SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FOR SALE, CHEAP!

The Irish Brigade took pride in their firehouse.

The Irish Brigade took pride in their apparatus.

The Irish Brigade took pride in cultivating carefully sculpted, handlebar mustaches, though truth be told only two of their number had a thick enough thatch on their upper lip to make a properly villainous appearance: the others used a dark shade of mustache wax, which mostly worked, though the German Irishman complained bitterly that the left side curled nicely and the right, not at all, unless it was cold out and the mustache wax was stiff.

The Irish Brigade went over their firehouse and gave it a detail cleaning -- not that it was needful, they maintained their firehouse in spotless fashion as a matter of  habit -- they'd set the table, brewed plenty of coffee, they had hot-from-the-oven sweet rolls and genuine butter on the table, they had plates of homemade chocolate chip cookies (which they knew were favored by both the County Commissioners who would be present for the multi-agency meeting) and finally, satisfied, a quick tug was given to the tablecloth -- unnecessary, more ceremonial than anything -- their guests were received and accommodated, the Irish Brigade was present in their trademark, red-flannel, bib-front shirts with the embroidered Maltese cross on the front, their knee-high boots polished and gleaming.

The watch officer stepped around the corner:  "Chief," he called, "phone call for you."

"Excuse me, gentlemen," Chief Fitzgerald said quietly:  the watch officer joined the others at the table, if for no other reason than to snag a couple cookies -- the Sheriff spoke up and said, "We will hold off on reading the agenda until the Chief gets back."

"SEAN PADRAIC FITZGERALD, WHERE IS YOUR UNDERWEAR?"

Conversation in the firehouse came to an abrupt and absolute stop:  County Commissioners, the Sheriff and his deputy, a reporter and a photographer, the Mayor and the Chief of Police, and every last one of the Irish Brigade, including two paramedics and the Chaplain, looked at one another and then toward the brick wall separating them from the Chief's office.

There was the sound of a door closing: apparently the Chief didn't want further outbursts heard, and although his words couldn't be made out, it was clear that he was having what might be described as a vigorous conversation.

This was too good an opportunity not to seize: there was immediate and good-natured speculation on the exact nature of the call, the Sheriff offered his own anecdote of running through the house with a towel in hand, chasing a naked, laughing, soap-suds-dripping little boy who was scattering bathwater and giggles in generous amounts, which garnered laughter and good-natured head nods until Fitz came around the corner, frowning:  he stopped, looked at all the eyes looking back at him, then declared loudly, "A'RIGHT, THE LOT O'YE! WHO WANTS A SIX-YEAR-OLD? I'LL PRICE 'IM TO YE CHEAP!"
At this point, the entire assembled laughed, extended their understanding and their sympathy, and the meeting continued.

Somehow this interruption started the meeting on a sympathetic note, and the several agencies represented were able to discuss their budgetary projections and inter-agency response plans with a greater cooperation.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller hung back after the others departed:  he considered the notes he'd taken, added another few lines with swift strokes of a gel pen: a thrust, the pen was back in his shirt pocket, the split-down-the-middle steno book thrust into a hip pocket, the way he did when he was still a deputy.

Sean held out a platter with three cookies on it.

"Help us eat 'em up," he offered.  "Be a shame t' let 'em go t' waste!"

Linn took a cookie, smiled a little.

"What did Sean Padraic do, anyway?" he asked, then took a bite of the homemade delight.

Fitz turned a little red, looked left, look right, then leaned closer and murmured, "Sean Padraic is in school t'day."

Linn looked curiously at his old friend.

"So he wasn't runnin' around buck naked?"

"Saints preserve us, no," Fitz declared in a truly terrible Irish accent -- though he was indeed of Irish extraction, he got his Irish accent from 1930s detective movies and not from the Old Sod -- "I knew there was some resistance to the budget I proposed, so I decided to go for the sympathy vote!"

Linn chuckled and nodded, thrust the remainder of the cookie in his mouth, chewed: when he was finally able to talk, he looked at Fitz and sighed, "Well, it worked!" -- then he grinned and added, "I'll have to remember that one!"

"Shut up and finish these," Fitz muttered, sliding the last two chocolate chip cookies into the Sheriff's hand.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE RIGHT CHOICE

Angela Keller lay still and unmoving, staring sightlessly at the nighttime ceiling of her bedroom.

Marnie Keller lay in her own bunk.

Unlike her little sister, Marnie's hair was braided for the night, twin braids she could whip quickly around her neck should she have to go to war: she was not yet sixteen, but she was her grandmother's granddaughter, and she'd already known harsh realities that, ideally, pretty girls of her few years should never encounter.

"You're still awake," Marnie murmured.

Angela rolled over on her side so she faced her big sister.

She couldn't see her, there in the darkness; there was very little light, the space between their beds was a black pool of infinite depth -- probably because it was occupied by a certain curly furred, mountain Mastiff, whose pelt seemed to soak up light like a thirsty man soaks up beer -- she blinked, heard Marnie roll over as well.

Angela knew Marnie was facing her.

"Marnie, how do we know who we're supposed to marry?"

Angela could not see Marnie's eyebrow raise, nor could she see the gentle, maidenly smile of her big sister's expression.

"I respond as I have been trained," Marnie replied in a formal voice.

"Huh?"

Marnie laughed, almost silently:  she threw back her covers, sat up:  Angela heard the covers whip back and so she threw her own back, stood, carefully slipped around The Bear Killer's big head, came over and climbed up on Marnie's bunk.

Big sister and little sister sat side by side, two young ladies in darkness and in white flannel, leaning companionably into one another: Angela laid her head over on Marnie's shoulder, and Marnie laid her cheek over on Angela's head, and each one smelled sunshine and clean air and soap and a little lilac, for both of them favored the lilac scent their Gammaw used.

"Angela," Marnie said softly, "do you know how Mama knew that Daddy was the right one?"

Marnie felt her little sister shake her head, just a little bit, and she knew without looking that Angela would be wiggling her toes, the way she always did when she shook her head no -- why she did that, Marnie never knew, she only knew that it did, only this time there was a giggle, because The Bear Killer was snuffing at her bare feet and gave a quick lick before laying his head back down on his paws and sighing his way back into slumber.

"You remember Grandma Crane was a nurse," Marnie said in a gentle voice, and felt Angela's nod.

 

Shelly Crane glared at her reflection in the mirror.

She knew Linn was downstairs.

She knew she'd invited him over for dinner and she knew he'd be hungry and she knew she'd been delayed at the hospital, at that damned hospital! -- it wasn't her fault she'd been delayed there, and she didn't want to be a nurse and they seemed intent on making her a nurse --

The brush caught in a tangle, twisted out of her hand: she seized the brush, muscled it through the tangle, heard the quiet, brittle crackle of hairs breaking, SLAMMED the hairbrush back down on her vanity.

She glared at the few items of makeup she maintained, glared at the reflection --

The hell with it, she thought savagely, part of her mind reflecting that's something her father would say, something her mother wouldn't: Shelly rose, stomped downstairs, glared at the lean deputy with a chocolate chip cookie in each hand.

"What are you doing?" Shelly demanded -- part of her immediately regretted the anger, the volume, and she saw the surprise in Linn's eyes as he swallowed what he'd bitten off the left hand cookie.

"Balanced meal," he said innocently.  "A cookie in each hand."

He set the cookies down on the kitchen table, dusted his hands together, reached for Shelly:  she twisted away from him, arms tight at her sides, one forearm across her belly and the other hand cupping her mouth.

Linn waited.

Shelly had always been a logical, rational, sensible girl, which is one big reason he was attracted to her.

Shelly was level headed and reasonable, she had a quick laugh and a smile that could melt the stony heart of a carved marble statue, she'd never been given to the near-juvenile histrionics of other girls her age --

Linn fell back on his training and listened, watching her body language, assessing more than the words she spoke:  Shelly just plainly threw what his Mama called "a Stereoptical Fit," in which she profaned the hospital in general, nurses in particular, her mother's intent that Shelly should become a nurse and not a paramedic! -- she nearly spat the word -- she damned the instructors, the staff, the administrators, every living soul who knew her mother as a truly excellent nurse and seemed conspired to force her, her! -- into that same profession --

Shelly paused for air and Linn offered quietly that it was her life and her choice, and that if she wanted to be a paramedic, that's what she should --

"DON'T PATRONIZE ME!" Shelly snapped, turning and thrusting an accusing finger-and-arm at him: it did not escape him that she'd put the entire tale, longways, between them as she walked, as she raved, as she raised her voice, something she'd never, ever done before.

Linn had never seen Shelly in such a way before.

I've never seen her like this.

She's always been logical and rational.

She is responding with unthinking emotion.

I need to process this.

Why do I need to process this?

This is entirely outside my experience,

I need to think this over!

Linn nodded, straightened.

"Excuse me," he said politely, and paced quietly toward the door, reached for the knob.

"AND WHERE ARE YOU GOING?"

Linn's certainties were shaken; he was out of his depth, part of him recognized that his inexperience was about to cause him grief, but he responded out of frustration, and he responded not all all quietly, nor kindly:

"I'M GOING FOR A WALK!"

"SO YOU'RE JUST GOING TO WALK OUT?" Shelly demanded

"WHY SHOULDN'T I!" Linn demanded in return.

Linn watched his his words shattered Shelly's wall: he watched the first wet streaks run down her cheek as she almost cried, "BECAUSE YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO LISTENS!"

Linn did the best thing he could have done, in that moment.

Experienced, inexperienced, knowledgeable, or utterly at sea:  he followed his gut: he strode across the floor, he took Shelly in his arms, he held her, and he let her talk.

In the years that followed, in the conversations husbands and wives have, she admitted to him that she didn't remember one single word he said that evening.

All she remembered was that, when she needed to be held, when she needed to be listened to, he was the only one who did.

 

"Angela," Marnie said softly, "do you know how Mama knew that Daddy was the right one?"

Marnie felt her little sister shake her head.

"When Mama was all stressed out, Daddy was the only one who listened to her -- really listened! -- and Mama told me that's when she knew."

Marnie felt Angela lift her head a little and look at her.

"Marnie," Angela said, "The Bear Killer really, really listens to me.  Does that mean I hafta marry him?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE QUIET ONE

Sheriff Linn Keller bellied up to the bar, set one well polished boot on the tarnished, dented, worse-for-wear foot rail, lifted a finger as the barkeep scowled at him: he turned, one elbow on the mahogany, regarded the unshaven, scar-jawed fellow beside him.

"Could I ask your advice?" the pale eyed Sheriff asked quietly.

The Sheriff could see the fellow was irritated by the lawman's proximity: Linn deliberately stood close, too close: there was plenty of room at the bar, but Linn was just almost touching elbow to elbow as they stood.

The stranger looked at the lawman, and there was nothing kindly in his expression.

Linn slapped a yellowed paper down on the bar, something ragged, like it had been torn off from where it had been nailed up.

The fellow read the wanted dodger and he felt something cold roll over in his stomach.

Linn thumped a finger on the image in the middle of the wanted poster.

"That," he said firmly, "is one of the most absolutely worthless pictures I've ever seen."

Linn's eyes were pale -- not the polished-ice shade of a man ready to kill, but the cold of a man uncompromised.

The stranger grunted in reply, turned back to his beer.

Linn snatched the dodger off the stained, scarred bar, held it up, turned around, regarded the interior of the dirty little saloon over top the dodger.

"Whoever graved this," he said, "can't draw to save his sorry backside.  Hell, this doesn't look like anyone!"  He looked at the man whose shoulder he was nearly touching with his own.  "It doesn't even have a good description.  Height, build, hair -- hell, I know a hundred men like this!"

The stranger picked up his beer to take a tilt.

Even from the side of his eye, Linn could see it shaking a little as it rose, the heavy facets around its base catching the light.

Linn turned back, laid the dodger back on the bar.

"Now what do you think might be better here?"

The stranger looked at the Sheriff, looked at the dodger, finished his beer, set it down.

"Barkeep," Linn said, and there was steel in his voice, "another beer for my friend, I'm buyin'."

The interior of the dirty little saloon grew very quiet.

It would be an insult to refuse a beer -- a challenge, perhaps, a refusal of a courtesy could be considered an insult.

Linn thumped the wanted dodger with four fingertips at once.  "Now if this had somethin' a man could rely on," he said conversationally, "say, a four leaf clover tattooed on his cheek.  'Course" -- he stopped, a grin spreading beneath his iron-grey mustache -- "that depends on which cheek it's on, upper or lower."  He straightened a little, his coat falling open as he did.  "Was it his upper cheek that's easy enough, but can you imagine walkin' up to some fellow and tellin' him to drop his drawers so you can take a look at his backside?"

Linn looked like he was ready to chuckle.

He also looked like he was ready to draw, and the man knew it.

So did the rest of the saloon.

A table emptied out from behind the stranger; the barkeep stepped back, his eyes dropped to the shelf under the bar.

"Barkeep, pass me that scatter gun," Linn said.

Something in the man's voice said the barkeep's life would be much less difficult if he did.

Linn raised a hand, opened the blade on a slender pocket knife.

"Do you know what it takes to put a picture on these?" Linn asked, thumping the generic, crude engraving in the middle of the weathered wanted dodger with the butt of the knife.  

The stranger stared, frozen: he'd expected this pale eyed harbinger of death to call him out, to draw --

He covered his confusion with another pull on his beer.

He saw Linn's hand draw the opened pocket knife back, saw him turn it over:  the end was broken off, ground to make a screwdriver: he watched as Linn quickly, efficiently, dismounted the left-hand lock plate from the shotgun, wiggle it loose, turn it over.

"A man can't just draw what the fellow looks like," Linn said, turning the wanted dodger over, pulling a pencil out of somewhere on his coat -- "here, this is easy enough" -- the stranger, feeling like a man watching a sizzling fuse on a stick of powder, stared as his face flowed out of the point of the Sheriff's whittled pencil, as a remarkable likeness emerged on the reverse of the wanted poster.

The Sheriff didn't stop.

He drew the barkeep -- drew him using his barkeep's knife to dash the foam off a glass of beer -- 

"Now how do we put this" -- he tapped the pencil drawings with the pocketknife's handle, turned the poster over -- "to here" -- he tapped the horrible likeness on the front side.

The stranger shook his head carefully, just a little, as if deciding whether it was worth it to try and draw against this legendary lawman.

"You've got to use a fine little graver and engrave this picture on a sheet of thin copper, and then you've got to ink up what you've engraved and press it on paper to transfer the drawing.  Ever try graving metal?"

Again a hesitant shake of the head.

Linn turned the scatter gun a little.  "Look at this. Someone set the lock plate on a flat place on a wood gun stock and traced around it. He took a chisel and an awful lot of work to cut out that outline. Look deeper and you'll see where he had to relieve the wood to fit main spring and bridle and sear and everything else."  Linn pressed the lockwork back into the stock, turned it over, set the screws back in place, wound them down with his improvised but effective screwdriver.

The stranger made his move.

So did the Sheriff.

Linn knew the man was watching his hand.

Linn was expecting him to try.

They both heard the shout -- "DAMN YOU, LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKIN' TO YOU!" -- followed by the deep, slap-your-face concussion of a large bore pistol speaking in a language the sinners could understand.

Linn's hand came up with a little pocket .38.

His hand was rising, and he fired five shots as fast as he could trigger them: the first round went in halfway between belt buckle and wishbone, and the fifth went through the wanted man's right eye socket.

Sheriff Linn Keller picked up the scatter gun and looked with approval at a slim figure, all in black, that stood up from a table, a bulldog .44 in hand: the rolling blue doughnut was wobbling through tobacco-hazed air as a pale eyed figure in black knee high Cavalry boots walked over to the gasping man on the floor.

The Black Agent set her boot on the gun still in the dying man's hand.

She looked around, eyes as pale and as hard as her sire's:  two representatives of the Law reloaded their respective weapons, two representatives of the Law returned their universally understood speechmakers to hidden holsters.

Sheriff Linn Keller seized the dead man's belt buckle, pulled it loose, opened his trousers and rolled him over:  a pull, an unbutton of the man's trap door, a look.

He looked over at the Black Agent, who was considering a wanted dodger of her own, comparing it with the face of the gasping man dying in sawdust and in blood.

The Sheriff straightened, looked at the barkeep.

"Have a boy go get the Marshal and the dead wagon," he said quietly.

The barkeep did not need to be told twice.

 

Marnie Keller stepped from behind the podium, walked to the first row of cadets.

"Handle this carefully," she said, "it's older than you are" -- she handed the clean-shaven young man a rather ancient wanted poster, ragged, as if it had been torn free of the nails holding it to a weathered plank: it was protected in a clear plastic sleeve, allowing front and back both to be seen.

"Compare this to modern photography," she said, "and our modern information systems."

Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller turned, smiling, looking at mostly young faces: men and women, in uniform, learning the art, the science, the classroom portion of law enforcement.

"When that wanted poster was printed -- pass it around, take a look -- information was not quite what we'd need for a conviction today.  What does this lack?"

"A good picture," a voice offered.

Marnie tapped forward on three inch heels -- the same heels her grandmother wore, in this same classroom, addressing on the same subject: the tailored blue suit dress, too, had been Willamina's, and fit well enough Marnie did not have to adjust it in the slightest.

She turned, watched the poster being passed from hand to hand.

"If you look at the reverse," she said, "you'll find multiple hand drawn faces. One -- the one in the middle -- is the man my very great grandfather killed, right after he drew the man's picture."

Marnie smiled as cadets looked at one another, looked at her.

"How in the world," Marnie asked, spreading her hands and smiling, "do you gull a man into letting you draw his portrait, and then kill him before he kills you?"

Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller laughed -- it was an easy, natural laugh -- she returned to the podium, consulted the clock and her notes.

"My honored ancestor was not only a man who could kill fast and very expertly, he tried not to if at all possible." She looked around again.  "He was a war veteran and a master tactician who tailored his tactics to the situation. In this one, he got too close for the other guy to work, but he did so with the understanding that if the other guy fired, he couldn't miss. We'll have a scenario set up for you to participate in, so you can see what he did, and how -- and you'll understand the why.  But" -- she smiled again -- "please bear in mind that in those days, honor was still part and parcel of a man's makeup, a coward was as good as dead, women were cherished and protected."

"Ma'am" -- Marnie nodded at the raised hand -- "Ma'am, do you need protected?"

If ever Marnie looked like her pale eyed grandmother, this was the time.

She turned to face the cadet, crossed one ankle over the other, folded her arms, lowered her head a little and looked seductively at him: one hand floated up to her cheek, she tapped one finger thoughtfully against the side of her cheekbone, and she lowered long lashes just enough to look like she was ready to swallow him like a canary.

"Cadet," she said quietly, "would you like to find out?"

It's been said the Lord looks out after fools and children.

It may very well be that the Almighty considered this green-as-spring-grass cadet as both -- that, or the muttered counsel from a seatmate:  "You damned fool, you want the whip-poor-will in your backyard?"

"No, ma'am," the cadet replied, looking away, red-faced.

"Good. There was actually a woman at this particular fight where Old Pale Eyes exercised sound tactical decisions. She also had a gift for tactical expertise. She'll be included in the scenario I talked about."  

"Ma'am?"

"Yes?"

"I thought you said women were protected."

Marnie was quiet for a long moment, then she nodded, slowly.

"Let's just say," she replied quietly, "that there were ... exceptions."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

COLOGNE

The house smelled good.

It always did, around supper time: their fruit cellar downstairs had rows and shelves of home canned goods, thanks to neighbors who grew plenty and put up plenty, and who canned up extra because the Sheriff paid well for their product.

Home canned went into the stew that night, the bread was home made, from wheat ground one county over; the same good flour went into the chocolate cake, something Linn loved -- Shelly told a confidante some years before that she wasn't sure which brought Linn to her in the first place, her popcorn or her chocolate cake.

Their house smelled clean, for Shelly and Marnie saw to it the house was kept that way, and this habit ingrained itself into the younger minds: the odors were pleasant, but when Jacob joined them at the kitchen table, he was moving kind of carefully, and his odor was not the Old Spice he usually favored.

 Shelly looked at their oldest son and said in a mother's voice, "Jaaacooobbbb ....???"

Marnie looked at Jacob, reached over, squeezed his hand, nodded: Jacob eased himself down in his chair and said "I'll be all right."

"You're as bad a liar as I am," Linn commented.  "You gonna live?"

"Sir," Jacob said, straightening with an effort -- "I've seen folks in this shape live a week or more!"

"Oh dear Gawd," Shelly groaned.  "Jacob Keller, do I need to take you to the emergency room?"

"No ma'am," Jacob said, his voice almost normal: "I'm fine."

Joseph looked at his pale eyed Pa, opened his mouth:  Shelly pointed a finger and warned, "Don't," which the lad cheerfully ignored.

"Pa, if you go to hell for lyin' and lyin' will get you struck by lightning, do I need to wear my soup bowl like a hardhat?" Joseph asked, pale eyes wide and innocent: Shelly raised spread-finger hands toward the ceiling in mute supplication.

"Well," Linn said slowly, "they're ceramic and that's nonconductive, but I think we're safe here, so no."

"Thank you," Shelly said impatiently. "Now say Grace before supper gets cold!"

Linn looked around and said solemnly, "Let us bow our heads."

Every Keller present bowed their head -- Jacob bowed his kind of carefully -- and with one voice, everybody but Shelly chorused the happy word, "Graaace!" -- to which Joseph added, "Rub-a-dub-dub, three cheers for the grub, Yay God, let's eat!"

Linn looked at his oldest son.

"Jacob?"

"If I could trouble you for some green beans," Jacob said quietly, then continued in a distinctly childish tone, "I better eat my greenies so I'll grow up Big and Strong!"

This got a chuckle, for Jacob was six foot and close to looking his long tall Pa in the eye.

"Children," Shelly complained quietly, shaking her head mournfully.  "I'm surrounded by children!"

The Keller young looked at her with wide and innocent eyes and chorused in one drawling voice, "Yeeeesss, Mmaaaawwwww!"

Jacob accepted his plate of green beans with bacon, set it down carefully: Linn gave him a knowing look and said "How'd you do it?"

"I didn't, sir," Jacob said, spearing a sweet roll with his fork and tearing it open: a minor steam-cloud rolled up from the hot-from-the-oven delicacy. "Apple-horse did."

Linn nodded, loading a plate, passing it along, accepting another.  "Known that to happen."

"He's never done it before, sir."

"First time for everything."

"Jacob," Shelly said in her I'm-the-mother voice, "just what happened?"

Jacob set down his butter knife, closed the sweet roll and set it down, then he rested his wrists on the edge of the table and stared at his plate, then looked at his mother.

"Well," he said slowly, "'twas warm today, and I was ridin' a girl on Apple --"

Shelly's eyebrow launched as if to bury itself under her wig line.

"-- yes, Mama, I'm kind of sweet on her, but Apple had other ideas."

Linn watched his wife's reaction, watched his son, listening carefully: long and long ago, he'd learned the value of listening to someone's Spontaneous Utterance, especially when the pump was being primed, so to speak, and Jacob's pump just got a good bucket full of primin' if he was any judge.

"Jacob," Shelly said, "is there anything I should be worried about?"

"No ma'am," Jacob said, then he twisted a little in his seat.

"Is that why you smell like Ben Gay?" Angela asked, and Jacob turned his head, slowly, to look at his little sis.

"Yep," he replied, then closed his eyes.

"Y'see, after Becky clumb off and went in the house, me and Apple-horse, we headed back this-a-way and 'twas a warm day and the sun was beatin' down on us somethin' fierce so when we come to the crick, why, I let Apple take a drank and wondered if I'd be wise to take one myself, only Apple, he allowed as 'twas time for a bath and when he started to go rollin' over I kicked out of m' stirrup and almost made it in time."

He looked at his father, and Linn saw guilt on his son's face as Jacob saw the concern on his father's.

"It took about all the language I had to cuss that horse off me," Jacob admitted, "and that warn't bad enough, he recht down and bit me."

Linn, Marnie, Joseph and Angela all cringed: they knew what a horse bite was like.

"How'd you get away?" Angela asked in a small voice, and Jacob's ears turned an even deeper shade of red.

"I drew my .44 revolvin' pistol," Jacob replied, "and I smacked him acrost the bridge of the nose with it -- enough to get his attention 'cause that's like hittin' your shin bone on somethin' after dark, but I made him let go.

"He wallered up and I had a good holt of the reins and I made him haul me up too."

"Did he roll on you?" Linn asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Might ought you go have yourself looked at."

"I'm fine, sir."

Father, mother, sister, brother and even younger eyes all converged on Jacob, with the desired result.

"A'right, I'll go," Jacob said, "but how about I finish supper first?"

"We'll even let you go ahead and wear that new men's cologne," Marnie said primly as she peppered her green beans.

She looked up at Jacob and deadpanned, "Eau de Pain."

Boos, hisses, groans and carefully-tossed sweet rolls greeted Marnie's straight faced pronouncement.

Jacob did have his supper.

Matter of fact, he even had his pie before his mother, in patient but disapproving silence, took him in to ER for x-rays and a lecture.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PREDATOR AND PREY

"You're too hard headed for your own good, you know that," Deputy Sheriff George McLain said quietly as he stirred his coffee.

Jacob drizzled milk from a convenient carton into his, took an experimental slurp.

"Yeah," he said, "but I'm an administrator."

"You're full of it, Keller."

"The pope is Catholic, what else is news?"

The Sheriff came into the All-Night, looked at the knocked-over rack, at blood puddled and spotted on the floor, at two of his deputies loafing casually at the coffee bar, at the pretty, pale-eyed cheerleader practicing her deep breathing.

The cheerleader was the only one of the cheer team that wore the old Firelands cheerleading uniform, the pleated purple-and-white skirt and the purple-and-white sweater shell over a white cotton blouse: she wore the knee socks and saddle shoes of an earlier generation, and when they performed, she was in the center of the cheer team in their more modern uniforms.

This cheerleader had her braided hair wrapped around her neck and tucked into the back of her collar, and her eyes were still ice pale, polished, hard as mountain granite and just as cold.

Linn looked at his daughter, looked at her face, looked her slowly down, then back up: his voice was carefully neutral as he said, "Are you hurt?"

Marnie shook her head, her lips pressed together:  the father knew his daughter, and the Sheriff knew body language, and when Sheriff and father are the same man, the analysis was quick and comprehensive.

"We'll have the videos," Linn said quietly, "but I'll need your statement."

Marnie Keller, a high school sophomore, cheerleader, outstanding scholar and equestrienne, looked at her pale eyed Daddy, her hands opening slowly, closing slowly.

"Sheriff," she said formally, "I tried to kill three men today."

 

"Well, look who's hurt," came the sneering voice.

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller turned, slung hot coffee in the leader's face, twisted to the side.

George was still in the men's room -- he'd just gone in, his need was great -- Jacob reached across, seized the sidehandle baton and spun it out, fast.

"GET THE PENDEJO!" -- Jacob shoved the potato chip rack over -- the sound of broken glass, a confusion of voices, a gurgling scream --

Something metallic hit the floor --

A blur, a white blouse wrapped around a pale eyed mountain cyclone, a skirt flaring as one long, athletic leg drove into the side of a knee, as another's elbow snapped and the body went down --

Marnie's knee came up to her chest, she aimed to stomp the exposed throat --

Blood, bright, shining in the fluorescent light, a scarlet arc --

 

"They saw Jacob wasn't moving well," Marnie said quietly. "The leader -- Jacob put two rounds into his face and he lost any further interest in hostilities" -- Marnie's voice was cold, factual, very precisely enunciated -- "he started with his baton until he saw the other guy was grabbing something in his waistband. It's over there" -- she turned, thrust a chin -- "tape handled .38. I haven't looked at it but it's still there."

"And you?"

Marnie glared at the open doorway, where the medic crew took the wounded out.

" I grabbed the nearest wine bottle and broke it over the first one's head. I hit him hard and came back to take the other one across the throat."

"Did you?"

"No. No, I caught the arm that held a gun and then I whipped the broken neck across his face."

"No wonder it looks like a slaughterhouse."

"I'll need photos of all tats. If these are gang members they'll be shamed a mere girl hurt them."

"If they're smart they'll only talk about their boss being shot and they'll mention another deputy's presence."

"You could deputize me."

Linn considered his little girl as if he were seeing something entirely new in her.

"How many were there, all told?"

"Four."

"How many dead?"

"One."

"How many did you take down?"

"Two."

"Leaves one unaccounted for."

"You'll find him."

"Why?"

"He knocked over that display rack. He's under it. I tried to drive my heel through his kidneys."

Linn opened his mouth, closed it.

"And you didn't tell the medics while they were still here."

"They were busy."

Linn lifted his chin at Jacob, who came over, avoiding stepping in blood.

"You hurt?"

"I'm fine, sir."

"Trade me."

Linn drew his sidearm, offered it handle first to his son: Jacob handed the Sheriff his pistol, holstered the Sheriff's pistol in his leather.

"We'll hold here until the State boys get their team in to document. Meanwhile we'd best get tape up so the public doesn't come tromping in here."

"Yes, sir."

"Marnie?"

Fifteen year old Marnie Keller looked at her Daddy -- her posture reminded Linn of a grenade with the pin ready to fall out -- "you'll stay for the shots-fired team."

Marnie nodded.

Linn took a step closer, lowered his head, spoke softly, his voice changing a little.

"I'm pretty damned proud of you," he whispered, bit his bottom lip, looked at Jacob.

"You kept your brother alive, you know that."

Marnie's expression did not change, nor did her eyes.

"I wanted to keep him around," she said quietly. "Who else can I torment about that new men's cologne?"

 

The Valkyries met, as they always did, in the ancient but immaculately-maintained round barn under the cliff's overhang, right at the edge of Firelands proper.

They stood in rows: athletic young women, daughters of the granite mountains, students of their pale-eyed mentor, the retired Sheriff Willamina Keller, who was amusing herself by doing one-legged deep knee bends:  arms folded, one leg thrust straight out, in her tailored suit dress and heels, she might have been thought to look silly ... but few of those present, despite their excellent physical condition, could manage one-legged deep knee bends ... let alone balancing, in a one legged squat, arms folded, in heels!

Willamina rose, paced over to face the Valkyries.

"Marnie."

Marnie Keller, in her old-fashioned cheerleader's uniform, stepped out of rank and came forward.

Willamina slipped her fingers under the pressed collar of her granddaughter's white uniform blouse.

Her thumb pressed the enamel pin; the pin pierced material, was captured by the clasp Willamina held between two fingers, under the collar.

The pin was a set of white-enamel wings, overlaid with a silver lance, with a starburst at its tip: beneath, a blue-enamel scroll with the white-enamel letters:

VALKYRIE

Only a very few of the Valkyries wore such a pin: only those who'd used their skills, learned here and practiced in the real world.

Willamina nodded solemnly: Marnie nodded in return, turned, slipped between her fellows, returned to her place.

Willamina picked up a blue-bound book, paged through it, rested delicate fingers on the thin page, looked up, smiled.

"We read in Scripture," she said, her voice clear, pitched to carry, "that violence begets violence."

She looked at her students, her young charges, these young women who'd learned the hard way that they needed more than they had to keep themselves safe.

"A wiser man than I read this and made it into a very useful sermon. He said something to the effect that he makes it his personal mission that, should someone do him violence, he does far more violence in return than can possibly be enjoyed."

Willamina closed the Book.

"I have found that a useful philosophy, and it has kept me alive."  She took a slow breath, blew it out, closed her eyes against the memories that surged to her throat, clamoring to be heard.

"Evil strikes anytime, anywhere, and without warning. We don't get to choose when it arrives, or how, or what form it takes, or what its methods are."  Her eyes rested on one of their number, one who wore such a pin on her collar, one who kept herself from being brutalized by using the fast, brutal methods she'd learned in this very barn.

"When it happens, we are given a choice, and we generally have about a tenth of a second to make that choice. Officially we cannot comment on nor can we release particulars on Marnie's experience. That will be discussed in training, when we can legally do so. Until then" -- she turned, bowed: a woman about her height, a woman in a white karate ghi, bowed in return.

"Until then I leave you in the experienced hands of Golda Feltzmann, whose credentials are more than impressive, and who could probably kick my backside up between my shoulder blades and make it look easy!"

The Valkyries, Willamina and Mrs. Feltzmann all laughed: Willamina turned, skipped toward the exit.

"All right," Mrs. Feltzmann called with a smile, "what's this I hear about wasting a perfectly good bottle of kosher wine on a couple skels?"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

 

I HATE IT WHEN SHE DOES THAT

How did she know?

Sheriff Marnie Keller stood in the launch bay, watched techs from at least three worlds swarming over the near-skinless ship.

One panel was set nearby, with particular care: it had the Valkyries' squadron insignia, hand-painted, beautifully executed: a set of wings, an upright silver lance, with a blazing star at its tip.

Marnie considered the identical pin her Gammaw placed on her collar years before.

Identical, Marnie thought, wishing she had a set of hip pockets to slip her hands into as she stood there and considered.

There are no coincidences.

She knew, somehow, and if she knew, did she have it made, or did it arrive from the future?

Is time travel even possible?

Marnie took a long breath, rubbed her closed eyelids.

"You okay?" Nancy asked quietly: Marnie felt her animal warmth, smelled the tea she held.

"Thought you might like some."

Marnie took a sip of good hot oolong spiced with burgamo, her favorite.

"Mmm," she hummed, "Earl Grey."

"I remembered you like it. A little honey, not much."

"No whiskey?"

"You're working."

"You're right."

Nancy looked at the ship, the controlled chaos of regular maintenance.

"They have orbiting stations for this," she said thoughtfully, "they have outposts -- Diego Garcias -- so far from any star it's like they're marooned in the middle of eternity, outposts for repair in zero-G."

"Why do the work here?"

"The Confederacy wants to establish an outpost here."

Marnie took another sip.

It was no surprise the Confederacy would want to base themselves here; this would put them close to Earth, or relatively so, it would be far enough from Earth to avoid its interference -- though no official overtures were yet made with their ancestral home, the Confederacy knew from its monitoring of Terran comms that each nation on the whole damned planet believed it was the end-all and the be-all of civilization everywhere.

"You do know we're building more hangars."

"I do know we've built cannon."

Marnie smiled.  "That's a mild term for what I saw being installed."

Nancy laughed quietly, then sipped her own tea.

"I know I'll be asked why bother with planet based defenses when we have the Valkyries."

Nancy lowered her delicate, bone-china teacup, looked at the Sheriff.

"Space is big, and we are few. The Confederacy is trying gene-splicing to bring more pilots on board for these Valkyrie ships. So far the only ones whose brains can interface as completely as necessary are ours. Yours, mine ... our relatives. Nobody else can do it, and there aren't many of us."

"Mmm ... so if we come under attack, we can fight off the Huns while you're putting out fires elsewhere."

"Something like that."

Both women turned, looked at Nancy's control panel.

"Are we looking for Huns?"

"More than likely, meteors. Little ones. Like shooting gnats."

"I've been tempted to shoot horseflies," Marnie admitted.

"You keep looking at the ship."

"I keep looking at the nose art."

Nancy favored her with a curious expression.

"My grandmother ... believed young ladies should be able to ... handle themselves in the event of attack."

"Willamina," Nancy exclaimed, delight in her voice.

"Um-hmm," Marnie affirmed.  "She started the Valkyries. Cheerleaders at first, then she opened it to other girls. She also ran with the football team.  They adopted her.  Willamina's Warriors."

Nancy laughed again, nodding:  she'd seen the holovids of the pale eyed Sheriff, running with ranks of lean young men, raising her voice with theirs in the joyfully obscene running songs she'd taught them.

"There was a lot more to my grandmother than I ever knew," Marnie admitted, "and I'm wondering if her naming us the Valkyries was just a coincidence."  Marnie looked pointedly at the nose art.  "That insignia is identical to the pin she awarded to those of us who drew blood in the use of what she taught us."

Nancy considered for a long moment, then said quietly, "Marnie, it's not a coincidence."

"I didn't think so."

Nancy set her teacup down:  "Would you look at the time!" she exclaimed, snatching up her wig: she threw it over her bald head, settled it in place:  "Gotta pick up the kids from school!  See ya!" -- her voice echoed cheerfully behind her as she sprinted for the far door, leaving Sheriff Marnie Keller frowning over her upraised teacup.

"I hate it when she does that," she muttered, then drank the last of her tea, sighed.  

"I'd better get back to quarters," she sighed.  "The kids will be starving when they come through the door!"

 

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHAT, AGAIN?

Sheriff Marnie Keller stared at the screen, her mouth open.

"Jacob," she said, "what happened?"

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller -- well, he was off duty, he was wearing a flannel shirt instead of his tailored, tidy, military-creased uniform blouse -- was also wet, muddy, he had a reddened cheekbone that threatened to bloom into some truly impressive colors, and he had that crooked grin on his face that meant he'd just pulled something off.

"I had a religious experience," Jacob said innocently.

"Religious experience," Marnie said skeptically. 
"Walking on water didn't quite work," Jacob admitted ruefully, holding up an arm and unhappily regarding his muddy sleeve, "and turning the other cheek wasn't too good an idea, so I fell back on using the Jaw Bone of  Jack Mule."

"Did you speak the language the sinners understood?" Marnie asked, and Jacob laughed -- as much as she was like their pale eyed Gammaw, she could also sound like a tired, much-put-upon mother, and did.

"Yes," Jacob grinned, then raised careful fingers to his reddened cheek bone.  "Yes, I did."

"From the look of your face, the sinners were not inclined to receive your Good News."

"You could say that."

Marnie lowered her head and pretended to glare over a set of nonexistent spectacles.

"You really must consort with a better class of criminal, you know."

"Oh, I know," Jacob agreed, "but this was more of a private matter."

"Private matter."

"Some Jack Doe had a belly full of Old Rip Snorter and he allowed as I hadn't ought to be breathin' the same air as him."

"Go on."

"He had two other fellows who allowed as Number One had a fine idea."

"So what was your body count?"

"I broke one elbow, a second one will pass blood for a month if I'm any judge, the third one might come down with pneumonia for I introduced his face to the streambed and throwed his buddy on top of him and I let 'em fight it out who was gettin' up first."

Marnie shook her head.

"Wouldn't it have been easier -- never mind," she waved a hand, looked away, looked back.

"Jacob" -- her voice was that of an exasperated older sister -- "do I need to come down there?"

"Nnooo, Mmaawwww," Jacob replied in a nasal drawl, "this was three fellas lookin' for trouble and pickin' the wrong boar coon to jump!"

Marnie considered the last time she saw a boar coon tear into a good hound dog and nodded.

"I take it you read to them from the Book."

"No, I read from the card."

"They're locked up."

"Separately, so they can't conspire nor communicate."

"Did they have any idea they jumped a Sheriff's deputy?"

"Not until we got 'em back to station and charged 'em."

"You didn't badge them."

"Not until they allowed as they hadn't assaulted no law enforcement officer."

"What did they do when you --"  Marnie held up her hand as if displaying a badge wallet.

Jacob laughed quietly, grimaced: Marnie knew he was hurt more than he was letting on, but that was the Sheriff's son being the Sheriff's son.

"They kinda looked like they were deflatin' some."

"Jacob," Marnie said tiredly, "please be careful."

"For you, darlin'," he said softly, "anything!"

"Jacob, I mean it!"

Jacob leaned closer to the screen, his face loomed larger and he seemed to look directly at her instead of directly at the screen's camera.

"Sis," he said quietly, "I will."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE COLLECTOR

A pair of red cowboy boots dismounted from an elderly Appaloosa mare.

One boot swung down and landed on a very old mounting block in front of the Firelands police station and was quickly joined by the other boot.

The boots turned and jumped off the block and onto the sidewalk, and the ten-year-old girl wearing them jumped too, and together they absolutely strutted into the police station as if it were their rightful domain.

About an hour later, the Firelands squad rolled into the ambulance bay with a patient.

Two medics smiled as they saw a familiar Appaloosa mare standing hipshot at the hitch rail, off to the side.

As they rolled the patient cot toward the sliding double doors, the doors opened and a bright smile, a pair of swinging pigtails and those red cowboy boots came skipping out of the ambulance doors:  "Hi, Mommy! Hi, Grampa!" -- and as two medics and a patient went in, a pair of red cowboy boots skipped over to the patient old mare and climbed up on a mounting block as old as the hospital itself.

Later that day, a pair of red cowboy boots dangled from the side of the Sheriff's chair, and the little girl the boots wore, leaned happily into her big strong Daddy's chest, and Shelly looked in at her tired-looking husband's stress-lined face as he leaned his head down and laid his cheek gently on top of Marnie's head.

That night a pair of red cowboy boots slept beside Marnie's bed, where the hall light shone as Linn and Marnie opened the bedroom door and looked in on her before they, too, went to bed.

Husband and wife spoke in quiet voices, talking about their day.

They spoke of a conversation with the Chief of Police, Linn's Uncle Will, and how he'd held a little girl on his lap and how much he'd appreciated being in the company of a living, healthy, happy child.

Linn said it's what he needed, too.

Shelly was quiet, listening: her husband's voice was little more than a whisper, gentle, deep, reassuring in the bedroom darkness, the voice of a troubled man who needed to talk, the voice of a truly strong man who'd been reduced to tears of utter helplessness as he held the body of a child -- a little girl, the same age as his own daughter -- a child he and his Uncle found together, at the scene of a smoking wreck, a child they knew and remembered.

Somehow, and Linn admitted that he had no idea how, his little girl knew that what he needed was to be reminded of life, and so she'd climbed into his lap and cuddled into him, the same way she'd cuddled into her Uncle Will's chest when she climbed up into his lap.

Shelly remembered how Doc Greenlees had gone down on one knee and taken the hand of a little girl who came in asking if he was okay 'cause she knew there'd been a bad one, how he'd said he hadn't had any bad ones today but he appreciated her asking, how she'd hugged him with the quick giggling spontaneity of a happy child, and then gone skipping out the automatic doors, all red cowboy boots and bouncing pigtails, leaving smiles in her wake.

"She was collecting," Shelly said quietly.

"How's that?" Linn asked, and he felt his wife's silent laughter.

"She was collecting up all your sadness and taking it someplace else."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MAYBE I'M NOT A FAILURE AFTER ALL

Linn tilted the sweating glass, contemplated moisture beads on its long, fluted sides.

Will took a sip of his: neither man slouched in his chair, both sat very erect, both sat a little to the left of centered, allowing a clean and unobstructed draw if need be.

Both men had their backs to something solid.

Chief of Police Will Keller and Sheriff Linn Keller raised their glasses of iced tea together, took a small, thoughtful sip, set their glasses down on the round, gaudy, hand-painted coasters Will's late wife insisted on using.

As often as Will growled about how bad they looked, as many times as he threatened to use them for fifty yard targets, he still hadn't gotten rid of them.

"Will," Linn finally said, "I am not sure if I am a failure, or a damned fool, or if I've just been played like a fiddle."

Will nodded slowly. "I seem to recall feelin' like that a time or three."

"You didn't have girls."

"No, I had a son, and he was just pretty darn good at pullin' the wool over my eyes whenever he wanted," Will admitted.  "He turned out okay, though."

Linn nodded.

"What did the girls do this time?" Will asked.

Linn looked at him, shook his head and laughed.

"You didn't have to ask if it was one of the boys."

"Your boys are as full of ornery as they come," Will chuckled, "but your girls are your biggest headache."

"Not really a headache," Linn frowned.  "But they can ... try me."

"I understand they tried the lid of the piano in the Saloon."

Linn didn't raise his head; he did look at his Uncle through the lower margin of his eyebrows.

"They didn't," Linn said.  

"Oh, now, the way I heard it, they both got on top of the piano and danced the Can-Can like a couple Rockettes!"

"No," Linn sighed.  "No, just Marnie. Angela played the piano."

 

Two pretty girls giggled as they helped each other into their dancing girl costumes.

Each one did the other's makeup; they intentionally overdid the face paint, they laced each other's corsets tighter than they would've laced their own, each checked the seams in the other's stockings and each one posed lasciviously for invisible admirers in the full-length mirror.

Each carried a sequined half-mask with colored, feathery plumes: they slipped these slim disguises over their eyes, skipped up the steps to the Silver Jewel's closed-curtain stage.

The Silver Jewel was crowded this Friday night:  it was a fund-raiser, there'd been talk of dancing girls, but these were scheduled for later in the evening:  when the curtains parted, quickly, briskly, and two lovelies each struck a long-legged pose, one gloved arm thrust into the air, poker and other games of chance came to a stop:  the audience turned to face the stage and began to applaud.

The dancers were close to the same size.

The smaller of the two -- and she was smaller by only an inch or so -- thrust an elbow-length-gloved hand at a well-built driller and called, "Hey Handsome!  CATCH!" -- and dove off the stage.

The driller caught her easily: she kissed him quickly on the cheek, leaving a bright-scarlet lipstick-print on his lightly-stubbled cheek: she asked, "What's your name, handsome?" and he grinned as a man will grin when he has the attention of a lovely young lady.

"Mick," he replied, and the dancing-girl turned, waved:  "Big hand for my friend Mick!"

The other dancer took one skipping step, from the stage to the top of the piano: hands on her hips, thumbs forward, one knee bent and her hips turned saucily, she waited until her partner chased the piano-player off his stool, made a show of flipping her skirts under her, sat, brought her gloved hands up, lightly, as if they were feathers, lifted by a soft breeze.

A hush came over the crowd as she plucked at her gloves' fingertips, as she drew them off, draped them over one bare shoulder, the other glove over the other shoulder:  her hands drove down onto the keyboard and surprised a lively dance-hall fanfare from the ivory 88, and immediately into a bouncy dance number -- with the dancer atop the piano keeping flawless time, her heels loud on the hardwood top.

Three songs she played, three dances she displayed:  skirts tossing from side to side, long stockinged legs flashing with the ease and grace of long practice:  callused hands pounded tabletops, there were whistles, yells, the raucous appreciation of a crowd who fancied they were participants in celebration of a moment from a century and more ago.

A stiff finger ended the lively tune with a quick, rippling swipe down the keyboard as the dancer struck a dramatic pose, the same as she'd assumed on stage just after the curtains swung open:  she thrust out her gloved hand and yelled, "HEY, MICK! CATCH!"

A grinning Mick went home that night with two bright-scarlet lipstick prints on his cheeks and a grin on his face broad as the polished chrome front bumper on a Mack truck, and just as dazzling; two giggling girls retreated backstage and set the Land Speed Record for changing out of their scandalous, dance-hall duds and scrubbing off the incriminating face paint:  through a secret door they'd discovered early in childhood, thanks to reading something written by another pale-eyed dancer who'd preceded them by more than a century, they slipped into a narrow stairway, into the back hallway and out the back door.

They weren't expecting their Daddy to be inside their front door at home, waiting up for them.

 

"Will," Linn sighed, "I watched the video afterward."

"And?"

Linn chuckled, shook his head.

"I knew Angela was good on the piano. I didn't know she could make it sit up and talk, and Marnie ..."

He sighed, leaned his head back, stared at the ceiling.

"Dear God, my little girl is become a temptress!"

"Maybe she's just feelin' what it is to be a young woman," Will suggested.  "Did you lower the boom on 'em?"

"No," Linn admitted.  "They told me they'd performed at the fund raiser. I assumed they'd cleared it with Shelly and she admitted she thought they'd cleared it with me, and neither of us caught it because it was Friday night and we were staying over at work because you know how Friday nights get."

"Oh, yeah," Will muttered in agreement.

"This long after ... hell, Will, I can't say they did anything really wrong!"

"Other'n dancin' on top of a piano. As I recall, they aren't really made to dance on."

"I looked.  Didn't hurt it any."

Will grunted, drained the last of his tea.

"Want my advice?"

Linn finished the last of his own, set the sweating, empty glass down on the God-awful hand-painted coaster.

"Tell Angela she plays piano like an angel plays a harp, tell Marnie she dances as well as her Gammaw, hug 'em both tight and count yourself pretty damned lucky."

Linn and Will talked into the night, each man needing the listening ear of a trusted friend: when Linn hesitated just before leaving, he turned, Stetson in hand, his jaw thrust out and a thoughtful frown on his face.

He looked at his Uncle, nodded.

"Maybe," he said slowly, "maybe I'm not a failure as a father, after all."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE SAD PART

Deputy Jacob Keller swore as the gunshot came through the house's siding.

From the inside.

Marnie swung around, drove her burnished boot flat against the door just beside the doorknob, using both the strength of her athletic, horsewoman's leg, and her weight to shatter the wooden door frame and slam the door open.

"Hold," Jacob said quietly: The Bear Killer was bristled, snarling, crouched: Jacob felt The Bear Killer draw back, just a little, as if cocking the heavy protein springs of his hind legs.

Marnie spun away, crouched, knuckles on the ground.

She had not drawn her sidearm, and Jacob knew that meant very bad things were about to happen.

If Marnie had a handful of the issue pistol, all she would do, would be kill the subject.

When her hand was empty and she looked as cocked-and-primed as the quivering, eager Bear Killer he felt vibrating against his leg, this meant that she was about to do very fast, very violent and very violently effective things against whoever was inside.

Jacob saw a flash, another, a third: a rifle's muzzle advanced out of the shadowed doorway.

Marnie moved.

Jacob knew the cruiser's camera would capture part of what happened, at least, but he also knew that Marnie's speed would be a blur on the electronic record.

Jacob saw someone attached to the rifle come out the door -- but not of his own volition -- he saw Marnie power off the ground, saw the two of them bear off to the side.

Marnie and the felon somersaulted -- Marnie was on her feet, the rifle ripped free of the druggie's hands -- she drove the butt rifle's checkered-plastic buttplate into the bare-chested felon's gut, hard.

The Bear Killer launched like he'd been catapulted from a spring-loaded sled: black death screamed a canine challenge as a second streak, pure white, seized a thrashing hand, grabbed just behind the subject's wrist, pulled.

The voice of a war dog baying into battle, the sound of a fighting canine singing joy for something that burned like living fires roaring through his veins, is terrifying: within, The Bear Killer roared down the hall, slammed into a closet door as he scrambled to turn --

-- silence --

Snowdrift rumbled a dark warning as she pulled hard, as Marnie fought the druggie's free arm behind his back, as she seized the jaw-clamped wrist and commanded "Off!" -- Snowflake pulled back, tail swinging, watching as Marnie fought to get the other wrist confined.

Her task was made easier when Snowflake pushed her cold, wet nose into the druggie's ear and snarled, then bit down on his ear -- not hard, not enough to bring blood, to get his attention -- Marnie got the other cuff around his other wrist, hauled him upright and off his feet, and half-carried, half-frogmarched him toward the waiting cruiser.

Jacob held the shotgun at a low ready, advanced toward the doorway.

The silence within was ominous.

"Bear Killer!"

Nothing.

Jacob felt his stomach shrink, felt a dark rage building in his young soul.

Normally The Bear Killer would be discussing behavior with the sinners within.

That he was silent was ... troubling.

The arrestee was not cooperating in getting into the cruiser: he tried to twist away, tried to fight free of the pale eyed female deputy, until she ran her baton between his legs, turned it sideways and used it to haul him off the ground, her other arm around his neck.

"You are going in," Marnie grated, "PEACEFULLY OR OTHERWISE, AND I DON'T CARE WHICH!"

Marnie got him into the cruiser.

Jacob waited until a backup deputy came running up to the doorway: they made entry, cleared the house, stopped when they found The Bear Killer.

The big, black, curly furred wardog, this harbinger of death, destruction, ruin and bloody injury, was curled around a child of less than a year.

The little one looked at Jacob with bright and fearless eyes and then grinned a baby's happy, toothless grin, patted The Bear Killer's fur with little pink, finger-spread hands, and The Bear Killer looked at Jacob with an equally happy expression.

Outside, Marnie drove the probes of her taser into the druggie's bare belly and gave him a good dose of high-voltage, low-amperage tranquilizer.

She fast up the lap belt, the over-the-shoulders harness, and considered how much time she'd have tied up in hosing out the molded-plastic back seat, and then disinfecting it, thanks to this unwashed individual's response to having consumed certain unlicensed pharmaceuticals, having engaged in certain physical activities, and then absorbing a certain amount of capacitor's discharge.

Marnie pulled a light cardboard card from her uniform blouse pocket and made sure the cruiser's cameras and her own were all functioning; she held the Miranda card where her bodycam could see it, then she read from it, concluding with, "Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?"

She stepped back as a weak kick came at her.

Another strap, and the legs were cinched; Marnie looked at him before she shut the back door.

"You don't have to understand 'em," she said. "I'm required to read 'em and I've done that."

She looked up as she heard the liquid whistle of the squad's siren on approach.

She slammed the door, turned as Jacob came up to her, The Bear Killer and Snowflake dancing happily beside him:  Jacob had a happy, squealing, arm-waving, blanket-wrapped baby in his arms, clearly the subject of two mountain Mastiffs' attention.

Jacob's expression was much less happy.

The backup deputy was still beside the front door, leaned back against the rental house's siding, bent over.

Marnie watched impassively as their fellow lawman heaved up his guts.

Jacob's expression was that of a man who'd like to rip the horn off an anvil barehand.

Jacob glared through tempered glass and through close-spaced steel bars.

"He killed his wife," he said.  "Beat her to death."

Marnie looked toward the house.

"Take him in," she said, her words clipped.  "Call for the coroner and a forensics team. I'll hold the scene."  She thrust a chin at the deputy, still bent over, hands on his knees, head hanging.

"His first day?" she asked.

"Yep."

"Think he'll quit?"

Jacob looked at the fellow, looked back at his sister.

"I don't reckon he'll stay."

"Squad's here. I'll relieve him" -- she thrust her chin at the deputy, still bent over, "and hold the scene til the coroner and Forensics get here.  Get this one locked up."

Jacob handed her the stubby twelve-bore, carried the happy, arm-waving infant over to his mother.

Marnie walked over to her retching compatriot, laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"Got any water in your cruiser?"

He nodded.

"Go wash out your mouth, take a drink."

"I can't hold it down," came the gasping answer.

"Helps to have something to throw up. You'll tear yourself apart with dry heaves, trust me."

He nodded, staggered for his cruiser.

Marnie stood in front of the doorway, waited until her grandfather was right in front of her.

"Crime scene protocol," she said quietly, waited until they went in, made their determination, emerged.

"I should have stayed outside with the baby," Captain Crain said quietly.

Marnie went back inside, looked around; she stopped in the back bedroom, looked at what used to be a pretty young woman she'd seen before.

She turned so her back was to the wall; eyes busy, she walked slowly back out into the hallway.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller looked up as Marnie came in the front doors.

He'd been bent over, stiff-arming his weight through his callused palm, flat on Sharon's desktop, studying the dispatcher's notes: he straightened, walked over to Marnie, looked at her.

"Hell of a first day," he said quietly.

She looked at her Daddy with calm and pale eyes.

"I've seen worse."

Marnie squeezed her Daddy's arm, as if to reassure him:  "I've got reports to write," she said quietly, leaving dispatcher and Sheriff to watch as her polished Wellington boots marched her into the next room.

"She's seen worse?" Sharon said in a small voice.

The Sheriff nodded, almost sadly, remembering what he'd been told about Marnie's earliest years, back in New York.

"The sad part," Linn said, his voice heavy, "she probably has!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

"SHE'S TOO GOOD FOR THE LIKES OF YOU!"

"Hey, take a look at this one."

"Yeah? Whattaya got?"

"I got the sweetest little lady God ever put on this earth, that's what I got!"

"You aint' got sweet Jesus and seven left handed SAINTS, she's gorgeous!"

"What did I tell ya, eh?  Eh?  What did I tell ya?"  Bill clapped his hands together, cackled with laughter.

Burch rapped the back of his knuckles against his colleague's denim covered shoulder.

"You ain't man enough t' handle her!"

"Sez who? Gimme a chance, I'll wrap my hands around --"

"Excuse me."

Two engineers for the Z&W Railroad looked up from the computer screen, looking more like a pair of thirteen year olds caught sneaking a peek at dirty pictures.

Sheriff Willamina Keller, owner-in-fact of the Z&W Railroad, its chief fundraiser, cheerleader, ringleader, recruiter and general manager, paced slowly over to the foreman's desk, looked at the computer screen, while her two best engineers leaned back, red-faced, shifting their weight from one foot to the other and looking alternately at the Sheriff and at each other.

"Oh," Willamina said softly, "my," she smiled broadly, "goodness!"

She turned, looked at Bill.

"You want to get your hands on her?"

"Yes, ma'am," he muttered, looking down and to the side and managing somehow to look even more guilty than he did a moment ago.

Willamina looked back at the screen.

"I will say," she admitted candidly, "she's gorgeous!"  She bent a little studied the image, nodded.

"She's a rebuilt 4-4-0 ... Boston & Albany number 45 ... I've never seen spokes like that."  She straightened, smiling.  "That has to be one genuinely beautiful engine!"

"She'd never do for mountain service," Bill admitted, "drivers are way too big ... back East where it's flat, sure, she'd do fine for passenger work ..."

Willamina stepped closer, laid a hand on each of her red-faced engineers' arms.

"I will say," she said softly, "you two have excellent taste!"

Willamina winked, turned, made it to the door, laid a hand on the faceted-glass doorknob, turned.

"Your watches are due for service, by the way. I'll have their replacements brought up this afternoon."  She smiled again, that relaxed, easy smile that was seen more often there in the railroad roundhouse than anywhere else the engineers could recall. "I found two more genuine Ball watches."

Two engineers looked at one another, looked at the closed door, unsure whether to rejoice at the good fortune of their boss's understanding nature, or of her finding another pair of (good Lord how'd she ever do it!) genuine Ball railroad watches!

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

... and now, The Rest of the Story ...

Turns out the photo is public domain, but the fellow who posted it 

thanked me for being considerate enough to ask!

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NEVER AGAIN!

"MARNIE!"

Marnie turned, her hands extending: they opened, right where something spinning and dark blue hovered in the air: her hands closed, one came up fisted across her chest and she turned, pivoting on the balls of her feet, her hair floating and her skirt flaring and her right hand extending and there was a flash, a report, another: she charged, sprinting forward, her fisted left hand opening, bladed, slicing the air as she powered into a full-on charge.

Marnie Keller, in a dress and heels, her hair brushed and shining and lying down almost to her waist, ran toward the threat, her brother's backup revolver in a crush grip: she stopped quickly, stomped her foot down hard on a dead wrist, pointed the small-frame revolver at the wounded survivor's face.

"Show me your hands," she said quietly.

Jacob came up, eyes busy, scanning for additional threats, for another ambush.

He'd been taken by surprise.

He'd nearly been killed.

The first burst of full-auto fire chewed three grooves in the back brim of his uniform Stetson: he'd ducked behind a handy post office box, twisted, fired from the left of the box instead of the right side: the move may well have kept him alive, for another burst scarred into the blue-painted box and the building behind.

If he'd fired from the right side of the letterbox, he'd be dead.

Marnie and John Greenlees were just coming out of the Silver Jewel: Marnie ducked around the corner, sprinted down the alley, around back of the church, came out beside the Municipal Building.

"JACOB!" she yelled, clapped her hands together, held them open like Willy Mays anticipating a pop fly.

Jacob pulled his hideout, gave it a wrist-snap toss like he was slinging a Frisbee.

He leaned back, saw his chance, fired, fired again, and Marnie charged.

Jacob stood, dropped the mag and drove in a fresh hopper, eyes dead white, hard, seeking a target --

Marnie stopped, thrust her arm out, he saw her body move and knew she'd stomped something --

Jacob ran up on the ambushers, thrust his pistol back in its holster, keyed his shoulder mic.

"Firelands, Firelands Two, shots fired, tango down, roll squad, we're between the Sundae Shoppe and Eichenbaum's."

"Stand up," Marnie said icily, her voice as cold as her eyes, and the second ambusher stood, looking at one, looking at the other.

Marnie's eyes shifted away --

He reached for his waistband, fast --

Marnie's revolver spoke, once, and the second ambusher fell dead, a hole very precisely between his eyes.

Marnie's foot was still hard on the wounded attacker's wrist.

Jacob bent over, nodded.

"You're hurt bad," he said conversationally. "Why'd you try to kill me?"

"You shamed mis hermanos," came the bloody-lipped reply.

"They shamed themselves. If there's shame, you've brought more on their heads. You had a rifle and you missed me, and we both put lead into you from across the street."

The squad came wheeling out of the firehouse not far away.

Marnie stepped out into the street, flagged them in with a large, exaggerated arm-wave:  Jacob reached down, gripped the hand grenade, snorted, shook his head.

"I think you're going to have some interesting conversations," he remarked.  

"Puta!" the wounded youth spat. "Y hijo de puta!"

"You kiss your Mama with that mouth?" Jacob asked innocently, seized the wounded man by the shirt front, hauled him easily off the ground.  "Pardon me while I search your carcass."

Jacob pinned him to the side of the car they'd tried to use as their ambush point, found a few more things the prisoner really shouldn't have, tossed them onto the roof of the car as the squad pulled up, as the medics bailed out.

"We're fine, he's not," Jacob called, "that one's dead."

"You're not a medic," the Captain snapped, then took a look at the deceased and said, "Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Jacob snapped back. "When I tell you he's dead, he's DEAD!" 

The Captain -- grandfather or not -- was wise enough not to reply.

 

Later that evening, after reports and debrief, after evidence photographs and the Shots Fired team from the State Police, Marnie emerged from the Sheriff's private latrine, looking as fresh as she did when her evening started, when she'd gone out for dinner with her fiancee, before these gang members decided to use military ordinance stolen for the purpose, tried to murder her brother for an imagined slight.

Marnie might have looked as fresh and collected as a lovely young maiden, dressed for the occasion, but her silence -- her icy silence -- said more than harsh words might have, at least until Jacob emerged from the conference room.

Marnie stopped, turned, walked up to her brother, gave him a very intense, very personal look: in heels, she was closer to his height, and Jacob was honestly not sure whether she was going to belt him across the chops, apologize for his J-frame disappearing into Evidence for who knows how long, or whether maybe she was going to sprout a set of silvery-white wings and sing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" backwards, in Latin.

Marnie did none of these.

She seized her brother in an absolutely crushing hug, holding him tight, holding him with an urgency, almost a desperation.

"Damn you," she whispered, "if you get yourself killed I'll never speak to you again!"

Jacob's arms tightened around his sister and she felt his silent laughter.

They slacked their embrace, but held one another yet, as they looked at one another.

"Sis," Jacob asked quietly, "how come you didn't have your own on you?"

Marnie snorted, frowned, looked away, looked back.

"Jacob," she replied, "do you remember all those times we read about Sarah McKenna wearing gowns tailored to hide a variety of weapons?"

Jacob nodded.

"Do you see what I'm wearing?"

Jacob blinked, nodded:  his sister was wearing a dress, and frankly she looked really good in it.

"Take a good look. You'll never see me in this one again."

"You're not going to tailor it?" Jacob asked quietly. "Or wear a thigh holster?"

"I'M GOING TO WEAR A MCKENNA GOWN SO I CAN CARRY A GATLING GUN UNDER IT!" Marnie snapped.

Jacob opened his mouth, closed it carefully, wisely believing any reply might not be well received.

"Sis," he admitted, "do you remember Pa tellin' us a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?"

Marnie thrust her jaw out and pressed her lips together, trying hard not to smile.

"He said he knows just enough to get in trouble," she quoted, and he could hear a smile creeping into her words.

"That's how it is with me and women's fashions. I know just enough about 'em to get myself all confused. Was I to suggest a thigh holster and maybe attach it to a garter to keep it from slidin' down the taper of your leg, why, I might just be showin' my ignorance of how those things work."

Marnie closed her eyes, took a long, patient breath, looked at her brother, then stepped into him again, ran one arm around him and patted him on the chest the way their Gammaw used to.

"Jacob," she said, "I'll try some things but I'll need your help. You'll watch me wearing whatever I come up with and you'll tell me if it works."

"I can do that.  What about John?"

"He knows I'm stuck in paperwork hell. He'll have gone to the hospital to see if he can lend a hand there."

"Do you think you can salvage your evening?"

"I can try."

Jacob nodded.  "You want to go back out there unarmed, Sis?"

Marnie smiled, just a little.

"No," she admitted, "and I think Gammaw's shoulder rig is in the gun room. So is one of her jackets, and it will just go with this dress."

Jacob nodded.  "I'd be more comfortable."

"You drew another sidearm?"

"I did, and replaced the magazine that went with mine."

"I've got a J-frame I'll give you."

"Like the old preacher said," Jacob deadpanned, closing one eye and looking innocent, "all donations cheerfully accepted!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CONVERSATION

"NO! AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"

Miz Sarah, their pale eyed schoolmarm, folded her hands in her apron and tilted her head a little, regarding the rebellious schoolboy over her spectacles.

She looked at Miz Emma and nodded, then turned to the staring, silent student body in their little whitewashed, one-room schoolhouse, and clapped her hands twice.

"Children," she called, "everybody out.  Outside, and across the street. Miz Emma" -- she turned and gave her fellow schoolmarm a quiet look -- "please see to it that no one is anywhere near this building. I don't want anyone near the windows. If anyone tries, please corral them for me."

Young Jimmy Cook, standing less defiantly now, watched as row after row of students filed out of their seats, down the aisle, through the back door, outside.

Miz Emma followed them out.

Jimmy looked from window to window, expecting eager young faces to press noses and fingertips against the wavy window-glass from the outside.

Nobody did.

Miss Sarah turned to her rebellious student.

"Jimmy," she said gently, "there's nobody here to see you now.  Nobody but you and me."  

Her smile was as gentle as her voice.

"Now what do you suppose I should do to you?"

Jimmy swallowed hard, realizing his audience was gone, and with it, any support he might have for his moment of rebellion.

He'd climbed on top of the teacher's desk and stood there, refusing to dismount when told to do so.

Now he was alone with Miz Sarah, without even the presence of a second schoolmarm to temper whatever action she might choose to levy on his juvenile rebellion.

"Now what do you suppose I should do with you?" Miz Sarah asked, her voice still gentle.

She hadn't moved: her hands were still folded in front of her, lightly clasped, her head tilted a little to the side: she looked very much like a proper lady, and not at all like a harsh disciplinarian.

Jimmy licked his lips uncertainly.

Miz Sarah looked over at the collection of switches she kept in a big crock jug beside the schoolmarm's desk, looked back at Jimmy.

"If you want to stand there," she said, "the backs of your legs are exposed."

Jimmy swallowed hard.

"Or I could grab you and yank you off there."  She blinked, looked down his legs, looked back up to his face.  "Tell me, should I simply throw you onto the floor, or should I bend you over that desk and switch you?"

"You can't make me!" were his last words before something grabbed him by the front of his trousers and jerked, hard.

Jimmy hit the floor face first and something heavy landed on his back, knocking the wind out of him: hard hands seized the back of his shirt, hauled him off the floor, rammed his belly into the edge of the desk.

"Now, Jimmy," Sarah's gentle voice slithered through the pain-haze that occupied his thoughts, "you really shouldn't defy me like that."

Miz Sarah's face was looking down at him and he realized she'd yanked him off the desk and planted his shoulder blades flat on the smooth board floor, her hand tight-wound into his shirt front.

Miz Sarah, their slender, gentle, ladylike schoolmarm, picked Jimmy Cook up, one-handed.

She stood, curled her arm, brought his young nose within an inch of her own.

"Jimmy," she said quietly, her voice as gentle as ever, "I can beat you against the wall like a rag doll if I want.  I can throw you clear across the room and I can make that look easy. Would you like me to show you?"

Jimmy's eyes were big and fearful.

He swallowed, shook his head, managed a weak "No, ma'am."

"Now, Jimmy," Miz Sarah said, still just as quiet and gentle of voice as she'd been all along, "do you see that I could have taken you off that desk in front of the entire school?"

Jimmy nodded.

"I could have bent you over and switched you in front of the entire school."

He nodded again.

Miz Sarah eased him down until his feet were flat on the floor.

"Jimmy," she said, "I am going to set you down now."

Jimmy blinked, uncertain whether to make reply or not.

"I want you to go outside and join the other children across the street."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I will then call all of you back inside, and you will take your seat as if nothing happened."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I will say nothing more of what happened."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You may or may not choose to say anything."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Just one moment."  

Miz Sarah went to the corner, opened a hinged-lid box, withdrew a rag:  she dampened this with water from a flower vase, wiped the desk quickly to remove any dirt from Jimmy's boots:  satisfied, she  snapped the rag once, pulled a drawer open a little, hung the rag to dry where it was out of the common eye.

Miz Sarah stood, looked at Jimmy, looked at the back door.

"Come with me."

They came to the back door.

"Now, Jimmy," Miz Sarah said quietly, "please open the door."
Jimmy did.

"Now, Jimmy," Miz Sarah said quietly, and Jimmy looked at her uncertainly as she smiled, crouched a little, gathered her skirts.

"Jimmy, do you see where the other students are?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Miz Sarah laughed, and her laughter was the first thing the other students noticed after seeing the doors open.

"Race ya!"

A fast-moving schoolmarm and a laughing schoolboy launched off the steps and sprinted across the street, to the encouraging yells of the rest of the Firelands student body.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AMBASSADOR

"They found what?"

"They found topsoil, sir."

"Topsoil! Where?"

"Sir, do you remember we suspected those gullies were ancient riverbeds?"

"I remember something about it, yes."

"Sir, the theory was that Mars dried out as her core cooled and slowed and she lost her magnetic field. As she dried, what winds were left, blew dried-out topsoil into dried out riverbeds, and there she's stayed."

"Topsoil."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you think ... could it be made fertile again?"

"I'm not a ... a horticulturist, sir.  I don't know."

"Have they tried? -- of course they've tried.  They're a resourceful bunch, that's why they were selected ..."

"Sir, there's something else."

"Something else?  What is it, man?"

"Sir, we've lost communication with both colonies. News of the topsoil was the last transmission."

Color drained from the man's face like red ink squeezed out of an eyedropper.

"When ...?"

"All telemetry, all commo, everything, just ... ended, sir.  Not twenty minutes ago."

"But that's not possible! What about the satellites?  We've got redundancy --"

"They're dead, sir. No response to any command. We even tried the emergency self-destruct on two of them to see if any signal at all was getting through."

"Oh dear God ... a meteor swarm, do you think?"

"We can't tell, sir."

"How long will it take us to get a team up there?"

"Even expedited, sir, over a year."

"No contact of any kind?"

"None, sir."

"Oh dear God."  The man's voice was barely a whisper; he looked sick, looked at his computer monitor.

"How will we tell all their families?"

 

"How soon do we tell Earth?"

Sheriff Marnie Keller's eyes were hard.

"Let them eat static," she said coldly.

Her words did not echo in the big meeting hall -- it was acoustically engineered to prevent excess echo, it was well enough designed that the voice spoken on stage could be heard to the last row, if the speaker raised their voice a little.

She turned to face the assembled colony.

"You all know why we're here," she declared.

"We all agreed that we were tired of Earth treating us like red headed stepchildren. Their supply ships were armed with weapons to hold us hostage if we rebelled, with computer viri intended to infiltrate our systems and report back without our knowledge. The last supply ship carried a program designed to disable our life support and wipe our hard drives, with search worms designed to find our most secure backups and wipe them out. We've been told by fellow colonists who came as agents that Earth intended to keep us under their control, and if we tried to throw off that control, we were to be terminated as a last resort."

Marnie's hands closed into fists.

"Terminated," she spat, anger clear and unmistakable on her otherwise pretty face.

She wore her white Olympic skinsuit with the six point star embossed on the left breast, she wore her gunbelt and her Uncle Will's .357, and she held a red-felt Stetson in her off hand.

"You've already agreed we should be separate from Earth," she said. "This is nothing we want to take lightly. We're self-sufficient, thanks to the reverse engineering we did from alien equipment we found when we arrived, when we excavated, when we looked for them and found them and figured them out."

"DIXIE!" an anonymous voice yelled.

Marnie nodded.  "The Confederacy has been a great help," she agreed. "They've agreed that an alliance will not mean we become a vassal state. You've trusted me to be our voice, our diplomatic envoy to a thirteen star system civilization. If you're satisfied with what I've done, I'll put on my diplomat's hat and get to work."

Marnie held up the red Stetson, looked at it, looked back at the assembled colonists.

"HOW SAY YOU, FIRELANDS?" Sheriff Marnie Keller shouted.  "DO WE SECEDE?"

"SECESSION!" a voice yelled, "SECEDE!" shouted another:  like fire in dry grass the sentiment spread, to voices, to throats, to men and women alike standing, stamping, shouting, chanting.

Marnie spread her arms at a high angle, free hand's palm toward them, the other holding her Stetson: she turned a little to her right, turned a little to her left, her magnified image on the big screens on either side of the long, spacious hall.

Marnie lowered her arms, slowly, and with it, the roar subsided, hushed:  silence claimed the long hall, and Marnie slowly, ceremonially, brought the red Stetson up, settled it on her head.

 

Jacob rolled out of his bunk, hit the floor on the balls of his feet and his fingertips:  he came upright, seized his gunbelt, slung it over his left shoulder, slapped his uniform Stetson on his head, thrust sock feet into well polished Wellington boots:  he was now as fully dressed as he needed to be to respond to his father's summons, and headed down the broad, hand-fitted stairs at little short of a run.

His father stood at his desk, pale face illuminated by the screen's glow -- not his computer screen, but rather the one he used for communication with Marnie, the slightly larger screen provided by the Ambassador, the screen that connected them with their distant relative with technology yet unknown on Earth.

Jacob stopped, looked very directly at his father.

"Get dressed," Linn said quietly.  "You've been requested to Mars."

 

Marnie Keller stood shoulder to shoulder with her pale eyed brother and addressed the cameras.

They were in the meeting hall's stage; the curtains were closed, the cameras in position as they usually were for their news broadcasts, but instead of their reporters behind recycled-plastic, 3D-printed desktops, Ambassador Marnie Keller stood in red cowboy boots, red vest and skirt, a white blouse, and her red Stetson.

She wore her gunbelt and her Uncle's .357, and she wore a solemn expression.

Jacob wore his usual deputy's uniform: the shoulder patches said FIRELANDS COUNTY SHERIFF, his six point star said simply DEPUTY, he wore his uniform Stetson and his full gunbelt and sidearm.

Marnie turned toward him, gripped a thread under his left shoulder patch, pulled.

His shoulder patch fell free, revealing the one securely sewn to his uniform blouse.

This new patch was black, with a six point gold star: above the star, SHERIFF, and beneath the star, FIRELANDS.

She did the same for his right shoulder.

Marnie unclasped the six point star, pulled his deputy's badge free, handed it to a pale eyed little boy standing beside her: like most children born on Mars, he was taller than an Earth-child of similar years would be, but there was no mistaking the similarities between the boy, and Jacob: as a matter of fact, there was a remarkable resemblance, over and above the pale eyes.

Marnie slipped thumb and forefinger into her vest pocket, pulled out another tin star.

She worked its pin through the badge slots in Jacob's uniform shirt, fastened the clasp.

This, too, was a six point, hand engraved badge, but instead of the word DEPUTY across its equator, its hand-chased letters, carefully and precisely graven, read SHERIFF.

Ambassador Marnie Keller, the official representative of the twin Martian colonies, now united under the name of Firelands, came up on her toes and kissed her brother on the cheek, just as the curtains swept apart.

It was one of the few times Jacob had ever seen his pale eyed sister genuinely surprised.

The auditorium was filled.

A delegation started across the stage from the opposite end: Jacob smiled to see the roses he'd brought were worked into the bouquet one of the Valkyries carried.

One of the miners -- Marnie knew him, she'd danced with him, surprising him with her Earth-normal musculature in the near-one-third-Earth-gravity -- the miner tucked his hardhat under his arm and declared loudly, "You didn't think we'd let you off this easy!"

Marnie accepted the flowers, buried her face in their fragrance, closed her eyes, inhaled, savoring their scent: they were grown here on Mars, as were most of their food crops, in big underground bays.

"Sheriff, oh hell, Ambassador!" the miner declared, looked at the filled auditorium with reddening ears:  he turned to the assembled, extended a hand, palm up:  "Ye don't expect me t' get it right after all this time of callin' her Sheriff!"

His grin and the sincerity of his plea gained a laugh from the audience and their new Ambassador both.

His train of thought completely derailed, the miner turned back to Marnie: his carefully-prepared, well-rehearsed speech evaporated like a passing summer shower on hot August pavement:  red-faced, he stuck out his hand and said simply, "Thank you!"

The applause hit them like a wave as every last colonist came to their feet, applauding, whistling, shouting.

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller looked around his quarters, surprised to find he was in an area of Earth-normal gravity.

Marnie had re-created his bedroom from home to a surprising degree of accuracy.

"You'll want to bring some items, I'd imagine," she said as she showed him around: "anything you bring will be automatically disinfected, including your carcass."

Jacob frowned.  "That's why," he said softly.

"What's why?"

He looked at Marnie and allowed himself a moment's candor.

"Sis, I thought I had a tooth starting to abscess."

Marnie patted his arm, smiled.

"The infection's gone, so are the decay producing flora in your mouth. You no longer have any sinus infection, you've been stripped of all disease organisms that rode on you -- or in you -- from Earth."

"Not bad," he murmured.

"Confederate dentists are the best in thirteen star systems, by the way."  

"Something tells me I've got a lot of learning to do."

"You?"  Marnie snorted.  "Pity poor me! I'm booked solid for tours, lectures, conferences, I'm expected to speak on how to colonize a dead planet and make it work, I've been booked for training sessions with law enforcement agencies from here to God knows how far out, the Confederacy thinks I'm the best thing since sliced bread --"

"Sis."

Jacob's fingertips just touched Marnie's upper arms, but it was enough to stop her.

"Sis, you are the most capable soul I know of, and you are perfect for the job. You've done more than exemplary work as Sheriff. You've kept your people alive, even when you were attacked by an alien colony-killer squad. You've kept up morale, you're raising a family, nobody else could have done what you have!"

"What have I done, Jacob?  What have I really done?"

"You've taken colonists from all over the world, Marnie. You've led them. You made them believe in you and you kept their trust. You never, ever let them down, you united them, and now Firelands is its own nation, its own world!"

Marnie nodded.

"Now suppose you show me your record keeping system. What you've got works, and I'm too lazy to reinvent the wheel."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A HERO, ON THE WALL

Willamina sat cross legged, half hidden by a multiflora rose: she knew as long as she did not move, the thorns would not imbed into her brown-green-drab overshirt, and as long as she did not move, the shapeless, weather-faded boonie hat would further break her outline: she wore brown-and-green camo gloves and a matching bandanna across the lower half of her face, and she steadied her elbows on the insides of her knees.

She watched through the compact Bushnells as Big Bob slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y, raised his .308 to shoulder.

Big Bob was one of the finest shots Willamina ever saw: rifle, pistol, shotgun, it didn't matter, the man was an artist when it came to wingshooting, and Willamina and Bob each sat and leaned back against a fence post, drew their knees up, clamped their two-hand grip between the inside of their drawn-up knees, and took turns with a pair of Colt .357s, knocking rust off a diagonal, two-inch, pipe brace on the fence gate 135 yards distant.

Now Willamina waited with Bob, waited in ambush for the same fence-cutting trespasser than cut Bob's bobwarr that marked the line fence, separating his farm, the last unbroken farm on that ridge, and Salt Fork State Park.

Willamina already had her earplugs worked into place; she watched through the binoculars.

The trespasser was wearing new-looking hunting clothes, he'd parked a new-looking 870 Remington against the fencepost -- shiny-new, not even the fine scratches of having been carried even one season -- Willamina watched as the fellow pulled out a brand-new, shiny-clean, heavy-duty set of wire cutters, the kind you use to cut heavy wire like steel bobwarr fence --

The rifle's report was as substantial as a .308 always is, and Willamina was most grateful she'd made double sure her starboard earplug was well and truly seated before she herself was seated in her hide.

She watched as the shotgun's action vomited parts out its back, as the wirecutters hit the ground, as the trespasser took off running, abandoning gun and cutters in his haste to depart.

They waited.

Willamina had a shotgun beside her, an ancient model 10 Remington she'd used to hit a teacup size target five out of five that morning: she had it stoked with alternating buck and slug, reasoning that she'd be able to repel any trespassers who might object to being run off private property with that combination -- especially what Big Bob called UCLAs.

Upper Cleveland, Lower Akron.

Typical rich-man trespassers who considered anything adjacent to Salt Fork, to be their private hunting preserve.

The week before, she and Bob were walking another line fence when they saw a trespasser's pickup truck pulled up to a gate, a gate you had to drive down a long, narrow lane clearly marked with multiple NO TRESPASSING signs.

Bob and Willamina flanked out, got close.

Bob racked the bolt back on a Mini-14, let it fly: the trespassers dropped the hacksaw with which they were trying to cut the lock.

"That's private property," Bob drawled. "You fellas might want to leave."

"We, we, we just wanted to see what's on the other side of --"

"That's my property, not yours."

"Hey, man, what kind of a gun is that?"

"That?"  Bob's smile was broad and genuine and not at all pleasant.  "That's a night gun."

"A night gun?"

"Yeah.  I use it on Cleveland-ites, Akron-ites and Canton-ites."

Willamina stepped out where she could be seen, cycled the model 10.

Now a model 10 Remington isn't quite as noisy as a 97 Winchester.

An old man one time said a 97 sounded like the magazine was full of Carnation milk cans, and that's an exaggeration: whatever the case, in the face of a second enforcer of the truth, the pair ran the six steps back to their truck and wasted no time at all in throwing muddy rooster-tails, getting out of there.

Willamina blinked, looked at the photograph of Big Bob in his town Marshal's uniform, leaning casually against the white fender of his Plymouth cruiser, the one he rolled on New Year's Eve when his tire blew in a turn during a pursuit.

Willamina swallowed hard, looking at the photograph: she'd taken it, she'd given it to him, and it ended up thumbtacked with the others on the memory board at his funeral.

"You never asked me to marry you," she whispered, staring at the photograph.

"You were a perfect gentleman."

Willamina closed her eyes, took a long breath, remembering:  she laughed a little, silently, remembering how he'd picked up a small anvil from the back of a flatbed truck, turned, asked the goggling blacksmith where he wanted it.

"If you wanted it," she murmured, "you could pick it up and pack it off."

Sheriff Willamina Keller leaned back, looked at her Daddy's revolver in its glass frame on the wall, looked at the framed portraits, looked at the history and the legends each one contained, then looked back at the framed picture, the enlargement she'd just gotten from Bruce Jones.

Willamina stood, raised the framed picture, hung it carefully on the wall, adding one more hero to her Wall of Heroes.

She remembered his best friend, another lawman, had to pull out his Chaplain's hat at Big Bob's funeral: the preacher the family hired was in his nineties and didn't know Big Bob from Adam: the man had to leave on a family emergency, and so his funeral was performed with no  warning and with no preparation, and Willamina thanked the man afterward, and admitted she didn't think she could have done such a thing, not for someone that close.

She remembered how he'd nodded, how he'd bitten his bottom lip and wiped at the leak from his eyes, how he said in a husky near-whisper, "Hardest thing I've ever done," and looked at the bronze casket, spotted with wet drops of grief that fell from his eyes as he spoke the final words over his best friend's box.

"They didn't have money enough for his diabetic meds and his Mama's meds as well," his words husking through a too-tight throat:  "he chose to buy meds for his Mama and he let his diabetes go, and it killed him."

Willamina nodded, gripped the Chaplain's forearm, nodded.

Willamina's hands closed slowly, powerfully, and she wondered as she remembered ...

... was she remembering closing her hand on a grieving man's arm ...

... or was she wishing she could crush the throat of the Fate that made her dearest friend in the world, choose his mother's death, or his own, slower death?

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE SHERIFF'S GUEST

Sheriff Linn Keller spoke plainly, as was his habit in the courtroom: his descriptions were clear, his explanations unambiguous, his truthfulness unquestioned.

When the Judge's gavel fell for the final time that day, the Sheriff stood, shook hands with Mr. Moulton, looked to the Judge to see if there were further matters to demand his time.

His Honor the Judge pulled a fragrant, fresh, hand-rolled Cuban cigar from his humidor, struck a Lucifer match on his shoe sole and lit up: when the Judge fired up a stogie from the bench, it was his signal that the Court's business was concluded for the day.

Had there been further matters of concern, His Honor would have looked very directly at whomever he might wish to summon, then he would lift his chin slightly.

The Sheriff waited until the first few puffs consolidated in a greyish cumulus before turning to leave the courtroom.

As he rose, so did a man in a robe of unbleached muslin, and the Sheriff's eyes tightened a little at the corners.

The Abbot exited the courtroom with the rest of its humanity, waited outside: the Sheriff came up to the man, extended his hand.

Lawman and Abbot gripped one another's hands firmly.

Neither man smiled.

"You dry?" Linn asked, his voice deep, confident.

The Abbot sighed patiently.

"If I were to sneeze," he admitted, "I would blow dust!"

The two men turned and, with several of their fellows, paced the short distance up the boardwalk to the Silver Jewel Saloon, and the refreshment promised therein.

Men of every stripe came to the West; men of all sorts traveled throughout the West:  Linn had personally met peers, princes, potentates, nobles with great and fancy titles; those who were anywhere near, passed through the Silver Jewel, though not until after lingering for some time, for the Silver Jewel prided itself on its hospitality, the quality of its provender: few went away disappointed ... besides, it was clean, it was well-kept, and the piano was kept in tune.

When the County Sheriff planted a burnished boot on the shining, scratched foot rail, and beside him, a tonsured Abbot planted a bullhide sandal in the same manner, it brought neither comment nor even a second glance.

The Abbot raised his beer mug, looked into its depths as if he hoped to find the answer to some great question.

Linn raised his own, looked at the Abbot for a long moment, then looked pointedly through his own beer, finally nodding and looking back.

"Looks like beer to me," he said quietly.

The Abbot's mug hit the bar quickly, loudly, spilling a little:  Abbot William's forearms pressed hard against the burnished mahogany's ornately-rounded edge.

The Abbot's head dropped, his eyes screwed shut, tight.

Linn took a pull on his beer and waited.

The Abbot raised his head, turned around so his back was to the bar:  the tonsured cleric, in a white, unbleached muslin robe, tied with a coarse rope for a belt, his stained and faded cloth warbag slung across his body, took a long breath, sighed it out, shook his head, then took a long drink.

Linn waited.

The Abbot took another, shorter drink, shook his head and laughed.

"Sheriff," he sighed, "you always did know to to spoil a perfectly good sour mood!"

"Trust me cause trouble," Linn murmured into his beer mug, his voice echoing hollowly from the heavy, side-faceted glass: this additional comedic moment brought another laugh from the Abbot.

"You've got a choice," Linn said, raising his face from the beer-scented mug:  "We can eat here, and you know how good Daisy's cookin' is, or we can go home and Esther will fuss about how you're too skinny and we can eat our maid's cookin' and she'll tell you the same thing."

The Abbot drank the rest of the mug's contents, turned, placed it silently on the shining bar, shook his head as Mr. Baxter raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"Ears," the Abbot said.

Linn nodded.  "Good enough."

 

"I killed a man, Sheriff."

"You braggin' or complainin'?"

The two walked slowly, the way old friends will when talking things over:  Linn had his Apple-horse's reins in hand, and Apple walked contentedly behind the pair.

"Do you remember Ears Stevens?"

Linn frowned a little.  "I recall."

"He's the one."

"I take it he wanted to cut your ears off."

"I expect that's why he came in with a knife."

"You were ... what, walking?"

"I'd made camp. Had a little fire, you know the kind I make."

Linn nodded:  he was indeed familiar with the Abbot's fires:  they were small, no bigger than a teacup, generally between three fist sized rocks, just enough to boil water in the small kettle he carried in his cross-body warbag.

"So he saw an unarmed sky pilot and figured he didn't have to shoot you from the shadows."

"That's what I'm thinking."

"And you educated him."

The Abbot's smile was thin.

"I knew what he was about when I saw him."

Linn nodded; he knew what it was to judge a man's intentions from his approach, and he knew what it was to react accordingly.

"I looked up and smiled and asked if he'd like some tea."

"And?"

"He looked at me the way I've seen before, Linn.  I saw death in his eyes, I saw insanity, the same as we both saw in that damned War."

Linn nodded.

"I remember."

"I gave him a handful of sandy dirt in the face and rolled to the left, I got a good handful of staff and as soon as --"

The Abbot stopped, his eyes closed: he took a steadying breath, his hands closed around an invisible weapon.

"Linn, I wasn't there anymore. I was in the middle of battle. I had a rifle with a bayonet and I was fighting for my life. I wasn't me.  Linn, I wasn't me!"

The Abbot's voice was tight, urgent.

"I was the scared kid I'd been, in that first battle."

"You were surrounded."
"All I could see was insanity and teeth, all I could hear were voices yelling to kill him, kill him, and I used ... I hit ..."

Abbot William shivered, opened his eyes, stopped:  Linn stopped with him, and Apple-horse hung his long jaw over Linn's shoulder.

"I used my staff the way we used a musket, close-in."

Linn nodded slowly:  he, too, knew what it was to fire a musket's single shot, and then close hand-to-hand.

"I killed him, Linn. He was going to kill me and cut off my ears the way he'd done all those others, and I hit him hard enough ..."

The Abbot leaned heavily against his staff, his legs spread, planted: he was a living tripod, stable, shivering a little.

"Sounds like he had it comin'," Linn said mildly.

"I didn't even bury him."

"He didn't deserve it."

"So what's really troublin' you?"

The Abbot pushed with his staff, stood for a moment, started walking again.

The two men traveled in silence for several more moments.

"Do you remember how we would talk about home, at night, around the fire?"

Linn chuckled.  "I recall."

"You listened most patiently as ... even though I was Confederate ..."

"The war was over, we could all see that.  You and I were just two men far from home."

"Your home was about as far north as a man could get."

"And yours was about as far south."

"New Orleans," the Abbot smiled.  "Yes."
"You said her name was Susan."

Linn saw sadness flow across his old friend's face.

"I know that look," Linn said softly. "You said she'd married someone else."

The Abbot nodded.  "I went into Seminary when I found out."

"What, then?"

"She's dead."

It was Linn's turn to stop:  he reached over, laid a gentle hand on Abbot William's shoulder, nodded.

"I killed a man," the Abbot said slowly, "and it troubles me not at all ... but the news that a woman died half a year ago, and I just now ..."

"News travels slow, this far out," Linn agreed. "Stevens brought it on himself, killin' folk and takin' their ears for souvenirs"

The Abbot nodded.  "He did."

"You loved Susan."

"I did."

"She sounds like a wonderful girl."

"She was."

"I still miss Connie," Linn admitted.  "Esther and I have been married a lot of years now and I wouldn't trade her for the world itself, but ... I still miss Connie."

"I've heard you say that before," the Abbot said in a husky voice. "I never understood until now."

Two men, united in an understanding silence, walked the little distance between the barn and the Sheriff's tight, well-built house.

Two children peeked out the door:  there was a delighted "Daddeee!" and the Sheriff's twins, a boy and a girl, launched off the steps, hit the ground running, ran with open armed delight at their approach.

"Prepare to Receive Cavalry!"  Linn shouted happily, dropping to one knee and spreading his arms, and Abbot William laughed as he watched his pale eyed friend, this feared warrior and guardian of the public good, was knocked over backwards, laughing, both arms full of laughing, chattering, giggling children:  The Bear Killer paced easily around the supine lawman snuffed at the fallen-away Stetson, picked it up by the brim:  the Sheriff made his feet, somehow, carrying two delighted little children, The Bear Killer proudly packing his Stetson, Abbot William walking with them, considering that perhaps his old friend was even now teaching him something he needed to know.

There is still happiness in this world, and the Abbot looked over at a double armful of happiness.

His lips moved silently as he talked to God about it, a lengthy and involved address:

"Thank You."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HOOF IN CARBURETOR

It was more pain than he'd known in his entire life.

Sheriff Linn Keller locked his teeth tight together, forbidding the agony from escaping his throat.

His body reacted to the internal tortures: he tried not to twist, without success: Marnie had laid the passenger seat back, she'd belted him in, she'd done the only thing she could to ease her father's agonies.

Seventeen year old Marnie Keller's eyes were pale, her face was drawn and tight, her knuckles blanched as she gripped the wheel of the only real car she'd ever had, a new-to-her Pontiac Grand Am with the touring suspension and the bigger of the two available engines.

She and her father had been at a conference on the other side of the state, and he'd suggested they take her shining, waxed, pretty-metallic-purple Pontiac instead of one of the Jeeps.

They were at a diner when Marnie noticed her father's sudden change of expression.

Linn looked up and saw his daughter, his little girl, looking at him with the same eyes his wife used.

Linn pushed back his plate -- he was less than half finished, and this alone was alarming -- the waitress came over and Linn handed her some bills, said something about an urgent need to return home -- Marnie laid her hand on her Daddy's arm as she always did, until they were outside, when he stumbled and gave a strangled groan and she seized his arm, turned him, pushed him against the side of the car, laid her fingers into his carotid groove.

"Not my heart," Linn managed to gasp, bending over a little.

"Daddy, what is it?"

"Nothing," he hissed, shaking his head.  "Just get us home."

"Daddy, I'm calling the squad!"

"No."  Linn's jaw was set, his face was dead pale, he was sweating a little and trembling ever so slightly, the fine tremors of a man in immense pain.  "No.  Just get us home."

Marnie opened the passenger door, gripped her Daddy's belt as he folded himself double to get in the low-slung Pontiac: he got his legs in under his own power, he was breathing through his mouth, eyes closed, he was using every bit of his reserve, every bit of self control to keep moving, to fast up his seat belt, to lean back in the seat.

Marnie grabbed the back of the seat with her left hand, pulled the lever with her right, laid the seat back.

"Don't worry, Daddy," she said reassuringly, "it's not far now!"

To her credit, she did not burn rubber coming out of the parking lot, but it did not take long for her to sail right on past the prima facie speed limit.

Years before, Linn kidded his auburn-haired wife as they stood in the morning's sun before church: Shelly had been hotfooting somewhere, and someone described that shining Jeep looking like a streak as she whistled right on by with her red hair just a-shinin', and Linn hugged her and laughed and called her "Leadfoot Red."

Marnie remembered this as she pressed steadily down on the go pedal, as she remembered her Uncle Will talking about putting his hoof in the carburetor when the need arose, how he complained about the new fuel injected cars not singing raw power like a big-block Crown Vic with the air cleaner lid turned over: right now Marnie didn't care if the Pontiac sounded like an annoying little Rice Rocket motor sickle, as long as the damned thing would run!

 

"911, do you need fire, police or ambulance?"

"Sharon, it's Marnie, I'm inbound our hospital, Daddy's hurt bad!"

Sharon's swivel chair slammed upright as she seized a pencil, her hand floating over the yellow legal pad she noted incoming calls on.

"Where are you now?"

"Twelve minutes out and flyin' low. If we have any units between here and there, if they see a purple streak runnin' like hell, that's me!"

Sharon blinked as the call cut off, then reached for her desk mic's key, pressed.

"All units, mark location and stand by for traffic."

 

A State Trooper blinked as his comic book alarm went off.

He seized the hand-held radar gun, brought it up.

Something low, purple and really fast went by him: he had the impression of a driver behind the wheel, but the flying streak was gone too fast to tell whether it was male, female, young, old or otherwise.

He dropped the radar gun back on the passenger side of the seat, pulled the shifter into gear.

"So you want to run?" he muttered.  "Nobody outruns ME!"

 

Marnie came off the throttle five miles from town.

Her momentum would carry her over the speed limit that far, she knew: better to throttle down than burn off her brakes at the last minute.

The hell with the brakes, I can buy new ones! she thought viciously.

Linn turned his head, looked at his daughter.

"Slow down," he groaned. "We need to get there in one piece."

"You've had a good ride so far," Marnie said quietly, her voice tight:  in the distance behind, she saw blue lights, and knew that someone was coming up behind, likely in pursuit.

She looked ahead, saw a set of blue lights at the side of the road:  she reached out with her left middle and ring fingers, pulled the turn signal lever, quickly, flashing her high-beams quickly, steadily.

 

"ER."

"Sheriff's Office," Sharon said. "The Sheriff is inbound, injured, don't know what, how or how bad. ETA ten."

Sharon waited several very long minutes for the reply.

"We'll be ready."

 

The cords stuck out in Linn's neck as his lips peeled back:  his eyes were squeezed shut, he held his breath to keep from screaming, his fists doubled, clenched, trembled.

Marnie heard two, then two more of the man's knuckles *pop* with the strength of his pain-powered grip.

She braked, slowing as she came to the corp limits.

Two sets of blue lights behind her and she did not care.

Her Daddy was hurt and she was getting him to the ER.

 

"A car just pulled up."

"A car?"

The driver's door flew open, a pale eyed young woman in a tailored blue suit dress and heels fairly exploded out of the car: she turned as the Sheriff's cruiser came to a fast stop behind, a State Trooper behind him:  Marnie pointed, shouted, her voice loud, sharp, commanding:

"GET UP HERE, I NEED YOUR HELP, NOW!!!"

A clatter, the sound of running feet:  hands, strong, capable:  it hurt too much to protest, it hurt too much to try to sit up, to stand, to move:  a voice, strong, confident --

Paul, he thought --

"Roll him up into us," Barrents said, and Linn felt himself picked up, rolled up into men's chests:  they felt him shivering as Barrents said "Sidestep, LEFT!" -- cadenced feet sidestepped left --

"HALT!"

Men stopped, the ER cart wheeled in under the patient --

"Okay, let him down now."

Linn's face was beyond pale, he was grey, sweat stood out on his forehead in shining beads.

Marnie Keller stood back, watching, her pale eyes huge, staring:  she watched as uniforms swarmed into the sliding double doors behind the cart, as the doors closed.

Marnie Keller took a long breath, blew it out:  she closed her eyes, then opened them slowly, her expression changing from cold, controlled concern, to a blazing, absolute fury.

She walked purposefully for the first Sheriff's cruiser, opened the passenger door, reached in.

She drew back, sliding her thumb through the turned-hickory baton's braided loop.

Her head was lowered, just a little, and she looked across the parking lot.

Marnie's three-inch heels were loud as she strode across the blacktop, then the sound of a spun-aluminum light pole being beaten, driven, assaulted and attacked by the unmitigated fury of a seventeen-year-old female, discharging a full load of adrenaline and frustration, filled the air.

If one were to watch, one might nod in admiration at the speed, the technique, the expertise, the utter ruthless deadly nature of Marnie's assault on the light pole: she was fast, she was brutal, and was her attack on living tissue instead of spun aluminum, her assault would have most certainly been quite deadly.

Her attack was made even more chilling by the utter silence of the pale eyed woman using the turned-hickory baton.

 

Susan patted the Sheriff's hand reassuringly.

Uniformed lawmen crowded the treatment bay, listened as the motherly, stout-built nurse said in a reassuring voice, "Honey, I've had both children and kidney stones. Believe me, kidney stones were worse!"

Linn's right hand was fisted hard and shaking:  his lips were tight as he looked at her and gasped, "That's supposed to help?" -- just as Susan pressed the piston on her syringe, and chemical relief relaxed the man.

"Now, fellows," Susan said, looking around at the uncomfortable, concerned lawmen, "I've undressed him often enough with my eyes, now I get to do it for real.  Shoo, all of you, scoot, leave me to my fun here!"

Her mock-scolding tone, her little-old-lady go-away flutter of her fingers, her sad, sympathetic look over top of her spectacles, was enough to empty the treatment bay of worried looking badge packers.

Marnie came in -- she must have parked the baton back in the cruiser -- she looked around, took Paul Barrents by the arm, turned, grabbed the State Trooper by the arm -- she walked them out into the hallway, into the waiting area.

They sat.

Marnie took one lawman's hand in her left, the other lawman's hand in her right.

Nobody said anything for several long moments.

Finally the troop cleared his throat.

"I thought you were Willamina," he said hesitantly.

Marnie laughed a little, allowing herself to relax.

"Flattery," she smiled, "will get you everywhere."

She looked at Barrents.

"Did you pick up anything?"

"X-ray showed kidney stones," he said, describing a circle with thumb-and-forefinger:  "BIG honkin' kidney stones!"

The troop blew out a long breath.

"I've had those," he said quietly.  "Damn, I feel for him!"

"How big?" Marnie asked.

"Seven millimeter on the left, nine millimeter on the right."

"Good Christ," Marnie groaned.  "A .32 caliber spiked ball and a .38 caliber spiked ball ... dear God, no wonder he hurt!"

"Was he colicky?" the trooper asked.

"Oh yeah.  Big time," Marnie replied, remembering how hard her father tried to hide his nausea.
"I was too.  Doc said that meant mine was lodged and couldn't move."

"How'd they fix yours?"

The troop snorted, then laughed.  "They dunked me in a horse trough of warm water, stuck in two underwater speakers and beamed Grand Funk Railroad at my middle at high volume!"

 

Shelly Keller gripped her husband's hand.

He felt her presence, heard her voice; he opened his eyes with a narcotic slowness.

She said something, but whatever they'd given him kept him from remembering her words: no sooner did she say one syllable than he'd forgotten what it was she said.

 

The troop shook Barrent's hand.

"Good thing the Sheriff was instructing his daughter in pursuit driving," he said crisply. "The man's timing was perfect."

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IT DIDN'T WORK OUT 

Jacob Keller swallowed, closed his eyes, opened them again.

Relax.

You're fishing.

He stared at a rock in the middle of the stream, stared without seeing it.

Stop that.

It worked.

You're fishing now.

Drop your fly where it'll carry behind the rock.

Jacob threw his head back, took a deep, desperate breath, as if he were coming out of a too-deep dive.

His hand trembled as he gripped the fly rod, he sat suddenly, heavily, lowered his forehead onto the knuckles of his tight-wound fist.

Stop that.

It worked out.

She's alive.

 

Jacob's weight rolled onto the balls of his feet and he started running.

A car doesn't come to a panicked stop this close to a police cruiser unless someone desperately wants the lawman associated with the marked cruiser.

Jacob got all of one step when the driver laid on the horn, as the passenger rocked forward, her eyes big and scared as she looked through window glass at him, as she twisted and reached and fumbled for something -- likely a seat belt -- she was holding a baby and her face told Jacob all he needed to know.

He seized the door handle and yanked, hard, yanked again:  "UNLOCK THE DOOR!" -- a metallic *klunk* and the door opened --

Jacob shivered, looked at the midstream rock again, saw the fly swinging in the breeze:  he'd spooled out no line, he'd not made his cast, he'd come to the stream, he'd found his spot, and he'd tried hard to push the day from his mind.

Fishing, he'd thought, fishing will help me relax, and so he'd taken his fly rod and gone somewhere to be alone, somewhere he could let everything run off him and soak into the ground and be gone.

He sat with a forgotten fly rod in hand, staring blindly at a rock in the middle of a cold mountain stream, not seeing the trout waiting in its lee, skulking and ready to snap up edibles washing into the eddy.

Jacob didn't feel the rod in his hand.

He felt a flannel blanket, he smelled the soap-and-line-dried smell of a clean baby blanket and he smelled the milk-and-diaper odor of an infant, and he smelled the woman's fear as he reached in and seized the child.

Jacob backed up one long step, came around the open door, thrust himself hard into the car's fender: he laid the child down on the workbench of the car's hood, unwrapped the fuzzy pink-and-white blanket.

Jacob was running on autopilot.

Conscious, rational thought evaporated: Jacob responded as he'd been trained, as he and Marnie practiced and practiced and practiced again, working with baby mannikins, drilling one another mercilessly, knowing that sometime they would have to use these skills, drilling again and again and again -- not until they got it right -- but until they couldn't get it wrong!

Jacob felt for a pulse -- it was there, but not by much -- 

Not breathing, cyanotic --

He turned the child over, his hand in a Vulcan salute with the infant's nose and mouth through the  V of his fingers, he smacked the child once between the shoulder blades --

Should have tried inflating first, he thought.

He turned the child over, pressed a finger on its little chin, opening the jaw --

Something on the car's hood that wasn't there before --

A breath, a puff, as much as his cheeks held --

It went in --

Another breath, a third, feel the upper arm for a pulse, still there, better --

Jacob felt something grip his arm -- a woman's crying voice, distant, he mercilessly shoved the distraction from his mind --

Barrents' voice, from far away, Squad is on the way, and Jacob bent and puffed another breath into the child's nose and mouth, just a puff, just as much as his cheeks could hold --

Part of his mind realized the gob of something wet on the hood must have been blocking the bay's airway, something that blew out with the flat-handed back blow.

Another puff of breath.

One every five seconds.

Jacob felt the rock, hard and rough under his backside, he heard the stream, smelt cold air following the moving water, he looked up at blue sky and clouds and shining mountains.

He remembered hearing the squad approach, heard the liquid whistle of its siren, unnecessary for clearing the nonexistent traffic, but announcing unmistakably, reassuringly, We're coming, we're on our way.

Jacob didn't bother to look up as the squad braked hard, fast, coming nose-to-nose with the civilian vehicle: another puff, another cheeks-full of air.

He felt movement.

Jacob looked up from the rock again, looked at the mountains scouring the blue sky with granite claws, realized his face was wet.

He remembered the baby's first little mouse squeak of a cry.

He looked across the hood of the car at the father -- at a sick-looking young man, immobilized with helplessness and with fear --

A wiggle, a cry, stronger now --

He looked at Barrents, behind the man, calmly flagging the only other vehicle on the roadway, on past the obstruction of a car and a squad stopped in one lane of traffic --

He turned toward the mother, gave her back her baby, he felt hands on his shoulder, slapping his back, shaking his hand.

He stared at the baby, its face wrinkled up, letting the world know in no uncertain terms that it wasn't happy at all with the way it was being treated: he picked up the fuzzy pink blanket, handed it to the mother, watched as the medics walked mother and child to the back of the squad.

Barrents waited until the squad was turned around and headed into town, waited until the father was behind the wheel, cautioned to drive safely, waited until Jacob turned and started back for the cruiser.

Jacob looked at Paul, shook his head.

"What?"

Jacob grinned with half his mouth -- he felt that same lopsided grin as he sat on the streamside rock, hearing water laugh against the streambed, seeing the flash of a trout in the rock's lee, surging to seize a floating nymph -- he remembered laughing a little and saying "Nothin's ever goin' to work out right" -- then he looked at his father's oldest friend and continued, "All I wanted to do was pull over and pick Mama some flowers!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TRIGGER

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

Two lean Keller men stood at the whitewashed fence: each had a boot on the bottom rail, each had forearms laid over the top rail, each was looking out across the pasture with quiet, guarded eyes.

"Sir, I found my trigger."

Linn nodded slowly, the way a father will when his son says something the father understands intimately.

"Sir, when that woman's baby ..."

His voice didn't trail off, it kind of seized up, the way an engine will when it runs out of oil.

"Sir, it's children."

Linn nodded again, slowly, thoughtfully.

"I remember Angela as a baby and the ... I recall ..."

He swallowed, turned his head, harrumphed.

"Sir, that one kind of got to me."

Linn nodded again:  he looked down, reached down, pulled a weed stem:  he examined the whitish stem as if it were the most interesting thing he'd seen in a  year's time, then set it delicately between his front teeth.

"Will that affect my judgement, sir?"

Jacob saw the corners of his father's eyes tighten up, ever so slightly, the way the man did when his smile was spreading inside of him.

"Jacob," Linn said, "I've got triggers too and children are one of 'em."

"Yes, sir?"

"The other'n is FEEE-ceeees."

He drawled the world out, almost comically:  Jacob recognized this as a defensive move, against something that had an effect on the man.

"Sir?"

"Not horse manure and not cow patties. Not movin' a manure pile, not even pig or chicken piles."  Linn shifted the weed stem, chewed delicately on it, his eyes distant as his voice.

"Human FEEE-ceeees, hot and fresh."

"Even diapers, sir?"

Linn looked at Jacob, and the smile he was trying not to show, crept out of his eyes and tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"Especially diapers, Jacob."

"I'm sorry, sir," Jacob said uncomfortably: he was his father's firstborn, and knew the Grand Old Man had to be in on such odious details.

Linn looked back over the pasture.

"I got really good at holdin' my breath," he admitted.  "And I set the land speed record for hold-your-breath diaper changes."

"Yes, sir."

"And my other'n is children."

"Sir?"

"Jacob, do you recall hearin' about that woman that backhanded your Gammaw?"

Jacob blinked, frowned a little, remembered.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you know why she did?"

Jacob's eyes shifted left, then right as he searched for the memory.

"We got a report of an abduction. I knew the perp and what he'd done to girls in the past so I went after him."

"Yes, sir?"

"I didn't go after him to bring him in, Jacob."  

Jacob's lower jaw slid out as understanding filled his young soul like a light bulb fills a dark closet.

"I figured where he'd have to go and I was right."

"Yes, sir?"

"I give him a good dose of .308 Winchester and didn't give him the chance to surrender."

"Sir?"

"I up and shot him, Jacob. I assassinated him, I out and out murdered him. I knew what he'd done to other girls, I knew what he intended to do to this girl and I was not going to give him the chance."

"No, sir."

"Your Grandma stripped my badge just as that girl's mother came in the office to thank me for saving her daughter's life, and when Mama took my badge, that woman called her anything but decent and backhanded her right in front of God and everybody."

"Sir?" Jacob replied, shocked, and Linn was careful to remain impassive as he saw the honest shock on his son's face.

"The only time in recorded history," Linn said solemnly, "that anyone ever backhanded Mama, and lived to tell the tale!"

"I would reckon so, sir," Jacob said softly.

"The inquest was held and I was reinstated."

"Yes, sir?"

"The girl testified the fellow told her he'd kill her if she resisted, if she screamed, if anyone tried to interfere, if he even thought he saw a cop. My method was called into question but her testimony got me off the hook."

"Yes, sir."

"Didn't matter," Linn said slowly. "I knew it was needful so I dropped him and I slept well that night."

"Yes, sir."

"I one time nearly broke a man's arm when he hauled back to deck his little boy.  I don't normally come between a father disciplining a child, but I'll not stand for a grown man hitting a little boy with a closed fist."

"What did he do, sir?"

"He spent some time in the hoosegow. He knew better than to swing at me but he run his mouth and there were witnesses enough for me to substantiate a charge of menacing. He had a knife on him so I upped it to aggravated, mandatory prison term, and then his wife filed domestic violence against him and she took the kids and left."

"I see, sir."

"That little boy he was going to slug was my trigger."

"Yes, sir."

"You did well yesterday, Jacob.  I'm pretty damned proud of you."

"Thank Marnie, sir. We drilled together and she made double damned sure I had it down cold and then some!"

Linn nodded, and this time Jacob did see his father's smile come to the surface.

"Remind me to take her out for a hot fudge sundae."

"I'll do that, sir."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CONVERSATION

Sheriff Linn Keller prided himself on a number of things.

He did not appear in public unless his suit and his hat were brushed, unless his boots were properly blacked, unless he was neatly barbered and shaved, and his iron-grey mustache correctly curled, and if need be, waxed.

He prided himself on the way he cared for his horses -- he had, back during that damned War, been quietly flattered when he was asked in all sincerity, "You ain't from Texas, now are ye?" -- for only a Texan cares for his horse as thoroughly as he.

Years later, a pale-eyed descendant of this pale eyed lawman, another soul with pale eyes, would make the happy shore-leave discovery that trail rides and the Old West are greatly favored in Israel -- this descendant would examine a jug-headed, pig-eared plug of a mongrel mount, would take the mismatched tack, would examine hooves and teeth and horse shoes and saddle up with the ease of long practice, would swing aboard this recalcitrant and short-tempered refugee from a glue factory and buck it out, and would be asked in all sincerity by a fellow with an Uzi slung across his back, "Are you from Texas?" -- which would bring a laugh from her and her mate both, for it was her shipmate and not this pale eyed daughter of the mountains who was from Texas, but that's far in the future yet.

You see, this lean waisted lawman with the iron grey mustache also prided himself in organization and efficiency, traits he learned and learned well as an officer during That Damned War.

He looked at the sloping ground under which he wished an excavation; he considered the time it would take him, personally, to dig out a fruit cellar beneath his house, he weighed this against the cost of hiring it done, and decided he was money ahead to hire the work out.

His house was built on cut stone foundation blocks: the diggers misunderstood his instructions, and instead of simply an underground closet of a fruit cellar, they dug straight down from the footprint of the sills -- once started, Linn decided this wasn't such a bad idea, and when they got down about ten feet they hit bed rock, and Linn decided to have them widen the excavation just enough to lay in more cut ashlars, and had them lay up solid stone walls against undisturbed, well compacted earth.

He judged the undisturbed earth, having nothing above it to crowd down, would not crowd in and bust his basement walls.

His judgement was sound, for if we slip ahead to the same point in time where the Israeli trail ride occurred, one would find those same, well-made walls to be undamaged, without crack or flaw: because there was enough of a grade, ground water did not gather around these stone walls, and because they were laid with good mortar, there were no burrowing creatures to slip in between the well-fitted stones.

Esther, of course, was delighted with the finished product.

The basement stairs were constructed in the same fashion as the stairs to their second floor:  wide, stout, solid:  Linn brought in the Daine boys for this work and the overly talkative old man looked at the Sheriff and drawled, "Usual?"

Linn nodded.  "Yep," said he, "I want it oil field grade.  Big and mean and hell for stout."

The overly talkative old Kentucky carpenter nodded, looked around: he and his boys got to work, and Linn helped the best way he could.

He stayed the hell out of the way.

Once these stairs were finished, Esther and the maid descended into this snug stone chamber and began chattering happily about shelves here and how many, how high and how deep, how they would rotate the preserves so nothing would spoil, how they would best light the room when they came down; Linn left them to their womanly planning: he knew if he built a fruit cellar, it would be stocked, and having known the pinch of hunger, he was determined that neither his family, nor he, would want for a meal, ever again.

Now the Sheriff was also a thoughtful man, who sought to provision against hard times of several kinds.

His house was built with defense in mind, as had been the Sheriff's office before his arrival in Firelands: its walls were of whole timbers, shaped and closely fitted, carefully chinked; its roof was well laid, of hand split shakes -- Linn considered slate would be a better choice, and determined to get a price on having slate shipped out from back East -- no sense in a wooden roof catching fire if the chimney got over-excited, and he was again grateful he'd had the chimney laid up of native stone and well lined with fire clay he did have imported from back East.

Linn rode into town and tethered his stallion in front of their little whitewashed church.

He ascended the steps -- like the schoolhouse, the doors opened on a corner instead of on a side -- he removed his cover as he crossed the threshold: old habits die hard, his Stetson went under his arm, his shoulders were squared, and his pace was that of a military man as he went down the center aisle, to the front of the church.

Linn stood and considered the rough timber cross on the back wall, his eyes wandered down to the ornate altar, the corners of his eyes smiled up just a little as he remembered the Irish shotgun hooks on the back of the altar; the Parson generally kept a carbine there instead of a shotgun, as he wished to be particular about his accuracy, should something unpleasant develop in this house of the Lord.

The Sheriff was familiar with the Parson's skill with a rifle, and in this, he was satisfied.

Linn let his mind wander for a few more moments, then he looked at the cross and frowned a little.

"Lord," he said aloud, his voice rich and reassuring in the sanctuary's quiet, "I have set money back.

"Should I be killed, Esther is provided for, as are our children.

"You know Sarah is of my get. I've provided for her, too, she's gold coming to her from a bank back East."

Linn stopped, frowned again.

"Lord, I've got my will drawn up and I've raised my young as best I can. My sons are becoming fine young men, I have horses and beeves and shortly that new cellar will be stocked against hard times."

Linn blinked a few times before continuing.

"Lord, I don't wish to become a proud man. Last night I read aloud as I do every evening, with Esther rocking and sewing -- she don't have to, Lord, but she does -- and I read the passage aloud where the rich man makes a list of all his wealth and he's just puffed up like a horny toad, all proud-like, and he was told 'You fool, this night your soul will be required of you!'"

"Lord, I try not to be a fool."

Linn turned his hat in his hands, considering his words carefully.

"You have blessed my increase and I have helped others accordingly. I have put back against hard times and prepared as best I can for what I can, and I have You to thank for that."

He considered for several more moments, nodded.

"I reckon that's about it. Thank You for letting me do these things, and for that lesson on not becoming a prideful fool."

 

Esther Keller looked up, startled, as her husband came into the house.

His suit was filthy, his mustache stained with dried blood and he had a rueful expression about him, somewhere between aggravation and bust-out-laughing.

"My dear," Esther murmured, rising and placing her ink-wet pen beside her ledger, "whatever happened?"

Linn looked down at his torn trousers, at his filthied coat, he looked up at his wife -- his expression was almost that of a little boy who'd been caught playing in the mud while wearing his Sunday best -- he said frankly, "I tripped over my own big feet comin' down the church-house steps."

"My dear, your nose --"

"Yep, bled some," Linn admitted.  "I need to clean up some."

He looked at Esther, laughter shining in his pale eyes as he admitted, "Kind of like when I hit my thumb with a hammer that time. I talked to God about it."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ACCLIMATIZATION

Sheriff Jacob Keller's reflexes were those of a cat.

He threw his arms above his head -- he was too close to the ceiling to use his hands, he brought his forearms up overhead, ducked -- his forearms landed flat on the ceiling -- Marnie looked at her brother with big and innocent eyes and chirped, "Show off much?"

Jacob dropped easily to the floor, glared at his sister.

"All I did was get up from a chair," he complained, "and I bounce off the ceiling. Got a hardhat I can borrow?"

Marnie touched a control: the Sheriff's quarters were suddenly at Earth-normal gravity again.

"I've found it useful to maintain at one-and-a-quarter Earth gravities," she commented. "Keeps me in shape.  Prevents kidney stones."

Jacob's jaw thrust out; he nodded.

"Kinda like to avoid 'em myself," he admitted.  "Pa suffered terribly with 'em."

"Don't I know it," Marnie agreed.  "I know that ER nurse was trying to be helpful when she said she'd had both kidney stones and children, and the stones were worse."

"What was it Pa said to her? Send down to Central Supply and have 'em send up a big rubber mallet?"

"And belt him between the eyes as hard as she could swing it, yes, I remember," Marnie smiled.

"And then Pa came up on his elbows and allowed as it was like rasslin' a wildcat up in a tree, shoot up here amongst us, one of us gotta have some relief!"

Marnie nodded, tilted her head as she looked at her brother with an unaccustomed expression of affection.

"You sound just like him, you know," she said softly.

Jacob placed a dramatic hand to his breast, threw his head back and declared in a theatrical voice, "I reckon I get it honest!"

Marnie clapped her hands, once, laughed, shaking her head:  "Dear God, Jacob, you sound exactly like him!"

The annunciator chimed:  Marnie rose easily, not at all inconvenienced at having gone from one-and-a-quarter G to one-G to mars-normal several times already that day.

Jacob rose, turned, as Marnie opened the door.

Two children stood at the door, apparently reluctant to come into the Sheriff's quarters -- a combination of being in the presence of someone they genuinely liked, but also knowing they would suddenly be much heavier if they crossed the threshold.

The children were tall, unusually thin to Jacob's eyes, but their voices were those of very young children:  they looked at Marnie with absolutely woebegone expressions.

"Shewiff," the little girl said, "are you da Am-Bas-Sa-Dor now?"

Marnie nodded, tilting her head a little to the side -- which reminded Jacob powerfully of their mother -- "Yes, sweets, I am."

Both children, the girl and the boy, looked absolutely grief-stricken.

"Does this mean you won't read to us any more?"

Jacob thought the pair was about to cry, between their sorrowful expressions, and their sorrowful voices:  Marnie gathered them into a motherly hug, kissed one, then the other.

"I am the Ambassador from Mars," she said. "I'm not representing thirteen star systems, just us.  I won't have to be gone as much as the Ambassador we know."

"You'll still come an' do stuff with us?" the boy asked hopefully.

"You bet I will," Marnie smiled, and both children smiled -- that bright, sudden, absolutely honest delight children feel when something stressful shatters and falls away.

The little boy's face darkened a little and he frowned:  "But if you're the Am-bas-sa-dor, does that mean you're not Sheriff?"

Marnie turned, extended an arm:  Jacob was already on his feet, and holding his Stetson before him.

"This is the Sheriff now," she said.  "This is my brother."

"You have a brother?" the children breathed, reflecting a child's belief that adults are standalone units who appear magically when they're needed and disappear afterwards, and who have no real lives otherwise.

Marnie laughed.  "Of course I have a brother!  Jacob, this is Janet and Roger, they're friends of mine."

Jacob stuck his hand out, grinned:  "Howdy," he said in a gentle voice, and two wide-eyed children shook hands with an honest to God Cowboy Sheriff!

"Do you ride horses?" the little boy asked hopefully.

"You bet I do, like to see his picture?"

Young eyes shone with delight as Jacob tapped his communication screen, swiped, tapped again, turned so they could see it:  "That's me with Apple."

"Apple?"

"Apple-horse. He's a genuine Appaloosa stallion."

"Is he fast?"

"Fast!"  Jacob declared, and Marnie saw their Pa's look of orneriment come into her brother's expression.  "Why, when Apple-horse gets wound up and stretched out, he's three foot tall and ten feet long!  Punches a hole in the wind with his nose and runs so fast, my Guardian Angel has to pull out my shirt tail, tie a knot in it and hang on just to keep up!"

Marnie turned away, trying hard not to laugh:  she chewed on her knuckle, turned back, trying to look somewhere near innocent.

"He's right, you know," she said quietly.  "I've seen Jacob and Apple-horse outrun a Texas cyclone!"

"Coool," two delighted children chorused as Jacob swiped through another half-dozen pictures:  one was Apple-horse bucking out, four hooves bunched and two feet off the ground, his back bowed and his head down, mane flying, Jacob on his back waving his Stetson with a grin on his face broad as two Texas townships; another, what appeared to be a Japanese family, their delighted little boy wearing Jacob's much-too-big Stetson while he sat in the saddle, in front of the Silver Jewel Saloon -- the word SALOON was just visible above the laughing little boy's head -- another, Jacob and Marnie, racing: Marnie's mare's forehooves were forward, reaching for more ground, Jacob's stallion's hooves were momentarily free of the earth, and both mounts were not creatures of the earth, but rather of the sky, for even this still image seemed to be RUNNING --

"What's that?" the little boy asked, blinking curiously at an image that started across the screen, then slid back.

Jacob swiped it into view.  "What, this?"

A very skinny little boy who looked unnaturally tall to the Earth-born lawman, nodded solemnly.

"That, my friend," Jacob said, and they heard something soften in his voice, "is The Bear Killer."

"He kills bears?" two children almost whispered.

"Kinda looks like a bear, doesn't he?"

Two big-eyed children nodded, staring at something black and furry and belt buckle tall at the shoulder, standing beside Jacob, a big doggy grin on his face, tongue out and laughing.

"The Bear Killer got his name by doing just that," Jacob explained.  "He took a grizzly b'ar by the throat and hung on knowin' it was him or attair b'ar and 'twas the b'ar come out in second place."

Marnie made a mental note to speak to her brother about sounding like an illiterate hillbilly, then she discarded the thought, knowing he was establishing his storytelling style, and knowing how well storytellers were regarded here.

There was a warbling chirp; both children looked at their wrists -- "Yes, Mama," the chorused, then turned, waved at Jacob and the Sheriff -- "Bye" -- and skipped down the corridor.

"Saved by the dinner bell," Marnie murmured.

They withdrew from the doorway; the door closed automatically.

"Sis?"

"Hm?"
"This business of you being Ambassador instead of Sheriff. I reckon there will be folks coming to you as if you were still the badge packer."

Marnie patted her brother's chest, blinked innocently.

"Don't worry, Jacob," she whispered.  "I won't tread on your territory."

"I'm not worried about that, Sis. You've a standing commission, you know that."

"I didn't know that," she admitted, "but thank you."

"Once the news hits Earth that we've seceded and not been killed, you're going to have your hands full."

"I know."

"Especially if you start using technology they don't know about."

Marnie nodded.  "The Ambassador thinks we should reveal the Confederacy to Earth at the same time we announce our secession. Of course it might lead some to think we've been conquered and we're a puppet figurehead."

"Are we?"

"No, Jacob."  Marnie smiled, just a little.  "No, we're part of the Confederacy now, but by choice, and one shining tenet of the Confederacy is that we're voluntarily confederated.  Any member state is free to tell everyone else to go pound sand and it's respected."

"Has it ever happened?"

Marnie nodded.  "I'm told it has."

Jacob nodded, frowned, looked at the floor, considered.

"This'll take an awful lot of gettin' used to."

"I know."

"Once it's known on Earth I'm Sheriff, and that Firelands here has seceded, I reckon my citizenship back there will end."

"It might," Marnie admitted.

"You know somethin'?" Jacob grinned.  "Long as I can go back and visit now and again, that won't matter."

"We did an awful lot here in a really short time," Marnie said thoughtfully. "There's been an immense amount of reverse engineering of the alien technology we're still finding. The Confederacy has had to fight wars and they're ready to fight another if it comes to it. Space is vast but it's dangerous."

Jacob nodded.  

"You don't have to stay, Jacob. If you'd rather be on Earth --"

Jacob raised a forestalling palm.

"Sis," he said, "you told me you needed my help. I'm here. You need a Sheriff. I'll do my best."

"Even if it means leaving Earth behind?"

"I have family here, Sis. You and Doc and your littles, even if they're not that little."  Jacob hesitated, frowned a little.

"I'll have to get used to children growing tall and skinny like those two."

"One-third gravity will do that."

"Do they get kidney stones?"

"No. No, their bodies are acclimatized from birth, apparently. Just like fish from one stream, put in another, will die, but if they're hatched there, they are acclimatized to the water from birth."

"I'll have the advantage, being an Earther."

"You'll do well in a knock down drag out fight," Marnie agreed, "you've harder muscles, heavier bones and you're fast."

"What about attackers? Aliens, like the ones that tried to destroy the colony?"

"We've a committee working on defense. Most of it depends on outlying sensor buoys, but we've a Home Guard. Emphasis on dirty tricks."

"Dry gulchin', back shootin' and ambush?"

"Exactly that."

"Wonder who taught you that."

"Why, Daddy, of course!"

Jacob laughed again, and Marnie laughed with him.

"Good thing I'll have Earth gravity in my quarters," Jacob mused. "Elsewise I might dream I'm floatin' away!"

"One last thing."  Marnie walked up to her brother, reached down, took his hand and put it on his gunbelt, on a rectangular, black-leather-looking box where he used to carry his speedloaders, when he competed with a revolver.

"This is your life support. You are never without it.  Hear me?  Never."

Jacob raised an eyebrow.

"This replaces an atmosphere suit. As long as it's on your belt, someone comes at you with a club, a blade, someone takes a shot at you, this'll stop it. If we had an atmosphere breach and you were suddenly in hard vacuum, this will keep you alive. My bed, the children's beds, your bed, all have these same modules built in, only the bed units also have food-water dispensers and waste disposal."

Jacob nodded.

Marnie hooked her arm in her brother's elbow.  "I'm hungry and you're buyin'," she declared. "Let me introduce you to the cafeteria!"

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

STRIP YOUR BLOUSE

"See that house yonder?"

"I see it."

"That's the Captain's house."

"Do tell! That place? Thought he was from way up North!"

"He is."

"What'nell's he got a house down here for?"

Two bummers in Union blue sat: one reached in his haversack, pulled out a round loaf of bread, tore it in two, handed half to his buddy.

"House belongs to a widow woman. The Captain got just all kind of unhappy when they tore through it lookin' for their proud-ofs."

"Them who?"

"Them us, stoop! Sojers! Doin' what we been doin', takin' what's rightly ours from them damned Sesech!"

His partner grunted as he chewed: had he snorted, he'd likely have choked.

The two ate, shared a canteen of cold springwater.

It was a late spring morning, almost warm: they could just see their breath, but that was all, and morning sun slanting through leafing-out trees promised a warmer day.

"The Captain, he went in raisin' Hell and he detailed men to secure boards to repair the damage they'd done."

"He didn't! A Sesech house?"
"A widow's house, he said, a widow with children an' her man dead and buried, and by God! said he, we'd not sully the memory of a man who died for his country!"

"He didn't say which country."

"Nope."

"So 'twas a damned Sesech or a Copperhead."

"He didn't say, but one o' them New Yorkers run his mouth and the Captain backhanded him hard and allowed as if he had somethin' more to say he could strip his blouse and step behint the house and they'd settle it."

"No!"

"Oh, ya."  Dirty-fingernailed hands tore a strip of crust free, chewed happily.  "Damn this is good!"

"A man could wish for some butter."

"You et the butter yesterday."

"I was hungry!"

Silence.

"Well, what happened?"

"What?  You're the one that et the butter!"

"Nah, damn ye, quit leavin' me hangin'! The Captain went hammer and tongs with attair New Yorker?"

"Oh ya!"  His partner chuckled, coughed, coughed again, swallowed. " 'Twas somethin' t' see, too!

"Ya, the Captain, he warn't too educated about fists and stuff but he hit like a sledge hammer and he l'arned fast, an' when he was done, why, attair New Yorker was beat into the ground and he warn't of no mind to back talk no more.

"Attair Captain, he r'ared back and ast if anyone else wanted some an' nobody did, so he warshed off at the well an' put his blouse back on an' then he carried a bucket of water over an' dashed it in attair New Yorker's bloody face an' woke 'im up."

"Warn't no court martial?"

"Oh hell not.  'Twas just an officer straightenin' out his men."

"No, I mean -- hell, he's a Captain, he could'a hanged 'im fer hittin' an officer!"

"Nah."  Dirty fingers tore the last of the bread in two; an unshaved face regarded the last of this treasure, then ate one of the remaining torn off lumps.

"Nah, he's a hard man but he's fair.  Someone ast him if he wanted attair New Yorker brought up on charges an' he said no, he'd taken care of it."

Silence as the two men washed the crumbs out of their throats with the last of their water.

"I don't reckon there's any man around will even think about causin' harm t' attair house."

The Captain ... he was a farmer, warn't he?"

"Ya."

"Ain't no wonder he hit so hard."

"Attair New Yorker allowed as he never been hit as hard as that man hit him."

There was a faint gurgle as the wood canteen was shaken.  "Reckon I'd best fill this back up."

"Reckon so."

"Now we talkin' about th' same Captain?"

"Which one you talkin' about?"

"You know.  Old Pale Eyes."

"Yep. That's him."

There was a low whistle, a shake of the head.

"I seen that man with his blouse off. He ain't nothin' but muscle and cords! I don't reckon I'd want to tear into him my own self!"

"You're smarter than you look," his partner muttered as they rose and headed for the same cold, sweetwater spring they'd stopped at earlier.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

"YOU DID ALL RIGHT!"

Joseph Keller stood uncomfortably behind the podium: he frowned a little as the principal gripped the microphone, adjusted it down slightly, then retreated.

Joseph felt the weight of the medal around his neck, suspended by the broad red-white-and-blue ribbon: he closed his eyes, swallowed, then looked up, squared his shoulders, spoke.

"You don't want to listen to me," he said.  "I'm just a kid.

"You want to listen to my Pa. He can talk the stripes off a tiger and make the tiger like it!"

His grin was quick, contagious, and so very much like his pale eyed father, who was sitting in the front row, holding his wife's hand.

"I've been asked some pretty dumb questions about what happened. Someone asked me why I did it."

Joseph looked down at the red-shirted Irish Brigade, sitting solemnly shoulder-to-shoulder: Joseph knew the Mayor, the high school principal and a number of other notables were seated behind him: it was his first experience with public speaking "For Real," and thanks to his father's years of coaching, he was perfectly comfortable.

"Now Pa has a bad habit."

Joseph managed to look at least somewhat innocent as he looked at his father; he saw a quiet smile on his Mama's face, something she tried to hide and didn't quite manage.

"If you ask him a question, he'll give you the honest answer, even if it's not what you want to hear."

He saw several heads nod, just a little, and pushed ahead.

"I was asked why I took over when our bus driver died, and I did it because I'm just naturally lazy."

This time Joseph's grin was broad and genuine, and the Irish Brigade laughed and elbowed one another:  "That's m'boy!" called an anonymous voice, and even the stolid President of Council allowed himself a smile to hear Joseph's declaration.

 

Joseph Keller had his head down, attending his homework.

Like his Pa, he was restless when he was still: he had to be doing SOMETHING, and more often than not, on the school bus, that something was his homework.

He'd taken the bus that day instead of riding his horse: he was about halfway through his math homework when he felt the bus drift, felt the front tire lose the pavement.

Joseph's books went to the seat beside him and were dismissed from his consciousness: he was on his feet, quivering like a Setter on point: he powered forward, grabbed the driver's leg, yanked it savagely off the throttle.

Joseph grabbed the wheel, twisted hard left, used it for leverage as he drove a leg in and mashed the broad brake pedal, hard.

He pushed powerfully against the floor with his right leg, fighting for balance, brought the wheel forward again, drove his weight into the brake pedal, his pale eyes wide, lips peeled back, teeth clenched: he fought the dead weight of the driver's limp body, coming forward against him, pinning him to the wheel.

The bus didn't scream, it kind of scuffed: their speed wasn't enough to bring the agonized sound of high-speed rubber against blacktop, but Joseph remembered a deep groan as the big yellow bus shivered to a stop.

He reached over, thumbed the safety, twisted the emergency brake down, heard the secondary air set up: he was still hard on the brake as he grabbed the shifter, drove it viciously into PARK.

Joseph lifted his head, looked through the windshield.

He could see about half of a car sticking out ahead of the school bus's hood.

Joseph Keller seized the door handle, yanked viciously: the doors squeaked as they swung open, one in, one out:  he turned, looked down the length of the bus.

"EVERYBODY STAY PUT!" he yelled, then thundered down the steps, jumped to the ground, ran ahead.

He stopped, stared.

The broad, flat, black front bumper was about six inches from the back end of the stopped car.

 

"Pa told me once sometimes a hot potato drops in your lap and you have to handle it," Joseph said, looking around:  "It did, and I did.  I didn't do it perfect."  He bit his bottom lip, frowned, took a long breath in through his nose, then out.

He swallowed.

"The driver ... Mr. Morgan ... I got his belt undone and I got him laid down and he didn't have a pulse. I didn't have much room in the aisle but I had enough and I did CPR. Mary McCarter had a cell phone and she called 911 and I kept up until they got there, but Mr. Morgan didn't make it."

He turned, looked at the principal.

"I'm sorry.  I tried."

Joseph saw movement from the corner of his eye, turned:  the Irish Brigade was on their feet.

Their applause was slow, powerful, their hands clapped in unison, about one clap a second, the sound sharp, loud in the silence that followed a schoolboy's apology that he hadn't succeeded in saving a life.

Joseph turned and saw the front row, then the next, then the entire auditorium, rose: he felt suddenly awkward, self-conscious, as the applause became general, and sustained.

Chief Fitzgerald rose, approached the stage: he grabbed the edge of the stage, swung up a leg, rolled onto the stage and stood easily.

Joseph stepped back as the Chief gripped his shoulder, nodded once.

"I'm hearing you say what didn't work," the Chief said.  "Let me tell you what you did RIGHT."

He turned, looked very directly at the Sheriff and his wife.

"When we got there, your son was doing effective CPR."

Joseph felt the fire chief's hand tighten slightly on his shoulder.

"When we got there, the front bumper of the school bus was close enough to the car it didn't hit" -- he raised his voice slightly in emphasis -- "I could not pass my fire helmet between the two.
"Joseph kept the bus from ramming a car and killing the mother and three children in the car.

"Joseph kept the bus from losing control. In that location a rollover would have been almost guaranteed. Had it ditched and gone over, it would not have stopped until it got to the bottom of the mountain, so there are twenty more lives saved.

"So ... what's the total? Something like twenty five lives saved, a family won't have to replace a demolished car, the school district won't have to replace a destroyed bus, nobody has to pay a boatload of medical bills, nobody is crippled for the rest of their life."  

The fire chief looked very directly at Joseph.

"You did the very best you could, Joseph. I am honestly not certain I could have done as well myself."

Joseph Keller gripped the extended hand.

"You did all right," the Chief said quietly.

 

Edited June 26, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
Confused Jacob with Joseph. My fault, my apologies!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE FORGE

"You look troubled."

Joseph looked at his Pa, nodded.

It was evening, it was after supper; Joseph's homework was long since done, his chores were finished, to both his satisfaction, and that of his pale eyed father.

He'd already had his shower for the evening, he'd come downstairs and was sitting cross legged in his bathrobe and moccasins, looking almost like a meditative monk: his hands rested on his knees, he was frowning a little as if to stare a hole in the floor halfway between himself and his father's easy chair.

Linn remembered the days when Joseph would be warm and content on his lap, leaned against his Pa's shoulder while Linn read aloud from the Book, as was his nightly habit.

Two of the Keller young occupied his lap; it was a stretch, but he was able to have an arm around at least one, and still manipulate Scripture.

Linn looked at Joseph, considered the look on his son's face.

"You look troubled."

Joseph looked up, straightened his hunched-over back.

"Sir," he said, "do you recall the Parson said something about being tried as metal in the forge?"

Linn's hands moved of their own accord: the Bible was old, it was long since softened with frequent use, Linn's thumb felt the pages riffle past:  he stopped, turned a few of them, a few less, stopped.

"Deuteronomy," he said, ran his eyes over the page, turned the page again, looked at Joseph.

More pages, another quick search.

"Zechariah," Linn said thoughtfully, "should say it better ... here."  He nodded with satisfaction, read.

"And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried."

"Sir, was I tried as gold in the fire?"

Linn's fingers rested gently on the open pages as he considered his young son.

"I would say so, Joseph. You had several trials. You kept a bus under control and kept it from going over the mountain. That's one. You kept the bus from ramming a stalled-out car on the shoulder. That's two. Then you gave a man the only chance at livin' he would ever have, that's three, and I'd say that's three serious trials most grown men wouldn't rise up to."

"But sir ... it didn't work."

"You sound like an Irishman."

"I know, sir. When the Irish Brigade tell it, they lost a house or they lost someone in a fire and that's even when it's through the roof when they get the call or someone is already dead before their phone rings. That's how they say it. We lost the house. We lost someone today."  He blinked, rapidly, looked away.

"I lost Mr. Morgan," he said softly.

"Morgan was dead before you got his seat belt loose, Joseph," Linn said quietly. "I spoke with the coroner. He had an aneurysm. Biggest blood vessel in the body split open and not one damned thing could have been done had he fell over in the middle of the Mayo Clinic."

Shelly came in, sat, clasped her hands between the knees of her blue jeans.

"I remember my first code," she said, crossing her ankles and looking at her husband and his lapful of childhood.  "I grew up watching those emergency shows where they hit someone with the paddles and they sit up and start cracking jokes. Countershock and they're alive, boom, every time."

Joseph looked at his Mama with wide, interested eyes.

"My first code ... I was doing CPR and the medic greased the paddles, he called clear, he shocked and nothing happened."

Shelly rubbed her palms together, clearly uncomfortable with the memory.

"The medic had to remind me to start CPR again. 

"We shocked him three times total and it didn't do any good.  I coded him all the way to ER and he didn't make it."

"I'm sorry," Joseph said in a small voice.

"Don't be," she sighed. "I know we teach the public that CPR is a magic charm that brings back the dead." 

She looked at Joseph, her expression vulnerable. 

"It's not. When someone hits the ground and they don't have a pulse, they're dead. In a quarter of a century of putting my life under the lights-and-siren, I've had one -- one -- field CPR save."

Joseph's eyes widened.

"We give them a chance, Joseph. We give them the only chance they've got."

She paused for emphasis.

"You did that. If he'd been viable, you would've resuscitated him. Remember the Chief said you were performing effective CPR."

Joseph nodded.

"Effective CPR," Shelly repeated. 

"The Chief teaches CPR. He's done it for real more times than he can remember. When he comes up on a scene and he sees CPR being done, he's not at all bashful about commenting on its quality."

"Yes, ma'am."

Joseph looked at his father, blinked, considered.

"Sir, was Marnie tried like this?"

Linn nodded slowly.

"Yes, Joseph. Marnie was tried in the fire too."

"Jacob?"

"Oh, yes. So was your mother, your Uncle Will, everyone in our line ..."

"Even Sarah McKenna?"

Linn laughed, nodded.  

"Oh, yes, Joseph. Sarah Lynne McKenna was tried, and multiple times!"

"What happened to Sarah?"

Linn looked at the clock, smiled.

"It's kind of late to get into that, but we'll take another look at Sarah's refineries!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DO IT AGAIN

Steel wheels ran smoothly on steel rails.

The wheels weren't terribly big -- mine car wheels, running on mine car rails.

Joseph Keller hit the start button, ran forward, ducked under a timber, skidded to a stop behind a blue plastic 55 gallon drum.

The mine car, or what was left of it, rolled toward him with its payload of four empty shotgun shells, harvested from the range when Jacob's Pa's deputies qualified last month.

Young eyes were intent on the shotshells: Jacob raised his rifle, fired, fired again, then a third and fourth round: he pulled back, rolled, dropped into a little depression, grateful that it hadn't rained in a while.

He'd known this little swale to stand full of water after a hard rain.

The Sheriff watched from a hidden angle, studying his son through binoculars, watching as Joseph reset the flat deck of the mine car back at its starting point, as he picked up the four shotshells from where he'd snapped them off with his .22, watched as Joseph reset the release mechanism, attached the short cable that wound around the grey-painted gearbox's drum, made sure braided steel cable was properly threaded through the two eyes to guarantee it didn't kink, and that it would allow the crimped on collar to shut off the motor's switch.

Joseph ran critical eyes over the cable as it ran out, around the pulley, then back to the mine car: the release was simplicity itself, guaranteeing that when the big red button was smacked by a youthful palm, the cart would be pulled down the track, then release, allowing it to coast, and depending on Joseph's position, he could have an approaching shot, a quartering shot or a crossing shot.

He moved the barrel a little to the side to make it more of a crossing shot.

Joseph's finger hooked around the charging handle, pulled it to the rear, ran a fresh rimfire round into the chamber.

He walked to the start button, mounted in a junction box bolted to a post sunk into the ground, closed his eyes, took a long breath.

Linn watched as Joseph placed his palm on the button, as he very deliberately, very precisely, pushed.

Linn nodded approvingly as Joseph sprinted along a zigzag course he'd scratched out in the gravel, went to one knee, one hand on the big blue-plastic barrel: he drew back, leveled the rifle.

Four shots, closely spaced, and four empty shotshell hulls flew individually from the rolling platform.

"Rearmost to foremost," Linn murmured.  "The Alvin York."

Joseph rose, advanced, gripped the minecar's lower frame and running gear, pushed: it rolled easily on greased axles, rumbled back up the track.

Marnie used this device with a 3D mannikin for her own work, unless she too ran an Alvin York with shotshells, or maybe bowling pins: Linn knew his daughter had a good imagination, and he knew she'd set up a variety of scenarios, finding her weaknesses and absolutely beating them out of her soul with much intense practice.

Linn was seeing this same merciless self-evaluation, this same focused, driving, almost brutal, self-improvement, in his son.

Joseph had his rifle laid across the mine car's deck, muzzle carefully down range: he sat, making notes in a pocket notebook.

He looked up, rose.

"At ease," Linn said quietly, and Joseph saw a quiet approval in his Pa's expression.

Linn sat down beside his son.

Joseph finished his note-taking, returned pen and notebook to a flannel shirt pocket.

"I'm seeing a lot of things done right," Linn said gently.

"Thank you, sir."

Linn waited.

"Sir, you remember we talked last night about being tried as gold in the fire."

"I remember."

"I asked if Sarah was tried."

"You did."

"She came to me last night."

Linn rose, just a little, enough to find a less uncomfortable position: he'd broken his tail bone long years before, and unless he sat carefully, his arthritic backside addressed him less than kindly.

He placed his fingertips thoughtfully together, nodded slowly.

"She's been known to do that," Linn agreed.

"I didn't want to attract attention with an AR," Joseph said -- a statement, neither confident nor uncertain. "I knew the rimfire would be less ... noticed."

Linn nodded again.

"Sir ... Sarah ... she said our line will be in the Final Battle."

Linn nodded slowly.

"That," he agreed, "is my understanding."

"Har-Megiddo," Joseph said quietly. "The final square-off with good and evil."

Linn nodded again.

"If I'm going to fight in that one, I want to be ready."

"It might not be you and I, Joseph."

"Sir?"

"It might be our get. Our sons and our daughters, grandsons, great-grandsons."

"Napoleon said all the armies of the world could maneuver on the plains of the Har-Megiddo."

"You've been doing your research."

"Yes, sir."

Linn looked out across the range.

"Personal skill-at-arms is never wasted."

"No, sir."

"I noticed you Alvin Yorked those empty shotgun hulls."

"Yes, sir. It seemed the thing to do."

Linn nodded.  "When it's possible, it's logical."

"Yes, sir."

"Did Sarah speak of her own ... trials?"

Joseph's expression was haunted as he, too, looked out over their range.

"She showed me, sir."  Joseph's lower jaw thrust slowly out, something Linn saw his Uncle Will and his Mama both do in a thoughtful moment.  "She showed me."  He turned and looked very directly at his father.  "Sir, I've seen her picture a thousand times, but until I saw her last night -- in person, living flesh -- sir, it was not a dream, she was real. I gripped her arm and she was solid and warm and she looked ... absolutely ... identical to Marnie and to Gammaw.  Identical!"

Linn nodded again.

"She showed me all her ... selves. Everything from ancient Greece through the Revolution through Gammaw through --"

Joseph blinked.

"I thought when you were reincarnated, you didn't remember the previous life."

"Those weren't reincarnations, Joseph. Those were all separate selves, each one so identical as to look like twins. At least" -- Linn smiled with half his mouth -- "that's what your Gammaw told me."

"Yes, sir."

"Now take that pale eyed young woman with the bow."

"The recurve, sir, with curly black hair and a gold band holding it up out of her face."

Linn nodded.  "The same. Do you recall seeing her shoot that bow?"

"No, sir."

"She's deadly with it."

"Yes, sir."

"Sarah Lynne McKenna was a phenomenal shot. Old Pale Eyes' wife Esther was a truly gifted wingshot. Your Gammaw -- hell, you remember how your Gammaw shot!"

Joseph laughed, nodded:  one of his favorite memories was shooting aluminum 9mm hulls off a fence rail with a single shot .22 rifle, him taking one shot, his Gammaw taking one shot, back and forth until they couldn't find the hulls anymore, or they ran through a full box of shells, and the ice cream sundae afterward, midsummer or dead cold winter.

"Every one of those pale eyed hell raisin' women had the knowledge that their line would end at Har-Megiddo, in that Last Battle, and every last one of them kept herself ready to go off and fight there whenever the bugle blew."

"But what about Marnie, sir? She's clear up on Mars!"

Linn considered for a long moment, then looked at his son.

"It's kind of like Marnie telling us about other races out among the stars, Joseph. It didn't surprise her one bit. She said the God Who made the heavens and the earth loves green growing things, and there's no way He would put life on only one planet. If He can set everything in motion through three dimensional infinity, He can arrange for Marnie to step through a Confederate portal right onto the battlefield."

"I see, sir."

"Each one of the Sarahs you saw was a hell raiser and deadly as smallpox. That skill carries in the blood, Joseph. It's called racial memory. You and I are predisposed to finish a fight, because that's in our blood. That Greek maiden's skills with a bow might not be found in my hands, but it inclines me to a personal skill-at-arms."  Linn looked meaningfully at his son.

"Me too, sir?"

"Yep."

Linn looked out across the range again.

"I like the way you started with a long angle shot, coming mostly toward you, and you went in three steps to almost a pure crossing shot."

"Thank you, sir."

"As I recall, Sarah and her Pa were charged one time by a group of men who didn't want to be taken in for bank robbery. Sarah went to one knee and addressed the situation with a '73 rifle, and she Alvin Yorked them. I don't think Old Pale Eyes got off the first shot."

Joseph nodded.  "Was she dressed like Sarah or was she the Black Agent?"

"She was the Black Agent, and she'd let it be known she was there with Old Pale Eyes."

"I see, sir."

"Did she tell you about her earliest childhood, and later how she crawled through the mountain?"

Joseph was silent for several long moments, his wide, pale eyes staring at something ten miles on the other side of the sheer rock wall behind the far target butts.

"She did, sir."

"I reckon she was tried like refinery gold before she was six years old."

"I reckon so, sir."

Silence grew long between the pair; finally Linn stood, his son standing with him.

"Joseph," he said, "I'd like to try something."

"Yes, sir?"

"Ever hit an empty shotshell in the air?"

Joseph's twelve-year-old grin was quick, broad, genuine.

"No, sir."

"You recall I showed you how to hit with a pistol."

"Yes, sir." 

"Lock and load, master grip strong hand, shotshell in your off hand."

Joseph snapped in a fresh magazine, cycled the bolt, set his feet, accepted the worse-for-wear shotshell from his father.

"Now just like the pistol.  Toss straight in the air and nail it when it hesitates."

A brass-and-green empty hull spun into the air.

A tall, lean-waisted, twelve-year-old boy swung the rifle up, brought it to shoulder.

A crack -- cartridge brass flew spinning out the breech, bright in the sunlight --

The shotshell disappeared, howling as it spun into a new trajectory, hit the ground.

A father's grin, a son's delighted laugh, and a pale eyed father handed his pale eyed son another empty  hull and said, "Do it again!"

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE FORBIDDEN ARCHIVE

Marnie Keller kept a collection of books at home, rather than at the Museum.

Some information was not yet for public consumption.

Certain picture books, albums, photographs, documents: material yet too personal were stored in neat ranks and rows on handmade bookshelves.

Marnie considered the contents of the second shelf from the ceiling: she stood on a rolling ladder, considering the contents of each book and folder.

Angela watched as Marnie smiled, just a little, and reached for a picture album.

Angela stepped back as Marnie came down the ladder, turned, thrust her chin toward her desk.

Angela pulled up the only other chair in the bedroom, sat, tilted her head a little as Marnie opened the book just short of midway, paged back, back again, stopped.

Angela leaned closer and Marnie felt the delight fairly prickling from her little sis.

"Oooh," Angela gushed, "I want, I want!"

Marnie laughed and laid a hand on Angela's back.

"I think we can arrange that," she said quietly.

 

Marnie Keller sat in the beautician's chair, looking at her reflection, then at the beautician.

Mr. Robert, as he was called, made a show of opening a stainless-steel steam cabinet, of withdrawing a steaming towel: he reached down, laid Marnie almost flat on her back, stuck a cigar between his teeth (genuine green bubble gum, no less!) and carefully, precisely, wrapped the steaming-hot towel around Marnie's face.

"Awright, youse guys," he sneered in an absolutely terrible 1930s-era gangster accent, "we're gonna makes youse looks beautiful, see?  Nyaa."

Mr. Robert looked around, as if to challenge anyone who defied his authority: he wore a pinstriped, double breasted suit with a Fedora, he wore white spats with gleaming-black oxfords, he busied himself with the compound intended to make Marnie's naturally healthy skin even better.

Of course, as the man was hamming it up terribly, he'd arranged for Marnie's manicure: a gum-popping doxy of the era in a proper hairdo and dress sat and began soaking Marnie's nails in a shallow dish of something the same shade of bilious green as Mr. Robert's cigar.

Marnie patiently endured the beautician's ministrations: a facial, a peeled-off mask, the hot towels to open her pores and then after the mask, witch hazel to close them: Marnie explained each step to Angela, how Mr. Robert did her hair in such a way that she could tuck it up under a hat, and when the hat was removed, her hair would fall in a shining cascade down the middle of her back.

"And this," she said, "is the suit I wore."

Angela's breath aaaah'd out in honest admiration: she looked at Marnie and said, "Can I look like that?"

"We'll have to check with Daddy first."

Angela looked disappointed. "Why?" she whined.

Marnie turned the page, tapped a photograph with a nail-trimmed finger.

"Oh."

 

It was a group photograph.

Angela had honestly forgotten the occasion.

She'd been focused on going to a classmate's birthday party; she stood patiently as the family portraits were taken, then she'd happily departed for cake and ice cream and pin-the-tail-on-something-or-another.

The photograph had the Sheriff standing beside his wife, one arm around her shoulders, the other propping a 97 Winchester's buttplate on the edge of his gunbelt, muzzle to the ceiling.

Beside him, Jacob Keller, glaring coldly at the camera, a 73 rifle in his grip, angled across him and down to the floor: he wore Stetson and boots, jeans and flannel shirt and a vest.

Shelly stood, smiling gently, holding her week-old baby, and in front of her, Joseph, trying to look stern: he wore a brace of revolvers and held a rather impressive Bowie knife across his chest.

On Shelly's right, Marnie.

In a pin stripe suit, a black silk blouse and white necktie, a snap brim hat and her Gammaw's trademark high heels, and held across her and angling down, an honest to God, drum magazine, civilian grade, figured-cherry-wood Thompson submachine gun in almost new condition.

A friend of Linn's with more money than good sense bought the Thompson from a Sheriff's office back East: the Thompson originally belonged to a coal mine's security, until the Gun Control Act of 1932, when the mines donated the Thompsons to the Sheriff's office (and knocked the donation off their taxes) and replaced them with model 12 Winchester riot guns.

The Sheriff's boon companion and old friend brought his new prize out to show it off to his pale eyed old compadre, and Linn looked up and grinned that crooked, half-his-mouth grin that meant he had an idea.

"Mama knew Daddy wanted a family portrait taken," she said to the enraptured Angela, "and when he saw that genuine Thompson, he just had to have it in the portrait."

"You look good in a hat," Angela said firmly.

"I looked good in that suit," Marnie agreed.  "Dadddy sent his old friend a copy of this picture, and his friend sent back that I needed a cigar."

"Eewww," Angela made a face, flared her nostrils.

"Yeah, ewww. But I knew where to go to get my hair done for the picture."

"Did Mister Robert see this?"

Marnie smiled.  "Yes he did," she said softly, and Angela looked quickly at her sister, surprised at a note of sadness in her voice.  "I showed it to him a week before he died."

"Did he like it?"

"He laughed," Marnie said gently.  "His sister said it was the last laugh he had on this earth."

Marnie looked at herself, in a suit and tie and a Dick Tracy hat, holding a genuine Thompson submachine gun.

"I looked good that day," she murmured, "and when Daddy sent a copy of this to his friend, he stuck in a note that said this is why his county is nice and quiet."

"Marnie, why do you keep this in the Forbidden Archive?"

Marnie laughed, tilted her head a little as she looked at her big-eyed little sister.

"Can you imagine -- can you just imagine what would be said if the Sheriff's CHILDREN" -- she said it with a shudder in her voice and an expression of shock on her face -- "actually carried guns?"

Angela planted her knuckles on her belt and lowered her head, as if to glare over a set of nonexistent spectacles at her older sister.

"Marnie," she scolded, shaking her Mommy-finger at her big sis, "I'm a pretty good shot!"

Marnie turned, slid out of her chair, went to her knees and hugged her little sister, and laughed.

"Yes, you are, sweets," she agreed.  "Now would you like to try on that hat?   I still have it, you know!"

 

When Sheriff Linn Keller shut off his Jeep, he looked to the front porch and smiled.

He opened the Jeep's door, stepped out, advanced toward the porch.

Two sets of pale eyes regarded him:  one set from beneath a fashionable little hat, which matched the McKenna gown worn by a truly beautiful young woman (who only incidentally also wore a gunbelt with a bulldog .44 holstered thereon), and the other set from beneath a snap-brim hat, which just matched the altered, pinstripe suit coat and skirt of a little sis with a skeptical expression and a bilious-green, bubble gum cigar.

"Awright, youse guys," Angela sneered, "we're lookin' for a Chicago typewriter, see?" -- and thrust the bubblegum stogie between even, white teeth.

"You heard the lady," Marnie said innocently.

Sheriff Linn Keller gathered one daughter in one arm, the other daughter in the other, threw his head back and laughed, as a man laughs when he's had a difficult day at work, and has just been given the exact moment he needed.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DRACONIS VERT

Sheriff Willamina Keller laid a gentling hand on her son's forearm.

Linn's eyes were dead white, as was his face: his skin was stretched over his cheekbones like old parchment, his lips were peeled back, and his hand was tight around an individual's throat.

It should be added that the individual's feet were a hand's-breadth off the ground.

Sheriff Willamina Keller felt Linn's muscles shift, watched as the choking, enpurpled felon was let down until his feet were flat on the ground.

Willamina felt her son's muscles shift again and she knew his good right fist had just cocked back.

In his current state, if he punched this Jack Doe, he'd be aiming just under the wish bone with full intent to drive his fist through muscles, guts and spine, and come out the back side into daylight.

Linn still had a grip on the choking, coughing criminal's craw: he turned toward his mother, quickly, one leg out: he brought the felon over his leg, tripped him to a face-down on the ground, seized the criminal's wrist and brought it up behind him, fast and much less than gently, the hand bent down in a painful and very effective compliance hold.

"Cuffs," he said, his voice flat, his other hand coming up and open:  Willamina dropped her stainless Smith & Wessons in his palm.

When Linn rose, he had a double handful of distressed forearms:  he lifted the criminal easily off the ground -- Linn was sixteen years old, he was six foot already, he was made of lean muscle and granite bones, and Willamina knew his temper was still up, for when he rose and hoisted the captured criminal off the ground, he brought said felon's feet free of the pavement ... and held him there.

Willamina tilted her head a little as if she were examining an insect under a magnifying lens.

She turned over the lapel of her tailored, dark-blue suit coat, displaying the six point star hand engraved with the single word, SHERIFF.

"Hello," she said.  "You just tried to carjack the County Sheriff."

Beside her, something the size of a young bear ran his tongue out in a happy doggy smile, his thick brush of a tail swinging happily behind him.

 

Shelly Crane had eyes for Linn.

They were in school together, though they did not travel in the same circles: Shelly was a cheerleader, and Linn was an academic.

He was polite, he was quiet, there were very few occasions when anyone managed to provoke him: Shelly had not seen his temper, not until today.

Today she stood and stared, watching as this soft spoken honor student suddenly wore the face of the Reaper himself, as he ran after someone, and after The Bear Killer charged and drove stiff forelegs into the fleeing felon's back, knocking him down, Linn kicked something out of his hand, reached down, seized him by the neck, and hoisted him off the ground, his face going from an angry red to an absolute, shocking, parchment.

Linn and Shelly talked, of course, as young people will, and Shelly remembered an interrupted conversation, one in which Shelly spoke of Linn's even temper, in which Linn started to tell her that he was afraid of his temper, that he likened it to a scaly green dragon deep inside him that he tried to keep calm, to keep quiet, to keep hidden, but when this Draconis Vert woke, and uncoiled, his temper was likely to show itself, and he did not like that.

Shelly knew he was going to expand on that statement -- the most she'd ever heard him talk -- but they were interrupted, and the conversation never re-started the rest of the evening.

 

Linn was coming out of the All-Night with chicken strips, fried taters and two coffees.

He'd turned from paying at the register and looked out to see an individual step up to his Mama's Jeep window.

"Bear Killer," Linn said quietly, and powered into an open-handed sprint.

He hit the front door, hard, slammed it open, honestly not caring if it busted off its hinges or collapsed in a cascade of crumbled safety glass.

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller saw him coming in her rearview mirror.

Her hand had a master grip on her pistol, brought it free of its shoulder holster, held it down, out of sight.

When the grinning hood pulled up his hoodie to show the tape handled grip of a revolver in his waistband, Willamina's hand shot out, seized the wrapped handle, yanked it free, produced the muzzle of her own personal persuader, just as The Bear Killer bayed pursuit and charged.

The screaming snarl of a mountain Mastiff, declaring his firm intent to rip someone's living soul free of their fang-filleted carcass, is a wonderful thing to hear: it will either freeze a wrongdoer into a shivering pile of piteous pleas, or it will inspire said scoundrelly soul into a pious imitation of Jesse Owens himself.

In this case -- owing probably to the pharmaceutical contaminant dilating the scoundrelly subject's pupils -- said sorry soul did not imitate Jesse Owens.

He put him to shame.

For a very short distance.

The Bear Killer looked like a young bear, and his tonnage was impressive: once moving, that much beef on the hoof can strike with an impressive impact, and The Bear Killer did just that.

Rather than seizing a pumping, swinging arm, or a rapidly scissoring leg, The Bear Killer drove his forelegs stiff against the criminal's shoulder blades:  a knife appeared in one hand, just before something with pale eyes and well polished Wellingtons kicked the wrist, seized the throat and hoist the would-be carjacker off the ground.

 

Linn bent the criminal over his Mama's Jeep hood, which lasted for about a second and a half: cuffed or not, this Jack Doe was wound up and drugged and Linn was obliged to grab him under the arms, throw his legs over a pipe barrier and let him thrash and scream.

Once backup and the squad arrived, it took multiple sprays up the nose to counteract the drug; it took multiple deputies to get him belted down on the cot, and Linn learned later the trip in to hospital was less than peaceful as well.

Willamina watched her son closely as he followed the squad's departure with pale eyes.

Linn looked at his mother.

"I need to retrieve his knife," he said. "I kicked his wrist hard to paralyze his hand. Didn't want The Bear Killer hurt."

Willamina looked down at the revolver, holstered on her son's belt.

"You did a good job of protecting your sidearm," she commented.

Linn's eyes were still pale, his face still tight-stretched.

He felt more than heard Shelly come up.

She stood beside The Bear Killer, caressed his big head, felt him lean, warm and companionable, against her, his tail swishing quietly on the blacktop.

She looked at Linn with wide eyes and somehow she was pleased with his words.

"Nobody," he said, fiercely, quietly, "nobody tries to carjack my Mama!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHEN IN DOUBT, CHEAT

Linn paced back from the target frame.

He knew he was being watched.

He'd been relaxing with his .22 target pistol, at least until the watchers approached the range: he knew they were trying to remain hidden, and he knew they had no idea he'd seen them.

They'd watched him cut the heart out of the Ace of Spades -- he'd stapled the card's top and bottom to carefully spaced 2x4s, set up for that purpose -- it was impressive, after two rapid magazines of rimfires, to have a hole in the center, the same size and shape as the black Ace that once occupied the card.

Linn sauntered back to the target frame.

Two more cards, but edge-on, stapled to the side of the frame, sticking up.

He elaborately ignored the watchers, the skulkers: he knew he was watched, as were all the lawmen, and if any came out for practice, those with less than pure intent made it their business to assess the skills of the local badge packers.

Linn picked up a carved-leather gunbelt, slung it around his lean middle, snugged it up.

He withdrew the big single action.

He had a fondness for the .44, it had spoken loudly and most persuasively on his behalf in the past, and he knew it to be superbly accurate.

There was also something satisfying about launching a sizable payload, both in diameter, and in mass.

The blued-steel hogleg whispered into the holster.

Linn looked at the card, edge-on to him, sauntered slowly around the front of his loading bench.

He stopped.

Since earliest childhood, the sound of a single action coming to full stand had been a comforting sound to him: he cocked the revolver as it came out of the holster, as was his habit, he punched it forward, the sights settled on the edge-on card on the right, the revolver rolled up in his hand and he caught the hammer spur with his thumb, took a step to his left, brought the big revolver down out of recoil and fired again.

The only time he ever had to engage hostile forces with this particular revolver, some years before, was a moment he'd never forgotten: ten times ten thousand times he'd reviewed the memory, and not once, not one single time, did he ever remember seeing the sights in that encounter.

His hand knew this particular revolver more than intimately.

When it came up, the sights were already where they should be, and it did not surprise him at all that two cards flew apart, sliced neatly in twain by a fast moving, hard cast Keith semi wadcutter.

It didn't hurt that he was loaded with a slow powder, the kind that builds velocity like a freight train and leaves a bit of a fireball at the muzzle: between the impressive report, and the sight of fire at the muzzle end, the watchers were suitably impressed, and carried their observations with them as they departed, how this young, pale eyed lawman, someone known to the community, someone who grew up from youngest childhood here, casually cut playing cards in two, edgewise, with nothing less than the legendary .44 Magnum, and made it look easy!

It wasn't until many years later, when Sheriff Linn Keller was entertaining unusually tall, unusually slender grandsons, pale eyed young men of but twelve years, young men wearing the peculiar suits that marked them Martians, suits that compensated for their delicate bone structure and lack of Earth-normal muscle mass -- it wasn't until Linn was introducing his grandsons to his range that he confided in them, "You don't shoot cards edge-on, you can't see 'em -- and you can't hit 'em if you can't see 'em.  Step off just a little to one side or another, so you can see the damned things!"

Solemn young eyes, surprisingly youthful in such tall bodies, regarded the Sheriff with interest.

"But Grampa," one protested, "isn't that ... cheating?"

Linn laughed and nodded.

"Me dear pappy taught me at a tender age, 'When in doubt, cheat!' -- and I cheat as often as I possibly can!"  His chuckle was warm, confident.  "I'll tell you how to cheat even more, fellas ... don't use a .22, use a .44, it's way easier to hit 'em with that bigger bullet!"

Two pale eyed brothers looked at one another and grinned.

"Daddy," a familiar voice scolded, "are you teaching your grandsons bad habits again?"

"Whattaya mean again?" Linn protested innocently. 

"I mean you've been teaching them body language and eye movement and lie detection, you've shown them grips and holds and throws -- honestly," Marnie scolded, "you're not leaving me much to teach them!"

Linn rolled his eyes, raised his hands in supplication to the heavens:  "Truuust me to caaaause troubllllllle!" he intoned, to the happy laughter of two tall, thin, Martian grandsons in charcoal-grey power suits and polished-crystal visors.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I MISSED YOUR BIRTHDAY

Sheriff Linn Keller was not a stranger to much of anyone.

He had a good nature and a gregarious way of talking that put about anyone at ease; his sons, his daughters, his wife and his friends not infrequently declared that the man never met a stranger, and while that's not exactly true, it is true that he had a way about him that put folks at ease.

When he dismounted with a carefully carried coffee pot in one hand -- carrying it the way a man will when he's already dipped up some good cold clean creek water -- and approached the little fire, the fire's occupant gave him a good looking over.

Linn cast about, gave a grunt: he picked up a fist sized rock, set it close into the little fire: two more discoveries and he set the coffee pot on the three rocks, shoved in close to the small blaze.

It was a nicely laid little fire, smokeless, hot, efficient:  Linn strolled back to his saddlebags, brought out three cloth wrapped bundles, handed one across the fire to the stranger.

"Take a sniff," he invited, and the stranger, surprised, accepted the red-and-white-checkered package, squeezed it experimentally, brought it to his nose, sniffed.

"I'd be damned," he muttered, the first words he'd uttered since the pale eyed lawman with the iron grey mustache rode into the clearing on that shining red horse of his.

"It'll take a minute to get up to a b'ile," Linn drawled, spread a second red-and-white checkered cloth, dropped the tied bundle of fresh ground coffee on it to keep it off the dirt: he opened another, unwrapped a smaller package within, handed the stranger a thick sandwich.

Linn recognized the gleam of half-greed, half-hunger with he extended the meal.

The stranger took a quick bite, chewed, closed his eyes with pleasure, savoring the taste and the texture of better beef than he'd had in some long time.

Sheriff and stranger each ate a genuine woman-fixed meal -- "I ain't that good at slicin' sourdough," Linn admitted, "attair is Daisy's work -- she's cook at the Silver Jewel" -- his casual words were a lawman's trick, seeing if they raised any recognition in the stranger's eyes.

The stranger frowned, shook his head a little, took another bite.

"Never heard of it. One o' them fancy San Frisco places?"

Linn chuckled.  "I et in one o' them fancy places once. God Almighty, the prices!"

"I know," the stranger muttered through his last mouthful.  "Arm, leg and firstborn son!"

"Amen brother," Linn agreed, lifting the coffee pot's hinged lid and easing the cloth-wrapped bundle into the steam, just-boiling water.  "We'll let that set and repent of its sins."

"You ain't got any egg shells now have you?" the stranger asked hopefully.

Linn grinned.  "I've used egg shells t' settle the grounds, but no, didn't bring none. Esther calls that 'Hobo Coffee' wrapped up like that.  Keeps me from chewin' the grounds when I drink it."

The stranger shook his head.  "Damn, you know all the wimmen," he complained.

"I'm tryin' to think of a good Smart Aleck remark," Linn muttered, shaking his head, "and the mind just went blank!"

The two shared a quiet laugh -- unusual, between strangers, but it was quiet, and any tensions had been eased with the sharing of the lawman's provender.

Once coffee was poured, another sandwich apiece et, Linn handed over something golden-brown and flaky: it was pie crust with apple fillin' inside -- "Daisy said she didn't want me goin' without dessert so she give me four of these. You'd best eat two of 'em so I don't get all bloated up and fat."

The stranger ate this traveler's pie, this confection big as the palm of his hand, and wondered aloud if this Daisy was married, he'd sure-enough like to come across a woman like her!

Linn took a long breath, sighed it sadly out:  "Daisy is Irish and red-headed, she swings a mean skillet and I'd not want to get on the wrong side of that woman's temper! She's married to a big Irish fire chief that makes me look like the Tooth Fairy, and she keeps HIM in line!"

Quiet laughter again.

Silence grew between them; the men sat so they could see their horses, and referred to them regularly, for a horse is a creature of the wild country, and can sense danger before a man's duller senses will register a threat.

Linn was still hunkered; the stranger was settin' on bare dirt, his boot heels dug in.

"I couldn't hunker that long," the stranger admitted.  "M'knees won't take it."

"Mine ain't that happy with me," Linn admitted, "but I got to take the bend out of my back or it give me billy Hell."

"Bust your back, did ye?"

Linn grinned with half his mouth.  "Time or three.  Horses, the War, tryin' t' out-work my son."  Linn looked at the man and continued, "He wasn't goin' to let the Old Man out-work him, and I wasn't about to let a shavetail outwork me, and we both had cause to regret our choices the next day!"

Two men exchanged an understanding look, and something told the pale eyed Sheriff this stranger on the trail had a similar experience at some time in his life.

"Headin' anywhere pa'tickelar?" the Sheriff asked, and the stranger gave him a sharp look.

"You're Old Pale Eyes."

"Been called that."

"You killed more men than smallpox."

"Smallpox killed m' little girl," Linn said quietly, and the stranger heard something in the man's voice that told him not to press the matter.

Silence, again, then finally, "I got no idea where t' go."

Linn nodded.  "Any reason I should be lookin' for you?"

The stranger looked at the Sheriff, said nothing.

"You don't look like the wanted dodgers in m' office," Linn said casually. 

Again, silence:  the man's walls were up.

Linn gave him a long, assessing look, nodded as if he'd come to a decision.

"Was a man to look for a frash start," he said slowly, "a strike might bear some thought. Gold strike, silver, hell, even somethin' like zinc -- you get men comin' in, it's easy to get lost among 'em, just another face. Use whatever name you'd like, long as it ain't noo-torious."

Linn's words were carefully chosen, his eyes on the stranger's face: he saw a thoughtful expression, saw the slightest depression of the head, as if a nod were stifled before it could be seen.

"If a minin' shovel don't fit your hand, a man can make a young fortune sellin' to the miners. You got a stake?"

Linn saw the stranger's eyes swing toward his horse: likely what fortune he had, was in his saddlebags.

Linn fished in a vest pocket, pulled out a slip of paper: another two-finger exploration and he came out with the stub of a pencil: he laid the paper on his knee and very carefully wrote on the paper, folded it, handed it to the man.

"That's the supplier I'd recommend. Wire 'em and have 'em ship you shovels and picks, order up shovel handles while you're at it, they're forever gettin' broke off. Start with that and build your business. That outfit handles everything a miner needs. Boots, drawers, hats, tools, tents, you want it, they got it. Order in what your customers want and you'll make a dollar."

Linn rose; the stranger grimaced to hear the pale eyed lawman's knees crackle as he did.

"Damn, that sounds bad," he offered.

"My boy is fifteen years old," Linn admitted, "and his knees don't make a sound.  Tried to trade him out of his but he wouldn't trade."  Linn's expression was solemn as he added, "Even offered to throw in a good used pocket knife!"

He thrust a chin at the coffee pot.  "You needin' one of those?"

The stranger looked covetously at the steaming pot, now set off beside the coals.  

"Can't pay you for it."

Linn laughed, handed him his empty tin cup.

"Take them cups and that pot for your birthday present, I missed your birthday."

Linn walked back to his shining copper mare, mounted: the stranger's eyes followed him out of sight.

He picked up his new coffee pot, shook it, allowed himself a small smile: he still had about half a pot of coffee left.

Two tin cups, a coffee pot, coffee that hadn't been drunk yet -- why, this was more wealth than he'd got since that last bounty he'd squirreled into his saddlebag!

 

A year later, Sheriff Linn Keller sadly consigned another coffee pot to the trash heap.

It was accepted that the man made the world's worst coffee: whether it was ill luck, or the effect of settin' on that cast iron stove, whether it was bad luck or evil spirits, Linn had the talented skill of rotting the bottom out of a coffee pot.

He looked up as a boy came running up to him with a paper wrapped bundle in hand.

Inside the bundle was a brand new pot, inside the pot was fresh ground coffee wrapped up in a cloth, and tied with a string.

And a note, written in pencil on a strip of paper.

Linn read the one side of the paper.

It was in his handwriting, and it had the name and address of a supply house he'd recommended.

On the other side, two words:

Happy Birthday.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND THE GODDESS DECIDED

 

Willamina waited for her son to hang up his gunbelt and Stetson, waited for him to slip out of his well polished boots, looked down the hall to see him shake his head, grinning and looking at the floor, as if he were remembering something.

He looked up to see his Mama looking at him.

"I know that grin," she smiled. "What happened?"

Linn looked at his Mama and his grin widened a little, then he laughed.

Willamina raised an eyebrow, gave her son a knowing look, folded her arms, tapped her foot like an old-fashioned schoolmarm.

"Have you been carousin' with the wimmens again?" she asked in a peevish old-lady voice, and Linn laughed again.

"Yes ma'am, I did," Linn affirmed.

"Well come on in and tell me about it!"

 

Linn waved at the pair as he came to the stop sign.

Brother and sister they looked to be, maybe eight years old: they had a card table set up, a pitcher of cool, sweating, freshly made lemonade and several plastic bottles of water stacked beside them, and a hand drawn poster:

LEMONADE $1.00

WATER $1.00

Jacob had business to tend, but he knew he'd be coming back this same route: he wheeled his Jeep north, toward Schoolhouse Road.

 

Shelly Crane planted her knuckles on her hips and glared.

The empty parking lot was not impressed by either her posture, her pique, or her glare.

She'd intended that she should ride with a classmate, who seems to have conveniently forgotten their arrangement.

Shelly bent, snatched up her light-blue backpack: she thrust both arms into the straps -- she steadfastly refused the affected slouch of her classmates, carrying its weight on only one shoulder -- she was perfectly capable of walking home, and had walked much further when occasion demanded.

Shelly took one step across the schoolhouse threshold, took another, stopped.

A familiar Jeep was slowing, was turning in.

Shelly smiled quietly, then walked purposefully toward the slowing vehicle.

Linn stopped, got out, came around to the passenger side, opened the passenger door: he stood, solemn, silent, as Shelly approached.

He waited until she was at the ten foot mark before removing his Stetson.

Shelly stopped and looked very directly at him, her expression unreadable, at least until she blinked and looked away and then looked back and said, "You have no idea how I needed that," before she seized the grab handle and climbed in.

Linn came around the door:  "All in?  It's impolite to close the door on your foot."

Shelly nodded:  "All in."

Linn closed the door, quietly, firmly: he came around the front, got in, thrust the key in the ignition, twisted.

Shelly smiled a little as she looked up at the ceiling, at the carbine mounted transversely behind the radio, then down at the other radio, its control head discreetly mounted ahead of the shifter, then at the quiet young man hauling the belt across him and into the buckle.

Shelly followed his example.

Linn pulled his Jeep into gear, eased ahead, eyes busy, then pulled out of the school lot and onto the empty highway.

"You needed that," Linn echoed quietly.

"Mm-hmm."

"What was it you needed?"

Shelly looked at him, her face serious.

"You treated me like a lady."

"That's because you are."

"You treat everyone like that."

"Even the guys?" he teased, and she swatted his arm.  "You know what I mean!" she scolded.

Linn eased down on the throttle.  "I need to make a stop at the grocery store, will that make you late?"

Shelly considered for a moment, then shook her head.  "No."

Linn turned in, wheeled into the parking lot, frowned, his bottom jaw sliding forward a little, and Shelly heard his quiet "Uh-oh."

He pulled up in front of a car -- the car's hood was up, a middle-aged woman was looking at her engine with the expression of someone who knew only that her car wasn't working.

Linn stopped, stepped out.

Shelly watched as he spoke quietly with the woman, frowning a little, nodding: she saw him thrust his chin at her open door, and the woman got back into her car.

Linn held up a cautioning finger, went to the back of his Jeep, opened the rear door, lifted the heavy glass hatch.

Shelly heard the bright clink of tool steel; Linn came back into sight, laid a couple wrenches on the car's radiator shroud, reached into his pocket, pulled out his Barlow knife.

Shelly couldn't see quite what he was doing, only that his hands were busy:  she tilted her head a little, leaned forward:  he wiped his blade on his jeans thigh, closed the knife and thumbed it back into his pocket: she knew he picked up a wrench and was doing something, he turned just a little, more movement, he looked up, nodded.

Shelly heard the car's engine start.

She watched as Linn took down the hood prop, laid it aside, closed the hood, touched his hat brim and shook his head:  she heard him return tool steel to the toolbox in the back of the Jeep, he closed the glass hatch and swung the door shut, got back behind the wheel.

"Fixed?" Shelly asked.

Linn nodded.  "Yep."

He pulled ahead, came around the end of the row:  Shelly looked in her outside mirror, leaned forward a little, saw the woman pull out and leave.

Linn looked up as a local wrecker went slowly down the opposite row, obviously looking for something.

"Uh-oh," Shelly heard again.

She waited in the Jeep as Linn went inside and got the particular ingredients his mother specified, items not carried at the All-Night, or items better priced at the regular grocery:  Linn wasn't sure, and he didn't care: she gave him a list and he got the goods.

By Shelly's reckoning, Linn was in the store just under six minutes; he came out, stowed two blue plastic sacks of ingredients in the back of the Jeep, and the pair resumed their journey.

"I have to make another stop."

"Okay."

Linn reached up, turned on the ceiling mounted radio, pressed a button twice, quickly, tweaked the volume up just a little:  he caught the NOAA forecast just as it was starting again, and Shelly could almost see the gears turning behind those pale eyes as he wheeled into the local garage.

"Be right back," he said quietly, parking off to the side where he'd be out of everyone's way.

He was gone, again, no more than five or six minutes; he emerged with a look of quiet satisfaction.

"Get everything taken care of?" she asked.

Linn's ears started turning red -- this surprised her -- he looked at her almost shamefacedly, then he laughed.

They pulled out onto the highway.

"That woman back at the grocery store?"

"Yes?"

"Her battery connection was dirty, that's all it was. She hit the key and nothing happened. All I did was take my Barlow knife and scrape off the battery post down to the bright, and the inside of the clamp the same, I put 'er back together and she fired right up."

"Oh."

If he'd told Shelly the flagellator had a bumsicle wrapped around the muffler bearing, she honestly wouldn't have known the difference, but she nodded as if she understood what he was saying.

"She'd already called for service, so I stopped in and paid for the service call. I didn't know she'd made the call until I saw him wheel in with the wrecker, and I'd just cheated him out of his fee."

"You didn't have to do that," Shelly said, surprised.

"Yes I did," he replied quietly.

Silence, at least until Linn made another two turns and stopped just after a stop sign.

Shelly watched as he cranked his window down, as he pulled out his wallet; she heard the grin in his voice as he told two eager children, one with a handmade posterboard sign, that he needed two dollars' worth of lemonade, and watched as he gave them four singles -- "Service fee," he explained, then handed Shelly a brimming, sweating-cold plastic cup of lemonade.

They drank thirstily; he handed the empty cups back and thanked the young entrepreneurs and told them it was the best lemonade he'd ever had, and they were on their way again.

 

Linn looked at his Mama as she poured a tall glass half full of cold, fresh iced tea, added the rest of the glass with lemonade -- Linn's preferred warm weather drink -- and handed it to him.

"So you were bribing the business community twice over, you were picking up younger women and otherwise wasting a perfectly good afternoon," Willamina said quietly.

Linn's grin and his chuckle were followed by his noisy, appreciative slurp of the half-and-half of cold sweet tea, and lemonade.

"Yes ma'am," he agreed.  "I did that."  He looked at his Mama and laughed again. 

"I graduated a year early and I've got a good chunk of my college credits under my belt already," he said thoughtfully.  "I reckoned it was time to celebrate just a bit."

"So you celebrated by paying a man for his dry run, by coming to the rescue of a stranded housewife, not to mention a stranded cheerleader, and you overpaid at a lemonade stand."

Linn took another long drink of his half-and-half.

"Yes, ma'am.  I did."

"You could have celebrated by taking your girl to the submarine races," Willamina said softly, shaking her head.  "Instead, you are a perfect gentleman, and a knight in shining armor." 

Willamina gave an exaggerated sigh, shook her head again, looked at him with a quiet, approving smile.

"Shelly and her father both told me you've always been a perfect gentleman."

"I've had several good examples, Mama.  Besides, you've worked hard to beat some manners into mmm -- I mean" --" he harrumphed, coughed, harrumphed again -- "I mean you worked hard to teach me good manners!"

Mother and son laughed together in an immaculate kitchen, on a quiet Friday evening, as the Irish Brigade pretended not to listen as Shelly gave an account of her evening to her father, at least until they looked at one another, until they all moved in, until they all surrounded father and daughter: wise counsel in a firehouse is generally freely offered, frankly spoken, and in the opinion of the Irish Brigade, these mustachioed men in bib front shirts with the Maltese cross embroidered thereon, offered their unsolicited, but utterly honest opinion, that here was a young man worth havin', that this pale eyed young man would make a fine son-in-law, and voices were raised and fists waved menacingly as one, then another, then every man Jack present, declared in a loud voice that he'd be pleased t' walk the bride down the aisle himself, and the sooner the better!

Shelly bit her bottom lip and looked around with glittering-bright eyes, then she seized her Daddy's arm and pulled hard:  she climbed up on a chair, and then their kitchen table, put two fingers to her lips, whistled.

Chief and Captain, engineer and truckie, good men and true and every man in the house, gave this pretty young woman in a cheerleader's pleated skirt and saddle shoes their undivided attention, and more than one there considered that if ever a Goddess came to earth, she could do worse than look like this beauty who commanded their attention!

"Daddy," Shelly declared loudly, "when I marry him" -- she looked left, looked right, looked like she was about to cry -- "Daddy, I want this entire Irish Brigade to stand with me!"

"What, no bridesmaid?" the engineer protested -- "I was hopin' t' have a sweet lass all t' m'self f'r the dancin'!"

"Ya dozy Welshman, ye've a wife already!"

"Yeah, but I'm a legend in m'own mind!"

The Captain looked up at his darlin' daughter.

"Does he know anything about this yet?" he asked, his voice carrying well and echoing a little as the entire Brigade withdrew into silence, the better to hear her answer.

"No," Shelly admitted.  "No he doesn't."

Her expression was firm, determined.

"He will, though.  He will!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HABIT

My arm drove forward and so did the gunbarrel.

I recall hearing that triple click of a single action coming to full stand, that harmony of machined steel as my thumb fetched back on the hammer spur and the cylinder rolled around and brought a hard cast .44 into battery.

I did not raise my voice.

"Drop the knife," I said quietly, "or I drop you."

It started out as a pretty good day.

Matter of fact it started out just absolutely dandy.

Mama sent me over into the next county on a detail.

It didn't amount to much.

I was headed over there anyway, I stopped by their prosecutor's office and gave them a file she wanted hand delivered, and they handed me a birthday card for her -- "I know it's late," was the explanation, "but I didn't want her to think we'd forgotten," so I slid that birthday card into my inside vest pocket and started to turn, then I turned back.

The receptionist looked up at me and opened her mouth -- likely she was going to ask if there was anything else, or if I'd forgotten something, or the standard "Can I help you?" -- but I interrupted her with a quiet, "Forgive my being forward, but you have the loveliest smile" -- then I turned and left, and settled my Stetson on my head as I crossed their threshold.

My Jeep and I were hungry, so I wheeled into the nearest gas station and filled up: from the gas station I could see a restaurant, and I knew little restaurants generally have better food, so I came out of the gas station and parked almost in front of that little brick front restaurant.

The food did not disappoint.

Now bear in mind I had that brand new six point star in a brand new badge wallet inside my vest, I had a .44 on my belt, I wasn't finished with college yet, but I did have one great advantage that most men of my few years lacked:

I knew I didn't know everything.

Mama, and especially Uncle Will, taught me to listen: I have no idea how I learned that lesson, but I did: I had to fight an impulse to pour out all I knew on any subject, and it took some will power.

Or won't power, as the case may be.

I went into that little restaurant with my cover under my off arm: I spotted a table that let me see the front door, I saw where the kitchen was (escape route), where the men's room was (coffee runs through me kind of quick) and then I looked at the menu board for their breakfast special.

I sat down.

On my right, a family: father and mother, an aunt or maybe a grandmother, a baby in Mama's arms, what looked like a teenage daughter, and nearest me, a restless little girl maybe three years old, in a pink-and-white flowered sundress, big blue eyes, blond hair and a smile that would melt the stone heart of a marble statue.

I had coffee and breakfast, and I couldn't tell what the adults were saying, but I could hear the smile in their voices: it was the quiet, well-behaved laughter of their youngest children that delighted me.

I've known too many children that will never make a sound again.

I've known too many children their age who make no sound, who look around with big and scared eyes, who bear scars not visible to the eye.

To see happy, healthy, unafraid children was something that brought delight to my heart, even as young as I was (God, that makes me sound old!)

Breakfast was good and I cleaned my plate, finished my coffee and thanked the waitress: I left her a healthy tip -- those girls take an unholy amount of grief from the public and generally they're not paid very well, Pa was never much of a tipper but Uncle Will always left a healthy tip, so I did too.

I looked around before I opened the door to go out and of a sudden the morning was nowhere near as pleasant.

I set my Stetson on my head and pushed out the door, I grabbed the nearest throat and twisted and bounced his head off a spun-aluminum light pole hard enough to make it ring and to drop him limp to the ground.

I turned, pulled back enough to miss the punch: I was not thinking, I was reacting, and it wasn't until later, once the dust settled, that I had time to reflect on how grateful I was to have trained as well as I had.

One of the city cops was honestly getting his backside kicked up between his shoulder blades.

The one who threw a punch at me went to the ground, I kneedropped him in the kidneys -- you're not supposed to do that, you can kill someone like that, and in the moment I didn't care.

All I knew was I had to put him down and keep him down.

My hand went up under the tail of my vest and come up with cuffs, I'm looking around as I grabbed one wrist, then the other: I planted my hands on the back of this Jack Doe's belt and used it for a pivot, I whipped my legs around and the fellow who tried to football kick me in the head went down hard when I kicked his support leg out from under him.

By now the town cop had his baton out and he was making good account of himself, the fellow I'd just downed was layin' there not movin' and I come up just as a fourth fetched out a switchblade.

That's when I drove my arm toward him and invited him to drop the knife before I dropped him.

My off hand went into my pants pocket and came out with a handful of .38 snubnose and I give the fellow on the ground a good look at its muzzle and allowed as I hadn't sent anyone to hell yet this week and this looked like a two for one sale, and of a sudden the fight was over and the Cavalry showed up in two city cars and a Sheriff's cruiser.

"THESE TWO IN IRONS," I declared, holstering:  I turned, thrusted a bladed hand at the one on his back -- the one with little tweety birds circling his head -- "That one too.  See to your officer, he was outnumbered and he's hurt."

The fellow on the ground was getting some wind into him: he started to struggle, scream, curse:  I went down and grabbed him by the hair of the head and said quietly, "You have the right to remain silent. This is a really good time to do just that."

One of the backup officers asked, "Your cuffs?"

"Yep."

"Usually carry cuffs on your day off?"

I shrugged.

"Habit."

 

Later that evening I showed up at the firehouse with flowers.

Shelly generally ate there, with her Daddy and the Irish Brigade.

I came through the man door.

As usual, every head turned to see who as making entry.

"Permission to Come Aboard!" I declared in a firm voice:  immediately there were insults, catcalls, invitations to go fly a kite, the usual good natured banter I'd come to accept as normal from this bunch.

Shelly looked at me half-bashful, her face reddening a little as I handed her flowers.

"Now what's this about him not knowin'?" a voice demanded, and Shelly shot him a glare that should have driven a lance through his beating heart:  she lowered her head, inhaled, looked at me with those big gorgeous eyes, those eyes I could fall into, those eyes I could swim in ...

"Have you had supper?" she asked.  "We've plenty."

I looked at the engineer and asked, "Is this where I'm supposed to make wit' da smart remarks?"

At least three sweet rolls sailed through the air in my general direction.

"Well, hell," said I, "as long as I don't run you short!"

A warm hand pressed down on my shoulder, a plate descended to the tabletop in front of me.

"So tell me, when d' ye get th' ring in yer nose?" a bantering voice asked, and of a sudden I had the feeling something more was going on than just the usual hail-fellow-well-met.

I looked at Shelly, and her face was getting steadily redder.

"I think," she said hesitantly, "I need to talk to you about something."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MEASUREMENT

 

I give the matter considerable thought.

Experience is something I didn't have much of.

I know experience comes from making mistakes.

I don't like making mistakes.

Some mistakes you can heal up from.

I'd made some that could have killed me and it's God's grace alone that I still drew breath.

I grabbed a suicide one time on a trustle with the train a-comin', there was not room enough for the Iron Horse and us as well, I seized a distraught woman around the waist from behind and threw her over my leg, hard, but I didn't let go, I aimed for that little platform that was built onto the trustle for just that purpose and we hit the sawmill cut boards hard and me still holdin' onto her and I don't know which screamed louder, her tryin' to fight free of me, that steam whistle and them air brakes, or the backs of my knuckles where her weight and mine was a-grindin' my hands bloody ag'in them boards.

I've faced up to and faced down a variety of large and angry people bearin' a variety of weapons, I've seen death lookin' at me more times than one.

Now I can take my dyin'.

I can take me gettin' hurt when it's my doin'.

I am most troubled by me hurtin' someone who does not deserve that hurt.

Shelly and I drove well up on the mountain and I shut off the Jeep, I come around and opened her door, we walked along a bare rock path well older than Firelands County and we set down on a sun-warmed rock shelf way the hell up above everything else and we looked out over the world.

She set down and so did I and I reached over and laid my hand beside hers nice and gentle, and she took my hand.

"You're warm," she murmured.

Her hand was cool and girl-soft and she smelled good and I looked at her and admitted, "Shelly, I'm scared."

It was a rare thing for me to see surprise on her face, but I saw it plain when I spoke.

I took a long breath, looked out over the world, falling away from us like it was, a view I dearly loved, one I'd set and looked at long and often, for there is a beauty to it, a wild beauty not carved by the hand of Man.

"Are you scared ... of me?" she asked hesitantly.

I turned my head and looked at her, I felt my bottom jaw thrust out:  I frowned, looked down, shook my head.

"Darlin'," I said softly, "you've done nothin' wrong and ... I'm scared of me."

The puzzlement she showed before was as nothing to the complete what-in-the-hell-are-you-talking-about that painted itself across her apple-cheeked face.

"Ever wonder why I haven't bundled you up in my arms and laid a real good curl-your-toes kiss on you?"

Shelly blinked several times, nodded timidly.  "Yes," she admitted.  "I've wondered."

"I know too much," I muttered, then chewed on my bottom lip and tried to bring some sense to my racing thoughts.

"Shelly, I don't drink."

"I know."

"About everyone I went to school with, does."

"Yes," she agreed.  "Yes, they do."

"My grandmother was a damned drunk."  My voice was flat, emotionless: as much as I tried not to, my voice betrayed a deep anger, for there was a wrong I could never right.

"She hurt my Mama," I continued.  "She was a damned drunk and she hurt my Mama and she betrayed Granddad."

Shelly looked at me with big and vulnerable eyes, nodded, once, carefully, as if afraid she might break something if she moved her head too far.

"Shelly, alcoholism often skips a generation. That's me. My older sis --"  I heard anger in my voice, so I stopped talking, looked away, took a long breath again.

Shelly's hand tightened on mine. 

"You don't drink," she almost whispered. 

"Drink is one facet of addiction."  I looked at Shelly. "I've never kissed you because I don't want to light a fire I can't control. Martin Luther said you can't bring straw and fire together and forbid smoke, and I don't ..."

I shook my head.  "I'm making a botch of this," I muttered.

"No you're not."  Shelly lowered her head, looking very directly at me.  "You're not."

"Everyone my age is either chasing hot cars, hot girls or booze.  Or drugs."

"You're not."

"No. I chose not to. Not even once. If I don't start it, I don't have to stop it."

Shelly nodded.

"If I ... start ... intimacy ..."

"You're afraid you won't want to stop."

"Endorphin cascade. I don't want to get swept away in an endorphin avalanche."

"Maybe you should."

I raised an eyebrow.

"You are decent and you are honorable and you treat me absolutely like a lady," she whispered. "I could never ask for better. When the time comes, I would love to be swept into your avalanche."

I nodded, still feeling like I was treading the quaking ground of a treacherous, man-swallowing swamp.

"What about our future?"

I looked at Shelly.

I looked down at her hands.

We'd turned toward one another.

Both her hands held both my hands.

"I like the idea," I said slowly, "of a future with you."

Shelly blinked a few times, wet her lips.

"So do I."

I swallowed.  "Why do I get the feeling someone is about to pop up and scream 'KISS HER YOU FOOL!'"

This caught her by surprise.

I've always loved her laugh, and laugh she did:  we leaned into one another, and I learned that what I'd been taught about addiction, was absolutely true.

I'd been taught that the first drink, the first hit, the first snort, the first toot, that first kiss, the very first time ... the stars are never as bright, colors never as intense, the feeling never as perfect! -- as that first time.

It surely was.

"We should make plans," Shelly whispered.

"I have plans," I replied.

Shelly blinked, tilted her head a little to the side, curious.

"Uncle Will lived in the old Macneil place. It's stood empty since he moved out and moved into that little apartment in town. Said it felt like he was living in a mausoleum since his wife died. I asked him if he was inclined to sell and he said yes."

"Oh, Linn, that's wonderful!"

"You'll like the place. House is big and well kept. Good wells for water, we've got our own gas wells so no worries there. Macneil built with an eye toward defense so there are good fields of fire, it's not built like a fort but it ain't bad. Crystal had all new kitchen appliances and they're in A-number-1 shape."

I looked at her, hesitated.

"Shelly, I measured the stairs."

Surprise, puzzlement:  "Why?"

"A wiser man than I said 'First the nest, then the bird.'  I won't go on one knee in front of you until I have land and home, until I can provide for you as a man ought."

"You could do that now."

I nodded.  "I could," I admitted, "but we need to get your education finished and mine. I'm makin' good progress toward that college degree. I'll have all I need for my deputy's credentials."

"You're going to stay in law enforcement."

"I am."
"Good."

"And you?"

She threw her head back and laughed, looked at me with almost mischief: "Mama was so unhappy at my decision not to go to nursing school -- it's the only thing we really fought about, and my God we did fight!" -- she looked at me and said, "Your Mama would understand."

"Understand?" I echoed, an automatic response: it was taught me as a means of eliciting information from a subject under interrogation.

"Daddy and your Mama both told me the same thing."  She dropped her eyes, then looked at me again and recited in an annoyed, peevish voice, "'When you are a nurse, you have to take your hat in your hand and say to the doctor, Mother May I, just to give an aspirin or a Band-Aid.  As a paramedic, your orders are Go to the Situation and Handle It! Improvise, overcome and adapt is a way of life, and that's what I want!'"

I squeezed her hands in delight, for she was speaking my language.

"How close are you to finishing your paramedic?" I asked quietly.

"I'll have to wait until I'm graduated."

"One more year."

She nodded.

"I should have Uncle Will's place by then. I'll be finished with mine and I'm already commissioned and ready to start taking shifts as soon as mine's complete. Less than six months."

"Linn?"

"Hm?"
"Why did you measure the stairs?"

I laughed.

"Stand up."

Shelly stood.

"Add four inches for a pair of heels," I murmured, then I ran my arms behind her back and behind her knees and picked her up.

She gave a surprised yelp, took me around the neck, but she did not look at all displeased.

"Darlin'," I replied, "when the time comes for me to carry you up those stairs, I wanted to make sure they were wide enough."

"Are they?"

I leaned my head down and kissed her again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I WAS TOO

Esther's hired girl stood in the Mercantile doorway, her eyes widening and her hands going to her mouth.

Whatever happened, must've just happened, and it was one of those moments where the street is quiet and uneventful and suddenly it's filled with men and fists and she took a quick breath, the way a girl will when she sees men at conflict.

The Sheriff ducked a punch, drove in close -- too close! -- his elbow came up and caught his opponent under the ear, snapping his head over: the maid watched as the lawman did something, she wasn't sure what, but the scene was suddenly all legs, with one fellow on the ground -- the Sheriff's arm was out and stiff and he must've heel-hooked the fellow and pushed hard -- Jacob, behind them, seized another who was rushing the Sheriff, grabbed the back of the second party's waistband and the back of his collar, hauled him around and off his feet and introduced him face first into a convenient horse trough.

Something shining spun through the air -- a coin, flashing, catching the sunlight as it described a brief arc -- a grinning boy, truant from school, clapped his hands and caught the payment, then cheerfully seized the cast iron handle of the water pump and vigorously plied said handle, directing a stream of fresh, cold water over the head of the sputtering, emerging combatant.

Linn reached down, backhanded the fellow on the ground, hard, then SLAMMED his open hand down on the man's chest:  he crushed a good handful of shirt front and an equal amount of chest hairs beneath, twisted, hauled the man off the ground and shook him.

It was the first time Esther's maid ever heard the pale eyed Head of Household angry.

Linn's face was parchment white, taut over high cheekbones, his teeth were bared, he was rattling this would-be pugilist like a terrier shakes a rat.

Jacob drove both hands into the horse trough, seized his prisoner by the shirt front and the front of the man's waistband, hauled him out and off to the side:  Linn gripped his prisoner by one leg and the shirt front and gave this second fellow his Saturday night bath a little early.

The yell of agony -- that water was cold! -- was stifled by being thrust beneath its turbulent surface.

His Honor the Judge, Donald Hostetler, slouched casually against a porch post in front of the Silver Jewel, mug of beer in one hand, cigar in the other:  his expression was calm as he watched the exertions before him, unlike the other occupants of their friendly local saloon, who poured out to yell encouragement, lay wagers and take great gulps of the beer they brought with them.

A grinning little boy retreated far enough to keep from being splashed: he returned to the pump handle, refilled the trough as the Sheriff sloshed his opponent around until the fellow decided cooperation was better than drowning.

The Sheriff's voice was neither soft nor was it kind when he curled his arm and brought the soaked and water-running sinner up to eye level, and Esther's maid was honestly surprised the guilty party's hair was not shot straight back with the powerful blast of the Sheriff's voice:

"DAMN YOU, MY SUIT WAS CLEAN BEFORE YOU TWO STARTED! NOW THE GIRL WILL HAVE TO WASH IT AGAIN!" -- he looked up at His Honor the Judge, who casually puffed a smoke ring into the air.

"Court's in session," the Judge called cheerfully, knocking the ash off his hand-rolled Cuban: "you two can lay out a week in the hoosegow, or you can each pay a fine for public brawling."

 

That night, after Linn came home, after he apologized to the maid as he handed her his dirtied-up suit, after he'd cleaned up and changed clothes and set down to supper, he noticed Esther and the maid were exchanging knowing looks, and then looking at him with approving, appraising eyes, the way women will when they've been discussing a man.

Linn admitted later that evening that he felt kind of bad, gettin' his suit wet and dirty like that, for the maid worked hard to keep his clothes presentable.

"I saw it from my office window," Esther whispered, patting Linn on the chest and smiling as she did. "The maid saw it from the Mercantile, and she was impressed."

Esther's fingers busied themselves behind Linn's head, drew his mouth down to hers:  she molded herself to her husband and whispered, "I was too."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WITH YOUR PERMISSION, MA'AM

Marnie climbed back up on the stacked hay bales.

She grabbed the cantle and drove the toe of her red cowboy boot into the doghouse stirrup, she powered up and swung her leg over and she was aboard.

Of all the moments in her young life, the moment when she first hit saddle leather was one of her favorites.

She'd heard her Daddy read a pilot's account of getting into his airplane, how he buckled his belts and belted on his speed and his power and he put on his helmet and he put on ears that could hear halfway around the world and he ran his eyes over weapons controls and he put on his fists that could smite at a distance, and Marnie smiled, for when she hit the saddle, she put on a half ton of fast moving, four wheel drive power!

Marnie was old enough to know what she wanted, impulsive enough to get what she wanted, and young enough to completely disregard the conseuences of getting what she wanted, and so it was that a pair of red cowboy boots rode out of the barn at a long-legged singlefoot gait, and the boots only incidentally wore a denim skirt and pigtails and a big, delighted smile!

Marnie came into Linn and Shelly's life in her fourth year, after living a life of horror and fear that no child should ever experience: her Mommy was dying and came home to the mountains because she didn't have anywhere else to go, and Marnie, all big blue eyes and shining blond hair, came with her, and Marnie stood, solemn, silent, as her Mommy's ashes were lowered into a little square hole in something everyone called The Family Section.

Marnie liked it in The Family Section.

There were pictures on the tomb stones, and Marnie liked pictures, and when she got home she drew some of the pictures, 'cause Marnie liked to draw, and she giggled a little as the faces she'd seen laser engraved into polished quartz, flowed out the lead of her sharpened pencil onto the paper.

Drawing came so easily and so naturally to Marnie that she honestly could not understand why everyone made over her efforts, exclaimed at her skill, delighted in her images, rendered on notebook papers, the flyleaf of a book, a sheet of butcher's paper -- she went shopping with her Mommy an asked for a square of butcher's paper at the grocery store and used a pen she found on the floor and she drew the grocer and the girl behind the register, she drew a cat (Marnie liked cats) that came in to look around, and then she skipped out of the store behind her Mommy, and next time she and Mommy went to the store, that square of butcher's paper was screwed to the wall behind a sheet of clear plastic.

Marnie was a little girl who listened much and said little, most of the time, and she'd thought ahead to going to see her Daddy and she'd brought her warbag with her: she'd sewn a purse, just big enough to stick a sketch book in, a book her Daddy got her, and some drawing pens he'd gotten her, and she slung the green-duck-cloth purse across her and went skipping happily out to the barn, where she climbed up on two bales of hay and coaxed the horsie over she'd ridden before.

Her Daddy called the horsie something, she forgot what it was, but she'd drawn her Daddy riding the horsie, and she'd drawn the horsie up off the ground with its hooves together and its back arched and her Daddy coming off the saddle with his hat floating off his head, and Marnie got curious afterward and laid down and the horsie came over and lowered his big head and snuffed at her and Marnie giggled 'cause the horsie had a big funny nose when she looked up from the ground like that an' she drawed the horsie after she drawed her Daddy coming off the saddle in mid-buck.

Marnie had no way of knowing her Daddy knee-trained his saddlestock, and Marnie had no idea how to knee-rein a horsie, but Marnie was a child and children and horses have a marvelous way of communicating, and as her Daddy's horsie decided he wanted to run, Marnie decided that sounded like fun so she leaned down in the saddle and stood up in the shortened stirrups and she put her hands flat on the horsie's neck and yelled "GO, HORSIE!" and she felt the earth fall away under them and she felt her stomach soar all tickly the way it does when she jumped from a height, and her Daddy's horsie landed easy and moving fast and Marnie laughed with delight and she and her Daddy's horsie headed for town 'cause she wanted to see her Daddy an' her Daddy was Sheriff an' she knowed where the Sheriff's office was.

 

"Mom?"

"Hm?"

"Mom, why are there bathtubs?"

The mother, distracted by a shop window, turned to give her puzzled son an equally puzzled look, then she smiled.

"That's a horse trough, honey."

They were tourists, folk from back East or maybe further West, or somewhere from anywhere-but-here: the little boy frowned and looked at the shimmer of water, at the ancient cast iron pump at the uphill end, looked back at his mother.

"Horses take baths?"

They both looked up at the sound of horseshoes, sharp and clear in the high mountain air: they saw a little girl in a denim dress and pigtails and a pair of red cowboy boots, riding toward them.

"Howcome your horse drinks out of a bathtub?" the little boy asked, puzzled: his mother blinked, not sure how to intervene, or whether she should.

Marnie blinked innocently, turned her head, smiled: another set of horseshoes added their cadence to the moment as her Daddy rode out of the alley beside the Sheriff's office.

"Cool," a little boy breathed, as an honest to God Cowboy Sheriff rode up beside the little girl with the thirsty horsie.

"Howdy," Linn grinned, then looked over at Marnie. "Did you come to have lunch with me?"

She nodded, big-eyed, her expression guilelessly innocent.

"Young man, are you a horseman?" Linn asked, looking down at the adoring expression of a little boy who suddenly felt very small next to these great, swift creatures of legend.

He shook his head.

"Like to?"

He nodded, his expression going from adoring to hopeful.

"With your permission, ma'am," Linn said, looking at the woman:  she hesitated as he dismounted, then said, "Um, yes, I, ah, I suppose so, yes."

"Step over here, son."

The Sheriff took the lad under the arms, hauled him easily off the ground: he was about Marnie's size, all legs and delight, and Linn settled him into the saddle, stepped back, nodded.

"Now that," he said, "looks proper!"

The lad looked over at his Mama, who raised her phone to capture the moment:  Linn sauntered casually down the street, the horse following:  Marnie's mount paced up beside her Daddy's horsie.

Linn walked about twenty-five yards, turned, the horses turning with him:  he came jogging back, grinning as a delighted little boy seized the saddlehorn and laughed, and it wasn't until she'd sent pictures from her phone to friends and family that she realized it wasn't just the Sheriff running beside her little boy on the Sheriff's horse, there was a truly huge, curly-furred dog, a shining, coal-black canine looking up at the lawman as he ran, and behind them, a little to the side, a laughing little girl, pigtails laid over her shoulders and down her front, looking absolutely at home in the saddle.