SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I HATE THIS

A pale eyed old lawman with an iron grey mustache set his jaw and eased his shining-gold stallion ahead.

Something big, black and curly-furred paced alongside, easily keeping up with the big Palomino.

Sheriff Linn Keller had done what he had to.

He'd found the men who murdered a man for what he carried, took what was not theirs, and were in the process of spending it when he stepped into a dirty little saloon a day's ride from Firelands.

When he came through the bat wings, when he stepped quickly to the side to get a wall to his back, the place went silent:  only lawmen or men who knew violence, did such a thing, and when conversation stopped, when pasteboards were no longer slapped onto green-felt-covered tables, when the dice stopped chuckling, the piano player turned his head, then lifted his hands from the keys.

It didn't take long to figure out who he wanted.

He had the descriptions, and they had his: when a particular man wore his star on his lapel, instead of under it, when his coat was unbottoned and there was unforgiving frost in his pale eyed gaze, well, outlaws talk, and among the lawless, it was well known that when Old Pale Eyes shifted his badge from behind to in front, it meant there would be blood on the moon, and damn little of it would be his.

One dove behind the bar -- shotgun! -- the other drew and dropped his half-cocked revolver: it hit the floor, and so did he.

Linn swung fast to his left, cocked pistol thrust forward: men ducked, pulled back, flowed from the man's apparent path like water shears away from the bow of a fast-driven schooner: the second man came up, fired where the Sheriff had been, then dropped to the floor.

The barkeep jumped like a scared jackrabbit and shouted something that doesn't bear repeating in polite company: when his cocked shotgun hit the floor, the sear jarred loose, and a swarm of shot missed his ankle by the width of his palm.

The Sheriff took statements, spoke quietly with the town's marshal, arranged for the undertaker to box up the dead and plant them: he asked the barkeep how much they'd spent, and where, and when the Sheriff rode back to Firelands, he went straight for a cabin not far out of town.

He wasn't sure when The Bear Killer fell in beside him, and it didn't matter, really:  he was a man alone, a man with bad news to tell, a man riding out to look a new widow in the eye and absolutely gut punch her with the worst news of her entire life.

There were times when he spoke aloud, when he threw ideas out on the empty air so he could see what they sounded like, but not today: no, he would address neither the emptiness, nor his horse's ears.

The outlaws' effects, their horses and saddles, what little they had in the world, would convert to cash, unless he chose to keep the proceeds -- that's how he'd acquired his black Outlaw-horse, and the excellent little .38 revolving pistol in his off coat pocket -- he knew the dead husband departed with a certain sum, in gold, and that same sum was in the dead man's poke the Sheriff recovered from the outlaw behind the bar.

Linn did not waste time wondering about the shooting.

He honestly did not remember drawing, he knew only that his pistol fired, and when it did, it was looking right where it should be, and then it swung of its own accord and fired again, without his let-be, but with the same absolute accuracy: had he been so inclined, he might have compared this to similar reports from old lawmen, old gunfighters, from men who'd kept themselves alive by being fast, accurate, and necessarily violent.

He did remember that he could see his front sight with a startling clarity, with absolute detail.

He dismissed the thought, for he was nearing the cabin.

He rode very deliberately up one of two trails leading to the cabin's clearing.

He intentionally chose the drier, harder ground, allowing his stallion's iron-shod hoofbeats to announce his approach.

The dark was gathering: a woman came out, anxiously drying her hands on her apron:  she dropped the apron, turned and shooed curious children back into the cabin, drew the door to.

Linn rode up, The Bear Killer with him.

He swung down, dropped the reins, then he reached up and slowly, formally, removed his Stetson.

The woman's face crumpled, twisted, reddened:  her lips pressed together, then drew apart, he stepped into her as she started to fall, as she clutched at him, as she moaned, "No," in a quavering voice.

She went to her knees: something furry and warm was hard against her side and her arm automatically lifted, draped over:  she turned toward The Bear Killer, buried her face in his shoulders, muffling her grief as best she could.

A black-furred mountain Mastiff planted his backside firmly on the packed dirt, and he raised his blunt muzzle to the first cold, shining stars to peer down at this sound of grief and misery.

To a woman's choking sobs was added  the deep-voiced howl of a friend of mankind, voicing the ancient sorrows his breed had seen:  the woman cried all the harder, and The Bear Killer raised his muzzle a little more and howled again, singing an ancient paean of grief and of loss.

A pale eyed Sheriff stood with his hat in his hand, his head bowed.

He was not inclined to interrupt the floodgates of her fears, realized and curdled into reality: he stood, he waited, his stallion patient, unmoving, as The Bear Killer licked tears from the woman's crimsoned face.

Linn said the words that needed said, that her husband was murdered, his body recovered, that his murderers were found and his death avenged, and Linn handed her the poke of gold with which her late husband set out not two days before.

Linn asked if she wanted him to tell the young ones, and she shook her head and thanked him in a gentle voice.

She gathered her dignity about her like a cloak, she raised her chin, and she turned toward her cabin door, and took her first step into widowhood.

The Sheriff rode back, still silent, The Bear Killer pacing beside him, flowing like Death's shadow itself in the gathering dark.

About halfway back to Firelands, Linn spoke the only words he had, other than to deliver this fell news to a woman who did nothing to deserve such grief:

"I hate this."

He rode slowly into town and heard an infant crying not far ahead.

Sean, the great Irish fire chieftain, was sitting on the mounting block in front of his house, bouncing a fussy baby on his knee.

Linn stopped, dismounted, and The Bear Killer came up and snuffed loudly at the squalling, blanket-wrapped package, before dropping his squared-off backside to the packed dirt, and pointing his muzzle to the stars populating the firmament overhead, and began to howl, gently this time: a little, red-headed Irishman wrapped in a blanket stopped, surprised, his young eyes wide, then his face started to screw up and redden again and The Bear Killer licked his young chin and jaw, and so prevented another youthful storm.

Two chief officers sat side by side on a block of stone, in front of a snug, strongly-built house, talking in quiet voices:  Sean described how worn out his Daisymedear was, and this wee red-headed Irishman hadn't quit squalling since twelve noon, and it wasn't until The Bear Killer sang with him that the pique was startled out of the child, to Sean's immense relief.

He asked what brought the Sheriff out this late, and Linn told him:  Sean laid an understanding hand across the man's shoulders and murmured, "I've done tha' very thing," and Linn nodded, for he'd known Sean had to inform line of duty widows back in Cincinnati, years before.

The wee Irishman twisted, squirmed, turned red again:  Sean looked at his son, concerned, and then a certain aroma announced the profound relief from what ailed the lad.

Linn laughed, just a little:  "You want to clean him up out here or inside?"

"Out back, at th' pump, I'll get fresh water an' we'll no' stink up the house."

Linn walked with his old friend around back of their house, and two men with experience at this sort of thing cleaned up a wee Irishman who was no longer squalling with discomfort.

Both men labored in silence, getting the little, red-headed Finnegan nice and clean again; Linn washed out the dirty diaper (two changes of pumped water) and hung the dripping cloth over the clothesline.

Two old friends looked at one another, at the dripping, washed-out diaper, then they both washed their hands, thoroughly, vigorously: they looked at one another and said with one voice, 

"I hate this."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TWO IRISH SONS

The collision was little short of spectacular.

The handmade wagon -- if you could call it that -- spent its kinetic energy by snapping the axle off, busting the bark loose on a tree and slinging its arm-waving, leg-thrashing pilot high into the air.

The laws of physics will not be denied.

A ballistic arc's height is determined by the energy imparted, and when a red-headed Irish lad is sailing downhill so fast that his guardian angel is streaming like a gauzy kite-tail behind him, desperately gripping the back of the lad's britches to try and keep up, well, the height of the arc may seem impressive when the projectile has huge eyes, splayed fingers and is experiencing -- yet again -- a distinct, undeniable feeling of utter impending DOOOOMMMMM.

After tumbling end-over-end at least twice, after skidding on Colorado sod, after the world dropped out from under him, he found himself being received by the uplifted arms of a streambed -- dirt rose on either side -- just before he splashed down in the middle of the COLDEST WATER HE'D EVER BEEN IN JAYSUS MARY AND JOSEPH WHY ISN'T THIS FROZEN IT'S SO COLD!

 

The main street in Firelands was no stranger to transportation obsolete and state-of-the-art.

In a most unusual moment of necessity, a fighter jet with folded wings was obliged to taxi its length, escorted by a police cruiser, until it could come to a long enough stretch of highway to get airborne again, but that never officially happened; the US Navy dispatched a damage control team, who returned to report there'd been no damage, no holes burned in the pavement and no paint melted off parked cars by the jetwash: the damage control team was received in grand form, given a good meal, welcomed warmly, and as far as the natives were concerned, it was just another one of those well-will-you-look-at-that, I'll-have-another-beer moments.

The main street not infrequently echoed to the sharp clatter of steel shod horses' hooves, though never at any great velocity, as steel on pavement is quite slick, and the local equestrians had no wish to damage their saddle-stock thereon.

When traffic was light, an occasional bicycle sailed happily downhill, whizzing in delighted near-silence.

Unfortunately, when the man door opened and washed the interior of the firehouse with bright, blazing sunlight, and youthful feet limped to where uniformed medics were checking inventory on the drug box, the situation was not quite so salutary.

It seems that another red-headed young Irishman, in a happy fit of invention, tore apart a perfectly good pair of skates and fabricated his own skateboard, on the theory that:

a) his father refused to buy him the skateboard he wanted,

b) he couldn't afford to buy one on his own, and

c) he'd outgrown the shoe skates.

Disassembly, carpenter work, mark, drill, bolt: he had plywood to work with, and selected 3/4" marine grade, on the theory it would stand the stresses, which he'd seen others' attempts end in structural failure when bolts tore out or the skateboard snapped in two; he fabricated and glued stringers on the bottom, to further bolster its weight bearing capability; the glue was dry, he was impatient, there was no traffic.

He paced out of the alley beside the Mercantile, set the board on the center line, planted a sneakered foot on it.

He looked down the street, grinned the way a boy will when he's about to get in trouble, he pushed off, gently, stood on his newly fabricated conveyance.

 The coarse, rattling hiss of skate wheels on pavement built, as did his speed: he crouched a little, wobbling a bit, corrected for direction of travel, held his arms out just a little: he gained speed, fast, squinting into the wind of his passing, grinning with delight as his hair lifted and he felt cold wind-fingers caressing his scalp.

He went past the glass double doors of the Sheriff's office at a good velocity.

He sailed past the drugstore, wondering just how fast he was going to end up going.

He did fine until a stray gravel caught in a flaw in the pavement, caused his sudden lift, and forward velocity became an uncontrolled tumble.

He hit the pavement, rolling, skidding, came to a stop, the heels of his hands, his knees and a patch on his left hip all calling him unkind names.

 

A red-headed Irish lad limped into the back door of his house.

His Mama looked at her son -- wet, muddy, grinning, bloodied: she turned, seized his face between hers, turned it this way, that, looking for the familiar signs of a pugilistic exchange.

"Well, ye're no' in a fight," she murmured. "Are ye hurt?"

"Kinda," he mumbled as his Mama's eyes went down his clothes, as she seized his shoulders, turned him.

"Well, ye've no' torn yer trousers, Saints be praised," Daisy said sternly, "now go an' wash off an' be quick about it! Makin' more work f'r yer puir mither! Scoot!"

A red-headed Irish lad, chastised, went out the back door and pumped cold wellwater in preparation for his obligatory ablutions, per his Mama's order.

 

"Now what happened to you!" Shelly exclaimed, seizing the Chief's son's wrists and staring with dismay at his bloodied palms.

"I made a skateboard," he said, "but it kinda threw me."

Shelly saw Fitz watching from his office, saw him withdraw, saw him close the door.

"C'mon," she said.  "Let's get you cleaned up. You've made a mess of those brand-new jeans, haven't you!"

 

Sean Finnegan listened to his son's chastised report of his adventure: how he'd taken a wide plank, how he'd drilled and bolted two crossmembers as axles -- he'd dogrobbed axle hubs from broke down wagons and fast them to his conveyance, with no thought for steering -- he had four, mismatched wagon wheels, but they were well greased and turned easily -- he'd set up and run it downhill and didn't realize until he was underway that there were neither means to steer, nor means to stop -- and he'd ended up flat on his back in six inches of the coldest snowmelt streambed in the world --

 

Fitz came out after Marc was bandaged up.

"Now you see why I won't buy you that skateboard," he said unsympathetically.

He looked at Shelly.

"How is he otherwise?"

"He didn't hit his head," she sighed, "just some pavement rash, and those jeans are shot."

"You know what your mother's going to say."

Marc lowered his head.  "Yeah," he muttered.  "I know."

Fitz ruffled his son's red hair, the way a father will in such moments.

"When I was your age," he said, "I did the same damned thing, but I broke m'arm doin' it."

Two medics looked at one another, realizing why they'd seen their Chief rubbing his arm absently: there had to be a reason, and now they knew.

"I wondered about that," Shelly's father said: the two medics looked at one another, looked at Marc and his fire chief father.

"You made a skateboard?" Marc asked, and Fitz nodded.

"Yeah," came the grunted reply. "After I fell and broke m'arm, my Dad used it to beat my backside!"

Edited November 20, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

YOUR GAMMAW'S MYSTERY

"Michael."

"Yes, sir?"

"You ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Fetch down your Gammaw's double gun."

Michael's grin was wide and bright:  "Yes, sir!" he declared happily, and it is to his youthful credit that he did not absolutely sprint, scamper and otherwise gallop into his Pa's study to retrieve the implement under discussion.

Michael automatically opened the gun, took a very deliberate look into the breech, held it up to show his pale eyed Pa:  Linn nodded.

"Fetch that box of shells in the middle."

Michael reached up, picked up the Winchester-Western birdshot loads, rejoined his father.

The front door opened, closed, leaving the ladies in the kitchen to their talk, to their preparations.

 

Father and son rode for a time to a particular place they'd scouted out some time before.

Michael had proven a natural wing shot: Linn freely admitted he could hit with a shotgun if he used it like a carbine, but put the target in motion and he was sunk: Michael, on the other hand, had the wingshooter's gift, and proved his skill many times over, and of course it delights a sixth-grade boy to realize he consistently outshoots the Grand Old Man -- if only in this one venue.

Birds flew up, songbirds mostly, and either father or son would raise a hand, track its flight and say quietly, "Bang," then they'd grin at one another: Shelly one time shook her head and called them silly for doing that, but both Keller men knew this helped train the brain to pick up a target, and track a target, swing on a target and letoff on the target: they'd done this since Michael was old enough to launch a slingshot-pebble at a hand-tossed can, since he was old enough to puncture a hand-tossed beer can with a BB gun, since he started hitting hand-tossed cans with a rifle and .22 shorts, since he started punching holes in hand tossed tin cans with a .22 revolver -- and all of this much younger than the popular opinion would consider appropriate.

Linn, of course, knew better.

He knew if he took the mystery out of guns -- if he trained his young from their earliest age in safe gunhandling, if he ingrained it into their young souls, if he modeled that same teaching for them to observe and to imitate -- he would go a very long way toward keeping his young safe from inadvertent or unintentional discharge.

Every last one of the Keller young, boys and girls alike, were given their pale eyed Daddy's attention, and every last one of them delighted when their big strong Daddy gave them that very personal attention, and every last one of the Keller young developed these good habits and kept them for a lifetime, which is what their pale eyed old Pa intended.

Linn and Michael rode up a narrow trail, Michael in the lead: both he and his mount were perfectly comfortable riding beside this sheer dropoff:  Linn told him of the time he'd come up this trail and a creature of the mountains was headed in the opposite direction, and Linn didn't want to fire right over his horse's ears, so -- as he told the tale -- "I talked to that-there billy goat, and I give him the best campaign speech that's ever been spoke, and darned if he didn't get tired of my politickin' and turn around and leave."

Michael wasn't quite sure whether to believe his father or not: the man was known to pull a listener's leg on occasion, but he did not discount the possibility, for he'd seen his Pa talk down large and angry people whose umbrage inspired them to violence, and rather than bend a singletree over their gourd, Michael's Pa managed to bury them in verbal baloney deeply enough they decided not to commit further violence.

They followed the narrow trail until it came out in a hanging meadow, high up.

Father and son dismounted, shucked their shotguns -- both carried a double gun -- Michael knew it was a significant sign of trust that his Pa had him carrying his Gammaw's double gun.

They opened their guns, dunked in two rounds: each gripped the fore end firmly and raised the rearstock to close it, and Michael saw the approval in his Pa's eyes when he did.

"Remember when we hunted behind Herr Becker's bird dog?" Linn asked, and Michael could see the smile in his Pa's eyes as Linn looked out over the meadow.

"Yes, sir," Michael grinned.

"I always wanted a good bird dog," Linn admitted softly as the two advanced, slowly, eyes busy. "If we put up a bird, take the first shot."
"Yes, sir."

Michael took one more step and a ptarmigan took out from less than a foot ahead of his advancing boot.

Walnut came up to meet his cheekbone, his eye was open and steady, his finger slapped the front trigger --

The ptarmigan twisted a tenth of a second before the gun fired; the shot swarm missed, but not by much, and the bird was quickly out of range.

"Close," Linn murmured. "Had he not twisted --"

Michael broke open his Gammaw's gun, caught the empty, dropped in a fresh, closed the breech.

Another two steps, a third: Linn stopped, and so did his son.

Linn squatted, slowly, silent, his eyes ahead:  Michael waited, debating whether to shoulder the gun ahead of a rise, like he would shoulder a gun when trapshooting, just before he called "Pull!" --

Linn rose, slowly, drew back a hand, threw.

A rock rattled into a clump of brush and two birds whistled out, one angling right, one left:  two guns barked, two feathered acrobats managed to evade the pursuing clouds of shot.

Linn laughed quietly, reloaded:  Michael reloaded as well, smiled a little to hear his Pa laugh.

They each took a brace of grouse: Linn led the way to a stream, where they drew the birds and washed them out with cold snowmelt, to cool the meat.

"Michael," Linn said, "I do admire that sharp knife of yours."

"Thank you, sir. You gave it to me."

"I see you keep it good and sharp."

"Yes, sir."

"Well done. A dull knife will cut you faster than a sharp one."

"Yes, sir."

Silence for a few moments.

Linn cast about, found a handy rock outcrop, sat: Michael sat beside him: they both had their shotgun butts between their boots, muzzles to the vertical.

"Michael," Linn said finally, "every family has its secrets."

"Yes, sir."

"You're old enough I can entrust you with one."

Michael looked curiously at his father.  "Sir?"

"That shotgun fits you well."

"It does, sir."

"You're ... twelve now?"

"Yes, sir."

"I didn't hit my full growth until I was about 25. Likely you won't either. We can have the gunsmith lengthen that stock as needed."

"Sir?"

"That gun's yours, Michael, and so is are the stories that go with it."

"The stories, sir?"

Linn smiled, just a little.

"Your pale eyed Gammaw took care of her people. She carried that very gun a time or to going into a situation as Sheriff. Didn't intend to, but when the chips were down, that very gun you hold right now kept her safe and kept people alive."

Michael looked at the double gun, looked at his father.

"Even after her death, she used that selfsame gun to keep her people safe."

Michael frowned, blinked, looked at his Pa, not quite sure how to take this.

"I'm going to give you something on the square, Michael. Do you know what that means?"

"I've ... heard you say that before, sir."

Linn nodded.

"Your Gammaw kept Marnie alive on Mars."

"Sir?"

Linn nodded, his eyes scanning the horizon.

"Marnie got waylaid. Best way to kill a lawman is from ambush and it damn neart worked. Marnie ... wasn't able to return effective fire."
Michael heard his father's voice harden.

"That mistake never happened again, by the way."

Michael waited.

"Marnie was about to be hit with a shaped explosive on a miner's lance when your Gammaw drove two rounds of double ought buck from that very gun, right into his side."

Michael tried to digest this.

It made no sense.

Gammaw was dead.

Marnie was on Mars.

Gammaw was planted in the family section of the cemetery and had been --

"You're wondering how a dead woman could have done that," Linn said quietly.

"Yes, sir."

"It gets worse."

"Sir?"

"Marnie was on the surface. There's almost no air. Hold up a sheet of newspaper in the fiercest windstorm and you'll barely see the paper wave. Way thinner air than here in the mountains, not enough to carry sound, yet Marnie heard both barrels fire, one, two, and she heard your Gammaw break the action, reload, she looked at Marnie and yelled, 'Nobody hurts my little girl!' "

"And then ..."  

Michael's eyes were fixed on his father's profile.

"She disappeared.

"Marnie took photographs of her Gammaw's boot prints in the Martian surface dust. She sealed the fired shotgun shells in an evidence bag. Her husband -- you remember young Doc Greenlees."

Michael nodded.

"Doc performed the miner's autopsy and recovered double-ought buck shot from a dead man's chest, when there was not yet a single shotgun on the entire planet.

"When Marnie told me what happened, I checked your Gammaw's gun.

"It had been fired, the chambers were empty. Marnie sent me pictures of the fired rounds and they're what your Gammaw used for social encounters."

"Yes, sir."

"So there's one of the stories that old gun wears."

Michael looked at the shotgun with a new respect.

"That gun is yours now."

Michael's voice was quiet, his voice was solemn as he replied, "Thank you, sir."

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PENALTIES

There were times when Linn was a hard eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache and an utter lack of compromise.

There were times when he dropped his Stetson on a grinning schoolboy's head, pulled out a poke of marbles and dropped to his Prayer Bones beside a finger drawn circle in the schoolyard dirt, and proceeded to lose two prize shooters and a double handful of genuine factory made cat's-eye marbles.

Today he sat on the Deacon's bench in front of the Sheriff's office, beside a young man about the size his grandson Joseph would have been, had he not run off and joined that damned war in Europe.

It wasn't so much the Sheriff sat there, looking quietly across at schoolyard and distant mountains, it was more like a grandfather recognized the signs of distress in another man's grandson.

Linn pulled out a genuine Barlow knife, picked up a skinny split of kindling, turned the wood thoughtfully in his fingers, studying it closely.

Honed steel cut smoothly into prominent woodgrain, brought off a curled shaving. 

"You look like you just lost your last friend," Linn said gently.

The young fellow nodded miserably, hunched himself forward, fingers loosely interlaced and elbows on his knees.

"What happened?"

"Sheriff," he said softly, "have you figured girls out?"

Linn turned the wood in his fingers, made another deep cut into a long corner, turning a curled shaving without cutting it free.

"No," he admitted, "not my wife, and not even my own daughter."

The young man half-sighed, half-grunted, the sound of a man in protracted pain.

"What happened?" Linn asked, his voice deep, reassuring, fatherly.

Tempered steel cut another curl under the first one.

"I misjudged a girl."

Linn nodded, slowly, cutting another curl beneath the first two: he cut carefully, bringing a full circle of whittled wood and more with each attempt.

"I've done that," the Sheriff said at length.

"What am I gon' t' do, Sheriff?" he asked miserably.

"Tell me what happened, son."

Silence, again.

Barlow steel cut another luxurious curl out of good pine.

"I was a gentleman," the young man said.

Linn nodded, waited, using silence to draw the young man out.

"She didn't want me to be a gentleman."

"Ah."  Linn nodded.  "I've known that to happen."  He turned his head a little, regarded the young fellow with knowing eyes.  "You're wondering if you should not be more ... forward ... next you're with a lady."

The young man nodded, his eyes miserably regarding the dust gathered on the warped boards  ahead of their boots.

"Gentlemanly behavior," Linn said carefully, "is always to be desired. Even if a woman doesn't seem to want a gentleman, she'll always remember that you were a gentleman."  He leaned a little closer and murmured confidentially, "Believe me, a woman will never, ever forget when a man is not a gentleman!"

"Yeah."

Linn's Barlow tasted the wood again, turning curls for its length: he turned the stick in his hand, began whittling firestarting curls off its back edge as well.

"If a girl does not want gentlemanly behavior," Linn continued quietly, "she might not be the quality you deserve, but I don't reckon you want to hear that."

Silence, for several long moments.

"A girl tossed me aside one time."

"Sir?"

Linn nodded, turned the stick, regarded its length, set it carefully aside:  he picked up another, regarded it solemnly, planned his whittling attack.

"I told her I had something to show her," he said, his voice soft with memory: "I told her it was behind the barn."

The young man studied the Sheriff's face, listened closely to the lawman's words.

"We went out behind the barn. The ground fell away into a holler -- that was back East, I reckon you'd call it an arroyo. Brush, weeds, grass, full dark and it was just plumb full of lightning bugs. It looked like living emeralds floating in a sea of black velvet."  

Linn paused.

"I swung my arm out in a grand gesture and said 'Beth, I give you ... the night!' "

Linn took a long breath, blew it out, cut another curl on his fuzz stick.

"She thought I was taking her behind the barn to be improper."  He looked at the young man beside him. "I felt like the north end of a south bound horse. I think I was more disappointed in myself -- more disappointed for having misjudged her -- than I was unhappy with her."

"I reckon that's how I felt too."

Linn shifted the fuzz stick into his knife hand, reached over, laid a fatherly hand on the younger man's shoulder.

"Doesn't matter how hard he try," he sighed. "Women are a mystery and I doubt if any man will ever have 'em figured out."

He gave a very gentle squeeze, the way a grandfather will a sorrowing grandson.

"Gentlemanly behavior is never wasted. The right woman will recognize a gentleman when she sees one."  Linn took a deep, quick breath, blew it out.  "In the meanwhile, we pay the penalty for being gentlemen."

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THANK YOU, MAMA

Becky Hartley dipped her knees, the way a woman will when wearing a skirt: she laid a yellow rose on a grave, stood.

"Thank you," she whispered, then she bit her bottom lip and turned.

Two children -- a grade-school girl in a dress, a little boy in a white shirt and bow tie, and pressed slacks -- waited beside the car, watched as their mother came back to the vehicle.

The three got in, closed their doors: the car pulled away, and a single yellow rose with a yellow ribbon tied ornately about its stem, lay on the grave of a pale eyed Sheriff.

 

Below the graveyard, in Firelands proper, there was laughter and the smell of good cookin': the firehouse was populated with red-shirted Irishmen and laughter, with guests and visitors, in-laws and outlaws, with the smell of fresh brewed coffee and fresh baked bread:  the doors were busy, people coming, many bearing donations to the community feast.

Apparatus was pulled out onto the apron, Irishmen were without the building as well.

Inside the first-out emergency squad -- they called it a squad, one of their number declared loudly that "AN AMBULANCE IS BLACK, IT LOOKS LIKE A HEARSE AND IT'S DRIVEN BY A MAN IN A BLACK SUIT WITH A PLASTIC SMILE AND A JOHNSON AND JOHNSON FIRST AID KIT!"

He looked defiantly about his fellows, took another breath:  "WE DRIVE A SQUAD!  WE'RE MEDICS!  WE SAVE LIVES!"

He sat, his jaw aggressively thrust forward, and the Irishmen looked at one another and agreed that the man was right, and from that day forward, their first-out lifesaving vehicle was Squad One.

That, of course, was a memory, just like the memories being made of children in the back of the rig, when a stethoscope's eartips were carefully placed in their sensitive young ears, and they were told to hold the heavy Littman bell to their chest:  Shelly's delight was to see the wonder, the discovery in a child's eyes as they listened to their own living heart for the very first time.

Outside,  a little boy, bundled against the cold, was seized by a pair of big, callused hands, hoist swiftly out of his wheelchair:  Captain Crane, grinning like a schoolboy, had industriously stuffed towels in the twin, polished, chrome Federal siren speakers:  another, coached by his delighted daughter, showed another child which switch to turn, and a hundred watts of electronic Federal siren, muffled by the toweling, brought happy squeals of juvenile delight:  little children held their ears and jumped up and down with excitement, but the child in the Irishman's hands, hauled swiftly skyward from his wheelchair, had the most delighted expression of all.

A recent nerve infection stole his hearing, keeping him from the audible celebration of his fellows, and so the Irishman hauled him up to a swift altitude, putting him on eye level with the light bar on their ambulance, and a little boy, so recently deprived of hearing, was suddenly squealing with delight, jerking arms and legs like a happy marionette, absolutely delighted to be included in this celebration.

The door opened:  "AIR HORNS!" came the shouted warning:  another child, standing on a towel quickly thrown over the driver's seat of that big red supercharged Kenworth pumper, reached up, gripped the lanyard, pulled, and children jumped up and down and held their ears and laughed and squealed with delight, joyfully expressing their juvenile excitement on the cement apron in front of the rumbling, idling, flashing apparatus.

A car pulled over, parked in front of the drugstore -- it was closed for Thanksgiving -- a mother and her two children got out, looked toward the firehouse, smiled:  the mother opened the trunk, handed a towel-draped pie to her son, a towel-wrapped wicker basket of still-warm sweet rolls to her daughter.

Three Firelands residents in their Sunday best walked quickly down the sidewalk, toward the sound of happy children and idling Diesel fire apparatus.

Inside, a great, curly-furred dog lay like a puddle of midnight on the floor, not so much sprawled as almost curled around a child carrier: within the carrier, an infant, not more than a week old: The Bear Killer's chin was draped over the carrier and across the little one, and a very pink, very small, chubby hand and forearm were contentedly relaxed, well insinuated into the fur of a quietly snoring, bear killing, mountain Mastiff.

One of the Irish Brigade, wearing both a chef's hat honestly stolen from a Denver restaurant, in an apron that bore the name of the same restaurant embroidered across its upper margin, picked up a shining, copper-bottom saucepan and an unused wooden spoon:  he twisted, slipped between the assembled humanity, thrust out the man door:  he held the door open with a polished boot, raised the pan and beat happily on its bottom, its ringing alarm announcing to the world without and within:

"COME AND GET IT, THE LOT O'YE! THROW ON THE FEED BAG, IT'S TIME T' EAT!"

It took him a little while to get back to his station in the elevated kitchen deck:  he hung the ceremonial saucepan back on its hook, hung the wooden spoon on its hook adjacent, looked to the Chief and grinned.

Fitz waited until the firehouse full of friends, kindred and brethren were at the tables, looking expectantly at him, their thronging murmur dying quickly.

"Our Chaplain," he said in a fine, rich, full voice, "will now give the blessing!"

The Chef's hat was snatched from the wearer's head by the glaring Irishman adjacent, slapped into its wearer's belly:  he caught it with one hand, shook his fist menacingly at the soul that grabbed it from his head, at which point the party of the second part rocked back, fists up in a boxer's stance: the cook picked up a rolling pin, his best friend shook his head, held up open hands as the Chief turned and gave them the Chief's Genuine Fake Death Glare, to the quiet laughter of the assembled.

"Y'see what I have to put up with?" he complained.  "Brother Chaplain, if you please!"

Reverend John Burnett, parson of their little whitewashed church and chaplain to the Firelands Fire Department, the Firelands Police Department, Firelands County Sheriff's Office, the Carbon Hill volunteer services and elsewhere as needed, stood, smoothed his necktie down against his belly: it was a nervous habit, he'd done it ever since he could remember, one flat-palm pass to press the necktie down where it belonged.

"O Lord," he said, his voice carrying well in the hush of the fragrant firehouse, "bless this meal to our bodies, our bodies to Your service: bless those hands that prepared this meal and the hands that provided it, and most especially, Lord, spare us the curse of the long-winded blessing, AMEN!"

"AMEN!" came the booming response from the red-shirted Irishmen present, a quieter "So mote it be" from a surprising number of others: a mother and her two children sat at a far table, waiting for the signal to rise and pass through the chow line.

That didn't happen.

Plates appeared before them first: the Irish Brigade already had their system planned, they loaded plates with efficiency, with swiftness, they recruited enough hands to pass down this row with plates and come back this row empty handed, then pick up two more plates and repeat their delivery orbits: it was quick, it was efficient: drink was dispensed with the same swift efficiency, and Firelands' watchful guardians, its laborers in the utilities, its citizens and guests, ate and ate well that day.

Fleet young messengers bore provender to the Police and Sheriff's offices: outside, utility trucks from Water and from Wastewater were parked, backed in to allow a quick exit if need be:  these faithful laborers, as well, were fed: they lingered over mashed potatoes and gravy, over turkey and beef, over sweet rolls and light rolls and sourdough, over pie and cake and -- like everyone else -- when they finally departed, they were comfortably full, and took enough with them for a late-shift snack of generous proportions.

It was a rare day when little was happening: road deputies were there as well, and the sound of knife and fork, for a brief and peaceful moment, was the predominant sound.

A mother and her two children ate, silently, savoring their meal.

The mother remembered what it was to come into the county in a worn out car, on worn out tires, with her gas gauge nearly dry and twenty dollars to her name.

She remembered the first soul she met was a pale eyed Sheriff's deputy, she remembered a man everyone called "Uncle Emmett" who replaced her tires, filled her tank, gave her an oil change, replaced a taillight bulb and told her that pale eyed deputy already paid her bill.

She remembered how he'd had her follow him to a newly built apartment, how her daughter scampered across in front of her and seized the big stuffy bunny on the neatly made bed, how she was handed the keys and how women in old-fashioned long dresses brought in folded bundles of clothing, and baskets of groceries, how she'd stared, shocked, as they stocked her cupboards and took her by the hand to show her where the cleaning supplies were, the bathroom supplies, the laundry, how another gave her a business card and said to call her in the morning and they'd see about getting her employment: another woman, another card, call her tomorrow afternoon and they'd arrange to enroll her children in school, and by the way, the phone is over here, it's turned on and the bill is paid for the next three months.

She sat in the firehouse and stared at her empty plate, remembering, and a drop of salt water rolled down her cheek, another down her nose, fell onto her plate just before it disappeared and was replaced by a fresh plate and fork, and a slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

"What's wrong, Mommy?" her little girl asked.

"Nothing," the mother whispered, smiling through her tears, her fingers rising to the pin on her collar, the pin she was given by her employer, the pin that came with a cluster of three roses, tied with a ribbon lettered Secretary of the Month.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller dismounted at his mother's grave.

He squatted, laid a hand on the stone, looked at his Mama's portrait, laser engraved in glass-smooth quartz.

He picked up the yellow rose, turned it thoughtfully between thumb and fingers, then he read the paper tag attached.

"Mama," he said aloud, "we had Thanksgiving dinner at the firehouse again."

He looked at the rose, smelled it, smiled.

"Somebody told me to thank you for raising me right." 

He laid the rose up against her stone.

"The tag on this rose says 'Thank you for being a good mother.' "

He smiled, stood.

"I reckon it was the same soul who left this."

 

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AN HONEST MISTAKE

Dr. John Greenlees pinched up the cuff of his surgical glove, peeled it partway off: one glove inside the other, a quick pull, both gloves were packaged, one inside the other.

He stepped on the old-fashioned trash can's pedal, the lid squeaked open, he dropped the gloves into the can: the Recyclo in the bottom sizzled momentarily, and a new pair of sterile surgical gloves, packaged, ready to use, dropped into the dispenser.

Surgical cap, shirt, trousers, shoe covers, all went into the Recyclo and were instantly converted into new garments -- brand new, clean, unstained, never worn -- Dr. Greenlees sat tiredly on a padded stool, leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

He'd been working, on and off, for two days and three nights, ever since the mine explosion.

His wife sent him an urgent appeal: she needed the best surgeon she knew, someone familiar with the Confederate surgical systems: Dr. Greenlees alerted his paramedic teams, informed them he'd be available only for dire emergency indeed.

He kept a Little Black Bag packed and ready beside where the Iris would appear: it did, he picked up his black-leather grip and stepped boldly across a shimmering threshold, and crossed several light-decades as easily as a man might step through a doorway, into another room.

The local medical community already sat up a surgical tent, very near the mine entrance: Dr. Greenlees stood, got his bearings.

The Confederate Ambassador and the Martian Ambassador were working side by side, arranging power, supplies, directing the setup of the modular surgical suites: Dr. Greenlees was introduced, stepped into the newly arrived, molded-plastic-looking cube that was the changing area, stripped off his clothes, scrubbed thoroughly, and assumed his surgical attire.

He'd worked steadily, almost silently, barely stopping to eat: now, after this length of time, after running on automatic pilot, after laying in very precise, very tidy rows of sutures on his last patient, he felt ready to collapse.

Warm, firm hands gripped his shoulders: he rose in response to their pull: he allowed himself to be steered to a nearby bed.

He lay down, curled up: he'd just lay there for a minute, just a minute --

Ambassador Marnie Keller, wife to the exhausted and now-passed-out Dr. John Greenlees, splayed her fingers on the stool he'd recently occupied, rolled them over to his bedside.

She'd been busy as well: she was not a nurse, but she could perform well as support staff, as a facilitator: if an implement, a device, if particular supplies or solutions were needed, she could arrange them: there were enough genetic changes on this very distant planet, that offworld blood supplies were not compatible, and so she went on a fast recruiting swing: there were willing donors, mostly family of the injured, and though Marnie could not guarantee that any particular volume of blood went into an injured relative, every donation was used, and used where it was desperately needed.

Marnie slept very little, for the duration.

The Confederate Ambassador found that -- thanks to Marnie's efficiency, her authority, her gift for organization and recruitment from what she called "The Unorganized Militia" -- that he had very little to do: Marnie exercised her office, her contacts, her charm and personality and what she called her "Wheedle, Blanny and Baloney" to get what she wanted: she'd work out the trade accords, the opening of commerce, the formal agreements, at a later time.

Her focus was on getting the medical team whatever supplies they needed.

Generators were brought in, scavenger units that ran their own hot exhaust through the ubiquitous Recyclos to form fuel: what little makeup was required, was supplied by either atmosphere, or a few shovels of dirt slung casually into a Recyclo port: common dirt, ripped apart at the subatomic level, was automatically reassembled into elements and compounds they needed.

As long as they had a master sample to pattern, they could make anything at all.

The local medical community was already appreciating this unexpected bounty.

Not only were their less experienced physicians learning from Dr. Greenlees, they were each given full sets of surgical tools, their clinics were being delivered shipments of ventilators, anesthetics, sutures, needles, scalpels, tongue depressors, gauze and the thousand and one other items that are needed to run a hospital level surgery.

Even these prefab treatment modules would be distributed: each had its own water, its own waste disposal and power, its own Recyclo system to keep all these running: the local physicians were grateful for the help when they realized the magnitude of their disaster, and were even happier once it was over, to inherit tools they would have give their eye teeth a week before to acquire.

Of the entire mine explosion and collapse, all but two were accounted for; three were dead before they could be removed, and of those brought to the emergency clinic, set up very near the mine's entrance, five were too badly injured to save: some lost limbs, an eye, an eardrum: these more involved patients were sent to more advanced treatment, off-planet.

Dr. Greenlees lost track of how many he personally treated: his were the most critical patients, the most difficult surgeries, the most precise resections: years later, a little boy would tilt his head curiously at a scar in his father's chest, and his father would explain that was where a Martian doctor removed a sliver of steel from his beating heart ... and he was not the only survivor to recount how he acquired particular scars in particular places.

The Ambassador looked in on the pair: he turned, he had a quiet voiced conversation with a local adjutant, who nodded and disappeared:  inside of a half hour, a comfortably upholstered recliner was brought in, covered with a blanket: the Ambassador laid a hand on Marnie's shoulder, whispered in her ear: she stood, not entirely awake, the rolling stool was pulled away and the recliner slid into its place.

The Ambassador very carefully picked Marnie up, stepped back while stainless steel stool was traded for the easy chair:  he laid her down in the comfortable, laid-back chair, thanked the adjutant quietly as the latter handed the Ambassador a warmed blanket:  he draped it gently, carefully, over Marnie's already-sound-asleep form, and he smiled as he saw her hand had already found her husband's somnolent grip.

The Ambassador looked at the adjutant, nodded to the exit:  the two withdrew silently, leaving the pair to their much deserved rest.

The Ambassador watched silently as the adjutant removed his miner's hardhat, wiped his balding scalp with a firm swipe of a crumpled handkerchief.

The adjutant looked back into the room.

"Close the door?" he asked, and the Ambassador nodded.

"You're sure?" the miner asked, surprised. "You'll leave your wife sleeping with another man?"

The Ambassador felt his face flush:  he leaned forward, drew the door shut, closed it quietly: he raised a hand to his mouth, regarded the puzzled adjutant with amused eyes.

"Wife?" he asked, trying to hide his grin behind leather-gloved knuckles.

The adjutant was clearly uncomfortable, seeming to realize he'd committed a faux pas, but not at all sure quite how he'd done it.

"My colleague" -- the Ambassador nodded toward the closed door -- "is wife to the good Doctor."

The adjutant's mouth fell open in dismay and he began to stammer an apology, at least until the Ambassador raised an understanding palm.

"You've always seen the two of us together," he said gently, "and you thought we were a married couple."  He laid a confidential hand on the man's shoulder, nodded.

"Thank you for that," he said, "and I will admit I would dearly love to have her as my wife ... she is a rare prize ... but they're happily married, and I will not tread upon another man's territory!"

He squeezed the adjutant's shoulder, winked.

"Don't feel bad.  'Twas an honest mistake."

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AGAIN

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller began the ancestry research.

Her granddaughters continued her work with the same zeal as Willamina herself began it, and they searched in the same manner as she: it was their unfailing custom to do their research in the back offices of the Firelands Museum, which was a minor library as well as a research facility; they searched using every last tool available to them, thanks to the widespread use of computers and the universal availability of newspaper accounts, death records and other useful tools of Swimming Upriver in Time.

Another custom they followed, was to do their research, while dressed for the part.

Sheriff Willamina came to Firelands, originally, to fill an unexpired term; she was re-elected multiple times, and finally retired, shortly before her death.

She came into the office knowing that – in spite of her credentials as a Marine, in spite of her experience as a nurse, in spite of her excellent education – she was a woman, in a man’s world.

She didn’t try to change that.

Instead of wearing the standard Colorado State Sheriff’s Association uniform, she wore a tailored business suit and heels.

She was not tall by any stretch of the imagination – every last deputy she had was taller than she – but she had a Presence, perhaps augmented by the very first night she arrived, when on her way to Firelands from the airport, she instructed her deputy to respond to the barfight called in over the radio, she kicked the door open, she drove a charge of buckshot through the ceiling and shocked the barfight into a sudden standstill, then she waded through staring, bloodied combatants to the root cause of the knuckle-and-skull conflagration – two women in a screaming, hair-pulling catfight – she introduced one’s face to the wall and pulled a .45 automatic from under her tailored blue suit coat, and invited her, quietly, to drop the broken bottle, before I drop you.

Sheriff Willamina, as she was universally known, did not try to be one of the guys.

She never appeared anywhere officially, unless she wore her trademark suit dress and heels; she treated her people like the professionals she expected them to be, and she expected more of them – she expressed more confidence in them – than they had in themselves.

It worked.

She did not come in as a controlling martinet.

She came in as an efficient administrator who knew how to get more out of someone than they thought they could do.

An administrator who also picked up uncooperative criminals and threw them across the room, an administrator who pinned a loudmouthed troublemaker by the throat against a wall at a public meeting and invited him to so much as twitch so she could punch his guts clear up into his tonsils, an administrator who changed into boots and blue jeans and led a horseback posse in search of two little boys who’d wandered off right before a snowstorm hit, and when the winds stilled and the snow stopped, she stepped out of a sheltering cleft in the rocks, raised a Sheriff’s band talkie to her lips with one hand, and fired a flare gun with the other to guide a relief column to where she and the boys and a good saddlehorse holed up overnight, with brush and snow making a snug roof overhead, with lightweight silver blankets to keep them warm, rations from her saddlebags to feed the three of them, with a trickle of clean water running through their little shelter providing the basis for hot tea with honey (let that cool, it’s hot!) and rock walls close on either side to reflect their fire’s heat back onto them.

Willamina’s granddaughters were their own souls: one was her twin in appearance and in temperament, the other less so, but the granddaughters happily searched and researched their ancestry with their focused, efficient, pale eyed Gammaw.

In the years since Willamina’s passing, the granddaughters continued her research, at least until Marnie was shot off into the cold darkness of interstellar space, and Angela worked alone – but in memory of her dear Gammaw, Angela, too, wore the same style of suit dress as her pale eyed ancestress, and so it was that her Daddy came into the Museum just to say hello, and found his darlin’ little girl with her forehead on the heel of her hand and a frown on her face.

Angela looked up, straightened.

“Trouble?” Linn asked in his deep, reassuring Daddy-voice.

Angela made a face like she’d just bit into a sour pickle.

“Reality,” she finally said, “sucks.”

Linn nodded, eased his long tall frame into a chair. 

“Yep,” he agreed.  “Fill me in.”

“A cousin. Anderson, the name. Third cousin, two removes –”

She gave her pale eyed Daddy a distressed look:  for all that she was dressed like a professional woman, an administrator, in that moment she looked almost like an unhappy little girl –

“Daddy, I wanted all of our ancestors to be noble and upright and honorable and clean, cheerful, thrifty and reverent.”

“You found on that’s not.”

“I found a cop killer.”

Linn raised an eyebrow.

“Anderson the name, out of Whitley County."

She paused, read, fingertips tracing lightly across handwritten notes.

"It was” – she re-read her notes, turned a page back on the legal pad she still favored, lifted another page – “1932. Height of the Depression.”

“What happened?”

“It was a… Methodist tent revival,” she said.  “He was there being rowdy and heckling and the constable grabbed him and threw him out.

“The next night the constable deputized … some …”

She frowned, frustrated, lifted a page, shook her head.

“I can’t find how many he deputized, but when Anderson came back to heckle some more, the Constable grabbed one arm and a newly deputized grabbed the other. Someone -- I think another heckler -- grabbed the deputy, Anderson pulled a gun and killed the constable, someone – maybe two someones, there are conflicting reports – gut shot Anderson twice.  He lived a few days.”

Angela turned her distressed, bright-blue eyes back to her Daddy, drawing from the confidence she saw in his posture, the warmth she saw in his expression.

“Daddy, the constable was a cousin, too!”

Linn nodded, looked down, and Angela saw his bottom jaw slide out.

“We can’t pick our family, Angela,” he said finally, “and sometimes family isn’t … quite … what we want.”

Linn chose his words carefully.

“I know, Daddy,” Angela said, and now she even sounded like the little girl she’d been, the delightful, blue-eyed child Linn remembered so fondly, the happy little gigglebox that lit up her Daddy’s soul like a hundred watt bulb, now grown, or nearly so, grown enough to look womanly, but with all the true beauty of the young –

Linn blinked, broke the spell: fathers sometimes think that way, and at times, he definitely did.

“Angela,” Linn said, his voice still reassuring, gentle, “have you found where the constable is buried?”

“I think so, Daddy.”

Linn held up a forestalling hand as Angela began to riffle quickly through her papers; his darlin’ daughter froze, looked very directly at her Daddy, fingers buried in the several sheets she was turning.

“If you find it,” Linn said gently, “note it down separately for me. I’d like to make that a visitation one of these days.”

Father and daughter both stood:  Angela swung around the desk, quickly, her skirt swinging as she turned, skipped up to her Daddy:  she seized this hard-muscled, lean-waisted icon of strength and security, she pressed the side of her face into his chest, she squeezed him tight, tight, the way a happy little girl will, and Linn’s arms were strong and reassuring and gentle around his little girl, this delightful child he used to swing high in the air so she could scatter happy giggles all over the floor.

Angela looked up, chewed on her bottom lip for a moment.

“Daddy?”

“Hm?”

“Daddy, if I’m growing up too fast …”

She swallowed.

“Daddy, if you want, I can wear pigtails and pinafores instead of …”

Linn took his daughter under the arms, hoisted her up, rubbed his nose against hers, lightly, carefully, leaned his head forward until their foreheads just touched, until her eyes merged into one Arizona-blue orb.

“I see you,” he whispered, and Angela giggled, for this was something he’d done with her since her earliest memories of the man.

He lowered her a little, kissed her forehead, then carefully lowered her a very little more, until her heels just touched the polished tile floor.

“Darlin’,” he almost whispered, “you dress however you choose. You’ve been a little girl in pigtails and pinafores, and I cherish those memories and we have the pictures, but you’re not a little girl anymore.”

“I don’t want to distress you, Daddy.”

“By growing up too fast?”  Linn chuckled, sat, pulled Angela onto his lap:  she wiggled a little, making sure her bony backside wouldn’t dig into the man’s thighs.

“Darlin’, every little girl grows up too fast. It’s a fact of life, and Daddies all have to learn it.  If Daddies had their way, they’d put their little girl on a high shelf and put a glass bell jar over ‘em like they were a precious doll or something.”

Angela took her Daddy’s hand between both of his, looked deep into his pale, just-barely-light-blue eyes.

“Daddies might want that, darlin’, but people in hell want ice water, and that doesn’t work out either.”

Angela twisted, hugged her Daddy again, and Linn sat with this maturing young woman, his near-to-grown-up little girl, in his arms and on his lap, each one holding the other, and for a long, happy moment, he was happy to be just a Daddy, and Angela was happy to let maturing womanhood fall away so she could be his little girl again.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HARD KNUCKLES AND HOT LEAD

Marnie's arm swung outward as her Daddy's black gelding turned a little sideways, the way he always did when she cast a lariat.

Sheriff Linn Keller's eyes were hard and unforgiving, his pace determined, one hand on his holstered sidearm, the other hand up, as if to grab, or to support his gun hand, or to swat aside a pesky fly if need be.

The object of their attention was buzzed up on something -- just what, they didn't know, and didn't particularly care -- they'd gotten the call and they'd converged, and they'd distracted a druggie from whatever it was he intended to do to a snatched child in the parking lot.

Linn started to lean forward, the way he did just before launching himself into someone.

Jacob ran up, shotgun in a two-hand grip, brought the pump gun back, his body twisted, ready to uncoil like a living spring.

Marnie's loop hesitated, then dropped, snapped shut: braided leather snapped taut, two turns around the saddlehorn guaranteeing her mount's quick-stepping retreat would bring the wide-eyed, knife-swinging druggie off his feet.

It appeared to the onlookers as if they'd practiced this move many times -- they had to, didn't they? -- it looked so rehearsed, so perfect:  the Sheriff kept the druggie's attention, one pale eyed deputy whipped a lasso around him and yanked him off his feet, the other unwound a shotgun butt into the screaming, thrashing felon's belly, knocking all the wind and most of the fight out of him.

It was common knowledge that when that long tall Sheriff grabbed someone, they weren't getting away: a set of irons snarled around the felon's wrists, the felon was freed of la reata and stuffed in the waiting cruiser, and a pale eyed deputy slung his shotgun casually over his off shoulder, muzzle down as was his habit, as his pale eyed sister casually coiled her lariat and hung it off her saddlehorn.

Several there had their phones out, capturing the takedown: lucky enough, those same folk also caught video of this individual stabbing car doors, throwing shopping carts and seizing a child and threatening to cut her throat if he wasn't given a million dollars and a helicopter: the arrival of a hard, uncompromising Sheriff, the Sheriff opening the back door of his cruiser, then turning, pointing to the criminal and advancing at a determined pace, was enough to penetrate the drug's influence, enough to hold the criminal's attention.

Someone later asked the mounted deputy why they didn't just shoot the guy with the knife: she had a rifle in her scabbard, and was known to be an expert shot; the Sheriff carried a carbine in his cruiser, and could have used it to good effect -- a deer slug fed into Jacob's shotgun could have had the same surgically precise effect, as close as he was.

Marnie dismounted, opened her saddlebag, pulled out the weekly newspaper.

It showed her brother at an accident scene, doing CPR on a bloodied victim.

"He didn't make it," she said, "and Jacob knew he probably would not make it, but he tried anyway. Do you know why?"

The bystander shook his head, puzzled.

"Jacob knows what it is to have an empty chair at Thanksgiving," she said. "He knew if he did nothing, that guy was dead. If he did his best, he'd be giving him the only chance he'd have. That's what we did here."

She gestured to where the takedown had just occurred.

"That is someone's son, someone's brother, someone's uncle or maybe a lost husband. We just gave him the only chance he'll have to straighten out."

The questioner looked away, frowned a little, looked back, nodded.

"We gave him a chance. Sometimes we don't have that choice, but today we did."

 

In years past, when men who rode the Owlhoot Trail changed their names like they changed coats, a pale eyed old lawman with an iron grey mustache brought someone in rather than kill him out of hand.

Questions were asked, among those riders of the Owlhoot, whether Old Pale Eyes was gettin' soft.

The general consensus that he wasn't softenin' up any a'tall, he was still the same hard man he'd always been, but maybe there was more to the man than just hard knuckles and hot lead.

Somehow that quote made it into the local newspaper.

Better than a century later, the editor of the local paper remembered that ancient quote, and actually found it, and it featured into the weekly's front page article on the dramatic takedown, when a local child was seized by a drug-crazed, knife-wielding stranger, when a lariat and a shotgun were used, when the local law was a-horseback: the question might be asked, Bruce Jones wrote, as to whether their pale eyed enforcers of the Law were gone soft: surely there was justification enough for deadly force, none would have objected at the use of hot lead to prevent the criminal use, the threatened use, of cold steel.

Editor, reporter, photographer and chief broom pusher Bruce Jones ended his article with the answer to his own question, an answer spoken by an outlaw, long and long ago:

"Maybe there's more to them than hard knuckles and hot lead."

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LOCAL GHOST

Mothers are observant creatures.

The mother of a sick child is perhaps hyper-aware, hyper-observant.

One such mother saw the other nurses look at one another as a nurse in the classic dress and winged cap came into the ward.

She'd heard whispers about this one, this nurse, this darling of the new medical director: she thought she was better than everyone, wearing something from years before, when nurses nowadays wore the more efficient scrubs and clogs -- why, this one even wore a blue cape, something not seen since, oh God, when? -- World War II?

The old-fashioned nurse stopped at the first sink, washed her hands quickly, efficiently: she turned, eyes swinging over the ward, as if searching for something.

The mother had just finished helping bathe her child, she'd drawn the covers carefully up around a young chin, she'd caressed a young face, looked into unresponsive eyes.

Terminal, they'd said.

Inoperable, they'd said.

She knew the spine was involved, she knew the cancer was spread, in spite of chemo wafers packed into the void where the glioma was removed from the living brain, in spite of blasting the invading tendrils with radiation ... in spite of cutting, burning and poisoning, the cancer was taking her child, and nothing she could do to stop it.

The nurse flowed across the floor, her cape lifting a little as she did: she tilted her head, looked with unblinking pale eyes at the child's face, the bald head.

She lowered the near siderail, bent, ran a hand under the child's pelvis, one under the neck, closed her eyes.

"What are you doing?" the mother asked.

The nurse lifted just a little, then pulled, as if stretching the diseased, brittle, crumbling spine.

"What are you doing?" the mother asked again, louder, then grabbed the nurse's arms.

She let go, suddenly -- hot! she thought, looked at her hands, expecting them to be red, blistered.

She looked at the nurse, shocked, uncertain whether to shout for help, unsure just what to do --

The nurse straightened, bent over the child's bald head, caressed the shining, hairless scalp with both hands, and the mother was struck by how pale, how unblinking her eyes were -- how ...

... how unnatural.

The nurse held the small head in both hands, laid her thumbs over the closed eyes, moved them up to the hairless brow ridge, then she released the child's head, straightened.

She turned, walked back to the sink, washed her hands, left the ward.

The other nurses hung back, silent, not moving.

The mother looked at them, looked at the closing door.

"What," she asked, "just happened?"

The unit supervisor came over, bent, looked closely at the unmoving child's face.

She looked at the mother.

"When did his eyebrows start growing back?"

The mother looked at her child, froze.

She reached down, hesitantly caressed ... 

Eyebrows?

And eyelashes --

She pushed away from the bed, ran across the ward, yanked open the door, looked wildly down the hall, looked the other way --

Gone --

She ran, stopped, looked one way, then the other, down the night-empty corridors --

She ran back --

The unit supervisor was taking her child's vitals: she looked up, smiled as the mother approached the bed.

"Who was that nurse that was just in here?"

The supervisor looked at her, puzzled.

"What nurse?"

"The one ... you know, in the old-fashioned uniform --"

The supervisor shook her head slowly.  

"But ... she came in and came over ... I saw her, she ... I grabbed her arms, she was hot --"

The supervisor and the other nurses looked at one another, shook their heads.

 

Angela dropped heavily into the Mars-issue, spun-plastic chair, leaned back, sighed contentedly.

Dr. Greenlees smiled a little.  

"I take it you were successful."

"Oh, yes," she said. "The field kept me invisible. All anyone but the mother saw was the door open and shut. I even managed to conceal my handwashing."

Dr. Greenlees nodded.

"And the child?"

"I implanted the nanobots at the distal and proxmial spine both," she said, "and I couldn't resist a little ... theater."

Dr. Greenlees raised an eyebrow.

"I knew there were a few nanos on my invisogloves, so I ran my thumbs across the patient's brow ridge."

"Did it work?"

"I didn't stay long enough to find out," Angela admitted. "The iris opened as I approached and disappeared just as fast. Nobody saw me in the hallway and no cameras in that section."

 

"Was it the ghost of Nurse Susan?"

"Who?"

"Puffy mob cap, long dress, watch on her bodice --"

"No, no, it looked like nurses in my grandmother's era. Winged cap, stockings, dress, a blue cape."

"Mmm.  No, I've heard of the ghost of the original Dr. Greenlees' wife being seen ... no, I don't know of any ghosts like that."  The unit supervisor frowned, considered, looked at the door.

"You might ask the Sheriff.  He knows about our local haunts."

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AMBASSADORIAL PRIVILEGE

 

Women are marvelous, fascinating creatures of mystery, given to actions, statements, decisions that puzzle their male counterparts, that confuse their male counterparts, that utterly confound their male counterparts: just when a man thinks he might be close to figuring out women as a whole, or a woman in particular, these creatures of grace and beauty do something to turn that conclusion, that hubric supposition, on its absolute head.

One thing the Ambassador knew, however, was that when his Martian counterpart, Sheriff Emeritus Marnie Keller, began to growl, it meant things were going to be quite unpleasant for someone, and generally in very short order.

The Ambassador came into the Earth-and-a-quarter, as it was called, and immediately felt heavier: the gravity here was 1.25 Earth-normal, and it was where Marnie practiced.

The Ambassador was no weak soul, by any means: he, too, maintained his physical strength, his stamina; he, too practiced various of the Arts Martial, but he could only stare in admiration as Marnie jumped, seized a bar, chinned herself ten times with apparent ease: she dropped, crouched, reached left, reached right, gripped what he knew were cast iron dumbbells that – in Earth-normal gravity – weighed twenty pounds each:  the weights at the end of the stippled, cast-iron bars were hexagonal, and Marnie used them as push-up handles, driving herself mercilessly against the increased gravity.

He knew she’d been running – she ran as her grandmother ran, with a full ruck, with a rifle over her shoulder, boots laced and fatigue trousers bloused – but unlike her grandmother, her labors were without the driving rhythms from towering speakers with a good bass response.

The speakers were there; at times, Marnie did time her exertions to the beat of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” as played on a madman’s cello, she practiced with a three-foot riot baton to the screaming urgency of Celtic war-pipes:  at least, she had done these things in the past.

Today she drove herself in silence.

The Ambassador watched as she mercilessly pushed herself through half-a-hundred pushups: her legs came up under her, she released the dumbbells, she ran for a fighting-golem.

The golem came to life at her approach.

It didn’t move fast enough.

Marnie’s attack was at running speed: she swung up, drove both bootheels into its middle, knocked it down, hard: she continued her attack, staying just out of reach of the quick-grabbing hands, kicking the golem, dropping back, jumping, twisting.

The Ambassador took another step forward.

The golem stopped, stood, went inert: Marnie crouched, her eyes pale, splayed fingertips on the floor.

For the very first time since he’d met her, the Ambassador felt a trickle of fear as the Marnie he seldom saw, looked very directly at him.

Her eyes were fighting-white, her face was the color of parchment, and the skin was stretched tight over her cheekbones: her bloodless lips were peeled back, he saw the muscle definition in her bare, sweat-sheened arms, and he realized that perhaps he should have used the annunciator rather than just walking in unannounced.

Marnie dropped her head, rose; she lifted her head and smiled: her face was pleasant, her expression gentle, the color was back in her cheeks and her eyes held that faint shade of cornflower blue that meant she was pleased to see someone:  she toweled her sweaty face briskly, then her damp, wet-shining arms.

“You should have called ahead,” she announced cheerfully, “I’d have had a nice cold beer waiting on you!”

 

The Ambassador looked at Jacob’s wife, then at Jacob.

“You’ve chosen well,” he said softly, and Jacob looked from his wife back to the Ambassador.

His smile was quiet, reserved:  he nodded, then he stopped, looked at the Ambassador again, and laughed.

He leaned forward a little and said quietly, “Just between you and me and the fence post yonder, I’m not sure but what she’s the one that made that choice!”

The Ambassador sighed, nodded: “I know my wife did,” he admitted.  “I didn’t have the sense God gave a rock.” 

The Ambassador’s expression softened a little.

“I’m glad she did.”

“Me too,” Jacob admitted:  both men rose as Ruth approached their table, bearing a great tray of comestibles: she placed the tray, gave it a final, approving look.

Jacob and the Ambassador, and Jacob’s wife, dined well that afternoon: an original cut of backstrap from a particularly healthy specimen had been scanned into the replicator, along with choice examples of the various other dishes they favored: Ruth adapted quickly to new technology, probably because she’d been raised a daughter of privilege, with servants and cooks to tend such mundane tasks: she was able to select dishes from the computerized menu and have them appear, hot, fragrant, spiced to their preference: the kitchen’s demands on her were minimal.

Conversation was pleasant, they discussed horses and hydroponics, power generation and musical performances: the Ambassador expressed his admiration for Jacob’s skill with an artist’s pencil and his sister’s as well, and Jacob laughed and told the Ambassador about the time Marnie wore a business suit and stood behind their bank’s counter when a wanted man came in and tried to swindle his way into a safety deposit box: how, when Marnie was sworn in, after the criminal was apprehended and it came to court, she wore the same suit, she identified the defendant, and she identified the portrait grade sketch she’d made immediately after the foiled felon’s frustrated flight, and how the defendant exclaimed “Howinell’d I know she was a damned sketch artist!” – to the absolute distress of his defense attorney.

“You know, your sister is quite a remarkable woman,” the Ambassador chuckled.

“She thinks rather highly of you as well.”

The Ambassador looked thoughtful, looked at Jacob, turning a sweet roll between his fingers.

“I am ever so grateful she separates her professional from her personal,” he said softly. “Was I not happily married … I might … ask her father’s permission to pursue her hand.”

Jacob nodded thoughtfully; he and his wife exchanged a look.

The Sheriff’s line chimed:  Jacob said “Excuse me,” slid his chair back, strode for his desk across the room:  he bent, pressed a button, looked at the monitor.

“Sheriff Keller.”

“Sir, there’s a fight, second level, hangar deck –”

The anxious individual turned, looked to his left: Jacob saw the man’s mouth fall open: the caller winched his jaw back into engagement as he turned and looked into the camera again.

“Fight’s over,” he said, and Jacob heard a familiar voice a little further away call, “Prisoner inbound, have Doc on standby!”

“You heard the lady,” Jacob said. “Give her whatever help she needs.”

Jacob lifted his head.  “Sorry to interrupt, folks, but I’ve got to take care of this.”

He slung his gunbelt around his middle, cinched it snug, clapped his uniform Stetson on his head, looked at his guest and announced happily, “Dressed!”

Ever since he was a wee child, as long as he had his hat and his boots, he was dressed, and his Mama had a blackmail picture somewhere of little Jacob wearing only those two items, standing in profile at the bathroom sink, grinning through a mouthful of toothpaste foam, eyes shining and toothbrush in hand.

Jacob strode for the door, intercepted his sister and one of the maintenance men, half-dragging, half-carrying a groaning prisoner with two black eyes a good start on a bloody nose.

“Assault on a law enforcement officer,” Marnie said crisply, “simple assault, on a civilian, assault with a deadly weapon, public intox, aggravated stupidity and mopery with intent to creep.”  Marnie’s smile was grim.  “You know, the usual.”

Jacob nodded, went through the prisoner’s pockets, patted him down quickly, expertly, with the ease of long practice.

“All right, fella,” he said, “let’s get you to see the Doc. Looks like you run your face into someone’s fist.”

Jacob looked at his sister.  “You okay?”

She shook her head and he saw she was holding her hand carefully, the way she did if she was injured and didn’t want to show it.

“Someone else assaulted?”

“Got their statement already. That’s the simple. He pulled a club on me for the weapon specification.”

“You didn’t just kill him?  Armed assault on a law enforcement officer is a death penalty offense.”

Marnie shrugged.  “Ambassadorial privilege.”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DID YE TALK T’ GOD ABOUT IT?

 

Sheriff Linn Keller removed his Stetson as he addressed their hired girl.

He apologized in a most gentlemanly manner for causing her more work, and asked if she could possibly tend his suit, for he’d managed to get it rather dirty: from anyone else, it would have been a demand, an order, but from the pale eyed Sheriff, it was couched as a request, and she’d discovered that when he parsed it as a request, it was just that.

This was relieving to their hired girl, for tending the household was no light task, and so far as she was able, she liked to plan her work ahead.

Linn retreated with a careful tread up the stairs – in his sock feet, his boots were scuffed and dirty, very unlike their gleaming appearance he usually affected:  only his hat escaped whatever misadventure that made him look … used.

Linn came down the stairs, as silent as when he’d ascended: he’d come into the house still damp from washing up, and consultation with a mirror assured him that yes, he’d managed to get rid of the accumulated dirt: he looked around, remembering his young sons, alive and healthy (and clean!), and he gripped the back of a kitchen chair, then sat, slowly, bent over, elbows on his knees, and sank his face into his palms, shivering a little.

The maid came bustling into the room, picked up his folded coat, shirt, vest and trousers, then froze, looking at the man:  she placed the folded garments on another chair, slipped out of the room, came back with a cut-glass tumbler with three fingers’ worth of distilled California sunshine.

“Ye look done in,” she whispered, a gentle hand on his back:  Linn lifted his face from his hands, took the glass, drank.

He handed the maid back the empty glass, nodded: another moment, and he was on his feet.

“I’ve got t’ polish m’ boots,” he muttered, and the maid shrank back a little.

 

Michael Moulton was the town’s attorney, and their land office agent: he’d lifted a chin to the Sheriff, crossed the street at a long-legged stride, spoken to the pale eyed lawman from whom silence cascaded like a cold downdraft from a snowy mountain.

Linn looked at his old friend, concerned.

“The Parsons boys?”

Moulton nodded, a single, measured lowering of his head, a lift, eyes veiled as he did.

“Those boys don’t have two shekels to rub together.”

“So I gathered.”

“And they were askin’ about filin’ a claim?”

Again the single, measured nod.

“Did they say what they were minin’?”

“Not after I started talking how much filing a claim would run, then I spoke of the expense of hauling ore, the cost of freight …”

“Hm.”  Linn squinted into the distance. “Might ought I’d ride up there and take a look.”

“Chances are it was just wishful thinking, Sheriff.”

“Might be,” Linn agreed, “but if they hit even a trace of color, we could have a gold rush or silver or hell anything nowadays, mines are playin’ out left and right and men are desperate for one last vein.”

The two men withdrew into the Sheriff’s office, and the Sheriff opened one of several wide, shallow drawers on a purpose built cabinet he’d had made some years back.

He considered the contents of one drawer, riffled through the big sheets of paper, brought one out, laid it on his desk.

Mr. Moulton turned to get his bearings, studying the hand drawn map – twin to the one he’d used that day, to locate the position of the Parsons boys’ inquiry – the Sheriff frowned a little, thumped the spot with a fingertip.

“There’s nothing there,” he said finally, “no silver, no zinc, no lead, sure as hell no gold … why d’ they want to stake that?”

“Salt it, maybe, sell it and make money?”

“They don’t own the ground, they can’t sell it.”

“Sell the claim, then.”

“That,” Linn grunted. “Most likely that.”  He shook his head.  “Hell, if they’re goin’ to do that, they’ll bring a gold rush down on us and we’ll never recover!”

Mr. Moulton had seen gold rushes and what they did to a town, and he agreed silently with the Sheriff’s sentiments.

“I’ll head up there and see what they’ve got.”

Half an hour later, the Sheriff’s stallion stamped restlessly as the pale eyed old lawman surveyed the scene.

He frowned, leaned forward, squinted, willing himself to see more clearly –

What’s that sticking out of that hole?

Legs?

One of the Parsons boys ran up to the hole, grabbed a leg, pulled: it was excavated into a sidehill, it looked like a collapse –

The stallion surged powerfully forward, heading for the small scale but potentially deadly tunnel collapse at a mane-streaming, tail-floating, ears-laid-back, gallop.

 

The maid looked at Linn, her expression serious.

“Ye drank that like watter,” she observed.

Linn looked at the tumbler, looked into its vacant depth, handed it to her.

“Yep. Hole in it.”

“Sheriff,” the maid said carefully, “be ye well?”

Linn looked at her with a troubled expression, something she’d never seen before.

“I was thinking of my sons,” he said, his voice most uncharacteristically faint.

 

Linn seized the broke-handled shovel, attacked the cave-in like a personal enemy.

He knew it would be bootless to seize the protruding leg and pull: too much of the boy’s body was trapped under the roof fall:  he moved dirt fast, not in a panic but without any lethargy whatsoever, carefully avoiding trying to shovel such things as arms or other body parts.

He seized the boy’s waist, hoisted, pulled:  a shift, and he reset his feet, hauled up, pulled again: the dirt reluctantly released its grip, and the Sheriff brought the limp, unmoving figure from death’s grip, rolled him over.

He’s not breathing.

Linn looked around, frantic.

How to get him to breathe!

What did they use on the waterfront?

Bent him over a barrel and rolled him back and forth …

Linn remembered the near-drowning, how the dockworker was laid over a barrel, gripped by the ankles, rolled back and forth, how he’d heaved up a hogshead of saltwater and started coughing.

I’ve got no barrel.

He stood a-straddle of the boy, bent over, ran an arm under the lad’s belly, hoisted, then let him down:  hoisted again, let him down again.

The other boy’s pleas were distant, barely heard: the Sheriff felt helpless in the face of his tragedy, he felt uncertain.

Lift again, hold, hold, hold, and lower.

He felt movement: he lowered the lad again, rolled him up on his side, looked at the frightened brother, white-faced and kneeling, watching, shocked, wide-eyed, helpless.

Linn reached down, rubbed the lad’s belly.

He gasped, weakly.

Linn rubbed again, harder.

A longer gasp.

Once more, he thought, and this time the boy coughed.

 

Linn’s voice was quiet in the kitchen.

“When he started breathin’ again,” he said, “so did I.”

He took a long breath, stood.

“Reckon I’ll get my boots taken care of,” he said quietly. “Got ‘em kind of dirty.”

The maid rose with him, her hands clasped and anxious in her apron.

“Did they find anythin’ where they dug?” she asked.

Linn shook his head.

“They found dirt, that was about all. Nothing they could claim.”

“So we’ve no worry about a Glory Hole bringin’ scoundrels an’ loafers fra’ all o’er t’ plague our puir town.”

“No.”  Linn grinned.  “I’ve seen a gold rush, Mary. No wish to see one here.”

Mary withdrew a step to allow the man to pass, then:

“Sheriff?”

Linn stopped, turned.

“Did ye talk t’ God about it?”

Linn nodded, his expression haunted.

“Yes, Mary,” he said quietly. “Yes, I did.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I LIKE THINGS THAT WORK

It used to be a winning poker hand.

In less than one-half of one heartbeat, it was a fluttering spray of pasteboards -- that is, it was one of several such sprays.

Colorful, light-catching, just like the glitter of coin launched into the air when an anonymous boot kicked the underside of the table and those nearest the sledgehammer concussion took pains to lose altitude in a hurry.

A pale eyed deputy Sheriff, less than a week in town, tracked down a man who swore no man could track him; he'd braced him in the town he'd bragged no lawman would ever dare enter, and he'd just outdrawn the man who'd let it be known that no man alive could out-draw or out-shoot him.

Later, after the inquest, the circuit riding judge asked the quiet, lean-faced lawman with the thousand-mile stare, "Deputy, why are you still carrying that old Colt? Surely you can afford one of those new cartridge revolvers!"

Deputy Sheriff Linn Keller, the day before he became Sheriff of Firelands, looked the circuit riding Judge in the eye and said quietly, "Your Honor, that revolver was given me by a man who knew I would need a faithful friend who could argue loudly and persuasively on my behalf. It's never let me down, not even once."

The Judge saw just a hint of humor in those pale eyes as the lawman continued, "I like things that work!"

 

A pale eyed Marine was laagered in with her troops in mountains uncomfortably close to the Soviet Union: matter of fact, she'd found Soviet troops occupied this same bunker, years before.

Her M4 carbine was detail stripped on the solid little table before her:  she reassembled it, her fingers sure, swift, exact: she knew where dirt hid, where carbon built up, she knew which parts to look at closely, she knew what to change out and when.

Nobody ever remembered her rifle failing to function, no one ever remembered her M4 out of action from a misfeed, from a jam, from a failure to eject.

Nobody offered comment when they saw her tear her rifle down, but no one missed how precise she was when she did, and no one failed to notice that when this pale eyed Marine brought fire upon the enemy, the enemy came out in second place.

The closest anyone ever came to comment was when her CO came in to find her carefully, precisely, exactly, lubricating and reassembling her rifle: he watched in silence, waited until her rifle was reassembled before lifting his eyes from her hands and looking at her eyes.

Willamina's eyes were pale as she said in a quiet voice, "I like things that work."

 

Three men moved at the same time, and so did a pretty young Ambassador in a long-skirted dress and a fashionably matching little hat.

The men moved against the guard that surrounded the Ambassador, confident that surprise, strength, weighted leather saps -- and the energy-dissipation suits they wore -- would be sufficient to disable the guard and abduct this pretty slip of a high-value hostage.

They moved, reaching for  a guard's arm with one hand, raising their slungshot with the other.

Ambassador Marnie Keller skipstepped to the side, fired a percussion, blackpowder, .36 caliber, Navy Colt: its twin, in her other hand, coughed:  two men fell, the third, stunned by two quick concussions, looked at her just in time to see a pale eye, steady over the muzzle of her octagon barrel revolver.

It was the last thing he ever saw.

During the debrief that followed, Ambassador Marnie Keller helped strip the carcasses, showed the inquest the wire-mesh suits, the capacitors, the energy scavengers that would have soaked up all the energies of hand-held stunners her planet-assigned bodyguards carried.

"They were ready for the defensive tools your troops were issued," Marnie said quietly. 

"They intended to cosh my guard, seize me and hold me for ransom and" -- she looked around, her pale eyes hardening as she did -- "and do terrible things to me to entice you to accede to their demands."

She casually reloaded one revolver, then the other -- she slipped nitrated paper cartridges into the fired cylinders, turned the ram to seat the flat-nosed, conical bullets down on the powder: she capped the fired nipples, rested the nose of the color case hardened hammer on the little peg between the nipples: a quick move, a magician's gesture, the pistols were hidden again, and none there were sure quite how she'd done it, or where they'd gone.

The Ambassador asked Marnie later why she hadn't worn her usual .357, if she'd known there would be an attack.

Marnie smiled at him, demure, utterly charming, absolutely feminine as she said in a quiet voice, "I like the effect of fire squirting from the barrel. They'll never forget seeing that.

"I like that blackpowder concussion, I like the smell of sulfur afterwards."

Her smile was less feminine now as she added, "It lets 'em know their destination if they cross me."

She folded her hands very properly in her lap and continued, "Besides, I like things that work!"

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HE DID NOT EVEN MOVE

The interdimensional iris was a genuine marvel of Confederate technology.

Among its many attributes was the fact that it was absolutely silent.

When Ambassador Marnie Keller stepped through the iris into her Daddy's study, she made all the noise of a falling leaf, at least until she took a long and serious look at her father.

His face was drawn, lined: his eyes were closed, he was leaned back in his easy chair, but he looked ... 

... he looked tired, worn out, he looked the way she herself had felt when she was utterly crushed with the grief of her children's deaths.

Marnie stood silent, then turned toward the kitchen.

Her step was silent -- even in her hard-heeled boots, her tread was utterly soundless -- she leaned a little, peeked into the kitchen.

Shelly looked up, startled, as Marnie raised a gloved hand, waved.

The two skipped across the floor, embraced: Shelly whispered, quickly, her eyes shining with delight.

"I'm so glad to see you!" -- and Marnie whispered back, "Is Daddy all right?"

Shelly blinked, looked away, and Marnie knew her Daddy was not all right.

"Mama," she whispered, "what happened?"

Shelly hesitated, turned, went over to the stove, turned the fire on under the ancient, lightly dented teakettle:  it was the same one Marnie saw ever since she was a little girl, very likely it had been Aunt Mary's, back when she and Uncle Pete lived here.

Shelly opened a cupboard door with an exaggerated care, brought out two mugs: another minute and tea was steeping, and two Keller women sat at the kitchen table, leaned over their fragrant, steaming mugs, and talked in whispers.

"We had a bad one today," Shelly explained.  "I'm soaking the blood out of my uniform. Linn picked up another two pounds of salt on his way home."

"His too?"

Shelly nodded.

"Was Daddy hurt?"

"Not physically."

Marnie felt her sense of safety drop down a mineshaft and disappear into the darkness below: her Daddy was the strongest man she knew, and if he'd had a bad day, if it was a bloody one, and he and her Mama both were in the middle of it, together ...

Marnie looked at her Mama, looked away.

"Are you okay?" Marnie whispered.

"I have to be," Shelly shrugged.  "We'll have a critical incident debrief after supper."

Marnie closed her eyes, rested her forehead in the V of thumb-and-fingers.

Shelly looked at the clock, looked at Marnie.

"I think we'll just get something at the Silver Jewel and walk down to the firehouse for the debrief."

"I'd better go, then."  Marnie rose, and her mother rose with her.

Marnie turned as if to go back through her Daddy's study, then turned quickly, seized her mother, hugged her fiercely:  Shelly felt her daughter shivering a little, and somehow she knew Marnie was remembering some of her own hell.

She's probably remembering losing both her children.

Marnie released her Mama, nodded, blinking: she turned, walked quickly into her Daddy's study.

Linn hadn't moved.

Marnie smelled the man's soap-and-water smell, his deodorant, she remembered how she so loved sitting in her Daddy's lap, safe and protected as she leaned into his chest, smelling that same soap-and-water man-smell.

She blinked the sting from her eyes, bent, kissed her Daddy's forehead, up near his hairline, then she turned and rushed through the iris, which collapsed and disappeared as soundlessly as a great, elliptical, very black cat's eye, closing.

A lean waisted lawman with a mustache gone to iron grey lay in his easy chair, stress and grief graven on his face, even when he rested.

Perhaps somewhere, deep inside, he recognized the touch of a daughter's love, pressed against his forehead, but so exhausted, so spent was the man, that even with this gentle, most welcome touch, he did not even move.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TWO MENS' GIFTS

"I knew you were coming."

The man was tall, tanned, his face weathered, as was his bald head.

A few of the Brethren shaved their scalps into the monastic tonsure.

The Abbott had no need; his hairline began to recede in his nineteenth year, and was only just slowing its retreat, now that he had nought but a band around the back of his head and over his ears.

His visitor was silent; his tread had not been heard, not from the moment he'd dismounted.

The Abbott turned, smiled a little, advanced and thrust out his hand.

The pale eyed Sheriff gripped it: the two men held their grip a moment longer than was required, as each one looked deep into the other's soul.

"Have a seat," the Abbott said, gesturing: he and the Sheriff sat.

Watered wine was brought, decanted from a locally fired clay pitcher, into cut-glass tumblers -- a gift, the Sheriff knew, from the grateful wife of a successful businessman, after the White Sisters tended their family when the plague of measles swept through.

The Abbott waited: he wore his patience the way he wore a cloak; just as silence cascaded from the Sheriff, patience rolled off the Abbott, for both men had seen much of the world, and much of what they'd seen, both together, and in their separate lives, were things they wished they'd never experienced.

A light meal was brought in and laid before the pair.

They ate in silence; a discreet watcher slipped in, silent on bare feet, refilled their tumblers, withdrew discreetly.

"You had a bad one."

Linn looked up, considered, then nodded, once.

"I understand you were in the middle of the situation."

"Turned out that way."  Linn's voice was quiet, almost reluctant.

"You knew them."

"Most of 'em."

"You could have stood back and let Digger handle the dead."

Linn set his tumbler on the table, turned it slowly with just the tips of his thumb and fingers.

"No," he finally said.  "No, I knew 'em. 'Twas best they had someone they knew ... warn't much family left to ... tend 'em."

"How many men could have done that, Linn?"

Linn raised his eyes but made no other move.

"How many other men would have taken one look and wet themselves and then run in panic just to see it?"

Linn's expression was bleak, memories looking out through his pale eyes like ghosts crowding behind the window of an abandoned building.

"You remember ..."

The Abbott stopped, considered:  he picked up a slice of sourdough, buttered it, then folded it and broke it in two, handed half to the Sheriff.

The Abbott pinched two fingers into the salt cellar and sprinkled a little salt on his half: it was a newly acquired salt, evaporated from ocean water, and traded for by his quartermaster.

Linn took the bread and hesitated, waited until the Abbott garnished his half, then both men raised theirs and took a bite.

"Damn that War," Linn finally said.

The Abbott nodded.  "I have, many times," he agreed.

Linn's expression was haunted; the Abbott had seen this before -- good men, strong men who'd lived their lives after the War, but when they wore a particular look, when they stared through the wall at something a thousand miles away, it generally meant a memory had arisen and enveloped their soul, almost like an invisible fog surrounding the sufferer.

Linn looked at the Abbott.  "I reckon you're right," he finally said.

"Oh?"  The Abbott's reply was carefully neutral.

"No normal man could have done what I did."

The Abbott nodded slowly, eyes half-lidded.

It did not surprise the Sheriff in the least little bit that his boon companion from back during that damned War knew exactly what had happened, what Linn had done, the hell this pale eyed old campaigner had seen yet again.

Word of misfortune and sorrow travels fast, and the Abbott took pains to have information brought to him.

Linn suspected that was another result of the Abbott's having survived that damned War.

"I thought I'd buried it," Linn said softly, his fingertips restless on the smooth wood tabletop. "I thought all those hard memories were long ... not forgotten, but ... I'd thought there was enough years' worth of dirt and leaf-litter fell on 'em to bury 'em."

"And then they came rip-roarin' out of their six foot deep grave and all the rocks you'd piled on top to keep 'em buried."

"That," Linn agreed quietly, "is exactly what happened."

The Abbott nodded slowly, took a sip of his cool wine.

"You were needed," the Abbott said finally.

"Reckon so."

"How many family was left to tend the needfuls?"

"Just one ... just one girl, and her not half Sarah's age."

The Abbott shook his head.  "Dear God," he whispered. "Has she any family elsewhere?"

Linn nodded.  "Back East. Sent 'em a telegram. Sean and Daisy took her in, Daisy said she needed another woman t' keep all those wild Irishmen in line!"

The Abbott chuckled, shook his head.  "Sean is an impressive man," he said softly, "but Daisy is more than his match!"

The Sheriff chuckled, nodded: the Abbott did not miss the smile that escaped the man's careful reserve.

"I seem to remember hearing about her scattering strong men before her, and her armed with a wooden spoon!"

Linn laughed this time, a good honest laugh: the black cloud hovering over him was shattered by now, and gone:  "You should have seen it," Linn affirmed, "men that weren't afraid of the Devil himself, scatterin' like leaves before the williwaw!"

"Heaven keep me safe from a woman's temper," the Abbott intoned in a gentle voice: Abbott and Sheriff both raised their glasses in hearty agreement, drank.

"You went back into the Church after the War," Linn said thoughtfully. "Atonement?"

"Healing," came the reply: "I went back to my New Orleans seminary, then I went West and found I was still needed."

He looked at the Sheriff.

"You were needed too," he said, "and you still are."

"Yes," Linn agreed, "but at what cost?"

" 'Who heals the healer', eh?"

"Yeah," Linn said, his voice suddenly husky. "Everything ... set aside everything from that damned War and I've still ... waded through ... more grief ..."

"You've handled grief and loss that would last ten men their lifetimes," the Abbott agreed firmly. "You have done that. No other man could have. You were tempered like a spring in the forge of war. Evil that War was, evil those days were and terrible were those bloody days and nights, but they prepared you for all that came after!"

The Abbott leaned forward, looked very directly, very intently at his pale-eyed guest.

"You're still needed, Linn. You've done more good than you realize."

Linn smiled with half his mouth, reached up, tapped the middle of his own forehead.

"I know that here" -- tap, tap -- "but it's harder to realize it here" -- his fingers lowered to his breastbone, tapped twice more.

The Abbott rose, and Linn rose with him.

"Forgive me," Abbott William said, "I have services."

Two old veterans of more hell than living men should know, clasped hands again: one rode away on an Appaloosa stallion, returning to where he was needed, and another man, tall, bald, helped the White Sisters tend the sufferers in their small infirmary: he would lead the faithful in prayer and in song, he would direct the operation of the Rabbitville monastery, but he never forgot that every soul that came through the gates was a guest, and he never failed to greet each one with a gentle courtesy.

Two men were needed, and two men served, according to their gifts.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE POPCORN FRANCHISE

Sheriff Jacob Keller slammed his palm on the control panel and said quietly, "Keller, Jacob, Sheriff. Emergency override NOW!"

The inner airlock door opened with a SLAM of inrushing air.

Jacob stepped through the now open doorway with a blued-steel pistol barrel in the lead.

He did not raise his voice.

"Hands," he said, and the air in the control room chilled several degrees at the sound of his words: "Hands where I can see 'em, NOW!"

Alarms were screaming outside the control room, strobes firing both within and without: Jacob advanced slowly, shooting quick glances left and right to make sure nobody was waiting to bend a pipe over his head -- it had been tried before, and only his admitted paranoia kept him from suffering a terminal headache that an aspirin the size of a washtub, would not have cured.

Damage control teams slapped the emergency studs on their slim, contoured belt boxes, personal forcefields snapped into existence, men ran for the control room with a desperate speed, expecting to find a catastrophic decompression -- the kind they feared more than any other -- a God's honest airlock blowout.

Dr. John Greenlees looked up, startled, as alarms flashed, as the voder intoned, "Decompression, decompression, decompression," then, "Sector Twelve, level one, engineering."

Dr. Greenlees snatched what he called his "Warbag" without looking, slapped the stud on his own belt-mounted generator, ran toward the clinic door.

If he was running toward a decompression event, he wanted his own fieldsuit active.

He'd seen what happened to a living human being in a sudden, catastrophic decompression, and he had no wish to emulate their bad example.

Several light-decades away, Ambassador Marnie Keller, seated at the head of the negotiating table, thrust to her feet, put two fingers to her lips, whistled, loud, sharp and shrill: her eyes had gone from mild, almost light blue, to ice-pale in a tenth of a second or less, and every bit of color was gone from her cheeks.

Her sudden drive from seated to standing, the startling, ear-piercing conversation stopper, guaranteed the fractious, hostile, uncooperative conference, was at a sudden, startled standstill.

Marnie glared at one side of the table, then the other: her voice was sharp, loud, and utterly devoid of the diplomatic charm she'd shown for the past week.

"SEE HERE!" she shouted, her voice honed to a cutting edge, "YOU HAVEN'T BUDGED AND I'M TIRED OF IT! I HAVE TO LEAVE BECAUSE SOMEONE JUST TRIED TO KILL MY BROTHER AND I'M GOING TO RIP THE GUILTY PARTY'S HEART OUT AND STOMP ON IT!"

The sudden fury in what had heretofore been a beautiful woman's face was in and of itself, shocking.

"WHEN I GET BACK, WE WILL FINISH THIS, BUT BY THE LORD HARRY!" -- her lips were drawn back, her jaw clenched, gloved hands fisted -- "IF YOU ARE STILL SO OBSTINATE AND THICK-HEADED, I WILL TURN EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU OVER MY LAP AND SPANK YOU!"

Representatives and dignitaries looked at one another, stared at the retreating backside of what had been a gentle, genteel, feminine, persuasive arbiter of their dispute, blinked as the elliptical Iris opened, as she stepped through, as Ambassador and Iris both disappeared.

A lone voice said, " 'By the Lord Harry?' "

He looked around and asked, "Who's Lord Harry?"

 

Jacob holstered his engraved Smith, thrust a bladed hand toward the tech.

"Your supervisor?" he said, his voice thick with menace.

"Here," a voice with the damage control team said.

"I nearly got spaced," Jacob snapped, "and Jack Doe here was at the controls."

Jacob turned at the sound of a fist hammering on a closed hatchway: he looked as the hatch slid open, as Dr. Greenlees lowered his fist, surged across the threshold.

"No injuries," Jacob called.

"You're sure?" Dr. Greenlees snapped.  "No one exposed?"

"No. My suit protected me."

Dr. Greenlees' eyes dropped to the slim, contoured box on Jacob's belt, nodded.

"What happened?"

Jacob turned to the supervisor.

"Get into the record. I need to know if this was deliberate."

An iris split reality a yard behind the pale eyed Sheriff.

It looked for a moment like a black ellipse, tall as a man and half as broad: Marnie stepped through -- but instead of the long dress and matching little hat she'd worn for her diplomatic negotiations, she wore a flannel shirt, a denim skirt, a pair of red cowboy boots and an irritated expression.

She also had a double-barrel shotgun in her white-knuckled grip, a shotgun that might've come from an earlier century, for it bore a distinct resemblance to the cut-down Greener carried by a short-tempered, pale-eyed ancestress.

As a matter of fact, if one were to look at the breech, one might see a gold-inlaid, hand-engraved Thunder Bird over each chamber, and the initials SLM -- for Sarah Lynne McKenna -- but that's beside the point.

No one was looking at the breech of the shotgun she gripped in one hand, a shotgun she carried laid back against her right collar bone.

All conversation came to an absolute stop at the brittle, metallic click, click, as the stubby street howitzer's hammers were thumbed back to full stand.

"Jacob," she snapped, "who tried to kill you?"

Several sets of eyes turned toward a fellow who looked like he wished mightily that he could crawl under the rock floor and slink away.

Jacob raised a hand: "We're finding out right now."

Marnie turned and paced silently up to the man whose shoulders were pressed against the wall, the man who wished most sincerely he were somewhere else.

She took him by the arm, turned.

"Excuse us, please," she said quietly: they turned, walked over to the corner.

Men's eyes followed them as their Sheriff -- or at least, their first Sheriff -- talked quietly, inaudibly with the tech.

He nodded, swallowed, thrust his chin at the panel where his boss and two computer techs were interrogating the system.

Marnie looked over at the panel, back at the tech: her voice was still quiet, still pitched so their conversation was just that -- theirs, and no one else's.

They saw the man relax a little, just a little:  Marnie paced back over to the group clustered around the closely watched analysis, her stubby, abbreviated shotgun still laid back against the front of her shoulder.

Nobody missed the fact that both hammers were still cocked.

It took just under twenty minutes.

One of the computer techs said in a quiet voice, "Found it."

"Show me."

Keys clicked, screens shifted, scrolled up.

"There."

"I'll be damned."

"Stevens. Come over here and take a look at this."

A tech walked on wooden legs over to the cluster of screens, both the built-in and the folding, portable screens.

"Look here -- this sequence. Here's your login. Here's ... let's look at that camera again."

Another screen, an image:  "Right there."

"What?"

"He couldn't have done that. No way he could've commanded an airlock depressurize."

"It happened."

"Oh, it happened, all right. You want the technical or you want the shirtsleeve version?"

"I want a beer."

"Good enough. The program's corrupted."

"How?"

"It wasn't local. Look at that subroutine signature. That's ... someone screwed up the programming back on Earth."

Jacob looked at Marnie: pale eyes met pale eyes, and Marnie's head lowered ever so slightly.

"Don't even," he cautioned.

"Someone pays for this," she said quietly. "I won't lose my little brother because some bean counter didn't do his job!"

"Marnie, listen to me," Jacob warned.  "Don't. Don't even."

"Watch me," Marnie hissed, then she closed her eyes, took a long breath, blew it out, looked at Jacob again.

"I hate it when you're right," she muttered.

"This means we go through every airlock subroutine. If this one's corrupt, we have to make sure the others aren't."

Marnie turned, thumbed the lever on her shotgun, broke it open: one thumb over the right hammer spur and she pulled the front trigger, eased the hammer down; she switched her thumb to the left hammer, pulled the rear trigger, eased it down as well, then she closed the shotgun.

The sound of a minor bank vault closing was loud in the room's sudden hush.

Marnie turned, glared at her brother.

"Someone screwed up and could have killed you," she said, her voice thick with suppressed anger. "I have killed men for less."

She consulted her chrono.

"If you'll excuse me, I need to get back to some negotiations."

"Dressed like that?"

Marnie reached over, plucked Jacob's Stetson from his head, clapped it on her own, laid her shotgun back against the front of her shoulder.

"You're damned right."

Men's eyes followed her as she turned toward the iris, stepped through and disappeared.

"Do you reckon she'll make any headway?" Dr. Greenlees asked quietly.  "I know she was negotiating some kind of a dispute."

"Mad as she is," Jacob said softly, "she'll bring 'em to an accord or she'll beat 'em to death!"

Dr. Greenlees gave Jacob his very best Innocent Expression and said, "If you're sellin' tickets, I want the popcorn franchise!"

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

STREAKER

Shelly Keller very carefully laid her phone side-down on the whitewashed corral rail, turning it to keep the filly in frame.

A little filly – small, all legs and speed – was running, dodging, weaving in between the other members of the Sheriff’s saddle stock, making a fast orbit of the matched white mares that pulled the Firelands Fire Department’s steam firefighting engine.

Beside her, on her left, a pale eyed Keller lad, just elbow tall on her: silent in boots and Stetson and jeans that would be too short if it weren’t for his stitched boot tops, and a cuff-frayed Carhartt coat (worn, too big, but a warm and comfortable hand-me-down from big brother Jacob) – and on her right, forearms folded over the top rail, chin on his flannel shirtsleeves, her silent, watchful husband, his pale eyes tracking the filly as she ran.

Shelly glanced at her husband and saw the wrinkles tightening at the corners of his eyes.

Any other man would have a broad grin.

Linn practiced stillness; nothing moved but his eyes, following the spotted filly.

His son made up for his father’s stillness.

Michael, seeing the colt running within the enclosure, stepped quietly for the gate: Shelly heard it open, heard it close, heard the latch slip easily into place, heard the brittle crackle of cellophane.

Linn heard it as well, the corners of his eyes tightening just a little more as he saw three Appaloosa heads come up, as he saw them turn toward where a young Keller stood, shucking multiple mints from their noisy jackets.

Michael knew the suckling was too young to properly crunch the round, red-and-white horse crack, but the nursing mare, watchful and suspicious, wasn’t:  Michael stood still, his hand out, palm flat, then reached up to caress her neck as she rubberlipped the treat, then pressed her head flat against his young chest, very obviously bumming for attention and more peppermints.

The filly streaked under its Mama, whirled, came back: she paid no attention to this two-legs communing with the mare, and instead investigated a meal at the equine version of the Topless Restaurant.

Shelly touched the screen, shut off the video: the phone dropped into her vest pocket and she looked over to her husband.

Linn had a broad grin on his face.

Michael took out running across the pasture.

The filly whirled, ran with him.

Michael turned, ran back, the filly happy pacing him, then streaking past, running back – a man-child, and a horse-child, each running for the sheer joy of running, playing tag, and both winning.

Shelly sidled closer to her husband; each ran an arm around the other, happily leaning their warmth and their strength into one other.

It had been a rough couple of days.

Shelly knew her husband had been first on scene for three separate tragedies: she knew he was first on scene for all three, one wreck, one drowning and one suicide by hanging – she knew how hard this triple play hit him, she knew how badly the wreck alone affected her.

Shelly had been honestly worried about her husband.

When a man puts enough years under the lights and siren, he’s going to soak up grief and loss enough to last ten men their lifetimes, and she knew he had: she and her father responded to only one of the three events her husband handled, and it had been bad enough to turn the stomachs of veteran firefighters – even her father, a man she’d never seen pale in the face of the worst events they’d shared, had to turn aside and empty his stomach before continuing the extrication.

Linn was right in the middle of it, working with them.

Their shift ended immediately after this third, this worst event of the day.

They’d gone home together, stripped off in the back yard together.

Linn thrust his uniform, and his wife’s, in a washtub of brine to soak out the blood, before each scrubbed off the memory of the day’s multiple tragedies in a long, hot shower, before they ate supper in absolute silence, before Linn leaned back in his easy chair in his study and stared, silently, at a spot where the wall met the ceiling, until he finally closed his eyes and slept a little, and Shelly knew that – asleep or not -- he was still seeing the day’s horrors, over, and over, and over again.

Shelly leaned her head over on her husband’s shoulder and sighed with contentment, and she smiled as she felt her husband’s silent laughter at the fast moving filly, running among the herd.

“I like it when you laugh,” she murmured, and she felt his arm tighten, just a little, holding her into him.

“I like it when you watch with me.”

Husband and wife watched in silence, laughing again at the fast moving antics of a little spotty filly, of their fast-moving son chasing after.

Michael came puffing over to them, grinning, the healthy pink standing out in his cheeks, the filly hobby-horsing up to him, butting him with her nose, inviting another run.

Michael rubbed the little filly’s neck, fell against the fence, breathing deep, his expression happy.

He looked up at his Mama’s questioning voice.

“Have you named her yet?”

Linn’s reply was quiet, confident as he winked down at his son.

“I was waiting to see what name suited her.”

“Streaker,” Michael declared.

Linn nodded, smiled just a little.

“She moves like a streak, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Our son has the right of it,” Linn said firmly, to the grinning delight of young Michael. 

“Streaker she is!”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE CHRISTMAS LETTER

Jacob considered his father's workload, he regarded his mother's industry, he looked at the stack of Christmas cards -- Angela addressed them in calligraphy, and mention was made of possibly including a note with them.

Jacob smiled.

He sat down at his father's computer and began to write, and when he was done, he re-read what he'd written, laughed, and proceeded to print out his own version of the year-end summary.

Here's what he carefully folded, slid into every envelope with the carefully signed cards.

 

 

Obligatory, Generic, Anti-Serious, Pseudo-Scientific,

Christmas Card Letter!

 

Another year has passed, blah, blah.

Years always pass. Deal with it.

We did stuff. We always do.

Our health is generally good, except for the parts that aren’t.

We obviously haven’t died yet. When we do, I’ll beg your pardon ahead of time for not scheduling two weeks in advance, as I hate interrupting other peoples’ schedules.

The girls are still Collar Bone Deep in Ancestry Research.

So far we've found Mama is related to an incredible number of famous people, including Princess Di and Atilla the Hun.

She’s still working on Pa's side.

She did find some Scottish royalty, back in Pa's Mama’s side of the family.

Pa was hoping to be addressed as “Your Lordship.”

He suggested that to Mama.

Didn’t work.

Pa tried addressing her as “Your Ladyship.”

She was busy with something else and all she heard was “Your Ship.”

Now she wants Pa to get her a boat.

Pa was going to harken back to his redneck roots and mount an outhouse on pontoons and call it the “Royal Flush.”

He described this to his beautiful bride.

Mama speculated on how many strikes with an eighteen inch frying pan it would take to drive Pa through the floor like a fence post.

Weather commentary is expected.

It’s winter, we had snow, we’ll have more, then summer will return and it’ll get hot: remember when the Vikings discovered North America, the weather was “Global Warming” enough that Newfoundland (Canada. Ice, snow, polar bears, igloos) was known as Vinland – Vine Land – owing to the predominance of native grapes.

Seasons happen.

Pass the galoshes.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BREAK THE GLASS

The Ambassador was not fooled by Marnie's closed eyes.

She sat on a rock shelf, high on a sheer cliff face, the only access a narrow path that led to another great flaw in the geology, which allowed another rocky, but slightly broader, path, down to a hanging meadow.

The Ambassador knew there was a saddled horse below, a great, shining-black mare without bridle or bit, contentedly cropping grass where she'd grazed before, near a little stream that chuckled and whispered secrets to the rocks as it paused, pooling twice in places big as a man's hat, before narrowing and slipping modestly between clefts in fractured granite, to disappear downhill, like a maiden hiding her virtue from possessive eyes.

Marnie never moved as the Ambassador took a step, as he removed his pearl-grey cover.

"May I join you?" he asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the isolated stillness, his eyes on Marnie's thumb, laid across the twin hammers of the cut-down twelve-bore.

"Have a set," Marnie murmured.

The Ambassador sat gratefully, unconsciously pushing himself back against the granite backrest, not realizing until after he'd done so, that he was pushing himself as far away from that sheer drop not two feet in front of his boot toes as he possibly could.

He placed his hat on his lap, looked out over the distance.

"I'm surprised you're here."

"I was concerned you might be ... intemperate."

Marnie never opened her eyes, but she did smile, just a little, then she intoned in a truly terrible New York accent -- just like she'd heard her Daddy say on such occasions -- "Does yas knows me or what?"

The Ambassador smiled, just a little: matter of fact, he almost chuckled, for she'd used that nasal voice before:  he had no idea its antecedents, he only knew she spoke thusly when her mood was improved from its former fury.

"It would not be wise to slam your native world's face into the knowledge that their colony is much more than what it was," he said carefully.

"I know," she replied.

"Nor would it be prudent to simply ride into town, you -- a most remarkable and well-known person, on a very recognizable horse, looking so very at home, when you're supposed to be on another planet in a barely-surviving colony."

"I know that too."

Marnie opened her eyes, turned her head, looked at the Ambassador.

"Daddy told me about this place when I was a little girl," she said. "This is the High Lonesome. Old Pale Eyes used to come here to be alone when he needed to think. Generations of my family have come here for that reason."

"It's not easy to get up here."

"No it isn't. That's why there are two generations of The Bear Killer buried here -- there's a gap in the rock, it's been a wolf den off and on -- "

"Wolf den?"

"Oh, yes," Marnie murmured, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the rock face behind her. "The White Wolf."

The Ambassador blinked, realizing he was about to learn something more about this most remarkable, pale eyed woman.

"The White Wolf?" he echoed.

Marnie's smile was thin.

"Mr. Ambassador, are you familiar with the Scottish Fetch?"

She did not have to look to know he'd blinked twice before replying slowly, "Nooooo ... no, I don't."

"The Fetch is a ghost sheep that can be seen lying by the front door," Marnie explained, "the front door when the Laird is dying within. The worse the Fetch looks, the closer to death the man within be, and when the Fetch stands up, young and strong again, it walks through the front door and emerges with the soul of the dead and fetches the man's soul to its reward."

"I see," the Ambassador replied carefully.

"The White Wolf appears to our family in time of need -- a warning, a harbinger, a guardian. 

"My grandmother described seeing it in France."

"France?"

"Gammaw went to find an ancestor's grave. His revolvers are in the Museum below us, I'll show you sometime. She and the local dignitaries had a service at Joseph Keller's grave. Gammaw couldn't bring The Bear Killer -- quarantine regulations and all that -- the local gendarmerie had a canine officer, and the K9 attached himself to Gammaw's side.

"When the bugler played Taps, the Malinois sat on one side of the grave, and the White Wolf paced up and sat on the other, and the two howled in harmony to the bugle's farewell."

Marnie swallowed, continued.

"I'm told there were troops there from the Bundeswehr and the Legion Etrangere, as well as their local Gendarmerie -- some were men Gammaw served with, in Afghanistan -- Gammaw wore a long, old-fashioned dress an old woman had in her shop, a dress sewn for another pale eyed woman decades before, and yes there's a story behind that one too -- Gammaw said that every one of those hard-as-nails, iron-willed soldiers, came up to her afterward, and kissed her on both cheeks, they saluted her and shook her hand and spoke to her, and more than one had water running down his cheek as the Malinois and the White Wolf sang their feral harmony.

"They did not howl as the bugler's echo played, at the far end of the cemetery, on the little rise where an old 48 flew from the flagpole, and when the command was given to Order Arms, the White Wolf rose and shook himself, and then he turned into a twist of fog that kind of corkscrewed down into the ground, and disappeared."

She tilted her head, looked at the Ambassador.

"Gammaw was given a picture of the White Wolf standing beside the Malinois."

"Does it still exist?" the Ambassador asked hopefully.

"It does. A copy is in the Museum. I can show you."

"Would that be prudent?"

Marnie laughed -- a relaxed, natural laugh, something the Ambassador had not heard from her in some time.

"I'll go in disguise," Marnie smiled. "I've passed for a ghost in the Museum before."

The pair sat for some minutes longer.

"I was worried about you," the Ambassador said finally.

"You're worried?" Marnie sighed. "My husband is worried sick about me. He's afraid of stress responses and effects of long-term stress, and maybe he's right. It's been building up."

"What should be done?" the Ambassador asked, his words as carefully neutral as his voice.

"I should deal with it," Marnie said bluntly. "I should do like I always do, and wear a cast iron cloak and just let all that stress splatter itself against that cast iron cloak and slide to the ground dead."

"Does it work?"

"Generally."

"And when it doesn't?"

Marnie's eyes closed again; her head leaned back, rested once more against the cliff face behind her.

"My Daddy," Marnie said tiredly, "has half the mandible of a Jack mule, framed in his office, hanging on the wall. The frame is bright red and there's a little brass hammer hanging from the frame by a brass chain."

Marnie smiled a little at the memory.

"There's a plaque on the top edge of the frame that says, "Jaw Bone of an Ass."

Her eyes were still closed as she spoke, her voice as quiet as her smile.

"On the bottom edge of the frame, another brass plaque:  "Break Glass In Case of Emergency."

The Ambassador chuckled; he'd seen a similar framed display in Marnie's Sheriff's office, and he knew that, under her pale-eyed brother's administration, it was still there, on the wall behind his high-backed, armless chair.

"If it doesn't work?" Marnie lifted her head, looked at the Ambassador, her eyes that pale cornflower blue that he'd seen so rarely.  "If it doesn't work, Mr. Ambassador, I go in my office and break the glass."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST

A well dressed couple sat in the darkened theater.

His silk tie was carefully knotted; his suit was handmade -- he took it as a matter of pride that his clothes were made at home, and not bought off the shelf.

His pearl-grey Stetson, of course, was store bought.

It was also carefully brushed, kept in a hat box when the occasion did not demand his dress cover.

The woman was equally well dressed: her gown was of the very latest fashion, the colors complimenting both her emerald green eyes, and her rich auburn hair.

The red-velvet upholstery was new, the padding thick, comfortable: their seats were the best money could buy.

The gentleman had an iron-grey mustache, carefully curled into a symmetrical handlebar; beneath the lapel of his carefully-fitted suit was a six-point star, and beneath the coat, a pair of Colt revolvers.

The demure beauty of his wife completely disguised her own deadly nature as well: should the need arise, she too could address a sinner in an unmistakably violent and deadly manner.

There were times, in her past, when she'd done exactly that.

Tonight, though, tonight they were a fashionable couple who'd ridden the steam train into Denver, a couple who'd clattered through gaslit streets in a hired hack, a couple who'd come to the City to enjoy a relaxing night at the theater.

Shakespeare was the night previous; a grand orchestra would be the following night.

Tonight was a singer of some repute, a young woman with a voice that could charm angels into rapturous silence, or so those who'd heard her, claimed.

She was to sing in French, the couple knew, the language in which a new song had been written.

Esther Keller spoke French, as did one of Bonnie McKenna's maids; Bonnie herself spoke a little French, but understood even less: it was Bonnie who recommended this singer, and this song, and so the Sheriff and his wife made plans to go into the City for a day and a night and a day again.

Linn and Esther Keller sat in a private box, very near the stage; they had an excellent view, or would have, as soon as the curtains were parted.

The lime lights were lit and warmed up, casting their harsh glare on the closed burgundy drape: the curtains twitched, hissed open.

The little orchestra in the recessed pit raised their instruments at the conductor's arms-raised summons: the orchestral introduction was delicate, the music flowing like silver waters with little mouse-feet dancing on its quicksilver surface: the singer was not impressive -- she wore a fine gown, her hair was carefully arranged -- in truth, she looked rather plain.

Until she opened her mouth, and sang.

The Sheriff had an extremely limited vocabulary, when it came to the French language: a French-Canadian of his aquaintance taught him a surprising number of profanities, which the man was prone to vent when provoked, such as when his office chair insisted on dumping him over on his back:  in spite of this linguistic handicap, his wife knew that the singer's voice drove through her husband's reserve like a lance, and penetrated to that crusty, hard-shelled, tough-as-nails heart that beat in his manly breast.

Linn's hand tightened a little -- just a little, for it was wrapped carefully around Esther's gloved palm -- Esther was entranced, for the singer's skill was everything her dear friend Bonnie said it was.

Had the Heavenly Choir peeled the roof off the building and floated down in adoring ranks, she would not have been in the least bit surprised.

Linn leaned forward, a little, just a little, as he too was caught up in the beauty of this truly beautiful voice.

It was the first time he'd ever heard 'O Holy Night' sung.

It would not be the last.

It would, however, be absolutely the most gorgeous rendition he would ever hear in all of his life.

Esther Keller remembered how her husband seized the tramp who tried to seize Esther's reticule, she remembered when they were newly wed and footpads tried to seize the emerald from her neck, and how her husband brought immediate and violent justice upon these criminals.

She thought of these things as she glanced over at her hard-knuckled, callus-handed husband, this old veteran lawman who'd survived injuries that would've killed ten healthy men ...

She thought of this, and she watched this strong man weep for the beauty of what he heard.

She knew he was disciplining himself most sternly, willing himself not to betray how deeply this audible beauty touched him: his face was carefully impassive, he was still as a carved statue, but the brightness of his eyes, and the slight tightening of his hand, told her that this hard-edged man who'd survived more violence than should ever be asked of anyone, was what she'd known since the moment she met him:

Old Pale Eyes, scarred and blooded warrior, uncompromising bringer of justice ... Old Pale Eyes, who'd faced up to, and faced down, large and angry men with a variety of weapons ... Old Pale Eyes, who in his time had been shot, stabbed, cut, run into, run over, a man who'd gone to war, a man who'd fought with a musket, and with what was left of a musket, a man who'd seized an ax from a woodpile and laid about the enemy, screaming with rage and with fury, a man who'd swum a hungry river to keep a child from drowning, who'd taken a runaway horse by the bridle and leaped from his own mount to bring this panicked horse to the ground to keep a wagon and its cargo of another man's wife and their children from wreck and from death ...

... this tough old man with the hard and harsh reputation ...

... was kind of soft on the inside, and sometimes it took a trip to Denver, and the voice of an angel, to lower that wall of iron just enough that Esther could peep over its riveted edge and see what lived secretly behind that armored breastbone.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NIGHT

Deputy Sheriff Linn Keller laughed as he swung a delighted little boy high in the air, brought him down in the slick-leather saddle: a little boy's face was lit up like a hundred watt bulb with honest, unadulterated, juvenile happiness.

Beside him, Sheriff Willamina Keller squatted, smiling a little as a cluster of grade-school children gathered around her like chicks around a mother hen: Willamina had a mother's gift of being able to listen to, and make sense of, multiple conversations simultaneously: she seized such opportunities as this in order to keep that gift well practiced, a gift that had served her well at confused and confusing crime scenes, with everyone talking at once and everyone trying to make themselves heard.

This, however, was not a crime scene.

It was the playground beside the Firelands Grade School, and mother and son were indulging in a guilty pleasure -- in addition to building a foundation of trust with a younger generation, they were sharing, for a happy moment, the joys of seeing the world through the bright and innocent eyes of children.

Linn brought the delighted lad down out of the saddle, set him down, looked around:  he had a gift for finding the souls that needed a boost, and he saw an uncertain lad who looked away, as if caught in the act of looking hopefully at a spotted Appaloosa with a Sheriff's saddle blanket bold and gold-trimmed under the saddle.

Linn extended his hand, smiled a little, went to one knee.

The boy's eyes widened and he came over, half-hesitant, half-hopeful, as if used to being disappointed.

"Son, can you tell me your name?" he asked in a gentle voice.

"Bruce," the boy mumbled.

Linn looked up, made a kissing sound:  Apple-horse turned, came over, shoved his wet nose down between the two.

"Bruce, this is Apple," Linn said, rubbing his stallion under his jaw:  "Apple, this is my old friend Bruce, we've known each other for quite a while now."

Bruce looked uncertainly at this pale eyed deputy, not quite sure what to make of that introduction, but the horse's exploratory sniff was enough to derail any juvenile confusion: he reached up, tentative, hesitant, as he carefully stroked the stallion's long nose.

"Ever look at the world from a saddle?" Linn grinned, and a moment later the world fell from under the little boy's sneakers, and he found himself at the breathtaking summit of a living mountain, a magical seat on a mythical creature.

Little boys went home that night and dreamed of riding great and spotted destriers that leaped and  soared from one mountaintop to another, powerful creatures of speed and strength that  reached ahead by acres and thrust behind by leagues, driving across the mountainous countryside faster than any poor and pitiful machine ever built by Man! -- little boys, safe and relaxed in their own beds, remembering what it was to realize their elevation to minor Godhood as they straddled a warm and powerful creature of myth and legend.

They were young enough to think like this, young enough that their fertile and expanding imaginations built on what they'd done, and took them to incredible heights in the safety and excitement of their dreams, and two local badge packers lay in their own beds that night, and remembered, in the warm moments before they, too, slept, the magic of seeing wonder in the faces of the young, and knowing the satisfaction of knowing they'd given them that magic, that moment of new discovery, that moment of absolute, innocent, marveling wonder.

If dreams are a reality, then in that reality, the night-darkened skies were crowded indeed, for little boys soared and flew, and little girls watched, delighted, and two pale eyed badge packers stood on a nighttime mountaintop and watched, and laughed, and knew they'd had a hand in this nighttime magic.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GHOST RIDER

When The Bear Killer's head came up quickly, Shelly stopped the mixer and listened.

When The Bear Killer's ears came up, Shelly looked toward the study.

A shadow moved -- a tall shadow, with a shotgun held down by its leg as it took position as he always did, when there was an unannounced vehicle outside.

The Bear Killer came to his feet, tail whipping as his mouth opened in a happy canine grin: a car door slammed outside, quick, light footsteps crossed the front porch, stopped to kick the stone block Linn kept there to knock snow off his boots.

Linn parked the shotgun and Shelly turned the mixer back on, smiling as she did.

The door opened: snowflakes, a gust of wind, a pair of bright-blue eyes and a delighted "Daddeeee!" and Angela Keller leaped into her Daddy's arms, seizing him in a delighted hug:  she kissed her laughing father on the jaw, slipped down, went to her knees and laughed as The Bear Killer gave her an enthusiastic face-washing.

Snow glittered a few moments more on her knit cap, then melted into shining water-beads:  Angela stood, twisted one way, then the other, hung up her coat, her scarf and her pink-pastel knit toque, then skipped happily into the kitchen and seized an apron from its peg:  "What'cha need, Mama?" she chirped, and Linn shook his head and chuckled.

Just like her, he thought.

Come breezing in on Friday evening, probably drove through a snowstorm to get here.

I'm glad I got her that car with traction control and antilock brakes.

 

Jacob Keller looked around in the gathering dark.

He'd expected the snow to start with big fat fluffy flakes, and he hadn't been disappointed.

He and Apple-horse set a course for home, not many miles distant: it'd been too long since he'd eaten, and he knew his Mama had the day off, which meant she would be fixing supper, which meant that his sis would likely be coming home from college, which meant he'd best be home in case some idiot driver wiped out and took her with him, in which case he and his Pa would head out and bring her home --

Apple-horse blew, shook his head, scattering the snow-cap that tried to gather between his ears, and snowflakes clung momentarily to his long eyelashes:  Jacob laughed and said, "Apple, I know some girls who would commit insecticide to have long lovely lashes like you've got!"

Jacob's stallion was less than impressed at the pronouncement.

Apple's tread was light, no matter the terrain; he was almost soundless, with thick, fluffy flakes soaking up the sound: the sky was darkening fast, but it wasn't far to home.

Apple-horse felt Jacob's weight shift.

Horse and rider came to a stop: Jacob's head turned, he frowned, heard a vehicle coming cautiously -- but not cautiously enough -- around the ridge road.

They were well off the highway; they would likely be invisible in the snowfall -- Jacob saw the nimbus of headlights in the falling snow, then he swore as the headlights brightened, swung, swung again.

Horse and rider turned, headed for the spun-out vehicle.

 

The Keller kitchen was well lighted, fragrant with the good smell of supper almost ready.

Mother and daughter both looked toward the front door, looked at one another: no words were exchanged, but Linn knew something passed between them, the way it will between women, and once again he considered how different Shelly's relationship with Angela's was than it had been with Marnie.

Linn reached for his Stetson, shrugged into his denim jacket, turned the fleece collar up.

A long tall Sheriff and a black mountain Mastiff slipped outside and into the snowfall.

 

Jacob rode across the spun-out van's headlights, rode up to the driver's window.

It hummed down and before the driver could say a word, the woman in the passenger side gave a wordless, sustained groan that Jacob recognized, even if he could not see her hands laid over her maternal belly.

Jacob held up a gloved hand:  "Stand fast," he said, "don't try to move the vehicle just yet."

Jacob and Apple-horse orbited the van as he looked over their situation.

Jacob swung down, took two long strides uphill, pulled a heavy bladed knife from its horizontal sheath at the small of his back:  it took a few minutes, but he finally wiped the blade on his pants leg, slid the knife back into its sheath, tore cut-loose bark from around a deadfall, dragged it back to the van.

"You're front wheel drive, right?"

"Uh, yeah," the driver stammered, then turned his head as the woman clenched her teeth and tried hard not to push.

"Is this her first child?"

"Second!"

Jacob saw a small set of scared eyes looking at him from the side window, behind the driver's seat.

Jacob stepped on the bark, pulled, broke it in two:  half went under one front wheel, half under the other:  he drove them in, hard, grateful the driver hadn't absolutely mired the tires.

He came back to the driver's window.

"You've got one shot at this," he said quietly. "When I tell you, ease forward, light throttle. Don't give it too much or you'll shoot that tree bark right out from under you and here you'll sit, understand?"

The nervous young man nodded.

"Okay.  Put her in drive -- good -- now ease down on the throttle when I tell you to.  I'll push.  Ease down on the throttle, nice and slow, but not til I say so, okay? Let me get in position."

Jacob went to the driver's rear corner, drove boot heels into half-thawed ground, took a deep breath, let half out.

"Try now."

A little less than sixty seconds later, Jacob watched as the tail lights disappeared, as the anxious young husband and his laboring wife continued on toward the hospital -- hopefully with a greater degree of caution.

Jacob walked stiffly over to his stallion, thrust a boot into the stirrup, swung aboard.

"C'mon, Apple," he said softly.  "Supper's a-waitin'."

 

Linn lifted the lantern, peered into the snowy dark.

Something moved, just beyond the limit of the man's vision.

He knew Apple-horse's pattern, he knew the irregular white patch on half his chest: white stockings, then suddenly horse and rider, melting into view.

Father and son and an Appaloosa stallion slogged through fresh snow and into the barn.

 

Mother and daughter looked up as the front door opened, as a mountain Mastiff stopped on the front porch, shook himself, sending snow-spray flying, as two long tall Keller men ceremonially kicked snow off their boots and swatted snow off their Stetsons before they came inside.

Angela started to run toward them, until she realized --

"Jacob, you're filthy!" she exclaimed.

"Story at eleven," Jacob grunted. " 'Scuse me."

He turned, picked up the wall phone's receiver, punched the keypad quickly, from memory.

Angela looked quizzically at her brother's broad back -- unsullied by the fresh, wet mud sprayed up his front -- then she looked at her father, who shrugged, shook his head.

"Marcie?" Jacob said, turning a little:  "Marcie, this is Jacob -- just fine, thank you, say, did you just get a new admit through ER, woman in labor?"

Mother and daughter were suddenly, professionally, focused on Jacob's words.

"Uh-huh. I see.  No, that's fine, thank you anyway.  Night."

Jacob hung up the phone, looked at his father, then at his Mama and his little sis.

"Pardon me," he said crisply, "I need to change."

 

Every other Friday night, Linn and Shelly had the night off, unless things were hitting the fan.

Every other Friday night, they ate together as a family, laughing and talking and comfortable with each other's company.

Jacob came down after a quick shower, after clean shirt and jeans and a warm dry pair of socks, and it was to Angela's credit that she waited until half-past mashed potatoes before she blurted, "Jacob Keller, will you kindly quit gloating and tell us what happened!"

Jacob leaned back a little, eyes widened to an exaggerated degree before he grinned crookedly and said in a harsh, rasping voice, "Gloat, gloat, gloat," at which point Angela bounced a sweet roll off his forehead:  Jacob missed, but The Bear Killer didn't, and as the big black mountain Mastiff masterfully masticated the dropped dainty, Jacob sighed dramatically, spread his hands and said in a nasal, exaggerated, New York accent, "Well, yas sees, it wuz like this --"

Three more sweet rolls hit him:  he caught one, a second landed on the table, and The Bear Killer caught the third.

"Janet's going to give me hell for murdering a tree," Jacob grinned.

"Jaaacooobbb," Angela said, trying hard to glare and having no luck at all:  Linn hid his grin behind the back of his hand and he looked at his wife with a guilty expression, for Angela managed to sound most remarkably like her mother in that moment.

"Apple and I were mindin' our own business," Jacob began, "when this young fellow come down the road too fast and lost it in a turn. He got hung up, so I peeled a slab of bark off a deadfall and slud it under his wheels for traction --"

"Slud?" Angela interrupted, shaking her Mommy-finger at him:  "Jacob Keller, don't you dare sound like an illiterate hillbilly!"

"I am not illiterate," Jacob replied with a wounded expression.  "I'll have you know my folks were married before I was born!"

Shelly looked at her husband.  "Do you throw something at him, or do I?"

Angela raised her hands, fingers spread, spoke to the ceiling:  "Two million comedians out of work and this joker has to come along!"

"We left off with slud," Linn prompted.

"Dad-deee!"

Linn raised a forestalling palm.  "Jacob, you peeled bark off a deadfall, you used it for traction, did it work?"

"It did, sir."

"And the mud?"

"I pushed and had him ease out on light throttle."

"Light throttle," Linn echoed.

"Yes, sir, I stressed it. His wife was in labor."

Linn grimaced as his imagination told him what likely happened: an anxious father-to-be, the possibility of escaping a muddy hang-trap --

"I take it he didn't use a light throttle."

"He did, sir, but his van had full time four wheel drive and his back tire broke traction."

"And you got baptized."

"Yes, sir."

The phone rang: Jacob rose, strode over to the wall phone.

"This is Jacob."

His head came up, he looked at his father.

"I see," he said quietly, then nodded, listening some more.

"Well, how about that," he said: he listened a few moments more, smiled.

"Good of you to call, I do appreciate your letting me know."

He smiled again.

"Night, Marcie."

Jacob hung up the phone, turned, smiling quietly:  he looked up at his father, grinned.

"I've been promoted," he said quietly. 

Linn raised an eyebrow, nodded once.

"It seems that a ghostly horseman came out of the snow and got them out of the mud. Marcie said that anxious young father claimed he was axle deep in mud and no way to get out, and a ghost came ridin' out of the snow and pushed him out with one hand like he was a child's toy!"

Linn nodded wisely, and Angela saw the amusement peeking out of her Daddy's pale-blue eyes.

"It does well for a man to be promoted on merit," Linn said thoughtfully.  "Matter of fact I believe that calls for pie.  Dearest, do I recall you've got some good, home made pie that's not been et yet?" 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

"JUMP RIGHT ON, DAMN YOU!"

The punch caught Linn coming in.

If fury and rage translated had translated to raw strength, the punch would have not just knocked the long tall deputy off his feet, it would have broken two, maybe three ribs.

As it was, an angry, red-faced, absolutely furious, tear-streakeed little boy in a hospital gown nearly sank below the shimmering waters of the hospital's swimming pool.

Linn was in the hospital for a fairly routine errand.

His directional instincts in the mountains was flawless.

He'd joked in the past that -- put him in a hospital -- and he'd get lost in the latrine.

Sure enough, he wasn't anywhere near where he'd wanted to be, and he ended up near Physical Therapy.

He stopped, frowning.

Lawmen know anger when they hear it, no matter the voice's age, the voice's gender, and this voice was beyond angry.

Linn pushed into Physical Therapy.

He took in the scene:  a pediatric sized wheelchair, a little boy, collapsed, one arm over a set of parallel bars, apparently trying to walk: frustrated, angry, furious at everything that happened to him, enraged that he couldn't run and jump and play like he used to, he'd tried to walk, holding onto the smooth-sanded, varnished handholds, and he'd fallen, caught himself under his arm, and likely hurt like hell.

He was mad, he was trying to throw punches at the therapist.

Linn's jaw came out and his polished Wellington boots carried him over to the angry, crying, absolutely out of control twelve-year-old.

He seized the child, snatched him off the ground, ran his arm around the boy's middle, folded him over and carried him out of the department -- with Physical Therapy running after, protesting loudly.

Linn stiff-armed the doors, drove them open:  halfway down the hall, he drove his shoulder into another set of doors, came out in the hospital's pool, which was also used for Physical Therapy, as well as recreational swimming.

Linn twisted out of the physical therapist's grip, gave her a pale eyed glare:  she fell back, shocked: she'd never seen the white-eyed look, she'd never seen this tall, pleasant, good-natured deputy's face looking like white parchment stretched over a skull before.

Linn turned, waded into the pool, fully dressed:  a uniformed Sheriff's deputy, with a flailing, fist-beating little boy screaming under his arm, he walked down the fan-shaped concrete steps, stopped.

He brought the boy up, dunked him into the water, set him carefully down until his cloth-slippered feet were on the cement bottom.

The boy automatically grabbed the pool's gutter, but he was standing.

He was standing.

Linn stood deliberately within the boy's reach.

The boy, frustrated, angry, red-faced, glared, knowing this long tall deputy could take his measure any time he wanted, and absolutely hated him for it.

"You're mad as hell," Linn said.  "You want to beat up on someone?"

He spit on his palm, clapped his hands together, raised his fists, moved in.

"YOU WANTA HIT SOMEONE?  JUMP RIGHT ON, DAMN YOU!"

Fury, rage, frustration, stress, and worst of all, helplessness:  all of this detonated in a child's soul -- where before it was a smoldering flame, now it was an absolute conflagration.

A furious, screaming, angry, mad-as-hell child who'd lost half the feeling and most of the strength in both legs, thrust forward, awkwardly but most sincerely driving his young fists into a deputy's shirt front:  he punched awkwardly, he flailed amaturishly, but none there -- not the pale-eyed deputy who remembered what it was to be young and helpless, not the staff who'd tried the usual methods of bringing a recovering child out of a depression, not Security, who'd come running and then stopped, unwilling to intervene with what they knew to be a proven and most deadly warrior -- absolutely nobody there doubted that they were witnessing the lancing of a boil, the spilling of poisons built up, the moment when a soul breaks, shatters, collapses, and begins to heal.

It took a while for this much anger, this much hatred for everything that happened, all this unfocused rage, to spend itself:  Linn stood in belt deep water and held the boy to him and let him cry, but Linn knew these were still tears of anger, not of grief and they sure as hell weren't tears of surrender.

Linn backed out into deeper water.

"Kick with your legs," he said, holding the boy under the arms.

"Come on.  You've got a hell of a punch. If I wasn't wearing my vest under this shirt, I'd be black and blue in the morning.  Now kick me."

Anger again, anger enough to turn the lad's face scarlet once more:  Linn turned to take the boy's knees on his hip:  he waited until the boy slowed, obviously tiring, went to the edge of the pool, went into the corner.

"Hold here -- and here -- both hands -- stand on one leg.  Now kick me."

The boy tried.

To his credit, he tried.

Damaged nerves and weak muscles: in his mind he was commanding his leg to draw the knee to his wet chest, then drive a hell into the deputy's belly.

He managed to lift his right leg, managed to bend it up, then push it out, but just a little.

Linn drove a hand into the water, seized his ankle.

"Can you feel me grip your ankle?" he asked quietly, and the boy whispered "Yes."

"KICK ME HARD ENOUGH TO KNOCK ME DOWN!" Linn roared.

Physical therapists in scrubs shrank back, horrified, hands over their mouths; two white-coated doctors grinned, looked at one another, then back to the wet drama rippling their pools shining surface.

Linn nodded.

"Okay.  Stand on the other foot now."

Linn released a skinny little ankle; the foot went down, the other came up.

"Feel that?"

"No."

"How about now?"

A shake of the head.

"Bring your leg up."

Linn felt just a little resistance.

"Again."

A twelve year old child, survivor of a rollover accident, clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, drove every ounce of will into moving a dead leg.

Linn looked up at the half-scared, half-shocked, wholly-disapproving physical therapy staff.

"I felt that," he said quietly.  "There's still strength there."

A uniformed, water-streaming, soaking-wet deputy slogged noisily out of the pool with a water-streaming little boy in his arms, a child he held close to his chest, a child whose arm was over the deputy's off shoulder and under the other, clinging to the only living soul who'd understood him since the day he woke up and his legs wouldn't work anymore.

"Get a blanket," Linn said, "spread it in that wheelchair and take this warrior back to PT. You're dealing with a young man here. Treat him accordingly."

A blanket appeared, draped: Linn set the lad in the chair, wrapped him, went to one knee beside him.

"You've got a hell of a punch," he said frankly.  "You feel like raisin' hell again, let me know."

A pale eyed deputy winked, and a little boy grinned.

Years later, a man would address his medical school classmates in a formal presentation: he described a partially paralyzed child, frustrated at not being unable to walk, and how a deputy Sheriff came rip-roarin' into the physical therapy suite and dunked him in a swimming pool, and how that had been the beginning of his recovery.

That, however, was many years in the future.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DECIDE, AND MOVE ON

Sheriff Linn Keller knew someone came into their little whitewashed church.

He knew that whoever it was, didn't come past the last row of pews; whoever it was, trod softly, and departed after less than a minute.

That suited him.

He was not in a mood for conversation.

He sat, alone, in the stillness, looking at the rough, handmade cross on the back wall.

No movement, no word, no discussion with the empty air, no railing at the Almighty, no weeping entreaties: a solitary man sat, silent, hat in his hand, and finally -- when he rose -- he said the first words of his visit.

In a quiet voice, he said to the back wall, "Thank You for listening."

 

Not long after, Linn came through the ornately-frosted doors of the Silver Jewel Saloon, stopped with his back to the wall:  stairs to his left, ahead on the left was the hotel desk, and ahead, under layers of tobacco smoke and beer and men's laughter, the Silver Jewel itself.

Linn's pale eyes were busy; he could have continued up the stairs, to his wife's office, and shared a few moments with her: instead, he paced forward -- he winked at Tilly, smiling at him from behind the counter, he touched his hat brim to her, then he turned and went down the bar, stopping to clap a hand on a big Irishman's shoulder.

He may as well have slapped his hand on a marble statue wearing a red wool shirt.

Sean looked down on his old friend and nodded solemnly.

Linn raised a finger, a moment later a mug of beer slid down the bar: he opened his hand, caught it neatly, raised it and took a long pull, grateful for its wet coolness.

He hadn't realized how dry he'd gotten.

Mr. Baxter, perpetually polishing one of another of his fine heavy beer mugs, raised an eyebrow in question:  Linn closed one eye speculatively, nodded:  it was all the communication needed, and not long after, a cute little hash slinger came sashaying up the hallway from Daisy's kitchen with two plates:  one she set in front of the Sheriff, one she set in front of the big red-headed Irish fire chief:  she paused to hook her arms in each of the men's elbows, to look from one to the other and to say quietly, "I don't know which of you two I'd rather flirt with!"

Sean leaned back to look down the hall -- his lovely, red-headed wife was not known to be particularly tolerant with other women paying attention to her husband -- Linn, for his part, smiled just a little and said "Why darlin', flattery will get you everywhere!"

Sean threw back his head and laughed:  of all the men he knew, that pale eyed Sheriff with the iron grey mustache was probably the least likely of all the souls he knew, to stray, when it came to women!

Linn and Sean stood in companionable silence for several minutes -- as a matter of fact, Sean leaned over, forearms on Mr. Baxter's immaculately burnished mahogany bar top, and said quietly, "Ye've a grand gift o' silence."

Linn nodded, took a pull on his beer.

They stood thus, shoulder to shoulder, brogan and boot up on the foot rail.

"How do we do it?" Sean finally asked, his voice little more than a whisper.

Linn thought back to the day before, to the Irish Brigade's responding to a fire:  he'd been close enough to ride in, knowing there'd be a crowd -- a fire in town guaranteed the curious would throng to the scene, and he might be needed to keep folks back and out of the way.

He was needed, just not for crowd control.

Linn saw Sean's eyes close, saw his great head bow:  it was as if the man were pulling into himself, trying to armor himself against a terrible memory, and Linn knew what that memory was, or rather, what those memories were.

He could have listened to them himself.

He didn't.

He'd heard the screams from the involved structure, he'd heard shouts from the Irish Brigade as they fought their way into the conflagration:  he'd seen two pull back, so their comrades could hose them quickly, then fought back in: valiant men, fighting the breath of Hell itself, fighting through to where a mother and two daughters were screaming to death, and as was often the case -- wood this high up dried out fast, burned fast, women's clothes were long and voluminous and burned fast and hot -- Linn knew Sean was hearing the screams, he was hearing them struggling to breathe through burned throats, he knew Sean was feeling them fighting to live as he packed two of them out, one under each arm, as the Welsh Irishman carried a third and followed Sean out of the burning house.

They got out -- barely -- before the roof fell in: they'd laid the women gently, side by side, Doc ran up and examined them, then he listened with that stethoscope thing of his:  three times he listened, three times he shook his head, leaned back on his heels, looked around at the soot-faced Irishmen, saw the anger in their faces, watched as they attacked the fire again.

Linn listened to the Irishmen afterward, once they were finished with overhaul, once they were loaded back up and back to the tall, narrow firehouse.

Their talk was all the same.

"We lost the structure."

"We lost three people today."

Not one word about the fire through the roof before they arrived, not one excuse about its being too far along before they received the alarm.

We lost the structure.

We lost three women.

Linn stood shoulder to shoulder with Sean: the two men ate their sandwiches, drank their beer.

"How do we do it?" Sean finally asked, his voice distant.

"We make a decision," Linn said, "and once we make it, we shove it aside and make the next decision."

"Aye, we do that," Sean growled, took a savage gulp of beer.

"I learned to do that during the War. Make a decision and move on."

"Aye."

"Doesn't make it any easier afterward."

Sean took another bite of beef and bacon, grunted.

Mr. Baxter took his mug, replaced it with a full one:  he looked at the Sheriff, then traded his out as well.

Sean looked down as something nudged his big, hard-muscled arm.

That cute little hash slinger was back.

She thrust a plate of pie in front of the Irishman, another in front of the Sheriff.

She set a fork down beside each, then she took Sean's shirt sleeve between her hands -- a sleeve that was clear full of arm -- she looked up at the big Irishman and whispered, "You gave them the only chance they had.  They were my friends. Thank you for that chance" -- then she let go of Sean's arm and ran back for the safety of the kitchen.

Sean stared bleakly down the empty hallway, hearing her words repeat themselves in his memory.

Linn looked at his fork, looked at his old friend.

"Might be," he said mildly, "you ought to listen to her."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A DULL AND BORING LIFE

Michael sat on a hay bale, running a plaited reata thoughtfully, slowly, through his fingers, as if reading woven-leather secrets the way a blind man will read a page of Braille.

He glanced over as I came into the barn, then resumed his silent, distance-gazing study.

I looked out the open sliding door onto the pasture, looked around the barn -- I felt no threat, it's just habit -- I set down beside my son, leaned back against the hay stacked behind us.

Michael frowned, looked down at the loop in his hand, shifted his grip to the honda, his bottom jaw sliding out a little as he did.

I waited.

Michael finished his chores earlier, and did a fine job of it: I laid a hand on his shoulder and spoke quietly, approvingly of the thoroughness of his cleaning of the horses' stalls.

He turned his head, grinned up at me, that quick, bright, little-boy grin of his, then he blinked and it was gone:  not surprising, he was getting some size to him, and I realized -- yet again -- that the young grow, that the wee children they were, don't last long: they're replaced by someone older, someone very similar but so different, and I remembered Shelly's comment that she was happy our boys all wore boots, because a boot top helped hide growth spurts and the sudden development of high-water pants.

Michael nodded, his eyes going to the floor before us; restless fingers stilled, but he did not grip honda nor reata tightly -- which tells me he was likely not feeling an inner conflict.

For a moment I recalled my Mama's teachings, things I learned even when she didn't realize she was teaching them -- watch the hands, listen to what's under the words, or behind the words, what's the motive ... even here, with my own son, I was looking for signs of stress or of conflict, like a tight grip, or a tightening grip.

I held carefully still: I almost shook my head to dismiss the thoughts, but feared a sudden shake of the paternal gourd might be taken as a sign of disapproval.

Didn't want to do that.

My son was thinking something over.

If he wished my counsel he would ask, if indirectly.

"Sir," Michael finally said, his voice soft.

"Yes, Michael?"

"How come you always call me Michael?"

"Because you deserve that dignity," I said.

I saw him frown just a little as he took this in, and I knew that meant he wasn't expecting that answer: he was still looking at the floor six feet ahead of his well polished boot toes.

"Sir?"

"If I were to call you -- say, Mike ... that would be ... it might sound like I was presuming a false familiarity. Mikey would be even worse -- a diminutive, an insult, a way of belittling you, making you sound small or juvenile."

Michael nodded slowly.

"You named me after the Archangel."

"We did."

Michael looked at me, surprised.

"We, sir?"

I allowed myself the slightest of smiles -- too broad a smile would be artificial, and that is something I never, ever wish to show to my sons.

I don't ever want them to see artifice or fakery when they look at me.

"Your mother and your grandmother talked long and long again on our family's line. Your mother knows our bloodline is ancient and it contains an ancient power that we must respect."

Michael nodded slowly.  "Yes, sir."

"You don't seem surprised."

"No, sir, Marnie" -- he stopped, as if he'd just taken one step too far in a sensitive matter.

I waited.

"Sir, Marnie discussed some things with me."

I nodded.

"At night. When I was asleep."

I nodded again.

Michael sat up straight, took a deep breath, then looked at me.

"It was after she'd gone to Mars, sir."

"What did she tell you?"

"She talked about our bloodline and she showed me her ... sisters."

"Her sisters."

"Not Angela and the girls, sir, she showed me the Ancient Sisters."

I looked very directly at Michael, leaned forward, elbows on my knees, leaned a little closer to him.

My voice was quiet, I spoke in low voice, as one man to another.

"You have my undivided.  Say on."

Michael chewed his bottom lip and I laid my hand very gently on his shoulder.

"Did she tell you not to speak of it?"

Michael looked at me -- he was clearly conflicted now, I saw uncertainty in his young eyes -- I said, "Then speak not of the matter. If she trusted you with something, and said to speak not of it, then respect that."

"Yes, sir."

"Did it involve a number of women who looked just like her?"

This time I saw surprise in my son's eyes, and the words Direct hit! shouted somewhere inside my skull.

"They weren't dressed like her. Each one wore something different. Likely you saw a warrior maiden on a winged black horse with a lance upright, couched in her right stirrup. Skirt of plates, armored shins, winged helmet with a nasal" -- I can't talk without my hands, Michael grinned as my fingers gripped an invisible helmet and stroked the nonexistent nose-guard.

"Yes, sir."

"Women in long dresses, one in an off the shoulder dress with a bow and arrow, one in a white spacesuit --"

"You've seen them, sir!"

"Mama introduced me."

Michael blinked, frowned, obviously digesting all this.

"But sir ..."  Michael puzzled on this.  "Sir, if Marnie is Ambassador to Mars -- from Mars," he corrected himself -- "and Jacob is Sheriff on Mars ... the Sheriff always does Sheriff stuff but there's not much on Mars. No air, no fields, no horses, no crops, they live underground ... and she's ambassador from a cold red rock that's a big nothing?"

He looked at me again.

"Sir, she must get awful bored up there."

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller seized the black-cloaked attacker by his throat and his crotch, raised him to arm's length overhead and slammed him down into another footpad: she spun, caught the knife-arm coming in, spun as she'd trained, the arm went up behind the attacker's back: a twist, a shoulder and a wrist dislocated, the knife fell to the wet cobblestones.

Marnie's dark-emerald glove was forked hard against the back of her attacker's head.

A woman of dignity and propriety, she believed in being properly introduced, and so she very properly, and very powerfully, introduced a man's head to the adjacent cast-iron lamppost.

The sharp little heel of a black-velvet, high-button shoe drove into an oncoming belt buckle: Marnie took a quick sidestep to get her balance, spun, hands open and bladed.

She saw, she reacted: fire bloomed at the Navy Colt's gunmuzzle, a finger of dirty fire pointed accusingly at another of what had been several attackers: Marnie danced to her left, fired again, her second shot driving through the masked dacoit's left eye and ending his criminal career on the spot.

The carriage-horse reared, screamed, took off at a panicked gallop, the dead driver falling from his upholstered seat to lay motionless on wet cobbles.

Gunfire was not at all common in Gammon.

The sudden appearance of a war-shuttle overhead, silver, silent, boxy, was even less so.

Harsh light blasted down on the fog-dampened street: a whistle quavered in the distance, another: Ambassador Marnie Keller raised her gloved left wrist to her lips, spoke quietly into her communicator as she turned, the octagon barrel Navy Colt upraised, her emerald-green glove wrapped around its stand-up hammer spur, her eyes white, cold, the skin stretched tight over her cheekbones.

 

"You remember the Confederate Ambassador."

"Yes, sir."

"He was so impressed by Marnie's ability to negotiate, that he recruited her."

"So she's not just Ambassador to Mars."

"No.  Not only to Mars."

"Oh."  Michael frowned, looked at me.

"Sir, do I recall the Ambassador saying the Confederacy inhabits thirteen star systems?"

"That's what he said."

"Wow."

Michael looked away, blinking: his quiet-voiced exclamation spoke to how deeply this new information was penetrating his young mind.

Michael looked at me again.

"Sir, things get dangerous enough around here. There's only one of Marnie. Is she gonna be safe?"

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller smiled a little, her head tilted a little to the side, the way a woman will when she's amused, or interested, or feels like it.

Overhead, a silver war-shuttle hovered, silent, unmoving, its featureless, rectangular hull giving no clue at all to the weaponry it could bring to bear:  around her, ranks of grey-uniformed Confederate soldiers, drawn up three deep, surrounding her on three sides: they stood at attention, but not the rigid attention of soldiers of ceremony: no, these were warriors, quiet, alert, rifles held in the familiar grip of men who were more than intimately acquainted with their weaponry: only the honed edges of the bayonets reflected morning's light.

Ambassador Marnie Keller glided forward with her genuine, charming smile: she was formally introduced to a variety of dignitaries, she addressed each by name, looked them in the eye, putting each man instantly at ease: they withdrew  into the great stone edifice in the nation's capital, ascending shining marble steps, filing through burnished doors.

Outside, quietly, discreetly, persons were seized in the crowd, dragged forward, then stripped, their weapons laid out for inspection: devices of a surprising sophistication had been located, their bearers encased in a tight force-field, such that they could breathe, they could blink, and they could make no other move, at least until they were relieved of their devices.

 

"Sir, what kind of stuff would she do ... what does an ambassador do, anyway?"

"I reckon she's arranging trade deals, treaties, settling disputes, that kind of thing."

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller laughed, her skirts snatched up in both hands: she danced with a dozen young women, arranged in three rows of four: Marnie practiced Irish hardshoe as a child, she kept up her lessons into young adulthood, and now, now with two lively fiddlers calling the tune, she danced in a perfectly synchronized rhythm with smiling young women who were genuinely amazed that this complete stranger, someone they'd never seen before, was skilled enough to watch their routine one time, and then join flawlessly in their hammering rhythm.

Ambassador Marnie Keller did not dance long, but she danced very well: she'd been all day in negotiations, working out agreements, arbitrating disputes, listening carefully to long-held grievances: on two matters, she hadn't said a single word -- she'd listened with a focused attention to each of the parties, one, then the other, in the rigidly formal Airing of the Complaints: because she listened closely, each detailed their side: because each heard the other's detailed presentation, they began to negotiate, with Marnie doing no more than looking at one, thrusting a blade-hand to indicate he should speak, then looking at the other, a thrust of her gloved, stiff-held fingers, to indicate his turn: that she, herself, uttered not one syllable, but allowed these two long rivals to come to an accord, on their own, was a remarkable feat that gained her considerable status throughout the Thirteen.

It was after this most successful negotiation that she'd been introduced to their Irish dancers, that mention was made of the video they'd seen of Marnie, as a lithe young woman, dancing Irish hardshoe -- in a feathered glitter-mask, and in a slightly longer skirt than was traditional -- and Marnie protested she had no proper shoes: she was immediately ushered into a room with rows and boxes of dancing shoes, she was fitted with a pair, and suddenly she was on stage, wearing a feathered glitter-mask, and the dancers turned, faced her and sang in chorus,

"SHAKE YOUR TROTTERS!" -- and a dignified, persuasive, fast and deadly Sheriff Emeritus, the Ambassador to Mars and assistant negotiator to the First Ambassador for the Confederacy, laughed with delight and snatched up her skirts as two Irishmen spun merriment from their cherrywood fiddles.

 

"Sir, do you reckon Marnie likes what she's doin'?" Michael asked.

I nodded.

"Come to the house.  I've something to show you."

We walked back to the house, sat behind my desk: I turned on the screen, tapped a few keys.

"Marnie sent me this -- actually, it was the Ambassador, he said Marnie just brought two planets into accord that had been feuding for ten years."

Fiddle music filled the room, sounding like we were between the two fiddlers -- the screen was detailed and the speakers were really good -- Michael watched as a dozen dancers in identical dresses and tights swung out onto stage, and with them, in the center of the front row, a dancer in an emerald gown and a feathered glitter mask, dancing with these Irish ladies as if she'd been one of them all of her life.

I knew Michael's automatic pilot would come to life just any time -- he was getting some height to him -- I knew my son already had an appreciation for the feminine -- but I had to smile a little at the genuine grin of absolute delight I saw as Michael watched his Big Sis laugh, and dance, and very expertly shake her trotters in a public performance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SOMETHING WENT RIGHT

I'm told it made a good picture.

I didn't see it for a while, not until it came out in the paper, not until Bruce gave me the framed print.

Bruce put me on the front page of The Firelands Gazette -- me, and my black Outlaw-horse, and a little boy, sound asleep, laid up against my front: he was just a little fellow, big enough for me to run my arm under the back of his thighs and lay his head over my shoulder.

I understand Bruce took several shots as I rode past him, Outlaw's hooves almost silent in the thick, sudden snowfall: he showed the boy's Mama the photos he took, and I guess she gave a little squeak and cupped her hand over her mouth, and he gave her prints of what he'd taken.

Me, I always did like to ride in the snow, always have.

There's almost a magic to a good snowfall.

The world grows quiet, it's just me and my horse and what little of the world I can see.

A little boy managed to wander off from the All-Night, the way adventurous little boys will -- he'd grabbed a stick and swung it like a magical sword at invisible monsters, he used it for a cane to pole vault the little run behind the All-Night -- it's not wider than I can span with my hand, but likely in a boy's imagination it was a treacherous torrent a mile deep -- he laughed and went uphill, which didn't surprise me:  wounded animals, lost children and confused seasoned citizens will track uphill because it's easier to keep their balance.

I found him.

Me and Outlaw-horse stopped in the All-Night, me for coffee and he stuck his head in the door and the girl from behind the register laughed and grabbed a peppermint stick out of the heavy glass jar and brought it over to him, she broke it in thirds and let him rubberlip the pieces from her palm and she rubbed his neck and his ears and cooed to him like he was a baby in a carriage.

Outlaw closed his eyes and lowered his head a little and I reckon he'd have given her a week to stop that.

Me, I fixed a large coffee and left her a dollar on the counter the way I always did, I picked up her stapler and set on the end of the Yankee greenback so it wouldn't flutter off with that door open:  about the time Outlaw backed out the door and I reached up under his jaw and rubbed him and called him a womanizin' bum, why, a young mother was looking around, calling "Johnnie" in a worried voice.

She looked at me and she went from worried to near panic.

I'm speculatin' a little here but I reckon when she saw the Sheriff himself, she realized that maybe things were more serious than she thought, so she came over, all worry and grabbing at my forearm and I switched my coffee to my other hand so it wouldn't slosh out.

She allowed as he was four years old and she only looked away for a moment and she didn't know where he went and I asked where she'd seen him last.

She stopped, looked around, remembering: she turned to the gas island where she'd stood when she called to him last, she thrust an arm out:  "There. I saw him there," and Outlaw-horse and me, we walked over to where she'd pointed.

There was just a light skift of snow on the ground and I saw where little feet trompled the ground -- no other tracks, so he wasn't snatched -- Outlaw is a good mountain horse so I swung up into the saddle.

"I'll find him," I said, and give her a wink and a grin:  "You go on inside where it's warm."

I'm not sure exactly how Bruce got there.

Bruce Jones is the son of Old Bruce -- he's old enough now nobody much calls him "Young Bruce" like we used to -- and God help the man, he wears a camera the way most men wear a necktie. 

Either he was called, or he came in for coffee or a fuel-up ... doesn't matter, really.

Me, I eased Outlaw up the hillside, followin' where little feet had tracked in the snow, and we come out on the trail I was familiar with.

I was right, I thought.

Sure enough, I saw where little feet went from a resolute trudge to a happy scamper.

Didn't take me long to find him.

I looked down at a little boy's big grin and a set of bright blue eyes, and you know me, I'm a sucker for little kids.

He was just all kind of tickled to pet the horsie and he half laughed and half squealed when I took him around the middle and mounted up, and he got himself turned around and huggin' me and I ran my left arm around under his bony little backside and let him hug right onto me.

Outlaw-horse had no trouble a'tall navigatin' the snowy trail downhill: rather than cut straight down that steep grade we'd come up, we followed the bow in the trail and circled in behind the All-Night, and that's where Bruce caught me, caught us, with that camera.

Snow was coming down in great big heavy thick flakes, the kind that piles up quick but doesn't last long: he was quite pleased with the pictures he'd taken, he said we came out of the snow like a ghost: with snow on his mane and clinging to his ears and eyelashes, Outlaw looked like a fuzzy refugee from a haunted graveyard, or so Bruce told me later.

Me, I just looked like me with snow on me, and a little boy cuddled up against me, with his head laid over on my shoulder, sound asleep, with snow piled on his knit cap, looked like a snowy angel.

Least that's what I've been told.

Bruce printed all those pictures and gave to the mother, and he printed one for me: that one, with the little boy asleep in my arm and his head laid over on my shoulder, and Outlaw-horse lookin' just awfully pleased with himself.

Bruce gave me a framed print of that picture, and I hung it in my office where I could look up and remind myself that -- even on really, really bad days -- something went right, and I was part of it.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FOR THE SAKE OF OUR SOULS

It always feels the same, when you're going in after someone who doesn't want you coming after them.

Never mind I am the Law.

Never mind I have the authority, the legal warrant, the justification: when a man does not want to be taken, he can be more dangerous than ever, just like cornering any creature and advancing on it when the creature has no escape.

I heard the back door open and something in me lit up, of a sudden I felt light, like I weighed very little, I moved like I was young: I twisted past the screaming, profaning woman and ran for the back of the house.

The back door was just swung shut: I hit it hard and slammed it open, part of my mind registered the sound of broken glass and I figured well, hell, I owe 'em a window, and the rest of me was baying like a pack of hounds, for the man I wanted was running across the back field and he was making Jesse Owens look like a cripple.

I decided not to waste effort on cussing myself for not stationing a deputy at the back door -- there hadn't been time, we got a call he was here and I was closest -- I saw him duck around behind a shed and he didn't come out from behind.

I went from a sprint to a long-legged stride.

As long as he was holed up in that shed, or hiding behind it, he was going nowhere.

He could also be acquiring a weapon of some kind.

Shovel, pick, a length of pipe, a shotgun, a weapon of any kind, and he could make my day far less than pleasant.

I studied the shed as I advanced.

Gaps in the weathered boards meant if he was inside, he'd see my approach.

I had a handful of self loading pistol: it was angled down in front of me about 45 degrees.

I was coming up on that shed at a fast walk and I saw him move.

I recall the red dot coming up and planting itself on his high center chest.

I saw this with both eyes open.

Mama taught me at a tender age that you can see twice as much with both eyes open, and I'd learned to shoot with both eyes open, and it served me well, elsewise I'd have choked down around that red dot with one eye and wouldn't have seen his arms high in the air and his hands empty.

The man looked dirty, raggedy and kind of sour faced -- no surprise there, he'd been pursued for three days, across two states -- I allowed as he'd be wise to do exactly as I said, and kindly get down on your prayer bones and then I had him prone out.

A familiar voice yelled from behind that he was comin' up and I yelled back "Come up!" and two deputies sprinted around me and got him in irons, and got him to his feet.

Soon as he was cuffed I was holstered, and just out of curiosity I went around back of that shed to see what kind of unpleasantness he'd planned for me.

I about fell over when I saw Michael standing there with his Winchester rifle across his forearm.

I stood there with my teeth in my mouth and I realized I had absolutely no idea what to say.

Michael stood, silent, unmoving, his eyes somewhere between light blue and that whitish shade that meant war was singin' in his veins.

Michael nodded toward the back of the shed.

I took a look where he'd nodded.

An old fashioned broad ax lay on the ground.

I know the damage an ax can do -- I've investigated one murder with an ax, and one assault with an ax, and neither one was in the least little bit pleasant.

Had I come around the corner and he'd connected, why, that would have just plainly ruined my vacation plans.

"That ax usually hangs on the back of the shed," Michael said quietly.

"You kept him from usin' it."

"I did, sir."

I nodded.

"We'll need your statement."

"Yes, sir."

 

Later that afternoon, after Michael was deposed, after we'd processed this Jack Doe in and the Federal boys arrived and took him off our hands, after Michael stood back and turned invisible the way he was good at -- after my growing son took all this in -- I asked him to come into the conference room.

I drew coffee for us both, we had a half dozen doughnuts on a paper plate, and we set ourselves at the end of the table, right at the corner.

We'd each eaten two doughnuts apiece before I could put together quite what I wanted to say.

"It's not every man's son who can say he kept his Old Man alive," I observed.

I could see the pride shining in Michael's eyes when I said that.

Lord, let me tread carefully, I thought, for I know how fragile a young man's ego can be.

"You kept a dangerous man from using deadly force."

"Yes, sir."

"You put yourself at risk to do that."

"Yes, sir."

"Michael" -- I hesitated, then looked very seriously at him.

"Michael, do you recall Uncle Will talking about being in a firefight?"

"I do, sir."

"He said something about it being mostly crashing boredom with a few bright screaming moments of sheer unadulterated panic."

"I remember him saying that, yes, sir."

"That's kind of like being Sheriff."  I took a noisy slurp of coffee. "Most of the time it's routine. A lot of it is diplomacy. I've done more negotiatin' than a professional diplomat, and most times it works. Sometimes it doesn't."

"Yes, sir."

"Michael" -- I shifted in my folding tin chair -- "when it's not a dull, boring routine, it gets just pretty damned dangerous."

"I know that, sir."

"I've only got one of you, Michael. I don't want you hurt."

Michael reached out, seized my wrist: his eyes were very faintly blue, but they were dead serious, and his grip was firm as he replied in a quiet, tense voice, "I've only got one of you, sir. You matter. Your family needs you, this county needs you, sir, and I need you!"

Before I could reply, Michael reached under him, grabbed the chair, turned it a little to face me squarely.

"Sir, I'm not a man yet, but I'm getting closer to it. I need your example. I can't pattern myself after you if you're dead, and sir, I will be sawed off and damned if I stay my hand and you get hurt!"

I brought up my other hand and laid it over his.

I laid my hand light, and I did not try to unwind his from his grip on my wrist.

I nodded, and remembered, for I'd been nine years old when I broke the glass on that deep frame in Mama's office so I could grab my Granddad Ted's Victory model and load it.

I'd been nine years old when the assassin paused to reload his machine gun and I spun out the front door and drove six rounds of .38 Smith & Wesson through his face.

I'd been nine years old when someone tried to kill my mother and I killed him and then I tore Mama's vest free and hit her in the breastbone with my fist, I drove stiff young arms down hard on her and screamed at her to live, and her heart -- shocked into standstill by the rapid hammer of 9mm hardball, blasting against the ballistic plate at the front of her vest -- between what Doc Greenlees called a "Pediatric Precordial Stomp" and my insane efforts to perform CPR -- my Mama's heart woke up and started to beat again.

I'd been nine years old.

Michael was thirteen.

I nodded, my hand still on his.

"Michael," I said softly, "how did you do it?"

Michael laid his other hand on top of mine and gripped firmly and he just plainly drove his gaze into me.

"Sir, I was nearby and I'd heard your talkin' about him. I saw you come up at the front of the house and I knew there was but one escape. I meant to take a covering position but he was faster'n I figured, so I dropped down -- there was a little bit of a depression and a clump of grass -- he wasn't looking for me so he didn't see me."  

Michael took a long breath, his eyes closed, seeing it happen again, seeing it projected on the screen of his closed eyelids.

"Sir, he snatched that ax off its pegs and I come up off the ground and cycled that Winchester rifle and I allowed as he could drop the ax or I could drop him."

I nodded.

I'd said similar things my own self, in such moments.

"I didn't raise my voice, sir, and he looked at me surprised and then he looked kind of disgusted and the ax hit the ground. 

"I didn't have to tell him aught else. He raised his arms and come around the shed, and that's when the cavalry arrived, and you found me back there, and here we are."

I considered this, nodding a little:  we released our hands, we looked at the last two doughnuts.

"Be a shame if they went stale."

"It would, sir."

"My Mama taught me not to be a sinful man."

"Gammaw was a wise woman," Michael agreed.

"Was we to let those two doughnuts go stale, why, that would be wasteful, and waste is a sin."

"Yes, sir," Michael agreed, reaching for one while I took the other.

"I wonder what the Parson would say," Michael mumbled around a crumbling mouthful, "about salvation through doughnuts."

I took another slurp of coffee, swallowed.

"I reckon he'd help us eat 'em," I replied, "for our souls' sake."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SELF RISING

My chief deputy handed me a steaming mug of coffee.

Our coffee mugs were all big, heavy, glazed-white-porcelain, with some kind of a smart alecky statement baked on them.

Mine said "THE NAVY RUNS ON COFFEE AND SO DO I!" and on the other side it had a stubbled, dirty, irritated looking, unshaven Master Chief in a white T-shirt and dungarees, with his white cap properly boxed, chewing on a cigar and striding forward looking like Storm Cloud Number Nine.

I drizzled a little milk in my scalding volume and stared at the rolling clouds in my mug, and I started to grin.

Couldn't help it.

It had nothing to do with coffee, mugs, the US Navy, aggravated Master Chiefs, or slogans.

I took a quick, noisy slurp and about scalded the hair off my tongue, I set my coffee mug down, for I felt a laugh bubbling up from the depths of my soul and I knew it would not be denied.

The night before, Angela and Shelly wore matching red Christmas dresses -- feminine, frilly, white lace at collar and cuffs, they wore stockings and shining red heels and their makeup was perfect, they wore red hair bands with green holly clips of some kind on them -- I don't know about these things -- all I knew was, they looked really, really good, and I stopped and planted my knuckles on my belt and gave a sincere, very appreciative, sharp, and admittedly lecherous, wolf whistle.

My wife swivel hipped her way up beside me and so did my daughter, and two truly beautiful women molded themselves to me: a hand caressed the back of my neck, another stroked the base of my throat and unbuttoned a shirt button and tickled the chest hairs they exposed, and in a seductive chorus, my beautiful bride and my little girl hissed, "You good looking thing, you," and I laughed and ran my arms around their waists and hugged them tighter.

Angela and Shelly both thrust up on their toes and kissed my cheek -- at the same moment -- then they spun away, two dancers, spinning and giggling, their skirts flaring, and there I stood grinnin' like a damned fool, and I saw Shelly and Angela share a look.

I knew right there I was in trouble.

Women can communicate silently but very effectively, and I had no idea what conspiracy they shared, only that women are perceptive and intelligent and sneaky as hell, and somehow ...

Somehow, I'd just been had.

I was still looking at two beautiful women, and I said, "Ladies, I take it you've been shopping!"

Angela stuck a pose, smoothed a hand down a pleat in her skirt: "Why, Daddy," she murmured, batting those long eyelashes at me, "would we do thaaaat?"

"Christmas dresses?" I guessed.

Mother and daughter looked at one another -- a move I recognized as contrived, as rehearsed -- and they said in chorus, "He noticed!"

"Ladies," I said frankly, "you are both genuinely beautiful, and you are both delightful in your appearance."

"Buuuttttt .....?" two feminine voices prompted, inflecting upward, as both my wife and (God Almighty why is she so womanly she's supposed to be my child!) little girl (gasp!) pried the rest of the thought from my tightening throat.

"Ladies," I almost stammered, "you are both truly beautiful."

"Buuutttt ...?"

"True beauty comes from within," I finished, "and it wouldn't matter if you wore a burlap sack, you would be just as gorgeous!"

Shelly clapped her hands, thrust an upturned palm at Angela:  "What did I tell you!" she declared, and Angela seized her skirts and whirled and ran upstairs, and there I stood with my elbow halfway up my sleeve, with the distinct feeling that I'd just been had.

Either that, or I'd somehow managed to bruise my daughter's feelings, and she ran to her room to throw herself dramatically across her bed and cry.

"Supper's ready," Shelly said quietly, and the rest of the family came in, freshly handwashed, Michael's neck and ears still wet -- I recall a shining crystal drop of water wobbled from his right earlobe, until he swiped impatiently at it.

Angela came back downstairs, but she wasn't wearing her Christmas dress.

She was wearing -- honest to God! -- a burlap sack.

Instead of her shining red Christmas heels, she'd fashioned burlap ankle booties, tied with coarse string, her burlap potato sack dress was tied with a length of clean, new, cotton, clothesline rope for a belt:  she skipped up to her place at the table.

As usual, everyone stood behind their chair and waited for me to be seated.

We ate, and conversation was as it usually was, free wheeling and wide ranging, with laughter, with questions, and as was tradition, when anyone asked "Please pass me a biscuit," that's exactly how it arrived.

Airmail.

"Boss?"

I blinked; the memory was gone, I was once again in the Sheriff's office, holding my Master Chief's mug, wondering what I'd just missed.

"I'm sorry," I said, "could you repeat the question, please?"

Sharon laughed and said, "I brought a vegetable tray. I thought you might like a change from doughnuts all the time."

"Thank you," I said softly, and I felt my face smile as I remembered again, I recall how Angela came up to me after supper in her burlap sack dress, how she stood like an uncertain little girl and said "Dad-deeee," in a soft, intentionally juvenile voice.

"Yes, darlin'?" I asked.

"Daddy, am I gorgeous?" she asked, and I laughed, because she used to ask me that when she was a little girl, when Shelly would dress her up like she was a doll and Shelly wanted to show her off.

I rested my fingertips on her upper arms and leaned down so my forehead just touched hers.

"Darlin'," I said softly, so only she could hear, "yes you are gorgeous!"

Angela giggled -- for all that she was approaching womanhood, in that one giggling moment, at least, she was my little girl again -- then she reached somewhere and pulled out an apron, and whipped it around her middle so she could help her Mama clean up after supper, and I near to had a heart attack.

She'd come up with a genuine flour sack apron.

Right across the front it said SELF RISING and I felt myself lose most of the color in my face.

Matter of fact I grabbed the back of a chair to steady myself.

"Self ... rising?" I said slowly.  "Angela ... is there something you need to tell me?"

Angela came up on her toes, kissed my cheek, giggled.

"I thought you'd like it, and no I'm not pregnant," she whispered, her arms around my neck, then she let go and went skipping around the table, picking up plates and silverware.

I took another drink of coffee and smiled, looking into its cloudy depths.

I looked at Sharon and said, "My wife and daughter got me good last night," and I chuckled, finished the coffee, rinsed out the mug and set it to drain beside the sink.

Later that day I heard Sharon on the phone.

"Shelly? I don't know what you did last night, but whatever it was, Old Pale Eyes is in absolutely the best mood today!"

Edited December 13, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FROM THE MOUTH OF A LITTLE CHILD

It's happened before and sure enough, it happened again, and I didn't like it this time any better than any of the previous times.

I just laid there, my teeth set tight together, I know I was makin' an awful face and I really hoped nobody was anywhere near to see it.

My luck was not good.

I heard a set of small, quick little feet, and I opened one screwed-shut eye, and a set of blue eyes looked down at me -- I opened the other eye and saw the blue eyes were surrounded by carefully Mama-curled, cornsilk-yellow hair, and all this framed by the cloudless background of a high mountain sky -- my little girl Angela was bent over a little with her hands in her apron and she said in a worried, little-girl voice, "Daddy, are you hurt?"

Now I was not about to admit to anything of the kind.

I wasn't going to insult the sincerity of her inquiry by telling her I'd just laid down to take life easy.

Apple-horse, he come pacin' over to me and run his nose down to my belly and took a big sniff and he looked at me kind of funny, and then The Bear Killer come over and snuffed at my ear and give my jaw a companionable lick, then he went around on t'other side of me from Angela and laid down beside me and kind of rolled up ag'in me.

I didn't have quite enough air in me yet to give Angela any kind of an answer, but I managed to get a little wind in my shocked lungs and gasp "No," and distressed I was that I sounded just awful puny.

Angela stood up and she planted the knuckles of her left hand on her belt line, she shook her Mommy-finger at Apple-horse and scolded "You big bully, you're not supposed to do that to my Daddy!"

There I was, flat on my back, most of the wind still knocked out of me, I'd just been bucked off by an Appaloosa stallion and that was my own fault, I didn't knuckle him to get the wind out of him before I tightened the cinch -- damn fool stunt, I knew better, had I not been tryin' to get air into me and keep my eyes from buggin' out with the effort, I'd likely have give attair horse and myself equal amounts of Profound Language -- instead I reached up and grabbed Apple's cheek strap and once I had aholt of that, I was not about to let go.

Apple backed up and I set my heels and I let him pull me up off the ground.

Once I got my pins under me I just stood there with my arm over his neck, tryin' to get my lungs to work, and like always, it felt like it took forever.

Angela watched me with big and solemn eyes as I resaddled Apple.

I didn't drive my fist into him.

I've seen men do that and I've seen horses go mean.

Likely it's because a man that'll punch a horse like that will hurt him otherwise.

I don't go to hurt my horses.

I take pains to build a trust with my saddle stock.

Horses ain't the brightest creature God ever made.

I like a mule for rough country, a mule is smarter than  a horse most days.

Now once I got my wind back in me -- which was harder than it sounds, with my little girl standin' there lookin' at me, and me tryin' not to show how bad I still hurt -- once I figured I could do it, why, me and Apple-horse walked over to the saddle blanket.

I picked it up and shook out the dirt and brushed it with my hand and Apple-horse, he recht around and pulled the bandana out from where I'd tucked it behint my belt and he back away, bobbin' his head and wavin' that spotty wild rag like a flag and just lookin' right pleased with himself.

Angela patted her little foot and shook her little Mommy-finger at him and gave him a little girl's version of The Look, which didn't do a thing to stop attair stallion from laughin' at me.

He let me retrieve my kerchief and I stuck it back in the back of my belt -- 'twas an extra I carried that day -- I got the saddle blanket over him and walked him over to the saddle.

I looked it over and the saddle was not hurt, so I got it on him and this time he didn't sneaky his gut full of air.

Angela rode behind me and The Bear Killer trotted happily along beside us, and we went on back to the house.

I sidled Apple-horse up beside our front porch, and Angela stood up behind me and stepped waaaaay over to the porch rail and grabbed the porch post: she giggled happily as Esther picked her up and set her down, and Esther give me that green eyed study of hers that meant she knowed something was wrong, and it was, I'd hit the ground harder than I'd realized.

Angela saved me the trouble of an explanation.

She looked up at her Mommy and declared happily, "Mommy, guess what!  Daddy fell and broke his butt!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ONE, AND ONE ONLY

Sheriff Linn Keller stared at the framed portrait of a woman and a horse.

The woman was truly beautiful; the horse, truly huge.

Part of his mind considered the superiority of these old glass plate photographs to modern photography: Bruce Jones explained some time ago, in a presentation for the Ladies' Tea Society, the thick emulsions, the long exposure times, the rich and fantastic detail such photography could produce: enlargements could be made from these old images, clear enlargements not possible with modern photographic methods.

The young woman in the portrait wore a shimmering gown that he knew to be a rich, luxurious, emerald green: he knew the jewel at her throat was a square-cut ruby, with a diamond at each corner, and he knew the slight change in her skirts' drape, high up, hid a concealed Bulldog revolver.

He also knew there were various other Implements of Less than Gentle Persuasion, hidden about her person.

The subject of the photographer's attention was looking very directly into the camera, looking very directly at every viewer of her image, and she was looking with a set of strikingly pale eyes.

He turned and looked at a truly beautiful young woman standing in his office, a woman in a rich, shimmering green gown, a woman with a square-cut ruby at the hollow of her throat.

She had not been there fifteen seconds earlier.

To his credit, the Sheriff did not flinch, nor did he betray any surprise.

"I knew your Iris was silent," he said, "and I know you can move like a wisp of fog."
There was the slightest tightening of the corners of his eyes.

Father and daughter embraced, and Sheriff Marnie Keller, safe once again in her big strong Daddy's arms, hugged him with the fierceness of a little girl who was very happy to see her Daddy.

Sheriff Linn Keller picked her up, just a little, gave her a little shake: he felt as much as heard a rippling cluster of dull, popping noises, as her spine let go of its tensions, as she groaned "Ow, that hurts so good" -- her words muffled into his shirt front -- and he eased her carefully back down onto her toes.

Linn looked seriously into his daughter's eyes.

"You're a diplomat," he said quietly. "I thought diplomats spoke softly and avoided conflict."

Marnie smiled, patted her Daddy's shirt front the way she'd seen her Mama do in such moments.

"When a fringe group wants to kidnap and ransom an easy mark," she smiled, "the wise diplomat will say no in a way they can understand."

Marnie's eyes widened a little as she saw disappointment in her father's face, and then a deep sadness.

"Marnie," he whispered, "I know what it is to bury family. I don't want to bury you too."

"You won't have to."  She slid her hands over to his coat sleeves, gripped his muscled arms through the tailored material. "My carcass will be run into a Recyclo and my component atoms will be reassembled into materials the Colony needs -- food, water, the air they breathe."

Linn hugged his daughter again, laid his head over on top of her head.

"Don't die on me, darlin'," he whispered. "There's only one of you has ever been. In all of eternity, all of infinity, all of Creation itself, there's only one of you."
Marnie hugged her Daddy right back, and he heard her choked whisper, "Oh, Daddy," and she rubbed her face in his shirt front again, the way she did as a little girl when she wanted to dry unwanted tears without letting anyone see them.

Linn waited several long moments before slacking his embrace, before leaning back a little, before looking at his daughter, before raising an eyebrow.

Marnie knew this meant a question was coming.

"You have your Uncle's .357, you have your old duty sidearm, you've got your choice of weaponry from knuckles to field howitzers, and you pull out a black powder Navy Colt?"

Marnie laughed quietly, batting her long lashes at him: she was doing her best to assume an Innocent Expression, and succeeding marvelously.

"Of all people, Daddy, I thought you would appreciate a traditional approach!  Besides --"

Her innocence dissolved and became very serious.

"There is nothing like that low frequency concussion of a black powder pistol, up close. Nobody will ever forget that yellow finger of judgement squirting through the evening's shadow, and absolutely nobody will ever forget the smell of sulfur, the whiff of the hell that awaits their corroded souls for trying to put the bag on me!"

Marnie reached up and caressed her Daddy's clean-shaven jaw with gentle, emerald-gloved fingers.

"I just put the fear of God Almighty into them, and the word will spread, and they'll be that much less likely to try again in future. The investigation is ongoing but so far it looks like a splinter group with very few members."

Linn's eyes were veiled, but Marnie saw the muscles bulge a little as his jaw slid out just a little, and a daughter saw a father's protective nature come to the fore.

She saw a deep and abiding anger in her Daddy's pale eyes, and she considered that it's probably a good thing he hadn't been there that night.

Few things will provoke a father to violence faster than violence done his young.

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE BALD MAN’S OPINION

Fitz raised his chin.

Shelly folded her polishing rag, placed it on the back bumper of the squad, walked curiously over to the Chief.

“Thank you,” Chief Fitzgerald said quietly.

“Forrrrr …?”

Fitz took Shelly’s arm, turned toward the kitchen deck:  they climbed the three steps to the upper level, and Shelly knew the Chief had something more on his mind than just a quick complement.

When he steered someone toward the coffee pot, first, it meant he was not going to put denture prints on their hip pockets, and second, it meant he wasn’t quite sure how to put what he wanted to say, and coffee was a grand way to help him arrange his thoughts.

Shelly waited until they had steaming hot mugs of coffee drawn, until they each drizzled the Lactic Sacrament into their payloads, until they were set down at the end of the long table.

Fitz hunched over his coffee, both elbows on the table, frowning at the tablecloth:  he glared at the empty table, as if his authoritative scowl could magically conjure a plate of doughnuts.

It didn’t work.

Shelly blew delicately across her coffee, took a tentative sip.

“Angela came to say hello,” Fitz said quietly.

“Oh?”

Fitz nodded.

“I remember …”

His eyes shifted toward the equipment bay, swung toward shining red Kenworth apparatus, his expression softening a little as he remembered a happy, laughing little girl skipping into the firehouse, all sunshine and blond hair and a smile that could melt the heart of a cold stone statue.

“I remember how Angela could come in an’ ‘twas like she brought the sun in with her,” he said softly.

Shelly tilted her head, regarded the man with a quiet smile.

“You’re not the first man to tell me that.”

“She was in yesterday.”

Shelly took another careful sip of her scalding drink.

Fitz sighed, lowered his mug.

“I know what it is t’ bury m’ wife,” he said slowly, “and … my own little girl is grown an’ gone, an’ …”

He frowned and dropped his head, his jaw shoving forward as he glared at his untasted coffee, then he looked up at Shelly.

“Your Angela.”

Shelly raised her eyebrows, looked very directly at the Chief.

“Your daughter is very much the Lady.”

“I should hope so,” Shelly murmured. “I’ve tried to teach her!”

“Shelly –”  Fitz stopped, frowned, pressed his lips together, then turned his face away, took a long breath, blew it out.

“Dammit, I know what I want t’ say,” he muttered.

“Then say it.”

“Yer daughter’s a perfect lady an’ there’s only one place she could’a learned that an’ thank you for carin’ enough about bein’ a lady t’ be a lady!”

He leaned back suddenly, hands flat on the tablecloth, looking like he’d just thrown a punch and he was watching for the counterpunch.

Shelly blinked a few times, then set her mug down, carefully, and laid her hand on the back of Fitz’s flattened out mitt.

“Chief,” she said quietly, “that’s the nicest thing you ever said to me!”

“Besides sayin’ ye cut a fine figure in a dress an’ ye’ve got nice legs?” Fitz said ruefully, his ears reddening at the memory of an incautious moment, many years before.

Shelly laughed, quietly, patted his hand.

“Every woman should be told she looks really good in a dress,” she said softly.  “It’s good for a woman’s self-esteem.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t issue uniform skirts without providin’ ‘em f’r everyone,” Fitz muttered.  “Discrimination an’ all that.”

“My old squad partner, years ago, said his company was going to issue miniskirts for male and female alike, mandatory wear.”

Fitz raised an eyebrow, looked at her skeptically.

“Oh, yes. He also said they were going to issue bright screaming blaze orange underwear. He said this right before he taught lifting techniques – back when we still used the Ferno Type 30 ambulance cot. You know, the Backbreaker.”

“Aye, I remember,” Fitz snarled quietly.  “I remember damn few veteran medics that don’t have a bad back as a result!”

“Why do you think I was so happy we got hydraulic lifts on ours?” Shelly murmured, leaning closer as she did.

“So yer partner said everyone was wearin’ bright orange underwear and mini skirts?”

“He was teaching lifting techniques. He demonstrated – back straight, squat, grip the bottom bar and spread your hands wide as they’ll go, lift on three MY COUNT, and when you lift” – she raised a teaching finger and imitated an annoying, high-pitched, nasal voice – “Remember what yer Mama taught youse an’ never, never, never show yer underpants!  Lift with yer legs, not with yer backs, now TUCK YER BUTTS AND LIFT!”

Fitz stared at her for a long moment, then a slow grin claimed his face and he shook his head.

“It worked,” Shelly said quietly.  “We were the only ambulance company in the state that had no back injuries from lifting those damned cots!”

Fitz chuckled, his head down, wagging his nose back and forth in the warm column steaming up from his coffee mug:  he lifted his mug, took a noisy slurp, swallowed, chuckled, looked at his favorite medic.

“He really said that.”

Shelly looked at him innocently.  “Um-hmm,” she affirmed, then took another sip of coffee.

Fitz tilted his mug up, took three long swallows, set his down, frowned.

“Shelly, you’re a damned good medic an’ I thank God Almighty you never did become a nurse. We need you here.

“You’re a damned good mother an’ you make the Sheriff a happy man.

“I’m not the brightest bulb in the chandelier but I’m not stupid.

“Ye’re doin’ it right an’ if th’ word of a balding old Chief means anything, thank you.”

Fitz stood suddenly and went quickly to the sink, rinsed out his coffee mug and stacked it in the drain rack, then turned and walked quickly back to his office, muttering something about making a damned fool of himself again and why’d he think he could make sense of somethin’ like that an’ you’d think he was old enough t’ know better.

Shelly sat and blinked a few times, considering what-all just happened, and she smiled a little as she did.

It felt pretty good to be told she was doing something right.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MEANWHILE, IN PEDIATRICS

Sheriff Linn Keller took point.

He had no idea what in two hells was going on, but when the hospital called and said they had a situation in Pediatrics and two women had been knifed and were bleeding, he did not tell his troops to go handle the situation.

He reached up behind his desk and pulled down a double barrel shotgun and roared "FOLLOW ME!"

When a long tall Sheriff comes storming through the main entrance at the point of a flying wedge of armed deputies, grim faced and obviously going to war, people tended to get out of the way, and fast.

When a lawman's hip drove into the square door-open switch button and his deputies stacked up behind him, ready to assault into the Pediatric Unit, when the doors swung open, the Sheriff and his deputies alike stopped and stared in open admiration.

Nurses in this modern day and age all wore the more practical scrub uniforms.

Most of them wore the ugly as sin but supremely comfortable backless clogs -- the kind that could be easily washed off.

One, and only one, nurse in ... well, probably in the entire state ... wore the white uniform dress and white stockings and white thick-soled shoes and the white winged cap of generations before, and that was the Sheriff's sweet little blue eyed daughter Angela.

Angela Keller, in her white nurse's cap, in a white uniform dress and stockings and thick-soled shoes, neatly parried a knife with the barrel of an Ithaca shotgun, drove the butt of the gun into a woman's face, kicked the other in the stomach and gave her a face full of rubber recoil pad as well.

Both women were, cut, both were bleeding, one knife was on the floor before the doors swung open, and one was only just dropped clattering to the blood-smeared tiles.

Security was on the floor, doubled up in a pool of his own blood, holding his gut -- two nurses were on him, staunching the bleeding until they could get him to ER -- another nurse was holding a blood-dripping forearm, the others were shrunk back, arms out to the sides, a last layer of protection between the warring women and their young patients.

The two intruding women were cut and bleeding; they were staggered by a full powered gun butt to the face:  one sagged, then face planted on the bloody tile, the other tried to come up, grasping for her dropped knife, until Angela drove her Ithaca's butt into her again, this time across the forehead.

This time the combatant went down, and stayed down.

Angela glared at her pale eyed Daddy.

"Well, don't just stand there," she snapped, "get 'em in irons!"

 

The Ambassador looked over at Marnie.

The only time she leaned closer to the screen was when there was news from home, news that concerned family.

The only time her face grew pale, the only time her flesh grew taut over her cheekbones, was when news concerning family was not good.

The Ambassador discreetly tapped a pad, entered a brief message.

He knew he could not really feel the ship pick up speed -- it moved in an envelope of energies, some said its own bubble universe -- all he knew was, it worked, and it worked well.

He fancied he could feel the ship come about, and his imagination more than his senses told him they were accelerating in another direction.

An hour, and they would be parked invisibly in Earth orbit, unless they needed to make planetfall.

 

Captain Crane was like anyone else in his position: he took real world experience and trained accordingly, and when his ear inclined itself to the Sheriff's radio traffic, when he found that two women got into some dispute or another in the hospital's pediatrics ward, when he found both women were cut, Security was sliced across the belly and a nurse took a long cut to her forearm, he sat down with his daughter and reviewed the pertinent anatomies, treatment modalities, procedures: that afternoon, the Irish Brigade, for their training session, practiced using the newest generation of torniquets, and the Captain and Shelly ran inventory on both their squad an the rescue, which served as second-out squad, to ensure they had ABDs -- abdominal bandage units -- and plenty of sterile saline, in case they had to handle a belly wound.

 

The unit supervisor was still white-faced and shaking when she drew Angela aside and said quietly, "I'm glad you were here today."

The nursing supervisor was not quite as charitable.

A nurse with a shotgun was something that could not be countenanced, it was an immediate firing offense:  Angela listened calmly to the nursing supervisor's scathing comments, then she politely backhanded the woman and told her that if she were fired, the entire nursing staff of the entire hospital would walk out, and they'd make sure the world at large knew why.

Angela walked out of the nursing supervisor's office and into the chief surgeon's office.

The hospital's CEO, the chief surgeon and chief of staff were all prior military.

The nursing supervisor was not.

The hospital's CEO, the chief surgeon and chief of staff met less than an hour later.

The hospital's CEO, the chief surgeon and chief of staff called the nursing supervisor in for a meeting.

The hospital's CEO, the chief surgeon and chief of staff advised the nursing supervisor that Angela would receive a commendation and not a dismissal.

The nursing supervisor threatened further action.

The hospital's legal counsel advised her that any action she took would be a violation of the Whistleblower Statutes, and would be considered retaliation, and that would look very bad to anyone thinking of hiring her, wouldn't it?

Angela Keller, the pretty blue-eyed daughter of that long tall pale eyed Sheriff, spun and drove her thick, white sole -- actually her heel -- into the sparring dummy's middle: it was a perfect side-snap-kick, followed by a slash across the face with the muzzle of a Mosin-Nagant, then a butt stroke, then she drove the rifle's butt into the dummy's face hard enough to knock it almost level.

Her phone rang as the dummy was wobbling back upright.

Angela Keller, the pretty blue-eyed daughter of that long tall pale eyed Sheriff, was still in her white nurse's uniform, working off her aggravation in her Daddy's barn, practicing with a rifle the way her Gammaw used to practice, the way her big sis Marnie used to practice: when her phone, out of reach on top of a convenient hay bale, rang, a feminine hand picked it up, answered it.

"Hello?  I'm sorry, Doctor, she's busy at the moment, may I take a message?"

Angela turned as Marnie smiled and said, "I will let her know.  Thank you, Doctor."

Marnie tapped the screen, set the phone down, tilted her head a little and smiled at her little sister.

"That looks like Gammaw's dress."

"I patterned it after the one she gave me."

"That fits you nicely."  Marnie smiled as Angela parked her rifle against the nearest stall, came skipping over to hug her big sis.

"I understand you've been raising Hell," Marnie said with a mischievous look.  "Can I play too?"

"I might have a nursing supervisor you can work on."

Marnie made a face and waved her emerald glove as if at a bad odor. 

"Ugh, those! -- oh, the Doctor said you're not fired, and if the nursing supervisor gives you any grief of any kind, you're to tell him right away."

Angela nodded.  "Thank you."

"So tell me," Marnie said frankly, "what has you so aggravated that you're going all Willamina on a sparring dummy while you're in full uniform?"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I DON'T HAVE TO LIKE IT

Sheriff Jacob Keller glared at his pale eyed sister.

Sheriff Emeritus Marnie Keller, Ambassador-at-Large, pretended not to notice.

Jacob's eyes swung to the framed portrait of their pale eyed ancestress, then looked back at Marnie.

"You said she went all Willamina on them."

Marnie looked at her brother, long lashes sweeping through the air: her expression was all innocence and sincerity, and Jacob was having none of it.

Jacob opened his mouth, closed it, frowned: he opened his mouth again, frowned harder, closed his mouth, looked away, looked back, his jaw shoved forward -- just like his father! Marnie thought with a quiet smile, carefully hiding her expression behind her delicate, bone-china teacup.

Jacob's wife Ruth looked from one to the other, hiding her amusement behind a carefully impassive face: these sparring matches between two evenly matched opponents fascinated her.

Jacob's wife Ruth grew up a child of gentility, an observant young lady who'd observed many vigorous skirmishes, carefully disguised behind genteel manners and carefully-spoken words.

"Sis, you and I were both trained to take out a knife fast, hard and nasty. You don't block a knife, you shoot them. You don't use a baton, you shoot them. You don't use an empty hand technique or bug spray, you shoot them."

Marnie sipped delicately at choice oolong.

"You're telling me Angela pulled a shotgun out of a dimensional pocket and she --"

Jacob snapped his jaw shut, frowned, looked away, looked back.

"Sis, I wasn't there and --"

Marnie waited for Jacob's Ship of Indignation to ground itself on the rocks of his own reasoning.

"Okay. Pediatric unit. But good God, Sis, I know how fast a knife will --"

Marnie lifted her pale eyes from her teacup and looked very directly, but very neutrally, at her pale eyed brother.

Jacob swore.

"So she spared them the concussion of one, maybe two gunshots in an enclosed ward. I get that. That's a malpractice case for each staff member and each patient from hearing damage alone. Overpenetration could be a concern. She used the French Foreign Legion tactics Gammaw taught her -- taught us -- at a tender age."

"Gammaw never taught her that," Marnie said in a gentle voice.  "I did."

"I watched the video," Jacob grunted. "You taught her well."

"Thank you."  Marnie smiled.  "I understand you used the same technique last week."

"Yeah," Jacob grunted. "I fabricated Uncle Will's Garand."

"You didn't," Marnie groaned.

Jacob looked surprised.  "I sure as hell did."

"Oh, Jacob," Marnie sighed, "that's the rifle that took the thousand yard trophy twice at Camp Perry!"

"No it's not. I didn't fabricate that one. I have it scanned in and I can make as many of it as I want. 'Twas the other one, the rebuilt."

"So you're allowed to go all Willamina and Angela isn't."

"Marnie --"  Jacob stopped, turned his hands palms-up. "Marnie, when it's killin' time, you take 'em out as fast as possible. When there's more than one you're even faster. I had to learn that the hard way. If it's only one, yeah, you can try a take-away, but --"

"But you weren't there, Jacob. You weren't the one who was confident enough to parry the knife and cold-cock the knife fighter. You have to learn to trust your people, Jacob. She's trained and believe me, she's deadly!"

"SHE'S ALSO MY BABY SIS!"

Jacob's voice was low, intense, menacing: he was leaned forward a little, his spine stiff, one fist pushing down on the table, looking like he was ready to launch from his chair and put his fist through the nearest wall.

"I'm clear the hell and gone up here and she's home, she's faced with two women who both want to claim a sick baby and they get into it, they cut a nurse and try to gut Security and --"

Jacob shook his head, snapped his jaw shut, looked at his Gammaw's framed portrait.

Ruth waited, watching her husband with assessing eyes.

Moments like this, she well knew, were instructive, and she was learning more about her husband by simply listening, by simply watching: she sipped her tea and rocked a little, grateful that Jacob brought her a rocking chair as soon as he found she was with child.

Jacob looked at Marnie.

"You're right," he said finally. "She was there and I wasn't. She handled it and she handled it well."

Marnie waited.

She knew her brother wasn't finished.

She was right.

Jacob shoved his hands in his hip pockets, frowned, nodding a little.

He looked at his pale eyed sister and smiled with half his mouth.

"This," he said finally, "does not mean I have to like it!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HOOFIES

A man's laughter, free, honest, relaxed and sincere, is contagious.

Sheriff Linn Keller had a laugh like that.

His little girl Angela talked her big brother into saddling her horsie -- "My horsie!" she'd declared, laying a possessive hand on the Paso mare's foreleg.

Jacob knew his Pa had a saddle made for her, he knew the stirrups were designed to let out as she grew, he knew that eventually the saddle would be handed down to younger of the Keller clan: he also knew he'd never ridden this Paso mare, though she was reputed to be mild as milk, and so far she'd been exactly that.

Angela squealed with laughing delight as Jacob took her under the arms, swung her back, forth, back wide and then waaaaaay up in the air, and eased her down into her saddle:  he made a final length adjustment on the stirrups, patted the mare on the hind quarters, looked over at the Paso colt regarding him with a hopeful curiosity.

Jacob shared his father's affection for the Paso Fino.

He loved his Appaloosas, he loved their fire and dash, he loved that they were tough and hard working and eager to please, but there was no denying that the Paso had a much smoother gait, and that the gait was not just pleasing to his backside, but pleasing to the spectator's eye.

Jacob whistled his Apple-horse over, saddled him, mounted: he led the way to the gate, opened it, waited until their little entourage was through, then fast it up behind them, before they proceeded at a walk toward town.

Jacob was not willing to go any faster at all, because the little Paso colt was with them.

Three riders clattered down the main drag of beautiful downtown Firelands: a tall, lean young man on a spirited, almost dancing, Appaloosa stallion:  a Paso Fino mare with a pleased little girl astride, fairly strutting as she sat in saddle leather, and behind them, the object of the Sheriff's mirth, a Paso Fino colt, its little hooves industriously rattling fifteen to the dozen as it paced along behind its Mama.

The Sheriff's laughter brought curious eyes to the street, eyes that appreciated the sight of a little girl with a bright smile and bright blue eyes, a little girl in a divided riding skirt and colorfully-embroidered boots, but the greatest delight was from watching the Paso colt and its quick, staccato, rattling gait.

Jacob made an executive decision, and drew up in front of their combination drugstore and ice cream parlor: Angela squealed with delight as she leaned over and surrendered to her big brother's strong, reassuring hands, and she scampered over and hugged the Paso colt and told him to be a good boy, that she'd bring him something.

Jacob was feeding his Apple-horse and the mare each a striped peppermint horse crack, and he wondered silently how the youngest of their herd might like vanilla ice cream in a sugar cone.

"Do you have a name for Short Stuff yet, Angela?" Jacob asked.

Angela looked up, her bright blue eyes wide and sincere, and she gave a single, emphatic nod and set her blond curls a-bounce with her emphatic reply:

"Hoofies!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THAT’S MY GIRL!

 

A little girl slipped from her bed, careful to make absolutely no noise.

She couldn’t let anyone know she was awake.

People got mad and hurt her when they found out she was awake.

She padded barefoot across the hook rug and varnished boards, she turned the door knob and eased the door open, just a little, peeked out with one eye… a little wider, both eyes, then she poked her head out, looked around, listened.

She drew back, eased the door shut, turning the knob as she did to prevent its click.

A shadow moved in the nighttime bedroom: something warm and familiar came up beside her, a cold wet nose grazed her jaw, a warm tongue licked her reassuringly.

Marnie laid her arm over The Bear Killer’s shoulders, her eyes wide, staring: she looked around the darkened bedroom, listened.

She was satisfied nobody else was awake.

Safe.

She gripped her chair, pulled it out slowly, carefully: she’d pulled it out yesterday, in the daylight, and it chattered on the varnished board floor: she pulled a little, slowly, a little more, carefully:  she stopped, breathing silently through her nose, listening for the slightest sound, the least indication she might be found out.

Marnie was only just taken into her new Daddy’s house, she was only just brought into a house that was clean, a house where people did not raise their voices – where nobody fought – a house with … with The Bear Killer, with clean towels, clean clothes, and food.

Best of all, food!

Marnie carefully worked her skinny little backside up onto the chair.

She reached up, found the desk lamp … one last look to her closed bedroom door, one last hesitation to listen, then she gripped the black plastic knob and turned it slowly, carefully, flinching at the sudden click! and the blast of light against her screwed-shut eyelids.

She opened watering eyes a little, a little more, getting used to this sudden glare.

She knew what she had to do.

 

Linn went down on one knee and asked gently, “Honey, are you sure?”

Marnie nodded solemnly.

She looked at her pale eyed Gammaw, who looked at her son and said gently, “I think it’s good when the father and the child share an interest.”

Marnie’s pale eyed, brand-new Daddy laughed that quiet Daddy-laugh of his, and he opened his arms, an invitation.

He didn’t try to grab her.

Marnie thrust herself into him, seized him almost desperately.

Of all things she needed, she needed to feel wanted.

She hadn’t been wanted for as long as she could remember, and now she was, and she did not want to lose that.

Linn picked up his little girl, kissed his Mama’s cheek: a moment later, father and daughter were headed out, the bright-eyed, curious little girl looking around as her Daddy drove his Jeep to a place he called “The Range.”

 

Marnie slid the shallow drawer open, selected a pencil, pulled out two sheets of paper, began to draw.

 

Linn went down on one knee again.

They were at the range.

“Marnie,” he said in his gentle Daddy-voice, “things are going to be very loud.”

Marnie nodded, her pale eyes wide, innocent, never leaving her Daddy’s gentle, light-blue eyes.

Linn reached up, tapped the electronic muffs he wore with a curved forefinger.

“I’m going to be wearing earmuffs to keep it from being too loud.”

Marnie nodded solemnly, her hands laced together at belt level.

“Do you think you could wear muffs too?”

Marnie nodded.

Linn brought out a set of muffs, turned a black knob – there was a little click-sound – “Pull your hair back a little, honey” – Linn carefully fitted the muffs to her little head, tilted his head as he worked them into place.

“Can you hear me, honey?”

Marnie nodded.

“Reach up here – like this – that’s right.  Feel that knob?  Roll it one way …”

Marnie rolled it as instructed and giggled as sounds got louder.

“Now roll it the other way.”

Marnie did, and the sounds got softer.

“Adjust it so you can hear voices, but not too loud.”

Marnie frowned, her expression suddenly serious:  Linn rose, held out his hand.

Marnie took his hand and strutted beside her big tall Daddy as he went up to the line.

Marnie watched, interested, as one of the men there sat behind something that looked kind of metal-boxy with a barrel-thing out the front and it had shining stuff curving out of a box and he lifted a lid and dropped the shiny belt-thing into it and slapped the lid down and pulled on something and Marnie giggled because it was metally and clacky and it sounded like something fun.

Linn dropped down on one knee behind Marnie again, his hands on her shoulders: she heard his voice, funny-sounding through the electronic muffs – “Here’s where it gets loud,” and then the boxy thing shivered and hammered and shining brass spun off to one side and black pieces fell to the ground.

Linn looked around at Marnie’s face and he saw something he had not seen until this moment.

He saw a smile – no, not a smile – this scared little girl, this timid, mousy creature that clung to his Gammaw, who looked at him with innocence and trust, this little girl he’d found backed into a corner the first morning she woke up under her new roof, pushed back against the wall as tightly as she could, shivering under a blanket, with The Bear Killer protectively curled around her shins and her little pink feet.

Marnie looked at her Daddy, her eyes really wide, shining with a child’s absolute and utter delight.

“Again?” Linn asked, and Marnie nodded – she was almost afraid to nod, afraid she’d be yanked away, slapped for enjoying herself, for finding something she could smile at.

Linn looked at the gunner, nodded.

Linn pointed to the thumbs tightening down on the butterfly trigger:  Marnie waited, anticipating, and then – RAAP – another three-round burst, the handle slamming fore-and-aft, brass shining and spinning, links falling.

Marnie laughed.

Linn pointed, Marnie watched:  another burst, and a hanging steel plate swung as the .30-cal punished plate once again.

Linn waited until the Browning air-cooled was made safe, then he, the rangemaster, the gunner and Marnie, all went downrange to see the damage done to plate metal.

Linn tapped the plate with neatly-trimmed fingernails, touched the holes in front, bent in, went behind the plate, touched the spalled-out metal around the bullet holes.

Marnie tapped the plate like her Daddy did.

She touched the holes, she went around behind, she touched the blasted-out metal, she looked at her Daddy.

“What do you think of that, honey?” he grinned, and Marnie threw herself into her Daddy’s embrace.

He felt her shivering and he wasn’t sure if this was a good thing: he’d seen how scared she often was, he’d seen her give a little choked-back squeak and hide, she’d clung in blind panic to his Mama, and later, to him.

He honestly wasn’t sure if she was shivering out of fear, if she was stifling the sounds of a child in absolute, utter, terror.

“Princess?” he asked gently, and she looked up at him with an expression of utter, absolute, complete, unadulterated, delight.

 

Marnie sat in her silent bedroom, her pencil whispering secrets to the paper.

She frowned a little as she drew: a central figure, surrounded by supporting illustrations.

A little girl, her face twisted with anger, screaming defiance: she sat behind a Browning .30 cal, tripod mounted: her rendition of the machine gun was flawless, correct in perspective, in proportion, in scale: she pulled open the drawer, rattled through her pencils: the muzzle flame had traces of red, of yellow, the girl behind the gun was screaming in defiance, the cords standing out in her neck, shining empty brass hulls spinning off to the side: around her, a child, running in fear, escaping grasping hands: another a child, in mid-air, knocked backwards by a hard-swung hand: there were others, horrors from her brief, terror-filled life in New York.

Central to all these, a little girl, filled with rage, behind a Browning machine gun, adding its voice to hers.

Marnie Keller placed her pencil to the side, got a fresh one with a good point, kept working.

She drew the firing range, she drew her Daddy standing with his arms crossed, waiting for his turn to step up to the line: the detail was flawless, it was drawn from the perspective of someone shorter than the subject, from a little behind the subject: another, her Daddy in a slight crouch – the wrinkles in his trousers flowed from the pencil’s sharpened point -- trigger finger rigidly alongside the frame as he drew –  another, with her Daddy’s arms extended: Marnie’s quick young eye captured the slide in full recoil, showed the empty partway out the ejection port.

Marnie drew to the point of exhaustion: she finally gave up, after a half-dozen sheets of paper – her exhaustion was less physical, than it was spiritual.

 

Linn looked up as Shelly slipped downstairs, silent in sock feet.

He set down his coffee, alarmed at Shelly’s gesture: he almost ran up the stairs, stopped at Marnie’s bedroom door.

Shelly turned, place her hand flat on his chest, then put her finger to her lips.

She eased the door open, stood back.

Linn looked in.

Marnie was sound asleep, her arms crossed on her desktop: she sat in the chair he’d altered for her little girl’s size, her desk light was on, she still had a pencil in her hand.

Shelly and Linn stepped into the bedroom, silent: Linn touched his wife’s arm, winked: he bent, he whispered “Good morning, Princess,” as he ran an arm behind her back and under her legs.

He lifted straight up, just enough for Shelly to pull the chair back, then he straightened, rolled the warm, relaxed little girl into him.

Marnie mumbled something and Shelly saw her husband laugh, silently, as he carried her out of the bedroom and to the nearby bathroom.

“You may want to take over,” Linn said gently:  Marnie yawned, knuckled her eyes, looked around, surprised.

Linn kissed the top of her head – that seemed safest – he put her down, carefully, giving her a moment to get her weight on her legs before he released her, then he backed out.

Linn left necessities to the ladies: he knew when he got up, that he generally had to get rid of second hand coffee, and he knew that a wee child would probably have a bladder the size of a walnut.

He slipped back into Marnie’s bedroom, curious as to what she’d been working on.

When Shelly came in, Linn was sorting through the sheets, looking at them with obvious interest.

He came back to two particular sheets, picked them up, one in each hand.

He smiled as he studied them.

Mother and daughter came back into the bedroom.

Linn looked over at the pair, laid the sheets carefully on the others there on her desk.

Marnie froze, her eyes showing her fear.

Linn turned and went to one knee.

He opened his arms, his smile broad and genuine, and Marnie scampered into his embrace.

Linn hugged Marnie to him and murmured “That’s my girl,” and Marnie hugged him back, and Shelly came closer, looked at the two sheets Linn was favoring.

One was a pencil drawing of Marnie, her young face filled with a rage that no child’s visage should ever know – a child screaming defiance at all the hurts and all the wrongs done her – a child behind a machine gun, punctuating her line in the sand with steel-jacketed justice.

The second was that same little girl, laughing with delight, behind the same boxy machine gun, with a grinning man with pale eyes, down on one knee behind her, his hands gripping her shoulders, his body language very obviously that of total approval.

Shelly looked at Linn and Marnie as they stood, as Linn said quietly, “You ready for breakfast?” and Marnie nodded, looked hopefully at Shelly, and Shelly looked at the drawing again.

Somehow she knew what her husband’s words were when he gripped Marnie’s shoulders, after she fired a short burst from the Browning:

“That’s my girl!”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I AM VERY PROUD OF YOU

Linn's eyes were a cold, frosty, glacier's-heart white.

The skin was pulled tight over his cheekbones and he pulled on a pair of leather gloves.

It was hard to tell what was the more honestly frightening.

The man's silence, or the icy, absolutely deadly control he showed as he worked his fingers into the gloves.

His reserve did not last long.

It was rare that he let go of his reserve, it was most unusual for him to let slip his personal monster.

No man there doubted that he'd done exactly that.

He was not sure how it happened and he did not care.

All he knew was, blood was running out from under a pile of rails, rails that spilled from a flatcar, a flatcar that had some kind of structural failure and dumped them on two men who happened to be on the downhill  side of a disaster nobody saw coming.

Linn moved toward the pile of rails, assessing the metallic jackstraws.

He seized an end, hoisted it up, swung it off to the side, almost at a run, threw it.

Men drew back.

They'd seen feats of strength before.

They'd never heard this pale eyed lawman give voice to his rage as he seized a rail that normally took several men to move, and made it obey his will.

He grabbed another, hauled it up a little, dragged it, swung it, threw it.

Men waded into the pile, several men seized the next rail: the Sheriff glared about, slicing a streak of cold into men's souls as he did, then he thrust a stiff-fingered hand toward a man he recognized.

"MULDOON!" he roared. "YOU'RE A RAIL MAN! TAKE CHARGE!"

Muldoon blinked, surprised, then got his mental feet under him: he knew men and he knew rails, and his experience, the Sheriff knew, made him the man for the job.

He turned, held out a hand, kissed at his stallion: Rey del Sol came mincing over to him, and the Sheriff swarmed into the saddle: horse and rider, their souls united with a common purpose, whirled and launched into a gallop, down the trail that parallelled the tracks.

Linn needed to find the conductor, he needed them to connect the portable telegraph to the trackside wires, he needed them to contact the Firelands depot.

He needed to get Doc Greenlees out here.

 

Esther Keller stopped, her freshly dipped pen hovering an inch above her ledger.

Her green eyes went to an oval portrait she kept over her desk, a portrait of her unsmiling husband and herself, taken not long after their return from an unpleasantly eventful honeymoon trip.

Esther opened a small drawer, very carefully wiped ink from her steel nib pen: she placed the pen in its holder, capped the bottle of India ink, and placed a stiff bookmark in the open ledger against the off chance it might be accidentally closed.

Esther Keller rose and walked quickly into the kitchen, spoke quietly to the maid: she spun her cloak about her shoulders, fastened the silver clasp at her throat, slipped silently out the back door and walked quickly to the barn.

"Mister Johnson?" she called to the hired man. "Could you harness my buggy, please, the light one. My husband has been hurt and I must go to him."

 

Linn watched as the conductor raised one pole, then another, as he connected to the telegraph wires: he stood, silent, unmoving, as the conductor unfolded a small wooden table, placed the portable set on it, connected wires: to Linn's ear, they were merely clicks and clatters, the rattling of a metallic arm: he knew the conductor ran a key with the best of them, he knew the conductor had a good ear and could read the wire as easily as Linn could read their weekly newspaper.

This made him no less impatient.

It seemed to the Sheriff that there was a great deal of back-and-forth: he knew this was an illusion, created from his own screaming need for action, and action NOW.

A younger man would have been demanding to know what the delay was, why the excess of conversation.

Linn was old enough to feel that impatience, but to not act on it.

The conductor finally looked up.

"We've a full crew coming," he said, "and Doc will be with them."

Linn nodded once.

"When they get here, send 'em on up."

Linn thrust a polished boot into a doghouse stirrup, stopped, gripped saddlehorn and cantle hard enough to blanch the knuckles on both hands: he took a long breath, bounced once and swung into the saddle.

 

Esther Keller saw her husband cantering down the trail beside the railroad tracks.

She'd been apprised of the flatcar's failure, of two men hurt, possibly killed: she owned the Z&W Railroad, and she knew each employee by name, and she knew their families: she waited as her husband drew nearer, her green eyes assessing the stiffness of his carriage, of the care with which he rode.

Esther's concern turned to alarm at the way her husband looked at her.

Linn rode up to the end of the depot, where the deck was about knee level on a mounted man: he drew up, looked through the telegrapher's open door.

Lightning felt the man's eyes on him: he turned, rose, came outside.

"Send word when you have news," Linn said quietly, "we will be at home" -- he did not wait for a reply, further evidence of his personal discomfiture, and he returned to his wife, still seated in their lightest, fastest buggy.

"You're hurt," she said quietly.

"I am," he agreed.

"Do you need to see Dr. Greenlees?"

"No. He's needed elsewhere."

"Dr. Flint?"

"He'll likely be needed out there as well. If not there, then at hospital."

"How many ...?"

"Two, near as I could tell."  Linn's eyes were veiled, his face impassive, but Esther could see fine little beads of sweat popping out on his forehead.

"Let's get you home," Esther said quietly.

Linn rode stiffly, the way a man will when he's injured and trying hard not to show it.

 

"He didn't ... he's hurt but he'll heal."

"I know he'll heal, Doctor. Will he heal completely?"

Dr. George Flint regarded the Sheriff's wife with eyes of polished obsidian.

"Mrs. Keller, a patient's attitude is important."

"Dr. Flint, if you're telling me my husband is hard headed and contrary ..."

"I won't tell you what you already know."

Esther and the Navajo doctor each allowed themselves a small smile.

"I've known women to lift a freight wagon off their husband. I watched a woman a head shorter than you run into her burning cabin, bend over and run under their handmade kitchen table, hoist it up and run out of their cabin with the table on her back -- it was solid oak and took two men to move, then she ran inside, bear hugged their flour barrel and packed it outside as well.

"Your husband, from what I'm told, threw rails around like they were wheat straws, trying to save those men under the pile."

"Have we word yet?"

"We have, Mrs. Keller."  Dr. Flint hesitated.

"Mrs. Keller, two men were under that steel cascade, and they both survived."

Esther Keller sat down heavily, as if she'd just lost all strength in her legs, and she turned white to her lips.

Dr. Flint knew where the Sheriff kept his brandy:  he poured the Sheriff's wife three fingers' worth, brought it over, handed it to her.

Esther Keller, daughter of culture and gentility, child of the Old South and all its elaborate courtesies, took the heavy, cut-glass from the good Doctor's grasp and drank it down like water.

Dr. Flint raised an eyebrow, but made no other comment.

"It would seem," he continued in his cultured voice, the voice he used in his role as an Eastern-educated physician, "that the rails formed something of a lean-to. The men were trapped. One had a serious cut on the side of his head. When your husband saw the blood, I'm told he turned the shade of wheat paste and began throwing rails about before delegating further work to someone better suited."

"Tell me, Doctor ... how badly did my husband hurt himself?"

"He'll be quite sore, and probably for a month. Knowing your husband, he will push himself judiciously. I don't think I'll have to warn him not to over do it."

"Oh, he'll over do it, unless I miss my guess!" Esther murmured.

Dr. Greenlees was silent for a long moment, then diplomatically offered, "I would not consider second guessing your superior expertise in the matter."

 

Sheriff Linn Keller opened his eyes as his wife came into the back room.

He was soaking in a steaming-hot tub of water.

Esther could smell the herbals Dr. Flint prescribed for the soak.

"The good Doctor prescribed a tea," Linn said quietly. "I was to drink some and soak in the others."

Esther tilted her head a little to the side.

"I understand you removed the most dangerous rails," she said quietly. "The man you appointed is now foreman. I promoted him when I found you'd put him in charge."

Linn nodded carefully.

"I think," he said slowly, "I'm going to need to soak a while."  

He looked at his green-eyed bride and smiled with half his mouth.

"Apparently I'm still young enough to be foolish," he admitted.

"Apparently you removed the least stable rails. Had you not moved them, when you did, I'm told further collapse would have been inevitable, and those men would've been killed."

Linn closed his eyes, leaned his head back -- very carefully.

"I'm gonna be sore in the morning," he said quietly.

Esther bent over and kissed her husband's forehead.

"I am very proud of you," she whispered.