SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TAKE THE REJECT

Linn smiled as he heard running feet in the snow behind him.

He suspected this would be the case, and it didn't hurt his feelin's one little bit that two of his young, a boy and a girl, were making a running escape from the house.

Linn pretended not to notice.

He went up to the sliding barn door, hauled it open, walked inside, and made his way, unconcerned, across the cold concrete floor.

He heard two sets of boot heels, heard the door rumble shut behind: the evidence of their flight would be plain to see in the snow, and by the time their escape was discovered, Linn knew, they should be a-horseback and far enough away to honestly not hear the matronly summons that was sure to follow.

Linn kicked his polished Wellington boot against the truck's front tire to knock off the last of the snow; Jacob went to the passenger front and booted it vigorously, Marnie went to the passenger rear and kicked in a quick, nervous tap-tap-tap with one foot, then the other.

Moments later, the faded orange, 1968 Dodge pickup cackled quietly out of the barn and down the driveway.

Linn ducked, pulled off his skypiece, slid his Stetson upside-down into the ceiling-mounted bracket: Jacob and Marnie looked at one another, pounded fists in the air, rock-paper-scissors: Jacob put his hat in his lap and Marnie threaded hers into the other hat bracket.

"I take it," Linn said quietly as he pulled the heater valve open, turned the fan switch, "neither of you wanted to go to town."

"No, sir," two young voices chorused.

"You'd rather rat around with the Old Man."

"Yes, sir."

"Hell, I might be goin' to pick up swamp water for the Slimy Monster from the Sulfur Crick."

Neither child knew what a sulfur crick was, but they'd heard about this legendary creature all their lives, and imagined it as something green, scaly and escaped from a B-horror movie: young smiles quietly spread as the pair waited.

"I'm going to buy a Christmas tree."

Two children looked at one another in honest surprise.

Buying a Christmas tree was sacrilege -- as shocking as if he'd said he was going to buy a pie, or a cake: unthinkable, to say the least!

Brother and sister considered this for several long moments.

Linn spoke first.

"I'll need your help."

"Yes, sir," both children said eagerly: they might not understand, but it was with their father, and that made it interesting.

Not long after, the pulled into what used to be a used-car lot, years before they were born; the place went out of business, but not before grading off, expanding and paving a large blacktop area where the old corral used to be there in town.

Part of it was sectioned off with ropes and with lights, and trees were stacked for sale.

Linn eased up and parked where he'd be out of the way, shut off the engine: on the one hand, he hated that 318 under the hood -- Jacob and Marnie had heard him profane it as a gutless wonder, they'd heard him swear at the truck and call it a Lemon Dog -- but still he kept it, and he used it, and they knew their tight-fisted, thifty father would keep the machine until it fell down and died, and in the meantime he'd keep it running with skill and new parts and profanity, not necessarily in that order.

They got out, walked over to the gap in the rope corral:  Linn shook hands with a man shifting from one foot to the other, rubbing his hands together, and both Keller young watched as Linn took off his gloves and gave to the man, then spoke before the recipient could say a word -- "We're in the market for two trees, no taller than I am, we don't want to saw a hole in the ceiling."

They sorted through the fresh cut Christmas trees, stopped and looked at another group of trees, marked down.

Linn went over, pulled one free, turned it: the branches were thick, lush, symmetrical, until he turned it ... the back side was lacking in foliage and was almost flat.

"How much for this one?"

"Oh hell, Sheriff, that's one of the discards. Don't take one from the reject pile --"

"We'll take it.  Same price as the others."

Jacob and Marnie watched the proprietor's mouth open in surprise, then close.

"Um ... sure," he said.

The tree was fed into a conical device that fed it through, netting it in a mesh bag of some kind, compacting it for easy transport.

Jacob turned, took a look at the price posted on the good trees, looked at the heavy discount on the reject pile, looked at his sister, puzzled.

Marnie gave him the same look and shrugged.

"Jacob, Marnie, drop the tailgate and slide this in if you would please."

"Yes, sir," two young voices chorused:  the tree was packed off to the truckbed and Linn pulled out his wallet, looked at the proprietor and said quietly, "My favorite credit system.  100% cash and no monthly payments."

He chose another from the same reject pile: like the first one, it was flat on one side, and like the first one, Linn insisted on paying the same price as was marked on the "good" trees.

The faded orange Dodge cackled quietly out of the lot, eased onto the main street:  Linn's bare hands were busy, between shifting, steering and waving, for it seemed everyone and their uncle waved at that familiar old Dodge with a cab full of pale eyed humanity.

Linn eased over in front of the Mercanile.

"I'll need your help in here," he said, checking his mirror before opening the door:  he stepped out, his young jumped out, doors were closed quietly -- neither Marnie nor Jacob ever considered why they closed their doors quietly, only that it's how their Pa did, so they did too.

Father and young went into the Mercantile, under a dingle-bell that had announced guests since the days of Old Pale Eyes himself.

The Mercantile smelled of pine branches and peppermint and fresh baked cookies, very likely from the proprietor's wife's efforts in their apartment above: she was known to be an excellent cook, and oftentimes their good smells meant hungry patrons adjourned to the Silver Jewel after shopping, as their appetites had been well stimulated thereby.

Linn greeted the proprietor, asked him about that new baby of his:  Jacob and Marnie looked around, flanking their father, backs to the display counter as they did: again, they did not know why they did this, only that they'd learned it from Dear Old Dad, and it had become an unconscious habit.

Garry pulled out a stack of pictures, laid them out on the counter:  Linn leaned over a little, grinning as he looked at photos of a new mother and her baby, pictures of a pink-faced infant bundled up in a grandmother's gift of a knit cap and sleeper: Linn's grin was broad and genuine, then he looked at Garry almost sadly and said "She's a fine lookin' little girl, Garry, but she does not look a thing like you."

Garry's face fell about ten feet.

Linn stroked his grey-shot handlebar, looked at Garry's neatly-trimmed lip broom and said, straight-faced, "No mustache."

Gary hesitated for a minute, then he laughed, nodded, gave Linn a shrewd look:  "Hook, line and sinker," he chuckled, "ya got me good!"

"Speaking of gettin'," Linn said, "we need some Christmas tree decorations."

"Oh, no," Garry groaned. "Your cat didn't climb the tree too?"

Linn laughed, shook his head.  "No, no, we've no house cats, but we're taking trees to someone and it wouldn't be right to give 'em a bare tree."

Garry nodded, thrust a military-bladed hand toward a back wall:  "Right there," he said, "help yourself!"

Not long after, young hands lowered the orange tailgate again, and boxed purchases were carefully slid into the truckbed, the tailgate raised, latched: Jacob pushed the heel of his hand against the handle to make sure it was in ... once, and once only, it hadn't wanted to latch, and fell open with a SLAM, and he was determined not to let that happen again!

The three pulled up in front of the new apartments.

Linn pulled the tree out, leaned it against the corner of the lowered tailgate -- "Steady that," he said, then leaned in and pulled one of the two cardboard boxes out, looked in it.

"New stand, tree blanket, bulbs, tinsel, garland, two strings of lights, topper."  He looked over at his watchful young.  "Jacob, can you manage that tree?"

"Yes, sir!" Jacob grinned:  he leaned the tree back against himself, bent, got the tree on his shoulder, straightened, backed up a few steps.  "Got it!"

"Show-off," Marnie muttered.

Linn handed her the cardboard box.  "Pack this, if you would, please."

Two young Kellers followed an older Keller, wading happily through the fresh snow.

Linn knocked on an apartment door -- rat-tat, tat -- the door opened and Linn swept off his Stetson.

"Permission to come aboard!" he called cheerfully, and a startled young woman blinked and then said "Of course."

When they left, a tree stood in the corner of the sparsely furnished living room.

It was rejected because it had no branches on one side.

That meant it fit perfectly against one wall.

Linn fitted it carefully into the stand, arranged the decorative skirting around the base, watered the tree: he'd whittled the bark away around the bottom so it would actually take up water:  he laid out the lights, the bulbs, packages of tinsel, of garland, and he'd carefully cut away the netting: he borrowed the household broom to sweep up what few needles fell with the netting's removal, he gathered the discards and tossed them in the now-empty box: "I'm just naturally lazy," he said, "so I'll leave decorating to you and your daughter."

A few days later, at the Sheriff's office, a hand delivered Christmas card arrived: it was from a young mother, new in town and low on funds: it contained a printout of her four year old daughter in her one piece jammies, clutching a rag doll and staring with wonder at a Christmas tree, all lights and tinsel and bulbs, and Linn would keep that card and that picture for many years after.

The other tree went to another family, on the other side of town: in both locations, Linn drew the mother aside and asked in a quiet voice questions from a list he'd written with the assistance of his wife: later that day, by trusted messenger, both locations received boxed deliveries of goods and wrapping paper both, and Marnie and Jacob watched their father exercising discretion, and unfailing courtesy, and his usual ornery sense of humor.

They didn't realize it, but their Old Man was teaching them, and they never forgot those lessons they gained that day.

That night Shelly asked Linn, when they were alone, "Did it work?"

Linn grinned and leaned over a little, looked in to see Marnie and Jacob both reading, The Bear Killer piled up between them, the three of them content:  he leaned back and laid his warm, callused hand over his wife's.

"When you told them to get dressed to go to town," he murmured, "they busted a gut to get into blue jeans and boots and run off with me!"

Shelly pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, laughing silently:  she leaned closer and whispered, "I love it when a plan comes together!"

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NEED

I turned cold eyes on the man and said, "When you speak, I listen without interruption. You'll do the same or you'll get your Saturday night bath a little early!"

He made the mistake of blustering up and allowing as I'd do no such thing so once I kicked him and gut punched him, I fetched him off the ground by the throat and the crotch and I r'ared up and drove him down into the horse trough and I was not in the least little bit peaceful when I did.

I knowed there was not but a skift of ice, not more'n a half inch or so, I'd checked earlier when I made sure the chunks we kept in the trough so she wouldn't freeze and bust, were still free enough to crowd up and relieve the pressure.

I throwed him in and I skipped back a couple of steps and I let him bubble and waller and snort and I looked at the fellow he'd been disputin' with and said "Now that he's gettin' that hot temper cooled off, why don't you tell me what really happened."

I talked to him and Jackson Cooper grabbed the other fellow by his soaky wet shirt front and hauled him the rest of the way out of the horse trough and inquired what did I want to do with this one and I said hell, you're Marshal, it's your town, so Jackson Cooper brought the man the rest of the way out of the horse trough and fetched him up real close so he could hear good -- Jackson Cooper was a big man, hell, he's a head taller'n me and I am reckoned a tall man -- and Jackson Cooper is wider acrost the shoulders by maybe half a cubit and I don't think there's much on this earth the man couldn't walk up to, and pick up, and walk off with, had he a mind.

Now a granite mountain might be a problem, it'd be hard to get a good enough grip to fetch it out by its roots but if anyone could do it I reckon it would be him.

Anyway Jackson Cooper, he hauled attair fella drippin' and shiverin' and hollerin' across the street and into the calabozo and I reckoned His Honor the Judge would address the matter right here directly.

Now after I spoke with that other fellow, who was right reasonable, and I spoke with what witnesses we could rat up, I figured out the straight of it and me and Jackson Cooper we had us a talk for I dislike treading upon another man's jurisdiction, and Jackson Cooper he laughed and allowed as he warn't in the least bit troubled, he said he did admire watchin' a man who was good at what he did.

Anyway that's how the day started.

I had to ride out and handle a couple other details, most of which didn't amount to much, I checked on an old feller mostly to make sure he was still alive, him and his old dog, and I figured 'twas a toss up as to which of 'em would fall over dead first, but they were both happy to see me and we set down and just lied outrageously to one another, laughin' as we did, and attair tired old hound dog of his, he snuffed me some and then laid his chin on my leg and fell asleep whilst we were settin' at the man's table layin' big outrageous whoppers on one another.

He cussed me for a sneaky sort, for last I was out, I'd left a cloth poke of frash ground Arbuckle's behind, I'd set it down while he was lookin' elsewhere and he didn't find it until I was rode off and he allowed as he was a prideful man and he'd kick my backside up between my shoulder blades was I to imply he was too pore to buy his own coffee so I stood up and walked out and come back in with a poke of coffee and a small sack of flour and set 'em on his table and I allowed as he was too poor to pay attention, let alone pay for groceries, and I set down a sack of sugar with 'em and I thought he was goin' to cry.

I knowed he didn't have two shekels to rub together and the only way I could get him to accept help was to take me a mason's trowel and just putty him up one side and down the other with second hand full feed and then just set 'em there in front of him of a sudden and without asking any let-be.

It didn't hurt none when I told him 'twas a blessin' on me and I was tryin' to scour my corroded soul clean and shiny 'gainst the time when my ticket got punched and I'd have to stand in front of Saint Peter and tell him why he'd ought to let me in.

He allowed as well, if I was doin' it f'r my own selfish good, why, he'd take it, and we shook hands and then we laughed ag'in, for the man was as full of it as two sacks full of politicians.

I'm full of it but he's got me beat.

I caught up with a fellow I knowed was wanted but I also knowed he was not guilty of whatever he'd been accused of so we set and talked a spell and I give him a twist of molasses twist tobacker and he was happy with that, he allowed as he was headed down Mexico way and I fetched attair wanted dodger out of my saddle bag and showed him and told  him to keep his head down for I knowed he was innocent and he laughed and allowed as he warn't quite innocent but he didn't do what attair wanted dodger accused him of, and he headed south with my blessin'.

Had he stayed I'd have been obliged to haul him in to face them accusations and 'twould be a task to disprove 'em.

As much as I was satisfied he'd got a raw deal and he warn't guilty of that dodger's accusation, I was just as happy to see him head out of my jurisdiction.

I knew him to be honest and when he looked me in the eye and said he was headed for Mexico I believed him.

Turns out he did, he made a good life for himself and I think he died either from scorpion or rattlesnake, I never did hear the straight of it, but he done all right.

Things was quiet enough I locked up the Sheriff's Office and went on home before dark.

His Honor come in and heard the particulars and fined attair fella who was still damp from his bath and Jackson Cooper turned him loose to shiver his way home, and I went on home and glad for it.

First thing I saw once I come through my front door -- other'n for the maid takin' my hat and my coat, was the girls in the parlor.

Since Esther died I never had the heart to take up with another woman, and Angela pretty much took over as the Woman of the House, bless her: she was motherly to her sisters, and to her younger brothers, though a time or two she did have to have my help when they back sassed her.

I come in to see the girls in the parlor, in their holiday dresses and shiny little slippers, layin' with their heads under the tree, lookin' up through the branches, and gigglin'.

I'd like to have had a photographer come and take that picture.

Petticoats and stockinged legs stuck out in a colorful fan under that tree, and even Angela, who was maturing into young womanhood, was giggling with the others, looking up through attair tree at the shiny bulbs and the foo-far-raws they'd hung on scented pine branches.

When Angela was just a little girl, I laid down on the floor and wallered my shoulders under attair tree the day after we got it all decorated and prettied up and Angela, she was a curious little girl so she got down on her widdershins and rolled over and wiggled under the tree with me, and I whispered to her that Sarah liked to do this, and later that evening, when Bonnie and Levi come over and Sarah and her little twin sisters come too, why, all them girls laid under the tree and looked up through the branches and giggled.

I come through my front door and the maid, she taken my Stetson and my coat, and I stood there and looked into the parlor at the girls and their giggles, and I couldn't help but smile at the sight.

This was something I needed.

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE TANK

 

Fitchie leaned his broom against the wall, sat in the ancient wooden chair, looked at the black-plastic microphone.

He knew if anything went wrong, he could pick up the mic and speak into it, and a voice would speak back to him: the roundhouse was several miles away as the crow flew, but as near as the curly cord.

He smiled a little, then rose and picked up the broom again.

The Lady Esther was running in freezing weather.

She may have fire in her heart, but she was a thirsty Lady, and his tank was a critical link in the Z&W's winter operation.

Fitchie was one of a few who preferred to laager in at a tank, just stay there: he had a cot, a stove to cook on, he kept the bigger stove stoked, he monitored water levels and the pumps that kept it circulating: as long as the water was moving, as long as the insulating outer shell was intact, as long as there were no unexplained leaks, he knew he'd be able to slake the locomotives' thirst.

Two steam engines, the inspection car, the steam crane: all ate coal and drank water, and their needs would not be denied, and he saw to it that when they wanted a drink, they could come and water at his faucet.

There were two other tanks; they were not staffed, nor were they heated, though they could be: Fitchie could keep an eye on their levels, their internal temperature, the state of their pumps, from his station, and did: should a problem arise, he'd contact the roundhouse and they'd send a crew in one of the motor speeders to tend whatever needed looked at.

When they were called out, Fitchie's habit was to wait at trackside with two insulated jugs of coffee for them, and more often than not, some cookies as well.

These weren't necessary, but he knew they were welcome, and he knew that his hospitable habit was the reason each speeder had a stack of cups in one of the toolboxes.

Fitchie liked tank duty.

He'd been a railroader back East, he'd been an engineer on the secondary lines: when he first started, of course, he was just another hire and one of his first tasks was to help with a derailment's cleanup.

He was wearing ankle high work shoes, which nearly everyone did -- steel toes, good solid construction -- but they didn't help any when one of the spilling cargoes was free-flowing, granular, caustic soda.

He'd gotten some in a shoetop and the dry crystals abraded into his skin.

Liquid caustic will burn and hurt but the dry caustic abrades in and burns ... painlessly.

Half a century later, Fitchie still had an open sore the size of a silver dollar on one ankle, for a caustic burn of this type, never heals.

He remembered when the Sheriff's wife Shelly drove up to their roundhouse looking for him, when she came in wearing her medic's uniform and she sat down with him in their breakroom and thanked him for telling her about dry caustic, and then her daughter Angela came in wearing that white nurse's uniform and looking very out of place in a dirty old railroad roundhouse -- and she thanked him as well.

A little boy had a caustic burn on his hand, and had both Shelly and Angela not heard Fitchie talk about his own injury, they'd neither have recognized the dry-caustic burn for what it was, not would their hospital have been able to effectively treat the injury.

Fitchie sat, alone, in the silence of Tank Seven's insulated pump room, and smiled at the memory.

He looked at the big, old-fashioned gauges, then at the computer screen: pumps near and pumps far were running steadily, taking water from the bottom of the tanks and running it up the standpipe to the top, keeping it circulating:  both tanks were insulated, both could be heated: there were no leaks -- his great fear was a leak, concealed by the insulation, that would require taking the tank down and welding a repair in cold weather.

So far, thanks to regular inspections, that had never happened.

He got up, picked up his binoculars, went out into the cold: he'd swept the fresh snow from the two steps, cleaned off the walkway to trackside: he stepped out over the first rail, stopped in the middle of the tracks:  he raised his glasses and took a long, studying look to where the shining steel came around the far bend; he turned, looked in the opposite, satisfying himself that all was well, that there was neither fallen timber, landslide nor avalanche.

He turned, squinted up at the ancient tank, well made in its day and still surprisingly solid: the outer, octagonal hull was the shell, he knew, with a thick layer of insulation, then the inner tank, lined with paraffin, and between the insulation and the inner tank, the gap through which his heater blew hot air to keep it from freezing.

Fitchie knew the train ran regularly, even in winter weather: the pale eyed Willamina Keller, rest her soul, owned the railroad and now her heirs did, and they kept up enough business, hauling freight, ore, passengers, and in season, tourists -- to make it a profitable business.

Probably not terribly profitable, he thought, but that was their business, not his.

He was content to do this, in retirement.

He'd started railroading when steam engines were just being phased out, and when the chance came to work on a rail line that still ran steam, why, he came out and looked the operation over, he liked what he saw, and he'd been there ever since.

Fitchie went back inside, set his field glasses on the shelf, ran an experienced eye over shining brass housed gauges, looked suspiciously at the computer screen: satisfied all was well, he looked at the clock, nodded.

An old retired railroader took off his shoes and lay down on the old familiar cot, he listened to the pumps whine, to the gas heater's deep rumble, and undisturbed by the thought of the many tons of water in the tank above him, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

 

The Lady Esther came to an easy stop, the engineer bringing his train to a halt very precisely under the nozzle.

He had a new fireman, Crosby, nice young fellow and curious as a Beagle dog: Crosby was eager but careful, and Bill waited while his beloved Lady's tank filled.

Crosby swung the counterweighted nozzle back up, climbed back down into the cab, stopped, frowned.

Bill looked curiously at the younger man as he pointed.

"Bill, someone's swept snow off that sidewalk."

Bill smiled, nodded.

"Fitchie," he said.

"Fitchie?"

"Used to have an old retired railroader pretty much lived here. Widower he was. Heard tell he ran live steam back East. He helped design and build the insulation and the heater system to keep our two tanks from freezing in winter."

"Be damned. Is he still here?"

Bill considered his reply as he ran an experienced eye over his gauges, over the sight glass: he waited until Crosby picked up his shovel before answering.

"I went in and found the man deader'n hell on that cot he used to sleep on. Ever since, we'll come through and sometimes we'll find the walk swept off like that -- but no tracks anywhere around, nothing disturbed. The Sheriff had motion sensors installed and they never went off. Cameras never caught anything inside, but if there's a problem and a speeder comes through with a work crew, why, sometimes there are two insulated jugs of fresh hot coffee and a sack of cookies waitin' for 'em."

Bill smiled a little and added, "Every time that happens, why, I'll come out and check on the stores inside, I'll trade out the coffee to keep it fresh and I'll leave some fresh cookies."

"You found him dead."

"Yep."

"Who swept off the walk, then?"

Bill smiled.

"Our Lady is hungry," he replied. "Best feed her."

The fireman hooked open the firebox door, slung in a ringing shovelful of coal, and The Lady Esther began to move again.

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

 ANGEL ONE: HOGJAWS!

Angela thumbed the release on her lap belt, almost ran up the short, narrow aisle into the cockpit.

She dropped hard into the copilot's seat -- this was supposed to be a milk run, a shuttle run to Earth and back, just the pilot and the one passenger -- but when Angela saw a car below lose it on a road she knew well, when she saw the car hit the ditch and flip once, land on its wheels and bend in the middle when it slammed side-on into a rock well bigger than the car, she charged the cockpit, dropped into the empty copilot's seat, looked at the surprised young man doing the driving and spoke her mind.

She saw a young man in Confederate grey, with the red piping and shoulder-boards of their air wing, grin, and she recognized the grin.

She'd seen it on her own Daddy's face, when he was about to do something fast, vigorous and very impolite, and she'd seen the same grin on her brother Jacob's face, at the moment he realized he could cheerfully turn his badger loose on someone who really, really deserved it.

Her Confederate pilot knew if his high-ranking passenger assumed the copilot's seat, something was about to hit the fan, and he was going to be right in the middle of it.

Diplomatic shuttles were designed to work with gravity fields.

Diplomatic shuttles were designed to run silently, unobtrusively, silently, invisibly, and very stealthily; they were designed to give a perambulator grade ride to their high ranking passengers, and most times, they did.

Unless, of course, it was necessary to do otherwise.

In those cases, the diplomatic shuttles were both armored, and armed, and had capacities a casual observer would not appreciate by simply looking at an oblong box with a flat chisel nose... like wings and control surfaces that could be deployed for flight in-atmosphere.

"Belt in," the pilot said: his hands did an intricate dance as an auxiliary control panel hummed from its recess under the regular flight control panel, as a set of rudder pedals rose from the deck underfoot, as he traded the touch screen and neural link for his first love, a throttle and a stick, flaps and rudder, controls with which he'd practiced ten times ten thousand times, waiting -- just waiting -- for the day when he would have to fly an urgent mission, in atmosphere, instead of through vacuum.

Angela grabbed the shoulder belts, hauled them down, drove them into the central buckle: she seized the lap belts, pulled them up as well, thrust them mercilessly into the circular buckle with the big red release button in the middle.

A set of headphones deployed automatically, clamped over her ears, her peripheral vision picked up the boom microphone that extended to the corner of her mouth.

Angela's stomach felt like it dropped two football fields as the pilot stood the shuttle on its wing, as he came about, as Angela looked out the side of the suddenly-transparent cockpit.

"Set me down as close as you can," she said, her voice calm, but carrying the unmistakable authority of someone used to giving orders.

"Yes, ma'am," the pilot said: the shuttle shot off to the north, turned, leveled, came in, slowing: wings retracted, as did rudder and rear stabilizer, landing gear thumped and whined as they were lowered, locked.

Angela reached for a panel, keyed in a command, spoke.

"Firelands Dispatch, this is Angel One. Need fire rescue and S.O. two miles west of town, one car off the road, partial rollover."

 

Captain Crane looked up from his inventory of the drug box.

Opposite the drug box, Shelly looked up, locked eyes with her father.

The scanner normally ran 24/7, its feed piped through the entire firehouse: it was a background, it was never terribly loud, and the Irish Brigade developed the knack of conversation and work details while still listening, still comprehending anything that came over the scanner.

When another agency reported they were needed, they responded, ready and generally in motion before they were called by the Sheriff's dispatcher -- not always, but most of the time.

Father and daughter felt the immediate physiologic response of their kidney-mounted adrenaline pumps screaming into full wartime emergency.

Whether it was the no-nonsense words that were used, whether it was the familiar voice framing those dread syllables, father and daughter knew with absolutely no doubt whatsoever that THIS NO DRILL, BOOTS AND SADDLES, GENERAL QUARTERS, and before Fitz could begin shouting for the Irish Brigade to turn out, ye lot, or I'll have yer guts for garters, men were running for fireboots and helmets, bunker pants and firecoats, Nomex hoods and heavy leather, Nomex-lined gloves: Captain Crane ripped the shoreline from its spring-covered receptacle on the rear of the squad, he and Shelly shoved the drug box into the back of the squad, slammed the rear doors, dove into the cab, hit the garage door opener and prepared for takeoff.

The moment the first battery came on-line, their radio lit up, and with it, the followup message:  Sharon, in the Sheriff's office, leaned over a little, then lifted the tips of three fingers before they could press the grey plastic transmit bar on her desk mic.

Dispatcher, medics, Chief and firemen heard Angela's voice transmit a followup from the passenger seat of a boxy silver shuttle with a flat chisel nose.

"FIRELANDS, THIS IS ANGEL ONE. HOGJAWS, HOGJAWS, HOGJAWS!"

 

The squad was first out -- an Omaha-Orange-and-White, lights-and-siren, Diesel-powered torpedo, launched from a tall, narrow, hand-laid brick torpedo tube: the other three bays were all one-story, side by side, a new addition: the squad lived in the old horse house, tall and narrow, to accommodate the original hose drying tower and the horses' stables, where -- back in the day -- horsecollars and harness slept,  suspended over three matched white mares, waiting for signal to be dropped into place and cinched up.

Fireboots were heavy on Diesel throttles as turbochargers whistled, ramming compressed air into Diesel cylinders, as men were pressed back into their seats, as the rescue and the first-out pumper roared smoky defiance from polished chrome exhausts.

Two of the Irish Brigade crossed themselves: eyes closed, they reviewed the assembly procedure for their Hogjaws, their hydraulic, high-pressure, car-ripping tool that could shear, or spread, or do any of several unkind things to automotive structures.

Their Hogjaws ran off the rig's hydraulic system instead of a separate engine and pump -- though this was available, in case a situation was too far from the rig to be handled by their good length of twin hydraulic hoses.

"FIRELANDS FIRE DEPARTMENT, ANGEL ONE ADVISES TWO TRAPPED, NEAR ROADWAY, PULL TWO LINES UPON ARRIVAL."

Fitz reached for the mic just ahead of his left hand.

"Dispatch, roll Tank One."

"FIRELANDS FIRE DEPARTMENT SECOND CREW, ROLL TANKER, SAME LOCATION."

 

Angela adjusted her belt box, felt the force field tighten against her skin, pressing her white nurse's uniform firmly against her: she knew her white winged cap would be protected, that she could drive her head into the side of a car and know the white wings of her nurse's cap would punch through the sheet metal, and she wouldn't even get a headache.

She had no wish to do anything of the kind.

All she wanted was to be armored, so she could make entry into the car without getting burned, cut or otherwise damaged.

She ran for the car, twisted into its interior, grateful for the years she'd spent horseback, keeping her maidenly waist trim: no way a grown man could have slithered into this twisted mess, she thought.

"Captain."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Patch me through, short-range, to the first-in vehicle when they arrive."

"Roger that, ma'am."

 

"Firelands, Squad One and Rescue One on scene."

"I roger your arrival, advise further."

"Firelands, Pump One on scene, break, break. Tanker One, come in behind and lay into the pumper, break, break.  Firelands, Chief One, request Carbon Hill stand by for water shuttle."

"Roger pump one arrival and toning out Carbon Hill now."

Hose sizzled from the twin Mattydale crosslays, men with woven-canvas lances couched under fire-coated arms charged the smoking wreck, set up on either side:  they heard the pump begin its rising white, heard the German Irishman roar "WATER COMIN' AT'CHA!" and nozzles hissed as trapped air was released, as water sprayed in broad fans from the preset fan setting, as nozzles were gated shut.

Chief, two medics and two rescuemen assessed the situation: hydraulic lines were coupled, connections checked, valves opened:  the rescue's Diesel throttled up slightly, then back down, in response to the change in hydraulic pressure, then throttled up again as steel jaws were driven into a gap, sheet metal groaned like a condemned soul as it was pried apart:  men worked with chains, blocks, skill and the results of practice and practice and practice again, and the car was disassembled from around its victims, in a brutal, efficient and most effective manner.

 

A scared set of little blue eyes regarded a bright set of Arizona-blue eyes.

"My legs hurt," she complained.

"Hold still, honey," the woman with the funny wingy hat said.  "Let's take a look, shall we?"

She looked up as an ambulance made a fast stop at the road's shoulder: in her ear, she heard her pilot's words, "Ma'am, first in is arriving, you're live."

"Squad One, Angel One, one female child trapped back seat, leg under front seat, unknown whether distal pulse, conscious and talking.

"Mother trapped front seat, strong regular pulse and spontaneous respirations, does not respond to verbal stimuli."

Angela looked back to the scared, hurting little girl in the back seat, turned, caressed the child's cheek with the backs of her fingers.

"Are you an angel?" the little girl asked, and Angela bit her bottom lip, hard, as she recognized the pain but the hopefulness in the child's voice.

She'd heard her own voice sound just like that, when she was hurt, when she was this little girl's size, back in New York.

Angela reached up -- her fingers had eyes -- she pulled the back off the holly pin on the tip of one of her nurse's cap's wing tip -- she pressed the pin through the collar of the child's blouse, pressed the pin's back firmly in place.

"There," she whispered. "More angels are coming, and you" -- she touched the tip of a delicate finger on the tip of a little girl's freckled nose -- "will be just fine!"

Then she disappeared.

Angela pulled back, twisting out of the way, knowing she was invisible, but not wanting to bump into anyone.

She'd caused enough questions for one day.

She watched as her Mama and her grandfather took over, as the car was impolitely disassembled from its two trapped victims: she drew back to the shuttle, climbed inside, returned to the co-pilot's seat, switched off her protective field.

"You're invisible?"

"It's policy, ma'am."

"Good."

She looked at her pilot.

"I need a silent liftoff," she said, "and a stealthy landing not far from here."

 

A little girl and her mother were treated for their several injuries in the emergency department.

The child looked all the smaller for being transported on an adult-sized gurney.

Her legs were splinted, wrapped, she had an IV in her arm, and she was trying hard not to cry.

She'd insisted on keeping her blouse: it was scissored from her, but she clutched half of it in her free hand, and she looked at it every few minutes.

When she was x-rayed, the radiologist made a comment about a holly shaped artifact apparently clutched in the patient's left hand, and when the x-ray technologist left the room to check films, a door opened and someone came in.

A set of Arizona blue eyes smiled down at a little girl, whose little blue eyes widened and she breathed, "Angel!" 

"Your mother will be fine," she heard her Angel say in a quiet voice, and she felt her Angel's hands, warm and reassuring, on her own, and then her Angel disappeared.

A moment later, a door opened, and closed, but nobody was seen entering, or leaving.

That night, after a midnight shift nurse checked on mother and daughter, another nurse came in: she was well-known to the med-surg nurses, she was not scheduled, but she came on the ward with a smile and a bag of mixed miniature chocolates, to be donated to the wicker basket on the floor supervisor's short filing cabinet.

Angela was in the habit of bringing chocolate when she worked a shift, and was therefore not just accepted, but well thought of by her fellow nurses:  she came onto the ward in her whites, instead of scrubs, she slipped into a room, and after a few minutes, she slipped back out, smiling the way a woman will when she knows a secret.

Curious, the nurse assigned to these two patients went into the room, but the only thing she could find was the scrap of scissored blouse in the sleeping little girl's hand, and a holly pin in the fabric. The midnight shift nurse's head came up, and she smiled in the dim light of the patient's room as she remembered what she'd seen as Angela poured foil-wrapped, miniature chocolates into the boss's wicker basket.

Angela's white nursing cap had a holly pin on the tip of one wing, but not the other.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DO US A FLAVOR

"I thought you'd be back in your office."

"This time of year?"  Linn smiled grimly.  "It might look like I'm hidin'. Not about to do that."

"What about the wreck earlier?"

Linn sighed, shifted his two-hand embrace on that nice warm coffee mug.

His fingers were chilled, he already had one joint going to arthritis and it felt like a couple more might be following their bad example: he considered, smiled just a little, took a noisy slurp of coffee, nodded.

"Bruce," he said tiredly, "a friend of mine called this the Silly Season."

"Oh?"  

Bruce Jones, editor, reporter, photographer and chief broom pusher for the weekly Firelands Gazette, sat when the Sheriff did: their chairs were close, they sat almost knee-to-knee, the newspaperman leaned forward, clearly interested.

"He was a fire captain back East, well up into the Yankee North. City fire department. We compared notes on the seasonal lunacy this time of year and when he called this the Silly Season, I allowed as I called it something less kindly, and he laughed and said that's why he called it what he did, elsewise he'd profane the air blue."

"Ah."  Bruce frowned.  "What about the wreck earlier?"

"Seasonal impatience," Linn replied frankly. "That's the fancy term for it. Truth? Seasonal stupidity."

"That doesn't sound very charitable."

"I've seen too much of it."

"You were still able to get an angry driver to laugh."

Linn nodded slowly, then smiled, just a little, that quiet smile he only shared with family, and with his closest friends.

"Which part you talkin' about?" he murmured. "The part where..."

"Where you threatened to dunk his backside in the nearest horse trough, and the rest of him will be goin' along for the ride!"

Linn laughed, just a little, nodded again:  he took a drink, frowned into his empty coffee mug.

"Hole in the damned thing," he complained, then looked up at Bruce.

"This time of year we get domestics, we get family fights, we get knock down drag out hell raisin' brawls and when all's settled, why, Christmas trees get knocked over, Grandma's antique ornaments broken, presents trampled, kids are cryin', parents are being dragged off in irons and the whole world's gone sour."

"You sound just awfully cynical."

"I've seen too much."  Linn handed his mug off to his dispatcher, who came over to discreetly relieve her boss of the empty implement: she rinsed it, set it in the drain rack, returned to her front desk.

"Last year it was the South Plains fire. Fitz was about ready to cry when he told me how he walked through what was left of a burnt out living room, once the fire was out. He talked about a stack of black toothpicks that used to be a Christmas tree, and how he scuffed his fireboot through the ashes and turned up a few bright scraps of unburnt wrapping paper."

"Christmas Eve last year."

"The same."

"They saved the house."

"They did. A good save, but ... "  

Linn's voice trailed off and he looked past Bruce, his pale eyes seeing memories that rose from their graves, and Bruce was reminded yet again of Linn's observation that no matter how deep you bury some ghosts, they still come philtering up out of their grave to say hello, no matter how many rocks you pile on top to try and hold 'em in.

"The horse trough," Bruce said, breaking the spell.

Linn blinked, looked at his old friend.

"I'm sorry. What was the question again?"

"The wreck on Main Street."

"Oh. Yeah."  Linn rubbed his hands thoughtfully together.  "Fender bender, nothing serious, enough to bust open all the frustrations one fellow had. He was jumpin' up and down stiff legged just a-raisin' hell and I grabbed his shoulder and allowed as he could calm himself down or I'd introduce his sorry backside to the nearest horse trough and give him his Saturday night bath early."

Bruce wasn't near enough to hear what Linn said to the man, all he saw was Linn gripping the man's shoulder and speaking to him with a serious face, and then both motorist and pale eyed Sheriff laughed, and Bruce knew there was more to the story.

"Y'see, when I told him about the horse trough, he allowed as they were drained for the winter, and I said he'd have to stand there and watch it fill, knowin' full well that God and everybody would be watchin' him as it did, and soon as it was deep enough, why, I'd take him by the scruff of the neck and slosh him around in that cold water like two oysters in a Bull Durham sack bein' drug through a wash boiler of boilin' milk to make oyster stew.

"I was hopin' to tickle his funny bone.

"Could I but get him to laugh, I figured his aggravation would crumble and run like dry sand down his pants leg and be gone, and I was right.

"I talked to him some more and told him he'd paid that insurance company for years and it was high time he got some money back from 'em. The other vehicle had two scratches on the bumper, that was all, and I told him about watchin' Mike Hall drill a couple holes in a car's door dent, run a coat hanger through it and pop the dent out -- then I looked him in the eye just as solemn as the old Judge and said 'Sounds easy when you say it fast.' "

"What did he say?"

"It took him a while but I got him calmed down, but I'll tell you honest" -- Linn smiled with half his mouth -- "I genuinely slickered and soft soaped him like a used car salesman!"

Bruce laughed, nodded.  "You're good at that!"

"Saves hurt feelin's."

"And knuckles."

"That too."  Linn looked up.  "Wonder if you could do us a flavor."

"I can try."

Linn rose, walked over to the coffee pot, picked up a string-tied box, handed it to Bruce.

"The bakery give us a whole box of cookies for Merry Ho Ho. Wonder if you could eat those up for us so we don't get fat."

Bruce smiled, nodded, accepted the white-cardboard box with its fragrant, fresh payload.

"I think I can do that."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MERRY CHRISTMAS, GRAMPA

Two uniformed badge packers dismounted in the stable behind the Sheriff's Office.

Two saddlehorses were unsaddled, grained, fooled with: the Sheriff punched a code into the keypad, opened the back door.

Two pale eyed enforcers filed into the break room right at shift change.

The Sheriff knew his people.

He knew his men, he knew their families, he knew their kids ... hell, he knew their dogs, and their dogs knew him.

"You, and you," he said, pointing with a knife hand.  "Go home. You've got families, we've got your shift, you're getting paid."

Two deputies looked at one another, looked at the Sheriff and his flanker.

"You've got family too, Boss," one said.

Linn smiled, just a little, looked at Angela on his left, trim and feminine in her Sheriff's uniform and boots.

"I have," he said, "but your young are ..." -- he smiled, just a little, the smile of a man who remembered what Christmas was when his children were much younger -- "your young need your memories, and you need theirs."

Two deputies expressed their thanks.

It was not unusual for the Sheriff to take a road deputy's slot at Christmas, especially a road deputy that had young children at home: this year, he relieved three at once.

Back on Mars, Marnie wore her familiar white skinsuit with the six point star embossed over the left breast, she wore her Uncle's blued Smith & Wesson in a carved gunbelt and holster, and she wore  an embossed spray of holly above the gold Sheriff's star.

She'd divested herself of a diplomat's more formal attire and resumed her original duty, to allow her brother and his wife their Christmas together.

Ruth was not as active as she had been: she made good friends with her rocking chair now that she was big and pregnant -- "I look like a melon on a knitting needle," she complained, and when Jacob told her his sister was going to cover for him, so they could have the evening together, she smiled and asked her husband to thank his sister for her.

 

Angela stopped in at the All-Night to fill her thermos.

There were a few customers, most in a hurry to pick up some last-minute item that would be an ABSOLUTE CRISIS if they didn't get it -- milk or batteries or something of the kind -- Angela emptied one coffee pot, added a little from the fresh, stepped to the side as the clerk made a fresh pot.

Angela added a squirt of honey, a stream of milk, looked around: she smiled at the clerk and said, "I was wondering where I put the vanilla, until I remembered I'm not at home!" -- she capped her thermos carefully, screwed the stainless cup down over the stopper, turned it over and shook it a little, then returned it to upright and packed it over to the register.

The clerk looked at the scarred, dented, green-painted container and laughed a little as Angela handed her shekels enough to cover the cost:  "I just now noticed someone wrote 'Gas Tank' on the side."

Angela smiled a little.  "Truth in advertising," she said.  "Fill my tank and I can run all night!"

 

The Bear Killer filled the passenger front seat of the Sheriff's cruiser.

He headed for the far corner of the county: from here, he could respond to a third of his jurisdiction; Angela, he knew, would be at the opposite corner, and with their encyclopedic knowledge of their bailiwick, he had every confidence they could cover any location.

 

Fitz tripped when he came out of the passenger side of their first-out pumper, went face first into a nice friendly pile of snow: he came to his feet, blowing, swatting cold crystals from his turnout coat, biting back his usual language: he knew the sight of a pumper, pulling up in front of a house, was unusual -- they weren't running their emergency lights, but something that big and that red tends to draw attention, and sure enough, young noses and splayed fingers were pressed against windowpanes, young breath fogged the cold glass as three of their Irish Brigade ran for the door.

All wore firecoats, fireboots, bunker pants and helmets, all wore a broad grin, the two following their white-helmeted Chief each had a sack over his shoulder.

Fitz raised a gloved hand to beat on the door and it opened before he could strike, leaving him waving his glove against the empty air: he frowned a little, drew back his knocking fist and glared at it, then looked at the curious husband and wife and two barefoot children in flannel jammies looking at him like he had a fish sticking out of his shirt pocket.

Fitz stepped aside and the other two crowded inside, went into the living room, set down their sacks, ran back outside and ran for the apparatus.

"Santa's short handed this year," Fitz declared happily, "ye'll have to sort through that lot yourself!" -- then he too turned, legged it for the pumper: the children ran for the sacks, their mother following, and the young father raised a hand in thanks, realizing he'd not spoken his thanks, so surprised had he been.

Loot in the sacks was wrapped and labeled: gifts were stacked under the sparsely-populated tree, and the father opened an envelope with his name on it, and a hand-drawn spray of holly in one corner.

He unfolded the single page, read the neat, feminine script.

I have been where you are now.

Things will get better.

He considered the sheaf of fifty dollar bills folded into the letter, his stomach unwinding a little: he'd been laid off a month before, and Christmas had been looking terribly lean.

The letter was signed, Santa, and he carefully refolded the single page, slipped it back into its envelope.

He looked at his wife, blinked a few times, swallowed.

"It's Crif-thas Eve," their little boy said hopefully. "Can we open one?"

 

Linn eased his cruiser to a stop, stepped out onto the roadway.

No vehicles to the horizon from either direction.

Linn looked up, smiled a little as he considered the stars.

"Which one of you fellows," he said softly, "led those Wise Guys to Bethlehem?"

As if in reply, a meteor blazed silver through the atmosphere, flared, died.

 

Angela pulled up in front of a house, talked to her microphone, came out of her unit, shotgun in hand.

Like generations of badge packers before her, she had a profound fondness for her shotgun.

She looked at the roof, looked at the individual crouched, afraid to move.

"My ladder fell," he called, and Angela looked, saw an aluminum extension ladder laying on the ground.

"Stand fast," she said. "Where did you have it set up?"

"Here, below this chimney."

Angela slung her shotgun muzzle down from her left shoulder: she lifted the dogs, collapsed the ladder, then she picked it up, carried it a little from the house, planted its feet and walked it upright: a little more effort and she had it extended, the dogs clattering loudly as they dropped over each rung.

"Can you come down peacefully?" Angela called. "I can get help if you need it."

A leg came over top of the ladder, found a rung: it was followed by the rest of the rooftop adventurer, and Angela footed the ladder, steadying it as the kid descended.

Angela seized the scruff of his neck as he tried to duck away.

"Wait a minute," she said quietly. "What were you doing up there?" -- she turned him, looked at his face.

"Jimmy," she scolded, "what were you up to?"

"I wanted to stomp around and holler 'Ho, ho, ho' down the chimney," he admitted shamefacedly, "and I slipped when I got up there and kicked the ladder and --"

"Did you holler 'Ho, ho, ho' down the chimney?" Angela asked

"Yeah," Jimmy said in a discouraged voice.

Angela heard a door open, saw someone come around the corner.

She stepped into the light falling from a window: "Jimmy was making sure you didn't have an intruder," she declared loudly, knowing there were young faces regarding them through the window. "When the reindeer launched for the next house, they didn't get altitude fast enough and the sleigh knocked the ladder down."

Angela gave the father a challenging glare, as if to dare him to dispute her account.

"I'll leave it to you two to lower the ladder."  Angela raised an eyebrow.  "Anything else for us tonight?"

"How do I explain to the kids that Santa didn't leave anything?"

Angela smiled.  "He works in secret so nobody sees what or how he does it. Jimmy surprised him and Santa took out to keep his proprietary methods secret. Don't worry" -- she looked up, smiled at the children behind the window -- "he'll be back!"

 

Jacob's head came up as his wife stood, one hand on her belly, as she looked at him with a mixture of fear and wonder on her face.

"Jacob," she quavered, "it's time!"

Jacob came over, took her hand, ran his other arm around her waist:  "Can you make it to the infirmary?"

Ruth nodded, breathing deeply:  "Women of my line deliver quickly," she said, her voice strained.

Jacob stopped, turned, hit the comm button.

"Infirmary, this is the Sheriff."

"Infirmary."

"Mary is in labor."

"We'll be ready."

Jacob picked his wife up, rolled her into him, strode for the doorway: the plast door hissed open, Jacob stepped through, his long-legged stride carrying them at a good velocity toward the nearby infirmary.

"I remember when you carried me like this," Ruth groaned.

"Our honeymoon?"

"Yes."

"And here's me carryin' you because of the honeymoon."

Ruth's breath hissed in between clenched teeth, and Jacob kicked the infirmary door three times before it opened.

It's not that the infirmary door was slow opening, it's that he was reacting like a man whose wife was in labor.

 

Linn followed the speeding vehicle, close enough to observe it, far enough not to crowd it: he eased up closer, until he could read the plate, until he got the report back, until he knew who it was.

Linn dropped off the throttle, allowed a long time resident to finish his trip home, rushing to get there while it was still Christmas Eve.

He followed long enough to make sure his resident made it safely home, then sailed right on past.

 

The sun came up, two Sheriff's cruisers backed into marked areas on the Fire Department's apron.

Two tired, pale eyed badge packers went inside.

The Sheriff's family was there, waiting; the firehouse smelled delightfully of bacon and eggs, toast and coffee, the Irish Brigade greeted one another and their visitors cheerfully, and all hands sat down to a good breakfast.

At least most of them did.

Linn sat beside Shelly, looked at her, smiled a little.

"You do look good first thing in the morning," he said, squeezing her hand just a little, and his phone rang.

"Sheriff, I have a message relay from Mars," Sharon said.

Linn pulled out a pocket notebook, flipped it open, clicked his pen and prepared to copy traffic.

"Ready."

"Merry Christmas, Grampa."

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 25, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WORD TRAVELS FAST

Jacob Keller had never been glad handed, back slapped or congratulated as much in his entire young life.

Jacob was acting Sheriff during his sister's ambassadorial absences: he was accepted as Sheriff, both because of his pale eyes, his six point star, his skill at reducing the lawless to a more peaceful posture, and especially because he practiced his sister's unfailing fairness when coming into a dispute.

Jacob was also a new father.

Births on the Mars colony were a reason for celebration, and Jacob accepted a short swig of celebratory beer when offered: he begged off the entire proffered volume, as he was working, but he winked and said it would be impolite to just turn them down, y'see, his Mama worked hard to beat some manners into him -- hak-kaff! Har-rumph! -- that is, his Mama worked hard to teach him good manners! -- his grin and his wink and his line of bull turned the trick, no feelings were bruised, and he remained sober as the old Judge.

 

Marnie sat with a colonist in an isolated tunnel, leaned forward and listening closely.

The man lost his wife when the alien raiders tried to destroy their colony; they'd married after a year on Mars, and they'd been what Marnie thought of as a "Cute Couple" -- he'd been devastated, crushed, when she died of catastrophic decompression, and now -- now, at Christmas -- memories came to surface that brought him sorrow, and Marnie sat with him, and let him talk.

Jacob was inclined to pack his baby boy around in a picnic basket to show him off, but he admitted he'd have to fit his wife into the basket as well, as the lad had a good appetite, and besides he was enjoying some time off.

Truth be told, Marnie was enjoying getting back to being Sheriff.

Jacob never knew exactly what Marnie said to that fellow in the isolated mining tunnel.

He suspected that the two of them walked out of the tunnel and were safely behind the force-wall before the rotary cutters activated, slicing ore free with beams from the Ripper projectors, and he had the suspicion that the man she'd been talking with, intended to join his wife -- in the only way he could, as there were too many safeguards on body sized Rippers used for funeral purposes.

Later that day, Ruth, looking ladylike and motherly in a proper gown, their son in an open bottom flannel sleeper, received callers for the first time since birthing their first child: the women of the colony converged, and Jacob stayed away, figuring it would be a good way for his wife to know more of the women.

Jacob knew what it was to be a stranger in a strange land, and he wished not for his wife to feel isolated.

 

Will Keller pulled the flat box out of the closet, smiled a little, then puffed his breath at the lid, dislodging a light cloud of dust.

He'd put this away against the time when it would come in handy.

He carried it to his kitchen table, set it down, looked up at the shave-and-a-haircut knock on his front door.

He opened the door, stepped back to let Angela skip in, looking young and fresh and beautiful as a blooming rose after a light spring shower.

Will hugged his niece and she hugged him back, giggling, then she kissed him on the cheek. "You spoke of a conspiracy!" she smiled, and Will motioned her to a seat.

He waited until Angela smoothed her skirt under her, crossed her ankles under the chair, tilted her head a little and looked at the slot cars illustrated on the lid of the cardboard box.

"I bought this years ago," Will said.

Angela regarded him with bright-blue, innocent-wide eyes.

"I bought one set and set it up on my living room floor," Will explained, "but it wasn't fast enough for my grandsons, so I took it back.  I traded for this one."

"And is this one fast enough?"

"It is," he grinned.  "I tried it out."

"Which of the grandsons did you get it for?"

"The one that will never be," Will said, his voice suddenly serious. "You know my son was killed in an undercover operation."
"I remember."

"I just put this away and forgot about it."  His voice softened.  "Crystal laughed at me ... I've got a picture somewhere ... I'm down on my Prayer Bones on the living room floor in a wife beater and opera slippers, running slot cars like a happy kid."

"I see."

"I'll never have sons, or grandsons."  He looked at Angela and smiled, just a little.  

"I hear Jacob is a Daddy."

Angela laughed.  "I can only imagine how he'll panic at the first colic or when his little boy starts teething!"

"He'll do all right," Will said, waving a dismissive hand.

He looked at his niece, all girly and feminine in a red dress with white lace trim.

"I'm not supposed to know about your clandestine trips to Mars."  He looked very directly at the lovely young woman across the kitchen table from him, and for a moment, he wondered how the laughing, giggly little girl he knew, became a woman so fast.

"If you could have this delivered to Jacob, I would be very much obliged."

"How did you know about Jacob's baby, Uncle Will?"

Chief of Police Will Keller laughed, leaned forward a little.

"This is a small town," he said quietly.  "Word travels fast."

 

 

[Blackwater 53393]

You can have this deleted in a day or so, or I can have it done.

 

Thanks for the entertainment and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

 

 

Edited December 26, 2023 by Blackwater 53393

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

No delete.

Thank you for this, and Merry Christmas to you too!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

APPROVAL

The mare stood, shivering, recovering from having delivered, but determined not to let her suckling fall prey to the approaching predators.

Her ears snapped back at the sound of a canine voice behind.

Deep, powerful, the sound of war on approach: the mare's ears came forward again, toward the threat she faced.

A hungry little nose punched, exploring, latched on to suckle.

The Bear Killer drove past the mare and into the nearest of the hungry 'yotes: the collision was enough to discourage the hungry yodel dog, the mare lashed out with a hindhoof and kicked a second out of this lifetime and into eternity: the rest of the pack drifted away, snarling, looking back, not willing to challenge the mountain Mastiff standing between them and what they'd hoped would be an easy meal.

A pale eyed rider approached on the gallop, rifle held across his chest, thumb laid over the hammer spur:  one of the Sheriff's twin boys, not old enough yet to grow fuzz on his lip, guided by The Bear Killer's challenge.

He leaned back in the saddle, sat up straight:  his mare slowed, cantered across the cold ground:  young Michael orbited mare and foal, caught but a glimpse of the retreating backside of one yodel dog and decided against chancing a shot.

He'd have taken the shot if he'd thought he could have made a kill:  he'd seen both animals and men wounded, and unlike many of that era, he refused to take the shot unless he felt sure of making a kill.

Michael circled back, rode around mare and suckling again, drew to a stop, studying the few clues in the trampled, confused mess in the light snow.

He walked his mare up to the new mother, saw her ears lay back, then come up: he knew she was guarded, defensive, and he had no wish to get into a catfight between two horses.

"Mother," he said in a soothing voice, "can we get you closer to the barn?"

 

Sheriff Linn Keller put the empty rifle case to his lips, blew across the neck, bringing a high, shrill whistle: he slipped the empty into his vest pocket, pale eyes busy at his herd's approach.

We're shy that pregnant mare.

Damn me for not checking last night!

He'd heard The Bear Killer in the distance, he'd seen his youngest son, well in the distance, shuck his rifle and set off at a gallop.

The Sheriff's hearing was damaged by war and by gunfire, but he could still hear, and he concentrated on listening through the constant, ringing whine that plagued his hearing for more years than he cared to admit: there was no gunfire, he'd heard The Bear Killer, once, and nothing since.

He shifted his weight forward, his Apple-horse obediently leaning into a fast walk, then a steady trot.

If Michael pulled his rifle, he thought, there's reason.

A pale eyed Sheriff leaned down, gripped the wrist of his '73 rifle, pulled it free.

Apple-horse's ears were forward, his head up, clearly interested in ... something.

 

Michael slipped a loop over the mare's neck, and she obediently came alongside, moved at the same slow walk as the saddled mare.

Beside her, a little spotty foal, steadier now, getting used to the idea that those are legs, and legs are meant to move, and that meant the foal was keeping up with the walking meal that was its dam.

The Bear Killer flanked out, turned, faced rearward, bristling.

 

Michael did not go terribly far.

He leaned back and his bitless Appaloosa mare halted, as did the new mother.

The foal, of course, was interested in a meal.

Michael looked down, then turned in his saddle, looked back, saw The Bear Killer running an arc behind them.

Michael's pale eyes were young, strong and clear.

Michael -- for his few years -- knew the tricks of seeing at a distance.

He knew what to look for, knew how to gauge where predators would run, how they would approach.

He saw no threat from behind.

Michael turned, looked forward, saw his father coming toward him, his rifle pointed skyward, crescent buttplate seated firmly on his lean, hard-muscled, horseman's thigh.

Michael's rifle was still in two hands: he bent down, worked the muzzle back into the scabbard, slid it home, straightened.

If The Bear Killer saw fit to go to war, he would too, but until then, he wished to get the mare and her vulnerable foal both safely back to the barn.

Linn drew up ahead of his son and a little to the side:  he looked to The Bear Killer, looked beyond; he looked down at the foal, at the mare, at his son.
"How long do you figure since birth?" Linn asked quietly.
"A day, sir, maybe two."

Linn nodded his agreement.

"Still wobbly?"

"No, sir, not terribly."

"I heard The Bear Killer."

"He evened the odds, sir."

"The mare hurt any?"

"Don't believe so, sir."

Linn nodded, turned his stallion, who came over and sniffed at the mare, then at the foal:  the mare was clearly unhappy at the herd stallion's exploration.

Linn eased Apple-horse back -- "Easy, now," he said, "she's short tempered just like my wife was!" -- he looked at Michael, and to his credit, the Sheriff's youngest son managed to look very innocent.

It took them a couple of hours to get back to the barn: neither pale eyed Keller was in any kind of a hurry, and neither wished to tax either the dam or the foal.

Michael's twin sister was waiting at the barn with Angela:  both girls watched with delight as the Sheriff steered the dam into a wide stall, the curious, sniffing, wary little foal with her.

"Michael."

"Yes, sir."

"You saw we were short a mare when came time to feed."

"Yes, sir."

"You know we don't have to feed."

"I know, sir."  He hesitated, then added, "It's the easiest way to count 'em, sir."

Linn winked, nodded, and Michael felt a delighted surge of parental approval.

"You saw we were short a mare."

"I saw we were short the nearest mare to deliver, sir."

"You went to find her."

"I hadn't seen her for more than a day, sir, and you were busy."

Linn gripped his son's shoulder with a gloved hand.

"Michael," he said softly, "thank you.  You did right."

Michael tried hard to maintain a solemn expression, but his boyish grin broke through like sun through a cloudy sky.

"Thank you, sir."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TO START AGAIN

Fagan regretted many things.

At the moment, he regretted not swallowing his pride.

His Pa spoke harshly to him one time too many.

There comes a time in every young man's life when he figures he can whip the Old Man, and Fagan, stung by his Pa's harsh language, arrived at that moment.

Fagan was young and Fagan was wiry, Fagan was hard muscled from working the family farm, and Fagan uncorked a punch while he was still bent over from where the Old Man larruped him one with the belt.

He caught his Pa in the wind and doubled him over.

Fagan knew if he didn't just plainly beat his Pa into the dirt, that fierce old man would come up and beat him into the dirt, so he grabbed a wood barn shovel and belted the man across the side of the head with the flat of the blade.

The Old Man went down like he'd been clubbed, probably because that's what it amounted to: the barn shovel was thick and heavy and Fagan honestly hated the damned thing, and when he swung it and hit with it, he swung with all the built up hate of years of what he saw as unjust use of free labor.

That, and the old man's free use of a harsh tongue and that damned belt of his.

Fagan's Old Man laid out in a stall, his ear split and bleeding, and Fagan stopped, took several long, calming breaths, considered, then he threw the shovel across his Old Man's belly and turned and walked off.

He didn't have much, never had, but what little he had bundled up quick enough: socks and smallclothes, hat and knife, a sharpenin' stone, two lumps of bread and some jerked meat -- the stone and the food warn't his to take, but he figured the Old Man owed him that much at least -- he come out of the cabin, looked to the barn.

He remembered the belt across his back again and his heart hardened like unto a Pharoah, and he set out across the back field and into the woods.

He was not sure where he was headed, but wherever he ended up, he figured on being far from here.

 

The railroads hired detectives -- enforcers, club swinging enforcers of the railroads' policies against unauthorized riders: hoboes had an especial fear and loathing of the railroad dicks, and railroad detectives held just as great an antipathy against those would steal their passage.

Fagan knew this, and Fagan got lucky: he gathered himself an armful of boxcar and rode a day and a night and a day again, cursing himself for not thinkin' to bring water: the train ran swift and steady to the west, and into the mountains, and Fagain shivered and bundled what little hay there was into a pile, and shivered his way to sleep, and dreamed of his threadbare quilt back home.

He felt the train slow: he woke, listened, then pushed his head up, shedding hay and itch: there were footsteps overhead and he froze, then breathed easier as they kept on going, jumping to the next car.

He knew the railroad detectives didn't walk the roof -- that was likely the brakeman, they were the only ones daring enough, skilled enough to walk the rocking tops of moving railcars -- Fagan rolled to his feet, felt what was left of his last lump of bread, decided he was too dry to try and eat.

The train was slowing.

He looked out the door and realized they were in mountains and had been for some time.

Likely they slowed because they were going up hill.

Thirst decided his course of action: he waited until the train was slowed enough, then he leaned out and jumped, landed easily, took a couple quick steps to catch his balance, looked around.

He saw a stream.

Fagan wondered why his face felt funny, until he realized ...

... he was smiling at the sight of running water.

 

Not long after, he came to a line shack.

He didn't know that's what it was called, he'd been a dirt farmer all his life, but he knew shelter when he saw it.

Nobody was around: he watched for some time, then walked up on the little place, opened the door, marveled.

He backed out, looked around again, went inside.

The wood box was filled.

Glory of glories, whoever owned this place must be rich, he thought: there were genuine Lucifer matches in a glass jar!

He opened the stove.

A fire was laid already, just waiting for a lit match to turn tinder, kindling and firewood into welcome warmth.

Fagan looked around some more, saw a bucket, remembered the nearby stream.

Shortly he was heating beans in a frying pan, set up close to the stove, soaking up the welcome radiation.

He hadn't realized, until he was getting himself thawed out, how cold he'd got in that big empty boxcar.

 

Fagan burnt the empty tin can and stomped it flat, tossed it out on the trash pile behind the shack.

He refilled the wood box and emptied the bucket -- he'd leave it the way he found it -- he considered he didn't know how far he'd traveled, but he was well into the mountains and that was far enough, he judged, the Old Man wouldn't come after him.

Didn't matter if he did.

He wasn't goin' back to a life of bein' yelled at and beat for no reason.

Fagan looked at the two cans of beans left on the shelf and considered if he stayed there, he'd run out of food in a day.

Might as well move on.

 

About a week later, Deputy Jacob Keller was riding through the Ridenour ranch with a grin on his face and some good news in his pocket, at least for the rancher: he drew up in front of the house and the door opened and something fast moving, waist high and noisy came running out the front door and ran pell mell into his belt buckle, all giggles and a cheerful "Uncle Jacob!"

Jacob bent, took the bright-eyed little girl under the arms and backed up, then spun her around the way his Pa spun his little girls, and a happy, bright-eyed child threw her head back and laughed in the Colorado sunshine, her legs and skirts flying in the air as she did.

Jacob slowed and swung her down, he let go of her and took a little boy around the waist, hauled him upside down and walked toward the porch toward the grinning rancher.

Jacob hauled the lad up, got his arm across young shoulder blades, set him down, stuck out his hand.

"Mister Ridenour," he grinned.

"Deputy," Ridenour laughed, seeing the delight on his children's faces. 

"Brought you some good news for a change," Jacob said, running two fingers into a vest pocket: he handed the man a folded, wax-sealed message, waited for the man to break the seal and open it up and cast his best eye upon the handwriting therein.

Two men grinned with delight as bright-eyed and curious children regarded the pair.

Ridenour went down on his Prayer Bones and opened his arms, gathered a little boy and a little girl in to him.

Jacob, in all his born days, had never seen a man happier than when Ridenour said, "The ranch is ours now, free and clear!"

"I figured 'twas worth the ride out, to give this to you the moment it come across."

Ridenour stood, looked at the note again, nodded.

"Could I but share this with ..."

His voice trailed off and he looked at his little girl, at her innocent, big-eyed expression, and Jacob knew he held back the words that wished his wife were here to share the moment.

"Now that you own your spread free and clear," Jacob said, "I reckon you might want to run some stock."

Ridenour nodded thoughtfully. "Aye," he agreed in a quiet voice. "I've pasture enough and the graze is good."

"Let me poke around a little and see if we can't scare you up some seed stock."

Ridenour gave him a cautious look. "I'm not lookin' for charity," he said guardedly, for like most Western men, pride was a big part of his makeup.

Jacob laughed. "Oh, don't worry," he said, "if I find it, likely it'll belong to some skinflint who wants to cheat you out of your eye teeth!"

Ridenour grunted, then -- unable to contain his delight behind a grumpy facade another moment -- grinned and declared, "I've got a jug in there ain't been drunk up yet! J'ine me?"

Jacob nodded, once.

"It would be unmannerly," he said with a straight face, "to turn down a shot of liquid celebration!"

 

Fagan knew cattle.

Fagan knew the stock he was looking at was of a good line.

He also knew the man on the Appaloosa stallion was looking at him the way a man will when he's measuring someone against a stack of memories.

"You lookin' for work?" the man on the horse asked, and Fagan considered his empty belly and his empty purse and allowed as he was.

 

A day or two later, a pale eyed Deputy rode up to the Ridenour door again.

"Mister Ridenour," Jacob said, "it ain't charity if them cattle are strays."

Ridenour frowned a little, confused, then Jacob thrust his chin at the field behind the house.

"Even found a man to work 'em if you're interested. Seems to know cattle, too."

"Well, hell," Ridenour said, "how much do I owe ye?"

Jacob laughed.

"They're all strays, every one of 'em," he grinned, "even that young fellow tendin' 'em. His name's Fagan and he looks all right."

Jacob raised his arm; a lean young man came trotting over toward them.

"Fagan, this is Mr. Ridenour, he's a friend of mine. I'll let the two of you make your workin' arrangements."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THIN

Angela Keller sagged through the front door, dragged herself to the nearest chair, collapsed as if she were beyond bone-weary, probably because she was.

Linn found her an hour later, sound asleep: he'd come home slow and careful, for the fog was thick that night, and grateful he was for a good set of fog lights and no traffic.

Angela's car was backed into its usual place.

Linn smiled, just a little: he always felt better when his little girl was home, even if she was a woman grown, and making her own way in the world.

Worlds, he corrected himself, for he'd seen recordings of her presentations on other planets: it was at once delightful, and a little disconcerting, for him to see this child of his loins, this giggly little girl who used to ride behind him, gripping his Carhartt and laughing "Faster, Daddy!" -- he stopped and blinked, shoved the memories aside, cranked the wheel and backed his Jeep into its usual space in front of the house with the other vehicles.

He and The Bear Killer came through the front door, silent, not wanting to disturb the household: Michael waved from the top of the stairs -- it was past his bedtime, but he stayed up until Linn got home, on these nights when his Mama was overnighting at the firehouse -- Linn heard Michael's bedroom door shut, quietly, and he knew Michael would slip a set of headphones on and grip the paddles of a Morse code bug (why the hell do they call it that?) -- and he'd be walking the world itself without leaving his easy chair, just like Jacob used to.

Linn looked at Angela, collapsed in the comfortably upholstered chair, looking absolutely exhausted.

She used to fall asleep like that, when she was a little girl, and he'd pick her up and carry her upstairs, and put her to bed: now that she was grown, he'd not dare -- for one thing, 'twould not be proper, her bein' a young woman now -- but there was also the matter of his advancing age, and her adult size.

The Bear Killer solved the quandary for him.

Angela smiled a drowsy little smile and her hand lifted a little as The Bear Killer laid his big head on her white-skirted lap: she opened her eyes, slowly, as if the effort was greater than she anticipated.

Linn stood there, Stetson in hand, looking at his little girl with an expression that was half admiration and half uncertainty.

Angela took a long breath, rocked forward: she got her feet flat on the floor, pushed against the chair's tack-edged arms, stood.

"Daddy," she said softly, "I'm tired."

"You look tired," Linn said in a quiet Daddy-voice. "Are you hungry?"

Angela rubbed her nose, squinting like the little girl she'd once been, and nodded. 

Linn eased forward, offered his arm, and Angela took it, leaned against her Daddy's shoulder.

"Can I just fall asleep right here?" she murmured.

"If you like," Linn said. "I'll set on the couch and you can stretch out with me for a pillow."

Angela hummed a little, then giggled, patted her Daddy's chest.

"You're kind of a bony pillow."

"Yeah, trust me to cause trouble. What suits your appetite?"

"Whatever's leftovers."

Linn steered her toward the kitchen table, drew a chair out: she swept her skirt under her, sat, ladylike in spite of her fatigue: she lowered her forehead into her hands.

"Daddy," she mumbled, "my eyes feel like they're drawn out into points!"

"You were driving in the fog too."

"Mm-hmm. Three hours." 

She looked up as Linn opened the refrigerator door, brought out a plastic film covered, glass casserole dish full of something.

"You'll like this. Your Mama made Deconstructed Stuffed Peppers. She didn't feel like boiling and stuffing peppers, so she just diced 'em up and mixed 'em in with the filling. Cheese and tomato soup on top and it's quite good!"

Angela lowered her forehead into her hands again and didn't realize she'd drowsed until the smell of her Mama's reheated Deconstruction rose up and seized her by the appetite.

Linn ate his own, with a good appetite -- Shelly was many things, and one of the things she definitely was, was a Truly Excellent Cook -- father and daughter ate well, and when they were done, when they'd split fresh sweet rolls and buttered them and used them to mop their bowls clean, good manners be damned -- Angela looked tiredly at her Daddy and asked, "How come I can't just walk through a copier and make some more of me?"

Linn laughed quietly, nodded.

"I've wished for that same thing myself, darlin'."  He looked more closely at his little girl.  "How thin you runnin' yourself, Princess?"

Angela's expression was absolutely unguarded.

She was too honestly fatigued for any artifice, any prevarication, and it showed in the exhaustion in her eyes, the dark circles so out of place on her young complexion.

"Daddy, I've been featured speaker for nursing recruiters on twenty planets. I'm the face of nursing in worlds unknown to Earth, I'm needed in two hospitals here on Earth, I don't have time to put in my hours to keep up my Deputy's commission and I want to hold onto that, if time was money I couldn't afford to pay attention, let alone pay bills --"

She looked at her father, too tired to express her distress.

"Daddy, I've stretched myself too thin."

Linn nodded, and Angela's anxiety dropped several notches.

Of all the people she knew, her Daddy would understand what it was to over extend himself.

"We can talk about it now, if you like, or we can tear into it in the morning."

Angela nodded tiredly.

"Morning," she sighed.

Linn nodded slowly in agreement, watched Angela's head drift down, watched her eyelids lower.

Linn did not carry his little girl upstairs, but he did walk up to her bedroom with her, and he did tap discreetly on her door after he'd judged enough time passed:  he slipped in at the drowsy wave of her fingers, sat on the side of her bed, leaned down and kissed her forehead before tugging the covers up around her chin like he used to when she was much younger.

"We'll talk in the morning," he whispered, then smiled, for she probably didn't hear him.

Just like when she was a little girl, she was sound asleep, just that fast.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A SHERIFF'S QUESTION

 

Jacob held his freshly-changed, just-fed, warmly-wrapped infant son and eased himself down in his favorite chair.

He studied the tiny face, considered the tousled hair (what little there was), and he carefully, gently, unwound blanket enough to allow one tiny little hand to come into view.

He slipped his finger into this little pink grip, and he felt the corners of his eyes tighten a little as the child gripped his Pa's finger.

He felt his wife's eyes upon him, knew she was smiling quietly ... her smile was different somehow ... he remembered that shining, bright smile of the maiden she'd been, the blushing, almost bashful smile of the newlywed she'd become, and now, now when he looked at her, she looked ... well, motherly.

Jacob studied that little pink hand and dismissed the momentary side tracking thought.

Likely that much was his own wild imagination.

He looked up.

Ruth's head was tilted to the side and she was looking with open affection at her husband and their infant son.

"Consider his hands," Jacob almost whispered, knowing his wife's hearing was excellent: "I have long marveled at how perfect they are. So tiny, but so perfect."

He couldn't help but grin as he looked up at his wife again.

"Whoever says there is no God, has never looked at the perfection in a newborn's hands."

 

Deputy Angela Keller seized the complaining party's wrist, brought it around fast -- a slim young woman she was, but she was fast, fast and strong, and when she grabbed the wrist behind the fist, it was with the strength of someone who really didn't want to be punched, someone who intended to bring this sinner to the understanding of justice.

Her .357 whispered from its floral carved, background dyed holster.

"Drop it," she said quietly, twisting the bent-over prisoner's wrist painfully behind her back: the other combatant's blade hesitated, then dropped to the pavement.

Running feet, hard hands: Uncle Will Keller seized the second prisoner, spun her around and put her face-down on the cement sidewalk.

Angela cuffed the woman, quickly, tightly, watched as her Uncle Will fought the other woman into irons, waited until he hauled his struggling prisoner to her feet.

"May as well walk 'em," Will said: Angela kept a firm grip on her prisoner's hand, keeping a pain compliance hold to guarantee cooperation and minimize an attempted escape.

She fished two fingers into her uniform blouse pocket, pulled out a card and read them their rights before they headed for the hoosegow.

Once they were secured -- after they were processed and locked in separate cells, isolated from each other so neither could communicate -- after Angela sat down at the computer terminal and wrote up her report, her Uncle Will handed her a steaming mug of coffee.

"You always read from the card?" Will asked, blowing on his steaming, almost-overfilled mug and taking a careful sip: as usual, it was hot enough to scald the hair right off his tongue.

Angela smiled, sipped hers delicately. "I read from the card and staple the card to the report. Unless I'm running the computer, then I scan it in."  She sipped again, savoring the shared moment.

Will nodded.  "Makes sense."

Angela sighed, twisted a little, and Will heard a subdued *pop* as she worked a kink out of her spine.

"That sounds like it hurt."

"Hurts good. Jacob used to pick me up by the elbows and shake me. Sometimes it sounded like my spine was a zipper."

Will grimaced. "I'll pass."

"You always did have a good back."

"Did you inherit Old Pale Eyes' sway back?"

"No, and neither did Jacob, God be praised!"

Will nodded, drank, stepped over to the little stainless sink to rinse out his mug.

Angela finished hers as well, stepped over to Sharon's desk, pulled a picture out of her breast pocket:  "This is Jacob's little boy."

Sharon made over the picture the way women often do; she and Angela talked about the things women do in such moments, while Will pretended to pay no attention:  he finally made for the main doors, pushed through the heavy glass portals, Angela following.

"I'm glad you were there," Angela said. "I didn't realize there would be a switchblade involved."

Will laughed. "I know when one takes a swing at you, things change fast."

Angela nodded.  "I am disappointed, you know."

Will raised an eyebrow.  "How's that?"

"I had my Used Car Salesman's Line of Baloney all ready to lay on 'em both with a trowel," she whined, then laughed.  "Believe that and I'll tell you another one!"

"Angel One, Dispatch."

Angela reached up, gripped the epaulet mic, squeezed the rubber coated transmit bar. "Go for Angel One."

"Have report of reckless op, Fay Iver and Claybank."

"Enroute."

Angela skipped over to the cruiser, waved at her grinning Uncle: a moment later, she was outbound, and back on the radio, getting a description and direction of travel.

 

"Darlin', are you sure?"

"I'm sure," Ruth said quietly, smiling down at their son: as usual, he was feeding with a good appetite. "You've been hovering for a week, Jacob.  I'm quite sure our son will continue to grow and do well without your help."

Jacob put a dramatic hand to his breast:  "Wounded!" he lamented. "Wounded, I say!"

He and Ruth both laughed: with no one to see them, they were easy and relaxed, even silly, with one another:  Ruth lowered her head, looked at him through long eyelashes:  "You know what I mean!"

Jacob leaned down, kissed his wife carefully, delicately.  "I know," he whispered.

Jacob looked at his son, or as much of him as he could see:  "Your old man's got to go back to work," he said softly. "I'll be back for supper."

He grinned at Ruth.  "Typical man, the both of us, we're thinkin' of our stomach at a time like this!"

Ten minutes later he located his sister as she headed for the education section.

"We've a twelve year old who's been into the juice," she said, her words clipped.

Jacob swore, once, loudly, his scatological comment echoing between the hallway's heat-glazed walls. 

"You expected any different?"

"Never gave it any thought," Jacob admitted. "Reckon I'd hoped we'd do better here."

The airlock hissed open and two pale eyed peacemakers surged into the classroom, seized a tall, dreadfully thin twelve-year-old who was trying to throw a chair.

The child was Mars-born and Mars-raised, under the one-third gravity of his Martian home instead of the one-normal Earth gravity: Jacob and Marnie, on the other hand, we Heavies -- they kept the gravity in their quarters, their workspaces, at Earth-normal or more, and their strength showed it: they had no trouble confining the combative young man.

Jacob had him by the upper arms, picked him up, packed him out the airlock and into the hallway.

He was handling the tall boy carefully, for he knew Martian bones would not be as dense, not as strong as Earth bones: Jacob's bones developed with the resistance of Earth gravity, and he strongly suspected Martian bones would therefore be only one-third as strong as Earth ossicles. 

Marnie stayed in the classroom, took statements, and put her diplomatic skills to good use, helping the teacher restore calm and reassurance to the understandably distressed classroom.

Marnie waited until after the intoxicated pugilist was seen in the Infirmary, waited until he was secured in a cell, to look at Jacob with a little bit of a smile and comment that she was surprised he was back to work already.

Jacob shrugged.

"I reckon William Linn can dine at the topless restaurant without my help," he shrugged.

"Don't tell Ruth that," Marnie said quietly, giving him a conspiratorial wink: "she'll be just scandalized!"

Jacob grinned.  "You're right, Sis. I'll not."

He looked through the one-way door at the dejected looking lad in the bare, featureless cell.

"He'll feel really good once he sobers up."

"He's got quite a load on. Doc wants to monitor him, he's interested in liver function differences between Mars gravity and Earth gravity."

"I thought growing up Mars meant you didn't have the kidney stones and bone loss."

"You'd have to ask Doc. I know he lives in Earth gravity so he doesn't  have those problems."

She looked at the prisoner, looked at Jacob.

"How's fatherhood, by the way? You teachin' him to smoke cigars and chase women?"

Jacob grinned -- it was the unguarded, brotherly grin she remembered so well from when they grew up together, back on their pale eyed Pa's ranch -- "Sis, I've got a question."

Marnie folded her arms, raised an eyebrow.

"Sheriff, what is your question?"

"Sheriff," Jacob replied, "I was lookin' at the absolute perfection of William Linn's hands, and then I looked at my wife, and I realized I had a question."

His grin was broad and genuine as he continued, "How did I get so damned lucky?"

He shook his head and added, "I've got no idea how I must've deserved this, but I'll take it!"

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AN EVENING, JUST BEFORE SUNSET

Ambassador Marnie Keller smiled a little as she dropped a birdshot round into the open chamber, ran the fore-end firmly forward, thumbed the magazine full, took her stance.

The Ambassador was, to be honest, a fine looking woman: she moved with a feminine grace, she was modestly gowned, gloved, she wore her hair elaborately upswept, with a fashionable little hat pinned in place: she was -- obviously, very obviously -- all woman, and at the moment, she had what her pale eyed Daddy referred to as one of the Working Tools of This Degree in her gloved hands.

She shouldered the twelve-gauge, took a practice swing, lowered the gun's muzzle, and smiled.

"Pull."

She heard the thump-rattle of the thrower behind her, the claybird was only just into view and it disappeared in an orange cloud of orange powder.

"Give me a double," she called as the smoking empty bounced to the hard ground underfoot.  "Pull!"

Marnie scored a left-and-a-right, shoved three through the loading gate, her trigger finger stiff alongside the receiver as she did.

"Smoked 'em," a voice murmured, and Marnie smiled, just a little, took a long, cleansing breath.

"Load the second thrower, give me two doubles."

She waited for the boy to call "Ready" before she called for the birds.

Four clouds of dust spread against a fiery sky, streaked with all the glories of a truly beautiful sunset.

Marnie called for singles, until her gun was dry: she slid the twin to the riot gun she carried as a deputy, into its gun case, zipped it shut, slung the gun case over her off shoulder.

She turned, regarded the glorious horizon, the second moon, nodded.

"I needed this," she said softly.

 

Michael Keller drew his left hand revolver, punched the blued-steel gun muzzle toward a number 2 tin can: the mechanism rolled smoothly under his finger's command, a puff of dust squirted into the air where the .22 Short hit the bare dirt.

A minor correction and he put five into the can, hip shooting.

Michael pulled the revolver in close, quickly smacked out the empties, dropped in a fresh cylinder full.

Like his pale eyed Pa, he was particular about his hardware.

He wore a matched pair of .22 revolvers, he'd worked with a gunsmith of their acquaintance until each had an identical weight of pull as the other, until each action mirrored the other: he still had them engraved, so he wore one on the left -- always -- and one on the right -- always.

Ideally, he'd like to've had a matched set in .22, .32, .38 and .44, but he was also practical: thus far, he had the rimfires, with a five inch barrel, and he had a brace of .357s, in five inch, all adjustable sight, all engraved with gold inlaid into the engraving.

It took effort and it took patience but he'd ended up with four revolvers that balanced the same, weighed very nearly the same, pointed the same: Michael, not yet able to grow a lip broom, several years yet from his Age of Majority, was an accomplished pistolero, a crack rifle shot, and just as absolutely bad wing shot as his pale eyed father.

He did well enough if a bird surprised him: the day before he'd taken two as they flew up, he'd reacted without thought, he'd shouldered the gun and fired on the rise, the feathered meal fell from the sky -- but put him ahead of a clay pigeon trap and he was utterly incompetent.

His sisters were artists with a scatter gun.

Both Marnie and Angela were absolutely deadly with a shotgun, and he was content to grant them their expertise.

Michael policed up his brass, dumped the little brass empties in a little plastic bag he'd scavenged from the trash can, dropped this in the well-ventilated tin can and packed them out, leaving nothing but boot prints when he rode off for home.

Michael drew up when he came to the saddle, eyes busy:  like his pale eyed Pa, he took pains to look for possibilities: it was possible that someone could wish him harm, and it was possible someone could try to waylay him on his return home, and he looked for this possibility.

Twice his vigilance prevented what his pale eyed Pa would've called "A Misunderstanding" -- Michael's vigilance meant he'd intercepted the trespassers, rather than them intercepting him, and his approving Pa spoke afterward of Michael's vigilance.

Tonight, with the sun going down, there appeared no threats, and so Michael allowed himself the admiration of a truly glorious sunset, with mountains tearing at the fiery clouds with jagged granite teeth.

His smile never traveled beyond the corners of his pale eyes, but it was there:  he took a long breath of the cold mountain air, then eased his Apple-horse ahead, and steered a course for home.

 

Angela Keller stood on the roof of her hospital, looked tiredly at the sunset.

Coffee steamed in its foam cup in her left hand; she sipped it thoughtfully as the doctor came up behind her, beside her.

"I never get tired of this," she said softly.

"The sunset?"

"Mmm."  Angela sipped again, swallowed.  "The Master's hand."

She felt the man's smile.

"That was a good save, earlier."

"Which one?"

He laughed silently.  "You were a paramedic, weren't you?"

"Still am."

"Thank God for it."

"I had a nursing instructor  who didn't like the fact that I showed up for my first day of nursing school in my medic's uniform. She sniffed as if at a bad odor and said that when I wear the shoes of an EMT, I am merely an EMT, and when I wear the shoes of a nurse, I am only a nurse."

Angela sipped again.

"The next day I wore my Sheriff's uniform to class."

"What did she say?"

"Their legal counsel had to have a talk with her. She didn't like me very much after that."

"I think you set some kind of a record yesterday. You Heimliched an airway in the cafeteria, you delivered a baby out front when the car came screaming in sideways, and you had a CPR save ten minutes later in the front lobby."

Angela drained her coffee, sighed.

"I don't know which is better," she said softly. "This sunset, or this coffee." She turned, tilted her head a little, regarded the man with a frankly appraising expression.

"You don't get enough credit," she said. "You keep up a practice and you're still the chief administrator."

He nodded, swirled the dregs of his coffee.

She patted his shoulder.  "I want to keep you around for a while," she said softly, then headed for the roof access door.

He turned and watched her go.

It wasn't until the heavy steel door closed behind her that he realized ...

He felt like a bashful kid again.

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

"AND HE MADE 'EM NOT!"

Shelly Keller was a paramedic.

Shelly Keller was used to thinking fast and performing under pressure.

Shelly Keller was a dancer, and a good one.

Shelly Keller was a wife and a mother, and very good at responding to the unexpected, especially when her husband's arm snaked around her belly, pulled her back, hard: she seized the back of a passenger-car seat as Linn twisted past her, blocking the aisle, a tenth of a second before multiple concussions slammed her entire living soul.

When the gunfire started, Shelly let go of the seat, fell back, the twins falling with her.

 

The stolen car, abandoned, still rolling, coasted into a utility pole, knocking it over: wires snapped, fell, the car rolled forward more slowly, its doors open, until it crunched into the corner of one of the buildings, stopped, airbags blasting out into the empty cabin, and collapsing just as fast.

Nobody got a good look at whoever abandoned the car and took out running.

The conductor didn't get much of a look at them either.

The conductor turned as running feet hit the steps, as a frantic face shoved through the open door, as something black came down on the side of the conductor's shiny-billed cap.

The conductor's world turned into a pained burst of bright light as he fell, hit the floor.

He was only vaguely aware of being stepped on by a running foot.

Linn turned.

A little girl saw the Sheriff move faster than she'd ever seen him move: his coat spun open and his hand knifed under the flared fabric and she clapped her hands to her ears, her quick young mind knowing that very bad things were about to happen: her eyes were wide and fascinated, and her young heart quickened, in this bright tenth of a second before reality shattered, and she felt -- momentarily, quickly, fleetingly, with the instantaneous realization of the very young -- excited!

Linn's arm thrust around his wife's belly, pulled hard as he twisted sideways, then back, squaring off with the threat, blocking the aisle with his discreetly-armored body.

His eyes were the color of a glacier's heart and his face was tight, pale, looking like parchment stretched over a skull: war sang in his heart and he was ready to sell his soul at a very high price in order to keep his wife and their twins behind her, safe.

Linn saw the hand descending for the pistol shoved into the waistband.

Linn's hand was welded crushing-tight around the black-polymer handle of his issue sidearm.

His tunnel vision microscoped down to the threat and he saw the threat-hand grip the threat-weapon and his pistol fired and his vision suddenly widened and he looked up and saw another weapon and his pistol fired and he saw the head snap back and the third one, the one behind, turned and ran, thrusting a pistol toward the Sheriff and firing and the Sheriff fired once and the third in line went down and Linn lowered his pistol to the first one and he saw his sights, bright, clear, highly detailed, he could have counted the serrated lines on the back of his front sight.

The first felon was only just hitting the floor.

Linn saw bright blood, saw the felon's hand was shattered, saw the handle of the pistol he'd grasped was bloody and busted and he took a step forward, looked at the other two and counted them dead, no threat.

Sheriff Linn Keller realized his body was SCREAMING with adrenaline, he realized he was running about ninety miles an hour inside, he deliberately seized his manic and shoved it into an iron kettle and screwed the lid down tight.

A little girl with bright eyes and both hands over her ears watched the Sheriff take several deep breaths, then she saw his deathly pale face color and darken and she put her hands tighter over her ears 'cause she knew he was gonna get mad and he was gonna get real loud.

The little girl was right.

"STAY DOWN, DAMN YOU!" he roared, and his angry shout was clearly heard by the staring, startled folk on the depot platform.

"NOBODY SHOOTS MY WIFE!"

 

One week to the day earlier, Sheriff Linn Keller practiced that very move that kept his wife alive in the passenger train car.

He'd had no idea fleeing felons would abandon a stolen vehicle, would flee for the nearest refuge, he'd no notion a'tall they would run for the passenger car of the Z&W Railroad, that they would board it, intending --

Intending what?

Doesn't matter.

They were fleeing pursuit.

They were unlawfully armed.

Unlawful flight, under arms, aggravated specification, automatic prison term.

Add additional charges for Aggravated Stupidity.

He knew he had 72 hours before he had to make a statement; he had that long to decompress, to allow the investigators time to gather witness statements, to download surveillance, to take their measurements and make their ballistic comparisons, to get statements from the surviving felon.

Sheriff Linn Keller gave himself Administrative Leave for those 72 hours, during which he consulted with legal counsel, during which he rode to the far corners of his ranch, during which he made extremely precisely fitted repairs on the wooden section of his corral fence: the State investigators knew the man and they knew how absolutely hard headed he was, and they knew if they pressed him to make a statement before 72 hours was up, they'd run squarely into a stone wall.

Linn's statement, when he made it, was concise, it was complete, and it was given in the same passenger car, sidelined and sealed until the investigation was finished: he ran through it with dummy pistols that fired paint capsules, he had two assistants in padded suits and visored helmets, and he walked the investigation team through the event according to his memories.

He was, of course, no-billed; the Sheriff returned to work, sauntering in the front door as he did every day, as casual as if nothing exciting ever happened.

Sharon looked up, smiled.  "Welcome back, Boss, coffee's hot."

"Bless you darlin'," Linn grinned, "I love you from the bottom of my heart."  He winked and added, "I've got two other girls in the top!"

Sharon stuck her tongue out, stuck her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers:  Linn laughed and headed for the coffee pot.

He drew a mug of hot and steaming, and he looked into its shimmering black depths, and he remembered.

He remembered setting up rows of folding chairs, with an aisle down between them.

He remembered practicing with an assistant, swinging his arm around his helper, thrusting forward, firing the practice pistol at the cardboard silhouette.

He'd recruited one of the high-school Valkyries -- he'd specifically asked for a Judo-trained Valkyrie, on the theory that they know how to fall without being hurt, and knowing his practice would progress to full-speed and full-power -- he stared into the steaming mystery of his coffee mug, and he remembered a high-school Valkyrie who knocked on his door, all pigtails and cheerleader's uniform and solemn expression, and he remembered how surprised he felt when she seized him in a surprisingly strong hug and whispered in his ear, "The bruises were worth it!" -- then she let go and ran back to the waiting car, and he stood there with his teeth in his mouth, wondering what the hell just happened.

He remembered at the inquest, how a little girl in a ruffly dress marched up to the Judge and declared in the high, pure voice of a little child, "I saw it too! I wanna testify!"

Her mother, red-faced, started across the floor, stopped when His Honor raised his gavel and shook his head.

"Young lady," the Judge said solemnly, "please take the stand.  Bailiff, please swear in the witness."

Linn smiled a little as he heard her little-girl voice again, stored between his ears, and he bit his bottom lip as she declared, with an emphatic nod and the absolute certainty of a little child, "The Shewiff said nobody shoots his wife an' he made 'em not!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE CONSULT

Michael turned to one of several references stacked on the desk top.

His Geneva Bible was open, he had a legal pad beside it, he had multiple other volumes at hand: a concordance, a Strong's, a couple others: most had bookmarks sprouting from between their pages.

He'd been working on this, when he wasn't tending chores, for about three days.

Like his pale eyed Pa, this pale eyed son of the Keller line seized on an idea, and he was chewing on it, determined not to let go until he found the answer he was looking for.

One of his younger sisters -- Victoria, twin to his younger brother -- came up the stairs, silent in sock feet:  she came over to his desk, tilted her head, regarded Michael with concern.

"You okay?" she asked in a tentative little voice.

Michael blinked, leaned back, rubbed his eyes: he twisted one way, twisted another.

Victoria winced to hear the cartilaginous complaints from her big brother's spine.

Michael scooted back, leaned forward, took his Baby Sis's hands and smiled, just a little.

"You know what?" he asked in a gentle voice.

Victoria looked at him with wide, wondering eyes.

"What?"

Michael laughed a little.

Victoria smiled: Michael laughed like her Daddy laughed, quietly, as if it were a secret between the two of them.

"I'll tell you what," Michael said softly.  "It's good to look at something other than print!"

Victoria wasn't quite sure what to make of his pronouncement, but she squeezed his hands just a little anyway.

Michael stood.  "I need to make a consult," he said, emphsizing the first syllable.

"What's a con-sult?"

"It's what doctors do when they need a second opinion. They'll call up another doctor and say 'I need a consult.' "

"Oh."  

Vickie considered this, then tilted her head curiously and asked, "Who will you con-sult?"

Michael smiled, stood, reached for his rifle.

"Gammaw."

 

A young man in a faded Carhartt coat and a Stetson, and a pretty young girl on the buggy seat beside him, wrapped up in a quilt and leaned happily against her Big Brother's solid shoulder, rattled up the hand-laid brick driveway that curved around the hillside, their carriage passing under the cast-iron arch that said FIRELANDS CEMETERY, the chestnut mare head-bobbing as she towed the shining, pinstriped carriage up and into the family section.

Victoria was too young to understand that her big brother was being very considerate.

When she said she wanted to go with him, he could have dropped her behind his saddle and ridden up -- at risk of comments of impropriety, a pretty little girl in a pleated skirt, riding astride, her bare legs stuck out in the late December wind and getting cold: no, he took the trouble to harness up their carriage-mare, to make sure the tuck-and-roll upholstered seat was wiped free of any dust, he brought up a step-stool so she could climb into the carriage without difficulty, he wrapped her in the quilt the kept for that purpose,and they drove the short distance to the cemetery.

Michael drew the mare to a halt and set the brake: he reached up, took his Baby Sis under the arms and swung her down, then he reached in, retrieved his rifle, eared the hammer back and checked the chamber, then thumbed the hammer down to half cock.

Two pale eyed Keller grandchildren walked up to a polished quartz tombstone that bore a six point star, and a woman in an oval, laser-engraved portrait.

"Gammaw," Michael said, going to one knee, his rifle's butt grounded and the octagon barrel to the vertical, "I've been studying death."

Victoria looked around, wandered toward a rose on another stone:  bright, scarlet, almost shining, it appeared fresh-cut:  she picked it up, smiled at drops of morning dew beaded on its soft, fragrant petals: she closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, then giggled as the petals tickled her little pink nose.

"I love roses," a gentle voice said, and Victoria opened her eyes and smiled into another set of pale eyes.

"You grew this?" she asked.

"I had something to do with it," the woman smiled.

Victoria tilted her head, regarded the woman's shining emerald gown, the ruby-set brooch at her throat.

"You look like Daddy's picture of Sarah McKenna," she said, and the woman laughed quietly.

"We're related," came the smiling admission, then she swung her wise, pale eyes over to the young man, down on one knee at a grave, talking to the tombstone.

"Michael wants to know something."

"Oh?"

"I don't know what," Victoria admitted with the innocent candor of the very young. "He's been studying lots of books."

"He certainly has," the woman in the emerald gown agreed. "Let's go see if we can help him."

Victoria took the woman's warm, gloved hand and the pair walked over to the grave.

Michael looked up, surprised, then rose, removed his Stetson: the woman swept her skirts under her and sat on the tombstone.

Victoria held out her flower.  "Look, Michael, a rosie!" and the woman laughed a little.

"Gammaw?" Michael asked, surprised.

"It would not be polite to sit on someone else's tombstone, now, would it?" she smiled.  "You have a question, Michael."

"Yes, ma'am."  Michael frowned, his bottom jaw sliding out a little as he did.

The pretty woman with pale eyes looked at Victoria and said quietly, "He looks so very much like his father, doesn't he?" and Victoria nodded, wide-eyed and solemn.

"Ma'am ... I'm trying to learn about death."

"Oh, now, there's a subject men have been trying to learn about forever," the pretty woman said.

"Gammaw, is Death a person?"

She smiled, just a little.

"No," she replied.  "Death is not a person."

"Oh."  Michael looked disappointed.

"You were going to hunt him down and kill him."

"Yes, ma'am."

"It's been tried, but nobody could find him. Death is not a person, Michael, it is a conditions, and it comes to us all."

Michael looked disappointed.

"I understand you've been doing considerable research on the subject."

"Yes, ma'am."

She held out her hand:  Michael parked his Stetson over his rifle's muzzle, took her hand.

She's warm, she's real, he thought.

She's not a ghost.

She looks just like Gammaw.

"Michael, my father told me when I was younger than your sister here, that all the world's knowledge is contained in books. I love books and I love reading. You are learning from your research."

She nodded slowly, approvingly.

"Michael, you are very much the gentleman, and that is most worthwhile."

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, genuinely flattered.

"You took the trouble to harness up the carriage rather than make your sister ride double."

"Yes, ma'am. I didn't want her getting cold."

Michael felt a wave of matronly approval wash over him as pale eyes regarded him closely: as pale as the woman's eyes were, they were filled with grandmotherly warmth.

"Now I can't guarantee I'll be able to see you every time you have a question," she said, "but I can guarantee that researching a subject will get answers."

"Yes, ma'am."

The woman stood.

Michael looked very directly at her.

"Ma'am," he said, "are you our Gammaw Willamina?"

The woman squatted quickly, looked at the oval portrait, looked at the tall boy with a Winchester rifle and a double handful of curiosity.

She smiled, looked down beside her as a great, furry, white, lupine head shoved itself under her gloved hand.

"The White Wolf," Michael breathed, and the woman smiled: she faded, and there was a corkscrew wisp of fog where the wolf had been a moment before, and then the twist of fog sank into the ground and was gone.

Brother and sister looked at one another.

"Sis," Michael said, "do you suppose Mama has some hot chocolate at the firehouse?"

Victoria looked at him and smiled the brilliant smile of a delighted little girl:  she held the rose up under her nose again and closed her eyes, inhaled, savoring the scent, then scampered, giggling, toward the carriage.

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TWO ANGELS AND A HORSE

His given Christian name was Victor, but everyone knew him as Hoghead: matter of fact, the wanted dodger in the Sheriff's saddlebag was headed with the black blocky letters, WANTED:  HOGHEAD MATTHEWS, followed by a poor rendering of the man's likeness, a physical description: his crimes were listed, the reward was named.

The Sheriff knew Hoghead was somewhere close.

He'd been tracking him, and his son Jacob was tracking his little girl Angela, who'd wandered off from her horse high up and by now was who-knows-where, chasin' butterflies or birdies or picking flowers, the way happy little girls will.

The Sheriff was a patient man, but part of him wanted to swat her little bottom for wandering off and leaving her saddlehorse like that.

 

Hoghead's knuckles were scarred, his face was dirty and stubbled, and he'd just swallowed the last of his coffee.

It was cold, it was bitter, but it was his, and now it was gone.

Just as well, the bottom was burnt out of his coffee pot and the only way he had any left was because the pot sat crooked near the fire and it all didn't leak out the rotted out seam.

Hoghead's expression was sour, he had scars visible and otherwise, and he knew the Law was after him: could he but make the Nations, he'd be safe.

He'd managed to get himself gloriously lost, shaking the skilled pursuit: he'd gone into the mountains, he'd worn out one horse, stole another from a remote cabin, left the exhausted nag in its place: hardly a fair trade, he knew, but he wasn't going to go concerning himself with fairness when 'twas his neck Hangin' Judge Hodson wanted to stretch.

Hoghead stood up and froze.

A little girl with bright blue eyes, a little girl in shining slippers and a frilly, little-girlish frock smiled at him, tilted her head:  she looked for all the world to this staring, astonished outlaw, as if she were smiling at a favorite grandfather.

"Hello," she said, waving a little pink hand, and Hoghead realized ... it had been a very long time ... a very long time! -- since he saw anything as pink, as pure, as ... clean ... as the palm of this little girl's hand, raised in greeting.

He raised his own hand, almost ashamed at his unwashed condition.

"My name's Angela," she said, tilting her head and looking absolutely charming and innocent, "an' my horse is losted."

Hoghead expected a lawman, Hoghead expected a bounty hunter, Hoghead expected ... anything ... but this.

Ol' Hog went slowly to one knee, openly staring, his mouth open:  he finally said, "What are you doin' clear out here, little lady?"

Angela giggled, clasped her hands in front of her, turned her shoulder bashfully toward him, rotated left and right the way a giggly little girl will do:  her skirts swung and flared a little, and a very dim memory of his own little sisters swam closer to the surface, and this hard man -- this outlaw, whose profession was to take what was others' and to hurt anyone who tried to stop him -- this man with a soul as stained as his unwashed hands, felt himself soften a bit at the sight, the sound, of this smiling little child.

 

Jacob Keller followed Angela's mare's tracks.

He cursed himself for ever saddling the mare for his little sis.

He'd taken pains to shorten the stirrups for her, he'd made sure the saddle pad was just right, the saddle was screwed down snug, he'd hoisted Angela up onto the placid old mare's back.

He thought he was going to walk around the corral, maybe out into the field, leading the old veteran nag by the cheekstrap, but the moment Angela got settled in and found both stirrups, the mare bunched up and shot ahead, driving for the far fence like a dapple-grey arrow.

Jacob curled his lip and whistled, seized saddleblanket and saddle, and for the first time that day -- very definitely not the last -- damned himself for seven kinds of a careless fool!

Jacob never claimed to be an expert tracker.

He'd heard the town's attorney, Mr. Moulton, offer the studied opinion that "An ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a drip under pressure" -- he never forgot the lawyer's definition of an expert -- but fair is fair, he was pretty damned good at following someone who didn't want to be followed.

Macneil was long dead, and the world was a poorer place for it, but before the man died, he'd taken a liking to Jacob and taught him what to look for, and how to look for it.

Jacob's pale eyed Pa was good.

Jacob was better.

He urged his stallion ahead, following his little sister's mare's trail.

 

"What kind of horse do you have, little lady?" Hoghead asked carefully.

"She's losted," Angela sighed with a dramatic rise and drop of her shoulders.

"Your ... mare ... is lost."

Angela nodded, her big blue eyes wide and sincere.

"But you're not."

Angela shook her head, then swung her entire body again:  she extended her arms and spun around like a dancer, and Hoghead remembered his own sisters doing that very thing, when he was still a boy at home.

The thought of a fresh horse overrode any altruism, and his sneaky nature came to the fore.

A trusting child, a fresh horse?

My lucky day!

"Let's find your mare," Hoghead said, and Angela's smile was sunrise-bright as she happily piped, "O-kay!"

 

Jacob rode quicker now, as the trail was plain -- that his, he rode until his horse stopped abruptly and he realized his attention had been too much on puzzling out tracks and not enough ahead.

A horse stood crossways of Angela's mare's faint hoofprints, and on the horse, a stranger.

"Mister," Jacob said, "I'm lookin' for my little sister. She's on a dapple grey mare --"

"You can't have her," the man interrupted.

Jacob's eyes went dead pale:  Apple-horse threw his head to the side as Jacob's right-hand Colt whispered from carved leather and chuckled to itself as it rolled into battery.

"I'll have her," Jacob said, his voice tight: "you can stand aside or I can kill you or take you to jail."

"You will do nothing of the kind," the man said, dismounting and opening his coat. "I'm not armed."

Jacob holstered his revolver.

"Mister, I'm a Firelands County deputy Sheriff, and my little sister is lost. You can get out of my way or I can get you out of my way."

"How?"

The man's insolent smile, the sneer in his voice, triggered Jacob's young pride.

He swung down, unbuckled his gunbelt and hung it over his saddle horn: righteous anger fired his boiler and he paced forward.

The stranger was fast: Jacob was faster, he slipped his head to the side and missed the punch, drove a quick one-two into the man's ribs, stepped back, blocked a punch: he seized the wrist, twisted, tried to down him with leverage.

The man drove a fist into Jacob's wind, broke his grip: they separated, Jacob fought to get air back into his lungs.

The pair crouched, then drove into one another again: Jacob's boot heel caught the man squarely on the kneecap, he seized the stranger by the throat and the crotch, hauled him off the ground, slammed him down, hard.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller heard a familiar voice -- 

Angela?

He dismounted, dropped the bitless reins, his golden stallion obediently halting: the big Palomino blinked sleepily, looking bored, looking like he might drop his head and take a nap.

Linn catfooted around a rock, saw the man he was looking for, saw his daughter, still out of his arm's reach.

Linn's left hand Colt was in his hand, the sound of its cocking lost in his challenging shout:

"HOGHEAD! THIS IS SHERIFF KELLER! HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE 'EM! ANGELA, BACK UP!"

Hoghead weighed his chances.

He'd never met that pale eyed lawman with the iron grey mustache, but he'd heard plenty about him, and he knew the little distance between himself and this pretty little girl was not enough to keep him from inheriting a thumb sized slug between the shoulder blades -- knowing that pale eyed old lawman, likely it would be through the back of his head! -- Hoghead raised his hands, slowly, waited.

"Angela, back up."

Angela looked disappointed.  "Okay, Daddy," she said in a small, little-girl's voice.

Angela turned, dejected, head down, her bottom lip pooched out and nearly down to her belly button, or so it seemed from her expression, then she looked up, brightened.

Her mood went from sorrow to joy in a tenth of a second or less.

"Dapple!"

 

Jacob crouched a little, and so did the stranger.

Civilization was gone, manners and gentility did not exist: here were two warriors, each intent on besting the other: Jacob, fueled by a young man's rage, against this stranger who refused to stand aside.

Mighty blows they gave, and took: each grappled, seized, threw, punched, kicked: finally they drew a little apart.

"Enough," the stranger said.

Jacob felt one eye swelling almost shut: he wiped the back of a bent wrist across his agonized nose, realized from the bright burst of pain it was likely broken: his ribs hurt and he knew they'd hurt worse later, but he was warmed up and his blood sang with the joyful rage of a young man at war who knew he was absolutely in the right!

The stranger looked no better: Jacob had genuinely taken his measure, and Jacob heard ribs crack when he drove his elbow into them, or his boot heel, he was satisfied the man's knee should have broken when he drove the stacked-leather heel hard into the kneecap.

"You fight well," the stranger said: he wiped a hand across his own face, and the damage was gone: he straightened, all sign of injury, of exertion, just ... gone.

The stranger took a step toward Jacob, took another.

Jacob could not move.

The stranger's hands were feather-light as they passed across his face, down his ribs: everywhere he'd taken a blow, the hands passed over, the pain disappeared: Jacob's eye wasn't feeling swollen, his cheekbone -- he thought he heard a crack when he got hit below the eye -- there was no pain.

The stranger stepped back.

"You fought for your sister," the stranger said.

Jacob could move again.

He reached up, touched his nose with the backs of two fingers.

No pain, he thought.

He looked at his bent fingers.

No blood.

"You did not fight for yourself," the stranger said. "You fought to keep your sister safe. You knew you could not do that until you found her."

Jacob turned his head a little, eyes locked on the stranger, debating whether to go for the gunbelt still hung over Apple-horse's saddlehorn.

The stranger changed, Apple-horse screamed, Jacob seized his stallion's cheekstrap and was hauled off the ground for his troubles.

 

"How's for coffee?" Linn asked in a mild voice.

Hoghead's hands were still up, shoulder high: he looked warily at the pale eyed lawman.

"M' pot's rusted out," he admitted, "an' I run plumb out of coffee."

Linn nodded.

"I've enough for two.  Angela?"

Angela came scampering past Hoghead -- out of arm's reach -- she ran over to her Daddy, hugged his leg happily, looked up with an absolutely adoring expression.

"Angela, if I fetch out the coffee pot, could you get us some clean water?"

"Okay, Daddy!" she piped, her voice as happy as her beaming expression.

Linn looked at Hoghead.

"Stand easy," he said, "and don't go anywhere."

Hoghead stared as the lawman went back to his saddlebags.

Likely going to get a set of irons, he thought, I'll fight him then, I've got a knife and a hideout gun.

The Sherff untied a canvas poke behind his off saddlebag, pulled out a blue-granite coffeepot and handed it to his little girl, who ran happily downhill to where a stream bent against the rock.

"Stoke up the fire," Linn said quietly, tossing ol' Hog a cloth wrapped bundle.

Hog caught it, smelled it, looked up, surprised.

"Ground that one yesterday morning."  Linn's face was unsmiling, but Hoghead heard no threat in the man's voice.

Linn used a stick to shift one of the fire rocks, brought the little blue granite pot to level: he opened the cloth bundle -- it contained two smaller bundles -- he untied the smaller bundle, dumped it into the cold water.

"Ground eggshells," he explained, seeing Hog's eye catch a glimpse of small white particles falling into the pot.  "Helps settle the grounds."

"My Mama used to do that," Hog said slowly.

Linn went back to his stallion, back into the cloth poke, pulled out two tin cups: he got into the saddlebag, fetched out the wanted dodger, brought it back.

"Can you read?"

"I can read."

Linn handed him the dodger.

Hoghead read it, read it again, stared at the poor quality engraving of a man's face.

"That don't look like me," he said.

"No it don't," Linn admitted.

"How do you know I'm him?"

Linn's pale eyed glare was answer enough.

Hoghead looked at the wanted poster again, stopped at the bottom.

"Hodson," he grunted.

"Hangin' Judge Hodson," Linn echoed. "I'm not takin' you there."

Hoghead's surprise was genuine as he looked up at the Sheriff.

"We're goin' back to Firelands. Food's better, the bunk doesn't have bugs and Judge Hostetler is a fair man."

Linn was good at reading men, and he read relief in Hoghead's shoulders as they sagged just a little.

Two men drank scalding coffee on a mountain trail while a pretty little blue-eyed girl watched them, hugging her knees under the drape of her skirt.

 

Jacob seized his screaming fear, his hand flat on the Appaloosa's neck: with word and with caress, he calmed the stallion, and the stallion, with the familiar voice and the familiar touch, calmed enough not to haul Jacob off the ground again and drag him along behind like a black-suited kite tail.

Jacob turned to what used to be a man: he buckled the gunbelt around his middle, looked very directly at this terrifying vision, all eyes and wings and light.

"You're an angel," Jacob said -- a statement, not a question.

Yes.

The voice was little more than a whisper, heard in his mind and not with his ears.

"You were sent to delay me."

Yes.

"Is my little sister safe?"

Jacob had the momentary vision of his little sister, looking with interest at his father and another man, drinking coffee beside a small, smokeless fire.

"Will she remain safe?"

Yes.

Apple-horse pulled, hard, his eyes walling: he was dancing, clearly unhappy, and suddenly this terrifying apparition with more eyes and more wings than Jacob could easily count, just ...

... disappeared ...

... and Apple-horse stopped fighting.

Jacob stood, staring at where the angel had been, then out of habit he looked to the ground for tracks.

He saw Angela's mare's prints -- here, one track, where the sand was pocketed, and there, where the steel shoe scarred a rock -- Jacob stepped into the stirrup, followed the tracks, considering he was pretty damned lucky this fellow didn't put his hip out of joint.

 

"You realize," Hoghead said, "the man you're after is dead."

"Which one?" Linn grunted.

Hoghead set the cup down, smiled, stood.

"Thank you for the coffee," he said, and he disappeared.

Linn blinked, looked around, looked at his little girl, who was looking up at a shallow angle, smiling as if hearing something very pleasing.

Jacob met his father and his baby sister riding toward him.

Each stopped, each looked long at the other.

"Sir," Jacob said, "have you noticed anything ... unusual?"

"Daddy was tested!" Angela's voice was almost joyful in its certainty.

Father and son turned and regarded the pretty little girl as she walked her mare between the two lawmen, stopped.

"Daddy could have shotted the man 'cause the poster said dead or alive but he didn't. He made coffee."

Jacob looked at his little sister, raised an eyebrow.

"Daddy could have taken him back to the bad judge that likes to hang people but he was gonna take him to Judge Hots-tetler 'cause Judge Hots-tetler is fair!"

Angela emphasized the word fair! with an emphatic nod of her head, setting her curls a-bounce as she did.

"An' den da Angel disappeared!"

Angela's words were almost a happy shout, and she spread her arms overhead as if to illustrate the burst of a great soap-bubble.

"Angel," Jacob said slowly.

"Jacob, what did you see?" the Sheriff asked, and Jacob smiled with half his mouth and said "I reckon I could ask the same thing, sir, but you asked first, so here's what happened."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

POPEYE THE ROTT

Michael fished in his coat pocket, pulled out a set of keys, opened the door.

Two shining dark eyes and a wet nose greeted him.

Michael shut the door behind him, locked it, fooled with the happy, tail-whipping Rottweiler.

"Popeye, you wanta go ouuuut?" he asked, drawling the word out:  Popeye, an aging, greying-muzzled Rottweiler, fake-sneezed loudly to emphasize that yes, his bladder was ready to bust, open that back door fast!

Michael unlocked the back door, let Popeye out into the spacious, privacy-fenced back yard.

His neighbor was still recovering from having most of one leg cut off, diabetic infection: the man's wife was spiraling down into Alzheimer's, she'd been taken away by squad and she was under a 72 hour mental health hold, somewhere.

Michael knew Pete asked his Pa to have someone let his dog out, and Michael did, four times a day, and he stayed a bit and fooled with the sociable Rott.

He also washed dishes, carried out the trash and mopped the kitchen linoleum, because Popeye tracked in mud that last trip out, and Pete's house was always tidy.

Michael knew his Pa was a busy man -- hell, he was the Sheriff, he was always being called or asked or served or responding to this-or-that -- Michael took pains to tend what was needful, and when Pete asked his Pa to let Popeye out, Michael told his Pa he'd tend that detail, and did.

Michael knew Jacob used to bring the tractor over and give the man's yard a haircut every Monday, like clock work, he'd more often than not bring a weed cutter and string trim where it was needful: Pete was diabetic and had trouble with his legs, and now he was healing up from an amputation.

Michael took out his phone and took Popeye's picture, close-up and happy, sent it to Pete: the day before, he'd brought in the man's mail, laid it out on his kitchen table so the return addresses showed, one above the other, took that picture and sent him: he knew Pete's sister tended his bills these days, he knew Pete would instruct his sister according to the mail received.

It was little enough he did, and Michael felt it wasn't enough, but short of moving in -- or taking Popeye home with him, which his mother allowed as she didn't want him to do -- well, he was doing the best he could.

Michael changed which lights were on, with every visit, and he left the TV set on in the living room, to try and make it look like someone was home, and active, and once a week, he started Pete's pickup truck and let it idle, then he drove it to the end of the driveway and back, to keep things limbered up, keep seals from drying out, keep the battery charged.

Michael sat down with Popeye, rubbing the old dog's chest, murmuring to him, calling him a good boy: Popeye licked Michael's chin, happily accepting the attention:  Michael sat down on the backless sofa and Popeye piled up behind him, warm against his back, and Michael smiled a little.

Few things feel quite as good as a sizable, happy-to-see-you dog, piled up against your tenderloins.

 

"You're quiet tonight," Linn said softly.

Michael looked up from his supper plate, his face solemn. "Yes, sir."

"Story at eleven?" Linn asked.

Young eyes watched them; Shelly considered the pale eyed father and the pale eyed son, and she knew from the gentleness in her husband's voice, that he was remembering the authoritarian nature of his own father.

It was not the first time Shelly was most grateful Linn did not repeat the parenting mistakes that were made with him.

"Sir," Michael said, "I've been doing my schoolwork over at Pete's."

"Sounds like an efficient use of time."

"Yes, sir," Michael agreed. "Popeye listens well."

Linn nodded, forked up another stab of pot roast: he looked at Shelly, his eyes smilling.

"That's good pot roast," he murmured, and Shelly warmed a little inside: Linn's mother made a truly superb pot roast, and for him to complement his wife's, was an achievement indeed.

Linn looked back at Michael.

"Are you doing memory work?"

"We have to give a Shakespearean."

"Takes practice," Linn agreed. "That's why I'm talking to my windshield when I drive. Helps me with degree work."

"Yes, sir."

"Popeye listens well?"

"He does, sir, though when I'm working on algebra, he'll come along and nose my elbow 'cause he feels ignored."

Linn chuckled. "I understand that one!" he said, nodding, then tore a roll in two, mopped his plate clean:  he looked at Michael and said "It's impolite to mop your plate. Makes it look like you're still starved out, but your Mama's good cookin' is too good not to!"

"Yes, sir," Michael agreed.

"A man's character is revealed," Linn said slowly, "when he does the right thing when nobody's lookin'. I understand you keep Pete's house clean."

"Yes, sir. Popeye has big paws and he tracks in mud."

Linn nodded. "Nobody sees what you're doin'."

"No, sir."

"You know Pete doesn't have two nickels to rub together."

"Yes, sir."

"He's got nothing by way of worldly wealth."

"No, sir."

"He can't pay you for your efforts."

"No, sir."

"But you're still helpin' him out."
"Yes, sir."

"Michael," Linn said, looking very directly at his son, and knowing full well that younger ears were listening, younger eyes were watching, "you reveal your character by these things. You are doing it right, and I am proud of you."

Michael's grin was quick, genuine.

"Thank you, sir."

Linn leaned back as Shelly and one of the girls collected their plates, as a slice of fresh baked chocolate cake descended to the tabletop before him.

Further conversation was suspended in favor of dessert.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

OLD NICK

"I'll be damned," Marnie said softly.

Dr. Greenlees joined his wife for lunch, and as was their habit, they sat side by side to catch up on news from home.

Marnie was scrolling through the obituaries.

"Anybody you know?" Dr. Greenlees murmured, leaning into his wife and running his arm around her back.

Marnie purred and laid her head over on his shoulder.  "I'll give you a week to stop that."

Doc began scratching her back with long, practiced strokes:  Marnie arched her back like a cat, snapped her head back, eyes closed as she savored the sensation of a skilled back scratching.

"Purrrrrr," she said.  "Oh, purrrrr."

Doc Greenlees laughed, scratched a little more, rubbed her back with the flat of his palm.

"It looked like you saw somebody you knew."

"Yeah," Marnie said, almost drowsily:  "Old Nick died, damn him!"

"Who's Old Nick?"

Marnie looked at her husband, tilted her head back, accepted his careful kiss, laid her head back over onto his shoulder.

"He's one of the few people my Daddy ever really disliked!"

 

Sheriff Linn Keller stepped in front of a man, pale eyes cold, his jaw set.

"Nick."

"Sheriff."

"You went into Willy's employment."

"So?"

"You told him if you saw him with your wife, you'd take a shotgun and shoot him."

Nick shifted his weight, his eyes shifting down and to the side, giving him all the sincere appearance of a gutter rat on a mission.

"You left your wife, Nick. You're shacking up with a younger woman. That's your business. You threatened to kill a man. Now it's mine."

Nick glared at the Sheriff, not daring to deny what the man apparently already knew.

"I gave him orders, Nick. I told Willie if he sees you with a weapon, he is to shoot you dead on the spot. I'll see to it you're buried face down so you can see where you're going."

"You can't do that!"

"I've done it before," Linn said quietly. 

Nick's hand drifted backwards a little and a voice behind him said, "Don't," and there was the unmistakable triple-click of a revolver coming into battery.

Nick was wise enough to freeze.

Linn put him up against the nearest wall, pinned him with one ranch-hardened hand clamped around the back of the man's neck: he relieved him of a switchblade, snapped the blade open, then stuck the blade in a gap in the brickwork and broke it off.

"You ever do that again and I'll shoot you myself," Linn said quietly. "Never reach for anything when you're talkin' to a lawman. You could have been shot just now and it would have been no-billed. You made what's called a furtive move, and with a knife in your hip pocket, why, the jury would say 'twas justified."

Linn pulled him away from the wall, spun him around, slammed him against the brickwork, his hand hard on the man's windpipe.

"You left a good woman," he said quietly, "you left the mother of your children and you're shackin' up with a sweet young thing. You have no claim on the woman you left. Willy didn't want to press charges but he did want to let me know what you said. You ever talk to him again, you go near him, if you survive I'll lock you up on as many charges as the law will tolerate."

Marnie eased the hammer down on her Smith, holstered, fast up the thumb break on her floral carved holster.

Linn released  his tight grip on the man's throat.

Nick's eyes swung over to Marnie, looked away: as hard as the Sheriff's eyes were, the sculpted ice of this Daughter of the Law, turned a coward's face from her as quickly as a grasping hand seizing him by the cheekbones and twisting his head.

Marnie stood beside her Daddy as Nick walked quickly away, glancing over his shoulder at them as he did.

"You don't like him," Marnie murmured.

"I hate few things, Marnie," Linn replied, "but one of them is a coward, and he is King among the breed."

 

"Did you know him?" Dr John asked as he rubbed his wife's shoulders, kneading the tension out of the base of her neck.

"I knew him," she replied.

"I take it you didn't like him."

He felt her silent laughter, felt her lay her hand over his skilled fingers.

"I had a chance to kill him once," she said, "and if I had a bushel basket of gold shekels, I'd pay the Witch of Endor to resurrect his miserable carcass so I could twist his head off and ball bat it over the backfield fence!"

Edited January 2 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TEAM FIRELANDS

Marnie Keller flipped her twin braids over her shoulders with a quick twist of her head: she held out her hand, received the two rounds from a grinning, older man wearing a carpenter's apron bulging with shotshells, she thumbed them into the Ithaca's magazine.

Marnie Keller set her saddle shoes at shoulder width, her left a little forward, she brought the red rubber recoil pad to the shoulder of her cheerleading sweater, and she smiled.

"Pull," she said quietly.

A claybird disappeared in a cloud of orange dust, bright against a cloudless blue sky.

A second clattering thump behind her, another clay bird, sailing through the cloud of pulverized, baked predecessor: Marnie's Ithaca spoke again, another empty hull hit the ground, and a pale eyed high school freshman raised her shotgun's stubby muzzle to the vertical, turned and looked at her broadly grinning Daddy.

There were twenty students on the line today: they'd reserved the range, they were competing to see who would go to the Regionals, and Marnie was first to shoot.

She knew she'd have a few more rounds to go; like the other shooters, she waited until the last station shot, then they all turned and went back to let the next squad come forward.

Marnie was shooting her Daddy's shotgun, the one he carrried in his cruiser: he told her it was a little long for her, and she hugged him and leaned the side of her head into his chest and said "Oh, Daddy," the way she did when she was wheedling him out of something, then she laughed and kissed his cheek and said, "If you'll screw the Modified tube in your shotgun, I'll bet you a hot fudge Sundae I can break twenty!"

Now, when the first squad came off the line and the second squad came up, Marnie hung the shotgun, muzzle up, from its carrying strap on her left shoulder and stood beside her long tall Daddy.

"Nice work," Linn murmured. "You didn't want to shoot your own gun today?"

"Daddy's shotgun is lucky," Marnie smiled, and her ear pulled back a little as the Sheriff's talkie chimed the quick two-note repeater tone.

Marnie's face went from happy and girlish to pale and solemn in a tenth of a second or less:  she slipped the short shotgun from her shoulder, seized the choke tube wrench: she switched the Modified for the Improved Cylinder, which her Daddy preferred:  the Sheriff was half-bent-over, noting information on his flipped-open pad that lived in his shirt pocket.

Marnie snugged the choke tube, dropped the choke wrench back into the plastic tacklebox they kept extra tubes, parts, cleaning supplies and miscellaneous necessities: she shoved the magazine full of 00 buck, thumbing the last round into the magazine as her father reached for the gun.

"Got to go, Princess," he murmured:  "Be careful, Daddy," she replied, and watched as the Sheriff strode for his tan cruiser.

Marnie picked up a gun case, unzipped it, gripped another shotgun by the hand-checkered wrist: she lifted the two-tone gun case free, draped it over the table, frowned as she read the stamp on the little flat on the exposed choke tube's knurled collar.

Marnie slung this shotgun from her off shoulder, like she'd done with her Daddy's cruiser gun.

It would be several minutes before her squad cycled back onto the line, so she leaned back against the heavy wooden table, a pretty high-school girl in her cheerleader's uniform.

Mary Lou came over, stood beside her: like Marnie, she wore her pleated-skirt cheerleader's uniform; like Marnie, this one also employed a long sleeved sweater, worn over a white blouse; like Marnie's, she wore a gold pin on the top bar of the gracefully-curved script-F.

Mary Lou's pin was a shotgun, in profile: Marnie wore the same shotgun, with a gold rifle on the second bar, and a gold pistol on the curved upright.

"Did he take the bet?" Mary Lou asked hopefully.

Marnie looked at her, smiling a little, the way two girls will when talking about boys or other girlish subjects: "He took the bet."

"Good."  Mary Lou smiled. "When he buys you a hot fudge Sundae, he buys for the team!"

"But he only buys if I break twenty today."

Mary Lou giggled, nudged her with an elbow, gave her another conspiratorial look.

"Don't miss," she said, "I really want that hot fudge Sundae!"

 

The Valkyries were not the only students competing to see who would go to Regional.

Marnie's stiffest competition came from two upperclassmen, local boys with custom stocked over-and-unders: they'd worked and scraped and saved for these high grade trap guns, and an anonymous benefactor paid for custom fitting of Circassian walnut stocks: the boys had no idea who'd made the donation, and try as they might, they weren't able to find out.

They had to satisfy themselves with expressing their thanks to their shooting coach.

By the time Linn returned -- which was well into the afternoon -- he was just in time to see Marnie, on the line, her extended-magazine 870 stoked:  he heard her quiet, confident, "Pull!" -- he saw the doubles sail out, saw the trap crew reset and throw without prompt: he knew Marnie was challenging herself, this was an optional stage, where twenty birds would throw out as fast as the loaders could cock the thrower and drop birds on, two and three at a time.

Marnie's rhythm was steady, her aim unerring: her left hand had eyes -- she fired three times, loaded two into the magazine, fired twice, shoved in two more, then a third: her hand dropped from the loading gate, seized the fore-end: she breathed easily, she knew her pupils were dilated, it was all she could do to keep from quivering like a bird dog on point, waiting for the next salvo of clay birds to come sailing out.

Linn leaned back against his cruiser, arms folded, smiling quietly:  he nodded just a little, watching his daughter punish the sky with cloud after cloud of orange dust.

Linn was not the only proud parent present.

He was, however, the only one who caught his daughter, as she came running to him, shotgun slung over her off shoulder, screaming "Daddy, I did it, I did it, I did it!" as Linn caught her under the arms, swung her high in the air, dissipating her running momentum by spinning her around, his head back and laughing, Marnie's delight and wide eyes plain for the camera to see.

That was the picture Bruce Jones caught for the Firelands Gazette's next issue:  a pale eyed Sheriff, his uniform Stetson just falling off his head, his delighted daughter, pigtails flying, skirt flared, legs bent up behind her as her big strong Daddy whirled her around, and the shotgun carried by Marnie's Gammaw Willamina, slung over her shoulder, secure in spite of the triumphant hoist toward the blue heavens above:  that afternoon, Team Firelands adjourned to the chrome-and-mirrors, 1950s-decor drugstore and ice cream parlor, and triumph was celebrated with chocolate hot fudge Sundaes, all around.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GUESTING

Linn's counterpart accepted the stone jug with a quiet, knowing smile.

Father of the bride and father of the groom looked to the door of the man's study: the servant drew the doors shut, bowed as he backed out, left the two alone.

"I have no idea," Linn said slowly, "what a proper gift might be, so I asked the Daine boys if they had any jugs of Uncle Will's Finest."

Jacob's father in law smiled quietly: "If it's anything like our local product," he said, "I look forward to a touch. Will you join me?"

"I will, thank you."

Two glasses were produced; Linn watched with approval as the man worked the corn cob stopper loose, set it carefully aside, picked the jug up by its ring and dropped it over his bent elbow to decant two volumes: it was evident he was used to handling a jug, or at least had been, at one time.

Two men raised their glasses in salute, two men considered the rose-colored payload that filled the glasses to the one-third mark -- again, Linn thought, a sign of the man's experience.

They drank.

Ruth's father closed his eyes and savored the sip, letting it scald the hair off his tongue, sterilize his tonsils and warm him clear down to his belt buckle, where it ignited a warm and comfortable fire in his boiler, so to speak.

"Now that," he said with satisfaction, "is sippin' likker!"

"We've a tribe of Kentucky mountain folk nearby," Linn said quietly.  "Master gunsmiths, best craftsmen when it comes to wood work I've ever seen, and this" -- he swirled his glass a little -- "is another of their skills."

"I've never had anything quite like it," McGillicuddy said thoughtfully.

"Half and half moon likker and homemade wine. This batch was aged about 75 years."

"I've never had its equal," McGillicuddy admitted.

"Nor I," Linn admitted. "It's potent. Goes down like Mama's milk and blows the socks right off your feet."

Two men laughed, raised their glasses to one another again, drank.

 

Shelly's gift to her counterpart was equally ceremonial, but far more modest: a length of silk ribbon, a paper of pins, a pincushion with exactly 21 sewing needles, arranged in a precise circle.

Why this was the proper greeting-gift, Shelly did not know, but she was most grateful to Jacob's wife Ruth for letting her know the propriety of this first meeting-gift.

They'd met before -- it was a careful meeting, almost an overly cautious meeting, as it involved offworlders, and offworlders related to the Ambassador herself, friends to their own Ambassador: this meeting, after the first child established the fertile bond between their peoples, was considerably more relaxed.

Neither Shelly Keller nor Mary Ruth McGillicuddy had any real liking for stiff formalities: after the ceremonial giving of ribboned pins and pincushion, the ladies sat down to talk as women will, to discuss their husband, to lean toward one another and share confidences: we will leave such matters to the ladies, for there are other activities to consider.

There were horses on this world, as there were on nearly all the Confederate worlds; just as Jacob had his beloved stallion back on Earth, Ruth had her favorite mare here, but she also had her Papa's chestnut, a horse he forbade her to ride, as he raced the chestnut stallion on occasion.

Ruth, of course, exercised a child's prerogative and rode the stallion at every opportunity, a fact her father politely ignored: Jacob admired this fine animal, regarded it with a horseman's eye, ran his hands over the stallion's neck, down his forelegs, examined the hooves -- he straightened quickly, shook a fist at the stallion's mischievous attempt at biting Jacob's backside -- Jacob ran his hands down the horse's flanks, turned with his fist up again as the stallion came around, made another try.

Jacob shook his fist, frowned, set his heels:  "Glue Hoof," he said warningly, "I'll knock you into the middle of next week!"

The stallion's head came up with what looked to Jacob's amused bride, to be an expression of utter, equine, innocence.

Jacob turned back to the horse, bent over, made to pick up the horse's hindhoof.

The stallion's dentistry clamped shut with the speed of a striking viper --

Jacob straightened --

Ruth clapped her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide, surprised --

Her Papa's prized stallion had Jacob's bandanna in its teeth and was waving it triumphantly.

Jacob planted his knuckles on his belt, his jaw thrust out, and he shook his Daddy-finger at the offending equine.

"Youuu dooty rat," he said in a truly awful Jimmy Cagney voice, "Youuu dooty, dooty rat!  I'd oughta give to you, see, nyaah, nyaah!" -- which prompted the stallion to turn and nudge its forehead into Jacob's chest, which prompted Jacob to rub the stallion under the jaw and around its ears, and elicited sounds from his beautiful bride somewhat reminiscent of a chicken laying a meteor.

 

The corn cob was carefully replaced into the jug's glazed neck: each man agreed that a third of a glass was God's aplenty of Uncle Will's Finest.

Shelly and Mary Ruth relaxed and fussed over their first grandchild, pink cheeked and healthy, bright-eyed and smiling: by the time Jacob and Ruth came back in, smiling, supper was almost ready, and it was a toss-up as to which grandfather was making a bigger damn fool of himself with the grandchild.

Grandfathers do that.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Edited January 5 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BOOM

One moment Sarah Lynne McKenna and her Mama were discussing the latest shipment of ladies' fashions to the Coast.

The next, Bonnie looked up, startled, as Sarah bolted -- launched -- drove from her chair to the door, running in what appeared to be an utter, blind panic, out of the dress-works and towards town.

"Oh, no," Bonnie murmured:  she put her ledger on the shelf, removed her glasses, folded them and placed them carefully in their colorful, Japanned case, placed this on the shelf with the ledger.

She rose, tugged at the bell-pull:  one of the girls came in, dipped her knees at Bonnie's summoning ring.

"Have my carriage brought around," Bonnie said quietly.

"Yes, ma'am."

 

The concussion was felt for several miles.

Its effects lasted for some time afterward.

The Emerald Rose Brick Works was in a turmoil: Kiln #1 just detonated, chunks of brick were falling to the ground, men were shouting, running toward the long, brick kiln.

Callused hands seized gas valves, turned them, shut off the supply: yellow fires flared within, where no yellow flame should ever be: as the valves closed, these renegade flares shrank, died.

A boy was boosted up onto a horse, the boss's hand smacked the horse's backside, a little boy with a grim expression gripped the mare's reins and galloped toward town, toward the hospital, toward help.

 

Chief Finnegan rose slowly, his bottom jaw out: his face wore the same determined expression he'd worn when he was ready to bust knuckles and bust jawbones in a Cincinnati street brawl.

"ALL HANDS ON DECK! TURN TO, DAMN YE LOT, OR I'LL HAVE YER GUTS FOR GARTERS!"

Three matched white mares, drowsing a moment before, came to sudden, dancing life: they knew their collars would be lowered, the harness dropped over them, they knew they'd be harnessed up, and the knew they'd be given let to run, to run with all the joy of their kind, with all the celebration of horses that loved to pull their shining Seam Machine at an absolutely breakneck velocity.

The German Engineer leaped onto the tailboard, snatched open the firedoor, slung in two scuts of coal and a splash of the Devil's breath: they kept their boiler warm, that they could make steam faster, and when the Chief roared his stentorian summons, all hands wanted steam up, and they wanted it five minutes ago!

"CHIEF! WHATTAWE GOT?" the New York Irishman demanded loudly as they seized the hose wagon, hitched it on behind the Steam Masheen.

"NO IDEA, LADS! NE'ER FEAR, WE'LL FIND OUT!"

 

Esther Keller inspected the still-warm brick, smiling at the stamped words, Emerald Rose, running its length: most of the bricks were plain, though the made glazed brick with decorative designs, for laying walkways, for masonry work that required a more decorative appearance: these were for construction, the stamped name would be seen only while the brick was being laid, but Esther insisted on this cartouche: she wished to impress upon the minds of every brickmason that handled her product, that Emerald Rose bricks were the very best.

The brick fell to the ground, not because it was stripped from her gloved fingers, but because Esther was blown away from the brick by the concussion of an explosion.

She was in one of the worst places to be, short of inside the kiln itself -- she was in front of its open end, and the detonation focused the gas explosion's blast like a gunbarrel.

Esther Keller, the green eyed wife of that pale eyed old Sheriff, premier businesswoman, owner and chief executive of the Z&W Railroad, of the Emerald Rose Brick Works and of multiple mining operations in multiple states, flew through the air like a leaf before a hard gust of wind.

She had no recollection of hitting the ground.

 

The sight of a pretty young woman, running, her skirts snatched shamefully high, stockinged legs flashing in the sunlight, was at once shocking, and alarming: the velocity of her travel was, in and of itself, enough to elicit concern.

When she skidded on her hard little heels -- when she nearly fell, when she leaped onto the hospital's stoop, when she seized the bell-pull and yanked, hard, those folk who'd seen her approach knew -- with absolutely no doubt -- that something was very, very, wrong!

 

Bonnie was halfway from the dress-works and the firehouse when she was passed by a boy on a horse.

She knew the boy, and she knew the horse, and she knew the urgency of their speed: her eyes swung over to the firehouse, saw the big wooden valves swing open, saw three matched white mares dancing impatiently, throwing their heads, clearly wanting to run.

"BONNIE!" Sean roared, reins in one hand, blacksnake whip curled in the other:  "BONNIE, WHITHER AWAY?"

Bonnie looked at Sean, looked toward the hospital.

She turned back to Sean, opened her mouth, just as the hospital's front door slammed open and something with long stockinged legs, flying petticoats and big pale eyes came streaking out, leaped to the street, ran at the top of her young lungs toward three matched white mares and a big, curled-mustache Irishman in the driver's box.

"EXPLOSION AT THE BRICK WORKS!" Sarah screamed, opera-trained lungs driving her words before her:  "EXPLOSION IN THE KILN!"

Saran seized the polished brass rail, vaulted into the driver's box:  Sean swung his blacksnake whip, snapped a hole in the air a yard over the center mare's ears, slacked his reins:

"RUN, LADIES, RUN! SAINT FLORIAN, SAINT CHRISTOPER AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN'S TEARS, RUN!"

Sarah Lynne McKenna sat, braced her feet on the dash board, gripped the brass rail with one hand and Sean's belt with the other as three, pure-white firehorses, did what they absolutely loved to do.

Smoke, shining brass, polished hooves and an Irishman's voice, happily singing a Gaelic war-song, and behind them, a woman bringing her carriage hard about.

Less than a minute later, Parson Belden seized the twisted hemp bell-rope and pulled, pulled again, the cast-iron bell spreading alarm, its metallic summons following Irishmen in pressed-leather helmets and a mother in a shining carriage.

 

Father and son shared a look.

Father and son rose to their feet.

Father and son picked up their Stetsons, settled them in place.

"Jacob, you go on ahead."

"Yes, sir."

 

Esther Keller felt hands gripping her, felt herself being turned over.

She looked up, squinted: a shadow fell across her face and she could see.

Esther blinked, confused.

Why is Bonnie upside down?

Another face, right-side-up:  Jacob.

"Lie still," Bonnie's lips moved: Esther frowned, squinted, divined what Bonnie must have said: she knew Bonnie was soft spoken, but good God! was all that screaming noise?

A hand gripped Bonnie's shoulder: that sun again, searing Esther's eyes: she squinted, turned her head a little: someone gripped her head, someone ...

Dr. Greenlees, she thought.

No one else has such cold hands!

She saw the good Doctor's lips move: she frowned, tried to sit up.

His hand laid itself on her high chest, across her collar bones:  only a physician would be so bold as to touch a woman's bodice without her let-be, and his lips moved again, and this time he frowned.

Esther opened her mouth, worked her jaw, raised a hand to her ear, then slapped her hand hard against the ground, found a wrist, seized it: of a sudden the world was assuming a hard list to starboard, while rotating and dropping by the bow.

Bonnie knelt, hugged her, Esther clutched her desperately, her eyes closed: she laid back down, teeth clenched, half sick.

Esther felt several hands working their way under her, she felt herself lifted, she felt herself put on what must have been a litter of some kind.

Esther Keller, woman of business and commerce, matron and icon of society, rolled up on her side and managed to throw up over the side of the litter.

 

Sarah McKenna rode back to the firehouse, waited until the mares were unhitched from the Steam Masheen, until they were hitched to the surplus military ambulance: she rode back with them, chewed her knuckles helplessly as Esther, on her side, clutching the hardwood pole on the left side of the litter, was hoisted, slid into the ambulance.

A blanket was unfolded, snapped free, draped carefully over her:  Sarah and Bonnie looked at one another, each seeing the distress in the other's eyes.

"You go," Sarah said quickly. "You're her best friend. You should be with her. I'll take the carriage back."

 

Sheriff Linn Keller rose as Sarah came through the door.

Sarah saw his quiet smile fade as he saw her face.

Sarah swallowed and said the most difficult words she'd spoken in her life.

"It's Esther," she said. "You're needed at hospital."

 

The kiln had not even begun to heat when the explosion occurred.

The foreman went over the startup with them who were there when it happened.

Apparently either the pilot flame went out, or the insurance fire hadn't been lit beforehand: gas filled the kiln, someone realized it hadn't fired, threw in a burning gob of greasy rag waste, and boom.

They surveyed the kiln's arched roof, calculated the damage: they switched to Number Two, and the foreman went to see if Miz Esther was still alive.

Every man there watched him depart, every man there felt his stomach slide slowly down to his shoetops, for Miz Esther was well loved by them: not only was she absolutely fair as a boss and as an owner, she was genuinely liked.

 

Jacob was pacing like a panther.

Sarah, on the other hand, sat composed, a Western Queen on a velvet-upholstered throne.

Jacob stopped, turned, glared at Sarah.

"Go on, say it," Sarah said quietly.

"If I say it I'll have to see it done."

"So do it."

Jacob glared at his sister, looked to his right, at the paneled wall with a vase of flowers painted on hanged canvas: he looked at the other wall, at a vase of flowers on a shelf, then looked back at Sarah.

"Doc needs a bigger waiting room."

Sarah arched an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

Jacob nodded solemnly. "I can't get three steps before I have to turn and go the other way."

"I see."  Sarah rose, took Jacob's hands.

"Jacob," Sarah said quietly, "I'm not sure what to say."

Jacob frowned, studied his sister's face.

"How's that, Little Sis?"

Sarah hauled off and punched him in the chest.

"Papa is coming through that door and I haven't any idea what to say to him, little brother!"

Jacob grinned with half his face.

"Little Sis, I oughta turn you over my knee and fan your little biscuits!"

Sarah ran her arms under his, hugged him desperately, buried her face in shirtfront linen:  Jacob hugged her to him, whispered "I'm scared too, Sis."

The door opened, the Sheriff's silhouette was black in the sudden blaze of light.

The others in the waiting room saw the man's face as he saw Jacob and Sarah in embrace, saw the controlled anger in his son's expression.

"Jacob?" he said.

Jacob raised his head.

"Alive, sir."

Linn's face was a mask: he knew he was watched, habit alone bade him show no expression, not even now.

"Where?"

Jacob raised an arm, thrust a stiff hand toward one of the three doors.

Linn strode to the door, several of the townsfolk followed him with their eyes.

Jacob released Sarah, followed his father.

 

"Was anyone hurt?" Esther whispered.

"Besides you?" Doc Greenlees said, his face unsmiling. "I haven't heard."

"I have to --" she started, sitting up a little, then fell back, brought a forearm across her forehead, the other hand seizing the edge of he bed.

"Lie still," Dr. Greenlees said, not unkindly. "You're likely dizzy as hell."

Esther tried nodding her head, clenched her teeth as she realized that, too, was a bad idea.

"I can barely hear you."

"That should fade in a few days. You might have ringing in your ears for some long time."

"My husband," Esther whispered, not daring to speak any louder. "He'll be worried sick."

She felt a familiar warmth as a hand laid itself over her blanched knuckles.

As cold as Doc Greenlees' hands were, her husband's hands were just as hot: she'd joked with Bonnie that sleeping with Linn was like sleeping with a full length bed warming pan, and Bonnie asked if Esther ever put her cold feet in the middle of Linn's back when he slept, and Esther described a yelp and a launch as if her husband had been Clap Boarded across his backside, and both ladies laughed quietly: now, though, now Esther was content to know Linn was there.

Linn was there, and everything would be all right.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

RESISTANT

Retired Chief of Police Will Keller opened his door and smiled.

A pretty young woman in a bright-red dress and heels struck a pose, batted her eyes: "Hey, sailor, looking for a good time?"

Will's smile spread into a laugh: he stepped aside and Angela Keller sashayed into his house, swivel hipping with every step: she got three steps inside the living room -- just enough for Will to close the door -- she stopped, she turned, she leaned over with her hands on her knees and laughed the way she used to when she was a little girl.

Will opened his arms and Angela hugged him, quickly, firmly, looked up at him, eyes shining: "Uncle Will, can I ask a flavor?"

"For you, darlin', anything," Will rumbled.

Angela drew back, tilted her head, took his hand and brought his arm out so she could wrap her hand around it.

"I'm going out for dinner," she said, "and I would really like the company of a handsome older man!"

Will laughed again, and before he could say as much, Angela said, "Yes, I know both you and Daddy were accused of carousing with younger women -- once Daddy was out with Marnie, once you were out with Marnie, and both times" -- she sidled up to him, nudged him in the ribs with her elbow -- "Hey, fella, who was that younger woman you were out with, nudge, nudge, wink wink!"

Will nodded.  "I remember," he sighed.

Angela took her uncle's warm, strong hands, squeezed them gently, looked into her Uncle's eyes.

"I wore red so the town gossips would have something to clatter about!" she said mischievously. "So which will it be?  The Silver Jewel, the ice cream place, do we go over to Ruby's Boardwalk?"

"I like Ruby's," Will admitted, "but I'd like something nicer if I'm in the company of a beautiful young woman."

Angela raised up on her toes, kissed her uncle quickly on the cheek. "Flatterer," she whispered, giving him those adoring eyes, those long lashes that she knew would just plainly melt the man's heart.

"We can walk, or my car is warmed up."

"Let me change. You had me at warm!"

 

Angela looked very proper, very feminine, as she sat across from her dignified Uncle.

Her Uncle Will was not quite the quick change artist Marnie had been, but he wasn't bad: he was out of blue jeans and a flannel shirt, and into a suit and tie, much more quickly than Angela expected.

She didn't even get a chance to do up the few dishes in his sink.

She drove to the Silver Jewel; Will was content to let her handle the detail, though it would have been more proper for him to do the driving -- besides, he'd like to try wheeling this pretty purple Dodge with the long bulge down the hood. 

He was a Crown Vic man himself, and very fond of Ford's large displacement Interceptor engines, but he also knew these turbo Dodges would flat out scoot, and somewhere in his old man's carcass, lived a laughing young man who delighted in exercising his lead foot.

They settled in at an intimate little table in the back room, just the two of them: Will ordered for both, which pleased Angela greatly -- she took pains to conduct herself as a lady, and she delighted when a man conducted himself as a gentleman -- after the server left water and a platter of fresh sourdough and soft butter, Angela rested her chin on delicate fingertips and regarded her Uncle rather frankly.

"You realize," she said, "I'm doing this as a matter of medical necessity."

Will raised an eyebrow. "It's medically necessary to eat?"

"No, silly," she smiled, and Will remembered her voice, her smile, when she was still a little girl, laughing and saying "No, silly."

Angela batted her eyes and said, "If a prizefighter hadn't set foot in a gym in ten years, then squared off against the current Golden Gloves champ, he'd get pounded into the canvas."

Will considered this, nodded.

"It's the same with your immune system. You've not gone much of anywhere or done much of anything since you retired again. Your immune system hasn't had to work much. I'm getting you out into the world to keep it active."

Will grunted. "So you're making me sick to keep me well."

"I'm preventing your getting sick, Uncle Will," she said quietly, lowering her head a fraction as she did: "I know how fast a sinus infection will knock your butt in the dirt."

She leaned a little to the side, pretended to see through the tabletop.

"Cute butt, by the way."

"Thanks," Will said innocently, "I'm rather attached to it myself."

The server came in with their salads as Will and Angela were both laughing.

 

Will held Angela's hands, gently, the way an older man will: he gazed fondly at his niece, pride swelling his heart as he considered what she'd accomplished in her young life.

"Uncle Will, you're a Mason."

It was a statement, not a question.

Will nodded carefully.

"I heard Daddy say something about a secret of a Master Mason, how it was a secret given in confidence and not part of the ritual."

Will turned his head a little, as if to bring a good ear to bear, nodded again.

"Uncle Will, I'm not a Mason -- obviously! -- but I understand confidentiality -- both as law enforcement, and as Medical."  

Angela laid her hand on her Uncle's lapel.

"Can I give you something with that confidentiality?"

Her Uncle Will nodded gravely. "Anything, darlin'," he rumbled.

Angela licked her lips, swallowed, looked away, looked back.

"Uncle Will," she almost whispered -- he frowned, shook his head, raised two fingers to his ear.

"I'm sorry," Angela said, raising her volume a little.

"That's better, darlin'. A lifetime and loud noises and I can't hear quite as well, and I'm glad you drove, for I don't like drivin' at night anymore."

Angela nodded, swallowed again.

"Uncle Will ... you know Marnie is on Mars."

Uncle Will nodded.

Angela opened her mouth to say something, hesitated, closed her mouth.

She looked away, looked back.

"I'm sorry.  I ... can't."

Uncle Will steered her toward the kitchen table, pulled out a chair:  Angela sat, very properly, very ladylike.

Uncle Will pulled up another chair, sat knee to knee with her.

"Darlin'," he said in that deep, reassuring voice of his, "do you remember the only advice I gave you the day your Daddy pinned that six point star on your shirt pocket flap?"

Angela blinked, smiled:  "You told me when in doubt, follow my gut."

"Somethin' tells me," he said, "you just did."

Angela nodded, opened her mouth to explain:  Will raised a forestalling palm.

"Darlin'," he said, "you hold a confidence. I thank you that you were willin' to share it with me, but then you realized the fewer people know it, the less likely it'll be to get away."

Angela reddened, dropped her eyes, nodded, her fingers fumbling with the metal tips of her belt the way she did when she was a nervous little girl.

Will leaned forward, laid gentle fingertips on the back of her hand.

"Darlin', that advice still stands. When in doubt, follow your gut. You were doubtful so you didn't."  

He winked reassuringly.

"Well done."

Angela looked bashfully at him, the way an uncertain little girl will do, and Will patted her hand gently.

"You did the right thing, darlin', and thank you for that dinner."  

Retired Chief of Police Will Keller grinned, and Angela could not help but smile as well.

"It does an older man good to be seen in the company of a really good lookin', younger woman!"

 

 

 

 

Edited January 18 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MY WIFE, THE GHOST

"There it is again."

Two red-wool-shirted Irishmen stood out on the firehouse apron, listening.

Faint, in the distance, a woman's voice.

The engineer looked at the truckie and shook his head.

"Where from?"

The truckie looked across the rooftops, at an upward angle, toward the cemetery, looked back.

"You have to ask?"

Another ten minutes and the firehouse was emptied if its Brigade: men stood on the snowy apron, two with binoculars: they searched with their ears, with their eyes, with good high grade glass.

The wind was carrying out of the west, bringing snow with it: when it slacked, they heard the voice again.

A woman's voice it was, and beautiful.

Someone, somewhere, in this cold and snowy midnight, was singing.

The Welsh Irishman opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

"I've got her."

"Where?"  Another set of glasses raised -- Fitz had his personal set of Bushnells, not as good as the department's Zeiss, but they were a gift, so he used them -- he scanned the distance, searching.

The clouds fractured, tore apart, a shaft of moonlight lanced down and illuminated the Firelands Fire Department's Irish Brigade, meandered across town into the distance: another fracture, another shaft, walked up the side of Cemetery Hill, caressed polished quartz tombstones with a monochromatic hand, and they all saw her this time.

A woman it was, in a long, emerald gown, shining in the moonlight, then the clouds closed, and she was gone.

 

The Sheriff laughed and patted a friend's shoulder: Linn was coming into the Silver Jewel and an acquaintance was going out, he'd come in just in time to catch the punch line of an old and well worn joke, and it still brought a laugh to the pale eyed lawman to hear it.

Linn knew the Irish Brigade would cycle off, B shift would take over, and his wife would meet him here for breakfast. 

Usually she ate with her firemen, unless she was meeting her husband and sometimes husband and family: it was handy for her, she didn't have to clean up afterward.

He heard hurried steps on the boardwalk outside, turned: there were those who watched the lean waisted lawman as he entered, and those who did, saw him scan the interior, then turn at the sound of quick, urgent footsteps outside, at the sudden pull on the Silver Jewel's ornate, heavy door.

Bruce Jones came in, snow flecking his shoulders:  he looked at Linn, and Linn lifted his chin, turned his head a little, nodded: come with me, we're going there.

Linn usually waited at the front of the Silver Jewel for his wife, but at the newspaperman's sudden appearance, Linn knew the man either had information, or had questions, and Bruce was never what you'd call a terribly patient sort in either case.

Linn knew his best bet was to sit down with him, figure out what was on his mind, and take it from there.

They got halfway back to the Lawman's Corner and the door opened again.

Shelly came in, hugging herself in her colorful red-white-and-green plaid wool coat and a knit cap with what looked like an exploding yarn pom-pom on top: on anyone else it would look silly, but on Shelly, it looked good.

Linn thrust out an arm, palm down, curled his fingers twice in a come-here motion: Shelly, Fitz and one of the firemen single-filed after the Sheriff.

Linn stopped, looked at his entourage, saw two more of the Brigade headed his way.

He looked at Bruce, tilted his head to the side and said, "We're in the conference room this morning."

 

Over bacon and eggs, sausage and fried taters, over apple pie and an unholy volume of really good coffee (with vanilla, Linn's favorite!) both the Irish Brigade and Bruce Jones discussed the previous night's observations.

Linn was obliged at several points to stand, to raise both hands for slience, then to thrust a bladed hand at one individual: when that soul had his say, Linn bladed a hand at another:  he, himself, was saying almost nothing.

His breakfast was almost cold; he ate it anyway -- he frowned a little as he considered what had been said -- of hearing a woman's voice, faint at first, until the wind shifted, until the moon split the clouds and spotlighted the singer.

"I heard it -- faintly -- I've heard women scream at night, but this was no scream."

"Once the wind quit and I could hear her, she was singing."

"The Ave."

"I've heard it before but damned if I remember where."

"We got binoculars out of the rigs and saw her in the graveyard."

"She wore green."

"Everything was washed-out grey, everything was black-and-white, she stood out like ... almost like green fire."

"Living green fire."

Shelly looked at her husband, raised an eyebrow.

Linn recognized her signal, nodded, ever so slightly.

"Let me finish breakfast," he said, "I'll go up on Cemetery Hill and see if there's anything this morning. It snowed last night so there's a snowball's chance, but I'll take a look.  Bruce."

The newspaperman looked at the Sheriff.

"See if your computer archives have anything about ghosts on the mountain. Mama and your father scanned in the old editions, archived them on computer and if I remember Mama rightly, you should be able to search by keyword."

Linn looked around.

"Are we agreed that nobody perceived this woman was distressed?"

The Irish Brigade, the newspaperman, all looked at one another and shook their heads.

"Who else would be up and about at such an unholy hour?"

"The fellow who runs the sewer plant, maybe, but he's down in the bottom and he's got compressors running 24/7. He wouldn't hear a sonic boom."

"Okay. Not a crime, then, but something out of the ordinary. My Mama didn't like puzzles and neither do I.  I'll go up and see what's there after snowfall. If you remember anything else, let me know."

 

Linn and Shelly climbed into the tan cruiser, settled themselves, belted in.

The engine started easily, idled smoothly; Linn eased out into the street, drove the short distance back to the house.

"You know something."

"Something Marnie drew."

Shelly saw her husband's face become suddenly, carefully, impassive: he did this when he was acquiring information and not wanting to betray anything he knew.

"Go on."

"I think I know where to find it."

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller smiled brightly, her happy, squealing little boy on her lap.

The usual feminine pleasantries seared through the micron-thick gap separating two realities; their Confederate communication was instantaneous, as it opened a window between two points in space-time, eliminating the slow and clumsy lightspeed communication that limited Earth's commo.

"Marnie, we had something unusual last night."

"Oh?"

"The German Irishman couldn't sleep, so he went out on the firehouse apron just after midnight. You know Firelands, they rolled up the sidewalks and fired a cannon down the street at ten o'clock. He heard a woman's voice. He got us up and we went out and listened.

"Marnie, it was singing, and it was beautiful!"

"Where was it coming from? Were the White Sisters in town?"

"No."  Shelly swallowed, wet her lips.

"We saw her. With binoculars. In the graveyard."

"The ... graveyard," Marnie said, her voice guarded: she turned her head a little, looked down at her wiggling, smiling little boy, looked back at the screen.

"As near as I can tell ... I think she was in the family section, and she wore a shining, almost glowing, emerald green gown."

"An emerald green gown."

"That's what we saw. Bruce Jones is searching the newspaper archives for anything of the sort."

"A singing ghost," Marnie said softly. "See if there are other ghost stories to be had. Bruce might make an interesting series of stories on local ghosts."

 

Chubby little legs, scampered across the floor: a fresh, white-cloth diaper and a happy "Da!" and Dr. John Greenlees was greeted by a delighted little boy who squealed happily as the slender physician picked the lad up and bumped his head very gently against the ferroplast overhead.

Supper was ready when he got home: when Marnie was not away on an Ambassadorial detail, she delighted in being wife and mother, and made it a point to have her husband's supper ready when he got home.

Dr. Greenlees was three bites into a truly excellent pot roast when he stopped, looked very directly at his wife.

"Out with it, Keller," he said softly. 

Marnie sighed dramatically, planted an elbow on the table, leaned her forehead into the heel of her hand:  she straightened, spread her fingers, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, shook her head, dropped her forehead into the palm of her hand.

"I can't win," she groaned.

Dr. John reached across the steaming bowl of mashed potatoes, caressed her forearm with the backs of his bent fingers.

"Dearest," he said gently, "what happened?"
Marnie looked at John, sighed: she straightened, raised both hands, palms-up, fingers spread, shook her head.

"John, I just can't win!"

"I'll buy you a lottery ticket," he offered innocently. "Darlin', I can suture, I can diagnose, I can take out an appendix and I can put a Band-Aid on a skinned knee, but I can't read minds. You'll have to tell me."

Marnie nodded miserably, looked up at her husband, her expression almost that of a guilty child.

"John, you know I love to sing," she said sadly.

Dr. John nodded.

"You remember when I found that big long empty mineshaft and how it echoed, I sang there and it was glorious!"

John nodded again, smiling:  he did indeed remember, and he'd never heard his wife sing better: the accidental acoustics of that massive excavation were perfect, and he'd stood there with tears stinging his eyes, to hear the beauty of his wife's voice in such a place.

"You remember it wasn't as empty as I'd thought. There was a connecting mineshaft, and I was heard at a distance, and rumor started that the mines were haunted, and we played hell convincing the miners that they hadn't cut into a Martian graveyard or something!"

Dr. John smiled, just a little:  he dare not laugh, which he could've -- his wife's expression was genuinely rueful.

"I wanted to sing again, John, so I opened an Iris and went home."

John nodded.

"It was just midnight. I didn't think anyone else was awake. I've always loved singing in the Firelands graveyard, it's always felt so peaceful. Maybe I didn't want the shades of my ancestors to think they'd been forgotten.  

"I sang, John, I sang in the cold and in the moonlight, I sang in the falling snow."

Dr. John nodded, once, a silent go-ahead.

Marnie blinked rapidly, looked away.

"Apparently my voice carried better than I ever thought it would. Cold air, prevailing wind, whatever it was, one of the firemen was outside at midnight and he heard me. Pretty soon the firehouse was empty and they were glassing the mountain to try and find the voice."

"Did they see you?"

Marnie looked to her right, where an emerald-green gown hung, bright and shimmering, where she'd hung it the night before.

"The clouds parted and I was spotlighted by a shaft of full moon's light," she said. "They saw a woman in a glowing green gown, in the old section off the cemetery, and now they're searching for the Singing Ghost."

Marnie shook her head. "You know what this means, John."

"It means I can write a tell-all article titled 'My Wife, the Ghost.'"

"It means," Marnie said, rising and turning to the sideboard, "I need to drown my sorrows in chocolate cake. You want yours with ice cream?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FULL MOON

Just shy of a half dozen backsides were bent over, right in front of God an everybody, displaying themselves most shamelessly in the middle of beautiful downtown Firelands, hub of industry and commerce, center of culture and education.

Well …

Maybe not.

Actually they were bent over with their owners’ heads thrust under the open hood of a rather elderly pickup truck, right across from the firehouse, in front of the auto parts store.

One stood on the front bumper, bent over, reaching clear back to the firewall, or nearly so, at least until a hot radiator cap got too uncomfortable: a young man started to straighten, smacked his gourd on the underside of the hood, half-fell, half-back-stepped, nearly went over backwards:  only a strong set of hands, clapping together around his high ribs, kept him from what the pilots call an "Uncontrolled Descent" onto the cold blacktop.

The Sheriff chuckled a little as he was obliged to take a quick back-step to keep his own balance:  he grinned at the young man who’d nearly gone over backwards.

“You’ll have to thrash that rascally toolbox,” Linn said quietly, merriment brightening his pale eyes:  “it jumped right out where it could trip you!”

“Yeah, thanks,” came the uncertain answer, “I’d kick it but –”

“But you’re wearing sneakers and the toolbox wouldn’t come out in second place,” Linn chuckled. “I made that mistake one time, and once only!”

“You wore sneakers?” another young voice blurted as every set of eyes swung to the good-natured lawman.

“Like I said,” Linn nodded, “I made THAT mistake once and once only!”

“I can’t reach that distributor.”

“I can, give me a screwdriver!”

“You’re cheatin’, you’re up on a peach crate!”

“Yeah, when in doubt, cheat. Gimme that screwdriver and shut up.”

A hand, extended; a fluted plastic handle smacked into the palm as briskly as a scalpel into a surgeon’s palm: a muttered oath, the old points were lifted out, the screwdriver was dipped rather hopefully into the depths of the exposed distributor, a great gusty sigh of relief as the dropped screw clung to the magnetized tip.

“O-kay, got that.”

Linn set a boot up on the front bumper, took off his Stetson, dunked it on the nearest spectator’s head:  “Hold that,” he said, then leaned waaay over and put his height and long arms to good use:  a small but powerful flashlight clicked – “That’s cheatin’! You’re not supposed to see what you’re doin’!”

Linn laughed. “Can you reach the condenser?”

“Yeah.”

“Uncle Pete taught me at a tender age, when in doubt, cheat,” Linn grinned. “Works.”  A few turns of the screwdriver. “I don’t want to drop this screw too.”

“Whoa, hold, hold,” Linn said softly.  “Hold right there.”

Long fingers slid down the screwdriver’s shaft.

“Lift your blade.”

The screwdriver levitated; Linn carefully wiggled the condenser loose, trapping the screw head with one finger:  it came free without difficulty, and Linn looked at the young man with the screwdriver.

“Did you already loosen the nut?”

“What nut?”

“That holds the spade connector on this.”  He held up the condenser, displaying the short bend of wire with the coupler on the end.

“Um, no.”

“Whose truck?”

“Mine, Sheriff.”

“It got to running rough.”

“Real rough.”

“No wonder, if that nut came loose.”  Linn backed up, stepped off the bumper, looked closely at the spade.

“Here, look at this, it’s burnt a little.”

He tapped the screw into his palm, handed off the condenser: it went from hand to hand, was closely examined by an interested audience.

“You’ve got the new ones?”

“Right here, Sheriff.”

“Can you reach it from there or you want to come at it from this end?”

“Let me try it from the front.”

“Mitch, you got that rug in your passenger floorboard?”

“Sure.”

“Pass it up here. Hold on a minute, let me drape this over … this … radiator. You won’t get burnt now, that thing’s hot.”

“Okay. I can reach it … I can see … hand me the new condenser.”

A shining new condenser was tapped from its red-and-white cardboard box, handed across the chasm between fender and center rear of the engine block.

“Whoever put a distributor clear back here needs to be kicked,” came the dark mutter from under the hood:  several eyes saw the Sheriff’s quiet nod of agreement. “Okay, I see where … no, that’s not right.”

Linn looked from one to another, watching as they learned: if they did not have eyes on the immediate focus of the repair, they had ears and the memory of having looked at it very recently.

“Okay. That’s down. Wherinell’s the screw … oh, thank you.  Screwdriver.”

“Feeler gauge?” Linn asked; there was a brisk rattle from the rascally toolbox.

“Clean off the … what’s your gap?”

Young men looked from one to another, apparently uncertain.

“When in doubt, cheat,” Linn grinned.  “That’s a Chevy, set your gap with a matchbook cover, set the time by ear.”

 

Across the street, inside the firehouse squad bay, coffee in hand, a mother and a daughter regarded the shameless display of firm, masculine backsides.

They sipped coffee, looked at one another and smiled, looked back out at the collective display of testosterone being applied to an aging, greasy engine block.

“Nice view,” Angela murmured.

“Mm-hmm,” Shelly agreed.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ENOUGH TALK

Michael Keller planned his work carefully.

He did not size the situation up as a military man, for he had no military experience; he did not plan an assault, an attack; instead, he put his young mind on the same path it had been led, when he and his father worked on a similar problem the year before.

Michael Keller set the aging, faded-orange Dodge pickup in position; he strung rope from the corner of the bed to a fencepost and back, made three sagging runs of twisted jute, enough to establish in equine minds that here was a fence.

Michael had cans of fuel and oil in the truckbed; he set these out, traded his Stetson for a hardhat with a mesh visor and earmuffs, flipped the switch on the ancient David Bradley chain saw.

It started on the first pull.

The saw was old and it was heavy, but Michael was a young man in the green strength of youth, and he rejoiced at pitting his strength against tasks of the kind.

A tree fell, mashed some fence; its branches plugged its own hole, but the fence needed repaired, and besides, Michael knew the firewood was also needed -- less for their own hacienda, more for two households he knew of that could use the help.

Michael sized up the nearest of the forks, decided he could cut it off without the sudden loss of weight causing the rest of the tree to roll -- he'd seen that happen -- he cut swiftly, precisely, but cautiously: once, and once only, did a branch twist and try to bind the saw blade, and Michael wrenched it free before it could pinch it too hard to be removed.

He bucked up the cut branches into chunks that could be easily handled, stacked, split: he labored steadily, the unmuffled two-cycle's screaming racket was enough to discourage the normally curious saddlemounts from coming too close:  even The Bear Killer, who was usually little short of underfoot, stayed away, repelled by the utter lack of any muffling system whatsoever.

Michael gave himself two days for the job, and it took two full days for him to finish it by himself.

He knew his Pa was up to his elbows in alligators, so to speak; his Mama had his little brother off to the City for some dental surgery or another, he wasn't sure quite what-all was wrong, only that he genuinely felt sorry for the fellow: his little sister went with his Mama, and he was home, alone, taking care of necessaries.

Michael paced himself.

Once the heavy cutting was done, once the trunk was limbed off and he had a discrete trunk to be handled, once all the cut-up chunks were stacked, he hitched onto the trunk with the truck, wound in the hubs -- this took some effort, he had to ease the truck ahead or back slightly before they'd wind in, they were the old-fashioned, solid-bronze Warn hubs that wouldn't engage unless they were just right -- once he'd wound in the front axle, he shoved the transfer case into low range, eased the stick into first gear, eased out on the clutch and muttered, "Damn you, Lemon Dog, don't fail me now!"

He managed to get the trunk dragged out, thanks to frozen ground, though it was a task: Michael dragged the trunk well into the pasture, unhitched, left it to be pulled the rest of the way later: he knew a sawmill that bought timber, and likely he'd get something for this one.

He went back, loaded up as much as he could: he propped up two tripods of skinny branches he'd saved out, he ran the rope fence across the gap: firewood was delivered, stacked, ricked up at two households that were most grateful for winter's heat: by happy accident, he ran into Buck Post and asked him about selling timber, and Buck came out and was delighted with the hardwood trunk, already limbed off: Michael was stinging the tractor mounted augur in beside the broke off fencepost when Buck came out:  Michael drilled down deep enough, he and Buck slid the new fence post into the hole, Michael hitched the tractor onto the log and dragged it through the gate and out beside their driveway, where Buck said he could load it easily.

Michael admitted he knew right next to nothing about timber cutting, this was a blowdown and he'd tried to save as much of the trunk as he could, with intent to sell it, but he had no idea quite how to go about sellin' timber.

Buck paid him and paid him in cash:  the two shook hands, Michael went back to the barn, dismounted the augur and hitched on a trailer and material enough to replace the broke down board fence.

That night, after a hot shower, after he changed clothes and went into town for supper, he had occasion to mention his labors to a friend of his father's: it was a casual mention, but apparently the size of a straight, prime-timber hardwood impressed Buck Post enough he spoke of it, and word got back to the Sheriff.

Michael woke the next morning, a little stiff, but not much, for he was young and full of vinegar: he came downstairs and was considering breakfast when his father came through the front door.

Linn walked into the kitchen, still wearing his coat, Stetson still in hand.

"Michael."

"Sir."  Michael closed the cupboard door, gave his father his undivided.

"I just drove to the back of the pasture."

"Yes, sir."

"I see where a tree fell."
"It did, sir."

"That," Linn said in an approving voice, "looks like a good, workmanlike job repairing the fence."

"Thank you, sir."

"I notice you took pains to plumb up that fencepost."

"I did, sir."

"And it looks well tamped."

"I took pains with it, sir."

Linn nodded, slowly, thoughtfully.

"Michael," he said, "what of the tree?  There's a hell of a lot of sawdust and some loose stuff, but it looks pretty well gone."

"I turned it into stovewood, sir, save for the trunk. Buck Post bought it and said it looked to be good straight grain hardwood."  Michael turned his head, thrust his chin toward his father's study.

"The money is in an envelope on your desk, sir."

Linn was quiet for a long moment, pale eyes considering the crease in his uniform Stetson.

He looked up.

"That would have been quite a bit of wood."

"Yes, sir."

"Disposition?"

"I knew some folks needed stovewood, sir, and we've plenty."

"Had breakfast?"

"No, sir."

"Neither have I.  I understand the Silver Jewel has bacon and eggs ain't been et yet."

Michael grinned, for like most young men, he was a walking appetite on two hollow legs, and bacon and eggs sounded better than boiling up some oats like he'd thought to do.

Two pale eyed Kellers climbed in the Sheriff's cruiser, slammed the doors, drew belts across them and thrust chrome steel buckles in until they latched.

Linn reached for the ignition switch, hesitated, looked at his son.

"Michael."

"Yes, sir?"

"When did that tree fall?"

"Three days ago, sir."

"Three days."

"Yes, sir. It took me two days to get it cut up and hauled out, and the fence repaired."

"That," Linn said slowly, "was just one hell of a lot of work."

"Yes, sir."

"You stiff and sore?"

"A little, sir."

Linn laughed.  "Was that me doin' that much work, I'd probably not be able to move in the morning!"

Father and son shared a quiet laugh, then Linn looked very directly at his son.

"That was a hell of a lot of work," he repeated seriously.  "Michael, you saw work needed done, and you did it, and you did it well.  Thank you.  I am proud of you."

"Thank you, sir."

Linn twisted the ignition switch, the engine woke up.

"Enough talk," Linn grinned, "I'm hungry!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Paul  Barrents looked at Linn with knowing eyes.

Linn felt his chief deputy's attention directed like twin obsidian searchlights against the side of his head.

"How long, Boss?"

Linn eased the cruiser over the rise to where they could see the lights of nighttime Firelands ahead.

He squinted, a little, unconsciously, trying to minimize the starbursts.

"How long what?"

"How long are you going to ignore those cataracts?"

Linn hit the brakes, stopped: no other vehicles were visible to either horizon.

He turned, looked at Paul.

"That bad?"

"That bad."

Linn's teeth clicked together, barely audible: Paul saw the Sheriff's jaw muscles bulge a little.

"You've time enough," Paul said. "Hell, you've got a couple months of vacation time."

"More than that of sick time," Linn agreed. 

"Take the time, Boss. Get 'em fixed."

Linn's foot was firm on the brake pedal; the big block Chevy idled quietly, patiently.

Linn blinked several times, nodded.

"I'd be a damned fool not to take my own advice," he said softly.

"That's why I used your exact words."

Linn looked back at Paul, laughed.

It was not a common thing for Linn to laugh in public -- but that sudden grin, that easy, relaxed laugh, was something that did happen on occasion -- with close friends, or with family.

"Paul," he nodded, "your advice is sound, and I shall take it. Let me make some phone calls and I'll let you know when."

Paul nodded impassively as Linn eased off the brake, came down gently on the throttle, headed back for the office after a late evening of keeping things peaceful.

 

Dr. John Greenlees bounced his fist-chewing, chubby-armed little boy on his leg, grinned at the screen.

"How can I help, Sheriff?" he asked.

"Doc, my cataracts are bad enough I need 'em taken care of."

"Shouldn't you consult an ophthalmic surgeon in the City?"

"Doc," Linn confessed, "few things scare me, but the thought of someone cuttin' on my eyeballs just terrifies me. I was wondering if some of that Confederate medicine might be easier than cuttin' out the old and sewin' in a new lens."

"Let me make some calls," Dr. John said thoughtfully. "That's one area I'll need to consult."

 

"You're quiet," Shelly said after supper.

She'd come into his study, she'd taken his hand, pulled:  Linn rose, knowing this to be her signal for a conference, and they sat on the couch together.

"I have a call in."

"You have a call in," Shelly echoed, frowning a little. "Is this ... a good thing?"

The annunciator chimed; Linn rose, went to the desk, tapped a few keys, and an iris opened beside his desk.

Marnie stepped out, hugged her Daddy:  "Pack your toothbrush and give the office a call," she said, then she swept over to her Mama, sat, took her hands.

"I'm going to borrow your husband," she said. "I'll bring him back eventually."

 

Linn did not remember the light touch of the anesthetic clamp Marnie slipped onto the base of his skull; he had no recollection of the procedure, the recovery, the follow-up tests: he woke in his own bed, two days later, with Angela sitting beside him, holding his hand and smiling gently.

Linn looked around, puzzled, looked at his daughter.

"Did something go wrong?" he asked quietly.

Angela squeezed his big, strong, callused Daddy-hand between hers, and she laughed, just a little.

"Daddy," she smiled, "it's all done, your cataracts are gone, you did fine!"

Linn blinked, considered, then smiled uncertainly.

"Here I was going to tell you to proceed with the operation."

Angela laughed quietly. "I'll note that on your chart," she said. "That tells us your anesthetic was properly regulated."

Angela rose. "I have to get back," she said quietly, and bent to kiss her Daddy's forehead. "Dr. John got you right in. He says Happy Birthday."

Linn laughed a little:  "He's early for my birthday," he replied, "but like the old preacher said, all donations cheerfully accepted!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE HELL WITH YOUR LAWS

Flight Commander Hans Hake half-ran, half-fell from the simulator.

He looked at two of the Valkyries, who regarded him with surprise: they'd never known the man to get excited, not even when his wife presented him with a fine, strong son.

Hans landed on all fours: head down, panting, gasping, half sick: he raised his head, looked at two pretty young women in black skinsuits, their black, spherical helmets under their off arms.

"It's not possible," he gasped, shaking his head.  "NOT POSSIBLE!"

 

"Look," Marnie said, spreading gloved hands and looking from one table of skeptical negotiators to the other table of equally skeptical negotiators, "I don't have a dog in this fight. You" -- she extended one hand, palm-up, fingers bent a little, a very feminine gesture -- she turned, which put a slight twist in the drape of her skirt -- she wished to look feminine, womanly, ladylike, non-threatening --"You want the Peninsula and the Cluster Islands."

"They are ours by right," came the carefully firm reply.

"I can appreciate that," Marnie said. "Your people have lived there for more than two-tenths of a century."

She turned to the other table, raised a palm as if to deflect the indiginant, red-faced "See here!" -- she glided a few steps, putting herself between the two tablesful of opposing opinion.

"You've maintained a political claim on that coast for an equal length of time."

Marnie turned, slowly, a full circle: her steps, hidden beneath her floor-length skirt, were quick, small, smooth.

She looked as if she was a figurine in a music box, turning smoothly, mechanically, as if she was on wheels.

"None of the Cluster Islands have any great mineral wealth. Fishing is much better to the north. The peninsula offers little beyond a shallow harbor, not deep enough for your oceangoing vessels."

"We can deepen the harbors!"

"With what?" Marnie asked, turning to the speaker, resting her hands on her womanly hips: "You lack the technology to deepen that harbor. The bottom is solid rock. You lack the ability to drill that obdurate strata. It's not freestone, you can't drill it, and you haven't explosives powerful enough even if you could drill it. The harbors are deep enough for a twenty foot fishing smack and that's about it." 

Marnie looked from one table to the other.

"Your national sovereignty is not in dispute. The Islands and that peninsula are not critical for your national defense. Your warships draft too deeply, they could never get into the harbor at high tide, let alone at low tide. 

"As a matter of fact" -- she folded her arms, then raised one gloved hand to the side of her face, curled her fingers under jaw and tapped the side of her cheekbone with a thoughtful finger -- "I seem to remember talk of abandoning that part of the coastline."

"We never agreed to abandon it!" came the blustering reply.

Marnie turned, glided to her table, sorted delicately through a stack of folders: she opened one, paged through it, smiled.

"Actually, sir, your government already surrendered that section of the coastline to its occupants."

"Impossible!"

"Twenty years ago."  Marnie smiled over her round, schoolmarm spectacles, worn halfway down her nose: she glided over to the challengers' table. "The documents, sir."

"Forgeries!"

"Bearing your signature, and the Governor's seal."

The documents were snatched away, passed from hand to hand as the red-faced man shook his head and muttered impotently.

"And we also have" -- Marnie paused, knowing men would stop their talk, knowing they would strain to hear what additional rabbit she might pull out of the bonnet she wasn't wearing.

"We also have a handwritten order to destroy all copies of the abandonment documents."

"Preposterous! Impossible!"

"It is written in your own hand, sirrah," Marnie said coldly, glaring at the jowl-shaking politician over her spectacles, for all the world a schoolmarm correcting a naughty schoolboy.

The handwritten note made its circuit up the table, then back down.

"Gentlemen," Marnie said primly, "I believe we've come to the end of negotiations. Your own government surrendered all ownership, control, rights and claim to the Peninsula, to the Cluster Islands, and half a hundred miles of coastline north and south both. These abandoned lands were lawfully annexed by the people who chose to live there. Are we agreed that these are the facts?"

A formal vote was taken; the pale eyed Ambassador was informed that she was, indeed, correct.

"Good," Marnie said briskly, dusting her hands together and smiling. "Now that we're finished, I feel like a dance. Gentlemen, if you will kindly move these tables and chairs back, there are musicians waiting in the wings, ladies enough for each of you, and I should like very much to tread a measure with the gentlemen with whom I have butted heads for the past two days!"

 

"It can't be done," Flight Commander Hake muttered, shaking his head. "An object in motion stays in motion, in a straight line, unless acted on by some outside force!"

Two of his best pilots, two Valkyries, whose likenesses were the nose art on their respective Starfighters, listened patiently as the man got his mental legs under him.

"You, you, you can't turn and bank, you can't Chandelle, you can't split-S or loop or roll into a turn or out of a turn --"

"The laws of physics?" one of the Valkyries interrupted.

"Yes. Immutable, unchangeable, laws!"

The two Valkyries looked at one another, looked at their Flight Commander.

"Sir," they said with one mind-linked voice, "the hell with your laws!"

Two Valkyries spun their black, spherical helmets between black-gloved hands, dunked the globes over their shaven scalps: they turned, and as they did, their Interceptors lowered their lower jaw, exposing the form-fitting flight couch each would occupy.

Two black-suited figures lay back in their couches, disappeared: the visual effect was that of a sleek, needle-shaped silver bird opened its mouth, and swallowed two gleaming, licorice coated humans.

The Interceptors did not roar into life with the turbine blast of mighty jet engines, nor did they sear the hangar walls with Mach diamonds screaming from rocket nozzles.

No, the Interceptors withdrew their landing gear: the rectangular feet of the landing gear became part of the hull, and the Interceptors simply ...

... disappeared ...

Hans stood, staggered over to the control panel.

He stared at the holographic representation, he honestly gawked at the sight of two sleek warbirds with yawning cannon running the length of the hull, open mouths black and menacing beneath the cockpit and on either side, and he shook his head in denial as the two Interceptors turned, banked, drew shining silver curves through empty space, as smoothly and naturally as if they were in atmosphere.

Hans heard the airlock hiss open, shut: hard little heels were loud on the smooth ferroplast floor, a gloved hand rested on his shoulder.

"You look troubled," she said, "or you had some bad seafood for lunch."

"No, it's" -- Hans gestured toward the holo-sim tank -- "it's not possible to fly a spacecraft like a, a, an atmosphere fighter!"

"Why not?" Marnie asked innocently. "I just negotiated a dispute, I proved a politician a cheat and a scoundrel and made him like it, and you're telling me the Valkyries can't fly their Interceptors the way they've been flying them since day one?"

"But, but, but -- Ambassador, the laws of physics!"

Marnie leaned close, looked over her spectacles at the troubled officer.

"The laws of physics?" she echoed, and smiled before speaking again.

She whispered, for she knew when a woman whispers, a man listens more closely.

Ambassador Marnie Keller smiled and whispered gently, "The hell with your laws," kissed Hans quickly on the cheek, whirled and skipped away, giggling like a schoolgirl.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MY ADVICE? ARMOR!

Sheriff Linn Keller smiled a little as a familiar figure shoved through the heavy glass doors.

He set his mug down, drew a second, as Angela Keller glided across the polished quartz floor, arms stiff at her sides, insulated-nylon-gloved hands fisted at her sides: her head was pulled down into her turned-up collar, her knit cap was pulled down over her head, and she had the appearance of a contained explosion in blue jeans and a puffy coat.

Linn drizzled milk into two mugs, held one out.

Angela stopped, glared at her Daddy, looked at the steaming mug, muttered "Does yas knows me or what!" and accepted the offering.

Linn took a noisy slurp, picked up a paper napkin and mopped the excess from his lip broom.

Angela glared at him through the steam of her chin-level mug and snapped, "Don't you give me that innocent look, mister!"

"Habit," Linn deadpanned. "It's never worked yet but I keep tryin'."

Angela looked away, looked back: she studied her Daddy's face, then she put her untasted mug on the antique table that lived under their coffee maker.

Linn did the same.

Angela pulled off her gloves, stuffed them unceremoniously into the slash pockets of her pastel pink coat, reached for her Daddy's hands.

Linn opened his arms and she fell into him, hugging him with a surprising strength.

"Darlin'," Linn rumbled quietly, "what happened?"

Angela pulled back to arm's length, her eyes full of misery.

"Daddy," she complained, "why wasn't I a boy?"

Linn considered for a moment.

"I could make a wise guy comment," he said slowly, "but there's more to your question than your words. What happened?"

Angela turned.  "Paul," she called.

Chief Deputy Paul Barrents came over.

Angela took his hand in hers, held her Daddy's hand in her other:  "Paul, if two guys get into it and they can't settle things with words, what do they do?"

Paul's Navajo eyes were veiled, his face almost wooden -- clearly, his walls were up -- but he replied honestly, "They'll go out in the parking lot and settle it with knuckles."

"What happens after that?"

"They'll come back with their arms around one another's shoulders, they'll buy one another a beer and it's over."

"Right!"

Angela let go of both men's hands: she reached up, seized her zipper pull, yanked savagely: the zipper snarled open, she whipped off her coat, turned it around.

"Look close. What do you see?"

Paul frowned, gripped the coat under its arms, drew it taut.

He looked at Angela.

"Nylon?" he guessed.

Angela snatched the coat back, stopped, turned and draped it over a chair, turned back to Barrents.

"Paul, I'm sorry," she said, taking both his hands this time:  "you didn't deserve that."

"Princess," Paul said gently, "I used to hold you when you cried because someone hurt your feelin's on the playground. It's no different today. Someone got to you. Tell me who and I'll skin them."

His voice was quiet, and Angela did not doubt the sincerity of his words.

"Alive," Paul added.

Angela began to doubt that he really meant it.

"With a spoon."

Angela smiled, Angela giggled, Angela seized Chief Deputy Paul Barrents in a quick, impulsive hug, the way she did when she was a little girl and her Daddy wasn't there.

Paul looked at the Sheriff.

It was the Navajo's turn to practice that Innocent Expression, and he tried it, with the same utter lack of success as his boss.

"Isn't this your department?" he asked, a smile widening his weather-tanned face, and Linn chuckled.

"Why don't we park our backsides and talk 'er all over."

 

The Valkyries met in the big round barn under the cliff's overhang.

The Valkyries prided themselves in being what their founder, Willamina, called "Being Effective."

Angela was too young to have trained under her pale eyed Gammaw, but she had the full dose of pale eyed blood, all the hot and violent passion as her pale eyed ancestresses, and when she came in to practice with the Valkyries, she was careful to work the heavy bag and the padded simulacrum, rather than her fellow feminine fighters.

Angela warmed up steadily but quickly, and it did not go unnoticed that her address to the heavy bag was done at full speed and at full power.

Angela was known as a sweet girl, she was known as a gentle soul, she was known as a compassionate but effective nurse, and as she drove punches, chops, elbow strikes, kicks, kneestrikes and brutally murderous attacks on her inanimate opponents, none of the Valkyries doubted but that she had been provoked to violence, and rather than killing the offender barehand, she'd chosen to come here, and discharge the full lightning-strike of her anger on the unliving.

 

Angela did not sit.

Neither did the Sheriff.

Barrents slouched against the back wall, thumb hooked in his gunbelt just ahead of his sidearm, coffee in his other hand: obsidian-black eyes regarded the Sheriff's little girl (yes, a woman grown, he knew, but he'd known her since she came home from the hospital with the warranty sticker pasted on her cute little bottom, or so he'd kidded her!) -- he watched as Angela paced back and forth, as the Sheriff waited patiently.

Angela stopped, looked very directly at her Daddy.

"I was warned," she said.

Linn frowned a little, turned his head as if to bring a good ear to bear.

"Daddy, when I went into nursing school, Mama warned me" -- she stopped, swallowed, crossed her arms, turned: she marched to the far wall, turned, marched back, stopped and looked again at her patiently listening Daddy.

"Mama warned me when I said I was going to nursing school that I should wear my body armor."

Linn nodded, once, a slow lowering of his head, an equally slow raise, his eyes never leaving her face.

"Mama warned me I needed to wear level III ballistic armor with the ceramic impact plate especially in the back pocket because I was going to inherit a fine collection of knives between my shoulder blades."  She stopped, looked at Barrents, looked back at her Daddy.  

"That ... sounds like something ... you would say," she said slowly, suspiciously.

"He did," Barrents agreed.

"I did," Linn confirmed. "I was quoting my Mama."

"Well, you were right, all of you."  Angela dropped heavily into a chair, the way she used to when she was a little girl in what Jacob called an "Eight-Cylinder Huff."

Linn looked at Barrents, raised an eyebrow: his chief deputy shrugged.

"Daddy," Angela groaned, "if I'd been born a guy, we'd knock the dog stuffing out of one another and have a beer and it would be over."

"But with women, once they get their knives into you, it's forever and they don't quit."

Angela lowered her head into her hands, nodded, then she looked up.

"You can quit that chicken feather outfit," Linn said bluntly, "and tell the boss exactly why, and tell her if they straighten out the troublemakers you'll be willing to come back, otherwise adios. Are you filing a formal discrimination complaint?"

"No, Daddy," Angela sighed. "Quitting sounds good. I'm too busy the way it is."

Linn looked at Barrents, nodded ever so slightly.

The Navajo paced slowly, deliberately the length of the conference room, stopped, set his mug on the table and rested both hands on Angela's shoulders.

"They'll work a willin' horse to death," he said softly. 

"I know," Angela sighed, reaching across her chest to lay her fingers over Barrents' comforting knuckles.

She looked up at her Daddy.

"If I do quit there," she said, "I'll still be making the one armed paper hanger look like an amateur!"

Linn sat, slowly, deliberately, leaned over, elbows on his knees, looked very directly into his daughter's troubled face.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "whichever choice you make, understand the knives in the back will never end. Mama told me about bein' knifed more times than one, and mostly by her fellow nurses. That's why she quit nursin' and just kept the license active, she said it made a good parachute in case other employment fell apart and she had to fall back on another marketable skill.

"My advice?"

Angela looked hopefully at her Daddy, nodded.

"Same as Mama told me she wished she'd done before she started nursin' school."

His voice was quiet, his eyes full of memories as he remembered his Mama, recalled looking at the front page newspaper photograph of his Mama in her nursing whites, a scared little girl hipped on her left, a .44 revolver extended in her right hand -- a picture in the paper from where she'd rescued an abducted child, a picture that got her hailed as a hero, and fired as a nurse.

"My advice? Armor!"

 

Edited January 15 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BOTTLE PICKER

Shelly wasn't bristled up like a Banty hen, but she wasn't far from it.

Linn could feel the waves of disapproval beating against him like heat from a hard-fired cast iron stove as he chased corn and diced onions around his plate with his spoon, finally corralling them against a half-eaten biscuit.

He looked at his wife, raised an eyebrow: once his mouth was no longer full, once he'd swallowed and chased the kernels down with a good slug of coffee, he placed his spoon very carefully on his plate, looked directly at his wife and said "Out with it, Crane."

"You told Angela to quit her job."

"I told her I'd rather see her picking up bottles alongside the road than work for that treacherous bunch of back stabbers."

Shelly shook her fork at her husband, shook her head, pressed her lips together: she frowned, looked away, looked back.

"It's the best paying job she's ever had!"

"I know that."

"She'll get a reputation for just walking off the job."

"She'll get the reputation of someone who won't put up with their --"  Linn stopped himself, knowing there were young ears listening, young eyes watching.

"She'll get the reputation of someone who won't put up with their mistreatment," he amended in a slightly lower voice.

His voice was a shade quieter, but there was an edge to it, and Shelly knew she was going up against a brick wall, but she pressed on anyway.

"Linn, she's got dry floors to work on, good light, no rain down the back of her neck --"

"And she's got more knives in her back right now than you've got in your knife block," Linn interrupted. "I asked her if she'd like me to go over there with a singletree and straighten 'em out."

Shelly glared at her husband -- glared, because she could see the imp of mischief in his pale eyes.

"She actually considered saying yes."

"She did not!"

Linn raised an eyebrow.

"Darlin'," Linn said gently, reaching over and laying his hand carefully over hers, "I know what it is to be back stabbed, throat cut, screwed, blued, tattooed, reamed, steamed, dry cleaned, trompled underfoot and treated like genuine dirt. I walked off he best job I ever had and went across town to work security at half the wage and no benefits and I was a hell of a lot happier.  That was before you'd even heard of me. My Mama gave me the same advice I gave Angela, and God be praised I was not so prideful as to not take it. Wasn't long after that something better opened up and here we are today."

"But what if she can't --" Shelly began, and Linn raised a teaching finger and an eyebrow.

"Your daughter," Linn said slowly, "saved up money enough to buy her car outright. Her housing costs are minimal. Her education is paid for. If need be, we can take care of her, but I don't see that need arising. She's a go-getter and I understand she's well compensated for her other" -- he hesitated, again conscious of young ears -- "her other employments."

He didn't want to say "otherworld assignments."

His young knew the need for discretion, if not secrecy, but the least risk put forth meant the least risk overall.

"I'm just worried, that's all," Shelly whispered, turning her hand over and gripping her husband's.

"I know, darlin'.  That's what parents do. Mama worried about me, bless her, and she said the hardest thing for her to do was to watch me make my own mistakes."

Shelly closed her eyes, smiled, nodded: Linn knew she had similar memories, and for very similar reasons.

"Angela is smart and she's capable. I doubt me not she'll do all right."

 

Angela was, quite honestly, lost.

Her escort was called away on some urgent matter -- she was inside a military installation, she knew, she had a visitor's ID clipped to the collar of her white uniform dress -- she stood out from the grey-clad soldiers, a woman in white, navigating a sea of eager young men in lead-colored uniforms.

Angela carried no rank in this planet's military, she wore nothing that could be identified as officer's insignia, yet she was saluted by every individual that came into range, and she returned each salute: she knew this was a mark of respect, for if any individual was recognized in most of the Thirteen Systems, she knew she was it!

There was to be a conference, and she'd intended to attend, and hopefully not participate: she knew generally it would be at their infirmary, or hospital, or however it was called on this world: she stopped a nervous young man and asked with a smile where she might find the base hospital.

His directions were immediate and gratefully simple: she returned his salute and resumed her journey.

She'd walked an impressive distance, and was finally within a couple hundred yards of the facility, when a dull grey hovercar came whizzing up behind her, beside her:  it stopped, the driver nearly leaped from the open, oval vehicle, saluted, apologized: if they'd known she was on foot, they'd have sent conveyance much earlier!

Angela returned the salute and thanked the eager young man, considered the intricate embroidery on his sleeve: she allowed him to open the passenger-side door, waited until the single step was lowered, then stepped aboard, settled herself into the seat, looked left and right.

No sign of a seat belt.

Angela waited until the young man was behind the controls -- apparently this steered with a stick instead of a wheel -- before leaning a little closer and asking quietly, "Can I give you a secret?"

He didn't quite jump, to his credit, but he was clearly less than comfortable: he nodded and said "Yes, ma'am."

"You have a beautiful, almost floral embroidery on your sleeve -- there, on the forearm. Does this denote rank?"

"It does, ma'am," and she saw the bashful grin of the boy he used to be:  "this is the first time I've worn this. I was commissioned First Lieutenant yesterday."

"How delightful!" Angela exclaimed, then tilted her head and regarded the man with an interested expression.

"You realize," she said quietly, "rank isn't simply given. You earned that rank, Lieutenant, and if an off-worlders' words carry any weight, I'm pretty damned proud of you!"

"Thank you, ma'am," he grinned: he turned his attention forward, the dull-grey floater skimmed soundlessly ahead, toward a broad, two story building that reminded Angela a little of her hospital back home in Firelands.

 

A week later, when The Bear Killer stood, shook himself, went to the door with his great plumed tail swinging, the Keller household took note.

Marnie would simply open an Iris, generally in her Daddy's study, but Angela insisted on a more conventional approach: her Iris opened in the barn, a Confederate shuttle eased ahead, into an area kept open for that purpose: a force-tunnel would extend from barn to house, its holographic camouflage completely masking Angela's passage.

The front door opened a crack, at least until The Bear Killer, with paw and muzzle, widened the opening: the huge mountain Mastiff danced on his front paws, and his wagging tail seemed to begin its swing at the base of the skull:  Angela squatted, whispering baby-talk to the great canine, her hands busy, and the look on The Bear Killer's face was one of absolute, utter delight.

Supper was more animated that night, with Angela's laughter brightening the meal: she described how she'd asked that eager young Lieutenant to escort her into the conference, mostly because she was already lost, and didn't want to get any more turned around -- when she came into the great hall, everyone came to their feet, and she was both formally announced, and formally received.

Angela looked at her Daddy, her ears reddening:  "When I see the Ambassador again," she said quietly, "I am going to kick him right in the liver!"

"Why?" Michael blurted:  Victoria's bright-eyed expression told Linn that she was about to ask the same question, but decided to wait for the answer instead.

Angela gave a great sigh and laughed a little.

"It seems," she said, "that I've been promoted to a very high rank in the Confederacy, which nobody seemed to think was important enough to tell me, and I outranked everyone there!  Talk about intimidating!"

"It's bad enough to be called on to speak without preparation," Linn sympathized, "but to find out you're suddenly over everyone there?"  He shook his head in sympathy.  

"Daddy," Angela said softly, "I watched you put on your diplomat's hat so very many times. Do you remember when we were" -- she lowered her palm beside her, indicating a little child's height -- "when we were wee little, and you'd read to us before we went to bed?"

Linn's face had the soft look of a man seeing a favorite memory again, one he'd not visited for some long time now.

"I remember Scripture that you favored, and I put it to use."

She smiled again and recited, "A soft answer turneth away wrath -- I've used that one so many times -- Ecclesiastes, of course, a time for all seasons" -- Shelly saw her husband's quiet humor in their daughter's eyes as she added, "And of course that incisive Scripture, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it!' "

Linn nodded, chuckling.

"Daddy, I remembered how you used your diplomatic skills when things were kind of tense. I did the same thing." 

She looked at her plate, looked up.  

"It worked."

"So you won't be pickin' bottles 'long the roadside?" Michael asked innocently.

Angela laughed. "Not today!"

"Pa said if I found plastic bottles with liquid in 'em I should put a hole in 'em from a good distance."

"Oh, dear," Angela groaned. "They're still using those?"

Linn nodded.  "Sorry to say, we're still finding 'em."

Angela made a face, snarling up half her mouth and half her nose, which got an immediate laugh from her younger siblings, then she smiled again, looked at her Mama and let her Inner Child out for a moment.

"Supper was good, what's for dessert?"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LATE APRIL, WITH PALE EYES

"Sir?"

Sheriff Linn Keller was in his study, looking out on a cold and snowy landscape.

"Yes, Jacob?"

Linn stood at the window, one hand holding a thick, heavy mug of steaming coffee, the slight fragrance of vanilla tickling his palate: the maid knew he loved vanilla in his coffee, she knew he was too thrifty to ask for it himself, so she added just a trickle -- they had plenty, thanks to the Sheriff's thrift and his wife's business acumen, and the maid took pains to stock plenty in their stores, both in the upstairs cupboards, and in the cellars below.

"Sir ... I recall your advice to Spencer yesterday."

Linn smiled, just a little, he felt a slight tightening at the corners of his eyes, felt the muscles of his face shift just a little -- his right ear, especially, pulled back just a fraction more than his left -- he took a savoring sip of coffee, sighed out his contentment, his breath fogging the wavy window for just a moment.

Linn turned, his off hand still behind his back:  Jacob knew this meant the man's sway back was troubling him again.

Linn raised an eyebrow.

"Coffee?" he asked, and Jacob grinned and shook his head.

"Thank you, sir, I've had plenty. Don't want to water every fence post from here to home."

Linn nodded his understanding, lifted his chin toward a chair: Jacob and his father sat at the lean old lawman's unspoken invitation.

"Sir, I've been wonderin'," Jacob said thoughtfully.

Linn's expression was carefully neutral as he regarded his son.

"Sir, I recall you told Spencer women are like birds, and birds think of buildin' nests and raisin' little birds."

Linn nodded, slightly, remembering his words to that effect.

"You are wonderin' about your own wife," Linn suggested.

"I am, sir."

Linn set his half empty mug on the doily-covered sidetable, shifted in his upholstered chair, trying to find a less uncomfortable bend for his congenital discomfort.

"Jacob, you met your wife under unusual circumstances."

"I did, sir."

"For one thing, you have a genuinely excellent sense of direction. Someone could set you blindfolded anywhere in these mountains and in three minutes or less you'd have your bearings, you'd know where you were and how to get home."

"Thank you, sir."

"Your gettin' lost in San Frisco was an unusual situation."

"It was, sir," Jacob admitted ruefully. "I've never been so honestly turned around in my life!"

"Your first sight of your wife wasn't quite ordinary either."

Jacob was quiet for several long moments.

Linn allowed him the moments: he saw the slight closing of Jacob's hands, the almost imperceptible movement of his right arm, as if to seize the handle of his engraved Colt's revolver, the subtle shift of his weight as if to knee his stallion into attack and gallop, and Linn knew Jacob was remembering seeing a pretty young woman, seized, tied, cloth stuffed in her mouth to keep her quiet, being picked up and shoved into a closed carriage with other bound, gagged, abducted young women.

"It's out of the ordinary for a man to ride up and declare war, to bring death and justice to the sinners, to free his wife and the others, and then to drive the whole shootin' match to where the Mayor is declarin' crime to be nonexistent."

Linn saw his son's face tighten the way it did when he was trying to keep from laughing: he knew this because his own face did the same thing, and he felt it now as he leaned forward and said quietly, "Jacob, I would give a poke of gold dust to have seen you wheelin' that carriage right up the sidewalk and seen all those mad as hell young women come a-boilin' off it and stormin' the Mayor at the top of their lungs, screamin' what-all had been done to 'em, while you and Annettee jumped on your Apple-horse and got the hell out of town!"

Jacob gave up any attempt at a poker face:  he grinned, he nodded, he rubbed his callused palms slowly together as he chuckled a little, delighted in his father's approving words.

Jacob's early lifetime had been beyond difficult; the approval of this pale eyed man who'd taken him in as his own, was a powerful thing, and a thing Jacob honestly cherished.

"Jacob, most girls dream about bein' a princess held prisoner in a high castle tower, and a knight in shining armor comes ridin' up to their rescue.  Annette is that princess and that's how she sees you."

Jacob looked sharply at his father, his eyebrow raised in surprise:  it was one of the very rare moments when Linn ever saw his son honestly taken aback by someone telling him something he knew, but knew on a very deep, never-admitted-to-himself level.

"Yes, sir," Jacob said seriously.

Silence flowed through the Sheriff's study:  he reached over, picked up his coffee, drained what little was left:  he turned the mug over, smacked its bottom, watched something nonexistent fall slowly to the floor, stepped as if on an invisible insect.

He felt Jacob's laughing memory, and remembered the first time he'd done that, in the Silver Jewel, how Daisy had given him hell for suggesting her good coffee was bad and how Jacob turned a remarkable shade of red as Daisy swatted his brand-new Pa with a dishtowel, and how she'd turned to him, stabbed a finger at him and declared "And don't ye go gettin' any ideas! He's a bad influence an' no two ways about it, insultin' a puir hard workin' woman's efforts! I oughta take a fryin' pan to him!" -- she'd turned, stomped off, muttering in Gaelic, throwing a hand in the air to emphasize a phrase:  Jacob blinked, and the memory retreated, and he looked at his father.

"Sir, Annette begs me to give you a message."

Linn nodded slowly, his face carefully neutral: he knew Annette as a lovely and cultured young woman, altogether a credit to their family; Esther and Bonnie delighted in sewing her wedding gown, and the community made sure Jacob's newly built house was furnished, and stocked against the approaching winter.

Annette was a diminutive young woman, and it would be easy for the Sheriff to think of her as a girl, but he reminded himself that she was another man's wife, and his habit was to discuss other men's wives with respect:  this his circumspect nod, as his only answer.

Jacob sat up straight, took a long breath, his jaw thrusting out as he frowned just a little.

This told Linn that -- whatever Annette wished to have said -- it was important.

"Sir," Jacob said formally, "my wife begs to inform that I am to be a father, come warm weather."

Linn was a lawman, and had been for some long time now.

Linn practiced the Poker Face, especially when given unexpected tidings.

This, however, was not met with his usual expressionless expression.

Sheriff Linn Keller's face split into a broad grin, he thrust to his feet -- Jacob rose with him, as was his own habit -- Linn took a long stride toward his son, seized his hand in a fatherly grip, laid his other hand on Jacob's shoulder, pale eyes shining with delight.

Linn's mouth opened a little, as if he were trying to come up with the right words -- he released his son, turned, strode to the sideboard and seized the brandy decanter -- two glasses, the gurgle of liquid California sunshine cascading into two squat, cut-glass receptacles -- Linn dropped the tapered stopper back into the bottle's neck, set it back on the shelf, turned, handed Jacob a libation of fatherly wishes.

Linn hoist his glass.

Jacob raised his own.

Two men drank.

Linn stood, his head tilted just a little, a soft smile on his face, something Jacob had seen only once before, when Linn held his newborn child, just before he handed the wiggling, arm-waving, red-faced new arrival to Jacob.

"We must tell your mother," Linn said, and looked up, and Jacob saw his smile widen.

Esther had come into the room, silently, as she always did.

Jacob turned to face her, stepped forward, took her hands.

"Mother," he said gently, "Annette begs to inform that she is with child."

Esther caressed Jacob's smooth cheek with a maternal palm, smiled that gentle, understanding smile of hers.

"I know," she whispered. "He will be born in late April, and he will have pale eyes."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MAYBE IT'S TIME NOW

Jacob Keller sat cross legged on one handmade hook rug, listening closely to his father reading aloud from Gammaw Willamina's unpublished manuscript.

Marnie sat beside him.

Two children with shining pale eyes, looking up at the man they both adored, listening to the carefully researched account of life a century before, the story of their ancestors, their ancestresses.

In their young imaginations, characters took shape in glorious color, in a magnificent surround sound: they imagined this Goddess, this Ancestress, this angel with a double barrel shotgun and a short temper, legs gripping a mountain-tall, shining-black horse and riding arrow-swift across the mountains, skimming easily from peak to peak, with a huge, shining, bituminous hound from Hell beside her, fangs long as man's arm, shining ivory, eyes trailing flame and smoke in their wake -- all this while draping an arm over The Bear Killer's curly-black fur.

They listened to accounts of Sarah, rising from what was supposed to be an imprisoning wooden trunk, with a short twelve-gauge, a bulldog .44 and full intent to avenge herself on all who brought her to this point -- they listened to accounts of Sarah, stepping quickly to the side and drawing the blocky Bulldog, driving it out ahead of her in a cold-eyed, clench-jawed thrust of Justice, saving an oblivious Denver policeman from sudden deadly attack: they giggled over the description of Sarah, anonymous in a feathered glitter-mask, dancing the Can-Can, all stockinged legs and yards of petticoats, their imagination had her looking like a Queen or maybe a Princess, driving a carriage with her little girl-cousin Angela beside her -- how she stood, all Warrior and Valkyrie, driving .32-20 brass into the air as she fired on the escaping felon who made so bold as to push a .45-70 slug between them as they turned into view.

They listened to Sarah as a little girl, punching a Derringer hard into a bank robber's soft ribs and pulling the trigger, they listened to Sarah as a woman grown, married off to royalty in a European country, screaming defiance and scything through the attacking mob with a pump shotgun and her full intent to stack as many carcasses at St. Peter's feet as she could possible manage.

They imagined Sarah, slim and dignified in a mousy-grey schoolmarm's dress, hair pulled up in a severe, old-maid's walnut on top of her head, a hand-whittled pencil thrust through the knot, at once severe and kind as she surveyed the interior of the one room schoolhouse they knew: Marnie looked at Jacob, her expression delighted, as their father's gently spoken words spun the vaporous image of Sarah Lynne McKenna in a lobstertail dress, her hair drawn back, black-chestnut castanuelas in her hands, hard little heels punishing the varnished wood floor of the opera house stage.

Both children were quiet, still, their imaginations working, turning, processing: when Linn was done reading, Marnie blinked and asked, "Daddy, was Sarah an angel?"

Linn laughed, considered for a moment.

"She sang like an angel," he said softly.

"She looks like Gammaw."

"She looks exactly like Gammaw," Linn agreed.

"Does Gammaw sing like an angel?" Jacob asked, his eyes big and sincere.

Linn hesitated, looked at his son, at his daughter: The Bear Killer raised his head, looked at Linn as if asking the question as well.

"I think she does," he said with a quiet smile.

"Pa?" Jacob asked in his sincere, little-boy's voice.

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Pa, how come there's never been a Sarah since .... well, since Sarah?"

Linn laughed.

"Maybe nobody measured up just yet."

"Oh."  Jacob frowned a little, disappointment on his young face.

"Daddy?" Marnie asked in her little-girl voice.

Linn looked at his innocent faced little girl, all bright eyes and sincerity.

"Yes, Sweets?"

"Daddy, I'm a Marnie now, but if I raise enough hell, can I be Sarah?"

The Bear Killer looked at Marnie as she stood, bottom lip shoved out, as she shook her Mommy-finger at her Daddy and scolded him: "Daddy, stop laughing, that's not funny!"

Sheriff Linn Keller, father to two pale eyed children and with more on the way, chief law enforcement officer of the county, amateur historian, could not help himself.

He slid slowly from his chair, laughing, landed on his bony backside on the floor protector, red-faced and, by his own subsequent admission, laughing like a damned fool.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE BUILT IN HEATER

Deputy Sheriff Angela Keller swiped irritably at her goggles, wiping blown snow from the lens: she eased the snowmobile to a stop, looked around.

She pulled a glove free, unzipped a pocket, brought out the little square speaker-mic on its curly cord.

"Dispatch, Angel One. I'm downhill from Hatfield's cabin, nothing in sight."

"Roger your location, Angel One. Proceed as discussed."

"Roger that."

Angela thrust the black plastic speaker-mic back in the pocket, drew the zipper across: she looked over her shoulder, at the oversized infant carrier that started out life as an accessory for a bicycle.

"You okay back there?" she called.

Something huge and black raised a massive head, looked out at her, laid back down.

Angela smiled behind her quilted snow mask, twisted the throttle: she knew this terrain, and she knew where to look.

She didn't have to go far.

Sharon's head came up as she heard the repeater kick in.

"Dispatch, Angel One."

"Dispatch, go."

"I found a boot."

Sharon stopped, curved fingers poised over the transmit bar:  she looked over at the Sheriff, who was bent over a table, studying the map he'd weighted with coffee mugs and a sheathed knife to keep it from rolling up again.

Linn opened his mouth, but closed it when he heard his daughter's voice.

"There's a foot in the boot," they heard, "and a little boy bolted to the top end of the foot!"

 

Angela Keller unzipped the child carrier.

The Bear Killer gathered himself to leap out and join her.

"Stay," Angela commanded in a quiet voice as she brushed snow off the chilled, stuporous little boy: he was dressed for the weather, but he'd gone headfirst off the side of the hill, apparently missing the dropoff he used to run along in warm weather.

Angela stripped off his coat, brushed snow from his drawers with quick strokes of her mittened hands: she snapped the blanket open, laid it over the seat -- "Bear Killer, stay," she said softly, and The Bear Killer, interested, curious, watched as she pulled off the child's boots, then a mitten:  she gripped his foot, frowned -- wet and cold, she thought -- she dunked him down into the blanket lined cocoon, wrapped him part way.

"Bear Killer," she said, "lay on him."

The Bear Killer was no stranger to being used as a pillow, a backrest, a cuddle buddy for the Keller young: Angela had used The Bear Killer in this same manner with her youngest siblings, in the back seat of her Daddy's Jeep:  she knew that her best bet was to get back to where she could get this little fellow into a warm bath, where she could pull a hospital around her like she'd pull the flaps of a welcoming, sheltering tent together once safely inside, out of the rain and where she could get this little fellow warmed back up.

His sock feet, wet though they be, would warm quickly in proximity to the great mountain Mastiff.

"Dispatch, Angel One."

"Go, Angel One."

"There's no way the squad can make it up here. We're going direct for ER."

"Roger that, Angel One."

Angela zipped the cover shut -- a little air would circulate, but not enough to lose the heat the two of them would generate -- she threw a leg over the padded seat, cracked the throttle on her snowmobile, scooted downhill to where she remembered the ground was flat:  she turned around, throttling hard, she assaulted the grade like a personal enemy, lips peeled back from her teeth under her insulating snow mask as she fought her way uphill, as she exploded over the rim in a great spray of powdery-fine snow.

 

Michael Keller stood up in his stirrups, binoculars to his eyes.

He heard Angela coming, and he knew about where she'd be.

He dropped the binocs -- they came to the end of their neck strap, he raised the camera -- 

Come on, Sis, come on, Sis, come on, Sis, he thought, then his finger pressed hard on the shutter button.

He heard the digital camera sing, knew it was biting off chunks of time in thin, rapid slices, knew it was engraving what he was seeing through the viewfinder, onto a memory chip the size of his thumbnail: Michael had never known film photography, he thought digital was all there'd ever been, and he was determined to put a picture, his picture, on the front page of The Firelands Gazette.

He did.

Bruce Jones published the photograph just as Michael saw it through his viewfinder.

Michael cut the photo from the newspaper, framed it and hung it over his desk in his upstairs bedroom.

It was a dynamic shot, it was the kind of picture you can hear, just looking at it:  an anonymous figure in goggles and helmet, wearing a snow mask and mittens, screaming up a grade and getting a foot of air as she did, and behind her, a trailer, also in mid-air:  snow was exploded around them as they blew through the little crest of a drift at the top of the grade, and Michael grinned unashamedly the first time he saw the picture, his picture, when Bruce handed him a fresh copy of the weekly.

The article discussed a lost child, a deputy with an encyclopedic knowledge of her county, a modified child carrier attached as a trailer: a second photograph, with the article, had the deputy, in her snowsuit, with helmet under her arm and mask hanging from her fingers, at the bedside of a little boy who was grimacing happily as a great black mountain Mastiff happily laundered his face, right there in the hospital bed.

The deputy was quoted as saying she'd originally helped fabricate the trailer so she could take her younger siblings for snowmobile rides, and that she'd enlarged and reinforced the trailing child carrier so it could contain a certain curly-furred canine as well.

When asked about this, she said, straight-faced, that "The Bear Killer makes a fine built-in heater."

 

Edited January 20 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN

Chief of Police Will Keller eased his white Crown Vic cruiser down the recently plowed driveway.
The sewage treatment plant was technically in town, though removed from the town proper, on the sound engineering principle that Everything Runs Downhill, especially the second hand political speeches which municipal treatment facilities specialize in processing.

He slowed as he approached the wide-open, chain-link gates.

A cloud of something snowy and rather noisy was advancing toward the gate: occasionally a half-seen figure could be glimpsed, but the sun was out and glare alone was hindering visibility: it wasn't until the operator turned, not until the breeze-borne cloud of sparkle and glare drifted a little away, that Will saw it was the sewer plant's operator, wearing a backpack leaf blower, using the hand held wand to blow snow away from where it wasn't wanted.

Will considered this and nodded.

Shoveling that much white stuff would be more work; this wagging of a plastic air blast nozzle did the job faster and more completely, and besides, it was probably more fun -- or at least less drudgery -- than employing the Hillbilly Dragline.

Will could call it that.

He and his twin sister Willamina originated from Appalachian Ohio, and more times than one, both had been called a damned hillbilly -- which gained the speaker either a good laugh in return, or a punch in the gut, depending on the situation.

Will waited until a larger area was blown free of snow before easing into the fence enclosure; the snowy, sparkle-hooded, melt-beaded-goggled figure raised a glove, a finger with it -- Give me a minute -- he blew out a turnaround area, backed away, returned to what he'd just cleared, gusting the fine return-flakes that rode back in his wake.

Will eased in, turned around, pressed the switch, his window hummed down:  the leaf blower gratefully accepted the sedative of the kill switch, and Grant came over, hoisted his goggles.

"I'm tryin' to think of a good smart remark," Will admitted, "but the mind just went blank."

"What, like I'm the Abominable Snowman or something?" Grant laughed.

"That, or I didn't think you wore white coveralls."

Grant turned, swatted his belly a few times, revealing Carhartt brown:  "I'm wearin' my insulateds today, but it's warm enough I'm ready to burn up!"

"Yeah, if it's not below zero, those get warm in a hurry," Will agreed.

"They feel good if I'm tryin' to waylay meat for the pot."

"Oh, they do that, I'll grant you!"

"What brings you down here to my foundry?"

Will laughed.  "I saw a big snow cloud and heard a two cycle engine and I couldn't figure what in the Sam Hill you were doin', so curiosity got the better of me!"

Grant turned, looked at the stretch of bare concrete.

"It's cold enough and the sun hadn't yet hit the Corn Crete to warm it, I figured I'd just leaf blower it off rather'n hurt my back shovein'."

"Spare your back," Will agreed.  "Voice of experience!"

"That's what your sister told me," Grant grinned. "I can offer you hot coffee, if you don't mind instant."

Will reached over, picked up a faded, dented metal thermos:  "Still half full, but thank you anyway!"

"Other'n that," Grant said, "can't think of a thing. If I tell you anything else I'd have to lie to you!"

They both laughed; it was a standing joke between them, that one or the other laid awake all night to tell the other a big lie, but their mind went blank and couldn't come up with a single thing.

Grant stepped back, waved; Will waved back, eased the Crown Vic the rest of the way around, headed out the gate, chuckling.

"Abominable Snowman," he muttered, and as he headed back down the long, plowed-open drive, he realized he was still grinning, and in a considerably better mood than when he'd arrived.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MR. SMITH, I PRESUME

Willamina Keller sat demurely in the back seat of a taxi, looking out the window, considering what was about to happen.

She was dressed for the occasion.

Her suit dress was entirely handmade; she wore nylons and heels, her hair was carefully styled, she wore no makeup -- frankly, she needed none -- she carried a fashionable little clutch purse, but its contents were entirely disposable: vital content that might otherwise be stowed in the clutch, rode instead in concealed pockets about her suit coat.

She thanked the driver after they arrived, paid him and tipped him, then cocked her head and asked, "What's the easiest way to get to the City?"

He grinned, looked at his gas gauge.

"Me," he admitted.  "I'll wait."

Willamina smiled.  "Thank you. This should not take long at all."

 

The driver woke from his drowse as the back door opened and someone got in.

He looked in the rearview.

His pretty young passenger looked at him with pale eyes.

"Special mission accomplished," she said crisply, leaned forward: he took the folded slip she handed him, unfolded it, nodded.

"Okay," he said. "I can find the place."

 

The taxi idled patiently in front of the blacksmith shop.

It was on the outskirts of the City; the neighborhood was not what it once was -- nothing was, anymore -- but the driver felt no need to lock his doors.

He watched as a pretty young woman (with really, really nice legs!) looked around, then went down beside the blacksmith shop, out of sight: the driver heard the rhythmic ring of hot metal being hammered, and in his imagination, he fancied an Old West smithy, with a sweating, muscled giant of a man, addressing a glowing-red horseshoe with a short-handled sledgehammer.

Seventeen-year-old Willamina Keller, a thick manila envelope clamped under one arm, stood back a little from the anvil, from the ebony-skinned, hard-muscled giant addressing an ornately-curled gate hinge with a fairly small hammer:  he held his work with an ancient, pitted set of tongs, thrust it into a sawed-off water barrel, looked at Willamina through the rising cloud of steam.

"Mr. Smith, I presume," Willamina said crisply.

"I didn't do it," he said, "an' if them papers is for me --"

"They're not. I need your help."

Black Smith sloshed his work around in the water, laid it up on the anvil, frowned and looked at Willamina more closely, thrusting his head forward like a nearsighted bear.

She saw the frown tighten his forehead, but she saw a puzzle in his eyes.

"You ... ain't ... Miz Sarah," he said slowly.

Willamina laughed, shook her head.  "No," she said, shoving out her hand.  "Willamina Keller. I understand you do custom work."

Black Smith shook his head.

"Damned if you ain't ..."

Willamina tilted her head a little to the side, smiled gently, then her head came up straight and the shutters behind her eyes dropped as he turned and boomed, "MADDIE!"

A stout woman came bustling out at his summons: she came up to his shirt pocket, she was stout and motherly, she looked at the blacksmith and at Willamina, and  Willamina saw the woman's eyes grow wide, white and shocked in her flawless brown face.

"Now don't she look like what Great-Granddad said!"

Maddie clapped a hand to her mouth and gave a little squeak.

"Miz Sarah!" she mumbled into her cupped palm.

"Do ... I have a twin?" Willamina asked cautiously.

"Maddie, go get the scrapbook!"

Maddie turned, almost ran back into the house.

"You sure you're not Miz Sarah."

Willamina shook her head slowly.  

Maddie came back out with a scrapbook -- from its battered corners, from the wear at the hinge and the faded cover, Willamina could tell the artifact had been handled often, and for some long time.

Black Smith took a shop rag, wiped off a clean place on a work table.

"You might want to see this."

 

Willamina seized the bridle, yelled "WHOA!"

The horse didn't whoa.

Seventeen-year-old Willamina Keller, dressed for an appointment with an attorney, bent double as the horse reared, as she was hauled off the ground: her heels pointed straight up, her skirt fell open and she was probably giving the world at large a free show, but she didn't care.

Right now she was holding onto something that outweighed her ten times over, something that was far stronger than she, something that could cause her great harm, something that was not willing to listen when she whoa'd at it!

Willamina felt herself coming down, and she reacted by instinct.

Somehow -- somehow! -- she drove her feet flat against the hard ground, pushed, twisted: she had no idea how, but she slung herself back skyward, using the pitching horse's efforts to her advantage -- she fell a-straddle of the horse -- she seized the other cheek strap, locked her legs around as much of his barrel as she could, she pulled hard and screamed, her lips but inches from the laid-back ears, "DAMMIT, I SAID WHOA!"

Willamina Keller, lean and wiry, seventeen years old and feeling like she'd just grabbed hold of a Texas twister, yanked hard, intending to pull the horse's jaw back alongside its neck.

It didn't work.

What did work, was her cheerleading practice, the acrobatics she'd learned, that she'd programmed into muscle memory.

Black Smith, his wife, four children of his own and two from the neighborhood, watched as Willamina released the bridle, tucked, tumbled, stuck the landing flawlessly -- in three inch heels -- she thrust her arms triumphantly upward and shouted "YESSS!" -- and the horse Black Smith had been trying to shoe, paced back and forth, blowing, throwing its head.

A grinning little boy ran up, thrust a cellophane wrapped peppermint into Willamina's hand.

"Here," he blurted, "he likes these!" -- and stepped back as Willamina squared off with the restless chestnut, as she unwrapped the crinkly cellophane, as the chestnut came head-bobbing over, cautious, suspicious.

Willamina fearlessly rubbed his neck, caressed him under his chin, as he rubberlipped the treat from her flat palm.

Maddie hugged her husband's hard-muscled arm, looked up at him, delighted.

"Grandaddy said she'd come back!"

"Damn if she didn't."

The scrapbook lay open, forgotten, where they'd looked at several articles cut from newspapers -- they were yellow with age, fragile, preserved in clear plastic sleeves -- articles describing The Black Agent, articles showing a singer in a feathered mask on stage at their fine Opera House -- and a letter, in handwriting Willamina was honestly surprised to see, for the handwriting bore a truly remarkable resemblance to her own script.

Just before the horse shoved Black Smith aside, just before Willamina ran to the man's aid and was hoist suddenly skyward, she made a mental note to buy a set of dip quills, to see if she couldn't improve her handwriting to the absoltuely beautiful standard she saw on the two letters on that last open page.

She was especially delighted with the signature -- an ornate, capital S, with graceful curlicues and loopy zigzags under it.

She'd never heard the name Sarah Lynne McKenna before, but something told her she wanted to know more.

 

Willamina dedicated an entire day to her efforts.

She'd not gone to school that day; instead, the taxi let her out at the schoolhouse, and waited while she went inside.

When she came out, her gait was brisk, her carriage erect and confident: she'd gone in as a student, and she came out as an adult, for she'd requested a formal meeting, in which she'd presented Principal, Superintendent and President of the Board, their copies of her legal emancipation.

 

That evening, when she finally got home, she had the taxi stop at the end of the driveway: she got out, got the mail from the big rural box: she got back in and they idled up the driveway.

Willamina got out, went to the open driver's window, paid the man well for his day's work, and thanked him for his patience:  he grinned and said "Anytime, little lady," and Willamina climbed the steps, stopped and looked at her Uncle Pete, just come in from mucking the barn.

Willamina placed her envelope and the mail on a handy chair, tilted her head, looked at Uncle Pete, blinked rapidly.

"Uncle Pete," she asked hesitantly, "can I still be your little girl?"

Uncle Pete hugged her and laid his cheek over on top of her head as she seized him, almost desperately, like a drowning man will seize a float.

"Darlin'," he rumbled reassuringly, "you'll always be m' little girl!"

Edited January 23 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103