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720. TWO PALE EYED MEN

 

Marnie Keller was most profoundly grateful she was horseback.

Horseback meant she had a higher vantage, she could read the terrain better; horseback meant she had greater mobility, horseback meant speed and maneuverability if it was necessary, and the pretty, maturing Marnie Keller drew breath only because -- at the right time -- she had that speed, and that maneuverability.

Marnie was her father's daughter: she looked around, slowly, her pale eyes assessing the terrain, reading where buildings had been, noting foundation stones that shoved out of the earth, bearing their burden of memories and dust.

Memories of what?

Marnie's eyes narrowed, then she dismounted, unfolded the topo map, anchored it down to the broad, flat hood of her pickup truck with a half dozen magnets.

Marnie stepped away from the truck, her Daddy's black gelding following faithfully; she paced away, looking around, looking for signs of old excavation, looking for any sign of street or sidewalk, any metallic stubs that might indicate a hydrant ever stood there -- this would mean a water line, and water lines of this antiquity would be cast iron, and a cast iron line underground could throw off her compass.

She saw nothing.

Marnie never stopped looking around; she moved slow, her moves were planned, and when she came back to her truck, she removed the magnets, turned the map so map north pointed to magnetic north.

"Now," she said quietly.  "Let's see what used to be here."

 

Marnie and the librarian scoured their references, took notes, searched for most of a month -- journals, maps, newspaper accounts, church records: their other duties meant their search was not constant, but it did mean their curiosity was well engaged, and at month's end, the two consulted, referring to their handwritten notes, looking at the maps hung from a clothesline stretched across the office, talking in quiet voices.

I'm not finding much on Stone Creek.

I found the watercourse, and where the settlement was, back when.

Did they have any industry, anything remarkable?

No. No mining, no reports of gold, not even trace amounts in the streambed.

No mines, no silver, zinc, nothing?

Nothing. I checked the claims records, mining records, not even a railroad spur.

No railroad. That would explain why they died on the vine.

What did they have, then? Anything at all?

I read where they had a decent library, a school, a church ... now this is unusual ...

What's that?

They had an orphanage. Hey, look at this ... you'll like this ...

What?

Here.  In the church records.  The preacher ran the orphanage.

Is that unusual?

That's not unusual.

What, then?

Here.  Read this.  Read the preacher's name.

Pale eyes ran across the indicated reference, and a pretty young woman's face softened to read a familiar family name, a reference in a genaeology only just unearthed from a volume donated the day before.

I will be sawed off and damned.

Road trip?

Road trip!

 

Marnie frowned as she studied her hand written addenda to the topo map.

The map showed the terrain as it was now.

She'd laid in details from older maps, especially from one of the better ones, hand drawn by an ex-cavalry officer who was known for the precision of his mapmaking.

Marnie nodded a little, looked to her left.

If I were to build something I'd want level ground.

Let's say ... a church, and an orphanage either right beside, or attached to.

There were houses, likely along the creek.

Houses mean wells, and those should either still exist or show as a sunken spot.

Marnie kissed at her horse, mounted: they walked up to a pair of cut stone foundation blocks, looked around, picked out another, mostly buried: such stones were valuable and were often hauled off, used for other building projects: it was her very good fortune to find these markers of buildings that once had been.

 

Old Pale Eyes drew this map.

I'm satisfied it's accurate.

Marnie walked her Daddy's shining black gelding between the foundation stones.

If I were to build a church ... it would need to be central to the town... but what about a saloon, a general store?

Where would I put them?

Marnie turned her gelding, rode toward the dry creekbed, smiled.

Here.

The general store here, saloon here, now ... houses ...

She rode across the dry watercourse.

"Ho, now, ho," she called softly, dismounted.

She regarded planks and dirt with suspicion.

Good place to get snake bit, she thought. I'm not reaching under that plank to turn it over.

Marnie dismounted, slipped the toe of her boot under one end, lifted, swung ancient wood to the side to reveal a darkness: she leaned over, looked down, saw light shimmering on water's surface several feet below.

Okay, a well.

She slid the plank back into place.

More searching, another well, a third; a sunken place, likely where an outhouse stood: she doubled back, found where other back houses had been, crisscrossed the area.

Little remained.

Some ancient char, where one burned; others had a broken, discarded door hinge, a couple overlooked square nails, lying in the dirt, almost invisible to the casual eye.

Marnie mounted back up, rode across the dry, rocky creekbed.

I'd build a church right there, where those foundation stones form the corners.

I'd say the orphanage ran that way.

The map says the livery was over here.

Marnie crisscrossed the area, eyes busy; she finally rode back, walked the gelding to the middle of what she thought must have been the church.

Marnie rode in a slow circle, searching: she studied the ground, she circled again, searching near to far, looking, listening, and finally she turned to face East, on the theory that most churches are laid out east-west, with the Altar nearest the eastern wall.

Marnie Keller sat very straight in the saddle, lifted her chin.

"I address the Reverend Linn Keller," she declared, her voice pitched to carry, her diction very clear, very precise.

"I am Marnie Keller, daughter of Linn Keller, granddaughter of Willamina Keller, and descendant of Old Pale Eyes Linn Keller, his son Jacob, his daughter Sarah.

"If the word means anything, this many years after, I've come to say thank you for running that orphanage. I know what it is to lose my parents, I know what it is to be an orphan, I know what it is to be taken in by family."

Not long after, a pretty young woman with a horse trailer in tow, drove away, slowly, drove back to Firelands: maps were put away, research was filed, but not until her steady hand inked over the pencil marks on her map to indicate her newly discovered outhouses, the wells, the artifacts she'd located.

As she slid the metal file cabinet drawer shut, she looked up, thoughtfully, stared at the artificial flowers in the broad bottom vase atop the file cabinet:  she stared at them, unseeing, then shook her hed and laughed a little.

"Did you really expect an answer?" she muttered aloud.  

 

Two men with pale eyes regarded the pretty girl's maturing figure, the thoughtful look on her face, the care with which she closed the drawer.

"She does favor you," one pale eyed man said.

"She does," the other agreed.

"She went to all that trouble to thank me."

"She's like that."

"Where did she get such good manners?"

"Runs in the family."

"Reckon it does."

Two pale eyed men turned and walked back through the library's wall, and were gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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721. A MAIDEN'S HAND

The day suited my mood.

It was raining again.

We needed the rain, I knew, the rain falls on the good and on the bad, I knew, the rain would fetch up grass that would be cut for hay, I knew, and the rain would benefit crops not yet ripe for harvest.

I didn't have pressin' need to get out and work, there weren't things that had to be done and truth be told, the rain wasn't keepin' me from much of anything.

I reckon I was lookin' for excuses to feel sour and aggravated.

In this, I was quite successful.

I reckon that's why I went off by myself.

I was standin' in the back doorway of the barn, just at the margin where roof's rain-shadow kept me from gettin' sprinkled on, right where an eddy of wind could carry in some fine misty wet to caress my face like the cold fingers of Death, and I remembered such a mist, such a moment on a battlefield many years ago ...

I twisted a little, easing the ache in my poor old back, an ache I generally ignored.

Couldn't do nothin' about it so I just ignored it, same as I did my other aches and pains, and I had plenty, and every one of 'em was callin' me unkind names with this mean old rainy weather.

I made myself feel ever so much better when I considered that fall was a-comin' fast and we'd get more of these mean old rainy days, and then winter would set in, and I considered our household stores, and recalled how Esther and the hired girl would be just cannin' up a storm whenever crops come ripe, and then the memory of Esther, cold and dead in attair coffin before they screwed down the lid and we packed her to the cemetery and planted her like spring potatoes, and of a sudden that warm memory of my green eyed bride, her cheeks flushed and a curl of hair escaped from the pile on top of her head, givin' me that wise look as her and the girl handled them singin' hot jars out of the boiler ...

I closed my eyes, containing the grief that wanted to swallow me whole and was real close to doin' it.

A gentle hand closed on my fore arm.

I was standin' with my hind hoof set up on an over turned bucket, for it eased my back some, and Angela come up behint me and then she stood beside me and her hand closed around my arm and she leaned her head into my upper arm and I felt her sigh, and I eased my arm out of her grip and run it around her and held her in ag'in me, and she put her arm around just under my tenderloins and she held me into her.

"Dear Papa," she murmured, leaning her head into my ribs now that my arm was out of the way.  

We stood there and looked out at the rain and neither of us moved for some long time.

I waited for my little girl to speak, and thinkin' about her, why, that dark and dreary mood I'd wrapped myself in like a rain slicker, it unhitched itself from me and slunk off into the rain to go plague someone else.

"You smell good," I murmured.

"I had a bath last Saturday," she replied innocently, and then she looked up at me with them big Kentucky-blue eyes and she give me that wise smile, that knowing smile, and I couldn't but laugh, just a little.

I turned and back heeled that bucket and I set down on it, and my back was ever so happy that I did, and I taken both Angela's hands in mine and she giggled a little the way she did when she was a little girl and damned if it didn't feel like she was shinin' like a light in the darkness, but then Daddies tend to think such things of their little girls.

Kind of like Sean told me once, it don't matter how old a daughter becomes, it don't matter that she goes from infant to child to maiden to married to mother to matron, it don't matter none a'tall, for she is always, always! Daddy's Little Girl.

"I'm glad you're here," I said, and I was pleased my own voice was gentle in my ears, for I didn't quite trust my throat to say it as gentle as I wanted.

"You're having nightmares again, Papa," Dana said seriously, sadly, and I nodded.

No use to lie to the girl, thought I: she can see through me like I was window glass, I reckon she learned that from Esther.

"Papa, what are your nightmares?"

I felt my bottom lip tighten up:  I didn't shake my head nor did I say anything harsh, I just looked away, and she tightened her hands in mine.

"Papa," she whispered, and that's another trick she l'arned from Esther, whisper and I'll pay real close attention -- "Papa, speak the nightmare and you strip it of its power."

I looked at my little girl again and realized, not only did she sound like Esther, she was looking womanly, and she was shapin' up into a fine woman, and I felt a moment's sadness, for part of me  hoped she'd stay a little girl forever, and I could take care of her forever, and nothing at all would ever change -- but that ain't the way it works, and I nodded.

"Esther taught you that," I said, and now my voice sounded a little coarser and that don't surprise me none, for grief tightens my throat and it was a-tightenin'.

Angela's fingertips caressed my close shaven cheek.

"Dear Papa," she whispered, "I miss my Mama."

I looked at her and a tear was just spillin' over her bottom lid and I opened up my arms and she fell into me and I held her like a drownin' man will seize a float and Angela was near to marriageable, I knew, she was a fine young woman, but in that moment she was a bereaved child who missed her Mama, and so I held her, there in the barn's quiet, with rain on the roof overhead and life in my arms, and I remembered my little Dana, she who died on her second birthday, died in my arms of the Small Pox, I remembered Esther when she come up out of that river, fightin' out of the water that wanted to claim her, I remembered how her face shone in the lamp light as we danced, whether 'twas a stately waltz in a steamboat's saloon with a St Louis orchestra playing Brahms with a solemn grace, or in the big round barn I built for Daciana, with those Kentucky fiddlers hammer and tongs with a square dancin' tune, and us whirlin' in the lamp light, her a-laughin' and alive, alive in my arms.

I closed my eyes hard and held my little girl and I don't know how much time passed, and it don't much matter.

My daughter needed her Daddy, and she knowed I needed her, and she'd come to tend that detail.

Once we both slacked off our embrace, I set my legs out and she set herself on my lap and my arm was around her back and I reached up and caressed her glowing, flawless cheek with the back of my bent finger.

"Darlin'," I said softly, "I have a bad habit."

Angela nodded, those big blue eyes on mine, unblinking, almost glowing.

"You ask me a question and I'll give you an honest answer."

Angela nodded again, her eyes never leaving mine.

"I have been havin' nightmares."

Again that solemn, patient nod, and I considered that if a girl was to give a man those big lovely eyes, even if she never said word one, why, he'd go away exclaiming to his fellows that he'd just had the most fascinating conversation! -- I blinked and shook my head and chased after my train of thought, which was in danger of disappearin' over the far horizon.

"You remember I was in that damned War," I said, "and I've seen grief and loss enough to last ten men their lifetimes."

Angela blinked, her expression saddening.

"I don't know if you can recall it, you were just awful small, but I found you in a train wreck."

"I remember it, Daddy," she whispered.

I nodded.

"I was so afraid you were dead and I'd lost my little girl back East and that just went all through me."
Angela leaned her forehead against mine:  "Dear Papa," she whispered.

"Oh, it gets worse," I rumbled, leaning back, kissing her forehead.

"Losin' friends, losin' people I love, losin' your Mama was the worst. Memories and ghosts from that damned War, men I fought beside, men I faced, gettin' near to killed and afeared I would leave your Mama a widow and all of you orphans."

I looked very closely at Angela's eyes, saw how the color radiated out from the black centers.

I taken a long breath.

"Last night was the worst."

"What happened, Papa?" Angela whispered, her maidenly hand tightening on mine.

I looked away, swallowed, looked back.

"Angela, I took holt of that nightmare and I whipped it, I genuinely did.  I was too mad to shoot it, I didn't have a war club with me, I just plainly beat it until it was done and it give up."

Angela blinked, frowned a little.

"Daddy, I don't understand.  That was the worst one?"
I nodded, just as solemn as the old Judge.

"I wanted to skin the damned thing and turn it into a rug so any more nightmares that come to plague me would see that skinned-out nightmare rug beside my bed and they'd know not to trifle with me, but it run off before I could fetch off its hide!"

Angela blinked, then Angela smiled:  she started to giggle like a little girl, she lowered her head and gave me a knowing look and whispered, "Oh, Daddy, you're silly!"

I picked up my little girl, I stood up with her in my arms:  I took a couple steps, bade her snatch my Stetson from where I'd hung it on a fork handle, and the two of us run for the house ... well, I done the runnin', I was packin' Angela in my arms, she had my hat over both our heads, and we were both laughin' as I run through the rain, and the last traces of rememberin' the nightmares that had plagued the hours of my darkness were washed away by that cold half-misty rainfall, scattered and chased off by maidenly laughter, and we come a-chargin' up on the porch and I set her down and she handed me my hat and I kissed her carefully, delicately, on the forehead, and I just felt so awful much better.

And it all started out with a maiden's hand, gently gripping my arm.

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722. IT WAS WORTH IT

Marnie knew her Daddy was gone suddenly, that he'd made some phone calls, his voice was very serious, and then he kissed Shelly, got in his Jeep and left.

Her Daddy looked very serious when he did, and when he returned the next evening, he still looked serious, but he looked troubled as well.

Marnie's early childhood taught her the value of observation; it also lent her a sense of paranoia, a tendency to hypervigilance, and she'd long since scouted all the places she might hide, there in her Daddy's house, should things go bad.

Marnie knew what it was to have to hide when things went very, very bad.

Marnie's Daddy came home and little Marnie could feel trouble radiating from the depths of his soul.

Marnie knew it was coming from his soul because she could feel it but she couldn't see anything.

Her Daddy came home and he and Mommy went out on the back porch and talked for a while, and Marnie did what she did very well:  she turned invisible, and she listened, and when they were done, Marnie faded back into the living room and hid behind her Daddy's big chair he sat in when he picked Marnie up and set her on his lap and read to her.

Marnie heard her Daddy walk across the kitchen and to the front door, she followed her Daddy -- his footsteps were heavy, manly, measured:  hers were silent, skipping on the balls of her feet, keeping the heels of her red cowboy boots off the floor.

Marnie turned sideways as she slipped out the front door, closed it silently, watched as her Daddy hesitated, looked a little to the left of their big open front barn, looked to the right.

Marnie held her breath.

She knew her Daddy was troubled, and she knew if he went to the left, he'd set one foot up on the bottom rail of the whitewashed fence, he'd fold his arms across the top rail and he'd rest his chin on shirtsleeved forearms, and he'd stare off across the pasture.

He would stare, and he would not see, and Marnie knew if he did this, she could talk to him.

If he turned to the right -- if he went the length of the barn and around the other side -- Marnie knew to leave him be, for he would be alone, hiding his feelings from his family:  Marnie remembered hearing his stifled grief as he collapsed to his knees, as he bent, as he fell over on his side, chewing on a knuckle to keep from making a sound, at least until he shoved hard against the packed dirt and came to his feet with a roar, half anger and  half agony, fists balled, head back, his face dead pale and his teeth bared, the very image of a vengeful spirit very much inclined to rend men's sould from their bodies by virtue of ripping the heads from their bodies, barehanded.

After that one day's terrible discovery, Marnie ever, ever followed her Daddy around the right side of the barn.

Marnie held her breath as her Daddy considered, as his head turned slowly left, then turned with a slow and deliberate rotation, to the right.

Sheriff Linn Keller, husband and father, a man bearing a burden of grief heavier than he was, turned to his left and walked deliberately to the whitewashed fence.

Marnie was silent on the bare dirt, her tread as light as a kitty-cat, and she slipped up behind her Daddy, and then to his left.

Her legs were too short yet to set a boot up on the bottom rail, but there was a handy rock, so she set her red cowboy boot's sole on the fist sized rock and she laid her chambray sleeved forearms across the bottom rail, and she stared through the gap in the white boards.

Silence is generally not completely silent: even if nothing can be heard with the ears, there is often some silent communication, something not perceived by any known science, but something that happens anyhow:  Linn did not look back, or down, but he knew a kindred soul was there, nearby.

It may be that living creatures have a Kirlian field, or a magnetic field, or some aura: it is known that sharks home in on the life-field of an injured fish, some say more than the scent of blood in the water, and people who've been injured are easily picked out of a crowd by human predators.

However it was, Marnie's ear drew back a little as if pulled by an invisible thumb and forefinger, at the sound of her Daddy's quiet voice.

"I just drove the length of the entire state," he said quietly, "and I drove all the way back."

Marnie listened, but offered no comment.

"When I got there, I spent all of thirty minutes at a friend's bedside."

Marnie blinked, listening with more than her ears.

"She and I were partners many years ago."

Marnie blinked quickly, her face showing a sudden concern:  she knew what a partner was -- Daddy partnered with Paul Barrents, and she knew he thought as much of Paul as he would have a brother -- she knew her Mommy partnered on squad, and she'd heard them both talking about how important it was to watch your partner's back because their partner had watched theirs, and kept them alive as a result.

Marnie liked partners.

A partner kept her Daddy alive, and more times than one.

Yes, it could be very accurately said that Marnie knew what a partner was, and how important they were.

"She's in intensive care," Linn said quietly.  "She's in congestive heart failure, her lungs ... she got hit by ammonia when a pizza plant had a leak ..."

Marnie did not have to look to know her Daddy's hands were closing into fists, that his eyes were white, his eyes were hard, she could feel waves of ... what?  Hate ... no, not hate ... Marnie didn't have the word "frustration" in her juvenile vocabulary, she was just a little girl, but she knew her Daddy was troubled, and so she held very still, and listened, with her little chin thrust out and laying on her forearm, her face framed by the fence boards above and below.

"She's on a ventilator," Linn continued, and Marnie heard a ragged edge in her Daddy's voice.

"Congestive heart, bad lungs, they had to turn up the vent," Linn whispered, as if he didn't trust his voice, and then he drew back a little and laid his own forehead on his forearms.

"I don't think she's gonna pull out of this one."

Linn lifted his head, looked out across the pasture, saw a colt crow-hopping, swapping ends, throwing his head, playing like young colts will, full of vinegar and joy: he chewed on his bottom lip and considered for a moment.

"It's easier when there's something I can do," he said finally:  "but all I could do was hold her hand and talk to her."

Marnie drew back from the fence, she turned and looked up at her Daddy, she tugged at the side seam of his jeans.

Linn lifted his head, turned, squatted:  he saw a solemn little face looking at him, and he planted his knees in the dirt and opened his arms, and Marnie shoved herself into her Daddy and hugged him hard with her little arms.

Linn ran his arms around his little girl and held her tight, feeling her breathe, feeling her warmth, feeling her life! -- Marnie was a typical child, full of wiggle and impatience, but she neither twisted nor did she pull away:  Linn raised one leg, planted a hind hoof flat on the ground, raised the other, leg and set his other boot, then stood, his little girl in his arms:  Marnie squeezed her eyes tight shut, holding her Daddy with the desperate strength of a wounded little girl who knows what it is to see her old Daddy murdered and her Mommy beat, and worse, in a dirty New York tenement, a little girl who knew what it was to start a new life with a new Mommy and Daddy, who knew what it was to run screaming in fear in her nightmares, while her body lay rigid and unmoving, sweating in the darkness, until her eyes snapped open and she realized the throat-ripping screams were locked behind even white teeth, that she hadn't made a sound, that she was safe, she was in her own bed and under her own roof, that murderers were not chasing her, that she wasn't trying to wiggle into a heating duct that was suddenly too small, too small, too small --

Linn carried his daughter around back of the house, carried her up the back steps and into the back porch.

Linn's left arm was under his little girl's backside, his right hand reached for the doorknob, drew it open:  a welcome cloud of good cookin' smells rolled out to greet them, and Shelly looked up at them and smiled.

Linn walked over to his wife as she stirred a simmering kettle of gravy-thick stew:  he leaned down, kissed her sweat-damp forehead.

"Please don't ever tell Mama," he whispered, "but your stew has hers beat seven ways from Sunday!"

Shelly gave her pale eyed husband a patient look.

Marnie's head was laid down against her Daddy's shoulder.

"You have a very wise daughter," Linn whispered.

Marnie blinked, surprised.

"But I didn't say nothin'!" she protested, and Mommy and Daddy both laughed.

"Darlin'," Linn grinned, "sometimes what's said doesn't take words!"

Edited by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
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723. THE HEALTHY CHOICE

Marnie Keller washed her hands.

She washed her hands in a dainty and ladylike manner, being very careful to interlace her fingers and scrub them thoroughly, just like her Mommy taught her.

Her Mommy's mommy was dead but she was a nurse an' when she was a nurse she taught Mommy how to wash her hands like a nurse and that's how Mommy taught Marnie how to wash her hands, and that's how Marnie washed her nine year old hands, her third grade little girl's hands, carefully getting the hair and the blood off her hands, and then she washed her skinning knife and laid it aside so she could dump the washpan of bloodied greywater and dry her hands on the sun-bleached towel.

She dried her hands in a dainty and ladylike manner.

Marnie left the carcass for the buzzards 'cause buzzards need to eat too.

Her Daddy taught her that.

She'd shot that mean ol' 'yote that had been killing their chickens.

Marnie laid ambush with her Daddy's .22 rifle and she dropped one 'yote with a .22 behind the ear and the other two took off and Marnie cycled the lever and tracked the rearmost, but held her fire.

Marnie's Daddy taught her to make a precise hit or don't take the shot and that's what Marnie did.

She made a precise shot on the first one and it dropped, and she couldn't get a precise shot on either of the other two, so she let them go.

She skinned out the first 'yote and dragged the carcass way out in the back of the pasture and left it where she could use her binoculars and watch the buzzards come in.

Marnie liked watching the buzzards.

Now that she'd skinned out that chicken killin' 'yote, now that she'd stretched its hide and scraped the fat and nodded once, one firm emphatic dip of the chin with an equally emphatic, juvenile "Hmph!" -- she washed her hands, she washed her knife, she dried her hands, she dried her knife and slipped it back in the sheath at her belt.

Marnie unloaded her Daddy's rimfire, pulling the rod out from under the barrel and dumping the rounds onto their front porch, counting them:  she frowned, replaced the spring loaded follower rod, cycled the action slowly, carefully, kicked out the remaining live round, then twice more to be sure.

Her Daddy told her about unloading a rifle inside one time, told her how he was unloading a bolt action and he was not looking as he reached for the bolt and his ring finger was curled a little and it hit the trigger and BLAP he drove a .22 into the ceiling, and even this many years later, her Daddy's ears turned red and he got kind of shame faced admitting to it, and Marnie patted his hand and said "Don't worry, Daddy, I don't have a bolt rifle!" -- in a voice so solemn and serious that the pale eyed Sheriff laughed, and hugged his little girl, and Marnie felt a great satisfaction at having eased her Daddy's distress.

She was only in third grade, but she could still be a Big Girl when she did that.

Marnie set the stretched hide in the sun and covered it with cheese cloth so blow flies would not eat holes in the pelt -- she had no idea what her Daddy did with the skins, but he did something with them, and besides she wanted to show her Daddy that she was not going to waste a perfectly good pelt -- and so Marnie returned the rifle to her Daddy's gun case, she dropped the rounds back into the plastic box she'd gotten them from, she carefully locked the door of the gun cabinet and hung the key back where Daddy didn't think she knew where it was.

Marnie didn't consider whether she was supposed to do this; she was not going to see their chickens killed, nor eggs stolen.

Her Mommy was gone on an errand, The Bear Killer with her; Marnie looked around, frowned, busied herself with a dust rag, reaching what she could, making sure she put the dirty rag back in the dirty rag bag before her Mommy got home:  she made a game of it, never letting her Mommy see her tidying things up.

Her Mommy knew, of course; Mommies know these kind of things.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller's face was solemn as he pulled on a pair of gloves.

He debated whether to put on a charcoal mask, for he knew the odor would be considerable; he decided against it, choosing instead to simply forge ahead with what he knew would be an unpleasant, but necessary, detail.

His infant son squealed happily as he lay on a changing blanket, spread out over the Sheriff's desk; Linn pulled the tape free on the diaper and proceeded with necessary cleanup -- he'd gotten everything ready ahead of time, including the trash sack, rolled down so it would stay open -- experienced hands tended the detail, to the apparent approval of the laughing little boy.

Clean, powdered, diapered, the youngest of the Pale Eyed Brigade waved his arms and kicked fat little legs as the Sheriff got him in his flannel Union suit (he steadfastly refused to call it a onesie!) and picked up the delighted lad, brought him nose to nose and murmured, "Awright, Muggsie, ya feels bettanow?" in an absolutely dreadful Jimmy Cagney silver-screen gangster voice.

Little pink fingers seized Linn's mustache and pulled, and it took a few moments to disentangle this juvenile grip from its painful pull:  Linn laid the lad over his shoulder, looking up as the door opened.

Shelly's nostrils flared and she gave her husband a pitying look.

The Bear Killer looked up at the happy little boy in the red flannel Union suit, his great brush of a tail swinging slowly, ponderously, thumping firmly against the open door as he did.

"Am I too late?" she asked, and Linn grinned.

"Here, take him so I can seal this sack up!" 

Linn handed off his youngest son, got the plastic trash sack unrolled, closed up, knotted:  he thought briefly of replacing the private bathroom's exhuast fan with a big industrial model, for moments like this, decided against it:  as he, his wife and The Bear Killer made their strategic retreat from the fouled atmosphere, Linn turned and assaulted the miasma with an aerosol can of air freshener:  the exhaust fan was running, he'd leave the door open a little, and hopefully he wouldn't strangle upon his re-entry.

 

Linn and Shelly came into the house to the smell of cinnamon rolls, to the sight of two little boys and a little girl looking guiltily up from paper plates.

"Smells good," Linn declared happily.  "Whattaya got?"

Marnie's face turned a little red and she admitted, "We were kind of hungry but we got some carrots 

'cause they're healthy ..."

"What kind of dip is that?" Shelly asked in her I'm-The-Mommy voice, and Marnie and her brothers looked at one another, looked back, and Shelly gave Marnie The Look, at least until Linn reached down, picked up a baby carrot and stuck it in the little plastic cup of icing that was normally used on the cinnamon rolls.

He bit into the carrot, nodded approvingly, looked at his wife and winked.

"Tastes good to me!" he declared happily, and Shelly shook her head, sighed, put the sack of groceries in the sink to be unloaded.

"But carrots are healthy!" Marnie protested.

Linn and Shelly looked at one another:  Shelly knew she'd lost the war, so she did what she could:  she shook her head, she laughed, she gave a great exaggerated sigh.

"I'll get supper started."

 

 

 

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724. ICE AND OBSIDIAN

 

Marnie Keller was a high school junior.

Marnie Keller sat with her head tilted a little to the side, listening closely to the history teacher's account of a battle she knew far better than he:  she was busy taking notes, but not of the lecture: she was noting down corrections in the presentation, at least until her pen stopped, until her head came upright, until she turned her head to look out the big double windows that occupied most of the sidewall.

Marnie Keller was seventeen years old, with a flawless complexion, even white teeth, really good legs and an athletic physique.

Marnie Keller wore her trademark red cowboy boots, a denim skirt and a blue-checkered flannel shirt.

Marnie Keller's hair was in twin braids, laid down over her collar bones, at least until she turned her head -- quickly, as the desk top vibrated beneath her spread fingertips, as an unmuffled engine came near, too near, as a shadow passed overhead, darkening the window momentarily --

The history teacher stood with one hand in a pocket, an unused laser pointer forgotten in the other hand.

Something threw a shadow over the barely-sunlit side of the room, cutting the light like a switch, then --

Gone.

He blinked in surprise as something in a denim skirt and red cowboy boots launched out of her desk absolutely streaked across the room, drove hard into the hardwood door, and was gone.

"What," the history teacher asked into the shocked silence, "just happened?"

He looked at the class:  students were beginning to rise from their seats, to look with shocked expresssions out the window.

There was a pop, a hum from the speaker, mounted above the whiteboard, then a voice familiar to most of the school came over every speaker in every classroom, every hallway, every locker room, gym and cafeteria.

It was a voice that few had ever heard raised.

It was raised now, and it carried what has been called "The Crack of Command."

"NOW HEAR THIS, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.  VALKYRIES OUT FRONT, WARRIORS OUT FRONT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.  GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS, ALL HANDS, BATTLE STATIONS!"

Marnie Keller, the pale eyed granddaughter of the late Sheriff Willamina Keller, sprinted out of the comm closet, shoved viciously against the principal's heavy office door, ran down the hall at a flat-out sprint, towards the front door of the Firelands High School.

As she passed the fire alarm, her curved fingers hooked viciously at the white bar, yanked it down, set off the system-wide alarm that rang in to the Sheriff's Office and to the fire department both.

 

Sharon wasn't her given Christian name, but Sharon is what the Sheriff's dispatcher was traditionally called, and so it was Sharon that picked up the Bat Phone:  "Fireland Sheriff's Office, state the nature of your emergency," and then blinked and hit the general broadcast button on the phone's base.

Marnie's voice came through every room in the Sheriff's Office, and from the speakers in every room of the firehouse both.

"This is Marnie Keller, I'm at the high school, we have an aircraft down behind the schoolhouse."

Her voice was choppy, her breathing deep, she was obviously running and running hard.

"Empty the barn, send us everything!"

What nobody could hear was a column of young and athletic students, male and female, formed spontaneously into four ranks:  some carried fire extinguishers, snatched from the plastic-bubble-front wall enclosures, others ran with cell phone in hand and ready:  behind them, two pickup trucks and an ancient, restored VW Beetle Bug swung out of the parking lot and across the field, driving hard after Willamina's Warriors and the Valkyries both.

 

Chief Fitzgerald did not have the chance to shout his traditional challenge.

There was no time to order all hands on deck, no time to threaten to have their guts for garters: when the Irish Brigade heard it was an aircraft down, the Chief's concern was whether he was going to be trampled in the general stampede.

Two pumpers and the pumper-tanker rolled in turn out of the firehouse, lights spitting alarm: the lead truck screamed like a damned soul, its electronic siren slow-cycled on wail; behind it, the second-out pumper, the engineer's boot hard on the foot switch, winding the chrome Federal Q into screaming, high-pitched life:  Tail End Charlie, the pumper-tanker, was driven with one gloved hand hard on the wheel, the other hooked on the chain lanyard, ready to blast twin chromed International Harvester air horn trumpets with a hundred and a quarter pounds' air pressure.

 

The pilot felt a hand on the back of his head, under his jaw:  a woman's voice, from a distance ...

"I'm here, you're safe, shhh, we're here."

A hand raised:  "Ignition," he wheezed, and Marnie looked helplessly at the broken instrument panel.

The man's legs were obviously broken, blood ran steadily from his left pants cuff.

Marnie hit his seat belt release, worked his legs apart, leaned across him a little with her elbow chicken winged toward the empty passenger seat, pressing the heel of her hand into his left femoral artery.

Young humanity crowded up around the wounded bird, hoisting the broken-loose cowling:  Marnie saw something flash, hot and sudden, on her left, heard the hissing whoosh of an extinguisher.

She looked at the bloodied face, assessing skin tone, skin color, damned herself for not having six arms and ten hands.

 

Shelly took a long, deep breath.

Her hands gripped the aluminum clipboard box.

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

"Marnie," she said.

"Yep," her father replied grimly.

"Marnie is in the middle of it."

"Yep."

Shelly looked over at her father, at the burnished Captain's bars on his epaulets.

"Good."

 

Vehicles, trucks:  the fire department came rolling up, she saw men in helmets and turnout coats surrounding the plane, men she knew, displacing her fellow students.

A hand on her shoulder, a man's voice:  "Whattaya got?"

"Bilateral leg fracture, probably compound. I'm on femoral pressure point."

"Hold pressure, stand by for tourniquet."

"Roger that," Marnie grated, leaning more heavily into the man's lap, making double-damned-sure she kept pressure on the artery.

"Let's  get the IV started."

"Can you get in?"

"Lean forward just a little, we'll go jugular."

"Roger that."

Marnie's arm was beginning to tire and her shoulder was starting to tell her it wasn't terribly happy with the pressure she was putting on it.

Marnie ignored what her arm was telling her, ignored the blood from the wounded man's nose and broken-tooth mouth dripping on her shoulder, soaking its way down her sleeve.

Marnie narrowed her focus, keeping the heel of her hand pressed into a stranger's leg, keeping his life from running out from under her desperate pressure.

"IV is in."  Pause.  "We have flow."

"How fast you want it?"

"Run it wide open."
Marnie's stomach shrank a little at the thought of an IV running wide open:  she'd studied the ill effects of fluid overload, she'd studied the far worse effects of volume loss:  after she saw blood ponding on the buckled floorboards, she carefully avoided looking at feet that pointed awkwardly in directions they shouldn't.

 

The history teacher and most of the class stood at the double windows, watching the confusion from across the field.

The principal watched from the sidewalk in front of the building.

Every window on that side of the school was shoulder-to-shoulder humanity, several deep, hands on shoulders and necks craning: the entire educational day came to a grinding stop as a light plane made an emergency landing, a hard landing, gouging into the manicured sod, just missing the football field's near goalpost.

The ground was well drained and solid, it was yet early fall, the heavy apparatus was well supported: hose lines were run, lines charged: men who knew such things, disconnected the batteries, shut off the fuel supply: what fire started, had been quickly smothered with the application of a dry-chem extinguisher, snatched by an anonymous football player charging down the hallway and toward the slammed-open front door.

Marnie Keller paid no attention to any of this.

She waited for the hand on her shoulder, the reassuring masculine voice in her ear:  "Okay, back out, we've got it," and she surrendered her position to those who had both the training, and the equipment, to handle the situation.

She backed up, eyes wide, not shivering -- no, not shivering, more like vibrating -- she felt hands on her shoulders, she heard her Daddy's voice --

"Marnie, how bad?"

Marnie turned suddenly, her heart dropping about seventy feet until it hit her boot tops:  her Daddy's eyes were turning ice-white, his face was losing its color, and she realized he was looking at her right shoulder and arm.

Marnie turned, looked at what had been blue-and-white checked flannel, and was now bright, wet, and scarlet:  she raised an arm, considering the incarnidined length of garment, the screaming-scarlet drops that fell, slow, slow from her sleeve as she raised her arm.

Marnie looked at the Sheriff.

"Oh horse knuckles," she snapped, "now I'll have to soak this in saltwater!"

"Marnie," Linn said, his hands under her arms, holding firmly, ready to catch his little girl if she passed out, "are you hurt?"

"No, Daddy, I'm fine, that's the pilot's blood."  She turned a little, looking over her shoulder.

She saw her Grampa and her Mama, leaned in, working on the limp, unmoving pilot.

"C'mon, darlin'," Linn said gently, "let's back up a little, give 'em room to work."

Chief Fitzgerald frowned at the airplane's engine, glared at the crowd surrounding the wreck:  his bottom jaw thrust out, he saw the empty extinguisher swinging from a young hand, strode up to the hand's owner.

"ARE YOU THE YO-YO THAT SHOT THAT MESS ALL OVER THE ENGINE?" he roared, his face scarlet, amost purple.

The football player stood right up to him and replied, just as loudly, "YOU'RE DAMNED RIGHT I DID!"

Fitz thumped the lad in the middle of the chest with stiff, gloved fingers:  "YOU JUST KEPT EVERYONE IN THERE FROM ROASTIN' ALIVE!  GOOD JOB!" -- the Chief turned and stomped back into the middle of the scene, leaving a crew-cut football player grinning like he'd just been handed the keys to a brand new convertible.

Marnie sat down on the step bumper of the rescue truck.

She tried to unbutton her shirt.

All of a sudden her fingers were clumsy, numb, and she was suddenly shaking and shaking hard.

Linn twisted the cap off a plastic water bottle and handed her.

Marnie gripped it, crushed it, squirting a fountain of water:  she tilted it up, drank what was left.

Linn unbuttoned her flannel shirt, unbuttoned the blood-slick cuff, started it off her shoulders, drew the sleeves gently, starting them off her arms:  he accepted a sheet from one of the Irishmen, draped it over his daughter as he slid bloodied flannel from her:  she wrapped it around herself, took a double handful of it, buried her face in clean, white cotton:  she leaned forward a little, scooted to the side as her Daddy eased in beside her.

Marnie leaned against her big strong Daddy, smelling gunleather and Hoppe's and Old Spice, more than grateful to feel what she really, really wanted more than anything else in the world.

She had her Daddy's arms around her, and she knew she was safe.

A month later, after witness statements, after the investigations, after the interviews, after sitting down with representatives of Federal and State agencies, insurance investigators, with the Chief and -- after asking her Daddy to coach her in what to say, and what not to say, with a variety of reporters -- the entire community converged on the high school.

They watched a short video, taken in a hospital room, where a man with healing injuries spoke carefully through a wired-shut jaw, a man with surgical metal exposed and holding both lower legs rigid and immobile, a man who gripped a young woman's hand as he expressed his thanks that she'd been there when he'd had the worst day of his entire life.

They watched as a medal, on a ribbon, was placed about a young woman's neck:  the video ended and the spotlight came on, shining on the same young woman, standing on stage, standing in red cowboy boots and a denim skirt, in a blue-chambray blouse, her hair braided and laying down over her collar bones, the medal gleaming from between the twin braids.

Marnie was introduced, a speech was made, and Marnie impatiently dropped her hand over the microphone less than halfway through the flowery accolades voiced by their Mayor.

"Chief Fitzgerald, up here, if you please, sir," she said pleasantly, then she drew back, squared her shoulders:  "ALL HANDS ON DECK! TURN TO, YOU LOT, OR I'LL HAVE YOUR GUTS FOR GARTERS!  IRISH BRIGADE, UP HERE, NOW! VALKYRIES, HERE, NOW! WILLAMINA'S WARRIORS, HERE, NOW!" -- she turned to her left, thrust her chin to where she'd last seen two uniformed deputies -- "SHERIFF'S OFFICE TOO!  GET UP HERE!"

Marnie waited until the Irish Brigade -- grinning, elbowing one another, in their round Bell caps and red-wool, bib-front shirts with the embroidered Maltese cross on the front -- until the Valkyries, in their cheerleader's uniforms, until the Firelands Football Team ranked in behind them, trying hard to look solemn and having no luck at all -- until the deputies, which were like family -- Marnie waited until her summons, until her harsh voice of command quit echoing in the hushed gymnasium --

Marnie Keller, a high school junior in pigtails and red cowboy boots, looked out over friends, kindred, brethren and community assembled.

"I wear a medal," she said, "and I was given the thanks of a pilot who made a hard landing.

"The medal is around my neck, but I don't wear it for me."

She took it off, handed it to the German Irishman.

"Pass this around," she said.  "I want every last one of you to hold this.  This belongs to you, to every last one of you.  When I needed help with a situation I called for help, and help came -- help came right away, and without hesistation."

She turned, looked back at the audience:  she was functionally blind, looking into the shadowed interior while spotlighted, but it did not matter, she knew her people were with her, behind her and beside her and before her.

"We did the right thing," she said, her voice raised, commanding, clear, her diction very precise, carrying to the furthest row: "it needed done, and we did it.  Every last one you see on stage here.  Firemen and medics, lawmen and students, and we who knew something had to be done.

"My Grandma Willamina once told me no order of battle ever survives first contact with the enemy, and that's what happens when you have a situation.  You go and you handle what you find, and that's what we did.  One of the Warriors" -- she hooked a thumb over her shoulder -- "grabbed an extinguisher on his way out the door.  We got there fast because we're in good physical shape, and that's not something we have to do.  We choose it" -- she stopped, bit her bottom lip -- "because we remember my Gramma."

As one, every last one of Willamina's Warriors roared "WARRIORS!" -- spontaneously, but in absolute unity -- then, "VALKYRIES!" -- Marnie slipped to her side, the spotlight following her, and she stopped beside a fellow who was only two fingers taller than she.

Marnie stood beside him, ran her arm around him, looked into the audience.

"And this fellow -- by the way, this is the Fire Chief, he's known me since I was an idea" -- she laughed, and the audience laughed with her -- "this fellow went up to the Warrior who dumped an entire twenty pound dry chem extinguisher on the engine and made a hell of a mess."  

Marnie grinned.

"The Chief here found out who did it, AND THEN HE TOLD HIM HE'D DONE THE RIGHT THING!"

Her voice rose to a shout as she said it:  her arm tightened around his shoulders, she kissed his cheek, quickly, impulsively, the way a little girl would:  she paced back to the microphone.

"That medal is making its way from hand to hand behind me, folks, because it's not mine.

"I was only PART of this.  It took ALL OF US to get the pilot out of there and healed up!"

She looked around, her smile broad and genuine.

"Let's hear it for all these fine folks here!"

There was no applause.

There was the slam of a wave, a spontaneous roar of approval:  whistles, cheers, feet stomping hard on the gleaming maple gym floor.

A man with stitches in several places, his legs immobilized with stainless steel, bones held in place with surgical screws and plates, grinned carefully as he watched the live feed on the open laptop beside his hospital bed, and in a Sheriff's cruiser, on the other end of the county, a Sheriff and his Chief Deputy sat, pulled over onto the shoulder of a blacktop road, watching on their laptop as well.

Paul Barrents reached over and gripped Linn's shoulder, and Linn grinned, looked at his partner.

Two lawmen, one with eyes of ice, the other with eyes of obsidian, said with one voice:

"That's my girl!"

 

 

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725. LOST!

Sheriff Linn Keller hung up the phone.

He looked around the interior of the old brick firehouse, looked at gleaming, hand-polished apparatus, at immaculate floors, at the detergent thickly dumped over the perpetual Diesel engine oil leaks that were an unavoidable part of their operation.

The Sheriff looked at red-shirted Irishmen and two men of very near retirement age, two men in shirts and neckties and short sleeved white smocks, looking uncomfortable as the Sheriff turned from the phone and approached them with a slow, deliberate pace.

Outside, on the apron, parked as far to the side as had been possible, was a gleaming, immaculate, beautifully restored, Miller-Meteor high-top ambulance:  Omaha orange and white, it had the stylized white cross on the back windows, flanked with twin white bars; its tunnel lights and the four-bulb beacon on top all worked -- Linn knew this, he'd seen it coming down the road, lit up and running fast -- he also knew Cadillac ambulances were no longer in service for emergency work, as they no longer met some bureaucratic standard or another.

Linn had his own opinions of bottom polishing bureaucrats, who cooked up regulations to justify their jobs and for no other reason:  he considered such seven carbon souls in the same league as milk inspectors, who had to manufacture something to be corrrected, if no actual deficiency existed.

 

Annie Malloy had been a nurse, a very long time ago.

Annie Malloy sat on her porch, in a rocking chair, with a big brandy balloon half full of beer, just like she was.

Annie Malloy looked out over her manicured yard, to the trees beyond, rocked gently, smiling a little: she'd been in the Second World War, she'd been in the Pacific Theater, and she was smiling because she remembered what it was to wear the same combat boots and baggy trousers as "Her Boys" -- every patient, every injured Marine that came in was one of Her Boys, and she treated each and every one like gold ... she'd been young then ... and she learned, and learned fast, how to blouse her trousers into her boot tops.

She bloused her trousers into her boot tops for the same reason she wore a .45 automatic, a pistol she wore as easily and as naturally as she wore her trousers.

The South Pacific grew jungles, and jungles grew rats, and rats grew to an impressive size, and Annie Malloy, RN, didn't wear a .45 automatic with girlfriend grips in case the Japanese overran their field hospital. 

No, she had no fear of that.

Her Boys told her they would rise from their sickbeds, missing limbs or not, still beeding or not, and every young man in that hot canvas tent told her solemnly and very seriously that they would kick those slant eyed sons of Hirohito back into the salt water ocean before they'd let the enemy bring harm to their nurses:  no, Annie Malloy wore the Democratic Laundromatic because she'd seen jungle rats come sniffing into her surgical suite.

She'd watched, horrified, as a rat started eating ripped flesh from a new arrival, a man unconscious and unable to stop it: a Corpsman seized the offending rodent by its tail, whipped it in a tight arc, slammed it headfirst to the muddy board floor, stomped it.

Annie never forgot the expression of hatred, of loathing, on that young man's otherwise handsome, high-school-football-star face.

She'd seen a jungle rat tunnel up the pants leg of one of the other nurses, heard her scream and watched her sling a tray of instruments as it bit the hell out of her once it climbed inside her pants leg and could suddenly climb no further.

Annie knew the .45 wasn't famous for its accuracy, but in her time in that humid and stifling jungle, she'd sent just short of a dozen of the snuffing scoundrels to hell with Marine Corps hardball.

Annie Malloy was remembering what it was to hold a young man's hand, to listen to his pained whisper as the dressing was changed on what remained of an amputated leg, telling her about his girlfriend back home and how they'd kissed under the football field goalposts, and how he intended to marry her once he got home, and Annie's hand closed about an envelope she'd received a year to the day after her return to the States ... an envelope from a young man who wrote her to say thank you, and he'd married that girl, and he sent her a picture of the two of them, standing under the football field goalposts he'd told her about, lying flat on his back, on an olive-green, folding cot, in a South Pacific field hospital.

Annie Malloy took a long drink of beer, remembering how she'd developed a taste for the stuff while she was overseas.

She blinked as the quiet was shattered by a woman's screaming voice, a voice calling her name, a voice with that sharp edge that only comes when the Huns are in the wire --

"AAANNNEEEEE!"

Annie Malloy came to her feet, brandy balloon of beer in hand, reached for the screen door, stepped out of her screened in porch.

"AAANNEEEEE!"

A young woman on the far side of the paved road ran toward her, all big eyes and flying hair, and in her arms, a little girl, looking scared and a little confused.

Chrome flashed in the sunlight, Annie's eyes swung right, saw the flat hood and polished bumper of an oncoming Cadillac.

There was the scream of rubber on pavement, and Annie saw the car's front end dip hard, the way it will when the brakes lock up.

 

"Do you know where we are?"

"I know where we are," came the confident reply.  "About fifty miles off course."

"I thought you knew where we were going!"

"We were doing fine until that last detour, Buddy Joe.  After that --"

"Hey, there's a sign."

Two sets of eyes looked at the approaching marker as the restored Cadillac high-top slowed.

"Firelands," one read, "five miles."

A paper map wrinkled crisply as it was unfolded a little further, a nail-trimmed finger followed a colored line, tapped twice.

"Firelands, dead ahead.  Back on course!"

The two looked at one another and grinned:  they'd been friends since the days they both wore medic's blue.

They'd been deadheading back from an emergency transfer when they saw this Cadillac ambulance with a FOR SALE sign: they'd bought it on a handshake, they got it home, they restored it -- a project that saw them through retirement, a project that saw them visited by a steady stream of admirers, both motorheads who loved vehicle restoration as a whole, and by fellow medics who well remembered driving a Cadillac, veteran paramedics who drove a Cadillac ambulance when lives depended on their skill and on their speed.

They'd recruited from this Unorganized Militia, they'd winnowed out who was genuine and who was an armchair mechanic; the engine and transmission were pulled, torn down, examined:  very little actual work had to be done, the exhaust manifolds each had a crack, a brand new set of original exhaust manifolds was located, ceramic coated, installed:  the timing chain was replaced, then the timing gears, but beyond that, a good steam cleaning and repainting, belts and hoses, a radiator flush revealed two leaks, which were remedied with a careful solder job by a fellow who fixed radiators for a living, and wouldn't take a cent for his work -- "One of these rigs kept me alive when I was a child," he'd told them firmly -- and finally, when they were finished, when the interior was restored and restocked, after trim was taken up and accumulated material scraped and soaked and scrubbed from where it had gathered over years of service -- reupholstered seats, a restored Ferno Type 30 ambulance cot and linens ("The Backbreaker," one of their grinning visitors called it, "that's the reason I don't know a single veteran medic that doesn't have a bad back, me included!") -- and new curtains for sideglass and rear window, and they were ready.

They were ready, but for what?

When they were finished -- after they'd tested all the wiring, all the lights, after they stuffed towels in the waxed, polished, gleaming twin siren speakers on the roof, cranked the Federal Interceptor through yelp, wail, Hi-Lo, and the several half-tones -- Mangler, Falling Bomb and other sounds of electronic agony -- they stood back and admired the hell out of their restored, immaculate, gleaming, waxed, better-than-new-condition Cadillac ambulance, shining in the sun, new tires black and spotless.

They stood, rubbing their hands absently on shop rags, they'd looked at one another and said aloud, with one voice, "What do we do with her now?"

A sympathetic wife laid her hand on each of their shoulders -- she'd come up behind them as they stood back, as they looked at this long labor of love -- and she said, "Now you show her off.  There's a parade in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Pack your bags, that's two states away."

And so it was that a restored, Omaha Orange and White, high-top Cadillac ambulance, got itself absolutely, completely, utterly, gloriously lost in the Colorado high country, and how it was that a panicked young mother ran across the highway right in front of two men in white shirts and neckties, that was how the Cadillac's new brakes locked up brand new, gleaming-black tires, and how a World War II nurse came out of a screened porch with a big bulbous glass of beer in one hand and a determined look on her face.

Two men jumped out of the Cadillac, old habits taking over:  two women came together, the younger one babbling --

"She swallowed a button battery, ohmigawd Annie what do we do?"

Annie looked at the two men, one who reached for the child:  "Darlin'," one asked in a professional voice, "are you in pain?"

The little girl shook her head uncertainly.

"We're not from here," the other said, "how far to your nearest hospital?"

"Six miles," Annie said, her voice clipped, efficient.

"Button battery.  Do you have any honey?"

"Yes," Annie said. 

"She'll need two good swallows."

"I'll be right back."

One man winked at the little girl, who giggled and hid behind her curled-shut hand.

The other turned, strode for the back of the ambulance.

"I'll get the cot."

 

Annie Malloy sat in the firehouse, her brandy balloon freshly half-filled.

Sheriff Linn Keller came over to the quietly smiling older woman, looked at the two men, talking in quiet voices with the Captain.

"They're busy," he said to the elderly nurse with the military-erect posture.  "Can I talk to you?"

She looked at the Sheriff and smiled.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you much," she said.  "I was sitting on my porch" -- she lifted her balloon in salute, took a swallow -- "and then Janet came from across the road with her little girl."

"The one they took in to the hospital."

Annie nodded.  "She said she'd swallowed a button battery."

Linn grimaced.  "Nasty things," he muttered.

"I understand they are."  Annie nodded to the nearer of the two men.  "This one -- no, the other, the good looking one --"

"I'll let you be the judge of that," Linn smiled, and Annie swatted at his arm with wrinkled, gentle fingers.

"He said to give her honey.  I had some.  Two good swallows and he explained honey would insulate the battery and keep it from eroding the esophagus. One of your nurses said it would also lubricate it and flush it into the stomach were it could do no more harm."

"I see."

"I don't know where they came from," Annie admitted, "but God Almighty put'em there.  My Buick is in the shop and Janet doesn't have a car, with her husband at work."

Linn nodded.

He knew Annie's Buick had been sold by family; they didn't want a woman in her nineties, on the road, and Annie didn't make an issue of it: telling people it was in the shop, was her pleasant fiction with knowing her car was gone, and Linn saw no need to contradict the woman.

He himself had experienced how the Almighty put people where they were needed, when they were needed.

The Captain looked over, lifted his chin.

"Excuse me," Linn said pleasantly, reaching over and gripping Annie's hand quickly, his big callused hand laid over her knobby, arthritic knuckles.

"Sheriff, this is Brian Neff, this is Mark Doerfler. They're old veteran medics."

"Mark," Linn grinned, shaking the newcomer's hand.  "Brian."

"They restored that gorgeous Cadillac outside."

"Gorgeous is right," Linn grinned.  "My Mama would have appreciated that one!"

"She ran Cadillacs?" Doerfler asked, and Linn nodded. 

"Briefly, right before they went to van ambulances."

The Sheriff looked from one man to another.  "First off, I understand you ran lights and siren. in my county."

"We did," came the plain spoken reply: Linn nodded, appreciating the lack of obfuscation.

The Sheriff raised a finger.

"I was on the horn with the State Police.  I explained this was a medical emergency and there'd been no time to call the cavalry.  They indicated this was a one-off, it was an exception, it was an emergency, and it is the same as simply giving a ride in a private vehicle.  As  far as lights and siren, I didn't mention that. As it occurred in my county, I am declaring it a non-issue.  You did the right thing at the right time."

Two men shifted in their seats, two men looked profoundly relieved.

"I was afraid the Powers that Be were going to take her from us."

Linn laughed.  "Nope.  Now how in two hells did you fellas happen to be in the right place at the right time?"

Mark and Brian looked at one another and laughed, then each pointed to the other and declared firmly, "He got us lost!"

Edited by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
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726. BENCH PRESS

 

Reverend John Burnett took a long breath, blew it out, gripped the red-covered book with the gold cross embossed on its cover.

He'd stood here, at this same grave, almost forty years ago.

He'd spoken the final words over a dear friend's box, and now he was here again, to speak the same words over his daughter's ashes.

Reverend John Burnett knew a Lear jet was waiting for him across the river, that after the funeral, he'd be flown back, from Parkersburg, to Firelands: that pale eyed Sheriff insisted on providing him that express flight, when Reverend John said he'd been asked by family to come back to Marietta to do Susie's funeral.

Years ago, long years before -- "back when dirt was young," he'd joked, "back when I was skinny, if you can imagine that" -- he and Susie ran squad together, both emergency, and non-emergency ambulance transport.

Laughter was their frequent navigator, long distance transfers were less tedious when they worked together; their friendship never ventured into the romantic -- he'd married her and Mark, back when, and he was good friends with both -- he'd moved West, and Susie moved back to Marietta, on the Ohio River, and their laughter was long distance now.

Or had been.

Susie's health failed steadily, due in part to chemical exposure -- she'd been hit by an ammonia release while evacuating people from a refrigeration facility -- she'd gone into congestive heart failure, and she finally died, surrounded by family.

At least I made it back to see her before she died, he thought:  he stared at the square hole, just big enough to admit an urn, a hole dug in an existing grave.

She did so love her father, he thought, remembering with a smile what it was to go fishing with that fine old man:  his eyes drifted over to the tomb stone.

Harold Spicer, he read: a birth date, a death date, some scrollwork.

I miss you, my friend, I miss fishing the River with you.

Reverend John remembered performing the man's funeral, how lost he'd felt when he did.

His eyes registered the tombstone again.

Pretty meager epitaph for a man's lifetime.

Reverend John knew the engravers were there the day before, sandblasting Sue's name on the smooth back side of the stone.

He'd looked at it, once, then walked back to the front of the stone, eyes stinging.

Every clergyman I've discussed it with said the same thing, he thought.

A funeral for someone you know is the hardest.

Nobody warned me just how hard!

He thought of another friend, a few counties to the north, a friend who'd gone into the ministry: the man didn't pursue the profession for a paycheck, he'd been Chaplain for fire, police and emergency medical, and in his time he'd done the funeral for his best friend -- then for another best friend -- for his police partner, and thirty days later, for his own mother.

Reverend John shook his head.

"You're a better man than I," he muttered.  "Your best friend, and your own mother, and neither one with any warning, just stand and deliver."

Reverend John Burnett, of Firelands, Colorado, closed his eyes, tilted his head back, felt September sun on his face, smiled:  he heard a tow on the Ohio River nearby, big Diesel engines singing in near-harmony, shoving a string of coal-heavy barges against the current, bound for an electric generating station upriver.

I should have brought my camera.

River photos on a clear day are gorgeous.

He opened his eyes and smiled again.

A butterfly drifted across the grave, fluttered, coasted, fluttered again, and he remembered the messages Sue would send.

She always sent butterflies.

He opened the book he carried, stared sightlessly at his own careful handwriting on the cheat sheet he'd prepared, at the obituary, printed out and ready.

A lifetime, in four paragraphs, he thought.

That's as inadequate as engraving on a tombstone.

John knew Susie wished to be cremated, and interred with her father; he knew she told him, on one of those deadheading returns from delivering a patient, that she didn't want people staring at her dead carcass, pickled in a box:  she wanted a graveside service, she wanted something simple, something brief.

What do I tell them about you, Susie? he thought.

Do I tell them how you described yourself as Vertically Challenged, or as you put it, Fun Size?

Do I tell them that, in spite of your looking me squarely in the bottom of the shirt pocket, you were the best lifting partner I ever had?

Do I tell them about banging my head -- hard -- on one of those wall mounted TV sets on the articulated arm, that you looked solemnly at me and asked if I should wear a five gallon bucket like a hardhat, which got a laugh from her, from me, from the patient and from two nurses in the room?

He looked at the tomb stone again and smiled.

"Harold," he said aloud, "Susie always was Daddy's girl.  I think she'll rest easiest with you."

John closed his eyes, took a long breath, heard gravel crunch as a car, then another, drove into the cemetery.

"Okay, Susie," he whispered aloud, "this is for you, darlin'!"

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller was waiting at the Firelands International Crash Patch as the Lear touched down.

Reverend Burnett paused in the doorway, shook hands with the pilot: the two shared a quiet word, a smile, and the Firelands preacher came down the steps and onto the tarmac.

Willamina tilted her head a little, gave him an understanding look.

"Glad you're home," she said, taking his arm.  "How was your flight?"

Reverend John reached down, caressed The Bear Killer, who was pacing alongside, bumming for attention.

"Short," Reverend John admitted.  "And uneventful.  How about here?  Anything happen while I was gone?"

Willamina patted his hand, smiled up at him.

"Not much," she admitted.  "I try to keep it quiet and boring."

Preacher, Sheriff and a huge, black, curly furred, bear killin' dawg got into the Sheriff's Jeep:  the pilot put the Parson's grip in the back seat, closed the door quietly, headed for the flight shack with a grin and a wave.

Willamina started the Jeep, regarded the Parson with an understanding expression.

"I know that look," she said quietly.

Reverend John Burnett stared sightlessly out the windshield, still gripping his book with the red cover and the several bookmarks.

"Sheriff," he said quietly, "the Arabs have a saying."

Willamina nodded, blinked once.

"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger."

"I've heard that."

"If that's true," Reverend John said, memory and grief coarsening his voice, "right about now I should be able to bench press a Buick!"

"Burying a friend is hard enough," Willamina agreed, pulling the Jeep into gear.  "I can't even imagine performing that friend's sevice!"  She reached over, gripped his knuckles again.  

"John, I think you could bench press that sedan!"

The Bear Killer thrust his big, black head up between the two as the Sheriff's Jeep turned and started back down the mountain.

Willamina's hand rested on his, squeezed.

"Your wife has supper ready," she said in a gentle voice.  "Let's get you home where you belong!"

 

 

 

 

Edited by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
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727. ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI

 

A young deputy's polished Wellington boot came down on something that wasn't grass.

He'd been cat-footing up the alley, walking on mowed, dew-wet grass, his tread absolutely silent: he was hunting a man, a man who'd come into a house, surprising the occupant.

Linn was hunting someone who swore he'd not go back to prison, he was hunting a known thief and coward -- and cowards are dangerous, they tend to ambush or back-shoot, or leave a booby trap.

Linn's partner was green as the grass Linn was using to silence his approach.

Linn heard the new fella -- at this point, little more than an observer -- hiss in a sudden breath through clenched teeth.

Linn looked right, where the greater danger likely lay: his foot came down on bare dirt instead of grass, and as his gaze swept right, he saw he was in a bare-dirt area, neatly circumscribed in a semicircle, and his stomach tightened as he realized he was probably in more trouble than he really wanted to be.

Looking at him from a backyard dogbox was a black muzzle and a set of laid-back ears, and as their eyes met, Linn saw shivering lips lift from bared fangs, heard the rumbling snarl of the Doberman.

I don't want to shoot someone's dog, Linn thought, his hand closing on the handle of his .357: he raised his left forefinger to his lips, looked at the Doberman, and said loudly, "Ssshhh!"

The Doberman's head came up, his ears came up, the lips dropped over the fangs, the canine expression went from rip-you-apart to oh-boy-let's-play!

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna crouched behind a rain barrel, took a long, steadying breath, blew it out through pursed lips and puffed cheeks.

She was after a man who swore he'd never go back to prison, and Sarah was satisfied he was serious: she'd followed him down this alley, slipping from shadow to doorway to rainbarrel, one shadow among many, and when he stopped, rapped on a door, waited, Sarah bent double and flowed up behind a rainbarrel and waited.

She could see his reflection in a wavy-glass window; she could not see him between the barrel's right, and the buildling adjacent; she knew there was clutter behind her to break her visual signature, she knew her soft, broad-brimmed hat would confuse the appearance of her head, so she gripped the rim of the rain barrel, rose slowly, slowly, peeked over its rim.

Something behind her snifffed loudly and shoved most rudely into her backside.

Outlaw and co-conspirator jumped, turned, startled at the startled, surprised, unexpectedly feminine yelp, at the sight of someone vaulting over a rainbarrel.

Jimmy Hill stepped back, thrust a hand into his coat pocket, gripped the handle of a hideout pistol, raised it without bringing it out of his pocket: he saw a figure hit the ground, tumble once, come up with a fisted arm thrust toward him.

He saw a momentary, dirty, yellowish flash in the same moment that something hit him right below the wishbone.

It felt like a sharp little fist punched deep inside him, a fist that hit hard enough toknock his eternal soul clear out of his fleshly carcass.

Just before he fell backward and hit the ground, just before he stood up and looked down at his own dead carcass laying supine and dead in that dirt alley, he looked up and saw one of the local stray dogs, behind the rainbarrel, wagging its tail and looking most pleased with itself.

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller laughed a little as she watched the video.

It had been taken before she was born, or maybe the same year:  her Daddy looked so young, but just as handsome as she remembered him (we can forgive her if she's a little prejudiced here).

He and a new hire were debriefing, describing the incident, how an old residenter woke up to find Jimmy Hill in his living room, surprised the old man was home:  when he householder pulled a .32 Beretta from under his pillow, the intruder fled out the back door, the old man following.

The Sheriff's office had been called, they'd responded -- this part of town was barely out of the corp limits, and Linn and the new guy were nearby -- and as the two lawmen came in sight of the old man on his back porch, peering into the dark through Coke bottle glasses, they'd identified and approached.

The intruder was long gone into the darkness, and no dog with them to find him: next time, they both thought, and proceeded to take the old man's statement.

Somewhere in the conversation, the old man attempted to release the heel clip to remove his pistol's magazine, and managed instead to dislodge the floor plate:  live rounds, spring, floor plate and follower fell to the floor, and the old man looked with distress at the metallic mess scattered on the linoleum.

"I told him you were our automatic weapons specialist," the new hire grinned, "because I didn't know how to put it back together!"

Linn laughed, nodded:  "When in doubt, pass the buck!"

"I'll be honest," the new guy said, his face suddenly serious, "when I saw that dog, I thought you were in trouble, but hell!  You weren't a deputy, you were St. Francis of Assisi!"

Sheriff Marnie Keller nodded, remembering more times than one when her pale eyed Daddy showed a surprising affinity for animals that others claimed were dangerous.

The debrief she was watching was not the only time he'd been compared to the animal loving Saint.

"Saint Francis," she giggled, leaning her upper lip into her clasped hands, feeling very much like a little girl looking proudly at her big strong Daddy.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
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728. FETCH

Marnie Keller looked over at her pale eyed Daddy.

Linn felt his daughter's eyes on him, leaned back a little in the saddle:  his stallion halted, as did Marnie's gelding.

"Someone is going to die," Marnie said.

Something cold willy-wormed its way down Linn's spine.

He was not a superstitious man, he was not a man given to wild imaginations, but he was a man of perception: he could tell when someone was lying to him, and he could tell when someone was telling him the Gospel truth -- kind of like when he was desribing his own near-death experience to the Parson, who was silent for a long moment, then said "I can tell you are telling me the truth, I can feel the Spirit in your words!"

Linn looked at his eight year old daughter and wondered how to phrase his question, but he was interrupted by her raised arm.

"Look, Daddy, here they come," she said.  "It's the Irish Brigade an' they never run the steam engine unless someone's gonna die."

Linn looked ahead, puzzled.

The street into Firelands, and clear down the main street, was empty, save for only one worse-for-wear pickup truck, laboring slowly up the grade, a pale cloud of blue oil smoke telling the tale of a set of bad rings.

Linn looked at his daughter, his eyes turning pale.

"With me, Marnie," he said, his voice tight: the stallion gathered itself and Marnie felt her gelding gather himself under her, and a moment later, father and daughter launched into a gallop, straight for the center of the Firelands Business, Industrial and Cultural District, the Middle of Beautiful Downtown Metropolis Itself:  hard-shod hooves clattered on pavement as they charged, two abreast, leaning forward a little as they rode:  Linn's hat was angled down a little, to catch the wind and push it more firmly down on his head:  Marnie's flew back, fell back, hung on its storm strap, over her twin braids:  a pale eyed lawman and a delighted, grinning little girl, moving fast.

Linn eased his stallion's velocity:  steel-shod hooves can be perilously slick on pavement, and he slowed enough ahead the stallion didn't skid:  Linn brought him about, Marnie keeping station beside him as he turned the Paso and reached for the wagon-bolt hanging from the crossarm.

The stallion threw his head away from the noise as Linn beat mercilessly on the heavy sheet metal alarm, a relic from years past: it was the Irish Brigade's original alarm, it showed dents from previous hammerings, it was weathered, it showed the typical farm-implement-brown patina of exposed metal, it swung on two chain links on each corner under the hammering attack.

The man door opened and Fitz stepped out, a steaming mug of coffee in hand.

"WHAT IN THE HELL'S GOIN' ON OUT HERE!" he yelled, and Linn stood in the stirrups and yelled right back, both men's voices battle-pitched and edged with anger:  "YOU DAMNED IRISHMAN, BATTLE STATIONS, THE FETCH IS DRIVIN' OUT OF TOWN!"

The fire chief's coffee slopped out of his mug as he appeared to be yanked back inside by a strong man's grip on the back of his belt:  Linn heard the man yelling, and not many moments later, every overhead door began to chuckle open:  shining Kenworth Diesel engines shivered into life, rattling with contained power, eased out onto the apron, waiting to be loosed.

Linn's imagination populated the scene with a trio of white horses, harnessed, dancing, shaking their heads, eager to run, a black-mustachioed Irishman standing in the driver's box, a curled blacksnake whip in one hand, the reins in the other, as smoke soared quickly out the blunt boiler-stack: part of his imagination regretted that romantic scene wasn't a part of every response, then he seized the thought and shoved it down into an iron kettle and screwed the lid down:  he sidestepped his stallion, backed him a little, and Marnie backed her gelding a little further, until she was just at the edge of the sidewalk behind.

The bay doors were closing behind the idling apparatus: they were not yet completely closed when the howler went off, when they heard "Firelands Fire Department, structure fire, Portie Flamingo Road at Cornstill," and every light seared into flashing, staggering life, as booted feet came down hard on Diesel throttles, as apparatus swung onto the street and took a hard left, roaring determinedly for the emergency.

Marnie heard her Daddy's near-whisper:  "God ride with  those who run, and those for whom they run," and she whispered a quiet "Amen."

They turnred their mounts to watch the apparatus depart town, the Marnie looked at her Daddy, wrinkled her nose.

Linn looked at his little girl.

His face was stern, impassive, but his eyes were not, for he knew his little girl had a question.

"Daddy," she asked, "what's a fetch?"

Linn took a long breath in through his nose and considered, then slid his bottom jaw out and frowned.

"Darlin'," he said, "when a man is dyin', in Scotland, they say a ghost sheep will appear at his door."

Marnie blinked, her pale eyes steady on her Daddy's face.

"The closer the man is to death, the worse that sheep will appear, until when that sheep looks like it's ready to die, the man inside is too.  That sheep is called a fetch."

"Why do they call it a fetch?  Why not call it a ghost sheep?"

Linn allowed himself the barest hint of a smile.

"It's said the ghost sheep is there to fetch the man's soul to his reward."

"But I didn't see a sheep, Daddy."

"I know, Princess.  You saw a steam engine, pulled by three white horses, with a big broad shouldered Irishman standing up in the driver's box."

Marnie nodded solemnly.

"When someone sees that -- when they see the Irish Brigade's fetch -- there's going to be a fire, and a bad one, and someone is going to die."

"I know that," she said, "but I didn't know they called it the Fetch."

They turned their mounts, rode slowly uphill, their horses' hooves loud and sharp on the bare pavement.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Princess?"

"What other ghosties are there?"

"Oh, plenty," Linn grinned.  "I recall the first time you Mama found one."

"Mommie found a ghostie?"

Linn laughed.

"She was sittin' on the tailboard of the first-out pumper," Linn said, "and she said she didn't believe in ghosts.  Right about then, the truck rocked like someone climbed on the tailboard beside her."

Marnie's eyes were big and innocent as she regarded her Daddy.

"She said she could smell man-sweat and smoke and rubber turnout coat, the kind they used to wear, and from then on she didn't say anything about not believin' in ghosts."

"Oh," Marnie said, as if that explained everything, then:  "Daddy?"

"Yes, darlin'?"

"I'm kinda hungry.  How 'bout some ice cream?"

Linn drew his stallion to a halt and regarded his little girl with a stern expression.

"If I recall rightly," he said, "it's traditional to have ice cream when someone sees the Fetch."

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729. RIG FOR COLLISION!

Sarah Lynne McKenna hit the ground and rolled.

Teeth bared, arms tight against her chest, she curled up with pain: she slammed to a stop, her back colliding with something solid -- she didn't know what, her eyes were screwed shut and it hurt too much to even hiss in a breath between clenched teeth.

She heard the sound of retreating hooves, she heard men's voices shouting -- hands, gently gripping her shoulder, slipping under her cheek, a voice from a distance asking if she was hurt -- shouted voices clamoring for a doctor --

Sarah Lynne McKenna, for one of the very few times in her young life, her gown dirty and her cheek bloodied from having collided with a galloping horse and the stone pavers, lying up against a post in a Denver street --

For one of the very few times in her young life, Sarah Lynne McKenna just honestly passed out.

A green-eyed woman's head came up suddenly, her face contorted with pain:  she tried to rise, fell to the floor, curled up in agony.

A little girl, alarmed, dropped her book, ran over to her red-headed Mama, went to her knees, terrified:  Esther Keller felt little hands grip her shoulder, heard a little girl's voice:  "Mama?"

"Get your father," Esther whispered, trying hard not to lose her stomach from the pain.

She heard the rattle of a doorknob, the sound of little patent-leather slippers scampering down the hallway and down the stairs.

Esther Keller's eyes were screwed shut with the agony of a collision, her knees drawn to her chest, arms crossed around her middle:  she heard a man's boots, coming up the stairs at a dead run, heard the door slam open, felt the floor shiver as a man's knees hit the rug beside her, as a man's arms slid under her.

Esther Keller opened her eyes as her husband hauled her off the floor, rolled her into him.

"Sarah," she whispered.  "Sarah's been hurt."

Esther heard her husband's voice, tight it was, the way it sounded when he was quietly planning to rip the living soul from someone who most deserved his murderous attentions.

"Jacob."

"Sir."

Esther felt herself carried, like a child, down the stairs, content to be held close to her husband's chest, content to know that -- as badly hurt as she felt -- that Linn would make it right.

 

Jacob Keller's eyes were ice pale as he led his stallion up the ramp into the stock car.

The conductor thrust two flags into their sockets, at the engine's front:  white they were, signalling they had priority over all other traffic:  The Lady Esther breathed quietly, patiently, waiting for her lover's hand on the Johnson bar, waiting to be commanded:  she blasted a steam-plume, white and pure, against the cloudless blue sky, not out of impatience, perhaps from boredom:  she backed, slowly, gently, coupled with the stock car, with the private car:  inside the depot, a telegrapher gripped the black gutta-percha button between thumb and two fingers, tapped out the priority, received the all-clear.

The conductor ran from the telegrapher's office, slowed long enough to give the engineer the high sign:  he caught an armful of private car as The Lady Esther's sanders opened, as she hissed powerfully, steam against pistons, as her drivers slipped only momentarily, as the experienced hand on her throttle brought her to steadily increasing life.

The Lady Esther pointed her nose toward Denver.

This trip was a Special, and took priority over all other rail traffic.

A brightly colored, well polished, gleaming Baldwin steam locomotive did her level best to punch a hole in the air.

 

Sarah remembered hearing hooves before she heard shouts.

It hurt to breathe: she tried to speak, but it hurt too much, so she relaxed, relaxed and remembered ...

Hoofbeats ...

A runaway ...

Sharp clatter of shod hooves on a city street ...

Must stop the runaway, must stop it, must stop it --

She remembered running into the street, raising her gloved arms wide, whistling, sharp, loud, her curled-lip whistle echoing for a moment, for one bright moment as the horse charged down on her, as she prepared to seize it about the neck and vault up onto its back like she'd done before, as she and Daciana practiced and practiced and practiced again -- 

 

The taste of brandy burned bright on Esther's lips, in her throat:  she raised a bent wrist to her mouth, coughed delicately, placed her gloved hand to the base of her throat and gave a delicate little harrumph.

Dear God, Linn thought, she just slugged down a brandy and she clears her throat all ladylike!

"I won't call it hysteria," Dr. John Greenlees said slowly, raising an eyebrow as he regarded his recovering patient.  "Of all the things that you are, Mrs. Keller, hysterical is not among them."

"Thank you, Doctor," Esther whispered, wobbling a little as she sat up on the side of the bed, unsure whether to trust her voice after that good tilt of Two Hit John:  she preferred her delicate wines, and her husband's preferred blend of half California peach brandy and half moon likker was far more potent than her genteel throat was used to.

Linn took the glass from her, set it aside, took her gloved hand carefully between his own.

"My dear," he asked carefully, "are you with child?"

Esther gave her husband a patient look and smiled tolerantly:  "No," she said, "although it's not for want of trying" -- she had a rush of feminine satisfaction at seeing her husband's ears turn suddenly red, the admission being made in front of others, even if "others" meant their trusted physician and his chief nurse.

"What happened?"  Linn whispered.

Esther's face grew serious.

"My dear," she said, looking at Dr. Greenlees, then at Nurse Susan, "we women have a way of knowing things."

"Tell me something I don't know," Linn muttered, frowning.

"I felt Sarah."

Esther saw Linn's already pale eyes grow hard and cold, saw the color drain from his face, saw the skin tighten over his cheek bones.

"Details."

"She's been hit by a runaway horse."

Linn closed his eyes and took a long breath.

"My dear, Jacob is bound for Denver on a special. He will have wired ahead to let the constabulary know he will require their assistance in finding her."

Esther nodded, closed her eyes, raised delicate fingers to her forehead.

"I must lie down," she murmured, "do forgive my weakness!"

Linn bent forward, ran his arms around his wife, held her tight, whispered fiercely into her hair, "Weak is one thing you're not!" -- then he ran his arm under her knees, his other arm behind her shoulder blades, brought her legs up and laid her out on the bed: he very carefully released her, then gripped her hands, released:  he squatted quickly, looked at the blue-eyed little girl clutching a book, a little girl who was regarding her Daddy with a worried expression.

"Darlin'," Linn said, "I'm going to need your help."

Linn's curly haired little girl nodded:  Linn picked her up, stood.

"My dear," he said gently, "we're going to the telegraph office.  I'll send a boy with information as we get it."

"Do let Bonnie know," Esther said faintly.

"My dear, I shall."

Nurse Susan saw them out of the room, the long tall lawman who looked like he'd be happier ripping heads off, and the little girl holding her Daddy's hand, looking up at her long tall Daddy with the innocent and trusting eyes of a little child.

 

TO SHERIFF FIRELANDS

FROM MURPHY DETECTIVE DENVER PD

SL MC KENNA LOCATED INJURED

WILL SURVIVE

"That's it?"

"That's all they sent, Sheriff."

Linn sat, slowly, re-reading the handwritten flimsy as if to try and divine more from the message.

A curious little girl looked at the telegrapher, came up on her toes to look at his desktop, then at the telegraph sounder.

"You got all that from the clickies?" she asked in an innocent little girl's voice, and Lightning laughed and set her on his knee.

"Yes, I did, Little Lady," he said proudly.  "I can send clickies and I can read 'em when they come in!"

Linn looked up from the flimsy.

"Did Jacob wire ahead?"

Lightning nodded.  "He did, they know he's coming in on a special."

"How long until he gets there?"

"Maybe a half hour."

Linn nodded, rose.

"Thank you," he said gravely, held out his hand:  his little girl slid off the bony, grandfatherly knee, pattered over to her Daddy, took his big hand in hers -- which looked more like a guppy being swallowed by a whale -- and Lightning smiled a little as father and daughter left his office:  a moment later he saw them pass by, out the open office door, the pale eyed lawman in a black suit in the saddle, his little girl astride behind, happily clutching handsful of her Daddy's coat.

 

Sarah heard a familiar step, smiled a little:  she felt a cool, damp rag placed over her forehead, felt gentle fingers brush her cheek.

"I look a fright," she whispered.

"You look just fine," she heard Jacob whisper back.

"How bad am I hurt?" Her voice was more than a whisper, but not by much: Jacob could tell it hurt to talk.

"Your liver got knocked loose, your drawbar is broke and you got a busted axle but other'n that you're fine."

Sarah opened her eyes, smiled at her brother's carefully-impassive expression.

"Liar."

Jacob was trying hard to keep a good poker face, and failed utterly:  he grinned and said, "The doc says you're bruised up and likely your ribs will hurt, but he didn't find anything broke and he doesn't think you busted a gut or anythin' like that."

"Is that why I've no corset?"

"Reckon so."

"I'll need my corset," she whispered.  "If my ribs are hurt, it'll help support me."

Jacob looked up, lifted his chin:  "Ma'am," he said to the approaching nurse as he rose, "if you could tend that detail, please?  I don't reckon 'twould be proper for me to lace up my own sister like that."

 

Bonnie Lynne McKenna stood on the depot platform, waiting.

It was a little short of twelve noon; she waited as The Lady Esther coasted almost silently into station, her stack clean, breathing nothing but pure white exhaust as she came into sight, as she came into the depot, as she came to a stop.

Polly and Opal stood behind their parents, wearing matching gowns and fashionable little hats: the twins stood alike, they were of a like height, their only real difference being a greater delicacy of complexion and an epicanthic fold to Opal's face, speaking to her Japanese ancestry: they were as alike as twins, though in truth they were stepsisters: they spoke alike, they completed each other's sentences, they were as bonded as twins, and as they waited, watching the private car, waiting for the first glimpse of their pale eyed sister, their gloved hands slipped into an apprehensive, sisterly grasp.

The stock car's door slid open; Jacob swung out, dropped, gripped the ramp and dragged it out, dropped metal dogs into the sockets, shook it to make sure it was secure -- no small feat, the ramp was solid and well built, and both Linn and Levi appreciated that Jacob was not only keeping his back straight, he dragged rather than lifted and let something other than him carry as much weight as possible.

Levi felt Bonnie's gloved hands tighten on his forearm, and he laid a husbandly hand over hers: they'd received the serious-faced Sheriff, they listened -- Bonnie gripped her husband's arm, leaned into his shoulder as they absorbed the Sheriff's carefully spoken syllables -- Bonnie felt her stomach drop a few miles as he described Sarah, in Denver on business, stepping out into the street with intent to stop a runaway horse, broken free from being harnessed, and being hit hard and knocked aside -- "she was  not trompled," Linn stressed -- "and she is able to travel.  The doc said she'll be stove up and sore for a while, but she was not busted up inside."

Now they waited -- it was a day later, Sarah opted to take a room at her favorite hotel and heal for a day before traveling, a move which at once irritated Bonnie's motherly impatience, and reassured her maternal concerns.

They heard hooves coming down the ramp, but paid them little attention: they were watching the private car, expecting to see Sarah come forth, walking slowly, carefully, and probably on Jacob's arm.

The twins saw her first.

Polly swarmed around her Mama's skirts, between Bonnie and the depot building's clap board wall, and Opal swung out between her Papa's hip and the edge of the platform: they ran for the far end, where Sarah was just coming to the foot of the ramp, sitting regally astride Jacob's Apple-horse.

Sarah turned her head and smiled at them, raised her parasol and opened it:  she batted long eyelashes, tilted her head a little and said, "Isn't it a lovely day for a ride?" and Jacob grinned up at her, then at her family.

Sarah circled Apple-horse around the depot, Polly and Opal running behind: she came around the telegraph office's near end, where the height was just right, where she could dismount and step level from stirrup to platform:  Apple-horse stopped at her quiet "Ho, boy, ho, now," slashed his tail as the twins clamored up in front of him.

Sarah swung her leg over and turned to step onto the platform.

Levi caught her as she fell.

Bonnie's hands came to her mouth as she heard Sarah's pained hiss of air between clenched teeth:  Levi had her under the arms, steadied her, waited until she got her legs firmly under, her weight on her feet, nodded:  Bonnie gathered her daughter into her arms, drew Sarah's face into her maternal bosom, hiding the pain that ran out of Sarah's clenched eyelids.

A pale eyed father and a pale eyed son watched silently, each one remembering what it was to be held in a moment of pain, a moment of grief, knowing few things are as healing as that maternal, motherly embrace.

 

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730. YOU NEED TO BUY A LOTTERY TICKET

Reverend John Burnett leaned back a little as an enormous slice of fresh baked, still warm, pie settled in front of him, two big scoops of vanilla ice cream starting to melt a little, running white rivulets down onto the warm, gleaming, honey-colored, home canned filling.

He and his wife had done full justice to Sunday dinner at the Sheriff's table: he was full as a tick, and now dessert, and plenty of it!

"You're going to make me fat, Sheriff," he complained in a gentle voice.

"Yes, but what a way to go," Linn commented, which inherited him a wifely elbow in the ribs.

Willamina gave her son a knowing look, then winked at the good Reverend's wife:  "I doubt if you'd disappear if you turned sideways," she commented.  "Matter of fact it looks to me" -- she turned, looked very frankly at the man, "as if you wife's good home cookin' agrees with you!"

Mr. and Mrs. John Burnett laughed, for it was an old joke: Reverend John would pat his belly and comment on his wife's good cookin' rescuing him from an alternate career as an underfed scarecrow.

Willamina set pie in front of Mrs. Parson, as she called the woman, then set one for herself and sat.

"I did enjoy your sermon," she teased, and Reverend John stopped, and lowered his fork, and laughed.

"You mean the part where I stopped and laughed?"

"That's the one."

"The one where I shook my head and said I should have bought a lottery ticket."

"The same."

Reverend John looked at the Sheriff almost sadly.

"Dollars to doughnuts, Sheriff, nobody will remember my sermon, but they'll remember my comment about a lottery ticket."
Willamina laughed.  "Likely," she agreed, "but it was still a good sermon."  She picked up her own fork.  "Would you like a spoon instead of a fork?"

"I'll make this work, Sheriff!"
Mrs. Parson looked at the Sheriff and almost blurted, "Sheriff, how did you ever find time to fix Sunday dinner?"

Willamina and Shelly looked at one another and laughed.

"I'm afraid that one's on me," Shelly admitted.  "I kind of got volunteered!"

"We drafted from the Unorganized MIlitia," Linn declared, somehow managing an absolutely innocent expression:  Mrs. Parson saw Willamina give her son a cautioning look, and smiled as Linn protested, "But Mama, you told me the Unorganized Militia is everyone between sixteen and sixty-five, capable of bearing arms in defense of their State, and the State has its own draft law --"

"That's back in Ohio, smarty pants, and you made your poor long-suffering wife labor in a hot kitchen."

"She wore a short sleeve blouse," Linn said, closing his eyes and raising his teaching finger, going from an innocent expression to a stuffy, professorial visage.  "Thus, the bare arms part!"

He opened his eyes and his hand in time to catch the sweet roll his Mama tossed at him.

"See what I have to put up with?" Shelly sighed, and both the Parson and his wife joined in their mutual laughter.

"I will agree with you," Willamina murmured.  "Forgetting your cell phone was in your shirt pocket and still turned on, and no calls for the duration of the funeral service ..."

She shook her head, laughed.

"I'll agree with you," she repeated.  "You need to buy a lottery ticket!"

 

 

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731. TRIED THAT ONCE

Chief of Police Will Keller glared at the ceiling.

His left arm was taped out straight, held from bending by tape and a padded length of thin plywood; the IV pump chuckled quietly to his left, the TV set was dark -- he was tired of the popular broadcast's insult to his intelligence -- he kept his breathing steady, rhythmic, controlled.

There was a tentative tap at his closed hospital room door.

Chief of Police Will Keller was a patient man, he was a longsuffering man, and it was a testament to his self control that his reply was "Who goes there?" instead of a top-of-his-lungs invitation to travel to planes infernal, preferably in the nearest handbasket.

The door opened and Will's eyes tightened a little at the corners.

For a moment he saw his twin sis as she'd been when she'd first come to Colorado -- young, beautiful, glowing with the good health that only comes of the high mountain air -- and his smile spread a little further as this tenth-of-a-second idea evaporated and was replaced by his niece Marnie.

Her hand was warm as she laid it over his knuckles:  her hair was braided, laid over her collar bones, she wore a flannel shirt and a vest, and Will didn't have to make a study nor ask a question to know his teen-age niece wore a large caliber revolver under the vest ... very likely the .357 he'd given her.

"I don't know if anyone has filled you in," she said, her face serious, he voice quiet.

Will's mouth twitched at one corner, and she knew he was trying to suppress a smile.

"I know word went out I'd been killed," he said slowly, carefully, not wanting to add to the discomforts in his lower right sewed-back-together: one bullet glanced off his iliac crest and promised to make a fine barometer for the rest of his life, the second went in just under his soft ribs, cutting a bloody groove but not penetrating deeper than the first layer of muscle.

"They said you'd been killed."

Will felt Marnie's hand tighten a little over his knuckles and he saw her eyes grow just a little more pale, and he knew she was keeping her passion within due bounds, to use the correct phrase: they two had discussed words and vocabulary on many occasions, for communication is vital in law enforcement, and he'd known long before Marnie's pale eyed Pa did, that she planned to wear the Sheriff's star in due time.

"That would have just ruined my vacation plans," he rumbled.

Marnie's eyes tightened a little at the corners, then she looked away, suddenly uncomfortable.

"I killed the man that tried to kill you."

"Was it a fair fight?"

"No."

"Good."

"He was fleeing out of town, Uncle Will, and I loaded up one round in the rifle you gave me."

"One round."

Marnie nodded.

"Did it work?"

Marnie's smile was thin; her eyes narrowed a little as she pulled a mangled lump of pure gold from her vest pocket.

"I washed this off and sloshed it around in grain alcohol to kill any contamination."  She held it up between thumb and forefinger.  "I put this through the windshield and through his face and after he wrecked, I slit his scalp to retrieve this."

"I see."

"The coroner ruled cause of death as trauma from motor vehicle accident. Official reports cite the vehicle losing control and the driver's dead-on-scene status."

"I see."

"Uncle Will."  Marnie's hand pressed down on his, carefully:  she wished to emphasize a point, but without causing him any discomfort, and he raised an eyebrow, looked up at her.

"You got three of them before they got you, and I got the only one to get away."

"Sorry, darlin', I didn't mean for you to have to clean up my mess."

"Now you sound like my Daddy!"

Will chuckled a little, hid a grimace -- or tried to, Marnie saw it anyway -- "Uncle Will, you did the right thing when you laid them low, and I did the right thing when I put a pure gold Rose Society slug through that murderin' --"

It was rare for Will to see genuine, smoldering anger in his sister's face, and even more rare to see it in Marnie's -- fact is, he didn't ever recall seeing her this genuinely angry before -- she blinked, and it was gone, hidden, and Will made a mental note to discuss his approval of her ability to hide her feelings behind a mask when necessary.

He had no doubts at all that in due time, she would wear the Sheriff's six point star, and a poker face is a handy thing to have when that six point star rides on a body's shirt pocket flap.

Marnie took a long breath.

"It seems I am to be inducted into the Rose Society."

"Good."

"I'll have to be sworn in as a deputy first."

"Reckon so."

Marnie threw her head back and laughed quietly, looked down with obvious affection at her long tall Uncle:  she shook her head, smiling.

"You even sound like Daddy," she sighed.

"I get it honest.  So does he."

"If I understand, this will be a first, Uncle Will.  The Society of the Rose normally does not nominate unless you're a veteran badge packer."

"Maybe they figure it's in your blood," Will suggested.

Marnie nodded slowly, her braids swinging a little.  "That could be."  She looked at her Uncle, suddenly serious.  "Uncle Will, I want to make the best impression I can.  How should I dress?"

Will blinked, surprised.

He later described the moment to his nephew, the Sheriff, as "Yeah, as usual it was open mouth and something stupid falls out," and both men laughed, for they both complained about being plaged by the infamous Hoof In Mouth disease, which tended to plague uncle and nephew at the most inconvenient moments.

Will considered, opened his mouth, and his honest answer fell out and laid on his chest.

"Clothes."

Marnie laughed with her uncle, looked at him with genuine affection.

"Uncle Will," she sighed, "you're getting kind of old to be shot.  Might be you should retire."

"Not yet, darlin'," he rumbled. "Tried that once. Less than a year after I retired, the new chief fell over dead and I was asked to wear the hat again."

Marnie nodded thoughtfully.

"You asked me what you ought to wear for your Rose Society."
Marnie blinked, looked at her Uncle.

"I'd say a tailored blue suit dress like your Grandma wore, I'd say heels like she wore, I'd say it's a fine thing to show the world that our pale eyed Keller women are strong enough to run the show the way it ought to be run!  Besides" -- Will hesitated, considered, pushed ahead -- "you look enough like my little sis that they'll accept you on that too."

Marnie shook her head.  "No, Uncle Will.  I'll stand or I'll fall on my own merits."

Will grinned, looked at his nece with obvious affection.  

"Now you sound like Willa!"

Marnie rubbed his knuckles and whispered, "Flattery will get you everywhere!" -- then she leaned over the siderail, kissed his lightly-stubbled cheek:  she laid her cheek against his, whispering into his ear, "Don't you dare get killed on me, Will Keller, I will not countenance it!"

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732. "IT HAS NO SUCH BRINGIN'S-UP"

"Sir?"

I looked over at Jacob.

He and I were molding bullets.
I let him take over and he was doing a fine job.

He had his rhythm down, he was concentrating on getting a good fill, his bullets were without wrinkle nor frost; every so often Jacob would set his mold on the rim of the ancient Lyman bottom pour furnace and add lead -- we cast ingots in the concave bottoms of inverted pop cans, they made fine lozenge shaped ingots, not too thick, quick to melt -- he fluxed, stirred, skimmed dross and knocked it off the ancient spoon riveted to the wooden handle we'd bought at a yard sale long ago, and cast a discard to get the mold back up to working temperature.

"Sir, I'm not happy with Uncle Ross."

I nodded slowly.

"I do like the way you handled the situation."

"Thank you, sir."  Jacob knocked off the sprue with leather-welding-gloved hands, dropped the scrap into the pot, opened the mold and rolled the .44 bullet into his palm: he carefully dropped it in the five gallon bucket of water, set off to the side to avoid splash: he and I had both learned, the hard way, the ill effects of even one drop of water in the molten lead.

"He did make me mad, sir."

I nodded again, feeling the corners of my eyes tighten up a little.

We'd gone visiting: Uncle Ross and Aunt Lucy were at Elmer and Tootie's place, we'd brought two covered dishes and fresh baked sourdough (which disappeared fast) and we were sitting on the side patio talking things over, the way men will after a meal, with twelve year old Jacob sitting and listening much and saying almost nothing.

Uncle Ross looked at him and asked what he'd planned on doing for the summer, and as usual, Jacob was honest.

"Sir," he said, "I'm going to be working with a flattop .44."

"A .44 Magnum?" Ross brayed.  "That'll knock you on your backside!"

Now Jacob was skinny, just like I was at his age, and Uncle Ross did not use the word "backside," but I'm trying to be polite here:  I saw Jacob's eyes pale some and I knew his youthful pride had been offended.

Let's see how you handle this, I thought, looking from my son to my uncle.

Jacob's ears grew red and he reached around behind him, pulled out a wallet.

Uncle Ross looked at me and started to say something when Jacob slapped his hand hard on the expanded-metal tabletop.

Startled, Ross looked at Jacob's hand, at green paper under.

"Uncle Ross," Jacob said, an edge to his young voice, "I have that .44 in the truck and I have ammunition with it.  Now I was raised to respect my elders, so I am not going to call you a liar, but this hundred dollar bill has no such bringin's-up.  How many times you want this?"

Ross looked at Jacob in surprise, as if realizing the dog he'd just kicked had fangs and could very well take a chunk out of his shin bone.

Uncle Ross's mouth opened, closed:  he shook his head.  
"I don't want to take your money, boy," he muttered, and Jacob picked up the century note, held it between two fingers.

"You've had your say, Uncle Ross, and this hundred dollar bill says I can fire six rounds without it knocking me down.  Let's see the color of your money.  How many times do you want this?"

I figured Jacob was running a bluff:  I knew he had that hundred dollar bill -- he'd told me he had it stuck in an under-pocket in his wallet, same as I kept one, and for the same reason -- and I did not figure Jacob had more than that one bill.

Still, he was running a bluff, and far be it from me to interfere with a good bluff!

Uncle Ross looked at me, likely hoping I would intervene, that would call Jacob down.

I didn't.

I didn't much like Uncle Ross insulting my son.

"I wouldn't bet against him," I said quietly.  

Uncle Ross considered -- I reckon he was counting up how much cash he could raise on the moment, weighed this against my quiet warning, and decided he didn't like the odds.

He shook his head and made no other reply.

Jacob could have persisted, could have said something more -- something like "I thought so" -- but, to his credit, he didn't: he folded the hundred back up, slid it in the under pocket, ran the slender wallet back into his hip pocket, leaned back in his chair.

Conversation picked back up, as it always does, but Uncle Ross carefully avoided speaking to Jacob, and as a matter of fact, he very uncomfortably avoided looking at Jacob for the rest of the visit.

 

Jacob pressed the cast iron bullet mold up against the nozzle, raised the handle, drove molten lead into the singing-hot Lyman mold, a mold well older than he, and nearly old as me, matter of fact.

"You made your point with Uncle Ross," I said slowly, "without beating him over the head with it."

"I didn't want to cause you trouble, sir," Jacob said. dropping another perfectly cast bullet into the water bucket, "but I was not going to stand for an insult."  He opened the mold, set it on the rim of the furnace, turned a little to look directly at me.  "I was walking kind of a fine line, sir. I wanted to hit back at him but he's family and I knew I had to be careful."

I nodded.  "That's called circumspection, Jacob," I said.  "You handled it just right."  I grinned.  "I do wonder, though ... Uncle Ross can be kind of hard headed.  What if he'd said he'd take it five times?"

Jacob grinned.  "I didn't have five hundred dollars, sir, but I knew I could put a cylinder of full house .44s into a Carnation milk can at twenty feet.  I'd win that bet, easy."

I had to laugh:  for the first time in his young life, Jacob had a cocky, devil-may-care grin, one I've seen in the mirror, and I said honestly, "I've seen you shoot, Jacob.  You're right, you'd have won that bet!"

 

 

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733. TOMORROW, THEN

It didn't take terribly much to get the fellow to see things my way.

I told him there would be no hell raisin' in town and he allowed as he'd just got paid, he'd raise all the hell he wanted to, so I smiled at him.

Men didn't smile much in public, not back then, and I reckon it surprised him some, but it kept his attention on me and that's what I wanted.

A pretty young woman in a fashionable gown swung her shot-filled leather skull buster in a tight arc.

She aimed to catch him just over the left ear and she did not miss, though the fellow's hat kind of got in the way, so I drove the heel of my boot into his belt buckle so's he'd not come around and take a swing at Sarah, and between the two of us, why, we give him to understand when I said there was no hell raisin' in town, I meant it.

Didn't even have to dunk him in a horse trough.

I didn't have to but I did anyhow, he didn't smell too terrible good and I reckon 'twas the first bath he'd had in some time, and once he was in the hoosegow I allowed as he could have a warsh pan of hot water and some good lye soap if he'd like and we'd even warsh and dry his duds for him and once he woke up and sobered up and allowed as that must have been one hell of a wild drunk he'd been on, the way his head hurt, why, he shucked out of his duds and took himself as good a bath as he could manage, and I had the girls over in the Jewel throw his duds at the warsh board and hang 'em up to dry afterward, and mend what could be mended, and they did.

I changed out attair warsh pan twice so's he could bath up with clean water, and it warn't hot water, but 'twas well away from cold.

Cold water is good to drink on a hot day but I dislike a cold bath and I sure as hell don't like jumpin' in cold water, never mind I've had to a number of times, and most of them times I come a-draggin' someone out of attair cold water, but I'd rather not, so I give him two-three big warsh pans of good warm water and he didn't smell near so objectionable oncet I got him in front of His Honor the Judge.

Now His Honor the Judge is a fair man and His Honor the Judge is a man that can see through a cloud of horse feathers pretty well, and His Honor the Judge rubbed elbows with enough politicians in his time to brush aside the cloud of Bull Roar that such folk often put forth: I reckon that's why he looked over his spectacles at this fella and then he looked at me and said "Sheriff, am I given to understand you had to have an understanding with the defendant?"

Sarah Lynne McKenna was a-settin' in the chairs, fannin' herself ever so delicate with one of them fancy Chin Chinaman fans she'd traded for in Denver, lookin' like maybe she'd ought to be wearin' angel wings and a white robe instead of a McKenna gown: she give me a knowing look and slowed her fan's wavin', half hidin' her face behind it as if to say she wished to remain anonymous in this account, so I allowed as yes, Your Honor, I was obliged to speak the language he understood, and that warn't exactly a lie.

His Honor fined the fellow and suggested that he refrain from strong drink and foolishness at the same time, that either alone wouldn't get him into near as much trouble, and this feller allowed as if he'd been sober enough to know he was up ag'in Old Pale Eyes himself, why, he'd never have started in the first place!

He had to borrow money from his drinkin' partner but he paid his fine and they went on their way, and as that was the last case of the day, Sarah came glidin' across the floor and took His Honor's arm like she owned him and said gently, "Your Honor, my father wished me to invite you for dinner," and His Honor the Judge near to melted in his moccasins: for all that he and I had both been in That Damned War, for all that His Honor was The Judge and scrupulously fair, for all that the Judge was the voice and the conscience of Law and Order in the territory, he was still a man with a soft spot for a lovely young woman who was not tryin' to cheat him out of his purse.

Judge Hostetler looked at me and a pained look crossed his face, and I held up my flat hand as if to stop his words before they fell out from between his cigar-yellowed teeth.

"Your Honor," said I, "you have dinner with the family Rosenthal today, and later tonight you can have supper with us, unless you'd wish to join us tomorrow instead."

Judge Donald Hostetler looked at Sarah, laid his kindly, grandfatherly hand over her gloved knuckles just ever so gentle, and he nodded.

"Sheriff," he said softly, "as I recall, you said Miz Bonnie filleed  you up just full as a tick."

He gave me a wise look and added, "Perhaps I might be be wise to enjoy your hospitality a day from now."

I nodded, allowin' myself just a little bit of a smile. "Tomorrow, then, or as it pleases you."

 

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734. AND THE DOCTOR SLEPT

It wasn't unusual for one of the Valkyrie's ships to disappear from the launch bay, to simply disappear as if it had never been, nor was it out of the ordinary for one of the Valkyries to return, just as quickly, and just as eerily silent.

It was one thing to roar from the launch cradle on a column of fire and smoke, thunder and might; there was something soul-satisfying to viewer and pilot alike to know the sudden thrust, the kick-in-the-backside thrust of powerful engines, lancing into the star-searing darkness.

It was something almost eerie to see a ship vanish, to see a ship appear.

Commander Hake rose, thumbed the control, waited for a familiar figure carrying his trademark black satchel: Dr. John Greenlees came into the airlock, paused, was cycled through.

"Welcome home, Doc," Hans murmured, then looked closely at the physician's face.

"Doc, you look awful!"

"Yeah, God loves you too," Dr. John muttered, swaying a little.  "Permission to come aboard, sir."

"Come aboard and welcome home, can you make it to your quarters?"

Dr. John Greenlees, healer, physician, surgeon and husband to that pale eyed Sheriff, glared at the worried-looking Teutonic and snarled, "I'll make it if I have to crawl!"

"You won't have to crawl," a familiar voice said quietly.

Two men turned to see a pair of pale eyes with a white-suited, very feminine figure surrounding them:  "I have supper ready."

 

Marnie watched as her husband's hand opened, hovered over the silverware beside his plate, closed: she did not miss the tremor in his usually dead steady hand, nor how he closed his eyes and suppressed a shudder.

"I take it your talents were needed."

Dr. John opened his eyes, regarded his wife with a haunted expression.

He swallowed, took a deep breath:  he looked at their son, restless in his high chair, opening his mouth for the spoonful of potatoes and gravy his pale eyed Mama was steering his way.

"I made a study of surgery during Old Pale Eyes' war," he said quietly.

Marnie caught a little dribble of gravy from a juvenile chin, returned it to the orifice from when it came: she looked at her husband, and he saw the concern in her expression.

"You're wondering if I had to operate under those same conditions," he said, his voice almost inaudible.  

Marnie nodded.

Dr. John took a long breath, leaned back, his appetite gone.

"Dearest," he said finally, "the Confederacy has medical procedures that make my best efforts look like trepanning with a stone blade."

Marnie tore a piece of sweet roll free, swiped a little butter on it, introduced it into her hungry little son's mouth.

"They have devices that eliminate the need for chemical anesthesia, devices that prevent histamine release from injured cells, devices that -- "

Dr. John shook his head.

"Men at war are men insane," he finally said, and Marnie heard the ragged edge that threatened to scrape her husband's throat raw as he spoke.

"Their physicians were killed, their automated surgeon destroyed, they had casualties and all I had was my black bag and me."

"I didn't know you were going into a war zone.  I thought it was a conference."

"It was supposed to be," he admitted.  "I don't know what went wrong, they couldn't get reinforcements, relief, anything into where we were.  I did have a working replicator."

Marnie nodded slowly.

"I fell back on what I knew," he said.  "Their medics were lost. They didn't have the advanced tools they were used to and they were lost.  I was able to use sterile field techniques, which was good, a shell burst not far from our aid station and blew dirt all over us and the sterile field kept a man's open belly from being filled with mud."

Willamina nodded.

"Don't even ask about the flies. One of the boys was able to couple two sterile field generators and make a bubble around us, it was big enough we had all the patients inside, away from those damned flies."

Marnie reached over, laid cool, gentle fingers on the back of her husband's hand.

"I did good old fashioned surgery, Marnie.  I operated as I've always done, with scalpel and suture, but I had to pick up my own instruments, I had to do almost everything myself. Their med-techs were competent, and they learned fast: I got the voice interface working and told the replicator how to make a medical grade suction, and that helped ..."

His voice trailed off, his eyes wide, staring at the horrors over which he'd presided.

"I finally got a link open to my laptop and managed to fabricate some anesthetic before I started surgery ... dear God, Marnie, back in that damned War, Dr. John Greenlees the Original had to operate with ether until they ran out." 

He took another long breath. 

"It was almost that bad."

Dr. John looked at the Sheriff, gripped her hand lightly, gently, the way he always did, and Marnie was careful to grip his with just as delicate a grip: years before, when they were children, they'd shaken hands when introduced, and Marnie looked her schoolmate in the eye and said "It's polite to shake a surgeon's hand gently," and John felt something cold run through him, as if he'd heard the voice of Prophecy itself.

Maybe it was.

Dr. John Greenlees rubbed his eyes.  "I'm tired," he muttered.  "Dearest, I'm sorry, you went to all this trouble --"

"It'll keep," she whispered, rising:  he rose with her.

"Come to bed, John.  I'll take care of this.  You need some rest."

Marnie got her husband abed and tucked in, she put the meal in the freezer -- another Confederate gift, it didn't freeze food thermally, it froze it in time -- Marnie got their son cleaned up (little boys of such a young vintage are not tidy at mealtimes!) and into his flannels and bed, and as she laid the lad down and he gave a truly huge yawn, she heard her pale eyed Daddy's voice as he laid one of his young in the bed:  "He's like an old b'ar. Get his belly full and get warm and relaxed and he's asleep," and Marnie smiled, for it was a good memory.

It was also very accurate.

She turned on their son's bed-field, knowing that a catastrophic decompression would have no effect: more Confederate technology, now incorporated into every bed in the colony, guaranteeing that a decompression event would cause no casualties among the sleeping.

Marnie went into their bedroom, looked at her husband, already unconscious:  his face showed the stress of being the only working physician in a battlefield setting, something the Ambassador said was absolutely unplanned and unanticipated, but for which his govenment was most grateful: Dr. John's efforts, though comparatively primitive, saved lives, and taught the young medics assisting him that maybe the old ways aren't so bad after all.

Marnie would later watch the holovids of her husband in action, using planks harvested from something, planks that splinted arms, one that made a crude but workable traction splint: she heard her husband's voice explaining, as he winched a leg out straight, that the broken femur hurt like two hells until the broken bone ends were drawn just apart and that's all, and she remembered the surprise on his erstwhile students' faces as the screaming man stopped screaming and gasped, "Oh that's better," just before he passed out, and Marnie nodded as a serious faced Confederate physician discussed this simple splinting of a broken limb under field conditions when neither healers nor their medical technologies were available.

All this was later.

Sheriff Marnie Keller checked her console, made sure all was well in her bailiwick, then she went into their bedroom again, activated their bed-field, stripped down and crawled in bed with her husband: she rolled up on her side, laid a hand on his breast, saw the stress release its grip on his face.

Safe under his own roof, in his own bed, with his wife warm and alive beside him, the nightmares retreated, and the doctor slept.

 

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735. THE SHERIFF'S ROCKING CHAIR

I set on my front porch.

I set in a rockin' chair I rescued from alongside the road, a chair Marnie and I carefully knocked apart: she frowned and looked very closely at what I was doing, and when I set down the sanding block, why, she taken it up, and she turned over the rocker I'd been working on.

I'd sanded off its starboard side, and she turned it over and she commenced to sand down the port side -- not much, but like she'd seen me do, and how I'd explained to her curious face, just enough to get the whiskers off.

We'd used stripper to get off what varnish remained, and I told her I wanted to get it nice and smooth before I commenced to shellac and varnish it.

Marnie watched carefully as I used a tack rag to wipe off the sawdust.

I handed her the tack rag and she wiped the other rocker in like wise.

We laid the rockers across two sawhorses and I shellacked one, and she the other: we were working in the sun, out where the wind was movin', and the wood was just bone dry, so it took little time for the alcohol based solution to soak in and dry enough we could turn them over and get the other side.

We got the steam-bent hardwood tops and bottoms at the same time, of course: Marnie studied much and said little while I was workin' with the individual pieces, and I suffer the same fault as too many men: when young ears are attentive, why, my chin-box engages and I explained how I was keeping the sandpaper dead level on the wood so as to preserve a nice sharp corner and not round it -- for if I did, I'd have to round the entire length, and uniformly, and I wished to keep that original shoulder, and we taken the same care and for the same reason with the rest of the rocker's several pieces.

Marnie was my shadow, growin' up.  So were my boys but they were boys, and easily distracted.  Marnie was absolutely at my side.

I was on a hillbilly creeper -- a big sheet of cardboard -- one time growlin' about needin' a nine-sixteenths socket and short extension, I was ready to waller out from under the truck and go get it, my hand opened and WHAP there was checkered stainless steel in my hand, and damned if she hadn't put the socket, the short extension and the ratchet together, and she'd even turned the dog to the loose, which is what I needed.

I didn't realize how close she'd watched, how much she'd learned, until she changed out brakes on her Mama's Pontiac, when Shelly had that purple Grand Am she liked so well. If the steerin' hadn't wore out on it we'd still have it. 

Nice car, that Pontiac.

Don't know why it wore out, we only had 350,000 on it.

Anyway I set on my front porch in that rockin' chair and recalled how Marnie and I would set on the edge of the front porch with our legs a-dangle, my boots on the sod and hers swinging impatiently, and generally she'd be cuddled up ag'in me, though sometimes it was more like she'd set there and hold my hand for a little, however she felt like.

One time she got to talkin' in a quiet little voice how one of her class mates in school described how their parents would get into a horn lockin' disagreement, there'd be yellin' and screamin' and if the kids didn't hide they'd get yelled at and drug into it and I nodded, for we'd been called there any number of times.

Marnie gripped my hand and studied my fingers and she didn't look up at me when she said, "Daddy, do you and Mom fight?"

I threw my head back and laughed, I pulled my hand out of her surprised grip and ran my arm around her shoulders:  I turned and give her a very careful hug, with my cheek laid down on top of her head, and I kissed the part of her hair, along that scar line from where she'd been devlin' one of the boys and throwin' rocks at him and he replied in kind -- she'd missed and he didn't, and she parted her hair on the scar ever since -- and I eased off my carefully-loose hug and leaned back and looked at her.

"Marnie," I said quietly, "there are times when your Mom and I disagree."

Marnie blinked, blinked again, clearly uncomfortable.

"We absolutely do not fight," I whispered.  "Do you know why?"

Marnie shook her head: her eyes were getting wider and she was clearly remembering very unpleasant things -- I could read it in her body language -- I carefully took her hand, patted it a little, held it so she could slip out of my grip easily if she wished.

"Marnie," I whispered, "if I were to cloud up and rain all over your Mama -- was I to raise my voice, or God help me should I ever, EVER raise my hand to her -- she would pick up that eighteen inch cast iron fryin' pan and drive me through the floor like a fence post!"

I winked at her, just solemn as the old judge, and added, "Now I'm naturally lazy and I don't want to fix that hole in the floor so it's easier for me not to raise hell!"

Marnie's fearful mood shattered, fell away:  "Oh, Daddy!" she laughed, and hugged into me, and I hugged her back.

She drew back, looked at me curiously.  "Daddy, did Gammaw fight with Gampaw?"

Now there I did look away, for some memories hurt years later, and this one did.

"Your Gammaw," I said slowly, "has one of them fryin' pans too."

Marnie gripped my hand quickly, impulsively:  "Daddy, did you have to fix Gammaw's floor?"

I looked at her and I'm afraid my poker face kind of failed me.

"Damn neart, Princess," I said quietly.  "'Twas only once, but 'twas damn neart!"

 

I did not feel good at all.

I came wheelin' into the house, I backed the Jeep into its space -- I took pride in getting it exactly centered, exactly square with the parking bumper, and did -- locked it up and headed for the house, or started to.

I had to stop and set my hand on the corner of the hood, then I turned and set my backside down on the front bumper: I closed my eyes and performed the familiar mental exercise, one I'd practiced many times, one I hoped would fool my Mama's exacting eye.

By now she'd have found out what I was told was a Wee Nee roast and companionable fire, turned out to be drinkin' and indiscretions, and I wanted no part of it:  I slipped away after turning down several sociable offers of alcohol of varying concentrations, and got away without contaminating myself.

I might have been only seventeen years old, and I'd seen too many times that's a cocky age when the young figure they know more than the rest of the world, but I knew I was smarter than my peers -- and so I partook not of their offers.

I knew something was wrong with me.

I was feverin' and my belly did not feel right, just my luck to get the crud right ahead of the weekend, so I came home well earlier than anyone anticipated, but just before ten -- which is when I said I'd be back.

I practiced some biofeedback exercises, things that came in handy when I'd been hurt: I'd read where women were the only ones to carry certain Gifts, like the Second Sight, like stopping blood with the Word, like blowing fire -- I'd done the last two myself but never told no one -- and I'd made a study of mental disciplines used by the Navajo and the Ninja, and I set there in the dark and brought my fever down, until I was no longer flushed.

I wiped off my face and went inside.

Mama was awake and waitin' for me, of course.

My carriage was erect, my step firm, I hung my Stetson on its peg and looked at Mama and said, "You were right."

"Oh?"  One eyebrow went up, her arms were crossed and I knew she was assessing me with a very skeptical eye.

"They had a good selection of bad booze," I said, "and certain ... native herbs."

"And?"

"They've still got 'em."

Mama nodded: she wasn't entirely convinced.

"No wrinkles in the Jeep, no lipstick on my collar."

I was holding my mental disciplines by my very fingernails.

"I do not feel well, Mama.  With your permission I am for bed."

Mama considered for a long moment, then nodded.

Pa was at the top of the stairs.

He looked at me and asked bluntly, "Linn, have you been drinkin?"

"I have not," I said, looking him squarely in the eye: my controls were slipping, I was starting to sweat.

Pa grabbed me by the arm.  "Don't lie to me," he said menacingly.

That was absolutely the very end of my self control.

I pulled away and I did something I'd never done before.

I raised my voice.

"I'M NOT LYIN'!" -- at which point he backhanded me and I went down the stairs, bootheels over belt buckle, I hit the bottom and I hit hard.

I just laid there.

I won't admit to seeing stars but two planets and a comet kind of wobbled into view.

I hurt too bad to pay attention to my rebellious stomach and I was too mad to say a word so I ran a fast system check: my tongue orbited my teeth -- intact -- hands, clench, open, they work -- knees, bend, straighten, wiggle my toes --

Mama's fingers were at my throat, my temple, her hands spread wide over my ribs, my belly:  I heard Pa come down the stairs, I rolled over and came up on all fours, fell back against the wall, stood.

I looked the man right in the eye and I reckon that's the first time I ever felt genuine, raw fear.

That was the first time he ever wound up his good left arm and hit me with the full power of a grown man.

He'd taught me hand-to-hand and I knew he was good at the Oriental methods of un-gently pacifying thy neighbor, and I knew I was fevered and weak, I knew he could knock the dog stuffin' out of me, but I still took a stance and cocked a fist and I hissed, "Come to finish the job?"

Mama tells me that's when I collapsed and went into covulsions.

Whatever kind of bug I had, was bad enough to fever me to the point of seizures.

I woke up in a hospital bed a day and a half later and no idea how I'd got there.

I had no recollection of much after landin' at the foot of the stairs.

I had no memory of Mama standing up and giving Pa the absolute cold eyed Death Glare: Mama called the squad and she never said word one to Pa, I reckon anything she had to say, she said after I got hauled off to the Horse Pistol.

I do know for some years after that, Pa and I stayed away from one another much as we could, to the point of not hardly talkin' to one another.

It was not until after I'd been with city PD and then come back into the Sheriff's office, not until shortly before he died that Mama told me about his settin' on the back porch with a tape recorder, rehearsing a presentation of some kind:  he played it back, he looked up at Mama in honest surprise and said, "I sound like Linn!"

She give him an amused smile and said "You're only now realizing that?"

She told me about the moment, and that was the beginnin' of our healin', and glad I am that we did.

I've heard that when we are young, we fear our parents; when we're older, we judge our parents, but seldom if ever do we forgive our parents.

I had to learn the hard way my Pa's feet were made of the same clay as my own, and I know how flawed I am -- Pa was no better, no matter how badly I wanted to set him on a pedestal high enough to give him nose bleed.

 

I set in that rockin' chair, on my front porch, rememberin' how Marnie and I refinished it, how we talked, I recalled her smile ... she smiled like that when she was drawing, when she was doing something she loved, she smiled like that when we worked on this-yere rockin' chair.

I recalled how we'd set on the edge of the porch with our legs a-dangle.

I recalled tellin' her of the only time Mama came close to takin' that eighteen inch fryin' pan to Pa, the night I lay at the foot of our stairs, burnin' up with fever, with his hand print on the side of my face and my fist still clenched, and I told Marnie how we'd straightened all that out before the man died, but it was Mama's wisdom in telling me about him realizin' how we both sounded so much alike that started that healin'.

I rocked, my head tilted back, my eyes closed, remembering how she felt, cuddled in against me, as I told her "This is why I listen to the ladies in my life, Marnie."  

I kissed her on top of the head again and said, "You're younger, smarter and better lookin' than me, not necessarily in that order!"

"Oh, Daddy!" she giggled, and I smiled to remember her giggle, and I rocked, and I remembered.

 

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736. DUE CAUTION

Esther knew something wasn't  right.

I ain't surprised.

When it comes to my green eyed bride, I just can't get away with one single thing.

I might as well be made of window glass for all that she sees right through anything I try to hide from her.

I reckon she noticed I was overlong after gettin' home, tendin' Rey del Sol, givin' his legs a liniment rub down, checkin' his hooves, grainin' him good, and the two of us kind of leaned into one another for a long while oncet we got home, oncet I got him rubbed down.

Oncet the two of us quit shakin'.

I went around back of the house like I always do.

I grabbed the handle of attair pump and give it two big strokes and on the third, good cold water come splashin' out into the warsh pan like it always did.

I hung my coat over the pump like I always did and rolled up my sleeves, I warshed up and went inside with my coat over my arm and my hat in my hand and I run my arm around Esther and pulled her into me and I laid my cheek bone down on top of her head and I did my level best not to let her feel me shakin'.

It almost worked.

Now Esther is a wise woman and Esther is a patient woman and Esther knew if she waited, I would tell her what went on to put the Hoo Doo Shivers right down my back bone, and bless her for that, she didn't pester me a'tall to find out, and when me and Rey del Sol rode out the next day, I knew she hadn't missed that I'd fetched out my Sharps rifle, the big one -- the .50-120, the one I didn't shoot often a'tall, for that crescent butt plate is not a kind thing when she goes boom but I cain't argue with the results from the muzzle end.

I pretended not to see Esther standin' on the end of our porch, watchin', with her hands folded in her apron, the way she's stood any number of times when I rode off into somethin' that might see me fetched back in a long box.

Rey del Sol is a steady horse, he is a stallion, he's got that hot Mexican sun runnin' through his blood and he likes a fight as much as the next stallion, but once we got up on the mountain where we'd been the day before, why, he warn't quite as accomodatin'.

Oncet we started up a particular narrow path, he got contrary, and it took considerable soothin' with voice and hands to persuade him to set one hoof ahead of t'other.

I fetched out that Sharps rifle from its scabbard and had it in hand.

This was factory coverted from the tobacker cutter and it had one of those fragile dog leg firin' pins, and I had a whole envelope full of firin' pins for it, for it broke on me oncet when I didn't cock the hammer before I dropped the breech block.

I pushed on the strikin' face and saw the end stick out the breech block and figured okay, this one is in one piece, I went ahead and fed in that brass panatela and closed 'er up and the two of us, we went around the bend in that trail and attair stallion was just not happy a'tall.

Had attair b'ar been there ag'in, why, I reckon Rey might've got vigorous, and I didn't want that to happen, but damned if I was goin' to let no b'ar keep me from goin' where I intended.

I looked at hoof scars where we'd gone over the edge, I felt a moment's drop in my gut, the way it did when we went a-skiddin' and scramblin' down that steep slope and no traction a'tall on all that loose rock and Rey did the only thing he could, he run faster'n he was fallin' and I did the only thing I could, I hung on and let me tell you I genuinely talked to God about it on the way down!

The both of us hit water at the bottom and I am willin' to swear attair horse run acrost its surface, I know he didn't get no more'n knee deep by the time we come out the far bank, and attair river is deep enough to swim a horse for I've done it right where we crossed. 

All that went through my mind like lightning blazin' across a night sky and the rest of me was lookin' ahead as we advanced along that narrow cliff-ribbon trail, and when we come around the trail's belly along that steep drop off, my hands was fit to crush that checkered walnut wrist into splinters, me and my horse both wound up like an eight day clock, Rey del Sol's ears laid back and I heard him start to grunt deep in his chest the way he did when he was gettin' ready to tear into something .

We come around the belly in that trail, and there was not one single solitary thing there.

We went on around to where it broadens out into a meadow and we drew up, I looked around and didn't see no sign a'tall of attair b'ar.

We stood there, me an' my horse and both of us scentin' the wind, and neither of us comfortable a'tall, but neither of us could say for sure there was a b'ar critter anywhere near, so we finally turned around and pointed ourselves to home, and I rubbed my stallion down and grained him and allowed as he had done good today and he give me a look as if to say he'd like to kick me over the nearest roof line so I stayed out from behint him.

I been kicked before and did not think highly of the experience.

I fetched in attair big Sharps and I parked it in the rack and Esther was lookin' at me with that patient look of hers and I taken her arm and said gently, "My dear, would you join me in a brandy?" and my beautiful bride turned and looked me square in the eye and said, "That sounds wet and crowded," and she said it with a straight face and it took me a minute for that to soak in, and then we both laughed.

The maid poured me a Spanish brandy, and she poured Esther a sweet German wine, and we set down and I studied the shimmering secrets in that delicate brandy balloon I held, and finally I looked up at Esther and spoke.

"My dear," I said, "I ran into a b'ar yesterday, and he caused me some concern."

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737. BUBBLE GUM, AND A RIOT SHIELD

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller was a woman of dignity, of good humor, and of understanding.

She established early on, a reputation for absolute and unfailing fairness, and of absolute, unfailing, honesty.

When she was assisting an investigation on First Colony and was attacked, she quite honestly kicked one attacker in the gut hard enough to fold him up like a cheap suit, at which point she very fairly seized the other two and banged their hard heads together, taking the fight out of all three in much less time than it takes to tell it.

When another investigation resulted in a suspect coming at her with a knife, she quite honestly blew a fair sized hole in the attacker's wishbone, proving yet again the foolishness of bringing a knife to a gunfight, and reestablishing that a double barrel shotgun is a lawman's good friend.

When a dear friend who'd miscarried twice finally bore a living child, an infant both healthy, vigorous and loud, not necessarily in that order, Sheriff Marnie Keller threw her head back and gave a very honest, very heartfelt scream of utter triumph -- and the video clip of their pale eyed peacekeeper arching her neck back, both fists in the air, was replayed multiple times on the Three Colonies'  evening news.

Back on Earth, her younger brother Jacob smiled quietly to see his big sis giving a most heartfelt voice to her delight: his sis had always been the kind to keep her feelings within due bounds, unless there was reason not to, and as he watched the news-vid, he hid a smile behind a half-closed hand as he considered that she had more than enough cause to let her badger out.

Jacob's little sis Dana looked at him with knowing eyes.

Jacob felt her startling, deep-blue eyes on him, swung his pale eyes over to her, then turned his head, reaching up to tap the keyboard and pause the interplanetary communication.

"You're remembering," Dana said softly.  

Jacob grunted, nodded: he turned a little, opened his arms, and his little sis skipped over and settled into his lap.

Jacob ran his arms around her belly, a brotherly seatbelt, and leaned back just a little -- carefully, for though he was in a five-legged office chair, he'd read often enough about Old Pale Eyes going over backwards, ending up with his boot heels pointed toward the ceiling, and he had no wish to scare his little sis with an unplanned descent.

"I was remembering," he affirmed.

"What was it, Jacob?"

Jacob leaned his cheek down into his little sis's fine, golden hair, and she felt his belly laughing behind her.

"Bubblegum," he whispered.

Dana's blue eyes widened: she twisted out of his grip, dropped her sock feet to the floor, turned and tilted her head before planting one set of knuckles on her belt and shaking her Mommy-finger at him with her other hand:  "Jacob Keller," she scolded, "you're teasing me!"

" 'Fraid not," Jacob grinned, "and I even used a riot shield!"

Little Dana Keller lifted her nine year old chin and regarded Jacob with all the wisdom of a third grade little sis who'd put up with her pale eyed Daddy and her pale eyed Big Brother all of her life.

Jacob leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"Want to know what happened?"

 

"Paul," Linn sighed, "is todayThursday?"

Linn's obsidian eyed second in command nodded.

"And do I recall that Thursday is the most common day of the week for domestic disputes?"

Paul nodded again.

"Does this look like a domestic to you?"

Paul turned to the Sheriff, raised an eyebrow.

Behind him, the screech of an incensed female, an angry male voice: something blue and shiny came spinning out of the open front door, and Sheriff and Chief Deputy turned to look at the lean young man in a brand new uniform.

"Jacob," Linn said, "take care of it."

"Yes, sir."

Jacob Keller turned and walked as easy and casually as a panther pacing down a sun-warmed trail.

He looked inside, ducked as a cardboard box came whirling over his head: he stepped confidently inside.

Two lawmen watched, listened: every new deputy has to handle whatever comes along, and now was as good a time as any to throw his son into the fire, so to speak: it took a great reserve not to go in with him, but he knew Jacob would have to learn to handle things himself -- though in this case, his backup was very close by indeed, should it be needed.

Jacob backed out of the doorway, swatting as if batting away hornets: he turned and Linn saw his son's jaw was set.

Jacob approached the two:  "Excuse me, sir," he said, strode for the cruiser:  Sheriff and Chief Deputy watched as Jacob opened the tailgate, reached in, hauled out a clear plastic, light weight, riot shield.

Neither lawman offered comment, neither superior officer asked a question as Jacob went back in, shield foremost.

Raised voices, male and female, neither Jacob's: they heard a dry rattle of something off the curved plastic, then silence.

They waited.

It took maybe twenty minutes, but Jacob finally emerged:  he walked up to his backup, grounded the shield and said, "Sir, I believe we are resolved amicably."

Linn raised an eyebrow.  "Should we stick around just in case?"

"If you like, sir, but I don't reckon it'll be necessary."

"What happened?" Paul Barrents asked, and Jacob grinned at him.

"Newlyweds," he said, "not a week since they jumped the broom, and she just spent a hundred and fifty bucks on chips and bubble gum."

Sheriff and Chief Deputy looked at one another, looked at Jacob.

"They didn't have the skills necessary to talk it out," Jacob continued, "and they were too busy throwing bags of chips and handsful of bubble gum at one another.  Once they both ran out of stuff to throw, they were tired enough -- between adrenalin runnin' out, and exertion -- they both set down and I set down with them and I talked with one, and then with the other, I heard each one out and I kind of steered them into talking with one another instead of at one another."

Linn nodded slowly; Barrents' eyes were on the still-open front door.

"They threw a box at you," Barrents reminded.

"And several pounds of wrapped bubble gum, and God knows how many sacks of chips," Jacob nodded.  "That riot shield came in handy."

"Do you believe the situation to be resolved?"

"No way in hell," Jacob replied candidly, "but I don't expect another eruption until the next credit card bills hit their mailbox.  That's how the new husband found out the new wife wasn't as mature as he believed she was."

 

That night, after Jacob watched the Martian news broadcast, after he cuddled his little sis on his lap, he listened to her young voice as she said "That's an awful lot of money, Jacob."

Jacob nodded.  "That's what her husband said."

"Did they fight any more?"

"Not so far," Jacob said frankly, "but I reckon it might happen again, if she goes spendin' that kind of money!"

"I like chips," Dana said hopefully, "but I don't like bubblegum."

Jacob leaned down, whispered in her ear:  "I like chips too, want some?" and then pretended to bite her ear, bringing a delighted and very juvenile squeal and giggle from his little sis, just before she slid off his lap and scampered for the kitchen.

 

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738. BUST A KNUCKLE

I was chasing a man and my blood was up.

Rey del Sol had his ears laid back and I give him his head.

Jacob was back at the ranch house where we'd heard a woman's scream, cut off like she'd been gut punched, I had him stay with her because she was bad hurt and I taken out after the man that beat her and I was out for blood.

There is a time to let the law handle the lawless, and there is a time for one man to be the law, and this was the time and I was the man.

My stallion rode the wind itself and Death rode beside us, and that suited me fine.

I know he saw me -- he'd turned to see who was ridin' after him and there is no mistakin' that big shining gold stallion, the entire territory knows there is only one horse that big and that fast and there is only one man that rides that windcutter of a horse, and I reckon that is the only reason he did not take a shot at me, for he had a rifle in hand when he turned to take a look at me.

I knowed the trail ahead made a double turn and tight turns they were, one side was soft sand and a fairly wide stream and the other side was sheer rock and I knew he'd have to slow to get around them turns and I figured if he was goin' to make a stand he'd do it there, and I was almost right.

He jumped his horse over onto that soft and swampy ground, or tried to, and that horse didn't want to go a'tall and twisted underneath him and they both hit the ground.

I kept on a-comin'.

Rey del Sol he jumped over that thrashin' screamin' horse and drove into the man that beat a woman bloody full on with his chest and I reckon 'twas like gettin' hit by the noon freight.

That gold stallion was fit to sprout wings and take off like a bird and he didn't slow down none a'tall when he hit and we did some fancy dancin' to keep from goin' off into that swamp our own self but Rey danced like a saloon girl in high heels and swapped ends and come back and I ho'ed him up and Rey he didn't much like to ho, he wanted to tear into him ag'in and I swung down out of the saddle and went over to where he was layin' on his side, doubled up like he'd been kicked in the belt buckle.

I grabbed his shoulder and yanked him over on his back and he tried to scream but I reckon it hurt him too bad, there was blood comin' out his nose and startin' to dribble over his bottom lip and I hauled him up off the ground with a good double handful of his vest in my fists and I hauled him hard around and slammed his back into that rock face and there was a screamin' in my ears and it filled the whole world and I hauled him back and slammed him ag'in and I picked him up like he was a rag doll and I swung him up and I recall his boot toes was up to eye level when I slammed him face first down into the rocky dirt and I wanted nothin' more than to jump up and drive my boot heels down through his shoulder blades and I taken me a breath and that terrible screamin' stopped and I realized --

-- that was me --

-- and of a sudden all the mad was clear gone and I sagged and then I rolled him over and opened up his vest and spread my hand out wide over his chest and I felt all them broken ribs and saw the big vessels in his neck was bulgin' and his face was goin' purple and he looked at me and I saw Death lookin' over my shoulder into his eyes in their wet reflection and before he died I wound up my good left and and screamed "THIS IS FOR BEATIN' A WOMAN!" and I backhanded him just as hard as I could, for I wished him to step into Eternity wearin' shame as his garment.

That was not the most intelligent thing I've ever done with my young life, I caught his cheek bone and it felt like I'd busted a knuckle which made me madder so I stood up and and watched while his breathin' got worse like he was smotherin' and I did not offer one comfort to him as he died and then I leaned my head back and said, "Well, God, he's all yours," and then I went over to his horse and squatted down and talked to it some and got it talked into standin' and that poor old nag was shiverin' and I allowed as she was a good girl and I'd see she got some grain oncet she got home and I hauled the dead man off the ground and draped him over his own saddle and tied him there, and me and Rey and attair mare, we set our noses back torst the place where all this started.

Jacob, he was inside with the woman, he was holdin' her hand and he had a wet rag folded up and on her forehead and he told me he'd sent their boy to fetch Doc and it warn't much longer that Doc showed up, I heard his surrey a-comin' about the time Jacob had some soup warmed up and smellin' good.

Their boy fetched back a neighbor woman and her daughter and me and Jacob we taken the boy aside and talked with him some and he allowed as his Pa had brain fever or some such and he'd just got mean as a snake and the boy had a blue eye and a cut lip and he said yeah, 'twas his Pa that done that to him and hell he warn't but about ten or eleven or so and he was all tore up for a boy wants to respect his Pa and apparently whatever happened to him was recent so he recalled how he'd been but what he'd become was still blazin' like a furnace and the three of us set and talked for a while and Jacob he got the boy primed with some soup and one thing about boys, they're forever hungry, so he set and et and Jacob slabbed off some sour dough bread for him and he et that too whilst Doc and the wimmen folk was in t'other room.

Jacob and me we went out to the barn and knocked together a rough box for the carcass.

He had a surprisin' amount of cash on him and two watches, and a woman's necklace: whatever happened with attair brain fever, it turned him to the bad, I had me a notion he was fixin' to leave and take all their wealth he could scrape together and God only knows what hell he'd cause whoever he run into afterward.

I don't pretend to understand such things.

I do recall as Jacob was half sick afterward, rememberin' how bad a woman  was beat.

Doc told me attair woman said Jacob was good as any nurse, he was a perfect gentleman, she'd been beat so bad she'd passed out and she woke up in her own bed and safe, with Jacob settin' nearby and a shotgun acrost his lap, with his deputy's star on the outside of his lapel where she could see it, and he told her he'd tended her bleedin' and did what he could, the Doc was on his way and he would see she came to no more harm -- Doc laid a hand on my arm and leaned his head torst me and kind of murmured, "Jacob give her a hard look and said he would keep her safe, peacefully or otherwise, and he didn't much care which," and Doc winked and allowed as he believed she felt much the safer for it.

I do know Jacob told me later he went home to his wife and he held her for a long time, held her tight and he whispered with his cheek against hers, "Darlin', if I ever raise a hand to you, please kill me," and I reckon that's exactly what he said, for I'd gone home and held my own wife for a long time, and I'd laid my cheek bone ag'in hers, and I'd whispered those exact same words in my own wife's ear.

 

 

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739. THE FIRST TIME

Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller leaned forward into a run.

She hit the front door at a dead run and blew the lock mortise to splinters.

Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller was not heavy, she was not massive, she was not tall: she was actually the opposite of these, which meant she was muscle -- lean, flat, toned muscle: at the moment her shoulder drove into the subject residence's front door, it occurred to a witness that she bore a remarkable resemblance to another woman who'd worn the tan Sheriff's uniform -- but the thought was jarred from the onlooker's thoughts at the sound of the door frame's destruction.

Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller locked onto the sound of a woman's angry voice like a cruise missile rides its radar lock to the designated target: she came into the kitchen and she came in fast, she seized a woman's wrist and leveraged her speed and her vector into a twisting turn, bringing the enraged woman off her feet and backwards, across the kitchen table.

The frying pan wobbled off on its own trajectory and after leaving blood and hair on the wall, fell noisily to the floor.

Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller was trained in a variety of Oriental methods of less than gently pacifying thy neighbor.

Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller was trained in the Israeli method of Krav Maga.

Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller was trained by unofficial instructors in the particular nuances of a flat-out tavern brawl.

One thing Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller did not do.

She did not fight like a girl.

She fought like an enraged wildcat: she was on all fours and drove into the rising woman, seizing her in a fast, viciouis and most painful compliance hold: the woman found herself whipped off the floor by a Texas tornado and introduced face-first into the wall she'd just been thrown against, and in the next, she was face-down with a dump truck dropping its weight onto her tenderloins.

Sharon's hand hovered over her control panel: there was a hum of carrier, the quick chirp of the repeater's tones, then the calm, very cold, very controlled tones of a pale eyed Deputy Sheriff, addressing her epaulet microphone.

"Dispatch, Seven Romeo. Roll two squads, three down. Situation stable."

Sharon's eyes rose to the speaker grille as a woman's angry screech was cut off as the transmit key was released.

She had to take a look at the report to know what happened, how the handcuffed woman twisted and kicked on her way out of her kitchen and inherited a hard punch to the kidneys for her trouble.

Sheriff Linn Keller loafed casually against the front of Marnie's cruiser as his hard-faced female deputy half-carried, half-dragged the swearing, spitting, nose-bleeding prisoner out the front door.

"Anything big, new or exciting going on?" he drawled, and his pale eyed daughter gave him a cold glare that could melt paint off a battleship.

"Get the door," she grunted, and the Sheriff obligingly opened the cruiser's back door.

The woman threw her legs up, tried to keep from being placed in the cruiser, at least until Marnie picked her up, planted the side of her face against the side window, and hissed "You are going in there peacefully or otherwise, and I do not care which," at which point she slipped a pen between the prisoner's fingers and squeezed.

Hard.

Pain is a powerful persuader, and Marnie, in that moment, was in no mood to tolerate any further foolishness: she hauled the woman off her feet, stuffed her in, got her seated and secured -- very well secured -- Marnie stepped back, ran two figers into a uniform blouse pocket and withdrew a card.

She looked at the woman, the card, and read:  Linn looked in the front passenger window, nodded to see the LEDs indicating the video recorders were working.

This was something he'd implemented: not only body cameras, but interior and exterior cruiser cameras established was was, or was not, done, and as Marnie read the swearing, shouting prisoner her rights, the electronic eyes and microphones documented that yes, she had been read her rights.

As Linn explained it, "We have to read them their rights. As long as it's on video, they can't claim otherwise, and if they claim they didn't understand, well, too bad, we read 'em."

Marnie shut the door, slid the card back into her pocket, looked at her father.

Marnie's face was pale, her eyes were the color of winter ice; silence cascaded off her like fog off a block of dry ice, and she looked like she was quite capable of biting a length of railroad rail in two.

She looked at her pale eyed Papa.

"Watch this one," she said.  "I have to process the scene."

"What happened?"

"Domestic."

Linn looked at the woman in the back seat, the woman snarling and strugging against her cuffs.

"She's had a pattern of abusing her husband. He filed against her and she took a frying pan to him."

Linn nodded slowly.

"Her husband may not survive."

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740. THE WALL

Fitz shook his head, tilted his head quickly, a get-away-from-there summons, unmistakable and carrying the weight of command, for all that his head did not move more than a half inch.

The fireman obediently came away from the overhead door, frowning a little:  he approached the Chief, uncertainty in his eyes and hesitancy in his step.

Fitz looked to the long oval window in the insulated overhead door.

"Let 'em be," he said quietly.  "He'll take care of whatever it is."

Outside, Deputy Sheriff Linn Keller, not a week into his brand new lawman's commission, sat on the stone wall on the west side of the firehouse's concrete apron.  It wasn't much of a wall, really, just high enough a tall man could back up to it and park his backside on cut stone, and that's what he did, and so did the fellow beside him.

The pair was watched, of course: a lawman can't do anything in public without being seen, and a lawman accepts that he is perpetually in the public eye, and the better ones conduct themselves accordingly: those of lesser quality will grow careless and let their baser selves be seen, in time, and that's what gets them noticed, and hopefully removed from the service.

Linn sat beside a fellow whose shoulders told of dejection, whose hanging head told of being beat down so often and so thoroughly that it was hard to hold his head up much these days.

Linn sat and listened.

He'd watched his Mama, he'd watched his Uncle, he'd watched lawman he'd come to respect, and he'd watched them closely.

He'd seen how impatience leads to misunderstandings, how haste leads to missing something important, and when this fellow stood and allowed as he wanted to get something off his chest, why, the two of them parked their carcasses on the nearest convenient surface and proceeded to hold a powwow, and a palaver, and something Linn read about in Old Pale Eyes' journals, called a "Corn Versation."

It was, of course, the kind of a Corn Versation Old Pale Eyes would have approved of.

Linn listened much and spoke little, but he gave this fellow his full attention.

Now this fellow -- Frank his name, more often called Big Frank -- was a man generally considered to be someone not to be trifled with.

He'd had criminal associations in the past and tried to leave them, and was nearly killed for his efforts; he'd tried to live a good and decent life since then, and for the most part succeeded, but he did have a reputation as a knock down drag out bare knuckle battler:  Linn knew he was both fast and most efficient with his fists, and even though Linn sat with him like the two were boon companions, he never did relax and he never did stop watching the man's shoulders.

The pair sat on the cold stone, talking quietly.

Fitz watched as the pair looked at one another and nodded, as finally they stood, as Linn extended his hand and the two shook, then the pair both reached back and rubbed their backsides, and Fitz grinned.

He didn't know much about law enforcement but he knew something about men, so he stepped quickly to the man door, threw it open.

"Faith and seven left handed saints," he shouted, "you two get in here b'fore the coffee gets cold!"

Linn and Frank looked at one another, shrugged:  "You heard the man," Linn said, "and my poor old butt is about froze!"

Frank chuckled -- a guarded chuckle, to be sure, he was not a trusting man -- but he was relaxed enough to walk beside the long tall deputy and into the firehouse.

Fitz gestured them to two cushioned chairs:  one of the red-shirted Brigade brought over a sizable pair of coffee mugs, handed one to each visitor, a second poured them full, offered a bowl of little cups of creamer:  a noisy slurp and Linn declared "Good God, Fitz, I just scalded the hair off my tongue!"

"Well if ye want it hotter ye'll have t' boil it yourself!"  Fitz shouted in return, thrusting a plate of pastries between the two.  "Go t' hell an' eat a doughnut!"

Frank and Linn each accepted the sugar-glazed kindness; each took a bite of doughnut, dunked the bit surface into their coffee, slurped noisily, happily and indelicately, each man dribbling coffee down his chin in the process.

"I know how hard yon wall is t' sit on," Fitz muttered, stomping his way back to the far end of the kitchen, leaving the pair alone.

"Is he always like that?" Frank asked, dunking his doughnut again.

Linn swallowed, took a slurp of coffee, wiped his chin on his shirt sleeve, shook his head.

"Reckon we caught him on a good day."  Linn looked over at Frank.

"Eddie Rudder is givin' you grief again."

"Yeah."  Frank's expression was bleak.  "I left Cripple and Eddie got on the radio and called ahead to let the next department know I was headed their way."

Linn knew Frank didn't have a car, so he had no scanner in the vehicle to intercept the report: no, he'd have been advised by an associate.  This was not surprising: Frank had a broad base of acquaintances in the area, and Linn knew Frank had, in his time, walked both sides of the law, but for the years Linn knew the man, he was not counted among the lawless.

Linn frowned.  "You done anythin' to earn that?"

Frank shook his head, his expression bleak.  "Not one damned thing."

Linn considered for a long moment, nodded.

"Except for the time  he tried to arrrest me."

Linn looked at him, raised an eyebrow.

"He snapped a handcuff on my wrist and then on his and allowed as he was takin' me to the station."

Linn raised both eyebrows and Frank saw the man's jaw ease forward, just a little, and he knew he'd just surprised this long, tall, pale eyed lawman.

"You know Eddie."

Linn nodded.

"He's about yea tall."  His hand hovered about shirt pocket height:  Linn was six two and Frank was two fingers taller than Linn, and Linn knew Eddie personally, and knew Frank's estimate of the man's height to be correct.

He also started to grin, knowing he was about to hear a tale told out of school about a brother lawman.

"I brought him off the ground" -- Frank raised his right arm -- "he was hangin' from his wrist screamin' to let him down, let him down, I took off runnin' towards his police station -- you know where it is over in Cripple, we were only a block and a half away -- we came in the door with him a-squallin' and I held him up for the desk sergeant to see and said "Hey, does this belong to you?"

The image of a short, self-important lawman who was known to suffer Small Man's Disease, dangling from a handcuff, squalling to be let down while Big Frank grinned at the astonished desk sergeant, was too much for Linn's reserve to handle.

Linn grinned a little wider, then he snortted, he chuckled, he threw his head back and laughed, and Frank laughed with him, and the Irish Brigade, listening as best they could, grinned at one another as they tended their midmorning housekeeping chores.

Linn took a long breath, nodded.

"Frank, you never lied to my Mama and you've never lied to me," he said at length.  "I'll see what's goin' on."

Frank ate the last of his doughnut, satisfied.  

Two men left the firehouse, their body language considerably less tense than they were earlier; two men shook hands, and a fire chief watched them through the wide, oval window in the insultated overhead door, and considered that this wasn't the first time a lawman used his firehouse wall for a powwow, a palaver, and a conference.

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741. THROUGH SOMEONE ELSE'S EYES

I couldn't sleep.

I'd gotten up and got rid of some second hand coffee, I slipped downstairs in sock feet and warmed up cold coffee and opened the microwave door with one second to go so I wouldn't wake anyone.

I'd just set down and stared at the shimmering, steaming surface when movement caught my eye.

I looked up in time to see a hand carried pair of boots disappear out the front door.

I left the coffee on the table and followed.

Jacob was bent over, just getting into his right hand boot when I saw him through the peep hole:  I waited until he left the porch before slipping out myself:  he crossed the yard, looked around, headed around back of the barn.

I followed.

We were two ghosts in flannel shirts and under shorts, father and son, cat footing through the night.

Something dark flowed alongside Jacob and I could not but smile, for if there was adventure, The Bear Killer wanted in on it, generally because that meant there was something to eat, and I heard Mama's knowing murmur, Does he know you or what? -- or maybe I didn't really hear it, but when a man is outside of a summer's night, smelling the night air and listening to its secrets, sometimes he hears things the ear would never catch.

Jacob disappeared into the barn; a moment later he emerged, a saddleblanket in each hand.

I followed, realizing I might not be unobserved.

Could be he had one blanket for him and one for The Bear Killer, but damned if I knew why he'd be either layin' down or coverin' up, not when he had a clean warm bunk back at the house.

Jacob slipped through the gate, looked back at me, waited.

Well, hell, I been caught, thought I, and sauntered up to him like we'd both planned it.

There was light enough, between moon and stars, to avoid piles of second hand horse feed:  we went deep into the pasture, two ghosts with saddle blankets, and finally Jacob laid his down and looked up as if getting his bearings.

He turned the blanket like he was linin' it up with a celestial compass and he laid down, his feet planted flat on the ground and knees bent.

He's easin' his back, thought I, and I laid mine down beside him, and The Bear Killer padded in between us and laid down with all the stealthy grace of a drunk falling over an unseen curb: we each recht over and rubbed canine fur and The Bear Killer give a big happy sigh.

As long as he was near to one of us he was happy, and could he crowd in between two of us, he was delighted.

We laid there in the Colorado dark, far enough from pole lights to see the sky, and Jacob raised a bladed hand, and I looked at the general section of sky he was indicatin'.

I don't follow astrology and I'm sure as hell not a star gazer, but there is a wonder and a majesty to the starry-decked firmament.

I've long loved a night sky, and tonight was a good one, chilly though it was: we were both warm enough, at least for now, though we'd chill if we just laid there, but Jacob was here for a reason, and I was curious.

He'd thrust a hand toward something and I must've missed it, or thought I did, and then a green shooting star drew a quick, bright line across the dark, and was gone.

Green.

Copper?

I wondered momentarily if it wasn't some space debris, maybe copper wirin', and I found myself searching:  there, a cloud, glowing, silent, coasting across the sky; a passing jet, barely audible at its high altitude, and I remembered a night when I saw two arrows of lights in formation, moving fast, and both arrows headed in the same direction, and I wondered if it wasn't a military alert of some kind.

Another shooting star, this a bright silver, lasting several seconds, then disappearing.

My hand was worked into The Bear Killer's fur, feeling his happy panting as he shared in whatever we were doing:  he didn't much care what it was, as long as he was doing it with us, and maybe there's a lesson there.  

I'll ruminate on that one some other time.

We laid there in the pasture and of a sudden, why, half a dozen streaks came across almost directly above us, looking like they came from almost the same point:  bright, fast moving, and gone, and then a really bright one that drew blazing silver for several long seconds, disappearing in a flash of light.

We laid there until we got chilled, father and son, each with a companionable hand laid over on a big black curly furred canine:  we laid there with our knees bent up to take the bend out of our lower backs, and finally we got up and picked up our saddle blankets and headed back for the barn.

Our eyes were busy, mostly looking for road apples so we'd not foul our boots:  the horses paid us no mind a'tall, and The Bear Killer was silent as Death itself as he kept pace between us.

We'd not exchanged word one since I woke up and come down, restless; we went to the house in companionable silence, we slipped back inside, The Bear Killer flowing upstairs with a muffled patter of big black paw-pads.

Jacob and I left our boots in the tray beside the door.

Our eyes turned toward the kitchen, then toward the stairs:  I'll just leave that coffee, thought I, it'll reheat fine when I get up.

Jacob went to his bedroom and I went to mine, and I was careful not to cuddle up ag'in Shelly, for I knew I was chilled and didn't want to startle her, and as I lay there in my bedroom's dark, I considered our nighttime sojourn, and I felt pleased.

I would never have looked straight up into that diamond-scattered sky if it hadn't been for my boy.

This was not the first time I realzied it's interesting looking at the world through someone else's eyes.

 

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742. MRS. LLEWELLYN'S DONKEY

"Mama?"

"Hm?"  Willamina looked up at her firstborn son and smiled, for he sounded so very much like his dead father, and when he spoke in that gentle voice, Willamina remembered what it was for her husband to stand behind her as she fixed breakfast:  how he ran his hands around her waist from behind, and pulled her into him, and whispered that she was the very best thing that ever happened to him.

She blinked, dismissed the reverie, looked innocently at her son.

"I miss him too, Mama," Linn said quietly, the he looked away and bit his bottom lip.

"Mama, I'm kind of sweet on Shelly Crane."

Willamina smiled again.

She'd known this for some time now -- mothers usually do -- Sheriff or not, she was still a mother, and mothers know things, and she knew that this high-school pair had feelings for one another.

"I believe she will do well with the mule," Willamina suggested, planting a flour-dusted knuckle on her belt and tilting her head a little, "and the view from The Mountain is lovely this time of year."

Linn nodded, turned, then turned back, his eyes widened a bit.

"I hadn't even said --" he began, then he stopped, he grinned, he laughed:  Linn stepped quickly forward, bundled his Mama up in a big crushing hug.

"I didn't even say what I'd thought," he whispered, then he released his Mama, slipped behind her, gripped her elbows:  Willamina crossed her forearms, planted her palms on her collar bones, Linn hoisted, gave her just a little shake, and Willamina's spine crackled for its full length:  pain-fires seared briefly, followed by an overwhelming sense of relief.

If her lean-waisted, pale-eyed, teen-aged son hadn't had her weight in her hands, she might have collapsed:  she hadn't realized how much discomfort she'd been in.

"Oh that hurts so good," she wheezed, seizing the back of a kitchen chair:  she straightened, raised her head, eyes closed, savoring the moment.

"Thank you," she signed.  "It's nice not to hurt!"

"You're not the only one who sees things, Mama," Linn said, and Willamina turned and looked into her second-born's concerned eyes.  "You were trying to hide the pain."

"You fixed it," Willamina whispered.  "Now scoot. She'll be waiting on you when you get there.  Stop at the Silver Jewel and get a picnic lunch, you'd better call 'em now so it will be ready."

"Yes, ma'am!"

 

More than a century earlier, a fashionably dressed young woman sat beside a dying miner in a sagging miner's shack, high on the mountain, not far from a deep pool at the base of a sheer drop-off.

The miner signed his name on a paper and transferred his claim to this angel he'd known for all of one day.

He was dying and he knew it, he had neither heirs nor assigns, and this was the only soul who'd shown him any kindness at all since he went off on a solitary quest for the Mother Lode.

He'd not found it, but he'd found a hell of a pocket, and it was at the bottom of that deep pool, and he did not find it until the consumption was upon him, or whatever 'twas that was taking his wind.

Had he lived in a later time, he might have been told it was not consumption, but a cancer; then or now, it did not matter -- when he started coughing up blood, he knew he was done for --  and so it was that, not many days later, a rock that a pale eyed claim owner blasted free of the cliff face, a rock half again bigger than the miner's rotting-down cabin, fell into that deep, cold pool, hid the bounty at the bottom, kept it safe from discovery until a descendant divined the wealth at the bottom, until the descendant arranged for removal of the obstructing rock, until the descendant, having re-filed as lawful and hereditary claim owner, brought in equipment to discover and remove this small but impressive lode.

We're getting ahead of ourselves.

Let us return to the fashionably dressed young woman who tended a dying man in his last days on this earth.

Sarah Lynne McKenna held out her hand, a double pinch of salt in her palm, and the miner's donkey came into the cabin.

The door was long since surrendered; Sarah leaned it up in place as best she could, stoked the little sheet metal stove to try and hold some warmth for the dying man, and the little donkey came in and gave a death-rattle of delight with its ears laid back as its thick, muscular tongue swept the treat off the young woman's palm.

Miner and donkey communed in silence, the miner's eyes closing, his hand resting on this aging and faithful companion's mane; thus, in silence, high on the mountain and well away from civilization, an old man surrendered his spirit to the Eternal, and was buried.

The little donkey watched solemnly as Sarah excavated his lonely bed in the mountainside, as she dragged the blanket wrapped form with as much dignity as she could manage, as she shoveled in dirt and cribbed rocks over top.

It must have been an odd sight.

A young woman, stripped down to her frillies to do the work so she would not soil her riding-outfit; a young woman, her chin raised, singing the old hymns that were sung at times like this, her voice soaring and shining among the trees, offering up her adoration to her Creator and voicing her sorrow at the loss of this old man, long from home and family.

It is said that someone heard this haunting sound, from a distance, a voice too beautiful to come from a human throat, and that the sound of a donkey raised with it, but these were echoes in the distance, echoes that came and went with the wind, and then were gone:  speculation was that these were ghosts of the mountain, singing to the wind.

 

Shelly rode easily, if inexpertly.

She wore her dead mother's boots -- they were stiff and unfamiliar, but they fit well enough -- she wore jeans and flannel and a blanket lined jacket, and the more she rode, the more she relaxed her torso and moved with the mule.

Linn led, and the mule followed.

He didn't tell her she was riding a mule, and he did not explain that mules often have better sense than horses, they don't startle as easily and they are generally more even tempered:  all Shelly knew was, she was riding what she thought was a horse, and she was with her boyfriend, and they were going somewhere, and she was happy with that.

Their progress was neither slow, nor was it hasty: they rode trails Shelly never knew existed, higher and higher yet, along trails that started out comfortably wide and then narrowed, and Shelly did not look down, she looked out, out at an incredible span of distance: she looked up at snows that remained year round, she looked down at water, crashing and shattering on rocks far, far below, she looked round about at trees, strong, silent, wise, seeming as eternal as the granite mountains themselves.

She looked ahead, for there was no room to ride abreast:  she looked ahead at the confident figure on the Appaloosa ahead of her, and she felt a quiet, feminine determination that he should be hers.

This is not the first time the right woman looked at a pale eyed man and determined that they should be wed; in that moment, he was as good as if he was bein' drug kickin' and squealin' to the altar.

He just didn't know it  yet.

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna rode into town on her mountain mule, the surefooted mount she preferred for treacherous trails and rough terrain, when neither speed nor warfare were needed.

A miner's donkey kept pace, either abreast or following; Sarah was not in any hurry, nor was her long legged mule, and she did not want to task the faithful little donkey, whose legs industriously labored to keep up with its higher ground clearance counterpart.

Sarah's family attorney, Mr. Moulton, offered no comment as the donkey followed Sarah into his office like a pet dog, as she laid a gloved hand on its shoulders; the little donkey laid its neck over against Sarah and sighed contentedly as she massaged the base of its ears, and Mr. Moulton held comment as he considered that he'd known several asses in the course of his practice, and that this particular ass was considerably better mannered than the human varieties he'd entertained in the course of his legal practice.

 

Both Linn and Willamina, and in time, children yet unborn, all perused the records left by their pale eyed ancestors, and ancestresses; little more than passing mention was given to this faithful little miner's donkey, how it would slip into the house at odd moments, how giggling little girls and grinning boys would take great delight in bathing it like they'd bath The Bear Killer, how the little donkey's life was suddenly much less difficult: what little mention was made, was in one volume only, and that buried in an account of The Black Agent's accomplishments at an early age, where the faithful companion was found dead in the barn, and how the McKenna young grieved its passing.

 

Linn led the way into a hanging meadow, with an abrupt drop-off along its edge.

He turned his stallion, looked at Shelly, looked out over an amazing view.

Firelands was in the distance, looking remarkably insignificant: roads were reduced to slim lines, thin scars, no more: the mountains hold a wisdom, a silence, and Linn dismounted, steered the mule to a convenient rock for Shelly's dismount.

"I wanted to guarantee we'd be alone," he said as he reached up, took her hands, stepped back: Shelly took a long step down, her hands tightening on his as she wobbled momentarily.

She looked up into his pale eyes and smiled.

"Alone?" she asked, lifting her face to his, an invitation.

Linn blinked, raised a hand, placed his finger carefully, delicately on her lips.

"Shelly," he said softly, hesitated:  she kissed his finger, molded herself into him.

This was something new:  Linn's walls slammed up, he drew back, his eyes hardening.

"Shelly," he tried again, "I don't want to mess this up."

Shelly realized how uncertain she'd just made the moment, started to say something:  Linn placed his finger on her lips again.

"I one time took a girl behind a barn," he said.  "I was sweet on her and it was a warm summer night. Lightning bugs were just thick in the hollow behind the barn and it looked like a living swarm of glowing emeralds against a black velvet drape."

"That would have been beautiful," she whispered.

Linn grimaced.  "Beth thought I was taking her behind the barn to ravish her. Cold shoulder the rest of the night and she wouldn't see me after that.  I tried to treat her like a lady --"

He looked at Shelly.

"I'm new at this, Shelly.  My first attempt at bein' sweet on a girl crashed and burned, so I'm tryin' again."

"I don't see any lightning bugs."

"No, but you have a grand view from here!"

Shelly ran her arms around Linn's waist and looked very directly at him.

"I like the view from here."

Linn lowered his head and kissed her, carefully, delicately, his arms encircling her, holding her carefully, hesitantly.

"I won't break," she whispered, pressing her lips against his again:  she felt his arms tighten, felt him straighten, delighted as he lifted her off the ground, felt his breath quicken as new fires ignited in his young soul.

Linn lifted his face from hers, took a deep breath, but did not slack his embrace.

Shelly saw Linn's eyes widen.

Somewhere nearby, a raucous HAAAWWW! -- a quick whistle, a pause, then HAAAWWW again --

He released her, looking up, looking around with alarm at a sky suddenly thick with low and darkening clouds.

Apple-horse was shaking his head and muttering and Linn saw his mane and tail start to float.

His hand found her wrist, closed tightly:  "This way!" he snapped, and ran toward his stallion:  he curled his lip, whistled, ran for a stand of rocks.

"What?" Shelly protested, feeling like she was being towed like the tail of a kite:  Linn stopped, pulled hard, his hand locked like a steel cuff around her wrist:  he pulled her into him, swept her up, carried her around one rock and into an opening, horse and mule following.

"Stand here," she heard: the transition from cloud-filtered sunlight to darkness left her blind; she heard a scrape, smelled smoke, saw Linn bent down, lighting a small fire, apparelty laid some time ago, waiting the touch of a match to come to life.

Horse and mule were with them, in a surprisingly spacious chamber:  Shelly looked around, craned her head back, looked up.

Now that her eyes were adjusting, she could see smoke carrying up, along sooted slopes overhead toward a few cracks of light in the distance.

"I've found arrowheads and potsherds here," Linn said, his voice hollow and echoing.  "Come over this way.  I've a seat for you."

Shelly smelled ozone and saw their mounts shifting, stamping uncomfortably:  Linn went to them, gripped his stallion's bridle, stroked Apple's neck, murmuring to him, reaching over to rub the mule's jaw.

Mule, stallion and boyfriend all three flinched at the detonation from without and Shelly smelled ozone again and felt every hair on her arms stand straight up and salute.

"Damn my inattention," Linn swore bitterly, "I should have been payin' more attention to the sky than to what I wanted to say to you!"

Shelly left the fire, came over to him, laid a hand on his forearm.

A miner's donkey, looking surprisingly small beside the long-legged mule and the athletic stallion, blinked wise old eyes and looked quietly at her, slashing its tail and swinging its ears with a studied lethargy.

"What do you want to say to me, Linn Keller?" she asked softly.

Linn released his grip on his stallion's bridle, put his hands firmly on either side of her pelvis, at the belt line.

His answer was not in words:  all uncertainty was fallen away with the realization that the warning bray of a miner's ass jolted him from overthinking the moment:  Linn drew Shelly into him, and placed his lips on hers, and gave a thorough and comprehensive reply to her question.

 

About a week later Linn went back to the sheltering cave he'd found when he was yet a beardless youth, a cave he'd found while still in grade school.

He brought a hand light and used it as he'd used it before, placing it close to the ground and shooting a horizontal beam across the near-level floor of the rocky cave, formed by a happy accident of geography, a place that bore signs of having been used by peoples before recorded history.

He studied the tracks:  his, Shelly's, the mule's broad prints, his stallion's more delicate hoofmarks.

Linn studied the floor meticulously, finally lighting a gasoline lantern, bathing the entire chamber in a harsh white illumination, scouring for any sign of the little miner's donkey Shelly swore she saw, the donkey whose warning he'd heard, the donkey whose timely warning kept them from a lightning strike, a strike blown into the ground exactly where he and Shelly had been standing just before a whistle and a HAAAWW brought him into the here-and-now.

"Nothing," he said out loud.

This floor, this fine a dry dirt, I could track a field mouse.  There's Apple, there's the mule.

I don't see any little donkey prints.

He shook his head.

"Shelly saw him and I heard him," he muttered, confirming what he'd suspected, what he'd surmised.

Linn reached into a coat pocket, pulled out a cloth poke, carefully poured a handful of salt on a rock slab, looked around.

"Thank you," he said into the echoing emptiness.

He half expected to hear a diminutive hoof on sandy ground, a sniff, the slash of a tail swinging in happy anticipation of donkey's ambrosia.

Silence was his only reply.

 

 

 

Edited by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
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743. THANK YOU FOR CARING ENOUGH

I'd just hung up from talking with an instructor.

I routinely arrange in-house training: the state requires continuing education, but I see to it my people are trained over and above what's minimum.

I'm not about to let some fancy slick talkin' lawyer get my people in trouble with false accusations of lack of training, or failure to supervise.

There was a delicate tap-tap at the door and I looked up.

Shelly slipped in, closed the door behind her and looked at me with absolutely the most pleased expression.

My first thought was that she was pregnant.

I rose.

Shelly's face was a little flushed, she came around my desk and I took her waist in both hands and kissed her carefully and said, "Darlin' you glow!"

She laid her hands flat on my chest and rubbed them back and forth a little and she lowered her eyes, somewhere between coquettish and bashful, and then she looked at me and said, "I just had the nicest compliment!"

"O-kaaay," I replied, and a grin broadened my homely mug.

Shelly's eyes sparkled.

"I was down at Bob Parson's --" Bob ran the grocery store there in town -- "and one of Marnie's teachers came up and told me Marnie is absolutely a Lady in all that she does."

"Of course she is," I said, surprised.  "She is her Mama's daughter!"

Shelly swatted at my shoulder.  "No, no, no," she scolded.  "She thanked me!"

I frowned a little, turnred my head as if to bring a good ear to bear:  "O-kaaay," I said again, and Shelly continued.

"She thanked me for caring enough about being a lady, to be a lady.  Just like we both model reading and our children are all readers."

I nodded.  "Go on."

"She said there is only one place Marnie could have learned to be a lady, that children learn more by observation than by didactic instruction, and that she could only have learned that from me, and she said thank you for being a lady."

I took Shelly in a big hug and squeezed her and hoist her heels off the deck, set her back down.

"Anything else, darlin'?" I asked gently, and kissed her again.

"Isn't that enough?" Shelly teased.

I caressed her cheek with the back of a bent forefinger and considered the depth of her eyes, how I could swim in those eyes! -- I blinked, took a breath.

"Good news is worth the share," I said, "and yours just made my entire day! How's for lunch? I'm buyin'!"

I left the office with my good lookin' wife on my arm, but not before I told Sharon that I was going over to the Silver Jewel to have lunch with an attractive younger woman.

As I recall, Shelly looked just terribly pleased when I said that.

 

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744. DADDY'S MAKING PANCAKES

There is a definite hierarchy of command in a household, so when Big Sis Marnie corraled her younger siblings, even the youngest listened to her.

Young heads turned, young eyes regarded the lean waisted lawman standing at the kitchen counter, spinning the whisk in the yellow-glazed crock bowl well older than he was.

Marnie gave her younger siblings a warning look, summoned them to her: like a flock of chicks, they surrounded her, listened to her quiet words, and by mutual agreement, did their level best to become invisible.

Linn's son Jacob was younger than Marnie, and not yet acquainted with the electronics that would become a passion, later in life: in years to come, on the strength of scanner traffic, he would saddle a stallion and ride to war, rifle across his saddlebow and a grim expression on his young face, riding to where he fully expected to hear the sound of deadly conflict:  that day was not yet, and so young Jacob assumed the second-in-command role over the smalls, freeing Marnie for her mission.

A twelve year old girl in a denim skirt and red cowboy boots streaked across their back pasture, a pretty young girl on a shining gold stallion, a growing girl with slitted eyes and twin ribbon-tied braids flying behind her, a pale eyed child with a serious expression, standing up in the stirrups with her hands pressed against the stallion's neck:  she circled behind town, cantered into its back quarter, walked the impatient, high-stepping stallion down the alley, then across the main street, the sharp sound of shod hooves on pavement summoning the ears and the attentions of those who were about in beautiful downtown Firelands' bustling hub of commerce, culture and industry.

Marnie threw up a leg, slid out of the saddle, landed easily, taking up the shock with bent knees:  she turned and caressed her Daddy's stallion's nose, whispering to it, leaving the shining gold descendant of the famous Rey del Sol with bitless reins knotted and dropped over the saddlehorn.

She knew none would be foolish enough to try prad-prigging -- one, and only one, had ever tried, and Rio de Oro threw the would-be thief high enough to brain him on the drugstore's overhanging sign -- as a matter of fact, the miscreant, once out of hospital, was required by the Court to pay for damage to the antique overhang.

(This was a matter of form, of course; the bottom of the sign was thickwall tubing, and it wasn't the sign that came out in second place.)

Marnie hauled open the heavy door, ignored the irritating tinkle bell overhead:  she strode over to the candy counter, swung her focused gaze over the selections, looked up at the pimple-chinned high school kid in the soda jerk's apron and paper cap and said, "If I could trouble you for a half pound of dark chocolate mint, and a half pound of dark chocolate peanut butter, please."

"He's making pancakes again?"

Marnie nodded, her expression bleak.

"I heard they had a bad one."

"Must have been," she agreed.

Marnie paid cash, as she always did; she thanked the owner's son, turned and left with all the noise of a passing cloud, and the soda jerk scratched his crew-cut head and marveled that girls in sneakers were as stealthy as a giraffe on roller skates, but Marnie, with what he knew to be hard leather heels, was absolutely silent.

Except for that irritating tinkle bell on the door.

 

Linn dumped the entire pint of blueberries into the batter, stirred these with a spatula: the whisk and measuring cup were in the sink, repenting of their sins: fried bacon drained on brown paper grocery sacks and would be stacked on their warmed platter; the greased griddle was warmed up and ready.

He reached into a drawer without looking, plucked out a small ladle.

He stirred it in the crock bowl, slid the earthenware close to the griddle -- there were always dribbles, and he wanted the fewest dribbles possible -- batter sizzled a little as it hit the hot, greased griddle, and the smell of scratch made pancakes filled the kitchen.

Linn looked at the clock, smiled a little.

She'll be home in fifteen minutes, he thought:  Marnie came through the door, two paper sacks in hand, triumph on her face:  she slipped out of her boots, left them in the tray and skipped across the kitchen in sock feet, dropped the sacks at her Mama's place on the table.

Linn studied the bubbles forming on the cooking batter, waited until it looked barely dry, thrust under with the steel spatula and flipped the silver dollars over:  his Mama used to make great big pancakes, but he had better luck making small ones.

Marnie came in beside him, raided a drawer: she set the table, quickly, efficiently, tableware neatly placed on napkins beside plates:  she turned, thrust a dramatic hand at Jacob, who reached into a cupboard, brought out two coffee cups and made a return trip for the glasses -- Marnie looked at the coffee pot, nodded, there was enough left for two adults -- she'd checked the fridge earlier and knew there was milk enough, otherwise she'd have gotten a gallon while she was stocking up on her Mama's chocolate.

"Marnie?"

"Hm? Yes, Daddy?"

Linn turned two silver dollars onto the platter, scooped up two more, placed them atop the preceding pair, decanted precise volumes of batter in neat, spreading circles, filling the kitchen with the quiet hiss and delightful fragrance of a favorite meal.

"Darlin', you are an absolute marvel, keepin' the house clean when your Mama works," Linn said quietly, staring at the pancake batter:  "if I ever take you for granted, would you do me a favor?"

Marnie looked at her Daddy with big and innocent eyes, tilted her head a little to the side:  "What's that, Daddy?"

"I'm thinking of all the good that you do.  Was I ever to complain about your missin' a dust bunny in the corner, if you would kindly kick me right in the shin bone, I would appreciate it."  He set down his steel spatula, bent, gave his little girl a quick hug.  "You are wonderful, darlin', and I appreciate your hard work!"

Young arms surrounded his waist, a young cheekbone pressed into his side:  he could not see it, but Marnie's siblings could, and they saw a look of absolute delight on Marnie's face at her Daddy's quiet praise.

They heard their Mama's Jeep wheel into the driveway not long after; Shelly came in, fatigue and stress graven on her features:  she stopped just inside the door, hung up her jacket, looked with tired eyes to the kitchen and almost cried.

The house was spotless, the table was set, her husband was just turning toward her with a platter of bacon in one hand and a young mountain of steaming-hot pancakes plattered up in the other, and the delightful smell of supper she didn't have to fix was like Gilead's balm to her stressed soul.

Her jacket hung, her boots off, hugs dispensed, Shelly's quick eye saw that everything but the griddle and the metal spatula were already washed and in the drain rack, drying, and she knew this would be taken care of after supper, after it was cooled off.

Shelly saw two brown paper sacks at her place.

Shelly looked at Marnie.

Her pale eyed daughter, standing beside her grinning Daddy, looked at the sacks, looked at her Mama, nodded, once.

Marnie poured milk and reheated coffee, placed the yellow-plastic, genuine-heirloom-antique gallon milk jug at her Daddy's left hand:  he drizzled in a little milk, turned the jug, Marnie took it and walked it to her Mama, who added a little to her coffee:  glasses were filled, the Keller young stood beside their chairs, and they waited in patient silence as their Daddy talked to his plate.

 

Later that evening, after dishes were done, with children tending homework or evening chores, husband and wife sat in their living room, holding hands, talking in quiet voices.

"You had a bad one today."

"Infant," Shelly almost whispered, and Linn nodded.

He knew the shorter her answer, the worse the run, and so he waited.

"Leah Plant went into labor and delivered as we were backing into the ER dock."

"Leah," Linn said, concerned: they'd known Leah and her husband for years.

"They called a pediatric code. Full term but they could not get air into her."

"A little girl?"

Shelly nodded numbly, her eyes staring through the far wall.

"They were going to flight her to Children's, but they cancelled."

"What happened?"

"They shot an X-ray."

Linn looked at his wife, looked at her wide, unseeing eyes.

"The lungs looked like upside down mushrooms.  Her lungs never developed."

Shelly's voice was strained, a whisper; everything she'd seen, heard, dealt with all day, what she'd kept professionally contained, started to leak out of her eyes.

Her hand turned over, gripped her husband's:  Linn rose, turned, went to his knees before his wife:  they hugged, held one another, silent, sharing the sorrow of those who are used to making it right, those who are reminded yet again that some things are beyond their abilities to make right.

Silent children watched solemnly as husband and wife wordlessly shared their sorrow.

Silent children watched as husband and wife unknowingly continued to set the example.

Little girls were learning what to look for in a man, seeing how their Daddy treated their Mama, and little boys were seeing how the husband properly treats his wife.

"Thank you for the pancakes," Shelly whispered.  "Blueberry cakes are my favorite."

"I know," Linn murmured into her shoulder.  "Marnie gets credit for the chocolate."

"She's a lifesaver too."

Linn's arms tightened a little around his wife, then a little tighter:  he held her for long moments, then slacked off, leaned back, pulled out a hankie and offered it to her.

"Chocolate sounds pretty good right about now," Shelly whispered, daring a slight smile.

"If you'd like it liquid, I can drizzle some over ice cream," Linn said, trying hard to look very innocent as he said it.

 

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745. YOU WOULD NEVER KNOW IT

All Sarah felt was a pressure, but it was a pressure on her throat, and Sarah did not allow pressure on her throat.

She reacted as she'd trained, as she'd reacted when her brother would seize her from behind: her brother would have a dull, wooden, practice knife in his hand instead of the honed skinner that sought the life that pulsed close to her flawless, ivory skin.

She shoved hard back into the unknown attacker, but this new attacker didn't know how she fought, and when her stacked-leather bootheel came down on an attacker's arch, driven with all the strength of a pale-eyed young woman who didn't care to be handled, the result was that they both went over backwards: her hand seized a thumb, ripped it away from her with all the engraged strength in her young arm.

An absolute sunball of agony detonated first in her attacker's foot, then blasted into searing life in his good right hand as the thumb was twisted violently from its socket.

When Sarah spun -- a tenth of a second before her attacker's shoulders hit the ground -- her own knife was in a crushing, white-knuckled grip: had her blade been seized by a genie's hand and hauled into the air, her grip on the checkered maple handles was tight enough she would have been hoist with it.

This did not happen.

Her attacker's mind was momentarily shattered by a crippling, crushing fracture of his right arch, with an equally bright, blinding, agonizing destruction in his good right hand.

The fact that he could hear his thumb being torn from its socket, added to his horror.

His horror did not last long.

Sarah's blade drove into his throat -- honed, double-edged Damascus steel, driven by the black anger of a pale eyed young woman's left hand, transected the attacker's throat and penetrated the other side.

Sarah did not so much jump up, as she levitated off her would-be murderer.

When she brought the blade with her, she drew a little, adding to the blade's cutting power: she fell back, caught herself with her free hand, twisted, came up on the balls of her feet, a second blade in hand:  she spun, her coat flaring, shining steel bright in the moonlight.

Her attacker tried to scream.

All he managed was a bloody spray from what used to be a throat:  a surprising volume of blood flowed and puddled under him.

A silent figure picked up her black, soft-brimmed hat, swung it back over her red-auburn hair:  one knife disappeared; she turned a little, found some dew-wet vegetation, wiped off the worst of the blood:  she stepped forward, used the dead man's pants cuff to wipe the blade free of anything remaining:  it, too, disappeared.

The Black Agent studied the dead man's face, her own expression utterly impassive.

This was the man she'd been following, the man she'd been watching:  the Judge would not be happy that he was not returned in irons, but when a man tries to cut an Agent's throat, why, he has to understand he's bought and paid for, and Sarah had given him that final understanding.

Sarah raised a hand to her throat, felt the frayed slash in the thick braids wrapped around her neck.

Clark, the ranch hand recommended to her Mama, wore her hair in that manner:  in winter, it insulated; in summer, it protected from knife attack -- as did the pipestem necklace Sarah occasionally wore, hidden under a high collar.

Sarah went through the dead man's pockets; she looked occasionally at his horse, which drifted away a little at the smell of hot, fresh blood, then stopped to graze:  the horse showed little interest in much of anything other than nourishment.

Just like a man, she thought, removing his wallet, opening it, seeing folded papers inside.

I'll take these to the Judge.

I wonder what's in his saddlebags.

Sarah raised a hand, kissed at the man's gelding, reached slowly, carefully for the dangling reins.

 

Marnie Keller raised her eyes from the handwritten account, blinked a few times, staring through the opposite wall at the images playing on the screen behind her forehead.

She reached for her own braids -- experimentally, she crossed them over the front of her throat, frowned to realize they were too short.

I'll have to let my hair grow, she thought, then smiled.

Wait a minute.

I'm a girl.

I'm allowed to wear a pretty choker necklace.

Marnie slipped the Ace of Spades into the reprint of the handwritten account, closed the book carefully:  she stood, turned, looked at the jewelry armoire she'd been given.

Most girls have earrings and necklaces and finger, toe or thumb rings in the velvet lined trays of a jewelry armoire.

Marnie slipped a key into a hidden lock, turned it, felt the spring loaded detent pop out, then she opened the second drawer down.

Most girls have jewelry; Marnie had a pair of snubnose .38s in this second drawer ... and a necklace.

Marnie reached in, withdrew a shining, ivory-looking choker necklace made of polished, vertical, tapered pieces, strung together with silver wire into a choker that just fit her -- she'd altered it to fit her very precisely -- she turned and looked in the mirror, critically examining the wide decorating band fast about her young throat.

Natives used to make pipestem necklaces out of bone, she thought.

They were protection against a throat slash.

Until my braids are long enough to wrap around my throat ...

Marnie snorted at her reflection, leaned toward the mirror, palms down on top of the painfully-neat dresser.

"Why?" she asked the figure in the silvered glass.  "Figure on getting in a knife fight anytime soon?"

She turned, sat, opened the volume, carefully placing the Ace of Spades over a pencil protruding from the empty juice can bristling with pens and pencils.

The playing card hung from the angled pencil, the eraser end of the writing implement protruding from the several bullet holes cloverleaf piercing its black insignia.

Marnie ran her finger down the page, found her place, and in less than four seconds, her bedroom was disappeared, replaced by the snug office of His Honor Judge Donald Hostetler; her denim skirt and flannel shirt were replaced by a fashionable McKenna gown, and instead of sitting, one elbow on her desk and knuckles in her left cheek, she was standing very properly before the Judge's desk, hands demurely folded in her apron.

 

"Very nicely done," His Honor muttered around a freshly-ignited Cuban:  Sarah's nostrils objected to the stinging fumes of a Lucifer match's self-immolation, tingled at tobacco-smoke's invasion of her feminine nostrils:  her expression was unchanged, her posture that of a very proper young woman, giving her dignified attention to the spade-bearded jurist seated behind his desk.

"These," the Judge nodded as he looked at the unfolded sheets, "are exactly what I was hoping you would find."

He looked up, plucked the cigar from between perpetually-yellowed teeth.  "Was he difficult?"

"No more than I expected, Your Honor," Sarah replied quietly.

"Hmph."  He dropped the papers, drew another bundle from the saddlebag.  "Did you look through these?"

"I did not," Sarah replied, raising her eyebrows.  

"Then you didn't know he was carrying coin."

"I heard it, Your Honor, but I saw no need to conduct an inventory."

"That's one thing I like about you," the Judge said frankly, plucking a fragment of tobacco leaf from his tongue:  "you're honest.  I don't have to worry about you robbing the dead."

"You would never know it if I did," Sarah said, and His Honor heard the teasing smile in her voice.

"My dear Agent," His Honor harrumphed, "have I a need to remind you --"

"You have need to do nothing of the kind," Sarah interrupted.  "I get the results you want, and that's all you need to know.  What I keep is my business."

"And just what did you keep this time, my dear Agent?"

Sarah Lynne McKenna smiled quietly, took one step closer to the desk:  all pretense at gentility was casually tossed aside, and Sarah planted her palms -- one, then the other -- firmly and rather loudly on his desk top.

"I kept my life, Your Honor," Sarah said, and His Honor the Judge did not flinch as Sarah's eyes assumed the general shade of a mountain glacier.  "I followed the example of someone I admire greatly, and it kept me alive."

She straightened, resuming her ladylike stance and bearing as if picking up a shawl and draping it around her shoulders.

"Besides, he didn't have anything I really like."

His Honor opened a crudely-stitched poke, dumped out a handful of gold Mexican reales.

"Not even these?" he grunted.

Sarah slipped two fingers into a hidden pocket, withdrew a precisely-sewn, heavy-cloth poke:  she untied the neck, dumped out twice that amount of double eagles on the Judge's desktop.

"Did I forget to mention?" she asked, her voice low, musical:  "I was lucky at the poker tables last night."

His Honor leaned back, concealed his expression behind the hand that held his cigar:  he watched as Sarah replaced her bounty back into its cream-colored, light-canvas poke, as Sarah replaced it in a hidden pocket.

Sarah didn't bother to tell the Judge about the two other light canvas pokes she wore, two pokes that each held twice the number of gold Mexican reales than the Judge had poured from the dead man's leather poke, onto his desktop.

 

 

 

 

 

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746. AND THE BEAR WOKE

I came out of my office chair like I'd been stung.

The chair went over backwards and I didn't, I landed on my feet and I had a knife in one hand and a revolving pistol in the other and no memory of how either one got there.

I looked around and my face felt tight and I knew something was wrong, wrong! -- I tilted my head, listened --

I heard The Lady Esther's whistle as she came into station.

My engraved, left-hand Colt went back into its holster, my fighting knife back into its sheath at the small of my back.

I reached up and plucked my Stetson from its peg, set it on my hair and headed for the door.

Now I've had several saddlemounts out of Rey del Sol, this one I called Goldie because that's what my little girl Angela called him -- he had some fancy name long as your arm, but Goldie is what he was used to being called, except for the time he tried to crush my leg ag'in the side of the barn and I reckon I called him unkind things as I was obliged to educate him otherwise, and he learned that when I raise my voice in anger it does not profit man nor beast.

As I recall, what I called him was rough, loud and caused my black Outlaw-horse to pass out and hit the ground colder'n a foundered flounder, and him half a pasture away.

Anyway I come around the back of the Sheriff's office and Goldie he was dancing and throwing his head, he held long enough for me to unsnap his bridle and then he backed out of the stall and stood there shiverin' whilst I saddled him, for I reckon he could smell the woke-up on me.

I'm like an old b'ar.

Get my belly full and set down and get warm, why, I fall asleep, but whatever woke me up woke me like I'd been clap boarded across the backside, and that did not make me happy a'tall.

I had no idea what happened, nor where it happened, nor to whom, but when I heard The Lady Esther's whistle, why, my gut told me to start there and I did.

We went back of the jail, back to the gravel ballast of the twin railroad tracks, we rode for the depot just as a box car door was slid open and a bloodied arm fell out and just hung there.

I recall that railroader stepped back, shocked:  I eased Goldie up to the doorway.

Sarah turned her pale, blood streaked face toward me and 'twas wet and she tried to raise her arm and she sounded like a scared little girl as she wheezed, "Dad-deee."

I leaned over towards her and Goldie sidled up ag'in the boxcar and I genuinely did not care that 'twas unpleasant on my leg, I recht in and taken my little girl in a double handful grip of her torn, cut and bloodied dress, I hauled her up in front of me in the saddle and held her to me, desperately, tight as I could hold her: Goldie turned and we went down the alley at a fast trot and then Goldie stuck his nose out and we shot into the main street and Goldie leaned over and dug steelshod hooves into the packed dirt and fought to keep his hooves under him and we laid over t'other way at a wide open gallop and I held Sarah and whispered "I've got you, darlin', I've got you now, you're safe, you're safe," and I felt her quiver in my arms like she was a scared little baby rabbit and Goldie he ho'd in front of the hospital door and I recht up and grabbed that bell pull and fair to yanked it in two.

I come out of the saddle and I recall Doc's hands were tight around my waist as I did, likely he kept me from hittin' the ground, and we was through the door and into the treatment room and I laid Sarah down on Doc's sheet-draped table.

She grabbed my hand and she was pale and still a-shiver and she whispered "Daddy, I'm scared," and I saw Doc hesitate a little as he ran his long surgeon's fingers under her collar, as if to lift it away so it could be cut.

"Cut it away, Doc," I snarled.  "Cut it up, I'll buy her a new one!"

 

Doc gave her something to relax her, he give me a shot of Two Hit John and I might as well have downed a slug of branch water for all the good it did me.

I told Doc I'd ride out to the McKenna ranch and I'd get Bonnie in here and Doc grunted and nodded, dismissing the idea from his mind so he could concentrate on the task at hand: he knew Bonnie to be steady when everyone else was ready to run around in blind panic.

Sarah's eyes rolled back and she passed out.

Whatever he give her, worked.

I gathered my reserve around me and said "I'll be back" and I went for the door.

Last I saw Sarah, Nurse Susan was carefully washing the blood from her face, and Doc was drawing a clean sheet up as he was pulling her cut-free dress down.

I got as far as the waiting room.

Jacob was waiting for me.

"Doc's working on her," I said, and I saw Jacob's face harden:  he noddded, then lifted his chin.

"Sir, you should see this."

We rode back to the depot and Jacob rode up to the boxcar.

There was a little crowd gathered, folks craning to gawp and stare and point at the bloodied interior.

As we rode up, I heard someone say something about blood drippin' between the floor boards.

The railroaders set a stock ramp up and hooked it in and me and Jacob we walked up that ramp and stopped and looked around.

We studied the inside of the car, looked around:  I pointed at one hole, sun slanting through, Jacob pointed at two others.

"I make it three holes, sir."

"Three," I agreed.  "Two here, one high up."

"Shot as a man fell back?"

"Likely."

We took a careful step, another.

Jacob stopped.

"Sarah's Bulldog."

I picked it up, broke it open.

"Two," I said.

Jacob thrust a chin toward a corner.  "Two here."

We took another step.

Another man would have exclaimed in horror, or fled, or at the very least, hissed his breath in between clenched teeth.

Jacob bent over, nodded.

"Nice shot," he said.

I was looking at the other carcass.

"Between the eyes?"
"Yes, sir."

"This one too."

"Is yours cut up some, sir?"

I bent, studied the dead man.

"Cut all to hell.  Yours?"

"No, sir."  He grabbed the dead man by the shoulders, hoist him so I could see.

Sarah's knife was in the man's throat -- she'd driven it down into the base of his neck and left it -- apparently an overhand stab, left handed.

"That's my girl," I said, and I felt a smile claim my face, and I don't reckon 'twas a pleasant expression a'tall.

I looked at Jacob.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Any idea what these two did?"

I considered the sulfur smell still hanging in the boxcar, blood all over hell and breakfast, two men very dead, my little girl hurt and I didn't know how bad.

"We'll study on this some more, Jacob, and 'gainst Sarah wakes up from Doc's poppy juice,why, we'll find out from her what happened."

Jacob crouched, studied the dead man's face.

"We've a wanted dodger on this one."  He looked over at my carcass.  "Him too."

Jacob's anger disappeared as if he'd wiped it off with a rag, leaving a clean, expressionlesss face in its wake, and somehow that was more terrifying than if he'd looked like Rage itself.

"Sir, how much gold would it take the Witch of Endor to resurrect these two miserable souls?"

"I don't know, Jacob, but I'd pay good gold coin to bring this pair back to life so I could beat 'em plumb to death!"

I looked at my son and I heard the smoldering anger in my own voice.

"Nobody hurts my little girl!"

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747. SLEDGEHAMMER

"Your Honor."

"Mrs. Rosenthal."

His Honor the Judge came around his desk, brought out a chair.

Bonnie McKenna Rosenthal sat.

His Honor the Judge did not miss the fact that she sat very upright, her back stiff, not touching the back of the chair.

This was very obviously not a social call.

The Judge looked at his humidor, decided it would be a sign of weakness to partake of a hand-rolled Cuban: it might be seen as taking a moment to marshal his defenses against what was undoubtedly going to be a mother's protest that her daughter was hurt, thanks to her work on behalf of the Law.

"Mrs. Rosenthal," the Honorable Judge Donald Hostetler said as he lowered back into his chair, "I don't believe I need to tell you to speak your mind."  He lowered his head a fraction, looking at her with near resignation.  "You're going to do it anyway."

Bonnie controlled herself, her controlled her breathing: she'd been prepared to loose a broadside of motherly indignation, a cannonade of maternal protectiveness:  with His Honor's frank admission that he expected to receive just such a matronly salvo, she hesitated, considered.

"I don't have to hear your words to know that you are not happy your daughter was shot and injured in a murderous attack, nor that she killed two men while locked in the confines of a railroad boxcar with no choice but to kill them both, before they both killed her."

Bonnie's violet eyes were unblinking as she regarded the Judge's solemn expression.

"And I don't have to tell you I do not approve of people attempting to murder agents of the Law, for these representatives of the Law are the thin border between a peaceful existence, and utter and lawlesss anarchy."

The Judge leaned back in his chair, frowned.

"You're going to tell me that you want me to take your daughter off these dangerous assignments, that you want your little girl to grow up free of the need to carry weapons and use weapons, free of the influence of strong forces of evil, free of the staining touch of things decent people don't want to think about."
Bonnie blinked, took a breath, but remained slient: like the pale eyed Sheriff, and indeed like her own pale eyed daughter, she'd long ago learned the value of listening.

"You know I'm going to point out that she is the one most effective detectives I've ever met in my entire young life, and I say that after meeting Alan Pinkerton himself and several of his employ" -- he raised a finger for emphasis -- "including a remarkable woman who proved most effective -- though not as effective as your beautiful young daughter."

His Honor's fingers were restless, as if wishing they were fumbling with a cigar.

"Mrs. Rosenthal, if there is blame to be placed, you may place that blame on me. She was discovering matters that men of influence did not wish discovered, and so they sent two known murderers to silence this legal bloodhound.  Your daughter's efforts uncovered corruption that will be excised -- that is being excised as we speak, and men will be stripped of ill gotten gains, men will spend time in prison, I anticipate that some few will be hanged, though the pair the Sheriff deposited face-down into Potter's Field bear most of the blood of most of the murders."

The Judge frowned, tapped his fingertips together meditatively.

"She is at once my most valuable Agent, and my greatest liability," he said softly.  "She has single handedly stopped more crime than any one lawman, and yet I blame myself for every wound she has received" -- he looked sharply at Bonnie, his voice hardening -- "and I do not refer solely to those that left their visible scars."

Judge Donald Hostetler's eyes shifted to the right, as if looking through the varnished wall panels, toward their little marble hospital, even now undergoing enlargement.

The Judge's chamber door opened and a furled umbrella's metal tip punished the smooth-sanded, varnished floor boards.

"Don't you think you should include me in this little discussion?" a familiar voice asked.

Bonnie rose, shocked, the color running from her face:  the Judge stood, suddenly, startled; part of his mind was grateful he had not his usual vice between his teeth, for he would have dropped a lighted cigar, and doubtless it would have knocked its fire into a fold of his coat.

Sarah Lynne McKenna stepped across the Judge's threshold; she took another step, the furled parasol coming with her step -- she was using it as a cane -- another step, and she leaned heavily on the carved, ornate handle.

"Well?" she smiled, giving the Judge a mischevious look.  "Aren't you going to offer a lady a chair?"

His Honor the Judge moved more quickly than Bonnie ever recalled seeing him:  he barely got the chair behind Sarah when her knees buckled, and she came down, hard, her head dropping with the impact, her teeth clicking together as she hit.

The Judge dropped to a squat, his hands on her shoulders to keep her from pitching forward.

The outer door banged open, there was the sound of hurried bootheels:  the Sheriff nearly ran to the Judge's open door, stopped.
He seized the back of Sarah's chair, leaned her back, quickly:  the Judge rose, releasing his careful grip:  Sarah closed her eyes, her lips were peeled back and she hissed in a quick breath as she raised a gloved hand, reaching for what she knew was a white-knuckled lawman's grip over her right shoulder:  failing this, she lowered her arm and muttered, "Sheriff, is it in your power to stop the room from rocking like a ship at sea?"

 

Sarah sat straight, her face pale: her feet were pressed hard against the floor as she willed it to neither roll, pitch nor yaw, at least until her business was concluded.

The Judge's cozy little office was crowded now, for in addition to the Sheriff, a red-shirted fireman was present, a man standing in earnest conversation with Sarah's violet-eyed mother.

Daffyd Llewellyn showed Bonnie something -- Sarah looked at the man's broad back, assessing him as a woman will assess a man, knowing him to be not only a good man and true, honest and forthright, but also knowing the man expressed a desire to pursue her hand.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back until it rested against the Sheriff's flat belly.

His hands were still gripped to the back of her chair; she sat upright now, she faced the Judge, regarded the man's quick series of almost-hidden expressions as he turned his attention from Mr. Llwewllyn's conversation with Mrs. Rosenthal, to the stern-faced Sheriff, then his own Black Agent.

"Your Honor," Sarah said, her words carefully framed -- the Sheriff's ear caught the pain hidden behind her voice -- "if I might beg a leave from duty, for a time."

His Honor inclined his head a few degrees in assent.

"I find that being shot is ... a rather disagreeable experience."

At the phrase "being shot," both mother and intended stopped, and turned, and stared with concern.

"I myself have known that exact condition," the Judge intoned gravely. "My dear, this Court will grant any and all relief you may require, including payment of all the good Doctor's fees on your behalf."

"His Honor is most generous," Sarah said softly.

"What exactly happened, Sarah?"  Linn asked from behind her.

"They were looking for the Black Agent," Sarah said.  "I'd left those clothes rolled up under a building. I'd just gotten into a dress when they found me.  They thought me a weak female, I found myself seized and thrown into a boxcar for their amusement and subsequent murder."

The Sheriff and the Judge shared a concerned look: they'd heard of this being done, but never this close to Firelands.

"They were not expecting to inherit a face full of high heel," Sarah smiled tiredly.  "That gave me enough purchase to drive my second kick into his belly and twist free. One pulled a gun and I gave him a face full of Bulldog and then the fight was on."

Linn's hands tightened on the chair; Bonnie saw his face pale a little, his eyes pale a lot, and his now-white knuckles cracked quietly with the intensity of his grip on the back of the chair.

"That's when I was shot -- here --"  her hand went to her belly, low and to the side.  "It felt like I'd been kicked from the inside.

"I remember I ... I'm afraid that's when I dropped my Bulldog.

"He was behind me and when I turned I addressed him with my sleeve-knife. He had his hand out" -- her own hand reached ahead of her, fingers open, grasping, her eyes vacant, seeing the horror again as she relived the moment through her quietly spoken words, and Bonnie -- no stranger to violence, no stranger to horror -- felt her blood slow and turn to ice as her daughter's words painted a picture in full and bloody color, a portrait Bonnie's imagination saw with a frightening clarity.

"Papa, I know the Rage you speak of -- Your Honor, you described seeing Papa in his white-eyed and white-faced Rage in time of war. You spoke of a human tornado with ten arms and four legs, a screaming monster with white eyes and red fangs with an ax and a knife, a gunbarrel and a bayonet, each in its own separate hand, screaming like an insane scythe into the overwhelming ranks of the enemy, and blazing through them with fires made of blood and men's screams."

Sarah Lynne McKenna shivered, sagged, bent over a little, her arms folded protectively across her belly.

"Now I know what that feels like," she whispered.  "I became Kali, goddess of death, with ten arms and a hundred swords, and I was that tornado of steel, cutting into my attacker with a hundred blades all at once."

Bonnie's hand went to her mouth, the other to her high stomach, and Daffyd's hands went to Bonnie's shoulders, warm and strong and reassuring.

"Two men wanted to despoil me and murder me like they'd done before. They were hired to do this but they wanted me for their amusement. I was not a paid target. I was their sport."

She looked up at the Judge, her expression harsh, ugly, and her voice tightened as did the flesh of her face.

"It was worth it," she whispered, and horror ran cold fingers down every last spine in that room.

"It was worth it, Your Honor. I was there because I am the Agent of the Court, and had I not been there, they would have murdered another woman, and another after that, until they were finally caught or they finally died of some other cause."

Sarah Lynne McKenna stood, shaking, raised a palsied hand, stared at it as if she'd never seen one before, then looked at the Judge, at her mother, at the fireman, at the Sheriff, then she half-fell to the side, ran from the room, her hands over her face:  the outer door slammed, and a moment later, they heard hoofbeats:  all three were honestly surprised there was no agonized wail, no sound of a buggy-whip laid across a horse's back, no sound of galloping hooves:  the realization that Sarah could go from the agonies of memory, to coldly controlled, in the space of a few heartbeats, gave those in the Judge's austere and Spartan chamber, definite pause to consider.

Finally Linn looked over at Daffyd.

"You said something about proposing to her," Linn said.  "I believe you spoke of your grandmother's ring."

"The ring of the Princess, aye," Llewellyn confirmed slowly, his lips feeling distinctly wooden:  his hands still rested on Bonnie's, and he felt her gloved hand settle on his fingers as he stared at the doorway through which his intended had staggered.

He looked at the Judge, looked at the Sheriff.

"Yon's a strong woman," he said at length.  "If she'll have me, Sheriff.  Judge.  Mrs. Rosenthal."

Daffyd Llewellyn's hands lifted from Bonnie's shoulders; he paced slowly out the door, his grandmother's Ring of the Princess hidden behind his red-wool uniform shirt's bib front.

His Honor the Judge was accustomed to maintaining an orderly courtroom.

He looked around at his silent guests.

"Mrs. Rosenthal?" he asked gently.

Bonnie McKenna Rosenthal blinked, rose.

"Thank you for your time, Your Honor," she said faintly:  the Sheriff stepped back to allow her passage from the room, then moved the two chairs back against the wall, where they usually lived.

His Honor the Judge and the pale eyed Sheriff looked at one another for a long moment.

His Honor the Judge leaned down and opened the bottom right hand drawer of his desk, withdrew a small stone jug and two squat glasses:  he pulled the cork, poured both glasses half full, corked the jug and set it back.

Two old soldiers remembered what it was to run screaming into battle, what it was to shoot and to be shot, and what it was to know that if they were not personally victorious, they themselves would be killed.

"Here's to God keeping that girl alive," the Judge declared, raising his glass, "and to the men and the women who taught her to fight like two hells!"

Two glasses touched together, two men raised their distilled sledgehammers in mutual salute, two men drank.

 

Edited by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
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748. I LOVE YOU, SON

Retired Chief of Police Will Keller threw his blankets back -- viciously, vigorously, a habit he'd gotten into while still a very green patrol officer -- he came to his feet before he snatched the phone from its cradle and managed a drowsy "Hello."

An excited young voice on the other end of the phone was interrupted by the operator's professional phonemes:  "Collect call from Charles Keller, will you accept?"

Will rubbed his face, trying to wake up: his drowsy mind heard "Collect call" and as he blinked his eyes to greater clarity, he saw the clock said it was now Too Early In the Morning, but the name "Keller" overrode all else and he said "I'll accept charges."

Immediately the young man's voice he'd heard initially came through.

"Dad, we're deploying," he heard.  "They're calling us to board now and I just got to a pay phone and I've only got a minute --"

He heard the young voice pause, swallow, take a breath.

Will's fatherly instinct kicked in right away.

"Slow down, now, take a breath," he cautioned, knowing neither would be done -- he'd been young himself, once -- "and tell me how that idiot military has your name listed."

"It's PFC Keller, Charles N," he heard, then, "Dad, I gotta go --"

"I love you, son," Will said, his eyes stinging, and he heard a distant, hurried "Love you, Dad" -- a click -- and a retired Chief of Police stood in his bedroom darkness, holding a silent telephone, staring at the memory of his own son, grinning as he, too, deployed on his final assignment.

It took him some digging and most of a day, but he finally tracked down PFC Keller, Charles N, only just deployed overseas: he'd explained he didn't need to know anything about the young man, he wasn't asking about the deployment, but he'd received a wrong-number call and he'd like to pass along the young man's message to his father, could you help me find him.

It wasn't until Will told the stiff, official person on the other end of the line that his own son was killed in the line of duty, not many years ago, and that final goodbye is something a father needs to hear, if only secondhand, from another father.

Willamina looked up at the knock, at the door opening without her permission:  she watched as her twin brother came in, his hands full of coffee from the All-Night and a troubled expression on his face.

Willamina pressed the intercom button:  "Sharon, hold my calls," she said, and "Already on it," came the reply.

Will handed her a hot cup of something that smelled of coffee and vanilla -- one of Willamina's favorites -- Will sat down as if he were a hundred years old, he hunched over with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor, and then he looked up.

"I did a good thing today, Willa," he finally said, his voice husky.

Willamina ripped the sippy cap from the cup, releasing a great cloud of fragrant, vanilla-scented steam:  she frowned, took a sip, whistled air in through pursed lips to cool her seared and stinging tongue.

"Just scalded the hair off my tongue," she gasped.  "Just right!"

Will grinned -- sadly, she thought -- and nodded.

"What good thing did you this fine and sunny day?" Willamina asked, hazarding another, more-cautious sip.

Will snorted, looked away, looked back.

"I took a wrong number collect call at oh-dark-thirty."

 

Edited by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
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749. NEVERMORE AGAIN THE SEA

Marnie Keller had an electric-blue suit dress.

Marnie Keller had worn the electric-blue suit dress, but not for some time.

Marnie Keller missed her pale eyed Gammaw: she wished to present  before the Ladies' Tea Society, which was also the de facto Local History meeting, and so she wore a tailored suit dress -- but of a rich, emerald green, which set off her red-auburn hair, carefully styled loose down her back instead of in the twin braids she usually affected.

Marnie Keller tapped confidently to the front of the room on three-inch heels, placed a thin sheaf of papers on the podium and picked up the remote control.

She closed her eyes for a moment.

Her Gammaw was the last living soul to have used this remote control.

Marnie swallowed, took a deep breath, pressed the first button.

 

The gambler's carefully arranged pasteboards sprayed from his delicate, almost effeminate grip: the cultivated expression he'd worn disappeared, replaced with a panicked look, just before the chair slammed into the floor, and so did his head.

His eyes squeezed shut, a reflex to the pain: as an anonymous boot pressed down on the inside of his forearm, most painfully shoving the sleeve gun into his flesh, and an anonymous thumb rolled back the hammer of what sounded like a revolving pistol.

The gambler opened his eyes and beheld a black muzzle with the approximate inner diameter of a Parrot rifle.

Sheriff Linn Keller's pale eyes were visible over top of the cannon muzzle, and the gambler realized it was not a field gun looking at him, but something much worse.

He'd heard of the pale eyed lawman who never missed, and he'd quite honestly forgotten that said pale eyed lawman owned the Silver Jewel Saloon.

He considered and discarded going for the hideout pistol in his inside breast pocket.

As well swat at a field gun with a dead chicken as to pull a pocket pistol on this legenday slayer of mere mortals.

The boot eased off his forearm.

A hand grew huge in his vision, seized shirtfront linen at the base of the gambler's throat, twisted, crushed, pulled:  the man came off the floor, the Sheriff's revolver decocked and went into its carved holster, and a man less than favorably regarded, dangled his shoe soles most of a foot off the cards, scattered and forgotten on the floor.

"When a man says he does not wish to gamble," the Sheriff said quietly -- if the sound of boulders grinding together at the bottom of a hundred foot, hand dug well, can be considered quiet -- "you do not pester him, mister. Do you understand me?"

The gambler nodded -- quickly, jerkily.

"You'll play a straight game," the Sheriff said, and it was very obviously not a request.

The gambler rolled over, came awkwardly to his feet: he recovered his hat, abandoned his deck -- it bore lemon juice numbers, fingernail marks and taper cuts anyway -- he scrambled for the door, propelled by the raucous laughter of men who delighted in seeing a cheat get his comeuppance.

The Sheriff gathered the deck, handed it to Tom Landers, who slipped on a pair of blue lens spectacles:  he sorted though them, nodding; he shuffled the deck, stripped out the taper cut cards, examined them, then walked over to the stove, opened the door, and tossed in a few at a time.

 

"The Silver Jewel," Marnie said, her voice clear, her diction precise, "had a reputation for honest games. The account I just read was written by the Sheriff, but we must fall back on notations made by their Fire Chief to get the complete story."

Marnie pressed another button:  a handwritten ledger appeared, projected on the big screen behind her.

"Back when the Sheriff was still a deputy, he saw the town was in danger of burning down. He'd seen that before -- fire in a town, with buildings set close together, generally resulted in loss of the whole town.  He'd come into unexpected fortune, but he'd also survived what he called 'that damned War,' and having had his come-to-Jesus moment,  perhaps he wished to buy his way into heaven."

She turned, picked up a pointer, ran its black rubber tip down the projected page.

"The Sheriff invested his own money. He purchased a steam powered fire engine -- we still have one of them, by the way, it's the one you've seen in parades, and throwing water at the County Fair" -- she smiled, turned back to the screen -- "here's the date that caught my eye.

"Donation by William J Garrison, to the Firelands Fire Department."  She tapped the screen gently.  "This was a young fortune in those days, but William J. made it a personal comittment that he should provide such a sum every year, for the continued operation of their own Irish Brigade."

Marnie smiled, replaced the pointer on its shelf.

"Firemen in those days were often Irish, and the original firemen here were, though their actual nationalities varied. It didn't matter that you had a German Irishman, a Welsh Irishman, a New York Irishman, an English Irishman -- the original fire chief, a pure Irish warrior named Sean -- said God would forgive the English Irishman for being English."
Marnie pressed another button.

A stiff, formal portrait of a small group of men, all with villainously curled handlebar mustaches, all wearing pressed-leather Philadelphia-pattern helmets and red-wool, bib-front shirts with a gold Maltese cross embroidered thereon -- looked out over the heads of the Ladies' Tea Society.

"These are the original members of the Irish Brigade."  She gestured, a delicate, ladylike lift of her palm, her fingers curled: a man in back rose, paced forward, stood and ran his arm around Marnie's waist.

"To this day, proper uniform for our own Irish Brigade is a handlebar mustache, the Philadelphia pattern helmet, the red wool, bib front shirt, black trousers and well polished boots -- though the original Brigade wore knee-high Cavalry boots, and my Daddy and his fellows wear well polished Wellingtons."  She raised up on her toes, kissed her Daddy's cheek quickly, impulsively, giggled as she did:  "My Daddy's muts-tash tickles," she said in a childish voice, which brought silent laughter from the red-eared squad Captain, and audible titters from the ladies in attendance.

 

Sean frowned at the dandy leaving the Jewel in haste.

He'd seen the kind before: well dressed, a well practiced, absolutely artificial smile, oily manners -- the kind of fellow that inspired a man to keep one hand on his wallet at all times.

Sean stepped into the Jewel as the piano music picked back up, as men's quiet laughter and conversation was just restarting: he saw a look of satisfaction on Tom Landers' face, and saw the Sheriff turn and nod to Tom, then turn to the bar.

William J Garrison rose, stuck out his hand:  surprised, Sean gripped it.

"Sean," the Mercantile's owner said, "I would ask of you a blessing."

"Now what kind of a blessing would a good Catholic be givin' a haythen Methodist like yersel'?" he teased -- it was a private joke between them, more a matter of form than any kind of actual insult.

William J reached into his coat and drew out a flat leather wallet, handed it to the Irishman.

"Accept this on behalf of the Firelands Fire Department," he said, all humor running from his face as if running from a bad memory.  "It would be a blessing on me if you would accept this."

Sean frowned, opened the wallet, took a look.

He raised an eyebrow.

"This goes with it."

WJ Garrison produced a leather pouch, dunked it into Sean's palm: Sean felt weight and heard the clink of hard coin.

He looked with surprise at the Mercantile's operator, looked over the man's balding head at the Sheriff.

"I'll stand for the beer if you'll both join me," he said, and Fire Chief and merchant looked at one another, looked at Mr. Baxter, lifted their chins.

 

"We know WJ Garrison was in the War of Northern Aggression," Marnie said, pressing a button:  "here is his Confederate enlistment record, we have record of his promotions and of his discharge, though the records are incomplete as far as how many ships he served on, and exactly when.

"We know he served on Confederate, armored ships, he mentioned serving on a raider, but we don't know which one, though we do know he carried a LeMat revolving pistol, both during the war, and after.  As a matter of fact, his wife used that very revolver to defend their Mercantile in the famous raid on Firelands."

Another graceful, feminine gesture, this toward the screen:  "This is his revolver, and you will recognize the display case it's in, out in the Firelands museum.

"Now."  Marnie dusted her hands briskly together, like a schoolmarm knocking chalk dust off her hands.  "It seems that we have letters from William J" -- another touch, another image -- "note how he describes the sea:  "She is a seductress," and here, "She sings in the lines and caresses my cheek with fingers of spray" -- and on the next page, he speaks of the ... here it is, "The Boom of the Mains'ls, the Crack of the T'gallants, the Snapping Flutter of the Pennants" -- quite obviously he sailed under canvas, and the armored ships on which he served were steam powered, so he was not writing of his wartime experience.

"Men of the sea generally return to the sea.  WJ Garrison dropped anchor here in the mountains."

She turned on the balls of her feet, arms across her middle, tapping her cheek with one finger.

"Why?"
Marnie returned to the ledger.

"Why does a businessman give such a sum to the fire department?  Why the fire brigade?  Why not the church, the school, the library?"

 

Three men sat at a back table, beer and discussion on the table before them.

"I'll accept this," Sean said slowly, staring at the wallet, flat on the table, at the leather poke of coin atop the wallet, at the young fortune they represented.

"If it'll be a blessing to ye, wha' kind of a blessing is it?"

WJ Garrison took a long breath, looked at the Sheriff.

"You started me in the Mercantile," he said.  "You never asked for part of my profits. You just gave me the gold I needed to start, to build, to stock, you hired a book keeper to run my ledgers, you found me a man who'd run his own business to show me how."  

"I did that," Linn said slowly,  nodding.

"You never told me why."

Linn nodded again.  "You're right."

"You were in the War."

"I was."

"You were Union Cavalry."

"I was."

"I was Confederate Navy."

"I know."

"And you started me anyway."

"Yep."

"You never said why."

Linn shrugged.  "I like to see men succeed."

"You could have been a partner. You could have been an investment partner and harvested from my profits."

"I could have."

"You didn't."

"Nope."

"Yon's a fine sum," Sean said, "and it'll be a blessin' on you if you give me this?"

William J closed his eyes, considered.

"Sheriff," he said, "you and Sean are both as honest as the day is long."
WJ Garrison leaned forward, elbows on the table: he looked from one to the other and said softly, "I loved the sea.  I was married and I left the quarterdeck to be with my bride, but I never ... the sea called to me like a mistress, and when the War ... "

His jaw thrust out and he closed his eyes, opened them.

"I went back to sea for my country," he said, his voice barely audible. "The war was an excuse."

He bowed his head, laced his fingers together.

"And while I was at sea, my wife and family died in a house fire."  He raised his head, his expression haunted, his voice a strained whisper. 

"The neighbors said they heard them screaming to death."  He looked at the Sheriff, at the Fire Chief.

"They died and I was off gallivantin' at sea like a boy playin' at adventures!"

His interlaced fingers tightened; they could feel his shivering through the tabletop.

"So that's why" -- he gestured to the poke of gold coin, the wallet, thick with Yankee greenbacks.

"I don't want another man to be told they heard his wife and children screaming to death."

 

Marnie pressed a button and the screen went dark, withdrew slowly into the ceiling.

"And that is how the Firelands Fire Department was funded for several years:  between the Sheriff and the Mercantile, it never lacked for funds.  Wise investments kept it solvent for years after that. It's only within the past thirty years that it became a tax-supported entity.

"Two men in heartbreak," she said, "one bearing the ghosts of war and of losing his wife and child while he was off playing at adventure, another man who blamed himself for his family's deaths while he was off playing at adventure.  Two men" -- she paused, closed her eyes, took a long breath as if to steady herself.

"Two men with more guilt than they could bear, trying to survive what they'd lost."

She turned a page over, carried it to the front row.

"This is a reproduction of the Sheriff's account of their conversation.  I've highlighted it for easy reference.  Pass it around."  Marnie returned to the podium.  "It says, and I'm quoting here, "When I lost the only people I've ever really loved, I knew it was my fault. I should have been there.

"I'll never see that happen again."

His voice took on a determined edge as he continued, "Nevermore again the sea!"

 

 

Edited by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
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750. IT MADE THE NETWORK NEWS

Reverend John Burnett tasted copper, dropped one foot back to brace himself, raised gloved hands almost in supplication, then drew them back.

The world faded from around him.

He still smelled the awful smoldery-burnt-paper smell of a house fire, right after the first hoseline hits the hottest part of the conflagration: he could feel the texture of the ground through his fireboots, he felt the beavertail at the back of his helmet touch the back of his firecoat as he craned his head back, but his attention closed into the worst case of tunnel vision he'd ever experienced in his entire life.

Reverend John Burnett was not a stranger to conflict, to violence; he was a survivor of his own, and of others' violence, he'd ridden backwards in the Firelands pumper, he'd even harnessed up in a self-contained and pulled away from the walkaway bracket and seized a hoseline, to help in the fire attack.

Never, in his entire life, had he done something this important.

A wrapped bundle, roughly football shaped, fell through space like a streamlined brick, and his Firecraft-gloved fingers spread in anticipation of making the catch of a lifetime.

 

Shelly Keller, wife of that pale eyed Sheriff, jogged around the house -- like everyone else responding to this three-story house fire, her adrenaline pump was running, and she wanted to orbit the fire structure on a fast first pass to familiarize herself with the terrain, in case they would have to medically assist anyone, anywhere, on the fireground.

She knew Bruce Jones was legging it beside and behind her: she really didn't know the man, only that he was friends with her husband, that he ran the weekly newspaper, that he had a scanner that actually picked up their radio traffic, that he put the most flattering pictures on the front page of his paper and carefully avoided those that ... weren't.

Shelly skidded to a stop, mouth open, as she saw the woman leaning out the third story window, as she saw something wrapped in white dropping, as she saw their Chaplain make the game-winning catch at the one-yard line, as a football shaped bundle dropped neatly, precisely, into his gloves and against his chest.

She saw this as the newspaperman's camera flashed, as the Parson's blue Scotchlite gave him a ghostly outline, as the Chaplain's cross, the shoulder-sleeve-and-legs reflective trim, seared into bright blue life: the Chaplain was the only one who wore blue reflective, everyone else's was in varying shades of orange, dirty orange or filthy orange -- except the medics, whose reflective was all white.

Shelly turned, put two fingers to her lip, whistled, raised an arm, ran yelling back toward the arriving rescue truck.

Their Parson might have made the world's greatest football catch, but there was a woman leaning out of a third story window, and smoke was rolling black and hot out the window around her.

 

Jacob stopped, frowned at his scanner.

He did a quick mental calculation, reviewed the area map he kept between his ears, reached up and turned the antenna switch: two clicks, the signal strengthened, cleared.

"RESCUE TO THE LIFE RING, he heard, the Chief's voice over a talkie: Jacob's ear was experienced enough to pick up the difference in carrier between the talkies, between talkies through a truck's repeater, to distinguish this from a truck radio, or the squad's radio.

A fainter signal, broken: he frowned, tilted his head a little, looked up as a Sheriff's unit marked on scene.

The scanner went silent; he saw the rapid confusion of the digital screen as it searched the designated frequencies, then:

"DISPATCH, CHIEF ONE, SQUAD ENROUTE, TWO JUMPED FROM A HOUSE FIRE."

Jacob's stomach shrank a little as he heard the words.

His Mama was at that fire.

If someone was hurt, she'd be right in the middle of treating them.

 

Five men ran for the side of the house, ran for the medic with one arm up, one arm out and pointing with the talkie's rubber antenna.

Five men glanced up long enough to see a woman hanging out a window, up to her waist, coughing.

Fire-gloved hands snapped the life-ring open, slammed its polished wooden rim against the side of the house.

Shelly danced backwards, waving her arms:  "CAN YOU HEAR ME?" she yelled, and the woman in the smoke-stained nightgown raised her head, pulled her hair back.

"JUMP, WE'LL CATCH YOU!"

Bruce Jones backpedaled, turned his camera sideways, finger heavy on the shutter button.

He stopped, froze, rigid as any tripod, staring in unblinking, horrified fascination as a woman fell from the open window, fell headfirst, fell in slow motion: he saw her bare feet, how her nightgown's hem fluttered in the wind of her falling, how her hair streamed upward: she came out the window headfirst and rotated, falling with an amazing speed, a shocking velocity.

His view of her was interrupted by the camera's rapid-fire cycles, capturing the fall in slow motion, capturing every moment from her dive from the fire structure's smoke-breathing window until she slammed into the canvas ring flat on her back.

Bruce's finger was still down hard on the shutter button as she landed, as men's knees flexed and the canvas ring dipped, then rose, as the woman landed as if she'd practiced this particular landing all of her life.

The weekly newspaper came out the next day, and it enjoyed a brisk circulation and a reprint, with the front page picture even appearing on coast-too-coast nightly network news.

One was a blue-limned fireman, making the catch of his life, and the other, the dropped infant's mother, toes pointed to the heavens and arms out to the side, a tenth of a second before she landed, flat on her back, on the taut-canvas life ring, held by five reflective-orange-trimmed firemen.

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751. FEERCE FROSHUS MAN EATEN ATTACK CRITTURS

Linn was blessed with youth: like any of the young, he could stretch out on the living room floor, on the grass outside, on a bedroll laid out on a rock shelf, he could lay down and sleep in perfect comfort, and so it was that he'd laid down in their living room: warmed by the stove, curled up on his side, a pillow stolen from the sofa, and his soul submerged in the dark lake of slumber as easily as a Grey Lady immersing herself beneath the waves.

Willamina smiled a little at the image; a sleeping puppy, a sleeping child, was a precious thing, she knew, and her son worked hard at whatever he did: she knew if he laid down for a nap, he'd be out like a light, and little short of a brass band, a cannonade or the smell of cookies from the kitchen would wake him.

Neither of them counted on the vagarities of nature.

You see, normally The Bear Killer slept with him, and here's where the tale takes a turn.

Not all of The Bear Killers were ... boys.

This should not come as a surprise: "Male and female made He them", and The Bear Killer, at this point in time, was not only a girl, but fertile; she'd been gravid, she was now a nursing mother, and at the moment, she wished for water, for food, and from respite, for escape from the half dozen grunting, wiggling, pawing, nursing Little Bear Killers sharing the cardboard whelping box in which they were all corraled.

Mama Bear Killer stood, shook herself free of her clinging young, leaped easily from the box and went tik-tik-tikking across the polished wood floor in search of the water bowl and the feed dish.

Half a dozen young were less than happy that their warm, cuddly source of food and comfort was no longer with them: their eyes were open now, they snuffed, they grunted, they scratched at the sides of the box, and somehow -- somehow, by accident rather than design -- this Legion of Canine Exploration managed to dump the box over.

If the sleeping lad heard it, he gave no sign: Linn's slumber was deep and profound, and he remained entirely oblivious to the snuffing, grunting, squinting flood of black exploration that poured forth from the box, wobbling and falling out from under the blanket that fell over them when the box went over.

These little Bear Killers' world was suddenly much larger than it had been, and they did what Bear Killers do, when exploring a new surrounding:  noses down and sniffing, noses up and scenting, looking around, they began exploring, and almost immediately they encountered something that smelled human-familiar, something warm, something they proceeded to snuff, to nibble, to tug at and climb on, and Willamina heard her son's drowsy giggle, and so she took a look.

She'd heard the sound of the cardboard box, but thought maybe it tipped when Mama Bear Killer made her escape; not until she looked in the living room did she realize that a mass exodus was in progress, that her son, asleep on the rug in front of the stove, was being explored, and as she watched, Linn woke, laughing quietly.

He said later he'd been mauled by a Whole Pack of Feerce Froshus Man Eaten Attack Critturs -- why, they'd chawed his ears, nibbled his nose and his fingers, they'd cuddled against him and climbed all over him, and one enterprising explorer managed to ascend to the dizzying crest of Mount Hipbone itself, where the triumphant explorer managed a truly huge yawn, flumped down on the bony, denim covered summit, and fell sound asleep!

Willamina laid a hand on Mama Bear Killer's shoulder and rubbed gently.

"I know what it is to have young," she almost whispered, "and I know what it is to want to get away for a little bit."  She slipped her canine counterpart a treat and said gently, "Let's let them explore for a little, shall we?"

Mama Bear Killer's tail polished the floor behind her and she leaned companionably against Willamina's leg, eyes closing in pleasure at the caressing hand rubbing her neck.

 

 

 

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752. JUST ME WILL DO FINE

The Parson knew he'd have to face up to it sooner or later, so he went on the offensive.

It was Sunday; he wore a formal, black, ecclesiastical robe; he leaned the heels of his hands into the pulpit, looked around with his usual quiet smile, and said, "Before I begin my message today, I wanted to lay some rumors to rest."

He looked to the side, toward the piano, nodded.

A grinning little boy scampered across the front of the church, swung a brightly-colored, tourist-trade Mexican sombrero up:  Parson Burnett caught it, thanked the lad, held it at his side.

"I wanted to show you that my head has actually not swollen," he said, swinging the gaudy skypiece up and dropping it over his short haircut:  it dropped down to his shoulders -- and the sight of a properly-robed preacher, behind his pulpit, with a broad, bright and ridiculously oversized hat clear down to his shoulders, had the desired result.

The congregation laughed.

"As you can see" -- the words were muffled, he removed the hat and scaled it down to his helper, who scampered back to the far side of the piano, "my head actually hasn't swollen.  Now as far as my wearing a Superman costume" -- he released the clasp at the base of his throat, removed the bell-sleeved garment with a sweep and a fluorish -- "as you can see, it's just a suit and tie, like anyone else today."  He tossed the robe over the seat of the vacant visitor's chair, looked back with a wry grin:  "I'm glad to take that one off, it's kind of hot!"

Again, polite laughter: several there knew what it was to be properly dressed for a public event, in attire that was too hot for good comfort.

The Parson reached into the back of his pulpit, pulled out a catcher's mitt.

"Now," he said, working a hand into the mitt and thumping his fist into the web a few times, "no, I am not being drafted by the Major Leagues, and no, Professional Football has not offered me a contract."

"You can join our team!" a young voice called from the back, and ten young men in suits and neckties stood and shouted "WARRIORS! HUU!"

The Reverend John Burnett laughed, raised a calming hand:  "I'm a bit long in the tooth to play beside those fine fellows who are younger, smarter, and better looking than me, not necessarily in that order!"

"Flattery will get you everywhere!" the youthful voice retorted, to the immediate punches and elbows of his good-natured teammates, and the understanding chuckles of the rest of the assembled.

"Sometimes a new title takes you by surprise."  He looked through the depth of the well filled little church, discarding his prepared remarks and knowing this message would be considerably shorter than what he'd written down, referenced, and researched.

"I've been called a hero because of what all of you read in the paper and saw on the TV news."

He frowned a little -- he looked uncomfortable -- but he pushed on, shoving his thoughts through a bath of words until they fell out from between his teeth.

"I've known heroes, and I know heroes. My heroes wear a badge.  My heroes wear a helmet.  My heroes wear Uncle Sam's baggy green, or desert tan I guess it is now.  

"I'm wearing a suit, and heroes don't wear suits.

"Then I remembered a young woman in a hospital bed, holding her child, how she seized my hand and called me a hero for catching her baby when she was so afraid they were perished in the third floor bedroom, and hell itself eating the house from under them.

"I had to consider that -- if our positions were reversed -- if I had to drop my child into a stranger's hands on the gamble that this was the only way to save my baby's life -- then that stranger's catch would make someone I'd never met, a hero.

"It's a title we don't seek. No one raises their right hand and swears an oath, to become a hero. No one puts on a fire helmet and turnout coat to become a hero. No one wears a medic's stethoscope to become a hero. We do it because it's what is needed, on that moment.

"I have seen heroics. I've seen a husband go to work, fevered with the flu, because he knows he has to earn a wage to support his family. 

"I've seen a mother go without supper so a guest could have a full plate.

"I've seen strangers cluster around an overturned car, people who've never met, but in a moment of unity they all squatted and gripped the car and lifted it off a trapped individual.

"Heroes don't seek that title, it is forced on them, often unwillingly."  

The Parson stopped, dropped his head, chewed on his bottom lip.

"I'll tell you honestly," he said slowly, "there is no way in the world I would ever -- ever! -- choose to try and catch something as precious as a baby."

The congregation saw their preacher's eyes change, and not one soul present doubted that the man was momentarily haunted by the memory, drawn from the pigeonhole where he'd rolled it up and stuffed it in, where he'd put something he didn't want to revisit for a while.

"I have seen people with a hot potato dropped in their lap, and when it happens, they handle it as best they can.  That's all I did."  

He shook his head slowly.

"I'm not a hero," he finally said.  "I'm just some guy who reacted when a hot potato landed in his lap."

He shook his head, straightened, threw his head back, took a sudden, deep breath.

"And there's my Sunday sermon. No hero, no cape, no football contracts, no secret identity, just me."

A woman stood, a woman holding a wrapped infant, a woman with wet running down both cheekbones.

She raised her chin, and she raised her voice.

" 'Just me,' " she said, "will do fine."

The football team and the Irish Brigade were first to their feet, and the rest of the congregation rose as well, as the little whitewashed church filled with applause for a man who had no desire to be a hero, but became one anyway.

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753. A KICK IN THE SHIN

Marnie Keller tilted her head and considered her reflection in the silvered glass.
She'd managed to get her hair up in a poor approximation of Sarah Lynne McKenna's ornate coiffure.

She was going to a dance -- her boyfriend John Greenlees was picking her up and they were intending to have dinner in the private back room at the Silver Jewel, and then square dance in the big round barn under the overhanging cliff.

The "cool kids," of course, would not go to something as pedestrian as a -- shudder! -- square dance, which suited Marnie just fine: she had her own peer group, consisting mostly of people her Daddy's age -- professional folk like lawmen, medics, firefighters, machinists ... people she saw as worthwhile, people with some depth to them -- not the shallow, petty classmates with which she was too often inflicted.

Sarah brushed her hair out, pulled it back into a thick, rich, shining ponytail, or as best as she could manage: her hair was thick, almost coarse, and wavy enough it did not lay in the limp, shining ponytails like her blond-haired little sister, who was watching Sarah's efforts with solemn blue eyes.

Angela looked at the reprinted portrait of Sarah McKenna, tilted her head, looked at Marnie, blinked.

"That," Marnie said, thrusting her chin at the reproduction, propped up against her mirror, "is how I want my hair for tonight."

"Are you going to Bob Holland's beauty saloon?" Angela asked in a soft little voice.

Marnie laughed.  "Bob is the only one who can do anything with my hair!" -- she looked at her little sis, smiled.  "I tried going over to the vocational school. Their cosmetology seniors do hairdressing as part of their classwork."   She fingered a thick strand of her glowing auburn hair.  "The poor girl working on mine couldn't get it to do anything she wanted.  She was almost in tears and the instructor came over and she couldn't do much with it!"  Marnie gave her little sister a sad look.  "I felt bad about that!"

"But Bob Holland can fix it?"

Marnie reached down, caressed her big-blue-eyed little sister's cheek with gentle fingertips and whispered, "Bob Holland can fix a rainy day!"

Angela looked distressed.  "But Marnie," she protested in her little-girl voice, "I like rainy days!"

 

Linn flipped a waffle from the non stick waffle iron, stacked it, sizzled another ladle of batter onto the hot surface, closed it carefully.

Angela watched, big-eyed, as her Daddy worked his Daddy-magic, turning batter into waffles.

Angela liked waffles.

So did The Bear Killer, who waited patiently; he knew young hands would be slipping him bites of bacon, strips of fried egg, surreptitous squares of waffle: anything that hit the floor would be immediately claimed, and the floor polished afterward, leaving no evidence of juvenile largesse.

Linn's phone was on the arm of his easy chair in the living room, which Marnie did not realize until she got to the bottom of the stairs, silent in sock feet and a smile: she froze -- more accurately, she jumped back a half step, as her Daddy's phone activated, alarmed, lit up.

Marnie's heart fell about ten feet.

Phone calls before the sun came over the mountains were almost always bad news.

Generally very, very bad news.

She looked at the alarming phone as if it were a coiled snake and said in a shaky voice, "Dad-deee," and Linn strode from the kitchen, snatched it up, legged it for the waffle maker just as the little red light went out.

He opened it, releasing a fragrant cloud of waffle scented steam, liberated another hot breakfast slab from the square surface, flipped it neatly on the stack: he turned off the waffle iron -- the batter was depleted, the ancient crock bowl in the sink, run full of water and two drops of detergent -- he laid the waffle iron wide open to cool and triumphantly carried the stack of golden breakfast to the table.

His young already made their inroads into bacon and eggs; waffles were an especial favorite that no one turned down: Angela giggled as her Daddy scooted her in close to the table, and she looked at her Daddy with big blue Daddy's-little-girl eyes and said "Marnie looks like Sawwah!"

"I know she does," Linn grinned.  "So did your Grandma Willamina."

Angela cut into her still warm fried eggs, folded the fried flap, speared it with an exaggerated care, guided it to her mouth: she chewed, swallowed:  "Daddy?"

"Hm?"  Linn was flipping a fried egg from the still-warm platter onto his waffle, dropped on a half dozen crispy strips of bacon, took a noisy slurp of coffee.

"Does Marnie behave like Sawwah?"

Linn smiled.  "Honey, I'm old, but I'm not old enough to have known Sarah."

"Oh," Angela said, a little bit of a disappointed tone in her voice.

Jacob considered his older sis, his younger sis, his Pa: his younger siblings were too busy with butter, syrup or glasses of juice, to join the conversation.

Priorities, you understand.

"I've read everything I could find about Sarah," Jacob offered carefully, "and Marnie is a great deal like her."

"Daddy," Marnie said, a worried tone in her voice, "that phone call ...?"

"I'm sorry.  That was my 6 o'clock alarm. I meant to shut it off."

Marnie glared at her Daddy.  "So that wasn't bad news."

"No."

"Daddy?"

"Hm?"  Linn forked in a syrup dripping square of hot, cinnamon-dusted waffle.

"Would Sarah Lynne McKenna have kicked Old Pale Eyes right in the shin right about now?"

Linn and Jacob looked at one another and laughed:  Linn leaned back, looked under the table, gauging relative distance before answering.

"I believe," he said carefully, "she was known to do so in such moments."

Marnie may have been the very image of her pale eyed Gammaw and her pale eyed ancestress as well, but Linn was ready to swear that the glare Marnie gave him was the very image of Shelly's brow-furrowed scowl.

 

 

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754. I WON'T TELL YOU NOT TO

I looked at Mama's tombstone.

She was every bit as young and beautiful in that laser carved portrait as I remembered.

I sat there on my Paso stallion and considered, the way I always did before saying something important, and then I said what was probably the best thing I could.

I said nothing at all.

Splitter was bitless -- Old Pale Eyes trained his horses bitless, Sarah Lynne McKenna rode hers bitless ... Jacob rode his bitless ... back when I was still a boy, I trained my saddle stock bitless, and that is still my preference.

I have no need to charge down a Medieval list with a couched lance under one arm and a shield on the other, nor have I the need to ride screaming into ranks of infantry with a revolving pistol in my off hand, laying about left and right with a honed, curved Cavalry saber.

I've done that, in practice, and as I recall, the first time I tried it, I wore myself out fast.

Old Pale Eyes was reputed to have wrists of iron and I worked at it until mine weren't quite iron but they were way the hell better than they'd been: I practice shooting to the point that I have no strong hand/weak hand, they're both my shooting hand, and both hands' accuracy improved as my wrist strength improved.

All that went through my head about as fast as lightning across a greased griddle.

I rode away from my Mama's grave and I rode down Family Row until I came to another stone, almost as new and also laser engraved, and folks have wondered if someone made a mistake, for Sarah McKenna's stone bore a portrait and damned if it didn't look just absolutely like Mama.

I couldn't speak to Mama's carved rock, my heart was still too full of grief, but I was used to talking to Sarah's rock.

Talkin' to Sarah's rock didn't bother me any a'tall.

"I recall Mama told me Uncle Will's son was killed when he was workin' undercover in Kansas," I said, leaning forward a little and laying my forearm crossways of the saddlehorn.  "I remembered that once I got back home."

I raised my eyes, looked down hill, down over the town.

Yonder, the firehouse: it had been added to, and a damned shame the brick they knocked out of that right hand wall went who knows where. Every brick in that place originally came from local clay deposits -- Esther Keller, Old Pale Eyes' business-savvy wife, owned the Claybanks where they dug clay, and she owned the gas wells that drilled in for gas to run kilns she owned, and she sold bricks and made another absolute fortune at it.

Esther's bricks all had a rose-and-stem impressed into them -- what brick went into the firehouse expansion was all Nelsonville Block, and I have no idea what dedicated idiot imported bricks from clear the hell and gone back East -- but that was long before my time and all that's on whoever made that choice.

I looked back at that gorgeous portrait.

I'd seen the glass plate portrait it was taken from.

"Sarah," said I, "Uncle Will lost his son on an undercover assignment."

My eyes wandered off toward the left, roughly where Uncle Will's place was, there at the edge of town.

"I worked undercover and did some detective work."  My voice was softer now as I remembered, and my fists closed, slowly, tightly.

"You ran across some bad folks, Sarah, and so have I. I nailed a man who had his daughter run over and killed for the insurance money, he made it look like his wife suicided with pills because she couldn't live with the knowledge that she'd fought with her daughter the morning she was killed.  He'd cut apart some capsules and dissolved them in drink, but he forgot they can count those particular capsules dissolve slowly and the coroner didn't find a cluster of capsules welded into a clump in her stomach."

I shook my head.

"He did it to collect both their insurance."

I looked at Sarah's calm, almost aloof expression, looking at me across the century and through polished quartz.

I turned my head and pressed a knee and Splitter turned with me and we stepped out and Splitter gave me the largo gait, just dead smooth and I half wished I was standin' to the side watchin', for a Paso Fino is a delight to watch and even better if they're on a noisy surface.

I have taken a Paso colt into town so I could walk it down the board walk where it could clatter and make just an awful racket, just for the fun of it.

We went on around back of town and made a circle and Uncle Will was out front waitin' on me.

Didn't surprise me.

I swung down and we shook hands and he allowed as he was glad I was home, and I said "Uncle Will, you don't want me to work undercover."

He gave me a long look and nodded.

"You learned that from your Mama," he said approvingly. "You get right to the point."

"No wish to waste your time nor mine either one," I replied.

"I'd rather you'd not," he admitted, "but I won't tell you not to."

"Uncle Will, I helped catch a man who murdered his wife and his daughter for the insurance money.  I'm the reason he's been put away for a long time."

Will nodded.

I considered for a long moment.

"I don't like being a detective."

It surprised me to hear the words fall out of my mouth, but there they were.

"I'm a good deputy."

"You're a damned good deputy," Will growled.
"I'm happier as a deputy. I investigate as a deputy.  Hell, we all do."

"We do that."

I considered for several long moments, looked my pale eyed Uncle in the eye.

"Uncle Will, thank you," I said, and I could feel my stomach untwisting as I did.

"I believe I'll not be going back to undercover work."

Will nodded, slowly, and of a sudden he looked old, older than I ever saw him or Mama look, ever.

"I prefer a world with you alive in it," he said softly, then he looked me very directly in the eye.

"Linn, I don't want Shelly to feel like I did when Crystal died, I don't want her to feel like Willa did when your Pa died, and that means I want you to stay alive."

I heard that old familiar steel in his voice.

I never went back to undercover work, and though I did have offers, I never did become a detective again.

Talkin' to a carved rock is fine, but talkin' to Uncle Will did me more good than any.

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