SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

537. MEDICINAL

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

Jacob sat up a little, laid back down, shivering under the hand sewn quilt: he was dark under the eyes, he looked like a sick kid, he gripped the quilt as if afraid it would float away and leave him freezing.

Linn laid the backs of his fingers on his son's forehead -- hot, as he expected; dry, which did not surprise him: the fever was still inside.

As soon as the tea took hold, the fever would break and seep out his pores and he'd likely sweat the bedsheets damp.

"Sir, was that whiskey in that tea?"

"Yes, Jacob."

Jacob wrinkled his ten year old face, stuck his tongue out a little:  "Tastes awful!"

"Yep," Linn agreed.  "It does."

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Is that why you don't drink?"

Linn sat, slowly, and Jacob almost regretted asking, because when his Pa sat slowly, it meant he was going to answer the question.

"Jacob, my Mama will drink a water glass of Old Sledge Hammer when she kills someone who needs killin'."

"Yes, sir?"

"Then she drinks down a glass of water and some bitter powders and throws it all up."

Jacob turned his head a little, too wore out to sit up again.   "Sir?"

"She's punishing herself, Jacob.  Her Mama was an alcoholic."

Jacob twisted a little, trying to find a comfortable position.

"Is that why you don't drink, sir?"

"One reason," Linn nodded, rubbing his palms together slowly, thoughtfully.  "That, and I've seen too much of it."

Jacob's eyelids were getting heavier:  he was either relaxing a bit, or he didn't have strength enough to try moving much, at least until he looked up at his Pa.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said in a small little voice.

Linn ran his hand under the quilt, found his son's hand -- hot -- he gripped lightly, reassuringly.

"Sorry?" he asked, smiling just a little.

"I didn't mean to get sick."

Linn laughed, squeezed just a little, released.

"Jacob, it's all that rascally bug's fault.  It done suck up on you and mugged you."

"Yes, sir."

Linn frowned a little, tilted his head, nodded.

"There's another reason, Jacob."

Linn's voice was warm, soft, reassuring.

"I like whiskey a little too well.  It goes down easy and I like the way it feels, and that genuinely scares me."

He felt Jacob's hand tighten just a little on his; the boy's eyelids were heavy, he was blinking slowly, but his breathing was regular -- not at all labored, no rattle, no wheeze.

"I'll take a drink one time a year," Linn said, his voice pitched to soothe:  he remembered what it was to be a sick little boy, he remembered the comfort of a father's touch, a father's voice as he relaxed under his quilts.

"I'll slug down one shot of straight whiskey, room temperature, it goes down like a lighted kerosine lamp and reminds me yet again why I don't drink."

Jacob's eyes were closed now; his breathing was a little deeper, a little slower: the herbals in the tea, and the shot of Old Stump Blower, started to elbow the fever out of the little boy's body:  Linn saw his son's forehead start to take on the sheen of a fever, breaking.

In the fullness of time, when Jacob was a father, he too would sit by a fevered child's bedside, talking in a quiet voice, for he never forgot the comfort he felt when his Pa was right there with him.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

538. "MIDNIGHT!"

 

Jacob Keller was puzzling his way through another set of quadratic equations.

He was satisfied he'd have been finished an hour ago, but for scanner traffic, and his rising to follow the pursuit on a map.

A State Trooper was shot and the chase was on, and it was a horse race whether the pursued party would head their way:  Jacob turned his attention from the maps in his room, maps carefully pressed on hinged plywood leaves and flattened under sixteenth-inch-thick plastic sheets, maps on which he could use erasable markers: these thin plywood sheets, one square yard apiece, were bolted to an upright, such that he could turn the plastic fronted maps like turning pages in a book.

He'd marked initial encounter, he'd followed the chase, then muttered "I reckon they can get 'em without my help," and returned to algebraic equations.

He'd taken a break earlier, treating his homework-soaked brain to the relaxation of calculating the starting circumference of a horizontal loop antenna: his Pa taught him young and taught him well to "shoot, scoot and communicate" and his Gammaw, rest her soul, had told him that the barracks always has a Rumor Joe who has all kind of interesting scuttle that's not worth the paper a politician's promise is printed on, but if he wanted to know what was actually happening, he should find that fellow in back, the quiet one wearing headphones and slowly turning dials on a radio.

"That man," Willamina told him, with the quiet assurance of someone who'd Been There and Done That -- "that man knows more than GOD!"

Jacob was therefore broadening his matriculation to include the intricacies of radio communication: he'd learned Morse code early in childhood, both the dit-dah tones of modern CW, but also the rattle-click of the early brass sounders.

He leaned back, rubbed his eyes, turned back to his homework, then looked sharply up at the scanner.

His eyes swung up and his stomach fell to his boot tops, and he laid his pencil very carefully, very precisely, along the right-hand edge of his spiral bound algebra notebook.

Jacob Keller, son of the pale eyed Linn Keller, rose and went to the maps, turned one plywood sheet, nodded.

The scanner said, "Approaching the county line," and his father's quiet, confident voice replied, "Firelands Actual.  We're ready."

 

Paul Barrents thrust the magazine into his father's rifle, smacked it and yanked it and hauled back the bolt, running a shining brass round into the chamber:  Linn threw down two sandbags side-by-side, a third atop the two, then his jacket, folded over.

Paul bellied down behind it, on a blanket they kept in the back of the Suburban, took a sight down the roadway.

"You good?"  Linn asked.

"I'm good."

"I'm pulling back a mile.  At his speed he'll need at least a mile to slow down."

"Make it two," Barrents grunted.

Linn gripped his old friend's shoulder, quickly, released:  Paul heard the cruiser's door slam, heard Linn's steady acceleration, smiled.

Paul's father, JW Barrents, would have absolutely mashed the throttle, rejoicing at the sensation of being shoved back in his seat:  Linn was more conservative, but he was also faster, once he got his speed up, and Paul marveled at how well his pale eyed partner could read the road and adjust his approach to a curve, how he could coax the high-center-of-gravity Suburban into a four-wheel drift and not end up rolling.

 

"He'll be here," Jacob whispered into the bedroom's stillness, making a quick line across the state route, and he shivered.

His Great-Granddad was killed back East when he tried to stop a fleeing felon, a prison escapee: he'd pulled his cruiser sideways of Route 13 in the middle of the straight stretch, he'd stood between the oncoming escapee and his crosswise cruiser, he'd raised his revolver and he'd gotten one shot off when the prison breaker rammed him, nearly cutting his legs off at the knees.

Jacob remembered this and whispered an entreaty to the Almighty that his Pa might have better sense, then he took a long breath and declared firmly, "Great Granddad Ted, we're told we are surrounded by a Great Cloud of Believers.  You're one of 'em and you're closer to God than I am."  

Jacob stopped and considered, thinking fast, then he reached for his floral carved, background dyed gunbelt, wrapped it around his middle, drew one revolver, drew the other:  both were loaded, his speed loaders were in their snap pouches:  he snatched up his Stetson, hung the hand-held scanner on his shirt pocket, clattered down the stairs, his boot heels loud and echoing in the empty house.

"Uncle Ted," he said as he opened the gun case, reached in, "if you'd ask God to keep my Pa safe and have him somewhere that he won't get hit, I'd be very much obliged!"

Young hands seized the Garand his Uncle Pete carried:  Jacob slung the bandolier of clips over his shoulder, thumbed an eight-round clip into the receiver, smacked the bolt, let it run a shining brass round into the Parkerized rifle's chamber, pulled the safety back.

He slung the rifle from his off shoulder, muzzle down as was his preference, and strode for the door.

 

Linn did not burn rubber on takeoff, nor did he put any excess strain on the driveshaft, but he wasted no time, either:  just over a mile down the road, he brought the cruiser crosswise, seized the rear door handle, grabbed the crash kit, began laying out flares.

Crossways of the road meant he was stopping traffic from the other direction as well:  he was on a little bit of a rise and so was visible for a good distance from either direction, but he didn't want anyone to misunderstand that they weren't going to pass.

One flare, another, a scratch, a pop, a sizzling hiss, sulfurous smoke trailing over his shoulder:  he laid his flare pattern, ran back to the Suburban, as much to burn off adrenalin as anything, seized the shotgun from its ceiling mount, stood beside the Suburban, looked to the distance.

Pale eyes assessed the terrain:  there was only one place a vehicle could leave the road, and that had a gate across it, galvanized steel, chained to stout cedar posts:  was the cop shooter to try and bust through that, he'd be in for a rude surprise.

Linn took a long breath, blew it out through puffed cheeks.

 

Jacob felt his face tighten a little as he strode for the barn.

His Gammaw taught him, "We don't run to a gunfight.  We may walk very quickly, but we do not run."

Jacob therefore disciplined himself to the same long-legged pace he used when nobody was looking: his Ma complained bitterly how difficult it was to find jeans for him, with a 32 waist and a 34 inseam:  Jacob actually went to one of the town's gifted seamstresses and had her sew him up a few pair, and paid her well for it, until his Mama expressed her disappointment that he didn't think she could provide for him -- a comment she immediately regretted:  it was one of those moments parents always have, and it was a measure of Jacob's breeding that he never spoke of it, though she long remembered the hurt in his eyes when she admonished him for what he'd thought was a help to her.

Jacob seized saddle blanket and saddle, he managed to grab the rifle scabbard as well.

Several horses raised their heads and looked at him; half a dozen started drifting toward him.

Jacob curled his lip, whistled, then shouted, his voice harsh-edged:

"MIDNIGHT!"

He saw an all-black warmblood raise his head, shake his head, then come trotting aggressively over to him.

Jacob swarmed over the fence, parked the rifle against whitewashed boards, held out a thick pinch of molasses cured chawin' tobacker for a bribe.

He rubbed the spirited warmblood under the jaw.

"Pa's in trouble," he said quietly.  "We got to help Pa!"

 

Trooper down.

No lawman ever wants to hear an officer down call.

Willamina once laughed that she'd had to call on the LEERN frequency once, and only once, in her years back East.

Law Enforcement Emergency Radio Network.

A distinctly different mike on the dash.

She said she grabbed it and reported shots fired, in pursuit, requesting backup, and she said there was a whole lot of WOO WOO WOO YES MA'AM WHERE YOU AT WOO WOO WOO coming through the speaker as a result.

Barrents saw the pursuit well before he heard anything.

He'd worked the earplugs into his ears:  his father's scoped M14 was not a quiet machine, especially when fired prone.

He knew there were more and more lawbreakers honestly out running, or trying to out run, the law: once speeds got so high, lawmen -- who had to be responsible, and who were liable for all that happened on their watch -- would often break off a pursuit once speeds reached a dangerous velocity, and the bad guys knew this.

Barrents also knew that when you shoot a lawman, there is no forgiveness, and he knew there would be no break-off of this pursuit.

He didn't know where the air unit was and he did not care.

They were headed for him and he was ready.

He'd already lased the landscape, he'd located the thousand yard mark; he intended to put holes through the oncoming radiator, and then get the hell out of the way, because with speeds over 120 miles per hour, half a thousand yards would eat up fast, and he didn't want to be run over by some fellow looking to jack up his score of lawmen dead or wounded.

He waited, his breathing steady, his spirit quiet.

 

Linn raised his binoculars, studied the vehicles.

One, in the lead, but a slim lead:  several behind, all lights and fury, and as he watched, one pulled over as if to pass, but slowed, smoking: Linn swore, knowing the pursuer would be grinding teeth and profaning the machine that let him down just at the worst possible time.

 

Jacob thrust the Garand into the scabbard, drove his polished boot into the doghouse stirrup.

He swung confidently into the saddle.

Midnight was his Pa's fastest horse.

He was also the contrariest.

Midnight generally had to be bucked out, but Jacob had no time for such niceties.

"Pa needs us," he said," and he needs us now."
Midnight shivered, shook his head, danced a little.

Jacob turned the big warmblood with his knees, he felt his blood cool and he felt his face tighten again, as if the skin was drawing snug over his cheek bones.

"If ever I needed you, boy, I need you now," he said softly, then his knees tightened and he yelled, "YAAA!"

Midnight, descended from Rey del Sol, Hijo del Rey and the famous copper-coated Cannonball, did not have to be told a second time.

Jacob had read his Gammaw's accounts of locking her legs around her Cannonball-mare's barrel and feeling like they'd just been shot out of a field gun.

Jacob never had to wonder what that was like.

Horse and rider became one magical creature, riding the wind itself, and something shining and black and wearing a Stetson sailed over the far fence like a leaf on a stiff gust.

 

Barrents' conscious mind soaked into his soul like water into dry sandy ground.

He was all shining black eyes and human computer, gauging oncoming velocity, wind drift, trajectory, hit probability.

His first round drove through the car's radiator about three-quarters of an inch right of absolute dead center; part of his mind registered the spinning brass case flying to the side.

Paul's fire was steady, regular: he willed himself to calm, knowing he had less than ten seconds to do as much good as possible, without endangering pursuing vehicles: his father's rifle drove into shoulder five times all told, and all five shots went exactly where he intended, the last two managing to hit the lower radiator -- he removed his finger from the trigger guard, rolled quickly to his left, three times:  Paul threw his legs wide to stop his roll, sat up, saw Linn's jacket whipped in the slipstream:  he safed the rifle, slung it muzzle down from his left shoulder like his father taught him, then policed up his brass, picked up Linn's jacket, whipped the dirt off it, stared into the distance at the pursuers' backsides:  they all disappeared over the rise and Barrents nodded.

Yours now, he thought, then he considered the sandbags, shrugged, picked up his shooting blanket and snapped the dirt off it:  he folded the blanket, laid it across the sandbags, sat.

Might as well be comfortable.

 

Linn saw the lead vehicle trailing white smoke -- or steam, maybe -- and his hands tightened on the shotgun as the car suddenly screamed rubber and swung sideways and then shot right for that heavy steel gate.

He didn't aim for the gate.

He hit the fence beside it.

Bobwarr broke, twisted, whiplashed away, a fence post broke and Linn was running toward the fence just as hard as he could go.

He never remembered exactly how he got over it.

Someone told him it looked like he stepped up on a rock, slapped a hand on top of the fence post and twisted over like a pole vaulter.

All Linn knew was, he hit the ground fast, hard, off balance:  he pulled the 870 in across his belly, dropped his shoulder, did a perfect point-shoulder-roll and came up running, straight for the pair running from the car.

One of them raised his hand.

Linn thrust the shotgun out in front of him, slapped the trigger.

He ran straight at the hooded, masked figure who was still shooting at him.

Linn racked the action viciously.

Too far, part of his mind screamed, shot spread missed him --

He felt something burn his leg, felt something sting his chest, the shooter backed up a little, still firing --

Linn swung the shotgun to the left fired, jacked the fore-end, swung right, fired again.

 

Jacob rode with one hand on the reins, the other pressing the scanner against his ear.

SHOTS FIRED, SHOTS FIRED, TANGO DOWN, TWO TANGOES DOWN, a pause.

Midnight labored steadily beneath him, punching  a hole in the thin mountain air, grunting with each thrust, clearly enjoying himself:  the horse loved to run, and run he did, and Jacob's eyes narrowed as he heard, "LINN'S BEEN HIT, ROLL  SQUAD!"

"IS THE SCENE SECURE?"

"PURSUIT IS ENDED, SCENE IS SECURE, SUSPECTS ARE DOWN AND IN CUSTODY."

A hiss, a crackle, Jacob heard his Mama's voice, he heard the edge in her words:

"FIRELANDS SQUAD ONE ENROUTE!"

 

Barrents heard the sharp rattle of pistol rounds, the heavier booms of a shotgun.

He nodded.

Linn was an old lawman and he liked his shotgun reeeal well.

Barrents knew Linn was deadly with the twelve gauge, and he knew that hearing four heavy concussions, diluted and softened with distance, that he'd just addressed the situation in a most persuasive manner.

As there were no further, higher-pitched, sharper reports, he knew hostilities had been brought to a rapid end.

He turned, looked back toward Firelands.

He saw red-and-blue lights heading toward him.

Paul Barrents, old friend of the pale eyed Linn Keller, Sheriff's deputy and marksman with his Pa's scoped rifle, stood up, slung the rifle from his off shoulder, stuck his thumb out like a hitchhiker.

 

Shelly was out of the squad and running flat-out before it was stopped.

Linn was leaned back against the trooper's cruiser; one of several uniformed men was just tying a thick-padded dressing around the pale-eyed lawman's leg.

"You know, Sheriff," he said conversationally, "you reall could delegate these things to someone  else."

"And miss out on all the fun?"  Linn grated:  Shelly assessed the bandage, reached up, seized her husband's head with hard hands:  "Hold still," she snapped, questing fingers exploring his temples.

Her eye dropped to his uniform shirt.

"Yeah, I took one in the chest," Linn grinned, unbuttoning the shirt to reveal the body armor beneath.  "Stung a little."

Shelly doubled her fist, shook it under his nose.  "Linn Keller," she declared, "you are the only husband I have and I will not have you getting killed!"

"Yes, ma'am," Linn said, grinning, and Shelly gripped the trooper's arm, thrust her chin at the thick battle dressing tied around her husband's leg.

"Good job, thank you," she said, her words clipped:  "help me get this HARD HEADED, CONTRARY, MULE HEADED LAWMAN WHO WANTS TO GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK into the squad!"

"I can walk," Linn protested.

"I know you can walk," Shelly snapped, "and I know you, Linn Keller, you'll want to process the scene and you'll want to conduct the interviews and take measurements and photographs and THEN you'll want to go to the hospital --"

Something big and black circled in behind Shelly, and Linn looked up at a serious faced young man with pale eyes, a young man with a Garand propped up on his hip, his finger laid along the stock above the trigger guard.

"Is all well, sir?"  Jacob asked, his voice pitched to carry.

Barrents chuckled and clapped a hand on Jacob's thigh.  

"Couldn't be better," Paul said, and obsidian eyes looked over at pale eyes and Paul said, "Go on, Boss.  We've got this covered."

Linn handed Paul the shotgun and ran an arm around Shelly's shoulders.

"I reckon this is when the wise husband says 'Yes, dear,' he grinned.

Shelly doubled her fist up, waved it under his nose.

"I'd ought to knock you into the middle of next week!"  she snapped.

"Wednesday or Thursday?"  Linn grinned.

Shelly looked at the trooper with a pleading expression.  "See what I have to live with?"

State Troopers and Sheriff's deputies, and one long legged son, watched as the Sheriff walked carefully to the back of the squad.

"Was that my wife," a voice said, "she'd have kicked me right in the shin."

"Don't say it too loud," another cautioned.  "That one might!"

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

539. NORMAL?

Marnie Keller was on edge.

She was sixteen, she had her driver's license, her good looks, her intelligence.

She also had her sense that something just was not right.

She'd gone to the City with a group of friends, teen-age girls who wanted to flex their independence, who were convinced the world was theirs, who refused to believe the terrible things Marnie long knew to be fact: for that reason, she had no wish to go, but at her mother's insistence -- "Don't you want to be normal?", to which Marnie retorted, "Normal is a setting on a hair dryer" -- she'd given in to her Mama's pressure to "go to town and just be a normal girl!"

Marnie rode in on the scenic train, with the other girls: they'd taken a taxi to the mall, and Marnie, silent, took note of the taxi's number, she made a mental note of the driver's appearance and description, she'd taken a mental snapshot of his license, displayed so the rear seat passengers could read it:  it didn't look altered, at least not overtly, though Marnie knew computer printers were good enough to fool all but the most sophisticated eye.

They disembarked at the mall, happy, laughing, flirting.

All but Marnie.

She hung back a little, and to the side:  unlike the others, she did not have a purse, fashionably slung from one shoulder: what little she needed, she had in her pockets and in her blanket-lined denim jacket: she wore jeans and boots, the former loose enough to allow her to high-kick as necessary, the latter well fitted, worn with thick socks, and polished to a high shine.

They got as far as the main concourse and the group kind of disintegrated:  Marnie was against one wall, her back against glazed brick, her eyes busy:  so far she'd seen nothing to tempt her -- not the fashions the others gushed over, not shoes, to be tried on and catwalked and preened in, not purses or jewelry or makeup:  Marnie was silent, watchful, back a little ways, eyes busy, at least until their group was no more.

Marnie looked around, considered, then followed the delightful scent of fresh-brewed coffee, paid for a large, added milk and a lid, and sauntered casually toward one of the benches, positioned with its back to an elevated brick island, in which the mall was trying to grow palm trees and bamboo.

Marnie had just paid for her coffee when she looked up at the woman across the way, looking at her: their eyes met and each nodded, a quarter of an inch, no more, a professional recognition: the woman was in uniform, Marnie was in blue denim, and as Marnie made her way to the bench, the woman came over and sat beside her.

Marnie offered her the untouched coffee.  "Drink?"

"You've blown your cover, you know."

Marnie and the woman looked ahead, their eyes busy:  silence grew between them, until the woman spoke again.

"I picked you out right away," she said.

"What gave me away?"

"Nobody stands with their back to a wall, looking like they expect to find weapons."

"Habit, I guess."

"I do the same thing."

Marnie took a sip, glared coldly at two youths looking with overt hostility at the pair.

"Those two are up to no good."

"I busted the one last week, shoplifting."

"They just went into the shoe store."

"Dollars to doughnuts he'll try to steal another pair of shoes."

Marnie sighed.  

"Yeah, me too.  He'll come out in a new pair of Felony Flyers with his old ones in the box. If they catch it, they'll shout and he'll be off like a shot."

"Lovely."

"So tell me.  Are you one of the new detectives, or are you mall security?"

Marnie took another sip of coffee, nodded to the other side of the concourse.  "Pregnant woman, behind her."

Both women stood, gone from relaxed and seated, to ready to launch in a full-on sprint.

The street rat behind the mother-to-be saw them, stopped, turned, started walking the other way.

"Good catch."

"Targeting glance at her purse."

"Nicely done."

They sat.

"Sure you don't want a coffee?  I'm buying."  Marnie swirled her drink in the sleeved paper cup.  "If my cover's blown already, it won't hurt me any."

"Coffee," the female officer sighed.  "Sounds good."

They both rose, froze: one of the aforementioned known criminals came out of the shoe store, looking around.

"You want him?" Marnie asked, setting her coffee on the  cement wall behind her.

"Yeah, wait until --"

A shout -- Marnie couldn't make out what was being shouted, but it was loud and it was angry  -- but it was enough: the street rat was at a sprint, and so was a sixteen year old girl in a denim jacket.

She slammed into the shoplifter, shoved him sideways just enough to off-balance him, knock him into the corner of the brick wall: a grab, a twist, he was on the ground and Marnie had him in a cuffing armlock, his arm up behind his back, his wrist bent more than painfully: he thrashed, yelled, but he had a girl on his back that was  used to riding horses that didn't want to be ridden, and his green strength was for naught as another female landed on him, as a set of cuffs snarled around his wrist, as the other arm was grabbed, his thumb bent back until he yelled with pain and surrendered the other hand to the pair.

Marnie jumped up, stood a-straddle of him, seized the back of his hoodie:  she hauled him off his feet, introduced him face-first to the cement wall and said coldly, "You can be nice, or you can be dead and I don't care which."

The female officer backed up a step, shocked: the shoplifter was a foot and a half taller than Marnie, and she'd just picked him up and swung him like he was a rag doll.

"Dear God," she whispered.

"No need to be formal, call me Mary, we're among friends."

 

 The officer gave Marnie a ride back to the mall, just in time to catch the girls as they coalesced in the main concourse, full of purchases and triumph.

"I'm sorry I interrupted your shopping," she said, and Marnie smiled, pulled out her phone.

"They came to shop. I came because my mother told me to go and be a normal girl."  She hit the screen a few times, swiped twice, held the phone up.  "Here is my idea of shopping."

The officer looked at the screen, saw an attractive young woman in a fashionable gown -- that would have been at home more than a century earlier.

"You made that?"

"My Gammaw and I did.  That's my prom dress."  She smiled.  "And if we all expect to catch the evening train we'd best be on our way."

She handed the officer a card, gripped her hand.  "You can reach me here."

"Thanks."  She looked at the card, blinked, surprised, looked up.

"When you get back to station, go down in the basement, the east wall past the old Chief's office, where the portraits are."  Marnie winked, turned, fell in with the others:  the officer stared as they left the mall, looking like what they were -- a happy clutch of teen-age girls.

"Who is she?" she whispered aloud.

That night, right after shift was over, she came out of the locker room, remembered: she turned left instead of right, went down the arched brick tunnel, into the old section of the building.

"The old offices were here," she murmured, "and those portraits were along ..."

One of the detectives came out of his office, shuffling papers:  "Hi, Sandy.  Going home?"

Sandy stood, staring, looked at the detective, looked back at the portraits.

"Sandy?  You look like you've seen a ghost!"

Sandy remembered the card she'd been given:  she pulled out her notebook, flipped open the back cover, pulled out the card, read it, looked at the portrait, looked at the detective.

"Good God, Murphy," she whispered.  

"Good God what?  Sandy, are you okay?"

Sandy held the card up, under the brass tag at the bottom of the portrait.

It was of three Denver police detectives, stern and unsmiling in black suits and Derby hats: seated in front of them, her chin lifted almost disdainfully, a pale eyed young woman in a gown that Sandy had seen that very day -- or at least its picture.

She read the card, she read the brass tag.

Murphy saw her hand shake a little and he came up, read the card aloud.

"Firelands District Court, M. Keller, Special Agent."

Sandy opened her mouth, closed it, looked at Murphy, looked at the young woman seated in front of the detectives.

"Murphy," she said uncertainly, "I never knew a ghost could effect an arrest!"

 

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

540. ONCE, AND ONCE ONLY

Shelly's voice was little less than a scream: her face was red, she was bent over a little, her face was in her daughter's: Shelly's fists were doubled, 

"WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE A NORMAL GIRL FOR A CHANGE? CHASE BOYS AND WEAR YOUR JEANS TOO TIGHT AND --"

"WHY CAN'T YOU BE A NORMAL GIRL AND BE A NURSE?" Marnie screamed right back.

Marnie knew what her Mama's response was going to be, and she stood to receive it: Shelly's eyes widened a little more, she recoiled, then she drew her hand back and slapped her daughter's face, hard, the sound shockingly loud in the kitchen.

Marnie's hand flipped up and to the side, palm out:  Stay, it said, and a pair of pale eyes, watching from over the stairway railing drew back a little, remained silent, motioned for the other children to remain in position on the stairway.

Shelly's hands went to her mouth:  she shrank back a step:  her daughter, her sixteen-year-old Marnie, was facing her, hands up and bladed, face dead white, her eyes were a shade of ice-pale granite that she'd seen before -- her husband's eyes, right before he killed a man, fast, brutally and barehanded -- Marnie's lips were peeled back, her lips were blanched, her teeth were even, gleaming, shockingly white, and Shelly had the distinct sensation that her daughter, crouched and ready, was less her blood and more a she-wolf, about to launch into a fang-bared, very deadly attack.

Time froze; all of Creation held its breath, or so it felt like.

"Mother," Marnie said quietly, her soft voice filling the kitchen's sudden vacuum, "I will allow that, once, and once only."  She shifted her weight, slightly, as if to gain a better balance for an attack.

"If you ever, EVER hit me again, I will hurt you very badly, am I understood?"

"You are my daughter," Shelly whispered, shocked.

"Mother," Marnie said again, and Shelly realized the seriousness in her voice -- she'd never in her life addressed Shelly as "Mother" -- always "Mom," or "Mama" ... but never, ever, "Mother."

"I do not know what demons you carry," Marnie said again, her voice little more than a whisper, "but you will control yourself, or I will control you, and you will probably die.  I will not be beaten ever again, not by you and not by anybody.  Am I clear on that?"

"Oh, baby, I'm sorry --"

Marnie straightened, lowered her hands.

"I am not an infant," she said. "Do not insult me by addressing me as such.  You face hell at work and you see the worst that people do to one another and that corrodes the soul.  I accept that.  I see it in every medic and every ER nurse and every lawman I've ever known, and it corroded my soul before I came here."

Shelly did not move.

She did not dare.

"Now please state plainly the reason for your pique."

"I just wanted you to be a normal girl," Shelly whispered.

"What you want doesn't matter.  What I want doesn't matter.  I was warped back East. You don't know what they did to me.  You don't know what I've seen and what I survived and what I hid from and survived because I hid when they came in to kill everyone. You've watched people die and nothing you could do to save them, well, I did too, and I was only four years old.  I will never be that helpess again."

Marnie straightened, stood, thrust out her chest, as if to emphasize her feminine development.

"Jacob and I are going to the barn.  We are going to muck stalls, throw down fresh straw, I will likely take the truck and get another hundred bales and we'll stack 'em in the mow.  I'm going to ride fence and after that I'll likely help Jacob string a full wave forty meter horizontal loop antenna.  I got the holes dug two days ago and Jacob and Daddy got the poles set yesterday while I was in the City."

Marnie's voice was cold, there was a harsh edge to it.

"As far as being a normal girl, Mother, normal is merely average, and I am well above average."

Marnie turned, lifted her chin:  Jacob came down the rest of the stairs, carefully arranging his coat as he descended:  Shelly clutched the dishtowel, pressed it to her mouth as they left, ignored the other young eyes watching her from the stairway.

Marnie ran her arm around Jacob's shoulders.

"You had my back," she said approvingly.

"Always, Sis."

"I had it under control."

"I know."

"If something like that happens again, just let me handle it."

"Okay, Sis."

 

It wasn't until after they'd mucked stalls and saddled up that they spoke again.

"Sis, what's eatin' Mom?"

"She's got a guilty conscience, Jacob."

"How's that?"

Marnie looked sideways at her little brother, smiling a little:  he looked so very much like his pale eyed Pa.

Jacob saw her quiet smile, raised an eyebrow, and Marnie threw her head back and laughed.

"Jacob, you even sound like your father!" -- she gave him an approving look and Jacob grinned back -- "Sis, I'll take that as a compliment, but that doesn't answer my question."

Marnie nodded again, looked ahead, down the fenceline.

"Is it Pa gettin' shot?"

"Very likely that's part of it, Jacob," Marnie agreed, leaning forward to caress her mare's neck: Jacob recognized this as a comforting move, and he realized it was more Marnie being comforted than Marnie comforting the mare.

"That, and her Mama used to give her hell for becoming a medic."

"Gammaw Crane was a nurse, wasn't she?"

"She was, and a good one.  She never understood why Mama became a medic and it's been a hardpoint between them ever since."

"Why didn't she become a nurse?"

"Oh, she tried it," Marnie sighed, "but she was already an EMT.  She said a nurse has to take her hat in her hand and say 'Mother May I' before giving an aspirin or a Band-Aid.  Medics are told, 'Go to the situation and handle it,' and Improvise, Adapt and Overcome is their way of life.  Think on their feet and make it happen."

Jacob considered this, their Pasos moving at their usual butter-smooth gait.

"Mama also has all the grief she's soaked up from everything she's seen.  She leaves it at the firehouse for the most part but it's like handling walnut hulls, you get stained and it takes a while to wear off."

"How come she was so mad this morning?"

Marnie laughed again; their Pasos felt their riders' change, coasted to a stop.

Marnie crossed her palms on her saddle horn, leaned forward, took the weight off her spine:  Jacob heard two muffled *pop* sounds, like cracking your knuckles under a mattress, and he saw relief cross his sister's face.

Just like Pa, he thought, his face carefully expressionless.

Marnie saw his poker face, utterly impassive at the sound of her spine's decompressions.

Just like Pa, she thought.

"Mama grew up as a Good Little Girl," Marnie explained.  "Everyone rebels at one time or another, it's painful and it hurts feelin's but it's like a chick breaking out of its eggshell.  It's how we know we're growing."

"Do we have to?"

"No.  We don't have to.  It's quite possible to grow without rebellion, it just generally doesn't happen."

Jacob frowned as he considered this.

"Daddy never had much use for radio when he was your age, but you learned Morse code in grade school and you're on ham radio regularly.  That's different from Daddy. I can't see it as rebellion, I see it as uniquely you.  He's not threatened by it."

"Is Mama threatened?"

"She's uncertain," Marnie said thoughtfully.  "She didn't rebel until she ... she sat with someone she knew.  Her first ..."

"First boyfriend?"

"You could say that.  They were novios."

Jacob's eyebrow raised.  "That's serious."

"She sat with him on his back steps and they talked.  He was a paramedic and he'd just become a nurse and was working a clinic not far from here.  No ER doc at that time, they had to call in the physician at night.  One of their patients was in a car wreck and her breathing deteriorated through the night.  He grabbed the intubation tray -- he was a medic, he was going to intubate her to protect the airway, get a tube in before it swelled shut -- the charge nurse stopped him.

'You're a nurse,' she said.

'I'm a paramedic,' he protested, 'I do this all the time!'

'Not here you're not.  You're a nurse.  Stand down, I'll call the doctor.'

"He said he had to stand there and watch that patient strangle and die.  He told her later he should have thrown the patient over his shoulder, run her out into the parking lot and dropped her, then he could have legally treated her and saved her life.  He turned in his resignation and never looked back."

"And Mama ..."

"Mama didn't ever want to be limited as a nurse is.  She went Medic and she's a hell of a lot happier."

"And Gammaw Crane didn't like it.  Is she jealous?"

"She sees nurses making way more money.  She sees nurses working more safely.  Dry floors, good light, no rain down the back of your neck, no unwrapping a barfy drunk from around a telephone pole at three in the morning.  No going into a smoking wreck that might catch fire."

They looked at one another as they both remembered their Pa grabbing that overturned car, wading through burning gasoline to get to Shelly, who was still in the overturned vehicle, with burning gasoline running right toward her.  They'd both watched his wooden face as his bandages were changed, they both remembered seeing the sweat stand out on his forehead and how his hands quietly crushed great gathered handsful of bed linens as the bandages were peeled off, as the burns were debrided, as he was quietly offered a needle of morphine and he'd shaken his head, white-faced and trembling, and Shelly right there with him, her hand laid on his fist as he crushed that great handful of bedclothes rather than give voice to the pain.

"Mama has seen an awful lot," Marnie said slowly.  "She carries too much of it and she doesn't want me to carry it."

"Kind of late for that."

Marnie nodded.  "Yes.  Yes, it is."

"She just wants you to be a normal girl."

Marnie snorted.  "Normal?  Glamor magazines and makeup, flirt and break hearts and gossip? Boys and my face in a phone and preening in front of a mirror."  She snorted.  "Jacob, how many girls do you know that can outshoot all but two at the Invitational?"

Jacob grinned.  He'd inherited Marnie's Victory models when she'd stepped up to her Uncle Will's .357; he, too, was about to move up to the same level, as he'd tried Marnie's Smith and found it very much to his taste -- and they'd used the same revolver at the Invitational, and came close to cleaning house with it.

Only their pale eyed father and their pale eyed uncle outshot them, and that by less than eight-tenths of one point.

 

A Denver detective considered the card the female officer handed him.

He nodded, slowly.

"I know her," he confirmed.  "She is an agente confidencial with the Court."

A frown.  "I don't understand."

"Murphy said you saw her portrait out in the hallway."

She nodded.  "It was her."

"That woman has been dead well over a hundred years."

"It was her twin, then, or she time travels.  Same eyes, same everything."

He handed the card back.  "I know her grandmother.  You met the Sheriff's granddaughter."
The woman's mouth dropped open.

It was one of the only times the detective had ever seen her honestly surprised.

"I shot against her at the Invitational and she just plainly cleaned house.  Scored third.  The Sheriff and his uncle took first and second places, but she and her brother were tied for third."

"She showed me a picture on her phone.  She said it was her in her prom dress."  She shook her head, hooked a thumb over her shoulder.  "Same dress, same everyting.  If she's not a ghost, if she's not that woman out in the hallway come to life --"

The detective shrugged.  "Everybody in the world has their twin."

He paused, considered.

"She's the civilian bystander at the mall yesterday?"
"She's the one."

"And she took down the Felony Flyer."

"Picked him up and slammed him into the wall, she rode him like a rodeo horse and had him in a cuffing armlock.  I thought she was a new hire detective until she did that, then I didn't know what she was."

"Sounds like she's her grandmother's granddaughter."

 

"Sis?"

"Hm?"

"What'll it take for Mama to get over this?"

"Oh, I dunno.  Maybe she'll bake a cake or something.  Sorry I hit you, in red icing."

Jacob's expression was troubled.

"Will this be the last of it?"

"No.  It won't be an issue for a while, but she'll have to deal with her demons or it'll happen again."

"And if it does?"

Marnie leaned back in the saddle, her mare stopping obediently:  Jacob's mount went a few more paces; he turned her, rode up until his left boot was almost touching her right.

Marnie looked very directly at her little brother's serious face.

"I'll give anybody one warning, Jacob," she said quietly.  "If she ever hits me again, she's been warned."

"You better tell Pa."

"I believe she will fill him in."

 

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

541. TALK TO THE ROCK

Marnie glared at the row of tomb stones.

Her cold eyes swung down the row of honored ancestors, stopped on the newest.

Marnie swung down, slapped her hand hard on top of her Gammaw's stone, looked at the oval portrait laser engraved in polished quartz.

"Gammaw," she whispered, "I could use your help."

She frowned, rose, almost ran down the row -- stopped at another stone with another oval portrait, nearly identical to the one she'd just left.

"You," she hissed.  "You were like me, Sarah Lynne McKenna, you were hurt when you were just a little girl and you turned that hurt like a cannon and you used it to destroy your enemies --"

Marnie's fists clenched and the rage she kept carefully contained, rage that surged like a snake whipping free of an encasement, or a dragon uncoiling in a hidden underground cavern, all claws and scales and fangs and blazing red eyes.

Marnie threw her head back, took a fast, deep breath, clenched fists shivering as she raised them to the darkening heavens above:  she looked back down, and she was changed.

Marnie's eyes were ice-pale again, bright as glass-polished granite, her face white, her teeth bared: she was no longer a pretty young woman, she was a white-faced monster, ready to reave, to rend, to utterly destroy: she felt the Rage inside her, a dark and seductive power that whispered and promised, a Rage that tasted so very, very good! -- a Rage her very soul craved, the way an alcoholic craves a drink, the way an addict craves a fix... and she could not escape the craving, nor the fix.

Marnie aimed a fist at the tombstone like she was aiming a naval gun, turning her body like a gun-turret to bring the accusing fist to bear.

"You were adopted, so was I," she whispered.  "Your Mama wanted you to be a proper young lady and your Mama tried hard to make you a pretty little set-piece, modeling in Denver and parading on stage for the buyers she needed.  You were as deadly a killer as I am, Sarah Lynne, you were beautiful and you were a seductress, and you had a conscience beaten down and murdered before you were six years old, and you slept well after cutting a man's throat!"

Her voice was a dry hiss: her nostrils were flared, her face taut, stretched over high cheekbones, she did not so much shiver as she vibrated as she stood on Sarah's grave, demanding answers of the dead.

Marnie went to her knees, almost collapsed: she seized the tomb stone, glared at the quiet, smiling oval portrait, a mirror for her Gammaw at a young age.

"Why do you look like her?" Marnie hissed.  "Why do I feel you inside me?  Why was I ready to rip my mother's throat out?"

Marnie surged to her feet, backed away as if retreating from some horror:  she bent at the waist, bent over until her spine was level, screamed at the stone, "WHY DID I WANT TO RUN MY CLAWS AROUND MY MOTHER'S WINDPIPE AND RIP IT OUT?"

Marnie turned, walked back to her Gammaw's stone:  she crossed her legs standing, dropped into a cross-legged seat facing Willamina's stone.

She felt her glare fade; the dragon inside her relaxed, the Rage subsided.

"Gammaw," she whispered, her throat dry, "I miss you!"

 

Linn considered his wife's words, nodded slowly.

He'd already been filled in (to a degree) from the younger children; Jacob, when asked, gave him what he believed to be an unvarnished account: his wife was the last to address him on the unpleasantness in the kitchen.

He'd noticed the quiet tension, the lack of suppertime conversation; he knew his family, he knew the cause would find him, and he was right:  when Shelly admitted she'd lost her temper, confessed she'd slapped Marnie -- hard -- out of anger, Linn listened, asked a very few questions:  one of his favorite means of illustration was to teach, not with his questions, but with his subject's answers: Shelly raised her head and looked at him in honest surprise when he said, "Did she push just the right button to make you mad?" and Shelly nodded -- until he put it into words, she realized she didn't want to admit it, but there it was.

Her daughter played her, like a fiddle.

"Why did she hit that particular button?"

Shelly swallowed, guilt plain to see on her face.

"I told her I wanted her to be a normal girl."

"Because ...?"

"Because she didn't go to the City and shop!" Shelly almost shouted.  "She didn't try on outfits and flirt, she tackled a shoplifter and --"

Linn nodded.  "I know.  My office was contacted."

"She's been doing undercover work," Shelly said accusingly.  "She's been working for the Court."

"She's good at gathering information," Linn shrugged.

"Running down a track star and riding him like a rodeo bronc doesn't sound much like gathering information!"  Shelly snapped.

Linn smiled, just a little.  "She has talents."

"Linn Keller," Shelly said warningly, "I don't want my daughter wearing a badge!"

"That's her choice, isn't it?"

Shelly seized her husband's hands.  "Damn you," she whispered, "I almost lost you too many times!"

Her eyes glittered bright in the kitchen light, her expression going from guilty to grieved.

"Linn, I don't want to be a young widow.  I don't want to bury my daughter, either!"

"So that's it," Linn said gently, squeezing Shelly's hands ever so gently.  "You're projecting your fears of widowhood on Marnie."

Shelly considered this, nodded.

"We followed the pursuit on the firehouse scanner. We were ready to roll rescue before the call came in.  When they said you were down, you'd been shot ... I had to ..."

"I know.  I've had to hold it together too.  Remember when Will was shot?  You might not remember when that fellow machine gunned Mama and I shot him in the face. I think I was nine.  Mama looked dead and I wasn't going to let her lay there and die."

"You told me about that."

"So did several other people."

"We both know what that's like, Shelly. We've both lost family. Neither of us want to lose any more, but it'll happen. It always happens.  Everybody dies. Nobody gets out of this world alive."

Shelly shook her head.  "I just wanted her to be normal," she whispered miserably.

"Never happen," Linn said sympathetically.  "Not her."

His head came up a little at the sound of boots on the front porch: the front door opened and Marnie breezed in, spun her Stetson onto the hall tree, peeled out of her blanket lined denim jacket, gave it a backhand flip and hung it on the peg, almost ran across the kitchen.

Shelly rose to meet her and Marnie seized her in a desperate hug.

"I need my Mama," Marnie choked.

Linn rose.  "I'll leave you two alone," he said quietly, and left the two in embrace, each desperately absorbing what the other had to give in that moment.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

542. A PALE EYED MAN

"Marnie."

She was awake in a tenth of a second or less.

It was full dark; she barely saw him sitting beside her bed.

"Daddy, what's wrong?"

"Saddle up," he said, his words clipped: he rose, easily, the way he always did, walked silently, as he always did, and descended the broad stairs.

Marnie rolled out, seized socks, got dressed with her usual efficient speed: long before, she'd lay out her clothes ready to hand, for she'd learned too young that bad things can happen when you aren't expecting it.

Her sock feet whispered down the stairs; the door was slightly ajar: Marnie eased into her boots, snatched up Stetson and denim jacket, spun out the door, drew it quietly to.

She turned.

Moonlight does funny things, she thought: her Daddy's Midnight-horse was saddled and waiting for her, only bigger, and then Marnie realized this wasn't Midnight.

Whatever this horse was made Midnight look like the Tooth Fairy.

The horse turned its head toward her -- the mane was long, brushed, silky, shining in the moonlight -- Marnie's eyebrow rose as the horse's legs folded and she bellied down.

Marnie did not need to be told twice.

She swung a leg over the saddle, found her seat -- what do I do now? -- then she grinned as the horse rose ... to an incredible height ... she was suddenly taller than her pale eyed Daddy, mounted beside her on a gold ...

Wait a minute.

Daddy doesn't have a gold --

The man turned and looked very directly at Marnie.

Marnie's blood ran cold and she swatted her jacket back, stopping little short of gripping the checkered handle of the blued-steel .357 on her belt.

"You know me," the man said -- his voice was quiet, fatherly, he sounded something like her Daddy, only ...

Older.

"Try to keep up," he said: the Palomino stallion turned, the great black mare turning with him, and they stepped out lively -- across the front, in front of the barn and the open front garage --

Marnie blinked.

The fence was gone.

The field had a low mist, maybe up to the horses' bellies, something she'd seen maybe twice in her young years.

The mare was knee trained; she had no trouble keeping up with the stallion -- they rode terrain that was at once familiar, and different -- a hill, one she'd seen before --

Cemetrery Hill, she thought.

Why here?

Their mounts climbed easily, obviously comfortable with where they were: the higher they climbed, the thicker the fog --

This isn't right.

Fog is heavy.

It shouldn't be this high on the hill.

Too cold for fog.

She turned the mare -- she didn't want to turn, but did -- Marnie looked back along her back trail and saw a featureless ocean of grey.

I'd get lost in that, she thought.

Nothing to do but go forward.

She turned the mare again, drew up suddenly:  he was sitting right in front of her, the lower half of his face visible under the shadow of his Stetson's brim.

She saw the same broad grin her Daddy wore when she'd done something right.

"We're almost there."

"Where?"  Marnie demanded.  "You're not Daddy.  You look a lot like him but he doesn't have a stallion like this and he sure as hell doesn't have a black mare like this! What do you want with me anyway?"

Marnie backed the mare a little, shifted her weight:  the mare obediently stopped, her four legs planted like stone columns.

At this distance, Marnie thought, I can take out his eyes with two shots.

"He's just like you," the man said, and Marnie almost flinched as a woman's voice behind her said "I see that."

Another great black horse came up beside her; a young woman in a shimmering gown, a fashionable little hat smiled at her.

Marnie's face was carefully impassive, though she felt her stomach shrink and twist a little with stress.

"You," she said, "are not my Gammaw."

"No, I'm not," she agreed.  "Hello, I'm Sarah."

"Wait a minute."  Marnie's jaw slid out, her eyes narrowed.  "Why all this?  Why bring me here, why the fog, why the window dressing?"

"You're right.  We don't need it."  

Sarah raised a gloved hand, snapped her fingers.

The fog was gone; they were in the middle of a grassy plain -- featureless, endless; the sky was blue, the sun warm:  Marnie blinked, squinted.

"Most people accept ghosts better in the fog."

"I don't accept that you are a ghost."

"Really!"  Sarah's eyebrows raised. "Then what are we?"

Marnie sidled her mare over to Sarah's: their feet touched -- Marnie leaned over, laid the backs of her fingers against Sarah's upper arm.

"Solid," she said.  "As I expected."

"Ghosts can't be solid?"

"By definition, no."

"Therefore we are not ghosts."

"Listening to you two is like watching a mirror debate itself," Old Pale Eyes grunted.

"Sometimes we need window dressing to make the connection," Sarah explained.  "It's like a wizard's wand. Do you know why magic-workers use a wand?"

"Frankly, no," Marnie said suspiciously.

"A wand is just a stick. Nothing more. If someone handles magic, they don't need one -- but it makes it easier.  It gives them a focus. Just like shooting.  You are the sighting system; gunsights let you fine tune things a little, but grip and stance determine where it's going."

"You two rolled me out of a warm bunk," Marnie said stubbornly. "Why?"

"You deserve to know about the dragon in your belly."

"Yeah, I kind of noticed that. It didn't light up until recently and I don't like it."

"Oh, it was active well before that," Sarah smiled.  "Remember when that stranger tried to run his hand down your blouse?"

"The stranger you put on the ground," Old Pale Eyes added.  "With a broken nose, two cracked ribs and he passed blood for a month."

Marnie nodded.  "Okay, so that happened too."

"It is our hereditary curse," Sarah said.  "It's in our blood and either we learn to harness it or it kills us."

"Oh, great," Marnie groaned, lifting her palms to Heaven.

Old Pale Eyes raised and eyebrow and looked at Sarah.  

"She even complains like you."

"She comes by it honestly."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa now, hold it," Marnie protested, shaking her head, both palms up: "I'm supposed to be home in bed, now why am I here?"

"That's fair," Old Pale Eyes replied.

"Yes it is."  Sarah looked at Marnie, tilted her head a little.  "Marnie, you carry our bloodline and you will carry it to unexpected places.  It's vital, it is beyond vital, that you live to complete that mission."

"It's possible to die before that appointed time?"

"Do you remember reading about my son Jacob, and his son Joseph?"

Marnie looked sharply at Old Pale Eyes.  "Joseph ... the one who ran off and joined the Army."

"The one who was killed in France during the First Disagreement, yes. He should have stayed home and sired fine tall sons.  His death was not for naught. The man whose life he saved, contributed to our bloodline: he lived to sire sons of his own, and one of them was Sarah's husband."

"We had a girl-child, and her blood came back here and wove back into our line," Sarah said.

"So why is that so important?"

"Our line will fight in the Last Battle.  It is vital, Marnie, it is beyond vital, that our every generation know how to fight and how to kill and how to be as brutally efficient as we can be, because when that last battle finds us -- when we end up facing odds we can't beat -- we still have to prevail."

"Is that why I have that Rage Dragon inside me?"

"Yes. It ... we must master it, and we use its strength and its speed and its utter unforgiving ferocity."

"Why me? I'm nothing special."

Her two ancestors looked at one another and laughed.

The plain twisted around her, she felt the black mare she rode, shrink --

Sarah took her arm as their horses seemed to deflate, and disappear --

They were standing on a stage, behind rippling curtains, smelling perfume and powder and old wood: Marnie was still in jeans and denim jacket, Sarah was still in her fine, shimmering gown --

"You raged at my stone," Sarah said softly, "and you're right. We were both badly used, at too young an age, and yes I was a seductress and a murderess and I rejoiced in those sins, because every time  I killed someone who really, really deserved it, I was killing those people that did those terrible things to me.  But I'll tell you something" -- Marnie felt gloved fingertips caress her cheek -- "there are things I cherish, and one of them is the time with my Mama."  

Sarah tilted her head and smiled -- a little sadly, Marnie thought -- 

"You're right. My Mama wanted me to be a proper young lady, and she wanted me to be dainty and feminine and pretty and she wanted me to flutter my fan and use a glance and a look through my eyelashes to utterly melt men at my feet."  

She leaned closer and whispered, "I did that, too!" -- and the two giggled like schoolgirls sharing a secret, and Sarah added, "There is more to life than just that.  My Mama never liked it, but she had to accept it, especially when I disappeared and returned after a few days, or a couple of weeks, but Marnie" -- Sarah looked beseechingly at the younger woman, her gloved fingertips just touching Marnie's cheekbones -- "don't ever forget there is joy and there is beauty and there is someone who wants to propose to you so badly he can taste it."

"John."

"The same."  Sarah nodded.  

"Your path will not be my path," another voice said, and Marnie turned, eyes widening -- "Gammaw!"

Willamina smiled -- she was younger than Marnie remembered, and she looked really, really good in that blue tailored suit dress -- 

"You are one of a long line."  A warrior-maiden, curled black hair on top of her head, her brief tunic off one shoulder, bow in hand, quiver on her belt, her skin tanned dark from the Mediterranean sun, her eyes as pale as the other women's -- Marnie turned, slowly, looking at an increasing number of women, all of the same height and build, all differing in attire -- but all armed, and all with pale eyes, and all telling her the same thing.

The Ragedragon is part of us, and we make use of it wherever our path be assigned.

The stage twisted around her like the fog-shrouded charnel-hill had, and she was standing on her own front porch -- no horses, no pale eyed old lawman, just the night, and the moon, and silence.

Marnie's hand slipped under her jacket -- revolver, speedloaders, knife -- 

"What in two left handed hells just happened?" she whispered, her breath puffing out in little clouds of vapor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

543. THE REPRESENTATIVE

Marnie opened her eyes.

She looked to her left, saw the dress on a hanger, the hanger on a wooden peg; she sat up, saw the dressy, strappy heels beneath, the other necessaries neatly folded on the chair beneath them.

Right where she'd put them.

She closed her eyes, sat up, threw her covers back: bare feet hit the furry elkhide rug beside her bed: memories ran up her legs and into her brain and she remembered the buffalo rifle shoving back into her, the cloud of sulfurous blue smoke, she remembered with shocking clarity the feel of grass under her knees, the tightening of the corners of her eyes: she half-cocked the Sharps, dropped the lever, caught the smoking brass hull and thumbed in another: she'd read an account of a man who'd had to stop an elk, close-up, with a .44-40, and how he sincerely believed he was about to be stomped into a bloody puddle by a very unhappy bull elk who'd inherited another hunter's bad shot.

Marnie had no wish to face an elk with anything less than a rifle, and a healthy sized rifle at that.

She blinked, saw her room again: the moment had been incredibly real, the memory, strong and clear: she'd boned out the elk, she'd packed out wrapped meat and hide, she'd left bones and offal, she and her family ate well, and when she and her mounts paced up to the house, her Mama had a camera handy and took a few quick shots as she approached.

One of the pictures was framed, hung in the living room.

A pretty young girl astride a spotted dun mare.

A girl in a weathered, faded Carhartt coat, with a Sharps rifle propped up on her hip, with two streaks of blood painted on each cheek, a sprig of mountain pine in her hatband: she'd dipped the tip of the pine sprig in the elk's blood, thrust it into her braided hatband, and before she put knife to hide, she laid a hand on the magnificent bull's neck and whispered, "Your life will sustain ours, your strength will give us strength, your brave heart will embolden the hearts of our young."

All this went through her mind like a bolt of summer lightning across a nighttime summer sky.

 

The graduation ceremony was mercifully brief.

Marnie and Young John Greenlees were graduated early: the school board convened to convey diplomas, handshakes, congratulations: when asked if she had anything to say, Marnie looked at John and said, "Since we're both either valedictorian or salutatorian, how about the best speech you ever heard!"

John laughed -- they'd discussed speechmaking in the past -- he planted his left knuckles on his belt, raised his pontifical pointing finger, thrust out his chest and declared, "The best speech is the briefest, and so here it is, folks!" -- he and Marnie looked at one another, held hands, raised their diplomas and happily chorused, "Thank You!"

The brevity of their address was appreciated.

On the way back, Marnie said "Daddy, I'd like to show Gammaw my diploma," and so Linn wheeled the long wheelbase Jeep up Graveyard Hill and through the high, cast-iron arch.

Marnie felt the change in her father as he saw a vehicle, saw a solitary figure, saw where both appeared to be.

He braked easily, frowning, eyes busy.

Marnie reached up, laid a hand on his shoulder.  "It's all right, Daddy.  I'll handle it."

Shelly and Linn looked at one another:  Linn looked in the rearview at his little girl, who was turning and reaching across to open her door.

"Caution, Princess," he said, and saw that quick flash of a smile that could melt his heart like summer sun on a light snowfall.

Marnie swung out, landed easily on three inch heels:  she skipped up to a tall, lean young Marine, who executed a flawless left-face, whose eyes widened momentarily: his hand came up in a crisp salute, which Marnie returned easily and naturally.

"Ma'am," he said briskly.  "My apologies.  I thought you were the Sheriff."

Marnie laughed.  "I'm her granddaughter.  How can I help you?"

He turned, looked at Willamina's stone, at her oval portrait.

"I didn't know she was dead."

Marnie nodded, suddenly serious, the diploma tucked under one arm, against her side.

"I came to say thank you," he said softly.

"She would like that."

"I cannot say it to her," he said, turning back to Marnie, "but you are her granddaughter.  May I tell you?"

"You may."

He hesitated, smiled a little, studying the ground between them, then looked back up, almost bashfully.

"My Mama worked the Pentagon on 9-11," he said.

"When it was hit, Marines grabbed the children out of daycare and hauled them and the cribs out into the field. They circled the cribs like circling the wagons and they stood there, children inside and Marines facing out."  He looked over Marnie's head, at the Jeep's windshield -- he couldn't see through it, not at this angle -- "I was one of those children."

Marnie nodded, head tilted a little to the side, listening with both ears and both eyes.

"My Mama said when she came running up, crying, it looked like Jesus Christ in a Marine's uniform, keeping her baby safe."

He turned, looked at the tomb stone.

"She was a Marine."

"Yes, she was."

"She's the ... Mama, and her."

He turned back to Marnie, came to correct, military attention, saluted again.

"Ma'am, I thank the representative of your grandmother."

He broke off the salute, grinned, and suddenly he was less Marine than almost-bashful, tall boy.

"Dear God," he said softly, "you look just like her!"

Marnie dipped her knees, set down her diploma, lifted her chin.

"On behalf of my Grandmother," she said formally, "it is our good pleasure to have done this."

She took a quick step forward, seized him in a surprisingly strong embrace:  the young Marine wrapped his arms around Marnie, hugged her tight, tight, lifted her off the ground.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

544. A VOICE

The old mountaineer looked around, silence cascading off him like cold cascades off a block of dry ice.

The Spring Inn was not terribly noisy; it was not yet noon, there were a half dozen patrons, all locals: had there been even one strange face, one set of clothes that did not fit, the old man from up on the mountain would have quietly left and not returned for another month.

He walked slowly over to the bar, high top work shoes silent on the clean-swept floor: he rested a wrist on the edge of the bar and said "Beer," in a voice barely heard.

The barkeep drew him a mug, scraped off the foam, wiped the drip from the side of the glass with an almost clean bar towel, set the mug down in front of the old man.

The mountaineer looked at the beer with blue eyes, water-blue like a pure lake under the mountain sun: he considered the rising streams of ice-white bubbles in their grain-amber ocean, and then he gripped the mug, left handed, raised it, drank.

He set it down, half empty.

The barkeep raised an eyebrow.

It was a testament to this lean old man's physical condition that he could hold his breath long enough to drain half the heavy glass tankard.

"You bring it?" he asked.

The old man looked down at his beer, looked up at the barkeep.

"Usual place."

The barkeep nodded, once.

"Price gone up?"

The old man gave him a hard look, as if offended, and the barkeep regretted the question: it was a point of honor -- a prickly, brittle, easily offended honor -- that once a price was agreed on, these lean, reclusive mountain moonshiners stuck to it, even if their costs went up.

"Pay's in the usual place."

The old mountaineer grunted, hoisted the tankard, drank: he lowered the empty mug, looked at the TV set over the bar, frowned.

He leaned forward a little, eyes narrowed, and the barkeep turned to see what had seized this unexcitable old man of the mountain's attention.

 

A tall boy stopped, grinning, all thoughts of running to his computer to join in the online game forgotten.

Something long, white and steaming stood, almost surrounded by a gantry: the scene shifted to ten, white-suited figures, almost awkward in pressure suits and helmets, waving at the cameras, then turning to march, single file, down the sterile-white, brightly-lighted hallway to the elevator.

The tall boy stared, awe struck, for these, these were his heroes -- as much as Glenn and Carpenter and Armstrong had been his grandfather's heroes, these were his, for they were of his generation, of his Earth.

The camera zoomed in on one, a pretty, feminine face, smiling, waving: she could be a high school sweetheart, but the camera dropped a little to the six-point star embossed on the front of her suit, and he knew, he knew this was a Sheriff's deputy, about to launch to the orbital station, where they would transfer to a shuttle, a shuttle that would accelerate, whirl madly about Earth, one orbit, two, and at the right time, solid fuel boosters would ignite and aided by this orbital slingshot, they would launch away into the cold darkness, along an a path visible only to mathemeticians and computer programs, they would sleep in an experimental new hibernation until they reached a distant planet, a colony, a foothold.

A tall boy with pale eyes saw a pretty young woman with pale eyes step onto the elevator, beside another puffy suit, one with a medical caduceus embossed on his left breast, and he saw them hold hands as the announcer's polished voice murmured approvingly of the first husband-and-wife team to join the Mars colony.

He stood, entranced, watched as the camera panned those present, faces smiling or faces uncertain, and the camera paused on another husband and wife: a man, tall, lean, with an iron grey mustache and a Stetson hat, the very image of a Western lawman: beside him, an attractive woman, gripping her husband's arm, leaning her head into his shoulder: the camera returned to the couple as the numbers counted down, down, until fire rolled from under the shining white booster, until thunder shivered the earth beneath their feet, until the blast shutters danced and clattered around them, protecting heavy, tempered glass from the shock and concussion and the waves of raw power roaring from beneath the first stage of the Mars shuttle.

The camera returned to the couple, to the mother, who was bouncing on her toes like a little girl, chewing on the knuckles of one hand to keep from screaming, waving a kerchief with the other: the camera paused momentarily on the pale-eyed old lawman, long enough to catch his carefully-hidden feelings as they rolled, wet and gleaming, down his face.

"Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller's parents, Sheriff Linn Keller of Firelands County, Colorado, and his fire-paramedic wife, Shelly," the announcer intoned solemnly, "here to see their daughter off for her adventure of a lifetime" -- the camera swung a little, another pair of names, a brief comment, and another, and the pale eyed lad waited, unmoving, until the booster roared aloft, until the stages separated, until new fires seared the sky high above the launch pad, waited until the shuttle made orbit and was safely coasting, high overhead, cradled in its assigned orbit.

The pale eyed lad nodded.

Something in his blood whispered, and he heard the whisper, and instead of going to his computer, he went to the wall rack and withdrew a length of wood he'd laminated and shaped, he'd strung and tried, and he took arrows he'd made, shafts of multiflora rose, feathers from road-killed scavengers, hand-fletched: he'd gone so far as to fabricate nocks of bone, points of forged, hammered scrap steel.

A tall boy with pale eyes went outside, carrying a Welsh longbow:  he nocked the arrow, drew, anchored and released the moment the side of his thumb touched the corner of his jaw, and the arrow drove, straight and true, into a weathered fence post and stood there, quivering.

Another arrow, whispering as it was drawn, caressing the side of churchyard elm, and it too launched, and drove into the fencepost a finger's-breadth from its companion.

A third followed the first two.

Matthew Llewellyn nodded, grinned.

Later that evening, over supper, his mother asked "Matthew, would you like to take a senior trip?"

They'd discussed a senior trip before, a summertime celebration before going off to college: she thought he might ask about Acupulco, or the Carolina beaches, or some exotic or exciting, college-age destination.

Matthew hesitated, set down his fork.

"Mom," he said, smiling a little, "I remember reading about Daffyd Llewellyn."

"The fire chief?"  His mother smiled, sipped her coffee, remembering how a very young Matthew would run around the house wearing a toy fire helmet and a diaper, carrying a cardboard paper-towel tube, pretending to spray great volumes of water on imagined conflagrations.

He nodded.  "He came from Colorado, Mama, and he had pale eyes."

He looked at his Mama.

"I'd like to visit where he came from."

 

The old mountaineer swung down from his mule, walked over to a pretty young woman in a US Navy dress uniform.

She seized him, laughing, and he hugged her back, bending down a little to do it: short she might be, but she was nothing but muscle, and he well remembered the day when one of his boys tried to get the best of her and ended up just honestly beat: she'd turned her tornado loose on him and knocked him north, south, east, west, up to the Texas moon and down to oil, and then she proceeded to get mean with him, and ever since then, why, didn't nobody dare trifle with her.

That warn't but ... oh hell, she was maybe sixteen or so, and here she is, she's a woman growed and she's flyin' them helicopter thangs ...

His skinny, wrinkled hands gripped her shoulders, studied her beautiful, flawless, shining, apple-cheeked face: he shook his head and said softly, "Damn, but you look like your Mama!"

She hugged him again, laughing.

"Kin ye stay f'r supper?"

"I'm here for three days," she replied, "then I have to report to ..."

He saw her bite her bottom lip.

"Darlin', what is it?"

"Daddy," she said uncertainly, and of a sudden his all-growed-up daughter sounded very much like an uncertain little girl.

"Daddy, I'm going to Mars."

"Mars," he rumbled, drawing back a little.  "Marnie just left f'r Mars."  His eyes narrowed suspiciously.  "Whatinell they want with my little girl on Mars?  Ain't no oceans --"

"They need helo pilots, Pa, and they told me I'm a good one. They'll season me out here on Earth but they said what they fly on Mars handles a lot like the Super Stallion I'm flying."

"Dear God," the old man groaned, "now they're not buildin' machines, they're breedin' 'em!"
Marnie laughed, tilted her head, looking very young and very pretty and very much like the laughing little daughter he remembered so well.

The old mountaineer looked long at her and she saw sadness in his eyes, but he looked away and harrumphed and took a long breath and finally said "Well, hell, warsh up and your aunt will want t' fill you up, they ain't feedin' you enough in attair Navy" -- he looked sharply at her, frowning -- "Are ye dressin' warm enough, darlin'?  As I recall it's cold on attair salt water ocean!"

She laughed, patted his arm, then turned and gripped his arm, they way they used to when they'd walk into church together.

Father and daughter walked into the house, and for a night, for one last night, all was well with their world.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

545. STRAWBERRY AND KNUCKLES

 

Captain Crane raised a cautioning hand.

Shelly's boot was firm on the brake pedal, holding the squad at the intersection.

They looked to the left, waited until blue lights came over the rise, headed their way at a brisk velocity.

The Captain lowered his hand.

Shelly's foot came off the brake and the squad rolled ahead.

 

Sharon's finger ran down the plastic coated sheet, stopped: it moved on, stopped again:

"Firelands PD Actual, meet the squad, 355 Center," and followed with the coded message, given in two numbers:  Will had been a lawman long enough he had no need to refer to the laminated sheet taped to his visor.

Knife.

Fight.

Injury.

"Meet the squad."

Will slipped his coffee into the holder, looked around before he lit up: his fingers wiped across the rocker switches, right to left, and his burnished brogan eased down on the go pedal.

Four hundred sixty rompin' stompin' cubic inches of four barrel Ford go-power sang power under the gleaming, waxed white Crown Vic's hood, and Will's eyes smiled a little as the big engine's acceleration shoved him back in his seat.

 

Shelly and her father stepped out -- or, rather, the Captain, with his long legs, simply turned and stepped out:  Shelly was built a little closer to the ground, and jumped.

The Captain grabbed the big orange multi-tiered tackle box, Shelly followed, working her hands into a pair of gloves, hesitating as her father kicked a couple empty beer kegs out of the way.

They stomped up the steps, onto the porch -- at least the porch was well built -- Crane beat on the door with his fist:  "Ambulance crew, y'all call us?"

Shelly smiled as she remembered Willamina coming along on a squad run once, she'd beat on the door in that exact manner, she'd called out with those exact words, and her native Appalachian accent was strong enough she'd been asked if she was from East Texas, West Tennessee or Hotlanta, Joeja -- she'd laughed and said no, she was a native Buckeye, but from the Southeast Ohio hill country -- she had a way of charming, and charm she did as she smiled and confided that "most of Ohio considers my native Appalachia more a disease than part of their Yankee North!"

A voice came from inside: Crane looked at his daughter, lifted his chin.

Shelly turned, looked:  Will pulled in ahead of the squad.

Crane pulled open the door.

"Who's hurt?" he called.

An unsteady looking fellow with a pleasantly intoxicated smile swayed a little and said "Wow, man. Yeah, that's me."

Shelly tilted her head, regarded him with puzzlement:  there were no signs of violence -- the furniture was all pushed back, their host was bare to the waist, and barefoot, he appeared to be in a good mood.

"Where you hurt? she asked, puzzled.

"Oh.  Yeah.  Wow, man."  He turned around, unfast his jeans, and just as Will came around the doorpost and looked in, this Jack Doe dropped his drawers and shot them the full moon.

There was a laceration; it didn't amount to much -- it was long and obviously painful, but it cut no deeper than the fat layer -- he explained that he'd had a skinning knife in its sheath, the sheathed knife in his hip pocket, him and his buddy (they looked around -- no one else in sight) were goin' to wrassle, and he sort of fell down on his butt and the knife cut through the sheath and into his backside.

The Captain harrumphed, and Shelly glanced toward the door.

Chief of Police Will Keller was turning the color of a rotten strawberry.

He stuffed his knuckles into his mouth to keep from laughing and snickered and snorted and almost had a case of vapor lock as he made his way back to the cruiser.

Once he was inside his Crown Vic, once he was inside with the door shut and all windows up, Chief of Police Will Keller threw his head back and laughed, by his own admission, like a damned fool.

Once he'd relieved himself of the initial charge of mirth and merriment, he returned to the scene, where he was obliged to snort and cross his watering eyes again in a vain attempt to contain himself: he arrived just as Shelly reached for a roll of familiar silver-grey tape on top of the television, and she used generous lengths of duct tape to secure the nonstick Telfa to the injury.

To the lawman's credit, he managed not to guffaw, at least not until after Shelly quietly took his arm and murmured, "I saw that roll of duct tape and I used plenty."  She glared at the Chief and added, "He deserved that!"

This time the Chief could not contain himself, and the healthy, if inappropriate, laughter of an old veteran lawman was heard for a considerable distance that otherwise uneventful afternoon.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

546. CAPTURE, AND ESCAPE

I judged that old shack wouldn't stop a hard-thrown rock, let alone a bullet, but Beaumont was in there and I wanted him.

I'd ridden up as unseen as I could arrange, I dismounted and whispered "Stay," and give the palm-down I give her when I was trainin' her, and she blinked and slashed her tail and didn't offer no comment.

I give that shack a good lookin'-at.

Smoke from the chimney, his horse was out in what passed for a corral, if you used your imagination; his wore out old nag stayed in it more out of habit than anything else.

I'd come to fetch a man and I figured to do that.

I have the reputation for fetchin' a man peacefuly or otherwise, and not givin' much of a good damn which one it was: truth be told, I'd ruther do it peacefully.

Just naturally lazy, I reckon.

I smelt bacon and figured I'd caught him right at the right time, if a man is givin' his attention to the fryin' pan, why, might be I could Injun up on him, so I taken out, I skipped in on the balls of my feet and I had a handful of Colt's revolving pistol when I bunched up my fist and thumped on the side of the wall and hollered, "BEAUMONT!"

I figured if I beat on the door he might shoot through the door, but if I hit the wall I might startle him.

I didn't startle nothin' but some dust.

"BEAUMONT, YOU IN THERE?"

Warn't a thing to reply at me.

I taken a shove at the door and it swung open.

Now that spooked me right there.

"BEAUMONT! IT'S SHERIFF KELLER!  SING OUT IF YOU'RE IN THERE!"

All I heard was his horse blow and some birds and the water runnin' down hill from the cabin.

I hated goin' from daylight into the shadows of a cabin but warn't no help for it so I swung in and the place was empty -- other'n a table, two chairs, a stove ... and a still warm fryin' pan of bacon set off to the side.

There was a note on the table.

I swung around the table --  nowhere in that little shack a man could hide and damned if I'd stand with my back to the door whilst I taken a look at attair note -- I picked up the rock weightin' it down and I read attair note and my heart just plainly sank like a rock through molasses, when it got to my boot tops I felt just about as low as I could get.

Now I pride myself on bein' a fair man.

I pride myself on bein' an honest man.

Beaumont was wanted, truth be told, but I'd just found out they'd found out who'd actually done that murder and Beaumont was a man falsely accused, and I wanted to look him in the eye and tell him he had no more to worry about, that he was known to be innocent, and that warn't goin' to happen.

I folded that note back along the crease lines and slid it in my inside vest pocket, and I went outside and looked around as I did.

His old nag looked at me hopefully and I walked up to her and rubbed her jaw.

Beaumont's sad excuse for a wore out saddle and his equally threadbare saddle blanket was hung over the corral on one of the only rails left that was strong enough to hold it up.

 "Old girl," said I, "I'm sorry to put you to work one last time, but we've got to head back home and I'll need your help."

The mare didn't say a thing, just stood there patient as anything as I saddled her back up.

 

Jacob was waitin' in front of Digger's when we finally rode in.

He looked at the wore out nag I was leadin' and he looked at the nag's passenger and he looked at me.

I looked at him and handed him the note and I looked across the street, towards the Silver Jewel, and then I looked up to where Esther's office was.

The light was on.

I handed Jacob my mare's reins and laid a hand on his shoulder, and then I walked on across the street with the gait of a man defeated.

There are times when a strong man needs to draw strength, and the strongest soul I've ever known is my wife, and I wanted nothing more than to hold my wife ... just to stand there, and wrap my arms around her, and hold her.

 

Jacob Keller watched his Pa ride in.

The man rode slow and he rode hunched a little -- and that was of concern.

Jacob's pale eyed Pa was a proud man, a man who rode erect, who walked erect, his shoulders back, looking the world and all comers directly in the eye, as if to say "Jump right on and do your worst!"

But not now.

He rode up to Jacob, he swung down like he was bone tired, he handed Jacob the note.

Jacob's eyebrow raised and he watched the back of his father's shoulders as he walked like a man bearing a world's weight, as he walked to the Silver Jewel with the fatigued steps of a man defeated.

Jacob unfolded the note, read it, read it again.

He turned, untied what used to be a quilt at one time, opened it a little, took a look.

His expression did not change.

Digger came out, dry-washing his hands:  "Here now, here now," he said cheerfully, "what's this, what's this? Someone we know?"

Jacob turned and fixed the man with a cold glare, stopping him as effectively as if he'd just driven a lance through the undertaker's chest.

"The county is payin' for this, Digger," he said quietly.  "The usual, and Pa already knows what's in his pockets."

Jacob helped the undertaker unload the stiffened body, carry it around back, into the preparation room:  Jacob doubted not that, after the undertaker gathered anything of value, he'd dump carcass and quilt both in a rough box and haul it out to the potter's field come daylight: Jacob's boot heels were loud on the board walk as he strode downhill, toward the Sheriff's office.

He sat at his father's desk, turned up the Aladdin, casting its bright-white light over the desk: he unfolded the note, frowned, raised it to his nose, took a sniff.

Bacon, he thought.

He read the pencil inscription again, taking his time, studying the script, divining more than just the printed word from what he was seeing.

 

Linn removed his Stetson as he crossed the threshold.

Esther was already standing: her face went from happy greeting to concern, and she flowed across the colorfully-woven carpet, gripped her husband's hands.

Linn bent a little, hugged his wife to him, held her wordlessly for several long moments:  Esther hugged him back, firmly, with a surprising strength for a beautiful woman of diminutive build:  finally Linn released her, turned a little, sat:  his feet were planted wide apart, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, dropped his forehead into his hands, stared sightlessly at the carpet.

"My dear?" Esther asked quietly.

Linn raised his head, looked at his wife with an expression of absolute grief.

"I was too late, Esther," he said huskily.  "I was too late."

 

His Honor the Judge Donald Hostetler puffed vigorously at his cigar, fouling the air of his private car with an incredible speed:  he frowned, re-read the note, grunted, then read it out loud, as was his habit.

"Hello Pale Eyes," he read aloud, "I figure you're Here so the Bacon is hot and help Yourself, I will not need it now.

"I been Accused and nobody's going to believe me Innocent so the Hell with it. You'll find me Hangin in the Barn. Sorry aint no Sweet Rolls done et them already."

His Honor removed his spectacles, sat down, looked at Jacob.

"Will you wish to view the body, Your Honor?" he asked quietly, his eyes unreadable.

The Judge sighed tiredly.  "No, Jacob, if your father is satisfied as to its identity, then the Court is satisfied as well."  The Judge parked his cigar, spat a fleck of Cuban tobacco from his tongue, looked at the lean-waisted deputy.  "How is your father?"

"He's not happy, sir," Jacob said slowly.  "He's blaming himself."

"He usually does," the Judge muttered.  "Conscience big around as a church and tall as a shot tower."

"Yes, sir."

Judge Hostetler rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"I should have sent the Black Agent," he sighed.  "Your sister could have coaxed the man out."

"Not likely, sir. Beaumont wouldn't believe anyone but Pa."

The Judge nodded.  "And your father knew this."
"Yes, sir."

"He'll flog himself over this for a  year."

"Very likely, sir."

The Judge opened a drawer, looked in, closed the drawer.

"If you father was a lesser man, I would send him a bottle of whiskey, but your father is not the kind to drink."

"No, sir."

The Judge swore again.

"He was how close, did you say?"

"The man fried up bacon and 'twas still hot when Pa went into the shack."

"So close."  The Judge shook his head.  

"Will there be anything else, sir?"

"No, Jacob.  No.  Thank you for bringing this ... will you need it back?"

"If Pa needs it, sir, I'll ask for it."

The Judge nodded, looked thoughtfully at the tall deputy.

"Jacob, you are a credit to your parents," he said.  

"Thank you, sir."

 

Sheriff Linn Keller and his wife Esther descended the stairs like royalty: their carriage was outside -- it was not really necessary, they could have walked the short distance to the church, but they felt the need to be somewhat more formal.

They went into the church, and they were there for some time, for they had need to entreat the Almighty on a matter the Sheriff considered important.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

547. THE FACE IN THE STONE

Church was an important part of Firelands life.

Ladies wore their Sunday gowns, men wore the only suit they had, work was set aside: it was the Sabbath, and the community came together to share their news, their gossip, their triumphs and tragedies: hands were shaken, shoulders gripped, heads were inclined together, or turned a little to bring a good ear to bear: children were enjoined to stillness, babies were discreetly hushed, or sometimes withdrawn, and occasionally there was a soft snore heard during the sermon, which Parson Belden would gently address with a knowing grin, for he himself was a man no stranger to hard labor, and here in Firelands, even the Parson had calluses.

Family was important, and the artifacts of family were cherished.

The ladies wore what little jewelry they had.

One particularly favored style, community-wide, was a cameo, and the cameos most prized were those hand carved examples that had an ancestress in profile: one young lady consulted matronly wisdom, took the steam-train to a city, sat in a studio in a sunlit chair wearing a gown drawn down to expose neck and shoulders, sitting with her head back in a fork used by photographers to help their subjects hold very still for the long exposures necessary in that day: an artist's skilled fingers carved carefully, exactly, and the young woman, engaged to a hard working young man, went home with her silhouette carved in an oval cameo, and mounted to an encircling neck-band.

This artifact was regarded with awe and with wonder by the daughters she bore, and was ceremonially presented to her oldest surviving daughter when she came of age, with the story behind it: she, in turn, presented it to her own oldest daughter, and this image of a pretty young woman in the 1800s survived generations and well more than a century, and was worn to church and important functions, and once was the sole garment worn by a young woman, on her wedding night, where her new husband declared it the one most beautiful thing he'd ever seen her wear.

The artifact was left behind when an eldest daughter rode a roaring shaft of fire and speed, as an eldest daughter carried her family's memories and blood and hopes and dreams to a far away spot of red in the limitless black of unimaginable emptiness: here, a new pioneering community, in a new, distant, hostile land, banded together and quite literally carved a home out of a cold, hostile place.

The pretty young woman, descended from strong pioneering stock, did as her own ancestress had done -- though where her seminal ancestress crossed the Great American Desert in an ox drawn Conestoga, she'd crossed the great emptiness in a Boeing ship and a Borg-Warner capsule, while in the artificial death of a suspension module.

Here, where death whispered and skulked and life was fragile and easily lost, people banded together to share their triumphs and their sorrows, their joys and fears, and once a week -- regularly, faithfully, unfailingly -- they came together to worship, came together in a rock-carved room dedicated to this purpose, with song and with thanksgiving, sharing their strength and their resilience: hands were shaken and shoulders gripped, heads inclined to one another.

There was no water here to pan for shining yellow nuggets in running streams; men sought what they might find on the surface, gathering stones, excavating the side of the looming, ancient cone of what used to be a volcano: scientists analyzed the diggings, miners sorted the blasted or broken or shattered layers, and a native stone was discovered that caused a geologist's frown.

The stone was part of a strata, the strata was layered: lighter, and darker, and the geologist blinked, swung his eyes up toward the ceiling of his little chamber: he cut a half dozen of these stones and took them to another man, a carver, who'd delighted the ladies with his miniature renderings of their faces in silhouette.

These ladies of the new Firelands soon took turns sitting, delighting in divesting themselves of pressure suits or work clothes, and sitting in an elegant drape that exposed neck and shoulders: they sat with their heads back, barely touching a fork like long-dead photographers used to use to help their subjects hold absolutely still for the long exposure times necessary back then: an engineer fabricated a means of laser scanning a subject, and letting the computer-driven machine carve their precise image in the stone, but the artisan's work was the more favored, and his oval, miniature portraits, rendered in a color-contrasting stony medium, were fast to bands worn about the feminine throat, and it became a custom for a young lady, blushing and nervous ahead of her upcoming nuptials, to have such a cameo carved: these were worn on the wedding night, and given in time to the oldest daughter, establishing again a tradition, ensuring the image of a brave woman who crossed a great and barren desert and started a new life, would never be forgotten.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

548. ON A COLD WIND

Two pretty young ladies stood at the edge of the steep drop-off.

They wore coats and gloves, they squinted against cold wind and the sharp caress of wind-blown, icy little snow particles: the world fell away at their feet, and each felt a certain misgiving as to what they'd planned, but their hands sought each other's -- their shared bravery bolstered, each by the other, they looked down the slope and shivered a little.

Angela spoke first, her words momentarily visible, until the gusting wind ripped the vapor-cloud from her red lips:

"Suicide."

Her cousin, or half-sister (she suspected she was really her half-sister, but she lived with the pretense the adults forwarded, that the older girl was a cousin) nodded solemnly, her face framed by the fur-edged hood of her wind-rippled cloak.

"Suicide," she agreed.

"There would be no control."

"None," the other agreed.

They looked at one another, looked down at the finely crafted, waxed, polished, gleaming, snow-dusted toboggan they'd lugged up the mountain.

Wind- and cold-reddened faces smiled quickly, fear a delicious tickle in their bellies.

They shifted, climbed aboard, Angela in front, Sarah behind: they thrust their weight forward -- once, twice -- the snow squeaked a little under them as the snowpack dropped in front, and then they went over the edge --

Jacob's head snapped upright as he heard the screams.

Pale eyes drove through the distance, fogged with falling snow, a fine, dry snow, the kind that looks almost like a mist in the distance: his head turned a little as he tried vainly to triangulate the origin of a harmonized chorus of fear, shattering off frozen granite, shivering the very air itself.

Jacob held his breath, listening.

 

The world fell from under them, or so it felt: the toboggan was sanded smooth on the underside, it had been heated, waxed, the smooth, waxed wood polished, buffed, more than glass-smooth: cold snow whispered crystalline secrets as it passed, but its passing was so swift, all the girls heard was the wind whistling past their ears, they felt tears cut form the corners of their eyes, running cold and wet level-back on their chilled, reddened flesh, they felt their stomachs fall away and drop miles and leagues and eternities, their voices joined in a fearful, a joyful harmony -- one long, sustained, joyful, from the depths of their very souls, girlish, scream!

The toboggan hissed downhill, searing across the top of the snow, seeming ready to snap out a set of ice-wings and float into the cold air itself: the slope ran to level now, their momentum carrying them most of the way to the tree-line:  there was a little rise, the toboggan slid to a coasting, smooth stop, and two girls, breathless, panting, rolled off the sled, laughing, not caring they were getting snow all over them:  they rolled over on their backs, threw their arms wide, giving full vent to their delight, looking straight up at a deep, blue, flawless sky, framed with towering pines and glitter-dusted with wind-blown snow.

The girls lay, gathering their strength and their breath, as a broad Stetson hat with a pale eyed face beneath, leaned over them:  Jacob looked from one pretty young girl to another pretty young girl, trying hard to think of something intelligent to say:  he looked at the toboggan, he ran his eyes up-slope, following their smooth track, nodding his appreciation for the work they'd gone to in order to haul their toboggan to the top of one of the best sledding slopes he'd ever known in his own explorations.

Sarah sat up, her bottom sinking deeper as she did:  she thrust out a hand, Jacob extended his own: they gripped each other's forearms:  Angela sat up, giggling, stuck out her own arm, and Jacob leaned back, grinning, hauled both his sisters to their feet.

"That was fun!"  Angela declared.

"Want to do it again?"
Angela looked back up the slope, closed her eyes, remembered the feeling of falling, of sailing, of utter, unadulterated speed:  she opened her eyes, smiled, shook her head.

"Me neither," Sarah admitted, "but that was fun!"

Edited January 17, 2022 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

549. RISK

Jacob Keller wiped his face with a stained, dirty bandanna, wiped the sweatband of his stained Stetson, twisted his pelvis around in a slow circle: if he were on stage and wearing little more than a smile, ladies would doubtless have whistled and screamed and tossed him dollar bills: as it was, in the back pasture, putting up hay, in a blue chambray shirt with a dark sweat stain down the middle of its back, with dusty boots and wearing one scuffed leather glove, he looked like what he was in that moment: a man working to put up hay against the coming winter.

His son worked with him, as did his daughter.

Most girls of her years would be interested in skin-tight jeans and flirting with boys, with cars or jewelry or makeup: Marnie disdained such affectations, preferring the company of her beloved Irish Brigade, the lawmen of the town, of the Ladies' Tea Society: it entered into local legend when fourteen year old Marnie Keller, wearing a blue suit dress and heels, stormed into the Spring Inn with a twelve gauge, cycled the action and shouted, "DIDN'T YOU IDIOTS LEARN ANYTHING THE FIRST TIME?  DO I HAVE TO BLOW ANOTHER HOLE IN THE DAMNED CEILING?" -- at which point, with the shock of cold water in the face realization that a pale eyed woman with a shotgun and really, really good legs just declared an end to hostilities, the general barfight ended, just like that.

Sheriff Willamina Keller -- who was, at that point, not far at all from retirement -- had a quiet talk with her granddaughter, how she was supposed to be a ride-along that day, not a fight-stopper, how she was not yet a sworn officer and she really wasn't supposed to grab the riot gun and wade into the middle of a good old fashioned knock-down, drag-out bar fight like Willamina did her first night as Firelands sheriff -- and as Marnie glared fearlesslly at her beloved Gammaw, Willamina gripped Marnie's shoulder, leaned her head confidentially close, until their foreheads touched, and she whispered so only Marnie could hear, "I couldn't have done it better myself!"

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller regarded the two lads before her with cold and pale eyes.

That they wore their atmosphere suits did not hide the fact that they were shifting their weight from one foot to another, their visors were up and Marnie could see the guilt on their faces.

No one else was in the room; parents and spectators were excluded -- Marnie's cold glare was enough to enforce her order -- and in the soundproofed privacy of the room Marnie reserved for interrogations, conferences and other confidences, she released the hood from her white uniform skinsuit, pulled it off and threw it to her desk, hard.

The hood contained visor and generators, comm system and other vital functions; the sound of two kilos of hard-thrown, flexible helmet slamming against her recycled-plastic desk top was surprisingly loud, and she was gratified to see both boys flinch.

Marnie folded her arms, looked from one to the other, her bottom jaw thrust outward.

"Do you remember," she said slowly, "the attack on our colony?"

"The Greysuits, yeah," one mumbled, looking down; the other looked up, surprised, almost alarmed.

"Both my children were killed in that attack.  Your mother was killed.  You went to school with two others."

One, then the other, nodded solemnly.

Marnie surged forward, seized each by a shoulder, shook them once, hard.

"I DON'T WANT TO GO TO ANOTHER FUNERAL," she hissed from between clenched teeth, her eyes very pale: "You two could have been KILLED out there!"

One looked at her, his jaw shoved defiantly forward:  "Sheriff, we tried it and it worked!"

"Yeah," the other echoed, looking up at Marnie:  "It was fun!"

"Fun."  Marnie dropped her hands away from their suits's shoulders.  "Fun."

She paced around in a little circle, shaking her head, then seized her helmet from the desk, pulled it back over her head with a grimace:  she worked it a little to get it lined up on her head, then made it fast with her suit.

"You two," she said, "are going to show me where you had this fun!"

Sheriff, suspects and a small entourage of interested folk trooped out the airlock: it took three cycles to get everyone outside, including an Ambassador who appeared to be wearing a grey Confederate dress uniform, perfectly comfortable in the near-nonexistent atmosphere of the Martian surface: more than one looked at the man with a certain degree of envy, hoping silently that the Confederate Empire's technology would be extended to the Firelands colony: the atmosphere suits were bulky, not entirely comfortable, and frankly, kind of ugly.

The Sheriff let the boys lead the way.

She knew well enough where the boys made their speedy descent, she knew which printer made their plastic toboggan, she'd examined the toboggan itself, she'd run gloved fingertips over the deep grooves sliced, scraped and eroded into its bottom: more by accident than design, the sled's bottom was thick, almost two fingers' worth, though one particularly deep gouge actually bulged through the sitting surface, where one of the boys' suited legs probably lay during their screaming, sledding slide down the sandy slope.

The boys pointed out the path they'd taken, the anchor points they'd used to painstakingly hand-rake the sandy slope: they showed the hammers they'd (*ahem*) borrowed (*ahem*), they buckled what looked for all the world like firefighters' ladder belts around their puffy middles, they ran three turns of strong, slender line through the ladder hook (Marnie made a mental note to inquire where they came up with this design) and they -- and Marnie -- rappelled down the length of the slope, rakes and hammers in hand, the boys demonstrating how they'd gotten all the rocks they could find, away from their sledding slope.

They stopped twice, tossing rocks out of the way, busting newly-discovered rocky spurs; cameras were set up, binoculars raised, the progress of the three followed by spectators at the bottom.

It was not unusual, back on Earth, to receive spurious signals, or signals that could not be clearly received, or understandably decoded, and so when a signal was received, something retransmitted completely by accident, what was heard was disregarded as something unknown, but not important.

What they heard was the sound of a Sheriff and two boys, on a brand-new, thick-plastic-bottomed toboggan, screaming at an unholy velocity down a sandy slope, skidding to a stop on the gently curved slope onto the plain below:  laughing men, excited women, shouting children chased after the trio as they skidded to a stop in an almost invisible haze of dust-fine sand.

Sheriff Marnie Keller stood up, stepped off the sled, looked at the colonists crowding around: her skinsuit's helmet showed her entire face, and none missed the delight in her expression as she declared, "That was fun! Who's next?"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

550. MAMA WAS A MOUNTAIN WITCH

Sheriff Marnie Keller's eyes snapped open.

She was awake in a tenth of a second or less, she knew something was wrong, something was very, very WRONG --

She looked to her left and saw stars -- stars, bright and thick, beautiful diamonds scattered across a black-velvet background --

That was a wall, she thought, and then she heard an alarm blare, a voice:  "GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS, THIS IS NOT A DRILL, THIS IS NOT A DRILL" -- followed by a pause, then a recorded, mechanical, slow voice:  COLISSION, COLISSION, COLISSION" -- and an impatient male voice:  "Shut that damned thing off!  Damage report!"

Marnie swung her legs over the narrow bunk, powered for the door.

She slept in her skinsuit as a matter of habit: she slept with her visor down, recognizing that the surface quarters she'd first inhabited, were anything but proof against meteor strike: here on the Confederate diplomatic shuttle, she slept on top of the covers, still in her white uniform suit, visor closed, simply because it's how she was most comfortable.

The door opened, she exited, the door slid shut behind her: she did not stop to wonder how, with a jagged hole in her wall, open to space, she was able to open the door: an emergency force field automatically surrounded the hull, sealing in the precious atmosphere, but not until the damage was done.

Just how much damage, she did not know:  all she knew was, they were on emergency lighting, she was bristled up like a startled cat, and she heard a man screaming.

Marnie hit the door release, stepped in: a control panel was a smoking ruin, a man was on the floor, bleeding from his leg, clutching his arm: he was trying hard not to cry, he was in intense pain, he looked at Marnie, not knowing who she was and in the seething ocean of agony that enveloped him, he honestly did not care.

Marnie touched a stud; her visor slid up -- her stomach rolled as she smelled burnt flesh -- she gripped the man's arm from underneath, blew gently on it as she pushed something invisible away with her other hand:  mentally she sprinkled snow into the near end of the burn, and saw flames blasting away from the injury, sent running by her breath.

She could hear her Gammaw's voice as she silently chanted the spell, as she blew the pain from the burn:

And there came an angel from the East bearing Frost and Fire.

In Frost, Out Fire.

There came an angel from the East bearing Frost and Fire.

In Frost, Out Fire.

There came an angel from the East bearing Frost and Fire.

In Frost, Out Fire, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

She looked at the man -- he was shaking, sweating, and she saw something new on his face.

She saw surprise.

Someone came in, exclaimed "JESUS KATY KEE-RIST!" -- Willamina rose quickly, turned: she seized the man's apron, made two quick cuts with a knife he didn't see -- a yank, his apron was hers: another slice and she had a wide strip of cloth:  she folded it quickly, slid the knife back into its sleeve sheath, pressed the pad against her victim's bleeding leg.

"What happened?" she snapped.

"Ma'am, I don't know," the cook admitted, scratching curly, sandy hair under his white cap:  "I was fixin' to fire up breakfast and somethin' hit us, the collision alarm went off an' the Captain called General Quarters, an' I heard him screamin' --"
"I can stop the bleeding, we need to get this man to sickbay --"

"Sickbay's gone," somebody said.

Marnie closed her eyes, took a long breath.  "What is this man's name?"

"Manfred Merckle, ma'am."

Marnie leaned over the injured man's leg, pressing the folded cloth down with the heel of her hand, her weight through the vertical shaft of her arm:  she took another long breath and began to recite.

"And I saw Manfred Merckle in the ditch, wallowing in Manfred Merckle's blood and I said unto Manfred Merckle, Live:  yea, I said unto Manfred Merckle, Live."

She picked up a strip that used to be a strap on the cook's apron, tied the bandage in place -- quickly, tightly.

I need honey," Marnie muttered.  She looked sharply at him -- "You're the cook, you got any honey?"

He grinned broadly, boyishly:  "Ma'am, I got me a whole crock of it!"
"Crock," Marnie echoed.  "Raw honey?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"I need  -- you got any plastic wrap?"

"Oh hell yes ma'am, beggin' your pardon ma'am, yes --"

"I'll need honey, plastic wrap and another apron, clean if you've got it."

"Ma'am, I'll be right back!"

Someone else knelt beside Marnie, held out a knife, handle first.

"Ma'am, you need to take this," he said.

She looked at him, her eyes dead pale: her glare was as sharp edged as the Damascus she had in her sleeve sheath.

"Ma'am, my Mama was a mountain witch and she died with no daughter to give her Gift."  He hesitated, then pushed on:  "When she died she give me this knife and I felt the Power drive into me an' I've carried it until the right woman come along.  Ma'am, my Mama would want you to have it."

Marnie nodded:  she peeled off her right glove, gripped the knife.

Something like a mule's kick drove through the knife's handle, up her arm and into her gut:  she fell back, shivering, then gathered herself and came back up on her knees.

"I'll need a sheath."

"Here it is, ma'am."

Marnie sheathed the knife, slid it into her belt.

"Who else is hurt?"

"I don't know, ma'am, but we can find out!"

"As soon as I get that  honey --"

The door slid open, the cook stepped in, grinning: he held a tan-and-blue-striped, glazed crock, he held a roll of plastic wrap and a clean apron dangled over his muscled forearm.

"Thank God," Marnie muttered:  she dunked her hand in the honey, anointed the staring victim's arm, separating his fingers -- she got the plastic wrap in between the fingers, keeping them separated, she wrapped the arm, making sure the burned surfaces were all covered with honey -- she wrapped the plastic with the second apron, slicing it longways and making the most efficient use of what she had.

"Stay there," she admonished quietly, "we'll be back."  She and the new arrival rose.

"Ma'am, the sink is self contained, you might want to wash off that hand."

Marnie wasn't sure what a self contained sink was, but she wasn't going to waste time asking: hot water and a quick scrub and her hand was clean.

"Let's see what we've got," she said, snapping her visor down.

 

The Captain swore, stopped just shy of slamming a frustrated fist onto the comm panel.

Whatever hit his ship, set them spinning and killed most of their systems:  the drive cut out automatically, but they were spinning, and that was worse than linear thrust: his ship was hit with something, and that something destroyed the hull's integrity: the emergency force fields were stretched beyond their design capability -- they were intended for a small puncture, not a major catastrophe -- the reactors were still running, thank God, but comm was out, he was blind on the bridge.

He came down the hall, almost ran into his white-suited visitor and the Master Chief.

"Chief, report!" he barked.

The Master Chief turned to him with a grave expression.  "Still finding out, sir, I haven't made it to Engineering."

"Let's go."

Marnie followed the pair:  they stopped, opened a doorway, stared.

"Oh dear God," the Captain groaned, and Marnie had the impression it was less a profane expression, than an entreaty to the Almighty.

Whatever used to be in this compartment, was gone.

They closed the hatch, touched another control: Marnie recognized an emergency seal.

The Captain turned, looked at her, half sick.

"That used to be Sickbay," he said.  "They're all gone."

She saw his fist double up, saw him control his anger against something he could neither prevent, nor control, nor fix.

The Master Chief went on to the next bulkhead, keyed into the hatch: it slid open, and with it, a man's voice -- shouting, loudly, powerfully, and most profanely.

Two men and the Sheriff strode in, suddenly immersed in a cloud of some of the most potent, colorful, varied, salt-spiced profanity Marnie had ever in her entire young life heard uttered.

She looked around the wrecked compartment, saw the man laying back, his lower leg at an awkward angle.

Marnie pushed the Chief aside, went to one knee:  carefully, she worked the engineer's boot off, then his sock:  she peeled her right glove off again, pressed practiced fingers against arch, then below the ankle on either side:  satisfied, she looked around, pointed:  "Give me those long panels.  Yes, those.  I'll need something to tie them.  Chief, here with me -- grip his foot, NOT LIKE THAT, one hand under the heel, the other over the arch, now lean back, more,  more, more ... hold there!"

Marnie laid the panels on either side of the leg, tied them quickly in place with what strips she had left from her earlier work.

"Okay, ease off."

She laid a gentle hand on the man's forehead.  "I'm sorry," she said gently, "I don't even have any whiskey to offer --"

The Master Chief tapped her shoulder, thrust a silver flask into her field of view.

"On the other hand," Marnie said, "take a tilt."

She stood.

"How long until a rescue ship?" she asked, her words clipped.

"I don't think the automatic was sent out," the Captain admitted.  "We were hit fast and badly and it took out Commo."

"Attack?"

"I don't think so."

"How do we get word out?"

"We need to launch a distress beacon."

"How?"

"Right here."  The Captain walked up to a panel, turned a switch.

Marnie saw the concern in the man's eyes as ... absolutely nothing happened.

He turned the switch again.

Marnie looked at the panel.

"What's in that switch?"

"It's just a simple contact," the Captain said.  "There's nothing to go wrong!"

Marnie seized the switch, pushed, twisted, pulled:  it came out.

She threw the offending red-plastic knob over her shoulder, pulled the knife from her sleeve sheath, looked into the hole where the switch was, inserted her knife, turned it a little.

BANG.

Something like a sledgehammer smacked the hull -- a very large, very powerful sledgehammer.

"BEACON AWAY!" the Master Chief yelled in obvious delight.

The Captain turned to the Master Chief.

"Continue your sweep," he said.  "I need a head count."

"Aye, sir. Might the Sheriff come along, sir?  She's a pretty good hand."

The Captain nodded, looked at Marnie.

"You're the closest thing we have to a medic," he said.  "If we've got it, it's yours."

"The man with the burns," Marnie said.  "He'll need fluid replacement.  Water is good but beer is better."

The Captain and the Chief looked at one another and said with one voice, "Cookie!"

 

Marnie focused only on the task in front of her.

She unashamedly reduced uniform trousers to binding strips or bandage material as necessary; she held one man's hand as he stared at the ceiling, shivering, too badly hurt to save: he turned his eyes to her and whispered, "Mama?" -- just before his breath sighed out, and his eternal soul with it.

Marnie bowed her head, her shoulders slumped.

Something shivered the ship, then shivered it again -- a grinding sound, popping --

A voice --

"CAPTAIN HARRIS," Marnie heard.

The Captain looked around, shouted "HARRIS HERE!"

"Sir, what is your situation?"

"SITUATION DESPERATE, HEAVY DAMAGE."

"We have you, Captain. Recommend you scram reactors."

The Captain strode over to a control panel:  Marnie heard him mutter, "God help us," and he seized two heavy switches, pulled.

Emergency lights came on:  Marnie saw the Master Chief and the Captain looking around.

"Well, they've got a field around us," the Captain said quietly.

 

Dr. John Greenlees was waiting at the airlock when his wife returned to the Firelands colony.

Sheriff Marnie Keller stepped through the airlock, one hand carrying her single grip, the other hand on the Ambassador's arm:  around her neck, a broad, scarlet ribbon, and an ornate gold device dependent.

Marnie turned to the Ambassador.

"Sir, thank you," she said formally.  "It was my honor to attend your predecessor's funeral."

"The Confederacy is in your debt, Sheriff," the Ambassador said with a formal half-bow: he looked up at Dr. Greenlees.

"Doctor, your wife is a remarkable soul," he said gravely.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

551. A SHOT OF OLD CRUD CUTTER

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller sat alone in the lounge.

She stared at the amber shot of liquid sledgehammer in its squat, heavy, faceted-base shotglass.

She reached slowly for the glass, turned it a little, turned it a little more.

Nobody came near the pale eyed Sheriff.

No one dared.

It was more than unusual to see Sheriff Marnie Keller in anything but her uniform white skinsuit, a garment invented for Olympic competition in zero-G or zero-atmosphere conditions: she found it superb for the exertions necessary in enforcing the peace in a place where she might be exposed to the near-vacuum of Outside at any unexpected moment.

That she was wearing a McKenna gown, that her severely-short hair style was covered with a well fitted, ornate, upswept wig, mirroring the era of the gown itself, changed the woman's entire appearance.

Except, of course, for her eyes.

She stared at the shimmering amber: she was perched on a sideless barstool, at the end of the bar: there were a half dozen other patrons, some with beer, some with stronger, some with a sandwich or a meal or with popcorn.

Marnie sat alone, with her drink and with her memories.

She stared into the shining amber mystery and the facets refracted beneath and she saw a long stretch of Colorado blacktop with a speeding car headed straight for her, and she saw the shining bead of her Winchester rifle come up and she saw the muzzle rise in recoil.

She saw her shining Damascus blade slice the back of a dead man's scalp.

She saw the bloodied, solid gold rifle bullet between her thumb and forefinger.

Marnie stared into her drink and she saw her Daddy's shining-black hellraiser of a saddlehorse, she saw the horizon swing and blur and bounce as her saddle slammed up against her, as her teeth snapped together, as she locked her legs around a heaving black barrel, as the horse spun beneath her like an insane carousel and stop, and shiver, and pace off just as nice as you please.

Marnie saw a building explode and its facade fall and shatter, she saw her Mama, both hands bloodied, her face pale and determined as she did her level best to stop a life from running out from between her fingers, and she saw her pale eyed Daddy roaring and enraged as he swatted aside a descending knife, as he seized a man by the throat, as he slammed the attacker against a brick wall hard enough to leave blood and hair mashed into the mortar and bricks behind.

Marnie turned the glass, slowly, blinking occasionally:  the sounds of the lounge faded, were replaced with some undefined sound, an impact, maybe, the tearing sound of thin hullmetal, then the hiss of a hatch sliding open, a man's screams -- muffled, then painfully loud, and she smelled burned flesh again, and she felt the cold, slick honey in her hand as she coated the burn, warm water as she washed her hand clean, the checkered maple handle of her Damascus knife as she sliced through what used to be a cook's apron to make bandages.

Sheriff Marnie Keller saw herself standing beside the Ambassador as a man she'd never met was laid to rest on a planet she'd never been before, she sang familiar old hymns with the mourners, she held a frightened young wife and her big-eyed daughter as they thanked her for saving her husband's life, her Daddy's life, and Marnie remembered holdling a woman as she wept between choking syllables, thanking her for being with her brother when he died, for not letting him die alone.

Marnie remembered wearing her McKenna gown when she stood with the mourners, its pattern much older than she, but the gown itself less than an hour old -- somehow she wasn't surprised the Ambassador managed to scan one of Marnie's gowns and had it replicated for the funeral -- and she was formally presented to men whose names she'd already forgotten, men of politics and of influence, men of their military and of their science, and she'd allowed them to bestow a shining, pure-gold medal on a bright-scarlet ribbon as token and commemmoration of her heroic and life-saving work aboard a crippled diplomatic shuttle.

She remembered sitting beside a hospital bed, a bed somehow more streamlined than any she'd seen before, a bed with functions built into it that she didn't understand; she watched the man sleep, and when a nurse asked if she wished to speak with him, she shook her head, whispered that he needed his rest more than he needed a conversation, and as Marnie left the room, the nurse smiled at the man in the bed -- the man with the bandaged arm, the man with a cold beer on the sidetable and intraosseous IVs running into his thigh -- she smiled, because there was a fresh-cut rose, a bright scarlet rose with drops of morning dew shining on its petals, lying on the spotless white sheet turned down over the man's chest.

Sheriff Marnie Keller looked up at the barkeep:  he raised a bottle and an eyebrow, and Marnie smiled and shook her head: she rose, she left, hard little heels loud in the lounge's hush:  several pairs of eyes followed her, and nobody -- nobody -- missed the fact that she hadn't taken the first sip of her locally distilled, charred-keg-aged, shot of Old Crud Cutter.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

552. A QUIET SMILE

Esther Keller loved the high country.

Esther Keller was a matron of Firelands society, a business woman respected and admired by the community, by her fellow business owners: she'd taken a bankrupt railroad and not only brought it out of bankruptcy, she'd turned it into a showcase of safety and of profitability: she'd bought into the gold mines, she'd invested and then bankrolled silver mining elsewhere, remaining an unnamed partner.

Esther Keller knew, the moment she saw the lean-waisted, pale-eyed Sheriff, that he would be her husband -- indeed, from that first moment, his doom was sealed, his fate foretold, carved in granite and nailed down hard, fast and inescapably.

He knew nothing about it, of course.

Men are like that.

To the day of his death, the pale eyed Linn Keller was convinced that he'd been the driving force, the guiding hand, that his were the sole efforts that won the lovely Esther Wales to his side, and neither Esther, nor her daughters, ever saw fit to say otherwise.

The two rode today, high above the town, climbing the narrow, time-worn trails that wound around the granite mountains:  they rode slowly, not taxing their mounts in the thin air, though their saddle mules were born and bred high-up and were more than acclimatized to the altitude: neither was of a mind to cause harm to their long eared transportation, and more than once Linn laughed quietly to himself at the thought of his fine, swift-running horses below in their pasture, the fine figure he and his wife struck on a match pair of shining-copper Kentucky horses with their smooth singlefoot gait (he had yet to figure out how horses bred and cultivated in Kentucky came to be called Rocky Mountain horses, but they suited him), and he knew they would stand a great deal of good natured ribbing if they rode mules through town instead of their usual blooded horseflesh.

That really did not matter much.

Linn preferred muleback for rough country riding, and Esther grew up riding horses and mules both back on the Wales plantation, and she too had a liking for the heavier-boned, durable and less spooky riding mules.

Linn and his wife often rode thus, just the two of them: their young were looked after by trusted adjutants, boon companions either would trust with their very souls: there were no demands on the Sheriff's time, Esther's business could run smoothly for this brief time away, and husband and wife looked at one another, and each liked what they saw.

Esther unfolded a blanket and spread it; their mules snuffed and grazed on the thin grass.

Linn held his wife's hands and gazed with wonder into his wife's green eyes -- shining eyes, deep enough he could swim in them -- and for a moment he felt like an awkward schoolboy, suddenly very uncertain, at least until Esther came up on her toes and kissed him, delicately, lightly, like a maiden, and they both smiled, and suddenly the uncertainly fell away from them both.

Linn trailed the backs of his fingers gently along Esther's cheek bone and he bent his head to kiss her again, and Esther's arms embraced him suddenly, a surprisingly strong grip: she ran her hand up the back of his neck and caressed him, working her fingers into his hair, and Linn tightened his embrace, picked his wife off the ground.

Esther giggled a little as he hoisted, quickly, swung her to the side: he ran his arm under her legs, held her like he'd just picked up his little girl, but the look he gave her was not the look a father gives a daughter.

It was some time before they came back down off the mountain.

Esther had packed a meal, and they ate, though this was but one of the appetites they addressed that day, and when finally they rode back into Firelands, Bonnie McKenna was just emerging from the Mercantile, her daughters flowing in a pastel stream behind and around her:  she looked up and smiled, and her gloved hand went to her mouth -- Bonnie's eyes widened with delight --

Women communicate on many secret levels, in ways not known to men: with a glance, with a delicate hand laid across her flat belly, Esther conveyed a feeling of satisfaction, and the news that a seed was planted in fertile ground, and Bonnie's violet eyes widened: her daughters waved happily at the couple, then looked curiously at their Mama as she tried without success to stifle a squeak of feminine delight.

 

It was Sunday.

Angela Keller was the Sheriff's oldest daughter, living under his roof: she was growing, she was gorgeous, she was wearing a fine Sunday gown, and she was standing in her Daddy's study with her hands very properly folded before her, as her pale eyed Daddy stared out the window.

"Angela," he said, his voice soft-edged, the way it often was when he spoke with his girl-child, "I have need of your counsel."

Angela blinked with honest surprise.

She was not yet marriageable -- she was but twelve -- her Daddy often spoke with her as if she were adult, discussing matters of business, or of commerce, of running their little ranch or of profit-and-loss, of the way men reacted, but something told pretty young Angela Keller her Daddy had something important troubling him.

"Yes, Daddy?" Angela replied, frowning a little:  her voice came out unexpectedly girlish.

Linn turrned, smiled, paced over to his beautiful, growing daughter.

"Angela," he said gently, "when a Daddy looks at his little girl, he sees her as she is, but he sees everything she's ever been.  I must ask your forgiveness if I still see you as the wee child you were the first day we met."

Angela nodded, extended her gloved hands, gripped her Daddy's big, strong hands, hands she loved: whenever she held her Daddy's callused palms, his lean, rawhide-tough fingers, if she gripped his tendon-corded wrists, she could feel his strength, surrounding him like a glowing cloud, and this was a very reassuring thing.

"Your Mama and I have been discussing ... increasing the family," he said carefully, then he went to one knee, released one of her hands:  he carefully, very gently, stroked along her cheek bone with the back of a bent finger.

"Angela, would it trouble you to be a big sister again?"

Angela's smile was sudden, bright, genuine:  she seized her Daddy around the neck, hugged him with all the spontaneous joy of a child:  Linn's arms surrounded his daughter and she felt him chuckle, felt his voice resonate deep in his chest:  father and daughter laughted together and Linn stood, picking her up, spinning her around, and Angela, all legs and blond hair and blue eyes and shining smile, threw her head back and laughed like a little girl, and for a moment, for a glorious, happy moment, she was that little girl again, spinning in her Daddy's arms and scattering happy childish giggles all over the hand woven rugs on the shining, varnished floor.

Esther Keller had just come in the door as Linn stood, as he spun, as his upturned face shone with a father's love for his daughter:  Esther saw the delight on Angela's face, she felt the love radiating from the two, and she lay a maternal hand on her belly, and she allowed herself a quiet smile.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

553. LIKE TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THE SHERIFF

Sheriff Willamina Keller closed the church door quietly behind her.

It was cold out, it was cool inside the church -- not too cool, she could not see her breath.

She closed her eyes, stilling the turmoil within before she walked slowly down the aisle, her trademark heels loud in the silence.

Reverend John Burnett's ear twitched, just a little: he looked up from the letter he was having trouble composing, stood, smiled.

Reverend Burnett never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he had a quick ear, and he recognized the slow pace of hard heels, loud in the Church's silence.

Willamina walked up to the altar rail, her arms folded, her face serious: she looked up at the ancient, hand made cross on the back wall, took another long breath as her eyes drifted down to the equally antique altar: she smiled, just a little, as she remembered Old Pale Eyes' entry in his hand written Journal.

He'd found a little girl in a train wreck, a wee child not much bigger than his daughter had been when she died in his arms, back in the Ohio country: he'd taken this blond haired, blue eyed little orphan home, he'd sent a telegram back East and made due inquiry after kinfolk who might have a claim on her: he'd come into the little whitewashed church, he'd stood before this same Altar, this same Cross, and he'd cried out in his misery that he wished to adopt this child as his own ...

Willamina smiled at the mental image of the Judge and his boon companion, Charlie Macneil, booming in a baritone chorus, "AAANNNDDD SOOOO YOOOUUUU SHAAAALLLLLL!" -- they stood and laughed at the Sheriff's jaw dropping down to about his belt buckle, and then the three of them laughed.

Willamina's smile faded, and she considered, looked down at the floor, then looked up again.

The Parson heard her hesitate before she spoke.

"Lord," she said, "I hate a half crisis."

The Parson's brows puzzled together a little; he'd never heard of a half-crisis.

"Lord, when that woman face planted in the grocery store and I had to clear her airway manually, that was a crisis. She went into convulsions and I maintained her airway until the squad got there. It was a crisis situation, I knew what needed done and I did it.  Problem solved."

The Parson heard her frown and look down again, then look up: he was leaning against the wall, the door into the sanctuary was open about an inch: he could hear her, but he did not want to intrude on her privacy by opening the door further, or looking.

"God, You know all things so this is not news to you," she said, and the Parson knew she was looking up at the Cross when she said it:  "I still need to put it into words.  I need to throw it out on the air so I can see how it sounds."

The Parson raised an eyebrow. 
He'd done as much, and for the same reason.

"Lord, Doc tells me my aorta is enlarged, I need to see a specialist about a possible cancer and I might have to have a spur knocked off the back of my heel."

She took a breath, shook her head.

"I don't need this," she muttered.  "Lord, I'm the Sheriff! I've got a husband, we have children" -- her palm was up, out, bobbing a little as if holding out a reason -- "the hell of it is, Lord, none of these are certainties. Oh, yes, I have cataracts now."

Parson Belded didn't need to peek to know she folded her arms again and glared as she added, "Cataracts! I'm not that old!" -- then he heard her sigh and say slowly, "No, Lord, I am that old."

Willamina's jaw slid out, she considered her own words, shivering in the still air.

"Half-crisis," she muttered.  "Lord, give me a situation!  I can handle -- Lord, if I have cancer, Doc and I will sit down and we'll discuss enemy troop strength and deployment, we'll discuss their probable route of advance and lay our plans accordingly.  Cataracts I can have taken care of, that's not even a crisis, Lord, but that aortic arch --"

The Parson frowned at these last words: his mother died of an aortic aneurysm, and from what little he'd learned, the aortic arch was the highest pressure pipeline in the body.

If the Sheriff's aorta was enlarged, this was a concern!

"If it's minor, Lord, Doc said they can run a sleeve up my femoral artery and repair that aortic arch from the inside. Otherwise they'll have to chisel my breast bone apart and stick in two pry bars and probably they'll, oh hell, I can just see Doc up to his elbows in my chest with a 3/8 drill, a chain saw, two power fence staplers and a calf puller" -- 

The Parson smiled at this, and he heard the Sheriff laugh a little.

"Okay, maybe not the calf puller, Lord, but I hate not knowing! -- You know me, Lord, I've got all the patience of a five-year-old after two espressos and a puppy!"

The Parson heard her heels again and knew she was pacing, the way she did when she was thinking, when she was arranging her thoughts:  her turns were not the precise, Marine Corps to-the-rear-march, they were a dancer's turn, on the balls of her feet: again, the sky pilot did not have to look, to know the move, for he'd seen her perform the cross-ankle turn many times in the past.

"Okay, Lord, now that I've run all this around the barn three times, let's focus here.

"I have to wait and see about the possible cancer, that means a trip to the City to see the specialists Doc recommended.

"I want to arrange it so I see the specialists for my aorta at the same time.

"I have the contact information to have my cataracts replaced. They're not bad enough yet, except for night driving, so I'd better get that taken care of."

The sound of her heels stopped.

The Parson could see the Sheriff -- in his mind's eye -- standing squarely in front of the Altar and Cross, looking up at them, arms crossed, her gaze steady.

"Lord, thank you.  It helps to come here and put it into words."

The Parson heard her heels recede down the aisle, heard them stop; he heard the door open, close, the latch click behind her.

Reverend John Burnette stood, opened the door, paced into the sanctuary.

It smelled faintly of roses, where she'd stood:  he, too, looked up at the Cross and at the hand made, ornately carved altar.

The man laid his hands on the altar rail, knelt slowly, clasped his hands, leaned his forehead against his thumbs.

"Lord," he said quietly, "I'd like to talk to You about the Sheriff."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

554. A WOMAN SILENT

 

Bonnie Lynne McKenna had two very unfamiliar sensations.

The Sheriff's mustache, as it tickled her cheek, his quick kiss, his hands firm on her arms -- "Keep her safe!" he'd whispered, and then he was gone, all black suit and polished boots, pale eyes and a double handful of lawman's shotgun.

He'd pressed a revolver into her hand -- "This served me well during the War," he said, his voice tight, just before he'd kissed her, just before she realized he loved her, just before that one vulnerable moment when she wished he'd hold her tighter, kiss her again --

Firelands was a place of terror and a place of sorrow and a place from which she wished to escape, a place where she and her husband were young, and newly wed, where they started their life, a place where they were succeeding with a small ranch and cattle, a place where they were happy.

Bonnie woke to find herself wearing little but a stained cotton shift and a shackle about her right ankle: she'd been drugged, her husband poisoned, their ranch and cattle seized by the crooked banker, with papers manufactured by the town's crooked attorney: Bonnie had been used as no woman should ever be used, her spirit broken: she'd been freed thanks to a nosy newspaperwoman and a pale eyed lawman.

She'd prayed a thousand times that she might die, in the dark days when she was chained to a crib upstairs.

She knew that tonight, she just might get that wish.

Bonnie laid the percussion revolver on top of one of the Saloon's two pianos -- one delivered by mistake, but accepted anyway:  "Like the old preacher said," the Sheriff commented, "all donations cheerfully accepted!"

A little girl looked at her with big and trusting eyes and clutched a ragdoll to her stomach:  she looked at the door where the Sheriff disappeared, she listened to yells, horses, gunshots, laid a little arm over the shoulders of a huge, scarred, black dog and looked back up at Bonnie.

"I'm scared," she said in a small little voice, and Bonnie squatted quickly, hugged the wee child to her:  "Sshh now, Sweets, we'll be okay," she whispered:  "here, let's make you a little shelter" -- she turned, gripped the end of the piano, pushed:  the floor was sawdust covered, which fouled the small wheels, at least until Bonnie heard boot heels coming up the back hall.

"SARAH GET DOWN," Bonnie said urgently, seizing the percussion revolver from the top of the piano and holding it down beside her.

Bonnie Lynne McKenna was suddenly terrified, remembering every fist, every slap, every brute who ever misused her upstairs in this very saloon, every time a man looked at her like she was meat --

Just such a man rounded the corner, a man like too many others -- bad teeth, a leer, she could smell him before he was close enough to smell, and she heard the familiar words she'd heard too many times before.

Bonnie Lynne McKenna's fear went into anger.

Some women, when they become angry, get to the point where they cry.

Daisy was one such, Daisy the cook, Daisy who gave Dirty Sam a face full of frying pan to persuade the man she was not merchandise to be pawed and pawned, Daisy with the milk-fair skin and Irish-green eyes, Daisy with the gentle voice and healing hands, Daisy who got so mad that she would start to cry, at which point she was less a distressed Irish lass and more a stick of powder where the burning fuse just sputtered out of sight into the wax paper wrapping.

Bonnie Lynne McKenna's anger was different.

She'd cried herself out too many times, she'd cried her tears until they were an empty well, she'd wept for the fine, strong husband she'd known, she wept for the ranch that was no more, she'd cried for the hurt done her and to this innocent little girl brought into the brothel by a customer.

Bonnie was done with tears.

Bonnie looked at the intruder, one of the reavers sent to kill and to burn, and Bonnie saw every last brute that ever seized her and pinned her down and Bonnie's hand raised and the Navy Colt raised with it.

Bonnie's anger focused through a dirty-orange finger of fire that reached almost to the man's vest, through a single pistol ball that stopped the evil that sought her soul yet again.

Bonnie Lynne McKenna, a woman of Scots extraction, a woman of good family and of honorable ambition, marched toward the mahogany bar, looked down the hallway, raised her hand: Death spoke again in the Saloon, and another Reaver met his end at the hand of a woman who would not be wronged, ever again.

Bonnie swung, looked to the front door:  she saw the Irish Brigade's steam machine scream past, all smoke and fire and shrill whistle, she saw horses, wild-eyed and lunging in their traces and men with fiercely-curled black mustaches, a giant standing upright in the driver's box, laying about with a blacksnake whip, his roaring voice distinct over the war raging in their street:  she saw the Sheriff, a black clad guardian, raise the shotgun and drive one barrel, then the other, toward someone riding past, and she saw two men fall from the saddle:  she turned, skipped through the fouled sawdust to Sarah, who still had her arm draped over the grey muzzled old war-dog, a little girl who looked up at her without fear, and with absolute trust and confidence.

"Back here, Sweets," Bonnie said, scooting Sarah and Dawg back against the wall:  she seized the piano, gritted her teeth, and Sarah heard her Mama's snarling grunt as she muscled the piano through sawdust and warped boards, moving it peacefully or otherwise, such that the two pianos formed a triangle with the wall, and Sarah and Dawg were hidden inside the triangle, safe from attack.

Bonnie picked up the Navy Colt and turned, her delicate, feminine thumb laid over the stand-up hammer spur, gunmuzzle pointed up, beside her face: this woman, this Lady, widowed, misused, rescued, and now fighting for her life, waited in absolute silence, and somehow her silence was more terrifying than if she'd charged the Philistines at the top of her lungs.

Sarah Lynne McKenna sat down, cross legged, and Dawg laid down beside her, facing what little opening there was.

"I'm glad you're here, Dawg," she whispered.

The elderly, silver muzzled Dawg laid his big, scarred head over on Sarah's lap and gave a great, gusting sigh, his stub of a tail vibrating as the little girl laid her cheek over atop his head.

 

War surged outside.

The Reavers were hired to kill everyone, and burn everything, to leave no survivors and to leave nothing standing.

They were suckered into an ambush.

There was no escape, the alleys were blocked, bobwarr and upturned wagons blocking their far ends, riflemen on rooftops and in doorways, women with rifles or shotguns leaning out windows and addressing the situation:  two riflemen in the bell tower made a good account of theselves, at least until one was hit, but by then the fight was decided.

War had come to town, and it was the wrong town for War to visit.

No mercy had been planned for the townspeople, and no mercy was granted the attackers.

Men walked among the wounded, dispatching the survivors with a pistol-shot to the head: one, and one alone, remained uninjured, and was ultimately dispatched by the Sheriff.

Bonnie Lynne McKenna closed the back door to the saloon, dropped a bar across it, looked in at Daisy's immaculately-clean, pin-neat, immaculately organized kitchen:  her hard little heels were loud on the boards as she paced back to the bar, as she pulled the ends of the pianos apart, as Sarah and Dawg emerged, looking around.

Dawg paced outside, toenails loud on the boardwalk, just before he swarmed down the steps and onto the street, where he hiked his leg over one of the enemy dead, and cast his ballot on the situation.

Bonnie walked slowly to the doors, pulled them open: for a miracle, the ornate, frosted glass door panes were undamaged, the doors opened easily, and she stepped outside, Navy Colt still in hand.

She saw her dear friend Esther leap over a hitch rail, vault it as easily as a schoolgirl -- she saw Esther's arm dip, come up with a rifle -- she saw the ambusher, lying behind a dead horse, aiming at the Sheriff's back, and she saw Esther fire, and fire, and fire again, and she saw her dear friend and confidante, Esther Wales, a woman of culture and breeding, a woman of gentility and kindness, swing the empty rifle and break it over the dead man's head, and then beat the head into a bloody ruin with the stock-broken receiver, until finally she threw the ruined rifle down and bent at the waist and screamed at the murderer's carcass, "NOBODY SHOOTS MY HUSBAND!"

Bonnie felt a little hand grip her skirt, and Bonnie dipped her knees, ran an arm around Sarah, picked her up:  a little girl rode on her Mama's hip as Bonnie Lynne McKenna looked around, pistol in one hand, a little girl in her other arm, a silent, vigilant figure standing in a doorway, a woman filled with anger, a woman who was absolutely, utterly, silent.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

555. THANK YOU

Esther Keller's hands cupped under her sons, turning them palm-up, revealing a long, red, angry, weeping burn across each.

She looked up at Jacob with the sorrowful expression of a mother, when one of her young is hurt, and said in a mother's gentle voice, "Come with me."

Jacob Keller was no stranger to pain; Jacob Keller had survived more utter agony than most men experience in a lifetime: his silence spoke more loudly of his discomfort than if he were profaning and complaining in a loud and angry voice.

Esther drew out a kitchen chair, indicated Jacob should sit: the maid looked up, concerned, set her sheet of balled-up sweet roll dough aside, her eyes big and concerned.

Esther plucked up a folded towel from the stack on the counter, turned, floated it down onto the kitchen table, waited until Jacob sat, then took his wrists, placed his hands, injured palms up, on the towel, straightened, looked at the maid.

"Mary, dear," she said, her voice gentle as it always was when addressing the hired help, "could you bring us the honey, please? -- and that new pair of buckskin gloves I just sewed up for Jacob."

"Yes, ma'am," the Irish girl murmured, dipping her knees: she shot Jacob a concerned look before flowing out of the kitchen, all skirts and loud little heels on the polished, varnished hallway boards.

Esther picked up the wooden spoon: Jacob distracted himself by remembering his mother's utter grace as she drew out the chair, as she turned, as she plucked folded linen from the sideboard, not so much moving as much as ... dancing, and dancing with the grace that only a woman can manage.

Esther lifted the wooden spoon from the tan crock with the blue stripes, allowing liquid gold to cascade back into its depths: she turned the spoon, turned it again, brought it over and drew a cooling, soothing line across Jacob's palm.

Jacob could not suppress a shiver.

The pain didn't simply disappear.

It wasn't merely gone.

The pain was absolutely, positively, GONE!!

Esther turned the spoon, let the healing payload in its depression run and sag from the edge, anointed the burn across Jacob's right palm.

She lowered the spoon without looking onto the saucer she knew the maid was placing.

"Now, Jacob, dear, raise your left hand for me, that's it," Esther murmured, guiding the hand-sewn glove onto his fingers: "wiggle your fingers a little, that's it, now how does that feel?"

"It's much better, Mama, thank you."

"Good.  And now for the other."

Jacob allowed his Mama to work the thin, supple gloves onto his hands as if he were an infant being dressed for snow and cold weather.

"I am sorry, Jacob, but you will have to eat supper and sleep tonight with them on," Esther said quietly, drawing out another chair and settling with a woman's grace into it.

Jacob turned his chair to face his Mama, his ears reddening as she regarded him with a little tilt of her head, with the patient expression a mother has for her young.

"What happened, Jacob?" she asked, her voice a caress, and part of Jacob wanted to be a little boy in his Mama's lap, being comforted, and the rest of Jacob grew cold and hard and his bottom jaw slid out and his hands closed slowly into fists, at least until the burns reasserted their tenderness.

"Mother," Jacob said formally, "I got mad."

 

Jacob Keller looked to the top of the cliff.

He'd often used the cliff for his entertainment, both as a lad and as recently as last summer, when the sun was hot and the water was cold:  he would run, buck naked, off the cliff's edge, he would tuck and straighten, a human javelin driving into the cold, deep water with arms out and stiff and fists busting a hole in the water: he would stroke powerfully for bottom, and almost never get there before turning and making for the surface.

Jacob looked at the cliff, at the boulder protruding from its side, a boulder held in place by habit and little else, and Jacob considered that when that rock ever let go and fell in, the diving hole would be ruined.

He looked at a small figure in silhouette at the top of the cliff.

Jacob recognized the boy -- about ten years old, a townie -- boys on a ranch would be too busy with chores for such exploration, but a townie would have time on his hands, time enough to get in trouble, like the Blaze boys.

Get back, get back, get back, Jacob thought:  his Apple-horse stopped, sensing his rider's shift in weight, at the difference in knee pressure:  the stallion stopped, dead still, ears swinging, trying to pick up the source of his rider's suddenly alert status.

The boy was looking over the cliff's edge, the way boys will -- hesitantly, with that guilty delight of the forbidden, his belly tickling with imagination, wondering what it would be like to fall from such a height, just before backing away --

At least he stared to back away.

Jacob knew the clifftop stream shallowed out and was thin and slick, he knew the bridal-veil falls ran off a section greasy with scum and green growth, and as he watched, the boy's single step back devolved into a mad, panicked flail of arms and legs -- he twisted, windmilling, went over the edge of the cliff.

Jacob's hand lifted the plaited leather reata from his saddlehorn; he shook out a loop, watched where the great splash of landing was surging and rippling in concentric rings, waited for a small head to emerge --

The boy's head broke surface, he snorted, he blew, he coughed and shook the water from his eyes: he began swimming, strong, practiced strokes, and probably by sheer luck more than intent, his course took him toward the waiting, pale eyed deputy and his stone-still Appaloosa mount.

Jacob used his spare shirt to dry the boy; he draped trousers, shirt and jacket over a branch, he wrapped the shivering, blue-lipped boy in his bedroll, bade him stand -- if he laid down, the cold ground with only one layer of blanket between the boy and the earth would chill him all the more -- Jacob built two fires and stood the boy between them, opening the blanket just enough to continue drying the lad's chilled flesh.

They rode back into town with the lad's wet things rolled and tied behind the saddle, the boy wrapped in the blanket: Jacob carried him and they set a brisk pace back for Firelands, and a young mother came running out of her tidy little home at the sight of a pale eyed deputy in a black suit, carrying a boy-sized, blanket-wrapped bundle: she watched as the deputy threw a leg over his horse's head, slid out of the saddle, landed easily: he walked up to her and drew the blanket back enough to show the lad's face and said "Ma'am, he's wet and he's cold, where might you want him?" -- and as the mother led the way into the house, Jacob explained that his soaking wet clothes were bundled behind the saddle, and he apologized, for the lad smelled of wood smoke.

The deputy waited as the mother snapped the bedcovers back -- Jacob opened the damp blanket, carefully placed the shivering, teeth-chattering lad into his own bunk, drew the covers up to the boy's chin:  he looked into the boy's face and winked, and smiled, just a little, for Jacob was a little boy once, and had known the comfort of being put in his own bunk, and covered in just such a way by a man with pale eyes.

Jacob went out to his stallion, came back in, handed the mother the still-wet bundle -- "I'm sorry, ma'am, I was not able to dry them --"

His head came up, he turned, nostrils flared, eyes suddenly pale: the mother's mouth fell open as the tall, lean waisted deputy strode quickly out to his stallion, fairly leaped into the saddle: her hand rose to her bodice, then to her lips, at the sight of a handsome young lawman whipping his stallion end-for-end, disappearing down the little alley, and toward the center of town.

 

Apple-horse heard the runaway from a distance.

He was restless, dancing: when Jacob came out, long-legged strides covering ground as fast as a lesser man's sprint, Apple shivered with anticipation: as Jacob's weight came into the saddle and his off knee pressed into Apple's ribs, the stallion laid his ears back, whipped around, dug steelshod hooves into the packed dirt.

The Appaloosa stallion loved few things as much as a good run, and Apple-horse seized any opportunity to do just that, and when horse and rider were of one mind, they cease to become two cooperating entities, and enter a magical moment of oneness: as one, they pounded down the alley; as one, they turned, ahead of a runaway wagon, the warmblood in harness running in a blind panic.

Jacob and Apple-horse surged ahead of the runaway, down the main street:  Jacob turned Apple side-on, waved the lariat:  "HO, THERE!  HO, NOW!" -- his shout echoed off the painted storefronts and false-fronted buildings -- and the runaway paid him absolutely no attention at all.

Apple-horse leaped out of the way, turned, followed, Jacob laid over his neck, standing up in the stirrups, yelling encouragement: the stallion, burdened with a slim rider, was faster than a blocker built draft horse, towing a cargo-shedding wagon: Jacob came up alongside, shook out a loop, floated it easily over the horse's head:  he took a turn around the saddlehorn, leaned back a little.

His turn was not as tight as he'd imagined, or Apple-horse slowed more quickly than he'd intended: whatever the case, the rope seared through his hands, ripping skin and burning as effectively as a hot iron:  Jacob released the plaited reata, and in that moment, as the pain hit him, his eyes went dead pale, and he was instantly mad, clear through.

"YAA!" he yelled, and Apple-horse surged forward again.

It was a game they played, whether in the long field behind his pale eyed Pa's barn, or whether alongside the railroad tracks, or one of the only straight sections of mountain road: he and Apple-horse would match a running horse in the pasture, or a wagon driven by his pale eyed sister, or an empty flatcar behind the Z&W's flagship engine, The Lady Esther: Jacob and Apple-horse, as they'd practiced many times before, came abreast of a running target, and matched speed.

Jacob's hands planted on the saddlehorn -- he brutally shoved the pain from him -- he kicked free of the stirrups, jumped straight up, then brought his boots in and squatted on the saddle.

A glance, a leap: Jacob landed a-straddle of the galloping dray-horse, his long legs locked around the runaway's big barrel: his hands shot forward and he seized trailing reins, gripping them hard.

Jacob was mad enough he wanted to haul the reins back strongly enough to bring the horse's lower jaw into its neck.

Jacob also knew what pain was, and Jacob had seen horses hurt by a heavy hand on the reins, and so Jacob drew back easily, calling "Ho, now, ho there, ho now," and for whatever preverse reason, the horse hadn't gotten the bit between strong yellow teeth:  with word and with hands and with a steady pressure on the reins, Jacob slowed the panicked, eye-walling runaway, slowed it, turned it in a great circle in the big field just shy of the McKenna ranch: they came about and trotted slowly, then more slowly, and finally Jacob got the horse down to a walk, up the main street of Firelands, where men and boys were coming out to harvest up what-all had been bounced and slung from the wagon.

Jacob's pale eyed father, the Sheriff, stepped out into the street and received the horse's nose into his chest: the horse stopped, blowing, patiently allowing the pale eyed lawman to rub its jaw and caress its neck, as Apple-horse came up beside Linn and blew loudly, jealously, bumming a tobacker bribe he could smell in the old lawman's coat pocket.

"Quite a ride," Linn called to his son, and Jacob slid off the horse's back, gathered the reins and brought them back to the driver's box: he dallied them, set the brake: his eyes met his father's and he saw concern in the older Keller's eyes.

"Have Esther tend those hands," Linn said quietly.  "We'll take care of this."

"Yes, sir," Jacob replied: only then did he look at his hands, and only then did the pain really set in.

That night, Jacob ate supper, wearing a new pair of thin, supple buckskin gloves, stained and damp in the palms.

Linn looked at Jacob as he buttered a sweet roll.

"Nice looking pair of gloves," he said.

"Thank you, sir."

"Your mother's work?"

"Yes, sir."

Linn looked at his wife.

"Thank you, my dear," he said.

Esther smiled a little, thanked the maid as hot, fragrant oolong splashed and gurgled into her delicate china cup.

Two days later, the maid heard a step out on the porch; she opened the door to find a blanket -- clean, washed, dried, neatly folded into a tidy square, and string tied.

Under the string was a note, written in a feminine hand, a note written on a carefully-torn square of wrapping paper, probably harvested from a Mercantile purchase.

The maid picked up the line-dried blanket, smelled sunshine and fresh air, and she drew the note from beneath twine, also likely from a Mercantile purchase: nothing was wasted, and the maid herself would reuse the string.

She smiled as she read the message, a message written in a feminine hand: she carried it into the house, carried the note and the blanket both upstairs, to Jacob's room, and placed them very precisely in the exact center of his neatly made bed.

The note was on top, where its message could be immediately read:

Thank You.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

556. ONE DOWN

Linn held his Mama's hand.

Somehow she looked smaller, more vulnerable, lying on the clinic's wheeled cart: she had an IV in her left hand, an oxygen cannula in her nose, a quiet smile on her face: they'd marched across the clinic's parking lot together, shoulders back, spines erect, heads on a swivel: halfway across, she stopped, turned slowly.

Every instinct in Linn's long tall carcass screamed ALERT, BATTLE STATIONS, BOOTS AND SADDLES, WHAT IN THE HELL DID I MISS, WHAT DOES SHE SEE THAT I DIDN'T, and Willamina chuckled a little.

"It's all right," she said.  "I was just considering that I'm going unarmed into a fight for my life."

Linn's back was to his mother: he moved to get her between himself and the clinic's big glass doors: his jacket was open, his hand on his belly, ready to knife under the outer garment and take hold of a good handful of Ungentle Persuader.

Now, inside, she lay on the cart, on a sterile white sheet, covered with a thin white blanket, the light blue hospital gown just peeking out at the top, her bare feet barely sticking out the bottom end.

Linn stood as the team came into the little curtained alcove:  "All ready?" a nurse chirped cheerfully, and Linn could have happily backhanded her: he didn't, of course, his Mama raised him to be a gentleman, so all he did when the team entered, was to rise.

He looked like what he was, a tall, lean waisted man in a black, old-fashioned suit, holding a black Stetson by its brim, as if it were a hand-held codpiece.

Willamina waved and smiled, and was gone.

Linn remained standing, his bottom jaw thrust out and his eyes pale, feeling more frustrated than he had in a very, very long time.

I can see why young warriors went out in search of Death, he thought: they believed if they could find it and kill it, that Death would never again take their people.

Linn took a long, slow breath, and considered that he wished most sincerely that this beast, this monster, this damned thing they called Cancer, were a corporeal enemy he could attack, he could seize, he could rend and cut and utterly destroy.

 

Twenty minutes later, a woman was wheeled back into the curtained alcove.

She was left alone with a lean young man in a black suit, a young man who sat and held the woman's hand.

It took her a few more minutes to wake; she blinked, she took deeper breaths, she looked over at her son and asked, "Have they started yet?"

Linn laughed quietly.

"Mama, they're done," he replied:  as his mother tried to draw the blanket up a little more, he asked, "Are you chilly?"

"No, but a big bowl of chili sounds really good."

The doctor came in not many minutes later; they listened to his professional words, his reassuring tone of voice; Linn stepped discreetly out as his Mama dressed, as she was loaded into a wheelchair.

He brought his Jeep around, opened the front passenger door, unfolded a small step stool.

His mother was wheeled out a few moments later: she looked up at the nurse standing beside her wheelchair and said "Ellen, thank you. I was a nurse for many years, but I don't plan on going back into the profession."  She laid a hand on the nurse's, gave it a little squeeze.  "It's good to see my profession is in good hands!"

Linn waited until his Mama was in the passenger front, made sure she was all in before closing the door: the stool was folded, placed in back: Linn got behind the wheel, eased the Jeep around the back of the clinic, down the long paved driveway they'd come up.

"It's a good ways to home," he said.  "Where would you like to eat?"

Willamina smiled at her son.

"Wherever's easy in and easy out," she said, looking at her son, then looking forward again.

"No cancer."

Linn nodded, moving smoothly with city traffic.

"And here I had a fine speech all prepared."

Linn chuckled.

"I wondered where I got that from!"

"Your father taught me that."

Linn chuckled.

Willamina tilted her head a little, regarded her son with a smile.

"You will forget an old lady if she has a grin broad as two Texas townships!"

"Mama," Linn laughed, "I just happen to have one of those my own self!"

Willamina took a long breath, blew it out, her cheeks puffing a little as she did.

"I want to stop at the church on the way home. We can eat at the Silver Jewel."

"Yes, ma'am."

"It's rare in our line of work that we get some good news."

"Yes, ma'am. Your next appointment is ... tomorrow?"

"I'll find out when they can scan me for this enlarged arch, yes."

Willamina's head lowered a little: her hands were flat on her thighs as she said quietly, "One down, two to go."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

557. AN INTERESTING BOOK

 

The Ambassador lifted his chin, smiled: he made it a point to join the Sheriff on the centrifuge level when she exercised, marveling at how heavy he suddenly felt in normal gravity instead of the lesser Martian gravity, delighting in this slender, compact woman's determination, rejoicing at how she pushed herself -- much like a legendary figure whose exploits were taught, and celebrated, when he was still a schoolboy in knee pants.

Sheriff Marnie Keller was red-faced, sweating; she gripped a pair of five-kilo cast iron weights, dumbbells that used to be spaceborne debris, asteroids swept up with a miner's force-net: now they were her push-up handles, and Marnie set her rhythm to the music in which she indulged.

He waited until she finished, until she seized a towel, viciously wiped her face, sat: waited until she picked up a water jug, took a long drink, took another, waited until she set the jug down and looked at the neatly-uniformed Ambassador and grinned:  "Well?  Like what you see?"

The Ambassador considered before answering.

He'd developed quite an affection for this pale eyed representative of the Law: he had to remind himself that she was a married woman, that she was a high ranking official of her world, that she was off-limits:  he maintained a careful politeness, a formal distance with her, because he knew that if he did not, he might offend, and as he was Ambassador, that could have serious consequences -- let alone the personal ramifications of a romantic entanglement!

The Ambassador smiled, picked up a paper-wrapped package, tied with red string.

"I thought you might like this," he said: he handed her the package, touched the brim of his pearl-grey Stetson with the right side turned up and pinned (with the Masonic square-and-compasses, no less!) -- Sheriff Marnie Keller watched as he walked away, as he left through the airlock.

The Sheriff considered the man's motives: like her pale eyed grandmother, she was a suspicious sort, and she had to consider what was behind any move -- especially a gift.

She pulled the string, unfolded the paper.

She froze.

The book was beautifully bound in embossed, rich red leather; on the front, three long ovals, portraits, full length, apparently of the same individual.

Two of the poses were mirror images of one another; one a standing right profile, the center, facing the reader; the third, a standing left profile.

The subject was an attractive young woman.

All three images were the same woman -- the one on the left, in what Marnie recognized as  McKenna gown, a gown she'd seen in person, back home, back on Earth, in the Firelands museum ... a museum that used to be this woman's home: she wore a gentle expression, almost a smile, and she held an ornate, carved-ivory fan in her delicately-gloved grip.

The right-hand portrait was a full-length image also, but the woman wore a broad-brimmed black hat, a black shirt, vest and coat, she wore knee high, flat heeled Cavalry boots and black trousers: she had a Winchester rifle balanced in her left hand, and her expression was that of someone who wished to reach through the camera's lens and rip the throat out of whoever was disturbing her.

Both images looked at the camera, both images looked into the reader's soul, or so it felt.

The third image, the one in the center, faced the reader squarely.

This one -- the same woman, the same pale-eyed woman -- had an expression of ... well, the word would have to be lust, the look of a woman who wished a man were looking at her, a woman who wished to seize the man and plant her mouth on his and run her hands behind his muscled neck and absolutely set his living soul on FIRE! -- she was dressed in stockings and a shocking-short skirt (it was halfway up her shin bones!) and her face was painted, her hands were on her hips, one knee bent, absolutely the temptress, the slattern, the woman of whom men dreamed ... beautiful, desirable, available, willing.

The title was impressed above the oval portraits, and Marnie's lips moved as she silently shaped the words:

The Black Agent.

Sheriff Marnie Keller looked up, looked at the closed, sealed airlock, looked back down at the book, at its brown wrapping-paper, at the string with which it had been tied, looked back up, blinked.

"How --?"

 

"The cameras just went out."

Linn smiled a little.

"He must be here."

Sheriff Linn Keller rose, poured a mug of coffee, a second: Shelly accepted the second mug, watched as her husband poured a third.

She looked at the note on the table, a note written in a firm hand, and not unsurprisingly, written with what she knew had to be a dip pen, judging by how black the ink was at the beginning of the first few letters of a word, how they became less black, then very black again: the pen was, she judged, a medium calligraphy tip, and the writer was accustomed to, and comfortable with, the bastardo hand which was apparently his common correspondence style.

With your permission, she read again, I will arrive your Museum at the 8th instant.

It was signed with a red X, and in three of the triangles formed by the crossed diagonals, were the letters D-I-X.

"Ten," Linn explained.  "A ten-cent coin, or a ten-dollar bill, was a Dix. It's been argued that's how the term Dixie came about."

Shelly added a short trickle of cold half-and-half to her coffee, looked up as a now-familiar figure crossed the threshold.

"Ambassador," Linn smiled, extending his hand: the Ambassador pulled off his glove, accepted the grip: cracking his heels together, he bowed formally:  "My Lady."

"Mister Ambassador."

"I bear your daughter's greetings, and her letter," the Ambassador said, handing Linn an envelope: Linn nodded, thanked the man quietly, handed the folded, wax-sealed missive to his wife, turned back to the Ambassador.

"And now to the matter at hand."

The Ambassador handed the Sheriff a paper wrapped rectangle, tied with red string.

"I think you may find this an interesting addition to your Museum."

The Sheriff raised an eyebrow, pulled the tag end: the slip knot disappeared, the string fell away: he unwrapped the weighty bundle, grinned broadly as he removed the paper.

Shelly tilted her head a little as her husband's fingers caressed the front of a book.

She could see it was bound in a rich burgundy leather; she could see the spine was banded with gold, and in gold letters she read THE BLACK AGENT, and she knew her husband would be pleased with it -- he delighted in anything to do with a particular pale eyed ancestress that looked enough like his pale-eyed mother, to be her twin.

Linn stared long at the cover, nodding.

"This," he said, tapping the cover with gentle fingertips, "is exactly as I'd imagined her."

"She was known to the Confederacy," the Ambassador said quietly.  "I think you will find exploits in here that are not known in even your family's history. Some things ..."

The Ambassador frowned, considering.

"She kept some things from her family.  Would you remember if she had nightmares of falling?"

Linn blinked, thought, frowned, shook his head.

"Your mother may know of them, then. A consequence of zero gravity, to which she was entirely unaccustomed and most uncomfortable. She was of invaluable assistance to the Confederacy on multiple occasions."

Linn raised an eyebrow again.  "I knew she was ... interesting ..." -- he hefted the yet unopened book -- "but I didn't realize just how interesting!"

"I must take your leave now. Please forgive the brevity of my visit, but I must needs attend a conflict on a nearby world, oil some troubled waters, bribe the local officials.  The usual ambassadorial tasks."

Linn nodded, extended his hand again.

"Sir, I thank you."

"With your permission, I would return," the Ambassador said with almost a regretful expression. "I have come to enjoy your hospitality."

"We have coffee," Shelly invited, bending the envelope to break the brittle, red-wax seal.

"Coffee," the Ambassador sighed:  he consulted a pocket watch, considered, smiled.

"My Lady," he murmured, "you are indeed most persuasive."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

558. A DAMNED YANKEE SPY!

The Ladies' Tea Society was obliged to move to the big round barn under the overhanging granite mountain.

Visitors there were, and not a few: the ladies of the Tea Society welcomed them cheerfully, openly, and with an open curiosity: where the Tea Society wore gowns of the McKenna period, these visitors wore gowns of equal quality -- both in material, and in workmanship -- but their attire was correct to an earlier period:  antebellum and postbellum fashions mingled, there was the usual happy chatter, the usual sharing of womanly confidences; little girls, unaccustomed to wearing such finery, tried their best not to fidget, and the colorful sea of feminine association parted as a pastel sea might divide itself before a womanly Moses when one more joined their assembly.

Sheriff Willamina Keller smiled as the gathering grew silent: she felt her ears reddening beneath the ornate wig she wore, a wig that mirrored the style she'd seen in a portrait of an ancestress, one Sarah Lynne McKenna, daughter of Bonnie Lynne McKenna, owner and operator of one of the most successful dress-works west of the Big Muddy, and pale-eyed woods colt to a pale eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache.

Willamina knew she was the subject of immediate and rapt attention: she smiled and greeted individuals and groups, she paid close attention as introductions were made: she knew no one was behind her, because The Bear Killer occupied that space, and a curly furred, sinner's-heart-black canine is an impressive sight, especially when it is the size and very nearly the build of a young ...

... bear.

The Bear Killer, as well, was the subject of admiration, of very careful attention, all but one young child, whose joyful "Doggie!" echoed in the silence: a delighted little girl in an immaculate, exquisite, beribboned little frock scampered up to The Bear Killer and seized him about the neck in a laughing embrace, and The Bear Killer responded by giving the laughing, giggling little girl an enthusiastic face-washing:  as a matter of fact, the child achieved some notoriety on her homeworld, as hers was the leading photograph on the article that documented the Ladies of the Confederacy, visiting as a group, to meet this remarkable, pale-eyed woman who so resembled the legendary Black Agent herself:  indeed, considering Sheriff Willamina Keller's exploits, some argued that this was the clone, if not the reincarnation, of Sarah Lynne McKenna!

 

"Honey, listen to this," Linn said, bending over the book, carefully setting his coffee to the side.

Shelly turned, smiled: her husband had been immersed in this red-bound volume since he brought it home, his face pink-cheeked with anticipation -- something she'd rarely seen, and only on occasions of particular delight.

Jacob tilted his head, regarded his father with solemn, pale eyes: when his father was moved enough by something he was reading, to read it aloud, it was invariably something interesting.

"Apparently our Sarah was a busy girl," Linn said speculatively.  "She used her skills as a detective" -- he looked at Jacob, then at Shelly, hesitated.

Jacob felt a stab of disappointment.

This glance, this hesitation, meant the Grand Old Man was editing something, was going to change something, because he was sitting there, because he didn't want a feline let out of the burlap, so to speak.

"Jacob."

"Yes, sir?"

"What I am about to read you happened in a place we officially don't know about."

"Yes, sir?"

"You remember the Ambassador is from another world."

"He is from a thirteen star system Confederacy," Jacob corrected his father, "and he has faster than light travel, with weapons that can crush a star, spin a planet out of its orbit or turn it core-deep into bubbling slag, he has communications that runs between realities and allows him to talk to a system fifty parsecs away as if he were sitting beside them."

Linn looked at Shelly, who raised an eyebrow, smiled.

"He's your son," she said.

Linn nodded.

"My point is --"

"That our government doesn't know about the Ambassador or the Confederacy, they're still dealing with the Greys, that we don't want the Men in Black to show up sniffing around.  I got that, and I've got that two-kilo lump of meteor gold Marnie sent me I never told you about, she sent me a titanium frame I'm building a 1911 on and I'm nearly done."

Linn was honestly surprised.

"You're building a 1911?"

Jacob shrugged.  "It's easy.  The frame was perfect, I didn't have to lap the rails at all.  I'm waiting for black-stainless parts to come in 'cause they'll look really good on that titanium frame!"

Linn looked at Shelly aagain, and his wife shrugged.

"I told you," she repeated.  "He's your son!"

"O-kay," Linn said slowly: he took a noisy slurp of coffee, set his mug down, knuckled the tan droplets from his curled broomhandle, returned to the book.

"It seems Sarah was a busy girl."

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna snarled as the noose tightened around her neck.

She wore the skimpy saloon-girl outfit she'd been caught in; her wrists were cuffed behind her back, but she was not hooded.

"On the charge of spying for the damned Yankees," a man in a suit and top hat read, leaning over the rail, addressing the people gathered around the gallows, "GUILTY!"  He looked up.  "Sentence, death by hanging!"

Sarah's hands were busy behind her back: she turned a little, damning the hangman for shortening the rope: she wore three inch heels, but she was obliged to come up on the balls of her feet, for the hooded executioner had shortened the rope after viciously snapping it tight around her neck: rough hemp dug into her tender skin as her fingers found and manipulated the lock pick she'd kept between two fingers by sleight-of-hand and a good degree of luck.

"Executioner!" Top Hat called dramatically.

The man in the black hood stepped up to the railing, folded muscled arms: he was naked to the waist, he was broad shouldered, he wore sacky breeches tucked into low top boots, and apparently thought himself fashionable:  he bowed, arms still folded, at the stentorian summons.

"Is the prisoner prepared?"

Again, the bow, his limited vision on the top hatted official.

Sarah felt the mechanism release, twisted her wrist free.

One cuff away was all she needed.

"Executioner, have you measured the rope?"

The executioner bowed again, arms still folded: his was the reply and the realm of silence, the silence of death, and by tradition, his reply was never with words.

"Will the fall snap the NECK and guarantee this DAMNED YANKEE SPY is instantly injected to the inferno where she belongs?"

The executioner did not bow.

He raised his hand to his neck, tilted his head to the side, shivered as one being strangled.

"She will die slowly, then?"

The executioner straightened, folded his arms, bowed.

"Executioner!"

Drums rolled from below:  professional drummers were employed for executions, for a public hanging was an Event, and the drama of a performance was always appreciated.

"Ready!"

Sarah smiled, took a breath, lowered herself until her heels just touched the trap: the noose tightened, but not unbearably.

"Loose!"

Sarah jumped -- she did not have to jump far -- her hands came up and seized the rough hemp, and she began climbing, hand-over-hand, ascending to the beam: she snapped her legs up, crossed them over the beam as she seized the short knot, pulled it free, hauled it over her head, looked down.

"GET DOWN HERE!" the astonished official bleated: the hangman jumped, trying to grab her skirt, missed:  Sarah twisted, came up on top of the heavy crossbeam, stood:  she felt the vibration behind her ear, waved at the crowd, began skipping quickly the length of the beam, then took two running steps and leaped, spreading her arms like a swimmer from a high dive.

In an instant she was gone, snatched away by the transport beam: she found herself belly-down on a padded bed, arms out, legs straight and together, toes pointed: she rolled off the bed, came up on her feet, one hand on the sickbay table, the other arm raised in triumph.

Physician, nurse and security officer laughed, clapped in appreciation:  Sarah skipped over to the first officer, seized his face in both hands, pulled his head down and kissed him soundly, looked at him with smoldering eyes:  "That, sir," she purred, "is for getting me out of there!"

The sound of her backhanded slap was loud: the officer did not miss the sudden change of this remarkable young woman's eyes as she took a step back, her face suddenly pale, hard, hostile.

"And THAT, sir," she snarled, "is for what they did to my NECK!"

"Let me see that," the doctor said, placing his hand carefully on the side of her head, tilting her head so he could take a good look at the harsh, red, weeping abraision.

"You're bleeding.  Sit down here and let me fix that."

The security officer's face was scarlet as he raised a hand to his cheek: he turned, disappointed, nearly ran into the Captain, who took his arm and steered him toward the open door.

"You are a most competent officer," the Captain said quietly, "but you've much to learn about women!"

"What would you have done differently, sir?" the First Officer asked, lowering his hand from his insulted cheek.

"Nothing.  Nothing at all, and I too would be rubbing my cheek."  The Captain smiled.  "Sometimes the slap is worth the kiss."  

He looked into the sickbay, at the pretty saloon girl with ice-pale eyes glaring at him from the treatment bed.

"I rather think that is the case here, or would be to me."

 

Linn looked up, blinked.

Jacob and Shelly were silent.

A well told story will draw the listeners into it, make them part of it: Linn could see his little audience considering, still feeling themselves participating in the adventure he'd just read aloud.

"She was on the balls of her feet, and she jumped?" Shelly murmured.

"Sarah was quite athletic, and a horsewoman. You know how your calves strengthened when you spent time in the saddle."

"Hand over hand up a hangman's rope," Jacob said softly, his eyes distant.  "Climbing rope is not that easy."

"Rough hemp. You'd get a really good grip, but it wouldn't be very big around. Sarah was on the slender side, like your Gammaw."

"I've watched Gammaw climb rope.  She could do it."

"Sir, why did they try to hang her?"

"They called her a damned Yankee spy. I'd say she was being the Black Agent, and she was found out."

"Detective work."

Linn nodded.

"What was the buzz behind her ear?"

"An implant, I'd guess.  I'll have to read more."

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Is detective work usually that dangerous?"

"If it's undercover work, yes."

"Remind me not to work undercover, sir."

Linn winked at his son.  

"I'll do that."

Edited February 1, 2022 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

559. A CRAZY UNCLE, YODELING

 

Marnie reached for a red pencil, then a blue one: soft lead whispered against eggshell paper, pale eyes fixed on her work:  she smiled a little as she drew, and under the several pencils she manipulated, a horse-drawn sled emerged, snowdrifts and caricatures, and above the horse-drawn sleigh, a stork -- stroking hard against a headwind -- old-fashioned leather flying helmet, screaming into a boom microphone, and below, a woman with a ludicrously large catcher's mitt, extended toward a plummeting bundle with a little pink foot sticking out.

Dr. John Greenlees, Jr, looked over her shoulder and smiled.

"I remember that night," he said.

"How could we forget it!"

Marnie's hand snatched up a blue pencil, a white: a few strokes, and a blue teardrop light appeared on the sled's frontmost covered-wagon bow.

"I never found out how you came by that one."

"Jacob made it."

"What?"

Marnie chuckled, leaned back: she stretched, luxuriously, twisting one way, then another, reminding her husband of a cat stretching before a fire-warmed hearth.

"Jacob was working on what used to be a sled for about two years," Marnie explained.  "He heard scanner traffic that ... well, we had that snowstorm --"

"I remember that snowstorm!"

"He slogged out to the barn and crawled under the sled with a socket drill and spun the bolts off the seat mounts. He had two rows of seats in the sled -- the runners were original to Old Pale Eyes, as near as we could tell -- he had it finished, and with all that snow, why, he whistled up a warmblood and hitched up the sled and jingled his way to the firehouse to show it off."

"Looks like a roof on it."

"He had bows like a covered wagon -- it was fast and dirty, staples and duck tape, tarps and plastic sheeting on the side, enough to keep snow out and break the wind and not much more.  He threw in a propane heater just for grins and giggles, he got Old Glue Hoof ahead of the singletree, and damned if he didn't trot right down the middle of the road like he owned the place!"

"I don't think there was much traffic to get in the way."

"Much traffic?  Snow was coming down and the plows gave up until it quit!"  Marnie exclaimed.

"So tell me, who's the guy on skis?"

"That's the crazy uncle, yodeling."

 

Jacob Keller's head came up: he was an incurable listener -- scanner, shortwave, ham radio -- his heart's delight was to pull signals out of the air, and he listened to reports of how bad the weather was getting, how fast it was getting bad, and his gut told him that he would be wise to prepare transportation that would get there and get back, in spite of the weather.

Jacob shrugged into a stained, faded, sleeve-frayed Carhartt and yellow overboots; he clattered noisily to the basement, picked up a drill-driver, a deepwell socket: he knew which one he'd need -- hell, he'd put that sled together, he'd ought to know how to dismount the seats! -- he slogged through knee deep snow to the barn, stomped the excess off his boots and wallowed under the sled.

He stacked the seats off to the side, picked up wooden bows, slid them into the sockets he'd stick-welded to brackets bolted to the wooden bed: a short stepladder, tarps, a stapler, duct tape: he shortly had an unattractive, mismatched, but functional roof; he hung plastic sheets from the sides, tacked them down.

I'll leave the back open, he thought: if we need it, we'll have enough hands aboard to keep everyone from falling out.

He went to the fence, shoveled enough snow away from the gate to force it open: he whistled up the warmblood -- it was a big horse, not as big as a pureblood draft horse, but sizable enough, and steelshod:  Jacob knew its shoes were aggressive, suitable for snow and even ice, and that's what he'd need.

The warmblood was well used to being hitched up; Jacob took the cheekstrap in his gloved hand, murmured "Come on, fella," and walked the horse out of the barn, dragging the sleigh through straw and second hand horse feed into clean, pure-white snow:  Jacob stopped and rubbed the horse's neck, talking quietly to it:  the horse laid his head over Jacob's shoulder, muttering happily.

Jacob swung up into the driver's box.

He had no reins.

He didn't need them.

"TIMBER!" he barked. "MUSH!"

The warmblood stepped out lively.

"HAW!"

They swung left, headed down the driveway.

"GEE!"

The sleigh rode easy and light on the heavy wet snow:  horse's hooves were well muffled by the snow, but harness bells sang happily in the cold air as a pale eyed man on a resurrected sleigh drove, bitless, down the middle of the road, and into town.

 

Captain Crane's good right hand was in his hip pocket, a steaming mug of coffee in his off hand: he watched the Brigade shoveling the apron clear, or trying: the snow was too wet to use the snow blower, so they resorted to the tried and true Hillbilly Draglines: they worked steadily, taking snow down to bare concrete.

"God Almighty," Crane breathed, "I don't like snow!"

Shelly came up beside him, her coffee mug in both hands.

"Snow brings babies and heart attacks."

"Damned right it does, and I don't like either one!"

"Don't worry, Daddy.  I'll wear the catcher's mitt."

They stared out at the laboring firefighters.

"Now what in two red hells ...?"

Shelly laughed as Jacob and Glue Hoof came jingling down the middle of the street, heard his cheerful "HAW!  HO!"

"Now there," Captain Crane said approvingly, "is an ambulance I can believe in!"

 

Jacob grinned at the Irish Brigade as they waved their shovels cheerfully at him: he brought the sleigh onto the broad apron, brought it about on snow not yet cleared: men froze, heads came up, Glue Hoof's ears swung forward, and men scrambled for the door as the howler went off inside.

"Firelands Fire Department, woman in labor, 1303 Main Street, time of call ten-oh-one."

Captain Crane threw the door open:  "JACOB! WE NEED YOUR SLEIGH!"

The howler again:  "Firelands Fire Department, man down, CPR in progress, 1350 Main, time of call ten-oh-one."

Jacob soothed the restless warmblood as men ran out with blankets, an ambulance cot, a folding canvas cot -- crash box, oxygen tank, drug box -- Jacob was out of the driver's seat and went to Glue Hoof's head, rubbing his neck, talking to him, whispering secrets known only between a horse and a rider.

Jacob waited until the Captain climbed aboard, with four other firemen and Jacob's mother, then he climbed back into the upholstered seat.

"GLUE HOOF!  GEE!  GEE, BOY, NOW MUSH!  MUSH, DAMN YOU!"

Shelly gripped the back of his seat:  "Mush?"

"Hey, it works," Jacob shrugged.  "Where we headed?"

 

"I remember when they called in," Marnie said quietly, her voice thick with the memory: "they dropped off one crew with the mother, Mama stayed there to deliver the baby, Grampa Crane went on ahead with the Brigade and they ran a code in the back of a horse drawn sleigh."

Marnie giggled.

"I wanted someone to blow Boots and Saddles on a Cavalry bugle, or at least the old Navy General Quarters -- a code, and a delivery, arriving at the same time?"

"Didn't the mother deliver at the hospital?"

"She did, but it was a near thing.  Your Daddy had Mama sign the birth certificate."

"What about the blue light?  Did Jacob put that on?"

Marnie laughed.

"No.  No, after everything was all over -- after the baby was delivered, after the code was turned over to ER, after Jacob took everyone back to the firehouse -- one of the guys brought out a blue teardrop and set on top of the frontmost bow so they could take a picture."

"Wasn't there some guy on skis keeping pace with you?"

"Jacob never found out who he was. He finally said it must have been a crazy uncle or something, the way he kept abreast of them, yodeling every foot of the way."

"Some siren," Dr. John Greenlees, M.D., laughed quietly as he sat down beside his wife.

Dr. John laid a gentle hand on Marnie's belly.

"How's John Junior?"

"He's restless," Marnie smiled, "but so far he hasn't stomped on my bladder."

"You're barely showing."

"A mother knows."  Marnie kissed her husband, laid her hand on his, pressing it gently against her belly.

John shook his head.  "You know," he chuckled, "if we told people about that -- about taking in a laboring mother and a working code, at the same time, in a horse drawn sleigh -- they'd think we were bald face liars."

Marnie twisted again, working a kink out of her back.

"Don't worry, John," she said confidently.  "I can get in trouble just settin' in my easy chair."

"Speaking of easy chair, dearest, isn't it your bedtime?"

"Only if it's yours," Marnie smiled.  "I like cuddling with you.  You're like sleeping with a warm brick."

"At least I'm useful for something," Dr. John Greenlees muttered.

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

560. A MAN'S HANDS

 

Shelly stroked Linn's fingers, tilting her head a little as she studied them.

Shelly touched the lined, brown tissue behind Linn's nails.

"This looks odd," she murmured.

"Burn scar," Linn explained, and Shelly's blood ran cold as she listened to her husband's quiet-voiced account.

 

Five-year-old Linn Keller watched everything his big strong Pa did, with shining and admiring eyes.

His Pa was big and his Pa did stuff and when his Pa burned a little pile of greasy rags, rather than leave them in the shop to catch fire from spontaneous indigestion, five-year-old Linn considered that his Pa was a big man and that was just a little fire and his Pa deserved better.

Linn watched his Pa's retreating backside, until the man was back in the house, and Linn scampered for the garage.

Linn picked up a beer bottle, unscewed the little cap from the round five gallon gasoline can, carefully decanted about a third of a beer bottle of gasoline -- careful though he was, there was some spillage -- Linn carefully screwed the lid back on the can -- he picked up the beer bottle and carried it to the fire.

This stuff burns fast, he thought.

I'll hold it way up on tiptoe so it doesn't get me.

Linn was five years old.

A five year old doesn't really grasp just how fast fire can climb a column of descending gasoline.

All Linn knew was that suddenly his hands exploded in utter absolute AGONY and he ran, too scared and in too much pain to scream, he tried to run from the pain and he saw the spring in the little run behind the house and he drove both burning hands forearm-deep in cold water, drove his burnt hands into the deep sand in the bottom of the sweetwater spring, held them there until his hands were numb.

His Mama appeared from somewhere -- he'd lost all track of time, his world shrank to a single point in time, a bare moment, shrank to now -- no past, no future, just the numb pain of his hands.

 

Captain Linn Keller wore Union blue, he wore the insignia of rank, he wore a Navy Colt revolver and a Cavalry sabre, and he could not move.

He was in an old mountain woman's cabin and she held his hands, turned them over, regarded his palms.

"You have hot hands, a Healer's hands," she said in an old-woman's voice:  the old mountain witch nodded, stroked his palm with her fingertips.

"You carry the Blood," she said.  "No man may carry the Gift, but you will, you will."  She reached to the sewing basket beside her, took out a pair of scissors.

"I am an old woman," she said, "and my death is upon me.  I give this to you" -- she slapped the handles of the scissors into his hand, and his fingers automatically closed on the black-handled shears, and he felt something sear through his body, something that roared like lightning on rails through his entire long tall cavalryman's carcass.

The old woman replaced the scissors, picked up a worn book with a broken spine: she opened it, turned it, placed it on his hands, placed a palsied finger on the text.

"Read this," she said -- it was not a request -- and Linn blinked, focused on the text, read.

"“And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' "

"This," the old mountain witch said, "is how you stop blood with the Word.  You say their full name instead of saying 'you.' "

In the years that followed, Captain Keller, then Brevet-Colonel Keller, then Sheriff Keller, had occasion to use this knowledge, this Gift.

He used it when his son was shot, when his son fell back with a rifle bullet under his collarbone, when his son fell back, bleeding to death.

Linn seized his niece's hand, slapped his knife into her startled grip, pressed the knife crosswise over his son's gushing hemorrhage, pressed his niece's hand down on this hot red river and said, "Repeat after me," and she did, word for word, syllable for syllable: something hot and powerful seared through his hand and through hers, and the bleeding stopped instantly.

 

Sixteen-year-old Linn Keller talked quietly with Shelly's father, who'd just hired onto the fire department as a fire paramedic.

They were laughing over a dispatcher's joke when they heard Shelly scream.

Her father turned -- Linn didn't turn, he launched into a full-on sprint -- Shelly was pouring boiling water from a kettle into a mug, to make them instant hot cocoa -- she'd slopped boiling water over her hand --

Linn seized her wrist, drew it toward him:  he pursed his lips, blew gently on the reddened flesh, made a pushing motion with his other hand.

Shelly had the impression he was blowing snow and frost-cold into the burn, while pushing living flames from the far end.

Three times he blew gently over the burn, three times he pushed the fires away, and on the third pass, he said "Amen," and Shelly looked at him with the uncertain wonder of an injured child whose injury was suddenly erased.

"It doesn't hurt," she said, and her voice was not that of a high school age young woman:  it was the wondering voice of a little child.

Linn smiled, nodded, released her wrist.

Shelly turned her hand over, looking at it in honest surprise.

"Where did the pain go?" she asked, childlike, and Linn smiled and said, "I made it go away."

 

Jacob Keller walked his Apple-horse up beside the All-Night.

He was still in uniform; Apple wore the Sheriff's harness -- at the bottom of the breast strap, a six point star, and on the gold-edged, black saddle blanket, the six-point star at the rear corners -- and as Jacob swung down, he saw two children in a car, regarding him with obvious longing, and some sadness.

Jacob walked over to the car:  the mother was just coming out from behind the wheel: the car had out of state plates, the woman wore black, and looked as if she'd been crying.

Jacob saw the children turn to the mother, heard their voices saying something:  Jacob walked around the front of the car, Apple-horse following.

Sheriff Linn Keller pulled into the All-Night to gas up the cruiser.

He picked up the heavy Motorola mic, marked in with Dispatch, shut off the engine:  he looked ahead, at the Appaloosa stallion beside the out-of-state sedan, watched as Jacob gripped a grinning little boy under the arms, swung him high in the air, and into the saddle.

Linn could not help but smile knowingly, and nod a little:  he well remembered how safe he felt in his Pa's hands, when he was but a wee child.

Jacob walked Apple-horse around the All-Night, walked him back, the little boys' hands welded to the saddlehorn, a grin on his young face you could not have gotten off with a belt sander:  Jacob reached up, brought the lad out of the saddle and set him down, picked up the little girl and swung her high in the air, and down into saddle leather, and walked her around as well.

Linn walked over to the young mother, who by now had tears running down both cheeks.

Linn silently pulled a bedsheet handkerchief from his sleeve, handed to her: she pressed the clean, sun-dried cloth to closed eyelids, sniffed.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.  "We ... we're ... we buried my husband today."

Linn nodded.  "My condolences, ma'am."

"He was with a mounted unit" -- she named the department, Linn recognized the department, but didn't recognize the name -- "he had cancer and he was never able to show them his horse."

Linn nodded.  

"It's late," he said, "if you'd want to take a room in town, get a good night's rest, have a good breakfast and take out in the morning --"

"I couldn't afford that."

"Lawman's discount.  No cost."

The tears started again and Linn gathered her into his arms:  it was not the first time he'd held a grieving new widow, it would not be the last, and afterward, the widow admitted she never remembered what that Colorado Sheriff looked like, she never knew his name, but she never, ever forgot how safe she felt when his arms were around her, when his hands were flat on her shoulder blades, and in the years that followed, two little children grew up remembering the feeling of a pale eyed lawman's hands swinging them a hundred feet in the air, onto the back of a reeeeally tall cowboy horse that wore a badge like the Deputy did, a horse that was just like the one their Daddy used to ride!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

561. SIR, I AM A MOTHER!

 

The broomhandle drove through door glass, blasting bright shards of safety glass in an expanding constellation of bright, sparkling destruction.

The broomhandle's rounded end drove hard into a man's left eye, driven with all the strength in a desperate young mother's hands:  she put her weight into the thrust, so much so that the eye socket failed and the broomhandle went four fingers deep into the would-be home invader's brain.

Two others with him fell back: one reached into his waistband, pulled a stolen, tape-handled revolver, emptied it into the door and his collapsing, screaming partner in crime.

He lost control of his functions when the twin muzzles of a twelve-bore thrust out the hole where a window used to be, and the last thing that went through his mind -- before it was replaced by a swarm of #4 buckshot -- was that it was suddenly difficult to turn and run as he'd done when things went bad before.

 

Bonnie Lynne McKenna stood, shocked, as her daughter's rag doll exploded.

She had no real idea what just happened, only that this stranger came into her home and stated his intent to take her and her daughter to the flesh palaces, there to be sold into white slavery.

All the fears, all the memories of what she'd endured, roared back, overwhelming her, paralyzing her: she'd endured, she'd survived, being one such, when that crooked banker and that crooked attorney poisoned her husband and took their ranch and their savings, and took her as well.

Her daughter Sarah had other ideas.

Sarah remembered what it was to be a helpless little girl, hiding in the saloon between two pianos as the Raiders came through, intending to kill and burn, and she knew what it was to see her Mama stand, straight, tall, confident, as her Mama raised a Navy Colt revolver and deliver final judgement to one such invader.

Now Bonnie watched as her daughter stripped what was left of her rag doll from a .44 Army revolving pistol, as she stepped back, raised the heavy Cavalry revolver and drove another ball through the attacker's face, as she followed him to the floor with her gun muzzle and drove round after round into his bloodied carcass, fury, rage, hatred and loathing turning a pretty girl's face into a mask of horror ... almost the visage of evil itself.

Bonnie stood, frozen in shock, ears screaming from the repeated concussions in the enclosed room, eyes watering from sulfur smoke:  she knew her daughter's hard-heeled shoes were loud as she turned, as she ran down the hallway, she saw the light increase and she knew Sarah opened the front door, but she could not hear her running footsteps, she could not hear the door slam open, she could not hear Sarah as she bent over the porch rail and threw up everything she'd eaten for the past week.

Bonnie Lynne McKenna did remember what Sarah told the Sheriff afterward.

"Mama kept me safe," she'd explained, "and now it was my turn," and Bonnie remembered how Sarah looked up from the floor, looked the pale eyed Sheriff very directly in the eye and added, "I will be a mother in due time, and I must be able to keep my child safe" -- words Bonnie admitted later that she was surprised to hear, for though Sarah was growing and maturing, and was probably ten or eleven when this debt collector came to gather his pound of flesh and more, she'd dressed like a little girl and Bonnie automatically thought of her as much younger than she really was.

 

Linn listened carefully to each of the ladies.

The scene was being processed; the mother and her two daughters were pulled back into the kitchen, where they felt safe:  Linn had the shotgun, still with two spent hulls in its chambers, in a gun case: Linn spoke with each individually, listening carefully, his manner gentle, encouraging.

He'd kept them separated, as best he could; the mother tried to make coffee, but her hands were shaking too much to ladle out the grounds:  Linn drew out a chair, guided her into it, murmured quietly that he'd take care of that detail:  the mother buried her face in her hands, shivering, and her daughters came up on either side, their arms around her.

Linn didn't interfere with this moment.

He filled the coffee carafe with water, poured it into the reservoir; slid the basket into place, the empty carafe under, flipped the lid shut, saw the red light come on.

He drew up two more chairs:  he'd intended to speak to the mother, and to each daughter, separately, but his gut told him to keep them together, they needed to be together in this most terrible night.

Both daughters said the same thing.

They said they saw the strangers come up onto their porch, heard them ring the doorbell:  the girls stayed quiet, they didn't answer the door -- that's what their Mama told them to do -- one stranger waited on the front porch, the others went around back, tried the doors, came back around front.

A hard pull and the aluminum storm door latch broke -- "It was really loud," the youngest daughter said, her eyes big and solemn -- "and he kicked the front door."

Her sister nodded.  "I grabbed Sissie and pulled her back towards the kitchen. We were going to go to the basement if they came in."

"I picked up the broom," the mother said, her eyes and her voice distant:  "I keep a broom beside the front door.  All I could think about was --"

She looked from one daughter to the other, pulled them to her.

Linn gave them a moment.

"I remembered what your mother said," she finally gasped, raising her tear-streaked face and looking at the pale eyed Sheriff.  "I am the weapon and everything is a tool for my hands." 

She took a breath, shivered.

"I drove that broomhandle through the glass just as hard as I could," she quavered.  "I was ... all I could think of was ... were ... my girls."  She looked at the Sheriff, trying to smile:  "Was?  Were?"

"You're doing fine," Linn soothed.  "What happened next?"

"I saw the next guy ... he ... a hoodie, he pulled up .. he had a gun ... waistband ... and I knew I was in trouble."

"What happened next?"

She smiled a little less uncertainly.

"Your Mother taught us that a shotgun ... she ... I had Daddy's double gun and ... he shot at me and I shot at him."

"Did he miss?"

She nodded.

"Did you?"

She shook her head, then looked utterly lost as she asked in a small voice, "Is he dead?"

Linn leaned forward, took both her hands in his.

"Listen to me," he said, his voice low, urgent:  "you stopped a threat.  You were facing a threat to your life, you were facing a threat to both your girls' lives, and you stopped the threat."

 

Bonnie Lynne McKenna stood in the doorway of the Silver Jewel.

Sheriff Linn Keller ran up, seized her arm, his voice loud, harsh.

"BONNIE, ARE YOU HURT?"

Bonnie lifted her chin, gave him a look he'd only seen in the eyes of a hunting hawk.

"I killed two of them," she said, her voice harsh edged, then added:  "Sir, I am a mother!"

 

The woman had a hand on each of her daughters as they and the Sheriff walked to the front door.

"We'll have that door fixed," Linn said.  "You might want to stay somewhere for the night."

"We will stay here," she said.  "This is our home.  We will not be run out."

Linn nodded.

"We'll have manpower close by.  The house will have eyes on it until the door is replaced and secure."

"Thank you."

"Will the three of you be all right for the night?"

"We will," she said firmly, lifting her chin, drawing her daughters closer, and added, "Sir, I am a mother!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

562. "YOU WERE VER-RY, VER-RY GOOD!"

A litttle girl in a proper schoolgirl frock sat on her front porch, looking out at a misty curtain of fine, silent, falling snow.

It was Saturday -- her Mama would emerge momentarily, and she and Sarah would go to town and do their marketing, but for the moment, Sarah sat on the front porch, a folded saddleblanket under her, a huge, black, curly-furred dog happily panting beside her: The Bear Killer leaned companionably against the beribboned child, mouth open in a doggy grin, pink tongue panting in the cold Colorado air.

Sarah was content to sit in the silence, and in the isolation: she was warm, and she was safe; her cloak was around her, except where she'd drawn the right side up and thrown it over The Bear Killer's spine, as he sat cuddled up beside her: she knew he'd likely not appreciate the gesture, as his natural insulation beat anything she wore, but it made her feel better, and The Bear Killer did not object.

Sarah was not yet nine years old, though her mother saw a far greater age in the wee child's eyes: Sarah had survived horrors and hells no child should ever experience, and though she never woke screaming with nightmares, Bonnie knew Sarah's bed was generally torn up by daylight, as if she'd been fighting monsters in her sleep, and not infrequently Sarah's hair would be sweat-plastered to her face, and she'd come to breakfast with a haunted expression, as if hell itself had tried to swallow her, and she'd only just managed to escape.

In later years, Sarah told Bonnie of the things she'd survived:  at first Bonnie shook her head and said "No, no, Sarah, that can't be," until Sarah described Bonnie's appearance, and her simple, quietly stated words blasted the wall Bonnie had built between her memories and herself: mothers usually hold their daughters, and comfort their daughters, when their daughters wake screaming with night terrors, but sometimes, sometimes it is the daughter that holds the mother, sometimes it is the daughter who murmurs, "We shall get through this together," and sometimes, when the mother and the daughter have both been wounded most grievously -- whether an unseen, psychic, soul-crippling wound, or a physical, flesh-tearing, bone-breaking, body-crippling wound, mother and daughter heal together.

Sarah was not content to wall away her horrors and deny them.

Sarah Lynne McKenna, every night, waded through the hot, red sands of Hell itself, gathered what weapons she could manage, and charged her memories, assaulted her terrors, brought destruction to Chaos and the monsters that tried to rend her soul and keep it for their own.

Bonnie's trials were terrible indeed -- what happened to her, especially when a brothel still ran in the upper floor of the Silver Jewel -- are things no woman should ever endure:  it is a testament to her strength, her resilience, that she survived:  more honor must be given, more must be recognized, that she was able to prosper afterward, that she built her own business and became a respected woman of Firelands society and Firelands commerce, after all that.

But this morning, today, in the hush of a steady snowfall, a little girl and a huge, black, bear killing mountain Mastiff sat together on a front porch, feeling the silence, tilting their heads back and tasting the snow, rejoicing in a moment of calm and of isolation, and of sharing their mutual warmth.

 

Feral, yellow eyes gleamed, unseen and shining, through the steady snowfall.

A girl sat on her front porch, a girl in jeans and a blanket lined coat, a girl with a Winchester rifle across her lap and a gentle smile on her face.

A huge, black, curly-furred dog sat beside her, cuddled up against her:  she ran her arm over The Bear Killer's back and rubbed him gently with a deerskin-gloved hand.

"I'm glad you're here," she whispered, and The Bear Killer turned, lowered his head, gave her jawline a quick laundering, his tail swishing soundlessly across the snowy porch boards.

Marnie sat on a folded saddle blanket, snow dusting the brim of her Stetson; her hair was braided, wrapped around her throat, tucked into her flannel shirt collar; she'd read of the McKenna Ranch and a ranch hand -- oh, what was her name, it was a man's name and the record fooled a lot of people -- she wore her hair braided and around her throat, and it kept her alive in a knife fight once --

"Bear Killer," Marnie complained, "what was her name?"

The Bear Killer muttered, deep in his chest, but made no other reply.

"Clark," Marnie said with satisfaction.  "She had thick auburn hair and she wore it braided around her throat, she was a marvel with handling cattle and her name was Clark --"

The front door opened:  "Marnie," Jacob said, his voice serious.

Marnie turned her head:  something in his voice told her this was not little brother teasing his big sis.

"They've a lost child. I think we ought to saddle up.  You had breakfast?"

"No," she admitted, pulling her legs up from their dangle-in-the-snow: she cracked her bootsoles together to knock off the white stuff, came up on her feet, snatching up the saddle blanket.

"I've got bacon and eggs ready, toast is coming up, hot chocolate is mixed!"

"Jacob, I love you from the bottom of my heart," Marnie groaned as she and The Bear Killer made for the open door.

"Yeah, and you've got Mom and Dad in the top!"  Jacob retorted, and they laughed, for it was an old joke between them.

They knew well the need to have their inner furnace stoked before heading out on an important job, and finding a lost child in the snow was very definitely important.

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna sat very straight and very proper beside her Mama in the front seat of their sleigh.

The streets had been rolled, packed down, to make sleigh runners slide easier; the road to their ranch, as well, had been rolled, but snow had fallen since: still, their smooth, waxed sleigh-runners glided easily, their steelshod, matched Dapples -- which Sarah insisted be named Butter and Jelly -- made light work of drawing them through the winter snowfall, harness bells singing happily in the cold, thin air.

Sarah and Bonnie were warm in furs and cloaks, with a buffalo robe across both their laps:  Sarah delighted in her Mommy, for her Mommy was very, very pretty, and she was very, very proper, and frankly Bonnie was a really good looking woman:  a trim figure and violet eyes, a gentle, understanding smile and a soft voice: she was every inch the Lady, and Sarah aspired to be just like her: children learn more by observation, than by didactic lessons, and Sarah was laying down her pattern according to what she saw in her lovely, feminine, Mama.

 

Jacob and Marnie swung into saddle leather: they had full bellies, they had thermoses of steaming-hot chocolate, they had rations in their saddlebags, and they had a rifle in a saddle-scabbard and a belted revolver under their jackets: they were too young for such things, they knew, but they also knew that Concealed meant Concealed, and as long as they were not stupid, they could probably get away with it.

Besides, they could argue these were signaling devices, for use in an emergency, and in this weather, a lost child was an emergency.

Each wore a screaming-neon-lime, reflective-striped vest, and each had supplies behind the saddle, and when a pair of broad brimmed horsemen rode up to the firehouse, where the searchers were gathering, Linn looked up and nodded with approval.

"You're just in time," he said, as if he'd expected them:  "come on in for the council of war!"

A bay door clattered open and Jacob and Marnie walked their mounts inside, in where it was warm; the doors rattled and squeaked a little as it closed, shutting out fine, blowing snow and a cold wind.

Marnie and Jacob swung down, each one pausing to rub their mounts' noses, each murmured, "Remember, you're housebroken," which of course did not work, but it made a good line.

 

Bonnie tethered Butter's bridle to the hitch rail in front of the Mercantile.

Sarah very carefully stood, standing erect and ladylike in the front of the sleigh: she stepped up on the side of the sleigh, balancing easily on its edge, standing straight and ladylike, gauging the distance she'd have to jump to land on the mounting-block: just as she started to bend her knees for the feat, The Bear Killer shoved her powerfully in the small of the back with  his nose, and Sarah fell, all arms and legs and a startled little squeak, as an anonymous townsman caught the falling child:  he went over backwards, landed flat on his back on the snowy boardwalk with a pale-eyed little girl on top of him:  Bonnie's gloved hand went to her mouth, her violet eyes wide, shocked, while The Bear Killer, looking down from the sleigh, swung his tail happily and looked most pleased with himself.

The townsman's hat fell from his head in slow motion, landed upside down on the snow-dusted boardwalk, cold-blown flakes hitting his hatband and melting from the retained heat; other wind-driven, icy little flakes started to gather in the hat's deeper crown crease.

The townsman -- once the startle wore off -- blinked, looked into the cherubic, red-cheeked face of an absolutely beautiful, fur-framed, laughing little girl:  the child kissed him quickly, delicately, on the tip of his nose and said in an utterlly charming, little-girl voice, "Hello, I'm Sarah, and I don't believe we've been properly introduced."

 

Marnie and Jacob did what they have always done best.

They held back, they listened.

Children learn more by observation than by didactic instruction; children also learn from casual comments: when their pale eyed Pa commented, "I never learned much with my mouth a-runnin'," they took this as instruction, and when their pale eyed Pa remarked, "Mouth in gear, mind goes on vacation," they accepted this as Gospel: adults discussed the plan of attack, assigned quadrants to be searched, discussed terrain, weather, wind chill: to all of this Marnie and Jacob listened without comment, until Linn looked over at Marnie.

"You've ridden your sector before," he said.  "Any thoughts?"

"Yes," Marnie said without hesitation:  she stepped forward, overlaid the county map with a topographic map transparency, picked up the Sheriff's shining-chrome, telescoping pointer.  "You said last known location was here."

The pointer rested on the clear plastic.

"Known hazards this area will be dropoffs here and here" -- the pointer lifted, tapped gently -- "but with this snow, the ground here -- tap -- "close to the house, is level and easy walking and it's along a long dropoff.  It's gorgeous and with the snow it would be absolutely spectacular, but here -- it's a level walk, an easy walk, and it's a ways from his house -- it's suddenly very rocky and easy to twist an ankle."  She paused, thinking, then added, "Especially if you're not expecting it."

Linn saw his daughter's jaw slide out a little as she thought.

"There's an old line shack here. If he was hurt and he was a distance from the house, but he saw the line shack, he might make for it.  On the other hand" -- she looked at Jacob -- "we found a ravine here."

She looked up at her pale eyed Daddy.  

"A wounded animal, a lost child or a confused seasoned citizen will track uphill because it's easier to keep your balance.  Was he hurt here and made for shelter here, he may have hit that snow filled ravine and gone down, here."  She laid the pointer down.  "That's in our search quadrant.  We'll go there first.  Bear Killer?"

A huge black head shoved through crowded humanity, raised up under Marnie's dangling hand.

"What do you think?"

The Bear Killer turned his head, looked toward where the Irish Brigade was setting out a plate of biscuits.

"No biscuits and gravy until we're done," Marnie scolded, and The Bear Killer's ears fell, his head dropped, and his sad little whine -- from such a huge and impressive mountain Mastiff -- struck most there as comical, at least for that moment.

"Anything else?"  Linn asked, looking around.

Men shifted impatiently from one foot to another.

"All right.  Let's find that boy!"

 

"Mrs. Spencer?"  Bonnie asked.  "Forgive me, but you look troubled!"

"It's my nephew Reginald," Mrs. Spencer admitted with a distressed look.  "He's visiting from Atlanta and he's never seen snow before, and I'm afraid he's ... outside!"

"Don't worry, Mrs. Spencer," Bonnie said reassuringly.  "He's in town.  He can't have gone far!"

"Yes, but he's so little and I was supposed to be watching him --"

Bonnie gave Mrs. Spencer a knowing look.

"You know how boys are," she said soothingly.  "He is very likely laughing and throwing snow in the air.  We'll find him, won't we, Sarah?"

Sarah Lynne McKenna looked at her Mommy with wide and innocent eyes.

"Yes, Mama," she said dutifully, and laid a hand on The Bear Killer's muscled neck.

"Come on, Bear Killer."

A pretty little child and a black, curly-furred guardian scampered happily for the front door of the Mercantile.

Mrs. Spencer watched with worried eyes as the door closed behind the pair:  Bonnie took Mrs. Spencer by the arm and turned her gently toward the sewing notions.

"Now, Mrs. Spencer," she said in a gentle voice, "let's make our purchases, shall we?  Have you any need for a paper of pins today?"

Outside, The Bear Killer's nose was busy on the boardwalk:  Sarah looked at the snow, drifted up against the side of the building, filling the alley to a surprising depth.

The Bear Killer raised his muzzle, tasted the air, dove into the drifted snow, swam a little distance in the white, fluffy stuff, submerged.

Sarah watched as his path was marked by a steady collapse of fluffy snow, his progress plain to see.

Sarah leaned out as far as she dared, then put one shining little patent-leather slipper on the first step down, leaned out a little farther.

She saw The Bear Killer come up on his hind legs, for all the world like a great cetacean breaching the ocean's surface:  a spray of snow, a doggy sneeze, a shake of his head and a cloud of the powdery stuff:  he looked around, got his bearings, dove again:  he came up a second time, and this time he did not come up alone.

The Bear Killer turned and Sarah laughed and clapped her reddening little hands together with delight.

The Bear Killer lunged powerfully out of the snow with a set of arms and legs swinging beneath his muzzle: he had something by the back of a coat, something that looked kind of like a little boy, something that still held a swallowtail-ribbon round hat in one hand, something snow-glittered and white, something The Bear Killer hauled back to the front of the Mercantile in a series of powerful thrusts and lunges as he breasted the snow, as he gained a purchase, as his hind legs found solid ground, as he thrust again: his rescued cargo was immersed in snow, then hauled out, immersed, hauled out again:  Sarah could not tell what the lad was saying, or if he was saying anything at all, at least until The Bear Killer proudly powered up the steps and onto the boardwalk:  Sarah laughed as The Bear Killer shook winter from his fur, she opened the door to allow the great, bear-killing canine to carry the protesting lad into warmth and light.

The Bear Killer fairly strutted as he carried the lad in close to the stove:  Mrs. Spencer crouched, seized the lad under the arms:  The Bear Killer released his grip, swung his tail happily, obviously very pleased with himself, just before he shook again, sllinging winter in all directions.

 

Snowmobiles snarled across the snow, swift arrows bearing sleds and rescuers.

Sharon listened closely to the radio traffic, answered the phone, made copious notes on her yellow legal pad, her regular print legible, distinct: she'd gotten in the habit of printing when she was a paramedic -- if she were charting on a patient in script, a pothole could destroy an entire line of her work, but if she were printing, she might lose one word -- not to mention the improved legibility, and so she printed for the rest of her life, out of well formed habit.

Sharon had a county map on an easel, set up on her left:  it had a clear plastic overlay, and she had erasable markers: wavering, hand-drawn lines marked the paths of the snowmobiles, of the equestrians, of the wheeled vehicles, each color coded:  red for ambulance, green for snowmobiles, black for horsemen.

Sharon's work at her dispatcher's desk, for a time, looked very much like a dancer, performing while seated: was there anyone else in the office to observe, they might consider that she had to be very good at what she did, for she was making this complex task, look easy ... and only those who are really good at such a task, can make it look easy!

 

The Bear Killer surged through the snow.

Marnie and Jacob walked their mounts after him, cautious: they knew the ground turned suddenly rough, and neither wished to injure their horse: sure enough, in spite of drifting conditions, Marnie and Jacob saw the slight, irregular depression where snow had been troubled -- just before The Bear Killer blasted happily through it -- and Marnie's mare hesitated.

"Ho," Marnie murmured, swung down:  almost immediately, her boot slipped, and had she not been ready, she would have turned an ankle.

"Here's the rock fill," she said.  "Nearly rolled my ankle on that one!"

Jacob swung down as well:  they advanced cautiously, looking ahead.

The Bear Killer looked back at them, bayed: he threw his muzzle up, his sustained howl steamed in the chill air.

"This way," Marnie said.  "I don't think the rock fill goes this way."

She and Jacob turned, went carefully downhill:  Marnie led the way, dismounted, Jacob followed.

They knew this hollow, they'd ridden it in warm weather: they made their way cautiously downhill, around the curve of the hollow into the bottom, where The Bear Killer waited.

Marnie froze, stripped the glove from her gun hand, ran her thumb up under the skirt of her coat, hesitated.

Feral yellow eyes regarded her steadily:  unafraid, unblinking, something with slanted, startling yellow eyes regarded her with an ancient wisdom.

The Bear Killer sat right beside -- or almost -- something was between them, something with a knit stocking cap and red cheeks, something grateful for warmth on either side of him.

Marnie's fingers had just touched the checkered grips of her .357.

She stopped, she lowered her hand, allowing her coat tail to lower as well:  she worked her hand back into the deerskin glove.

"I see you, Old One," she murmured.  "Thank you."

Jacob waited: he was directly behind his big sis, he watched without comment, his eyes pale with an ancient wisdom of his own.

Marnie slogged through the snow to the boy.

She stopped ten feet from the trio, looked at the White Wolf.

"What wilt thou?" she whispered.

Both of them -- the White Wolf and The Bear Killer -- both of them yawned, with a truly impressive display of dentistry:  both pink tongues curled, both made a little puppy-like yowww as they did, both stretched, arching their backs: the little boy looked, startled, at the space where the White Wolf had been, where a little wisp of vapor was corkscrewing down into the snow, and then was gone.

 

Paul Barrents lifted his chin, looked into the distance, looked at Linn.

"They found him," he said quietly, and Linn saw a knowing, a satisfaction in his old and dear friend's obsidian eyes.

 

"Dispatch, Six-Bravo," Sharon heard.

She slapped the transmit bar on the desk mike, wheeling over to speak without leaning dangerously over in her wheeled office chair.  "Six-Bravo, go."

"We found him. Sprained ankle and otherwise well."

"Roger your found him and sprained ankle only, break, break. Firelands Squad One, stand by for traffic.  Six-Bravo, your location."

"We're about a half mile from the house. Six Actual knows the location."

"I roger your half mile from the house, break.  Six Actual, go direct Firelands Squad One for location."

Sharon leaned back, turned to the map, listened to the radio traffic.

She picked up the red marker, located the spot with her eyes, drew a circle.

She capped the erasable marker and noticed her hands were shaking, and she dropped the marker as she tried to put it back on the easel's trough.

Memories filled her eyes and overflowed as she remembered what it was to be that mother who didn't know where her child was.

Her firstborn hadn't sprained his ankle, he'd drowned.

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna pattered happily down the hallway, flat-heeled slippers loud on the varnished floor, The Bear Killer hobby-horsing happilly after her.

Sarah slipped into the kitchen, selected a knife, sliced off four thin slices of beef.

The Bear Killer sat, his muzzle-washing tongue declaring his happiness at the prospect of a treat.

Sarah held out the dainty with thumb and forefinger, and The Bear Killer took it carefully, delicately:  Sarah waited until she'd given him all four pieces, then she looked at him and said in a happy little girl's voice, "You were ver-ry, ver-ry good!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

563. AN UNDERSTANDING

Jacob Keller's hands were too fast to follow.
Jacob Keller's hands were callused from honest labor.

Jacob Keller's hands were also pretty damned strong.

Jacob Keller seized the wrist, twisted it, spun: his hand seized the thumb, brought it around, back, fast, brutally, with full intent to rip it from the hand that sprouted it.

He didn't quite get that done.

He did, however, tear the wrist apart, and he did bring the knife out of the opponent's hand, and he did bring the thumb out of its socket.

Jacob Keller's eyes were dead pale, his face was dead white and stretched like old parchment over a mummy's skull, but this was not what struck dread into Emma Cooper's stomach.

Jacob Keller's face was -- for all its pallor, for all its tautness, was utterly, completely, without expression.

It would have been easier for the schoolmarm if Jacob's face were contorted in a snarl, if his teeth were bared, if his was a mask of fury and of rage and of blasting red anger:  somehow his utter calm, his completely emotionless expression, drove a lance of cold fear into the woman's soul, and she brought her hands quickly to her stomach as if she herself had been lanced.

Jacob released the wrist, stepped back, turned quickly left, turned right, his forearm shot up and out and blocked the cudgel coming down toward his head:  his arm spun, snugged in, he twisted, and elbow splintered and another boy screamed in agony.

Jacob released the arm, let the howling attacker fall to the ground, turned again:  left, then right, then clear around, hands up, bladed, ready.

The first one -- the one with the thumb that laid limp, misshapen, discolored -- sniveled through tears and snot, tried to glare through his pain, screamed "I'LL KILL YOU!"

Jacob took a fast step forward, kicked: his boot caught his first attacker under the jaw, slamming teeth together, snapping the neck back:  he stepped in, stomped the attacker in the gut, driving his weight through his boot heel, driving the living breath from the agonized boy's belly.

His attacker was an older boy, a bigger boy, someone who wanted to rule the others, and when Jacob would not submit to his demands, he pulled a knife and threatend to cut Jacob open.

Jacob picked up the knife, tested the edge.

"Dull," he said, shaking his head.  "You can't even do that right."

Two tall boys, on the ground, offered no comment save only their sounds of agony.

 

Jacob Keller seized the wrist, caught it coming in: he spun, pulled, drove the stiletto switchblade into the brick wall of the Firelands High School hallway.

His elbow came up, caught the attacker's jaw, snapping it: he pulled back, spun, swept the knees from under the next attacker, drove a side-snap into another's crotch: he was spinning, and with each revolution he delivered a ridgehand chop, an elbow strike, a kick:  there were four of them, but they were in close, too close, and another blade intended for Jacob's kidneys, ended up in the guts of a fellow attacker: Jacob was a tornado with a white face and ice-pale eyes, utterly silent, absolutely without emotion, fast, effective ... and deadly.

Two that tried to kill him, were dead, two more were crippled, their knees ripped apart from being kicked, hard, in the side: Jacob turned, left, then right, turned clear around, hands up, bladed, ready.

"I'll kill you," one of his attackers gasped.

"You had your chance," Jacob replied in a quiet voice.  "I see you again, you die."

 

Two nights later, a car was found burning on a back road.

Two bodies were found inside.

The autopsy was difficult, but not impossible.

Cause of death was gunshot, from close range.

Very close range.

Jacob Keller was, of course, asked as to his whereabouts that night, and he answered honestly that he'd been home in bed.

He did not lie.

Nobody asked where his sister had been that night.

Two days later, when they were well away from the house, when there was none but their horses to hear them, Jacob asked, "Was it difficult?"

"No," Marnie said offhandedly.  "I named the place and said if they thought they had the guts, they'd meet you there."

"They found two guns in the car."

"What was left of two guns, yes."

"They intended to kill you, Jacob."

Jacob nodded, looked at his big sister.

"Gammaw always did like her shotgun."

Marnie smiled, just a little.

"So do I."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

564.  GRENADE?

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller lay back and willed herself to relax.

She looked up at stark-white acoustic ceiling tiles, she lay still as intravenous contrast warmed her arm, and a moment later she suppressed a giggle: she'd been warmed that she would feel flushed, and it would feel like she'd wet herself, and had they not warned her, she realized, she would be most distressed right about now.

The table hummed and started to move, and she rolled slowly, smoothly, through the CAT scanner's doughnut.

 

Shelly was very quiet.

Shelly was normally second cousin to the Energizer Bunny.

Shelly was seldom still:  she was either inventorying the squad, or polishing brass, she was either mopping or stocking linens or getting under the hood to check motors.

Captain Crane saw her sitting, alone, an untouched coffee no longer steaming in front of her, and he knew something was not as it should be.

He came over, sat beside his daughter, ran his arm around her shoulders:  Shelly leaned into her big strong Daddy:  no longer a confident, self-sufficient paramedic, no longer wife and mother, Shelly began to shiver.

She laid her head over on the Captain's shoulder and quavered, "I need my daddy," in a small, almost a little girl's voice, and the Captain turned a little and held her with both arms.

 

Jacob waited, silent, patient; he stood at a correct parade-rest, his eyes pale, his boots polished, his jeans pressed, his shirt military creased: there were chairs, but he chose to stand, and the few who came into the waiting room had the distinct impression that cold was cascading off the lean young man like cold rolling down a granite mountain in winter.

Sheriff Linn Keller came into the waiting room, looked at his son, lifted his head, but barely: his hat brim rose all of a quarter of an inch, but it conveyed the message.

"She's still in, sir," Jacob said quietly.

Linn nodded.

He paced across the floor, burnished boot's heels loud on mirror-polished tile: he came over beside his son, turned, fell into an identical parade-rest beside his son: side by side, there was a distinct, a very distinct, resemblance, not only in appearance, height, build and shape of face, but in posture and in a silent, pale eyed glare ... and in the way that their eyes, and nothing else, moved: Jacob was not yet a sworn deputy, but he stood like a lawman, he stood with his back to a wall, facing the only entrance to the room.Father and son gave the distinct impression that they were actually tightly-coiled springs, only incidentally contained in shells of flesh, and they were more than ready to release their pent-up energy, very quickly.

Very quickly.

 

Shelly looked up as one of the Irish Brigade removed her cooled mug, replaced it with a fresh, hot, steaming mug of coffee: a strong hand laid gently on her shoulder, squeezed, released.

Shelly stared, unseeing, into the shimmering blackness: her voice was faint, uncertain.

"Daddy," she said, "she is the only mother I have left!"

Captain Crane nodded, slowly:  he waited until she took a sip of coffee, and set her mug down, before pulling her into him again.

"I know, liebchen," he said softly.  "I know."

 

Willamina closed her eyes as she passed beneath the aligning lasers.

The table ran smoothly as the CT head rumbled and rotated inside its tan housing: eleven minutes later, Willamina stood, buttoned her flannel shirt, thrust sock feet into her well polished Wellington boots:  she looked at the tech and asked, "How long until we know about this grenade in my chest?"

"Grenade?" the tech asked, momentarily alarmed: she turned, looked at the monitor, looked back, shook her head:  "The radiologist will have to read it, I'm sorry.  I can't interpret."

"You're not running out at the top of your lungs, waving your arms in the air."

"No."  The tech smiled.  "No, I'm ... not running."

"Good enough."  Willamina smiled.  "Thank you for your hospitality."

She paused.  "I expect I'll have someone waiting to give me a ride.  Which way is the waiting room?"

 

Linn and Jacob felt a surge of adrenaline as the door pushed open, relaxed just a little as a pair of pale eyes came in, with the familiar figure of a woman surrounding them:  she came over to the Keller men, who both dropped out of parade rest -- not quite into an atttention posture, but definitely an attentive posture.

Willamina took Linn's hand and Jacob's both.

"What do we know?"  Linn asked, his voice tense.

"We know one polyp was precancerous, but nothing else was suspicious."

"And your scan ...?"

"Will have to pass before the radiologist's eyes."

Jacob's silence spoke as loudly as his voice might have: Willamina looked at her grandson, smiled.

"Your eyes," she murmured, then hugged Jacob, quickly, tightly:  "you're just like your father!"

"Thank you, ma'am," Jacob replied, hugging her back.

Willamina turned, hooked her arm in Jacob's elbow, the other arm in Linn's:  "I'm hungry," she announced.  "Who's buying?"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

565. TIKKIE PINGERS

The wind had stopped, which made it feel a little less cold, especially where the weak sun could caress the Sheriff's overcoat.

He followed the great black dog through drifted snow, until The Bear Killer stopped and looked back and woofed.

Linn swung down, dropped the reins on the bitless bridle:  "Stay," he said quietly, carressing the brindle mule's neck: the mule muttered, laid his jaw companionably over the Sheriff's shoulder.

"I know, fella," Linn said quietly.  "The faster we find him and get him back, the faster we can get you back in the barn."

The pack mule tethered behind swung his ears toward the lean waisted lawman's voice, but offered no comment.

Linn slogged through knee deep drifts, grateful the wind blew the worst of it somewhere else, saw where The Bear Killer dug out a hand.

It was a relaxed hand, but it was a dead hand:  blue, stiff, attached to a carcass that was not only stiff in death, but froze as well.

Linn wallered the carcass free of the entombing drift -- "Damn you dirty John Allen," he muttered, "you thievin' son of Perdition, why'd you have to go and die on me" -- he got the stiffened carcass worked free, over his shoulder:  he stood, turned, headed back to the pack mule.

"Damn you dirty John Allen," he snarled between clenched teeth, "you stole from everyone you could and now you're stealin' my comfort!  If you weren't dead I'd kick your backside up between your shoudler blades!"

The jack mule stood patiently as the Sheriff fought the carcass into place, got it tied down:  he did not bother to tarp it -- his feet were cold and his fingers were cold and he was not in a good temper a'tall -- once he was satisfied the frozen soul would not escape the lashings, he mounted up, called "Bear Killer!  Let's go home!" -- and the four of them set out along their back trail, back for Firelands.

Part way back he pulled a card out of his inside pocket -- the sun hadn't been this strong on the way out -- Sarah made it and gave it to him, she said it was something the Esquimaux used, up north -- she'd taken a stiff card, as wide as a playing card and twice as long -- she cut a relief for a man's nose, cut two crosses for him to look out of -- and told him, "Wear this to keep from going snow blind."

The Sheriff lifted his Stetson, ran the string over his head and adjusted it for taut, resumed the skypiece, and was grateful for the relief, for it did help.

 

Digger heard a man's boots on the boardwalk outside.

Men stomping snow off didn't always mean business, but when the first stomps were followed with a distinctive tattoo, he knew it was the Sheriff, punishing the base of a decorative column beside his front door, knocking the toe of one boot, then the other, against the broad base to get rid of the adherent snow.

Digger looked up, stood, took one step toward the door, and the bell rang cheerfully:  a single pull.

One pull meant it was not an unexpected death, one pull meant the potential customer was not distressed, aggrieved, upset:  had the bell rang, swung, clanged, alarmed with many vigorous pulls, he would expect to see a terrified child, a weeping woman, a bereaved husband with a child in one arm and two others clutching his coat tails:  no, he opened the door and was not at all surprised to see the pale eyed Sheriff -- at least he thought it was the Sheriff -- wearing some kind of a square mask across his eyes.

Linn removed the Stetson, the snow shield, replaced his sky piece.

"Customer," he grunted.  "Tikkie Pingers."

Digger nodded, frowning.  "At least he won't be stealing from me this time.  Bring him in back."

Moments later, Digger and the Sheriff lay the frozen carcass of a local small time thief on Digger's work table.

"I don't care if you thaw him out or just cut off his arms to fit him in the coffin," Linn growled.  "The fellow's dead and good riddance.  County will pay for the usual.  Check his pockets carefully, no telling what he'd stolen this time."

"I'll do that, Sheriff."

 

The arrival of a masked lawman, with an uncovered, obviously frozen, lashed-down body on a pack mule, did not go unnoticed.

That the body was tied down on the back of the Sheriff's mule, told the watchers it was being brought in, that it was not under its own power.

That its liimbs stuck stiffly awry, told them the body was not living, and hadn't been for a while.

That it was uncovered, told the watchers how little respect the Sheriff had for this soul, and this was significant:  the Sheriff was known for his explosive temper when provoked, but he was also known as a man of great patience and unfailing courtesy, and for him to haul in a body without discreetly covering it, told all who saw it, just how much contempt, how much dislike the Sheriff had for this poor soul.

The event itself was not terribly significant; it merited but brief entry into the Sheriff's ledger; that dirty John Allen was buried in a pauper's grave, its location marked by a simple stone that was eventually lost to time and overgrowth, located again and identified more than a century later by one of the Sheriff's descendant successors.

Marnie Keller stood beside her Gammaw as Willamina consulted her hand-held tablet:  she took a photo of the just-uncovered stone, washed free of dirt, scrubbed and now legible again, and she nodded.

"Gammaw?"  Marnie asked, looking at Willamina with serious eyes.  "Is this the dirty John Allen Daddy talks about?"

Willamina laughed.  "You mean yesterday, when he could not find his lock pliers and he said that dirty John Allen stole it?"

"That's the one," nine-year-old Marnie nodded, pale eyes big and solemn.

"He's the one, sweets.  He was also known as Tikkie Pingers."

Marnie looked curiously at her pale-eyed Gammaw, and Willamina laughed at her granddaughter's puzzlement.

"He had tikkie pingers," she explained.  "If he saw something he liked, it stuck to his fingers ... and I think someone's child couldn't speak clearly and instead of 'Sticky Fingers' it came out 'Tikkie Pingers' and it stuck."

Marnie nodded solemnly, looked down at the clean-scrubbed stone.

"We'll have our Digger reset this stone," Willamina said.  "This isn't the only one that's been found.  Potter's Field was for indigent deaths and for criminals, people who were hanged."

"Like that Beulah woman -- or was it Clara?"

"Clara, I think.  One of the only women hanged here in Firelands."  Willamina looked over at the stone marking the subject under discussion, bent down a little, looked at Marnie, winked.

"Don't tell anyone," she said quietly, "but every one of their hanged criminals was buried face down so they could see where they were going!" 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

566.  THE SIGNAL

Jacob Keller's eyes were busy under the shaded overhang of his pearl-grey Stetson.

It was said that, at a distance, father and son were indistinguishable: they were two men of like height, of a like breadth of shoulder and lean waist, two men who favored black suits and knee high black boots, two men with pale eyes that could look through a man and take a good close regard of his back bone and see if there was a streak alongside it -- whether white, if he was a skunk, or yella, if he had a shade of the coward in his soul.

Jacob preferred an Appaloosa stallion; his father, a Palomino: two stallions sometimes did not get along well, and there were times when two horses were at odds with one another, which is why most preferred geldings.

The lawmen Keller were not most men.

Jacob cantered his Appaloosa down the middle of the rutted, froze-hard street: his hand rose in salute, touching his hat brim to the ladies, or giving a grave, shallow nod to the men he recognized:  it was obvious the man was looking for something.

Or someone.

All upon whom his pale eyes rested, felt a chill: the good folk of town felt a trickle of a chill at those pale eyes, as if a cold blanket of silence passed momentarily over their beating heart: those with a guilty conscience felt more like a ladle of cold snow melt sluiced right down the middle of their back bone, and they had the instant impression that the climate just might be healthier some distance away.

Jacob ho'd softly and Apple-horse ho'd, turned: he stood at the hitch rail, Jacob took a single turn around the cedar with one rein, caressed Apple's neck, and as he always did, he said "Anyone troubles you, boy, kill 'em."

No one this side of the Mr. and Mrs. Sippi had ever been foolish enough to lay hands on Jacob's stallion.

One, and only one, living soul had ever been that utterly stupid, and that was when his pale eyed Pa sent him back East with a warrant: he'd ridden the steam train from here to there and ended up in a dirty little mining town in the Appalachian hill country, he'd taken a room at the Widow Hanson's boarding house, and he'd found one Donald Douglas, named on the warrant and particularly described -- and when he was admitted into the Douglas household by the maid, when he crossed the threshold with a gentle voice and a quiet smile, he'd been shown into the presence of the man, and he'd taken a long look at him.

Donald Douglas lay in his bed, unable to move: only his eyes showed any sign of life, of movement:  Jacob thanked the maid and asked for a moment alone, and when the door closed behind the hired girl, Jacob took out the warrant which authorized his arrest of this criminal, this lying man who'd falsely sworn to his pale eyed Pa's being a murderer.

Jacob looked at the man like he might examine a bug on a professor's plate.

He withdrew the warrant from his coat, read it aloud, his voice quiet, gentle:  he read the charges, the order of the Firelands District Court, he looked down at Don Douglas, lying there, paralyzed from an attack of apoplexy, his eyes and his mind the only active parts of his existence.

"Mr. Douglas," Jacob said, "a lawman has considerable discretion."

He folded the warrant and returned it to the inside pocket of his immaculately-brushed black coat.

"Were you a well man, I would bring you back in irons, peacefully or otherwise, and otherwise would suit me just fine."  He looked quietly at the invalid.  "Look close, Mr. Douglas.  I'm told I favor my father considerable.  You might remember him, his name is Linn Keller and he walked down Butcher Knife Joe out on the main street and you were on Council, layin' bets as to how fast my Pa would get killed a-doin' it."

Jacob leaned over until his nose was an inch from Douglas's nose.

"Was I to take you back, you would be sentenced either to death, or to prison."

He straightened.

"You are already in prison, Mr. Douglas, and I don't reckon you'll ever get out.  Was I to guess, I'd guess you will die of pneumonia."  Jacob settled his pearl grey Stetson on his head, stepped back one pace.

"Sir, I leave you to your prison, but know that your name is known to good men, and that name is not well regarded."

If a man's eyes were weapons, Douglas would have been launching daggers and ballista-bolts at his pale eyed visitor.

Jacob opened the door; it did not surprise him that the maid was bent over, listening at the keyhole.

Jacob closed the door behind him, turned to the maid.

"I have no further business here," he said, "and I do not reckon I will return."

He didn't.

He did, however, stop in Athens, both on his way in, and on his way out, and while he was consulting with the local Sheriff's office -- who found it a grand novelty to entertain a genuine Western Sheriff's deputy -- a group of college boys thought it would be grand fun to steal this horse they found, waiting patiently for its rider: one sustained a crushed hand, another, two broken ribs and significant bruising, and a third, the one who actually made it into the saddle, discovered that a Western horse is a marvelous creature that can sling a man far closer to the moon's surface than he ever really wanted to get.

Jacob looked down at the horse thief as said scoundrel lay flat on his back on the Athens cobbles, the wind knocked clear out of him:  Jacob turned his lapel back to show a six point star and quietly offered the observation that it's not wise to steal a man's horse -- "matter of fact," he continued, "that is a hangin' offense" -- and so saying he took the braided leather reata from his saddlehorn, shook out a loop, and as the horse thief tried to scuttle away like a crab, Jacob flipped the loop around his neck, threw the rest of the coil over the arm of the street light, and hauled him off the ground, to the shock and protestations of his fellows.

The town constable stopped and grinned: he was long since fed up with these rich men's sons getting away with whatever they would, buying off justice with their fathers' money and influence: he folded his arms and watched, suspecting that this lean Western deputy would not actually kill this young fool, but would instead put the fear of Almighty God into him.

He was right.

Jacob and Apple-horse continued their journey back to Firelands without further difficulties, and this was the one, the only, time anyone ever, EVER tried to steal a pale eyed lawman's horse.

Jacob and Apple stopped in front of the Silver Jewel Saloon.

Jacob swung down, looking around: he reached up, knocked a chip of wood from between two boards, drew back:  the chip was a signal, something so innocuous as to escape the common eye, yet a flag of importance to the man who knew its significance.

Jacob considered a moment longer, then took Apple's rein, pulled it easily free of the single turn around the shaved cedar hitch rail, walked around back of the Silver Jewel.

 

Sarah smiled ever so slightly as the hidden panel slid aside, as a long tall lawman ducked and entered, standing up straight in the hidden stairway as he returned the panel to its usual configuration.

He looked up at Sarah and smiled, just a little.

"Been waiting long?"

Sarah sighed dramatically, laid gloved fingertips against her cheekbone, rolled her eyes upwards and complained dramatically, "Oh, a lifetime!" -- then she laughed and said "Less than two minutes!"

Jacob climbed the steps to where she sat, turned, sat beside her, his Stetson in hand.

Silence filled the hidden stairway.

Jacob ran his arm around his sister's shoulders, drew her in close:  she leaned her head against his, and the two sat in companionable silence for several more minutes.

"Jacob," she finally asked, "do you love your wife?"

"More than life itself," he replied, his voice quiet.

"Can I tell you something?"

"Always."

"I wish you were no relation to me."

"God loves you too."

"No, Jacob, I'm serious!"  Sarah leaned away from him, shoved petulantly at his bent knee.

"And why this sudden fit of pique, O young and pretty one?" Jacob asked teasingly.

Sarah looked at him and Jacob was suddenly very serious, for he realized his sister was neither teasing him, nor was she being the least little bit funny.

"Jacob," she finally said, "a woman should marry someone she truly loves."

"Ideally, yes, she should."

"I wish I could marry you."

Jacob was suddenly very, very still.

Sarah held her breath, uncertain as to his reaction to her confession:  she knew she spoke honestly, she knew she spoke from her heart, and she knew things could go very, very badly from now on, but it needed said, and she had to say it, and so she did.

Jacob lifted his hand, reached over, laid very gently over on her clasped hands in her lap.

"Sarah," he almost whispered, "if we were not blood -- and was I not married to Annette -- I would marry you right here and right now!"

"You would?"

Jacob nodded, once.

Sarah dropped her head, sighed.

"I know I shall marry badly," she said.  "I will marry because I must, for the good of our family, I will marry a man I've never seen yet, I will --"

Sarah bit off her words, shook her head.

"You are a fine husband, Jacob," she finally said, "and you are a wonderful father."

"I doubt me not you will make a fine wife and mother."

"I will bear one child only," she said, her voice hollow, her eyes haunted, "and that child will have to ... "

Jacob waited for her to finish her sentence.

She didn't.

"Hold me," she whispered, and brother and sister held each other in the silence of a hidden staircase, one drawing comfort, the other giving comfort: it was not the first time they met thus, hidden and alone, it was not the first time the signal summoned a meeting, and it would not be the last, and one week to the day that Jacob was given to understand his sister, married to a nobleman the hell and gone clear on the other side of the world, had been killed -- it was one week to the day that he saw a wood chip between those two boards again.

He and Apple-horse walked around back of the Silver Jewel.

Jacob opened the secret panel, slipped inside, replaced the panel.

He drew his fighting knife, for he knew ghosts and spirits were not affected by bullets, but haints, boogers and speerts could but cut with a sharpened blade, and his blade had a skinning edge, superb for laying open an enemy.

He need not have worried.

He looked at the step where Sarah last sat.

A scarlet rose, its fragrant petals dew-wet as if fresh cut from a morning garden, lay on the step, and one step above, a framed portrait.

Jacob stood and regarded the pale eyed visage staring at him from the framed oil painting.

It was beautifully executed by a master of the art; the frame was rich, ornate, gilded: the background was a dark, brooding mountain scene, with an ornate stone residence, almost a minor castle: in the foreground, a woman, wearing knee high boots with riveted plates protecting her shins, a knee length skirt of leather strips with overlapping scale male riveted on: she wore a Spanish curiasse, contoured to the female form, and her helmet was under her arm, a simple Nordic helm with white wings.

Behind her, a truly huge, absolutely black horse, its white wings extended, and beside her, a very familiar, very lifelike, very black, curly-furred canine, fangs bared, eyes red and burning, and the hair standing up the length of his backbone.

Jacob stared at this framed portrait for a long time:  he finally picked up the rose, smelled it, slid it into a slit he'd had sewn into his lapel for just such duty.

Well more than a century later, the portrait would be discovered again, and on orders of a certain retired Sheriff, placed in the Firelands museum, with other artifacts of Firelands history.

Jacob rode slowly home that night, and he asked his wife for a little vase to put the rose in, and he stood the rose on his bedside table in a narrow necked, tall white vase, and it remained as fresh as if newly cut, for just over a month.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

567. DAS BOOT

Sheriff Willamina Keller sighed patiently.

She pressed the intercom button.

Her voice was tired, her soul was tired, and it showed in her simply reply to her dispatcher's summons:

"Yes, Sharon?"

"A delegation to see you, Sheriff."

"I'll be right out."

Sheriff Willamina Keller brought her right leg under her, gripped the side of her desk in her left hand, her adjustable-for-length, dog-leg-handled cane in her right:  not for the first time, she blessed her Uncle Pete for observing quietly, many years ago, that a cane helps a crippled up old man rise from a chair or from a seated position.

The Sheriff stood, took a long breath, and paced off on the left, as was her habit.

Instead of the click of her usual three inch heel, she heard the soft k-klump of a walking boot; her right foot, in the ugly but supremely comfortable Marine Corps issue woman's shoe, was silent.

Sheriff Willamina Keller, dancer, warrior, wearer of multiple colorful belts in a variety of Oriental schools of ungently pacifying thy neighbor, hobbled carefully to the door.

She drew it open, blinked, smiled, grinned, laughed.

Her boys had come to see her.

Two rows of waxed, shining football helmets, two rows of padded shoulders and thighs, jerseys and cleats, grinning young men, one with a red pennant with a white, jawless skull: the two lines were slightly divergent, and between them, in front, a wheelchair.

No.

Not a wheelchair.

This had tracks.

It had tracks, fenders, it had lights, it had what looked for all the world like a pair of Vulcan cannon on either side: it had a short roof, a set of air horns, it had a sign directly above the seat that said OUTTA MY WAY! -- and as Willamina watched, the pennant was placed in a socket:  in lieu of a bicycle flag, this brand new, tracked, powered wheelchair, had a blood-red totenkopf as its signal that the Sheriff Is Comin' Through!

Sheriff Willamina Keller laughed and hobbled carefully toward Her Boys, the Fireland Football Team, Willamina's Warriors:  these were the fellows she ran with on a daily basis, these were the fellows who asked her to teach them the delightfully obscene marching songs that are the delight of strong young men marching in ranks and in formation.

These were the mountain-bred, rawhide-tough sons of high-country ranchers that had provided the Marine Corps with some truly superb recruits.

Willamina's laugh, her expression of surprised delight, was captured on a few surreptitious cameras: the speech was mercifully brief, something to the efffect that they knew she didn't need a wheelchair, they knew she was fine with Das Boot and a cane, but they wanted to show their pale-eyed Warrior that they could come across in proper style if need be!

A chair was brought up, Willamina was quickly surrounded by grinning, laughing boys, all wanting to talk at once, until finally Willamina put two fingers to her lips, whistled:  "You," she pointed to the team captain, "you talk.  The rest of ya, SHADDAP!" -- and her laugh and her bright-as-a sunrise smile took every bit of sting out of the shouted command.

The Captain was down on one knee (and grateful he wore his pads, polished quartz is not a kind surface to kneel on!) -- and said, "Boss, there's a kid in town that can't afford a wheelchair.  This is actually his, but we wanted to give you a laugh since you're kind of --"

His eyes went to her walking boot and he stopped, uncertain.

Willamina nodded, her eyes a light blue:  "Go on," she said gently.

"We dummied up the Vulcan cannon.  We could have mounted a 107 recoilless rifle, but that would make navigating a store aisle awkward in making a turn and besides the exhaust is poisonous and that could lead to misunderstandings."

"You've been listening to Linn again," Willamina murmured.

"Yeah," the team captain grinned.  "This is actually that kid's chair but we had to gussy it up  and show you!"

Willamina laughed, leaned forward, gripped his shoulder pad, her eyes bright.

"Come here, fellas," she said, and Willamina's Warriors swarmed in, crowding her: they were on one or on both knees, their arms around her and around each other, surrounding her with a sea of young and armored masculinity, and they remembered for the rest of their lives what it was to see a pale eyed Sheriff with tears running down her face as she looked around and whispered, "I have never had a better gift in all my life.  Thank you all for this," and then she threw her head back and declared, "You went to all that work, let me try it on!  We need some pictures!"

Two days later, when a twelve year old boy settled into the seat, after he'd fast up his seat belt, been briefed on the controls -- joy stick here, speed control underneath -- this knob -- master switch here, this is your power on/off, that's your power level, plug in and charge up overnight or when it hits this level -- Willamina leaned on her cane and grinned as he ran it forward, then back; turned, forward again, circlespun, laughed.

The dummy cannon were gone, as was the the aggressive get-outta-my-way sign, but the small, forward facing, high intensity lights remained (they have their own power supply, they're LED so you'll get a good battery life), and a quick consultation with the resident electronics geek resulted in a spare ham radio's installation, with its antenna sprouting from behind the tubular steel roll bar.

The roof remained.

Air horns, like the ersatz Vulcans, were strictly for show:  Willamina's picture, on the front page of their weekly newspaper, circulated to a surprisingly wide audience, and certain members of the Firelands Football Team began receiving inquiries about their custom wheelchair, and could they build one, and so the Sheriff helped another local business start up.

 

Willamina grimaced as she lifted her left leg slightly to try and reduce any pressure on the back of her heel.

Heel spurs are a not uncommon runner's injury; Willamina had over stretched her Achilles tendons; the right healed without difficulty -- Dr. Greenlees explained that the over stretches caused multiple microtears -- she was lucky her right healed well, but the left, he said, was calcified, with a bone spur beneath, and he sent her to a specialist:  "You have really good looking legs, Willa," he said quietly, in the privacy of their exam room, "and I want yours taken care of by a specialist!" -- and so Willamina had to hobble about on a walking boot, with a cane, which of course she used to her advantage.

With her reputation, everybody and their uncle expected her to use the cane, close-in and nasty, whipping it about like a blademaster with a fencing foil: in truth, the closest she came was to stand up at a County Commissioner's meeting, when comment was made about her (ahem) "condition":  she shook her cane threateningly and declared in a peevish old-woman voice, "Why, I never! In my day! These young whipper-snappers!  When I was in the war!"  -- her voice quavering, reedy, utterly at odds with her usual pleasantly-voiced tones:  her expression, her voice, her posture, her words were so surprisingly at odds with her usual self, as to instantly strike the Board of Commissioners as comical, humor disarming the sudden, critical comment and its implications, which was her intent.

She would brook no suggestion that she was any less than perfectly capable, and rather than allow that implied criticism to stand, she deflected it with a laugh.

It was well that the Commissioners -- especially the one who dared suggest she was perhaps not fit due to her injury -- laughed, and let the matter slide.

Willamina sat with two solemn-faced young men on either side of her, unsmiling young men in white shirts and neckties, carefully humorless young men in pressed slacks and shined shoes, strong-muscled young men with the broad shoulders of football players, rancher's sons: two on her right, two on her left, a row behind her, all silent, all unmoving, all glaring at the Commissioners, their expressions quiet: they'd formed a protective squadron around her as she entered, and they formed a protective detail around her as she departed, and none there doubted the accuracy of the Medieval author who wrote, "Faithful retainers are the bones and sinews of old age," and here -- here, in the County Commissioner's meeting, right out where God and everybody could see it,  Willamina's Warriors showed yet again just how much they thought of this Cool Little Old Lady who ran with them, who taught them those delightfully obscene running cadences, who baked them chocolate chip cookies and who did them the supreme honor of allowing them to show their loyalty to her.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

568. MAN OF WAR, MAN OF PEACE

Parson Belden drove his elbow into the man's kidneys.

Hard.

The preacher -- his worn-soft Bible still in his off hand -- reached around, seized the cocked pistol.

He ran a thumb ahead of the hauled back hammer, seized the machined steel frame, stripped it from the agonized man's grip: the Bible went up under his arm, was clamped down between upper arm and ribs, his fingers had eyes of their own as he lowered the hammer, half-cocked it, rotated the cylinder while backing away from the brawl, letting shining brass bottleneck cartridges hit the floor as he pulled back.

A quick check, a flip of the loading gate: he felt it snap shut, there was too much noise from the knock-down, drag-out festival of fists to hear the quiet, metallic sound of the blued-steel gate's return to normal position.

Parson Belden flipped the revolver, caught it by the barrel, turned the handle up out of the way, and waded into the general melee, laying left and right like Samson with the jaw bone of a jack mule.

The Parson had been in that damned War, as had many there in town; he was no stranger to violence, and he'd learned the hard way never to lose concentration, to never stop thinking, even in the heat of a skirmish: he backed up a half step, dropped his Scripture into his hand, turned, tossed it behind the altar rail where it would be safe, and then he came back in.

As quickly as it started, it was ended.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller tilted up the beer and took a long drink.

His was a roaring appetite and he had a thirst to match: for all that the saloon was named Number Seven, there was no One through Six: this did not interfere with its being well attended, for it had food, it had drink, it had occasional dancing girls and it had cheap and tawdry entertainment, both gambling downstairs, and girls upstairs, none of which concerned the Sheriff.

It was in his county, yes; he was Sheriff, yes; he did not, however, concern himself with the usual usury, graft or strongarm squeeze of their profits: no, he preferred to leave its regulation to Law and Order Harry Macfarland, and Harry did a fine job of keeping the peace.

Linn chewed good back strap and swallowed.

He was after a man and he was not done yet; he'd like to have attended the funeral back in Firelands, but people in hell wanted ice water, and that hadn't worked out either, so he stopped for sustenance and whatever casual gossip he might encounter in this favorite local watering hole.

Linn's ear picked up a conversation: he turned his head slightly, lifted his chin: the barkeep refilled his beer, laid down another thick sandwich, and Linn proceeded to slouch against the bar, lifting his refilled, foam-dripping mug to hide a slight smile as he considered that bad news moved faster than the Sheriff:  he considered the speaker's account of a good old fashioned knock down drag out brawl in the church over in Firelands, something to do with harsh words spoken at a man's funeral.

 

Doc Greenlees sewed up two lips,  three scalps one cheekbone and a split open chin.

He assessed the amount of blood in one sufferer's water, dissolved some bitters in steaming-hot water, let it cool a little and had the blood-passing man with aching kidneys drink it down without taking a breath:  his several patients, having sobered up in a hurry, agreed universally and rather ruefully that it did not profit much to throw a knuckle party at a funeral, because attair preacher just did not have no sense of humor a'tall about the situation.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller removed his Stetson as he crossed the threshold into Carbon Hill's Catholic church.

He always did like the way it smelled, bees wax candles and incense and cedar wood: he knew it was the custom to drop a knee toward the Altar, to show due respect for the Host: as Linn was not Catholic, he inclined his head gravely toward the East, indicating his own respect for the institution.

He advanced down the aisle, sought out the priest: he spoke quietly to the man, showed him the wanted dodger: the priest's eyes shifted toward the closed door of the confessional, and Linn stepped quickly to the door, threw it open --

Empty.

He turned as the priest looked patiently at the pale eyed lawman.

"He was here yesterday, Sheriff," Father Meyer said quietly.  "I heard his confession, and he left."

"Horseback, stage, train?"  Linn asked, and the priest smiled sadly.

"He was walking, Sheriff.  His horse was lamed and he sold his saddle, he had a meal and he left."

Linn's chin lifted.

"Whither away, Padre?"

"East, toward the rising of the sun."

Linn nodded.  "Thank you, sir."
"Sheriff?"

Linn raised an eyebrow, looked very directly at the tonsured cleric.

"You will not find him alive."

"I know."

 

Parson Belden drew the reins gently:  "Ho, there, ho now, ho, girl," he called, and the rented mare stopped, dropped her head as if ready to collapse, the way she always did.

Parson Belden climbed down, walked over to the man's unmoving form.

A Derringer punched quickly toward his face.

The Parson's reflexes were good before he swore into Ohio's volunteer infantry, and they did not get any slower for having surviving that damned war: he seized the wrist, shoved it from him, twisted: the Derringer fell, unfired, and the Parson's knee drove straight down into the supine man's gut, knocked every bit of wind out of him.

The Parson looked up as a shining-gold stallion stopped, as a pale eyed man looked down upon the scene.

"Friend of yours?" Sheriff Linn Keller asked dryly, and the Parson could not help but laugh, and wonder how in the world he could possibly work this into a Sunday sermon.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

569.  I WAS DEAD TWO WEEKS AGO

Shelly bit her bottom lip uncertainly.

She heard, very faintly, the sound of Willamina's advancing cane: she imagined how the poor woman must be laboring, painfully, toward the door, using the cane to keep herself from falling, her hip complaining with the extra weight of that awkward, ugly walking boot --

Shelly blinked, surprised, as the door opened, as she beheld the Sheriff's face, flushed, damp, her eyes bright, glittering, seeming on the edge of tears: Shelly's mouth opened and stayed that way as Willamina reached out, laid a hand on her shoulder -- and laughed.

The near-retirement Sheriff pulled Shelly in, closed the door:  she leaned against the hallway, smiling, looked at Shelly, looked back toward her desk, shook her head and laughed again, leaning her head back against the age-darkened hall panels:  she pointed with her cane, her face turning an incredible shade of scarlet, and she was obliged to wipe the mirth and merriment from her cheeks, where laughter spilled from her eyes and ran wet down her cheeks.

It took a while for her to calm down her Hysterical Bubbles so she could breathe, a few more moments before she could speak:  she thumped and hobbled her way into her kitchen, whacked a chair with her cane, pulled out another, sat:  she finally took a deep breath, blew it out, looked at her visitor and said, "You'll have to get your own cookies and coffee.  Coffee's made, cookies are in the keeper on the counter."

Shelly opened the cupboard, withdrew two sizable mugs: she poured coffee, unfast the airtight lid from the cookies, set the plate on the table, placed one steaming, fragrant mug in front of Willamina, hers went to the opposite side of the table, and it was not until milk was drizzled, not until the hospitable beverage was sampled, that conversation started, and not in a way Shelly was really expecting.

She'd come to Willamina's house feeling like a bucket of stirred-up creek water, turbulent and uncertain: now she sat in this immaculate, familiar kitchen, this one place that felt so very much like home, as much so as her own kitchen, and she looked at Willamina, who looked back with a knowing smile.

"Do you know," Willamina said quietly, "that a recent study of a hundred and a half pulmonary hypertension patients saw more than half die in the first year?"

Shelly's worried eyes widened a little more.

Willamina nodded, took another bite of cookie.  "Mm-hmm," she nodded, took a noisy, un-ladylike slurp of coffee.  "I did some more research on my conditions -- the Internet's a wonderful thing -- do you know what I found out?"

Shelly shook her head fearfully: her eyes were wide, worried, and she realized she'd taken several sips without tasting the coffee at all.

Willamina placed her mug on the table, placed both palms flat on the checkered tablecloth, leaned forward a little:  "I fed in all my symptoms and discovered I died two weeks ago!"

Shelly was in mid-sip when Willamina made her intensely pale-eyed pronouncement:  she snorted into her cup, splashed her face, coffee ran down her chin:  Willamina picked up a cloth napkin, tossed it:  Shelly felt something cloth hit her face, reached up blindly, wiped  the embarrassment from her face, wiped her closed eyes, looked at Willamina, and she could not help herself.

She laughed.

Something unwound inside her, something that had been worried and twisted up tight:  it uncoiled, relaxed, and the laughter of two women filled the solid old house that had housed one pale eyed Sheriff or another for well more than a century.

Shelly felt something heavy and warm rest itself on her thigh and her hand floated down and caressed The Bear Killer's head: she felt his welcoming groan vibrating in his black-furred throat and she barely saw his huge brush of a tail swinging in her peripheral vision.

"You've been worried about me," Willamina said quietly.

Shelly nodded.

"You lost both your grandmothers and all of your aunts."

Shelly nodded.

"Your mother passed a year before you met Linn."
Shelly's eyes dropped and she nodded again, fingertips just touching the reassuring warmth of the heavy ceramic mug.

"And you were afraid you were going to lose me."

"You're the only Mom I've got left," Shelly whispered, her eyes hollow, haunted.

Willamina nodded, thought for a long moment.

"Shelly," she finally said, "you are going to lose me."

Shelly looked up, alarmed.

"I am going to die.  So are you, so will Linn and Jacob and Marnie.  Everyone you know will die, sooner, later, sometime.  Nobody gets out alive."

"That's not helping," Shelly said miserably.

"I've died three times, Shelly.  I've seen the Valley.  I know what comes after and I'm not afraid."

Shelly's eyes widened -- alarm was replaced with curiosity -- Willamina waved a hand, shook her head.

"Long story, maybe some other time.  The point is" -- she looked very directly at Shelly -- "I'm alive right now.  Yes, I have pulmonary hypertension.  Yes, it can cause sudden death.  So can a meteor or some drunk running  a stop sign, I could trip and fall and break my neck or have a subdural or go face first into a mud puddle and drown. The point is" -- she lowered her head a little, her gaze intense -- "I'm still here and you're still here and there's still work to be done.  Besides" -- her smile was sudden, bright, actually ... actually joyful, as if an Artesian spring of delight were bubbling inside her, and flowed up into her face to light it from within -- "I still have grandchildren to spoil!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

570. "SHE NAMED HIM AFTER MY HORSE"

Marnie knew there was trouble.

Marnie watched Shelly fold her arms and regard her husband with a cold, suspicious glare, and Marnie began thinking in terms of possibilities:  it was possible there was going to be a disagreement, there was the possibility there might be violence, and if that happened, how would she respond.

Marnie's tread was absolutely silent as she approached her parents, adrenalin singing in her veins and the taste of copper stinging her tongue as she walked nearer to what her gut told her could be a minor thermonuclear detonation.

"Is there something you'd like to tell me?"  Shelly asked icily.

Linn looked up at her and raised an eyebrow, smiling just a little as he did.

"As a matter of fact, and since you asked," he said, then looked at Marnie:  "Could you fetch me that manila envelope off my desk, please."

Marnie gave a brief, shallow nod, turned: she headed for the desk with no pretense of stealth, brought the envelope back.

Shelly snatched it from her, seized the once-opened flap, ripped it open:  she glared at her seated husband, reached in, tore the big yellow envelope apart in her short-tempered haste to evacuate the contents.

She stopped, looked at the sheaf of papers, at the photocopy of a newspaper article and its accompanying picture, the photograph of a very familiar Appaloosa stallion and its very familiar rider, with lariat in hand: her pale-eyed  husband was dismounted, standing beside an embarrassed looking young woman and two people with her, presumably her parents, with Apple-horse's head turned to face the camera squarely.

The article itself bore a bold headline:  DARING RESCUE FROM HORSEBACK, and beneath, Western Sheriff Saves Local Girl from Sudden Death, with a byline and a date.

Behind this, on a village's official stationery, a letter of commendation; another, from the jurisdictional police department:  confused, Shelly looked at her husband, who turned his laptop around to show a young woman in a pink trimmed nightgown, holding what was obviously a very young infant: the woman looked damp, exhausted, and was still in a hospital bed, and Linn enlarged the text beneath so Shelly could read the message.

I named him Paul, she read, and beneath, I hope you don't mind, but I named him after your horse.

Linn raised an eyebrow as his wife's body language and expression became less hostile and more chagrined.

"Do you want to take a swing at me now," Linn said quietly, "or shall I tell you what happened?"

 

Sheriff Linn Keller laughed as he shook hands with an old and dear friend, a man with whom he'd worked years before: Curt Frazee had just made Detective and Linn went East to visit with the man and meet his family.

"Bring your horse," Curt told him, "my boys are just crazy to meet a genuine Western Sheriff!" -- and so Linn and Apple-horse rode East, though most of their journey was behind the horsepower of a hired Diesel engine:  they arrived at the village just in time to get caught up in their annual Homecoming Parade, and Curt insisted Linn ride in it.

"Oh, hell," Linn complained, "I'm the only mounted unit?"

"You'll get first place for the Mounted division!"  Curt laughed.  "Here, I'll slip a note to the judges so they can announce you as visiting from Colorado!"

"Oh, hell," Linn muttered again, shaking his head.  "All right.  Apple, you up for this?"

Apple-horse responded to a signal -- invisible to anyone else -- Linn's slight gesture brought a vigorous, exaggerated head-nod, gaining him a jaw-rubbing and a molasses twist bribe.

Curt's two little boys were big-eyed and delighted, having been raised on a steady run of Westerns on DVD; they stood back in absolute awe at this lean-waisted, pale-eyed lawman who wore a genuine cowboy revolver in a carved-leather holster and he rode a horse and he had a rope and everything!

The parade was as are as all small town parades:  confused, stressed, messengers carrying suddenly urgent communications to this unit, or that unit, at least until the parade started -- then, as always happens, everything fell into place.

Linn was between the marching band and the VFW float, pulled by a redbottom Ford tractor: Linn grinned and waved self consciously, wondering to himself why in the world he let himself get talked into this.

His head was on a swivel, as it always was:  it occurred to him that, as a lone rider, between units he would make a fine target for a sniper: his Winchester rifle was in its scabbard, his revolver was on his belt, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something just wasn't right -- and Apple-horse felt it too, or perhaps he picked up on Linn's discomfiture.

Apple started to dancing sideways, the way he did when he wasn't happy, and Linn let him dance:  it looked fancy and it let his stallion discharge some nervous energy, and that was working pretty well until Apple decided he wanted to show off, and Linn caught his Stetson after it flew off his head.

Apple managed two fast bucks before Linn grabbed his skypiece and kept it from hitting the ground: it was completely accidental, but it looked really good -- and Linn was too busy bucking out to consider how good it had or had not lappeared.

There was only a brief delay while Apple threw his little fit, spinning, sunfishing, rearing:  Linn swatted him fore and aft with his Stetson, raking nonexistent spurs, feeling the shock clear up his spine:  Apple gave a final triple-hop, stopped, legs spread a little, head down:  Linn settled his Stetson back on his head and said "Yup, boy," and Apple-horse shivered his hide like he was shaking off a pesky fly and stepped out, just as nice as you please, following the marching unit as if nothing had happened.

Linn's head came up and his eyes met Curt's.

The detective was at a police cruiser, standing outside the door:  he had microphone in hand and was in some urgent communication.

He looked up at Linn, gestured him urgently over.

Horse and rider, when properly matched, are one living soul:  Linn did not have to tell Apple what he wanted, Apple-horse raised his head and his tail and trotted smoothly over to the cruiser.

Curt's face was white.

"Linn, we've got a girl committing suicide and we can't get there for the parade."  Curt looked at Apple.

"You could make it."

"Whither away?"  Linn demanded, and he felt war rise in his soul:  Apple-horse threw his head, reared, clearly eager to ride the rising tide of adrenaline he smelled rolling like a cloud from the saddle.

Curt chopped a hand straight out:  "Three hundred yards that way," he said, "she left a suicide note and she's walking in front of the freight."

Linn swore:  his head came up at the sound of a Diesel horn -- not the usual crossing whistle, it was long, sustained blasts, a locomotive engineer's desperately warning someone off the tracks.

"YAAHH!"  

Apple-horse whirled, streaked across in front of the red-bottom Ford tractor, ears laid back, nose punched into the wind:  Linn leaned forward, hands flat on Apple's neck, yelling encouragement as Apple shoved hard against concrete, lifted his forelegs, soared into the air (and over a delighted, open-mouthed pair of schoolboys) and pounded across the open field.

Curt ran after him, as did nearly a dozen spectators:  phones were raised, hoping to capture whatever insanity was about to transpire.

Linn saw the freight coming and coming fast.

He saw a young woman walking down the tracks, a pillow wrapped around her head -- presumably to block the sound of the freight roaring up behind her.

"RUN, DAMN YOU, RUN!"  Linn screamed, dropping into the seat and pulling his lariat free:  he'd have only one shot -- he was running crosswise to the tracks, Apple-horse was punching a hole in the wind as he ran, Linn's eyes were pale, he aimed between Apple-horse's laid-back ears like he would aim a rifle's barrel --

Apple-horse soared over the gravel ballast, over shining steel rails --

The loop floated, dropped, Linn made a quick double-turn around the saddlehorn --

Plaited leather snapped taut, dug painfully into Linn's thigh:  when close to half a ton of hard-running horseflesh comes to the end of that springy line, a girl of barely a hundred pounds stands no chance at all of resisting the unmistakable summons to GET THE HELL OFF THE TRACKS!!!!

Linn leaned back -- "Ho!" he barked, and Apple-horse's haunches dropped, he stiff-legged into a fast stop, backing as he'd been trained, waited while Linn launched out of the saddle and went to one knee beside the girl.

 

"She left a suicide note," Linn continued quietly:  Shelly had settled into a chair, Marnie as well, and both listened, seeing the scene in living color as his words painted the picture.

"She could not live with the disgrace of coming home pregnant and unmarried, and so she took the pillow from her bed and took off walking down the tracks.  She'd wrapped the pillow around her head so she could not hear the train coming up behind her."

"Dear God," Shelly whispered.

"And you saved her," Marnie said.

Linn nodded.

"She named the baby after Apple."

"Appaloosa, Paul," Linn said.  "I reckon you could say that."

"Don't tell Apple," Marnie said quietly, rising:  "He'll get such a swelled head he'll be absolutely insufferable!"

Linn watched his daughter's retreating backside as her red, fancy-stitched cowboy boots took her out the front door, waited until the door was closed.

"Now," he said, shifting his pale eyed gaze to his wife.  "Is there something you wanted to tell me?"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

571. LETTERS, IN SCARLET

 

Marnie heard the stallion walking quietly up to the barn.

She smiled a little, stroked the hand forged Damascus pattern blade across the stone.

Unlike her father, she preferred a shaving edge to her blades:  Linn liked his edges coarse -- "better for skinning," he said, "and Doc Greenlees said that's the kind of edge they have on surgical scalpels" -- a fact Marnie corroborated with young John Greenlees Junior, now in advanced placement college.

Jacob walked Apple-horse into the quiet, shadowed interior.

Marnie sat with her back to a wall; she'd hung a tarp to block the wind, she had a propane heater set on the bare cement floor, facing her: she was perfectly comfortable with the heater's meager warmth, the work of her hands, and her own thoughts.

Marnie turned the blade, stuck it shallow into an apple:  she raised the prize, gave her blade a flip, tossed the apple to Jacob, who caught it, took a bite and offered the rest to the stallion.

Apple-horse accepted the kindness, happily crunching the treat, and Marnie did not need to listen to know her brother was calling his father's stallion a hard headed glue hoof, and that he bribed as well as any politician.

Their father said that every time he gave his saddle stock half an apple, or a pinch of shredded chewing tobacco, or whatever other bribe he offered:  it was a matter of amusement to her boyfriend that Apple-horse had an appetite for dog biscuits, and The Bear Killer did not care for them at all.

Jacob walked over to his sister, dropped his skinny backside on a handy bale of hay.

"They're talkin'," he said simply.

Marnie nodded, not looking up; the knife whispered secrets to the whet stone, the propane heater was silent in its generous warmth.

"Pa gave her some flowers," Jacob persisted.

Again Marnie nodded.

"I like that trunk you had made."

This time the knife stopped.

Marnie looked up at her younger brother -- she raised her head barely enough to see him from under her hat brim.

"You fixin' to move out?"

Marnie's right ear pulled a little as if tugged by an invisible thumb-and-forefinger: it was a phrase their pale eyed father used, and it struck Marnie as both significant, and unexpected, to hear her father's voice fall out of her brother's mouth.

Are you fixin' to, she thought.

He is becoming his father, at least he sounds like it.

Good God.

Does this mean I'm going to become my mother?

Marnie lifted the blade from the broad, heavy stone, laid the stone carefully on the ground:  she wiped the blade with a piece of burlap, reached over to the razor strop, proceeded to strop off any wire edge with long, practiced strokes.

"I'd rather not," she admitted, "but sometimes we don't have much choice."

"How's that?"  Jacob leaned forward, elbows on his knees, for all the world like his pale eyed Pa:  he looked like a Beagle dog catching a hot scent, right before he raises his muzzle and starts to sing.

"Jacob, I've seen that tune played before," Marnie said quietly.  "I was there when Mama got all jealous because she thought Pa sired a child on another woman."

"I heard them talkin'."

"If she gets all jealous and decides to leave, we might be homeless. There could be a screamin' fight and I'm not going to stand for that in my home, even if it is my parents. Had Mama taken a swing at Pa, I'd have been on her back with a choke hold."

Jacob's eyes were suddenly unreadable.

"If they come to grief and we have to move -- say we are given in custody to one or the other -- my clothes are already packed and I can be gone in five minutes."

Jacob was silent for several long moments:  he looked down at the floor, nodded.

"You lived through that back East."

"I survived it, yes."

Jacob shifted uncomfortably, frowned.

"You said there were flowers, and they were talking."

Jacob nodded.

Marnie began stropping the knife's edge again, her strokes long, slow, thoughtful.

"You gonna shave your legs?"

"I prefer waxing.  I don't like stubble."

"That would hurt."

Marnie shrugged.  

"Mama thought Pa was steppin' out on her?"

"She thought that picture was a woman letting him know he was a Daddy."

Jacob's eyebrow raised and he grinned that crooked grin of his as he shook his head.

"Can't see it happening."

"Me neither.  Not him."

"Why'd Mama accuse him, then?"

"She's a woman."

"You are too."

Marnie nodded thoughtfully, combed her fingers through her hair, took a single strand of fallout and drew it gently across the honed edge.

It fell cleanly in two.

"So what happens now?"

"If Mama is smart, she'll apologize.  Pa made the smart first move with flowers. I would think he said he was sorry that e-mail caused her concern. That'll open the door for her being sorry to have disappointed him."

"Will she?"

"I don't know." Marnie's blade slid into its sheath; she drew her coat over it.

"Uncle Will's .357 doing okay for you?"

Marnie nodded.
"I need to get one," Jacob said thoughtfully, looked down at his hand.  "Something else, maybe. That -- yours -- doesn't fit my hand the way I'd like."

Marnie nodded again.  "You recall what Pa .. what Gammaw teaches when she gets new people in the Tea Society."

Jacob's grin was quick, genuine.  "Go try several until you find one that fits your hand."

Marnie rose and so did Jacob: Marnie rubbed Apple-horse's jaw and looked at her brother.

"You look natural in the saddle."

"I don't recall the first time I was a-straddle of a horse."

"You were still in diapers."

Jacob frowned.  "I didn't wet down Pa's saddle, did I?"

"Not his saddle.  His leg but not his saddle."

"You remember it?"

"No."   Marnie smiled quietly.  "But I remember his telling the story."

 

It was another hour before the two returned to the house, and there they found the answer to their question.

Supper was as it usually was, conversation and laughter, and there was something passing like water running underground, a hidden current between husband and wife, and after the dishes were cleared and dessert plates set out, Shelly placed a cake in the middle of the table.

She handed the cake knife to Linn.

Pale eyes regarded the carefully made, precisely lettered dessert, and before Linn sliced through the two layers of double dark chocolate with cherry frosting, Marnie and Jacob read the words in dark red, written in an arc, right before Linn's careful, incising stroke clove the cake in two and then further subdivided it.

Neither Marnie nor Jacob commented on its legend; both later admitted to each other it was best to pretend they saw nothing, and even better to say nothing.

Before the shining stainless steel cake cutter divided the bounty, they read the words, in scarlet, a wife's apology:

I was wrong.