SHORT STORIES!

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

Happy Birthday  

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

REDEYE

Shelly prided herself on being a good wife and a good mother.

Shelly paid attention to her young.

When Joseph came into the house, pausing in the front door to lean with an exaggerated casualness against the doorframe, when he very carefully greeted his Mama, Shelly knew he'd been partaking of certain distilled compounds: hard as her son tried to hide it, she knew he'd been drinking, and she plied him with her late mother in law's treatment of a belly full of water, two fingers down the throat, heave up his guts, an envelope of bitter-as-owl-pellets powders mixed in good cold wellwater, another heaving session in the back yard:  after the third retching spew, Joseph was more than convinced that the game was not worth the candle, and Shelly never knew her son to partake after that day.

Drink, of course, was not the only thing for which she was watchful, and when Marnie came in the house, very quiet and very red-eyed, Shelly took her daughter's shoulders and gave her a very concerned look:  there was no odor of skunk, but Marnie's eyes were bloodshot and watery, and before she could frame a question, Marnie twisted free of her grip and snarled "Excuse me," and ran up the stairs, then back down, a jar of cold cream in hand.

"I'll be out back," she snapped, and Shelly opened her mouth just in time for the closing door to slam shut on anything she might've asked.

 

Marnie smeared cold cream into her blouse.

Her moves were tight, controlled, precise: her face was serious, and she ignored tears that overspilled her bottom lids.

Her blouse was the only garment she greased up.

Marnie's fingers dug viciously into the scented white face cream; she carefully, precisely, firmly, thoroughly worked it into tailored cotton, she used every last bit of cold cream in the sizable jar to do it: Joseph whistled when he got within ten yards, not wanting to startle his big sis.

"Yeah," Marnie snapped, and Joseph came up, gave her a concerned look.

"Sis," he asked quietly, "who do I have to kill?"

Marnie turned and gave her little brother her very best Blazing Death Glare, a look that had quailed mayors, fire chiefs, a coroner, two doctors, a look that had no effect whatsoever on her pale eyed father, nor Joseph's older brother Jacob:  her jaw was firm, her eyes were pale and hard, and she turned her attention back to her blouse.

"I took care of it," she muttered.

"You were over in Cripple today."

Marnie held up the blouse, carefully considered it, making sure the entire front, the collar, the sleeves, were all well loaded with cold cream, then she slowly, methodically, balled it up, crushing it in her talented artist's fingers as if she were crushing an enemy's throat.

Joseph watched impassively as her knuckles blanched, as she shivered with the effort, as her lips peeled back, as she snarled deep, deep, a sound that few had ever heard, and survived to tell the tale.

Marnie relaxed her grip, un-wadded the blouse, draped it over the clothesline.

"You took down that bank robber," Joseph said, his voice quiet.

Marnie thrust her chin at the cast iron pump.  "I need water in the basin."

Joseph nodded, pumped her a washpan of water, swirled and tossed and pumped fresh.

Marnie seized the coarse soap, drove her hands indelicately into the aching-cold wellwater:  if it's possible to wash your hands as viciously as choking a very personal enemy, she did.

"Marnie, what happened?"

She turned on her little brother -- fast -- she seized him by the shoulders, then she bent a little and hugged him, tight, desperately tight, and he felt not only the strength with which she was trying to crush the breath from his ribcage, but he felt something that gave him a serious concern.

He felt her shivering.

"Joseph," she whispered, "do you remember how we spar with rubber knives?"

She slacked her grip, her cold, damp hands on his warm cheeks:  he looked at her solemnly, nodded.

"Yeah," he said.  "You kill me every time."

"Besides that. You know how we set up to practice a surprise attack."

"Yeah."

"I was attacked."

Joseph nodded.  "I knew it was something."

"I'll be talking to the FBI. They always interview everyone involved in a bank robbery."

"Who robbed the bank?"

"Some guy that's getting his scalp stitched up."

"What'd you hit him with?  The marble counter?"

"No."  Marnie turned her head, glared at the blouse.  "A can of pepper spray."

 

 "You'd think bank cameras would have better resolution."

"Yeah. The Mars Lander can send us pictures with fantastic clarity and wonderful resolution, and these look like they use Coke bottle bottoms for lenses."

"They're not that bad."

"They're not that good."

"This nine year old kid's cell phone video is better."

"Yes it is."

"Why was he taking video?"

"He thought it was neat that a blind woman was making a banking transaction."

"She wasn't blind."

"No."

"Do we have an ID on her?"

"Oh, very definitely. She's an off duty Sheriff's deputy."

They watched the cell phone video.

 

Marnie Keller, like her ancestress Sarah Lynne McKenna, practiced disguises.

You get good at something by practicing, and Sarah knew those with a handicap were often victimized; she'd been working with some people, quietly, people who wished to aid and abet her efforts, people who knew what it was to be attacked, and so it was that a pretty young woman in dark glasses came into a Cripple Creek bank with a Belgian Malinois in a seeing eye harness.

The Malinois paced into the bank, ears up, eyes bright, looking around, towed her directly to the counter: she released the handle and murmured, "Stay," and the Malinois sat, looking up at her, then turning to face the rest of the bank.

A delighted little boy pointed and declared "Doggie!" -- heads turned, there were smiles:  the pretty young woman in dark glasses reached into her purse, pulled out a thick envelope.

"I'd like to make a deposit, please," she said, her voice quiet, musical.

Beside her, an individual snatched the envelope, other hand coming up: the black cylinder of a pepper spray canister thrust up through his clenched fingers --

The woman turned, seized his wrist and his hand, stripped the spray from his hand:  she felt the cold, oily liquid hit her blouse, she moved faster than seemed possible: one moment facing the counter, the next, her pale face wooden, expressionless behind dark lenses, the robber's wrist screamed in pain as one ranch-strengthened hand bent his wrist painfully around, just before the can of pepper spray descended at an amazing velocity and drove him on top of the scalp, cutting to the bone: a pull, a kick, a knee into the groin, then the belly, an elbow to the back of the head, a stomp to the kidneys: everything happened so fast that only a nine year old kid, watching a blind woman at the counter making a transaction, captured the action as he took video of a random moment that interested him, and caught a robbery in progress in the process.

 

"He shot low."

"Sure did. Her glasses saved her eyes and she said she held her breath."

"Damn."  A shake of the head, a quick rewind.  "You'd think she trained for that."

"I know her.  She did."

"She did?"

One man looked at another.

"That's Sheriff Keller's daughter."

Laughter; a man slumped back in his chair, shaking his head and raising his hands in surrender.

"That's his little girl?"

"No, his little girl is still in grade school.  That's his oldest girl and she's just as fast and deadly as her grandmother.  You remember Willamina."

"Remember her?  Dear Lord, she taught --"

"I know she did.  She also put your butt on the mat faster'n anyone I ever saw."

"Yeah."  

Two men shifted in their chairs, looked at one another.

"Have we taken her statement yet?"

"No, not yet."

"Road trip?"

"Road trip."

 

Marnie Keller looked up as two men in dark suits approached.

They watched as she worked something white, wet and soap-sudsy briskly on a washboard immersed in a five gallon plastic bucket.

"Took you long enough," she challenged.

"We wanted to review the available video."

"Did you get the statements of the off duty?"

"We did."

"Good.  And the hospital report."

Two men looked at one another, clearly uncomfortable.

"Are you sure you hit him with that can of pepper spray?  Nothing ... heavier?"

Marnie brought the blouse out, crushed it in her hands, hung it carelessly over the clothesline:  she set the washboard against the stump she was using as a washtable, dumped out the plastic bucket, pumped in a few strokes from the cast iron yard pump, swirled, sloshed and slung:  she pumped the bucket half full, dropped the wet blouse back in.  "Rinse cycle," she explained.  "He got pepper spray on my good white cotton blouse and there's no way in hell I'm running that through the Maytag!"

"No, I suppose not," came the sympathetic murmur.

"And yes, I hit him with the pepper spray. It was rolling across the floor when I left."

"Why'd you leave instead of giving a statement?"

Marnie glared at the two.  "Fellas, when was the last time you shared a nice warm interrogation room with a blouse full of pepper spray?"

"There is that."

She sloshed the blouse up and down in the rinsewater, hung it carefully on the clothesline.

"It was bad enough I had to strip my blouse in the parking lot. I had an extra so I didn't have to drive home in a striptease."

She slung out the rinsewater, set the bucket down beside the stump.  "If you need a formal debrief, we can go inside or we can go back to Cripple. If it's here, I can offer coffee and fresh baked pie, and Mama probably thinks I'm red-eyed from smoking some wildwood weed."

An eyebrow raised.  "Do you?"
Marnie lowered her chin, raised an eyebrow, crooked a finger, stepped closer: she looked left, looked right, said in a confidential tone, "This is ugly you see on my face, not stupid! I can get in trouble fast enough on my own without chemicals to help me along!"

A pretty young woman and two men in suits walked toward the solid built, two story ranch house.

Marnie had her arm hooked in each man's elbow -- "Back in the day, a lady did not leave a room unless she was on a gentleman's arm" -- and then she laughed and said, "Mama thought I was in trouble for smokin'.  When I show up with the FBI on each arm, she'll cry to the heavens that she just wanted a normal girl that would flirt with the boys and wear too much makeup!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

19 hours ago, Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062 said:

Happy Birthday  

Thank'ee kindly!

Thank you also for your longsuffering patience.

The wife is improving and so am I.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

COMMUNICATION

Jacob Keller drove a work-hardened fist into his attacker's gut.

Jacob Keller was used to working high up in the mountains, ranching: he was accustomed to throwing bales of hay and bull calves, slinging saddles and swinging hand tools and scraping out stalls: he was also taught by some of the best hand-to-hand instructors his father could recruit, and when a man his height came at him fast, snarling something about leaving his girl alone, Jacob's first move was to drive his fist up into the other fellow's diaphragm with full intent that his fist should stop right about the other guy's tonsils.

His knuckles didn't get quite that far.

In fairness, the shouting attacker's boot soles came a little more than a foot off the ground: Jacob twisted his body's weight into the punch, brought him up, shoved him back, looked around with eyes that projected cold into any who happened to be looking at them.

The locals, as always happens, had come with the troublemaking loudmouth who'd made his brags.

Jacob's Pa told him long ago that when a new badge packer shows up, he'll be tried, and Jacob had been tried before.

He'd come here to lend a hand at keeping the peace, and of course word got there before he did, and when Jacob touched his hat brim and gave a pretty young lady a courteous and gentlemanly greeting, the loudmouth seized on this pretext to launch an attack.

It's probably a toss-up as to which shocked the assembled more.

The power of Jacob's first and only punch, or the speed with which it was delivered.

Jacob Keller, son of the pale eyed Sheriff Linn Keller, and on loan to another town for the purpose of bringing things back to a peaceable footing, turned his head like a battleship turret, his silent, cold-eyed glare bringing discomfort to those who had some sense about them.

Sadly, and again not surprisingly, there were those who didn't bring their good common sense with them.

"You wouldn't be that big without them guns!" one a couple rows back challenged, and "Yeah!" two more chorused.

Jacob was in no mood for crossing words with anyone.

It was not possible for someone to move as fast as Jacob, so he did.

It was not physically possible for him to cross ten feet, seize the first by the lips and yank him forward off his feet, while twisting and delivering a kick to the second one's belt buckle, so he did.

The third had just enough time to drop back a half step before Jacob's fast-moving hammerfist hit the side of his neck, hard, dropping him like a pole axed beef.

Jacob swung his hand down, seized the first of the three by the back of the neck, dragged him through the shocked and thinning crowd:  he brought him up, seized him by the back of the belt and the back of his collar, swung him high overhead and slammed him face first into the tree lawn's neatly trimmed grass.

"ANYONE ELSE?" 

His full-voiced shout was the first he'd spoken since getting off the train.

He turned, his jaw set and his skin drawn tight over his cheek bones:  he had no color to his face, his skin was as white as his eyes, he had the look of Death in a man's black suit.

"MY NAME IS JACOB KELLER," he challenged, his voice loud, clear, ringing and pitched to carry.

"I CARRY LAWMAN'S CREDENTIALS IN THIS JURISDICTION AND EFFECTIVE NOW THERE WILL BE NO MORE CRIME! ANY MAN WHO SHOWS A WEAPON WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT, ANYONE ATTACKED WILL BE TREATED WITH VIOLENCE.  I'LL GIVE ANY MAN ONE CHANCE AND EVERYONE HERE JUST HAD THEIRS!"

 

The Ambassador chuckled a little as he cut into his steak.

Sheriff Marnie Keller looked across the table at him and smiled.

"Good news, I take it?" she murmured, then looked up and smiled as she thanked the server.

The liveried waiter bowed, backed away: Marnie picked up her tall, sweating glass of sweet tea, took an appreciative sip.

"It's your brother," the Ambassador replied. "It seems that he's already made something of a reputation for himself."

"He knows what works."  Marnie sliced off another bite of backstrap, forked it neatly and chewed with a quiet hum of pleasure.  "This is so good," she mumbled happily, not caring it wasn't entirely polite to speak without swallowing first.

"I thought you'd like it. Sixworld was not expecting our intervention, even though they asked for our help."

"They probably weren't expecting an Earther, either."  Marnie tried the potatoes and gravy, found them delightful, took another bite.  "I understand Earth isn't well thought of."

"No," the Ambassador admitted.  "No, it's not.  Too many damned Yankees."

Marnie nodded thoughtfully.  "I can see why that would be the belief." She looked at her dinner companion. "What are the chances they'll call Jacob a damned Yankee?"

The Ambassador smiled.  "I let it be known he's from south of the Mason-Dixon."

Marnie stopped, looked very directly at the Ambassador, raised an eyebrow.

"Your grandmother," he explained.  "If you project Messrs. Mason's and Dixon's line due West, it follows the old National Road. Your grandmother was a deputy marshal with the village of Chauncey, which is well south of that latitude."

"You seem to know quite a bit about my Grandma."

The Ambassador stopped, placed his fork very carefully on his plate.

"I had the honor," he said slowly, "of your grandmother's acquaintance."

It was Marnie's turn to put her fork down.

"Mister Ambassador," she said slowly, "this is a story I would very much like to hear!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PAID IN SILVER COIN

Jacob Keller came grinning through the front door -- partly because it felt pretty good to get home, partly because it smelled of bacon and pancakes and fresh coffee, and partly because Angela came skipping up to him, all ribbons and petticoats and high heels and smelling of soap and sunshine the way she always did:  Jacob seized his laughing little sis, hoist her off the floor and spun around, crushing her to him, feeling his gut unwind as she giggled happily in his ear the way she'd done ever since she was a very little girl.

Jacob eased his little sis down until she felt the floor under the balls of her feet, then she slipped backwards and let her Daddy step in.

Father and son shared a grip, a long, assessing look.

"You et?" Linn asked.

"Nope."

"Yumpter?"

"Yup."

Two pale eyed Keller men could maintain a straight face no longer: father and son embraced and laughed the good strong laughter of good strong men:  father and son, their arms around each other's shoulders, strode boldly into the kitchen:  Jacob slipped his arm from around his Pa's T-square shoulders, took his Mama by the elbows -- delicately, as if she were fragile china -- he hugged her with an equal delicacy, whispered "I missed you" into her coarse, curly, auburn hair, then he looked at his Pa, and Linn knew there were things to be discussed.

Linn sat down at the head of the table, Jacob at the far end: father, son and family settled in, bowed their heads as Linn intoned, "O Lord, we thank You for this bounty. Bless it and our bodies to Your service, bless the hands that prepared it, and spare us the curse of the long winded preacher, Amen!"

He looked up, grinned, bent his head again and declared, "Hello, plate!"

Father, son, wife and children all laughed, for Uncle Will ate with them on a fairly routine basis, and he'd spoken of an old fellow he knew who spoke to his plate before he'd eat:  once, and once only, had Uncle Will been asked to return the blessing, and he'd bowed his head and declared, "Hello, plate!"

Supper was relaxed and happy, with the Keller young eating with a good appetite and peppering Jacob with questions: his answers, as usual, were considered and thoughtful, except for his insistence that no, they couldn't go with him, yes he knows it would be neat to ride a real honest to God dragon but they can't do that, they're an endangered species and yes he'd seen them and they were real and no they couldn't go and just watch and yes he'd been to Six Mile Creek and yes that was a funny name for a town and yes the dragons lived underground in the old mines and no there were none around here anymore.

Angela gave Jacob a patient look as her juvenile siblings continued to pester Jacob with questions about dragons and finally interrupted:  "Did you know," she said quietly, pitching her voice with the schoolteacher's gift of penetration through the conversation, "that we did have a dragon here?"

Young eyes turned to her, big and solemn and suddenly intent.

"It's in the diary of Esther Keller, and I know where the diary is. I'll read it to you after supper."

Jacob looked at his little sis and winked, grateful to be let off the hook.

"I take it things are a little more peaceful in ... Six Mile Creek," Linn said quietly, and Shelly saw one of those swift, silent communications pass between two lawmen.

"Things are, sir," Jacob nodded, buttering one pancake, dropping a second atop the first and buttering it as well.

"It looks like you may've had some ... encounter?" Linn asked carefully.

Jacob raised careful fingertips to the fading bruise on his left cheekbone.

"You could say that, sir."

 

Like any of the worlds in the Confederacy, Sixworld had its name, but nobody used it; it was the sixth world to come completely under Confederate control, and the military shorthand term stuck.

Like most of the Confederate worlds, Sixworld was quite lightly populated compared to Earth.

Like any lightly populated world, Sixworld retained much of a pioneer flavor, in spite of repurposing alien structures, infrastructure and technology.

Sixtown was Sixworld's capitol; Jacob was at Six Mile Creek, distant enough from the Capitol to have its own unique flavor, near enough to have good communication, and when the local forces were not sufficient to bring peace to what was for all intents and purposes a frontier mining town, an appeal went to Homeworld for a Ranger.

There'd been a little communication with Earth; the planet of their nativity was known as a place of pollution and overpopulation, of filthy waters and trash dumps, of rampant crime and no good manners at all -- as a matter of fact, Earth was sometimes referred to as Handbasket, an obvious reference to its precipitous pitch toward the Infernal.

There was, however, a great appreciation for the American West, and the concept of "One Riot, One Ranger" prompted their request for a Ranger.

Jacob knew his every word, move and action would be scrutinized, and he honestly did not care.

He'd been approached by the Ambassador, asked to help out, given a free hand: the laws of Sixworld were simple and fair, and he'd made himself understood that he would have a free hand, he would not be interfered with, and he would do the best job he possibly could.

Six Mile Creek was chosen as his exemplar.

 

"That looks a little tender," Linn said quietly, raising two fingers to his own cheekbone, nodding at Jacob's fading discoloration.

"It is, sir."

Linn waited.

"A fellow had to be shown the error of his way."

"Did he learn?"

"After I drowned him in beer, yes, sir."

Linn's eyebrow raised.

Father and son stood at the whitewashed rail fence, overlooking their pasture: both men were tall, lean, both wore jeans and polished boots and a background dyed, floral carved gunbelt, and each had a large bore revolver holstered: each man stood with his left boot up on the bottom rail, watching skinny, active colts racing one another, running a slalom among the mares.

"You drowned him in beer."

"I remembered it worked for you, sir."

Linn nodded, the hint of a smile tightening the corners of his eyes.

"What happened, Jacob?"

 

"You have the look of a miner."

"You look like that damned Yankee lawman."

Jacob's smile was thin.  

"I just called you a damned Yankee."

"I heard you."

"Ya yella?"

"I'm wonderin' how justified I am in beatin' on a man that's soft in the head."

Jacob's words were soft, his posture relaxed, kind of like a sleepy cat drowsing in a sunny spot, pretending to be inattentive.

"I whipped a man your size yesterday and it warn't much t' do it," Jacob drawled. 

The miner grinned viciously, raised scar-knuckle fists, lowered his weight a little.

He'd heard this new lawman was fast, but he didn't expect to get a boot in the gut and a backhand across the face and have the lawman suddenly just out of arm's reach to his left.

Sense and reason turned to smoke and disappeared on the breeze.

The crowd drew back as the miner roared in anger, turned, charged.

Jacob seized him, twisted, threw: he'd practiced the Arts Martial since earliest childhood, practicing a multiple of disciplines.

Judo, he'd been taught, was called The Gentle Way, as it had no offensive moves, only defensive; Judo, he'd been taught, does not attack, Judo uses the enemy's strength, the enemy's momentum, against them:  Jacob, with a step and a seize and a pull and a twist, delivered the miner to the ground, flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him.

Jacob Keller turned, looked down at the man, whistled his admiration.

"Damn," he said, "I'd hate to face you in a fight!"

Jacob's hands slammed down on the man's shoulders as he charged; the pale eyed lawman vaulted, tumbled, landed on his feet, turned in time to inherit a hard-knuckle punch to the side of the face.

Jacob dove, tumbled, came up on his feet, charged.

 

"It was hammer and tongs for a little," Jacob said quietly.  "He genuinely took my measure, he surely did, but I got him down hard enough I bounced his gourd off the ground and out he went."

Linn nodded, watching a colt's tail lift and stream as he hobby-horse-galloped his way down-pasture.

"I fetched a half ounce silver coin out of my vest pocket and crooked a boy over to me, little fellow he was.  I give him the coin, pointed to the beer joint and told him to bring me two bottles.  He grabbed the silver an run off through the crowd and ran into the beer joint, he come a-runnin' out and run up to me with two longnecks.

"I flipped up the wire bail and worked out a cork, I taken me a tilt and then I poured the rest of it on that miner's face and woke him up."

Linn grinned, nodding.  "I've done that."

"I opened up that second bottle and recht down, I stuck out my hand and he taken it, I set my boot against his and hauled and fetched him to his feet and he looked kind of surprised.  He was stout built but I brought him off the ground, I surely did."

Linn chuckled.  "That tends to get their attention."

"I handed him that frash opened beer and allowed in a loud voice he was the damnedest man I'd ever seen, I'd hate to face him in a knock down drag out fist fight and he laughed and taken a tilt and handed it back to me so I taken a tilt and handed it back then I turned and raised a hand -- so -- I turned and included ever'one that was gathered around watchin' and then I chopped that blade hand torst attair beer joint.

"DRINKS ARE ON ME!" I yelled, and I led the way inside, and damned if that whole damned crowd didn't folla me in.  

"I clapped my hand down on the bar and left a pile of silver coin and told the barkeep drinks on the house, everyone gets one and only one, and what's left was his.

"I recht down and picked up that little boy, he'd stuck close to me as a tick on a hound dog, I set him on the bar and I asked the barkeep if they had any sarsparilla and he didn't know what that was but they got him sometin' that warn't beer and he was happy too."

Linn nodded.

"Any good lookin' women there?"

Jacob looked at his pale eyed Pa, grinned that slow grin of his.

"Saw a few."

"Any worth bringin' home?"

Jacob turned his pale gaze toward the pasture.

"Yes, sir."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MORE BULL THAN I CAN SLING

Jacob Keller grinned at his little brother, swarmed off the redbelly Ford and grabbed the mostly-full feed bucket's wire bail. with both hands: Joseph grimaced manfully as he surrendered the heavy plastic container, turned and seized the second one.

Jacob turned, hoist the bucket onto the tractor's hydraulic lift, strode across the barn to help  his little brother.

"I got it!" Joseph protested, distress in his voice and dismay on his face -- but he released his grip on the second bucket's handle and let his big brother pack it over to the tractor.

Jacob turned, squatted, gripped his younger brother's coat sleeves, grinned.

"Joseph," he said quietly, "you're an awful lot stronger than you look, those feed buckets are heavy!"

Joseph fairly strutted, standin' still, to receive his big brother's praise.

Jacob's face lifted as they heard Shelly call from the house.

"You go on ahead," Jacob winked. "I'll be along soon as I feed."

"Okay," Joseph grinned, and Jacob had the impression of a happy little boy with a hole where a tooth fell out the night before, a little boy that turned into a fast moving tornado, scampering across the chaff-dusty floor.

Jacob Keller shoved the sliding door open, climbed onto the Ford, shoved the starter button down and immediately released it.

His Pa kept the tractor in fine tune, and Jacob took it as a point of pride that it was well enough kept that the starter made one single "Yaw" and she fired right up.

At the Ford's well-muffled, puttering cackle, cattle swung their heads toward the sound:  at the sight of two white-plastic buckets swinging from the hoist, they came plodding over toward the fence.

Jacob  released the gate's latch, shoved: he backed the tractor into the gap, quickly, jumped off and shut the gate before any bovine Houdinis could make good an escape (they'd done it before!) -- he whistled, a single, pure, climing, liquid note, shimmering on the clear mountain air.

Jacob looked around, grinned: his Pa had some Hereford-Charolais crosses, and he had two bulls in the pasture: neither was polled, both were mild:  Joseph could walk up to and walk around them, smack their backsides to get them out of his way, he could rub them and talk to them and dump out feed for them and they were as excitable as an old wore out boot.

Joseph pulled the first bucket off the tractor, walked out about twenty yards, grabbed the bottom, started to dump out feed.

When in doubt, son, follow your gut.

Jacob's pale eyed Pa was a man of wisdom, and he'd taught his son years ago that we evolved to pick up on the unusual.

He'd taught Jacob at a very young age to look for patterns, and then look for what didn't fit the pattern.

Jacob heard kind of a thump-scrape to his left, and he heard an answering thump-scrape to his right.

Jacob did not wait to analyze the situation.

Jacob dropped the bucket, turned, sprinted for the redbottom Ford: he planted one booted hoof on a handy projection on that hydraulic lift, he launched over top the stamped steel seat, landed both boots on the seat, turned ...

... just as two competing bulls drove their heads together at a respectable velocity, right where he'd been standing.

Jacob stood on the tractor seat for several long moments as the bulls sized one another up, as they both lowered their muzzles, as they started working on the spilled feed.

Jacob swung down, pulled the second bucket free: he set it down, reached under the bigger bull's neck and retrieved the first bucket, dumped out what little it still held: he packed the full bucket around behind the younger bull, whistled again, dumped out a windrow of genuine store-bought feed, turned and looked at the bovine rivals, still intent on vacuuming up what feed was available.

Jacob shook his head, went back to the tractor, hung the empties on the lift and climbed aboard.

He hit the starter button with the heel of his hand, one quick shove -- he heard the yaw! as the starter barely engaged, and the well tuned engine began to putter industriously to itself.

Jacob turned and looked around, looked around the other direction, eased the clutch out and headed for the gate.

The tractor eased through the gate, Jacob secured it behind him, returned the tractor to the barn and headed for the house.

"What took you so long?" Shelly scolded.

Jacob grinned -- Shelly couldn't but smile, he reminded her so much of his father, lean waisted and tall and skinny, with that big genuine grin and that contagious laugh --

"Ma'am, I had more bull than I could sling!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IT'S NOT A CONVERTIBLE

Joseph Keller heard the fluttery whisper of blankets being thrown back, then his father's voice.

"Jacob?"

"Ready," Joseph heard as he swung bare legs out of a nice warm bunk.

"Joseph?"

"Ready."
"Saddle up, rifles."

Two boys' heads came up in the bedroom dark:  "Sir!" Linn heard, and he turned, tapped on the door opposite.

"Marnie?" he called.

There was no sound from within.

Before he could tap again at the closed portal, the door snatched open a foot and he saw a set of pale eyes, braided hair laid over one shoulder of a white-flannel nightgown.

"I need my best horsewoman," he said.

"On it," Marnie snapped, and the door closed.

Linn turned, catfooted down the nighttime stairs: he hit the button on the coffee maker, started its quiet hiss, filled the lower story with the good smell of coffee a-brewin'.

Jacob and Joseph spilled out of their bedroom door just as Marnie came out of hers.

All three had a Winchester rifle in hand, all three were dressed, and all three were grimly silent.

Their Pa never summoned them unless it was important, and three young faces were solemn with the memory of their Pa's quiet words:

"Saddle up, rifles."

 

Angela rubbed her eyes, frowned, padded to the door, looked around, looked down the stairs.

Angela was a pretty little girl who adored her Daddy, Angela was a pretty little girl who delighted in her Mommy's attentions at dressing her like a pretty little girl, Angela was a girly girl who was more often seen driving their shining carriage rather than riding astride: she rather liked pretending she was a Western Princess, daughter of a cattle baron and darling of all the boys, but her ideas were still quite juvenile, the innocent thoughts of a child, not yet a woman, not yet suffering the hormonal torments of her automatic pilot.

Angela was, however, intelligent, quick, decisive, and at this moment, disappointed.

She listened as two brothers and a sister clustered around her Daddy, listened to his instructions: Angela divined their cattle were out, they'd been roughly clustered at the high school, and Angela heard her Daddy's quiet, reassuring voice as he told them a particular fence-busting bull calf had made his last escape, if he tries to get away, they'd have to drop him and truck his carcass back for slaughter.

Angela frowned.

She liked that bull calf.

A pretty young girl, silent on bare feet, whirled and stripped out of her white-flannel nightgown.

 

Four there were, in the night, boots and saddles and Stetsons, four who thrust Winchester rifles into scabbards, four who swung into saddle leather.

Hoofbeats in the moonlight, as a single figure slipped out the front door, a figure in twin braids and a plaid skirt, a figure in shining patent-leather slippers and a grim expression.

The barn's sliding door rumbled open, spilling light out into the predawn:  there was a scraping sound from within, as if someone were dragging something, or perhaps two somethings, across a chaff-dusty floor:  a single YAW of a redbottom Ford tractor's starter, and the muted muttering of a well tuned engine, the whining hiss of hydraulics, then a shiny, patent-leather slipper eased up on the clutch and the Ford eased forward, into the night.

 

"Jacob, flank right," Linn said.  "They might try for the Daine trail.  Joseph, I want you left -- you'll have a longer loop, ride around to that saddle and work your way back.  Marnie, go with him.  Chivvy them back down to the football field, we'll bunch 'em up and start 'em home."

"Yes, sir," three young voices chorused:  Linn watched as his young galloped through the dark, sure-footed and sure-eyed in spite of the pre-dawn shadows.

Linn rode forward, easing to the left of the football field, riding slow, whistling as he always did, whistling so his cattle would know it was him.

 

Angela wallowed the redbottom Ford through the ditch, shoved the throttle forward:  the Ford four-banger cackled happily, climbing out of the mud and across the highway.

Angela knew her Daddy would be down there, somewhere.

Angela wheeled the 8N Ford right down the middle of the empty highway, engine at governor speed and transmission in road gear, delighting in the naughty freedom of the night wind in her face and a living machine at her bidding.

She slowed, turned into the high school.

 

Linn frowned, turned his stallion.

Cattle were starting to trickle into the cleared field, toward the football field.

He squinted a little, then his mouth dropped open a little:  the wind shifted and the familiar sound of the well-muffled Ford hit his ears, just as Angela came under the first of the pole lights.

Linn knew it was Angela because -- well, she was too small to be Shelly, he saw she had twin braids and a little girl's big grin, and she was on his tractor! -- Angela drove straight for the near goalpost, drove in like she owned the place, wheeled the tractor in a big circle, stopped dead center of the manicured field, squarely a-straddle of the fifty yard line, stomped the clutch and pulled the throttle back to idle.

His half-Angus, half-Hereford were trickling toward the field.

Linn held his stallion in place, rubbed the warm, furry neck, murmuring "Ho, now, boy, ho, now," as he watched his pretty little girl -- in a dress and a flash of petticoats, in white anklets and patent-leather, little-girl slippers -- climb delicately, daintily, down off the tractor, as she stood beside one of two white-plastic feed buckets hanging from the three-point, as she put two fingers to her lips and whistled.

For a little girl, she put out a big whistle, a climbing two-tone that shivered on the night air, a whistle Linn had heard in the past.

Angela reached over, slapped the feed bucket's smooth side, called "Here, kitty, kitty," and Linn could not help but laugh, for this was not the first time he'd heard a girl call "Here kitty kitty" and the cattle came to her like adoring pets.

Three horsemen and a horsewoman followed the cattle, black lines in single file; Angela let them sniff the feed, grab a mouthful of feed, then she climbed back on the idling 8N, sorted through the gears, picked one, tapped the throttle lever and eased out on the clutch.

A pretty little girl on a Ford farm tractor, a dozen black-brown-and-white cattle, three horsemen and a horsewoman, made their way slowly back to the Keller ranch, moving slowly through the mountain air as the eastern horizon shattered and burned with long streaks of living fire silhouetting the granite teeth that tore at the fading night sky.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SIX BEANS IN THE WHEEL

Jacob ran back to the rocks, turned, flattened himself against whatever kind of stone this was.

The sky wasn't the right color, the air smelled different, but it was breathable: he was grateful he'd been born in the mountains, he'd learned early to prosper in the high Colorado altitudes.

He'd managed to retrieve his warbag from what was left of the ship -- he was lucky, it was about the only thing worth salvaging -- the pilot got off a mayday, right before they were hit, right before he had to put down in a barely controlled landing.

Normally the ships came in, slowed, pitched up, extended their landing gear and settled straight down.

They hadn't.

Jacob couldn't get to the hold to retrieve the workin' tools of his profession:  he didn't even have a Barlow knife in his pocket.

He'd counted himself lucky he was allowed to wear the six point star that said DEPUTY.

His Pa gave that one to him, he'd had it hand made:  pure silver it was, the single word, engraved in its center, was hand-chased, and beautifully done: each of the six points had a little ball at the end, like the one Jacob wore when in uniform with the Firelands County Sheriff's office.

Since he was on what his Pa called "Detached Duty," a phrase he'd acquired from his Mama, who'd been a Marine, his badge said simply DEPUTY, and that was good enough for Jacob's purposes.

His Pa took him into the study, into Man's Territory, into the room where his father had his library and a desk, had his collection of rifles, of pistols, of shotguns, of knives and a very few swords:  he turned on the lights in the glass front gun cases, he'd gone around the room and unlocked each of the doors, and opened them.

"Jacob," he'd said, "you are representing more than yourself, you know that."

His father was facing a gun case with a number of his oldest pieces neatly ranked against green felt.

"Yes, sir."

"You are representing your sister, and your sister is representing Earth, and there's the Ambassador and whatever all goes into that."

"Yes, sir."

Linn turned, his face serious:  he rested his hands on Jacob's shoulders, looked him very directly in the eye, wondered for a moment just how in the hell his son got so tall, so fast:  father and son were of a like height, and were equally broad across the shoulders, equally lean around the waist.

"Jacob, you're one of the best deputies I've ever had."

"Thank you, sir."

"You think on your feet, you're intelligent and you have good common sense."

"Yes, sir."

"My collection is yours. Whatever you think you'll need, take."

Jacob's expression was almost unchanged -- the legacy of practicing a poker face -- but Linn did not miss his sudden blink, his sudden swallow, the uncomfortable weight-shift that meant Jacob was moved by this offer.

He'd never, ever, in his entire young life, known his father to make a similar offer.

Not to anyone.

Ever.

"Sir," Jacob said carefully, "do you recall reading me out of Old Pale Eyes' Journal, how he commissioned a pair of Colt revolvers for his grandson Joseph."

Linn was quiet for several long moments, remembering how it felt to have his little boy on his lap, how he sat with one arm around his son, holding the reprinted Journal in front of both of them, how he'd read to his son and how his son listened, big-eyed and solemn as his Pa read the account of an old lawman who set his grandson up with the best fighting sidearms he could arrange.

Linn nodded.

"I remember."

Jacob paced slowly across the room, considering the treasures, the histories, the legacies, ranked in blued steel, in browned steel, waiting patiently to have either a story told, or to be needed, to be used.

Jacob stopped, looked long at the case with rows of revolvers on display.

"Sir," he said finally, "there is no substitute for power."

Linn nodded, slowly, waited for Jacob to complete his thought.

"Sir, I would be confident with a pair of .44s."

Linn nodded.

"Take your pick," he said, and Jacob heard his father's voice change, just a little.

Jacob's hand extended, lowered, drifted to his right: his other hand came up and he gripped a pair of blued-steel Rugers.

He knew this pair.

He'd worn them before, he'd carried them horseback and elsewhere, he'd competed with them, he'd set with his back to a fence post and fired each of them from between drawn-up knees, holding up however many of the inlaid gold bars on the front sight were necessary to score hits on a coffee can at genuinely impressive distances.

Linn had seen his son working with these revolvers, and he'd been genuinely impressed by his son's speed.

Jacob knew his father had them engraved, but he'd not seen them since the engraving was done.

Linn lifted a floral-carved gunbelt from a wooden peg:  he unbuckled it, handed it to his son.

Jacob hesitated, then wrapped his father's gunbelt around his middle, drew it tight.

It fit perfectly.

Jacob opened the loading gates, drew each hammer back to loading notch, turned the cylinder, watched cartridge heads pass in review:  slowly, precisely, one by one by one again, and Linn knew he was chanting the silent mnemonic he'd taught his son:

Load one, skip one, load four, cock.

Jacob reached back, pressed a cartridge out of the leather loop.

"Nickle," he smiled.

"Brass would turn green," Linn shrugged.

Jacob nodded, slid the round back into its loop, holstered the left hand revolver, the right, but not before he stopped, looked at the gold inlaid engraving on the side of each frame.

He nodded, looked at his father.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

Linn seized his son and hugged him, hard:  Jacob was absolutely not ashamed to hug his father back.

 

Jacob laid his warbag down beside the injured pilot.

He flipped the latches, threw the lid back: he pulled out a bottle of water, twisted the lid off, handed it to the wounded man.

Jacob stood, looking around: his hands had eyes as he swung the gunbelt  and his sheathed knife around his waist, snugged it up: he squatted, reached under a folded pair of jeans, drew out a blued-steel, single-action revolver, another.

The pilot's breathing was ragged; he felt like he was suffocating, otherwise he might've offered some comment: the weaponry he was used to was all smooth, streamlined, plastic, molded, looking like a miniature version of his shuttle, only with a handle.

Jacob brought the hammer back to loading notch, rotated the cylinder, dropped a sixth bean in the wheel.

Load five to carry, load six for war, he remembered hearing his father say.

Half-cock the hammers.

Holster left, holster right: Jacob pulled out a pair of binoculars, hung them around his neck.

I would give a good percentage of my eternal soul for a rifle, he thought, then dismissed the notion: he looked at the pilot, looked around: they were under a slight overhang, they had rock behind them, encircling them, an enemy could only attack from the front, and Jacob had to assume they were in enemy territory.

They'd been fired upon, their ship disabled, they had nothing to shoot back with and no defensive shielding: the pilot did manage to fire a cluster of distress beacons, which shot off in four different directions, each one screaming an electronic alarm with the ship's identifier and location, in addition to the ship's mayday.

Jacob knew the pilot was in bad shape.

Jacob was not a medic but he was not entirely unintelligent; he knew the impact likely broke a few of the man's ribs, he knew enough to roll the pilot up on his injured side, to prop him there, he gave him water -- the only comfort he could offer -- and he knew that this atmosphere, plus the injuries, would likely be enough to kill him.

Jacob took a cautious look around the rock.

He saw something silver and oblong descend, a quarter of a mile away.

Jacob considered this, wondered why they didn't just fly in close and blast what was left of their ship: it was obviously crash landed, they'd skidded on their belly for most of a mile, until she gutted on some rocks and whipped end-for-end -- which was probably what broke the pilot's ribs.

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller, of Firelands County, Colorado, lowered himself into a crouch, exposing little of himself: his Stetson was well settled on his head, and he had a brace of .44 revolvers on his belt: he raised the binoculars, adjusted the focus.

 

*PRIORITY PRIORITY PRIORITY*

Four gloved hands reached for their control panels, touched the screen.

Coordinates seared through a narrow gap in reality, sizzled into their computers, injected into their living brains: four slim, deadly Interceptors altered course.

Reality twisted around them.

Instead of fighting physics to try and drive their ships at an impossible speed, these Valkyrie Interceptors slid between realities, coming out above a planet none of them had seen before.

This is Valkyrie Lead, I'm reading three inbound.

I see the ship, she's down with heavy damage and troops converging.

Two, you're with me, Three and Four go down and raise hell!

Valkyrie Two and Three turned, drove toward the approaching ships.

Gloved hands danced quickly over touch screens; behind opaque black bubble visors, lips peeled back from even white teeth as two Valkyries felt the delicious surge of a warrior about to go screaming into battle.

"Attention approaching vessels, this is the Confederate Valkyrie, we are on a rescue mission. We intend to get our people and leave. Do not interfere."

The Confederacy was well known in this quadrant, though it was not part of the thirteen star system Confederacy: Gracie hoped to avoid hostilities, but if that was not possible, she fully intended to cause the enemy far more trouble than they could possibly enjoy.

 

Jacob Keller hoped most sincerely the translator he wore, worked with whoever these troops were.

He hadn't been part of the Mars defense, where his sister's colony was attacked by aliens in power suits, but he did study her after action reports: what approached didn't look like the bipedal, roughly humanoid, walking suits.

They looked more like silver, oblong, fishing bobbers.

There were two of them, one a little behind the other:  Jacob stepped out, nostrils flared, feeling more alive than he'd ever felt before.

"THAT'S FAR ENOUGH!" he challenged.

The two fishing bobbers stopped, hovering, their narrow, tapered ends a foot off the sandy, rocky ground.

One turned.

A half dozen silver miniatures of itself launched from somewhere, came in a shining arc toward Jacob, separating, apparently intending to surround him.

Time slowed, until it crawled through cold molasses, while Jacob's thoughts flashed like lightning across a night sky.

Pa read me about Joseph.

Old Pale Eyes gave him a pair of Colt's revolvers in .44-40 and Joseph used them to keep him and a German officer alive.

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller's eyes tightened a little at the corners.

He'd given fair warning, and hostile forces were attacking.

Two blued-steel revolvers whispered from their carved-leather holsters.

Jacob Keller, son of the pale eyed Sheriff Linn Keller, used to stand behind their rearmost shed, with his Pa's .44 revolvers holstered:  he would throw successively smaller cans into the air, draw, fire and hit, until he got to two inch square wood blocks, then one inch square blocks: his pale eyed sister would help him, she'd throw clusters of two and three and four into the air, and he'd pick them off, shooting full-house .44s, reveling as a young man will in controlling the buck and roar of a heavy sixgun.

Now he, Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller, having given fair warning, drew a pair of .44 revolvers and proceeded to drive 240 grains of hard cast, semi wadcutter, through whatever devices caused him to fear for his very life, and that of his injured pilot.

Six targets, six shots, six hits:  Jacob eared both hammers back, brought both revolvers to bear on the big silver fishing bobbers:  "THAT'S FAR ENOUGH!"

The bobbers turned slightly; he saw a bluish nimbus gather around them.

I never tried shooting two fence posts at once, he thought.

First time for everything.

Jacob's eyes shifted left, then right.

He fired both revolvers at once.

The floating, tapered bottom, fishing bobbers seemed to fade back a little -- it took a moment for Jacob to realize they were both suddenly, catastrophically, absolutely shredded -- something long and silver coasted to a stop overhead, descended straight down: Jacob saw flat-footed legs extend, lock.

Jacob scanned left, scanned right: his fingers had eyes as he punched out empties, as he slipped fresh rounds in one, in the other, half-cock, holster.

He saw the nose art and his gut unwound several knots' worth of tension.

He heard a click, a woman's voice, from the ship instead of the translator he wore.

"Medical is enroute," he heard: a hatch opened on the Interceptor's side.

"Take this case. Open it, open the valve, put the mask on the pilot's face. Pure oxygen, he needs it."

Jacob ran over to the Interceptor, seized the green-plastic box, pulled: a metallic click, it was released and he fell backward, landed flat on his back:  he rolled up, onto his knees, surged to his feet.

Jacob wasted no time at all in getting the valve open, in getting the mask on the pilot's face.

He felt the air shift, turned --

The Interceptor was gone, just the rectangular impressions of its landing pads, mashed hard into the sandy dirt.

 

"THIS IS VALKYRIE ONE, REPRESENTING THE CONFEDERACY. WE ARE ON A RESCUE MISSION. DO NOT APPROACH, THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING."

Weapons buildup, the computer warned.

Another Valkyrie came into existence, Nancy's robot ship: her nose art was a stylized, WWII-style telephone operator, looking seductively at the viewer: in her speech-balloon, it said "Long Distance, please," a reflection of Nancy back on Mars, in another star system entirely, while the ship was -- in real time -- coupled with her living mind, reacting with absolutely zero lag time.

Three Valkyries accelerated, armed inertia and energy weapons both.

Valkyrie Lead sent in the clear, so the oncoming ships could hear:  "If ships on approach do not stop in five, launch. Four. Three. Two --"

The sky detonated in a release of hellish energies, all intended to utterly destroy any object of matter.

Three Valkyries ceased to exist.

 

"Breathin' any easier?"

"I could use a beer," the pilot rasped.

"Once we get back, I'm buyin'."

The pilot grinned crookedly.  "Nah. I'll buy."

Jacob looked up.

Something big and circular slid through what looked like a slot cut in the sky, coasted to a stop directly above them.

"Reckon that's our ride."

"Hospital ship. I recognize ..."

His voice faded; Jacob's fingers went for the man's Adam's apple, dropped to the side, pressed into the carotid groove.

He heard footsteps approach, looked:  the medic's eyes saw where Jacob's fingers were.

Jacob saw concern on the young officer's face.

"He's alive," Jacob said, "but he's hurt."

 

Three Valkyries reappeared, too close for the enemy ships to fire.

New energies flared, engines seared empty space in a desperate attempt to flee.

The Valkyries held the enemy craft as surely as if they'd cast them in quick-setting stone.

"Your weapons are useless, but ours are quite functional. You have committed an act of armed aggression against a declared rescue mission. This violates your treaty with the Confederacy. Please state at this time if you wish to continue your declaration of war against the civilization that wiped out thirteen star systems' worth of enemy fighters."

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller waited for the airlock to cycle before pacing toward it.

Jacob seized his sis, hugged her tight, hoisted her a little off the floor.

He still wore his .44s.

Chances are right fair he'd have used them on anyone who dared ask him not to.

"What's this I hear about you shooting down a squadron of hunter-killer robots?"

Jacob looked at his sis; his jaw slid out some, then he gripped her shoulders, leaned his forehead gently against hers.

"Do you remember," he said quietly, "how you used to throw clusters of blocks for me to shoot?"

"I remember," she whispered.

"Thank you," he whispered back. "That's what I used to keep myself alive."

Marnie considered for a long moment.

"I understand your pilot wants to buy you a beer."

"Reckon we'll each buy the other a beer," he grinned.

She hooked her elbow in his, turned, snapped her fingers at the airlock door: it hissed open and she towed her pale eyed brother toward the opening.

"I just happen to know," she said cheerfully, "that a certain doctor considers beer to be curative, and he'll likely prescribe it for you both."

Brother and sister strode down the corridor, and if one were listening, just before the airlock doors cut off the conversation, one might have heard a certain Martian Sheriff asking a certain Earther Deputy whether those good lookin' revolvers just happened to have the gold inlaid Thunder Bird engraved in blued steel, just like the blued steel .357 she was wearing, but the doors hissed shut right about then so we'll never really know whether the question was asked, or not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WITNESS

Four warships faced the observational.

It was a small craft, deployed before a battle to record and report.

It contained a single life form.

None of the Valkyries particularly cared what kind of life form it was.

Four armed warships, representing the Confederacy, held station, their weapons charged, trained on the observational.

Communication at this distance was instantaneous; thanks to the universal translator, communication was very clearly understood.

"Your attack craft have been vaporized," was the message: "your Empire has no claim on this planet, and your Empire had no justification in their attack on our rescue effort.

"You will report that the Confederacy will consider any further offenses as a declaration of war."

The observational was normally housed in the belly of one of the attack ships; its engines were insufficient to get it home: it would come within range of the most distant relay buoy approximately one month after life support failed, or so its pilot calculated.

Unless it was blasted into a cloud of subatomic particles like the ships it was detailed to observe in battle.

Two Valkyries came closer; the observational was suddenly enveloped in two overlapping gravitational fields.

Its pilot experienced a most unpleasant sensation of being turned inside out as reality twisted around them: in the space they'd just vacated, two other Valkyries disappeared, entering their own transit back to their homeworld.

 

Jacob Keller stood before his father's desk, one hand on his belt buckle, the other casually dangling at his side.

Father and son each gripped the back of a chair; father and son brought the chairs closer together; father and son sat, leaned forward, elbows on their knees: Joseph watched this, solemnly considering just how much alike his Pa and his older brother were.

"Report."

"You were right, sir."

Linn nodded slowly, rasping his callused palms slowly together:  he paused, nodded toward the blued steel Blackhawk on his son's left hip.

"Did they do you any good?"

Jacob nodded, his face serious.

"They kept me alive, sir."

Linn's pale eyes raised, looked deep into his son's pale eyes.

"You kept yourself alive, Jacob," he said quietly, and Joseph, standing back, watching, heard the iron in his father's voice.  "You might've used the workin' tools you had on you, but you kept yourself alive."

Linn and Jacob looked over at the younger Keller.

"Draw up a chair, Joseph," Linn said.  "There are matters we men must discuss."

"Yes, sir," Joseph said crisply, and a third pale eyed, lean waisted Keller joined the first two.

"Jacob."

"Yes, sir."

"Let's start with the lessons we can draw from this, for the benefit of our troops."

Jacob blinked, considered, nodded.

He looked at his little brother.

"Joseph."

Joseph looked at his older brother with bright and interested eyes.

"Do you recall how we shot at hand tossed tin cans?"

Joseph's face was serious, but his eyes were bright and eager, as he nodded slowly.

"Do you recall you're just pretty damned deadly with a sixgun?"

Joseph nodded again, but his solemnity cracked and fell from his face: his expression was replaced with a broad, spontaneous look of juvenile delight.

Jacob hooked two fingers under a vest pocket, pulled out what looked like a cell phone: a tap, a touch, a swipe, he held it level and something silver and shaped like an inverted-teardrop, fishing bobber, appeared above it, rotating slowly.

"These," Jacob said, "are hunter-killers. They fly out of a bigger silver fishing bobber, generally a half dozen of 'em at a time."

Joseph's eyebrow raised a little, as did his pale eyed Pa's.

"They have an explosive dart in their tail. They fly up to someone, drive in that dart, it explodes inside the body and drives poison into 'em -- the sudden pressure blast is enough to kill, the poison guarantees the job."

"Half dozen," Linn echoed.

Jacob looked at his father, nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Your action?"

Jacob frowned at the screen he held:  he murmured something -- Joseph couldn't quite catch what -- he set the screen on the floor, stood, scooted his chair back.

Father and two sons were suddenly beside a rock, on a sandy and rocky plain, as a silver fishing bobber descended, as the half dozen hunter-killers streamed out its far side and arced toward the sheltering rock.

They watched as Jacob drew, fired: they watched as streamlined, shining, metallic, flying murder machines, flinched in mid-air, as a black hole appeared on their near side and shattered scrap flew out their opposite, as six flying teardrops fell to the ground, smoking, sparking, dead.

Pale eyes watched as the recording continued, as a pale eyed deputy reloaded one revolver, then the other, holstered.

Jacob bent down, picked up the screen: the projection disappeared and they were once again in Linn's study.

"I have you to thank for that, sir," Jacob said, his voice quiet, steady. "You had me in competition before I was Joseph's age. You got me used to match stress. When the time came, I was steady and it kept me alive."

Linn nodded.

Jacob stood, pulled the gunbelt's tongue free of the buckle.

Linn rose, raised a hand, palm toward his son.

"Keep 'em," he said.  "You are why I got them in the first place."

Jacob's eyebrow raised.  "Sir?"

Linn smiled, just a little.

"When I was your age, Mama gave me that Winchester rifle yonder."  He thrust a chin toward a pre-'64, hanging on its walnut plaque behind his desk.  "She called it my attorney and said I'd have need of it, and that rifle spoke loudly and persuasively on my behalf, more times than one."  Linn's grin was a little crooked, the way it was when he remembered something he cherished.  "The day you were born, she whispered so your Mama couldn't hear, she said you needed a matched pair of .44s, and that I should have them engraved."

Jacob's eyebrow rose a little and Linn nodded as if confirming something.

"She didn't have to tell me how it was to be engraved. That's why both those have gold inlaid vining around the muzzle and gold inlaid roses on the flat top."

"And the thunder birds, sir?"

Linn's grin was quick, natural: "I had those added when I read Old Pale Eyes' account of the Thunder Birds on Joseph's Colts."

"And that's why Mama has 'em on hers."

"Your sister as well."

"I see, sir."

Father and son looked at Joseph, who was regarding them with a puzzled look.

"The Thunder Bird," Jacob explained, "is the most potent Navajo totem in existence."

"Oh," Joseph blinked.

 

 

In another star system, two slender ships appeared above a planet neither had seen before: between them, a spherical vessel: the silver needles disappeared, and an alien pilot automatically transmitted a recognition code to keep itself from being targeted by Planetary Defense.

Two Valkyries reappeared in the underground bay, force fields preventing displaced air from concussing in the stone chamber.

All the Valkyries were safely home.

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller sat beside her husband.

Most of the colony was present: the meeting room was circular, lowest in the center, and in the center, a minor squadron of Interceptors appeared: whistles, yells, the raucous applause of a pioneering population, cheering for their favorites: they watched as a pale eyed deputy of their acquaintance, did what he could to keep his injured pilot alive, then engaged an airborne threat with a good dose of Frontier Justice.

Nearly every soul there, watching the replay, was on their feet, yelling encouragement and triumph as Jacob stood, one man alone, outnumbered, a revolver in each hand, dealing death to death itself: full-voiced shouts turned into an absolute roar of hearty approval as their very own Valkyries drove the redirected hellfires of a dying star toward the enemy ships that wished to stop a rescue.

The on-scene reporter approached the Sheriff and her husband, microphone in hand.

"Sheriff, what can you tell us about your brother's performance?" 

Marnie tilted her head a little, a quiet smile on her face: the reporter's discreet little shoulder-riding camera picked up her image, projected it where Valkyries and warrior had stood a moment before:  the hall hushed in anticipation of their pale-eyed Sheriff's reply.

Marnie blinked innocently.

"He is his father's son," she said, then she looked left, looked right, leaned forward, crooked a come-here finger: she leaned closer to the reporter, looked very directly into the unblinking eye of the camera, winked:

"Just between the two of us ... I taught him everything he knows!"

The news report that night did not fail to include the approving, raucous and delighted laughter that followed her innocently-voiced pronouncement.

 

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

"WELL I'LL BE DAMNED!"

Reverend John Burnett dropped the handwritten note to the kitchen tabletop and leaned back in his chair.

Mrs. Reverend looked curiously at him, tilted her head a little the way she did when she wanted to inquire, but held off out of respect for someone else's privacy.

It was very much out of the ordinary for someone to tap discreetly on their side door, for the Sheriff's wife to hand her an envelope: Mrs. Keller's face was wet, she'd changed out of her Sunday-go-to-meetin's and was in her medic's uniform, and Mrs. Burnett thought perhaps they'd had a bad run this fine and sunny Easter.

She carried it in to her husband, who was just coming into the kitchen; Reverend John frowned, puzzled -- "She didn't want to come in?"

Mrs. Reverend shook her head, remembering the distress on her visitor's face.

Reverend John sat, fished in his trouser pocket for his Barlow knife, unzipped the sealed envelope.

 

I couldn't tell you this without crying and I didn't want to make a scene.

You asked if any of us had seen Christ.

I have.

We left quickly because the more I thought of your question, the closer I was to breaking down.

Reverend John frowned a little, rubbed his upper lip, looked at his wife, looked back to the neat ranks of feminine handwriting.

I saw Christ last fall when I was driving past a wheat field.

A harvester was cutting broad swaths through ripe grain.

It was near sunset and it looked like living gold.

The wheat was giving its life that I might have bread, and live.

Reverend Burnett nodded: he never considered this to any great degree, but he filed it in the mental possibilities for a sermon's material.

I saw Christ when we were at the slaughter house last week.

A beef came in.

I watched as they set the cow killer against its head and it hit the floor so fast, it had to have a head start.

It went from beef on the hoof to parts and pieces in six minutes or less.

The beef gave its life that I might eat, that I might live.

Reverend Burnett nodded again, pressing his upper lip thoughtfully against his stiffened forefinger.

My husband faced three wanted men last week.

He said he knew they were armed.

He said they surprised him as much as he surprised them and he was ready to sell his life as dearly as he had to, because he was Sheriff, because he had to keep his county safe.

His chief deputy dove in front of him and took one of the bullets meant for my husband.

Paul wasn't hurt.

He was wearing his vest.

He did tell me later it felt like he'd been kicked by a Mack truck.

I never knew Mack trucks could kick.

I'll take his word for it.

Paul gave -- the word was crossed out, replaced with a scribbled "Offered" --  his life for my husband, he offered all he had to keep Linn alive.

I saw it happen.

When Paul dove into that bullet's path, I saw Christ.

Reverend John's wife, watching her husband's concerned look, saw him smile, just a little:  he looked up at her, blinked, looked back at the folded sheet of pastel note paper.

I saw Christ when I stood in front of our church and said "I Do."

I looked at my husband and I saw decency and honor and I saw a man who was sacrificing his freedom for me, he was giving of himself to provide for me and to protect me and I saw Christ in my husband.

I couldn't tell you any of these things without crying, I'm sorry, I know I'm supposed to be tougher than that.

I'm a paramedic.

I'm not supposed to cry.

This is the only way I could tell you.

Shelly Keller

 

Reverend John leaned back, lifted his chin, held out the note.

Mrs. Reverend read it, read it again, smiling that gentle, soft understanding smile of hers: she handed it back, and Reverend John read the note again, in its entirety.

Reverend John Burnett was a man who'd worn Uncle Sam's baggy green, a man who knew what it was to use sulfurous language, a man who'd disciplined himself otherwise, but his words at re-reading this Easter note were anything but profane.

The Reverend said, softly, most sincerely, "Well, I'll be damned!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A MAIDEN PURE

Bring me, then, a maiden pure,

One no man has known,

Bring her here and then depart,

Let me extract her beating heart,

Disjoint her limbs and part by part,

Bring forth her living soul.

 

Evil can, and does, strike any time, any where.

Evil would thwart Good, and does, too often: still, there are times when it is evil that is thwarted.

When Evil sought to seize a maiden pure, when Evil stretched forth unclean hands and laid them upon a chaste and maidenly form, Evil encountered a serious problem, for Evil was operating in the world of the living.

Evil is a force, an energy, a power, but it has no sway unless it occupies a shell of flesh, and like too many before this one, this shell was most willing to embrace and welcome the evil that drove its thoughts.

When Evil sang triumph and seized maidenly arms, the maiden reacted as she'd been trained.

A flip, her weight supported by the hard and greedy grasp: she was suddenly horizontal, at least until she hit the ground, for when she felt herself seized and pulled, Angela Keller -- the pretty little pale eyed daughter of the pale eyed Sheriff Linn Keller -- rotated as if she were on a set of gymnastics rings, and drove both heels into her captor's ribs.

Angela fell, hit the ground rolling: she came up, ran, skidded around the brick corner of the schoolhouse hallway.

A pained roar followed her, then her pursuer.

Angela's young hands were white-knuckle tight around the custodian's dust mop broom, she drove the end of its handle into her attacker's open mouth.

I am an anchor.

I am a stone.

I am one with the floor, she thought, and it worked, until the laws of physics came to bear and she found herself thrust hard backwards.

Angela yanked the dust mop from the grasping hands and drove it forward again, this time into an eye socket, and she drove every ounce of her young strength through the straight grain ash handle.

Angela Keller was a pretty girl.

She had her Mama's soft features and her Mama's clear skin and her Gammaw's pale eyes and she had even, white teeth that made her happy smile truly dazzling.

There was nothing dazzling about her expression.

Angela Keller's blood was afire, Angela Keller's soul was ablaze, Angela Keller's ancestresses sang in her very core.

It was the very first time the blood of the Valkyrie ignited in her young heart.

Angela Keller felt the thin bone at the back of the eye socket fail, felt the broom handle penetrate her attacker's brain, felt it stop at the back of his skull.

She released the broomhandle, her racing mind knowing she didn't want to try to hold the falling carcass:  she turned, she ran, she leaned forward, hands bladed, in an absolute, flat-out, split-the-wind sprint:  she hit the door at the end of the hallway, she hit the rectangular red paddle with her shoulder, tripping the emergency release and the alarm both, she launched off the top step and flew through the air, soaring in a low ballistic arc until the orange soles of her immaculate saddle shoes hit the ground and she translated falling momentum into linear speed.

A scared little girl, pigtails streaming back and waving in her slipstream, ran like a scared jackrabbit down an alley she knew of, ran fast and ran hard and ran to the nearest safe haven she knew, and it sure as hell was not that schoolhouse she'd just left.

Shelly's head came up -- as did two firemen and the Chief's -- as the back door opened, as it slammed shut, as something in a plaid skirt and big scared eyes drove backward against the closed door, arms thrown out to the sides, as if she alone could prevent something terrible from breaching the door behind her.

Shelly rose, turned:  Angela powered away from the door, ran for her Mama, ran for the maternal arms that would keep her safe, ran for her mother's comfort, and she hit Shelly hard enough they both went over the back of the couch and ended up on the floor, a scared little girl clinging with the desperation of utter, absolute fear, a fear she hadn't let herself feel until now -- not until now, when it was safe, when she was safe, when she was safe! -- only then did she let herself feel the utter, absolute terror she'd held at arm's length.

Shelly Keller, wife, mother and paramedic, looked at her father, and her face was melting from surprise to distress to a deep and abiding anger, and men's hands closed into fists as a little girl buried her face into a maternal bosom to muffle her single, long, powerful SCREAM!!

 

"VALKYRIES!"

Ranks of young women came to attention.

"I WANT YOU TO KNOW WHAT A MERE CHILD DID TODAY!"

Linn's hand was protectively around Angela's shoulders.

He raised a remote, pressed a button: a big screen glowed, the Sheriff's Department six-point star logo showed briefly, then the words OFFICIAL USE ONLY.

"This," Linn said, "is evidence and you didn't see it. This is need-to-know only."  He swung his pale eyed glare across cheerleaders and other young women, the select group who'd earned the title Valkyrie, begun by his Mama and kept  proficient with the assistance of instructors knowledgeable in certain less than gentle arts.

"This is surveillance video taken from the grade school."

Angela was walking down the hall -- no, not walking, skipping, the happy gait of a little girl at ease in her surroundings.

A figure slipped out of a storage closet behind her, took one step, seized her from behind by her upper arms.

The action was brief; the view shifted from one camera to another -- first it showed the little girl driving her legs parallel to the arms that seized hers, then it showed Angela pelting around a corner, skidding to a stop and seizing a dust mop, leaned carelessly in the water cooler's alcove.

The video was silent; the Sheriff waited until after the intruder impaled his mouth on the broomhandle, then stopped the video just before Angela's second thrust.

"This," he said, "is the kill shot."

He hit PLAY again, his eyes on the Valkyries.

No one looked away.

Every daughter of the mountains watched without blinking.

Every set of feminine shoulders raised as every last one of them took a long, deep breath.

Their hands closed a little -- not into the fists Linn would've expected -- then he saw most of the fingers spread, and he realized he was not thinking like a girl.

Girls can be deadly with their claws, and every last one of the Valkyries maintained her nails long enough to serve as weapons, but short enough to be quite strong: they were not, in fact, conspicuous owing to their short, tapered, but effective nature.

Linn looked down at his daughter, up at the Valkyries.

"You've seen what a child can do. No time to prep, no preplan, she responded as she'd been trained."  

His voice was cold, unemotional.

"As every last one of you has been trained."

Several of the Valkyries nodded, just a little.

"She is a child, but there's nothing mere about her," a voice offered, and the corners of Linn's eyes tightened with approval to hear it.

"Ladies, there is evil among us. I've already netted two associates of the deceased, one spilled his guts, so we know what they planned."  

His face held not the least trace of humor as he continued, "When I told them they'd conspired to seize the Sheriff's little girl, you could see the color run out of their faces like red ink out of an eyedropper."

Linn looked to the side, nodded.

A compact woman in a white ghi, a woman with short, shining-black hair and Oriental features, stepped up to him, bowed:  he bowed back, as did Angela:  the woman turned to face the Valkyries and bowed again.

Every one of the Valkyries bowed.

"Ladies, I leave you in the most capable hands of your instructor. Miss Chin and I have sparred, and I am not the least little bit bashful to admit she kicked my backside north, south, east, west, up to the Texas moon and down to oil."

"Did you really do that?" came a question from the third row, and Miss Chin smiled, just a little.

"It was not easy as he make it sound," she replied, "but yes. I kick his backside."  She sized him up like a side of beef, turned back to the Valkyries.

"Cute backside too."

"And on that, ladies," Linn said, "I will take your leave."

Miss Chin tilted her head, looked at Angela.

"I knew you grandmother," she said gently. "She hell of a good woman."

"Yes ma'am," Angela replied in a tiny little girl's voice.

"You damned good student, you make Miss Chin proud."  She clapped her hands twice, the sound loud and sharp in the round barn's shadowed confines.  "Change please!"

Miss Chin turned to the Sheriff and bowed again, and the Sheriff bowed to Miss Chin, and then to his daughter.  "You brought your ghi?" he asked quietly.

Angela nodded, then turned and scampered after the Valkyries.

 

Jacob and Joseph quickly, efficiently, secured the house: they were the only soldiers in the fort, and they intended their fort be secure.

"Snowdrift," Jacob said quietly, rubbing the mountain Mastiff's ears, "keep good watch!"

A hot, wet, very pink tongue laundered behind his ears with the happy enthusiasm of an old and dear friend:  Snowdrift laid down on the front porch, blinking sleepily in the evening sunshine.

Joseph waited silently, his back to their house, facing outward: his Winchester rifle was across the saddlebow.

Jacob turned as gravel crunched at the far end of the driveway.

He took two long strides, a third to get his boot into the black doghouse stirrup, then he too was a-straddle of horseflesh: he reached down and back and pulled his own lever gun, set the flat plastic butt plate on his thigh.

It was a neighbor, a fellow rancher from a mile or so down the road: Jacob dismounted as the old man eased his arthritic carcass out of the dusty pickup's cab.

He did not miss the fact that the old rancher had his own rifle in the window rack.

The two shook hands.

"Mr. Fanners."

"Jacob."

Jacob turned and slid his rifle back into its scabbard.

Something dark and absolutely silent drifted across under the truck's tailgate.

"Your little sister all right?"

"She is, sir, and thank you for askin'."

"Sally said t' tell you if you're needin' anythin'."

"Obliged."
The old man raised a wrinkled, crooked finger, turned, reached into the truck, brought out a cloth-tucked picnic basket.

"Like as not you two won't feel like fixin' a meal, so here."

Jacob nodded.  "We do thank you, sir."

The old man gripped Jacob's shoulder: old he might be, arthritic he definitely was, but there was strength in the grip, and there was strength in the fierce look the old man gave the young deputy.

"I know what it is to bury m' child," he said quietly.  "Do what you have to and if you're needin' help hidin' a body --"

Jacob's pale eyes changed, just a little, and his look into the old man's eyes was every bit as direct as the old man's had been into his.

Jacob shook the old man's hand again, held it for several seconds.

"I am obliged to you," he said quietly. "If it comes to that, I will."

 

Two horsemen and a great, black, curly-furred bear killer of a mountain Mastiff rode the ranch that night.

Theirs was not the only armed vigil maintained by good men and true.

Word travels fast, especially when it's bad news, and word of what happened in their own schoolhouse spread like burning gasoline on a still pond.

Angela slept with her Mama at the firehouse, the younger ones stayed with their Uncle Will, where they wore badly oversized shooting muffs and fired wax bullet rounds at genuine real honest to God silhouette targets in his basement, even the youngest, a wee child of less than three years whose eyes were wide with delight behind the oversized shooting glasses:  Will knew what it was to take the mystery out of guns with young ones, and he delighted in -- once again -- getting down on his Prayer Bones behind an eager little boy-child, and reaching his arms around the young shooter, putting the handle of the J-frame in a very young grip and instructing him how to grip, how to squeeze, how to aim --

*BLAP*

-- and he laughed like he used to, when he knelt behind his own little boy in exactly this manner, in this same basement, his hands wrapped around the child's as they held the same three inch Chief's Special Airweight together, that he'd shot wax bullets with, with his own very young son.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WARN'T MUCH OF A HANGIN'

Sheriff Willamina Keller trained her people very well indeed.

She preached to them that hitting the wrong door was not only bad luck, it was generally very expensive, not only in terms of settlement money, but also -- and especially -- in terms of damage to one's personal and professional reputation.

When Sheriff Willamina Keller served a warrant, she personally made double damned sure it was the right place, and the right subject was within: twice she refused to serve out of state warrants, because she knew the individual sought, was not at the location specified on the warrant.

This resulted in what might be called "Professional Unhappiness," at least until the wanted individuals were discovered in another state, and the Sheriff addressed the matter from her end with both legal authority and with the knowledge that she'd been in the right.

So it was that when Linn Keller became Sheriff, he executed his warrants with the same precision and the same accuracy as his dear Mama.

He personally disliked courtroom appearances.

He disliked even more the idea that a media swarm could descend on his little town and broadcast to the world in general and everybody in particular just how incompetent a small backwater county Sheriff's office could be.

Sheriff Linn Keller investigated the case of his little girl's near-abduction -- he worked swiftly, his interrogation was effective, and videotaped to prevent false claims of coercion or threats -- the raid team hit two doors simultaneously, two mountain Mastiffs and a Malinois surged into the structure, great fighting war-dogs who sang death and ruin as they charged ahead of armed and armored men.

The upstairs, the downstairs and the basement were searched with a ruthless efficiency: everyone within was reduced to possession, placed in irons, and it is not for nothing the raid team carried wooden stocked Mini-14s instead of the ubiquitous M4 carbines: it was necessary to persuade two of the criminals in a very ungentle manner, that it was unwise, most unwise, to attempt violence against a law enforcement officer.

Linn remembered Vietnam veterans telling him how delicate the Made by Mattel rifles were, how they broke with a hard buttstroke and were too fragile for bayonet use; while the Sheriff's office did not mount bayonets, they trained to use their straight-grain gunstocks as swift, efficient, and brutally effective, close-in fighting tools.

This actually saved lives; without the ability to smite the Philistines with the butt end of a .223 Jawbone of a Jack Mule, and put them on the floor fast, hard, nasty and in considerable pain, they'd have had to fire shots, and the raid team really, really hated loud noises in confined spaces.

Given information already obtained from one prisoner, the others were confronted with what was seized at the rental, with testimony already obtained: deprived of their strong and violent leader, the others folded, bleating out everything they knew, hoping for a more lenient treatment.

It wasn't until after the interrogation, not until after they were formally charged, not until after they were each secured in separate cells, that Linn spoke quietly with his team: there was the usual debrief afterward, the discussion of tactics, of effectiveness: men spoke in quiet voices, their words as controlled as their movements, for every man there knew the Sheriff and knew the Sheriff's family and nearly every man there had both a wife and at least one child, and every man there held a quiet, burning RAGE that someone came into THEIR COUNTY! to do something this absolutely EVIL!!!

Linn looked around the circle of warriors, listened to them discuss how much they wanted to rip the living throats out of every last one of their interrogees as they described how they planned to tie down and cut a little girl apart, how they detailed what would be done to her before they began cutting through her joints with a battery powered chain saw, how they intended to use tourniquets to keep her alive as they cut her apart a little bit at a time -- one joint at a time, starting with her fingers, then her toes, and on until they were ready to cut open her chest and slice her ribs apart with garden loppers and lift off the sternal plate and seize the beating heart and rip it free and hold it up, a dripping, quivering offering to the infernal statue that was found in the rental's basement, how they planned to stack the severed limbs on the dark altar as an offering, as they then despoiled what was left of an innocent maiden's body in order to rip the soul from her and give it as a gauzy prize to the Infernal.

Chief Deputy Paul Barrents noticed how quiet the Sheriff was become.

Deputy Jacob Keller stood beside his father, his face as white as the Sheriff's: it was not pallid with fear, it was tight-stretched with a deep and abiding anger:  father and son had eyes of cold, polished marble, at least until Jacob turned, strode out of the room.

Barrents looked at the Sheriff.

Linn shook his head, almost imperceptibly:  Let him go, and Paul's nod was equally abbreviated, but just as clearly understood.

The group started to shift from one foot to the other, the Sheriff finally said "I reckon that's about it, then," and Sharon threw open the conference room door:

"OHMIGAWD SHERIFF JACOB WENT BACK INTO THE CELLS WITH A KNIFE!"

Men drew back as the Sheriff powered ahead, as he thrust past his dispatcher, as he ran back to the back and down the short hallway, around the corner.

He stopped and punched quickly at the security keypad, mashed his thumb against the reader, seized the heavy door, threw the latch and hauled it open.

A cell door was open, halfway down the row.

"JACOB!"

The Sheriff's voice was harsh, loud, commanding.

He had the impression of shocked prisoners in their cells, backed as far away from whatever they were staring at -- staring wide-eyed, silent -- backed up just as far as they could get.

Linn ran down the coridor, seized the open cell door, swung --

-- just as Jacob's arm swung in a fast arc --

-- the knife described a silver arc of death itself, bluish in the diffused fluorescent light --

-- a man's body hit the cell floor --

Not until Linn crossed the cell threshold did he realize the prisoner had a crude noose around his neck, that Jacob cut him down, that the blade sliced cleanly through twisted textile and not human flesh.

Jacob slid his blade back into its hidden sheath, seized the noose, worked it loose from where it was dug into soft flesh: he glared up at his father, pulled the noose free, threw it to the floor.

He rolled the prisoner over on his back, tilted the head to establish an airway, pressed two fingers into the prisoner's carotid groove, below the harsh raw ditch in his neck-flesh.

The prisoner wheezed, groaned, he could not breathe well, but he was breathing.

Jacob stood, looked up at the dangling material, looked at his father.

"He's not gettin' away that easy," Jacob snarled.

 

Paul Barrents rode in the back of the squad with the prisoner.

Shelly was medic on the run.

Her manner was efficient but cold, her language was brief, clinical, professional.

Until she looked into the prisoner's eyes and said quietly, "You people tried to take my daughter," and then she smiled.

"You belong to me now, and I know how to keep you alive, no matter what I decide to do to you on the way in."

Shelly's father, the squad captain, flicked his eyes up into the rearview mirror, looked back at his daughter, sitting on the squad bench and leaned over the patient.

Captain Crane reached back, slid the door shut between the cab and the patient module.

 

Shelly's eyes were big, deep, lovely, compelling as she bent over the prisoner's face.

"You're not going to die," she whispered, and her smile was far less than pleasant.

"You're going to live, and you're going into General Population, and you know what they do to baby rapers in prison."

Shelly was gratified to see fear trickling into the prisoner's eyes.

 

"How'd he know about the hangin'?" one deputy murmured to another.

The other looked at him like he had a fish sticking out of his uniform blouse pocket.

"You ever serve under his grandmother Willamina?"

A shake of the head, a curious look.

His partner considered, watched as Linn took pictures of the tied-off, twisted cloth hanging from the cell's ceiling.

He nodded toward the Sheriff.

"Have him tell you about his Mama.  Have him tell you about how his Mama knew things."

Two deputies looked at one another, looked at the Sheriff, looked back.

"Them that has pale eyes all have a way of knowin'.  There's a hell of a lot more to 'em than just them."

 

Jacob and the Sheriff sat in the conference room, hands wrapped around the welcome warmth of heavy ceramic coffee mugs.

Silence grew long between them.

Jacob made his report to the Sheriff; he said plainly but simply that he felt something was wrong, so he went to investigate.

Somehow mention of his going to investigate, with a long, well honed blade in hand, never made it into any official report.

"I made entry and opened the cell and cut 'im down," Jacob said bluntly, then smiled with half his face and looked his pale eyed Pa squarely in the eye.

"It warn't much of a hangin'."

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

QUICK AND DIRTY

Not all Willamina's Warriors were football players.

The ancient Greeks had a respect for balance: healthy body, healthy mind, and academic achievement and physical achievement each complement the other.

It was ironic, then, that one of the runners was not hurt.

Mike Halasz was an academic, outstanding grades, brilliant mind: he was also native to their soil, born and bred in the mountains, acclimatized from birth to the thinner air, and so when he ran with Willamina's Warriors, he ran with no more than the usual discomforts of a young man exerting himself.

Unlike the football players, however, his was not the weight-room musculature: no, he described himself good-naturedly as a "running broomhandle," and so it is ironic that when there was a fall, a fracture, that it was not the Galloping Broomstick that fell and was broken.

It was one of their toned, muscled linebackers.

Willamina skidded to a halt: sometimes she ran at the head of the pack, sometimes she was Tail End Charlie, chivvying up the stragglers, encouraging, assisting: she was not far from the fall, she heard bone break, the stainless-steel whistle went between her teeth and she blew, hard.

Warriors twisted sideways, skidded, stopped, heads up, eyes wide, hands bladed, ready to dive for the ditch or repel boarders, whatever was required: when they saw their pale eyed honcho snake in between her Warriors, when they saw one of their own on the ground, they responded as they'd been trained.

The shout of "MEDIC!" was unnecessary, but was trained into them: their designated medic moved in, slung the pack from his back.

Red's arm was across his belly, agony on his face: he bit back the few words of his profane vocabulary -- his sulfurous bank of Profound Language would increase with time, it always does, but for now he confined his utterance to a jaw-clenched hiss.

Willamina's hands and eyes were busy as their designated medic opened the top flap of his clearly-marked pack.

"What do you see?" Willamina murmured, thrusting her bladed hand toward the first roll, secured inside the pack's flap: the young medic ripped the Velcro free, handed it to her.

Willamina unrolled it, withdrew a shining pair of trauma shears, handed the roll back: stamped steel blades chattered quietly through material, exposing the right upper chest.

"Look how he's holding his arm across his belly, supporting with the other arm."

The serious-faced young man nodded as more faces crowded round, watching, listening.

"Look here."  Willamina gestured with the shears. "See how that's caved in? Collarbone."

The young medic nodded, distressed that he didn't know it already -- a common failing among young men who genuinely care about what they do.

"Treatment?"

"Immobilize in position found."

"Method?"

"Ummm ... sling."

Willamina snapped her fingers, thrust a bladed hand toward him:  "Give da man a seegah," she said in a nasal voice, then looked down at their patient.

Her hand was cool, gentle, motherly as she caressed the side of his face.

"We'll take good care of you," she said quietly, and the young man nodded shallowly, clenching his jaw against the distress of a very unaccustomed pain.

"Sling," Willamina said, her tone brisk.  "How?"

Their designated medic -- it would be uncharitable to call him a "schoolboy," though the term would be accurate -- the Warrior designated as their medic looked at his pack as if it would magically produce the answer -- he reached for the pack, and his hand had the answer even if his conscious mind just went blank.

He opened another compartment, pulled out two rolled linen cylinders.

"Good man," Willamina said quietly. "We'll need a third."

"Yes, ma'am."

Willamina took one, pulled out the closed safety pin and bit it between her lips, whipped the cylinder overhead: the surprised young medic blinked as she did, for there was a quiet *pop* as the cylinder unrolled, as it became an extra-large, unbleached muslin, triangular bandage.

"Made it m'self," Willamina mumbled as she slipped a second safety pin beside the first, placed the second rolled triangular in the patient's hand.  "Hold that for me."

Willamina laid the bandage out on top of the patient, looked at the medic.

"This is workwise," she said quietly. "Now we slide it under the arm, like so."  She looked at her downed Warrior, caressed his face again, her eyes big and pale blue and almost sad.

"This will hurt, I won't lie to you," she whispered, and he nodded again:
"Do it."

Willamina slipped the corner under his bent arm, lifted his elbow slightly: a pull, a twitch, then she laid one corner over another, brought the tag ends up around his neck.

"Okay, Marine," she said quietly, "give me a half inch more."

Her hand was on his elbow and she moved his arm up, slightly, adjusted the sling: a quick knot behind and beside the neck, a fold at the elbow, the safety pin holding that point of the triangle, effectively confining the arm in what was now a pouch.

Willamina unfolded the third bandage, re-folded it into a pad, worked this under the knot she'd just tied.

"One more, if you please."

She held out her hand without looking; the third rolled bandage landed smartly in her palm.

She looked up, speared two Warriors with her commanding gaze.

"Help him sit up."

Willing hands went behind his back; quiet voices:  "You ready, Red? -- one, two, three," and Red's face lost a good percentage of its color as he sat up.

"Hold him there."

Willamina took the young medic's hand, brought it to the side of Red's head.

"Check the temporal pulse," she said quietly.

"Got it."

"You're looking for rate and quality."

"Seems okay."

"That's a valid judgement. If he were shocky his blood pressure would drop, pulse would increase and it would be weak and thready. If you have a pulse -- there, at his temple -- the systolic is at least 80. Quick and dirty blood pressure check."  Her smile was almost vicious.  "One of the dirty tricks they taught us at the Free Clinics."

"Yes, ma'am," was the murmured reply, and Willmina doubted not one little bit that this was something her young charge would never, ever forget.

"Water."

A half dozen bottles of water were thrust at her: she took one, twisted off the cap, handed it to the injured linebacker.

"Drink."

He drank, deeply, gratefully, downing the entire bottle on one breath.

Willamina looked at the medic.

"Contraindications of PO hydration?"

A confused blink.  "Umm ... huh?"

Willamina gave him a patient look.  "When would we not give him water by mouth?"

"Oh! -- um, penetrating stomach wound."

Willamina nodded, looked at the linebacker.

"If we help you, can you stand?"

He nodded, handed back the empty bottle.

"Come up on your knees first -- like that -- now left foot -- good -- "

Strong young hands, fingers spread wide, gripped him around the ribs, careful not to crowd up toward the injured shoulder.

"Up on three," Willamina said quietly.  "One, two, three."

She stood squarely in front of him, but not touching him: another muscled lad stood behind, hands ready to knife in under the arms, knee ready to drive in under a descending backside.

Willamina gave this silent sentinel an approving nod.

She turned to their medic.

"Did you know what to do at every step?"

"I, um," he said, swallowed, then:  "No."

Willamina gripped his shoulder.

"You've been shown what to do, in class."

He nodded.

"You practiced in class, at least to some degree."

"We used premade slings."

"Which you have."

"Yes, ma'am."

"This is the first you've used what you were taught."

"Yes, ma'am."

"What did we use?"

He blinked, grinned.

"We used what worked."

Willamina gripped his other shoulder, leaned her head a little closer.

"You know what I'm seeing?"

He shook his head.

"When it hit the fan, you didn't freeze. You knew what to get and you got it. You did all right."

A squeeze, a release: Willamina turned, gave her patient a long look.

"Now let's have that last triangular. We're almost done."

 

Dr. John Greenlees arrived just as the injured linebacker sat down on the side of the exam table.

He held up a hand as a nurse picked up a shining set of bandage scissors and prepared to shear the bandaging away.

"I don't often see a sling-and-swathe anymore," he said thoughtfully.  "Nice work."

He looked at the young man holding the first aid backpack.

"Report."

 

In the years that followed, as tall boys became strong young men, as restless young men scattered as they often do, and find their own way in the world, one such continued to carry a medic's pack: like any good medic, he was a sponge when it came to soaking up fast and dirty tricks to keep his patients alive.

His hands never forgot the quick and dirty blood pressure check, and when supplies ran low, but he had access to cloth, he was able to cut his own triangular bandages, roll them, add a safety pin to each and keep going.

It wasn't the only dirty trick he learned, but it was one of the handiest.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 11, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NOSTRUS

Not everything in the Sheriff's family was law enforcement, horses and getting other people out of trouble.

On occasion they actually did normal things.

The day after Marnie received her first pair of red cowboy boots -- the thanks of a grateful bank back East, their appreciation for a little girl's putting them wise to the proceeds of a bank robbery and where same might be recovered -- Sheriff Linn Keller, his wife Shelly and their son Jacob, all piled in the Jeep.

Marnie was about four and a half years old, a big-eyed, watchful child with all the hypervigilance of the abused, all the suspicion of the deeply hurt, all the mistrustfullness of one who has been most terribly betrayed.

In other words, she was like every other member of the Keller household.

Marnie was happily buckled into "Marnie's Seat!" -- her big strong Daddy picked her up and carefully set her in it and told her that he'd got this one Especially for Her (she was so tickled with this, you couldn't have pried her out of it with two horses and a stick of dynamite) and she wiggled back and got comfortable and looked over at her big brother Jacob and said "I nevver had a big bruvver before."

Jacob took her little hand in his, he looked at her seriously and said "I've never been a big brother before. You'll have to help me learn how," and Marnie gave him a big delighted grin and a giggle and declared "Okay!"

They were on the road a few hours; they stopped at a place the Sheriff knew of, the girls went to the ladies' room and Jacob and his father went elsewhere -- "A long drive has a certain effect on the kidneys," Linn observed dryly, and Jacob, young though he was, agreed wordlessly with his father: after they'd rested and refreshed themselves, and after Marnie proved particularly fastidious with a vanilla ice cream cone (which pleased Shelly, she remembered Jacob as a wee lad, wearing a good percentage of his), they loaded back up and finished the journey.

Marnie never said a word during the drive:  Jacob observed his little sister as surreptitiously as he could, noted her interest in the world outside, and that she made no attempt to sleep during the trip.

He'd have taken a nap himself, but he wanted to be awake, in case Marnie showed signs of distress.

His pale eyed Pa impressed upon him that his new little sis had undergone terrible things -- he did not say what, nor did Jacob ask, it was enough that his Pa said they were terrible -- but Marnie did not show any unhappiness, restlessness or discomfort.

This, too, was unusual.

Welcome, but unusual for one of her few years.

Linn chose his parking place with care; Marnie watched as Jacob and her Daddy dismounted, as they both stopped, as they both held their arms close to their side the way policemen did when they were trying not to look like the police.

Jacob was only ten (her new Mommy told her that!) and Marnie knew that ten year old boys didn't carry a gun, but she saw the way he carried his arm and the way he looked around, the way they both held so absolutely still you couldn't tell either one was breathing, then her Daddy went around the front of their Jeep and Jacob came around the back of their Jeep.

Jacob opened the door for Mommy and stood there holding the door, ready to take her hand -- Marnie could tell this from the way he stood -- and then Daddy opened her door and she giggled as he undid her seat belts and ran his big hands around her and lifted her out.

Marnie hugged her Daddy and laid her head over on his shoulder.

She was happiest when her Daddy held her.

When her Daddy held her, she was safe.

 

Marnie held Jacob's hand.

Marnie liked holding Jacob's hand.

He was much closer to her size than her Mommy or her Daddy, and Jacob walked at her pace, even when he did let go of her hand and turn around and walk backwards for several steps.

Marnie got a funny feeling when Jacob reached up and pulled at the back of Daddy's belt and said "Sir, switch," and her Daddy turned and Marnie felt her stomach clench and freeze and she looked around and  her hand tightened on Jacob's and she saw her Daddy's hand flatten on his belly and he was ready to blade his hand under his unbuttoned coat and Marnie saw something in her Daddy's eyes she'd never seen before.

Marnie saw her Daddy's eyes go white.

They were the color of polished marble, they were hard, they were frozen.

Jacob picked Marnie up and took three quick steps and they were ahead of her Mommy and her Daddy and Marnie heard a voice behind her say something about "It's cool, man, we cool," and her Daddy did not say one word.

Marnie turned and peeked around her Mommy's skirt and she saw two fellows backing up, their palms toward them, backing away, looking very uncomfortable.

Her Daddy waited until the pair turned and almost ran into a uniformed police officer.

Marnie wasn't sure what followed, Jacob and her Mommy got them through the ticket booth entrance, behind the booth: her Mommy said something to the man taking money for tickets and whatever she said made his eyes go wide and he picked up a talkie and started talking kind of fast into it, and her Daddy swept his coat back and said sternly, "Don't try it," and then there were more police-mans and Marnie saw the pair being secured and a police car came up and the police-mans and her Daddy were talking, and then her Daddy handed them each a card or something and came through the gap beside the ticket booth and stopped.

Her Daddy's coat was open.

Her Daddy's six point star was on his belt, right ahead of his re-vol-ver.

Marnie knew it was a re-vol-ver because she was being very particular how she pronounced her words.

 

Once they were into the zoo, Marnie's eyes remained wide, but with wonder and with delight.

Her Daddy and Mommy sat together on one school bus seat, Jacob and Marnie on another: they were not the only passengers, but the wagon was not terribly well populated.

A funny looking tractor driven by a circus clown putty-putted importantly through the zoo, on a roadway just for the tractor and the trailer, and the clown talked to something sticking out of his collar and Marnie wondered if he was going to knock his round red nose off on it if he turned his head too quickly.

Marnie looked when her Daddy pointed, she watched when Jacob saw something interesting, and when they came past a big ditch with some big animals on the other side, the tractor stopped and the clown said something about rhinoceros and how they were endangered, and how this fellow was rescued as poachers were about to kill it for its horn, and Marnie frowned as she looked at the big grey creature, grazing mildly a hundred yards from her.

Jacob handed her a pair of binoculars and Marnie giggled as she looked through one eyepiece, then the other, she lowered them and asked Jacob, in an innocent little girl's voice, "What's dat?"

"That," Jacob said patiently, "is a Rhinoister Horse."

"Nostrus," Manie repeated with an emphatic nod of her head.

Linn looked at Jacob, and Jacob saw laughter in his father's eyes: dear old Dad's ears turned a little bit red, his smile was broad, he winked at his son and nodded, and Jacob knew this would enter into his father's vocabulary, probably for as long as the man drew breath.

Mangled pronunciations by the young were a particular delight of the Grand Old Man's, and while he liked Jacob's "Rhinoister Horse," Jacob had no objection to its being supplanted with a little girl's nod and a "Nostrus!"

 

Marnie did fall asleep on the way back home.

Shelly lowered her visor, flipped down the mirror, smiled as she angled it so she could see her young, in the back seat:  Marnie, secure in her own child seat, her hand in Jacob's:  he looked at his Mama and smiled, and Shelly saw the same gentle, protective smile she'd seen on her husband's face the first time he held Jacob.

Linn made a mental note to talk to Jacob and comment with approval on the boy's powers of observation, how his timely warning prevented something from happening -- exactly what, was a matter of speculation, unless the pair now in police custody could be persuaded to confess to their plans, but Linn didn't think there was much chance of that.

He was, however, satisfied that his son's alertness had been instrumental in preventing very bad things from happening.

I hate killin' someone on my day off, he thought as he drove; he looked over at Shelly and smiled, just a little.

Too much paperwork to it.

Shelly smiled and rubbed his arm.  "Penny for your thoughts."

Linn looked at her again and grinned.  "Just thinkin' how glad I am not to be doin' paper work."

 

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CONFUSION

This is not another entry to Short Stories: rather, it is a confession, and a plea for your collective forgiveness.

I screwed up.

Marnie and Jacob are very close to the same age.

In taking them to the zoo yesterday I had them six years apart, with Jacob the elder.

Unless my memory has turned entirely to sawdust -- which is possible, Covid revisits and the lengthy refractory period afterward is not kind to an old man's mentation -- Marnie is actually the older, but not by much.

It could be argued that, as I have wandered freely into the deep past and the far future, that perhaps I took a misstep at a singularity's boundary, and entered an alternate universe.

Truth is ... I got corn fused.

My apologies.

And now I'll try to come up with another outrageous and outlandish tale for your entertainment.

(I will admit, though, the thought of a little girl in pigtails, utterly convinced the big grey snoot beat is a Nostrus, delights my ancient and grandfatherly soul!)

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

You be forgive'd .... it were still a great story.  

 

Now get back to work ......... 

 

[DeaconKC]

Here Kitty, Kitty...

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AT THE LORD AND MASTER'S GOOD PLEASURE

Irish-green and Irish-blue eyes, and more sets than two, looked to their front door at the sharp summons rat-tatted against the closed portal.

The girl -- anyone who was anyone, had a hired girl, and Sean and Daisy had a Girl, but we're not talking about her today -- lifted her chin and lifted her skirts and her sharp little heels tapped briskly across the floor: she opened the door and gave the caller a chilly look and said, "Yes?"

Jacob seized the Irish girl under the arms, snatched her off her sharp little heels and out of the doorway, he spun her around on the porch and hoist her into the air, and Daisy pressed the back of her bent wrist against her smile as the hired girl gave a little squeak and then seized Jacob's Stetson and began beating him across the shoulder blades with it:  "Now ye great ravenin' beast, have yer hands off an honest workin' girl!" and Jacob set her down, grinning, and declared "Was I not sweet on one girl, I'd surely be chasin' you!" and the maid slapped Jacob's hat against his chest, raised her nose with a "Hmph!" -- the color was rising in her cheeks, and she admitted later it was because she'd wished Jacob would have taken her in his arms and pressed his mouth to hers -- Jacob turned, thrust his arm out in a grand, sweeping gesture -- "I brought Sean's chair for him!"

"And what kind of a chair would the likes o' you be giftin' t' me Lord an' Master?" the hired girl demanded saucily, shaking her finger under Jacob's nose.  "Mark my word, Jacob Keller, ye are a rake an' a rascal an' ye're tryin' t' bribe a puir girl wi' a chair! Don't ye know ye're supposed t' bring a girl flowers and a fine gown and a ring f'r her finger an' a matched pair o' high-steppin' horses drawin' a fine carriage --"

The maid held her pique as long as she honestly could, but the scowl on her pretty, milk-fair face smoothed into a laugh and a smile and she seized Jacob by the coatsleeve and demanded, "Well, ye troublemakin' son o' the Law itself, let's see wha' ye've brought!"

Daisy nodded approvingly from within the house, near enough to look through the doorway and hear every word, deep enough in shadow as to be inconspicuous: she'd been young once, and she'd said much the same thing to her husband Sean, and though she knew Jacob was a decent and honorable young man who would not stray from his intended, Daisy knew what it was to wish a tall man's pale eyes were looking into hers, she knew what it was to wish strong hands held her and a handlebar mustache would tickle her nose as such a man kissed her the way a woman wanted to be kissed --

Daisy blinked, shook her head, dismissed the thought -- You are a married woman, Daisy Finnnegan, you have no business thinking like that! -- but as she looked out at the hired girl and Jacob, standing at the wagon's lowered tailgate and discussing the fine velvet chair Jacob was untying, she remembered what it was to be young, and pretty, and the center of men's attention.

Strong young Irishmen swarmed around Daisy and out the door, eager young hands reached up to receive this new wonder from back East: it was a mark of prosperity that a man have such a chair, well upholstered, deeply cushioned, skillfully and strongly made: the chair was picked up by many more hands than were necessary, it was carried with care and an over-eager slowness up the steps and across the porch, it was turned, rotated, inserted, swung, wiggled, coaxed and finally, without damage to chair or the doorway either one, brought inside.

Daisy led the way into her husband's study.

It was a new addition to the house, courtesy that pale eyed Sheriff:  he'd showed up one day with wagonloads of lumber and carpenters and that broad grin of his, and he and Sean unrolled the Sheriff's carefully drawn plans, holes were dug and cut stone was placed, foundation established and sills laid, and their little house was nearly doubled in size -- Sean's study in the front, the expansion was carried to the back of the house -- Linn drew Daisy aside and spoke quietly, and told her that at her pleasure the new room could be for any purpose she desired, and he was merely a man and men don't know much about keepin' house, and Daisy lifted her chin and snapped, "Ye womanizin' scoundrel, does yer wife know ye're tryin' t' buy the good graces of an honest woman wi' timber an' nails?" and Linn threw his head back and laughed and declared, "Hell, Daisy, it was her idea!"

It wasn't until after the addition was finished, until after their house was nearly doubled in size, not until after the walls were painted and the windows trimmed (glory of glories, Daisy marveled at her wealth ... she was a woman of substance, she had glass in her windows!), not until after all this -- more than a week later it was that Daisy found the Sheriff had also purchased the land adjacent, and gifted it to her husband.

Sean came home with his rolling gait, looking like a bluewater sailor ill at home on dry land, walking the way a man will when he's accustomed to the rolling deck of a sailing ship -- Jacob was only just ready to mount into the wagon and leave, but instead stopped and shook Sean's hand and admitted, "Sean, I made a mistake, and the fault is mine!"

Sean threw his big hands wide and declared at little less than a delighted roar, "God ha'e mercy on my soul, I've made my share!" -- he clapped a hand on Jacob's shoulder, a gesture which would have felled a lesser man -- he leaned closer and winked and confided, "If we could sell our mistakes f'r wha' they cost us, we'd be wealthy men, eh?" and Jacob laughed and nodded, for there was truth in the big red headed Irish fire chieftain's words.

"Now, lad, wha' ha'e ye done that brings ye out here?"

Jacob reached in the wagon bed and withdrew two planks, fitted them together.

"A crate came into the Depot and I was called to see it.  I thought 'twas for Pa so I opened it up and 'twas a fine chair, and 'twasn't until we had the chair on the wagon that I thought t' look at the crate again."

He fitted the boards together.

"This came for you, Sean, no m' Pa, so I thought it right to bring this out!"

Sean's grin was broad and genuine, and he nodded, rested a hand gently on Jacob's shoulder blades.

"Thank ye, lad," he said softly.  "Ye've saved me some work."

"Ah'm just naturally lazy," Jacob deadpanned.  "If it's in the wagon, you won't have to pack it from there to here."

Daisy smiled to hear her husband's great gusting laugh; she looked at the girl, who was only just placing a tray on the table beside Sean's brand new chair: on the tray was a heavy cut glass bottle of brandy, and two glasses: she poured one, then the other, slipped the heavy stopper back in the bottle, glided from the room, knowing Daisy's approving eyes were on her.

The girl knew the hospitality her Lord and Master would wish to extend, and she made it her business to see to it that all was ready for his good pleasure.

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BUP

Another century, another Angela, another Bear Killer: a little girl strutted importantly beside a truly huge, curly-black-furred Bear Killer, her arm happily laid over mountain-strong canine shoulders.

The Bear Killer was a mountain Mastiff, a truly massive canine who earned his name the hard way, a canine known for his protective and watchful nature: when the Sheriff brought a waif home, cradled in his arms and wrapped in a blanket, The Bear Killer smelled his distress: he shoved his nose into the blanket and snuffed loudly, tilted his head a little to the side, curious:  a little pink arm slipped out of the enveloping weave and The Bear Killer's cold, wet nose grazed it, then his hot, pink tongue taste tested this curious little find: Linn saw the skin bunch up between The Bear Killer's ears as a happy little giggle escaped the blanket, and an association was born.

The Bear Killer was big, and The Bear Killer was warm and when little Angela went anywhere, The Bear Killer was more often than not somewhere close by -- unless, of course, he was pursuing something else that interested him.

This fine and sunny mountain morning, he was staying with her, keeping pace with her short little legs (she was only about four years and change and built kind of close to the ground) and she was very happy with the arrangement.

A set of pale eyes watched from their station above a beautifully curved, iron-grey, handlebar mustache: Old Pale Eyes was not a man known for his weaknesses, but if he had them, he was looking at one of his biggest.

He'd lost a wife and daughter, back East, lost them to the small pox: he'd buried his little girl in her mother's grave, one week to the day after Connie died, then he'd sold their little farm, he saddled his faithful old Sam-horse, and he'd ridden south, then west, in search of ... well, he didn't know quite what.

He'd survived That Damned War, and like many men wounded in that internecine slaughter, he wrapped his sorrows around him like a cloak and went West, honestly not knowing what he was searching for.

When he'd come to Firelands, once it seemed Fate planned his path and he found himself Sheriff, he rode out to a reported derailment and found a snakehead.

Rails in those days were iron and not steel; they were less flexible, sometimes brittle: the passage of a heavy locomotive and then cars of varying weight, not infrequently worked spikes and plates loose at the end of the rail: each car's passing worked it more, until it rose like an iron snake's head, rose enough to drive through the belly of a passing railcar, ripping through floor and anything therein, brutally and thoroughly gutting it and killing any passengers unlucky enough to be aboard.

He'd found a scene of slaughter.

The Sheriff was an old veteran campaigner who'd waded up to his ankles in blood; like men forged in wars, tempered in battle and bathed in the butcher's yard of belt buckle to belt buckle combat, he could, and when necessary did, shove his feelings into an iron kettle, drop the heavy lid in place and screw it down so he could get on with whatever was necessary to handle the situation.

He'd ridden out to the reported derailment and he'd found slaughter.

The snakehead took out the last car in the train, the snakehead killed every last passenger in the car, and the car had been pretty well filled.

He waded through splintered wood, throwing aside chunks and planks, his eyes cold, hard, his face white, taut, expressionless as he searched.

One wall was completely ripped from the car: about three-quarters of the port side of the passenger car lay over a little depression.

The Sheriff's leather-gloved hands seized the edge of the wall, lifted:  he got a purchase, stepped into it muscled it up: anger and frustration and a harsh roar and he'd lifted the wall just far enough to see a little foot, a little stockinged leg and the edge of a little girl's hem.

The lid blew off the kettle.

All the rage at losing friends in battle, all the self-accusatory anger at not being home, at going off to fight someone else's damned war instead of staying home where he belonged, all the rage at the Man in the Mirror for his wife's death and his daughter's death, blasted into fiery life.

A tall, lean waisted man, fired by rage and fueled by self hatred, threw the wall off what looked like the still, unmoving, dead body of a little girl who looked very much like his little Dana, who looked just like the daughter he'd buried, back East.

The Sheriff went to his knees, teeth clenched: "Not this one," he whispered, then he ran his arms -- quickly, gently -- benath her,he straightened, rolled her into his chest, powered to his feet:  a man whose soul swam in sorrow and boiled in a sea of grief, threw his head back and screamed.

It is said that tears, in a woman, are a leaky faucet, but tears, from a man, issue from a valve marked FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY: so it is with a throat-ripping scream:  the cloudless sky overhead shivered with the power of his rage, his sorrow, his loss:  he looked down at this unmoving, limp little girl, boneless in his arms, save for the rag doll locked in the bend of his elbow:  a strong man bowed his head, buried it in her belly and wept bitterly, feeling all over again what it was to lose this child of his loins, this one last thing in all the world that he loved.

All this came back like a freight train and hit the Sheriff yet again:  he harrumphed quietly, turned away:  Angela was happily looking around, one arm around her dear companion, laid over sun-warmed fur, little pink fingers happily worked into warm and curly fur.

She never noticed her Daddy pulling a kerchief from the sleeve of his coat:  military officers wore their kerchief up their coatsleeve, and he'd neer abandoned the habit.

Angela looked at her Daddy, her smile bright, delighted:  she looked at The Bear Killer, patted his shoulders and declared, "Bup!"

 

Another century, another Angela, another pretty little girl about four years old with her arm over a big, black, curly furred Bear Killer's shoulders.

Angela looked at her big strong Daddy with the delighted expression of a happy child and declared, "Bup!"

Her pale eyed Daddy laughed and swept her up, hoisted her well overhead, swung her around in a circle, scattering happy giggles over acreage and Bear Killer alike:  he hugged his little girl to him, and cherished for years the memory of a little girl who occasionally got excited enough she couldn't talk plainly as she wanted, kind of like when she wanted to say "Pup" and it came out "Bup!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

COMES A HORSEMAN

Young men are fueled by adrenaline, testosterone and gasoline, not necessarily in that order: speed limits, to the young, are more suggestions than regulations, at least until they get caught.

This pair, school chums with beer in the belly, laughter on their lips and a fast car around them, screamed down a long straight stretch, toward the rise they knew was there.

They knew it wasn't the brightest idea, but it was something they'd done before, get up a good head of steam, go hell-a-tearin' down a statute mile of straight-as-a-fiddlestring roadway, hit the hump and go airborne, come down hard, scrape the underbelly and throw sparks and try not to lose control.

Never mind it was a blind rise, never mind they couldn't see what was on the other side -- it was a lovely day, the sun was out, they were full of themselves, what could possibly go wrong?

And so with an engine driving them through space and a laughing anticipation growing inside them, they made for the blind rise, at least until a horseman rode out onto the rise and stopped, crosswise of the road.

The driver reacted by reflex.

He mashed the whoa-clyde pedal, hard, overrode the anti-lock brakes, he released the pedal to try and recover steering, hit the brakes again, death-gripped the wheel as he saw they were too close, too close, too close, they weren't going to stop in time, they were going to KILL! that horse and rider--

His passenger screamed something impolite and very loud --

They shivered to a stop just over the rise --

-- and barely short of another vehicle, stopped in their lane, three sets of young eyes looking out its back window, big and scared ... as big and scared as the two sets of eyes that looked back at them through the windshield of the vehicle that just barely stopped short of ramming them.

 

Jacob Keller looked around, nodded.

"That was a good idea," he said, "backing your car up to the top of the rise like that."

The pale teen-ager nodded, still visibly shaken.

"This car was just stopped in the roadway, y'say."

"Just ... yeah, it was just ... there."

"Damned lucky you were going slow enough to stop," Jacob said quietly. "What would you say your speed was when you came over the rise?"

"I dunno," the kid replied honestly.  "I hit the brakes back -- back there -- some guy on a horse, he, he was -- right out in front of me -- I didn't --"

He looked helplessly at the lean waisted deputy.

"He was right where my car is now. There's no way I could have missed him. No way."

Jacob raised an eyebrow.

He looked at the two vehicles, laid a hand on the young driver's shoulder.

"We deal in reality here," he said quietly. "We deal in facts. Now the fact is, you did not hit anyone, okay?"

The kid nodded.

"The fact is, you backed up so oncoming traffic could see your flashers."

"Yeah."

"The fact is, you called us and got us out here and we're going to get that poor mother's car towed and fixed."  Jacob's hand tightened, just a little.  "I don't see anything the law needs to concern itself with."

The kid nodded.

"Now if I were to poke around in your car, might I find something?"

"Beer," was the blurted reply.

Jacob nodded.  

"Empty cans?"

Again, the nod.

"How about some that's not been drunk yet."

"Yeah," came the gasping affirmative.  "That too."

"Tell you what.  You put that ain't-drunk-yet beer in the trunk, don't throw your empties out -- I hate litterbugs -- you got somewhere you need to be?"

The kid looked at the car he could have rammed, looked at three children he could quite possibly have killed, looked at the worried mother, fussing like a settin' hen at the other deputy, who had her hood up and was solemnly regarding her smoking, seized, ruined engine.

"I reckon I ought to go pay the preacher."

Jacob nodded, turned.

"Here comes the wrecker and another car behind. If that's for her, all well and good, otherwise it would be neighborly to offer her and her kids a ride home."

 

About a week later, Jacob was working on a sandwich and fries in the Silver Jewel when the aforementioned lead foot teen aged kid came up to him, clearly troubled.

"Deppity," he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, "you recall last week I told you I thought I hit some fellow on a horse?"

Jacob swallowed, nodded.  "I recall."

"I found him."

Jacob frowned.  "You look half sick, maybe you ought sit down."

The kid shook his head.  "No ... no, I didn't hit him -- maybe I hit him -- hell, I dunno --"

Paul Barrents looked at the kid, at Jacob, back to the kid.  "Where did you find him?"

"The Museum."

Barrents and Jacob looked at one another, looked at the kid.

 

Two deputies and a very pale teen-aged driver regarded a portrait in the Firelands Museum.

Jacob's grandmother, Sheriff Willamina Keller, spent many years excavating history of the region, correlating and cataloguing and accumulating; some of the treasures she uncovered were tintypes, Ambrotypes, glass plate portraits: the one being solemnly regarded was a print, taken from a glass plate.

Glass plate, properly done, is a very useful photographic technique, owing to long exposure times and thick emulsions on the plate:  this allows for a phenomenal resolution, an incredible clarity even if enlarged several times.

The portrait they were looking at, this modern day enlargement, was of a pale eyed man with an iron grey mustache, astride a fine, shining stallion:  the man wore a black coat and a stern expression, his carriage was very erect, his iron grey mustache was immaculately curled into a villainous handlebar.

Beneath the portrait, and beside its modern-day twin, taken with a Nikon camera by their local newspaper, another Sheriff on another stallion:  two photographs, taken in separate centuries, both bearing the legend Sheriff Linn Keller: one, on what was known to be a shining-copper stallion, the other on an equally-healthy Appaloosa stallion: portraits taken more than a century apart, yet so very much alike as to appear to be the same man.

"Him," the kid said, thrusting a quivering finger at the first of the two figures.

"He's the one that was cross ways of the road on top of that rise. I nailed the brakes and I should have hit him, there's no way I couldn't have --"

Two Sheriff's deputies looked at one another, two hands rested on a young driver's shoulders.

"Dead a hundred years, and he's still savin' lives," Jacob said softly.

"I hit a ghost?" the kid asked in a small voice.

"Don't know as you hit him," Jacob said, "but he was known to tell folks he'd give anybody one chance, and one chance only."  Jacob turned and looked very squarely at the teen-aged driver.  

"You've been given your chance.  You won't be given another."

The kid looked at a mounted Sheriff from more than a century in their past, looked at the matching portrait of the modern day Sheriff, taken a year ago, and he looked at Jacob, perhaps only just realizing how remarkably much Jacob looked like his father, the Sheriff, and this man he'd seen through his windshield for a very few, panic-stop-stressed, moments.

Jacob's partner asked later, "How do you know Old Pale Eyes won't give him a second chance?"

Jacob looked at him, an ancient knowledge in his pale eyes, an expression few had ever seen, something you might expect to see in the eyes of a Navajo shaman.

"Because I wouldn't," Jacob said shortly.  "I'll give any man one chance and he's had his."

It wasn't often that Jacob's partner felt like cold water was trickling down the middle of his spine.

It was rare when his skeptical, college educated partner, felt the prickles raise on his arms.

This was one of those times.

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SKULL AND BRACELET CLUB

Marnie drew her Daddy's black gelding to a halt, frowned.

She dismounted, dropped the reins -- the gelding was trained to ground-rein, for all that it wore no bit between its jaws -- Marnie rubbed Midnight's neck and whispered to him, then tilted her head and frowned again.

Why have I never seen that before? she thought, then raised her head and looked around.

She was high up on the mountain, just downhill from one of the oldest trails: she'd been here, above the timber line, more times than she could count: she'd been up here when a storm came hardwalking through the granite peaks, Tarquin in frost-giant's boots, and she'd taken shelter between the halves of this truly huge, split-open boulder.

It was barely wide enough for her to pass: she turned sideways, eyes busy:  she stopped, squatted.

Bone.

She brushed loose sand and fine gravel aside, exposing a skeletal hand, detached who knows how long ago from the lower arm bones: between the two, a bracelet, and not an inexpensive bracelet either.

Marnie pulled out her cell phone and shot several pictures, backed slowly up, reasoning that if what caught her eye was the bleached, rounded top of a skull -- and it was there -- then a hand, here, meant she might be treading on leg bones.

A memory ... the memory of ... 

Of what? 

Her own whispered voice echoed harshly between her ears: she hadn't said the words aloud, but she didn't have to, she heard her own voiced sibilants as clearly as if she'd forced them out between her lips.

Marnie knew she could not leave her find: there were liabilities, never mind this possible crime scene was well older than she; it would have to have a forensic excavation, and until that was done, she -- or a member of her department -- would have to remain.

 

Lily Hickman followed the trail, fueled by anger and jealousy and absolutely no good sense.

Lily Hickman was a rich man's daughter, an only child, a young woman suspicious, jealous, possessive: when she told her fiancée she intended to take him to a San Francisco waterfront parlor and have "Mine, Mine, Mine!" tattooed across his backside, she was not being facetious.

Her fiancée had business in a little mountain town and Lily was certain he was seeing another woman, not a client: when she found her intended was departed by a particular trail, she set out to find him and prove him unfaithful.

She'd been offended at how small the mountain settlement was, she'd been offended by the judgmental looks she'd been given, never mind she was received with courtesy and hospitality: when she set out with her cloak and her indignation both wrapped around her, folks shook their heads and let her go, reasoning that a woman like that would listen about as well as a lodge pole pine.

They were right.

Lily Hickman walked further than might have been expected, given the altitude, and she'd been caught in the open when the first rainy, snowy squall hit.

Lily had no experience in sheltering that did not involve a well built structure; she found herself mentally at a loss, until some ancient instinct prompted her to find shelter from the wind, at the very least.

There.

Below her.

A great cleft in the rock, with a curve at the top: that would stop the wind, at least, and probably this damned wet snow.

Wet, cold, shivering now, Lily made it into the gap in the ancient boulder: she crouched, fingers numb, realized with some surprise she hadn't been able to feel her toes for some time now: she balled up under her cloak, leaned against the rock, whispered her fiancée's name, as if she could magically command his attendance.

She was tired, from the altitude; she was wet, from the rain and wet snow, she was losing body heat fast: sometime before storm's end, curled up on her side, just before the weather turned again and became a downpour, Lily's heart slowed and finally stopped, her body's core temperature so low as to shut down every one of her vital systems.

A pretty young woman's body was buried in the sandy gravel washed over her by the rare but torrential rainfall.

 

Marnie, unlike the previous inhabitant of this rocky cleft, was prepared for a night on the mountain.

She found a stream, dipped up water enough: unlike her ancestors, she did not make a fire of twigs and leaves and grasses, she unfolded a little stamped-metal device, set a square white tablet in it, ignited it with a lighter and set water to boil for tea.

As much as Marnie loved her coffee, she preferred tea when out on the trail.

Midnight drowsed, hip-shot, head down: saddle blanket and saddle were given to the custody of friendly rocks: Marnie set up her little bivouac so she was sheltered from wind, the rock's split was imperfect and curved a little, which would likely shelter her from any precipitation -- though the night was clear, the stars bright.

Marnie did not sleep alone.

Her attorneys, the Honorable Mr. Smith and his partner, the esteemed Mr. Wesson, shared her bed, as did her other legal counsel, one Oliver Winchester, an attorney who'd argued both powerfully and persuasively on her behalf in the past: welcome though they were, it was a certain, pure white, curly furred mountain Mastiff which she found the most comforting:  they lay on a patch that was mostly sand, the gravel and stony substrate being downhill just a little.

Marnie drank hot tea, ate rehydrated chicken and rice: Snowdrift watched hopefully as Marnie split the aluminized plastic envelope down its side seams, laid it open so her canine bed warmer could share the meal with her:  Marnie ate with a good appetite, but there was no way she was going to oink down the contents of the envelope and leave nothing at all for Snowdrift.

Marnie lay down, curled up on her side, Snowdrift warm against her, the blanket over them both.

Outside the cleft, a shadow, silent, watchful: Midnight ruckled a quiet greetings, touched noses with The Bear Killer.

Marnie relaxed her body, let her mind drift, slacked the reins on her thoughts.

If she was lucky, whatever memory niggled at the edge of her conscious thoughts, would float to the surface so she could examine it.

 

Marnie paged quickly through one book, another:  she turned to the computer, fingers pattering quickly over the keys: she leaned forward, devouring the glowing screen with pale eyes, absorbing information, sorting, discarding, sorting again.

In her dream she smiled, just a little, and whispered, "Gotcha!"

 

The forensics team arrived just before noon the next day.

Marnie's little encampment was long since removed, any trace of her presence, gone: she pointed out where she'd moved enough sand and fine gravel to expose a recognizable anatomic structure, then stopped: she squatted beside the bleached calvarium that caught her eye in the first place, thrust a bladed hand to indicate the partially exposed bracelet she'd found, but had not disturbed.

Marnie withdrew: she'd given as complete an account as she was able, she'd held the scene until Forensics arrived: having turned the scene over to appropriate authority, she saddled her Daddy's Midnight-horse and whistled up two great Bear Killing mountain Mastiffs, and set her horse's nose towards home.

 

Cold cases generally take time to work, and this was no exception.

Marnie excavated archives of her Gammaw's work, of newspaper accounts, she accessed ancient police reports from another jurisdiction, all as a welcome supplement to the cold case: when the report was finalized, it was written up, printed, bound and distributed to the pertinent agencies -- the Firelands County Sheriff's Office, their Coroner's Office, and a department back East, who'd originated the missing-persons report of a marriageable young woman, more than a century ago: one Lily Hickman, a young woman who'd gone West in pursuit of her fiancée, a woman last seen wearing the bracelet her fiancée gave her the day before he was run over and killled by a runaway team of horses, a woman driven to madness and insanity by his sudden and unexpected death.

The cover of the final report had a photograph taken by the arriving forensics team, a long shot taken from one end of the great, split-open boulder, a shot if Deputy Marnie Keller squatting beside the smooth, shining, bleached-bone skullcap, one bladed hand thrust toward the surprisingly intact, skeletal hand barely visible above sand and gravel, and near it, a bracelet, ornate and expensive looking: beneath the photograph, in italics, the legend, Skull and Bracelet Club, and beneath, a second line: Oldest and Youngest Members Shown.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Blackwater 53393]

Back up front so’s them as missed it can find it easy!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BEGAT

Angela Keller stood up.

Angela Keller was a pretty little girl with pale eyes and a bright smile, a little girl who thought absolutely everything in the world was in-ter-res-ting, and when she would declare something in-ter-res-ting, she would give a single, emphatic nod, as if to affirm that yes, that's the fact!

Angela stood up as she and Sarah were driving on one of the high mountain roads -- it was narrow, just wide enough for their carriage: Sarah packed two big withie baskets with supplies and they drove out to a family who'd had a misfortune: Sarah had Angela open the door and she walked in like she owned the place, she hoisted one, then the other of the heavy, well-filled baskets to the kitchen table: Sarah smiled at the curious face that peered at them from the next room and said casually, "You won't feel like eating a full meal" -- she pulled off the checkered cloth -- "so you can just reach in and grab some little thing when you feel like it."

A man she knew, a man whose face aged a year in the past twenty four hours, thanked her gravely:  Sarah dropped a quick curtsy, then admitted, "I'd hoped to slip in and slip out and no one the wiser," then she and Angela turned and scampered out the door and back to their carriage.

Angela was normally a very well behaved child, and Sarah was very surprised to see Angela stand up in the moving carriage.

"Angela, please sit down," Sarah said quietly.

Angela pulled up some skirt material, jumped up a little and landed on her knees on the tuck-and-roll upholstered seat:  "Begat!" she declared happily.

"Begat?" Sarah laughed.  "You mean like Adam begat Seth, and Seth begat Enosh?"

Angela laughed, the happy laughter of a delighted child:  "Begat!"

Sarah smiled tolerantly at the smiling child.  

"Well, you are holding onto the back of the seat," she sighed, "and your Mama isn't here to see it."  She looked ahead, looked back at Angela's beatific expression.  "I won't tell if you don't!"

Angela blinked, obviously fascinated with something behind them.

Curious, Sarah turned, just in time to see something tawny and sleek jump from the roadway into the brush and disappear.

Sarah felt something grip her stomach and squeeze: cold ran through her veins as she turned, flipped the reins smartly:  "Yup there!" she snapped, and the mare went from a slow trot to a faster trot.

"Bear Killer!" Sarah snapped, and something big, black and furry raised its head from a nest it had clawed together of old quilts that were kept in the buggy for whatever purpose was needful.

"Bear Killer, watch!" Sarah said, her voice tight:  The Bear Killer was not trained to recognize that particular command, but there was no mistaking the tension in Sarah's voice:  something the size of a young bear shook off the quilts, stood, looking around, scenting the air.

Sarah Lynne McKenna's ten-year-old hands were tight on the reins: she did not want to run faster, not on this road, but she did not want to maintain an inviting target for a mountain cat.

Big cats were rare these days but not unknown, and Sarah had inspected horses killed by a single bite to the back of the skull.

They won't bite you if you're looking at them, she thought, unless they're attacking -- then they'll rip your guts out with those hind hooks.

Sarah had no doubt at all that a great cat, given a taste for man-flesh, would not hesitate to bite a man -- or a girl -- through the back of the skull, just as fatally as the horse she'd found dead earlier that year.

The Bear Killer scented the air, eyes slitted: Angela watched as his fur rose down his spine and across his shoulders, she giggled a little as The Bear Killer's lips pulled back into a frightening smile, as he took a deep breath, threw his head back, bayed a fighting challenge.

Angela was too young to drive the buggy-horse:  Sarah would love to availed herself of the .32-20, but she knew with The Bear Killer bristled up and ready for war, with her hands on the reins and their mare still fresh, her best bet was to keep driving at this good pace.

All cats, she knew, can muster incredible speed for a short distance, but they wear out quickly: the further she drove, the more the chance the mountain cat would tire out and give up.

Angela watched the world falling away behind them until she got tired of it, then turned, sat, giggled a little as The Bear Killer surged up, laid his big paws over the back of the upholstered buggy-seat and snuffed loudly at her left ear, then rested his big chin on her shoulder.

Angela laid her head over onto The Bear Killer's.

"Bup," she said gently, and The Bear Killer's tail swung happily to hear it.

 

Later that day, after Sarah returned Angela to her house, she smiled to see the pale eyed Sheriff riding toward her: Sarah was only just mounted into her carriage, elsewise she would've dropped a very proper curtsy when the man dismounted and swept off his hat.

"I must report a mountain cat," Sarah said, her young voice serious as her young face: the Sheriff's smile dropped like a ceramic mask loosed from a stage actor's visage.

"Whereabouts?" he asked quietly.

The Sheriff's door opened and Angela strutted importantly out onto the front porch.

Sarah gave the location; the Sheriff nodded, considered, looked at Angela.

"Darlin'," he asked, and Sarah heard a smile behind the man's words, "did you see anything interesting today?"

Angela nodded, finger-curls bouncing:  "Begat!" she declared with a single, emphatic nod.

"Begat," the Sheriff echoed thoughtfully, looked up at Sarah.  "Begat.  Big Cat?"

Sarah nodded.

"It has to be," she replied.  "It wasn't Adam, Seth or Enosh!"

 

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WE NEED TO TALK

 

A late night knock is generally not a welcome interruption.

When it comes after the children are abed, when the man and woman of the house are ready to go upstairs and turn in, it is a moment of concern:  later than that, it is a matter of armed response.

When a rat-tat, tat, came on the front door -- something brisk, sharp, as if delivered with a knife's pommel -- Jacob and Linn moved with the ease of long practice: Jacob flanked left, into the study, carbine in hand, while Linn drew his sidearm, brought it up high against his side, stood behind the armored plate he'd installed inside the wall beside the steel-core wood door:  "Who goes there?"

"Daddy, it's me."

Linn threw the lock, the deadbolt, opened the door.

A pale eyed young woman stood in his doorway, a young woman all in black:  shirt, vest, jeans, boots: a dull-grey, six point star was embossed on the lapel of her black-denim vest, a .357 rode her belt, and a grim expression inhabited her otherwise attractive face.

Marnie turned sideways, slipped in, twisted: she shouldered the door shut, secured it with the ease of many years of living under this very roof, she turned and glared at her Papa.

"You should have told me about her."

Linn did not have to ask who the "her" was.

"She killed her attacker, case closed."

"Case is not closed. I watched the interrogation videos."

Linn's eyes narrowed and he turned his head, just a little: Marnie could feel waves of cold rolling off the man.

Marnie's eyes were just as hard and just as unforgiving as her father's as she grated, "I'm Sheriff.  I find things out."

"You're Sheriff in another jurisdiction," Linn replied, a warning note in his voice. "I won't have another jurisdiction crowding in on my county."

"And I won't have my baby sis terrorized."

Father and daughter glared at one another; finally Linn sighed, shook his head.

"Come on in. There's some pie ain't been et yet."

 

There is a magical affinity between pie and the young: something in a white flannel nightgown slid soundlessly down the banister, just like Marnie used to, something with pale eyes and a giggling voice:  Marnie went to one knee, seized her baby sister, hugged her tight, tight.

"Marnie, I got straight A's again," she whispered breathily as her brothers scampered downstairs in their sock feet.

Linn took his place at the head of the table as Shelly and her daughter hugged, laughed, murmured to one another: plates were dealt like cards at a poker table, silverware sprinkled from a motherly hand with a magical wave, a second pie was sliced and wedge shaped slabs were dispensed.

The Keller young looked to their pale eyed Pa, who was industriously mining a cardboard one-gallon container of ice cream: plates were circulated around, each one loaded with thick curls of the cold stuff: Linn set the scoop in the sink, put the lid on the container and returned it to the freezer, then paced back to his place at the head of the table.

The Keller young waited, eyed their father, waited for his quiet-voiced pronouncement.

"Pie and Ice Cream," Linn said solemnly, "is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."  He looked very directly at his oldest daughter. "Especially when it's with family!"

He bowed his head and said, "Hello, plate!" -- Shelly gave him The Look, which he cheerfully ignored -- then the Keller family very happily dove into the serious business of late-night Pie and Ice Cream.

Linn knew better than to try and shoo the young off to bed, not with Marnie here: he helped his wife collect empty plates and silverware, Shelly and Marnie washed and dried and Marnie felt Jacob's eyes especially burning into her as the others clamored their questions at her.

Jacob and his father stayed behind as Shelly shooed their young flock back upstairs with motherly admonitions to brush their teeth, hiding her smile at the ceremonial, "Awww, Maaaw!" that chorused in ritual reply: father, son and daughter retreated to his study, sat.

Jacob gave his big sis an appraising look.

"How'd you get away?" he asked bluntly. 

Marnie smiled -- that dazzling, I'll-distract-you-and-then-knife-you-in-the-gut smile of hers -- and said quietly, "I told them if they didn't behave, I'd bring you back with me."

"Ouch," Jacob grimaced: he had memories of keeping the peace on Mars, of seizing an incoming wrist, twisting it and feeling the decalcified bones snap:  he well remembered driving his fist into a cheekbone, hearing it fracture, discussing with Doc Greenlees afterward how lucky he was the fragile cheekbone broke instead of fracturing the low-gravity-weakened skull.

"It'll never get through channels," Marnie said, turning to her Daddy, "but I can take your prisoners to lockup on Mars. They'll never bother Earth again."

Linn was silent for several long moments.

"Don't waste time with what-ifs."

"I'm not. I can take the pair --"

"We're not sure how deep the roots run," Jacob interrupted. "Until we get everyone, those two are mine."

Marnie's lips drew back from white, even teeth, a smile, and not a pleasant smile.

"I have certain ... tools ... that can get the truth from them," she said quietly.

Linn raised an eyebrow.

"Do I want to know?"

"It's not physically harmful, if that's what you're thinking. We don't run bamboo splinters under fingernails or pull eyeballs out."

Linn's expression was unreadable.  "Go on."

"It siphons information from their mind into a designated recipient's. It won't hold up in your courts, of course, there would be protests and challenges, but it works very well."

"I think we can do well enough ourselves," Linn said slowly, and Jacob watched his sister's face go just a little more pale, the skin over her cheekbones tightening a little more.

"They tried to snatch my baby sis," Marnie hissed. "I know what people are capable of. She's not much older than I was when things were done to me!"

"These aren't the people who hurt you."

Marnie's bottom jaw slid out:  she considered for a long moment, nodded.

"Do you have enough for conviction?"

"With their confessions, yes. They were rattled enough when we raided the place, we separated them and they were quick to blame everyone else before they lawyered up, so yes, we can convict."

Marnie shot a sharp look at Jacob.

"What about the roots you're digging out?  Other unnamed associates?"
"The Feds have that. They were going to make a snuff film, distribute it. All that's Federal jurisdiction. They're coming for the prisoners tomorrow."

Marnie closed her eyes for a long moment; she shivered, looked at her father, at her brother, stood.

"Thank you for the pie. If you need to interrogate them further, let me know, I have access to technology that will  --"

Linn stood.  "If need be," he interrupted, and Marnie knew the discussion was closed.

 

Next morning, Sheriff Linn Keller reviewed the overnight logs, frowned.

"Sharon," he said, "what's this about the cameras going down in the cells?"

"Just what's there, Boss. They seem to be fine now."

Linn frowned, remembering his nighttime visitor:  he stopped, looked down the hall toward lockup, looked at his closed office door.

He came back from the cells, went into his office, closed the door.

A folder was on his desk.

He opened it.

Inside were a dozen pages, apparently from his own printer: on top of the pages, a note in a familiar handwriting.

Here are all the roots we could find.

The Sheriff set the note aside, picked up the printed pages, began to read.

 

Marnie smiled as she read the message from home, a missive delivered via secure comm link, something only her family knew about.

Dug out roots.

We need to talk.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FAIR ENOUGH

 

Sheriff Linn Keller sat down and almost fell over backwards.

He wasn't in his office.

He was ... elsewhere ... he came to his feet and came off the ground a couple inches with the power of his rise.

Sheriff Marnie Keller stood in front of him, arms crossed.

"You wanted to talk," she said icily.  "Talk."

"I'm on Mars."

"You are."

"You just abducted a law enforcement officer."

"You're in my territory now. Speak your piece."

Sheriff Linn Keller glared at his daughter.

"You have no jurisdiction in Firelands."

"I'm still a commissioned deputy, or have you forgotten?"

"That can be revoked."

"Yes it can, and you can lose your son. What will Jacob do when he finds out that my work got the goods on the network that's still being sniffed out and charged, and your reward for finding everyone responsible for the NEAR ABDUCTION OF HIS LITTLE SISTER IS HAVING MY COMMISSION STRIPPED!"

Linn had never, in all his years of fatherhood, been defied by any of his children.

Linn had never, in all his years of fatherhood, backhanded a daughter.

In the face of this outrage, in the face of his child, HIS CHILD, shouting -- SHOUTING!  IN HIS FACE! -- 

Linn's arm drew back, uncoiled.

Marnie was a snake.

She wasn't where she'd been.

Instead of his knuckles belting into her cheekbone, Linn felt her palm-strike just above his elbow as he twisted, awkwardly, off-balance in the near half-gravity: her knee caught him in the small of the back and he went over, tried to tumble, landed awkwardly, came up on all fours, teeth bared, hands open to grapple, to parry.

Marnie's eyes were cold, white, her face stretched tight and dead pale.

"I'll allow any man one mistake," she said quietly.  "You just had yours.  Try that again and I will kill you."

Her voice was low, taut, filled with menace, filled with the same seething rage Linn knew too well, for he too lived with the scaly beast of an absolutely volcanic temper: he worked daily to contain it, he was truly skilled in concealing it, and he saw it in his daughter as she lowered her weight slightly, as she brought her hands up, bladed, ready.

"You don't come into my county and interrogate prisoners."

"Like I said, I'm still commissioned in your county. I found information that set off a very profitable operation. I performed where you failed."

"Yes," Linn admitted.  "Yes, you did."

Linn knew Marnie would pause at this.

He knew she was good at reading men, and he knew she would not expect him to admit that he'd failed.

"I can make you an offer," Marnie said slowly, straightening her knees and lowering her hands.

Linn did the same.

"The school can't keep my family safe. I can transfer them offworld."

Marnie saw anger in her father's eyes.

"The school," he said slowly, "has had its backside kicked up between its shoulder blades."

"I expected nothing less."

"By your mother."

Marnie raised an eyebrow, folded her arms again, nodded.

"I would have paid admission to have seen that."

"It was worth paying admission," Linn agreed.  "Now. That information you obtained. It'll have to be vetted. How are we going to do that?"

"I doubt if my mind reading devices are vetted in any Earth court, and the method would be called into question by the greenest attorney."

"My point and my problem."

The Sheriff frowned, considered.

"You can't admit to being on Earth. Nobody there knows you have portal travel."

Marnie nodded.

"Inevitable discovery. An overheard comment. Something said to another prisoner who has since departed. Deathbed confession."  Marnie lifted her chin a fraction.  "Deathbed confession by the prisoner who tried hanging himself. Anoxia prevented his recalling having said it."

"That's thin," Linn cautioned.  "His testimony could be called into question for the same reason."

"Not if it leads to profitable discoveries, which you have made."

"You've got me there."

Silence grew long between father and daughter.

"Why bring me here?"

"You're on my turf here."

"You're overstepping yourself."

"I HAVE TO, DADDY!" Marnie shouted.  "DO YOU THINK THIS IS EASY? I AM THE JUDGE AND I AM THE JURY AND GOD HELP ME I HAVE BEEN THE EXECUTIONER! PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE WHEREVER YOU GO AND I'VE HAD TO PRONOUNCE GUILT AND EXECUTE MURDERERS! THEY DESERVED IT BUT MINE WERE THE HANDS THAT SENT THEM TO HELL! I DO WHAT I HAVE TO BECAUSE IT'S MY JOB! " 

Marnie stopped, took a long, steadying breath, blew it out.

"Daddy, you live in civilization.  This isn't civilization. This colony is a frontier town. People work hard, they play hard. I have to be hard. I am judge and I am jury and I am The Law, and I keep the peace.  If that means I do things that won't fly in an Earth court, too damned bad!"

Marnie stopped, swallowed, flexed her white knuckle grip on the edge of the desk she was leaning back against.

"It's the same way on most of the Confederate worlds. They're still thinly populated. They all have a frontier mindset and they have to be treated accordingly."

Linn nodded, looked at the flimsy-looking plastic chair he'd tried sitting in, before the light gravity confused his balance and he'd gone over.

He picked up the chair.  "Mind of I sit?"

Marnie reached over, grabbed a chair from its station against the wall, pulled it up, sat:  only then did Linn lower his long tall frame into recycled-plastic webbing.

"Jacob almost left you."

Linn's surprise escaped his careful control: he assumed his usual impassive expression, but not before she'd seen that very rare expression of honest astonishment.

"He found a girl and he fell hard," Marnie continued.  "She was killed in what was honestly an accident.  That's why he's been so quiet here of late."

Linn sagged visibly.

His own mother's death -- though years in the past -- still weighed on him.

"He decided to remain an Earther.  He told me he didn't want any more off-world assignments. Too hard --"

Marnie pressed her lips together, looked to the side.

"Jacob is very deep.  When he gives his heart, he gives all of it. He's easily hurt as a result. You recall the year he didn't take anyone to Prom."

Linn nodded.

"He was stood up. The girl was playing him and he was too infatuated to realize it. Ever wonder why he was never out chasing skirts?"

"I never knew," Linn said slowly, his voice tight.

"I hope he finds the right girl and marries. I thought he'd found the right one on Sixworld. She was a sweetheart."  She hesitated.  "He told me if he has to grieve, he'd rather grieve at home."

Linn was silent for several long moments, then he looked at his daughter.

"At least you didn't accuse me of not keeping Angela safe."

Marnie shook her head.  "No.  No, that one is not on you. If the school has taken ... measures ..."

Linn nodded.  

"Good.  And you're training Angela with the Valkyries."

"I am."

"Good." 

Sheriff Marnie Keller pushed away from her desk, stood.

Sheriff Linn Keller rose from his chair.

"Anything else you need to say?"

"You'll let me know when you're operating in my county."

It was a statement, not a request.

Marnie nodded.

"Fair enough."  She turned, touched a control on her desk.

Linn felt the air shift behind him, turned, quickly, one hand open and ready for a swift draw: he relaxed as he saw the portal open.

He turned to his daughter.

"You need help, holler."

"Same."

Marnie watched as her father stepped through the shimmering oval portal, as it closed like an iris behind him.

She imagined him stepping into the space between his office chair and desk, she pictured him placing splayed fingertips delicately on the green desk blotter, imagined him looking around, shifting his weight as suddenly he was much heavier than he'd just been.

  

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TO CLOSE THE CIRCLE

Sheriff Linn Keller stared in honest shock.

She was a woman -- there was no mistaking her femininity -- but he'd rarely seen a dance hall girl with a skirt that short -- why, it came to the middle of her kneecaps! -- and for all that she had really nice legs, it was absolutely unheard of for a decent woman to appear in public so ... so ... so undressed!

The dress the woman wore was tailored, for all it shocking brevity; she powered through his heavy timber door, slammed it behind her, dropped the bar in place, turned and glared at him.

The Sheriff came to his feet the moment she crossed his threshold -- a gentleman rises in the presence of a lady, and every woman is a lady until she proves herself otherwise -- he waited as she turned toward him, seized the lapel of her jacket, turned it over to reveal a six point star.

"Sheriff Keller, Firelands County," she said crisply.

"Yes ma'am, I am," Linn said, and she shook her head.

"No. I am Sheriff."

"With respect, ma'am, I am the Sheriff," Linn replied gently -- he might have suspected his visitor was somewhat less than sane or rational, but for the certainty in her voice, and his gut telling him there was something here he didn't understand.

Willamina gave Old Pale Eyes a cold glare.

"You, sir," she said firmly, "are my several times great grandfather, and I need you to keep me from getting killed."

Old Pale Eyes frowned, just a little, and turned his head as if to bring a good ear to bear.

Dear God, Willamina thought, Linn does that! -- then she shoved the thought viciously to the side.

She stepped quickly toward him -- he sidestepped, she slid behind his desk, opened the shallow center drawer, withdrew a sheet of paper, a bottle of good India ink, a dip quill -- he watched as she began to sketch out a diagram.

"This," she said, "is you" -- a name, on a line: a descender.

"Your son Jacob, your daughter Sarah."

Linn frowned a little more, leaned closer.

"Sarah?" he asked.

Willamina looked up at him, stood.  "Look at me," she hissed.  "Sarah and I could be twins, but for the difference in age!"

Linn shook his head slowly.  "Ma'am, I'm sorry," he said carefully, "Sarah is but twelve years old --"

He blinked, mentally comparing the two faces, realized ... if Sarah grew to womanhood ... she would indeed ...

Willamina sat, returned to her quick, sure strokes of the pen.

"This," she said, "is the family tree.  I'm here.  My son is named after you.  His sons will be Jacob and Joseph and he will have a daughter named Angela. He will adopt another, Marnie."

"Marnie?"  Linn drew back a little, his eyes widening.  

"Yes. She looks just like me."

Linn looked at the family lineage, looked at his pale eyed visitor.

"You ... ma'am, you need me to keep you from getting killed."

Willamina wiped the pen, put it carefully back, stoppered the ink-bottle and replaced it, picked up the sheet and walked briskly across the smoothly-fitted floor, slid the sheet into the stove:  she came back just a little, picked the Sheriff's double gun from the rack, opened it.

Brass hulls gleamed at her.

She closed the action, carried it over to the Sheriff.

"I will be at war," she said.  "I am a Marine and I will be in combat. I will have exhausted my ammunition. An artillery burst will knock me into a shell crater. I will have a knife and an irritated expression. An enemy combatant will run to the lip of the crater and prepare to fire upon me. I need you to send him to hell on a swarm of heavy shot."

"War?"

"War."

"You're a Marine."

"Yes."

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, women don't serve with --"

Willamina turned her glare squarely upon him and he could feel waves of cold cascading off her as her eyes assumed the general shade of living, hard-frozen ice.

"Look," she hissed.  "Trust me on this. Our blood, your blood, has to continue. We will fight in the Last Battle and the longer our line runs, the more bloodlines marry into it and improve the breed. Every generation comes to a decision point, to the narrow waist of the hourglass, yours was when that cannon burst and caved in your ribs and it happened again when Esther grabbed your corroded soul with both hands and yanked it off the ceiling where you were just a-layin' there takin' it all in and stuffed you back in your bleedin' carcass!"

Linn was silent for several long moments.

"I never told anyone about that," he said slowly.

"I know, but you wrote of it in your Journal, and I have the finished product in my library.  Look" -- she pulled back her coat-sleeve to reveal what he thought to be a bracelet of some sort -- "we're out of time.  I have to get back to my time and you have to go well into the future.  It'll be more than a century after your death. I'll be in uniform -- I won't be dressed like this -- you'll stand at the edge of the crater, you'll stop a terr from killing me and you'll look down at me and tell me that nobody shoots your little girl!"

"Why," Linn said carefully, "would I consider you my little girl?"

"Because Sarah will look exactly like me when she gets her growth, and Sarah is the child of your loins."

"I never told anyone about that."

"You will. You've got the Bible her filthy father traded Filthy Sam for a shot of whiskey.  Look in the front, Her mother kept the family tree there. You'll give her that Bible on her birthday, on Christmas Day, and you'll tell her and Bonnie and Levi that she is the child of your issue."

Two shimmering ovals, tall as a man and just a little more, opened like a cat's pupils.

"I go in the left, you go in the right. When you're done, you'll be brought back, now scoot!"

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller almost ran into the Ambassador.

"Hello again!" she blurted.

"He's been there," the Ambassador said as he removed his pearl-grey cover, "and he's done the deed."

"Thank you."

"We had to keep the time-line in order."  

His smile was as quiet, as gentle, as reassuring, as his voice.

"You have a truly remarkable granddaughter."

Willamina closed her eyes, took a long breath.

"My turn, isn't it?"

"It is."  The Ambassador handed her a shotgun -- English gripped, which she preferred, twelve gauge: she broke open the action, pulled out the paper-hulled cartridge, smiled a little as she did.

"Black powder loads?"

"Of course."

"I need to change clothes."

"In there."

Willamina took the double gun into the changing-room with her, emerged in her riding clothes:  boots and jeans, flannel shirt and vest, Stetson and gunbelt and the twelve-bore carried in the bend of her elbow.

"Forgive my being forward," the Ambassador said frankly, "but you are a remarkably good-looking woman, no matter what you are wearing!"

"Thank you.  Now where am I going?"

"Mars."

Willamina blinked, her mouth dropped open a little.  "I beg your pardon?  Mars?"

The Ambassador nodded.  "One-half Earth gravity, or near enough to it.  No breathable atmosphere, You'll need to wear this -- here, I'll belt it on you."

He swung a heavy belt around Willamina's trim waist, under her vest, fast it up:  he squatted, touched some kind of box on its front.

"This will surround you with a force field. It maintains breathable atmosphere. You could exist a week and have air to breathe, you'd be warm -- we have another module for food and, ummmm ..."

He colored a little, looked away.  "For food and elimination."

"And just what do I do when I arrive on Barsoom?"

The Ambassador laughed.  "You've read Borroughs!"

"Avidly.  Who do I kill?"

"A miner. He'll be in a space suit, he'll have an explosive-tipped lance ready to drive into your granddaughter. He'll have her dead to rights. You'll give him both barrels."

"I don't understand.  My granddaughter?  Marnie?"

The Ambassador nodded.

"Second Sheriff of Firelands, known also as the Second Martian Colony."

The Ambassador turned up his own coat-sleeve, consulted his own watch.

A shimmering oval opened.

"Once you're done, it'll look to Marnie as if you disappeared. Leave the fired hulls on the ground, just pluck them out and drop them. We'll have dinner afterward, and there's a stage presentation of Othello I think you'll enjoy."

Willamina stepped through the iris, disappeared.

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller studied the paper hulls in the sealed plastic baggie, the photographs of bootprints beside them -- slender, with a distinct heel, so very different from the bear paw bootsoles on the atmosphere suits everyone wore.

Sheriff Marnie Keller remembered seeing the miner, his arm cocked for a thrust, knowing she was close, too close, her force-gun was useless --

I'm going to die --

Two almost inaudible *pop* *pop* sounds, movement on her right: the miner flinched, folded, air freezing as it blasted out of his ruined suit, blood frothing out with it and freezing into a lacy spume in the cold, almost nonexistent atmosphere.

Marnie turned to her right, froze.

Her Gammaw --

Gammaw's dead, what's she doing here?

Marnie stared, goggled at her Gammaw as she broke open the double gun, plucked the fired hulls, let them drop:  she looked up at Marnie, and Marnie could hear her --

She's not wearing a suit --

How is she not dead --

She's dead, what's she doing here --

What the hell just happened?

-- Willamina's voice, strong and rich, the way Marnie remembered it --

"NOBODY KILLS MY LITTLE GIRL!"

 

Willamina wore a fine, shimmering, emerald gown, the kind that makes a woman feel all the more feminine: she and the Ambassador had a box seat, the best seat in the house:  it reminded Willamina of the restored theater in Denver, only more genuine.

Their applause was genuine and enthusiastic, for there is no performance like a live performance.

Afterward, drawn by a matched pair of chestnut Morgans, Willamina and the Ambassador went to a particularly good hotel, one with an equally excellent restaurant; Willamina did not recognize the meat, but she delighted in its taste and texture: the mashed potatoes, the vegetables, all were subtly different, as might be expected when grown on a planet other than Earth.

Marnie discovered, eventually, that her Gammaw and the Ambassador had a history.

She never really found out just what that history was, nor that it was the Ambassador that arranged the time travel necessary for Willamina to deliver her granddaughter from the murderous assault of a Martian miner:  all Marnie knew was that, in the moment of her most desperate need, her Gammaw was alive, and she could not explain it.

Somehow she and the Ambassador had a history, and the only time Marnie ever broached the subject, the Ambassador told her with a grave courtesy that a gentleman does not kiss and tell -- even if they didn't kiss.

They had, of course, for Willamina was a widow, and the Ambassador, a widower:  a gentleman does not, however, discuss such things, and the Ambassador took pains to conduct himself as a gentleman.

Out of respect for the man's genteel behavior, we will not presume to do so either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE CHIEF, THE MEDIC AND DELTA PROTOCOL

The Chief was subdued when he came back in the firehouse.

He was greeted with good-natured insults and polishing rags tossed at him:  he caught them neatly, smiling just a little, but made no reply, and so the firehouse grew quiet:  men ceased their tending of the gleaming red Kenworth turbocharged Diesel fire engines, they drew back from their work, watched as the Chief walked with a funereal slowness the length of the equipment bay, ascended the hand-laid brick steps to the kitchen level.

The squad captain squared off as the man approached.

"Nothing to report," he said quietly. "No calls, no runs, no alarms, nothing."

"Well done," Fitz said quietly, then looked around.

"Is there anything that requires my attention?"

Men looked at one another, looked at the Chief:  heads shook, they looked to the Captain, who looked at the Chief and replied, "Not a thing."

"I'll be in my office."

The Chief walked like he had the weight of two worlds on his shoulders; his pace was slow, his face solemn: as his office door closed behind him, men looked at one another with worried expressions.

Fitz didn't look up at the expected knock on his closed portal.

"Yeah," he called -- this, too, was out of character.

Captain Crane came in, closed the door carefully behind him:  he pulled up a chair, sat.

"How'd it go?" he asked quietly.

Fitz was hunched over an open scrapbook -- Cap had never seen it before, he didn't recall seeing it on the Chief's bookshelf -- there were square prints from the days of film cameras, something not commonly seen anymore.

Fitz's eyes were fixed, unseeing, on a page thick with photos.

"We got 'im planted in fine shape," he said distantly.

The Captain nodded.

"Their Chief came up and shook my hand."

Cap nodded again.

"He said 'You might not remember me. My name is Heath Beal.' "

Chief Firzgerald looked up.

"I remembered a Heathie Beal, a little kid on a bicycle who just admired the hell out of us."

"Us?"

"The fire department back home."

"Ah."

"He's Chief now."  Fitz's eyes drifted back to the scrapbook.  "Dear God.  I was a hero to a young boy and he steered his life's course because of what he saw in me."

The Captain nodded slowly.

"That," he agreed, "would be powerful."

 

Shelly Keller checked the squelch on her talkie, slid it on her belt, swung her duty jacket around her shoulders.

"I'm going to run up to the Sheriff's office," she called to her father as he emerged from the Chief's office.  "Back shortly, I'm on talkie!"

Shelly half-ran, half-skipped the length of the firehouse apron, then strode up the sidewalk, smiling: the sun was out, it was chilly yet, but she could smell spring in the air.

Shelly hauled open the outer door, then the inner, waved at Sharon, skipped up to her husband, who was just setting his freshly filled coffee mug on the table in anticipation of her happy hug.

Linn seized his wife in an enveloping embrace, hoisted her easily off the floor: she felt his silent laughter, he set her down, rubbed noses with her:  "How's the best-looking paramedic in seven counties today?"

Shelly tilted her head, then looked serious.

"Linn, please don't make the same mistake my father did."

Sheriff Linn Keller's face was suddenly serious. "What happened?"

Shelly blinked, lowered her hands til they gripped her husband's.

"Daddy blamed himself for Mama's death."

Linn frowned a little, turned his head slightly as if to bring a good ear to bear:  Shelly's Mama was his first death investigation, and if memory served, it was due to a previously undiagnosed heart condition and nothing at all suspicious.

"I told Daddy it wasn't his fault and he couldn't have known and he didn't have a crystal ball and he said he was husband and father and head of household and he should've been able to keep her alive, that's his job, and --"

She looked up at her husband, her eyes pleading.

"Don't make Daddy's mistake," she whispered.

Linn's face was half-past serious and a quarter-til alarmed:  he let go of his wife's hands as if they were hot, he seized her by the wrist, turned, pulled her toward the closed conference room door.

"Sharon," he snapped.  "Conference protocol delta!"

"Roger that," Shelly heard as she was dragged through the door, as the door shut firmly behind them, as Linn towed her to the head of the table, as he pulled out a chair and set her down and went around to the other side of the table.

Linn pulled a long notebook out of his left hip pocket.

Shelly knew what it was.

She'd had a paper shop shear a half dozen steno books down the center line for lawmen's notebooks: one half was the everyday notebook, the other half was the official, into which information was transcribed, minus such things as punch lines to dirty jokes, obscene cartoons, phone numbers of people who shouldn't be mentioned.

Shelly watched with dismay as her husband turned to a clean page, quickly wrote the date, looked at the clock, noted the time, then looked very directly at her.

There was no trace of softness in his expression.

"Shelly," he said, "you told me not to imitate your father's bad example and then you said he blamed himself for your mother's death. What are you telling me here?"

Shelly looked almost shocked.  "Linn," she protested, "are you interrogating me?"

"YOU'RE DAMNED RIGHT I'M INTERROGATING YOU, MRS. KELLER!" Linn said coldly.  "My Mama had the Second Sight and when she spoke of something, she had knowledge behind it. I've learned to look under the words spoken to me, so you tell me right now."

He leaned forward a little.

"You spoke of your father, after your mother's death. Are you going to die on me?"

Shelly blinked, opened her mouth, closed it.  "No," she squeaked.

"Have you knowledge of your impending demise?"

She shook her head.

"Have you information on your mother's death I should know about?"

Again, the shake of the head.

There was a knock on the door:  it was opened from without, a boy came in with a box of doughnuts, set it on the table near the two, scampered out:  he came back in with a tray, and on the tray two mugs, a small carton of milk and a steaming carafe of fresh brewed coffee.

The Sheriff handed him a folded bundle of bills, winked; the lad grinned and scampered back out the door, an unseen hand drew the door shut.

"Delta Protocol," the Sheriff explained, throwing open the box and sliding a napkin across to his wife.  "D for Doughnuts and Don't Bother Us."

Shelly picked up a chocolate iced doughnuts, laid it on the brown napkin, slid it in front of her.

Linn poured both mugs, set one in front of his wife, took the other: he trickled milk into both, reached in, picked up something cinnamon swirly, thick with icing and crushed nuts.

He placed his as well on a napkin.

He neither bit nor slurped, but resumed his pale eyed stare at his wife.

"Shelly," he said, "you are the other half of my heart. I depend on you as my balance wheel and my wise counselor. I have all the fashion sense of a paving brick and you keep me from fashion disaster. There's no way in two hells I could hope to run a household and raise our young without you, so if there is something you need to tell me, tell me now."

Shelly stared long into her husband's face.

"The Chief got back from a funeral today.  He was gone four days. He said the current chief told him he'd become a fireman and a paramedic because of what he saw in Fitz."  Shelly's fingers curled slowly around the slick-glazed mug, grateful for its warmth.

"He looked half sick when he came in."

"He buried an old and very true friend."

Shelly nodded, picked up her coffee, took a sip.

"Yeah," she husked, her eyes drifting off to the side, looking at something over her husband's left shoulder, something a few thousand yards beyond the far wall.

"I was remembering how lost Daddy was after Mom died, how he blamed himself for it."

She looked at Linn, blinked.

"We're all going to die, dearest. All of us. In your line of work, my line of work, it could happen fast."

Linn nodded.

Shelly reached across the table, laid her hands over the backs of her husband's hands, gripped.

"I don't want you dying before me," she whispered.  "I couldn't take it."

Linn turned his hands over, each one gripping the other's.

"I heard of an old couple," Linn said quietly, "who had a his-n-hers rockin' chair on the front porch."

Shelly nodded, listening closely.

"Legend has it she died first as they sat and held hands and rocked, and he was dead in less than an hour, and they found 'em the next day, both of 'em dead, and both of 'em still holdin' hands.  I heard tell they buried 'em in a double coffin."

Shelly's eyes were thoughtful as she nodded.

"If you can't die first and I can't die first, we'll just have to get us one of them double rockin' chairs."

Shelly looked down at her untouched doughnut.

"Do we have to get one today?"

"No, dearest," Linn laughed quietly.  "Not today."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND BILLY CLOSED THE CIRCLE

Sheriff Linn Keller stuck out his hand the way he always had.

Billy gripped the Sheriff's hand, opened his mouth and hesitated, the way he always did.

Linn looked at the Deacon's bench, looked at Billy.

Both men turned, sat.

Billy was considerably younger than the Sheriff.

Linn squinted up at the sky overhead, scanned as much of it as he could see conveniently.

"Mare's tales and mackerel sky," he mused.  "Weather's a-changin'."

Billy nodded.

"Haven't seen you for a while."

Billy grinned -- quick, bright, and Linn saw the eager-to-please boy he'd been, many years ago.

"I got married," he said quietly.

Linn nodded slowly.  

"Pick a good one?"

"She picked me."

"Women tend to do that."

Billy laughed quietly.  "Our anniversary is Sunday."

"Whatever you do," Linn said gently, "do not forget that anniversary!"

"I've got flowers on order.  Today's Friday.  She'll get 'em at work today.  She's a cook at the high school."

Linn laughed quietly.  "Thou'rt wise," he said in an approving voice. "Flowers delivered to the home are fine, but if you really want a woman to appreciate flowers, send 'em to her at work. The other women there will get jealous as hell and they'll hiss like a bunch of cats" -- he made a face, pulled his voice down into his throat -- "Eew! I hate you! My husband never sends me flowers! Eew!"

Billy laughed, looked at the Sheriff -- "You told me that some years ago," he said, "and I never forgot it!"

"Well, I did one thing right, anyway," Linn muttered.

"You did something else right too, Sheriff."

Linn looked sidelong at him, raised an eyebrow.  "Now what did I do this time?"

Billy blinked a few times and he hunched forward, rubbing his palms together, the posture of a troubled young man.

"Sheriff, I don't know if you remember it or not, but I sat here with you when I was maybe in ... I think fourth or fifth grade."

Linn waited while Billy's memory opened up.

"It was ... just after the last day of school."

Linn nodded, a little, to show he was listening.

"I was about as low as a boy can get."

Linn nodded again.

"They had Awards Day on the last day of school, like they always did, and I'd gotten on the Honor Roll every last grading period. Principal Landers gave me a Certificate of Achievement and I just couldn't wait to show it to my Dad."

The light bulb came on and Linn's head came up just a little as he remembered the encounter.

"I was happy as hell. I'd out-scored everyone else.  Top of the class. I worked my butt off to make him proud of me."

"I remember," Linn said gently.  "That was a year's hard work and you did it."

"I did it to make my Dad proud of me," Billy said, "and he asked me how many pair of shoes that certificate would buy. How many groceries can I get if I take that to the store. He said if I can't trade it for goods, it was worthless."

Linn took a long, silent breath.

"I worked hard all year to make him proud of me and he called it worthless."

Linn remembered a crushed, disappointed boy whose father's careless words hurt him more deeply than the man could possibly have known.

"And I remember what you told me."

Linn looked over at Billy, waited.

"You asked if it felt good when Principal Landers gave you that in front of the entire school."

Linn nodded.  "Yes, I did."

"And I told you yes it felt good."

"Yep."

"And you told me when you brag on a man, when you tell him what he's done right, he'll bust his backside to do even better because being bragged on feels pretty damned good."

Linn nodded.  "I've seen that more times than I can count."

"You were right."  Billy looked out across the street.  "I busted my hump to do even better. I made Dean's list every year.  I did it out of rebellion."  His eyes stared at something in the distance, something only he could see.  

"I did that for me."

Linn waited.

"I did it for me.  I never once ever took an award to Dad again and I never expected his praise."  He snorted.  "Sure enough, he never once told me I'd done anything right.  He was sure quick to land on me if something went wrong, but he never praised me, not even once, for doing even one thing right."

"My own father was the same way," Linn said quietly.

Billy looked at the Sheriff, surprised, then understanding settled into place and he realized why the Sheriff spoke as he had to a disappointed, hurt boy.

"We figure on three children."

"Three's a good number."

"And I figure to brag on 'em when they do something right."

"A man ought."

Silence grew between them for several moments, then Billy's cell phone dingled in his shirt pocket.

He pulled it out, swiped it:  a smiling young woman with tear-streaks down her cheeks and a big bunch of flowers held under her chin smiled at him from the screen.

Linn gripped Billy's shoulder.  "You're doin' it right," he said quietly, and rose.  "I'll give you two some privacy."

An older man who knew what it was to have a father make a serious mistake, left a young man whose father made the same mistake: the Sheriff pulled open the heavy glass door and stepped inside, smiling quietly.

He realized Billy just closed a circle for him.

The Sheriff did something right, and Billy spoke of it, and it felt pretty good.

Edited April 22, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MOTORIST ASSIST

Sheriff Linn Keller looked up as a uniformed deputy knocked, stepped into his inner sanctum, closed the door behind.

"You wanted to see me, sir."

Sheriff Linn Keller looked up at Deputy Marnie Keller, his face impassive.

"I need to see your log for" -- he looked at a letter, open beside its Barlow-sliced envelope, on his green desk blotter -- "last month, on the 20th."

Marnie reached into her jacket, pulled out half a steno notebook, sheared vertically down the green line in the center of the page:  she flipped the narrow notekeeper open, paged through a few sheets, nodded, handed it to the pale eyed man behind the desk.

The Sheriff looked at it, handed it back.

"I have a letter here," he said, "from a woman with a hyperactive little boy."

"Yes, sir?"

"She says thank you."

Marnie's grin was instant, bright and wide.

She remembered the pair.

 

Marnie eased the cruiser over behind the car, stopped.

It was a long, empty stretch of road, the kind travelers love to see in brochures, the kind that inspires dread when something goes wrong and a car stops running, and Marnie could see this car was not going much of anywhere, not with that back tire flat as a two day old beer.

Marnie saw a little boy, all bare legs and energy, jumping up and down beside the closed passenger door:  he looked with big delighted eyes at the tan police car, fascinated by all the lights; Marnie shut off the forward facing lights, all but the red-and-blues in the grille, but left all the rear-warning lights on.

 

"It seems you featured large in a traveler's blog," Linn said quietly.

"Trust me to cause trouble," Marnie said neutrally. 

"You might want to read this."

Marnie raised an eyebrow, smiled.  "Do I really want to read it, or do you just go to kicking my backside all over the office?"

"Sounds too much like work."  Linn rose.  "Marnie ... you want to read this."

Marnie frowned a little as he handed her back her narrow notebook:  she slid it back into her inside jacket pocket, came around her Daddy's desk.

He held the back of his chair, motioned her to sit.

Marnie sat, leaned forward, left elbow laid across her Daddy's green desk blotter, frowned at the glowing screen, then laughed.

The blog started with her picture, a shot she didn't realize the motorist had taken.

 

Marnie called in the plate, marked in as out-of-the-cruiser, motorist-assist: Snowdrift flowed out behind her, and she closed the driver's door, the curly cord microphone hanging out the open window, an old trick her Uncle Will taught her, a trick she never, ever failed to use.

The subject vehicle's driver's door opened and a worried-looking, tired-looking mother swung her legs out, anxiety on her face and relief in her voice:  "I've got a flat," she said, "and there's no cell service!"

Marnie nodded, held up a finger, went around back of the woman's car, tilted her head and looked at the little boy, gripping the passenger door handle and bouncing on his toes:  he had big eyes, a broad grin, he was the very image of contained energy, and Marnie went up to him, stuck out her hand.

"Hi!" she said.  "I'm Marnie!"

The little boy let go of the door handle, grabbed her hand, shivering and almost dancing with excitement.

"I'm Jimmy!" he declared.

"Jimmy, I could use your help!"

"Okay!"

Jimmy's hand was warm, almost hot, it gripped hers tightly as Marnie walked the two of them back around the rear of the woman's car.

"Jimmy and I have to set some flares," she said, "we'll be right back!"

 

Marnie read the blog, smiling a little as she did:  Linn stood back, arms folded, smiling as he saw that gentle expression on his little girl's face.

Grown woman she was, Deputy Sheriff she was, damned good at what she did, she was ... but in this moment he allowed himself to be less the Sheriff and more a proud daddy.

 

If you have to have a breakdown in Colorado, she read, I found the only place in the world worth breaking down.

I found they have the tallest State Troopers, the nicest deputies, the warmest dogs and the fairest garages anywhere.

I ran over a drywall clip on the longest, emptiest stretch of no-cell-service roadway outside of the Gobi Desert.

If the US Military ever wanted to stop an enemy convoy, they only need airdrop drywall clips.

My son is hyperactive and ADHD, I've never changed a tire in my life, I didn't see any houses, stores, stations, coyotes or tumbleweeds, and my little boy was laughing and thinking we were on a grand adventure.

He wanted to get out of the car.

I didn't want to footrace a seven year old, so I told him he could stand outside the car, but only if he held onto the door handle.

Marnie nodded thoughtfully; she remembered that energetic grade-schooler, gripping the door handle and jumping up and down like a grinning, juvenile, perpetual motion machine.

The nicest deputy sheriff stopped.

She made sure I was okay and then she went around and shook hands with my son, and she introduced him to the biggest, whitest police dog I've ever seen in my entire life, and then she harnessed my hyperactive little boy's endless energies and had him help her with changing my tire.

Marnie laughed quietly, remembering the delighted laughter of a happy child as Snowflake laundered the lad's ears.

As a mother I would never have allowed a child anywhere near something as dangerous as a highway flare.

The deputy had my son hold a cluster of them while she struck one into eye-searing life.

She ran with my little boy, ran with that polar bear sized dog up the roadway, ran the length of a football field and stopped:  I watched as she had him pull the cap off a flare, as she scratched it into life, she had him lay it down at the roadside and then they lit another flare from the first.

She had him hold it, she had him extend it out at arm's length, she trusted him with something as dangerous as a flare -- while she held his other hand and the other two flares -- they ran together and I heard them both laughing, and they ran another football field away and placed flares until finally four red, smoking, eye-burning warning beacons stretched away from us.

They ran back, my little boy's sandals slapping on the pavement, the deputy running easily behind him, her big white police dog surging beside him.

The deputy was constantly talking with my little boy, she was constantly having him hand her a tool, a lug nut, she had him turn the jack handle and I saw the look on his face as he realized his efforts -- his efforts! -- were bringing our car off the ground! -- she had him squat down and look under the car and she showed him where the painted arrow was that pointed to where the jack fit to lift the car.

I have never seen my son with such an intense expression of attention, of learning, of delight.

She changed my tire and she made it look easy, and then she snatched my son up and spun him around, they were both laughing and her big white dog was dancing with them, and I managed to take a good picture of the moment.

My little boy is hyperactive, my little boy is diagnosed ADHD, but my little boy learned something that day.

He learned that he can be accepted, and he learned that it's okay to run.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller scrolled back to the picture at the beginning of the blog.

There were four pictures through the length of her account, but this one, the one at the very beginning, was his favorite.

Marnie had a little boy in her grip, she had him hoist up so they were nose to nose, she was spinning them around:  a little boy in short pants and a T-shirt, a little boy laughing, and his little girl laughing with him, silhouetted against a flawless Colorado sky with white-capped mountains on the horizon behind:  it was a dynamic shot, motion frozen by the magic of photography, but looking at this picture, Sheriff Linn Keller could hear the delighted, squealing laughter of a happy little boy, and the happy laughter of his daughter, his little girl, a grown woman in her own right.

He remembered Marnie's account in her field notebook.

Date, time, location, plate, make/model/color, and the lengthy, detailed account:

Motorist assist.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AN ABSOLUTE TRUTH

"Now what's a boy like you doin' all dressed up fancy-like?"

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller felt the flesh tighten a little on his face and he knew his eyes were dead-white pale.

He stopped, turned, brought those polished-granite eyes around: he tilted his head back slightly, ever so slightly, just enough so the speaker could see his eyes.

Jacob knew when he did, he'd be a target, likely for a punch or for a grab.

He was ready.

Nobody saw his move -- well, they saw him move, but they weren't sure exactly how he moved.

Nobody missed the speaker going over the hitch rail.

Jacob stood, still, unmoving, a lean figure in a black suit, calmly regarding the other two in front of the Carbon Hill saloon.

Hitting a hard packed dirt street flat on your back will generally knock the drunk out of a man.

Some men, unfortunately, will not lose the stupid when they lose the drunk, especially when they've got a good head of bullyrag a-goin'.

This fellow was one such.

He came off the ground, fighting to get air into his shocked lungs, snarling his anger, glaring at the young man in a tailored black suit with the look of someone who intended great harm.

Jacob stood, relaxed, silent, as the fellow who challenged his attire and his youth, decided to express his displeasure with interpersonal conflict instead of mere words.

Jacob twisted, seized the fellow's wrist and shoulder, and dumped him over an extended foot: instead of landing flat on his back on packed dirt, the landing was face first on warped, dried, splintered boardwalk.

Jacob walked past him, three paces past, turned, stood.

A bloodied face raised, snarling: wet and incarnadined lips parted, revealing stained, yellowed, and now blood-gleaming teeth.

Jacob laid a hand on his flat belly, his little finger pioneering under the edge of the open coat.

"DON'T DO IT MATTHEWS!" came the shout, but too late: shouted words were punctuated by the heavy concussion of a .44 revolver, and the attacker collapsed.

Law and Order Harry Macfarland sauntered across the street, shaking his head.

Jacob punched the empty out of his left hand Colt, dunked in a fresh cartridge: he clicked the cylinder around, eared the hammer back, lowered it on the empty chamber, holstered.

Harry stopped beside the dead man's carcass.

He looked at the knife still clenched in the dead man's hand.

He looked at the others, standing shocked, wide-eyed: he looked around at staring faces, curious expressions.

One of the men standing behind the dead man shook his head.

"You poor fool," he said sadly.  "I tried to tell you."

Law and Order Harry Macfarland looked up at Jacob.

"Saw the whole thing," he said.  "He wanted a fight soon as he saw you."

Jacob looked at the town marshal, nodded, very slightly, just enough so Harry could see it.

"You tried to educate him."

Again that single, shallow, nod, no more than a quarter of an inch of hat brim travel.

"He come up with a knife."

Once more, that silent, shallow nod.

Harry walked over to Jacob, laid a fatherly hand on his shoulder.

"He gave you no choice."

"I know," Jacob said quietly. 

The body was dragged into the dead wagon, dirt scattered over the bloodied boardwalk: men walked back into the saloon, men who talked about the things that men do: laughter again, an out of tune piano, poker chips.

Two men, and only two, were subdued from what just happened.

"Damned fool," one said.  "I tried to tell him."

"You tried," the other agreed.

"Ain't nobody comes out good when they tangle with them pale eyed lawmen."

The other nodded: they each raised their beer and drank to what they knew to be an absolute truth.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE BLIND CAN SEE

Angela's eyes snapped open.

She went from sound asleep to wide, screaming-GET-ME-OUT-OF-HERE AWAKE! in a tenth of a second or less.

She threw the covers off, rolled out of her bed, landed flat on the floor: Sarah told her and told her and told her again that her fiancée, Daffyd Llewellyn, taught her, "In a fire, the only breathable air is next to the floor" -- she fell through layering smoke, landed on her belly, palms against the carpet: she heard running feet, shouts, a voice!

Someone hammered on the hotel room door -- "ANGELA! ANGELA, ROLL OUT, THE HOTEL IS AFIRE!" -- Angela twisted, curled up, seized a shoe, thrust her stockingfoot into it, found and fumbled the other, found it again, thrust in, scrambled to the door: the hammering again, a young, near-panicked woman's voice, Angela turned the key, turned the knob, fell back away from the door.

A woman fell in, coughing, seized Angela's wrist, pulled:  Angela was in no mood to resist this sudden summons: she surged to her feet and the two ran down the hall, coughing, eyes burning, twisting to avoid panicked, half-dressed souls stampeding for the stairway.

Angela dropped to her knees, bent over, disciplining her breathing.

"I have the key here," the voice said, and Angela looked around.

The gas lights were out -- if the hotel was afire, the gas supply must've been turned off -- it was dark in the hotel hallway, it was nighttime out and windows only at the ends of the hallways were useless:  Sarah heard the scrape of a key in a lock.

"How can you see in this?" Angela gasped, her face to the carpet.

She heard the door lock snap open, felt a rush of clear air:  "I can't," the woman husked.

"My name's Judith. I'm blind. Will you trust me?"

"You're damned right I'll trust you!" Angela coughed.

They went out on the outside stairway, clattered quickly down, then a landing, down further:  Angela marveled at how sure her guide was in the utter blackness of the enclosed stairwell.

They came to the bottom, came to the door.

"Locked," her guide hissed, frustrated.

"Does it open in or out?" Angela asked.

"It opens out."

"Move aside."

Angela laid down on her back, found the doorknob with her toes: she brought her legs up umtil her knees touched her chest, drove her heels into the door just side the doorframe, hard.

Angela was the daughter of the pale eyed Sheriff, a co-conpirator of the pale eyed Black Agent: Angela was in the City helping Sarah with an investigation, and Angela knew it was possible for those she sought, to come after her: she'd already adopted the mindset that, anyone coming after her, would be given serious cause to regret any such action, and so she drove her horsewoman's legs as hard as she could into the door.

She hit wood with her hard little heels.

The door shivered, bowed out, sprang back.

Angela drew up, hit the door again.

Wood splintered, the door flew open, hard, slammed against a stop: window glass, insulted beyond its ability to resist, shattered away from the ladies.

Angela rolled up onto her feet, turned to her companion.

"Judith," she said, "are you hurt?"

"I am not," Judith replied archly, "where are we now?"

"The alley beside the hotel.  Where do we go from here?"

"I have to go back."

"Judith! Are you daft?"

"No, I'm blind!"  Judith snapped.  "I'm the only one who can see in the dark! You're outside, you stay out, just get me back in there!"

Angela seized Judith's wrist, pulled: 

"Run!"

Two young women, one in a plain gown and the other in her frillies and stockings, ran for the front of the hotel, ran for the crowd gathering to gawk and to point and to shout.

Angela pushed through the crowd -- she was loud, she was angry, she was far less than polite -- a young woman, undressed, at the scene of a conflagration, can get away with that -- Angela and Judith fought their way to the front doors, where a black-slickered fireman tried to block them.

Angela stomped on his foot -- hard -- Judith scampered inside, one hand out, fingertips just grazing the long desk inside the front door: she made a beeline for the stairs, almost tripping over one hoseline:  Angela pulled back, put two fingers to her lips, whistled, three high, shrill notes, sliding down a little between each shrilling peak.

Men shouted, swore; fire roared out of broken windows, smoke ascending into the night sky: Angela turned as an angry voice, as a Winchester rifle with a pale-eyed Agent of the Court attached, fought its way through the crowd, as Sarah Lynne McKenna profaned man and woman alike and laid about with a crescent butt plate and a rifle's muzzle.

The Black Agent's arm ran around her younger relative's shoulders, Angela seized Sarah, shivering: she pulled back, looked to the open doors of what was a fine and fashionable hotel and gasped, "Sarah, Judith went back in there!"

Sarah looked up at hell roaring hungrily out the windows, saw a burst of sparks that meant it just broke through the roof.

"Who the hell is Judith!"  Sarah demanded.

Angela drew herself up, shoved herself against Sarah:  "SHE'S THE BLIND WOMAN WHO GOT ME OUT OF THERE!"

"God help her," Sarah whispered.

Angela pushed for the doorway again, peering in:  "JUDITH, CAN YOU HEAR MEEEEE?"

Sarah shoved her way through, glared at a young policeman who tried to stop them, until he recognized the Black Agent, touched his shining, soot-spotted cap brim:  "WAY THERE! MAKE WAY, LET US THROUGH!"
Angela stared into the smoke-layered lobby, clapped her hands to her mouth, gave a little squeak.

Something -- something moved, there at the stairs, at the very limit of visibility --

"JUDIIIITH!"

Silence laid like a blanket over the crowd, shocked into stillness by the desperation in the undressed young woman's shrill, throat-ripping scream.

Sarah laid a hand on her back, squinting into the smoky haze.

A woman in a rather plain gown was coming down the stairs toward them, a bunched cloth over her face: with the fire through the roof, the smoke pulled suddenly up and away, and Sarah saw, as it cleared --

-- it was Judith.

In the lead.

She had one hand holding the cloth to her face, the other hand behind her.

A man held her hand, his other hand, a woman's: six there were, and the moment they saw light, they made for the open door.

Angela ran inside:  "Judith!" she shouted.

Judith pulled the wet cloth from her face:  "There are more," she gasped, pulled viciously away from Angela's grip, Judith turned: she staggered for the stairs, found the bottom step, reached for the bannister, disappeared.

"Noooo," Angela groaned, and Sarah seized her arm.

"Out," Sarah commanded, dragging Angela by main strength toward the front door.

"JUDIIIITTHHH!" Angela wailed: she buried her face in Sarah's bodice, wept loudly and with absolutely no care for the spectacle she must be making.

A reporter was speaking urgently to the recent evacuees, scribbling on a pad: Sarah glared at him, drew Angela back:  an anonymous voice said something, then a man's coat was laid over Angela's shoulders:  she drew it around herself, looking up the front of the building at three floors of hell:  bright sparks floated up on the hot breath of a fully involved, wood structure fire.

"Judith," she whispered, tears streaking down her face.

 

Chairs were salvaged from the lowest floor; Angela sat on one, on the sidewalk outside, staring at the front doors, wishing absently for one of the Abbottt's Rosary strings: her fingers could at least count the beads, do something! -- 

There was a stir at the door: the crowding throng shifted, parted.

A woman, carrying a child in each arm, staggered through the parting of a human sea:  behind her, four more, one held the back of Judith's belt with one hand, the other hand to the rear, holding another salvaged soul's hand.

Judith came through the crowd, stopped.

Her hair was singed, her dress showed signs of having been scorched, smoked: her face was probably red, though it was hard to tell with the poor lighting.

Angela was on her feet and running, a young woman in a man's coat:  "JUDIIITH!" she screamed.

Judith turned toward her.

Anonymous hands removed the shivering children from the blind woman's arms.

Angela stopped, staring, as Judith's unseeing eyes rolled up in her head, and caught her as she fell:  Angela went over backwards, grunted as they hit the sidewalk, Judith limp and unconscious on top of her.

 

Angela Keller looked up from the podium, smiled a little, touched the control that brought the next slide to the glowing screen behind her.

"Judith married one of the Denver firemen who went into that hotel fire," she smiled. "This is the formal portrait commissioned by the Fire Chief himself."  

She nodded to the notes she'd compiled from newspaper accounts, from letters, from other sources she'd learned to find, thanks to her pale eyed Gammaw's ancestry research.

"The Chief himself stood with the fireman who married her," Angela smiled.  "He said that if anyone was going to save lives in his town, she'd have to be part of the Fire Department, and this was the best way to make that happen."  Angela referred to her notes, looked at the big screen, at the portrait of a young woman in a pearl-decorated wedding gown, a woman who looked unseeing eyes very directly at the camera, at a stern young man in a tailored suit, with a fireman's speaking-trumpet, pressed-leather helmet and fire ax in the background.

"Sometimes," Angela concluded, "the blind can see better than we can!"

Edited April 25, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NOT WHAT YOU USUALLY HEAR

Jacob Keller's eyes were pale and hard beneath his graduation mortarboard.

"You made it happen," Principal Landers said quietly, "and you made it look easy. Thank you."

"I like to keep my people out of trouble," Jacob said neutrally.

"How would you like to pull us out of another one?"

"What do you need?"

Principal Landers took a long breath, blew it out, looked away, looked back.

Jacob listened carefully to the man's words, accepted the small stack of file cards, nodded.

"I'll do it."

He and the principal walked to the center of the stage.

Principal Landers stopped behind the podium; Jacob stood beside him, and no one looking at the pair failed to notice the principal looked uncomfortable, and Jacob looked like he was relaxed, quiet, and perfectly capable of breaking the man in two and tossing the halves to the sides of the stage.

"Due to circumstances beyond our control," Landers said, clearing his throat and looking over at Jacob, "neither our valedictorian nor our salutatorian are present tonight. We have asked Jacob Keller to speak in their place."

Principal Landers backed away, took a step to the side:  Jacob tilted his head back enough to allow the man to see his eyes, then winked.

Somehow this didn't make the principal feel any better.

Jacob looked at the stack of file cards in his hand, smiled quietly:  the murmuring of the graduation night audience subsided.

Jacob looked up, grinned.

"Before I begin, a disclaimer," he announced, his voice pitched to carry:  "a family emergency has deprived us of two fine, polished speeches.  Our designated speechmakers are twins, and they are on the East Coast due to a family emergency.  Those of us who are inclined to such things, I'd take it kindly if you'd bend a knee on the family's behalf.

"This" -- he held up the stack of file cards -- "contains the notes so I can give their fine, polished speeches for them."

Jacob began to shuffle the file cards like a Kentucky gambler shuffles a poker deck."First of all, the legalities: the courts have consistently held that anything said from this bully pulpit" -- he thumped the hardwood podium with his knuckles -- "does not reflect on the State, the school district, the school, superintendent, principal or teachers thereof.  In other words --"  again that quick, brilliant grin -- "if I end up balancing on one foot, holding the podium with both hands because my other hind hoof is between the pearly whites, that's entirely on ME, and does not reflect at all on the fine folks behind me."

Jacob set the cards down, held up two fists, released one finger with each point he then made:

"In other words, if I come out with something rude, crude, socially unacceptable, illegal, immoral or fattening, that's entirely on ME and not at all on the Firelands School District, the high school, the administration or anyone else.  Okay so far?"

He looked around, nodded.

"Okay.  Show of hands, now, how many here have ever in their lives heard a valedictory or salutatory speech?"

Hands went up.

Jacob turned, looked at the uncertain administrators behind him.

"What, none of you have heard one?"
Hands went sheepishly up.

"Okay, hands down."  Jacob began shuffling the cards again.

"I've heard 'em.  Here's where we came from, here's what we've done, here's what we want to do in our bright and shining future, and thank you everyone for getting us here." 

He stacked the cards again.

"I don't know about you, but I don't like to plow the same ground twice."  He held up the cards, looked at them, looked at the audience, laughed.

"It's common to put your speech making notes on these cards, so let me talk about making speeches."  He set the cards down again. "The one greatest fear, coast to coast, border to border, according to a certain three letter agency that keeps track of such things, found that people fear ONE THING more than a root canal, a used car salesman, or an IRS audit."  Jacob looked at his fellows, ranked in caps and gowns, most looking at him with a little puzzlement.

"That one greatest fear is public speaking.  

"Now, my father taught me some things about public speaking.  First" -- he looked very directly at his pale eyed Pa -- "he said the best speech he ever heard was also the briefest. Corollary to that, the longer the speaker's wind, the harder those chairs get."

Jacob laughed quietly; laughter rippled like a welcome breeze through the auditorium, and he heard muted chuckles behind him as even the administrators realized the truth of his words.

"This won't be the best speech you've ever heard, but it'll be in the top ten. 

"When a class is graduated and given their diplomas, right up here in front of God and everybody, they're all told the same thing."  

He leaned out over the podium, forearms pressed down on the slanted surface, fingers wrapped over the edge, his lips beside the microphone to keep from overriding the pickup.
"They are told to go forth and make their mark on the world.

"I," he said, leaning back, "will tell you NO SUCH THING!"

Jacob Keller raised a dramatic arm, shook his finger at the rippled curtains overhead.

"I will tell you that one year from tonight, another class will sit where you are now.
"I won't tell you to make your mark and hurry up about it because in one year another class will be told the same thing.  I'll tell you that all we have is NOW. Tomorrow's not here yet, yesterday is gone forever. Right now is all we have, so here is my entire message, and we're almost done."

A pause; half the graduates leaned forward a little -- listening more closely than they did in class.

"Do the very best you can, right now, because it's all we've got to work with."

 

Jacob rose from having gone down on one knee, beside a classmate's wheelchair.

He'd taken a knee to press the just-graduated girl's hands between his own.

Katherine was trying hard not to make her mascara run: she whispered her thanks, carefully pressed a crumpled paper hankie to one closed eye, then the other.

Jacob winked again, then rose, bent over, hugged her:  his lips were very near her ear and she felt his breath as his words slipped into her ear and wrapped themselves around her heart.

"You are one of us, Katherine. No way will we let you down!"

Jacob straightened, looked an approving father in the eye and shook his hand.

"Thank you," Jim Palmer said. "That was a good speech, too."

Jacob nodded.  "Thank you, sir."

"I think that was the best graduation speech I've ever heard!"

Jacob laughed quietly. "That was the idea, sir. Principal Landers took a risk asking me to speak on their behalf."

"Will they give your diploma since you deviated from the prepared speech?"

Jacob reached under his gown, pulled out the stack of file cards, handed them to Mr. Palmer: he turned, gripped his pale eyed Pa's hand.

"Well said," Linn said quietly, approval in his voice and in his expression.

"You were right about public speaking, sir."

Palmer sorted through the cards, frowned, turned them over, riffled quickly through them, looked at Linn.

"Katherine ..."  Jacob hesitated, looked at the girl's father as he handed Jacob back the stack of blank file cards.

"Some dedicated idiot packed off the portable wheelchair ramp and I don't know where they put it. I put together a squad of Willamina's Warriors and we carried her up the stairs to the stage, they slipped around behind the stage and met her at the far end, carried her down the stairs and into the hallway."  Jacob's eyes hardened and so did his jaw. "There is no way in two hells I was going to deprive her of crossing that stage and getting her diploma with the rest of us!"

 

Two months later, Principal Landers stopped in the All-Night, saw Jacob:  Jacob turned, handed the man a freshly drawn coffee.

The two men looked at one another and they both laughed.

"I was never able to thank you," Landers said as he trickled half-and-half into his large coffee.

"Trust me to cause trouble," Jacob grinned.

"You were the only one I trusted to speak at Graduation."

"You trusted me, sir.  I wasn't about to let you down."

Landers raised one eyebrow, took a tentative sip.

"Careful you don't scald the hair off your tongue," Jacob cautioned, and Landers swallowed quickly, set his cup down, laughed.

"The Superintendent asked me why I asked you to speak," Landers said as he carefully worked a sippy cap on his coffee cup.  "After you spoke, the man was trying hard not to laugh ... he told me later that was the one best graduation address he'd ever heard!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SHORT SUPPLIES

Dr. John Greenlees Jr was restless.

It hadn't been a particularly difficult day; he hadn't had to treat anyone crushed from the waist down in a roof fall, no one came to him with a torniquet around the stub of one arm, the remainder of the arm carried by a fellow miner: no one was brought into his sickbay with a steel rod through their middle -- all of these he'd handled, all but one survived: he'd worked minor miracles with limited supplies, he'd benefitted greatly from Confederate generosity, but ultimately the health of the colony depended on him, and he took that responsibility seriously.

His wife was a marvelous asset, especially with the inevitable mental issues.

She'd most recently talked a suicidal colonist out of blowing the hatch on an airlock -- she'd convinced him that violent decompression would not only be both suffocating, as well as unbelievably painful, but it would make one hell of a mess, and that airlock was her personal clean-up zone, and he didn't think so poorly of her as to make that much work for her, now, would he? -- and when the colonist opened the inner door and looked at her, he told her she was wasted as Sheriff, she should be selling used cars.

Dr. John Greenlees Jr. looked over at his sleeping wife and smiled, remembering how she'd brought him back inside, how she'd set him down, just the two of them, how she'd gotten him to talk -- something he'd not done with anyone for better than a month.

Dr. John looked over on his wife's desk, frowned.

Bare feet silent on plasticrete flooring, he slipped behind his wife's desk, staring at something he hadn't seen in quite some time.

Until they'd set up trade relations with the Confederacy, everything -- everything! -- was in short supply.

Marnie was a gifted artist, Dr. John knew, and one thing that hadn't been deemed essential was a sketch book -- not when every ounce, every fraction of an ounce, was said to cost tons of fuel: it was a fine and delightful day when the Ambassador gifted Marnie with good eggshell paper and charcoals.

Dr. John eased himself down in her chair, opened the cover.

He smiled at the image -- safe behind fixative, charcoal smears terribly -- of Marnie receiving the book from the Ambassador: the man was rendered flawlessly:  the exact drape of his coat, the wrinkles in his trousers, his ceremonial belt-and-saber with the twist draw revolver on his right side: she'd captured his expression, she'd captured her own, and Dr. John smiled again to see the look of almost girlish delight on his wife's face.

All this, from the skill of her hands.

I'm lucky to draw a stick figure, he thought.

How can she bring such life to a flat image?

Dr. John turned the page, turned another.

He felt a sense of dread, he felt utter soaring triumph, he felt crushed, lost, alone, he felt surprised ...

This page, with Marnie in her issue pressure suit, laughing behind the bubble visor as she leaped like a happy schoolgirl, and he remembered her jumping, powering off the Martian surface like she'd never been able to jump back on Earth.

Turn the page.

There she was, grim-faced, hands tight on the flat, saucer-shaped skimmer's controls: a figure on the sidehill, arm upraised; another page, the lance, just driving into the skimmer, the miner's lance blasting a shaped-charge plasma jet through her swift little craft: the skimmer, in mid-tumble, a suited figure thrown free, just landing on her back, then the view -- Marnie's view, over her stun-pistol -- the stun-bolt searing uselessly skyward, caught by one of the only remaining magnetic anomalies on the entire damned planet.

He nodded as he turned the page and saw a familiar figure.

Marnie's grandmother.

She captured this moment flawlessly as well.

There, the miner, driving forward with the shaped charge on the end of his lance, aiming to bust a hole through Marnie's middle like he'd done to the first Sheriff and a deputy: Willamina's face, grim and determined and incredibly like Marnie's, pale eyes open and fixed on the miner just as the heavy shot charge departed the left hand shotgun barrel.

This page ... Marnie standing and looking at a dainty set of boot prints; there, her pressure-gloved hand holding the clear-plastic evidence bag with two fired shotgun shells within.

Dr. Greenlees read, fascinated: one page, another, devouring Marnie's account of their life on Mars: their joys, their sorrows -- here she was drawn back around a little bulge in a rock wall, revolver in hand, lips drawn back in a silent snarl -- she wore her Olympic skinsuit, she looked like the image of a warrior-goddess, her six-point star embossed over the left breast, a .357 in her right hand, and Doc knew the drawing of the Smith & Wesson in her fist was absolutely correct, in every respect.

He didn't know guns that well, but he knew his wife.

Another -- the revolver rising in recoil, the enemy golem-suit leaning to the side as the slug drove a puff of vapor through the brain of the entity within, carried the occupant's life out the other side in a bloody spray.

Doc stopped and swallowed hard as he saw himself, bent over one of the treatment tables, two small and sheeted figures on it:  he remembered the moment, when he received their children, killed when the invaders blew a hole in the pressure dome, when most of their atmosphere screamed out the ragged hole and more than just their children died as a result.

Doc turned the page and swallowed hard.

Confederate technology and reverse-engineering of alien equipment left behind on Mars, gave them the ability to rip matter apart at the subatomic level, then reassemble into whatever they needed -- food, air, water, elements, compounds, whatever it was, they could manufacture now, but they needed raw ingredients.

Their children -- indeed, all the Colony's dead -- went into the Recyler.

He saw Marnie looking into a bowl of soup and seeing her son's face, looking at a cloud of vapor from an atmosphere grid and seeing their daughter's image, just before she breathed it in.

He frowned as he turned another page.

Marnie as a child, as a little girl, in a torn and dirty dress -- running, fearful -- a close-up of her running through a minefield, detonators just visible above the sandy surface -- she ran a zigzag through barbed wire tangles, she jumped a log barricade, dropped behind a belt fed machine gun.

The scared little girl pulled a helmet over her head.

A close-up of a child's hand seizing a lever, pulling back, a highly-detailed, close-up image of the tripod mounted Browning running into battery, then the little girl in the oversized helmet, low behind the weapon, looking out over the only approach to her little cave: her teeth were clenched, her expression fierce, and the caption beneath:

"Leave me alone, damn you!"

He paged through the book, seeing himself, his fellow colonists: here he was, laughing as he held up a newborn child, and he remembered the moment, the first child born here: there, Marnie sitting beside a discouraged looking man, the airlock in the background: Marnie laughing with the other colonists -- Dr. John grinned and nodded, for here, here Marnie was in a dress and heels instead of her white skinsuit, she was in mid-twirl at one of their square dances -- there, in the background, Gracie, in her ever-present black helmet, but with her beloved fiddle under her chin, spinning magic and music for the dancers: Doc marveled at the dancers, so perfectly frozen, women's skirts flared, hair floating as they spun, and Doc remembered that night, how his wife looked at him the way a woman will when she is where she most wants to be.

Dr. John Greenlees closed the book.

It was mostly full.

He made a mental note to ask the Ambassador, as a personal favor, if he could get his wife another sketch book, and more charcoals and fixative.

This time, though, he would pattern the sketch book and charcoals so they could make as many of them with their own machinery as they might need.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

OUTLAW RUN

Angela Keller giggled as the Irish engineer reached up and brought her out of the saddle.

Angela was the Sheriff's little girl and she was young enough to be what Linn called "Built Kind of Close to the Ground," and she was not yet long legged enough to reach the mounting block behind the firehouse, so when the Irish engineer looked out the back window of their kitchen, he grinned, flipped the dishtowel over his shoulder and pushed out the back door where Angela came up on her Daddy's black Outlaw-horse.

"Now what are you doin' here on a schoolday?" Muldoon asked, squatting: he was red-faced, red-haired, he had bright blue eyes and a winning smile, and he had a little girl about the same age as Angela.

Angela planted her knuckles on her belt and said "I'm on my way to school but I wanted to see Mommy first 'cause she was runnin' late this mornin'!"

"Well now, I think we can help out there," Muldoon declared, rising:  an Irish engineer and a delighted schoolgirl joined hands and made for the back door on a fine spring day that smelled of mountains and blossoms and green growing things.

Sheriff Linn Keller had just picked his wife up and given her a little shake, and felt more than heard the rippling pops that meant her spine was decompressing:  Shelly gave a surprised little OW that feels so good!" and her Daddy, the Captain, looked across the room with big surprised eyes and declared, "I heard that one!"

Linn picked up the flat cardboard box, carried it to the table, hoisted the lid and laid it aside, baring fresh, still-warm cinnamon rolls from Frank Grubbs' bakery:  eager hands reached for the breakfast treat, all but Shelly, who looked at her husband with a red face and redder ears.

She was still recovering from the 24 hour bug and she didn't feel completely up to speed, and she'd spent too long in the bunk:  Linn had breakfast ready, everyone ate and ate well, all but Shelly, who grabbed a slice of toast and ran out the door, complaining bitterly about how good her mattress felt:  the Keller young looked at the door as it SLAMMED shut, then they looked at Linn, standing at the head of the table, as if expecting to see a little dust-devil where his wife had just been:  he looked around at his several young and said quietly, "Do you think she'd be happier if I dumped some gravel in her bed so it wouldn't feel so good?" -- his expression was somewhere between innocent and sorrowful, and then he dropped on eyelid shut and let his mouth sag open, and his several offspring laughed, giggled or grinned:  rotten humor is an art form, and Linn practiced it often.

At least in private.

Angela pulled back against the big shining stainless-steel gas oven as the howler went off.

"FIRELANDS FIRE DEPARTMENT EMERGENCY SQUAD, ACETYLENE TANK INJURY, BOOB TAYLOR'S PLACE, TIME OF CALL ZERO SEVEN TWENTY EIGHT."

Angela knew to keep herself as small as possible:  Linn looked at his wife.

"Grab the backpack," he snapped.  "Angela, we need your horse. Captain! Meet us there, we can beat the squad!"

Angela looked at her Mommy -- disappointment showed on her young face -- she looked to the right, looked at the Captain.

Captain Crane lifted his chin.

Angela ran around the right hand side of the big long table, down into the squad bay: she swarmed up into the passenger front seat, looked at her Grampa as a voice came over the station speakers.

It was Muldoon.

"ALL HANDS NOW HEAR THIS, EMPTY THE HOUSE, FULL RESPONSE, ROLL EVERYTHING WE'VE GOT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"
Angela pulled the seat belt across her, grabbed the aluminum clipboard, began writing as her Grampa snatched up the microphone:

"Dispatch, Firelands Squad one enroute, first response enroute."

 

Linn lengthened the stirrups quickly, with the ease of long practice, with the purposefulness of a man who knew what he was doing, was necessary to keep someone alive.

Shelly was much more used to having her horsepower under the hood, but thanks to her pale eyed husband, she was not a stranger to the saddle.

It wasn't until Linn led, until Outlaw surged under her, until the black gelding leaned out into a gallop that Shelly realized --

-- Outlaw wasn't wearing a bit --

-- she didn't know how to knee-rein a horse --

-- the reins she held weren't doing much good --

Shelly was a dancer, and a good one:  her dancer's instinct bade her move with her mount, her legs gripped the shining-black horse:  she rode with the reins in her left hand, her right on her thigh, the way she'd seen Marnie ride, and she sent a fast, wordless prayer to the Almighty that she might neither fall off, nor guide her horse someplace other than wherever her husband was leading!

 

"You'll never get into Heaven with language like that," Mrs. Taylor said in a quiet and disapproving voice.

Boob Taylor looked up, at the hole in his front porch roof, then he looked down, at the splintered mess on his enclosed porch floor, he looked at what was left of a black acetylene tank, laying on its side, the regulator broken off and missing, then he looked at the bloodied rag his wife was using to stanch the bleeding from the side of his head.

 

Captain Taylor's polished Wellington boot was heavy on the Diesel throttle as he powered around a turn and up a side road.

They hadn't had to use the siren: traffic was almost nonexistent through town, traffic on what paved road they'd run saw them and pulled over in plenty of time: they were on a back road now, making the best time they could without beating the suspension out from under them.

Angela knew where to write the times down, and did: she took pride in her handwriting.

Angela's Daddy would sit her on his lap and they'd write together, and her Daddy schooled her carefully in her handwriting: a child delights in a parent's attention, and when the parent makes the child feel special when they're paying attention, it gives them both a sense of satisfaction, and it gives the child a warm memory they can carry for a lifetime.

Angela's pen-strokes were swift, sure, not at all childlike:  distinctly different from her Mommy's looping, slanted, graceful hand, but very legible, and that's what Angela wanted.

 

Shelly heard her husband swear:  he spat the profanity as if it tasted bad, and then she saw it.

They were coming up behind a house and a garage workshop, and Shelly saw a hole in the garage roof -- ragged, as if something came through the roof, from the inside.

They rode around the house and saw another hole through the porch roof, only this one wasn't ragged.

Something came through the garage roof, arced clear over the house, came through the front porch roof, and likely was still there.

Apple-horse drew up, dancing, blowing:  Outlaw danced to a stop, swapped ends: Shelly kicked out of her left hand stirrup, then tried to catch herself:  Linn's hands caught her under the arms and brought her down, held her until she got her pins under her.

"The backpack," she blurted.  "I'm off balance."

Linn looked at the front door as it opened, as a man holding a bloodied rag to his head leaned against the door casing.

"BOOB!"  Linn shouted.  "YOU HURT?"

"NAH," Boob shouted back. "I PAINTED MY EAR RED AND MADE A MESS OF IT!"

Linn ran up the front steps, barely in time to catch the man as his eyes rolled back and he collapsed.

 

Angela's eyes were big and busy.

She stayed in the cab of the squad until the Irish Brigade arrived with all its big trucks and men running and pointing and throwing up ladders and climbing on the roof, she watched as a man with a bandaged head was loaded on a cot and rolled to the back of the squad:  Angela heard them say that her Mommy had the IV started and had the patient packaged and ready for transport before they arrived.

Angela smiled a little to hear it, and then climbed out of the passenger seat and went over to her Daddy's horsies, and she unwrapped two peppermints and gave one to each of the horsies because she knew her Mommy was going in with the squad and Angela had to get to school and she wasn't sure quite which way the school was from here, but she knew she could find it eventually and maybe her Daddy could get her there.

 

Two grinning schoolboys reached for the smooth, D-shaped door handles.

Two schoolboys pulled, held the doors wide open.

Two horses never broke stride.

An Appaloosa stallion and a shining black gelding took the two cement steps quickly, easily, their steelshod hooves shocking-loud on the polished hallway floor.

Mrs. Cardigan looked up from her attendance book at the sudden cadenced clatter out in the hallway:  puzzled, she looked to the door, then blinked, looked back at the students' names ranked in column on the left side of the attendance book.

"Randi Kranyik," she called.

"Present," Randi piped, then the door shoved open and something with auburn braids, a pleated skirt and a set of saddlebags over one shoulder, scampered in, landed heavily in her seat and looked at the teacher with big, innocent and very pale eyes.

"Angela Keller."

"Present."

Mrs. Cardigan had a schoolteacher's well developed peripheral vision:  something moved to her left, something in the doorway, and she turned her head to look, just as every last student in her classroom looked as well.

A shining black horse's head was thrust through the doorway, looking around.

"Excuse me," Mrs. Cardigan said, "do you have the right room?"

Outlaw-horse blew, shook his head, withdrew; there was the sound of hooves, walking slowly, loudly, the length of the hallway outside; they heard the back doors, the ground-level doors, open, then close.

Mrs. Cardigan looked around, looked back at her attendance book.

"I didn't think that looked like a new student," she murmured.  "Let us continue.  Robin Kaminski, are you here?"

 

The Irish Brigade was assembled in a semicircle, facing their Chief.

Chief Fitzgerald looked from the leftmost man, to the rightmost man: Shelly and her father were in the dead center, and were not spared his serious faced glare.

"You all know I'm prior Navy," he said quietly: there in the bay, he had no need to raise his voice to be clearly heard.

Assents, nods.

"You all know I believe in the chain of command."

Again the nods, the quiet murmured affirmations.

"Muldoon."

The engineer lifted his chin.

"You called an all-hands."

"I did."

"I didn't tell you to call an all-hands."

"Yup."

The Chief took one step toward the engineer, raised his voice.

"YOU DID THE RIGHT THING!"

Fitz took one step back, swung his gaze again.

"Muldoon here knows ol' Boob.  He knows Boob didn't like payin' rent on an acetylene tank.  Muldoon knew about Boob cutting open a tank and dumping the contents, he put in a set of interrupted threads like an artillery breech so he could open it to fill a basket full of calcium carbide and a water drip so he could generate his own acetylene.

"Ol' Boob said his water drip was way too fast and he didn't realize it.

"He looked over as he was runnin' his cuttin' torch and he said the gauge was wound way the hell over in the red zone.

"Boob said he dropped the torch and ran and soon as he got outside he heard that tank blow up behind him.

"He hit his back door and run through the house and out the front door and that tank blew off the concrete garage floor, it blew through the garage roof, come clear over the house and through the porch roof to meet him.  Just caught his head and it's a wonder it didn't bust his collarbone or take out his shoulder."

More men that one heard this for the first time; most of those present turned just a little pale at Fitz's words.

"He must've been leaned forward as he was running. Doc said it should have taken his ear off."

"He bled like a stuck pig," one of the guys muttered.

"Typical for a scalp wound," Crane offered.

"Okay, folks, bottom line.  Muldoon here" -- Fitz thrust a bladed hand at his engineer -- "knew the situation and his gut told him to empty the house. No substitute for personal knowledge."  He looked very directly at the engineer.  "Ya done good."

 

At the day's end, when Angela came laughing and chattering out the big double doors with the rest of her classmates, she looked ahead, then leaned forward into a run, her saddlebags over one shoulder.

Her big strong Daddy was waiting for her, his Apple-horse on his left, his Outlaw-horse on his right, The Bear Killer rolled over on his side, mouth open and tongue out, happily receiving the adulation and belly rubs of several young admirers.

"I shortened up your stirrups," her Daddy grinned.  "Your Mama's legs are some longer'n yours."

"Don't worry, Daddy," Angela said confidently, handing him the carved-leather saddlebags:  "Mommy says I'll grow into 'em and you'll need The Bear Killer and a ball bat to chase the boys away!"

"Oh, your Mommy said that, did she?" Linn said in a mock-serious voice, then he laughed and looked around at the envious young who wished their Daddy would show up at school with a horse just for them.

Linn took his little girl under the arms, swung her up, eased her down into the saddle.

"C'mon, Bear Killer," he called as he threw his own leg over the hurricane deck, "there's ice cream ain't been et yet!"

The Bear Killer surged to his feet, shook, gave a happy woofing sound of agreement.

Two horses and a big, black, curly furred Bear Killer pointed their noses toward beautiful downtown Firelands, home of commerce and industry and hub of learning and culture, and also an old fashioned ice cream parlor inside their shining, chrome-and-mirrors, retro drugstore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A LITTLE LONGER

Angela Keller was a voracious reader.

Most children of superior intelligence, are: her brothers all read, her Daddy read, her Mommy read and Angela had very good memories of sitting on her Daddy's lap and looking at words on a page before she could read, and hearing his big deep rumbly Daddy-voice as he read softly to her, as she relaxed, as she fell asleep on Daddy's lap, warm and safe and then she was carried in big strong Daddy-arms to her bed and covered up with a nice warm quilt and Angela learned to read herself because children learn from observation and imitation more than by didactic instruction.

Angela, like her brothers, positively devoured the family histories, the accounts transcribed by her Gammaw, the original Journals, and Angela was putting things together, and Angela was alternately confused and distressed, and so she did what she'd found useful in the past, when she'd gotten confused.

She asked her Daddy about it.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller considered home a refuge, a haven.

He threw bales of hay and repaired fence, he tended his stock and tended his ranch, he worked out frustrations and anger: on the rare occasion when he picked up a cedar fencepost, hauled it well overhead and threw it as hard and as far as he possibly could, he could be forgiven, for the stresses on a lawman are many and frequent, and he considered it was much better to vent his spleen, to express his pique, on the inanimate rather than on flesh and bone.

Sheriff Linn Keller worked himself hard, harder than he would ask anyone else: his sons labored with him, and Marnie took a video of three Keller men hard at labor:  she watched it, at odd moments, smiling, for the Grand Old Man was not going to let younger upstarts out work HIM, and the younger Keller men weren't going to let the Old Man outwork THEM, and each of them not only outworked the other, every one of them regretted the competition afterward.

Marnie saved the video under the name CELTIC GIANTS.

In fairness, it was not all hard labor.

Linn worked ahead -- if a task was coming up, he'd tend it early, if at all possible, the same way he approached the household bills: it wasn't uncommon for him to open a utility bill, for instance, then note on it in red ink that it was due on this date, received on this date, paid this many days before received: whether bills, or chores, he kept ahead of them as best he could, which meant his carefully budgeted time allowed him time with his young, and with his wife.

Angela was sitting at her Daddy's desk when he came in from work one evening.

He looked at his little girl, sitting in his chair, one of his books open before her:  she had her elbows planted on either side of the open book, her fists were pressed into her jawbone, and she was frowning with concentration as she read the words in her Gammaw's annotated account of one of the ancestral tales.

"That's a serious look you've got there," Linn said gently as he hung up his Stetson and jacket.

Angela looked up at her Daddy and he realized she was frowning, not just with concentration, but with distress.

"Daddy," she said, "Idawanna be an agent an' sink with a ship!"

Linn blinked, considered, then nodded:  "Sinking with a ship is generally not a good thing."

"Daddy --"  Angela blinked, stopped, arranged her thoughts.

"Daddy, that's you" -- she pointed to a portrait -- "an' that's Old Pale Eyes an he's you an' he had a Jacob an' you have a Jacob an' he had an Angela an' you have an Angela an' Jacob was a deputy an' Jacob is a deputy an' his Angela went to northern Washington on a sailing ship and' Idawanna be an agent an' get sunk 'cause it's cold an' I don't like cold water!"

Angela's expression was so serious, her voice so sincere, that Linn seized the laughter bubbling in his soul and shoved it mercilessly aside:  he paced into his study, picked up his daughter -- which was increasingly difficult, as she was getting some size to her -- he hugged Angela to him and said quietly, "Nothing says you have to be an Agent, darlin'.  If you want to be something else, that's just fine!"

Angela hugged her big strong Daddy.

"Old Pale Eyes had Sarah Lynne McKenna an' you've got Marnie an' they look alike an' Gammaw looked just like 'em an' Jacob here looks like Jacob there an' you look like Old Pale Eyes an' Angela then had blue eyes an' I have pale eyes an' does that mean" -- she paused, took three or four breaths, dove back in --"does that mean I don't hafta be Angela like she was?"

She felt her Daddy laughing, she looked at his pale eyes so close to hers they merged into one pale orb:  Daddy tickled Angela's nose with his muts-tash, which made her giggle, and Linn laid his cheek against hers and whispered in her ear, "Darlin', your name is Angela, it's not Carbon Copy. You can be whatever you damn well please, and if you don't want to be an Agent, that's fine by me!"

Angela drew back, looked at her Daddy with big and surprised eyes, her expression sliding from astonished to delighted:  "I don't?"

"Nope."

"I can?"

"Yep."

Angela blinked and frowned and looked back at her Daddy.

"Daddy," she said in a small voice, "everyone asks me what I wanna do when I grow up." 

Her expression was almost woebegone.

"I dunno what I wanna do when I grow up."

"Angela, you remember your Gammaw was a firefighter and a medic, she was a nurse and she was Sheriff, she was a writer and a Gammaw and a wife and she was my Mama?"

Angela nodded.

"She told me once that she'd done so many things in her life, she had no idea what she wanted to do when she grew up!"

Angela looked confused:  she blinked, drew back from her Daddy a little.

"Really?"

Linn nodded.

"Really."

"Oh."

Linn turned, sat, Angela across his lap, her long coltish legs sticking out to the side:  Damn she's getting tall, he thought, and felt a moment's regret:  every father has a secret wish that his little girl will stay a little girl, and when they grow to a certain point, and he realizes she's not little anymore, there's an inevitable feeling of loss.

"Daddy?"

Angela looked at her Daddy and her expression was very sad, almost as if she was about to cry.

"Yes, Princess?"

"Can I be your little girl for a little longer?"

Linn hugged Angela to him, hugged her fiercely, rocked her a little:  he felt his eyes sting as he whispered, "Darlin', I'll give you a secret that only Daddies know.  It doesn't matter that you grow up, that you become a maiden, a woman, it doesn't matter that you get married, that you have children of your own, that you become a matron."

Angela felt her Daddy shiver a little, felt him swallow hard.

"Darlin', it doesn't matter how old you get.  You are my daughter, and a daughter will always, always be Daddy's Little Girl!"