CARBON HILL

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

70.  IT’S NICE TO BE YOUNG

 

Linn’s eyes came open with a snap.

His nostrils flared, he took a cautious breath, eyes swinging left to right, then back, without moving his head.

He frowned a little, blinking, then remembered.

He moved, or started to, and immediately regretted the idea.

Beneath the blanket, something stirred, something warm and solid, something in flannel pajamas and a state of relaxation.

Carefully, slowly, the Sheriff eased the blanket back, then picked Jimmy up, his jaw locking his own sounds of pain behind tight-pressed lips.

Jimmy was limp, relaxed; Linn rose, eased the blanket back over him, not wanting a sudden change of temperature rousing the lad.

He was too late.

Jimmy sniffed a deep breath, rubbed his eyes with a busy knuckle, opened his eyes and blinked at the Sheriff, not entirely awake, but not at all afraid.

Linn stopped, considered the curious, young eyes regarding his, and he felt a smile broadening across his visage.

“You hungry?”  he asked quietly, and Jimmy nodded.

“Me too.”

He walked into the kitchen, looking for spots of white paint left over from the previous night’s misadventure.

“Bacon and eggs, pancakes, fried taters, waffles?”  he asked, his voice quiet; Connie was not yet down the stairs and he didn’t want to wake her.

Jimmy nodded solemnly, eyes bright, and the Sheriff hooked a chair with his foot, drew it out, eased the lad down into it.

“Let me get some duds on,” he said quietly, “and I’ll get started.  Don’t know about you but I’m hungry enough to chew on the north end of a south bound skunk.”

Jimmy blinked, digesting this manly profanity, then grinned:  he’d been included with this use of the Secret Language of Men, and part of him rejoiced, but the rest of him hid his delight behind a mask.

Jimmy had a pretty good poker face too.

The Sheriff dressed quickly, quietly as he could, looking over at his wife:  he stopped, tilted his head, made sure she was breathing (she was), then looked at her fingernails (pink) and finally at the color in her face (she glowed) … only then did he pick up his boots and cat foot downstairs in his sock feet.

He set his boots down at the foot of the stairs, off to the side where they’d be out of the way, came into the kitchen, mentally cataloguing what he’d need for the breakfast he planned.

He’d missed supper the night before and the walls of his stomach were kind of sand paperin’ together in an impatient manner, and personally, he favored a big stack of pancakes, a pound of bacon fried up, a dozen eggs over medium, a loaf of bread toasted up, a pot of coffee and a stack of waffles besides.

That, he considered, would do him, but what about his young charge?

He looked at Jimmy and laughed, shaking his head, and Jimmy’s surprise was more than evident, and the Sheriff raised a finger:  “It’s nothing you’ve done,” he said, and Jimmy could hear the laughter hiding behind his words, “it’s … I’ll tell you later.”

As the man was fetching out milk, flour, eggs and bacon, Jimmy was not inclined to argue.

Connie woke when her husband tried to be quiet; after he slipped out the door, boots in hand, she’d stretched luxuriously, laid a maternal hand on her still-flat belly, wondering for the thousandth time what ever possessed her to take a risk and get pregnant again, after they’d raised their family – then she thought of her husband, sitting cross legged on the floor, holding their infant daughter and laughing that big laugh of his, and she smiled.

It didn’t matter of the Sheriff had one child or a hundred, he could manage to love them all.

She came downstairs to the aroma of pancakes and bacon, and she knew the stove would be as clean after he was done as before he’d started – how he did it, she could never figure out, but he managed not to make a mess when he cooked.

She came in as he was frowning at the coffee pot, as he pressed the lid down on the grinder, as he pulverized fresh roasted beans:  he looked at his wife, waited until the grinder shut itself off, and asked “How much do you put in this thing?”

“I’ll do it,” she said gently, and Linn nodded, turned back to the stove, flipped a half dozen sliver-dollar pancakes with as many quick, economical wrist-turns.

“I won’t turn you down,” he said, waiting half a minute before adding this griddleful of fresh hot cakes to the plate:  he dippered another half dozen onto the sizzling-hot griddle, picked up the plate, packed it over to the table where Jimmy was happily dabbling his bacon in the egg yolk.

“Get started,” Linn said with a wink.  “More where that came from!”

Connie knew he always made too many, and she knew he would wrap or bag what was left over, and she knew not a bit of it would go to waste, and so offered no protest at the size of the stack – besides, she’d grown up in a household with boys, and she well knew how astonishingly much a little boy could put away.

The Sheriff waited until this batch was done, then shut off the burners and went over to the wall phone, punched in a number.

“Cindy, this is Linn,” he said, “anything urgent this morning? … mm-hmm, he wants to see me when? – okay, that I can do, anything else?”

He listened for a moment more, nodded as if his dispatcher could see him.

“Mmm, no, I don’t reckon to be in til after noon.  You see, I fell off a ladder last night, and – no, I … well, yeah, I’m hurt, I’m stove up and my pride is all bruised up.  Is Barrents – no, I don’t need to go to ER!   Yes I hit my head and now I have to fix the hole in the floor.  No I didn’t break anything but the decking.  Yes I’m kidding.  Yes, Mother.  Yes, Mother.  Whatever you say, Mother.  Goodbye.”

He carefully, gently hung the handset back on the hook, took a long breath.

“She,” he pronounced, “would make a good Jewish mother.”

He turned back to the stove, picked up two eggs, cracked them on the still-hot cast iron griddle.  “Connie, two fried?”

 

Jimmy winced to hear the Sheriff’s pained grunt.

He got the saddle on Stomper’s broad back, but it cost him.

He waited the space of several breaths before getting it trued up and buttoned down, and Stomper took the bit without difficulty, as if knowing the man was in pain.

Jimmy waited until the Sheriff had his stallion saddled before climbing up on the side of the stall to finish the ascent to the peak of Mount Saddlehorse.

Sheriff and boy turned as one, touched boot heels to horses’ ribs, and set off together for the Firelands elementary school.

Linn knew his stallion’s gait was not as smooth as he’d like, but to a degree he wanted to punish himself for being so careless as to fall off the stepladder to the hardwood floor below.

You damned fool, he chided himself, I could have broke a bone, or a hip, or hell I could have knocked out some teeth!

He knew his Apple-horse would help him work out some stiffness.

He also knew he felt bad enough he was wise to take a little time off the job.

Doc would likely have me off for two days, he thought, then looked over at Jimmy.

Young muscles and green bones, he thought. 

It’s nice to be young.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

71.  NIGHT HORSE BRIGADE

 

There were details that needed the Sheriff’s personal attention, and he gave them; his testimony was required for the previous day’s deaths, there were reports to review, he met with the coroner, he met with both families.

He assured each dead teen-ager’s families that their deaths were tragic accidents, that their deaths were instantaneous, that they could not possibly have felt any pain:  Firelands was a small town, Firelands County was not heavily populated, and everyone tended to know everyone else, and the Sheriff’s uniform shirt was dark spotted here and there from tears, not all of them from the women and the girls.

He was strong and reassuring, quiet voiced and understanding:  a few remembered he’d lost his nephew not very long before, and all remembered the dark day when he found his mother lying dead in the pasture, near her grazing Cannonball mare:  he did not say “I know how you feel,” but he could have been forgiven the phrase, for he was one of the few who did indeed know exactly how they felt.

He made his rounds that day on horseback.

It wasn’t that unusual for the modern day Sheriff of Firelands County, Colorado, to conduct his travels with a one horse power horse; twice he explained quietly that he’d fallen off a ladder the night before, that he was still stove up and sore, and the natural motion of riding helped worked the kinks and knots out of his bruised body.

Those who knew horses looked rather askance at Stomper:  the big warmblood looked positively huge beside the Sheriff’s stallion, and the graceful Appaloosa’s appearance led the unsuspecting to assign a degree of clumsiness to the bigger gelding – until they both started to move, when Stomper, for all his size, moved with the smooth grace of any other saddlehorse.

Jimmy was delighted that the Sheriff was waiting when he got out of school, waiting with his horse – his horse! – and the janitor grinned as he rolled the folding steps into place for the grinning second-grader to mount so he could get aboard his own saddle.

The janitor had done as much when Linn’s Mama was still Sheriff, and she would come to school to pick up her own young in just this same way.

The sight of father and son on horseback was unique enough.

When the father was also the county Sheriff, it was noticed, and more than one glance was thick with envy – envy that a father would actually come to school like that, envy that someone that young had his own horse.

Even the teachers felt a twinge of envy, especially those who knew they could not ride anywhere near as well as this second grade child.

Connie had supper ready when they got home, as she always did; man and boy retired to the barn for the daily after-school chores, there was homework (there was always homework!) while the Sheriff caught up on the news, and while Jimmy carefully plied his pencil over his lessons, his ear twitched to hear the Sheriff laughing at the comics page – his favorite part of the entire newspaper.

The evening was flawless and the evening was pleasant and Jimmy was warm and freshly scrubbed when he climbed into clean jammies and clean sheets and strong, reassuring hands tucked him in for the night.

The night, unfortunately was less than peaceful.

 

Chief Deputy Paul Barrents seized the Sheriff’s shirt front with both hands, pulling him around and pinning him to the wall.

Linn’s eyes were pale and hard and he speared his forearms up to break the deputy’s grip on his shirt’s crease, then drove his boot into Barrents’ belt buckle, kicking him halfway across the office.

“I WON’T LET YOU DO IT!”  Barrents shouted, and the Sheriff dropped into a crouch, hands up and open, ready to strike or grapple.

“I,” he said quietly, his voice as full of murder as his heart, “am going to KILL HIM!!!”

“IT’S NOT WORTH IT!”  Barrents shouted, grabbing Linn’s shoulders and shaking him.

Linn’s eyes snapped open, so pale they seemed to glow, and Connie’s face hung over his, her whisper loud in the darkness:  “Linn, wake up, you’re having a nightmare!”

Linn tried to sit up, stopped when he realized he was on course to drive his forehead into his wife’s nose.

He fell back, shivering, laid his hand across his chest.

“I’m home,” he whispered.  “I’m in my own bed.  I’m safe.”

“Yes,” Connie whispered, “you’re safe.”

Linn felt panic return with the memory of his hell-dream.

Connie heard a tortured groan as the man rolled out of bed, came up and almost ran for the door.

Linn seized his doorknob, hauled his door open, listened.

The house was silent, or nearly so.

He took two long steps across the hall, gripped Jimmy’s bedroom door knob, pushed the door a little, then a little more.

He looked in.

Jimmy was rolled up on his side, eyes closed, hands open and relaxed, and part of the Sheriff’s mind uncoiled, relaxed, rejoicing that the child was here and unhurt.

Linn swallowed hard, drew back, drew the door shut, not wanting to bother the boy.

He leaned his forearm against the door casing, his forehead against his forearm, his sweat-damp body cooling quickly in the still air.

He remembered.

Doc Greenlees stuck the power screwdriver in the side of Jimmy’s head, powered out one, two, then two more screws, gripped the top of his skull, wiggled it a little.

A pop; the skullcap came loose, was set aside.

Doc picked up a jeweler’s screwdriver and a small, diamond-cutter’s hammer, and proceeded to hammer-and-chisel at something in the exposed brain.

“I thought so,” he said, reaching in and pulling out something round and red and rubbery.

“He’s been beaten so often he developed an aneurysm.”

Jimmy’s small body looked even smaller, naked and exposed on the autopsy table, and Doc casually dropped the extracted aneurysm into a stainless-steel pan marked DOG FOOD.

The Sheriff could see the aneurysm was tied off like a child’s balloon.

“His old man beat him so often he caused an aneurysm and when it burst, he fell over dead.”  Doc Greenlees looked at the exposed gears and balance-wheels, gave one an experimental flip with his finger.

Flywheels spun, a flyball governor began whirling, and the dead Jimmy Hill sat up, turned its head mechanically and looked at the Sheriff.

Doc pulled out a can of sewing machine oil and delicately applied it to several of the moving, clockwork parts of the exposed brain.

“There no.  He’ll be good for another ten thousand miles.”  He smiled, laid a hand on the lad’s bare shoulder.  “Now lie down, son, you’re dead.”

Linn leaned over, kissed his wife quickly, lightly.

“There’s something I have to do,” he whispered, then turned and dressed with his usual swift efficiency.

He slipped downstairs in his sock feet when a familiar voice stopped him.

“I had nightmares too,” the Old Sheriff rumbled. “Don’t never recall m’boy lookin’ like the inside of a pocket watch.”

“Yeah, wasn’t my idea,” Linn whispered back.

“It didn’t happen, y’know.”

“What didn’t happen?”

“Jimmy didn’t die.”

“He could.”

“He means somethin’ to you, don’t he?”  The Old Sheriff’s eyes were hard, appraising.

Linn stopped, looked squarely at his several-times-great ancestor.

“Yeah,” he said shortly.  “Yeah, he does.”

“Good,” Old Pale Eyes nodded emphatically.  “You should.”

Linn checked the magazine in his pistol, pressed back the slide enough to see cartridge brass.

“You’re not havin’ that nightmare.”

“Already had it.”  Linn reached up, lifted his Stetson off its peg.

“You’re feelin’ your Uncle Will’s nightmare.”

Linn froze.

“What?”

“You didn’t lose a son.  He did.  Much as he disliked his wife, she was still his wife and there were still feelin’s between ‘em. 

“Always are.

“It’s night and the veil thins out some at night, and you’re feelin’ his night mare.”

Linn’s eyes went to the door.  “I have to go to him.”

Old Pale Eyes nodded wisely.  “Likely he’ll appreciate the company.”

 

Jimmy crept downstairs in time to see the Sheriff pull on his well polished Wellingtons and head out the front door.

Jimmy was already in sock feet.

He pulled on his own boots, shrugged into his blanket lined denim jacket and headed out the door to follow.

The Bear Killer was waiting on the front porch and Jimmy hugged the great beast quickly, impulsively.

“C’mon, Bear Killer,” he whispered.  “We got to go with the Sheriff!”

 

Distance in the high country is deceptive.

The air is still remarkably clear, or was around Firelands, at least, that distance appeared less than it really was, and so when Linn leaned back in the saddle and Apple-horse slowed and stopped, then turned, Linn saw a small figure on a large horse in his wake, and waited.

Jimmy could not see the Sheriff’s eyes under the shadowing hat brim, and part of him remembered spontaneous moments that earned him a cuff and a curse, then as he came up abreast of the Sheriff, he saw the slight up-turn of the corners of the lawman’s mouth.

“Kinda chilly for pajamas, don’t you think?”  he asked casually.

Jimmy shrugged.  “It’s okay.”

“You need a hat.”

Jimmy’s hand went to his bare head and he made a nose-wrinkled, little-boy face.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll have to work on that.”  The Sheriff kneed his Apple-horse around.

“Night Horse Brigade, Hoo-ooo-ooo!”

 

 

Linn swung down from his stallion, dropped the reins over his Uncle’s porch rail.

His Apple-horse was more than content to stay put.  He was trained to ground-rein, and however he might be tethered, he was not inclined to pull away, unless he was very, very perturbed. 

Jimmy’s big Stomper-horse swung up broadside to the lean waisted lawman and Linn reached up, brought Jimmy down from the saddle.

They heard the front door unlock.

Uncle Will, Chief of the Firelands Police Department, stood in the doorway with a shotgun in one hand and a small but high powered flashlight in the other.

“C’mon in,” his reassuring rumble carried across the few feet to the visitors.

Stomper-horse was not tethered at all, nor did he have to be; the Sheriff learned early that the big warmblood was a social sort, and as long as Apple-horse was there, why, Stomper would stay close by.

“You’re up late,” Will rumbled quietly as Jimmy looked up at him, big-eyed and innocent, and Jimmy nodded agreement.

Will shut the door behind them.  “Have a set,” he said, his voice deep, quiet, powerful:  “I couldn’t sleep.”

The Sheriff indicated a chair and Jimmy worked his way up into it.

“Me neither,” he admitted.  “Nightmares.”

“The telegraph must be workin’.”

“You, too.”  It was a statement, not a question.

“Yeah,” Will gasped, turning to the cupboard. 

He didn’t have to ask if anyone would like coffee.

Three mugs hit the table, three mugs received a steaming hot payload of fresh, fragrant coffee; the coffee pot went back on its heater and the fancy antique milk pitcher hit the table as well – “Careful you don’t break that heirloom,” Will grunted, and Linn twisted the plastic lid off the plastic milk jug, diluted Jimmy’s coffee significantly, drizzled a good splash in his own, set the jug back down with the handle toward his uncle.

Three men, one old, one medium and one very young, sat hunched over a little, hands wrapped around the welcome warmth of ceramic mugs, united in their shared meditation of warm coffee vapors:  as one they took their mugs, two-handed, and partook of this shared sacrament, this wordless union into which they’d entered.

Will spoke first.

“So you had nightmares.”

Linn nodded, staring into the secrets shimmering below his coffee’s surface.  “Yeah.”

Will looked at Jimmy.

“You?”
Jimmy dropped his eyes, hands still around the warm mug.

“I miss Mommy,” he admitted.

Will nodded slowly, scooted his chair back.

“Come here, son.”

Jimmy obediently turned and slid out of his chair, walked over to the oldest Keller, allowed himself to be picked up and hoist onto the man’s lap.

Linn watched expressionlessly as Jimmy leaned trustingly into Uncle Will’s chest, and Will leaned his stubbled cheek against the little boy’s fine hair, big strong manly arms enveloping the pajama clad child, warm and relaxed on his lap.

“Nicodemus used to do this,” Will rumbled, and Jimmy heard the voice, muffled and distorted but strong and confident, resonant in the man’s chest, his ear to Uncle Will’s ribs.  “He used to be your size, once.”

Jimmy nodded, and Linn saw the memory of a little boy in his Pa’s lap in his Uncle’s eyes.

“You miss your Mama, son?”

Jimmy nodded again.

“A man ought to miss his Mama,” Will said quietly.  “A Mama that does some good will be missed.  The Sheriff misses his.”

Jimmy looked at the Sheriff, surprised, for he’d never considered that Linn might have, or might have had, a mother.

Linn nodded.  “Her name was Willamina, and she was Uncle Will’s twin.”

Jimmy looked up at Uncle Will, and the pale eyed lawman looked down at the lad, amusement in his eyes and a quiet smile under his lengthening mustache.

“Neither of us was willin’ to admit we weren’t the first born,” he explained.  “I called her Little Sis and she called me Little Brother.”  Jimmy saw the smile in the man’s quiet eyes.  “I miss her.”

Jimmy’s face fell and he leaned against Uncle Will again and mumbled, “I miss Mommy.”

“I know, son,” Will said softly, rubbing the boy’s off shoulder as he held him.  “I know.  I miss Nicodemus, too.”

Jimmy squirmed a little, looked up, curious.  “Who’s Nickle-deemus?”

Linn smiled a little and Will laughed quietly.  “Nicodemus,” he said patiently, “was my son.  He was killed not long ago.  Like to see his picture?”

Jimmy nodded.

Will scooted back away from the table, picked up Jimmy.  “Scuse us,” he said civilly, and Linn nodded, watched as his uncle too Jimmy into the next room, heard his uncle’s voice, deep and reassuring, and he knew he would be telling Jimmy about Nicodemus, showing him one picture, then another.

Linn sipped his coffee, his mind wandering a little the way a man’s mind will when he’s relaxed.

He heard a chuckle and his eyes went to Uncle Will’s seat and the pale eyed old lawman with the iron grey mustache sitting there.

“Night Horse Brigade,” Old Pale Eyes chuckled.  “I like that.”

Linn shrugged.  “Seemed to fit.”

“The boy liked it.”

Linn nodded.

“He likes you.”

“He has good taste.”

Old Pale Eyes chuckled.  “No hubris in you.”

Linn shrugged.  “Facts is facts.”

“You told Marnie yet?”

Linn grinned.  “I’m lookin’ forward to tellin’ her!”

“She might not be happy you give Jimmy her room.”

Linn grunted.  “She’s a married woman now.  I got no claim on her.”

“She’s still Daddy’s little girl.”

Linn’s eyes were distant, his gaze far away, his voice softer.  “Yeah,” he agreed, then looked again at Old Pale Eyes.  “I reckon as old as she gets, however old she becomes, she’ll always be Daddy’s Little Girl.”

His ancestor nodded slowly, approvingly.  “Good.”

Old Pale Eyes picked up Uncle Will’s mug, took a long drink.

“Good coffee,” he said at length.  “You make it?”

Linn smiled, shook his head.  “Uncle Will made that.”

“I never could make coffee worth a damn,” the old lawman admitted.  “Warn’t fit to drink.  Couldn’t tell you how many coffee pots I rotted out over the years.”

He stood.

“You take care of that boy, now, hear?  He needs you and I got a notion you need him some too.”

Linn stood, alone in the kitchen, and walked over to the coffee pot.

He refilled the three mugs.

 

Uncle Will and Jimmy came back into the kitchen, Uncle Will still carrying the lad.

He walked up to Jimmy’s chair, turned the boy upside down, made as if to set him headfirst into the chair.

Jimmy’s face was red, his teeth were white, and he was spilling giggles all over the floor.

“No,” he protested between juvenile laughter-bursts, “not like that!”

“No?”  Will asked, hoisted the boy back up, flipped him quickly, expertly end-for-end, slid him properly down into the seat.  “Like that, maybe?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy laughed as the blood rushed out of his head and he felt a little dizzy:  he gripped the arms of the chair to steady himself, reveling in the intoxicating feeling of not only having been upside-down, but of trusting the strong hands of a big man with a deep and gentle voice.

“Now tell me about your nightmares,” Will said as he settled down into his own seat.

Linn shrugged.  “Dreams, that’s all,” he said shortly.

“You sound like your Mama.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“She wouldn’t talk about hers neither.”

Linn nodded.

“Warn’t that suicide today, was it?”

Linn shook his head.  “Not directly. It could have been a catalyst.”

“How about that little girl that rolled her Daddy’s convertible?”

“That could have played into it too.”

“Damn shame, that,” Will muttered, taking a noisy slurp of coffee.

Jimmy watched as the big lawman swiped the excess coffee off his lip broom.

“Jimmy,” Will said, “are you growin’ a beard yet?”

Jimmy shook his head, but his eyes did not hold the guarded fear he might have shown just a week before.

“You’d look good with a mustache.”  Will’s voice was flat, the way a man’s voice will be when he makes a statement of fact.  “I think you’ll look good with a proper handlebar mustache.”  He looked at Linn.  “Matter of fact, once ours grows out enough, we’re givin’ that a try, hey?”

Linn nodded.  “Yyyep.”

Will looked up at the clock, looked at Jimmy.

“You got school in the mornin’?”

Jimmy shook his head.  “It’s Friday,” he said, “teacher’s meeting.”

Will smiled just a little.  “Nicodemus always knew when the teacher’s meetings were.”

“Did Nicodemus play football?”  Jimmy asked, and Will laughed, leaned back in his chair, hooked his arm around the back of the chair as he picked up his coffee mug left handed.

“No, Jimmy, he didn’t, and I don’t blame him!”  Linn declared.  “He allowed as he could either get beat up and sweaty and ride a bus full of sweaty, smelly guys, or he could ride the Marching Band bus with a bunch of sweet smelling girls, and he made the wise choice.”  He winked knowingly and leaned forward a little.  “Jimmy, you got a girlfriend?”

Jimmy giggled and shook his head.  “No,” he admitted.

“No hurry,” Will winked.  “Girls tend to be expensive.  You ain’t smokin’ see-gars yet are you?”

Jimmy giggled, “No!”

“Hm.  Good.  Stains the teeth and smells up your breath.  Girls don’t like see-gars much.”  He considered the lad at the end of the table.  “You drivin’ hot cars?”
“No!”  Jimmy laughed, and both nephew and uncle smiled a little to hear the laughter in a little boy’s voice.

“Cars’ll eat up your paycheck in a hurry.  Stay away from ‘em.  You’re better off with a horse.”

“I got a horse!”

“That there big monsterhorse out there is your horse?”  Linn could not tell whether his Uncle’s surprise was genuine or not, and it didn’t matter, for it got more laughter from young Jimmy.  “Now that’s some sizable horseflesh, son!”

“His name’s Stomper,” Jimmy said, eyes wide and innocent, “and I like him!”

“You takin’ care of him?”  Will asked, and Jimmy nodded.

“He’s doin’ a fine job of it, too,” Linn added.  “Cleans stalls, throws down hay, cleans hooves, grooms as high up as he can reach and stands up on whatever he has to so he can reach further.”

“Good.”  Will’s voice was firm and approving.  “You should do that.  Shows your Stomper horse you care about him.”

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said, and this time he didn’t drop his eyes as if scolded.

Uncle Will winked.  “The second Sheriff of this county come into town on a horse a whole lot like you big Stomper out there.  His horse’s name was Sam.  I don’t think we have a picture of him …?”  He let the question trail off as he looked at his nephew.

Linn shook his head.  “Afraid you’re right.  The earliest plate we have of Old Pale Eyes is the one in front of the original Sheriff’s office.”

“Oh, yeah.  The one where Sarah is giving the camera the evil eye.”

“That’s the one.”

Jimmy yawned.

“You might want to get him some more sack time,” Will suggested. 

“I hate to drink coffee and run.”

Will thought for a moment and he run out his bottom jaw.

“I’m glad you come over,” he said finally.  “I was a-havin’ nightmares too.”  He nodded to Jimmy.  “Glad you brought him.”

Jimmy blinked, not entirely comfortable that two men were looking at him with serious expressions, the reassuring words that preceded the expressions, nonwithstanding.

Will gripped Jimmy’s waist and swung him easily aboard the Stomper-saddle.

He squeezed Jimmy’s thigh gently and said “Come on over when you like.  Be glad to have you.”

“Okay,” Jimmy said, looking at the Sheriff, and Linn nodded.

Jimmy looked back down at the Chief of Police and grinned.

“Okay,” he said again.

It was still full dark, the stars were still bright and hard in the cloudless sky; their breaths were clouds of vapor, horses’ hooves muffled by the grasses they trod.

Man and boy rode together over the mountain landscape, rode back home, knowing there would be a warm bunk at the end of their ride together.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

72.  BALLOON BUSTER

 

Jimmy did not so much as squirm.

Fear and too many beatings had taught him the value of invisibility, and invisibility meant immobility, and so he sat in the indicated chair in the barbershop, afraid to move, barely allowing himself to look around.

The Sheriff was in the barber chair, frowning at his reflection, and the black-mustached barber with the funny accent was briskly running what looked like a funny knife back and forth the length of a broad belt, a belt Jimmy knew too well, a belt very much like one that had been used on him and on his Mama too many times.

“Tony,” the Sheriff said, “let me ask your advice.”

The black-haired barber in his spotless white shirt lit up like a hundred watt bulb and he replied with hands as much as voice:  “Ask-a you anyt’ing!  Tony’s-a tell-a you everyt’ing!”

The Sheriff nodded solemnly, brought one arm out from under the hair catching cloak draped over his front and tucked in around his neck.

He raised his hand, brushed his mustache and said “Tony, I tried to curl this into a handlebar once but it was just awful thin and it never did look right!”

“I tell-a you what you do wrong,” Tony admonished, shaking the straight razor like a schoolteacher’s ruler:  “you shave-a too close to-a da mustache.  You godda stop-a da razor –“

He tilted his head, frowned.

“Sheriff, you stop-a da shavin’, hokay?”

Linn raised an eybrow, turned his head ever so slightly toward the barber’s reflection in the mirror.

“I, Tony, will-a shave-a you daily,” he declared with a grandiose up-thrust of an emphasizing finger:  “I shave-a you so you mustache he grows-a thick an’ you can curl it like-a Tony!”

Tony looked over at Jimmy as he spun up the lather in the Sheriff’s personalized shaving soap mug.

“You ever shave-a da face?” he asked, and Jimmy shrank a little, glancing fearfully left and right, then he cleared his throat and said “N-n-no.”

“Come here an’ see,” Tony grinned, fairly dancing as he leaned around to swirl shaving cream on the Sheriff’s wet-towel-warmed face.  “Now I need-a you help.”

The Sheriff’s eyes tightened a little at the corners, as he did not want to move his face at all:  Tony was an artist, the customer’s face was his canvas, and when a man is using a razor, sharp enough to split a human hair longways, a man wanted to hold very still indeed.

Jimmy came across the floor like a condemned man approaching the gallows.

Tony paid his reluctance absolutely no mind a’tall. 

He opened a drawer, pulled out a balloon, held it out.

“You help-a Tony,” he said, “you blow up-a da balloon.”

“Me?”  Jimmy asked in a tiny voice.

“You a big-a strong boy, you blow-a da balloon.  Blow-a he big, like-a da basketball!”

Jimmy blinked rapidly as he accepted the balloon, then looked at the Sheriff’s reflection.

Linn gave him a solemn nod – and a wink – and the knots in Jimmy’s stomach slacked off just a little.

It took some labor, but the lad had the balloon inflated; Tony laid down the razor, placed it on the shelf beneath the big mirror, took the balloon with a careful pinch-off, tied the end quickly, efficiently.

He took the lather brush and quickly applied a layer of freshly-whipped, genuine barbershop shaving cream to the balloon, then picked up the razor, squatted in front of the boy.

Linn watched in the mirror as Tony explained how it took a steady hand and a gentle stroke to shave whiskers off a man’s face, and as he spoke, he laid the straight razor to the balloon and shaved off the white creamy shaving soap with gentle, practiced strokes.

He handed the straight razor to Jimmy and said “Now you try.”

Jimmy had held the balloon by its tied end as the barber curved the straight razor over the red globe’s shining, sudsy surface.

Jimmy frowned a little, gently, carefully brought the straight razor toward him, made one stroke, lifted the straight razor – Tony laid a towel over his arm, said “Wipe-a da towel,” and Jimmy wiped off the shining steel – he brought the sharp edge back up to the balloon, barely touched it –

BANG!

Jimmy blinked, but to his credit, he did not drop the straight razor.

Tony took the towel, wiped soap off Jimmy’s forehead, his cheek, his shirt front, laughing that great, joyous Italian laugh of his:  he eased the razor from Jimmy’s youthful grip, nodded approval, down on one knee so he was eye to eye with the lad:  he gripped Jimmy’s shoulder firmly, nodded vigorously, black eyes shining and proud.

“You did-a better than I did in the first t’ree munts ‘a barber collitch!”  Tony declared, and Jimmy had the impression his accent was not entirely genuine – but he didn’t care – another man was expressing approval of him, and it felt pretty good.

Tony placed the straight razor back on the shelf, turned and pointed, rattled something in Italian – it was fast and it was commanding, and another black-eyed, black-haired Tony nodded and slipped out the back.

Tony the barber gestured to a much closer chair – “Have-a da seat, it’s-a nice to have young ears to fill” – he began stropping the straight razor again – “Now Sheriff, I gonna give-a you da nice shave, an’ I don’t wanna you shave none a’tall, hokay?  I shave-a you so da mustache grow thick like-a Tony!”

The garrulous barber proceeded to shave the Sheriff while filling the air with his accented, rapid-fire, opinionated patter:  he gave an expert’s opinion on current automobiles, women’s fashions, politics, the weather, the state of farmers’ crops two states away – the Sheriff knew Tony listened carefully when his customers came in, and he harvested all the information he could, and the Sheriff had used Tony to spread particular information from time to time, information that went first into the respectable community, then trickled down into the less desirable portion of the population.

It was his way of loosening up his audience; he was hoping to learn something he could use, something of gossip he could splice into his repertoire, and when he finally asked about that poor boy who hang-a himself, the Sheriff waited for the final stroke of the razor, Tony’s exclamation of satisfaction, the application of the warm, steaming towel.

The Sheriff wiped off his face, sat up, leaned over with his elbow hard on the arm of the old-fashioned, red-leather-upholstered barber’s chair.

“Tony,” he said quietly, “your father was Godfather, and he was a good man.”

Tony turned his head a little, one eyebrow slightly raised:  his father knew the Sheriff’s mother, when she was the pale-eyed Sheriff, and Tony knew there were at least two instances where his father acted in concert with the earlier Sheriff, one where he saved the woman’s life, and all with the highly illegal Beretta submachine gun Tony still had, the submachine gun Sheriff Willamina (unofficially) knew about, that Chief William Keller (unofficially) knew about, that the current Sheriff Keller (just as unofficially) knew about.

“The Godfather,” the Sheriff continued quietly, “could not talk about many things, and there were many secrets entrusted to him, and he took to the grave.”
His expression was serious; black eyes and pale eyes were on the same level, neither man blinked:  this was a conversation between the two of them, and the world faded away into non-existence in Tony’s mind.

Jimmy accepted the box of cookies from Tony’s son with a quiet “Thank you,” and proceeded to try one of them, finding fresh, still-warm, soft chocolate chip cookies from the local bakery, very definitely to his liking.

“Tony,” the Sheriff continued, “there are terrible things I will take to my grave because I must.  But” – he held up a finger for emphasis – “I can tell you this.”

He lowered his voice even more, leaned toward the close-leaning barber.

“Each of those young people’s deaths was a sight that haunts my nights and plagues my dreams.”

He winked, with a single nod, and lowered his finger:  it was enough to let the barber know this much, and whether it was truth or not – pfft! – what did it matter, it would make a good story, and Tony would be an Important Man as he declared that poor boy’s final act on this earth, that poor girl’s horrifying realization she was about to flip over and wreck, and the sight of all these when the Sheriff arrived, was so terrible it even gave a man like the Sheriff, sleepless nights and nightmares!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

73.  LESSONS

 

Connie slipped her spectacles on her face, if for no other reason than she wanted to be able to look over them when necessary to emphasize a point.

She’d gone to Jimmy’s school to have a quiet talk with the boy’s teacher, with the principal, and with the school nurse, and she sat in the nurse’s office, just off the school’s office area, waiting for the nurse to arrive.

Her ear twitched when she heard a man’s voice ask which classroom Jimmy Hill was in.

 

“He’s-a got good-a hands,” Tony assured the Sheriff as he whisked shaving soap across the Sheriff’s face.  “He got-a good pass on-a da balloon yesterday.  I nevra saw no one make-a da first pass wit’out breakin’ da balloon.”  He set down the cup of shaving soap, picked up the straight razor and began happily stropping it again.  “He’s-a no gottada shake like-a you got, Sheriff!”

“I get it honest,” Linn drawled.  “Mama called it the Maxwell Shake.  Constant fine tremor.  She said when she was a medic back East folks would look at her awful funny when she was startin’ an IV in ‘em.  That needle would shake fiercely until it was within an eighth of an inch of their skin and then it was just dead steady.”

Tony nodded.  “You got-a da same shake, Sheriff, but-a dat boy, you’ Jimmy, he’s-a no gottada shake.”  Tony took the Sheriff’s nose very lightly between thumb and forefinger and began his expert strokes across the lawman’s lathered mug.

 

Jimmy was busy frowning at his lesson, listening to the teacher with part of his mind and trying to correlate what he was hearing with what he was seeing.

He had this terrible suspicion that the teacher gave him the wrong handout, for she was talking about oceans and how the moon affected them with something called “tides” and his handout was entirely composed of number problems.

 

Chief Will Keller leaned casually back in his chair, legs straight out, watching with amusement as the garrulous barber poured a steady stream of conversation over his customer, holding forth at length on the relative merits of one coffee over another, the proper way to prepare the beans, the state of coffee growing climate in South America, changes in the coffee growing countries’ governments, and the relative profit margin of certain wild opiates vs. banana and coffee cultivation.

Will quietly considered that if the man were as well informed as he sounded, he’d have a good career in politics, and he considered further that if the man went into politics, why, he’d very likely vote for the likable barber!

Will’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket:  frowning, he slid it out, looked at the screen, pressed a button, raised it to his ear.

“Keller.”

 

“I’m with Children’s Services,” the man said as he leaned on the counter.  “I’m here to pick up Jimmy Hill.”

“May I see your pickup order?”  the secretary asked politely, shooting a look at Connie, who was rising, turning toward them, concern on her face and dread in her belly.

“Children’s Services,” the man repeated.  “We called ahead.  We have an immediate pickup order for Jimmy Hill.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t release anyone without the proper documentation,” the secretary said professionally, her hand slipping along the edge of her desk, fingers straight, reaching under until they found the panic button.

“Listen, I really don’t have time for this,” the man said, an edge to his voice, and Connie unslung the purse from her shoulder, looked at the secretary and nodded once.

The secretary pressed the panic button, hard.

School-wide, over the PA system, the recorded voice said “LOCK DOWN.  LOCK DOWN.  LOCK DOWN.”

Magnetic door locks hummed a little as they energized; each room saw its students look up at the teacher, half excited, half annoyed, for the lockdown drills were an interruption and generally uninteresting.

Jimmy Hill, having excused himself for a quick trip to the little boys’ room, froze in the shining-clean-and-polished grade-school latrine.

He was outside his schoolroom and a lockdown was declared, which meant he was on his own.

He looked around.

Nowhere to hide.

He walked with an exaggerated care to the doorway, peeked out while standing way back, then took a step and peeked again – unconsciously adopting the tactical trick called “slicing the pie” – he saw no one, he stuck his head out and looked.

The hallway was empty.

His instinct was to hide, and there was nowhere to hide in the latrine, so he ran quickly, silently, on the balls of his feet, burnished Wellington boots silent on the mirror-shiny hallway floor:  he seized the doorknob on the janitor’s closet, twisted, pulled it open a little, slid quickly into the darkened chamber.

The motion sensor obediently turned on the light.

Jimmy pulled back to the back of the alcove, found an empty five gallon bucket, turned it over, sat down, pressed his back against the wall, and held very, very still.

He waited, ears straining, eyes darting about, until the motion sensor’s timer counted down and the light went off.

Jimmy sat in the dark, grateful he’d just emptied himself before assuming his pious imitation of a child size statue.

 

“Look, lady,” the man said, irritation in his voice and aggression in his stance, “I don’t care who you think you are, I am Children’s Services and I can have you arrested for interfering!”

“I’m the principal,” a woman declared from an office door, “what’s going on here?”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on here!”  the man declared angrily.  “I have a pickup order for Jimmy Hill.  I am Children’s Services and  I’m tired of being jerked around!”

“Present your credentials,” the principal said icily.

The man’s hand went into his jacket.

Connie stepped silently behind him, flipped her purse’s shoulder strap over his head, took a short grip and pulled hard, jumping onto his back and wrapping her legs around his middle, riding him forward and into the counter.

The gun hit the floor with a plastic clatter as the enraged mother gripped leather strapping with the strength of female desperation and rode what felt less like an adult male and more like an enraged saddlehorse.

 

Tony carefully, delicately, followed the curve of the Sheriff’s jawbone with the straight razor.

Will powered to his feet, strode for the door.

He wasn’t about to say a word with a cut throat razor bulldozing steadily across the landscape of his kinsman’s face; he slipped out the door, and once outside, took three long strides to his cruiser.

A moment later he was powering up the street, one hand crushing the microphone’s red button down as he began giving orders.

 

Jimmy shivered in the janitor’s closet, eyes big, hiding in the dark as he’d done countless times before.

Old fears began to smoke and twist in his young heart and he felt himself starting to shake again.

What was it the Sheriff told him? – Danger is real but fear is a choice.

Jimmy wrapped his arms around himself and the light came on again.

“I choose not to be afraid,” Jimmy whispered into the silence. 

 

Connie’s enraged scream cut off as the man twisted, backed hard into the counter, clawing desperately at the strangling purse strap.

Connie’s vision hazed as a sunball of agony detonated across her kidneys, but she never slacked her grip.

Something slammed at her legs and she pulled tighter, she heard a wet choking sound and she was falling, she pitched forward, her head hit the marble floor, there was a sudden burst of startling-bright light-shatter –

 

She smelled disinfectant, heard voices.

Her head hurt, her back hurt, her hands ached, something warm and familiar gripped her hand, and she smelled roses.

She opened her eyes and her husband looked down at her, shaving cream streaking his face.

She blinked a few times, raised her free hand to her head, felt a tender, swollen knot just under the hair line.

“Hi,” she whispered, then raised her hand to his cheek, caressed the shaving cream streaking her husband’s face.  “Caught you shaving.”

“How do you feel?”  he whispered back.

“Headache.”

“You’ve had a busy day.”
A hand touched the Sheriff’s shoulder and he drew back, and Connie was suddenly the center of medical attention again.

Linn drew Jimmy close to his side.

Jimmy looked up at the Sheriff.

“What happened, Sheriff?”  he asked, and Linn went to one knee.

“What did they tell you?”  Linn asked quietly.

Jimmy’s arm was around the lawman, holding him like a son holds onto his father when things are confusing and uncertain.

“The principal said she’s a hero,” Jimmy said in a small and wondering voice.

Linn nodded.

“She is, Jimmy,” he agreed. 

“Mama just prevented a kidnapping.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

74.  SHE-WOLVES

 

Connie Keller rocked the infant carrier absently, reaching down and gripping the arching, molded plastic carry handle as she did.  It was designed either to rock, or to sit flat on the floor, depending on how a mechanical dog was flipped; right now she had it up, so she could rock the drowsy little boy-child with his horse-embroidered quilt tucked in around him.

Mrs. Parson – nobody called her Mrs. Burnett, she was either Mrs. Pastor, or if the Sheriff or his family addressed her, Mrs. Parson – set the china teapot on the table, with a plate of little finger sandwiches, quick to make and handy to serve at times like this.

The Parson was a listening ear and occasionally a lightning rod, but Mrs. Pastor was the one the women came to; when Connie’s voice quavered a little on the other end of the phone, Mrs. Parson knew it was time to make sandwiches, and make them she did.

Connie was shaking visibly when Mrs. Parson opened her kitchen door; Connie almost cried, for the relief at seeing a kindly, motherly face was just what she needed, and she allowed the older woman to guide her to a kitchen chair.

Her diaper bag went on the floor beside the carrier – “He’s like his father, he’s full of it,” she murmured, and Mrs. Parson laughed and nodded. 

“After three children and a half dozen grandchildren,” she smiled, “I keep a stock of diapers and everything else, just in case!  Now, tea?  I have Earl Grey.”

“Earl Grey is my favorite,” Connie admitted, looking down at the youngest Keller, who gave his opinion of the day with a wide, gaping yawn:  he closed his eyes, waved a chubby fist, and was instantly asleep.

Connie turned, rested her forearms on the edge of the table – she did not trust her grip – and she carefully picked up the teacup with both hands, at once damning and appreciating the tremors in the tannin-colored liquid’s surface.

She took a sip, took another, closed her eyes and shuddered.

“You’ve had quite a week,” Mrs. Parson said gently, and Connie nodded, her eyes still closed.

“Tell me about today.”

Mrs. Parson’s voice was gentle, soothing, grandmotherly;  it soaked into Connie’s desperate soul like water into hot desert sand.

“I went to school,” she whispered, then cleared her throat and tried again.

“I wanted to meet with the school nurse because Jimmy said something about being allergic to beesting, and I wanted to make sure he would have an Epi-Pen available if it were needed, and I was waiting in her office – it’s right … it opens into the office …”

Connie’s eyes were distant and her hand raised a little, then lowered to the tabletop.

“A man came in and demanded they give him Jimmy.  He said he was from Children’s Services.  He didn’t look like he was from Children’s Services, he –“

Connie stopped, blinked, looked at Mrs. Parson with desperate, haunted eyes.

“How would I know what Children’s Services looks like?”  she whispered.  “It was a man, just him, nobody else, wouldn’t they send a woman, children trust women more –“

She closed her eyes, took a quick breath, opened her eyes.

“He … he didn’t have … there were no papers, no orders, the school didn’t know anything about it … he got loud and the principal came out and Mrs. Pompey demanded to know what was going on and he reached inside his coat.

“Linn has been teaching me to watch for particular things and all I knew was this man was not … he couldn’t be, and I had to stop him.

“The secretary turned white and I threw my purse strap over his head and choked him.”

Connie’s hands were fisted, palms-down on the table, and Mrs. Parson felt the table shivering a little with her hard contact:  shiver-rings shimmered in their tea and Connie’s voice with them: “I jumped on his back and I rode him like a horse.  I choked him and I meant to kill him, God help me I tried to kill him and I knew that’s what I was doing but he wanted to take our Jimmy and he tried to pull a gun and he dropped it – I rode him to the floor like a horse and I kept choking him until Linn’s Uncle Will peeled my hands off my purse strap and I wouldn’t let go and the buckle broke and I tried to kill him, my God, I killed one man in our living room because he was going to stab Wes in the head and he had a knife and I’m going to hell –“

Her voice tapered off to a distressed little squeak, then she took a breath and shook her head, shook herself as if ridding herself of an unwanted cloak.

She looked up at Mrs. Pastor and instead of grief, the Parson’s wife saw a hard, unrepentant resolve, the look of a she-wolf when her cubs are endangered.

“I killed one man,” she said, her voice suddenly steady, “and I slept well that night.  I tried to kill this one and I would do it again to keep Jimmy safe!”

Mrs. Parson blinked, nodded, picked up her tea, took a thoughtful sip.

“Drink,” she said, “before it gets cold, and I actually do know what you mean.”

She blinked a few more times, as if deciding whether she should actually tell her guest what was on her mind.

“Children are our gifts,” she said carefully.  “Ours … we don’t see them much anymore and I think we’ve seen our grandchildren even less.  They have their lives and they … “

She sighed in a long breath, sighed it out.

“We don’t see them often, but they are still precious to us.”

Connie nodded, picked up her tea, tasted it.

“When our oldest was … I think he was about young Wesley’s age, as a matter of fact.”  She leaned over and smiled gently at the sleeping lad in the blue-check-lined carrier.  “I was in the grocery store.  It was back East.  We were just leaving the meat counter and I got turned around and we were in the liquor section.” 

Mrs. Parson laughed a little.

“As if a preacher’s wife would be shopping for booze!” she chuckled, and Connie laughed with her.

“Someone said something behind me – I felt a touch on my shoulder – I turned, and someone else, a man, grabbed my child and started to lift him out of the grocery cart.”

Mrs. Parson placed her teacup very precisely on her tea saucer and placed her hands in her lap and looked very grandmotherly, very gentle, very preacher’s-wifey, if there is such a term.

“I seized up a wine bottle and as he handed my child to a woman, I belted him hard across the face, I hit him just as hard as I could.”

Mrs. Parson’s face was suddenly flushed, as if she’d suddenly come alive, as if the soul she really was came roaring to life and filled the gentle, grandmotherly body with a warrior’s resolve.  “I drove him across the cheek bone and then I swung back fast and slashed the woman’s face, I threw the broken bottle neck and grabbed my child as he fell and I ran out of that store screaming!”

Mrs. Parson and Mrs. Keller locked eyes across the table, each of them knowing exactly what the other felt in the moment of their own action, a shared moment that only she-wolves know.

“They were going to take my child and I was going to kill them if I had to,” Mrs. Parson said intently, her voice almost a hiss. 

“It turns out this pair was wanted in two other states for just that thing, and that’s how they took the children, they just walked up to a shopping cart, distracted the mother, took the child and disappeared out the nearest exit.”

Mrs. Parson smiled tightly.

“It wasn’t long after that … actually it was, it was some years after, but I met … no, it wasn’t that long, come to think of it.”

Mrs. Parson took another sip of tea, frowned:  “Cold,” she said, and poured the delicate china teacup full, tasted again.  “Mmm.  Better.  Now where was I?”

“Years?”  Connie suggested.

“Years it was.  Or wasn’t.  I met a nurse, a charming woman, and we were fast friends.  I lost track of her for a long time.

“She had no children of her own but she loved the little ones, so much so that when someone tried to snatch a child off the street – I think it was over a debt or something of the kind – she kicked a man in the –“

Mrs. Parson stopped and blushed furiously.

“She, um, she was in her nursing whites and she kicked him hard enough to bring his feet off the ground.  I think she may have actually used her knee.  I know she hit him a few times, she was … she knew karate or something of the kind.

“Anyway, she took a gun away from him and she snatched up the child.

“Of course a two-year-old who’s just been grabbed is going to be screaming, and he was, and he was clinging to her like a limpet.

“She had him on her hip, she was standing like a Greek goddess statue with that big pistol out at arm’s length and as luck would have it, that picture made the morning paper.”  Mrs. Pastor chuckled.  “We talked about our experiences later, after she was fired.  It seems the hospital didn’t like its nurses on the front page of the paper, beating up on strange men and pulling guns, even if it did keep a child from being abducted.”

“Oh, my,” Connie murmured.

“You may know her,” Mrs. Parson smiled.  “It was your mother-in-law.”

Connie’s eyes got big and her jaw dropped.

“Now, dearie, I’m not the wisest woman in the world,” Mrs. Parson said after a pause.  “Do help yourself to the sandwiches, they’re nice and fresh and I used some garden spices on them.  Now where was I?”

Mrs. Parson picked up one of the little sandwiches, took a nibble.  “The nurse, yes.  We talked after that.  It turns out …”

Mrs. Parson stopped, considering what she was about to say.

“Mmm.  No, let’s not go there.”  She took another bite, ordering her thoughts.

She looked at the Sheriff’s wife, who was nibbling at her own sandwich.

“You said you’d killed the man who was going to murder your child.”

Connie nodded, stopped chewing:  she swallowed, realizing the sandwich just lost its taste.

“You did what you had to do in order to save your child’s life,” Mrs. Parson said firmly.  “You did the right thing.  You had no, other, choice.  It was the only means by which you could keep your child alive.”

Connie nodded.

“Now what about this other fellow, the one you tried strangling in the principal’s office?”

“It made the front page of the paper,” Connie whispered.

“And it turns out the man was not from Children’s Services.”

Connie nodded.

“He was wanted on multiple felonies.”

Connie nodded again, rested her hand on the tabletop, placed her half eaten sandwich on her tea saucer.

“You kept Jimmy from being kidnapped.  When the secretary announced lockdown, even the principal’s office was secured, and he could have taken everyone hostage in that office, including you.”

Connie nodded.

“You may well have saved several lives, Connie.”  Mrs. Parson’s eyes were gentle, understanding.  “You did the right thing at the right time.”  She smiled again.  “Even if it did mean breaking the buckle on your purse strap.”

Connie’s expression was that of someone utterly, completely, absolutely, lost.

Her eyes were wide, unfocused, looking at some horror only she could realize.

“Then why,” she whispered, “do I feel like I’m so terribly wrong?”

 

A pale eyed woman rubbed The Bear Killer’s ears.

The big, curly-furred mountain Mastiff groaned with pleasure, rolled over, begging a belly rub.

“You bum,” the pale eyed woman whispered.  “I oughta thump you.”

The Bear Killer waved his forepaws as she massaged his wish bone.

“I oughta put knots on your head!”

The Bear Killer gave a happy yow-wow-wow as his tail swung back and forth on the sidewalk.

An idler across the street saw the familiar canine, on his back, happily wallowing on the sidewalk, rejoicing in being a dog; all they saw was The Bear Killer, paddling his paws toward the sky and sounding very pleased with himself.

Nobody saw the figure all in black that rubbed the great Mastiff’s exposed underside.

The pale eyed woman looked at the little whitewashed church, at the tidy parsonage next door.

She snorted.

“I killed a man when I was ten,” she said, her voice flat, her eyes pale and hard, “and I slept well that night.  I killed at least twenty more since then, and every last one of them needed killin’.  Shot, stabbed, hanged, one I beat to death with a singletree.”  She sneered.  “I didn’t need to go running to the sky pilot’s wife to bleat like a scared sheep!”

“You come from a different time,” a deep, gravelly voice observed, and Sarah Lynne McKenna stood, graceful in black boots and britches, a black, wide brimmed hat and shirt, vest and black duster.

“Times change,” Sarah agreed, “but need doesn’t.  She killed men that needed killin’.”  Sarah turned her head, spat.  “Pantywaist.”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to judge,” Old Pale Eyes rumbled.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

75.  WORTH AND VALUE

 

Sheriff Linn Keller hung up the phone.

He was the kind of man who knew people, and he knew people who knew people, and he tended to find things out.

He’d found Jimmy’s attempted kidnapping was at the behest of a man newly installed in the state prison, the man who’d beat Jimmy and his mother for years, the man who made the mistake of turning a loaded rifle toward the Chief of Police.

Linn’s investigation found that the pair who’d broken into his house – defeated his alarm system, defeated his lock, rejoiced as one raised a knife, intending fully to drive a foot of honed steel through his sleeping infant’s skull – he’d determined these two had nothing to do with that wife beating prisoner.

One of the murderous intruders was killed by the Sheriff’s wife, who drove both barrels from a two pipe shoot gun into the man’s belly; the other dove out the window and was caught in the Sheriff’s barn, and was now persuaded to talk, and talk he did.

The pair tried to do their murder in retaliation for the Sheriff taking down a drug dealer in their drugstore’s soda shop.

The Sheriff considered, then the Sheriff acted.

“Cindy,” he said, “I’m going to interview a prisoner in the State Pen.”

 

Connie looked at the clock, listened to her husband muttering to himself, then she heard the front door shut, heard several metallic sounds and a quiet exclamation of satisfaction.

Upstairs, Jimmy slept the sleep of the innocent, the sleep of the young and untroubled:  young Wesley Albert had one flannel sleeved arm thrown over a stuffed bear, his other arm bent, chubby fist beside his right ear.

Connie stared into the depths of her mug of hot chocolate.

She looked up as Linn paced silently into the kitchen, came around the table, smiled as she turned her face up toward him:  he tasted of coffee and garlic and mustache wax, and she hummed with pleasure as he gripped her shoulders, began to massage away the tension he felt there.

“Oh, God, you’re good,” she groaned.

Linn grinned and replied, “I know I’m good, Sweet Pea, you say so regularly!”

“Youuu,” she groaned out the word, gave a little exclamation of pain and then an “Aaahhhhh” of relief, “You, sir, are a dirty old man.”

“Ah’ll have yew know Ah had a bath last Sattiday,” Linn drawled, exaggerating his poor-dumb-hillbilly accent to make her laugh:  he bent and kissed her cheek, then went to one knee beside her.

“Connie Lee,” he said, gripping her hand lightly, “would you marry me all over again?”

She leaned her forehead down against his and whispered, “You’re damned right I would!”

“Good!”  Linn grinned lecherously.  “I’d hate to break in a whole new woman this late in my life!”

Connie swatted his shoulder and laughed:  it was an old joke between them.

“I got the door fixed,” Linn said.  “Not only is it a double deadbolt, it’s a bump proof lock.  Those two used a bump key to get in.  This one won’t let ‘em bump.”

Connie nodded.  She didn’t really need the particulars; if her husband said it was fixed, that was good enough for her.

“I had the alarm overhauled.  They’ll play hell trying to bypass this one.”

Connie nodded again.

“Coming to bed, dear heart?”

Connie stood as her husband rose.  “In a minute,” she said faintly.  “I have to finish something.”

Linn wrapped his lean, strong arms around his wife, held her gently but firmly, his cheek laid over the top of her head.

“I’ve only got one of you, dearest,” he whispered.

She hugged him all the tighter for her reply.

 

Connie waited until her husband was upstairs, waited until he’d gone across the hall to check on Jimmy, waited until he came back to his own bedroom.

She knew the man’s habits intimately and she knew he would be asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

She reached into a plastic shopping bag, withdrew a shallow box, placed it on the kitchen table and shivered.

She opened the box, unfolded the Ouija board.

Her breath was coming quicker now; she tasted fear on her tongue as she placed the heart shaped planchette on the board, then sat very straight in her chair and very delicately, very carefully, very precisely placed her fingertips on the planchette.

“I call,” she said, cleared her throat, tried again.

“I call upon the spirit of Sarah Lynne McKenna.”

A hand came out of nowhere, slapped her hands hard, swatted the planchette across the room:  it hit the wall, spun, fell to the floor.

A woman stood beside the table, a woman with pale eyes and flushed cheeks, a woman with white lips, a woman with fury in her whispered words.

“Don’t you dare,” she whispered, her words a dry, snake-scaled hiss, “don’t you DARE open a hellmouth here!”

She stepped back, reached under her black canvas riding duster, drew a shining yard of honed steel, spun it in a quick figure-eight.

Connie, shocked, looked at the Ouija board, screamed.

Something almost visible was climbing out of it, a head – a monster’s head – a head that looked at her like she was edible and it was hungry, a head that looked like a snake and a rhinoceros and a rabid dog all at the same time –

Sarah swung the sword in a fast, vicious arc, chopped down on the hell-beast’s head, split it into two blobs of fog.

She reached for the board, spun it a quarter of a turn, slammed the honed steel edge down on it again:  the board, quadrisected with steel, was now marked with the Cross, and the hellmouth Connie almost opened was slammed shut.

Damned souls howled their disappointment at being denied this portal to the cool world above; Connie shrank back, eyes wide, and she looked at the hard-eyed woman whose pale orbs glared from beneath the shadowing hat-brim.

“You spineless worm,” Sarah sneered.  “You saved the child of your womb and you weep.  You rode down a man who came to take the Sheriff’s child and you cried.”  Contempt dripped from her words, her voice was full of contempt, she almost spat the words at the shocked woman scooted back from the table until her chair hit the counter behind her.

“I killed a man when I was ten years old.  I killed more before I was fourteen.  I killed the first one to keep him from selling my Mama and I and my sisters into white slavery in the San Frisco bordellos and I killed a bank robber because he was going to take my Mama’s money when he robbed the bank and I killed a man who shot at my little girl cousin and I, and I’m glad.  Glad, do you hear me?  GLAD!”

She threw the duster open, slammed the sword back into its fleece-lined scabbard.

“You aren’t fit to be a decent man’s wife!”

A hard hand seized her shoulder and jerked her about, a callused hand swung and smacked her across the face, hard:  Sarah’s head twisted with the impact.

“You,” Linn said, his voice thick with rage, “do not EVER speak to MY WIFE in such a manner!”

Shocked, Connie stared, mouth open, expecting her husband’s fingers to have engraved the pale eyed woman’s cheek with four red finger marks.

Sarah’s face was pale, flawless, her complexion without any sign of having just been belted by a strong man’s hand.

Sarah gathered herself like a queen, raised her chin, nodded.

“That,” she said, “is how a husband should behave.”

She looked directly at Connie.

“I suggest you burn that thing.”  She thrust her chin at the cross-sliced Ouija board.  “That’s a gateway that you don’t ever want to open.  I’ve seen hell.  You can’t handle it.”  She looked at the Sheriff, her expression a challenge.  “Trust me on that one, Pale Eyes.  She can’t handle opening that barn door.”

The Sheriff set his rage aside, considered Sarah’s words, nodded.

Sarah looked at Connie.  “Don’t ever regret doing what’s right.”

Connie looked at her kitchen table, at the board, nearly sliced through, remembered the monster’s head that was coming steadily through it, and she remembered how it looked at her, and she shivered, hugging her arms around herself.

Sarah shook her head, looked at the hard-eyed Sheriff.

“She’s done okay when it counted,” she admitted. 

“Better than okay,” the Sheriff said quietly, and Connie heard steel in his voice as he said it.

“Once you two kids get calmed down,” Sarah said in an insulting tone, “I’ll come around.  You wanted to ask me something.  Ask me then.”

Linn’s hands closed into fists.

“She would benefit being turned over my knee,” he said, and Connie knew the man meant it.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

76.  LESSON

 

Linn’s hands were spread like pale starfish against the big warmblood’s neck.

He stood in front of the big horse, his hands on either side of the warm, very much alive neck:  he leaned his shoulder into the horse, his cheek against Stomper’s throat, and Stomper laid his jaw down across the Sheriff’s back, and the two of them just stood there, each one shivering a little.

Animals can pick up on human emotion, animals respond to human emotion:  the Sheriff remembered his Mama describing her very brief term working in a nursing home and how she could walk into a vegetative patient’s room:  if her spirit was calm, and she was at peace with the world, the patient would remain still, but if she was boiling mad and ready to rip the horn off an anvil, the vegetative, unresponsive patient would become restless.

Linn suspected this was the same mechanism.

Had he approached The Bear Killer, the big mountain Mastiff would have spun end-for-end, stood with his flank pressed hard against the Sheriff’s leg, back fur bristled up and snarling deep, very deep in his chest.

Stomper, now … Stomper was fearful, as was little Jimmy, but Stomper was learning that the Sheriff could be a silent volcano, a contained detonation, that the man could be well beyond madder than blue hell and still not lash out with violence, with hands, feet, fists or clubs.

Perhaps the horse knew the man needed comforted.

Perhaps it’s because the horse wanted to trust, and so it trusted this two-legs that came to it, silent, slow, but glowing with anger like hot iron just drawn from a forge.

Linn stood in the pasture, holding the warmblood, and the warmblood held the Sheriff, and the two stood there, each one calming the other.

 

Connie took the quadrisected game board out to the burning barrel, doused it well with lighter fluid, lit it off and the trash under it; she tossed in the now-cracked plastic planchette, gave them a final squirt from the square can of flammable fluid.

She turned to go inside and a little girl stood there.

A child … well younger than Jimmy, a child with a dirty face and a bruised cheek, a child whose hair hung like straw, a child with pale eyes and almost a numb expression.

Connie knew that look.

She’d worked with hurt children in the past.

She went to one knee, tilting her head a little.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” the child said in a small voice, hugging an equally worn and soiled rag doll to her.  “I’m Sarah.”

Connie blinked, looked closer.

“Sarah …?”

The child nodded, her pale eyes wandering away, into the dark.

Connie opened her mouth to ask where her Mama was, and the child surged – that was the word that came to mind, surged – she grew, filled out, she went suddenly from an underfed four-year-old to a healthy looking child of perhaps ten, and her dress (though terribly old-fashioned) was clean and beautifully made.

She was hugging a rag doll to her.

The doll seemed a little … odd … as if it was missing its stuffing, but still had a stiffener in it …

Sarah dropped one arm, rotated her grip, drew the doll off a percussion .44 revolver.

“That man will never hurt anyone again,” she said calmly, her words all the more terrible for their being framed in the throat of a pretty ten-year-old girl.

She surged again:  now in black, now in the broad brimmed hat and boots, the black britches and vest, but she was missing her duster.

She had a gunbelt tight around her waist, she had a pump shotgun in her white knuckled grip, and suddenly Connie was in a great German hall, high and ornate and decorated with portraits of ancestors and animal heads, and Sarah, a grown Sarah, a womanly Sarah jacked a round into the shotgun as something boomed against the great double doors, as the doors splintered inward, as the pale eyed woman in black ran screaming into the swarming invaders, laying about with shotgun and revolvers and then knives, slaying men with a terrible speed and efficiency, and suddenly Connie was back beside her burning barrel behind her own house, and the little girl stood barefoot before her, looking tired, sad and resigned to whatever fate would befall her that night.

“You’re not what I expected,” Connie said haltingly.

“I know,” the little girl said quietly.  “I’m a trouble maker.”  She looked into the increasing darkness, looked across the apple orchard and the twisting little run and toward the meadow behind their barn.  “He isn’t very happy.”

Connie tilted her head, curious.

“How do you mean?”

“He’s a man,” Sarah-the-child explained in her preschooler’s voice.  “Men want to protect their women and he is very unhappy.  He is blaming himself for your having to kill those men.”

“But it wasn’t his fault –“

“He’s a man,” the little Sarah explained, “and men are like that.”

 

It had taken better than a month for Stomper to let the Sheriff brush him, curry him, run his hands over the horse without the big warmblood pulling back, or rearing, or pressing itself against the furthest wall, shivering.

Patience, a gentle voice, persistence … the Sheriff used them to his advantage in the past, and he did again, and with success:  he got the warmblood used to having hands on his legs, to having his hooves picked up and scraped, one at a time, or the horse shoes tapped or checked for loose.

Jimmy marveled when the Sheriff did these things.

Stomper was a biter, or had been, but never once – even when the Sheriff’s backside was exposed as the man bent over – never once had the horse taste tested the man.

Linn found he thought better either in the saddle, or while fussing with a horse.

Right now he was considering his shortcomings and failures that forced his wife to wear the mark of Cain, the self-imposed brand of shame that someone of conscience assumes when they have to take a life, no matter how justified.

He kept going over how he could have prevented the murderers’ entry into his house; he knew the lock was the best on the market at the time he bought it – a time when bump keys were not known, or at least not common; the alarm, in like manner, was supposed to be bypass-proof, and yet they’d bypassed the door’s alarm, and that with a thin, stiff sheet of copper, slid between door and frame and shorting out the contacts on the magnetic switch, letting them open the door without alarming.

That, too, was fixed, and to his satisfaction.

He still felt guilty – the rational part of his brain reasoned that he’d done the best he could – but the rest of his brain said it hadn’t been good enough and as a result, his wife bore a burden on her conscience that should not be there.

He brushed Stomper’s mane, carefully, a section at a time, and finally whispered, “Thank you for listening,” even though he hadn’t said a single word.

 

“You wanted to raise my shade,” a composed and beautiful Sarah McKenna said, smiling a little.  “You don’t need a board for that, and please don’t get another, they’re dangerous.”

“I won’t,” Connie said faintly.  “What … was that thing that stuck its head out …?”

“A demon,” Sarah said casually.  “You wouldn’t like it.”

“I don’t,” Connie agreed.  “Thank you for hitting it.”

Sarah’s smile was quiet; she bowed her head a little in acknowledgement. 

“I wanted to ask you … I know you’re a killer – oh, I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right!”  Connie felt her cheeks flush like a grade-schooler caught in a lie.  “I mean … how do you cope …?”

“How do I cope with having killed as many as I have?”

Connie swallowed.  “I’m not having any trouble killing – with having killed – the man who was going to knife my baby.”

Sarah nodded, pale eyes fixed on the Sheriff’s wife’s face.

“The second one – I saw his hand go under his coat and I didn’t know but I thought he had a gun and he wanted my son and –“

Sarah’s smile widened a fraction of a inch.

There, Connie thought. 

I said it.

Jimmy, my son.

“I think you just found your answer,” Sarah said softly.  “Now that you’ve found it, why don’t you go inside, it’s cold out here and you need your rest.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

77.  GLASS WALL

 

Jimmy’s breathing was a little quicker, his hands trembled a bit, he felt an old and familiar fear shivering his legs, but he still pulled the bale of hay across the smooth-worn barn floor.

He coaxed the Sheriff’s stallion over to him and awkwardly, clumsily, tossed the saddle blanket over the horse’s back.

Jimmy was only seven and he was not man-strong.

He stood up on the bale and took a good grip on the saddle and he realized that, while he might manage to wallow the saddle off the side of the stall, there was no way in the world he could ever hold it up and swing it around and get it on the stallion’s back.

He looked at the saddle blanket, he looked at the patient Appaloosa, swishing its tail and blinking sleepily, and he decided he’d ride the Sheriff’s stallion bareback.

Apple-horse stood, patient, strong, still, as Jimmy jumped and bent, as he slid a little, as he got a leg over, as he straightened himself up, as he sat up, as he grabbed a handful of mane and clamped his short little legs around the horse’s barrel and grinned.

He made a surprised little sound as Apple-horse turned and walked out of the barn.

Jimmy suddenly tasted ashes and he realized that perhaps riding the Sheriff’s horse might not be a terribly good idea.

Under ordinary conditions, as a matter of habit, Apple-horse would wait for the Sheriff to ride him out of the barn and into the clear before coming unglued:  Apple-horse was not an easy horse to ride, especially when he decided to buck, jump, spin, sunfish, crow-hop, kick and otherwise make himself rude, crude and socially unacceptable to any but an experienced rider.

Jimmy was seven years old.

Jimmy was riding with nothing more under him than a saddle blanket, Jimmy had a handful of mane, Jimmy had the sudden feeling of doom that comes with lighting the fuse on a stick of dynamite or pulling the pin on a grenade.

Somehow, and perhaps this was the intervention of a merciful Providence, the Appaloosa stallion did not choose to launch his rider into low Earth orbit.

He did, however, step out with a brisk walk, and then he began to trot, and then he lowered his head and shoved his nose straight out and gathered mountain-tempered muscles and began to gallop.

Jimmy’s eyes were wide, his mouth was open, his hands were locked around the thick, tough mane hairs, his legs squeezing as best he could, and he realized hard as he leg-hugged the horse, there was no way in the world he could stay on board.

Apple-horse drove hard-sharpened hooves into the earth as he did the one thing he loved most of all.

He ran.

Jimmy was paralyzed with sheer, unadulterated, absolute, distilled and concentrated terror.

Apple knew where he was going.

Apple drove across the high meadow and curved around the back of the field, turned in the sunlight, came about like a battleship and laid into the run as if he were pursuing a personal enemy:  Jimmy was too terrified to lay down and try to hold around the horse’s neck.

Somewhere in this sheer unadulterated terror, Jimmy realized he was still aboard, he was still with the horse, he was not hurt, and he was actually … it surprised him to touch the idea … he was actually having …

He was having fun!

Jimmy’s legs were still tight on the horse’s barrel but there was a change in his grip, a change the stallion felt, and Apple-horse pounded across the meadow like an arrow from a drawn bow and Jimmy felt fear and terror shred in the wind of their passing and stream behind him like shattered paper fluttering in the wind.

It was like riding through a glass wall.

Just as his terror never escaped his throat, neither did the sound of his rejoicing.

Jimmy slid a little as Apple-horse slowed quickly, coming back to the barn, and Jimmy rode him into the barn and slid to the floor and Apple nudged him with his long nose, bumming a bait of grain after the run.

Jimmy scooped up corn and slung it into Apple’s trough, and as the stallion lipped up corn, Jimmy brushed the warm Appaloosa’s fur, rubbing him down and brushing him out the way he’d seen the Sheriff do.

Jimmy  worked quickly, efficiently, and when he was finished, he hung the brush back on its peg and tilted his head a little as Apple-horse came over and snuffed loudly at his belly.

Jimmy caressed the Appaloosa’s smooth, short hair and whispered, “Thank you.”

 

Connie set her binoculars back on their shelf, pressing her palm against her cheek.

“Mama,” she whispered, “I can see why you didn’t want to watch us playing!”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

78.  A STRONG MAN'S PROMISE

 

That night, as Connie was taking her time with the dishes and casting glances into the living room, as Jimmy was studying the intricacies of a second-grade-level grammar lesson, as the Sheriff paged through the county newspaper (which was printed, not for its news, but to let people who got caught at whatever they were doing), she smiled quietly as she heard folded newsprint and the Sheriff’s quiet, “Hey, Jimmy.”

Jimmy had just finished his lesson; as he always did, he’d closed his book on his pencil and stacked the book on the table beside the door, the better to grab on his way to school in the morning.

Jimmy was halfway across the floor, ready to deposit the schoolbook, when the Sheriff’s quiet words stopped him.

Part of him shrank with dread, in spite of the warmth of the lawman’s voice, in spite of the smile Connie heard in her husband’s words.

Jimmy placed the book on the table and turned uncertainly toward the Sheriff.

Linn reached out his hand, palm down, made a come-here gesture, the same kind his Uncle Pete used, and part of his mind remembered that was Pete’s heritage of fighting in Vietnam, where the palm-down, four-finger-paddle was used for the come-here gesture.  He’d adopted it as a very young boy, and in fact remembered the gesture better than he remembered Uncle Pete.

Jimmy came up to the Sheriff and Linn reached out, took the lad under the arms, hoist him into his lap, studied his impassive young face with quiet and amused eyes.

He’s still stiff, he thought, he’s guarded, the walls are up.

Likely he expects to be belted.

His eyes wrinkled a little at the corners, amusement darkening his pale eyes, and he stroked his mustache with the back of a bent foreknuckle.

“Jimmy,” Linn said, and Connie could hear a hidden amusement in the man’s voice, “what do you think of my mustache?”

Jimmy blinked and willed himself not to squirm, though it was difficult:  he wanted nothing more than to twist off the man’s lap and run, run because he didn’t want the belt across his back, his thighs, for riding the stallion without the great man’s permission!

“It’s …”  Jimmy said haltingly, then looked at the lip broom and said, “It’s still a mustache.”

Linn laughed, his left hand around Jimmy’s shoulders, warm and strong against his shoulder blades as he stroked the face fur again.

“Yes it is,” he chuckled.  “Tony is shaving me so I don’t shave in too close.  He said it needs thickened and he said not to cut in so close.”  Linn tilted his head a little.  “Jimmy, you shavin’ yet?”

“Umm, no,” Jimmy almost stammered.  “I’m just a little kid!”

“You,” Linn said softly, almost whispering, “are a most remarkable little kid too!”  He leaned his head in close, touched the top of his forehead against the top of Jimmy’s forehead.

“Jimmy, Tony said you have the steadiest hands he’s ever seen.”

“Huh?” Jimmy’s surprise was instant, honest, unaffected:  Connie, watching from the doorway, dried her hands on a dishtowel, leaning against the doorframe, smiling.

“Tony said he could not get the first stroke without busting the balloon.”

“Balloon?”  Jimmy’s expression went from surprise to confusion, then he remembered –

“The balloon!”

Linn nodded, his smile overcoming his reticence: “Tony was two weeks before he got that first stroke with the razor.  You got what … two, maybe three, on your first try?”

Jimmy nodded, big-eyed.

“Mrs. Pompey showed me the drawings you made of that playground fight, and Connie showed me the drawing you did of The Lady Esther pulling that grade.”

The Sheriff’s hands rose and gripped the lad’s shoulders – gently, carefully, but there was no mistaking his intent to emphasize his words.

“Jimmy, that was wonderful work, and I am very proud of you!”

Jimmy blinked, surprised, and said “Thank you,” in an uncertain, little-boy voice.

“Now tell me about riding Apple-horse.”

Jimmy froze and the color ran out of his face like red ink out of an eyedropper:  he stiffened, his expression went from pleasure to terror in the space of a heartbeat.

Had the Sheriff not been holding him, the boy would have collapsed.

“Easy, now, son, you’ve done nothing wrong,” Linn said, his voice low, urgent.  “You’re not in trouble, I’m not going to hit you.” 

Impulsively, quickly, instinctively, he pulled the lad into him, held in in a tight embrace, holding around the boy’s ribs but not holding down his arms.

“My God, what did that son of ten devils do to you?” he whispered, and Jimmy shivered, then raised weak and trembling arms to embrace the lawman.

“Hold me,” he whispered, “I’m scared,” and suddenly he was embracing the Sheriff, holding him with the desperation of the truly terrified.

Children have two states of being, and only two:  awake, or sound asleep:  running flat-out, or at a dead stop and ready for a nap:  they are either wildly in favor of something, or could honestly care less, and Jimmy, in this moment, with all of his young heart and with utterly no reservation, clung to this strong, quiet lawman, this strong man with the gentle voice, seized him in fear and in terror and in the almost vain wish that nobody would take him away and lay welts crisscrossed from ankles to neck again.

Linn held him, rocked him a little, laid his cheek over on the boy’s head as a quiet fury built within him.

The boy’s father was dead, murdered within his first days in the state prison, killed because he bragged about what he’d done to his little boy.

Child abusers are on the lowest rung of the prison’s hierarchy, and child abusers are the one group most often beaten, brutalized and murdered by their fellow prisoners.

He was.

This added to the Sheriff’s frustration, for the evil done this child lived on after the abuser’s death, and no one was left on whom to bring revenge.

“He’ll never hurt you again,” Linn whispered.  “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’ll never, ever hurt you again!”

“Promise?”  Jimmy asked, pulling away and lifting his wet face to the Sheriff’s stern visage.  “Promise?”

Linn reached back, hauled his folded bandanna out of a hip pocket, snapped it open, then gently, carefully wiped the tears off the boy’s pallid cheeks.

“Yes, Jimmy,” he whispered.  “I promise.”

He looked up and a pale eyed young woman in a white-lace-trimmed, electric-blue gown regarded lawman and little boy with a serious expression.

“You’ll need help,” she said.  “I’ll ride night guard.”

Linn blinked, and she was gone.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

79.  NIGHT GUARD

Jimmy ran.

He ran with all the speed and all the strength and all the desperation of a terrified child.

He may as well have been running in a pool of chilled molasses.

He heard the footsteps behind him, great stomping footfalls like a running giant, thoom, thoom, thoom, shivering the very earth itself as the monster ran after him, as the great and booming voice threatened, "I'LL GET YOU!  I'LL GET YOU AND WHEN I DO I'LL HURT YOU AGAIN!"

Jimmy was too terrified to scream.

He'd screamed once in his life, but only once, because such things were done him as to lock any sound of fear into his young throat:  terror is a form of torture, and torture is an effective way of changing someone, and torture guarantees obedience because the truly terrified soul, the utterly broken soul, does not ever, ever want to experience that horror again!

He heard the giant coming up behind, he felt the giant coming up behind, he tried to run, he tried to run, he tried to run --

The earth thundered underfoot, the earth shuddered beneath his bare feet, he looked up and a HUGE black horse bore down on him, a horse with red eyes and blowing fire from its nostrils, a black horse with red ripples showing the fire that was its life, the flame that was its power, a horse as big as Stomper but ten times stronger and ten times faster and a pale-eyed woman was saddled atop this big black monster-horse, a woman in a white silk dress that flowed like water in the wind of the passing and she yelled "JIMMY!  DUCK!"

Jimmy dove like a swimmer going into a shallow pool, he threw his arms up over his head and dove for the sand, he hit and rolled and came up against a rock that smelled like clean linens and sunshine and he watched as the woman lowered a lance with a bright silver tip and rammed it into the giant's chest --

The giant was the man his Mama had married, the man who'd hurt him so often --

The giant had one arm upraised, a mile long belt rippling above and behind him --

The lance drove into the middle of his chest and the giant's head snapped back and the sound of his agony filled the low cavern and stalactites shook like loose teeth, and black and flying things fled in terror at the sound.

Jimmy watched as the black horse rammed into the skewered giant, as the Lance snapped back like the recoil of a striking snake, pulling out of the giant's chest, leaving a red and smoking hole, and the horse drove into the giant and knocked it to the ground, drove it back the length of five football fields, broke its back against a great black boulder:  the horse spun impossibly fast, drove both hind hooves in a steelshod whiplash, hit the giant's chest on either side of the smoking hole:  the giant was trying to sit up, and slammed back, its head whipsawing back and shattering against the black rock.

A hound as big as the horse, a hound the size of a mountain, a black and curly furred monster with teeth as long as Jimmy was tall and eyes that blazed red like the night horse's, paced up and bayed a challenge and Jimmy clapped his hands to his ears and pulled into a tight ball and red-eyed shadows fled and gibbered to hear it, for Retribution was come and none dare challenge, and somehow Jimmy knew it.

The great black horse reared and drove forehooves into the thrashing giant, and suddenly the monster with the man's face, the face Jimmy knew too well, the monster was dead, and the mountain Mastiff paced up to it, and stood over it, and raised his hind leg and cast his ballot upon the situation.

The pretty lady in the white and silky gown turned the big black horse and paced over to Jimmy.

"Watch," she whispered, and though she was waaaay up on top of that big black horse, Jimmy could hear her clearly.

He watched.

The monsterhound bayed again, but it was a different song he sang, one of sorrow and of damnation, and Jimmy watched as the hound turned and dug his hind legs into the sand and cast dirt and contempt upon the great and monstrous creature with the belt limp in its dead hand, laying like a dead snake behind and beside it.

Shadows flowed among the rocks, ugly and misshapen shadows with claws and fangs and glowing red eyes, and they swarmed the crushed figure greedily.

There was a scream and Jimmy recognized the scream.

It was the way he used to scream just before he'd swing that belt, but it was different.

He didn't scream with a murderous fury.

He screamed in pain and he screamed in fear and Jimmy watched as the demon-horde swarmed the crushed and bleeding body and ripped something gauzy and diaphanous from it, something the size and shape of a man, something that looked at Jimmy ... 

... but not in anger and not in rage ...

... Jimmy saw fear, and Jimmy saw the terrible knowledge in the shadow's eyes that he'd damned himself, and he was being taken to that damnation.

The Bear Killer sat down beside Jimmy, and Jimmy automatically put his arm over the mountain Mastiff's back.

The Bear Killer muttered and licked Jimmy's face and the pretty lady rode up to him, and her horse was as he'd seen it before, the time she rode up beside he and Stomper, and she looked at him with pale eyes and said, "I'm riding night guard now.  You're safe, Jimmy.  You are safe."

 

Jimmy had a pad of good eggshell paper, just right for drawing, for sketching out the detail he'd seen.

He was up most of the night, pouring out his young soul, drawing where he'd been and what he'd seen, and as the stars wheeled silently overhead, a little boy and his clutch of pencils turned a nightmare into a story, and when he was done, he felt wrung out, like a dishrag twisted dry and draped over the side of the sink.

He closed his eyes and took a long breath, but there was something yet to be done.

 

The Sheriff came downstairs, silent in bare feet, his eyes pale and approving as he saw the child seated at his desk, pencil in hand, a drawing before him, a stack of them on the floor beside him.

Linn knew what it was to be compelled to write.

Jimmy had been compelled to draw.

Linn knew we each communicate according to our gifts, and Linn knew men are visual creatures, and Linn knew Jimmy was able to communicate visually, with the gift and the language of his pencils.

Jimmy finished one last sketch before exhaustion claimed him, and the Sheriff stood behind the chair, behind the sleeping boy with the pencil still in his hand, and he looked long at the final drawing.

He went through the other drawings, and he kept them in order, and his eyes went pale as he too journeyed where the lad had been, vicariously, through the power of these pencil drawings -- these utterly realistic, absolutely accurate renderings of what he'd seen ... but he went back to Jimmy's final drawing, and his expression softened, for he understood it best of all.

It was Apple-horse, running toward the viewer:  all four hooves were off the ground, the eyes were alive and filled with joy, the joy of running, Apple's nostrils were flared, his mane alive and floating and his tail streaming out behind him, and on his back, both hands clutched in the flowing mane, a little boy, and the boy's face showed absolute and utter delight.

Jimmy woke up in his own bed, warm and safe, with the vague memory of having been carried in strong and manly arms, of having been placed carefully on his own mattress, of having blankets drawn up over him, of the whispered words, "I am very proud of you."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

80.  ESTO ES UN ROBO!

The Sheriff was a blooded warrior.

The Sheriff was a hard man who knew the taste of blood, both his own, and others’:  he knew what it was to make that terminal tenth-of-a-second decision – do I put the last fraction of an ounce of pressure on this trigger, yes or no – and then have to answer for that decision in the many theatres of life:  not only the court of law, but the court of public opinion, of the Police Review Board, but harshest of all, by his own conscience.

He was not a man to hesitate at laying hard and violent hands on the lawbreaker.

He’d seized a man’s wrist and twisted it around hard enough to shatter cartilage and bone in order to keep himself from being knifed.

He’d seized a man and spun him around and thrown him halfway across the highway before charging and driving his knee into the rising felon’s chin, before chopping down with both fists and breaking both the murderer’s collarbones.

He knew what it was to get the stuffing beat out of him and he knew what it was to breathe air into still lungs, to pump life into a still chest, to grind his teeth and weep scalding tears as someone’s life dribbled out, red and hot, between his fingers and not one damned thing he could do about it.

He knew the joy of a good saddlehorse under him, the taste of good coffee, the love of a good woman.

At the moment he also knew the joy of bench pressing a squealing, wiggling little boy, while another sat back, cross legged on the floor, eyes shining with delight as his young mind absorbed a scene that would probably flow out of the sharpened tip of one of a handful of pencils that night.

Linn lowered Wesley and kissed his warm, fine-haired head, pressed him quickly back up to arm’s length, bringing another shower of happy baby giggles.

As much as Linn paid attention to Jimmy, he did not short the child of his own loins; he’d entered into a conspiracy with Jimmy, enlisting his aid and assistance in caring for the active, wiggling, busy, fast-moving little boy in diaper and laughter.

Linn wanted to head off any juvenile jealousy, and Jimmy wanted more than desperately to be included, and it looked like it was going to work.

Linn lowered Wes to his chest, crossed his legs and rolled up into a seated position:  Connie came over, smiling, relieved the Sheriff of the smiling little lad.

Linn lay back on his back, straightened his legs and Jimmy came over, a little shy, and said “Could you do that with me?”

Linn grinned and Jimmy grinned back.

When Connie came back into the living room, Linn was standing, both arms over his head:  Jimmy was laying on his back – on the ceiling! – he and Linn had found a formula for making it happen:  Linn’s hand held a good handful of the lad’s shirt, and Jimmy’s hands were around Linn’s wrist:  the man’s hand was open, wide and flat, spread over the boy’s belt buckle, and from the sweat on the man’s face, from his flushed expression, he’d been using the seven year old as a set of barbells and had been pressing him overhead.

Jimmy was red-faced and laughing, and so was the Sheriff, and Linn brought him back down, setting the boy’s feet easily on the floor.

“Connie,” Linn said, a little short winded, “Jimmy has been working out and he’d like some iced tea.  Do we have any made up?”
Connie smiled.

“I think we have a whole pitcher.”

Linn nodded, breathing deep, looked down at Jimmy, winked.

 

Noon the next day saw Barrents and the Sheriff in the Lawman’s Corner, in the Silver Jewel.

Linn’s posture was flawless, his spine straight, his shoulders square:  Barrents almost expected the man to slump his elbows down onto the table, drop his face into his hands, but he did not.

He did, however, sweep the Jewel with pale eyes and admit, quietly, “Sometimes I absolutely hate court.”

Barrents nodded his understanding.

The waitress came sashaying back like she always did, draped her arm around the Sheriff’s shoulder and sat shamelessly on his knee.

“Sheriff, honey,” she said, “will you run away with me?”

Linn laughed.  “After a morning like this,” he admitted, “I might think about it!”

She stood, turned, faced the man squarely, turned her shoulder a little more, as if to block out the rest of the Jewel.

“Sheriff,” she said quietly, her voice serious, “is everything all right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Linn said tiredly.  “Yeah, Daisy, everything’s fine.”

The waitress gave the lawman a worried look, glanced over at Barrents.

“You’re a bad liar, Sheriff,” she almost whispered.  “I heard that lawyer made you look like a monkey!”

“Yeah,” Linn said shortly.  “It’s their job.”

“Sheriff, honey, I can pour a pitcher of water down the back of his neck if you’d like.”

Linn looked up at her, surprised, then laughed.

“Dear heart,” he said, “I won’t tell you to do it, but it wouldn’t hurt my conscience a whole lot if it happened.”  He blinked pale eyes and tried to look innocent as he added, “By accident, of course!”

“The usual for both of you?”

The lawmen nodded and the waitress winked at them, then turned, flaring her full skirt, and almost skipped back through the Jewel’s noontime crowd to put in her order.

“Barrents,” Linn said, barely moving his lips.

“I see him.”

“Don’t like that.”

“Nope.”

“Reckon I’ll go talk to him.”

Barrents felt an old, familiar feeling, and he knew things were about to get interesting.

 

Jimmy held the child carrier, not so much to support it, as much as to keep contact with Connie.

She had business at the bank and of course she couldn’t leave Jimmy and little Wesley home by themselves, so like any mother, she took them with her.

Wesley’s boots were polished (just like the Sheriff taught him!) and he wore his jeans outside the boots (just like the Sheriff!) and he wore a button-up shirt and a vest (just like the Sheriff!) – and of course shirts have pockets, and he had stuff in his pockets.

There were two others in the bank, two others who smiled when they turned and saw Connie:  one was a stout woman with a chubby face who came over and cooed at the big-eyed, fist-waving baby in the carrier, one who waved and asked how the Sheriff’s legs were after that awful fire.

Jimmy tasted copper as the door banged open and a voice, loud and angry, yelled “ESTO ES UN ROBO!  TODOS DE USTEDES, MANOS ARRIBA!” – and his mind began to run very fast indeed.

He turned, eyes big, and two men with black masks over their faces charged into the bank, one with a pistol and one with a shotgun, and Jimmy saw time shatter into a thousand bright slivers, and he tasted each fragment of time individually as the world slowed to an incredibly slow crawl.

Like most children of the area, Jimmy knew enough Mexican Spanish to get by, and he knew when men wearing bandannas and carrying guns came running into a bank yelling “This is a robbery, everyone hands in the air!” that things were suddenly very, very bad!

He let go of the carrier and ran to the side, ran behind the short counter where people stood to write their deposit slips, and as the black-masked pair ran to the front, he swung around behind.

What would the Sheriff do?

The voice was his own, the voice that wanted to do something to make The Man With Pale Eyes proud of him again.

I’m just a little kid!

That was his own voice, scared and shivering.

I can run.

I can get out!

His young jaw thrust forward and his teeth clenched.

No.

I’m gonna stay!

Jimmy’s breath was coming fast as he heard angry voices, loud voices, voices he knew too well, but he remembered the pretty lady on the big black horse and he looked around the base of the short counter.

He heard one of them yelling to hurry up, hurry up, give him the money, give him the money, and the other said remember leave no witnesses, and Jimmy took a hard look at their faces and his fingers had eyes of their own and he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the little notebook he’d slid in just because … and he pulled out the pencil and he put the notebook on his knee and he began to draw.

He could draw.

He could draw well and he did.

The two holdups appeared on paper, and he turned the page, sketched a detail of one, then another sheet and a detail of the other:  his pencil was fast, he was desperate, he pulled back behind the counter.

 

Connie shrank back against the wall, eyes big, breathing fast, her breath coming quickly, her heart hammering against her chest.

She looked over to the short counter in the middle of the floor and saw Jimmy.

He’s hiding.

Good.

They’re going to kill all of us.

Leave no witnesses.

She slipped her hand into the child carrier, took a cautious step toward the front of the bank, took another, a third.

There.

Connie squatted, slowly, the movement catching the attention of one of the robbers:  he turned to see a pale woman slumping to the floor, a baby carrier in her hand, apparently weak kneed with terror.

He turned back to the teller, screamed at her to hurry up.

He never felt the bullet that drove in behind his left ear.

 

The pistol bucked in Linn’s hand and he wondered, Who in the hell is firing my gun? and he heard someone shouting, almost screaming, and he realized it was his normally soft spoken chief deputy:  he pulled the pistol in close to his ribs, turned, eyes pale, crouched a little:  diners sat, shocked, some very few dove for the deck, only one stood, and he and the Sheriff each thrust out an arm.

The man with the outthrust pistol missed.

Linn didn’t.

Barrents picked up a man and slammed him down on a table, the table collapsing under the impact:  the Navajo set his boot on the man’s wrist, pinning it to the floor, and glared down with impassive, obsidian-black eyes.

The man did not seem inclined to pursue further hostilities.

Linn pulled out his cell phone, blinked in surprise.

His office was calling.

He thumbed the screen, put the phone to his ear, surprised that he could hear anything at all.

He looked at Barrents and the Navajo saw the Sheriff’s face go as dead pale as his eyes, and he saw the skin tighten over the Sheriff’s cheek bones, and he saw death itself settle into the man’s hard, granite-ice orbs.

Linn took a final look around, then holstered his pistol, reached behind him, pulled out a set of cuffs.

He moved out of habit, he moved out of training, part of his mind was grateful he’d trained often and hard and he’d insisted that every one of his deputies trained just as often and just as hard, and he’d drilled muscle memory into every lawman under his command and into himself, and this moment is when it paid off.

Cindy just told him the bank was being robbed, shots had been fired,  and Connie was hurt.

Had he not trained to the degree he’d insisted upon, he would have run out the door and run hell-a-tearin’ for the bank.

The Sheriff cuffed the first dead man – quickly, viciously – then he pulled his second set of irons and cuffed the second dead man.

He straightened, glared at Barrents.

“Is your prisoner dead?”  he asked, his voice rough, and Barrents shook his head.

“No, Boss, he’ll live to talk.”

The Sheriff’s eyes were as warm and welcoming as the frozen heart of a mountain glacier.

“You’re damned right he’ll talk,” he said through a tight throat, then looked at the talkie, fallen from the dead man’s hand.

The cute little hash slinger in the full skirt and the stand-it-out petticoat looked around the carnage in her dining room, a forgotten order still balanced in her hand.

“Will this be to go, Sheriff?”  she squeaked, and Barrents and the Sheriff looked at one another, and each one was surprised that the other one laughed.

 

Connie lowered her pistol.

She’d fired twice.

She’d placed the red dot behind the nearest man’s ear and she’d fired once.

The other spun toward her, shooting fast, shooting desperately.

Connie swung the red dot to the right, pressed the trigger once.

The second man fell back, collapsed.

Connie felt her blue-cold resolve flare into searing red heat and she bent at the waist and screamed at the dead men, “YOU ARE NOT GOING TO KILL MY BABY!”

When Uncle Will and two officers came through the door, armed up and ready for a young war, they saw a young mother bent over at the waist, throwing up, choking, crying like a lost child.

He touched her forearm, ran his hand down her arm, let his hand flow over hers.

She opened her hand, let him take the compact black pistol, leaned into the reassuring, warm strength of the older man:  she turned, pressed her face into his shirt front, clutched him desperately as she screamed her horror, her terror, her fear, discharging everything that built up suddenly, discharging it like a summer thundercloud will discharge a sudden, searing bolt of lightning.

Chief of Police Will Keller was not the wisest of men, and he’d said so on a number of occasions, but he’d learned a little wisdom to go with the silver in his hair, and he put that wisdom to use now.

He wisely held Connie and let her cry herself out.

 

Jimmy’s knees were drawn up and he’d hid his face in blue denim and hugged himself around his shin bones.

The notepad was forgotten, dropped, the pencil with it.

He felt hands on his arms and flinched.

A voice asked, “Son, are you hurt?”  and he raised his head, regarded the anxious looking policeman with wide and frightened eyes.

Jimmy shook his head.

“You’re the Sheriff’s boy.”

Jimmy nodded.

“He’s on his way.  He wanted to know if you were hurt.”

Jimmy shook his head, pushed against the policeman, came up on his knees, gripping the edge of the counter:  he tried to rise, banged his head on the underside of the counter, fell:  strong hands caught him, more hands gripped him, touched him.

Jimmy grimaced, tried to raise his hand to the detonation of pain still slamming against his skull, the aftershocks as painful as the impact, then his eyes snapped open, wide and panicked.

He twisted away, ran toward the tall man with the woman.

He seized the child carrier, looked up, scared, desperate.

“Mama,” he cried, “don’t leave me again!”

“Hold still now,” the medic said, and Connie ignored him.

Her blouse was off, the medic was pressing a dressing to the bloody gouge across he ribs, under her arm, just below the elastic on her bra.

Connie didn’t care.

A little boy needed his Mama, and Connie needed to hear he was all right, and mother and son seized one another with the strength born of a shared horror.

 

It took a while to process two crime scenes.

As Linn was the main actor in a shots-fired incident, he turned over the scene to his segundo, surrendered his sidearm as was policy; it was the work of a moment to retrieve its twin, settle it into his holster, and head for the hospital.

He came through the glass double doors, headed for the emergency room.

The staff knew better than to try to stop him.

He looked around, saw two curtains drawn, looked at the clerk.

The blond smiled slightly and nodded her recognition, then thrust her chin at one of the curtains.

Jimmy looked up at the curtain whispered open.

Linn took two long steps toward the lad, went to his knees.

Jimmy was sitting with Wesley Albert blanket-bundled on his lap, sound asleep.

“I just fed him,” Jimmy said solemnly, “I burped him and he’s got a clean diaper.”

Linn gripped Jimmy’s shoulders.

“Jimmy,” he said his voice thick, “are you hurt?”

Jimmy shook his head, then said “Mama’s hurt.”

“Wesley hurt?”

Jimmy shook his head.

“I tried to think,” Jimmy whispered, looking down at the sleeping infant, well bundled and sound asleep on his lap, “I … I tried to think what would the Sheriff do and I didn’t … I’m just a little kid … and then I thought … you said you were proud of me …”

He looked up, his eyes bright, ready to cry.

He’s held everything in, Linn thought.  He’s held it in just like I do.

“I … I drew ‘em.  I think I dropped the notebook but I drew ‘em.”

“Good,” Linn said quietly, his hand firm and approving on the lad’s shoulder.  “Just the right thing, Jimmy!  We’ll retrieve it!”

Linn stood.

“Can you carry Wes?”

Jimmy nodded.

“Come on, let’s see how Mama’s doing.”

 

The Firelands hospital had been there since the mid-1880s.

Many were born there, many suffered there, many came to be helped, and those that came were in pain, in fear, and those who came were generally very badly hurt.

There are always ghosts in a hospital, if only in the imagination of the sympathetic.

It would probably not surprise the staff to know that two ghosts watched from the shadows as a young woman’s side was stitched up, and it definitely would not surprise the young woman that these two particular ghosts watched.

Had the Sheriff and their sons not come a-sudden through the curtain when they did, she might have heard a woman with pale eyes nod approvingly and remark to the pale-eyed man with the iron-grey mustache, “She’ll do.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

81.  "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO KILL THEM?"

 

Jimmy dug into his mashed potatoes and gravy like any seven year old will.

He had the day off from school.

He’d set in court and he’d even set on the witness stand.

The lawyers asked him stupid questions – like “Do you know what truth is?”  and “Do you know what a lie is?” and then they asked him questions about the bank robbery.

He told them what he remembered, even when they tried to trick him and get him to say something else.

He’d told them he wanted to do something ‘cause the Sheriff would have done something but he was just a little kid so he hid and he watched and he drew what he saw.

The one fellow – an attorney, he’d been told – some guy in a fancy suit that sneered when he talked – he said “You … drew?”  as if Jimmy had said he’d spread a set of wings and flew around the room.

Jimmy flared “Yes I drew and gimme some paper and I’ll show you!” to which the attorney waved his hand dismissively and said “I don’t think that will be necessary,” and the other lawyer jumped up and yelled “Objection!” and the Judge said he’d like to see what Jimmy could do, and so Jimmy took the steno book he was handed, and he answered their questions while he was drawing:  he drew both the attorneys, and he drew the Judge, up behind his desk, and he drew his Mama, setting over behind the one table with the baby carrier beside her and his brother Wes in her arms, and when the attorney said something stupid about Jimmy having to start over so many times, Jimmy jumped up and marched over to the Judge’s bench and climbed up behind it and handed him the notebook.

His Honor the Judge thanked the boy gravely, looked at the first page, and froze.

He turned the page, turned the next, and the one after that, and raised an eyebrow.

“Young man,” he said quietly, “I would like to see you when we go to recess.”  He winked at the boy.  “If you could return to your seat, please, we’re going to have a quick conference and then we’ll get back to you.”

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said, and turned and went back to the witness chair.

“Sidebar, gentlemen, Councils will approach the bench.”

His Honor and the attorneys regarded the drawings in silence, paging slowly though them, paging back.

“Gentlemen,” the Judge said, “I think we will all stipulate that this young man’s drawn testimony will be accepted on its face.”

Jimmy bulldozed through his taters and gravy and started on his green beans as his Mama fed young Wesley Albert, and he remembered his Mama on the witness stand.

She looked pretty and she looked a little nervous (but not much), and Jimmy liked the way she looked, with her hands in her lap and her chin raised.

They asked her why she had to kill those men, why couldn’t she have just let them have the money and leave, wouldn’t that be a safer thing to do? – and she’d raised her chin a little more and said, “They said they were going to kill everyone.  They said they weren’t going to leave any witnesses.”  Her voice fairly rang in the hushed courtroom as she added firmly, “I was NOT going to let them kill MY SONS!”

She’d said sons.

Jimmy stopped and looked up at his Mama and she looked at him and smiled a little and Jimmy smiled a little too.

Sons.

She’d said sons, her sons, and that felt pretty good.

 

They’d put his drawings, the ones he’d made in the little notebook he’d had in his shirt pocket, he’d put his drawings up on a big screen and they’d seen the bad guys through his eyes:  his drawings were at once simple and detailed, well enough executed that when one black bandanna fell to chin level, Jimmy’s mental snapshot was sufficient to transfer to the lined paper.

He’d drawn the shotgun and he’d drawn the pistol and he drew them as he saw them, pointed at the teller:  he’d captured the teller’s expression flawlessly, he’d drawn one of her upraised hands open, the other half-closed, a fact corroborated by the surveillance video.

He’d admitted that he’d got scared and he dropped the notebook and they asked him to show them what he did, and Jimmy jumped down from the witness chair and looked around.

He looked at the flat front of the Judge’s bench, and he dropped down with his back to it, he pulled his legs up and he hugged his shins and the second attorney – the one that was a lot nicer than the other one – asked him why he’d done that.

Jimmy answered honestly, the only way he knew.

“I was scared,” he admitted.  “I wanted to hide.  I couldn’t do anything so I just wanted to hide!”

Jimmy ate the last of his still-warm bread, spread with fresh churned butter, and he leaned back, pleased that he’d cleaned his plate.

“Will the Sheriff be here?” he asked hopefully, and Connie gave him a sympathetic look.

“I’m afraid not,” she admitted. 

“Oh,” he said, disappointed, then he looked up at her.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Connie blinked, looking a little confused.

“For what?”

“You said you weren’t going to let them kill your sons.”

Connie opened her mouth, then closed it, nodded.

“That’s right, Jimmy.  You are my son and I was not going to let them kill you or Wes either one!”

 

“You were right,” Will rumbled as he looked over the sand table.

It was one of four tables; it represented Firelands, the streets were carefully laid out, miniature buildings were hand-painted and stored for use:  only the ones necessary for their project were set out.

The Silver Jewel, Sheriff’s office, hospital, bank, all were detailed and miniature and recognizable for what they were, and Will used a schoolteacher’s wooden blackboard pointer to indicate each in turn as he spoke.

“Those three were in the Jewel.  They’d figured you would eat lunch there and they figured to ambush you before you could respond to the bank robbery here.” 

He looked up, his eyes pale and hard. 

“That was a good catch, spotting the talkie.”

Linn nodded.

 “When they looked right at me and that that talkie up, I knew something was in the wind.  Barrents picked up on it at the same time.  He flanked right when I braced the first fellow.  He didn’t want to listen to reason so I had to help him.”

Will nodded.  “Now you sound like your Mama.”

“Flattery,” Linn said with no trace of a smile, “will get you everywhere.”

He looked at the older man, his expression serious.

“If they took out Barrents and I … why didn’t they consider your department?  Didn’t they know we have city PD as well as the county SO?”

Will regarded the Sheriff with hard, pale eyes.

“You’ve got the reputation, son,” he rumbled.  “Your Mama, you … clear back to Old Pale Eyes himself.  When folks think of Firelands they don’t think of the town.  They think of the county.”

Will thrust the rubber tipped pointer at the miniature bank.

“The getaway driver was outside.  My man rammed them as they tried to back out and escape.  I asked him how he knew this was the getaway vehicle and he said bank customers don’t wear a black bandanna and they don’t stick a pistol out the window as he approached.”

“I recall he said,” Linn murmured.  “He testified well.”

“We hold regular mock testimonies,” Will rumbled.  “Every officer sits on the witness stand and gets grilled.  I hire the most irritating attorney I can find from out of the area” – his grin was quick, a flash, like his twin sister used to do – “so they won’t learn anything about my men they can use in court.”

Linn nodded.  “Now that’s a good idea.  Wish I’d thought of it.”

“Your Mama did.  Willamina’s suggestion, right before she died.”

Linn nodded.  “I’d like to add my people to yours for that training.”

“Split the expense and welcome.”

“I’m in.  How much damage to your cruiser?”

“We were going to cycle it out anyway.  Front end was worn out, needed tires, it was the oldest car in the fleet.”

Linn nodded, grunted.

“Your wife,” Will began, and he saw Linn’s face change a little … not much, just a little, and he knew the man was listening with both ears.

“You taught her well,” Will said softly, laying a paternal hand on the Sheriff’s shoulder.

Linn nodded.

“She didn’t much like the idea of carrying a gun until that pair broke in and allowed to knife Wes.”  His smile was utterly without humor, more a skull’s baring of the teeth.  “But by God! when it counted she turned into a mama bear!”

“The female is the deadlier of the species,” Will nodded.  “Now let’s look at timing.

“These three” – his pointer hovered over the Silver Jewel – “were going to kill you and Barrents.  We have that from the survivor’s testimony.  They had two shooters and one commo.  He got off something – I don’t know what, but the guys at the bank must have thought it was shots fired.”  He chuckled dryly.  “Maybe it was.  Anyway, they hit the bank when they figured you two were down, or too busy to respond.

“The survivor said they’d planned to murder everyone in the bank.  We have that on videotape.  He lied on the stand – said they had no such plans -- and we proved it with his video testimony, we have the testimony of your wife and your boy and the tellers. The other two women in the bank were so rattled they couldn’t remember their own name.”

Will stopped, considered for a moment.

“I reckon Jimmy’s notebook will stay in evidence just like your gun until all appeals are exhausted” – he reached thumb and forefinger into a shirt pocket, pulled out a new, spiral bound notebook, the same kind Jimmy used at the bank – “give him that for me, will you?  I meant to get him a box of pencils and forgot.”

Linn grinned.

“I’m gettin’ him a whole coffee up full of ‘em!”

“Good.”  Will’s eyes were a darker shade and his face showed approval.  “His Honor was impressed.  Did you see what he drew there on the witness stand?”

Linn shook his head.

“Pretty darn good work, especially with that city shyster trying to distract him every whipstitch.  His Honor wants to sponsor him to art school.”

Linn smiled, shook his head.

“Old Pale Eyes was a map maker.  I know the Daine boys, back when, were as good as Jimmy.  Don’t know if any of their tribe still draws or not.  I’ll ask some of the schoolteachers, they’ll know.”  He looked at his uncle.  “His Honor wants to sponsor him to art school?”

“Yep.  Full ride.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“His boy could draw but he died of heart problems.  I think he was maybe twelve.  Poor fellow was crushed.  He’s …”

Will dropped his head, blinked a few times.

“You remember Glenn, the breadman?”

Linn nodded.  Glenn had been a driver when bread was delivered to homes by truck; Glenn was a big, red-faced fellow, he’d been a riverboat pilot, he drove a tow – a long string of barges, generally loaded with coal for the power plants – and like the Judge, Glenn lost not just one child, but three, to a house fire if memory served.  The man loved children and would delight in the young ones confiding breathy secrets or showing off a new puppy or doing any of the many things children do to show off.

“I recall Glenn.”

“Well, the Judge is kind of like that.”

Linn nodded.

“His Honor is tryin’ to fast track your adoption.  You’ve got a man in your corner for that.”

Linn snorted.  “I’ve been told about adoption hoops.  Got to wipe the threads off the ketchup bottle and lock up anything more dangerous than a paper clip!”

Will nodded.  “So I heard.”

They turned back to the sand table.

“So we know what:  a bank robbery.  We know who:  we’ve got positive IDs on the dead and on the survivor.  Now the why.”

“Last man standin’ is singin’ like a canary,” Will rumbled.  “They’re a small time drug dealin’ outfit but they want to look bad and nasty in the criminal community and what better way to do it than to kill the Sheriff and his chief deputy and then hit the bank, and to do it with a coordinated effort?”

Linn took a long breath.

“That’s not good.”
“No.  They got the idea and criminals talk.  It’s possible this will get talked around the outlaw world.”

“Reckon I’ll make some calls.  If this bunch come up with the idea, someone else might think it’s a good one.”

“The Society will discuss this next we meet.”

Linn nodded again.  “That’ll be a good idea.”

“Where are they based out of?”  Linn asked, tilting his head and frowning at the miniature bank.

“Wichita.”

Linn looked sharply at Will.  “Wichita!  Now why in two hells did they come all this way to kill the Sheriff and hit the bank?  Couldn’t they do that at home?”

“Home is another gang’s territory,” Will explained.  “They operate just outside that area.  They knew if they hit a bank anywhere near the dominant gang’s territory there would be hell to pay, so they come out here.”

Linn grunted.

“I’ve talked with Wichita PD and the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office.  They tell me we killed or locked up the whole gang.  They know about the bigger gang and they were happy to hear these ones are out of circulation.”

Linn nodded.

“I hear tell you arranged Jimmy’s father’s burial.”

“Yep.”  Linn’s eyes darkened a little as he looked at his uncle, and Will turned his head a little and Linn saw an understanding smile at the corners of the older man’s eyes.

“I know that look,” Will muttered.  “Damned if you don’t look like your Mama!”

Linn laughed.  “Yeah, reckon so.”
“Linn … what did you do?”

Linn managed to look mostly innocent.

“Well, me and the sky pilot planted the fellow’s ashes in Potter’s Field and I logged the location with GPS.  They’ve got those water department locators that are accurate to within six inches and I GPS’d every grave out there.”

“That’s not what I asked.”  Will’s voice was deep, like boulders grinding together at the bottom of a haunted well.  “What did you do?”

Linn’s grin was quick, broad, genuine.

“Well, I figured after bein’ cremated, the fellow was probably kind of dry, and considerin’ his eternal destination, why, I allowed as it would be a kind thing to ease his thirst, so I poured a bottle of beer over his grave.”

Will’s jaw shifted and he nodded, and something tugged at the corners of his mouth, not quite raising them to a visible smile.

He looked at the sand table, considered.

“That long drink of beer you give his gravestone … did you run it through your kidneys first?” he asked, looking sidelong at his nephew.

The Sheriff’s grin was his only reply.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

82.  OUCH!

 

Jimmy tilted his head curiously, studying the Sheriff’s gloved hands as he fitted a new blade on the curved, graceful handle.
Linn saw the boy’s intent study and motioned him closer.
“Ever see one of these?” he asked quietly.
Jimmy shook his head.
Linn slipped the shaped handle’s neck into the blade’s square, picked up a small combination wrench, tightened the square headed set screw.
“It’s called a scythe,” Linn explained.  “I’ve been meanin’ to get a new blade for a year now and I finally did.”  He pointed to a white cardboard box, its lid askew.  “Found some scythe stones, finally!  Been lookin’ in all the wrong places for those!”
Jimmy watched as the Sheriff stood, set the end of the handle on the floor beside his boot, reached behind him and pulled a long, oval, blue, scythe stone out of a hip pocket.
The man’s expression softened some as he began to stroke the blade with the rough abrasive stick – it was loud, almost painfully so, but almost musical – and Jimmy studied the man’s expression, the dreamy, less-than-focused look to his eyes as his good right hand did what was obviously an old and familiar dance.
Jimmy waited until the Sheriff quit his noise making and returned the scythe stone to his overalls pocket before asking, “But what’s it for?”
“You’ve never seen one?”  
Jimmy smiled a little as he heard the smile in the Sheriff’s voice.
“It’s for cuttin’ weeds,” Linn said as they walked out of the barn.
Linn took a look at a patch of weeds on a slope he’d been meaning to get to, and now that he’d put a brand new Schwanensense blade on his good old scythe’s handle, he was going to tend that detail.
“This thing is really sharp,” Linn cautioned the big-eyed little boy, intently watching the long, tall, lean waisted lawman as he swung the scythe back for his first cut.
Linn set easy into his rhythm, old reflexes waking and old memories coming alive in shoulders and back and thighs and arms.
Scalpel-rough edge sliced easily through weed stems, whispering death as it cut.
Linn’s eyes darkened a little, going from their usual ice-pale to a light but distinct blue:  in his  younger years he swung the scythe well and often, and it had been a year and more since he broke the tip off his old blade and hung the man killing working tool in the barn.
His attention was on his work.
Jimmy’s attention was, as well.
Men under stress will develop tunnel vision; a man enjoying himself will do the same, and he did:  his world shrank to the blade and the weeds, the swing and the step, and he found his rhythm, he found his pace.
The scythe swung easily in his callused, leather-gloved hands; he stopped, sharpened the blade, delighting in the bright tzing-tzang, tzing-tzang as he stroked one side, then the other, alternating long strokes left and right, working his way from near to far.
He slid the stone carefully into his  hip pocket again – carefully, making sure the stone actually went into the pocket:  the stone was a baked carborundum, extruded from a die as a coarse, sandy, putty-like paste, cut to length and baked:  baked, it was brittle, and dropped when it was supposed to be in a pocket, it tended to break into unusably small halves when it hit the ground.
Linn rolled his shoulders, took a long breath, drew back the scythe for his next cut.
He’d just made the crest of the rise and on his back swing something went tunk! and he felt the impact through the handle.
A man’s mind will flash an idea without words; in that moment, his mental impulse might read, “Funny, I don’t recall a stump there,” and he turned to look.
He turned just in time to see the soles of Jimmy’s boots as the boy went over backwards, down the hill.
Linn felt icewater sear through his veins and he tasted copper as Jimmy rolled, elbow-over-tincup, boom-boom-boom to the bottom of the short rise, where he landed, limp and very still.
Now Linn was a tall man, and Linn was a man with long legs, and Linn was a man with a good length to his stride, and it did not take him long a’tall to get to Jimmy, and it took very little time for him to shoulder open the front door and pace back into the kitchen.
Connie turned to see her husband, his face the color of wheat paste, and Jimmy, his face bloody, laying limp as a rag doll in the lawman’s arms.
“Maw,” Linn said through a tight throat, “I’ve kilt him!”
Connie reached around, turned on the faucet, ran the dishrag under the cold cascade of fresh-run wellwater;  she stepped up to Jimmy, cradled his head in her hand and wiped the blood from his face.
There was a horizontal buttonhole of a cut below his eye, right over the cheek bone:  another few wipes and the blood was cleared off, then she pulled a tissue from her apron pocket, folded it and pressed it to the cut, stopping the bleeding.
Jimmy opened his eyes, blinking at tears and confusion, and he said, “Ow.”
Connie looked up at her husband, not really sure what to say to the man’s most distressed expression, and settled on “Put him down, you can’t kill a kid.”

An hour later Jimmy repeated himself.
The bleeding stopped, he’d gotten used to the thumping in his face, he’d managed to slip out unnoticed and he took a look at two aspen trees growing side-by-side.
To his delight he found he could grip one and walk his bootsoles up the other, he worked his way high enough they were flexible and they bent, and there was a gust of wind that pulled one and he threw a leg over between them, thinking to get a purchase so he could get a foot under him, and then the wind quit and the tree trunks came together on his thigh, hard enough it almost hurt.
He worked his free leg under him, tried to push up; he pushed the trees apart a little, but his weight pulled him down further and his hand slipped and the trunks closed again and this time it did hurt and he yelled “OW!”
Connie’s head came up like a hound’s, and so did The Bear Killer’s:  they both headed for the front porch, cast about as if scenting the wind.
The Bear Killer flowed off the porch, nose to the ground, trailing Jimmy:  Connie stepped out on the porch, looked to the right, down toward the barn, then looked to the left, looked again.
Her mouth opened as The Bear Killer ran up to the tree, tried to run up the tree, gave a loud WOOF and she heard Jimmy’s voice, very faintly, say “I’m in trouble now!”

The tones came over the speakers in every room in the firehouse:  two musical notes, followed by the annoying SQUEEEEEEE, and then Cindy’s voice:  “Firelands Fire Department and Emergency Squad, respond to the Sheriff’s house, entrapment, time of call four-twenty-three.”
Cindy, seated at her desk, watched the road deputy’s backside disappear out the front door as her grey General Electric speaker cleared its throat.
She heard the big Federal Q siren wind up with its rising scream, and over this, the chief’s businesslike, “Engine One and Squad One enroute.”

Linn set the extension ladder against the aspens, cooned up the shivering aluminum.
He’d set it so it was as near to Jimmy as he could get it without setting the ladder on him:  it would be difficult to lift him and push the trees apart, but he had to try:  if he could not free the boy himself, the Fire Department was on their way, and they would have ladders and manpower enough to get the job done.
As a matter of fact, it took setting their ladder against one tree, removing the Sheriff’s ladder, dedicating one man in a smoke-smelling yellow turnout coat and helmet with his arm under Jimmy’s leg, his other arm around the boy’s chest – and Jimmy’s arm around his neck – and the Sheriff taking a chainsaw to the other tree, expertly notching it and then making a plunge cut with the snarling two-cycle saw, neatly dropping one of the entrapping trees and bringing all of Jimmy’s weight on the fireman when he did.
Jimmy was almost in tears when they got to the ground and the fellow with the curled black mustache laid him carefully on the cot.
Shining stainless-steel shears devoured denim at a shocking pace, slicing up beside the side seam;  Connie leaned forward a little and told the medic, “Cut them clear off, I don’t care!” – and on the other side of the cot, the Sheriff went to one knee, gripping Jimmy’s hand in both of his as the boy looked absolutely woebegone and stricken with more sorrow than should be seen on such a young face.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the lawman, and Linn squeezed Jimmy’s hand just a little, at least until another medic tapped his upper arm with the back of his hand:  “Sheriff, I need his arm for a blood pressure.”
Linn nodded, released Jimmy’s hand, stepped back and a little to the side.
“Jimmy,” he said, “I don’t give a good damn about that tree.  I’ve got lots of trees and they’ll grow back.  You’ve only got one leg.”
He stopped, blinked, and Jimmy looked kind of funny, and then he laughed a little.
“Ummm,” the Sheriff said, turning a little red, “that didn’t come out right.”

Doc Greenlees came out and laid a companionable hand on the Sheriff’s shoulder, then set down beside the man.
“How’d he get that cut under his eye?” 
Linn looked absolutely miserable.  “I was cuttin’ weeds with a hunky scythe,” he said, his voice hoarse.  “Jimmy come up behind me and I caught him on the back swing.  Had no idea he was there.  There’s a square head set screw on the back of the blade and I reckon that’s what caught him on the cheek bone.”
“He’s lucky it hit bone instead of the eye ball,” Doc nodded.  “Don’t worry, it’ll color up but it’ll heal okay.  He’l have a glorious shiner to brag about at school.  I put two stitches in it, fine little sutures just to hold it.  He didn’t even flinch.”
“Didn’t you numb it?”
“He said it was kind of numb already.”
Linn nodded.  “How about his leg?”
“His leg’s fine.”
Doc hesitated, considered for a moment, rubbing his palms slowly together.
“I found some scarring on his backside.”
“I know.”
Doc waited for the answer to his implied question.
Linn’s hands closed into fists – tight, trembling – his eyes were very pale and very intent and his voice was very quiet as he said “A coat hanger.”
“Dear God,” Doc whispered.
“Can you imagine … a coat hanger … why in God’s Kingdom would anyone hit a child with –“
His voice ground to a halt, his head dropped.
“Doc,” he said finally, raising his head, “if I had a bushel basket of money, I would pay the Witch of Endor to raise his father from the dead so I could kill him … slow.”
Dr. John Greenlees doubted not the man meant every word of it.
“Discharge papers are almost ready.”  Doc sat slouched like the Sheriff, his elbows on his knees, hunched over some.  “Jimmy thinks it’s all his fault.”
“Not his fault,” Linn said quietly, shaking his head.  “Not his fault a’tall.”
“Children internalize any bad thing that happens.  They assume guilt.  If lightning hit your barn or you and Connie had a big screamin’ fight, he’d assume somehow it was his fault.”
Linn nodded, swallowed.  
“Go easy on him, Sheriff.  He’s scared he’s going to get beat again.”
“I know.  I’ve been trying to show him he’s not going to get the belt but …”
Linn shook his head.
“That poor boy has been through hell twice over.  I hope he turns out all right.”
Doc looked his old friend squarely in the eye.
“Linn,” he said, “as long as he’s got you, he’ll be fine!”
 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

83.  CONNIE?

Doc Greenlees grabbed the Sheriff’s knee, carefully straddling the pinkish, healing flesh from his burn injury.
“Don’t straighten that leg,” he cautioned.  “Just … don’t… don’t move at all, Sheriff.”
“I need a drink,” Linn groaned.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”  Doc Greenlees asked, turning a little as the surgical tray was wheeled up beside him, the sterile covers laid open.
The physician’s voice was professional, brisk, efficient, which told the Sheriff the man was worried.
“Yeah, my pride’s hurt.  The hell with me, Doc, is Jimmy hurt?”
“He’s scared but he’s fine.  He’s worried about you.”
“McGee,” Linn gasped as Doc began to swab the area with something cold and wet.  “McGee … I caught up with him just before –“
Linn’s teeth clicked together and he hissed in a breath through his clenched jaw.

"Jussst before he was killed."  Linn stiffened, tried not to move.  "Daggone, Doc, just pull the thing out!"
“I told you to hold still,” Doc Greenlees said absently from behind his yellow surgical mask. "You want something for the pain?"

"Just get the damned thing out!"

Something clanked, a sharp metallic note, as a bloodied piece of what used to be steel tank wall dropped into a stainless steel operating room pan.

"That's one," Doc Greenlees muttered.  "You sure you don't want me to numb you at least?"
“Yeah, God loves you, too,” Linn grated.

Doc looked at the nurse, nodded; she pressed the piston on her syringe, trickled a colorless liquid into the Sheriff's IV.

The Sheriff relaxed almost instantly, gave a little sighing groan.

"You hard headed old man," Doc muttered.  "Hell of a note.  I have to medicate the patient for the comfort of the doctor!"  He looked up at the nurse.  "Did he say Fibber was dead?"

Fibber's given name had been Victor Matthews McGee, but he’d shown an early habit of lying, and neither persuasion, wheedling nor the board could persuade him to abandon that behavior, and as a result he was quickly tagged with the uncharitable nickname of Fibber.
Fibber found that he had a gift for prevarication, a talent for the spoken untruth; he practiced his dark art until he could look a preacher in the eye, tell him the sky was green, and look so absolutely sincere and so utterly innocent as he did so, that unless the sky pilot had a window to look out of to check the veracity of the report, why, he would actually be inclined to believe it.
Fibber, of course, also learned that if he took something and then lied about it, he got to keep it – if he lied well enough, convincingly enough, especially if he was with people who didn’t know him – but like all thieves and liars, his sins caught up with him, until finally he'd made the world too hot to hold him and he was obliged to return home, to come back to Firelands.
No tiger changes its stripes, nor has any leopard surrendered its spots:  so it was that Fibber stole, and was caught; he ran, but he’d stolen an item of such value that pursuit was immediate, at least as immediate as the inured party was able to run to the Sheriff’s office and deliver a panting, out-of-breath report, and by the time the aggrieved party was sufficiently recovered as to utter a coherent sentence without falling over from exertional anoxia, Fibber had gotten quite a good head start.
Fibber was afoot and the terrain was level, at first, and he’d gotten a good start before he too was obliged to stop, and pant for breath, and recover the strength he’d lost from living too long in the low country, where the air is thicker and the breathing, easier:  once recovered, he continued his flight, running paths and trails he’d learned as a boy, remembering how he used to run at a steady jog trot along these mountain paths I order to escape retributions, or to stash some stolen item.
He looked across the meadow and considered the roadway, and bethought himself of hitchhiking:  a vehicle would be faster and far less work than Shank’s Mares, he reasoned, and so he turned his feet toward the pavement.

Connie Keller smiled as Jimmy let young Wesley Albert wrap his chubby pink little hand around Jimmy’s finger.
Jimmy looked up as his Mama’s eyes came to the rear view mirror, and smiling eyes met smiling eyes, two seconds before Connie came over a rise and made a startled little noise and hit the brakes hard.
She looked at the smoking ambulance, its doors open, the crew hauling the patient out in what was obviously a hurry:  thinking fast, she pulled past it, pulled over, stopped.
“Jimmy, stay here with the baby,” she said briskly, shoving the shifter into Park and shouldering open the door.
The hood was up on the ambulance, black smoke rolling out from under and from the cab:  driver’s and passenger doors stood open and Connie watched one medic blast a fire extinguisher at something in the cab, just before flames came rolling out from under the open hood.

The Sheriff had ridden his Apple horse to work, which was not terribly unusual:  he took the merchant’s distressed report, and he nodded, for he remembered Fibber, and not with any degree of fondness:  Fibber had stolen from Linn as well, and disappeared before he could be caught.  
The Sheriff asked a few questions, nodded.
“Cindy.  I know where he’s headed, he’s run those woods before.  I’ll take Apple-horse, I can track him from the saddle faster than he can move.”
Not a minute later Cindy saw the Sheriff and his Apple-horse pass in front of the glass double doors.

The tank truck had an oil derrick painted on the door, a name under it and a phone number:  the truck was empty, the driver had just delivered a load of crude oil, and as ill luck would have it, he’d left the hatch loose and the rear gate valve open, allowing a thin trickle of good green crude to spot the highway as he drove.
He was in a string of traffic, between two propane trucks and behind a school bus, and as the first spots of rain pattered against his windshield, he chuckled and said aloud, “I wouldn’t drive any of those for all the tea in China!”

Connie ran a hand into the side pocket of her purse, came up with her cell phone, thumbed at the screen, desperately trying to wake it up – the screen lit up, she pressed the green telephone button –
“You got signal?”  the medic yelled, tossing aside his empty extinguisher:  it was an exercise in futility, whatever caught fire was rolling now, turning the ambulance’s cab into a flame-spinning inferno and the patient compartment into a smoke-filled hotbox.
“No,” Connie yelled back, shoving the phone back into her bag:  she ran back to her Jeep, looked at the grey microphone, saw the radio’s lights were on.
Linn said if there was an emergency that I could legally use the Sheriff’s band radio, she thought.

Linn studied the tracks, nodded, turned Apple-horse, looked up at the lowering sky.
He drew up in a depression, froze; he smelled ozone and tasted copper as he saw the hairs on Apple’s mane were starting to float.
Linn swore, quietly, bitterly:  he put his heels to Apple’s ribs.
It was lower nearer the highway, and as he came over a small rise, he saw traffic was slowing, and something was afire at its head end.
He saw Fibber, headed for the slowing column:  Linn was like a hound when the fox was sighted, he focused on the fleeing felon’s shoulder blades, Apple-horse felt the Sheriff’s knees tighten and he laid his ears back and gathered his legs under him –
Connie looked up as the propane trucks approached, slowing, the oil truck between them; the school bus was already past but moving dead slow, and curious young faces pressed against the back windows and the emergency door glass.
Connie picked up the microphone, pressed the red button.
Cindy, back at the Sheriff’s office, stopped, puzzled:  a familiar voice came over the radio speaker, but it was a voice that shouldn’t be on the air … puzzled, she hit the broad, ivory colored key and said to the desk mike, “Unit calling Firelands dispatch, identify and proceed with traffic.”
“Cindy, this is Connie, I’m east of town by five miles.  There’s an ambulance all on fire and everyone’s out, I don’t think anybody was hurt.”
Cindy heard a detonation, an explosion, she heard it over the radio, and several moments later the real thing shivered the building with a thick, heavy, low frequency BOOOOOOMMM.

Cindy placed delicate fingertips on the microphone key, pressed.
“Connie?”  she called.

She lifted her fingers, listened.

Nothing.
“Connie?”  Her fingers came off the key again and she felt ice water start to run through her arms.
She reached for the selector, toned out the fire department: “Firelands Fire Department and Emergency Squad, respond to the ambulance fire, five miles east of town, unknown injuries.”  She turned back to the Sheriff’s band microphone, hit the key again.  “Connie, this is Sheriff’s Dispatch, reply now.”
 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

84.  B.L.E.V.E.

 

 

Linn saw a searing blast of light among the slow moving vehicles as the twisting, sun-bright lightning bolt drove down among the smoking vehicles.

He saw another, dirtier light as the oil tanker detonated.

Apple swung sideways and a giant’s hand slapped them both, hard.

Fibber went down with a chunk of steel through his middle, a spinning guillotine that sliced through his belly muscles and his abdominal aorta and shattered his spine, stopping after six inches of bloodied, jagged steel protruded under his shirt.

Linn went down sideways, slapped out of the saddle, blown twenty feet by the force of the explosion, Apple-horse thrown to his side:  the stallion hit the ground and slid a little, then thrashed and came lurching back up on four hooves.

The blast blew in the back glass of the retreating school bus, driving shining, sharp-edged crystals against the several children gathered at the back, staring at the ambulance fire:  those closest to the glass sustained the least damage, those a seat or two ahead were bloodied by grazing cuts, none of them serious.

For a miracle, there were no eye injuries.

Wesley Albert had thrown his pacifier to the floor:  Connie was bent over to turn up the Sheriff’s radio and Jimmy was bent double to pick up the storm plug from the floor boards:  the back window blew out, rattling brittle, crystalline shrapnel against the windshield, and the Jeep was rocked like it had been kicked by an ill tempered giant that wasn’t satisfied with slapping a man and his horse to the ground.

The first propane truck’s driver twisted his wheel hard left, trying to avoid a collision with the burning remnants of the oil tanker:  the second was going too fast, three trucks collided and one went over.

There was the screaming hiss of liquefied gas escaping a small tear, a muffled WHOOF and the Sheriff came up on all fours, shaking his head, and looked at the roadway.

His jaw dropped.

He was too shocked to swear.

 

Chief Will Keller mashed his hoof down hard on the go pedal.

He was driving the oldest remaining vehicle in the fleet, a Crown Vic nobody else really liked, because … well, because it was a car, and everyone else wanted to drive the SUVs.

This suited Will just fine.

He was old friends with this particular Crown Vic.

He knew just how fast she would run and he knew just how much throttle to give her in a turn and he knew how to four wheel drift her if need be.

His roof lights were on, the electronic siren was screaming defiance into the teeth of the wind, and Will grinned as the red needle crossed over the 80 on the speedometer.

Will’s first act upon becoming Chief was to turn the lid over on the air cleaner, air pollution requirements be dammed, and he reveled in the deep song his Vic sang to him when he fed her a good dose of boot.

He ran the needle up to 90, knowing his siren’s vocal convulsions were well behind him:  at sixty miles per hour you’re outrunning your siren, but he ran it anyway, for liability reasons if nothing else.

The Fire Department had a head start, but he was going to close the gap just pretty darn quick, and he did.

 

“Ho, boy, ho, now, ho,” Linn soothed the staggering, skittish stallion:  Apple walled his eyes and pulled his head away as Linn reached for the bitless reins.

“Come on down now, fella, come on down, come here, ho, now, ho, boy,” Linn soothed, and Apple danced a little but allowed himself to be gripped, to be stroked.

Linn looked at a piece of metal, thin, sharp, hooked into the stallion’s ham:  he gripped it, twisted and pulled, removing it like a barbless fishhook:  Apple danced away, whinnied, shook his head.

Linn grimaced as he realized something hurt in his thigh, something wasn’t right, he reached down and felt blood and two rigid protrusions sticking out of his leg.

“Oh bloody hell,” he grated.  “I don’t need this!”

Linn moved in close, soothing the stallion with voice and hands, hopped twice and swung into the saddle, grimacing as the shift in the deep thigh muscles tore against the jagged metal impalers.

“I’m in the saddle,” he groaned, “I ain’t comin’ out!”

He pressed his right knee into Apple’s ribs.

The familiar weight, the familiar pressure, was all Apple-horse needed.

Linn turned them toward the roadway, toward the still figure lying face-up in the field.

 

Fibber died almost instantly.

He looked almost natural as he lay in the shortgrass, staring with wide and sightless eyes at the clouds overhead.

Linn looked up at the conflagration and swore.

He pulled out his Sheriff’s band talkie, keyed up.

“Dispatch, this is One.”

Cindy’s voice was full and rich and worried.

“One, Dispatch, your wife is on scene at an ambulance fire five miles east of town.”

Linn looked to his right, saw his Jeep, saw the school bus, saw the burning ambulance, saw the several windows blown out.

He took another look at the main fire and realized propane trucks were involved.

This time he did swear.

Loud.

 

John Rogers was the chief medic, a big man with bad knees and a good disposition.

Big John was rolling the patient cot when he tripped and went over backwards and the cot fell sideways—and the patient with it – right on top of him.

That was when something exploded, when chunks of something smacked into the upturned underside of the old Ferno Type 30 backbreaker, when his partner, sheltered by the corner of the ambulace, screamed “JOHN!  JOHN, ARE YOU HURT!”

Big John squirmed out from under the cot, gripped it with both hands and set it back on its wheels.  “Give me a hand,” he said patiently, “let’s get forward of the squad!”

The patient – she couldn’t have been more than nineteen, and she was beyond being “Big and Pregnant” and verging now on “I’m going to give birth to a minor planet,” shivered and looked from one medic to the other.

Big John looked down at her, smiling under his huge walrus mustache, winked.

“Did you ever have one of those days?” he asked, and the young mother-to-be laughed, and then she got a funny look on her face, and laid a hand on her huge, blanket covered belly.

 

Connie came up, eyes wide, blinking:  she looked over at the seat, looked at the two boys, and Jimmy looked at her with big and frightened eyes and exclaimed, “I didn’t do it!  Honest!”

Connie couldn’t help it.

She looked through what used to be a back window, looked at the burning ambulance and the wreckage of three trucks on fire, she looked at the distressed expression on Jimmy’s sincere little face, and she laughed.

 

“MRS. KELLER WE NEED YOUR HELP!”  Big John yelled, his baritone punching through the confusion of sounds.

Connie sat up, blinked, opened her door, stepped out.

Big John ran up, reached around her, hit the door unlock button.  “Mrs. Keller, you are now an ambulance. You are taking our patient and my partner to the hospital and you are doing it now!”

“I, but, I, ah, my, ohmygod,” Connie stammered, then she stepped around Big John’s portly frame and looked at the big-eyed girl on the cot.

“The baby’s coming,” Big John’s young patient almost whispered, and Connie turned, seized the rear door handle, hauled the Jeep’s back door open.

 

The Irish Brigade wheeled up and the Captain swore, loudly, bitterly.

It was much worse than he expected.

“Position here,” he shouted to the driver, “this’ll give us room for the tanker!  I want two lines on that truck!  We’ve flame impinging on that second truck!  Muldoon, check for injuries, get ‘em the hell out o’ there!  Murphy!  Grab that Mattydale and make attack!”

 

Linn galloped up to the scene, circled around the front of his wife’s Jeep.

“CONNIE!”  he yelled.  “YOU GOT THIS?”

Connie raised a hand, nodded.

Jimmy punched his seat belt and twisted free of his seat, grabbed the door handle, pulled.

The door opened easily and he half-slipped, half-jumped out.

He closed his door quietly, peeked under the Jeep, saw boots and hooves and his Mama’s pants legs.

He raised his head, looked back at the fire truck, grinned, a delicious sense of anticipation, of exploration spinning happily in his young belly.

This was too good to miss!

 

Muldoon stepped back as a work shoe’s sole hit the windshield of one of the propane truck’s windshields.

From the inside.

Glass spiderwebbed and crazed, held together by the laminating layer; another kick and it separated at one corner.

Muldoon ran gloved fingers into the gap, grabbed the glass and pulled.

Two hard pulls and two more kicks and one man was away and running, and Muldoon turned to the other truck’s cab.

He yanked open the door, froze.

“Oh, God,” he groaned, then closed the door.

 

The Captain knew how fast the pumper ate water and he knew with two lines out, their 250 gallons would go really, really fast:  he knew what happened when propane tanks were exposed to fire and he knew they had to keep them cool.

He knew their very lives depended on keeping those propane tanks from exploding.

He turned to the engineer, his expression as stress-edged as his voice.

“GIMME AN ETA ON THAT TANKER!  WE NEED WATER AND WE NEED IT NOW!”

 

Jimmy bent double, ran, scooted back past the burning ambulance, alongside the fire truck.

He stopped and laid a hand on the big Kenworth’s running board, letting the big Detroit Diesel’s voice hum through his bones, separating the two-stage pump’s whine from the engine’s throaty exhaust:  he stopped, dropped, looked under again.

His Mama’s Jeep was off the road, making a big circle in the field.

Jimmy grinned, looked around again.

He circled behind the tailboard of the truck, came up beside the fireman.

The man was down on one knee, shooting a spreading cone of water on one of the trucks:  it was over on its side, flame from the other truck was blasting on it, and this is where the water was going – right where the flames hit the tank.

Jimmy took another couple steps forward, interested, ignoring the sun-hot radiation reddening his face.

I could draw this, he thought.

Murphy raised his visor, grimaced as the heat hit his face.

“MULDOON!  GET HIM OUT OF HERE!”

Muldoon came trotting over, his jaw dropping as he realized … there was a …

What in the hell is a kid doing this close to a working fire?

Muldoon looked at his unexpected visitor, turned to look back at the engine.

“HOW MUCH WATER IS LEFT?” he yelled.

The engineer and the Captain looked at the gauge, looked at the flame, then the Captain realized a little boy was standing just forward of the active nozzle.

 

The Sheriff watched his wife circle off the road and into the field, keeping to the solid footing.

His wife and sons, two medics and a very pregnant young woman were headed back for the hospital.

He looked toward the fire and saw the shining, liquid crystal waterfall blasting out of a chromed Elkhart brass nozzle onto the second propane truck.

He knew flame impingement was the most dangerous situation – heat weakens steel, the contents were no doubt boiling, there would be a popoff valve to release critical pressure, but this would make a flamethrower.

From what he saw, the valve was pointed right toward the other propane truck.

When it let go things would get really bad, really fast, and all of a sudden the other side of the county was looking really, really good.

Knee and neck-rein and he turned his stallion, made for the lee of the pumper, getting the first fastest solid object between him and what was to come.

He did not see the little boy standing in the nozzle’s side spray, nor the Captain moving to grab him to safety.

The engineer punched the red button in the middle of the throttle knob, dropping the Kenworth’s engine to an idle just as the pumps screamed with frustration.

They were out of water.

Muldoon seized Jimmy, ran for the truck.

He’d gotten two steps when the popoff valve let go on the second tank.

He surged for the stainless diamondplate steps, launched and climbed and got Jimmy into the open back of the cab just as the Captain raised his visor and screamed,  “BREAK THE LINES AND GET ABOARD!  SHE’S GOING TO BLEVVIE!”

Muldoon set Jimmy in a contoured seat, yanked the lap belt across him, then ran the boy’s arms through the SCBA shoulder straps, hoping it would help keep the lad in place.

The Captain ran for the back of the truck, snatched a folding spanner from his coat pocket, desperately unwound the preconnect:  the line fell free, the spanner fell with it and the Captain ran for the passenger front of the truck.

The engineer unwound the Mattydale’s connection above him, let the brass hose coupling drop, scrambled up the polished, stainless-steel diamondplate steps and into the rear facing jump seat beside Muldoon, the Captain swarmed up into the cab, yelling  “GO, GO, GO, GO, GO!”

The driver released the air and floored the throttle by the Captain’s second “GO!”

The shining red Kenworth began backing away from what was soon going to be a very unpleasant situation.

 

Linn saw the tanker approaching in the distance.

Linn saw the Captain haul himself into the cab.

Linn did not see the boy belted into the rear-facing, passenger-side seat, hidden behind the sculpted, decorative fairing behind the pumper’s open cab.

He heard desperation in the Captain’s shout and he saw dropped hose lines and he heard the Kenworth’s supercharger whistle and he did not need to be handed an engraved invitation to head for the previously-considered, distant territory.

He turned Apple-horse’s backside to the mess and leaned forward, grimacing at the slicing pain in his thigh.

Apple didn’t much like the situation, either, and that simple shift of weight was all the stallion needed.

They launched like an arrow from a drawn bow, streaked across the meadow, the Sheriff giving the stallion his full-voiced encouragement, ignoring the voice from his Sheriff’s band talkie.

 

Connie looked in the rearview mirror, looked again.

“John,” she called, “is Jimmy back there with you?”

“Jimmy?”  John asked, puzzled.  “Who’s Jimmy?”

“Oh my God, he’s back there!”  Connie screamed, just as something detonated back in the wreckage.

A searing ball of twisting hell blasted outward, enveloping the wreckage.

The driver slammed his right eye shut and squinted his left, he kept his head turned a little, eyes fixed on the big chrome-plated West Coast driver’s side mirror, he aimed the side of the pumper like he would aim a shotgun and he kept his short-topped fireboot down hard on the throttle.

The supercharged Detroit Diesel screamed under the demand he placed on it and he held it steady as something blazed against his face, seared his knuckles gripped hard and white-knuckled on the wheel, as something slammed against the front of their pumper and blistered paint and melted the roof lights’ red domes and gave both he and the Captain an instant and painful sunburn, and it felt like someone just set off a bomb ahead of them.

 

Will  threw up a hand, squinted, filtered as much glare as he could through his eyelashes, hit the brakes hard enough to override the anti-lock:  tires squalled on the pavement and Will gripped the shifter, felt it drop into reverse.

Four hundred ninety enraged cubic inches, fed by four barrels of Holley carburetor and Conoco high-test gasoline, ran power down the drivetrain and burned several miles’ worth of rubber off the rear tires:  Will dropped his head to the side, using the side mirror to aim his car along the shoulder, then in spite of himself and his situation, he grinned and spun the wheel of his beloved Miss Victoria, screaming her around in a bootlegger’s turn, facing away from the rising ball of flaming gas.

Chief of Police Will Keller threw caution, training and good sense out the window and stomped the throttle like he was eighteen years old again, and the aging but well tended Crown Victoria responded like the lover she was.

The Crown Vic sang power and burning rubber as they headed away from Hell itself.

 

Linn hauled Apple-horse to a stop:  “HO, DAMN YOU, HO NOW!” – Apple reared, came down hard:  Linn was out of the saddle and nearly fell, but his grip on the reins was unbreakable:  he came upright, gripped Apple’s cheekstrap and laid a hand on the horse’s flank:  “DOWN!”  he barked, “GET DOWN!”

They’d come around a rise, God willing it was high enough, Linn knew what would happen when one (or both) the propane tanks failed, releasing liquefied gas:  it would flash instantly into vapor, the sphere of fire would flash outward, then pull into itself, its own heat would make it buoyant and the entire ball of fuel and flame would rise like a miniature thermonuclear detonation, and radiant heat alone would cause fires for a distance.

He ripped his vest open, losing a few buttons with the violence of his act – he threw the vest over Apple’s eyes, lay down across the stallion’s neck, buried his face in the crook of his elbow –

 

Jimmy waited until the big pumper slowed and stopped, waited until the men got out to examine the damage to their beloved Kenworth, their great red fire engine they spent so many hours polishing and washing and tending as if their lives depended on it, for indeed they did – Jimmy waited until they came back into the truck and the Captain picked up the microphone and said “Firelands Dispatch, Pumper One.”

Jimmy twisted a little, confined as he was with the walkaway harness and the seat belt.

“Could you tell my Mama I’m here with you?”  he called.  “She’s gonna be mad at me!”

Muldoon looked at Jimmy.

Murphy looked at Jimmy.

The engineer looked at Jimmy.

The driver turned and looked at Jimmy.

The Captain unfast his seat belt, turned around, knelt on his seat and looked over the back of the low divider at Jimmy.

Muldoon, Murphy, the engineer and the driver looked at one another, and then looked through the now-milky windshield, and laughed.

Cindy’s head snapped around as men’s laughter came through her dispatcher’s speaker.

“Dispatch, Firelands Engine One,” she heard the Captain call.  “We have a young passenger who wants to let his Mama know he’s all right.”  Cindy heard the voice, a little softer, as if the man forgot he still had the mike keyed up.

“Who’s Mama?”  he asked.

“Mrs. Sheriff,” Jimmy said confidently.

Connie pushed through the heavy glass double doors, her face the color of wheat paste, grief and distress carving premature wrinkles in her complexion.

“Pump One, say again your traffic, she is here on station, repeat traffic,” Cindy said, gesturing Connie closer.

“Tell Mrs. Sheriff we have her boy here and he’s all right.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

85.  WATER CLEAR AND NOT OVER THIRTY DAYS OLD

Linn waited until he didn’t feel any more heat.
He rolled off Apple’s neck, lay on the ground, arms thrown wide, his vest in his hand.
Apple-horse grunted, scrambled to his feet, lurching upright, stopped to snuff loudly at the Sheriff.
“All right,” Linn grunted.  “Give me a hand here.”
He gripped Apple’s trailing reins, wallowed himself up onto his knees, teeth locked against the pain:  he touched the protruding metal, decided not to yank it out, struggled clumsily to his feet.
“Stand,” he gasped, getting a boot into the doghouse stirrup.
He would have to kick off with his hurt leg.
No help for it, he thought, and with one smooth swing he was aboard.
“Hat,” he said aloud, clapping a hand to his bare head.
He closed his eyes against the pain in his leg and the other aches developing from his unplanned descent from the saddle with that first blast, then opened them, looking around in a vain search for his skypiece.
“The hell with it.”
He walked Apple to a nearby stream, let him drink some but not too much.
“Dispatch, One,” he said into the boxy talkie.
He waited – he walked Apple-horse forward, looked at the dirty smoke column rising from the wreckage – the talkie crackled again.
“One, Dispatch.  Status.”
Linn panted against the pain, turned Apple-horse toward Firelands, looked over to where Fibber’s dead body lay in burning grass.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Linn muttered, then raised the boxy, five-watt talkie and pressed the talk button.
“I’m in the saddle but I’m hurt.  Tell Doc Greenlees I’ll need something water clear and not over thirty days old.”

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller sat in the auditorium with the other Mars colonists.
They’d just been shown the latest from Earth, a special shipment of digital information, compressed, send with a double redundancy to guarantee these far away souls would get the clear and correct information:  now they sat in rows on printed chairs, on scavenged crates and silently watched the several news broadcasts, all discussing the same situation; there was video taken from the cameras on the pumper, there were eyewitness accounts, there were digital re-creations of the accident, and there was a little boy, maybe seven years old, a little boy with his arm around the shoulders of a truly immense, curly-furred, absolutely black mountain Mastiff.
The second-grader told his story the way an excited little boy will; then his Mama was interviewed, and her version was somewhat more coherent, and as she concluded, the camera swung back over to the little boy.
His tongue was protruding a little from the corner of his mouth, he had a clutch of pencils in his left hand, he was sketching quickly, precisely with his right, and the camera turned to look at the sketches he’d already drawn and discarded to the side before his interview began.
The announcer was silent as the camera closed in on a pencil rendering of a fireman, down on one knee, visor lowered against the heat, water fanning from the detailed nozzle in a flawless arc toward a bent and wrinkled tanker:  another drawing, another fireman, his visor up and a desperate expression on his face, pulling away a cracked and shattered windshield, and a man struggling to escape through the hole being made.
There was the view through the windshield, with a shadow-bottomed cloud, somehow still looking hot though rendered in the cool shades of pencil-grey, a rising ball of flame on a smoky column of fire, framed through the fire engine’s windshield, and the last drawing, the one the lad finished as the camera was brought to bear, a man on a horse, a man with a bloody leg and metal sticking out his thigh, a man with pale eyes and a muscle-bulged jaw.
A bare headed man with a six point star on his soiled vest.
Sheriff Marnie Keller raised her fingertips involuntarily to the silver, six point star embossed into the material of her Olympic skinsuit and she felt her eyes sting a little as she looked at this very lifelike drawing of her Papa, injured, but still tall in the saddle.
“I just thought you would like to see what was going on back in Firelands back home,” the new Director announced.  “Our own Sheriff is a native to Firelands, Colorado, and as you can see from this informative tourist video, it’s just as she’s told us several times already.”  He grinned and looked at Marnie and added, “Nothing ever happens there!”

 

The Captain, Muldoon, Murphy and the engineer comprised B shift.
They’d already agreed to go to a fireman’s parade with the restored Ahrens steam firefighting engine; they already had their 1885-era uniforms, their knee-high cavalry boots were polished, their pressed-leather Philadelphia fire helmets were clean, burnished; a rollback was donated for the effort, and they very carefully winched their beloved Ahrens onto the wrecker’s steel bed, boomed it down, watched with shallow breaths as the bed came up and rolled easily onto the frame of the truck, keeping its gleaming, burnished cargo level.
B Shift was their parade crew; they worked almost daily with the three white mares – whether these three were descended from any of Firelands Fire Department’s past three-horse-hitches, nobody knew, and really it did not matter:  these mares were native to the high country, these mares were used to pulling their Steam Machine, and these mares were old hands at being trailered here, there and yonder.
B Shift pulled out of Firelands after an early breakfast, and it wasn’t until they were five miles down the road that Muldoon groaned and hit the heel of his hand against his forehead a few times.
“Muldoon!”  the Captain groaned.  “Wha’d ye do this time?”
Muldoon looked up, misery on his face.
“I loaded the wrong hose,” he groaned.  “It’s all new stock.”
The Captain considered for a moment, then stroked his black handlebar mustache.
“Muldoon,” he said at length, “if ye had to screw up at least ye screwed up in th’ right direction.  It’s new and it’s clean an’ the populace will not know the difference!”
They sailed over the county line at sixty miles and hour, knowing they had another two hours’ drive ahead of them.

 

Linn picked Jimmy up out of the saddle, ignoring the ache in his leg:  he set the lad carefully down on the ground, knelt on his good leg, his healing leg thrust out to the side:  one hand on Jimmy’s shoulder, he put a finger to his lips, winked.
Jimmy nodded solemnly.
Linn raised two fingers in a V, touched under his own eyes, then turned and pointed.
He rolled over on his belly and crawled, slowly, methodically, and Jimmy bellied down on the cool morning grass and crawled with him, belly on the ground, working forward with a twist of his hips and walking on his elbows.

 

The truck slowed, stopped, and the Captain woke with a snort as the engineer elbowed him, hard.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

86.  MULDOON

 

Firemen are used to going from dead stop to wide open in a tenth of a second or less, and when the Captain opened his eyes to see his men bailing out of the crew cab, he thumbed the seat belt’s release and surged out his door as well.

Running feet pounded back to the horse trailer, the latches swung loose, turned, the doors swung open and the mares were brought out, tails swinging, nostrils flaring, dancing a little as they did.

The engineer motioned vigorously to the rollback’s driver:  “LET HER DOWN!  LET HER DOWN!”

When the Captain came around the end of the horse trailer, he saw why his men were in motion, and his own adrenalin pump kicked into gear.

There was a house afire, and it was not two hundred yards from the highway.

“I know that house!”  Muldoon yelled.  “There’s a hand dug well in front, slab cover, lift the hatch and we can draft for water!  It’s a good well!”

“I hope so,” the Captain yelled back as the mares were hitched to the Ahrens.  “How soon can we have steam?”

“I banked the fire so she’d be warm when we got there,” the engineer yelled back, throwing coal into the firebox.  “Stand clear!” – and he slung in a cupful of the devil’s breath itself, and fire whooshed out the broad, blunt stack, a momentary surge:  the hose wagon was hitched on, men swarmed aboard, the Captain climbed into the driver’s seat and gathered up the reins:  for no good reason he picked up the blacksnake whip, swung it in a great circle and snapped a hole in the air three feet over the middle mare’s ears:  “RUN, LADIES!  ST. FLORIAN, ST. CHRISTOPHER AND THE SACRED MOTHER, LADIES, RUN!”

The rollback driver grinned as he held up his cell phone, capturing something that had not been seen in well more than a century.

He captured the video of the Firelands Fire Department responding with a horse drawn, steam powered, fire engine, responding to an honest to God house fire.

 

Linn eased up another inch, another inch, stopped.

He raised his head slowly, peeked with one eye, a smile tightening the corners of his eyes, and he drew back, looked at Jimmy:  a twitch of his head for the go-ahead and Jimmy elbowed and wiggled his way up beside the pale eyed lawman.

Linn raised two fingers to his eyes, pointed.

Jimmy wiggled up just a little closer and raised his head.

Linn saw Jimmy’s eyes widen and his mouth form a little O of surprise.

Linn had brought any number of young into the mountains and he delighted in sneaking up on the elk.

He’d been lucky enough, when Marnie was a little girl, to have found a cow elk in labor.

Marnie chewed on her coat sleeve to keep from squealing with delight as the wet, awkward package spilled out of its Mama; Marnie was no stranger to calving or foaling either one, but here – here, in the mountains, without the familiar and protecting barn, without a thick layer of straw to receive the newborn, without the knowledge that her Daddy was supervising the birth and if anything went wrong her big strong Daddy could make it right but here, here in the mountains, it was different, so different – and now Jimmy was seeing a wobbly young elk taking its first steps, its first wobbly exploration, its first demanding thrusts of its little black nose into its dam’s udder.

They watched; the rest of the herd was nearby; father and son lay side by side, Linn’s arm warm and reassuring across the small of Jimmy’s back:  they lay there until Linn’s leg ached and he had to move, and he signaled Jimmy with small, cautious hand signs to go straight back.

The pair sneaked backwards some distance, finally coming into a little depression, where their horses grazed and stood hip-shot and lazy, and father and son mounted up and headed back.

 

The engineer grunted as he fought the weight of the hard suction.

He’d coupled the lengths, let them down, felt for the bottom and then raised it up about a foot, rolled a chunk under it to hold the weight of the bend:  Muldoon turned the coupling, connected it with the engine’s inlet.

Murphy had the hose pulled, waited at the front door, shining nozzle in hand, shifting his weight left and right, impatient to make the attack.

He beat on the front door with a leather-gloved fist.  

“FIRE DEPARTMENT!  ANYBODY HOME?”

Muldoon grabbed an ax, came at the door at just short off a jog, hit it with his shoulder.

He hit it again and the lock failed, splintering the door frame, slamming the door open:  the engineer threw the valve and the Ahrens two-cylinder pump began to hiss, running faster, the flywheel spinning into a shining blur:  he watched the pressure come up in the expansion dome gauge, then grinned and yelled “COMIN’ AT’CHA!” and opened the quarter-turn valve.

Water surged into the new, unused, shocking-clean firehose and the Firelands Fire Department’s horse drawn, steam powered pumper began putting the wet stuff on the hot stuff.

Muldoon dove in, bellied down:  he was in the period authentic, black rubber coated, canvas coat:  he stayed low, where a little good air could still be had:  he went from kitchen linoleum to carpet, the back of his mind reciting the chemical formulae for the many carcinogens released from carpet and carpet padding in a house fire.

He started left, stayed against the left of the wall, until he couldn’t see for the smoke, then he still stayed left, using his ax the way a blind man uses a white cane – feeling with the handle, his gloved fist gripping the good hickory handle just under the honed steel head.

He found a doorway, turned left, always left:  feeling blindly in the smoke, eyes stinging and burning in the hot, smoky air, he felt –

A bed –

Children hide from a fire –

He reached under the bed, found an arm.

He gripped, pulled:  a small, warm body came out, limp, unmoving.

He reached under again, found an ankle.

This one wiggled, pulled, he heard a protesting squeal, a child’s “Noooo!”

“My name’s Muldoon!”  he shouted.  “I’m a fireman!”

The protesting pulls stopped and he felt the child twist around:  a little girl scooted out, coughing, grabbed Muldoon’s coat.  “Mister Muldoon!  Help us!”

“Climb on my back now, lay down on my back!”  Muldoon shouted, and the child scrambled astride Muldoon’s rubber coat.  “Lay your head down over me shoulder now, that’s right!  Is anyone else in th’ house?”

“Mommy’s asleep,” the child rasped, then coughed.

Muldoon came about, one child around the waist and tucked under his arm, the ax thumping the wall and furniture as he went:  he came in hugging the left walls, he went out hugging the right, until he’d belly crawled over carpet and onto linoleum, until his throat was afire and he was coughing and he knew black snot was running out his nose:  he crossed the linoleum and saw light and made for the light, a black crab scuttling across what was once a spotless white floor, with a little crab in a nightgown on his back and another in pajamas under his arm.

Muldoon crawled over the threshold and into clean air and he slithered down the steps on his belly and hands lifted the child and Muldoon rolled over and brought the little boy across his belly and this too was lifted away.

Men in bunker gear ran up, looking from the smoking, chuffing steam engine to the fireman just visible inside, kneeling on the floor and spinning his straight stream in circles against the ceiling, shattering the water and blasting the hottest part of the fire with both direct and indirect extinguishment:  Muldoon looked up as an anxious young man in Nomex hood and helmet bent over him and said “Where’s you come from?”

Muldoon coughed, turned his head, spat. 

“The child said her Mama is asleep,” he shouted, coughed again, sat up, hacking:  he lifted his head but the young officer was already giving orders, and not a minute later, a young woman was carried out and laid on the ambulance cot, a green-plastic oxygen mask on her face.

“She’s alive,” the young Captain said, looking at firemen apparently from the previous century and maybe further back.  “What are you guys doing here anyway?”

Muldoon looked at his Captain, who twisted the ends of his handlebar mustache, reached down; fireman gripped officer and Muldoon was hauled to his feet.

“Good job, Muldoon,” he said quietly, and Muldoon grinned, brushed back his own curled handlebar mustache.  “I made the rescue, Cap, you’re buyin’ the beer!”

 

Linn realized he’d overestimated his own abilities.

He’d planned on riding into town with Jimmy.

He was lucky to make it back to his own hacienda.

Man and boy got to the barn; the ride was not terribly long, nor was it strenuous, and it was more habit than necessity that the horses were brushed and rubbed and grained.

Linn walked slowly, Jimmy matching his pace to the lawman’s, and once inside, Linn went on upstairs to change clothes.

Jimmy seized his usual handful of pencils – even if he used only one, he liked the feel of a fistful of them in his off hand – and began drawing, and as Connie watched from a few feet away, feeding her own young, the figure of a small and gangly elk squeezed from inside the pencil onto the paper, then the cow elk, and finally a meadow, with other elk, with trees, with great boulders, with a mountain in the background.

 

Linn made it into town and had the bandages changed on his leg; there was some infection, which he’d suspected, and he tolerated the medical ministrations without flinch or grunt, though by the time they were done, the sweat was standing out on his forehead.

As bad as hauling himself into the saddle was, once he was astride the stallion, it was less uncomfortable than driving himself, and the Sheriff was too stiff-necked and proud to have someone else drive him – though he could have, he knew – and so a long, tall Sheriff rode up to the courthouse, tethered his horse at the hitch rail, dismounted:  he touched his hat brim to the ladies as he went in, as he always did, and only the automatic pistol on his belt really distinguished himself from his predecessors of a century before.

“Sheriff!”  the clerk smiled.  “How’s the leg?”

“Sore,” Linn admitted.  “I’m here for the inquest.”

“Go on in, Sheriff, you’re expected.”

 

That evening, the Firelands Fire Department’s firehouse was indeed a full house.

Whenever there was a fire, the off shifts reported to the firehouse in case their manpower would be needed – and more often than not, so did their families, and when their families came, so did their meals, and that meant the firehouse smelled of excitement and cooking.

Tonight the Ahrens steam engine was in the equipment bay in lieu of their pumper;  with their pumper at the high school, where the automotive class had a priority repair on lights, paint and gold-leaf lettering (something they did very well indeed), the Ahrens sat proudly in the bay once again, and the original chimney extension was actually found and fitted, so the banked fire could exhaust out the chimney as the engine slept, clean, shining and ready.

The drill was actually to have their pumper-tanker respond to any fires; it had the same capability of a pumper, but carried a thousand gallons of water instead of only 250, as did the pumper:  their tanker blew a tire the day before on its way to the propane truck fire, and though the crew set the land speed record for changing a tire, they were still too late to assist with the disaster.

Tonight the steam engine was the hero, and the mares were bedded in their stable next door, instead of inside the firehouse:  when they switched from horse drawn to self propelled a century before, they’d converted the mares’ inside stable to two offices, and so bringing the mares inside, however romantic, was not quite workable.

The engine, on the other hand, was lovingly burnished, carefully buffed, shined and readied for its next run, even if that was another fireman’s parade.

The Captain was as good as his word – the entire Irish Brigade trooped up to the Silver Jewel, all three shifts in their red wool bib front shirts and knee high leather boots – and Muldoon was hailed with rowdy, noisy, obscene, rude, crude and socially unacceptable toasts and mug raisings, and nothing would do but Muldoon step up onto one of the tables, beer mug in hand, and give his absolute truthful and completely honest and accurate account of what happened, what were the transpired facts that had them fighting fire in someone else’s fire district.

As good as it felt to have the hearty hails of his fellows, Muldoon received an even greater award two days later.

It came in a brown manila envelope.

It was drawn on green tinted, wide lined paper, it was in crayon, and it was drawn by the hand of a child.

It showed a smiling stick figure with yellow curls for hair riding on a smiling stick figure in a black triangle of a coat, with a big black mustache and a triangular black fire helmet, and under it with flowers and butterflies, in pink crayon it said “Thank you Mr. Muldoon your friend Annie” and when Muldoon looked at it, he bit his bottom lip and the rest of B shift looked away and pretended not to see him fumble for the red bandanna he kept in a hip pocket.

Annie’s thank-you ended up framed and hung on the bunkroom wall that same day, and that night, before he lay down for the evening, Muldoon went out to the steam engine and laid his hand on her shining pressure dome and whispered, “Annie thanks you, darlin’, and so do I.”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

87.  HE DID WHAT WITH THAT BAD LEG?

 

Muldoon tilted his heavy beer mug, drained its contents.

Beer was of little consequence to him, save as something he drank when in the companion of friends, when he was being sociable;  Muldoon was anything but small, his height was two fingers over six feet, his belt was about forty inches, but none could say the man was fat.

Far from it.

On the very few occasions when anyone but B shift saw him shirtless, Muldoon’s flat belly was impressively rippled; his shoulders were broad, his arms muscled – with his curled, absolutely black mustache, he would be a striking figure in any era, in any garb.

For his size, for his strength, Muldoon was an even tempered and good natured sort – so much so that when the local toughs sought to provoke the man’s temper, he ended up laughing and buying them a beer, joking with them and getting them to laugh as well, in spite of themselves.

Muldoon’s shift ended earlier that day; he was a bachelor, he rented a room off a retired schoolteacher, his habits were regular, his life simple, uncomplicated, thrifty:  tonight he came to the Silver Jewel for supper and indulged his appetite with their special of the day, and mingling easily with the locals, he listened, he laughed, and he talked.

He'd waved to the Sheriff earlier that evening, noticing their lean waisted badge packer was moving stiff and slow, as if more than his leg was paining him:  Muldoon more than understood the man’s burn injuries, for Muldoon’s very profession was fighting the fire that wished to consume the entire earth, and given the chance, would do just that:  Muldoon knew what it was to be hurt in a fire, and Muldoon had the scars to prove it:  still, he reasoned, a man who would knowingly, deliberately, stand in a moving river of gasoline, spilled from a gutted-out fuel tank, fighting a jammed door to get a mother and children out – such a man, he reasoned, had to be admired, for his resolve and sheer will, if nothing else.

He said as much to the man to his left, a fellow descended from some of the first residents of Firelands, a man who’d spent his entire life here in the high country, a man whose grandfather was a rancher, whose father was a rancher, and who himself was a rancher:  he was a man with calluses on his hands, with his own aches from the bones broken from miscalculation, or from sheer bad luck, and now as he shared a companionable beer with the off-duty fireman, he was a man staring in utter surprise and complete incredulity.

“Why, man,” he said, “you didn’t hear?”

“Hear what?”  Muldoon’s big hand dropped toward the basket of popcorn, fresh, hot, steaming, buttered and lightly salted before being slid over to him:  popcorn was free, popcorn was a favorite, and popcorn guaranteed a thirsty man would stay thirsty and buy more beer.

Muldoon knew this and he didn’t care.

Muldoon liked his popcorn.

“Why, the Sheriff – he was near beat to death by a bull elk!”

Muldoon stopped, lowered his hand, closed his mouth, favored the rancher with a raised eyebrow.  “Do tell!” he exclaimed quietly, then looked down at his hand as if he’d forgotten it, then raised it and began eating one kernel at a time, his eyes fixed on the rancher.

 

Jimmy held Stomper’s reins in his hand and shook his admonishing, little-boy-sized finger at the huge, towering plow horse.

“Now Stomper,” he declared in his high pitched voice, “you gotta stay right here!”

Stomper blinked, turned his head, contemplating what mysteries might lie over the far horizon.

“Stomper, I am talking to you!”  Jimmy said, and in the distance, a whistle blew:  The Lady Esther was pulling the grade, hauling her passenger cars, her freight cars and a caboose as she always did, breathing hard as she charged the grade.

Stomper shook his head, stomped a forehoof.

“Yes you do!”  Jimmy scolded.  “You gotta learn it is not gonna hurtcha!”

Stomper swung his head, looked up the tracks.

For a rarity, Stomper was saddled:  Jimmy had a little help that day and he preferred to ride with a saddle ‘cause the Sheriff rode with a saddle and he wanted to ride with a saddle like the Sheriff did.

“Uh-oh,” Jimmy said in a small voice, then he turned and saw The Lady Esther in the distance, heading toward them:  the tracks ran straight, they ran uphill, and he could see her smoke turning from white to dark grey as she began laboring – “she pins her ears back and hauls,” the Sheriff had said, and Jimmy had to imagine her with ears ‘cause he didn’t see any but he could tell she was starting to work ‘cause her chuff was more of a bark and he knew she’d be barking hard by the time she made the crest.

Jimmy took Stomper’s reins in a shorter grip, pulled him around:  Stomper allowed himself to be turned.

Jimmy climbed up on the rock, got his boot into the stirrup, swung easily into the saddle, sat there and felt uncertainty and a little fear.

The bull elk stood on the tracks, shaking its antlers.

He’d heard The Lady Esther’s whistle.

An acquaintance of the Sheriff’s had told the pale eyed lawman and Jimmy one night about driving truck for the first time in the mountains.  He said he’d come around a curve and a bull elk was in the middle of the road.

He’d laid on the air horns to get the bull out of the way, he was doing road speed as he came around the bend, and that bull elk was not at all impressed by a Western Star hauling several tons of drill stems.

The bull elk charged the tractor-trailer and though the driver kept control of his rig, it did very unpleasant things to the bull, and he had to get on the radio and call for service because the bull’s tines punched his radiator, and a big Diesel doesn’t go very far without a steady flow of coolant.

Jimmy remembered this and he remembered his Pa said they did the same thing to train engines if they blew their whistle, and Jimmy looked down the tracks at the oncoming locomotive and he looked up the tracks at the elk.

“I gotta stop him, Stomper,” he whispered.

 

The rancher nodded solemnly, accepted the sandwich from the pretty little waitress.

“You should have seen it,” he said, taking a bite and chewing solemnly.  “He waited on a tree branch until the elk passed under him and then he dropped down on him like he was dropping down onto a saddlehorse in the movies or something.”

“No!”  Muldoon raised a summoning finger and the waitress sashayed over, swinging her hips, flaring her skirt and assessing the muscled fireman’s form. 

That sandwich smelled pretty good and in spite of his having just eaten a full meal, he suddenly had the urge for a bite.

 

Jimmy looked at the lariat in his hands.

He’d been practicing.

The Sheriff admitted he’d used a loop now and then, and Jimmy immediately began practicing, because he knew the man was fond of understatement:  if he said he’d used one now and then, it meant he was pretty darn good with it and he didn’t want to brag.

Jimmy had gotten pretty good with his too.

He’d learned to drop a loop over a horse’s head, over a cow’s head, over a fence post, and immediately dally a few quick turns around the saddle horn, and Stomper – born a warmblood, used to pull loads and plow – had the strength of his ancestry, but the quick reflexes of a cow pony.

The elk came running towards them and Jimmy gave Stomper his heels and the pair took out on a parallel course.

The engineer saw the boy and the horse start to race the bull elk and he automatically reached for the whistle’s weighted chain, hauled down on the valve, blew a noisy finger of screaming steam into the clear Colorado air, and the bull snorted and whistled his own challenge, and Jimmy’s lariat floated out as pretty as any professional’s and dropped right over the bull’s rack the very moment the bull lowered his head.

Jimmy whipped four fast turns around the saddlehorn and Stomper steered hard right and the bull elk snorted with a strangled surprise as the lariat twanged and brought him off his feet.

The Lady Esther thundered by, drivers, pistons, cars and wheels absolutely obliterating the little boy’s cry of pain as the plaited riata came down  across his thigh.

The impact, the unexpected pull in the completely unexpected direction, brought the bull off his hooves and just far enough off the rails not to get hit, hurt or run over:  a creature of the wild, the bull had excellent reflexes and scrambled for its feet.

Stomper heard Jimmy’s yell of pain and saw the bull come to its feet, the big, muscled, broad backed warmblood saw the bull gather itself and the horse surged to the side.

The bull charged, the bull came to the end of the riata again, the bull didn’t lose its feet but it was a near thing, and Jimmy gave a strangled bleat as it felt like his leg was being cut off.

The Sheriff came over the rise just in time to see this second jerk-and-spin.

What he said in that moment does not bear repeating in polite company.

He reached down, gripped the Winchester rifle and pulled it free.

It was not the first time a horseback Sheriff drove his heels into his horse and charged screaming into a fight, rifle in hand, more than willing to commit mayhem and murder to keep one of his own alive and unhurt.

 

Jimmy unwound the lariat from the saddlehorn.

He knew if he kept the elk prisoner, his leg would suffer again, and two deep bruises from a taut line were more than enough:  the line burned his hand as it seared around the saddlehorn and was gone.

The elk, free of the hated restriction, shook his rack, then realized another was charging him.

He turned, coming up on hind legs and turning fast:  with three long leaps he was around a rock, two more and into the woods, and the Sheriff drew up fast, Apple’s hooves skidding as he came to a stop beside Stomper-horse.

The Sheriff’s eyes were pale, his face was pale, his face was tight-drawn over his cheekbones, and Jimmy shrank a little, certain he was going to get yelled at and hit and probably in that order.

The Sheriff did not raise his voice.

“Jimmy,” he said, “are you hurt?”

Jimmy shook his head, swallowed, nodded.

The Sheriff turned Apple, turned him in a complete, dancing circle, almost a slow spin:  once more around, then he thumbed the octagon barrel rifle to half cock and thrust it back into its carved leather scabbard.

“Jimmy,” he said again, “are you hurt?”

Jimmy nodded, ran a finger across the thigh of his jeans.

“The rope pinched me,” he said ruefully, and the Sheriff nodded.

“I’ve done that,” he said in an understanding tone.  “Hurt quite a bit as I recall.”

Jimmy nodded.

“Lose your rope?”

Jimmy nodded again, misery claiming his young face.

“Don’t worry,” the Sheriff said.  “I’ll get it back.  You head back to the barn.  Get the saddle off Stomper, park it on a hay bale will be okay.  Rub him down, give him a bait of grain and have Mama check your leg.  It’ll likely bruise up some.”

He did not wait for a reply before he was spun about again, and riding after the departed bull elk.

 

“He didn’t tell me what all happened,” the rancher confided, “but he did let it slip he promised that boy of his he’d get his lariat back, and he told me never to try dropping down on a bull elk’s back.  That’s all he’d say, but from the look of him, he tried and got beat seven ways from Sunday!”

 

Linn saw the elk, and he knew the elk, and he knew this elk would take a particular path.

He’d made a study of the elk hereabouts and knew each one as an individual.

He knew this one would run for about half a mile once he was spooked, then he would slow down and walk and he’d coast to a stop in a particular meadow.

He bet himself he knew exactly where the elk would come out.

He’d left horses in the meadow before to see what the elk would do, and they paid their fellow four legged herbivores little mind, and so Linn left Apple-horse to wander out into the meadow and graze, while he himself selected a likely tree with a convenient branch, and he waited, and sure enough, he’d no more than gotten himself in position when the elk came down the path.

Linn saw the lariat was around the base of his antlers.

How in two hells did a little boy make that kind of a roping cast? he wondered, then – realizing he’d play hell trying to get it loose and flipped off those long, tined antlers, thought I’d best just cut the loop and roll off his back.

He reached to the back of his belt, pulled a four inch fixed blade.

Soon as I make the cut I throw the knife, he thought. 

No sense in getting cut while I’m at it!

 

“I went up to the meadow above our place and scouted around some til I found tracks, and I studied those tracks until I puzzled out what happened.”

Muldoon took the sandwich from the waitress, handed her two bills, thanked her quietly, then looked back at the rancher.  “What did happen?”  he asked, biting into the hot, flavorful burger.

The waitress turned away, disappointed, wishing he would look at her the way he looked at that rancher.

 

Linn thrust the knife, edge up, made a fast, slashing cut, parted the plaited reata with a hard pull:  sheer luck alone got his honed edge through the several layers of braided, stretched leather, and he’d no more landed, thrust, and cut, than he rolled off, rolled away, came up, knife still in hand.

I meant to ditch that, he thought, scuttling behind a tree as the bull elk half-bawled, half-screamed, whirled and stood there, grinding its teeth.

All of a sudden, four inches of honed steel in the lawman’s fist felt pretty darn puny, and seventeen rounds of department issue ammo in his plastic pistol didn’t feel that much better.

The elk whirled, trotted out into the meadow, and the Sheriff stood slowly, backed up a step, reached behind him and slid the knife back into its sheath:  he backed another, only there was nothing to receive his second step, and he went over backwards into a depression, falling awkwardly and without any preparation.

He fell badly, but not far, bruising his pride and knocking the wind out of himself:  he’d gotten up, limped painfully out of the trees, looking cautiously about, then he whistled up Apple-horse and set course for a nearby ranch house.

If nothing else he would borrow a broom and a set of hands to ply that broom and brush the dirt off his entire backside.

 

“He jumped out of a tree just t’ recover a riata?”  Muldoon breathed, shaking his head. “Dear God, doesn’t he realize a rope isn’t worth gettin’ hurt?”

The rancher shrugged.  “It was his boy’s rope.  For all I know ‘twas the Sheriff who roped the elk and he had a guilty conscience.”

The two men hoist their tankards to a man with sand enough, or stupidity enough, to jump a-straddle of a grown elk.

They drank.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

88. YOU ARE NEEDED

 

Jimmy sat, dejected, on the hay bale.

He’d gotten the saddle off Stomper-horse but it hit the ground and his leg hurt and he hadn’t got it wallowed up onto the hay bale.

He’d lost his lariat, the Sheriff was mad at him, his young conscience crushed his heart as effectively as if a mountain dropped onto his young shoulders, and his bottom lip was run out so far it nearly touched his belly button.

So sunk in misery was the child that he didn’t hear the approach of an Appaloosa stallion at an easy walk.

He looked up as a shadow blocked the doorway’s light, then dropped his head again.

Linn came in, leading Apple-horse:  he fetched off the saddle, hung it up, slung the saddle blanket easily over the side of a stall, nodded his approval as he saw a few stray grains of corn in the feed trough:  Stomper always left a few, unlike Apple-horse, who greedily lipped up every last grain of corn and snuffed around for more.

Linn tended his mount and Jimmy sank further into misery, the silence growing like a thick black pool, until the bright clatter of grain hitting the feed trough made him jump a little.

Linn limped over, set down beside the boy – awkwardly, with a bulge to his jaw muscles the boy wasn’t used to seeing – and he ran his arm around Jimmy’s shoulders.

“I need your help,” he said quietly.

Jimmy looked up, surprised.

Linn looked at his saddle and the riata coiled and hanging from his saddle horn.

“I’m going to have to put a new honda on that,” he nodded.  “I cut the old one to get it off that elk.”

Jimmy made a dejected little sound and shrank a little under the weight of the lawman’s forearm.

“Tell me about ropin’ that elk.”

Linn’s voice was gentle, quiet, and Jimmy leaned into him.

Linn looked down at the boy, a momentary surge of triumph searing through him.

This was the first time the lad had leaned toward him instead of away from him – and when he’d just asked the boy to tell him what happened, and he showed that trust by leaning in instead of out –

“I ‘membered what he said about blowin’ air horns at an elk,” Jimmy began.

Linn’s head came up, his mouth opened.  “Ahhhh, yesssss,” he agreed quietly as the boy’s words triggered his own memory.

“I took Stomper down to the tracks ‘cause I want him to get used to the train an’ we saw that elk on the tracks an’ the train blew its whistle an’ the elk took out down the tracks an’ I didn’t want the elk killed an’ I been practicin’ ropin’ an’ I roped him an’ when I dallied around the saddlehorn it come down on my leg an’ it hurt!”  Jimmy said, his voice rushed, excited, breathy, and the Sheriff laughed quietly, gripping the boy’s shoulder, as part of him marveled that the boy could say so much on one breath, and part of him remembered what it was to be young and excited.

“It looked like Stomper yanked that big fella off his feet.”

The Sheriff’s voice was quiet, reassuring, a trick he’d used in interrogations.

Jimmy nodded, the side of his head against the Sheriff’s ribs.

“Twice,” Jimmy said, “but the riata came down across my leg an’ it hurt!”

The Sheriff took a long breath, hugged Jimmy closer, patted his own thigh with a gloved hand.

“Jimmy,” he said, “you are not supposed to imitate my bad examples.”  The Sheriff laughed and Jimmy looked up at him, puzzled.

“Jimmy, I’m healing up from being burnt, I’ve been punctured with shrapnel and right now I’m hobblin’ like an old man.”  He grinned at the boy, giving his off shoulder another gentle squeeze.  “You, on the other hand, shouldn’t be gettin’ hurt.  You should run like the wind itself and your balance should be good as a tightwire walker.”  He paused.  “That does not mean I want you walking tight wires or fence tops and it doesn’t mean you have to run everywhere.”

Jimmy felt his stomach lose some tension, for he’d fancied that was exactly what the Sheriff was suggesting.

“I need your help, Jimmy.”

“Huh?”

Linn looked down at the lad, then rose, turned another bale so he could set down and face the boy.

He reached over and took Jimmy’s hands, then let them go, pulled off his gloves and laid them on the bale beside him, took the boy’s hands in his own.

“Jimmy, you were an only child as I recall.”

Jimmy nodded.  “That man” – he only referred to his former father as “that man” – “said I was a whelp and a leech and he didn’t want any more.”

Jimmy felt the Sheriff’s hands tighten involuntarily, just a little, and the lawman’s eyes went a shade less blue, and Jimmy quailed inside because he’d learned to spot anger early so he could hide, but there was no hiding from the Sheriff’s anger.

Linn’s voice was still gentle, reassuring.

“Jimmy, you’re already a big brother, you know that.”

Jimmy nodded.

“Wes just plainly adores you.  He crawls after you, when he stand up and grabs the edge of a table he walks toward you and I pulled a dirty trick on him the other day.”

Jimmy blinked, surprised:  dirty tricks were something he’d never thought the Sheriff might pull.

Linn’s grin was slow but broad.

“Wes will walk if he can hold onto my fingers.”

Jimmy nodded.  He’d seen the Sheriff bent over, little Wesley Albert squealing with delight, hands above his head, gripping the Sheriff’s big fingers.

“I took two clothes pins and let him grip those, and I held onto those clothes pins and he walked just fine.”

Jimmy nodded, puzzled.

“Yesterday he grabbed hold of those clothes pins and took out a-walkin’ and I let go of the clothes pins.  He thought I still had hold of ‘em and he walked just fine.”

Jimmy’s eyes widened a little and he grinned – quickly, a bright flash – and Linn’s reassuring voice was colored with hidden laughter.

“He wouldn’t walk unless he was holdin’ onto something.  He got halfway across the floor and looked up and realized I wasn’t there and he sat down of a sudden.

“But now he realizes he can walk and he’s going to be getting in trouble.”

Linn leaned forward a little, his voice taking on a serious tone.

“Jimmy, I need you to ride herd on him.  Wes doesn’t know it’s dangerous for someone his size to try the stairs, he doesn’t know not to reach for a hot iron or a knife or a rattlesnake or God help us, a skunk!”

“A skunk?”  Jimmy said quietly as his imagination painted the distressing portrait, for he knew what a skunk could do, he’d seen a playmate tease a skunk one time and come out in a very malodorous second place.

Linn nodded.  “That,” he said, “is where you come in.”

“Me?”  Jimmy’s voice was as tiny as he felt.

“Jimmy, he trusts you, and so do I.”  Linn’s expression was intense, his eyes unblinking.  “You are going to be there when I’m not, maybe when Mama is not, you are my agent in these matters.”  He cupped Jimmy’s cheek in his palm.  “Jimmy, I am depending on you to be a big brother.”

Jimmy nodded, his eyes big and solemn, as he realized something important just happened.

A grown man was trusting him – actually trusting – him! – and he knew this was fact … because a man had just placed his hand on his face without a swing and a slap.

In that moment, had the Sheriff asked, Jimmy would have torn out his beating heart and laid it on the straw and chaff covered floor in front of the man’s boots.

“Part of being a big brother is being reliable.”

Jimmy nodded, silently vowing to be as reliable as the rising sun itself.

“If Mama says to stay put with Wes, I have to be able to depend on you doing just that.”

Jimmy’s face fell, dismay pulling his young heart down to his boot tops.

“There’s one thing I’m curious about,” Linn almost whispered.

Apple-horse’s attentions to the feed trough’s last dregs were surprisingly loud in the barn’s peaceful hush.

Jimmy blinked quickly, his eyes on the Sheriff’s.

Linn looked directly at the young boy and asked, “What was it like when you walked up beside that fireman, with the engine singing behind you, water blasting out the nozzle and fire blasting against the pavement?”

Jimmy’s eyes widened with the memory and his pulse picked up as he remembered.

He began to talk, quickly, the way a little boy will, and the Sheriff listened closely, and saw the scene through the eyes of a spontaneous, impulsive, intensely curious little boy who reminded him so much of himself at that young age.

Linn listened patiently, he felt his face relax, and Jimmy saw something that brought a surprise and a very cautious – very cautious – delight to his young heart.

He saw the Sheriff start to smile, just a little, as if he too were seeing what the boy was describing.

Linn nodded slowly when the narrative was finished.

“Mama wanted you to stay with Wes,” he said softly, “because she wanted someone she could trust to stay with him.”

Jimmy’s face fell as fast as his young heart.

He’d done something he’d really wanted to do – he’d gone to see what all the excitement was about – and now he’d disappointed someone he really, really didn’t want to disappoint.

Linn was silent for a long moment, considering, and Jimmy tasted bitter ashes.

In a way the man’s silence was worse than the belt.

Finally Linn looked up and he looked over Jimmy’s head, then looked left and right as if to make sure no cowans or eavesdroppers were skulking about, listening.

He gestured Jimmy closer, leaned confidentially forward, and whispered with a wink, “Jimmy, when I was your size, I probably would have done exactly the same thing!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

89.  EL CIELO CON ESTRELLAS

 

Jimmy looked up at his bedroom ceiling and smiled.

He and the Sheriff painted it, and he smiled as he recalled.

They’d spread blue tarps to protect the floor, all the furniture was out, the Sheriff had taken trash bags and scissors and duct tape and fashioned an oversuit for Jimmy and for himself, hood and all:  he’d taken his own clear plastic grinding visor, sized it down to fit Jimmy’s much smaller head, then with the ladder beside them to hold the paint tray, the Sheriff hoisted Jimmy up onto his shoulder, where the lad perched on one half of his backside, the Sheriff’s big strong hands steadying him, and Jimmy carefully, methodically did his best to get more paint on the ceiling than he did on himself.

He was surprisingly successful, though when all was said and done, the Sheriff was grateful for tarps and black plastic, even if they were using water based latex.

Jimmy closed his eyes and relaxed, remembering how reassuring the big man’s hands were, holding him on that wobbly seat, and he smiled and began to drift.

He drifted until something hit his bed.

Jimmy’s eyes snapped open and he smelled dust and cattle and he sat up, suddenly, looking around, absolutely at a loss to understand how his bed was no longer in his bedroom.

He was in the middle of a nighttime prairie.

He smelled wind and dust and cattle and long horned beeves were bedded around him, some were walking very lazily and grazing before folding their legs and bedding down.

He laid down, closed his eyes tight, opened them.

The stars were still there.

El cielo, he thought, connecting the word for ceiling with the Spanish for sky.

Estrellas.

Stars.

His quick young mind connected them, and as it did, a woman’s voice said softly, “El cielo con estrellas.”

He sat up again, stared at the pretty lady with pale eyes astride a huge black horse.

Jimmy blinked, confused, then asked hesitantly, “What … ?”

“You were going to ask what I was doing here,” the pretty lady smiled, “then it occurred to you that perhaps you should ask what are you doing here.”

Jimmy blinked, considered, nodded.

“Look around.”

She swept her arm in a wide, slow arc, indicating the surrounding herd.

“Every one of these is one of your thoughts.  Most of them are quiet, a few are restless – ‘scuse me.”

The pretty lady whirled the big black mare and galloped toward a longhorn that was rising to its feet, shaking its head and bellowing.

Jimmy did not have much experience with the wild Texas longhorn, but he knew anger when he heard it, and he watched as the pretty lady raised her arm and a lariat with it, as the lariat floated lazily and gracefully against night’s velvet, as it widened and dropped over the wide-set horns and then snapped taut, as he black glove spun the plaited leather around her horn and the big black mare hauled hard against the long horned bovine.

It hit the ground hard, hit on its side, grunted.

“Now if you’re a good boy,” the pretty lady said to it, “I’ll let you up, but if you misbehave I’ll have to send you away and you don’t want that, now, do you?”

The big beef muttered and shook its head, its long, curved horns wagging almost comically.

A snap of the wrist, the lariat expanded, floated back to the pretty lady’s coiled loops, dropped of its own accord over her saddle horn.

Jimmy did not wonder at this.

He was in the realm of dreams, and funny things happen in dreams.

She rode back to him and he asked “What was that?”

“Your’re dreaming,” the pretty lady explained. 

“I know that.”

“Most of these are your thoughts.  That one” – Jimmy looked at the big beef, turning its head and looking around – “was going to get all wild and cause you a nightmare.  You see, Jimmy, nighttime and dreams are when we sort out everything we’ve seen in a day’s time, everything we’ve done, we make sense of it and sometimes a thought decides it wants to throw a tantrum.”

“Like that little kid in the grocery store.”

“You saw that too.”  The pretty lady nodded. 

“So how come I’m here?”

The pretty lady smiled again, walked her big black mare over against the bed.

Jimmy felt the bed shiver as big muscled legs bumped against the head board.

He reached out, caressed the healthy, shining hide, felt hair, felt warmth, felt the horse breathe.

“She’s real,” he whispered, eyes widening in wonder.

“Of course she’s real!”  the pretty lady laughed.  “Her name is Snowflake.”  She looked across the bed.  “Of course you already know The Bear Killer.”

Jimmy turned, surprised, and The Bear Killer grinned at him with a big doggy smile and gave a quiet, doggy-whisper “Whuff” of greeting, his great plume of a tail swinging happily as he thrust his big head across the bed.

Jimmy’s hands went to the Tibetan Mountain Mastiff and his hand told him The Bear Killer was very real.

“Jimmy.”  The pretty lady’s voice was pleasant, night-quiet, and he looked at her again.

“Jimmy, the Sheriff cares very much about you and he really, really likes you.  He knows you’re afraid of him and he’s trying hard to overcome that fear.”

Jimmy nodded solemnly.

“It will take a long time for you to learn to trust and that’s all right.   He has to learn patience and he has to learn some other things that I can’t tell you about.”

“Why not?”  Jimmy asked innocently.

“Because it’s his to learn.  You could help him learn it fast and easy but he has to come to it on his own.”

“Oh,” Jimmy said, disappointed.

“Now . I’m here because I told you I ride night guard.  Do you know what the night guard is?”

Jimmy shook his head.

“Look around.  See all these cattle?”

Jimmy looked around, nodded.

“Every one of them is one of your thoughts.  There are a lot of them, aren’t there?”

He nodded again.

“The night guard rode around the cattle herd during a cattle drive and made sure they stayed bunched.  When they’re all together at night they’ll sleep.  The night guard sang as he rode, sang quietly so as not to surprise them.  If they were surprised they’d all wake up scared and they’d stampede and scatter, and the cowboys would have an awful lot of work rounding them back up.  Unless, of course, the stampede ran over the sleeping cowboys, which could really mess up their future plans.”

Jimmy laughed a little at that, for he’d heard the Sheriff talk about falling off a ladder and how it could really mess up his vacation plans if he’d killed himself from his own carelessness.

“I’m going to ride herd now, Jimmy.  I’m going to make sure there are no more restless beef cattle to try and provoke a stampede.  That’s kind of what nightmares are.  All of a sudden all your thoughts panic and try to run away and a nightmare is as scary as all get-out.”

Jimmy took another long breath and it smelled like his bedroom, it smelled like sun dried linens and he lay back and looked up at the ceiling that he and the Sheriff painted.

His left hand found The Bear Killer’s head.

“You’re still here,” he murmured, and The Bear Killer sighed contentedly as the boy’s questing fingers found the place behind his ears that he always liked.

Jimmy blinked, yawned, then relaxed again, and as he started to drift, he heard the pretty lady’s voice, singing quietly to the cattle as she rode slowly around his herd.

 

Connie smiled as the Parson’s wife exclaimed in delight at the loaves of still-warm sourdough.

Nothing would do but that Mrs. Parson set her down and make some tea, and Connie looked down at the infant in his carrier and smiled, for young Wesley Albert showed the same tendency of habit as his sire:  Linn said once, “When I get my belly full and I get set down, I’m like an old b’ar, I fall asleep” – and Connie almost giggled as she realized that the adage “Like father, like son,” was certainly true in this case:  young Wesley Albert, freshly fed and changed, was relaxed and falling very quickly into what she knew would be a sound, peaceful sleep.

Mrs. Parson sliced the bread, buttered it quickly, thickly, set two slices on a saucer for Connie, set the cut-glass jelly bowl on the table with a knife:  she sliced off two slabs for herself, spread them as well.

“Help yourself to the jelly, it’s last year’s crop,” she said happily. “I’ve plenty, don’t worry!”

Connie did not hesitate.  She’d come to appreciate the Parson’s wife’s skill at preserves.

“How’s that little boy of yours, Jimmy,” Mrs. Parson asked as fragrant, steaming tea gurgled happily into two fine china cups.

Connie laughed.

“He’s growing!”  she exclaimed happily.  “I got him new jeans and a week later they were too short!”

“Boys are like that,” Mrs. Parson nodded wisely.  “Ours certainly were!”

“I wasn’t about to send him to school looking like he was wearing high water pants,” Connie admitted, “even if he won’t wear anything but boots!”

“Oh?”  Mrs. Parson asked quietly, looking over her spectacles at the Sheriff’s wife.

Connie frowned a little, spread her sourdough with strawberry preserves.  “I do love this,” she almost whispered, took a bite, closed her mouth as she chewed and hummed with pleasure, which brought a motherly beam of approval from the sky pilot’s wife.

“I wasn’t about to cut off a perfectly good pair of brand new jeans to make shorts,” Connie continued, “so I wondered what I could lengthen them with.”  She smiled and Mrs. Parson gave her a knowing look.

Connie,” she said quietly, “what did you do?”

Connie laughed.  “I sewed on red bandanna material!”  she giggled.  “Jimmy said the first day everyone made fun of him.  The second day they made less fun, and on the third day, here and there, he saw red bandanna material on pants cuffs.”  Connie giggled like a little girl.  “Mrs. Parson, people were cutting off perfectly good pants legs to sew on red bandanna material!”

“No!”  Mrs. Parson breathed, delight in her eyes and jelly on her cheek.

“By the end of the week all you saw was red bandanna cuffs and I thought, ‘This is too good to pass up,’ so at the end of the month, off with the red and on with the blue!”  She made a quick motion with her hands, as if emphasizing a point in a grand oration.  “BAAA!!  The sheep fell right in line! In less than a week, nobody had red jeans cuffs, they were all blue bandanna material!” 

Mrs. Parson laughed quietly.

“Oh, that’s rich,” she smiled.

“There’s one more month before school lets out for the summer.  At month’s end I’m going to take off the bandanna material and sew on curtain fringe!”

Wes made a sleepy little baby noise; Connie reached down, brushed his cheek with the back of her finger, and the child relaxed and fell back asleep.

“How has Jimmy been getting along with the Sheriff?”  Mrs. Parson asked carefully, and delighted at the bright, beaming smile that split Connie’s face.

“I wish you could have seen it!”  she said quietly, delight in her voice and wrists on the edge of the table:  “I heard Jimmy laughing and I looked out the living room window.  Linn was chasing Jimmy around in a big circle in the barn lot.  Jimmy was running and laughing and Linn could have caught him easily.  He could have grabbed him and hauled him into the air, but he ran just fast enough to reach up and tickle Jimmy’s ribs a little, and Jimmy would laugh.”

Connie smiled as she remembered, then she looked up, sadness in her eyes.

“He’s been through so much, Mrs. Pastor.  That poor child has been so badly hurt.  If Linn raises his voice or speaks harshly I can see … “

She looked away, swallowed.

“His eyes change, Mrs. Pastor.  He’ll freeze absolute still and … it’s like he shrinks inside of himself, like he’s trying to hide without moving, and he looks terrified.  When Linn fell off the ladder painting, Jimmy scuttled backwards on all fours like a terrified crab until he hit the wall and then he wrapped his arms around himself and I could see him shivering … until Linn started to laugh.”  Connie rubbed her eyebrows, trying to hide her smile, for a wife isn’t really supposed to laugh at her husband, not unless she’s sharing it with another, understanding, wife.

“He was laying in a big puddle of white paint, it was on his chin and the side of his face and he’s trying to push up off the floor and” – she giggled again – “he looked like a drunken crab trying to get up and he started to laugh.”

She looked up, her eyes shining.

“He laughed and Jimmy looked surprised and … and he realized he wasn’t going to get beat because the man of the house was unhappy.”

“That poor child,” Mrs. Pastor murmured sympathetically.  “Is he having nightmares?”

“He was,” Connie nodded, “until Linn got some professional help.”

Off in the corner, a shadow listened, a shadow with pale eyes, a shadow that wore a long black duster and knee high black boots, a shadow who wore a broad brimmed hat and a bulldog .44 revolver.

The shadow laid her hand on the mountain Mastiff’s head and said quietly, so only he could hear, “I’ve been called a lot of things, but never professional help!”

The Bear Killer looked up and swung his big tail back and forth.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

90.  WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

 

Linn bent down and picked up the sheet.

As usual, Jimmy drew in frenetic spasms, frantically, desperately getting an image from his mind onto paper, going through one pencil after another:  at least eight were discarded on the Sheriff’s desk, maybe more, it was hard to tell, and Jimmy slumped, exhausted, over the last drawing he was trying so hard to complete.

Linn looked at the papers discarded on the floor as if he were regarding a problem in forensics.

Though scattered, they were overlapped, at least a little, and so he had some idea of sequence:  newest on top, he thought, and very carefully brought them into a coherent stack.

He smiled a little at the little boy, slumped over and collapsed atop his final drawing, sound asleep, his forearm across the paper and his head on his forearm, almost ready to slide out of the chair and hit the floor.

Linn slid an arm under Jimmy’s knees, ran his other arm around below his shoulder blades, carefully, gently brought him up, rolled him in close, packed him upstairs to bed.

He got Jimmy situated – he’d come out of bed and so didn’t have to be undressed, just slid back under the covers and the bed linens drawn carefully up around his chin:  unlike Marnie, who would roll up on her side and almost cuddle into the covers, Jimmy would be but a few minutes before he threw his arms wide, head turned to the side.

Linn crept back downstairs.

Jimmy worked with a concentration, a focus so seldom seen in one of his few years, and his pencil drawings were remarkable for their lifelike nature:  he did not have to be taught perspective, or proportion; they came as naturally as breathing, and Linn felt a little tickle of anticipation, wondering what he’d see through the boy’s eyes.

He could not help but look first at the drawing on his open rolltop desk, the drawing mostly on the green blotter.

He studied it for several long moments.

It was in three panels, unusual for the lad’s style:  the middle third was a familiar scene – he’d seen it a thousand times and more, looking at the print on the wall of his office.

It was Old Pale Eyes himself in the center, holding the reins of his Cannonball mare:  to his right, Jacob, as tall and as lean as his father, but with a distinctly darker mustache:  to his left, a woman in a fashionable gown and hat, glaring at the camera.

This much was familiar territory.

Linn studied it more closely, appreciating the texture of the log wall behind the figures, the grain in the planks that formed the heavy door … one horse’s tail was in mid-swing, showing a graceful, flowing curve, and …

Wait a minute.

The print is blurred there.

Motion blurring on the glass plate … why isn’t this …

He blinked.

This wasn’t drawn from that print in my office.

Linn’s eyes shifted to the left.

It was a camera, an old fashioned, wooden cased, tripod mounted camera with a nattily-dressed man standing beside it, the lens cover in his hand, pocket watch open in the other.

Linn swung his gaze to the opposite edge of the paper.

It was the image of a grinning little boy, a fistful of pencils in his left hand, a little boy in the knee britches and soft cap of the day, a little boy with a delighted expression, and a woman’s hand on his shoulder.

Linn looked more closely at the hand and the arm.

It was sleeved … the sleeve looked very much like the one the pale eyed woman wore in the center panel.

It looked like Sarah Lynne McKenna’s sleeve.

“Where,” Linn said softly, thoughtfully, “have you been?”

He asked the question aloud, but he felt he already knew the answer.

 

Jimmy tilted his head curiously, the pretty lady’s gloved hand on his shoulder, and he watched in the red light of the railroad lantern as the image went from barely discernible to surprisingly clear.

The nattily-dressed man clapped his hands in delight:  “There now!  See that?  There’s magic in that box, I tell you, boy, magic!”

He consulted a watch, regarded the image, carefully tilting the enamelware pan to keep the developer solution in motion.

Jimmy watched, silent:  he was good at silent, he’d gotten very good at silent.

Silent kept him from being hit, sometimes.

He watched the man’s look of utter delight as he tilted the pan, then he reached into the solution and brought out the glass plate, carefully, delicately, lowered it into another pan, lowered it into the liquid, brought it back out, lowered again.

“Almost,” he whispered, “almost done.”

He looked at Jimmy, and Jimmy saw the same look in the man’s eyes that the boy felt when he was drawing, and he grinned, a quick, understanding grin, and the man lifted the plate out and lowered it into the next tray of liquid.

“This,” he said, “will fix the chemicals so they don’t darken any further.  Otherwise you’d have a framed glass of nothing but black, and that just wouldn’t do, eh?”

 

Linn’s mother had acquired badge number 1 from the Firelands District Court.

The badge was in some material found in a trunk, hidden in an attic, forgotten and dusty and almost thrown away until a little girl snatched it from the trash and kept it hidden and not until she’d become a woman grown and married did she remember that wooden box, that pretty box, and she looked in a hidden place she’d used as a little girl the day before her husband started to tear out the wall to remodel the room, and she’d found it.

Firelands District Court Badge number 1, the one that simply said AGENT.

One, and only one Agent, had worn that badge.

It was displayed with other artifacts of the Society of the Rose, and was safeguarded by the Sheriff.

The Sheriff opened a safe, withdrew the box, set it on his desk, opened it.

The bronze shield glowed dully in the banker’s-lamp light.

Linn reached out, touched its edge with delicate fingertips.

“You troublemaker,” he murmured, “what have you been doing with Jimmy?”

 

The pretty lady’s badge was tucked in a hidden pocket, protected by its trim leather wallet; she also had a bulldog .44 about her person, along with a flat, two-barrel Derringer and four knives, not to mention lock picks, a careful assortment of handcuff keys, and a signal mirror – a lady always has to have a mirror, after all! – and she whispered, “Jimmy, I want you to stand here, off to the side.  I want you to look at the three of us and our horses, I want you to see the Sheriff’s office in the background – don’t just look at it, Jimmy, see it!” – and he had.

He’d stood off to the side, far enough away that his image wasn’t captured by the camera’s ground glass lens, and he’d taken in the scene:  he’d gone with the pretty lady into the photographer’s horse drawn wagon, he’d watched with interest as the glass plates were developed, and he’d given the photographer a coin the pretty lady gave him earlier, with whispered instruction that he was to do so.

Jimmy had no way of knowing he’d just given the man better than six month’s wages with that one coin; all he knew was he’d gone to bed, and the Night Guard asked from the foot of his bed if she could show him something, and he’d said yes.

Jimmy, snug in his own bed once more, wiggled a little and threw his arms out, his head turned to the side, and he slept the sleep of the satisfied, for he’d accomplished the urgent task he’d started earlier that evening, when he woke in the dark and he slipped downstairs.

He’d drawn what he’d seen.

He had to.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

91.  THE PRETTY LADY AND THE PALE EYED MEN

 

Linn took Jimmy’s latest drawings to work with him.

He rolled them up and slid them into a three foot long cardboard mailing tube, he carried them into the office under his arm as if he had maps or as-built plans; this was not terribly unusual … but both the dispatcher and his chief deputy detected a certain air of … anticipation.

The dispatcher couldn’t make up a flimsy excuse to get in to see what he had, but his segundo never needed an excuse.

Linn didn’t look up when his door opened.

“You’d better have coffee,” he muttered, frowning at the over-large sheet in front of him.

“No coffee.”

“Doughnuts, then.”  Linn never looked up.

“Nope.  No doughnuts.”

“Hmp.”  Linn rubbed his chin, drew the sheet aside, frowned at the next one under it.

“I never knew that,” he said softly.

“Never knew what, Boss?”

“Come here, take a look at this.”  Linn sorted through the sheets, turned one around so Barrents could see it right-side-up.

It was the inside of their church, not greatly changed from what it was now.

Somehow, though … somehow they could tell it was an older church … maybe it was the way the parson was dressed, maybe it was the women’s hats, maybe it was the girl at the piano in a distinctly old-fashioned dress, her hair ornately styled, as if her hair was belt length and had been brought up in great sweeping bows and waves that hung impossibly against the force of gravity.

“Now look at this one.”

It was a depot, with well dressed women and men in suits, with luggage on steel wheeled carts, a familiar steam locomotive with the crossed-stem roses painted on the side of her cab, and beneath, flawlessly lettered, The Lady Esther.

Barrents whistled.

“Jimmy’s work?”

Linn nodded.

“Nice.”  Barrents nodded, smiled a little. “I’ve never seen better.”

“That’s just with a pencil.”  Linn slid another page around.   “Think how much better it’ll get once I start him on pastels.”

Barrents grunted, his mouth opening a little.

He looked up.

“Boss …” 

His voice held a hint of worry.

“Boss, this detail is too good to come from a little boy’s imagination.”

“I know,” Linn said seriously.  “That’s what worries me.”

They looked at the drawing again.

The horses were at full gallop, thundering directly at the viewer.

The riders were arrayed for war.

It was as if five warriors abreast were driving out of the eggshell paper into the world of the viewer, five very much alive and very much real and very much deadly and –

 

Jimmy looked around, grinning.

He liked it when the pretty lady took him places.

She’d waited until he finished sketching the front of the opera house in Denver, then she put her finger to her lips, rolled up his drawing and slipped it into a copper tube:  it was closed on one end, a tight fitting cap slid over the other, and she handed it to a workman, with a coin that brought an exclamation of delight to the man’s lips and prompted his quick lift of his battered billycock.

Jimmy watched as the workman slid the copper cylinder into the stone column being added to the front of the building; the column was made of fluted sections, each one carefully, precisely placed on the other, fitting on tapered sockets and aligning perfectly, flawlessly:  Jimmy watched as men with careful hands and steam cranes hoisted each section into position, placed and cemented and aligned them and finally, finally the ornate chapiter was placed on top of the column.

“Do ye know what that is, lad?”  the workman exclaimed in delight as the column was finished, seeming to support the new overhanging marquee:  “that is a proper Doric column, base to capital!  Operative Masonry at its best!”

He winked, squatted.  “Yon fine lady” – he thrust his chin at the Pretty Lady – “asked me t’ put your drawin’ inside this column where it’ll be safe for a century and more, and when it’s found they’ll marvel that such skill existed in this distant and primitive age!”  He winked, almost comical in his sincerity.

“Come now, Jimmy,” the pretty lady said quietly, “let’s see what other trouble we can get into today!”

The pretty lady took Jimmy to another street, where they caught a cab, rattled in the horse drawn hack down streets that were as smooth as the inside of a brick chimney; they drew up in front of a shop, Jimmy jumped down with the happy abandon of a little boy, and the Pretty Lady descended, with the driver’s hand, the very image of a very proper young woman.

Well-dressed young men in suits and top hats lifted their hats to her as they passed.

When they emerged, the pretty lady had Jimmy carry the package.

“I have someone I’d like you to meet,” she said in a soft voice.

Jimmy offered no objection.

He’d seen paintings, real honest to God paintings, in the art supply store, and he silently thrilled at the several tubes of very old-timey-looking “Collapsible Tin Paint Tubes” … French white, ochre, scarlet …

“We mustn’t open these,” the Pretty Lady said in a confidential near-whisper after they’d boarded the hack again.  “I’ll show you why very soon.”

The hack seemed to shiver momentarily, then the sounds changed:  Jimmy heard sounds he was used to hearing and the road was suddenly very much smoother, and the hack stopped.

Sarah and Jimmy descended again, though this time there was no mounting-block to make her descent dignified and convenient:  she allowed the driver to take her under her arms and lift her out, and as he was a big man and strong, he managed without difficulty, swinging her down and allowing her to touch down on the sidewalk beside the parking meter.

Jimmy, of course, jumped.

The sight of a woman in attire of the mid-1880s was … unusual … in these circumstances, but she seemed to be known to the proprietor of the store.

It was the same store, Jimmy realized, only … only it was modern, it was today, it wasn’t back … it wasn’t back then, it was now!

The pretty lady placed her package on the counter and said in a pleasant and well-modulated voice, “I have something that may be of interest to you.”

The proprietor was clearly delighted – beyond delighted, he called for his assistant and they handled the tubes of paint as if they were jewels, rare, precious … and when they found the receipt, and read it, and looked at one another, they joy was unmistakable.

The Pretty Lady and Jimmy walked out with a good supply of drawing paper, colored pastels, colored pencils, and a selection of artist’s charcoals:  they had been offered more, but this was sufficient for their purposes, and so they left the art store with the jubilant owner rejoicing in the background, for he’d just found some incredibly rare, unbelievably well preserved tubes of paint that had been sold by his very store, a century and more ago!

“He’ll have those on display,” The Pretty Lady told Jimmy as they climbed back into the hack.

This time The Pretty Lady drew the curtains.

“Now,” she said, “we’re not going as far as we did.”

She snapped the curtains back and Jimmy laughed, for he was across the street from the familiar sight of The Silver Jewel, and that meant they were right in front of the Sheriff’s Office.

A child’s mind is wonderfully flexible, and it did not occur to him to wonder how they made the trip from Denver to Firelands in only a few seconds.

The Pretty Lady bent down, cupped Jimmy’s chin gently in her gloved palm.

“I will see you again,” she whispered, blinking her pale eyes, her long lashes sweeping the air as she did.  “And when I do, we’ll go somewhere else, for there is more that I must show you.”

The driver opened the door, swung Jimmy down to the sidewalk, then lifted The Pretty Lady down again.

“That will be all for today, James,” The Pretty Lady said, and the man lifted his short topper and bowed:  “A pleasure as always.”

The Pretty Lady waited until he opened the heavy glass door of the Sheriff’s Office; she stepped through, as did Jimmy, and his great sack of treasures.

 

The Sheriff looked up as the door opened again.

A pale-eyed woman in a McKenna gown and matching hat smiled and held a loaded, steaming, fragrant tray in both hands.

“I have coffee,” she invited.

Moments later they each had coffee and a doughnut, with more on the tray, and Jimmy looked around as he always did, and stopped when he came to the picture on the wall.

It looked very much like The Pretty Lady, and she saw him studying the formal portrait of the late Sheriff Willamina Keller.

He looked at The Pretty Lady.  “Is that you?”  he asked, pointing.

Linn watched, interested, sipped quietly, carefully at his coffee.

“No, Jimmy.   No, that is one of my descendants.”

“What’s a deesss … deesss … descendant?”  Jimmy asked haltingly.

“It means that I am very old and she was very young.  She is descended from my line.  We are related, just like the Sheriff is related to that Sheriff over there.”

Jimmy looked from the familiar print to the Sheriff, dismay on his young face as he realized that yes, they do bear more than a striking resemblance.

“Now,” The Pretty Lady said to the Sheriff, “you have questions, and I just happen to have answers.”

Linn’s phone rang and The Pretty Lady laid her hand on Jimmy’s shoulder.

“I have to change clothes,” she whispered, “I’ll be right back” – and she disappeared into the attached bathroom, the one Sheriff Willamina used for changing clothes and a shower when need be.

Linn’s eyes narrowed.  “How many involved?”  he asked, his voice level, and Barrents felt an old and familiar tightening in his belly.

When the Sheriff sounded dead calm and absolutely steady, that meant it was hitting the fan and they were about to go right into the splatter zone.

“You’re going to need help,” The Pretty Lady said, but she wasn’t in her pretty gown and matching hat:  no, she was in a long, black coat, knee boots and black shirt and vest, with a wide brimmed black hat and close-fitting black gloves.

“We’re going to need more than just you.”

“I know where to get recruits.”

Linn looked at Barrents.  “Riot at the high school.  An exhibition football game just turned into a gang war.”

The woman in black moved toward the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?”  Linn said coldly.

She turned, her eyes pale, hard.

“You rode in today.  My horse is stabled with yours.  I’ve got three more coming.  Right now they’re not in the bloodletting phase yet and if we hit the opposing team with a cavalry charge we can stop this before it starts, otherwise there will be blood on the moon and we don’t want that.”

“I’d listen to her if I was you, son,” a deep, almost gravelly voice said, and Linn turned to find himself nose to mustache with a tall, lean, iron grey mustached lawman that looked just awfully damned familiar.

Linn nodded, thinking fast.

He’d learned young and very well the folly of discounting sound advice and this sounded like advice he’d best heed.

“I’ll get saddled.  Barrents, I need an all call and get PD backing us.”

“Right, boss.”

 

Jimmy watched everyone swarm out the door and he found himself suddenly alone, abandoned, frightened, even if he was in the familiar surroundings of the Sheriff’s sanctum.

He jumped a little as delicate hands gripped his shoulders and a woman’s voice said, “What are you doing here?  Aren’t you going too?”

“They didn’t say –“

“Sometimes you just have to go.”  She steered the lad out the door and down the back hall.  “We’ll go out this way.”

She opened the door just a crack as two horses thundered by.

“Just in time,” she said smugly, and opened the door.

Jimmy followed her out, saw his own Stomper-horse tethered beside a shining red mare.

“Stomper!”  he exclaimed with delight.

“Up you go now,” the woman said, seizing him and swinging him up:  she was too short to get him clear up into the saddle, but by throwing his leg and grabbing the saddle horn, he was able to wallow his way into the hurricane deck.

The woman was aboard her shining copper mare with a quick, easy move.

She thrust out a gloved hand.

“I’m Willamina,” she said.  “Who are you?”

“I’m Jimmy,” he said, blinking.  “You look like The Pretty Lady!”

Willamina laughed.  “I get that a lot. Now let’s catch up!”

Jimmy’s legs tightened around the saddle skirt and he leaned with his Stomper-horse as they galloped down the alley and out onto the main street, hooves loud on pavement:  once Stomper got his steel-shod hooves squarely under him, he was completely at home on the hardtop, and he began to lean into his run, the length of his stride making up for the sheer, blazing speed of the red mare.

The pale eyed woman rode beside him, on his left, and on his right, a young man came pounding up on an Appaloosa that looked an awful lot like the Sheriff’s horse.

He grinned at Jimmy, fell in beside him, and three abreast, at a dead gallop, they charged down the main street of Firelands, Colorado, looking for all the world like they’d just escaped an accident with a time machine.

 

The gang war was shaping up fast, each side lined up and facing the other.

The strangers, the interlopers, were from the city, from a rival school district, and they’d come to cause trouble, and they’d succeeded.

One step at a time, one slow pace at a time, they’d backed the Firelands boys until they were almost at dead center of the football field.

Insults and epithets came from the city boys, from the strangers, from the troublemakers:  they’d come with the stated intent of causing property damage, of causing injury, and frankly of causing serious harm to some of the girls, particularly their pretty young cheerleaders, who’d dressed in their mother’s uniforms for this exhibition game.

The crowd was watching, shocked; football players from both teams ranked shoulder to shoulder with their schoolmates, backing slowly until they hit the fifty yard line.

Then they stopped.

There were the sneering challenges of “Yer yella” and “You’re pansies” and the other demeaning, insulting, scatological and other profane references thrown at such times.

The Firelands line held, unmoving, silent.

There was a scream and a girl’s voice, protesting, as two, then three of the strangers seized a cheerleader and packed her out into the field, legs kicking.

The Firelands line leaned forward a little but held, as if under orders, then suddenly split and pulled back to the sides of the field.

To the invaders it looked like a cavalry charge.

Horses at full gallop are a force to be taken seriously.

A grown horse can displace most of a ton, and when a ton of muscle and bone gets moving, it’s hard to stop.

When that living wall of fast moving meat approaches at nothing short of an absolute, wide-open gallop, the enemy line finds it’s like being hit by a living sledge hammer.

The cheerleader was dropped by the constricting set of arms that had her from behind, only to be seized by another arm and swung – she screamed as she was snatched and swung – she was swung up behind a lean waisted rider’s saddle, and she heard his yell of “Hang on!”  and she ran her arms around his middle, squeezing him with full intent to keep her desperate grip, no matter what!

Bodies flew, slammed to the ground:  the riders turned, charged back:  the invaders were no longer a cohesive force, suddenly they were rabble, and running.

They did not get far.

Some were slammed from behind; they landed hard, and hard hands seized them before they could get up:  some were pinned, others kneedropped, all ended up in irons.

Others were grabbed by locals, or by the constabulary, a very few made it to the parking lot, to find hard eyed ranchers waiting for them, and the ranchers were not unarmed.

The Firelands District Court was rather busy the next day.

 

The Sheriff sat up abruptly, threw his bedcovers back, gasping.

He rubbed his face, looked around, got his mental legs under him, reached for the bedside phone.

“Sheriff’s Office,” Sharon’s businesslike voice said, then, “Sheriff, you’re up late, is everything all right?”

Linn took a long breath.

“Sharon, is the football team putting on an exhibition game anytime soon?”

“Nnnooooo,” Sharon said slowly.  “I have two grandsons on the football team and if there was an exhibition game I’d know about it.  Why, has something happened?”

“No,” he lied.  “No.  I … couldn’t sleep and … it must have been … I probably misheard something.  We’re okay, Sharon, thank you.  Good night.”
“Night, Sheriff,” Sharon replied, and Linn eased the phone back down on its cradle.

Connie rolled over, laid a gentle hand on his back.  “Everything okay?”

Linn nodded, worked his feet into fur lined moccasins.  “It will be when I get rid of some coffee,” he muttered.

“Hope everything comes out all right,” Connie said sleepily, and he heard the smile in her voice:  she pulled the covers up over her shoulder and snuggled into her pillow, relaxed, her breathing easy.

You glow, he thought, and reflected that some women’s beauty increases with pregnancy. 

Yours surely does.

Linn’s tread was silent on the nighttime stairs.

He looked over at his desk.

The rolltop was closed, the lamp was off, nothing scattered on the floor.

Linn frowned a little and realized he honestly felt disappointed.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

92.  NIGHTWALKER

 

“You look tired.”

Linn drew his usual huge travel mug full of coffee, poured in a good shot of milk. 

“Yeah,” he grunted.

“Everything all right, Boss?”

Linn looked at Barrents.

“I look tired.”

“You look wore out.”

“Looks are not deceiving.”

“How bad?”

“Conference.”

Barrents raised an eyebrow, followed the Sheriff into the conference room, eased into a folding tin chair as the Sheriff dropped heavily into another, thumped his elbow onto the table, dropped his forehead onto the heel of his hand.

“Boss, have you had breakfast?”  Barrents asked cautiously.

“Yeah,” Linn rasped.  “Connie fed us and I got Jimmy to school on time.”

“But you had trouble doin’ it.”

“Nightmares.”

Barrents nodded, considering.

“Past or future, or was it the ancestors?”

“All the above.”

Barrents’ eyebrow twitched but did not tent upwards a second time.

“If the Ancestors are lifting the Veil –“

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Linn interrupted, suddenly sitting up very straight, throwing his head back, looking at the ceiling with the intense gaze of the utterly fatigued.  “You know Jimmy can draw.”

“I know he drew you riding your stallion and it looked like it was coming off the paper and ready to run across the street,” Barrents said solemnly.  “He has a gift.”

“I know he has a gift and the Judge is already … he’s … he wants …”

Barrents looked closely at the Sheriff.

“How long since you’ve had a good night’s rest?”  he asked quietly, not as Chief Deputy, not as a fellow lawman, but as a friend, a worried friend.

“Is it that obvious?”  Linn asked slowly, fatigue weighting his voice and his eyelids.

“Boss, if I was giving free advice I’d say go home and get a good day’s rest.  You look worn out, you sound worn out and we can handle whatever comes up.”

Linn shook his head, tried to scoot the chair back.  “I got work to do –“

“Look, you long tall drink of water,” Barrents said sharply, “I don’t make friends that easily and I’m not willing to lose one!”

Linn looked up, surprised.

“No man is so rich he can afford to throw away a friend.”  Barrents’ expression was serious.  “I don’t know what’s going on and it’s none of my business but I’m seeing my friend more than worn out and that can get you killed, and I hate going to funerals!”

Linn sagged a little in his chair, looked up, smiled tiredly.

“Don’t mince words,” he said, his words almost slurred, “please speak your mind!”

Barrents did.

“Go home, Boss.  Get some rest, you’ve more than earned it.  You’ve been driving yourself here, you’ve been working yourself too hard at home, and we’ve only got one of you.”

Linn nodded, sighed, took a long pull on his coffee.  “I’m immune to the stuff,” he muttered, wiping his mustache.

“You’re getting some curl,” Barrents said approvingly.

“Yeah.  Tony made me promise not to shave myself.  He’s working more hair into the cookie broom so he can wax it and curl it.”

“Something’s working, it’s starting to look curled.”

“Connie likes it.”

Silence claimed the room again.

Barrents finally said, “What’s going on at home, Boss?  Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Linn looked up, blinked slowly, the way a truly exhausted man will.

“Last night,” he said, “I rode stirrup to stirrup with Old Pale Eyes himself, with his son, with Mama and Sarah McKenna the Black Agent.

“We rode into a crowd of rioting troublemakers and knocked them hell west and crooked and …”

Barrents considered what he’d heard as the Sheriff’s voice tapered off.

“You’re Nightwalking,” he said softly.  “That is hard on a young man.”

Linn nodded.

“Let me consult the shaman.”

“He’ll probably tell you I’m just a crazy white man out to save the world.”

“We already know that,” Barrents said with a straight face.

“So I’m like the guy going to the doctor who says he knows he’s burning the candle at both ends, he’s there to get more wax.”

Barrents laughed quietly.

“You’re worried about Jimmy.”

“Yeah,” Linn admitted. 

“You’re worried you won’t be good enough.”

Linn nodded.  He was so tired his defenses were gone, otherwise he would have debated, defended against the statement.

“Yeah.”

Barrents rose.  “I’ll run the show, Boss.  You go home and get some rest.”

Linn stood, swayed a little.

“Your advice is sound,” he said at length.  “Call if you need me.”

Barrents nodded.

 

Connie looked out the living room window, puzzled that her husband was emerging from the barn.

He walked slowly up to the house – unusually slowly.

Connie opened the door as he climbed the front steps … slowly … his boots were loud on the tread, his pace as lethargic as a man going to his own hanging.

The morning sun was not kind, the long red rays illuminated the man’s fatigue, and Connie drew back as he came through the doorway.

“I’m tired,” he said faintly.  “I’m going back to bed.”

 

Barrents was just coming back into station when an anonymous hand reached for the red-plastic chevron and pulled down.

The glass rod broke, the fire alarm made contact:  every classroom, every hallway, every office and restroom and locker room rang with the harsh warning buzzer.

Students stood and filed out as they’d practiced since grade school, students marched out of the high school and ranked themselves in rows while teachers turned their attendance books inside-out, today’s page foremost, and proceeded to take roll call.

Nobody saw the two people in the gymnasium.

 

The Sheriff had the phone on the first ring.

“Keller,” he grunted, and Barrents’ first words brought him from relaxed to wide awake in the space of one heartbeat.

“Hostage situation, Firelands High School, one taker, one vic, no bomb, building evacuated.”

“Roll all hands, surround and secure all exits, get those kids the hell out of there, on my way!”  Linn said, his words clipped, abrupt:  Barrents hung up, remembering how precisely the words had been framed, and he smiled grimly.

Whoever just interrupted the Boss’s good rest was going to pay a high price, for the man never spoke with such absolute precision unless he was very willing to rip someone’s head off and drop kick it over the nearest building.

 

Susie Merckle whimpered a little as she was dragged back along the extended bleachers.

An arm was around her neck, she was aware of something black and harsh beside her head, the end of it had been pressed into her hairline as whoever had her, screamed he was going to kill her if he saw anyone, anyone! – and then he’d pulled her into the schoolhouse and down a hallway and into the gymnasium.

Staff kept everyone away from the gym doors until someone pulled the fire alarm – probably one of the teachers, a desperate move to get as many people to safety as fast as possible – and as the enraged, desperate voice screamed impotent demands in the harshly lighted cavern of the empty gymnasium, responding emergency vehicles killed their lights and their sirens and made their approach with speed, and with silence.

All but one.

All but the Appaloosa stallion and the pale eyed man cutting cross country at a gallop, all but the pale eyed Sheriff, all but the man who was about to take the situation in hand.

He clattered up to his segundo and the little knot of administrators, swung down out of the saddle, turned to Barrents.  “Report.”

The superintendent of schools interrupted, “Sheriff, shouldn’t we have a negotiator –“

The Sheriff spun, seized the man by the throat, bent him backwards over the hood of the Suburban, slamming his head hard on the sheet metal and very effectively silencing the man.

“Why don’t you have buses getting these kids out of here?”  he hissed.  “Your next words had damn well be that they’re on their way or by God!  I’ll kick your backside up between your shoulder blades!”

He released the man’s throat, looked around, eyes as hard as a glacier’s heart and just as warm and welcoming.

“ANY OTHER DAMNED AMATEURS WANT TO TELL THE PROFESSIONALS HOW TO DO THEIR JOB?” he roared, hands closing into fists.

The Superintendent of Schools straightened, coughing a little and rubbing his neck.

“NOBODY SPEAKS UNTIL SPOKEN TO!  IF I WANT INFORMATION I’LL ASK FOR IT, OTHERWISE SHUT UP!”

He turned, saw one of the janitors.

“Morgan!”  he barked.

Morg Walters turned, spat, looked at the Sheriff.

“Yeah?”
“How many hostage takers are there?”

“Just one.”

“Sheriff, shouldn’t you be asking –“

Linn turned, squared off at the superintendent.

The man shrank a little and wisely closed his mouth.

Linn turned, looked at the round-shouldered man in the grey work uniform.

“How many doors?”

“Oh …”  Walters spat, considered.  “You got four double doors into the gym, you got two locker rooms that open outside, you got the stage and it comes out in the middle hall.”

Linn nodded.

“Where was the hostage taker last you knew?”

“Right in the middle of the gym turnin’ around in circles.”

“Barrents.”

“Here, Boss.”

“Coordinate with PD, cover the exits from the locker rooms outside.”

“Sir.”

“Snipers set up” – he turned – “there, and on the other side.  We’re short on manpower so one man will have to cover two exits.”

“Can do.”

Barrents looked at the Sheriff’s belt line but refrained from comment.

Linn had got dressed in a hurry.

He wasn’t in uniform, but he generally wasn’t anyhow:  where his mother wore business professional, reflecting her status as an administrator, Linn preferred a flannel shirt and blue jeans, a vest and his gunbelt – but today the gunbelt he wore wasn’t woven nylon with a molded plastic holster.

Today he wore carved leather and he didn’t have the plastic pistol.

Barrents considered that things were about to get very interesting, for when Old Pale Eyes showed up wearing the same style revolver his four times great granddaddy wore, it most commonly meant the man was about to become very hostile toward someone.

Linn stepped into the saddle, turned Apple-horse, glared down at the superintendent.

“If you can’t get these kids out of here on buses in thirty seconds,” he snapped, “get ‘em moving on foot.  I want them a mile away and I don’t care how you do it!”

The superintendent watched the man gallop toward the sprawling, brick-steel-and-glass Consolidated, swallowed hard, pulled out his cell phone.

 

Linn pulled open the windowless, heavy steel door, used it for cover:  no shot greeted him, so he spun in, got his back to the other closed door, used his boot to keep the door from slamming shut.

The near door to the gymnasium was right in front of him.

He smiled tightly.

That was the fastest way in.

Intel, he knew, was the heart of any operation.

He came up on the balls of his feet, ran lightly down the center hall, stopped at the stage door.

He opened it slowly, carefully, and almost immediately heard yelling.

He eased through the opening, closed the door silently behind him, went up one step, two steps, three.

He was in the wings of the high school’s stage.

“I KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE!  I’LL KILL HER!  I SWEAR I’LL KILL HER!”

His voice echoed in the empty gym.

The Sheriff parted the curtains behind the stage, peeked through a gap wide as a matchstick.

The hostage taker had the cute little cheerleader around the neck, his arm was extended, he was turning – jerky, circling turns – pointing his gun from one set of double doors to another, to a third.

“What do you want?”  the Sheriff called, knowing his voice would also echo, that his direction couldn’t be told.

“WHATTAYAMEAN WHAT DO I WANT!   YOU COME IN HERE I’LL KILL HER!”

“Is it money you want?”  The Sheriff turned his head a little, cupped his hand around his mouth to distort it without reducing his clarity.  “A helicopter?  A getaway car?”

“I WANT A HELICOPTER AND TEN MILLION DOLLARS!” came the return scream.

The Sheriff saw the man’s eyes were wide, frantic, panicked:  he was a stranger, he was dressed for the city, he sure as hell wasn’t a local.

The cheerleader’s hands were up, gripping the man’s encircling arm; she was, thank God, staying calm.

The Sheriff slipped around back of the stage’s rear curtain, came around beside the pop machine, down the steps, gripped the doorknob with his left hand, his right caressing the grip of his .44 revolver.

He eased the door open, silently, slowly.

The end of the bleachers concealed his movement.

He slipped out, closed the door silently, took three careful steps, silent on the balls of his feet, removed his Stetson and squatted, then peeked around the end of the bleachers.

He watched the paranoid kidnapper turn and turn and turn again, heard his quick, gasping intakes of breath.

Linn pulled back, settled the Stetson on his head and smiled a little.

He stood up straight, he reached into his pocket, he drew back his arm and stepped out from around the bleachers.

The man was facing away from him.

Linn threw the quarter, hard, winging it over the man’s head:  he intended the coin to sail to the other end of the gym, and it did, and it hit with a sharp, metallic, ringing sound, which brought the man’s attention to the far end of the gym.

Linn was four steps toward them when the kidnapper turned and saw the long, tall lawman standing there.

He swung his pistol toward this newcomer and screamed, “WHO ARE YOU?”

“I’m the man who makes things happen,” Linn said mildly, confidently, and took a step toward them.

He walked heel to toe, his boot heel loud on the polished maple boards.

“DON’T COME ANY CLOSER!  I’LL KILL HER I SWEAR I’LL KILL HER!” he screamed.

Linn paced steadily toward them, hostage-taker and hostage, his eyes pale, hard, unblinking, captivating.

His pace was steady, his heels loud on the polished floor, one step, another, a regular cadence, pale eyes locked on dark eyes, steady, unblinking, pale, cold, hard, a step, another –

The first shot slammed against the walls, a minor explosion, and the Sheriff’s pace never slowed.

Another shot.

No change.

The hostage taker screamed and triggered a quick burst.

The pale eyed lawman kept coming, slowly, steadily, boot heels loud on the polished gymnasium floor, his eyes cold and hard and as unblinking as a cobra’s.

He drew the revolver with a smooth and fluid motion and brought it up.

There was the sound of thunder, a deeper BOOOOOOOM, and the cheerleader felt the arm relax and the trembling body fall away from her and she ducked a little and sprinted for the side of the gym floor, ran halfway up the bleachers, stopped, collapsed.

The Sheriff looked down at the dead man, at the hole where one eye used to be.

He grunted.

“Pulled it a quarter inch,” he murmured.  “I wanted to take him squarely between the eyes.”

He drew the hammer back a little, flipped open the loading gate, kicked out the spent hull and dropped in a fresh:  he clicked slowly around several times, drew the hammer back, eased it down on the empty chamber, holstered.

He looked up at the cheerleader.

“Reckon it’s all over,” he said.  “Anybody else you know of?”

She hugged herself, feeling kind of weak, shook her head.

“Well, come on down, let’s get you outside.”

 

Barrents saw the Sheriff come out the front door, carrying a girl.

The long tall lawman paced slowly across the parking lot, handed her off to the waiting medics, spoke quietly with them:  they nodded, loaded her in the rig, closed the doors.

Uncle Will was nearby.

“Chief,” Linn said, “that girl in there is witness to all that transpired.  You will want to depose her before anyone can contaminate her testimony, especially that damned meddling school superintendent.”

Will nodded.

“I shot the hostage taker, he’s dead and they’ll have some repair work to do.”

Will frowned.  “On school property … they’ll want the State Police to investigate.”

“I don’t care if they want to bring in the Imperial Dutch Royal Cavalry to investigate.”  He looked at the closed doors of the ambulance.  “That girl in there is pretty damned brave.  She kept her head and didn’t panic.”

“I know her Mama,” Will nodded.  “She’s made of pretty stern stuff.”

“Anything else?”

“You’ll want to make a final sweep but the girl said there was only one hostage taker.”

“I talked to the staff.  Only one and he come in from outside – one of these cars must belong to him.”

Linn nodded.  “Search the body, get his keys, that should narrow down the choices.  If he’s taken one hostage he might have taken another earlier.”

Will raised a summoning hand and one of his officers came striding over.

Linn whistled up his Apple-horse; the head-bobbing stallion moved easily through the thinning crowd as the last of the school buses pulled away.

“Hell of a last day of school,” Will rumbled.

Linn nodded, remembering how good that bunk felt earlier.

“Yeah,” he agreed.  “Hell of a day.”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

93.  TRANSPORTATION

 

The Judge looked around, frowning.

Somehow Chief Deputy Barrents expected the man to have the disagreeably smoldering stub of an ugly cigar thrust from a corner of his mouth.

“I expected the Sheriff’s testimony today,” he grunted, frowning.

“Your Honor,” Chief Deputy Barrents said, rising, “I regret to inform the Sheriff is indisposed.”

“I don’t care if he’s indisposed!”  the Judge snapped.  “I want his testimony!”

“I am sure Your Honor will receive his testimony,” Barrents said reasonably, “but he’s been taken to hospital by ambulance and I don’t believe he’s available.”

 

Linn shivered, beads of sweat standing out on his forehead.

Jimmy gripped Connie’s hand, looked up at her with big, scared eyes.

He felt Connie’s hand tighten a little, just a little, a wordless squeeze meant to reassure, and she felt Jimmy lean against her, wrap his arms around her.

Connie wanted nothing more than to lay her hand on her husband’s cheek, to give him the reassurance of his wife’s touch, but she’d done that already, her hand registering his roaring fever:  she’d scissored the bandages off his leg, drawn in a shocked breath, reached for the phone, and bare minutes later, the Irish Brigade’s ambulance pulled up in front of their solid-built home and three blueshirts came in at just short of a run.

They’d brought the man downstairs on the ambulance cot, one man at the cot’s head, one at its foot, the third man backing down the stairs, one hand on the footman’s back and the other gripping his belt, steadying the descent:  they got to floor level, went wheels down, turned and rolled outside the door.

The Bear Killer watched, muttering, shaking his great head, then looked at Connie as she and Jimmy emerged.

Connie’s hands were full:  purse and child carrier, diaper bag and a folder of papers:  Jimmy took the diaper bag and slung it over his young shoulder, and he took the child carrier in both hands, packed it down the steps for his Mama, waited patiently while she got the doors open on her Jeep.

He looked at the ambulance, saw the Omaha-orange-and-white doors swing shut, trapping the Sheriff inside.

Jimmy felt more lost than he’d felt in a very long time, seeing this towering mountain of lean strength brought out on an ambulance cot, flat on his back, shivering and helpless, and as Jimmy got himself situated in his own seat in back and made fast his own seat belt, he blinked quickly, wiped at his cheek, looked at the wet smear on the palm of his hand.

He’d learned long ago to silence his personal griefs and he did so now, but when Connie looked in the rear view mirror at her two boys, she blinked quickly at the sting in her own eyes, for she’s never seen such a woeful expression of utter sorrow on a child’s face before.

 

Linn submitted to the medic’s ministrations without comment.

The man was experienced and thorough, the driver was smooth, and part of the Sheriff’s mind recalled his Mama talking about her own days as a paramedic, back East, back when she was much younger.

She’d said her best partner was the smoothest – a woman named Michelle – Willamina told of a run from their firehouse, a guest at an awards dinner had a brainstem aneurysm and Michelle pulled a pilot’s license out of her hip pocket and made the fire department ambulance fly … but she did it very smoooooth.

“Smooov,” Linn slurred, holding up two fingers in a V.

The medic looked up, looked at him curiously.

Linn’s eyes were fever-bright and he realized his grip on reality was tenuous, but at heart he was a man who loved to laugh, and he said “I knew someone who worked C-Med out of Cleveland.”

His voice was almost a husky whisper.

The medic leaned closer, both eyes on the Sheriff, paying very close attention.

“They got a call and found a fellow sitting on the curb.” 

Linn stopped for breath, shivered, continued.

“Scalp lac.  Bloody rag to his head.  They asked what happened.”

He closed his eyes, grimaced, opened his eyes.

“He said his girl hit him wid’ da smoov.”  He held up the two fingers again.

The medic quirked an eyebrow, nodded.

“They asked what’s a smoov, and he said ‘You know, dat t’ing she use to smoov da wrinkles outta da cloes wid’.”

The medic smiled a little and nodded, laid a reassuring hand on the Sheriff’s shoulder.

“I’ll remember that,” he said. 

Linn nodded, relaxed a little, then twisted and grimaced again.

 

The unit secretary looked up as a long, tall police chief with pale eyes strode across the lobby, a familiar brown box in his arms.

“Oh, no,” she groaned.  “How bad?”

“You tell me,” he said, his eyes hard:  he set the cardboard coffee cube on her counter.  “I’ve got cups and doughnuts to bring in yet.  Where do you want ‘em?”

“Do you have duck tape?”

Will blinked.  “Why do I need duck tape?”

She gave him a patient look and explained, “Every time you bring in doughnuts, I might as well duct tape them to my butt, that’s where they’re going to end up anyway!”

Will laughed a little, nodded.

“Will” – her voice was serious – “what happened this time?”

“You didn’t know?”

She shook her head.

“Linn’s leg.  He’s fevered and out of his head.  The ambulance just brought him in.”

The unit secretary’s jaw dropped, then she closed her mouth and swallowed.

“I’ll arrange for more chairs.”

 

“You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to,” Barrents said gently, looking at the State Trooper, who nodded agreement.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.  “Really.  I want to help.”

They stood in the parking lot.

She wore her cheerleading uniform for the last day of school – actually her mother’s cheerleading uniform, but it fit her well – her pleated skirt swayed as the early summer breeze puffed against them.

“I was out here talking grades and honor roll and college and boys and we heard someone drive up behind us.  Bobbi turned and I saw her eyes go real big and then someone --  I was …”

She looked around, frowned, moved a few steps, turned, stepped back just a little bit.

“Here.  I was here.

“Someone grabbed me around the neck and pulled me up and back” – she raised her chin – “I grabbed his arm and he put something to my head.”  She pressed a finger to the side of her head, between temple and ear, deep in the hairline – “and he started screaming he would kill me if everyone didn’t do exactly as he said.

“Nobody was around but Bobbi and she backed away and he pointed his gun at her and told her not to move and she turned and ran and he turned around with his gun out at arm’s length and he’s screaming he’ll kill me if everyone didn’t do exactly as he said.”

She hugged herself, closed her eyes, shivered.

“He … there wasn’t anyone else around.  I don’t know who he was screaming at.

“He dragged me to the front doors and pulled me inside.

“The gym doors … he … we went into the gym and there … I forget which teachers were there but he’s screaming at them and they ran, all but one, and then he ran too and we were alone and he pulled me in …”

“Can you show me?”  Barrents asked gently.

A forensics technician had a video camera on the girl, another, further back, was taking a wider view of the situation; Mary Jo nodded, swallowed, raised her head and set her jaw and reached for the brushed-stainless handle of the yellow-painted door.

“He pulled me in here,” she said, “and he’s screaming in the hallway.  I remember how it echoed.  He still had me around the throat and then we went into the gym.  Through this door.  The left hand one.”

Barrents nodded.

The forensics team made a small crowd, moving with the cheerleader in saddle shoes and a bright-red hair ribbon, wearing her modestly-cut uniform and an anxious expression as she relived the horrors of the previous day.

“He – we – I thought he was going to strangle me or break my neck.  He was very strong.  I had my hands up and I held his arm to try and keep him from hurting me.   He’s still turning, he’s still screaming but he’s not pointing the gun at me anymore.

“He went to the middle of the floor, I think we were exactly on the circle-F, right there” – she pointed – “and I don’t know how long he pulled me around in circles, screaming at whoever wasn’t there.  I don’t know if he was seeing things or what.

“The Sheriff came in somewhere.  I don’t know where.  Maybe he came in through a locker room” – she turned, pointed to the back wall.  “I don’t know.  I know he jumped when he heard the Sheriff’s voice and he turned faster and he was still screaming.”

“What was he saying?”

“He … said he would kill me if he didn’t get ten million dollars and a helicopter.”

“What then?”

“I heard something behind us – I don’t know what it was, it sounded like metal hitting brick.  He pulled me around and he’s screaming at the back wall and when we turned around again the Sheriff was halfway across the gym floor to us.”

“Can you show me where?  Tell that fellow left, right, close, far, he’ll move until he’s where you first saw the Sheriff.”

Mary Jo considered, looked down, saw she was squarely on the ornate, hand-painted F in the center of the gym floor.

“A little to my right, “ she said, “more, more … there.  Now a little closer, closer.  There.  That’s where I saw him.”

“The Sheriff was that close before you saw him?”

“Yes.”

Barrents whistled, looked at the trooper.  “Not bad,” he murmured.

“That metallic sound,” the troop said thoughtfully, “can you describe it?”

“I … I’m not sure,” Mary Jo admitted. 

“Would you recognize it again?”

She nodded.

“Face that way, please.”

Mary Jo turned and faced the stage.

She heard something hit the back wall.

“No.  No, not that.”

Another noise – again a shake of her head, a swing of her honey-brown bob cut hair.

At the third noise her head came up, her eyes wide.

“That!”  she exclaimed.  “That was it!”

“I’ll be damned,” the troop and the chief deputy both murmured as they looked at one another and grinned.

“What?”  Mary Jo asked, and one of the forensics techs walked over to the back wall, picked up a few objects, brought them over.

“Here’s what you heard first,” he said, showing her a loaded pistol round in his upturned palm.

“Here’s the second.”

He laid a ballpoint pen beside the round.

“Here’s the one you identified.”

He held up a quarter.

“And here’s the one that was found yesterday on our forensic sweep.”

He held up a small evidence baggie with a 25-cent piece sealed within, the gaudy strip of evidence tape sealing the opening.

 

The Bear Killer trotted through the lobby like he owned the place.

He slipped behind the counter and the unit secretary shook her Mommy-finger at the big, curly-furred canine.

“You,” she declared, “are a bum!”

The Bear Killer gave a quiet “whuff,” kind of a doggy whisper, and she opened a drawer, pulled out a box of dog biscuits, shook out two of them.

The Bear Killer accepted one, crunched it happily, noisily, then tilted his head and lifted a paw.

The secretary reached out, cupped his paw in her hand and fed him the second doggie cookie.

“Now go get in trouble someplace,” she said, and The Bear Killer gave a whispered “Whuff,” and turned to find some other adventure.

She looked up as the Police Chief set a stack of cups and a box of doughnuts on her counter.

“Oh what the hell,” she sighed, standing.  “Life’s too short to turn down a doughnut!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

94.  EVALUATION

 

Dr. John Greenlees came out into the waiting area, peeled the sterile scrub cap off his head, sat down beside Connie.

He looked at the green clothe beanie in his grip and muttered, “I wish scrub pants had pockets,” he admitted.  “I feel stupid just holding this.”

He looked at Connie.  “He’ll live,” he grunted.  “That hard headed pale eyed hell raiser is too ornery to let something like a little infection stop him!”

Connie shivered.  “When I saw the streaks on his leg I remembered my Mama telling me about blood poison.  All I could think of was getting him in a tub of hot Epsom salts to soak out the poison!”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Doc murmured.  “It’s what I would do.  Right now he’s on IV antibiotics.  We used ultrasound to locate the pockets of infection.  I think we’re … once I’ve … I went in and drained the infection.  I washed out the infection pockets and instilled antibiotic directly into the pockets.  Now it’s wait and see.  If I’ve hit it hard enough and well enough, it’ll stop the infection and he’ll recover.  Between those burns and shrapnel from that exploding propane tank, he’s … “

“He’s lucky to be alive,” Connie finished for him.

“Frankly, yes.”

Doctor John Greenlees leaned forward, looked across Connie to the scared-looking, solemn-faced little boy sitting beside her.

He was holding the wrapped and sleeping infant child, looking at once worried and protective as he did.

“You must be Jimmy.”

Jimmy nodded.

“He’s pretty damned proud of you.  I think you should know that.”

Connie put her arm around Jimmy’s shoulders.  “We both are,” she affirmed.

Jimmy swallowed.

Of a sudden he didn’t feel quite so scared.

 

The nurse tucked the covers up around the Sheriff’s chin with the same maternal affection a mother would a favorite child.

She was portly and apple-cheeked, she wore the big-ruffled white uniform of a century and more ago, and peered benevolently through her pince-nez spectacles, her watch pinned to her ample bosom.

“Thirsty,” Linn whispered, blinking through gummy eyes.

She ran an arm around his shoulder blades, helped him sit up, put a tin cup to his lips.
He drank.

He drank until he ran out of air and he drank some more, then lifted his head a fraction and the cup was withdrawn.

“Thank you,” he whispered, shivering.

He felt the coolness of her fingers on his cheek and heard her whispered, “Rest, now,” and he closed his eyes.

The nurse stepped back from the bed, one pace, another, turned her head and looked toward the foot of the hospital bed.

A figure all in black stood there, glaring at the supine patient.

“You’re not supposed to get hurt,” she hissed.  “Damn you, you don’t have to save the world!”

“Isn’t that what they told you, dear?”  the kindly-faced nurse asked in a gentle voice.

The wide brimmed black hat tilted back as the figure’s head raised, hard and pale eyes glared from under the overhanging brim:  had the expression not been so fierce, an observer might have remarked on the young woman’s natural beauty.

“He,” she snapped, thrusting a black-gloved finger at the man, “is not supposed to imitate my, bad, examples!”

 

Connie swallowed, Jimmy’s hand in hers, as Will took the swaddled infant from Jimmy’s arms.

She pushed open the door, walked into the room, saw her husband laying on the hospital bed, his face drawn and not a healthy color at all.

The Bear Killer tik-tik-tikked across the tile floor, stopped at the foot of the bed, looked up at an invisible something, then looked over at something else, his tail swinging slowly in an apparent greeting.

Nobody but Jimmy noticed how The Bear Killer closed his eyes in pleasure and tilted his head a little, as if delighting in getting some skilled head-and-neck scratching, and nobody but Jimmy saw the fur moving on his head and his neck, as if skilled fingers were working through shining, curly, black fur to get to the dog beneath.

 

“Doctor.”

Dr. John Greenlees was awake instantly.

He sat up, rubbed his face as the nurse took one (but only one) step into the physicians’ lounge.

“Doctor, it’s the Sheriff.”

Dr. Greenlees thrust his feet into green surgical clogs and followed the nurse.

The police chief and the chief deputy were both in the room, as was a third man, an ancient elder with years engraved on his face, with a gaudy, heavy, silver-and-turquoise necklace and a red headband and a sacky red shirt.

Linn’s eyes were half open, then they widened and he growled, “Who are you?”

The doctor turned to the nurse, opened his mouth to order an injection, and the ancient Navajo healer said, “No.”

Dr. Greenlees raised an eyebrow.

“He is Nightwalking,” Barrents explained.  “He is in battle and he is himself in the other world.  He can fight the enemies he sees, but if you give him that damned juice, it’ll open the gates of hell to his mind and he may not survive it.  If he does he’ll be addicted to the gates and the drug both.”

Dr. Greenlees considered for a long moment, then nodded.

“What can you do for him?”  he asked.

“We can guide his vision,” the shaman said quietly.  “Only he can fight his battle, but we can guide his vision.”

Dr. Greenlees made a quick examination, both of the drains, of the affected limb, of the patient as a whole:  his fingers were deft, professional, analytical; he nodded, looked from one Navajo to another.

“I’m keeping him on the antibiotics.  I need to bring that infection under control.  I’ll hold off on the other for now.   Do what you –“

He stopped.

He’d almost said “Do what you can,” but that sounded to hopeless, as if the Sheriff were dead already and just hadn’t stopped breathing yet.  He didn’t say “Do what you must” – that sounded like his arm was being twisted – instead, he nodded and said “Do it.”

He motioned the nurses out, followed them into the hallway.

“Now,” Barrents said, laying his hand on the Sheriff’s forehead.  “Show me, Boss.  Show me your vision.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

95.  LITTLE BOY LOST

 

Linn lay in an empty room, on a bare mattress, the walls were far away, the ceiling almost invisible in the distance.

He felt like a BB in the middle of a basketball court.

He was tired … so very tired.

He relaxed.

I could just give up, he thought.

The thought was seductive, like a houri’s cool, sensual fingers caressing him:  he could almost see the temptress in silks and cosmetics, perfumed and her hair styled, the sultan’s chief giver of sensual pleasure, whispering let go, just let go, release the pain, release the burden …

“Haven’t you worked long enough?” an oily, carefully-reasonable voice intoned, reminding him of a used car salesman or a professional card sharp.  “Haven’t you done your share, and what have you to show for it?  Pain and suffering, injury and illness?

You’re not appreciated, you’re not rewarded, you give and you give and you give yet again, and here you are ... dying.”

The voice was reasonable, sensible, and the thought of giving up, of slipping away to the perfumed embrace, of letting pain and weight and responsibility slide off his shoulders and hit the ground like a dump truck full of rocks felt like such a good idea.

He was tired, so very tired …

A little boy walked up to him, a little boy with a fist full of pencils in his left hand, a steno book in his right, and the little boy blinked and said “I’m scared.”

Responsibility detonated in his belly like a fire lit in a boiler, roaring through his soul and warming his chilled carcass.

“I’m scared,” the little boy repeated in his little-boy voice.  “I don’t wanna be alone again.”

“He’s but a child,” the oily voice soothed.  “He has to learn these hard lessons of life.  He’ll learn to get by on his own.  We all die.  You’ll die and he’ll have to be able to survive.  Better he learn now, while he’s young and resilient –“

Linn seized his scattered strength, drew it to him, felt purpose fill his limbs:  his muscles contracted and he tried to sit up.

 

Barrents saw the Sheriff’s head throw back, teeth bared:  the man hadn’t moved since he was placed in his bed, but now, now every muscle tensed, his fists clenched, and Barrents no longer saw the here-and-now.

“I’m here, boss,” he whispered.  “I’m here.  Show me what you’re fighting and I’ll fight it with you!”

He gasped as he was pulled out of his body, or perhaps his body was pulled from its universe, he wasn’t sure which.

 

Linn was in an ambulance, a Ford, a truck he’d driven in his past:  he looked in one mirror, flinched, then before he twitched the wheel in correction, looked to his left:  brick walls were an inch from the chromed West Coasts and he saw the orange-and-white box body behind the cab, smooth and shining, he looked down at the speedometer, swore.

He raised his leg, stomped on the brake pedal.

There was a rude sputtering noise and the pedal sank to the floor.

He reached up, twisted the siren switch past WAIL to YELP, twisted the volume knob to make sure it was turned on –

Silence.

He wiped his finger across the rocker switches, a desperate attempt to generate some forward warning –

The lights stayed dark.

He raised his left boot and sought vainly for the parking brake pedal.

Nothing there.

He gripped the wheel grimly, seized the four-speed Spicer shifter, began downshifting quickly, expertly, trying in vain to use engine compression to stop the runaway ambulance.

At least I've got a clutch.

Why does an ambulance have a standard shift?

He was screaming down a brick alleyway at sixty miles an hour, he had buildings on either side and intersections every whipstitch, and his stomach contracted at the terrible thought of someone pulling out in front of him, and then he saw the intersecting street ahead, busy with traffic.

He stomped vainly on the brake pedal.

 

Barrents seized the Sheriff’s upraised hand and the man gripped Barrents’ hand, closed around it, whipped it up and down, stomping on the footboard with both feet.

“No brakes,” he gasped as if tortured.

Barrents laid his other hand over the Sheriff’s clutching fingers.  “It’s all right, boss,” he said reassuringly, “I’ll drive!”

The Sheriff’s eyes snapped open, fever-bright:  he rolled toward the sidrail, seized his segundo by the belt, hauled him quickly, ungently over the side and slammed him down beside him in the bed.

“Drive!”  he grated, then collapsed, panting.

 

Linn looked at the barn.

It was ancient, it was made of logs – chestnut, he thought, and had no idea how he knew that, for they were so old, identification was not possible – the barn roof was sagging and green with moss, it was moldering inside, a wreck, a ruin.

“Are we gonna live there?”  a little boy’s voice asked, and Linn looked beside him.

Jimmy stood there, big-eyed and scared-looking, clutching a fistful of pencils and a steno book.

“No,” Linn said.  “I don’t even want to use that for shelter while we get a place built.”

“Good,” Jimmy said faintly.  “I don’t like that place.”

Something dark moved inside and Linn’s hand went to his belt, closed on the empty space where a holstered revolver should have been.

“Me neither,” he said quietly.  “Jimmy, get behind me.”

He crouched a little, brought his good right fist back to his ear, raised his bladed left hand and prepared to sell his very life as dearly as possible.

He had something worth defending and he would defend it with everything in his soul.

The scene shifted and he was walking up a set of stairs.

He stopped and looked around, blinking.

He turned and looked behind him, at the landing.

He was in a farmhouse, an old farmhouse but well kept.

The foot of the stairs opened into a doorway that connected kitchen with living room, and it had a mirror at its bottom, and two rifles and a shotgun parked in the corners.

He recognized the place.

Bob was upstairs.

Bob Beymer, an old and dear friend, a man to whom he was closer than his own blood brother.

Bob is long dead and his house torn down, a reasonable part of his brain whispered. Why am I here?

He turned and lifted one foot, then the other … but he was tired, so very tired …

He knew Bob was coming out of his bed, gripping the shotgun he kept on the floor beside his narrow bunk, he knew Bob would come barefoot and silent to the head of the stairs.

He also knew he stood a fair chance of descending the stairs on a charge of heavy shot.

“Bob,” he called as he sagged against the wall, exhausted, “I am so very tired.”

He lifted his head as Bob came to the head of the stairs and somehow he knew Bob could not see him.

“I’m so tired,” he repeated, and Bob recognized his voice, and started to cuss him in terms that would genuinely shame a saltwater sailor.

Brother Beymer roundly swore, profaned and damned the shade infesting his stairway and ordered him to return to his carcass where it belonged.

Linn seized on this direction.

He heard a little boy’s voice, a pitiful cry.

“I don’t know where I am!”

He reached his hand out and felt a boy’s hand, gripped it.

“Come with me,” he said, and he was surprised by the confidence in his voice.

“I know where we are.”

 

Barrents – and the shaman – expected the hospital bed to collapse when the Sheriff seized his stout segundo and flipped him easily over him and the side rail both, landing his chief deputy supine beside him:  the bed groaned, cracked, both wheels on the bed’s port side lost an axle, but for a miracle it did not hit the floor.

The door opened and a little boy walked in, a scared looking little boy with a fistful of pencils in his left hand and a steno book in his right.

He walked around the foot of the bed, he walked behind the shaman and he walked up to the right side of the bed, and he reached through the rails and gripped the Sheriff’s hand.

“I’m scared,” he said in a lost-little-boy voice.  “I don’t know where to go.”

“It’s all right,” the Sheriff whispered, his hand closing gently around the boy’s hand, gripping it reassuringly.  “I know where we are.”

 

Will Keller strode through the automatic doors toward the ward clerk.

“How much more coffee do we need?”  he asked sternly.

“We still have most of it left,” she replied, “and there are still doughnuts in the box.”

Will blinked, surprised, looked around the waiting room.

“The army didn’t show up,” the unit secretary explained.  “The Sheriff isn’t as pretty as his Mama.”

Will laughed quietly, nodded.  “Reckon so.”

“We’ve had a record number of calls, people asking how he’s doing, but we haven’t seen the crowd of worried lawmen that showed up when Willamina was hurt.”

Will grunted, nodded.

“If you’d like to go see him …?”

“In a little bit,” Will said uncomfortably.

 

Barrents paged slowly through Jimmy’s drawings, nodding.

He saw the sagging barn, felt the lurking menace in its shadow, captured by a little boy with nothing more than a number two lead pencil.

He turned the page and saw a hand gripping the wheel, the other hand wrapped around a shifter knob, he saw brick walls on either side, the alley tapering away before the perfectly rendered Ford hood –

He turned the page, saw the stairs, steep and narrow and without a handrail.

He turned the final page and saw the Sheriff standing in a swirling fog, holding a little boy by the hand, and the little boy’s other hand held a fist full of pencils.

The Sheriff was looking down at the boy, and the boy up at the Sheriff, and Barrents nodded, then he handed the drawings to the Shaman.

“This,” he said, “is what I saw.”

He looked at the Sheriff, talking quietly to his wife and to Jimmy.

“These are where he’s been.”

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

96.  MEETINGS

It was the same ambulance that took his mother home when she was hurt.
It was a restored, 1973 Cadillac, Miller-Meteor high-top, and it was, quite honestly …
Immaculate.
It was chrome and it was polished, it was restored flawlessly – methodically, meticulously, looking like it had just come off the showroom floor.
Raise the hood, look at the engine:  no sign of any oil leak, not even road dust:  had the curious removed the air cleaner’s cover, the pleated paper air filter would have been spotless.
In its time it had been an emergency vehicle, and even yet its lights and its sirens – yes, sirens, – plural, the chromed Federal Q, waxed and gleaming, and the Federal Interceptor electronic, screaming in its day through twin, roof mounted speakers  were very, very functional – its rotating beacons all worked, and were still incandescent bulbs, not modern LEDs; sealed beam tunnel lights thrust aggressively from contoured, cylindrical apertures, and they all worked, they all worked very well, and the oversized, heavy-duty alternator had been replaced by twin generators, as the mechanical siren, powered by a Delco starter motor, tended to be very hard on an alternator’s diodes with the sudden slam-draw of current, and the equally sudden surge of power going nowhere when the siren stopped drawing and coasted instead.
The upholstery was new and without stain or flaw, the floor was waxed, without the first trace of a scuff from bringing a cot out in a hurry, or bringing a body-weighted cot into the ambulance in a hurry.
In short, it was a gem, a jewel, a museum-piece exhibit on good rubber tires, the living, breathing example of What Used to Be.
It was also waiting under the overhanging ER entrance.
The glass double doors rumbled open, sliding apart easily on greased roller tracks; a tall, lean man, fatigue graving his face, lay on the ambulance cot, one arm around a giggling seven-year-old:  four EMTs from the fire department’s squad lowered the old-fashioned backbreaker cot to its low position, then counted, raised and eased front wheels, then back wheels, onto the spotless, gleaming ambulance deck:  they eased the cot forward, caught the forward hook, eased the foot sideways and engaged the rear catch, letting the spring loaded clamp close around the vertical brace with the ease of long practice.
A huge, curly-furred, absolutely black dog surged easily into the back, followed by one of the EMTs; the heavy rear door swung shut and they felt the rig shiver momentarily as the big Cadillac engine started, just over 500 cubic inches of high-compression, four-barrel GM go-power waking up under the hood.
There is a reason Cadillac was the standard against which all ambulances were measured, the reason it had been recruited to take the Sheriff home:  a Cadillac ambulance starts life as a car, it rides like a car, and it gives a nice, easy ride.
Jimmy was as restless as any seven-year-old; he was not content to lay for any length of time, and so the EMT helped hoist him off the cot and set him on the squad bench on the passenger side.
The Bear Killer sat proudly beside the Sheriff’s shoulder – well, mostly sat; he rested his chin on Linn’s shoulder and sighed with pleasure, for his Alpha was returning to his pack.

Connie watched her husband pull on his jeans – slowly, painfully, as if he were drawing up drawers made of woven lead rather than indigo-dyed cotton.
“I thought Dr. Greenlees said you should take it easy,” she protested in a patient, gentle voice.
Linn got his drawers up, fast up the button and reached for the heavy leather belt.
“He did.”
“Then why are you getting dressed?”
“Work to do.”
“No.”
Linn picked up his flannel shirt, slid one arm into it, then the other, shivered.
“Look at you.”  
Connie’s arms were folded, her eyes were worried, she watched as her husband sagged and dropped his head as he sat heavily on the edge of the bed.
“I shouldn’t be this tired,” he whispered.
Connie stepped closer, cupped her hand under his chin, raised his head:  she pressed her palms against his cheeks, kissed him quickly, delicately.
“You hard headed son of your father,” she whispered, “I thought Richard had a thick skull!”
Linn grunted, grinned crookedly.  “He did.  So did Mama.”
“And you get it from both sides of the family.”
“Yep.”
Connie sat on the bed beside him, her hand warm and soft in his.
“Are you strong enough to come downstairs for supper?”
Linn chuckled, grimaced, then smiled.
“After a week of hospital food, I’d slide downstairs on my butt to get a good meal again!”
“I’ll have Jimmy bring you a big sheet of cardboard.  He wanted to try sliding down the stairs and I wouldn’t let him.”
There was a muffled hissing, thumping, scraping sound from outside the almost-closed bedroom door, the delighted shriek of a little boy getting into something delightfully scary, kind of a muffled wump-wump-wump and finally the sound of a young body hitting a wall downstairs.
“Sounds like he tried it anyway.”
They waited for a wail of distress and didn’t hear anything – at least for a moment – then they heard young feet scampering up the stairs, a giggle, and it started all over again.
“It’s a wonder we ever survived childhood,” Linn muttered, and Connie sighed her agreement.
That evening the County Commissioners held their regular meeting in the Sheriff’s study, after a truly excellent meal Connie prepared and served.  
It was not the first time Linn blessed her Mama for raising her in a household where they grew, and made good use of, their own cooking herbs.
Barrents was there as well, at the Sheriff’s request:  most of the routine work was waived or tabled in favor of the matter at hand, a pet project of one of the commissioners (who of course stood to make some money off the idea) – converting as many county vehicles as possible to run off compressed natural gas.
Jimmy watched from as distant a corner as he could arrange, sketching as usual:  he’d been given a steno book sized drawing tablet, one with good eggshell textured paper, and he was making good use of his time and his vantage:  he had a quick eye and a good memory, and while the speaker was now seated, his pencil remembered how the man looked standing and pointing at figures on an easel, and the memory scratched steadily onto the paper, until the moment Jimmy abruptly flipped the paper over and started again.
The Bear Killer leaned companionably against Jimmy’s backside, warm and comfortable – and comforting – Jimmy was absolutely unused to cordial conversation under a roof where strangers were involved, and this discussion had been nothing but civil, and Jimmy, to address his discomfort, drew.
The Bear Killer, as his contribution to civil discourse, snored quietly.

Linn was so tired he was shaking, but he was pleased – most pleased! – with himself.
He’d hosted the County Commissioners and successfully argued against converting his Sheriff’s vehicles to compressed natural gas until the concept was proven – on the other county vehicles.
He’d remembered his Mama describing how Hocking College tried that conversion on every one of their vehicles, the police cruisers included, and how it was nothing but a big headache:  it had proven unreliable, expensive and a general aggravation – admittedly, that had been three decades before, but the Sheriff was not a trusting man, and he knew gasoline engines worked and worked well.
If the county could prove the concept reliable on its other equipment, all well and good, but until then he’d run good old petroleum distillate.
After the Commissioners left – fortified with coffee and pie, good homemade flaky crust pie that few of them got anymore – they’d gone home satisfied and happy, and Linn went down to the barn, fooled with his horses, cleaned the stalls and talked to his horses.
Connie was still at the house and so unable to hear his admission to his equine audience that this was a hell of a lot easier when he was eighteen and not healin’ up, but by God! he’d got the job done, even if it did take him a few hours longer than it usually would have.
He’d come limping slowly back up to the house, chilled a little with a sweat damp shirt and evening’s chill, he’d left his filthy over boots back at the barn and so just had to wipe his feet before coming into the house, but out of respect for Connie’s immaculate house cleaning he used the home made boot jack to fetch off his Wellingtons before coming into the living room and sagging to the couch, exhausted.
The Bear Killer came over and sat on the floor beside his leg, rested his chin on Linn’s leg, looked up at him with big black sad eyes, and Linn chuckled and rubbed the big canine’s neck and shoulders.
“You’re worried,” he whispered, and The Bear Killer gave his pants leg a tentative lick – right over where one of the excised and drained pus pockets had been.
“I know.  You and Doc Greenlees.”
The Bear Killer groaned somewhere deep in his chest, looked over his shoulder.
“You might as well come and get your soak,” Connie called from the doorway.  “The water is good and hot and you remember what Doc told you.”
“Yeah,” Linn grunted.  “Hot Epsom salt soaks until the infection quits coming out.”
He got his good leg under him, then bent the injured counterpart – more accurately, he got his less injured leg under him, then his more injured counterpart – and stood, carefully, reaching for his belt buckle.
Connie helped him undress, draping his duds over the back of a chair, and Linn admitted he really had other plans for such situations, and Connie came up on her toes and kissed him quickly, whispering something about a dirty old man, and Linn laughed quietly.
He showered before easing himself down in that almost-too-hot Epsom salts water, but once he got down into the soak, he laid there, head back against a rolled up bath towel, he allowed himself to relax.
Just before he fell asleep, part of his mind realized it was so very rare he allowed himself to truly let down his guard like this.

The lean old lawman with the iron grey mustache pushed his hat brim up with one finger.
He was seated behind a wooden desk in a solid built log walled Sheriff’s office, his feet kicked up on the corner of the desk, one crossed over the other.
“Well,” he rumbled, “you’re smarter than you look.”
Linn drug up a chair, set himself down in it.
“How’s that?”
“You’re lettin’ that woman of yours take care of you.”
Linn raised an eyebrow.
“You,” Old Pale Eyes continued, “are one contrary and hard headed sort.”
“Like you have room to talk,” a female voice retorted from Linn’s right:  he turned and saw a pale eyed young woman, a pretty young woman in a fashionable gown, pulling off her lacy black gloves.  “I thought you had a corner on that market, Papa!  Hard headed, indeed!”
Old Pale Eyes turned his pale eyes toward Sarah Lynne McKenna and offered his studied opinion:  “Young lady, you need bent over my lap and your bottom smacked!”
She laughed, seated herself on a rough, handmade chair as if she were the Queen herself settling into a velvet cushioned throne:  “And you, good sir, would have to catch me first!”
She turned and looked at Linn.
“He is right, you know.  You are both hard headed men.”
“Flattery,” Linn said carefully, “will get you everywhere.”
She looked at the older man with the iron grey mustache.  “He even sounds like you!”
“Can’t imagine why,” both men chorused, then looked at one another, surprised, and laughed.
“Your work ain’t done,” the Old Sheriff said, his words measured, careful:  “that’s why you ain’t dead.  That, and I don’t believe that pretty wife of yours would let you die.”
Linn nodded.  “I reckon she’d be pleased to hear that.”
“She makes good pie too.”
Linn blinked, surprised, and laughed.  “She does that,” he agreed.  
“My Mama,” Old Pale Eyes admitted, “couldn’t make a flaky pie crust if her life depended on it.  Your Mama could, Sarah could, Bonnie could … hell, even my little girls could, bless ‘em, but my Mama …”
He smiled a little, just a little, as he remembered.
“At least I was smart enough never to say as much while Mama was still alive.”
Linn nodded.  
Connie’s beef stew was multiple orders of magnitude better than his Mama’s beef stew, and he gave thanks to God Almighty on a number of occasions he’d never, ever said as much.
“Now with you soakin’ that leg,” the Old Sheriff started up again, “that’ll pull that infection out in long strings.”
“It’s been.”
“Keep that up, son.  Soak all that corruption out of you that’ll come out peaceful an’ have Doc drill another couple holes in there if need be.  You want all of that out.”
“You’re thinking gangrene.”
“Damned right I’m thinking gangrene, son!  I seen it and I smelt it and you don’t want that a’tall!”
“He’s right,” Sarah added, suddenly serious.
“Why all of a sudden are you two telling me this?”  Linn asked, his lawman’s mind automatically trying the various puzzle pieces to see which ones fit together.
“Told you before.  Your work ain’t done.”
“Mind tellin’ me what it is?”  Linn asked mildly.
“Right now you got to take care of both your boys.  Wes is growin’ fast and he’ll be a fast one to keep track of.  That was a good idea” – the Old Sheriff pointed a finger at the younger Sheriff – “puttin’ Jimmy to bein’ big brother an’ ridin’ herd on him.  That paid off already and now that Wes is gettin’ up on his feet an’ gettin’ into stuff, you’ll need that.”  He glared at Linn.  “Him drawin’ like that is somethin’ you can turn to your advantage.”
“It is not out of line,” Sarah said slowly, gripping her black-lace gloves in suddenly-nervous hands, “to tell you that your blood will … that a …”
She looked to the Old Sheriff for help.
“You’ve got relatives all over hell and breakfast,” the Old Sheriff frowned.  “One of ‘em will be sweet on Jimmy and they’ll have children and that line will be important.”
Linn nodded.
“Right now, though, you need some more hot water in that tub so you don’t chill.  Don’t need you ketchin' pneumonia as well.”
Linn nodded again, opened his eyes.
He was back in the tub and Connie was carefully adding hot, steaming water from a big kettle, pouring slowly, moving the stream so she wouldn’t scald her husband.
“I fell asleep,” Linn slurred, and Connie smiled.
“I saw your eyes swinging under your eyelids,” Connie said quietly.  “You were dreaming.”
“Yeah.  How’s Jimmy?”
“He’s sound asleep.  The Bear Killer is on the bed and Jimmy is smiling a little in his sleep.”
“I remember how The Bear Killer would wag his tail in his sleep,” Linn murmured, his eyes drowsy.
Connie smiled at the memory.  “We must be doing something right if our dogs wag their tails in their sleep.”
“Yeah.”
He looked down at his leg, wrapped his hands around his thigh, squeezed gently.
“Any more coming out?”
Connie bent, looked.  “I don’t see any.”
Linn nodded.  
“Reckon I might shower off the salt and go sack out.”
 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

97.  BIG BROTHER, BIG SISTER

Connie didn’t press the issue.
Jimmy looked at her with his usual big-eyed, innocent expression and said, “Mrs. Sheriff?”
Linn looked at Connie, amused:  he understood, at least a little, because he’d gotten used to being called “Sheriff” the way boys will call their sire “Dad.”
It was a title, and he was used to it.
Connie inclined her head to Jimmy and he asked, “I’m a big brother?”
“Yes, Jimmy.”
He frowned.
“When my baby sis is born …  will I be a big brother or a big sister?”
Linn smiled, Connie turned red, little Wesley decided mashed potatoes were fine to splat his hand into, and for the moment that followed, cleanup took precedence over questions, but after Connie stirred in a little butter and Wes decided he liked the taste of buttered mashed taters, Connie deftly scooped a dribble off the youngest Keller’s chin and said, “You are a big brother, Jimmy, and you will be big brother to your sister as well.”
“Good,” Jimmy said, relief betrayed with the sag in his shoulders.
“Any particular reason why you were askin’?”  Linn asked gently, and Jimmy looked at the Sheriff with a trace of distress.
“I’d look awful silly in a dress!”
Linn nodded solemnly.  “I reckon we won’t get you a dress, then.”
He looked at Connie as expressionlessly as possible and she refused to meet his gaze, busying herself with Wesley Albert’s insistence that milk should be poured on his high-chair tray instead of drunk.
Jimmy studied the lad solemnly, watching for several moments as Wes grabbed a handful of peas and scattered them before asking the Sheriff, “Was I ever really one of those?”
Linn gave up at this point; his laughter lasted for some time and he finally nodded.
“Yes, Jimmy, you and I both!” and Wesley looked at them with an infant’s innocent joy and squealed happily, which was just what Connie needed to shoot another spoonful of supper into the happy lad’s mouth.
A mother’s skills at persuasion are truly remarkable; Wes decided he liked supper and Connie wasted no time in shoveling groceries into the wee lad’s trap, while Jimmy returned his attention to his own plate.
“Jimmy’s teacher said he’s doing very well in class,” Connie said in a carefully reassuring voice.
Jimmy froze, gave her a sidelong glance, then an outrightly fearful look at the Sheriff.
“He’s ahead of his class in reading, art of course, math … she said you are doing very well and she is proud of you.”  Connie smiled, as gently as her voice: “And so are we.”
“Damn right,” Linn agreed quietly, winking at the lad.
Jimmy relaxed a little, but not too much:  old reflexes die hard, and too often mention of conversation with a teacher had been followed by raised voices and raised hands.  
He reminded himself neither the Sheriff nor Mrs. Sheriff – he didn’t call her that much anymore, only when he was feeling like he should hold the world at arm’s length – neither of them raised either their voices to him, nor their hands:  as a matter of fact, the only time the Sheriff raised his voice (that Jimmy could remember) was when he came off the ladder that night and ended up face down in white paint, and that was more a surprised roar than any directed malediction.
“Can we go to Carbon Hill sometime?”  Jimmy asked hopefully.
Linn blinked, surprised.  “I reckon we can,” he said, “is there any particular place over there you’d like to see?”
Jimmy frowned, uncertain.  “I dunno,” he admitted, “but the guys were tellin’ me it’s a neat place to go and I should put a can of chicken soup in the back room of the old general store and stand there and watch it!”
“Ahh-hmmm,” Linn said, nodding his understanding.  “They told you that, did they?”
Jimmy nodded.
“Did they tell you why you should do that?”
“They said it was a surprise.”
Linn nodded slowly, meditatively.
“I think we can arrange that.”
“Really?  Ohboyohboyohboyohboy,” Jimmy breathed, eagerness lighting his young face.
“You really don’t know what’ll happen.”
Jimmy shook his head.
“I reckon we can find out.  How’s tonight for you?”
“It’s a little late,” Connie cautioned.  “Perhaps tomorrow, right after … oh, that’s right, school’s out, isn’t it!”
“Yeah,” Jimmy breathed, eyes big and pleading.
“Let me change the subject.”  Linn shifted in his seat, mopped up the last of his plate with a chunk of good sourdough, which brought a disapproving look from his wife.
“Jimmy, this is not polite at someone else’s house,” Linn cautioned, wiping the plate and taking a bite, then talking through his chew:  “it makes a man look like he’s still starvin’ and makes the host look bad.”
“Okay,” Jimmy said, suddenly solemn.
“It’s a bad habit,” Linn said, tearing off another chunk and making another swipe at his plate, “and a man really hadn’t oughta do it even at home.”  He swallowed what he had, thrust what he’d freshly mopped into his mouth, chewed and winked at the lad.
“I suppose you’re still hungry, then,” Connie said primly.
Linn looked at Connie, looked at Jimmy.  “Is there pie?”  he grinned.
Connie looked tolerantly at her husband.
“Yes, dearest,” she said. “There is pie.”

After pie, Linn stood, grimaced and nearly fell:  he sat again, heavily, jaw clenched, silent and white-faced.
Jimmy’s eyes were wide with concern as Connie removed his empty plate and his fork:  she set them quickly on the counter, walked quickly around the table to her husband, gripped his shoulders.
“Maybe,” Linn said in a pained voice, “maybe we hadn’t ought to go to Carbon tonight.”
Jimmy hid his disappointment behind the realization that this strong man of authority was in pain, and Jimmy knew what pain was:  part of his mind realized with some surprise that he wasn’t afraid of being hurt by this man now … he wasn’t afraid he’d lash out because something went wrong.
Linn sat for several moments, gathering himself, then grimly stood:  if it killed him, Connie knew, he was going to beat the pain, he was going to heal, he was going to be as good as he was, peacefully or otherwise … and he didn’t much care which one it was.
He turned and walked slowly into the living room, sat at his desk, turned on his laptop.
Connie heard his quiet sound of discovery, then:
“Dearest, bring Jimmy in here, it’s time he met his big sister!”
 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

98.  “A REAL MARTIAN!”

 

The attention span of your average seven year old is generally measured in tenths of an inch, and not many of those.

Jimmy, in this respect, was typical, save when he was focused on his drawing:  when he was funneling the world in through his eyes and out through his pencil, his concentration was absolute, his focus unwavering.

Jimmy’s thoughts ran, like your average seven year old’s, about as fast as chain lightning across a stormy sky, and forked just as often.

Jimmy stared, wide-eyed and awe-struck, at the computer’s monitor.

The Sheriff held Jimmy on one leg and young Wesley on the other – Wes went on his right leg, the one that was hurt more, because – well, Wes weighed less and so hurt less.

Connie stood behind them, one hand on Jimmy’s shoulder, one on her husband’s, and they watched the big blue NASA log fade to the red, semi-arrowhead of the Martian colony’s insignia, then under it, the red, old-fashioned letters – the same style you might see on the front page of a frontier newspaper – the word FIRELANDS.

“The Martians named their own colony,” Linn explained, almost in a whisper, in answer to Jimmy’s inquiring look, to his pointing finger.

Jimmy’s eyes were wide with wonder:  like most children of his generation, he knew about the Martians, the colonies, they dangers they’d faced, he knew the close calls they’d had while in transit, how a passing meteor cleaned a fuel cell off their sleep-ship and the two men awake had to recalculate their trajectory to account for the lost weight, the sudden impact … fortunately they hadn’t lost radar nor communications, and were able to resume course.

Jimmy had watched the public broadcasts, he’d seen interviews with the several colonists, most of the time in either their bulky, puffy, increasingly-dirty atmosphere suits, or in quarters, in their red Union suits.

All but the Sheriff.

Jimmy liked that Sheriff on Mars.

She was pretty and she had light eyes, just like The Pretty Lady, she never said much and she had a six point star just like his pale-eyed Sheriff.

“That,” Linn said as a young couple appeared on the screen, seated side-by-side, “is my daughter.”

Jimmy’s mouth opened and then he grinned with delight.

“She’s your big sister.”

He turned quickly, looked up at the Sheriff.

“Really?”  he squeaked, then hugged the lawman, quickly, impulsively:  Connie smiled, rubbed his back, murmured “Yes, Jimmy.  Your room used to be her room.”

Jimmy drew back, looked up, disappointed.  “But what if she wants to come home?”

Linn chuckled, his arm strong and reassuring around the boy’s middle.  “See that good lookin’ young fella she’s set down beside?  That’s Dr. John Greenlees Jr. – he’s son of Doc Greenlees here in town – they’re married.”

“She’s married?”   Jimmy sounded almost disappointed.

“Yep.  She’s an old married woman now.”  Linn leaned his cheek over on top of Jimmy’s head and whispered,  “And I have no idea how this happened so damned fast.”

Jimmy leaned forward, glued to the screen, as the couple waved and laughed and talked excitedly, the way young married couples will; they talked about the lack of weather, how the red Martian soil stuck to almost nothing except itself, how they were making bricks of the stuff and refining it into an amazing array of materials, they were suddenly sober as they discussed their new cemetery and how their Parson – the doctor explained they were going to call him their sky pilot but that was confusing, as the man who piloted their sleepship was one of the colonists, and though he had no intent of returning to space, still had the title of “Pilot” – how their Parson broke down in tears as they buried their dead, and how he switched off his suit’s comm when he did – and the system wouldn’t come back on, so Marnie here – the doctor’s image hugged the sleek-suited Sheriff to him, kissed her cheek quickly, delicately – stepped in with the rest of the service as if she’d done it all her life.

“Yeah,” Marnie grinned, elbowing her husband lightly, “and nobody could see that I had tears runnin’ down my face too!”

“Can they see us?”  Jimmy whispered anxiously.

“No,” the Sheriff whispered back.  “This is a recording.  It takes about ten minutes to get a signal to Mars.  It’s easier to record a message and send it all at once than to try and have a conversation.”

“Oh,” Jimmy whispered, then frowned.  “Will you record me too?”
“You’re damned right,” Linn whispered, hugging Jimmy again.  “We have to introduce Marnie to her new younger brother!”

Jimmy regarded the glowing screen and the young couple with outright awe and wonder, and whispered, “A real Martian!”

Linn laughed.  “Yep.  A real Martian.”

The blue NASA logo came back on the screen, with the words END TRANSMISSION beneath.

“Now,” Linn said, “we get to record our letter to them.”

“Will they see us?”

“Sure will.”

“Can I show them …”

Jimmy’s voice tapered off and he dropped his head, pulled into himself as if afraid of a rejection.

“Jimmy,” Linn said quietly, “I think they would be delighted to see them!”

Jimmy’s eyes got big again and so did his grin, and Linn took him under his arms and lifted the boy’s bony backside off his aching thigh before Jimmy could launch off with a surge of youthful enthusiasm (like Marnie used to do at his age!) – Jimmy ran over to the clutter of books on the end of the couch, seized two notebooks – one the size of a steno book, one a little larger – then stopped, blinked.

“I’ve saved your bigger ones,” Linn said, lifting his chin toward his desk.  “Let your Mama get set up and we’ll show those ones to her as well!”

“I have my lecture easel,” Connie offered.

“The very thing!” 

Jimmy found himself standing before the easel while the Sheriff and Mrs. Sheriff clamped the sheaf of pencil renderings to the easel’s pad with clothes pins.

Connie arranged the computer, Linn studied the screen, nodded.

“Okay,” he said.  “Roll film.”

“Huh?”  Jimmy asked, looking up and wrinkling his nose, puzzled.

 

Sheriff Marnie K. Greenlees squeezed Dr. John Greenlees’ hand as the blue NASA logo came up, followed by a familiar figure standing beside an easel with a pencil rendering of what was very obviously The Lady Esther pulling Saddle Hill Grade.

A little boy was looking up at the Sheriff, his nose wrinkled, and he gave a little-boy “Huh?”  before the Sheriff looked at the open laptop screen and grinned.

“Hi, Marnie,” he said, “and I reckon Dr. John is there with you.  This communication is rated G for “It’s Safe To Show This One At Work” and contains nothing rude, crude, socially unacceptable, illegal, immoral or fattening, not necessarily in that order.”

Marnie squeezed her husband’s hand and whispered, “Oh, Daddy!”

Dr. John squeezed back, chuckling, for he’d heard that line before from the man, and it amused him to hear it again.

“You’ve got a new little brother, his name is Jimmy and I’m right proud of him.  He rides a horse the size of the legendary Snowflake.  You’ll remember your Grandma had a horse of that height and you said riding it was like riding the dining room table.  Well, Stomper is about the same.  We’ve got a good saddle for him and Jimmy does right well when he sets the hurricane deck.”  He grinned down at the lad, who grinned up at the lawman.

“Jimmy wanted to show you some of his work so I’ll let him talk.”

Jimmy blinked, looked uncertainly at his image on the screen, then up at the Sheriff.

“I don’t know what to say,” he whispered, and Dr. Greenlees felt his wife’s suppressed laughter:  they sat together, leaning into one another, he could feel her breathe, and he felt her amusement as the little boy with the distressed expression added, “I never talked to a Martian before!”

Linn chuckled, squatted.  “It’s just like talkin’ to anyone else.  Why don’t you start by telling her about what you’ve done here.”

“I drew this,” Jimmy declared with the simple directness of a child.  “That’s The Lady Esther an’ me an’ Stomper went out ‘cause he don’t like trains and I’m tryin’ to get him over not likin’ trains ‘cause I like trains an’ he wants … I dunno what he wants to do but that’s what she looked like the day I roped an elk an’ the lariat pulled down against my leg an’ it hurt but I didn’t cry ‘cause I was too busy holdin’ on” – he paused for breath – “an’ here’s the elk an’ I can’t reach that clo’es pin –“
The pencil drawing of The Lady Esther fell away and the Sheriff rescued it before it could be stepped on – “an’ that’s the elk,” he said proudly, waiting until Connie replaced the clothes pin at the top corner, and the Sheriff, the other.

Marnie leaned forward, smiling a little, studying the image on her screen, and Dr. John heard her quiet “aaahhh” of whispered appreciation.

The elk was standing in the middle of the tracks, its head and neck turned a little, rack laid back along its back bone:  she could see its mouth was open and – looking at the black-and-white, pencil drawing, she remembered hearing elks bugle, and she imagined she could hear this elk as well.

“An’ I didn’t want the train to hit the elk but I rememmerd the guy that told Sheriff how ya don’t wanta blow air horns at an elk ‘cause they’ll charge an’ the engineer blew the whistle an’ the elk” – he paused for breath again, and the Sheriff laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Jimmy here spun a lariat over the elk’s antlers just pretty as you please.”

“He what?”  Marnie whispered hoarsely.

“Jimmy is younger, smarter and better looking than me,” the Sheriff continued.  “He let loose of the lariat and let the elk go.  Once the line went slack the elk was more than happy to head for the other side of the county.  I played hell getting’ it back, too!”  He chuckled.

“Your father,” Connie said, giving her husband a disapproving look, “waited on a tree branch and when the elk walked under him, he dropped onto its back and cut the rope loose.”

“Yeah,” Linn grimaced.  “Terra firma is a lot more firma than I really wanted, too!”

Marnie giggled at her father’s rueful expression and the matching tone of his voice.

Jimmy waited for the next sheet to come down.

“That’s a freight wagon in Carbon Hill,” he said confidently, and Marnie saw her father give the lad a curious look, and she could almost hear the thoughts shaping his expression:

“When in the hell were you in Carbon Hill?”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

99.  COME WITH ME, JIMMY

Jimmy was a little disappointed that he wasn’t going to Carbon Hill.
Part of him knew what it was to hurt, and to be hurt, and he knew – well, part of him knew – the Sheriff was hurt.
Jimmy remembered when he’d been hurt and how he didn’t want to do anything afterward, just hide, hide and hope never to be found.
Part of him was disappointed.
He wanted to see what happened when you put a can of chicken soup in the back room of the old Mercantile.
In his young imagination he fancied the back of the old Mercantile looked like the Firelands mercantile, tidy and well organized, boards dark with time and with the oil that was used to keep down the old black store dust that always accumulated, especially right beside a dirt street, and he imagined setting a can of chicken soup in the middle of the back room, and …
What?
Maybe the can would disappear with an audible *poof* and a cloud of smoke?
Jimmy wasn’t sure, but he wanted to find out.
He wasn’t one to lay in bed, staring at the ceiling; when his head hit the pillow, that was it – lights out – and he felt himself submerge in the dark lake of slumber, sinking steadily through blood-warm waters, until he was standing in the middle of a street he didn’t recognize.
A dirt street.
It smelled of dirt and of digging, that odd, damp scent that comes from making a long hole in the earth, a funny smell he’d caught on an odd breeze, the smell of …
Coal?
He looked around at the unfamiliar town.
He was in the very center of a dirt street, a set of ruts beside him and a freight wagon headed straight for him –
A hand gripped his shoulder and everything stopped.
The wagon stopped with the harness bells in mid-jingle, horses’ hooves in mid-stride, silence was sudden and profound, and he looked up at a familiar face.
It was The Pretty Lady.
“Come with me,” she whispered, and her whisper was loud, and he looked back at the freight wagon and shook his head.
“I want to draw that,” he whispered back, and just that quick he was holding a hardbacked pad of good drawing paper, and a clutch of pencils in his off hand’s grip.
“You’ll need a table,” The Pretty Lady said, and he blinked as her gloved hands swung a low table in front of him, a stool behind him:  there in the very center of the time-frozen street, a little boy hunched over a table twice as wide as a schooldesk, looked up at the freight wagon, down at the paper.
He drew what he saw, he drew from his perspective:  moisture gleamed on the big draft horses’ noses, slobber from the corners of their mouths; one’s head was a little sideways, as if it were just starting to shake its head:  the teamster looked bored, the wagon was loaded, it seemed the drawing was ready to ride off the paper and right over the viewer.
Jimmy turned the page, looked to his right.
He began to draw again.
His skill was truly amazing; windows and a double door, an awning the width of the store, the high, false front, and across its front, a broad, hand-painted sign that looked like someone very carefully, very precisely lettered up a smoothed-off plank (which is actually what had been done), and the letters formed the word
MERCANTILE.
It wasn’t until boardwalk and planks, a horse trough and a hitch rail, siding and signs and the alleyway disappearing at an angle beside, that Jimmy looked up at The Pretty Lady.
“Is that the mercantile?”  he breathed.
She smiled, snapped her fingers:  he caught the notebook to keep it from falling, caught his weight on the balls of his feet as desk and stool both disappeared.
“Come with me,” she whispered, putting her hand between his shoulder blades and guiding him toward the Mercantile:  just as his foot touched the boardwalk, sound returned and he flinched, for the air was suddenly full of rumble and jingle and hoofbeats, of an out-of-tune piano and men’s laughter and a train whistle not far away.
The Pretty Lady opened the door to the Mercantile, picked up a basket and loaded it with goods:  she selected quickly, efficiently, as if she’d known ahead of time where each item was:  canned goods mostly, plus two sticks of penny candy, and these she placed on the counter.
The proprietor was a tired-looking man with sad eyes and a lined face; he’d mentally added up the cost as the woman added to her basket, and he named a sum:  she opened her purse and paid without quibble, and then took up the basket.
“This way, Jimmy,” she said, and Jimmy followed her into the back room.
She put her finger to her lips, put Jimmy behind a pile of nail kegs, put two fingers to her eyes, then pointed to the middle of the floor.
Puzzled, Jimmy watched.
The Pretty Lady tapped his pad and he understood, and began to draw the room.
The Pretty Lady reached down, knocked on one particular board – rat-tat, tat – then she began setting cans down, set them in a neat row beside the board:  once placed, she knocked at the board again, rat-tat, and then stood, walked out, her heels hard and loud on the planks.
She looked at Jimmy, tilted her head to indicate he should continue watching, then went back to the front of the store, closed the door behind her.
Jimmy paused, watching:  he’d gotten the length and breadth sketched out, he was ready to draw in the floor boards:  something told him to wait, and instead he drew in the windows on one wall, on the other wall, and in the back, a closed door –
A board pushed up.
Jimmy’s eyes went wide and his breath caught as a dirty hand, then an arm, pushed the board further up, reached out, carefully felt – found – gripped a can, drew it back and down and out of sight.
Jimmy studied this, committing it to memory.
Six times the arm came out, six cans did it retrieve, and it felt around until it found the two candy sticks.
Jimmy watched the board lower back into position.
He listened carefully but heard nothing:  he stared at the floor, eyes raking back and forth, head tilted, but not a sound, not another movement rewarded his vigilance.
He looked at his paper, smiled, and began sketching in the boards.
They were laid going the length of the room; he loved drawing what he would later learn was called “perspective,” and he drew each floor board true to what a teacher would call “The Disappearing Point.”
All Jimmy knew was, he drew them, and they were right.
All but the one that was pushed up, and of course the arm would not conform to this tapered symmetry.
He drew the arm and the hand, a can in its grip and lifted off the floor, apparently being drawn away.
He smiled as he finished his drawing, then listened a little more.
He heard nothing.
Jimmy stood, slowly, carefully, picked his pad up from the nail keg he used for a drawing table, walked as quietly as he could to the back door and into the front of the Mercantile.
The Pretty Lady smiled at him, extended her hand, and they went back out the front door.

“Dearest?”
Connie poked her head around the corner of the doorway.
“Did you see today’s paper?”
“Not yet,” she called back.  “Who got caught doing what?”
Linn laughed.  It was a standing joke between them that the local paper served to tell who got caught at what they shouldn’t be doing, and indeed being exposed in the local paper had been a source of profound disgrace for a few past persons of public prominence.
“They’re rebuilding the old Opera House in Denver,” Linn said, frowning at the newsprint.  “They took the columns down – they didn’t realize they were built in sections … they were well enough made they looked like one long piece of carved and fluted stone …”
His voice tapered off.
Curious, Connie came into the living room, wiping her hands on her apron, tilting her head curiously at the Sheriff’s expression … part puzzlement, part hard study.
“I,” he breathed, “will be sawed off and damned.”
Connie came around behind him, looked over his shoulder at the open broadsheet.
There was a picture of a workman in hardhat and leather gloves reaching into the column’s base, withdrawing what looked like a dirty piece of very small stovepipe.
“It says here,” Linn said thoughtfully, “they found a sealed copper cylinder inside the column and they managed to work it open.”
He turned the page, stared.
“Butter my butt and call me a biscuit.”
There was an enlargement of the cylinder’s contents.
It was a drawing … it showed the Opera House as it had been … fluted columns, the unfinished portico, the column from which the cylinder had been extracted was the last column to be erected:  it showed the steam crane beside, it showed a section of fluted stone a-hoist, it showed men in formal coats and top hats either supervising or spectating.
There was a second drawing with it.
It, too, was enlarged, but not to the same degree:  the Historical Society was delighted with the larger of the two, for they had no photographs of the original construction, and this drawing would enable them to reconstruct it as it had been:  no, the second drawing held the Sheriff’s attention.
He felt his wife bend down to take a closer look, felt her hands on his shoulders, felt his belly tighten a little as he studied the second drawing.
It was a woman on a stage, a woman clearly in song, one arm across her belly, the other arm upraised, her palm upturned, her face shining with the joy a singer feels when the notes are pure:  the Sheriff could almost hear her soaring soprano sung from the stage.
It was a woman of striking beauty, a woman he’d seen before, a woman whose face he knew very well indeed.
He closed his eyes and dropped his head, remembering when he’d guested at the Rabbitville Monastery, when they brought out their archived records, when he saw the formal portrait of the Faceless Sisters, when he read the account of one of their number, who was once renowned for her voice.
He remembered the picture of her, the corner of her veil between thumb and forefinger, drawn up to reveal the horrifying scar that ran from her eye diagonally across her face, across her throat, and he read her quoted words:  “I used to sing opera.”
He knew who that particular Sister really was.
He looked over at his desk, the roll top open, the dully gleaming Agent’s badge in its wooden box facing him.
“Sarah Lynne McKenna, you troublemaker,” he said quietly, “that’s you on stage, and I recognize this artist’s style!”
Connie’s fingers tightened and Linn heard the tension in his wife’s voice.
“Dearest,” she asked in a worried voice, “how did she take Jimmy to Denver in the 1880s?”
Linn reached up, laid his hand on his wife’s fingers.
“I don’t know, dear heart,” he admitted, “but I reckon to find out!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

100.  EMERGENCE

Linn placed gentle fingertips on Jimmy’s elbows.
“You have done nothing wrong,” he said quietly.  “You aren’t in trouble.  There’s just something I have to go find out.”  He winked, then rose:  he turned, walked down the three steps to the driveway, limping only a little as he headed for the barn.
Jimmy heard him telling the woman Jimmy was now calling Mama that he was going to go back to work on Monday, that he’d been in regular contact, that he had to see Doc and then he was going up to the cemetery and see if he couldn’t get some answers, and Jimmy considered this.
Apparently, the Sheriff mistook juvenile consideration for fearful worry; his words were gentle, his touch reassuring, and Jimmy waited until the Sheriff was just out of sight, he and his Apple-horse, before running for the barn, the big black Bear Killer pacing him.
Connie smiled a little as she saw them pelting for the solid-built structure.
A boy and his dog, running in early summer, seemed so … so absolutely right.
She turned, laid a maternal hand on her expanding belly, then turned and looked into the kitchen.
“Wesley!”  she wailed, and young Wesley Albert grinned up at her … he was standing on a kitchen chair pulled up to the table, with the ruin of an almost-cooled pie in front of him and blueberries all over his face, his hands, his entire shirt front and a good percentage of the table top as well.
Connie bit her bottom lip, trying to decide whether to laugh, cry, scold or spank:  she pulled out her phone, took a quick snap, then thrust the phone back into her hip pocket and asked, “Wes, did you get into that pie?”
Wes looked up at her with a blueberry grin and piped, “No!”

 

Jimmy was completely at home on a saddleblanket, especially when said blanket was draped over Stomper-horse’s backbone:  Jimmy was light enough the big warmblood was not in the least burdened, and Jimmy encouraged Stomper to a faster gait.
He could just see the Sheriff and he knew where he must be going, and Jimmy knew how to get there unseen, and did.
Jimmy was a fast student of the long tall and lean waisted lawman:  between the Sheriff’s instruction and Jimmy’s practice, Stomper had taken to bitless knee-training, and a good thing:  Jimmy had his ever present tablet and pencils in his juvenile grip, and handling reins would have been difficult indeed while maintaining the tools of his young trade.
Linn, for his part, rode steadily, slowly, considering just how to proceed.
He’d known his Mama to have … proceed … in these matters, and he’d understood Old Pale Eyes had done similar, but he himself had never tried it.
Linn rode under the ancient, cast-iron arch that served as the formal entrance to the Firelands cemetery.
His family was in the oldest section.
He’d had Connie here before and he’d spooked the hell out of her when she wanted to bring flowers for the graves, and he’d said there was no need … she brought them anyway, and they fell from her nerveless fingers as she advanced towards the original Linn Keller’s double stone and saw a fresh rose was over Old Linn’s gravestone half, and another fresh rose on Esther’s half, and her grinning husband took a perverse delight in pointing out the fresh roses on each stone bearing their name.
Linn came alone this day, he and his Apple-horse, he came with a bronze badge in his pocket and a question in his heart.
Linn saw each stone had its rose, fresh cut and fragrant, spotted with morning dew – though the grass and the stones were bone dry.
He dismounted, ground-reined Apple-horse, and walked up to the Black Agent’s grave.
“Sarah,” he said, his voice firm, clear, commanding:  “Sarah, I need to speak to you.”
A gust of wind pushed the young leaves around on a nearby tree, caressed his cheek as it ran past.
He ran a hand into his pocket, brought out the ancient bronze shield, rubbed it thoughtfully with his thumb.
“Sarah –“ he began, and the ground shivered underfoot.
Jimmy’s pencil was busy scratching against good eggshell paper, he squatted behind a friendly tombstone,  used its flat top as a work table.
His eyes widened and he felt the earth shiver and he heard a dull … a dull what? … 
Jimmy heard hoofbeats, heavy and powerful, he heard a horse, a big horse, screaming a challenge –
Jimmy’s eyes went wide and his mouth was open in an astonished O as an immense, absolutely black and gleaming mare surged out of the earth, blasting the sod apart as she exploded into the lad of the living and the light, a rider all in black riding easy in the saddle.
The rider raised its head, tilted its hat brim back, looked directly at him with pale eyes –
Jimmy’s eyes went a little wider and he felt his young heart hammering against the front of his chest.
“Write,” he heard, a whisper meant for him and only him, and he looked down at his paper and he dropped the dulled pencil and pulled a fresh one from his left hand’s clutched bundle.
Jimmy drew the moment when the rider blasted out of the earth, scrambling a-gallop to the surface, forehooves thrusting hard against the sod, hind quarters not yet emerged, a triumphant expression on the rider’s face.
Linn looked up at the pale eyed equestrienne.
“You,” he said, assuming his best poker face, “know how to make an entrance.”
Sarah was absolutely comfortable in her saddle as her Snowflake mare reared, windmilling huge forehooves and stretching to a truly impressive height:  Jimmy committed this to a mental snapshot, satisfied he could render it in a moment, as soon as he’d finished his first sketch.
Snowflake came down, snorted, then snuffed loudly at the new-shoot grass and began cropping, noisily, hungrily:  Apple-horse hadn’t been the least perturbed by the mare’s sudden appearance, nor the fact that she was quite close by and significantly larger than he:  both horses decided grazing was the order of the day, and Sarah swung out of the saddle, landed easily on the balls of her feet, turned to face the pale eyed Sheriff.
“I suppose you’ll want this,” he said, holding out the badge.
Sarah turned back the lapel on her black duster. 
“I already have one, thank you,” she smiled.  
He slid his shield back into his vest pocket.  “Good.  I’d hate to lose this one.”
“You have a question.”
“I have.”
“The answer is yes.”
“I thought so.”
Sarah laughed.  “Don’t you want to know how?”
“You know me.  Of course I do.”
“How’s the leg?”
“Better.”
Sarah raised her palms to the heavens, shook her head.  “You,” she declared, “are just as hard headed as your … as my father!”
Linn laughed.  “I’ll take that as a compliment!”
Sarah shook her head again.  “You even laugh like him,” she muttered.  “If you had a handlebar mustache –“
“I’m trying,” he admitted.
Sarah looked sharply at the lean waisted lawman.  “Is there something I should know?”
Jimmy’s pencil was busy, his tongue was out the corner of his mouth as he concentrated, transferring what he saw ahead of him to what he saw on paper.
“You should know kidnap is a felony.  I don’t know the penalty for taking someone into another time.”
Sarah smiled.  “You’ll find … no, I can’t tell you that.”
“Then tell me about Jimmy drawing the front of the Opera House in Denver.”
“Oh, that old thing?”  Sarah laughed, making a g’wan gesture with a woman-limp wrist:  “He seemed to enjoy my performance as much as he liked watching the steam crane.”
“Hmp.”  Linn frowned again.  “They found his drawings in that copper sleeve in the far right hand column.”
“The Doric.”
“I … didn’t see which style,” Linn admitted.
“Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite … there’s a fifth one I’m missing… the far right column was Doric.”
“His drawings were printed in the paper, including you on stage.”
“Oh, really!”  She looked pleased.  “Do you still have it?”
“I have.”
“I’d like to see it.”
Linn nodded.  “Just how did you get Jimmy back there?”
She laughed.  “It was easy, and he’s young enough, his mind is flexible enough … so is yours, if you’d like to go.”
Linn shook his head, smiling a little.  “No, dear heart, one of me in the same place at the same time is enough – ouch!”  

He looked up, surprised:  she’d smacked his arm with the flat of her gloved hand.
He was surprised to see Sarah’s eyes bright with tears, and one streaking down her pinking cheeks.
“You sound just like Papa,” she said in a small voice, almost a little girl’s voice.  “He used to call me Dear Heart.”
Linn did not stop to consider that she might have all the substance of a summertime shadow.
He stepped up to her and wrapped his arms around her and he was honestly surprised at how solid and real she was.
He was not at all surprised that her arms around him were very real as well.

Jimmy slipped away, Stomper following, flowing quietly between the rows of marble and quartz monuments:  when he was over the break of the hill, he used a stone as a mounting block, then he and Stomper took the same line of departure as they’d used on approach, and they made good their escape without the Sheriff seeing them.
Jimmy clutched his precious notebook, rejoicing that he’d seen The Pretty Lady come out of the earth on that big horse of hers … and he’d captured it, he’d drawn it, and it looked good!
Really, genuinely, good!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

101.  COURTROOM SKETCHES

 

Chief Deputy Barrents leaned over and murmured to the sketch artist, “You might want to catch this.”

The artist looked at the screen.

The high school had better than standard cameras installed in the gym, probably because sports tend to open generous donors’ purses more quickly than academics, and cameras capable of catching detailed, clear, high grade images of a fast moving basketball game also captured the image of the lawman emerging stealthily from the stage door, into the gym at the end of the bleachers.

The screen they watched was big – huge – intended to display evidence for the entire room to see.

Jury, prosecution, defense, judge, spectators all watched the split image:  on the left, a frantic-looking individual with prison tats prominent on his neck, a cheerleader gripping his strangling arm around her neck:  his arm was outthrust and the cameras were good enough to capture the tremor of his stolen pistol’s muzzle as he swung around to bear on the approaching lawman.

The Sheriff’s pale eyed image paced … slowly, slowly, boot heels loud on the hard maple floor, a man in blue jeans and vest and an old fashioned, single action revolver on his belt, a revolver that looked as absolutely at home in the belt holster as the denim jeans he wore between gunleather and linen drawers.

The courtroom was silent, the hush absolute, the only sound was the measured pace of the approaching lawman with hard, pale eyes.

Barrents glanced down  at Jimmy’s work, his eyes narrowing with approval:  he was capturing the Sheriff in mid-stride, perfectly imaging the man’s eyes, his stance, the hand relaxed and ready, swinging in a short arc very near the curve of the plow handle grip.

Jimmy, to his credit, did not flinch when the criminal began firing.

The sound was loud, abrupt, shocking in the subdued courtroom:  Barrents automatically counted the shots, noted the speed with which they were discharged; empty casings spun and gleamed and the lawman did not alter his pace, he did not flinch or duck.

He did not stop moving.

One moment he was glaring with cold and ice-pale eyes at the criminal, and in the next, his arm was upraised and the pistol’s muzzle just beginning its rise as the deep-throated BOOOOOOM of a .44 blackpowder round pushed the air back away from these representatives of Good and of Evil.

Jimmy flipped the page, continued drawing, quickly, not hurried but not dawdling in any sense of the word:  one page, two pages, three, looking up and looking around and looking down again:  Barrents marveled at this mere boy’s skill, for the work of his pencil was better than any courtroom sketch artist he’d ever watched, and he’d taken pains to watch every one of them he possibly could.

Jimmy started the day with a good supply of pencils and a new pad:  he managed to dull up nearly every pencil he’d brought, and run through most of the pages of his sketch pad, before the day’s testimony was finished:  to his young and inexperienced mind, the attorneys were dull and boring and said the same thing over and over and over again, often raising their voices and dramatic fingers in contradiction of something the other had said.

He was surprised when Dr. Greenlees was called to the stand, and the Sheriff in his turn, and both men said the same thing:  the Sheriff was too sick to be on his feet that day, but he’d responded in time of dire need, and it was not surprising that a man burning up with fever would not remember his actions at the peak of his illness.

The video spoke for itself.

He walked up on Death itself and punched the ticket of a man who tried to kill a lawman, who took a hostage, who threatened to kill the hostage out of hand and anyone who interfered in any way whatsoever.

 

Barrents and the Sheriff took Jimmy to the drugstore for lunch.

Jimmy was surprised – he’d expected them to eat at the Silver Jewel – but the Sheriff explained, “It’s a longer walk to the drugstore.”

Jimmy looked up at him, puzzled, then at Barrents, searching for a clarification.

“Your Pa,” Barrents obliged, “wants to limber up his legs – especially his right leg – he’s trying hard not to limp and I reckon his legs are tryin’ to stiffen up after settin’ so long there in the courthouse.”

Jimmy turned his head, looked up at the Sheriff.

“Yep,” Linn affirmed, eyes busy ahead of them:  Jimmy knew both men used the angled glass of doorways as mirrors, and sometimes the Sheriff would turn and walk backwards a few paces, and sometimes it was Barrents who tried walking backwards.

Jimmy tried it and nearly fell, and only the quick reflexes of two lawmen kept him from going over backwards onto the sidewalk.

“Easy there, Tiger,” Linn chuckled.  “Whatever were you walking backwards for?  That looks silly!” – and so saying, both he and Barrents turned and walked backwards a few paces.

Jimmy blinked, then laughed.

“Besides, you’ve run through most of that pad.  You’ll need a fresh one here directly.”

Jimmy blinked, nodded:  he’d left pad and pencils back at the courthouse, on his seat, with the Bailiff’s solemn assurance they would be there when he returned.

That wouldn’t be all that was waiting on him when he returned, but he didn’t have any way of knowing that.

First, though, they had a meal and a chocolate sundae to consider.

 

The Bailiff looked at the folder he’d been handed, looked up at the pretty woman in the floor length gown of obviously a much earlier era.

“I’ll tell him,” he said, nodding, and the woman thanked him in a pleasant and musical voice.

He knocked at the Judge’s chamber door, waited for the summons, entered.

 

The Sheriff ate his burger the same way Jimmy did – as if he were starved – which did not prevent him from appreciating the flavor and texture of a mushroom bacon cheeseburger on a toasted bun.

Barrents ate more slowly, watching the pair, amused:  the boy was open, innocent and unaffected, the Sheriff was at once equally open and innocent and yet the way he kept looking around the room, the way his eyes were seldom still, told anyone watching that he was not a trusting man.

The chocolate sundaes were small – Linn didn’t want to be too full when he returned, for as he’d told Barrents some years ago, “I’m like an old b’ar.  I get warm and my belly full and I tends to fall asleep.”

Barrents knew exactly what the man meant.

Jimmy and Linn finished their desserts at about the same time:  as they both set down their spoons and made use of the cheap, single ply napkins, a troubled looking young man came up to their table.

“Sheriff?”  he asked tentatively.

Linn looked up, raised an eyebrow.

Jimmy looked as well, blinked, his quick eyes committing the newcomer’s face to memory.

I can draw him, he thought confidently, turning a leaf on his brand-new sketch pad under the tabletop.

“Sheriff,” the young man said deferentially, “might I … might I talk to you?”

The Sheriff rose, extended his hand.  “Can I get you something?”

“No.”  He swallowed nervously as he tentatively gripped the Sheriff’s extended paw.  “Sheriff, I come close to killin’ someone today.”

The Sheriff nodded slowly, giving the man an assessing look.  “You come close.”

“Yessir.”  He swallowed again.

“You didn’t, though.”

“Nossir.”

Linn nodded again. 

“Barrents, head on back to the courthouse.  I’ll be along directly.  Jimmy, you go with him.”

Jimmy’s pencil scratched energetically as the Sheriff raised his hand, gripped the young fellow’s shoulder.  “Let’s go over to my place,” Linn suggested.  “Chairs are more comfortable.”

Jimmy stood when Barrents did; he went on back to the courthouse with the chief deputy, and as he came into the courtroom, a woman rose from the chair the Sheriff had occupied.

“How do you do,” she said, smiling a little and holding up a flat leather wallet.

Barrents didn’t remember her words.

All he saw was the bronze shield – the shield that said FIRELANDS DISTRICT COURT in a banner across the top, the number 1 in the center, and beneath, the word AGENT.

He remembered that, and he remembered her eyes, her pale eyes, her hard eyes, eyes that looked like the frozen heart of a mountain glacier.

It wasn’t until after court was adjourned for the day that he and the Sheriff went through the sketches with Jimmy.

Barrents tapped the table beside the page Jimmy turned over.

“There,” he said.  “That’s her.”

The Sheriff looked at the quietly smiling woman with pale eyes, the pretty woman in the old fashioned gown and the matching hat set at an angle on her elaborate coiffure, the woman holding up a bronze shield in her gloved hand.

The Sheriff nodded.

“Yep,” he confirmed.  “I know her.” 

Barrents dismissed any further questions he might have.

Her ID said she was an Agent of the Court, the Sheriff knew her, that was good enough.

“Boss, what was that young fellow who said he nearly killed someone?”

Linn grinned crookedly.

“That,” he said, “was interesting.”

He turned the pages of Jimmy’s sketchbook, one, then another, stopped at the young man’s face.

“He’d gone to nursing school over at the community college twenty years ago.”

Barrents’ eyes were black, piercing, attentive.

“He told me what all they did to try to get him to quit.”

Barrents’ face might as well have been carved of oak for all that it changed.

Jimmy could feel the change in the man, though -- he felt the curiosity fairly prickling out of the impassive Navajo, and the seven year old remembered something the Sheriff said about his segundo having a really good poker face, and Jimmy wondered if that’s what a poker face looked like.

“He was in their nursing program,” Linn continued.  “Damn near every instructor there tried to shaft him one way or another and he didn’t let them.  Finally at graduation he said they waited until he walked across the stage, got his pin stuck on his uniform top and a runner came up from the Dean of Nursing and said she had to see him right away.”

Barrents nodded slowly and Jimmy was sure he heard the man’s neck squeak like two dry tree trunks rubbing together in a stiff wind.

“Seems the pharmacology instructor told him he didn’t have to take the final exam because his grades were so good.  The Dean of Nursing said that wasn’t the case, he hadn’t completed the course, he wasn’t graduated.

“He said, ‘Why don’t I just go tricky-trottin’ up to the testing center and take it right now?’” – he grinned at Barrents – “I wonder if he’s not prior military.  Tricky-trot?  That’s a Vietnam-era expession if I’m not mistaken.”

“You’re not mistaken,” Barrents said shortly.

“He said he brought the graded test down five minutes later and laid it on the Dean’s desk.  Said he’d scored one hundred per cent.  He asked if there was anything else.

“He said she couldn’t even look at him, she gave him a dismissive wave and lowered her forehead to her fingertips.

“He got to thinking on everything they’d done to him for those two years and he thought after twenty years of fermentin' time, why, he’d just go visit death upon them.

“His words.

“He wanted to go and beat each individual one to death, slowly.

“I knew he wasn’t going to do anything of the kind.

“I knew he knew it too, and he wanted to get out from under the hate he’d let build up for all those twenty years.

“We talked some and he went on home and I remembered what it was like to be young and hot blooded.”

Barrents’ eyes betrayed him, for he knew the Sheriff well, and he knew that – as cold as his eyes were – his blood could run just as hot.

“Boss,” he asked quietly, “back in the courtroom … you said you didn’t remember going up against that fellow out at the school.”

Linn blinked slowly, like a sleepy cat.

“Connie told me I took the call and I got dressed, I saddled up and rode out,” he replied, “and until I saw the video” – he looked directly at his segundo – “I had no idea what I did.”

Barrents whistled.  “Damn, Boss, you were sick!”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Linn admitted.  “I was doing right poorly until they opened that leg and got that corruption out of there!”

Jimmy tilted his head, paged backwards in his notebook, stopped at his sketch of the woman holding up the bronze shield.

He smiled at his sketch, remembering.

He always did like The Pretty Lady.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

102.  THE BIG ROUND BARN

Linn’s bottom jaw eased out as he lowered himself into his office chair.
“You look better with a revolver,” a voice said, and he dropped the last two inches to the cushioned seat, turning quickly.
A pale eyed woman in a McKenna gown smiled at him from the doorway of his private bathroom.
“It suits me,” he snapped, then frowned.  “I’m sorry.  You didn’t deserve that.”
“You were honest.”  She paced into the room, her head tilted a little to the side. “You and my father,” she said softly.  “You don’t look exactly like him but you are so very much like him.”
Linn nodded.  “Not surprised,” he muttered.
“Now about that leg,” the woman frowned.  “I haven’t been looking at you in your saltwater bath.”
“Thank you.”  Linn shifted in his seat and he himself wasn’t sure if he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of a spectator in his bathroom, or whether … no, he was sure, and his pale eyes said as much.
“Are you soaking out any more corruption?”
“No.  No, Doc said I’m on antibiotics another week but he’s satisfied it’s pretty well cleared up.”
“So you need to bring that leg back to strength.”  It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah.”  He leaned back, slumped a little, slouched in his chair:  the woman frowned at this uncharacteristic posture.
“You’re discouraged.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re still doing good work.”
“I know.”
“But you’re not what you were.”
“No man is.”
She paced slowly forward, her heels loud and distinct on the polished stone floor.
“You’re pitiful,” she said softly.  “You’re actually feeling sorry for yourself.”
He nodded slowly, staring sightlessly at the green desk blotter.  “Reckon so.”
“I can help.”
Linn grunted.
“I’ll need you to meet me tonight.”
Linn blinked, surprised.
“I’m supposed to meet a strange woman after dark?”
She threw her head back and laughed, a genuine, honest, relax-and-let-the-mirth-flow laugh, and she looked at him affectionately, less as “a strange woman” and almost … almost a motherly look.
Linn stood, turned to face her.
“I presume I am addressing the shade of Sarah Lynne McKenna.”
She took another step nearer.  “You presume correctly.”
“A shade is a ghost and a ghost is an illusion.”
“So I am a puff of smoke.”
“That’s all, yes.”
She reached up and lay a careful, gentle palm against his cheek, her gloved hand warm and very real.
“I see so much of my father in you,” she whispered, “but I see my son as well.”  She looked tired and almost sad.  
“I am not your mother.  She and I are much alike, but I am not she.”
“You’re …”  Linn reached up, pressed his hand against hers, leaned his head a little into her palm.  “My memories are of the older woman she was but at the same time I remember how young she was.”
“It’s all right to miss her,” Sarah whispered.  “I miss my Papa, and I miss Mama … Bonnie McKenna.  Even if she did become a Rosenthal.  She married well, you know.”
He nodded.  “I know she married one brother and then another.”
Sarah smiled.  “She did.  One was murdered and …”  Her voice faded and her eyes shifted to the side.
“You’re remembering how you became the Ragdoll.”
She looked back and her expression went from sadness to hard anger.
“I don’t see either one when I look at you,” he admitted.  “I see someone I don’t know that well.  You look so stiff and formal and ready to mash the camera when I look at your picture on the wall yonder.  I see you now as young and beautiful.  You could be my daughter and I’d be pretty damned proud of you if you were.”
“Speaking of which.”  Sarah pulled her hand away from his face, punched him very lightly in the belly.  “You’re telling your daughter how proud you are of her every time you send her a letter.”
He nodded.  “Yep.”
“And you’re including Jimmy in what you’re doing.  Do you know he’s drawing pictures of the two of you putting that bed together?”
Linn blinked, smiled.  “No.  No, I didn’t know that.”
“He’s got a drawing of you standing beside the half-assembled bed with your arms out and one foot up, you’re balancing a wrench on your chin and he’s looking at you laughing.”
Linn chuckled.  “I’d forgotten about that.”
“He tried it too, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.  Bonked himself in the forehead when it didn’t work.”
“You rubbed the pain away when his balancing act didn’t work out.”  She gripped his hands, her voice serious.  “You are a good father and you are doing the right things.  Please know that!”
Linn turned his head a little, almost suspicious.  “And whyyy are you telling me this?”  he asked carefully.
Sarah dropped his hands, sighed, planted her knuckles on her belt.
“Now you do sound like Papa,” she murmured.  “Tonight.  Tonight, back at the end of Sink Hole Street, where a vacant lot curves back under the overhang.  Meet me there.”
“What time?”
“Just … tonight.”  She smiled.  “If I simply disappeared it would be impolite.”  She looked down at the .44 revolver he wore.  “Papa wore a pair of those,” she said softly, then looked up at him.  “You might want to have a second one on you.”
She turned, gripped the doorknob, drew open the door:  she stopped, looked at him for a long moment, then swept out, her long skirt swinging as she did, and drew the door quietly to behind her.
Almost as quickly, a knock, a shadow through the frosted glass:  Cindy pushed the door open a little, leaned in.  “I just made coffee,” she offered, “and there’s fresh duck tape and doughnuts.”
Linn nodded, rubbed his face, pulled the door open and followed his dispatcher into the lobby, inhaling deep of the welcome fragrance of fresh ground and brewed coffee.
“It’s important to eat nice fresh duck tape first thing in the morning,” he said, and Cindy stopped and looked at him like he had a fish sticking out of his shirt pocket.

I know it would exercise my leg more, Linn thought, if I posted as I rode like them Brits.
He grimaced.
Damned if I’ll put that much work on my knees.
Maybe if I was younger.
Apple-horse’s hooves were loud in the cool and shadowed evening.
He’d ridden across the intervening fields into town, as he generally did; they’d come onto the county road and the onto the main street, nearly empty this time of the evening:  overhead, the sun was setting mountain peaks on fire, or so it looked, and Linn smiled a little at the magic of evening’s light:  he knew if he turned and looked almost directly behind, he would see stars beginning to pierce the midnight veil.
Apple-horse shied a little and took a quick sidestep and Linn looked, surprised, blinked at the sight of a butter-yellow pony – a quick-stepping, smooth-gaited, gilt-hooved pony with an absolutely gaudy saddle, and in the saddle, balancing on one leg, a young woman with a jeweled turban, in a red-and-yellow acrobat’s skirt and tights:  the pony didn’t so much trot as it flowed, not with the rapid, staccato clatter of the paso fino, but an odd, five-beat gait – amble, part of Linn’s mind whispered – then they turned and clattered up a side alley.
Linn’s knees and heels tightened and Apple-horse surged ahead, following.
Linn drew up as he came around the corner.
The alley didn’t go in straight lines, with crossed intersections at right angles:  this one was a sweeping curve, following the base of the cliff; over the years, loose rock was scaled off the cliff face, leaving stable stone that was far less likely to drop a boulder through someone’s roof.
He came around the sweep of the alley’s curving path and drew up, surprised.
Linn had an intimate knowledge of Firelands – he had, since earliest childhood – but this … this great round barn was something he’d never seen.
Never.
There was a house attached to it, a house … an old house, with ornate porch posts and a rocking chair on its front porch, a house that looked tidy and well kept; the trim was painted, the window-boxes and flowers immaculate, but his attention was for the barn.
It was big and it was round and about a third of it was under the cliff’s overhang.
He saw the big sliding doors standing open.
“You’re expected,” a familiar (but unseen) voice said, and Linn trotted Apple-horse into the barn like he owned the place.

Jimmy laughed as the pretty lady in the circus outfit seized the knotted rope and – using her arms only – swarmed up the thick, twisted hemp, climbed to the rafters, slapped the wood overhead and then came back down, her legs straight, horizontal, toes pointed in their satin, cross-ribbon-tied slippers.
“Wow,” Jimmy breathed.  “Are you a ballerina?”
Linn dismounted, looked at the young woman in the full skirt.
“This should look familiar to you,” she said, lifting a hand:  Linn looked and saw an olive-drab sleeping bag sack hanging from a rope.
“Yep,” he affirmed.  “Got one in my basement.”
“Yours is filled with sawdust.  It’s quite heavy and we don’t want that just yet.”
Linn frowned.
The woman turned, knuckles on her belt.
“You’ll need to strip down to your Union suit.”
Linn’s left eyebrow tented up.
“Come on.  Strip.”
“I am not in the habit,” he said slowly, “of undressing in front of strange women.”
She skipped up to him, kissed him quickly on the cheek:  she smelled of lilac and soap and sunshine.  “Bless you for saying that,” she whispered, “but you’ll play hell working that leg in those jeans.  Here’s a table.  Strip down and fold ‘em here, you’ll need to be able to –“
She spun, a leg flashed out, she drove a hard kick into the bag:  it dented in under the impact, swung back.
She delivered a quick triple-kick, shin kicks smacking the green canvas as fast as most men could throw a triple-punch with the same hand.
“You can’t do that in blue denim, Sheriff.  Strip.  You don’t have a damn thing I’ve not seen before and you’re wearing your red flannels under, and that’s what you need to wear for this.  Off with the jeans and boots, the floor here is clean, you won’t get your socks dirty.”
He did.
Sarah started him slow, started him with the same stretches he was used to:  she stretched with him, assuming the same undignified poses she demanded of him:  Linn felt forgotten muscles wake up and protest, he felt healed muscles express their unhappiness at these new demands he was placing on them.
“Good,” Sarah finally said.  “Stand up.”
They both stood.
Sarah came over to the bag.  “Kick this bag.”
Linn twisted, drove a side-snap into the bag’s lower margin.
“Knee shot, good.  Hit the knee in the side and break it, man’s down.  Do it again.”
He did, striking a little higher, a little more powerfully.
“Now let’s try it again, only slower.  Give me another one, here” – she bladed her hand a foot above his second point of impact – “only dead slow.”
Linn did, bringing his leg back to his belt buckle before aiming and extending.
“Good.  How’s your balance?”
“So far so good.”
“Give me another one, dead slow.”
She had him repeat the kick ten times; each time, the bag – surprisingly light, stuffed with maybe foam peanuts or wadded up newspapers – buckled in and swung easily away.
“Now the other leg.  Your weight will be on your healing leg but we have to work that other one, it was burned as well and we have to stretch that proud flesh.  Give me a kick, dead slow.”
The session was not lengthy, but at its end the Sheriff was pretty well wore out and he knew he’d be sore in the morning.
He’d just gotten dressed and turned when he smelled tea and felt someone behind him.
It was the girl in the acrobat’s stiff-skirted outfit.
“Drink,” she commanded – it was not an offer, nor was it a suggestion.
He drank.
It was hot, it smelled of clover and of summer and tasted of honey and maybe a hint of cinnamon, and she served it up in a mug as big as his coffee mug at home.
The circus rider, he realized as he returned the mug to her, was older than he realized … no, she wasn’t older, her eyes were older, as if she were an old woman in a teen-ager’s body.
“Thank you,” the Sheriff said gently. “I don’t believe we’ve been acquainted.  My name’s Linn Keller.”
“I am Daciana,” the acrobat smiled, “and my husbandt iss … you call him Lichtnink.  He vorks for ze railroadt.”
Linn raised an eyebrow.  “Lightning?”  he asked, puzzled:  he owned the Z&W Railroad, he knew every employee personally, and the only “Lightning” he knew was the ham radio operator who worked weekends, worked when the tourists were in town, because he knew Morse code and he looked really authentic running that brass key in the telegraph office.
“Ja.  He ist …”
She raised her hand, pantomimed the telegrapher’s three-finger grip on the black, flat, gutta-percha straight key’s button.  “Lichtnink.  He slinks der lichtnink.”
“Slings the lightning,” Linn grinned, nodding.  “Okay.”
Sarah turned and regarded the Sheriff with approval.
“You did better than I expected,” she admitted, taking his empty tea mug: she handed it to Daciana.  “That is an herbal that will keep you from getting quite so stove up and sore. You might want a hot shower before bed.  Come back tomorrow evening and we’ll entertain you again.”
“I don’t remember seeing this building before,” Linn said, looking around.  “Where is that butter colored horse?”
“You mean Buttercup?”  Sarah smiled.  “She’s a circus pony, and Daciana was with the traveling circus.  When the circus came to town, she rode down the main street, performing her acrobatics on the back of her Buttercup.  Dressed as she was – scandalous!  shocking! – it was the best advertisement for the circus.”
“When was this?”
“A century and a quarter ago.”
Linn gave her a long, assessing look.
“A century and a quarter ago.”
She blinked innocently.  “Would you prefer I lied to you?”

Jimmy, off to the side, hadn't been noticed by the long tall lawman finishing the fragrant mug of tea, but Jimmy had noticed the lawman, and he was busy drawing the moment when the mug was tilted furthest, to get the last of its elixir down the man's throat.

The Pretty Lady had come earlier that night, and whispered "Come with me," and Jimmy sat on a blanket covered hay bale in his jammies and drew, knowing that when he was finished he would blink and stand up and stretch and he'd be back in his own bunk, just that fast.

He was a child.

Things like this happened, he knew, when you were his age.
 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

103.  “MY NAME’S JIMMY”

 

“Now that,” the muscled fellow with the Derby hat and the black, curled handlebar mustache said with a distinct Irish accent, “is a grand horse indeed!”
“Thank you,” Jimmy said, a little uncertainly.
“I don’t recall seein’ ye around here b’fore.”
Jimmy looked around, not entirely comfortable:  the street is where it always was, and the brick firehouse, but it was kinda narrow and it didn’t have the big overhead doors like he was used to seeing, and it smelled different –
“Now whose boy would ye be, wi’ such a grand horse an’ lookin’ like ye’ve ne’er seen a town b’fore?”  the big, red-shirted fire chief grinned, cheerful and loud as he always was, and another fellow with a grand mustache and a red shirt came out, wiping greasy hands on a rag.  “Chief, she’s ready,” he called.
Sean started to turn, froze when he heard the words, “My name’s Jimmy.  I’m the Sheriff’s son,” and he gigged Stomper in the ribs and started the startled warmblood up the street, where he hoped – he really, really hoped! – that he would find the Sheriff’s office.
If he could find that familiar place, he thought, he could find his way home.
Sean watched the lad ride up the street, completely at home on the huge horse, a saddleblanket his only seat and his legs almost sticking straight out for the broadness of the great horse’s back.
“Jimmy?”  he muttered, puzzled, shoved back his Derby and scratched his Irish-red thatch.
He turned to the Welsh Irishman.
“Llewellyn, d’ye recall th’ Sheriff havin’ a lad named Jimmy?”

Jimmy rode Stomper up the street, a little comforted (but not much) by the fact that if other people were not riding horses, they were driving horses; he looked around, big-eyed, marveling at the similarities, slowly accepting the differences.
The Silver Jewel – there! -- brightly painted, neatly trimmed – that was familiar, so was the whitewashed church, the whitewashed schoolhouse and …

the bank looks so small, he thought …
Jimmy froze and Stomper walked slowly to the side of the street and stopped in front of the little log fortress with a plank across its front with the word SHERIFF painted in yellow with black shadowing on the letters.
“Uh-oh,” he said, his throat tightening a little.
This was not the stone building he was used to seeing.
There were not the heavy glass double doors.
The sidewalk was boards instead of poured concrete and the place looked crude and dirty and of a sudden Jimmy was scared.
He had no idea how he’d got here and he didn’t know how to get back to where he’d been and he didn’t know anybody and he’d told that big man with the black mustache he was the Sheriff’s boy and now he read the word SHERIFF and he wished he were back home where he belonged, back in that bed he and the Sheriff put together, in that room he and the Sheriff painted.
Maybe this Sheriff knows my Sheriff, he thought, and sidled Stomper to the mounting-block.
It was still a long way down and he’d have to climb up on the hitch rail to get back on, but that was okay:  the blanked kind of slid down with him so he hung it over the hitch rail too and took a turn of Stomper’s bitless reins around the railing.
“Now don’t you go anywhere,” he said, and Stomper swung his ears and blinked in reply.
Jimmy stepped up on the boardwalk and looked at the heavy, imposing door and swallowed.
Right about then it opened.

 

Linn shifted in his chair, thrusting his leg straight out, trying to find a more comfortable position.

He sorted irritably through a stack of papers, looked up at his visitor.

“Don’t you ever knock?”  he growled.
“How’s your leg?”  Sarah asked, looking like a schoolmarm with her hair up in a severe walnut, her waist cinched by a mousey-grey schoolmarm dress and whatever corseting instruments of agony she wore under it.
“Fine,” Linn lied.
“Hm.  Tonight, then?  It’s important to keep the stiffness worked out.”
“I cleaned stalls and threw hay.”
“Spoken like my father,” Sarah sighed.  “I’m afraid you have inherited his obstinacy, his contrariness, his single-mindedness, not to mention –“
She drew her round schoolmarm spectacles down her nose, looked over them for emphasis –
“Not to mention his hard head!”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Linn muttered.
“How’s Wesley?”
“Growing and fast, not necessarily in that order.”  Linn’s severe expression softened a little as he remembered his laughing little boy, buck naked and dripping soap suds, squealing with delight as he ran from the bathtub and through the house, until Connie tossed Linn a towel and dear old Dad used it to seize his wet, slippery, wiggling little nakedrunner.
“You little rascal,” Linn laughed, hoisting the lad to arm’s length overhead, then dropping him down and swinging him in a wide arc, giving him a wild ride while perfectly safe in Pa’s big-handed grip:  he swung him back and forth, closer to the floor, until he skidded to a stop, laughing:  Linn hoist him back up again, handed him to his patient and long-suffering wife and admitted (as his ears turned red), “If you ever want to turn a grown man into a damned fool, just hand him a little child!”
Connie’s look of reply was answer enough.
She didn’t need words to agree entirely with the man.
Linn blinked, looked at his conservatively-attired visitor.
“Maybe fast should come first after all.”
“I really must congratulate you,” Sarah said in the cool tones of approval a schoolmarm reserves for a star pupil whom she does not want to become big-headed at her words.  “You are paying a proper share of attention to each of your sons.  I was afraid you might favor Jimmy, because he can interact more, but then I thought perhaps you would favor the seed of your loins.”
“Glad you approve.”  Linn worked his leg a little, frowned.  “Tonight, then.  Same place?”
“Same place, same time.  I’ll have more work for your legs.”
Linn grunted.  “Tell me this, then,” he challenged.  “How did that barn get there?”
“You had it built.”
“I what?”
Sarah waved her hand.  “I’m sorry.  Not you.  Old Pale Eyes, my father.  He had it built because Daciana loves her trick pony so, he wanted her to have a big round barn so she could continue her trick riding like she used to do with the circus.”
“I see.”
“I remember when he had it built.  We had dances there, my sister Angela …”
She smiled, remembering something, then changed the subject.
“Tonight.  And remember it’s perfectly all right to strip down to your longhandles.  Think of it as … medical treatment.”
Linn raised a forestalling hand.  “Jimmy was there last night.”
“Yes he was.  Beautiful drawings, by the way.  Did you see his rendering of Daciana in a ballerina’s pose, standing on one toe on her saddle?  I’ve never seen better!”
“I’m asking because I didn’t take him there.”
“I see.”  She smiled a little.  “He was abed when you rode home?”
“He was.”
“Good.  Tonight, then.”
She spun, laughing, opened his office door wide, slipped out:  the Sheriff stood, sighed, closed his office door, then realized he smelled fresh coffee.
He opened the door again.

 

Jimmy froze as the big man with hard and pale eyes stopped in mid-step, regarding his young visitor:  he set his boot back down beside its made, tilted his head a little, studying the boy, and squatted in the doorway.
Jimmy realized with a little surprise that he could smell him.
He smelled of horses and sweat and bay rum, his face was tanned and wrinkled at the corners of his eyes, his mustache was thick and rich and curled at the ends and iron grey, and his pale eyes regarded Jimmy with little short of amusement.
“Hello,” he said softly, and Jimmy gave a nervous, “Hi.”
“You came to see me.”
Jimmy nodded.  “I’m kinda lost.”
“Well hello, Kinda Lost,” the Old Sheriff said, extending a hand, “my name’s Sheriff Keller.  Have you eaten?”
Jimmy realized with some surprise that he was hungry, so he shook his head.
“Well, come on with me, then, I reckon Daisy’s girls can scare us up somethin’.”
The Sheriff cast an appraising eye on Stomper.
“Now that’s some horse,” he nodded.
“His name’s Stomper an’ the Sheriff taught him to ride without a bit!”  Jimmy said proudly.
Old Pale Eyes grinned.  “Sounds like a man I’d like to meet.”  He rose, unfolding his carcass to his full six foot and two fingers.  “Right now the sides of my stomach is kind of sand paperin’ together I’m so hungry.”
Jimmy adjusted the canvas poke he had slung across his chest, the one that held pencils and a sharpener and his sketch books, and he and Sheriff Keller of Firelands County walked across the rutted dirt main street of Firelands, Colorado, and climbed the steps up to the brightly-painted, frosted-glass-decorated double doors of the Silver Jewel Saloon.

 

Linn was halfway through the stack of reports and less than three sips into his mug of coffee when Cindy looked up:  “Sheriff, it’s your wife.”
Linn set down his coffee, took the receiver.
“Love you, dear.”
“Love you too, is Jimmy with you?”  Linn flinched at the sound of a wooden spoon banging briskly on the bottom of a kettle.
“No, dearest, he’s not, why?”
He heard Connie’s terse “Give me that,” Wesley’s squeal of disappointment, the sound of cookware being replaced hastily into the cupboards from whence a busy little pair of hands had dragged them.  “He’s not here and I don’t see Stomper.”
“You know boys,” Linn said soothingly, going over in his mind where the lad might have traveled:  there were several possible routes of march, of course, too many to go check out at the moment.  “He’s not the kind just to wander off.  I’d say he’s close by.  Do you need me to come out?”
“No, no,” Connie said, grunting a little, then there was a loud plastic WHACK, an exclamation of feminine dismay, a scraping sound – “No, Wes, don’t eat the phone, I’m talking –“
An electronic tone, another, a little boy’s laughter, then his wife’s voice.
“Get Wesley a teething ring and I’ll take a bottle of wine,” Connie said, her voice suddenly louder.  “I dropped the phone when I picked Wes up and he thought it was his – no, Wes, you can’t have it – chocolate.  Bring me lots of chocolate!”
“Okay, will do, love you, dear.”  Linn handed the receiver to his dispatcher, his face reddening, but to his credit he waited until the phone was securely on its cradle before laughing.

 

“Where’s the salt shaker?”  Jimmy asked, puzzled.
Linn lifted the cut glass lid from a little cut glass pot on the table and pinched up some white crystalline stuff between thumb and two fingers:  he drizzled this over his taters and gravy.  “How about a salt cellar?” he offered.
“That’s not a sugar bowl?”  Jimmy asked, puzzled … but he was game to try something new, and grabbed up much too big a pinch of salt, getting more on the table than he got on his food.
Linn picked up the salt cellar, swiped the spilled salt into a white crescent with a quick brush of his palm, held the salt cellar at the edge of the table and carefully returned the spilled grains to their rightful home.
He looked at Jimmy and realized this was a foreign concept to the boy.
Things just weren’t adding up, but he knew with boys it paid to be patient, especially when they’re lost, and this lad sure looked lost to him!
“Where you from, son?”  he asked gently, forking into his own taters and gravy.
Jimmy did the same and found the taste very much to his liking.  
“I’m from here,” he said.  “Firelands.  Only … different.”
Linn nodded, considering, then he prompted, “Different … how?”
Jimmy looked rather uncomfortable.  “Maybe if I show ya.”
He pulled out one of his sketch books, pulled out another, flipped through it.
He laid it on the table.
“That’s my Pa.  He’s Sheriff here in Firelands.”
Old Pale Eyes raised an eyebrow, studied the figure.
Younger, he thought.
Mustache is different.
I got no idea what kind of pistol that is.
Is that Jacob’s horse? – Appaloosa?  I don’t ride an Apple …
Jimmy turned the pages, pointed out the familiar landmarks, the people, their names:  The Bear Killer was curled up on a hook rug with an infant laid up against his belly, sound asleep; there was The Lady Esther, pulling the grade like she always did, then the Sheriff blinked as the next drawing showed an elk looking at the oncoming train, with the elk standing on the tracks, then a lariat settling neatly over the antlers, and the next showed the lariat cutting into a young thigh, as if the viewer was in a saddle and looking down at a thrumming-taut line, dallied round the saddlehorn at one end and being hauled on by a bull elk at the other –
“I got the lariat loose but the elk run off with it so the Sheriff tracked it an’ he waited on a tree branch and dropped down on the elk and he cut the lariat free an’ I think he was throwed off but he didn’t get hurt other’n he was kinda sore where he fell,” Jimmy said all in a rush.
“Why ever,” Old Pale Eyes asked slowly, “would you want to rope a bull elk?”
He knew how big a bull elk could get, he’d seen ‘em soak up good solid hits from a rifle at close range and keep on a-comin’ and a-grindin’ his teeth, dead on his hooves but not give up and comin’ steady through the snow with full intent to pound those hooves right through the man that dared shoot it –
“’Cause Stomper hates trains so I took Stomper down to the tracks an’ I wanned to get him use to ‘em an’ that elk whistled an’ so did the engine an’ I knew that elk would ram the engine an’ get killed an’ I didn’t want it gettin’ killed!”
Jimmy’s hand, almost of its own, gave a quick little jerk and turned one more page.
A face looked up at the Sheriff.

A very familiar face.
“I see,” he said slowly, “you’ve met my daughter.”
Jimmy grinned, pulled out the second notebook.  “She took me to Denver!”  he said confidently, flipping through the pages.  “She took me to the Opera and hand me draw this” – he tapped the page with a young, short-nailed forefinger – “and she put it in a copper sleeve and it went in that pillar right there.”  He thumped the right hand column with his finger for emphasis, then turned the page.
Sarah Lynne McKenna was on stage and in full song, arms extended and slightly on a diagonal, the upper palm turned to the ceiling, with that look on her face Old Pale Eyes knew well.
He’d heard her sing before, he’d seen the expression she got when her notes were exceptionally pure and she felt the performer’s joy at knowing she was doing a truly superb job.
Old Pale Eyes had an idea.
“Jimmy,” he said, “have you ever painted instead of drawn?”
Jimmy shook his head.
“Think you could try?”
Jimmy nodded.
“You can look at something and draw it.”
Jimmy nodded again.
The Sheriff brought out his pocket watch.
It was plain, unadorned, nickel steel:  he pressed the stem to flip open the cover, set it on the table.
“Do you reckon you could paint someone’s face on the inside of this watch cover?”
Jimmy blinked, looked up at the pale eyed lawman.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.  “I never tried it.”
Old Pale Eyes looked up, smiled a little, mostly with his eyes.
“Sarah,” he said, “this is Jimmy, and there seems to be quite a bit more to him than meets the eye.  Could you fix him up with fine brushes and good portrait paint?”

 

Sheriff Linn Keller frowned as he looked at his pocket watch.
“I’d best finish that stack of reports,” he thought out loud, “before I head out to the house.”
Cindy nodded to the coffee urn.  “We’ve still got a half pot, Sheriff.  You’d better fill up while you get the chance.  I’ll make more when that’s gone.”
Linn nodded.  “Thank you,” he said with grave courtesy.  “The Navy runs on coffee and so do I.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

104.  COLD AGAIN!

 

The annunciator’s chime did not lessen the Sheriff’s frown.

She was determined she was going to enjoy this mug of genuine Earl Grey tea.

As a matter of fact she’d hung a note on the hook outside her door:

I do not wish to be disturbed.

If you disturb me I will kick your backside up between your shoulder blades, I will skin you alive with a soup spoon and then I will get mean with you.

Unless you got a care package and you’re sharing.

She’d brewed this mug an hour before; it had gotten cold and been reheated twice, she’d been interrupted twice with matters that were of a crashing low importance, as a matter of fact those matters brought before her could have been handled – in her opinion – by handing each disputing parties an ax handle and giving them five minutes in the exercise ring to sort it out.

That, unfortunately, was not quite acceptable, at least not officially, and so she’d had to bear up most patiently under the complaints of one, then the other, of the aggrieved parties:  she was able to listen to each, impartially, pausing only to seize one by the throat when he interrupted the other, and to drive a punch at the other one’s nose, stopping four centimeters in front of the startled man’s eagle beak:  each time, she made it clear, she was listening to one of them, and the other would damn well stay hush, or she would hush them, and in a less than peaceful manner.

She listened to each man’s complaint, instructed them to sit:  she folded her arms, glared at the corner of the wall, where plastiformed wall met plastiformed ceiling, considering.

The pair alternately glared at one another and stared impatiently at the impassive and pale eyed Sheriff for what seemed a very long time.

Finally she nodded, thrust out her bottom jaw.

“You were prospecting on your own time and found a volcanic vent and some diamonds.  You” – she turned to the other – “claim you saw them first and they were yours by right of spot.”

She held up a hand to stop the sputtering protest.  “Gentlemen, we’re named Firelands for a reason.  We’re pioneers.  So were my ancestors back in Colorado.  They mined, they prospected, but they had a land office.  Claims were registered, claims could be traded, bought, sold, they were a form of currency.  Now we don’t have anything like your mythical Right of Spot” – she turned to one – “but neither do we have a system to grid off the ground and assign claim to particular plots.

“Here’s what I propose.”

She planted her knuckles on her belt, unconsciously resting the backs of her curled fingers on the walnut grip of the Victory model Smith & Wesson on her belt.

“You both know that any such find has to be turned over to Registry for cataloguing, it has to go through Geological, then there’s Mapping and Impact Prediction and who knows who else will have to put their chop on your find.” 

Both men frowned; they knew there was the good chance their find would be seized, or declared valuable enough to be taken from them for whatever reason, but there was the hope they’d be able to prospect freely and keep anything good they found.

“The one thing we don’t have is a land office.

“Now it strikes me that what you’re finding is valuable information and the information alone may be worth more than those rocks, and right now that’s all they are, just rocks – freighting them back to Earth would cost many times what they’d fetch on the open market, even with the cachet of being Martian diamonds.

“On the other hand, if you two were to go into a business partnership and set up a land office – I know enough miners who prospect on their own already – I’d say you could trade local currency for your services.”

“No claim jumpers,” one said thoughtfully.

The Sheriff snapped her fingers, pointed at him.  “For one good point.  For another, if it’s claimed, it’s been explored or it’s being explored by someone else, don’t waste your time there, find something that hasn’t been assayed.  Once we get enough eyes out there – fellas, there is nothing like boots on the ground to know a territory – that knowledge will be a helluva good poker chip to trade for goods from back home!”

Marnie had no more than reheated her precious, burgamo-scented mug full than the computer told her she had mail from home – that is, there was the sound of galloping hooves and jingling harness, a harsh voice yelling “Ho, there, ho, now!  Stagecoach a-comin’ in!  Mail for ye!” and the sound of a canvas sack hitting packed dirt.

Marnie swung around the desk, eased herself down in the injection molded plastic chair she detested, tapped a key, another.

A little boy’s face looked at her, a little boy she’d seen before, and Marnie smiled.

“Hello, Jimmy,” she said softly as if he could hear her.

“Hi, this is Jimmy,” the little boy’s voice said, “I’m not s’pos’ta be here but I wanned to show ya what I got!”

He turned the page, set it up like a miniature easel on the table in front of him.

He appeared to be at the Sheriff’s desk back in Firelands, using the computer’s built in camera:  he flipped the cover back out of the way to show a laughing little boy standing and holding onto the corner of the living room sofa, reaching for something just outside the drawing’s edge.

“This is Wesley an’ Mama an’ the Sheriff said he’s growin’ an’ he’s fast” – he turned a page, and Marnie’s hand went to her mouth and she giggled at the rendering of the naked, soap-sudsy little boy skidding and laughing and scampering wet-footed across the floor, a laughing woman bent over and running behind trying to catch up.

“Sheriff told me I was a Big Brother an’ I gotta keep him outta trouble,” Jimmy said, his eyes big and sincere, “but he’s awful fast an’ it’s a good thing The Bear Killer’s watchin’ too.”

He turned another page and Marnie laughed, her precious mug of tea forgotten:  she was looking at a little boy in a diaper, a little boy with a distressed expression, face dark with the effort of screaming his frustrated protest, for he was being hoist by his diaper by the aforementioned Mountain Mastiff, and borne away from something he really, really wanted to play with, something that intrigued him and something he thought would be nice to grab and squish in his hands and roll around on the ground to see what it was.

The Bear Killer, in the drawing, was turning towards the viewer, almost as if presenting this noisy package, and behind them, standing on its forepaws, a black-and-white, spotted, Rocky Mountain … skunk.

“The Bear Killer got him just in time ‘cause that skunk stood there an’ he almost snapped over an’ squirted but The Bear Killer got Wes out of there real quick-like.  Sheriff said the skunk was getting’ int’ the hen house an’ eatin’ eggs an’ he didn’t wanta shoot it nowhere near the house ‘cause it would stink things up too bad so I went with him out back an’ we waited an’ Sheriff snuck up on it an’ dumped a five gallon bucket over top of it an’ caught it!”  He nodded emphatically as he spoke, young hands dunking a miniature and invisible plastic  enclosure over an equally imaginary stink factory.

“We slud a chunk of plywood underneath of it an’ then he tied it down with hay string an’ we kind held our breath an’ he had me put on rubber gloves an’ old clo’es an’ a good thing an’ we packed it across the back pasture over ag’in the fence an’ set it down an’ he told me to take off a-runnin’ an’ then he did too only he couldn’t run fast like me ‘cause I never burnt up my legs an’ he got that scrapple in his from attair propane blowed up” –

The more he talked, the more out of breath he got, the more he ran his words together, until finally he had to stop for breath.

“Then we watched for a while an’ he said we ought to be okay an’ he took his Winchester an’ shot that bucket way high on the rim an’ it kicked over an’ that skunk turned around three ‘r four times an’ then kinda waddled off.

“It didn’t come back, neither!”

Marnie laughed at the way Jimmy nodded when he said “neither!” – just like a little boy, she thought.

“I ben goin’ places too,” he said confidentially, “an’ that’s how come I’m here an’ I don’t really know how I got here but The Pretty Lady said she’d get me here okay an’ she did.  Y’see, I kinda … me an’ Stomper …”

He frowned.

“You don’t know Stomper, do you?”  he said almost sadly.  “Stomper’s my horse.  He’s big.”  He set aside the steno-sized sketch book, picked up another, flipped through it, lay it on its side:  “Here’s Sheriff an’ Stomper!”

Marnie blinked, whistled.

A pale eyed, lean waisted man with the beginnings of a handlebar mustache stood in front of a truly huge warmblood:  Marnie was a fair hand at identifying horse breeds, and this was obviously a mixture, but one with good lines.

“I got a saddle an’ everything but I don’t like t’ use it ‘cause I roped an elk an’ the rope cut into my leg so I ride with a saddle blanket an’ do pretty well.”  He frowned.  “I rode Stomper into Firelands but The Pretty Lady said it was Firelands back in the Eighteen Eighty Somethings.  I drew lots of stuff –“

He flipped open another notebook, turned another page, showed it to the camera.

It was a low, stout built, log building that resembled nothing more than a blocky, strong stockade or maybe a fortress.  Across the low roof was a plank, and on it, hand painted, the word SHERIFF.

“I come here ‘cause I was lost.  The Silver Jewel was across the street an’ I found the fire house an’ the school house an’ church an’ I saw where the hospital … it was there but real small.” 

He frowned and looked somewhat uncertain.

“I didn’t know where t’ go so I went to the Sheriff’s office only it don’t look nothing like here.   The Pretty Lady an’ … here, lemme show you what the Sheriff looks like there.”

He turned another page.

A tall man with pale eyes and a handlebar mustache stood in the doorway of the little log fortress, a man with a narrow waist and a brace of .44 Colt revolvers on his belt, a man with a six point star showing as he turned over the lapel of his black coat.

Marnie’s eyes widened and she felt her breath hesitate.

“He looks a lot like my Sheriff,” Jimmy said.  “He took me over to the Silver Jewel an’ we ate an’ he wants me to paint the inside of a pocket watch for him.” 

Jimmy frowned uncertainly.

“The Pretty Lady said she’d get me fine brushes and portrait paint but I never painted nothin’ only water colors an’ that was kidder garden an’ they wouldn’t let me paint nothin’ but stupid flowers.  I painted cabbages,” he concluded with a rebellious raise to his chin.

“I better send this.  It take a long time to get to you.”

He reached for the keyboard; the recorded transmission ended.

Sheriff Marnie Keller leaned back in the hated plastic chair, blinking, considering.

She replayed the message, saved each screen-captured drawing, went from one to another to another.

Time travel?  she thought. 

By some mechanism?

He said The Pretty Lady …

Something funny is going on here.

Marnie considered for a long moment, activated her record function, addressed it from her Sheriff’s office to her Papa’s Sheriff’s office (agency to agency was free, interplanetary be damned!) – and she looked directly into the camera.

“Hello, Jimmy,” she said, “my name is Marnie and I think you’ve seen me before.  I just got your” – she hesitated, smiled, called it what the communications had come to be known – “I just got your letter from home, and it’s good to hear from you.

“I’d like to know more about The Pretty Lady.  If you could show me her picture I would really like that.”

She paused, considering, then plunged on.

“If The Pretty Lady sent you back to the mid-1800s and then directly to your Sheriff’s office, maybe she could come here.  I’d like to talk with her.  If she does come, have her bring …”

She smiled a little.

“Have her bring my .357 revolvers and rifle and ten cases of ammo.”

Marnie smiled a little and said “Hug The Bear Killer for me and tell him I miss him.”

She ended the recording, put in in the SEND queue, then reached for her tea, took a noisy slurp, grimaced.

She swallowed, frowned at the mug, set it down.

“Cold again!”