Now come along. Let's see how well your wedding gown fits you."

 

"What?" Polly yelped, and Opal smiled a secretive, I've-been-up-to-something smile.

 

"We're the same size," she said, "so I've been the tailoring dummy." She took her sister's cool, spatulate-fingered hand. "Come on. I want to see if all that standing still getting stuck with straight pins was worth it!"

 

Levi Rosenthal raised an eyebrow, nodded.

 

"I expected your father to come with you."

 

"My father is not asking for your daughter's hand, sir," Charles Cavinee replied, his voice steady and his gaze direct.

 

Levi blinked slowly.

 

Cavinee did not know what to make of that response; he wore his best poker face, not wanting to betray his own uncertainty.

 

"You realize it's customary to discuss these matters with the father of the bride before addressing the bride."

 

"Yes, sir."

 

"You didn't."

 

"No, sir."

 

"Might I ask why?"

 

Cavinee grinned suddenly, then sobered.

 

"I should have, Mr. Rosenthal. I should have discussed it at length with you. You are looking for the best return on your investment."

 

"You're making my daughter sound like an investment."

 

"She is," he said frankly. "You have invested a great deal of time, of funds and of effort into her. You have provided for her, you have seen to her care and her education, you have seen to her good health and to her upbringing. Your return should be as profitable as possible."

 

Levi raised an eyebrow, surprised: he turned to the sideboard. "Drink?" He turned over two cut-glass tumblers, reached for the heavy glass stopper on the brandy flask.

 

"No thank you, sir."

 

"Are you too good to drink with the man who sired this pretty little commodity?"

 

"I'll drink with you at the right time, sir," Cavinee said straightforwardly. "Not during negotiations."

 

"Negotiations?" Levi could not help but smile a little -- but only just a little.

 

"Mr. Rosenthal, your wife is one of the most successful business women in the territory." Cavinee frowned. "No. I correct myself: she is the most successful business woman in the territory." He blinked, his eyes shifted to the left a little, as if looking at a memory. "It used to be Mrs. Keller."

 

Levi withdrew the stopper, poured two drinks, replaced the tapered glass plug.

 

"Yes, she was," he said, and Cavinee heard a genuine regret in the greying, older man's voice.

 

"You came to ask for my daughter's hand."

 

"I came to lay out a course of action, sir, for your review and hopefully for your approval. I must demonstrate that I have the ability to provide for" -- he hesitated, then placed a dramatic hand across his breast, raised one eyebrow and leaned forward a little, pitching his voice a little lower -- "your little girl" -- he resumed his former posture and voice tones -- "in the manner to which she has become accustomed."

 

"And you realize you will fail."

 

"I realize no such thing, sir."

 

Levi sighed. "Have a seat," he said, handing a brandy to the young man. "Or stand, as you wish. I am going to sit."

 

Cavinee sat, waiting a half-second behind his descending host before lowering himself.

 

"It does not matter if you are the Gold King himself," Levi said thoughtfully. "It won't be the same as when my little girl is under my roof. There will be trials and you two won't see eye to eye on everything and there will be little minor things that seem like disasters and she'll want to come crying to her Mama and you'll be mad enough to bite the horn off an anvil and spit railroad spikes."

 

Cavinee set his brandy down, frowning a little, but listening closely.

 

He hadn't expected this exact reply.

 

"I already know you have the financial wherewithal not only to provide for my daughter, but to continue to turn a profit and to continue to provide for her. You are known as a steady and reliable man, your word is unsullied and the excellence of your work is without question. As a matter of fact" -- he leaned forward, his eyes boring into his younger guest's -- "I've admired your father for many years, and I've come to respect you as well."

 

"Thank you, sir."

 

"You came in almost ready for a fight."

 

"No, sir."

 

Levi's eyebrow went up. "Really?"

 

"I came in ready for a persuasion."

 

Levi nodded slowly. "I see."

 

"You are expecting me to swear by Heaven and by earth and by every hair on my head that I will do this and do that and your daughter will be outrageously happy for the rest of her days." Cavinee's young face was serious, but his voice was steady. "I won't do that. Heaven is God's throne and I have not the authority to swear upon it. Earth is His footstool and I have not that authority either, nor have I the accounting for every hair on my head."

 

"At least you still have hair." Levi ran a rueful hand over his own shining pate and Cavinee's grin was quick, spontaneous, likable and just as quickly hidden. "So you are not going to tell me what I expect to hear." Levi nodded a little as he studied the younger man's face. "What will you tell me, then?"

 

"Mr. Rosenthal," Cavinee said, rising and taking up the brandy, "I have the wherewithal to provide for your daughter. You already know I am having a house built, you already know it will be a decent sized structure and you already know the Daine boys are building it and so you are assured of its quality."

 

Levi nodded.

 

"You have looked into my character and my finances -- don't look surprised, sir, it's hard to keep things secret in a small town -- and you've asked the men I've hired what kind of a businessman I am. You are apparently satisfied with what you've found, elsewise you would not have handed me this brandy."

 

Levi again nodded with approval.

 

Both men took up their cut glass tumblers.

 

"Mr. Rosenthal," Cavinee said formally, "I hereby ask your permission to most earnestly petition your daughter for her hand in marriage."

 

Levi raised his glass and Cavinee raised his.

 

"Permission granted," he said, and both men drank.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

5. FETCH

 

Daffyd Llewellyn sagged a little as he leaned back against the low wall.

 

The house had been a fine mansion once; it was now a shell, blackened, ruined, steaming, stinking, like any structure once the fire was extinguished.

 

Llewellyn bent over, coughed, spat: black snot ran down his face, just like the other firemen who’d fought the Beast from the inside, the way they preferred.

 

Other departments might stand outside and squirt water through windows.

 

Cincinnati firemen didn’t.

 

Most were men who’d fought in one war or another, most were men with quite a bit of experience fighting the fires that plagued civilization with a distressing frequency, and all had a liking for taking their fight to the enemy.

 

They’d gone in on this one and fought the Devil’s own breath, toe-to-toe with the enemy, close enough that beneath their soot blackening, beneath sweat and beaded water from the overspray mist from their brass straight-tip nozzles, nearly every man looked like he had a minor sunburn.

 

A hard, gloved hand clapped hard on young Daffyd’s rubberized coat.

 

“Lad,” the Battalion Chief boomed, “ye did well i’ there!”

 

Daffyd nodded, coughed again, spat again: he pulled off a soaky-wet leather glove, wiped at his greasy nose, slung black snot across the dirty wet grass.

 

“Ye ha’e a knack for’t, lad,” the brasshat continued in stentorian tones – the man was half deaf, thanks to an explosion not many years before, and he’d spoken quite loudly ever since, which actually helped in giving orders on the fireground – “ye’re as good a man as yer father!”

 

Daffyd Llewelly nodded again, straightened.

 

He’d strained some muscles carrying a fellow fireman out of the blaze, a man who’d been cold cocked when a burning beam fell and did its best to drive the man’s black leather helmet down level with his collar bones, laying him out flat in the black and gritty mess on the floor: Daffyd thrust his ceiling hook into another man’s startled grip, squatted, gritted his teeth and hoist the beam off his fallen fellow, then grabbed the man’s wrist and, kneeling, hauled him over his own shoulder: straightening, he’d groaned like he was being torn in two, but he stood, and staggered for the nearest door.

 

He handed off his still-out-cold brother fireman and turned around and went right back into the structure.

 

“I’m puttin’ ye in f’r promotion,” the Battalion Chief nodded. “Ye’ve earned yer Lieutenant’s plate.” He rapped Daffyd’s helmet shield with a gloved knuckle. “Keep this up, lad, ye’ll make Chief yet!”

 

Daffyd Llewellyn nodded, mentally kicking himself.

 

He wasn’t sure he had cash money enough on hand to buy beer for the bunch.

 

When a man was promoted, he was expected to buy the beer.

 

Jacob Keller turned his hat thoughtfully between his hands, considering the new Judge’s words carefully.

 

Court was always local theater; attorneys performed as much as tried their cases, for they knew if they could sway the jury’s feelings, they might suborn their reason: it didn’t work here in the skeptical West, at least not as often as back in the gullible East, but that didn’t stop the barristers from trying.

 

Jacob, sworn in and on the witness stand, described for the Court the sequence of apprehension: the hurried report, blurted across his desk by a near-panicked party; he described how he’d gone to the scene, asked several people what they’d seen, he’d read the tracks and determined both which way the truth ran, and which way the guilty party had run: his description of pursuing the fellow who’d beat a woman over in Cripple and cut up another just for the fun of it, how he’d leaned out over his Apple-horse’s neck and give him his head, how Apple had shoved his nose straight into the wind and seized the ground with iron-shod hooves and thrust it hard behind, splitting the wind like a wedge and stripping tears from the corners of Jacob’s eyes, had every juror in the saddle with him: when he described coming around the bend and finding the murderer waiting for him with rifle in hand, and how he did not slack his stallion, but drove the Appaloosa’s chest into the felon, how he’d felt more than heard the rifle’s concussion as the murderer was just plainly flattened – “I don’t reckon it did his health much good to be hit by eighteen hundred pound of horse flesh at a wide open gallop,” he’d said dryly – then how he’d come about and ridden somewhat more sedately up to the man and brought him back to town by virtue of bending him over his own wind broke and limping horse and tying wrists to ankles to keep him there.

 

The jury rendered a guilty verdict on the charge of resisting arrest and attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, and His Honor swung the gavel with the sentence of hanging by the neck until dead – “provided,” he added with just a hint of wry humor, “that Cripple proves its prior claim and chooses not to hang him first.”

 

Now, in chambers, the Judge poured Jacob two fingers of what he called Old Soul Saver – “a good belt to ward off the devil” – and the two men drank.

 

Jacob set down the heavy, squat glass. “Now, Your Honor,” he said, “what did you want to see me about?”

 

The Judge considered Jacob for several long moments and finally nodded.

 

“Sheriff,” he said, “I heard much of your father. I genuinely regret not meeting the man, but” – he looked up, and Jacob saw just the hint of a smile at the corners of his eyes – “I am told on good authority that to see the son is to see the father.”

 

“Thank you, sir.”

 

“I didn’t ask you to come here to trade pleasantries.”

 

“No, sir.”

 

“Sean Fitzgerald is dying.”

 

Jacob froze and something cold gripped him around the stomach.

 

“Sean …?”

 

“Sean Fitzgerald. Chief Sean Fitzgerald of your famous Irish Brigade.”

 

Jacob sank slowly into a chair and swore quietly.

 

“I said exactly that same thing when he told me.”

 

“Why did he tell you?” Jacob asked, shifting suddenly from incipient loss to lawman again.

 

“He knew how it would hit you. He lost a good friend when your father died and he knew …”

 

The Judge frowned, considered.

 

“It’s not been that many years since your own father died. He was … concerned … that this might raise … ghosts.”

 

“I don’t see ghosts, Your Honor,” Jacob said bluntly. “I know they exist and I know there are things I can’t explain …” His voice trailed off and he looked at the opposite wall, a haunted look in his eyes. His voice was almost inaudible, a tight whisper, as he asked, “How long?”

 

“Less than a year.”

 

Jacob looked down at the hat he was turning slowly in his hands.

 

“Do you know,” he said slowly, “that Marshal Jackson Cooper can’t keep a decent hat?” He looked up at the Judge, a wry smile quirking half his mouth. “When the man gets nervous he twists his hat up and just plain ruins it.”

 

“Do you feel like twisting your hat, Sheriff?”

 

“No, Your Honor. I feel like driving my fist through the wall.”

 

“You have my permission. You’re certainly justified.”

 

Jacob chuckled, shook his head.

 

“No, Your Honor, but thank you anyway. I’ve seen men try and generally it’s the wall that doesn’t come out in second place.”

 

His Honor looked at his good right hand, closed his fingers into a fist, opened them.

 

“I believe,” he said with an equal slowness of speech, “that I’ve met that same kind of wall myself.”

 

Sheriff and Judge regarded one another.

 

“What do you need me to do, Your Honor?”

 

Charlies Fitzgerald was as tall as his red-headed sire.

 

If it was possible, he was even more fair skinned, more freckled and more red-headed than his father, which surprised Jacob, for he’d thought Sean had a corner on the Celtic market.

 

“Aye, he’s a’ th’ firehouse,” Charles – Charlie, everyone called him, Red Charlie, or sometimes Irish Red – “he said if ye came around, t’ send ye o’er.”

 

“Obliged.” Jacob nodded, turned his Apple-horse, walked the stallion over to the tall, narrow horse house.

 

For all that it was halfway through the first decade, the Brigade stubbornly held onto their steam engine: there were those gasoline powered engines, self propelled they were, but the Irish Brigade had its faith in the three-mare hitch, and in the steam boiler that had never, ever let them down, and they saw no reason to change.

 

Jacob opened the man door in the big double valves, looking around in the dimmer interior. A barn cat regarded him with the sleepy eyes of a royal Sphinx sunning itself on a windowsill: Jacob knew better than to reach for it, for like the Parson’s cat, the feline was not so much a mouse catching guardian, it was a test of intelligence, and failing this test meant being bitten at least twice and scratched up bloody.

 

Sean looked up from the long table, waved Jacob over.

 

Jacob paced slowly across the brick floored equipment bay, boot heels loud and hollow in the brick lined hush.

 

“I’m just finished,” Sean said, leaning back and rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I’ll ha’e th’ attorney notarize this lot an’ I’m done.”

 

Jacob stood, regarded the big, solid-muscled Irishman with pale eyes.

 

“Ye’ve seen th’ judge.”

 

Jacob nodded.

 

“Walk wi’ me, lad.”

 

The two paced back across the bay, past the gleaming, burnished engine, past the mares and the barn cats, and back out into the sun.

 

“Ye’ve seen th’ judge,” Sean said again.

 

“I have.”

 

“I need ye t’ do somethin’ f’r me.”

 

“Name it.”

 

Sean stopped, his eyes on the far horizon, those granite teeth biting at the skyline in the blue distance.

 

“Fetch back young Daffyd Llewellyn,” Sean whispered. “Fetch him back here where he b’longs.”

 

Jacob turned and looked squarely at the big Irishman.

 

“I’ll leave on the noon train.”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

6. THE LOW COUNTRY

 

Father and son rode side by side as they not infrequently did.

Two tall lean Western men, with polished boots and wide Stetson hats, mounted on nearly identical Appaloosas: the older man, the one with the tightly curled, mostly red handlebar mustache, rode a stallion, and the stallion carried himself accordingly, his step brisk, eager, almost dancing: it was evident this horse was more spirited than the city street was used to seeing, for it made a fine sight, clattering noisily down the cobbled and paved thoroughfare.

The other Western man, also in a black suit and polished boots, was as pale eyed and erect of spine as his riding partner: a quick inspection would suggest this may be father and son, and indeed it was: the younger man had not yet enough facial hair to grow a mustache, but there was a hardness to his eyes that said to the observant that he’d been tried as metal in the forge ... and only the cloaking of the tailored suit hid a mercifully few scars and the smooth musculature that is the heritage of a lean man well used to hard work.

The younger man’s mount was also a stallion, but there was a definite hierarchy visible in this very small herd: the larger horse and the older man were very definitely the King Stallions, and the younger pair seemed content with that arrangement: neither appeared inclined to challenge this arrangement.

The two rode easy in the saddle, rode as if they were not horse and rider, but rather one magical creature, and few that beheld them doubted their skill as equestrians: indeed, many were the admiring looks, for the men were handsome and the horses well cared for, their tack gleaming, manes and tails brushed and free of tangle or knot, brier or burr.

The pair rode easy in the saddle, relaxed, moving with their mounts, but none could say they rode carelessly, nor less than observantly: there was a confused screech from a narrow alley and a furred-up cat came streaking out of the narrow brick canyon, streaking across the street, closely pursued by a snarling, snapping mongrel dog, and as ill luck would have it, they passed nearly directly beneath the noses of the aforementioned horseflesh.

Apple-horse grunted and lifted his head; Samuel’s mount, less experienced with the unexpected, lashed out and snapped long yellow teeth after the pursuing canine’s retreating backside: Apple danced a few steps to the right and Jacob let him, then he and Samuel whirled their mounts and one leaped starboard and one to port: their sudden lunge was more than justified, as something big, red and noisy came hauling down the street – something with a red triangle turning just above head level of the driver and the passenger in front, something with a big brass bell on the front bumper, something that honked out a raucous whistle that interrupted the unmuffled exhaust of an 80 horsepower Ahrens-Fox gasoline fire engine.

Samuel and his father looked at one another across the empty space left in the fast moving engine’s wake, then with one accord they kneed their mounts into pursuit.

Neither horse needed to be told twice.

 

The red-faced city policeman saw the two men a-horseback, but paid them little mind.

A crowd always gathered when there was a fire – always, and a headache it was for the honest flatfoot, who was responsible for his beat and for anything unusual that happened anywhere near it, so when the two horsemen interfered not with firemen, streetcar nor spectator, he put them from his attention, concentrating instead on keeping the curious and the troublemakers from coming too close to the working firemen and their apparatus.

 

“Sir,” Samuel said, raising his chin.
“I see him."
A rubber-coated fireman staggered out of the steaming, smoking structure, another of his kind draped over his shoulder: unlike the Irish Brigade, they did not wear leather boots, but instead awkward looking rubber boots, pulled well up under their long skirted fire coats: the two Western lawmen watched as what must have been an injured fireman was handed off, and the fellow who’d packed him out leaned against a handy stone wall and coughed, hawked and spat.

Father and son eased their horses into a slow walk, circling the crowd; there was a tavern not far up the street, and Sheriff Jacob Keller knew it would be nearly empty, what with the spectacle of a working fire to draw out the curious ... ideal for an out of town pair to grab a quick beer and ask directions to the firehouse.

 

Daffyd Llewellyn had just finished washing up.

He was naked to the waist, dripping water from face and elbows, his red Union suit hung behind him like a cast off skin: his shift would end in the morning, and in the morning he’d pay for a full bath and he’d put on clean from the skin out, but with the rest of the night yet, he bathed down to the halfway mark and called that good.

He pulled his Union suit back up and fast it up, then reached for his shirt: he’d just got it tucked in and he’d found his last pair of clean dry socks when the Chief yelled up the ladder pole, “Llewellyn! Get down here!”

“Sir!” he barked, shoved his feet into the Cavalry boots he preferred for firehouse wear: it was the last thing he’d kept from his boyhood days: all else he’d abandoned in favor of the urban lifestyle that surrounded him.

He was, he reasoned, a modern man, newly made: he may have been born of the howling wilderness of the mountains and the frontier, but he didn’t have to stay that way, and so he rode electric street cars and a gasoline powered fire truck, he reveled in streets and theater and these modern conveniences that would be regarded as a dandy’s affectations back West.

Lieutenant Daffyd Llewellyn took three long strides for the brass firepole, wrapped arms and legs around the polished surface, slid quickly down to the round, springy pad at its bottom: two men stood flanking the house officer, and Daffyd Llewellyn felt his stomach tighten up and sink about three feet.

“Lieutenant,” the Chief said, the hint of a smile under his black, waxed handlebar, “here’s two men t’ see ye.”

Daffyd released his lover’s embrace from the fire pole and walked slowly toward the two men.

“Uncle Jacob,” he said, extending a hand, and Sheriff Jacob Keller shook his twin sister’s son’s hand, assessing him as he did: calluses, aye, and a good grip, a direct – almost a challenging – look.

The younger man was of a like height, though not as broad at the shoulder: his grip was as callused as his sire’s, his grip strength to match, but there was not the friendliness in his expression ... more a wariness, as if he were still a creature of the wild, pretending to a civilized façade.

“Ye’ll want m’ office,” the Chief said gruffly. “G’wan in, make yersel’ t’ home. I’m f’r a walk.”

Lieutenant Daffyd Llewellyn considered usurping the Chief’s chair, but considered this might look like he was hiding, or trying to put something between them: he rejected the undignified perch on the corner of the desk, and instead stood, looking from one to the other.

“Well?” he demanded, and he saw a shadow of anger pass over the younger lawman’s face – but he saw it was as quickly hidden, and he knew the contained volatility this indicated.

He’d seen it up close, often enough, in his boyhood.

“We’d like you to come home,” Jacob said without preamble.

“This is my home now.”

“You have made a new life,” Jacob nodded: like his son, his hat was in his hands, and like his son, he turned the hat a little from time to time, more to have something to do with his hands than anything else. “I understand you’ve made a good life.”

“I have.” Daffyd’s chin was thrust out defiantly, his anger hiding any uncertainty he might’ve otherwise shown. “Mother is dead and ... and I am doing well here. There’s nothing for me back there.”

“There’s the Irish Brigade,” Jacob said quietly. “You’re missed.”

“I’m everyone’s kid brother. They would look at me and see the child they knew.”

“Are you a child now?”

Daffyd’s jaw crept out a little more, but he made no other reply.

“You’ve made Lieutenant. They don’t just give that away. You earned that, Daffyd, you earned that, the hard way. That’s why they want you back. They know what you can do. They knew your father and they know the apple falls not far from the tree.”

Jacob hesitated, gauging the proud young man’s posture, then added:

“Sean is dying.”

Daffyd’s head snapped around, his eyes big – then he narrowed them and Jacob saw the proud young lieutenant’s walls go up: “Dying, you say.”

His voice was level, but there was an edge that caught Samuel’s ear, tugging at it as if a ghostly thumb and forefinger plucked at his pinna.

“He has a cancer. No cure and no help for it. He has less than a year, or so says Doc Greenlees.”

Daffyd closed his eyes, then closed them harder: he turned his head, shook his head a little, raised his hand to his face.

Samuel looked from the Lieutenant to his father, back to the head-shaking fireman: wisely, he said nothing, for he knew his father knew this individual, where he did not, and any comment he might make would be far less effective than the experience of his father’s wisdom.

Jacob waited, patient, silent: Samuel might as well have been shaped of mountain granite.

“Sheriff,” he finally said, clearing his throat and sagging against the wall for a moment – before pushing away and standing stiffly erect – “do I remember your father saying that hurry up is brother to mess it up?”

“He did,” Jacob affirmed with a slow, shallow nod, and Samuel could hear the smile that softened the corners of his sire’s eyes as he added, “It’s amazing how often I proved the Grand Old Man right!”

Llewellyn nodded miserably.

“Then let me not hurry this matter,” he said formally. “Might I call upon you tomorrow with my reply?”

Jacob nodded. “When shall we receive you?”

“Twelve noon. Where are you staying?”

“The Havlin.”

“I know the place. My wife and I will lunch with you at noon tomorrow.”

Llewellyn felt almost a savage satisfaction to see the pale eyed lawman’s eyes change – it was momentary, but it was there, and he knew it was a telling blow.

“Noon, then.”

Jacob took a paced forward, thrust out his hand again.

“We’d like you to come home,” he said quietly, then added, “I would like you to come home. I miss you.”

“At least you’re honest.”

Jacob’s eyes hardened. “You’re a city man and I will give you that,” he said, and Samuel heard a dangerous undertone to his father’s voice. “If you do come home, remember it’s dangerous to call a man a liar.”

“I didn’t –“ Llewellyn protested, momentarily looking like a distressed little boy caught in a lie, then Samuel saw the walls go up again: the man was not unintelligent, he knew, for he swallowed whatever retort he might have made, saying simply, “Noon, then, at the Haviln.”

Samuel waited until they were outside the brick firehouse, out of the smell of smoke and rubber and gasoline, out where the air stank of other things: he and his father mounted, and rode through the streets, carefully avoiding the electric street cars and the newfangled skunk buggies, the occasional drunken “Hey cowboy, how about a ride!” and the laughter that followed, and the pair worked their way to the waterfront, where they found a little unoccupied space to gaze upon the wide Ohio.

Samuel soothed his stallion as a riverboat labored past, thrashing industriously against the smooth and barely-streak-rippled water: they walked their mounts to the water’s edge, let them drink.

“It’s harder to breathe here, Pa,” Samuel observed.

Jacob nodded. “We’ll head back for the mountains after noon tomorrow. Air’s better high up.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jacob turned his Apple-horse and his son followed: they stabled their mounts, took saddlebags and rifles and walked casually back to the hotel, ignoring the stares of the natives at the sight of two men casually armed as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The pair had supper in the dining room; each was busy with his thoughts, though toward the last of the meal the two did discuss in surprisingly technical terms the responses of the fire lieutenant to particular questions – responses of his eyes, which way they swung with which questions, changes in posture, hand movements and the like – then conversation waned again, and little was said until each was laid down and relaxing between sun dried sheets.

“Pa?” Samuel finally asked, and Jacob said, “Yes, Samuel?” – his voice gentle in the darkening room – “Pa, I’ve heard Scotsmen talk about the Highlands.”

“I’ve heard.”

“They spoke of the lowlands with ... I reckon with contempt.”

“I recall.”

Samuel considered for a moment before he said, “I can see why they feel like that.”

Jacob smiled a little at his son’s assessment.

“I reckon that means we’re Highlanders, son, and I don’t reckon that to be a bad thing.”

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

7. THE HAVLIN

The policeman walked his beat with his usual measured tread.

The hour was late, the night damp, overcast: he was not a superstitious soul, nor given to idle fancies: he was a solid copper, he was, and not interested in the imaginations that might lurk in a curl of river fog, nor the chill fears that lie wait behind a shadow.

No, he was a man who believed in his own strength and skill with his fists and his wits, with his war club and his police-whistle: he’d used them often enough to maintain order here in his bailiwick, his beat, and he disciplined his imagination as sternly as any drunken cutpurse that infested the riverfront.

The river smelt as it always did, and he did not smell it anymore, so common was it: it smelled of a city and of slaughterhouses and of coal smoke, it smelled of industry and refuse and decay: he’d inhaled that miasma from his very first breath – to him it was like the river itself – it was always there, and would always be there, and he marveled not at its steady, patient progress, nor the fantastic volume of water it carried.

His beat carried him past the oldest cemetery in Cincinnati, studded with stones and monuments and mausoleums: these gave him no fear, nor did the inhabitants that slept beneath these graven tokens.

He feared not the dead.

The dead had never tried to kill him.

It was the living he feared, and how the living might try to change his address to this very garden of stone.

He walked on.

 

Daciana walked, too, walked alone and in darkness: she drew her cloak close, then threw one end over her shoulder, effectively closing the garment, and in a trice she was as warm as if she wore a buttoned coat – but with greater comfort, and greater freedom of movement.

She smiled a little as she walked, remembering.

She used to walk with her precious Buttercup, her trick pony, back when the blond haired circus pony was yet alive: she and her pony would walk after dark, long into the night, and maybe that was how she was called a witch, for no woman would walk – alone – and in the dark – unless she were part of the dark, or practiced who-knows-what in the dark, far from men’s prying eyes.

Of course they never said as much to her face, nor did they imply, but there were whispers.

Always, the whispers.

Daciana knew who her friends were, who she could trust, and who whispered; she knew who carried tales, and who manufactured them, and she knew which ears could be whispered into, to carry tales of her own, when it suited her.

Tonight, though, she walked alone.

She’d taken her husband his lunch, taken the picnic basket to him, and given him a quick hug and a kiss, but not enough to take his mind from his midnight task: he was telegrapher, one of four, and the best of the four, and this night he worked the night shift, for his good friend was ill.

Daciana knew her husband, the skinny fellow who wore glasses now, the lean young man she’d fallen in love with, now going thin in the scalp, her husband, her beloved, would bring the basket and its folded cloths and its plates, and he would quietly wash the plates and set them to drain, and he would leave the folded cloths in the basket for their next use, as he always did.

Daciana knew this as she walked up the silent, empty street.

There, on her left, the schoolhouse, empty, its whitewash glowing a little in the moonlight, and she smiled at the memory of Sarah, Sarah the schoolmarm, dowdy and mousy in her grey schoolteacher’s dress, with her hair in that tight little walnut atop her head.

Sarah, who marched down those same solid steps with ice in her eyes and a brass handbell in her grip, Sarah who elbowed her way through a crowd of shouting, gesturing men and belted one, then another over the head to stop a barfight that had spilled onto the street – not because she opposed barfights – but because it was disturbing her students and distracting their attention.

A gust of wind tumbled invisibly down the street and she thought of Koko, one of the acrobats, whose specialty was tumbling: she looked up at the stars and remembered how dim they were in Europe, when the sign they hung said “Zirkus” and nobody spoke English … the stars were fewer, and weaker, and dimmer, but here they were as if God had just scattered them and they were still fresh, bright as water-washed diamonds, lit from behind.

How I wish you could see these, my friend! she thought, and her eyes fell back to the tidy little schoolhouse.

 

Two pale-eyed lawmen slept in the darkened hotel room.

Neither were trusting men; they’d braced a chair under the door knob, set their boots atop the chair, on either side of the knob, so if an effort were made to enter, they would have at least a little warning.

The city was never silent, never still; men shouted, there were riverboats, there was music and laughter and the sound of carriages.

At last they slept, willing themselves to relax, and as they slept, they dreamed.

 

The policeman frowned.

He didn’t remember the graveyard as this big.

The stones didn’t look right, either …

Am I turned around in the fog? he thought, then frowned, his bottom lip wrinkling up into the top: No, there’s the river, I can see the hill beyond, on the Kentucky side …

No.

This is where I am supposed to be.

I don’t remember this part of the cemetery.

He was a man who did not believe in ghosts, and he did not believe in superstition, and he did not believe in the fancies of imagination that float in fog-swirls and hide behind shadows, and so he went through the iron archway and into the garden of stone.

He was struck at how thick these stones were.

This was unusual.

Stones were usually much … thinner … as wide, yes, but not as blocky.

The fog was thicker now; it obscured the river: another half dozen steps, and the iron fence he knew was behind him, was invisible.

His ear twitched a little.

What do I hear? – then, Sobbing … a woman, grieving …

At this hour?

He took a step, another: his stick no longer dangled from its wrist-thong, he swung it up, caught it easily, reassured himself by gripping its engine turned ringed handle tightly enough to cause his fist to tremble a little.

Something dark, against the white tombstone … and another sob, choked as if the mourner was trying hard not to cry.

The darkness rose, the fog thinned, a light breeze off the river pushed the damp curtain aside …

“Are ye lost, then?” the copper asked, not unkindly, and the woman raised her black veil: the moon peeped shyly through a veil of its own, which parted briefly, like a modest maiden looking at a handsome swain, then withdrawing a little, still visible, still shy.

The woman was in mourning black, and in a style a decade old: an older woman, he thought, but the face was not elderly at all: she was a fine looking woman, to be sure, but grief was graven upon her expression, and her black-gloved hand rested on the stone.

He looked down at the stone and caught the insignia, recognized it.

Fire chief, he thought.

Which one?

I don’t recall seeing this before.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, her voice low, musical, pleasant: “I did not mean to disturb you.”

“I wanted to be sure you were not harmed,” he said, the trace of the Irish in his words, and she raised a gloved hand to caress his cheek, ever so lightly.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For caring.”

“You knew the man?” he asked, pointing at the tomb stone with his baton.

“He was my son.”

“I am terribly sorry for your loss.”

She nodded, and as the moonlight increased just a little, he was surprised at her eyes.

Pale eyes, almost white, remarkable eyes indeed, eyes a man would never forget.

She dropped the veil back over her face. “Thank you,” she whispered again, and the fog closed in, suddenly, thick, impenetrable: he did not hear the sound of petticoat on dress material, nor the scrape of shoe leather on stone, but he knew – somehow – he was alone.

Frowning, he turned, headed back for where he knew the fence was, knowing that he would find it and then find his way to the cast iron archway and be back on his sidewalk.

He’d been in heavy fogs before, fogs so thick a man could not see, but he knew his beat, and he was not lost.

 

Father and son stood together and watched the interment.

Behind them, beyond them, they heard the steady hum of motor vehicles; overhead, something man-made and rigid sliced through the air with the sound of a drunken bumblebee: boats moved on the river behind, boats without stacks, and without the great paddle wheels they were used to seeing.

It was a fine sight: the Cincinnati Fire Department’s streamlined, motorized fire engine behind, gleaming and burnished in the sun, officers and men in their dress uniforms and white gloves, Masons in white gloves and aprons and one man wearing a top hat: the coffin was borne to the grave on the shoulders of firemen and Masons alike: women wept, men wore sorrowful expressions, a stone was unveiled at the head of the grave, a thick, white stone with the Chief’s scramble incised in a helmet shield.

Father and son stood a little away from the mourners, and the service.

A woman stood with them, a woman in mourning black, of a style three decades and more in the past.

The woman stood with a veil over her face, and her black-gloved hand rested on the shoulders of an immense, curly-furred, black dog, a creature that deserved a grander title than merely “dog” – its coat glowed and rippled with good health, and its tongue hung out a little as it panted, content to stand with the woman, and the woman raised her hands and lifted her veil and watched with pale eyes as the coffin was placed on boards laid across the hole.

 

Samuel’s eyes snapped open and he looked to his right.

He saw his father blink twice, then look at him.

“Sir?”

“Graveyard?”

“Yes, sir.”

Father and son threw back their covers, swung easily out of bed, looked at the door.

Their boots were still balanced, undisturbed: they stood, stretched, then froze.

Their eyes stopped on a single red rose on the wash stand.

It hadn’t been there the night before.

They looked at one another, remembering the sight of the pale eyed woman standing with them.

“She wouldn’t,” Samuel said, the hint of a smile tugging at his mouth.

“I’ll show you worse than that,” Jacob said, and his eyes were not smiling at all.

 

 

They’d seen to their meager luggage – they travelled light, out of habit – they’d seen to their horses, their saddlebags, they’d brushed their coats and Stetsons, they’d buffed their boots and taken full advantage of hot water and a bathtub, and father and son went so far as to pay good money for a genuine factory made haircut and shave.

When Jacob removed his coat and handed it to his son, the barbershop grew silent at the sight of a lean, well dressed man with a pair of Colt revolvers worn the way a man will when he knows how to use them: he climbed in the barber chair as if he’d done it every day of his life … Samuel casually turned his father’s lapel over to display the six pointed star, then carefully hung the coat, turned and swept the barbershop with cold, pale eyes, giving everyone there the full benefit of his hereditary ocular chill: he stood, silent as death and just as patient, with his own coat unbuttoned.

He did not display his own star, nor did he show his own pair of revolving pistols, not until his father stepped out of the barber chair, his face smooth and soft and smelling of bay rum, and the son handed the father his coat: Samuel turned over his own lapel and turned a little, displaying his own, matching star, then handed his coat to his father.

Neither man liked having his face covered, even if it was sensually pleasant to have a hot towel artfully coiled; the barber’s skill was inarguable, his flair when stropping the razor was a delight to see, and like any barber of the era, he was a garrulous sort, spouting fourteen to the dozen: after a few unsuccessful tries at getting either father or son to talk about themselves, he began discussing local politics and commerce with the enthusiasm of someone who knew but little of his subject, but had all the energetic and artificial chatter of the man who wished he knew what he was talking about.

They entered the hotel’s dining room at a quarter til, and were shown to a table almost immediately: at precisely high noon, and punctuated by the noon whistle somewhere outside, Lieutenant Daffyd Llewellyn, in dress uniform and white gloves, with a well dressed young woman on his arm, crossed the dining room threshold.

Jacob and Samuel rose as the pair approached.

Daffyd stood erect, spine stiff and disapproving.

“May I introduce my wife,” he said, raising his chin a little: “Sheriff Jacob Keller, Deputy Sheriff Samuel Keller, this is my wife, Adriana.”

Jacob took a half-step, lifted her extended, gloved hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles: “Enchantée,” he murmured, his eyes half-veiled: Samuel watched Daffyd’s face, assessing the man’s rising color – aggravation, Samuel surmised, that Adriana Llewellyn was finding another man’s attention pleasing… even if the attention was gentlemanly and immaculately proper.

“Don’t expect me to pay for your meal,” Daffyd snarled: surprised, Adriana started to protest, then caught herself: she colored a little as she gave a sidelong, half-ashamed look at their neatly attired visitors.

“You wished to see me over lunch,” Daffyd said bluntly. “Here I am. Please speak freely, I hold no secrets from my wife.”

“Bluntly, then,” Jacob said, his voice level, controlled.

He reached into a coat pocket, withdrew a small, paper-wrapped package, handed it to the proud young lieutenant.

Samuel noticed his father held the slim, oblong object oddly … fingers on top, thumb beneath.

Significance? he thought, marking it for later inquiry.

“What’s this?”

“Open it.” It was not a request.

Llewellyn took it – thumb up, Samuel thought – turned it over, unwrapped it.

“What is it, my dear?” Adriana asked, her head tilted a little to the side, curious.

Daffyd Llewellyn blinked, his mouth opening a little as he held the familiar leather shield.

His fingers caressed its surface – it was a fire chief’s helmet shield, but one that showed use, and not gentle use.

Llewellyn swallowed hard.

He knew this shield.

He was a little boy when he clapped Sean’s big white pressed-leather helmet on his head and laughed, and he remembered Sean’s big hands wrap around his ribs and hoist him to the tuck-and-roll upholstered seat of their gleaming Ahrens steam fire fighting engine.

He remembered how the King’s Chariot Throne felt under him, how he bounced a little and felt the rig respond, and he remembered Sean’s great booming laugh and the sound of his big hand clapping hard on his Papa’s shoulder.

“Daffyd,” Sean boomed, “damned if he doesn’t look like he should be chief! Mark ma word, lad, he’s his father’s son, he’ll wear the white hat!”

Daffyd blinked and he was at the table again, there in the Havlin, with his wife and these two pale eyed reminders of a life he’d left in his past.

“Sean sends his greetings,” Jacob said quietly, for there was no need to raise his voice. “He wishes to see you again, but his time is short.”

“I left Firelands,” Daffyd said, turning his head away from the lawmen: “There is nothing there for me now.”

“There is much there for you,” Jacob corrected. “You have family and we miss you. You have friends who wish your return. You have skills we need, skills you learned here, just as your father did.”

“My father is dead.” His voice was bitter, tight.

“He is dead, yes, but because of him three people live and probably more than that.”

“My life is here.”

“Ruth, what say you?”

Adriana blinked, confused: if the reference was lost upon her, it wasn’t lost upon her husband.

“You leave her out of this,” he hissed, tossing the helmet shield across the table.

Samuel caught it, tossed it back. “That is a gift,” he said, his voice hardening, “from a dying man who loves you like a son. He wishes to see you before he dies. Give him that at least.”

Llewellyn stood so abruptly his chair fell over backward: white-faced, he turned, strode out of the dining room.

Adriana rose, distressed: “Please forgive my husband,” she fumbled, “he …”

“He’s proud and he’s young and he’s stiff backed,” Jacob said. “I was the same myself.”

“Then … please understand, gentlemen, he …”
She looked over her shoulder, seemed to come to some decision.

She sat.

“He punishes himself so terribly for leaving Firelands,” she said, low-voiced, leaning forward a little as if confiding a secret, and perhaps she was. “He does so regret his hasty words. He went back you know … he went back to apologize, but she’d left for Europe, and then he …”

“Yes. She was killed and now it’s too late,” Jacob finished for her. “That’s why he should see Sean. If he waits until Sean is dead he’ll hate himself that much more. Does he put himself in the most dangerous situations, deliberately?”

She nodded, big-eyed, surprised that someone understood.

Jacob sighed. “He is punishing himself.” He nodded to the Chief’s shield on the table. “Keep that for him. From the reports we’ve received, he’s good at what he does. He’s made Lieutenant already. I doubt me not he’ll make Chief.”

Father and son rose, bowed. “My Lady,” Jacob said, “I wish I had some good sound advice for handling him, but –“

He smiled a little, a quiet, wry smile, perhaps his way of sharing a secret.

“Good sound advice sounds like free advice to me, and that’s generally worth what you paid for it.”

He picked up the shield, pressed it into her hand.

Adriana bit her bottom lip, nodded, then looked hopefully at the pale eyed Sheriff.

“If he were to return to Firelands,” she whispered, then swallowed, “I would be terrified, yes, and I would be leaving my family and my society and everything.”

She swallowed again.

“Ruth did that, didn’t she? And it was the right thing to do.”

“Are you Ruth?” Jacob asked quietly, and Adriana nodded,

Her lips were as pale as her face, but her voice was stronger as she replied, “Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”

She smiled wanly.

“Now if we can talk him into it.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

8. LAST VOYAGE

The old man wore a short-billed cap and a dark blue wool coat.

He smoked a good Cuban cigar as he leaned on the painted rail, surveying the world from his lofty perch high atop the riverboat.

The riverboat's captain had a white beard, wrinkled eyes and an air of silence surrounded him like an invisible cloak: he assiduously practiced those Masonic virtues of Silence and Circumspection, and today he was very circumspect, for this was to be his last voyage.

He knew the river like a man knows his lover.

He'd shot a canoe over the Falls of the Ohio in a young and foolish moment, when his beard was short and soft and very young, he'd come down both the Monongahela and the Allegheney rivers, each in their turn, and this for the sheer love of running a river: when the two joined their waters to form the Ohio, he coasted his canoe out into mid-river at sunrise and looked, and listened, he saw the fog rising from the water and listened to the woods on either side and felt the life as she breathed under him and he fell deeply in love with this living creature, this water, this Ohio.

He'd spent his life on this river, here and elsewhere, but it was the Ohio he always loved, and today he would leave her forever.

He'd saved his money, he'd invested carefully, and today he would take the best boat he'd ever captained and he would take her into the broad, muddy and treacherous Mississippi, and he would finally, ultimately, dock her in New Orleans, where he would set foot on shore.

He would turn his back on the waters and he would become a lesser creature, a landsman, and he would live the rest of his days with his granddaughter, who wished most earnestly for her favorite grandfather to live with them on what was once a plantation north of the great Babylon that was become what the French named New Orleans.

The captain puffed out a great cloud of fragrant, hand-rolled tobacco smoke and watched as two men approached the dock.

It was unusual to see a mounted horseman here in the Queen City: more rare to see a pair -- and this pair looked well matched, he thought, puffing on his cigar as he studied two men in black suits, erect and absolutely at home in the saddle on a pair of almost identical Appaloosas.

The Captain did not know much about horses, save that they existed, and they pulled plows and wagons and carriages, and on occasion he saw men riding them, and he'd wondered idly what it must be like to ride your own private riverboat, but instead of standing on its deck and gripping a great spoked wheel, you controlled your own conveyance with two leather straps ... the thought returned, and he smiled a little, for this pair rode erect, at once relaxed and alert, their reins loose and slack in their left hands, their right on their thighs.

The two looked very much alike.

Remarkably so.

Father and son? he wondered. Brothers, perhaps?

He saw a figure he'd heard of step out in front of the lead rider, and the riverboat captain leaned on the polished, red-painted railing that surrounded the hurricane deck, high up on the superstructure, and his teeth tightened on the Cuban.

Things, he knew, were about to get interesting.

 

The stallion halted.

"There's extra cost t' bring them animals aboard," the rough-looking man challenged in a loud voice, and the usual crowd on the dock stopped, and turned, several of them grinning. They knew what was about to happen, or thought they did: nobody saw the tall man so much as twitch the reins, but the horse stopped dead.

The only movement was when both men moved their hands a little on their thighs: their coats were unbuttoned and their hands twisted a little, as if to start the coat's opening ... only the slightest of moves, at least until two men moved in behind the rear horseman.

The two horsemen, to the uninitiated, seemed almost carven statues, or living extensions of their horses' spines: the movement of their heads was subtle, but constant, as was the swing of their eyes: a knowing man would observe the, and realize they saw much, and were aware of more, but the average man would not know what to look for, nor even to know what he was seeing: in truth, the pair knew they were being surrounded by the dockyard extortionists, and they almost instantly surmised that they could pay this extortion, or they would be dragged from their saddles and beaten.

This, at least, was the intent of the crowd that infested the docks.

Just as the unwary traveler was not infrequently set upon and their bags snatched from their hands when they disembarked a riverboat, so did this bunch steal from those seeking to board, knowing such folk generally had ready cash.

They had never tried this dodge on a pair of Western lawmen, and they had absolutely no idea just how poor an idea this could actually be.

The ship's captain, on the other hand, had a sense about these matters.

He'd put down shipboard rebellion single handed, he'd defended his boat with pistol and cudgel, he'd hand to settle matters in a violent but very understandable manner himself: over the years he'd learned to judge men, to assess men, and his instincts told him this was a pair that should not be troubled.

He was right.

 

There is a subtle communication between the well matched horse and rider.

When the white men first came to the North American continent, when the Conquistadores rode their Paso Fino across the American soil, the natives did not recognize them as horse and rider: they thought them one magical creature, and when properly matched, this is actually the case.

Neither rider made a move.

Perhaps their stallions, having far keener senses than mere men, felt their riders' heartbeats pick up, or smelled a change in their body chemistry, or -- well, who knows just how it happened: but it was the lead rider's good pleasure that his Apple-horse educate the foolish creature who accosted them, club in hand, and it was the wish and intent of the second river that his stallion drop his head between spread and braced forehooves, and drive rearward with steelshod hooves powered by mountain-lean muscles.

The river boat captain plucked the cigar from between strong and yellowed teeth and watched with admiration as the screams of two fighting stallions shivered the dockyard air: the sight of a gleaming horse in the long red rays of morning's sun is a marvelous thing, and the sight of a rearing stallion, its ears laid back flat against its skull as its windmilling hooves tears the air apart, and then two horses exploded in sudden and violent attack -- one man, his chest caved in, fell back and hit the ground, coughing blood, while the other horse spun and snapped and struck like a cobra, its own yellowed teeth swinging its prize of a shirtsleeve, waving it like a captured flag, two more on the ground, curled up and holding their paralyzed, horse-kicked guts: men scattered and fled, for the sound of horses at war was so foreign a sound to the dockyards as to cause instant fear and retreat, and the whirling attack of hooves and horseflesh knocked men to the ground and sent others knocking their fellows to the dirty boards in the panicked retreat.

One man, and one man only, stood fast, a man with a cap very much like the Captain's, a man wearing a blue wool coat almost identical to the older man watching from the hurricane deck, and it was to this man the lead rider addressed himself.

"We will need bales of straw, we will need grain and we will need deck space to stable our horses."

The man with the short-billed cap looked up at the older man with the short-billed cap.

The riverboat captain nodded, once.

The dockmaster looked back at the pale-eyed man on the Appaloosa stallion and said, "Welcome aboard."

 

A little boy in knee pants, wearing a necktie and a jacket and a straw hat with long swallowtail ribbons dangling down its back, watched with big and admiring eyes as the two horsemen rode easily up the broad cargo plank and onto the riverboat's main deck.

He scampered down the stairway and down another, watched with open mouth as bales of straw were stacked, as two were broken and scattered, then a third; he listened to the crew muttering to one another, warning any who came in earshot that those were devil horses, they breathed fire and had fangs like daggers, buzz saws on their hooves and they ate men's fingers by the bucketful: the two pale eyed men tended their horses closely, and the boy remembered the penny dreadfuls he'd read, the tales of the far and wild West, of lawmen and outlaws and -- his breath caught -- here they were!

How two men of the far and distant West managed to arrived this far East was something he didn't trouble himself with.

It was enough that he'd seen them, that they were here! -- no doubt his proper and primly aloof Mama would snatch him back and scold him back to their cabin, but if she didn't know he (and they) were here, what could be the harm?

An old man was watching as well, but not the riverboat's captain.

No, this elderly soul had the eyes of the man who knew cattle and prairie, who knew hot sun and dust and the smell of longhorns and horses and sweating men: he watched as the pale eyed pair hung their saddles and spread out their saddle blankets, after they rubbed down their mounts and checked their hooves, only after this did he approach them, his fancy stitched boots silent on the deck, an art he'd perfected as a young man and never abandoned.

Jacob turned, his eyes tightening a little at the corners: a lawman will size up someone instantly if not sooner, his eye picking up details and filing them more quickly than can be described, and he spotted the man's watch fob.

He did not hesitate.

He extended a hand and the old man extended his, and the grip they exchanged was somewhat different from a normal handshake.

"Hello, Hiram," Jacob said, and the old man peered closely at the pale eyed lawman and said "You ain't from Texas, now, are ye?"

Jacob laughed. "No, sir, but I'll take that as a complement."

The old man looked more closely, then looked at Samuel.

"You throw a close colt," he nodded. "I wanted to see if you was a ghost."

"I've seen ghosts," Jacob admitted, "but I don't reckon I am one yet." He raise an arm, sniffed loudly. "I ain't even started to stink."

The cattleman laughed, clapped Jacob's shoulder with a surprisingly strong grip. "I only run acrost one man that looked like you."

Jacob turned his head a little like he was bringing a good ear to bear.

"Samuel," he called quietly.

Samuel walked over to his father and their visitor.

"This is my son Samuel," he introduced.

"Now by God you look like your Pa!"

"Flattery," Samuel said with a straight face, "will get you everywhere!"

"I would admire to buy you two a drink."

"Later, if we may," Jacob replied, "and thank you for that."

Samuel could tell his father was thinking hard, thinking fast.

"You didn't happen to have a lariat layin' on your saddle years ago, the saddle on a riverboat deck when a woman went over the side?"

"By God," the old Texan breathed. "It is you!"

"No, sir, 'twas my father, and the woman was my mother."

"They are passed, then?"

"Yes, sir, and I miss them both."

The old man gripped Jacob's upper arm with an understanding hand, and he nodded, his eyes filling with a sudden sadness.

"It is a proper thing that a man should miss his folks," he said quietly, and Samuel knew this old man was deeper than he looked, just like his pale eyed Pa.

Jacob turned to his son.

"We'll take turns with the horses."

"Yes, sir."

"You go on ahead to the cabin and change clothes, soon as you get back I'll change and stand first watch."

"I can stand first watch, sir, that'll let you take this gentleman up on his kindness."

The Texan laughed quietly. "Most that know me wouldn't call me no gentleman."

"My son is a pretty good judge of character," Jacob said quietly. "I'd say he's close to bein' right."

 

Later that night, as Samuel sat on a bale, watching the stallions, watching the river, he saw his Pa's horse swing its head and look with curiosity at something.

Samuel knew the horses could see and hear far better than he, they could smell like a hunting dog, and he rose, saw a little boy watching him with big and admiring eyes.

"Come in, son," he called, and a little boy -- dressed like a child of wealth -- a little Fauntleroy suit, fancy buttons and ribboned hat, an outfit that would be met back home with hoots and derision -- the little boy came from behind the stairway and approached with a combination of delight and uncertainty.

"Mister" -- he was missing a tooth in front, probably he'd started to shed his milk teeth, and he almost lisped -- "mister, are those horses?"

Samuel smiled, knowing this was a child's attempt at what his Pa called a "Rhetorical Question."

"This," he said, caressing his Pa's horse's neck, "is Apple. Short for Appaloosa, that's what he is, an Appaloosa stallion. Come closer."

"What's a sss -- ssss -- ssstallion?" the little boy asked, approaching with short, hesitant steps.

Samuel laughed, considered that this was an Eastern child, and a child not of the same social class as himself: he probably was a townie, almost certainly that; likely he'd never seen a horse service a mare, he'd probably never so much as seen puppies born.

His Mama is likely aboard, he thought, and I don't want an irate high society woman comin' down here to give me hell over what I told her darlin' child.

"The stallion," Samuel explained, "is the king of the herd. He rules the herd and leads the herd and guards the herd and keeps it from harm. In the wild he leads the herd to water and to new pasture, and when the wolves come he leads the attack to fight them off."

"Like he fought the bad guys on the dock?"

Samuel's grin was quick, genuine, and the little boy grinned in delight to see it.

"Yes," Samuel agreed. "Exactly that."

"Why didn't you shoot them?" the child asked, blinking.

"You mean like they do in them dime novels?"

The boy nodded, his swallowtail hat-ribbons bouncing with the effort.

"No need. You saw how well the stallions took care of it."

Again the wide-eyed nod and the ribbons swinging behind.

The child's eyes descended to the twin Colts belted around Samuel's lean waist.

"Missster," he said hesitantly, "are you an outlaw?"

Samuel leaned back and laughed, and it was a good laugh: it started deep in his belly and relaxed his ribs a little, and deckhands smiled to hear it, for the honest laughter of a strong man is a pleasant and reassuring thing to hear.

Samuel turned over his vest's lapel to show the six point star.

"No, son," he said quietly, his eyes shining and a little bit of a smile lingering at the corners of his mouth. "I'm not an outlaw."

Again the worshipful widening of the eyes, his mouth opened in a delighted O and then he breathed, "You're the Sheriff!"

Again a good laugh: "No, son, my Pa is Sheriff. I'm his deputy."

Samuel squatted, thrust out his hand. "Name's Keller. Call me Samuel."

"Michael James Showalter the Third," the little fellow said seriously, taking the deputy's grip solemnly. "Call me Mike."

"Mike, have you ever ridden a horse?"

Mike shook his head.

"Like to?"

He nodded.

Samuel stood, pulled out a plug of molasses twist tobacco and proceeded to shave off several fat sliver.

Apple-horse blinked, snuffed loudly, definitely interested, and Samuel pretended not to notice Mike's delighted expression.

"Apple," he said, offering the bribe on a flat palm, "do you reckon we can see how well Mike like ridin' you?"
Apple-horse offered no reply, save to rubber-lip up the offering and switch his tail.

"Michael James Showalter the Third," Jacob said, turning and taking the lad under the arms, "let's see how you look a-horseback!" -- and so saying, he swung the happily giggling little boy through the air, setting him down easily on Apple-horse.

Young Michael James didn't know exactly what to do: one finger went to his chin, but his eyes were shining with absolute, utter delight, and Samuel knew this little boy would never forget the day a genuine Western lawman set him on a genuine Western stallion.

 

"No, gentlemen," the Captain said. "This is my final voyage." He looked around, spreading his arms. "All this is mine. I invested ... all I have ... in this boat. She has a buyer in New Orleans, and as soon as she is delivered, I shall take payment and I shall live with my granddaughter." He chuckled. "Now to get there without fire, explosion or sinking!"

Sheriff, cattleman and Captain raised their glasses and drank.

The Captain looked frankly at Jacob. "I remember your parents," he said. "Only met them the one time but I remember them!" He laughed, shook his head. "With what happened ... it would be hard to forget ... oh, I remember it well!"

Captain, cattleman and Sheriff shared a small table in the riverboat's grand salon: commonly called a saloon, it was anything but: grandly appointed, with fine European paintings, upholstery, draperies, velvet and gilt, it was as fine as any great Eastern hotel: its cooks rivaled any in New York or London, its menu was the equal of the famous Delmonico's, waiters wore white jackets and were as attentive as any in Paris: the only common element it had, in fact, to a saloon, was the presence of a cattleman, a Sheriff, and the whiskey they drank.

"Your mother," the Captain said, "was a fine looking woman." He looked across the table and across the years and remembered a green-eyed woman with red hair, a woman with the absolutely fair, fair skin of the Irish, the manners of the Southern gentry, the voice of the seraphim: he could see why the Sheriff married her, for she was a woman to capture and to captivate a man's heart.

He remembered the brooch she wore, ivory it was, with a scrimshaw rose, hand tinted with pinks and greens and masterfully done: set in an oval gold filigree and framed with four emeralds as big around as his little fingernail was across, it was truly a masterful work of the jeweler's art.

Jacob nodded, sampled his whiskey: he knew the brooch well, for he'd bought it for his mother, bought it on his way back to Colorado.

"Sadly," the Captain continued, "there were those who coveted that brooch." His bottom jaw thrust out and he swirled his whiskey and frowned into its amber depths.

"Your father -- "

The Captain shook his head.

"I'm sorry. It's ... actually quite remarkable how much you resemble him."

"Thank you, sir," Jacob said quietly.

"He'd ... I don't know what drew him away, but your mother was alone on the fantail. I understand she was fascinated with the boat's wake.

"She was set upon by men I didn't know had come aboard." He smiled with half his mouth, a wry expression Jacob had seen before, then the Captain looked up and chuckled. "She was quite good with a blade, you know."

"Yes, sir, I do know," Jacob replied. "We used to practice together. We fenced."

"I can believe it," the Captain nodded. "She laid a man's arm open to the bone and another came at her. She ... stepped back to get a better fighting position and the railing was closer than she realized."

He swallowed, set down his whiskey.

"I don't know how she got water without hitting the lower deck, but she did. She went in the water like a diver, cut into the river like a knife, and a good thing." He knocked back the rest of his whiskey. "She told me later she dove deep and she stayed down, for she knew that paddle wheel would pass overhead and she wished not to tangle up in it.

"Your father" -- he looked squarely into Jacob's pale eyes, his own eyes hard, the color of mountain agate and just as soft -- "your father came back just in time to see her go over.

"There was a brief unpleasantness, which he took care of quickly and brutally, and he swung over the deck-rail and landed on the lower level as the cry went up of "Overboard!"

I signalled the engineer to bring the boat to a stop, and he did -- I hire the best engineers on the River, they're not cheap but they're worth it, and he surely was that day! -- and your father converged on the long boat we had alongside for just such.

"I believe that's where you come in."

The cattleman nodded, leaned back as the attentive, white-jacketed porter refilled his whiskey glass, moved silently around the table, refilling the other two as well. "I didn't have enough sense nor money either one to get a cabin," he said gruffly. "I took deck passage and my saddle was my pillow. That deck was as soft as the prairie and besides I had a saddle blanket to sleep on, so I was in good shape.

"Your father saw my lariat and snagged it, and him and that boat load of men took out."

The Captain nodded. "It was ... luck, and luck alone ... "

He looked up, chuckled.

"The Lord looks out after fools and children, the Lord loves a drunk ... He's got plans and He had 'em that day." He set his whiskey-glass down, placed both hands on the tablecloth. "Those men at the oars were Glostermen. Whalers. They were used to rowing strongly through a rough sea, and when your father stood up in the bow with lariat in hand, it troubled them not. They were used to the harpooner standing up and driving a lance into the Leviathan himself.

"Your mother came to surface and the cry went up 'She rises!' -- it's what they yell when the whale breaches, and the harpooner has a chance to drive that swivel head lance deep into whale-flesh.

"Your father made as pretty a cast as I've ever seen," he said, his voice and his eyes softening with the memory.

"He did that," the Texan said. "I saw it. He floated that lariat up over his head and he waited and then his arm went forward and so did the loop." He looked at Jacob thoughtfully. "Dropped that loop down over her arm and give it a twitch and he had 'er just under the arms, he did! Pretty as any I'd ever seen, and I've seen many a loop thrown!"

Jacob nodded, then chuckled, and the Captain raised an eyebrow.

"Gentlemen," he said, "my father admitted to me that he could not swing a lariat to save his sorry backside." He looked from one man to the other. "He said that in his entire life he managed to rope two, and only two things: one was a fence post and that only one time, and once was my mother, in the one moment when it really counted."

"The hand of God," the ship's-captain nodded.

"I would have to agree," the Texan sighed.

The Captain looked at Jacob. "I am genuinely sorry to hear that they've both passed. They were ... good people."

"Yes, sir," Jacob agreed. "They were." He rose. "I thank you for your hospitality, sir, and now I shall take a tray to my son. He is standing first watch with the horses and I shall relieve him as soon as I change out of my good clothes."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

9. MORE STEAM, DAMN YOU!

"LLEWELLYN!"

The chief's full-throated roar spiraled up the brass fire pole and through the hole in the floor.

"GET YOUR SORRY BACKSIDE DOWN HERE AND BRING THE REST OF YE WITH IT!"

Lieutenant Daffyd Llewellyn had no idea what he'd done to incur the Chief's ire, but he knew when the man raised his voice, he was not to be trifled with.

He shoved sock feet into knee-high Cavalry boots and ran for the brass firepole, seizing it with arms and legs, and slid to the apparatus floor below.

 

Mrs. Daffyd Llewellyn hummed a little as she packed the second trunk.

They were a young married couple and so had not accumulated any great amount of possessions.

Most of what they owned was in these two trunks; the furniture was rented, as was their small house, and they'd agreed that they would not acquire a maid until they were more financially prosperous -- that is, she insisted they wait, while Daffyd expressed his unhappiness that his beautiful bride had to coarsen her knuckles with washboard and housework.

Adrianna Llewellyn's reasoning was swift, and once she arrived at her conclusion, further discussion was ended: she'd made her mind up, and her conclusion was that their fortunes would be improved in far Colorado.

If they remained in Cincinnati, her husband would remain a minor officer, and she, a simple housewife; at the very least, they should go, and try on this new opportunity, and see if it fit them.

Her husband was not convinced, but he didn't have to be: she was making the arrangements, and when the time came, she was satisfied she could persuade him, and quickly.

 

Llewellyn's boots hit the landing pad, thick and circumferential around the shining brass pole, and the Chief waved a newspaper at the young officer, his face a dark, angry red.

"LLEWELLYN!" he roared. "WHAT IN THE HELL IS A-GOIN' ON HERE?"

Llewellyn seized the man's wrist to stop the newsprint's vigorous flapping, then his eyes widened as they stripped the screaming, bold-print headline and absorbed its fell message.

His jaw dropped and he snatched newsprint from the Chief's grip, read the headline, read it again, looked at the man as his heart fell about ten stories and landed in his boot tops.

"TH' LATEST PAPER," the hard-of-hearing Chief shouted as Llewelly's knees went weak and he sank onto the Deacon's bench.

He looked up at the Chief, his face the color of wheat paste, and he felt half sick, and the newspaper fell from fingers he couldn't feel anymore.

The newspaper landed with the headline showing.

RIVERBOAT EXPLOSION, it read, then under it, in slightly smaller print, GREAT LOSS OF LIFE, then the third line, the one in smaller print yet, the line that formed itself into a fist and drove itself into Llewellyn's gut and knocked the wind right out of him.

He looked down at it again and he heard a deep, sorrowful groan, as might come from the throat of an inured and dying man, and part of him realized the sound came from his own throat.

VISITING SHERIFF FEARED DEAD.

 

The captain of the Mazeppa raised his megaphone and shouted his challenge again.

He knew the Star of Cincinnati was a swift boat, he knew she had a veteran captain, but he also knew this was a chance to get one over on the Star and her master, to settle an old score he'd brooded on for some time.

He also wanted the Star for his own.

He'd never managed his funds well enough to save enough to buy his own boat, and so was always a hireling: though Captain, he could be overridden by the owners, who had representatives on nearly every trip, and it galled him that his experience and his skill could be shoved aside by a shavetail whose only river experience was polishing his bottom at a boardroom table.

No, he'd challenge the Star to a race, and should he win, his winnings would be the Star herself.

He raised the megaphone, repeated the challenge.

 

The Captain had raced his steamboat, in the past; he'd raced her and won, and only after did he find the boilers were in ... not bad shape, but had he known they'd been repaired and simply patched instead of fixed right, he'd never have demanded the pressures he'd required to win the race.

Since that time he'd had them replaced altogether with the newest, the best pressure rated boilers he could arrange: it had not been cheap, but he preferred a dent in the exchequer to the sound of harps and the sight of wings and halos.

That had been a year and a half ago, and he'd managed to turn enough profit with the Star to cover this necessary repair.

He was satisfied he could out-race the Mazeppa -- she was a side wheeler, after all, and his stern wheel was broader than both the Mazeppa's paddles combined -- perhaps it was the snows of many winters, staining his neatly trimmed beard, that whispered counsel, but his reply was to lift his cap and bow.

The captain of the Mazeppa took this as an acceptance of his challenge.

He laughed and scampered around the wheelhouse, darted within, seized the bell-rope with which to signal his engine room.

The captain of the Star of Cincinnati watched as the Mazeppa's stacks began to throw sparks and black smoke, and her sidewheels churned steadily at the Ohio's oily surface. He knew it would take a few minutes to build steam, and it took steam to turn the paddles, and he had no wish to risk his boat, his crew, his personal fortune, for the short thrill of winning a race he knew he could easily handle.

Below him, on the main deck, father and son amused themselves with what they called "tricks."

Their stallions were well trained, and in unexpected ways.

Each horse could offer a forehoof when commanded -- even offering "Right hoof" or "Left hoof" -- Jacob threw down extra straw for padding before commanding, "Bow to the King," and his Apple-horse took a knee, dropping his head and arching his neck: Jacob brought him back upright, rubbing him and calling him a good boy and feeding him another few shavings of molasses twist shaved from the plug he carried, then he rubbed his mount under his long jaw and said "Sssit," and Apple-horse obediently dropped his backside to the deck, sitting like a hound dog on command.

Behind him, Samuel was running through the same sequence of moves with his own mount; they were trained to lay down on command -- something Jacob thought might come in handy, after conversation with Cavalry, who trained their horses to lay down so they could crouch or lay behind them, using their mounts as bullet soaks if they were in desperate need of cover on flat ground.

His inspiration had been his father's black Outlaw-horse, a horse that had apparently been badly used in the past: his father was never less than kind with the animal, but for whatever reason, the horse was terrified of his raised voice: Jacob remembered how his father had ridden the animal not more than two days when he had cause to speak in loud and angry tones -- he honestly didn't recall the particular need, only that it happened -- and that Outlaw-horse walled its eyes and raised its head and collapsed in a dead faint.

His father, the Old Sheriff, capitalized on this: he worked with the horse, he trained the horse, he gained the black horse's confidence, and he used that fainting spell to his good advantage.

On one occasion he pretended to get towering mad at something, he roared at the horse, swung a fist at its nose, missing it by a half inch -- it looked to those on the other side as if he'd smacked the black horse halfway down his long beak -- and the horse hit the ground.

Even his little daughter Angela could put the horse down: she one time stood in front of the black horse and shook her Mommy-finger at it and shouted, "Bad horse! Dead!" and the horse hit the ground.

Of course, five minutes later, Angela was atop the horsie and riding down the street giggling, and Outlaw-horse looked pleased with himself, for the horse and the little girl got along very well indeed ... to the natives of Firelands, it was amusing that this little girl, not much more than belt buckle high on a tall man, had to put a horse down on its side in order to mount and ride.

Father and son turned at the passing paddleboat's hail.

Like their own boat, this newcomer was going downstream; the river's velocity added to theirs, and when the interloper uttered a challenge, and then the stacks showed she was being fired hard, Jacob looked at Samuel and raised an eyebrow.

 

The Mazeppa's decks were piled with stacks of wood, as were the decks of the Star of Cincinnati: a riverboat ran on dead trees, and every riverman knew where local woodcutters stacked their product: it was a mark of honor that a riverboat could nose-in to shore, and load up with wood, and leave a fair payment.

The Mazeppa began handing wood, man-to-man-to-man in a human chain, through the big hatch into the engine room.

Their Captain demanded steam, and steam took heat, and heat came from wood, and if they had to burn every stick of furniture on board their boat, by God! they'd do it!

The Star's mate watched them pull easily ahead.

"We're not going to race, Captain?" he asked quietly.

"No."

"Might I ask why not, sir?"

"You may ask." The Captain withdrew his ever present Cuban, inspected it, spat a fleck of tobacco from his bottom lip, returned the smoldering stogie to his stained teeth's grip.

"Sir?"

"I see no need to risk a fine boat on her last voyage. She'll get us to New Orleans in her own good time. We're moving with the river. I see no need at all to race. The Star has won her races. Let the Mazeppa win her own."

"Yes, sir," the mate said with a slight frown, then: "Sir, have the sand bars shifted downstream?"

The Captain withdrew his cigar, flicked it gently; white, fluffy ash shattered, was carried off by the upstream breeze.

"I doubt me not they have."

"You know where they are, sir."

"I know how they crawl, yes."

"And you're staying on this side ...?"

"Because they will have crawled from this side to that."

"And the Mazeppa is heading right for them."

"If we raced them and he saw the change in the waters, he might put her hard over and I won't risk a collison."

"Yes, sir."

 

The captain of the Mazeppa flipped open the lid of the speaking-tube.

He blew hard into it, knowing the plug at the other end was a whistle, that a man's hard-shoved breath would cause it to scream loudly enough to be heard over the engine room sounds, and that the engineer would remove the plug and shout into his end, and sure enough he did.

"Aye, sir."

"MORE STEAM, DAMN YOU! I WANT MORE STEAM!"

"AYE, SIR!"

The Captain flipped his whistle-lid back onto the speaking-tube, snarling a little, and he turned, gripped the wheel again, his eyes sweeping the water.

I'll outrun the Star, he thought, and she'll be a prize --

The Mazeppa lurched to a very unexpected stop and even high above the deck, there in the wheelhouse, he could hear the hissing sound of sand and gravel punishing their flat steel hull as they grounded hard on a sandbar.

 

"Phmmm," the Captain grunted. "I thought as much."

His mate lowered his spyglass, shook his head.

"She's hard aground, sir, and she's not level. A bad sign."

"Oh, aye, it is that," the Captain agreed. "She's nose-up and they'll play hell getting her off that."

"I doubt if we could stop in this current."

"We could but it would be ... inconvenient."

"Yes, sir."

The Star of Cincinnati continued downstream, her progress steady and unhurried, her red-painted paddle wheel turning in an almost leisurely fashion: across the river, the Mazeppa's side wheels churned impotently, trying to back off the sand and gravel that held her fast.

"If the Captain has any sense," the mate murmured, "he'll reverse on side and then the other and walk her off."

"I believe you have done that."

"I have, sir, out on the Missouri."

"It would be a useful ability."

"Yes, sir. I prefer a sidewheeler for the Western rivers, for that very reason."

The Captain grunted, nodding, patted his mate on the shoulder. "For that reason, I am recommending you as Captain of the Star once we get to New Orleans."

The mate nodded, smiling a little.

He'd hoped to make Captain, and knowing the Star was sold and she'd need a new man at the helm, he was hoping most sincerely to persuade the new owners that he was the man for the job.

The recommendation of the current Captain would go a very long way toward that goal.

 

Daffyd Llewellyn walked the short distance from the firehouse to his own residence.

He walked in a daze, a man suddenly lost.

His wife saw him staggering woodenly down the sidewalk, on the other side of the picket fence, and her heart jumped into her throat to see the expression on his face.

She threw the door wide, ran down the sidewalk, her skirts snatched up in both hands: she ran up to him, seized his arms, then pressed her palms against his cheeks: "Daffyd, what is it? Daffyd? Daffyd, can you hear me?"

Daffyd Llewellyn looked at his wife as if he were looking at a lamp post, then he blinked and recognition flowed into them like tea poured into a porcelain cup.

He seized his wife in a crushing embrace and shook his head, pressing his cheek into her curled hair, holding her with the desperation of a drowning man clutching a life-ring in a stormy sea.

She held him as he shivered and his breath shuddered in his throat, she held him as he regained some semblance of the equilibrium, the steadiness that had ever been his hallmark: she held him for what must have been several minutes, out on the sidewalk, beside the street, right in front of God and everybody.

Finally she took his hand and towed him into the house, like he was a lost little boy, and indeed that is exactly how he felt, and Daffyd Llewellyn began kicking himself again for harsh words hastily spoken, words that he could never recall, for which he could never ask an apology.

Adrianna sat him down at their kitchen table, and she poured hot tea, freshly brewed, and she sat down with him with tea of her own, and she waited.

Finally he quit staring at the center of the table and looked over at the trunks and he looked at his wife.

"How say you, Ruth?" he whispered hoarsely. "How say you to the far Western frontier?"

Adrianna sipped her tea, placed her china teacup on its saucer, and reached across the table, laid gentle fingertips on the back of his hand.

"Whither thou goest," she whispered, "I goest."

"My dear," he said, his ears flaming with shame, "I have been a fool and a damned fool. I will tell the Chief in the morning."

"What happened, Daffyd?" she whispered again.

His stare was that of a man utterly, absolutely lost.

"My uncle ... the Sheriff ..." -- he swallowed -- "was killed today in a riverboat explosion."

 

The Star of Cincinnati was just short of abreast when the Mazeppa exploded.

One moment she was thrashing furiously at the waters, smoke blasting skyward from her twin, crowned stacks, the next she was a ruin, all smoke and fire and pieces of wood and iron spinning through the air and falling back to the river.

The Captain seized the bell-rope, gave the signal for full stop: the great, shining, red paddle wheel stopped, then reversed, pounding powerfully against the waters, slowing and then stopping the majestic riverboat.

A little boy in a Fauntleroy suit and ribboned hat gripped the railing and stared, slack jawed and wide eyed, as the smoke lifted and steam rose, as what used to be a boat sagged, her back broke, most of the superstructure gone.

He paid no attention to the sharp sound of jagged metal falling to the deck around him and he never heard one sharp edged piece that missed his left cheek by a finger's breadth and buried itself into the wooden wall behind him.

There were excited voices below him and on either side of him, and as his mother stared at the maritime ruin and cupped a hand over her mouth and took in a sharp, dismayed breath, he heard a familiar voice, a voice he'd heard only in gentle conversation, but now loud and harsh -- "YAAA!" -- and two heavy splashes.

He thrust up on tiptoes, looked down at the sight of two men a-horseback who'd just leaped from the lower deck and into the water: he watched two stallions swim powerfully across the current, to the ruin, saw the men swing from the saddle and into the water, and through the debris, one hand on the saddlehorn and the other sorting through shattered flotsam.

There was still smoke, thick smoke a-swirl, and a cloud swung around and blocked their view.

The boy looked to his right, past the Texas, and he saw the Star's mate with a spyglass leaning over the railing, studying the ruin: below them, a boat arrowed out from the Star toward the wreck, two men at the oars and two more on board: they drew a quick, widening line in the water as they too breasted the current.

The smoke cleared and the horses were coming back toward the Star: each had a limp body in the saddle, with the Sheriff and his son swimming beside and gripping the saddlehorn, stroking and kicking to help their progress.

He leaned over the rail and could just see eager hands grasping for the injured pair as the horses came alongside.

His Mama forbade his going belowdecks to see any more; she seized his hand and drew him quickly into their cabin, and shut the door, shutting out this horror, isolating them in their haven of normalcy, denying that anything at all had gone wrong.

Young Michael James Showalter the Third thought of two brave men and their horses, leaping into the water without command and without hesitation, and he thought of how they saved at least two from a certain death.

Michael James Showalter the Third was but a boy, and a young boy at that, but he knew when something was right and when it was not, and he knew with no doubt at all that what he'd just seen was not only Right, it was Absolutely Right, and his young soul rejoiced that there were strong men from the Great American West on board.

As long as he had the Sheriff nearby, he knew, he would be safe, and that is a good feeling for a boy far from home.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

10. "THEY'RE ALIVE!"

"No," the Captain said. "We stay."

"Yes, sir."

The first mate looked at the approaching boats.
"We will have relief, sir."

"As soon as we are duly relieved, we may proceed." The Captain's eyes never left the smoking wreck. "But not until."

"Yes, sir."

"How many survivors have we thus far?"

"Six, sir. All injured, three badly, two not expected to live."

The Captain took a long breath, his eyes bleak: he'd seen riverboat explosions before, and survived one himself.

Only the fact that he was on the foredeck, and the explosion blew him into the water, saved him from serious injury and quite probably his own death.

"You've not eaten for some time, Captain. Shall I have a meal sent up?"

"No." The Captain fixed his first officer with a hard look, then pressed his lips together, looked away. "No, but I have need of relief of a non-Masonic variety. You have the bridge"

"Yes, sir."

 

Everyone not involved in crewing the Wanderer crowded her foredecks, straining for the first glimpse of the tragedy.

The Wanderer had been pressed into service as a rescue and relief vessel the moment word of the explosion reached the docks.

She'd been quickly fueled and provisioned, with physicians, supplies and coffins, with many willing hands -- so many they had to be turned away -- only Daffyd Llewellyn's fireman's uniform got him on board, he and his wife, and their two trunks were hastily placed in a high cabin: he'd purchased a spyglass on their hurried drive to the docks, and with his wife's hand in his, and the spyglass gripped tightly and held against his chest, he stood with the throng and looked down river as massive engines throbbed and surged beneath them.

"Daffyd," Adrianna asked in a small voice, "should we have wired Firelands before we left?"

"No." His voice was firm but not harsh. "No. We need to confirm ..."

His jaw thrust out and he took a long breath.

"We need to confirm first. I should have arranged an undertaker's services, we'll need to have them embalmed." He looked forward, his eyes bleak. "If their bodies can even be found."

There was little conversation, just the sound of the big steam engines breathing, the rush of water under and around the paddle wheel, the light chuckle of water sucking air under the broad, almost flat hull: they made good speed, they made racing speed downriver: helped by the current, they made the tragic scene in a short time that felt like just under a year and a half to the anxious watchers.

Daffyd extended the spyglass, carefully, listening to it click and chuckle as it came to full length: he peered through it, his chest tightening as he saw the half-sunk, back-broke sidewheeler, still nose-up on the sandbar: men labored on her, around her, and he could see still figures laying out on what was now exposed sand, some covered, most not.

Bodies.

Adrianna whispered, "What do you see?" and he whispered back, "Death," and handed her the telescope.

She took it awkwardly, frowned a little as she put it to her good eye, and he heard her intake of breath.

"No," she whispered, then she handed him back the glass and leaned her forehead against his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him.

He felt more than heard her soul-deep groan.

He raised the glass, looked again at how many still forms lay on the sand by the shoreline.

 

Angela Keller turned slowly, nodding in approval.

The men had complained, growled, groused, belly ached and pitched a big one when she came out and asked the roundhouse foreman if he would please have the roundhouse ready for a Board of Directors inspection two weeks from that day.

A roundhouse is not a boardroom, nor is it a dining hall: a roundhouse is where the locomotives are serviced, where boilers are scraped out or re-tubed as needed, where heavy equipment is hoist with massive, overhead cranes, or jacked up with shiprigger's jacks, where new babbitt is poured for bearings, where language is coarse, work is hot and hard and heavy, and where callus-palmed and hard-muscled men labor and sweat and swear and tell obscene jokes and laugh and swear and spit.

Two weeks it took, but the task was complete, and when Angela Keller led the Board of Directors into the roundhouse, it still looked like a roundhouse -- it still smelled like a roundhouse -- men still sweated and swore and hoist one end of a passenger car so they could replace the wheel and axle and pry out the old bearings and get ready to pour new -- but it was considerably neater than it had been.

Angela led the businessmen in fine suits and shined shoes across the shop floor to a new locomotive.

She wore the Z&W insignia on the side of her cab, the spray of roses tied with a black ribbon -- the ribbon was now black and had been since the death of the green-eyed Esther Keller -- and Angela laid a hand on the shining, clean, buffed wood.

"Gentlemen, this is our newest investment," she said, her voice pitched to carry across the shop: men stopped their labors to look, for a woman's voice in such a men's environment was not a common thing. "This is the newest of Baldwin's designs. The boiler is more efficient, the linkage has a better angle of incidence" -- she pointed to the massive, cast-iron drivers -- "which gives her the best mechanical advantage on a hard pull, and here in the mountains, everything is a hard pull!"

Her smile was met with nods of understanding, and she saw a softening of expression among the Board members.

"I asked the board meeting to be held here, gentlemen, because a business is not a boardroom and ledgers." She looked up at the cab, then paced slowly toward the engine's nose. "A business is sweat and labor, it is decisions made at every level, it is the customer's opinion, it is telegraph messages at unexpected moments" -- she turned suddenly -- "and we can't let ourselves think we're more important than the steel rails she runs on, because without the steel and sweat, fire and smoke, we" -- she made an encompassing, palms-up gesture -- "we here would all be out of business!"

She clapped her hands briskly together.

"The mines are still our best customer and by all indications they are quite happy with our arrangement. We are quite happy to have their business. Hauling ore is a low risk operation in terms of theft. The ore is of almost no value to the casual thief." She crooked her finger, swung around the red-painted cowcatcher, stepped delicately across rails sunk flush into the cement floor. "For more valuable cargo" -- she indicated a boxcar with a wave of her hand -- "we have this.

"You are familiar with our express cars. This is another of the kind, but stronger. Train robbers have used powder and even dynamite to blow open a car. I will not be so foolish as to tell you this can't be blown open -- given enough Big Dan, you can crack open a granite mountain!" -- her smile was contagious, as was the enthusiasm in her voice -- "but this is probably the strongest and most theft-proof car available!"

"How much did it cost?" one of the board members challenged, and Angela favored him with a disarming, pretty smile, which told that particular board member she was about to cut him off at the knees.

"This is a prototype, sir. Our shop here made it. It is one of a kind, it is the only one of its kind, and because the mines ship refined gold from their refining works to the Mint, they wanted something to ship it in. They stood the cost and they will be inspecting this car later today. If it meets their approval they will order more, which we will build."

The roundhouse foreman, standing behind the rearmost board member, smiled a little as he remembered the green-eyed, red-headed wife of the Old Sheriff, and how she would come out and talk to the men.

This pretty girl he'd watched grow up wasn't that Irish belle they'd all admired, but she was shaping up very nicely ... both in terms of her own maturity (and beauty!) -- but she knew how to get the entire Board of Directors eating out of her hand.

Angela clapped her hands twice and the big sliding doors rumbled open, and men with tables and porters with covered dishes swarmed into the roundhouse floor, followed by a half-dozen boys, each with a chair in left hand and right.

"And what is a meeting without a meal? A moment, gentlemen, and we can be seated, and we can discuss further business over a fine dinner."

The foreman nodded approval as he watched the quick, efficient setup, saw glasses placed and drink poured.

He thought of the portrait of Esther Keller, hung in his small, Spartan office there in the roundhouse, and he smiled a little to himself.

You might not have your Mama's red hair, little Missy, he thought, but by God! you've got your Mama's smarts!

 

"The Wanderer, sir," the mate said as the Captain returned to the wheelhouse.

The Captain accepted the spyglass, focused on the approach of the smart-looking packet.

"Packet boat," he muttered. "Well, she's fast, I'll give her that."

"Yes, sir."

 

Young Michael James Showalter the Third, in knee pants and his ribboned hat, scampered down the stairs and slipped between men and around obstructions, until he finally stood beside a stack of straw bales panting a little, looking at the two Appaloosa stallions who looked back at him.

Disappointed, he looked around, then jumped when a hand rested lightly on his shoulder.

"Hello again," a familiar voice said quietly, and he turned, his grin quick and genuine.

"I saw you" -- he thrust an excited finger at the horses, then at the ruin across the river -- "I, how come, why didn't you --"

"Slow down," Samuel said quietly, squatting and resting his hands on the eager boy's shoulders: "Now start over at half speed. You saw what?"

"I saw you ride across the river," Michael repeated, stopping and taking a big breath: "how come you didn't ride, I saw you kind of slid out and hung onto that thing on your saddle --"

Samuel grinned, nodding, looked over at his saddle.

"That thing is called a saddle horn, or a roping horn. Did you see how much of the horse was out of the water when he swam?"

Young Michael nodded, then stopped, puzzled, and frowned.

"Not very much," Samuel continued. "Had I ridden him he would have had trouble keeping his head high enough to breathe air."

Comprehension and a little disappointment dawned in the boy's eyes.

"On the return trip, now, there were a few places he had to swim, but that's shallow through there, barely enough to pass a boat over if you know where to go. Apple kept touching bottom and that was enough to keep him breathin' air instead of water."

"Oh," young Michael said, and Samuel grinned to see understanding in the boy's expression, and he felt an odd satisfaction.

This must be what Sarah talked about when she spoke of schoolteaching, he thought.

"Packet a-comin'," someone shouted, and Samuel rose.

"Wonder what that is," he murmured, then looked down at Michael. "Want to find out?"

Michael James Showalter the Third, in that moment, was not a little boy in a sissy suit and a girly hat: he was an eager young boy, the same as any eager young boy, and the two walked over to the rail and forward, until they could see the red-white-and-black packet bearing downriver under full steam.

 

Daffyd Llewellyn was a product of his lifetime and the result of every decision he'd ever made.

He'd chosen to stride boldly into buildings from which sane and rational people were running as hard as they could go.

He'd waded into a good old fashioned knock down drag out street brawl when his men were attacked by a mob, he'd faced up to and faced down a variety of large and angry people bearing a variety of weapons, he'd used a straight tip and better than a hundred pounds of water pressure to knock interfering civilians onto their backsides when they got in his way at a fire scene: he'd grabbed bloody wounds and squeezed as hard as his strong young fingers could clamp down, desperately trying to keep life from spurting out in red fountains, and he'd been successful in all but one, and he'd ground his teeth and wept scalding tears as everything he knew failed to keep a life from dribbling out from his clutching grip.

Daffyd Llewellyn raised the spyglass and swung it left, to the Star of Cincinnati, to the boats shuttling across the river between the wreck and the rescue.

He stopped and drew the glass out a little, then in, and he focused on the Star's foredeck near the waterline.

A young man, and a little boy, and they were both looking at him.

Adrianna saw her husband's mouth open.

Daffyd Llewellyn saw a third man come up behind them, a lean man with a handlebar mustache.

"Oh," he said, and Adrianna blinked: "my," and Adrianna's hand went to her lips, then the very reverent, "God."

Adrianna looked over at her husband and opened her mouth, then closed it, for when a strong man has water starting to run down his face, the wise wife knows better than to speak of it.

Daffyd lowered the spyglass, looked at his wife, handed the telescope to an anonymous hand and seized his wife, crushing her to him, burying his face in her hair.

"They're alive," he whispered. "They're alive!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

11. A HANGING OFFENSE

 

Not everyone was watching the relief flotilla steaming downriver, and not every set of eyes gazed with dismay upon the smoking wreck of what was once a trim, smart looking sidewheeler.

There were eyes that regarded the matched pair of Appaloosa stallions with envy and with what looked like good old fashioned lust ... the expression a thief has when he sees something he wishes to take.

As a matter of fact he started to reach for the rearmost horse when a quiet voice said "I wouldn't."

He froze.

"He'll take your fingers off up to the elbow," Jacob said quietly, his expression as placid as his voice.

"How much you want for 'em?"

"They're not for sale."

A deck of cards appeared from a coat pocket and the man began to shuffle them with a little too much dexterity.

Card sharper, Jacob thought, and Samuel faded quietly to his left, leaving the stranger to deal exclusively with his father.

"When I leave this boat," the man said, "those horses are coming with me." His smile was almost a sneer. "Whether you like it or not."

Jacob's eyes were suddenly wide open, and the stranger could see they were ice-pale and as soft and welcoming as mountain granite.

"That sounds like a threat," Jacob said, his voice still quiet, "and I don't like threats."

"I'll bet you a friendly hand that --"

"And where I come from threatenin' to steal a man's horse is cousin to the act, and stealin' a man's horse is a hangin' offense."

"See here! You can't talk to me like that --"

Jacob stepped in and backhanded the man.

Hard.

Cards exploded from the sharper's hand and blood squirted from a broken nose.

Another man started to move and there was a sudden chak-BOOM!-chak-chak! and the ring of a fired brass shotgun hull hitting the steel deck: both stallions flinched and pulled back against the straw bale wall as the second man collapsed, a hole the size of his fist in his center chest.

Blood and dark heart muscle splattered against the card sharper's back.

The card sharper held very, very still, not even daring to raise his hand to wipe at the blood streaming from his broken beak.

Jacob turned his lapel over to show his six point star.

"If you were a gentleman," he said, still speaking quietly, "I just challenged you to a duel of honor, but thieves have no honor so here's your choice."

Behind the sharper, Samuel held the muzzle-smoking 97 Winchester across his chest, turning slowly, meeting every eye, and at the sound of a shotgun between the decks, there were many eyes and more arriving.

"You can get onto one of those boats coming down river or you can swim and if I ever see you again I will kill you on sight."

The sharper turned slowly and froze at the sight of the unmoving, bloody form face-down on the deck, the dark-red and surprisingly bloodless hole centered over his spine right about shirt pocket level ... a hole the size of two fingers.

He looked up at the pale eyed younger man holding a shotgun, a younger version of the pale-eyed Sheriff, and he slowly, carefully, raised his hands away from his body, fingers splayed.

The first mate came thundering down the broad, painted stairs, froze at the sight of death on the deck, a lawman with justice in his hand, another facing a man with a decidedly guilty expression and his hands spread and lifted a little.

He considered a moment, then addressed the Sheriff.

"Your prisoner, sir?"

"Only until he can take another boat."

"I doubt if another boat will take him."

The Sheriff nodded, then seized the man -- his grip was sudden, tight, inescapable, and he half-carried, half-dragged the man to the edge of the deck and heaved him a surprising distance into the Ohio River.

"You want the carcass?" he asked, and the mate blinked and shook his head, and the Sheriff turned the man over -- he studied the face, opened his coat, went through his pockets, relieved him of the pistol still clutched in his right hand -- he tossed the thick wallet to the mate, looked up at Samuel.

"Know him?"

Samuel frowned at the darkening complexion.

"No, sir."

"You?"

The mate shook his head. "I've seen him aboard, generally standing back while that fellow" -- he thrust a chin at the man thrashing noisily in the water -- "cheated at cards. He was due to be put off the boat at next port-of-call." He looked back at the Sheriff. "Just out of curiosity ... what did he do?"

"He threatened a lawman."

The mate laughed, a sharp, cynical bark, then he shouted as the unwanted outcast disappeared around the end of the boat, "Were you born stupid or did you learn that in school?" He shook his head. "Damned fool!"
"Yeah, I thought so."

He looked at the broom dedicated for shoving road apples off the deck and into the river.

Samuel murmured, "Excuse me," and slipped past him, handed the shotgun to his Pa, then bent and gripped the dead man's coat: he dragged the exanimate form to the edge of the deck and unceremoniously dumped him in, waited until he sank.

Samuel picked up a bucket and tossed it into the river, pulling it back in with its attached rope.

"Reckon I'd best clean up my mess," he said, and sloshed river water over the fresh blood. "Ketch it while it's frash. Pass me attair broom, would you?"

 

Angela hummed a little as she curled Polly's hair.

"Now hold still," she soothed. "You're nervous as a cat --"

"In a room full of rocking chairs, I know!"

"You'd think you were getting married!"

"I am!"

Angela sighed, squeezed Polly's shoulders, smiled at her in the mirror.

Polly was seated, and Angela, standing behind; Opal sat as well, but facing the two, her black eyes unreadable.

"Jacob is supposed to give me away," Polly whispered, looking at Angela's reflection with big, scared eyes. "Where is he?"

"He's on his way back," Angela said confidently.

"Two more days," Polly squeaked, her complexion decidedly pale. "Two more days!" Her eyes swung hard right and she asked, "Opal, did the Daine --"

"Yes, Polly, he'll play violin for you," Opal said reassuringly: she looked both like her fair-skinned half-sister, and like her Oriental mother, who'd died shortly after birthing her: her straight, absolutely jet-black hair and the epicanthic folds at the corners of her eyes gave her an exotic beauty, which gained men's admiring looks, something she very carefully pretended not to notice.

"He'll play violin," Polly bleated, "but will he play violin, or will he play fiddle? I don't want him to play a square dance when I'm getting married, it'll be an Event, the very best of society will be there --"

She stopped and looked at Angela's reflection: Angela colored a little, then pressed the back of her bent wrist to her lips, and then she and Polly and Opal all three began to laugh.

"Society?" Opal giggled, and three young women shared a moment's lessening of their shared tensions.

 

The Captain shook Jacob's hand, then Samuel's.

"Gentlemen," he said, "a shame you can't journey to Orleans with me!"

"Thank you, sir, but I must give a young woman away in marriage."

The Captain grinned broadly, clapped Jacob heartily on the shoulders: "Well done, then, and my congratulations to the lucky young lady!"

"Thank you, sir," Jacob grinned.

"Just one thing." The Captain dipped a hand in his pocket, came up with two lapel pins, handed one to Jacob and one to his son.

Jacob blinked, stared at the Arc-and-Compasses in his hand: they were hand-chased gold, with blue inlay and a diamond at the apex of the compasses.

Samuel's pin was identical.

"I understand your father was Past Master," the Captain said quietly. "And I understand you're in the Chairs."

"I am, sir."

"And you, young man."

"Sir?"

"I take it you will be following in your honored ancestors' footsteps."

Samuel looked at the arc-and-compasses in his palm, then looked up at the Captain.

"You're damned right I will," he said firmly. "I believe this" -- he hefted the tiny weight in his palm -- "is what a man would call a vote of confidence?"

"Yes," the Captain agreed, nodding. "It is exactly that. Father, how say you?"

"Yes," Jacob grinned. "Yes, it is."

"Good!" The Captain stepped back as the stallions shifted a little, eager to be moving. "Safe trip, then, enjoy yourselves, and tell that lucky young lady that an old grandfather is most pleased for her upcoming nuptials!"

"I shall, sir!"

 

Lightning inclined his head a little as the sounder began to clatter.

He reached for the whittled pencil, the spaced, metallic clicks flowing into his ears and out the sharpened point onto the telegraph form.

He re-read it, mentally comparing it with the sounder's message, nodded, then tore it free of the pad, handed it to the waiting messenger boy.

"Take this to the Rosenthal ranch," he said, and the boy grinned, for a message for the Rosenthal ranch meant a coin in his hand and generally pie in his belly.

He was off at a sprint, and he slackened not his pace until he was at their porch.

Bonnie, Polly, Opal and Angela crowded tight together to read Lightning's precise print: the form was pressed down on the table, held flat by many fingers, and the ladies read the message:

DELAY DUE TO TRESTLE COLLAPSE STOP BOARDING EXPRESS NOW STOP WILL BE ON TIME STOP JACOB

 

It was not the first time Jacob silently thanked the red-headed shade of his dear mother, for she'd built very good relations with every railroad he'd ever ridden, and when he needed an express train, the memory of that green-eyed, red-headed woman still worked wonders.

He heard the whistle scream as they approached another crossing, drivers thrashing hard against steel rails, and he and his son and their two horses set their course toward the setting sun, toward home.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

12. THE CHICKEN

Little boys, dogs, cats and other predators share a common characteristic.

If something moves, be it mouse, butterfly or a noisy bug bumbling across the floor, the instinct is to give chase.

Two little boys – brothers they were, Anderson their name, a year apart and as full of mischief as lads their age normally are – chased after the cackling, flapping chicken.

The chicken (which we know well) was inclined to flee some dread predator.

Exactly what this predator was, we really don’t know, although this chicken had been known to screech and flee a the sight of a fox, a stray dog, or a red ant, not necessarily in that order.

As it was, the double doors were open in the whitewashed church, and the chicken, seeing a shaded and sheltered refuge from whatever terrible monster desired to dine upon its anatomy, squawked and fluttered and scrambled and otherwise entered this swept, dusted, polished and decorated haven of worship and of praise.

The chicken happily perched on the back of a pew, at least until two panting, scrambling boys charged into the sanctum, at which point the chicken let out a screech and made for the front of the church.

The chicken managed to hoist itself from the deck, by virtue of much effort and a few miscellaneous feathers lost, made it over the piano and plummeted to the firmament behind: the older of the two lads, who had yet to see his seventh year, snatched up a fortuitously-placed hat box and dropped it neatly over the hen.

The other lad stopped, panting, obviously having a bad case of More Wind than he could Blow, and watched the hat-box as it did … nothing.

This particular red hen (which we know well) was making no attempt at escape.

As a matter of fact, this red hen (which we know well) found itself in a quiet, shadowed haven, free of pursuit or disturbance.

The two boys looked at the hat box, looked at one another, looked at the decorations in the painfully-clean church, looked at one another again, then decided (since the chicken wasn’t theirs anyway) perhaps the climate might be healthier some distance away.

Two boys, age five and six, ran down the aisle and down the stairs and around back of the church, and from there … well, boys tend to cover ground at an amazing rate, and perhaps we’ll let them do just that.

You see, not three minutes later, more feet trod the church’s confines: today was noted on the local calendar, people were taken with the notion that perhaps more than the Saturday night bath was in order, suits were brushed, dresses examined and tried on before long mirrors, ribbons and hats adjusted: Parson Belden walked slowly down the aisle as he always did, a little more slowly now than in years past, for the passing winters had left the stains of many snows in his full head of hair: loyal handmaidens swept in, making a final dust-mop run down the aisle and over the wooden floor, the Parson stepped up behind his podium and consulted his well thumbed, limp backed Bible, smiled a little as he ran thoughtful fingers over the faded paper: he knew the passages he would recite by heart, the ancient and familiar Book more a prop than a working tool.

Back at the Rosenthal ranch, Polly Rosenthal stood in front of the mirror, her heart running at an alarming rate, staring at the stranger in the mirror.

When Bonnie explained that brides wore white not to demonstrate their purity, but rather to show – to flaunt – that the family was wealthy enough to wear a dress that would show every spot and flaw, a dress to be worn only once – horribly wasteful! -- a custom begun by a British queen with a twisted spine, Polly frowned a little and considered, and went over to Bonnie’s work table and selected a shade of emerald that was at once a delight to the seamstress, and poignantly sad: emerald was ever her dear friend Esther’s favorite shade, and her little girl, her newborn Dana, had been christened in a gown made of her wedding dress’s skirt … a christening gown of this same identical shade of emerald.

Polly swallowed and opened her mouth with full intent to declare how beautiful the dress was, and all that came out was a little squeak.

Bonnie leaned over her shoulder, kissed her on the cheek, gripped her shoulders: she whispered, “I said exactly the same thing when I got married!” and Polly blinked, and Opal handed her a kerchief, and Polly pressed it to her left eye, then to her right.

Opal wore a dress of a lighter shade, of a similar style, but Polly’s was clearly the showpiece, the masterwork of the seamstress’s art.

Behind her, Bonnie measured out something into a tablespoon, poured it into a small glass, handed it to the bride-to-be.

“Drink,” she whispered, “Mother’s orders.”

Polly drank and almost dropped the glass.

Bonnie seized it before it could come loose from Polly’s shocked grip: her daughter blinked, coughed, wheezed, coughed again and declared, “That’s awful!”

“I know, dear, but it will help your nerves,” Bonnie said soothingly.

“What was that stuff?” she wheezed, raising a careless sleeve to wipe her eyes – Opal seized her forearm, held it down, pressed the kerchief back into her hand with a hissed, “Don’t stain the material!” and Polly managed a little smile.

“It’s something the Daine boys make upon the mountain,” Bonnie said offhandedly. “Now you look just darling! Don’t you dare sit down. Opal, let’s get you finished up now.”

Bonnie stopped, smiled, tilted her head a little.

“Just one more thing.”

She slipped a hand into a hidden pocket and withdrew an ivory brooch, an oval with a hand-tinted rose in its center, framed with four emeralds.

Polly’s breath caught and her eyes widened as she recognized the piece.

“Mama,” she whispered, and Bonnie smiled.

“I know, sweets. It belonged to your Aunt Esther. She wanted you to have it.”

Polly raised her chin as her Mama made the brooch fast at the hollow of her throat, then she turned and looked in the mirror.

Now I really need that kerchief!

Angela Keller smiled at Parson Belden as she paced up the aisle.

Someday, she thought, someday … I will be a bride, and I will walk up this aisle, and I will have Jacob’s arm and I will meet a handsome man before the Altar, and I …

I am kidding myself.

I am the Sheriff’s daughter and nobody will touch me with a ten foot pole.

Angela sat at the piano, settling herself on the wheeled piano stool: she spread her fingers, caressed the ivories like a mother caresses her child, and Parson Belden allowed his thoughts to roam away from his prepared presentation to the delightful waterfall of sound Angela brought out of their newly-tuned piano.

More arrivals, more interruptions: the Parson closed his old familiar text and withdrew two steps, sat.

It felt good to sit.

 

Albert Daine was a gifted man.

His were the talents of the artist: he could draw, and did, his pencil sketches were remarkably lifelike, and when he could get a few colors of paint, he delighted in making colored drawings, but his heart’s delight was music, and his preferred instrument was the curly-backed fiddle.

That pretty little Rosenthal girl (he thought of any female of fewer years than he as “that pretty little girl”) asked him if he’d play for her wedding.

He’d said yes, of course; he’d been part of the community for years, he’d watched her grow from infancy into womanhood, and had she asked him to sling a chain around the moon and haul it down with a team of oxen, he’d have found a way to make it happen.

He’d cleaned up for the occasion.

His suit was almost presentable: his wrists and ankles stuck out from their appropriate coverings, which troubled him not at all, most of his clothes fit him that-a-way, and it suited him for fiddlin’, for he was a wrist-fiddler: his Pa taught him to fiddle by settin’ a high back chair beside him and putting his elbow on the chair’s back. Not many men fiddled that-a-way, but he did, and he was good at it.

Angela played the music on the piano that Polly wanted played for her wedding, and Albert Daine listened to it, his face serious and his head nodding a little: he could not read music, but he could play it if he heard it, and when Angela played “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” and explained this was played at fancy and high-toned weddings, why, he allowed as he would play it for her with a smile on his face.

Albert Daine was used to fiddling for square dances, and his style was lively; he toned down his delivery to the point of sounding like he was playing a hymn, and both Angela and Polly pronounced it delightful.

Now, as Angela played the Jesu, Albert played as well, his mountain fiddle singing reverently in the empty church.

 

Jacob Keller checked his watch.

The conductor saw the move, checked his own, nodded with satisfaction.

“We are exactly on time, Sheriff,” he said firmly. “We’ll get you there on time.”

“We’ve just over ten minutes,” Jacob said. “When we arrive, have our things set out on the platform, we’ll be leaving immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

The conductor smiled a little.

He knew what the Sheriff meant when he said they would be leaving immediately, and he was right.

The very moment the train was stopped and the stock car door opened, men were waiting to haul up and hook in the ramp: father and son strode down the ramp, their horses in tow, and as soon as boot leather left the cross-cleated ramp and set down on good Firelands dirt, they turned and were in the saddle, just that fast.

 

The church didn’t take long to fill up.

Everybody and their uncle wanted to be here, either to see, or to be seen; others were at the Silver Jewel, seeing to the wedding dinner’s preparation: Mercantile, barbershop, bakery and funeral parlor were all closed for the event, their little hospital somehow managed to get everyone healed up and sent home so they could attend, staff and patients alike: all was happy anticipation, the father of the bride shaking hands outside, Angela pacing back and forth across the front of the church, Parson Belden watching her, knowing this was her routine before a musical performance.

Carriages of various types arrived, were received and arranged in the back field, nose bags and other implements employed to guarantee the satisfaction of the horses, and on the nearby Graveyard Hill, the two Anderson boys watched the church, squirming and uncomfortable and wishing most sincerely they’d brought the chicken out with them.

 

Polly pressed her palms together, touched her forefingers lightly to her lips.

Opal looked at her, concerned: her sister was clearly worried sick.

“He’ll be here,” she whispered. “Even if he couldn’t make it, Papa will walk you down the aisle, you know that.”

“I know,” Polly whispered back, “it’s just –“

They turned and looked out the open doors at the sound of horses approaching at a canter.

Father and son drew up and dismounted, handed their bitless reins to the boy, strode purposefully for the broad, solid steps.

Jacob swept off his hat, tucked it under his off arm, raised Polly’s knuckles to his lips.

“I hear tell there’s a wedding here today,” he grinned.

Polly was not sure to laugh or to cry with relief, so she thought quickly and decided on something her sister Sarah might have done.

She kicked Jacob right in the shin.

Hard.

 

Angela’s face colored delicately as she saw her big brother flinch and jump up and down on one leg, still holding Polly’s hand: she bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing, then turned, looked at Albert Daine, gave him a deep, slow nod.

Albert Daine raised his bow, took a long breath, and smiled a little, and that dreamy look of his came over his eyes as he spun the Ode to Joy at its leisurely, reverent rate.

 

Father of the bride and mother of the bride came first, their gait sedate, measured; they were followed by Opal, on Samuel’s arm, and Albert took a little step to the side, just enough to ease his old bones – he’d been standing in one position too long – his boot caught on the one, the only upraised board edge and near to tripped him.

To his credit he never missed a note, but he stumbled and fell heavily against the piano.

The piano was set on small, steel casters, as was the piano stool: Angela, shocked that the piano was suddenly steering a portside course, drove her right foot to the side, slammed her shoe sole on the wood brace between the piano leg and the piano’s frame; spreading her legs quickly, desperately, she hooked her left foot around the left hand piano leg, and the piano stool obediently rolled with the piano, with the net effect that she, too, never missed a note.

Unfortunately, this effort, and another stumble by the elderly Daine, shoved a certain hat-box out of alignment, and an indignant red hen (which we happen to know well) came cackling and flapping up over the piano just as Angela’s dress got caught under the rolling stool’s caster and pulled her over: off-balance, she hit the floor, the chicken went screeching and cackling down the aisle, flapping its way out the front door, gaining just enough altitude to smack Jacob across the forehead with one wing on its way by.

The wedding procession stopped.

Every head turned.

Jacob blinked and rubbed his forehead, then he looked at the beautiful young woman and said in a loud voice, “Well, there goes supper,” which broke the tension.

There was a general, quiet laugh; Angela struggled to her feet, gathered up a great handful of dress material, gave her skirt a savage yank, which knocked the piano stool over with a BANG and she glared at it and snapped, “Try that again and I’ll feed you to the stove!”

Parson Belden was chewing on his knuckle to keep from laughing, though his face was turning the approximate shade of an overripe boysenberry; well did he remember the time the Sheriff reduced a recalcitrant wooden chair to kindling courtesy a convenient ax, right in the very center of the street: Levi Rosenthal gave up all pretense of solemnity: he bent over, he sniggered, he snorted, he laughed, and Albert Daine gave up on that slow, dignified hymn he’d been playing.

He started over.

This time he played the Jesu, and note-perfect he played it, but he played it well more than twice as fast as it was ordinarily heard: it was lively, it was brisk, and Jacob thrust a pointing arm forward, threw his head back and proceeded to skip down the aisle, Polly skipping happily on his arm: Samuel and Opal looked back at them, then looked at one another, shrugged, and skipped along ahead of them.

Parson Belden was wiping his eyes as he came down to floor level, as he always did: he looked at the father of the bride, and the father of the bride looked at him, and both men laughed again, Levi coming to his feet, for he would be needed in a moment.

From the back of the church a little boy’s voice called “We caught the chicken!” – and every last head turned and looked – the Anderson boys were in the back of the church, the red hen in the older boy’s grip – then the boys gave a little “Uh-oh,” and started backing out of the church, one step at a time, at least until they got to the steps and both of them went down the stairs backwards, the chicken launching out of its imprisoning grip and the sound of cackling and feathered scolding faded into the distance.

Parson Belden waited until the general mirth and merriment died down before beginning.

“Dearly beloved,” he began, pitching his voice to carry the old and familiar words to the back of the church, and a little boy – chafing at wearing scratchy wool and a necktie – asked loudly, “Mama, when’s he gonna kiss her?”

This, of course, pricked the small bubble of solemnity: the Parson was obliged to let the collective mirth die out yet again, Levi Rosenthal leaned his head back and laughed heartily, Jacob did his best to look very innocent and failed miserably in the effort, and Samuel looked at Opal and bit his bottom lip, his ears flaming a truly remarkable shade of crimson.

“Dearly beloved,” the Parson began, and his voice stilled the murmurs; he heard his words echo back from the far wall, and he knew his pitch was just right, when he felt a tug, tug on his pants leg.

A little girl with big, bright eyes was looking up at him, gripping his pants leg.

“Why hello there,” he said gently. “Did you come to help?”

An embarrassed aunt came scuttling up, snatched away the child, and the now-broadly-grinning Parson found he had to wait a little longer before he, and they, were ready to proceed: this time Sheriff and son, father of the bride and bridegroom alike laughed loudly and well, the mother of the bride gave up trying to look embarrassed, and Angela added fuel to the fire by playing a quick “Shave-and-a-haircut, two bits!” on the piano.

“Third time’s a charm,” the chuckling Parson declared. “Dearly beloved” --

He stopped and looked around suspiciously, exaggerating his scrutiny, his head thrust forward like an old b’ar, peering over a set of non-existent spectacles.

“Just wanted to be sure,” he muttered.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here this day in the sight of Almighty God and these witnesses, to join this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony.”

Polly looked up at her Papa and she saw her big, strong Papa swallow, and she saw he was sweating a little, and then she heard the Parson say some more and then she felt her stomach tighten.

This is real.

This is happening.

I am getting married!

She looked to the right, saw her husband-to-be, tall and confident and well-dressed, looking like a bridegroom ought, and for a moment she was terrified and she didn’t want to do this and if she asked her Daddy could they just go home she could change clothes and pretend this never happened –

“Who giveth this woman in marriage?”

Polly froze.

She felt her chest tighten, her breathing quickened: she looked at this man, this stranger, this Charles Cavinee, and she heard her Papa’s deep, reassuring voice say, “Her mother and I do,” and Polly felt like a boat cut loose from the dock in a flood current, for her Papa disengaged her hand from his arm, and Charles Cavinee stepped forward and extended his hand, and her Papa took his hand and hers, and he bent a little and kissed her cheek and then turned to Cavinee, and as he placed her hand in his, he said quietly, “Take care of my little girl,” and Charles said “I will, sir,” and Polly felt strong hands grip her shoulders and steer her the two steps until she and her husband stood squarely in front of the sky pilot.

She heard his words from a very long way off, part of her mind prompting her numb lips to frame the halting, “I do,” at the right moments: she turned a little as Charles held her hand, lightly, carefully, as if he were afraid of cracking an eggshell, and he steered a ring on her finger, and the spell was broken and she could hear again, and she realized the Parson was speaking, but it wasn’t until he said “I now pronounce you man and wife, you may kiss the bride,” that she heard him clearly.

Polly Rosenthal blinked and licked her lips uncertainly as her husband smiled a little, then she raised her face and they ran their arms around each other and as Charles Cavinee laid a good one on his wife, and for the very first time, his wife let him.

Polly happily let her maiden name of Rosenthal fall from her, and she joyfully accepted that she was indeed Mrs. Charles Cavinee.

Polly was numb as she gripped her husband’s arm, Polly was almost deaf again as her husband steered her down the aisle, and Polly did not realize until two days later that for the first time in the history of the little whitewashed Firelands church, the wedding processional, played on a curly back mountain fiddle, was “Turkey in the Straw.”

Somehow, she reflected, it seemed fitting.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

13. THE CONSPIRACY

"Now folks," Jacob declared in a loud voice as the wedding party -- well fed, well danced, ready for the next step in their collective adventure, "I am sure you will all understand that the newlyweds" -- he gave an expansive wave at the blushing bride and the even more furiously blushing groom -- "take our leave. I am equally sure" -- he hooked his thumbs in his gunbelt, looking around with that contagious grin of his, "that you will NOT follow them, you will NOT trouble them, and you will NOT conduct that dastardly, that rascally, that scoundrelly inconsiderate activity called a SHIVAREE!"

"Nah," "No," "Surely not," and other equivalents were happily tossed forth, and everyone present knew every last one of them was lying: the Sheriff well knew this, and he swung easily into the saddle, his son's movements a mirror of his long tall skinny Pa's.

"Mr. and Mrs. Cavinee, move out," he shouted, "I'll keep 'em off your back long as I can!"

Mr. Charles Cavinee snapped the reins and whistled to the spotted grey, the gelding stepping out lively, and Jacob and his son followed for a hundred yards before turning and halting at the end of the street.

It was evident they meant to give the newlyweds as much of a head start as they could.

 

Bonnie McKenna smiled a secret smile, hugged her daughter Opal to her, and Opal giggled, for she knew her Mama's secret.

So did her little sister Linda.

Linda was about eight years old and Linda was a happy, giggly child, and Linda was absolutely delighted when her Mama made her a dress of the same lovely shade of emerald as her big sister's bridal gown.

Opal looked up at her Mama and cupped her hand over her mouth to stifle her mirth.

 

Charles Cavinee set a brisk pace for the first quarter of a mile, then slowed the gelding to a trot, for it was not far to the great stone house Sarah McKenna -- later the widow Llewellyn -- had built, and lived in for her brief but very happy marriage, and for some time after.

Jacob had taken Charles to the house and showed him something ... a secret, known only to the Sheriff, and significant in that it had seen a wedding night once before: thanks to the Sheriff, it was not just clean, but snug, fresh linens on the bed, fresh flowers on the table, the very best Swarovski crystal and a fine California champagne, and there were provisions enough for two people for a couple of days -- even a change of clothes for the two of them.

Cavinee was beyond delighted.

He'd thought, and his wife-to-be had thought, that Jacob was going to set them up in Sarah's house.

That wasn't quite the case.

Cavinee wheeled the carriage up to the great stone house's front door: he ho'd the gelding, set the brake, came around to the starboard side of the carriage and his wife let her husband hoist her out, and carry her to the front door, where he set her down on the front step and kissed her -- shyly, almost delicately, and he whispered, "I have a secret to show you."

"Out here?" Polly giggled, and he took her hand: she picked up her skirt with her free hand and the pair skipped across the grass, to the barn, where a grinning ranch hand held two horses for them.

Husband and wife were saddled up and Polly followed her husband up a narrow, twisting path that went between two huge boulders and through a natural cleft in the mountain, a great crack as if a giant sliced into it with a meat cleaver: the crack was bent, so you could not see more than twenty yards, and it angled up hill, and finally came out in a hidden meadow, and the meadow stretched off for an amazing distance.

Near their emergence was a line shack -- tidy, tight, well made ... a line shack with a lamp burning inside and Sean's wife Daisy waiting for them.

"In wi' ye, now," she smiled, "an' mind ye carry yer wife across th' threshold!" -- she stepped back as Cavinee, his red-faced and giggling bride in his arms, staggered a little as his foot found a little low place, then with a whispered "Bless you, Mrs. Fitzgerald," he crossed the threshold and set his bride down in their little chamber.

Daisy took one set of reins, climbed easily into the saddle: she was Irish, after all, and the Irish are great horsemen, and her father had taught her the saddle when she was but a wee lass: she rode back down the hidden path, slipped back to the barn, and she and the ranch hand slipped into the great stone house by its nearby, side door.

Father and son waited until the crowd was grown and restless before accepting a dishpan and a wooden spoon apiece, from none other than the widow Garrison, who ran the Mercantile now: the Sheriff held up his prizes and raised his voice: "Is everyone ready?"

The crowd raised their own collection of racket makers and shouted in the affirmative.

"With me, then!"

Most of Firelands followed the two lawmen, bent on the happy custom of rudely interrupting the newlyweds' night.

 

Daisy watched through the lace curtains.

They were in an upstairs room, back far enough they could not be seen: they had not struck a light; the next room over, though, had a lamp lit, and they waited, and watched, as the crowd gathered in a rough semi-circle in front of the fine stone house.

On signal there was a raucous burst of tinpan, clatters, a tin bugle of some kind, cowbells: the racket prompted the quick snatch of a curtain from an upstairs window and they could see a female silhouette -- apparently still dressed -- her hair still done up in that recognizable silhouette -- the curtain was drawn wider, and they could see through slightly wavy window glass green emerald, and they could see the white shirt contrasting with turned black lapels, and a necktie dividing the white, then both drew back and the curtain fell back into place.

This of course prompted more hoots, hollers, whistles, tinpan, horn and scattered bell-ringing.

The racket died down a little as a light bloomed in the lower window.

That the front door then opened did not surprise them: it was customary for the newlyweds to receive their inconsiderate visitors and provide them with a minor feast, and so when a young man in a suit and a young woman in an emerald gown emerged onto the front porch, there was some sudden confusion.

The young couple was just that.

Young.

Very young.

The young woman was not even a woman -- though her hair was done up exactly as the bride's had been, and though her gown was the same cut and the same shade as that worn by the bride -- it was one of Polly and Opal's little sisters, and beside her, one of Jacob's sons, and they were both not a month more than eight years old.

There was a great deal of laughter when the entire town realized that -- they hadn't just been had -- they'd been had in a masterful manner, outmaneuvered, outfoxed and outslickered, not necessarily in that order.

Daisy and one of Jacob's ranch hands emerged from the barn, laughing, and the town was invited into Sarah's great stone house, for there was indeed a minor feast for the celebrants, and laughter and merriment continued well into the night.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

14. NIGHT TRAIN

The Silver Jewel had a number of traditions.

It was tradition for a man to hoist his glass to the elk antlers over the bar before going out on a hunt -- some said this was to invoke the luck of the maiden who took that elk with a hand knapped obsidian tipped spear -- another was to call the barkeep "Mr. Baxter" no matter his real name, in memory of the fine man who used to tend bar years before.

It was less common to refer to the girl behind the hotel counter by the name of Tillie.

It was rare enough, as a matter of fact, that when a couple came in -- her quick ear caught the sound of one trunk and two bags being placed on the scrubbed-clean board floor -- and the young man said quietly, "Tillie, we'll need a room," that she looked up, surprised, and then her eyes widened and she clapped her fingers to her lips to stifle her delighted squeak.

"Daffyd!" she chirped, bouncing a little on her toes the way an excited girl will, and Daffyd grinned and replied, "Hello, Viola," and Viola Dodgins blinked and looked at the fashionably dressed woman beside him, the woman who held his arm the way a woman will when she wants to establish property rights and make it very evident that she has the sole legitimate claim on a particular real estate.

Viola planted her knuckles on her hips and patted her foot. "Daffyd," she scolded gently, "did you run off and get married on us?"

Daffyd Llewellyn laughed quietly, for it was after midnight, and he had no wish to disturb any who slept, downstairs or up.

"Yes I did," he said, "and here she is!" He turned a little and ran his arm around his wife's shoulders. "Here stands Mrs. Daffyd Llewellyn, who answers to Adrianna and a few other things."

Adrianna smiled tightly and shot her husband a warning look.

If she'd been a cat she would have been back-arched and up-bristled and it took but little imagination to imagine her with a tail that looked like a bottle brush.

"I would tell you Daffyd dipped my pigtails in an inkwell in school," Tilly confided, plapping her palms quietly flat on the countertop, "but he never did. He did help me with sums and figuring out my times tables when I was too short to look over this counter!" She tilted her head a little and regarded the city woman speculatively. "Has he sung for you?"

Adrianna blinked, her fur not quite as bristled up.

"Yes," she admitted. "Yes, he has." She took his arm again and looked up at him and Tilly saw a memory walk through the woman's expression. "It was in church ... and I was in the same row, and ..."

She looked down, quickly, her cheeks coloring.

"That's how I noticed him," she whispered.

"You see?" Tilly scolded, shaking her Mommy-finger at the grinning Welshman. "I told you that fine voice of yours was worth money!"

"Oh, no," Daffyd murmured, placing his hand on his wife's: "not money."

The newlyweds looked at one another and Daffyd swallowed and almost whispered, "Much more than money!"

"Well don't just stand there mooning at one another!" Tilly scolded. "You're here for a room or do you want a drink? Hm? Show your new wife a good time by getting her sotted drunk among the poker tables! For shame!" She spun the register around, thrust a pen at the ear-blushing husband. "Sign in an' we'll get you a good night's rest. Clean linens, we just had a weddin' --"

Tilly blinked. "You didn't come for Angela's weddin' now, did ye?"

Daffyd's mouth opened in surprise. "Angela?" he blurted.

"No, no, not Angela," Tilly corrected herself. "Not her. She's convinced she'll die an old maid. Polly! You know, Polly, Bonnie's daughter, Opal is her sister -- she's the one you had such a crush on!" -- she shot a look at Mrs. Llewellyn -- Polly married the Cavinee boy. Charles."

Daffyd nodded; all the names were quite familiar.

"When was the wedding?"

"Why, today! You weren't planning on coming?"

"No." He shook his head. "I didn't know they were planning."

"Ah. Good, then." Tilly waited until Daffyd signed the register; she hit the bell and the boy, drowsy but prompt, rubbed his eyes and seized one end of the trunk, Daffyd the other: the boy would make a second trip for their two bags, and the three trooped up the stairs, the key dangling in Daffyd's casual grip.

 

"It was a lovely wedding," Annette whispered.

"Yes," Jacob whispered back. "It was."

He listened to the night, to the distant howl of the steam whistle as the Z&W's night train came around the far bend.

They whistled at the bend at night because the engineer didn't want to trouble anyone's sleep as he came into town.

I wonder who's on the night train? Jacob wondered.

Maybe Daffyd and his wife came in.

Jacob knew the town marshal would be slouching somewhere in the shadows, watching to see who disembarked.

John Bruce was a good man ... not as impressive as his predecessor, who stood near to a head taller than Jacob's father, and Jacob was his father's height: Jackson Cooper had been a man who stopped fights by his mere appearance.

It didn't hurt any that on occasion he'd let himself be seen in public, pick up an anvil and walk off with it, or handle a long barrel 10 gauge double gun like it was a toothpick.

No, John would take note of any who disembarked; it had been his habit, ever since he came to them from somewhere in Idaho.

Jacob had the feeling he had to leave Idaho as a matter of health; he never inquired -- John proved himself a good man and true, and that's all Jacob, or anyone else, cared about.

A man's past is just that.

Past.

Unchangeable.

The only thing he had to work with, Jacob knew, was this moment: the time that existed now, the time between a man's hands at this moment: he could resolve to do better in future, but the future wasn't here yet and wasn't even guaranteed.

John had taken his "now" and done well with it, and he was part of the community, and Jacob -- a hard man to please -- was satisfied.

He grinned a little as he remembered Linda and Caleb coming out of Sarah's house.

Bonnie took such pains to style Linda's gown as identical to Polly's, and she'd taken the same care to arrange her eight year old daughter's hair absolutely identically to Polly's -- and he'd put Caleb in a brand new suit Bonnie fashioned for the occasion, and it wasn't until the little boy and the little girl stepped out of what the entire town thought was the wedding bower, that a great laugh spread and rippled: people love to be fooled, and they'd been fooled royally, and as Caleb and Linda stood there holding hands and smiling, all of Firelands got a great and happy laugh at how well they'd been tricked.

Jacob grinned.

He and Bonnie planned this for some time.

He'd arranged to have the line shack fixed up: new roof, new floor, he'd had it tore down to the framing and then the frame replaced, he'd pretty much constructed a new house, genuinely fit to live in: it hadn't been cheap, but the cause was good, and he'd recruited Daisy for the feminine touches and the supplies, and the meals, cold and packed away and easy to warm up and fix, and he'd have given good money to see Daisy welcome the happy couple to their very own, very private honeymoon suite, to be serenaded by 'yotes and night birds.

Jacob's mind drifted a little, and he remembered Polly tossing her bouquet.

He knew it was something brides did -- Annette did when they got married -- it was a nice enough bouquet, he'd thought, for all that it was a dried flower bouquet: this late in the year there were no blooms, so Bonnie arranged to preserve flowers from the fertile months: she'd stitched the dead stems together and secured them with ribbon, and Jacob's wife Annette helped her, and Jacob remembered the bouquet as it tuned slowly over and over and over again as it described a high arc, nearly grazing the stamped tin ceiling there in the Silver Jewel.

He remembered how bright red the single rose in the center was, how rich, how crimson, how ... alive ... and he smiled a little, for Bonnie could always pull off a surprise.

Annette turned over in bed, faced her husband.

"I know that smile," she whispered.

"Just thinking," Jacob whispered back.

"The wedding?"

"The bouquet."

Annette caressed her husband's bare chest, trailing her fingers through his sternal fur.

"Where did Bonnie find a rose this time of year" Jacob whispered.

 

Angela Keller, alone in her room in what had been her Papa's fine log house, sat in his rocking chair, staring at the wedding bouquet.

She'd caught it, to the squeals and laughter of the other women and happy girls, and she'd clutched it to her bosom and scampered off, breathless at this sign of future success.

She'd caught the bouquet.

This meant -- according to the popular legend -- hers would be the next wedding.

She stared at the bouquet in her lap, and for the hundredth time, raised it to her nose and inhaled, delicately, carefully, savoring the scent of the single, dew-fresh rose.

Annette's fingers flattened against her husband's chest.

"Jacob ... I helped make that bouquet."

"It was a lovely bouquet," he smiled. "That spot of crimson was lovely, centered like it was."

"Jacob." Annette came up on her elbow, her voice serious. "Jacob, we didn't put a rose in it."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

15. THE SHEE

Sean turned his head and looked at his wife.

She slept fully clothed, she slept in a chair beside his bed.

Sean's heart grieved to see her so, for she'd been burnin' her candle a' both ends, like, seein' t' th' weddin' an' the arrangements, an' she fairly glowed when she spoke of them, and her cheeks were such a happy pink when she described how they'd fixed up Sarah's line shack, her an' Jacob, and she was younger when she did, more like the Daisy he knew when they were both young.

She felt his eyes on her and opened her own: she didn't really sleep these days, and it was wearing on her, but she managed a tired smile.

"Are ye in pain?" she whispered, and Sean nodded weakly, and Daisy rose and picked up the corked bottle on the nightstand.

Sean took the tablespoon of milky liquid without complaint, and Daisy spooned it into him as if she were dosing a sick child.

"D'ye ha'e a need?" she whispered, and he shook his head, then grimaced and tried to swallow down the aftertaste of Doc's bitter poppy potion.

"Aye," he husked.

"Wha' can I do t' help?"

What can I do to help.

God Almighty, if there was a phrase on her tombstone to tell her entire life, that would be it, he thought, closing his eyes against the fell knowledge that he was to be torn from her, and soon, soon.

"Lay wi' me," he whispered. "I miss you beside me."

Daisy looked long at her husband, then she shucked out of her dress and into her nightgown and carefully, gingerly climbed into bed with him, fearful of a move or a jostle that would send that freight train of agony lancing through him again.

"I saw the Shee," he whispered, and he felt her stiffen, then she rolled up on her side and laid her arm across his chest the way she always did, and Sean Fitzgerald, the big, hard-muscled, red-headed chieftain of their own Irish Brigade, the Firelands Fire Department, marshaled most of his remaining strength and forced it into his arm.

He brought his hand up and got it as far as her fingertips, enough to touch.

It took nearly everything he had but he did it.

"I ha'e no seen the Fetch," she whispered back.

"O'course not," he choked: alarmed, she raised her head, but his breathing eased, and she laid her head back down, staring at his stubbled cheek.

"The Fetch," he gasped, then waited a few breaths before continuing, "is Scots." He breathed a few more times. "No' Irish."

"But the Shee?"

"Aye," Sean gasped, then closed his eyes and willed himself to greater strength, remembering...

He'd hovered over his bed, looking down at his body, curious.

His Daisy, his own dear wife, the mother to his children, his life's greatest treasure, lay in the bed beside him, her arm across his chest.

She was asleep, finally, poor thing ... her breathing was slow, regular, but ... something was not right.

He turned -- easily, lightly, as if he had no weight, searching for the sound again -- there!

A woman's ... a woman, grieving.

He tried to walk but he had no legs ... but he moved, he moved where he willed, and he willed himself through the wall and into the night, and it was not night, but daylight, in a green meadow.

Not far ahead, a stream, and beside the stream, a woman, cloaked, with her hood up, a woman whose shoulders were working with grief.

He approached and as he did, he had legs again, and he considered ... a woman, keening by a stream for her lost children, and he a man dying.

This, then, was the legendary Banshee.

He stopped, frowning.

The Banshee, or the Shee, as she was better known to his people, was reputed to be old, and ugly, and she was said to scream her grief with a voice that would snatch the bones from a man and wring the fear out of them like a housewife will wring out a dish rag.

This woman did not.

Sean squatted, feeling more like his own self, and he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Why grieve ye?" he asked, his voice gentle, and the Shee sobbed quietly, then sniffed loudly and raised a lacy, embroidered kerchief and blew her nose loudly, indelicately.

He absently noted the rose embroidered in one corner of the kerchief.

The Shee pulled back her hood and turned and looked at him with ice-pale eyes, swimming in tears.

"I grieve for my son," she said, and Sean seized her in his great fatherly embrace and pulled her to him and she held him tight, tight.

"He's home," Sean choked, his own eyes filling: "Your Daffyd is home, Sarah, an' he's married an' he's well!"

"I know," Sarah groaned, then she loosed her grip and he did too, and she held his hands and smiled that quiet smile he remembered so well.

"Sean, do ye remember when I jumped out of the hose tower and you used the life net to catch me?"

Sean threw his head back and laughed and it felt good to laugh: it was the rich laughter of a strong, healthy Irishman.

"Aye, I do that!" he roared happily, "an' ye like t' scared me t' death, lass!"

She laughed with him, then she squeezed his hands, looked at him the way a daughter might look at her beloved father.

"You saw my Daffyd today."

"I did, lass."

"Does he look ... is he well?"

"Well!" Sean roared happily, grinning that broad, apple-cheeked grin of his. "He's made Lieutenant a'ready! Mark my word, lass, he's f'r th' white hat, an' God's blessin' upon him for it!"

"And he's married?"

"To a fine woman an' a lady born!" he declared stoutly.

Sarah came up on her knees and kissed him quickly on the cheek.

"Thank you," she whispered: she stood, snatched up her skirts and ran a few steps, stopped.

"Sean, I have to go now," she said.

"When will I see you again?"

"Soon," she said. "I'll be there to guide you."

"Guide me where?"

Sarah's great, black Snowflake-mare appeared, materializing as if from a fog, and Sarah didn't so much mount as she kind of elevated into the saddle.

"Soon," she said, and Snowflake thrust powerfully forward, and disappeared.

 

Sean woke, and smiled a little, for his precious Daisy lay with him, her head on his shoulder and her arm across him.

"Daisymedear," he whispered, and she smiled and cuddled a little, and Sean smiled a little himself.

It was lightening without.

Daybreak, he thought, and he smiled again.

God be praised, I slept the night through.

His hand was still across his belly, touching his wife's.

Thank You, God, that Daisymedear got t' sleep some!

 

Daffyd Llewellyn stayed the week and two days.

The two days were for Sean's funeral.

He'd helped bear Sean's coffin at shoulder height, as was proper, the men in their dress uniforms and white gloves, their engine burnished and gleaming; he'd stood with his fellow firemen on his left and his wife on his right, and he held her hand as Brother William spoke the solemn words of the interment.

He'd been granted a dispensation to hold the Catholic service in the Firelands church, and he'd brought a half-dozen of the Faceless Nuns with him: they'd sung in Latin, and Daciana raised her voice with them, pitch-perfect and flawlessly harmonized, as she and Angela had with Sarah, there in the selfsame church.

Sean's considerable offspring stood with their mother, and she stood in the front row, and Jacob stood behind her: at one point he reached up and laid his hand on her shoulder, and she reached up and laid her hand on his, for the touch of a friend in a time of sorrow is a comforting thing.

Marshal John Bruce was among those who stood bareheaded, rendering this last honor to a man known, loved and respected in the community.

He, and he alone, knew the precise moment of Sean's death.

He knew this because at that dark hour -- at half past four in the morning, when the moon was descending to its own night's rest -- a rider came down the street, a lone rider on an enormous black horse, a huge black curly-furred dog pacing with them, and as they came to the firehouse, the rider picked up the wagon bolt on the steel plate that served as their fire alarm, and raised an arm back, and struck it, hard -- once, twice, thrice.

On the third slow, tolling gong, the heavy wooden valves of their fine brick firehouse flew open with a BANG and the black rider surged ahead with a whistle and a yell, and the three-horse hitch of matched white mares surged out of the firehouse, hauling the burnished, gleaming fire engine behind: standing at the driver's seat was a great, red-headed Irishman with a curled black handlebar mustache, wearing a white-leather fire helmet and the red-wool, bib-front fireman's shirt with the gold Maltese cross embroidered on its front, and the Marshal heard him roar, "ST. FLORIAN, ST. CHRISTOPHER AND THE HOLY MOTHER, LADIES, RUN!" -- and as both rider and driver shot forward in a wide-open gallop, the Irishman swung that blacksnake whip and snapped a hole in the air three feet above the center mare's ears.

The Marshal knew this was the moment Sean left this earth because he blinked and looked again and the firehouse doors were closed, and the street was empty, and all was silent.

He'd walked across the street and opened the man-door (it was never locked) and looked within.

He heard the sleepy stomp of the white mares and saw the steam engine in the middle of the apparatus floor and he drew back and closed the door.

Traditions have a life of their own in a small town.

Just as Mr. Baxter's name lived for a century and more longer than the man's tenure behind the bar at the Silver Jewel, just as a rose would appear at significant moments, so would the horse drawn steam engine be seen just before a fire alarm: not every alarm, but the bad ones, the ones where a life hung in the balance.

In the many years that followed, when horse power went from three matched mares to a cast iron engine under a butterfly hood, to the days when gasoline engines were replaced with Kenworth Diesel power, when the alarm went from a sheet of steel hanging from a crossarm to a bell alarm, to electronic tones -- from that day until well a century distant, when men ran for the firepole and slid down, when they snatched coats and hoods and Scotchlite and Kevlar -- one tradition remained the same.

The Chief was first on the apparatus floor, and at the top of his voice -- "ALL HANDS ON DECK! TURN TO DAMN YE OR I'LL HAVE YER GUTS FOR GARTERS! NO IRISH NEED APPLY!" -- and the great double doors would swing open, and the Firelands Fire Department would charge out of the fine brick firehouse, all sound and fury, to the delight of admiring, wide-eyed little boys and barking dogs that chased after the fire apparatus and its brave men.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

16. "THEY CALL ME KANSAS"

"Sis?"

Jacob rose, his voice concerned, as his little sister drew up, tears running twin wet streaks down her red cheeks.

Angela's expression was alarming to her big brother, so much so that he took a long step across the boardwalk, off the boards and then up into her carriage.

He reached across her and pulled back on the brake, set it: he leaned back, took the reins from her hands, spun them around the stub and then took both her hands in both of his.

"Sis, what happened?"

Angela bit her bottom lip, shook her head, then pulled her hands free of his and seized him the way a broken hearted girl will, burying her face in his shoulder.

"Sis," Jacob said quietly, hugging her back, "did someone die?"

Angela stifled a sob, shook her head.

"Did someone hurt you?" he asked, and she heard a dangerous, violent undertone to his voice, almost an inaudible subharmonic: again, she shook her head, and Death, leaning invisibly but hopefully forward to hear her next words, leaned back in disappointment: his services would not be needed here, and so the robed skeleton stalked, unseen, on down the street.

Angela drew back, sniffed loudly, pressed a damp, well used kerchief to her nose, to one eye, then the other.

"I'm sorry," she whispered -- she hadn't the voice for any but a husky whisper -- "I'm ... I'm sorry, Jacob, it's ..."

"Siiiissss?" Jacob asked, lowering his head a little, his pale eyes burning into her dark blues.

Angela swallowed, shook her head. "I," she began, and the tears began again, and she dropped her head.

Something told Jacob to get her inside.

"In," he said, taking not her hands, but her wrists: he backed out of the carriage, pulled his sister after him: the strength of his grip told her there would be no successful resistance, and so she allowed him to draw her to the edge, then take her about the waist, and swing her out, and to the street.

He took her wrist again and they went up the steps and into the Silver Jewel, and Big Brother towed his Little Sister to the back room, the private room where meetings were held.

He sat her down on an upholstered chair, drew up another, sat down, knee-to-knee with her.

Daisy's girl hesitated at the threshold and Jacob raised his head.

"Tea for the lady and coffee for me," he said, his eyes pale, and the girl nodded once and drew the door shut as she withdrew.

Jacob took his sister's hands again -- his grip gentle this time -- and said, "Nobody makes my little sis cry. Who did this to you?"

"Nobody," Angela whispered, shaking her head.

Jacob's right hand closed into a fist and he raised it to let her see he was shaking with anger. "Angelaaaaaa," he said, warning in his voice, "don't lie to me. What happend?"

"Oh, Jacob," she moaned, "I have been ... such a fool!"

Jacob curled his finger under her chin, raised her face, looked squarely into her face.

"What happend?" he whispered, and when a strong man whispers, people listen, and Angela swallowed and blinked.

"Jacob," I wanted so badly for Papa to walk me down the aisle."

Jacob nodded, once, slowly, his eyes on hers.

"I ... everyone else ... I can't ..."

"You're afraid nobody is going to marry you."

She nodded.

"You don't want to be a spinster."

She nodded again.

"You said once you wanted to hand your firstborn to Pa and have him grin and bounce the little one a little and look at you and know that his name would continue."

She nodded again, her eyes filling and spilling down her cheeks.

"What happened to make you cry?"

"I found someone."
"I'll kill him," Jacob said quietly, menace thick in his voice, and Angela shook her head.

"No, no," Angela squeaked, shaking her head. "He doesn't know I exist and now he's going to marry someone else and I didn't ..."

"You didn't throw yourself at him."

Angela looked up, shocked. "Jacob!" she gasped, dismayed.

Jacob's eyes crinkled at the corners and she knew the rest of his face was about to follow suit, then: "No. No I ... I wasn't going to, either!"

"Good," Jacob nodded. "You are a prize and quite a catch --"

"Which is why nobody will look at me!" Angela snapped. "Daddy was Sheriff and my big brother is Sheriff and Mama ran the railroad and I am the biggest prize on two legs and the only men who've given me the time of day were scoundrels and they wanted our fortune --"

Her face reddened and Jacob saw fire in back of her eyes and he thought, Good, she's angry now -- he knew this meant she was not about to lower herself out of desperation.

"I remember," Jacob murmured. "We had a talk with the fellows."

It had been more than a talk; he'd had what he later called "a good horn lockin'" with not only the aforementioned would-be suitors, but also the men behind them -- he'd divined their plan to marry into money, drain the Keller fortune, discard his little sister like a spider discards a dried, sucked-empty insect's husk.

When he was done one suitor was in irons, two men were dead, another near to it, his son was bloody, bruised but triumphant: he'd single-handedly beaten two attackers into the ground, one with a singletree, the other with the butt of the double gun he fought away from his attacker.

Angela smiled a little and looked almost shyly at her big brother.

"It was more than a talk with those fellows."

Jacob grinned. "We had to speak the language they understood."

 

Roger Dillon looked around, appreciating the hard beauty of the high Colorado territory.

He'd known old men -- they were old men now, but once they were young -- and when they were young, they were Free Trappers, and they trapped these Rocky Mountains.

He'd listened to them talk about the Shining Mountains, stars close enough to touch, a moon big enough to belong to Texas (everything, he'd learned, is bigger in Texas!) -- Roger knew the height and the strength of the Appalachian Mountains back East, and he'd had trouble believing the stories he'd been told about these Rockies.

Now that he rode among them, he had no further trouble believing ... not their size, their sharpness, their harshness, their ... their sheer beauty.

Was it possible, he knew, he'd not mind a'tall spending time here.

A good deal of time.

Roger was of unremarkable appearance: average in height and weight, that is to say, he was not but two fingers shy of six foot tall and he was as lean as any man who works for a living: arms and shoulders spoke of honest work, as did calluses on his hands; wrinkles on his face spoke of laughter and of weather, wear on his jeans and his boot heels told the same story.

His revolver, his rifle and his riding gear were, however, in the very best of condition.

They all bore their own wear, but not excessive, and none showed signs of abuse: the front sight, for instance, on his revolver was not crooked from pulling fence staples, neither was he heel of his revolver's handle scarred from using it to drive fence staples back into place.

He'd seen that done and marked the fellow doing it as a clod and an incompetent, and he'd got distance from that particular soul.

Years before, when he was still a boy growing up in Kansas, his Mama told him of a man with pale eyes, someone she'd fallen in love with one night, a man who sired Roger on her: she cherished the memory of the man, and he'd determined to find this man, of whom his mother had nothing but good to say.

He heard rumors of a man with pale eyes, a cold eyed killer who was Sheriff somewhere in Colorado, but the closer he got to the high country, the more good he heard of the fellow: Keller his name was, a man steady and even-handed, a man reputed to be equally charitable -- and deadly; a man respected by the lawful and the lawless alike.

Roger grew up with a father, aye, and it was his Mama's deathbed secret that this man -- of whom she'd spoken, in private, on several occasions, and always with that look a woman has when she remembers something very special -- only on her deathbed did she tell Roger this man was his actual sire.

Roger drew up at the high bend in the trail, where a distant town first came into view.

He'd guested that morning with a hospitable pair, brother and sister they were, with a half-dozen young that looked nothing like them -- fine, healthy children they were, active and attentive, and under this family's care, their farm was large and it was fertile, their cattle were well fed and no sign of the tick fever that had caused such destruction in his native flat land.

They too spoke of the pale eyed man.

Visitors were a rare thing to their farm, and they met him with the very best of hospitality; they'd got their start, they said, because the pale eyed man, Old Pale Eyes himself they called him, brought the terrible news their father was drowned: with this hard news came his attention, and his kindness: he'd arranged seed for planting, cattle for their fields, they learned months after the fact he'd kept them from being raided by men who wished good beef without working for it, something he never, ever told them.

Roger thanked them for their kindness, and rode on, and it wasn't until he'd come in sight of Firelands that the folded over dollar bills he'd left were found, and a note:

Had I children, I would wish them like yours.

 

Jacob grinned as the Italian stonecutters showed off their handiwork.

The new Sheriff's office was well more than four times bigger than the log fortress that had been there.

The threshold was precisely where the old one had been -- they'd insisted on that, they said, for good luck to find its way in -- the building was well deeper than it had ever been, they'd plumbed in gas from the new lines dug into the street at the edge of the board walk, they described how they'd used good thick grease on all the threaded fittings -- "we used-a da Standard Oil Mica Wheel Bearing Grease!" the foreman beamed, holding up a familiar can, and Jacob grinned, for he'd come to prefer the mica grease on all his own rolling stock.

"We don't want-a da gas leak," the foreman winked knowledgeably -- "but these-a no leak!" -- Jacob examined the mantle lights, the heaters, he looked back at the cells, solidly made and fitted by craftsmen who knew their work -- he looked up at the stone slab overhead, a good solid ceiling, sloped to shed melting snow and rain, with a false roof built above, angled well enough to shed the snow was the inevitable consequence of approaching winter.

"We got-a da cook stove here, you got-a da pantry here" -- the foreman showed off their work as if it were a grand castle; Jacob noticed touches the layman would not note: how well the joints were aligned, how cleanly struck, he nodded at the good glazing in the two windows, at the solid bars overlaying the glass.

Jacob paced the length of the building's interior, and its breadth: they went outside, the Italian foreman happily gesturing and professionally describing its construction -- how they dug down to the bed rock, and set the ashlars on native stone, how they built it, "eh, how you Papa say it --" the foreman stopped, frowned, then brightened, raised a palm: "Beeg an'-a mean an'-a hell for stout!"

Jacob laughed to hear it, for his Pa had indeed used that term, and not a few times: when he inspected the reuilt railroad trestle, or the newly finished brick firehouse, his wife's brick kilns, even the fine stone hospital that was finished not long before, he declared with satisfaction, "Fellas, that's exactly what I'm a-lookin' for ... big and mean and hell for stout!"

They paced back to the front of the building, and stopped, and Jacob looked at the discreet square-and-compasses carved into a front, corner stone.

"Good work," he said, "square work, such as I have orders to receive."

The Italian foreman, delighted, gripped the man's hand, and the grip was one that both men recognized.

Jacob released the man's hand and turned, his ear picking up the sound of a horse approaching: he sized up the horse and rider before they were even abreast of the Mercantile.

The rider saw he was being looked at, and he looked frankly back, and rode straight toward Jacob, his horse breathing easy at a walking pace.

"Howdy," Jacob grinned. "New in town?"

Roger nodded slowly, sizing Jacob up, frowning a little. "You ain't quite what I expected," he admitted.

"Why do tell," Jacob said amiably. "What were you lookin' for?"

Roger turned his head a little, still looking at the Sheriff, his eyes narrowing a little.

"You ... don't know ... an older man with them same pale eyes?"

He felt as much as saw a subtle change in the Sheriff's posture, or perhaps his expression.

Nothing really changed, nothing he could put his finger on, but it was as if the air itself turned several degrees cooler.

"My Pa," he said slowly, "died a few years back."

Roger looked long at Jacob, disappointment in his expression.

"I am genuinely sorry to hear that," he said slowly.

"Didn't make me none too happy neither."

The horseman looked down the street, frowning.

"I was hopin' to thank him," he said quietly. "He done us a kindness."

"Can I buy you a drink?" Jacob asked. "Give me a few minutes and I'll meet you over in the Silver Jewel." He nodded across the street.

Roger looked across the street as well, looked back.

"I'll take ye up on that," he said, "and thank ye for it."

He turned and walked his gelding over to the Silver Jewel's hitch rail while Jacob and the foreman went into the Sheriff's office, examined the solid, heavy front door: it took a few minutes for the Sheriff to declare himself satisfied, and hand the hard-callused foreman the rest of the agreed-on payment for the work done, plus a bit more.

Jacob had learned well his Pa's principle of cultivating good men and true, and he knew that recognizing the Italians' good work, and paying more than agreed on, would incline them strongly to any further work should Jacob need it.

 

Roger stepped aside and removed his dust-and sweat-stained cover as a pretty woman came out of the Jewel.

She gave him a look -- he knew the look, she was sorrowing for some cause -- she raised a crumpled kerchief to her nose and murmured "Excuse me," and turned sideways to slip past him.

He watched her cross the street; the Sheriff was coming out of what looked like a brand new stone building -- she stopped, her hand on his forearm, spoke briefly, then turned and walked up the street.

Roger went on into the Silver Jewel.

His boot planted itself firmly on the scratched by shining foot rail; he looked around, turned, regarded the stamped tin ceiling, nodded approvingly.

"You like that ceiling," Mr. Baxter said from behind him, polishing a heavy beer mug.

"It's nice to be in a place like this," he said quietly.

"What'll ye have?"

"Sheriff said he'd buy me a beer."

"Beer it is," Mr. Baxter said: Roger watched as the mug filled, as the barkeep used a dull knife to strike off the foam head, as he wiped off the mug and slid it gently across the burnished mahogany bar.

"Thank'ee kindly," Roger said quietly, then: "How's the chance of a man getting a bite t' eat?"
Mr. Baxter raised a summoning finger. "This young lady will fix you right up."

 

A beer half-drunk and a sandwich half-eaten and the man felt quite a bit better already.

The Sheriff joined him at the bar, looked at the sandwich, said "That looks good to me," and nodded to the girl, who reappeared but a minute later with another of the same: thick sliced sourdough, well buttered, good beef between, salted and spiced just the way Daisy's kitchen made 'em.

"Is the food always this good?" Roger mumbled through a half full mouth, and Jacob nodded, swallowing his mouthful and taking a noisy slurp of beer.

"Figure on staying long?" Jacob asked casually.

"With food like this?" Roger replied, taking another bite, and Jacob grinned.

"Yeah."

He looked up as a familiar figure came into the Jewel, looking around: Levi saw him, raised his chin.

"Excuse me," Jacob said, setting down sandwich and beer: Roger watched as the two men spoke briefly.

The Sheriff came back to Roger, walking slowly, thoughtfully.

"Name's Keller," he said, shoving his hand out, and Roger set down his beer and shook the man's hand.

"You lookin' for work?"

"Reckon I could."

"Got work if you want it."

"I'm listenin'."

The Sheriff turned as the other man approached.

"Levi Rosenthal," he said, "runs a ranch not far from here. Levi?"

"I need a man who knows cattle. My two hands have increased our herd and we need more help than we've got."

"Cattle," he grinned, shoving out his hand. "They call me Kansas."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

17. MOVING DAY

"That desk looks brand new," the German Irishman remarked as he and Jacob set down the aforementioned furniture.

"Yep."

"Your Pa's old desk wasn't good enough?"

"New office, new desk," Jacob said casually ... too casually, the engineer knew.

"Oh?" he replied mildly, and Jacob shot him a hard look, but gave no other answer.

"Answer me this then," the German Irishman challenged, "will ye have a better grade of chair than he had?"

Jacob froze.

He'd turned away from the empty desk and started toward the door, and at the red-shirted fireman's blunt inquiry, he stopped and shoved his jaw out slowly, then turned, swinging his cold-eyed gaze on the quiet-voiced assistant.

"I've got a chair," he said, a hard edge to his voice, "and if it does t' me what Pa's done ta him, I'll take an ax to it just like he did!"

It wasn't until the brand-new gun rack was mounted, not until Daciana came in with a covered basket, placed it on the new desk, opened the bottom right hand drawer and placed a bottle and four glasses in the back, then marched up to the suspiciously-watching Sheriff, that another word was spoken.

"Tradition," Daciana said, flipping the R off the end of her tongue, just the barest hint of her native trill: she looked down, pursed her lips, plucked a kerchief from her sleeve and pressed it into Jacob's palm, frowning as she did.

"You've cut yourself," she said, concerned, and Jacob frowned: he had indeed caught himself on something sharp, a projecting screw most likely, and he waited patiently as she pressed the cloth into the cut, firmly, until it quit bleeding.

She peeled it off, breathed on it and waved her hand over it, and it bled no more.

"'And I saw Jacob Keller lying in the ditch?'" Jacob asked, and the German Irishman saw something in the look he and the witch-woman exchanged.

"You know," she breathed.

"Only part of it," he admitted. "Pa knew the whole verse. I found it once without looking it up but damned if I can remember it. He stopped blood with the Word but bless me if I can!"

Daciana shivered and stepped back, raising her shawl over her head.

"Iss somdink only a voman may know," she said, fear in her voice, then she turned and scuttled quickly out the open door.

"Now what was that all about?" the German Irishman asked.

Jacob shrugged. "Damned if I know," he admitted, then he looked at his injured palm, flexed his hand, opened it.

"Hmph. Healed." He looked at his helper and grinned. "Well, let's get the rest of it in here."

 

Daciana disciplined her pace to no more than a rapid walk, as if she had some important task in mind -- which she did -- she kept her shawl pulled up over her head and looked like an old European woman hurrying home from some errand.

She unlocked her door, swung inside, slammed it shut and locked it, quickly, then she yanked the shawl from her head and shoulders and spun it over a hook on the coat-tree by the door.

She held the bloodstained kerchief in her left glove.

Quickly, almost desperately, she lay the kerchief on the table, then she turned, plucked a square tin from a high shelf, opened it, hesitated, then she withdrew two more kerchiefs.

These had streaks and splotches dried and stiff, brownish in color, and smelled faintly, ever so faintly, of blood.

She placed these on the table, one atop the other, Jacob's the topmost, then she skipped over to the window and peered out, and up, her face pale in the high moonlight.

"Very soon," she whispered, skipped back to the table.

She whisked Sarah's kerchief from the crystal ball, lifted it carefully, placed it slowly, precisely on the three superimposed, bloodstained handkerchiefs.

She'd accumulated the other two as she'd gotten the third: she'd been there and stopped bleeding, once for the Old Sheriff, once for her dear friend, the Sheriff's blood get, Sarah, and the third, his blood get, Jacob.

She gripped the table, pulled it over to the window.

Moonlight fell onto the table, glowed in the crystal, and Daciana drew up a chair.

She leaped to her feet and placed three candles a distance from her, forming a triangle, lit them: tall, beeswax tapers they were, and their fragrance filled the room: Daciana began whispering words more ancient than her people, syllables hidden from the sun for more than centuries: she felt ancient powers in a universe unseen thrum and rumble and begin to turn, almost like immense clockwork in a monstrous timepiece, and she looked into the ancient crystal ball.

She brought her hands together over it, brought them down, as if caressing a larger sphere: once, twice, then a third time, and on the third, her head fell back, her eyes closed, and her hands fell to the tabletop, palms up.

Daciana's body breathed slowly, evenly; it was relaxed, as if asleep, and if one were there to peer into the ancient, gleaming crystal, one would see a bloody streak turning in its depths, twisting, growing like smoke, and then Daciana's eyes opened and she turned her hands over and she raised her head and beheld the Seer's Stone.

A pale-eyed archer-maiden, her right arm and shoulder bare, drew her recurved, laminated bow, bringing the arrow back to the corner of her chin, then the corner of her jaw, ready to loose this death-shaft on the Mother's command.

Daciana saw the archer-maiden's face and she saw the eyes, and she saw the face of her friend, now dead.

"Sarah," she whispered silently.

Another time and another place: a woman with her dear friend Sarah's face and with Sarah's pale eyes, a running woman in a Colonial dress and cap, turning and raising a flint musket and firing, then dropping the musket and running again.

Sarah again.

Always Sarah.

Each time she saw blood, as if a vine, connecting one life with another.

One after another they came to her crystal, each showing a facet of her life, each one the same pale-eyed woman, each a warrior in her own right, whether a Frankish mother fighting Viking reavers with her only weapon, a harvester's scythe, whether it was a woman raised from birth to fight and to kill at the behest of her Maiden-Commander, whether it was a woman of the far future, in a white skinsuit with a gold six-point star embossed over the swell of the left breast, as she chased scampering around a red Martian boulder, force-pistol in hand, pursuing the space-suited miner that killed one of her deputies with a shaped charge on the end of what amounted to a spear shaft.

Daciana saw these, and these did not surprise her, for she'd seen them before.

What did surprise her were the men.

She saw the blood, like a scarlet vine, growing and twisting and spreading, bending away here, coming together there, interweaving and merging.

Daciana saw Jacob and his sons and their sons and their daughters, and how their blood would come together and the scarlet vine-of-life would grow thick, and rich, and strong: she saw how other branches, smaller, not really frail, but less ... robust ... but still carrying that necessary life, seeking away from the main shaft, enriching themselves from other streams, then bending back, returning.

She saw a farmhouse in a flat land, and she saw a man with pale eyes, a grieving widower, who found comfort in a widow's arms, and left his seed in fertile ground.

She saw the same man sire another child, and yet a third, on his wandering away from the grief of war and the sorrowing loss of his beloved, times and memories that gnawed his guts like an insatiable rat, and she saw these threads of scarlet weaving tighter now.

She saw other threads coming in, unrelated to the pale-eyed warriors, bringing their own strengths and enriching the vine.

She saw a blue-eyed child from Kentucky with no blood of the man she called Daddy, and Daciana smiled as she saw the Sheriff throw aside what used to be the wall of a passenger railcar, then pick up the little girl Daciana knew as Angela -- one moment a child, the next a maiden -- and she saw the strong Kentucky blood that fed her, like ripe fruit on a fertile vine.

She saw a child, the get of this Kentucky maiden and a man whose eyes were anything but pale, a man from the flat prairie lands, a man whose sire had pale eyes and a grieving heart.

Daciana saw the vines coming together, the pale eyed warrior blood returning, strengthened by mountain blood from back East.

More vines, distant vines -- the moon was not still, Daciana carefully, delicately slid the crystal and the bloodied kerchiefs to the side, keeping the stone in the pale rays as long as she could -- but shadow claimed the gleaming sphere, and with it, her visions.

The Sheriff's blood, she thought.

It comes together through the years, and I have seen it.

Daciana slumped in the chair, barely able to hold her head up.

To see beyond this realm was more than exhausting, and she knew it would take all her effort, all her strength, to get from the chair to the fainting-couch.

She dare not let her husband find her unconscious in the chair, it would frighten him too much.

She forgot to cover the crystal, but that is just as well.

She was too tired to open her eyes and look and see a familiar face, a pale-eyed face she knew well, looking at her from the shadowed crystal and smiling a little, before it drew back and turned and rode an immense Frisian mare deep into the tangle of blood-vines.

 

Roger Dillon thrust his hand toward Levi Rosenthal and said "They call me Kansas."

"Flat country back there," Levi murmured, "I've been through it a time or two."

"How's the growin' season this high up?"

"Shorter than what you're used to, but we can use a good hand with the garden as well."

Roger laughed. "Reckon I'll come in handy, then, where do I bunk?"

"With Clark and her brother. They've been priceless in increasing our herd and they're pretty good at business as well, I think you'll like them."

"Sounds good."

"You've much luggage?"

Roger laughed. "I've a change of clothes, two pair of socks, a dry Union suit and my Bible. Other'n that, not much."

Jacob couldn't help but like the fellow.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

18. "I'M GOIN' BACK TO CHICKENS!"

The Anderson boys were born in the high country, grew in the high country, they were acclimatized from birth to the high country, and so when the little black billy goat decided it didn't want anything to do with the cobbled together excuse for a wagon the boys were dragging it towards, it give a high-pitched MAAAAA and twisted out of young hands and proceeded to put as much distance between him and them as it could, in as short a time as possible.

The Anderson boys, of course, had other ideas, and gave immediate and enthusiastic chase, not at all deterred by the thin air at this altitude.

 

Bonnie Rosenthal, nee McKenna, looked up at the delicate knock at her office door.

She looked up, slipping her spectacles from behind her ears: she smiled a little at the anxious young woman on the other side of the glass, waved her in, slipped her precious "Bi-Focus Spectacles" as Jacob's youngest son called them into their case, and rose to greet the worried-looking Angela.

The two exchanged the usual pleasantries -- after Angela's surprising, almost desperate hug, the move of a little girl who needed the counsel of her Mama -- and the two women sat, the maiden and the matron, and at Bonnie's uplifted chin, her attentive maid slipped to the kitchen, where water was kept hot for tea.

 

Clark was a big woman, for all that her hair was thick, long, braided in two pigtails she kept wrapped around her neck -- "in case I get into a knife fight," she said with a wink -- and she could bulldog a steer as well as any man: her brother was equally impressive, and Roger saw in short order that this pair knew their craft, this pair spared no effort, and though this pair received their pay same as anyone else, they earned every last cent of it.

They greeted the flatlander cheerfully, indicated a bunk, invited him to their supper -- a thick stew, with the ingredients diced into surprisingly small chunks -- "it tastes better like that," Clark said solemnly, and after trying it, Roger was certainly inclined to agree.

It took a day for Roger to learn the full layout of the Rosenthal ranch: he'd known much bigger spreads, but he'd never known one with hills, let alone young mountains, sheer cliffs, a hidden meadow, a fenced-in hole in the ground where a mineshaft subsided and they'd had to rope out a calf that fell in -- "that's the one yonder," Clark's brother said, thrusting a coatsleeved arm out at a bull a quarter of a mile distant. "He's et some since then."

As the bull was the equal to any Roger had seen, he agreed that the bovine had indeed dined well in the interim.

"Now was we back East," Clark declared on the ride back to the ranch house, "folks would cut timber by the acre and bark it off -- especially walnut -- they'd roll the logs int' a holler an' fire 'em as worthless, they'd stack bark on flatcars an' sell bark t' the tanneries."

"Burn all that good wood?" Roger exclaimed, dismayed: he was from the prairie, where wood was scarce, and prized, and never, ever wasted.

"Yep. Burnt. I seen it done. Indian Holler it was an' they burnt th' rocks red."

"Damn!" Roger shook his head.

"We got a deal with them Kentucky moonshiners up on the mountain." Her brother grinned as he thrust a chin back toward the perpetually-snowed peak on the far side of Firelands. "They cut timber and any scrap -- bark and the like -- why, we buy it an' cut it up for fire wood."

"If we talk nice they even sawyer it up for us so we don't have to," Clark added. "I tend t' talk nice to 'em."

Roger nodded, for he knew how hungry a stove could be come cold weather.

 

The goat was short but it was fast and it was determined.

The goat was less than the size of a collie dog, and nimble: goat and boys raced across the little flat, down the side of the hollow, up the other side on a long diagonal, then toward the whitewashed board fence that marked the property line to the Rosenthal ranch on the side toward town here, the side folks would look at.

The fence proved little impediment to their forward velocity.

 

"Yonder's the spring house, the chicken house, back here's the back house. Yonder is the dress works. Mrs. Rosenthal and them women sews up some of the best dresses the territory ever saw. They get them china dolls from France an' they take them doll clothes an' make 'em woman sized an' sell 'em from here t' Frisco and back."

"Make good money at it, too."

"She calls it the 'House of McKenna,' Clark said wisely. "Her maiden name. I b'lieve she made dresses back East an' she was good at it there."

Roger nodded again, frowned, looked down at the unusually bright scarlet that caught his eye.

He swung from his saddle as Bonnie and Angela came out of the side door and approached them.

Roger straightened, surprised, as the two women approached him: he reached up and swept off his skypiece just as something black and fast moving circled around behind them and then made a straight-on run toward the younger woman's unsuspecting backside.

Roger was not one to think about something if the decision was already made.

He dropped his cargo to free up both hands, seized the young woman under the arms: his move was fueled with adrenalin and the terrible memory off what it felt like to be rammed in the hip pockets by a buck sheep at full gallop and this one was, it was moving so fast it was a foot tall and three foot long and his fingers were wide spread and his grip was tight and Angela felt herself seized and hoist and swung, and to the startled Bonnie McKenna, the sight of Angela's skirt belled out and streaming and something black and fast shooting through the space where she'd just been -- Angela was swept and swung as easily as a toreador's cape, and as Angela's feet crossed the zenith and began their descent, two little boys pelted through the hole in the atmosphere left by the fast moving goat's passage.

Angela's reaction, like Roger's, was automatic.

She gave a squeal of delight and scattered happy laughter all over the ground just like she did when she was a little girl and her big strong Daddy would hoist her high and spin her around, and Bonnie's fingers went to her mouth as if to hide the memory.

She looked down, then dipped her knees and rose again.

"Here," she said gently, pressing the fallen rose's stem into his hand. "You dropped this."

Angela's eyes widened and her mouth opened, and Clark and her brother exchanged a look as Roger mutely offered the fresh, dew-flecked rose to Angela.

She took the flower, closed her eyes, raised it until its velvety petals just tickled her nose, inhaled deeply of the welcome fragrance.

"How did you know?" she murmured, then opened her eyes and gripped his hand, then she blinked and laughed again and said, "Hello, I'm Angela!"

Bonnie watched the two speculatively; Clark and her brother looked at that fresh-cut rose in Angela's delighted fingertip grip, and her brother murmured, "Now how did Mrs. Rosenthal arrange that one?"

Clark shrugged.

 

The two Anderson boys finally came dragging in after the sun was just slipped completely over the sharp-toothed horizon.

Wore out, winded, they came shuffling back into their own yard, where a particular little black goat waited on them, looking very pleased with himself.

The boys looked at one another, looked at the tail-wagging goat: one raised his hand, made a wave-you-away toss of his palm, and the two intoned in one voice, "Aaahhh, forget it! I'm goin' back to chickens!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

19. ECCLESIASTES

Gold mining was done in several ways.

Jacob's pale-eyed Pa came across Kansas in a drought season.

He stopped in a dry river bed -- a river that was never known to run dry -- this was not completely without water, there were pools above and below, which made fish for supper an easier proposition than he'd expected -- and being a curious man, he'd panned a little below what was a rocky drop in the riverbed, and found color.

Color meant more to be found, so he dug deeper and hit rock: frowning, he looked around and saw holes bored in the rock, holes big as his fist.

These held more color, and nuggets.

There were a few of these holes -- he sewed up a poke thick as his forearm and as long, he filled it with nuggets and with dust -- and as he looked at that last hole, he stopped and he smiled and he said to his big Sam-horse, "I reckon I'll leave that one. Let someone else find a once in a lifetime strike."

And so the man with pale eyes rode on toward the Shining Mountains, a heavily waxed sausage of brain-tanned leather in one saddlebag, his extra ammunition in the other for balance.

This much of the story, Jacob knew.

Jacob knew of mines that gnawed at quartz deep underground, hauling out tons of the stuff, crushing it and refining it for the traces of gold it contained.

The Z&W Railroad and his family that owned it, made a good living hauling ore to the crushers.

Jacob knew about the hole in the Rosenthal field, the hole visible from what used to be Sarah's window, a hole that belched fire when it subsided, for the miners had hit a pocket of soil gas that erupted like a young firedrake's breath: men died when that pocket lit off, and the mines were not at all reluctant to erect a very substantial fence around this hole in a man's pasture, and to cross his palm, for the inconvenience.

Jacob knew his Pa became a rich man the day he found those holes in the bare rock in that riverbed.

He didn't know that two days later, another curious man saw the first holes were dug out, the last one was not, and this man, too, knew the bottled-up scream of gold fever he dared not voice.

This man, like the pale-eyed fellow two days before, cleaned out that hole as best he could, and rode off with two pokes, one in each saddlebag, and like the first man, he went to a banker he trusted and converted part of it into good gold coin.

And like the late Sheriff Linn Keller, Roger Dillon was a patient man, and he too appreciated the book of Ecclesiastes.

 

A full month was passed.

Roger drew his pay the same as Clark and her brother, and unlike the two of them, he headed into town.

He stopped in the barber shop for a genuine factory haircut and a shave, he paid the boy to buff up his good boots to a high shine, and the grinning lad brushed the man's hat and coat, hopeful for an extra coin.

The lad wasn't disappointed.

Roger did not lack for good food at the ranch, and he didn't have a great thirst for strong drink, but he did have the notion that he might profit from a visit to the Silver Jewel.

A quiet man who listens will pick up a surprising amount of information, especially when he's looking to do just that, and Roger was of a notion that he might want some ground and roots to set down in that ground.

He knew there was a time for patience, and a time for action, and he was not inclined to sit idle when purpose was called for.

Roger knew the Sheriff was about, somewhere, and he also knew the Sheriff would be coming into the Silver Jewel, if only for a quick pasear, and fortunately for his sense of purpose, the very man slipped silently through the fancy double doors.

Like any good lawman Roger ever knew, the man's eyes were busy, and he knew Jacob's other senses were working as well: he stepped in, looked up the stairs before leaning back just enough to touch his backside against the substantial wall, there at the foot of the stairs: Tilly's hotel desk was to his left and forward, the double doors to his right, the Jewel's main room directly ahead.

When those pale eyes swung his way, Roger raised his chin, and was rewarded with an almost imperceptible nod.

Jacob was pleasant and gregarious as he came through the Saturday night crowd, shaking hands, slapping backs, asking how was this man's wife, that man's cattle, he heard there was a fine little boy born under his roof yesterday, how was Mama and child; the man seemed to know everyone, and had a word for every man he met.

He came up to the bar, looked at Roger, smiling a little.

"I hear tell you're doing all right out there."

"I am," Roger grinned, "and I have you to thank for that. Matter of fact" -- he considered a moment before continuing -- "I'd like to talk business."

Jacob's left eyebrow raised a little. "Here, or in private?"

"Private might suit. I reckon I could use advice while we're at it."

"Mr. Baxter, is the back room open?"

"It's all yours, Sheriff."

"Daisy got any more of them real good --" Jacob began, and Daisy's girl swatted his shoulder, then set the tray on the bar.

"Look at you!" she scolded. "If you turned sideways you'd disappear! When was the last time you got home for a good square meal?" she scolded, then looked at Roger, rapped the back of her hand into Jacob's flat, tight belly. "Just look at him! He'd need three square meals and a brick to throw a decent shadow!"

"Yeah, God loves you too," Jacob grinned. "Thanks for the sam witch."

"Mother was right," the girl muttered as she turned and headed back to the kitchen.

Roger and Jacob picked up their good thick beef sandwiches in one hand, their beer in the other, and made their way to the privacy of the back room.

Jacob hooked the door with his boot heel, stepped out of the way as it shut behind them, and each man took a seat at a small table.

"Now," Jacob said, his face and his voice serious. "What's on your mind?"

Roger considered the man carefully, aware he was still pretty much a stranger hereabouts, and that he had to tread cautiously.

"Sheriff," he said, "my Pa was a wise man."

He saw a little wrinkling at the corners of Jacob's eyes.

"Mine was too," he said softly, them chuckled. "Matter of fact he tried to teach me at a tender age that 'Hurry up is brother to mess it up.'" He leaned back a little and grinned at the memory. "You know, it's plumb amazin' how often I've proven the old man right!"

Roger nodded, smiling a little, for his Pa had been of a similar nature.

"I reckon the Good Book is worth thinkin' about," he said slowly. "Ecclesiastes. For every thing there is a season, a time for every purpose under the heavens."

"One of Pa's favorite passages."

"Mine too." Roger frowned a little, turned his beer mug a little. "Sometimes a man wants to lay back and study a situation and sometimes he'd ought to strike while attair iron is still hot."

Jacob nodded.

"I met a girl."

Jacob's grin was quick and genuine and he shook his head, chuckling. "Friend," he declared, "may God have mercy on your soul, for if she's the right girl, she's already got you bulldogged, hogtied, and she's ready to brand your butt and run attair weddin' ring right through your nose!"

Roger laughed quietly. "I hope I don't holler too loud!"

"I didn't." Jacob's voice was quiet. "I married my best friend and that is the one wisest thing I ever did in my entire young life."

Roger's smile faded slowly. "I ain't had time to ... be friends with her yet."

"Is that the advice you wanted to ask?"

"No." Roger decided against a bite of sandwich to cover his hesitation. "No, Sheriff, I'm looking for ground. If I'm gonna ask a pretty little bird to share my life I'd best have a nest first."

"How big?"

"I'd like to raise live stock and young'uns."

"How many head you figure on?"

"Cattle or children?"

Jacob laughed again. "Now damned if you don't sound like Pa!"

Roger considered the Sheriff's pale eyes and decided against pursuing that observation -- or any comment associated therewith -- and said instead, "I hear tell the Llewellyn place is up for sale."

The air cooled several degrees as the Sheriff's pale eyes swung around like a pair of ice cannon.

"I've already bought it," he said slowly.

"I heard you had."

The Sheriff's silence stretched out for a few hundred yards.

"Sheriff" -- Roger decided to start throwing out his high cards on the table -- "the girl I met is your sister Angela."

The Sheriff's eyes were cold and hard and the man nodded, once.

"If I'm goin' to get sweet on her I want good ground to do it."

Again a slow nod, but no other comment.

"I got gold enough to buy half this town. I ain't no broke drifter that just picked up work and might drift on next payday. I like what I see here" -- he leaned forward a little -- "but I ain't about to go forcin' nothin'."

Jacob nodded, again, the one, slow, nod.

Roger leaned back in his chair, his face serious.

"If this is the right thing to do, it'll happen. If she's sweet on me she'll let me know."

"Does she know you're sweet on her?"

Roger's expression was haunted. "I don't know," he admitted.

The door opened and Daisy's girl thrust into the room, hands on her hips and a saucy look on her face.

"You boys gonna eat or you gonna talk all night?" she challenged, swinging her hips and flaring her skirt like a little girl. "We got pie."

Jacob looked at Daisy's girl (who was not at all put off by his cold, pale-eyed gaze), then he looked at Roger, his expression thawing.

"You recall Pa's favorite passage?"

"I recall it."

"It is time to eat pie."

Daisy's girl gave the two men a wink and swung out of the room, drawing the door shut behind her.

Jacob considered for a moment or two, then looked at Roger.

"This ain't up to me," he said. "This is up to Angela. Truth be told, I was holdin' Sarah's property for her."

"Sarah?"

"My ... sister." Jacob looked away, swallowed. "She was kilt about the same time my oldest boy was. They went off to Europe, and ..."

He took a long breath, gazing into the distance.

"You talk to Angela and see how she feels."

The door opened and Daisy's girl sashayed in, swinging her hips and carrying two plates, each with a quarter of a pie, and a fork stuck in each.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

20. A MATTER OF TRUST

Jacob frowned at the office chair, his eyes cold, hard and intimidating.

The chair, for its part, was untroubled by the expression.

Jacob turned and looked around the unaccustomed spaciousness of his new office.

It was chilly enough he had the gas heater running.

He'd asked that its forearm-diameter chimney pipe run a good ways before it went outside, like the wood stove it replaced, and for the same reason: to radiate every bit of heat possible into the living space before it was discarded to the outside air.

He paced restlessly back through the row of cells -- unoccupied -- looking at the steel bunks -- folded up and secured to the wall they were hinge-mounted on -- he considered the heaters, positioned so one heater could radiate its heat across the walkway and into two cells at the same time.

He paced back, leaned down and drew open the bottom drawer, drew it well out from the desk.

Daciana's gut-warming gift -- he couldn't call it a house warming gift, and damned if he was going to be so snooty as to refer to an office-warming gift -- was right where she put it, undisturbed: a bottle of something water clear and not over 30 days old, and four faceted, heavy, wide-mouthed glasses to go with it.

Jacob eased the drawer shut, looked again at the office chair.

Like his father's chairs, this one had no arms; a man with a revolving pistol at each hip would not want anything impeding his draw from a seated position.

Mayor and Council and the county's commissioners had come in and examined the new structure, and of course there were those who sought to make political hay out of anything they could: there were questions as to how much this had cost, and how much public funding had gone into its construction, and why was the Council not consulted on its design or its size or its materials: the County Commissioners smugly allowed Council to have its say before finally stating that this was a County office, not city; that they, the County Commissioners, had a say in these things, not the City Council, and that any accounting of funding was frankly none of the Council's business: at this point it devolved into a shouting match between the two factions, which Jacob allowed to continue until one man swung at another, at which point Jacob's son Samuel quietly opened wide the front door, and Jacob seized one man, the another, by the shirt scruff and the seat of the pants, and slung same right out onto the street.

He left the door open; of eight men -- Mayor, four Councilmen and three Commissioners -- one of Council and one of Commission ended up sailing out the open door and rolling awkwardly in the dirt: the others, who'd been actively considering adding their knuckles to the sudden deterioration of the discussion, just as actively decided this was a poor idea and elected instead a course of watchful waiting.

Jacob dusted his hands together, leaned casually against the door frame.

"Whenever you wish to come in," he said, "please join us" -- he withdrew and went to his desk, looked at the office chair, gave a mental shrug and turned and seated himself.

"Mister Mayor," Jacob said, "until such time as the city jail is built, you're still welcome to use our hoosegow just like we've always done. Marshal Bruce may keep his files here or there as he pleases."

The Mayor replied stiffly, "I do not believe it politic to store City records in a County facility, Sheriff."

Jacob raised a hand, palm forward, toward the Mayor. "Suit yourself, Your Honor. I ain't hard to please. Now as far as cost and public funding" -- he leaned forward, the edges of his forearms pressing into the edge of the desk -- "there wasn't one red cent of public money went into this place. Not one."

"Eh?" the Chief Commissioner blurted, startled.

"My father set up a fund years ago for this" -- Jacob spread his hands, indicating the whole building -- "just like he put his own money into the Irish Brigade. He bought the first fire engine and hired a crew of Cincinnati firemen to run it. Since then he cycled in a new engine every few years so we would have absolutely the world's best fire fighting equipment, and the Irish Brigade cycle back to Cincinnati on a staggered schedule so they can work back East, back where they're busy, back where they get fire fighting practice way more than they get here."

"Well, thank God for that," one of the councilmen puffed, and Jacob nodded. "Close the door behind you, fellas, keep the heat in."

The two pugilists -- filthy, from having been thrown into the street -- came back in, looking decidedly crestfallen.

"Now gentlemen," Jacob said, rising, "you see I will not tolerate a lack of manners here. That's the only warning any of you are going to get. None of you have any complaint on how much was spent or where the money came from. My father's largesse ended with his death and while I appreciate his gesture, I will not be imitating it. From this day forward, expenses will come from the County treasury and the County is free to bill the City treasury should we use supplies on the City's behalf. I believe that is only fair.

"Now does that answer your questions?"

Council consulted within their own small group, the Commissioners within theirs; there was a knock at the door, and the Judge pushed open the imposing portal, looked around.

"I seem to be interrupting," he said slowly.

"No, Your Honor, you have an appointment," Jacob replied, rising.

Mayor, Council, Commissioners and their chief, made their pleasantries and departed: the Judge stopped in front of one of the gas heaters, his backside to the welcome warmth.

"I'm having these installed in the courtroom," he said. "There isn't nearly the ash to haul out."

Jacob smiled a little; his father made the same joke, years before.

"Sheriff, tell me about your sister."

"Which one?" Jacob smiled. "You lookin' to get married?"

"Married? I --" His Honor stopped and laughed. "No. No, but I'll admit Angela would make some man a fine catch."

"She's convinced she'll die a spinster," Jacob said slowly, shaking his head a little.

"That is a shame," the Judge said thoughtfully, then pursed his lips: Jacob knew he was coming to his point, and he did.

"Sheriff, do I remember correctly that your sister was Sarah Llewellyn?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"And your sister Sarah was The Black Agent."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"And do I remember correctly that she was a wonderfully effective Agent?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Hm." The Judge nodded, considering this. "It's a little unusual for a woman to become a detective."

"Alan Pinkerton thought so, sir, until a woman came to him and described how a woman can go where a man would be prohibited, how a woman will be trusted where a man will not, how men will spill their absolute guts to a pretty face, how a woman can get close to otherwise mistrustful men, either to gather information or to effect an arrest."

"It's the thought of a pretty young girl effecting a arrest that still surprises me," the Judge admitted.

"Yes, Your Honor."

"And yet your sister did all these things."

"These and more, Your Honor. These and many more."

"I would wish to have such an Agent in my employ."

"Many would," Jacob agreed.

"Is your sister Angela in the least capable of such a career?"

"No, sir," Jacob said honestly. "She's like a little field mouse. She'll fight viciously and ferociously if she's cornered and she has no other choice. Sarah was like a panther with a couple drinks under its belt, she'd fight a man if he looked at her wrong. She wasn't a girl so much as she was a warrior that just sorta looked like a girl."

"I understand she was quite a good looking girl."

"Yes, Your Honor. She was."

The Judge leaned back in his chair until it touched the wall behind him. "I genuinely regret," he admitted quietly, "never having met either your father, or your sister."

"You'd have liked them, Your Honor."

"Yes." He swung his legs out, held them extended for a long moment until his chair overbalanced and came down on four legs again. "Yes, I believe I would."

He stood. "By the way, I understand you know the value of prevention."

"Sir?"

"Your regular Sunday shooting matches there on the lower end." The Judge pointed an arm generally toward the corral on the lower end of town. "You and that boy of yours -- Samuel, is he?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"You have the right idea." The Judge looked around. "You show the entire community that both of you are fast, that both of you are accurate, and now I understand the county newspaper is making mention of your prowess."

"Yes, sir. I read that."

His Honor looked directly at the Sheriff. "I understand from conversation with other lawmen and my fellow jurists that you are talked about among the criminal community. Firelands is known as a good place not to try anything."

Jacob allowed himself a quiet smile. "Thank you, Your Honor."

His Honor turned toward the door, took a step, stopped, turned back.

"Sheriff, would you know of anyone who would make a good Agent?"

"I'm sorry, Your Honor," Jacob said honestly, his hands spread, palms-up. "I really don't."

"Well, thank you anyway."

Samuel waited until the Judge was off the boardwalk and into his carriage before easing the big, heavy door shut.

His father had risen when the Judge rose; now he was easing himself carefully back into the chair.

Jacob noticed his son watching him sit down.

"It's not that I don't trust this chair," he admitted, "it's that I just don't trust the damned thing!"

"Yes, sir," Samuel nodded.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

21. "THE OLD MAN WAS RIGHT!"

I stared down at that grave stone and I felt my jaw set.

It was what Digger called "White Bronze" and he said it with a sneer when I ordered it.

I didn't care.

Cast zinc, I had a notion, would last longer than marble or granite and white bronze is what I wanted, so white bronze is what I got, and the one time I caught Digger takin' a hammer to it to bust a bit chunk out, I figured the man needed educatin', and I was the educator.

There is a time for the legal process and there is a time to just honestly pound some sense into a man.

He swung attair light weight sledge and busted the side out of Miriam's marker and I grabbed the collar of his coat and yanked him over backwards.

It took him by surprise and he let go of that dainty little sledge hammer (Pa used a sixteen pound oil field sledge and so do I, that'll work a man swingin' that beast!) and he landed over on his back.

His eyes was squinted shut with pain and then he looked up and he said "Sheriff?" and his voice was somewhere between surprise and a squeak.

I retcht down and grabbed a good handful of his linen shirt front and I closed my fist on it and twisted it up and I meant to pull up chest hairs and some hide with it.

I fetched that undertakin' cheat off the ground and I fetched him up left handed and I brought him up to eye level and I talked reeeeal quiet.

"Digger," I said, "do you know who's buried there?"

"N-n-no," he said, shaking his head -- he kind of whispered it, his weight was a-pullin' unnaturally on attair shirt and I don't know how much hide I had pulled up under it and I really did not care much neither.

"Digger, that's a girl buried there. She hadn't seen her fourteenth year yet an' I was in love with her." My voice was quiet, it didn't have to be loud, I had his nose hauled up within an inch of my own and I knew he could hear plainly.

"M-m-Miriam," he repeated, sounding like his lips was half numb.

Likely they was, fear will do funny things to a man's body.

"She was blind, Digger. She played piano. She died screaming in pain and I held her as she died. She didn't do nothin' wrong, she come West with her folks, Doc said it was a tumor or a cancer or somethin' like. I paid to have her buried an' you handled it."

Digger's mouth was open but he wasn't sayin' anything; he nodded a little, carefully, as if afraid he'd lose his fine silk topper that was a-layin' on the ground by the broken monument.

"You tried to cheat me on the coffin and you didn't want to order a white bronze marker. You get a bounty for every granite marker and a bigger one for that fancy Eastern marble that costs so damned much to freight out here from back East. I knowed you was crooked, Digger, but this is the first time I ever caught you in such a dirty deal as to bust up a dead girl's marker!"

I begun to walk.

Digger was still wound up in my grip and he come along too, not that he wanted it much, but his feet were a-dangle and he couldn't do much about it.

Apple-horse followed me like a dog the way he always did.

Digger's eyes looked like boiled eggs and he tried to say somethin' but I don't reckon I would have heard much had he spoke.

I get that way when I'm just plainly boilin' mad.

Pa said he got that way too, when he got killin' mad he couldn't hear much, he told me oncet how Marshal Macneil had to grab his arm and shout as loud as he could an inch from Pa's ear while Pa had a man down and was drivin' a knife into him like a sewin' machine, he'd kilt the man dead some minutes before but when the mad was on him God alone had to intervene.

I wasn't ready to knife Digger.

I had another notion.

Now like I said Digger's eyes was bulgy and big and real white and he tried turnin' his head a little and he saw I was comin' abreast of the Tree of Justice, which is what Agent Sopris called that hangin' tree, and he begun to whine and squirm and I reckon he figured I had him sized up for a hemp necktie.

I was mad but I don't hang a man for bein' mad, if I am that boilin' furious I'll lay hands on the fellow, and I had my hands on Digger.

I'd loved that Miriam girl.

I was her same age and 'twas the first time I ever felt as protective of a girl as a man will.

I reckon them feelin's is supposed to come up on a man slow and grow like a flower an' he's supposed to taste a number of posies in the meadow like a bee and then experience the gradual bloom of man-feelings.

Me, I didn't.

Reckon that's from the hell I had as a boy.

Sarah was like that, rest her soul.

She'd had hell forced on her that no child ever should have to, but she was well younger than I was when I ended up havin' to kill that man my widowed Mama married.

I couldn't but barely move, he'd horse whipped my back bloody and I was told later the doc could see a rib here an' there and it's a wonder I hadn't died from infection alone but I didn't.

I do know I was more animal than boy after he tended me and I disappeared.

It ain't natural for a boy of less than ten years to fetch out another man's revolver and set the muzzle in the drunken sot's ear and pull the trigger.

He deserved it, he whipped and he beat my Mama and he killed her and he was fixin' to do as much with me had I let him live.

He was a drunk and he was passed out drunk when I blowed a .44 ball in his left ear hole and out his right and I buried my Mama and left him to rot, damn his black soul to seven hells and a tornado.

I know what rage is.

Pa knew it too, he learned it from that damned War and from losin' his wife Connie an' his little girl to the small pox, and that's why he named him and Mother's youngest daughter Dana, for his little girl, long dead and buried back in the Ohio country.

Pa knew soul burnin' eye blindin' layin' on of murderous hands rage.

Reckon that's how him and I got on so well.

He adopted me without knowin' I was his birth son until some time later and by then, hell, it wouldn't have made a nickle's worth of difference had I been sired by the King of Roosha, he'd took to me and I'd took to him, I called him Pa before he found out and after.

All this run singin' through my head whilst Digger was lookin' fearful-like at that hangin' tree.

I had other ideas.

Below the tree there was a hollow, at the bottom of the hollow there was a creek, in the creek there was a bend, and in that bend there was a fairly deep hole, and in that nice deep pool there was water.

Oncet I picked up Digger and begun to walk I said not one word.

A strong man's silence can be a frightening thing and I intended it should be, and it worked.

I reckon Digger figgered he was in for worse than a beatin' and I could see his imagination lookin' out from behind his wide, staring eyes, running away with him like a freight locomotive on a down grade and no brakes, and I let that imagination run, least until I squatted and shoved him down into that water.

I squatted on a flat, solid-set rock I knowed of and I swung him to my left and his legs followed the swing and I drove him down in that cold mountain water and run him elbow deep on me, and my grip in the middle of his chest, and his hands grabbed my wrist and I held him under.

I recall how wide them eyes was and how little and silvery the bubbles was that come out of his nose.

I held him under for maybe a ten-count, long enough for him to start to thrash some and then I hauled him out of that cold, cold water and I stood up, turning.

I turned around, once, twice, a third time, and on the third turn I throwed that skinny little thievin' weasel, I threw him hard into the bank and let him hit and roll back downhill, and I stopped him with my boot sole planted flat on his chest.

I looked down at him and there was neither kindness nor forgiveness in my gaze.

"Digger," I said.

The man was coughin' yet, I lifted my boot and he rolled over and threw up, he coughed and spit and retched and come up on all fours, gasping.

I squatted again.

"Digger," I said conversationally, "you are a cheat, and you are a thief, and you are a scoundrel. You busted a dead girl's marker because you wanted me to pay for a new one."

He shivered a little, looking at me sidelong.

"You are going to replace it at your complete expense. I will give you a week. In seven days from right now" -- I pulled out my watched, pressed the stem to flip open the hunter's case, marked the time -- "in seven days from right now, you will have that new, white bronze marker, bought and set entirely at your expense. You will do the very best job possible and I will examine the work afterward and if it is not exactly what I want, I will find you and I will drag you back up here and I will drown you in that same pool."

I never raised my voice, I never swore, I spoke quietly and I spoke calmly.

"You have seven days. I reckon you'd best be at it."

I stood.

Apple-horse blinked, slashing his tail a little; I recall I could hear the hiss of the coarse hairs as they whispered against his flanks.

I saddled up and set a pace for the house.

My left arm was soaky wet and it was cold, and I had dry clothes to put on.

I knew Digger was quite a bit wetter, and colder.

The thought give me some satisfaction.

Pa taught me quite a bit about handlin' men, and he one time said if I knew a man was a coward, if I braced him and straightened him out in private, he would be less likely to back shoot me than if I shamed the coward in front of the public's eye.

When everyone knows a man's a coward but nobody says so, him and them all pretend he ain't, but when everyone knows he is a coward and he gets called out in public, sometimes it turns to a coward's anger.

I reckon the Grand Old Man was right.

Stealin' from the dead was one thing.

Bustin' up a marker that family put up, or family near enough, why, that's just plain dirty.

Miriam was the first girl I ever fell in love with, and when the very young fall like that ... well, fall is the right word, for it was equally as powerful and just as irreversible as a fall from a high cliff, and it was the first time my young heart was broke from romance, and all I could do for her was to bury her decent and set a marker, so I did.

 

Pa's method worked.

Digger had that new monument set in six days, not seven.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

22. THE FLEECE

A haze of wood smoke hung over Firelands.

This wasn't unusual of a Sunday morning.

Saturday night bath meant hot water, hot water meant fire, fires meant burning wood, and the fragrance of woodsmoke permeated.

Men throughout the community shined their boots, or at least gave them a lick and a promise, knotted neckties, rubbed their faces thoughtfully to ensure their razor was sharp enough that morning: women turned and regarded themselves in their mirrors, touched their hair, set hats at a particular angle.

Noon meals were prepared ahead, so much as possible -- Sunday dinner was the highlight of the week -- stoves were banked and even the hired hands and maids went with their families to the little whitewashed church in beautiful downtown Firelands, hub of commerce and industry, center of culture and learning.

Angela Keller smiled as her big brother Jacob came rattling up her driveway in their big carriage (it took a big rig to haul his young regiment!) -- she laughed at the forest of enthusiastic arms that waved at her on their approach, and her maid looked to the left, at the other Keller carriage coming down from the barn.

Jacob drew their dapple to a halt, looked at the young fellow at the reins of what had been his Pa's carriage, and he couldn't help but smile a little at the corners of his eyes at the man's expression: at once uncertain, determined, and ... almost bashful, he thought.

Jacob looked quickly at his wife Annette, remembering that half-bashful feeling when he first met her, then he looked back at Roger Dillon.

Roger walked the rig up beside the porch as Jacob drew their carriage to the side to make room.

"Pa, how come he's takin' Aunt Angela insteadda us?" one of Jacob's little girls piped, leaning up over the back of the seat and pouting at her Papa, her bottom lip hung out in juvenile distress.

"It's kind of crowded for two more," Jacob said quietly, turning his head a little and looking at his wife again. "They'll be more comfortable that way."

"Oh." His little girl fell back in her seat, arms crossed, her bottom lip running out another foot.

Roger set the brake, climbed carefully down from the spotlessly burnished carriage: he went up to the front steps and held out his hand, and Angela blushed and reached her gloved hand out, and laid it delicately in the man's upraised palm.

"I don't like him," Jacob's little girl pouted quietly with a little frown, and Jacob hid his smile at her comment.

His sister was with her maid -- she had an escort -- therefore propriety was met; he need not chaperone the couple, and so he touched his hat brim and clucked at the dappled grey.

By the time Jacob pulled a big turkey gobbler and U-turned their carriage in the big yard, the ladies were settled in their upholstered seats and Roger was releasing the brake and starting for church.

"I don't like him," Jacob's little girl said again, and Jacob reined their nag to a halt, set his own brake, stood up and turned around and planted his knee in his seat: he reached forward, seized his little girl under the arms, hoist her up and into him.

"I'm a-gonna beat your butt," he said, and the little girl squealed: Jacob swung her in a wide, exaggerated arc and laid her across his knee.

He rose a hand, threw his head back, shook his head back and forth and intoned dramatically, "A-a-a-ahm a-gonna beat your butt!"

Little stockinged legs kicked: "No, Daddy!"

"I'm a-gonna beat your butt," Jacob repeated, chopping his jaws as his little girl twisted out of his loosened grip and dropped back over the back of the seat.

Jacob swung his flat palm back and forth in the air -- "A-a-a-a-ahm a-gonna beat your butt!" he declared, then brought his had down and began briskly spanking his knee: "I'm gonna beatcher butt beatcher butt beatcher beatcher beatcher ..."

He coasted to a stop, frowned, shoved his face toward his unoccupied thigh, pausing his hand in mid-spank.

Two of the three youngest giggled, teeth shining and faces reddening.

Jacob pointed to her and to his leg and back to her and said "How'd you do that?"

More juvenile laughter.

"Youuu fooled me!" he declared, shaking a dramatic figure in the air: "youuu foooled me!" and the little ones bent forward with mirth.

It was a game they played every Sunday, his little girl manufacturing some reason for a pout, and Jacob always threatened to fan her little biscuits, and he never did (at least in these circumstances) -- he shook his head again, wiped the tuck-and-roll upholstery with a quick swipe of his palm, settled himself and lifted the reins, then he stopped and turned: "You fooled me!"

The sound of children's' laughter drifted a surprising distance on the wood-scented air.

 

"Mr. Dillon."

Roger stopped, removed his new hat.

"Mr. Dillon, we would be pleased if you would join us for Sunday dinner."

Roger blinked, looked at Angela, on his arm: she gave him a little nod, her eyes large, bright, and very, very blue.

"Thank you, Mrs. Rosenthal," he said quietly. "We'd like that."

"Jacob, we've put the extra leaves in the table. We'd like you to join us as well."

Jacob looked at Annette, who nodded, and Jacob realized there was some female collusion here: he remembered seeing the ladies driving out to the Rosenthal household the day before, and probably -- very probably -- they were preparing a big Sunday dinner ahead of time.

"The Parson and his wife will be joining us as well," Bonnie murmured to Jacob.

Jacob looked at Bonnie -- Dear Lord, she thought, he looks so much like his father! she thought -- and the pale-eyed Sheriff asked, "Bonnie, is there something I should know?"

Bonnie stepped down from the first step of the church, laid a gentle, gloved hand on his shoulder, stepped very close to him and whispered, "Jacob, come and see me."

He nodded.

"Aunt Bonnie, I'm wearing the dress you made me," Jacob's precocious little girl piped, and Bonnie drew back her hand: she bent a little at the waist, looked at the beaming, bright-eyed little girl: "Why so you are!" she declared in a delighted voice. "Turn, now, turn around so I can see you!"

Angela and Roger and the maid ascended the stairs as Jacob's little girl happily pirouetted for her Aunt Bonnie's violet-eyed inspection.

 

Jacob whistled as he looked at the dinner table.

Bonnie had extra help for the day -- with this many people under the roof, this much meal to be prepared, she's been busy for a few days! he thought -- he drew out a chair for his bride, and Annette handed off her infant to a maid, who whisked the fed, changed, pink-cheeked, sleeping little boy into an adjacent room.

Roger and Angela sat side by side, Angela glowing, her eyes lowered, trying to look maidenly, trying not to look excited.

Her heart hammered its way up into her throat and she felt a little light-headed, and under the tablecloth's thigh-length drape, her hand sought Roger's, gave it a little squeeze, then returned to her own lap.

119

 

Angela picked at her meal: Roger ate with a good appetite, for he was a hard-working man; Jacob and his sons did full justice to the feast, and Bonnie assessed everyone's intake with a mother's eye -- except when she looked at Angela -- for Bonnie remembered how it felt to be young, and uncertain, and excited, all at the same time.

Angela was the subject of several conversations, it seemed everyone wished to speak with her all at once: Roger, too, was engaged, but he was far more at ease, speaking with everyone with no visible discomfort.

The meal was at once flavorful, filling, and interminable: Angela was more than relieved when dessert came out, when the table was cleared, when she was able to lean back and let the anonymous arm reach in and remove her plate, her silverware.

The group broke up and drifted from the table, and Angela found herself gravitating to the elderly Parson and his plump, matronly wife.

She introduced Parson Belden to Roger Dillon, waited until the men finished their usual pleasantries, their usual discussion of their professions, and Angela looked up at her red-eared escort and smiled a little, remembering how her big strong Papa's ears used to redden when he was unexpectedly the center of attention at a social gathering, and she looked at the Parson and wondered how much redder Roger's ears were about to get.

"Parson," she said when the two men came to a pause in their conversation, "I was reading Judges Six a few days ago."

The Parson considered for a moment, nodded, smiled just a little: his old and dear friend, the late Sheriff, sometimes started a conversation in just that manner, and his daughter's words reminded the sky pilot powerfully of that lean old lawman of a sudden.

"Judges, you say," he replied. "Judges six?"

"The fleece on the threshing floor."

"Ah, yes. If the fleece were wet and the floor was dry, this would be a sign."

Angela's cheeks reddened and her hand tightened on Roger's arm.

"Parson, I ran into a fleece ... "

She looked up at Roger, and his ears were passing beyond scarlet.

 

"Mr. Dillon here kept the fleece from running into me."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

23. THE VOICE IN THE WIND

Samuel watched his father from a distance.

He was well above the man, watching, and rather less than comfortable as he did.

There were times when Sheriff Jacob Keller wished his son close by.

There were times when he laughed and gathered his young about him, when he laughed and played with them, hoist the smaller ones to arm’s length and whirled them around, laughing that great gusting laugh of a strong man’s joy, and the children laughed with him: there were times when he would take one, or another, of his young aside and show them something – whether it was how to ply a blade upon a whet stone, whether it was how to properly black a pair of boots or fit a peg to hold timbers in place or how to knapp flint underwater to avoid the sharp little chips that flew at a man’s eyes.

Then there were times when he was silent, almost morose, times when he went his way alone.

Samuel knew he did this when it was very necessary.

He read the tracks and he looked at the carnage and he narrowed his eyes as he read the story the way a civilized man will read a newspaper.

His father had gone in alone.

He’d gone into the encampment just as dawn was breaking, cold and frosty in a hidden draw, a place where men might shelter out of the common eye, out of the wind: he’d gone in, silent in fur-lined moccasins, and he’d come out bloodied, staggering, barely able to get into his saddle: he’d fought a desperate battle, alone in that rocky glen in the mountains, the odds were four to one, and as he lay pale and unmoving and not even flinching as Doc used a very sharp, short-bladed knife to enlarge one of the bullet holes, Samuel leaned over his father’s smoked and streaked face and whispered, “Why, Pa? Why’d you go alone? I coulda sided you –“

Jacob turned his eyes, only his eyes, he looked at his secondborn son and he whispered hoarsely, “I lost one son already, Samuel. I’m not risking you.”

“Pa” – Samuel’s voice took on an edge, and Nurse Susan’s eyes flicked up from the bloodied man’s chest wound at the sound – “Pa, I’ve only got one of you.”

The son’s face was pale and tight-drawn and his voice descended to a hoarse whisper.

“Pa, I never went ag’in you before, but by God! Sir, if you ever” – the word was a teeth-clenched hiss – “ever do that ag’in, sir, I will kick your backside up between your shoulder blades!”

“Pack a lunch,” Jacob said quietly, closing his eyes, and as he exhaled, bloody froth bubbled up out of the chest wound.

“Damned fool,” Doctor John Greenlees muttered. “I repaired your father and now I’m repairing you.” He picked up the scissor-like forceps, still warm from having come out of the autoclave, slid them expertly into the wound tract: he closed his eyes, twisted the forceps a little, opened them.

He began to extract the forceps.

Samuel watched as blood-slimed steel emerged, then the curve that meant its end was about to come out, then a deformed chunk of bloody lead.

Doc Greenlees dropped the slug in a metal pan.

The sudden, bright CLANK brought a shivering twitch from Samuel’s thigh muscles.

“Now, Sheriff,” Doc said, “I’m going to make you very unhappy.”

“Give me a drink first.”

Dr. Greenlees extended his hand, accepted the little metal cup Nurse Susan handed him.

“Here you go,” he said, lifting the Sheriff’s head with one hand, bringing the little cup to the man’s lips. “Take it in one gulp.”

Jacob did, and grimaced: he swore, his lips peeled back from even, white teeth.

“Now drink this. It’ll take the taste.”

Jacob drank the second libation greedily, swished the liquid fire about in his mouth, incinerating his gums and the linings of his cheeks: he swallowed, grimaced again, and Doc eased his head back on the pillow.

“We’ll give that just a minute to take hold,” Doc Greenlees said quietly.

“Samuel.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Samuel, if I ever do that again …”

“Yes, sir?”

“I won’t tell you about it.” Jacob looked at his son and the son saw amusement in the father’s pale eyes. “I don’t think I’d want to rassle you.”

“Sir,” Samuel said, “I’ve seen you with your shirt off.” He gripped his father’s upper arm, lightly, just enough to make his point: “I don’t reckon I would be wise to tangle with a man whose shirt sleeve is plumb full of arm.”

“You’re smarter than you look,” Jacob whispered.

“This,” Samuel replied solemnly, “proves the Lord’s mercy.”

“Okay, Doc, hit me.”

Dr. Greenlees frowned, picked up the bottle of carbolic.

“Pa, would you like something to bite on?”

Jacob shook his head.

Samuel heard his father’s teeth click together as Doc used that carbolic rag to swab out the hole as deep as he dared.

 

The Anderson boys had one speed.

Wide open.

Whether it was running for the school bell, briskly swung by the schoolmarm they didn’t know well enough to like or dislike, whether it was home from school, whether it was with a note from the telegraph office or just because they wished to be there instead of here, the Anderson boys moved at a dead run.

The Anderson boys ran for the sheer joy of running, mostly, at least until they came into the hidden draw, the draw where dead men lay where they fell, where two spotted skunks were sniffing the bloodied carcasses.

The Anderson boys looked at one another and grinned.

They started to run again.

Neither of them grinned for very long.

 

Samuel looked over what little mail there was for the day.

He picked up a letter – an envelope – turned it over.

Samuel’s eyes widened and he thought, Pa will want this right now!

The heavy door opened and Old Man Anderson had to take a second look, for the lean individual in the black suit behind the Sheriff’s desk had his head down, and until he raised his head and showed his face, Anderson honestly did not know if this was father, or son.

“Mr. Anderson.”

“Deputy.”

“What can we do for you, sir?”

“I wanted … your father’s advice.”

“My father will be away for a few days, sir, can I be of service?”

Mr. Anderson nodded, clearly uncomfortable, and Samuel caught just a whiff of … something … familiar.

“Deputy, I was hoping for some good sound advice,” Anderson said, frowning, almost uncertainly.

“Yes, sir?”

Anderson took a long breath, swallowed.

“How do you get skunk oil off two little boys?”

 

Samuel waited until his mother finished priming his Pa with a bowl of good rich soup.

She fed him like he was a little child, and he let her: Samuel knew his mother felt so helpless, and this was one thing she could do for him, and he knew his Pa realized how she felt – and that it was his fault she felt so helpless – and Samuel knew that his Pa was allowing her to feed him, as a kindness and an apology.

Samuel waited, silent, unmoving, just outside the doorway, his hat in his hand and his backside against the door frame: like his father, and like his father before him, Samuel had been born with a sway back, and standing still too long was not comfortable: his Pa knew this more than he, and Samuel was just realizing that his father’s malady was his as well, and that leaning his tail bone against the door frame let him take some of the bend out of the lower back, and made it less uncomfortable.

Annette came out, paused.

“He’s resting,” she suggested in a whisper.

Samuel held up the letter. “Not yet he’s not,” he whispered back.

Jacob looked up as his son came in the room.

“Come to give me hell?” he grinned crookedly.

“No, sir,” Samuel said. “I come to give you grief.”

“Well, let’s have it,” Jacob said, “but remember I can still kick your butt.”

Samuel’s expression faded the smile from his father’s face.

The older man’s expression became more solemn as he examined the envelope.

He looked up, opened his mouth to direct that the lamp be brought closer, to discover his son was already tending that detail.

Jacob took a deep breath, broke the red-wax seal impressed with a rose, and turned his dead sister’s envelope over in his hand and opened it.

 

Dearest Jacob, he read, and it was as if he could hear Sarah’s whisper framing the words.

Somehow I imagined you might be a preacher – dressed in grief and armed for war, mounted on a coal-black steed.

Then I realized you are a preacher.

Where you ride you bring the Law, and where the Lawless are, you bring order.

Demons flee before you – demons sometimes look like men, and are known by the evil they do.

By now you know I am dead, and my child is among you.

See that she grows up like Angela.

See that she knows the joy of a good horse on a mountain trail.

Show her the sunrise and how to sneak up on elk.

Show her a birth-bulged cow elk and watch her eyes as she sees the life within kick at the cow’s belly from the inside.

Let her sing, Jacob, give her the gift of music.

Do these things that I cannot, my dear Preacher, my brother, and never doubt the good that you do.

 

Jacob’s face was a mask as he folded the single page and slipped it back into its envelope.

“Samuel.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Samuel, put this in my desk, in the center top pigeon hole.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will wish to re-read it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And send her in.”

“Yes, sir.”

Samuel did not have to ask who the “her” was … there was only one “her,” and when his father said to “send her in,” he meant only one of the female children that filled their fine stone house.

A girl came skipping in, a girl with eyes lighter than Angela’s Kentucky-blue, but far richer blue than either the Sheriff, or of her late mother.

“I wish something from you,” Jacob said faintly, for fatigue was rapidly claiming him.

“Yes, Daddy?” she asked, her hands clasped in her apron, turning on her ankles and flaring her skirt the way a little girl will.

“My dear, would you play the piano?”

Her smile was immediate and brilliant, her expression one of delight, and she scampered happily out of the room and down the stairs.

“Samuel.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Thank you for the lamp, please set it back and turn down the flame.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Samuel?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, sir.”

Samuel withdrew, leaving the Sheriff to his thoughts.

He closed his eyes, surrendering to the exhaustion washing over him like waves on a sandy beach, and he heard Sarah’s daughter, downstairs, playing the piano, and with the piano’s voice, he heard another … as he sank into the dark lake of slumber, he stood on a rock shelf and heard his sister’s voice, singing in the wind.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

24. NEWSPAPER

“Bad business, bad business,” Digger murmured with a professionally mournful inflection, the black ribbons on his fine silk topper wagging behind him as he shook his head.

Samuel’s eyes were quiet, expressionless, as he watched the bodies hauled out of the dead wagon and each dropped into a rough box with an absolute lack of care.

“Deputy, will there be …?” Digger began hopefully.

Samuel’s hard-eyed reply was answer enough: there would be no embalming money from this job, just the common coffins and burial in their Potter’s Field.

“I’ve gone through their belongings,” Samuel said, “and there’s little enough there. The County will pay your standard fee for burial.”

“Do I have you to thank for not letting them set up like cranks?”

“Yes.” Samuel’s expression never changed. “Yes, you do.”

Marshal John Bruce looked at the boxes, just before the lids were slid into place and screwed down.

He whistled quietly.

“Your father’s work?” he asked, looking at the tall, slender young man, and Samuel nodded, once.

The Marshal shivered. “How did it happen?”

“Come on into the office,” Samuel said. “I have to write it up.”

 

The Marshal accepted the squat, faceted glass of Old Stump Blower, sat, sipped the clear libation: it was as potent as it was colorless.

Samuel handed the Marshal a thin sheaf of papers.

He’d sketched the dead, dated the sketches and gave a brief description of where they were found, against the day when they could put names to the dead faces.

The sketches were very good, far better than his own father’s skills.

His Mama told him his Grampa was a mapmaker and very good at what he did – “that must be where you got it,” she said, smiling over the table as his pencil whispered across good rag paper, and his little sister’s smiling face emerged from the sheet – it was only natural that Samuel should use his talents to his father’s good advantage, and now that his Pa was laid up, Samuel was determined to make sure his Pa had a good account of his findings.

“Marshal,” he said, “you recall that place we camped two years ago, when we went out for elk and we give up on our way back ‘cause it was late?”

“I remember,” John nodded, taking another cautious sip of his potent tipple.

“These four” – Samuel thrust his chin at the papers the Marshal had spread out on his side of the Sheriff’s desk – “were camped there.” He waited until John downed the last of his drink, slid the empty glass back toward his host. “Recognize any of ‘em?”

John studied them again, frowning, and finally shook his head.

“Can’t say as I do,” he admitted.

Samuel opened the top drawer of his Pa’s desk, the broad shallow one in the middle, pulled out a handful of wanted dodgers, began paging quickly through them.

“Does McGillicuddy’s Gang ring a bell?”

“McGillicuddy –“ John’s eyes went to the pencil sketches. “Not Nathan and –“

Samuel laid out one, then another wanted poster.

The Marshal looked at the engraving printed on the first, looked at the pencil sketches, pointed to the furthest to his left: “Your drawing is a damn sight better than theirs, but it’s the same man,” he affirmed. “And this one’s right here.”

“Every one of ‘em with a price on his head,” Samuel said quietly, “every one of ‘em with blood on his hands, and every last one took a blood oath not to go back to the pen.”

John whistled, shoved his hat back.

“What happened, Samuel? You said that was your father’s work, but … what happened?”

Samuel’s smile was tight and absolutely without humor.

“Marshal,” he said, “I wondered that same thing, so I went and took a look.”

“And …?”

“I read the newspaper.”

Samuel’s voice continued in the quiet of the Sheriff’s office, narrating the scene his inner eye beheld, the eye of memory casting itself upon the scene of blood and carnage that nearly cost his father his very life.

“My father went in alone,” Samuel said. “He said it was because he lost one son and he did not wish to lose another.” The Marshal saw the young man’s face darken with anger. “I think he forgot that Grampa taught my brother and I both to shoot, and I’m pretty damned good at it.”

“I know you’re pretty damned good at it,” John shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I remember when that fellow had his arm around a woman’s neck and his gun barrel behind her ear and he threatened to shoot her if everyone didn’t drop their guns.”

“And I shot him right through the earlobe,” Samuel said, “and he collapsed like a pile of rendered fat.”

“You’ve done that before.”

“Twice, and both times it worked.”

The Marshal shook his head. “You didn’t even aim.”

“I aimed,” Samuel said, the slightest of smiles hiding behind his eyes. “I aimed. It just didn’t take me long.”

Samuel closed his eyes and looked into his memory at what used to be a pleasant, hidden place to shelter from the weather.

“I looked at the tracks and I read the newspaper,” he said quietly, and Marshal John Bruce leaned forward, seeing in his mind’s eye the unfolding of events as re-created by the slender young deputy’s gentle voice.

 

Jacob rode out of town at a good canter.

His stallion moved easily under him and he was completely at home in the saddle.

He knew where the murderers were supposed to be.

As many as carried word of the lawful to the lawless, there were as many among the lawless who would curry favor with the law: such had gotten word to the pale eyed Sheriff Jacob Keller that McGillicuddy’s Gang intended to hole up in his county, that they would be entering from the east, that they’d been riding hard and hard pressed, and they would likely hole up and rest before coming any deeper into what they knew to be bad territory for bad men.

He’d ridden out alone.

Normally his son would have ridden with him, but Jacob knew all four of the gang members swore a blood oath to never be taken by the Law, that they would rather die than surrender.

Jacob had no wish to subject his son to the murderous fire of desperate men.

If he himself fell, that was on him: he wore the guilt of his oldest son’s death like a cloak – no, not a cloak, a hair shirt, something that was forever prickling and gigging his conscience.

He had no suicidal ideations, but neither would he allow these known murderers to pass through his bailiwick when he could stop them.

He loaded up his ’76 rifle and rode out to do battle, he shucked out of knee-high boots and slipped into fur lined moccasins – double thickness, the inner with the hair in, the outer with the hair out – it would take a tracker of his son Samuel’s skills to read his footmarks, he knew, and he smiled a little as he slipped through the thin brush, hesitated behind trees or brush, and finally came to the edge of the clearing.

Their horses were tethered near the front and rear, the only two places anyone could approach: two horses at each, on long picket lines, heads down, hip-shot and drowsing.

A horse’s ears, a horse’s nose, far more sensitive than a human’s, would allow their mounts to raise an alarm: Jacob’s eyes narrowed with approval, for he’d used the same trick himself.

He stopped, froze, eyes busy, listening, smelling.

He looked again at one horse’s forelegs, partly obscured through the brush.

Denim, he thought.

A man’s legs, behind this horse.

That’s one.

Jacob was a stone, a shadow; the wind was carrying out of the sheltered hollow, his scent being drawn away from the horses.

His rifle he held vertically, the same as the tree trunks and saplings around him.

His eyes moved as silently as the rest of him.

Second man asleep, far end, near a ground reined horse.

His eyes narrowed as he found the other two.

They were all well separated, all sheltering without a fire.

Cold camp.

Cold men.

Stiff fingers.

His smile was a mere tightening of the flesh over his cheekbones.

Hopefully.

He considered the layout.

If they have horses, they are mobile.

If there are no horses, they are on foot.

He faded back behind a rough barked pine, slipped a hand into his coat.

Two steps to the left and I will have a clear shot into the camp.

Two men asleep, one awake and on his feet, the fourth asleep beside his horse.

If one horse alarms, the rest of them will repeat the alarm.

I have to move fast.

He saw the nearest horse swing its head around.

It was time to move.

 

“He reached into his coat,” Samuel said quietly, “and pulled out a stick of blasting powder.”

“Powder?”

Samuel nodded. “Powder makes smoke and smoke hides movement.”

Marshal John Bruce’s eyebrows quirked up and he puffed out his cheeks, blew out a long breath.

“What happened then?”

 

The horse threw its head and muttered.

A man’s voice: “What –“

Jacob thrust the powder back into the slender inside pocket, took a quick step to the side.

His rifle came to shoulder, the shining front bead stopped on the man’s right ear.

Jacob slapped the trigger and launched into the clearing, jacking the lever, slamming a round into the furthest sleeping figure, aiming for the crown of the head sticking out of the blanket: he swung the rifle to the left, found the third man throwing back his blanket, pushing away from the ground, then flopping like a puppet with its strings cut and falling back to the ground.

Jacob cranked the lever fast, hard, slinging the smoking bottleneck brass high in the air, swung the octagon barrel to bear on the fourth –

A gunshot from behind, a burn along his ribs.

Jacob’s pale eye brought the sight bead into a man’s face, he saw the head jerk and the face distort as the bullet drove through the bridge of the outlaw’s nose and he dove, rolling, rolled again, looking for the man he’d missed, looking for –

He came up on his knees –

Something punched him in the ribs, low and hard, he’d been punched hard and deep and he knew he’d been shot and his scalp tingled like it was on fire underneath his hair and his thighs felt like lightning seared through them and he felt copper and he saw the smoke bloom from the shot he’d just taken and his sight came up and he saw the eyes, he saw the eyes, he saw the eyes –

His rifle spoke again and one of the eyes disappeared as a .40-caliber rifle bullet drove through it and through the brain and out the back of the outlaw’s skull.

Jacob rose, commanding his body in spite of being sick, sick and ready to pass out, he seized his feelings and rammed them down stiff-arm into an iron kettle and screwed the lid down tight and he stood tall and leg-spread, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out two rifle rounds and thrust them into the magazine, then two more: he looked at the hammer – it was cocked, he must have a fresh round in the chamber but he didn’t remember shucking the lever but he must have for it was his habit and he looked up and he looked around and he walked to the nearest outlaw.

Dead.

He went across the clearing, across to the man in the blankets with his head showing.

He kicked the blanket.

A dummy, he thought bitterly, reproachfully.

He’d shot a dummy.

It was a blanket throwed over two rolled up blankets and the head -- what he'd thought was a man's scalp hair -- was an old rug.

Jacob’s eyes narrowed.

“Fooled,” he whispered, and he felt dizzy and he realized he’d best get some help before he passed out.

If he went fainty and hit the ground, he knew, he would very likely die.

“I ain’t about to die,” he said out loud, and he looked around again, and he turned a little more and began walking toward where he’d find his stallion.

He did not remember considering his boots, tied with a piggin string and hung behind the saddle, he did not recall scabbarding his rifle, he did not remember using a handy rock to get into the saddle because he lacked the strength to haul up into the kak flat footed.

He did not recall the ride back to Firelands and he did not remember bending over the stallion’s neck and he did not remember pressing his hands on either side of the Appaloosa’s neck and whispering hoarsely, “Run – run – run – run!”

Dimly, distantly, he heard the clattering rhythm of the stallion’s hooves, and he remembered his face sagging into the horse’s mane, and hands gripped his coat and he let them pull him down from the saddle and he was laying on his back and why was he inside he was in a clearing –

Samuel blinked, threw his head back, glared at the ceiling overhead and took a deep breath: he brought his gaze down, glared at the pencil sketches.

“Damn them,” he said softly. “Damn every last one of them.”

“If your Pa dies,” the Marshal offered, “damnation will be the least of their worries.”

Samuel looked up at the town Marshal and smiled with half his mouth.

“Yes, sir,” he agreed. “I reckon you are right on that.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

25. SNOWFALL

Caleb swung the ax in a swift, tight arc, cleaving seasoned, saw-cut wood cleanly in twain: he let the ax swing to his left, his left hand never shifting its grip, as his gloved right hand seized the half a chunk and thumped it solidly back on the stump he used to chop.

He set it, turned it a little, stepped back: his moves were timed, easy, precise, economical: the ax swung again, without an excess of effort: the first stroke told him how much effort he’d likely need to cleave the second chunk, and he hit it just right: the honed blade just bit into the chopping stump, but only just.

He was focused on his work and never saw the dark figure crossing behind him, crossing toward the barn, silent among the big, fluffy white flakes that fell like downy feathers from a giant, burst chicken.

Jacob’s tread was silent on the fresh snow.

He knew his sons would tend the chores, that they would handle things in fine shape, but this did not satisfy his restless soul.

He was the father and the husband and the provider, the ranch was his, and his was also the responsibility of running the show, and so Jacob slipped downstairs in sock feet, eased his feet into well-greased boots and coat, broad brimmed hat and gloves, and headed for the barn.

The stock will need fed, he thought, ignoring the ache in his wounded chest: he’d had cracked ribs in the past, but he’d never had a hole busted through two of them.

If pressed on the matter, he might even admit that he ached, that he hurt like homemade hell – but it would take quite a bit to make him admit it.

Caleb was laboring at the wood pile, as he often did, and Jacob felt a quiet pride in his young son’s work: he didn’t need to be told to split wood, he didn’t need to be told to haul in stovewood and kindling, he saw the work needing done and he did it.

Jacob stopped halfway to the barn, bent over a little, his palms on his knees, his lips pressed tightly together: he felt himself sway a little, willed himself to stillness, swore at his stupidity at not seeing that outlaw laying wait, waiting ambush in case someone came into their camp.

Stupid, stupid! he lashed himself silently: you should have anticipated, you should have thought, you nearly got yourself killed –

“Damn neart did,” he whispered, his breath making little fog-puffs in the cold morning air: he squeezed his eyes shut again, then straightened, ignoring the pain.

He couldn’t stand up straight.

He’d been shot on the right side and he was leaning some to the right.

Stand up straight! he thought, hearing his own voice’s shout, echoing between his ears, and he tried, God how he tried! – he staggered for the barn, thinking ahead to the hay fork and the well-filled haymow, how he would swarm up the ladder like he usually did –

Annette slammed the door behind her as she steamed out into the snow, her indignation drawn as tightly across her shoulders as her shawl: her eyes snapped, her lips were blanched as she pressed them tightly together, and she marched quickly through the light, fluffy snow, her anger and her distress warming her as well as a heavy cloak.

Caleb, oblivious to all this, set another chunk on the chopping stump: he was warmed up now and feeling good, and rather than finely splitting kindling wood, he was splitting the bigger chunks for longer-burning stovewood.

He drew back half a step, his left hand welded to the end of the ax, then swung it hard.

The bigger chunk fell, cleanly split, half falling east, the other, to the west.

Jacob felt his wife’s hand grip his upper arm and stopped.

Annette swung around in front of him, put her hand against his forehead, then the backs of her fingers against his cheek, his neck.

“You’re fevered,” she murmured.

“I’ve got work to do,” he whispered.

“Yes you do, Jacob Keller!” Annette scolded, her face reddening. “You do have work to do! Now turn yourself around and get back in that house –“

Jacob turned and Annette jerked his arm.

Jacob’s lips peeled back and Annette heard his breath hiss in between clenched teeth, and she realized she’d just run a red-hot dagger into her husband’s chest, or so it probably felt to him.

Jacob heard young feet hurrying toward him, a breathy young voice: “Pa, I got the wood,” Caleb blurted, coming around in front of his father, his eyes worried: he didn’t know quite what was going on between his father and himself, but he knew his Pa was hurtin’.

Jacob reached out his hand, gripped Caleb’s shoulder, leaned on his son, his face the color of putty, and this scared his boy.

He’d seen his Pa boilin’ mad, he’d seen his Pa with a face like parchment, stretched tight over his cheek bones, his eyes bone white and cold, he’d seen his Pa in that cold, silent, killin’ fury that comes on men of their line in moments of extremis, but never, ever had he seen his Pa’s face look quite this sick shade.

“Caleb.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Is the feedin’ done?”

“It is, sir. I got that done first off.”

“How much we got left?”

“A-plenty, sir. The pasture’s not snowed over yet, there’s good graze for quite a distance. I reckon we’ve got a-plenty for a long winter.”

Jacob nodded. “The stock accounted for?”

“All but two heifers, sir. They could be holed up out of the wind.”

Jacob nodded. “If they don’t show today, we’ll need to find ‘em.”

“Yes, sir.”

Annette pressed her hand against her husband’s back, turning him a little, starting him back toward the house.

Later that day, once it was just the two of them, Annette came into their bedroom, came up to her husband with a tray: she set the tray on a side table, poured him a heavy ceramic coffee mug of steaming, citrus-scented tea, added a generous splash of something water clear from a bottle in her apron pocket.

“I thought you would be in bed,” she said quietly, not quite whispering, but almost.

Jacob accepted the steaming, fragrant mug, sipped, swallowed.

“Too much work to strip down,” Jacob said, just as quietly.

“I could help you, you know.”

“I like it when you help me strip down.”

Annette pulled up another chair, sat down beside her husband, took his strong, weather-browned, callused hand.

“I like it too,” she whispered, coloring a little.

Jacob’s hand tightened on hers, ever so slightly, but his eyes were busy, looking out the window.

He’d had this house built to his specification, it was in some ways very similar to Sarah’s fine stone house, but there were differences: these windows he had built lower than standard, lower so he could set in his rocking chair and have a good visual sweep into the distance, an unobstructed field of fire if need be.

“What are you looking for?”

“A white wolf.”

“Have you seen one?”

“No.” He raised her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles. “Nor have I seen a huge black dog, nor a huge black horse.”

“I think that’s good.”

“It’s almost good.”

“Almost?”

Jacob closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the high back rocker.

“When Sarah left,” he said quietly, “I went over to bring her Snowflake mare over here.” He took another slow pull at his fortified, fragrant tea. “I expected The Bear Killer was there too.”

Annette’s hand tightened on his.

She, too, looked out the window, at the weakly-sunlit, light snowfall.

“They weren’t there.”

Annette waited patiently.

“I looked around, I read the ground.” He took another swallow – a purposeful gulp of burgamo and distilled detonation – “I thought … they ran off, or maybe … stolen.”

“They would come home.”

“They would,” Jacob agreed, draining the mug. “They never showed up. Nobody’s seen them. Nobody saw ‘em fly off into the night, I don’t know … I have no idea … “

His voice trailed off.

“I don’t know where they went.”

“That’s been some time now.”

“I know.”

Jacob leaned a little more to the right, trying to ease the ache in his healing chest.

“Rebecca has been dancing.”

Jacob felt something like a cold knife sear the pit of his belly and his eyes changed their shade.

He looked at his wife and his eyes were suddenly very pale.

“Rebecca has been dancing,” Annette said again, “and she reminds me very much of her mother.”

“Dear God in heaven,” Jacob whispered. “Will even her child be as she?”

“She is your blood,” Annette said, taking her husband’s empty mug. “Refill?”

He shook his head. “No, my dear, I’ve no wish to wet the bed.”

“It should help you rest.”

Jacob’s eyes drifted back to the moonlit scene framed in painted wood and slightly wavy through the single pane of glass. “Yeah,” he whispered, then he turned his head cautiously and looked at his own beautiful bride.

“Has she been singing?”

“Like an angel.” Annette folded her hands in her lap. “Brother William said she should train with the Faceless Sisters.”

“Sarah established the Sisters. She didn’t train with them. She could already sing.”

“Rebecca can sing like an angel.”

Jacob nodded, closing his eyes.

“I’m so much like Pa,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t be surprised Rebecca is so much like Sarah.”

“She doesn’t have her eyes.”

“Phmmm. Maybe there’s hope for her after all.”

“Jacob, for shame!”

“I miss her, dammit!”

“I know you miss her, and my name’s not Dammit.”

Jacob chuckled, raised his wife’s knuckles to his lips again, kissed them. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not, you long tall drink of water,” Annette smiled, leaning over to kiss her husband. “And I love you anyway.”

Jacob nodded. “I love you too,” he whispered. “Now that I’ve said that I’d best get to bed.”

Annette rose quickly, placing the empty mug on the sidetable tray: she swung around in front of her husband, dipped her knees a little, reached out both hands, ready to help him haul upright.

Jacob pushed off and stood, his expression tight: not a word did he speak, but Annette considered his was a most profane silence, for a man’s unspoken pain was something a wife could still see, whether he expressed it, or not.

 

There was a narrow path that went a quarter of a mile behind the High Lonesome.

Samuel knew about it – his Grampa showed it to him when he was a boy – and he knew he could circle around above and come back down a high draw and then across a wind swept meadow and back to his Pa’s place.

He did so this day, and found two of their cattle, huddled in a brushy hollow, chewing their cud and drowsing: they had rock on two sides, windbreak behind, no sign of predators in the fresh snow.

Samuel called to the cattle: reluctantly, grunting, they levered themselves upright, and followed Samuel docilely back to the main pasture, where they rejoined the herd and lost themselves in their herdmates.

Samuel looked around: curious, he saw something … tracks? – he doubled back, rode due east, stopped.

“Now that’s odd,” he said aloud.

There was a twenty-five yard string of what looked to be … wolf tracks … a dog wolf, from the look of them … there, he’d marked a rock, walked around it, probably snuffing the local scented newspaper, then …

Samuel looked around, straightened, looked to the house, looked at what he knew was his parents’ bedroom window.

Wonder if they saw anything.

He turned the stallion, frowning at the ground.

“For the life of me,” he said to his Apple-horse, “that is a puzzle.”

Apple’s ears swung back at the sound of his voice, then forward again as he blew a great plume of vapor into the cold air.

“Why would those tracks start here” – he thrust his chin at the dog-wolf’s tracks, beginning in the snow, beginning in the middle of the field – “like he just dropped out of the air … and ending there, where he set down …”

Samuel’s voice trailed off as he read where the great plumed brush of the dog wolf’s tail stuck out behind as he sat.

“He sat down and watched the house.”

Samuel looked back toward the house and back toward the imprint in the shallow snowfall.
“And there are no tracks leading away.”

Samuel looked slowly around, his eyes narrow and suspicious.

He rode a circle around the wolf’s tracks, another larger circle, spiraling outward, searching.

“Aunt Sarah,” he muttered, “are you behind this?”

He listened carefully to the wind, but all he heard was the crunch of frost-brittle grass under his horse’s hooves and the jingle of Apple-horse’s headstall.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

26. SUPPER

Samuel was grateful his Pa was already seated when he came in.

His Pa discreetly (and laboriously) made his way to the supper table, and his Pa knew his oldest son was distressed to see his father’s weakness.

It was a mark of Jacob’s character that he spared his son this distress by being at the head of the table before his son came in the house.

Samuel stood outside to swat the snow off his Stetson and kick the excess off his boots.

He’d tended his horse and hung up saddle, bridle and saddle blanket, he’d baited the stallion with a good scoop of grain, he’d seen the rest of the herd come drifting in to greet them, and he went on over to the house.

He stopped to knock ice out of the wash pan and set it upside down on its stand, then he went up to the front steps and kicked the snow off his boots against the side of the cut stone ashlars.

He was met at the door by an onrush of youthful enthusiasm, enough that he had to squat and set his backside against the door to keep from being knocked over: he laughed and hugged the several young that came at him, for all the world like his pale eyed Pa, and Annette smiled at her husband, for she was used to hearing that same laugh, from Jacob’s throat.

“He sounds just like you,” she murmured as she started setting out supper.

Jacob nodded, waiting patiently for Samuel to finish listening to happy chatter and impulsive questions and breathless recounting of juvenile discoveries.

He trooped down the hall and into the back room and Jacob heard the pump squeak a little, and Samuel’s splashing ablutions, and his quiet “Now let’s set down and eat!” which precipitated a youthful cascade – it wasn’t quite unruly enough to be a stampede – to the various chairs at the supper table.

Jacob sat at the head of the table, as the Patriarch, as Head of Household: Samuel sat at his right, Annette and the oldest girls finished setting out hot, steaming and fragrant meats and gravies, green beans with bacon, and Jacob flared his nostrils as he sniffed appreciatively at diced onions and the barest hint of garlic – it was hard to tell where the garlic was used, for Annette knew well the use of home grown spices, and she taught her daughters that garlic enhanced flavors and was not supposed to be noticed in its own right.

Neither Jacob, Samuel, nor any of their several young cared whether there was a pinch too much garlic in the meat, or the gravy, or anything else.

Whatever Annette fixed was good.

The bread platter was slid to the head of the table and Jacob industriously slabbed off several thick slices while everyone was getting settled; the several young wiggled and looked at one another and watched the serrated blade

oscillating through the fragrant, browned crust, until the last slice fell away, showing its light interior.

He laid the bread knife on the bread platter and formally looked around.

When Jacob formally looked around, everyone knew it: all talk stopped, hands went into laps, backs went straight, restless legs quit swinging or kicking.

The infant had been nursed, burped, changed, wrapped and laid down to sleep: Jacob bowed his head, and so did his entire family.

His prayer was comprehensive, brief and uninterrupted, then supper was begun.

It was easier to pass plates to the bowl than to pass the bowl to the empty plate: young hands, though enthusiastic, did not always have as good a grip on a bowl of gravy, or of mashed taters, or of green beans, as might be safe and preventative.

Gravy had been spilled in volume in the past; mashed taters had hit the table top and the glazed bowl split in two; no, it was easier to pass the empty plates, then pass the full plates back, and they did.

“Samuel.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jacob spoke directly to his son, quietly, as he preferred to do: his father had been a soft spoken man, most times, and he did raise his voice, but only when it was needed.

Such moments were rare enough that when he raised his voice, people paid attention.

“Samuel, how was the day?”

Samuel smiled slowly.

Jacob’s eyes crinkled a little at the corners.

“I know that look,” he said. “What happened?”

“It was in court, sir.”

“Go on.”

“You recall that dispute we …”

“Down by the tannery?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I recall the peace bond Georgia filed on Dull.”

“Dull filed on Georgia this morning, sir.”

“What said the Judge?”

“He threw it out, sir.”

“I see.”

“Georgia then filed charges against Dull.”

“The charges?”

“Several, sir, but he presented His Honor with a rock the size of your fist.”

“A rock.”

“Yes, sir, he claimed Dull slung it at his head and barely grazed his ear.”

Jacob nodded, frowning.

“He had his six year old daughter with him.”
Jacob raised an eyebrow and Annette saw the ghost of a smile on her husband’s face.

“The daughter offered testimony to support her father’s account and when Dull stood up and said she hadn’t been there – he said “God as my witness, Your Honor, there were no children there!” that little six year old girl stood up and pointed at him and yelled “You’re a big liar!”

Jacob allowed himself a slight smile.

“Sir, I couldn’t help but laugh,” Samuel admitted, turning kind of red as he did. “That cute little girl in that little girl’s voice yelling “You’re a big liar!” – His Honor looked at her but did not say anything.”

“What was the verdict?”

“We are instructed to sling Dull into that there brand new hoosegow next he tries something.”

Jacob nodded slowly.

“I learned how to throw knives,” Rebecca offered.

Jacob was quiet for a very long moment, but made no reply to his dead sister’s little girl’s declaration.

Samuel looked at Caleb, then Samuel and Caleb both looked at Rebecca.

“Well I did!” she protested, planting her knuckles on her waist, her bottom lip thrust out defiantly.

“You are learning from Daciana?” Jacob finally asked.

Rebecca looked at Jacob and nodded enthusiastically.

“Good.”

The pale eyed Sheriff took a bite of buttered sourdough.

“I want you to continue.”

Rebecca’s smile was instantaneous, bright and delighted.

“Samuel.”

“Yes, sir?”

“What more of the day?”

“Several people send their greetings, sir, and their kind wishes.”

Jacob nodded. “Good of them.”

“Mr. Baxter offered a fresh keg of medicinal alcohol.”

Jacob nodded slowly.

“I took your advice, sir. He thought enough of you to make the offer, so I decided it might be an insult to turn him down.”

“I would say,” Jacob said slowly, “that was a wise choice.” He considered for a moment. “How big a keg?”

Samuel held his hands about two feet apart, then held his hands apart with thumbs and fingers describing a circle of about the same diameter.

“What did you with this keg?”

“Sir, I figured Doc Greenlees could put it to good use.”

Jacob nodded and his son saw approval in his Old Man’s eyes.

“Good choice, Samuel. Well done.”

“There was something more, sir.”

Annette’s quick mother’s ear caught a change in her son’s voice, and she looked up from wiping a young chin.

“I rode the field across from the front of the house, sir.”

Jacob’s eyes were on his son’s and his expression said plainly he was listening with both ears.

“Sir, I found two heifers holed up out of the wind and chivvied them back to the herd, then I cut across to see if there was anything interesting.”

Jacob raised an interrogating eyebrow.

“I found wolf tracks, sir.”

Jacob’s face never changed expression, but his son knew if his father had been a cat, his ears would have been swung forward and focused on his son’s every syllable.

“I never saw tracks like that, sir. It looked like the wolf stepped out of the air into the snow. No back trail at all. Just started shortly before dead middle of the field. He tracked maybe twenty feet, no more, and set down.”

Jacob looked at his wife, looked back.

“It looked like the wolf just set there, sir, and then disappeared. No tracks coming from it, just … as if he were lifted up back into the air and gone.”

Jacob looked at Annette, his face expressionless.

Annette’s face was anything but expressionless: she was pale and she looked at father and son with an expression of dread.

Jacob raised a hand, his palm toward his wife, then he bent his wrist, rocking his palm: it was a signal: Fear not, I’ll take care of it, the move said, and Annette shivered a little, looked back to her young charge, set her fork down so she could give two hands’ worth of attention to the lad trying to fork an impossible amount of green beans into his little mouth.

“Anything else, Samuel?”

“Yes, sir,” Samuel said: had he been younger, he would have shifted uncomfortably in his seat, but the lean young man sat dead still, his fingers resting gently on either side of his full and steaming plate.

“I figured there was,” Jacob said. “I’ve said blessin’ and you haven’t so much as reached for your fork.”

“No, sir.”

“How many?”

“Two, sir.”

“How many dead?”

“One, sir.”

“Was it needful?”

Samuel turned his light blue eyes and looked his Pa squarely in his icy pale eyes.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “It was.”

Jacob nodded.

“Samuel,” he said, “we have need to discuss this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We also have need to do justice to this excellent supper.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jacob reached over and gripped his son’s hand, gripped it firmly, his callused father’s palm laid over the son’s hand, and there was understanding in the grip.

“It was needful,” Sheriff Jacob Keller said, then the father of Samuel said, “and I understand.”

Samuel’s jaw thrust out and he swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he replied.

Jacob patted his son’s hand, picked up his fork.

“Taters taste better while they’re still hot. Eat when there’s food, sit when there’s a chance, sleep when it’s safe, or so the old Sergeant told me.”

Samuel swallowed again.

He watched his Pa fork up taters and gravy, watched the rest of the family dig into their repast, and he reluctantly reached for his own fork.

He had no appetite a’tall, at least not until that first fork full of elk meat hit his tongue, then his stomach reminded him it was tired of bein’ wrapped around his back bone for lack of content, and he discovered he had an appetite after all.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

27. DON’T BUCK THE LAW

“How is your hand?”

Jacob’s voice was quiet, controlled.

Samuel watched as his father walked slowly, carefully, across the hook rug and over to the stove, watched as the older man shook down the ashes in the cast iron stove, then closed the damper a little and opened the heavy, hinged lid and tossed in a chunk of wood, another.

“Sir, I –“

Jacob turned, the faintest of smiles at the corners of his mouth.

“If I don’t keep moving, Samuel, I’ll stiffen up and not be able to move a’tall. Getting’ up of a morning is bad enough.” He unconsciously clamped his right arm tight down against his ribs, then muttered, “I’ll be damned glad to get healed up from this!”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re worried, Samuel.”

“Sir … it’s …”

Samuel hesitated, frowning at the floor.

The stove’s warmth was welcome, as he was close enough to it to be uncomfortable, and he did not want to be comfortable.

“You’ve been thinking about this for some time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Samuel, you remind me much of my father.” Jacob walked slowly, carefully, over to his rocking chair, turned. “Speak your mind.”

Samuel pressed his lips together, then looked up: his hands were restless, and Jacob knew if he had his hat in hand, he’d be shuffling the brim around and around and around, holding it before him like a felt codpiece. It was a nervous habit he had, a habit his late father had as well.

Samuel took a long breath, sighed it out, looked at his father.

“Sir, you said to speak my mind, so here it comes.”

Jacob nodded gravely.

“Sir … a son regards his father as the bed rock foundation of the universe itself.”

Jacob nodded again, closing his eyes, opening them.

“Sir, when a son sees his father hurt and less than the strong and capable …”
He stopped, clenched his jaw shut and looked away.

He looked back, almost defiantly, shot a look at his father that said he’d just throwed his leg over a stallion and he was going to hold on for the entire ride, for good or for ill.

“Sir, the father is the closest thing to Jesus Christ that ever walked the face of the earth,” Samuel said frankly, feeling like he’d just ridden that stallion over the edge of a cliff. “Seein’ you hurt and not able to grab holt of any man by the throat and haul him off the ground, not able to throw any big troublemakin’ spall peen in the horse trough or pin him left handed ag’in a building … sir, seein’ …”

Samuel looked away again, clearly upset.

“Sir, you said to speak my mind so I am a-speakin’ it now. It is a terrible day when I realize the Grand Old Man’s feet are made of the same clay as my own!”

Jacob rocked a little, closed his eyes.

Samuel heard wood in the stove hiss, then whistle a little, and he knew if he could see it, he’d see a jet of gas shooting out the cut end of a heating chunk, burning as it went.

“I remember that terrible day,” Jacob said quietly, then looked at his son. “I remember it well, and it … I didn’t like it much either.”

“No, sir,” Samuel replied uncomfortably.

“Now suppose you tell me what else happened today.”

“Yes, sir,” Samuel said, blinking rapidly as he rearranged his thoughts.

 

“Nelson.”

Nelson was the man’s last name, and nobody called him less than Mister Nelson, unless they were looking for trouble.

When the youthful voice challenged him, when the voice was loud, strong and commanding, Nelson sneered a little, for he did not tolerate such an impolite address.

He turned to face the challenger and inherited a face full of beer mug.

Samuel swung the full beer mug just as hard as his lean, work-seasoned arm could move it, he hit Nelson’s face hard enough to fracture teeth, nose, and cheekbone all three, not to mention knocking the man’s hat hell west and crooked, and give him a beer bath at the same time.

Samuel followed his surprise attack with a hard kick with the side of his foot, a kick just under the man’s knee, knowing this would dislocate the knee, he coud potentially cripple him – maybe for life – he stepped back, as Nelson bellowed through blood and broken teeth and collapsed suddenly, awkwardly.

Samuel drew both Colts and shouted, “I AM THE LAW AND NO MAN DEFIES ME! DOES ANYONE DISAGREE?”

It was not common for sudden, stifling silence to muffle the Silver Jewel’s interior.

It was not at all common.

This was one of those times.

Mr. Baxter, behind the bar, pulled out the abbreviated double gun, brought it up to high port: Samuel saw the movement, gave the man a shallow nod of thanks.

“NELSON!”

Samuel’s voice was a whiplash.

“You made your brags you were going to have your boys grab that snot nose kid of a deputy and whip my back side with my own belt.”

Samuel’s thumbs eared the hammers back on his black-oxidized, copper plated Colts.

“If any of your boys come after me I will ship them back in a box and if you come after me I will send you back in pieces. I do not play fair and I do not give an enemy a chance. Brag on what you will do to me or any other lawman and you are guilty of assault on a law enforcement officer. In this territory that’s prison time. Trying it is death, first time, no exceptions.”
Nelson groaned, tried to roll over, moved his leg, screamed in pain.

“Get him out of here,” Samuel snarled, his face pale and tight: his eyes were not as glacier pale as his father’s, but equally as hard: their message was unmistakable.

He waited until Nelson was picked up and hauled out before easing the hammers back down and holstering.

“You know my Pa and you know me,” Samuel declared, his eyes unerringly finding the strange faces in the Silver Jewel, the faces that very carefully avoided his gaze. “You know my Pa is a fair man and so am I. You also know my Pa will kill someone who needs it.” He looked slowly around again. “Don’t try me. It won’t be me comin’ out in second place!”

He waited several moments before turning to leave.

Mr. Baxter, behind the bar, wiped the twin hammers back with a convulsive jerk of this long thumb: Samuel moved – one moment he was turning away and starting his first pace toward the ornately-frosted, glass-windowed door: nobody was sure quite what he did nor exactly how he moved – but everyone agreed he was suddenly squatting so low his backside was almost on the floor, he was thrust hard left, his shoulder against the corner of the bar, and his right-hand Colt was suddenly at arm’s length.

Two shots, so close they sounded like one: a bullet whipped through the space Samuel had been standing, buried itself into the timbers behind: Samuel’s single shot took the man at an upward angle, driving in through the bottom of the breast bone, blasting a hole through the bottom of the would-be back-shooter’s heart, then through the spine: a murder was avoided, a murderer reaped the bitter harvest of his murderous crime, a man who would kill the jurisdictional lawman was immediately introduced to a far higher court than that convened by their local Judge.

 

Jacob listened, his eyes closed, to his son’s quiet, unemotional recounting of the event: in his mind’s eye he saw the location, the action, the result.

He opened his eyes, looked at his son.

“Have a seat.”

Samuel sat, slowly, almost reluctantly.

“Mr. Baxter did not fire?”

“No, sir.”

Jacob nodded. “You took statements.”

“I did, sir, and I sent a runner for the Marshal.”

“Your jurisdiction exceeds the Marshal in this matter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You wished a lawman to survey the scene before anyone could lie to him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good move. Your deposition?”

“Written, sir, and presented to the Judge.”

“Good.”

Jacob smiled thinly.

“I’ve used a beer mug myself, time and again.” Samuel saw approval in his father’s eyes. “So did your Grampa.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You braced the man in public. That’s a gamble.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You didn’t just humiliate him in public, you destroyed him in public.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He’s shamed now. He’ll either have to come after you or pull his freight.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If he sells his spread he’ll sell cheap so he can tuck tail and run.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If he stays he’ll try to kill you and likely me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Never did like that trouble maker,” Jacob muttered. “He’s give us trouble for a long time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You did well, Samuel.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Annette slipped into the room as noisily as a passing cloud: she set a tray down, poured her husband a cup of tea.

“Daciana sent over some herbs,” she said quietly. “Bone set and something to help the fever.”

Amber liquid steamed fragrantly as it gurgled into the tall, heavy, ceramic mug.

Annette added a good splash of something water clear from the flat glass bottle in her apron pocket.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

28. CHAMBERS

Rebecca looked at the shoolmarm with that endearing tilt of her head that generally wrapped men around her little pink finger.

The schoolmarm, being of the same sex, and well used to the behaviors of her young charges, smiled a little and accepted the chalked lessons on Rebecca's wood framed slate, and as usual, they were perfectly formed and absolutely correct.

Rebecca was a model student, and well ahead of her peers, and the schoolmarm did not hesitate to give her lessons well advanced for her young age -- partly to keep her engaged, and partly out of curiosity, to see if she could find this intelligent child's limits.

She looked up from the slate and Rebecca wasn't there.

The schoolmarm sighed, set the slate aside: she knew Rebecca would be along later to collect it.

This happened from time to time, and the schoolmarm found that Rebecca's unscheduled disappearances detracted not one whit from her learning, and did not result in fire, murder or the cows getting into the garden, and so she turned her attention to the other students.

His Honor the Judge, however, was not quite so accepting.

He was frowning at a particularly poorly written brief when a quick rat-tat, tat, interrupted his disapproving thoughts.

"In!" he barked, never raising his eyes from the handwritten brief.

It was perhaps a full minute before he realized there was no follow-up: no opening of his door, no footsteps approaching his desk, no deferential clearing of the throat, or an "Excuse me, Your Honor."

Frowning, he lowered the paper, dropping it and his tobacco-stained fingers to the untidy desktop, his other hand against the side of his head, and he blinked a few times, frowning at the pretty young female child standing in front of his desk.

"My mother was the Black Agent," she said in a sweet, little-girl voice. "She's dead. I want to know about her."

His Honor the Judge frowned a little more, looked closely at this child: he'd seen her before, of this he was certain, but he had no idea at all who she was.

"I don't know any Black Agent," he said brusquely. "How'd you get in here?"

"My mother died to keep me alive," Rebecca continued. "I don't know much about her. Can you help me?"

"This isn't a detective agency," His Honor said dismissively. "And I am very busy, little girl. Now please leave."

Rebecca leaned over his desk as best she could, standing up on tiptoes: she reached out a little pink hand, spun the brief around, studied it quickly.

"There is self-esteem in the capitals," she said, assessing the handwritten document, "and vac-cil-la-tion in the verticals, dis-or-ga-ni-za-tion in his --"

His Honor snatched the brief out from under her fingertips.

"That," he huffed, "will be quite enough, young lady! I will thank you not to interrupt an important man in his chambers!"

Rebecca gave His Honor a wide-eyed and surprisingly direct look.

"Don't confuse yourself with someone important," she said gently, and the Judge's cigar rolled off the edge of the desk.

His Honor swore, drew back, reached for the panatela: he plucked it from the floorboards, frowned at the tip, drew briskly on the damp end to bring the dim coal back to life, and looked back at the child that had so rudely interrupted his --

Gone?

The Judge blinked and realized he hadn't heard the door open, nor had it shut ...

He frowned again, rose, crossed the floor, snatched the door open.

"BAILIFF!"

An elderly fellow in a blue uniform jacket rose. "Yes, Your Honor?"

"Bailiff, did you see that little girl that was just in here?"

"Girl, Your Honor?" The bailiff shook his head slowly. "No girl came in here."

"No girl --" The Judge's eyes narrowed and he regarded the Bailiff with suspicion: he grunted, pulled back, slammed the door: grimacing, he snatched the cigar from between his teeth, spat, threw the smoldering stub of a stogie in the brass goboon.

He turned, yanked the door open again. "BAILIFF!"

"Yes, Your Honor," the old man sighed patiently.

"Bailiff, what do you know of a black agent?"

The old man smiled a little.

"Plenty, Your Honor."

 

That Angela reappeared in the little whitewashed schoolhouse did not surprise the schoolmarm: she had a talent for this, which she hadn't figured out yet: it could be cold and snowy out, and Rebecca would vanish, only to reappear later in the day; her cloak would be free of snow, her shoes would be dry, she would bear no sign of having been out in the weather, and yet she hadn't been inside the schoolhouse: nothing ill seemed to come of it, and to be honest, the schoolmarm had her hands full tending her other students.

Rebecca is a model student, and she is doing very well in school, and that's what counts, the schoolmarm told herself.

Isn't it?

 

Parson Belden was well on in his years.

His eyes were still good, he could still put in a full day's honest labor and did, though not as often these days as when he was younger, and the weather didn't pain him so: still, he tended his little church as best he could, providing the community with the counsel and the wisdom incumbent upon his office.

He was restless, and when he was restless, he would often slip from the adjacent rectory into the church, and consult his worn, soft-backed Scripture.

He came into the reverent silence of the church building and looked around, smiling a little.

There was a lifetime of memories here.

Good memories, for the most part, and as he hesitated, the piano began to play.

It was being played softly, an old and familiar hymn he'd grown up singing ... it was being played reverently, softly, flawlessly, and he smiled again, for the music was an offering, a gift, and he accepted the gift of this gentle music that laid so pleasantly over his soul.

A little girl sat erect at the piano bench, a child he'd seen before: she gave no indication she knew he was there, and she segued flawlessly into another of his favorites -- not a hymn at all, but a brisk, lively "Pretty Redwing."

The Parson could not but smile, for this was a particular favorite of his, and had been played for him by one of his parishioners, a woman he watched grow from girlhood, someone he understood had moved off to Europe, and was said to have died there.

The child played it twice through, then she stopped; she turned on the wheeled piano stool, slid off the perch, tilted her head a little and regarded the Parson with bright and innocent eyes.

"My mother was Sarah Lynne McKenna," she said, "and I don't know much about her. Can you help me?"

 

Sheriff Samuel Keller was restless.

For no particular reason, he picked up the broom, stepped out on the board walk: it was covered, the roof kept off most of the snow, but he felt compelled to be industrious, and so swept what little had blown in on the cold planks, out onto the street.

He looked across the street and down a little, past the schoolhouse, to the church, and thought, Why not: he strode through the ankle deep snow and began to address the steps of the tidy little church.

Dead rose stems thrust up through the snow like desiccated, skeletal fingers, and he remembered the roses his Mother tended along this side of the church, where there was the most sun.

It was a good memory, for she did so love her roses.

He swept the steps, his moves efficient, economical, and as he reached the top step, he realized he was swinging his broom in time to the piano music from within.

Pretty Redwing, he thought, and smiled a little, for it was a tune he'd heard played on many instruments, but he had a particularly good memory of its being played on a steam calliope, when he was returning from back East on a riverboat.

Jacob parked the broom against the snowy hand rail and opened the church's door, reaching up to remove his Stetson.

 

The Parson sat in the front pew with Rebecca, and both were laughing.

"She was about your age, I would judge," the Parson was explaining, "and she had that black, furry dog of hers -- it was, oh, about this big" -- he held his hands apart to illustrate -- "and he had so much fur he looked like a fuzzy ball. With a pink ribbon around his neck. Anyway he was following a bug up here in front and he was more interesting than my sermon" -- he confided this with a wink and a lowering of his voice, which brought a giggle from his appreciative audience -- "and apparently he either wasn't supposed to be in church, or he wasn't supposed to be following a bug, because she came pattering up here in her little patent leather slippers and she shook her finger at him and scolded "Twain Dawg you stop that!" and she went to grab him, and she went down, her legs went up, and the dog jumped back and looked at her as if it were all her fault!"

Angela laughed, and so did the Sheriff: he strode down the aisle, slid into the pew beside her.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" he asked, curious.

She looked at him, nodded.

"Why aren't you?"

"I'm ahead in my lessons," she said matter-of-factly.

"How far?"

"Two years."

Samuel blinked, looked at the Parson, who was regarding the floor ahead of him, remembering when a little girl went galley-west over her fuzzy Twain Dawg, petticoats and little stockinged legs rolling quickly over, then she stood and shook her finger at him and scolded him loudly, to the amusement of the congregation.

Samuel looked down on his young charge, his face growing serious, and he carefully took her little hands in both his big hands.

"You have never asked about your Mama before today," he said.

She nodded, then frowned and shook her head.

"I think you should know about your Mama."

Rebecca's smile was bright, broad and instantaneous.

"You just heard about how she fell over Twain Dawg that time. Now Twain Dawg was a fuzzy puppy back then, but puppies grow up, and he did.

"Rebecca, did you ever hear of a famous dog called The Bear Killer?"

 

Michael Moulton, Esq, acting as an agent for a certain buyer who supplied him with standing orders and a rather generous sum of money for that purpose, handed the distressed individual across the desk from him, a pen, and a pot of ink: the man dipped the pen with a trembling hand, wiped it carefully on the inside of the ink-bottle's neck, and signed his name where the attorney indicated: Moulton withdrew the document, carefully poured blotting sand on the signature, gave it a long moment, then turned it and tapped it and puffed his breath on it.

He paid the man for what the property was worth, and a little more, and the man with the broken nose and missing teeth mumbled his thanks: he turned and left the office, quickly, almost shamefacedly, the actions of a man almost ashamed, and Moulton heard him cluck up his nag and drive off.

Moulton withdrew his official seal from the drawer, slipped it over the paper, squeezed the handles, impressing his official cartouche on the paper.

He'd just purchased a man's ranch, paid him cash, and increased the Keller landholdings by a significant acreage.

 

His Honor listened patiently to the Bailiff's recounting of the old man's memories on the subject.

He shook his head.

"This Black Agent," he said, "was a woman?"

"Yes, sir," the old man nodded, smiling beneath his drooping, snow-white mustache. "And a looker, too!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

29. THE REAL WORLD

His Honor jumped when an authoritative knock punished the door to his chambers.

"GET IN HERE!" he bellowed, swearing as his cigar rolled off the desk and hit the floor.

Samuel opened the door, his face unreadable; he turned and said a quiet "Thank you" to the bailiff -- the Judge had no idea why -- then the tall, youthful lawman closed the door quietly behind him.

"You wanted to see me, Your Honor," he said, and his self-assurance irritated the jurist, for no real good reason, which irritated him all the more.

His Honor glared at the deputy, a look that was known to cause veteran attorneys cringe and drain the color from defendants' faces.

The glare had no effect on the quiet young man in the black suit.

"I understand you assaulted a rancher," the Judge said quietly.

"Yep," Samuel said.

"You broke his nose."

"I did."

"You broke his cheekbone."

"Yep."

"You knocked out two teeth."

"He can live without teeth," Samuel said quietly. "He can't live if I kill him."

His Honor frowned.

"Your Honor, are you familiar with the definition of assault?"

"Am I --" the Judge stared at Samuel as if he'd just described square dancing with a handful of dead fish.

"Your Honor, I am one man. One man." He leaned forward, planting his palms on the Judge's desk. "And I have the sole responsibility for keeping the peace. Me. One man, me, nobody else." His eyes were not the ice-pale shade of a glacier's heart that the Judge heard described -- Samuel's grandfather had been a most impressive man, as was his father, but Samuel's eyes were almost a hazel ... but the Judge realized they were just as hard, just as unforgiving. "My word is law and my word must be obeyed, and because I enforce my word, I can walk into the middle of a fight and bring it to a stop with my word."

The Judge brought his cigar to his lips, bit firmly on the damp end, felt tobacco crush.

"When a man with men at his command brags that he'll overpower that snot nose kid of a deputy and spank his backside with his own belt, that idea takes root. When it sprouts and takes on life they'll try it. That means I'll have to kill several and probably get hurt bad or be killed myself. If they take me by surprise and they do pull down my drawers and lay welts on my backside, they will humiliate the Law and they will show the entire world the Law has neither teeth, strength nor authority, and I cannot risk that." His words were quietly spoken, but the heat behind them was unmistakable. "I have to stop this assault on a law enforcement officer before it starts, Your Honor, and that means I have to brace the boss, in public" -- he paused -- "and I have to pound him into the ground with everyone watching. I have to be fast, I have to be brutal and I have to be unforgiving, I have to be very, very effective, and then I have to handle anyone who wants to back him. Unless I do this" -- his jaw was set, his eyes as soft and gentle as polished agate -- "then neither your court nor my office will have any sway at all over this territory."

Samuel straightened, looked around, walked over to the small bookcase to the Judge's left.

Bending down a little, he smiled and drew out a thick volume.

"Blackstone," he said, nodding, his fingers caressing the cover. "Your Honor, Blackstone sets up a fine framework for men to ... conduct their ... disputes in a civilized manner."

"Yes," the Judge agreed. "I would say so."

"The courtroom is a place of reason, of fact, of logic and rational decisionmaking."

Samuel saw the ghost of a smile behind the Judge's facade, for both had listened to attorneys swaying juries with half-truths, innuendo and emotion when their cases were weak on fact.

"The real world doesn't work like that, sir. The real world is hard and unforgiving and the world will eat you with one bite like a hungry mountain cat bites a horse in the back of the skull." He carefully returned the tome to its home on the shelf. "And it will not care when it does."

"Does that give you license to beat in a man's face?" the Judge asked, and Samuel heard the slightest softening of the jurist's tone.

"It gives me license to maintain my authority," Samuel said firmly, "and if that means I hurt a man to keep from killing him and a few others, then yes, sir, it does."

The Judge withdrew the cigar from between his teeth, considered the barely smoldering end.

He looked up at the slender young lawman.

"Get out of my office."

"Nice to see you too, sir."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

30. THAT WHICH IS OWED

It started with an argument, and the argument continued for some time.

Jacob dressed deliberately, precisely, his movements controlled, exact, almost mechanical: Annette frowned at him, her knuckles on her hips, patting her foot the way she did when she absolutely positively did not approve of something one of her children was doing.

It didn’t help that Jacob was ignoring her.

“Mr. Keller,” Annette finally said, her tone carefully formal.

“Yes, Mrs. Keller,” Jacob replied, his voice mild as he raised his chin and knotted his neck tie.

“Mr. Keller, you are a contrary man.”

“Mrs. Keller,” Jacob said, “you are a perceptive woman.”

“Mr. Keller, I don’t want to bring you back in a wagon.”

“Mrs. Keller,” Jacob replied, his face solemn, “if it becomes necessary to bring me back, you have my permission to toss a loop around my hind hoof and drag me home behind a good saddle horse.”

“Why don’t I have a Missouri mule kick you all the way home?” she flared, taking a step toward him. “Jacob Keller, you listen to me” – she raised a hand, shaking a finger at him – “I only have one of you and I will not tolerate your risking –“

Jacob turned and seized his wife’s shoulders in strong, finger-spread hands: he pulled her to him, stopped her further objections with his mouth on hers.

Annette, startled, tried to push away.

She didn’t succeed, and in a very few moments she quit trying.

“Damn you,” she mumbled around his mustache, “and damn you mouth!”

“You know you like it,” he mumbled back.

“You’re damned right I do,” she replied, “now shut up and kiss me again!”

It took several minutes for the two of them to get this discussion out of their system, after which the argument took up again.

“Jacob,” Annette tried to sound reasonable, “you are still healing. You’ve been shot, you could collapse a lung –“

“I can’t stay here.” He reached for his coat, spun it around his shoulders: only a wife’s eye could have detected the stiffness of his move, and hers did.

“Where do you intend to stay!” Annette flared. “Are you leaving me?”

Jacob’s pale eyes darkened a little and he looked at his wife with undisguised lust.

“No.”

“Then what do –“ Annette fanned her hands at him. “I don’t understand – men! -- why do you have to –“

Jacob took his wife’s shoulders again, turned her to him: she tried to turn, but his strength was greater than her will.

“Dearest,” he almost whispered, “I am Sheriff. If I do not show myself, the world will think me weak and wounded and unfit for office. I can’t afford that. The evil in this world will smell weakness and they’ll come after Samuel again because they think I can’t back him –“

“They’ve already come after Samuel!” Annette shouted, twisting away from him, her arms stiff at her sides, her hands fisted and trembling: “Samuel killed a man, in case you’ve forgotten! He bears the mark of Cain now! He’s marked, Jacob! He’s a killer now!”

“Yes he is,” Jacob replied quietly, his eyes veiled: “he is, and I suppose it’s my fault.”

“Yes – no – I don’t know –“ Annette turned from him, biting her knuckle.

“Samuel killed because a man was trying to kill him,” Jacob said quietly. “He kept himself alive. There is no murder here, Annette. He bears no horn for his actions.”

“Damn you, Jacob Keller,” Annette hissed, turning on her husband again, her arms crossed: “Damn you and damn your stupid pride! I could have lost you and I could have lost our son and we’ve already lost our eldest and I don’t want to lose another and I don’t even have a body to grieve over –“

Her voice tapered off to a distressed squeak and Jacob gathered her into his arms, holding her: she uncrossed her forbidding forearms and seized her husband, shivering.

“I miss Joseph too,” Jacob whispered. “I miss him awfully.”

 

It was a little less strenuous when he reached the barn.

Samuel met his father at the big double door, Jacob’s saddled Apple-horse rein-held in his left hand, his own Appaloosa gelding’s reins in his right.

“Sir,” Samuel said carefully, “are you sure this is wise?”

“No,” Jacob grinned, “but I’m doing it anyway!”

Samuel could not help but grin in response.

The two rode off, father and son, each lifting his hat to the woman standing on the front porch, shawl around her shoulders, their youngest asleep in her arms, well wrapped against the cold.

 

The Judge spat noisily, threw what was left of his cigar into the brass goboon.

“IN!”

“You sound just awful cheerful today,” Jacob deadpanned, not bothering to take off his hat.

“TAKE OFF YOUR HAT IN MY CHAMBERS!” the Judge roared.

“Go to hell on a Texas tornado and eat chili peppers,” Jacob cheerfully countered.

“AND WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU LEAVING YOUR BOY TO DO YOUR WORK?” the Judge demanded loudly.

“Close the door, Samuel,” Jacob said, turning his head a little, waiting until the portal was drawn shut before continuing.

“In case it’s escaped Your Honor’s attention,” Jacob said quietly, “I was shot.”

“I KNOW THAT! WHY IN THE HELL DIDN’T YOU SHOOT FIRST!”

“I did.”

The Judge snatched the lid off his humidor, seized another stogie, bit viciously at the twisted tail, spat it into the goboon.

“You might as well set down,” he snarled, scratching a Lucifer into flaring life.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

The Judge puffed the hand-rolled into fragrant life, glaring through the rolling smoke at the calm, unruffled, pale eyed lawman.

“Haven’t you given enough?” he asked, his voice rough: he snatched the cigar from between stained teeth, turned his head, coughed.

“How’s that?”

The Judge laid his cigar down on the edge of his desk, coughed again.

“You might want to have that looked at,” Jacob suggested.

The Judge shook his head.

“Now what was the question again, Your Honor?”

“Dammit, man, do I have to spell it out?” the Judge snapped. “You nearly got killed, your boy here had to kill a man, your oldest son is dead –“

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“You could quit.”

“I could.”

“You’ve got a silver mine in Arizona, you have a controlling interest in the Cripple Creek Gold Mining and Refining Incorporated, you own the railroad and the Silver Jewel” – he harrumphed, stifled a cough – “why, man, you could lean back and run a rocking chair instead of pack that star around!”

“I could,” Jacob agreed, nodding slowly. “But then my son would be in my stead and I would be risking his life.”

“You’re risking it already!”

“Not now, Your Honor. In case it’s escaped your attention, I am back.”

“You’re not at full strength, man, and they” – he made a vicious, backhanded sweep at the world, invisible on the other side of his chamber’s walls – “they know it!”

“I think they’ll find I’m not as laid up as they might like.”

“Sheriff” – the Judge leaned forward, pressing his palms into the edge of the desk – “there’s only one of you, you pale eyed troublemaker, and I don’t want to lose you!”

“Why, Judge, I didn’t think you cared!” Jacob laid a dramatic hand over his left breast. “And all this time I thought you were just flirting! Besides” – his voice became serious and his eyes very pale as he too leaned forward – “that pale eyed troublemaker was my little sister, and she was pretty damned good at it!”

“That’s another thing,” the Judge snarled, then squinted, turned his head, coughed again. “That’s another thing! I keep hearing about that pale eyed Black Agent. That crazy old bailiff out there thinks she’s Aphrodite herself, the late Judge Hostetler wanted to marry her and now I find out she’s your sister!”

“Your Honor, you’re kind of short winded,” Samuel spoke up, “are you all right?”

“SHUT UP!” the Judge snapped, “I’M FINE!”

“You’re a poor liar,” Samuel said. “How’s your chest?”

The Judge was leaned forward a little more. “How did you know?”

“I’m not as dumb as I look,” Samuel said. “Stand fast. I’ll be right back.”

The Judge glared at the fast-swinging door, shutting in the slender deputy’s departing wake.

“He gets his good looks from his Mama,” Jacob offered.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Sheriff,” the Judge grunted. “I’ve heard women speak of how handsome you are.”

“You’re consortin’ with the wrong women.”

“’Twas your wife said so.”

“You’re consortin’ with my wife?” Jacob said innocently.

“Do you ever run out of second hand bull feed, Sheriff?”

“Haven’t yet, Your Honor. Now how curious are you about my sister?”

The door swung open and Samuel strode in, an open poke in his left hand.

He stepped behind the Judge’s desk, dropped the poke on the desk top, seized the jurist’s wrist: with neither ceremony nor gentleness, he jerked the older man’s arm out straight, thrust his sleeves back, baring a stretch of forearm: he dipped two fingers into the poke, brought out a whitish, half-grainy substance, and rubbed it into the Judge’s hide with absolutely no gentleness whatsoever.

“OW! Dammit, what in the hell are you doin’ to me?” the Judge protested.

“You got any whiskey?” Samuel asked, dipping out another fat pinch of dynamite and dropping it onto the Judge’s upturned forearm. “You might want to take a long tilt before that headache starts.”

“WHAT HEADACHE?” the Judge roared, then his left palm went to his forehead and he grunted.

“Dammit, you’re rubbin’ crick sand into m’arm and now m’ head’s ready t’ fall off!” he muttered.

“Grampa used this,” Samuel said. “I’ll leave this poke with you. When your chest hurts and it’s hard breathin’ rub some into that ill tempered hide of yours. It’ll make your head hurt like home made hell but it’s good for the chest.”

“HOW DO YOU KNOW!” the Judge snarled, biting through his cigar: the smoldering end tumbled from his bite, landed in his lap: he swore, swatted at it, spat the stub across the desk and swore again.

“I’ll tell you how I know,” Samuel replied, drawing the man’s sleeve back down. “My Grampa told me, that’s how, and if you speak against my Grampa I’ll throw you out that back window.”

“I DON’T HAVE A BACK WINDOW!” the Judge shouted.

“You will when I’m done with you.”

The Judge glared up at the quiet-eyed young lawman, then glared at the Sheriff.

“He’s just like his old Granddad,” he snapped. “Dammit, the old man put his stamp on the both of you!”

“Very kind of you to say so, sir. Now if you would be kind enough to answer my question, Your Honor, how badly do you want to know about my little sis?”

The Judge jerked a drawer open – viciously, absolutely without any gentleness – he pulled out a bottle of something water clear and not over thirty days old, he reached in and slammed one – two – then three – thick-bottom, wide, squat glasses onto his desk top.

He uncorked the bottle, poured each half full.

“You’re both drinking.”

He glared at the Sheriff.

“I make it a policy to never drink alone and right now I need a drink,” he snarled. “And I want to know about that pale eyed troublemaking Black Agent sister of yours!”

“You’re invited for supper,” Jacob said. “We’ll tell you then.”

He rose, accepted a glass.

Samuel reached around behind the Judge and took a second.

The Judge put the bottle back in the bottom drawer, raised his own glass.

“She saved my life,” he admitted.

“Yes, sir, she did.”

“You weren’t supposed to know about that!”

“I’m a lawman,” Jacob shrugged. “I find things out.”

They drank.

Jacob and Samuel set their glasses down on the Judge’s desk.

“Samuel, we are leaving.”

“Yes, sir.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

31. “HERE, THIS IS YOURS”

“Sheriff?”

Jacob and Samuel turned, two tall, slender men in black suits.

“This is yours.”

The stranger held out a Winchester rifle.

Jacob took the ’73, puzzled, looked at the octagon barrel, frowned.

“.32-20,” he said. “Haven’t seen …”

He looked at the stranger.

“Mine, you say?”

“Yep. A woman bought that off me and said ‘twas rightfully yours, and she give me a dollar if I’d fetch it in to ye.”

Samuel studied the man, but saw nothing familiar about him: the fellow touched his hat brim, turned back to his broomtail nag, swung easily into his saddle.

“Thank you,” Jacob said, nodding gravely.

“She said somethin’ about a girl named Rebecca and how you might ought give that to her.”

Jacob gave the stranger a penetrating look, which was absolutely lost on the man: he touched his heels to the nag’s ribs and was off at an easy trot.

Jacob eared the hammer back, eased the lever down, saw cartridge brass: he stopped when he saw lead, closed the lever, laid his thumb over the hammer spur and eased it down to half cock.

“Samuel.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Here.” Jacob handed the rifle to his son.

“Yes, sir?”

Both lawmen looked up as the stranger came trotting back to them.

“She said somethin’ else,” the stranger added without preamble. “She said somethin’ … she said you might want to go see the Parson.”

“How soon?” Jacob asked, his eyes narrowing as he considered what might be giving him the serious uncomfortables.

“Don’t rightly know,” the stranger admitted.

“Did she say anything else?”

The man frowned, shook his head. “Nope. Reckon that was it.”

 

 

 

Parson Belden finished his coffee.

“Mrs. Parson,” he said, “you do make a fine potato soup.”

“Especially for you,” she murmured, bending down and kissing the bald top of his head.

“Mrs. Parson, do you suppose you’d like to be married to a retired man?”

The Parson’s wife rested her hands on the Parson’s shoulders as she often did.

“I like being married to you, Mr. Parson, however you may be.”

He reached up with a wrinkled, ancient hand, patted hers gently.

“Mrs. Parson, I would admire to set in our rocking chair.”

“It’s a little chilly out, Mr. Parson.” She smiled. “I’ll get the quilt.”

The Parson rose, slowly, the way he did these days, grimacing a little as his knees complained.

He walked slowly, painfully, to the side door: he was breathing with some difficulty, his head hanging.

I just need some air, he thought.

Nice, cool air.

That’s what I need.

Mrs. Parson came hobbling slowly up behind him, smiling a little, just a little, the way she did when she was alone with her husband.

They’d come to Firelands long years ago; they agreed they’d come home, and there they would stay, and unspoken between them was the understanding that their stay would last beyond their living years.

The Parson opened the door, shuffled painfully out onto the side porch, his wife following.

They’d seen – and admired -- a double rocking chair when they were newly wed, and finally, in the past year, they prevailed upon the carpenters Daine to construct one, and it was to this well fitted piece of outdoor furniture that husband and wife directed themselves.

Mrs. Parson handed Mr. Parson the quilt, and the elderly sky pilot unfolded it and draped it over the double rocker.

The Parson grimaced a little as he lowered himself into the rocker.

Mrs. Parson settled in beside him, her hip warm against his, and he drew his side of the quilt over himself and into his wife’s lap: she drew her end across her and into his lap, and as they did when they sat, their hands found each other.

The Parson’s chest felt tight and he was half nauseated and he felt himself starting to sweat, and he had no way of knowing his wife was feeling the same, with an ache running down her arm and into her back.

Their hands tightened and each one felt a great comfort from knowing the other was there.

“I love you, Mrs. Parson,” Parson Belden said quietly.

“I love you, Mr. Parson,” his wife replied, leaning her head over against his.

The Parson saw a woman riding toward them, a diminutive woman on a huge black horse, but he was too tired to call her welcome.

He was tired, so very tired, and so was the woman whose hand he held.

Husband and wife closed their eyes.

 

At their funeral, the Sheriff would describe how he found them, still in their double rocker, still holding hands: they’d lived their life together, and they passed from this world together, and he said it was proper that they were being buried together, in a double coffin, still holding hands, and he allowed as he would count himself a lucky man to have such a love as this couple had.

Brother William presided over his brother minister’s service; he and the Faceless Sisters raised their voices in the old familiar hymns Parson Belden used to sing, and with them, Daciana and Rebecca sang as well: the Sheriff was a hard muscled man with calluses, with broad shoulders, a blooded warrior who could – and had – looked the Reaper himself in the eye and dared him to do his worst, and even he had to wipe the damp streaks from his cheeks.

Brother William said it rightly when he finished his homily, just before the interment and the final prayer:

“I heard it said a man should live his life so when he dies, even the undertaker will be sorry to see them go.”

He smiled a little.

“I believe they both did.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

32. SPLITTING THE QUEEN

Rebecca listened to the woman’s quiet voice.

She picked up the octagon barreled rifle and the box of cartridges, she plucked the beeswax chunks from the warm water on the stove, molded them with her fingers and tried them in her ears, shaping them until they blocked sounds surprisingly well.

Rebecca picked the cartridges back up off the table and turned toward the front door.

“No, out the back,” came the whisper, and Rebecca smiled a little, for the woman’s voice made her smile inside, and it felt good to smile inside.

Rebecca slipped outside, her cloak proof against the chill, and with a quick look around, she scampered back toward the barn, then up behind it and up the draw, to where a horsie was waiting for her.

Rebecca had ridden the horsie before, but only at night, when nobody was watching, and it took some getting used to, because the horsie was very big and very broad and she had to get used to sitting on such a broad saddle – the woman giggled that she felt like she was sitting on the dining room table sometimes, and Rebecca believed it.

Today she stopped, eyes wide: she’d never, ever seen the big black horsie in the daylight, and the closer she got, it seemed, the bigger the horsie got.

Rebecca stood and stared, then she whispered, “Are you real?”

The huge black mare turned its head, looked at her, then turned her big body, hooves the size of dish pans silent on the frozen ground: the horsie lowered her big long head toward the marveling girl, snuffed loudly at her.

Rebecca dropped the box of .32-20 rounds into her apron pocket, then reached up – tentatively, hesitantly – and stroked the horsie’s damp nose, then her velvety ears, the child’s smile widening as she realized – yes, this enormous black horse was very, very real.

“Touch her behind the foreleg.”

The woman’s voice whispered, but the horsie heard, and lifted her head, muttering deep in her huge black chest: the woman’s hand was white, lily white, as she rubbed the black mare’s jaw.

Rebecca touched the black mare behind her foreleg and the horse folded her legs and lowered to the ground.

Rebecca’s eyes widened and her breath sighed audibly from between her red, rich lips: awkwardly, uncertainly, she half laid over the saddle, then reached down, hauled her skirts up, slung a leg over and tried to settle herself somewhat comfortably in the big saddle.

The mare stood – quickly, easily, and Rebecca squeaked a little with delight, then she swallowed.

When she rode the big black mare at night, she didn’t know just how far off the ground she was.

Rebecca had no idea where she was going, but the mare did: her gait was smooth and steady, and they rode for some time before the mare stopped, and Rebecca waited until she knelt again before throwing up a leg and sliding out of the saddle.

She walked around in front of the mare and caressed her long nose.

“Thank you,” she breathed, and the mare blinked wisely, as if she knew secrets she wasn’t sharing.

Rebecca looked around and nodded.

This was the place the woman told her about.

She parked the rifle against a handy pine and walked over to the wood frame.

A deck of cards waited there; she took the first four cards and put them in the holders, just like the nice lady showed her, so they were edge-on to where she’d set the rifle.

She marched back to the rifle, set the box of cartridges on a handy, chest-high rock: she worked the bees wax ear plugs into her ears, picked up the rifle.

One at a time, she slipped four rounds into the loading gate.

She frowned at the action, then cranked the lever down, slowly, looking into the top of the receiver, watching the several parts move: she smiled a little as the round thrust itself out of the magazine and into the lifter, and she brought the lever up, watched the cartridge as it was pushed into the chamber.

She looked at the cards, edge-on to her, then focused on the left-hand card.

Frowning, she took a little step to her left, then another.

There.

That was better.

Instead of trying to see the nearly invisible edge of a playing card, she now saw a bit more of it.

She did not know the rifle was short-stocked, custom made for a girl her age, many years ago: she had no idea the rifle she held belonged to the daughter of a prominent businesswoman, and had been used to kill an escaped felon who took a shot at the rifle’s previous owner and her little sister.

It really would not have mattered if she had known these things, for in this moment, she was busy getting used to the idea of operating this noisy thing.

Rebecca was too busy looking at the playing card and the front sight to wonder why she could hear the nice lady’s whisper clearly, even with the beeswax plugs in her ears.

She settled the front sight’s bead in the buckhorn rear, kept it right there, then allowed the front bead to drift over to the card.

She dropped the muzzle an inch, then raised it slowly, and as the front sight climbed up the edge-on card, her young finger wrapped around the trigger, pressing the flat steel with just the pad, the way the nice lady told her.

She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until the rifle went BLAP and the card flew from the holder, two halves fluttering to the ground.

Rebecca giggled happily – that was fun! – and she felt the nice lady’s hands on her shoulders, squeezing her just a little in encouragement, and she cranked the lever down, watching the brass round sling out and up.

A second shot – a third – a fourth.

Four cards split with four shots.

It would not be for literally years that Rebecca would realize how unusual it was to pick up a rifle and shoot it for the first time, and score four center hits on one of the exhibition shooter’s showiest tricks, and it would be longer yet before she realized she should not have been surprised – after all, she had no bad habits to un-learn!

Rebecca parked the rifle and skipped up to the holder, retrieved the halved cards, thrust them into her apron pocket, set up four more cards, facing her this time.

She and the big horsie walked back until the nice lady said to stop, and she turned, and spun the cloak off her shoulders and piled it atop a handy rock.

She lay over the rock, used it as a rest, and just as the nice lady told her, she fired four more times.

Her shots were not dead center, but she cut pasteboard with each shot, and this at 30 yards.

That night Rebecca asked Jacob to show her how to clean a rifle.

Jacob looked rather suspiciously at his dead sister’s child and inquired, “Now why would you want me to show you that?”

“Because you clean yours when you shoot it,” she said, “and I shot this one today!”

“Did you hit what you were looking at?”

His question was automatic: it was the question his own father asked him, it was the question he asked his sons, and it came immediately to voice when she said she’d shot that rifle today.

Rebecca wordlessly withdrew eight card halves, each with a lead streak along the line of bifurcation.

“I split the queen,” she said simply.

Jacob stared at the big-eyed little girl with the innocent expression.

He turned his head a little, regarding her suspiciously.

“You,” he said, “look an awful lot like your mother when you talk like that.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

33. “PA, DON’T TELL NO ONE!”

 

Caleb and Rebecca were of a like age.

They’d grown up as brother and sister, they played together, they scrapped together, Caleb one time took Rebecca’s oil cloth dust mop and shoved it in the stove, and Rebecca yanked it out and beat him over the head with it – that was on Christmas Day, when the big, jolly, one-eyed Dutchman was their guest, and ‘twas after the Christmas dinner, when Rebecca would normally have been helping her Mama and her sisters clean up afterward.

Instead of cleaning up, though, Rebecca was charging through the house at the top of her lungs, screaming bloody murder, beating Caleb over the head with that blackened, smoldering, what-used-to-be-a-dust-mop, and the Dutchman’s face was red as a bowl of cranberries as he threw his head back and laughed at the sight of the distressed little boy trying to escape this screaming, scorched-stick-swinging gourd smacker chasing him through every room in the house.

Caleb and Rebecca had grown in the years since, until Caleb was a lean-waisted sprout that reminded Jacob of a split stick of white oak: skinny and tough and …

Jacob shook his head.

I wonder if my Pa ever looked at me and thought such things?

His Honor the Judge hadn’t made it out for supper, the night before: he’d received an urgent telegram, and had to grab an armful of passenger car down at the depot, and so Jacob turned his thoughts away from his pale-eyed sister’s memories, and toward his own young.

He was dependent on Samuel and Caleb to do the heavy work, at least until his ribs finished knitting: he tried forking hay, and ended up pasty-white, bent over and sweating in pain: he’d been absolutely silent, which for Jacob was a dangerous sign, and he leaned on the hay fork upstairs in the mow until the agonies burned down to glowing coals.

He’d left the fork upstairs, leaning against the center post, and he’d climbed down, carefully, the way a pained man will, and he’d set himself down on a hay bale that was fortuitously set up against that same center post.

He set himself down, he took the worst of the curve out of his lower back, he set there and shivered some, and he looked up when Caleb came strutting into the barn.

His son Caleb didn’t walk.

He’d saunter, or he’d scamper, he’d strut when he was feelin’ good and he’d shuffle when he was discouraged, and his Pa figured the lad would be a poor poker player, for his feelin’s were generally real plain to see: he’d never taught his boy the Art of the Pasteboards, and probably wouldn’t – unless the lad tried his hand at it and lost his shirt – then he’d show him how to play and how to do it right, without cheating, but until then … no.

All this went through the pale-eyed Sheriff’s mind as his growing sprout of a son approached him.

Caleb turned around and dropped onto the hay bale like his legs were suddenly boneless, and he leaned a little against his Pa’s shoulder.

Jacob raised his arm and run it around his son’s shoulders, squeezed his off arm muscle a little as he did, and Caleb leaned his head over against his Pa and sighed quietly.

“Chores done?” Jacob asked quietly.

“Yes, sir.”

“Plenty of stove wood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Kindling?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Water reservoir filled behind the stove?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Water buckets?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Coal for the horse shoe machine?”

Jacob felt Caleb stiffen ever so slightly, then he turned his head and looked down as his son turned his head and looked up.

“Sir?”

Jacob’s grin started deep in his eyes and split his face open under his mustache.

“I forgot to get that-there horse shoe machine,” he murmured, “so we won’t need coal for it.”

Caleb grinned in reply. “Yes, sir.”

“Caleb?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Kin I give you some real good free advice?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t never get shot if you can avoid it.”

“Yes, sir. I mean no, sir.”

The pair sat together in companionable silence for some time, joined by one of the barn cats, more intent on stalking the little rustling sound in the hay than it was interested in ear-scratches or a warm lap: father and son watched the lean calico as it raised its head, eyes and ears focused on a point a foot and a half ahead, and they watched the barn cat gather itself and pounce and come up with a mouse.

“That’s why we don’t feed ‘em,” Jacob said quietly. “Long as they’re hungry they’ll hunt mouses.”

“Yes, sir,” Caleb replied, deciding it would be wise not to admit he’d been feeding them, and Jacob did not elaborate by admitting he knew Caleb was feeding them.

Jacob thought it wise that the barn cats were fed on an irregular basis – it kept them from foraging for birds and wild life, and so far they kept the grain-fouling mice mostly in check.

It was several minutes before either spoke.

“Pa?”
“Yes, Caleb?”

Caleb snuggled a little more into his father’s uninjured side.

“I kinda like settin’ with you.”

Jacob nodded slowly, his arm tightening a little around his son.

“I kinda like it too.”

Silence grew again between them … no, not between them: silence between two people, separates two people: no, this silence surrounded them both like a warm, comfortable overcoat.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Caleb?”

“Pa, I kinda like this but …”

He twisted a little, the way a boy will, then settled back against his Pa.

“Don’t tell no one.”

Jacob nodded.

“Our secret, Caleb,” he agreed in his deep, reassuring father’s voice. “Our secret.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

34. STEEL DANCER

His Honor did come out, later the next week, when the demands placed on the cigar-smoking jurist allowed: he was as soft-spoken and courteous under Jacob’s roof as he was loud, sour and ill-tempered under his own.

His practiced eye took in the stonework as he stood without the front door, and he unabashedly peered closely at joints and corners, then took a few steps to the side to sight down the mortar line joining the row of hand cut ashlars forming the edifice: he stopped and bent and ran appreciative fingers over the engraved, corner stone, with its Square and Compasses, its date, and what he knew to be their Masonic Lodge’s number, and finally he went to the front door and formally requested permission to enter.

Samuel made a mental note to ask his father if the Judge was prior Navy, for he’d heard somewhere that it was polite to ask permission before coming aboard a military vessel.

Rebecca was silent, as she almost always was when they had guests: she floated along behind Annette like a pretty young ghost, bearing dishes or loaves of bread or pies with downcast eyes – not out of some sense of oppression or sorrow, but because she wore a general attitude of … quietness, of watchful stillness, if you will … almost as if it were a cloak, or a dome that hovered over her.

When the youngest of the Keller tribe grew restless and fussy, it was Rebecca who slipped into the other room, passing like a shadow and with just as much noise, and it was Rebecca’s presence that brought the fussy little baby to tranquility and sleep once more, and His Honor the Judge noticed these things, for he’d learned in court to watch small things, signals if you will, given by defendants or attorneys or witnesses.

Kind of like his comment when he found an asterisk in a legal brief he’d been reviewing: he pointed it out to the Sheriff and said, “This, Sheriff, means if you want the whole truth, you have to look elsewhere,” to which Jacob chuckled, “What else is new, Your Honor?”

Rebecca ate delicately, daintily; the other children ate with gusto, the boys would have attacked their plates like a squadron of raiders, if they hadn’t been under their father’s cold eye, and knowing they had a guest: the girls ate more quickly than Rebecca, the way the young will.

Again, His Honor noticed these things, though he said nothing.

It was traditional that guests be entertained, in this era, and it was equally traditional for the children to provide that entertainment: Jacob had long ago moved a good high grade piano into his home, and his wife played it, and played it very well; their daughters, and two of their boys, played it also, with varying degrees of skill – Samuel had no talent for the ivory 88, Caleb played nearly as well as his mother, but Rebecca could make the upright positively sing.

Unless she wished to bring something else from it.

She’d listened to the piano player in the Silver Jewel and his enthusiastic, heavy-handed style, watched his hands bounce over the keyboard as he played the bawdy saloon music while ladies in skirts and ruffles danced and disported on the little stage, and she’d come home and played the identical tune, in the identical bouncy, bawdy, raw-knuckled manner.

This night, though, it was another guest who provided the music, she and a companion, both dressed in the gaudy silks of circus performers: Daciana, gone to grey now, and someone new to town that Jacob remembered seeing the day before he was shot, someone with a thick, Hungarian mustache and wearing a red fez with a dangling, gold-tied tassel: the former circus trick rider had a pennywhistle, and the jongleur with the fez had some kind of a thin drum, apparently played with a double ended stick.

“Your Honor,” Jacob said, standing, “you wished to know about my sister, who you heard called the Black Agent.”

“Yes,” the Judge said: they were seated in a rough oval in Jacob’s spacious parlor, and the Judge occupied a very comfortable chair, almost a throne, the seat of honor.

“May I present her daughter, Rebecca,” Jacob said, and Rebecca paced forward and curtsied.

“We’ve met,” the Judge said, his brows drawing together a little.

“My sister – the Black Agent – had a rough childhood. I am not inclined to discuss the hell she survived, but I can tell you honestly she descended into hell through a hole in the mountain so she could retrieve the other half of her soul.”
The drummer began a soft, whispering conversation with his bodhran, setting a quiet rhythm, like a deep, hidden heartbeat, setting the background for Jacob’s tale.

Rebecca began to sway a little, in time with the drumming, and Jacob’s voice wove the story, spun another reality in the still air of their parlor.

“It was a land of darkness and a bloody red sun where the sands were hot and dry.

“The soul she had was sundered and ripped, half in the dark and held imprisoned by the evil that seeks to devour the world.”

He reached over and gripped the back of Rebecca’s dress, yanked hard: the dress came away and she stood in a black shirt and black ankle-long skirt and black knee boots, and she brought her arms from behind her, a gleaming, curve-bladed sword in each hand, and Daciana began to play the pennywhistle.

“She rode a horse black as a sinner’s heart, a horse taller than a man by four hands at least, and at her side, a dog the size of a pony, just as black, with the name …”

Rebecca began to dance, taking little ceremonial steps, spinning the blades in each hand, swinging in time to the music, weaving a shining web around her as the Judge watched, entranced.

“The Bear Killer.”

Outside, a howl, the deep, full-voiced bay of a monstrous war-dog, inviting the demons to come out and play, to come and partake of fang and bite and the justice this canine guardian could bring.

The Judge gripped the arms of his chair, for he too felt the sands, hot and glowing a little underfoot, he tasted the dust in the air and saw rocks, black monoliths, limned by the blood-light from the distant, glowing river there in the underground hell that trapped half an innocent child’s immortal soul.

Rebecca spun, light on the balls of her feet, steel shining and silver in her hands: her hair fell away from the confining ribbon and lay long and straight behind her, and as she turned, her hair and her skirt floated and hung away from her.

“She rode as to war, with a lance and a shield and two men with her, men scarred and hardened by battle and grief, each with a sword and each with a shield and each with the warrior’s terrible knowledge that here they could die.”

Two men flanked the mounted warrior-maiden, men in studded leather and bronze helms, men with a steel-rimmed war-shield on their forearm and a fighting blade in the other, men and weapons who’d known the taste of enemy blood: brothers they were, on a level deeper than mere blood relation, men who’d stood before evil and ruin and fought it to a bloody standstill, and now they advanced,

more than willing to tear into the legions of Hell itself to protect the newly rejoined soul of this, their own maiden-warrior.

“The war-dog bayed with the sound of thunder breaking like saltwater waves, like a great storm-thunder that shatters itself against granite mountains, and the Maiden lowered her lance and the great black horse leaned into a gallop, and as the lance came level and deadly it detonated into Silver Light, and the Legions of Evil fled before this purity.”

Music and rhythm, dance and spinning steel, and the Judge could see the battle, held in underground darkness, could hear the muffled hoof-falls in the hot red sands, he could smell the dust and taste copper as warriors faced demons and then the battle was won, and as Rebecca spun and stopped, and crossed her blades over her breast and went to one knee, head bowed, the Judge realized he’d been holding his breath: he gasped like a swimmer coming up from too deep a dive: he shivered, he swallowed, and when a glass of something was pressed into his hand, he drank, not caring what it was.

Rebecca rose and skipped out of the room, blades upright before her young shoulders, and Jacob waited until His Honor gulped down a full water glass of Uncle Will’s finest – a half-and-half of homemade wine, and the Daine boys’ moon likker: he’d had some himself, he knew it went down like Mama’s milk and blowed the socks right off his feet – behind him, Daciana and her drummer rose and slipped into the next room with Rebecca, and Jacob continued.

“Your Honor, my sister was but thirteen when Judge Donald Hostetler thought to recruit her as an Agent. His thought was to use her as Alan Pinkerton used a woman who’d come to him: not as a secretary, but as a detective.

“Men’s tongues grow loose around a pretty woman, and a woman who listens is a woman who learns, and Sarah was seen as a quick-change artist who could appear to be almost anyone. Paint and powder and foundations and at ten years of age she looked grown enough that the son of a Spanish grandee was ready to propose to her. In her time as Agent she costumed flawlessly as a dance hall girl, a schoolteacher, a maiden, a matron. Twice she appeared to be a boy – a jockey -- and won my father a handsome purse in the horse races south of here” – Jacob winked – “and she commonly rode a gleaming black horse taller than I am, and The Bear Killer was often at her side.”

“The Bear Killer,” the Judge said thoughtfully as that glass of Sneaky Pete began relaxing him, “… The Bear Killer was real?”

“Yes, Your Honor. Very real.”

“The horse,” the Judge almost slurred. “That was real too?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“And the lance?”

“The Lance of St. Mercurius,” Abbot William’s deep, confident voice filled the room, and the robed cleric stepped through the near door. “Sarah Lynne McKenna. She never took her mother’s married name of Rosenthal, at least not until it was convenient as a pseudonym, then she was Agent S. L. Rosenthal. She was also one of our Faceless Sisters, and her voice was absolutely unmatched –“

He shot a look at Jacob, then looked at Annette and bowed a little.

“Though I have found its equal, living in the lovely throat of the Sheriff’s wife.”

Annette inclined her head, accepting the compliment.

“She was a healer of considerable skill. She knew herbs and she knew how to compound them, and we still have a few tinctures she mixed for us.”

“I see.” The Judge realized that glass full of Two Hit John was living up to its name and he tried to rise.

Strong hands took him under the arm and the shoulder.

“I seem to be rather afflicted,” he slurred.

“That was intended to be sipped,” Jacob said quietly, “not gulped.”

“Now you tell me.”
“We’ll put you up here for the night. You’re in no shape to go back to town.”

That was all His Honor really remembered.

He very vaguely remembered being undressed, and how good it felt to lay down between clean sheets, sheets that smelled of being hung outside to dry, and as soon as the dignified and thoroughly pickled jurist’s head hit the pillow, he was asleep.

He didn’t realize until midmorning of the next day that – hard as that drink hit him – he had no hangover a’tall.

I have to get me a jug of that, he thought.

That was sippin’ likker!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

35. THE UNDERTAKER SAW NOTHING

Digger was the Firelands undertaker.

Digger’s funeral parlor was painted, the trim around windows and doors painted as well, and nicely done: the interior was velvets and curtains and smelled slightly of formaldehyde, and it was painfully, scrupulously clean.

Digger had no trouble with trespassers, or almost none: curious little boys would peer through the windows of his preparation room in back, standing on the rain barrel (and occasionally falling in), and once the town drunk passed out not far away and the local jokers packed the poor fellow into Digger’s parlor, laid him out in one of his best display caskets, folded the unconscious sot’s hands over his belly and stuck a fresh cut lily from the display in his grip … and then left.

Digger was in back when the poor fellow woke up enough to realize where he was.

The scream he let out was bad enough: he knocked the display coffin off its bier in his haste to scramble out of its comfortably padded embrace, he’d knocked over the vase of lilies Digger intended for the next day’s funeral … but at least he used the door to make his escape, instead of diving head first through the plate glass window.

That had been several years ago, though, and it hadn’t been repeated.

Digger was in back; his preparation was complete, he’d prepared for the morrow’s interment – service would be at the graveyard, in the little stone chapel built for that purpose – and he’d just finished putting everything away when he heard what sounded for all the world like … a horse … inside his front display parlor?

“Oh, no,” he moaned, wiping his hand briskly on a clean towel and almost running down the hall, around the corner and through a curtain –

 

Rebecca skipped a little, the ribbon trailing down behind her little straw hat bouncing in her slipstream.

Her dress was mostly pink, with darker pink trim, and she looked like a happy young girl: her cheeks were pink, her teeth white, her eyes bright and shining, and she skipped to a stop in front of the Mercantile, tilting her head a little as she looked at the upturned nail keg with the checker board set down beside it.

Her cousin Opal told her they used to watch old men sit on either side of this keg and frown at the checker board as if it were the most important thing in the world, and how they loved it when Brother William – now the Abbot William, in charge of the Rabbitville monastery – would come out of the Mercantile with a cloth bundle that smelled delightfully of coffee, and how he would laugh that big gusting laugh of his when they called him “Woom Coffee.”

Opal explained that she and her sister Polly were quite young, and could not quite frame to pronounce “William,” and it came out “Woom” … which amused the tonsured sky pilot.

Rebecca blinked as she heard the pretty woman’s voice.

The corners of her mouth usually turned up a little, as if she were perpetually smiling, and at the pretty woman’s voice, she smiled a little more, and as the pretty woman’s voice spoke to her, she blinked quickly and then nodded, and then she began skipping again, down toward the Sheriff’s Office, and toward the funeral parlor.

“In here,” the woman’s voice whispered, and Rebecca giggled a little, as if she were a naughty schoolgirl about to slip into someplace forbidden.

Rebecca pushed open the door to the funeral parlor.

She didn’t realize the spring-loaded bell, positioned to give a cheerful announcement of an arriving visitor, swung briskly as it always did.

She didn’t realize it because its metallic clapper, normally free-swinging, was stuck rigidly in its dead center, like a naughty schoolgirl defiantly sticking out her tongue.

Rebecca looked around, then blinked in surprise, for the hind quarters of a big black horsie were just disappearing around a corner, and Rebecca scampered quickly after it.

The horsie was nowhere to be seen, but she heard it … ahead of her, on the stairs.

Rebecca’s flat soled shoes were inaudible, for, child-like, she made a game of it, and as part of the game, timed her footsteps with the heavy hoof-falls of the retreating mare.

The hallway was carpeted and Rebecca ran a few steps, stopped as a hand dropped lightly on her shoulder and the pretty woman’s voice whispered again.

Here.

On your left.

Go in this room.

Puzzled, Rebecca stopped, then turned a little.

The room was sparsely furnished: tables, chairs, a half dozen rough-boxes stacked against the right-hand wall.

She catfooted into the room, looking around with big, innocent eyes, looked out the window.

Her Uncle Jacob was in front of the Silver Jewel, talking with two men.

Rebecca smiled a little.

She liked her Uncle Jacob.

Rebecca felt a little tug at her apron pocket and ran her hand into it, and smiled again.

Her homemade beeswax ear plugs felt smooth, slick under her exploring fingers.

Put them in, the nice woman’s voice whispered, and she did.

She liked the nice lady.

She smelled nice and she liked the feel of the pretty lady’s hands when she gripped Rebecca’s shoulders, or caressed her cheek with the back of a bent finger.

Now open the window about a foot.

Rebecca blinked, surprised, then obediently went over to the window, hooked her fingers under the stamped-steel lift-hooks, hoisted the window open about a foot. It clattered a little and she heard the cast iron counter weights in the window frame complain as they slid down their galley ways.

“Okay,” Rebecca whispered. “It’s open.”

Just right, the nice lady whispered back, her voice clear in spite of the earplugs blocking out the rest of the world’s sound. Now come back into the room and over this way a little. Look out the window, down the street there, toward the bank.

Rebecca looked back across the street, at her Uncle Jacob, and saw one of the men he was speaking with was more animated, louder, apparently angry or excited: he turned, moved to the side, and her Uncle Jacob moved with him, keeping himself squared off to the excited man, and in the process, turning his back to the down-street direction.

Rebecca looked again to her left, toward the bank, and she saw a man raise a rifle and take apparent aim at the men in front of the Silver Jewel.

Digger prowled around the front parlor for a few minutes, searching for the unseen horse he’d heard walking through his business.

Nothing.

A movement outside caught his eye.

He leaned back a little to take a better look out the front door’s frosted, swirl-decorated window.

The shining, gleaming, burnished, brass-trimmed, red-enamel-painted Steam Masheen and its prancing team of matched white mares was just drawing to a halt in front of his funeral parlor.

Oh, that’s right, he thought, I gave the Irish Brigade permission to train today.

He smiled sardonically.

A good thing I’ve no clientele at the moment.

I wouldn’t want these firemen charging in with a grieving family selecting between my more expensive boxes!

His front door swung open, its bell protesting loudly at being disturbed from its dependent slumber: booted men strode in, red-shirted and grinning, and their big, broad-chested Irish fire chief approached the undertaker with a wide grin and a bottle in hand.

“Here ye be,” he boomed, “an’ ma thanks f’r sharin’ yer premises like this!”

Digger cheerfully accepted the bottle: it was not the locally made product, this was a genuine, imported, Irish whiskey, amber and tasting vaguely of peat and castles and war-chieftains driving two-wheeled war-chariots into battle: any time the Irish Brigade had need to train, using his tall, three-story building, they made sure Digger was compensated for his trouble, always to Digger’s good profit: one time they helped replace the foundation stones in back, where the ground sagged under the weight of construction; another time, their rapid intervention kept the back of his preparation-room from becoming smoke, ash and ruin.

 

Rebecca opened the lid to the rough box laying across two chairs and smiled.

Her Uncle Jacob’s rifle was in it, the one she shot the playing cards in two with.

She hadn’t been able to figure why her Uncle Jacob was so impressed with her shooting cards.

It hadn’t been hard.

“Okay,” she said, lifting out the rifle. “Now what?”

The pretty lady’s voice whispered and Rebecca obediently eared the hammer back, dropped the lever, cranked a round into the chamber, then stepped over to where she could see clearly out the window, at the man raising a rifle toward her Uncle Jacob.

Everything on the street was frozen.

She couldn’t see the Irish Brigade below, she couldn’t see them unfolding the canvas life-net, she couldn’t see the pretty white horsies hitched to the front of their smoking, steaming fire wagon, nor could she see the brightly painted, pinstriped hose-and-ladder wagon hitched on behind.

She saw the front sight settle into the rear notch, like she’d done before.

Rebecca Keller, daughter of the Agent in Black and niece to the pale-eyed Sheriff, smiled a little as the pretty lady told her what to do.

She was standing near the center of the room, invisible from the street; she squeezed the trigger, slowly, steadily, and she felt the sear release and the ’73 rifle went BLAP and pushed gently against her and she saw the bad man’s hat twitch and the bad man dropped his rifle and then he collapsed.

Rebecca replaced the rifle in the rough box, closed the lid, pulled the ear plugs out and dropped them in her apron pocket: she went back to the window, raised it, hoist it wide open and stepped up on the sill, squatting in the big square opening.

Rebecca put thumb and forefinger to her lips, whistled, once, loud and shrill, giggling as her Uncle Jacob threw one bad man into another and shouted and he was pointing his pistol and one of the others and her Uncle Jacob was mad ‘cause she could see his face was real pale and real tight and his ears were really, really red, an’ his ears didn’t get really red unless he was really mad, and the Irish Brigade looked up to see a laughing little girl stand up, her arms straight out, and they brought the opened life-net directly under the window in three running steps.

Rebecca raised her arms like a diver, then she did one perfect somersault, legs together and straight out, toes pointed: she fell at an amazing velocity, one hand clapped to the top of her white straw hat, trailing the hat’s tail-ribbons and absolutely delighted squeal as she fell, and she landed precisely on her back, pointed toes thrust toward the blue sky above: as her weight slammed into the net, the Irishmen dipped their knees a little, and then the laughing little girl rolled to the edge of the net, grabbed the smooth hickory frame, flipped to the ground,

landing neatly on her feet: she looked up at the German Irishman with an absolutely delighted expression and declared, “That was fun!” – then she took out at a dead run, down towards the bank, towards the small crowd gathering around the dead man.

Rebecca pushed in between two men and stopped, staring at blood and sightless eyes, and she shook her finger at the corpse and scolded loudly, “You bad man! Nobody shoots my Uncle Jacob!”

Rebecca hoisted her nose with a distinct “Hmph!” – turned – and marched back up the street, her straw hat’s tail-ribbons bobbing behind, to where her Uncle Jacob was shoving one man at his deputy-son, and disarming a second before holstering his own revolving pistol and taking a third by the back of the shirt and hauling the trio off to their fine stone hoosegow.

Rebecca turned and looked up at the open window she’d just vacated.

That was fun! she thought. I wonder if they’ll let me do that again?