SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHISTLE

Sheriff Jacob Keller stretched, twisted, twisted the other way: he managed to bring an impressive, and somewhat frightening, number of pops and crunchy-crackly noises from his spine.

Ruth Keller winced to hear it: she lowered her book and asked tentatively, "My dear, are you entirely well?"

Jacob Keller laughed, danced the few steps between himself and his bride: he took her hand, spun around her while she sat in her ornately-carved rocking chair: he came around in front of her, took the hand he held with a delicate grip, brought it to his lips, kissed her knuckles.

"Darlin'," he said, "I have come home to you. How could I not be well indeed?"

"There is a message for you," Ruth said, and Jacob heard a worry hiding behind her gentle words.

He went to one knee, laid her hand over his loose fist, laid his other hand atop hers:  "From?"

"Your sister."

"Marnie?"

"No."

"Angela."

Ruth saw concern in Jacob's eyes, she saw resolve firm his jaw and wipe any expression from his face: he rose, strode quickly to his desk, sat, keyed in a series of commands.

Ruth saw her husband's face brighten as the screen lit up: he leaned forward, frowning a little, very nearly glaring at the screen, clearly impatient to receive whatever the message was.

"Jacob," a girl's voice said -- a quavering, uncertain voice -- "shots fired, I had to kill a truck radiator today."

Ruth saw Jacob's eyebrow raise.

"I'll have to testify in Federal court now."

Jacob touched a key, froze the playback, keyed in his sister's private commo.

Angela's image shrank to the top right hand corner, Marnie's filled the screen: she was in a flannel shirt and vest, and she was not smiling.

"It's Angela," Jacob said. "Shots fired, she killed a truck radiator and now she's testifying in Federal court."

"I know."

Jacob stared, his mouth dropping open a little.

"You know?"

"I'll be right over. We need to talk."

 

Marnie had no idea exactly why Jacob's wife Ruth had such a love of something so common, but when Marnie showed up with green Jell-O and a pressure can of whipped cream, Ruth lit up like a hundred watt bulb.

Ruth happily busied herself with setting out dessert-bowls and spoons, and then carefully ladling this wiggling green confection into each.

Jacob stepped very close to his pale eyed sister.

"What do you mean, you knew?" he said quietly.

"Sisters talk and I'm the first one she called," Marnie shrugged.

"I'll give you that. Now what about her Federal testimony?"

"Kidnap is a Federal crime. One implicated the others in a plot to transport across state lines for immoral purposes, then across international lines. She's lucky she doesn't have to appear in The Hague to testify before Interpol."

"Hell of a way to see Europe," Jacob muttered.

"Don't worry."  Marnie smiled, just a little.  "I told Daddy we could land ten divisions at any time, uniformed, armed, provisioned and ready for a fight."

"And?"

"He said a division is 25 to 30,000 men, and he didn't have that many spare beds in the house."

Jacob hesitated, trying to keep a straight face, gave up: he chuckled, shook his head.

"Trust the Grand Old Man," he sighed. "Okay, so you knew before I did. What's the plan?"

"It's done."

"Done?"

"Nobody can get to a single member of the family. Angela wants a shotgun mount in her car. I don't think even Daddy could get away with letting her do that.  Oh, and she's graduated now."

Jacob stared.  "She's not halfway through her sophomore year."

"Remember me, Jacob?  I'm your sister Marnie, remember? John and I graduated early, just like you did, and now she has too."

Jacob nodded. "She always was bright."

"Bright, hell, you're the one who built trench radios out of a golf pencil and a razor blade!"

Jacob smiled, nodded, then grew solemn.

"She'd planned college. How do we keep her safe?"

"By sending her offworld."

"What?"

Marnie smiled, laid her hand on Jacob's shoulder, looked over a set of nonexistent spectacles at him.

"By the time she's graduated," Marnie smiled, "Earth will know about the Confederacy. Imagine how many Fortune 500 companies would throw down fur lined cloaks for Angela to tread upon, just to get an offworld graduate to interview!"
"What about the rest of the family?"

"We're working on that."

"Jacob?" Ruth called.

Jacob and Marnie turned.

"If you are so inclined ..." Ruth gestured to bowls of wiggling green dessert with a thick, whipped-cream cap, each bowl on a saucer, a spoon with each.

Jacob leaned back, laid his hand dramatically over his breast, threw the other arm wide, and in a horribly nasal voice declared:

"Does ya knows me or what!"

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TEST RUN

Angela Keller wore a frilly little dress and matching hat, she wore dark stockings and shining, patent-leather slippers: her complexion was gorgeous, her hair hung in shining curls, and she sat in the tuck-and-roll upholstered carriage seat as if she were royalty itself.

Beside her, cousin Sarah: she, too, was dressed for the day, in a shining McKenna gown and a fashionable little hat: her hemline was of a more mature length, not as girlish-short as Angela (despite her damned Papa's wishes), but not as floor-length as a mature woman.

Sarah and her mother altered this particular gown according to the needs of the moment.

You see, the day before, an outlaw on the run saw Sarah and Angela, in this very carriage, driving toward him on this very path: he had ridden a horse to death, he was afoot, he was convinced every man's hand was against him (which was true), and when he looked at two pretty girls in a carriage, he did not see young femininity: he saw pursuers, and he saw a vehicle in which to escape.

He raised a stolen Sharps rifle, fired.

Sarah thrust the reins into Angela's surprised hands, stood, raised her .32-20: her thumb wiped the hammer back and Sarah began firing.

Their attacker's first round sent a .45-caliber freight train rumbling perilously close to the two girls, passing between them at Angela's ear's height (Sarah would discover a frayed spot later, where the bullet barely grazed her shining blue sleeve), possibly owing to the attacker's inexperience.

Part of Sarah's mind remembered something her pale eyed Sheriff said -- a casual observation in a forgotten conversation -- that if a man were faced suddenly with two opponents, his first shot often went between them, as most men, untried in war, would fire the shot at both instead of at one.

However it was, Angela clapped her fisted hands to her ears: Sarah stood, fired, fired again, methodically, steadily, accurately: the distance was about a hundred yards, or so she judged, and she aimed for the spot between the man's collar bones.

Things got kind of confusing after this.

Her horse bolted, she lost her footing, Angela was reining back, shouting at their horse to whoa, whoa, and it didn't whoa: Sarah lost her balance, dropped the rifle into the back seat, fell.

There'd been the sudden, bright burst of agony as a steelshod wheel rolled over her arm and she felt more than heard something break.

Sarah rolled over on her back, teeth clenched, forbidding the tears that escaped the corners of her eyes: she heard hooves, heard the carriage departing at a good velocity, she heard Angela shouting at the mare, she heard a man's voice:  a shadow, a hand on her shoulder -- both shoulders -- a voice --

"Sarah?" that pale eyed Sheriff with the iron grey mustache said.

She remembered how tight his voice sounded.

She felt a hand -- spread, broad, gentle, on her belly --

She grimaced, peeled red lips back from even white teeth, opened her eyes --

Sarah blinked, shook her head.

Angela looked over at her.

"Sarah?" she asked quietly.

Sarah realized she'd just driven over the exact point where she'd fallen, where the wheel ran over her arm and broke one of the bones: her plastered arm was in a sling that matched her gown, in a sleeve slit and gusseted to accommodate the thick, clumsy plaster cast Dr. Greenlees applied after he'd plied her with something that tasted awful and made her dizzy: when she woke, her left arm was encased in a heavy, clumsy, plaster cast.

"Ho, no, ho, girl," Sarah called to the mare, drawing gently on her reins, and the mare stopped, stood, tail slashing.

"It was there, wasn't it?" Sarah asked.

Angela looked at her with those deep Kentucky-blue eyes and said "Yes it was" in a small voice.

Sarah spun the reins around the peg, then ran her arm around Angela's shoulders.

"Are you all right, Angela?" she asked quietly.

"No."

Blue eyes looked miserably into pale eyes, then dropped, and Angela leaned her head into her cousin's bodice, shivering a little.

"I was scared, Sawwah," she whispered, and Sarah's ear twitched a little to hear the little-girl pronunciation of her name -- something Angela only did under great stress.

"Daddy won't always be there," Angela whispered, then pulled back, looked up at Sarah.

"I need a rifle, Sarah. I need to be able to shoot too."

Sarah blinked, considered, smiled.

"I'll give you mine."

Angela's eyes widened with delight, her face shone with excitement.  

"Really?"

Sarah nodded firmly.  "Really," she said. "And ammunition enough to last you."

"Good," Angela nodded emphatically, setting her curls a-bounce, then she looked troubled.

"But Sarah ... what'll you use?"

Sarah smiled -- that sudden, bright, captivating smile, that contagious smile that, more times than one, had taken an individual with a sour disposition and dashed their bad mood to the ground -- and said, "Your brother is helping me get something bigger."

Angela was a growing girl, but young enough to wear the short skirts and the impulsiveness of the young: she clapped her hands with delight, bouncing a little on the upholstered seat, the way a delighted little girl-child will.

Sarah unwound the reins, clucked to the mare, drew the carriage around in a big circle, and they drove back the way they'd come.

Angela felt Sarah take a deep breath, heard her blow it out.

"Sarah?"

Sarah smiled at her girl-cousin.  

"Yes, sweets?"

"Sarah ... how come why did it we drive where we did yesterday?"

Sarah bit her bottom lip, thought for a moment.

"I needed to test us both," she said, "and the best way was by facing that memory."

"Oh."

Sarah thrust the reins into her sling, gripped them as best she could, ran her good arm around Angela's shoulders again.

"We both passed the test."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ONE ON THE BELL, ONE ON THE BOILER

 

Reverend John Burnett was as much a student of Firelands history as anyone else in town, mostly thanks to the extensive and untiring words of a certain pale eyed Sheriff.

Reverend John Burnett was re-reading an essay Sheriff Willamina published not long before her death, recounting the night raiders came to town and were trapped and annihilated to the last man.

He read the account, searching for a particular section, and did not find it.

Reverend John went through Seminary in a faith that didn't believe in faith healing.

He'd known preachers from snake handling churches, he'd gone to healings, he'd considered the Word and he'd talked to God about it, and he had serious reservations about anyone who claimed to be able to heal, outside of traditional or folk medicine.

Reverend John and Dr. John had both discussed the matter, on those rare occasions when each could free up time enough to enjoy the other's company: they two held good memories of those meetings when Sheriff Willamina joined them, for her company, her laughter, her natural good nature, all made her a most welcome guest.

It was for this reason Dr. John studied Sheriff Willamina's account of the raid.

Nowhere could he find the anecdotal story of how the pale eyed Sheriff stopped blood with the Word.

Reverend John knew there was a great deal he didn't know, and he was willing to learn things outside his own experience: he remembered Sheriff Willamina describe how Jacob had been hit under the collarbone, how life was running in a red river from his young body, how Jacob had been lowered from the bell tower, how Jacob's father -- that pale eyed Sheriff with the iron grey mustache -- seized his niece's hand, placed a knife in it, then laid the knife crossways of Jacob's wound and told the niece what to say.

She'd said the words, and the bleeding stopped.

Reverend John laid down the account, frowned, leaned back.

He rose, turned, opened a door: there was a short passage between the parsonage and the church, with a door at each end:  he went into their little church, looked around, then turned and strode purposefully down the center aisle.

He stopped in the little foyer just inside the front door, looked up, set his foot on the built in ladder and started to climb.

He released the catch, opened the trap door, pushed it open: sunlight flooded over him, colder air cascaded in around him:  he climbed out, in their steeple, looked up at the great bell that hung there since the church was first built.

Reverend John looked down at the floor, at a little gouge, maybe made with a knife.

He knew a sample of the darkened wood had been taken for forensic testing.

It tested positive for blood; a few years later, another test, another result.

The dark-stained wood had held Jacob Keller's blood for over a century, and the DNA was not degraded: the blood clearly, undeniably, scientifically, belonged to the Keller line -- the current, pale eyed Keller line.

Reverend John straightened, looked at the ceiling.

It had been whitewashed, but it had never been repaired.

Multiple bullet gouges, rough and splintered, whitewashed over, but extant:  he lowered his studying gaze to the bell, to streaks on the bell, streaks the pale eyed Willamina Keller swabbed and tested for free lead, and came up positive.

Dust lay thick on the bell, elsewise Reverend John might have stroked it thoughtfully with meditative fingertips.

He looked around, imagining sandbags piled along two of the knee-high walls.

He looked out over Firelands, looked with the eyes of an infantryman, looked with the eyes of a man who'd been trained to use a rifle, and use it well.

In his imagination he saw alleys, their ends blocked with barbed wire, with wagons, with barrels: he saw raiders, riding down the main street, he saw the Irish Brigade, three mares at full gallop, the boiler up to pressure and the shrill little whistle screaming, a great Irishman standing in the driver's box, swinging a blacksnake whip like the weapon it was, singing an ancient war-chant and calling upon the Blessed Mother, the spirit of Boadicea, assorted saints, while red-shirted Irishmen leaned around the boiler and drove .44 Henry Justice into the onrushing Reavers.

Reverend John imagined a long-legged young man, hit hard, knocked to his back: he opened the hatch, pictured lowering a limp, choking, struggling young man who knew he was dying, into the arms of his father:  as he looked down through the open hatch, feeling warm air ascending to his face, he smelled blood and gunsmoke and he felt a father's grief, for the Reverend John knew what it was to lose a child.

He climbed down the ladder, closed the hatch behind him, latched it: he came on down the ladder, looked at the floor, imagining where Jacob's limp body must have lay.

He turned, pushed open the doors, stepped outside, threw his head back, took a long breath.

He heard a Diesel engine under hard acceleration, a second: curious, he came down the steps, saw the squad coming up the street, lit up and moving fast.

The rescue was right behind:  the rescue truck stopped, fast, the window rolling down: a man in turnout gear and a fiercely-curled black handlebar mustache yelled "GET IN DAMN YE, WE'VE A BAD ONE!"

Reverend John launched into a sprint.

 

Angela Keller lowered her binoculars, let them hang from her neck strap: she thrust a boot into the stirrup, thrust hard against the ground, mounted easily: a mountain born, mountain bred, shining-black gelding leaned forward into a run, sailing easily down the little grade, flowing across the sandy streambed, assaulted the slope on the other side, then forged into a flat-out gallop.

Angela Keller stood in the stirrups, leaned out over the horse's neck, one hand laid across the mane, supporting herself while her other hand went into a vest pocket.

She hit speaker, spoke quickly, urgently:  she rode up to where men were coming down ladders, gathering around one who'd fallen:  Outlaw skidded a little, rearing as Angela kicked free of the stirrups, hit the ground flat-footed.

"DON'T!" Angela shouted as the foreman seized the impaling length of rebar and ripped it out of the injured man's thigh.

Angela thrust at the foreman, shoved him with both hands, shoved him back -- hard -- dropped and mashed the heel of her hand into the wounded man's thigh, trying to stanch the fountain of arterial blood that followed pulling the rebar cork out of the arterial bottle.

"Gimme a knife," Angela grated, looked up, glared at the foreman, then screamed, "GIVE ME A KNIFE!"

An anonymous set of hands snapped a lockback open, slapped the handle into her hand.

Angela laid it across the wound, closed her eyes, her lips moving silently.

 

"FIRELANDS SQUAD ONE AND RESCUE ONE ON SCENE."

"Roger that, advise your needs."

Medics and firemen hit the ground at a dead run.

Shelly ran unimpeded up to the wounded man, to the young woman bent over, her arm stiff, her weight driving through the heel of her left hand as her right hand held down on the wound itself.

"Let me see," Shelly said quietly.

Reverend John ran up, went to one knee, sized up the situation: he would know where and when he'd be needed, and how, but just now wasn't that moment.

He heard Angela's steady, monotonous chant.

"And I saw Clarence Robert Bourne lying in Clarence Robert Bourne's blood in the ditch and I said until Clarence Robert Bourne, Live: yea, I said unto Clarence Robert Bourne, Live."

Angela sagged, looked up at her Mama.

"Femoral penetration, he fell on rebar, it was yanked out before I got here. Arterial and direct pressure."

"Let's see."

Angela lifted her right hand, picked up the knife she'd laid crossways of the wound.

"Can you hold pressure point a little longer?"

Angela nodded.

Shelly looked at her Daddy, opened her mouth, found he'd anticipated her wants: she started two large bore IVs, ran normal saline wide open: she was securing the IV sites as her father laid fingers on the victim's temples, getting a quick and dirty blood pressure.

"Barely there," he muttered.

Trauma shears chattered through work pants and undershorts, a pressure bandage was placed and cinched: Angela straightened, rolled back on her heels, lost her balance, fell.

Reverend John saw the open knife fall from her hand.

Callused hands helped Angela up:  she bent, picked up the knife:  "I need to return this," she said: a gloved hand extended, she placed the handle in the proffered palm.

Willing hands seized the heavy cot, almost ran it to the back of the squad: Shelly reached in, hit the switch, the power lift whined, extended, lowered: they locked the cot into place, hydraulics hoisted it up and rolled it into the rig, where it was rolled into its double-fork receiver, secured.

Angela turned to the Parson and said quietly, "You'd better go with them."

Reverend John Burnett climbed aboard the squad.

 

Not many hours later, Reverend John Burnett was studying Willamina's research.

She did not include the account of how Old Pale Eyes used the Word to stop his son's blood loss, the same way his green-eyed bride Esther stopped his blood loss, when he'd been shot and then dragged into the little log fortress that was the Sheriff's office, those many years before.

Reverend John put down Willamina's essay, went up into his bell-tower: he descended, he went out the doors and down the street and into the firehouse, he went over to their restored Ahrens steam fire engine.

He studied the shining, polished boiler.

Red-shirted firemen regarded their Chaplain curiously as he looked down the sides of the boiler, then stood and studied its gleaming shoulder: they saw him stop, saw him stare at a long dent in the shining metal, a dent that had been preserved when the engine was restored.

Reverend John stepped back from their beautifully, immaculately restored Steam Masheen, his expression serious.

"Chaplain? Everything all right?" a voice called, and the Chaplain, their Reverend John Burnett, blinked, looked at the several curious faces.

He considered what he'd just seen, how a girl-child stopped a man's life from running out in a red river, and he decided that perhaps he should look into the subject a little more thoroughly before he dismissed such things out of hand.

"Fellas," he said finally, "I'm realizing there's just an awful lot I don't know."

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TIN ROOF

"Well," Jacob said, "it's shiny!"

"Yep."

Sheriff Linn Keller regarded his new barn roof with approval.

"You're figurin' to roof the house in that too."

"Yep."

Jacob considered for a long moment.

"Won't ketch fahr."

"Nope."

Silence for a time, then;

"Looks funny."

"Yep."

"Reckon that'll rattle some 'ginst we get a hail storm."

"Reckon so."

Father and son considered the shiny new barn roof.

"Reckon we'll start somethin'?"

"Might."

Silence for a time.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Sir, I watched them fellers nail that down."

Linn nodded, his pale eyes busy: he was considering the cupola, how corrugated tin roofing had been cut to fit the little cupola roof, and a precise job, too.

"Couldn't help but think, sir ... it looks easy."

Again the slow, thoughtful nod.

Jacob looked at his father with a wry grin.

"I reckon that means them fellers are good at what they do!"

Linn laughed a little, nodded.

"Reckon so."

Father and son stood side by side, two tall men with pale eyes, looking at the barn roof, shining and new, then looked at the house, at men with ladders, at wagons with stacks of corrugated tin, a keg of nails, the other tools necessary to the professional roofer's trade.

"Think you could put up a roof, Jacob?"

"I've nailed down shake shingles more times than I can count."

"You've split a bloody ton of 'em too."

"Yes, sir."  Jacob considered.  "I reckon, sir, when it comes to trimmin' and fittin' I'd need them shears and maybe a few other tools I don't know about."

Linn nodded.  "I reckoned I could put up the roof myself too" -- he looked at his son, a smile tightening the corners of his eyes -- "Esther reminded me I'd be takin' time away from everything else. Then she said that roof is slick and was I to fall, why, if it didn't kill me, I'd play hell fillin' in the dent my fallin' carcass would make!"

Jacob smiled, ever so slightly, nodded.

"That's true, sir."

"Besides ... these fellows are good at what they do, and I'm just as happy to let 'em do it!"

"Yes, sir."

Father and son watched a muscled laborer tilt the nail keg up on its edge, roll it to the wagon's lowered tail gate: he hugged the keg, turned, waddled toward two sawhorses with planks over them for a work table, set it down.

"You want to know the truth, Jacob?" Linn asked quietly.

"What's that, sir?"

Linn looked at his son and winked.

"I'm just naturally lazy."

Jacob's eyes tightened at the corners; his face tightened, a grin appeared: try as he might, he could not hide the entertainment from his expression.

 

A century and some years later, on another Keller house, father, three sons, two daughters and a wife, stood back and watched strong young men laboring to put a new tin roof on their ancient two story house.

Shelly and the girls took a few moments from the kitchen, where they were preparing a meal for the roofers -- this was a local firm, and as often happens in a small community, everybody knows everybody else -- they'd put two leaves in the table and gotten out the extra chairs, the kitchen was smelling really good, but for the moment, the family was watching with open admiration as friends and neighbors they knew, they'd gone to school with, they went to church with, swarmed up ladders and ran power lifts up, then down again, as they worked their magic well off the ground, with all the confidence and ease of those skilled souls who were really, really good at what they did.

"I could have done that myself," Linn said quietly. "Saved money, too."

Angela reached around behind her Daddy and smacked his backside with her open hand: Shelly reached around and swatted her husband's hip pocket as well:  two Keller women glared at the pale eyed patriarch and said with one voice, "Don't you dare!"

Shelly shook her finger in Linn's face and snarled, "Linn Keller, if you fell off that roof, the hospital bills would eat up all the money you'd saved and then where would you be?"

Linn laughed and pretended to bite at his wife's admonishing finger.

"Yeah, Daddy," Angela whined, "and who'd take me to the drugstore for a chocolate hot fudge Sundae?"

Linn sighed, shook his head.

"Risk-benefit analysis," he muttered. "I reckon you're right.  Let them young fellers handle it!"

Linn's utterance of "Them young fellers" was delivered in the peevish, reedy tones of an old man: he rolled his shoulders forward, hung his head forward, extended a quivering hand as if gripping an invisible cane.

Two flat hands smacked his backside again.

Hard.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE HELL HE AIN'T!

It was over before the Sheriff had time to duck back into his office and grab a rifle.

Jackson Cooper and a stranger stood toe to toe.

Linn saw the stranger earlier and judged him to be within half a hand of his own height.

The stranger, standing close enough to Jackson Cooper to count the whiskers in the town marshal's beard, looked rather short compared to the tall, broad shouldered, giant of a Town Marshal.

It didn't hurt any that Jackson Cooper had the man's revolver in his grip, raised a little the way a man will when he takes an abused toy from a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Pale eyes swung up the street, then down the street: no one seemed to be backing this stranger's play, so Linn slouched his shoulder over against one of the posts that held up the overhang, shadowing him from the forenoon sun and allowing him a deceptively casual appearance.

Linn watched as Jackson Cooper spoke quietly to the man -- Linn heard the man raise his voice precious few times, and only when dire and absolute need dictated -- the pair turned and crossed the street toward him.

Linn leaned away from the post at their approach, stood relaxed, ready, eyes still busy: it's not that the Sheriff wasn't a trusting man, you understand, but he'd learned the hard way that if a man lets himself get distracted with the obvious, that the opportune will sneak up and bite him on the leg, and the Sheriff had been bit before.

Jackson Cooper handed Linn the revolver -- it was a rust-brown, obviously worn, used-but-not-abused old Remington conversion -- they disappeared inside, Jackson Cooper ducking to get through the doorway.

Linn didn't have to duck to get through the doorway.

Matter of fact he could strut through that open door with his hat on his head and no trouble a'tall.

Jackson Cooper, on the other hand, ducked out of habit, out of reflex: the doors on his own house were tall enough he didn't have to duck, which made his stout and motherly wife look all the shorter, but Linn reckoned a woman is welcome to look short in her own home.

Linn waited a few minutes, then followed the pair inside, closed the door.

Jackson Cooper had the lockup book out and was carefully, painstakingly writing in his slow, methodical hand, recording the prisoner's name, his offense, the date and time he was locked up:  Linn set the time-browned Remington on the corner of the desk, waited.

Jackson Cooper straightened, then he bent again and laid the thick-bodied pen back in the desk, tucked the folded wiping rag in beside it: it was good manners, he'd maintained, to wipe off another man's pen before he set it back, and the Sheriff had that particular pen made specially for his old and dear friend.

Jackson Cooper was a tall man, he was a broad shouldered man, Jackson Cooper could likely pick up a freight wagon and walk off with it if he was so inclined: he was a thick-fingered man, and he'd grinned like a little boy on Christmas Day when the Sheriff gave him a half dozen, custom made, extra thick, pens.

One of the pens lived in the Sheriff's top desk drawer for this very purpose, and Linn waited until Jackson Cooper closed the lid on the ink bottle and set it away: he left the jail book open so the ink could dry.

Linn looked at the man with amusement, waited.

Jackson Cooper frowned, considered:  he turned, parked his broad backside on the edge of Linn's desk, reached up and scratched his thatch.

"Linn," he rumbled, his voice sounding like it started a couple foot below the floor boards, "that feller reckoned you are God's gift to wimmen folks, and he was unhappy that his wife wanted you more'n him."

Linn's eyes widened in honest surprise.

Jackson Cooper raised a hand of surprising breadth.

"Emma has talked about how good a dancer you are and she's told me you are a complete gentleman, and her eyes were just a-shinin' when you found that little boy with his leg all skint up and you cleaned out the dirt from his shin and talked to him and she said you looked like Saint Francis the Sissy."

Jackson Cooper frowned, chewed on something nonexistent, shook his head.

"I've heard of the man and he warn't no sissy."

Linn nodded slowly.

"Hell, Linn, I've heard wimmen sayin' f'r years how lucky Miz Esther is and how much of a catch you'd be was she to fall over dead."  

Jackson Cooper shook his head slowly, ponderous as a sleepy bear.

"When attair fella" -- he thrust his chin toward the hallway that went back through the cells -- "when he allowed as his wife left him 'cause he warn't more like you, why, he allowed you was the cause and he's goin' t' kill you so's his wife'd have no cause to stay away!"

Linn raised his eyebrow but made no reply.

"I asked how he's goin' t' do that an' he pulled attair Remington, so I fetched it out of his grip and allowed as he warn't, so he's goin' t' talk t' the Judge come Courthouse Day."

"You fetched it out of his grip," Linn said slowly, remembering just how fast Jackson Cooper's big hand had been.

"Why Jackson Cooper," Linn drawled, eyes swinging back to the cell block hallway, "you snatched a drawn gun out of a man's hand?"

He tipped a wink to his old friend, who grinned his understanding:  "You are not that fast!" 

From the cell block came a distressed wail:

"THE HELL HE AIN'T!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE ONE WE WANT

It was a perfect throw.

The hatchet turned over once and drove into the target edge-first.

The target was the driver's door of a stolen car.

The throw was exact and powerful, tempered steel cut through sheet metal, wedged in place, as the driver -- thinking he'd been shot at -- mashed the throttle and squalled away from the All-Night, leaving a cloud of rubber smoke behind him.

The first police unit didn't arrive for another two minutes, and by then, the two surviving robbers were long gone and moving fast.

 

Jacob Keller forged the throwing hatchet's eye from black pipe, even managing a taper: it was just the right size to use broken shovel handles for a hatchet-handle, drop it in, turn it over, tunk it once on a hard surface to seat it, cut to length and sand off any whiskers.

Jacob arc-welded, ground, sanded and shaped a piece of a truck's spring leaf for the blade: the edge was curved like the crescent moon, and his first throw with the hatchet -- at an old porch post he'd salvaged somewhere, and set up for a throwin' post -- turned over once, and stuck.

Jacob was deadly with the throwin' hatchet.

He and his Pa and his younger brother used to take turns, throwing at a leaf -- then half a leaf -- then a shred of a leaf -- they'd throw until they got bored with hitting slivers as thick as two kitchen match sticks stuck together, and Marnie laughed and tried her hand, and showed that she, too, could sling a throwin' hatchet with the best of 'em.

Jacob was long gone now, clear the hell and gone on another planet, as was Marnie: Angela was near to grown, and here of late she'd taken less to driving her pretty purple turbocharged Dodge, and more to riding her Daddy's shining-black Outlaw-horse.

Of course, being a girly girl, Angela dressed for the occasion, to the delight of in-season tourists: a beautiful daughter of the mountains with a complexion a supermodel would sell most of her eternal soul to own, a genuinely sweet nature with a smile to match, wearing fashions of an earlier century and looking absolutely at home in a floral-carved, silver-mounted saddle: Angela Keller harvested the benefit of the conflicts between her mother and her older sister: Shelly, wife of that pale eyed Sheriff, learned how not to interact with a strong-willed daughter, and so did not bear as strongly on Angela to conform to Shelly's idea of behavior.

Consequently, Angela was happy to be very much a girl ... but she was her own girl.

And right now she was mad as hell.

It might be reasoned that Angela preferred horsepower under the saddle, here of late, because even with impressive horsepower under the hood, she'd still nearly been rammed over the rim of a lethal drop-off: had she not had commo with the Sheriff's Office, and had she not had a shotgun in the trunk of her pretty purple Dodge, chances were really good she would not have survived what was recently planned for her.

Another fact the discerning eye might notice was that Angela's saddle had a scabbard, and the scabbard had an Ithaca pump shotgun in it, and Angela wore a wide, carved-leather belt -- almost a fashionable waist-cincher, if it weren't for a businesslike knife in a floral-carved sheath on one side, and Jacob's handmade throwing hatchet at the center of her back.

After testifying in multiple jurisdictions, after enduring the professional browbeating given a witness in an important case, after those found guilty were sentenced and removed to serve their terms, Angela quietly established her network of informants, the way her pale eyed sister had done -- but for a far more selfish reason.

Marnie established her network because she was a sworn law enforcement officer.

Angela established her network because her virtue -- indeed, her very life -- had been placed at risk, and Angela knew the guilty were often vengeful, and Angela knew that her safety could not be guaranteed.

Angela preferred to go her way armed, and a-horseback, she could do just that. 

Angela drew up across the highway from the All-Night.

She sat very straight, very properly in the saddle: she wore a divided skirt, a handmade riding dress after the fashion of an exemplar in their Firelands museum: the original was worn by one Sarah Lynne McKenna, widow of one of the early Irish Brigade's firemen, then to the son of a German nobleman, and killed overseas: the museum was in the great stone house she and Daffyd Llewellyn arranged to have built.

Angela looked at the All-Night and she didn't like what she saw.

She raised a cell phone to her ear.

"Daddy? Something's not right at the All-Night." 

 

The Sheriff had business out in the county.

When his daughter called and said something wasn't right, he was inclined to take her seriously: Angela was not given to flights of fancy, nor was she prone to exaggerate -- plus, somewhere behind those pale eyes, carefully filed and referred to with regularity, was the advice he'd been given as a green-as-spring-grass rookie lawman, by an old veteran of the craft: 

"When in doubt, son, follow your gut."

In this case, Linn's gut followed his foot, and his foot was heavy on the throttle as he headed for the All-Night.

Fast.

 

Angela studied the interior of the All-Night, her lips pressed together.

They'll be gone by the time Daddy arrives.

She saw one of the gang -- black hoodies, surgical masks -- raise something and club the clerk, dropping her like a head-shot beef.

Angela dropped her field glasses, let the neck-strap take care of them:  Outlaw grunted and launched powerfully into the night.

Angela stood up in the stirrups, bent low over Outlaw's neck: her hands pressed flat on either side of Outlaw's neck as the shining-black gelding sliced through the gathering dark.

 

Angela's knife slipped the lock easily.

She opened the back door, slid inside, closed it silently, brought her shotgun up two-handed, eyes busy, listening, smelling.

From the front -- shouts, the stressed, scared, bullying shouts of the robbers.

Angela eased up to the door, knowing it was all that stood between her and whatever hell was going on inside the All-Night.

She reached for the door handle --

It pulled open away from her --

Angela lowered her shotgun just a little, punched the gunmuzzle hard into a masked robber's throat.

She heard an explosion, felt the blast against her side.

Something inside the pretty, blue-eyed Angela Keller decided it had enough.

She pulled the trigger.

 

Inside the All-Night, the sharp crack of a pistol, then the deep BOOOOMMM of a shotgun, froze the lawful and the lawless alike: something from a Victorian fashion plate stepped through the door, racked the slide of a twelve-gauge shotgun, aimed for the belt buckle of the nearest robber --

Bad guy number two turned toward her, pistol in hand.

BOOOMMM

Angela swung, jacked the slide.

The other three ran, colliding with one another in their haste to get out the door.

Angela heard someone screaming and she didn't care, she knew she'd just killed and she didn't care, all she knew was THIS WAS HER TOWN AND THESE WERE HER PEOPLE AND THEY TRIED TO KILL HER AND SHE WASN'T GOING TO LET THEM DO THIS --

A fashionably dressed vision from an earlier century, with a shotgun leading the way, screamed at the absolute top of her infuriated lungs after the reavers that DARED to come to HER COUNTY and try to rob HER FRIENDS!

Part of Angela's mind registered that the robbers' efforts at getting back in the car were almost comical, in their hate and in their panic: one dove through the open passenger-side front window, one tried to dive through the passenger rear window, at least until his head hit window glass, busting it, stopping his momentum.

He fell to the pavement -- 

Angela didn't want to shoot at robbers that were fleeing, she couldn't justify that in court --

Her hand slashed around behind, seized the throwing hatchet: she drew back, let fly --

Angela looked down at the robber scrambling to hands and knees --

She drove the butt of the shotgun down on the back of his black hoodie, drove his face into the pavement, looked at the retreating backside of the robbers' car.

Angela Keller turned the shotgun over, aiming the unblinking black eye of an Ithaca's gunmuzzle at the anonymous soul groaning his way up off the pavement.

He rolled over, looked up at a pretty young woman in an old fashioned gown, holding something with the approximate bore diameter of a mountain howitzer.

The dispatcher was listening to the panicked report from someone inside the All-Night.

In the background, apparently a little distance from the caller, there was a shrill, prolonged, utterly terrified, scream.

 

Chief of Police Will Keller helped process the scene.

He talked quietly with Angela, she walked him through the scene -- from where she'd ground-reined the patient Outlaw-horse, who was still standing, hip-shot, head down, looking for all the world like he was going to fall over at any moment -- she showed him how she used the knife blade to slip the lock on the back door -- she showed him the first body, described how she felt the robber's gun go off but she didn't hear it -- only then did her eyes widen and her hand slapped her midriff.

Her Uncle Will took her by the shoulders, turned her a little to get the light where he wanted it, then he reached down and trailed his fingers along the bullet gouge in her carved leather waist cincher.

His pale eyes were serious as he looked at the robber, looked up at the camera, looked down at the dead man.

Angela didn't remember how she'd gotten over the first man she dropped: she and the Chief of Police stepped awkwardly over the bloody carcass, and Angela quietly, factually described how this one -- she indicated the second carcass, the one in a bigger pool of blood -- turned toward her and brought his gun to bear as he turned.

"I remembered reading about an old Border Patrolman," she said, "who told a young lawman, 'Son, I hope you never have to shoot a man, but if you do, shoot him in the belt buckle. It will paralyze his gun arm and he'll be instantly so sick he'll lose all interest in fighting.'"

Chief Will Keller nodded.

"He certainly did."

They went out the front door -- Angela pointed out each dropped item, Will noted and photographed the guns the first two corpses dropped when they died, two more apparently dropped when the surviving robbers collided in their haste to get out the front door.

Angela and her Uncle Will walked outside:  her pale eyed Daddy was inside, reviewing the surveillance.

"They piled in the car parked here. It'll be on surveillance, I'm sure. Cameras here, here and here" -- she pointed -- "that one should get the plate no problem. Plus there is a throwing hatchet stuck in the driver's door."

"What?"

Angela looked at her Uncle with big and innocent eyes.

"I couldn't shoot them because they weren't shooting at me, but I wanted to mark the car, so I stuck Jacob's hatchet right through the sheet metal. I will want it back, of course."

Sheriff Linn Keller came out, looked from his uncle to his daughter.

"Looks like we got everything on record. They're burning copies now."

"Good." 

"We'll need your shotgun in evidence, darlin'."

"I know, Daddy."

Linn looked down at his daughter's waist, looked harder:  he squatted, gripped her hips as he stared at the bullet gouge in her carved-leather cincture.

He looked up at his daughter.

Angela saw her Daddy's eyes grow cold and hard, saw his jaw muscles bulge.

"Which one ...?"

Angela swallowed, bit her bottom lip.

"The first one I shot, Daddy. He came into the back room where I was and he shot so I did too."

"I saw the shot on video," Linn said quietly -- there was menace in his voice, a deep and implacable hatred -- "but I didn't know ..."
Linn closed his eyes, felt Will's hand on his shoulder.

"She's not hurt," Will said in a fatherly voice.

Linn rose from his hunker, hugged his little girl, and Angela felt her Daddy shivering, just a little.

A deputy came over. "Sheriff?"

Linn looked at the deputy.

"Sir, the State Police were in a high speed pursuit. They pitted him out and said there is a hatchet stuck in the driver's door, and they're asking if that's the one we want."

Sheriff Linn Keller's voice was as cold and as hard as his eyes.

"Tell them that's the one we want."

"Yes, sir."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE STACK

"Daddy?"

Pale eyes shifted, blinked, focused.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, what was the question?"

It was oh too early in the morning, and the house was silent: the rest of the family was abed, asleep, relaxed, warm and safe under sheets and flannel and quilts.

Father and daughter sat at the kitchen table:  Linn at the head, where he always sat, and Angela at his right, where she wanted to sit.

Linn had a steaming volume of reheated coffee, as did his daughter: Linn's long fingers were wrapped around the warm comfort of his sizable ceramic mug.

Angela's delicate artist's fingers were wrapped around her smaller, thick-walled mug.

"Daddy, if you stare at the front door much longer, you're going to burn a hole in it."

Linn sighed, smiled tiredly, reached over and laid gentle fingertips on the back of his daughter's wrist.

"You sound so much like your mother," he said softly, and Angela knew she was seeing into an unguarded part of her father's heart.

She decided her best reply was to lay her fingertips atop his, widen her eyes innocently and whisper, "I think I get it honest."

Her intent, her effort, succeeded: Linn smiled again, nodded, looked back toward the front door.

"I feel like I've failed you," he almost whispered.

Angela's wide eyes blinked several times.

"Daddy?" she asked, confused.

"Look at what's happened," Linn said quietly, huskily.  "I didn't train you well enough not to go to those bonfire parties, you were grabbed, assaulted -- with weapon specification, we found out -- they're going ... if they ever get out of Federal custody, they'll face a lengthy stay at the State's expense."

"Daddy," Angela said quietly, reasonably, "you had no way of knowing --"

Linn's look was not the cold-eyed glare she expected.

She saw the eyes of a wounded man, of a man in anguish.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "Marnie lived through worse than hell before she got here. She came here wounded and she came here with calluses on her soul and she killed the man she thought killed your Uncle Will when she was sixteen.  Your age."

Angela nodded, gripped her Daddy's hand with both hers.

"I don't teach you well enough to stay away from those bonfire parties and look what damn neart happened."

"Daddy, you had no way of knowing. I was ready to leave anyway. It was boring. I wasn't drinking and I didn't fit in --"

Linn's look silenced her.

"You were nearly killed at the All-Night."  He bit his bottom lip.  "Angela, you saved lives. You probably saved every living soul in that place and that's a pretty good score. Six people inside when that bunch came through the door. The clerk is still in Intensive Care with a closed head injury. Turns out the one that came into the back room was scouting a place to ..."

He looked away, looked back.

"They were going to do terrible things, Angela, and then kill everyone."

"Leave no witnesses," Angela quoted.

Linn nodded.  "They'd done it before. Same gang. Same M.O. Nobody thought they'd come this far West but they sure as hell did, and fast. Why they picked here, I'll never know."

"Didn't your interrogation ...?"

"They lawyered up, Angela. We found out a little through jailhouse informants, we listen to their cells, we've kept them separate and tried to make deals with the survivors, but their lawyers told them not to talk to anyone."

"Is that working?"

"Not quite. Criminals are stupid and people love to talk."

" 'Guilty people love to talk, why should I stop them?' " Angela quoted.

Linn laughed.  "You've been watching our favorite detective again!"

"Of course, Daddy. He says things I've heard you say over and over again."

Linn nodded, dropped his head:  Angela could see his chin wrinkle and that meant he was chewing on his bottom lip.

"Daddy, you taught me to follow my gut. My gut told me to get out of there. The bonfire.  That's when they grabbed me."

"Mauled you, you mean," Linn rumbled, and Angela saw a deep and abiding anger in her Daddy's pale eyes.

"Yes they did, Daddy. They laid hands on me and I don't allow that."

"And you enforced it."

"No means no, Daddy, and I made it stick!"

Linn looked at his daughter, his little girl, this child he'd known since she was wrinkled and squalling and wrapped up and handed to him for the very first time in the delivery room, this little girl he'd seen grow up, this laughing child that rode like an Apache, sang like an angel, drew like a Michaelangelo and had him wrapped around her little pink pinky before she could walk.

"I saw where you raked that one guy's ankle. Drew blood, he's still scabbed up and looks like it'll scar."

"Good. I wish I'd broken the arch of his foot."

"You caused him enough pain he let go and you got away."

"Not before I broke his jaw," Angela said quietly, and it was Linn's turn to hear a quiet, deep, smoldering anger in her voice.

"You did well testifying, by the way."

"Thank you, Daddy."

"You chose your attire well. You looked modest and you looked pretty."

"Thank you, Daddy."

"I went out that gravel road in the daylight, honey. I looked at ..."

He stopped, took a breath, swallowed.

"I've driven that road and I've driven it on the hot foot.  I pulled Jacob's surveillance out of your Dodge and downloaded it."

He opened his hand and laid a warm, fatherly palm over his daughter's hand, as if he were laying a warm, protective quilt over a sleeping child.

"Darlin', I looked at your speeds on that road."

Angela gave her Daddy a fearful look.

"It is not physically possible for you to have run that fast on that particular road, but you did.  Do you know what that tells me?"

Angela shook her head.

"That tells me first, you were genuinely in fear of your life.

"Second, it tells me you're pretty damned good in a crisis. Normally, under that kind of stress, people scream and curl up in a ball and shut their eyes and wish they were not there, and they get killed.

"You didn't."

Angela blinked rapidly.  "No, Daddy," she said in a quiet voice.

"But I failed you, honey. I wasn't there to protect you and I didn't train you well enough not to go --"

Angela placed a soft hand over her Daddy's mouth.

She tilted her head, blinked: long, curved eyelashes and deep blue eyes and a feminine tilt of the head broke her Daddy's self-accusing thought process.

She reached up with gentle fingertips, tapped his forehead.

"Up here" -- she tapped gently -- "you know that is neither rational, nor is it reasonable."

She lowered her hand, tapped the furry chest showing in the gap of his unbuttoned flannel shirt.

"Down here, though, you're beating up on yourself, and I know why."

Angela turned her hand over, picked his up, held it tight, tight between her own, rested her chin on his bent fingers.

"Daddy, you feel that way because you genuinely do give a good damn about what you do.  About everything you do.  You do nothing unless it's the right thing to do and the right time to do it and I've seen you beat up on yourself when something comes in out of left field, something entirely unforeseen, something absolutely out of your control, and you blame yourself for it."

Angela blinked again, kissed the back of her Daddy's fingers.

"Look at what you've done right, Daddy. 

"You had Paul Barrents teach me pursuit driving.  He wants a Dodge like mine, by the way."  She leaned closer and whispered like a little girl, "He likes that turbo!"

Linn smiled again -- Angela's heart rejoiced to see it, for it was a rare thing for her Daddy to be so relaxed, so open as to smile that genuinely.

"There's somethin' else, darlin'," Linn said, his face going serious:  Angela sat back, sat very straight, folded her hands in her lap like a little girl:  "Yes, Daddy?"

"Angela, you're not the Law.  I am.  I go into situations and I face down large and angry people with a variety of weapons. I'm the one that goes up against goblins.  Not you."

"You weren't there, Daddy," Angela replied quietly, persuasively.  "I was. I saw the girl at the register go down like he'd killed her and I remembered reading about that gang that would come in and --"

She stopped, she took a breath, looked away: Linn saw his daughter's shoulders roll forward, saw her shiver: Angela closed her eyes, threw her head back, took a deep breath, blew it out, looked at her Daddy.

"I was scared, Daddy," she whispered, "but I was mad. I wasn't going to let them hurt my people and kill my people and do things to my people like they'd done before."

"Your people?" Linn asked gently.

Angela nodded.  

"My friends, Daddy. I grew up with them. I went to school with them. I see them everyday.

"We sing in church together."

Angela paused, her lips pressed together, her jaw thrust out.

"How could I look them in the eye if I just sat back and watched? -- they'd be dead!"

Linn nodded, slowly.

"You were nearly shot, Angela."

"I know," she muttered, then looked at her Daddy and smiled tightly, with only half her mouth:

"I know that now."

"Your shotgun will have to stay in evidence until the last appeal."

"My stomacher?"

"That too."

Angela nodded.

"What about Jacob's hatchet?"

Linn considered for a long moment.

"Darlin', there are some things I haven't told you."

He rose.

"Come with me."

Angela pushed her chair back, rose, padded barefoot after her long tall Daddy.

Linn turned on the light in his study.

He turned and picked up a long, shallow, white cardboard box, set it on his desk.

"Open it."

Angela's eyes widened as she looked at the familiar lettering on the box's lid.

She pulled the tabs, opened the lid, and Linn heard her quick intake of breath.

Angela froze, her eyes studying the contents, her quick mind assessing the meaning behind each artifact therein.

"We're not done," Linn said quietly.

He set another box atop the first.

Angela opened it, her head tilted a little to one side, the way a feminine girl will do when she's curious, or when she's interested.

She drew tissue paper aside, saw carved leather: her hands went to her mouth and she looked at her Daddy.

"See if it fits," he said quietly.

Angela snatched up the brand new, hand made, carefully stitched, floral carved and background dyed, leather waist cincher, wrapped it around herself: she drew it snug, twisted a little, looked at her Daddy as he laid a third box atop the second.

Angela saw a brand new knife, twin to the one that still slept in its scabbard, in her original stomacher, in the evidence locker: this one, though, had checkered maple handles, a larger crossguard, a Damascus blade.

Angela's left hand went to the sheath on her stomacher: she turned the knife, smiled at the gold-inlaid Thunder Bird, engraved in the blade, near the hilt.

She slid it into the sheath, reached in, picked up a throwing hatchet.

It was very nearly the twin for the one she'd driven through automobile sheet metal to indisputably mark a getaway vehicle.

Angela gripped it, hefted it, nodded:  she ran her hands behind, slid the handle into into its tubular sheath, the blade into its protective cover, nodded.

"I like this better than the way I had it," she admitted.  "This covers the edge. My old one didn't."

Linn removed the top boxes, exposing the shotgun again.

Angela bent, studied the Ithaca: she ran her fingers over the screw-in chokes, tapped the choke wrench -- "I'll want to get more of these," she said thoughtfully, "these are easily misplaced" -- she stopped, bent, looked closer.

A Thunder Bird was hand-chased into the receiver and inlaid with gold:  left side and right side both, this potent Navajo symbol gleamed against dark blue metal.

"There is something you might want to consider," Linn said quietly.  "Pick up the shotgun."

Angela picked it up, ran her fingers forward, to the sling stud; she shifted her grip, found the matching stud on the toe of the rearstock:  a woven sling lay coiled, waiting.

She picked up one end, let it uncoil, attached it:  fore-end, buttstock:  she adjusted its length, nodded.

"Angela," Linn said, "you should know something."

Linn considered for a long moment.

"The guys in the department passed the hat, and PD kicked in, too.  That" -- he thrust his chin at the Ithaca -- "is from every last deputy under my command. It wasn't my idea. They ... went to your Uncle Will and talked to him and his guys kicked in and glad to, and Will said he'd like to have you as one of his officers."

Linn laid a six point star on the Ithaca's open box.

"I can't protect you, Angela, but I can offer you more training than you've had, and I can offer you a deputy's commission.  Uncle Will will commission you as well so you're double covered, if politics force you out of one department, you've still got the other."

Angela's mouth opened, closed:  she swallowed, blinked, looked at her Daddy.

"But Daddy," she said in a small voice, "I'd thought ... nursing school."

Angela slung her shotgun, muzzle down, from her off shoulder, the way she preferred:  her Daddy came around the desk, took his little girl in a gentle Daddy-grip by her shoulders, then hugged her to him.

"Darlin'," he murmured, and she heard the deep rumble in his chest, "you can be whatever the hell you want to be, and my blessing."  

Linn rubbed Angela's back as she ran her arms around him, hugged.

"I don't care if you want to be a fashion designer or a cartoonist, I don't care if you want to become a police sketch artist or a professional shoelace reweaver, I don't care if you want to be a nurse or a doctor or a bottle picker at the town dump."

Linn kissed Angela on top of the head, the way he used to do when she was a little girl.

Angela looked up at her Daddy.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Is this where I come up with some really silly answer and we both laugh?"

Linn nodded.

Angela frowned.  "I'm hungry. Let's talk about this over breakfast."

"Good enough. Pancakes?"

"Square pancakes," Angela nodded.  "Pour the batter into a greased cookie sheet and let the oven do the work.  No standing in front of a frying pan."  She tilted her head, smiled, rubbed the small of her Daddy's back.

"You've got enough back troubles without buying more just to fix me breakfast.  C'mon, I'll mix the batter."  

Angela laid her shotgun back on its box, took her Daddy's hand, turned, stopped.

Four identical white cardboard boxes were stacked in the inside corner, visible only from the Sheriff's desk.

Angela stopped, looked at the stack, looked at her Daddy.

Linn shrugged.

"When people heard what you'd done and they heard your shotgun was taken into evidence ... "
He grinned.

"Every one of those came with a thank-you note!"

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PROPERLY HANDLED

Sheriff Linn Keller looked at his old friend, Dr. John Greenlees.

He looked at the distressed young man sitting on a green-painted chair, trying not to grimace as the physician applied powdered yarrow to the bloody groove in his scalp.

A bloody pan with an inch of water held a straight razor, and the strip shaved from the young man’s scalp, just above his right ear, told the Sheriff that Dr. Greenlees shaved hair from either side of the wound so he could have a clean field to work in.

The air smelled of carbolic and Linn saw the brownish stain that told him Dr. John had wiped the length of the wound with what must’ve felt like a rag dipped in liquid fire.

Linn looked around, picked up a chair, brought it around and set it in front of the patient.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice quiet, almost gentle.

Dr. Greenlees picked up a small brush and whisked the spilled coagulant powder from his patient’s shoulder.

The patient was quiet for a long moment: he looked off to the side, trying to order his thoughts, trying to make some sense of what must seem like an absolutely stupid move, and the harsh and uncompromising realization that his utter and unmitigated stupidity came perilously close to getting him killed.

They heard a door slam – someone was in the waiting room, someone with hard heels and a brisk step – and the Sheriff rose, held up a cautioning finger.

Sheriff Linn Keller stepped out of the treatment room, into the waiting room: the floor shone, it was varnished, it was scrupulously clean; chairs were ranked in good order, there was a picture on the wall, and there was a rather angry young woman standing in the middle of the floor.

Sarah Lynne McKenna glared at the Sheriff, opened her mouth.

She abruptly shut her mouth – very abruptly, the Sheriff almost expected to hear her teeth click together – Sarah turned abruptly to her left, marched a few paces, whirled, marched in the opposite direction: her arms were stiff at her sides, her hands fisted, storm clouds gathered on her pretty brow and she turned to the Sheriff, a gloved hand upraised, fingers spread toward the ceiling.

She opened her mouth again, snapped her jaw shut – this time the Sheriff did hear her teeth click together – she stormed across the room, stopped, spun, stormed back, stopped, looked at the Sheriff again and opened her mouth.

She raised a gloved fist, a teaching finger as if lecturing a class, then she swept her arm down, fisting her hand again, turned with an irritated “OOOHHH!”

“Darlin’,” the Sheriff said in a patient and fatherly voice, “I’m not much for mind readin’.”

Sarah stopped, turned her head, glared at him: she turned, paced slowly up to the pale eyed lawman.

She lowered her eyes, chewed on her bottom lip, looked back up, tears shining and piling up on her bottom eyelids.

Linn pulled a kerchief from his sleeve: “Close your eyes,” he whispered, then carefully blotted the bedsheet kerchief against her closed eyelids:  one eye, then the other: he wiped each one, carefully, delicately, with a father’s gentleness.

He unfolded the kerchief, draped it across her nose, pinched very gently, the way he would a little child: “Blow,” he murmured, and Sarah Lynne McKenna, the pretty young daughter of one of the most successful businesswomen in the State, blew with a loud and most unladylike *honk*!

“There now,” the Sheriff almost whispered, wiping her nose very gently, the way he did his own young: he thrust the wadded kerchief in a pocket, spread his hands and took her very carefully by the points of her elbows.

“What happened?”

“I was so scared,” she whispered.

“I can tell.”

“I was afraid of what he would do to me.”

Linn nodded.  “Go on.”

“I was driving back from Pyrite Creek – I didn’t have The Bear Killer with me, it was just me and our dapple Butter-horse and a rider came THUNDERING up behind, shouting at me to WAIT, YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME LIKE THAT! and he seized poor Butter’s cheek-strap and started dragging her to a halt!”

“What did you do?”

“I snapped down the reins and put my foot on them, I snatched up my Winchester rifle and I shot him!”

“Kill him?”

Sarah stared at the pale eyed Sheriff.

He asked the question so innocently, so casually – as if he knew the answer was going to be in the negative – “I tried to,” she whispered, then she hiccupped, she dropped her eyes, shook her head.

“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t kill him.”

“You did burn him.”

“Yes.”

“He ran.”

“Yes.”

“You decided to leave well enough alone and set your rifle back in its rack.”

She nodded, swallowed.

“Sheriff?” she whispered.

Linn tilted his head, looked into the pretty young woman’s face.

“Never mind.”  She turned away, then looked at the door of the treatment room.

“Is he in there?”

“He is.”

“I would speak with him.”

Linn considered, then walked slowly, deliberately, over to the treatment room door:  he knocked, two knuckle-taps, opened the door.

Doctor and patient looked at a pale, visibly upset young woman, and a tall, pale eyed, solemn-faced Sheriff.

The patient rose: he looked half sick, he looked like a man facing a firing squad.

The treatment room was quiet for several long moments, then Dr. Greenlees bent, picked up the washpan of bloodied water, stained rags and a straight razor, and moved them to a counter in the back of the room:  he busied himself washing his hands with his usual, methodical thoroughness.

“I take it,” the Sheriff said dryly, “you two have met.”

Sarah looked at a man who wasn’t as young as she’d thought: he looked half sick, half ashamed: he had a bandage carefully wound around his head, a thick pad over one ear.

Sarah lifted her chin.

“I thought,” he blurted, “you were my wife.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow and maintained a frosty silence.

“She up and left me and – I thought –”

His voice trailed off, then he blinked and tried to bluster.

“A woman can’t just leave a man like that!  After all I done –”

“This man,” Sarah said quietly, and there was frost in her voice, “is my father. He is Sheriff. You tried to lay hands on the daughter of the county Sheriff, and neither he, nor the local Judge, will view that kindly.”

Linn reserved his words: he normally did not allow someone else to speak for him, but instinct told him to let Sarah have her head.

“We can take this before the Judge,” Linn said, his voice deep, strong, confident: “I’m sure His Honor will be happy to rule on this matter.”

The patient blinked, tried to come up with a halfway intelligent retort, and discovered to his profound distress that his mind was utterly, absolutely, blank.

“Or you can get out of my county.”

Linn’s voice had a hard edge to it.

“That’ll be sixbits,” Doc Greenlees said, breaking the spell – his patient blinked, twice, shook his head: he reached into a vest pocket and paid the man.

Sarah and the Sheriff drew themselves to the side: the young man rushed from the room, raising his hat, holding it between his head and the pale eyed pair.

They waited until the outer door slammed shut.

Linn looked at Doc, then at Sarah, as Sarah sank as if exhausted into a red-velvet-upholstered chair.

She gripped the arms of the chair, her knuckles standing out white as she did, she looked across the room, eyes wide, seeing a horror known only to her young soul.

“I was weak,” she whispered: Sarah swallowed, looked at the Sheriff with haunted eyes.

“Inge’s children and I was laughing and we were singing and Inge and I said a Rosary together and I let my guard down.”

Sarah closed her eyes, let her head drop back.

“I was happy,” she said faintly. “I was happy and I drove back and I was not paying attention to my back trail.”

Her head came up and horrors looked out her pale eyes as she said, “When he came up beside me and shouted that I wasn’t leaving him, when he seized Butter’s bridle and started fighting her to a stop, I – all I could – the only –”

Linn went down on one knee, laid a gentle hand on her forearm.

“You’re safe,” he said in that deep, reassuring, confident Daddy-voice. “You are safe, Sarah. Nothing can hurt you here.”

“They hurt me, Daddy,” she squeaked. “I was just a little girl and they hurt me.”  She looked at Linn and tears cascaded down her ghastly white cheeks.  “Why did they hurt me, Daddy? What did I do to deserve that?”

Sarah opened her arms and fell into Linn’s chest:  he seized her in little short of a crushing grip:  he held her and he let her cry, and he looked up at his old and dear friend, Dr. John Greenlees, and both men nodded, for in their time they’d both held people, men and women, young and no longer young, who’d been tried beyond the limits of what anyone should have to endure.

Bonnie Lynne McKenna was on the porch, watching, when Linn drove up in their carriage, Sarah beside him, her head over on his shoulder: Linn’s untethered Appaloosa followed the carriage, came up beside, laid his head over against Sarah.

Linn eased Sarah back upright, dismounted:  he came around, bribed his horse out of the way with some tobacker shavings off the plug he carried for that purpose: he picked up Sarah as if she were a little girl, he carried her up to the porch steps.

Bonnie Lynne McKenna stood with her hands folded in her apron, knowing as a mother always does that something happened, and her face showing her fear of what that might be.

Linn set one boot up on the bottom step, looked at Bonnie.

“Might we have some tea?” he asked softly.

 

Sarah was abed; Linn carried her upstairs, waited until the maid had the bed turned down, then lay Sarah very carefully, very gently in her own bunk: he bent and kissed her forehead, caressed her cheek with the back of a bent forefinger: he withdrew and let the ladies tend her undressing, trading day-clothes for a flannel nightgown.

Linn sat with Bonnie at her kitchen table and spoke quietly of what had occurred.

Bonnie listened, nodding occasionally, her expression as haunted as her daughter’s had been:  Bonnie had survived the horrors that her daughter endured, only worse – age being their only difference – Linn finished his tea and rose, and Bonnie rose with him.

Linn looked very directly into Bonnie’s gorgeous violet eyes.

He was not normally so forward with another man’s wife, but he wished to emphasize what he was about to say.

“Bonnie,” he said quietly, “you are the strongest woman I know. You survived more than anyone could ever expect. Anyone else would have died or gone insane and you did neither.”

Linn turned, looked to the ceiling, as if looking through flooring and joists at a young woman safely abed.

“Your daughter is the strongest young woman I know. That fellow caught her by surprise and it brought back every last memory of everything that was ever done to her.”

Linn looked at Bonnie again.

“She didn’t freeze and she didn’t faint. She addressed the situation the best way anyone could.”

Linn accepted his Stetson from the maid.

“Thank you for the tea.”

Bonnie followed the Sheriff to the front door.

As the maid drew the portal open, Bonnie said “Linn?  How did she … address the situation?”

Linn stopped, turned, settled his Stetson on his head.

“The best way anyone could handle it,” he said.  “With a Winchester rifle.”

Edited October 26, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DEAD COW

Sarah Lynne McKenna was like her cousin Angela.

There was an active mind behind those lovely eyes, and that mind was never, ever still.

Sarah rode up a trail she’d found, one she’d described to Charlie Macneil, a trail that curled high up through a narrow rock-walled passage and came out in a meadow few knew was there: it had good graze, fat beeves, and a line shack.

The shack was in surprisingly good shape.

Sarah knew Charlie knew about the place, she knew her Daddy knew about the place, and she’d be willing to bet that meant Jacob and his brothers knew as well.

There was wood, stacked and ready to hand, there was water nearby; not far from the shack, a truly huge boulder, the size of a house, cloven down the middle and split in two as if by a Leviathan’s ax: Sarah was told by an Elder, long dead now, that the cleft lined up with the sun on the Day of Birth, and she shivered to hear the words: in years to come she would birth her child there, as the first rays of the sun sliced through thin air and bathed her and her child in morning’s light.

That, however, would not be for many years to come.

Today she threw up her leg, slid off the saddle, feeling the delicious sensation of a child, jumping from a height: she landed flat footed, her knees bending until her backside just touched her heels: she rose, looked around, caressed her Snowflake-horse’s neck.

It smelled clean up here.

It was quiet … peaceful, she thought, and her young soul, too accustomed to guarding itself as a matter of habit, relaxed just a little.

The Bear Killer trotted around the line shack, nose to the ground, then in the air, eyes slitted: Sarah read nothing of concern in the massive mountain Mastiff’s posture:  she kissed at him and opened the door to the line shack.

The Bear Killer sniffed at the threshold, padded inside, looked around, looked at Sarah.

If it is possible for a canine to look bored, he managed.

Sarah studied the interior.

It was bigger, not terribly so, than your usual line shack:  smaller meant easier to heat: there was a small, cast iron stove, a coal-bucket of kindling, Lucifer matches in a glass jar, with the lid on – matches had to be kept proof from mice, for mice liked the taste of the sulfurous heads, and more houses than one had burnt down because a marauding mouse bit into a Lucifer, ignited it and its fellows, and caused a conflagration.

Whoever built the shack, though, built it tight, proof against mountain winds.

I could live here, Sarah thought: part of her mind, relaxed, freed of perpetual vigilance, wandered as a maiden’s mind might, and considered this would make a fine wedding bower.

She blinked, shoved maidenly thoughts viciously aside, looking at The Bear Killer, listening, returning herself ruthlessly to a defensive mindset, then to her current project.

What about food? she thought.

There were less than a half-dozen cans on the shelf: a few still had paper labels on them, most did not.

Freezing weather was just past; canned goods would last until the first hard freeze, she knew.

She frowned at the cans on the shelf.

No telling how long they’d been there.

She picked up one, then another, studying them for leaks, signs of having gone bad.

None showed bulging, so they were probably still good, but Sarah had an idea.

That afternoon, she returned to the line shack with a gunny sack tied to her saddle horn, and a scowl on her pretty face.

She’d enlisted her girl-cousin Angela’s help, for Angela was gifted with a brush and a pencil and a fine tipped pen: the paint was barely dry on the lids as Sarah stacked new cans on the shelf – cans which bore Angela’s work on their lids, and Sarah laid two can openers on the shelf with the canned goods.

Angela’s gift with paints allowed her to create on the can’s flat lid, what looked like beans on a plate, and a realistic job she’d made of it: the canned beans, absent their paper label, could still be identified.

Canned beans and tinned beef both showed the streak of humor she’d inherited from her pale-eyed Daddy.

Angela’s artist’s brush painted a cow in silhouette on the tinned beef’s flat, soldered lid.

Sarah and Angela discussed the proper way to indelibly label the cans, knowing mice often chewed off the paper labels, and their giggling discussion resulted in the cans’ lids being marked in such a way as to prevent their being dentally anonymized by marauding rodents.

The beans had a visual and very real-looking representation of a plate of beans: overarching, the word DEAD and beneath, under-arched like the rocker of a rocking chair, the word BEANS.

The tinned beef had the silhouette of a cow.

Overarching above the silhouette, the word DEAD, and beneath, under-arched, the word COW.

They’d decided against removing the paper labels and painting DEAD BEANS and DEAD COW on the sides of the can.

Sarah stacked edible treasure on the line shack’s shelf, knowing she’d be feeding a hungry man she may never meet.

Sarah McKenna rode home that day with a distinct sense of accomplishment.

It was about a year later that Sarah heard someone in the Silver Jewel, a rider she didn’t recognize, comment as he sampled his beer that he’d need to stop over at the Mercantile and replace a couple cans of dead beef and some dead beans while he was at it, and laughing men instantly grafted the amusing terminology into their own personal vocabulary, and for a time it was vogue to tell the cute little hash slinger that someone would like a big plate of dead cow.

Every time Sarah heard it, she smiled quietly, and on the one occasion when she and Angela were together in the Mercantile and heard a stranger buying canned goods, telling the proprietor he needed a few cans of dead beans, they looked at one another and giggled like mischievous girls.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TO HAUNT, TO KILL

 

Marnie’s fists closed, tightened.

Her eyes were screwed shut, her breathing came more quickly: she felt the hot air duct closing in around her, she smelled dust and she smelled money and she smelled blood.

Harsh voices, the sound of someone being beaten with fists – whimpers, a wet sound, not quite a gurgle –

Her eyes snapped open, wide open, she breathed quickly, silently, her young heart hammering –

She remembered cowering back, back as far as she could go, she remembered the bags stuffed into the vent, she tried to push them further back but they wouldn’t move –

Voices, echoing in her ears as she sat upright in a bed that smelled of sunlight and clean mountain air, voices screaming WHERE’S THE MONEY, WHERE’S THE MONEY, and another voice, COPS! COPS! COPS! –

Marnie shivered, pressed wet eyes into drawn-up knees, her jaw clenched, desperate to be silent, don’t let them know where you are, don’t let them know, don’t let them know! –

Marnie raised her head, stared blindly into her bedroom darkness, remembering how she’d frozen, held her breath as the hot-air register was pulled free of the wall, as something snaked in, something with a light on the end, then voices – other voices – a head shoved into view –

“Honey, I’m the police. You’re safe. Can you come out here for me?”

Marnie shook her head, wiped her wet face on her bedcovers, swung bare legs out, slid to the floor, stood.

Marnie’s breathing was still quick, Marnie’s breathing was still deep, Marnie’s eyes were still wide and staring.

She looked around, padded barefoot for her bedroom door.

The hallway had a night light and the night light showed a little girl with wide, pale eyes, pale, fearful, looking around.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller was asleep, relaxed; his breathing was deep, regular, until something shook the bed a little.

He felt a small child trying to climb in bed with him.

Linn threw back his covers, sat up quickly: he saw a tiny figure shrink from him, as if afraid.

He snatched her up, hands spread wide, hoisted her into bed: he rolled over on his back, pulled the covers over the shivering little girl, let her slip into the gap between himself and his wife.

Marnie shivered a little less, almost daring to hope she would not be slapped, smacked, thrown against the wall for disrupting someone’s sleep: she lay stiff, unmoving, listening.

A mother’s arm rested on her newest daughter, a father’s arm rested across daughter, and mother’s hip: three lay together, warm and safe, and gradually, slowly, fearfully, Marnie began to realize that she just might be safe after all.

 

Marnie looked at her Daddy with big innocent eyes as Linn opened the boot box.

He smiled a little and handed Marnie a pair of fluffy boot socks.

Marnie happily dropped her skirted backside to the floor, pulled off her shiny little-girl slippers and her ruffly anklets and happily thrust her little pink feet into the fluffy boot socks.

Linn pulled the cardboard stiffener out of the ornate, intricately stitched boot top, reached in, teased out the wadded paper, dropped them to the floor: he handed Marnie a brand-new, red, cowboy boot.

“We’re Irish,” he said quietly, “and we put on our left foot first.”

Absolute, utter delight shone in a little girl’s face as she pulled on her left boot:  Linn handed her the right, she drew up her leg, pointed her foot, thrust in, pulled.

Marnie fairly levitated, looking down at her new red cowboy boots.

Linn bent down, squeezed Marnie’s foot, thumbed the top: “Raise your big toe,” he said quietly, then nodded.

“Walk around on the rug, honey,” he said, his voice deep and reassuring, the voice of a Daddy, a voice that had a broad grin in it.  “How do they fit?”

Marnie looked at her Daddy, pale eyes shining.

“Are they too tight, darlin’, are they too loose?”

Marnie blinked, hugged herself, then scampered over to her Daddy, jumped into him, hugged him hard.

“I loves them,” she whispered, and Linn leaned back, stood up on his Prayer Bones, felt the warmth, the life, the happy little girl in his arms.

“There’s a note with it,” he said.

Marnie let go of her Daddy, stood, looked at him with big and innocent eyes.

Linn reached over, picked up the discarded envelope forgotten on the floor.

He opened it.

“It’s from –” he started, then looked at Marnie strutting across the floor: she squatted, then sat beside The Bear Killer, thrust her legs straight out:

“Looky, Bear Killer!” she whispered, and The Bear Killer raised his head, dropped his chin on her lap, closed his eyes and sighed, his tail thumping happily as Marnie rubbed her pink starfish of a little girl’s hand into his curly black fur.

Linn opened the envelope, the card, unfolded the other enclosure, nodded.

“What is it?” Shelly asked as she picked up Marnie’s little-girl shoes and socks.

“The bank,” Linn said quietly. “Marnie remembered bags of money and where they were hidden.”

“Bags … of money?” Shelly echoed, puzzlement drawing her sculpted brows together.

“There’d been a bank robbery and the proceeds just disappeared,” Linn explained. “No word on the street, no recovery, nothing, until Marnie told me where it was.”

“It kept me from hiding better,” Marnie complained, both hands hidden in The Bear Killer’s thick, curly fur.

“The bank sends a check for the reward they offered,” Linn said, “and the red cowboy boots … those are personal, from the bank president.”

“Oh?”

“He asked me what I wanted to do with the reward money,” Marnie said in the careful tones of a Little Girl Who Wanted To Sound like a Big Girl, and Linn chuckled a little, nodded.

“I’ll deposit this for you, darlin’.  The bank president says here that he had a little girl …”

Linn voice trailed off as he realized what the past tense he just read aloud, meant.

He looked at Marnie, he saw how happy she was, wearing her new cowboy boots and sitting with her legs stuck straight out and The Bear Killer snoozing on her thighs.

Some time later, the bank’s president received a card from Colorado.

It held a hand written note from a pale eyed Sheriff, and a photograph of a happy little girl wearing a new pair of red cowboy boots, with a truly huge dog contentedly snoozing with his head on her lap.

 

A pair of red cowboy boots ran across the parking lot, launched off the pavement at running speed, and two stacked-leather boot heels drove into a man’s kidneys.

A pair of red cowboy boots landed on the ground, the pale eyed girl inside the boots balanced on the balls of her feet: she seized the belt the man held, yanked it free of his pain-slacked grip:  she doubled it, brought it back, flailed it down across his shoulder blades, as hard as she could swing it.

He rolled, tried to get up and inherited a bootheel to the side of the head: he rolled over and Marnie raised the belt, swung it as hard as her ranch-toughened arm could swing it, across the back of his thighs.

He tried to get up and she jumped straight up in the air, came down hard on his back, fully intending to bust his ribs and drive the broken bone ends through his kidneys.

She lacked the weight to transect renal tissue, though she did crack three of his ribs, and detonated an absolute sunball of agony: paralyzed, he collapsed.

Marnie proceeded to lay that doubled belt across the man’s back just as hard as she could swing it – parallel cuts, laid side by side, until she got down to his calves, then she walked around to his other side, started again, crisscrossing her blows, not stopping until she curled leather across the back of his neck.

She stopped, breathing hard, lips pulled back from even, white teeth: she threw the belt down beside his face, knelt.

“If you ever,” she whispered in his ear, “if you EVER raise your hand to your wife or your children again, I WILL FIND YOU, AND I WILL KILL YOU, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

Her words were all the more menacing, all the more deadly, for coming from a twelve year old girl’s rage-tightened throat.

She looked at a crying mother, a woman with a belt-weal bright red across her face, and at the child she held, crying with pain and rejection, a child who’d been seized by the back of the neck, bent over a car’s fender and welted from ankles to shoulder blades with the man’s doubled belt.

Marnie burned with hatred, with the hatred of a child beaten in such a way, a child who’d been hurt more terribly than any very young child should ever be hurt:  her scarred soul screamed with rage and screamed for revenge, and Marnie took every bit of hatred and rage and hurt and pain she’d ever been given and put it into every last swing of that heavy, doubled belt.

 

Dr. John Greenlees woke, rolled up in his side, laid a gentle arm across his sleeping wife’s belly.

Marnie was rigid, sweating, her eyes rolling under closed eyelids: Ambassador Marnie Keller was having a nightmare, and as her husband’s arm lay reassuringly over her, she seized his arm, clutched it like a drowning man seizes a float.

Her breathing was fast, her eyes snapped open, focused:  she shivered, looked at her husband.

“A dream,” she whispered.

John nodded, pulled her into him.

Marnie ran her arm over the warm, solid reassurance of her husband.

He felt her take a long, deep breath.

“Did you kill him this time?”

 

Marnie swung the pick handle, hard.

She caught the man on the side of the thigh, aiming for the nerve bundle that would reflexively collapse both his legs, then she swung it again, hard, breaking three fingers, two knuckles and two bones in his hand.

“I warned you,” she said, her voice cold.

He pulled his hands to his belly, the reflex of a man trying to protect an injured hand.

The pick handle spun again, caught his right elbow, detonated in an absolute agonizing sunball of utter undiluted PAIN.

A pair of red cowboy boots stood shoulder width apart as a pick handle was swung with precision and with great strength.

 

The murder was one of the very few listed as unsolved in Sheriff Keller’s county.

The deceased had been beaten, quite obviously with a club of some kind.

He hadn’t been found for two days.

His youngest child managed to call 911, in spite of being beaten more severely than anyone should: two other children escaped, the mother was barely conscious, and bore the marks of the razor strop that was found just outside the back door.

One of the children remembered running, telling someone what happened, then passed out, and woke up being carried – he described it as floating, and not until a year later, in therapy, did he realize what he’d felt was being carried, in someone’s arms, on horseback.

He’d wakened in hospital and no idea how he’d gotten there.

The abusive husband was nowhere to be found.

His vehicle was still present, he had no known associates who would help with something as heinous as beating his family into unconsciousness with a razor strop.

A BOLO was put out for the man, and two days later his body was found, quite by accident.

Whoever killed him took their time, and whoever killed him made him suffer, and whoever killed him, broke both his elbows, both his collarbones, both knees, both shins, broke his hands and fingers with several repeated blows: the only thing not broken was his face and skull, as if the murderer wanted to let the world know who he was, and that he’d been killed, and that he’d been killed by someone who really, really wanted to make him suffer.

Nobody found the murder weapon.

It’s hard to find a bloodied wooden handle when it’s been split and burned as kindling in a line shack’s stove, and it’s hard to find blood spatter on clothes when they’re shredded and blown into an industrial incinerator.

The red cowboy boots that stood silent witness to this methodical murder, remained pristine: any blood spatter was removed when the plastic bags duct taped around the boots was unwound, and fed into the line shack’s sheepherder’s stove with the splintered pick handle.

 

Marnie smiled a little at her husband’s concerned expression.

“Yes, John,” she whispered.  “This time I killed him.”

“That means you probably won’t have those nightmares anymore.”

Marnie closed her eyes and relaxed, and so did her husband, and she dreamed no more that night.

 

In the second Firelands Cemetery, a gravestone: this was the traditional Potter’s Field, this is where criminals and the unwanted were buried, and here is where a man was buried after he beat his family into agonized unconsciousness, and was himself beaten until he died.

It had a name, it had dates of birth and death, and under this, sandblasted into smooth Vermont granite:

WIFE BEATER

CHILD ABUSER

MONSTER

What the stone did not reveal was a last act of vengeance.

Hidden away in the coffin, buried under six feet of dirt, the body lay face down.

His wife wanted him to see where he was going.

 

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

INTERVIEW WITH THE LADY IN WHITE

1.    The What

 

The Firelands Gazette was a weekly newspaper, started by an Eastern woman, one Duzy Wales, whose name was still on the masthead as “Editor-at-Large” – as the newspaper was established in the mid-1800s, it would be obvious, upon inspection, that this Editor must be long dead, and yet her name still appeared.

This was in accordance with an agreement made after her actual demise, an event that deeply affected a certain pale eyed Sheriff, and a truly remarkable man he felt honored to call friend.

Duzy’s demise haunted that old lawman with the iron grey mustache: his old and dear friend, an Agent who’d worn many hats and done much good, retreated to Sopris Mountain – his home, his haven, a place of refuge from a lifetime of turmoil, loved the violet-eyed Duzy more deeply than he’d realized, and the only living soul he’d allowed help bury this remarkable, this energetic, this lively and fiery and self-willed woman, was the Sheriff.

The two men sat shoulder to shoulder and stared numbly at the grave they’d dug, at the marker they’d fashioned and carved and painted, and as the sun started to slide behind the mountain, they shook hands, and that was the last time any living soul saw a man named Sopris.

Years later, long years later, bones and a skull were found where a stream washed out an old grave.

Forensic examination was made, and the Sheriff exerted a strong influence over the operation: for some reason, this finding was quickly hushed, those involved were persuaded to silence; the Sheriff and his mother consulted certain old records at their disposal, brought official inquiries to bear back East, discreetly asked surviving and distantly related family members to allow DNA swabs to be taken: given a forensic analysis, comparison of DNA from a remaining molar, research, and the finding of two pieces of linotype in the washed-out grave – one bearing the number 3, the other a zero – it was concluded this was the grave of one Duzy Wales.

Her recovered skeleton was almost intact.

It was believed, from nibble marks on some of the bones, that the missing bones, the smallest ones, were either dissolved or eaten: creatures of the wild chew on bones to recover calcium and other necessary nutrients: what was recovered, was given a formal burial, and this in the Keller section of the Firelands cemetery, as what had been identified as the mortal remains of Duzy Wales, was related to the seminal lawman’s green-eyed wife, a woman who’d come West wearing the very latest in womanly fashion, and proudly wearing her maiden name.

Esther Wales.

Esther came west to ride herd on her impulsive, hardheaded newswoman of a niece, found both her niece, and the Sheriff, married him and raised a family: this is well known, and need not be discussed here.

No, we are instead discussing an interview with a woman in white.

History runs deep in Firelands, and the natives, to a man (or a woman) are historians: most are lukewarm, some are ardent, a few are rabidly enthusiastic, but all are rather familiar  with their little town’s past.

The son of the late Bruce Jones stood at a grave with an attractive young woman, a young woman very uncharacteristically dressed as a nurse of generations past: it was almost impossible to find a nurse in a white uniform dress, with a white winged cap, white stockings, and white, thick-soled shoes: this pale eyed woman was so attired, and went so far as to wear the blue cloak with red trim, further adding to her appearance of a genuine anachronism.

Angela Keller laughed a little as her contemporary regarded her uncertainly.

“Go on, ask,” she laughed. “Everyone does.”

“It’s, um, almost Halloween,” Bruce Jones Jr asked hesitantly. “Is that why …?”

Angela shook her head.

“Both my grandmothers were nurses,” Angela explained. “My Grandma Willamina got fired because she rescued a child.”

“They fired her for that?”

Angela lowered her head, regarded Bruce Jr over a nonexistent set of spectacles.

“Rescuing a child didn’t get her fired,” Angela explained.  “Her picture in the paper did that.”

Bruce frowned, shook his head.

“I don’t understand.”

A fashionably dressed woman glided up to Angela, smiled at Bruce: surprised, he inclined his head in greeting: he hadn’t noticed her – she must be a member of the Ladies’ Tea Society, he thought, she’s certainly dressed the part – the well-dressed mother handed Angela a little girl in a frilly frock and white stockings and shining patent-leather slippers,  a laughing little girl with bright-green eyes and shining blond hair in long finger-curls and ribbons, and he watched as Angela opened her cloak, settled the child on her hip and laid the cloak, warm and welcoming, around the child: Angela smiled at Bruce and said, “Surely you’ve seen the picture.”

Bruce frowned a little, confused.  “Angela, I’m …”

“Let me refresh your memory,” Angela said quietly.  “My Grandma tried on a pair of white heels when she got off shift and she was still in her car when she did.

She’d planned to go to a dance that night.

Then she saw a … situation.”

The child’s mother tilted her head, listening, interested.

Angela brought her right hand out from under her cloak, extended it.

A shining, blued-steel revolver gave the characteristic triple-click of a single action coming into battery.

Bruce blinked at this legerdemain: first a woman in a McKenna gown appears where none had been, now a nurse raises a plow handled persuader –

“Grandma Willamina’s picture was taken as she brought a .44 magnum to bear,” Angela explained, easing the hammer down, bringing the revolving-pistol back under her cloak. “The hospital fired her as soon as it made the newspaper. Not for saving a child from having been snatched, but for being identified as one of that hospital’s nurses with a gun.  I don't know which they thought was worse ... that she had a gun, or that she was a deputy marshal as well as a nurse.

"She was given the key to the city, an award by the Mayor, and a boot in the backside by the nursing director.”

“Do you normally …?” Bruce asked, letting the question dangle.

Angela kissed the laughing little girl, handed her back.

“Do I normally what? Go my way armed?”

Angela smiled, bringing her hand out again to display a six-point star in a black-leather wallet.  “My Daddy is Sheriff and I’m a deputy. Of course I go my way armed, and that is off the record, non-negotiable.”

Ruth Keller looked at Angela, gave the newspaperman a pitying look.

“Is this the Bruce Jones I was told about?”

“No, this is his son. He took over after Bruce passed away.”
“I see.”  Ruth glided forward, extended a hand.  “Ruth Keller. Angela is my sister in law.”

“I, um, yes, very pleased to meet you,” Bruce stammered, taking her hand awkwardly.

“Charmed,” Ruth purred: she bounced her daughter a little, bringing a happy giggle from the apple-cheeked child.

“Come along, Esther,” Ruth smiled: she turned, and Angela swung her arm up, and with it, her knee-length cloak: she brought it around Bruce’s shoulders, walked a few steps.

The newspaperman automatically walked with her, at least until he stopped, turned.

Bruce looked back, puzzled.

“Where did she go?” he asked.

Angela laughed, that happy laugh he remembered so well from earliest school days together, and Angela looked at Bruce with genuine affection.

“She jumped on her broom and flew off,” she whispered. “You asked if we were near Halloween.”

 

 

Edited October 28, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

RECKON HE WANTED TO SAY HOWDY

 

Carbon Hill was not what you’d call prosperous.

It had what passed for a mercantile, it had a down-at-heels saloon that had barely enough business to stay open, it had the Z&W depot, and it had several buildings that were standing thanks either to some restoration, or out of habit and little else.

There were still open mine shafts, where back in the day, the low grade brown coal was dug, rolled out to the siding, dumped into waiting rail cars: the wooden, trestle-like structures that used to hold up the mine rails, were mostly gone: an original still stood, but looked ready to crumble at any time; another, emerging from an adjacent shaft, was rebuilt, using good timber and the original design: in season, a mine car would be rolled out the new structure and dumped, for the benefit of tourists and tour groups.

The church had been rebuilt, and still saw a few services; the graveyard adjacent was cleaned up, stones replaced wooden planks, graves were located – ground penetrating radar showed two graves with one atop the other, with only one stone; it showed two other marked graves that were empty.

One grave was mounded, just a little, and outlined with white, fist sized stones. The marker, though new, was carved in the same style as the other stones.

Joseph Keller hung back a little, a lean waisted young man astride an Appaloosa stallion: like his father, he wore a handmade black suit, and like his father, he wore a black Stetson.

Joseph watched his father bend over and lay a hand on the gravestone and bow his head.

Joseph knew an old lawman was buried there.

Linn straightened reached into his coat, withdrew a pint of distilled sledgehammer:  he worked the stopper free, dribbled a little on the stone, on the grave, then he tilted it up and took a tilt, lowered it, then thrust it out at arm’s length and declared loudly, “LAW AND ORDER HARRY MACFARLAND!”

Joseph watched as his father slipped the flask back into an inside pocket, as he ran thumb and forefinger into his red-silver-and-black brocaded vest pocket: he pulled something out, something held between thumb and forefinger, placed it on the stone.

Joseph watched as his father contemplated the stone a few moments longer, as he said something – softly, Joseph could not hear the man – the Sheriff turned, walked carefully between the graves, along the newly replaced and painted white picket fence, and out the open gate to his waiting black gelding.

Linn swung easily into the saddle.

Two lean waisted men rode up the street, alone in the October afternoon:  if ghosts chased one another along the street with the occasional gusts, they didn’t show themselves.

Joseph looked at what had been the Marshal’s office.

Its restoration got as far as restoring the building’s front: within, there was very little; beside it, the iron box the railroads provided for a lockup – and an iron box it was, small, one tiny window, one barred door: years before, a cheerleader was locked in by a classmate, and she’d been let out by someone who looked remarkably like Joseph’s Pa … only Joseph’s Pa never left Firelands that night, and the pale eyed man with the iron grey mustache who’d spoken reassuringly to the scared girl locked in the old original jail, was pointed out later in the Silver Jewel, when the girl pointed at a framed, pencil drawing and exclaimed, “That’s him! That’s the man that let me out!”

It was another Linn Keller, the one known as Old Pale Eyes.

She swore up and down that he’s the man who reached down and picked up a key where metal detectors never saw one, until it was used to unlock the ancient heavy-brass padlock that held a frightened cheerleader behind rusty-brown bars.

Joseph looked again at the front of the Marshal’s office, and for a moment, he saw a figure in a black suit, slouching against a porch post, cleaning his nails with a short, sharp knife:  for a moment, the young man on a spotted horse saw the Marshal’s office as it had been, saw the Town Marshal slouched against the porch post the way Joseph had seen him described in Old Pale Eyes’ Journals.

Then he blinked, he saw the restored front, the sides of the building gone; no one, let alone a man in a black suit with a puffy black necktie, stood anywhere near, and the overhang and porch posts were not their either.

Two men rode in silence for a time.

Partway home, the Sheriff dropped back, rode stirrup to stirrup with his pale eyed son.

“Joseph,” he said, “it is well that we do not forget.”

“Yes, sir,” Joseph replied, knowing there was more than these few words.

“Today would be Old Harry’s deathday.”

“Is that why we came over, sir?”

“It is.”

Joseph considered this, frowning, then looked at his long tall Pa.

“Sir, is that why you dribbled a little from your flask …?”

“On his stone and his grave, yes,” Linn affirmed.  “We shared a drink together, and I declared his name to the wind, so none would doubt the man was remembered.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve done that before.”

Joseph heard something more behind his father’s words.

“I saw him, Joseph.”

“Sir?”

“I looked over at the Marshal’s Office as I rode past with the taste of Kentucky Drain Opener still on my tongue, and I didn’t see the ruin it had become.”

“What did you see, sir?”

Linn smiled, just a little, looked at his son.

“I saw the Marshal’s office the way it was, Joseph. I saw Law and Order Harry Macfarland leaned up against a porch post that’s not there, and I saw him as solid and as real as I see you now.”

“I see, sir.”

“I reckon old Harry just wanted to say howdy, or maybe thanks for not bein’ forgotten.”

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BLIND STAGGERS

“VILHELM!”

Young William Linn did not slack his headlong charge toward their front door.

When his Mama called him Vilhelm, she was mad and she expected him to stop whatever he was doing, and come to her for a scolding or other motherly correction.

He had absolutely no intention in doing that.

He’d snatched his Pa’s Winchester rifle off the rack -- the light rifle, the one he'd shot before -- he gripped blued steel and checkered walnut and sprinted through the parlor and slammed the front door open, and he was headed outside.

Fast.

Part of his young soul wanted to come to a skidding halt in response to his Ma’s sharp summons, but his loyalties came first.

An eight year old boy charged out the front door of the stone house high on the mountainside and ran for the whitewashed fence just as fast as he could run.

Jacob Keller saw his little boy – and his rifle! – running for the fence.

Jacob had no objection to his boys shooting, but he insisted he shoot with them, partly because the boys were still young, and partly because shooting was fun and it was too easy to put holes in things, and partly because Jacob was a thrifty man with no liking for waste.

Jacob had been a boy, and remembered how easy it was to waste ammunition, and until his boys were old enough not to be wasteful, he'd shoot with them.

Jacob turned his stallion, trotted quickly for the gate: he leaned down, threw the latch: he rode through, his Apple-horse turning: Apple-horse was well trained, Apple-horse was trained to come broadside so the gate could be drawn shut and latched before proceeding.

Jacob fast the gate up, Apple-horse turned, and Sheriff Jacob Keller looked out across the field where his little boy was running.

Jacob’s eyes went pale, he leaned down and back and seized the wrist of his own rifle.

Sheriff Jacob Keller pulled out his .30-30, laid his thumb over the hammer spur, and Apple-horse leaned forward into a fast trot.

 

William Linn was one of Jacob’s younger sons.

Of all his boys, Will, as he was known, favored his Pa the most, something everyone else could see, something to which both father and son were oblivious.

Will was happily afield, having tended his chores, and ran off before more could be assigned:  he’d noted early in his life that if he appeared to be idle, something would be invented, if need be, to harness his time: more often than not it was work, and like most boys, he preferred to play.

Today, though, he’d been industrious, he’d been conscientious, he’d been productive, and having finished his assigned work, he was happily pursuing The Bear Killer, at least until The Bear Killer stopped and bristled up.

The Bear Killer looked over at Will, then very deliberately stepped in front of him, faced directly away from the pale eyed little boy, still bristling.

Will had never heard The Bear Killer growl before – not for real, anyway, but he was growling now, and then he let out a menacing, half-howl, half-bay, something that said I will rip you to bloody gobbets and foul the pieces on the ground, and then Joseph saw it.

Dogs were not at all uncommon, every town had them; some ran off and became wild, though they were often killed by coyotes or wolves.

Few survived.

This was a mongrel, lean and underfed, but it was not a healthy animal, and then Will saw how it slobbered, how it looked around – unnaturally looked around – and Will heard his Pa’s voice, a phrase he’d heard but he’d never understood until now.

“He’s got the blind staggers,” Will whispered, and fear claimed his young heart: “Bear Killer, c’mon!”

The Bear Killer bristled, bayed his challenge:  behind him, Will ran for the house.

Pa said he’d have to kill anything with the blind staggers, the hydrophobee!

 

Will ran forward, to where The Bear Killer paced back and forth, bristled, snarling.

Jacob rode up, threw up a leg, slid out of the saddle, landed easily, knees flexing to take up the shock of landing: he looked down at his son and said quietly, “Will, are you loaded?”

Will brought the hammer back, eased the lever down, looked in the chamber.

“No, sir.”

“Load.”

Will ran the lever forward, slammed it closed.

“With me.”

Two Keller men advanced on the enemy, rifle muzzles in the lead, Death on four paws pacing silently between them.

They stopped.

Jacob went to one knee.

“Get a good settin’ position,” Jacob said.

Will squatted, dropped back on his backside, spread his boot heels and drove them into the dirt: he brought his elbows up onto his knees, the crescent buttplate into his high upper arm.

Jacob watched as Will thumbed the tang mounted peep, flipped it up into working position.

“Take him in the head,” Jacob said quietly.

Will took a long breath, just like his Pa taught him.

Will let the breath out halfway.

Will saw the skinny, slobbering dog stagger, look at him, advance.

Jacob’s hand lowered, laid over the back of The Bear Killer’s neck.

Will felt the smooth, curved trigger under his finger, he felt the ground under his backside, he set the shining brass bead between the advancing canine’s eyes –

The rifle shoved back into his shoulder --

The brass bead came up, the passing breeze waved the smoke aside --

Will jacked the lever open, slammed it shut, raised his head.

He looked at his Pa.

Jacob was still down on one knee, his rifle’s butt grounded, his hand on The Bear Killer’s neck.

“We’ll burn it where it is,” he said quietly. “Bear Killer, Will, with me.  If he gets up, bust him again.”

“Yes, sir,” Will said quietly.

 

Will was solemn and big-eyed as he and his Pa looked at the red ruin he’d caused.

Jacob held the .25-20 round in front of the entrance wound, nodded, then handed it back to his son.

“That,” he said quietly, “was an excellent shot.” 

He looked at his son, nodded, a smile tightening the corners of his eyes.

“Well done, Will.”

“Thank you, sir,” Will said quietly, but the son’s smile extended to much more of his face than his father’s.

The two laid wood, dry wood that burnt hot, Jacob took the carcass by the hind legs and dragged it up onto the carefully laid pyre: father and son rode double, back to the barn, The Bear Killer with them, and Jacob rode back with a scythe held crosswise in front of him.

Will held his Pa’s coat as Joseph ceremonially stroked the blade with long, ringing swipes of the sharpening stone, as his Pa handed him the stone and then began clearing grass back from the wood:  he circled the stacked wood twice, cutting a full swath back with each orbit: Jacob was tall, two fingers from his pale eyed Pa’s height, and his swing on a scythe wasn’t much less: he threw cut grass on what would become the fire, looked around, satisfied, drew a match tube from a vest pocket and struck match to the pyre.

Will still held the Winchester rifle; he felt the heat, watched as his Pa judged the fire, listened as his Pa said when they found a rabid animal it had to be burnt so it would not infect anything else, and Joseph looked very seriously at his son and said, “I had hoped you’d be older before I had to tell you this, but I want you to go your way armed. If it’s got the blind staggers, kill it and burn it like we’ve done here. One bite and it’ll infect. I recall a man not far from here that got bit and got the hydrophobees. His family chained him in the barn by one leg and ‘twould have been kinder to have shot him in his sleep.”

Will looked at his Pa with big and solemn eyes and said, “Yes, sir.”

Jacob laid a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“You come out with a rifle, Will. You knew something was wrong and you moved to protect your family. That is what a man does. You did well today.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Jacob looked at the fire, threw the last of the wood on the pile.

“I genuinely hate shootin’ a dog,” he muttered, “that might have been someone else’s dog.”

Jacob looked back to see his son with one arm over The Bear Killer’s neck and his head bowed.

Will looked up to see his Pa looking at him.

“I was askin’ God to keep The Bear Killer safe,” Will explained. “I don’t want to have to kill him.”

Jacob came over, went to one knee again, laid his arm over The Bear Killer and his son’s shoulders both.

He squinted up at the sky.

“Lord,” he said, “my son asked Your help to keep The Bear Killer safe. I’d like to second that notion.”

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

INTERVIEW WITH THE LADY IN WHITE

2.    The Why

 

“You see, Bruce, my other grandmother – Grandma Crane -- butted heads with my Mama about her becoming a nurse. My Mama had the great good sense to become a paramedic instead” – Angela stopped, withdrew her cloak, lowered her forehead until it touched Bruce’s, something she’d done since they were children in grade school – she whispered, “I’m a paramedic too, and for the same reason.” 

She giggled a little and added in a louder whisper, “Being a paramedic is fun!”

Bruce looked a little ill.

“Being a nurse is bad enough,” he said faintly. “But … but, but some of the things I’ve seen – and I’m not a paramedic –”

Angela tilted her head a little.

“It’s not easy,” she admitted.  “Mama and Grampa both carry grief and loss enough to last ten men their lifetimes. So does my Daddy and Jacob and they’re not medics.

“I saw Grampa Crane shiver and almost throw up when a drop of paint landed on the back of his hand. He told me later it reminded him of a bad one where he found the corpse where it was thrown into a tree from a wreck. Nobody could find it until it dropped a stone-cold blood clot on the back of Grampa’s hand, and the he looked up at the bloody and shredded remains of what used to be a friend of his.”

Angela paused, closed her eyes, took a long breath, blew it out.

“There are things that haunt him.

"I’ve seen him … remember … and when he does, I go to him and hold him and I’ve done the same thing with every last man in the Irish Brigade. Even the new ones.”  Angela took another long breath, blew it out through puffed cheeks.

“Some ghosts,” she said quietly, “won’t stay buried. It doesn’t matter how deep you bury them, it doesn’t matter how many rocks you pile on the grave, they still come philtering up out of the ground and say hello.”

Angela tilted her head back, considered a circling hawk.

“Smells,” she said firmly.  “Smells are the most associative of the senses. A smell can take me back to a memory faster than anything else.”

They turned and walked back down the row of her family’s tomb stones.

“If you’re a paramedic, and it’s fun,” Bruce frowned, thinking out loud, “why did …”

He looked at her.

“Why are you a nurse?”

Edited October 29, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE LAST TO KNOW

Sheriff Jacob Keller lowered his head slightly.

Jacob's Chief Deputy watched his boss, concerned.

He'd rarely -- very rarely! -- seen the man get this quiet.

He knew when Jacob's eyes went dead white, when his face went pale and his shoulders rolled forward, when he looked like a creature of Earth-legend called a bear, that something very, very bad was very likely to happen, and soon.

"Why," Jacob said, his voice barely above a whisper, "was I not told?"

Ambassador Marnie Keller sat almost kneecap-to-kneecap with her brother, both of his callused hands in her gloved, two-hand grip.

Just as he was leaned forward, so was she, and she felt the anger in his hands -- it was like an electric current, sizzling through the material of her gloves, and it told her more clearly than any words just how ready her pale eyed brother was, to go to war, to harvest men's souls, to lay waste with his bare hands.

Marnie raised her head just a little.

"First of all," she said, "our little sister" -- she smiled, the way a woman will when she has some knowledge that others lack -- "our little sister isn't so little anymore."

Angela saw Jacob's shoulders lift as he took a breath, she saw his jaw muscles bulge: his cold, polished eyes were unblinking, drilling through her skull, searching for answers on the back side of her bony calvarium.

"Second" -- Marnie allowed her smile to continue a few moments more -- "your sister is one of the Valkyries, and she is very well trained."

Jacob held his counsel, but she did see just the barest of nods, and again -- powerfully -- she was reminded of their pale eyed father, who would listen through his own great anger, deliberately maintaining a fair and open mind, in spite of a boiling rage that wanted nothing more than to drive his hand into someone's gut and reach up and seize their beating heart and rip it out by its bloody ROOTS!

"You will remember," Marnie continued, her voice quiet, factual, "how Gammaw trained the Valkyries, and how we helped."

Jacob nodded, slowly: he remembered, not just training with them, but also the why of the training.

"Angela never stopped learning. She's fast and frankly she's deadly."

"I know she's deadly. I taught her that."

Sarah's fingers caressed the back of Jacob's hand.

"Don't flatter yourself, little brother," she purred. "I had something to do with forging her into a swift arrow of death."

Jacob's eyes narrowed, then closed: he opened them, looked very directly at his sister, nodded.

"Yes," he agreed.  "Yes, you did."

"Angela is quite the little murderess," Marnie said, blinking, affecting a wide-eyed innocence. "She rode into a robbery and lay about with a twelve-gauge jaw bone of a jack mule, to quote our honored ancestor."

"What about the ones that wanted to lay hands on her and sell her overseas?"

"The Federal boys are all over that one."

"Do we trust them?" Jacob asked with his characteristic, suspicious bluntness.

Marnie lifted her head, laughed, squeezed Jacob's hands affectionately: "Dear Jacob," she sighed, "ever the one to look behind the words!"

Marnie tilted her head, then came off her seat, leaned forward, kissed Jacob quickly on the cheek: she sat back down, reached up, caressed her brother's cheekbone with the backs of her bent, gloved fingers.

"Don't ever change," she whispered. "Please, Jacob, don't ever change!"

Jacob frowned, shook his head.

"I asked you a question, Sis, or are you being more diplomat than family?"

Marnie released Jacob's hands, leaned back.

Jacob was struck by how absolutely feminine she looked, how utterly ladylike -- just like Gammaw could do, he thought -- Marnie unfolded a delicate set of spectacles, slipped them on her face, over her ears: she lowered her head to look at Jacob over top of her spectacles, looking so utterly like a well-dressed schoolteacher that Jacob had to laugh in spite of the seriousness of his questions.

"I think we can trust them, Jacob," Marnie said, "at least in this one instance."

"Why?" 

Jacob's blunt challenge brought a look of approval from his sister.

"Jacob, it's not what you know, it's who you know."

"Go on."

"Who was Gammaw's husband?"

"Ah," Jacob nodded. 

"The Bureau gave it to Daddy to understand," Marnie explained, "that they were taking an especial interest in this case. They did not say in so many words, but they gave Daddy to ... understand."

"I see."

Jacob frowned, considered.

"I can raise a half-dozen heavies," he said slowly, "but that's about all the army I can raise on short notice."

"I can raise a regiment," Marnie countered. "The Confederate ambassador said he could give me one regiment of one thousand men, armed, equipped, uniformed, provisioned, and ready for a fight, given one minute's notice. He said he can raise ten times that in an hour."

"And you said?"

"I told him that Daddy doesn't have that many guest beds."

Jacob laughed -- he sat up straight, he shook his head, he looked at his sister with open, honest delight, and his chief deputy once again watched in surprise, realizing anew that he didn't know this pale eyed lawman nearly as well as he'd thought.

"So what do we do, Sis? Nothing I'd like better than to go home and lift some scalps."

"We stay here, Jacob. We do our jobs. We let Daddy handle it on his end, and if something happens to Daddy, or if Daddy blows the bugle, we'll have a regiment surrounding the ranch in three minutes' time, and more on the way."

Jacob considered this, rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then looked at the pale eyed young woman in a McKenna gown and a fashionable little hat.

"One question, Sis."

Marnie nodded, a graceful incline of her head, a gesture better suited to a State visit, perhaps, but one she felt was appropriate.

"Why am I always the last to know?"

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

INTERVIEW WITH THE LADY IN WHITE

3.    The How

 

Angela laughed.

“Why be a nurse, if I like being a paramedic?”

She smiled, tilted her head down, studied the ground before them: they walked slowly, together, Angela’s arm and her cloak around Bruce’s shoulders.

He realized his arm was around her waist, and he realized she wasn’t objecting to his arm … matter of fact, she drew him against her, and he drew her as well.

“For the same reason men get up in the morning and go to work, silly.

“Money.

“Paramedic doesn’t pay much.

“I’m working in the City and working at a specialty and the money’s good. It’s hard work and it takes everything I’ve got, but the money’s good.”

Another few steps, gravel crunching quietly under their shoe soles.

“Nurses are overworked, they’re loaded with too many patients and too much responsibility and too many duties, but we do it because it really needs done and there’s no one else to do it.

“I’m young. I can take the long hours for a few years, but when I see myself making mistakes, when I see myself struggling to keep up, I can go to another specialty, or home health care, or something else that’s much less stressful.”

“Or you could come back and be a paramedic.”

“I’d like that,” Angela admitted.  “I said as much to Fitz.”

Bruce felt Angela laugh silently.

Their pace was slow now, slow, with small, thoughtful steps.

“The chief tells me I’ll have to wear a white uniform, or at least a miniskirt.  I told him I’d give him a black eye and he changed his mind.”

“You told Fitz that?” Bruce exclaimed, his eyes wide with honest astonishment.

“He’s known me since I was a little girl,” Angela reminded the newsman with a smile.  “He used to tease me terribly, and he remembers when I shook my little fist at him and snarled, ‘I’m wuff an’ tuff an’ hawd to bwuff,’ and he reminds me of that regularly!”

Bruce laughed and nodded, for he knew the man and he knew Fitz’s affection for children, and his absolute love for the memorable moments they give – like the time Fitz’s own five year old son was running in the firehouse, when Bruce heard Fitz yell “MARC DON’T RUN IN THE FIREHOUSE” *blang!* and Fitz’s five year old son’s forehead unerringly found the smooth, stainless-steel face of the tanker’s back bumper.

Bruce smiled as he remembered how the child staggered, rubbed his forehead and hissed a quiet “Oooh,” then set to running again – another moment Chief Fitzgerald still remembered, and still spoke of, to his now-grown son’s chagrin.

Angela and her former classmate, her old and trusted friend, walked in silence for maybe a minute.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Which one?”

“Why you look like nurses used to.”

“Tradition. At work I wear scrubs. One day I did wear this, and everyone thought I was a supervisor. The older doctors and all the parents loved that I looked like a nurse.”

“What about your co-workers?”
“Someone started the rumor that I’d been hazed by a supervisor and told to dress like this.”

“What happened?”

“I dressed like this for a full week. I work a pediatric oncology unit. When I finally showed up in scrubs, one little boy looked at me and he got this God-awful sad look on his face and he asked me, ‘Does this mean you’re not a nurse anymore?’

“I sat down beside his bed and held his hand and told him no, I’m still a nurse, I’m just not on special duty like I was.

“He asked me what that special duty was, and I smiled and said I had a picture I’d show him.

“I had Grandma’s photo in an album in my locker. That afternoon I took it in and showed him. The one with a little girl on her hip and a revolver in hand.”

“What did he say?”

“He looked at me and complained that I never wore high heels.”

“What did you say?”

“I leaned down and whispered that I’d only wear them for him.”  Her voice softened a little.  “He said okay, and he relaxed, and every time I came in his room, he’d look to see if I was wearing heels.”

“Did you ever?”

Angela bit her bottom lip, dropped her head, frowned a little.

She nodded.

“He was … his cancer … I went in his room in my white uniform dress and heels and I told him… I bent down and whispered in  his ear that I was wearing heels.

“He was too weak to move, he hadn’t opened his eyes in a week.

“When I whispered I’d worn heels for him, he opened his eyes and he lifted his head.

“I stepped back so he could see me:  I turned around, struck a long-legged pose, I said I wore these especially for him.”

“He smiled … this big, happy smile, he was in more pain than narcotics could handle, but he smiled because I wore heels for him that day, and then he laid back and closed his eyes, and he was gone.”

Angela ripped a kerchief from somewhere under her cloak, wiped viciously at closed eyelids.

“I’m supposed to handle it,” she whispered viciously.  “I’m supposed to … I’m expected …”
Her teeth were set hard together, her voice little more than a hiss.

“That’s why I like being a paramedic, Bruce.  I can do something!”

Her voice raised a little and he heard something in her voice that surprised him.

Angela Keller, nurse, paramedic, classmate, a pretty and feminine girl he’d grown up with, raised clawed hands to the cloudy sky and clenched them into fists, her voice thickening with a deep and unexpected anger, the kind that comes out when the stresses have built up too far. 

“That’s why I like being a DEPUTY!  I can LAY HANDS on the GUILTY, AND I CAN BRRRING THEM TO JUSTICE!”

She wiped her eyes again, stopped, took a long, shivering breath, and Bruce realized her tears were not from sorrow.

These were tears of anger.

He remembered something his Mama told him years before, that if a girl gets so boiling, ready-to-detonate angry that she starts to cry, he’d be safer standing beside Krakatoa right before it exploded, than beside such a supremely stressed, absolutely angry, female, who was so mad her anger was leaking out of her eyes.

“You can’t do that with cancer,” she whispered.  “I wish it was a corporeal enemy, an entity, something with a body" -- her teeth clenched, her jaw muscles bulged as she snarled, "so I could LAY HANDS ON IT!”

She wiped her eyes again, took a long breath, blew it out.

“So there you’ve seen my deepest secret.”

Angela shook her head, swallowed.

“I’m fighting something I can’t win, Bruce. I won’t quit. I’ll do anything I have to, whether it’s snatching a child from a kidnapper like my Grandma Willamina, whether it’s wearing high heels with a uniform dress and enduring the wolf whistles and catcalls from doctors and my fellow nurses, just to give a dying boy one last smile.”

Angela stopped, raised both hands again, clenched them into fists, shook her head: her anger was spent now, her face crumpled with grief, tears running down both cheeks.

Bruce Jones, newspaperman and heir to an old, established newspaper – Bruce Jones, photographer, reporter, editor of the weekly newspaper – Bruce Jones, son of the mountains, Journalism graduate and professional wordsmith –

Bruce Jones found himself utterly and absolutely at a loss to understand what precipitated this sudden shattering of a confident young woman’s appearance.

He felt more than helpless as someone he’d known since earliest childhood squeaked like the distressed little girl she’d suddenly become, “I want my Daddy!”

Bruce Jones Jr, heir to the Firelands Gazette, editor, photographer, reporter and chief broom pusher, did what he’d heard a certain pale eyed Sheriff say was the only thing a man can do in such moments.

He gathered this woman in white into his arms and held her while she sobbed out her pent-up stresses and her long-hidden grief into the shoulder of someone she’d long known, someone she’d long trusted, someone with whom she felt safe.

 

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHEN THE GHOSTS COME OUT

“Shewiff?”

Sheriff Linn Keller went down on one knee and bent just a little, to put himself on more of an eye level with the little fellow with a plastic mask shoved up on top of his head and a sack about a third full of candy at his side.

“Shewiff, when does the ghosties come out?”

Linn was known as a man of patience, a man who actually listened when someone spoke: he was a father and grandfather, he was a man who knew what it was to raise his own young, and to put that experience to work when he was addressed by the young.

Linn considered this, frowned, rubbed his chin, looked at the bench in front of the Sheriff’s office.

“Ghosts here in town,” he said in a deep, gentle, reassuring voice, “are governed by the Spirit and Incorporeal Regulations, section 3a, paragraph four, and I quote” – he held up a teaching finger – “All haints, boogers, speerts, ghosts, ghoulies and things that go bump in the night, are hereby enjoined and prohibited from manifesting themselves until after Trick or Treat is completed, or nine PM, whichever occurs first.”

Linn rose, turned, parked his backside on the bench.  “How’s trick or treatin’ gone so far for you?”

“Awright, I guess,” the little boy shrugged.

“Got very much to cover?”

“Nah.”  He shifted his weight, undecided, then frowned up at the patiently waiting lawman.

“I already give most of mine away.”

Linn nodded slowly.  “Give it away, or someone took it?”

“Nah. I give it.”  The little fellow set his sack down, turned and wallowed up onto the bench beside the Sheriff.

“You ‘member that new kid with the hot rod wheelchair?”

Linn grinned, nodded.  “I recall.”

“He didn’t get much so I give him some and his little brother didn’t have hardly none at all so I give him a bunch too.”

Linn laid a fatherly hand on the lad’s far shoulder, squeezed just enough to be felt, not enough to exert control.

“You did well,” he said in an approving and fatherly tone.  “I’m proud of you.”

The lad’s face brightened, then fell, and he looked up at the Sheriff with a sad expression.

“I wish you was my Dad,” he said, and Linn pulled the young trick-or-treater in against him, held him for a long moment.

“If you were my son,” he said quietly, “I would be pretty damned proud of you!”

 

Later that night, a single mother was talking with that long tall Sheriff.

She didn’t know the man, but she knew a gentleman when she met one: he swung down from the saddle and took his Stetson in his hand, and addressed her with respect as she walked home, holding a little boy’s hand.

“Ma’am,” the Sheriff said, “I understand your son shared his haul with those less able.”

“He did?” she asked, surprised, and looked down at her son, then back to the Sheriff.

“He is also intelligent enough to concern himself with matters of safety.” 

The mother looked a little puzzled, as if she were unsure quite how to reply.

“Ma’am, do you have far to go?”

“We’re … we moved into an apartment on the other side of town.”

“That’s a bit of a walk, and I’d say you’ve been walking some tonight already.”

“Yes I have,” she admitted. “Marty scampered away and I lost track of him and I’ve been almost running, trying to find him again.”

“He and I were sitting in front of the Sheriff’s office, just talkin’ things over.”

Linn looked at young Marty.

“Son, have you ever ridden a genuine Appaloosa stallion?”

A little boy with a plastic mask shoved back on the top of his head, looked big-eyed at the Appaloosa, shook his head.

“Like to?”

Marty nodded, looking waaaaay up at that big tall horsie that long tall Sheriff had been riding.

“Marty,” Linn said, “if us men folk rode and your Mama had to walk, why, that wouldn’t be very good manners, would it?”

Marty looked disappointed, but he shook his head because he knew the Sheriff was right.

“Tell you what.”

The Sheriff winked at the son, turned to the mother.

“Mother, if you’d be pleased to saddle up, we’ll set Marty up there with you, and we’ll all head for your place.”

It took a little coaxing, but the Sheriff, between a gentle smile, a reassuring, fatherly voice, and a healthy application of second hand horse feed, managed to get Marty’s tired mother to step up on one of the mounting blocks that still lived at the curb in front of several of Firelands’ buildings: he helped her fit one sneakered foot into the left hand stirrup – “We’re Irish,” he grinned, “we put on our left shoe first and we step into the left hand stirrup first. Grip the horn and the – there, like that. You’ll bounce three times, on three you’ll swing your other leg over.  Ready?  Marty, count with me” – and two voices in the gathering dusk chanted, “One, two, THREE!” – and a single mother’s eyes widened as she found herself suddenly a-straddle of the hurricane deck of a genuine, oh my God I hope he doesn’t buck, Western Appaloosa stallion.

The Sheriff squatted, took Marty at the belt with his hands spread wide:  “Up you go!” and a little boy’s delighted squeal shivered across the street, echoed back to the wide-eyed child and the grinning lawman.

“Now put your arms around your Mama’s waist, just like that.”

The Sheriff whistled, a quick, quiet whistle:  “Bear Killer,” he called, and something huge, black and very furry padded out of the shadows, came up beside him, stood.

They started out, walking, Apple-horse’s hooves loud in the evening’s stillness:  here and there, giggling children, scampering, getting in their last begs before the fire whistle blew to signal an end to the evening’s harvest.

“Marty,” the Sheriff said, looking up at mother and son both, “do you know why it’s wise to ride a horse on Halloween?”

Marty blinked, puzzled, shook his head.

“Ghosts can’t get you when you’re horseback.”

Marty’s mother looked at the Sheriff, caught the man’s solemn wink.

Lawman, mother, stallion and mountain Mastiff walked through the gathering dark, and though there were ghosts about that quiet Halloween night, none dare cause trouble, for they were strictly enjoined by the Spirit and Incorporeal Regulations, section 3a, paragraph four, but also subsections (a), (b) and (c), regarding the presence of lawmen, mountain Mastiffs, and Appaloosa stallions.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IS THERE AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE?

 

Linn frowned as he pulled out his phone, muttered “Why does this always happen now?”

Angela looked at her Daddy with big blue eyes and listened: his eyes went to her and he nodded, and Angela rose, picked up her blue cloak, spun it around her shoulders, fast up the neck clasp.

“Howdy, Doc,” Linn grinned, then his face grew suddenly serious.

The Sheriff’s voice went from a jovial, hello-my-old-friend, to a cold, efficient, I-am-the-Sheriff tone.

“She is, sir, stand by one.” 

Linn took two long paces forward – he’d just come through the front door, he’d stopped when the phone rang; when he locked eyes with his daughter, she came toward him, lifting her chin and settling the blue nurse’s cloak on her shoulders.

Angela took the phone, her voice crisp, efficient, professional. “Angela Keller.”

She lifted her head, looked at her Daddy, her face serious.

“On my way.”

Angela handed the Sheriff back his phone. “I’m needed at the hospital five minutes ago. I need a ride.”  She seized her father’s arm, turned him – her grip and her pull were both surprisingly strong – the two made for the front door, and were gone.

Shelly sat at the kitchen table with the feeling she’d just missed something.

 

Joseph was just pulling the flat off the Sheriff’s cruiser.

Every other vehicle – for one of those extremely rare, it’ll-never-happen moments – every other vehicle was out of action: one was at the dealership for warranty work, one was due back any time, and the Sheriff’s cruiser was up on a jack with its right forehoof dismounted.

“Daddy,” Angela snapped, turned toward the barn:  father and daughter ran for the barn, Angela’s lip curling:  a shrill, demanding whistle shivered in the chill fall air.

“Angela, we’ll have that changed –”

Angela seized the gate, slammed the latch back, hauled it open.

“OUTLAW!” she barked, whistled again.

A whinny from the far side of the pasture:  Angela ran her hand into her Daddy’s coat pocket, pulled out two cellophane wrapped peppermints, pulled one open, then a second.

“I hope you’ve got more,” she muttered as three white mares came trotting toward them, blowing happily, nostrils flared at the happy prospect of the round, peppermint swirled, horse crack that was absolutely their favorite bribe.

Linn slung saddle blanket and saddle onto the shining black gelding – he’d grabbed a Sheriff’s office saddle blanket, to give his daughter the visual imprimatur of his office – Angela stepped up onto the mounting block, found the near stirrup, swung a white-stockinged leg over, thrust the blunt toe of her white nursing oxford into the starboard doghouse stirrup:

“YAAH!”

A shining-black gelding and a woman in a white nurse’s dress and cap leaned out into a dead-flat-out gallop:  Angela stood up in the stirrups, hands flat against Outlaw’s neck, bent low, her face shoved into the wind as Outlaw charged the white board fence.

Linn watched his little girl, this child of his loins, streaking across the pasture, a vision in white with a blue cloak floating behind.

He watched, he saw, he appreciated: there are moments when a father beholds a moment of true magic, and this was one, where his little girl became a creature of wings and of wind and of flight.

 He could not but grin as she soared over the fence, and his memory heard the happy scream of the little girl she used to be.

In his imagination, a happy “Wheeeeeeee!” shivered on the chilly, damp air.

Linn turned, curled his lip, whistled:

“Apple!”

Not long at all afterward, a second horse and rider soared over the same fence, landed easily, a second set of steel shoes dug into punished sod and threw clods and grass in dirty arcs.

A second horse and rider pounded at a gallop across the field, over the stream, around back of the bank and toward their friendly local hospital.

 

Bruce Jones was often kidded for wearing a camera the way most businessmen wore a necktie.

He reached reflexively for the implement, his thumb wiped the power switch on, he raised the Nikon, led the subject of his interest the way a trapshooter leads a clay pigeon: his finger was heavy on the shutter button and he heard the camera happily bite moments in time from the fabric of reality and swallow them into its sizable electronic memory.

Talk about a front page picture, he thought.

Now to find the story behind this!

 

Sheriff Linn Keller stood in the waiting room, too impatient to sit, too controlled to pace: his Stetson was under his arm, his good right arm hung relaxed, over the handle of his sidearm, as was his habit: his wife kidded him that he probably stood like that in the shower, and the Sheriff laughed quietly with his wife.

He didn’t reply that she was right, even though she was.

Angela Keller’s hands were busy – her hands knew the work, and it showed.

Dr. Sprague was the new head of their Firelands hospital, brought in after Dr. Greenlees’ death:  Dr. Sprague’s grandfather gained fame back East, eight decades before, when he went into a coal mine to save a man’s life: the roof fell, trapped several miners, they got all out but one, and he was trapped with several tons of a monolithic slab of slate crushing his leg.

Miners and physician alike agreed the leg would be lost, even if excavated – nothing short of drilling and dynamiting would loosen that slab – and so the seminal Dr. Sprague conducted an emergency amputation, by the dim lights of one Davy lamp and as many miner’s caps as could be passed up for the purpose.

This youngest Dr. Sprague was not the solemn, unsmiling sort Dr. Greenlees had been:  he’d come here from a much bigger hospital, and immediately decided two things:

First, he really, really liked it here, and

Second, things were running just fine before he arrived, and he saw no reason to change anything… at least, not yet.

Dr. Sprague was experienced in pediatric oncology, Angela’s specialty: they were treating two children whose parents expressed the strong preference that their young not be taken to the Big City, but rather be kept here, treated here: when one child started getting really bad, really fast, Dr. Sprague knew he’d need an experienced right hand.

He remembered a particularly skilled and efficient nurse he’d worked with, he remembered she came from here, then the light bulb came on and he called an old friend he’d known for years, a pale eyed man who’d recently mentioned his little girl was a nurse, and that she had remarkably bright, Kentucky-blue eyes.

 

Outlaw knew the way to the hospital.

Angela was like a burr in a hound dog’s fur when she was in the saddle: Outlaw leaned hard around the last turn and Angela leaned with him, grinning wickedly:  she sat up straight as Outlaw slowed, came onto pavement behind the hospital, at the ambulance bay:  steelshod hooves clattered loudly on pavement as Angela rode right up to the automatic doors.

Angela swung down, landing easily on the balls of her feet.

“Stay,” she murmured as Outlaw started to go into the now-open, heavy-glass doors: Outlaw muttered something, slashed his tail, wandered over to the nearest grassy patch.

“Typical man,” Angela muttered. “Feed your face.”

She turned, stepped through the inner door, thrust a bladed hand at the open-mouthed security officer.

“Dr. Sprague called me in for a consult.  Take me to ICU.”

 

Bruce Jones was known, there at the hospital: a small town is a community where everyone knows everyone else, a small town's hospital, even moreso: when Bruce came in with two boxes of doughnuts, he was admitted immediately into ER (he left a small box of the pastries to be split between Admitting, behind the front counter, and Security, twenty feet away)

Bruce strode quickly through the heavy doors that swung open when Admitting hit the switch; he set doughnuts on the ER counter, looked around.

Staff was looking at the ambulance doors, there were smiles: Bruce carried the doughnuts over to them, looked out the doors.

Dogs and horses have an affinity for children, and already two children were regarding Outlaw with awe:  a little boy tentatively reached up, caressed a velvety muzzle, and the delight in a little child’s discovery was not lost on these medical grade spectators.

A good reputation, a few edible bribes, a walk back toward Intensive Care: Bruce saved out two doughnuts, carried them stacked on a napkin, and stopped the security officer as he was coming back toward the emergency department.

Bruce waited until the delighted security continued his journey before pulling out a notebook and starting to write.

 

Angela sat, crossed her legs, regarded Dr. Sprague with interest.

He parked his backside onto the corner of his desk, regarded her with an equal frankness.

“I need a damned good oncology nurse,” he said without preamble. “What are you making now?”

Angela considered the question.

Dr. Sprague almost laughed as he saw her bottom jaw slide out as she thought.

She doesn’t have her father’s eyes, he thought, but she does have his deliberation! Look at that jaw while she’s thinking!

“My father,” she said slowly, “once told me an important decision deserves to be slept on.”
Dr. Sprague waited.

“He also taught me that sometimes you do what’s right, and this feels right.”

Angela named a figure.

Dr. Sprague nodded.

“We’ll match that.”

“Moving expenses?”

“We’ll match that too.”

Angela uncrossed her legs, rose, stuck out a hand.

“Deal.”

They shook.

“How soon do I report for work?”

“Yesterday would be fine.”

“It would be decent to give my current hospital due notice.”

“Let me make a phone call.”

“I’ll be in ER, checking on my horse.”

Dr. Sprague watched as a nurse in an old-fashioned, white uniform dress and stockings, picked up her blue cloak, draped it over her arm, departed.

It doesn’t hurt, he thought, that she’s got really nice legs! – then he frowned, turned his head, dismissed the thought.

 

A little boy looked around with interest as a nurse in a white dress and cap wheeled him down the hallway.

He looked at the pictures as they went, and the nurse went slowly, for she knew how isolated he must have been feeling for too long, far too long.

“There,” he said, his voice faint behind his surgical mask.

Angela stopped, looked.

“That was one of the angels,” he said, his voice little more than a tired whisper.

Angela looked at the portrait.

Doctor and Mrs. John Greenlees, she read from the brass plaque at center bottom of the ornate, old-fashioned frame, Founder of Firelands Hospital: a lean physician with familiar features, a clean-shaven, unsmiling man in a black suit, looked steadily, almost sleepily at the camera: the woman on his arm wore the nurse’s uniform of the day, and though a smile might be seen sparkling behind her oval pince-nez spectacles, she too looked at the camera without smiling.

“One of the angels?” Angela echoed, coming up beside him, squatting modestly, her head tilted to show her interest in his words.

Her patient nodded, just a little.

“She was standing beside you when you were working on me.”

Angela blinked, looked at the stiff, straight-spined, formal portrait of Nurse Susan, wife to the original Dr. John Greenlees. 

“Angels do that,” she agreed quietly.

She looked at her young, bald-headed patient: “You said angels. Were there others?”

“Yes,” he whispered, and she saw his eyes go to her nurse’s cap.

“Angels,” he whispered, “wear wings.”

Angela bit her lip—she was grateful for the mask, as it hid this sign of her sudden uncertainty.

She laid a careful, gentle hand on his arm, resting her fingers between the intravenous locks in the bend of his elbow, and further down his forearm.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll show you my angel wings, okay? I have a big shining set of wings you’ll really like!”

Angela rose, resumed her station behind the wheelchair: she rose quickly, so he could not see her reaction to the fatigue in his face, but the absolute, anticipatory delight that lit his face from within.

 

Two days later, a mother chewed on her knuckle as a nurse in a white dress and a winged cap, placed a peppermint in a little boy’s hand and helped him hold his hand up flat.

The mother leaned against her husband and watched, tears running wet and cold down her cheeks, as their son – dying, they’d been told, but they’d been told a month ago, that he’d not live the week – their little boy laughed as a shining black horse rubberlipped the peppermint from the little boy’s hand.

“This is Outlaw,” the mother heard the nurse say, and she could hear the smile in Angela’s voice. “Outlaw is my shining black angel, and he flies like the wind itself!”

A physician stood above the husband and wife, his breath fogging his office window as he looked down on the same scene: his hands were folded behind his back, and he nodded, slowly.

Dr. David Sprague, physician and surgeon, watched a little boy caress a shining black horse’s nose, saw the look of delight on the bald headed child’s face, or as much as he could see above the green-paper mask.

In a quiet voice, he murmured, “Is there an angel in the house?”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SADDLE A KEG OF POWDER

 

A man in a grey Confederate officer’s uniform thanked the quiet young man who brought his breakfast and his newspaper.

The Ambassador could get his news from the glowing screen, but he’d come to appreciate the ritual of the morning paper, with his morning coffee: he ate slowly, savoring the meal, for he’d been a single man most of his life, and he knew the trouble one had to go to, for eggs to taste this remarkably good.

He finished his breakfast, leaned back as the quietly attentive young man removed his plate: the Ambassador returned to his paper, smiling as he did.

There were the usual articles: trade, commerce, politics, humor, but there was a new column, and he frowned a little, if only because this was something new.

He frowned, then he sat upright and brought the paper a little closer and studied the picture.

It was from the front page of an Earth newspaper, a photograph, dynamic, well framed, clearly focused: it was a pretty young woman in a white dress, astride a shining black horse at full gallop: forelegs extended, neck thrust straight out, the young woman astride was not so much a rider as she was part of the horse: just as the shining black nose was punched into the wind, her head was thrust forward, the white winged cap she wore giving the visual of a goddess, with wings on her helmet.

The Ambassador read the caption, the article that followed, turned the pages quickly to find the rest of the article.

More pictures.

The same young woman, with what was obviously a very sick child, and the same horse: she was squatted beside and behind the child’s wheeled chair, and this bald – he couldn’t tell if it was a little boy, or a little girl – this child had an absolutely beatific, open-mouthed smile, a forgotten green-paper mask having dropped into – his? her? – lap.

The Ambassador read the article, read it again.

So absorbed was he that he didn’t realize his adjutant had joined him.

“Orders, sir?” he heard at his elbow, and he lowered the paper, blinked.

“James, have you read this article?”

“I did, sir.”

“Your thoughts?”

James hesitated before replying, as he always did.

“Sir, she appears to represent her profession well,” came the careful reply.

The Ambassador nodded, his mind busy.

“Contact Professor Flanagan for me,” he said. “I have an idea.”

“Yes, sir.”

 

Angela Keller stood on the stage, a vision in her white nurse’s uniform and winged cap, and her deep-blue cloak with red piping, fast at the neck with a gold Thunder Bird.

She released the clasp, spun the cloak from her shoulders – she knew she was seen by more than just this packed college auditorium, she knew the ground-glass eyes of multiple cameras were streaming her image across unimaginable distances, through vortices and tricks and slights of physics, exploited by the Confederacy to facilitate communication to their most distant planets.

She wore an earpiece and a slender, near-invisible boom microphone; she spoke in a conversational voice, as if she were speaking with an individual, and everyone in the auditorium heard her as if she were speaking exclusively to them.

Her cheeks glowed with good health, her deep, Kentucky-blue eyes sparkled in the stage lights, and every soul there heard the smile in her voice.

“Hello,” she said.  “My name is Angela, and I am a nurse.”

She folded her hands very properly in her apron, looked around, giving the impression that she was looking at each individual soul there.

“I understand my picture was in the newspaper.”  She smiled. “That’s what I get for living in a small town.”

She tilted her head and laughed a little:  “I can’t get away with anything!

Not only did I take my Daddy’s horse without asking” – she stopped and smiled, and heard a ripple of laughter wash through the audience – “I got caught doing it” – the screen behind her lit up and showed her astride Outlaw, running hard – Bruce’s several photos and some computer work and suddenly it was a video, and they saw Angela and Outlaw as they dropped down the little grade, over the stream, up the bank and crossing where Bruce had a few precious seconds to take his exceptionally good shots.

“That’s Outlaw, by the way,” Angela smiled, lifting a hand:  she held up a cellophane-wrapped peppermint. “These are his favorite treat. My sister calls these peppermints, ‘Horsie Crack,’ and Outlaw bribes as well as any politician.”

This got a laugh from most present, and drew smiles from the rest; in the televised, multiplanetary audience, even the politicians in her audience, smiled and nodded.

“Most of you here today are either nurses, or have an interest in the nursing profession.”  She tilted her head a little.  “I’ll warn you, it’s not for everyone. Not everybody can do it. “

Behind her, one picture, another, replaced the video images: nurses in scrubs, patients with IVs, tubes, complex and well-stocked hospital rooms; other rooms, almost bare, nurses changing dressings, helping a patient sit up: another, an operating room, personnel anonymous in green scrubs and hair nets, masks and gloves.

“When you say nurse, that’s like saying Chevrolet, there are many different kinds.”

She stopped, frowned.

“Okay, you might not have Chevies on your planet. It’s like saying horse.”

The image of her Daddy’s Outlaw-horse, wearing Angela’s winged cap, appeared behind her, to the audience’s laughter.

Angela turned, planted her knuckles on her belt: “So that’s where it went!” she declared, and got another laugh.

“Okay. You’re here because you have an interest in the profession. Let me give you your first lesson in nursing.”

Angela went to the edge of the stage, bent a little.

“Sir? I need your help. Young lady, could you come up here, please, this nice man will help you up.”

The cameras swung to show a grinning father hoist his little girl up onto the stage, a child of about eight years, wearing a white dress and a little white nurse’s cap.

Angela was modestly on her knees, her skirt pooling about her:  she reached for the little girl, who giggled and took Angela’s extended hand.

“Hi,” Angela said. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Car-ly,” the little girl replied in a bashful voice, her face reddening.

Angela looked out over the audience, her arm around Carly’s waist.

“Folks, this is Carly,” she announced.  “I’ve known her for quite a long time now” – Angela laughed a little – “and Carly, what’s the first thing we’re taught when we are very young? – right after ‘Don’t take off your diaper!’”

Carly looked at Angela with big, uncertain eyes, shrugged.

Angela leaned over, whispered in Carly’s ear: Carly’s eyes widened, she nodded, and the two ladies in white declared loudly, “WASH, YOUR, HANDS!”

Angela was still on her knees, her arm still around Carly’s waist.

She released her grip, held up her hands, fingers closed, and Carly did the same.

Angela looked at the audience again.

“All right, folks,” she called, “what are the ten most common disease vectors?  Right here they are, the Dirty Decimal Dozen!”

She looked at Carly, whispered “With me!” – then she began raising her fingers, one at a time, one hand, the the other:  “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!  Right there, folks, the Dirty Decimal Dozen, the Ten Most Common Disease Vectors Known to Man!”

Angela hugged Carly, nodded to her father, who grinned and came to the stage.

Angela rose.

“Folks, big round of applause for Carly!”  She raised her hands and clapped, and Carly clapped too, and her Daddy took her and swung her down, and carried his delighted little girl back to her seat.

“I understand that the nursing profession is not held to a universal standard, and that on two planets, nurses are regarded as little better than medical grade prostitutes. I’ve been asked to visit, here and there, and discuss improving the nursing profession’s performance.  I can guarantee” – she smiled, an easy, natural smile, the kind that comes from the true beauty within – “I guarantee that anyone who addresses or approaches me as if I am a prostitute, will have their head handed to them.”

The screen behind had Angela, in her karate ghi, shoulder-throwing opponents well larger than she – Angela, in her nurse’s uniform, driving a kick into a red-suited sparring partner’s belt buckle, doubling him over – Angela, in her white nurse’s dress, with a black duty belt around her slender waist, executing a swift draw and driving six rounds into a falling-plates rack, Angela standing unmoving and silent between three hanging bags – then in an explosion of violence, driving shining steel blades into each, opening great gashes in woven canvas, spilling the colored sand from each.

“On a personal note,” she concluded, “nobody is any one thing. I am a nurse, yes, and I am good at what I do” – she held up her hand, showed a six point star on a black-leather carrier, and the cameras zoomed in and froze the image.

A six point star, hand engraved: across the equator, DEPUTY: in an arc above, FIRELANDS, in an arc beneath, COUNTY.

“You’ve all seen Carly’s big strong Daddy,” Angela smiled as the image of

Carly’s father, carrying his giggling little girl, filled the screen behind her.

It was replaced.

The image of a pale eyed lawman astride an Appaloosa stallion, flashed into view: the man glared with cold, hard eyes, his iron-grey mustache curled defiantly, a double barrel shotgun propped up on his hip, muzzles to the sky.

“This,” Angela smiled, “is my Daddy.  He’s Sheriff, and I’m really, really proud of him!”

 

“And who is this fine fellow?” Angela asked, throwing the latch on the pipe gate, swinging it open and stepping fearlessly into the sawdust-floored arena.

“You might not want to do that,” a man cautioned, “this fellow doesn’t like anyone!”

A fuzzy-footed warmblood bigger than the legendary Snowflake, turned to look at her, his ears swinging back and forth.

“He bites,” the voice called, and Angela walked up to the chestnut, her step fearless, her hand out, her voice soft, caressing.

Angela stroked the shining muzzle of a chestnut stallion, murmuring to him, calling him a handsome fellow, whispering the things all men like to hear, words and whispers that work on men and horses alike.

She knew cameras and observers were recording the moment, and she did not care.

“You don’t want to get that close,” a handler warned, and Angela lowered her head and gave him a hard glare: she rubbed the stallion under the jaw and the big, shining warmblood lowered his head, allowing her caresses.

Angela sniffed his ear, then she drew back just a little, ran her hand under his jaw, lifted his head.

“Why’d she sniff his ear?” a voice asked

“Damfino,” came the answer.

Angela shot them a knowing look.

“Coal oil,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“He’ll bite,” the handler warned as Angela teased the stallion’s jaw open:  she looked, studied, nodded, released his jaw, ran her hand along his neck: she moved back to his foreleg, her hands busy: she turned back, there was a brittle crackle, and she held out her hand, flat, with something red-and-white on her palm.

The big mixed-breed stallion lipped the confection off her palm, crunched it happily as Angela lifted his off forehoof, pulled something out of a pocket, scraped at his hoof, tapped the horseshoe;  she went to the rear hoof, her hands running down his legs – men who knew horses, saw that her hands had eyes – she patted his backside, murmured to him, walked fearlessly behind him, picked up his other rear hoof, scraped at it, tapped it with the handle of whatever-she-held, then she went to the forehoof, and back to his head.

An anonymous voice asked aloud, “She ain’t from Texas, now, is she?”

“Damfino,” came the muttered reply.

She pulled the tether loose, flipped it up over his neck.

“You don’t want to do that,” came the cautioning voice again, and Angela rubbed the stallion’s ears, baby-talked him quietly, walked over to the corral fence.

She took the saddleblanket, spun it up over his back – which was a considerable distance off the ground – she pulled the saddle free, grunted as she got its weight – the stallion swung his head and looked at her, but tolerated what he saw, at least until she wound up and slung it up and onto his back.

He muttered and started to dance a little.

Angela unwrapped another peppermint, went to his head, began cooing to him again, fooling with him, before she cinched up, shortened the stirrups, cinched again – she didn’t want to knuckle his gut to get the wind out, she didn’t want to ruin the trust she’d built – a third tightening, and Angela Keller, veteran nurse and Sheriff’s deputy, climbed up on the side of the fence, threw a leg over the saddle, and laughed with delight.

“Come on, Powder,” she called, “let’s see what ya got!”

Men drew back, bets were laid, and a big chestnut warmblood with feathery feet sidestepped away from the fence, muttered, shook his head.

Angela felt him hump up his back.

She pulled on a pair of leather gloves, took two fast wraps around her left hand, raised her right hand and screamed “OKAY, POWDER! SHOW ME WHAT’CHA GOT!”

Doctor David Sprague, physician and surgeon, watched on the Sheriff’s personal computer screen as one of his prize nurses laughed, delighted, right before a horse well taller than she, just plainly came unglued:  he bucked, twisted, sunfished, spun, dove, crow-hopped, and then galloped around the inside of the sizable arena, throwing his head and whinnying as he did, and on his back, a nurse in white, her head back, her expression that of utter, absolute delight, her laughter joining that of the stallion.

Dr. Sprague felt the Sheriff’s hand, warm and firm on his shoulder, and he heard a quiet, fatherly pride in the words, “That’s my girl!”

On another planet, a pale eyed Ambassador in a proper McKenna gown regarded her younger sister’s ride with approval and murmured, “Show-off!”

And on yet another planet, a nurse in a white uniform dress and a white winged cap whooped and yahoo’d with delight as a horse broad enough to feel like she’d saddled the dining room table, galloped powerfully around a sawdust-floored arena, to the amazement of men and the utter and absolute delight of a little eight year old girl who bounced on her toes with excitement, her little hand gripping her Daddy’s fingers, a happy little girl with shining eyes and a delighted smile, a little girl in a white dress and a little white nurse’s cap.

A little eight year old girl named Carly.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND THE MEN TEACH

Sheriff Willamina Keller looked approvingly at her fourteen year old granddaughter.

Marnie sat very properly, her half-glasses halfway down her nose, looking almost disapprovingly at her computer screen: she wore a tailored, emerald-green business suit dress and matching heels, her hair was carefully styled, she looked every bit the efficient office manager, or perhaps CEO of a fortune 500 company.

Marnie sat at a desk in the Firelands museum, in one of the back rooms, a section reserved for research: she and Willamina had been unraveling some knotty threads of their ancestry, puzzling out multiple generations where the young were named for forbearers, where there were cousins with the same or similar names: it was tedious, it was difficult, but they had carded and woven a coherent tapestry of their ancestry, and where possible, they'd harvested, gleaned, discovered, and recorded, vignettes and experiences and achievements of those of their bloodline who'd passed before.

Marnie removed her glasses, rubbed the bridge of her nose: she sat very properly, she sat in a most ladylike fashion: Willamina knew children learn more by observation and by imitation than by didactic instruction, and Willamina knew that her own example -- her attire, her bearing, her posture, her propriety -- had been sincerely, and effectively, imitated by her eldest granddaughter.

Marnie twisted her head, lifted her chin, working the kinks out of her neck, then she opened her eyes and saw her pale eyed Gammaw looking at her with a warm, approving expression.

Marnie blinked.

She'd been considering a matter, and wished to discuss it, and perhaps this was the time.

"Gammaw," she said, "I'm to be graduated early."

"I know," Willamina said softly.

"So is John Greenlees."

"Yes, he is."

"Gammaw, I'm ... I know it's too early, but" -- she turned, looked at the glowing computer screen, then laid her fingers on a reprint of one of Old Pale Eyes' earliest Journals.

"Women my age were commonly married."

"Yes, they were."

"I intend to marry John Greenlees."

"Your reasoning."

Marnie looked very directly at her feminine, ladylike elder, that remarkable woman in phenomenal physical condition, a woman who looked years younger than her calendar would claim, this woman whose pale eyes were looking back with an expression of affection and of understanding.

Marnie took a long breath, lifted her chin, frowned.

"Difficult, isn't it?"

Marnie blinked, surprised, nodded.

Willamina rose, brought her chair over, took her granddaughter's hand.

"It's because you're a firstborn," she whispered. "It's harder for us. It was harder for your father."

Marnie blinked, surprised, raised an eyebrow.  "For Daddy?"

Willamina laughed, nodded, patted Marnie's hand again.  "Oh, yes. His father ... my husband had a very ... military mindset, and often the firstborn is raised first, foremost and above all else, to OBEY."

Marnie nodded, listening, leaned a little closer.

"Linn's first love was a college girl named Dana. Poor dear had scoliosis and a family history of Parkinson's, but he fell for her and fell hard. He brought her out to meet us. Afterward, his father ..."

Willamina looked down, sighed, looked back up.

"My husband demanded that Linn tell him one good thing, just one! good thing, about Dana.

"Linn told me later his mind went blank he could honestly not ... not only could he not think of one good thing to say about her, he could not think, period.

"My husband nodded and said "I didn't think so," and turned away, and any further discussion was ended.  Permanently ended."

Marnie's dismay was evident in her face.

"Linn told me later that he thought his mind went blank was because he'd been raised to OBEY, and his father did not want to hear even one good thing, and so his mind went blank out of obedience to the firstborn's programming.

"You see, a firstborn's first instruction is to OBEY

Immediately.

Without question.

Without hesitation.

The firstborn has the hardest way of it. The firstborn ... parents make their first, their worst, their most frequent, the most egregious mistakes on their firstborn."

Marnie pressed Willamina's hand between her own.  "Gammaw?"

Willamina looked sadly at her granddaughter. 

"Linn came home sick one time and Richard accused him of drinking.

"When Linn denied it, Richard backhanded him.

We were on the second floor and Linn went bootsoles-over-tincup down the full flight of stairs.

"He hit the wall, he came up with this fist cocked, he yelled something -- Richard came down the stairs with his fists balled up -- Linn stepped forward to punch and collapsed.

"I took Richard by the throat and I threw him against the wall and I put my nose an inch from his and said if he ever raised a hand to my son again, I would rip his heart out and show it to him before he fell dead at my feet. It was the first and only time I ever had a head-to-head disagreement with my husband.

"He never raised a hand to Linn again.

"Now."  Willamina tilted her head, looked at Marnie, smiled.  "Tell me what kind of a father Linn is."

Marnie looked surprised, then she smiled.

"Gammaw," she said softly, "he's been ... he's not perfect, of course, but he's wonderful."

"How is he with your brothers?" Willamina prompted.

Marnie's smile was broad and bright, all distress chased from her face with the inner glow of a daughter's delighted pride.

"Gammaw, he is so patient!"  Her eyes swung to the side -- Willamina, a veteran law enforcement officer, knew this swing meant she was accessing memory, and not invention -- "yesterday he was showing Michael how to lay decking in the barn. He had Michael shake the chalk line and bring him the tape measure, he had Michael help him figure out -- he laid out the work on a plank, with a carpenter's pencil, and Michael right there with him -- he showed Michael how to calculate from their measurements and then he had Michael take measurements, and" -- Marnie giggled -- "Gammaw, Michael said "Eight and a half inches and two more of them little notches," and Daddy threw his head back and laughed and hugged Michael and said he'd said that very thing himself! -- then he taught Michael on another plank and another drawing, about halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, and thirty-seconds, and Gammaw" -- Marnie's eyes were shining with pride -- "he showed Michael on Michael's level and he understood what Daddy was teaching him!"

Willamina laughed with delight, nodded, clapped her hands gently together, tilted her head as she looked at her granddaughter.

"When Jacob built that radio receiver, Daddy came into Jacob's workshop just as he was running the tests -- he had a multimeter and he was sticking red-and-black probes here and there, and finally when he was satisfied, he turned it on and grinned like a delighted schoolboy when voices came out the speaker!"

Marnie wet her lips, smiled with the memory.

"Daddy rested his hands on Jacob's shoulders and said quietly, "I would never have the patience to build something that complex."  I saw his fingers squeeze a little and then he said "Jacob, I'm proud of you!"

"Gammaw," Marnie said, "Jacob almost swelled up and burst with pride!"

Willamina nodded, her eyes shining.

"Daddy teaches, Gammaw. I've watched the boys. They don't ... they don't treat women ..."  

Marnie frowned, lowered her eyes.

"Daddy taught them but he didn't teach them how to treat women."

Marnie looked very directly at Willamina.

"They watch, Gammaw, and they watch how Daddy treats Mom like" -- Marnie raised a hand, her fingers curled, a gesture Willamina knew she'd picked up from their Italian barber -- "he treats Mama like a queen! -- and that's how every one of my brothers treat every woman they meet. They take off their cover when they come across the threshold, they speak with respect, they treat with respect."

Marnie smiled.

"I watched ... Jacob lifted his cover and spoke with ... oh, you know her, she's the slattern from that part of town" -- Willamina nodded, she knew the woman -- "but Jacob addressed her politely, and ... Gammaw, I wish you could've seen it ... a streetwalker, became a lady, because of how Jacob spoke to her!"

Willamina smiled, just a little, for she'd seen both Jacob and his father do just that, and more times than one -- girls, no matter how young, women no matter how old, became ladies, in their presence: women of loose virtue became ladies, because that's how her pale eyed son treated them, and that her grandsons learned this lesson, and applied this lesson, pleased her immensely.

Marnie frowned, her hand went to her mouth as another thought occurred.

"Gammaw ... Daddy taught me too."

"Oh?"

Willamina's expression was that of the wise old matriarch, listening, not judging, perhaps remembering what it was to be a maiden, speaking unguardedly with an elder.

"Gammaw" -- Marnie looked up at Willamina -- "I intend to marry John Greenlees."

Willamina nodded, slowly, carefully.

"It's Daddy's fault."

Willamina's eyebrow teased up and her expression was carefully neutral, and Marnie knew this meant she was trying hard not to let some amusement show.

"Gammaw, Daddy ... showed me ... what a husband and a father should be."

Willamina blinked several times -- as if this somehow surprised her, or perhaps the words showed her something she'd known for quite some time, and only now realized, or only now admitted to herself.

"Daddy set that example for me, Gammaw.  He showed me what a husband and a father should be, and he set the bar so unbelievably high that John is the only one I know that ... measures up." Marnie's expression was uncertain as she looked at her Gammaw.

Willamina lowered her head, looked at Marnie over her wire rimmed spectacles, whispered "I know, sweets. He is the only one who meets that high standard. "What else did your Daddy teach you?"

Marnie considered, smiled.

"An important decision ... you should sleep on an important decision if it's at all possible, but if it's the right decision, go with it and don't look back."

"And John?"

"He's a medical prodigy, Gammaw. He's blasting through premed courses like a scythe through ripe wheat. He'll have most of that behind him by the time he's graduated from Firelands, and he and I intend to be graduated early."

"I doubt not that you both will," Willamina affirmed with a squeeze.

"Thanks, Gammaw."  Marnie's pale eyes were serious. 

"I have a memory of your Daddy."

Willamina smiled, leaned back, looked up at the stamped-tin ceiling.

"You'd just gotten your first pair of red cowboy boots. You were on your Daddy's shoulders, laughing. His arms were across his chest, holding your legs to him, he was galloping around in a big circle in his front yard, you had his Stetson at arm's length above your head."  Willamina's voice was soft, her eyes a light blue as she relived a favorite moment from her grandmotherly memory.

"I remember your laughter, and his, and how the sun brought out the color in your cheeks."

Willamina looked at her granddaughter, caressed her cheek with gentle fingers.

"I wish," she whispered, "I'd had a camera."

 

Sheriff Linn Keller frowned at his coffee.

He and his right hand sat in the Silver Jewel, eating lunch in near silence.

Barrents spoke and Linn blinked, looked at his old and trusted friend and chief deputy.

"I'm sorry, what was the question again?"

Barrents smiled -- well, his obsidian eyes smiled, his face was as expressionless as it usually was -- "If you stare any harder at your coffee, it'll either boil away or you'll fall in and drown!"

Linn took a long breath, straightened, squared his shoulders back.

"What's eatin' you, boss?  You're not usually the Great Stone Face this time of day."

Linn nodded, frowned at his plate of salt-sprinkled fries, picked one up, thrust it in his mouth, chewed.

"I was thinkin' of my boys," he said slowly, frowning at the opposite wall.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm much of a father."

Barrents grunted.

He'd seen Linn with his boys, and personally he thought the Sheriff was a pretty damn good father.

"How's that?"

Linn shook his head.

"I'm not sure if I'm teachin' 'em all I should."

Barrents considered.

"Boss, you remember yesterday, we went through the drive-through for coffee?"

Linn nodded.

"You remember that girl at the second window leaned out and spoke across me to you?"

Linn nodded again.

"You recall what she said?"

Linn blinked, surprised, the smiled, just a little.

"She said she'd told my wife that morning that she had the most polite husband."

"What else did she tell you?"

Linn lowered the fry he'd just picked up, and smiled, just a little.

"She said my sons were as polite as their father."

Barrents thanked the cute little hash slinger as she set carrot cake down in front of both lawmen.

"I want you to remember that," Barrents said quietly.  "I want you to remember that there's nowhere they could have learned that but from you.  You've done well and never doubt that."

Barrents leaned forward a little.

"You listenin' to me, or do I have to shove this cake in your face and make you wear it all day?"

The quiet laughter of a pale eyed Sheriff and an obsidian eyed Navajo chief deputy filled the Lawman's Corner, in the back of the Silver Jewel Saloon, and two lawmen finished their lunch in a considerably better humor than when they'd started.

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE VISIT

 

Robert McLean frowned, squinted a little, trying to see into the dark.

“Who’s there!” he demanded. “Show yourself!”

He stood under the lantern that lived on the front wall of his cabin, under the overhang: he  leaned forward, knees bent, the way a man will when he’s bending his every energy into seeing just a little farther into the night: he considered going back into the cabin for another lantern, decided against it: he’d not be able to see much better, but he would be plainly visible, and for a distance.

I’ve got to get me another dog, he thought.

He took a step back, froze.

His heel came down on a rock where a rock hadn’t been when he came out his front door.

He whirled, startled –

Nothing –

He looked down.

There was a walnut sized rock, right where he’d step back onto it, and under the rock was a folded paper.

McLean blinked, bent, swatted the rock aside, picked up the paper.

He frowned as he read the graceful script – in pencil, the words, Look to your right.

He looked, he turned, he froze.

Death itself looked at him from under the brim of a broad, black hat.

“You!” he hissed. “You come to kill me too?”

The figure made no reply.

Black it was, from hat to knee high boots: it wore a long, black duster, unfastened – its belt buckle glowed dull silver, the only relieving feature to the silent, unmoving figure standing at the edge of his porch.

“I never had a thing to do with that.”

“I know.”

He blinked, surprised.

“You’re the … Black Agent,” he hazarded, his voice tentative, turning his head a little but never taking his eyes off his still visitor.

“Yes.”  The voice was quiet no more than a hissing whisper, just enough to carry to his ears.

“You after me?” he asked, fear gripping his belly:  he well knew the reputation of the Black Agent, and he knew when he came upon two men beating another well-dressed man, then seizing his wife and tearing at her clothes, that this wasn’t right: he’d waded into them, he drove the butt of his rifle into the back of one’s head, laid the other’s cheek open with the rifle’s front sight.

Angry, the outlaw let go of the woman’s torn bodice, turned, dropping his hand to his pistol.

He froze when McLean’s rifle shik-shikk’d into battery.

McLean wasn’t a lawman: he wasn’t the best soul God created, he was not the worst, but he had a definite sense of right and wrong.

It was right that he stopped them from causing further harm.

It would have been wrong for him to simply shoot them.

He’d helped the woman get her groaning husband back in their carriage and on their way to the Doc: the outlaws fled north, the woman and her husband drove south, and not far to Firelands.

 

“You killed the others,” he said.

He saw the flat, slightly down-curved hat brim dip, ever so slightly, in an affirming nod.

“You hanged ‘em both.”

Again the shallow, silent nod.

“You come to hang me too.”

“No.”

A horse whinnied from his left:  he turned, fearful, expecting a posse to step up and seize him – he’d known innocent men to be pulled into others’ wrongdoing –

Nothing there.

He turned back.

The figure was gone.

A walnut sized rock rested on a folded piece of paper, on the edge of his porch.

He looked around the corner of his house, drew back, looked round about: only then did he knock the rock off the edge of the porch, pick up the paper, unfold it.

The lantern that hung from the overhang illuminated the same graceful, looping script as the first note.

You are a good man.

You kept a woman from harm and a man from death.

Thank you.

BA

 

Robert McLean led a long and uneventful life after that, but for several generations, tales were told in family moments of how old Robert McLean, one dark night, was visited, was judged, was passed over, by the Angel of Death itself.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SIR, TELL ME ABOUT WOMEN

 

A father and his son sat together in the father’s study, two pale eyed men considering an open book.

“You want to know about women,” Linn said quietly.

“Yes, sir.”

“I one time published a book, you know.”

“Sir?”

“Yep.”  Linn nodded solemnly.  “Titled it, ‘All I Know about Women.’  It went some five hundred pages, and every page was blank.”

Joseph’s eyebrow raise skeptically.

“Women are all different, Joseph,” Linn said slowly. “Your Mama and my Mama, both women, both very different. Your Mama is truly one of a kind. Mine” – he tapped the color photograph – “is descended from a long line of Valkyries.”

Joseph’s expression leaned out a little, as if he were a bird dog striking a hot scent.

“Here’s my Mama.  Here” – he turned the page – “is Marnie.  Here” – another page – “Sarah Lynne McKenna. Each one could be a twin for the other.”

Joseph looked at Sarah’s portrait, frowned as he studied it.

Linn uncovered the page opposite.

It looked like the same woman, it was a portrait Joseph had seen before – this was his Gammaw, in a gown of her own making.

The two were not quite mirror images, but they were so near identical as to gain a long, hard study from the son’s youthful eyes.

He'd seen these before, but never side-by-side.

“Now let’s take Marnie.”

Linn pulled a folder from a stack, opened it, sorted through its several pages, pulled out a printed out picture, laid it atop Sarah McKenna’s portrait and beside Willamina Keller’s lookalike portrait.

Joseph’s lower jaw slid out as he compared the two.

“I … never saw Marnie … in that dress,” he said slowly.

Linn drew the picture to the side, to reveal Sarah McKenna’s oval portrait again, and Joseph gave this the same close study.

“Now.”  Linn pulled out a photograph of Angela – a full length shot, carefully composed – “we know this lovely young lady.”

Joseph nodded.

Another page.

Angela, in the same gown as Sarah McKenna, as Willamina Keller, her hair styled after the same fashion as Sarah’s coiffure, as Willamina’s wig: Joseph looked at these several images, looked at his father.

“Does Angela look like them?”

“No, sir. No, sir, she’s dressed the same but she doesn’t look like them.”

“Is Angela as deadly as the others?”

Joseph looked very directly at his father.

“Yes, sir,” he said, without hesitation.  “Yes, sir, she most certainly is.”

“Is she different from my Mama?”

“She looks different, sir.”

“Is she different in temperament?”

“I … never knew Gammaw that well,” he admitted.

“Is Angela different natured than your sister Marnie?”

“She is, sir.”

Linn nodded slowly.  “So here we have women who look alike, women who dress alike, these women” – he tapped his mother’s, his daughter’s, and his ancestress’s portraits – “these women look enough alike to be clones. I knew Mama as my mother and I know Marnie as my daughter so it’s hard for me to say that they are identical.”  He smiled, just a little, and added, “They’re pretty darn close, though.  And from all I’ve read” – his eyes went to the neat rank of reprinted Journals on his bookshelf – “I’d bet good money Sarah Lynne McKenna acted like both my Mama and your older sis!”

“I see, sir.”

“Now women in general.”  Linn leaned back a little in his high back, armless chair.  “Women are marvelous and mysterious creatures, Joseph, and I don’t have ‘em figured out.” 

Joseph leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, his face resting against his thumbs, unblinking eyes on his pale eyed father.

“Give a woman a ring and your love and she’ll give you a home and children. Give her your love and your faithfulness and she’ll give you more happiness than you knew could ever be possible. Give her grief and she’ll give you more absolute concentrated misery than you thought could ever exist.”

“Force multipliers,” Joseph murmured.

Linn snapped his fingers, thrust a bladed hand at his son: “Exactly!” he nodded.

Linn leaned toward his son, winked, added in a confidential voice, “I’m a lifelong girlwatcher – like the old mountain man said, I loves the wimmens, I surely do – but I don’t anywhere near have ‘em figured out.”

Joseph almost looked disappointed.

“I can tell you women like being treated like ladies, except for the ones that’ll backhand you for opening a door for ‘em – a woman did that to me last year, called me a chauvinist pig – women like it when men do for them, when men make ‘em feel special.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Women compete with one another and women manipulate men, sometimes out of meanness and sometimes for reasons they may or may not know. Too often when they say something they mean something else. That’s why we look for the words beneath the words, the meaning behind the meaning.”

“I see, sir.”

“You sweet on a girl?”

“No, sir, but …”

Joseph’s ears reddened and he managed a shy grin.

“I kinda thought I’d like to be.”

Linn nodded.

“I’ll give you the same advice a wise man gave me,” he said slowly. “If you’re sweet on a girl, set down at her Mama’s table. Take a long look at her Mama, ‘cause in twenty years that’s what your girl will look like. Eat her Mama’s cookin’ because that’s what your girl will always cook like.”

“Yes, sir.”

“My Pa made mistakes raisin’ me, Joseph, and maybe even those mistakes were things he needed to teach me.”

“Sir?”

“I was sweet on a girl in college. Pa didn’t want any part of her. She was not from the mountains, she was a city girl, he just … didn’t like her.”

“Yes, sir?”

“He was pretty damned narrow minded and that taught me not to be so narrow minded as he was."

“I see, sir.”

“He set some bad examples for me, Joseph. I’ve tried to learn from them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t think I’ve been a whole lot of help.”

Joseph looked at the open book, the pages, the open folder.

“I don’t need help quite yet, sir. I just thought it wise to lay some foundation.”

Linn nodded again.  “In this,” he said approvingly, “you are wise.”

“It’s kind of hard to answer a question when there’s no specific question, sir.”

Linn laughed, nodded.  “Yeah, my crystal ball run out of batteries last week, and the Mercantile doesn’t carry that size.”

“Sir?”

“Yes, Joseph?”

“The girl you were sweet on in college …”

Joseph let the question dangle, and Linn realized his son was learning more than he’d realized: this was a trick he himself used in interrogations, the open ended question, the invitation to let the other fellow complete the thought.

Silence grew long between them as Linn's expression softened, as he looked at his son.

“Sir, did you ever see that college girl again?”

Linn blinked a few times, looked away.

“No,” he admitted softly.  “No, I … didn’t know much about women, Joseph, but I knew enough … if I was breaking it off, I broke it clean and we never … communicated … after that.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Linn’s momentum carried him through memories he’d not waded through for a very long time.

“I tried calling her, once … it was a year after I’d married your Mama, and I found Dana died a year to the day before your Mama and I were married.”

Joseph was honestly not sure what reply would be appropriate, so he trod the more cautious path and made none.

“Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I followed my heart,” Linn said in a soft and thoughtful voice, “instead of being an obedient son.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’d have probably run a water plant in Canal Fulton and been a retired widower by now.”

Joseph waited for his father to surface from the pool of regrets and memories he’d waded into.

Linn smiled – a sad little smile, something Joseph had never seen, something that told him his pale eyed father’s defenses were gone – Linn took a long breath, looked at his son.

“I’m sorry.  Ask a German for the time and he tells you how the watch is made.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I had no intent to bring you old sorrows.”

Linn shook his head. “They’re mine, Joseph. My ghosts to deal with. I’ve earned every last one of ‘em and they’re mine to carry.”

Shelly came padding downstairs in fuzzy slippers and her shapeless terrycloth bathrobe, rubbing her eyes and smiling at father and son and their early morning conference.

Joseph looked at his Mama's sleepy smile, and his father's look of absolute, adoring affection, and he knew that whatever there was between his parents, it was something very good, and he offered a silent request to his Creator that he'd be lucky enough to experience this same thing, in due time.

In due time, he did, but that's a story yet to be told.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

 

The Firelands Gazette

Bruce Jones, Editor, Reporter, Photographer, Janitor and now Plumber, and

DUZY WALES, EDITOR-AT-LARGE

Reprinted from the late 1880s edition, as a matter of

HISTORICAL INTEREST AND EDIFICATION

 

BLOOD AND TEETH ON THE COURTROOM FLOOR

---

Attorneys-at-War!

---

Justice Incensed, an Affront to Propriety!

---

On This Date, in the Year of Our Lord 1865, in the County of Firelands, Colorado, the Court of the Honorable Donald Hostetler, in the matter of

… oh, hell, what does it matter now?

Our own Michael Moulton, Attorney at Law, an established member of our Community and respected Practitioner of his honorable Trade, squared off in Court against his professional Counterpart, and presented his Case before the Bar.

The Courtroom was packed: not a seat was to be had, men lounged against walls and convenient Pillars and Posts, and all watched as His Honor the Judge ceremonially ignited his First Cigar of the Session, after which he raised up his Gavel and brought it smartly down upon its Sounding-Block.

It was perhaps an omen that said Sounding-Block split down its Center and broke in Two under this first Blow.

His Honor the Judge proceeded to foul the Atmosphere about his silver-haired Head with great and evidently savored clouds from his hand-rolled Cuban, and he called for the First Case of the Day.

Prosecution brought their case before the Judge, naming the Defendant as a Rascal, a Scoundrel, an individual whose choice to separate himself from the Rule of Law marked him as Persona Non Grata, as one whose Company in our gentle Community should no longer be Tolerated: his Offenses, grievous in nature and numerous  in quantity, were enumerated in detail: multiple of these were Egregious and Shocking to the common Conscience, and caused the Defendant some Discomfort to hear these well-deserved Accusations.

The Attorney for the Defense, one Samuel Mattingly, rose multiple times to Object: each objection was without Justification, as this was the Opening Statement, and not Subject to Objections, and was so was Declared by His Honor, with sharp raps of his Gavel upon the bare Desk, his broken Sounding-Block having been removed by the Bailiff, and given over to a small Boy, who removed the same broken Device from the Courtroom for Repair.

Prosecution, in the person of our own Mr. Moulton, was Interrupted with a Strong and Hostile Voice by said Mr. Mattingly, who rose and Accused the Prosecution of Fabrication, Prevarication and multiple other Offenses: as His Honor enthusiastically Hammered his Desk and Demanded Order, the Party of the First Part did then advance in a Threatening and Menacing Manner toward the Party of the Second Part:  both Men removed their Coats, raised their clenched Knuckles, and Satisfaction being Demanded, and over the objections of the Judge and the Loud and Enthusiastic Encouragement of the Gallery, our honorable and dignified Courtroom became an Arena of Bloody Contest!

Mr. Mattingly, being of a hot and intemperate Choler, committed a serious – indeed, a most egregious – Error in choosing other than Words for his Contest, as was evident in short Order.

Mr. Moulton is known to our Community as a Patient and Long Suffering Man, and our Mr. Moulton is known as a Man of regular Habits, one of which is to Spar in a formal Gymnasium, twice a Week, with men who are Skilled at the Gentlemanly Art of Fisticuffs: we are given to understand that our own Mr. Moulton was, indeed, a renowned Boxer at University, all of which was apparently quite Unknown to his Challenger.

As Mr. Moulton was set upon First, before multiple Witnesses of an utterly Unimpeachable Character, when the argument turned to hard-driven Knuckles instead of reasonably and persuasively crafted Words, the Contest was carried with a quick series of Jabs and a few, well placed Blows:  when Mr. Moulton drew back two steps, fists raised to guard against another Attack, his Opponent was doubled over in Pain, bleeding from a seriously misshapen Nose, and two Teeth were spat out upon the courtroom Floor, having been removed from their natural Seat by a legally launched set of lawyerly Knuckles.

Our Firelands Courtroom is normally a place of dignified Discussion, our Firelands Courtroom is ordinarily the scene of Persuasive and, at times, Powerfully Voiced Opinion: today, as near as can be Remembered, is the first Time Blood has been Drawn in the pursuit of Justice.

His Honor the Judge’s summary ruling was that:

First, Mr. Mattingly was personally charged with, and found guilty of, assault with intent to cause Harm;

Second, Mr. Moulton, as the attacked Party, was innocent of any Wrongdoing; and

Third, as the Defendant was represented by the Loser of this Physical Contest, that his Case was in like wise Lost:  the Defendant was removed by the Sheriff to the local Calabozo, the injured Party was removed by a Deputy to our local Physician for his gentle Attentions, no doubt pained several times Over: first, for Losing his Case; second, for having gained the Offense of the Bench, which is a thing not forgotten in any Future Cases said Attorney may attempt to Represent in this Courtroom: and, finally, the more Permanent Effect of having lost two front Teeth, which cannot be easily Regrown by any Science known to Man.

 

Reprinted from the Original Edition,

As a Matter of Historical Interest.

B. Jones, Editor

D. Wales, Editor-at-Large

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I WOULD COUNSEL WITH THEE

A Daughter’s Nightmares

 

Jacob Keller opened the door, grinned, shoved out his hand.

“Please come in,” he said, and his wife and children looked toward the door and smiled to hear the welcome in Jacob’s voice.

Jacob’s father Linn removed his cover as he crossed the threshold, handed it to the hired girl with his usual wink, then he looked at his pale eyed son.

As usual, he was immediately to the point.

“I would counsel,” he said, “with your wife.”

To Jacob’s credit, his face betrayed no surprise: he turned, lifted his chin.

“My dear?” he called, then turned back to his father.

“Might I offer you my study?”

Linn looked a little uncomfortable; Annette came up, her head tilted a little, curious as she looked from her pale eyed husband to her pale eyed father in law.

Linn frowned and chewed on his mustache for a moment – unusual, Jacob thought, he’s never this indecisive – Linn lifted his chin, the way a man will when he comes to a decision.

Linn stuck out his arm.

“Walk with me,” he said quietly: the hired girl draped Annette’s shawl about her shoulders – the girl smiled a little as Linn gave her an approving look – the pair turned, stepped out the door into the afternoon sunshine.

They walked together, slowly, toward the barn:  Jacob corralled his young, keeping their spontaneous curiosity from flowing out the door and joining Grampa and their Mama.

“Your Grampa,” Jacob explained, “needs some expert advice, and he wants to talk to your Mama without interruption.”

“Aw, Pa,” the youngest complained, “I wanna walk on the ceiling!”

Jacob laughed.

His youngest had been but a wee child when his pale eyed Pa took him around the waist, whipped him upside down, planted his wee sock feet on the ceiling overhead and had him walk across the room at Christmas time.

Every year since, this laughing heir of their pale eyed blood line strutted up to the Sheriff, put his knuckles on his belt and demanded, “Walk on the ceiling!” – and the laughing Sheriff would seize the little fellow with big, callused hands and whip him upside down and plant his sock feet on the ceiling, for this yearly ritual.

“You’re gettin’ kind of big for that,” Jacob cautioned, “and your Grampa’s back is givin’ him hell these days.  Might be you’d best not ask that anymore.”

A little boy’s pooched out bottom lip and round-shouldered shuffle betrayed the lad’s disappointment, and his silence indicated his acceptance of a gently-worded order.

Jacob looked out the doorway, the closed the door:  that sunshine looked really good, but there was a chill in the air, and there was no sense in trying to heat the outside.

He closed the door quietly.

 

“Annette,” Linn said slowly, “you know a young man has petitioned me for Angela’s hand.”

“Yes, I’d heard,” she replied as they walked slowly together, her hand on his arm.

Annette knew the man was thinking – she could almost hear the gears rolling around behind those pale eyes –

Just like Jacob, she thought, and once again she felt a deep and almost filial affection for this lean-waisted old lawman with the iron grey mustache.

“You know the Judge asked her to go up Seattle way to find out something.”

Annette looked curiously at her father-in-law.

She’d known Annette had gone to the seacoast, she knew Annette had taken a sailing-ship northward, she’d heard Annette was shipwrecked and feared lost, until the telegram arrived to tell them otherwise.

The telegram prompted father and son to stand in their little whitewashed Church, hat in hand, and shoulder to shoulder, two strong, quiet men who looked at the rude cross on the back wall and eloquently voiced their relief, their gratitude, their rejoicing that one of their own had indeed not been swallowed by the Deep.

Annette and her young stood silently in the rear of the church as two men, with one voice, with their usual great length of speech, spoke their hearts.

With one voice, they said “Thank you, Lord.”

In all of Annette’s life, she honestly did not think she’d ever heard such an absolutely sincere prayer – not before, and not since.

Annette blinked, returned the lean old lawman’s words.

“Yes,” she said. “I had heard that.”

“Angela hadn’t talked much about it,” Linn said quietly, pale eyes busy, studying the edges, the depressions, assessing points of potential ambush, places of shelter, of cover, of concealment: habits established in wartime and reinforced after years of badge packing, manifested themselves in his everyday life.

Annette waited patiently: the man was ordering his thoughts, arranging them in strictly regimented ranks, that he might march them out as words, words that made the greatest sense with the fewest syllables.

“Her ship hit a reef, or so she said,” Linn continued quietly, then paused.

Annette had the impression of holding the arm of a carved marble statue; silence fairly cascaded from him like an invisible avalanche for several long moments.

“Angela told me, finally … she described how the ship shivered and groaned, as if its living soul were mortally wounded.”

He looked at his daughter in law, his pale eyes troubled.

“She’s seen men die, Annette.”

The pale eyed old Sheriff’s voice was little more than a tight-throated whisper.

“She’s held an injured man’s hand as he surrendered his essence to the Eternal, and she’s heard men groan as their soul realized it was being lost to Eternity, so when she tells me the ship groaned as if its very soul were being torn away, I tend to believe her.

“She stayed with the ship until it slipped under, then she struck out in that cold water. She was determined to find a float, or to swim until she made landfall.

“She was …  a great fish came through the water and grazed her. She said she twisted away and saw its teeth, and its eye …”

Linn’s voice was softer, more distant, he was staring now, staring at someone else’s memory, a memory he regarded with the horror of a man who knew that nothing he could possibly do, could ever make it right, make it well again.

“She said its eye was lifeless, dull, as if this watery murderer was already dead. It grazed her as it passed, and she said it felt like sandpaper when she twisted away.

“She fetched out her knives and it made another strike at her and she drove her knives into it. She said she tried to drive a blade through its eye.

“Something came through the water like a freight train and hit that great toothed fish. Angela heard the impact and she felt it hit and she lost her right-hand knife as the fish nearly bent in two with the impact.

“Whatever it was that came through the water and rammed the fish that was trying to eat her, came up under her and bore her to the surface. She gripped what she thought was a curved saddlehorn on its back, and they broke surface and she took a great gasping breath” – Linn had to stop for a moment, as he saw through his daughter’s words the memory of rows of sharp, white teeth, of black water, seeking her life, of a swift, shadowy savior, lancing through the cold universe that wanted to claim her young life.

“She said it breathed through a hole in the back of its head, and it made for shore – she could hear breakers, and the fish she rode stayed high enough she could breathe.

“She said the fish stopped and rolled over and she fell free and went under, then she got her feet under her and realized she was standing on sand and on rocks and she stood up.”

Linn took another long breath, blew it out, the looked at Annette.

He swallowed.

“She turned and that fish that brought her to shore came up under her hand and blew one last time, as if to say something, and then it swam away and was gone.”

Annette took Linn’s arm again, looked up into his face, then leaned her head against his chest.

Linn’s arm held her to him and she felt him shivering, just a little.

“My little girl,” he whispered. “I let her go to Seattle. The Judge asked my permission to send her, the way he sent Sarah, and …”

Silence, for the space of a handful of heartbeats.

“She came home – you know that already” – she heard the sardonic grin in his voice as he said the words – “she took a long bath to wash off the dust of her journey, she changed into a fresh gown, and she went in to see the Judge.

“He rose when she swept into his chambers.

His Honor listened with his usual grave courtesy as she said that her ship had been wrecked, and lost with all hands, and that she regretted that she’d not been able to make Seattle.”

Annette looked up again, surprised at the honest sorrow in the old lawman’s features.

“She thanked His Honor for the confidence he’d shown in her, but she wished to decline any future assignments, and then she turned and left before he could reply.”

“The poor dear,” Annette whispered.  “I had no idea.”

“Nor had I,” Linn admitted, “and I count that my failure.”

Harsh self-accusation coarsened his voice.

“I did not know the full story until …”

He looked down, took a long breath.

“I woke one night and heard someone … I went … Angela was in the kitchen.

“It was full dark and she had a steaming cup of tea in front of her, and she had my brandy, and she had half a glass poured out, and she was staring at it.  Just staring. 

“Her eyes were … huge.

“I sat down across from her, and she stared into the brandy she’d poured, and she started to talk.

“It was silent in the house.

“Her voice was little more than a whisper as she … she described sleeping in her berth, she described the ship’s … whatever it hit, how it sounded, and she knew she had to dress, and quickly.

“Bless Sarah for teaching her knives, she had her leather cincher around her waist as soon as she had her dress on.

“She said the ship was abandoned, boats launched, she alone remained, clinging to the mainmast, feeling it vibrate as the ship drove blindly through rough water, how it rolled, how she felt its agonies as she clung to the mast … she said it smelled … the mast smelled of mountain timber and of tall, straight trees on the mountainside.”

He looked at her and whispered, “She said that she realized she had but minutes to live, and in that one moment, she smelled … home.”

Linn looked at his son’s wife with anguish in his voice and distress in his expression.

“I’ve been with men as they died, and their last words were of their mother, their last thoughts of home, unless they were screaming.”

Linn took another long breath.

“Angela … did not scream.  She knew these were quite probably her last moments on earth, and her last thoughts were of home.”

He looked out into the distance … he looks so old, Annette thought with surprise.

He didn’t look old when he came through our door.

“She’ll have that nightmare for a long time to come,” Linn said. 

“Did she … drink the brandy?”

“No,” Linn said quietly.  “No, she poured it, and she stared at it, and she saw it happen all over again, deep in that glass of distilled California sunshine, but no … no, she didn’t drink it. 

“I poured it back into the decanter after she went to bed.”

Annette waited, knowing the Sheriff did nothing without purpose.

“I need your advice,” he said finally.

Annette nodded.

“She woke last night. I heard her gasp and choke and I went into her bedroom and she came out of bed sounding like she was drowning, and she threw herself into my arms, and I just held her as she shivered, as she choked, as she left her nightmare tangled in the bedclothes and ran barefoot for her Daddy.”

Linn looked at Annette.

“What advice do I give her swain … he’s a fine young man and he has a good business mind, he’ll provide well for my little girl, and I’m satisfied he will be a good husband. His reputation is excellent – believe me, I checked!” – she saw a sudden combination of approval and wisdom in his look – “but … how do I warn him of her nightmares? How does a woman, a wife, wish to be comforted when she relives the worst terrors of her lifetime?”

Annette considered this for a long couple of minutes, frowning a little as she considered: she let her father in law see her frown, see her nod, see that she was considering his words, for she knew a man had to see that she was actually listening.

She looked up at him, laid a hand on his.

“You know Jacob saved us from slavers,” she said.

Linn nodded.

“My worst nightmare was being seized and gut-punched to keep me quiet. I was seized and bound and a cloth ball forced between my teeth and tied tightly to keep me quiet: I was thrown in a closed carriage with three others, all tied, all silenced, to be sold on the Barbary Coast. I was to be sold to the fleshpots, I was to be chained to a crib and rented out by the half-hour.”

“I remember,” Linn said quietly, and she heard a deep, quiet, controlled anger in the man’s words.

“That was when I first met Jacob, when he stopped our abductors. He freed us and we rode atop the carriage, the kidnappers were tied within, and he drove us to the nearest police-station.”

Her voice was quiet, but with a hard edge as her worst memory turned into words.

 “The Chief of Police and the Mayor were expounding on how they’d stopped crime in fine shape.

“The other girls swarmed them and screamed in their faces, telling them what happened.”

“How’d they like that?”

“Oh, they didn’t,” Annette sighed, “but the reporters crowded around them, shouting questions and scribbling their answers.

“Jacob dragged the crimps out of the carriage and threw them to the ground, he threw the one he’d shot and killed atop them, he mounted Apple-horse and I climbed up behind, and … you know the rest.”

Annette leaned her head against Linn’s arm, sighed tiredly.

“When I have that nightmare again, he holds me until I stop shivering. I cling to him until the terrors pass.”

“What advice would you give me, then,” Linn asked, his voice deep, fatherly, “that I might say to her intended?”

Annette bit her bottom lip, nodded.

“Tell him,” she said slowly, “tell him what she experienced. Tell him it is the one most terrifying moment of her entire life, and tell him that women re-live these terrible moments in the darkness and in the silence.

“Tell him that he should hold her and let her cry, or let her shiver, or let her cling to him, but tell him” – she looked very intently at the Sheriff, her hands tight on his – “tell him above all else, if she wishes to talk, to listen.

“As God smiles down upon us, tell him above all else, to listen, really listen!”

Annette’s face shone with the conviction of a Prophet, with the sincerity of someone who knew exactly, deeply, and absolute sincerity, what she was talking about.

“Jacob listens,” she whispered. “And you listened to Esther. That one thing is the most important.  The most!”

Linn nodded, laid his free hand carefully over her fingers.

Sheriff Linn Keller, widower, father and grandfather, knew the value of consulting with those who knew what they were talking about.

He was more than satisfied he’d come to the right authority, and that he’d just gotten the good sound advice he needed.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HOW WOULD YOU FRIGHTEN ME?

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller sharpened his skills as a master woodcutter sharpens his ax.

He sharpened his skills frequently.

Sheriff Jacob Keller practiced in the Earth-gravity arena his pale eyed sister built to maintain her bone mass and muscle tone; his quarters were also Earth-normal, which was more comfortable for he and his bride both: his wife, a woman of breeding and of sophistication and culture, was a popular dance partner, and she delighted in teaching dance: it was a popular activity, as was common in the early days of the seminal Firelands, back on Earth, well more than a century earlier, and the namesake colony on a cold and distant planet rejoiced that they shared in this happy activity.

It was a joke among the colonists that those who surrendered themselves to Mars-normal gravity, didn’t really have to dance with this strong and beautiful woman, they’d just let her throw them around and look good doing it.

While not entirely accurate, it was true that Ruth could unintentionally overpower her lighter-muscled dance partners.

As she was a woman of culture and of breeding, she was careful to never intentionally do this (although it was the delight of her younger dance students to lift their legs and allow it!)

Ruth came back to their quarters, her face flushed and damp, smiling: Jacob met her with an embrace, held longer than either expected, an embrace neither really wished to surrender: for whatever reason, this pale-eyed Earther, and this woman from another planet altogether, formed a soul-deep bond of genuine affection.

Ruth begged a moment’s indulgence, for she was in need of a shower – something she’d never known to exist, until Jacob introduced her to the luxury of her own personal rainfall – he’d explained how the shower’s individual Recylo turned the soapy water that spiraled down the perforated drain, returned seconds later through the shining, chromed shower head, pure and untainted – Ruth listened politely, and promptly forgot, knowing only that when she turned a fluted knob – so! – water came from the shower head – so! – and she took the time to get herself, as Jacob described it, “Kissing Clean.”

A shower, clean clothes, and she sat at her vanity, working on her hair, humming a little as she did, smiling as she caught the odor of supper being laid on their little table.

She finished quickly – her mother stressed the importance of looking presentable for her husband, for men judge by looks, and a wife must look good for this man who’d chosen her above all other women – Jacob met her, raised her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles.

“Beef roast,” he murmured, “and a few things my Mama used to make!”

Husband and wife ate, uninterrupted: Ruth knew Jacob “had an ear out,” as he called it, for the chime, the annunciator that would indicate a situation to which he would be obliged to respond:  he’d recruited two deputies, knowing that no one individual could handle the demands 24/7, 365 (a phrase which still puzzled Ruth, for their day used a different time-scale, and their year was not the same as an Earth year.)

Ruth savored the roasted vegetables, sprinkled with a cheese of some kind: she’d learned to delight in the difference between the cuisine of her nativity, and that of this new world: she ate with a good appetite, despite her mother’s admonitions that a proper young lady must eat sparingly, lest she appear to be a glutton.

Dishes and what little was left uneaten went into the Recyclo slot in the wall: Jacob insisted on clearing the table, leaving his wife to sit and watch his smooth, well-coordinated efforts.

As they often did, they remained at the table and talked.

Ruth leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers interlaced under her chin.

“Jacob?”

“Hm?”

“Jacob, am I beautiful?”

“You’re damned right you’re beautiful,” Jacob said softly, “and don’t you forget it!”

Ruth’s eyes dropped and she smiled.

“Jacob,” she asked, “how would you terrify me?”

Ruth knew she’d honestly surprised her husband.

Jacob blinked three times, quickly, frowned a little and looked to his left, blinked again, his face suddenly serious.

He looked back at her, reached across the table, his hands open.

Ruth lowered her hands and placed them in her husband’s gentle grip.

“Ruth,” he said quietly, his voice as serious as his face, “are you familiar with Aesop’s Fables?”

Ruth nodded.

“Is there a fable about playing with tar?”

“I … no, I don’t recall one.”

“Ruth, if I handle something that is filthy, that is muddy, or if I handle something covered with tar … it’ll stick to my hands.”

Ruth nodded, her eyes never leaving her husband’s.

“You used the word ‘terrify.’”

“Yes.  How would you terrify me?”

“Is it customary to terrify one’s wife?” Jacob asked carefully.

Ruth wet her lips. “I … have known it to be done,” she replied with an equal caution.

“Has anyone intentionally terrified you?”

Ruth looked troubled: Jacob knew her eyes, swinging left, meant she was recalling a memory, and not inventing.

“I have known terror,” she whispered.

“Was it something done deliberately to you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Was your mother terrified?”

“Yes.”

“In the same way?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

Ruth closed her eyes, shook her head.

Jacob’s hands tightened, very slightly, just enough to say I’m here, you’re safe: he leaned forward, his voice quiet, reassuring.

“Ruth, I’ve known terror. I’ve seen it and I’ve waded knee deep through it and I’ve seized it by the throat and brought utter destruction upon it. I’ve known terror and I know I am capable of great evil and I can bring true horror to bear.

“I’m contaminated, Ruth. I’m contaminated and filthied by every terrible thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve tried to learn from them, to use them as compass-points to show me where never to go.”

Jacob’s voice lowered, until it was an intense whisper: Ruth knew this meant this man, this husband, this other half of her heart, was speaking a stressed truth, something he’d never spoken of before.

“I could terrify you,” he admitted.  “I could bring utter and absolute fear and pure, unadulterated TERROR to your soul, and I could do that from experience.

“Ruth, I see people at their very worst. I deal with monsters and I wade through the evil people do to one another. I’ve seen things and I’ve handled situations that would curl the hair on a bald man’s head and all that has stained my corroded soul, so yes … I have the capacity, I have the ability, to terrify you.”

Jacob released his wife’s hands, stood, came around the table, held his hand out.

“Take my hand.”

Ruth did.

“Stand, my dear.”

Ruth stood.

Jacob held her hand in his, laid his other hand, warm and protective, over her knuckles.

“Tell me why you’re asking me this.”

Jacob’s voice was little more than a whisper.

Ruth looked into her husband’s pale eyes and she looked into his soul and she saw a genuine concern.

Ruth lowered her hand to her belly, her fingers spread, and she dropped her eyes, then looked back up at her husband, bit her bottom lip uncertainly.

Jacob released her hands –

His eyes widened –

Sheriff Jacob Keller SEIZED his wife under her arms, HOIST her off the floor, SPUN her around, THRUST her up to ARM’S LENGTH –

Ruth Keller never forgot the moment, she remembered for the rest of her entire life the moment she told her husband, without words, that she was with child.

She remembered his utter and absolute delight, his laughter, and how he expressed his unadulterated, soul-deep, JOY.

Clearly, concisely, and, just as she’d told him, without words. 

She remembered how he lowered her down, how he crushed her into him, how she felt his now-silent, no-less-delighted laughter, his arms around her: she remembered how he released her, how he went to one knee, looked up at her with shining, pale eyes.

“I’ll bet my sister knows,” he laughed.

Ruth put her flat fingers against her lips and giggled as Jacob rose.

“I’ve told no one,” she whispered.

Jacob took her in his arms again: further speech was precluded as their lips met – Ruth was struck by Jacob’s embrace: no longer strong, possessive: now he held her carefully, kissed her delicately, as if she were fine china instead of strong and serviceable ceramic.

“I’ve told no one,” Ruth whispered again.

“Tell no one until the time is right,” Jacob cautioned. 

“My mother …” Ruth said hesitantly.

“We will tell her together.”

Ruth’s eyes sparkled in the artificial light, but there was nothing artificial in her smile.

“I’d like that.”

 

That night, husband and wife lay, warm and safe under quilts and layers of happy anticipation, side by side, looking up at the nighttime ceiling, and holding hands, as they commonly did.

“Dearest?”

Ruth squeezed Jacob’s hand in reply.

“Why did you want to know how I would terrify you?”

Ruth rolled over, cuddled into her husband: he turned up on his side, lay an arm over her.

“A friend of mine was … her husband did not want children …”

Jacob felt the sadness in her words, or perhaps he felt grief radiating through her flannel nightgown.

“How bad?”

“She died.”

Ruth felt Jacob’s slight head-motion that meant he wanted to shake his head: she’d seen this in the past, and she knew without looking the look of suppressed anger his face would assume.

“You were afraid I would do the same,” he whispered.

“A woman fears many things, my husband,” she whispered back, “and I have never borne a child before.”

“Nor have you been a wife,” Jacob continued for her, “especially to an outworlder.”

“Yes.”

Jacob’s arm was protectively over his wife’s ribs, his hand strong, wide and flat across her back.

“Never lose your caution, my dear,” Jacob said, his voice deep in his chest, rumbling with a quiet strength.

Ruth relaxed, content in the feeling that her husband’s arm, possessively across her, was an iron arch that would let nothing – NOTHING! – cause her harm!

I haven’t found how he would terrify me, she thought drowsily.

I have found how to bring him joy.

Another thought displaced these, and that new, intruding thought brought a tickle of fear with it.

“Jacob,” she whispered, “does this mean you’re going to keep me heavy with child?”

Ruth felt her husband’s silent laughter shivering their bed a little.

“Years ago, some fellows and I were talking about our life’s plans and I said I wanted to raise horses and children.

“One of the girls asked me how many and I said ‘Oh, about a dozen or so.’

“She was shocked.”

“Why was she shocked?” Ruth whispered.

“She thought I wanted a dozen children,” Jacob chuckled, “and she was imagining my poor wife, barefoot and pregnant!”

Ruth sat up in bed, regarded her husband with alarm.

“Jacob,” she quavered, “is that your plan for me?”

Jacob sat up as well, caressed his wife’s still-flat belly with the backs of his bent fingers.

“I’d like to have at least a dozen saddlehorses,” he said, “but I have no intent to sire my own Irish Brigade upon you!”

 

Next day, when he spoke with his sister, he confirmed his suspicions that Marnie already knew Ruth carried new life, safe and hidden beneath her beating heart, even though she’d not been told of this new condition.

“What did she say when you said you’d like a dozen?” Marnie asked, for she knew the story – she’d been there when it happened – Jacob grinned and replied, “I told her I’d not sire my own Irish Brigade upon her, I’d have to have at least two other women to help bear the load.”

“Jaaacoooobbbb,” Marnie said, her voice inflecting upward just a little, a warning note he’d heard before.  “And what did she say to that?”

“She yanked the pillow out from under my head and held it over my face, and I laid there laughin’ like a damned fool!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FAIR IS FAIR, OLD MAN

 

“Sir?”

Jacob sat in front of one of the computer monitors, frowning at the screen.

“Yes, Jacob?”

“Sir … I found something in a back issue of the Firelands Gazette.”

“Oh?”  Linn’s eyebrow raised, dropped: he rose from his desk, came around behind Jacob, a fatherly hand warm and reassuring on his son’s shoulder.

“You made the obituaries, sir.”

Linn laughed quietly.  “That’s a back issue, all right!” – he looked at the date, his other hand came up and he squeezed both Jacob’s shoulders, gently, and Jacob heard his father murmur, “I was about your age …”

 

Linn Keller came home from school with a funny look on his face.

His Mama gave him an approving look as he came through the door.

Somehow she was not surprised at the expression of near dismay on his face.

“You made the obituaries,” Willamina said quietly.  “Supper in a half hour.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Linn said quietly, unslinging his messenger bag and hanging Stetson and jacket in their places:  he hooked off his well polished Wellingtons, padded sockfoot into the kitchen.

Willamina waited, smiling, the way a mother will when she knows something good was said today.

Linn drew and drank two tall glasses of water: he set the glass in the dirty side of the sink, turned, leaned back against the counter with his palms hooked over its edge.

Willamina watched as her son tried to puzzle an answer from the design in the kitchen floor tiles.

Finally he looked up, just as the oven timer went off.

Willamina opened the oven door, pulled on a set of oven mitts and pulled the meatloaf out, set it on the cooling rack.

“Mama,” Linn said quietly, “you amaze me.”

“How’s that?” she smiled.

“You worked all day, God knows what-all you’ve had to handle, and you come home and fix supper.”

Willamina lifted the lid on the potatoes, turned off the burner, carried the steaming pot and lid over to the sink: she drained off the water, raising a great cloud of steam, waited for Linn to pick up the heavy crock bowl and bring it over, then transferred the boiled potatoes into the big pink mixing bowl.

Linn stepped around behind his Mama, got out butter and milk, while Willamina thrust beaters into the mixer: Linn waited until she traded mixer for a hand masher, addressed the potatoes vigorously, smiling all the while, adding a pinch of this, a dash of that, a few twists of the pepper grinder, a double pinch of salt (potatoes always need salt!) – and finally, pats of butter, a long splash of milk, and she began spinning the hot compound into her usual light, fluffy, mashed potatoes.

 

“I couldn’t figure why guys would thump me on the shoulder and tell me congrats, man, why girls were looking at me like they’d never seen me before. It wasn’t until three teachers and the principal winked or nodded or told me “Well done” that I realized it wasn’t some sophomoric joke.”

“Yes, sir?”

“The principal saw my honest puzzlement so he had me come into his office … I remember he sat on the corner of his desk.”

“To emphasize this was not an official visitation,” Jacob hazarded.

“Bingo,” Linn nodded.  “He picked up the Gazette, paged through it, turned it back and folded it over and handed it to me.”

“And you read about yourself in the obituaries.”

“I did,” Linn chuckled, “and found out why everyone was acting different.”

 

Husband, wife and firstborn son sat together at the supper table: mashed potatoes and gravy, meatloaf, fresh sourdough bread, cut into thick slabs, with locally made butter:  Linn ate in silence, aware that his Mama was making this an Occasion, and he had the feeling it was linked to his having made print in the local paper.

Richard ate and talked as he always did, asked Linn how school was going, asked Willamina about her day, listened closely as Sheriff Willamina Keller discussed her investigations, her findings:  Richard made mention of a few of his own endeavors, then he looked over at Linn and said, “You made the paper.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How’d you arrange that?”

Linn stopped eating.

He very carefully placed knife and fork on his plate, sat up very straight, looked very directly at his father.

Silence hung for several long moments: Linn considered and discarded three rather cutting retorts, but realized that his youthful sense of prickly honor would not serve him well in this moment.

Linn’s answer was cold, his words insultingly slow.

“You’d have, to ask, the editor, sir.”

Richard grunted, shook his head.

“The obituaries,” he muttered. “Some people will do anything to get their name in the paper, but … the obituaries?”

Willamina saw the veil Linn dropped behind his eyes.

Linn was silent for the rest of the meal; when done, as he always did, he gathered up plates and silverware and carried them to the sink.

Linn routinely washed dishes; he did so tonight, but he did so in absolute silence, his back to his father – a fact that was not lost on his pale eyed mother.

As usual, Richard paid no attention.

 

Jacob Keller read the obituary, glowing on the computer screen, black letters on a white background, a widow’s tribute to a family that lived nearby.

She described how her afternoon nap was interrupted by the sound of a mower, as a neighbor boy rode it around her lawn, following up with a weed eater, immaculately barbering the yard her late husband used to tend.

She described how she’d startled at a tap at her door, how she’d peered out the window to see the same lean, youthful neighbor with a cloth covered woven basket … he’d brought her supper, knowing it was the anniversary of her husband’s death, knowing she’d probably not feel like fixing a meal.

She wrote of hearing an odd scraping sound outside, through the winter, how she parted the curtains and saw the same school-aged neighbor shoveling her walk and her driveway – how he just showed up, shoveled it off, then swept it as well, and disappeared into the winter’s dark.

It was the woman’s obituary, but she’d written it herself, and she spoke to the many kindnesses she’d experienced, but she made special mention of a young man, still in school, who went out of his way to make sure she was well, and provisioned, how he’d seen her tire was flat, how he’d removed it, taken it for repair, brought it back and reinstalled it, and her unaware of it until a month later, when she realized one of her tires was brand new.

Jacob nodded slowly.

“She wrote her own obituary,” he said slowly, “and she mentioned you in it.”

Jacob heard his father’s voice, gentle, deep, reassuring as the warm hands that laid on his shoulders.

“That,” he said, “is why I speak to the things you do right.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The Sunday following, Reverend John Burnett addressed an observation from the pulpit – how difficult forgiveness could be, especially when it came to forgiving the man in the mirror.

“Fair is fair,” he said: “we are not the most terrible moment of our lives.  We are not the worst mistake we’ve ever made. Neither is anyone else.”

Jacob considered this as they rode home: his arm across his chest, his other arm bent, frowning, forefinger tight against his nonexistent mustache, he silently considered their Parson’s words.

Linn backed the Jeep into its usual spot; the family dismounted, and Linn looked at his son, then headed for the barn.

Jacob followed.

Father and son whistled up their saddlemounts, father and son swung into saddle leather, father and son rode side by side:  Marnie and Shelly watched them stepping out lively, two tall, lean men on two really good looking horses.

They stayed side by side as they crossed the far field, across the stream, around back of the original main street, across behind the bank and then up Graveyard Hill.

Jacob was not at all surprised when his father halted, dismounted at the family section.

Father and son, side by side, walked up to one of the newer graves.

Jacob knew it was his grandfather, a man he never knew, only from what he’d heard, what he’d read:  he removed his Stetson when his father removed his own.

Linn stood on the man’s grave, glaring cold-eyed at the oval portrait laser engraved in glass-smooth quartz.

“Jacob,” he said, “I reckon the Parson is right.”

“Yes, sir?”

“The man in the mirror is the hardest one to forgive.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Here lies the second hardest.”

“Yes, sir.”

Linn’s jaw slid out a little.

“By now, Pa,” he said, “God Almighty has burnt away your sins, so this won’t hurt you now and that’s a shame. I’d honestly like to beat you within an inch of your life. You made mistakes with me I’ll never forget and I don’t count that a bad thing. You taught me with your mistakes.”

Jacob looked at his father, surprised.

“You showed me how not to treat my sons,” Linn said quietly, menace thickening his voice. “So here it is, if you were alive, what I’m about to say would hurt worse than any beatin’ I could give you.”

Linn’s eyes were pale, cold and hard as he glared at the impassive image engraved on a shining-smooth quartz tombstone.

“I was taught an abusive parent never, ever remembers abusing their child, and that’s as may be, but it is a maxim that the abused child never, ever forgets having been abused. The hurt done a child can override and negate all the good the abusive parent ever did, so here it is, from the child you wounded.”

Linn took a step close to the tombstone and said slowly, his voice edged with a deep and abiding anger, “Old Man” – he hesitated, took a long breath --  “I, forgive, you!”

Jacob waited to see if the earth was going to shiver and crack and yawn open, if the tombstone was going to split down its middle, or maybe the image in the portrait oval was going to scream in agony or in anger.

Nothing happened.

Linn took a step back, looked to the side, to the next grave, the other half of the tombstone.

“Bless you, Mama,” Linn said softly, then he looked at Jacob.

“Sir,” Jacob asked quietly, “if he was that bad … why forgive him?”

“The Parson said it right today. No man is his worst mistake. Not me. And not…”

Linn’s eyes went to his father’s tombstone.

“And not him.”

“I see, sir.”

Father and son replaced their Stetsons, turned.

“Like the Parson said,” Linn replied.  “Fair is fair.”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I SLEEP WELL, THANK YOU

“You ran.”

“Yeah.”

“You ran from me.”

“Yeah.”

“You should know better.”

“I wasn’t thinkin’.”

“No, I’d reckon not.”

Two men spoke in quiet voice, near a spring, at a trickle of a stream’s headwaters.

It had been a long ride:  lawman and lawbreaker, one fleeing, one pursuing: the lawman’s horse was the better of the two, and when the fleeing horse flagged and Sexton realized he’d had it, he turned to face his pursuer.

Sheriff Linn Keller rode up on him, slow, satisfied he wasn’t coming into an ambush: he knew Sexton was a stranger hereabouts, he knew Sexton had no associates this close to the Nation.

He came up close, stopped.

Two men sat horseback and regarded one another.

Linn took a long look at the man’s horse.

“Might want to dismount,” he said, “water your horse an’ build a fire. I’m for coffee.”

Two men dismounted together.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller turned the wheel, just enough, just enough, then came off the throttle, braked briefly, quickly, firmly, straightened his cruiser.

The vehicle he’d just tapped swung, rubber screaming:  Linn came down harder on the brakes, watched as the fleeing felon he’d just pitted, caught the shoulder, jerked back around straight, then dropped into the ditch and stopped, fast.

Linn laid on the brakes, hard, reversed quickly, stopped.

“Firelands, Firelands One,” he called. “Pursuit ended, send the squad, Orrin McVey’s barn.”

“Roger that, One,” he heard.

Linn thumbed the button, released the shotgun: he was an old lawman, and an old lawman likes his shotgun, and as he came out of the cruiser, he slammed the action open, slammed it shut, running a green-plastic Remington 00 buck round into the chamber.

He sauntered up to the driver’s side, looked through the window at the deflated air bag, at the man laid over the steering wheel, groaning.

Linn waited.

He watched as the man reached down, saw the seat belt come slack: one hand was welded to the steering wheel, the other one came up, shaking, open.

Linn waited.

He saw the man reach over, try to open the door, saw him shoulder against the closed door – twice, a third time.

Linn made a spinning motion with his hand:  Roll it down.

The window whined as it lowered, quickly, smoothly.

“Out,” Linn said, his voice unsympathetic.

The driver started out the window, struggled out to belt level –

Linn saw movement behind the driver –

Rear seat –

Threat –

Linn took a fast sidestep, shotgun rising by itself, he felt the comb of the gun hit him under the cheekbone and he saw the sideglass explode outward and the shotgun shoved him back and he wondered Who in the hell just fired my gun? and his off arm jacked the fore end and rammed it forward and he saw a figure drop out of sight.

Linn strode forward, seized the driver by the back of the belt, yanked him out, hard: he hit the ground on his back and laid there as Linn knocked out crazed sideglass with his gunmuzzle, took a look inside.

He drew back, looked at the driver, still flat on his back, half on the gravel shoulder and half on pavement.

Linn looked down at him like he was examining a specimen in a Petri dish.

“You ran.”

“Yeah,” the driver gasped, grimacing.

“You ran from me.”

“Yeah.”

“This is my county,” Linn said quietly, his voice a deep and menacing rumble. “Mine. You don’t run from me.”

 

A pale eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache hunkered by a small, smokeless fire, another man hunkered on the other side of the steaming coffeepot.

“You ran from me,” Linn said.

“Yeah.”

“This is my county,” Linn rumbled.  Mine.  You don’t run from me.”

The Sheriff’s voice was quiet, which made it all the more menacing.

The criminal stared into his tin cup of scalding coffee.

Of a sudden he had no more appetite.

 

Linn watched as the wrecked SUV was winched onto a rollback, as it was tarped down:  the squad was there and gone, taking the driver in, with a deputy accompanying the prisoner, as the prisoner was cuffed to the ambulance gurney.

The shots-fired team already had the evidence markers picked up, the scene was cleared, Linn looked around, then got back in his cruiser.

He went a hundred yards to a handy turn around, pointed his nose toward home.

Skid marks and tore up mud in the roadside ditch, and a brief, bright sparkle of shattered safety glass where the wrecker driver broomed it off the pavement, were the only indicators anything ever happened here.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller sat, impassive, as His Honor the Judge pronounced the criminal guilty, and passed sentence:  death by hanging, may God have mercy on your soul.

The church busybody scuttled up to the Sheriff so soon after the Judge swung his gavel that Linn was satisfied she had to have a head start on His Honor’s hammer.

“Sheriff,” she scolded, “that poor man is going to die!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the Sheriff replied mildly.

“You, you, you brought him here so he could be hanged!”

Linn’s pale eyes were patient as he regarded the sputtering old woman.

“Sheriff, how can you sleep at night!”

Sheriff Linn Keller stood in the courtroom and smiled gently at the town’s busybody.

“Ma’am, I sleep well, thank you.”

 

The inquest, as usual, was public: the Sheriff’s testimony, as it generally was, was concise, brief, to the point: a gun was pointed at him, this constituted a threat to his very life, he acted to keep himself alive in the only way available to him, and that was to send a charge of heavy shot into the fellow who’d just taken a shot through the rear window glass, at him.

It was not a surprise to the Sheriff, the Judge, nor the prosecutor, that this was no-billed.

His Honor the Judge swung his gavel and dismissed the proceedings.

The town busybody scuttled up to the Sheriff less than a heartbeat after the Judge’s gavel smacked the desk top, disapproval in her expression and indignation in her posture.

“Sheriff,” she scolded, “you killed a man!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the Sheriff agreed, tucking his Stetson under his off arm.

“But that’s terrible, Sheriff!  How can you even sleep at night?”

 

The tall, lean, pale eyed Sheriff of Firelands County, Colorado, stood in the courtroom, facing the town’s busybody.

He smiled ever so slightly, the curled ends of his iron-grey mustache lifting a little as he did.

“Ma’am,” he replied honestly, “I sleep well, thank you.”

Edited November 10, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TOTENKOPF

Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller slammed the cruiser's door and stomped toward the group on the football field.

"NOW WHAT'S THIS I HEAR ABOUT A BUNCH OF HELL RAISIN' TROUBLE MAKIN' SORTS!" she yelled, her voice pitched to carry:  she shouldered her way into the center of the group, then she threw her head back and laughed, seized two of the men, hugged them to her and laughed, and they laughed with her: a half dozen men crowded in, demanding their turn, some hoisting her off the ground they way they used to hoist her pale eyed grandmother, back when they were young, when they were skinny, when they were football players for Firelands.

Football practice was at an utter and absolute halt.

Most of the players had some idea what was going on.

The coaches all did.

The remainder of the Firelands High School Football Team did what puzzled young men do when a woman comes in and causes utter confusion.

The stood, and they stared.

Marnie curled her lip, whistled, thrust a knife-hand at the head coach.

"HEY COACH!  HOW'S THEIR ROAD WORK?"

"LACKING!" came the shout. "THEY NEED CONDITIONED!"

Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller looked at one of the fathers, lifted her chin, then grinned in absolute delight.

One of the fathers raised a pole, and on the pole, a pennant, and on the pennant, a skull, missing its lower jaw.

"FALL IN, DAMN YOU, OR I'LL HAVE YOUR GUTS FOR GARTERS!" Marnie screamed. "EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU MISERABLE EXCUSES FOR A HUMAN BEING, FALL IN!"

Fathers of the football players fell in, the way they had for a pale eyed Sheriff who used to scream at them in the same manner, a pale eyed woman who ran with them, who ranked them and spaced them and paced them, a woman the fathers remembered as one of the most inspiring people they'd ever known.

"Firelands, Delta Mary Seven, on site for assigned special detail, out of vehicle."

"Roger that."

"GUIDON!" Marnie barked.

Five wide, four deep, the Firelands Football Team, arranged into ranks by their knowing fathers, looked at one another:  the fathers, behind, made a smaller block, but their ranks were just as precise.

"DRESS RIGHT, DRESS!"

Marnie waited until fathers slipped between the ranks, explained to sons and sons of friends, waited until the ranks were dressed.

The guidon was carried to the front, and Marnie's eyes narrowed:  she thrust a knife hand at the skinniest member of the football team, called him by name, waved him to the front.

She stood him between two linebackers in the front row, then had him pace forward -- "Pace off on the left, toward me, halt!"

She thrust the guidon into his surprised hands, then laid her hands on his shoulders.

"You," she said quietly, "are the patrol leader. You'll set the pace. Everyone will look to you for that leadership."

He looked surprsied, then grinned suddenly, the way a young man will when he is suddenly given a good dose of confidence.

"ALL RIGHT, WHO'S THE MEDIC?"

Teammates looked at one another, turned and looked at a young man in the next to last row.

"MEDIC, FALL OUT, WITH ME!"

Fathers looked at one another and grinned, but did not break ranks.

Marnie laid her hand on his shoulder, guided him to the rear of her cruiser.

"You know CPR," she said.

He nodded.

"You teach CPR."

He nodded again.

"That's the best way to learn something, teach it. How about first aid?"

"I'm too young to test for EMT, but I passed their course."

Marnie stopped, looked at him again.  "I thought I recognized you!" she said quietly, then opened the back of the cruiser.

"This should be old home week for you, then."

She thrust a backpack into his arms.

He grinned -- a quick, boyish grin:  it was the same backpack he'd trained with when he took the training with the Firelands Fire Department.

"Here.  Let's get this on you.  Turn around."

He ran his arms through the padded shoulder straps; Marnie adjusted them just a little, ran the waist belt around him, nodded, then reached into the cruiser and brought out two bottles of water, thrust them into their pockets on the front of his orange-nylon harness.

"I need you right where you were," she said. "You'll fall back with any Tail End Charlie, anyone with cramps, any injury."

He nodded.

"BACK IN RANKS, SOLDIER," Marnie yelled, jogging to the front:  "YOU'RE NOT ON VACATION HERE!  ALL RIGHT, YOU SORRY BUNCH, LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN KEEP UP WITH A MERE GIRL! YOU WILL RUN IN STEP, YOU WILL STAY WITH ME, YOU WILL SING WHEN I SING, YOU WILL STOP WHEN I STOP, DO YOU GET ME?"

"WE GET YOU SIR!" every one of the grinning fathers shouted, their enthusiastic, unified yell echoing off the brick side of the high school building.

"GUIDON, UP! DETAIL! FORWARD!"

The Firelands Football Team, both past and present, leaned forward into a nice easy run: strong young men, motivated by a pale eyed woman, the way the Firelands Football Team had been motivated, falling into a unified running cadence the way their fathers had, when their fathers were their age.

Willamina's Warriors, and their sons, ran once again behind a pale eyed woman, and behind the same hand embroidered Totenkopf guidon that led Willamina's Warriors not many years before.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SOMETIMES IT'S NOT PREDICTABLE

I stood on the crumbling concrete sidewalk in front of one of two surviving row houses in Old Washington.

I blinked, surprised, wondering how in the hell I got there, and then I relaxed a little.

This was my imagination.

Ahead, on the right, the post office: I turned, looked up hill at Emma Bond's house, the swing where that fine old woman and I used to sit and swing and discuss the world.

Emma Bond was the friendly neighborhood rebroadcast center.

If it was to be known, she knew it, but a gossip she wasn't.

I turned, looked up the street at the Old Colonial Inn.

When Morgan's Raiders came through here, they came right up to this T intersection and boiled both ways, they raided the post office, the general store, they terrified the blacksmith and he tended their horses in an absolutely fear-silenced, sweat-drenched angst, for these were those Rebel devils he'd read about in Harper's Weekly, the ones that slaughtered men, snatched up women and ate children roasted over a fire in the middle of the street.

I wondered, as I looked around this little town where I used to live, where the apartment was that General Morgan himself stopped, and tapped at a door, and swept off his fine plumed hat when a woman answered.

I smiled a little at the story I'd read: how he asked politely if he might have a drink of water, and how she'd burst into tears and confessed that a moment before, she'd had a pistol pointed at him through the window, for she recognized him by the star that he wore on his breast.

General Morgan bowed his head for a long moment, then looked up and said in a gentle voice, "Mrs. Morgan is often on her knees, imploring God Almighty for my safety. I doubt me not in that moment, that my wife was imploring the Almighty to keep me safe."

He drank the water she brought him and thanked her courteously, and went on his way.

There, in the Colonial Inn, one of his officers lay down for a much needed rest, but when the shout went up that the Yankees were sighted in pursuit, he rose and hastened to join his men, and left the pocket-case containing his wife's image there on the dresser beside the bed.

I closed my eyes and took a long breath.

I opened my eyes and smiled.

I was no longer in Old Washington, Ohio.

I was in Firelands.

I stepped up -- one step, two -- and instead of standing on decaying cement, I stood on a familiar boardwalk, one I've trodden many times in my imagination.

I no longer had a row house of locally-fired, weathered brick on my right.

I had a brightly-painted saloon, and over the windows, the carefully-crafted, freshly-repainted sign, THE SILVER JEWEL.

I nodded, shifted the rifle slung muzzle down from my off shoulder, paced forward, gripped the bright-brass, hand-lacquered door handle, hauled the door open.

I took a moment to admire the frosted scrollwork on the inside of the glass.

I stepped inside and it smelled just as I'd imagined: tobacco smoke and beer and the sweat of honest labor, a woman's perfume -- Tilly must've only just vacated her station behind the mahogany hotel counter -- pigeonholes behind the counter, some with keys, some without.

I looked around.

Empty.

I turned, looked at shining beer mugs, at ranks of heavy glass bottles with old fashioned labels, at the beer tap with the long neck I knew ran to the underground storage, where the beer would be kept pleasantly cool.

Curtains were brightly colored, clean, the brass foot rail, though worn, was polished, the floor was little short of immaculate:  I looked up at the stamped-tin ceiling panels, carefully fitted, the seams fiddlestring-straight.

"Someone," I murmured, "took the trouble to make sure those were just right."

"Yes they did," a voice said behind me.

I turned.

"Mr. Baxter, I presume."

He was exactly as I'd imagined: the hair, the ribbon necktie, the white apron, a long bar towel over his off shoulder, and he was using its tag end to polish a beer mug.

"I didn't start here until after the Sheriff did," he said, "so I wasn't here when she was put up, but ..."

He looked up at the ceiling, smiled.

"I've put those up myself."

He smiled a little at the memory.

"It's not easy to get that long a seam, dead straight!"

I nodded, looked from the ceiling to behind the bar, and --

Gone --

I sighed.

"That's imagination for ya," I muttered.

"YES IT IS AN' DON'T YE FERGET IT!" an indignant Irishwoman declared from behind me.

I turned, grinned.  "Daisymedear!" I exclaimed, delighted, and she shook a wooden spoon at me, frowning.

"Don't you Daisymedear me, you scoundrel!" she scolded, her syllables rapid, sharp-edged, her voice loud, pitched to penetrate a man's inebriation or his inattention. 

" 'Tis only me husband calls me that, an' if ye think ye'll put yer hands on me I'll take me fryin' pan to ye like I did Dirty Sam!"

I laughed with absolute delight at this diminutive, fair-haired, milk-skinned, nose-freckled wife of the big Irish Fire Chief: I blinked, and she was gone, and someone I knew from years before stood there, blue-eyed and fair-haired, smiling as gently as I remembered.

"My God, you're young," I whispered.

I was afraid to move, afraid to destroy whatever fragile magic this could be.

"I regret not marrying you," I said softly.

"You were needed elsewhere," Dana replied, smiling that gentle smile I remembered from the days when we were in college together.  "If you'd married me, you would never have done all that you have" -- she smiled a little more -- "and I was needed elsewhere, too."

Dana Lynn Messman, my first love, faded, and was gone.

I looked down the hallway, to the back door -- behind it, Shorty's livery; a stage door on the right, Daisy's kitchen, on the left -- all solid and real, not at all as ethereal and tentative as my imagination first painted them.

I turned back, looked around, stepped outside, frowned.

The Sheriff's office, yonder, that little log fortress: to the left, Digger's funeral parlor, windows shining and freshly washed, I saw the display coffin inside the parlor -- I swung my gaze left, to the Mercantile, and I knew if I turned left and paced up the boardwalk, down the steps, across the alley, back up another short stack of steps, I would come to the original library and newspaper office.

I wondered idly if they had a typewriter, then I realized I hadn't researched when the Smith-Corona hit the market, and I shook my head.

I felt a step behind me, turned.

Mr. Baxter stood there, arranging the towel neatly over his shoulder.

"You're trying to come up with a story," he said quietly.

"Yes," I nodded.

"You're trying too hard."

"I'm used to posting one a day right along regular."

"Your well is dry," he said, giving me a wise look: "you're tired. Look at what you've done. Your father in law just had surgery, you've stayed with him and tended house, you've fixed meals and handled laundry detail and trash detail and gotten groceries and made sure he didn't have to exert while he healed up. Your wife's not been entirely well and you're taking care of her."

I nodded, took a long breath.

"You're carrying a rifle you've meant to sight in for three months. You've been so busy doing for everyone else, you haven't done for you."

"I write for me," I countered. "I've laid a number of ghosts with my stories."

"You have that," the barkeep with the neatly-pomaded hair and fiercely-curled mustache agreed, "but when you run yourself too short, those ghost come philtering up out of their graves, no matter how many rocks you pile on top of 'em."

I sighed, closed my eyes.

"You're right," I muttered, and opened my eyes.

I was no longer in Firelands.

There were no more shining mountains rising aggressively behind wind-dried buildings or the wagon-rutted main street.

I looked at my laptop, at the metal bookcase I had yet to get moved into the spare room to hold my wife's scrapbooks and albums, I looked at the TV set and the talkies in their chargers ranked on top of the wooden entertainment center.

My wife coughed from my left: she reached for the big steaming mug of tea I'd brewed for her earlier, took a sip.

She looked at me and said "That asthma attack just took everything out of me.  Thank you for getting my inhaler."

I leaned my head down into my hand and considered that maybe Mr. Baxter is right.

I can't think of a damned thing to write today.

Maybe I'll just take things easy and try again tomorrow.

By then Angela might walk up and kick me in the shins, or Jacob could gallop past, Old Pale Eyes might lay his hand on my shoulder and offer a quiet suggestion.

It's hard to tell.

Firelands is sometimes less than predictable.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHISTLE HOOK

Deputy Marshal Willamina Keller thrust one foot, then the other, into her fireboots.

She stretched the elastic over the brim of her brown uniform Stetson, shrugged into the yellow slicker with reflective strips she glued on herself.

Chauncey Marshal Joe Hunt grinned at her as she turned to head for the roadway.

"Does this mean I call you Whistle Hook now?" he teased.

Willamina turned, smiled thinly:  "Call me anything but late for supper," she said, "but if you hear that whistle, get the hell off the road!"

"Aw, now, nobody's comin' up Thirteen from that end! It floods by the Old Folks' Home and nobody comes through there!"

Willamina gave him One of Those Looks and clumped away into the steady rainfall.

Sunday Creek flooded with regularity -- it was yellow with acid mine drainage, not as strong now, as the abandoned coal mines had been leaching sulfur and iron into the water for more than a hundred years -- and emptied into the Hocking River, below the village's sewer plant.

The Hocking was high, thanks to a week's intermittent rain, the last two days, near nonstop: the water was across South Main now, and Willamina had knocked, beaten and profaned the village's yellow-and-black-striped sawhorses together, placed them in the oncoming-traffic lane below the rise where State Route Thirteen came into a "T" intersection, hesitated, then officially turned left and followed the mighty Hockhocking River, past what used to be the county poorhouse, past the village's wellfield, and snakewobbled its way along the riverbottom to Athens, the county seat.

To the right it became State Route 682, which headed for the same county seat, only on higher ground -- as a matter of fact, Ohio University was supposed to be built on the high ground, and would have been, had not the surveyors gotten drunk and reversed the two places on their hand drawn maps.

Willamina turned on the flashing yellow lights, one on either end of the sawhorse, she hung the reflective orange diamond from the center of the sawhorse -- HIGH WATER, it read -- she clumped her way back toward her car, parked under the new gas station canopy.

She turned, frowning, then looked toward the Marshal and the other deputy.

They were away from the intersection, headed toward the flooded roadway on the south end, probably looking for anyone coming through the side streets to skirt around the road closed sawhorse they'd set a little north of Willamina's warning.

She turned again, heard the unmuffled big-block and the sound of a vehicle fighting its way through floodwaters.

Her hand knifed into the gap in her raincoat, one snap parted as she seized the whistle from its hook: her other hand reached under the tail of her yellow plastic slicker, seized the three cell Mag Lite, yanked it free, thumbed the switch as she brought it up over her shoulder and pointed it southward.

Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it --

The car was coming and it was coming fast: whoever was behind the wheel was making up for lost time, "laying the coal to her" as her Daddy once said:  Willamina waggled her flashlight across the windshield, she took a deep breath, she stepped to the side.

Her ears screamed their protest as the whistle's tocsin reflected off her hat brim and hit her in an unwanted version of tortuous surround sound --

Town Marshal Joe Hunt heard the whistle, spun --

Two lawmen jumped back as a speeding car blasted over the rise and down what was usually a straight stretch of blacktop.

Willamina heard the water blasting away under the impact of a full size sedan with a large displacement engine hitting it at well over the 35 MPH speed limit.

The engine died almost immediately.

Willamina ran to the high point of the little rise, relieved to see two lawmen on their feet.

She honestly did not care about the condition of the dim bulb driving the car.

The Marshal looked at the car, looked at Willamina.

"Hey Whistle Hook," he called, "let me borrow your boots!"

Willamina raised her hand and one finger -- it speaks to her charity that it wasn't the middle finger -- she jogged back to her car:  Joe waited, heard the trunk lid slam, and Willamina came running down the wet pavement, fireboots in one hand, her well polished Wellingtons on her feet.

"Here," she said: she stood, one hand gripping the back of the Marshal's belt, his arm on her shoulder as he hooked out of his own boots, thrust into Willamina's warm, dry fireboots.

She and the other deputy watched as Joe slogged through slow moving brown floodwater, rippling in the streetlights, wading out to bring the driver to higher ground.

"I'm surprised you let him wear those," the deputy said. "I saw the look you gave him when he called you Whistle Hook."

"Yeah," Willamina said quietly, folding her arms, then she looked at the deputy and smiled.

"I didn't tell him both boots leak."

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ONE NIGHT, IN SEARCH OF COFFEE

 

Pale eyes swept slowly across the cement lot of the All-Night.

Invisible in the shadow, unmoving, silent, a curly furred Mountain Mastiff the size of a young bear sat, scenting the air: beside this great canine warrior, a shining-black gelding, tall, tough, mountain bred and accustomed since birth to the thin air of these higher altitudes: blood coursed, thick and rich, through great veins, feeding muscles toned and conditioned by the rough terrain of these high mountains.

Between the two, the eyes searched, stopped, a memory populated the area just to the right of the far set of pumps.

A car came burning through the lot, not long after a robbery was attempted, and the robbers either shot, or subsequently captured: there'd been a drive-by soon after, a warning, a gesture of revenge, at least until a rancher pulled a .270 from his pickup's gunrack and drove a round through the rim of the passenger side front tire: another patron pulled a .357 and put a round through the shooter, who dropped the jammed pistol and fell back, dead.

Another memory.

Prom Night, when a car pulled in, almost enveloped by steam or smoke: they barely got off the highway before the car stopped suddenly, both doors flew open, a young man in shiny, brand-new shoes and a brand new suit jumped out of the driver's door, lost his balance, fell and rolled into the ditch, while his date, a classmate, jumped out the passenger door, turned and skipped backwards, hiking her hemline and staring in shock as the car suddenly caught fire.

It was not how they wanted their evening to go, but it was memorable: years later, as man and wife, they laughed together at the memory of a young man, chagrined, climbed up the short, steep bank, stared in dismay at flames engulfing the engine compartment: he came around the front of the car, looked at his hands, wiped them on the front of his trouser legs -- his front was dry, his backside from collar to cuffs, wasn't -- the young woman smiled, and giggled, and gripped his arm:  she pulled him into her, kissed him soundly and whispered, "I always thought you were hot stuff!"

A shadow flowed from deeper shadow:  Deputy Marnie Keller emerged into the light, The Bear Killer on her left, her Daddy's Outlaw-horse on her right: she scanned the interior as soon as she was able, satisfying herself all was well within, before she made entry.

Marnie and The Bear Killer paced silently back to the coffee machine:  The Bear Killer looked up, tail polishing the tile floor as the clerk extended a dog biscuit from the box she kept under the counter for that purpose:  delicately, carefully, the great, blunt-jawed Bear Killer took the treat, crunched it happily as she caressed his head and shoulders.

Outlaw-horse didn't come inside, but he stood with his head sticking through the doorway: the clerk laughed, thrust her hand into an open bin and skipped across the shining tiles, unwrapping a peppermint as she did.

The gelding's ears came forward, he extended his head, happily rubberlipping a greeting as she divested the Horse Crack from its cellophane jacket:  she twisted another one free, extended them both, rubbed the Sheriff's gelding under the jaw and cooed to him the way girls will baby-talk a favorite pet.

Marnie added milk to her coffee, took an experimental sip, closed her eyes and sighed with pleasure.

She left a dollar beside the register and joined the clerk at the doorway:  Midnight looked sleepy, and very pleased with himself: he was every bit the Attention Hound that The Bear Killer was, and he was willing to give two sets of caressing hands about a week to stop touching him.

Marnie took another sip of coffee.

"How was the football game?" the clerk asked.

"I would tell you your brother scored the winning touchdown," Marnie teased, "but that was last year."

The clerk laughed.  "I don't see how they could tell. It'd been raining all week and five minutes into play, everyone was a uniform mud color!"

"I know," Marnie laughed. "They had to hose him off to see what team he was on after he scored!"

"Did you present the flag tonight?"

"No. No, the Veterans' honor guard marched it out."
"I always did like that. Was the marching band good?"

"Oh, they were great! -- but the flute section was a little lacking. Just not the same since you graduated."

"You mean since the Marching Band did the backstroke down the Fifty Yard Line at Homecoming!" she laughed, then looked at Marnie, smiled.

"Thank you," the clerk murmured, then, "How's the coffee?"

Marnie grunted as she took another pull on her rapidly depleting cupful: she managed to nod by way of reply.

"I cleaned the pot when I came on," the clerk said. "Daddy was in the Navy and he said their Mess Chief didn't ever clean the coffee pot, and he brewed coffee with salt water."

"Ick," Marnie replied, making a face.

"They got a new guy when the Chief took leave. The new guy scrubbed out the pot, made coffee with fresh water, and the Old Man himself came down to talk to him."

"Oh yeah?"

"Oh, yeah!" the clerk laughed.  "Daddy said the Old Man was so happy at having decent coffee, that he had the Chief transferred out and this new guy got promoted!"

"We're out of milk at home," Marnie admitted.  "I tried using some oat milk eggnog Mama picked up."

The clerk made a face, and Marnie nodded.

"Yeah," she agreed.  "Zero stars, do not recommend!"

She tilted the cup up, drained the contents, hummed a little as it warmed her clear down to her belt buckle.

"Thanks," she said quietly.  "I really needed that."

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TO DADDY, FROM BRENDA

 

A nurse in a white uniform dress, stockings and shoes, jerked her head to the side to avoid the flying bedpan.

Stainless steel hit the wall behind her with a loud clang!,  another as it hit the polished tile floor.

“OUT!” she shouted, the unmistakable crack of authority snapping the air as effectively as a blacksnake whip:  “EVERYBODY OUT!”

An old man drew his arm back to heave a half-filled urinal.

Willamina Keller, RN, seized his wrist, twisted the container from his hand: she set the plastic vessel on a sidetable, blocked the roundhouse punch that was aimed for her soft ribs.

An old man’s whiskered face was planted firmly against the yellow-painted, hand-plastered wall, a wall as old as he was:  his arm was twisted up behind him, a woman’s weight against him, and a quiet voice hissing in his ear, “Do I have to call the MPs?”

The old man’s loud-voiced reply revealed his dislike and his utter disdain for the MPs in general, and for the ones he’d seen the night before in particular.

Willamina’s grip was unrelenting as she pulled the next trick out of her warbag:

“STAND AT ATTENTION IN THE PRESENCE OF A SUPERIOR OFFICER, SOLDIER! LOCK THOSE HEELS, I WANT TO SEE THAT SPINE STRAIGHT!”

She released him suddenly, stepped back, hands up, bladed: surprised, he turned, cocked a fist.

“Daddy,” Willamina said in a little girl’s pleading voice, “please don’t hit me again!”

She saw movement from the corner of her eye, waved the people in the doorway back:  she didn’t know who they were and she didn’t care, all she knew was she had to break through the old man’s illusion, or replace it with her own.

“Daddy?” she asked again, allowing a little quiver in her voice.

The old man sagged, his eyes squinting:  “Brenda?” he asked, then “My God, Brenda, I’m so … it’s your old man, Brenda …”
Willamina stepped in, took his elbow, turned him toward his bed: he whirled, seized her, dropped his face onto her shoulder:  “My God, Brenda, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean –”

“I know,” Willamina soothed:  another nurse came in, the doctor behind her:  Willamina nodded at the syringe the other nurse held, shifted her eyes to the old man’s shoulder, nodded again.

She held him as he relaxed, she helped him back in bed, she pulled up a stool and sat, holding his hand: the old man wept quietly, sorrowed until he passed out.

The doctor was still at the nurse’s station, writing orders, when Willamina finished charting, when she slid the patient’s chart back into the slot by the doorway, when she paced on silent, crepe soles down the hallway.

The doctor looked up.

“When do you get off?” he asked absently.

“An hour ago,” she said. “I just clocked out when it hit the fan with the old man.”

“I’m glad you were there,” he admitted. “We were ready to turn Security loose on him.”

“Skin tears and broken bones,” Willamina said quietly. “I wanted to break his train of thought long enough to get some vitamin H into him.”

“Good old Haldol,” the white-coated physician muttered, closing the order book and rising.

The elevator’s dented doors clattered shut and the doctor blinked, surprised: he’d intended to ask Willamina to dinner, but she was gone already.

 

Several years later, a rented Jeep pulled into the national cemetery, cruised slowly, as if the driver was looking for some landmark.

The Jeep stopped, the driver emerged: a pale eyed woman with Marine-short hair, in a class A uniform, carrying a single yellow rose with a ribbon tied beneath the full, rich blossom.

She walked quietly toward a group of people, toward a coffin suspended over an open grave:  she fell in beside the honor guard, waiting motionless with them as the final words were spoken over an old veteran’s coffin.

After the volleys, after the final words, after the family drifted away and departed, she approached the coffin, before it was lowered into its cement vault.

She laid the rose on the bronze casket, laid the ribbon out so it could be read.

To Daddy

From Brenda

A pale eyed Colonel Willamina Keller turned away from the grave and walked, alone, back to her rented Jeep.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I BELIEVE I HAVE

Annette waited patiently for her husband to finish washing up.

His coat, vest and shirt hung from their peg near the wash basin; he'd unbuttoned his red longhandles and tied the arms around his waist so they'd not drag in the dirt.

She frankly admired her husband's lean, muscled form, she carefully did not look at the old scars on his back -- he'd never spoken of them, and she'd never asked, but her green-eyed mother-in-law discreetly drew her aside, and over tea and little finger-sandwiches, she explained the hell Jacob survived at the hands of a man who was much better off dead -- the man who put those whip scars on a boy's back, because the boy dared to challenge the man who was trying to whip his pregnant mother to death.

Annette blinked, looked away, looked back: she shivered at Esther's almost whispered description, even these many years later: no, she preferred to admire her husband's attributes, and frankly, she admired the hell out of this pale eyed lawman with the carefully sculpted handlebar mustache.

Jacob, like most men of his era, took a bath once a week, whether he needed one or not.

In between, when he came home, more often than not, he'd strip to the waist and make noises like a bull in a flooded creek, before toweling off, resuming his civilized attire, and coming into the house.

Shaving was reserved for the warmth of indoors: the business of spinning up soap in a cracked mug dedicated to the purpose, shaving his face with a carefully-stropped straight razor, was acttivity he performed indoors.

Hot water for shaving was more easily got than hot water for a full bath.

Annette paced forward, reached around him, pulled his loosely knotted longhandles sleeves free: Jacob ran his arms in them as she held them up: he turned, she buttoned him, from the belt buckle up, pasing to caress the manly fur on his chest, to look up at him the way a woman will when she is pleased to be in the company of a man worthy of the name.

Annette raised her face, an invitation, and her husband did not have to be invited twice.

Jacob hugged his wife, hoisted her off the ground, gave her a little shake -- "to loosen up your back bone," he'd told her once, and she'd learned to relax her back and let her spine produce a momentarily painful, then profoundly relieving, rippling series of pops.

Annette's eyes were deep, lovely, and dedicated entirely to her husband's face.

She tilted her head, pulled back a little: Jacob released his embrace, she took his hand, drew him toward the barn, until they were halfway between the house and the barn.

She looked up the mountain, at clouds shining in the sun: overhead, the clouds were heavier, thicker, a little rain pattered around them, not much.

Between the rain-heavy cloud overhead, and the mountain peak adjacent, a cluster of clouds, bright, colorful, not quite blazing, but containing most of the hues of the rainbow.

Annette smiled a little as she took in the rugged purity of the mountain above them, the color-blazing glory of clouds beside the dark and sullen rain cloud that retreated steadily eastward, pouting a visible rain-drizzle as it went.

"Jacob," Annette said gently, "do you remember when you first brought me up here?"

Jacob nodded.

"I'd never been outside the city, before you brought me out here."

Jacob nodded again.

"I was used to streets and buildings, people and markets, shoulders rubbing shoulders ..."

Her voice trailed off.

"And a sky that I wanted to pull down and wash."

Jacob waited.

Annette looked back up at the reddish clouds, now disappearing over the far reaches of the snowy mountaintop.

She tilted her head and regarded her husband quite frankly.

"I've come to appreciate why you love these shining mountains," she whispered, lifting her face again, "and I've come to appreciate you."

"Mrs. Keller," Jacob murmured, running his hands down his wife's arms, until he gripped her hands in his, "are you trying to seduce me?"

Annette's hands gripped his, her eyes half-closed, her long, curved lashes framing her gaze.

"Yes, Mr. Keller," she whispered.  "I am."

Jacob smiled, just a little.

"Mrs. Keller," he said, "the hired man is gone for the day, and I do not anticipate we will be interrupted in the barn."

"The children are with their grandfather," Annette whispered, "and I gave the girl the rest of the day off."

Jacob bent a little, ran an arm behind Annette's knees, picked her up.

"Mrs. Keller," he said, "I believe you've planned for this."

"Mr. Keller," she murmured in reply, "I believe I have."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MORE FROM THE BOOKMARK, THAN FROM THE BOOK

 

Jacob Keller opened the family Bible, picked up the bookmark, read it automatically.

It was a single note sized sheet, folded in thirds, and it was originally sealed with absolutely bright-scarlet sealing wax.

He tilted it a little to catch the light across it, and it was exactly what he expected.

The impress was a rose.

He looked at his father, a pale eyed lawman in the comfort of his own home, a man comfortable in moccasins and children: a small boy, and a girl of identical vintage, each occupied a thigh, and the Grand Old Man's arms were around both: Jacob wasn't sure who looked the most pleased -- his pale eyed Pa, who held the children; the children themselves, delighted to be in such proximity to a man who so obviously cared for them; or the green-eyed woman who looked at them with an expression of warm approval, the same expression she wore when she looked at the pale eyed youth standing with the fingers of one hand light on the open pages.

Linn was looking at his children and laughing quietly, then he looked at Jacob, nodded.

Jacob took a deep breath and read, his voice measured, deliberate, his pronunciation flawless:  Esther leaned back and closed her eyes and rocked a little, smiling as she did, remembering what it was to be a child on her Daddy's lap, back in the Carolinas, back on the plantation.

Esther's Daddy used to read Scripture aloud of an evening.

Esther remembered feeling safe, and loved, sitting on her Daddy's lap with his arm around her middle, feeling the words vibrating in the chest she cuddled into as a child: she remembered feeling in that moment that everything was absolutely right with the world.

That was before the War, of course, before the internecine hell that ripped her life apart, that saw most of her family murdered, that saw her turn into a red-headed Goddess of War when that small bunch of damned Yankees came to plunder more than the family silver: she'd killed with pistol and with shotgun, she'd laid wait in a closet and she'd run a damned Yankee through the belly with a saber taken from another damned Yankee, and as he lay choking on his very life on what should have been the inviolate territory of a teen-aged girl's bedroom, Esther Wales, as she was then, took a grim and dark satisfaction with knowing she'd looked into the eyes of the man she'd killed, both in the moment he reached for her, and in the moment when the light went out of his eyes, and he sighed out his last breath, and his soul with it, a damned Yankee, killed with Yankee steel.

Jacob Keller read aloud, his syllables confident and reassuring, and Esther could hear the maturity he would achieve: he had not his father's deep, fatherly tones, not yet, but that would come with time.

Jacob read with his fingers on the bookmark, and its handwritten message from a man he remembered.

He read one chapter, as was their nightly custom: either he, or his father, would read from the Book, after supper and after the young were cleaned up and almost ready for bed: Jacob knew that before he was halfway through the chapter, the twins on his Pa's lap would be asleep, leaned against him, warm and safe in a protective father's arms: he knew he would step forward and take one, his Pa would carry the other, and they would bear the twins to bed, and tuck them in, and withdraw silently.

All this Jacob realized, with one part of his mind, while another part read the words and turned silent print into spoken language.

He came to the end of the chapter, and he read the note, his eyes passing over the distinctive handwriting -- the hand of a man who took pride in what he wrote, and that told Jacob the writer very likely took pride in all else that he did.

He folded the note, closed the Bible, stepped around the little podium, advanced on an absolutely silent tread toward his father.

Jacob picked up his little brother, hoisted him so the lad's cheek lay over Jacob's shoulder: Esther gave him that warm, approving, motherly look, and Jacob closed his eyes, briefly, an old grief aching in his young heart.

Esther was not his birth-mother: she who bore him, she who'd looked at him with those same gentle, motherly eyes, was long dead, murdered, and her murder avenged: that Jacob was here, with his actual father, was little short of a miracle, and the miracle was due to the man who wrote the note that was now folded as a bookmark in the family Bible.

It wasn't much of a note, just a few lines --

A father needs a son,

A son needs a father.

It was signed simply, S, and the Rose was sealed beside the single sinuous letter inked onto good rag paper.

Father and son carried the Keller young to their bunks: they withdrew afterward, usually Linn retired to his study, and Jacob, to his studies: uncharacteristically, Jacob followed his father to the study door and said, "Sir, a moment, if you please."

Linn stopped, turned:  Jacob had the immediate impression Linn was not only not surprised, but that he expected Jacob's words.

"Please come in."

Linn's study smelled of books and just a light whiff of brandy: the stove pushed enough warmth to be welcome, but not so much as to be stifling, and Jacob saw its draft was most of the way shut.

He nodded when he saw it, just a little bit of a nod, as he recognized the competent hand of their hired girl.

Jacob waited until his Pa poured two brandies, handed him one: the two hoisted their heavy, cut-glass tumblers in silence, drank.

Two pale eyed Keller men placed their empty glasses on the desk.

Linn thrust his chin toward a chair; he turned, backed into his own, and the two sat together.

Jacob did not miss the approving look his father gave him: Jacob showed due respect in accepting the brandy, in sitting as his father sat, and not before.

"Speak your mind," Linn said quietly.

"Sopris, sir."

Linn nodded, once, slowly, his eyes veiled.

"I owe him a great deal."

"I owe him more," Linn admitted.

"Sir?"

"You know him as Agent Sopris."

"Yes, sir."

"He was that," Linn said quietly, "and much more. He did a great deal for this country no one will ever know about. His work ..."

Linn frowned, considered.

"We were members of ... multiple societies," Linn said carefully, "two of which I retain, one of which is utterly vital for reasons I will neither explain, nor will I accept question."

"Yes, sir."

"You remember he took you in and healed you."

"He did, sir."

"He treated you with courtesy."

"He did, sir."

"You were hungry and he fed you, you weren't quite naked but he got you scrubbed clean and into clean clothes, he healed your back and he held you when you woke with nightmares locked behind your Adam's apple, trying to scream their way out."

Jacob's expression was haunted, the look of a man who was seeing an utter and absolute horror, something a thousand miles beyond the far wall, something that would shock a normal man into insanity and curl the hair on a bald man's head.

"Yes, sir," Jacob said.  "That is so."

"You have been wondering about him, here of late."

"I have, sir."

Jacob did not wonder that his father divined his thoughts: he'd observed his pale eyed old Sheriff of a father knew things, it was simply a fact of life, one that Jacob accepted as a truism.

“When did you see him last, sir?”

Linn closed his eyes and turned his head a little – something Jacob saw only once before, when something caused the man considerable pain – Jacob opened his mouth to apologize, but Linn raised a forestalling palm without looking.

“You remember your Aunt Duzy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sopris … thought a great deal of her.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She was a most admirable woman, Jacob. Let that be the memory we keep. She was a most admirable woman, a most capable woman, a woman of beauty and of breeding and …”

Linn stopped, swallowed: Jacob held silent, seeing the genuine sorrow that escaped his father’s usual reserve.

“He – Sopris – thought well of her,” Jacob hazarded.

Linn nodded, slowly.

“Was she not family, Jacob, and had not your mother set her cap for me” – his grin was quick, there-and-gone, and surprising – it wasn’t what Jacob expected to see – “well, I might have put one knee in the dirt and pled my case for her hand.”

Jacob considered this for a long moment.

“I see, sir.”

“Sopris … held her in … very high esteem.”

“Yes, sir.”  Jacob frowned a little, leaned forward.

“Sir … when Aunt Duzy died …”

“He and I were the only ones at her interment, yes, and that was at his request.”  Linn rubbed his palms together, slowly, thoughtfully, hard-earned calluses whispering to one another in the room’s quiet as he did.

“I was the closest thing to a father she had.”

Linn closed his eyes, took a long breath, blew it out.

“He never said as much, but I’ve a notion he was about to ask my permission to pursue her hand.”

Jacob nodded slowly.  “And now, sir?”

“I’ve not been back to Sopris Mountain but the one time since.”

“They are buried side by side, sir?”

Linn looked at Jacob: his was not the look of horror he’d seen in his son’s eyes, but rather of a deep and abiding sorrow, the kind a man knows when someone closer to him than his own brother, is no more.

“Yes, Jacob,” Linn said slowly.   “Yes, they are.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jacob said quietly.

“Normally … normally a man like him would have a grand funeral, a state occasion with orators both secular and religious.”  Linn leaned back in his chair, his eyes wandering the juncture between wall and ceiling above and behind Jacob’s head, then he looked at his son and grinned a little.

“He would have none of that. He said to let the streams deliver his oration, let feathered throats sing his praises, and instead of men declaring that he was flying with the angels, let those feathered angels that know the length and breadth of the skies, carry word of his deeds to the Almighty.”

Jacob considered this, and was quiet for a long minute and more.

“You’ve answered my question before I could give it voice,” Jacob finally said, his words slow, thoughtful, then he looked at his father and grinned – that same half-crooked grin he’d seen on his Pa’s face, a grin he honestly didn’t realize he wore.

“Sir,” he said finally, “this is the first time I got more from the bookmark, than I did from the Book!”

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE CIRCLE

The music was cheap, almost harsh, which was to be expected: it was also received with grins and with delight, especially as the onlookers could see the mechanical innards turning, they could see the striker rapping the side-mounted snare drum, they could see the heavy paper rolling off one spool and onto another.

Angela Keller was delighted.

She'd decided to be naughty that day.

It was her birthday, she'd just turned eleven, she was a full hand taller than her Mama, and she found her Mama's high heels fit her.

Angela carried them out to the barn and secreted them in a saddlebag: a moment before a mirror, a quick application of lipstick, and this tall, slender, fifth grade little girl, giggled and threw a leg over the saddle.

Her Daddy's Outlaw-horse cantered across the pasture; she opened the gate without leaving the saddle, as was her custom, she closed and fast up the gate, and then she rode for town.

Angela Keller, Daddy's girl and her brother's darling little sis, decided she would cause some trouble.

 

The Irish Brigade crowded around the restored carnival music-maker: it originally lived in the middle of a merry-go-round, and ultimately would return to that position, as soon as the merry-go-round itself was restored: the lacquered horses were dismounted, they were being carefully restored by people who knew their trade; the mechanicals were being carefully inspected, new bearings were only just installed, with final restoration probably a year out.

In the meantime, the German Engineer hauled in what he'd done, on a flatbed trailer, and was happily showing it off for his fellows.

Nobody noticed the young woman who drew up a-horseback, on the opposite side of Firelands' main street:  none saw her dismount, none saw her slip out of boots and shimmy out of blue jeans, and nobody saw her slip a feather-crested glittler mask over the upper two-thirds of her face.

Her hair was brushed and shining, she wore a silk blouse and a pleated miniskirt and a pair of strappy heels, and she skipped happily across the street, toward this gathering of men and musical machinery.

In times past, when Firelands was still very young, men were expected to be able to dance, and dance well: ever since the late Sheriff Willamina Keller started the many restorations, established the Ladies' Tea Society, ever since she made dance lessons a popular activity there in the huge round barn built under the mountain's overhang, their very own Irish Brigade would load up in one of the pumpers -- the cab was filled with muscled masculinity, the overflow rode the tailboard (quite against regulations, but nobody really gave a good damn, this was just from the firehouse to the barn!) -- so when a lovely young woman with really good legs came skipping up into the music surrounding the encircling men, nobody was terribly surprised that the red-shirted Irishman was able to fall immediately into a dance step with this surprising (and very lovely) young visitor.

Angela spun and whirled, a quick waltz-step: she spun free of the first, seized a second:  the Irishmen drew back a little and formed a rough circle, and within this circle of men with curled handlebar mustaches and red-wool, bib-front uniform shirts, one of their number and an anonymous, absolutely beautiful, young lady danced.

Angela laughed with delight, her smile bright beneath the glittering margin of her golden mask, the feathers' plume waving in the wind of her whirls: each man trod a measure with this lovely vision.

It was less that she dance with them, as they danced, and she floated, so naturally did she move with each individual one of the entire Irish Brigade.

Angela spun free of the Chief himself, seized a tall, lean-waisted deputy:  he, too, taken by her magic, danced and danced well, better than he'd expected: they watched as she spun free of this last partner, as she dropped a quick curtsy, then ran, laughing in the sunlight, back across the street, and down the alley, and was gone.

None followed, and none saw Angela draw her jeans on, then her socks and boots, none saw her slip her Mama's pumps in the saddlebag, and her departure was at no more than a walk, and over soft ground, so as to give no audible signal of her means of travel.

The Irish Brigade congratulated their very own German Irishman, their engineer, their mechanical wizard who was instrumental in restoring the Ahrens steam fire engine, the worker of miracles on pumps and Diesel engines and turbochargers and all the mysterious parts that made their shining red Kenworth fleet work and work very well indeed, this man with the skill and the magic to resurrect a carnival music machine ...

... a man who coaxed music from a machine, and a dance as well.

 

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller looked from his sister to his mother, and he saw a look pass between them.

He knew they'd been out shopping.

His little sis wore a dress when they went Shopping -- with a capital S -- something he personally detested.

Shopping, to Jacob, was a military exercise, a raid in its purest form:  get in, get it and get out, which is why both his Mama and his younger sis hated going shopping with him.

His Mama and his little sis were girls, and girls like to Shop, and Jacob ... didn't.

Angela was wearing a dress, and she was looking very innocent, and Jacob saw his Mama was looking just as innocent.

He knew they'd been Shopping.

Angela passed the steaming bowl of fried potatoes to him, and all thoughts of what the ladies might have been up to, disappeared in a fragrant cloud of bacon grease fried, thin sliced spuds: that night, at the Ladies' Tea Society dance practice, they'd warmed up and danced a few, and then Angela withdrew -- discreetly, almost unnoticed, save for two pair of pale eyes that missed very little -- she returned, and the instructor pressed a key on her computer, and a circus tune, the kind played by carnival music machines for a merry-go-round, came through the speakers.

Angela Keller laughed and snatched the hand of the German Irishman, and Jacob and the other men either grinned, or stared, or gawped open mouthed, as a beautiful young lady with really good legs, high heels and a short skirt, rearranged the entire Irish Brigade and every man there, into a circle, and danced with every last one of them.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103