THE SHERIFF'S BLOOD

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

71. BOOM

The Bear Killer tasted the wind, his eyes slitted, concentrating on what his nose could tell him.

Father and son, lawmen both, stood in shadow as the wagon was loaded: it was a freight wagon and it was heavy built and it was needed for this move, for the bank was being emptied, its contents to be moved to the Sheriff’s office.

They’d put word out that the bank’s contents would be moved to the stone Sheriff’s office and secured in back, in the jail cells, until the new Mosler safe door was installed and the stonework examined: if need be, the bank’s owners had decided, they would tear it down and rebuild it, for what people saw when they looked at the Firelands bank was pretty much the wood shell around the actual stone vault.

There had been attempts in the past to bust the bank, to rob it or to break into it, and there was some rumor of trying to tunnel into it, which proved unfounded, but added to the elderly owners’ concern.

The aging Aunt Beatrice and her husband still owned the bank, still ran the bank, and Beatrice was there every day to open it up and see to the count, to oversee the tellers and balance the books and tend the unending paperwork – and soothe restless depositors, interview loan applicants and when necessary, knock on doors if a payment was over-late.

Beatrice clucked and fussed like a settin’ hen as hard-muscled men trundled crates and kegs on two-wheel carts, as a tripod and block-and-tackle were used for the heavy lifting: gold was far from light, and they were safeguarding an unusually large amount of the shiny stuff.

There were other guards besides the two lawmen, shotgun guards from the stage, men from the railroad who rode the express car with double guns and hard eyes: most were either veterans of the military, or frontier fighters of one stripe or another.

They stood in the street, alert, listening, peering into the night.

Theirs were not the only eyes to penetrate the dark, or try to; where gold is concerned, men grow greedy, and while there was little chance of making off with a good prize while the gold slept in a stone vault behind a steel door, there just might be the opportunity to run in and make off with a whole freight wagon of the stuff.

Once the vault was empty – once the portly Aunt Beatrice marked off the last keg, the last crate, the last heavy canvas sack – only then was the team brought up, and men grew restless, gripping their long guns with sweaty palms, ready for a sudden rush, a shot from the darkness.

“Back, now, back, boys, back, back,” a man’s voice said quietly, then the clink of a steel pin dropping in place: “Ho, now, ho, boys. Okay, Dick!”

The man in the wagon’s seat lifted his reins, clucked to the heavy draft horses, flipped the reins gently: he was a man who cared for his horses, who treated his horses with respect, a man who preferred the company of horse flesh to humans.

Even he was restless, for as the man in the wagon’s seat, he would likely be the first one killed, should there be murderous attack in an attempt to take the gold.

The horses leaned into their collars and freshly-greased wagon wheels began to turn.

Linn’s pale eyes swung up the street, his nostrils flaring, as The Bear Killer raised his head and began to rumble deep in his chest.

There was a screech – men spun, guns up –

A furred-up ginger cat came streaking out of an alley, pursued by another, both with their ears laid back and tails bottle-brushed out.

There was laughter, men let out pent-up breath, fingers uncurled from around steel triggers.

The timber tripod was picked up and walked across the street, the two-shiv traveling block swinging under the three-shiv standing block hanging from its steel eye: three men stumbled a little, for it was awkward, top-heavy, but they managed, and they set it up in front of the Sheriff’s office, rolled the hand carts over as well, backed the freight wagon right up to the boardwalk, then ahead just enough to clear the offload.

The team was unhitched and led away. They would be put in the lower corral and guarded, in case robbers might seek to utilize the bank’s horses to haul off the bank’s gold.

Neither the Sheriff nor his son moved from their shadowed corners. Both men wore black for the occasion; both men moved nothing more than their eyes.

Within the Sheriff’s office, crates and kegs and canvas sacks were dollied and packed back the length of the stone hallway, distributed between four cells: one of Beatrice’s nieces noted the number on each crate, checked it off against her master list.

Each cell was locked, then the hallway door, and finally the pretty young teller and the hard-muscled men withdrew, the door was drawn shut.

Only then did Jacob emerge from his hide.

He turned his key in the lock, then discreetly thumped the door with the edge of his boot sole as he turned, checked his watch.

The team was brought back up, the wagon drawn away; father and son listened to it rumbling away in the night.

Jacob paced restlessly in the street just off the boardwalk, looking down either side of the stone Sheriff’s office as he came to them.

He knew his father was watching from the darkness.

An hour passed; another: the stars overhead wheeled majestically, circling the stationary Pole Star, dancing smoothly from one horizon to the other, whether men’s eyes beheld them or not: cats sang discordantly down by the livery, and not terribly far away, a yodel dog grieved to the stars, sounding both wild and doglike at the same time.

Two hours passed.

Linn emerged from his hide and walked across the dirt street.

“I think it’s safe now,” he murmured.

Jacob nodded, withdrew the key from his vest pocket, thrust it into the heavy door’s lock.

He twisted the key in the lock and a bullet smacked into the wood in front of his face.

Linn twisted, went to one knee, shotgun up and ready, tracking back and forth, seeking a target: Jacob shouldered hard against the door, and on his left, through a shadowed loophole, Caleb’s Sharps thrust suddenly out the stone firing port, spat a defiant tongue of fire into the darkness.

Linn shoved Jacob hard between the shoulders, stood with his back to the open door, shotgun up and ready: he backed slowly, one step, two, three, Jacob seized his father and pulled him hard to the side and shoved the door closed.

“Did you get him?” Linn asked, his voice low and tense, and as if in answer a voice started screaming outside, the wordless agonies of a man hard hit and only just getting wind enough to give voice to the terrible knowledge that he’d been hit hard, that he was going to die, and one damned thing could be done to save him.

“Yeah,” Caleb said hoarsely. “I got him.”

“Good.” Linn’s eyes were pale, hard.

“Reckon how many more are out there,” Jacob muttered.

“I don’t know,” Linn said, his grin more of a death’s-head grimace, “but I figure to find out.”

“What are you fixin’ to do, Grampa?”

Linn stood, his eyes pale: he fished two brass hulls out of the possibles slung diagonally across his lean body, held them between the two fingers of his off hand for a fast reload.

“I’m a-gonna go find out!”

 

Beatrice closed the bank’s front door, carefully turned the key in the lock, not that it was necessary – every last cent was out of her bank, and she imagined it felt empty: she locked the door more out of habit than anything else, she turned, adjusted her shawl and looked across the street just as the first shot shocked the night’s stillness.

She saw father and son shove through the doorway, she saw the bloom of fire as the heavy Sharps spoke, its distinct, low pitched BOOOOM shivering the very air itself.

“Oh, my,” she whispered, blinking, and she heard running footsteps coming up beside the bank, up the alley, and she pulled her nickle plated Owl Head in her gloved hand, pulled it free, raised it as the runner skidded to a stop, knelt, then squat-walked up beside the horse trough, rifle trained on the Sheriff’s office door.

Shadows moved in front of the Sheriff’s office and the man behind the horse trough raised, fired, fired again.

Beatrice pointed the gleaming hammerless and hauled back on the trigger.

She hadn’t fired the gun for some years now and its sudden flash and BLAP startled her, but only a little: she fired again, and across the street, a double gun’s twin booms was followed with the sharp slap of heavy shot against the front of the building, a few of the pellets smacking the front of the bank, and two of them riccocheting hard enough from the seasoned wood to sting her through her corset.

The figure behind the watering trough bleated, fell over, dropping his rifle: another gunshot from further down the street, and Beatrice turned quickly as a bandanna with a face behind it swung a fist at her face.

She got off one shot before the world exploded in brightness and pain.

 

Linn’s eyes were dead pale and his teeth were set, he sprinted across the street, Jacob angling in the opposite direction: his father headed for the bank, Jacob, for the new library on the uphill corner from the Silver Jewel.

He raised the double gun and fired after Beatrice fell safely away from his intended target.

He saw the dirty yellow flame that meant the shot was already past him: he thrust the double gun out ahead of him and the right-hand barrel spat defiance and lead, and the shadow that just clobbered the bank’s owner fell back a-sprawl, arms and legs awkward and uncontrolled in the washed-out silhouette of moonlight against the bleached-timber building’s face.

Linn broke open the double gun, plucked out the fired hull, let it drop: he tunked in one of the two rounds from his left hand’s ready, closed the action, brought the right hand hammer back to full stand.

Three quick shots – bang-bang, bang – then a deep BOOOOOM again, this from the loophole in front of the Sheriff’s office – Linn gathered a lungful and yelled, “JACOB!”

As if in reply, Linn heard the BOOOM BOOOM of a double gun giving both barrels, then sounds of a struggle, a blow, the sharper bark of a revolver.

I’m not about to run into the front end of a gunfight, Linn thought.

Like as not if anyone’s left they’ll be around back.

To think was to move: the lean lawman with the iron-grey mustache sprinted down the alley.

A bell-shaped shadow stepped out in front of him, arm upraised, but pointing to his right: Aunt Beatrice fired twice more from her nickle plated Owl Head, and Linn was moving too fast to stop: he knocked her arm aside, whipped up his Damascus barrel double gun in time to see one figure collapse, another one turn a horse between him and the Sheriff’s shoulder fired artillery: he climbed into the saddle, kicked the horse hard in the ribs and inherited most of an ounce of swan shot for his trouble.

The shot lifted him from the saddle, startled the horse: the nag shied, ran about ten yards, stopped.

A figure hung by the ankle from the right hand stirrup.

Linn stood on the balls of his feet, mouth open, breathing silent, breathing deep: he opened the shotgun, reloaded the right hand barrel again, closed the gun.

He paced forward, wound up like an eight day clock.

“JACOB!”

“Here, sir!” came the call. “I’m not hurt. Two down here.”

The two lawmen made a fast sweep, turned and strode down the alley toward the main street.

They just got to the mouth of the alley, just got to where they could see the front of the Sheriff’s office, when they saw the door open and Caleb dove out, hit the boardwalk, rolled, dropped over the edge and lay there in the shadow.

Behind him there was a sudden flash of dirty-yellow light and the concussion of a charge of blasting powder and every window in the place was blown to dust.

 

Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller looked up from the yellowed, fragile papers on the hospital’s bedside table she was working on.

She had folders, documents, photographs arranged on the hospital bed; she sat on the side of the bed, The Bear Killer curled up at her feet, and she noticed her hands trembling a little as the account she read took on a frightening reality.

She felt her pulse pick up, she realized she was breathing quickly: she swallowed and realized her throat was dry, and she had this awful sick feeling she’d only gotten when she’d lost people as a military commander, or when she came very close to losing one of her people when she was still Sheriff.

Willamina closed her eyes and took a long, shivering breath, then opened her eyes and continued reading.

 

Linn grabbed Jacob, yanked him over into the shrinking, triangular shadow: both men flattened themselves against the dirty clapboard siding, watched.

Caleb lay still in the shadow of the boardwalk.

A voice: “We got it! We got him! Doss, git over here, we got the gold!”

“Doss is dead,” came the reply, “but he kilt them lawmen!”

“Let’s git what we kin afore anyone else shows up!”

Two figures ran down the board walk – one from the left, one from the right, both disappeared into the Sheriff’s office.

Linn made a flat-palmed gesture to Jacob – Stay here – and sprinted straight across the street, squatted beside a rain barrel, then quickly down the street beside the board walk, where he could move silently, without the dried, warped boards’ drumbeat announcing his travel.

He squatted, laid a hand on the shadow Jacob knew to be his son.

There appeared to be a conversation: the shadow rolled over, came up on all fours, then stood: the Sheriff handed his grandson the double gun and the canvas sack of shotshells, and the two split, each going down the opposite side of the stone Sheriff’s office.

Jacob’s lips peeled back from his teeth.

He knew what his father was up to, and the result would be neither tidy, nor would it be kindly, but it would be very effective.

He waited patiently for about a year and a half, which would have added up to less than ninety seconds.

There was another explosion, deep in the jail end of the stone building.

Residual smoke from the blasting-powder explosion squirted out the holes that used to be windows: one of them made a huge, wobbling, bluish doughnut that shivered its way most of the way across the street before dissipating.

Jacob crossed the street as his son came down the alley, and both waited for the Old Sheriff to come sauntering out his alleyway.

He gripped his grandson’s shoulder.

“Caleb,” he said quietly, his expression serious, “I rejoice that you are unhurt.”

“Sir,” Caleb replied, feeling far less steady than his voice sounded, “when I saw that bundle of powder sticks come though that window and two fuses all a-sparkle I knew it was gettin’ kind of unhealthy in there.”

The Sheriff nodded slowly.

“You could say that.”

“Sir, do you reckon anyone’s left?”

Linn turned, curled his lip, whistled.

The Bear Killer flowed out of a shadow, padded silently across the street, bristling.

“Bear Killer,” he said, “find ‘em.”

The Bear Killer snarled and began coursing, running up one alley, down another, hunting: not until he’d crisscrossed and double-run everything did he come back to the Old Sheriff and set down beside him.

“I reckon,” Linn said slowly, “there’s nothing more. Jacob?”

Jacob put two fingers to his lips, whistled: three long, shrill, sweet notes.

Only then did doors open and the populace emerge, and every man Jack of them armed.

Beatrice, too, came across the street, moving slowly like she did these days: when she was young, she moved with a brisk step, but these days her pace was anything but swift.

“Sheriff,” she said sadly, “I can’t quite find my pistol.”

“Where’d you have it last?” Linn asked, puzzled.

Beatrice smiled a little, her knuckles on her ample beltline.

“You knocked it out of my hand when you ran into me, don’t you remember?”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

72. REAP WHAT YOU’VE SOWN

Willamina cupped her hands around the heavy ceramic mug, closed her eyes, inhaled the steam off her Earl Grey.

She’d had visitors already that morning – one, her doctor, and another, not twenty minutes later, an old friend from the local paramedic squad: she submitted patiently to being auscultated, percussed, assessed, interrogated, and finally – it may not have been in the US Pharmacopoea as a prescription drug, but it was therapeutic nonetheless – she shared a careful but enveloping hug from her balding, good-natured doctor, and an anxious gripping of her hands by the curly-haired, broad-shouldered Scandanavian woman she knew as Big Linda.

She’d had a week to heal – that is, a week since her discharge from hospital, which took a little, because they had to re-inflate her collapsed lung, they had to make sure it was healed well enough to not spontaneously collapse; they monitored for infection, of course, having had a penetrating injury, with the potential for contamination deep into her thoracic cavity: she submitted with varying degrees of patience, and occasional impatience, to their medical ministrations, but she made no secret of her feeling of relief at being discharged to home.

There was considerable debate among her inner circle, just how she was to be returned to her own hacienda: one of the fellows on the fire department’s paramedic squad was also an old car collector, and he had an absolutely immaculate, gorgeous, meticulously restored, high-top Miller-Meteor Cadillac ambulance, and he offered this as her ride from the hospital to home: various of her department were more than willing to bring her restored carriage and bring her home with a two-horsepower Oatsmobile – the wives of these conspirators were happily planning on dressing the Sheriff for the part, until someone realized that perhaps a corset would not be a good choice on that recent chest wound – the offer of a restored late-Korean-war-era Jeep was rejected, owing to its stiff ride (though Willamina would likely have wanted it!) – but unbeknownst to them, Willamina quietly arranged to have Firelands’ only Checker cab pick her up, and take her home, discreetly and utterly without fanfare, until the unusually quiet driver placed her bags inside her door and turned to her with a serious expression, and thanked the Sheriff for saving his daughter’s life.

Willamina gripped the man’s hands and said quietly she knew what it was to lose a husband and a son, that no parent should bury a child, and she was damned if she was going to let that happen to him, and she felt her eyes sting a little as he swallowed hard and nodded, and released her hands and went down the steps to his aging hack.

Willamina spent the next week doing a whole lot of not much at all.

Between friends, neighbors, acquaintances, hired help, in-laws and outlaws, there were plenty of willing hands: the football team was a regular fixture, laughing and cutting up, but more than willing to haul hay, feed livestock, muck out the stalls and exercise her saddle stock; Knothead refused to allow a saddle, but the boys found to their delight Knothead would play: one of them would take out running, Knothead running with him: at the end of the corral he’d tag-team a teammate, who would run the opposite direction, Knothead pacing with him, head bobbing and watching the runner: another hand-smack, another tag, a fresh runner, and teammates and paint gelding played together as pale eyes watched, amused, from the living room window overlooking.

The Sheriff was out at least once a day, generally with something baked, stewed, slow-cookered or otherwise prepared by his wife: he grinned as he too watched the football team swarm the barn like happy locusts, slinging manure onto the steaming pile behind the barn, yelling “Gardy-loo!” before pitching a bale into the pasture, and laughing like the healthy young men they were.

Linn didn’t have to ask why the football team took their particular interest in this “Cool Little Old Lady.”

He well remembered how Willamina, even after retirement, would run with them.

The football team’s road route went right past her house, and she’d have a tray of cookies, bottles of athletic drink and water, and she’d be standing there, waiting for them: they were in shorts and T-shirts and sneakers, and she was in full BDUs and boots with a field pack and rifle: most of them would grab a bottle of something wet, and one cookie – “Just one, fellas,” she admonished them, “don’t make me smack your hand!” – which always got a quiet chuckle from them, but they never tried to snag a second – they learned to take a sip, maybe two, but no more; Willamina would look at them, remembering, then she’d square her shoulders and yell “FALL IN!”

The loose, laughing, sparring bunch of boys would suddenly form ranks.

“DRESS FRONT! DRESS RIGHT, DRESS!”

Arms up, arms down, distance set.

“DETAIL! DOUBLE TIME, GO!”

The Firelands High School football team would take out, running to build their endurance, and a retired Sheriff ran with them, keeping pace as she always did: she was the Tail End Charlie, as a runner would sag or tire and drop back, she’d run with them, sometimes ran an arm around their waist and encouraged them to keep up: sometimes she’d grab and arm and run it over her shoulders if the runner was having trouble.

The entire football team delighted in this pale-eyed and surprisingly grandmotherly sort who ran right with them, who raised hell with them when it was needed, who delivered a sharp swat across the backside and threatened to boot their butt if they didn’t get it in gear and RUN, this surprising soul with short hair who taught them a variety of deliciously obscene running cadences, which they sang with gusto and glee (but only as long as they were out of earshot of anyone else!) – Willamina attended their football games, yelled encouragement, waited with the bench warmers: she never presumed to penetrate the male sanctum of their locker room and she never presumed to coach them or to advise them, but when one came off the field with a broken leg, she was with the medics, she held traction while the splint was prepared, hers were the quiet words of encouragement as a young man tried hard not to let pain push salt water out the corners of his eyes as he lay on the stretcher, ready to be hoist into the back of the ambulance.

These were the young warriors who left their shoes on her front porch and came in to run her sweeper, these were the stout yeomen who puzzled in front of her washing machine and asked if it was really necessary to separate out colors, these were the young men Willamina quietly taught that yes, wash colors with cold water and no, don’t tumble dry an all-cotton blouse, yes you need to add salt when you boil potatoes, it raises the water’s boiling point: retired Sheriff became teacher to these young men, a teacher they respected greatly, because when they ran in shorts and sneakers, she ran in full field pack and boots, and when one of their number was feeling his testosterone and challenged her place among them, she’d thrown him to the ground with a fast, unexpected move, planted her polished boot on his throat and asked with very pale eyes and a very quiet voice, “Would you like to try that again?”

In short, she’d earned their respect, and in short, every last one of them respected her.

Her windows were washed, sills dusted, rugs hung out and beaten; the work may not have been done with the greatest of efficiency, as a matter of fact Willamina could have done it more quickly with less effort, had she been healed, but she realized, as she watched this happy band of young hell-raisers thanking her – not in words, but in deeds – that the Parson was right when he spoke in church not many weeks before.

Willamina was indeed reaping what she’d sown, and the harvest was good.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

73. "YOU CONNIVER!"

Pale eyes regarded the hand written page with a combination of fascination, concentration, dismay and admiration, and a mouth just started to smile, a little, turning up slightly at the corners.

A mug of tea steamed, forgotten, adding its fragrance to the atmosphere as the scene played itself out, in full color, on the living stage of the reader's mind.

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller went in alone.

The second explosion ended whatever efforts there had been to seize the bank's assets from his jail.

Crates, kegs, barrels and bags, all were dollied in, placed, stacked, inventoried: that sweet young thing with her schoolmarm spectacles and an inventory page had satisfied herself everything removed from the bank, was now in the jail; each container was examined, found to be intact: Beatrice took her responsibility seriously, as did her lovely adjutant, and once the entire inventory was accounted for, the barred doors had been locked, a shotgun guard left within the stone embrasure, workmen and working-tools withdrew and the watchers saw the suddenly-unlocked door fly open, the young lawman dive for the street, roll up against the boardwalk, then the bundle of powder sticks detonated and blew the few glass windows to shining, glittering dust.

He unlocked the last cell's door, pulled.

The door pulled free of its hinges, dropped a few inches, hit the floor: he grunted, dragged it to the side, leaned it up against the next cell, looked at the mess inside the cell.

There was a hole -- not terribly big, but big enough for a man to weasel through -- there was a spray of red against the stone ceiling, there was a lump of what looked like raw meat inside a blanket coat.

What used to be a hat had been blown against the front bars and was hanging there.

Jacob nodded.

His father was not a trusting man, he knew, and his father had considered the possibility of an attempt on the bank's treasure.

There was a grunt, the sound of cloth on stone, his father's voice, swearing quietly: "Damn him, couldn't he have blown a decent size hole to get through!"

Jacob looked at his father, stripped down to his vest, squirming through the hole blown in the side wall.

"Sir, are you stuck?"

Linn twisted, planted gloved hands on the floor: another push, another profanity and his hips popped free and he landed in an awkward face-down on the gritty deck, only just managing to take the impact on his chest and not his chin.

"Dynamite," he declared, pushing up from the remains on the floor, both shattered stone and fractured flesh: "he worked fast, he used dynamite and set three sand bags against it!"

"I'll find where they were hid," Jacob offered.

"Back porch behind me. Had 'em stacked in shadow where they'd be handy to grab but out of sight."

"Yes, sir."

"Blew the bags to hell, sand sprayed all over hell and breakfast, the neck of the bags where they're gathered" -- the Grand Old Man was on his feet now, his hands busy pantomining gathering and tying as if whipping a piggin string around a cloth bag's neck -- "all that was left was the necks where they were tied."

"Yes, sir."

Jacob looked at a blown-open crate, frowned, looked at his father.

His father looked up at his son and grinned crookedly.

"You suspected this would happen."

"I did."

"The bank's gold is not here."

"Nope."

"It is safe?"

"Every centavo." The Sheriff kicked what looked like a bloody sack of meat. "Digger won't much like this, will he?"

"I'll tell him to wear gloves."

"Tell him to bring a scraper, he'll need it."

"Yes, sir."

"Probably bury this one in a bushel basket."

"Maybe two baskets, yes, sir."

Jacob eyed his father coolly as the old retired lawman with the iron grey mustache brushed sand and dirt off his front.

"Sir, just what did you do when you ran back here?"

Linn looked up, grinned wickedly.

"When I saw that fellow weasel into that hole, I saw he'd forgot a few sticks of dynamite. Figured he might want 'em to make a bigger hole so I tossed 'em in to him."

"I take it, sir, you did light the fuse first."

"Of course I did," Linn said innocently, pale eyes wide: "it was the least I could do, save the poor fellow some work!"

Jacob laughed. "Yes, sir." He bent down, picked up a lead brick, straightened.

"Sir," he said admiringly, "you are a conniver!"

Linn laughed, thumped his son on the shoulder.

"Yes I am!" he declared happily. "Now let's set a guard on that outside hole and hide this ballast. We don't want the world to know anything but that the bank's assets are safe and let 'em think they're still here!"

"And Digger?"

"I can keep him quiet, fear not!"

 

Willamina smiled as she read this century-and-more-old account of father and son, and how Linn showed Jacob the next day the place where he and Beatrice had carefully taken the bank's assets over the course of a week.

She blinked pale eyes, reached for her mug of Earl Grey, took a sip, nodded.

"Jacob was right," she whispered. "You, sir, are a conniver!"

Her eyes stung a little as she re-read the account, then she pulled the last sheet from the stack and read it.

It was a confession, written by Sheriff Jacob Keller.

What you have just read never happened.

My father is long dead.

There was an attempt on the bank's assets but my son and I stopped it without a shot fired.

I dreamed that night and I dreamed of the Grand Old Man, and I imagined this is how it might have happened.

When he grunted and swore his way through that hole blown in the back of the jail, it was real enough I was ready to swear it was indeed real.

Beatrice and I discussed just this subterfuge but decided the jail was secure enough.

We did find dynamite at the rear of the jail and I supposed an attempt was going to be made.

The sandbags were under that porch my father spoke of in the dream.

Caleb and I prevented the attempt.

It never even made the local paper.

I must ask myself, why then have I written this?

My son, I write this for you, that you and your sons may know better of your old Granddad.

He was a plan-ahead and he was a conniver and he and I discussed this very thing, years before.

Willamina looked up and bit her bottom lip, her eyes stinging.

She nodded.

"I miss my Papa too," she whispered.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

74. STAMPEDE!

Sheriff Jacob Keller yawned.

The Sheriff didn't just yawn.

He stretched his long, rangy arms out, twisting his fists as he did, he stretched his legs out until boot leather bore hard against the under side of his solid built desk, his back arched and his jaw gaped and wind sighed in and out of his mountain-bred lungs like a young hurricane.

It didn't help.

He rubbed his face, bent forward, twisted a little.

His Pa's back would have popped and crunched a half dozen times by this, but his was silent -- fortunately, it didn't ache like his old man's used to: his Pa was born with a sway back, and he could not stand for terribly long without it giving him billy Hell, which led to misunderstandings when he had to stand sentry duty, or stand at attention for prolonged periods, back during that damned War.

I reckon I've done enough damage for one day, he thought.

Likely Annette will have supper waitin', bless her.

Jacob stood, reached for his Stetson, smiled as he thought of his patient and long-suffering wife.

He adjusted his coat, unbuttoned it, swept it back and adjusted the engraved Colts in carved leather, brought his coat together in front without fasting it up.

He reached for the front door, opened it a little, listened, pale eyes busy: he brought it open, stepped out onto the boardwalk, drew it quietly shut behind him.

The key turned easily in the oiled lock, silently shooting the heavy steel bolt into its socket.

Jacob slipped the key back into his vest pocket, considered the evening's quiet on the Firelands street.

The Silver Jewel glowed, inviting, piano music and men's laughter from within; a half dozen horses were tethered along the street: up hill, the Mercantile was being swept out after a day's business; down hill, he knew, the Irish Brigade would be tending their own evening meal in their fine stone firehouse.

Jacob considered for a moment that there was discussion at last town council meeting of getting a horseless fire engine.

The idea was briskly debated, discussed with considerable vigor, but in the end, all decided to stick with what they had: as one fellow offered, "What we've got, works just fine. Why fix what ain't broke?"

 

Caleb Keller, his face serious, pressed the folded cloth pad against the man's shin.

He'd made a bad swing with his ax, the blade clove in beside the shin bone: the wound hurt like hell, looked worse, bled like a stuck pig: Caleb got the bleeding stopped but allowed as the fellow had ought to go pay Doc a visit, and the fellow's eyes rolled back in his head and he kind of slud down to the ground from where he'd been settin' with his back to a fresh stump.

Caleb was young and Caleb was strong and Caleb ran an arm under the man's shoulder blades and another under his knees, and Caleb whistled for his Appaloosa stallion and grunted as he straightened with this considerable weight in his arms.

The man was just all he wanted to pick up and he wasn't sure how he was going to get him ahorse, but he was going to try.

 

Mr. Baxter -- that's what everyone called him, that was not his name but it did not matter: the man cared little for his given Christian name, and cared even less for careless and thoughtless deeds that stained the name he'd been given at birth: here he was Mr. Baxter, here he tended bar, and that suited him -- Mr. Baxter pushed open the heavy door, swinging it wide while he broomed the excess out onto the boardwalk, and then stepped out to donate the sweepin's to the general detritus that made up the street itself.

Cigar butts, sawdust, peanut shells, all were returned to Mother Nature from whence they came, all were trampled into the dirt or into the mud, depending on the season, to join smoking pails of ashes, both wood and tobacco, along with wooden bucketsful of mop water, stale coffee on occasion, and sometimes a misbehaving patron was pitched out the doors, to add his own unique flavor to the landscape, at least until the injured party got up and either staggered off, or went back inside for another dose of education.

Mr. Baxter industriously, fastidiously, swept the boardwalk, not just in front of the door, but from its terminus not far to his right, where it ended in four or five steps, then the other way, until he personally cleaned off the warped boards the entire length of the Silver Jewel's freshly painted front, and in front of the town's library as well.

He looked back along the floor of his labors and nodded with satisfaction, then he looked across the street, raised his hand in greeting to the Sheriff.

The pale-eyed Sheriff waved back.

 

"This ain't gonna work," Caleb muttered and laid the dead weight down against a handy log.

His mount did not particularly like the smell of blood and shied as the slender deputy reached for the trailing reins.

"Hold," Caleb said, warning in his voice, and his Apple-horse froze, the slashing tail betraying the state of his unhappiness.

Caleb swung easily astraddle of his good SD Meyres saddle, absolutely the very best money could buy, and trotted his stallion toward the injured man's nag.

It didn't take much to catch the horse; it took even less to bring the horse back to where the pasty-faced invalid lay unmoving against the log.

Caleb tethered both horses, making multiple wraps before throwing a slip knot in the reins: "Now you two just stand there," he muttered, squatting beside the bloody-legged man, frowning at the steady seep from under his tight-tied bandage pad.

He managed to get the man up, staggered over to his gelding, and though it took about four grunting boosts, he managed to get him face down on the horse.

"Now how in the hell am I gonna keep you on there?" he muttered. "Hell, I'll tie your ankles under ... no, hell, you could fall off and the horse would kick you to death."

He pulled the man off, realizing he was draining his own strength and not benefitting this fellow's condition a bit.

"All right," he finally said, "I'll use my blanket roll to make a travois."

"No time," a voice said, and Caleb came about a foot off the ground.

A woman's voice laughed -- it was a pleasant laugh, and Caleb turned and saw a woman in a red flannel shirt and black vest regarding him with an amused expression.

"Throw him belly down across his saddle, I'll ride one side and you ride the other. We'll steady him but we'll have to move fast."

Caleb considered for a moment: his young man's pride reared up, offended, and he mentally seized his youthful pride by the scruff of the neck and tossed it vigorously aside, choosing instead to quite his pale eyed father.

"Ma'am," he said, "like the old preacher said, all donations cheerfully accepted."

"I'll help you get him on board."

Her words were not oddly accented, he realized, just ... differently accented.

She swung easily to the ground, grimaced as she did, and Caleb saw her right arm was held stiff against her ribs like she'd been hurt.

She didn't offer and he didn't ask, but he did make note of it, for his Pa taught him a lawman will notice such things, and he practiced noticing.

Like practicing shooting, or throwing a hatchet, or singing, the more a man practiced the better he got in most cases, and Caleb practiced noticing things about people.

She squatted; they gripped, hoisted, they boosted the limp man across his saddle.

The woman got a line around the man's middle and secured him down to his saddle.

"You've done this before," Caleb observed.

She looked at him and smiled a little, and for the first time, Caleb noticed she had pale eyes ... ice-pale eyes, and his own swung to the horse she'd ridden up on.

It was big, it was gold and it looked just awful familiar.

"You might recognize the brand," the woman said as she swung aboard, swinging the golden Palomino Paso's hinder so he could see.

He looked at her suspiciously, then set his suspicions aside.

They had a man to transport.

Caleb reached for his Apple-horse's rein, for the tag end he'd just have to pull to bring it free, and his stallion muttered and danced a little and pulled hard, swinging the tethering tree branch dangerously in the process.

"Hold still," he said, his voice cold as he jerked the reins free: he thrust a polished boot into the doghouse stirrup, dropped his backside into saddle leather, and his Apple-horse shied away from the bloodied man adjacent.

"Hold still," Caleb hissed as the pale eyed woman took the gelding's reins.

His Apple-horse reared, hard, unexpected: Caleb, for one of the few times in his life, hit the ground flat on his back, knocking the wind out of him and stoking the boilers of his ancestral temper.

The pale-eyed woman soothed the restless gelding with quiet voice and a stroking palm, her own mount looking as excited as a pile of lard melting in the sun.

"Apple," Caleb grated, "stop that!"

The woman's voice was sharp. "Hey!" she snapped. "It's all yours, cowboy!" -- she dropped the gelding's reins, whirled, heeled the big Palomino into a gallop ... an odd gallop.

That's Grampa's horse, Caleb thought. Dammit, she's a horse thief, that's his brand!

The thought was dismissed as quickly as he'd been: his hands were full, as his Apple-horse wanted absolutely no part of this hot, fresh blood he was smelling: his eyes walled, he shook his head, danced sideways, then began to spin and buck in earnest.

Caleb hung on.

Apple-horse hit the ground stiff-legged, jarring Caleb's spine clear up to his scalp, then the Appaloosa swapped ends and dropped his head between his forelegs, launching his hind into the air: Caleb let himself fire out of the saddle -- he'd done this before -- the reins were wrapped around his wrist and his grip was like a double spring Newhouse trap on the leather traces and he landed on his feet, pulled hard, then a stride and a swing and he was back in saddle leather.

Part of his mind realized he would never, ever be so unkind to a horse's mouth if it had a bit; the rest of him wanted to haul that damned nag's head back to his knee so he could reach down and drive his fist between its ears!

Horse and rider both paused and looked up, each as surprised as the other: Caleb recovered first, heeled Apple-horse to the side, seized the gelding's dragging reins.

He didn't have to haul the stallion's head around.

It wasn't necessary.

A screaming, whistling, lariat-waving maniac with pale eyes and a red flannel shirt came over the rise at the top of her lungs, the golden stallion pounding under her, and behind and spreading out on either side, a herd of horses, a mixed lot: Caleb's quick eye recognized a half dozen varieties and as many colors, but none of that mattered.

They were coming straight at him and they were coming fast.

Apple-horse gathered himself and launched into a gallop, hitting full stride in three feet or less, and the gelding was right with him: the herd came around them, a living river, a horizontal waterfall of hide and hoof and laid-back ears.

Horses are herd animals and the instinct of stallion and gelding alike was to run with the herd, and run they did, side by side, just as hard as they could go.

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller looked up just as Mr. Baxter turned and looked up the street.

Both men looked uphill, past the Mercantile and the library.

Hooves, Jacob thought.

Plenty of 'em and coming fast!

He pulled the key from his vest pocket, thrust it in the lock, twisted it viciously, shoved hard at the door.

He snatched up his .40-60, knowing it was magazine and chamber loaded, laid his thumb on the half-cocked hammer, stepped back out onto the boardwalk.

Whatever was coming wasn't anywhere near usual, and whatever it was, he intended to be ready.

 

Apple-horse had been bred on the Macneil ranch and carried a percentage of the same blood that coursed under the golden stallion's hide.

The woman rode not so much like an experienced rider, as much as part of the horse itself, and Caleb thought fleetingly that it was no wonder the Conquistadores were not seen as men on horses, but rather as a unique, discrete creature.

The woman's Stetson was fallen back on its storm strap and Caleb was shocked at how short her hair was -- intentionally styled, he realized, but ... but women didn't wear their hair short!

The woman's face betrayed a savage joy, and she screamed again, no so much the single note of a woman in distress as much as the chopping, jaw-bouncing war-scream of the Cherokee, back East, and something cold trickled down Caleb's spine.

He'd heard that same war-scream once before, and only once ... when his pale-eyed old Granddad charged in amongst a group of men with full intent to commit war upon as many of them as possible, before they did the same to him.

They flowed like a river of horseflesh over the rise and down the main street, funneling like kerosene into a jug, the woman leading the way unerringly toward their fine stone hospital.

Caleb saw in passing that his father was staring, as was the barkeep, but he was too busy aiming his stallion like a hooved missile to do anything about his observation.

They drew up in front of the hospital, the herd slowing with them, as if knowing this was their reason for travel: the herd stopped, blowing, milling, restless, some of them dancing a little like Apple-horse.

The woman leaned over, brought the knot loose with a twist and a pull: Caleb reached up, pulled the groaning man into him, getting him over one shoulder.

He staggered a little under the weight, but he made his way to the front door, reached up, pulled at the bell rope.

Sheriff Jacob Keller openly stared at the big golden stallion, at the brand, then at the woman.

"You're not Sarah," he said suspiciously.

"No," she smiled. "No, I'm a little older than Sarah was."

"I can see that," Jacob replied slowly. "That's my father's brand."

"I know," she said, tilting her head a little and openly studying him. "I registered it in my name."

"Ma'am," Jacob said with a feeling of unease, "just who the hell are you?"

The woman looked around, the way someone will when things look almost familiar.

"It's so different," she murmured, then turned in her saddle to look back across the street.

Jacob turned, too, saw she was looking at the Sheriff's office.

He looked back and she nodded, smiling broadly.

"Let's just say I'm blood," she replied, then whistled sharply, turned the stallion, whistled again.

The entire herd turned with her and she set a brisk trot back up the street, the entire herd with her.

Mr. Baxter came slowly up beside the Sheriff, broom still in hand.

"Sheriff," he said, "who was she?"

Jacob was still staring as the last of the horses' hinders disappeared up past the Mercantile.

"Mr. Baxter," he replied, "she said she was blood and I reckon she was, but I will be sawed off and damned if I know!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

75. "YOU ARE AS STUBBORN AS YOUR GRANDFATHER!"

Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller was still a commissioned deputy.

Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller was still, in her own mind, effective.

Hadn't she talked a combative drunk out of tearing up the beer joint, hadn't she taken a young troublemaker in a cuffing armlock, hadn't she delivered a baby when a panicked father made a wrong turn, ended up at the schoolhouse instead of the hospital, and the stork landed on the roof of his worse-for-wear Chevrolet station wagon and started walking back and forth on the roof, looking for a way in?

(That one made the papers, by the way: Willamina and her big Corazon-horse, the mother holding the bundled child and the embarrassed looking father, a group photo at one week old.)

Willamina now sat in the conference room at the Sheriff's office, seated with the other troops: her son, Sheriff Linn Keller, was at the head of the table with the easel, the county map and the whiteboard; the Firelands police chief and his Captain were there, as were two State Troopers.

Sheriff Linn Keller had given out the night's assignments -- the plan was to station most of the effectives on the road, prominently sitting and obviously watching, in an attempt to squeeze the drinking drivers off the New Year's Eve roadways: they would be responsive, of course, for the inevitable unpleasantnesses that came with the evening's celebration.

Willamina waited until the assignments were made, then raised her hand.

Linn nodded to his mother.

"You haven't assigned me," she said quietly. "Am I going to be useful, or would you rather I took my binoculars and went out to search the Western horizon for a comet?"

Heads turned, eyebrows raised; deputies, both regulars and the extras pulled in for the night's expected heavy demand, looked at one another, mentally speculating on how this would play out.

"In light of your recent recovery," Linn said carefully, "it was thought wise to have you assisting Dispatch. We do anticipate a heavy call load."

"Baloney." Her voice was flat, her eyes half-lidded and pale. "You need me out there same as always."

"I need you alive."

"I am not bone china, I won't break."

"You get thrown, someone hits you with a car, you break a hip, you're in a nursing home, you get pneumonia and die --"

Willamina stood abruptly, the chair falling over behind her: her fists were clenched, trembling, her arms stiff at her side.

"Do you think me so incompetent?" she hissed.

"That's the last thing I'd say about you --"

"I can still out-ride, out-shoot, out-swear and out-persuade anyone here," Willamina declared, her face darkening and her voice increasing in volume. "I have more experience behind the badge than any two of you here, more than most any three!"

"Yes, Mama, that is not in dispute --"

Willamina walked slowly, stiffly, around the table, her boot heels loud on the polished stone floor: her tread was measured and it was clear she was far less than happy.

"Dispatch?" she hissed, her eyes narrowed. "Dispatch? Are you telling Cindy she can't handle dispatch?"

"No, Mama, I am trying to look out for you --"

He stopped, realizing he'd just said absolutely the wrong thing.

His pale-eyed mother, his deputy, the retired Sheriff, walked up to him, stood in front of him, glared up at him: he was a full head taller than she, and she gave the impression of a woodcutter ready to hew down a towering forest giant.

"I can still turn you over my knee," she said menacingly.

Linn looked at her solemnly, his bottom jaw thrusting slowly forward, then he nodded and said quietly, "Deputy Keller, you are assigned Dispatch tonight. You will assist the duty dispatcher in whatever becomes necessary."

"Sheriff Keller," Willamina said, her voice tight.

"Yes, Deputy Keller?"

"Sheriff Keller, you are as hard headed and contrary a man as your old Grandfather, and he was known for being a hard-headed man!"

Linn grinned broadly. "Why thank'ee kindly," he said in a bad imitation of an old man's quavery voice, and mother and son both gave up their pretense, and laughed, and Willamina jumped up a little as they each wrapped their arms around one another and laughed.

Linn picked her up off the floor, embracing her fiercely, protectively, feeling the strength of her own fierce embrace.

"Don't ever change, Mama," he whispered. "Don't ever change."

"You neither, you hard headed old lawman," she whispered back. "Now put me down before you hurt your back!"

"Yes, ma'am." Linn bent and carefully set Willamina back down.

She patted his chest, the way a little old lady will, and smiled gently, affectionately.

"You know I can still turn you over my knee and fan your little biscuits," she scolded gently.

Linn threw his head back and laughed, his hands on her shoulders. "Catch me first!"

And so New Year's Eve in Firelands started with a good laugh, there at the Sheriff's Office, and lawmen from the multiple jurisdictions represented looked at one another and grinned, for they too had an affection for the retired Sheriff.

Even if she did threaten to spank her little boy in public.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

76. “MAYBE I AM INSANE!”

Willamina’s fingers had eyes in the dark.

Her eyes were very pale, her nostrils flared a little as she breathed.

She gave the impression of being very controlled, very disciplined, very … deadly.

When she rose, in fatigues and a tan T-shirt, with her Marine Corps field cap pulled down and shading her eyes, she moved with all the controlled grace of the great cats, with all the deadly potential of lean muscle rippling under a tawny hide.

Her hands closed slowly, opened: she never formed fists, not really, but her hands never opened fully, either … it was as if she were anticipating grappling an enemy, or perhaps taking someone by the throat.

Her tread was silent, measured: she opened the stairway door, stepped into the narrow passageway and closed it behind her: The Bear Killer pushed past her, happily thundering down the heavy, broad, deep stairsteps, into the stone vaulted tunnel that came out in the barn’s under-structure.

Willamina’s jaw was tight, out-thrust: her breathing was controlled, and her face showed one, and only one, recognizable emotion.

Rage.

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller froze when he saw his father.

The old man was squatted down, arms crossed across his belly, bent over: his shoulders were moving a little, as if he were in pain and trying to conceal his agonies: his head was down, and this was most unlike the man, for Jacob’s father was ever a man to be aware of his surroundings.

In the distance, the deep, mournful steam whistle: the noon train was coming into station, its sorrowful voice echoing powerfully from the great granite curtain a mile and more away, echoing again, shattering itself against the mountains, but still audible, still recognizable, still powerful.

Jacob stepped closer.

Linn thrust out a hand, waved his son away.

“Sir?” Jacob asked, his voice tight.

Linn shook his head and Jacob came closer, laid his hand on his father’s shoulder.

Linn shook his head again.

Jacob’s grip tightened. “Sir, are you hurt?” he almost whispered, his throat tightening.

Linn shook his head again, brought his hand up to his forehead, and Jacob saw spots of water on his father’ shirt sleeve.

He rose, released his grip.

“I’ll be on my way, sir,” he said, “unless you wish me to stay.”

Linn’s head came up, his jaw open, and he took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Stay,” he said hoarsely, as if his vocal cords wouldn’t engage.

“Yes, sir.”

Linn rose, still facing away from his son.

Jacob watched as his father pulled an unadorned linen kerchief from his sleeve, wiped his face, blew his nose, stuffed it back up his sleeve.

Only an old soldier carries his kerchief in a sleeve instead of his pocket, Jacob thought, remembering his father’s service with the Union cavalry, back during That Damned War.

Linn turned, cleared his throat.

“I have placed an order,” he said, “for a new steam-whistle.”

“Yes, sir?”

“It’s a Banshee whistle and it will replace the one on the Z&W’s passenger engine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This one sounds too much like the whistle on The Lady Esther.”

Jacob hesitated, realization showing in his pale eyes. “I see, sir.”

“Yes, you do,” Linn said slowly. “And you are right. It reminds me too much of her.”

“Yes, sir.”

Linn stared into the distance, not seeing the glorious vista, the sunlit mountains, bright with snow and a startling blue sky above: he shook his head, blinked, swallowed.

“Have you eaten?” he asked, his voice almost normal. “I expect the maid is ready to set plates on the table.”

 

Willamina read first the words inscribed by the Old Sheriff – words in a regular and meticulously-crafted hand, the letters precisely shaped, regularly spaced, showing no change in slope: she read the same account, written by his son Jacob: his hand was hurried, the slant changed, betraying a mind far swifter than the hand commanding the trailing pen: she wished her husband was still alive, for he had a gift for analyzing handwriting, over and above the textbook facets with which Willamina was familiar.

She read the Old Sheriff confess the depths of his grief, the deep and abiding sorrow at missing the woman that had been everything to him – his consultant, his business partner, his most intimate confidante, his greatest supporter – Willamina smiled as a stray thought came in out of left field, and for an irrational moment she imagined the red-haired, green-eyed Esther Keller as a young and vigorous woman, wearing a cheerleader’s saddle shoes and bobby socks under her proper Victorian gown.

She was his greatest cheerleader, she thought, smiling a little: I think she’d like the idea.

Willamina herself had been a cheerleader – briefly, for her mother’s jealousy forced her to drop it – but she knew what it was to run onto the basketball court with pom-pons and perform the athletic and choreographed routine with her cheer-mates… she blinked a little, shaking her head at the thought of cheering in a floor length skirt.

She re-read the words of grief, she re-read the son’s words of concern and of worry, and then she closed her eyes and drew her hands into tight, trembling fists as her own grief came back like the leading edge of a storm front.

The Old Sheriff was a man who gave his whole heart.

She had too.

He’d given all of his love and his affection and his loyalty to his wife, and she was long dead by the time he wrote this, years after her burial: the sound of the locomotive’s whistle, the locomotive that was part of the railroad with which he’d gifted her as a wedding gift, this sorrowful sound was sufficient to resurrect all the grief and all the loss, and he was going to treat the problem by getting rid of it.

He was going to replace the whistle that sounded so much like the one on her namesake.

“I don’t have a steam whistle,” she said menacingly, “but I know what I can do.”

Willamina stood, turned, headed for the stairway.

She’d been reading, as she often did, in her flannel nightgown and slippers: she kicked the fur lined moccasins off, spinning them viciously against the closet door, then seized the flannel nightgown and stripped it violently, off her, almost tearing it in the process.

She dressed with the same swift efficiency she’d learned out of years of necessity, out of moments of need – whether deployed overseas in a combat zone, whether summoned by the sergeant’s whistle and yell in the barracks, whether from the phone call from the Sheriff’s office – she laced her tan desert boots in the dark, feeling all the anger and the rage that was distilled from her own grief and her own loss, feeling it swirl around her like a slow whirlpool, and she seized it and she wrapped it around her like a midnight-black cloak.

She made her way down the stairs.

She saw a lean-waisted, dignified old man bend over, slowly squatting, as if unable to bear his weight.

She remembered sinking slowly into a squat as the grief of losing husband and son crushed her to the earth.

Her boots were loud on the stairs as she made her way down to the tunnel leading to the barn.

She saw his arms cross his belly and he bent over a little with the pain he knew, a pain more spiritual than physical, and she stepped into the barn and glared at her enemy, waiting there in the dark.

Willamina was done with being crushed, with crossing her arms over the ache in her belly.

Willamina was going to kill something, and something waited for her in the shadowed, stone-walled quiet of the barn’s understory.

The Bear Killer smelled her rage and bristled: she motioned him aside, advanced, hands opening and closing as she stepped a little to her left.

Her enemy waited for her, waited patiently … dark, menacing … unmoving.

Her enemy did not have to wait long.

Willamina was a student of many things.

She’d studied bare knuckle boxing, as it was practiced in the time of the Sheriffs Keller, Jacob and Linn, and she knew the tricks of striking with the knuckles vertical instead of horizontal, to avoid breaking the bones in the hand – as a medic back East, she’d treated men who’d driven their fist into a wall (funny thing, the wall never came out in second place!) – and the broken bones in the hand were known, for obvious reasons, as “Boxer’s Fractures.”

She’d made a study of the several styles of personal combat, and she’d practiced them all, and she’d found which styles suited her build, her speed, her strength.

She struck with an impressive speed, she struck with a surprising strength, she struck with a ferocity unexpected from a somewhat diminutive, older woman.

Fists and ridge-hand, elbow strikes, she spun and drove her weight, focused through her diaphragm and conducted like a bolt of living lightning through her leg, driving her kick through the enemy: her moves were swift and utterly ruthless, her strikes were precise, and they were absolutely, utterly, completely, intentionally … murderous.

Her blows came faster, more powerfully, rage long contained detonating in a series of bone-driven, muscle-guided, killing blows, until finally the military surplus, sawdust filled, canvas GI sleeping bag cover tore.

Sawdust scattered in a cloud; another spinning kick and the bag tore in two, hit the ground, fell over, its top half swinging limp and empty from the twisted hemp ropes she’d used to suspend it from a convenient, hand-hewn, century-old beam.

Willamina’s breath was hoarse, ragged; she was sweating a little, and suddenly she felt weak, wrung out.

She turned.

The Bear Killer raised his head, looked up at her, growled.

“Yeah,” Willamina gasped, staggering over to a bale of hay, snatching a saddle blanket and throwing down on the prickly hay. “Tell me about it.”

She turned, dropped heavily onto the blanket covered bale.

The Bear Killer rose, bristling, then came over and laid his peck basket sized head on her thigh.

She rubbed his upstanding hair fearlessly.

He reached up and licked her face, still rumbling deep in his black-furred chest.

“You always know what to say,” Willamina whispered, grateful for his presence, and she thought it was well that The Bear Killer was with her, for she was wearing a short sleeved tan T-shirt, and she generally didn’t carry a kerchief in her sleeve.

Willamina looked over at what used to be her homemade heavy bag, lying ruined on the floor, and remembered when her Very Great Granddad used his Cavalry sabre to part the head from a would-be killer’s shoulders: he’d seized the hair and spent the remainder of his rage by dancing in a circle, screaming and slinging the bloody-stump head by its hair from one hand, swinging the curved, blood-slimed blade with the other.

Willamina took a long, shivering breath.

“I tore into that like a crazy woman,” she murmured, and The Bear Killer raised his head again, snuffed at her chin. “Looks like I killed it right dead.” She chuckled humorlessly. “Maybe I am insane.”

Willamina hugged the enormous, sinners-black, Tibetan mountain dog.

“Thank you, Bear Killer,” she whispered, her heart aching for the husband she missed more than anything in the world. “You always know what to say.”

The Bear Killer muttered, pulling away: he paced slowly across the shadowed floor, sniffed at the empty canvas bag that had apparently caused his beloved Mistress such distress: he looked back at her, then deliberately raised his leg over the bag.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

77. WITH ME!

Sheriff Jacob Keller’s eyes went pale and Annette’s heart sank to see it.

“Nicodemus,” Jacob said, and her heart shriveled a little more: Jacob never called their young son anything but Nicodemus, but when he said it in that cold tone of voice, it generally did not bode well, and her mother’s instinct told her the pale eyed Sheriff had something in mind that she really would not like.

“Yes, sir?” Nicodemus looked at his Pa with wide and innocent eyes.

“You and Caleb, with me.” Jacob rose, plucked his Stetson off its peg with one hand, picked up his .40-60 with the other.

One of the local rancher’s daughters, eyes wide, stepped back and out of the lean-waisted lawman’s way.

It was Sunday and the family decided to have their after church Sunday dinner at the Silver Jewel – Jacob mentioned it to Annette early enough she didn’t make her usual extensive preparations for feeding their troops – unfortunately, before they came to pie or other delicacies, word arrived on a galloping horse outside, drawn to a sudden halt: hurried feet pounded up the few steps, ran into the Silver Jewel, hesitated, looking around: lawman’s eyes met those of the messenger, and a pretty girl, about twelve years old and looking scared to death, grabbed her skirts and twisted her way through tables and diners, gamblers and two of Daisy’s girls.

She nearly fell, trying not to collide with one of the tray-carrying waitresses: an anonymous set of hard-callused hands shot out, seized her around the waist, kept her from pitching face-first onto the oiled boards: she fought to her feet, pulled away, and Jacob rose as frightened young eyes looked up at his.

His hands came up and caught her by the shoulders, the impact setting him back a step.

“Help me,” she blurted, “my brother” – she shivered, swallowed.

Jacob went to one knee: no longer towering over her, his hands warm, strong on her upper arms, he said in a quiet and fatherly voice, “Tell me what happened.”

Annette blinked, swept her young with matronly eyes: Caleb, young man that he was, assessed the scene, the gears behind those light eyes turning steadily, quietly: Nicodemus, young indeed, but the very image of his father, stared with an intensity Annette had only seen in her husband’s eyes, and only when a matter was little short of desperate.

“It’s Billy, he fell, he isn’t moving, I can’t get down to him,” Sabrina squeaked, nearly in tears now that she’d reached the one person in the world she firmly believed could get her brother and make everything all right.

“It’s Billy,” Jacob echoed, his voice deep, quiet, pitched to be as reassuring as possible: he had a gift for talking to people, he could address anyone, on their level: he probably had a gift for languages, as he could hear a man speak in the slow drawl of the Old South, and reply in the same dialect, the same accent: he could then turn to a Connecticut Yankee and ask about the quality of the stuff from his well – “How’s the wooter in your new well taste?”

Sabrina nodded. “Billy, he was at the edge of the cliff and I told him to get back and he said I was a bossy big sister and he didn’t have to do anything I said because I wasn’t his Ma and the ground crumbled under him and he went over and I heard him scream on the way down and I got down on my belly and hung onto a bush and looked and he wasn’t moving and I’m so scared –“

Jacob ran his arms around the girl, drawing her into him, holding her, letting her shiver: “We’ll get him,” he whispered, his lips only an inch from her ear: her bonnet was fallen back, probably from the wind of her gallop, his mustache was in her hair as he spoke.

He raised his head, looked at his wife.

“We’ll be home directly,” he said, and dread filled Annette’s belly.

The last time he said that, he went up against two of the meanest hellraisers in the county, and carried the scars to prove the nearness of his permanent sojourn into the Valley.

“You’d better, Jacob Keller,” she said with a sternness she didn’t feel.

“Sabrina” – Jacob still had his arms around the girl – “can you show us where Billy went over?”

Sabrina nodded.

Jacob rose and spoke those words that poured a cold ladle of honest fear into Annette’s half-filled belly.

“Nicodemus,” he said. “You and Caleb, with me.”

Jacob took Sabrina by the wrist: his grip was firm, she could not have escaped it had she wished, but somehow she was reassured by its strength.

Jacob led the way through the dining room, past the bar, the roulette wheel, the poker tables: they went down the hallway, past Daisy’s kitchen and out the back door.

Jacob moderated his stride, or tried to: Sabrina didn’t know where they were bound, but wherever it was, she did not wish to waste any time at all: Shorty looked up at their approach, hawked, spat.

He opened his mouth to cheerfully insult the lean lawman as he usually did, but the look in the man’s eyes – and that of the scared girl he had in his grip – closed his mouth for him.

“We need a fresh horse for this young lady,” Jacob said, his voice tight: “she rode in fast and we need to head out just as fast.”

“What about you, Sheriff?”

“We’ll need your long carriage and two horses saddled.”

Shorty nodded, eyes narrowed: he turned, they heard his quick intake of breath, knew the man was about to shout into the stable’s shadow.

He didn’t have to.

His stable boy was less than a foot from as he turned, startling the old hostler.

“DAG-gone, boy, don’t scare me like that!” Shorty blurted, staggering back a step.

He got his balance back, opened his mouth to tell young Michael to fetch him what the Sheriff needed – but the stable boy was gone, and old Shorty would later tell it that all he saw was a little spinning dust devil where the boy had been a moment before.

“Nicodemus.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fetch Sabrina’s horse down here.”

“Yes, sir.” Jacob’s younger son’s face was serious and he turned, leaned into a sprint the way a lean young man will: Jacob nodded a little, realized he still had a firm grip on Sabrina’s wrist.

“Caleb.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Head on down and fetch Doc.”

“Yes, sir, where shall I tell him to go?”

“It’s near my Pa’s upper barn,” Sabrina offered.

Jacob’s eyes were pale. “Do you know the place?”

“I do, sir.” Caleb turned and he, too, leaned into a long-legged sprint.

Jacob went to one knee again, or nearly so: it was more of a squat, but it suited his purpose.

“Sabrina,” he said, “we’ll have you in the wagon with me. Shorty here will tend your horse, we’ll have you another saddled and tied behind the wagon, understand?”

Sabrina nodded, biting her bottom lip, her eyes still scared, but Jacob saw something in them he hadn’t seen before.

He saw a scared little girl’s trust that a big strong man she knew would make everything right, and he took a moment for a silent but utterly sincere,God, don’t let me fail her!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

78. BILLY

 

Caleb and Nicodemus returned, Nicodemus leading Sabrina’s winded mare, Caleb still at a sprint.

“Sir, Doc is hookin’ up his surrey, he’ll be along directly.”

“Good.”

Michael led out two horses, saddled, and the two young Keller men mounted: Shorty kept good stock especially for them, especially for special times like these, especially when a man needed good stock.

Jacob knew they were good mounts, he’d foaled two of them himself, rubbed then down with a gunny sack while their dam nuzzled and licked them, scenting them and nudging them to her so they could feed, and Jacob, grinning like a damned fool, helped steady the wobbly legged little colts until they latched onto their first breakfast.

Michael came clattering around from the side of the livery, driving the good rental carriage: he drew the dun to a stop, set the brake, grinning as the quiet, pale-eyed lawman looked up at him.

Jacob picked up Sabrina, swung her easily into the carriage seat, walked around the mare’s front: he stopped, murmured to her, rubbing her under her jaw.

He’s like that, Shorty thought.

He’s just like his Pa.

Now that damned horse will follow him like a love sick puppy dog.

Dammit, I don’t know how he does it, but he does!

Shorty raised a hand, waved as they departed: part of him, deep within his aging carcass, was still a young man, a man who knew what it was to ride into danger, to ride to the sound of the guns: like Jacob’s pale eyed father, the Old Sheriff, Shorty had been Cavalry, and like that pale old lawman and his pale eyed son, he too bore the scars of fighting for what he figured was right.

Shorty looked over the rancher’s daughter’s dapple mare, frowning: she was still lathered, she’d been ridden hard, but not long enough to wind break: Shorty’s hands were reassuring, speaking a language of their own, and the mare let him rub her and pat her and peel back her teeth and open her jaw, and then to look at each of her hooves in turn.

Michael handed him brushes and hoof pick without his asking; Michael brushed the mare as well, eyes busy, hands seeing as much as his eyes.

“She’s got a loose shoe,” Shorty muttered. “Dammit to blue hell anyway, ever since her Pa got hurt –“

“I’ll fire up the forge,” Michael said, and was gone.

“Damn that boy,” Shorty swore, “he kin disappear faster’n –“

His low-voiced mutter disappeared with a shake of his greying head, and he led the mare inside, where he could tend that loose shoe properly.

Behind the livery, where the smokestack went into a railroad style spark catcher, he heard young Michael firing the forge.

Shorty caressed the mare’s neck.

“Now don’t you worry, darlin’,” he said soothingly, the way a man will talk to a beautiful woman, “we’ll get new shoes on you, an’ pretty they’ll be too!”

 

It wasn’t much of a ranch, but Sabrina’s father was not much of a rancher, and it showed.

He didn’t have enough stock to justify hiring any hands – just him and his two sons, one ran off and left the younger to work like two men.

In fairness, the old man worked just as hard, but he’d worked hard all his life and was used to it.

His remaining son was only eight.

The old man had broke his leg – it hadn’t been his idea, he’d tripped over something, or maybe nothing at all, and fell out of the hay mow, landed on the packed dirt in front of the barn, broke both bones of his lower leg.

Then, as now, his daughter saddled up and rode for town, rode for the Sheriff, rode in fear and in confidence, and the Sheriff fetched out the Doc.

Her Pa was just getting around a little bit, but his leg was still wrapped up and splinted up and he was on crutches: Sabrina was the woman of the house, for all that she was but twelve years old: she was old enough to run the household, and run it she did: this was not unusual, in this era, and what would be considered a mere child a century hence, would be considered a woman grown – indeed, at thirteen, she would be marriageable.

Sabrina directed the Sheriff to the scene: Jacob considered as they came in view of the particular place, nodded.

Caleb rode up on one side, Nicodemus on the other, young men completely at home in the saddle, young men with old eyes, knowing eyes.

“We’ll play hell gettin’ this rig down there,” Jacob said aloud, looking at the gullied foot of the cliff. “I don’t see much of any way to get to him.”

“I can get to him, sir,” Nicodemus said: Caleb looked sharply at his little brother, then turned and looked at the cliff, frowned, remembering.

“I think he can, sir,” Caleb agreed.

Jacob nodded. “He’ll be hurt.”

“Yes, sir,” Caleb agreed. “We can patch him or report back.”

Jacob’s jaw thrust out as Sabrina’s hands closed on his arm.

“If you two can get there, so can I. Question is, how difficult will it be to get him out?”

“I reckon we’ll find out, sir.”

“Sabrina,” Jacob said, “I want you to ride back to the fork. Doc will be comin’ and I don’t want him to head the wrong way. Can you do that for me?”

Sabrina paled a little, but she nodded.

“Once you point him this-a-way, ‘course, you’ll want to come back here,” Jacob said quietly, smiling a little: Sabrina blinked, surprised, then smiled a little – just a little – and Jacob laid gentle fingers against her young cheek.

“I knew there was a smile hidin’ in there,” he whispered, then he drew her bonnet back up on her head, pulled the knot free, carefully re-tied it, fingers strong but gentle, the way a father’s fingers are when he’s tying bonnet-strings under a scared girl’s chin. “Now we’ll fetch up your brother, but you have to catch Doc before he sidetracks for Kansas or someplace.”

Sabrina opened her mouth to try and reply, but Jacob was already turned and out of the carriage.

His sons flanked him and the three headed down a draw and around its bend, and disappeared.

Sabrina scooted over on the tuck-and-roll upholstery of the fancy carriage’s seat – it was the good carriage, the one Shorty rented out to the monied folk – she took up the reins, released the brake, clucked, flipped the reins.

She brought the carriage about, headed back toward the fork at an easy trot.

 

Jacob squinted up the vertical, shading with his hat: “Damn,” he swore, “I hope he didn’t hit nothin’ on the way down!”

Caleb and Nicodemus dismounted: they didn’t want to take their horses down the water-gutted terrain, not with deep an steep and narrow channels, rocks and other terrain designed and intended to break a cannon bone or worse.

They tied the reins tightly on a handy branch, soothed the mounts with hands and murmurs, watching their ears: the horses were calm, and this was good.

They followed their father, scrambling, skidding down the steep gully.

 

Billy opened his eyes, closed them.

He tried to move.

He decided this was a very bad idea, but he moved anyway.

He seemed to be lying in sand, except for what felt like fists pressing into his side and his leg and it felt like he’d been hit by a war club upside his head.

He stopped moving, wondering how he got there.

He heard what sounded like someone walking in … gravel … he opened his eyes again, saw he was laying on his side.

“Billy?” a man’s voice said... the voice was quiet, deep, rich, reassuring, the way he remembered his father’s voice when he was sick and fevered and his Pa pressed a wet, folded cloth to his forehead.

“Pa?” he said, or tried to: it came out as a dry whisper, and he felt sand grains puff away from his pursed lips as he did.

A hand closed gently on his shoulder. “Billy,” the voice said again, “can you move?”

“It hurts, Pa,” Billy whispered, his eyes still closed.

“I reckon it does,” the voice said again, and Billy realized it wasn’t his Pa.

He opened his eyes, blinked, tried turning his head, grimaced.

“Oww,” he whined, and the hand was warm and reassuring on his arm.
“Don’t move, then,” the man said quietly. “Nicodemus, I want you on that side.”

Billy heard boots crunch in sand, felt someone digging sand from behind his thigh, felt that big hard fist of a rock pulled away from where it was driving clear through his leg meat, or so it had felt.

“Nicodemus, take the heel of your fist and thump his knee – gently, now, just easily.”

“Yes, sir.”

Billy felt a hand on his knee, then something tapped the knee gently.

“Billy, does that hurt?” the man’s voice said, quiet, reassuring: Billy whispered, “No, sir.”

“Okay, that’s a good sign,” Jacob said, looking up at his younger son. “Now do the same on his boot heel.”

“Yes, sir.”

Billy felt a hand slip under his boot top, around his ankle, and something thumped his heel.

“Billy?”

“No, sir.”

“Better than I’d thought,” the Sheriff admitted. “Caleb.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you see his right hand?”

“No, sir.”

“Find it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Billy felt hands digging again, digging ahead of his waist.

Something brushed against the back of his hand and he flinched.

“Billy? Does that hurt?”

“Yes, sir,” Billy grimaced. “Just a little.”

Caleb looked at his pale-eyed Pa, and Jacob nodded.

Caleb dug out some more, until he had the entire hand exposed.

“I see his hand,” he reported.

“Okay. Hold out your hand.”

Caleb held his hand out, puzzled.

Jacob took his son’s wrist. “Straighten your fingers.”

Caleb did.

Jacob tapped his son’s middle finger – touched the tip, like he was flicking it, but very gently.

“Fell that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If there’s a broken bone he’ll feel it. That’s all you need – like that” – he tapped once more. “Now try it on him.”

Caleb went down, bent double, found the injured boy’s hand.

He looked up at his Pa, then back to the exposed, sand-speckled hand: he scooped away more sand, gripped Billy’s wrist.

“Billy, straighten your fingers out for me.”

He saw the young, trembling fingers straighten.

Carefully, almost timidly, he tapped the middle finger, right on the tip.

Billy did not react.

“Billy, can you feel that?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Caleb looked up at his father and grinned.

“Sheriff!” a voice called.

“Caleb, go up and let Doc know where we are.”

“Yes, sir.” Caleb rose, scrambled through the deep, barely-hip-wide gully, climbing back the way he’d come.

“Nicodemus.”

“Yes, sir?”

“We’re going to pick him up now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t think he’s got anything broke – not arms nor legs – likely if I get behind him it’ll be easier to take a pick on him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Help me dig out from behind him.”

“Yes, sir.”

The two scooped sand, digging their hands raw, and Jacob swore silently that he hadn’t stuck a pair of leather gloves in his good coat’s pocket.

Nicodemus spoke for him as the thought hit him.

“Sir, Ma won’t be happy we’re gettin’ our Sunday go-to-meetin’s all dirty”

“I’m sorry,” Billy said in a tiny little-boy’s voice.

Jacob laughed – he stopped, he leaned back – he and Nicodemus were both on their knees, and Jacob reared back and laughed, then very gently, very carefully, laid his hand on Billy’s shoulder and his hip.

“Billy,” he said, “did you really plan to go swan divin’ off attair cliff up there?”

“No, sir,” Billy said, sounding very much like a contrite little boy.

“Well now I don’t reckon neither of us meant to get our Sunday go-to-meetin’s dirty neither,” Jacob replied, and though Billy didn’t feel like smiling a’tall, he heard the smile in the lawman’s voice. “You just holt still and let us do the work, and we’ll worry about the warsh board later, what say?”

“Yes, sir,” Billy said, wishing most sincerely that he’d listened to his big sister.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Billy?” The Sheriff shifted a little to his right, so his right knee was about Billy’s belt line or a little lower: he bent, working his hands through sand and rock, ignoring the cuts at the bases of his fingernails: he spread his knees, looked at Nicodemus.

“I’m going to come up on my knees first,” he explained. “I’m using my body’s weight and not my back muscles.”

“Yes, sir,” Nicodemus said, his young face serious, for he knew his Pa was teaching, and when his Pa taught, it was wise to listen.

“Billy, you ready?”

“Yes, sir,” Billy said, and Jacob heard a note of pain in the boy’s reply.

“What hurts, Billy?”

“My ribs, sir.”

“Where I run my arm under you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s gonna hurt. I won’t lie to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jacob raised his backside a little, then locked his back, dropped his butt, levered the boy out of the sand.

Billy whimpered a little as Jacob pulled him free of the sand.

He hadn’t gone into the sand more than a quarter of an inch – likely the impact was like hittin’ packed dirt – and Jacob knew his ribs would have paid the price – that, and his collar bone on the down hill side, and he was right.

Billy clamped his jaw against the scream he wanted to let go of, but he didn’t dare.

“Nicodemus, get in front of me.” Jacob came up on his knees: his arm was around and under the injured boy, his hand gripping the downhill arm: “I’m going to roll him into me, you support that arm, one hand under the shoulder and the other at the elbow.”

Nicodemus made no reply: his hands supported the injured boy where indicated, and he looked at his Pa.

Jacob rolled the lad into him, shifted his arms twice, rolling him a little in his grip.

Billy looked sick and he looked dead pale and Jacob felt bone grate on bone and he knew he had to hold this boy as still as he could.

“Nicodemus.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Pull his shirt collar down a little, pull it out and down, and see if there’s a sunk place along his collar bone.”

“I see it from here, sir.”

Jacob grunted. “Billy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m going to have Nicodemus let go. He won’t be able to hold you while we get out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” Nicodemus said his voice faint.

“It was a bear gettin’ down here and it’ll be worse gettin’ out but we’ll get you to safe.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Billy” – Jacob’s voice was a whisper now – “if you feel like cryin’ go right ahead. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with cryin’ when you’re hurt, I’ve done it myself.”

“You, sir?” Billy asked, surprise pushing the pain off his face for a moment.

Jacob grinned down at the lad. “Oh good Lord, you should have heard me when attair grizzly bear raked me across the backside!”

“Really?” Billy’s voice was pained, but still carried the innocent note of a little boy taking a tall tale hook, line and sinker.

“Oh, yah,” Jacob said confidently, stumbling a little but catching himself.

Billy’s teeth clicked together but he didn’t make a sound otherwise.

“Nicodemus,” Jacob grated, “get ahead of me here. If I fall, you catch Billy, don’t let him hit the ground.”

“Yes, sir,” Nicodemus said briskly, then – “Sir, I think it’s easier this way.”

Jacob looked up, turned a little so he could see, nodded.

“Billy,” he said conversationally, “it looks like I am wise to listen to someone who’s younger, smarter and better lookin’ than me!”

“Yes, sir?”

Jacob stepped up onto a rock, onto another, came out of the narrow, sharply eroded gully.

“It looks like Nicodemus just found an easier way out of here.”

 

It took them several minutes to take the detour, but the footing was much better: Jacob asked for the long carriage, because he knew he’d be able to lay the injured boy down across the back seat if need be.

Doc slung the boy’s arm, taking the strain off his broken collar bone, and both Caleb and Nicodemus saw Doc thump the boy’s boot heels and tap his fingers the same way their Pa taught them earlier, and both boys looked at their long tall Pa with an increased respect.

Doc did not lay Billy down, he kept him set up, but he did give him a dose of something he said would take the edge off the pain.

Caleb looked at Nicodemus, and Nicodemus looked at Caleb, and both of them made a terrible face … their pious imitation of the face young Billy made, and none there doubted that the posset Doc gave him, tasted truly awful.

Sabrina rode in the front seat with the Sheriff: she was still pale, but far less tense: Caleb and Nicodemus flanked the fine carriage, as they had earlier, and Doc followed in his physician’s surrey.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

79. LARRICK

 

Sabrina’s father heaved himself out of his chair as the little procession approached the ranch house: he leaned on his crutches, half puzzled and half irritated, especially when he saw his daughter sitting beside the Sheriff, his saddle on a horse he didn’t recognize, tied on behind the carriage -- and his son, pale and sick-looking, his arm in a bright-white sling that almost hurt a man’s eyes to look at.

“Larrick,” Jacob greeted the man as he brought the nag to a stop: he set the brake, whispered to Sabrina to hold still.

Jacob came out of the carriage, walked around the front and rubbed the horse’s jaw again, whispered something: Larrick couldn’t hear what it was, but he saw the horse’s ears come forward, and she turned her head to look after the lawman as he came around the carriage.

He held out his hand and his daughter took it, and she stepped down to the mounting block with the grace of a grown woman, and Larrick blinked, surprised.

He hadn’t seen his little girl as the woman she was growing into, at least not until now.

“Larrick,” Jacob said, grinning a little, “I’ll run ye that foot race now!”

“You’ll flap your arms and fly to the moon,” Larrick scowled, then grinned. “Well give an account of yerself, lad, how in the hell you been!”

“Fine as frog hair, you long range sniper, you,” Jacob said quietly, gripping the man’s hand. “Now don’t be too hard on your boy here.” He tilted his head a little to indicate the carriage behind him. “He was a-chasin’ some of your stock and ended up over a drop-off yonder.”

Larrick’s eyes had gone to his boy and his mouth had opened as if to scold his son, at least until the Sheriff’s words sunk in.

Sabrina was listening carefully and Jacob looked at her: it was the first time a man had looked at her like that – as if there was something she needed to do, and she understood she needed to keep the lie.

Sabrina nodded once, just a little, and the Sheriff knew his ruse was secure.

“How much do I owe Doc?” Larrick asked. “I don’t reckon you tied up attair sling now.”

“Taken care of, he owed me a favor,” Jacob said dismissively. “He’ll fill you in on whatever the boy will need. Meantime” – he reached out his hand, and Sabrina took it: he drew her up in front of her father, brought her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles.

“Larrick, this fine young woman rode in to fetch me and get help for her brother. I have seen women in need before but your daughter” – he looked at Sabrina, and Sabrina looked from her father to the Sheriff – “your daughter here kept her head, she did not give in to panic and she was nothing but business.”

Larrick blinked and looked troubled.

“She not only looks like her Mama, she got her level head as well,” Jacob continued quietly. “And she got a good dose of common sense from you too.”

“Yeah,” Larrick said, his voice thick.

“Now how’s that leg? You havin’ any trouble healin’?”

“Pa?” a voice said. “Pa, what happened?”

Larrick turned like he’d been stung and nearly lost his balance: Jacob was obliged to grab the man’s shoulders to keep him from falling over.

Larrick’s runaway son took two long strides up onto the porch and grabbed his Pa in a bear hug.

“I’d heard you was hurt,” he whispered, distress and relief adding strength to his already crushing embrace. “I was afeared you was killed!”

Larrick let go of his crutches, his weight on his good leg, and he gripped his son’s upper arms: his son gripped his father’s in return.

“I thought you was gone for good,” Larrick admitted. “Dammit, it’s good to see you ag’in!”

“Pa, I was a fool to run off, I’m sorry.”

“I was a fool not to listen to you.”

“Why’nt you two fools go on inside,” Jacob said, retrieving first one crutch, then the other, and handing them to his old friend: “I reckon you got things to talk about. Sabrina, may I speak with you?” – and without awaiting an answer, Jacob led the open-mouthed, staring girl a few steps from the porch.

Caleb reached up and took the injured boy around the waist, swung him easily, carefully out of the carriage, set him down.

“Sabrina,” Jacob said quietly, his voice urgent, as he gripped both the girl’s hands – “Sabrina, with two men laid up you’ll have a hard way of it.”

“It’s not been easy,” Sabrina admitted, her eyes glittering a little.

Jacob pretended not to notice.

She’d been through an awful lot and now that the pressure was off, and then her run-off brother returning … well, it would be an awful lot for someone her age to have to swallow, stuck like she was between being a tall girl, and a woman grown.

Jacob went to one knee, still gripping her hands.

“Sabrina,” he said, his voice urgent, “I am pretty damned proud of you. Now I’m going to head back into town and I’ll be back right directly and I’ll fetch supper for all of you. You’re going to have an awful lot of catchin’ up to do and I can send out a girl to help you with house work and all that.”

He rose and Sabrina bit her bottom lip, trying to keep the water from running over her bottom lids, and not having any success at all.

Jacob gathered her in his arms and held her.

Larrick looked over at his little girl, trying to muffle her sobs in the Sheriff’s shirt front: Jacob winked,nodded, and Larrick nodded gravely in reply.

Caleb saw the man’s silent “Thank you” as his older son picked up his younger, and father and sons went inside, and shut the door.

Caleb and Nicodemus saddled up as Sabrina wiped her eyes and then went inside.

Jacob climbed into the carriage, clucked up the nag, turned the carriage in a big turkey gobbler right there in the front yard, and the three Keller men in their dirty Sunday go-to-meetin’s headed back for Firelands.

“Pa?” Nicodemus asked from Jacob’s right.

“Yes, Nicodemus?”

“Pa, Sunday dinner kind of got interrupted.”

Jacob nodded solemnly.

“Yes, son, it kind of did.”

“Pa, I’m kind of hungry.”

Jacob looked to his left.

“Caleb, how say you? You hungry?”

“I am, sir,” Caleb admitted.

Jacob looked forward, considering.

“I’m kinda hungry my own self.” He looked at one son, then the other.

“Boys, do you reckon we’d oughta make your poor over worked Ma rattle them pots and pans and feed us when we get back?”

“Wouldn’t be polite,” Caleb opined.

Nicodemus nodded.

“Do you reckon if we was to take her a meal from the Silver Jewel, she’d like that?”

Nicodemus’ grin was instant, broad and enthusiastic: Caleb, taking after his father, affected a studious frown.

“I reckon she’d like that, yes, sir,” he said.

“Good.” Jacob nodded decisively. “We’ll do that.”

He flipped the reins a little, moving the nag into a more rapid gait.

“We didn’t get pie today, did we?”

“No, sir,” both boys chorused.
“We’ll have to tend that detail.”

“Yes, sir!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

80. “YES, SIR”

Caleb removed his cover as he came over the threshold.

It was a lifelong habit, learned when he was yet very young, learned by watching his Pa, and his older brothers: he, in turn, helped teach his younger brothers this, and other necessary lessons of everyday politeness.

Caleb wiped his feet carefully on the rough hook rug his Mama kept for that purpose, hung his Stetson on its peg, peeled out of his coat: he’d managed to shiver most of the snow off before he came in the house.

His Pa was in the kitchen with his Mama: he heard their quiet conversation, he heard the smile in his Mama’s voice and the gentleness in his Pa’s.

This, too, though he didn’t realize it at the time, was a lesson, and he took that lesson unconsciously to heart: his Pa taught him many things, but taught so many more by the living example of his very life, and one of these valuable lessons was how to treat a woman.

No.

Not a woman.

How to treat a Lady.

His Pa was immaculately polite as a matter of everyday course.

He’d watched his Pa lift his hat and murmur a gentlemanly greeting to a hardened streetwalker, and Caleb saw the woman’s hard shell melt, and suddenly she was younger and lovelier than she’d been half a dozen heartbeats before: in the pale-eyed Sheriff’s presence, because he was a strong man, a quiet man, a very polite man, people around him became more polite.

Jacob and Caleb discussed this phenomenon, one afternoon after church, after their customary Sunday shooting match in the corral on the lower end of town (they tended to attract an admiring crowd, occasionally a challenger would come into the arena and try his luck at hand-tossed tin cans, clods of dirt, and if he was really, really good, a spinning silver dollar, tossed high in the air … somewhere on the hillside beyond the corral was at least a half-dozen dented or torn silver cartwheels, lost when thrown to who-knows-where by a fast-moving slug!)

Father and son had set down on a handy bale, listening to the wind and the sounds of Sunday afternoon in town: Jacob’s daughters would take turns practicing on the church piano, the Parson’s wife always laid out a good spread, and had a table well guested: this week they had a family whose wagon had lost an axle in a creek crossing, and while the wagon was being repaired, the family was put up in the boarding house, with the Parson insisting they share his Sunday board.

The House of McKenna of course descended on the whole family, insisting, persuading and stifling any proud protest, fitting them all with a new set of Sunday-go-to-meetins so they could attend church and not feel out of place: their only daughter was about four years old, and she clutched a rag doll in the bend of her elbow, a smiling, yarn-haired doll with a gown that matched the one the little girl wore.

Caleb suspected his Pa had something to do with this charity, and if he’d pried about some he would have found his suspicions confirmed, but he decided to let well enough be.

All this went swiftly through Caleb’s young mind as he and his Pa set down on clean hay, ignoring the chill wind that chased itself through the corral and disappeared down the street, tumbling invisibly toward the far blue mountains.

“Good of you to pick up our suits from the Chinese laundry,” Jacob said quietly, and Caleb heard the approval in the man’s voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“Your Mama was surprised when we come home wearin’ a different suit than when we left the house.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I recall you suggested we keep an extra full suit of clothes there at the Chinaman’s so we’d have somethin’ to change into.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good suggestion.” Jacob frowned at the bale he was sitting on, drew out a likely looking stem, chewed its end experimentally, his pale eyes busy on the horizon.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Caleb?”

“Sir, I went out Larrick Ridge yesterday.”

Caleb felt more than saw his Pa’s eyes tighten a little at the corners, the way they did when he was smiling inside and it hadn’t quite made it to the outside.

“How’s his leg?”

“Some better, sir, but he’s still favorin’ it.”

“He will, for a while. That was one nasty break.”

“Yes, sir.” Caleb hesitated. “Sir, he asked me to thank you for bein’ kind to his daughter.”

Jacob froze … it felt to his son as if the man turned to stone, or the water in him iced of a sudden.

“Sir?”

Jacob blinked, shook his head, blinked a couple times.

“Was my little girl afeared,” Jacob said quietly, “I’d want …”
His voice trailed off and he stared into the distance, seeing something that Caleb figured was more in his Pa’s memory than there in the Colorado high country.

“I remember your aunt Sarah,” he whispered. “She didn’t have anybody … she had to …”
He swallowed, looked down, looked kind of lost.

“You miss her, sir.”

Jacob nodded.

“I don’t remember her that well,” Caleb admitted. “I recall how she sang, and she set me on her lap and played piano one time.”

Jacob laughed aloud, for the memory was still bright in his recollection: Caleb had been but a wee lad, a laughing, apple-cheeked child with bright and wondering eyes, and Sarah delighted in showing him things that brought out that expression of delighted wonder that just plainly warms a parent’s heart.

When she’d had little Caleb on her lap, he reached for the piano, and she hadn’t stopped him: he hit one key – but only one – and Jacob recalled the look of dismay when his little boy heard the discordant result, a blotch on the lovely, measured harmony woven from his Aunt’s gifted fingers.

Jacob nodded, slowly. “I recall that day.”

Jacob considered whether to discuss further how Sarah had hardened because she had to, how she became fast and deadly and how she could take any action, no matter how extreme, if it were necessary … then decided against it.

Caleb, he reasoned, would come to this same conclusion in time, should he pursue it.

“Sir,” Caleb hazarded, “I recall the look on Larrick’s girl’s face.”

“Sabrina,” Jacob said softly.

“Yes, sir. Sabrina.”

“I recall the look too, Caleb.” He looked at his son. “She trusted me, Caleb. She come to me – not to her Pa, not to nobody else. She come to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Caleb, the time will come when someone comes to you in that same manner.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will leave it to your good judgement how you handle it.”

Caleb stopped, puzzled over this: in his young mind, where the world was black and white, right and wrong, the edges cleanly cut and clearly defined, there would be no judgement to it: should he have that situation, he would handle it exactly as his Pa had handled it.

Jacob and Caleb rose, brushed the stray straw off their backsides, turned.

Two of the local boys were staring at them through the bars of the corral.

“Morning, fellas,” Jacob greeted them heartily. “Seen any griz hereabouts?”

“Griz?” one asked, and the other said “Bears, stupid!” – then they chorused “No, sir, we ain’t!”

“Good thing, “ Jacob nodded solemnly.

“Sir?” one of the boys piped, “Sir, could we have one of them silver dollars you shot?”

Jacob laughed, motioned them in: the boys slipped easily between the bars, ran over to him.

Like himself and his own son, they were in their Sunday best, now dust-streaked where they’d slid between the dirty corral bars: Jacob withheld comment, as did Caleb.

The lean, pale-eyed lawman squatted, balancing easily on the balls of his feet, forearms draped casually over his jutted knees. “Fellas,” he admitted, “I don’t have any on me, but I do know where you might find a half dozen of ‘em.”

“Really?” the lads breathed, their eyes lighting hopefully.

Jacob nodded, stood. “Now when you toss a coin in the air” – his hand came up, his thumb flipping as if he was launching a silver dollar skyward – “it goes up a-spinnin’.” His other hand’s extended finger described an elongated spiral and Caleb stifled a knowing smile, remembering his Mama’s quiet-voiced, “Your father could not talk without his hands!”

She’s right, he thought as his Pa continued describing how a bullet hittin’ a coin could knock it straight up, or way the hell off to one side or the other.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, turning and pointing to the far side of the corral, at the hillside beyond, “somewhere back there is about a half dozen of ‘em we never could find. If you fellas can scrounge ‘em up, they’re yours!”

Two big-eyed boys looked at the Sheriff, looked at each other, sprinted across the corral, fairly diving between the bars, further dust-fouling their Sunday coats.

“Do you reckon they’ll find ‘em, sir?” Caleb asked quietly.

“If anyone can find ‘em, those two can,” Jacob said confidently. “Did Larrick say how him and his run-off boy was getting’ along?”

“He didn’t say, sir.”

Jacob nodded. “I heard tell he’s doing a man’s work now that he’s come home.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jacob pulled out his watch, pressed the stem, flipped open the cover.

Caleb knew his Pa had a hand-painted miniature of Annette inside the watch cover, and a good likeness it was, too.

“I reckon,” Jacob said thoughtfully, “we’d ought to see how your sisters are doin’ on that church piano. I reckon your Mama would like to head us all home for Sunday dinner.”

“Yes, sir.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

81. WEATHER EYE

Caleb sat relaxed in the saddle, his pale eyes quiet, reins loose in his gloved left palm: his right was on his thigh as he put the slightest pressure with his right knee, turning his stallion slowly in his own length.

Caleb was like his father: he was not a trusting man, and he surveyed the entire panorama beside, behind and beside him as his stallion slowly turned, allowing him this circumferential view from the saddle.

Jacob took the three steps to the schoolhouse in one long-legged stride, something he’d done since he was a boy attending here, and he grinned a little that as a man grown and a father besides, he could still take that jump-swing step and ascend as easily as he used to.

He did not knock: he opened the door, slipped inside, closed the door quietly behind him, stepped to the aisle between the rows of desks, waited.

He almost smiled as he remembered helping the Daine boys measure, drill and screw the cast-iron desks in place on the smooth, solid floor: they’d only had benches when Jacob was a schoolboy, and he let his eyes wander approvingly over the neat rows and ranks of genuine store bought school desks.

Here and there a young face turned curiously toward him: most gave him a smile, some shy, some apprehensive: the curious got a wink, the apprehensive got a raised eyebrow.

Ezra Shaver was just a wee slip of a schoolmarm – smaller than his troublemaking sister Sarah had been – she lifted her chin, laid her yardstick pointer down on the desk and marched briskly down the aisle to the silent, unmoving lawman.

Jacob raised a hand, touched his hat brim, but did not remove his cover: he was there on business, and he knew this would be conveyed by not removing the Stetson.

“Mrs. Shaver,” he said quietly, “a word, if you please.”

Mrs. Shaver’s expression did not change, at least not her face, but something about her did, and Jacob knew he had her full attention and not a small degree of apprehension: she nodded, once, clasping her hands in front of her.

“Mrs. Shaver, we’ve a blizzard headed this way. It’s come up fast and I’d reckon you’d ought to get these young’uns home five minutes ago.”

“Would we be better to hold them here?” she asked quietly, her voice serious.

“If we don’t get ‘em home, their folks will be comin’ after ‘em. I reckon we’ve time enough to get ‘em home if we leave now.”

Mrs. Shaver turned, clapped her hands twice: the entire class rose, stepped to the side of their desks, turned.

“Class,” Mrs. Shaver said briskly in her motherly schoolteacher’s voice, “we have a blizzard coming up. It is best you head for home now, and I suggest you move quickly. Leave your lessons, take nothing but your wraps and go straight home.”

“Yes, Mrs. Shaver,” the entire class chorused dutifully, then a few of the boys let out whoops and galloped for the cloak press: Mrs. Shaver cleared her throat and they stopped, gave her a guilty look and returned to their desks, ears flaming.

“Nicely done,” Jacob murmured. “You’re better than Mrs. Cooper was.”

“I’ll take that as high praise,” Ezra Shaver smiled. “When I started, all I heard was “Mrs. Cooper this” and “Mrs. Cooper that,” and it felt like I was trying to follow either a saint or an angel.”

“Mrs. Shaver, you are at the boarding house?”
“I am, Sheriff, and I have room for a half-dozen if need be.”

Jacob chuckled. “Mrs. Shaver,” he murmured, “we could put up the entire school in the Silver Jewel. I would see to that. We’ve supplies enough to feed the thrashers if need be.”

“Have you seen these boys eat?” Mrs. Shaver asked with a knowing smile.

“I know how my boys eat!” Jacob laughed. “Dear God above, they are walking appetites on two hollow legs!”

He laughed with the schoolteacher; they nodded to the escaping children as they went by, each one politely greeting them “Night, Mrs. Shaver, night Sheriff,” as they went by – that is, all but two: one of Jacob’s boys and one of his daughters, who stopped and looked curiously at their long tall Daddy, looking even taller beside the prim and diminutive schoolteacher.

“How bad’s the blizzard, Pa?”

Ezra Shaver could not help but caress the lad’s shining face: he had that healthy, clean-scrubbed complexion that comes of clean living, good food and hard work outdoors, and his light-hazel eyes looked up at his Pa with the expression of a boy who knows that his Pa is absolutely, positively the font of all wisdom and knowledge.

“It’s bad,” Jacob admitted. “It’s comin’ out of the north-northwest and if it blows in cold behind it we’re in for a spell of it.”

Jacob’s daughter grabbed her twin brother’s hand as the boy asked, “Pa, which way had we ought go?”

“Up the tracks, then up the back trail,” Jacob said without hesitation. “You’ll be in the lee of the mountain. That’ll bring you out above the barn. Reckon you two can make it?”

“Yes, sir!” brother and sister chorused.

“Button up, then, and scoot.”

The twins turned to one another, fingers busy: each buttoned the other’s coat, the way they often completed each other’s sentences, then with a perfectly matched, “Bye Mrs. Shaver, seeyaPa” and a wave from their free hand, they bolted out the door and down the steps: Jacob and Ezra Shaver smiled to hear juvenile voices cheerfully calling out to their brother Caleb as they scampered away and across the street.

“Mrs. Shaver, if your board is not well stocked, you are welcome at the Jewel. You know that.”

“I know, Sheriff. You have always been the soul of kindness, and I thank you for that.”

“I will take your leave, ma’am.” Jacob raised his hand to touch his hat-brim again, but the schoolteacher’s quiet “Sheriff?” anchored him as effectively as nailing his boot heels to the floor.

“Ma’am?”

“Sheriff, forgive me if I am forward,” Mrs. Shaver said uncertainly. “I am not a maiden lady as many believe. I am a widow.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I knew a good man, Sheriff – I … knew him.” She gave the lawman a meaningful look, and he knew exactly what she meant.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied carefully.

“Sheriff, if the word of a widow-woman means anything in this advanced and modern age,” Mrs. Shaver said, her words quiet but precisely enunciated, “your children are most fortunate to have you for a father, and your wife is blessed with you as a spouse.”

Jacob Keller’s jaw thrust slowly out and he looked to the floor, nodded solemnly, then he turned to the diminutive schoolteacher, reached down and took her hand.

He raised it to his lips and kissed her knuckles – gravely, courteously, gentlemanly – and he said, “Mrs. Shaver, thank you. I do believe that is one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me.”

“Goodbye, Sheriff, and thank you for your timely warning.”

“It was my pleasure, Mrs. Shaver.”

The Sheriff pushed the door open, admitting a quick swirl of big, feathery flakes: he eased the door shut behind him and she heard his muffled step, then the sound of horse’s hooves, barely heard in the fast snowfall, and she took a step toward the door, laid her palm on it, then her forehead.

Ezra Shaver bit her bottom lip, then squeezed her eyes closed, wishing most sincerely she had such a man, for in this moment of unexpected aloneness, her students gone, her reason for being suddenly taken from her by the caprice of sudden and possibly vicious meterologic inclemency, she wanted desperately to be held, to be secure in a strong man’s arms, to be told that everything would be all right.

The Sheriff and his son rode into the leading edge of the snowstorm, each taking a different course, both men intimately familiar with their mountains and their county, and both determined to ensure the children got home safely.

Neither man, peering into the falling snow, heard a woman’s quiet grief, sobbed into the shawl she pressed to her face, behind the securely closed, meticulously whitewashed, schoolhouse door.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

82. WHITEOUT

 

The Sheriff’s twins came out above the barn, just as their Pa said; snowfall was steady but granite and mountain pine broke the wind for them, sieved the snow from the cooling air: snow was not more than ankle deep by the time they came into view of the barn, but as they came into the open, the wind picked up, the snow hit them like a wall and was already halfway up their shin bones.

The twins squinted and stumbled a little as a hard wind fist hit them, then they took a step toward the barn: whether it was by accident or design, they fell forward, twisting: they slid downhill, fast, unexpectedly, arms flailing, twisting and kicking and trying to get some control, some purchase.

The girl got her feet downhill just in time to kick hard at the tree that was scything through the snow at her – she managed to shove the attacking tree to the side, she rolled, came out on the level, threw her legs wide, skidded to a stop – beside her, a grunt, a minor explosion, and her brother landed on his back, eyes wide, their hands finding each other in the cold snow.

Brother and sister gripped one another’s hands, sat up, looked at each another and giggled.

“That was fun!” the yelled with one voice, then rolled up onto their feet and ran toward the house, knowing it would be warm inside, and if they were lucky, they might cadge some of their Mama’s sweet rolls, hot and steaming and freshly buttered.

 

Robin MacTavish squinted into the wind, looking around.

Sondra Spencer labored behind him, gasping a little, her left hand gripping his belt with the young strength of desperation, threatening to haul his drawers down if his suspenders failed, her other hand gripping her shawl, tight-drawn around neck and face and head.

MacTavish stopped, willing himself to calm.

He was eleven years old and nearly a man grown, or so he told himself, but at the moment, the chilled schoolboy didn’t feel terribly manly and he sure as hell didn’t feel grown.

In this white, featureless snow-fog, with blasts of cold and colder air slamming into his front and reaching cold fingers between the buttons of his coat, he was feeling pretty inadequate.

He’d allowed his attention to wander and lost his bearings, imagination took over in a desperate attempt to figure just where he was, and now he was ready to admit to himself that he had not the slightest idea where they’d been, nor where they were about to be.

Robin – Robert, he told people his name was, but his given Christian name was Robin, and his Pa told him he’d ought to be proud of his name, it was a warrior’s name, but it hadn’t helped any in the schoolyard, where he’d had to use knuckles and feet on the boys who made fun of his sissy name – Robin took a few more breaths, considered that he could stay here and be buried, or he could press on and hope to come across something familiar.

The tug on his back waist reminded him there was more to this than just him, and so he set one foot ahead of the other and pressed on into snow that was crowding knee cap depth.

 

Edward Kolascinski had the wind at his back.

The wind was keeping the path ahead of him blown free of snow.

As long as he kept the mountain to his left, he thought, he should come out at their cabin, and their cabin was in a hollow, and it never snowed terribly deep in that hollow, thanks to a trick of topography and prevailing wind.

He looked up to his left, remembering his Pa telling him that’s where that Sarah woman found his brother and tried to keep him alive, that she give him the only chance he had.

He remembered that Sarah woman – barely – most of all he remembered that genuinely huge horse she rode, and that bear of a dog, that dog that looked like a black African lion.

He’d seen a picture of them lion things and that dog surely looked like one, he’d seen it when it turned around to tear after a wolf and when that mouth opened up all short and stubby and plumb full of teeth, the fur around shoulders and neck standing straight out like a huge black ruff, that voice that sounded like it started about fifty feet underground and shook the mountain itself –

He leaned into an easy run, came around the last turn in the wagon track, and felt a great weight come off his shoulders.

He was in sight of their cabin.

Another hard gust of wind came along and nearly shoved him off his feet and he ran ahead a few more steps, into the clearing where the snow wasn’t nearly so deep, coming into calm air.

He’d made it.

 

Caleb slapped the snow off his collar, turned it back up, reached up and worked his hat more firmly down on his head.

He’d tugged the storm strap snug at the back of his head – he preferred a back strap instead of one that run under his chin – he was following the two students with the longest walk over the worst terrain.

Here and there he saw a little depression, filling fast, where there might have been a track, a footprint, but this wind was sweeping sign like a housewife sweeps a floor.

His Apple-horse, like most of his kind, had an excellent sense of direction.

Caleb knew that if worst came to absolute worst, he could give his stallion his head and he’d take them unerringly home.

Caleb never saw the huge black shadow keeping pace to his right, just out of sight in the blizzard.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

83. HIGHLANDER

 

Old Man MacTavish shivered as he stood out on his front porch, peering into the anonymous whiteout.

His stock was in the near pasture, he knew they had the lee to shelter in, graze to keep them from boredom, he knew his ranch house and barn were both solidly made and would stand the blow without difficulty, but his thoughts were for his young.

For either the fifth or fiftieth time – he’d lost count – he kicked himself for not hitching up when his knees started to ache, for they never ached unless they were in for a blow, and they started aching like thunder and that meant a blow and a snow and a good one, and from the look of this weather, his knees weren’t lying to him.

MacTavish pulled back into the ranch house, pulled the door to, frowning.

“Did you see anything, Mac?” his wife called, her voice gentle from the kitchen, and he looked at the doorway, shaking his head.

“No, Mrs. MacTavish,” he said, his worried voice betraying his Scots upbringing. “No, I didna see anythin’ but th’ snow.”

Mrs. MacTavish did not make a reply, but Mr. MacTavish could hear his wife’s worry in the vigor with which she assaulted pie dough with her rolling pin.

 

Robin MacTavish felt something furry hit his knuckles.

He’d been slogging determinedly in what he hoped was the direction of home, but he’d put his head down to try and get his face out of the wind, at least a little.

Now something big and furry was pressing against his side, stopping him: it took another step, interposed its black and furry bulk between the two children and the blasting, frigid wind.

Robin MacTavish blindly gripped a handful of fur, pulled himself and Sondra into the welcome windbreak.

Robin heard what sounded like a dog, huffing and husking and making the sounds a dog will, and when he had an arm over the dog’s back – a reach, even at his height – the dog started out.

Robin MacTavish and Sondra Spencer stayed with the great black curly-furred windbreak: neither knew where they were now headed, but neither was willing to leave the shelter it afforded, even on the move.

Robin felt the ground change underfoot.

He’d been going gradually uphill, then level, and now he felt it pitch downward, just a little – not much, and hard to tell under the snowfall, but he could still tell.

They stopped, catching their breath, the utterly huge, long-furred canine huffing like a contented steam engine, at least until they felt it take in a sudden deep breath, and drop is haunches: they felt it throw its muzzle to the snow-shedding sky above, and it was as if twenty wolves sang through this one massive, incredibly menacing, utterly deafening throat.

Down below, Old Man MacTavish heard the hell-hound’s howl – that, or an entire pack, singing in chorus for fresh blood, for his son’s blood.

MacTavish felt his blood chill down several degrees.

A mile and more on the other side of Firelands, Inge Kolascinski opened the door for her returning schoolboy son, and both turned and looked with alarm toward town, toward where the wind was carrying a howl, where the wind sang a promise of ruin and death: mother and son both shivered, for both had heard legends of the feared Hell Hounds, and how they coursed the earth with slavering fangs and burning coals for eyes, seeking evil men’s souls and tearing living bodies apart to seize black and sinful souls with bloody and inescapable jaws, and bear them screaming to the depths of Hell’s tortures.

Inge and her son both crossed themselves, pulled back into the cabin, latched the door.

Inge turned, eyes wide, fearful, looking at her kitchen cupboard.

It sounded like someone tapping … light, delicate, as if a woman’s fingernail, tapping at a door.

Inge raised a trembling hand, opened the cupboard door.

Her green-glass Rosary was swinging, gently, one side to the other, and inside the cupboard, a fresh-cut, dew-wet rose.

Inge drew back and felt the lightest of touches on her cheek.

She smelled lilac-water and soap and heard – or thought she heard – a whisper:

It’s all right.

They’re home.

 

Jacob’s head came up and his blood ran with frazil ice instead of red corpuscles.

He knew that great and powerful voice on the wind, and he heard it clearly, too clearly.

“Oh my God don’t let ‘em be up there!” he whispered, turning Apple-horse: the stallion surged under the lean lawman, scrambled for purchase in the deepening snow, wallowed and nearly went down in belly-deep drifts, but managed to find the rocky path, that twisty, narrow path, here wind-swept, there ice-covered and slick, and he came out on a rock shelf, the shelf where Jacob sat as a boy and wept with a broken heart as his old and dear friend, his own Bear Killer, sighed out his last breath, and where Jacob wrapped The Bear Killer in the quilt from his own bed, and slid him deep under the rock shelf, and cribbed it shut.

Now Jacob scrambled desperately, knowing where he’d heard that howl, that deep, from-below-the-gut hellhound bay, that screaming, I’m-gonna-kill-you war song that could come from only one black-furred throat.

The Bear Killer was on the High Lonesome and that meant the schoolchildren were up as well.

 

MacTavish hauled the big heavy hammer back on his Sharps and made sure the shining copper musket cap was well seated.

He could not see a thing through the snow but by God! he’d let those damned wolves know a Highlander was ready for war!

He raised the rifle, stood at the end of his porch, and in a break in the gusting, snow-driving wind, saw the slope of the barn roof: he held to its right, hauled back on the trigger, knowing that big sugar loaf bullet would drive into the rotted granite bluff beyond and make its own secondary explosion.

The Sharps boomed, dirty fire blooming momentarily, a sudden intense flash, blue smoke snatched away by the wind: the rifle’s detonation shoved all sound aside, as if with an invisible, expanding balloon, then the wind came back, slapping his back and snatching his hat and throwing it into the streaking white maelstrom.

MacTavish swore – he was not often moved to profound language, but his command of Gaelic was encyclopedic, and he could recite his mother’s haggis recipe and make it sound as if he were calling apocalyptic destruction down upon the heads of the sinners – he hauled back the hammer, dropped the lever and shoved another paper cartridge into the breech: he slammed the lever home, cutting the end off the paper and gave the rifle a quick twist to dump the stray powder from the top of the breech.

He pressed a fresh cap on the dark-steel nipple, gripped the porch post with his off hand, stepped out into knee deep snow.

I’ll be lucky to make the barn, he thought, then he considered the distance his Robin would have to travel.

 

Robin MacTavish heard the concussion, heard the Gaelic-accented voice, and barely – barely! – saw the big rifle’s muzzle flash – pallid and weak through the blowing snow – but there it was!

“It’s Pa!” he shouted over his shoulder, and he saw Sondra’s eyes, slitted against the snow, her face pale where the shawl couldn’t cover. “It’s Pa! We’re there!”

As if in celebration, the huge bear-dog threw its head back and sang into the snowstorm, strong and defiant and declaring the blizzard’s teeth impotent.

 

MacTavish set his teeth together as he heard the returning bay, shattered and indistinct with the wind carrying away from him.

He shivered as the hundred wolves sang again, deep and menacing --again that un-Godly howl! – closer now – as if the minions of Hell were screaming out of a hole in the ground, swarming through the storm toward the glowing beacon of his eternal soul – or worse, that of his wife!

MacTavish shook his fist and roared defiance, dared them come on, come ahead and see how a Highlander fights, and something huge and black moved out in the blizzard.

MacTavish gripped his rifle, brought it to shoulder –

“Pa!”

It was the barest thread of a voice, but it was a voice he knew.

“RRROBINNN!” MacTavish shouted, trilling the R as he did when excited, and the wind twisted back on itself and the snow halted for a moment, and he saw his boy, his Robin, one arm up over the shoulder of what looked to be a well-furred bear, his other arm around a stumbling girl’s waist.

The bear stopped and Robin surged forward, thrashing a clumsy path through the snow, the girl flailing her way behind him in his fresh broke path, and Robin ran into his Pa’s embrace.

The boy was silent, as was the girl, and MacTavish looked up, looked for the bear, and all he saw was the wind-driven snow, picked up again and streaking horizontally, painting the world white with a cold, crystalline brush.

 

The tale would be told, after the storm, of how the Sheriff came down off the mountain, mostly on his backside; how his horse, calm and sure-footed, with two schoolchildren on his back, followed with considerably more dignity, and when school convened again, after the blizzard blew itself out, several of the children, each in their turn, told their teacher about an absolutely black, impossibly huge, utter bearlike creature made itself known to them in one form or another: it led two of them to safety, back to the MacTavish ranch; it blocked the way of two more as they were about to step to the edge of a sheer drop-off, after they’d climbed a narrow, icy path, trying to find a high place to sight their bearings; and how none of them were really sure if it was bear, or dog, or just what it was that got them, individually and severally, to safety.

Nobody spoke of what the Sheriff did, there on the icy shelf on the side of the mountain, because he himself did not speak of it, but when his son described being halfway from here to there and saw that the children he followed had gotten home, and how he’d heard the meanest, deepest, most musical but the absolutely most mournful howl on the wind he’d ever heard in all his young life, all his Pa would say was, “Yep. I heard it, too.”

And Caleb never let on that he followed his Pa back to the High Lonesome, and his Pa went up there, on foot and by himself, and looked at that cribbed-shut rock shelf and he stood there for the longest time with his hat in his hand, and how he’d finally wiped his eyes and set his hat back on his head and come back down that narrow, slick path.

This time he didn’t fall but twice.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

84. BLOODLINE

There were many Bear Killers.

All were … big.

Most were well more than big.

Nearly all had the blunt, strong, bone crushing muzzle, the thick, black, slightly curly fur, the deep chest and massive musculature, and very few were anything but an unrelieved, glossy, gleaming, black-as-a-sinner’s-conscience, not just black, but absolutely, positively, black! in color.

The first to carry that proud name belonged to a little girl.

She was such a pretty little girl, she wore ribbons and ruffles and patent-leather slippers, she was charming and lovely and she played piano and sang, and she loved The Bear Killer’s sire as only a little child can love a great and powerful dog.

The Bear Killer’s sire was Dawg, and Dawg was his own soul: he chose to keep company with a particular Territorial Marshal, and when this individual was recalled to Denver, promoted – or, to hear him later recount it, inflicted with – a desk and an office, why, Dawg went along as a matter of course.

This pretty little girl was all a-sorrow, not only because her beloved Uncle Charlie – the justly renowned Charlie Macneil – was leaving – but so was Dawg, and Dawg had most patiently borne up under her attentions, to breathy whispers given in confidence, to childish caresses and impulsive hugs, outrages that would not have been tolerated from any but Macneil, or Macneil’s woman … this pale eyed little girl was the only other soul in all of God’s creation that Dawg would tolerate in this intimate and familiar way.

When little Sarah Lynne McKenna hugged Dawg around his hard-muscled neck and wept silently into the lion’s-mane of his shoulder ruff, when this blooded warrior and feared partner of this scarred veteran of a US Marshal licked salty tears off the grieving child’s face, Marshal Macneil squatted beside her and rested his broad, callused, weather-browned hand on her back and whispered, “Take a look at this.”

He dipped a work-hardened, war-scarred hand into his coat pocket, carefully scooped out something absolutely black, something that wiggled and grunted and regarded the little girl with shining-black, button-bright eyes, something with a little furry tail and a surprisingly pink tongue, and as The Lady Esther leaned into her burden and chuffed away from the station, bearing Macneil and Dawg, little Sarah Lynne McKenna held the little ball of furry black Dawg-pup, her sorrow and her loss forgotten.

So began the life of the legendary Bear Killer.

Now Bear Killer wasn’t the name he bore right away.

He was, after all, no bigger than a man’s fist – he was barely weaned, and he missed his littermates and his Mama, but Sarah smuggled him into bed with her and whispered to him that he must be quiet, and she learned that when this little ball of wiggle and grunt woke her by licking her face, she’d best get him outside to tend certain necessaries that are the natural consequence of puppies consuming food and water.

Sarah sat very properly in their parlor, little black Button Eyes sitting beside her ankle, both listening to her Mama read her stories from the newspaper: a man named Mark Twain wrote the most amusing and highly unlikely tales of life back East, and so mother and child agreed that yes, this furry little newcomer could be called Twain Dawg.

Twain Dawg and little Sarah grew together, and ran together, and played together: she would trail a length of ribbon, and Twain Dawg would pounce on it, happily pinning it with his paws: he would hobby-horse gallop after a rolled gutta-percha ball, scrambling to catch it, to stand on it, rolling off and hitting the ground and coming up on all fours, bright-pink tongue out and laughing, and Sarah would laugh and clap her hands with delight: the high mountain air was good for child and dog alike, and in not too great a time, Twain Dawg was gaining both height, length and girth.

Twain Dawg accepted the family as his pack, and not infrequently would be seen laying near the youngest, the infants, in obvious overwatch and protection: he would ride with Sarah in her carriage, or trot happily beside her as she rode: on one occasion, while Sarah’s Mama changed one of the infants’ diapers, Twain Dawg sat nearby, head cocked, and such a puzzled expression on his black-furred face as to bring a smile to the mother’s: Sarah was outside, and through some misadventure, fell and cried out in distress.

Bonnie McKenna’s eyes widened in alarm as this head-cocked companion suddenly launched himself from the nursery and down the hall – she could see through the open door as the dog streaked like an arrow from Death’s bow for the front door – the door shivered with the force of his impact, and Twain Dawg’s fur stood up across his shoulders and down his back and it was the first time Bonnie McKenna’s blood chilled to that degree, for never in her life had she heard a war-dog absolutely, positively, unreservedly voicing his rage, giving full-voiced release of every violent fragment of its utter willingness to KILL! – because his beloved Mistress was being hurt, and he was going to have BLOOD!!!

The maid reached over the raging animal – it took her three tries, for he was trying to claw and bite and rend his way through the closed door, and the marks remained for many years – she seized the knob, drew it open, and this thrashing black demon ripped the air apart with fang and with voice as he twisted through the opening, and they could hear him as he ran, sounding like an entire pack of war-hounds.

Just as quickly, the great, snarling, war-screaming killing voice stopped.

Pale-faced, wide-eyed, Bonnie wrapped her infant, laid the child in its crib, gathered her skirts and ran: the maid pulled the door wide open and Bonnie ran out onto the broad front porch, looked about fearfully, saw her daughter sitting on the ground, one arm around the great black dog’s neck.

Bonnie McKenna was off the porch without benefit of taking the steps: she was not as swift as Twain Dawg, but she was certainly as determined, for her child was hurt and she did not know but what this screaming, raging animal was going to contribute to the general distress!

Bonnie’s skirts were hiked well up and her knees drove like stockinged pistons as she sprinted across the meadow, eyes wide, mouth open, breath searing in her lungs, and she ran up to her daughter as Sarah came to her feet, swatting at the dirt on her riding skirt.

Twain Dawg gave her reddened cheekbone a final lick, looked at the rapidly approaching Bonnie McKenna, wagged his great brush of a tail in happy greeting.

Sarah’s face usually had a properly pale hue: proper young ladies, after all, did not expose themselves to the sun’s vulgar rays, and a fashionable pallor was desired by the upper classes – but at her Mama’s approach, Sarah turned a distinct shade of scarlet.

“I fell off my horse, Mama,” she admitted.

Bonnie coasted to a stop, frowning with concern – she had several frowns, but this was the one she wore when she was worried – maternal fingers explored Sarah’s scraped cheekbone, felt her collarbones and shoulders, then her maidenly hips.

“From the way Twain Dawg was carrying on, I was afraid we were being invaded,” Bonnie said quietly, looking at the black, grinning canine: for his part, Twain Dawg looked immensely pleased with himself.

“Where is your horse?” Bonnie asked, looking around.

“I think he went back to the barn. Come on, Twain Dawg!” – and a very young Sarah Lynne McKenna turned and ran happily for the barn, Twain Dawg joyfully bounding along beside her.

Bonnie turned, shaded her eyes.

“Hello, Linn,” she called.

Sheriff Linn Keller swung down from his copper mare, removed his Stetson.

“I heard one hell of a dog fight,” he said, puzzlement in his voice as he raised pale eyes to the running child beyond: “was Sarah hurt?”

“No,” Bonnie sighed. “No, Sarah fell off her horse and I thought that black dog was going to bust through our front door to get to her!”

The Sheriff raised an eyebrow and his bottom jaw thrust slowly forward.

“What brings you clear out here? Surely you didn’t hear the commotion clear in town.”

“No.” The Sheriff’s voice was serious. “Have you heard about an old boar giz gettin’ into the local livestock?”

“I … griz?” Bonnie regarded him with puzzlement: the Sheriff deliberately did not look at her, for if he did, he would have to look at those eyes, those God-awful lovely eyes he could swim in, those eyes he fell in love with years before …

“Grizzly,” the Sheriff replied. “B’ar and a big one, likely square nine foot. Someone put a shot into him and he’s injured and that means he’s dangerous. Macneil is comin’ back out, I sent for him, we’re headed up high with the Daine boys. They’re old b’ar hunters from way back. They hunted black bear back East but I don’t know as a one of ‘em has ever seen a full grown grizzly.”

Bonnie’s mouth went dry and she turned, looked at the barn.

Sarah and Twain Dawg were walking back toward them.

“I think Sarah may have had enough riding for one day,” Bonnie said faintly.

“I don’t reckon Mr. Rosenthal would be interested in helping out.” There was the barest hint of contempt in the Sheriff’s words, and this trace was not lost on Bonnie.

“No, Sheriff,” Bonnie sighed, “I don’t believe my husband would be interested. If it doesn’t involve gambling or pretty girls …”
Linn heard the hurt in her voice and he couldn’t help himself, he gripped her shoulders, gripped them gently. “Bonnie …”

Bonnie shoved him away, almost punching her hands into his chest as she did. “Why couldn’t I have married you,” she snapped bitterly, turned and almost ran back to the house.

Linn took a half-step back, watched her departure, then turned to look at Sarah’s approach: he went to one knee, and Sarah came scampering up to him, spreading her arms as she always did, and he grabbed her in a big fatherly hug.

Twain Dawg dropped his square backside on the ground, pink tongue hung happily out the side of his mouth, regarding the Sheriff with bright eyes, his tail sweeping the grass beneath.

“Now what happened to your cheek bone, Princess?” Linn asked gently, frowning at the darkening scrape.

Sarah shrugged. “I fell off my horse,” she admitted.

“I’ve done that,” the Sheriff nodded. “Bruised my dignity pretty severely when I did.”

“Bruised your –“ Sarah blinked, then giggled as she realized she’d just fallen for one of the pale eyed lawman’s perpetual jokes.

“Sarah, there’s a wounded grizzly bear higher up. Macneil and I are going after it, we’re taking the Daine boys with us. I’d like you to stay close to the house til we can skin that critter out and fetch back the hide.”

Sarah’s expression was solemn as she saw the seriousness of the Sheriff’s pale eyes.

“Yes, sir,” she whispered. “Mama would tell you to be careful.”

“I would tell your Mama that I will.”

“Mama would worry about you.”
The Sheriff nodded. “I worry about her too.”

“I don’t like the way Papa talks to her,” Sarah admitted, “but I’m not supposed to say anything about that.”

The Sheriff took her hands in both of his. “It’s our secret,” he said quietly, then turned, stood.

“Here comes Macneil and the Daine boys. I reckon you might want to slip back to your house.” He looked at her and winked. “It’ll make your Mama feel better.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

85. “I WON’T HAVE YOU DROWN!”

The Sheriff watched as Sarah ran back for the Rosenthal ranch house, Twain Dawg beside her: Sarah peeled to the left, up onto the porch, and Twain Dawg made a symmetrical turn to the right, coming in behind and then beside Macneil, for all the world like Dawg used to.

The Sheriff knew Dawg had crossed Bifrost, and regretted it: Dawg had been a steadfast and loyal friend and partner to his friend and Brother, Macneil, and he knew how much a man could come to depend on such a canine partner.

Charlie had never spoken of it, but a he drew up, Twain Dawg beside him, Linn had the feeling that this was as it should be.

“They’ll meet up with us at Top Fork,” Macneil said without preamble.

Linn nodded, kissed at his Cannonball mare: she came pacing forward, allowing him to gather the trailing reins and swing aboard.

Two lawmen and a war-dog headed on across the meadow and into the mountain beyond.

 

Linn had an immense respect for the Daine boys.

Long, tall, skinny Kentucky moonshiners, they were master carpenters, they were artisans when it came to coaxing essence of summer lightning out of a copper coil; they made homemade wine in addition to corn squeezin’s, and some of their best tasting and most potent product, Uncle Will’s Finest, was a half and half of homemade wine and moon likker.

Even raw and recent made and not over thirty days old, it went down like Mama’s milk and blowed the socks off a man’s feet.

They were passing fine gunsmiths, and they still forged out their long barrel, big bore flint rifles: as the eldest Daine said, “As long as God Almighty keeps makin’ rocks, I kin knap me out gun flints,” and the Sheriff considered this and allowed as the old man was right.

They held their council of war on a rocky promontory, where they could see for a great distance: they knew where the bear was, for the young Kentuckians found the bear, tracked the bear, spied the bear: moccasins whispered on rock as their swiftest runner bore the news to the main party, and the ambush was laid.

They knew where a wounded animal would likely travel, and set themselves accordingly, and even though these mountaineers carried but single shot flint rifles, the Sheriff had the feeling they were good enough with them, that magazine rifles in their hands would have been superfluous: he and Macneil, a pair of mountaineers, another pair, positioned in a great circle: the wind favored them, and the ambush was set.

Macneil reached down at the familiar warmth against his leg, his hand automatically going for Dawg’s flank, as it always did when he and his old friend lay wait for the lawless: it wasn’t Dawg whose fur he found, but that of Twain Dawg, young and green and untested, and Macneil looked at Linn, his voice starting up his throat to express his hope this young dog would not spoil the ambush –

Linn’s chin raised and so did his Sharps rifle.

Macneil gripped his own .45-70, followed the pale eyed lawman’s gaze.

The grizzly was coming up the trail … but not the trail they expected.

The grizzly was favoring one foreleg and Macneil silently damned the idiot that put a bad shot into the animal: better to leave it unharmed, rather than wound it and make it everyone’s enemy –

Linn reached up, hooked his finger around the heavy hammer spur, brought the hammer back to full stand.

Twain Dawg caught the bear’s scent, hot and fresh and very nearby, and as Macneil’s hand lifted from the dog’s flank, Twain Dawg’s fur stood straight up, down the length of his spine and across his shoulders, giving him the appearance of an African lion in full mane: about the time the men saw the bear, the bear saw them, and as it tasted the wind, its little pig eyes searched the brush and saw something that should not be there.

The bear did what a wounded predator does.

It attacked.

Down below, a flint rifle coughed, another: lead balls, a half inch in diameter and backed by a healthy charge of coarse powder, launched from hand-forged, octagon barrels, pillow-ticking jacketing spinning away into the thin mountain air.

Macneil brought his rifle to shoulder and he came up on his knees, the front bead settling at the base of the bear’s throat –

Something black and big as a freight train drove between the two lawmen, knocking both their aims awry: The Bear Killer’s challenge was enough to freeze the blood of a hot-blooded man, the killing fury of a thousand years of selective breeding setting his very soul on fire.

The Tibetan Mountain Mastiff grows to a truly huge size; they were bred in Tibet to safeguard entire villages, and they were bred to be strong, fast, deadly and hard to kill.

The chopping bawl of an enraged grizzly collided with ten thousand war-dogs’ roaring challenge and the bear swung its good paw at where something black and fanged had been a moment before: in the next tenth-of-a-heartbeat, Twain Dawg’s blunt jaws, open as wide as they would go, slammed shut on the grizzly’s heavily furred throat, the weight of his ballistic arc driving the polished ivory canines a-straddle of the bear’s windpipe.

Twain Dawg bit down, locking his jaws, as the bear spun, swatting at this new tormentor.

Macneil placed his shots coldly, methodically, swearing under his breath, promising himself he was going to kick this interfering animal for spoiling his shot and he’d give him a big steak dinner for having the sand to go after a wounded grizzly, for God’s sake! – he heard the mountaineer’s rifles, as if from many miles away, he saw little puffs in the bear’s hide as fifty caliber rifle balls drove in with deadly effect, and as Macneil set down his empty rifle and drew his brace of Remingtons, the Sheriff stood and took a sight and the Sharps shoved its crescent steel butt plate into his arm and Macneil saw blood and brains spray from the top of the bear’s head and time froze, time froze, and the bear stood straight up like an awkward toy and went over backwards, silent, stiff, falling like a cut down tree.

Macneil slammed his Remmies back into their holsters and he charged over the edge of the rise, ignoring brush that tore through his trousers and brought blood as he forced through them: he leaped from a small ledge, fell ten feet, landed on some loose rock, jumped again, realized he was jumping right into reach of a grizzly bear –

He took three steps, more to recover his balance, he had no memory of drawing his right hand Remington, he brought the octagon barrel up –

There was no need.

This bear was well beyond dead.

Macneil eased the hammer down, holstered, grabbed Twain Dawg by the shoulders, pulled.

Twain Dawg’s eyes were rolled back.

Macneil released, slammed his hands hard and flat against Twain Dawg’s ribs, roared “LEGGO!”

His fingers worked in between Twain Dawg’s jaws and Macneil screamed, he yelled, he swore, he threatened, he worked Twain Dawg’s jaws loose with bloodied fingers: the blood was not his, but the blood was killing the dog, and he knew it.

He seized Twain Dawg by the back of the skull and the neck and pulled, fell back: the bloody-jaw dog was limp, unmoving.

“NO BY GOD YOU ARE NOT GONNA DIE ON ME I WON’T HAVE IT!!!” the Marshal raged: seizing Twain Dawg by the back legs, he hauled him off the ground, shook viciously once, twice, then realizing he needed more leverage, he spun around in a circle, growling like an animal himself: Twain Dawg swung out with the centrifugal force, Macneil leaning back, a death grip on Twain Dawg’s hind legs.

A gob of clotted blood slung out and hit the ground and Macneil stopped, fell back, stumbled.

Twain Dawg fell with him.

Macneil felt him move.

Macneil rolled over and Twain Dawg fell on his side, grunted, gasped, choked, coughed; he came to all fours, as did the Territorial Marshal: head hanging, Twain Dawg coughed, heaved, coughed again, then wobbled his way to the nearby creek, where he leaned down, took a tentative drink, then collapsed.

Macneil staggered up, seized Twain Dawg by the scruff of the neck, hauled him out.

Behind them, the Sheriff and those lean Kentucky mountaineers were examining their prize; knives were produced and the laborious process of skinning out a grizzly bear began.

Macneil paid them no mind.

He rubbed life back into the black furred hide, muttering “You hard headed contrary son of your Pa, damn you, I won’t have you drown after you killed that b’ar!”

 

Sarah raised her head, looked around, blinked.

Bonnie saw Sarah’s sudden movement, saw her daughter come quickly to her feet.

Sarah looked at her Mama, then ran from the room, and Bonnie heard her little girl’s patent-leather slippers whisper quickly up the stairs.

Bare moments later, she heard Sarah’s riding-boots, louder than her dainty, feminine slippers, and she heard the front door open, then shut.

Bonnie sighed, lowered her eyes to the article she’d been reading.

She knew in a moment she would hear hoofbeats, and very likely her daughter would be chasing off after something remarkable.

She looked up, somewhat surprised, as hard knuckles rapped against her door frame.

It was the Sheriff.

They’d got that bear.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

86. CEREMONY

Later that night, in the Silver Jewel, Macneil and the Sheriff sat in a long and companionable silence back in the Lawman’s Corner.

The Sheriff’s Sharps rifle was parked in the corner, and beside it, Macneil’s custom Winchester: above, two Stetsons hung on their pegs.

Below these, the two lawmen sat and contemplated the living tableau playing itself out there in the Jewel.

Neither man spoke for near to a half hour.

Occasionally one or the other would reach for the short, squat glass of something water clear and not over 30 days old – that, or the heavy glass mug of beer.

Finally the Sheriff said “The hell with it,” drank down a third of the beer and dumped his Two Hit John into the beer.

Macneil favored him with a quiet look, then followed suit.

The two lawmen hoisted their beers, saluted one another, drank: neither man came up for air until his mug was empty, and immediately, each rose, picked up hat and rifle and headed for the door.

They knew a boiler maker was the best way for that-there Two Hit John to reach up and belt them a good one across the gourd and neither man wanted to be anywhere near anyone else when it hit.

They pulled their horses’ reins loose and looked at one another, then at the nearest mountain overlooking Firelands.

“You reckon they got that b’ar packed in yet?” Macneil said in a soft voice.

“I reckon if they don’t, they’ll keep at it til they’ve got every useful part packed off and salted down.” Linn swung a long leg over his saddle, worked his backside some, the way a man will when he’s restless.

“It always surprised me.”

“What’s that?”

“Once you skin out a b’ar, how much it looks like a man.”

“Yep.” The Sheriff crossed his palms over the saddle horn, grimaced, brought his weight onto his arms: Macneil made a face as he heard the pale eyed old lawman’s spine complain as the weight came off it.

“Now daggone, old hoss, that hurts t’ listen to!”

“Why d’ye think I had me some medicinal alcohol?” Linn’s grin was wolflike, betraying the pain he lived with, what with a sway back and numerous injuries over the years.

“You might ought think of retirin’. I’m gettin’ too old for this and so are you.”

Linn gave his old and dear friend and Brother a long look and finally said, “Sad part is … you’re right. I am gettin’ too old for this.” He coughed, spat. “You got a place t’ stay?”

“Hell, I figured I’d stay here at the Jewel.”

“You’re welcome to my place. Esther would be more’n tickled to see you.”

Charlie ducked his head a little, trying to hide a smile. “You reckon she’ll have any of that real good berry pie of hers made up?”

Linn laughed. “If she ain’t got it she’ll have it right directly!”

Macneil laughed, then sobered, his brows wrinkling together.

“You reckon I mighta scared Sarah, tellin’ her about that b’ar?”

Linn considered for a long moment.

“I reckon she’s gon’ t’ have t’ get used t’ the idea the world is a scary place. Might as well start now.”

Charlie eyed his fellow lawman with open suspicion. “You know somethin’ I don’t?” he challenged.

Linn laughed. “Charlie,” he admitted with a grin, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and I know just enough to get myself in trouble! Now let’s go see about some pie!”

 

The half-grown dog pretty well filled the copper tub.

Sarah used all the hot water they had, and heated more on the stove, to fill it to the proper level – she knew just how much to put in, and just how warm to make it, she knew just how much of the scented bath powder to put in, and she knew how to make the most scented suds in the least time.

The half-grown black dog knew how to get into the tub without splashing, and did: eyes half closed, he submitted to his quiet Mistress’s ministrations, tolerating the thorough scrubbing with a patient grace more suited to a crowned royal than to a mere canine: when finally he’d been well and thoroughly washed and rinsed, there remained a pile of soap suds on the very top of his head, for all the world like a crown, and even soaking wet with his double layer of fur plastered down, he still managed to look not just royal and regal, but immensely pleased with himself as he sat in that tub of slowly cooling water.

Sarah scooped up a tiny ball of soap suds on her curled finger.

“You have outgrown your puppy name,” she said in a mature and serious voice: “you have earned your adult name.”

She delicately placed the glob of gleaming, shimmering soap suds on top of his muzzle just behind his wet and gleaming-black nose and declared, “I dub the thy new name, and let the world take note: from this day forward, thou art …

“The Bear Killer!”

The Bear Killer blinked sleepily, accepting her deep curtsy with the dignity of the truly great.

 

Nicodemus looked at his Pa with wondering eyes.

He was cuddled up under the hand sewn quilt and his Pa was just closing one of the books he’d read to ‘em sometimes, one of the books his Aunt Sarah wrote.

“Pa?”

“Yes, son?”

“Pa, is that … that ain’t the Bear Killer you knew.”

“No,” Jacob admitted. “The one I knew … that would be the get of Sarah’s Bear Killer.”

“But Pa … where’d they come from to start with?”

Jacob grinned.

“Your Aunt Sarah wrote about that too.”

Nicodemus yawned, his eyes squinting shut, and he murmured sleepily, “Will you read us that one too, Pa?”

Jacob set the book aside, leaned forward and pulled the covers up around his son’s chin. “I will,” he said, very softly, and Nicodemus’ eyes opened a little, as if they were too heavy to hold up: they slid shut and he turned his head a little, and he was asleep, just that fast.

Jacob sat there for several minutes, looking from one to another of his young with the soft expression of a man in a very unguarded, very private moment, then he rose, picked up the book, and smiled at his wife, listening in the doorway.

When finally the two of them laid down and cuddled up ag’in one another, Annette whispered, “You have the most reassuring voice.”

She felt his belly shiver a little and she knew it was his way of laughing, without making a sound: he took a breath, then whispered back, “I have the most boring voice. It’s how I put them to sleep so fast.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

87. BORN IN FIRE, BORN IN FLAME

We know the fire started in a Chinaman’s shop.

We know the Chinaman had numerous ceramic and bronze dragons decorating his shop – dragons are good luck, and a merchant needs luck in addition to merchandise – the shop always smelled of incense, smoldering in decorative holders, adding their scented haze to the general atmosphere.

The Chinaman also had a pair of prized guardians: his lions, he called them, and well named they were.

They were littermates, male and female; they were steadfast, loyal, protective, and they were huge.

Truly, genuinely, huge.

Dogs they were, but dogs that more resembled the legendary lion.

Not the African lion – no, the bigger, fiercer Chinese lion, a massive creature all fur and fang and claw and muscle, second only to the legendary dragon, differing from this great guardian of legend only in that these two great canines had neither wings nor scales, and neither breathed fire.

They didn’t have to.

Neither breathed fire, but fire found them: somewhere in the Chinaman’s shop, somewhere in rice paper and bamboo and fireworks and silk curtains, fire came to ravening, devouring life, spread and seared and took wing on the wind coming hard inland, off the Bay.

The male, the dog – the larger of the two – snarled and bristled as smoke eddied down toward them.

The other – only slightly smaller – lay on her side, panting, her great belly heaving.

They were in a cellar, hiding by instinct from the world while the dam whelped, while the pups were birthed, while young life was squeezed through muscle and pelvis bone and into the cold, ill-smelling world.

The male looked up at the dirty reddish glow, snarled at this new enemy: he turned, interposed his bulk between this muttering intruder and the laboring mother.

One pup, then another, born into smoke and dirt: more there were, and while fire raged and beams fell overhead, the little family growled defiance and nosed wet, grunting pups to the Mama’s belly.

The fire burned itself out, as fires always do; people came back, as they always do; unfortunately, the Chinaman, trying to save his goods, was killed in the conflagration, what was left of the shop was quickly sold by the surviving family, who caught the next boat back to China.

Of the great and formidable dogs, nothing was seen, and nothing was ever found.

Nobody noticed the shadows that moved blind, grunting, squirming pups into a convenient wagon, nobody saw the shadows that followed the wagon: whether luck, or Chinese ancestors’ spirits, or blind chance steered the wagon in a fortuitous direction, we really don’t know: we do know that the pups, unwilling passengers in a strange-smelling conveyance, were spirited away before anyone found them … as stealthily, as efficiently, as silently, as if the Chinese dragon itself insinuated its way between realities, and plucked them to safety unseen.

 

Nicodemus brought in another armload of wood.

The kitchen was warm and smelled of his Ma’s cooking and especially the bread she had baking, and Nicodemus arranged the wood in the wood box.

“I got more to bring in, Ma,” he offered, and Annette smiled at her son, wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist.

“Thank you, Nicodemus,” Annette almost whispered, and the grinning lad scampered for the door, intent on bringing in another armload of his Mama’s approval.

Nicodemus gathered the wood quickly, efficiently – he was well practiced, his moves were sure, without wasted movement – and he turned to take the armload inside.

Nicodemus stopped, the hair standing up on his arms: his young eyes narrowed and he turned again, slowly, some deep instinct or primitive knowledge waking in his young soul, warning him – warning him of something.

He turned, slowly, a full circle: he tasted fear and he remembered his Pa’s words:

“Fear is a choice, Nicodemus,” he said once. “We can give it the reins and run like a spooked horse, or we can shove it down in an iron kettle and screw the lid down tight.”

Nicodemus tightened his belly, bent his knees a little, listened to the still winter air, then he started to move, slowly, toward the front door.

His eyes were busy, his mouth was dry, his movements steady, purposeful: he sidled toward the front door, head on a swivel, wishing mightily he had his rifle, calculating the distance to the ax, wondering if whatever was out there would succumb to a hard-swung piece of stovewood –

He made the front door.

Nicodemus automatically kicked the toes of his boots against the stone step, knocking off the accumulated snow, then he carefully, slowly, reached out a hand and opened the door, turned around, back into the house, eyes searching the snowy landscape –

Annette turned at the sound of a boy’s grunt and wood clattering on the floor: snatching up her apron, she quickly wiped her hands clean as she swung around the table, first seeing scattered stovewood, then her son’s hat, then the sandy thatch of her son’s scalp –

“Nicodemus?” Annette asked, concern in her brows and a smile on her lips, and she leaned over to push the door shut: “Nicodemus, what happened?”

“I fell,” he admitted. “I tripped.”

“Oh, Nicodemus,” Annette groaned sympathetically. “Did you hit your head?”

“No, ma’am,” Nicodemus lied. “I’m … I gotta gather up this wood.” He rolled over, came up on all fours, then to his feet. “And I gotta sweep up my mess!”

Annette’s hands were warm as she pressed them against her son’s chilled cheeks. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” she murmured.

“Well … just a little,” he admitted.

She kissed his forehead. “You’ll live.” She turned him, hands on his shoulders, ran quick fingers through fine hair: “You’re not bleeding, but that’s going to goose egg up pretty soon.”

Nicodemus refrained from flinching as she touched the tender spot where he’d banged the back of his head (the hook rug offered absolutely no padding against the stone floor beneath!) but he did make a quick face.

“Here. Let’s get this wood up before your father makes it in. He’ll wonder if we’re putting down a new floor.”

Nicodemus gathered and packed and swept the floor, picked up the rug and carried it outside to shake it out.

He came back in, swept the rest of the dirt out the open door, parked the broom and picked up the rifle from the near corner where it was kept, and slipped back outside.

He pulled the door shut behind him, rifle across his chest, eyes busy.

He looked around, looked at his tracks in the snow –

His thumb reached up and pulled the hammer back to full stand.

His were not the only tracks in the snow.

Nicodemus felt the blood run out of his back and he swallowed a suddenly-dry throat, staring at the impossibly huge pug mark overlaying his own just-made footprint.

If this was a dog, it was the world’s biggest dog … and if it was a cat, it made a track just an awful lot like a dog.

Nicodemus followed the tracks, his boot soles squeaking a little as he stepped in unbroken snow: he followed about twenty feet, stopping every few feet to look around.

He heard his Pa’s horse and he knew his Pa was coming up their road, he knew his Pa just turned off the main road and onto theirs, and he turned to look, knowing his Pa would come into sight right here directly.

He was.

His Pa greeted his son with the quiet, dignified voice he used in such moments, and his son replied in kind, and when his Pa inquired if anything was amiss, Nicodemus pointed to the track.

Jacob swung down out of the saddle and squatted in the snow, his son beside him, young eyes wide and scanning the darkness surrounding, looking for anything that shouldn’t be there, a movement, a shape –

“Nicodemus?”

Nicodemus jumped a little. “Yes, sir?”

“I reckon I’ll unsaddle my Apple-horse. Come on out to the barn with me.”

Nicodemus’ eyes swung to the barn and he realized they would be going into a perfect ambush point.

He swallowed something sticky, his thumb reaching up and caressing the checkered hammer spur.

“Yes, sir.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

88. BLACK, FURRY AND FAST

 

Nicodemus watched his Pa disappear into the deeper shadows of the barn's slud-open door.

Part of his mind knew Mrs. Shaver, the schoolmarm, would never approve of the term "slud" though Nicodemus believed it perfectly acceptable, as his Pa used it, his Grampa had used it (rest his soul!) and he himself used it as a perfectly appropriate past-tense version of "to slide."

The rest of his mind was casting about like a rat in a trap, expecting something large and fanged to jump on him from any direction at any time.

To his credit, his pace was steady, as was his rifle's muzzle: high port, pointing up over the mountain to his left: if a Blue Whistler turned loose unexpectedly, the slug would to off to who-knows-where and no harm.

His Pa taught him that.

Jacob hauled the saddle off his Apple-horse, rubbed him down, fooled with him and petted him and brushed him and talked to him like he was a pet dog, and the stallion laid his ears back with pleasure and made as if to snatch the kerchief from where his Pa had it tucked in the back of his belt.

Nicodemus recalled his Grampa's Cannonball horse used to do that, and he smiled a little.

he had a very vague, very dim recollection of sitting on that red mare, setting a-straddle of her neck ahead of the saddle horn (he was just a liddle rudder billy!) and his Grampa's big hand across his belly, and he was King of the World and safer than if he was in his Mama's lap.

Saddle, bridle and blanket hung up, grain in the trough, a muttered threat to knock the horse into the middle of next week (which the stallion didn't believe at all) and Jacob turned from the horse to his son.

"Nicodemus, tell me about that track."

"It's big, sir," Nicodemus blurted.

"You ... could say that, yes," Jacob agreed slowly. "How far back could you track it?"

"There's not much light to work by, sir, but I followed it halfway back here."

"Hm." Jacob nodded wisely. "Them tracks ... how'd it pace out?"

"It didn't walk like no cat, sir. It paced off like a dog."

"Must be an awful big dog."

"Yes, sir."

"How big a dog do you reckon would make a track that size?"

Nicodemus' eyes were big and sincere and he swallowed nervously, just about the time something hit him between the shoulder blades, hit him unexpectedly, knocked him over a bale: he brought the rifle in close, tucked, came up on one knee, and before he could bring the octagon barrel to bear, something huge, black, furry and fast had him pinned down in the hay.

Something with a very pink, very wet tongue.

Something that gave his face a very enthusiastic face-washing.

Nicodemus screwed his face up and sputtered a little, twisting in surprise, and he heard his Pa say softly, "Come here, fella," and something huge, black, furry and almost completely silent jumped from a-straddle of him over to his Pa.

"Nicodemus," his Pa said, rubbing the dog's jowls with both hands as the HUGE canine laid its head on his shoulder, "say hello to The Bear Killer."

Nicodemus scrambled to his feet, the Winchester muzzle down in his left hand as he wiped his face with his coat sleeve: he blew noisily, shedding straw from his nose, then stared in astonishment at just how utterly monstrously BIG this animal was!

"That's ... The Bear Killer?" he asked in a cowed, little-boy voice.

Jacob laughed, hugged the humongous fur pile and laughed.

"Yes," he said, and Nicodemus could hear the genuine affection in his voice. "This-here is The Bear Killer."

Nicodemus came over, hesitant, tentative: to his credit, he stood his ground as the immense black face swung toward him, shoved a wet nose into his front and snuffed noisily, then gave his rising hand a happy lick.

"I thought The Bear Killer was dead," he said, and Jacob smiled a little, working strong fingers into black fur.

The Bear Killer groaned, laid down, rolled over, waving huge paws in the air, for all the world like an outsized puppy begging a belly rub.

"Your Grampa is dead," Jacob said, dedicating both hands to the tail-wagging, happily-muttering Tibetan Mastiff, "but I am alive, and so are you. This fella here wears the name. Just like you wear the Keller name."

"Oh." It was the quiet exclamation of understanding common to boys the world over.

"I knew he was around. It just took him some time to come on in."

"I see." Nicodemus looked at his Pa, curious. "Sir, how'd you know?"

"I saw that White Wolf," Jacob said, his voice suddenly serious. "I knew something was in the wind so I started lookin'. Nobody in the family was about to die, nobody was hurt bad nor sick, nobody in town neither, other'n for that little old biddy that's convinced she's dyin', and she's not worth the Wolf's time."

Nicodemus nodded solemnly.

"No, I knew it must be good news for a change, and I was right." He straightened, looked down at the bicycle-paddling dog. "Ain't that right, fella?"

The Bear Killer rolled over on his feet, the immense brush of a tail swinging dangerously and banging loudly on the side of a stall, then he paced outside and around the barn and was gone.

"Will he be back, sir?" Nicodemus asked, turning his head toward his long tall Pa, and Jacob looked at his son, white teeth flashing in the shadow.

"Yes, Nicodemus. He'll be back, and I reckon things might get interesting because of it."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

89. "I DON'T NEED A REASON"

Sheriff Linn Keller picked up the white-cardboard box, a quiet smile on his face.

He stepped out of the department's long wheelbase, four wheel drive cruiser, closed the door quietly, laughed a little as something big, black and furry came hobby-horsing happily toward him: half again bigger than Tank, their military-surplus bomb sniffing Belgian Malinois, The Bear Killer leaned happily against his leg and looked up with black, button-bright eyes and a wildly swinging tail.

The Sheriff spent a few moments wooling the delighted dog, shaking his fist at it and threatening to put knots on its head: The Bear Killer, accustomed to such threats, responded with an enthusiastic face-washing, and inside, Past Sheriff Willamina Keller smiled to hear her son's laugh.

He knocked before entering -- not only was it polite, he had no wish to surprise a warrior, and besides that, his Mama had raised him to have good manners.

"What's the occasion?" Willamina smiled, turning her office chair, and Linn slid the lid off the box, withdrew a dozen roses and handed her.

"No man needs a reason to bring flowers to his Mama," Linn grinned.

The Bear Killer looked from one to the other, tail swinging, jaws open in a doggy smile ... if you considered a smile to be made of a blunt, strong jaw and ivory teeth that looked (and just happened to be) perfectly capable of crushing bone.

Willamina closed her eyes, buried her face in the blossoms, took a long, appreciative sniff.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You remembered."

She stood and hugged her son, and the Sheriff hugged her back.

"I've got a memory like a steel trap," he whispered. "The main spring's plumb wore out and it's all rusted up but by golly it's mine!"

His eyes went to the desk she'd just quitted, and to the portrait on top ... Willamina and a good looking man in a well fitted suit, a portrait taken on their wedding day.

"I knew it was your anniversary," he whispered.

"And you remembered Richard used to bring me flowers."

"Roses." Linn cupped one of the full, rich, crimson blossoms in his palm. "This is a particular variety."

"The Lady Esther. Yes, I know." Willamina blinked quickly and Linn looked away, pretended not to notice.

"Pa always got you this kind and I figured it was proper."

The Bear Killer, tired of being ignored, thrust the Sheriff in the backside with an impatient nose: the Sheriff turned, glared at the grinning canine.

"Will you stop that!" he snapped. "We've not been properly introduced!"

Willamina laughed. "Let me get a vase for these. Have you eaten?"

"Just got up from the supper table," Linn admitted.

"I have fresh coffee."

"If you've some iced tea," Linn said hopefully, "that would be nice."

"Fresh batch." Willamina disappeared into the kitchen and Linn went to one knee, held out a flat hand. "Gimme five!"

The Bear Killer happily planted his paw on the proffered palm.

"High five!" Linn held his hand up at shoulder level and The Bear Killer easily reared up and pawed it.

Linn shook his fist at the canine. "Thump you!" he snarled, and The Bear Killer snarled happily in reply, clamped gently on the fist, tail wagging.

Linn rubbed The Bear Killer's big head with both hands and laughed, and The Bear Killer washed the Sheriff's under-jaw.

"If you two are done with your Mutual Admiration Society," Willamina said gently, "I have your tea."

Linn turned his hand like a claw pointed at his own face, drew curled fingers down, closed his eyes and dropped his head: The Bear Killer immediately dropped to the floor, eyes, closed, one paw over his nose, then opened his eyes to make sure he was being watched.

"Good boy," Linn whispered, stroking the back of a paw with his bent forefinger.

He rose, turned, accepted the tall, cold glass, drank.

He came up for air about the half way mark. "That's good," he whispered. "Thank you."

"I thought you might be dry. Finish that one off, take this one and grab a seat, I have something to show you."

Linn drained the last of that glass, walked quickly into the kitchen, rinsed the glass and set it in the sink: he came back out, accepted the second one, parked his carcass beside his Mama in the chair she kept by her desk for visitors.

"You were asking about The Bear Killer's antecedents," Willamina said, slipping a pair of half-glasses into place and picking up two small, hand-written books from her desk.

"It seems that ... "

She frowned at one book, closed it, laid it down, opened the other, paged quickly through the first few manually scribed leaves.

"Here it is." She looked over her spectacles and smiled a little. "In the beginning ..."

Linn grinned. He'd done that same thing -- when presenting to friends or family, he would not infrequently frown at his printed page and announce in dramatic and oratorical tones, "In the beginning, God invented the heavens and the earth," then he would look up and grin like a schoolboy and continue, "but I am not going back that far."

"The Bear Killer's first ancestors were brought over from China. You already know he is a Tibetan Mountain Mastiff, and properly clipped, they look very much like an African lion."

Linn nodded. He'd read of a Chinaman who sold a cleverly barbered Tibetan mastiff, claiming it to be a lion ... got quite a bit of money for it, too. The scam made the international news, and the photographs were interesting, if nothing else.

"It seems they lived in San Francisco, which tended to burn down at frequent intervals, and after the Chinaman's shop made an ash of itself, a mating pair and their litter managed to escape the city and made their way into the mountains."

Linn frowned. "Litter?"

"Yes. I don't know how many. It seems they managed to hitch rides -- somehow -- I don't know if people thought the pups were cute or what, but the mating pair and their litter made clever use of man-made transportation."

Linn looked down at the drowsy Bear Killer. "I knew you were smart," he murmured. "Reckon you got it honest."

"It's interesting," Willamina said offhandedly. "The more I look for artifacts, the more of them I find. This" -- she tapped the closed book with a close-trimmed fingernail -- "was written by Jacob Keller's son Nicodemus."

"Nicodemus," Linn repeated, frowning. "That wasn't his firstborn."

"No. He went to college back East and never returned."

"Philistine," Linn growled.

Willamina sighed. "There's no accounting for taste," she agreed.

"Nicodemus. That sounds so formal."

"It was a more formal time."

"I remember your presentation on the manners of the era," Linn chuckled, rubbing his palms together. "At the library, remember? Part of your series ... you had a fashion show, you recruited friends and relatives, you demonstrated what girls wear today as outerwear would have been marginal as underwear in the 1800s?"

"I remember," Willamina laughed. "And I remember sewing my senior prom dress with Aunt Martha. I didn't know it but it was very close to a McKenna." She leaned back, gazing at something many years in the past. "The other girls were shivering from heat loss and exposed acreage. I had a high collar, long sleeves ... the only flesh you could see was from my jaw up, and my ..." She stopped, frowned. "No. No, I wore gloves. A lovely pair of gloves, at that." She smiled. "If only my date had a proper coat from the period, but he rented a tux, so I suppose he did the best he could."

Linn laughed. "I remember that year there were McKenna gowns worn to the prom."

Willamina nodded. "Yes, there were."

"I remember they were the ones who were treated unfailingly as ladies."

"I remember that too."

Linn spread his hands. "On the other hand," he admitted, "if I know so damned much, why haven't I hit that lottery and retired, eh?" He nodded to the book. "You were talking about The Bear Killer."

Willamina nodded. "It seems ..."

She paged back, paged forward.

"Here it is. Someone named ... Knoderer ... found them and gained their trust and decided he'd make his fortune breeding them."

Linn raised an eyebrow.

"He sent off for more Tibetans and tried to establish a breeding population. He moved operations to Colorado, to an isolated area -- people weren't comfortable with dogs the size of young bears, and he correctly foresaw they could be mistaken for a small bruin -- but the entire operation ended when he was killed. I don't know if it was murder or misadventure. I do know the dogs escaped and established a wild population, at least until they were hunted down and killed off."

Linn raised an eyebrow.

"They are of superior intelligence, and were used to men, and naturally some escaped the kill-off."

Willamina's smile was one of those warm, it's-one-of-our-secrets smile. "You remember reading about Territorial Marshal Charlie Macneil."

Linn laughed. "I could almost recite his life's story!" he declared. "It's his place I live on now!"

"That's really where The Bear Killer's start gets its feet under it."

"Do tell."

"Marshal Macneil had a big, black, furry, fast, deadly companion named Dawg."

Linn nodded slowly.

"One of Dawg's get consoled a heart broken little girl who was all in tears that her beloved Uncle Charlie and her even more beloved Dawg were leaving. Macneil handed her a little furry ball of wiggle and grunt that licked the tears from her apple cheeks and made her giggle, and she and The Bear Killer became a team."

"I see." Linn raised an eyebrow. "What about lineage? How did they keep from inbreeding? The vet said near as he could tell, The Bear Killer here was pure blood."

The Bear Killer, hearing his name mentioned, rolled over on his back, all four paws in the air: the stove was warming him, he was relaxed and in the company of his pack, and he paddled his paws happily as Linn reached down and rubbed his furry black belly.

"Nicodemus wrote that he talked to the man who brought in other Tibetans, and he learned that there were still wild Mastiffs." She leaned closer to her son and whispered, "There still are."

Linn's eyes went to the relaxed, paws-bent canine sprawled and supine on the hook rug.

"That's why he's pure blood and not inbred."

"Must be a sizable population."

"Most are kind of a tawny color, kind of like a mountain cat. The black seems to be a throwback."

Linn nodded.

"What else does Nicodemus tell us?"

"Well ..." She frowned a little, turned three pages, slowly. "He does mention that Tibetans can swim."

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller led his Appaloosa up the broad plank, onto the steamboat.

"Hey!" an angry voice challenged. "You can't bring that on board!"

Jacob released Apple's bridle, let the horse pace forward, onto the deck: a self-important man in a blue uniform puffed his way across the deck, shaking a finger at the black, curly-furred canine. "That, that, that's a menace! Off! Off the boat, I say!"

Jacob turned back his lapel to display the six point star. "My ticket says otherwise," was his mild reply.

"I don't care if you're the King of Norway! I say off he goes and --"

Jacob seized the man by the throat.

"I paid for his passage," he said quietly, "and I think you need to speak with the owner." He marched off the deck and onto the ramp, his iron grip around the man's windpipe guaranteeing compliance: "I'd suggest you keep your feet under you or I'll drag you by the neck."

The steamboat line's offices were on the riverfront, the secretary was a bright young woman who came to her feet when a Sheriff of her acquaintance brought a riverboat officer of her acquaintance in by the throat, and she did not need to be told: she knocked quickly, urgently on a door, then opened it wide, stepped out of the lawman's way.

It may have been the fact that the lawman's eyes were very cold and very pale, or that the individual with him had a face the color of a rotten strawberry.

She honestly did not notice the massive, black canine that paced in absolute silence behind them.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

90. BANSHEE

Past Sheriff Willamina Keller cupped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide, fingers splayed over the hand written page.

She re-read the entire page, turned it, read the next, blinked.

Beside her, a half grown Tibetan mastiff lay on his side, paws twitching, asleep in front of the gas heater’s red glow.

Willamina took a deep breath, looked away, shivered: she turned back to the page, dove back into the story like a swimmer will dive into a deep, cold mountain pool.

 

Machines don’t have souls, or so most would say.

An engineer on a steam locomotive would disagree, as would his fireman.

Hard and callused hands inside leather faced work gloves moved with an impossible speed, an incredible precision: sanders wide open, full reverse throttle, hit the air brakes –

The engineer’s gloved hand snatched at the whistle rope, hauled down, hard –

She was The Lady Esther, she was the Z&W’s newest engine, she was special ordered courtesy the Sheriff, and named both for his mother and for the seminal engine that began this profitable little railroad: she was ordered special for mountain duty, she was one of the new compounds, running high pressure steam into one set of cylinders, the exhaust going into a set of low pressure cylinders, using the same steam twice – she had more horsepower, more raw pulling power, than anything the engineer or his fireman had ever driven.

She had her ears pinned back and yesterday she’d hauled half again more ore than they’d ever loaded on the old engine and today with the passenger run, she was making good time and then the engineer looked forward and he tasted copper and he threw the air to her and reversed the throttle and alternately blasphemed the engine and begged her to stop –

If it’s possible for a locomotive to have a soul, perhaps this one did, and perhaps it’s because she was named for the red-headed, green-eyed wife of the Old Sheriff, that she did.

Or perhaps it was simple physics.

We do know that the Sheriff ordered her with a special whistle, a harmonica whistle, one that sang in chorded harmony when the engineer pulled the whistle chain with his normal force.

The Sheriff specified that the whistle have one more voice, one that would be discordant with all the others, louder than the others: not only was this a prototype engine, a Baldwin Mountain Compound, she had a prototype whistle as well.

This made the famous Banshee Whistle seem like a child’s tin whistle.

The engineer hauled down hard on the chain and The Lady Esther screamed like a damned soul, like a newly-condemned sinner, seized by a demon’s claws: she screamed like a soul beyond pain, just at the far edge of utter, absolute agony, and thrashing drivers drove steel wheels threw and coruscating fire from steel rails as she tried desperately to stop.

Behind them, in the express car, two men were thrown to the floor: in the caboose, the conductor toppled forward out of his chair: in the passenger car, a pretty young girl grabbed the back of the bench in front of her to keep from ramming her face into the high backed hardwood.

Engineer and fireman gritted their teeth and hung grimly onto their beloved engine as she and her several cars shivered to a stop.

Her lead trucks were half the boiler’s length onto the trestle.

The engineer released the air, yelling: she was still driving full reverse, just as hard as she could go, and he shut down the throttle, then opened her up slow.

She scrambled, she ground, she threw sparks, she blew smoke and steam and fire into the air and slowly, painfully, she began to back away from the burning trestle.

She got three engine lengths back when the engineer noticed the first sag in the middle.

He throttled her back, set the air again, shaking: the fireman’s face was the color of wheat paste.

The engineer gripped the throttle, willing his nerves back under control, and he whispered, “Thank you, my Lady.”

He heard running feet in the gravel ballast.

The fireman hung out the window as the conductor ran up, eyes bulging: smoke coming up around the trestle spoke as loudly as a man’s shouted voice.

“Get the portable set,” the fireman called. “Grab the wire and let the dispatcher know the trestle is afire!”

The conductor scrambled back toward the caboose.

 

“Granddad,” the pretty girl – Elmira, her name was – “what happened?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” the old rancher admitted.

Other passengers were talking, speculating, muttering: the conductor was nowhere to be seen – someone saw him running, first toward the locomotive, then away – someone started to go out, onto the platform, to inquire what was going on, but the conductor was disappeared into the caboose by the time anyone got far enough to shout an inquiry.

The conductor and brakeman emerged with two long poles, a box with wires: they clamped the ends of the poles onto the telegraph wires beside the track, and as the brakeman held the box, the conductor gripped the black-button key and began tapping out a message.

“Let’s find out!” Elmira exclaimed, jumping up: she scampered to the rear of the car, opened the door, swarmed easily down the cast-iron steps, jumped lightly to the ballast, landing on the balls of her feet, her skirts flaring.

Her grandfather, moving with the lesser velocity commensurate with either dignity, or older age, looked out the back of the car and decided to try going out the front, where there wasn’t as much of a distance from the bottom cast-iron step and the ground.

 

Willamina came up for air, gasped like a swimmer coming up from a deep, extended dive: she took several steadying breaths, then turned to her right, to a patiently waiting computer screen: she sorted through a half dozen thumb drives, plugged one in, sorted through various files, nodded, her bottom jaw thrust out.

The screen displayed an obsolete font.

The Firelands Gazette, she read: she skimmed through the articles, the dates, settled on one, clicked.

Death on the Rails, she read: Trestle Fired. Tragedy on the Tracks. Murder of an Innocent.

“I knew I’d read about that trestle,” Willamina muttered aloud, frowning. “I knew it burned … let’s find out what happened, shall we?”

The Bear Killer, asleep on the floor, twitched and ear, but made no other reply.

 

It took Sheriff Jacob Keller a month, but by careful manipulation of certain accounts, he raised the necessary funds and bought the steamboat line.

He went back into the owner’s office with two attorneys and two policemen, and the former owner – protesting loudly, declaring this was most improper – found himself literally thrown out the front door, his hat, coat and umbrella following: to add insult to injury, Sheriff Jacob Keller sold the steamboat line the next day to a competitor.

He sold it for a profit, to be sure; his investors were pleased at their share of the Sheriff’s business acumen, but the Sheriff himself was the most pleased of all, for he'd satisfied an insult done him.

The owner refused to recognize the validity of his canine companion’s paid passage, the owner siding with the snide, sneering officer Jacob insisted on holding by the throat: instead of uttering threats, Jacob choked the man until he passed out, allowed him to fall to the floor, turned, then gave the owner a cold-eyed glare and said simply, “Experience is a hard teacher, sirrah, but a fool will learn at no other,” and without waiting for a reply, turned and left: he retrieved his grip and his horse and returned by express train for Firelands, where he proceeded to move against the man who’d managed to make him mad.

Sheriff Jacob Keller allowed himself to get mad.

One time a year.

So far he was about three years behind, which suited him fine: he knew he had his father’s temper, he knew how vicious, how utterly, how unreservedly violent his temper could be: he was therefore soft spoken, given to listen and consider rather than react, unless reaction was called for, such as choking out a steamboat officer.

Sheriff Jacob Keller was, two months later, engaged in a very serious game of mumblety-peg with a schoolboy who (thus far) had beaten the Sheriff three times running: once more and he’d win the Sheriff’s jackknife.

Jacob looked up as the boy came pelting up the street, the boy from the telegraph office: he had no flimsy in his hand, which meant the news was fresh, brief and serious.

Jacob closed the blades on his Barlow and handed it wordlessly to the lad he’d been competing with: the grinning boy thanked him, then looked up as the boy grabbed the porch post in front of the Sheriff’s office deacon’s bench to keep from falling.

“Sheriff,” he blurted, “the trestle … trestle’s afire!”

“The train?” Jacob asked, rising, his eyes assuming a much lighter shade.

“Safe, sir. They stopped short of the trustle, but” --

The boy stopped, swallowed hard.

“Sheriff, there’s been a killin’!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

91. “ELMIRA, SPOT FOR ME!”

 

“Lemuel?”

“Yep.”

“You reckon somethin’s wrong?”

“Yep.”

“Pass me attair jug.”

One tall, lean Kentucky moonshiner passed the jug to the other.

“You reckon we oughta take a look?”

Two long swallows, then a third, a short cough of satisfaction.

The jug passed back to the first long tall mountain man.

“Yep.”

Two long swallows, then a third, and the jug was corked and set down.

Outside, a pretty young girl in a pink dress skipped down the gravel ballast, curious, and very interested in what was going on.

Elmira ran up to the conductor, her head tilted to the side as she regarded the telegraph set in the hardwood box the brakeman held.

She knew better than to interrupt the man: he was frowning, she could tell he was making his clicks and clatters with a studied, careful precision, and she didn’t want to interrupt his concentration.

Her grandfather came up behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders, then she felt him flinch, felt him grunt.

She felt him flinch about the time she heard the rifle shot.

He was a tough old man.

He’d fought rustlers and thieves and he’d fought in Europe before that, he’d come to America and he’d made a good life for himself.

He was a widower and a grandfather and he’d made a good and honorable name and he’d made a minor fortune, and he wasn’t going to let something like being shot again, stop him.

He went down on his knees, then his belly, gripped the walnut handle of his revolver.

He was surprised at how heavy it was, but it was his and it was familiar and he knew how to use it.

The old rancher brought his Remington over the rail: he saw the rifle’s smoke, marked the position.

“Elmira,” he said quietly, “spot for me.”

“Where to, Grampa?” Elmira asked, kneeling beside him, shifting to get her knees on ties instead of gravel.

“White patch of rock straight yonder, see the smoke?”

Another rifle shot: something sang over their heads and the telegrapher ignored the bumblebee-zip sound of a rifle slug coming close by his head.

“That far, Grampa? With a pistol?” Elmira asked, her voice light, girlish.

“Just like we did in the back field.” He held up as much barrel in the rear notch as he figured was about right, placed the tip of the sight where he calculated the rifleman to be. “Hold your ears, spot the shot.”

Elmira brought her hands up, plugged her ears.

The Remington boomed.

“Three feet low, two feet left.”

It was hard to breathe and he felt an intense pain in his right chest as his lung slowly, steadily collapsed.

The old man tasted blood on his exhaled breath, ignored the impulse to cough, eared the hammer back, gripped the revolver in both hands, made a very minor adjustment to his sight.

The Remington boomed again.

Elmira saw a puff of smoke, saw a figure collapse, then heard the rifle shot.

“Got him!” she declared, jumping up with excitement, and something like a fist hit her squarely in the middle of the chest.

The old man sagged, coughed blood: his head lowered and he felt his soul slip out of his body as the pistol slipped from his grip.

His dying eyes never saw his granddaughter, lying dead on the tracks beside him, a rifle bullet through her young heart and spine.

Her young and girlish face was as lovely as ever as she stared sightlessly at the sky above.

 

Lemuel thumbed the battery-piece forward, looked at the Curtis & Harvey Black Diamond powder in the flint rifle’s pan, snapped the frizzen shut.

The other lean, tall, hard-eyed mountaineer did the same.

They'd swarmed easily out of the passenger car when the old man was hit, and they hadn't got to the front of the car when that pretty girl of his fell back, death on her face and blood sprayed out her back.

The two shared a look, then leaned forward, started to run, an easy, mile eating trot, the sustained stride of the Long Hunter.

They’d run for most of a day, back home, running to a feud.

Here in the high Rockies, they ran in the same way, but they were not running for a feud.

The two mountaineers knew the rancher and they knew his daughter.

Both men saw the rancher hit, both men saw the defiant man return effective fire, both men saw the pretty girl fall backward, dead before she hit the ground.

Both long tall bearded Kentucky hill runners were determined to find the murderer.

If a betting man was present, he might safely bet – heavily -- on the Kentuckians.

 

Willamina’s eyes stung a little as she read the account Nicodemus Keller had scribed on good rag paper with black India ink and a dip quill.

She chewed on her knuckle, wondering what her badge packing ancestor did next.

She turned the page.

 

In what would (in later years) be called “Hollywood cinema,” the Sheriff would address a torchlight crowd, whipping them into a frenzy and calling for volunteers to pursue whatever flavor of villain was popular with the silver screen scribes at the time.

In the early 1900s, Sheriff Jacob Keller did not have to ask for volunteers.

The morning after the rancher and his granddaughter were murdered, he had his volunteers.

He had a steady stream of hard-eyed men coming into his office, asking how they could help.

He had a smaller number of women, but women with hard expressions, some with faces puffy from tears, from grief expressed in a womanly fashion.

Many of these good folk brought information.

All of them took with them a message, and that message was that the Sheriff wanted to know who fired the trestle.

The Sheriff had no idea that two of the Daine boys had been on the train, that two of the lean Kentucky hill runners looked to the priming in their flint rifles, that two rough-dressed hillbilly moonshiners slipped out of the train and disappeared into the mountains.

He had no idea that two long hunters were out to get whoever fired those shots.

He didn’t know that Kentucky-blue eyes and lean, weathered hands found one of the two responsible.

He didn’t know the mountaineers read the tracks and read the story impressed in the ground: how this pair soaked the timbers with coal oil, how they set the trestle afire in two places, how they ran through brush and creekbed and climbed to a position where they could shoot at the train if it escaped their trap, and the moonshining, hill running Kentucky Long Hunters picked up the fired casings, after they cold cocked the survivor, tied his hands behind with leather piggin strings, threw him over a bony shoulder and headed back to Firelands at that long legged, steady, mile eating trot they’d practiced since their youngest days.

The Sheriff looked up as the pair came into his office.

He rose as they dropped the bound man to the floor, ignoring his pained exclamation.

“We found them that kilt Elmira,” the older of the two said, dropping the murderer's empty rounds on the Sheriff’s desk: “they used coal oil to set the fire. Looks like the old man kilt the other one, he’s daid.”

“We left the carcass an’ his rifle. I reckon you can find ‘em,” the other moonshiner said, his voice quiet and rough-edged.

The Sheriff rose, slowly, his eyes hard and dead pale.

“Thank’ee kindly,” he said softly, and the two mountaineers turned and went back out the door.

The Sheriff squatted, turned the man over, looked at him like he was looking at a bug in a jar.

“I reckon,” he said softly, “you have some things to tell me.”

The Sheriff's voice was quiet and his smile was not in the least bit pleasant.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

92. CONFERENCE

Nicodemus shoved bare feet into furry lined moccasins, stood.

He was restless.

He stood, walked through the silent house, into the kitchen.

He needed no light; he knew the house more than intimately, he drifted through night-dark rooms like a ghost in an abandoned castle.

Nicodemus looked out the genuine glass window, young eyes staring into the night.

The moon was full – full, huge, and blood red.

Nicodemus shivered as the snow glowed as if incarnadined.

“Blood on the moon,” he whispered, and remembered his Mama telling him how blood on the moon meant death.

He knew his Pa was unusually quiet, and he knew his Pa was thinking hard on something, and he knew his Pa hugged every one of his young when he put them to bed.

He never did this unless there’s been a death.

Nicodemus rubbed his eyes, looked out across the field.

He blinked, looked again.

In the distance – at the edge of the field – a white wolf raised its slender muzzle.

Nicodemus stared, saw the little cloud of condensation as the white wolf began to sing.

He felt his Pa behind him, leaned back a little.

Jacob gripped his son’s shoulders.

“You couldn’t sleep neither,” he said – a statement, not a question.

“No, sir.”

“You hungry?”

“Yes, sir, a little.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Father and son sat at the kitchen table, drawing their chairs out carefully to keep from chattering on the smooth stone floor.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Nicodemus?”

“Pa, what happened tonight?”

Jacob’s lower jaw thrust slowly forward as he considered.

“Two people were killed today,” he said, “and the Z&W has to rebuild a burnt down trussel.”

Nicodemus’ ear twitched as he heard his Grampa’s voice slip out of his Pa’s throat.

Trussel, he thought.

Grampa called it that.

“How long will that take, Pa?”

“Too long,” Jacob admitted ruefully. “We’ll throw everything we’ve got at it. The mine will want to help, it’s their ore we’re hauling. I reckon they’ll send timber and carpenters.”

“What’ll … will it bolt together, Pa?”

Jacob grinned. “Yes it will, Nicodemus. They’ll have to cut timbers to size and drill and bolt them.”

“Will they be green timber, Pa?”

“I reckon they will, Nicodemus.”

Nicodemus considered this, frowning.

“Wouldn’t creosoted timber be better, Pa?”

“We’ve got to get the railroad running as fast as we can, Nicodemus. That’ll mean green timber She’ll season in place. I reckon they’ll set timber on stone so it don’t rot touchin’ ground.”

“Will they set up a sawmill, Pa?”

Jacob grinned. “Yes, Nicodemus. They will Likely they’ll cut local timber or if need be we can rail it in from either end.”

Jacob managed to set out two plates without clattering, set down two forks without a metallic note to disturb the nighttime household, slid a slice of pie onto each plate.

Father and son ate slowly, thoughtfully.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Nicodemus?”

“Pa, who was killed?”

Jacob was quiet for a long moment.

“A friend of mine, Nicodemus, and his granddaughter. You might know her. Elmira.”

Nicodemus looked surprised. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m going to get whoever did this, Nicodemus. Someone set fire to the trestle. They were going to try and kill everyone on that train.” Jacob’s eyes were pale, hard. “I will find whoever did this,” he whispered, and his son doubted not that what his father purposed, he would indeed perform.

Father and son finished their pie.

As Jacob picked up their plates and forks, Nicodemus finally spoke up.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Nicodemus?”

“Sir … it’s a full moon, and there’s blood on the moon.”

Jacob stopped, stopped absolutely dead still: Nicodemus saw his Pa was thinking long and hard on something.

“Pa, the White Wolf was out there and I saw her howl.”

Sheriff Jacob Keller nodded, slowly, thoughtfully.

“Yes, Nicodemus. There is blood on the moon and I’ll likely put more on it, and that’s why she howls.”

He set their dirty dishes down and looked at his son, his eyes almost luminous in the subdued light, and the Sheriff’s son felt something cold willy-walk down his back bone to see his Pa’s hard, pale eyes.

“She sings death and she sings life, just like the roses that appear when someone is about to die, or a woman is about to birth new life into the earth. I don’t know the roses appear, nor whence come they, nor do I know why, Nicodemus, only that … as long as our blood lives, these things happen.”

“Yes, sir,” Nicodemus whispered, and his eyes were not hard nor did they almost glow in the dark, but they were very wide, and they were very dark, and his Pa set down the dishes and went to one knee and gave his son a big, Daddy-sized hug.

He wasn’t going to admit it but when his son hugged him back, it’s what he needed.

The son needed the reassurance of his father’s strong arms, telling him without words that all would be well, and the father needed the embrace of young arms to remind him that his blood would continue, for continue it must.

Father and son remain in embrace for several long moments, neither willing to surrender the reassurance each sought in the darkened kitchen’s hush.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

93. SAMUEL’S ROSE

Samuel Keller leaned back in his chair, laughing with his fellows.

Samuel was a college man now, rejoicing in both learning, good-fellowship, and the green strength of youth: he was three years into his degree, his college career was distinguished with excellence, both academically and in other collegiate pursuits.

He was a handsome young man, like not a few of his classmates; he was lean and athletic, like many of his fellows: polite and agreeable, he was popular with professors and underclassmen, and often lent a quiet word of advice if he noticed someone struggling with a concept, a formula, or a turn of phrase.

Tonight he leaned back against the wall, relaxed, a mug of beer in hand, watching: it was ever his habit to sit thus, where none could get behind him, where he could see all that transpired, where he could see both doors.

Rowdy young men groped giggling young women, pasteboards whispered from decks, dice clattered and rattled, coin exchanged hands: voices rose and fell, there was laughter, there were shouts, for it was Friday night, and young men feel the need for such rowdy good-fellowship.

Samuel saw the stranger come through the door, eyes busy, obviously searching.

Samuel’s eyes narrowed when he saw the sign, the insignia, and he knew the stranger was looking for him.

He rose, set his beer on a side table, raised a summoning hand, worked his way through the crowd.

The stranger saw him, raised his chin: he turned, went outside.

Samuel unbuttoned his coat, shrugged his shoulders, felt the weight of the holstered revolver surreptitiously belted around his lean waist, followed the stranger with the rosebud pinned to his lapel into the nighttime street.

The messenger said simply, “The Society calls upon you,” and handed Samuel a folded sheet of paper, folded into a square and closed with a red wax seal.

Samuel tilted the seal to catch the gaslight across it.

The impress was that of the Seal of Solomon, superimposed with the Christian cross.

He froze, blinked twice, took a long breath in through his nose, then slowly out.

The messenger took a discreet step back as Samuel broke the seal, unfolded the sheet, read it, read it a second time, nodded.

He looked up at the silent, waiting man with the rose pinned to his lapel.

Samuel drew open his coat, reached thumb and forefinger into his vest pocket, took a step closer: the stranger stepped closer as well, his own pinching fingers in his own vest pocket.

Each man drew out a coin, a gold coin the size of a silver dollar, a coin with a rose on one side and the Seal of Solomon and the Christian cross on the other.

Each man turned his coin, each man satisfied himself the other’s coin was identical to his own, each man slid the coin back into the hidden pocket camouflaged in their vest’s pattern.

A second folded sheet was laid in Samuel’s hand and the messenger turned wordlessly, walked quickly down the sidewalk.

Samuel slipped the second folded sheet in his coat pocket, then he turned, eyes busy, slipped into an alley and disappeared into the shadow.

 

“Samuel!”

His roommate looked up, surprised. “I thought you would be celebrating. I think yours were the highest marks in the history of old Loduffie’s class.”

“Thanks.” Samuel reached into the closet, drew out a black satchel, began to pack with the quick, efficient moves of a seasoned traveler.

“You’re leaving.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Work to do.”

“You’re using short sentences, too.”

“Yep.”

Matthew turned his chair – quickly, awkwardly – “Samuel, the last time you did this, you were shot and nearly died.”

“Yep.”

“Samuel –“

Samuel straightened, his eyes pale. “Matthew, if I am not back in two weeks, ship my goods as we discussed.”

Matthew rose, strode across the room, took Samuel by the shoulders.

“Samuel,” he said, his voice low, urgent, “I don’t make friends easily and I am most grateful you are one of the very few I call friend.”

Samuel’s eyes bored into Matthew’s and he placed his own hands on Matthew’s solid shoulders. “Thank you,” he said softly. “I could say the same.”

“Horse feathers.” Matthew turned quickly, angrily. “You’re at home anywhere. You can speak in front of any crowd and make ‘em like it. You’re handsome, you’re intelligent and you …”

He turned abruptly. “Dammit, man, you’re one of the only souls I can talk to!”

Samuel raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, all right,” Matthew snapped, raising an admonishing finger. “You’re the only one who listens!”

Samuel smiled, just a little. “I’m not the only one,” he said. “You’ll find that out tonight. See me off, old friend. If ever I needed your company, it’s tonight.”

“Then I am your man.”

Samuel shrugged into his traveling-coat, reached into the closet, withdrew a black Stetson, settled it comfortably on his head.

“Oh, no,” Matthew groaned. “No, Samuel –“

“Yes.” Samuel drew his revolver, flipped open the loading gate, clicked methodically through the chambers, eased the hammer’s nose down on his buryin’ money. “It has to be done.”

“What has to be done?”

Samuel picked up his grip, left handed, holstered his engraved Colt, ran his thumb briefly over the engraved Thunder Bird on its top strap, but gave no reply.

Matthew shook his head, raised his hands in an elaborate, palms-up shrug, and followed his old and trusted friend into the hallway, and then into the night.

As they stood on the station platform, watching the white-flagged express chuff quietly into station, Matthew glared suspiciously at his tall, lean roommate with the soft, neatly-barbered mustache and the immaculate suit.

“How did you arrange an express?” he demanded, and Samuel gave him a sidelong look, a quiet smile.

“Yes, how did you arrange that?” Marnie demanded, and Matthew turned suddenly, surprised.

Marnie crossed her arms, her foot tapping impatiently. “Samuel Keller, we’re to have dinner tomorrow, and I insist you be prompt!”

Samuel ran an arm around her, dropped his grip to the depot platform and took her around the waist with the other, dramatically-freed hand: he bent her quickly backwards, planted his mouth on hers and made it very plain that he found her both desirable, and delicious: he didn’t come up for air until the conductor bawled “Boaarrrd! All ‘boarrd!” – then he turned her loose, grabbed Matthew’s hand, put her hand in his and said, “You two need

to talk” – then he snatched up his grip, tossed it casually to the porter, swarmed up the cast-iron steps into the sole passenger car, stepped inside and slammed the door.

“Well I never!” Marnie exclaimed, staring at the grinning, impertinent college man settling himself into a window seat in the private car.

“I never either,” Matthew agreed.

Marnie and Matthew watched as the train, quickly coaled and watered, pulled away from station, chuffing industriously into the night: they still held hands, and not until the private car’s lights disappeared around the far curve did they look at one another.

“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” Matthew said, reddening.

Marnie wet her lips, suddenly nervous. “So you’re Matthew.”

“I am, my Lady, and you are …?”

Marnie swallowed as the color rose in her face and she raised a gloved hand to caress Matthew’s cheek.

“You’re the only friend he has,” she whispered, then fell into him and clutched the astonished roommate to her. “Thank you for that!”

“I, um,” Matthew stammered, wishing mightily his dear friend and roommate were here so he could kick him soundly in the shins: “I have not yet dined, my Lady, might I have the pleasure …?”

“Call me Marnie.” Her smile was instantaneous, dazzling. “And yes, I would love to have dinner with you.”

 

Willamina sipped her Earl Grey and considered.

She turned her own gold coin over, studied the rose on one side, the Seal of Solomon and Cross on the other, and she remembered the night she was brought into the Order of the Rose.

“Jacob,” she whispered aloud, “I didn't think he ever came home."

She frowned, considered her own experiences in espionage.

"What did you do, Jacob Keller? Did you send your son as an imbedded agent back East?”

She turned back to the leather-bound journal, set the tea aside.

 

Samuel broke the seal on the second bundle.

It was three pages, and it was his father’s handwriting.

Samuel studied the pages, nodding a little as he read: he picked up the timetable from the private car’s desk, frowned as he ran his eye down the neat columns of figures, of words and times and dates, and then he stopped: marking the place with a finger, he slid the timetable under the lamp, where the light was better, and his eyes tightened at the corners.

I’ll be another few hours, Samuel thought, I will breakfast and ask around, and then I’ll take a room.

I’ll tell them I’m a drummer.

They’ll believe that.

I’ll tell them I sell paint and polish and they won’t think it unusual when I ask directions to the steamboat offices.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

94. “YOUR HONOR, I SHALL”

“He could not deny it, Your Honor.”

The Judge puffed steadily on his freshly-lighted cigar.

“Go on.”

“He had coal oil on his pants legs and boots, his hands smelled of coal oil. We have the Daine boys’ testimony that they captured him as he tried to flee.”

“Hmp.” The Judge’s scowl was openly skeptical.

“The old man apparently killed the man who killed him. Hell of a shot but I’ve done as much. Never with a Remington” – his grin was quick – “but I’ve done as much.”

“I know you have,” the Judge grunted. “I’ve seen you do it. Never thought a man could shoot a pistol that far.”

“What about artillery, Your Honor? A good man with a rifled field gun can drop one in your hip pocket at half a mile and more. Think of a pistol barrel as an artillery piece.”

The Judge grunted, frowned. “Go on.”

“I interrogated the prisoner and he confessed.”

“Just what did he confess?”

“He and his dead companion were paid to fire the trestle and the man who hired them didn’t care who it killed. They were to watch and make sure the train went down and if it did not, they were to shoot as many as possible if the train stopped short of the burning timbers.”

“He confessed this.”

“Every word, Your Honor.”

“I suppose he’ll say he gave the confession freely and without coercion.”

“He will, Your Honor, or I’ll coerce him some more.”

The Judge grunted.

“Sheriff, I don’t hold with beating a confession out of a man. I’ve known men to do that and too often the confession was just to make the beating stop.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“What makes you think this is whole cloth?”

“I never had to touch him, Your Honor.”

The Judge stopped, spat, picked a fleck of tobacco off his tongue, then glared again at the pale eyed Sheriff.

“You never touched him.”

“No, Your Honor.”

“You didn’t beat him bloody, you didn’t lift his fingernails with a knife, you didn’t burn him with the red hot end of a rifle barrel.”

“Your Honor,” Jacob said frankly, “you are one sick individual.”

“No, Sheriff,” the Judge sighed, “I’ve seen each of those done and the confessions were utterly worthless.” He coughed, spat, puffed on the cigar. “All right. I’ll accept the confession. Now what did he confess?”

“That he and the dead man set the fire, that they were paid to destroy the trestle and the train, that they would receive the rest of their gold when the job was done.”

“And where were they to get the rest of this gold?”

“They were to meet a man over in Carbon.”

“Just who were they to meet?”

Jacob grinned. “Law and Order Harry Macfarland already has the scoundrel locked up.”

The Judge nodded. “I suppose you’d like to have a warrant.”

“I suppose you just happen to have one.”

“Hmp.” The Judge pulled open his desk drawer, drew out a sheet, laid it on his desk.

“Who sent the gold man?”

“That, sir,” Jacob said quietly, his eyes pale and shining, “is something I will find out.”

“You do that.” His Honor wrote quickly, slid the paper into the cast iron seal press, shoved down on the handle. “There. Signed and sealed. Find out, Sheriff.”

Jacob stood, accepted the single sheet of paper.

“Your Honor,” he said, “I shall.”

 

Samuel smiled tightly as he re-read his father’s message.

I found who fired the trestle, he read, and I found who killed Elmira and her grandfather – Samuel’s eyes grew hard and pale as he read the words, for he’d like that old rancher, and he’d watched Elmira grow up from a newborn, when her Mama died in childbirth, and the old man raised her as best he could – I found who paid for this outrage.

His name is John Guthrie.

He owned a steamboat line.

You already know his choice to offend me, and my choice to buy him out and toss him out of his own office.

He sought revenge by trying to burn the trestle.

My son, in the name of the Society, release the Rose upon him.

Samuel folded the paper carefully, returned it to his inside coat pocket, pulled out his railroad watch and made a quick calculation.

He had time for a nap.

As he settled himself on the short, upholstered sofa, leaned back and made himself comfortable, he let his eyelids drift shut, then he smiled and closed his hand on a hard, shifting lump in one of his pockets, and smiled.

He would not replace the ammunition in his pistol until it was nearer time for their use.

Jacob did not mention in his communication just how he acquired his knowledge.

He did not detail the methods he used to extract information from the man he brought back to Firelands in irons, under color of a warrant.
No mention was made of a trip to the trestle in question, no word was given to the handwritten note to detail the discussion two men had, looking at the trestle, at the work crews making repair, of the smoke-chuffing donkey engine that powered the belt-driven sawmill, nor of the trains that backed strings of flatcars loaded with logs, or timbers, men or hardware, nor of the portable kitchen that was set up to feed the troops.

Jacob did not feel it necessary to discuss with his son the further conversation with His Honor the Judge, nor allusions to Federal charges for interfering with interstate commerce – such matters had yet to be codified, but His Honor had a gift for speaking, and when he spoke – even though he was alluding to matters not yet signed into law – why, it sounded genuine and whole cloth.

All Samuel knew was that his father managed to divine the hand behind the torch, the purse paying the predators, and in whose pocket that purse lived.

Samuel was detailed with the task of visiting justice upon the purse-holder.

He withdrew his pistol, considered the Thunder Bird graven upon its top strap, inlaid with gold: on the other sight of the sight groove, a rose, beautifully chased, and also limned.

A narrow circlet of scrollwork around the muzzle was the only other decoration on the otherwise unadorned Colt’s revolving pistol.

He’d ordered it from the Colt’s factory, back in Hartford, while he was there on a visit: he paid cash money, good gold coin, and specified in a quiet voice exactly what he wanted: the front sight was slightly taller, slightly wider, and the rear notch wider to match: before its engravure, he fired it on their rifle range, and with one of Colt’s master ‘smiths, had its sights very precisely regulated to his hand and to his eye: the pistol had a lighter trigger, absolutely without creep, with a release that breaks like fine glass, then the working surfaces carefully hardened: a barrel of five inches’ length, the custom front sight with three, evenly spaced, gold cross bars on its slanted rear surface, and Samuel had the eyesight to take full advantage of these particular sights.

His were the eyes and the hands and the ability to smite at a distance when need be.

For rifle work he preferred a rifle, but he could use the pistol effectively at extended ranges.

The rancher to which is father alluded, the man who placed effective long range fire on the man who killed him, taught Samuel at a tender age just what a good revolver can do at distance.

Samuel flipped open the loading gate, eared the hammer back to half cock, dropped the loaded rounds into his cupped palm.

These rounds went into his coat pocket.

The hidden pocket, the one he’d gripped earlier, yielded its treasure, and treasure it was.

Six rounds of .44-40, charged with the usual amount of powder, the bullets of the usual shape and size: the bullets’ parent material made them unusual.

Each bullet carried a rose engraved on its blunt nose, and each bullet was cast of unalloyed gold.

Gold bullets were used exclusively by those who enforced the order of the Star Court, those elite few, the Order of the Rose: they were used in cases like this, where justice had to be swift and severe and outside normal channels.

Samuel’s eyes grew a little harder, a little more pale, as he considered the old rancher and his young granddaughter, and he imagined them both lying dead on the railroad tracks.

For this alone he was willing to be the hand of his father’s Star Court, convened in an upper room, with a rose suspended from the ceiling: the proceedings would have been attended by good men and true, and all with the understanding that words spoken in this Star Court were sub rosa, that they occurred Under the Rose, and were therefore not to be discussed outside the room.

Samuel’s eyes drifted to the black-glass mirror of the private car’s window, seeing his reflection, seeing the night he – as his father’s son and deputy – was brought into that select Order, the Order of the Rose.

He’d been given a coin, and on the coin, beneath the graven flower, a number: the number was his, and when his task was complete, he would send a telegram,

and the telegram would bear a simple and brief message: the number, the letter Y, and no signature.

From this, his father would know that his son Samuel wished to inform that, Yes, the deed was done.

The Judge had final say on such matters; Samuel knew and trusted the crusty old jurist, and he imagined how the old man must’ve looked, peering through a cloud of cigar-smoke at those who laid their case before him.

Samuel nodded, eased the pistol’s hammer down between the case rims.

“What I purpose, I perform,” he said out loud, his voice soft and gentle in the private car’s rhythmic hush: then, as if speaking directly to the cigar-smoking jurist, he smiled ever so slightly and nodded.

“Your Honor,” he said, “I shall.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

95. BRIBERY AS A FINE ART

Samuel’s manners were immaculate as he took the room in the boarding-house.

He’d asked around in unsavory places where men knew things, he’d bought drinks for men of dubious reputation, and laughed at tired old jokes, and sat in on a couple games of – well, the bastardized games that were collectively called “poker” bore little resemblance to the actual games of that name: they were enough for Samuel to lose money with a laugh and a careless wave of his hand, and thus earn the fragile allegiance of folk whose lifestyles were less than entirely legal.

He learned the name of a man, and of a boarding-house, a clean house with good food, a house where the landlady slept like a corpse in its grave, a house where he could slip out the back door and down the back stairs, and slip back in, unseen.

His manners and his charm completely disarmed this woman who saw through most men’s ruses, most men’s flattering words: he described himself as newly hired by a paint firm, and wishing to establish himself in sales in order to move up in the company: he asked if he might paint the outside of her boarding-house as an advertisement, at no cost to her, and after some hesitation, she agreed.

“Our firm specializes in marine paints,” he explained, “and house paint is of an entirely different formulation, but we had a special run of house paint that was compounded by mistake, and rather than just throw it out, the Company wanted me to sell it. I think I can do better than that. If we can demonstrate the quality of our paint, I believe I might be able to establish a domestic market.” He smiled tiredly, the smile of a man who has failed before, but is trying nonetheless. “At worst – at worst, your fine boarding-house gets a new coat of paint, and I have a fresh coat of egg on my face.”

That night, after the landlady retired to her chambers, chuckling to herself at the good fortune that delivered a hungry and desperate drummer to her doorstep, Samuel changed into a black evening-suit and a matching Derby: turning his lapels over and buttoning them, shuffling along with hands thrust in pockets, his head hanging, he was but another nondescript soul drifting through the waterfront neighborhood with the river fog.

He scouted the household for two nights.

In that two nights’ time he noted carefully the habits of the household, which bed-chambers were lighted first, and darkened first: he examined the doors, surreptitiously oiled the hinges, carefully disassembled the big, old-fashioned

door latches and lubricated their inner workings, even taking one apart without opening the door and carefully, precisely stoning the working surfaces until they turned and slid silently, easily, under the influence of his skeleton key.

He made friends with the household dog, whispering to it, feeding it delicacies and tid-bits: it was an old dog, and not given to loud, yapping puppy-play, but rather to companionable belly rubs, which tended to put it to sleep.

On the third night, after feeding the old dog and rubbing the old dog and putting the old dog comfortably to its supinated somnolescence, Samuel eased open the lock, slipped through the portal, closed and locked the door behind him.

Samuel held very still, inside the door: he was now, in the eyes of the law, a criminal, a housebreaker, a burglar: he could be lawfully shot by any occupant of the household.

He smelled the unique odors of the household, he listened to its nighttime sounds, he waited for a dozen rigidly controlled breaths before moving.

He never played tennis with his college chums, but he saw the usefulness of the rubber soled canvas shoes in which they competed: he wore such a pair this night, he placed his weight carefully, at the edges of the passageway in order to displace squeaky boards the least amount possible.

He froze, faded behind a coat-draped hall-tree as impatient steps crossed a room, as a door opened, as a woman frowned her way into the hall, arms crossed in front of her: she wore a sour expression and a traveling cloak, she was fully dressed in spite of the near-midnight hour, and she gave the hall-tree scarcely a glance, then – satisfied the back door was indeed shut – she turned to face the other direction.

As long as I hold very still, Samuel thought, I will not be seen.

“Johnny Guthrie,” she sighed tiredly, “I wish you would get home on time for a change!”

He’s not home yet, Samuel thought, eyes tightening at the corners.

This could complicate matters.

I have no wish to assassinate a man in his own home.

This would be a simple murder.

He must know why, just why Justice visits itself upon him.

The mantle clock began to chime and the woman glared toward the sound.

I will be making this woman a widow tonight, he thought, and felt regret: he knew what it was to see the loss in his Grampa’s eyes when he missed his Esther,

he remembered women of his acquaintance, women he respected, who sorrowed in his arms and against his chest when they learned that their husband was dead.

It took all his reserve to remain utterly still as the woman’s stuff arms flapped a little against her sides with apparent anger.

“I have a fine speech to give you, Johnny Guthrie,” she hissed between clenched teeth, “but perhaps finding me gone will be message enough, you – you – you dog!”

She whirled, slammed open what Samuel took to be a bedroom door, brought out a single carpet bag.

“I sent my luggage on ahead,” she declared, her voice loud, angry, the strident tones of a woman running on rage and sudden, rash decision, “and glad I am for it! Johnny Guthrie, you – you wretch! – never again will my shadow darken your doorstep!”

She slammed the bedroom door, hoisted her nose with a hmpf! and as she walked briskly down the hall and toward the front parlor, Samuel heard her indignant declaration that the drunken sot could come home to an empty house and good riddance to him!

The front door slammed and Samuel thought fast.

He moved almost as quickly.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

96. I AM JUDGE AND I AM JURY

 

A fast check and he satisfied himself the house was, indeed, empty: no children, no servants, the only dog was asleep outside the back door.

Samuel realized he now had a free hand – now that the woman was departed in anger, declaring her intent to never, ever return.

All he needed was the intended victim.

He reached into a pocket, drew out a black silk mask, tied it over his face: a thin pair of black leather gloves, and no flesh showed: he was of two minds in this matter.

He could simply assassinate Guthrie, in accordance with the Will of the Rose.

He could torture Guthrie under the man’s own roof, giving him torments of the flesh that would remind him of the agonies he planned for those on the train.

If it was a simple killing, the missing woman might be accused of the murder.

No, Guthrie had to disappear.

Samuel smiled grimly behind his black silk mask.

He knew just how to make that happen.

He reached into his coat pocket, gripped the flat, leather, lead-weighted slapper, took a long, steadying breath as a key scraped in the front door’s lock.

“Molly!” a half-drunken voice slurred. “Molly Whitehair, why is the door not locked?”

Samuel withdrew the slapper, breathing silently through an open mouth.

“Molly!”

Johnny Guthrie swayed a bit as he walked, staggered somewhat as he turned down the hallway, wobbled as he reached for the bedroom doorknob.

“Molly!”

He disappeared within.

Samuel heard a drunken mutter.

Guthrie staggered back out and down the hallway.

He didn’t see the hall tree raise its arm and bring the lead filled slapper down hard.

All Johnny Guthrie knew was that something the size of a keg of exploding dynamite caught him behind the right ear and laid him out flat on the hallway rug.

 

Johnny Guthrie woke.

He was somewhere damp, cold.

He was chilled and his head ached and he tried to move and found his elbows drawn cruelly together behind his back and apparently tied, as were his wrists.

He tried to struggle more and discovered his ankles were crossed, tied, and secured to his tied elbows, and as his aching head cleared, he realized his mouth was stuffed with cloth, the cloth tied in place, he was bent backwards like a drawn bow, and someone all in black, wearing a black mask, sat on a nail keg beside him.

He was on a dock.

He knew the dock … it had been his own dock … his boat was moored here, the boat he used to have.

Fog cloaked the pair, muffled the riverfront sounds, caressed the prisoner’s face with damp fingers, and the bound man realized no one was going to see them, no one was going to help him, that he was without any hope of rescue from whatever this masked abductor had in mind.

He writhed in his bindings, tried to yell, managed a muffled grunt.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you here tonight,” Samuel said quietly.

Guthrie snarled, his eyes profanely saying more than he could possibly have spoken.

“You should really have more respect,” Samuel said casually, almost sighing, “for I am Judge and I am Jury, and I am the hand of a swift and merciless Justice.

“You have been arrested, charged and found guilty of murder and for attempted murder. We will waive charges of destruction of property and of conspiracy. Your guilty verdict condemns you to death.

“Let me give you the facts as I have them.” Samuel’s voice was quiet, reasonable, persuasive, soothing … all of which were lost on the struggling, grunting man.

“You offended a paying customer.” Samuel’s eyes behind the mask were half-lidded, quiet. “You’re free to offend anyone you please, but you have to understand sometimes the man you offend has the wherewithal to buy your steamboat line right out from under you.” Samuel slouched forward, elbows on his knees. “I understand you’ve been trying to sell for some time. My father sold it for considerably more than you were asking, even after you dropped the price twice.

“You just could not stand the thought that he’d sold to your biggest competitor, and you paid men to burn down his railroad trestle, kill everyone on the train and shoot anyone who tried to escape.”

Guthrie growled, chewed on the gagging ball of cloth, shook his head, twisted his wrists in their bindings, all in vain: Samuel used rough hemp rope, and the rope dug into the condemned prisoner’s flesh.

“You did ruin the trestle. The passenger train was able to stop and reverse off the damaged trestle. Your hired murderers shot two passengers. One was an old man of my acquaintance, a fine man who worked for everything he had.” Samuel’s grim smile was not visible behind the silk face-curtain he wore.

“The other was his granddaughter.”

Samuel leaned down a little closer, his voice quiet, measured, spacing his words out for emphasis.

“She was nine, years, old.”

He straightened, stood.

“Johnny Guthrie, I have tied a rope to your bound ankles, and I have a good sized rock here.” He dragged a rock, tied on the end of a twisted hemp rope, a rock about the size of a man’s head – heavy enough to pull someone under if they were unlucky enough to be dumped in the river.

Samuel brought the other end of the rope into view and the prisoner’s eyes widened, he shook his head, tried to shrink back.

Samuel hefted the hangman’s noose, looked at the prisoner.

“You could be taken back to Firelands, to be tried in a court of law.”

Samuel’s words were measured, quiet, all the more frightening for their utter lack of emotion.

“You could be heard by the jury, argued for and against by attorneys, evidence presented, witnesses called. In the end you would be found guilty, and you would be hanged.”

Samuel seized the condemned man’s shirt front with a hard hand, hauled him up off the dock, slapped the noose over his head and around his neck and jerked it tight – viciously, ruthlessly, the anger hiding behind his words finding release through hard hands.

“I am going to push you off this dock and let the rock pull your head down. Your ankles will be attached to the line tied to the dock post.

“Some curious soul will find the tied-off line and discover it’s tied to something, and this will ensure your dead carcass is eventually discovered.”

Samuel stood, looked around.

He heard nothing but the river’s quiet gurgle against the bank, saw nothing but drifting fog.

He knelt.

His gloved fingers were sure, swift, as he withdrew a rose from an inside coat pocket: he slipped the stem through Guthrie’s buttonhole.

“There.” He stood, gripped the roped rock with his right hand, grabbed up a handful of Guthrie’s coat front with the other. “You should have a flower if you’re going to die alone and in the dark.”

The man struggled, desperately, twisting, shaking his head, making muffled sounds.

Samuel carried condemned and mechanism of death to the edge of the dock.

He lowered the rock, letting twisted hemp slip between gloved fingers: he lowered the rock fully into the water, released it, allowed the rope to jerk taut around the noose snugged about the prisoner’s neck.

“You are condemned to die,” Samuel said, “and God might have mercy upon you, because neither I nor my fellows have the least little bit.”

He released Johnny Guthrie, allowed him to slide a little over the blunt, ragged edge of the dock and into the black water’s embrace.

He did not wait to see the tether line come taut.

He turned and walked casually back to shore, strolled leisurely toward a lighted steamboat depot.

He removed mask and gloves, unbuttoned his coat’s lapels, folded them back, knocked at the office door.

The surprised watchman came to the door, ready to scold a drunken roisterer, surprised to find a well-dressed young man in a coat and tie.

“Good evening, I am expected,” Samuel said, presenting a card. “I’m Roger Hinkle and I represent Yellow Harvest Paints. I have an appointment to paint a damp boat tonight.”

Fifteen minutes later, after being assured that no one knew anything about an appointment, but certain there had been an error in recording the appointment

time, Samuel left a business card with a false name and a nonexistent paint firm’s address, and strolled casually into the darkness.

The next morning, a paint crew arrived at the boarding-house; the landlady was most pleased that her establishment was indeed being painted, and a fine and careful job it was; the next day, the old dog that an absent Johnny Guthrie barely tolerated was welcomed into another household, thanks to the grinning little boy rubbing the friendly old dog’s belly, and three days later, when a banker departed Guthrie’s front door, miffed at not being received as he’d expected to be, then returned with a policeman … only then, three days later, did anyone realize the man was missing.

It was one more day before someone got curious and drew up the taut line tied to the end of the dock.

 

Jacob accepted the telegram from the grinning boy, unfolded it, read its very brief message, nodded.

He stood, picked up his hat, settled the Stetson on his full thatch of light-brown hair: he plucked up his coat, shrugged into it, closed the door to the Sheriff’s office behind him.

His boot heels were loud and hollow sounding on the warped boards of the swept-clean boardwalk: he stepped down into the alley, went around behind the Sheriff’s office to the little stable he had rebuilt, saddled his Apple-horse.

He preferred to have his stallion wait in a good, straw-bedded shelter, tight built and proof against winter’s winds, rather than tethered out front, exposed to cold and wind and weather.

He paced Apple-horse down the alley, his hooves loud on the frozen dirt street: they went down the street and up the curving road to the Firelands cemetery, past the hangin’ tree and through the cast iron arch.

He continued higher, heading for the back part of the cemetery, to a fresh, double grave, one where he’d stood about a week before, with his hat in his hand, as the Parson spoke the final words that sky pilots pronounce over a box before it’s planted.

Jacob dismounted, removed his hat, stood in front of the two graves.

Something bade him look up, look into the distance.

Ahead, coming just over the mountain, rising in a saddle between two peaks, the full moon, looking all the bigger for sitting on the horizon: the moon was absolutely scarlet, and Jacob nodded.

He withdrew the folded telegram from his pocket, read it again, re-folded it, thrust it back into the pocket.

“Elmira,” he said aloud, his voice puffing in clouds carried off by the chill breeze as he spoke, “you can tell your Granddad the man who had you and him killed … is dead.”

He looked up at the crimson-hued full moon.

“There is blood on the moon this day, and I alone have put it there.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

97. THIS IS NOT WHAT I INTENDED TO WRITE

 

Bruce Jones rubbed his closed eyes, twisted a little, reached for his coffee.

He had a few minutes before he had to leave for the funeral.

He’d take his camera, he would take his tape recorder, and because he always liked being a bit old-fashioned, he’d take a notebook with him as well.

It was the same notebook he’d laid flat on the former Sheriff’s kitchen table during the interview.

He hadn’t expected to get this story.

It took him very much by surprise.

For her part, it took Past Sheriff Willamina Keller by surprise as well.

 

This is not the editorial I expected to write.

An editor’s opinion is generally the editorial’s content.

Today it’s a dead man’s story.

His name was Samuel Keller.

He was a soldier.

He was a son.

I will be attending his funeral.

 

Jacob’s right hand tightened into a fist, then opened, slowly.

Caleb felt a shiver of fear to see his father’s silence, the hardness of his father’s

face.

Jacob looked up at Samuel as if looking at a stranger.

“You’re going.”

His voice was flat, emotionless.

“Yes, sir.”

Jacob turned his head, his jaw thrust out, his eyes pale.

He looked back at his son.

“I cannot … condone … this action,” he said carefully.

“I know, sir.”

Jacob seized Samuel’s shoulders, shoved his face within an inch of his offspring.

“I lost one son to that damned war already,” he hissed. “Isn’t that enough? Isn’t that enough?”

“I’ve been drafted.”

Jacob twisted a little, bent as if gut punched.

“It might be easier if I’d volunteered, sir, then you could talk me out of it,” Samuel said quietly. “I … this wasn’t my idea.”

Jacob shivered, his hands tightening on his son’s shoulders.

“You’ll be a faceless face in a crowd. You’ll be a pawn in a group of chesspieces shoved across a muddy board. It’s one thing to go after a man – it’s you and him and there’s an even chance – but my God, it’s war –“

“Yes, sir,” Samuel said, a catch in his voice. “I don’t particular care to go, sir, but there’s not much choice.”

Jacob dropped his head like a man who’d just felt his heart torn from his breast.

Caleb watched, his breathing shallow, silent, as father and son stood close, each one holding onto the other, and finally Jacob raised his head and cleared his throat and said, “I reckon we’d ought to have supper. Your Ma will be glad to see you.”

Caleb remembered that moment, and wrote of it in his journal: he wrote of receiving the note a year later, a note written in an unfamiliar hand, asking him to meet his brother in Cincinnati.

Caleb’s hand recorded the shock he felt when he saw his brother.

They’d met in front of a hotel, the Havlin, which had hosted the meeting of family in the past: his brother was thinner than he’d been, his skin was an unhealthy shade, and as he turned his head, Caleb saw the scarring on half his face, and then he realized his brother wore dark glasses.

No.

Not dark glasses.

Black glasses.

“Caleb,” Samuel said, extending his hand.

Caleb stepped forward and gripped his brother’s hand.

“What happened?” Caleb blurted.

“Mustard gas,” Samuel replied, stifling a cough, then turned and clapped a handkerchief to his mouth as he coughed violently.

The kerchief was stained with blood.

“You’re … blind,” Caleb said, his voice faint.

The young woman with him gave Caleb an uncertain look, then touched Samuel’s elbow.

“Caleb,” Samuel gasped, “I had intended to bring Catherine home to meet my family. May I present Miss Catherine Scott.”

The worried-looking young woman in the fashionable dress extended her hand.

Caleb took it, turned it and raised her knuckles to his lips as he’d seen his grandfather do, as he’d seen his father do.

He saw the appreciation in her eyes.

“Caleb, I won’t live much longer,” Samuel gasped, coughing again. “Pneumonia … I’ll likely die of pneumonia unless my lungs bleed again.”

Caleb opened his mouth to reply and Samuel raised his hand.

“You’re going to say something. Don’t. I can’t … come home as an invalid.”

“The air is better at home,” Caleb countered. “You know about tuberculars, coming up high to –“

Samuel’s head came up like a hound hearing an inaudible whistle.

Caleb’s eyes went to Catherine’s face, then he turned, looked up the street.

An open cab Reo delivery truck was barreling down the street, the driver limp, slumped over the wheel.

Samuel twisted, sprinted out into the street, and Caleb’s eyes widened as he saw the mother running into the street toward them, running desperately after a laughing little girl with curly hair, an innocent child, chasing a bright-red ball.

Samuel ran awkwardly, bent over, arms wide: he found the child, his arm catching her about the belt, and he powered forward, curling the little girl up into him and forward and slamming her into the onrushing mother’s arms, knocking her back out of the street, just as the Reo’s front bumper caught him in the right hip.

Caleb’s jaw dropped open as he saw his brother thrown sideways – bent almost double – not like a man, not like the tall, strong big brother he’d always known.

More like a man-size rag doll, broken and spun around, just before the runaway truck blocked his view, roared on by.

“SAAAAMMMMUUUUEEEEELLLLLLLL!” Caleb screamed, running out into the street as the open-cab Reo beer truck continued down the street, veering a little and ramming into the stone corner of a building.

Caleb and Catherine reached Samuel at the same moment.

Dead eyes stared sightlessly at the sky, the rest of his body twisted: Caleb pressed his hand on his brother’s chest and felt …

…nothing …

For the first time in his life, Caleb Keller felt an absolute, overwhelming, consuming rage, the curse of the Sheriff’s blood, that blinding bonfire of fury that eats a man’s soul and launches him down a murderous path.

He stood, looked at the steaming beer truck.

His hand closed about the wire-wound handle of his hidden knife.

He looked down at his dead brother.

“No,” he said aloud, and at the word, the blood-Rage was extinguished.

He looked down as the pretty young woman knelt beside the dead body of the man she’d come to love in college, the man she’d intended to marry, the man she was ready to stand with through a lifetime of blindness, the life of an invalid.

Caleb watched as Catherine bent and rested her forehead on her arms, her arms crossed on the bloodied shirt and vest of what used to be a strong, handsome young man, and Caleb heard her sobbing quietly, grieving for everything that was destroyed in a heartbeat’s time.

Another woman wept, not far away, a woman who held her curly-headed daughter like a drowning man holds a float, a woman who didn’t realize her savior lay dead on the cobbles: her daughter was alive, swept to safety by a stranger who flew across the street, bent at the waist, arms wide like wings to scoop her child to safety like a great, magical bird, and thrust her suddenly into her mother’s arms.

 

Past Sheriff Willamina Keller drizzled honey into hot, steaming Earl Grey, gathering her thoughts.

Her voice was quiet in her kitchen; Bruce Jones’ pencil scratched busily on the green tinted paper.

“Sheriff Jacob Keller was so hurt by his son’s death … he hadn’t received the first letter from him, he didn’t receive any notification of his son’s injury in that mustard gas attack. It wasn’t until Caleb came home and announced that he’d seen Samuel, and then handed his father an envelope, that Jacob had the least idea that anything at all happened.”

“What was in the envelope?” Jones asked, his voice quiet as he took a quick sip of cooled tea.

“I have it in my desk.”

Jones raised an eyebrow, and Willamina smiled.

“It’s from Samuel. It says that if you are reading this, I am dead.

“It said that he was having a nurse write this letter because he’d been blinded from mustard, that he was not expected to live, and that he was likely to die any moment from hemorrhage of the lungs.

“It said that he was not certain whether he should come home to Firelands, blind and a cripple, but he did intend to come home, as he had someone waiting for him.

“I have another letter, from a crematory.

“It seems they are apologizing for the loss of cremains of one Samuel Keller, killed by a runaway beer truck, and with it is a newspaper article describing how the police were called to a crematory because two Western lawmen were threatening to blow the place off the face of the earth.”

“Oh, my,” Jones murmured, his pencil momentarily still.

“There was also some mention of the man in charge being pinned to the wall by a hard hand on his throat.”

Editor Jones swallowed uncomfortably.

“The ashes were found last month.”

Jones looked up, his left eyebrow quirking up.

“They found the ashes when someone started to rebuild the long-closed crematory. They sent them to me.”

The pencil started up again.

The ashes of Samuel Keller, soldier and son of Sheriff Jacob Keller, were lost for more than a century.

When construction and demolition finally discovered the misplaced urn, the urn was opened in hopes of identifying the contents.

A metal tag in the urn did indeed identify the deceased, and allowed a modern-day Internet search, ultimately resulting in the remains of one of our native sons arriving at the Sheriff’s office, where it was received by Sheriff Linn Keller and Past Sheriff Willamina Keller.

Samuel’s father was so heartbroken at his son’s death during the First World War, and by his son Caleb’s account of Samuel’s death, that he never spoke Samuel’s name again, nor did he allow mention of his son, ever again.

This account was all the more difficult for this correspondent when another letter was handed me.

A letter to the editor, because the writer of this letter didn’t know where else to send it.

It was the thanks of a mother to the unknown man who swept her daughter to safety when the driver of a beer truck died at its wheel, and the truck ran unguided down the street as her child ran into the street after an escaping ball.

I did not ask the past Sheriff how she came by this letter.

Bruce Jones, Editor of the Firelands Gazette, swallowed the last of his coffee and stood.

He had just enough time to get to the graveyard.

Samuel Keller’s funeral was in an hour.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

98. HE WAS FAMILY

Cindy took the call.

She looked up as Sheriff Linn Keller came through the heavy-glass double doors, shaking snow off his coat and stomping his boots clean on the rubber mat.

“Sheriff,” she said, “you’ll want to take this. Cincinnati PD.”

“Cincinnati?” His grin was quick, boyish. “Now what does Porkopolis want with a little old town clear out here in the Rockies?”

He strode across the polished floor, took the receiver.

His voice was strong, confident, good-natured, the way a Western Sheriff should sound.

“Sheriff Keller.”

“Sheriff, this is Bob Appleton, Cincinnati PD. I’m a detective with our cold case section.”

“What can we do you for today?” Linn grinned, his good natured expression concealing the gears turning rapidly behind pale eyes: Cindy offered a pencil, turned a fresh legal pad toward him.

Linn glanced at the clock, noted date and time, then APPLETON DETECTIVE CINCY PD.

Cindy leaned forward, curious.

“Sheriff, we get some strange ones, but I think this one belongs to you.”

“W’al now, don’t leave me hangin’, what happened?” Linn drawled, intentionally sounding like a country comedian reject: it tended to put people at ease and allayed any concerns that a rural bumpkin might be trying to out-think the civilized and urbane Easterner mindset.

“Here’s the nutshell. A construction company is demoing an old crematorium. They found an urn. They called us, the scene was pretty well destroyed so there wasn’t much to process, but somehow this urn didn’t get smashed when they took down the wall.”

“Go on.” Linn’s pencil was busy and so were his dispatcher’s eyes.

“We brought the urn back to the forensics lab and opened it.”

“Go on.”

“There was a metal tag inside. We cross-checked some records and we’re faxing you the information we lifted from old newspapers and police reports.” There was a pause. “Fax going out now. Advise its arrival.”

The fax purred as if on cue.

“Something’s arriving,” Linn said quietly. “Now what has this to do with an old cold case?”

“Your name is Keller.”

“Has been long as I can remember.”

The detective chuckled. “So is the name on this metal tag.”

“Really!”

“And you’ll like the police report we’re sending. Does the name Sheriff Jacob Keller ring a bell?”

Linn lowered the mouthpiece, pale eyes fixed on his dispatcher. “Get Mama,” he said. “Get her on conference or get her in here five minutes ago!”

“Excuse me?” Detective Appleton said, and Linn’s ear drew back a little to hear the note of curiosity in the man’s voice.

“My mother,” Linn explained, “is past Sheriff and she is really, really big into ancestor research. Now you asked about Sheriff Jacob Keller. Yes, he’s a direct ancestor. It started with my namesake – Linn Keller was the second Sheriff of Firelands County, Colorado – then came his son Jacob, the name you gave me.”

“I did.”

“Then came Caleb Keller, and then somebody else got elected and the family went into other lines of work, and it wasn’t until my Mama came back from Afghanistan and was appointed to an unexpired term sight unseen that the Keller line came back into the saddle out here.”

“Must be nice,” Appleton sighed. “Sounds like your politics aren’t as bad as they are here.”

Linn laughed. “Mama worked in Athens County for a while,” he offered, “and she told me if you want the Webster’s definition of ‘Dirty Suth’n Politics’ just look up Athens County and you’ll find it!”

“I’m familiar with the area,” Appleton said ruefully, “and I found it just as you describe.” Linn could almost hear the man nodding agreement.

The heavy glass double doors squeaked a little as they always did and Linn looked up as Willamina shook snow off her coat and stomped her boots clean on the rubber mat.

He looked at Cindy and Cindy shrugged. “She’s fast,” she said offhandedly.

She never placed the call yet, Linn thought. How did she know? – then he shoved the thought aside: his Mama had a way of knowing things.

“Detective, my Mama – Past Sheriff Willamina Keller – just came through the door. I’m putting you on speaker so we can all read off the same page.” He nodded to Cindy, summoned Willamina with a wave of his hand.

A click, Detective Appleton’s voice. “Sheriff, are you still there?”

“Yes, Detective. Past Sheriff Willamina Keller is standing beside me. I understand you have cold case information and you mentioned discovering an urn in an old crematorium. In it was a metal tag identifying the contents. You’ve faxed documents and you mention the name of Jacob Keller. Am I correct so far?”

Willamina’s eyebrow tented upward: the woman was clearly intrigued.

“Yes, Sheriff. I’m sending a police report. It seems one Sheriff Jacob Keller went to the crematorium and threw one hell of a fit because they lost the ashes of one Samuel Keller.”

Linn and Willamina looked at one another and Cindy saw an understanding pass between the two.

“I am familiar with those names,” Willamina said, her words crisp, businesslike. “What does the report say?”

She heard the detective laugh quietly. “I realize it was a different age, and I realize newspapers of the day liked to play up a story to keep people buying their papers, but when the investigating officer writes that a pale eyed Western Sheriff had the crematory operator by the throat, pinned to a wall, and threatening to blow the place off the face of the earth, and when the crematory operator bears the marks of a pretty good beating and he’s too terrified to press charges …”

“Yeah,” Willamina said, “there’s a hot temper runs in our blood. Go on.”

“I also sent court documents where they brought charges against the crematory. Nothing came of it.”

Linn looked at his Mama and nodded slowly.

“With your permission I will ship the urn to you. We saw no need to extract anything for analysis, the only thing we did was remove the metal tag and clean it up so we could read it. We’ll put it back in the urn.”

“Thank you, Detective,” Linn and Willamina said together.

“I’ll put a rush on it. Should be there in 24 hours.”

“That’s very kind,” Linn said. “I appreciate your hospitality.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Detective, can we reimburse you for the shipping?”

“Nah, that’s okay. Buy me a beer when I’m 99.”
Linn laughed quietly. “I think I can afford that. Anything else for us today?”

“No, I believe that’s about it.”

“Mama?”

Willamina shook her head, blinking: she was clearly thinking fast.

Linn said his goodbyes, Cindy closed the connection, Willamina thrust her jaw out slowly as she thought, then she looked at the waiting dispatcher.

“Cindy,” she said, “get me Bruce Jones. He’s forever looking for a story and this will make him a good one.”

 

The funeral was a week later.

It was in their little whitewashed church, and Willamina was honestly surprised the place was packed.

She knew the weekly paper contained her account of Jacob’s trip East to accost the errant crematory, the story of Samuel, son of the Sheriff and a college man who’d been drafted into the First World War, a tall, strong, vital, laughing young man who’d been turned into a weak, tottering, blood-coughing, blinded invalid, who in spite of blindness and losing most of his usable lung capacity, still managed to save a child from being run over by a Cincinnati beer truck.

Willamina’s voice was strong and confident; she pitched her voice so she could hear her words echo back to her from the back wall, a speaker’s trick to guarantee she was being effectively heard to the back pews.

She smiled a little and dropped her head, then looked at the urn, and back over the congregation.

“I was going to make this into a production,” she confessed. “I found seven genuine ought-three Springfield rifles that were actually used in the First World War, intending the firing squad to have these relics of the conflict that cost him his eyes and his good health.”

She smiled again.

“Then I thought why not have World War 1 re-enactors for the firing squad, and then I found a World War 1 truck, restored and running, and thought to have it air-freighted out here and damn the expense, and then I realized, wait a minute, this isn’t Hollywood.

“The war didn’t kill him.

“He died doing what he was supposed to do, and that’s save lives.

“A friend of mine is a sniper and he’s always asked how many did you kill. He’s never asked how many people have you saved.” She looked down at her hands, then back up. “I was asked the same thing after I came back from the Middle East, and I’ve been asked the same in my time as Sheriff.

“Samuel Keller was a soldier, yes, and he’ll have the military honors at the gravesite.”

Willamina looked up, her eyes bright, blinking.

“But Samuel was family.

“His father, Sheriff Jacob Keller, was so torn up at losing another son to what he called That Damned War, that he never spoke Samuel’s name again, and forbade its being spoken in his presence for the rest of his life.”

Willamina swallowed hard, bit her bottom lip, then pressed a kerchief to one eye, then the other.

“Forgive me. I’m getting sentimental in my old age.

“I’ve had Samuel’s name added to the family tomb stone already, and he will be interred in the same grave as his father.

“Of Samuel, the man, I know but little, but I do know he loved to laugh, and he had the same rotten sense of humor as the rest of us.”

She smiled.

“He had a nurse write a letter to his father as he lay blinded in a field hospital in France. He said in part that he did not expect to live, and if he perished before he got home, he would have his carcass cremated so it wouldn’t spoil in shipment.”

Linn laughed and nodded, and there were muted, stifled chuckles elsewhere in the congregation.

“So there you have it. He was family and now he’s home, and I didn’t have to bring in a British World War 1 tank to do it.”

 

The interment was mostly uneventful.

The firing squad was from the VFW, and their rifles were not surplus from the First World War, but they were military rifles: three volleys echoed out against the mountains, empty brass casings rang cheerfully as they hit the frozen ground, the bugler’s notes were clear, sweet, as they always are: the Sheriff’s Office had its honor guard present, and Tank, the Belgian Malinois, managed to look bored through the whole proceeding, while The Bear Killer patiently endured the happy hugs of a two year old who declared “Doggy!” and took off at a dead run to embrace the huge, black, curly-furred Mountain Mastiff.

Willamina’s eyes were busy, expecting to see something at a distance, and she did not.

What she saw was less than ten feet away.

When the bugler raised his arm and took his first deep breath, Willamina felt a shift in the air, and she froze as a white wolf paced delicately from behind the Old Sheriff’s tomb stone, and over to the fresh dug hole, to the urn resting on the draped stand: The Bear Killer trotted over as well, and with wolf setting on one side, and the huge Mastiff on the other, they raised their muzzles and sang with the bugle.

Willamina made no effort to wipe the wet from her face.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

99. A WISE WOMAN

Annette sat beside her husband, her hand warm and firm in his.

It had taken her considerable effort.

The climb to High Lonesome was not best performed in a woman's skirts, and Annette, though acclimatized to the high country long years before, was not acclimatized to a hard, high climb on a narrow rocky path.

To be sure, she did not have to shinny along a narrow ledge, keeping desperate purchase with fingertips on wrinkles in the rock; she did not drive pitons into the rock face and sling herself across a crevasse on a rope sling: no, she climbed a long, narrow path that looked like it hadn't been used since the earth was first minted, at least by anyone civilized; her untrained eye failed to note the bright scuffs from a shod horse, nor the scrape of boot polish on a protruding, rocky bulge.

The path could be navigated by an active boy, by a determined man, even by a good saddlehorse that wasn't afraid of the mountains and its sheer drops ... but Annette, wife and mother and not used to anything of the kind, found it most challenging.

She managed -- somehow -- to make it to the high, overlooking bench, this place of legend she'd only heard of.

Her husband rose as she leaned a palm against the rock face to her right, her left hand gripping and lifting her skirts; the chill air and the altitude sucked the sweat from her face, her shoulders heaved as she fought to replenish her strength, breathing deeply, deliberately: Jacob came over, seized her under the arms, drew her fully onto the rocky flat, then embraced her with a crushing hug, felt her tremble with her exertions.

Husband and wife held one another for a long minute -- another -- neither speaking, each grateful the other was there: sometimes a conversation between marital partners is conducted without words, and this was one of those moments.

Jacob's hand closed firmly about her wrist and he drew her over to where he was sitting.

His saddle blanket was spread out, and wide enough for two; he'd been there long enough that horse sweat and horse smell were gone, and he saw her settled before he eased his bony backside down beside her generous, womanly hips.

It was an age when affection was not shown, save only in the most formal manner: Jacob honestly did not give a good damn about such proprieties: he kissed his wife when he pleased, public or not; he hugged his wife when he pleased, or ran his arm around her waist, when he damn well pleased, when little children ran to him, giggling, more often than not he'd laugh with them, and seize them and haul them waaaaayyyyy up in the air and let them scatter their happy laughter in a broad circle around them, and so it was here.

Jacob drew Annette close in to his side, leaned his cheek over on top of her matronly, piled-up hairdo.

"You're a long way from the kitchen," he teased, and she elbowed him cheerfully in the ribs.

"I was worried about you, you long tall drink of water," she muttered.

"You found out."

"I'm a mother," Annette snapped. "I find out everything!"

Jacob laughed quietly. "I should know better than to try to hide something from you," he admitted.

"Yes you should, Jacob Keller, and if you insist on blowing that Cincinnati crematorium off the planet, I insist on helping!"

Jacob drew back a little and looked at his wife, blinked twice, rapidly, his eyes darkening just a little.

"My dear?" he murmured, honestly surprised for one of the few times in his life.

Annette seized his hand, wrung it between hers: "Jacob, you intend to go back and destroy that place. They lost Samuel and I'm not happy he had himself cremated. I don't even have a body to grieve over, but they took even what little was left, and -- Jacob Keller, don't you dare laugh! -- and it didn't help when he dictated you that letter and said he was having it done so he wouldn't spoil on his way home -- Jacob Keller, don't you dare laugh!" She smacked her husband on the shoulder, bristling like a Banty hen, and Jacob honestly did try to keep a straight face.

He honestly tried.

Somehow his patient, longsuffering, kind, gentle, soft spoken, ladylike wife -- all a-bristle and indignant -- hit his funny bone sideways and try as he might, he could not stifle his grin, and the grin was hitched onto a giggle and a short, and these were trace-chained to more poorly muffled snorts and a guffaw, and finally he embraced his wife and leaned back against the granite and threw his head back and laughed, a good, honest, bust-the-dam-and-let-it-out laugh, and Annette Keller fizzed and snarled like a cat and her husband's strong and restraining embrace barely kept her from punching him.

Somewhere in her pale-eyed husband's hearty hail of gut-deep guffaws -- maybe it was when he leaned his face into her hair and she realized his muffled sounds were no longer of laughter but of grief -- maybe it was when his embrace tightened and she realized he was holding onto the one thing in the world he truly loved and couldn't live without -- maybe that's when she realized what he needed wasn't to load up a freight car with good 60% nitro DuPont dynamite, maybe what he needed was not to kick the door and stride in with a shotgun and a wagon load of justice behind him, maybe that's when she realized what he needed was to come up to the High Lonesome, and come to terms with losing a son and never seeing even a body to bury, and maybe -- just maybe -- the only thing keeping his feet somewhere on a narrow ledge of sanity and of rational thought was the wife he held, the wife he embraced with a fierce and desperate strength, the wife in whose hair his tears soaked as he ground his teeth and locked the choking sounds of a grieving father in his throat.

Husband and wife sat in the afternoon sun, listening to the wind and the birds and the shattered whistle of the freight engine dragging another load of ore to the refinery, and Jacob looked far into the distance, looked to the horizon, bitten off with the mountains' sharp granite teeth, and he nodded, slowly.

"Pa," he whispered, then cleared his throat and tried again.

"Pa said dyin' was like slippin' a worn and soiled cloak off your shoulders, and you stood up all clean and all your pain and all your sins and all your life's dirt fell away and hit the ground."

Annette nodded a little, leaned a little more into her husband.

"He said on the moment of death we are relieved of the Pain of Living." He cleared his throat again, blinked pale eyes, remembering his father's quiet words, uttered in an unguarded moment as they shared a trailside fire one dark night. "He said we are born into a searing ocean of unending pain and that's why a baby cries when it's born, but it's like sticking your hand in hot water and leaving it ... after a while you don't feel it anymore and we get used to it, until we die, when all that pain is gone." She heard the memory in his voice, the sound of a son, missing his father. "He said we swim in that vast and unending ocean of utter agony and it's constant so we don't realize it's even there, until we die."

Annette nodded a little.

"I can't bring Samuel back." Jacob's voice was harder now, a note of self accusation in his words. "I'm his father. I should be able to fix it."

"No," Annette whispered. "No. Not everything."

Jacob released his wife, stood suddenly, walked a few steps, turned.

"I know that here" -- he tapped his forehead with a bent foreknuckle -- "but I'm havin' trouble knowin' it here!" -- he rapped his knuckles hard against his breastbone.

He took a long breath, threw his head back, spread his hands.

"God," he said, "Pa said we are children here below, he said we're set down here to learn what we need before we step off into the next world."

Annette saw her husband's fists ball up, tight, tight.

"Well God, if I'm a child," he said, his voice louder, angry, "children learn by asking questions, and I'm asking You WHY!"
His voice rose to an enraged shout.

"He didn't save a dozen wounded men, he didn't take a great objective, he didn't stop the war single handed, from everything anyone can tell me and that's damn little" -- his voice was harsh, bitter -- "he hadn't got over there before he was GASSED and now he's DEAD!"

Jacob's breath was harsh in his throat and he stopped, looked at his wife, then back up at the sky.

"Pa said we are children and children learn by asking why and Pa said it's not wrong to ask. Well I'm askin'!" He unclenched his fists, spread his trembling fingers, looked at them, then looked up again, his voice quieter.

"Pa told me it wasn't wrong to ask why and he said the answer generally wasn't going to come right away. He said the answer would come when I was not expectin' it."

Jacob took a long and shivering breath, his jaw thrust out, and Annette saw her husband's brows furrow as he considered.

"I reckon I'll wait, then, Lord," Jacob concluded. "I am a man and I am impatient and You know that because You made me like this, so I'll wait."

He looked at his wife, looked back up.

"You sent me a wise woman. Thank You for that. I reckon she hadn't oughta cook tonight, comin' all the way up here, so I'll fetch the family down to the Jewel and we'll let Daisy's kitchen do the cookin'."

Annette rose and Jacob extended his hands to her.

"I am grateful," he said quietly, "for this wise woman."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

100. YOU GET IT HONEST

The whet stone broke into about ten pieces when it hit the floor.

It hit the floor after free falling in slow motion, as Caleb's eyes widened and his face grimaced, for it was not hard to predict the result of young fingers slipping and the stone's uncontrolled descent as a result.

The sound of shattering Berea sandstone was sudden and loud and Sheriff Jacob Keller looked up from his blue enamel coffee mug.

He hadn't burnt his lip on it yet and from the heat radiating from its speckled surface, maybe the distraction saved him a scald: he set the cup down on his desk and gave his son a sympathetic look.

"I have the same trouble with money," he deadpanned. "Just can't hold onto it."

"I'm sorry, Pa. That was my fault."

"Them stones is hard to hold onto sometimes," Jacob nodded wisely. "I've broke my share."

"Yes, sir," Caleb said in discouraged tones.

"Did your Grampa make coffee this morning?"

Caleb blinked in surprise -- his Grampa had been dead some years now -- then he realized his Pa was funnin' him and he grinned, "No, sir, not this mornin'."

"Then it's likely fit to drink." Jacob reached for the blue granite cup again.

"Pa?"

"Yes, Caleb?" Jacob blew on the rippling black surface, frowned: he looked toward the shelf and Caleb automatically reached up for the bent tin cup they kept fresh cream in. "Here you go, Pa."

"Thank you," Jacob said gravely, taking the bent container from his son: he poured a good shot into his coffee, handed it back, picked up his own steaming up and took a noisy slurp. "Mmp, yep. Good batch."

"They ground it for me this mornin'," Caleb offered helpfully.

"Attair frash ground," Jacob said, and Caleb grinned to hear his Grampa's voice -- or at least his words -- come from his Pa's throat -- "attair frash ground is the best kind."

"Yes, sir."

"There are worse things that droppin' a whet stone."

"Yes, sir?"

"You could have dropped attair cream."

Caleb frowned. "I did, once, sir. Cleaned it up too."

"I recall," Jacob nodded. "I've done as much."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't worry, son. You get it honest."

 

A century and more later, same Sheriff's office, again Sheriff and son, and the son was making the face of a Moorish idol, only this time Sheriff Linn Keller had coffee splashed up his uniform trouser legs, all over his shined boots, and shattered glass "all over hell and breakfast," as he muttered it.

Cindy knew better than to say anything at all -- nothing would repair the dropped coffee pot, and the Sheriff's temper, known to be hot and volatile at times, would not boil over at this aggravation, but it was clear the tall, lean man was not terribly happy.

Linn used a flat bottom coal shovel (God alone knows where he came up with it!) to clean up shattered glass; he used an entire can of cheap shaving cream, sprayed over the entire shatter radius and shoveled up, then mopped, to get up the fine little slivers of glass that inevitably evolve from such breakage.

Finally he squatted, laid his high intensity flashlight on the floor, turned it slowly to transluminate any remaining fragments of cut-your-foot that might exist.

Thanks to the shaving cream dodge, none did.

"Whoever told you about making this place smell like Tony's barbershop?" Cindy asked, and Linn grinned, quickly, boyishly, the way he did sometimes.

"Captain Knowlton, down at the fire department. He said a little old lady called in after dropping a twisty fluorescent bulb. She'd heard they contained mercury and a new hotshot on the Department wanted to treat it as a hazardous materials spill. The Captain pulled the shavetail aside and said quietly that the cost of a full hazmat response would be well more than that old gal made in ten years of pension checks, why don't we just use the cheap can of shaving cream trick."

"I didn't realize it ... wow, that's a lot of money!" Cindy said quietly, intensely, and the Sheriff knew she was filing that dodge away in her personal edition of the Book of Dirty Tricks and Other Useful Knowledge.

Linn opened the bottom drawer of the file cabinet, brought out a white cardboard box, opened it and pulled out a brand new coffee pot.

"Let's see if I can do this one right," he muttered, carrying it back to the break room: he came back a minute later with a pot full of shimmering tap water, dumped it in the coffee maker, dumped the old ground and dropped in a new filter, poured in fresh and fragrant grinds, added just a shake from the saltshaker, and hit the start switch.

"Salt?"

"Cuts bitterness," he explained, "and it complexes with the grounds so it doesn't come through."

"I see," Cindy said dubiously.

 

"One of those days?" Jacob asked understandingly.

"Yes, sir."

"You couldn't find your boots."

"No, sir."

"They were right where you left 'em and you couldn't remember where they were."

"Yes, sir."

Jacob laughed. "Your Grampa did that once. He got his all soaky wet so he put 'em on the crane in the fireplace. His Ma didn't know they were there, she built the fire up, and before he woke up his boots got fried and how."

Caleb's eyes widened. "Uh-oh!"

"Uh-oh is right! Boots were hand made then, the boot maker came around once a year." Jacob chuckled. "Pa said he didn't appreciate how comfortable moccasins were, nor how thin their soles were."

"They were right in plain sight," Caleb muttered.

Jacob leaned over a little, winked at his son. "I'll tell you one," he said in a low, confidential voice, "just don't tell your Ma!"

Caleb quirked an eyebrow (just like his Grampa! Jacob thought), and Jacob explained, "Your Mama found out reeeal early in our marriage if she didn't want me to find something, just set it square in the middle of the floor right in plain sight, and I'll never see it!" He chuckled. "Your Pa was bad as any of his kids about Christmas. He used to press the paper down on the packages and try to read through it, he'd shake the package and heft the package and try to figure out what was in the package." Jacob leaned back, laced his fingers together behind his head, remembering. "Your Grandma Esther used to tell him, "Now Linn" -- he adopted a reedy, nasal, old-lady voice, which made Caleb laugh, for it sounded nothing at all like any little old lady he'd ever heard -- "now Linn -- you listen to me now, Linn, don't let those kids under the bed, Linn -- are you listening to me? -- Linn, don't let those kids under the bed! There's Christmas under that bed, Linn, now don't let those kids under there!" -- and he'd never let any of us look under that bed."

"Yes, sir?" Caleb breathed, remembering similar moments in his own home.

"Guess where your Grandma Esther hid HIS presents!"

Comprehension widened Caleb's eyes again, and Jacob nodded. "You know, he never, ever looked under that bed. And that is the only place he never looked!"

Caleb laughed, delighted at this unexpected revelation of his Grampa's character.

Jacob sighed. "Don't worry about not finding your boots, Caleb," he said understandingly. "They were right in plain sight." He grinned again. "You come by it honest."

 

"I remember Richard dropping the coffee pot," Willamina laughed, and Cindy smiled to hear the retired Sheriff's smile through the phone. "He told me later a professor told him profanity was a sign of a limited vocabulary, and so Richard learned to swear in six languages."

"Linn swore in three."

"He can swear in more than that. I've heard him, but don't remind him!" Willamina's smile faded a little. "And don't worry about his dropping the occasional coffee pot."

She looked at the framed photograph on her desk, at the man and woman that looked back from behind the matte-and-frame portrait.

It was their wedding day, and Richard looked so handsome in his Western-cut suit and tie.

"He gets it honest."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

101. "YOU GIVE 'EM THEIR SAY!"

Sheriff Jacob Keller squared off with his son Caleb.

Caleb squared up to his Pa.

Neither one was happy in the least little bit.

Neither one was totally sure of himself.

Both of them agreed that the schoolteacher was leaving town in disgrace.

Both of them agreed that this was a situation that had to be worked out.

Neither of them was terribly happy that it had come to this.

"Caleb," Jacob said quietly, "Mrs. Shaver hasn't been gone three days and you broke the schoolmaster's arm."

"No, sir," Caleb said firmly, and Jacob saw defiance in his son's pale eyes. "I didn't break it, I twisted his shoulder out of socket."

Jacob opened his mouth, closed, it, nodded. "You ... brought it out of socket."

"Yes, sir," Caleb said, and Jacob could feel the Rage building in his young son's soul: he knew its taste, he knew how powerful it was, and he knew he would need to tread carefully to keep from fueling this most attractive bonfire.

"I don't reckon anyone asked you what really happened."

"No, sir," Caleb agreed, anger closing his young hands into fists. "No, sir, nobody asked me what really happened. Everyone allowed as I was wrong and I wasn't!"

Jacob blinked at his son's raised voice. This was very uncharacteristic for Caleb: normally he was quite mild, eager to please, willing to accept his father's authority -- and by extension, that of the schoolmarm, and when she was absent, of the schoolmaster.

All Jacob knew was that there'd been trouble in the schoolhouse, the schoolmaster demanded that Caleb be horsewhipped, at least until Doc peeled the man's clothes off, baring him to the belt right there in front of God and everybody -- the man took a grip on elbow and wrist and did something fast and obviously painful -- the shoulder went back into socket and the schoolmaster's eyes rolled up in his head and he hit the ground like a sack of pea gravel.

The only people present were Jacob, Caleb, Doc and the now-unconscious schoolmaster, who the Sheriff ended up packing over to the boarding house where he lived.

Caleb followed, carrying the man's folded coat and vest and shirt, and his necktie: Caleb debated whether to accidentally drop the tie and step on it three or four times, but decided against it.

Wouldn't be right.

The ride back to the house was in utter silence, which didn't make either father or son any more comfortable, and when they both headed for the barn instead of going to the barn and coming back to the house, why, the family knew there was a serious matter afoot.

Caleb turned a little as his father moved, keeping himself squared off with him, alert and wary as a wolf.

Jacob pretended not to notice.

"Pa, when you got two fellas arguin', when they got a good horn lockin' goin' on you'll give each of 'em their say," Caleb said -- he said it with an utter certainty in his voice, and it was clear to both father and son that Caleb was not asking for this favor.

He was requiring it in the name of fairness, and he was not going to settle for any less.

Jacob nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, Caleb. You're right. Your Grampa taught me that and he was right."

"Are you gonna let me have my say, Pa?"

"Yes, Caleb." Jacob looked around, nodded to a bale of hay, dragged another up: two bales, two blankets, two seats, facing one another.

"My back is a-botherin' me," Jacob said quietly. "Have a set."

Caleb considered this might be the Old Man softening a little -- but he didn't count on it.

Each one sidled in between the bales and sat, slowly, their knees almost touching.

"Tell me what happened," Jacob said quietly, and Caleb's jaw went back where it belonged as he blinked, remembering.

"We was havin' the history lesson, Pa," Caleb said, his voice distinct and decisive. "He -- that schoolmaster -- he was a snotty sort. Said we were a bunch of back country savages but he had to put up with teaching us -- 'as distasteful as that is,' " he quoted.

Jacob nodded, his face carefully neutral: privately, he considered that this confirmed what he'd heard of the man.

"He asked me which nation lay just west of the Austro-Hungarian border and I looked down at that-there book to make sure I was right.

"He said 'Do you even have the right page?' and I picked up the book and turned it around with my finger on the spot and said "Right here!"

"Wellsir he come out from behind that desk with that switch in his hand and I knew he was a-gonna larrup me across the shoulders a half dozen times like he'd already done twice to two others already so I stood up and let him come, just like you taught me.

"He called me a liar, Pa, and you don't let nobody call you a liar and I won't neither." Caleb's young voice was tight and Jacob could feel the fire heating the words. "He called me a liar and he come at me with that-there switch and when he got close he told me to turn around.

"I grabbed his coat and pulled and he dropped that switch so he could grab me and I grabbed his wrist and his elbow just like you showed me and I brought his arm back and around and leveraged him down to the floor. I still had his wrist and his elbow and I put my boot under his shoulder and I brought that arm out of socket" -- Caleb stood, eyes wide and pale, his nostrils flared and his words running close together -- "and I would do the same thing again!"

Jacob raised a hand. "Have a set," he said mildly, and Caleb took a few breaths, blinked, and sat again.

"Caleb," Jacob said, leaning close and boring his pale eyes into his son's pale eyes, "no man calls me a liar and gets away with it, and I won't have a man calling my son a liar." He considered for a long moment. "I reckon I ought to go speak with him."

Caleb blinked, nodded.

"I was in the right, sir," he said quietly.

Jacob reached out, gripped his son's shoulder.

"I'll be back after bit. I'll need your help figurin' out that new pistol."

"Yes, sir."

 

Willamina removed her reading glasses, pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbed her closed eyes.

"I wish I'd done that," she muttered, remembering a sixth grade schoolteacher who did something very similar -- only this was a waspish old woman who used the narrow edge of a ping-pong paddle instead of a thumb-thick switch, a woman who managed to earn the hatred of the child Willamina had been.

"I wish I could've done that to her, Caleb," she said aloud. "I would pay good money to time travel back and come out of that seat as I am now instead of the humiliated girl I was."

Willamina's pale eyes blazed, hard and cold, and for an uncharacteristic moment she wasted a few moments, considering what it would have felt like to seize that disagreeable old witch by wrist and elbow and drive her face into the hardwood floor ... followed by a kneedrop through the kidneys, right before she twisted her arm out of its socket.

The Bear Killer's ears perked and he looked with bright and interested eyes at his beloved Mistress.

"The worst thing I did to her," Willamina told the attentive canine, "was to go spit on her tomb stone and tell it she was a truly evil soul, to have earned the hatred of a little child." She looked back at the black ink, cursive and almost ornate, on good rag paper, written by a young man better than a century before.

"You did all right, Caleb," she said quietly. "I wish I'd done as well."

 

The kitchen smelled of welcome and fresh baked bread.

Jacob had several thicknesses of newspaper spread out, and on it, a new pistol he'd acquired.

Caleb came in, curious: his Pa was longer than either expected, and Caleb had gone to bed, but at the metallic sounds of his Pa disassembling something in the kitchen, Caleb rolled out of the bunk and came padding barefoot into the home's warm, fragrant heart.

Jacob smiled a little. "Light and set," he said quietly, then turned back to the parts spread out before him.

Caleb watched his father reassemble a pistol he'd never seen.

Jacob got it back together, handed it to his son.

"What do you think of this one?"

Caleb considered the 1911 Colt carefully -- he hefted it as it lay in his upturned palms, then turned away from his Pa, gripped it by what was very obviously a handle, held it out at arm's length, brought it back in and gripped it by the front: he handed it, stern first, to his Pa.

"Kind of boxy," he said frankly.

"Think this'll work?"

"Wellsir," Caleb said thoughtfully, "someone went to the time and money to make it. It says US Government on the side so I reckon that's what them soldiers is usin' now."

"It is." Jacob set out a loaded round and Caleb regarded it with apparent surprise.

"That's awful short," he said, puzzled.

"We'll shoot it tomorrow. It's surprisin' to shoot."

"Yes, sir."

"I went and had a talk with that schoolmaster."

It was Caleb's turn to assume an impassive face. "Yes, sir?"

"He's on the night train. I told him this side of the Mississippi he'd be known as the pantywaist that a schoolboy used to mop the floor with. He allowed as he'd see me in court."

"What did you do, sir?"

"Well" -- Jacob chuckled -- "I've got to replace the window in his boarding house room."

Caleb's eyes widened. "Sir?"

"Yep," Jacob nodded. "I took him by the shirt front, I shook him til his teeth rattled and I slung him right out that window. Didn't bother to open it first neither."

"Did he get cut up, sir?"

"Nope. He didn't land good but he didn't break anything and I went out and dunked him in the horse trough, then I had the widow-woman that runs the place pack up his stuff. Turns out she was glad to see him gone. I told her I'd fix attair window and drug him drippin' wet and a-hollerin' down to the depot. I should have made him pay for his own ticket," he added thoughtfully, then he looked at his son and Caleb saw a deep hardness in his Pa's eyes.

"I won't be called a liar, Caleb. You didn't let it happen neither. You did right."

"Yes, sir."

Jacob considered that boxy looking pistol on the table before him. "That just don't look right," he muttered. "It don't feel right in the hand."

He looked up at his son.

"Mrs. Shaver will be back tomorrow. Don't be tellin' her you mopped the floor with that Eastern fella now."

Caleb did not smile, not even a little.

"No, sir. I'll not."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

102. WOOD STOVE

Ezra Shaver, of course, heard about the unpleasantness at her tidy little schoolhouse before she left the depot platform.

As a matter of fact, the widow Shaver heard the story multiple times -- and each version bore little resemblance to previous editions -- so much so that she was honestly not sure whether the previous schoolmaster hung the girls up on a clothesline to get them out of the way while he horsewhipped all the boys, or whether the boys beat the man to death by virtue of picking up the desk and dropping it on him multiple times, whether the schoolmaster sustained a dislocation, a fracture, decapitation, or perhaps worse.

Like any proper spinster, the widow Shaver had a room in the boarding house, where she was a timid little thing at the big table downstairs: so worried was she over the several stories she heard, that she had no appetite for supper, and it took some coaxing from the landlady to get her to sip at her tea and nibble at the corner of a slice of toast.

After reviewing the multiple accounts of mayhem, bloodshed and a stampede of wild Texas longhorns roaring up the steps, circling the room in an absolute storm of bovine destruction before busting out the side walls and escaping, she managed to worry herself to sleep, somehow.

Next morning she presented herself, as she always did, at the breakfast table: she looked properly spinster-ish, her dress was of the correct shade of undistinguished, mousy grey, her hat was exactly level atop her head, her spectacles a precise distance from the bridge of her nose, enabling her to either read, or to look over top her round lenses: it was said she practiced "The Look" before a mirror, until she was able to freeze a recalcitrant and misbehaving schoolchild with the power of her expression: whether this was actually true or not, depended on how convincing the teller of the tale had been.

Her appetite was somewhat better for breakfast.

She managed to eat a half slice of toast and daintily sip half a small china cup of tea before dabbing her lips delicately, rising and politely excusing herself.

 

Jacob leaned casually against the porch post, pale eyes fixed on the rancher's son.

"Don't even think about tryin' to weasel on me," he said quietly. "I can look through your eyes and see your spine and I can tell if there's the least trace of yella a-layin' alongside it."

"I ain't about to, Sheriff," the boy muttered.

"Now tell me about attair schoolmaster."

Neither father nor Sheriff missed the sudden, startling expression, centered on the boy's eyes and spreading like ripples in a pebble-dropped pond: it was there, then it was gone, but it was unmistakable.

Hatred, and anger.

"He beat us," he said quietly, his voice low but unmistakable. "He beat us with that cane of his."

"Why'd he beat you, son?" the rancher asked, his voice carefully neutral, but he looked up and he and the Sheriff met eyes, and each man knew the other was dead serious.

"He allowed as I was not payin' attention." He looked up at the Sheriff -- a boy not more than ten years old, but one with calluses on his hands and a surprising strength in his lean young frame. "I was payin' attention, he said I wasn't and larruped me acrost the shoulder blades!"

Jacob nodded, slowly: this wasn't the first time one of his son's schoolmates used this very description, and the more he heard it, the more he regretted not taking a horse whip to the now-long-gone schoolmaster.

"I taken me a war club the next day," the schoolboy admittted. "I taken me a wagon spoke and drilled it down its length and poured it with lead, and I drilled t'other end for a piggin string loop, and I hung it inside my pants leg. Me and Hink, we allowed as we was a-gonna use 'em if he come at either of us ag'in."

Jacob saw the boy's expression change a little.

"He didn't come for us, Sheriff. He come for Caleb and I never seen no one take a grown man down like that! He was fast and he knowed what he was a-doin' an' attair schoolmaster squealed like a little girl afore his eyes rolled up an' his head hit the floor and he was out cold!"

Jacob nodded slowly.

The rancher's expression had slowly metamorphosed into honest anger.

"He's long out of state," Jacob said before the rancher could inquire as to the miscreant's whereabouts.

"I want a crack at him, Sheriff."

"Tell you what." Jacob twisted a little, frowning: he did not suffer from his Pa's hereditary sway back, but he was close to it, and standin' on his own two legs, just standing for any length of time, began to hurt his back now.

"Tell you what. 'Ginst he comes back out here, I'll hold 'im and you can come in and address him just how-some-ever you please."

"I'd like that, Sheriff."

"You'll have to stand in line."

"Come ag'in?"
"You are one of four fathers I've spoken with. All four have boys and all four are ready to scalp that Eastern carpetbagger."

"I'd trim more than just his scalp," the rancher said darkly.

"And I'd let ye," Jacob said solidly. "I don't reckon he'll be back, but should he ever return, he'll have a welcoming committee and I doubt me not he'll feel much less than welcome when they're done!"

 

Ezra Shaver regarded the thumb-thick cane in the corner.

"With this?" she asked faintly.

Every last schoolchild's head nodded.

Mrs. Shaver hefted the cane a few times, then wound up and smacked it down atop her desk.

She and most of her students jumped at the abrupt sound.

Mrs. Shaver looked at the rows of students on benches and shuddered.

She had never, ever seen fit to use any such punishment, and she had no doubt at all this was not the fault of her students.

She considered carefully, then spoke up.

"I need the wood stove fired."

She looked left, looked right, at the red-glowing gas heaters.

"I know you don't have to carry out very many ashes," she said, amusement hiding behind her round schoolmarm spectacles, "when you fire with gas, but sometimes a wood fire is what I want, and I want a good fire in the stove."

"Yes, ma'am," Gregorio piped, and Mrs. Shaver clapped her hands twice.

"Class," she said in her schoolteacher's voice, "while Gregorio is firing the stove, we shall all go outside, to the wood pile."

"Yes, Mrs. Shaver," the entire schoolhouse full of children chorused: the rose, then one row at a time, filed outside and gathered around the wood pile, curious.

Mrs. Shaver had the boys set up four stumps, side by side, touching: she laid the offending, thick-as-your-thumb switch down across the four and went over to the ax.

Ezra Shaver was no stranger to using an ax; this was a broad ax, and had more iron to its head than she was used to, but she would not be swinging it.

She had the boys line up, the ones who'd been brutalized with that vicious cane, hurt by that terrible man: each of the lads got one good whack at the cane, and they put their beef into it.

Most of them cut it cleanly in two with their first blow.

Each of the boys got a piece of the cane, and they led the way back into the schoolhouse.

Mrs. Shaver did not know the pale-eyed Sheriff was watching them until the last of the children was ascending the three whitewashed wooden steps.

He touched his hat brim and Mrs. Shaver nodded, then she swung into the schoolhouse and closed the door.

Each of the boys, in turn, donated his percentage of the bully's cane to the fire, and when all the pieces were inserted, Mrs. Shaver dusted her hands briskly together and declared, "Good. That is that, now let us continue with our lessons."

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller stared at the tidy little whitewashed schoolhouse for a long time after the children entered, and the schoolmarm behind them.

He could about guess what was transpiring within, and he approved.

He also almost hoped that troublemaking schoolmaster would come back to town.

He would personally see the man held while several very angry fathers were summoned.

it's one thing to beat on a child.

it's something else entirely when it's a grown man that decides you are not going to hit him, and he'll make it stick.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

103. OH NO YOU DON'T!

Annette was getting a little plump.

She was still an attractive woman (most especially in her husband's eyes!) and her child bearing years were pretty well behind her, and at the moment she was not carrying new life in her belly ... as she washed the morning dishes, she hummed a little, smiling quietly, and their maid smiled as well, for she knew this meant her Mistress was not only content, she was contented, and contented by her robust and full-blooded husband.

The maid was discreet and pretended not to hear certain sounds in the night, and she knew that Annette's quiet blush and modestly veiled eyes concealed a woman who ... knew ... her husband, and ... knew ... him very well indeed.

The maid considered that the quietly smiling, apple cheeked Mrs. Keller indeed looked younger, for her previous night's exertions, and most feminine, and that all changed when Mrs. Keller's head came up like a hound hearing a distant whistle.

The maid's impression was that of a matronly tornado, suddenly whirling at an incredible speed, crossing the kitchen and adroitly avoiding two small children in the process, and the front door slammed open and was abandoned, swinging a little on its hand-wrought hinges, before Mrs. Keller's dish towel fluttered to the floor, to land in a damp heap.

Only then did the maid hear the child scream.

 

Mothers are wonderful creatures.

A mother can hear her child cry out if the mother is laboring in the very center of a full-on boiler factory, and the child two floors away in a room with its door closed.

Annette heard Caleb shriek and in that moment she turned in an instant -- from matron and Mistress of the House to a wide-eyed, pale-cheeked streak of fluttering petticoats and skirts hiked to her knees and stockinged legs driving like pistons through the snow, propelling her at an incredible velocity toward the barn.

Annette ran for the rail fence as hard as she could go.

When she was a child she used to compete with her brothers, running, jumping, and once she ran with them: they would run toward a low rail fence, they'd slap their hand on the top rail and half-roll, half-vault over the rough, split railing, and she tried, once and once only, to imitate their pious example.

She ended up rather impiously on the ground, dirty, disheveled, dress torn and dirty, and she went shuffling back to the house, her bottom lip hanging out in a five-year-old's pout, curly-head hung in defeat.

This morning she gripped the top rail with an iron claw and positively LAUNCHED herself over the top rail, turning as she went, landing on her feet; her velocity was too great, her feet landed flat and braced but she was still pitching forward, and so she tucked her shoulder, did a perfect point-shoulder-roll, all flying snow and flaring petticoats and feet-in-the-air.

She came up, arms up and hands open, ready to grab or claw, head turning, and she saw it.

 

Caleb had the wagon jacked up.

He'd set the brake and chocked the wheel, he'd tapped the nut free and wrenched it off the axle, he'd twisted and wiggled the wheel and brought it free.

His Pa wanted the wagon axles greased and the wind had this part of the field swept free of snow.

He'd fetched out the rig builder's jack -- which was kind of like using a sixteen pound oil field sledge to crack nuts -- to jack up the wagon, and it made easy work of hauling the back axle off the ground.

Maybe it's because the front axle turned a little, maybe it's because one of the chocks wasn't as well braced as he'd thought, maybe it was a stray temblor or evil spirits -- whatever the cause, he'd wiggled and twisted and pulled the back wheel free, and rolled it up beside the wagon, then he came back to the axle stub, hanging out ready for some good genuine Standard Oil Mica Grease, the best there was.

Caleb had warmed the can of axle grease all night beside the stove and it was still warm.

He knew if he picked up a cold can out of the barn and prized off the lid and thrust his shim shingle into cold grease it would be like trying to spread a brick.

The warm can felt good on his chilled fingers; he squatted, got a good gob on the narrow end of his two-fingers-wide shim, and laid the first good stripe across the top of the bearing surface.

The wagon shifted a little, the wheel rolled toward him, and as he twisted, half-rising from his squat, the wheel caught him and knocked him off balance.

Caleb thrust out his leg to try and push out from under the wagon just as the whole cob house come down on top of him.

Caleb's eyes went wide and very pale and his body screamed something is wrong something is wrong something is very very WRONG!!! and he felt the crushing weight on his thigh and his hip sang agony and he was pinned he was pinned he was pinned and it felt like a giant just drove a giant needle through his thigh like he'd been pinned to the ground like a moth to a cork board and he heard someone scream and it took a moment to realize the sound was coming from his own throat and the world went hazy and he saw the ground coming up toward his face --

 

Annette saw her son, half on his side, dead pale and unmoving, the wagon on top of his legs.

Her lips peeled back and she snarled deep in her throat, a feral sound like a sow grizzly muttering her great displeasure: this dignified, matronly woman, whose hands were well suited to the tasks of the distaff -- these soft and pink hands that delicately, carefully wiped round, shining little baby bottoms, that plied an embroidery needle with more than surgical accuracy, these hands that wiped tears from children's cheeks and stirred the contents of fragrant pots on the big Monarch range.

Annette's hands opened, her fingers spread, and she SLAMMED them hard against the bottom edge of the wagon, fingers curled under: she threw her head back, teeth bared and the cords standing out on her neck, and somewhere inside her gentle and ladylike heart, and absolute sunball of pure unadulterated RAGE detonated into hard and incinerating life and she screamed "OH NO YOU DON'T!!!" and the wagon creaked a little, and groaned as she picked that heavy hand made flat bed farm wagon off her son.

Something came floundering through the snow toward them, something pale and stumbling and snowy from several falls in the fluffy white stuff, something that kind of looked like her maid, only pale, with wide and frightened eyes.

Anette picked the wagon clear up off her son and tottered three steps to the side, turned her head, her face distorted in fury and in pain.

"DRAG HIM OUT FROM UNDER THERE!" she screamed in a voice the maid had never, EVER heard, and she fell to her knees, seized Caleb's shoulders, pulled: she knew she was not strong enough to pick the lad up, for he was near to grown, but she knew she could haul back and use her weight for leverage and she did.

Caleb was nearly unconscious before she moved him.

As soon as she began, as soon as his injuries moved and sent their own screaming agonies up his spine into his brain, he passed out again.

 

"GET THAT DAMNED WHEEL OFF HIM FIRST!" Annette raged: the maid struggled upright, staggered the two steps to the wheel, seized it and threw it free, flipping it directly away from her: she returned to Caleb's shoulders, gripped, squatted, pulled again, pulled once more.

Tears ran down Annette's face and it was her turn to scream, her womanly shriek of utter agony shattering the cold winter air.

 

The Bear Killer snored.

The Bear Killer snored when he slept without dreams: when he dreamed, he grunted, he whimpered, he wagged his tail, his paws twitched as he pursued whatever great, black, bear-killing dogs chase in their sleep: now, though, with his belly turned toward the glowing ceramic face of the gas heater, The Bear Killer snored, and Sheriff Jacob Keller smiled a little.

It had been quite so far that morning, which suited him fine.

He'd come to appreciate the merits of quiet and boring.

 

"Get me a heavy quilt," Annette said, her voice low, tight: the frightened maid nodded, her face pale: she gathered her skirts and struggled back to the ranch house, returned as quickly as she could, panting, frightened.

"Now saddle a horse and ride for town," Annette instructed as they bunched the material, worked it under Caleb, got him onto the strong, sewn cloth: "fetch my husband and fetch the doctor!"

"Yes, ma'am," the maid breathed, turning again and falling into the first snowdrift with the desperate lack of coordination that accompanies sheer, unadulterated panic: she rose, swatted the snow from her face, ran again.

She ran for the barn, looking desperately from one empty stall to another.

Only one horse was in the barn.

It didn't matter to her which horse it was: she seized a bridle, stepped back a little as the horse paced toward her, shoved his nose out as if in offering.

It wasn't until she'd gotten the bridle halfway up his muzzle that she realized it had no bit.

Part of her mind remembered her old Granda, back in Ireland, a horse-handler for the great estate where they lived: while one part of her mind said none of the Sheriff's horses were bitted, the other, more ancient part of her memories heard the wise old words of a wise old man, telling her that horses can sense what the rider wants, and the wise rider will let her hands and her knees and her heels tell the horse where to go, and a properly trained horse needs no bit at all.

The maid seized a saddle and blanket: the saddle blanket floated in the air as if it had wings and a will, but the saddle felt heavy and clumsy and it took two tries for her to swing it up and over and onto the stallion's back.

Her hands knew the work.

She'd delighted in riding when she was a girl and her dear and patient Granda taught her well: she patted the Appaloosa stallion's flank and whispered her thanks that he hadn't swollen out his belly.

She led him to a bale of hay, used it as a mounting block.

A moment later, Annette fell back, landing on her ample backside as she dragged her injured son: she came up on all fours, raised her head, saw her husband's favorite and fastest horse streak from the barn, ears back, nose thrust straight out, and their maid on his back, laying out over his neck, and part of Annette's mind recognized the posture of a natural equestrian.

The rest of her came back to her feet and started dragging again.

 

The Bear Killer came to his feet like he'd been stung: so violent was his rising that he nearly turned a flip: snarling, his fur ripping down his spine and across his shoulders, he looked at the Sheriff, fangs bared, then began circling, looking around, sounding like he was ready to rip into the Devil himself.

Jacob came to his feet, hand going unconsciously to his Stetson, then to his Colts: he plucked the skypiece off its peg and dropped it precisely on his freshly-barbered head, then seized his heavy coat off its peg and spun it around his shoulders.

He'd ridden one of the younger geldings, a two-year-old that showed promise: he'd left his Apple-horse at home: he liked to rotate his mounts, sometimes on a daily basis, so all would know his riding style, so all would work well under him.

He strode for the door, thinking to hot foot around back and saddle up.

He hauled open the door and his own stallion's head thrust into the doorway and pushed a wet, cold nose into his chest.

The Bear Killer stopped growling: curious, he tilted his head like a puppy seeing a red rubber ball for the first time.

"Caleb is hurt," the maid said deliberately, seizing control of her panic like she would seize the reins of a runaway mount: her words were precisely, clearly enunciated, and to her credit, she did not shout them: "I am for the doctor, you are to home," and Apple-horse drew back, whirled, thrust out into the packed-dirt street and clattered noisily toward their fine stone hospital.

 

His name had been Robert Beymer, back East.

Like men who'd seen grief and loss, war and killing, he'd rebelled against all he'd seen and taken Holy Orders.

His name was now Brother Florian -- ironic, but fitting: his had been the life of a firefighter and then -- well, Saint Florian was the patron saint of firefighters, so it was a natural choice.

Now the tonsured monk travelled a mountain trail he'd had described to him, but had never trod: the thin air left him panting, but he pressed on, and was rewarded by sight of the little town to which he'd been dispatched.

He walked slowly up the main street, his twisted Eastern Locust staff a reassuring aid as he walked: as he came abreast of a firehouse -- and a fine, tall brick structure it was! -- a door opened and a fellow in a red shirt hailed him cheerfully and bade him come within.

Brother Florian accepted the hospitality.

It was just as well.

His news could wait, and he was cold, and tired: a bit of a rest would do him good.

He neither saw the doctor's surrey swing out into the street, drawn by a good-looking and fast-stepping Morgan horse, nor did he hear steel-shod hooves punish frozen ground as a tall lawman on a young Appaloosa, came out of an an alley and hauled about into a wide-open gallop.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

104. ENGINEER

Bill was a veteran engineer before he came to the Z&W.

He’d had a disagreement with another fellow.

Words grew hot and when things get hot they expand, and when things got hot enough between the two of them, why, it crowded the normal boundaries of social commerce to the point that … well, it was kind of like a stampede hittin’ a bobwarr fence stuck up with broom handles.

Once that fence collapsed things got unpleasant in a hurry.

Bill left that railroad flustered and mad and confused, for he was not normally a man given to temper, but he was not a man who would tolerate being rode by a shavetail who fancied he was someone important – a man of less education, less experience, many fewer years.

Bill’s departure may have had something to do with leaving a shovel print on the side of the man’s face, and accounts of belting him hard enough to knock him flyin’ out of the locomotive’s cab are actually accurate.

The railroads were a community, and word travels fast in a community, and when Bill laid that fella out with one swing of a fireman’s shovel, he figured he would be black balled forever in every railroad this side of the salt water.

A man has to eat, though, and when your only pay comes from the work of your hands, and your hands know a steam locomotive, sometimes a man has to swallow pride and trepidation both and take his hat in his hand and start beating on doors.

It just so happened that a railroad had been bought out, a railroad renamed the Z&W – which caught his attention, because the Zanesville and Wheeling Railroad was nowhere near either Zanesville, nor Wheeling – but that didn’t matter none, he was told a Sheriff bought it and give it to his wife as a wedding gift, and Bill figured hell, if things are that loose wound, they just might hire a trouble makin’ shovel swinger, so he pointed his nose toward what used to be a roundhouse and started lookin’ for the boss.

He run across a bunch of fellas cuttin’ wood and diggin’ holes and settin’ timbers, he run across track layin’ and he run across a general confusion of activity and he scratched his head some, because not only were they rebuilding the turn table, they were rebuilding the entire doggone roundhouse, and Bill heard that little shirt tail railroad was right next to bankrupt and they had a hard time gettin’ freight enough for a load most days.

In amongst this general confusion of mules a-draggin’ timbers and swearing Irishmen swinging spike hammers and a team draggin’ a slip scraper, a wagon dumpin’ gravel ballast – gravel ballast? he thought – someone is doing this right! – and then he heard a general discussion that they weren’t using iron rails, they were using steel, and he began to wonder if this was such a short changed shirt tail outfit after all.

Bill asked around and got pointed toward a tent, and he went in the tent and saw he was amongst men in suits with rolls of paper, fellows in British puttees and pith helmets with gleaming brass surveyor’s transits, a nervous looking fellow who needed a shave and a bath reporting in a surprisingly level voice that yes, he could provide nitroglycerin enough to blast that cut she wanted, and at its center, a woman.

A woman.

Bill stood in the tent’s doorway and stared.

Whoever this was, was very much in charge: she was going over the maps with the surveyors, she turned to another fellow in a suit and a good hat and discussed the need for good plating for the new trestle, then she turned and addressed another fellow with a question about the number of treated ties he could get her in the next week – and all the time, she was taking notes, looking at each man who spoke, looking intently, very obviously listening – not just listening, but taking pains to hear – each voice that addressed her.

She looked up, looked squarely at Bill.

“What can you bring me?” she asked. “Come in, I don’t want to shout.”

Bill’s hat was in his hand and he stepped in. “You’ll be needin’ engineers,” he said shortly.

“Yes I do,” the woman said, rising. “You’re the man that smacked a fellow with a shovel.”

Bill felt his ears flame. “Yes, ma’am.”

The woman’s bright-green eyes drove directly into his. “I was hoping you’d come out. You’re said to be the best man to run an engine. Do you know the Baldwin?”

“I do, ma’am.”

“I have one. It’s brand new. I need a good man to run it and I’m told you’re the best there is. We’ll be adding more engines, of course, and I’ll need your advice. When can you start?”

Bill blinked, swallowed.

He hadn’t expected an interview to go quite in this manner.

“I can start right now,” he said without hesitation.

“Good. Have you a good Ball watch?”

“No, ma’am.”

The woman turned, lifted the lid on a cigar box, handed him an unadorned watch with a short strap and a pierced silver dollar for a fob, then she came out from behind the desk, reached into the box again: he extended his hand, almost mechanically, as she extended the watch.

Cold hard coin dropped in his palm as well.

“Your first week’s wages,” she said. “Malachai, could you show William here –“

“Bill, ma’am.”

The woman looked at him and he saw a quiet smile, one that filled her eyes with true Irish loveliness and lifted the corners of her mouth.

“I am Esther Keller,” she said. “I own the railroad. You’ll be working for a woman, will that be … ?”

She left the question dangle.

Bill hefted the coin, then transferred to his other hand, slid the watch into the bib pocket of his engineer’s overalls.

“Ma’am, a good engine is a lady, and if a woman runs the show, why, that means the engine will be happier, and I like my engine happy.”

“She arrives tomorrow, Bill. In the meantime, catch one of the wagons going into town. Go to the Silver Jewel, take a room, have supper, you’re working for me now.”

Bill left the tent, feeling rather like he’d just been spun by a Texas twister: it wasn’t until he’d made town, not until the woman behind the counter quietly confirmed that the Z&W was paying for his room and board, that he dared believe that maybe, just maybe, his luck might be smilin’ at him for a change.

Bill stayed with the Z&W for the rest of his working days.

He married and had young, his sons became railroaders and his daughters were married and Bill had a minor legion of offspring as a result: his hand gripped the throttle of the original locomotive, named after that green-eyed woman that hired him on, and his hands knew the chanting heart of every engine the Z&W ever ran.

He still used that original Ball watch that Miz Esther gave him: he’d bought one for each of his sons, when they became railroaders: plain looking watches on the outside, unadorned, functional, but their works were jewelled and precise and went every year to Ball Watch in Cleveland to be cleaned, oiled and adjusted as necessary.

Old Bill was an old man now: he didn’t live in the Silver Jewel, like he had in his earliest days, but he didn’t live far from the depot: though retired, the railroad was still his life, and his sons and grandsons talked railroad and engines, tracks and timetables, and with the War, their attention to the railroad took on a greater urgency, for they were sending their own to war and they were supplying the world with the goods they alone could provide.

Old Bill lay in his bed and listened to the compound as it leaned into its load.

The track ran slightly down grade through here, he knew, and the big Baldwin could get the string of ore moving a little more easily.

His curled hand twitched a little, as if gripping the whistle’s lanyard, and as if in response, the double-hoot of the steam whistle answered him, and he smiled a little.

His wife came in an hour later, drew the covers up around his chin the way she always did, then stopped.

He had one hand out from under the covers, laid up over his chest, and in his gently gripping fingers, a single red rose, fresh-cut and with beads of morning dew glistening on the soft, fragrant petals.

His wife caressed the man’s cheek, then felt for a pulse.

Her first tear fell and splashed on his cheek.

Old Bill had left station on his last run.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

105. THE PARSON’S WATCH

The Reverend John Burnett looked around the parsonage, marveling at its order, its efficiency.

The late Parson Belden had been a military man, he knew, and the late Parson’s military habit of order and neatness – compounded with his wife’s natural tidiness – showed in both the Parsonage’s layout, but its furnishing as well.

The Reverend Burnett was a little uncertain, as a new parson will be, for his would be the new face behind the pulpit, his would be the new voice preaching the sermon, his would be the new hand on the tiller of their Ship of Faith.

He’d spent some length of time on his knees over the matter.

The good Reverend was no stranger to the Cloth: he’d been Parson back East, he’d led his church through some good times and some difficult times, including the catastrophic Sunday Creek flood that washed away several houses and filled their basement (it was the only time, they’d joked, that the coal furnace got washed out so clean!) – he’d married, buried and guided his flock back in Monroe Township, Perry County, as best he could, and now he was clear out here in the Shining Mountains, feeling absolutely and utterly lost.

His wife, a patient and long suffering soul, offered no word of protest, no look of dismay when he mentioned being asked to pastor this church, far away from civilization and coal mines, from company stores and the railyard and the occasional moonshine raid: she’d taken his hands and said quietly, in that patient voice of hers, that her name was Ruth, and that’s just what she was: whither he went, there went she: his home would be her home, his God was her God, and her lot was cast firmly with his.

“Besides,” she added, with that knowing look he loved, “who else would put up with your silly jokes and your silly voice and the way you look at me when I’m grinding coffee?”

Reverend John laughed at that, for it was a standing joke between them that he openly leered at that coffee grinder, his goal being a truly lecherous leer that would cause their cast-iron grinder to detach itself from the counter and shrink back against the wall in fear and trepidation.

So far it hadn’t happened, but he still tried.

Mrs. Burnett laughed with delight as she examined the kitchen, imagined herself here, preparing the meals he loved: the stove was brand new, they had a sink, they had – marvel of marvels, they had their own pitcher pump on the sink!

She turned and cocked her head a little, smiled: “How lovely!” she exclaimed, then bent to smell the fresh-cut rose, drops of dew gleaming on its soft, fragrant petals, a single rose in a narrow vase, in the middle of their table.

“Someone,” Reverend Burnett murmured, “wants us to feel welcome!”

 

They’d come out on the steam train; they’d been met by willing hands, their few goods loaded on the wagon, their two children perched adventurously on trunks in the wagon’s bed while husband and wife were led to a carriage: they made a small procession from the depot to the Parsonage, the Mayor himself (a stout-bellied man with a ready grin and a vaguely New England accent, a fellow who steadfastly refused to take himself seriously) handed the Parson the keys to the parsonage, and to the church (they were identical, truth be told, but ceremony is ceremony) and then showed them through both: having pointed out the intricacies of the gas heaters (these are the new ones, they have a standing pilot, just turn this key shaped valve – here – and it comes on, give it a quarter turn back and it shuts off) – the tour of the church – “these cleats go up to the bell tower, we were up there in warm weather and everything’s solid, we greased the bearings so the bell swings nice and easy, and don’t worry, the bullet gouges are painted over, you can’t hardly see ‘em” – which brought a worried look from his wife, and a mental note by the Parson to make due inquiry as to why their bell tower should have bullet gouges in the first place!

They’d gotten their few belongings moved in, clothes hung and folded and drawers closed; the Parsonage was spotless – as if it had been detail-cleaned the day before their arrival (it had), and they’d only just gotten set down when there was a brisk and businesslike knock at the door.

The Parson rose, as did his wife: Reverend Burnett opened the door and an elderly woman with grey-streaked red hair and gorgeous, Irish-blue eyes came in with a basket in each hand and a quiet smile on her face.

“I hate it when people just barge in,” she said briskly, setting both woven baskets on the clean tablecloth and whipping the checkered cloth off one basket. “Movin’ in is hard work” – she turned to the Parson’s wife, gripped her hand – “ye’re Mrs. Parson, I’ll be takin’ it, an’ I’m Daisy, I own th’ restaurant over in th’ Silver Jewel an’ ye’re welcome there any time.” She turned quickly, thrust a finger at the Parson. “And don’t ye be afraid t’ come among th’ sinners in th’ saloon neither!” she scolded, and the Parson could see laughter in her bright-blue eyes: “it’s no’

the healthy that need a physician, an’ e'en a man o’ th’ cloth can use a good beer!”

She tapped the end of the other wicker basket, as if patting a baby’s bottom.

“Here’s four meals for th’ two of ye an’ yer get. I don’t figure ye’ll want t’ be fixin’ a big meal this soon after makin’ yoursel’s t’ home.” She embraced the Parson’s wife. “If yer children are needin’ clothes we’ve hand-me-downs of all sizes, an’ Bonnie McKenna will fix ye up wi’ whatever ye need. She’s a saint, she is, for all that she’s a prosperous woman!”

She turned and took the Reverend’s hand, turned it over, ran her fingertips along the base of his fingers.

“Ye’re a man wi’ calluses. Good,” she declared stoutly. “I’ve no use f’r a man wi’ soft hands. My Sean was a man wi’ calluses, rest his soul, an’ all his sons ha’e ‘em!” She raised her chin defiantly. “We’re good Catholics, we are, an’ th’ Abbott William sees to our churchin’, but this is our church too an’ if either of ye need a thing, ye come t’ me, I’ll see that it happens!” – and with an emphatic nod, this Irish tornado whirled out the door as abruptly as she spun in, and the Reverend and his wife were left with the general feeling that they’d just guested a minor cyclone.

Husband and wife considered the sudden silence that followed this red-headed Daisy’s departure, and then they considered the bounty she’d brought them.

“I will bring in wood,” Reverend John said quietly, and his wife nodded, then smiled, and their children, schooled to silence in the presence of guests, followed their father outside to tend to the stovewood.

 

The Sheriff waited until he figured the new Parson and his family were done with supper; he came in just as they were gathering plates for the sink.

“My apologies,” he said as he shook the Reverend’s hand, “I hoped to miss your meal.”

“Nonsense, we’ve more than we need. Please, can we get you something?”

Jacob laughed and patted his flat belly. “Parson, my wife just fed us and I’m full as a tick! Thank you anyhow.” He reached into his coat pocket, brought out a small box. “A man can generally use a good watch. This is what we issue on the railroad. The case is very plain – we don’t want a fancy looking watch, we want one a man will actually use, but she’s got jewels enough to run forever and a day and keep good time. We send ‘em in once a year to have ‘em regulated and cleaned.”

Reverend Burnett blinked, surprised. “Thank you, Sheriff.” He frowned a little, considering. “Is this a way of admonishing the new preacher to be on time?”

Jacob laughed quietly, shook his head. “No, Parson, and it’s not a reminder to keep the sermon short. It’s your show and you run it as you see fit. Call the tune and we’ll handle the dance.”

“We will have to learn this new language of the West,” Mrs. Parson said quietly, pacing across the kitchen.

“My wife Ruth,” the Parson said graciously. “This is Sheriff Keller.”

“Call me anything but late for supper,” Jacob grinned like a schoolboy, his ears turning a little red: Mrs. Parson extended her hand and Jacob took it, turned it and brought it to his lips.

The Parson and his wife exchanged a quick look.

Neither expected this level of courtesy or sophistication from a Western Sheriff.

“I reckon you’ll have plenty of folks coming with one excuse or another just so they can look over the new Sky Pilot. We’re a small town, you’ll have to forgive the novelty.”

“I have known that very thing,” the Parson nodded.

“I recognize the baskets. Daisy’s been here.”

“She was most generous,” Ruth affirmed.

Sheriff Keller grinned again. “She’s like that. Something happens, she’s there with what’s needed. Generally a meal. If it’s clothes she’ll arrange what you need. A family was burnt out not long ago and inside one day’s time she had everyone clothed – she arranged with the House of McKenna Dress Works” – he saw recognition in Mrs. Parson’s eyes – “she had ‘em fed three squares a day and she saw ‘em put up in the Silver Jewel until the Daine boys could get ‘em rebuilt.”

“Oh, my,” Mrs. Parson murmured.

The Sheriff nodded. “You’ll find we take care of our own and that’s just about anyone here. About everyone knows what it is to do without, so when there’s a need, we tend it.”

The Parson nodded. “That is not so common in the more … prosperous … states.”

Jacob nodded. “My Pa said the same thing.” He shook the sky pilot’s hand, touched his hat brim to the Reverend’s wife. “I’ll leave you two to your interrupted. You need, you holler” – and he was gone.