HILLRUNNER

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

69.  ESCAPE AND EVASION

 

The dispatcher backed carefully out of the Sheriff’s inner office, closing the door quietly behind her.

Barrents and two deputies were happily ogling the box of fresh, fragrant doughnuts, a weekly treat – they’d mutually agreed that if they indulged daily, they may as well duck tape the pastries to their bellies, that’s where they’d end up anyway – but weekly … well, weekly, they could work ‘em off, and generally they did.

They looked up as the dispatcher came over and laid a hand on each of their shoulders.

“The Sheriff,” she warned, “is quiet.”

Three men looked at one another and at the dispatcher, and then at the closed door:  their banter ceased, hands were paused in mid-air, and they debated in very hushed voices whether they should take this party to the conference room, or maybe out to one of the cruisers.

Linn hauled the door open, frowning, came out with the expression of a man who was ready to bite the horn off an anvil, or maybe he’d just bit into a size twelve lemon:  he glared at the group and muttered darkly, “Don’t quit on my account.  Tell ‘em the one about the Farmer’s Daughter and the Harley-Davidson motor cycle.”

The dispatcher and the deputies all felt this general sinking feeling.

Normally the Sheriff would be grinning, or at least have some semblance of a man trying unsuccessfully to hide his good humor.

None of that was present.

Linn swore, quietly, powerfully:  he reached in between two muscled arms, seized a lumpy glazed apple something, dropped it:  he froze, eyes closed, lips pressed together, and nobody dared move, nor hardly breathe.

It was not often that Old Pale Eyes was powerfully unhappy, but apparently this morning he was, and in spades.

Linn opened his pale eyes, drove his hand into the box again, seized the dropped pastry and crushed it viciously, turning his hand over to capture the apple filling he’d just eviscerated:  he glared at it, raised it from the box, his eyes pale, intent enough on the offending pastry that none there would have been surprised to see it start to smoke, smolder and then burst into flame.

“Do not,” Linn hissed from between clenched teeth, “do NOT defy me, I WILL DEESTROY YOU!”

He reached down, snatched up a napkin, snapped it once to unfold it, wrapped it under his dripping hand, looked around.

“People,” he said, his voice hard, “I am not fit company right now.  If you would be so kind as to wait until I go jump in a rain barrel to cool off I would be very much obliged to you.”

They considered, severally and individually, that must mean the pale eyed lawman was hot about something, because the rain barrels – what ones hadn’t been dumped over and drained – were froze for a couple inches anyway.

Linn turned and walked with absolute, utter, complete silence back into his office, the door closed slowly behind him, latched gently shut.

A moment later they heard, faintly, the sound of running water, and they knew he was washing the apple filling off his hand.

“I have not seen him like this,” Barrents finally admitted, “for a very long time.”

“Yeah,” a second deputy and the dispatcher rasped in chorus; the third, wisely, remained silent, afraid to so much as move, for fear that the least vibration just might detonate this two-legged puddle of nitroglycerin.

They jumped as the outer-office phone rang; the dispatcher caught it before its second ringing summons, turned and looked helplessly at the other three.

“Hold the line, please,” she said in her professional voice:  she closed her eyes, took a long breath, pressed a button.

“Sheriff?  Call for you on line one.”

She hung up the receiver, gently, making just enough noise so both parties would know she’d hung up and wasn’t eavesdropping.

She turned and looked fearfully at the frosted glass window with the gold six point star, hand painted a hundred years before, and the carefully lettered SHERIFF beneath it.

“Was that …?” Barrents asked slowly.

“It was,” she affirmed.  “Children’s Services.”

 

Jimmy finished his times-tables exercise, smiling a little; he had an aptitude for figures, he made games of running numbers faster than anyone else, he’d developed his own memory-tricks to memorize his multiplications, and as he started to put his name at the top of the paper, his teacher came down the aisle, bent a little, whispered, “Jimmy, someone here to see you.”

Jimmy looked up, surprised, then picked up the paper and handed to her:  he rose, followed her to the front of the room, where a strange woman waited, a woman in a pantsuit and a severe, disapproving expression.

“Who are you and what do you want?”  Jimmy demanded suspiciously, and the woman looked at him with open dislike.

“James,” she said, “I am here to interview you.”

“Why?”

“Let’s … talk somewhere else, shall we?”

“NO!”  Jimmy yelled, backing up, twisting out of his teacher’s light grip:  “YOU ARE A STRANGER AND I AM GOING NOWHERE WITH YOU!  YOU CALL MY FATHER, HE’S THE COUNTY SHERIFF!  I’M STAYING RIGHT HERE UNTIL HE SAYS IT’S OKAY TO TALK WITH YOU!”

“Jimmy,” his teacher said reasonable, “she’s all right.  She’s with Children’s Services –”

“YOU CAN’T TALK TO ME WITHOUT MY DAD HERE!  I WANT A LAWYER!  FIFTH AMENDMENT!”  Jimmy screamed, backing up two more steps, until he bumped into the wall.

He’d rehearsed the possibility that he might have to make an emergency exit; he’d examined the windows in the grade school, he knew they hinged at the bottom, they had aluminum arms on the sides, and he knew if he hit the release, it would drop open and he could just fit, if he went out sideways.

“Jimmy, please –”

Jimmy’s palm hit the release, the window dropped open and Jimmy gave a little twisting jump, went out boots-first, yanked his arms back just in time to miss the grasping hands that tried to seize him.

He turned and ran.

 

Gracie looked up, hesitated:  today’s batch was a treat that the Maxwell men, old and young, delighted in, and that was her chocolate chip cookies.

Gracie followed her beloved Grandma’s recipe, mostly because it was the only one she knew; this met with the wholehearted approval of the entire blue-eyed clan, and the good smell of baking managed to sneak out of the house and summon long, tall, skinny Kentucky-blood carpenters, moonshiners and long hunters with its siren’s smell.

Gracie deliberately overbaked, making more than she’d intended, because however much she intended, she knew there would be a certain amount of … well, I suppose sampling might be the word:  her product tended to evaporate, the men not letting her see them snatch a fresh, warm, soft cookie, but whenever they appeared, cookies tended to disappear.

Gracie raised a bent wrist, wiped at her bent forehead, felt a sudden apprehension.

She never stopped moving; she dispensed more batter, mixed in more chocolate chips, spooned more gobs of dough on the gleaming, greased cookie sheets, cycled one out of the oven, the new one in, inspected the third one halfway baked.

Gracie hesitated again, then she wiped her hands, reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out her .44 bulldog revolver, the one with the hand-chased, gold-inlaid, six-point star on the side of the frame.

She pushed the cylinder release forward, swung it open, nodded at the sight of five beans in the wheel – it was a five shot, so it had what she’d called “a full hand” – and she closed the cylinder, gently, as if gripping the hand of an old friend.

Gracie slipped the .44 back into her skirt pocket, looked up at the back door, looked over to where the shotgun stood in a corner, mostly hidden by a carefully draped curtain.

She set out a glass for milk and a plate, set them on the table in front of a chair, grateful she’d thought to get milk the day before.

 

Connie looked up from her daughter’s rag doll, laid out on the couch and carefully covered with a tiny blanket kept for that purpose.

Willamina looked up at her Mama with big, pale-blue eyes, watching as Connie picked up the phone, frowned at the display, pressed the button.  “Connie Keller.”

Willamina saw her Mama blink again.

“Hold it, hold it,” she said, “what did you do to him to make him do that?”

Another pause, and Willamina saw her Mama’s face tighten a little.

“Why wasn’t I told about this?”  Connie snapped.  “Under law, NOBODY interviews MY SON unless my HUSBAND or I am PRESENT!”

Willamina looked down at her rag doll, then picked it up, locked it in the bend of her elbow and said in a tiny little voice, “Uh-oh!”

 

“Sheriff’s Office.  Of course, one moment.”

The plastic click of a pushed button.

“Sheriff, call for you, line one.”

She hung up the phone, flagged Barrents as he and the others emerged from the hallway that led down to the cells:  she made a quick hand-signal and the men turned as one, retrieved their sidearms from the lock boxes, mag-checked and press-checked, holstered.

They turned and looked at the Sheriff’s door.

Linn stepped out, his eyes the color of a mountain glacier’s frozen heart, and just as kind and soft:  his face was the color of parchment, the flesh drawn tight over his cheek bones, and what worried Barrents most of all was that the man’s hands were empty.

Something had him well more than angry, but it wasn’t a situation that could be handled with a shotgun, otherwise he’d have his favorite street sweeping persuader in a two hand grip.

Linn stopped, looked at his men, took a long, slow breath.

“The first call was Children’s Services,” he said without preamble.  “They want to interview Connie and me and implied that if I did not cooperate they would take our children.  Apparently they are afraid that Jimmy shooting that armed intruder means I’m raising him to be a ravening murderer and they’re afraid he might shoot up the school.  The second call –”

He stopped, closed his eyes, took a long breath, blew it out through his nose, a very slow, very deliberate move:  he opened his eyes again and continued, “The school said they came to interview Jimmy without notifying me.  He escaped.  He’s on foot and he’s scared.  His teacher told me she’d never heard him raise his voice but he told that Children’s Services witch she couldn’t talk to him without me there, he demanded a lawyer” – they saw the barest ghost of a smile in the pale man’s expression – “and then he flipped open a window and rolled out like he was bailing out of a burning bomber.  They know he ran but they don’t know where.”

“I’m on it,” Barrents said shortly.  “What about Children’s Services?”

“I will deal with them,” Linn said, and every one of his people was profoundly grateful they worked for the Sheriff and not against him!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

70.  INSULAR

 

Jimmy dropped between a dumpster and a trash can, deliberately breathing through his nose, remembering what his Pa taught him about escape and evasion.

He wished most powerfully for his Stomper-horse, for The Bear Killer, for his rifle, his knife –

Jimmy saw an empty whiskey bottle.

He picked it up by its neck, saw a handy brick:  he rose, eased the lid off the trash can, set it down and picked up the brick.

He bent over, thrusting the brick into the malodorous depths of the GI can, tapped the base of the whiskey bottle against the corner of the brick:  it shattered, leaving him with a weapon, sharp and menacing.

Jimmy had never used a broken beer bottle in a barfight, but he’d heard of them, and this was bigger than a beer bottle.

He dropped the brick onto the broken glass, set the lid back on the can, looked around, ran again.

 

“I DON’T CARE!”  Ezra Shaver snapped into the telephone.  “You people have NO RIGHT to come into MY CLASSROOM and demand one of my STAR PUPILS, without the presence of a custodial PARENT!”

Mrs. Pompey, the principal, stared in open astonishment at her soft-voiced, mild-mannered, third-grade teacher.

“LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR!”  Ezra demanded, then:  “Fine.  My next call will be to our legal counsel. Until then, you WILL keep YOUR PEOPLE off OUR SCHOOL PROPERTY, and THIS CALL IS BEING RECORDED!”

Ezra Shaver slammed the receiver down hard enough the base of the old-fashioned Princess phone cracked.

Mrs. Pompey smiled and clapped her palms together in brisk applause.

“Ezra,” she laughed, “I didn’t know you had it in you!”

“It gets worse,” Ezra said hoarsely as she sank into a chair, then lowered her face into her hands.  “Jimmy went out the window and ran.  I don’t know where he went.”

 

Jimmy knew how to run silently, and he did:  he knew how to travel as near to unseen as possible, and he did that too.

What he could not do was control his fatigue.

He knew his home had been the closer option, but he knew they’d be looking for him:  he knew if he headed for the Sheriff’s office, his Pa might not be there, and he didn’t want to be handed over to that sour-faced witch that came in and demanded he be handed over like he was beef on a leash or something.

Jimmy’s eyes were busy as he caught his wind, his hand gripping the bottle’s neck; he looked around, listening, then turned and headed up hill again.

He knew where he could go, he knew where he would be safe.

Jimmy headed up hill, he would cut across a saddle, he would run the edge of a hanging meadow and then hit the mountain again and he would climb up to Gracie’s place.  There was a path on the back side of the mountain and he’d climb that, out of sight of anyone from town.

Jimmy set out at a determined pace.

He’d expended his initial adrenalized fire.

He knew he dare not stop.

Hack and thrust, a voice whispered.  Hack and slash and thrust the broken ends in their eyes!

Jimmy started across the saddle, looked ahead to the meadow, began to trot.

 

The woman turned, startled:  “Sheriff!”  she exclaimed.  “Our appointment isn’t until –”

“What have you done with my son?”  Linn said quietly, less a question than a demand.

The woman raised her chin.  “Sheriff, this is highly improper –”

Linn stepped in close, shoving his nose within an inch of hers.  “Under law, madam,” he said, contempt dripping thick as syrup from his use of the honorific, you may NOT interview any juvenile subject without the presence of a parent in the absence of exigent circumstances.  As none exist, your presence here is a violation –”

“I will be the judge of that,” came the peremptory reply.

Linn did not back away an inch.  “Madam,” he said in a warning tone, “I am having the county prosecutor draw up papers right now and they will be presented to the court within the hour, an injunction against you personally and your agency as a whole, mandating that you comply with statute, and requiring a non-contact distance of five hundred feet unless you have a subpoena that says otherwise.”

His hard-eyed glare, the dry rasp of his voice, his towering over the woman, were sufficient to intimidate her into a folding tin chair.

“Now,” the Sheriff said, just a little more loudly, “what have you done with my son?”

 

Jimmy’s throat felt frozen and raw and his thighs burned, there were spots across his vision but he was almost there, almost there –

He reached for the doorknob, felt the door open, saw an expanse of white cotton that smelled of sun dried bedsheets –

Gracie caught Jimmy under the arms, tucked her bottom under her and lifted with her legs, groaning a little as she did.

“You’re solid,” she muttered, turning, bringing him inside:  she hooked the chair with the toe of her work boot, eased the tall, skinny nine-year-old into the kitchen chair.

She looked at the broken bottle in his hand, saw there was no blood on it:  she eased it out of his grip, placed it carefully in the trash can:  Jimmy was heaving for air, and she squatted, brushing the hair back from his forehead.

Jimmy looked at her, limp, spent.

“They want to take me away from my Pa,” he whispered, and she saw he was starting to shiver, and the water was building up in his eyes.

She knew he must’ve been terribly frightened, she knew he should be in school; she didn’t know who “they” were, but she – and the rest of town – knew he’d shot an armed intruder, that the court had issued a no-bill, that it was something the Sheriff called a “righteous shoot” … and she knew that whatever happened today, it terrified the boy, and he leaned into her and she hugged him tight and whispered, “You’ve an entire family here that won’t let them take you!”

 

When Jimmy was finally returned to his home, it was astride one of the riding mules, with Gracie riding beside him, her double gun propped up on her hip and her .44 Bulldog in her skirt pocket:  they rode at an easy walk, they rode paths Jimmy had traveled maybe once, and that by accident:  Kentucky mountaineers with rifles from an earlier war slipped like ghosts through woods and brush on either side, and when they came to the edge of Jimmy’s pasture, one of the younger Maxwell men loped across the board-fenced meadow, slapped a hand on the top rail and vaulted easily over the whitewashed boards, Garand in hand:  he never broke stride, he hit the ground a-moving, he headed up to the Sheriff’s solid built cabin, extending a hand to the approaching Bear Killer, who took a sniff and a lick and turned to pace alongside this familiar visitor.

It was not until they saw the safe-to-approach signal that they broke cover, and moved across the meadow, gunmuzzles pointed outward as they approached in a ring, with their precious cargo at its center.

 

The long, tall, skinny, Kentucky-blue-eyed Clan Maxwell was not the only insular, clannish bunch in the county.

Firelands itself was a small town, a Western town, and had known its share of Eastern arrogance, of outsiders who thought themselves God’s gift to the environment, or the resources, or to education, or to this or to that, with the net effect of turning the general opinion of the local population firmly against those agencies who were not from their county – so much so that when the State Police came to talk with the Sheriff, to investigate at the behest of Children’s Services, that they did not miss the presence of riflemen on rooftops, of suspicious looks from the natives:  there were no overt moves, no direct threats, and when asked, the Sheriff commented on the riflemen:  “Deputies, practicing overwatch,” or “Special operations training,” or “Counter-sniper practice.”

The Sheriff disliked making enemies, but he knew there had to be boundaries, and he made good use of His Honor the Judge and the dignified old jurist’s firsthand experience with bringing overreaching agencies to heel.

He also made very sure to let Jimmy know that he, Jimmy, had done nothing wrong; that he, Jimmy, did exactly as he’d been taught – that, faced with this threat to his safety and well-being, that he should evacuate, that he should escape and evade and make his way to safety, and the Sheriff expressed his particular approval that Jimmy had manufactured  what would quite probably be a very effective fighting tool.

“Remember, Jimmy,” he’d continued in a quiet voice, as the two of them sat together in the barn, each on a saddleblanket-covered bale of hay, “you are the weapon.  Anything else is simply a tool.”

Jimmy nodded solemnly, his eyes big and serious.

“We’re going to a dance tonight,” Linn continued.  “The Chinese have a saying:  ‘Never give a sword to a man who cannot dance.’”

Jimmy’s brows puzzled together at this.

“Jimmy, it’s time you learned knife fighting, and your training starts tonight.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

71.  ONE SMALL SUCCESS

 

Gracie placed the smoothed stick in the impatient little brother’s hand, notches up, and the pencil-sized dowel in his other grip.

She stood behind him, or rather knelt; her arms were around him, she was warm, she smelled good, and she’d given him chocolate chip cookies, so Gracie was very much in young Wes Keller’s good graces.

She guided his right hand to his left, placed the dowel he gripped on the sawtooth notches on top of the first stick.

“Now run that back and forth!” she whispered, and Wes did, and as he did, the propellor on the end began to spin.

Wes grinned and laughed and rubbed the dowel over the wooden notches even faster, spinning the propeller on its smooth peg of a nail, and Gracie turned her attentions to Wes’s impatient little sister.

Gracie had a way with children, she had a knack for harnessing their short attention spans, and with the Sheriff called in by work again, and Connie having taken young Jimmy to his event, she’d shown up at the front door (as happened from time to time) unbidden but ready to tend the young, so Connie, the Sheriff’s lovely wife, could handle unexpected situations that came up.

Gracie did so admire Connie and the Sheriff, raising two families:  their oldest child was now Sheriff on Mars, of all places, and in spite of their own advancing age, they’d started their second family – adoption, and birth, and by all appearances, were doing very well indeed with this effort.

Gracie did worry about what she was hearing, about Children’s Services showing up at the school, about the Sheriff having a nose to nose, purple faced screaming match in the principal’s office with someone with more authority than brains, how the State Police were involved now – Gracie pushed those thoughts aside as she whispered something in Wes’s pink, scrubbed-clean ear, bringing a happy giggle from the grinning little boy.

“That’s called a Wimmydiddle,” she whispered, and Wes exclaimed “Wimmydiddle!”

His little sister happily hugged her rag doll, pale eyes slitted with happiness.

 

“I thought your husband was coming,” the dance instructor said in a disappointed voice.

“You didn’t hear?”  Connie murmured.  “He has three broken ribs.”

“Oh, no!”  The woman looked at Connie with big and concerned eyes.  “I was so hoping he’d be here, we could have used him!”

Connie smiled sadly.  “I know.  I think he’s in negotiations right now.”

The dance instructor nodded, looked over at Jimmy, one of a half-dozen young men in pressed trousers and polished shoes, milling uncertainly in a loose group, looking bashfully at a like number of young ladies in frilly dresses and pumps.

Connie smiled as she remembered Jimmy’s insisting not only that he wear a necktie, but that he knot it himself:  he’d had to tie it three times, but he managed that good looking Windsor knot his father preferred.

“I’ve found that when a young man ties his own tie,” the dance instructor said quietly, looking at the boys with an assessing eye, “they generally take well to the dance.  Is he artistic, by any chance?”

Connie laughed a little, nodded, for she knew the look on Jimmy’s face, and she knew he’d be sketching when he was not on the dance floor.

“Showtime,” the instructor winked, giving Connie’s hands a quick squeeze, then she paced out to the center of the hardwood-floored studio, clapped her hands twice, did a quick twirl.

Connie settled into a convenient chair, wondering how her husband was handling his official inquiries.

 

“Do ye think th’ State will take his children?” 

Daffyd Llwewllyn looked up from the disassembled regulator before him.

“I don’t think they’d survive the attempt,” he said frankly.

“He might sacrifice one child t’ keep th’ others.”

“Nah.  Th’ damned State” – the Irish Welshman started to spit, realized he was indoors, swallowed instead – “th’ damned State doesn’t take just one child.  If they take any, they’ll take all an’ there’ll be hell t’ pay.”

“If they try,” the engineer added darkly, “I think th’ whole town will turn out t’ keep it fr’m happenin’!”

Daffyd consulted the exploded drawing, compared the diaphragm to the illustration, frowned and looked closer.

“No wonder,” he muttered.  “It’s the wrong part from the factory!”

“Cap’n, have ye heard a word we’ve said?”  the engineer protested.  “Old Pale Eyes might not win this one!”

Daffyd Llewellyn looked up.  “Pull every self contained.  Right now.  There’s a problem.  I want ‘em here on the table in front of me.  Call the county air truck, we’ll need to refill every tank, move.”

“Right, Cap,” the engineer muttered.

“I’m listening,” Daffyd said absently as he picked up the magnifying glass, studied the part number on the offending high-pressure diaphragm, confirmed that it did not match the illustration’s part number.  “Matter of fact I’ve got a carbine that says if they try t’ take ‘em they’ll have t’ come through me first!”  He lowered the magnifying glass, looked up.  “Is that a problem?”

The engineer grinned.

“No, Cap, that’s not a problem a’tall.”

“Good.”  Daffyd looked toward the parts cabinet.  “Get me that boxed diaphragm, second shelf, right side, white box with green lettering and read off the part number.  I just might get lucky tonight.”

The engineer raised his hands to the ceiling, rolling his eyes.

“A married man he is, an’ talkin’ about gettin’ lucky!”  He shook his head in mock sorrow.  “And wi’ an air regulator no less!  There’s no accountin’ fer taste!”

“Yeah, God loves you too,” Daffyd muttered, not looking up as a heavy ceramic mug of hot, steaming coffee was set down in easy reach of his hard-knuckled right hand.

“Take a break, Cap,” the English Irishman said quietly.  “You’ve been fighting that regulator all night.”

“I’ve about got the damned thing fixed,” Daffyd snarled, looking up at the engineer’s happy shout.

“Hey Cap!  Here’s the number!”

Daffyd compared the recited string of digits to the number on the exploded drawing.

“By three saints and a fencepost,” he declared, “that’s the one!  Fetch it over and we’ll fix this thing!”

 

Tony the barber was a fixture in town.

He was pure blood Sicilian, he was a master barber, and he was a man of fierce loyalties.

He’d been a high ranking Mafioso … a very, very high ranking Mafioso … and, rare for his profession, he’d retired alive, well, and without too many ugly, puckered or linear scars.

Tony came to respect the pale eyed Sheriff Willamina, and Tony had come to her defense when it counted, and for that reason, it was unofficially known that he had a model 10 Beretta submachine gun in his barbershop – the buzz gun he’d used to keep two ambushers from murdering the pale-eyed Sheriff – and he’d come to respect the pale eyed son of the Sheriff as well.

Linn and Jimmy had been in earlier that evening; Linn, for a shave and a trim, and Jimmy, for a trim:  Tony waited until the Sheriff’s beard was softened, until he’d stropped out the straight razor, until he’d carefully, delicately, expertly removed the Sheriff’s stubble with quick, precise strokes, then he wiped the soap from the pale eyed lawman’s face and placed his palm gently on the man’s chest.

“I show-a you something,” he said quietly, his eyes intent, and Linn nodded, once, his face solemn.

Tony fished a key from his vest pocket, turned, unlocked a drawer:  he drew it open, stepped aside.

Linn looked down at the stutter gun, looked back at Tony, waited.

Tony slid the drawer shut, locked it.

“Sheriff,” he said quietly, “I liked-a you mother an’ I like-a you.  You need-a da Tony, you let-a me know.”  He raised an eyebrow, lowered his head in emphasis.

“Sheriff, you need-a da help, I know-a da people.”

Linn leaned forward, rested his hand on Tony’s shoulder.

Tony almost never affected such an accent, and the Sheriff knew this was for emphasis … and he knew Tony was absolutely serious when he said he knew people.

“You’ve trusted me, Tony,” Linn said quietly.  “I trust you as well.” 

The Sheriff smiled and the smile reminded the old Mafioso more of a wolf’s bared-fang snarl than an expression of pleasure.

 

Connie chewed on her knuckle, watching her son move through tentative, to awkward, to confident:  the instructor knew the value of early success, so she'd paired him off with a girl of like height, a girl who knew the steps: the instructor knew a tall, awkward boy would get a big boost from mastering a simple series of steps, and he did.

Jimmy looked over at his mother, the delight of achievement shining in his young face.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

72.  THE BARD

 

The State Trooper closed the door behind him, stepped up to the Sheriff’s desk, his campaign hat correctly under his arm:  he extended his hand, laid a gold coin on the green desk blotter.

The Sheriff considered the coin, with its superimposed Seal of Solomon and the Christian Cross:  he thrust thumb and forefinger into his own vest pocket, brought out an identical coin, laid it beside the trooper’s, but with the rose side up.

Linn stood, thrust out his hand.  “I’m glad you’re here.”

The troop took his hand; there was no need for a crushing contest, for they both knew the Society of the Rose.

From the inside.

“You can’t win, you know.”

“I know,” Linn nodded, showing that wolflike smile that denoted no pleasure at all: “I know I can’t win, but damned if I will make it easy for them!”

“I can arrange to have Jimmy interviewed here, in your conference room.”

“Good.  I can video tape the proceedings.  They will wish to interview Connie and I as well, possibly some teachers.”

“Correct.”

“I remember when the bottom polishing basss …”

He bit off the profanity, glared at the trooper, who looked back with the sleepy and understanding eyes of a veteran lawman who new what it was to be on both sides of a stressful situation.

“Cads, bounders, blaggards, rascals, scoundrels and buggers,” Linn finished in a rush, picking up his coin and thrusting it back into his vest pocket.  “Do you know, they came into my house – my house – when I was adopting Jimmy, if we hadn’t had a half dozen neighbor kids inside playing with The Bear Killer I think that bureaucratic brass bound –”

The trooper raised an eyebrow.

“If I hadn’t had all those kids wallerin’ all over The Bear Killer, and him a-layin’ there with that big tail poundin’ the floor, why, she’d likely have vapor locked just lookin’ at him!”

The trooper took a long, patient breath.

“I know, Sheriff.  I adopted both of mine.  Did they open your refrigerator and look to see if you wiped off the neck of your ketchup?”

Linn laughed.  “They opened it up but we don’t have ketchup in the house.  Can’t stand the stuff.”

“Sheriff, they’re astonished at the level of resistance they’re meeting.  A schoolteacher that’s normally mild as a fluffy chick reared up and roared, they’ve been hit with injunctions and no-trespass orders, Jimmy himself in open rebellion and then jumping through a window – by the way, she said he’d done just that, jumped through a window, she was so … surprised … that the peasantry didn’t bow and prostrate themselves before her she must not have realized windows can open.”

Linn nodded.  “I told him never to get trapped, never cornered, a classroom is a slaughter pen if they’re attacked.”  Linn leaned forward, elbows on the desk blotter, his voice low, urgent.

“I’ve never been afraid of a school shooting,” he admitted, “but there’s one thing that scares my liver white as wheat paste.”

Linn gestured, lowered himself into his chair; the trooper sat as well, removed his Montana peaked cover from under his arm, balanced it across his thighs, looking with concern at his pale eyed compatriot.

“If it scares you, Sheriff, it terrifies me,” he said in an equally low voice.

“I had a nightmare one night,” Linn said, shuddering and looking away: “someone had a gunny sack of cheap thin whiskey bottles of gasoline and a pocket full of wooden wedges, and a bunch of road flares in his hip pocket.  He come to the kindergarten classroom and threw in two fifths of high-test, threw them hard and down and soaked into the kids and then he lit off a flare and threw in, he pulled the door to, he kicked a wedge under and moved on to the next classroom.”

Linn’s eyes were haunted.

“I could smell it, troop.  You ever smell someone burn alive?”

The troop nodded, slowly, carefully veiling his gold-flecked brown eyes:  he’d smelled that very thing, and not that long ago.

“A friend of my Mama’s came out from back East some years ago.”  Linn leaned back in his chair, raised exploring fingers to his spectacularly colored cheek bone.  “He’d been headed over to McArthur to visit a buddy and he come across a wreck.

“He said ‘twas a nice lookin’ Buick convertible, or had been, it was … he said it looked like the driver tried to miss something, maybe a deer, she’d gutted the gas tank and it was over on its roof and layin’ in a puddle of gas.

“He said he nailed the brakes and grabbed the mike for his fire radio but Vinton County and Athens County were not on the same freq, he was out of range to hit his own radio back home, he tried to break into a CB conversation and couldn’t, and about then she lit up.

“He said he pulled the two-and-a-half pound extinguisher free and ran up and he said he might as well have spit on that fire for all the good it did, all he could do was stand there and listen to a sixteen year old girl wake up with hell a-boilin’ her alive and watch and listen as she screamed herself to death.

“He said he couldn’t stand the smell of meat cookin’ for some years after.”

The troop nodded slowly.  “I can understand that,” he agreed.

The trooper picked up his campaign hat, settled it on his head, then tilted it a few degrees as was his habit.  “With your permission, Sheriff, I will arrange interview here, and at your convenience.”

“Now would be good,” Linn grinned, picking up the emblem of the Society of the Rose and handing it to the trooper.  “Or sooner.  Let’s get it over with.”

“They may wish to go through your house again.  Hide your guns, they’re daisies.”

Linn nodded.  “Can do.”

“One last thing, Sheriff.”  The trooper looked at the pale eyed Sheriff with the expression of a man who knows the quiet satisfaction of revenge.

“If it’s any help … you can add a few to your impressive stock of insults.”

“Oh?” 

The troop looked up toward the ceiling, smiling a little as he remembered.

“I think my favorite … was something to do with a saucy, beef-witted barnacle.”  He smiled a little as the memory returned, raised a finger, looked down at the closely-listening Sheriff.

“Away, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, bull’s-pizzle, you stock-fish! Thy face is like a thousand rotten corpse screaming out from the depth of hell. The tartness of thy face would sour ripe grapes.”

Linn grinned again, quick and broad, nodding.

“Shakespeare, I believe.”

“Henry IV part 1, if I remember correctly.”

“Thank you.”  Linn nodded slowly, with genuine appreciation.  “The Bard did have an excellent command of profanity.”

 

Ezra Shaver put her fingers to her lips, delighted at the lifelike quality of Jimmy’s work.

She’d asked him what he’d done the night before – just an idle curiosity, she did this with most of her students – she expected a comment about horses, or dogs, or splitting wood, but Jimmy got that funny little smile of his and sat down and began drawing.

Ezra went on to another student, looking at the lesson, offering a suggestion here, an encouraging rub of the student’s concentration-hunched back there:  when she finally circulated back around to Jimmy, he turned his finished sheet around for her to see.

The page was a little bigger than a sheet of typing paper, and textured; she wasn’t sure where he got the paper, but it took his pencil very well indeed, and she found herself staring in amazement at six separate drawings:  the studio windows in the background were spaced such that it looked like six separate couples, yet they were the same – it was quite obviously Jimmy – the girl she didn’t recognize, but it was unmistakable they were dancing, and in a formal style … here, the instructress struck a graceful pose, Jimmy and his partner head-tilted with interest, imitating her stance; another, with Jimmy carefully placing his burnished boot, looking down to ensure its alignment; successive images showed an increased confidence, until finally, in the last of the half-dozen pencil sketches, the girl’s head was tilted a little, her hair swinging out just a bit as she spun, her skirt flaring as well:  Jimmy’s self-portraits progressed from tentative and uncertain, to confident, and in the background, Mrs. Shaver saw his Mama’s expression of approval, her hands up in apparent mid-applause.

“That was easier than explainin’ it,” Jimmy said quietly, his ears reddening a little.  “Don’t tell nobody, but ...”

His ears were turning a remarkable shade of scarlet.

“I kinda liked it!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

73.  FOOTY PRINTS

 

Jimmy watched closely as the old rancher opened the exhaust cocks on the ancient John Deere tractor.

Jimmy recognized his choking the carburetor and setting the throttle, he knew it had a hand clutch (he’d run a little bitty John Deere, he didn’t recall the letter name but it started like this one!) – the old rancher gripped the fly wheel, rolled it through, slowly, once, then briskly.

The engine sneezed.

The rancher grinned – Jimmy knew he was grinning, the old fellow always did, first time the engine sneezed and blasted exhaust and unburnt fuel out the open brass orifice – he grabbed the flywheel in strong, leather-gloved hands, hauled it around once more and the engine sneezed, sneezed again, began chuffing steadily out its green-painted, vertical stack.

Jimmy ran around the tractor to shut the starboard cock and the rancher shut off the port, and the tractor began its steady ka-putt, ka-putt, ka-putt, shuff-shuff-shuf-shuff, ka-putt ka-putt idle, and Jimmy allowed himself a small smile.

He absolutely, positively loved to listen to a Johnny Putt, either at idle or at labor, and his grin went from hidden to quite overt when the old rancher squatted and yelled under the tractor’s belly, “Jump on and back that baler up for me!”

Jimmy swarmed awkwardly aboard, bounced a couple times on the tin seat, looked around and frowned:  he was young, he was lithe and flexible, he had no trouble twisting down to where he could reach the brake release right, then the brake release left, he looked clear around behind him, reached down without looking to hook the stick into back-up gear, then gripped the clutch lever and eased it forward.

He didn’t add any throttle – matter of fact he hooked the throttle lever and pulled it back about halfway – he knew he would need neither speed nor galloping power just to back the baler, and he eased it back, around an S-turn and through the narrow gate and up beside the barn where it belonged:  the rancher had it out in the open to change wheel bearings and do some other work, and Jimmy had been helping out, elbow deep in some tight places, places where the rancher’s stiff and increasingly arthritic hands couldn’t reach, but young and willing arms could just go:  the baler was working again and the old man was happy, and now he’d drafted from the Unorganized Militia to complete his task.

The old rancher wiped his hands happily on a greasy shop rag, looked at it sadly, shaking his head:  he’d made use of every last square inch of its rough surface, it was plumb used up, so he tossed it over toward the burning barrel – he’d seen what happened if a man piled up his greasy old rags, his Pa’s rag barrel caught fire from spontaneous indigestion, and they played hell getting the fire under control, and his Pa about passed out from smoke inhalation from that lesson they both learned the hard way.

That had been a long time ago, though.

The rancher watched approvingly as the young boy, solemn and serious as he backed another man’s equipment, made the S-turn and the final line-up look easy:  he got it placed first try, and he made it look easy.

The old rancher was a proud man and it would hurt him to have to ask for help, but Jimmy showed up right when he needed help; the lad knew his way around a toolbox, and as the rancher called for a 5/8” socket and a short extension, they were assembled and placed in his waiting hand – if he needed a half-inch, 9/16” box end, that too was placed in his hand:  it go to where he’d call out the tool and not even look, and it touched his palm; he simply closed his hand around it, brought it into his field of vision and used it.

“Dammit, son,” he finally said, “I wisht you’d been my boy!”

Jimmy grinned and squatted between the rancher and his open, set-out toolbox:  he’d pulled out the top tray, studied the interior of the bottom section to familiarize himself with its contents, grateful to his pale eyed Pa for working with him on a variety of projects:  Jimmy had no way of knowing the old rancher and his son got along like oil and water, that his own get had neither liking for ranch life, or any intent to return to it, that his firstborn had run off to the City first chance he got, and had never come back.

Neither did Jimmy have the least idea that the old rancher couldn’t back a machine with a hinge in the middle – oh, he could, just not worth a good damn.

Even with a baler on the back of a tractor, where a man could turn around and see the whole thing, the rancher would end up in a jack knife, every time, so when Jimmy showed a flexible young mind’s aptitude for the task, why, the old-timer was wise enough to let him.

This was not the first time Jimmy had visited the old rancher.

The John Deere G model bore mute testimony to the lad’s gifts:  on the side of the radiator, beneath the G-designator decal, a brindle mule wearing a John Deere green-and-yellow harness leaned forward in its padded leather collar, its lifelike depiction of a mule pulling a heavy load absolutely, flawlessly rendered:  once painted and cured, it was clear-coated, for the old rancher had done a great deal of work with this old two-banger, and that pullin’ fool painted on the side of the radiator cowling perfectly depicted his opinion of the old green machine.

If he hitched onto something, didn’t much matter what that something was, it was going to be pulled, peacefully or otherwise, for that good old machine just never did run out of power.

The old rancher watched as Jimmy rode that big red gelding, rode whistling like boys do, out across the back field, back toward the Sheriff’s place, and his wife saw that soft smile she remembered so well, and she rejoiced to see it.

She knew a young boy had put footy prints on an old man’s heart, and she knew her husband’s memory of this forenoon’s work was a good one.

 

“Pa?”

“Yes, Jimmy?”

“Pa …”  Jimmy twisted a little in his seat, and Linn looked across his desk to the uncertain lad.

“I, um …  Pa, I kind of liked dancin’ last night.”

Linn nodded.

“I figured you would, Jimmy. I understand you did well.”

Jimmy nodded.  “I learned a little, Pa.”

Linn leaned back in his chair and laughed quietly.

“Jimmy, did you have a dance partner?”

Jimmy nodded.

“Kind of a cute girl, all dressed up?”

Jimmy nodded again.

“Good.”  Linn leaned forward and Jimmy saw the unbidden ghost of pain wash over his pale eyed father’s face as he changed position:  Jimmy waited until his Pa shifted again and took a careful breath.

“Jimmy, I’ll tell you a secret,” Linn said quietly, with a half-grin and a wink, and Jimmy grinned and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“When I started …” 

Jimmy saw his Pa’s ears start to turn red, and his Pa looked down at his desk blotter, then back up at the boy.

“My very first dance partner was named Elaine, and I had a terrible crush on her.”
His ears were even redder.

“I was about as good at dancin’ as a step ladder.  Matter of fact that’s kind of how I danced.  Set up a step ladder” – his hands were busy illustrating the move – “then push sideways on it with a stiff finger” – his out-thrust trigger finger shoved against something invisible – “and let it go and that’s how I danced, just klunk-klunk-klunk back and forth, real stiff.”

Jimmy nodded, politely refraining from a quiet laugh.

“Elaine was my age and she was … I’d say …”  He frowned, trying to find the words.

“Elaine was mature for her age and that meant she was real patient.  She was quiet and she was encouraging and I loosened up and she was a really good partner to dance with.”

Linn’s ears were positively scarlet and he lowered his eyes to the blotter again, then looked up with that shamefaced grin Jimmy knew meant he was going to entrust the boy with a secret.

“Jimmy, I asked her to be my girlfriend, and she give me the saddest look and said ‘But Linn, we’re cousins,’ and I about died for embarrassment.”

He laughed a little.

“I had honestly forgot we were blood kin.”

He chuckled again, shook his head.

“That’s not the only time I made a donkey out of myself, but that’s one of the first times.”  He looked up at his son, open and relaxed, forearms crossed on his desk blotter.  “A man ought to be able to dance well, Jimmy.  George Washington was an accomplished dancer.  It was expected of a gentleman, even when Old Pale Eyes was Sheriff, a gentleman was expected to be a good dancer.”

Jimmy nodded solemnly, eyes big, taking it all in.

“I’ve found a good dancer makes your partner that much better.  I’ve danced with really good partners and they made me that much better, I’ve danced with women who weren’t very good, but because I was pretty good, I made them better.”  He leaned back, carefully, and Jimmy noticed his Pa’s upper arm was discreetly clamped down over his injured ribs. 

“You are doing a good thing, Jimmy.”

“I like it,” Jimmy said quietly.  “It’s fun.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

74.  BLACK HARVESTER

 

The curly back fiddle lay strings-down on the grave, abandoned, the rosined bow a few feet from it.

There were footprints in the morning frost, a set coming from the house and across the little family cemetery, a set that came with regular spacing through the hand wrought gate and around a few graves, stopping here, stopping there, as if the traveler contemplated a variety of ancestors before coming to the newest interment:  there was a small confusion of impressions, as if the visitor stood here for a time, shifting her weight a little.

Another set of footmarks departed this grave, but these were well separated and incomplete … as if being made at a run, where the runner’s efforts thrust against the earth only with the balls of the feet, and with that distinctive long, urgent stride that betrayed a flat-out sprint:  the frost-pressed tracks made straight for the back fence, disappeared, reappeared on the other side, as if a runner had vaulted the fence, perhaps by seizing the top of the fence with an urgent, desperate grasp, threw both legs over together, landed flat-footed – look here, the landing-marks are deeper, set side-by-side – and then the launch, a stumble, and a running stride again.

Look there.

There, in the distance, toward the sawmill, a running figure, hands grasping her grey skirt, running like the wind itself, a woman, doing her best to make Jesse Owens look like a rank amateur.

 

“How was court, Sheriff?”

Linn looked up from his chocolate sundae and coffee.

“No-bill.”

“’I’m glad.”  The cute little waitress sat down, planted one elbow on the table, her chin on her palm:  she was maybe seventeen, young, pretty, and at the moment, grateful to sit down and talk.

“How’s school?”  As usual, Linn sat facing the front door, with the only other exit, on his left:  he looked past her, out the front door, then focused on his attractive young visitor.

“Good.”  She sighed.  “No, not good.  The usual, Sheriff.  Everyone thinks they’re the center of the world, their problems are worse than anyone else’s, their triumphs are greater than anyone else’s.”  She wrinkled her nose.  “High school stuff.”

Linn grunted, nodded.  “You on break?”

“No,” she sighed, “just slow.”

“Can you stay for a minute?”

“Sure.”  She shifted in her seat, turned to face the lawman a little more squarely.

She knew she was being stared at by the other, school-age patrons; anytime a lawman and a student talked quietly, everyone assumed it was either because the student was in trouble, or trying to get out of trouble, or because the student was ratting someone out.

“I’m hearing about a new dealer in town, a stranger.”  The Sheriff’s voice was neutral, gentle, as if he were discussing a shade of paint.

“Oh, him.”  She wrinkled her nose.  “He drives a new Charger just like the state police, he’s got a police scanner in it and he’s got a blue light he puts on the dash to pull cars over.  He’s done that back where he came from.”

The Sheriff’s eyes were veiled as he scooped up another spoonful of sundae.

“He has a gun under the seat and he likes … to make girls …”

She looked at him, suddenly uncomfortable.

“I know what he likes,” the Sheriff said, his voice taking an edge.  “You’re not the first one.”

“I … didn’t want to, Sheriff, he grabbed me by the neck and –”

“You willing to press charges?”

“Yes!”  she hissed, her face suddenly going from young-innocent-and-pretty to vicious, angry and vengeful.  “For what he did to me, yes!”

Linn nodded.  “That’s all I needed to know.  Thank you, Janet.”

Linn looked up and Janet turned as a high, liquid whistle went screaming past the drugstore:  Linn saw the Firelands squad head uphill, picking up speed.

“That,” he said quietly, “bodes not well.”

Janet looked over to the shining, stainless-steel-and-glass counter, to where the owner was coming out, looking at her, nodding toward the Sheriff.

Janet reached over, tapped the Sheriff’s knuckles with a delicate fingertip, nodded toward her boss.

Linn set down his spoon and rose, stepped over to the anxious looking man in the white paper cap and long white apron.

“Scanner says there’s an injury at the sawmill, Sheriff,” he said in a low voice.

Linn nodded, his bottom jaw thrusting out.

“Thanks, Gary.”  He turned to the waitress, reached in his shirt pocket, handed her a twenty, then strode out of the drugstore, several sets of eyes following the hard-eyed, jaw-set lawman.

 

Gracie leaned her weight through the heel of her hand, pressing into the thick, ropy artery hidden under a surprising amount of lean muscle, trying desperately to shut off the blood.

Neither her uncle nor anyone else protested when Gracie seized the injured man’s belt buckle, more ripped his drawers open than unbuttoned and unzipped them, she lifted the man off the ground with her desperation to get access to the area of his lean carcass that almost never saw daylight:  she knew the first concern was to stop the bleeding, and everything else – including modesty – was of secondary importance.

His lower leg was badly broken, the bone sticking out, arterial blood spraying in a fan from under the broken bone end.

Gracie remembered being surprised at how absolutely, shockingly scarlet, how pretty and gleaming the color, and she shoved hard to compress artery against thigh bone.

Her uncle was pale, shivering a little, but made no sound:  he blinked, he breathed, his hands opened and closed a little, but he otherwise allowed Gracie her ministrations.

Just before he lost consciousness, he remembered hearing her voice, recalled hearing her pronounce his full name, remembered suddenly feeling warm, as if heat – as if life itself – suddenly roared into his long, tall and skinny frame, and then his eyes rolled up and he recalled nothing after that.

Gracie looked up.  “Nathan,” she said, her voice tight, “do you go call the squad, tell ‘em what happened.  Wait for them at the head of the drive.  They’ll know how to get to the house but they might not have been back here.”  She looked up at the stack of lumber that had collapsed, cascading down on the man, taking him by surprise and crushing his leg, splintering both lower leg bones.

“Shore up that stack.  We don’t need any more coming down.”

Maxwell men galvanized into action.

In time of crisis, men are geared to action, and this – this was an enemy they could attack, and overcome, and in this moment, it’s what they all needed.

 

“Yeah, how much?”

The Charger’s driver grinned, drumming his fingers on the blue-plastic dash light he kept beside him, idly turning the baggie of crystal rock between thumb and fingers.

“How much you want, my man?”

He looked up, his mouth suddenly dry.

“You set me up!” he screamed, grabbing the shifter and giving it a vicious yank:  he was used to a shifter with at least a few inches of travel, and the new short-throw shifter surprised him:  he mashed the throttle, screamed forward in a cloud of blue smoke and profanity, eyes wide and panicked at the sight of red-and-blues coming into sight in his rearview.

Almost a half-dozen twenties fluttered like scattered leaves in the Charger’s slipstream, and the startled customer jumped back as the squad approached, roared past, scattering his hundred bucks even further.

 

Gary looked over at the flat little four channel scanner.

The Sheriff’s voice – he had several voices, this was the voice he used when he meant business –

“All Firelands units, now hear this.”
He never says “Now Hear This” unless he’s serious, Gary thought, stepping closer and leaning over a little, turning his head as he did:  behind him, Janet laid a hand on his back, listening as well.

“BOLO, BOLO, BOLO.  White Dodge Charger, new model, single white male early twenties driving. Police impostor, gun in car, possible single blue light.”

Another voice.  “Have him in sight, high rate of speed outbound, in pursuit.”

“He’ll never catch him,” Gary whispered.  “Not in a Charger!”

 

Jimmy and Stomper coasted easily down the mountain trail, curved around a clump of aspen, stopped.

Jimmy looked off to his right, where three trails converged, where a big rock – taller than his Pa and twice as wide – thrust aggressively up out of the ground.

His Pa said the Old Sheriff killed a man here.

Jimmy’s young imagination populated the tranquil, quiet opening in the wooded mountainside with an ambusher leaning a rifle barrel over top the rock, with a pale-eyed Sheriff swinging a cavalry saber: a desperate charge on a shining-muscled red mare, the swing of gleaming steel, the Grand Old Man leaping from his saddle, seizing the dead man by the hair of his head, dancing madly about in a tight circle at the top of his screaming lungs, bloody blade in one hand and swinging the blood-dripping decapitation of an enemy in the other, the very image of absolute, utter, raving insanity – and then he stopped, and lowered the point of the saber toward the ambusher’s partner, and gave a truly maniacal laugh.

“YOU’RE NEXT!” he screamed, his voice cracking and insanity shining in his pale eyes, and the ambusher’s partner gave a yell of sheer terror, hauled his gelding about and spurred madly along their back trail.

Jimmy remembered his father’s quiet words as he read them from the Old Sheriff’s Journal – one of the Journals, Jimmy couldn’t remember which – but he and his Pa rode this trail not long after that reading, and Linn dismounted and walked the scene with Jimmy.

“Here’s likely where the ambusher hid,” Linn said, “and Old Pale Eyes would have been coming from that direction” – he pointed with a bladed hand, as was his habit – “one shot fired from here, fired from a single shot carbine … “

His Pa’s voice trailed off as he turned slowly, looking forward, looking back, then he looked at Jimmy and grinned.

“If I saw someone just cut off a man’s head and then dance around swinging it and screaming, I’d run like hell itself was after me!” he laughed, and Jimmy smiled at the memory, for he and his father laughed together in that moment, and that recollection was good.

Stomper looked around, unconcerned; they continued up towards the roadway.

Stomper halted, muttered, ears swinging:  he backed a few steps, shook his head, grunted again.

“Stomper!”  Jimmy admonished, but the red Frisian backed up a few more, stopped, ears laid back flat against his head.

Jimmy reached up, soothed his horse with touch and with voice, then he looked up and said, “Oh,” as if he’d come to a realization, which he had.

Horses and sirens do not mix well, if at all, except for those who are acclimatized early and well, such as big-city police horses, which Stomper wasn’t.

Jimmy heard a siren, then a second one, approaching, and coming fast.

A large black horse came up beside him and Jimmy turned, startled.

He recognized the horse.

It was another Frisian – rare in these parts – but this one was glossy black, gleaming with a healthy coat and hard muscles, a horse with a proud neck and a knowing eye, and on the big black mare’s back, someone he should have known but didn’t immediately recognize.

She wasn’t The Pretty Lady.

Not today.

No, today his pale eyed friend wore knee high, flat heeled cavalry boots, she wore a flat crowned black hat, a black silky wild rag around her neck; her shirt, vest and long overcoat were all unrelieved, severe black, and as Jimmy stared, she reached across and under her open coat and drew a curved cavalry sword.

“Stay here,” she said, resting the shining blade back across her shoulder, and her big black Snowflake-mare surged forward, up over the bank, down the other side.

There was a scream of rubber, the sound of tortured metal, some banging, the awful sounds of a collision.

Jimmy’s mouth went dry and Stomper froze, rigid, more a fleshly statue than a stock-still horse:  time hung slow for several long moments, then Jimmy heard a screaming – a terrified man’s panicked screaming, mostly a protesting “No, no, no!  Not this, no, not me, you can’t, I’m not – no, no NOOOOOOOOO!”

The woman in black, astride a huge black mare, came over the rise from the highway side, came back into the clearing where Jimmy waited on his frozen, shivering, eye-walling Stomper-horse:  her blade was laid back over her shoulder, bright with fresh blood, and she carried a man’s head by the hair, and the eyes were rolling, the mouth open, and the decapitated head was screaming in absolute, utter, unmitigated terror.

Wide and panicked eyes fixed on Jimmy, desperate eyes, willing to do anything, promise anything –

“Hey kid, HEY KID!  Help me out here, she’s crazy, she’s nuts, get me outta this, KID, HELP ME KID I’LL GIVE YOU TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS, I’LL GIVE YOU A QUARTER OF A MILLION, IT’S ALL I GOT –”

The woman curled her lip and whistled, shrill, commanding, and Jimmy felt as much as heard the earth rumble and shiver underfoot.

The great boulder in the middle of the converging trails cracked – it split down the middle with a brittle sound, like glass breaking, one sharp CRACK – it drew apart a little, about two feet or so.

A gout of dirty-dark-yellow-red flame belched obscenely from the cleft and the smell of sulfur swept through Jimmy, strong and burning and smelling of rot and of damnation itself, and from the flames and out of the cloven boulder crawled creatures -- dark, shadowy, almost manlike creatures … manlike, almost, only misshapen, hulking, menacing –

Sarah whistled again, swung back the head, threw it in a low, fast arc.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” came the despairing wail, and the figures leaped to catch the thrown, screaming, protesting head: they snarled and fought and fell back in a tumbling, clawing, growling mass, fell into the crack in the boulder, and Jimmy watched, his young heart hammering with fear as the boulder closed silently and the crack down its middle disappeared and the awful smell was gone, and all was as it had been.

Jimmy watched as the woman wiped her blade with a pure white kerchief, stripped the blood off as if it were never there, slipped its tip into her open coat and slid it back into its sheath with the ease of long practice; she gave a casual, almost feminine, puff of her breath and the scarlet stain flew off her silk wiper as if it had never been.

“There is a special place in hell for him,” she said, satisfaction in her voice, “and I take pride in sending him there!”

Jimmy stared at her as if he’d never seen her before, for indeed this is a facet of his beloved Pretty Lady he had never, ever! known existed.

She smiled, and the smile was gentle, the one he knew.

“Have your father read to you about The Black Agent,” she said, turning her black Snowflake-horse.  “And by the way, you do dance well.”

She turned, and both she and her huge mare were gone, just like that.

Jimmy blinked, then, curious, rode up over the little rise and looked down onto the highway.

Another police car was rolling up … that one was the State Police, those two were Sheriff’s cruisers, there was an ambulance – his Pa said that was their second-out squad… and men were converging on the shattered, scattered, steaming ruin of something that used to be a car.

Jimmy wondered where the first-out ambulance went.

Stomper shivered again and laid his ears back, swung his big head to the left.

Jimmy heard the Beewww! as the fire truck’s driver bumped the electronic siren to let the scene know they were on final approach.

 “Wow,” Jimmy said in a small voice, then he said, “C’mon, Stomper, let’s go home!”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

75.  PREPARATION

 

“Hell of a note, needin’ those,” Nicodemus muttered.

“Yep,” the pale eyed Sheriff agreed.  “It is.  I wish it warn’t.”

“I’ll do it, Sheriff.  How soon you need ‘em?”

Linn grinned a little crookedly – his cheek bone still pained him some – “My Pa tried to teach me at a tender age that ‘Hurry up is brother to mess it up.’“

He looked at the big gunsmith with a knowing expression. 

“It is plumb amazin’ how often I proved the man right!”

Nicodemus laughed that big booming laugh of his, nodding his own concurrence.

“So I try not to hurry nobody else.” 

“Appreciate that, Sheriff.  Don’t like to be hurried.”

Linn frowned, looked at the half checkered gunstock in its homemade stand.

“How’s Uncle?”

He didn’t have to say which uncle – if you spoke of Uncle, you meant David, but nobody called him that, through some trick of birth order he’d become an uncle while yet a beardless youth, and when somebody asked him about the birth of a younger relative, he’d replied with an honest candor, “I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, so I don’t know if I’m an aunt or an uncle” – fortunately it had been a boy, and “Uncle” stuck.

“He’ll be laid up f’r a while.  Doc come out an’ told us how they figured to fix that leg.  Said they wanted t’ take ‘im on t’ Denver f’r the surgery so he’s gonna be there a while.  Reckon he ought to be home in a week or so.”

“Gracie with him?”

Nicodemus nodded.

“We found her fiddle in the graveyard.  Like as not she was talkin’ to her husband when Uncle got hurt.  Do you reckon a body ought’ take it in to ‘er?”

“I can take it.”  There was no hesitation in the man’s voice.

“Obliged.”

 

Linn stopped at a house he knew of.

He wanted to speak with the mother alone, for his question was unusual, and he wanted time to explain his motives before asking if he could borrow her daughter.

The mother was surprised and a little skeptical; she trusted the Sheriff, she’d known him all her life, but his request was (to put it mildly) out of the ordinary.

She agreed – but not until after he stressed that he’d like to have her there watching the entire process.

“I will be back in a day or two to ask your daughter,” he said quietly, “but I wanted to ask you first … and I would have understood if you’d have said no.”

She laughed.  “I’ll be interested to see if it works, Sheriff,” she said, “I may have need to use them myself!”

As the Sheriff drove back to his office, he wondered how he ever managed to get so many irons in the fire and still get his work done.

He sighed, looked over at the cased, curly-back fiddle in the seat beside him.

He already had business in Denver; a small plane would be waiting for him at the local crash patch, he’d take off in an hour – just enough time to check in at the office, then scamper home and kiss his wife and kids.

 

The pediatric nurse watched, amazed, as Grace sat cross-legged in the hallway, fingers and hands in a graceful, swift, dexterous dance, speaking in a soft and gentle voice to the big-eyed little girl with the huge bandages covering the sides of her head.

The nurse knew the child was restless.

The little girl had surgery to restore her hearing; the surgery would likely damage, or possibly even destroy her young sense of balance, but it was probably the only chance the little girl would ever have at hearing.

The child was also restless.

She’d managed to slip out of bed three times so far, and the nurse decided it would be less harmful to let her explore her new world than it would be to have her fall over the siderails, and so she’d watched the girl come out into the hall, and watched to see her reaction as she encountered another restless soul.

The nurse watched with admiration as each one saluted the other in sign language, marveling at their easy, natural interaction, this dowdy-looking woman from the mountains, and this pajama-clad little girl with the Princess Leia bandages on her head.

The child dropped her round little bottom to the floor and crossed legged herself, her back against the wall, and the two held a very animated conversation.

The child frowned and turned her head just a little as she listened intently to Gracie’s voice; of those that watched, most thought the child had recovered at least some hearing; the nurse and a surgeon watched with professional detachment, assessing their young patient against the clinical information they had; slumped in a doorway, barely able to stand, a mother chewed on her knuckles, trying hard to keep from crying, because her daughter’s deafness had been what the medical community called “profound.”
She could not have heard a Cavalry bugle played three feet from either ear.

Her child’s surgery not long before was to try and restore her lost hearing.

Gracie was using her hands less, and her voice more; the child was staring, big-eyed, as she realized she was understanding without the sign language on which she’d become dependent for so long.

She clapped her hands to her mouth, then to her ears – at least to her bandages, and she did not press, for she did not wish to damage what she was experiencing – she looked around, then scrambled up on all fours and tried to run, staggered at a fast, drunken shamble toward her mother, and the hallway fairly rang with her loud, childish, “Mommee! Mommie!  I can hear!  I can hear, Mommie!”

 

Another room, another floor, a restless soul took a long breath and tried to be patient.

Half his aging body would no longer respond.

The tumor, the old German knew; it was back, and it was growing fast, and his time was short, and he wished most sincerely he was back home, back in Stuttgart, a young man again:  he sighed, dismissed the wish, for wishes were futile.

It would help if he could see, but the tumor had taken that too.

He did not wish to be a nuisance; he was already a burden, and to their credit, this American hospital took very good care of him:  still, it would help if more than one of their number spoke his language.

He felt someone come in, whether it was a shift in air pressure, or perhaps some deeper sense that those without eyes tend to develop.

A hand gripped his – he could feel on that side, at least – a quiet voice, a gentle voice, motherly, comforting.

“Herr Doktor,” he heard, “can you hear me?”

It was a different voice, but one he’d heard before … but where? …

“Herr Doktor,” the voice continued, “my name is Grace Maxwell, and you did me the honor of attending a concert.  I was solo with a mountain fiddle and you remarked on my technique.”

She saw him try to smile, saw half his face respond a little.  “Ja,” he gasped, and she squeezed his hand gently, and added something.

“He says you play beautifully,” a quiet, musical voice translated, and Gracie looked up, surprised.

She must have followed me in, Gracie thought, but I surely didn’t hear her!

A diminutive nun in an all-white habit stood on the other side of the bed:  she reached down, gripped the old man’s hand in her own, picked it up, rubbed his shiny old knuckles with a gentle palm.

“He asks if you would play for him again.”

Gracie blinked, dismayed: “I don’t have my –” she began, then a familiar voice:

“Gracie?  I brought your fiddle.”

She looked over at the Sheriff, grinning at her from the doorway, her cased fiddle in hand.

“I don’t know how you do that,” she said, surprised, “but I’m very glad you did!”

She looked down at the old man, squeezed his hand gently.  “Tell him that my fiddle just arrived.”

The face-veiled nun whispered something, bending close so the old man could hear her:  Gracie felt more than saw the weak nod, and she took the case from the Sheriff with a look of gratitude, set it on a chair, opened it.

She chinned the fiddle and plucked the strings, plucked them again, then she brought her arm around in a big showy circle.

“I’ll be right back,” the little white nun said gently, then turned and left the room.

The Sheriff watched Gracie, paid no attention to the silent Sister’s departure.

 

The charge nurse watched as the white-veiled nun marched briskly to the elevator and disappeared; not long after, the stainless-steel doors opened, and a little girl in flannel pajamas and big fuzzy slippers and huge, bulky Princess Leia bandages on either side of her head emerged:  the child gripped the nun’s hand, and they walked slowly, the child obviously getting used to a new sense of balance:  the charge nurse thought it a bit odd the child was off the pediatric floor, but she’d had dealings with various of the Sisters before, and as the child was not leaving the hospital, why, it must be all right.

She watched as they went into the old German’s room, saw the door close, and to her surprise, she heard a beautifully played violin start to play, and then an accompanying voice.

Gracie played the first thing that came to mind.

It was the Christmas season, and she played “Silent Night” as she’d played it back East, for another group:  she’d played in winter’s cold, beside a barrel filled with scrap lumber and set afire for warmth:  she played for people who had little, she’d given what she could, even to pulling off hand-knit mittens and slipping them on a young mother’s hands, pulling off her knit scarf and wrapping it around a bashful looking young man’s neck and tucking in the ends.

As she played, the little nun sang, softly, beautifully.

She sang the Stille Nacht, Hellige Nacht in its native language, and the old man in the bed wept, for his mother sang in such a voice.

Gracie played for the love of playing, she played for the love of this one man who’d encouraged her back East when she was condemned and down-blasted by her peers, she played for the husband she’d lost, and for the child who stood and gripped the side rails.

The little girl with the huge head-bandages marveled to hear, not just the violin, but singing – a woman’s voice, singing as she’d never heard -- as she heard the white nun behind her sing, the little girl saw the old man’s lips move, and she knew he was trying to sing as well.

The old man knew it was time, and he relaxed, and he slipped out of his worn old body, and he stood – tall, straight, and he flexed his arms and laughed, for he was strong again, strong!

He looked down at what he’d been, and he felt honest surprise, for the old man in the bed looked so very tired, so worn out and used up, and then he turned and smiled, for he was hearing his mother’s voice again, singing as she had when he was a child, and he blinked.

He blinked, and he laughed, and he reached out his arms to the welcoming figure who’d come for him, someone he knew well and he loved dearly and he’d missed so terribly, he’d missed her so very much --

“Mama,” he whispered, and then he took one step, and was gone from this earth.

The old man’s breath sighed from his body, and he relaxed; the last sound he’d heard on this earth was the music he loved.

The door opened and people came in; the veiled white nun whispered to the little girl, who nodded and took her hand, and they disappeared out the door:  Gracie drew back, cased her curly-back fiddle and slipped out as people did what they usually do when someone dies in a hospital, someone who has no hope of resuscitation:  when she came in, Gracie did not know the old man was dying.

All she knew, as she played, was he was far from home, and alone.

She stopped, startled, for a woman stood before her in the doorway, a woman in widow’s black, with tears running down her face, a woman who gripped Gracie’s arms and said in a German accent, “Thank you,” and then she hugged the startled mountain fiddler, slipped past her and into the solemn atmosphere within her dead husband’s room.

Another woman, considerably younger, a woman with an erect and military carriage, raised her chin, studied Gracie’s features, nodded.

“I am his granddaughter,” she said in very precise and only slightly-accented English: “you gave him happiness in his last moment.  On behalf of the family, thank you.”  She executed a very precise bow, then she, too, went around Gracie, hesitated.

She turned.

“You have the loveliest voice,” she said.  “It is a rare gift to be able to play and to sing and keep both in perfect pitch” – then she pushed through the door, and was gone.

Gracie looked at the Sheriff, puzzled.

“Voice?”  she said, her eyes looking left, then right.  “I … Sheriff, that wasn’t me singing.”

Linn raised an eyebrow. “Was it that little girl?”

“No.”

“She’s the only one who came out of that room, just her and you.”

 

The young mother rose as the diminutive nun and her daughter came back into her room.

“Her balance is improving,” the nun said quietly, “and she even ran a few steps!”

“She can sing, Mama!”  the child exclaimed.  “I heard her sing!”

The mother went to her knees and hugged her little girl, then she looked up to say “Thank you,” and the little white-veiled nun was gone.

 

The charge nurse rode the elevator down with the face-veiled nun.

“You sing beautifully,” the nurse said, regarding the silent Sister with open curiosity. “Which order are you?”

“The Sisters of St. Mercurius,” the nun answered quietly, “or generally just the White Nuns, or the Faceless Nuns.”

“Are you here in Denver?”

“No.  Our nunnery is part of the Rabbitville monastery, down near the New Mexico border.”

“Why … if it’s an imposition, you don’t have to answer, but … why do you wear a face veil?”

The nun hesitated, then raised a corner of her silken veil.

The nurse saw an ugly scar running from the corner of a red-rimmed, watery, very pale and probably sightless eye, an ugly scar that curved down across the face and down the neck, disappearing under the high collar of her habit.

“It runs across here,” the nun said, her voice still quiet, and her finger traced a path across the center of her throat – “the cut went through my voice box.  That’s why I can’t speak very loudly.”

The nurse realized the nun’s voice was edged with an unnatural hoarseness.

“I used to sing opera.”

The elevator stopped, the doors opened, the nurse stepped out, looked back, blinked.

Nobody else was in the elevator with her.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

76.  INCOMPETENCE

 

“When I arrest on an out-of-jurisdiction warrant,” the Sheriff said quietly, “I require a fingerprint card and a photograph of the party to be arrested. I will not ordinarily serve a warrant without them.  You will agree that this is a wise precaution.”

The state people looked uncomfortably at one another; a briefcase was opened, another, then a photograph was produced.

“Now that you have the exemplar,” the Sheriff continued, “have you a physical description, including height, weight, date of birth, Social Security number, notable scars and other unique identifiers?”

“Sheriff, we’ve been more than patient,” the woman interrupted; she looked as pleased as if she’d breakfasted on lemons, snacked on limes and worked on a few sour dill pickles in between.  “Either you produce James or we will –”

“You will do nothing of the kind,” the Sheriff interrupted, his voice quiet and edged as if it were honed steel:  “This is my county, and in my county, my authority exceeds yours.  You will do as I say or you will end up in irons and right now I would like to introduce you to our isolation cell.  Please don’t make that necessary.”

“Are you threatening me, Sheriff?”

“You’re damned right I am threatening you,” Linn replied levelly, and turned ice-pale eyes like gun turrets on a battleship, bringing their cold bores to bear as if preparing a battleship’s broadside.  “You will now examine your photographic exemplar.  Do it now.”

“I don’t see why this is necessary –”

“Now pass it to the State Trooper.”

The photograph was slid over to the impassive, broad-shouldered troop in the immaculate uniform.

“Please examine the photograph,” Linn said quietly.  “Particularly attend such parameters as general age and eye color.”

The troop studied the photograph without comment.

“You have before you the subject’s date of birth, age, height, weight and other identifiers as particularly described by myself.”

“Yes, yes, now either produce Jimmy or –”

Linn pressed a button on the intercom.

“Have my son come in, please.”

Every eye in the conference room turned toward the door.

Connie took a long breath and willed herself to be calm as a shadow wobbled over the frosted glass window; the door’s latch clicked loudly in the expectant hush.

The door swung open.

Jimmy stood in the doorway, his hair slicked down and neatly combed; he wore a blue shirt and pressed jeans, his Wellington boots were polished to their usual high shine, he was freckled and he looked scared.

“Jimmy,” Linn said, “could you step over to the scales for me, please?”

Jimmy blinked, uncertain; he looked beseechingly at his Mama, and she nodded, once, hiding her nervousness by mercilessly twisting a folded handkerchief in her lap, under the table, where no one could see it.

“Please read off subject’s weight at last medical examination,” the Sheriff said as Jimmy stepped on the medical balance:  he ran the runner weights back and forth until the arm stabilized.

The woman impatiently blurted the number on her form:  “One hundred seventy pounds!”

“I see,” Linn said quietly.  “Trooper, could you come over and corroborate the weight I am reading?”

The troop stood, walked carefully around the table and down the other side, frowned at the scales, looked at the Sheriff and raised an eyebrow.

“Now please read the height.”  He unfolded the bar, slid the scale down until it just touched the top of Jimmy’s neatly combed hair.

“Five feet nine and a half inches.”

“Trooper, could you corroborate this reading, please.”

The trooper frowned at the height, turned and scowled at the dour faced woman.

“Now please read off identifying scars, tattoos or other distinctive physical parameters.”

“Eye color –”  she hesitated – “left eye is blue and right eye is brown.”

“Trooper?”

Jimmy looked up at the trooper and the trooper looked down at the nervous little boy.

He turned and looked at the woman from the state.

“Both eyes are brown.”
“What?”

He paced around the table, seized the form before her, read it, read it again, then placed it on the table before her.

“You have required my agency to investigate some very serious charges.  You required our time, our resources, our funding, when we could have been actually fighting crime.”  He stabbed at the heavy paper with a commanding forefinger.

“Wrong height.  Wrong weight.  Wrong eye color.  Wrong town!”

Another man might have slammed a fist into the table and shouted in the woman’s ear, but the trooper did not; he did not have to.

“Are you so utterly incompetent as to get the wrong location?”

The woman opened her mouth to protest and Connie stood, furious.

“What?”

Jimmy stepped off the scales, shrank back against the reassuring, solid father he desperately did not want to be taken from:  Linn rested his hands on Jimmy’s shoulders, his firm grip very reassuring to a scared third-grader.

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO US?”  Connie screamed, bending a little at the waist as she did.  “DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO JIMMY?”

Connie’s voice was a full-throated scream, shrill, strident, piercing, and Linn felt Jimmy lean back into him a little more as she did.

“HE KNOWS THE FOSTER SYSTEM AND HE REMEMBERS WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM IN FOSTER CARE AND YOU WERE GOING TO TAKE HIM FROM US” –

The woman looked like she’d been slapped across the face with a cold, dead fish.

Linn made no move toward his wife.

He knew whatever she gave this … individual … was far, far less than she deserved.

“Let’s take a look at some facts, shall we?”  Linn said quietly.  “First, you have the wrong location.  Second, Jimmy here is not the same age, height, or weight.  How about race?  Did you even get that right?”

She looked at him, shocked, like he’d slapped her, and she looked down at her paper, and turned white to her lips.

“So.  You didn’t even get that right.  Do you know how many charges I can bring against you, right here and right now?”

“You can’t do that,” she whispered.

Linn smiled.  “Oh yes I can.  As a matter of fact, my wife is deputized and she is the jail matron.  I can turn her loose on you and there are no cameras back in the women’s section of the jail.  How would you like to be on the receiving end of a righteous woman’s anger?”

“You can’t –”

Her voice faded to a hoarse whisper.

Linn released Jimmy’s shoulders, put his hand in the middle of his son’s back.

“Go to your mother, Jimmy,” he said quietly, and Jimmy ran for his Mama.

Connie scooted her chair back, rubber leg-ends protesting against the polished floor, and mother and son seized one another with desperation and with relief.

Linn turned from the medical scales and started around the table.

His pace was deliberate, it was slow, it was inexorable, and the regular concussion of his black-rubber bootheels on the mirror-polished conference room floor sounded like the approaching drumbeat of doom itself.

He stopped when he was less than a foot from touching the woman.

“You,” he said, “and all your people” – he spaced his words, and even this stranger’s ear had no trouble discerning the depth of the man’s anger – “have six minutes to get out of my town.  At six minutes one second, if you are still within the corp limits, you will be arrested for criminal trespass and I will bring other criminal charges to bear against you.  I will refer you to the state’s attorney general to fill you in on just how many criminal and civil laws you have violated, and just how far a civil action against you will go.”

He smiled, and the smile was far less than pleasant.

“As a matter of fact, you may wish to retain your own attorney.  The last time someone in the State’s employ showed this level of utter and absolute incompetence, the State left them to twist in the wind.”

 

The Silver Jewel was well populated that night.

A row of rifles was stacked along one wall, their owners seated and partaking of the Sheriff’s largesse.

Good men and true had come to the Sheriff and his wife, and good men and true allowed as nobody was by God! going to get away with taking a man’s son, and these good men and true were ready to bring the wrath of the righteous down upon anyone who tried.

The State Troopers shared this community meal; seated with the Sheriff, they laughed the good easy laughter of fellows cut of the same cloth, sharing anecdotes, war stories and good-natured, truly outrageous lies, the way men will when a great tension has been lifted.

The Silver Jewel shone in the darkness, a piano-player in sleeve garters and Derby hat added his merry contribution to the atmosphere, but one celebrant was missing from the festivities.

A little boy stood in a darkened barn, one hand on the shoulders of an immense black dog, the other wrapped around the solid foreleg of a red Frisian gelding:  alone and safe, finally safe, Jimmy shivered and sank to his knees in the clean straw bedding.

Linn found him there later that night, covered with a straw-speckled saddle blanket, The Bear Killer cuddled up against him, keeping him warm.

Linn rubbed the big mountain Mastiff’s shoulder, motioned him up; he ran his arms under his son, he picked him up, and under a cold December moon, a father packed his son back to the house, a great black shadow ghosting along beside, their breath steaming in the nighttime hush.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

77.  HIGH WINDOW

 

Gracie stood with her arms folded, looking out the window at Denver’s nighttime.

She’d had her fill of city life back East, back when she became rapidly disillusioned with the dream of a formal, University education.

Her uncle slept in his hospital bed, his leg wrapped, elevated; Gracie knew he was to be discharged the next day, and she knew the Sheriff had arranged her a hotel room nearby, but she hated to leave.

The room was familiar; the hallways, at least on this floor, and the pediatric floor one level below, were familiar, but beyond that … no, she disliked the unfamiliar, and she was not comfortable with the idea of going to the hotel, to sleep alone, knowing she had nothing familiar around her.

Gracie sighed as silently as she could, her breath fogging the night-black glass.

Beside her, Uncle’s breathing was steady; his color was considerably better than it had been … Gracie was one of the first to thrust out her arm, offering her life’s blood, to be transfused into Uncle:  he’d refused any but hers, in spite of medical advice, protestations and threats, but he was a hard headed man, and when two nephews and a brother arrived and offered their own blood as well, why, the needs were more than satisfied.

Gracie didn’t ask how they’d gotten to the hospital so quickly, neither had she asked how the Sheriff brought her fiddle, just in time for it to be employed in its time of need:  she accepted that he knew, somehow, and did not question further.

She remembered the white nun, the one with the soft voice and the veiled face, and she smiled, for the White Sister’s voice was a rare one:  she’d heard truly good singing, and many times, but hers was truly superb, and Gracie wished she might meet with her … she lowered her head and smiled at her folded forearms, wondering if it was really wrong to wish for a jam session with a nun.

She looked over at Uncle again, wishing she could relax the way he did:  he could fall asleep anywhere, and had at times set down on an inverted five gallon bucket, leaned back against the side of a building, and fallen asleep:  he could wake in an instant, wide awake with no trace of mental fog, and Gracie envied him this.

 

Linn came downstairs, his tread slow, quiet; Connie looked up from her sewing, smiled at the look on his face.

Her husband might be the county’s Sheriff, he might be a hard knuckled man who could look death in the face and kick it right in the liver, but he was an old softy sometimes, and times like this – when he’d tucked his young in for the night – he had that Old Softy look about him, and she delighted to see it.

Linn came down, kissed his wife, then sat down on the couch and relaxed – suddenly, as if he was deliberately divesting himself of all the stress the day had loaded on his broad, manly shoulders.

Connie waited, plying her shining silver needle in silence:  she knew he would talk, in his own time, and she would listen, for she was his wife, and she knew his ways.

“Jimmy prayed for Gracie,” Linn said, and Connie looked up at him, surprised.

“He knows she’s in Denver with Uncle.  He prayed for Uncle’s recovery but he said to take care of Gracie because she might think Denver was like that city back East and she didn’t like it there.”

Connie smiled a little, and nodded.

That sounded like their Jimmy.

Upstairs, Jimmy lay awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking.

He eased out from under his blankets, crept barefoot across the floor, slipped his precious notebook from between his schoolbooks:  he dare not turn on the desk lamp, for fear of waking his little brother, but there was moonlight enough, and he had pencils enough to do what he had in mind.

Jimmy catfooted across the room, turned a chair around so he faced the window, set his knees against the wall under the sill and placed the notebook on the sill and on his lap, and began to draw.

He smiled a little.

He was going to send Gracie something she could use, something that would help her get along in the big city.

Jimmy’s pencil was sure, quick; he drew a building, blocky, broad, dark, shadowed:  high up, a window, and in the window, a silhouette, the shape of a woman standing with folded arms, looking out on the night.

He turned the page.

Outside the window … she’d need something to let her know it would be all right …

Jimmy smiled.

He drew again, and this time, the window was bigger, broader.

He drew the woman again, with a little more detail:  she was to one side, and beside her, head and shoulders, another silhouette, only darker.

Jimmy drew The Bear Killer beside her, big, solid, reassuring.

He looked up, looked out his own window, up at the moon, then at the stars surrounding, and wondered if Gracie was seeing them as well.

At the moment, she was:  Gracie was looking out the quiet, nighttime hospital room, looking up at the moon, at the stars against the black velvet of the night sky.

Jimmy frowned, then smiled again.

He knew just what to send her.

He turned the page again, drew anew on the fresh sheet.

The window took the whole page now; he drew Gracie as if he was seeing her, and on her shoulder, a green lizard, a lizard with a long, spike-spined tail, wrapped companionably around her neck, leathery bat wings spread behind her head, then he smiled again, turned the page and redrew Gracie in the window.

Now she wore the lizard like a crown, proud and emerald and shining and he knew he could do better with his colored pencils, but moonlight washed out the colors anyway and in his imagination, the Pretty Lady’s lizard was shining green and very alive, and that’s how he drew him:  head reared up proudly over her forehead, wings spread as if to declare, “Here stands a Queen!”

Jimmy’s pencil whispered in the moonlight, and when he was finished, he smiled a little.

“Go,” he whispered, then he propped the notebook up, drawing-side toward the glass, so the nighttime moon-magic could take his work and send it as reality to the far-off place called Denver, to where it was needed.

 

Gracie sat slowly in the chair, feeling very old, very tired.

I’ll just sit here for a few, she thought, then I’ll go to the hotel.

She got up, slid the chair noiselessly over beside the bed, sat again: she slipped her hand under the covers, gripped Uncle’s hand in her own:  sound asleep, relaxed, Uncle still tightened his grip on hers, just a little.

The nurse came in and smiled when she saw what Gracie had done, and Gracie did not wake when the nurse laid a blanket over her, and carefully tucked it in around her chin.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

78.  SAY UNCLE

 

“You ready to get out of here?”  the medic asked as they came wheeling the yellow ambulance cot through the door.

“Son, I was born ready!”  Uncle declared.  “What kind of engine you got on that thing?”

The medic’s partner – a stout, broad-shouldered woman with a quick grin and a stethoscope around her neck – looked dubiously at her partner, knowing he would be getting as good as he gave with this patient, and she was right.

“This one’s hydraulic,” Eirich – or Thor, as they called him – laughed.  “Got a battery running an aircraft grade hydraulic pump, we can raise and lower it under power!”

“Will wonders never cease,” Uncle said quietly.  “How fast she run?”

“Not really fast,” Thor said thoughtfully, “but I suppose a man could put drive wheels on it.”

“Beats the hell out of usin’ an oar!  Now get me on that thing and let’s get outta here!  I ain’t had a decent meal since we got here!”

 

Linn was slouched against his Jeep, grinning as Uncle and his minor entourage came wheeling out the ER entrance toward the waiting rig.

Personally, had he been making the decisions, the Sheriff would have dispatched the high-top Miller-Meteor ambulance a friend restored and displayed proudly in the local old-car shows – a Cadillac starts out life as a car, it rides like a car, even when it has AMBULANCE mirror lettered across its forehead, just under the twin chrome siren speakers; a modern ambulance, built on a truck frame, starts out life as a truck and it rides like a truck, and in the Sheriff’s opinion, requiring an ambulance to meet storage and equipment specifications that only a truck could meet was bureaucratic bungling of a high order.

He also had his opinions on Brussels sprouts, cod liver oil and certain political affiliations; he regarded his personal bias on all these subjects as Opinion, and nothing more:  everybody has ‘em, and though he cherished his own Opinions and considered himself absolutely right and correct in every last Opinion he held, he was also wise enough to keep his mouth shut, eat Brussels sprouts when his wife fixed them, and let the medics handle their profession as the professionals they were.

He found this led to far fewer misunderstandings.

He watched as the hydraulic lift whined into position, as the cot and its laughing, wisecracking passenger was made fast to the mechanism; he nodded, remembering the “Bad Old Days” when it was a Ferno Model 30 and lowering the patient to ground level by Armstrong power, then the collapsed-and-latched cot was gripped, raised off the ground with a coordinated, smooth hoist that resembled a slightly less uncivilized version of an Olympic weightlifter’s clean-and-jerk.

“What won’t they think of next,” he muttered, shaking his head, walking casually over to the open-back rig.

“Gracie,” he called, raising a summoning hand:  the fiddler stood uncertainly, cased instrument in her left hand, and the Sheriff smiled, for that told him she had her bulldog .44 where her good right hand could get to it if need be.

Gracie looked in, looked at the Sheriff.

“Will you be riding with Uncle, or can I give you a lift?”

“I’d better ride with you,” she admitted, casting a regretful look into the ambulance as Uncle loudly declared something about using chain and snap binders to secure his tubular-framed chariot:  “I have to check out yet.”

“I’ll bet you’d like a shower and a change of clothes.  Have you had breakfast?”

The doors swung shut and a moment later the rig started to move, starting its journey back to Firelands.

Gracie waved as it departed, then turned to the Sheriff and laid a hand on his shoulder.

Linn gripped her under the arms as she sagged against him:  she shivered, and not because of the cold air.

“I was so scared,” she whispered.

“Good reason to be,” Linn murmured into the top of her thick, coarse, Maxwell-red hair.  “Gracie, you have been an absolute rock!”

Gracie dipped her knees, set her fiddle on the ground, then ran her arms around the Sheriff and held him the way a little girl will hold her big strong Daddy when she’s been scared and things just might be all right now.

Linn held his mountain fiddler and Gracie remembered how her beloved old Grampa used to hold her in just this way, and for a moment she allowed herself the luxury of just being a little girl again, safe in strong and manly arms, the way she remembered.

“Let’s get you back to the hotel,” he murmured, “you can get a shower and change clothes and we’ll get you some breakfast!”

 

The Bear Killer sat in the Sheriff’s office chair, for all the world like he was running the show, and managed to look very pleased with himself as Barrents raised his phone and snapped the pic:  the big mountain Mastiff’s tongue was a shocking pink against his absolute, shiny-curly-black fur, his expression was that of … well, a doggy grin is unmistakable, and Barrents grinned as he pressed a series of buttons and launched the snap to his pale eyed boss.

He looked up at The Bear Killer and grinned, “He’ll like this,” and The Bear Killer gave a happy breathy quiet little “whuff” in agreement.

Linn opened the passenger door for Gracie, who gathered her wool skirt, swung her work booted leg up into the car; she grabbed the handle, hoist herself aboard and got settled, and the Sheriff waited until she’d fast up her seat belt – “All in?”  he grinned, “I don’t want to shut the door on your foot – tends to cause misunderstandings!” – then he went around, set her fiddle in the back and came around to the driver’s door, got in.

Neither one spoke until after they’d gotten to the hotel, until they went upstairs:  Linn held back as Gracie went into her room, then said “I’ll be down in the lobby,” and turned to go downstairs.

Gracie closed the door and smiled quietly, making a mental note to tell Connie that her husband was an absolute gentleman.

She realized Linn’s wife quite probably knew this, but it would do well to say the words.

Wives are generally pleased when another woman will say that her husband is an absolute gentleman.

Gracie came down with her sole suitcase in hand; the smiling young woman behind the counter nodded to the lean lawman with the iron grey mustache and said, “Your bill is paid, we hope you had a pleasant stay,” and Gracie thanked her and turned and started over toward the Sheriff.

He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, and what appeared to be a mother and her young son, in close attendance:  when she approached the desk, she’d seen the Sheriff summon the mother over, and Gracie noticed how the child regarded the Sheriff with rapt attention.

“Now, son,” she heard Linn say, “could you repeat your question, now that your Mama is here.”

The little boy took a breath like he was going to blow up a paper sack and blurted, “Are you Santa? – cause you shouldn’t shave your beard this close to Christmas!”

His mother opened her mouth to chastise her offspring but the Sheriff raised a forestalling finger, looked with pale eyed amusement at the lad, stroked his handlebar mustache with the back of a bent foreknuckle, and Gracie realized that Linn rich, iron-grey mustache was almost white now.

“I’m in town on business,” Linn said seriously.  “As a matter of fact I’m in disguise.”  He turned over his vest’s lapel, showing his six point star and its hand-chased SHERIFF across its equator.

The boy’s eyes grew big and Linn put a finger to his lips, winked, laid the lapel back down.

He lowered his voice confidentially.

“I’m not Santa Claus, son.  Santa is my uncle.  I’m his nephew, Julius Claus.”

The boy’s eyes went big and round and his mouth opened in a delighted O and Linn put his finger to his lips again.  “Don’t tell,” he whispered, rose, paced over to the red-faced and giggling Gracie.

He took her suitcase and offered his arm, and the two walked out of the hotel lobby with several sets of eyes on them, and it was all Gracie could do to contain her giggles until after they were safely back in the Sheriff’s Jeep.

 

Uncle asked some surprisingly insightful questions about the ambulance cot’s construction, its power supply, capacity, mechanism and performance, and finally frowned at the ceiling, considering what this agreeable young man told him.

“You know them flat carts they run people around on in attair hospital?”  he finally asked.

The medic leaned forward again, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, and nodded.

“Y’know, if a ma was to steal a two cylinder Wisconsin off some farmer’s baler and mount it under one of them-there flat table thangs, he could run it through say a three speed transmission and … hell, you could even belt the thing to a drive wheel.  Fire it on propane so’s you wouldn’t choke ever’one out, you know, like them run them-there fork lifts off of in a warehouse.  Steer it however you like, you’d save quite a bit ‘a’ work, movin’ people!”

The medic allowed as yes, that would likely work, there was a world of room under the padded top of a transport cart.

“There y’go, young feller.  I’ve lived my life pretty well up but was you t’ set a patent on that Wisconsin powered horse pistol cart, why, you’d make yer fortune!”  Uncle declared happily.  “You want t’ look t’ yer old age now, son.  Time runs faster than a man would realize and it’s awful easy to say ‘Later, later,’ and of a sudden later just walked up and kicked you right in the shin bone!”

He looked down at his own leg and back at the medic and said with a straight face, “Trust me, son, I know!”

 

“We had a hospital bed installed in your parlor,” Linn said quietly as they accelerated down the ramp, merging smoothly with the out bound traffic. 

“He won’t like that,” Gracie murmured.

“He’s got a potty chair beside the bed and a trapeze set up overhead.”

“Oh, he really won’t like that,” Gracie shook her head.

“He’ll have to put up with it, Gracie.  I’ve arranged home health care nurses for him.”

Gracie groaned, dropped her head back, looked at the Jeep’s textured-plastic roof panel.  “Sheriff,” she sighed, “he is going to be soooo spoiled!”

“It gets worse,” Linn grinned wickedly.  “All the nurses are sixteen years old, in  mini skirts and high heels and painted up like streetwalkers!”

Gracie’s head snapped up and she glared at the grinning lawman.

“Sheriff,” she said quietly, “if you weren’t driving, I would smack you!”

Linn laughed.  “And I’d deserve it,” he admitted.  “The part about home health care nurses is accurate but no, they’re not dance hall girls.”
“They’d better not be,” Gracie muttered, crossing her arms.  “He’s still not going to like it.”

“He doesn’t have to.”  Linn’s expression was suddenly serious.  “With that bad leg he’s going to need more help than he’ll be comfortable getting.  He’s a proud man and he’s always prided himself on his self reliance” – Linn reached over, laid his hand on Gracie’s, squeezed it gently.  “He’d take help from family, Gracie, but there’s only one of you and you’ve got enough on your shoulders!”

Gracie turned her hand over and squeezed the Sheriff’s hand.

“Thank you,” she whispered.  “I wondered how I was going to do everything that was needful.”

“And you were going to try.”

“Yes.”  She nodded.  “For family, you do that.”  She looked at the Sheriff, puzzled her brows a little.  “Why are you doing all this, Sheriff?”

The Sheriff returned his grip to the steering wheel, his bottom jaw easing out a little.

“You said it yourself,” he said finally.  “For family, it’s what you do.”

Gracie stared at the lawman and he glanced over with that ornery grin of his.

“Mama never told you? – we’re kin, through the Maxwell line!”  He laughed.  “That would make me … I’m not an in-law and I hope I’m not an outlaw, might be I’m a shirt tail uncle or something!”

 

The seventeen-year-old who portrayed the character of Daisy Finnegan in the Silver Jewel turned as Gracie came into her kitchen.

“Faith, and it’s about time you got here,” she declared, wiping at her forehead with the back of a bent wrist.  “No woman likes t’ take over another woman’s kitchen!”  She thrust her wooden spoon back into the stewpot, frowned as she explored the bottom of the pot with its rounded tip, stirring the fragrant, bubbling contents with slow, regular strokes.  “Well, it’s not stickin’, God be praised.”  She brought out the spoon, blew on its contents, took a tentative taste, nodded.

“Just right.  Biscuits in the oven ‘scuse me” – the spoon dropped on its green-ceramic holder and Daisy turned quickly, her floor length skirt flaring a little as she did, and snatching up a pair of insulated cooking mitts, she hauled open the oven door, pulled out one, then a second, pan of biscuits, done to browned and fragrant perfection and reminding Gracie that she hadn’t had any decent meal since Uncle left in the back of the Firelands squad when all this started.

“Now I’ve kept th’ place clean an’ yer men fed, an’ I’ve replaced what I’ve used, but I owe ye another two bags o’ chocolate chips ‘cause fast as I made cookies they ate ‘em an’ them not even decently cooled yet!” 

Daisy turned, knuckles on her hips, and looked squarely at Gracie, then laughed and skipped over to her, took her hands and bounced happily on her toes.

“I’m sorry,” she giggled, “but it’s fun to become someone else for a bit!  When I’m Daisy Finnegan I can be loud and I can scold anyone coming or going!”  She dropped her eyes and turned, looking over the kitchen, looked back.

“I can see why you love it here,” she said quietly.  “Your laundry is all caught up, the floors are swept, I did my best to keep up with all these men, but they did miss you so.”

She turned, dumped the biscuits out of their pan onto a wire rack to cool:  another two pans’ worth of biscuits were cooled and in the big ceramic bowl, covered with a dish towel the way Gracie’s beloved Grandma used to.

Daisy reached into the bowl, snatched up a soft, still-warm biscuit, skipped into the parlor, where Uncle was just being settled into his bed.

Gracie followed her in, smiling quietly as the girl assumed her role of a loud, brash, red-haired Irishwoman, more than ready for some happy hell raising.

“And what’s this, you layabout!  Men!  Expectin’ t’ be waited on hand an’ foot!  I expect ye’ll want yer temples massaged an’ yer feet rubbed an’ like as not ye’ll ha’e dancin’ girls an’ wild parties t’ boot!  Men!”

Uncle, surprised, opened his mouth to demand who the hell did she think she was, and Daisy thrust a fresh-baked, still-warm biscuit between his teeth, swirled and stalked out of the room, back straight and arms stiff and swinging, the very image of Victorian disapproval.

The two medics looked at one another and looked at the happily masticating Uncle, and when one said “White Tornado?” the other said “With red hair,” and all three laughed.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

79.  THROUGH HER EYES

 

The oldest Daine saw Gracie set the withie basket on the kitchen table.

He watched without comment as she loaded particular items she’d need, herbals put up in blue-glass jars, lengths of boiled and dried cloth strips, sterile and sealed in plastic baggies, he saw her put a particular knife in the basket, wrapped in a cloth and tied with a pink ribbon and a blue ribbon, and he nodded his approval.

Gracie was quiet, introspective, brisk, efficient and absolutely preoccupied with her task.

One of the older Maxwell girls was watching her with big, scared eyes.

Gracie finally flipped a white-muslin cloth over the contents, tucked them in, turned to the girl and took her face between her hands.

“Take care of them while I’m away,” she whispered, and kissed the girl on the forehead, and the girl nodded and whispered back, “Be careful,” and Gracie skipped into the parlor like a little girl, smiling at the special-duty nurse in her white cap and pantsuit as she bent over and squeezed Uncle’s hand.

“You ain’t fixin’ t’ take me with ye, now, are ye?”  he asked hopefully, and Gracie laughed and kissed him too.

“No, Uncle, I am about a woman’s business.”

“Just like Old Gracie,” Uncle said, his eyes shining with approval.  “Gracie, I’m proud of ye!”

It was the first time Uncle ever called her Gracie instead of Grace – Gracie had always been Old Gracie, her beloved great-grandmother, and Uncle’s use of the name told her that she had arrived in his honorable old eyes, that she was indeed the Matron of Maxwell’s Mountain.

Gracie skipped back to the kitchen, snatched up the basket, turned and hugged her elder quickly, impulsively, then turned and pushed the door open, not daring to hesitate, lest her heart fail her for … fear, maybe?  Or lack of confidence in herself?

You’ve stopped blood with the Word and you’ve stopped blood with your hand, she thought, you’ve survived losing your husband and you’re still here, now stop doubting yourself!  Women have been birthing babies for centuries!

Gracie handed the basket to one of the boys, grabbed the stirrup, stepped up on the mounting-block and thrust the blunt toe of her comfortably-laced work boot into the stirrup and swung aboard Brindle-mule:  she accepted the basket, turned Brindle, and set out across the back bone and up toward the crest, her breath steaming in the morning sun.

She was a mountain witch, and another woman needed her help, for the time was upon her neighbor to be delivered of her child, and she called for a witch-woman instead of a doctor.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller was restless.

He looked around the office, looked at the artifacts from the successive generations of lawmen, all of the Keller name, and it comforted him to think his pale-eyed Mama looked around at these same items.

He remembered sitting beside her desk, listening to her talk when she was in an introspective moment.

Sometimes you just know, she’d said.

Sometimes you just know you’re needed, and you’ll know where you’re needed.  Almost never will you know why.

He remembered puzzling over her words and asking, “Mama, why not?” and she smiled a little, almost sadly, and she’d replied “You’ll find out when you get there.”

Linn remembered another old lawman, a wise fellow who’d counseled him when he first hung a tin star on his shirt, “Son, when in doubt, follow your gut.”

It had proven sound advice over the years.

He stood, suddenly, decisively.

“I’m needed,” he said aloud, strode around the desk and twisted the doorknob, hauled the door open.

“I’m headed up Maxwell Mountain,” he told the startled dispatcher:  she looked at the pale eyed, lean waisted lawman with the octagon barrel ’73 rifle in his grip and said “Okay, Sheriff,” a little uncertainly.

Linn snatched his coat off the coat tree and the dispatcher heard his boot heels retreating down the back hall, toward the back door, and she looked up as he rode past the glass double doors, a good looking man in an almost flat brimmed Stetson astride a good looking Appaloosa stallion, and she smiled a little, for he did cut a fine figure in saddle leather.

Linn turned Apple-horse up a side street, up an alley; he knew paths that only adventurous schoolboys traveled these days, and he made his way uphill, steadily uphill, letting Apple-horse set his own pace:  the Appaloosa was a tough, mountain-bred horse, but the Sheriff had no wish to over tax him:  they’d been through much together, and frankly the Sheriff hoped to get several more years out of him, if only because he genuinely liked what his youngest happily declared “Spotty Pony!”

Nicodemus looked up as the Sheriff came in the back door.

He didn’t bother to flip his hat on the peg, nor to take off his coat:  he swung around the table to the cupboard where Gracie kept her herbals.

“Wa’l good mornin’ to you too,” Nicodemus said.

Linn didn’t reply.

He yanked open the door, ran a finger slowly across the ancient glass bottles and squatty jars on the lazy-Susan, turned it slowly, hesitated, then nodded.

“This one,” he said, thrust it in a coat pocket, turned.

“Fetch me a blanket,” he said curtly.

“Now whatinell for!” Nicodemus demanded.

“’Cause I’m cold!”  Linn snapped, and Nicodemus realized there was something different about the lawman today – something very different, and not at all good.

He fetched out a folded blanket and the Sheriff gave a short not, a curt “Thank you,” and headed for the door again.

Nicodemus heard Apple-horse trot on the cold, hard ground, then heard his hooves pick up speed, and he looked out the window in time to see the horse clear the far fence like he had wings, and keep right on a-goin’.

 

Gracie laid the cool cloth across the laboring woman’s forehead, gripped her hand.

“I’m going to put a knife under your pillow,” she said, “it is very sharp so please do not run your hand under there!”

The girl threw her head back and forth, breathing deep, breathing hard.  “Do something,” she whispered hoarsely, “make it stop!”

“Can’t stop it now, honey.  Your water’s broke and there’s no stoppin’.”
She turned to the anxious-looking mother hovering at her elbow.  “I need salt and a saucer and enough water to fill the saucer two-thirds full.”

“What for?” came the surprised answer.

“Just do it!”  Gracie snapped, pushing her aside:  she went down between the girl’s feet, frowning, then turned and almost ran for the bathroom.

Gracie rode out as the women of her blood had done for generations, and she kicked herself for not getting a box of latex gloves:  she well knew the incidence of puerperal fever from unwashed hands reaching into a birthing mother, and had no wish to cause childbirth fever:  she washed her hands with a careful, practiced thoroughness, dried them on a fresh towel, returned to the laboring teen-ager.

She looked at the clock, laid a hand on the great, distended belly.

Too long, she thought.  She’s exhausted.

I hate a dry birth but if we hit it now, before it’s any worse –

“Clarissa,” Gracie said, “I have something that will make your contractions much stronger.”  She reached into the withie basket, plucked out a square, blue-glass jar, thumbed the lid up on one end, then lifted it free and set it aside.

There was a gouge in the fragrant unguent within, and Gracie looked long at it, realized it was the mark left from her Grandma’s finger last it was used.

Now I am the birth-woman, she thought, and it’s my mark I’ll leave behind.

She hesitated: the herbal was potent, but it would cause contractions, and they would be strong, and right now she knew the girl had to be delivered of her child, or they would both get in trouble really, really fast, and she had no wish to have either mother or child die in the process.

Gracie’s hand rested on the great belly again.

The mother came in, carefully balancing a saucer of water, handed Gracie a cardboard can of table salt.

Gracie set the jar down, took the salt and poured out about half a teaspoon in her palm:  she took a big pinch, drizzled it into the water – a vertical line, then a horizontal – she had the mother set the saucer down, flipped out the spout on the salt, bent over and carefully, precisely, began pouring it in a steady line on the floor, circling the girl on her bed.

“We draw the circle round about,

“Good within, all else without,” she sang quietly:

“We draw the circle round about,

“Good within, all else without.

“We draw the circle round about,
“Good within, all else without.”

She stepped inside the almost complete circle, bade the mother step out, and added, “Whatever you do, do NOT come across the salt until I tell you to!”

Big-eyed, the mother nodded.

“Now Mother,” Gracie said, “open every window in the house.”

“Open … what?  It’s cold –”

Gracie lowered her head a little and gave her The Look, and the mother turned and headed for the nearest window.

Gracie lay a hand on the girl’s belly and leaned down a little and shouted, “Baby, come out!  Baby, come out!  Baby, come out!” – then she plucked up the jar and ran her finger into the ointment, applied two curved lines, knowing it would be absorbed almost immediately through the skin, knowing it would cause sudden, strong contractions, more so since the girl was full term – it took longer if the mother was not as far along –

The girl gasped with surprise and her mother turned, her hand going to her bodice.

 

Linn knew the path, he’d ridden it enough times, but he didn’t know how far Gracie had taken it.

He was drawn by a knowledge deeper than his own, a knowledge his Mama said was carried in their pale-eyed Blood, a knowledge given only to woman, and he’d never been able to figure out how he’d come to it.

He knew the ability to blow fire was supposed to be strictly a feminine attribute – but he’d done it.

He knew stopping blood with the Word was strictly the skill of the women folk – but he’d done it himself, and knew it to work, and he was sure as hell not a woman.

At the moment he was focused on getting to where he was needed, for the need would be great, and soon.

 

The child was born, as are most babies, ugly and wrinkled and moving weakly; given the attention of the midwife, it took its first breath and after a squeak and a wheeze, after a few deep and deeper breaths to inflate its young lungs for the first time, after being held head-down to drain out fluids and allow air to do its work, the child turned all of a sudden pink and allowed that it was not at all pleased with this cold, bright world and strangers’ hands gripping it and rubbing it and dunking it in warm bathwater and rubbing it with a towel.

Gracie bade She Who Was Now Grandmother to close the windows, and together they gave the new member of their mountain family his first bath, and typical male, he was interested in food and began rooting as soon as he was laid on his Mama’s bosom.

Gracie wiped her fingers off several times, went and washed her hands again:  she bathed the new mother and got clean linens under her, and a fresh gown on her, and she was breathing a little oddly as she did, sweat starting to sheen on her forehead:  she almost ran out the door, snatching up the withie basket, climbing desperately up the fence to get into Bridle’s saddle, headed back down-trail, and not until she was out of sight of the house did she lay an arm across her own belly and bend over, groaning.

“No,” she moaned, “no, it’s too early … no, this can’t be happening …”

She threw her head back, took a few great, gasping gulps of cold mountain air, then lifted the reins and nudged Brindle with her boot heels.

Linn found her a half hour later.

She was laying beside a mountain stream.

She’d got as far as she could before she passed out.

He got her wrapped up good:  she was pale and shivering, and he tied Brindle-mule on behind his Apple-horse, leaving a good length of lead line between the two:  he carried her like a child, in front of him and secure in his arms, wrapped in the blanket and her head on his shoulder, the withie basket tied onto Brindle’s saddle horn.

He rode into the Maxwell yard and willing hands reached up to take their kinswoman; they packed her inside, and laid her down in her own bed, and one of the older Maxwell girls heated up some tea and some broth and brought them both in.

Linn propped Gracie up in her bed, a pillow under her knees; warm bricks were wrapped and placed where they’d heat up under her blankets, and Linn sat with her, silent, those pale eyes looking like they were ready to bore holes in her.

Finally she raised her head and looked around.

She looked at the Sheriff.

“You came,” she whispered.

He nodded.

“I knew you would.”

He nodded again.

“I used the ointment,” he said.  “Your Grandma used it.”

“Prevents infection,” she whispered.  “I used it up the mountain.  She had a boy.”

Linn nodded again.

“I had to use … Grandma had … she mixed it to cause labor.  She made it from moldy rye and it’s strong.  I had to use it.”  She looked at the Sheriff, pleaded with her eyes for understanding.  “I used it and I killed my baby.”

She looked away, stared at the wall, almost an insane, thousand-mile stare.

“A life for a life,” she whispered, and then her face twisted and the Sheriff put his arms around her.
“No you didn’t.”

Her expression was hollow-eyed and lost, the look of someone who’d just lost their eternal soul and realized just how doomed and condemned they were for all eternity, for all time:  it took several seconds for the Sheriff’s whisper to penetrate her cloud of grief.

She blinked, and shook her head, and looked over at the Sheriff.

He held up another square glass jar, one with a broad stopper, and Gracie’s eyebrows puzzled together, then he turned it so she could read the faded, yellow paper with the ancient inscription, written in faded-brown ink under yellowed, brittle tape.

“I used this,” he said softly.  “Your Grandma showed me.”

Gracie’s breath caught and he saw the blanket shift as her arm pulled free and her hand went to her belly, as her eyes went wide, wide, as her face went pale, and he knew she was grateful she was in her own bunk and propped up so she could not fall over.

Linn looked at the others in the room.  “Excuse us for a moment,” he said, and they looked at one another, then slowly, reluctantly departed.

Linn rose, leaned near her ear and whispered something, a few words, and then drew back and sat again.

“You’re sure?” Gracie whispered.

He nodded.

She blinked again, quickly, looked over at an ancient oval portrait of an unsmiling man seated, a man in a very old-fashioned suit, and an unsmiling, severe-looking woman standing behind him, her hand on his shoulder, wearing an old-fashioned, long dress, and the Sheriff knew she was looking at her Great-Grandparents’ formal portrait, taken a year after their marriage:  it was stiff, it was uncomfortable looking, the man was looking to the side of the photographer with a disapproving expression, and the woman was looking in the same direction, her chin lifted a bit.

Gracie remembered her beloved Grandma telling her about the portrait, how neither of them could keep from laughing for very long, how the picture was taken during one of the only lulls when her Great-Grampa wasn’t insisting he felt like a stuffed owl, when her Great-Grandma wasn’t giggling and insisting that she should put on a dance-hall girl’s costume and drape herself shamelessly across his lap.

Gracie looked at the pale-eyed Sheriff and bit her bottom lip, struggled a bit and finally worked an arm free of the enveloping, tucked-in blankets.

She reached for the lean, pale-eyed lawman’s hand and squeezed it.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and he saw tears glittering and ready to spill over, and he quickly, impulsively, rose and kissed her forehead, then turned and left the room, quickly, his ears flaming an incredible shade of scarlet.

 

Nicodemus followed the Sheriff out through the kitchen, watched as Pale Eyes opened the cupboard door and replaced the square pot of ointment back on the Lazy Susan, its ancient and yellowed label to the front.

“What happened out there, Sheriff?” he asked, “and what did you tell her?”

Linn closed the cupboard door, gently, quietly, turned with a quiet half-smile to face the broad-shouldered, Clan Maxwell-red-bearded ‘smith.

“She used an herbal,” he said, “to labor a mother hard enough to get a stuck baby out.  Saved the baby’s life and likely the mother’s as well.  She said as much when she was out of her head from touching the ointment.”  Half his mouth pulled up in an almost-smile.  “Trouble is, it started her labor and she’s not even far enough along to show” – his hand went to his own belly – “and it would’ve killed the child she carries.  I used this” – he turned his head a little, tilted it back, indicating the lazy Susan crowded with labelled bottles and jars – “to stop the labor.  She’ll be fine unless she gets hit by lightning or some such.”

Nicodemus narrowed his eyes, turning his head just a little, his expression quite suspicious.

“And just what did ye tell her when ye run us out an’ ye were chewin’ on her ear in there?”

Linn considered for a long moment, then walked around the table with his usual stealth:  he came very close to the broad-shouldered man, laid a hand on his shoulder and said softly, “When a child is born and it never sees its father, chances are it’ll have the Sight.  A baby born with a caul – with the veil over the face – also generally has the Sight.  Her child will be both.”

“And how do ye know that?”  Nicodemus asked suspiciously.

“Because I saw it.  When I grabbed her arm as she was a-layin’ by the crick, the knowing was on her and I saw it through her eyes.”

He gave a little squeeze and turned, picked up his coat and hat, and Nicodemus watched the man slip out the porch door and then out the porch, he saw him swing easily into the Appaloosa’s saddle and turn, easy and natural and absolutely at home in good saddle leather, and Nicodemus frowned and considered this, then he shrugged and looked around the kitchen.

“There ought to be some cookies here somewhere,” he muttered.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

80.  “HIT SNEW,

AN’ HIT BLEW,

AN’ THEN HIT TURNT COLT AN’ FRIZ!”

 

Gracie knew Uncle wanted to talk to her, and she knew it was important, so she gave the kitchen over to her niece and sashayed into the parlor, stopping halfway up his hospital bed on the right hand side, and planted her knuckles on her belt.

“Well?” she asked with a lift of her eyebrows.

“I never said nothin’,” Uncle said suspiciously, then he sighed and looked up at the polite young nurse.  “Her gran’ma was jest the same way,” he complained, “I didn’t have t’ holler fer her an’ she’d come an’ she knowed I was a-wantin’ t’ talk to her!”

“I wish my husband was like that,” the nurse sighed.

“The pore fella’s deef as a post, I reckon!”

“He is,” she nodded, “unless he hears two beer bottles clink together when I have the refrigerator open!”

Uncle laughed quietly, nodding, shifted a little:  “How long til we kin git attair stuff of m’ leg?”

He looked down at the wrapped cast and the traction apparatus.  “Hell, I’ve hauled logs with less’n half that much hardware!”

“It’ll be a while, Uncle,” Gracie admonished him in her gentle voice.  “You’ll have to re-learn to walk.  You’ve plates, screws, bolts and a length of all-thread holding your shin bone together, not to mention piano wire and a couple lengths of coat hanger!”

“I believe it,” Uncle grunted.  “God Almighty, woman” – Gracie smiled to herself to hear that familiar epithet – “you should’a seen attair X-ray they too ‘a’ mah pore old laig!  You’d’a thought they thowed a hull dern hardware store innair!”

The nurse looked over at Gracie, blinked innocently.  “I take it the accent is an affectation?”

“No, it’s Scottish,” Uncle snapped.  “I never heard of no country called whatever-that-was!”

The nurse raised her chin, then nodded slowly, arms folded:  the back door opened and a cheerful “Yoo-hoo!” preceded another nurse, just coming in to take her twelve hour shift.  “The Night Watch is here!”

“I’ll let you two talk about your patient,” Gracie said quietly.  “Uncle, we’ve got ham meat and soup beans for supper.”

Uncle looked distressed.  “Now Gracie,” he protested, “you wouldn’t do a thing like that to these poor girls, now, would ye?  You know how gassy I git with them-there beans!”

“I took the crackers out of ‘em, Uncle,” Gracie sighed tiredly.  “I sat up most of the night with tweezers and a magnifying glass and hand culled every last one of ‘em.”

Uncle grunted, shifted in the increasingly uncomfortable bed.  “Daggone, I do love her beans,” he muttered.  “You makin’ corn bread?”

“It’s almost ready to go in the oven.  Ruth and Viva are taking turns mixing the batch.”

“You must be makin’ some big batch!”

Gracie gave him a wide-eyed, very innocent look.  “Why, Uncle!” she declared.  “Your hardware store shin bone should be telling you snow’s a-comin’!”

He frowned, nodded.  “Yeah, an’ I cain’t even reach it t’ scratch it!”

“Speaking of which.”  Gracie brought out a two foot long, hand carved back scratcher, its working end cleverly carved to resemble a hand with fingers curved.

“Bless you, darlin’,” Uncle breathed, then he reached down and found he could just reach the offending area, and carefully, almost sensually, he satisfied the itch that comes of healing flesh.

“If that felt much better I’d just wet myself,” he sighed, and Gracie gave the nurses a pitying look.

“We generally don’t let him around polite company,” she deadpanned, “and now you can see why.  I’m going to throw cornbread in the oven.”

 

Jimmy folded his forearms on the window sill, rested his chin on his arms, looking out over the pasture and the mountains beyond.

It was snowing, great big flakes; the near snow was slanting down right-to-left, but not far beyond, it was coming down left-to-right, and he frowned a little, trying to remember what his Pa taught him.

“Oh, yeah,” he whispered.  “When it snows cross legged, it’s gonna be deep!”

Impulsively, Jimmy pushed away from the window, ran sock-footed across the room and down the stairs, wiped off the soles of his feet and shoved into his polished Wellington boots, then into plastic grocery sacks and into yellow overboots:  he snatched his coat and his earflap wool cap, shrugged into the former and yanked the latter onto his head with an absolute disdain for fashion, charged out onto the front porch.

He grinned as his breath steamed in the cold air, for boys and snow are a companionable mix, and he scrambled awkwardly down snow-piled steps and ran through nearly a foot of snow for the barn.

Not long after, Connie looked up as her apple-cheeked son slid into his chair at the supper table, hands pink and damp from washing, his breath coming a little quick, the flush of delight glowing in his entire body-language declaration.

“And where have you been, my fine young man?” she asked, and Linn winked at

Wes, forestalling any jealous protest:  Linn wrinkled his nose, then dropped his jaw and one eyelid, and Wes laughed, that contagious little-boy giggle-laugh that brings a smile to every adult who hears it.

Jimmy looked up as his Mama loaded good home made stroganoff on the noodles steaming on his plate: “I was gettin’ Stomper ready, Mama!” he declared happily.

“Stomper, ready?  Why, whatever for?”

“It’s snowin’, Mama,” Jimmy breathed, excitement fairly prickling out all over his young carcass:  “it’s gonna get deep an’ Stomper is a tall horse an’ he can make it through deep snow!”

Linn nodded slowly, thoughtfully.  “Jimmy,” he said, bringing his boy’s head around, “you are thinking ahead.  That is a sign of maturity, of logic and of reasoning.”  He fixed his son with a direct gaze.  “Well done.”

Jimmy felt like he’d just had a small fire lit in his chest and it warmed him clear through. 

Praise from a father is precious to a son, an Linn knew this well:  his own father, rest his soul, had the knack of encouraging his sons with a positive word.

Jimmy would not come to appreciate just how rare this trait was, not for several years; all he knew was, he’d done something his Pa approved of, the Grand Old Man spoke of it, and Jimmy delighted in how good it felt!

“Dependin’ on how deep the snow gets, and how cold it gets,” Linn said thoughtfully, “we might be wise to think about hayin’ the livestock.  Once that pasture is covered and it’s hard to paw through for graze, we’ll be supplementin’ their feed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Next day, Jimmy and his Pa rode out to the middle of the pasture, out to where plastic-sleeved round bales stood like a row of giant marshmallows.

“Jimmy,” Linn said, “what should a man have on him about all the time?”

“A good sharp knife and a clean white hankie,” Jimmy recited by rote.

“Exactly right.  Your Camp King sharp?”

“Full sharp, my Lord!”  Jimmy declared, half-remembering a snatch of a Viking story his Pa told him once.

Linn gestured to the plastic shrink wrap on the round bale.

“Then strike!”

Jimmy snapped open his lock back knife, cut from the middle out, honed steel easily parting stretched, pucker-edged plastic:  man and boy relieved the big round bale of its protective jacket, pulled it back, tucked it under as best they could:  the horses were coming over already, attracted to the smell of alfalfa and timothy, delicacies the Sheriff had trucked in back when the weather was still good and the pasture was solid enough to drive a tractor trailer out on it.

“Now we’ll let the horses work on it some,” Linn said, and they turned to their own saddled mounts.

The snow was about a foot deep:  it quit snowing through the night, but more was on the way, there was a good throw-down of fresh straw in the barn, Stomper and Apple-horse were both grained, and Linn saw to the heater that kept their drinking water from freezing:  he’d built it himself, the horses came into the barn, out of the wind, in order to water – out of the wind, it wasn’t too hard to keep from freezing, the worst part was the overflow pipe he ran underground:  he’d had to run it six foot down to keep it from freezing up in the Colorado winter, and running it into an existing pool in the downhill stream seemed to be effective:  its discharge was at the bottom of the pool, and because it had a constant, slow flow, it never silted over nor plugged.

 

Jimmy and his Pa looked at the big Maxwell sleigh.

“I reckon it oughta work,” Linn said.  “Jimmy, just for grinskis and gigglers, do you reckon Stomper would be willin’ to pull this thing?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Jimmy admitted.

“Let’s give it a try.”  Linn picked up the oversized leather horse collar and turned toward Stomper.

The big red Frisian gelding backed away, walling his eyes and tossing his head.

“Now that’s odd,” Linn said.  “Stomper, boy, it’s just me, you’ve worn these before” –

Stomper backed up, shivering, threw his head violently left, then right.

Gracie came stomping over—cold it was, and snow there was, and she wore knee socks and work boots over her long handle underwear and skirt, and she reached up and seized Stomper’s bridle with a gloved hand, felt the mackinaw stretch tight across her shoulders.

“Now Stomper,” she said gently, but it was more like “Now StompeeeeEEEEE!” as he backed up, threw his head and fetched Gracie right off her feet and slung her about ten feet, into a belt buckle deep snowdrift.

Linn and Nicodemus looked at one another and then at the work boots sticking out of the snowdrift.

“STOMPERRR!”  Jimmy protested, fearlessly thrusting himself under that great, muscled neck.  “Stop that!”

Linn didn’t run and neither did Nicodemus:  they did not have to, as they were both a shade over six feet tall apiece:  each man strode for the snowdrift, seized a kicking leg, gripped around the ankle, looked at one another:  at their mutual nod, they hauled Gracie out of the snowdrift, lowered her legs to the ground and stood back a little, not entirely certain just how a gentleman would grip a lady in order to turn her over on her back.

Gracie saved them the trouble.

She rolled over on her back and slapped her pleated wool skirt angrily down over her thighs.

“And will ye stop lookin’ up a lady’s skirt!”  she scolded loudly.  “A gentleman ye’re not!”

“Gracie, now, darlin’, ye canna see yer proud-ofs,” Nicodemus pointed out reasonably:  “ye’re wearin’ yer Union suit, an’ it hides –”

Gracie thrust to her feet, wobbling a little, tried to recover some lost dignity and decorum by brushing savagely at herself with knitten-mittened hands.

Stomper came over,snuffed loudly at her middle, then laid his big head over her shoulder and turned a little, offering a muscled neck-hug.

“I don’t reckon he wants to pull attair sleigh,” Nicodemus drawled.

“Ah-firm that,” Linn said mechanically.

 

The day nurse was a new girl: she’d never been up Maxwell Mountain, and she was in the process of getting acquainted with Uncle.

“I was a little surprised at how clear your driveway was,” she admitted.

“We take care of it,” Uncle said faintly, then: “I knew we had snow when I woke up.  Did not have to look.”

“Oh?”  The nurse picked up the blood pressure cuff, ran a quick and professional eye over its black-nylon surface. 

“Yeah, oh,” Uncle almost snapped.  “I’ve got a hull dern hardware store in m’ leg, an’ it’s tellin’ me hit snew an’ hit blew, an’ then it turnt colt an’ friz!”

Ungrammatical as it was, the new nurse had to admit the old mountaineer was right:  she looked out at drifts and at a little boy astride a huge red horse, their breaths steaming in the cold air, and she smiled and said “You are absolutely right!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

81.  OVER THE MOUNTAIN

 

Jimmy tilted his head a little, munching on a cookie as he regarded Uncle’s brow-wrinkled scowl.

“You ain’t gonna draw me laid up like this, now, are ye?”  Uncle growled in a pretend-stern voice.

Jimmy shook his head.

“You got somethin’ in mind, though.”

Jimmy nodded.

“You got somethin’ t’ show me.”

Jimmy nodded again.

“Well, then, show me, I ain’t got all day!”

Jimmy was personally of the opinion that the man had all day and then some, as he was still laid up in a hospital bed with his wrapped leg hung in traction, but he was wise enough (in spite of his tender years) to offer no such opinion:  rather, he opened his notebook, flipped through several pages, then rose and set it on Uncle’s belly, propped up where the man could see it.

Uncle looked at it, raised an eyebrow.

“Well!”  he declared.  “Now that’s …”

He looked at it more intently, looked at Jimmy, looked again, and Jimmy reached over, turned the page.

“Oh hell!”  Uncle declared, delight replacing his scowl:  “That’s your sister!”

Jimmy nodded, trying to look solemn, but Uncle could see the delight crowding up behind his bright eyes.

Uncle turned the page back, looked at the first drawing.

It was mostly dark – the upper third was darkest, with pinpoints of light, just dots, really, and Uncle recalled that stars neither twinkle nor have the cross-shaped projections that atmosphere tends to cause:  the lower third was of a woman (it had to be a woman, with that backside!) wearing something absolutely skin tight (damn shame she can’t afford no more than to dip herself like a hammer handle in a can of liquid rubber!) … standing facing a rock well more than twice her height, a long pole in her hand.

He turned to the second page, and this one had two drawings on it:  the left half of the paper was the woman at a dead run, the pole held out before her like a high-school vaulter, the third, she was about a third of the way through an ascending arc, the pole bent a little, driven in at the foot of the rock:  her body was twisted sideways, her legs swinging up, and the face through the big visor had a look he’d seen before.

Uncle had been a young man, with children of his own, and his boys were noted runners:  the Maxwell name was long associated in the Firelands school system with track and field, and though they tried the pole vault, they never cared for it.

There was a girl, though, a high school girl he remembered from those long years ago …

Long years?

Already?

Damn, how did I get this old this fast?

Uncle looked at the drawing and Jimmy saw his eyes soften and he knew that look, for he’d seen it before, and he knew the man was remembering.

The girl was competing beside the boys.

She ignored the jeers of out-of-district competitors, catcalls from the watchers, sneers of visiting coaches:  she was pointing the vault pole like she’d point a rifle, balancing it at midpoint on her shoulder, glaring pale eyed and determined at the bar.

He remembered how his boy almost whispered, “Pa, watch her, she’s good!” and Uncle watched the pale-eyed girl drop the pole off the shoulder into her hand and balance it and heft it like it was a lance, then she dropped the tip and walked back to the sweet spot, picked it up.

He was impressed by her expression.

Uncle wanted to see this.

He wanted to see this girl attack that pole vault bar.

There was something about her, his gut told him this was no ordinary girl, he started to walk, then walk faster, because he wanted to see her run, and run she did.

God Almighty, how that girl could run! he thought, looking at the drawing, looking at the expression of the pale-eyed Sheriff Marnie Keller, rendered by her little brother with a number two lead pencil on eggshell paper.

He remembered she ran hard and she ran fast and she ran silent, at least until she drove the end of the pole into the socket like she was ramming a lance into an enemy’s throat, she screamed defiance as she swung her weight and her legs and she soared into the September-blue Colorado sky and she sailed over the bar, not even bending to twist over the red-and-white-striped barrier, and it was like she was soaring over the snowy mountain peak behind her, and he remembered.

He remembered the look on her face.

He looked at the hand drawn page of a pale eyed woman with a six point star laminated to the left breast of her Olympic skinsuit, a woman vaulting over a rock well more than twice her height, a woman soaring into the black sky with a look of triumph on her face, the same look as her Grandma Willamina had, back when she was a high school girl going to Firelands Consolidated with his boys.

He looked up as Gracie fetched over one of them laptop things he never did bother to learn about.

His was a world powered by a Case steam tractor, fired with wood slabs from their sawmill, his was a world of hand forged steel and iron, of square and compass and measuring tape, drills and screws and glue as needed:  he could drive a stake in the ground, back off and fell a tree right on the stake, he could climb and limb and cruise timber, and he never saw any need for them modern electronic things.

Iffen he wanted music, why, that’s why God invented the mountain fiddle and the five string banjo and attair Mexican guitar. 

He didn’t need one of these fancy flat TV screen things that looked like it had mated out behind the barn with some secretary’s typewriter.

Gracie knew the old man and his opinions, and she came around so she was facing the screen same as he was.

“Someone wanted to say hello,” she said, and pressed a key.

The blue NASA logo filled the screen, then dissolved, and Uncle blinked as Sheriff Marnie Keller and her husband, Dr. John Greenlees, MD, sat tight together with a squealing, wiggling baby on the Sheriff’s lap.

Uncle looked over at Jimmy.

“She heard you got hurt,” he explained, “so she wanted to say hi.”

He rose, handed Uncle the two cookies he’d held in reserve, then followed Gracie out of the room, and as the two of them retreated, they left Uncle and his softening expression to Marnie’s recorded video explanation that she’d heard he’d been laid up, and she missed him and hoped he was going to heal up okay.

 

Wes Keller was throwing a serious pout.

He was burr headed and cute and all boy and he was also contrary and hard headed, and he wanted to go out and play in the snow and his Mama said no, which meant that he was absolutely convinced that he needed to go out anyhow.

His Mama was busy with laundry, so Wes scampered quickly upstairs and got into long underwear and his flannel lined jeans (he wasn’t old enough to realize that only little kids wore flannel lined jeans!) – he got into a flannel shirt and a sweatshirt and pulled the hood up, then back down so he could pull a knit toggie over his short buzz cut.

He scampered back downstairs and grabbed his boots and his overboots and he packed them quickly to the basement stairway.

He wasn’t supposed to go to the basement either, but he knew he could get outside from the basement and his Mama would not see him.

When Wes pulled on knit mittens and pushed open the basement door, he had no way of knowing that Old Pale Eyes laid out the house with snow time in mind:  the prevailing wind hit the other side of the house, but here, where the ground dropped away, was the lee, and in the lee of the house, unless the wind shifted just right, snow did not tend to accumulate.

Wes slid out, pulled the door to behind him, not realizing it locked automatically:  had he known, he would not have cared, because he’d made it, he’d pulled one over on his Mama, and now he was going to play in the snow!

 

“She was your Grandma,” Uncle said, “and your big sister Marnie looks much like her.”  Uncle’s voice was soft, the way a old man’s voice gets when he handles a favorite memory, showing it to a boy as if showing off the most precious heirloom in a rare and hidden-away collection.

“When she went for that pole vault, I watched her, Jimmy … she handled that pole like a mounted knight handles a lance, she drove it into the socket like a personal enemy, I thought she was going to run up the lance but she didn’t.”

He looked up, his eyes trailing along the ceiling, seeing a young girl with white knuckles and pale eyes and a grim expression, swinging her legs up, toes pointed, soaring as the pole bent, then soaring higher as it straightened, throwing her up and over and easily clearing the bar:  he recalled she let go of the pole almost … almost reluctantly.

“It looked,” he whispered, “for all the world like she was … there was a big peak behind her, Jimmy – you’ve seen it – it looked like she was sailing over that mountain top instead of just over a barber pole bar.”  He blinked.  “I think Gracie has it in a scrapbook somewhere.  Somebody took a picture of her as she cleared it.

“She set a district record.  Nobody wanted a girl to win so they set the bar higher than they were supposed to, and they figured she’d hit it and knock it off and then they’d put it back up at the right height for the boys to use, but she went a-whistlin’ over it and she made it look easy.” 

Gracie came over with a scrapbook, paging through it as she came:  she smiled and laid it down on the laptop’s keyboard.  “Here it is,” she said.

“Yep!” Uncle affirmed.  “That’s the one!”

He set a finger on the yellowed newspaper clipping.

“That,” he said, “is just how I remember it.”

Jimmy crowded up, took a look, smiled.

It did look for all the world like she was vaulting a mountain.

 

The Bear Killer looked at Connie with button-bright eyes, swinging his great tail hopefully.

“Not now,” Connie groaned.  “I’ve got to get this laundry done –”

The Bear Killer’s perked-up ears lowered, as did his head, and he gave a little groan and Connie stopped and gave him a guilty look.

“I have to get this done!” she pleaded.

The Bear Killer gave a querulous little sound, then lowered his head and turned as if he’d just been scolded: head down, slow-paced, he walked away, then looked back, half-hopefully.

Connie was already folding sheets.

The Bear Killer grabbed the corner of a quilt that hadn’t been folded yet and left the room, dragging the thick blanket behind:  Connie didn’t notice its absence, and though she heard the doggie door click open and then thump shut, she never noticed the quilt was missing until after she’d folded all the bedsheets and got them packed up to the linen closet.

Wes yanked off a mitten and shook the burning-cold snow out of his coat sleeve.

He hated getting snow up his sleeve, it hurt – he never did like cold where it didn’t belong – he’d been out in the snow long enough he was ready to come in, but the basement door was locked, and he looked around, realizing he’d have to slog through drifts just shy of chin deep to get to the front of the house.

His bottom lip ran out as he realized the drifts were just as deep around the other way – he was cold and he wanted inside and he’d locked himself out – and then The Bear Killer came bounding through the snow, dragging a quilt, just as the wind shifted and began loading snow around into the lee of the house.

Wes hugged The Bear Killer and then wrapped up in the quilt, then he unwrapped himself and laid it down on the frozen ground and patted the cloth beside him.

The Bear Killer laid down with him and Wes pulled the blanket over them both, and he shivered a little while, but cuddled up against the big furry mountain Mastiff, with snow layering over the quilt, with just enough of a hole to breathe, he realized he was starting to get warm.

Little boys are resilient, little boys have a high metabolism; once Wes warmed up and he was cuddled into his favorite canine, he did what he did very well at that age.

He gave a contented sigh and went to sleep.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

82.  “THAT’S MY GIRL!”

 

Uncle managed to hold court from his hospital bed.

He was still a wise man – “it’s m’leg broke, not m’head,” he’d declared, summoning a younger relative with a commanding wave of his callused hand – and when their conference was finished, why, the younger man was able to effect a repair on an Acme stationary gas engine with far less effort than he’d anticipated.

Someone years before was trespassing on Maxwell land and fired a charge of birdshot into the corrugated tin roof at a long angle:  with winter’s snow, engine’s heat thawed the crystallized cargo, melt water dripped down onto the cooling pinion, ice built up between the cast iron teeth, and next day when they went to run the engine, it started fine, settled down to its steady, less-than-60 RPM idle, Jeremiah spun the clutch wheels to engage the pinion …
The ice was enough to snap the century-old, cast-iron, four inch diameter, crank shaft.

The flywheels weighed most of a ton apiece and the crank shaft was about four inches in diameter, four feet long or so, with a cast iron pinion and clutch mechanism on one end:  instead of using the log skidder to hoist the flywheel-and-crankshaft assembly, Uncle pointed out how much less weight would be needed to dismount clutch and pinion, remove the flywheels – “I’ve got a hell of a wheel puller, it’s out in the barn hung up behind the Reid flywheels” – and what looked like a truly immense job, dismantling the powerhouse to reach in with the skidder boom and hoist out the flywheel-and-crankshaft assembly, was suddenly just a big job, eliminating the need to tear down the plank-and-roofing-tin engine house, allowing them to bring out the crank only, then pack in the replacement crank only … more work involved, but far less weight.

The nurses were not used to a lean, laughing man who spoke his mind without reserve, hard and crusty-sounding one moment and perfectly gentlemanly the next, nor were the nurses accustomed to being set down with the family to eat, to laugh, to share in their day’s experiences:  one nurse found herself describing stopping at what looked like a wreck and ended up delivering a baby, another recounted how she and a classmate – while still in nursing school – stopped at another wreck and several people declared “Thank God, we have nurses!” – their red-faced admission brought understanding laughter from around the room, for supper was moved from the kitchen into the parlor, and supper literally surrounded the beaming Uncle in his hospital bed.

Even after supper, with dishes, folding chairs, a couple sawhorses and planks now removed or stacked out of the way, Gracie supervised the younger girls’ efforts in the kitchen, divided the work among several sets of hands, her own included, and then she ceremonially divested the girls of their aprons, hung her own on its peg, skipped into her bedroom and came out with her fiddle.

Nursing school and the NCLEX never prepared the women in white for a laughing family that worked hard and played hard and sang surprisingly well when the day’s work was done:  these more urban ladies learned there was more to music than the orchestrated grunts and groans to which they’d been inflicted in school, and again they were surprised to find Handel’s Vassermusik interspersed with the Orange Blossom Special, followed by a young Mexican boy with a double-strung Spanish guitar seeming much to large for him – which he played masterfully – and his dark-eyed sister in a lobstertail dress and mantilla, hard little heels punishing the hardwood as she turned and twisted sensually, the ridged black castanuelas snarling in her hands, playing a perfect counterpoint to the grinning boy’s compelling rhythms.

 

Connie stepped out on the porch, her coat hugged tight around her.

“Wes!” she called.  “Weeesssss!”

The wind was stopped, still; snow fell silently, piling up fast:  her Jeep had nearly half a foot already, six inches of insulating white blanket.

Connie listened, frowned, looked at the snow on the front porch:  there was no sign anyone passed, but with that rapid snowfall, a little boy’s tracks would be quickly covered.

She snatched up the broom and viciously cleared snow from the porch, from the steps:  she stopped in mid-sweep, stared at a small footprint, still preserved where it packed down the thin skift of snow before being buried.

He’s out here, she thought.

But where?

Connie blinked, thinking fast.

I need The Bear Killer.

Connie set the broom back in the corner, turned, went back in the house.

 

The day nurse stared out the back door at the recent snowfall.

“I hear the roads are just as bad,” Gracie offered.

The nurse sighed. 

“You’re welcome to stay, we have the room.”

“I don’t want to be a burden.”

“Here.  Let me show you the bathroom and shower, we’ve plenty of washcloths and towels and I’m about to do laundry.  What’ll you need me to wash?”

The nurse smiled and shook her head.  “I keep an overnight bag in the car just in case.”

Gracie winked, nodded, smiled: “I like the way you think!”

The nurses worked twelve hour shifts – 12 on, 24 off – while the day nurse talked quietly with Gracie, the night nurse pulled up a chair and sat beside Uncle, facing him:  Uncle had run the head of his bed up, and Gracie glanced in to see the man had a quiet smile about him, and she knew he was talking about family.

She was right.

“I wasn’t sure about Sarah goin’ off to j’ine the Navy,” he admitted, “and I sure as hell didn’t expect she’d be flyin’!  She … I figured if she wanted to fly she’d go over’t attair Air Force.”  He coughed, frowned, continued.  “She flies one them-there helly-copter things.  Gracie’s got a picture of it somewheres.”

Gracie was already halfway across the room, paging through the scrapbook, laid it open on Uncle’s lap so they could both see it.

“That’s her.  That’s my girl,” Uncle said, quiet pride in his voice, and the nurse tilted her head a little and looked.

She saw the big, black, blunt nose of some kind of a really big helicopter behind the pilot … a most surprising pilot, a delicate, feminine looking woman with short hair and wearing a flight suit, with the buggy looking helmet under her arm.

“That’s her,” Uncle said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.  “That’s Sarah.”

He turned the page and the nurse’s eyes went wide and her mouth fell open.

Uncle never noticed.

“Attair is the Sheriff’s little girl.  They grew up together.”

The nurse saw two arms of a big white snowflake between the pale-eyed Martian Sheriff and the grinning helicopter pilot … a big white snowflake painted on a big black Sea Stallion helicopter.

She looked up at Uncle, who was looking at her with a knowing expression.

“That’s my girl,” Uncle said with quiet pride and obvious satisfaction, then he gave her an ornery look.

“Your mouth is open,” he said quietly.

 

Connie clattered down the basement stairs.

“Wes!”  she called.  “Bear Killer!”

She looked around, frowning, walked slowly to the far door.

Connie pushed the door open, shoving snow as she did:  she put her shoulder to the door, set her feet, pushed hard, the pulled the door back and slammed it open against the blocking drift.

She shaded her eyes with her hand, more out of habit than anything else, called “Bear Killer!”

The Bear Killer’s head shoved up through the snow with a happy whispery whuff! and Connie saw the edge of one of her quilts come up with it.

Her stomach dropped about three feet as she powered into the snow, going up to her knees in the drifted lee.

The Bear Killer shoved his big head down into the snow and she heard a muffled woof, then a little boy’s complaining voice.

Connie did not hesitate.

She drove into the drift, elbow deep, then up to her shoulders, reaching, grasping, gripping and finally she had a double handful of quilt and hauled it out of the snow.

Wes came out with it, blinking, suddenly awake, grinning and giggling:  he looked at his Mama, surprised, then declared, “I’m hungry!”

Connie turned, her mouth going dry as she realized she’d forgotten about the door, how it was sprung to swing shut, how it locked when it closed – but she needn’t have worried.

The same snow that insulated her little boy and the big, curly-furred mountain Mastiff, crowded in as the door swung shut, and it didn’t close more than halfway before it stopped.

 

School was caught as much by surprise by the sudden snowfall as anyone else.

Plow trucks were out and doing a very good job, school buses ground like big yellow locomotives, laboring through drifts, navigating sometimes by fence posts more than the featureless stretch of snow covered pavement; nobody was terribly surprised when the Sheriff showed up a-horseback, leading his son’s big red Frisian gelding:  the next day’s newspaper showed the Sheriff, snow on his hat-brim, his fur-lined collar turned up against the wind, a kindergarten child in his arms and another, just as young, behind:  Jimmy, following, a younger copy of his pale-eyed Pa:  he, too, wore a snowy Stetson with his collar turned up, and he had two on behind him, and the smallest child in their kindergarten straddling Stomper’s neck just ahead of the saddle horn:  both the Sheriff and his son made multiple trips, not pushing their horses, for snow is tiring for man and beast alike:  when they were finally able to head home, they made sure both horses were well brushed, grained, spoken to, fooled with and absolutely spoiled – they’d done yeoman’s work that evening, including climbing Maxwell’s Mountain – Jimmy didn’t notice the surprised look from two nurses when they stopped in the warmth of Gracie’s kitchen for hot cocoa and cookies, two snowy figures out of the gathering darkness, and the happy children that came in with them, for all the world like two Old West ghosts bringing in a flock of chicks from a storm.

 

Wes grimaced and twisted in his Mama’s unrelenting grip.

He was naked, wet and in a tub of warm water, his Mama’s hand tight on his upper arm:  she was washing his face – again – with the vigor of a displeased mother, and his protests sounded like “But Mama bub-bub-bub” – he finally gave up on protesting, as he did not like the taste of a soapy washcloth rubbed briskly across his face – The Bear Killer lay on the floor beside the tub, watching patiently, perhaps considering the inefficiency with which this Mama was bathing her hairless pup:  Mastiffs did not use tubs and got along just fine, after all.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

83. TEATIME

 

The Sheriff nodded and his eyes tightened a little at the corners.

He tended to do this when he was looking at something that either gained his approval, or he was looking at something he admired, or at something he respected.

In this case it was all three.

The Sheriff was a man of many talents, of many skills, of many abilities:  like his Mama, he had professional credentials and licensures most people didn’t know about – Willamina kept her nursing license up for her entire lifetime, though she hadn’t worn nursing whites since she told her facility back East to go straight to hell (to the director’s face, no less!) – today, the Sheriff was standing in the middle of the shooting range he’d built, expanded, and was in the process of improving.

The Sheriff was many things:  he was a gentleman, he was a warrior, he was a musician of absolutely no talent, in spite of having played first chair French horn in high school:  he prided himself on his skills as a carpenter, but on a very small scale compared to the professional expertise of those long tall Kentucky moonshiners who were now Maxwell instead of Daine, and the Sheriff was both fast and good with a sixgun, just like his Mama, just like her father, just like every pale eyed lawman back to the legendary Old Pale Eyes himself.

There was something that eluded this lean waisted horseman’s abilities, and today he watched as a younger man performed the task and made it look easy.

The Ladies’ Tea Society would be here at the range today, and the Sheriff listened carefully when the ladies delicately refrained from actually complaining to him, but they expressed a preference:  the wooden outhouse, they said, was …

Inconvenient.

That was the word.

The Sheriff prided himself on being a gracious host.

It was winter; the ladies wished to continue their expertise; the Society met in the back room of the Silver Jewel and presented their projects and taught what they’d learned about Firelands in the 1880s – the Sheriff was, at his heart, an incurable romantic, and he was of the opinion that women liked romance, and he aided and abetted their research into the era, because it was a romantic era in spite of its difficulties.

The Ladies also recognized the dangers and difficulties, then and now, of being women in a dangerous time:  after their tea, their presentations, their demonstrations in the warmth of the Silver Jewel, they would dress for the weather – whenever possible, in attire of the period – and adjourn to where the Sheriff stood now.

The range was not for the exclusive use of the Ladies’ Tea Society.

The Sheriff and his deputies, the Firelands Police Department, local competitors and casual shooters alike, all partook of the Sheriff’s range, and that’s what it was called – The Sheriff’s Range – and all who did, used the wooden outhouse, where toilet paper was kept in coffee cans to keep meeces and wood wasps from chewing up the tissue.

Today, though, the Sheriff walked up to the young man who’d lowered the landing gear under the trailer he’d just positioned, unhooked the air lines, released his fifth wheel, and was ready to pull his tractor out from under the trailer when the Sheriff walked up, shaking his head and grinning that crooked grin of his.

“Y’know,” he admitted quietly, “I can back a straight frame through the eye of a needle, but add a trailer and I can’t back it to save my life!”

The driver looked at him curiously, then laughed a little as Linn continued, “I can’t back an 8N farm tractor with a baler on the back without jack knifing the damned thing!  I have to admire a man who can drive a machine with a hinge in the middle!”

Linn waved as the road tractor rumbled off, then he opened the well-insulated pump shed and began setting up the aluminum tubing frame, stretched the custom made canvas tunnel over it, attached it to the side of the trailer:  this would stop the cold December wind, which would be enough, for the short time involved.

He ran water line from the insulated little building and coupled to the trailer, went inside, checked the storage tank and valves, then proceeded to fill the on-board water tank:  he connected the power, fired the propane heaters, tried the faucets, checked the individual tanks, checked the other necessary supplies; satisfied, he nodded, looked around.

Coffee was a simple thing to set up:  he himself had truly terrible luck making coffee, so here he took no chances:  he had a machine that took those little individual cup sized plastic shot glass things.

The ladies could choose which kind of coffee they wanted, or even a variety of teas:  the Sheriff was taking no chances on individual taste.

He even had a microwave and a stack of instant hot cocoa envelopes in a cute little wicker basket.

There were flowers, fresh flowers, here and there in the ladies’ relief trailer.

The Sheriff took pains to have an inside outhouse for the ladies, and to have it ready for them:  now they would not have to use the old wooden latrine… now they would have a nice warm comfort station in which to take their ease.

The Sheriff was an incurable romantic, but even he admitted freely there was little romance to parking one’s bare backside on a frosty wooden seat.

 

Gracie wore widow’s black.

Back when Firelands was still the frontier town on the edge of the gold field, a woman would have worn unrelieved black for a full year – at least she would back East; out West, where women were in short supply, she’d be in widow’s black for a short time only, until someone proposed to her and she put off the widow’s weeds for a married woman’s more colorful cloth.

Today, though, black suited her.

She missed her Roger, and she’d been out to his grave, singing to him with her fiddle:  she knew it didn’t help him any – she knew he was long since gone, his essence flown like a blazing arrow shot from this world into the next – but it was a gesture, and she needed to make that gesture.

She rode into town astride her Brindle-mule, her shotgun in its scabbard ahead of her right leg, her bulldog .44 hidden in her dress:  like her beloved Grandma, Gracie had the gift of sewing, and she’d sewn the mourning gown with particular accesses to particular items, and the blocky, blunt revolver was not the only tool of un-gentle persuasion she wore as a matter of habit.

Gracie knew what it was to be attacked, and Gracie knew what it was to fight for her very life, and Gracie knew well the Sheriff was absolutely right when he met with the Ladies’ Tea Society in the big round barn of his, when he had a thick layer of loose straw on the sawdust floor and a tarp over it, when he taught them particular techniques for fighting an attacker.

“Cheat,” he shouted, his voice sharp and loud in the building’s quiet:  “Whenever possible, CHEAT!  To the greatest degree possible, CHEAT!  At every opportunity, CHEAT!”

He smiled a little.

“If this little girl” – he indicated a high school freshman with a bladed hand – “was trying to keep me from hurting her, she would stand a better chance if she had a club” – she hoisted a length of broomhandle – “or a blade” – she set the broomhandle on the table and picked up a rubber practice knife – “or a gun.”

She picked up the blue-plastic, injection molded block of plastic without a trigger guard, a monolithic molding that only incidentally looked like a common type of pistol.

He’d showed them how to break a hold, how to block and punch, he’d had them practice:  every one of the Ladies cycled through, for he had three others there to help him teach, and he made sure his Ladies could perform the moves he taught them.

Gracie, in particular, took well to the lessons.

She’d grown up the only girl in a stampeding herd of boys, and she’d had to learn fast and early how to prevent herself from being bullied or hurt:  once she showed her bothers, older and younger alike (not to mention cousins and some surprisingly young uncles) that she would not put up with their foolishness, she was regarded with respect and acceptance … though she had to remind them on occasion, and not gently when she did.

Gracie rode into Firelands, nodding pleasantly to the folk who waved, ignoring the ones who stared:  she tied off her riding mule in front of the Silver Jewel, pulled her shotgun from its carved-leather sheath, laid the barrels back against her shoulder and hauled open the ornately decorated, oak-and-polished-brass-and-frosted glass door, and went inside.

Both she and the locals regarded the sight of a woman in a wool skirt, knee socks and work boots, walking into a saloon with a shotgun propped up against her shoulder, as perfectly normal, ordinary and not worthy of comment.

 

The Sheriff paced the catwalk, looking down into the shoot house.

He’d put an immense amount of personal labor into building the house.

The outer walls were stacks of tires, filled with dirt, proof against anything but a howitzer; interior walls were more lightly constructed – there were interior walls of tire-and-dirt, where shooters could wait inside, out of the wind, for their turn to go through the course – and the Sheriff had it roofed, walled, proof against winter’s winds:  it was lighted, it had interior doors, it even had “windows” to an outer gallery to simulate an opponent attacking through a window.

The propane heaters were pushing against the cold, and would for a while; it took some time to knock the chill out of the air, but by the time the Ladies showed up, it would be warm enough.  Not room temperature, to be sure, but warm enough… especially when compared to the December chill outside.

Satisfied, the Sheriff unscrewed the stainless steel cup from his heavy steel thermos, poured himself some coffee.

He had a little time before he set up the first scenarios for them to shoot.

He chuckled a little as he drank.

Barrents was with him when the ladies first came out to the range, all in attire of their celebrated era, bright-eyed and anxious to try something new, and Linn had murmured, “Comes the Tea Society!” and Barrents asked, “Would that make this, Teatime?” – and ever since, when the Ladies arrived, Linn thought of it as just that.

Teatime.

He finished his coffee, then headed downstairs to start setting up targets.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

84.  DAMASCUS JUSTICE

 

Gracie’s movements were tightly controlled, her breathing was disciplined, her face expressionless:  she felt wooden, she felt like ten thousand red ants were running under her hide or like maybe she’d been seared with lightning.

She wasn’t sure what she felt.

All she knew was, she was leaving.

She slid the Damascus knife back into its sleeve-sheath and she swung into the saddle as easily and as naturally as a born horsewoman; her riding mule gave a happy, raucous HAAAWWW that echoed off the side of the shoot house, off the side of the ladies’ comfort trailer, and Gracie turned the mule left instead of right – instead of going back to Firelands, she headed the other way, toward Carbon Hill and a trail she knew of.

Gracie’s hands shivered and she doubted if she could have held her shotgun, let alone aimed and fired it effectively, but she sure as hell had no trouble at all gripping the checkered maple slabs of the Damascus knife she’d just used.

Brindle paced steadily along the rarely used path, hooves sure on the cold, rocky trail; Brindle was probably the best riding mule Gracie had ever ridden, but had Brindle been absolutely the worst, the most choppy-gaited, she would not have noticed.

Gracie smelled blood and she tasted copper, and as she looked ahead with wide and staring eyes, she did not see mountains and brush and trees and granite.

She saw a shadow-dark alley, she saw two men coming at her, she saw hands grasping and faces leering and she felt their hands rip her coat open and seize her where no man had any right grabbing –

Gracie was in the shoot house when she was grabbed.

Of a sudden she wasn’t in the shoot house.

Her plastic, pistol-shaped simulacrum fell spinning to the ground and she came around, teeth bared, fast, the Damascus blade slashing down the attacker’s arm, then across his belly:  she kicked, hard, weight on her right leg and her left knee drawn up, the sole of her work boot driving in an impossibly fast side-snap-kick, catching her attacker in the belly and doubling him over.

Gracie slashed again, slashed down, intending to split his skull open, felt the blade bite deep, and she ran.

She ran.

Gracie drove into one of the ladies, slammed her against the wall, she hit the door like a linebacker and ran into the open, she turned, spun, circled, knife forward and low, ready to stab or slash and then she saw Brindle and she knew she had to get distance.

Run.

Hide.

Get to safety.

Just like she had back in that college town’s brick-laid alley, back when two men tried to seize her, tried to force their way on her, when she killed one fast and one far more slowly, back when she left her hand forged Damascus blade in an attacker’s hand, badged with his dying partner’s blood.

Gracie had run then, too, she’d got distance – distance was her friend – Gracie ran with her hand wrapped around the bulldog .44 the Sheriff gave her when she left Firelands, she’d run and she’d ducked from shadow to shadow, she’d made her way back to her dormitory, she’d gone up the elevator, alone, shrunk hard back into the corner, nostrils flared, controlling her breathing, telling herself she was not a scared animal, she was in control, in control, in control, and when the doors opened she looked around, quickly, plainly afraid, and she admitted that the animal in her was alive and well.

Her hands shook – she remembered that – she looked down at her gloved hands, gripping Brindle’s reins tight, tight, she looked at her gloved hands and stared unblinking until she was satisfied that she did not see them shake.

Gracie looked up, looked ahead, shivered again.

She knew the way home, and so did her Brindle-mule.

Riding mule and woman made their steady way around the mountain, climbing steadily, heading for a particular saddle, where Gracie would cross back over onto Maxwell land.

Once she was on Maxwell land, she knew, she would be on her home territory.

Once on her own ground she was in her element and she would be safe.

 

The Sheriff tilted his head a little, regarding the deep slashes in his deputy’s padded suit.

It was an expensive suit, intended to be worn by a living punching bag, likely the rookie or maybe someone who needed some unofficial punishment; today it was worn by one of his more skilled hand-to-hand men, and both Sheriff and deputy were grateful he was wearing the thickly-foam-padded protection.

Gracie’s blade laid open the arm, down to the last layer of vinyl; another layer would have exposed the man’s shirtsleeve, and the cut across his belly did expose the uniform shirt beneath.

Linn gripped the man’s shoulders and said quietly, “Bend down,” and the deputy did, and Linn saw the slash on the thick-padded helmet.

“Okay, straighten up,” he said, and turned to face the uncertain-looking ladies.

The Sheriff pulled out a bilious-green plastic practice knife – like the dropped, pistol-shaped plastic Gracie dropped, it was not an actual weapon, though it was shaped like it, though it shared its revolting neon shade:  he slipped it up his uniform shirt’s sleeve, letting the ladies see plainly what he was doing.

“Now let’s go through this slowly,” he said.  “A woman is alone in the house and she’s grabbed from behind by an attacker.” 

His deputy moved forward, dead slow; as he reached around the Sheriff, one hand high, one low, the pale eyed lawman lifted a hand, freezing the deputy.

“At this point you realize someone shouldn’t be there and you are in danger.  If you have gun in hand, you can turn and engage, or –”

He drew the knife, turned, brought it across the deputy’s incised middle.

“You can engage with a blade, like so – across the belly.  You can either stab or slash, in this case it’s a cut and if you cut someone across the belly you are going to make it really difficult for them to reach, stretch, move or walk.  Think of any move you make that does not put tension on your belly muscles.”  He looked around, his eyes smiling a little. “Think of a hysterectomy, ladies, the traditional laparotomy incision instead of the modern laparoscopic punctures.”

The ladies immediately knew exactly what he was talking about.

“If you have one presented, a slice down an arm is always a good thing.”  He brought his screaming-green blade down the open incision Gracie laid into the deputy’s padded arm-guard.  “A lengthwise cut will lay open meat and muscle and it’ll bleed and I guarantee it will hurt like homemade hell.  Add a kick” – slowly again, for demonstration purposes, he brought his weight back on his right leg like Gracie had done, brought up the other leg and slowly, deliberately, extended toward the deputy’s dirt-marked belly.

“Now I am not hitting him in the middle.  I reckon he’s sore enough the way it is” – he allowed his boot sole to just touch the dust-smeared vinyl – “but a hit in the belly and he’s doubling over.”
The deputy obediently bent over and the Sheriff made a showy slice with the neon plastic, just missing the gash Gracie left in the deputy’s helmet.

“Ladies, what you saw done at speed was the reflex of a woman who practices.  Gracie did not need to stop and think, she had neither time nor desire to reason out her course of action.  There was a need for fast and deadly action and that’s exactly what she did.”

“But Sheriff,” the youngest of the Ladies’ Tea Society, a pretty girl of no more than ten years, spoke up.  “Why did she run away?”

Linn smiled gently.  “I reckon it’s because she found there’s a warrior living inside her and she didn’t realize it was there until today.”

 

Gracie dismounted twice on her ride home.

She was going to belly down beside a stream and drink her fill, then she remembered they’d run stock in the pasture above and she had no filter with her:  instead of filling her belly with good cold water, she took the opportunity to empty herself, trusting her mule to keep lookout.

Once her necessaries were tended, once she’d kicked leaf-litter and snow over her leavings, she got back in the saddle and rode across the stream, shivering.

The reaction was setting in and she was getting cold.

 

The Ladies’ Tea Society took full advantage of the training opportunities provided by the Sheriff’s shoot house, and every one of the Ladies acquitted herself well with her chosen carry pistol, and most asked for a session with the practice knife.

It was not something the Sheriff planned on training that day, but if the Ladies wished to learn, he was not about to say them nay.

His own mother saved her own life as a girl by picking her kidnapper’s pocket and cutting herself free of a manhole cover when he shoved her into an abandoned quarry to drown:  had she not liberated the abductor’s knife when she did, she would very likely still be deep in dark water, her murder unsolved.

The Sheriff knew of other instances where women kept themselves safe by less than gentle means, and he knew Gracie used a Damascus blade to keep herself from being a victim:  if the Ladies wished to learn a skill, and he was able to teach it, then teach it he would.

The Ladies were quite pleased with the comfort trailer he’d had brought in, and more than one made a point of thanking him for that kindness, and most of them smiled a little as he turned red and looked like a blushing schoolboy when the thanks were extended:  the Sheriff stayed behind after the Ladies departed, disconnected the comfort trailer from power and water, waited until the road tractor ground its way back up the narrow road, hitched on, wheeled around and removed the trailer:  per the Sheriff’s instructions, it would be emptied at the sewage plant, and its tank of water drained there also; drain cocks would be opened and the water run from the internal plumbing, commode tanks would be flushed, emptied; antifreeze introduced into drain traps and porcelain bowls, the trailer would be scrubbed and made ready, and would be put to use again when the Ladies’ Tea Society met again in two weeks.

The Sheriff knew all this would be done by people he could count on, and so as soon as the trailer was pulled out, he secured the shoot house, swung into Apple-horse’s saddle, and rode to the left instead of to the right.

The Sheriff rode generally toward Carbon Hill, but curved up and around the mountain on a path he knew of, one that was very seldom used, one that led up to a particular saddle that crossed over onto Clan Maxwell’s holdings, and his pale eyes read the fresh mule prints where the ground was soft enough to take an impression, saw scrapes bright and fresh in exposed rock where the ground was as soft as a harridan’s heart.

 

Gracie’s violin wept.

There is no other way to describe it.

When Gracie had not the words to say what was in her heart, her spirit flowed into the curlyback fiddle and it spoke for her.

She played with her eyes closed and she played from the bottom of her soul, and when she finally opened her eyes, the Sheriff was standing there, Stetson in hand, looking at her with those pale and incredibly wise eyes.

Gracie lifted the bow from the fiddle’s strings, blinked.

She had no memory of how she got here, beside her dead husband’s grave.

“Brindle is unsaddled and grained and I rubbed her down,” Linn said quietly.

“Thank you.”  Her throat was dry, her words barely audible.

“I understand the Geisha practice singing in the cold.  Claim it’s good for the voice.”

“I never knew that.”

“I’ve no idea the effect of cold on a fiddle.”

Gracie sagged a little, lowered her arm, lowered the fiddle.

“Why don’t we get you inside.  The girls have tea a-brewin’.  Earl Grey, I believe.  It was Mama’s favorite.”

Gracie nodded numbly.

The Sheriff peeled out of his fleece lined denim, wrapped it around Gracie’s shoulders:  she shivered, drew the welcome additional layer of insulation shut with one hand.

Upset she may have been, but she’d bee with it enough to leave her fiddle’s case outside, and open:  she lay the cold fiddle in the now-cold case, closed the lid and latched it, only then taking it inside:  the fiddle would gain heat slowly and would not sweat.

It was a trick the Sheriff taught her about shotguns, and she’d reasoned the same could hold true for her beloved curlyback, and she was right.

Linn opened the back porch door for her, then the inside door; he hung his hat on its peg, stopped to savor the welcome odors of baking and of supper and of freshly brewed tea, with its hint of citrus.

Gracie placed cased fiddle over against the wall, out of harm’s way, drew out a chair, collapsed, dropped her face in her hands and planted her elbows on the tabletop.

She heard tea gurgle in a ceramic mug, smelled honey, knew the Sheriff was sweetening hers as well as his:  the mug set down between her elbows – she felt it set down, felt its heat, smelled the fragrant steam coming off it.

Gracie looked up into the Sheriff’s patient, pale eyes.

“I can’t take a sip until you have,” Linn said innocently, and Gracie giggled, then groaned.

“I … I didn’t think about what I’d done,” she said slowly, “but when he … the man in that red plastic …”

“When he grabbed you.”

“When he grabbed me all I could think of was being grabbed like that before and I reacted, Sheriff, I came around and I intended to cut him in two with one stroke.”

“You made a very good cut,” Linn said quietly.  “Go on.”

“You already know I killed those two men back East.”

Linn nodded.

“I already told you about that.”

Again the patient, planned nod.

“You’re not going to arrest me, are you?”

Linn leaned his elbows on the tabletop, hands wrapped around glazed white ceramic.

“Did you kill them?” he said thoughtfully, then nodded.

“Yes, Gracie, you did.

“What else did you do?”

Gracie’s mind darted back and forth like a rat looking for a way out of an unexpected trap.

Planting evidence, falsification, lying to a law enforcement officer, excessive force –

“Gracie, you did two very good things that night, maybe three.”

Linn took a noisy slurp of good hot tea, set down his mug, raised a finger.

“First, you kept yourself alive.”  He looked squarely at her, raised an eyebrow for emphasis.  “I don’t know about you, but I prefer a universe with you in it, alive and well.  Second” – he raised a second finger – “you stopped them from doing that to anyone else.  If they’d gotten away with you, not only would they have taken your virtue and everything that goes with it, you would have been diseased, and with something penicillin won’t cure.”  His eyes were pale as he said the words, and Gracie’s face took on a distinct pallor as the lawman’s words hit bottom with a solid ker-thud.  “Oh, yes.  I read the autopsy report.  Believe me, Gracie, you do not want what they had.

“You kept them from doing that to anyone else.  Their kind is like a sheep killin’ dog.”  The Sheriff paused, wondering momentarily just how ungrammatical he’d been, then decided to let it pass.  “Once a sheep killin’ dog gets the taste of blood, the only cure is a bullet.  You stopped two sheep killin’ dogs.”

Gracie shivered again.

“You,” Linn hissed, reaching over and gripping her hand, “did, nothing, wrong!”

She shivered again.  “I didn’t realize until I cut into him today – I … I cut into them, Sheriff –”

“I know you did.  About ruined my impact suit, too.”  He raised a forestalling palm, laughing quietly as he did.  “Don’t worry, Gracie, it’s nothing duck tape and red spray paint won’t fix.”  He squeezed her hand, very gently, very carefully.  “I wanted to come out and make sure you were okay.”

Gracie nodded abruptly, jerkily.  “I’m fine,” she gasped.

“Liar,” Linn said cheerfully.  “You lie about as well as I do.”  He lifted his mug, drank until it was empty, set it down, looked at Gracie with an almost fatherly frankness.

“Gracie, dear heart, I much prefer a universe with you in it, and if that means killin’ someone who wants to kill you, then so be it.”  He patted her hand reassuringly, rose.  “You are not the first woman who found keeping herself safe was distasteful.  Don’t care for it myself, but I’ve done it and I’ll do it again when need be.”

“When,” Gracie whispered, blinking. 

It was a statement, not a question, and Linn looked at her, and each one saw a terrible knowing in the other’s eyes, and Linn nodded.

“You kept yourself alive, Gracie. They would’ve killed you, worse than killed you.”

He leaned across the table, his eyes pale, intense.

“You, did, nothing, wrong!”

Gracie looked up, her eyes big and liquid.  “Thank you,” she whispered.

The Sheriff winked, then paced across the kitchen floor, plucked his Stetson off its peg; another minute, and he was gone, and the kitchen suddenly felt very empty.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

85.  SORROW, AND A SPOTTED HORSE

 

Uncle woke up, restless.

He looked to his left.

The nurse was laid back in the recliner, a blanket over her; her face was turned to the side and she looked tired, poor thing.

Uncle was warm and relaxed and for a miracle, neither his backside nor his leg ached; when snow was on its way, his leg troubled him, but now its troubles were sleeping like the nurse, and for this, the lean old man was grateful.

He knew he was due to come out of that bed and be taken to what they called Physical Therapy, and he’ raised tall hell until he’d been told PT – damned young people, abbreviatin’ everytin’ – would be at the Firelands hospital.

Uncle knew a few of the people at the hospital and he’d rather a darn sight have his leg twisted up by home folks ruther’n go clear the hell and gone back to that damned Denver!

He worked his jaw, looked around, decided he’d best not spit right here in the parlor.

Dammit to hell anyway, he thought, a man oughta have a spitoon handy!

He wiggled a little, frowned, then looked across the room, scowling.

A shadow, moving in deeper shadow.

The shadow hesitated, feeling Maxwell-blue eyes on it, and then the shadow turned and glided across the room toward him.

Gracie flipped the hood back on her black cloak, a cloak Uncle hadn’t seen since his Gracie wore it years ago … when she wore mourning black, when he held her and they both cried over a fresh grave.

Unlike the nurse, Gracie’s face was lined, tired, worn … and she was a little grey, he thought, her color was off, but that wasn’t what worried him.

She looked sick.

“I have to go,” she whispered, and then she turned, suddenly, the cloak flaring around her:  Uncle blinked, worked his elbows under him, tried to pull himself up in bed… too late, she was gone.

Gracie stepped out into the cold air, threw her head back, took a deep, quick breath of the frozen air, punishing herself:  she lowered her head, looked up again, looked across to the graveyard, where so many of her kin, her blood, lay sleeping, forever … sleeping in ground salted by women’s tears ever since they came out here.

Gracie turned, looked to the path, a bare white flat in the snow, curling around the mountain.

She wore a longer skirt, a black wool skirt that came down to just below her workboot toops, and she reached down and grabbed the skirt with both hands and she started to run.

She needed to run.

Gracie powered into the snow, leaned into her run, her cloak flowing behind her as she ran, as her lugged bootsoles threw up fine snow behind her, and fine, cold snow glittered like diamond dust on the unrelieved black of her mourning cloak.

 

Connie sat in the front pew of the silent, empty church.

She stared at the simple, handmade altar, her mind as empty as her heart.

She knew she had much for which to be thankful, much for which to be truly grateful, but at the moment she was alone, and she was lost, and she knew – somehow – she had to come here.

Memories were selective; memories came unbidden, memories she’d just as soon stayed under the stone slab where she interred them, but memories will philter up from the rocky grave to which they are consigned, misty like ghosts, to come solid when they come to surface, and have to be faced all over again.

Connie stared at the ancient, simple, handmade altar, a single tear running down her cheek, and she tasted ashes again.

 

Saddle leather slammed Linn’s backside and he felt the jar clear up his spine.

He heard his teeth click together and his heels locked into the stallion’s ribs as the spotted horse’s nose dropped between his forelegs.

The world rolled around and Linn kicked his boot free of the stirrup, slammed down hard against the earth as the horse threw himself down, onto his right side:  Linn had a death grip on the reins, his left leg still around the stallion’s barrel, and as the horse decided whether to roll over or fight upright, Linn took a moment to get some wind in above his shocked diaphragm.

The stallion decided to come upright and Linn rode him up, screaming silently with absolute delight as the big horse swapped ends, spinning three times, four times, light and nimble like a dancer on her very toes, then stopped, legs splayed, breathing hard, hoarsely.

Linn reached down, rubbed the horse’s neck, yelling “Bonnie, bonnie! Dae it agane, dae it agane” – and the stallion shivered like he was shaking off a pesky horsefly, then he stepped out just as nice as you please, steamy breath blasting out of moist pink nostrils like a steam engine’s exhaust on a cold day.

Linn rode him around the corral, once, twice, then turned him quickly, his legs tightening:  the horse lowered its nose, laid its ears back and dug into the cold, hard ground, launching across the board encircled dirt, lifting off like a fighter jet off a carrier deck, soaring over the whitewashed boards, hooves tucked delicately out of the way:  Linn was grateful he’d tied a new backband on his Stetson, for if he hadn’t, it would have fallen back on its storm strap and he’d have to make an undignified grab for it.

As it was, the entire third grade class, climbed up onto corral boards or looking between them, gasped, laughed or wow’d; a young forest of cell phones were thrust out at the pale-eyed lawman, modern technology recording the sight of the ancient contest between human and equine.

This was a periodic treat; Mrs. Shaver occasionally walked her class to notable places in Firelands, such as the town’s library, where the first newspaper had been, before it was burnt down by mistake – the arsonists had been hired to burn down the newspaper office in Cripple Creek, and they either fell asleep on the train and got off at the wrong town, or were too liquored up to know the difference – sometimes the children went to the Fire Department, where a lucky few got to sit in the tuck-and-roll leather-upholstered seat of their genuine antique steam engine, or got to blow the air horns on the big red Kenworth fire truck (air horns were always a favorite!) – their destination that day actually was the fire department, but when they looked down the street and saw the Sheriff was approaching the corral with a saddle over his shoulder, they looked at Mrs. Shaver, and with her nod, the entire class took off at a dead run for the nearby board-bounded enclosure.

The Sheriff pretended not to notice the onrushing flood of youthful enthusiasm, and he hid his grin, for what man doesn’t love the adoring attention of the young? – he carefully paid no attention to young voices and pointing fingers and bright, attentive eyes:  Apple-horse, on the other hand, raised his head and looked squarely at them, his ears swung to this new, noisy and excited audience.

Mrs. Shaver watched with them, her hands spread protectively, unable to encompass all her young charges, but that didn’t stop the gesture; it was instinctive, the move of a schoolteacher, and she smiled a little as well, for she knew this was something new and different – not only were they out of their classroom (visual), they were out in the cold (tactile) and they were hearing a man’s grunt as the horse came down stiff-legged, heard the horse’s deep grunt and blow, the sound of steelshod hooves punishing the ground (audible) and she delighted in the expressions, in seeing wide-eyed wonder and absolute, undisguised interest as the Sheriff swung a leg over his Apple-horse and the stallion just plainly came unglued under him.

Horse and rider put on quite a show for their youthful audience, finally soaring over the boards like the brown-and-white spotty horse had wings – the children would have been no less entranced had Apple snapped out a broad set of feathered air-beaters – Linn trotted his stallion around the corral, back to the children, knowing twice a dozen at least recording rectangles followed his progress.

“Apple,” he said, rubbing the stallion’s neck, “say hello to the lady.”

He’d slid a Wellington boot out of his doghouse stirrup, tickled Apple up under the foreleg, and Apple obediently dropped his head and bent his forelegs a little, reared his hinder and kicked both hind hooves into the empty air behind:  as the horse bowed, Linn lifted his Stetson, and this picture found its way onto the front page of the local paper, fortuitously snapped by a local lad with a cell phone while on a class excursion to the local firehouse.

All eyes were on the grinning Sheriff; nobody thought to stand back and take a picture of the class suddenly surrounding the blowing stallion, no one captured the image of a brown-and-white spotted horse with twice two dozen hands caressing it, no one got the picture of the stallion looking very pleased with himself, and nobody noticed a flowing black shadow wearing work boots and a black skirt that streaked across the snow-dusted main street uphill from them by a hundred yards.

 

Connie waited until Gracie collapsed, until after she fell and sprawled full length in the middle of the church’s broad aisle, until she finished gasping and coughing:  Connie sat with her face wet and her kerchief twisted in both hands, not looking away from the altar until Gracie staggered over to her and collapsed into the front pew with her.

If it’s true that inanimate objects absorb energies from the living, this particular pew should have been glowing at night like a neon sign.

This was the pew the Old Sheriff sat on as he cried in misery and loss that he wanted the little Angela-child he’d rescued from the train wreck, wanted her for his own daughter.

The man had cried in a loud voice, powered by the grief of losing his own daughter years before, with the voice-energies concentrated in twenty years of guilt, for he’d been off fighting That Damned War instead of staying home and taking care of his wife and his daughter.

He’d cried out in sorrow and in grief and in loss and the utter despair of a father who failed his family more and more terribly than he could ever have imagined, and on this same pew, in this same part of the pew, a woman in a snow-dusted black cloak collapsed across the lap of someone she trusted, her soul torn by the loss of the one man she’d allowed herself to love.

Gracie was so buried in her own grief she never heard Connie’s quiet sorrowing; the Sheriff’s wife bent over her friend, head bowed, and finally let go of an old grief she’d carried for years.

Two women, alone in their sorrow, wept together in the quiet and the safety of their little whitewashed church:  one for a first Christmas as a married woman that would, for her, be barren; the other, for a Christmas that would forever remind her of her aunt’s death on Christmas Day.

Each one needed the release; each needed a friend, and here in their familiar old church they’d both grown up in, they cried themselves out, and they found what they needed.

 

Linn’s teeth gleamed under his iron-grey mustache as he hoist another giggling child into Apple-horse’s saddle:  the stallion stood, pleased, and Mrs. Shaver centered the delighted child in her phone’s screen, the shot taken from in front of Apple-horse:  every one of her young charges had their picture taken in the saddle, and a few of the more adventurous asked if they could have a ride, and the Sheriff laughed and said “After the way he just about kicked me out of the saddle, you want to ride this Wild Buckmonster?”

His grinning question damped the ardor of all but a big-eyed little girl who looked adoringly at Apple-horse, then looked at the Sheriff and nodded.

“Okay,” he said, picking the child up:  he kissed at Apple-horse and the stallion turned and followed him like a dog.

Linn set the little girl on top of the corral rail, then swung into the saddle, sidestepped Apple-horse over to her:  “Climb on behind me,” he said, and she shook her head, pointed to the saddlehorn.

“You want to actually ride Apple.”

She nodded firmly.

Linn laughed, swung out of the saddle:  “Okay, honey, come aboard.”

The little girl leaned over, grabbed the saddlehorn, climbed awkwardly over onto the saddle.

“C’mon, Apple,” Linn said, walking casually through the crowded-close third-graders: Apple-horse followed, looking almost sleepy as he did.

Linn walked out toward the street, looked left, looked right.

“Apple,” he said, “circle.”

Linn stood in the middle of the street and Apple began to circle him:  the stallion paced in a circle, then a bigger circle, the pale eyed Sheriff assessing the giggling young rider straddling the too-big saddle.

The Sheriff made a gesture, and Apple-horse paced more quickly, almost flowing rather than trotting:  the little girl squealed with delight, and Linn’s eyes tightened a little at the corners, and Ezra Shaver clapped her hands with delight at the sight of the county’s Sheriff, standing in the middle of the street, with the drugstore to the left and the firehouse downhill to the right, taking the time to give a little girl a ride on a horse she knew was riot trained and quite capable of fighting a young war in a close-in fight, for she’d seen the Sheriff training with his Apple-horse for that very purpose.

Linn raised an arm and Apple-horse came over to him, and he shaved something off a wood-looking block with a short, sharp knife, offered the thick shavings on a flat palm, and the schoolteacher marveled as the horse lipped it from his palm, delicately, giving her a glimpse of strong, yellow teeth that could probably take a man’s hand off.

Linn rubbed the stallion’s ears, ran his hand back long the stallion’s neck, reached up and brought the delighted little girl out of the saddle:  he hugged her, whispered something to her, and the little girl blinked and looked at him with that utterly sincere and absolutely innocent expression that only a little girl can manage, and she smiled shyly and he set her down on the cold pavement.

She scampered back over toward her teacher, suddenly becoming just another eager, shining, apple-cheeked face among several eager, shining, apple-cheeked faces.

The Sheriff thrust a burnished boot into the black doghouse stirrup, thrust easily into the saddle, lifted his Stetson:  Apple-horse’s tail twisted and whipped as he spun, light, delicate on loud-clattering hooves, then with a sudden grin and a loud EEYAHOOO!, horse and rider launched into a clattering gallop, right down the painted center line, and the Sheriff and his spotty Appaloosa stallion galloped noisily the length of the street, finally disappearing over its slight rise.

More than one set of youthful eyes followed their disappearance with bright and adoring eyes, and more than one throat sighed out an adoring “Wow,” on a puff of condensed breath, offered reverently to the cold mountain air.

Mrs. Shaver waited for a few moments before clapping her hands twice, commanding their attention.

“Class,” she declared, “let us cross the street safely and go to the firehouse.”

“Yes, Mrs. Shaver,” two dozen voices chorused, and followed the schoolteacher like a flock of chicks across the cold pavement to the tall, narrow brick building with the more modern, metal-sheathed, three-bay structure attached.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

86.  UNCLE’S KRANKENVAGEN

 

Gracie sat down beside Uncle’s bed.

The local paper rattled a little the way paper does when it’s unfolded, and Uncle looked with interest at the front page pictures.

Like any small town newspaper, the Firelands Gazette was read for two main reasons:  to see what happened in the community, and to see who got caught doing what.

Uncle hadn’t pressed when Gracie left, all in widow’s black, and he hadn’t questioned her when she returned that evening, red-eyed from crying but looking relieved:  now, the next morning, it was as if his old Gracie was back, pulling up a chair with the newspaper.

The day nurse had her routine; Uncle was tended to, his necessities taken care of, his bed-bath completed; transport would not arrive for another two hours, and until then, knowing all he had to do was wait, Gracie’s arrival with the newspaper was most welcome.

She snapped it open, folded it back, knowing how hard it was to see a printed picture with light coming from the backside:  Uncle frowned a little, then smiled as he studied the front page picture.

The police chief’s wife, he knew, was owner and editor of the paper, and he suspected she did most everything as well – her father had – and she had a habit of putting a group of pictures where another newspaper might have only one, and he wasn’t disappointed.

The front page picture was actually three, set close-in, side-by-side:  one was the Sheriff, his Appaloosa stallion in mid-buck, the lawman looking like he was just pretty darn lucky not to end up in lunar orbit: the second, a little girl in the saddle, with the spotted stallion looking at the camera, obviously very pleased with himself, and the third picture, the laughing little girl still in the saddle, the stallion in mid-trot, just crossing in front of the firehouse, the Sheriff standing in the foreground:  the third shot had the delighted child and the stallion’s head and ears in perfect focus, and the background motion-blurred just a little.

Gracie read the article aloud; it was your basic bread-and-butter article about a third-grade excursion to the local firehouse, where they were received by Chief So-and-so, where they toured this-and-that apparatus, where a good time was had by all, and in a separate column, mention was made of their timely arrival as the Sheriff bucked out his riot-trained stallion under the watchful eye of K9 officer Tank, a Belgian Malinois, and K9 officer The Bear Killer, a Tibetan mastiff, who is well known to the community.

They went through the rest of the paper, reading it together, discussing what they read:  when finally Uncle was transferred to the ambulance cot and his leg's traction apparatus established (with the help of two sets of vise grips, two feet of duct tape and a length of half-inch allthread for a brace), the happily complaining patient was covered with two blankets and carefully dollied out to the waiting Mercedes ambulette.

Of course Uncle had to raise hell about that fancy-nancy name:  “Ambulette!” he snored.  “Dammit, that sounds French!  Attair is a Mercedes! Why not call it something German!”

The medics running the transport laughed and as the back doors closed, Gracie waved at her Uncle through the window and she saw the old man and the medic were laughing over something, and she had the distinct feeling it was going to get real deep, real fast.

 

“This is The Bear Killer,” the Sheriff said as he approached the tour group:  “he is a K9 officer, properly trained, strong, loyal, intelligent and he keeps my feet warm at night.”

The tour guide was Japanese, as was the group itself:  there were twenty in his group, a guide and an assistant, all polite and attentive:  of all the groups that came through in tour, Linn far preferred the Japanese:  they were unfailingly polite, attentive, and they tended to laugh politely, even when they didn’t understand his admittedly strange humor.

“And this is Tank.”  Linn indicated the Shepherd-looking animal sitting beside him, panting a little, a big doggy grin on his face.

“Tank is trained to sniff out bombs and explosive compounds.”

Linn waited until the translation before turning to his left and indicating the truly huge mountain Mastiff sitting proudly beside him.

“The Bear Killer sniffs his supper dish very well.”

This apparently translated with the humor he’d intended.

“Tank and The Bear Killer are also search-and-rescue.  The Bear Killer located and sheltered a lost child a few days ago, as a matter of fact.”
There were nods, quiet comments, approving looks:  The Bear Killer apparently knew he was the subject of discussion, for he managed to look immensely pleased with himself.

A young woman raised a tentative hand, asked a question:  the tour guide turned, smiling, and translated:  “May The Bear Killer be petted?”

“Of course,” the Sheriff nodded, and the young woman slipped through the front row, and became noticeably tentative the closer she got to the immense black Mastiff.

“Bear Killer, five,” Linn said quietly, and The Bear Killer raised a paw, waving it beside his ear like a happy puppy:  the young woman squeaked with delight, her hands going to he mouth with surprise.

Linn turned.  “Bear Killer, gimme five,” he said, and The Bear Killer dabbed at the Sheriff’s extended palm with a surprisingly gentle paw.

Linn looked at the surprised young woman and she hesitantly extended her own palm.

The Bear Killer laid his warm, furry paw on her palm, lightly, carefully, then set it down, his great brush of a tail swinging across the gleaming floor behind him.

She stroked the back of his head carefully, looked back, delighted, and suddenly The Bear Killer was the center of attention, happily accepting the adulation of almost the entire tour group.

Linn looked at Tank, rubbed the Malinois’ shoulders.

“Attention hog,” he murmured, and Tank gave the grinning Sheriff a happy lick behind the ear.

 

Nicodemus looked at the dozen metal semicircles he’d fabricated.

They all fit the machinery fine; he knew what they were for, and he shook his head sadly that they were needed:  the Sheriff asked him to make them, not trusting the plastic variety, and now they were done.

He slipped them in a cloth drawstring poke, drew it tight, headed for the house.

He’d hand them off to Gracie and have her deliver them to the Sheriff.

 

Linn looked up as Gracie came in the front door.

The tour group had just departed, headed for the depot, for a planned ride on the Z&W, behind The Lady Esther:  their group included three men who were very interested in early Western steam power, three men who were involved in the history of the American West.

So far they had not been disappointed in their visit to Firelands.

Gracie laughed a little as she came through the inner door.

“I didn’t expect to be interesting!” she said, smiling.

“Interesting?”  Linn rubbed The Bear Killer’s ears, and Gracie saw the big mountain Mastiff’s eyes were closed, his head tilted back, absolutely reveling in the attention.

Tank, for his part, yawned and looked quite bored.

“Nicodemus sends,” Gracie said, holding up the cloth poke.

“Ah, thank you,” Linn said, accepting the delivery.  “Now what’s this about being interesting?”

“That group,” Gracie said, gesturing behind her, “with … um, they had a red flag.”

Linn nodded.  “Japanese,” he explained.  “Tour group.  They’re riding the train now.”

“They must’ve liked Brindle,” Gracie said thoughtfully.  “They took all kinds of pictures as I rode up and dismounted.”

Linn nodded, hefted the poke.

“They sure liked The Bear Killer.”  He tossed the poke on the dispatcher’s desk . “How’s Uncle?”

Gracie laughed and the dispatcher smiled to hear it.  “He’s for a revisit and they’ll see if he’s ready to start putting weight on that leg yet.”

“Kind of early, ain’t it?”  Linn frowned.  “Didn’t they have to pin and screw it?”

“I think he’s got a hardware store in that leg,” Gracie sighed, “at least that’s how Uncle tells it.  He was complaining all the way out of the house and when he saw they had one of those Mercedes ambulance things – it’s not an ambulance, it doesn’t have the red lights …”  Her voice trailed off and she frowned, trying to remember the term.

“Ambulette?”  the Sheriff offered.  “Non-emergency transport only.”

“That’s it,” Gracie nodded.  “Uncle said that sounded awfully French and it should be something German since it was a Mercedes.”

“Krankenwagen,” the dispacher said. 

Linn and Gracie looked at her, surprised, and she shrugged.

“Opa was … I grew up in a household where we spoke German most of the time.  And Russian.”  She winked at the Sheriff.  “How do you think I taught you how to swear in three languages?”

Linn chuckled.  “Crankin’ Wagon,” he muttered, shaking his head.  “Sounds like a high school kid’s race car.”

“That too.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

87.  A MULE GOES TO CHURCH

 

The Abbott rose, extended his hand and the Sheriff took it.

“I appreciate the help, Sheriff,” he said quietly, giving the pale eyed lawman a quietly amused look, and Linn couldn’t help but wonder either what kind of trouble he’d got into, whether he’d just agreed to take a pig in a poke, or whether he’d honestly tickled the tall, tonsured cleric’s funny bone.

Linn stood when the Abbott did:  he watched as the Abbott slipped silently out his door, the two camel bells on his wrist-thick staff jingling quietly as he made his slow, planned way across the polished quartz floor.

“Well,” he said, “that’s one off the list,” and with that pronouncement to the empty air, he reached for the phone, punched in a memorized number.

“Howdy, Parson,” he greeted the familiar voice on the other end of the phone.  “I think we’ve arranged for Mary and Jesus.”

 

Jimmy slid out of Stomper’s saddle, feeling his stomach go Wheeeee! as he free-fell about two hundred feet, or at least until his polished Wellington boots landed flat on the ground:  he scampered for the back porch door, opened it to the welcome smell of fresh baked bread and everything else Gracie had in various stages of prep on the stove, the side cupboard and the table.

Gracie turned, smiling, nodded to the notebook he held.

“Take that out to the woodshop,” she said, “and show it to Zachariah.  He’ll be interested.”

“Okay!”  Jimmy chirped happily, then turned and waved at the grinning old man in the hospital bed there in the parlor:  “Hi, Uncle!”

“Hello yourself and see how you like it!”  Uncle snapped back, and Jimmy laughed, for he heard the smile in the old man’s voice.

He turned, scampered noisily back outside – boys his age seldom do much quietly unless they’re either getting into trouble, or trying to get out of it – Jimmy ran across frozen ground, dodging unmelted snow-lays, hauled open the wood shop’s door.

Zachariah was frowning at a joint, carefully stroking a dovetail with a triangular file:  he looked up, nodded. 

“Come on in and shut the door,” he said, his voice serious, the way it always was when he was concentrating on his work.

Jimmy ran up to the worktable and laid his notebook down, opened it to the page he’d marked with an in-thrust finger.

Zachariah brushed glue on the part he was working on, fitted it quickly, expertly in place, picked up a dowel and brushed it with glue:  he set it into the hole, picked up a mallet, tapped it in place, knowing he had to work fast before the glue seized:  another dowel, another tap, and he was done.

He nodded and set the work off the table and onto the floor.

He looked from his project to Jimmy’s hand-drawn page, then he looked closer, and then he came around the table and set down, running one arm around Jimmy and picking up a magnifying glass with the other.

He studied what Jimmy had drawn, then he turned and looked at what he’d just built, then he looked at Jimmy.

“I drew another one,” Jimmy said, “this is how I saw it used.”

He turned the page and Zachariah opened his mouth, closed it slowly, took a long breath.

“Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit,” he murmured.

 

Gracie was as efficient at delegation as any hospital’s charge nurse.

She set young hands to work stirring, stewing, cutting up, chopping, rolling, crimping, filling, baking:  the younger Maxwell girls – that is, the girls younger than Gracie – all knew their jobs, and they’d been taught since they could walk how to perform these womanly tasks, and each of them was more than competent with the one easy task she’d been assigned:  Gracie’s kitchen moved steadily, efficiently, and Uncle, laying on his back, admired both the smooth, disordered-looking efficiency, and the good smells coming out of the kitchen:  by prearrangement, the girls would come scampering in with some new delectable for Uncle to try, and they would always bring a sample for the nurse as well.

To the nurse, everything they brought was absolutely delicious, and generally the nurses went away both well fed, and marveling at the culinary skills of these rude-seeming hillrunners.

Gracie, having set her charges in motion, turned to another project, one where she excelled, one where she and her beloved Grandma worked together, and now she and two girls who showed an aptitude for the craft, began working in cloth and in thread and in the right trim, fitting the right garments to a handful of giggling, restless children.

The garb was very simple.

Gracie met a nurse, back East, who’d worked in Africa:  she took a blanket, wrapped it around a volunteer, brought a corner up over the volunteer’s shoulder and head, stood back and said “Now who does she look like?” – and with this wrap-and-drape of a simple blanket, she’d produced the common female attire of the region, used to this day … a wrap-and-drape that made her look, everyone there agreed, like the Virgin Mary.

Gracie used the same approach to garb her shepherds:  they were, after all, the unskilled labor of their day:  poor, uneducated, given the job nobody else wanted; she carefully refrained from telling the shepherds that their belts were actually very functional slings, as she knew boys, and she knew they’d likely try them out, and she knew that without some practice, windows would be at risk.

The Wise Men presented a greater challenge, for she had to produce garb suited to royalty, and for this she consulted Chief Deputy Barrents:  his father had been active in Medieval re-enactment, and Gracie knew this field was skilled and knowledgeable about royal costuming, and so three wise men received the attentions of seamstresses who were used to producing truly royal garb of a much earlier era.

 

The Ladies’ Tea Society was a force to be reckoned with.

Gracie was not the only skilled set of sewing hands in the county:  the Ladies recruited sons and husbands as necessary, garbed them accordingly in mostly handmade clothing of their celebrated period, and appeared in very-well-dressed, roving bands on the decorated street, singing Christmas carols, driving here and there in decorated carriages, to the delight of the winter visitors come to see the quaint little town and the scenic railway, and when you have a group of carolers in the attire of an earlier era, it’s possible you just might overlook an apple-cheeked young woman among them … a pretty woman with pale eyes, a woman the carolers didn’t recognize – but a woman who must be one of them, for she was dressed very properly, and besides, doesn’t she sing exquisitely?

Church that evening was anticipated; church that night was an Event:  not only was there a community supper at the Silver Jewel that night, there would be a live Nativity at the fore of the church, and the White Nuns would be up from the Rabbitville monastery to sing.

The congregation was still settling themselves into their pews, shaking hands, trading greetings, when a youthful voice in back declared, “I have no more room, but you may stay in my stable!”

The bright clink of coin, then the boy in the unbleached muslin robe turned to the door and declared “You donkeys stay outside!” – which brought a quiet titter rippling through the congregation, for they were pretty sure that wasn’t part of the rehearsed lines.

The young Mary and Joseph came down the aisle, carrying a child.

A very young child.

The anxious looking mother was almost fearful, looking around at all these strange faces, then looking at her child, holding the little one protectively, closely:  they made their way to the front of the church and carefully, gently, placed the swaddled, very young baby on a bed of fresh straw, in a manger standing up on crossbucked legs.

Jimmy wiggled happily, opened his ever-present sketchbook, bumped his father’s thigh with the back of his knuckles, and as Linn looked down on a flawless drawing, he blinked, surprised, for Jimmy wrote the date and time he drew it in the bottom corner.

He’d drawn this scene a full twenty-four hours ago.

Linn looked up at the young mother, down at the drawing, grinned.

The young father placed a hand to his chest, the young mother crossed her robed arms over her bosom, knelt.

From the sides, up between the ends of the pews and the walls, the White Nuns marched, singing:  their faces were veiled, their habits, spotless:  silver crucifixes swung from their belt-ropes, and they came to the front of the church, but did not approach the manger.

The Parson lighted a beeswax taper on his pulpit, ran his finger down the limp, much-turned page, smiled as he saw again the familiar words, and read.

Linn watched as the kneeling mother wept.

She bit her bottom lip, her tears were silent, but they were very real:  the young man with her either did not notice the quiver of her shoulders, or did not know what it meant:  he managed not to look bored, but not by much.

As a matter of fact he suddenly looked kind of surprised.

The church door opened with a BANG and a brindle mule walked in like he owned the place, followed by a half dozen sheep and a like number of grinning shepherd boys, and a huge, black, curly-furred dog:  the sheep weren’t quite sure where to go, but when they came to the end of the aisle, there was a wall of white to their left, a wall of white to their right, and so they stopped and milled uncertainly around the manger.

The Parson read again, read about the angels who announced the birth to the shepherds, and the White Nuns sang about angels on high, and about the time they were finished, the baby began to cry.

The young Mary looked at the child, almost panicked, then she picked up the little one, tried to soothe it.

Brindle-mule leaned over, snuffed the young one with flared nostrils, then leaned back, laid his ears flat and declared wee-HAAAW! – a loud, raucous bray, which startled the little one, and the first few rows could see sudden-wide eyes, and then a little mouth and waving arms, and in the shocked silence, they heard the laugh of a little child.

The mother bounced the child a little, and then she looked distressed:  she laid the child back in the manger, unwrapped it quickly, turned and said something to her Joseph, and he reached into his robe, pulled out a flat package.

“I’m sorry,” the young mother said, her voice almost pleading, “but he needs changed” – and she proceeded to change his diaper right there in the newly made manger, her moves sure, swift.

The shepherd boys were restless:  one, then another, pulled dog buscuits or carrots from under their robes, and one sheep, then another, sniffed something to be had, and began shamelessly bumming.

Not to be outdone, Brindle slashed his tail and snuffed loudly at a robed belly, and the laughing shepherd pulled out a carrot and fed it to the scavenging mule.

A fresh diaper, a little powder, a wrap-up in the swaddling blanket, the embracing arms of its Mama:  the child gave a happy little gurgle and laid his head against her, and she looked out over the congregation.

“I’m scared,” she said.  “We just came a distance and I don’t know anybody.  I’m only thirteen.  My baby is two weeks old and I don’t have any family.”

Brindle took a step closer, another, laid her big neck across the girl’s high back, her jaw over the girl’s right shoulder.

“I just changed my baby’s diaper in a manger.  I hear angels sing and I’ve been called crazy” – her voice quivered, as did her bottom lip – “and now I have to get married because being an unwed mother is a disgrace.”

She looked down at her child, looked up.

“He’s all I have now.”

She sat, lowering herself to the edge of the altar platform; her Joseph sat beside her, clearly uncertain:  he hadn’t been given a speaking part and to his knowledge, neither had she, and he had no idea how to play along with whatever role she was obviously improvising.

The Bear Killer gave a quiet “whuff” and the shepherd boys spread their arms, stirring the sheep into motion:  cloven hooves rumbled down the carpeted aisle, the sheep cascaded in a wooly flood down the church steps, where a waiting shepherd and his Australian shepherd dogs received the loaned-out woolies and headed them back down the street.

“Mary was only thirteen years old,” the Parson said quietly, his voice rich and full in the waiting hush: “she was pregnant and unmarried, and this was a disgrace in that day.  She married Joseph and barely made it to Bethlehem before she went into labor.

“I remember when my own wife was pregnant.”  He smiled a little.  “I remember how difficult it was for her to travel by car.  Imagine riding a donkey at nine months along.”  He saw several mothers in the congregation shake their heads.

“Neither Mary nor Joseph knew a soul there in Bethlehem.  They were strangers in a strange land, gone to be counted for the Imperial census so Caesar would know who and how much to tax.”  He hesitated, but refrained from any comparison to the modern day.

A shadow pushed through the back door, paced silently up the aisle:  he sat and looked at the girl holding the little baby, and the girl slid to the floor, and The Bear Killer cuddled up against her, lowered his big, blunt muzzle, snuffed at the restless child and gave him a companionable lick.

The Parson paused in his presentation and the pause was filled with a little child’s happy laughter.

The girl put her arm around The Bear Killer’s shoulder and leaned against him, and he laid his big head over and across her lap, and she drew a comfort from that, and then she smiled as she heard a familiar HAAAAWWWW! from without.

Jimmy looked at the Preacher, then at his Pa, and his spontaneous statement was heard to the furthest row:

“But Pa, I couldn’t find any donkeys!  Brindle was the closest I could come!”

 

That night the girl, still in her Mary’s robes, sat in a rocking chair in a room, upstairs in the Silver Jewel, nursing the sleepy little boy-baby.

One of the White Nuns sat with her, a quiet voiced Sister with a truly lovely voice; on the girl’s left, a huge, sinners-heart-black  mountain Mastiff sat, blinking sleepily,  looking around with an almost regal expression.

“You all sang so beautifully,” the girl whispered, hoping not to disturb her drowsy little boy.

“Especially for you,” came the quiet answer.

“I was so scared,” she admitted.  “I was … terrified.”

“Of being in front of the church?”

The girl shook her head.  “No.  No, I was … afraid …”

She looked down at the boy-baby, disengaged his grip, wiped his face, laid him over her shoulder, over a spit-rag, and patted his back gently.

“I’m not married.”

“Neither was Mary.”

“She was important.”

“And you’re not?”  She could almost hear the smile in the little nun’s voice.

“I’m just … I don’t … no.  I’m nobody.”

“You are somebody,” the white Sister corrected.  “You are the world to a little baby.”

The Bear Killer leaned over and quickly, briskly, washed the side of her face.

“The Bear Killer thinks pretty highly of you too.”  The little white nun tilted her head.  “Have you had supper?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Here.  I’ll rock him.  You slip downstairs and tell Daisy you’d like something. She’ll fix you up.”

“I …”  She looked distressed again.  “I can’t pay for all this.”

“I already have.”  She rose, brought her hands out of her sleeves, reached gently for the drowsy child.  “Now scoot.  Get something in you.”

The Bear Killer watched the young mother slip out of the room, heard her pace down the carpeted hall, down the stairs, still in her Mary’s garb.

The little nun looked down at the drowsy little boy, smiled behind her veil as he yawned a truly huge, sleepy-baby yawn, then she laid him up against her bosom, his face over her shoulder, and he laid his head against her and went almost immediately to sleep.

“Typical man,” the little white nun murmured.  “You’re like an old bear. You get your belly full, you get warm and you go to sleep.”

 

The Abbott knelt in the silence of their ornate old chapel.

The Rabbitville monastery had been built more than a century before; if you knew where to look, you could still see the fingerprints of the first of the Brethren to come to the area, left in wet clay as they formed the overlapping adobe shingles from native clay, bent the squared slabs over their thigh to get the correct curve.

The Abbott looked up at the painted statues, knowing them to be just that – representations, not idols, lifelike items to help focus the mind … but beautifully, lovingly done.

He remembered how scared the girl had been when she came to them, desperate, alone, with no one left in the world who might help her or take her in.

She’d given birth there in the Monastery, tended by the Sisters; she was healed enough to take the journey to Firelands, where she portrayed another scared girl who’d just given birth.

He smiled in the silence.

He hadn’t counted on the brindle mule making entry; he was surprised when the boys recruited local sheep for the night, he was grateful the White Nuns were flanked on either side of the altar rail, for their long white habits formed a visual wall the sheep did not try to challenge.

He chuckled when he remembered how the girl did not hesitate to change the child’s diaper.

Was He not as we? – was He not a little child once, and would His earthly Mother not have tended him quickly, gently, with the love her hands expressed?

The Abbott felt a hand on his shoulder, and one of the Sisters said softly, “Brother Abbott, the hour grows late, and we are here to continue Vigil.”

The Abbott smiled, nodded, rose.

“Thank you, Sister,” he murmured:  he bowed to the Host, turned, walked slowly down the aisle, bullhide sandals silent on the hand-laid stone floor.

Behind him, he heard the murmuring chant of the Sisters as they began their Vigil.

It was ever their custom that there should ever be prayer offered before the Altar, or at the very least, a watcher on Adoration.

He passed from the chapel, turned toward his own simple quarters.

The hour was late, and he was tired, but it was a good tired.

As soon as it became known that she was what she portrayed, there was an immediate offer, and if he was any judge, this young girl – victim of a drug slipped into her cider at an older sister’s dormitory party – this girl and her child would be almost immediately invited into a family and quite probably adopted as well.

Time would prove the Abbott correct on both counts.

He smiled a little as he relaxed and submerged into the dark lake of slumber, and as he did, he smiled a little, remembering the sight, and the sound, of a mule in church.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

88.  A FIDDLER HITS THE STREET

 

Gracie closed her eyes.

She’d done that when she played for the European masters, just before her rosined bow landed, feather-light, on her fiddle’s strings, just before curly back maple and a cherry wood neck sang for critical and experienced ears.

She knew that her playing would be judged, not by fellow musicians, not by fellow professionals, but by the lay public, and that this unpredictable audience, distracted by sight and by sound and by phones or tablets or gossip or a jab in the ribs, would not have the properly focused attention she was used to.

That didn’t matter.

When Gracie closed her eyes to play, she was playing for herself.

The singers were ranked in a semicircle behind her, hands folded properly in front, all watching the black-cloaked mountain fiddler.

She played “The Little Drummer Boy” alone, without accompaniment, and she did not think this odd, for she knew it was usually a solo performance for the first stanza, and then the singers or the drummers would come in at the second go-round.

The singers didn’t.

Neither did a drummer.

Something sharp, something in perfect time, something … like …

… castanets?

Gracie’s eyes snapped open, shocked, and a pretty young woman in a colorful Spanish flamenco dress, long-sleeved and lobster-tailed, raised her arms slowly, her head turned to the side, eyes downcast, the black, ridged castanuelas almost hidden in her palms.

Properly done, a flamenco is a delight to the eye as well as the ear:  it is a high-energy celebration of life, it is an electric discharge of the dancer’s energies:  but here … here, a black-eyed Mexican maiden, young and beautiful and blooming into womanhood, moved slowly, gracefully, respectfully, submitting herself entirely to the fiddle’s holiday song.

Her heels were hidden beneath her long skirt; they, too, drummed their counterpoint, a distinctly woody note in rhythmic contrast to the sharp, demanding, clattering rhythm of fingers against hand-worked hardwood:  had Gracie any doubts as to her lay audience’s reactions, she need not have worried:  people gravitated to her performance, to the silent semicircle of costumed singers behind her, to the nearly motionless maiden playing her counterpoint to Gracie’s fiddle’s voice.

Gracie was sure she’d never seen the girl before:  her fingers had eyes, they knew her fiddle’s neck like a lover, and the disconnected part of her mind sang with her fiddle:  a small, detached part of her thought processes compared the girl to a mental file of people she knew, and came up empty.

Gracie closed her eyes again, changing her tempo slightly, played a little more softly, following the song’s intent, and the Mexican maiden stayed with her:  when Gracie began playing more forcefully, the maiden’s heels became more commanding, her hidden drumming a deeper staccato, contrasting powerfully with the almost delicate clatterbites of her castanets.

Gracie tapered her song off, and the maiden gentled the sharp voice of her rhythms, and just before she spun, and danced away between the silent singers behind, she flashed Gracie a look, the look of a woman who knows a secret, the look of a woman who is telling another woman something important, and without words.

Gracie felt her stomach tighten just a bit as she did.

The black-eyed Mexican maiden’s eyes were suddenly very pale.

They were suddenly the color of a mountain glacier’s heart, and then she was gone.

 

To the general inquiries from the lay public, from native and tourist alike, the Ladies’ Tea Society would only say that they re-enact in that most romantic part of Firelands’ history, that they draw on the talents of their several members, that they were delighted the performance was enjoyable, but among themselves, there was considerable discussion and even speculation on who the Mexican dancer might be.

She was reportedly seen again, in the Silver Jewel tavern, performing on its small stage, and performing with considerable skill, her skirts inhibiting her dancer’s stockinged and rather shapely legs not in the least little bit:  her moves were smooth, practiced, and spoke of much practice, of a natural gift for the dance, and when the Ladies’ Tea Society heard she was in the Jewel, performing, they looked at one another, then with wordless accord crossed the street and flowed in a colorful crowd up the three steps and onto the boardwalk and through the ornate, heavy doors.

Gracie cased her fiddle and bow, closed the case and latched it:  she straightened, then blinked in surprise as something white and very close filled her vision.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, “I didn’t see you come up.”

The White Nun, her face fully veiled, tilted her head a little.

“You could use some hot chocolate,” she said, then turned, took a few steps, stopped.

She turned again.

“Coming?”

Gracie looked toward the Silver Jewel, decided if the singers wanted to thaw out, they could do so without her help.

Gracie followed the little white nun down the street, to the chrome-and-polished-quartz drugstore’s interior.

The little nun raised an arm, clattered a handful of change onto the countertop; the proprietor, counted it quickly, expertly, hit the big rectangular button on the old-fashioned cash register; a ding, a rumble, the drawer slid open and he cascaded coins into their respective sections, slid the drawer shut.

The waitress was already headed for their table, a steaming mug of marshmallow-topped hot chocolate in each hand.

How did she do that?  Gracie wondered, then dismissed the question.

It was chilly out, it was warm inside, and hot chocolate to help her thaw was most welcome.

“Were you one of the Sisters in church last night?”  Gracie asked, and the little white nun lifted her veil, took a tentative sip of marshmallow-topped cocoa.

“Yes,” she almost whispered.

“I have never heard better,” Gracie said wistfully.

“There is no surround sound like standing in the middle of a hundred-voice choir,” the nun said, and Gracie could hear the smile in her voice.

“I know.”  She took a long breath, remembering what it was to play as part of an orchestra.

“Would you know …”  Gracie began tentatively, then frowned, looked down at her cocoa as if she hadn’t seen it before:  she took a careful sip, took another, licked at the white fluff on her upper lip.

“Here.”  The little white nun handed her a napkin and Gracie wiped at the fluff.

“Thank you.”

“You were asking about the flamencerita.”

Gracie nodded.

“I know her.”

“I didn’t … I don’t recognize her.”

The proprietor watched as the little white nun lifted her face veil long enough to take another ship, then she lifted it further, and he saw Gracie’s eyes widen and her face went kind of pale.

The nun lowered her veil and turned toward the proprietor, lifted the corner of her veil, and he saw the terrible scar running from the corner of one pale eye down across her face, an ugly ditch of horror that curved back down her neck and disappeared into the high collar of her habit.

“I used to sing opera,” she said sadly, her free hand sketching a cut throat jerk across the front of her throat, then she lowered her veil and turned back to the staring fiddler.

The door opened, its spring mounted bell ringing cheerfully as three of the Ladies came in, all decorated bonnets and fur muffs and long skirts:  they came scuttling back to Gracie’s table, red-cheeked with the cold and delighted with purpose.

“Gracie, your playing was magnificent!” they gushed, “and I’m so sorry we can’t find the girl that played with you in front of the Mercantile, but please, please could you play for us again?”
Gracie blinked, surprised, then drained the last of her cocoa, dabbed at a trickle that almost ran down from the corner of her mouth:  “Yes,” she said decisively, rising:  she bent to pick up her cased fiddle, looked across the table where the little white nun was sitting –

Gracie’s empty mug was on the table, and so was the nun’s; one of the Ladies tilted her head, curious, then reached down and grasped a rose from the empty seat across from Gracie.

“Oh how lovely,” she smiled, and Gracie stared at the flower, plucked from a seat that wasn’t empty a moment before.

“I, um,” she stammered, then cleared her throat, turned to the proprietor, busy polishing the chromed countertop.  “Thank you for the hot chocolate,” she called.

He looked up, smiled, nodded, went back to his burnishing.

Gracie followed the Ladies out, turned and took a look back.

The chair was still empty of the pretty young nun with the model’s face and the flawless complexion, the nun who looked at her with black eyes a mile deep, at least until she blinked, and then her face changed, and suddenly she looked very much like someone Gracie had seen before, someone who wore a yellow gown, someone with ice-pale eyes.

Gracie blinked rapidly, followed the ladies out into the cold, wondering if this was one of those things a body really wasn’t supposed to figure out.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

89.  THE DIRTY DOUBLE DOG DARE

 

Gracie handed Uncle the five-string banjo, pulled up a seat, dropped her elbow onto a knee and her chin on her knuckles.

Uncle glared at her, restless:  he’d been out and back, courtesy that damned German Crankin’ Wagon, and though he’d been pleased at standing up on one good leg, he’d been frustrated as hell because he wasn’t allowed to set any weight on that repaired leg.

The surgeon explained it in carpenter’s terms – the surgeon made cabinets, and good ones they were – and when he tried to compare the healing bone to a glue joint that wasn’t set up yet, Uncle snapped, “Didn’t you tell me you used epoxy in there?  Dammit to hell, man, epoxy ought to be set up in a half hour tops!” – which the surgeon had to agree was exactly right.

Gracie knew the man was prickly:  in spite of his years, sometimes he was as impatient as a beardless youth, and this was one of those times.

He’d been upright instead of on his back, he’d been hard headed, contrary and independent all of his life (not necessarily in that order), and she knew he’d need something to soothe his restless spirit.

There are times when a boy is helpful without lifting a hand, and this was one of those times.

One of the younger Maxwell lads sat down beside Gracie, studying the long neck of the banjo, the curve of Uncle’s skinny fingers.

“Well?”  Uncle demanded gruffly.  “You never seen one ‘a’ these before?”

Gracie smiled a little, trying to hide the expression and having no success:  fortunately, Uncle was scowling at the lad, and the lad was not fooled by the old man’s sour expression.

“Well, dammit, get up here and I’ll show ye.”

The boy used the lowered siderail as a step – like he was stepping on the rung of a ladder – he clambered in beside Uncle, and the old man shifted in the hospital bed.

“Now y’see,” he said confidentially, lowering his head a little and to the side, as if he were sharing a grand secret – “there’s all the music in the world in here” – knife-trimmed fingernails tapped the calfskin head – “all ye gots to do is rassle with it til you find it!”  He looked up at Gracie and challenged her with his expression.  “Ain’t that right, Gracie?”

“That’s right, Uncle,” Gracie said quietly, then she, too, addressed the boy:  “Uncle here is a jug fiddler.”

“Huh?”

“He’ll set down under a shade tree with a jug and a fiddle and he’ll rassle with it til either he can play it, or the jug is empty.  That’s how he learned fiddle.  He did the same thing with that very five-string.”

Uncle’s fingers were restless; Gracie reached over, handed him a thumb pick and a finger pick, and Uncle grinned happily.

“Now I kin get somethin’ done,” he muttered.  “Gracie, fetch up yer fiddle.”

Uncle set a rhythm – he played a roll, repeated it twice, then looked over at Gracie as she tucked the curlyback fiddle under her chin.

“Gracie, what’s attair train whistle sound like?”

Gracie grinned wickedly and stroked her bow across the strings, bringing a very train-whistle howl from the fiddle’s strings.

Uncle set a quick rhythm again, and Gracie followed it, and a young boy’s imagination heard a locomotive howling defiance at the hard-edged mountains.

A whiskered old man and a pretty young woman wove invisible magic in the room, laying steel tracks on gravel ballast and running a steam engine through their parlor, all through a skinny mountain man’s knot-jointed fingers and a hillrunning fiddler’s gift for drawing a voice from hand-glued curly maple, for singing with more than the human voice.

Outside, others of their blood stopped, and listened, for they were familiar with this magic, and they knew if there was music now, there would be more later, and they were right.

 

Good my Abbot, she began, stared at the gleaming-wet ink.

Her room was set up much as it must have been “back when” – except, of course, for the bathroom and shower – but it had the old-fashioned writing-desk, its pens were all steel nib dip pens, and there was a bottle of ink socketed into the slanted top.

She swallowed, her carefully ordered words scattering like a handful of maple seeds on a gust of wind.

She looked over at the little baby boy, bright-eyed, looking around, chewing on one hand while waving the other.

She blinked, dipped the pen again, carefully wiped it against the ink-bottle’s neck.

I have chosen a name for my son, she wrote.

I believe Joshua is a good name.

It has a history.

It is a big man-sized name but I think he will grow into it.

She considered the expanse of blank paper beneath her few lines, then forged ahead, wetting her pen after every few letters.  It forced her to slow down, it forced her to focus her thoughts, clarify her scampering ideas, condense them and then pluck them free of her mind and set them, one at a time, one letter at a time, onto good rag paper.

There are good people here.

I am already invited into a couple’s home.

Their son was killed and they said the house is terribly empty these days, and they said they’d be most pleased if I were part of their lives.

Sister Mercurius approves of them.

I trust her judgement.

Good my Abbot, thank you.

Sister Mercurius has been a most capable guide.

I must close, for they are come to take me home.

All my love,

Miriam

 

Chief of Police Will Keller smiled a little as he looked at the young woman, asleep in what had been his son’s bed.

He’d scared up a crib, but the child was wrapped – swaddled – and laid contentedly against his young Mama’s ribs.

His very young Mama’s ribs.

Will and his wife had talked long into the night about taking them in – possibly adopting them both – and the challenges (Will made a face at the word) of raising a seventh grader who was already a mother.

They talked it over and they enumerated the difficulties and the drawbacks and they considered their budget and how they’d have to make changes – food, clothing, school supplies, not to mention diapers, a growing baby’s constantly outgrowing his clothes – and after talking it over seven ways from Sunday, they both agreed.

Will looked at his wife and she looked at him and they both said, “Yes.”

 

The Abbot looked up from the handwritten note, looked up at the ornate altar, back to the note, and he smiled a little.

One of the Sisters turned toward him.  “Good news?” she asked, her voice low, musical.

The Abbot smiled.  “Very good news,” he replied.  “Miriam …”

“Miriam,” the diminutive nun said thoughtfully.  “In our language, Mary.”

“She has chosen a name for her son.”

“And that is …?”

“Joshua.”

“Yeshua,” the nun replied.  “Fitting for the season, wouldn’t you say?”

The Abbott stopped, astonishment washing across his face like a cloud across the full moon.

“Yeshua,” he whispered, his throat tight.  “Which we know as …”

The Abbot sank slowly into a pew, looked at the high Altar.

“And this time of year.”

The little nun tilted her head slightly and he could feel the smile hidden behind the white silk veil.

“Miracles happen at Christmas,” she said softly, “and this is one of them.” 

The veiled nun took a step closer.

“Abbot, I happen to know the adoptive couple.  They’ll make fine parents again.”

 

“Out with it,” Linn said gently.  “What happened?”

Jimmy sat on the hay bale, looking like he’d lost his last friend.

Linn sat beside him, their hips touching; his arm was around his son’s shoulders.

“Your Mama said your shirt was filthied at the elbows and wore through on the left sleeve.”

Jimmy nodded.

“She said you’d pretty well ruined the knees in your brand new jeans, too.”

He nodded again, feeling as miserable as he looked.

“And there was dirt inside your waistband, and your belt buckle was all scratched up.”

Jimmy turned a little and looked up at his Pa, distress in his expression and misery in his voice.

“Pa,” he said, “you know that culvert that runs from the corner behind the second tree, it runs under the road and comes out behind the library?”

Linn nodded.

He knew the culvert.

“You went the length of it?”

Jimmy nodded, looked down, absolutely certain he was going to get the business end of a belt for his stupid stunt.

“Jimmy,” Linn said softly, “I crawled that same culvert when I was your age.”

Jimmy’s head snapped around, eyes big, distress replaced with astonishment.

“You what?”  he blurted, and immediately regretted his hasty words:  in days past, this would have gotten him slapped across the face, but his pale eyed Pa was not like that monster from his earlier life.

“Yep,” Linn nodded.  “As I recall, I scuffed hell out of my boots a-doin’ it, too.  Ruined a good pair of jeans.  Got enough dirt down the front of my pants … hell, I coulda planted an acre of corn in all the dirt I bulldozed down behind my belt, crawlin’ through that culvert.  Bloodied both elbows and my knees, and I think I run into twenty spider webs at least.”

“I didn’t hit no spider webs,” Jimmy mumbled.

“Jimmy.”  Linn’s hand was warm but not tight on his son’s far shoulder.  “Tell me what happened to make you go through that tunnel.”

Jimmy’s bottom jaw thrust out and he considered, then he looked up at his Pa again.

“Pa,” he said, “they dared me an’ I wouldn’t do it.”

Linn nodded.

“They double dared me an’ I wouldn’t.”

Linn nodded again.

“Then they dirty double dog dared me an’ …” 

His voice faded off and the woe on his face was quite plain.

“You went on a dirty double dog dare.”

Jimmy’s eyes fell to the floor again and he hung his head.

“Yes, sir,” he said in a very small voice.

“Jimmy, look at me.”

Linn’s voice was as quiet and as reassuring as the big arm laid across Jimmy’s shoulders:  warm, strong, but not confining.

“Jimmy, I wouldn’t go neither, not until they dirty double dog dared me!”

Jimmy looked up, surprised.

“Oh, yeah.”  Linn nodded, took a long breath, blew it out.

“Mama was not at all happy with me, and I don’t blame her.”

“No, sir.”

“You went on a dirty double dog dare.”

“Yes, sir.”

Linn nodded, rose.

“Well, let’s see about gettin’ those blue jeans patched, and I reckon we’ll see what can be done about attair out-at-the-elbows shirt.”

He looked down at Jimmy, winked.

“Us dirty double dog dare sorts gotta stick together!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

90.  THREE SETS OF HANDS

 

Marsha gripped the checkered walnut grips of a heavy barrel Smith & Wesson revolver.

She was a little surprised her hand wasn’t shaking.

It was dead still.

The revolver originally belonged to her husband’s dead wife, Crystal, the one who died of a brain tumor, the one who died screaming, insane at the last, her mind eaten alive by the monster inside her skull, the one that hid away when they did surgery and cut out as much of the glioblastoma as they could find.

The malignant monster laughed when the surgical excavation was packed with chemo wafers:  it grew again, shooting thin, malignant tendrils through her grey matter, reaching into her forebrain, until she was not herself anymore, she was someone … something … else.

Marsha knew this.

Marsha knew she’d beaten Will, she’d screamed and raged and clawed and said worse than terrible things, words that cut him like a blade, and she knew the woman’s death was a relief to the pale-eyed Police Chief.

Marsha found the revolver and she remembered seeing Crystal shooting it at the range, and so she took it out to the range and got familiar with it

To her delight, she shot it very well.

The pale-eyed Sheriff quietly introduced her to the art of defensive pistolcraft, telling her quietly that sometimes a husband was exactly the wrong one to teach the art; she took his suggestion and listened closely to his quiet voiced explanations, and she found she had a natural aptitude for putting the mild wadcutter rounds through the silhouette target’s face.

Crystal gripped the revolver with the glass-smooth double-action pull and raised it, centered the blade in the notch, willed the sights to stillness as the cylinder rolled around of its own accord.

 

Gracie’s hands gripped the curlyback fiddle and her rosined bow:  she frowned a little at Uncle’s question.

“The hardest,” she said, “was Paganini.”

“Why’s that?”

“The professors didn’t want me to succeed,” Gracie said with a straightforward frankness:  Uncle heard the bitterness behind her words, but knew this was the time to listen, not to comment.

“They were not happy that I could ricochet.”

Uncle smiled a little:  he, too, liked to bounce his bow off the strings, for particular emphases during particular parts of a tune.

“I was the first to master five bounces one way and one the other … and when I played Paganini’s difficult runs flawlessly, they were most unhappy with me.”

Uncle nodded.

“There was an Irish girl … she loved hearing me play, and she delighted in listening to a fiddle instead of a violin, and she asked if she could play mine.  We traded, and I showed her that an Irish fiddle could sound like it came from the mountains.”

“What does an Irish fiddle sound like?”  Uncle asked curiously.

Gracie laughed.  “Like this,” she said, and played a quick little air of a distinctive style.  “Then there’s the Swedish style” – another air – “and several others.”

She gripped the cherrywood neck and closed her eyes, and played several bars of a Strauss waltz:  Uncle saw her smile a little, and she stood and played some more, swaying as she played, dancing without moving out of her footprints, and Uncle saw the same quiet joy on her face that he’d seen on Old Gracie’s face.

 

Miriam’s fingers were spread, gripping her child with a desperation she hadn’t felt before:  she twisted a little, a mother’s instinctive move to protect her young, as the tweaker screamed “GIMME YER MONEY AN’ YER PHONE!”

He raised his hand, and with it a pistol, and Marsha’s sights were steady on that little spot behind his left earlobe and she said “Excuse me,” like any polite individual might.

He turned, teeth bared in a snarl, his pistol coming around with him, and Marsha was surprised to see a hole appear in the middle of the upper lip, right below his nose, and he fell like a baggie of ground meat, the tape-wrapped handle of his stolen pistol falling from suddenly nerveless fingers.

Marsha’s gun muzzle followed the tweaker down and she took a few slow steps forward.

“Miriam,” she said, “get behind me.”
Miriam swallowed, then realized – she wasn’t going to be shot – she was safe – she could breathe again – panicked, she ran over the dead druggie’s legs, ran behind Marsha, cowered up against her, crushing her Joshua to her.

Marsha stood there for several long moments, her stomach falling about two miles or so, and she realized she really, really had to go to the bathroom, and she was probably going to be in more trouble than she’d ever been in, and then a mother’s rebellion rose in her and she started getting mad, and she drew the pistol back in close, the way the Sheriff had shown her, and she bent over a little and screamed, “NOBODY SHOOTS MY DAUGHTER!”

 

Gracie’s hands laid her fiddle back in its case, then they caressed Uncle’s hands, brushed his cheek affectionately, kneaded dough for the sweet rolls her men loved:  Miriam unwrapped her son’s swaddling, then changed his diaper, occasionally rising to shakily wipe at her damp cheek with the back of a bent wrist.

Marsha’s hands were absolutely steady as her husband strode from the gleaming, waxed, spotless white Crown Victoria with red-and-blue roof lights spitting alarm:  she looked at Will, handed him a dead woman’s revolver, handle first, and the her hands reached for him, for it was safe for her to be just Marsha again.

Three sets of hands … one set sang for joy, one set tended a wee child, one set kept her young safe.

Womans’ hands, mothers’ hands, all expressing the woman behind them.

 

“You want my department to investigate,” Linn asked quietly, “or do you want to bring in the state boys?”

“You’ll do fine,” Will said quietly:  “Marsha trusts you, and so do I.”

Linn nodded.  “Reckon we’ll get busy and process the scene, then.”

“Linn?”

Linn turned, raised an eyebrow.

“Thank you.”

“Oo-kaaay … for what?”

Will smiled grimly.  “Take a look at that entrance wound.”

Linn turned, took a couple steps, squatted, nodded, looked up at Will.

“You taught her to shoot.”

Linn nodded again.

“From what she’s told me already, sounds like your teachin’ kept Miriam alive, and likely Joshua as well.”

Linn rose, raised a summoning hand.

“We’ll get started on processing, we’ll get the carcass to the morgue and let the coroner work his magic.  Be curious to know who this John Doe is.”

“I’ve seen him around.  Damned druggie, I know that.”

“Yeah.”  Linn’s expression was bleak. 

 

Connie knew when Linn was troubled.

He tended to go tend the horses, he’d groom them down, he’d check their hooves, he’d scrape the stalls, he’d throw down fresh straw.

Connie was convinced if her husband was unhappy enough, he’d likely sand and paint the interior and maybe throw a coat of paint at the exterior while he was at it.

Jimmy came down to the barn, .22 rifle in hand; he parked the bolt action single shot against a post and set down on a bale of hay.

His Pa looked at him, parked his hay fork and set down with him.

They looked out the open door, out into the pasture, they smelled hay and cold air and molasses, and finally Linn ran his arm around Jimmy’s shoulders and said quietly, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Jimmy leaned against his Pa’s reassuring solidity and nodded.

“I took another look at that manger you drew.”

He felt Jimmy’s head change its tension against him and he knew the lad was listening.

“How’d you know what it looked like ahead of time?”

“You mean with the straw and the sheepses and the shepherds and the Wise Men?”

“That, and the White Nuns behind.”

Jimmy looked up at his Pa with that quick boyish grin of his, and somehow Linn was not terribly surprised when he said “The Pretty Lady showed me!”

Linn nodded.

“Pa, what’ll happen to Aunt Marsha?”

“I reckon she’ll be no-billed, Jimmy.”

“What’s a no-bill?”

“That’s when the investigators tell the court what happened, and the court decides it was the right thing to do, and they formally announce they won’t issue a bill of indictment against her.”

“Oh.”  Jimmy leaned against his Pa again.

“How come she shot him, Pa?”

“He was going to shoot Miriam and Joshua.”

“Why?”

“He wanted what she had.  Trouble is, their kind tend to shoot folks anyway.  I’m seeing more and more of that.  They’ll demand their proud-ofs and shoot ‘em before they can be handed over, if they do hand it over they still get shot.”

Jimmy shivered.  “Are they gonna come here, Pa?”

“I can’t say they won’t, Jimmy.  No sane and rational soul is going to come around here.  You recall those silhouette targets I’ve got by the driveway.”

Jimmy grinned.  He knew the targets; he and his Pa took turns dinging them with one rifle or another.

“Folks see those and they see the lead splatter and they know not to come around or I’ll treat them like those steel plates.”
Jimmy nodded, puzzled.

“Druggies don’t care.  They are neither sane nor are they rational.  They’ll go up against a blowtorch if they think they can get money for drugs.”

Jimmy shivered.

He’d been burnt by a blowtorch and carried a scar across his belly to prove it, a shiny, half-puckered patch of scar tissue that still featured in nightmares, a souvenir of a previous administration that made the Sheriff wish he had a whole bushel basket of money so he could pay the Witch of Endor to raise that evil son of Old Nick that burnt Jimmy as punishment one time, so he, the Sheriff, could treat said monster to his own lengthy and most painful brand of very personal justice.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Jimmy?”

“Pa, do you reckon Miriam was scared?”

Linn’s big hand tightened reassuringly, gently, around Jimmy’s upper arm, pulled him a little closer.

“I reckon she was,” he admitted. 

“Did she cry?”

“I don’t reckon there was time.”

“Will she be okay?”

Linn considered.

He almost said that children are resilient, then he realized that Miriam – for all her youth – must be a woman grown in Jimmy’s eyes.

“I reckon she will, Jimmy.  She knows her new Mama will take care of her no matter what.”

Jimmy nodded.

He looked over to the rifle parked against the post.

It was a twin for the one he’d used to punch the ticket of an armed intruder who came through the kitchen window and was seeking prey in Jimmy’s house.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Jimmy?
“Will I go to hell for killin’ that guy?”

“The one you shot from the top landing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No, Jimmy, you most certainly will not.”  Linn pulled slightly away, turned, gripped both Jimmy’s shoulders, gave him an intense look.

“Jimmy, Scripture does not say ‘Thou shalt not kill.’  Well, some do but that’s not an accurate translation.”

“It isn’t?”

“No.  It more properly says, ‘Thou shalt do no murder.’  What you did was not a murder, Jimmy.  It was a salvation.”

“A salvation?”

“Exactly that.  You saved your Mama and your youngers from whatever killin’ that armed intruder had in mind.  You acted to keep your family safe, Jimmy.  You acted to keep them all safe!”

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said in a small voice, then:  “Sir?”
“Yes, Jimmy?”

“How old were you when you killed for the first time?”

Linn smiled a little.  “I was a little older than you,” he admitted.  “But I wasn’t smokin’ see-gars yet!”

 

Gracie’s hands twitched the wrinkles out of Uncle’s quilt, tucked the hand sewn cloth in around the man’s shoulders.

Marsha’s hands brushed a curl of hair back from Miriam’s forehead, the gentle, careful touch of a mother who remembered what it was like to be a tall girl.

And Miriam’s hands were spread wide over her baby’s back as she fed the growing little boy, and she smiled as Marsha draped a blanket over them to keep them both warm as they sat in the rocking chair beside the big, upright, cast iron stove.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

91.  “UNCLE, I HAVE THE PAPER”

 

The Firelands Gazette was owned, operated and managed by one woman, Marsha Keller, wife of Chief of Police Will Keller.

The Firelands Gazette was a weekly and enjoyed a worldwide circulation that generally extended to the county line but not much further (if you did not count a certain aircraft carrier, or an extraplanetary colony, of course.)

The Editor-in-Chief, setup person, photographer, janitor and writer – that is, Marsha – found herself being contacted by a variety of news outlets, all wanting to put their particular spin on her recent deadly experience.

When the first call came in, she was quick enough to demur:  “I’m sorry, but I must consult with my attorney before making any public statement.”

This, of course, was seized upon as prima facie evidence that she was hiding something, or there was a cover-up, for decent people didn’t go around shooting folks at random.

After the sixth or seventh call, after people skilled at their art tried to get her to say something that would make a good sound-bite on the evening news, Marsha hung up, turned off the ringer, dropped her forehead in her hands and thought about it.

She looked at the blank, glowing screen on her desktop monitor.

I have to say something, she thought.

I have a newspaper to run and my readers will expect it to be out on time.

Marsha set her jaw, heard the answering machine click, glared at the blinking green light that meant she had an incoming call, then she adjusted her keyboard slightly and began to type.

 

Gracie stomped the snow from her boots, wiped the lug soles carefully on the upturned boot brush kept on the back porch for that purpose, then unlaced her boots and thrust into felt snowmobile boot liners.

Someone told her back East that in upper Michigan, her classmate routinely wore the felt liners for house shoes, and Gracie found them suitable as well.

She waved the fresh-from-the-Mercantile copy of the Gazette.

“Uncle, I have the paper!”  she called.

Uncle grunted sourly, which meant he was happy to hear the news and looked forward to Gracie coming in to read it to him.

 

 

A pale-eyed Lieutenant sat down with her electronic tablet and a mug of coffee.

She looked up and smiled as another of the helo pilots sat a pastry on a saucer beside her coffee.

“It’s been a while since breakfast, Max.  Thought you might like that.”

Lieutenant Sarah Lynne Maxwell smiled and thanked him for his kindness, frowned at her tablet, swiped the screen, swiped it again, began to read.

Her co-pilot, seated across from her, saw her jaw drop and her eyes widen.

“Max,” he said carefully, “is everything all right?”

Max swallowed, opened her mouth, looked up.

“A friend of mine,” she began, then looked at the screen, slid her finger slowly down the smooth glass face.  “Here.  Let me read it to you.”

 

Chief of Police Will Keller frowned, his finger laid over his military-neat, carefully-trimmed mustache:  he’d abandoned the attempt at growing a handlebar and instead trimmed his mustache with a draftsman’s precision, exactly as wide as his upper lip, exactly as long as the edge of his lip.

His nephew Linn’s handlebar was thick, rich, luxurious, with a gloriously curved sweep.

Will’s was as disciplined as the man who wore it.

Chief of Police Will Keller’s hand was cupped over his mouth, his index finger laid over his mustache; he frowned slightly as he read the Sheriff’s report – he always frowned when he read something carefully – and finally he nodded.

The report was clear enough, and was supported by two surveillance camera records.

His wife had indeed acted to defend herself or her immediate family; the deceased had indeed raised a gun toward Miriam and her baby; Marsha had no other choice than to use deadly force in order to prevent her immediate family from being killed or grievously injured, and she held fire until that deadly force was safely away from mother and child and was coming to bear on her.

Will leaned back in his chair, looked up at the framed portrait of his pale eyed sister, standing beside her Jeep, one hand on the fender, her jacket open, just showing the dark line that marked the front of a holster:  the pistol’s dark-charcoal handle was invisible in the jacket’s inner shadow, but he knew it was there, for she’d outshot him any number of times with that particular piece.

“Sis,” he said out loud, “I wish you were here.  I miss you!”

He looked down at the report, frowned again.

“The only problem I can see right now … we’ve only just started formal adoption proceedings and some shyster slicker might try to argue Marsha was protecting a third party and therefore not covered under the self defense statute.”

He dropped the report to the desktop, closed his eyes, rubbed the closed lids.

“She said she’s all right, Willa,” he muttered, “but dammit, she’s … killin’ someone is hard on a decent person.”  He looked back up at the portrait, as if expecting an answer, as if hoping for a reply.

“I wish you were here!”

 

“Never mind all that,” Uncle snapped peevishly.  “What’s the editorial say?”

Gracie turned the page, snapped the paper full open, folded it back, folded it again.

“A Mother’s Decision,” Gracie began.

 

On board a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, Lieutenant Sarah Maxwell began to read aloud for her crewmates, and for those curious souls who began to crowd around her, sensing some serious message from home:

“A Mother’s Decision.”

 

Uncle grunted; the nurse leaned forward, elbows on her pantsuited knees.

“There is nothing easy about taking a human life,” Gracie read aloud.

“There is a worse choice, however – the choice to do nothing, and to lose one of your own because you did nothing in the face of a deadly threat.”

Her voice was quiet, her words carefully enunciated; Uncle’s eyes were hard and very blue as they stared at the folded paper, at his beloved mountain fiddler, at the calm, controlled expression on her clean-scrubbed face.

“No mother worthy of the name would not bear Heaven’s rage or a mountain cat’s wrath against someone trying to kill her child.

“When the moment presents, the right thing to do must be done quickly, before a life is lost.

“When a law enforcement officer fires a weapon, he will commonly say under oath that he responded as he was trained.

“I did that, and more.

“I saw my daughter and my grandson about to be killed, and so I stopped the monster who raised a weapon against them, and I stopped him by the only means I had.

“I will carry that terrible knowledge for the rest of my life.

Even though I did the right thing, even though my decision means two souls will live, I now bear the mark of Cain.

“Already I’ve been called murderer, savior, monster, hero:  everyone has an opinion and any number of people have told me what they would have done in that situation.

“A word of advice, folks:  I was there.  Nobody else was there to help me.  The police were minutes away and I did not have minutes, or even a minute.  Had I reached for my cell and made the call, two souls would be dead and perhaps me as well, killed to silence any witnesses.

“The police respond at sixty miles per hour.

“My decision responded at one thousand feet per second.

“I did not choose to kill someone.

“I chose to save two lives.

“I used the only means available to me, and that means was a .38 special Smith and Wesson revolver.

“Now it is up to the courts to decide if they believe I was justified, but I know this:  my daughter lives, my grandson is alive, and they breathe air because I made a choice, and I cannot be convinced that it was not the right choice to make.”

 

The Master Chief rested a heavy hand on Max’s shoulder.

“What happened, Max?” he asked quietly, having stood behind her and listened to every carefully-pronounced word she read from her glowing screen.

“Someone I know from back home, Master Chief.  Marsha had to kill someone.”

“Damn,” the Master Chief whispered hoarsely, and she felt his hand, warm and firm on her shoulder, the wordless squeeze saying ever so gently those things for which he had no voice.

 

Gracie’s voice was not the only one to read Marsha’s words aloud.

They were read aloud at the trial following; they were read aloud in the Silver Jewel, and in the barbershop, in the bakery and in the Mercantile, in the gas station and the firehouse and in special meetings of the Sheriff’s office and the police department both.

Both Will and Linn said very much the same thing, when they addressed their assembled troops to fill everyone in on the genuine skinny and put to rest any misinformation or rumor:  both men quoted Willamina and her discussion of a sniper of her acquaintance:  she’d said “People always asked him how many people he’d killed, but they never, ever asked how many lives he’d saved.” 

Both pale eyed lawmen held up the weekly paper before their troops, tapped the editorial with a curved forefinger.

“This,” Will said, “says it the best of any I’ve ever heard,” and in his own meeting, Linn said almost exactly the same thing.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

92.  LETTERS TO AND FROM HOME

 

Uncle was laughing when the boys from the Crankin’ Wagon wheeled him in through the back porch, stopping to broom snow from the wheels and the undercarriage before they wheeled Uncle through her kitchen.

Gracie looked up from her papers, her notebook, her ledger-book, from her calculator:  every morning she consulted her laptop and balanced the checkbook – a habit she’d developed when a pencil error ran an overdraft, and she felt so humiliated that she’d developed this new habit: as soon as the breakfast dishes were done, and before aught else, she balanced the checkbook.

She made her final notations, gathered her goods in a neat stack, stood as Uncle waved a long white envelope.   “It’s a thick’un, Gracie!” he crowed.  “Sarah sent me a letter!”

 

Linn hit SEND and felt a vague disappointment.

There was no sound, no swoosh, no image of an envelope launching from the corner of his laptop’s screen, to curve majestically into a suddenly-appearing aperture showing limitless black space and stark-silvery-white stars:  no, he hit SEND, and that was it:  his information, his words, his pictures, his scanned sketches and the weekly Firelands newspaper all launched into the cloud, or the ether, or into the electronic mystery that was modern communication.

Personally, the Sheriff preferred the written word; he had a fondness for sitting down and putting his words on good rag paper, sealing them with shellac-brittled red beeswax and a very old wax seal that he pressed carefully into the cooling wax, to leave the relief image of a rose … the metal stamp was well older than he, and he suspected it was nearly as old as Firelands:  it was heavy, it was well made, and he cherished it, knowing his honored ancestors had used it, and used it often.

Marsha joked with the Sheriff about her weekly newspaper having a worldwide circulation, at least to the edges of the county, and the Sheriff laughed politely at her joke, but as he saw here and stared at the blank screen, he thought of the trouble he’d taken to scan the weekly Firelands Gazette into a memory stick, and then load that into the letter he’d written his daughter on Mars; he thought of Jimmy’s sketches he’d scanned, and attached in like manner; he considered that, since the far-off interplanetary settlers named their community Firelands … well, maybe Marsha wasn’t so far off the mark after all, with her remark about a worldwide circulation.

Marnie does so enjoy letters from home, he thought, and with the thought, he smiled.

 

Gracie closed the roll top desk, safely encasing her carefully-kept ledger, her notebook, her calculator and the checkbook:  she turned to the grinning Uncle as he picked up a Barlow knife, thumbnailed it open and slit the envelope.

Gracie could see the ship’s logo, taking up one end of the envelope:  she reached in her apron pocket, felt an envelope of her own, one with the blue NASA logo in the upper left corner:  she’d received a letter, too, but she was content to let Uncle triumph at having gotten a letter from “His Girl,” the far-away Maxwell who flew from a carrier deck instead of putting running footy-prints on a snowy Colorado mountain.

Uncle pulled out the hand-written pages and began to read, quickly at first, then with wide-eyed absorption, and then an expression of dismay.

Gracie sank into the chair beside Uncle’s hospital bed, her knees pressed tightly together, hands clasped anxiously together, as her Uncle read the words inscribed by their blood kin, and as Gracie read the resultant distress on her Uncle’s smooth-shaven face.

 

Lieutenant Sarah Lynne Maxwell studied the Luftwaffe pilot with an unaccustomed frankness.

She’d gotten liberty, she’d been introduced to a Teutonic warrior not much taller than she – pilots are generally not terribly tall, as the interior of a cockpit is much less than generous in size – and the two of them, as pilots worldwide are wont to do, began discussing flight.

A common element among pilots is that they love to fly.

Pilots, in general, absolutely, positively, passionately, LOVE to fly! – to strap on wings and power and speed and launch themselves into the heavens, to slice through the invisible world that is the overlaying ocean of air, to blast through clouds like a giant’s fist through a mountain, to yank the stick and burn a hole in the sky with stainless-steel turbines screaming behind them, to turn and bank and loop at speeds no fleshly creature ever achieved!

Hans Lukas, for that was the Leutnant’s name, walked with her to a restaurant he favored: she was out on liberty with a half-dozen officers, and she had the sneaking suspicion she’d been set up on a date by her fellows (she was right), but she’d also noticed every German officer she’d ever met was immaculately polite, very correct, absolutely courteous, and the very example of the worn-out phrase,  “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

Hans Lukas was both.

He also looked really, really good in his class A uniform, and she could tell from the way he, and others in the cozy, wood-toned restaurant looked at her, that she looked just as good.

Sarah – or Max, as her peers knew her – was a superb pilot; she did not so much fly her Sea Stallion as much as she became the Sea Stallion:  in war gaming, when her big black bird was fitted with simulated munitions, she was nothing short of deadly; he accuracy with the chain-gun pod was legendary, and her Master Chief – a man notoriously hard to please – said on more than one occasion that if it was possible to perform surgery with a Hellfire missile, his Lieutenant Max could!

As superb a pilot as she was, as deadly a warrior as she was, she was equally pleased to be feminine (at the right times) and to look like the good-looking woman she was (at the right times), and tonight was one of those times.

A stein of good German beer loosened her up to the point that she and Hans were leaning closer to one another, hands animated in the universal language of pilots: Hans’ command of English was excellent – American English, in particular, is the worldwide language of aviation – and their conversation naturally turned to fixed-wing vs. rotary-wing.

Somewhere between the first and second course, Hans gave Max an assessing look, and he seemed to come to some decision:  they left together and disappeared into the German night, and she wasn’t seen again until her Master Chief came to the police station to get her.

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller clenched her jaw and pounded determinedly on the treadmill, set at running speed; she wore a weight vest, she wore weights on her ankles, she carried cast-stone weights, one in each hand, and she knew she was sweating off too much water, but she also knew the steady airflow would be recycling her evaporated perspiration through the condensers, and what she sweat out today she would probably be drinking in an hour.

She tried not to think where her water came from.

Of necessity, everything – everything! – was recycled; they had certain technologies that could rip matter apart at the subatomic level, and reassemble it into whatever elements they needed; they were still learning its complexities, and found they could manufacture compounds, instead of taking the trouble to mix the oxygen and hydrogen and burn it off in a clean flame to capture the water that was the product of this combustion.

Marnie looked at the treadmill display; her running goal was half again more than what her physician husband calculated:  she was damned and damned again if she was going to lose bone mass and muscle mass like the less dedicated settlers.

If she ever went back to Earth, she did not want to collapse after a short walk, nor did she want to spontaneously break a hip:  no, she knew stressed bones are stronger bones, and her exercise regimen was little short of strenuous.

There were a few, but very few, among the colonists who drove themselves with the utter lack of mercy, with the single-minded focus, of their pale-eyed Sheriff:  she let herself be seen bench pressing weights that were difficult on Mars, that would be almost impossible on Earth:  her speed and accuracy with a variety of punches, kicks and chops was known and well known, and they’d even managed to 3D-print a weighted plastic replica of her .38 Smith & Wesson revolver, and install a laser, such that she could cycle the action and fire a beam at a sensor plate – a great savings, as each round of ammunition was unbelievably expensive to freight in from Earth!

Marnie’s hair was Marine-short, she wore it like her legendary grandmother wore hers, and indeed she bore more than a passing resemblance to the late Sheriff Willamina Keller: Marnie showered and dried off, powdered herself and slid into her white Olympic skinsuit with the silver, six point star embossed over the swell of her left breast, the star that said, simply, SHERIFF.

Marnie tapped the dispenser, the little plastic door slid up, she reached in and withdrew a bottle of water:  she twisted off the lid, tilted up the bottle, drained a half liter before she came up for air.

The next sixty seconds saw the other half liter gurgle down the hatch, the bottle and lid back into the recycler, and the Sheriff disappear into her office.

Another sixty seconds and a happy yelp could just be heard from behind her closed office door:  in three minutes thirty seconds, all available personnel were gathered in the mess hall, for the Sheriff got a letter from home, and hers generally had their weekly paper and other stuff, and when the Sheriff got a letter, it was an anticipated event that guaranteed she would have absolutely no privacy in reading it.

 

“Gracieee …”  Uncle said slowly.

“Uncle,” Gracie said quietly, “what happened?”

Uncle looked up.

“Sarah met someone.”

“She met someone?”

“Yeah.  He’s been stabbed and her Master Chief had to pick her up at the police station.”

Gracie’s hand slid inside her skirt and she gripped the handle of her bulldog .44.

“Did he hurt her?” she asked, a hard edge to her voice, and Uncle looked up.

“Maybe I better start over.”

 

It wasn’t a terribly long walk to the Luftwaffe base.

It was, however, through a populated area, and when you pack rats or people together, antisocial elements are spontaneous and inevitable.

A blond Teutonic warrior and a woman in uniform were suddenly stopped, the two hooded figures before them silent, at least until the gleaming blade of a spring knife snapped into view.

Sarah automatically turned.

“Two bogies aft,” she said quietly.

“Ja,” Hans replied, and the fight was on.

Sarah’s first move was to jerk her skirt almost up to her hips.

Her second was to drive the heel of her dress pump into the throat of the nearest attacker:  she was a dancer, and a good one:  a dancer is a study in perpetual motion, and she was.

Her opening pirouette flowed smoothly into a fast and merciless seizure – that is, she seized the incoming wrist and twisted her weight against the suddenly-extended elbow, bending it backwards, hard, fast and so unexpectedly that she felt it snap.

Two down, move on.

She saw Hans pick up one of the two – the one that had gotten too close to him and inherited a knee in the crotch for his troubles – the handsome, blue-eyed pilot was now an enraged, handsome, blue-eyed pilot, hauling his attacker overhead and slamming him into the ground.

The other one took off running.

Sarah had seldom felt her blood wake up.

This was one of those times.

Hans had the general impression of something with bared teeth and ice-pale eyes streak by him, not so much running by ground friction as an attack jet flying at low altitude.

His hand went to his chest, to the knife sticking out of his ribs.

“Scheist,” he swore, looking around, looking for more attackers, gripping the knife, ready to yank it out if he needed it as a weapon.

If Sarah was a fighter jet, she would have a target lock:  if she was her beloved Sea Stallion, she would be searing through the air with both turbines screaming at full wartime emergency on her attack run.

As it was, the fleeing attacker suddenly had the general sensation of being jumped by an African lioness.

Sarah reached over his head and clawed hard fingers deep into his eye sockets, snapping his head hard back as they went over in a tangle of legs and multilingual screams:  Sarah was a blazing series of fast and very sincere punches, chops and thrusts, and Hans watched in honest amazement – and admiration – as this diminutive American woman seized and absolutely devastated a man half again bigger than she.

Sarah rolled away from the bleeding, groaning attacker, came up on the balls of her feet:  her hat was gone, her white uniform bloodied and filthy, her stockings torn; one hand was bloodied, still clawed, her eyes wide, ice-pale, and the skin was drawn tight over her cheekbones.

Sarah threw her head back, raised her arms and screamed – the rage-scream, the battle-scream of a she-warrior, the heaven-shattering shriek of one of Odin’s daughters, gone to war, triumphant.

Lieutenant Sarah Maxwell, US Navy pilot, lowered her arms and saw Hans grip the switchblade’s handle and pull it out.

People were starting to gather, as they always do:  Sarah unbuttoned Hans’ jacket, opened it, seized his shirt and ripped it open without benefit of undoing its buttons.

She swore – suddenly, inelegantly – looked around, then looked at Hans.

“I need the plastic off a pack of cigarettes,” she said, her voice low and urgent.

Hans said something and somebody produced a pack.

He tried to remove the plastic wrapper, but his fingers were suddenly clumsy.

Sarah took it, pulled the wrapper free, held out the pack:  anonymous fingers plucked the cigarettes away and she tore open the plastic, placed it over the bubbling wound.

“I need tape,” she said.  “Duck tape, electric tape, anything.”

Hans shivered a little and started to collapse:  Sarah grabbed him, lowered him to his knees.

“DAMMIT TO HELL I NEED SOME TAPE!” she yelled, command voice coming naturally in this moment of need:  there was a muttering among the people surrounding, then the sound of running feet, the slam of a van’s door, and a roll of black electric tape was thrust at her.

Sarah taped the plastic on three sides.

“Hans, breathe in,” she said, her voice low and urgent.

The plastic sucked down against the wound.

“Now out, slowly.”

Hans breathed out; blood and air bluckered out from under the plastic.

Sarah’s head came up as she heard the brassy hee-haw, hee-haw of approaching sirens.

“The cavalry is coming, Hans,” she said, easing him down.  “Here.  Wounded side down, keep the blood from collapsing your good lung.”

“Mein Walküre,” he murmured gently, then he smiled a little and coughed and said, “The cavalry is coming.”  He smiled a little.  “Air Cavalry, of course.”

“Of course.”  Sarah was on her knees, her face close to his.

 

Uncle looked up from the lengthy letter.

“And that’s how she ended up in the police station,” he said.  “She told them Hans is a hell of a fighter.”
He smiled a little.

“She visited him in the hospital.  She said they treated her like royalty.”

“What about the German lieutenant?  Did she say how he’s doing?”

“She said he’ll be fine.”

Uncle grinned as he read the last page, laid it on the other pages on his blanket-covered lap, gave Gracie a knowing look.

“Hans told her she fights like a girl.”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

94.  CHRISTMAS

 

Space-suited men with remote grapplers watched as the remotes took over and the courier coasted in on its invisible Interstate from Earth.

The freight drone was a slow transport, its momentum built around Earth orbit, launched when the Moon (and its minor gravity well) was safely out of the way; it coasted at a far lower velocity than the higher priority shipments, than the passenger ships; if the regular freighters were the clipper ships to the Mars expedition, this was a barge, a scow, lumbering leisurely through space, bearing cargo that could take a slower trip.

Momentum was King with the freight scow, and heavier items could be sent:  the heavier items counted toward the ship’s overall mass, and though slow, it was steady and reliable, following the immutable laws of physics, aimed with mathematics, propelled with the accumulated velocity of multiple orbits around the home planet it was leaving behind forever, its destination a steady red spot of very dim light in the distance.

The retrieval team knew the scow was decelerated and on its decaying arc toward the Martian surface; they knew it would come down on a sandy plain; they knew the remote grapplers were responding to their commands, and yet they stared through their visors until their eyes burned, watched as something long and silvery streaked in low on the horizon, a huge parachute blooming behind it, retros flaring against the stark blackness:  it came in, skidded as it landed.

Other eyes watched the biomonitors for the suits, saw that every last man on the retrieval crew held his breath, saw that everyone started breathing again at nearly the same moment.

Crawlers sped across the plain, steelmesh wheels throwing up rooster tails of ancient oxidized sand, and crews began to load this long-awaited shipment onto sleds for the trip back to Firelands.

 

Jimmy stood back, his eyes big, staring at the lit-up Christmas tree against the ancient, smooth-finished wall, wrapped and colorful gifts piled under it.

He and his two-year-old brother came downstairs in their jammies, saw their grinning Pa and their smiling Mama and their baby sis happily hugging a rag doll on the couch.

Linn motioned them closer.

Wes wasn’t quite sure what to do, at least until the Sheriff looked at one tag, then another, picked up a wrapped box and held it out to the grinning two-year-old and said, "Open it, Wes!"

Wes hesitated a little, then his exploring fingers found a taped-down fold of paper, slid under and pulled:  he looked up, delighted at the sound and the feel of paper tearing, and shortly he'd ripped the package open and sat down, excited, laughing at the sight of a bright-yellow bulldozer in its display box.

Jimmy hung back, eyes big.

Linn picked up a box, exteded it to him:  Jimmy walked forward, almost numb.

He took the box and stared at it, then he looked up and stared, mesmerized, into the depths of the tree, the colored lights, the reflections and refractions, and Linn looked at Connie and his wife saw concern in his eyes.

Linn came over and sat down beside Jimmy, and Jimmy sat as well, leaned into his Pa.

"Jimmy, is something wrong?"  Linn asked gently 

Jimmy looked at his Pa said, "I never had a Christmas before."

 

"NOW HEAR THIS, NOW HEAR THIS."

Movement stopped, heads turned; when there was a general "NOW HEAR THIS," it was either of major and critical importance, or it was absolutely and utterly unimportant, and generally there was no middle ground, or so went the popular opinion.

Max stared at the three-color-enamel pin on its broad ribbon she'd been awarded, the one that looked like a fighting Viking astride a great, winged horse, and she had this big idiot smile on her face, one she never allowed anyone to see:  she blinked a couple times, then very carefully put it away, and raised her head as the speakers blared for her attention.

This better be good, she thought:  she was headed for the mess hall, anticipating bacon and eggs and coffee, God she needed coffee! – and she and her bunkmates stopped and looked at one another as the announcement contiued.

"NOW HEAR THIS," it had begun, then a pause, and another voice:  "CHRISTMAS, MERRY MERRY, ONE EACH.  THAT IS ALL."

The announcement was unauthorized; the announcement was unofficial; it was quite against regulations, but it was one of those things that happens from time to time.

On the bridge, the Old Man pretended not to notice; he knew what to enforce, and what to let slide, and in his day he, too, had hacked into the commo and made his share of bogus announcements.

Got caught, too, and had to stand Captains' Mast for it, but he'd done it.

The Old Man sipped his coffee and looked out the carrier's thick glass, assessing sea and sky, and nodded.

"Christmas Day at sea," he said quietly.  "Nothing better."

 

The helicopter crash-landed into a boiling sea.

Gracie gave the grinning boy with freckles and big ears her best "That Look," and then patiently fished the toy out of her pot of oats.

She turned off the fire, carefully wiped off the handmade wooden toy – a propellor, mounted on a dowel, spun quickly between the palms – the happy child spun it into the air in Gracie's kitchen, laughing delightedly as it hummed to the ceiling, lost momentum, wobbled in its descent and landed on the stove, driving shaft-first into what was intended to be breakfast.

Gracie carefully performed the emergency rescue, wiped it off with her ever present towel, handed it back without a word:  the freckle-faced lad with Maxwell-red hair whispered "Thanks," then scampered to the back porch and outside, where he could launch his toy without fear of its landing in a pan of frying bacon.

 

Every last soul in the Firelands colony turned out for the scow's retrieval and distribution.

The cargo was timed to arrive today, Christmas Day, and a good Christmas present it was; the happy cry of "Loot!  Loot!"  went up as distribution was made, as the cargo was broken down and transported inside: anxious souls watched as the chambers were repressurized and the Grand Openings performed.

Sheriff Marnie Keller bounced a little on her toes, for all the world like an excited little girl, and Dr. John Greenlees ran his arm around her shoulders, grinning like a high-school kid with his girlfriend, and little pale-eyed Willamina, riding her Daddy's hip, didn't really know what all the fuss was about, only that people were happy and noisy and that meant she should be happy and noisy as well.

 

Gracie looked long at her Uncle, who grinned like he'd just pulled off something really, really good.

"Try 'em on!" he declared, and Gracie did, and she found they fit perfectly.

Uncle nodded:  he'd come to appreciate the fleecy jogging pants for their loose comfort and their insulation:  the nurse unfolded a walker and set it beside his bed, she'd slid socks and his boots on his feet and laced them up to his satisfaction, and Gracie stared as Uncle swung his legs over the side and gripped the plastic handles of the walker and then looked over at her and said, "Hold my beer and watch this!"

Uncle's present to Gracie was a statement, in the form of a pair of shoes:  they were pretty and feminine, with a little heel and a single strap.

Shoes.

Not boots.

He set the legs of the walker down, took a step, took another; the walker lifted, set, one step, another.

Uncle walked up to Gracie, slowly, methodically, deliberately.

"Those aren't work boots," he said quietly. 

Gracie swallowed, nodded.

"You're young, Gracie.  You're a pretty young woman and you deserve a good man."

Uncle tried to look stern, he tried to sound gruff, and he failed in both attempts.

Gracie bit her bottom lip, the she seized her Uncle in an absolutely crushing hug, and her skinny old Uncle returned the favor, squeezing her until the aluminum walker bore painfully into both their bellies.

 

Wes made happy udden-udden sounds as his youthful imagination endowed his bright yellow dozer with a noisy smelly rumpety Diesel engine and he plowed over mountains and dug great canals across the living room floor.

Jimmy sat, staring, almost not comprehending.

He'd carefully unfolded each package, then refolded the paper and placed it neatly in a pile; boxes were nested and stacked and then the folded paper placed in them.

Jeans, shirts, boots, pencils, drawing paper, a set of oils in tubes – all neatly, precisely placed, stacked, arranged in a precise order, and Jimmy sat and stared at this unimaginable wealth, sat in the colorful glow of their Christmas tree.

Linn sat down beside him.

"There's more, you know," he said quietly.

Jimmy turned, looked at his Pa.

Linn placed a double package in Jimmy's lap.

The box was broad and flat, long and with some weight to it, a second wrapped box on top, tied in place with ribbon.

Jimmy carefully undid the ribbon and the paper, folded the paper, placed it aside, plainly savoring this new experience.

He lifted the paper free of the smaller box and froze, staring.

He opened the box, reached in, felt smooth anodized aluminum, lifted the riflescope free of its packing.

He was a little quicker opening the bigger box.

The paper fell away, forgotten as Jimmy opened this one.

"For me?"  he whispered.

Linn rested his hand on Jimmy's shoulder.

"For you, son.  All yours."

Jimmy swallowed, not daring to touch the rifle.

"That's a big game scope," Linn explained.  "You could hold it out at arm's length and drop it bell-first onto a concrete floor and it wouldn't bust.  It's way too much scope for a .22, and it cost more than the rifle, and that's exactly what you want.  You want the very best glass you can get because you can't him 'em if you can't see 'em."

Jimmy nodded a little.

"Jimmy," Connie said in her gentle voice, "why don't you try on your clothes and make sure they fit."

 

Marnie ran the gunbelt around her waist, thrust the new blued-steel .357 into the thumb break holster.

The scow was dependent on momentum and in this case, weight was their friend: she had a box of full-house .357 ammunition for use, she had two more for sight-in and initial practice, and she had a custom glass-faced display frame for her soon-to-be-retired Victory model in .38 Smith & Wesson.

It would hang in her office, to the right of the door as viewed from behind her desk, just like the one in her pale eyed Papa's office back in Firelands.

Sheriff Marnie Keller hung one other item in her office, something she intended should hang there for a very long time.

It was a picture taken on Christmas, years ago, a picture of two sets of feet.

One was a pair of black basketball sneakers, sticking out from under a Christmas tree, the wearer's blue jeans thrust out from under while the child lay under the tree, looking up through the branches at the glory and beauty from beneath:  beside the blue jeans, a pair of white-stockinged legs, a pair of black-shiny dress shoes, and just visible, two little hands, fingers intertwined.

The Sheriff's husband came in and looked at the picture, and the Sheriff rose as he stared at it.

"Remember that one?"  she asked, sliding her fingers in between his, and he smiled a little and nodded.

"I think that was the first time we ever held hands," he said.

"Mama sent some potato candy, too, as soon as it thaws I'll cut it up so everyone can have some."

She looked at her husband, her eyes a distinct shade of blue.

"Merry Christmas, John."

"Merry Christmas, Marnie."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

95.  JUSTICE

 

Chief of Police Will Keller sat at his kitchen table.

He sat in the dark, listening to the night.

When Miriam woke, as young mothers will, when she changed her drowsy little Joshua, he decided he was awake and wanted to explore his world:  Will came in and offered to hold the lad while Miriam got some rest.

The sleepy girl took him up on his kind offer, and Will carried the happy, wiggling Joshua out to the kitchen, and sat with him, until Joshua suddenly decided he was sleepy, and laid his head against Will's chest and was out like the proverbial light.

Will carried him back in to Miriam, eased the lad down into his crib; Miriam woke long enough to see Will, in the dim glow of the night light, give her a wink and a nod, then he withdrew, and she saw her little boy, sound asleep, breathing easily, and she closed her eyes and smiled a little, and relaxed again.

Will sat back down in his chair at the head of the table and he smiled a little himself.

He well remembered the days when Nicodemus, his firstborn, fell asleep against his chest, and right away the memory of his son's murder shattered its way into his thoughts, and then the recollection of testifying before the Grand Jury in the matter of his wife's having sent a would-be murderer to hell on a copper jacketed freight train.

There was the very good chance the criminal's family – if he had any that would claim him – would bring a civil suit, and Will knew a civil suit was damned expensive to defend.

If there was light enough to see, one might have seen Will's pale eyes grow a little more pale, and distinctly more flintlike:  he believed most sincerely in taking care of his own, and his Marsha was the other half of his very heart.

Whatever it takes, he thought. 

Expense be damned!

Will flexed his good right hand, nursing the ache in his knuckles.

He'd done something he hadn't done in a very long time, and he didn't want Miriam to find out.

He'd hit another criminal hard enough to bring him off the ground, hard enough to drop him unconscious onto the sidewalk.

He felt the skin tighten across his face as he remembered how this stranger came into town, asking about Miriam, making his brags:  he was college age, he drove a flashy car, and he was trying to find a girl he'd drugged and violated, and Will found out.

He'd caught the stranger by surprise, grabbed his shoulder, spun him around and delivered him a punch that brought him out of his footprints.

Will shoved the braggart's head into a rain barrel, politely ignoring the half inch of ice on top, brought him out by the hair of the head, slammed him against the side of the barbershop and informed him coldly that he was under arrest for rape, statutory rape, menacing and anything else he could think of:  he dragged the sagging, bleeding criminal into the Sheriff's office, in irons, and had him processed into the county jail.

Will's eyes narrowed as he remembered, then he turned his head to look at the darkened doorway leading toward the room his son used to call his own, the room where a very young mother lay asleep.

Miriam was only thirteen.

Miriam, he knew, had gone to her sister's college dorm for Little Sibs' Weekend.

Miriam was careful to drink only sodas or water, and not the punch and especially not the mixed drinks:  somehow, though, somehow she was targeted, she was drugged, and she found a month later she was pregnant.

Will's eyes were half-closed now, not out of fatigue, not from lack of sleep, not from drowsiness:  no, his eyes were half-lidded, because that's how he looked when he had a deep and abiding anger, and he opened his right hand and closed it again.

He'd wanted so very badly to beat that college age animal with all the professional expertise of many years of ungently pacifying his fellow man:  he'd wanted to use tricks from at least four different fighting disciplines, but he limited himself to that first, righteous punch, enough to shatter the subject's memory of what immediately preceded, and then he notified the college town's jurisdictional law enforcement authority and had a conversation with an investigator.

Will took a long breath, rubbed his face, planted his elbows on the table and sighed.

"I know that sigh," Marsha said quietly, bare feet silent on the tile floor.

"I didn't mean to wake you," Will almost whispered.

"I heard Miriam get up, and I heard you saying something."

"I told her to get some rest, I'd rock Joshua."

He felt more than saw his wife's patient smile, her understanding nod.

"I caught her rapist."

He heard his wife's breath catch in her throat.

"They'll be here in the morning to get him.  He's locked up in County right now."

"How did you catch him?"  Miriam asked, her voice low, urgent.

Will shrugged, knowing she couldn't see it.  "Right place at the right time, and one of the local high school boys recorded him bragging.  He was here looking for Miriam, telling anyone who'd listen that he was going to do worse to her when he caught her."

Marsha was quiet for several long moments.

"I'm glad you caught him."

"Me too.  Now for a DNA comparison to nail down his coffin lid hard, fast and nasty!"

Marsha was quiet for the space of two breaths.

"You sound like your sister when you say that," she murmured.  "She used to say that … hard, fast and nasty."

Will chuckled.  "I should sound like her.  I stole the phrase from her!"

He flexed his good right hand, feeling the stiffness from that one righteous punch.

"He'll be taken back to face charges.  Likely I'll have to go testify as to how I caught him."

His wife was silent.

"You did well in court today, dear heart."

"I was scared."

"I know."  Will took another long breath.  "I was ready to deck that damned attack dog of a lawyer for the way he was tryin' to paint you as a bloodthirsty killer!"

He heard his wife's breathing – quicker, a little labored, and he knew she was remembering as well.

"I hated testifyin' today," he admitted at length.  "Damned attorneys make me feel like I'm the bad guy!"

He heard his wife's husky exhalation and knew she shared his sentiments.

"Even when I'm the guy wearin' the white hat, seems like they do their best to make me look like a monkey!"  He snorted.  "Well, at least you got justice today, and I made some justice, so what say I take you to bed?"

"I'd like that, Will."  Marsha reached across the table, squeezed her husband's hand.  "I'd like that."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

96.  MULEBACK

 

A horse might have shied at the sight of the folding aluminum walker and the skinny old mountaineer laboring steadily toward the tethered saddlemount.

The brindle mule swung her head toward the skinny old fellow, looking considerably bigger in his worn canvas coat and overalls, but other than a swing of her long grey ears, offered neither comment nor protest.

Gracie watched as Uncle got himself set beside the mounting block and pretended not to her his muttered comments on usin' a block like a woman.

He got his good hoof in the stirrup and swung easily, naturally into the saddle, and Gracie felt her heart lift:  she knew a man puts stock in his ability to do, and Uncle had spent time enough healing up to get sick full of not doin' much of anything.

He'd been grateful, of course, for company, for letters; he'd taken great delight in receiving communications from a variety of folks, he'd been most pleased when that pale eyed Sheriff come up and set up attair laptop thang of his an' played Marnie and John's letter for him, and he'd laughed when their pale eyed baby girl tried to crawl off Daddy's lap and onto the desk, intent on seizing some bauble or another.

Uncle patted Brindle's neck companionably and set up in the saddle and Gracie knew this meant the old man was going to head out and she knew it meant he had a destination in mind.

She didn't have the least idea what this might be.

 

Linn turned the magnifying lamp a little to the side.

"Now take a look inside these scope rings.  These are machined from a block of aircraft grade aluminum.  You want to pay attention and keep them lined up the way they are" – he took one, turned it half-around – "this looks okay but it's not exact.  You want to replace it" – he turned it back around – "exactly like it was."

"Yes, sir," Jimmy said, his young voice serious.

"Now set the scope in the rings.  Just like that."  Linn set the top half of the rings in place, started the screws but left them loose.

He unwound the vise jaws, lifted the rifle free.

"Put this to shoulder, Jimmy.  Let's set the scope's eye relief."

 

"I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor," the dispatcher said, "but the Chief is in conference."

The Mayor nodded.  "Tell him I'd like to see him right away."

"Let me take a look, sir," the dispatcher said, "I'll find out how much longer he'll be."

The Mayor followed the dispatcher to the conference room door; she didn't know he was right behind her, and when she opened the door, he looked in, a sour expression on his face at being delayed, and then he stopped and his expression softened considerably.

Chief of Police Will Keller was on the floor, rolled up on his side, running a little red truck back and forth, and a little boy in a fuzzy blue onesie was happily (if awkwardly) reaching for the moving red-plastic toy, a toothless smile widening his baby-broad face.

The Mayor blinked, and then grinned, for movement draws the human eye quicker than anything, and the opening door drew the child's bright-eyed face upward.

"It's all right," he said quietly, laying a fatherly hand on the dispatcher's shoulder:  "the Chief and I will be in conference," and he shooed the dispatcher out, closing the door behind him.

Had the dispatcher come back in five minutes' time, she would have found Miriam chewing on her knuckle to keep from giggling, and two grown men laying on the floor, a laughing little boy between them watching as two of the town's most influential men made little truck-engine noises and pushed a bright-red toy truck back and forth between them for the laughing entertainment of a bright-eyed little child.

 

"Gracie" – the youthful voice was at once respectful, and uncertain – "what's Irish dancing?"

Gracie smiled and dried her hands.

"Where'd you hear about it? she asked, her head tilted a little as she smiled, remembering a moment from her time back East.

"I saw it on the computer," he admitted, "and I kinda liked it."

"It's something to see in person," Gracie admitted.  "I used to fiddle for a group of Irish dancers."

Youthful eyes widened with admiration.  "You did?"

"Mm-hmm," Gracie nodded again.  "They preferred having a live fiddler because I could see the dancers and I could change tempo as their styles changed."

"Wow," the young Maxwell breathed, remembering the absolute precision of the dancers he'd just watched on the glowing screen.

"There's a group over in Cripple.  I'm going to fiddle for them tonight.  Want to come?"

The boy's delighted expression was all the answer Gracie needed.

 

One of the visiting nurses was returning to Maxwell's Mountain.

Somehow – she wasn't sure quite how, she was normally not at all careless – she'd left her stethoscope, probably hanging off the head of her client's hospital bed. 

A good Sprague-Rappaport was not cheap, and it was not out of her way, so she decided to stop in and retrieve her working tool.

She intended this, at least, until she came around the last turn before the Maxwell Mountain road turnoff.

A car was nose-down in the ditch, a big cloud of steam rolling up from it, and a brindle mule standing beside the open driver's door, an old man's skinny backside sticking out into the roadway.

Uncle looked over his shoulder as the nurse came running up.

"Didja bring yer warbag?"  he demanded.  "This girl's havin' a baby an' I ain't got no calf puller ner nothin'!"

 

Daffyd Llewellyn's head came up as the speakers popped:  he and the Irish Brigade set their coffee or their sandwich, their polishing rag or their boot brush down as the howler went off, loud and harsh in the brick interior of their tall, narrow horse house.

"Firelands Fire Department and Emergency Squad," the dispatcher's voice came over multiple speakers, "one car collision, East Road, woman in labor, childbirth in progress."

Llewellyn stood up, filled his lungs.

"ALL HANDS NOW HEAR THIS!  ENGINE ONE, RESCUE ONE, SQUAD ONE, GET OUT, NO IRISH NEED APPLY!  TURN TO, DAMN YOU, OR I'LL HAVE YOUR GUTS FOR GARTERS!" – seven men were striding at just short of a run for their apparatus, strong hands seized turnout coats, feet kicked out of Wellington boots and shoved into bunker boots, pulled up Nomex bunker pants and hooked red suspenders over their shoulders.

Strong and experienced men seized chrome grab bars, swarmed aboard their apparatus; the drivers reached down, to the side of the seat mount, turned the explosion-proof battery switches, keys were turned or starter buttons pressed:  Diesel engines woke with a surprised snarl, settling to a steady, menacing rumble, Kenworth cast iron gathering itself like a lion winding up its haunches for an explosive sprint.

The bay doors chuckled open, microphones rose from stainless-steel clips, professional voices and professional words seared through antennas and atmosphere and came out the dispatcher's console:

"Engine One, Rescue One, Squad One, enroute."

"Roger E1, Rescue One, Squad One."

 

"Young fella," Uncle said, gripping the sick-looking young father-to-be by the shoulder, "best you get in the back seat now."

"Wow, man," the stunned husband mumbled, allowing himself to be steered into the padded interior.

He hung over the front seat, looked at his wife with the expression of someone watching a preacher juggle live octopi.

"Wow, man," he mumbled again, then looked from his sweating, panting wife to the nurse stripping his wife's slacks off and shoving a blanket under her. 

"You all right, hon?"  he asked, just as the nurse said "Okay, honey, I want you to push now!" and the woman groaned, locking her teeth together.

Uncle patted the young father's backside firmly, moving him in another foot, closed the door.

"Now if ye pass out ye'll hit somethin' padded," he muttered, and the nurse looked up and nodded, once:  she was grateful Uncle tended that distraction so she could concentrate on the delivery.

The mother relaxed, panting.

"How many children have you had already, honey?"  the nurse asked in a motherly voice.

"Four," the laboring mother gasped, then groaned:  her contractions were hammering her one after another, coming stronger and closer together.

"Katie bar the door," Uncle breathed.  "How can I help?"

 

"Now the trick," Linn said, "is to get this exactly level."  He bent down, peered through the mounted scope.  "If that ain't level I don't know what is. Take a look."

At every step of the scope mount, he'd involved Jimmy:  it was Jimmy's young hands that judiciously turned the Allen wrench, barely tightening the scope rings; Jimmy's were the fingers that drew the scope forward, then back, until he got the spacing just right for his frame and his eyes; it was Jimmy's hands that tightened the rings down and slid the boresight spud in the muzzle, Jimmy's thumb and forefinger grasping the dime employed to turn the reticle adjustments, and it was Jimmy's target they brought in, cold-fingered and red-cheeked with the chill to show Connie, once sight-in was finished.

Jimmy's rifle was zipped in its flannel lined gun case; the case was laid open while they sighted in, and the cold rifle was put in the cold case:  they'd wait overnight for the temperature to normalize before running a cleaning patch or three through it.

"Honey," Connie called down the basement stairs, "Daffyd Llewellyn just called, he asked if we have any more pink stork pins left."

"I'll be right up."

 

The Firelands hospital was one of the few in the state with a hitch rail out front.

If one were to look out the automatic glass doors, one would see a big red Frisian tethered beside an Appaloosa stallion.

Within, six men at attention, with the Sheriff and his son:  at the head of the column, Daffyd Llewellyn and an embarrassed-looking woman in a scrub top and scrub pants and dress pumps:  she'd followed the squad in and changed at the hospital, because when the mother's water broke, she was standing in the way, and she didn't have a change of clothes with her.

"For exemplary performance in time of need," Llewellyn declared in a voice intended to carry to the limits of the lobby, but not farther, "I have the pleasure to present you with the Award of the Pink Stork."

The nurse turned a little red and looked terribly embarrassed as Daffyd pinned the pink stork on her scrub top, as Marsha's camera flashed, capturing the moment for their weekly paper, as hospital staff, the Irish Brigade, a pale eyed Sheriff and his grinning young son, all applauded enthusiastically.

 

Gracie looked up as Uncle came in the back door, gripping the door frame as he did:  his pace was slow, his expression pained, and he made his slow, careful way back to his hospital bed.

He'd overdone it, of course, but Gracie expected that, and pretended not to notice his laboring gait, pretended not to hear the groan he tried to stifle as he got back in the bunk.

She did come in and unlace his boots, work them carefully off his feet; he hadn't been in the dirt, just the snow; his boots were clean, a little wet, but not too bad, and his socks were no more than damp.

"Did you see anything interesting while you were out?"

"A car in the ditch was all," he gasped, then he looked above him, reached over his head.

"Oh hell," he muttered.  "Sweet Thang left her stethoscope!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

98.  BEAT THAT!

 

Gracie looked at her boy-cousin with a patient, almost a sleepy expression, and she heard one of her uncles mutter "Uh-oh" and heard the whisper of leather against denim, and she knew a bet was about to be laid.

Gracie watched her cousins tossing cans in the air – coffee cans at first, then soup cans, condensed milk cans, laughing and declaring themselves such crack shots because neither had missed for at least twenty tosses apiece.

Gracie's silence hadn't gone unnoticed:  one looked back at her and invited her to get her own double gun and shoot with them.

"At those?"  Gracie asked patiently.

"Whattaya mean, at those?"  one challenged.  "Can you do better?"

"I don't know," Gracie smiled, "but let me get my ears and we'll find out!"

Gracie turned and walked back to the house, emerged a few minutes later with her canvas warbag over her right shoulder and slung across under her left arm.

She also had a half dozen tin cans in a grocery sack.

"Do you throw, or do I?" she asked, and the younger cousin sneered, "I ain't throwin' for a gurrrrul!"

"Suit yourself," Gracie shrugged, settling the earmuffs in place:  she reached into the sack, pulled out an empty soup can, shifted it to her left hand and dropped the sack.

She swatted her coat tail back as her left hand came back and as her left hand slung the can high and hard, her right came up with it and her bulldog .44 slapped the air with a sharp concussion and the can jumped like it was scared, and tumbled back to earth.

Gracie bent, grabbed another can, threw:  the Bulldog barked once, twice, and the can hit the ground with four holes:  two in and two out.

The cousins looked at one another.

Behind them, money changed hands, approving words were murmured in low voice; the men of the Clan Maxwell took a fierce, if quiet, pride in the achievements of their women, and they well remembered Old Gracie's tendency to bounce a pistol ball off the dinner bell at harvest time to summon the thrashers from the field.

Another can, two more shots:  Gracie brought the revolver in close to her chest, knocked out the empties and dumped in a speedloader of cast-lead handloads and tilted her head a little.  "Like to try it?"  she asked in a sweet voice.

"Beat that!"  Uncle challenged from behind them.

 

Gracie hadn't written in script for years.

She printed out of habit.

She'd thought briefly she might like to become a paramedic, and worked as an EMT for a little less than a year before she decided she would be happier to leave that particular work to someone else, but in the meantime, she began to print after discovering that her script, plus a pothole, resulted in disaster:  if she printed in the back of a moving squad, she might lose one letter, but the sentence was still legible.

Dear Sarah, she wrote, Hans said you fight like a girl.

Apparently I shoot like a girl.

She smiled quietly and proceeded to describe the bets that were laid, the dares made, how she ended up going through two boxes of handloaded .44 Special herself, not to mention what everyone else burned up:  she'd outshot her braggart cousins, with her Bulldog revolver at first, and then she'd outshot them with their own shotguns.

I told them they had very nice guns, she wrote, one gun fit me better than the other but they both shot well for me.

So far they have not tried to trade me out of my Bernardelli Gamecock.

She smiled as she thought of that light little double gun she and her beloved Grandma used to take turns shooting, out behind the barn.

It kicked her fiercely – "rapped you a good'un," Uncle told her approvingly, watching her turn clay birds into powder – it was the gun she used to hunt, to compete, it was what rode with her when she went into town or anywhere else.

Gracie went on to report that Uncle's leg was strengthening, that Uncle was over using it as they expected he would, she spoke of snow and of cold and how clear blue the sky was overhead, and half a world away, her words would be read by a sweating, pale-eyed woman looking out over a lead-grey sea with storm clouds crowding in and heat and humidity enough to seize a double handful of air and wring the moisture out.

I'll close for now as you are probably busy. Be well and keep your feet dry!

 

Miriam paged slowly through the photo album.

Marsha saw her studying an enlarged photograph.

Curious, she came over, tilted her head a little, then smiled.

It was taken from a newspaper article, laminated:  it was a short-haired woman with a determined expression, a scared little girl, maybe a year-and-a-half, two years old tops, on her left hip:  the woman wore a white nurse's dress and thick-soled shoes, a nurse's cap and she held a cocked revolver at arm's length.

Miriam was struck by the woman's pale eyes … pale, hard, determined.

Under the picture, a hand-written note:

This was the end of my nursing career.

I kept a child from being kidnapped and myself from being killed, and the hospital thanked me by firing me.

That's what I get for appearing on the front page.

"Who is she?"  Miriam asked in her soft voice.

"That," Marsha said, settling into the chair beside her, "is Will's sister Willamina."

"Willamina," Miriam blinked.  "Wasn't she Sheriff?"

"Yes," Marsha nodded.  "She was."

"Is that her writing?"

"Yes.  She wrote that years later, after she became Sheriff.  Here's her portrait."

Miriam studied Willamina's formal portrait as Sheriff and finally looked up.

"She's beautiful."

"Yes she was."

"It says here – she wrote this – that she kept a little girl from being kidnapped."

Marsha nodded.

"This wasn't posed."

"No."

"This was when it happened."

Marsha nodded again.

Miriam looked at her little Joshua, happily chewing on his knuckles and looking around with those big interested eyes, then she looked at Marsha.

"Would you teach me to shoot?"

Marsha hesitated, wondering if she was the right one to teach a beginner, and Miriam took her hesitancy for reluctance.

"You kept me safe.  You said nobody shoots your daughter and you kept me safe and I have to keep my son safe and there might not be anyone to keep him safe and –"

Her words tumbled out of a sudden, stopping only when she took a breath, then she continued, almost running her words together, "You might not be there the next time and I won't let anyone hurt him but I have to keep me safe so I can keep him safe and –"

Marsha raised a hand, smiled gently.

"I know a really, really good instructor," she said carefully.  "I'll introduce you."

 

The Bear Killer rolled up against Jimmy's back.

Jimmy was most grateful the big mountain Mastiff didn't hit him any harder.

He was sitting on a rimrock, his polished Wellington boots hanging out over at least a five hundred foot drop.

His Pa's High Lonesome wasn't nearly as high, he knew:  he'd studied the terrain, explored on horseback and then on foot, and he'd found a narrow path, marked occasionally (where there was loose dirt enough to take a track) with the cloven insignia of a mountain goat.

Jimmy disciplined himself to control his dreams, to seize his nightmares and bend them to his will:  this self training enabled him to shut down his fearful imagination, at least here:  a grown man might have quailed at traveling the narrow, rocky shelf, his imagination pulling him over the edge to his death:  Jimmy, on the other hand, climbed steadily, stopping occasionally to catch his breath.

He came out on a shelf and sat down.

He had no idea how The Bear Killer got there, and he really didn't care.

The Mastiff's solid and warm presence was welcome, and besides, Jimmy liked it when The Bear Killer cuddled up and warmed his tenderloins.

Jimmy's young eyes wandered randomly across the breathtaking landscape, his artist's soul imagining how he might try to capture the particular shadowing of this ridge, the delicate light-shift of a slope, how he could describe a snowcap using just a knife-whittled pencil.

"Lovely, isn't it?"  a feminine voice said quietly, and Jimmy heard The Bear Killer's tail begin to thump the cold ground in greeting.

The Pretty Lady slid into position beside him, backing herself up against The Bear Killer as well.

"Mmm, warm," she purred, then reached over and gripped Jimmy's hand.  "Your hands are almost hot!"

"Mama said Pa has hot hands.  She said sleepin' with him is like sleepin' with a warm brick!"

"A brick that snores,"  she said in a conspiratorial voice, and Jimmy laughed a little.

"Whatever brings you up here?"  she asked.  "That's not even a goat path coming up that rock!"

"It's okay," Jimmy shrugged.

"You didn't ride Stomper up here."

He looked over at her, surprised, then turned a little more and saw an immense wet nose about an inch from his own:  he blinked and realized there was a huge black horse behind it.

"I rode Snowflake up," she said innocently.

"Yeah but you cheated!  Snowflake can fly!"

She laughed, tilting her head back a little as she did, then she looked at Jimmy with pale-blue eyes full of gentle affection.

"Old Pale Eyes has his High Lonesome," she said.  "You wanted to do him one better."

"Yeah," Jimmy admitted, sighing out the word.

"I don’t blame you."  She squeezed his hand again.  "Did you know your uncle Will told his son Nicodemus not to bother with geometry or algebra?"

"Huh?" 

She nodded.  "Oh, yes.  Uncle Will told him all he'd ever need would be general math.  You see –"  she looked at him as if assessing something, seemed to come to a decision – "you see, Will doesn't like to be one-upped."

Jimmy's brows puzzled together and he looked at her again.

"Your Uncle Will was about to flunk out of Chemistry so he dropped the class before the first grading period.  Ever since then he hasn't wanted to be shown up on anything.  Don't tell him I said so and for Heaven's sake don't tell your father" --- she gave him a knowing look – "he knows this about his Uncle Will, but he practically worships the ground the man walks on."

"Oh."

"Now you sound like my sister!"  she laughed.  "She used to say 'Oh!' just like that!"  She sighed, smiled sadly.  "That was a very long time ago, though.  A very long time."

"Did Nicodemus take chemistry?"  Jimmy asked, and he saw approval in the way she looked at him.

"He did.  He got straight A's.  He also took geometry, algebra, advanced algebra and physics.  Honor roll all the way, and do you know Will never told him he was proud of him for that.  Not once."

Jimmy's eyes spoke his distress even before his youthful voice protested "But Pa tells me he's proud of me!"

"Your Pa is a wise man," she replied knowingly.  "He's smart enough to see someone else's mistakes and not make them.  He makes a whole new set of his very own mistakes, though!"

Jimmy was absolutely dismayed to hear this.

To a boy, the Grand Old Man is the foundation and the bedrock of the universe itself, and the day that a young man realizes his father's feet are made of the same falliable clay as his own is a terrible day indeed:  some deep, hidden part of Jimmy's soul must have known this, and the rest of him wanted to deny it, but The Pretty Lady said it.

Much as he didn't want it, the statement must be true.

"Your father comes to a place very much like this sometimes," she continued quietly.  "He'll sit and look out into the distance, just like you're doing" – she laughed a little – "though you could not pay him enough to sit like you are, with your legs hanging over the ledge like that!"

Jimmy grinned, swung his legs happily, the way a boy will:  he was doing something his dear old Dad could not, and this secret knowledge delighted him.

"Aunt Sarah –"  Jimmy blurted suddenly, then looked almost fearfully at The Pretty Lady, not knowing how she would take the address.

He needn't have worried.

She brushed a wisp of hair back from his forehead and gave him almost a motherly look.

"That's the first time you've called me that," she whispered.

"Well I didn't want to call you Hey You," he protested innocently, which made her laugh, and she hugged him carefully – carefully, for it was half a thousand feet to the nearest rocks below them.

"You have a question."

"Yeah.  Aunt Marsha shot a bad guy."

"I know."

"I don't think she had much of a choice."

"She had a choice."

"Huh?"

"She could choose to see her daughter murdered and maybe even her grandson, or she could stop it from happening.  Those were her choices."

"But … they had a trial an' everything an' they tried to –"

"I know.  They don't like honest citizens killing bad guys.  Too bad.  Sometimes they need killin'.  That used to be a law, you know.  I think it was in Montana, a valid defense was "He needed killin'."  It's probably off the books by now but at one time it was valid."

"I was scared," Jimmy said in a small voice.  "I didn't want her to go to prison."

The Pretty Lady hugged Jimmy around the shoulders again.

"I got 'nother question."

"Okay."

"You got pale eyes like Cousin Sarah Maxwell."

She laughed.  "Why, yes I do!"

"Are you her?"

She blinked, surprised, her mouth open a little:  Jimmy saw her smile broaden a little, and he felt her laughter, even before it bubbled out of her throat.

"Well she flies a big black stallion an' she's a hell raiser an' Pa said you were a hell raiser an' a trouble maker an' you ride a big black Snowflake an' that's what she drives an' –"

He stopped, blinked, considered, then his shoulders sagged.

"But she drives a Stallion an' you got a mare."

Sarah laughed again.  "Right you are!" she declared happily.

"Does she know about you?"

"I suppose she does, why?"

"No, I mean – I mean have you seen her and said hello I'm Sarah an' so are you an' we both got big black –"

She held up a flat palm, shook her head.

"Wait a minute," she said gently, reining his confused enthusiasm to less than a flat out gallop:  "are you asking if I've ever ridden Snowflake onto her carrier deck and swung down and said hello my name is Sarah and you are my namesake?"

Jimmy blinked, imagining the scene.

"Wouldn't that kind of scare people, seeing a winged horse coming in for a landing?  They're used to landing fighter jets or helos, they're not used to horses, and if I were to just ride up and talk to her like family – goodness, they might think they're being invaded!"

"Oh."  Jimmy looked down, disappointed.

Sarah looked out over the gulf below them, looked back.

"I think it's close to suppertime, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he said reluctantly.

"Can I offer you a ride?"

Jimmy considered, then asked, "What about The Bear Killer?"
"Come on, boy," she said, and picked up a fat, round, very furry puppy with button bright eyes and a happy pink tongue:  she dropped his round, muscled bottom in the big pocket of her black duster, drew her legs up under her and stood, pulling Jimmy to his feet.

"C'mon.  I'll ride you down to Stomper."

 

Jimmy went to bed, his belly still thrilling to the feeling of riding an immense black horse with huge white wings, to the feeling of the world dropping away from him and the feel of wind whipping his face, stripping tears out of the corners of his eyes to run cold and wet along the sides of his face and into his cold-reddened ears.

 

Linn stopped in the gas station after gassing up his Jeep.

He had a monumental hankering for something, he wasn't sure what, and finally settled on a chocolate iced doughnut with sprinkles.

He'd picked up a sandal sheet just for grins and giggles, he did that sometimes, once he got done reading the tabloid he'd use the paper on his workbench if he had a messy job, and he planned to be making sawdust and metal shavings.

He brought the paper home and tossed it casually onto the couch.

Jimmy saw it and frowned, came closer and stared.

The tabloid's headline was big and bold – RUSSIANS DISCOVER NEW AMERICAN SECRET WEAPON! -- and under it, GENETIC ENGINEERING SUCCESS!  PHYSICISTS BAFFLED!  AERODYNAMICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!

It wasn't the headline that seized the lad's attention.

It was the sight of an immense black horse with folded white wings, a huge black horse standing beside a big black Sea Stallion helicopter, and at the horse's head, a woman in a black Stetson and black pants and black knee-high cavalry boots and a black duster, and a fuzzy black puppy head-and-paws out of her big side pocket; another woman facing her, a pale-eyed woman in a baggy flight suit with her buggy flight helmet under one arm, reaching up to caress the huge horse's neck.

Jimmy seized the paper, wide-eyed, opened it, feeling the world fall out from under him all over again.

The inside pictures were a little fuzzy, as if taken in a hurry, maybe with a cell phone, but it showed something big, winged and black, coming in astern, something very obviously not an aircraft, something very obviously intending to land on the carrier deck.

The second shot showed a woman, all in black and riding a huge black horse, a horse happily cantering down the very center of a carrier's steel deck, fighter jets ranked and angled behind, and the third shot showed the horse's huge white wings, still held proudly at full spread, as the rider swung from the saddle and dropped to the deck.

Jimmy felt a hand on his shoulder and heard a whisper in his ear.

"Don’t worry," he heard a familiar voice explain, "it's in a penny dreadful.  No one will ever believe it!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

99.  SLICKER

 

"State your name for the record."

The man wore a neatly tailored suit; his appearance was absolutely ordinary, his voice cultivated, cultured, but with that hard undertone that said he was a man used to command and used to being obeyed.

Sarah disliked him instantly.

"You know my name already."

"Lieutenant."

"You have all my personal information on file. Ask your questions."

"What the hell happened yesterday?"

"I was visited."

"By who?"
"Whom.  By a dead woman."

Silence, save for fingertips and neatly manicured nails drumming quietly on the conference room table.

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"Are you trying to be effective?"

"What are you saying, Lieutenant?"

"I'm saying the Admiral needs a raise in pay."

The man's eyes narrowed very slightly and he turned his head slightly, frowning as he did.

"Suppose you tell me what happened.  From the beginning.  Take your time."

Lieutenant Sarah Lynne Maxwell smiled thinly.

"From the beginning?" she smiled.  "I looked aft and saw an incoming aircraft on approach.  This struck me as odd, as we were not rigged for recovery.  The aircraft came closer and I saw it wasn't a conventional fixed-wing, nor was it a helo, and general quarters didn't sound until it was about to touch down."

"Go on."

"What I saw, sir, was a horse."

"A horse," he echoed skeptically.  "And what model aircraft is a … horse?"

"Frisian.  A big black Frisian mare, unshod, with a huge set of absolutely, pure, flawlessly-white wings.  She was wing-locked in a glide and she worked her primaries a little, adjusting as she made descent, and she touched down just short of a third of the way down the deck and stroked twice, hard, to shed momentum, then she touched down."

"Touched down.  A horse."

"Light as a ballerina," Lieutenant Maxwell affirmed.  "She stepped into an easy canter and came right up to me."

"A horse."

"With a rider."

"And the rider?"

"Was the dead woman."

"Dead women don't fly."

"You have the video."

"We have a falsified video of someone's cleverly photoshopped joke, and I want names, Lieutenant, I want NAMES!"

Lieutenant Sarah Lynne Maxwell smiled thinly as the table shivered under the force of his descending fist.

"You, sir," she said, "flew in on an aircraft that does not exist.  Your tail number will wash off in the first rain and that means you must conclude your business before nightfall, for we have rain approaching.  You occupy an office that is not spoken of in a location that's not on the maps and you have more authority than the Admiral, and yet here you sit, talking to little old me, a dime-a-dozen pilot you could replace with the scribble of your signature.  Now why do you suppose that is?"

Sarah's pale eyes burned across the table, her face set and hard:  her cheekbones stood out and her jaw was thrust forward just a little.

"Sir, you need to give the Admiral a raise in pay.  He used to be a street cop.  You'll find in your folder" – she pointed to the dossier in front of the immaculately-uniformed officer – "all my particulars, including relatives, and you already know my Uncle is county Sheriff back home.  That doesn't mean much to you, sir, and that shows the limits of your intelligence."

She saw the slight narrowing of his eyes and knew he'd just deflected the insult, but this slight, involuntary response betrayed that her words reached through his personal armor and touched him, and she knew she could touch him again.

"A street cop cultivates his street sources, not just to acquire information – that's vital – but also to put out information.

"The Admiral knew he had something he couldn't deny happened, there were too many cell phone videos, there were too many surveillance cameras, so instead of putting a lid on something that couldn't be contained, he hung it out on a billboard."

"A billboard."  The man's voice was quiet, dangerously quiet.  "Lieutenant, are you trying to deflect blame?"

"I'm giving credit where credit is due.  The Admiral gathered cell phone stills and video and shot it to the cheapest, least credible, low grade tabloid he could find.  He gave them the unofficial statement that the Russkis saw a genetically engineered, flying horse, a prototype weapon, land on our carrier deck.  He intimated that our genetic engineering wizards collaborated with our physicists and aeronautical engineers to create a horse that could not only fly, but could maneuver, take off, land, hit a moving carrier at sea, travel great distances – why, think of the advantages, sir!  Self fueling, almost non-existent radar signature, weapons capable!  Right now at a secret base in the Ural Mountains, they're reviewing the periscope video and screaming at their own scientists for answers!  Think of how many million rubles they'll waste on a fruitless enterprise, how much manpower will chase a wild goose through their laboratories, how many computers will worry themselves silly over something that can't, be, done!"

"You did it."

"No, sir, I did not.  I was just the relative she came to see."

"And just why would a dead woman on a flying horse land on a US Navy carrier in the middle of the Pacific Ocean just to say hello?"

"You'd have to ask her."

"I would have to ask a dead woman."  His voice was very little short of a sneer.

"It's not that hard."  A woman's voice from his left brought his head around.

"Hello, Sarah," the pale eyed woman in black smiled.  "Is this man bothering you?"

"He's … asking about your visit, Aunt Sarah."

"You wanted to know about a dead woman."  She pulled out a chair, sat, then reached over and laid a gloved hand delicately on the back of his hand.  "I don't believe we've been properly introduced."

 

The Admiral frowned at his coffee, black and shimmering in the fine china cup.

Lieutenant Maxwell sat across from him, wondering how many more important men were going to demand of her time that day.

"I understand you credited me with a stroke of genius."

"I did, sir."

The Admiral nodded.  "My father was a police captain."

"I know, sir."

He looked sharply at the soft-voiced woman seated across from him, there in his quarters.

"You seem to know a great deal, Lieutenant."

"As much as I can, sir," she replied innocently.  "You see, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and too many times I've known just enough to get in trouble."

She gave him a long look and then added, "That's a joke, sir."

Half his mouth pulled up in an almost-smile.  "I'll remember that," he said wryly.

Sarah waited until the Admiral tried his coffee before sampling hers.

"I insist my coffee come from the galley," he said.  "Same with my meals.  I could have a personal cook but if the men know I'm eating the same chow they're getting, they'll still bellyache about scrambled eggs but they know I'm eating the same scrambled eggs."

"Yes, sir."

"Lieutenant, I saw that winged horse land and I saw her canter right up to you like she knew you."  The Admiral's hazel eyes were sharp, direct as he looked at the pretty flight officer in her class-A uniform.  "I can tell you know your way around horses."

"Yes, sir."

"You're an equestrian?"

She smiled, took another sip to collect her thoughts, placed her cup precisely on its saucer. 

"Sir, my uncle had a golden stallion."  Her eyes grew just a little softer and so did her voice.  "His name was Rey del Sol and he was a fiery sort.  He'd buck and pitch and absolutely jump up and down stiff legged when anyone tried to ride him."

"Anyone?" the Admiral asked knowingly, raising one eyebrow.

The Lieutenant colored a little.  "Almost anyone," she admitted.  "Oh, he crow-hopped and kicked at the moon overhead a few times when I rode him, but he was –"

She stopped bit her bottom lip, surprised at the ache she felt.

She'd loved that big golden stallion and she'd set in her quarters and cried into her pillow when she learned that big old Paso Fino palomino finally laid down in his pasture and sighed out his last breath on a warm summer night.

"He must've been quite a horse," the Admiral said quietly.

She nodded, biting her bottom lip, not sure she could trust her voice.

"It's no wonder you're such a fine pilot," the Admiral said in a surprisingly gentle voice, and Max looked up at him, surprised.

"I've noticed the very best pilots are horsemen, every last one of 'em.  Oh, they won't admit it, everyone wants to credit video games and college education and high intelligence" – he stopped, looked up as someone knocked on his door, then opened it.

"Ah, food," the Admiral sighed happily.  "Lieutenant, would you do me the honor of dinner?"

"Thank you, sir.  I'd like that."

They waited until their meal was set out on the table in front of them, until the Admiral picked up his cheeseburger and took a hungry bite out of it, grunted.

"Well," he mumbled through a mouthful, frowning at the bite he'd just excavated, "it's not burnt on the outside and still cold in the middle!"

Max giggled, remembering the first time she'd seen the Admiral:  he'd come down to the mess deck, grabbed a cheeseburger, took a bite, spit it out and then raised seven kinds of leather-lunged hell with the short sighted soul who cranked up the heat on the burger oven and the speed on the conveyor:  he'd heard one complaint of burgers burnt on the outside and cold in the middle and he went down to take care of the situation.

Lieutenant Maxwell made the same discovery and discreetly disposed of her bite into a napkin; unlike the Admiral, she didn't spit hers dramatically to the floor.

The Admiral looked across the small table at the quietly smiling Lieutenant.

"I don't pretend to understand what happened," he said, "but maybe you could help me.  Just what was it landed on my boat?"

Sarah set down her fork, leaned back, hands very properly in her lap, and she looked directly at the Admiral.

"Sir, I have a bad habit," she warned.  "If you ask me a question I'll give you the honest answer, whether it's what you want to hear or not."

He nodded.  "Fair enough."

"Sir, that was my Aunt Sarah Lynne McKenna.  She's been dead more than a century, as has her black Snowflake-mare."

The Admiral's eyebrow quirked as he made the connection with the Lieutenant's black Sea Stallion with the big white snowflake on its nose.

"She flew in as she did rather than just appearing in my quarters one dark night because" – she hesitated, then looked directly at the Admiral again – "because, sir, she is a hell raiser and a trouble maker and has been so since she was a little girl!"

"I see."

"She gave us the opportunity, sir, to throw confusion and misinformation at the forces surveilling our operation."

"Oh, she did that," the Admiral agreed, stabbing his stamped-steel fork at his green beans.

"You had the right idea in giving it to a tabloid, sir."

He chuckled.  "An old street cop's trick," he grinned.

"Yes, sir."

"No one will ever believe a cheap birdcage liner.  Photoshop, they'll say.  Impossible, they'll say."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you suppose she'll make any more landings here, Lieutenant?"

His question was quietly voiced, neutrally worded, but Sarah knew the seriousness of the inquiry.

"No, sir," she said honestly.  "I do not believe so."

He nodded.  "Good.  Once I can slicker out of.  Twice … might be less convenient."

"Yes, sir."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

100.  FEUERLANDER

 

Linn looked up, pale eyes going to his office door.

 

He set down his pen, rose:  something ... something told him he would be needed, and very soon, very soon indeed.

He took a step toward his office door, reached for the knob, pulled it open.

He went from cautious watchfulness to a full-on sprint in half a second or less.

Sarah's seabag hit the floor about a half second after she and the Sheriff collided in the middle of the lobby:  each of them SLAMMED into the other, SEIZED the other in a CRUSHING bear hug, the Sheriff swung her off the floor and spun her around, and Sarah threw her head back and laughed, her legs bent, and then she yelled "Love me or leave me but don't break my back!" and the Sheriff set her down, took a quick stagger-step to stop his own dizziness, his hands on her shoulders.

"Dear God, girl, when did you get in?"  he declared, and she hauled off and slapped his flat, muscled belly with the flat of her hand:  "You long tall drink of water, I just got here!  How's for some coffee?  I'm starved!"

Linn ran an arm around her shoulders, thrust a finger at his staring dispatcher:  "We'll be in the Silver Jewel!"  he declared, and the pair skipped out the front door like a pair of happy schoolchildren, leaving confusion, a dropped seabag and a wide eyed dispatcher in their wake.

 

The tall, blond, blue-eyed stranger presented himself before the police department's dispatcher.

"I am seeking a Feuerländer," he explained, and it took the dispatcher a moment to figure out what – or who – he was looking for, and before she could give him the good sound advice he sought, the pale-eyed Chief of Police came out and inquired if he might be of some help.

Hans looked at the Chief, then stared openly as he realized the man had the same eyes as the person he was looking for.

Exactly the same, pale, shade-of-a-glacier's-heart eyes.

 

"Oh God I need this," Sarah groaned as a breakfast stack lowered into position in front of her:  fried taters with onions and peppers, fried eggs and cheese on top, bacon and sausage on either side, and coffee, God be praised, coffee! – and in a decent sized mug, just the way she remembered!

 

She hadn't eaten since lunch the day before; she'd sworn on the flight in to what was jokingly called Firelands International Airport, their local crash patch, that she was hungry enough to eat a saddle and the horse under it – unless the saddle was hung over the rough cut boards of a stall, in which case she'd salt the boards and eat them too!

Linn had already breakfasted, thanks to his dear wife, and so ordered only toast and coffee; he delighted that Sarah had come home, though puzzled – she'd normally have let them know ahead of time – but when family showed up, it was an Occasion, and he was tickled to see her again.

He looked up and saw Will come in, grinning, and a stranger with him, a tall, well-formed man with the erect carriage and precise step of the military man:  Will declared "I thought you might be here," and then Linn saw the stranger and he saw the ornery look on the stranger's face, and he knew the man was going to say something.

He didn't know the power of the man's spoken word.

Sarah's fork fell back to the plate and her eyes came up, eyes wide, as she heard, "Ich suche einen Firelande", and Sarah went from seated and eating, to out of her seat and running, in much less than a moment:  Linn watched her jump up and slam into the stranger, and he caught her like he would catch a happy little sister, and he heard them both laugh.

"You two might as well set down," Will grinned, then looked at Sarah with mock sternness:  "Young lady, what are your intentions toward this man here?"

"I heard you'd been given leave," Hans explained.  "I heard ... there were rumors of ..."  His eyes slid to the Sheriff and the police chief.

Sarah looked at pale eyed uncle and pale eyed nephew and then at blue-eyed Hans.

"We need to talk," she said, and nephew and uncle looked at one another and said with one voice, "Uh-oh," and Hans looked just a little bit confused.

 

Gracie's head came up at the same time the Sheriff's had.

She considered for a moment, then went back to her sewing.

She would not have to go to it.

It would come to her, and in this, she was content.

 

"I see you have the latest tabloid."  Sarah thrust her chin at the cheap birdcage liner laying open on the conference room table.

"Yes, I ... saw the cover," Will said slowly.  "Is that why you're here?"

She looked at Hans – a challenge, if he ever saw one – but he offered no comment:  he remained silent, watching, waiting.

"I was given leave and strict instructions not to tell anyone about what happened."

Linn nodded slowly.  "I can see why."

"Can you ... speculate?"  Will hazarded.

"No."  She looked at Hans.  "But I can investigate.  For that I will need your help."

Hans raised an eyebrow.

"I'm going to go look for a hell raising troublemaker."

Linn shot her a cautioning look.  "You might be careful about that," he warned.  "You just might find what you're looking for."

"If it's going to wreck my career I'm going to find out why," Sarah said quietly, her eyes going pale, hard, and Hans felt his blood raise:  she'd looked that same way when they were set upon.

"You know the way."

"I do."

"You'll need horses."

"I'll get 'em."

"I've already got 'em."

Hans' surprise was evident on his handsome, hard-jawed face.

"They're out back in the stable, saddled up and ready to go.  Hans, you've got the red, he's gentle, neck-rein him only, don't try to use the bit.  Sarah, you've got Apple-horse."

Sarah nodded slowly, blinked.  "Thank you," she said quietly.

 

The red gelding was considerably bigger than Hans expected, and as if listening to his thoughts, Sarah swung into the saddle and said "He's as big as that big black mare you saw in the picture."

He'd stared as she lifted the gunbelt off the saddlehorn, slung it around her middle with what was obviously practiced ease; he'd watched as she drew the engraved Colt, clicked it around, eared the hammer back and then eased it down, and a stray memory from a paperback book whispered, "He set the hammer nose down on his buryin' money," and part of him smiled to see it actually done.

 

She turned Apple-horse and set out at an easy trot down the brick alley, Stomper following docilely:  Apple got as far as the middle of the street before he decided to work the kinks out of his rider.

Sarah locked her heels around his barrel, whipped the Stetson off her head, swung it back and forth as Apple-horse bucked, spun, kicked:  he stopped, shivered, then set out in a nice easy trot as if nothing happened, and Sarah settled the hat back on her head.

Sarah led the way down beside the bank, down behind a used car lot, across a little stream and up the hill, up a path until they came to a packed-gravel roadway, and into a cemetery:  they rode under an iron arch, then into what he took to be the old section of this garden of stone.

Sarah slowed, obviously looking, then stopped, threw up a leg and slid out of the saddle, landing flat footed on the frozen ground.

Hans turned, reading the names, then he froze and whispered, "Mein Gott."

He dismounted slowly, carefully, dropped the reins, walked with wooden legs over to a marker with a fresh, dew-wet rose on top.

He laid gloved hands on the marker and sank slowly to his knees, then rested his head on the smooth top of the stone, shivering.

"Vilhelmina," he whispered.  "You saved my father's life.  I, his, son, thank you."

Gracie turned, surprised, as Hans rose:  he'd been kneeling in front of a stone with a six point star sandblasted into its face, a star that said SHERIFF across its middle, and beneath it, Willamina Keller: beneath this, Beloved wife, mother, Marine and Sheriff, and two dates: for birth, one for death.

Sarah stood before the next stone in the row, another stone with a fresh-cut rose on top, still soft, still fragrant, despite the below-freezing temeratures.

Sarah Lynne McKenna, Hans read:  Wife of Daffyd Llewellyn.

"She married a weak man," he said through a tight throat, "and she died defending my great-grandfather."

"What?"  Sarah asked, surprised, her mouth open, and a woman's voice declared "I sure as hell did!"

Hans turned, hands raised defensively, cupped a little, ready to strike or to deflect a blow:  he stared at a pale eyed woman who looked remarkably like the Flugleutnant he'd followed to the Feuerländer, a woman in mourning black, a woman with a brace of Colt revolvers belted around her middle, a shotgun gripped in both black-gloved hands.

"I fought for that fine man and for my daughter," she declared, "and damned if you don't look like the Count!" 

She skipped forward, letting the shotgun swing muzzle-down as she grabbed him by the front of his coat with her free hand, pulled him to her, kissed him soundly.

Shocked, Hans drew back a step.

The woman in the unrelieved black dress and gunbelt turned, whistled:  a huge black Frisian mare stepped out of nowhere, head bobbing, came over and snuffed loudly at the woman's middle.

"This is Snowflake," she said.  "We met earlier."

"Yes we did," Sarah said, her voice taking an edge, "and you may have just destroyed my Naval career!"

"I don't think so," the older Sarah smiled, "but right now you two need to go home.  Gracie is expecting you."

"Who's Gracie?"  Hans blurted.

"She's my sister," Sarah-the-younger said, glaring at her older namesake. 

The older Sarah patted Hans' flat belly.  "You need a good square meal," she said, "and Gracie can fix you right up."  She smiled at Sarah-the-younger, and then disappeared – both she and her huge black Snowflake-mare – Hans saw a twist of ground-fog where they'd been a moment before, and then this too was gone.

Sarah shook her head, sighed loudly.

"Maybe Gracie can help me straighten this out," she muttered.  "Saddle up, it's not far."

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

                                                              101.  WITCH OF THE MOUNTAINS

Hans' father still had his uniform cap with the Eidelweiss embroidered on its side.
Hans grew up a child of the Alps.
He was no stranger to snow and cold, skiing and hiking, and he silently rejoiced at having granite and snow around
 him again.
These mountains were raw, much newer than their European counterparts, but the harshness, the unforgiving 
nature of the high country, was something he could almost taste.
Their mounts were led away; Hans accepted this as normal, not knowing if it was routine or not, and not 
particularly caring:  he was content to follow the Flugleutnant's lead.
Gracie was just pouring tea when they came through the door.
"I was expecting you," she said briskly, "grab a set" – she turned, looked at the tall, blond, blue-eyed young man 
with the confident expression – "and you must be the man who fights like two hells!"
Hans laughed a little, looked uncertainly at Sarah, then back.
"Gracie, this is Hans Lukas.  He's a German pilot and damned good at what he does."
Hans took a step forward – a rather formal step, Gracie thought – she extended her hand, he took it and raised it 
to his lips in a most gentlemanly manner, and Sarah watched her composed matriarch of a sister just plainly melt 
in her moccasins at the gentlemanly gesture.
"You knew we were coming," Sarah said – a statement, not a question.
"Of course."  
Hans looked from one to the other, his mind busy, but without words:  he well knew the adage, "Mouth in gear, 
mind on vacation," and he preferred to watch and to listen before speaking.
"We also have weather moving in.  Uncle's leg is giving him fits."
"How's he healing?"
"Impatient!"  Gracie laughed.  "He's set the land speed record for using a walker, and he's already planning on 
going up to Widow's Peak so he can throw the thing over the edge!"  She looked at Hans.  "Don't stand on 
formality, have a seat, have you eaten I'll take that for a no we'll fix you right up!"
"We had breakfast –"  Sarah protested.
"He's too skinny," Gracie muttered.  "A man ought to have some reserve against lean times!"
Hans was, truth be told, a lean man:  he was also a man with a quick metabolism, and when Gracie set out fresh-
baked, thick-sliced sourdough, still warm, freshly churned butter lumped on a saucer and homemade preserves in 
a pint Mason jar, Hans hesitated only long enough to make sure Sarah was going to partake before he, too, 
treated himself.
Hans hadn't missed the lowering temperatures outside as they rode up the mountain and to the homestead; his 
quick eye constantly assessed both his surroundings, and the sky:  his father taught him to always observe the sky, the clouds, to taste the wind:  his mountaineering senses told him a front was overtaking them, and as they sat in the snug, stove-warmed kitchen, they felt as much as heard the wind picking up outside.
"Witch," Sarah muttered, glancing over at Gracie, and Hans wondered if there was some antipathy between the 
sisters.
Gracie sipped tea, frowned, stirred in a drizzle of honey from another jar, stirred slowly, precisely:  Hans expected 
to hear her spoon clink with each revolution, but it didn't ... not even once.
He thought this interesting.
Witch? he wondered.  
Does this Gracie have the legendary gypsy's gift?
"I understand Sarah flew out to say hello."
Sarah coughed, nearly dropped her teacup, turned away from the table so she wouldn't spray secondhand tea all 
over the tablecloth:  alarmed, Hans half-rose, then sat again, slowly, as Sarah wiped her mouth, then her nose, 
blinking tears from her eyes.
"Swallow, don't inhale," she gasped.  "Yes.  Does the entire world know about that?"
"It's in the penny dreadful – you know, the one with Elvis swimming with the Loch Ness Monster and aliens flying 
in to land on the south lawn of the White House."
"Oh," Sarah grunted, wrinkling her nose.
"The pictures were quite nice, I thought.  Your flight suit is kind of baggy in the crotch.  I could tailor it for you –"
"It fits me fine, thanks," Sarah snapped.
"Just asking."
"Has Sarah come to see you since then?"
"I went to see her."
"And?"
Gracie looked innocently at Hans.  "Did you see her?"
Hans considered for several long moments, then nodded.  "Ja," he said quietly.  "Ich sah sie."
"Ich dachte auch," Gracie replied gently, then looked at Sarah.  "I thought so."
She looked apologetically to the blue-eyed pilot.  "I'm sorry," she said sincerely, "but that almost completely 
exhausts my German vocabulary!"
"You have a most credible accent," Hans said frankly, and Gracie made a mental note to call her old German 
instructor, and tell him there's only one place she could have learned a credible accent.
"Now about Old Sarah."
"The toublemaker?"  Sarah said bitterly.  "She's probably going to get my skinny butt kicked out of the Navy!"
"For what?  You were standing there with your teeth in your mouth minding your own business when she landed.  
She handed you nothing, she told you nothing that was rude, crude, socially unacceptable, illegal, immoral or 
fattening –"
"You weren't there," Sarah said sulkily.
Gracie gave her a patient look.  
"You've never stopped blood with the Word, you've never blown fire from a burn, you've not –"
"No I haven't!" Sarah snapped.  "I'm just me!  I'm a damned good helo pilot and I'm hell on high heels in a street 
fight but I can't cast spells, I can't read tea leaves, I can't stop blood without a tourniquet or direct pressure and I 
can't blow out a burn!  Happy?"
"No," a familiar voice said, and a woman walked in from the adjacent room – a room which Hans was ready to 
swear had been absolutely empty.
"Hans Lukas," Gracie said formally, "may I introduce Sarah Lynne McKenna.  She is an ancestress and she's 
also –"
Gracie looked at Old Sarah, who actually looked no older than Lieutenant Sarah Maxwell.
"Ancestress will do," Old Sarah smiled.  "It's awkward introducing the resident ghost."  She flowed around the 
table, walked up to Hans, thrust out her hand.
"Howdy," she grinned, and Hans was astonished to find her hand was as solid as his own.
Gracie was not at all surprised that he rose as she approached, and that he hand-kissed her with the same 
gentlemanly courtesy with which he'd met Gracie's extended hand.
"You do him credit," Old Sarah said frankly.
"Danke."
"You do who?"  Sarah-the-younger asked, then:  "Oh.  Him."
"Yes, him, and he was a fine man!"  Old Sarah flared, turning angrily, her skirt widening with her rotation:  Hans 
saw her hands close into fists, then saw her shoulders rise, heard her sigh out a slow, calming breath.
"I'm sorry.  I should be over it –"
"How could you be over a man you loved?"  Gracie asked softly, looking at Hans, and Sarah turned back to the 
German pilot.
"You know what happened," she said softly.  "Would you like to see it?"
"I would," Hans said firmly, standing, and Sarah held out her hand:  he took it, and the pair disappeared, just as a 
gust of wind hit the house like an airy fist.
"The Witch of the Mountains," Gracie said, looking at Sarah.  "It's been a while since we had a storm like this."
"I thought you were going to make sense of this."
Gracie smiled.  "It will.  More tea?"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

102.  "THIS TOWN AIN'T BIG ENOUGH FOR THE TWO OF US!"

 

Sarah's hand was warm, firm, gloved and very real.
Hans's surroundings ... weren't.
He felt the same dysequilibrium as he'd felt the first time he'd taken off his trainer's hood – worn by pilots to block out everything but their instruments – he'd whipped off the hood, looked out the single-engine prop job's cockpit, and his mind spun dizzily recovering its bearings, returning to the high-altitude here-and-now.
That's how he felt, looking at the cockpit of the Bf109, at the instrument panel, at the picture on ... the picture ...
It was a little wallet sized photo, one he'd seen before, but the yellowed example he'd seen was old and wrinkled, and this was new, gleaming, shiny:  a stiffly Teutonic man beside a quietly smiling bride, he in an immaculate uniform Hans recognized, she in a bridal gown he'd seen in pictures.
The Bf109's visibility was poor, compared to the fighter Hans was used to driving though European airspace, and he felt more than heard the long, precisely machined engine, singing power and spinning that shining disc at the fighter's nose, a disc he knew to be a balanced, tuned, bug-smeared propeller.
They knew the enemy approached, and they were ready, all that remained was to sight the enemy, then to turn as one and engage –
A voice in his earphones, the flight leader, his voice calm and reassuring as it always was –
"Indians!"
Hans blinked, staggered:  Sarah's hand was strong and reassuring in his, and a good thing:  it would be less than dignified to fall over here on the street –
Street?
What am I doing on a street?

I was in my grandfather's fighter -- I was in WWII --

He looked around, looked at the quietly smiling woman in the electric-blue gown, then looked around more slowly.
"This is Firelands as you saw it today," she said, her voice pleasant, musical.  "There is the Silver Jewel Saloon, across here, the Sheriff's Office.  Over your left shoulder and across the street, the Mercantile, the newspaper office –"
She turned back to face him, raised her free hand, snapped her fingers.
The world blurred and twisted and Hans was still in the middle of the street.
"You came here expecting the American West of the Hollywood cinema," Sarah smiled.
Hans nodded.  "Ja," he agreed.  "I ... suppose ... I did."
"We still have elements of it," Sarah smiled, turning and making a delicate, palm-up gesture, and Hans followed her gesture and looked down the street.
A rider was heading toward them, at the far end of town:  the dirt street came downhill just a little, and bottomed out with a corral off to the right, something tall and brick on the left, but it wasn't structure that held the blue-eyed German fighter pilot's attention.
"Your grandfather flew in the Second War," Sarah said quietly, her voice gentle.
"Ja."  Hans blinked a few times, still staring at the approaching rider.
Even at that distance, something seemed very familiar about ...
Her?
He looked at Sarah to make sure she was still there, then back to the approaching rider, a rider in an electric-blue riding dress and a little matching hat, looking quite small atop a huge, absolutely-black horse –
He turned to Sarah and asked, "Vas ist mit der big horses?" – then he looked back and his hand sought hers, squeezed – not with surprise, but rather with delight.
The big black horse clattered to a stop, nodding its huge head vigorously:  the immense, curly-furred, absolutely-black dog coursing along beside it stopped, looking around, dropped its square furry backside to the cold packed dirt and looked around, tongue out, looking very pleased with himself.
Hans stared at the dog, then looked at the Sarah on the horse, then at the Sarah whose hand he still held.
"Ouvcharka?" he asked, and both Sarahs laughed.
The mounted Sarah smiled, "Mountain Mastiff.  Tibetan Mastiff with some shepherd breeds and wolf thrown into the mix."
"I KNOW YOU!" a harsh voice challenged, and an individual in a dirty linen duster stalked out of a side alley, bottle in one hand and Winchester rifle in the other.  "Yer that trouble makin' furriner!  This town ain't big enough fer the both of us!"
"He means you," Sarah murmured, releasing her hand.  "How do you want him?"
Hans felt that whole-body rush, the sudden warmth as his entire soul rejoiced in the immediate prospect of a fight:  he'd felt this same way when he squared off against a Soviet intruder into German airspace and went missiles-hot, just before the intruder broke off and headed in the opposite direction.
It was the same way he felt when he tore into the street thugs that knifed him that dark night when he was with his Sarah.
A distant part of his mind felt surprise as he realized he thought of her as "his Sarah."
The rest of him strode toward the man in the dirty linen duster.
"YOU THINK YOU ARE MAN ENOUGH," he shouted in challenging reply, "COME AND GET ME!"
The stranger tossed the bottle to one side, the rifle to the other, peeled out of the duster, let it fall to the street, and two warriors approached one another, nerves singing, rejoicing in the sharpness of the moment:  each could see every detail of his enemy's attire, every crease, every wrinkle, every tear or fold or flap:  colors were bright, focus was sharp, every sound crisp and clear and distinct.
Hans could smell dust and death on the air and he felt his leather-gloved hand grip the wire-wound cavalry sabre and he was his twice-great grandfather in the front rank of a Prussian cavalry charge, legs locked around the barrel of his mount, screaming defiance as he closed with the onrushing enemy –
His was the leather-gloved hand squeezing the trigger on the control stick, his were the nostrils that smelled burnt powder from the Messerchmitt's cannon, his were the ears that heard the engine singing power and he felt the stutter as the wing guns spat death and destruction at the oncoming enemy fighters, and his hand seized the handle of the pistol he wore with his flight suit and he brought the machined steel pistol out of his holster as the dirty, sneering man before him reached for his own sidearm and Hans felt his sabre slice into an enemy's throat he felt his airplane's guns hammering death at the oncoming red-tailed Mustang he felt the issue pistol's slide slam back and slam forward as he held the front sight on his enemy and he was screaming he was screaming he was screaming –
The street was empty, silent.
He took a quick step forward to keep from falling, looked to his left, looked down at the delicately-gloved hand he still held.
He looked around.
He stood on pavement again; there were a few cars moving, snow was falling, there were no big black horses nor huge black Mastiffs, no one stood with a whiskey-bottle in one hand and a Winchester in the other at the mouth of an alley –
"The alley is still there," Sarah smiled.  
Hans looked at her, confused.
"But what does it mean?"
"It means," Gracie smiled, and Hans was suddenly in Gracie's kitchen again, and in his chair, and Gracie was refilling his mug, "you need more tea, it's chilly out there."
Sarah stood and glided over to him.
There was only one of her, but Hans viewed her suspiciously.
"Which one are you?" he asked, and she laughed.
"I'll show you."
She reached up and placed gentle fingertips on his temples.
Hans turned and glared at her.  "I wish you would stop doing that!" he almost shouted, his accent plainer now:  he looked up, looked around.
He stood on a sandy floor in a natural amphitheater – an underground amphitheater – he felt heat radiating from the dull-red distance and turned slowly, compacting himself in case he was attacked.
He looked at the tall stones, symmetrically set around the amphitheater, and thought Anyone could be hiding behind those –
Sarah stood beside him, holding his hand.
He looked at her.
It was his Sarah, the flight-lieutenant he knew, or thought he knew.
She smiled a little and then turned, thrust her chin toward the other end of the amphitheater.
On top of one of the tall rocks, a woman climbed into view, raised a dirk in her right hand, a round, studded, spike-centered buckler in the other and screamed "REVERISCO!"
"Meet the Clan Maxwell," Sarah said.  "We came from the Highlands and brought whisky stills and hell raising with us."
Another woman came up beside her, holding a long-barrel flint musket of some sorts, a woman wearing what he recognized as Colonial-era dress and ruffled cap.
"We emigrated to this New World," she said, her voice pitched to carry, then she raised her chin.
"And I shot a British officer out of the saddle!" the woman shouted defiantly.
Hans blinked as another woman who looked almost identical to his Sarah came out from around a boulder, a pale-eyed woman kitted out as a combat Marine.
His practiced eye took in the signs of wear that cannot be duplicated in peacetime; he saw the woman handled her M4 like it was part of her.
"From then until now," she said, "we've done what we had to do."

She turned a little, eyes busy, restless:  Hans recognized the nature of a combat soldier, never trusting, hypervigilant.

"We've fought since memories began.  We were archer-maidens in ancient Greece, protecting our Temple and our Sisters from invaders."  She glanced over at Hans again, then turned back to her constant, watchful scan.  "We've had to fight every foot of the way, either in wars or just to keep ourselves alive."  She turned quickly, stepped close in, stared with eyes the color of a glacier's heart, and Hans felt his blood cool several degrees as her gaze drove into his and reached clear down his backbone.

"Our women have pale eyes, and our women have long memories we don't often talk about."

She nodded to his Sarah, his Sarah, still holding his hand.  "She kept our line from smacking into the ocean like an egg hitting the sidewalk."  She looked at his Sarah, nodded her approval, her eyes a little less pale:  he saw the name strip over her pocket.

KELLER.

His stomach contracted as he realized who this must be, and his eyes went to her Colonel's insignia, and he knew he was right.
"Vilhelmina," he breathed, and she thrust out her hand, seized his.
"So you're his boy?" she declared, grinning, her grip surprisingly firm.  
He nodded, unsure quite what to say.
"Your father is a really good dancer," Willamina grinned, "and he's a hell of a good fighter.  I'll ride the river with him any time."
Ride the river, he thought, and felt a deep and genuine pleasure.
His experience with American fighting men had been universally positive, and he'd known a few from the American West:  like most Germans, he knew about the Hollywood version of the American West, and personally had a great love for the legend:  he'd read a great deal about the Cowboy Era, immersing himself in that age of exploration and chivalry, of romance and violence and heroism and great sacrifice, and he recognized this pale-eyed warrior's meaning.
His father would do to ride the river with.
"Thank you," he whispered.
Willamina looked frankly at his Sarah.  "How does he fight?"
"He fights like two hells," she said without hesitation.
"I'm not surprised."  She looked at the tall, blue-eyed Teutonic warrior and he saw a softening around her hard eyes.  "His father did too."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

103.  SHE DID WHAT?

 

Hans was a stranger in a strange land.
He was not at all certain about what he knew he experienced.
He wasn't sure where he should go, to sort all this out:  the Mountain Witch blew herself out against the mountain, as storms always do, and the mountain was layered with snow but otherwise unharmed.
It was considerably colder than it had been.
"You're not dressed for that cold," Gracie told him, "and it's getting late.  We've room.  Stay here tonight."
Hans looked uncertainly over at Sarah.
"Oh, don't worry," Sarah said reassuringly.  "Gracie will set up all night at my bedroom door with a flyswatter to make sure you don't try anything."
"Will the Sheriff not want his horses?" he asked, and Sarah flipped her hand dismissively.
"It'll be all right.  We'll let him know we're up here."
"Will it not be as cold tomorrow?"
"I don't know," Gracie admitted.  "We'll find out in the morning."
Next morning – after a good breakfast, one Hans enjoyed, but one that was different from what he was used to – Hans shrugged into a borrowed coat, and Sarah laughed as she raised up on her toes to pull a knit cap down over his head and over his ears.
"Did you knit that?"  Hans asked, bending down so she could more easily reach and straighten out the wrinkles, and Gracie smiled and said "No, I did."
He straightened, then bowed to Gracie:  "I thank you for your kindness," he said gently.
"Come and see us again.  You're welcome here."  She slid a cloth wrapped sandwich in his coat's side pocket.  "You still have questions."
He gave her a long look, then nodded.
"Meet me at the Sheriff's office.  I'll be down shortly."

Stomper's long legs navigated the fresh snowfall without difficulty; Apple-horse labored steadily through the drifts, at least until Hans pulled ahead and broke trail for her.
Linn looked up as Hans knocked, then entered:  he smiled and stood.  
"Coffee?"  he offered.  "I didn't make it so it's edible!"
"Danke."
"Figured you could use some thawin' out."  He sat back down, leaned over, drew open the bottom right hand door and brought out a bottle of something water clear and not over 30 days old.
"Antifreeze," he said with a straight face.  "Good for what ails ye."  He worked the cork out, poured two fingers' worth in three short, squatty glasses, slid two across his desk.
He raised his own glass.  "Here's to you and here's to me and may we never disagree," he said with a straight face, "but if we do then hell with you and here's to me!"
He tilted the glass up and downed the potent payload, feeling the distilled essence of Old Rock Buster warm him clear down to his boot tops:  Hans took a sip of his, stifled his cough, blinked back tears, then stopped himself from taking a breath before drinking again, for fear of fanning the flames that seared his swaller pipe for its full length.
Scalding coffee, he knew, would be mild compared to what he'd just ingested ... for a fact, if the coffee was at a rolling boil it would likely be milder than what he'd just downed!
Sarah raised hers, drained it like she was drinking water, set the glass gently on the corner of the Sheriff's desk:  she made an awful face, turned her head a little to the side and shivered, then with one eye involuntarily screwed shut she looked at the Sheriff and said in a ragged old voice, "Gooooooooood stuuuuuffff!"
"I have, ve haff brought back your horses," Hans said.
Linn nodded.  "Right choice," he said.
Hans turned his head a little, uncertain as to the Sheriff's meaning.
"He means staying overnight," Sarah said quietly, and Linn looked over at her, his eyes smiling just a little, his face impassive.
"Better to shelter when the wind's that frash," he nodded slowly.  "Horses inside and I know that to be a good tight barn.  I've seen houses that weren't as well made as their barn!"
Hans nodded again.
"You might as well set down," Linn said in a gentle voice, easing his own carcass back down into his tall back chair.  "Easier than standin'."
He looked at Sarah, then at Hans.
"See anythin' interestin' while you were up there?"
The question was easy, casual; the Sheriff was relaxed as he spoke the words.
"I" – Hans blinked, looked confused for a moment, blinked again.
"No," he finally said, then, "Yes."
He looked directly at the Sheriff with the expression of a delighted man.
"I vass reminded of my youth," he said, "and the Alps ... my father and I ..."
Linn nodded, smiling a little.
"I have good memories of the mountains," he agreed.  "And good memories of my father as well.  He was not inclined – not as inclined as I was – to put footy prints all over the granite.  Mama did, and I did, and he –"
Linn shrugged, smiled again.
"We have good memories."
"Your Mama," Hans repeated, looking around:  he turned, rose, looked at the Victory model .38 in its display box on the wall, and beneath it, a picture of a uniformed policeman, squatting behind a giggling little girl.
The policeman had pale eyes, and so did the child.
"My mother as a little girl," Linn explained, "and her father.  That's his revolver in the display case."  He took a long breath, blew it out.  "My older brother used that particular pistol to save Mama's life one day."
"I'll tell you about it sometime," Sarah said gently.
Another knock on the office door; Gracie opened it carefully, peeked in.
"Is this a private party or can anyone play?"  she asked, then slipped in, shut the door carefully behind her:  "Sheriff, you still got that bottle in your desk?"
He looked up and Hans saw the smile of an old joke shared between two friends in the man's pale eyes.
"I have, Gracie, like a snort?"
"No Thank You Sir!"  Gracie declared stoutly.  "Last time I had a good snort of that stuff it blew the ankles out of my pantyhose, thank you very much!"
"That was quite a trick," Linn deadpanned to the German pilot, who was trying hard to look innocent:  "she was wearing high top work boots at the time!"
"It sounds... potent," Hans hazarded.
"Same stuff you just had."
"Ah.  The Soviets use it for hydraulic fluid as it vill not freeze."
"Yep.  You can run half and half in a gasoline engine if need be, or could while we sill ran carbon taters and points, plugs and condensers.  It doesn't do well in a modern car."
"It hass ... a potency," Hans said carefully as he realized his head felt distinctly lighter than it had.
"Oh, it has that," Linn agreed.  "Have you been given a historical tour of the town?"
Hans gave the Sheriff a curious look, then looked over at Sarah.
"The Ladies' Tea Society meets today," the Sheriff said, "and they would likely fall all over themselves if they knew they could show an honored guest around.  Things like the old horse house – the firehouse originally had a steam fire engine and was pulled with horses – the depot, they can arrange ... I believe the inspection car is at the depot.  Sarah."
Linn stood.
"If you would introduce Hans to the Ladies and suggest he guest with them in the inspection car, I am quite sure he will gain an appreciation of our Old West heritage."
Hans looked over at Sarah with the expression of an eager little boy.
The American West had long been one of his passionate interests.

Linn and Gracie remained standing after Sarah and Hans went laughing through the lobby and out into the cold air, arms linked, for all the world like a couple happy high-school kids.
"They make a cute couple," Linn said in a thoughtful voice.
"I know," Gracie agreed.  "He is a perfect gentleman."
"Did he see ...?"
"He saw."
"Does he remember?"
"No."  Gracie's reply was flat, unemotional, maybe a little regretful.  "No, he ... some men's minds can't remember those things, or maybe the just won't.  Either way, he ..."
She looked at him, laid a hand on his crossed forearms.
"He said your mother saved his father's life, and he ... met her."
Linn never changed expression, but his eyes went a little more pale.
"He thanked her and shook her hand and she said he looks so much like his father, and that his father was a wonderful dancer, and that he fought like two hells."
Linn nodded, blinked, looked away, clearly disappointed.
"Mama showed herself to him."
"She did."
Linn swallowed, looked at the floor, looked back up.
"She's never ... I've never seen her since she died."
"I'm sorry."
'Don't be."  He smiled a little, just a little.  "It has to be for the better.  Sarah has appeared, I've seen Old Pale Eyes himself, even The Bear Killer lives through the ages, but ... I've ... there's probably a reason and a good one, and I don't need to know it, but ..."
He looked over at the framed portrait of the grinning Trimble cop hugging his giggling little girl from behind, both of them looking happily into the camera, and he blinked quickly, looked away.
"I miss her, Gracie.  The Parson said when a parent dies we become an orphan, no matter our age, and he's right."
Linn turned and opened his arms and Gracie leaned into him, and each one hugged the other, each one drew comfort from the warmth of a kindred soul.
"I reckon that makes us both orphans, hey?"
Gracie nodded, her cheek against the lawman's chest, and she had absolutely no idea at all what to say.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

                                                                                 104.  A DAY TO REMEMBER


"It's nice to be home again," Sarah sighed, crossing her arms and leaning her shoulder against the painted porch post in front 
of the Silver Jewel.
Hans nodded, studying her face.
She was looking across the street with that thousand-meter stare he knew rather well, and he wondered if she was seeing 
waves, a battleship-grey deck, or a choppy sea through the rain-speckled windscreen of her Sea Stallion.
"It's cold out," Hans replied gently.  "We could eat."
Sarah smiled a little, nodded, straightened.  "Let's."
Hans turned and hauled the heavy door open; Sarah swept in, smiled at Tillie behind the dark-wood counter.
"Hi, Sarah!" she greeted happily, and the two stopped and chattered happily the way old friends will who haven't seen each 
other in too long, and as Hans was quietly surveying the interior of the Jewel, he realized he'd been woolgathering as the words
sank through his thick German skull, "And this is Hans.  He's a fighter pilot and he came out here to see me!"
Hans turned and smiled, grasped the extended hand and raised it to his lips:  Tillie blinked, surprised, but she'd seen it done, 
and the phrase came to Sarah's amused mind again, that phrase about melting her in her moccasins.
"Sarah, it's good to see you again!"  Mr. Baxter declared, industriously polishing a heavy glass beer mug:  he set it down, 
leaned across the bar to thrust his hand at Hans:  "And who is this fine figure of a man?"
"This is Hans Lukas," Sarah said again, "he's a fighter pilot and a damned good one!"
Mr. Baxter nodded.  "It was single engine in my day, young fellow.  You're probably running one of those fancy new airplanes 
with two Pratt and Whitneys kickin' your backside across the sky!"
Hans considered a moment before replying, and Sarah saved him the trouble:  "Something like that!"  she laughed over her 
shoulder as she seized Hans by the hand and towed him quickly to the back of the room.
"So tell me," Sarah prompted as they sat, "did you enjoy your time with the Ladies' Tea Society?"
Hans' broad and instant grin was all the reply Sarah needed to know that he had indeed enjoyed himself.

Jimmy turned the page of his sketch book.
He liked it when his Pa asked to see his sketches, and set him up in his lap.
Jimmy felt safe when he set on his Pa's lap, and he felt warm and safe when his Pa's big strong arms were around him.
Jimmy's young fingers turned the good rag paper.
Linn's eyes wrinkled a little at the corners and his pale eyes darkened to a light blue as he recognized the cab of The Lady 
Esther.
The drawing was incredibly detailed – it never failed to amaze (and delight) the pale eyed lawman, that his son had such a 
gift with the common lead pencil:  the page following was a close-up of the cab's engineer-side window.
A handsome, grinning young man could be seen with his hand on a lever, his other hand reaching up as if to take a tug on the 
whistle chain, and the look on his face was the of a young boy at some favorite activity.

"The ladies explained the history of the Depot," Hans said, and Sarah could hear the memory in his voice, "how they ripped 
boards off the end and laid on a ladder to form a stretcher vhen the Oldt Sheriff's neice vass inchured" – his accent became 
more prominent as his guard was lowered – "they showedt me the Chudge's private car and the hidden chail cell that vass 
become a closet but vass restordt to a chail cell" –
He leaned back, looked at the stamped-tin ceiling, absolutely beaming.
"I vass ... ve vent by carriage to the museum and ..."
Hans gripped Sarah's hand, his eyes shining.
"Sarah ... the copper revolvers ... my family ..."
He frowned, arranged his thoughts, looked up again, frowned.
"The Sheriff you call Old Pale Eyes.  His son Chacob.  His son who vent to ... fight."
"The First War," Sarah whispered, her eyes widening as her hands tightened in return.
"The offizer whose life he saved."
Sarah nodded, feeling her pulse quicken as she felt another circle about to close.
"My family he saved," Hans whispered delightedly.
"He vass ... your ... you are namedt for Sarah McKenna."
Sarah nodded.
"She married the son of the Old Count."
Sarah nodded again.
"He another son hadt, Chacob's son he savedt, I am his grandson."
Sarah blinked, not quite sure what to say.
"Then one of der ladies asked if I would like to shoot them."
"No!"  Sarah breathed.
"Ja!"  Hans looked like he was about to bust open for happiness.
"She took me outside und put around me the gunbelt and she said you hold the revolver – so!  In the other hand a can, so! – 
upbringen with the can undt cock the revolver, it comes up mit der can, the can tosses up undt –"
His hands were in the air, his eyes full of the sight of the wobbling tin can suddenly spinning wildly with a thumb sized hole in it.
"Sarah, she hadt me shoot a smaller can undt zen a smaller can!"  He was almost laughing and he looked like he was going to 
start bouncing in his seat like an excited little boy.
Sarah nodded.  "What did she look like?"
Hans blinked, then laughed.
"I thought she vass you for a moment, but she ... you haff many relatives here, it vass ..."
He frowned, thought for a long moment.
"I am sorry.  I do not remember her name."
"It's not important," Sarah said, squeezing his hand again, laying her palm over his big, clean-scrubbed knuckles.  "The
 important thing is that you found something of your family!"
He nodded, looking up and smiling at the waitress as she set steaming, fragrant plates of meat and potatoes before the two,
set down dishes of green beans with bacon and onion, and refilled their coffee.
She winked at Hans, gave Sarah an approving look, and sashayed back toward the kitchen.
"She looked kind of like me?"  Sarah said, and the door to the meeting room opened.
One of the Ladies' Tea Society leaned out, waved her fingers at Sarah, and Sarah blinked, then laughed silently.
Hans was busy feeding his face and he didn't see what looked for all the world like his dinner companion's identical twin, in an 
electric-blue gown and hat and matching gloves, lean out the doorway and wave at his Sarah.
"Um, Hans," Sarah said, picking up her fork, "just for the fun of it ... my relative ... what was she wearing?"
"Um," Hans said, swallowing, "I think ... blue it was.  Electric shimmering blue, a long gown like the Ladies all wore."
Sarah looked up again and the door was shut, the figure, gone.

Hans debated that night, before he went to bed, whether he should text his friends back at the airbase, whether he should tell 
them that he, one of their best pilots, used to piloting several million deutschmarks' worth of fighter jet, had not only ridden a
truly huge horse in a mountain snowstorm, he'd throttled up a genuine American cowboy steam engine, but he'd blown its steam whistle and heard it echo against granite mountains, 
he'd shoveled coal into its firebox, he'd listened to the four-count chant as this engine, romantically named for the Old Sheriff's 
wife, labored up a grade as she'd done when men rode horses and herded cattle like they'd seen in the cinemas.
He'd worn a gunbelt and shot an authentic cowboy revolver and he had a tin can with a big hole through the word 
ARBUCKLES to prove it.
He smiled as he closed his eyes and drew the covers up around his chin, and decided against sending the text.
There was absolutely no way he was ever, ever! going to forget this day!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

105.  REMEMBERING

 

Jimmy tilted his head a little, frowning as he worked:  he did not have to look up often, for he already had the picture behind his eyes and he was busy transferring this to good rag paper.
Colored pencils were his heart's delight, a twist of newspaper to blend the colors where they were needed – he made really good shadows that way – he finally stopped and then looked up and smiled.
He looked up at a woman, a woman lying on the mahogany bar of the Silver Jewel, a woman in a scandalous outfit – waist-cinching tight, which emphasized her mountain range; she lay with stockinged legs extended, crossed at the ankles, her toes pointed:  he'd captured perfectly the look in her eyes, and on her face, and though he was much too young to understand what a come-hither look was, he'd managed to turn vision into image.
That image was carefully rolled, slid into a heavy cardboard tube, and shipped on ahead of the couple who were now on a transatlantic flight.
They were seated together; they held hands, leaned into one another, her head on his shoulder, and his cheek over on top of her head.
They had to return to duty – her to her aircraft carrier, and he to his airbase – but each had absolutely enjoyed their stay with her people, their stay in the mountains.
Hans whispered his thanks as the air hostess draped a blanket over the pair, and not long after, they were both asleep, lulled by the constant waterfall of sound from the big GE turbines thrusting steadily against the cold black air outside.
The cardboard tube was lying on his bunk when he got back to his quarters, and seeing the return address – he'd just come from there – his brows puzzled together a little, and he opened it, looked inside, brought out the good rag paper between thumb and forefinger, unrolled it.
A woman with pale eyes lay on an Old West saloon bar:  behind her, the man in the long white apron and the precisely curled mustache industriously polished a heavy, big-faceted mug, elaborately paying no attention to the woman looking at him from the paper.
His smile was broad and genuine as his eyes drank in the detail, and he nodded as he looked at the drawing.
He'd been there and he'd seen this very place, and the woman in the scandalously brief dance hall girl's costume looked at him the way a woman looks at a man when she knows the man is interested in her.
Sarah made her way through the rabbit-warren maze to her own Spartan quarters, dropped her grip and started to collapse on her tight-made bunk, then stopped, surprised.
A package, on her bunk – she tilted her head –
From Firelands?
She opened it, carefully, shook it out, held it up, then turned to her small mirror and held it up in front of her.
"No," she whispered, the corners of her eyes tightening a little with pleasure.
She dumped out the rest of the package, seized the envelope, tore it open.
If he is the one, she read, he'll enjoy an Old West dance-hall girl on his wedding night.
If he's not the one, use your best judgement.
Grace
Lieutenant Sarah Maxwell wasn't sure whether to sigh, giggle or swear.
She wasn't ready to marry and even if she was, she hadn't known him long enough.
She carefully folded her gaudy, revealing and frankly sexy outfit and tucked it carefully away, considering that at the very least, she could report for roll call all gussied up and give the Master Chief a heart attack, or at least a case of the vapors!

 

Gracie rode into town with her double gun laid across the saddle in front of her.
As she came to the corral at the lower end, she raised the two pipe shoot gun and set the butt on her thigh, muzzles pointing to the lead colored sky above; Brindle's pace was steady and surprisingly smooth, and Gracie's eyes were busy, looking for the source of her discomfiture.
She smiled at the friendly face waving at her out the firehouse door, laughed as a towheaded little boy leaned out a pickup truck window and waved and hollered "Hi Gwacie!" and she waved at the police chief as he hung his arm out the window and gave her a wave and a grin.
Gracie's gut told her something was not right and she really didn't know what it was, but the deeper into town she got, the more strongly she felt it – so much so that when she dismounted in front of the Mercantile, she draped Brindle's reins over the hitch rail but did not dally them, and she kept the shotgun in hand, laid up against her shoulder, her hand firm around the slim, checkered wrist of the high grade bird gun.
A girl with stringy hair – a girl maybe eighteen, but it was hard to tell, she looked to have been rode hard and put away wet too many times – rocked back and forth, as if trying to make up her mind when her mind was screaming down a set of shining steel rails that run straight to the heart of a fierly lake, and Gracie brough the gunbarrels down to level, pointed them right at the skinny, dirty girl's middle.
"Don't try it!"  she snapped just as the girl reached under her jacket and pulled out a handful of blued steel trouble.
Gracie's shout – sharp, loud, sudden, surprising – startled her and she dropped the square little pistol, grabbed a double handful of her own hair and almost fell backwards.
The proprietor nodded at his wife, then came around the end of the counter, scuffed the pistol toward him with his foot, pulled back behind the heavy glass topped counter:  behind him and to the side, his wife's voice was low and urgent as she chanted their address into the heavy, old-fashioned telephone's black handset.
"I just – I just – I don't know – I –" the girl half-stammered, half-cried, then she launched herself at Gracie, all claws and teeth and screaming like a beestung banshee.
Gracie spun the double gun end-for-end and drove the butt end hard into the girl's forehead.
There was a woody TUNK  and she went over backwards, her legs still trying to run but her top part stopped like she'd run into a railroad trestle with the bridge of her nose.
Gracie stepped to the side, brought the gunbarrels back up against her shoulder.
She looked at the proprietor.
"She was going to kill you, you know," she said, her voice flat, unemotional – a voice that spoke absolute fact, and they both knew it.
Gracie waited until the constabulary arrived, and secured the prisoner; until the prisoner was hauled out on an ambulance cot, twitching and mumbling, one skinny wrist cuffed to the cot's siderail; until witness statements were taken, until Will was satisfied.
He held the pistol in its sealed plastic evidence bag and looked speculatively at Gracie.
"Kind of glad you didn't have to shoot her," he said conversationally.
"I hate loud noises," Gracie shrugged, "and besides I'd have had to clean up my mess."
Will's eyes darkened a little and the corners of his eyes tightened slightly with amusement as Gracie continued, "Guess I'm just naturally lazy."
She turned and looked at the proprietor's wife.  
"I really just came after some thread.  I used up all my bright scarlet sewing something for Sarah."