THE SHERIFF'S BLOOD

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

106. JUNGLE DRUMS

Young John wore his father’s reputation with a little less than the confidence his patients had in him.

Doctor John Greenlees had been with Firelands forever and a day, or so it felt, and his son, Young John, was a physician now, a man who’d served in the War, one of the few doctors who wore a pistol as routinely as he wore his trousers: this was remarked on, and not in a kindly manner, until the night their aid station was overrun, and he made a good account of himself, first with his Colt revolver, and then with the rifle he took off a dropped Hun.

After that nobody objected to a healer who wore the weapon of death.

Old John’s war had been back East, between soldiers in butternut and soldiers in blue; his son’s had been between soldiers who spoke multiple languages, but all bled the same color, and he’d dispensed his skills equally among the wounded, without regard for their linguistic predilections.

Young John was in New York when the Armistice was signed; he’d been on a train for Colorado with his discharge newly signed, not long after: he had his fill of war and destruction, and he wished for a quiet practice, a respite from explosions and shattered carcasses that used to be living, breathing men.

Young John’s head came up when the summoning bell rang; he gripped the maid’s elbows as she dashed in, out of breath: moments later he was harnessing up the Morgan horse to his father’s surrey, and he felt that same deep rooted excitement he felt before a battle, when he knew his services would be most desperately needed.

 

Jacob squatted beside the quilt, directing his troops.

“Nicodemus – you three on that side – now roll the quilt up like this.”

Young hands and older hands rolled the edge of the quilt.

“Now grip the roll – good grip – we’ll lift on three, my count.”

He looked over at Annette.

Her face was pinched, white, but her hands were steady.

“Dearest, if you could get the door, please.”

Annette nodded, once, not trusting her voice.

“Everyone will lift on three, my count,” Jacob repeated, looking at his children, ranked shoulder to shoulder across from him. “One – two – three.”

Caleb was lifted smoothly off the ground.

“Now we go inside.”

The improvised litter was carried through the broad, open doorway: with careful steps, anxious looks, they made slow but steady progress into the house, to the kitchen table.

“Annette, on that side, if you please. Now we will slide him onto the table, from this end – that’s right – start sliding, let the table carry the weight.”

Caleb grimaced with the slight moves, then fisted his hands and cried out in honest pain as his weight came gently down onto the tabletop.

“We’ll let Doc see you right here,” Jacob said quietly to his injured son. “He can get clear around you. Chairs over against that wall” – he pointed, and young and eager hands gripped the chairs, packed them away from the table.

“Annette,” Jacob said, his voice low, urgent. “Annette … are you all right?”

“I lifted the wagon,” she whispered, and Jacob realized she was not standing quite straight.

He looked at his young. “One chair, here, your Mama needs to sit down.”

 

 

 

He knew where the Sheriff lived – even if he did not, he followed the maid, at least until she made the hard turn up the Sheriff’s road – his Morgan swung wide and made the turn easily – the Morgan’s steel-shod hooves were sure on the packed snow, and they ascended the grade without difficulty.

The door opened as he arrived; two young men swarmed out, tall boys they were, lean and pale-eyed, one took his Morgan by the halter, the other, his father’s stallion as the maid slid awkwardly to the ground.

Dr. Greenlees strode through the open door, looking around.

“In here,” the Sheriff called, and the younger Dr. John Greenlees turned and followed the voice.

 

On another continent, the term was “jungle drums.”

African explorers were quick to adopt the term; it referred to the tendency for news to pass quickly from one village to another, generally on the throbbing of skin drums: here, in a small town, it wasn’t drums, but the human voice: however it happened, word spread, and spread fast.

526

 

When the Sheriff, and the Doctor, both rode out of town and wasted no time doing it, something just happened, and people are curious: they want to know what happened, and when it’s the Sheriff’s own family – especially when it’s something as spectacular as a freight wagon crushing his son, and his mother picking up the wagon and tossing it over the fence into the next pasture – why, word travels fast, if less than completely accurately.

 

“How far away was he when he was hurt?” Dr. Greenlees asked as he split the tall boy’s trouser leg along its seam, his short, sharp-bladed knife passing easily through the sewn seam.

“A little less than a quarter mile,” Jacob said, his voice tight.

Dr. Greenlees whistled. “Who brought him in?”

“Mama did,” a little girl with big and very round eyes volunteered.

Dr. Greenlees looked over at Annette, hesitated.

“What happened?” he asked, looking from Annette to the Sheriff.

“She lifted the wagon off him.”

“Wagon?” Dr. Greenlees stopped, straightened. “I will wish to examine you, Mrs. Keller.”

“Take care of my son,” Annette whispered, and Dr. Greenlees heard the pain in her voice.

“I shall,” he nodded. “Sheriff, help me get these britches off him.”

 

Daciana’s hands were wrinkled, her joints big and arthritic: she was no longer the lithe young circus acrobat she’d been when she first rode down the main street of Firelands, doing handstands on her trick pony’s back.

Her hands shuffled the Tarot, slowly, deliberately: she dealt the cards, frowned, nodded: she turned to the kerchief-covered crystal ball, hesitated.

She lifted the kerchief, passed her old hands over the ball in a deceptively simple pattern, stared into its depths: her breath hissed in through clenched teeth and she dropped the kerchief back over the crystal.

Daciana rose and walked slowly to her kitchen, to a cupboard set into the back wall, where the rock behind the wall kept the cabinet cool: she ran her finger slowly across the row of jars, selected one, then another.

Dried herbs were dispensed onto waxed paper, the paper folded into tidy envelopes: touched with a stove-heated sad iron, the waxed paper sealed: Daciana stacked these in a basket, added her mortar and pestle, then stopped to consider what else might be needed.

She smiled.

She’d baked too much bread the night before, and now she knew why.

She added the baguettes to the basket, then two loaves of the black bread she loved; a lump of butter the size of two fists, tied in a cloth, took its place beside the breads.

Daciana’s carriage was not the only one to head toward the Sheriff’s house, but it was the only one that brought a variety of healing herbs.

The very first one to be steeped into a healing decoction was the boneset.

 

The Parson blinked in surprise.

He’d walked to the livery to rent a carriage.

Word travels fast in a small town and word arrived at his doorstep of the Sheriff’s son’s misfortune: one report had the victim squashed like a bug and barely alive, not expected to live, another report included the report that his soft-spoken and ladylike mother had seized the offending wagon by its tongue and launched it politely into the next county with one mighty heave.

Both the Parson and his wife knew this latter report was probably not entirely accurate, but they both knew that something bad just happened, and they went to the Silver Jewel and asked for Daisy.

Daisy was storming down the hallway toward the bar when they inquired of the polite man with neatly pomaded hair behind the bar. “I’ve heard,” she snapped. “Gi’e me a hand wi’ these, an’ there’s more t’ come!”

 

Bonnie McKenna folded her spectacles and slipped them in their brocaded cloth case, placed them in he reticule, drew the purse string shut and stood.

“Is all ready?” she asked, her voice brisk, businesslike, and her secretary – two decades her junior, a severe-looking, spinsterish woman with her own spectacles halfway down her nose, replied “Yes, Mrs. Rosenthal.”

“Thank you, Miriam.” Bonnie stopped and looked directly at her secretary. “I mean that, you know.”

“Yes, Mrs. Rosenthal,” Miriam replied formally, keeping the arm’s-length of propriety she’d maintained since the day she was hired.

The two women were helped into the carriage – Bonnie had a special mounting-block made, both here at the House of McKenna Dress Works and at her home – it consisted of two steps, instead of a single, rectangular ashlar, the better to navigate her elderly bones into a rig – and Bonnie took the reins, flipped them gently, precisely, and clucked to the matched dapple greys.

“Yup, Butter, yup, Jelly,” she called, and the greys stepped out smartly in the chill winter air, their breath blowing in great, rolling clouds, their harness-bells singing a merry note as they set their steady pace.

Behind them, in the carriage, a carefully arranged, precisely loaded cargo of supplies: Bonnie knew Jacob (she’d known him since he first came to Firelands, an uncertain and underfed boy who looked ten, who was actually fourteen, deadly with a percussion Colt and with the ice-pale eyes of the man he didn’t yet know was his father) and she knew his family.

She knew his dogs, and they all knew her.

Bonnie heard that Annette crushed her knee when a wagon fell on it, and Caleb jacked it up off her – she’d heard the wagon crushed Caleb’s ribs and Annette jacked up the wagon and threw Caleb over her shoulder – she’d heard the wagon was a runaway and Annette had to climb twenty feet up a tree to bring her injured son down – she didn’t know where the truth actually ran, but she intended to find out, and she intended that – whatever actually happened – Annette had her hands full with a house full of young, and she would need help with cooking and running the household, and she, Bonnie McKenna, was not going to enjoy the secure comfort of her own home when someone she knew and respected was in need!

And so it was that the most prosperous businesswoman in the territory steered her course for the fine stone house on the side of the mountain overlooking town.

 

Brother Florian was most grateful for the Irish Brigade’s hospitality.

His had not been as easy journey; the Brigade, these Irish firemen imported originally from the Cincinnati fire department by the Old Sheriff (he reasoned they needed a fire engine, they needed men to run it, why not get both from the same source) – the Brigade well knew the difficulty of foot travel over the mountains from the Rabbitville monastery.

A lean and war-scarred monastic, Brother William, was a regular guest under their roof: he would make the trip at least monthly, and would hold Mass for those souls who wished to attend: Brother Florian was now assuming that duty, and he hesitated to inform the Brigade of his news before he told the Sheriff.

The Abbott – Brother William became Abbott William – had his reasons, he’d said, his reasons were sound, and here is the message to give him: Brother Florian accepted the folded, sealed paper with an acknowledging, deep nod of his tonsured head, and within the hour he’d set out.

The German Irishman was all set to go to Sean’s house – Sean was long dead, the Welsh Irishman, one of the several Llewllyn boys, was now Chief – but Sean’s widow and family still lived in the house, and none there would have it any other way – the German Irishman was all set to tell Daisy that Mass would be on the morrow, and one of the red-headed Irish lads would race his brother to see who could arrive first at the Kolascinski cabin, to tell them as well – but before this message could be passed, one of Sean’s boys came stumbling, puffing, into the firehouse: he half-ran, half-fell into the German Irishman’s arms.

“The Sheriff,” he gasped, “his wife – Caleb – a wagon fell on their barn and they’re all dead!”

“Dear God,” the Chief gasped, and every hand raised, every man there crossed himself, then took a knee.

“Brother Florian,” the German Irishman said, “if you please, sir!”

Brother Florian’s mouth was suddenly dry as he realized he’d just been dropped into the middle of a tragedy, for he knew every man here knew the Sheriff, and knew him well.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

107. A DAY FOR MISFORTUNE

 

 

“Owww,” Annette whined, her eyes screwed shut.

Jacob and the maid were across from one another, Bonnie McKenna and her secretary opposite: the women ignored the fact that, as they lowered Annette into the bathtub, they were getting their sleeves wet – for that matter, Jacob was down to his vest and shirtsleeves, and he too ignored the soaking his linen took as Annette’s pain-twisted body was eased into the warmest water she could tolerate.

Bonnie seized a towel, folded it into thirds lengthwise, then rolled it and eased it in behind Annette’s neck.

Annette’s eyes were squeezed hard shut and she could not help it any longer, the pain was overwhelming her defenses: Jacob’s mouth went dry at the sound of his wife’s sobbing.

“I want her in there for about an hour,” Dr. Greenlees said quietly. “She’ll need that to relax her muscles … my God, that woman lifted …”

He shivered.

The doctor well knew the weight of a flatbed wagon.

“Mr. Keller, if you please,” Dr. Greenlees said quietly, and Jacob withdrew with the physician to the far side of the room.

“Mr. Keller, the female structure is not meant to bear such weight,” the doctor said, his voice low, intense. “I don’t know what damage we’re looking at, but I can’t tell anything until her muscles relax. Right now they’re over-stressed, possibly torn, perhaps torn away from the bone. She may have damage to her spine. I don’t see any dislocations, but she is stiffened up badly and that tells me the body is splinting its many injuries to help heal. An hour and I should be able to tell more.”

“What about my son?”

“Let’s look at him now.”

Caleb was staring at the ceiling, flat on his back on the table, covered with another quilt.

“I am Dr. Greenlees,” the physician said formally, removing his coat. “Let’s see what’s going on with you.”

“Yes, sir,” Caleb squeaked, and father and physician ignored the wet tracks out the corners of the boy’s eyes and down the side of his face into his ears, for both men knew they were more than justified.

Dr. Greenlees drew the quilt aside – carefully, gently.

His battlefield training and bloody experience in Europe’s carnage gave him a strong stomach and an excellent poker face.

Jacob, however, paled visibly and turned away.

 

Brother Florian jumped easily from the carriage, caught his staff as it was dropped to him.

He looked around at the tidy little mountain-side habitation: a good tight barn, neat wood rail fencing, a worried-looking dog of some unknown ancestry looking at him with a curiously cocked head.

Brother Florian blinked, stared at the beef behind the rail fence, regarding him with placid eyes.

“Is that …?” he asked, pointing, and Shorty’s stableboy grinned.

“Yes, sir, that is a genuine Texas longhorn. That’s Boocaffie. He’s friendly.”

Brother Florian regarded the impressive spread of the bull’s pointed fighting headgear, raised an eyebrow, then looked up at the grinning boy.

“Thank you for your kindness,” he said.

“Glad to!” came the cheerful retort. “It got me out of cleanin’ stalls!”

A laugh, a whistle, and the boy hauled the carriage about, headed back down the hill, his laughter carrying joyfully on the high mountain wind.

Brother Florian blinked, considering, and a voice from behind, a young voice: “Brother William! C’mon in, it’s cold out there!”

Brother Florian turned and smiled sadly. “I’m afraid Brother William couldn’t make it,” he admitted, trudging through the packed-down snow: he kicked snow off his boots, stepped aside as the pale-eyed lad closed the door behind him, and Brother Florian leaned his staff in the near corner and hung his cloak from the hall tree.

He looked up as a pair of well-polished boots emerged from the kitchen.

The man who wore them was tall, lean, had pale eyes and a worried expression: his grip was firm, his hand callused, his eyebrows curious as he regarded this stranger in a monk’s robe and tonsure.

“You would be Sheriff Keller,” Brother Florian said, feeling his stomach sink.

“That I am, and your hands are cold. Come into the parlor. I’m afraid you’ve come at a difficult time, but here – have a set, here near the stove.”

He regarded his guest, grateful for diversion from his family disaster.

“Now what brings one of the Brethren out this far? Is Brother William well?”

Jacob studied the stranger’s face, the way his head turned slightly, as if to turn away, the way his eyes shifted away, and down.

“I am Brother Florian,” he said slowly, almost reluctantly. “I bear news from Abbott William.”

He reached into his traveler’s pouch, a cloth bag slung diagonally from one shoulder to the opposite hip; he withdrew the wax-sealed note, handed it to the Sheriff.

Jacob broke the seal, turned a little to get the best light on the message.

Brother Florian watched as the Sheriff read it, read it a second time, then carefully folded the note and placed it on a side table.

“He’s dead.”

Brother Florian nodded.

Jacob looked away, blinking, remembering.

“I knew him for a long time,” he said softly. “He and my father served together during the War.”

Brother Florian nodded, not knowing what to say.

Jacob’s eye wandered to a calendar.

“You know,” he said offhandedly, “if it were possible to tear a day off the calendar and throw it in the stove and get rid of it, I’d pick today.” His breath came a little more quickly and he willed himself to calm, knowing his solemn, big-eyed young were watching.

“Tell me what happened.”

Jacob rose. “Come with me.”

 

Dr. John Greenlees cupped Caleb’s heel in one hand, raised a finger.

“I want you to tell me if you can feel this,” he said, and tapped a finger firmly on Caleb’s big toe.

Caleb grimaced.

“Show me with your hand, where does it hurt.”

Caleb reached a hand to about mid-thigh, placed his finger very precisely on a spot.

“There, sir.”

Dr. Greenlees nodded.

“Now, Caleb, I am going to try something, don’t tense up on me.”

Jacob and Brother Florian watched from the doorway as the doctor turned the foot imperceptibly one way, then the other; he shifted his grip, one hand under the knee, tried it again, nodded.

“Good.” He turned, looked at the Sheriff.

“If you have another towel, or a small pillow, perhaps?”

Jacob drew back quickly, snatched two satin pillows from the couch, brought these out: “Will these do?”

“Handsomely, thank you.” Dr. Greenlees placed one under each knee. “Now, Caleb,” he said, his fingers busy pressing here, pressing there, gripping the ankle, frowning, nodding, hm-hmming to himself: finally he pressed the toe nail on the great toe, released it, nodded again.

He drew the quilt back over the shivering young man, laid his hand on Caleb’s shoulder.

“Caleb,” he said, “I believe your thigh bone is cracked but not broken in two. The advantage of being young, you still have some flexibility in your bones – not like the ossified structure of your father here.” He gestured carelessly at the pale-faced and sick-looking Sheriff. “If he’d been under that wagon it would have snapped his leg like a matchstick.”

“Yes, sir,” Caleb said faintly.

“You have a great deal of deep muscle bruising.” The doctor placed his bag up on the table, reached in, frowned, pulled out a brown bottle, a folded cloth. “This will sting, I won’t lie to you.” He uncorked the bottle, placed the cloth over its mouth, turned the bottle over a few times. “As a matter of fact it’ll burn like hell. Are you up for this?”

“Yes, sir, I am,” Caleb said firmly, fisting his hands.

“Good man.” Dr. Greenlees drew the quilt aside enough to expose the mashed thigh muscle: he carefully, professionally wiped what little open tissue there was, frowning as he did.

“Now,” he said, placing a clean, folded cloth over the open flesh, drawing cloth ties around the leg: “I want you to keep this clean and dry. I’ll be out daily to look at it. The big worry is infection. The underside of a wagon is not particularly clean and if it mashed dirt or drove a splinter deep into the muscle it can fester, and I don’t want that.”

“What can you do if it does?” Caleb asked uncomfortably.

“Several things, none of them particularly pleasant.” Dr. Greenlees laid a hand on his patient’s shoulder, squeezed a little. “Now let’s look at your advantages. You are young and healthy, unlike most of my patients. You live in the mountains and the air is much cleaner. You are not given to drink, debauchery and you are considerably cleaner than most men your age I’ve had to repair.”

“Will you have to cut off my leg?”

Jacob swallowed as Brother Florian gripped his shoulder.

“That was my question as well,” the Sheriff said hoarsely, leaning against the door post and feeling a little more than half sick.

Caleb saw something haunted in the doctor’s eyes as he replied quietly, and most sincerely, “Not if I can help it, friend. Not if I can help it!”

He turned to the Sheriff.

“Now we will need several willing hands to bring your beautiful wife out of her bath, and quickly up the stairs to her bed. I want to take her up in a warm wrap and keep her from chill from here to there, for her muscles must remain warm and relaxed for my examination.”

The Doctor’s brisk and businesslike voice was just what Jacob needed.

“Yes, Doctor,” he said, setting his jaw and looking over at Bonnie and her secretary. “We’ll handle that.”

“I would help, if I may,” Brother Florian said quietly.

Jacob nodded, quickly, as if afraid to trust his voice.

 

Bonnie McKenna paced – three steps one way, stop: she turned, her skirts flaring a little, three steps, stop: she glared at the closed bedroom door, then turned again.

Her secretary stood, austere, disapproving, across the hall from her: like Bonnie, she too glared at the door, willing it to open, willing the man within to leave so they, the women, could tend to one of their own.

Downstairs, Daciana hummed a little as she stirred her tea.

A drop of honey, a pinch of one of the pulverized herbs from her mortar and pestle, and a stir: she closed her eyes, recited an old rhyme her ancient Grandmother used to whisper when she prepared a decoction, then she picked up the mug and carried it into Caleb’s room.

Caleb stared blankly ahead, seeing nothing: he blinked, returned to the here-and-now, looked at Daciana’s kindly, grandmotherly expression.

“I haff somdinks dat tastes really horrible,” she whispered, and in spite of himself, Caleb smiled a little: he took the mug, sniffed experimentally: it smelled of clover and faintly of mint, and he looked curiously at the woman he’d known and trusted all his life.

“It is bone set,” she whispered. “It mends breaks. Now drink.”

Caleb drank.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

108. PETTICOAT BRIGADE

Sheriff Jacob Keller took a long, steadying breath, put his arm around his son’s shoulders.

“Nicodemus,” he said quietly, “let us go downstairs.”

“Yes, sir,” the younger Keller said dutifully, and the pair trooped slowly down the broad stone staircase.

“Brother Florian, would you join us, please, and you too, Reverend Burnett.”

“Of course,” Reverend Burnett murmured, and Brother Florian nodded, once, gravely.

The men gathered in the kitchen: the maid was upstairs with the rest of the ladies, and the ladies were waiting impatiently for the doctor to conclude his examination, his treatment, whatever the man was doing behind the closed door.

Bonnie McKenna paced three steps, stopped: her arms were crossed, her fingers drumming impatiently on her sleeves: she turned, quickly, flaring her skirt, three more steps, stop, and she gave the door a glare that would have shrunk a living heart into a leathery knot.

It did not, however, impress the varnished pine portal.

Bonnie turned again, three more steps, while her secretary stood, still silent, still just as severe, and absolutely, positively radiating a general sense of disapproval: the maid, anxious, wrung her hands, stood back against the wall, looking uncertainly from one woman to another.

Three more steps, her hard little heels loud on the stone floor: a turn, a glare, and the door opened.

Doctor John Greenlees stepped out, frowning a little, drew the door quietly closed behind him.

Three women raised a gloved hand a little, opened their mouths, there was a collective indrawing of breath, and the doctor raised his hand, and an eyebrow.

Bonnie McKenna was struck how much the son looked like the elder Dr. Greenlees.

“Let us join the men,” he said quietly, “for what I have to say, I will say but once.”

He led the procession down the broad stone stairs.

Jacob rose – no, he did not rise.

Jacob shot to his feet like a cork released from deep in a cold mountain pool: Nicodemus looked guiltily at his father, and at the ladies filling the kitchen: he, too, came to his feet, as did the clergy, and the rest of the children.

Had Jacob not been worried sick, he might have had a guilty expression as well, for before each of the men was a good slab of pie, and a steaming mug of coffee.

“Sheriff,” Dr. Greenlees said, then, turning, “and ladies.”

The women raised their collective chins a little, all but the maid, who did her best to turn invisible: she looked at the men with plates of pie before them, and wondered if she was better served to remain here, or to rejoin the women upstairs, and hopefully attend her Mistress.

“As you can all imagine, it is not a natural thing for a woman to pick up a farm wagon and toss it casually aside.”

His face was solemn, his words carefully enunciated, with no trace of humor about them.

“Mrs. Keller is in pain. I have given her a draught to help her sleep. She will require assistance rising and tending her … needs.”

He looked directly at the maid, then at the other ladies.

“I believe that can be arranged,” Bonnie McKenna said, and Daisy, her lips pressed together, nodded firmly in agreement.

“Mrs. Keller has several torn muscles and her back may well be injured as well. When she is recovered, I will need to assess her for ability to walk.”

“She can’t walk?” Jacob blurted, his throat tight.

The doctor raised a forestalling palm. “I did not say that,” he said, his voice reassuring, calm: “she may have shooting pains, or tingling, she may have a limp, I will not know until she is more recovered. In the meantime, I want her on bed rest, I want her kept warm, I do not want her excited, irritated or aggravated.” He stepped forward, placed a brown-glass bottle on the table. “This is potent. No more than one teaspoon every four hours. It tastes terrible and although it will kill the pain and help the sufferer sleep, she must have water enough and vegetables enough to keep her bowels moving. This will lock up her guts and constipate her like concrete if you don’t.”

“I understand,” Bonnie and Daciana said with one voice.

“Sheriff, your son will walk again, providing that leg does not infect. I won’t lie to you, if it does, it could become so bad I will have no choice but to amputate. I do not want to do that and I will do everything in my power to keep from it, but understand that it remains a possibility.”

Sheriff Jacob Keller nodded, slowly, his bottom jaw thrusting out rebelliously.

“He’ll be out of bed on his own. Activity as tolerated. He’ll be in pain for some time and he’ll have to work out his stiffness. Be patient with him. That bone will take a couple of weeks to knit, maybe more, and it’ll be sensitive to the weather and maybe cold.”

Bonnie looked over at Jacob, saw the haunted look in his eyes, and remembered another pale eyed Sheriff with that same haunted expression: impulsively, she slipped behind two of the women, went over to Jacob, took his hand.

Jacob looked into the older woman’s eyes and Bonnie’s heart almost cried: her face never changed, she did not let her sorrow into her expression, but she remembered that same expression, that very same look, in his father’s eyes … the day her heart cried and she did not let it into her expression, the day Jacob’s mother, the Old Sheriff’s wife, died, and all she could do was take the new widower’s hand, and hold it, and look into his eyes.

Jacob closed his eyes, nodded.

He understood.

“We will take care of her,” Bonnie whispered, “for we are women, and we take care of our own.”

Jacob bit his bottom lip, took a long breath.

“Pa?” Nicodemus asked, and Jacob looked at the young Keller, held out his arm.

Nicodemus came over and leaned into his long tall father’s reassurance, and Jacob put his hand on Nicodemus’ far shoulder and drew him closer.

“The wise man knows when to say thank you,” he said, “and this is the time.”

He looked at Bonnie, then at the other women.

“Thank you,” he said. “I am …”

He cleared his throat, nodded.

“Thank you.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

109. DEAD MEN DON’T DRINK

Husband Jacob was, and father Jacob was, but he was also Sheriff, and the Sheriff is a man of responsibilities.

Jacob stabled his stallion behind his office as he always did, he hung his saddle and blanket as he always did, but he paused a moment longer, his hand on his horse’s neck, his eyes distant, before emerging and walking down the alley and unlocking the door.

He turned on the gas heaters, he went to his desk and checked the hand-written list he’d prepared two days before: nodding, he ran his finger down the neatly-scribed lines, stopped, thumped his trimmed fingernail on an entry.

“I’ll be glad to get that done,” he muttered aloud, then looked over at the pot belly stove.

He kept the stove, kept it piped and firewood stacked and a fire laid within, waiting but the lighted match to bring it to life: he’d learned early, he’d learned the hard way, not to be a trusting man: the gas heaters were very nice, he appreciated them, but he kept the pot belly stove anyway.

He did have a small gas burner on top, actually two burners in a white-enamel frame: he picked up the water bucket, carried it out to the pump, brought it back in, filled the coffee pot.

Jacob was considerably better at making coffee than his father had been.

He lit the gas flame under the blue-granite pot, opened a cigar box, brought out a cloth ball, dunked it in the pot.

He’d made up bags of grounds ahead of time.

Not that he was lazy, you understand: he was efficient, or so he told himself, and efficient to one man may seem lazy to another, but it suited him – and if it suited the Sheriff, who was to argue?

He looked back along the jail cells.

There were no tenants in his Crossbar Hotel and hadn’t been for a few days, and so he saw no sense in wasting gas to heat an empty building: it was chilly and would be so for a time, but he was used to cold.

Jacob frowned, considering, then turned the flame off.

“I’ll just let that set and repent of its sins,” he said to the coffee pot.

He picked up his Winchester and turned, opened the door a crack, looked left, opened a little more, looked right.

He stepped outside, looked around, closed and locked the door behind him.

A moment later he was striding across the street, toward the Silver Jewel.

 

Dr. John Greenlees ate with a good appetite that morning.

He’d learned to live in the moment, mostly because he’d come too close, too many times, to living no more moments at all.

He was a quiet man, much like his father, but not quite as taciturn: it was a standing joke that Old Doc Greenlees wouldn’t rub two words together in a day’s time unless there was just plainly no other choice, and that only if it involved two deaths and a chicken dinner.

Like his father, young John Greenlees dressed well.

A fresh change of clothes every day; he had three suits – can you imagine, three! – and he rotated them daily, and a fourth for Sunday-go-to-meetings.

He’d had to replace the fourth one when he was summoned unexpectedly to a mine collapse, and he’d been obliged to go underground, to the scene of a subterranean disaster: he’d saved lives that day and he’d been pronounced a hero, but a man’s leg and another’s arm were forever entombed beneath uncounted tons of rock where he’d had to amputate them in order to save the two men’s lives.

He’d ruined his good Sunday suit that day, but as he told it later, that comes with the territory.

He drank the last of his coffee, pressed the linen napkin firmly to his mouth, frowning a little: the man’s mind was forever busy, and his maid watched as the man blinked, and she knew he was running through his morning itinerary.

He rose and thanked her with his usual grave courtesy for an excellent breakfast – he always thanked her, though she was but hired help and it wasn’t necessary – and he paused, looking toward the door that led into the hospital proper.

“Have there been any responses to my advertisements?” he asked, and the maid reached into her apron pocket, withdrew an envelope.

“Yes, sir, three of them.”

“Ah, thank you.” He frowned at the envelopes, turned them over, considering.

“It’s a shame Nurse Susan married Father,” he said absently. “I should value her recommendation on the matter.”

“Yes, sir,” the maid chirped, dipping her knees before moving in to clear the table.

Dr. Greenlees cracked the wax seal on the first envelope, walked slowly toward the closed door.

The maid looked up as the man, still at a slow walk, collided bowed-head-first with the closed door.

 

The maid regarded Caleb with uncertain eyes.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked in her Professional Maid’s Voice, a voice she’d carefully cultivated under the sharp tongue and hard-swung palm of her English masters.

Caleb twisted uncomfortably. “If you could get me the bottle,” he said hopefully.

The maid responded as she’d been trained.

She dipped her knees, grasped the empty, heavy-glass bottle with its wide mouth, selected for this particular sickroom duty: she whipped back the cover, pulled up his nightshirt, placed the bottle, and regarded his shocked expression with an expression of utter nonchalance.

Caleb was too absolutely astonished to do anything – well, actually, there was one thing he did, and neither of them moved until this exercise was completed: the maid withdrew the bottle, drew his nightshirt back down, and with the bottle in one hand, little finger delicately extended, she used her other hand to bring the covers back up.

Caleb gripped the edge of the covers, wondering whether he ought to yank them up to his chin, as the maid left the room to empty the bottle, to wash the bottle, and he knew she would be back with the empty bottle.

The door closed behind her and Caleb dropped his head back on the pillow, his eyes still wide and staring with absolute, utter, frank and unadulterated astonishment.

 

“Wa’l now,” the rancher growled, “I wuz told yer wagon crushed yer barn an’ kilt her entire fam’ly an’ half yer horses!”

Jacob laughed quietly. “Well,” he admitted, “not quite.”

“Then what happened, man! I’ve heard ten different tales, all of ‘em different and none of ‘em believable! Most of ‘em have you an’ half the county killed and I gotta say you make a fine lookin’ corpse! You havin’ a beer?”

Jacob laughed again. “I reckon it’s coffee for me. Maybe later.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” the old rancher muttered. “Dead men don’t drink.” He took a long pull on his beer, came up for air. “You ain’t told us what happend!”

The card players paused, looked from their bets to the Sheriff: the diners looked up, placing forks soundlessly beside plates, and the others at the bar looked hopefully at the lawman, for they too had heard numerous versions of what happened, and all were hoping for either a clear breast of the facts, or a wildly entertaining and entirely implausible tale that could be safely repeated without fear of reprisal.

Jacob looked around, nodding.

“Well,” he said, “y’see, it’s like this.” He held his hands apart, then wider apart, and said “It was thiiiis long and I caught it in a washtub with an iron bolt for bait.”

He looked around, blinking innocently.

“Wrong tale,” he corrected himself.

“Now tell ‘em what really happened,” Daisy’s girl said quietly – this Daisy’s girl was actually one of Daisy’s daughters, and looked it – and Jacob looked directly at her and closed one eye.

“Fellas,” he said, walking over to the red headed hash slinger, “you see this good lookin’ lass here?” He took her wrist, drew her arm out across his chest, then held her like a dancer: “My wife is her same height, and her arm” – he felt the girl’s bicep speculatively, nodded. “I wouldn’t want this little lady mad at me!” he admitted, to the general, quiet and agreeable laughter.

“Fellas, imagine this kind and gentle soul grabbing holt of a wagon.

“That wagon was jacked up and the back wheel off, and when I built that wagon I braced it up big and mean and hell for stout, so it was heavy and especially heavy on the back end.

“Somehow it leaned off that jack and fell and my boy was a-greasin’ the axle stub.

“He tried to haul out from under but his foot slipped and his leg shot under’t and that wagon come down and crushed his leg, and when it twisted over like that it broke half the spokes out of the other back wheel and down she come, the whole cob house right across here.”

He smacked the flat of his hand right about mid-thigh.

“Mashed the hell out of his leg meat and cracked the bone, or so Doc said, and my wife – she’s this girl’s height, now – she hauled down and grabbed attair wagon bed and I am here to tell you –“

He turned, swinging around, almost a full circle, his arm extended, a teaching finger raised: he swung near to completely around, including everyone in the room in what he was saying – “I am gen-you-wine-ly here to tell you, that mere woman – that mere woman! – grabbed holt of that broke down wagon bed, she hauled it up off the ground, she side stepped about ten foot and tossed it aside like it was a dinner plate!”

Diners, drinkers, gamblers, piano player and barkeep, all leaned forward just a little, listening closely to the man’s words, the scene playing out on the stage of their imaginations.

“For you younger men who aren’t married yet,” he added confidentially, “bear this in mind as a lesson: a mere woman is not nearly so mere as you might want to think!” He winked, an exaggerated squint of the eye with a firm nod of the head: “when a woman gets her aggravated up, why, she can do things to make a man’s jaw drop, I’m here to tell you!”

“I’ve heard of women doin’ that,” a man said thoughtfully. “My Mama run out acrost the water when my little brother went under. She run out and stopped and run her arm in up to the shoulder and hauled him out by the hair of the head and only then did she go in, and she was chin deep!”

Jacob pointed to him and nodded, motioned the man to continue.

“She broke young Wes over her arm like a shotgun and come a-wadin’ out of the water and once she’d got the water out of him and he quit coughin’ she set down and throwed him acrost her lap and fanned him good and I reckon that had to sting, what with them soaky wet britches!”

“I’d reckon it did,” Jacob murmured in agreement.

“Remind me never to get Mrs. Keller mad at me,” Mr. Baxter said softly from his station behind the bar, and every man there looked at him and voiced his most sincere agreement.

 

Dr. Greenlees hung his coat over the back of a chair, rolled up his shirt sleeves, washed his hands with a studied thoroughness, lips pursed as if whistling.

The woman in the next room moaned, a tortured, rising note, and her husband – a nervous-looking man, divested of coat and vest, pacing nervously – turned quickly and glared at the unhurried physician.

Dr. Greenlees brought the clean towel off his shoulder, meticulously, carefully dried his hands.

“Mr. Gaddis,” he said, almost conversationally, “have you ever been a father?”

“I, um, no I have not,” Gaddis stammered.

“Mr. Gaddis, I shall need a few things.”

“Name it, name it, name it!” Gaddis stammered.

“I need you to go into town and have a beer. Two beers would be therapeutic. When you have had two beers, I want you to ride down to the firehouse and see if Brother Florian has yet departed. If he has not, could you ask him to come with me this afternoon, he’ll know where. If he has departed, then come back here.”

“You, you, you, want me to, to, to just go, go, go –“

“Yes, Mr. Gaddis. You will be summoned if you are needed.”

Dr. Greenlees stepped into the other room, closed the door quietly behind him.

It was a bright and cheerful room: it had two windows along one wall, it was a bright and sunny day, the stove was generous with its warmth, and the laboring mother grimaced and gripped handsful of the bedcovers as her sister blotted her forehead.

Dr. Greenlees drew the covers up from the bottom. “Now let’s see how we’re coming along, shall we? I shall need an extra sheet, if you please.”

 

Caleb was over the shock of what had seemed a terrible impropriety.

As a matter of fact, he was quite relieved.

When the maid returned to the room with the sparkling-clean bottle, she placed it beside the bed, dipped a quick, correct curtsy and inquired if there would be anything else.

Caleb blinked, looked over at her.

“Yes,” he whispered, swallowed, cleared his throat: “Yes, please.”

The maid tilted her head a little, the white ribbons of her ruffled cap swinging behind her head as she did.

“I … could you sit down? It doesn’t feel right, me laying down and you’re standing.”

The maid frowned a little, then turned, found a chair, brought it over beside the bed.

“Can I tell you something?” he asked, almost in a scared-little-boy voice.

“Of course,” the maid whispered. “The servants carry the household’s secrets to the grave.”

Caleb considered for a moment, then asked, “How old are you?”

The maid looked surprised. “I’m thirteen.”

“I am too.” He looked at her. “How’d you get to be a maid?”

She dropped her head, covered her face for a long moment.

Caleb reached over, touched her arm with the backs of his fingers. “I’m sorry –“

“No, it’s all right.” She lowered her hands, looked sadly at him. “It’s … my mother … was a maid …”

She dropped her head, he face flaming.

“No she wasn’t,” she whispered bitterly. “She was a slave!”

“What?” Caleb came up on one elbow, ignoring the pain it caused.

She nodded.

“The Irish were sold off just like the Africans,” she said softly, bitterly. “Most of them were shipped to the Indies. They were cheap. They could be worked to death, whipped to death, beaten to death, and then replaced, because they were cheap!”

“Your mother was from the Indies?”

“No.” Her voice was tight, dry, unlike her full and glittering eyes. “The English Lord that ruled our lands bought her before she could be freighted off.” Her eyes were distant, her voice bitter, her black eyes bright as she looked quickly, intently at Caleb. “Bought her. Off the slave blocks. Shackled in the same irons they riveted on the Africans, auctioned on the same blocks as the Africans, branded her with the same red iron that they used on the Africans.” Her smile was tight and utterly humorless. “When I was born, I was the daughter of a slave and I was" -- she spat the word -- property.”

“What happened?”

“Mother saw how he was looking at me. I was not yet nine years old and he started speculating about me and he saw my mother was glaring daggers at him.

“He did not care for the rebellion in her expression.

"He had her manacled again, he chained her hands in front of her and hung her up and whipped her front and back for her glare.”

Caleb’s eyes were very pale and his hands closed slowly into fists.

“My people were Celt, and Viking,” she whispered. “We mark our line back to the great War-Chieftain, Brian Boru.

“I was named Alfdis Ragvnsdottr … Alfdis, Daughter of the Raven.” Her eyes were distant, her voice no more than a whisper. “The ravens are Odin’s eyes, and his daughters are the Shield-Maidens, and my mother served ... him ... with the whip-scabs on her back catching her dress as she moved."

She looked up, defiant, her hands shaking a little as she looked at Caleb.

"She killed him, to keep me safe!”

Alfdis’s eyes were wide, staring, seeing something beyond the stone walls of the sickroom.

“He called for me and he was putting his filthy eyes on me and my mother came up behind him and she was still shackled.” Inge held up her own hands, then with a violent whipping motion continued, “She threw the chain around his neck” – she jerked her arms back, crossed her wrists – “she strangled him, and I watched!

“I knew what he intended for me, I’d seen him with other girls my age, and as my dear Mother strangled him, with her knee in his back and him bent like a bow, I went to his belt and I pulled his dirk and I drove it into his black breast and God cannot judge me guilty of murder!

“He died with his own knife in his black heart and without breath in his lungs, and my mother unwound the chain from his dead neck and whispered to me what we must do.

“I ran crying to our quarters while Mother locked the door while nobody watched, and then she announced that His Lordship was asleep after his exertions, and he’d ordered he was not to be disturbed until supper, an’ that bought us time t’escape.

“I packed up what little we had in a large basket, as if I were taking food to the priest, and my mother put on her cloak as she did after a whipping, and she walked hunched over and halting the way she did after a whipping, but she had His Lordship’s pistols under her arm in their fine box.

“We went to the blacksmith.

“Mother knew the man had no love for His Lordship, and the pistols were the perfect bribe.

“He struck the irons from my mother’s wrists and the shackles from her ankles, he cut the rivet that held her collar and mine in place and my mother and I were free.

“We used His Lordship’s gold to buy passage and we intended to go to San Francisco, but she bought tickets by mistake to the East Coast instead of the West.

“We got as far as Denver when someone saw she had coin.

“I found her dead, stabbed in the back, without a purse.

“Your Bonnie McKenna found me, and brought me here, and recommended me to your family.”

Caleb reached for her hand, gripped it, dismay and sorrow on his young face.

“I am so very sorry,” he whispered, and Alfdis, Daughter of the Raven, descendant of Viking raiders and wild Celtic warriors, squeezed his hand in return: quickly, impulsively, she pulled from his hand, the hauled up her hemline, thrust out a leg.

“There,” she whispered fiercely. “That is the kind of monster that man was!”

Caleb’s mouth opened and he stared, horrified, at the burn scar above the side of her knee.

It was a capital S, seared into her flesh, permanently branding her as property and as slave.

Caleb shook his head.

“No,” he whispered, seizing her hand. “No!” He sat up, or tried to, set his teeth together, growling. “NO!”

“Lie back, lie back, lie back,” the maid whispered quickly, urgently, rising and gripping his far shoulder. “You’ll reinjure yourself, now lie back –“

Caleb fell back, pale, sweating. “No,” he moaned. “Grampa fought that damned War over that – Pa’s back is all scarred from whipping – not you too – dear God, not you too!” He relaxed, defeated, threw his arm over his face. “Not you!”

The maid laid a hand on his arm, then his cheek, confirming what she’d feared.

Caleb was fevered.

 

Dr. John Greenlees smiled a little as he gave the newborn baby boy his first bath.

The lad was not the least bit bashful in voicing his negative opinion of the activity.

The good Doctor placed the howling newborn on a thick, fluffy towel, very carefully dried the lad, then reached into his vest pocket and withdrew a silver dollar.

He and the maid bound the silver to the child’s umbilical stump, then wrapped the lad, and finally placed him in his mother’s arms.

The doctor and the maid had bathed the mother and replaced the sheet under her, had gotten her situated and in a clean gown and her hair brushed and presentable.

It was not until young Master Gaddis was having his first meal, that Dr. Greenlees opened the door.

He’d resumed his coat and his dignified attitude.

“Mr. Gaddis,” he said formally. “You have a fine son.”

Mr. Gaddis was decidedly pale: he thanked the Doctor, backed up two steps and collapsed in a chair.

“You didn’t go for a beer.”

“No.” Gaddis’s face was the color of ashes, his hands trembling like an old man with the ague.

Dr. Greenlees went to the side table and poured the man a brandy, which brought a little color to the new father’s cheeks.

“Now then,” Dr. Greenlees said briskly, taking the empty glass from him and placing it safely out of reach, “you have never met your son, and your son has yet to meet his father. I believe introductions are in order.”

 

Jacob leaned an elbow on the bar, nodding wisely.

“Mr. Baxter,” he admitted, “I believe you are absolutely right. It would not do to make that wife of mine mad!”

He looked up as a tonsured monk came through the door.

“I see Brother Florian is still with us,” he said, raising a summoning hand. “Brother Florian, have you eaten?”

Brother Florian laughed, ignoring the stares of Western men accustomed to ranch hands, railroaders, miners and saloon girls.

“I have dined like a king,” he declared in a delighted voice, “and I shall have to do penance when I return to the Monastery!” He came over to the quiet-eyed lawman, leaned on his wrist-thick staff. “I understand Dr. Greenlees was summoned to the Gaddis household, Mrs. Gaddis was in labor.”

“I wonder what she gave him,” the rancher next to the Sheriff speculated.

“A black eye, if I’m any judge!” Jacob laughed, and most of the men laughed with him: those who did not laugh, nodded agreement, for nearly every man among them knew the temper of a woman when she was birthing a child – and besides, the thought of the sweet and even-tempered Mrs. Gaddis taking a swing at anyone was so unlikely as to be laughable, in and of itself.

Jacob looked up at the big clock on the wall, drew out his watch, pressed the stem, frowned at black hands on a white face.

“You’ve the look of a worried man,” Brother Florian said quietly, so none but Jacob could hear. “Can I be any help?”

 

“Pull back the covers,” Dr. Greenlees said briskly. “I need to look at that leg.”

The maid wordlessly withdrew the covers, drew up Caleb’s nightshirt, baring his mashed thigh.

Dr. Greenlees laid the backs of his fingers against it, then began to press and explore: finally he set his black-leather satchel between the tall lad’s spread legs, opened it.

The maid did well enough as the doctor carefully but firmly wiped the surface with alcohol and then carbolic, but she turned away, took Caleb’s hand as the doctor selected a narrow-bladed scalpel.

Dr. Greenlees located and evacuated a pus-pocket, then poured carbolic directly into the cavity.

Caleb came off the bed like he’d been butt-smacked with a 2x4: his eyes were wide, his mouth open and twisted, he came about a foot off the bedsheets: Dr. Greenlees squeezed the wound again, expressing the contents into a wad of cloth.

He did it once more and Caleb's jaw snapped shut with an audible click of teeth meeting teeth: the indrawn hiss of breath between his ivory whites was the only sound he made: he was no longer flushed with fever, he was pale with pain, he yanked his hand out of the maid’s grip, seized a great gob of bedsheets, squeezed with both hands, crushing cloth instead of Alfdis's kind clutch, shivering and sweating and willing himself (without much success) not to tense his leg as Doc dumped another ten gallon of liquid fire clear down to the bone and sloshed it around before squeezing it out again.

The door opened and Daciana padded in, silent in felt soled slippers: she nodded to the maid, and the maid circled around the foot of the bed and behind the bent-over, frowning physician, coming around to Jacob's right side.

“Sit him up,” Daciana said quietly, and Caleb, galvanized by pain, came up unassisted to an upright posture.

Alfdis's hand was firm against his shoulder blades, propping him, her other gripping his shoulder.

Daciana put the china cup to his lips. “Drink,” she whispered, and Caleb drank.

He didn’t much care what it was, he was dry and after what Doc just done to his leg, he could have drunk hot axle grease and lard and it wouldn’t have bothered him.

The tea was warm – just shy of hot – and it smelled a little of clover and of mint, and the barest hint of honey.

“Now you vill eat.”

Pale, shivering, sweating from the pain, part of Caleb's mind realized with some surprise that he was actually hungry.

Alfdis worked the pillows in behind him, leaned him back against the reinforcement, her hand still on his shoulder.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

110. THE LORD HIGH SHERIFF

Jacob laughed and raised his mug of beer.

“Here’s to sons and the women who birth them!” he shouted, and Mr. Baxter dispensed froth-topped, sweating mugs of beer with both hands: the new father laughed, half-uncertain, half-embarrassed, but thoroughly delighted as friends, neighbors, kindred and strangers drank to the increase to the Gaddis household.

It had been a long and busy day: Jacob received and presented a prisoner to His Honor the Judge, “one of our more efficient days” he’d quipped to the Judge: “bring ‘em in, try ‘em and ship ‘em out an hour later!”

His Honor agreed that it was unusual, but yes it was efficient, and this sole case to be tried today was disposed of quickly enough that gavel-to-gavel time was measured in minutes, and not many of them.

Jacob put up a good front: he was the same solid, quiet, reliable lawman he’d always been, and though people watched – people always watch – and sought any sign of distraction, of distress, nobody saw anything of the kind.

In fact, there were those who speculated whether the man had blood in his veins, or water from a cold mountain stream.

That he happily saluted a new father in the Silver Jewel did not diminish this impression.

Jacob was neither cold nor was he uncaring: it took great restraint, at day’s end, not to run his stallion at a gallop back to his fine stone house on the mountain.

 

Caleb looked up as his father opened the door.

Father and son regarded one another for a long moment before Jacob said “Mind if I come on in?”

Caleb’s smile was a little uncertain as his father came on in.

Jacob grabbed the chair, spun it around, dropped his backside down in it and regarded his son with pale eyes.

“Pa –“ Caleb began, just as Jacob opened his mouth and said “Caleb –“ they both laughed a little, and both of them said “You go first,” and then they laughed kind of uncertainly.

“Pa, I’m sorry,” Caleb said, and Jacob looked honestly surprised.

“I was going to say the same thing,” he said quietly.

Caleb blinked, closed his mouth slowly, then shook his head.

“Pa, that was all my fault,” he said, “and Mama is hurt – that’s my fault –“

“No, Caleb,” Jacob interrupted. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have put you to greasing –“

“But Pa, I’ve done it before!”

“I know you have, Caleb, and you’ve always done a fine job for me, but –“

“Pa, it wasn’t your fault –“

Father and son looked at one another as the silence between them grew, and finally Jacob leaned back in his chair, looked at the floor and frowned.

“Caleb, do you recall settin’ in court when the lawyer Moulton was arguin’ a case?”

“Yes, sir. He has a fine way with language.”

“Most lawyers do. Fine words are their stock in trade.”

“What does that have to do with me dumpin’ a wagon on my leg and near to killin’ Mama?”

Jacob looked sharply at his son. “She’s not near to killed,” he said, more sharply than he intended. “She’s sore but hell I’d be sore too!”

“Yes, sir,” Caleb mumbled with downcast eyes.

“Caleb … “ Jacob took a long breath, puffed his cheeks as he blew it out. “Caleb, Mr. Moulton one time told me about something called the ‘Captain of the Ship Principle.’ Ever hear of it?”

“No, sir.”

“He explained it …” Jacob looked up toward the ceiling, frowned a little as he resurrected the conversation in his mind. “He said if a ship’s captain is on the bridge, steering the ship, laying the course, directing his men … but below decks, a madman takes a fire ax and cleaves a passenger’s skull from crown to teeth, why, it’s the captain of the ship that’s responsible.” He looked down at his son. “Even when there’s nothing the captain knew ahead of time to know what was going to happen. That’s what we have here. I am captain of the ship and it’s my fault because I set you to a task that could have killed you.”

And hurt my wife, he added silently, guilt and self-recrimination plain on his face.

“Sir … I’ve done that before. I always jack it up and I always knock the nut loose and wind it off, I always chock the wheels – I didn’t set the brake ‘cause it bears on that wheel I was pulling off – I had it chocked up good, Pa, and it still –“

Jacob raised his palm, stopping his son’s torrent of words.

“Caleb, near as I can tell, you didn’t do anything wrong.” He saw the protest in his son’s eyes and continued before Caleb could voice an objection. “Sometimes … even when you do everything right … it still doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It means it’s life. Sometimes a man just can’t get it done even when he’s doing everything right.”

“I wish I hadn’t,” Caleb muttered.

Jacob grinned a little. “I’d reckon you don’t,” he agreed. “How’s the leg?”

“Doc cut out a pus pocket.”

“How’s the cracked thigh bone?”

Caleb shrugged.

“Let’s find out.”

Jacob rose, slid the chair back: he turned the cover up from the foot of the bed, cupped his hand under Caleb’s heel, lifted his finger, tapped firmly on the great toe.

“Hurt?”

Caleb frowned a little. “No, sir.”

Jacob tapped again, more firmly, then rubbed his thumb along the sole of his son’s foot.

Caleb pulled a little and giggled. “That tickles!”

“Good,” Jacob nodded. “Now let’s see if you can set up on the side of the bed.”

“Yes, sir,” Caleb grinned, happily throwing the covers back.

 

Alfdis Ragvndottr sat with her head in her hands, feeling utterly, absolutely lost.

Bonnie settled like a bird beside her, petticoats rustling a little as she laid her arm gently across the maid’s shoulders.

“What happened?” she whispered, drawing the girl into her.

Alfdis looked up, her cheeks damp, and she wiped at them with the heel of her hand as she blinked quickly.

“Caleb,” she said, “needed … the bottle, and I …”

She swallowed.

“You helped him with it.”

Alfdis nodded.

“Did everything come out all right?”

Alfdis pulled away, looking surprised and shocked at the same time.

Bonnie laughed – her laugh was natural, relaxed, contagious – “What did he expect you to do, hit him over the head with the bottle? It’s used for a purpose–“

“But you should have seen the look on his face!” Alfdis blurted, distressed.

“You’ve done that kind of thing before.” It was a statement, not a question.

Alfdis nodded. “I’m a maid. I take care of the Master and his family. I’ve done it before.”

“I know you have.” Bonnie’s voice was a whisper, and she leaned her head over on top of the maid’s starched cap. “You do so well at it, too!”

“But Caleb … what must he think of me?”

“He thinks you helped him when his need was great. Now up with you, you haven’t eaten all day! Sit here and we’ll have something.”

Maiden and matron sat side by side, eating and talking quietly of the things women always talk about – talking easily, not as a maid and a mistress, but as two friends.

The conversation turned to Alfdis’s family.

“My father,” Alfdis said in reply to Bonnie’s quiet-voice question, “was the Shire Reeve.”

“Shire Reeve?” Bonnie sipped her tea, curious.

Alfdis smiled. “You call it Sheriff.”

“Ah,” Bonnie smiled.

“He was the Lord High Sheriff, and Mother said he was a fine, handsome man.” Alfdis’s eyes were soft with the memory. “He was killed before my birth. The Lord did not recognize an illegitimate birth and so my mother was … seized.”

Bonnie nodded her understanding: she knew of Alfdis’s mother, and what had been done to her. Of all the terrible things done to women, Bonnie had known – and survived – something equally horrible.

“Did your mother tell you what the Lord High Sheriff looked like?”

“Mother said he was … broad shouldered and strong, with a lean waist … his hair was to his shoulders, and he was very handsome. I think she said he was of Viking blood, and he was a warrior.” She tilted her head, clearly puzzled, looked directly at Bonnie.

“I thought you knew,” she said. “You sent me here.”

“I … knew? How do you mean?”

“The Sheriff,” Alfdis said, “and Caleb both. They have the same pale eyes, just like the Lord High Sheriff.”

Of a sudden Bonnie realized her mouth was very, very dry.

 

Annette closed her eyes and took a long breath.

The Bear Killer had slept with her since she was injured: he provided heat, he provided a support, he provided reassurance, and somehow he knew where she hurt the worst: when her knees throbbed like a toothache, his broad and gentle tongue slowly, carefully scraped across her skin, somehow soothing the healing tissues beneath: when her back felt like she’d been stretched on a medieval rack, The Bear Killer’s theraputic, doggy caress soothed those muscles as well: somehow she found it less uncomfortable to lay on her side, and when she did, The Bear Killer slid under the covers like a huge, warm, furry torpedo and then rolled up against her back, supporting and warming and easing her pain.

Annette had to shoo the ladies, who thought it terrible that The Bear Killer felt so free as to thrust under the blankets in such a manner: when Annette was finally able to tell them how much his heat and his support actually helped, the Petticoat Brigade withdrew a little, and in those moments when The Bear Killer slid out of bed and thumped to the floor and came around to lick tears off her face, the Brigade withdrew its objections entirely.

The Bear Killer, like anyone else, had certain needs, and was let out into the snow and cold to tend those necessities: once done, he was back inside, and alternated between Annette’s wide, comfortable bed, and the narrow bunk Caleb occupied.

With Caleb he wasn’t quite so solicitous.

First he worried the bandage from the injured fellow’s thigh so he could give the damaged leg a good laundering – Caleb knew, somehow, to allow this, especially with the memory of Doc pouring that liquid fire into the hole left after he worked out that infection – and somewhere he had the memory of an old-timer describing how a dog’s attentions helped heal his boil, though Caleb could not really recall the particulars.

It was the day after his father tapped his great toe, testing whether the bone was joined a little, that Caleb tried more than just sitting on the bedside.

He swung his legs over like he had the day before.

To his shame, with his Pa there and watching, he’d not been able to stand.

His Pa said that was all right, the bone was healing and he needed to heal that bone so it would bear weight and not heal crooked or twisted or maybe with a knot in it: his voice was light but worry was plain in his pale eyes: Caleb closed his eyes, remembering this, took a long breath, another.

The Bear Killer sat, watching him patiently, tail swinging slowly back and forth across the hook rug beside the bed.

“Reckon I’ll try it,” Caleb whispered.

The Bear Killer stood, tail swinging faster, jaws open in a doggy smile, exposing fighting fangs that knew the taste of grizzly flesh.

Caleb set his good foot down on the floor and grimaced, realizing that “his good leg” was not entirely good – it too had been mashed some, but not to the degree of its fellow – he took another long breath, closed his eyes, pressed his lips together.

The maid came in just as Caleb came to full stand.

Alfdis, eyes wide and a shocked expression on her face, closed the door quickly, leaned back against it, her palms flat against the wood: Caleb looked up at her and grinned a little, then shifted more weight onto his bad leg.

Sweat started to pop out on his forehead.

Alfdis ran across the little distance, seized him under the arms, her voice low, little more than a whisper: “It’s too soon, it’s too soon!” – and Caleb gripped her upper arms and grated, “Help me walk,” and The Bear Killer chopped his jaws and whuffed, his tail swinging enthusiastically as Caleb took his first step with his healing leg.

He didn’t get far, he didn’t move fast, and more and more of his weight leaned on the maid’s frame, but he made it across the room and he made it back, and he did it without hopping on one leg and carrying the other.

He was shivering and she felt his nightshirt damping with sweat and she turned her head and looked into his young and pale eyes and whispered, “You must get back in bed!” and he grinned and said “I have other plans,” and he saw the anger in her eyes and she snapped “You are just as hard headed and contrary as my father!” – and then her eyes went wide and she clapped a hand to her mouth, shocked that she spoke so boldly to one of the household, and Caleb laughed – quietly, with a little wrinkle to the smooth flesh at the corners of his eyes – and he stopped and stood on both legs and hugged the maid, quick, tight, then held her by the upper arms again.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for helping me walk again!”

The Bear Killer shoved his nose up under Caleb’s elbow and Caleb laughed and rubbed the mountain Mastiff’s ears.

“You attention hound,” he murmured, then hissed his breath in between clenched teeth as his leg reminded him that it was not entirely happy.

“Alfdis, you’re right,” he grated. “Let’s get me back in the bunk.”

Caleb was pale and shivering a little by the time he got himself back in the bunk, but he made it: Alfdis worried and fussed and planted her knuckles on her apron-strings at her hips and declared he needed a fresh nightshirt, she’d fetch him one, and he reached out his hand.

“Stay,” he said, and she saw something different in his eyes.

“Alfdis,” he said hopefully, “there’s a dance this week. I would admire to take you.”

“I’m just the maid,” Alfdis said uncertainly, looking away. “I haven’t a thing to wear. It wouldn’t be right, the master dancing wi’ th’ servant. Your leg needs to heal.”

Caleb saw uncertainty in her face, heard doubt in her words, but her hand tightened in his, just a little.

“I’ll fetch ye that fresh nightshirt.” She released his hand, took three quick steps across the room, then turned, her face reddening.

“An’ ye’re well enough t’ use th’ bottle yersel’!”

Caleb blinked at the swiftly closing door, then resumed rubbing The Bear Killer’s great and massive head.

“Now where did that come from?” he asked in a puzzled voice.

The Bear Killer began washing Caleb’s face in reply.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

111. AN IMPERFECT JEWEL

Mr. Baxter regarded the raised voices and abbreviated, heated gestures at the poker table with a degree of discomfort.

He turned and leaned forward a little, looking around the corner until he could see Tillie, bent forward and looking around the corner at him.

He nodded.

It was all the communication she needed; Tillie slipped around the end of her hotel check-in counter and slipped out the door, looking left, looking right, hoping to find the town marshal.

The Sheriff’s office was diagonally across the street, but she knew Jacob’s wife and son were both hurt, and he would most likely be at home, but this didn’t prevent her from taking a hopeful look at the dark window in the new stone fortress across the way.

Tom Landers was long since gone – he’d been the first Sheriff and was immediately hired by the pale-eyed Linn Keller to keep the peace in the Silver Jewel when Linn became Sheriff – and Landers had done a superb job.

A shame, they’d said, that his son went off East and got married, and popular opinion held that he had little interest in coming back out West.

“Oh thank God,” Tilly breathed as a familiar figure came over the rise on the far end of town, a lean figure rode through the circle of light splashed onto the street from the Mercantile’s twin kerosene lamps.

Jacob saw Tillie’s quick wave and Apple-horse picked up his step just as the harsh slap of a gunshot echoed out the open saloon door and shattered against the building fronts opposite.

 

Past Sheriff Willamina Keller smiled pleasantly at the stranger’s question.

The Silver Jewel was ever an attraction, whether by thirsty men or men in search of a good meal in the 1800s, or whether tourists in our more modern age: people came to marvel at the tin ceiling, the piano player, the barkeep with the curled mustache and a stained white apron, perhaps to have a beer at the original saloon’s bar and play cards at what was supposed to be the original poker tables.

“What were saloons really like?”

Willamina laughed a little, took the man’s hand and put it on her arm, claiming him instantly: she took a few steps towards the bar, drew her hand in an inclusive arc.

“Picture this same bar,” she said, “with that same set of elk antlers above. Under the bar you have a double barrel shotgun and a bung starter – imagine a heavy wooden maul, swung with one hand – now here” – she turned the man, indicating the hallway to the right. “Down this hall on the right, the side door to the backstage. Further down, on the left, Daisy’s kitchen, where some of the best food of the age was prepared. At the end of the hall, the back door, and on the right, the back stairs going up to the rooms above.”

Willamina turned the man a little more.

“Poker and beer were essential entertainment, and contrary to some historians, the ladies actually were found here. It was primarily a man’s establishment and the women knew that. Here – on this stage – you had dancing girls, musicians, you had recitations of Shakespeare, great speeches, perhaps campaign speeches.

“The piano player then sounded pretty much like Mr. Peters here.”

“Were there gunfights like we see in TV westerns?”

Willamina laughed. “No. You’ll have far more violence in your modern day than there was in the so-called Wild West. It happened, yes, but not nearly as often as the silver screen would have you believe!”

 

Mr. Baxter knew Tilly had just slipped outside.

He leaned back, looked at the escalating situation at the poker table, looked down at the shotgun under the bar.

“YOU CHEAT!” one man shouted, standing quickly, and men drew back, knowing what was to follow: Mr. Baxter reached down, gripped the double gun, wiped the hammers back with a quick swing of his thumb, watched as each man fumbled and finally got a pistol out.

The man on Mr. Baxter’s right – the one who accused the other of cheating – got off the first shot.

 

“Sometimes tempers did flare, and sometimes stupid decisions were made,” Willamina explained. “But by and large the saloon was a refuge and a dispenser of one of the only safe drinks in the territory.”

“Safe drinks?” the man’s wife asked, casting a dubious glance at the burnished mahogany bar.

Willamina laughed, a light, delicate sound: “Water was never reliably safe. Beer, on the other hand, was perfectly safe. When my thrice-great grandfather, the second Sheriff, first came to town, there was a water well behind the Jewel that made a number of people sick. The water was contaminated with typhus. Until the water pump was pulled and the outhouse moved, the water was not fit to drink – but it was water, and so people drank it. Beer, on the other hand –“

“I see,” the woman murmured, looking a little uncomfortable as she did.

 

The Sheriff strode into the shocked-silent saloon, seized one pistol, then the other, twisting them up and out of each man’s grip.

He looked from one man to the next, considered the only casualty to the disagreement.

“Congratulations,” he said to the taller of the two. “You just killed that table.”

He turned to the other man. “You hurt?”

The other fellow shook his head.

Jacob turned to the first man.

“You,” he said. “Outside.” He turned hard and pale eyes to the other participant. "I'll talk to you next."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

112. SING FOR YOUR SUPPER

“The bar,” Willamina continued, stroking its gleaming surface with a delicate swipe of her gloved hand, “is original. The man who built this place built it fast and built it cheap. My thrice-great-grandfather had it rebuilt – while keeping it in business – and he had it well and strongly timbered. It’s withstood earthquake and multiple attacks, though fortunately no fires – we did have to run a sprinkler system to meet modern day fire codes, it is obviously wired for electricity, and we do have gas piped in. As a matter of fact” – she turned quickly, flaring her floor-length skirt and gesturing to the gaslights on the wall – “these are mantle lamps and they are quite functional. We had a power outage last week and we lacked neither for heat nor for light.”

“What about the furniture?” a woman asked, looking around, considering tables, chairs and booths along the window side of the room.

“The booths were installed, I think, in the 1940s. They used to have those individual little jukeboxes, but they were long gone by the time I got out here. The poker tables are reproductions, all but this one.” She patted the green-felt surface affectionately. “I know this one is original because I read about it in my twice-great grandfather’s journal.” She smiled, pressed a catch, tilted the tabletop up, to reveal an older tabletop beneath, one with a long, oval bullet hole in its surface.

“My twice-great grandfather, Sheriff Jacob Keller, came into a disagreement. Apparently one man called another a cheat, and the fight was on, but the only casualty – other than two men’s pride – was the table. He had this hinged top installed, not because he wanted to preserve a memento of a disagreement, but because he wanted to restore the table to service.” Willamina closed the lid, turned. “The house finds poker a profitable game, and it was a sound business decision to keep the table working, though I can’t help but think he had some reason to have the new top hinged instead of just screwed down tight.”

“Why did the Sheriff do it? I mean … he didn’t own the place, did he?”

Willamina blinked, laughed.

“Of course he did,” she smiled, doing her best to look absolutely innocent. “And in my term as Sheriff, I acquired controlling interest in her as well.” She spread her arms, as if to embrace the whole of the building. “The Silver Jewel is back in my family’s hands, all but the kitchen – the original Old Sheriff sold it to Daisy, and

her descendant owns and operates the kitchen to this day, and I would not have it any other way!”

“What about the bartender?” a man asked.

“Mr. Baxter?”

The barkeep heard his name, looked up, smiled, resumed his buffing the waxed, mirror-like mahogany surface.

“The original barkeep’s name is lost to time. Mr. Baxter was hired by the original Sheriff Linn Keller, and they were very good friends, and when Mr. Baxter passed away, why, every bartender we’ve ever had since that sad day, has answered to the same name. This gentleman’s given Christian name is Harvey Wilkins, but nobody knows him by that. Locals and visitors alike call him Mr. Baxter, and Mr. Baxter he is!”

“What a delightful custom!” a young mother said from beside the piano.

“Travelers in the Old West sometimes sang for their supper – literally – talent of all kinds came in on the stagecoach, or more commonly on the train. The train was far more comfortable, less expensive, and faster.” She snapped a fan from somewhere – nobody saw where it came from, just that she made a quick gesture and began delicately, elegantly fanning herself. “The train would stop for water and for coal. The old coaling tipple was recently rebuilt, on the exact site as the old one, and reconstructed from photographs of the era. The water tower was rebuilt multiple times as engines got bigger, more powerful, and took more water to haul bigger payloads. We’re lucky to have the most recent rebuild, and in excellent shape!”

“Why would they sing for their supper?” a little boy asked, raising his hand, and Willamina squatted, took both his hands, winked confidentially, then stood.

“The train would stop and lay over to allow another train to pass. It was a convenient time for passengers to get out, walk around, get something to eat, and the Silver Jewel – then, and now both – enjoyed, and enjoys, an excellent reputation for its meals. Nothing fancy, we’re not Delmonico’s, but just as the original Daisy would fix good meals that would satisfy a working man, whether he was a cowhand, a tracklayer, a carpenter or a driller – Daisy’s kitchen is still doing that today.” She turned, folded her hands before her. “Now that part about singing for your supper.”

The curtains drew quickly apart on their little stage.

 

Harry Gasser was not a large man.

Harry was a city man, unused to great privations; he’d spent his lifetime separated from nature by six inches of concrete, or a good paving of cobblestones: his was the world of cabs to be hailed, waiters to be commanded, his meals were ordered, prepared by someone else, the dishes washed by someone else; he paid to have his laundry done, he paid for a place to sleep, and he earned his money in the theatre.

His was the world of pretense: given his make-up kit, he could become a character from Shakespeare (assuming the theatre had sufficient wardrobe for his needs), an English king, a French dandy: when times were lean, he costumed himself as a beggar and gathered stray coins tossed in his hat by pitying city-folk, and earned (to his surprise) half again more than he usually accumulated by treading the boards.

He’d saved and he’d hoarded and he’d gone hungry to save more, and he finally determined he was able to travel, to escape the parsimonious East, where a man of his fine talents might starve: it was said the West was generous and open-handed to its performers, and so he determined to sojourn to the legendary West Coast, where the California gold-fields enriched the general population and guaranteed fat purses for men of his profession.

Like most plans, his did not work out as he’d intended.

He made it as far as Firelands, where he wasn’t entirely impoverished, but his purse was so lean he feared he’d have to starve until Denver – but there was a chance, there was always a chance, and so he walked with the other passengers to something called the Silver Jewel.

He expected a sagging, unpainted, dirty, warped shack filled with sawdust floors, unwashed ruffians and cigar-smoke: he was quite surprised to find a well-built structure, apparently freshly painted (within the last year, at least!) – he’d done such work in his youth, and he could tell the contrasting trim had been painted with a very steady hand, a very professional job.

The interior was bright, cheerful – the air was stratified, to be sure, but it was often so in a theatre; it was not the fouled, choking cloud he’d imagined.

And with only three inquiries, he found that yes, they had a stage; yes, a man with a good voice would be welcome; and yes, a pretty young woman wished to perform with him.

He’d never seen this young woman before, but she was familiar with a particular operetta that he knew well, and was well within his voice’s range: he’d performed in the past with strangers, and though it was a toss of the coin whether this new partnership would be profitable, he was willing to give it a try, as he’d been assured of a full belly at the end of his performance.

The stagehand was a boy of maybe thirteen years, a lad with pale eyes who walked with a limp, and the girl sharing the stage was equally young, but pretty.

Harry saw the girl and the lad at the curtain-pull knew one another; he pretended not to see the boy wink at the girl, nor the girl’s blushing smile in return.

The curtains snapped open.

 

“If a performer was short on funds, he – or she – could offer to entertain. On the one hand, they didn’t have to be really good, and it helped if there was a pretty girl involved – this is a saloon, after all, and men always like the sight of a good-looking filly!” – she winked at the man whose hand she’d appropriated earlier – “but on the other hand, they had some surprisingly good talent. One of the Old Sheriff’s children, as a matter of fact, was a renowned opera singer, and a dancer of considerable talent. She performed on this very stage, and by all accounts, disported herself most shamelessly, to the great approval of all.”

Willamina hid her face momentarily, pale eyes gleaming with mischief as she pretended to be coquettish, before continuing: “Of course she wore a veil for one performance, a feathered mask for another, so no one knew who she really was!”

 

It is an interesting truth, that a singer’s spoken accent generally disappears.

Alfdis-the-maid spoke with a distinct and delightful Irish accent, but when she sang, the accent was gone, transformed into pure, pitch-perfect notes: the gown she wore, so different from the black maid’s uniform and starched, ruffled cap, changed completely how she looked.

Instead of having her hair up and tucked and hidden away, it was brushed and gleaming and fell in long, thick ringlets – not a style a Lady would wear in public, but perfect for a performer.

Caleb marveled at the sight of this Alfdis, his Alfdis, as she raised her chin and her shining eyes: part of his mind admired how she harmonized with this obviously talented Easterner singing beside her, but his heart, ah, the heart of a young man will fill with the beauty it chooses, and his young heart chose to fill itself with the voice of this beauty, this angel, this glorious soul he’d never heard sing before.

He knew his Aunt Sarah was a known and famous singer and he’d been told she’s sung in disguise in the opera-houses in Denver, and he’d heard she sang in disguise as one of the White Nuns, but never – never! – had he ever heard a woman’s voice so pure, so perfect!

Harry Gasser, singer, performer, Shakespearean orator and jongleur, held his note like a man holds a tiny bird – carefully, delicately – and the young woman who sang with him interwove her harmonized note so perfectly that as their voices faded, and silence claimed the stage, he could hear the blood hiss through his ears, in the heartbeat of time where that one flawless note still echoed in the memories of the listeners.

Harry blinked as he always did, but this time he blinked again, for it was not the polite patter of applause of a city audience, not the brisk spanking of palms that denoted the city-dweller’s delight: no, this was shouts, whistles, boots and townie shoes alike stomping the floor, callused hands pounding tabletops: Harry gave an elaborate bow as this unnamed young woman dropped a deep and flawless curtsy, and then she turned and fled, ran like a thief as the curtains drew closed.

 

Willamina dined delicately, seated with two families at a large table: her portion was intentionally small, and she took tiny bites, the very image of a proper Victorian lady: she was a charming and delightful dinner companion, recounting vignettes from Firelands’ storied past, telling them the legend of the Roses and how they appear before a birth or a death, how the schoolhouse was reputed to be haunted, as was the ruin of a large, round barn where the town backed up against the mountain, and how the ghost of The Old Sheriff appeared to an engineer in the Z&W’s roundhouse, which caused no end of concern, until it was found to be a shade and not an intruder.

Willamina drew a watch from a hidden pocket, pressed the stem, consulted its glass-faced dial.

“What’s with the watch?” the boy asked, and his mother, curious, tilted her head a little.

“Is there a story behind it?”

Willamina smiled.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

113. DRINKS ON THE HOUSE

Inge Kolascinski smiled as she always did when she held a baby.

The child was tiny and red and wrinkled and obviously very young – still damp from its first bath – and the Faceless Sisters were quietly, efficiently, tending to the sweating, shivering mother.

The girl was from back East – a young woman, not a girl; she was a young woman of substance, but a woman disgraced: she’d come West in search of family, of the family she’d never met, but had heard of.

She was searching for a family of men with pale eyes.

She came out in widow’s black, and very pregnant, and she remembered a haven, a sanctuary, a place called Rabbitville, and of the hospitable and kindly Abbott, a tall and tonsured man with big and gentle hands, a man named William, and she arrived on the day of his burial.

She stood with the other mourners, her face veiled in black, and she comforted Mexican women as they wept, for this man had cared for them as if they were his own, as had the others of the Order: grief united them that day, and perhaps it’s because she arrived, dressed in mourning, that the mourners immediately claimed her, too, as one of their own.

The young woman was immediately guested, and when the Sisters discovered how near she was to due, they did what they’ve always done: they prepared for the new arrival, they fed and tended and fussed and fluffed pillows and held her hand and talked, and when the pains started, the Sisters delegated their watches as they always had: there were those Sisters designated for their devotions, there were those Sisters delegated to tending of the sick, and there were those Sisters designated to deliver this laboring mother of her new life.

The birth was as all first births are: long and painful, with the mother coming off the bed with the extremes of her effort, bowing up on heels and shoulders with her head back, her eyes squeezed shut and her teeth bared and clenched: here, far from society and the University she’d so recently quitted, here among strangers, abandoned in shame by her own family, she collapsed, exhausted, and finally – finally! – she was delivered of a fine, healthy little boy.

Inge Kolascinski bounced the lad and cooed to him, and the little wrinkled face grimaced and nuzzled and Inge brought him over to the crying mother, sobbing to see her child, weeping with joy as this miracle, this life, wrinkled up its little face and turned purple with frustrated fury, until she placed it to her breast and she felt her uterus contract again, and as the Sisters massaged her fundus and the uterus, triggered by the feeding child and the massage, clamped down and stopped bleeding, the mother forgot her pain and a cloud of marvel enveloped her, and her world was suddenly very small, just her, and this little boy-child smiling up at her as he had his first meal.

Brother Florian touched Inge’s arm. “If I may,” he whispered, and Inge jumped a little: she turned, laughed quietly as the tonsured Abbott made his apologies for startling her, then:

“My dear, when you return to Firelands, could you give this to the Sheriff.”

He handed her a folded note, sealed with his personal wax impress.

“He must know that he has a grandson.”

“Of course,” Inge whispered, then turned, a little smile drawing the corners of his mouth, as the new mother made her reply to the inquiring Sister.

“A name?” she asked, her tears beginning again, and she began to cry in earnest, the way a new mother will when she’s hurt worse than she’s hurt in her entire life, and then suddenly she’s happier than she’s ever been in her entire life, and the Abbott felt his stomach drop at her words.

“I will name him for his father, and for his grandfather,” she sniffed, blinking through a cascade of tears.

“His name is Samuel Jacob Keller.”

 

The waitress floated the plates onto the table: potatoes and gravy, flecked with pepper and spiced with onion and garlic, a deep well of gravy in the middle: good tender back strap, green beans, corn, sourdough bread: conversation lulled in favor of exercising the knife and fork, but as the several appetites were eased, conversation picked back up.

“Did someone really yell ‘Drinks on the house?’ the little boy with big ears and a contagious grin asked as the first round of plates were being cleared.

“Well,” Willamina smiled, “they didn’t have to yell it, really.”

“Why?”

Willamina laughed. “Why was it drinks on the house, or why didn’t they have to yell?”

“Yeah,” came the enthusiastic reply, then “No,” then “I mean …” and finally, “I’m confused.”

“I believe there is pie, and ice cream with it if you wish.”

This met with a general approval: the boy’s father frowned a little, considering, then admitted “I’d wondered about that drinks thing myself.”

“Well,” Willamina said confidentially, leaning forward a little, looking very appropriate in a properly tailored McKenna gown and matching gloves, “it did happen, and as a matter of fact, I just read an authentic account of one of our Sheriffs doing that very thing!”

“Really!”

“Oh, yes, really, and for the very best of reasons.”

Pie began appearing on the table, forks clattering onto plates beside the pie, hemispheres of freshly dipped vanilla ice cream topping the warm, generous slices: this, too, was found to be absolutely delightful.

“It seems,” Willamina said, and the story spun into the air, weaving its own reality in their collective imaginations. “It seems that a certain Sheriff was sitting at his desk one fine and sunny morning …”

Sheriff Jacob Keller twisted a little in his seat, working the stiff out of his lower back: he and Caleb were tending chores … that is to say, the Sheriff was tending the biggest part of them, and Caleb worked until he got to hurting, then eased off some and then hit it again. He’d done his best, he’d done more work than Jacob would have thought, but there’s always a contest and a competition between the boy and the Old Man – on the one hand, a proud young man isn’t about to let an older fellow out-work him, and an older man is not going to let some young upstart out-work him, and generally they both win – or both lose, depending on how sore they wake up the next day.

Jacob stood just as a step on the boardwalk caught his ear.

He could tell from the light and sharp nature of the sound that it was a woman’s tread, a woman with a hard heel shoe, a woman with a hesitating gait: he rose, faced the door, curious.

There was a light, almost a delicate rat-tat, tat, as if by feminine knuckles on the heavy portal: the door opened a little, then opened more.

A young woman in widow’s black came in, a woman with a familiar looking bundle in her arms, also black.

The widow came in, closed the door.

Sheriff Jacob Keller came around the desk, seized a chair: he spun it around, gestured: “Please.”

The young widow sat, gracefully, arranging the blanket-wrapped child on her lap, rocking it a little.

The Sheriff saw movement within the wrapping: smiling gently, he bent, drew back the blanket to expose a rosy-cheeked little face, eyes squinting a little at the sudden light, a hand wobbling up into view and gripping his callused, scarred finger.

Jacob’s grin was the broad and delighted expression of a father several times over: he let the little fellow squeeze his finger, then bring it curiously to his mouth and chew on it with toothless gums.

“You’re brand new, aren’t you,” Jacob said, almost whispering: “Mother, should you be traveling yet?”

“I –“ the woman began, but was interrupted by a brisk, commanding knock at the door.

Inge Kolascinski shoved the door, swung in, stopped.

“Oh,” she said uncertainly, three of her young appearing beside her like chicks beside a mama quail. “I’m too late.”

“Come on in, it’s cold out,” Jacob invited. “I made coffee.”

Inge snatched open a cupboard door, her hand diving in: she was a mother and she was used to being brisk, businesslike and efficient: she poured two mugs, marched over and offered one to the young mother.

“Thank you, no,” she smiled, shaking her head a little, and Inge handed it instead to the Sheriff.

“Thank you,” Jacob said gravely, sipping the steaming beverage and then setting it down on his desk.

He turned back to the young mother.

“Boy or girl?”

“A boy,” she whispered shyly, looking at the smiling lad in his voluminous blanket wraps.

“What’s his name?”

Inge choked, spraying coffee over several square feet of floor: she set her mug down quickly, slopping a little of it, fumbling for a kerchief as her several children looked curiously at her, and then the Sheriff.

The widow looked up at the pale-eyed Sheriff.

“His name,” she said softly, “is Samuel Jacob Keller.”

Sheriff Jacob Keller blinked.

Inge was ready to swear his jaw fell to about the level of his belt buckle.

The man leaned back -- fell back, almost, and sat abruptly on the edge of his desk, knocking over his coffee cup and paying absolutely no attention to the black cascade that ran across its smooth surface and in and under the green desk blotter.

Inge snatched up a rag in each hand, began mopping the desktop, intercepting the flow before it could run back and dampen the Sheriff’s backside.

“My family disowned me,” the young woman explained, looking at the Sheriff with wide and sincere eyes: “My name is Catherine Scott, and when my family found that I was with child and not married …”

She swallowed, looked down at her baby, then looked back up at the Sheriff with sorrowful eyes.

“My father struck my name from the family Bible and told me that I was dead to them, that he would not admit a disgrace …”

She bit her bottom lip and Jacob pressed his pocket kerchief to her cheek, catching the tear as it fell.

“Caleb told me your name,” Jacob whispered, then took the child: he ran a hand under the bundle, lifted, rolled it into his chest, stood, his other arm wrapping around it.

He looked for a very long moment at this new life that bore his name, this get of his son's loins, this child he never expected to see, to be even possible.

He turned, placed the infant in the middle of his desk: Inge swept off the soggy blotter, quickly wiped up the fragrant, brown liquid, drying it quickly and efficiently before young Samuel Jacob was placed, and just as carefully, unwrapped.

Jacob slipped his big, Daddy-sized hands around the infant’s ribcage and picked him up, his expression soft, marveling: he lowered the little pink feet until they just touched the blanket, lowered him a fraction more, and the child picked up one foot, then the other, “stepping” in reflex to the touch.

Jacob laid him back down, wrapped him quickly, efficiently, picked him back up: he touched young Samuel Jacob’s cheek, grinned as the child opened his mouth and turned his head, and finally Jacob worked his finger back into the blanket and was rewarded by the child’s happy grip.

“Inge,” Jacob said, a broad and silly grin on his face, “could you get the door for me, please?”

Inge’s children scampered around her as she swung the door wide.

Jacob picked up his grandson, held him close against his chest, offered Catherine his hand.

She gripped his hand, trembling a little as she did.

Jacob drew her to his feet.

“With me, my dear,” he said softly, and they walked together through the open door, and across the street, and up the steps: Jacob released his grip on the young woman’s palm to open the ornately-frosted-glass-panel door: he held it wide for her, and Catherine entered, a little uncertainly.

Jacob took her hand again, walked – grinning – around the corner of the bar, winked at Tillie behind the hotel counter as he did, and then looked around as curious men looked from him, to what was obviously a baby in his arms, to the pretty young woman in black beside him.

Jacob turned a little and addressed himself to the neatly-barbered man in sleeve garters and apron behind the gleaming mahogany bar.

“Mr. Baxter,” he announced, his voice raised a little, “this is my daughter-in-law, my son Samuel’s widow, and this is my grandson. They will be living with us now” – and then a little more loudly, “I am a grandfather! Drinks on the house!”

As men’s cheers rang loud in the Silver Jewel and as the young widow flinched to hear it, the little boy wrapped and warm in his pale-eyed Granddad’s arms, twisted and wiggled and squealed happily in reply.

Jacob's shoulders were pounded, his free hand wrung many times over, and rough-edged men with hard and callused hands passed the lad from hand to hand, making faces and funny noises at the grinning, squealing little child all wrapped up in the handmade blanket.

Mr. Baxter happily handed over heavy-glass tankards of froth-topped beer, stopping only long enough to watch a hardened miner babbling like a moon struck half wit at the child he held, then observe to the Sheriff, "There's nothing to bring out the damned fool in a grown man like a little child!"

Sheriff Jacob Keller laughed and nodded, then reached down and took his daughter-in-law's hand and gave it a careful, reassuring, grandfatherly squeeze.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

114. RESEARCH

The boy was maybe eight, or so Willamina judged him: like most lads his age, he was restless, and in spite of a meal and pie a la mode, he was out of his chair and heading for something that had captured his curiosity.

It took him all of six seconds to find the hidden latch that most men could not find with a half-hour’s search: he lifted the tabletop, frowned at the bullet hole in the poker table’s original surface, explored it with a youthful fingertip: finally he lowered the top, heard it click into place, then came back to his chair

“There is a question in your eyes, young man,” Willamina said with a knowing look.

“Whattaboutyerwatch?” he asked, running the words together: his mother started to admonish him, but Willamina raised a gloved palm: the table was only just cleared, and she removed the watch from its hidden pocket.

“It doesn’t look like much, does it?” she asked speculatively, holding it up, letting it turn on its chain. “This is a railroad watch that was issued by the Z&W Railroad. Normally they had some engraving on them, something to mark them as either railroad property, or issue to a favored engineer or a favored conductor.

“This one has something better.” She smiled, held it up, hesitated with her thumb on the stem’s press-button.

“I have another, with a hand-painted portrait inside the cover. It is a flawless miniature painted with great skill, the image of a red-headed woman with green eyes.”

One man’s head turned a little and he looked at two hand-drawn, pencil portraits, framed behind the bar.

Willamina winked at the fellow.

“You’re right,” she said confidentially. “That’s exactly who it is. Esther Keller, wife of the Old Sheriff himself, she who was given a railroad as a wedding present.”

“Some wedding present,” the boy’s mother sighed. “All I got was silverware!”

“Now this watch” – she pressed the stem, the cover flipped open – “has something better than a portrait.” She held it out to the center of the table. “Look but don’t touch. What do you see?”

The boy leaned forward, frowning.

“It looks kind of smeary,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

“It is. That’s ink.”

“Ink?”

Willamina sighed. “It would be an entire classroom presentation on writing in the 19^th century, but ink came in bottles and your pen had to be dipped every few words, or sometimes every few letters.”

“Didn’t they have pencils?”

“Oh, heavens, yes, they had pencils, very much like our pencils today, only with no eraser. And they sharpened them with a pocket knife. I read in Sheriff Caleb Keller’s journal that young Samuel Jacob somehow – he doesn’t say quite how – got into a bottle of ink and then grabbed for his grandfather’s open watch.

“Those are the fingerprints of Sheriff Samuel Jacob Keller, and I had them photographed and enlarged, and actually found two exemplars.”

“Really!”

“Oh, yes. They were on a shotgun, the shotgun was in a barn, the barn was very dry and the prints preserved perfectly for nearly a century.” She closed the watch. “Each generation gained from new blood coming into the Sheriff’s family, and the Sheriff’s blood runs in my veins, and those of my own son, who is the current Sheriff.”

“You were Sheriff?” the little boy asked, his eyes widening as he tried to puzzle the mental conflict of this sweet old woman in a really old-fashioned dress, and somehow he just could not imagine her looking like a Sheriff.

“I was Sheriff.”

“What did you wear?”

The innocent question, given in a little boy’s high, innocent voice, was not at all what the adults expected, and Willamina laughed with everyone else.

“Well, I didn’t wear this, that’s for sure!” she declared, and there was more laughter.

“Are you all staying the night?” Willamina asked, and there was a general murmur of assent: it was a rhetorical question, for she already knew they were guests in the rooms above.

“Good. I’ll be back tomorrow. You’ll see me come in, and later in the morning I’ll be the schoolteacher in our one-room schoolhouse. We have some local children who will be attending, dressed as they would be in about 1885 or so.”

She rose; none of the men did, and Willamina did not waste the time to consider how men would never, ever have remained seated in an earlier era.

“I believe I will go home and get my beauty rest.” She batted her eyes and added, “Believe me, at my age, I need all the help I can get!”

Mr. Baxter came out from behind the bar, approached the front door, held it open for her: she murmured her thanks, he dropped his head a little in acknowledgement, allowed the door to shut behind her, smelling the cold night air.

As the guests rose from their table and adjourned for their rooms upstairs, they heard the brisk cadence of horseshoes on the asphalt outside: most smiled, and looked at one another, but the boy ran quickly to the door, peered out between the frosted-glass scrollwork, his mouth open with delight to see their hostess, in a hooded, heavy cloak, driving a real honest-to-God carriage right up the street – with a real horse pulling it!

 

The Silver Jewel was an actual, working restaurant, and the locals populated it well of a morning.

Breakfast lent its tempting odors to native and tourist alike; there was laughter and conversation, the sound of plates setting down, spoons dinging as they stirred coffee in heavy, white-ceramic mugs, but a little boy’s ears are quick to catch a sound, and he turned quickly to the door, his heartbeat picking up a little as he remembered the pretty lady’s words at supper the night before.

His mother turned as the boy ran for the front door, pushed it open just far enough to slip out, stood in the sun’s first red rays, his breath fogging on the air.

A pale-eyed woman was riding toward him, riding a good-looking chestnut, the horse’s breath blowing twin plumes in the cold air.

“You’re up early,” she called. “Want a ride?”

“Sure!” he exclaimed happily, and she sidled the horse up to the boardwalk, unbuttoning her blanket-lined coat and pulling it off.

“Throw your leg over behind me,” she said, and he did: her arm came around, took him around the waist, then the coat spun around him and she said, “Put that on, it’s chilly this morning!”

He thrust his arms into the coatsleeves – it was plenty too big, but it still held the woman’s body heat, and he seized her suddenly around the waist as the horse swapped ends and headed back the way it had come, hooves quick and loud on cold asphalt.

Willamina smiled as she felt his arms tighten around her middle, and she put her hand reassuringly on his, then leaned ahead just a little and tightened her knees, and the chestnut veered off the pavement and onto the grassy berm, and the two galloped into the eye of the rising sun, galloped across frost-brittle grass and around the sizable meadow.

 

The boy’s mother shaded her eyes as the pair trotted squarely down the center line of Firelands’ main street toward her.

She wasn’t sure her boy was behind their tour guide of the previous evening until she recognized the sneakers and blue jeans, and even then she wasn’t sure until he shrugged, grinning, out of the coat and slid off the horse and onto the boardwalk.

Willamina spun her coat back around and ran her arms quickly into the sleeves, buttoned it with the ease of long practice: “Next time,” she said, “I’ll show you how she bucks!” – and before the mother could object (or the boy could agree), the chestnut came up in a good, showy rear, windmilling her forehooves, and the pair clattered noisily down the street.

If the lad was uncharacteristically quiet through breakfast, he had to be forgiven, and his mother thought it not entirely bad that a strange woman made off with her son for a time.

It was the first time in a very long time he hadn’t been absorbed at the breakfast table in a glowing, hand-held, electronic screen.

 

“Nay, lad,” the conductor laughed, snatching the boy off the depot platform: “ye’re ridin’ wi’ th’ engineer! Sheriff’s orders!”

The lad found himself whisked from smooth, painted wood, through the hissing, steam-billowing air, and into the cab of the diamond-stacked Baldwin engine.

It was warm, welcomingly so, and the engineer and fireman looked at the big-eyed boy with hard and assessing eyes.

“Do ye think he’ll make a fireman?” the engineer asked loudly, as if he were hard of hearing, and the fireman said “Maybe he’ll be an engineer!” – they thrust a pair of leather gloves at him – “Put these on, lad, we’re puttin’ ye t’ work!” – and as the boy struggled into the boy-sized gloves (which the fireman kept in his off aft pocket for such occasions), the engineer said “Now we need t’ make sure we’ve steam enough t’ make th’ run!”

The fireman gently guided the boy backwards to the fireman’s seat, under the window: he turned, snatched up the square-bit, flat-bottom shovel, set his feet and turned: the fire door came open and sounded as heavy and solid as it was, and the fireman turned back, drove his shovel into good New Straitsville bituminous: he turned, slung the payload into the firebox.

“Now there’s a trick to this,” he declared as the boy watched. “You throw your coal front-left, front-right, back-left, back-right, then center.” He stopped after the first two shovelsful, offered the D-handle to the lad. “You try it.”

The boy grinned a little uncertainly, then he tried to stab the shovel into the coal pile instead of under it.

“Slide yer shovel along th’ deck, here, like this.” The fireman borrowed the shovel from the boy’s grip and expertly picked up a boy-sized payload. “Now into th’ firebox with that.”

The boy picked up the shovel of coal, walked carefully and a little awkwardly to the back of the boiler, managing not to spill too much on the way, and got at least a few chunks of coal into the firebox.

“Now stick yer head out yon window and look back at the conductor,” the engineer directed as the fireman rescued the shovel and chased loose coal from the deck, then closed the firebox door: “I need to know when he blows his whistle and raises his flag!”

The lad scrambled up onto the engineer’s seat and thrust head and shoulders out the window, looked back along the train.

The conductor was actually looking for the young head to emerge before he gave the go-ahead, and once underway, he reported to the lad’s parents that he could see that grin a mile away when he stuck his head out to look.

“I see him!” The boy’s voice was high, excited. “He blew a whistle and waved a flag!”

“Here, then!” The boy’s hands were placed on this and on that and at this point they could have put his gloved hands on a hammer handle and told him it was a Railroad Jimcrack and he’d have known no different, nor would he have cared: things moved under his hands, the big bell on the front of the locomotive began to ring, things rumbled, hissed, he was hauled up off the ground and told “Now pull this twice!” and the steam whistle gave two quick toots – he was lowered, his hands placed on a big cast iron bar with the engineer’s --“Now this, lad, both hands now!” and they started to move and he heard the engine start to breathe, big and powerful breaths that roared a little, and the boy began to realize something that all steam engineers already know: that a steam locomotive is a living thing, that she is a powerful creature with a life of her own, and she shares her life with those she loves, those select few who ride in the cab with her.

The Lady Esther pulled out of station.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

115. LESSONS

“Was too!” Peter protested, his ears flaming and his young fists clenched.

“Was not!”

“Was too! She was a real Sheriff an’ she rode a horse an’ she wore guns an’ ev’rything!”

The teacher gripped the two boys’ shoulders firmly. “Enough,” she said quietly, and her word was sufficient: two sullen second-graders separated, each one muttering darkly in his thoughts, though neither made a sound.

Each one sat sulkily at his desk, glaring at nothing, while the rest of the class stared at them.

The teacher clapped her hands twice. “Eyes front,” she called, her voice light, the way it usually was when nothing at all was wrong, and she would have said something else – she would have, but for the brisk, metallic rat-tat, tat at the classroom door.

This was unusual.

The principal would just walk in, as would the Superintendent; other teachers would knock softly, other students would open the door a little and peek in, then slip in as quietly and invisibly as they could manage: the teacher, interrupted, frowned a little, then walked quickly to the front of the room as a man in uniform walked in, a delivery service they all knew, package in one hand and an electronic clipboard in the other.

“Signature required,” he said, then looked at the many sets of curious eyes staring at him: he looked down at the form displayed on his screen and said, “This is from the Firelands County Sheriff’s Office, and it’s for …”

He pretended to look closely at the screen, though the name was more than plain enough.

The teacher came over, looked at the screen, looked back at the red-faced lad glaring at his classmates. “Peter,” she called.

Peter’s head came up, surprise plain on his young features.

“We require your full legal signature.”

Peter came to his feet, almost ran up the aisle.

The deliveryman went to one knee, whispered into the lad’s ear, and Peter carefully, formally wrote his full legal name with his index finger on the indicated smooth-glass rectangle: the package was handed him, and he stood there, staring at the gold, six-point star on the return label, the label that said SHERIFF across the star’s middle.

“You could open it,” his teacher suggested. “I have an opener.”

Peter accepted the opener, carefully worked the dull-edged letter opener along folded paper edges: the brown-paper wrapping fell open and he opened a deep, hinged-lid cardboard cigar box.

Inside he found a thumb drive, a paper-wrapped package and a note.

He set the thumb drive on the teacher’s desk, set the note with it, unwrapped what turned out to be a hickory striped engineer’s cap and a pair of leather gloves, a little dirty from gripping the Johnson bar, the whistle chain, the throttle and the coal shovel he’d been telling his classmates about.

Then he picked up the photograph in the bottom of the cigar box.

The glossy 6x8 ended up on the classroom bulletin board for the rest of the school year, and it went home with him at the end of that year, and it slept in a scrapbook for a long time, until it was found an old man with a good memory of riding a chestnut mare.

It was a picture of a grinning boy, a picture taken in profile, his head thrown back and laughing: he was gripping the waist of a grinning, pale-eyed woman in a denim jacket and Stetson, and they were riding a chestnut mare, and the mare was stretched out in full gallop: her nose was thrust straight out, her ears laid back, her tail floated in her slipstream, and the shutter tripped just as all four hooves were off the ground: her coat glowed with health as the long red rays of the morning sun set her glossy pelt aglow, and the picture almost lived, so intense were the colors, so precise was the moment.

Peter stared at the photograph, remembering.

The teacher read the note, picked up the thumb drive, plugged it into her computer, pressed a few keys, turned.

The big screen at the front of the room lit up.

It showed an eight year old boy in the cab of a steam locomotive.

He wore a grin as broad as two Texas townships and a pair of leather gloves, he turned this valve and tapped that glass-faced round pressure gauge with careful fingertips, he tugged twice at the whistle lanyard, he released the air and set the Johnson bar and ran up the throttle and he thrust head and shoulders out the window to look back at the conductor.

It showed the boy a-horseback, but not in a static picture: it showed him galloping full-bore toward the camera, and the sound pickup was good, and he stared at the screen, the picture fallen from his fingers onto the desktop as he felt the morning wind on his cheeks again and he remembered how warm the mare was through his blue jeans, and he remembered that pale eyed woman’s coat he wore, and how it was too big and it smelled good and the teacher looked over and knew that magical connection teachers dream of but so rarely see.

She saw memory and she saw understanding and she saw something light up in a little boy’s soul, because this child of the modern era touched the past, and he found the past was very much alive.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

116. MADE IT!

Jacob watched his son cross the field toward the wagon.

Caleb’s limp was mostly gone; the young recover quickly, and though his own injury was the more serious, he was on his feet faster than his Mama.

Jacob didn’t say anything when Caleb hobbled out to the wagon.

He watched, silent, knowing he’d be hard to see, his silhouette broken by woodpile and fence post, and he was more than satisfied the maid didn’t see him neither.

Jacob knew – fathers know these things – that his son and the maid saw more in each other than hireling and superior, but he didn’t see any call to make assumptions, and he didn’t see fit to separate them.

He did watch as Caleb hobbled across the short distance to the wagon.

His course was straight and unwavering, and Jacob knew – without having to take a look – that his son’s eyes were pale, and hard, the flesh tight across his cheek bones.

He could see Caleb’s fists were bunched up.

Caleb walked steadily, purposefully, as if he were ignoring his healing leg.

Jacob watched him as he approached the wagon, and he circled the wagon, never taking his eyes off it, almost bristling, looking for all the world like a suspicious wolf circling an unfamiliar object.

He made a complete circle of the wagon and stopped at the corner where he’d had the back wheel off.

Jacob had since pried the wagon back up to level and re-mounted the back wheel.

The shipbuilder’s jack was back in the barn where it belonged, as were the tools and the can of grease.

Jacob saw Caleb was looking around, as if for these artifacts.

Finally he laid a hand on the wagon wheel, young fingers busy, unconsciously feeling the chewed up places on the steel rim.

Caleb frowned as he stared at the wagon and finally he nodded as if coming to a conclusion.

He turned.

Jacob saw Caleb’s eyes were busy, and even from that distance, he saw his son’s eyes stop, then his head turned slightly, and stop again.

Caleb looked squarely at his Pa.

Jacob did not move as his son described a straight line, moving a little more slowly, minimizing his bad leg: Jacob knew what it was to be young, and full of pride, and not wanting to let the Grand Old Man see he was hurt.

Part of him was pleased his son wasn’t riding a bad leg to try and get an easier time of it.

Another part of him remembered how it cost him when he was hurt and doing his level best not to let his own pale eyed Pa see it.

That same part of Jacob’s soul remembered the look in his Pa’s eyes, an understanding, right before he wrapped those lean arms around him and held him.

Caleb glanced to the side as he came near, Jacob’s eyes following his son’s: the maid was watching, and Jacob almost nodded.

Caleb was ten feet away now and Jacob shifted a little.

Caleb came right up to his Pa and said “I reckon I looked kind of foolish.”

Jacob considered for a long moment before replying.

“I don’t recall seein’ you do anything foolish.”

“I went out there all set to kick that wagon into next week and back.”

Jacob considered this, too, then nodded gravely.

“It warn’t that wagon’s fault it hurt me.” Caleb’s fists opened, closed again, opened. “Any fault was mine. I hurt me and I hurt Mama an’ I went out there all set to take a single tree and give that wagon a good beltin’.”

Jacob waited, knowing his son was working through something.

“I come near to blamin’ the wagon for my fault. I ain’t a-gonna do that.”

Caleb looked at his Pa, at once hard and yet vulnerable.

“Pa, you ain’t took a belt to me for doin’ that.”

Jacob worked a chunk of meat from between his teeth, spit it off to the side. “Nope.”

“I hurt Mama!”

“She hurt herself.” Jacob looked at his son. “You got part of it right, Caleb. You’re ownin’ up to what happened. You ain’t tryin’ to throw the blame off onto somethin’ else.” He nodded slowly, nodded his approval.

Caleb considered this.

“Pa, you said that sometimes even when you do everythin’ right, it still goes wrong.”

Jacob was silent for a long moment, then he nodded again.

“Yep.”

Caleb looked off to the side, off toward the barn.

“Pa,” he admitted, “I’d’a felt better if you’d give me a beltin’.”

Jacob waited until his son was looking him in the face.

“You been hurt bad enough,” he said quietly. “Your leg has give you hell and you have not spoken the first word to complain. You could have cried like a little girl and belly ached from here to Springfield and back and you’ve not done it.”

“No, sir.”

“That leg has ached bad enough you didn’t get much sleep for a week.”

“No, sir.”

“You look at your Ma and you look more guilty than any man I’ve hung for murder.”

Caleb’s bottom lip pressed up into his upper. “Yes, sir.”

Jacob set his hand gentle down on his son’s shoulder.

“You are more than punished enough,” he said, then turned his head a little.

“Alfdis!”

The maid jumped guiltily, then, realizing she’d been caught, came out from what she thought was a hidden alcove.

“Yes, sir?” she asked, looking at Caleb and pinking up around her cheeks.

“Alfdis, I want Caleb to take you out to Bonnie McKenna’s dress works.”

“Yes, sir,” the maid and the Sheriff’s son both replied.

“There is a dance next Saturday and a young lady dances better in a new gown.”

Alfdis’s eyes went wide, almost panicked, her mouth dropping open as well.

“Caleb, see to that detail.” Jacob squeezed his son’s shoulder, once, gently, then looked speculatively at the lighted window facing them.

“Annette spoke of going to the dance as well. I don’t reckon she’ll cut the rug much but she’ll be glad to get out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Take the carriage. I know she’s good a-horseback but it’ll look more dignified if you drive her over there.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jacob winked at the maid, and her cheeks went from a maidenly pink to an absolute crimson: the Sheriff turned and sauntered back to the house, leaving the young to their preparations.

Caleb bit his bottom lip, blinking, feeling suddenly very uncertain, but he reached for Alfdis’s hands anyway.

“I reckon,” he said tentatively, “I’d ought to ask you to the dance.”

“If you ask me,” Alfdis said, her eyes bright, “I will say yes.”

Caleb’s grin was instantaneous, broad and contagious.

 

The Ladies’ Tea Society met the next morning.

They assembled, as they always did, in the back room of the Jewel, the room reserved for such meetings, or for private dinners.

The back room was separated from the Silver Jewel proper by two walls, each filled with sawdust between studs and the lath-and-horsehair-plaster: two doors further separated the saloon noise from the quiet chamber, and also insulated any raised voices from the meeting-room, from the outside world.

Bonnie McKenna presided, as she always did, tapping delicately on a wineglass: she raised her chin a little, and as she drew breath to call the Society to order, the inner door opened and Bonnie dropped the spoon, delight spreading on her face and causing every last head in the room to turn.

Annette came through the door.

Her hair was carefully styled, her gown immaculate and well fitted, and though she moved slowly and with care, she was moving under her own power.

Bonnie McKenna, dignified matron and businesswoman, a Lady most worthy of the name and a force to be reckoned with in the community, gave a little squeak and snatched up her skirts, ran around the table and towards the new arrival: in spite of the care with which she embraced Annette, Bonnie felt the resultant flinch: concerned, she gripped Annette’s gloved hands and whispered, “Isn’t it too soon to be on your feet?”

“Well, I was late!” Annette replied, and the two giggled like a pair of schoolgirls: as she settled into a comfortably upholstered chair, the Ladies’ Tea Society rose, and turned, and pattered their gloved palms together, applauding the one of their number that was most welcome to be back.

 

Caleb watched as Alfdis was taken into another room.

He looked at Bonnie, undecided, and Bonnie tilted her head and almost laughed.

“Out with it, Caleb,” she said gently. “You have a question in your eyes.”

Caleb shifted his weight, frowning, and Bonnie steered him to a chair. “Sit,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

“No, ma’am,” Caleb lied (like most tall boys his age, he was a walking appetite on two hollow legs).

“Well, I am,” Bonnie declared firmly, reached for the embroidered bell-pull: a moment later, one of the girls was dispatched for tea and sandwiches.

“Now what were you going to ask?” Bonnie inquired, looking over her spectacles at this young man who bore at least a passing resemblance to his pale-eyed grandfather.

“Did Sarah ever use explosives?”

Bonnie blinked.

This was not a question she expected.

“Why … what would … why would you ask that?” Bonnie replied.

“I read about … I read her reports, and … I read about the time she was in Denver and they were going to torture her on a table and then blow her up. I figured” – he shrugged – “she probably would’ve taken the dynamite and used it on them, only they had to burn it ‘cause it was sweatin’ and unstable.”

“Well!” Bonnie looked up as the maid came through the door, bearing a tray. “Just put it there, Jeanette, thank you.”

The maid deposited the tray, poured the tea and handed a steaming, fragrant, bone-china cup to each: she placed a plate of dainty little sandwiches, cut neatly into triangles, beside Bonnie’s elbow; a larger plate, with a good substantial sandwich arrived beside Caleb’s elbow.

Bonnie gave the girl an approving look.

She waited until the maid was withdrawn before making any reply to Caleb’s question.

“You weren’t supposed to be reading that,” she whispered.

“I don’t reckon I was supposed to read her account of performing on stage, either,” Caleb hazarded.

“No.” Bonnie stirred her tea, delicately, slowly. “I never approved of her performances, other than her singing. She had the loveliest voice.” She raised the teacup, then lowered it, and Caleb was struck by how lost she looked.

“I do miss her,” she whispered, and Caleb recognized the same contained sorrow he saw in his own parents when his brothers were killed.

“I don’t know,” Bonnie admitted, “whether Sarah blew anything up or not. She didn’t tell me everything. I’m glad she didn’t,” she smiled as Caleb looked at her, surprised. “If she’d told me everything, I might have died of shock, or at least never slept another night!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Caleb murmured, then took another bite of the excellent sandwich.

“I never wanted her to be anything but … but my little girl,” Bonnie admitted. “She was not my child – I did not birth her, I mean, and she was my daughter in the finest sense of the word, but …”

Bonnie fumbled for her kerchief and Caleb pretended not to notice as she pressed the folded, embroidered, lace-edged cloth to one closed eye, then the other.

“Good sandwich,” Caleb mumbled through a mouthful, which gave Bonnie the opportunity to change the subject.

“Now, Caleb.” Bonnie’s voice changed a little as she leaned toward Jacob’s son. “Tell me – will you be taking Alfdis to the dance Saturday night?”

Caleb swallowed, swallowed again, then took a careful sip of tea before nodding.

“Yes, ma’am,” he grinned, and Bonnie saw his grandfather in that grin.

All he needs is that iron-grey mustache, she thought, then dismissed the thought.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

117. EMPTY SADDLES

The war was over.

Jacob knotted his necktie almost viciously, his teeth occasionally seen beneath his neatly trimmed mustache.

He was not yet gone to grey, nor were the first pioneering threads of iron seen in his lip broom, but the older he got, most people agreed, the more he looked like his pale-eyed father: he knew he had his father’s temper, and he knew he’d passed that on to his son Caleb, though thank God neither Nicodemus nor the younger children had quite so mercurial a tendency.

A little boy watched him – solemn, silent, pale eyed, a little boy in a suit and with a Stetson in his hand.

The Stetson was likely as old as he was and that particular Stetson had ridden several young heads: boys grow and grow fast, and Jacob turned, and regarded the young man, and remembered when another young man stood in that very spot and held that very hat.

He swallowed hard and looked away, for the first of his sons to wear that hat, died early in that damned War: Joseph, his idealistic firstborn, went hell-a-tearin’ over there and ended up dead – a hero, by all accounts, but that did not help a father’s grieving heart.

He looked back again at his grandson, at little Jacob Samuel, and remembered how his next-born son – drafted, he was – no more than set foot on the battlefield than he was hit with a cloud of mustard.

He fought, yes, but not with rifle and bayonet: no, he fought to make it home alive, he’d gotten as far as the great Porkopolis, where he died a hero.

Jacob turned to the mirror and saw his eyes turn pale and hard.

He had neither son’s body to grieve over, nor had he his sons’ bodies to plant in the cemetery, in the family plot that held his parents, and a young woman he’d loved in his youth, kinfolk, friends …

He blinked, glared at the reflection again, then looked down at Young Jacob.

“You ready?” he asked, his voice quiet, and young Joseph Samuel grinned.

“Yes, sir,” he piped, and Jacob laughed quietly.

“Good man,” he nodded. “Let’s see to the ladies.”

 

Annette and the children were in their Sunday best; the carriage was polished and gleaming, the steady old grey gelding brushed and fussed over and hitched up.

Jacob insisted that Young Jacob ride with him, and not with the young, and that he ride his own horse: of course Young Jacob was most enthusiastic about the idea, delighted with the power of happiness that only a young boy can generate: he knew better than to abuse this solemn privilege, for he always wanted to ride with his Grampa, and like his Grampa, and indeed this fleshly copy of his pale-eyed grandfather regarded the older man as more of a father-figure, which suited boy, man, mother and grandmother, just fine.

Jacob was on one of his stallions; Samuel was on one of the older Morgan geldings, a steady horse with no tendency to shy, bolt or rebel: boy and horse had taken to one another early on, and Morgan was more than content to plod along behind Jacob’s stallion, which thrilled the little boy as much as if he’d been on an armored, prancing war horse.

Many a time had mother or grandmother looked out a window, or opened a door and watched, as Sheriff and grandson worked together in the pasture: Jacob, like his own father, did not bit his saddle-stock, and tried not bitting his draft stock: he knew dogsleds up in the Yukon were steered by the driver yelling “Gee!” for right, and “Haw!” for left, and “Yuck!” for stop (he also knew there were other, less polite commands given for the same instructions, but he never mentioned these to sons, nor grandsons) and he’d had good success voice training his teams, though he used “Whoa” instead of “Yuck” – Annette steadfastly refused the idea of going down a public street yelling “Yuck!”

Women, he figured, are funny that way.

The women, for their part, often stopped to watch grandfather and grandson.

Annette knew Jacob sorrowed deeply for the loss of his eldest sons, and she knew Caleb and Nicodemus, sons of his loins, were important to him, but they also knew that he was healing himself by working with the boys in general and the get of his dead second-born in particular.

Today they rode into town: the carriage, the horsemen, the buggy with Caleb and Alfdis, and she in a gown instead of her maid’s uniform.

It was pretty well accepted that the maid was less a servant than one of the family, and it was unofficially accepted that Caleb had quite a large crush on her, and she on him: thus far, as the Parson put it, fire and straw had not yet combined to produce smoke, but Jacob was considering where Caleb’s house might be built.

This morning, though, this fine and cool morning, they rode into town for the parade, for the general celebration of the Armistice, for the end of the killing.

There were fresh graves in the Firelands cemetery, graves with bodies freighted back from Europe: a number of families grieved, and Jacob was not the only man to lay a hand on another’s shoulder in silent communion.

More fathers than he had lost sons.

Nicodemus led two saddled horses, a matched pair of Appaloosas.

Jacob asked Nicodemus to lead the riderless horses in the parade.

He’d spoken with several families, those who had lost sons in that damned War, and every one of them would have some representation in the parade, for Firelands as a community wished to have a public declaration, a celebration hostilities were over, a church service to commemorate their dead, a feast afterward for when a community meets, it eats.

Especially the boys and young men, Annette had quipped, to the general approval and agreement of the ladies in general.

Town was crowded, town was busy; Mr. Baxter was dispensing beer and good-natured jests as he always did, but he noted the mood was less celebratory than somber: no one was drinking hard, to his relief – he’d hate to have to belt someone with his bung starter for getting out of hand today, of all days – and the town marshal quietly sized up the Jewel from a discreet position at the end of the hallway, rather than making a bold walk-through.

“We’ll form up on the other side of the firehouse,” Jacob called, and sons and grandsons replied “Yes, sir,” and Jacob – riding in the lead – doubled back to so inform the women, and his son and grandson, then he trotted his stallion back to the head of their column just as they came to the little rise overlooking Firelands.

It was still morning.

The air was clear, the town was busy; smoke rose from several chimneys, wood smoke drawing ghostly fingers almost straight up before they spread and disappeared; the buildings were always well tended, but fresh paint, it seemed, shone on every surface – all but the hitch rails and watering troughs, these were still bare timber, all but the one visible from the schoolhouse, the one Sarah had painted as a signal, long years ago – Jacob couldn’t recall the reason, but he knew it was a signal of some kind, and knowing his pale-eyed, trouble-making sis, she would’ve come just a-hellin’ out of that schoolhouse.

He smiled ever so slightly at the memory.

If he wasn’t riding lead and coming into town he would have laughed.

 

The German Engineer did not polish the boiler so much as he caressed it.

The Ahrens steam firefighting engine was nearing obsolete, but he loved his “Steam Machine” as a father loves a child: it was mechanical perfection, it was beautiful, it was efficient, and when it was needed to work, it worked without complaint and without fault.

He’d voiced strong objection to replacing it with one of those newfangled motorized fire trucks – the damned things didn’t want to start, he’d argued, and his mares were ready to run as soon as they heard someone smack the fire gong outside – trucks depended on that devil’s breath gasoline, and his engine could burn coal, coke, wood, whatever was available – and besides, the entire town knew how well she could throw water!

His arguments were persuasive, and had staved off the purchase of a new fire truck, but the handwriting was on the wall, and he’d gone – reluctantly, grumbling, but still interested – to the Ahrens-Fox factory in Cincinnati.

He’d come back with the reluctant acknowledgement that the self-propelled fire apparatus was coming, and would be their next purchase, but it hadn’t happened yet, and until it did, his beloved Steam Machine would do just fine.

The mares were restless, and the firehouse cats weren’t: while the mares snuffed loudly, and stamped an impatient forehoof, the cats preened and sunned themselves in the windows, unconcerned as gods with the comings and goings of mere mortals.

“Open ‘er up!” the Chief called, and the great valves opened, flooding the interior of their spacious brick bay with sunlight.

The mares shivered a little as the harness dropped down from overhead: the Irish Brigade’s hands had eyes, and the harnesses were secured quickly, efficiently, with the swiftness and sureness of long practice.

The ladies were brought around and hitched onto the Steam Machine, and the ladies danced and threw their heads, anxious to run:

“Ho, now, girls, ho, now,” the Chief soothed, gentle hands firm on the reins: “ho, now, ladies, it’s a walk we’ll need today, ho now,” and the ladies swung their ears back to this familiar voice: they still danced, but not as vigorously, though their tails swung with enthusiasm.

It was, by all accounts, a fine parade.

Their Marching Band (all ten of them!) passed in fine formation, instruments gleaming, uniforms immaculate: there were military men in formation, two trucks, a column of troopers, grinning and winking at the ladies (they’d been forbidden to wave), and then the families, representing their dead: some walked, most drove, whether in a car or a carriage.

Jacob rode as he always did, relaxed, more a part of the horse than a man sitting in a saddle.

His sons rode behind him, two abreast, then the carriage, with Annette driving and the children waving and laughing.

Jacob had ridden over to his grandson and stopped and looked long at him.

"Nicodemus."

"Yes, sir."

"Nicodemus, give Joseph Samuel Tornado's reins."

Nicodemus looked a little disappointed, but handed the reins of one of the riderless horses to the youngest Keller.

"Caleb on my left, ahead of our carriage."

"Yes, sir."

"Jacob Samuel."

"Yes, sir."

"You and Nicodemus are right behind the carriage."

"Yes, sir."

"Nicodemus."

"Yes, sir."

"You're old enough for this." Jacob reached into his pocket, drew out a watch: he leaned over, made the end of the chain fast in a button hole, slid the watch in his son's opposite vest pocket.

"This was your brother's," Jacob said quietly. "Joseph said he daren't take a good watch into battle with him and that we should keep it until he returned. It's yours now. Wear it for him."

"Yes, sir," Nicodemus said in a small voice, and placed his hand solemnly over the new lump in his pocket.

"Jacob Samuel."

The Sheriff turned to his grandson.

Jacob's voice was a little lower, so only the two of them could hear.

His grandson knew the voice, and his Granddad’s solemn face, meant he was about to say something important.

Jacob cleared his throat.

“Jacob Samuel,” he said, “I want to give you something.”

“Yes, sir,” young Jacob Samuel said in his little boy’s voice.

Jacob leaned down a little and withdrew a rifle from his scabbard.

“This,” he said, “was your father’s rifle.”

Jacob Samuel’s eyes got big as Jacob handed it to him.

“This is yours now. I want you to carry it today, in memory of your father.”

Jacob Samuel’s grin was wide and instantaneous, then he looked troubled.

“Grampa?” he asked in an uncertain voice.

Jacob looked at the pale-eyed little fellow, the ghost of a smile at the corners of his eyes.

“Grampa, I’m just a little kid.”

Jacob laughed – he hadn’t expected that! – he threw his head back and laughed a big Grampa-sized laugh and he nodded.

“Here’s what you do,” he said. “You lay the rifle across the saddle bow like this – just like that – you let the horse carry the weight. You recall my Hawken rifle?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You recall that brass plate under the fore end?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s because the old mountain man, old Hiram, carried it across his saddle bow and it wore some into the wood. All you need do is steady it. Think you can handle that?”

Jacob Samuel’s grin was a bright, broad flash and his voice was suddenly enthusiastic.

“Yes, sir!”

And so they passed in review before the entire community: nearly everyone was there, and nobody missed that each family in the parade, rode with a token, a memento of some kind, a remembrance of the one who was lost to that damned War.

And not one soul there missed the significance of two riderless horses, nor of the little boy with a rifle across his saddle, who led one of them.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

118. GRANDMA! I MADE IT!

The Sheriff of Firelands County, Colorado, was a tall man, lean waisted, with pale eyes and an iron-grey mustache.

He rode a good-looking stallion down the middle of the street like he owned the place.

He could do that, and often did.

He was, after all, the Sheriff – “The Lord High Sheriff,” as a British visitor dubbed him, and the good natured nickname stuck, at least among those close enough and comfortable enough to get away with calling him that.

He drew up in front of the Silver Jewel tavern, walking his stallion in between two pickup trucks.

He swung down – powerfully, leisurely – the proprietor of the funeral parlor diagonally across the street looked with distress toward the familiar saloon and restaurant, for there were distinct sounds of what could politely be called “Interpersonal Conflict” from within, which is a politically correct way of saying it sounded like a good old-fashioned, free-for-all, knock-down-drag-out, barfight.

The man wrung his hands as the Sheriff dallied his reins loosely around the hitch rail, mounted the steps with a resolute, measured tread, pulled open the heavy, glass-paned doors, those doors with decorative swirls in the heavy glass and the burnished brass handles, those doors more than twice as old as the man who hauled them open.

The Sheriff disappeared from view.

The sounds from within changed.

 

Mr. Baxter – the barkeep at the Silver Jewel was always known as Mr. Baxter, well more than a century after the original barkeep of that name passed away – watched with fascination and amazement as the Sheriff came into the barfight, and he wasn’t sure whether to describe the man as a Texas tornado or a surgeon’s scalpel.

The pale-eyed lawman proceeded to speak in a manner that would be clearly, easily and unmistakably understood: he picked up a heavy beer mug and cold-cocked the nearest pugilist, smacked the next fellow across the face, laying this one out after knocking him into another pair, all three of whom hit the ground: ignoring these, the Sheriff strode over them, swung the mug hard into another man’s gut, effectively doubling him over, then zeroed in on the cause of the whole problem.

The Sheriff was an old veteran lawman, as had been his grandfather, and men of multiple generations before that: he well knew that, most times, a barfight was like a boil.

Pull the core and it’ll generally heal on its own.

The cause and the core and the pair he went after were two women who were tearing into one another like the Kilkenney cats.

The Sheriff seized one by the hair of the head and threw her across the room, and as the other one came at him, screaming, claws out: he punched her hard in the gut with the beer mug still locked in his good right hand.

The mug was horizontal when it drove into her, just below her wishbone: it knocked every bit of air out of her, slammed her against the wall behind, and he turned quickly, light on the balls of his feet, somewhere between a dancer’s turn and a panther’s.

His eyes were pale, his face was tight, he swung clear around in a circle, glaring.

The entire bar fight was over and the silence was sudden, unexpected, deafening.

The second woman slid with a painful slowness to the floor, choking, arms across her belly, her face a sickly color.

The Sheriff seized her by the hair of the head, pulled hard and threw her face down on the floor: he cuffed her quickly, tightly, then rose and went over to the other woman, who was struggling to her feet.

He bent her over a table, his hand hard on the back of her neck.

A moment later he had her upright, also in irons, and in less than a minute, each woman held tightly with a grip of iron at the base of her skull, the two prisoners were marched out the front door and across the street.

Cindy, the dispatcher, saw them coming: she held the outer door, then the inner, she put two fingers to her lips and whistled, and the jailer came out from the hallway to receive the pair.

“Process ‘em,” Sheriff Linn Keller said, his voice sharp, his words clipped. “I’m going over to get witness statements. Cindy, let me know if either Mama or Marnie call.”

“Will do,” Cindy said, blinking.

She knew today was an important day.

Sheriff Linn Keller’s little girl wasn’t a little girl anymore.

She was at Langley Air Force Base for final testing and evaluation.

 

Well more than a hundred years earlier, another Sheriff, another Linn Keller, sat on an upturned chunk and considered the full moon, visible in the late-evening sky.

His grandson sat beside him.

“Grampa?”

“Hm?”

“Grampa, how far away is the moon?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Linn admitted. “A fur piece.”

“Can we shoot it?”

“Nah. Too far for that.”

“Oh.”

A stallion whinnied; hooves in the distance, chickens scratched nearby, gossiping to one another as they pecked up grit.

“Grampa?”

“Hm?”

“Grampa, how come we can’t fly?”

Linn laughed, his voice gentle, easy. “We can.”

“We can?” His grandson turned a wondering face toward his old Grampa, and Linn nodded solemnly.

“We just can’t fly well a’tall, and generally just straight down.”

“Oh.” The voice of disappointment.

“I reckon one of these days a man might make something that’ll fly. Hell, we’ve got steam engines that’ll run sixty mile an hour!” Linn’s voice was soft, amazed. “A man would have to hang onto his guardian angel so it could keep up, runnin’ that fast!”

Grandfather and grandson sat in the lengthening twilight, watched the stars start to peep through the distance overhead.

“Grampa?”

“Hm?”

“Grampa, they told me in school about Mars.”

“Mars.”

“It’s a red planet an’ it’s way far away an’ there’s canals on it!” The words were fast, pushed together the way an enthusiastic little boy will.

“Reckon so.”

“Are there people on Mars, Grampa?”

Linn looked seriously at his grandson.

“Did you just tell me there are canals on Mars?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you tell me what a canal is?”

His grandson frowned, formulating a reply.

“It’s kinda like a ditch only they got rocks on the sides. Square ones like big foundation stones.”

“Ashlars.”

“Yes, sir. An’ it’s fulla water an’ boats run on it. Only they don’t run, they got horses to drag ‘em along.”

Linn nodded.

“I reckon if there’s stone walled canals, someone had to dig ‘em,” he replied gently.

“Yes, sir.”

Linn’s eyes searched the night sky, looking for a red star.

A perfesser of some kind once lectured in Denver, and Linn had gone with his daughter Sarah; the Perfesser had diagrams and charts and a mantle projector he set in the middle of the lecture hall, then placed a perforated cover over the mantle, which threw dots of light on the walls and ceiling: he pointed out constellations, described their significance to predicting the seasons, to navigation on the sea; he had the Big and Little Dippers, he had the Southern Cross, and with the help of his multiple pierced covers, he was able even to point to otherwise undistinguished dots of light and declare them to be planets, not stars.

One was red in color, tinted with a tiny slip of ruby glass over one pierced hole.

Linn had seen that red star in a cloudless winter night's sky, once, he recalled, and smiled when he did, for the memory of going to Denver with his daughter was still with him long after her death.

She, too, asked him if he thought there were people on Mars, and then she asked him something odd.

She didn’t quite ask if there were people on Mars.

She didn’t really ask if men would ever fly to Mars.

She asked instead, “Papa, will our blood ever get to Mars?”

Linn remembered he considered his answer and finally replied, “I reckon if there’s people there, they’ll need a Sheriff, and if that’s the case, Sarah, I reckon yes … yes, our blood will be there.”

 

Sheriff Linn Keller returned to the Sheriff’s office and busied himself with the inevitable paperwork that comes of any police action.

Cindy, bless her, had a fresh pot of coffee, and some kind soul had gone down to Grubbs’ Bakery and come back with a cardboard box of fresh, fragrant and flavorful cream filled fatteners.

Cindy groaned to see it and said something about just duct taping a half dozen to her backside, that’s where they’d end up anyway, but in spite of her complaints, she quietly, efficiently, kept the Sheriff supplied with coffee – his only vice, so far as she knew, and his only requirement most days.

He was just finishing up his report and hit SEND with a flourish and a stiff forefinger, launching his electronic information to the prosecutor, when his phone warbled, an irritating tone that made him want to donate the damned thing to a nice friendly well.

“Sheriff,” Cindy’s voice was clipped, official, “your Mama called and she said to get out there for the call!”

Cindy heard his phone hit the receiver a tenth of a second before he yanked his office door open.

He didn’t run to the front door.

With his long legs, he didn’t have to.

He strode across the Sheriff’s Office and across the empty, blacktopped street toward the Silver Jewel and the hitch rail where his stallion drowsed, hip-shot, sleepily regarding the tourists staring at it as if it were an alien from another world.

They looked up as the Sheriff strode toward them and a girl – she looked like maybe high school age – asked, “Are you the Sheriff?”

Linn stopped, swept off his Stetson. “I am, young lady,” he said pleasantly, “have you an emergency?”

“No, I … no, it’s just that I’ve never seen a real Sheriff before.”

Linn never hesitated.

He stepped right up to her, took her hand, brought it to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

“My dear,” he said, “beauty deserves its tribute, and I would be inclined to remark on your loveliness” – he looked at the woman beside her, obviously her mother – “and that of the woman who is obviously its source.”

He settled his hat on his head, pulled the reins loose, thrust a polished boot into the stirrup, swung easily, powerfully, into the saddle.

“But right now my mother needs me.” He touched his hat brim, whirled the stallion: “YAAA!” and the Appaloosa bunched up under him and launched powerfully up the street, hooves loud on the cold pavement.

“I told you they were real,” her mother murmured, and the daughter stared wordlessly after the retreating lawman, her lips parted a bit, her chest a little tight as she did.

Apple-horse loved to run, and this morning he did himself proud.

Linn didn’t often give the stallion his head, but this morning he rode standing in the stirrups, leaned forward, hands pressed on Apple’s neck, and as the big horse assaulted the hard ground under his hooves, grunting with each hard thrust, Linn’s quiet voice encouraged him, his words timed with the hooves’ compelling cadence:

“Run – run – run – run!”

They veered off the pavement into the first meadow, soaring across the Kellner Ditch and landing easily on the other side, pounding across brittlegrass and streaking across an empty township road: it was not far to the Old Sheriff’s original house, a two story structure, his mother’s home.

Willamina saw her son coming across the meadow, then up her gravel drive, and she smiled to see it, for not only was it her son, he was the very image of his four-times-great grandfather, the Old Sheriff, a lean waisted lawman with an iron grey mustache.

Apple-horse slowed enough for Linn to dismount, but only just: he practiced dismounting on the move as a boy, he’d fallen many times, he’d learned the trick of landing on the run, and though no longer a boy, his long tall carcass remembered the trick: he landed at a sprint, coasted to a fast stop, reversed, then he did run, up the steps and onto the porch.

Apple-horse coasted on up behind the barn and into the back pasture the way he always did, knowing he’d be able to graze for a bit.

Linn’s boots were loud as he pounded up the steps, across the porch.

He did take the time to knock before entering.

Willamina looked up, excitement on her face: “She’s calling now,” and Linn strode across the room, flipping his hat onto a peg: he seized a chair, whirled it over in front of his Mama’s computer.

Willamina touched a key; the two of them appeared on the screen, and they shifted a little until they were both visible, then she returned the screen to the incoming call.

It was Marnie, the Sheriff’s daughter.

Another young woman sat with her, chewing on her knuckle and bouncing a little, like an excited little girl, and Willamina smiled to see it: her granddaughter’s eyes were pale, but not hard pale, and that was a good sign.

“Grandma, I made it,” Marnie blurted, the way she did when she made the trapshooting team, the cheerleading squad, her first police commission: when she was first commissioned a second lieutenant and her pale-eyed father gave her that first salute, she’d said the same thing to her pale-eyed grandmother, standing a pace back, her face shining with pride: she didn’t wait for that second salute, she threw herself into her Grandma’s arms and whispered, “Grandma, I made it,” and Willamina hugged her granddaughter as tightly as her grandchild hugged her back.

“So you’re going to do it,” Willamina said quietly, wonder and satisfaction in her voice.

“Yes,” Marnie laughed, running an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “This is Shelly, she’s our engineer, Grandma, we’re going to Mars!”

Her words were as excited as her roommate looked and her voice squeaked a little, the way it always did, and Linn swallowed hard, looking at his little girl with that big broad grin he remembered so very well.

Linn’s arm was warm around his Mama’s shoulders, and suddenly he realized that his Mama felt frail and bony, and he looked at his little girl’s image on the screen and he realized his daughter was all grown up now … he knew this for a fact that dropped into his Daddy-heart like a lead brick, and suddenly he felt very old.

“Marnie?” he said. “Marnie, do you remember when you were a little girl and we were sitting on hay bales out beside your Grandma’s barn, and you were looking at the stars with my binoculars?”

Marnie nodded, smiling, her mouth quivering a bit at the corners.

“Do you remember you asked me if we’d ever get to Mars?”

Marnie bit her bottom lip, nodded.

“Do you remember I told you if people were there, they’d need a Sheriff?”

Marnie nodded, not trusting her voice.

“Marnie,” Linn said quietly in that deep, reassuring Daddy-voice of his, “you carry my blood, and your Grandma’s blood, and the blood of many generations of good people. Most of us have been Sheriff at one time or another and now you are as well.”

Marnie nodded, her eyes bright, glittering, almost ready to spill over.

“Daddy …”

“Yes, Princess?”

“Daddy, there won’t be time to come home like we thought.”

Linn turned his head a little, as if to turn his good ear to her voice.

“Daddy, the launch window is moved up. We launch tomorrow.”

Linn nodded, hugged his Grandma.

“I said it before and I’ll say it again,” he replied, hugging his Mama a little tighter. “I am just pretty damned proud of you, Sheriff!”

“Oh, Daddy,” Marnie squeaked, and her face reddened and she started to cry, “that’s the nicest thing you ever said to me!”

“Safe trip, sweetheart!” Willamina called, and Marnie sniffed and nodded and reached toward the screen, and the connection broke, leaving the familiar NASA logo centered on the screen.

Willamina reached for the tissues, handed one to her son.

Linn blew his nose, noisily as he always did – just like his father, Willamina thought, as she blew her own.

“She told me about their undersuits,” Willamina said softly. “She said they’ll change into one piece skin-tights. They have to save every ounce. They won’t take any clothing, it’ll all be provided, all ultra-light stuff.” She laughed. “I asked her if those Union suits would have a clapadoopa.”

Linn laughed, remembering his Mama’s word for the trap door in the seat of his red longhandles.

“Marnie laughed and said she didn’t know but she would find out.”

“Union suits,” Linn chuckled. “The more things change, the more they stay the same!”

“She’s all grown up,” Willamina whispered.

Linn sagged, dropped his arm, looked at his Mama and smiled sadly.

“I know that here,” he said tapping his forehead with three bunched fingers, “but it’s awful hard for me to realize here” – he tapped his breastbone.

“I suppose NASA will have some kind of a press release for the local paper,” Willamina sighed. “I’ll tell Mr. Jones to expect it.”

Linn reached for his Mama’s hand and pressed it gently between both of his, and Willamina understood his unspoken statement.

Sometimes … sometimes, even when a boy is long become a man grown, he still needs his Mama’s touch.

Willamina scooted forward in her chair and leaned forward a little, and mother and son held each other for a long time.

“Is this what our people back East felt when our people came out here?” Linn mumbled into her shoulder.

“I suppose it was,” Willamina mumbled back, rubbing his back as she did.

“I reckon when you talk to Mr. Jones you could tell him that.”

Willamina nodded, and she leaned her forehead into her son’s shoulder, the way she used to lean her head into her late husband’s shoulder.

“They left all they knew,” she whispered, “and they went into a strange land.”

“And their families worried about them.” Linn coughed, harrumphed, grunted, then he chuckled.

“You were right, by the way.”

“Oh?” Willamina lifted her head, her pale eyes smiling a little as she looked into her son’s pale eyes.

“Yep.” Linn grinned. “You told me no matter how old a daughter gets, she’s always, always gonna be Daddy’s little girl.” His smile faded. “Somehow … when I picture her in that rocket … I have the mental image of a little girl in ponytails and a frilly dress, hugging a rag doll and giggling.”

Willamina gave her son a knowing look.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I kind of think of her in a bronze Viking helmet, with a bronze curiass and a skirt of plates, lowering a lance from the back of a big black warhorse!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

EPILOG: THE SHERIFF’S BLOOD

The garment in Marnie’s hands was listed as “Undersuit, NASA one-piece, spaceflight, female, one each.”

Thanks to her Grandma’s comment, it quickly became known to engineer, crew, captain and supply alike as a Union suit.

The waste access in the suit’s seat (thanks to the same subversive soul) was promptly renamed either “Trap Door” or “Clap-a-doopa” – the latter becoming the fast favorite, simply because the name stumbled drunkenly off the tongue.

It wasn’t the only archaic term applied to various implements of spaceflight, but it was the most noticeable, or at least it became the most universally known.

The suits were all the same dull, uninteresting grey in color, each with the wearer’s designated service branch and name.

Two women sat together for the last time before their ship would thrust them into orbit, two women talking excitedly about what lay before them.

They were friends, they were roommates … and they were pioneers.

They were of the same sturdy stock that pushed across a young continent, they were of the same tough fabric that relied on itself and whatever was found as they went: they’d been chosen from a large pool of candidates, they were the ones deemed most likely to survive, most likely to succeed.

They were bound for the new colonies on Mars.

Their atmosphere suits awaited them in the orbital station; to save weight, they wore only their issue Union suits, but even these undergarments bore their assignment and their name.

Shelly Crane’s dull, uninteresting, grey Union suit bore a stylized silver gearwheel-and-wrench on its left breast, and beneath it, CRANE: she was an engineer, her specialty was recycling, and for this particular skill, she’d been selected for this one-way trip to the Red Planet.

Marnie Keller’s dull, uninteresting, grey Union suit bore a gold, six-point star on its left breast, with the word SHERIFF across its equator, with the name KELLER beneath.

The two were talking nervously, the way two friends will the night before a voyage, sharing memories, sharing hopes, sharing nervous laughter.

“So how did they tell you?” Shelly asked almost shyly, looking sidelong at Marnie, and Marnie laughed.

“When I took my nursing boards,” she began, and Shelly squealed a little: “I didn’t know you were a nurse!”

“Oh, yeah,” Marnie sighed. “Another ticket in my pocket. I figured it made a good parachute. If one job didn’t work out, pull out another certification, another license, and keep making a paycheck.”

“You sound like my Dad!”

Marnie laughed. “Actually my Grandma did the same thing. I guess that’s where I got the idea!”

“So why aren’t you a nurse instead of Sheriff?”

Marnie smiled quietly, looked at her hands. “I liked law doggin’ better.”

“Law doggin’?”

“That’s what Grandma called it.” She smiled sadly. “She said we couldn’t call ourselves lawmen like my Dad, but we were Law Dawgs, and …”

She let the sentence trail off with a shrug, then continued.

“I hated nursing school.”

“Really!”

“Despised it. I went in as a veteran paramedic. I was already a deputy marshal and I’d worked as a chemist. Pharmacology class” – she raised her chin – “we were to decant a volume of water and so I did, at eye level.

“The instructor came over and told me I couldn’t decant accurately at eye level, I had to set it down on a level surface, and I looked her right in the eye and said that I can decant at eye level with a reproducibility of one-tenth of one milligram, consistently, at standard temperature and pressure, using class A glassware.”

“Can you?”

“You betcha!” Marnie winked. “I worked a water plant lab for two summers and routinely worked with class A glassware.” Marnie sighed. “The instructor didn’t like that at all. Tried to have me flunked out. Told me my grades were good enough I didn’t have to take the final, so I didn’t. When I was graduated, I’d walked across the stage, I’d been pinned, my family applauded, and as I came off the stage, a runner summoned me to the Dean of Nursing’s office.

“The old bat demanded why I didn’t take the Pharmacology final and I told her.

“She said that’s not so, I hadn’t finished the class, I was not graduated.

“I told her to call the pharmacology instructor and ask, and she said ‘She is on a Bahamas cruise.’

“I said ‘Reaaalllyyy,’ and made it cut.

“I gave her a cold look and said ‘Why don’t I just scamper upstairs to the testing center and take it right now, I’ll have it hand graded and hand deliver it to you myself!’

“She waved a dismissive hand and said “Do whatever you want.”

I stomped upstairs, took the final, brought it down ten minutes later.”

Shelly was leaning forward a little, listening.

“One, hundred, per cent.”

Shelly blinked.

“I asked – and I put ice in my voice and an edge to my words, I wanted them to cut – I said, ‘Will there be anything else?’

“She could not look me in the eye.”

Shelly shook her head slowly, marveling.

“As a lawdog I rubbed elbows with society’s worst. Felons told me things that would curl the hair on a bald man’s head.” Marnie frowned, her pale eyes half-veiled. “In one respect, and one respect only, the criminals were honest.

“They told me in so many words, that given half a chance, they would kill me or they would hurt me very badly.

“In that, and in that alone, they were honest, and I respected that honesty from them.

“My fellow nurses?”

Marnie’s laugh was more a cynical bark.

“The only reason my fellow nurses looked at my back ...”

Marnie frowned a little, backtracked.

“When you’re a badge packer, a medic, a firefighter, you watch your partner’s back and your partner watches yours. You’ll tell your partner things you would never, ever tell your own spouse. Let’s face it, it’s not your spouse that’s at your back at two in the morning, with a shotgun cocked, locked and ready to rock, as a carload of hostile carnies surround you at a traffic stop on an empty road.

“I expected this same level of partnering among nurses. They’re supposed to be Angels of Mercy and they … weren’t.” She looked up, her eyes hard now, hard and cold, and Shelly shivered a little to see this hard expression for the very first time.

“The only reason any nurse looked at my back was to try and find a soft place to run in the knife.

“I have never been lied to, lied about, screwed, blued or tattooed, reamed, steamed or dry cleaned, throat cut, back stabbed, trompled underfoot and generally treated like absolute dirt, any faster, any more viciously, or any more professionally, than my fellow nurses.”

Her hands were closed now, closed into fists, and there was neither softness nor forgiveness in her expression.

“Besides, I can generally talk down the same people my male counterparts would have to jump on and beat into submission. Let’s face it” – her expression was cheerful now, changed as quickly as smoke disappears on a breeze – “no hardened felon wants to have to tell his cellmates he got his backside kicked by a skinny little girl!”

Shelly laughed, then tilted her head a little, curious.

“You started to tell me about nursing boards.”

“I started to tell you about how I got picked, and the nursing boards came to mind.” Marnie laughed a little, her eyes distant, lifting to the joint between wall and ceiling.

“I locked horns with the nursing supervisor at a state veterans’ home, a three-story nursing home. She tried to browbeat me because I’d responded as I’d been trained, to a fire alarm. I put out a grease fire and according to the State Fire Marshal, I saved them several thousand dollars’ worth of damage. The nursing supervisor gave me hell for shouldering through a closed fire door and going down the stairs with an extinguisher.” Marnie frowned. “It’s what we were taught in employee orientation: two nurses to a wing, one stays to hold down the fort, and one grabs an extinguisher and joins the fire fighting team.

“I came right back at her and said she was going to have a walkaway from the locked Alzheimer’s unit. I told her the magnetic door lock would be defeated in a particular way, escape would be down a particular hallway, egress through one of two particular doors, and cause of death would be drowning in one of the decorative ponds on the grounds. She told me to shut up – word for word – ‘Shut up or I will fire you, you’re on probation and I can do that.’

“I stood up and said ‘Old girl, you just hold onto that,’ and I walked out.

“I was working midnight shift. I went home and thought about it, got a good day’s rest, came back that night, sat out in the parking lot and wrote out my resignation. I turned it in to the shift supervisor, along with my narcotics key, my ID tag and my time card, and I said I was tired of being discriminated against on the basis of previous employment.

“I got work within 24 hours as hospital security across town.

“That hospital did the autopsies for the county and I receipted in a body.

“It was an old fellow I knew from the locked Alzheimer’s unit of that same Veterans’ Home. The only thing I got wrong was cause of death. He’d made it clear across town when a youth gang found him, when he didn’t have a wallet nor money they bent a pipe over his head and threw him in the Bay, where he drowned.” Her smile was as tight as her eyes were pale.

“The nursing supervisor was fired, but of course she couldn’t be fired for the old man’s escape and death – that would have put the facility at too much liability – they had to invent a reason, so they claimed she’d promoted her husband from assistant laundry technician, the second lowest rung on the ladder, to assistant superintendent – the second highest rung.”

“Wow,” Shelly murmured.

“Yeah, wow. Now with guys, if you have a disagreement, you take it to the gym, you get them out on the mat and kick their butt rather soundly and they either straighten out or you have to beat them half to death, and then they learn not to grab you or not to make comments.

“Now after all that,” Marnie said, “now that I’ve chased clear around the barn, when I was interviewed, I could have skipped all these, but I knew they’d have them on their background investigation.”

Shelly nodded.

“I drug ‘em right out in the daylight and said ‘I did this’ and made no bones about it.

“When I took Boards a nurse told me if I felt I passed easily that meant I failed miserably, but if I came out feeling like I just blew that test by ten million points, that means I passed. Well” – she smiled again, a smile like the sun rising in the East – “after the final interview I just knew there was no way in two hells and a tornado they’d ever pick me for Sheriff!

“It must have worked because the next morning my phone rang and the recruiter said, ‘Sheriff Keller, how soon can you leave for Mars?’ and I said ‘I’m packed already,’ and here I am!”

Twenty-four hours later Sheriff Marnie Keller and Engineer Shelly Crane were in the orbital slingshot, the shuttle that used the orbiting station’s rotation like the sling on a trebuchet’s arm to gain mechanical advantage and launch a ship at a good velocity before engaging the rocket engines.

Marnie and Shelly shared a sleep pod.

Each wore their Union suit and a clear plastic oxygen mask.

Shelly looked over at Marnie, squeezed her hand.

“I’m a little scared,” she whispered, her breath fogging the mask as she spoke.

Marnie squeezed her hand reassuringly, winked, and they tasted the anesthetic as they breathed.

“Will I dream?” Shelly asked, sounding like a little girl, and Marnie laughed and said “I will!”

“Really?” Shelly looked over at her, feeling her body relax as the clear plastic dome hummed closed over the pair.

“Yes,” Marnie smiled. “I will dream of horses.”

 

Three decks below – or above, depending on which side of the ship’s equator you were standing – the ship’s doctor closed the last drawer, secured it, smiled.

He, too, was wearing the uninteresting grey Union suit, and the insignia over his left breast was the winged caduceus, and under it, his name.

GREENLEES.

He’d personally catalogued and tagged all the donor blood, now cooling, ready to be frozen for the long trip to Mars.

He and the crew would be in hibernation, of course, and would not appreciate the passage of time: still, he was a tidy man, a methodical man, and he’d made sure the entire crew’s donor supply was aboard before securing for flight and considering his own couch.

He remembered the plastic tag he’d looked at just before closing the drawer.

This one passenger was perhaps the most valuable soul on board.

Her blood type was O-triple-neg: it lacked any antibodies of any kind on its red corpuscular surfaces, and could be given to even the frail elderly, the youngest newborn, or the immunocompromised… truly a universal donor, and she could donate as necessary for anyone on board.

Each bag of this most precious donor blood bore the same identifying tag.

It was, in his opinion, absolutely the one most valuable thing in the entire ship.

Each tag said the same thing.

THE SHERIFF’S BLOOD.

 

Marnie threw her head back and her laughter rang between the silvery stars.

She wore a conical, polished-bronze Viking helmet, her hair was long and braided and wrapped around her neck, and somehow she knew this was her defense against a blade attack to her throat.

She did not wear the dull and uninteresting Union suit.

She wore knee boots and a skirt of steel-covered leather strips, and she wore a burnished bronze cuirass with a gold six point star engraved over the swell of the left breast, the engraving inlaid with gold.

She reached up into the velvet dark and plucked a gleaming, silver star, and impaled it on the end of her lance: it flared into sudden, blinding light, and suddenly she was in a black saddle, on a gleaming, shining, red-rippling black mare with immense black wings, and she lowered the lance into attack position, couched under her arm, a shield suddenly on her off forearm, and Marnie laughed again and kneed the great black Frisian into a gallop, aiming for a star, a red star, and in the sleep pod, Sheriff Marnie Keller smiled as she dreamed.

Shelly Crane, the engineer, was not so lucky.

She, too, dreamed, but she did not laugh.

Shelly cowered on a dirty, noisy foundry floor, lighted with flaring fires out of thick, black cruicibles, as great, ravening gear wheels clattered and rolled around the floor like sentient, metallic wheels, snarling with metallic frustration, for they had yet to find the human-flesh they craved, and wished to grind in their square, cast-steel teeth.

 

Marnie wore an emerald-green gown and matching gloves.

She was in the private car she’d ridden as a girl, a luxurious private car she remembered well.

She handed the empty teacup to the porter and looked out the window at the mountains where she’d grown up.

She felt the air brakes tighten up and the slack in the couplers let them bang together as the slack came out of their couplers, and she felt herself pushed deeper into the seat as the train slowed quickly … quickly … too quickly … she was getting heavier …

Great black wings beat strongly against the thin atmosphere and the immense black horse came in low and fast, lowering her legs and finding the red-sand surface and running for the sheer joy of running, and Marnie leaned forward in the saddle, rifle in hand, grinning.

Marnie opened her eyes, blinked.

She wasn’t moving.

She wasn’t pushed into her deceleration couch.

They were down.

They were on Mars.

She reached up, pulled the plastic mask from her face, worked her face back to life.

A man was standing outside their pod as the plastic dome hummed and lifted away from them.

The comm officer waited patiently until she was fully awake before he spoke.

“Sheriff,” he said, “there’s been a killing.”

Sheriff Marnie Keller swung her legs over the side of the sleep pod.

“Let me get dressed,” she said.

“Sheriff?”

Marnie picked up her atmosphere suit, shook it out, then looked at the communications officer.

“Sheriff, welcome to Mars.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE FINAL ENTRY

I, Linn Keller, Sheriff, Firelands County, Colorado, do hereby fulfil my final duty to my mother on this, the occasion of her death.

It is The Sheriff’s Legacy that we make the final entry into the preceding Sheriff’s Journal.

It has been done since my four times great Grandfather became the second Sheriff of this County, and entered the final page of Sheriff Tom Landers’ Journal.

His son Jacob made the final entry into the Old Sheriff’s journal.

Caleb Keller made the final entry into Jacob’s Journal, and in turn, Caleb’s brother Nicodemus made the final entry into his brother’s Journal when Caleb was killed by a rum runner, and right on down the line to today.

Sheriff Willamina Keller was my mother, my confidante, my trusted advisor, my best friend: I could waste many pages of good rag paper describing all that she was.

Let me instead tell of her last days on this earth.

My daughter, Marnie, is now Sheriff of the Second Martian District.

Mama and I sat side by side as my little girl told us their launch was moved up, she would not be coming home to say a final goodbye, we watched the liftoff and we each got NASA’s automated text that advised a successful departure from orbit.

Mama and I sat up most of the night, watching the live broadcast of the hibernation shuttle’s arrival in Mars orbit, we listened to the smooth voiced announcer describe how everyone was going through their wake-up cycle as the landing module brought them to District Two’s landing zone.

About an hour later, Mama’s house was full, the driveway was banked full on each side with cars: we had friends, neighbors, in-laws, outlaws, lawmen of every kind, all crowding the screen, all listening to the speakers (turned up so everyone could hear), watching the repeat announcement that the Sheriff was dead, at first, then murdered.

When Mama got nervous, she’d bake.

When men get nervous, they eat.

Mama’s oven did not cool off for three days.

She happily cooked for everyone, we had people sacked out on her couch, on the floor, in every bed, we had a constant watch on the screen and the news broadcast and finally Mama said “I’ve had enough,” and she stomped out the door and went to the barn.

I had to give up and go back to the Sheriff’s office.

That was maybe sunup.

I’m not stranger to living on coffee and aggravation and that morning I was aggravated, at least until one of the Daine boys came into the office and laid a double gun on the desk in front of me.

He was as long winded as any of their tribe, he said all of five words:

“Gun’s finished, paid for, here,” he dropped an envelope onto the desktop and left.

That double gun was re-stocked, and beautifully done, the best grade of curly maple I’ve ever seen, and stocked to fit Mama like a glove.

The envelope was addressed to me, in her handwriting, and when I read it, my belly fell about ten feet.

 

Linn,

Go into my kitchen.

Left cupboard door above the stove.

Kerchief belonged to your Very Great Grandmother Sarah McKenna.

Envelope beneath.

It was signed with her typical ornate, fluorished W.

Cindy, the dispatcher, looked up as I came out. She said Marnie hadn’t been killed, it was her predecessor, and she was pursuing the suspect with an arrest expected any time.

I shoved on out the door without replying.

I drove to Mama’s house – it was still full, but Mama was not there, and that troubled me – I left her double gun in the Jeep and went straight to the kitchen.

There was something covered by a kerchief.

I lifted the kerchief and stared.

It was a crystal ball.

I lifted it very carefully, explored the shelf with my finger tips, found another envelope.

I set the crystal ball down on the spotless, still-warm stove, cracked the red-wax seal and withdrew the single sheet of note paper.

 

Linn –

This is Daciana’s crystal ball.

Sarah never knew and Daciana never told, but they were related.

I suppose that’s where I get my instincts.

Load my double gun and hang it over your fireplace.

Check it every day, without fail.

Then, in large letters, block print instead of her immaculate script:

THIS IS IMPORTANT!

Check it EVERY DAY, you will find both barrels discharged, take note of the day you find it.

You’ll know why.

 

I am wrung out as I write this.

Mama’s funeral was as large and impressive as the Old Sheriff’s was described in Jacob’s final entry.

There were soldiers from a number of countries, all knew her in her time in Afghanistan. Four blue-eyed Norwegians looked like they were quietly ready to rip someone’s throat out with their teeth; they marched in procession behind the hearse, along with Israelis, Brits, Germans, lawmen of every stripe from here to either coast.

The Norwegians seemed to regard the appearance of two crows as significant, and at one point in procession they chanted at the top of their lungs, “TIL VALHAL! TIL VALHAL! TIL VALHAL! TIL VALHAL!”

The Bear Killer paced the hearse on the starboard side, and Tank – not the original Tank she’d gotten from the Marine Corps, but a Belgian Malinois nonetheless – flanked him on the port beam.

Somehow I was not surprised that a third joined them at the gravesite.

A white wolf worked its way through the sea of legs and sat between The Bear Killer and Tank, and they sang with the bugler.

I’m sorry. This is kind of out of sequence.

Mama’s note under Daciana’s crystal ball said to look for her on High Lonesome.

That’s where I found her.

Doc said she had a heart attack, just fell over dead, no pain.

I don’t know if he was lying to spare my feelings or not, and I don’t care.

I’ve lied to people, I’ve told them their loved one didn’t feel a thing.

Maybe Doc lied to me, I have no idea, but if he did it was out of kindness.

He was worried about his son – John Greenlees, JR, MD, was on the Mars shuttle with my daughter – and I was worried about Marnie.

Sheriff or not, she’s my little girl, and Mama was right when she told me that no matter how old a daughter becomes, she’s always, always going to be Daddy’s little girl.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller never did find out what happened when he checked his Mama’s double gun, and found two fired hulls instead of two loaded rounds.

He put the fired rounds in a drawer.

Next day they were gone, and he never found where they went.

We, of course, know what happened: we know that when Sheriff Marnie Keller chased after the cop-killing renegade miner, she found herself in an ambush and about two seconds from being murdered, as was the Sheriff before her and one of the deputies, and a woman in a riding dress and cowboy boots drove two charges of heavy shot through the would-be murderer’s ribs.

This, of course, is not possible.

It’s not possible to survive on the Martian surface without an atmosphere suit.

Nobody had yet brought Earth-style firearms to Mars: the issue duty sidearm was a force-pistol, firing an energy bolt instead of an inertia-driven projectile.

Neither is it possible to hear anything through the thin Martian atmosphere, and it is absolutely impossible that the pale-eyed woman who fired the double gun with a curly-maple stock could have been heard when she shouted, “NOBODY SHOOTS AT MY LITTLE GIRL!”

But, of course, sometimes things happen that we can’t understand, and some answers will never be known this side of the Divide.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller was a blooded warrior, a man who’d been shot, stabbed, run into, run over, survived a street evangelist’s effort to save his corroded soul; he was the Sheriff, he was also a grieving son, and he can be forgiven if the last page of his mother’s Journal had stained spots, as did the last page of his four-times-great-Grandfather’s Journal, and for the same reason.

When a son has not the words to express his grief, tears are often the words he cannot speak.

 

 

POST SCRIPT

As usual, I’ve run out of steam.

This happens at End of Tale.

Just like last time, though, another one is simmering in the background.

I’ve more research to do, but I can tell you this.

It’s near Firelands and you’ve heard of the place.

I’ve got to populate it yet and get the characters’ appearance and mannerisms down, I’ve got to lay out the town and get a good reliable source of water and set the outhouses where they won’t contaminate the drinkin’ water.

Let’s see what happens!

[Short Term Emory]

BRAVO Linn, BRAVO!!!!

You sir are an amazing author!

Thank you for sharing your talents with us!

 

I can't wait for the next one!!

 

Short Term Emory

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Thank you ... that's very kind ...

I'd like to try something a little different, no idea if it'll work or not, but it's worth a try, I reckon.

Give me a day or three.

I don't reckon Firelands is done yet. These folks have taken on a life of their own, the place is real -- at least in my imagination -- maybe I have a gear loose.

I won't take it any further than Mars, though.

I'm riding for Carbon Hill.

I hear tell they've at least got a saloon.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CARBON HILL

1. GHOST TOWN

Sheriff Linn Keller stopped what he was doing.

He stopped and leaned back in his office chair, and looked around his Inner Sanctum, his office, at the back of the stone Sheriff’s Office.

To the right of the doorway, about head height, was a framed revolver behind glass, a Victory model Smith and Wesson his grandfather carried as town marshal of Trimble, back in Ohio.

Six rounds of .38 Smith and Wesson round nose lead stood on a popsicle stick shelf behind the glass and under the slender barrel.

Linn smiled a little as he remembered his Mama telling him about his Grampa, her father, and then his eyes hardened as she told him of being a girl at home and how her mother tried to throw out the folded flag after the man’s funeral, tried to throw out his sidearm and badge and gunbelt as well, and how she’d rescued them – and used the revolver to kill a rapist that preyed on pretty little girls.

His eyelids lowered to half mast and his hands tightened slowly as she described how the perv came at her, there in the nighttime dark, and how she told him to go away, to leave her alone, and she described his expression as he looked at her in her pinafore and saddle shoes, and how she brought the revolver up out of the pleats in her skirt and drove six of her Daddy’s rounds right up through his diaphragm.

She told her son in quiet voice that it was the first time she felt her eyes go pale.

Linn’s eyes swung to the right, to a framed print, a print taken from a glass plate exposure: two lawmen, both with those ice-pale eyes, one with an iron-grey mustache, the other with a good, rich, Clan Maxwell auburn lip broom: there was a third figure, and Linn swallowed hard to see it, for though he knew this was his thrice-great-grandmother, Sarah Lynne McKenna, she was the very image of his own mother, and he blinked the sting from his pale eyes to look at her.

He didn’t move as the door opened and a shadow came in, the shadowed bulk of his chief deputy: the blocky Navajo laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “Boss, leave.”

Linn’s jaw thrust out, slowly, and Barrents squeezed the Sheriff’s shoulder just a little, enough to say I’m here, I’m listening.

Linn took a long, slow breath, then nodded.

The Sheriff stood, slowly, unfolding his long, tall frame from the armless swivel chair.

“I relieve you, sir,” Barrents said formally.

“I stand relieved,” Linn replied, a ritual they practiced in such moments.

Barrents stood aside and Linn reached up, picked up his Stetson, worked it down onto his head, reached for the door.

He stopped.

Linn drew his hand back, slowly, then turned.

Pale eyes looked into obsidian-black eyes and Linn nodded again.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically husky.

Barrents winked.

The door closed behind the Sheriff, leaving Barrents alone in the Sheriff’s inner office.

He turned and looked at the glass-plate print, looked at the pale eyed young woman glaring at the camera like she’d enjoy taking an ax to it.

Barrents never said a word to the still figure, but he nodded as if the two shared an understanding of some kind.

Linn paused long enough to sweep up the stack of cards Cindy had stacked on the corner of her desk.

Sympathy cards at his Mama’s death were still coming in, cards with a shocking variety of postmarks.

Cindy knew Linn was answering every last one of them with a personal note, hand written, and she’d gotten it from Linn’s wife that the man would sit at their kitchen table with a bottle of ink, a dip quill, and write by the light of a single beeswax taper.

Cindy bit her bottom lip at the mental image.

His mother – Willamina, who’d been Sheriff before him – had done the same when Barrents’ father, her chief deputy, died.

She watched the Sheriff’s backside retreat out the heavy glass doors; he hit the remote unlock on his Jeep, reached in to stack the cards on the passenger seat before getting in himself.

Like many men who’ve just lost part of themselves to death, Linn was restless: unlike most men, he knew what he needed to do, and so he saddled his Appaloosa gelding, loaded four sandwiches, a bag of jerky, a canteen of water and a thermos of coffee: so provisioned, and with a rifle in the scabbard, and his engraved revolvers at his belt in lieu of the Sheriff’s black-plastic Glock, he gave his Apple-horse a nudge and headed him generally east, across the back pasture.

The Lady Esther breathed easy on the down grade, coasting into the carefully-restored Carbon Hill depot.

It was carefully restored in that the depot platform was structurally sound, the dispatcher’s office had a tight roof and a working stove, and nobody was going to fall through the floor.

Beyond that, it was as warped, bleached, dusty and dead looking as the rest of the town.

Firelands, from its inception, was an exception.

The stereotype of a Western town is one of decay: boards dried with altitude, sun and time, warped and twisted and dirty, windows broken and buildings gutted, leaning, falling in on themselves.

Carbon Hill was like this, for real.

There were a few areas restored for the tourist trade, but it was nothing like the clean walks and bright, fresh paint that had been Firelands’ appearance since the Old Sheriff came into town, twenty years after That Damned War, and had remained clean and freshly painted ever since.

There were two mining engineers on the Tourism Committee, Linn knew, and they’d specified how the remaining Carbon Hill coal mine portal should be reinforced, and how far back the tourists could go in their ore cars, overhauled with seats instead of rock dust: there were lights on the sides of the cars, with batteries inside, big Caterpillar bulldozer batteries, as long as the bed of a pickup truck and strong enough to turn over a cold Diesel engine on a frosty morning, with more than enough reserve to power the lights and a built-in 110-volt inverter as necessary.

Linn cantered into town on his Appaloosa as the tourists discharged from the pin-striped red passenger car and milled about on the platform.

A little boy pointed: “Look, Mommy! A ghost!”

“That’s not a ghost,” his mother gently corrected him, and Linn could not help but smile a little as the lad protested “But this is a ghost town and ghosts live in a ghost town!”

I don’t doubt there are, Linn thought, smiling a little. Now, if I were a ghost, where would I hide?

Linn turned his horse and walked away from the cheerful young woman in a McKenna gown, giving them the tourist-guide lecture his Mama usually gave. After retirement, the former Sheriff became a driving force behind the tourist trade; she always wore a McKenna gown, she always appeared in character as a woman of about 1885, and her words wove a spell of fascination as she described Firelands, and what it was, and how it got there, and she’d come over to Carbon on the tourist train as well, in order to explain that dirty little coal-mining town, and how it contrasted with their clean, prosperous, brightly-painted Firelands.

Linn closed his eyes, his fists tightening until he felt two knuckles crack and his arm start to shiver.

“Hey mister!”

Linn opened his eyes and saw a dirty, grinning boy in a man’s shirt much too large for him, ragged overalls and a wore out pair of miner’s boots, squinting happily up at him.

The lad had a happy, little-boy grin, and a bottle of beer in each hand.

He extended one, and Linn leaned down, took it.

“Thank you, son,” he said gently, and the grinning boy flipped the wire bail back on his own, wiggled the cork – it popped audibly as it pushed free of the constricting bottle’s neck – and the lad tilted the bottle and drank with an obvious appetite.

Linn flipped the bail on his own and was rewarded with the cork’s noisy exit: he, too, took a long drink.

Part of his mind recognized that the tourists probably thought this a part of their tour, living models in a weathered tableau.

Frankly, he didn't care what they thought: he was a thirsty man, and the beer was good.

It was no beer he was really familiar with, and it was stronger – a porter, maybe, or even a stout – but he was dry, and the beer was cool and wet: man and boy both drank until each respective bottle was empty.

Linn leaned down and extended the empty to the boy.

“Thank you, son,” he said with grave courtesy. “I needed that.”

The lad belched loudly. “Me too!” he declared, then, taking the Sheriff’s empty, ducked under Apple’s nose and scampered across the street to what used to be a Mercantile.

He lifted a warped plank on the board walk, quickly stashed the two empties, dropped the board: he looked over his shoulder and the Sheriff saw his eyes change, as if he saw some danger.

The Sheriff turned Apple-horse, his hand on his revolver’s grip.

There was nothing there.

He turned back and the boy was gone.

Eyes narrowed, he walked Apple over to the boardwalk.

The dirt next to the boardwalk was undisturbed.

Frowning, Linn dismounted, ignoring the stares of the tourists.

He drew a line in the dirt with his boot toe.

Light, dusty, perfect for taking a track, he thought.

Why aren’t the boy’s prints here?

He hooked two fingers under the board, lifted.

There were several bottles beneath.

He frowned, looking right and left under the board walk.

Every bottle there was bone dry – every stopper was out and dangling and none showed the least trace of moisture – and every last bottle was thickly covered by dust.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Now that you've seen how she starts ...

I'm starting it as its own thread, with its own comments thread as well.

I now refer you to the thread titled CARBON.

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

Thank You Sir