SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DRY HOLE

Jacob Keller considered the graph-printed pages of his weatherproof notebook.

He'd had Grant order it from a scientific supply house, at a small phenomenal price: it was a full sized  notebook, waterproof paper, made for surveying rainforest jungles or the like: he had to use a custom pen as the paper was actually some kind of textured plastic.

It didn't matter, really: he needed something waterproof, he'd gotten it, and the cost ... well, the cost kept him from paralysis or worse.

Jacob considered that what he had in mind was a matter of stubborn pride.

Pride goeth before destruction, the Parson said in a Sunday message the year before.

That's true, Jacob thought, but damned if she's going to better me! -- then he stopped and considered the "she" he was thinking about, had been dead over a century before he was born, and his sis was intrumental in restoring the mountain pool to its former deep glory, and she'd managed to keep it quiet.

Somehow.

He had no idea how.

Bringing in a portable gold sluice is not something that escapes attention; harvesting a minor glory hole is impossible to keep quiet, yet Marnie did both -- how, Jacob had absolutely no idea, save only that she had it in, she hit it hard and fast, and then she, and it, was gone.

That was years ago.

Since then the pool was as it had long been:  a mountain pool at the bottom of a cliff.

Jacob packed in an inflatable boat; he'd used a depth finder to get the bottom's contour, he'd zigzagged back and forth across its surface -- it was not terribly big, he strung rope across it and pulled himself along by hand -- he'd ordered in a depth finder, and with the depth finder and sheer hard headed contrariness, he'd mapped the bottom of the pond.

One sheet per pass.

He'd filled every last page in that waterproof notebook with his depth chartings.

Now Jacob sat at his desk, upstairs, paging slowly through his handwritten notes.

Sarah Lynne McKenna used to dive into this pool, back when it was deep enough to dive, her sisters dove with her, then at some unknown time in the past, Sarah dumped a boulder into the pool -- he wasn't sure if she used a powder charge to shove one free of the cliff face, or if she'd conjured a mountain giant to pry it out and drop it in -- but she'd pinned the murderous carcass of a killer deep underwater, the boulder rendering the pool unsafe for diving ever again ... and hiding a fortune in gold, both nuggets and dust, hidden in the bottom sands and sediments.

Marnie loved to swim and Marnie loved to dive, and Marnie found in exploring the depths that there were things to be found.

She came up with a skull and she came up with some bones and she came up with nuggets, and she came up with a plan.

The boulder was drilled and shot, with great secrecy: Jacob honestly had no idea if it was drilled with a single jack and a hand-held star drill, or whether she managed to smuggle in a LeRoi compressor and a rotary jackhammer:  his sis was sneaky, she was resourceful, and she got things done: however she did it, she'd gotten that boulder busted up and removed, she'd gotten the hole scoured out, she'd separated nuggets and dust and dumped the tailings back into the pool, and she'd cleaned up well enough that nobody was the wiser.

Oh, some word got out, all right, and Marnie was able to display the reassembled skeleton, some buttons, a knife, what used to be a revolver; she speculated when asked that some miner must've been crushed when a boulder fell, perhaps he was climbing down the cliff and his weight was just enough to dislodge the boulder's grip on the sheer face: however it was, his sister was a convincing enough liar to satisfy the curious that she'd done a forensic excavation in an attempt to solve a very cold case, and that she'd been unsuccessful in finding all the facts.

The truth, of course, was that she already knew the facts, and she laid enough of them out to sidetrack the curious.

It wasn't until Jacob was ready to move out on his own that his Pa brought him into a quiet conference and laid out their fortunes.

Jacob honestly had no idea his family was so genuinely wealthy.

He very much appreciated that the wealth was hidden, concealed, veiled from attention: had it been known, the unscrupulous would have tried to siphon it off through lawsuits, and their status as lawmen made them vulnerable to lawsuit anyway: Jacob was made privy to the genuine fortune Marnie harvested from that particular hole, and Jacob was given to understand the need for secrecy.

All this he considered, in the back of his mind, as he reviewed the depth soundings he'd made when he crisscrossed the mountain pool with the depth finder:  he'd satisfied himself his readings had enough overlap that he'd absolutely eliminated any holidays in his grid search.

He went back, a few days later, and walked out on the clifftop overlooking the pool.

The clifftop was as it was in Sarah Lynne McKenna's day:  slick with algae, cold mountain water running over it, cascading in a bridal veil to the waters below.

Sarah used to stand here, as naked and as shockingly beautiful as Aphrodite rising from the ocean: Jacob read where she described raising her arms to the heavens, taking three quick steps and falling through space, diving into the deep, cold pool:  how it shocked her, how she felt suddenly more alive than she'd ever been, in spite of every nerve in her body SCREAMING AT THE AGONY OF BEING SO COLD!! --

Jacob, from the first time he read this, took it as a challenge.

Marnie had to hold him back, one time very physically, from jumping from the clifftop -- "I can land beside the boulder!" he'd protested, and Marnie swept his legs, pinned him down on the cold, slimy-slick granite, "YOU DAMNED IDIOT, I DON'T WANT YOU KILLED!" -- in years that followed, Jacob admitted to his sis she'd been right, but not before they both helped pack out adventurous souls who'd been badly injured making the dive:  one broke a shoulder, the other scraped most of the hide off one side of his body.

Now that the boulder was gone -- something nobody advertised -- Jacob considered his depth readings, looked up at the side by side portraits of the legendary Black Agent, and his sister: both pale eyed women wore matching gowns, both had the same haughty lift to the chin, both regarded the camera with quiet, pale eyes and an expression that seems to say "I can rip your throat out and you can't stop me!"

"Ladies," Jacob said quietly, "I have to know."

Jacob left towels and all his clothes with his Apple-horse; he climbed the path buck naked, as Sarah had long years before, he walked out the slick clifftop, looked over, calculated angles, estimated where he wanted to land, saw the sandy bottom, more than twenty feet below the glass-clear waters.

Jacob backed up, looked around.

Clouds overhead, high-altitude, few, wispy; around him, trees and mountains: he heard the wind, the birds, the waters.

Jacob raised his arms to the heavens, took a long, deep breath: he blew it out through pursed lips, seized his fear and cast it from him like he'd throw a cape from around his shoulders: bare toes dug into algal slime as he powered into a sprint, he ran, hard as he could, charging the cliff's edge --

He brought his arms out, then up, hands fisted --

He tucked his head, screwed his eyes shut, snatched in a quick, deep breath, slammed his throat shut --

Fear screamed after him, a fluttering, enveloping cape that wanted to consume him --

Jacob fell through space and time and cold mountain air and he hit the water with both fists and busted a hole through the surface and it was COLD AND GOOD GOD THIS HURT AND I'M GOING TO BORE A HOLE IN THE BOTTOM AND IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS --

Jacob arched, stroked, kicked:  he stopped, doubled up, kicked for the bottom, grabbed a double handful of sand:  he rotated again, shoved bare feet against the sandy bottom, shot for the surface.

Jacob broke surface like a flesh colored ballistic missile, fell back, made for shore.

His Apple-horse looked at him, patient, tolerant of this wet two-legs with strange ideas.

Jacob stopped, opened his hands, looked at the sand he'd snatched from the bottom:  he tilted his palms, looking at his take, then washed it off.

No trace of color, he thought, then he waded out of the water, feeling the cold claim his fingers:  he wasted no time toweling off, rubbing the circulation back into his goose pimpled hide.

He turned and looked at the cliff he'd just jumped off of.

Jacob Keller was the son of the pale eyed Sheriff, heir to the pale eyed bloodline: he'd faced up to, and faced down, a variety of large and angry people bearing a variety of weapons; he'd strode boldly into situations that sane and rational people were fleeing as hard as they could run; he'd seen things that would curl the hair on a bald man's head.

Jacob Keller knew what it was go into a situation that might well mean he left in a body bag.

Jacob Keller wasn't afraid of very damn much, but one thing -- only one thing -- painted a broad yellow stripe right down his backbone.

Jacob Keller was afraid of heights.

He'd been ten years preparing himself for this moment, and this time there was no well-meaning, pale-eyed sis to hold him back.

He'd just faced up to his one worst fear, he'd backhanded it hard as he could, he'd dared it to do its worst, and he was alive to tell the tale.

Jacob Keller rubbed himself with a thick, dry towel, he climbed into dry clothes, he looked at that cliff, at the waters below.

He remembered his Pa telling him about Marnie describing her exploratory swim around, and then her swim to the bottom of that boulder, how she'd come up with a fistful of dust and nuggets.

Jacob remembered the fistfuls of sand he'd brought up, the fistfuls he'd washed off before finally wading out.

He shrugged into his duds, sat, wiped the sand off his soles and dried his feet again before pulling on nice dry socks -- dear God I forgot how good warm dry socks feel! -- he looked at his Apple-horse and grinned.

"Dry hole, Apple," he said as he pulled on his boots, then looked out at the mountain pool and laughed.

"Wettest dry hole I ever drilled!"

Edited April 30, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WASHOUT

"Pa?" Joseph Keller asked, twisting to look up at his pale eyed old Pa.

"Hm?"  

Ol' Pa -- Sheriff Linn Keller, home from work and about half asleep -- blinked a few times, looked down at his son, who was cuddled up beside ol' Pa, and both of them covered by a blanket.

"Pa, I told Jimmy Hill about the ghosties an' he said ain't no such things as ghosties!"

Sheriff Linn Keller considered this:  he tilted his head and regarded his son with a serious expression, then he wiggled his mustache back and forth, which brought a happy giggle from the little lad.

"Jimmy Hill said that, did he?"

Joseph nodded, eyes big and serious.

"Joseph," Linn said quietly, "have you ever heard of something called Research?"

Joseph nodded.

"Ever hear of investigation?"

Joseph nodded.

"Fact-finding?"

Joseph nodded again.

"Good. How would you like to help me find some?"

"Find some research?"

"Fine some ghosties."

Joseph's expression went from delghted to distressed.

"Can we do that, Pa?"

"Well, I don't know," Linn admitted, "but we'll find out, won't we?"

Linn picked up his young son, set his sock feet on the hook rug, rose:  he went over to a set of bookshelves, ran his finger along a section Joseph knew pertained to the old Z&W Railroad.

His Pa slowed, tapped the spine of a book thoughtfully, moved one book to the right and pulled it off the shelf.

Father and son laid the book open on the desk; Linn paged through it, looking for a memory.

 

Jacob Keller dripped his way into Lightning's office, closed the door behind him.

His Apple-horse was under the roof's overhang, close to the building:  it was raining again, it was black as a sinner's heart outside, lightning sliced forked paths of searing flame through the heavy clouds.

Lightning stood, threw a switch, reached for his telegraph key:  he frowned a little as he gripped the black guttta-percha button between thumb and forefinger,  his middle finger on top: Jacob could make neither head nor tail of the returning clickety-clatter.

Lightning leaned back suddenly.

"Line's down between here and Cripple," he said, "and I had to throw the switch to talk on the separate roundhouse wire. They're going to fire up the inspection car and take a look toward Cripple, but we've a train comin' in from Cripple."

Jacob listened, knowing the telegrapher was as much talking his thoughts aloud as he was talking to Jacob.

"If it's a wire down, we can fix that easy, but if it's a washout we'll have to flag the train a mile back!"

Jacob considered the terrain from here to there.

"I know how to get around the trestle, it's not hard on horseback."

"I know, but if it's washed out and we don't stop that train it'll kill everyone on board!"

"How do I do it?"

Lightning stood, seized a red-glass railroad lantern from its high hook, shook it.

"This one's full," he said, hoisting the globe and rustling fingers in the Lucifer matches in the tin dispenser:  he struck one on his shoe sole, lit the lantern, turned down the wick:  he pulled down a second lantern, shook it, lit it off as well.

"Set one in the middle of the track and leave it. You'll want to get a mile from the washout at least.  Then ride toward the train. Once you hear 'em ahead, get off your horse and stand in the middle of the track. Swing it in a big arc -- like this, across the front of you -- swing it slow but swing it wide and that's the washout signal, once they see you they'll throw the air to 'er and get stopped!"

Jacob nodded, took the lanterns.

Lightning watched the rain-slickered deputy disappear into the night, heard a horse's hooves depart:  he turned to his key again to advise he had a rider headed toward Cripple to see if the trestle was actually washed out.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller pulled a fat cardboard tube off a rack, pulled the end cap off: he reached in, brought out a wide roll of paper, turned.

Father and son went down on their Prayer Bones, bent, unrolled the paper on the bare hardwood floor.

"Now."  Linn smoothed the paper a little, handed Joseph two books.  "Set these on the corners to keep it from rolling up on us, yes. Just like that."  He nodded, looked over the sheet, getting his bearings.

"Where are we, on this page?"

Joseph frowned, looked at lines, at colors, at legends: it took him a minute, then he followed what he recognized as a railroad, looked one way, looked the other.

A young finger thumped down on the paper.

"We're here," he said confidently.

"Exactly right," Linn said quietly, and Joseph smiled at his Pa's affirmation.

"Okay. We are here -- this is the railroad, here's the roundhouse -- Cripple will be where?"

"Way over there."

"Right again. Now we're looking for a crossing, someplace a trestle would be."

Joseph frowned, bent a little closer.  

"There are three or four of 'em, Pa."

"Yes there are," Linn agreed.  "Let's see if we can find out which one it was."

 

The rain slacked to a miserable, cold, fine mist, the kind that doesn't seem like much but it soaks your shoulders and dampens your coat and makes a man realize he should have worn his slicker after all.

Jacob and his Apple-horse pushed through the darkness:  Apple reared, shied at something in the dark:  it was a tree, fallen over toward the tracks: they walked up onto the roadbed, walked past the obstruction across the trackside trail, then back down beside the roadbed.

Jacob had no wish to ride on the roadbed.

A young fellow of his acquaintance was riding his horse on the tracks and the horse's hoof got caught -- he was at a gallop -- the horse broke the leg and lost the hoof entirely and had to be shot, and for absolutely no gain: the moment of stupidity was forever memorialized in the location's name, Horse Hoof Switch.

Lightning gleamed a blue-silver reflection off the rails:  Jacob looked up, tried to see whether the wire was down -- he knew the telegraph wire ran the other side of the tracks from the fallen tree -- Apple-horse stopped again, suddenly, danced back, throwing his head and muttering.

Lightning again, overhead, loud:  Apple whipped around in a tight circle, Jacob stopped him with knees and a hand on his neck and a quiet "Ho, now, ho there, ho, now," and then he saw it.

The trestle was indeed gone.

Jacob Keller said something that did not bear repeating in polite company.

He brought Apple-horse around, then bore away from the right-of-way, the lanterns hot in one hand, held away from his slicker:  it took him several minutes to work through the brushy path, downhill, through what was just a trickle in dry weather, to what was fast, cold, knee deep on his stallion.

Jacob read the waters by the lightning's intermittent flash:  he went downstream, where it broadened, where the water was not as deep:  Apple splashed confidently through it, surged up the opposite bank, fought uphill back toward the railroad tracks.

Jacob rode Apple-horse at the best speed he felt safe, estimated a mile:  he ho'ed his stallion, walked him up onto the right-of-way, leaned down and set one broad-based lantern square in the middle of the tracks, hauled back up into the saddle.

"Okay, boy," he said, "let's go meet that train!"

 

"Which one was it, Pa?"

Linn's finger rested where two lines crossed.

"This" -- his finger slashed up-and-down -- "is the streambed."

"I see it, Pa."

"This" -- his fingertip went east-west -- "is the railroad tracks."

"Uh-huh."

"This" -- he thumped on the intersection -- "see those funny little lines, here, and here?"

"I see 'em, Pa."

"That's the trestle.  That's the one that was washed out."

Joseph nodded.

Linn leaned back and so did his son:  books were removed, the paper rolled up, father and son stood.

"Let's go take a look at it."

Joseph scampered happily for the front door, shoved sock feet into his boots; Shelly was just finishing the supper dishes as Linn removed his Stetson from its peg.

"We're goin' out huntin' ghosts, Sweet Pea," Linn called.

"Have fun," she called back.

Father and son slipped out the front door, headed for the barn.

 

Miz Esther's inspection car -- it was always Miz Esther's car, nobody called it anything else -- chuffed industriously through the night, the arc light pushing the dark away with both hands.

 

 

Miz Esther also ordered the arc lights on every engine, and on either end of her inspection car.

Oil lamps just did not provide enough light; the blinding-bright arc lights, on the other hand, did: dynamos rode transversely behind the boxy lights, the carbon arc blazing a cone of incandescence ahead of them.

Men squinted into the garish illumination, grateful for the boiler's heat beside them, damning the wet, the rain, the conditions that took out telegraph and tracks alike.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller shook hands and laughed with the roundhouse crew, Joseph looking around the way a little boy will when surrounded by strong men and cast iron.

"Joseph," Linn said, "this is Bill.  He's probably the best engineer we've got.  Bill, tell Joseph about that fellow you took a shot at over yonder."

Bill's ears reddened a little and he looked over at The Lady Esther, their recovered and restored Baldwin locomotive Old Pale Eyes bought as the inaugural engine of the renamed Z&W Railroad.

"Well, y'see," Bill said uncomfortably, "I was standin' very near here and there was someone yonder -- y'see the front drive wheel?"

Joseph nodded.

"He was there, lookin' at me.

"I hollered at him, f'r I didn't know him, I said he had t' leave, he was trespassin' and I didn't feel right a'tall about this, an' truth be told I felt just this God-awful sense of dread, so when he recht -- like so -- I fetched out my pistol and I pushed a .38 Special into him."

Joseph saw the memory in the man's eyes as Bill's hand extended as it had that day.

"Th' fellow disappeared.

"I went over -- I hadn't missed him, I found where m' bullet hit the cast iron wheel -- he didn't run, he didn't fall, he didn't sprout wings an' fly, he just ... evaporated, like.

"Your grandmother showed me some pictures and I found his."

"She showed you a mug shot lineup?" Joseph asked seriously.

"Worse than that," Bill said uncomfortably. "She showed me the engineers on the Z&W when Old Pale Eyes and Miz Esther were still alive."

He squatted and looked very directly into young Joseph's pale eyes.

"What I saw that day was a ghost.  'Twas the ghost of an engineer and a good 'un he was."

He pushed a nickel plated watch out of his bib overalls pocket.

"This was his watch. Your grandma found it and had it cleaned and it's better than anythin' you can buy today.  Genuine Ball, it is."

"Cool," Joseph breathed, then looked back up at Bill.

"He was a ghost?"

"He wasn't Saint Peter!"

"Pa said there was a washout an' they sent the inspection car out."

Bill grinned.  "We've steam up in the car, we exercise it regularly an' today's the day. Would you two like a ride?"

 

Jacob figured they'd made a mile.

He dismounted, led Apple into some sheltering brush, returned to the tracks, lantern in hand.

He waited, lantern set between his feet.

If this damned wind would quit, he thought, this slicker might catch a little heat.

Damn shame about Bill.

Mother said he was the best engineer she had.

 

Jacob turned, looked behind:  he could just see the single lantern, sitting in the center of the tracks, most of a mile this side of the missing trestle.

God willing, between that most of a mile, and this maybe a mile, there would be distance enough to stop the train.

If the engineer saw him.

 

Joseph grinned as he stood in the front of the inspection car, looked out the window: there is a magic to a steam engine, for live steam is alive indeed:  a steam engine is a living creature, she sings, she dances, she chants, and the man is fortunate indeed to have such a cast iron lover under his caressing hands.

A man can pick out any song in the world by listening to her slightly-offset, four-count chant.

Joseph came back to where Bill was frowning at gauges, adjusting valves:  Bill leaned to the side, looked forward, reached up and hooked three fingers over one of the whistle lanyards, gave a quick double-tug: Joseph laughed to hear the high-pitched whistle, almost a steam powered squeak.

"We've other whistles," Bill explained, "that one is just for fun!"

 

Jacob saw the arc light's corona about the time he first heard the oncoming engine.

He leaned down a little, picked up the lantern.

The rain was heavier now, fat cold drops: Jacob reached up behind his head, pulled down the back strap to keep his Stetson in place.

He began to swing the red lantern before him, hard-left to hard-right, arm's length, slow, measured arcs, the one signal universally recognized on every railroad.

Washout, it screamed, and anyone seeing it was obliged to bring their train to as fast a stop as they possibly could.

Jacob made three swings before a cold, fat drop hit the singing-hot, red-glass globe, shattered it: a moment later, the flame blew out.

Jacob's heart fell to about his boot tops, for he knew there was no way he'd ever get that damned lantern lit again, not in this wind.

He had to try.

A steam locomotive was pulling hard on the slight grade, making good headway on wet rails, lacking none at all for traction: Jacob turned up the wick, found a Lucifer in his vest pocket, tried to strike it: he lit the match, shoved it hard against the wick, blocking the wind with his body:  Jacob brought the lantern across him, carefully, trying to keep it in his body's wind-shadow.

The train never slacked its laboring bark, shouldering hard against its load:  Jacob swore as the lantern blew out again, stepped off the tracks, considered in desperation pouring out kerosine into a puddle and lighting it, but by then the engine was too close --

Joseph dropped the lantern, drew his Colt, fired into the air, once, twice, thrice --

Steam squirted into the chilly air and Jacob heard the air set up, then the sound reached him, the squall of a three-whistle chime blasting distress --

The engine roared and rumbled and thundered beside him, brakes screaming like damned souls --

Jacob turned as the engine passed, all hot breath and whistle --

A lantern, a red lantern, swung by an unseen hand, there in the distance.

Thank God, Jacob thought: he brought his engraved revolver back under the slicker, punched out the empties, let them fall to the water puddling around his boot soles.

 

Bill laid a hand on Joseph's shoulder, pointed with the other.

"There's the trestle," he said.

Joseph regarded the wood-and-iron structure solemnly, at least until Bill snatched him up, guided his young hand to the lanyard overhead:  "Give it a tug now, let's have a salute!" and Joseph happily pulled the valve open, searing live steam through the brazen throat of a tuned, triple-tone whistle.

Bill lowered him down until his feet were on the floor again, and the inspection car slowed, stopped, just short of the trestle.

Bill and Joseph, with Linn behind, opened the door and took two steps down.

"Now see yonder -- on the other side -- that's where it happened."

"Where what happened?" Joseph asked.

"Your Grandaddy Jacob's lantern broke when a cold rain hit that hot glass globe and his lantern blew out, so he couldn't signal the train to stop."

"How'd he stop it, then?"

"He didn't," Bill said.  "A ghost did."

Joseph looked at Bill, pale eyes wide and wondering.  "A ghost?"

Bill nodded.  "The ghost of my thrice-great-grandfather.  He told Miz Esther he'd take care of her railroad and he did, and a week after he was buried, he swung a red lantern when your Jacob's lantern shattered in the rain, and he kept Miz Esther's railroad from disaster."

Bill winked at the father, looked back to the son.

"It's said that -- to this day -- on a rainy night, there's a red railroad lantern seen in the cemetery, where he's buried, and when there's an emergency, he'll be on the tracks to give a warning."

 

Later that night, a pale eyed Joseph Keller stood on the apron of the firehouse, binoculars in hand, studying the rainy, nighttime cemetery in the distance.

The Irish Brigade, within, watched through rain-spotted windows as their nighttime visitor lowered his binoculars, came back inside.

Joseph Keller accepted the lens paper from his father, carefully wiped the rain from the binocular's lenses, replaced the caps and slid it back into its case.

He looked at the waiting fireman and his waiting father and delivered his lengthy and comprehensive report.

"It's there, all right."

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CAVALRY

Two horses shifted, muttering, as their trailer slowed, as the smooth ride became bumpy, as they stopped faster than they were used to being stopped.

Hooves, steelshod, unhappy, clattered on the decking.

Two truck doors flew open and two uniformed Sheriff's deputies bailed out:  one with the pale eyes of his ancestral bloodline, the other with the polished obsidian eyes of his:  Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller heard the Diesel engine rev up as he tripped the release, as he heard the magnetic locks release, as the trailer's ramp whined and lowered, transitioning from back door to traction-hatched horse ramp.

Jacob whistled.

Two horses backed, conditioned by long training:  two horsemen caressed their old friends' noses, bribed them with a pinch of molasses cured tobacker.

Motorists, stacking up rapidly in what was becoming less an Interstate highway and more a parking lot, stared as two uniformed deputies saddled their mounts as if they made a daily practice of dropping the tailgate of a Sheriff's horse trailer right in front of God and everybody.

Jacob rubbed his Apple-horse under his long jaw, whispered to him:  the stallion shoved his head against Jacob, clearly impatient:  Jacob rubbed Apple's neck as he stepped back, turned the black doghouse stirrup, shoved a polished Wellington boot and shoved hard against the highway's gravel shoulder.

He knew his trailer was off pavement; he was satisfied they'd be loaded up before traffic was moving; he settled into the hurricane deck of a spirited Appaloosa stallion, drew on the bitless reins and murmured "Dance, boy."

A carload of children held up several cell phones, capturing the images and the video of two horses -- one spotted stallion, one shining-black gelding -- rearing together, windmilling their hooves.

Jacob took his lariat in his left hand, dropped the knotted reins over his saddle horn:  Apple hobby-horsed, dropped his nose between his forelegs, kicked:  Barrents and Outlaw rode up the right side, Jacob and Apple-horse up the left, slipping easily between shining, stopped cars, working through the traffic, clattering loud and impatient against painted lines on rolled blacktop, until they came to the cause of the problem.

Jacob grinned, spun out a loop, whistled:  Barrents' smile was wolfish, something he seldom let be seen, but he couldn't help it.

He was about to something he was not only very good at, he was about to do something he dearly loved.

Two uniformed deputies, well-mounted on mountain-bred horses, galloped toward a drifting half dozen horses, strung out over a quarter mile, wandering from the horse trailer skidded sideways, mostly off the roaway, evidence of collision damage to the truck towing the trailer.

Young legs sprinted, sneakered feet running hard to get somewhere nearer, phones clutched in suddenly sweaty hands:  among the random humanity, a reporter ran with them, camera in hand, feeling suddenly much younger than his half-century's vintage.

 

Two Valkyrie fighters snapped into existence somewhere in star system thirteen, the most distant of the Confederacy's control.

Their appearance was carefully calculated, exactly executed: one ship was manned, the other was Nancy's remote ship, and Nancy's Valkyrie took a look at an inbound meteor with eyes that saw spectra visible only with its electronic augments.

Nancy sat in her comfortable chair, in the control room adjacent to the underground launch bay, back on Mars: her black helmet covered her head, all but her mouth, and was anyone looking, they would've seen the slightest of smiles.

Nancy's hands had eyes of their own as they danced over her smooth, shining control panel: she could feel the ship around her, within her, she was the ship, the ship was her: she felt the reactors sing in hell's harmonies as she spun up a redirection field.

The incoming meteor was a planet killer; its direction of travel would take it unerringly into the gravity well of a populated planet; precision was necessary only to guarantee impact anywhere on the planet, for the meteor was large enough to devastate the entire living planet into sudden, catastrophic, searing, fiery sterility, except for what little life might be deep underground, or deep in its oceans.

The occupants of this planet, of course, objected to any such thing happening.

Those entities that nudged this meteor into its trajectory, were monitoring its travel, and when it suddenly just ... disappeared ... they sent a probe to investigate.

Nancy smiled as she found the probe.

The Confederacy was incredibly advanced, technologically: they'd reverse engineered every last bit of alien tech they'd acquired when they fought for their freedom, when they decimated their interstellar captors: the Valkyrie-ships were the only things at the very limit of their capabilities, as they had not the genetic ability to control these mind-ships.

That's where the Sheriff's bloodline came in.

The pale eyed bloodline carried a particular gene sequencing that made them perfectly compatible, which is why Nancy, a wife and mother, could control her ship from Mars, a few thousand light-years ... actually many thousands of light-years distant ... with absolutely no delay in communication.

It's also how Nancy was able to envelop the probe, to overwhelm its communication with the civilization that sent it, it's how Nancy was able to establish an instantaneous connection with those who sought to wipe out a populated planet.

Nancy's communication was not framed in threats, it was not parsed in warnings, it was not a display of firepower.

No, Nancy was interrupted by a happy "Mommee!" and the scrambling leap of a long-legged child, the quick and delighted hug of her little boy, the surge of maternal affection for this child of her womb.

The connection between Nancy's thoughts -- and the emotions surrounding them -- were instantaneously driven through her remote-ship, through the probe, and immediately into the understanding of a civilization suddenly faced with an overwhelming rush of a mother's love, something they understood well.

Of course, it didn't hurt for them to hear the background thoughts of a squadron of Valkyries, ready to ride in like the Cavalry itself, carrying weapons that put the firepower of their own dreadnaughts utterly to shame:  thus did this spacefaring Cavalry prevent utter and unnecessary destruction.

When this was discussed at high command levels at Confederate Central, the image of a delighted little boy in his Mama's lap became part of their permanent "Unconventional Warfare" file.

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller laughed as she scrolled through the stills, the videos, official and otherwise, that were harvested up back on Earth and sent to her computer.

Jacob, her brother, looking tall and handsome in that tailored uniform; Paul, looking as blocky and impressive as he always did (Marnie was satisfied he came out of his Mama's womb with the T-square shoulders of an Olympic swimmer and the muscles of a linebacker!) -- two deputies on rearing, dancing horseback:  here, horse and rider at a wide-open gallop, la reata in hand, bearing down on a fleeing filly: the throw, the loop hovering forever over the horse's head, just before it dropped over her neck, just before the familiar feel slowed her flight:  here, Barrents, lip curled -- Marnie laughed, she remembered his whistle -- arm upraised, the coiled lariat in his brown-fisted grip, chivvying a clutch of horses back to the trailer:  horses are herd animals, they prefer to be with their own kind, and with some help, a rope corral was set up beside the roadway, far enough off so as not to spook, near enough to load easily once the tow vehicle was replaced.

Marnie leaned forward, eyes shining, thrilling like a little girl to see her tall handsome brother riding to the rescue, a pale eyed Cavalry working with his Navajo brother-in-arms, and she laughed at photos taken by an on-scene reporter, shots of awe-struck children capturing the moments on their phones.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
Misspelling!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CONSULTATION

Sheriff Linn Keller considered the tombstone, his bottom jaw thrust out: Stetson in hand, a thoughtful frown on his face, and he muttered aloud, "I'm going to hurt you more than I ever did when you were alive."

He looked at his father's tombstone, took a long breath, blew it out, looked at the sandblasted letters cleanly incised into mirror polished quartz.

"Sir, I forgive you."

Sheriff Linn Keller considered that he'd just pronounced forgiveness to a polished rock.

"Why am I even saying this?" he complained to the empty air. "He's not here."

Linn looked left, looked right, at stones, markers, monuments.

"Nothing here but a yard full of rocks, a garden of stone. The only population here is the memory I bring with me, that's it."

"Then why even come here?" a woman's voice said from behind him, and Linn smiled, for he recognized his mother's voice.

"Because I wanted to tell him he can't hurt me anymore."

"He can," she sighed, "but only if you let him. Now that he's a memory, the only place he can cause harm is between your ears, in the memories you choose to entertain."

Linn nodded.

"Yep," he rumbled. "That's true."

"He never told you he loved you."

"Once he did," Linn corrected, pale eyes rising to look down over Firelands proper. "I was 35 years old and I was homesick. I told him I loved him and it took him by surprise and he said he loved me too, and that's absolutely the one and only time he ever said those words."

"I told him," came the slow words in reply, "I told him he needed to tell you that he loved you.  He looked at me with honest surprise and said 'But he knows I love him!' -- and I told him 'Yes he does, but you have to say the words!"

Linn felt maternal sorrow in the softly spoken words.

"And he never did."

"I remember when I brought him home that Certificate of Achievement," Linn said bitterly.  "I was in fifth grade.  I busted my backside all year and I out-scored everyone and I made Honor Roll every grading period.  I did it to make him proud of me."

Linn's voice was thick with old anger.

"He asked me how many pair of shoes that certificate would buy, or how many groceries could I trade it for."  Linn's voice quivered every slightly as he remembered how his father's words crushed his youthful spirit.  "He said if it couldn't be traded for goods, it was worthless."  

His hands tightened into fists as he spat the word again:  "Worthless!"

Patient silence from behind.

"I BUSTED MY BACKSIDE ALL YEAR TO MAKE HIM PROUD OF ME AND HE SAID IT WAS WORTHLESS!"

Linn didn't raise his voice; he didn't have to, the depth of his anger was more than evident in his voice.

"I remember he said he never got beyond basic algebra and he dropped out of chemistry so he wouldn't have a failing grade."  

To his credit, Linn managed to keep a sneering contempt out of his words.

"I took algebra and advanced algebra, geometry and trigonometry, I got straight A's in chemistry, and I did it out of rebellion.  He couldn't cut it and I excelled in every last one of 'em.  Honor roll, honor society, Phi Theta Kappa honor fraternity, and he couldn't be bothered to attend my induction."

Linn glared at his father's stone, then shook his head.

"Mama, how do I forgive him? I thought I had but it feels good to hold that anger!"

"I know," came the soft answer.  "He hurt you, and he didn't know how to say he was sorry."

"I never, ever treated my sons like that."  Linn's voice had an edge to it.  "Not once.  Not ever."

"You learned from his mistakes."
Linn snorted.  "Doesn't that mean I'm a wise man?  Learn from the mistakes of others, not just my own?"  He threw his head back, took a deep breath, blew it out.

"I suppose," he said slowly, "it's because none of us gets an instruction book on how to be a father. We have to work with what we've learned as children ... from our own fathers."

"You've done well," came the soft-voiced reply. "You've always expressed your pride in your children."

"In you, too, Mama."

"I know."

 

Barrents handed Linn a freshly drawn coffee, looked around the All-Night, looked back at his partner and old friend.

"Get things taken care of?" he asked quietly.

Linn nodded, took a noisy slurp of coffee.

"How'd it go?"

Linn shrugged.  "It was a consult," he said.

"Is that all you guys do, stand around and drink coffee?" one of the locals snapped.

Two sets of eyes burned into him and Barrents took a step forward.

"Lay off," he said quietly, menace in his voice.  "Linn just got back from the cemetery and neither of us is in the mood."

"Sorry," came the muttered reply as the critic looked away, face reddening.

The two lawmen walked out into the evening's quiet.

They stood off to the side, just into the shadow, where no one could get behind them or approach without being seen: lawmen have certain habits, and they had theirs.

Linn remembered standing at his father's grave, and he remembered his mother's voice, gentle, quiet, wise, the way it always was.

He made the mistake of turning, as if to look into those pale, patient eyes, as if to run his arm around his dear skinny little Mama.

Nobody was there.

He'd turned back, looked a little to the side, beside his father's grave, and his hands closed tightly into fists as he stared at his Mama's tombstone.

"You recall that seminar we went to?" Linn said quietly.  "The one where they told us that thanks to forensics, the dead can speak?"

"I recall."

Linn took a long pull on his coffee, swallowed.

"I didn't need forensics."

Barrents smiled, just a little, for he was Navajo, and he was most definitely not a stranger to the concept that one's ancestors can speak to the living.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SUSPICION

Sheriff Linn Keller regarded his stallion with a less than trusting eye.

He'd slept well, he'd wakened with the sun, as was his habit; breakfast was excellent, his wife was beautiful, well put together, his children were completely dressed, well mannered: Linn drank his coffee and contemplated his marvelous good fortune as he looked around, marveling at his life's fortunes.

He'd gone out into morning's coolness, remembering such mornings when he wore Union blue, when the smell of campfires, of coffee, engraved themselves into his consciousness with the same damp fingers that caressed his cheeks in the form of morning fog:  he walked from his house to the barn, his tread silent -- the man practiced a silent step, and it was said he could've walked on dry leaves or handsbreadth-deep gravel, and made as much noise as drifting fog -- his hired man had his stallion saddled and ready, and Linn hesitated.

Things had gone very well already this morning.

Too well, a voice whispered somewhere between his ears.

Linn rubbed his stallion's ears, his neck, bribed him with several slices whittled off a molasses-twist plug of chawin' tobacker:  he thrust his boot into the doghouse stirrup, shoved hard against hard packed earth, his other boot drove into the opposite stirrup, and he waited for the absolute detonation of horseflesh under him.

Apple paced off just as nice as you please, without the least trace of buck, jump, spin, or sunfish.

Linn rode him around in a big circle, then pointed their noses toward town -- Apple with apparent contentment, and the pale eyed Sheriff with the iron grey mustache, increasingly suspicious, waiting for outrageous fortune to sling some arrows in his direction.

Sheriff Linn Keller, like most men of his vintage, was a gentleman.

Few were the ladies about this early in the morning; what few he encountered, smiled as he lifted his Stetson to see them: maiden and matron alike thrilled to the sight of the lean waisted lawman, this icon of order and propriety, riding past on a fine-looking stallion: it seemed the Sheriff looked very directly at each of the ladies, or so it seemed to each individual one of them: the Sheriff did not intend to convey the impression that his full and sole attention was on one, and only one, of the ladies he saw -- but the impression he actually gave, to each and every last one of the ladies, was that his full attention was for her, and for her alone.

Linn rode on down the street, pale eyes busy.

He knew Jackson Cooper would be in the Silver Jewel, quietly discussing the night with the off-going town marshal: Jackson Cooper kept the peace in daylight's hours, and they had a capable man to pack the Marshal's star at night:  Roberts, his name, a man considerably shorter than Jackson Cooper, but quite a capable peacekeeper in his own right:  Linn was impressed by the man from the moment they first shook hands, and each sized up the other:  Roberts was built like a hogshead, solid, broad shouldered, but bluff and jolly, and Linn marveled at the man's ability to walk into a tinderbox of a barfight about to detonate into fists and feet and beer mugs used as clubs, just walk in with a grin and a shouted greeting, shaking hands, clapping his big meaty hands on shoulders, asking about the wife, about that new boy-baby, about a crop or a calf or a turn of fortune, for all the world like a glad-handing politician campaigning for votes:  he'd gone into a ready-for-war powder keg, and he'd come out with men drinking one another's health and laughter filling the building and completely displacing the tense muttering of the moments before his arrival.

Linn went into the Silver Jewel, looking around, expecting to see the red-headed Irish cook storming down the hallway, frying pan in hand, ready to deal feminine justice to a miscreant:  he accepted his morning coffee, listened to Jackson Cooper and Edward Roberts discuss a handful of inconsequential matters, as the night preceding had been remarkably lacking in adventure, which Roberts admitted, "suits me to a T," to which Linn and Jackson Cooper both laughed and agreed entirely.

Linn considered all this as he left the Silver Jewel, as he rode across the rutted dirt street to the Sheriff's office, as he rode down the alley beside the little log fortress to the stable out back, as he peered around corners and glared at rooflines and then tethered Apple-horse in back, in the little open ended stable he planned to expand and enclose against winter's cold, most of a year away:  the temporary backing to his little shed never satisfied him, he'd torn away the flimsy windbreak a few days before, and had discussed with the Daine boys the building of a proper stable.

Sheriff Linn Keller scanned the street, looked at ambush-points, listened, smelled:  he was as suspicious as a curly wolf, and finally, when he was satisfied that no surge of enemy troops would charge from behind the watering-trough with fixed bayonets, he stepped up onto the board walk, crossed in front of the Deacon's bench, looked around: satisfied, he turned and unlocked the heavy timber door, and stepped inside.

 

So it was through the day: Linn tended the several duties incumbent upon his office: there were no cases to be brought before His Honor the Judge, nor were there new prisoners to be secured: he'd prowled, restless, he'd ridden to Carbon and spoke with Law and Order Harry Macfarland, discovered the man had taken care of some unpleasantness quickly and efficiently, no help needed; Linn returned to Firelands, riding in the stock car, alternately sitting on a square bale, and leaping to his feet to pace like a great cat in a zoo: Apple-horse had no such restlessness, preferring to doze, hip-shot, in spite of the car's sway and rumble.

Linn returned home that night, Apple-horse trotting easily in the fading light: Esther, bless her, joined him for his late supper, his children and his wife joined him for the nightly reading of Scripture.

He read with his youngest on his lap, the others close by, sitting on the big oval hook rug, listening to the man's voice: their young minds might not have comprehended the history and customs behind the Deuterocanonical words, but they soaked in the sound of their father's voice ... rich, warm, comforting, reassuring, and in years that followed, when they read from the Book for their own young, it was with the memory of hearing their own pale eyed father doing the same.

Linn carried one child to bed, the others following:  prayers were said, callused hands and maternal hands alike twitched the covers up around juvenile chins, secrets were whispered, nighttime wards and charms to scare off nightmares and haints and boogers, disguised behind the quiet, near-whispered fatherly "Rest easy now," and finally Sheriff Linn Keller and his beautiful bride retired to their own bedchamber.

Sheriff Linn Keller relaxed, his wife warm and very much alive beside him; his hand found hers, then he rolled over, laid an arm over her, drew her in close:  a hug, several long moments of holding the dearest thing in his life close to him, and he rolled back on his back, finally -- after a day of suspicion, a day of watchfulness -- Sheriff Linn Keller finally, finally relaxed, lowered his walls, closed his pale eyes, and still holding his wife's hand, allowed himself to sleep.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE STONE WAS WRONG

Linn heard the phone lift from the handset, heard Jacob's young voice, smiled as his son sounded so very professional and grown-up:

"Sheriff Keller's residence, this is Jacob."

A pause.

"Yes, sir."

Pause again.

"I will tell him, sir, and thank you for calling.  Good-bye."

Linn returned to his task:  he was paying bills, a household necessity: he returned to figures and sums, to checkbook and ledger-book:  two he paid by computer, one he paid by mail, and this he would take inside the post office on his way to work tomorrow:  the return envelope was inside a security-printed business sized envelope, the outer envelope hand-addressed: he'd known of too many instances of mail being stolen, checks washed; when possible, he ran a daily balance, courtesy his desktop confuser, as he called it.

He leaned back, stretched, worked his lower back, grimaced:  he put his palms on the edge of the desk, rose a little, lowered his weight to stretch his spine.

Jacob came into his father's study just in time to hear two muted *pop* sounds, just in time to see pain and relief across his father's face.

Linn sat, smiled a little.  

"Message?" he asked.

Jacob walked up to his father's desk, handed him a memo slip.  "Yes, sir."

Linn read his son's block print, a habit the lad acquired from both mother and father: his mother said many times that she printed because if she was charting on a patient in the back of a moving squad and they hit a pothole -- if she were writing in script, the jolt could wipe out a full sentence, but if she were printing, she might lose one letter, maybe two, but the rest is still legible.

Linn saw the wisdom of his wife's decision and adopted the practice himself, for he too lived in a profession where the written word absolutely positively had to be legible.

Jacob knew the Grand Old Man also wrote in script, as did he himself: both had been complimented, many times over, on the beauty of their handwriting, and each had been quick to give credit to their ancestors: the Firelands Museum had a variety of documents, hand-written and on display, that attested to handwriting as something in which earlier generations took a fierce pride.

All this sailed through Linn's mind like a passing hornet on a combat mission.

He read Jacob's transcribed message, nodded.

"Sir, does this mean we won't bolt a turbine to Hoss's carcass after all?"

 

Father and son rode up to the cemetery that Saturday:  Jacob had no school on Saturday, and as Sheriff, Linn could take weekends off, provided the absence of fire, murder or cows getting out.

They rode through the old section, doubled back, rode a few rows uphill into the newer graves.

Jacob's Appaloosa halted; the younger Keller's youthful chin thrust forward.

Linn followed his son's chin-thrust, smiled, just a little.

Father and son swung down, ground-reined their mounts:  despite the lack of a bit, both horses had reins, and the trailing reins meant stay put, and they did, more by choice than by training.

The Bear Killer dropped his broad backside squarely between the stallions, gave a great, jaw-gaping yawn and displayed a truly impressive array of white-ivory dentistry:  industrious and active as ever, The Bear Killer laid his head down on his forepaws, blinked drowsily and almost immediately went to sleep.

Linn and Jacob walked up to what appeared to be a brand new tombstone.

The grave was as grassed-over as graves ever got, this high up:  Jacob crossed his shins standing, lowered himself on a youthful scissor-jack to a seated position, hunched forward a little, studying the stone.

Linn came up and hunkered beside his son, near enough to lay a hand on his son's shoulder and the other on the stone:  he did neither, for he, like his son, was studying this replacement, this correction of a  mistake to which he'd taken personal umbrage.

"Recognize them?" Linn asked.

Jacob nodded.  "That one," he said, "is a B17 in flight trim. Gear up, flaps up."  He looked with pale eyes at his father.  "That's what Hoss flew in the Second Disagreement."

"He did that," Linn said softly.  "He had his twenty missions in and more when the Old Man called him in and said he was being transferred to a B28 wing.  Hoss leaned his knuckles on the Old Man's desk and he didn't say no sir, he said hell no sir, he had his missions in and he could go home and he'd go Stateside before he'd fly those 28s."

"Did he, sir?"

"Nope."

"Did he go home, sir?"

"No, Jacob, they kept him flying 17s. He was needed and the Old Man knew better than to push him."

Linn looked at the other aircraft, the one that appeared to be in a slight turn.

"What about that one?"

"DeHavilland Beaver," Jacob said without hesitation. "450 rompin' stompin' horsepower, 9 cylinder radial R85 Wasp Junior engine, two-blade and then three-blade prop."

Linn nodded, unsurprised: when he was Jacob's age, his classmates recited engine specs on a variety of automobiles as if it were a catechism.

He was not at all surprised that Jacob chose to know his subject well.

"Beats the hell out of that Piper Cub on his original stone," Jacob said softly.

Linn laughed, nodded.  "I had to take the original spec sheet to the stonecutters and point out that they'd put only one airplane on his stone, and the wrong one at that.  It wasn't until they pulled their copy and saw they'd screwed up that they finally admitted that yes, it's wrong, they'll fix it."

"I'm glad they did," Jacob sighed.  "Hoss liked a clip wing Piper Cub but the regular Piper they put on his first stone isn't what he wanted."

Linn laughed.  "He had me up in his Clip Wing once."

Jacob looked at his Pa, his eyes wide and delighted.

"That was the first time I saw the mountains from the air."  Linn looked at his son, his expression soft.  "Hoss said the only time he really felt free was when he was flying."

Linn saw a shadow pass behind Jacob's eyes, saw the slightest of smiles hiding behind his son's face: he was as good, or as bad, as his father for hiding his expressions:  he'd confessed to his pale eyed Pa feeling much the same on the back of a good saddlehorse, and Linn shared his sentiments on the subject.

"Pa?"

"Hm?"

"Pa, if 'lectric prices keep goin' up, do you think we could go ahead and mount a generator to Hoss's feet and change the stone out for the old one so he'd start spinnin' in his grave again?  Strikes me we could cut our 'lectric bill some."

Linn laughed, laid a fatherly hand on his son's shoulder as he heard his own brand of rotten humor coming from his son's mouth:  he looked at the stone again, rose.

"Rest easy, Hoss," he said softly.

Father and son turned toward their horses; The Bear Killer lifted his head, his tail thumping happily on the sparsely grassed ground.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Sir, is Hoss descended from Judge Donald Hostetler that Old Pale Eyes knew?"

Linn laughed quietly, stopped, picked up his stallion's reins and looked very directly at his pale eyed son.

"You've a good memory, Jacob," Linn nodded.  "Hoss is a direct descendant of His Honor.  He was named for him, matter of fact."

"Sir" -- Jacob hesitated, frowning, gathering his own mount's reins -- "sir, does Hoss have any sons?"

Linn's jaw thrust slowly out and he shook his head.  "I think he might have some kinfolk back in Ohio. I know he was a widower and he moved out here after he buried his heart with his wife."  Linn shook his head slowly, thoughtfully.  "I'm sorry, Jacob.  I honestly don't know."

Jacob nodded.

It was a stretch for him to get his young leg up far enough to use the stirrup; Linn came around, gave his boy a boost, knowing youthful impatience might want to use a tombstone as a mounting-block and not wanting to instill a bad habit into his boy.

"Thank you, sir."

Linn winked at Jacob.  "Think you'd like to fly a Beaver?"

Jacob's eyes widened, then he hesitated.

"Sir, I think I'll stick with horses.  Way closer to the ground!"

Linn laughed, ran a caressing hand over his son's stallion's neck.

"Can't argue with you there!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DO YOU EVEN LIFT?

Jacob Keller was built like his father.

Sheriff Linn Keller was lean waisted, like most horsemen, he was rangy, like most ranchers, and he was fast.

Incredibly fast.

Sheriff Linn Keller was also deceptively strong, something people generally did not realize until the moment they began to very sincerely regret a poor choice in their behavior.

Jacob Keller was quiet and intelligent, consistently on the Honor Roll at school: he had absolutely no use for team sports, and the one fastest way to light his fuse was to try to intimidate him -- which Miss Gaines, the vocal music teacher, realized when she stormed up to him in the cafeteria as he was working on his lunch.

Jacob was laughing quietly with his classmates when Miss Gaines stormed up to the table and stopped, her girdled belly inches from him, clearly intending to intimidate him.

She planted her knuckles on her hips and demanded loudly, "WHY DIDN'T YOU SIGN UP FOR VOCAL MUSIC!"

Jacob's eyes went very pale -- Wilma was across the table from him, and she felt her stomach shrivel, for she'd heard about his father, the Sheriff, and how his eyes went dead pale right before he killed someone with his bare hands.

Jacob veiled his eyes and stood.

Jacob was an inch taller than the music teacher.

He stood and looked her in the eye, leaned in until his nose was an inch from hers, and he replied, quietly, "I don't care for your kind of music," and sat back down.

He ignored her presence beside him, returning to his lunch.

It took a moment for her to realize he hadn't been intimidated, and that he had the audacity to ignore her!

"Well what kind of music do you like!" she demanded.

Jacob very carefully put his fork down.

Jacob put the fork down slooowly.

Wilma suddenly felt very cold.

She'd never seen Jacob like this before.

It was as if cold was rolling off him, as if he was suddenly charged, like the way she felt when she was on her Daddy's shining-red Farmall tractor and a low dark cloud rumbled overhead and every hair on her arms stood straight up and her shoulder blade length hair floated in the air, crackling quietly, just before lightning hit a fencepost a couple hundred yards away and blew it to splinters.

Wilma knew this music teacher had a mercurial temper:  she was a single woman, bitter toward the world, and she'd taken a wooden paddle to a student before, beating him with the edge and not the flat and nearly getting herself fired in the process.

Wilma fully expected she would raise a hand to Jacob, and somehow she knew if this woman tried it, she would end up hurt very, very badly.

Jacob leaned in close again, his jaw set: the flesh was stretched tight over his cheekbones and his polished-marble eyes drove ice lances into the  music teacher's soul.

"Mountain fiddle," Jacob said quietly, "and five string banjo."

Wilma realized suddenly the cafeteria was suddenly very, very quiet:  she looked quickly left, then right, and saw that every set of eyes was on Jacob and the music teacher.

Jacob sat back down, his appetite gone: he picked up his fork, but he held it between thumb and forefinger, the handle in his fist, clearly intending to use it as a weapon if hostilities increased.

Miss Gaines huffed and turned and almost ran from the cafeteria.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller picked up a bale of hay, turned.

He took a fast step forward, threw the bale, sidestepped, seized up another one: he felt the shot charge hit packed hay before he heard the concussion.

He threw this bale, a fast straight shove, dove to his right, rolled: he fired three shots, still rolling, not remembering drawing his revolver.

He didn't miss.

Linn threw his legs apart to stop his roll, took a quick sight on the second attacker, rolled the grooved trigger back: the .357 spoke, and its intended recipient hesitated long enough to catch a second full-house Magnum round, this one to the boiler room.

Linn rolled quickly, sat up behind a stall, got up: his hands had eyes, he'd smacked out the empties and dumped in a speedloader before he was fully on his feet:  he froze, listening, surprised he wasn't functionally deaf, honestly not remembering hearing a single one of the gunshots.

 

"What, you ain't got what it takes for football?"

Jacob smiled, just a little, which should have been warning enough.

"Not interested."  He started to close his locker door.

"Bro, do you even lift?" came the sneering reply, then the star quarterback slapped Jacob's locker door shut.

Jacob did not startle; he did not flinch: like his pale eyed father, he was fast.

Jacob seized the quarterback by the throat, spun him around and slammed him against the lockers, hard: he released the throat, drove his left hand hard into the jock's shirt front, crushed his fist shut on a good handful of the jock's shirtfront, twisted.

Jacob jerked him close, drove his pale glare into the jock's shocked expression, then pressed him.

Left handed.

One-armed.

Straight up.

Jacob took him to full extension, locked his elbow.

A bully has hangers-on, and these were staring, shocked at what was they thought would be an easy job.

Jacob lowered the quarterback, slowly, brought him to eye level.

"Let me know," he said quietly, "when you get tired," and pushed him up again.

"Okayokayokay," the jock gasped, and Jacob smiled a little, then brought him down just enough ... and threw him into his staring clot of toadies.

"Who's next?" Jacob asked, his voice quiet, his eyes white.

They backed away, then turned: the jock turned, thrust out an accusing finger:  "I'll get you!"

A hard set of hands seized him, spun him around, slammed him against the brick wall: when his vision cleared, it was full of another pale eyed face, this one with an iron grey mustache and an unfriendly expression.

"I believe," the Sheriff said quietly, "that's called menacing, and it's a criminal offense."

 

The Sheriff had a quiet conversation with Principal Landers, who was in conference with a short-tempered vocal music teacher:  Miss Gaines shoved her way past the Sheriff, red-faced:  Linn looked at the principal, raised an eyebrow.

"She just blew her last chance," he sighed. "She's fired."

"No great loss, from what I've heard."

"I'm glad she's gone," Landers admitted.  "I understand there was a confrontation."

"I need your video. North hall, past half hour."

 

That evening, Linn and Jacob sat side by side in front of the glowing screen.

Marnie came into view, smiling, her college dorm room tidy behind her.

"Marnie," Linn said, "heads up. Someone tried to kill me today. Jacob was confronted at school. It seems to be just coincidence, but I want you to watch your back."

"Have you contacted campus security?"

"I have. They should have an increased presence."

"Good luck with that," she said cynically. "There are enough rich men's children here that the college is used to demands for safety."

"In that case," Linn said, your Deputy's commission is active and current, and under reciprocity, you are authorized to carry weapons as necessary to ensure your personal safety."

"Roger that," Marnie said quietly, and neither father nor son missed that Marnie's eyes went from an affectionate light blue, to a cold, polished, glacier's-heart white.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HOMECOMING

"Marneeee!"

Shelly looked up from her oven-mitted, two-hand-grip on a big ceramic bowl full of fresh-whipped mashed potatoes:  she set it quickly in the middle of the table, ran for the front door, tossing the padded mitts over her shoulders:  Marnie's left leg was seized by a delighted little brother, her right leg by an equally ecstatic little sister, her Mama grabbed her in a crushing hug from the front, and The Bear Killer danced happily on his forepaws, his great brush of a happily-swinging tail threatening to knock over the Jolly Green Giant himself if said soul came in reach!

Marnie laughed and hugged her Mama, squatted and dragged the youngest two into her, laughing at the juvenile chatter that sprang spontaneously from this unexpected appearance of their Big Sis.

Marnie turned as she felt boots on the porch behind her, laughed as she was seized by her brother and her father:  she returned their embrace, the family withdrew into the kitchen, the front door was closed and secured, and Shelly finished setting supper on the table.

The family took their usual places at the table -- with Marnie in college, her place was left empty, reminding everyone she'd be back -- and with Marnie filling the vacant chair, it felt good, it felt complete, it felt right!

Linn bowed his head, as did the rest of the family.

Linn looked up, looked around, said "Hello, plate!" -- to which Shelly replied with a warning note in her voice, "Liiinnnnnn," and Linn laughed and said, "Lord, for unexpected blessings and good food, we give thanks, and spare us the curse of the long winded table grace, Amen!"

Linn looked up.  "Pass me a roll?" he asked, caught the airmail delivery: this, too, was a standing joke, and almost an every meal occurrence -- although the Keller young knew that such foolishness was tolerated only when perpetrated by the Grand Old Man, and would not be approved of coming from the less senior partners.

Plates were loaded, gravy ladled, meat sliced and sampled: Linn looked over at Marnie and said, "What brings you home early?"

Marnie smiled quietly, as if hiding a secret:  she stopped cutting her meat, she rested her wrists on the edge of the table, she looked at her father and said, "Do you remember cautioning me to be careful, as you'd been attacked in your own barn?"

Linn nodded, slowly, and several ears inclined themselves to Marnie's voice.

"I broke someone's arm and got on the wrong side of a professor, then I filed charges against the college in general and their Chief of Security in particular, and it went downhill from there."

Jacob and Joseph exchanged a look: Linn looked from one to the other of them, shook his head ever so slightly, no more than a quarter-inch, but enough to convey his message.

Joseph and Jacob both nodded, no more than a quarter-inch, enough to acknowledge their father's order to take no action on the matter.

"Sounds like an interesting time of it," Linn said carefully.

Marnie lifted her head, then she placed her fork and knife on her plate, sat up very straight and squared her shoulders.

Nobody at the table had to look at her eyes to know they were the general shade of a mountain glacier's heart.

"I broke a rich man's son's arm," Marnie said, "and Security didn't want to hear what I had to say about his assault."  Her smile was thin, the kind she had when she'd just won a good knock down drag out fight.

"They didn't want to listen to me until I returned with both subpoena and summons, and after I served them, I badged them and informed them they could either cooperate completely and without hesitation, or I could file against them for interfering with the investigation and apprehension of an assault on a law enforcement officer."

"Good for you!" Jacob declared, the quick movement of his arm betraying the air-punch he hid under the edge of the table.

"Right about then his attorney arrived, expecting to dismiss and sweep-under a girl's claim of an unwanted grab. He didn't like the fact I was charging assault on a law enforcement officer.

"I'll have to go back and testify. With your permission I'll do so in uniform."

Linn nodded, again that shallow quarter-of-an-inch, and it wasn't Marnie alone who had a cold and wolflike expression.

"One of my professors was discussing the matter in class, he obviously knew only that the offender was the son of some rich benefactor, and he started to say something about a girl getting cold feet and making a false accusation.

"I stood up, I curled my lip and whistled -- you know how I can whistle!" -- her quick grin was almost girlish, the Marnie Linn knew and loved, suddenly looking out of a beautiful young woman's face -- "then I held up my star and identified.

"I told him that any statement made in the presence of a law enforcement officer, on duty or off, in uniform or out, can be used as admissible evidence in a court of law, and that I was not required to Mirandize anyone unless I personally took them into custodial arrest.

"I told him I was the girl in question, and further reckless talk would put him at serious risk for legal action, unless of course he was there when it happened, in which case he could plan on receiving a subpoena to testify as to what he himself actually saw and heard.

"He pulled in his horns rather quickly."

Marnie took a long breath, looked around.

"I'm done going to college," she said.  "I'll go back to the dorm tomorrow and gather my things, not that there's much to gather, just some clothes. Anything of value is with me. I'll take on-line from now on. I'm advanced enough in my studies I can graduate in two months."

Linn and Jacob looked at one another, then at Marnie.

Linn reached over, gripped his pale eyed daughter's hand in his own.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "was breaking his arm an appropriate course of action?"

He saw Marnie's eyes grow even colder -- a look he'd seen in his own mother's, but rarely, and only when seriously provoked.

"Yes," she said quietly.  "Yes, Daddy, it was."

 

That night, in the darkness of their bedroom, Marnie smiled to hear Angela's breathing.

Her Mama told her not long ago that Angela missed her so, that sometimes she could hear Angela climb out of bed, whispering to The Bear Killer or to Snowdrift: she'd told Marnie that she'd gone upstairs to find Angela asleep on the floor, The Bear Killer cuddled up on her left, Snowdrift equally close on her right, Angela's hands relaxed and warm in curly canine fur.

Angela slept well that night, with Marnie in the next bed, though instead of two dogs sleeping on the floor with a sad, restless little girl, one slept with a little girl and the other slept with a big girl.

 

"Say, Pete?"

"Yeah?"

"How come we have a bale of hay in the evidence locker?"
Didn't you hear?  Some Jack Doe tried to shotgun him in his own barn."
"The hell you say!"

"Where you been, under a rock? Yeah, Old Pale Eyes had a double handful of hay bale -- that one right there -- he kind of shot putted it like he was shooting a basketball at this fella and made it look easy!"

A shake of the head, a whispered profanity.

"I would have paid admission to have seen that."

"You and I both, fella!" came the laughing reply. 

"So what did he do?  Beat 'em to death with bales of hay?"

"No ... once he threw the first one, why, he threw a second one, hit the ground and rolled. Six shots in his .357 and he fired five and didn't miss!"

"I go on vacation," came the complaining reply, "and I miss all the fun!"

 

Jacob Keller sat down with the guidance counselor, handed him a folder.

"Sir," he said, "I believe I have credits enough to be graduated early."

Two days later Jacob approached his father's desk, waited until the Grand Old Man looked up, raised his eyebrows.

Jacob laid a purple and white, leatherette bound document on Linn's desk.

Linn opened it, read it, read it again, looked up at his grinning son.

"I didn't graduate quite as far ahead of time as Marnie," he said, "but I'm graduated!"

Linn rose, came around the desk.

Two tall, lean waisted Keller men shook hands.

"Well done," Linn said quietly, his eyes shining.  "I am pretty damned proud of you!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE SHERIFF'S STRIPPER

Sheriff Willamina Keller believed in preparing subsequent generations for lessons learned the hard way by her own.

Sheriff Willamina Keller taught her pale eyed son that, back in Ohio, they had a State-level draft law: the Unorganized Militia, legally defined as all persons between sixteen and sixty-five and capable of bearing arms in defense of their State, could be drafted in time of need.

Willamina put this precept into action in recruiting a variety of very useful folk in times of need.

When she broke a horse stealing operation, it was with the assistance of a high school boy with a remarkably fast car, a vehicle with a turbocharged, large displacement engine and a sunroof, and as he came screaming around a stock truck towing a stolen horse trailer loaded with stolen horses, she used her Uncle Pete's Garand and metal penetrating, military issue .30-06 ammunition to bust holes in critical areas of the felonious vehicle: she got holes in the rims of the driver's side rear duals, and as the lead footed, grinning high school kid mashed the go pedal and got ahead of said subject vehicle, Willamina turned and dumped the rest of her clip through the truck's lower radiator: she thumbed in another eight, emptied eight aimed rounds through the middle of the radiator, intending to do very unkind things to the engine block behind it.

Willamina recruited ham radio operators of varying ages to run the telegraph for the Z&W Railroad, using both radio frequencies and the ancient, hard-wire technology, a surprising amount of the original wire, insulators and poles still in place, and she recruited them to provide backup communication in severe weather, including the failure of a critical radio repeater that rendered emergency communication for the police, fire and Sheriff's departments, useless.

When Linn sat down with a subject for an interrogation, he stared, unblinking, at the criminal in custody: the far door to the conference room opened and four young men wearing shirt and tie, vests and Fedoras, filed in, with equipment.

One sat, expressionless, with a saxophone across his lap; one had a trombone upright between his knees; a third had a trumpet, the fourth arranged a small drum set, then sat.

The four stared straight ahead and said nothing.

"So whattaya gonna do, Sheriff?" his prisoner sneered, "torture me with music?"

Sheriff Linn Keller stared at the man, then smiled, just a little.

"You conspired to have me killed," Linn said quietly.

"Don't know nothin' about it."

"Two men came into my barn. One had a shotgun, one had a pistol. The shotgun caught me by surprise."

The prisoner leaned back. 

"So," he said speculatively. "The great Sheriff can be taken by surprise."

Linn smiled thinly.

"I needed him close enough so he couldn't miss.  He didn't.  Do you know why?"

The prisoner glared at the lawman.

"I hit him in the face with a bale of hay. When he fired all he killed was dried grass. I threw another bale into the other guy right before I shot both of them in the guts."  Linn's tone was conversational. "I like a gut shot. Stops a man and paralyzes his gun arm and then I can shoot him to doll rags."

"So? Sounds like you're making up a story to cover your murder of two concerned citizens who wanted to turn in a stolen gun."

"I have your confession."

"I didn't confess nothin'," the prisoner sneered: he started to lean back, forgetting momentarily his wrists were manacled to the heavy tabletop.

"Actually," Linn said quietly, "you confessed to one of my deputies, chapter and verse. You named names, you described payment, where and how, and we recovered the money.  That's why your cell phone was blowing up, by the way, and that allowed us to catch two more who were in on it."

The prisoner's voice raised, his face reddened, he jerked at his manacles:  he glared defiance at the Sheriff, shouted "YOU AIN'T GOT NOTHIN'! I DIDN'T CONFESS TO NO DEPUTY!"

Sheriff Linn Keller leaned forward, looked very directly into the murderous felon's eyes, and then he smiled.

Just a little.

The satisfied smile of a man who has the goods on someone.

Linn snapped his fingers.

The quartet raised their instruments, stood.

There is a particular song, a favorite among those old enough to remember the classical days of speakeasies and loose women, of gangsters in the truest sense of the word, when the Mafia and not urban street rats wore the term: it's played loudly, raucously, the tune itself invokes visions of leggy blonds with too much makeup swinging a stole and swinging her hips while popping her gum and disporting herself most shamelessly on stage.

One such loose woman came in the back door.

She spun her fur carelessly from a gloved hand, looked around with an expression of professional boredom, fixed dark eyes on the prisoner and smiled.

As sax and 'bone, snares and trumpet wailed their vintage tune, a leggy harlot with crimson lips and skyscraper heels swivel hipped toward the prisoner, dancing as she did:  Linn watched the prisoner, watched his expression change:  as The Stripper filled the room and the stripper tossed her fur around the prisoner's neck, drew him in and planted a screaming-scarlet lipstick print on his cheek, she purred, "Remember me, big boy?" and then leaned closer, whispered in his ear, "I'm the Man from Glad, and you're in the bag!"

She skipped backward a few steps, laughed:  as the prisoner raged and thrashed against his irons, trying  to pull free of the heavy, bolted-down table, a feminine figure turned her back on him.

She tore the bleached blond wig from her head, tossed it to the side.

She pulled a chair from under the table, flipped open a box on the chair: she pulled out something, brought it to her face: the music never stopped, not as she tossed a makeup-smeared cloth into the box, seized up another, did the same: elbow length gloves dropped into the box, she reached up between her shoulder blades, drew a zipper down ... to reveal something tan ... uniform tan, and military creased, beneath.

She bent, one hand cupped over her face, the other doing something, and then she picked up a little plastic box out of the cardboard box and placed a set of very dark brown contacts in their holder, closed the lids, stripped out of the dress.

"Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller," she said as she wiggled out of the silky, slutty dress, revealing her tan uniform blouse and dark brown skirt. "And thank you for the confession you freely and willingly gave me last night.  That's called a spontaneous utterance, and because I hadn't taken you into custodial arrest, it's admissible!"

Marnie picked up the silky dress she'd sewn for the occasion, folded it and put it in the box; she set the box up on the table.

"I want my lawyer," the prisoner said in a weak voice.

"Sure thing," Linn said. "You've already been read your rights, but you were so damned sure we couldn't touch you, you couldn't help but brag about it."

Linn very nearly smiled at the prisoner's death glare.

Marnie came back over, her stiletto heels loud on the polished quartz floor.

She looked at the prisoner, pale eyes very evident now that she had the colored contacts out.

"Nobody," she said, and her voice was as cold as her eyes, "nobody tries to kill my Daddy!"

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller buckled the shiny-black straps around Marnie's young ankles, then nodded, perhaps remembering her first pair of heels.

"Stand up," she said.

Marnie Keller stood easily, without wobble, on her first pair of three inch stiletto heels.

"We women," Willamina said, "are our own weapon system. Part of defeating the enemy is misleading the enemy. If we appear to be a pretty little featherhead, their guard will be down and we can learn from them."  Willamina raised a teaching finger.  "No, don't walk just yet.  Just stand.  Now Marnie ... what is the first layer of defense?"

"The military uses a layered principle of defense," Marnie recited, "and the first layer of defense is always knowledge!"
"Exactly right!"  Willamina applauded. "And the more we know, the better we can do our job.  Now" -- Willamina turned -- like her granddaughter, she was in a tailored blue suit dress and heels -- "this is how to walk in heels.  Look at yourself in the full length mirror, we will walk toward the mirror."

Willamina smiled at their relfection in the spotless looking glass.

"Now here's how we walk."

 

That night, at the family table, Linn was unusually quiet.

He was not terribly talkative at the supper table, preferring to listen to the several conversations, adding a little here or there, but tonight he did much more listening, when he wasn't looking over at Marnie.

When Marnie stood, walked around behind her Daddy, she stopped directly behind him, gripped his shoulders, hung her head over his shoulder, her lips near his ear.

"Thank you for trusting me," she whispered.

Linn leaned his head back; Marnie came around beside him, ran her hands around the back of his neck, looked into her Daddy's eyes with the expression of an adoring little girl -- something else her Grandma Willamina taught her.

"Darlin'," Linn whispered, "today I appreciated the fact that you are a beautiful woman in your own right."

Marnie's eyebrows went up and she smiled.  "Oh?"

Linn nodded slowly, thoughtfully, turned his chair.

Marnie turned and sat on his lap like she used to as a little girl.

"Oh, I knew it here" -- he tapped his forehead with a bent foreknuckle -- "when you were in your prom gown with John in his suit, I didn't so much realize it as I was dealin' with bein' really uncomfortable."

Marnie's alarm was evident, her face less a foot from his.

"Daddy, why?" she whispered.

Linn chewed on his bottom lip and Marnie felt an earthquake underfoot: the Grand Old Man is the foundation stone on which she'd built her young universe, and to see him suddenly uncertain, to see him -- well, she thought he might get all sentimental and start leaking water from those fatherly eyes --

Linn looked at his darlin' daughter with a vulnerable expression.

"I reckon seein' you in your prom gown ... I had to realize you weren't my little girl anymore."  He blinked thoughtfully, looked at her again.

"Today's the first time I appreciated that you're really a woman grown."

Marnie blinked, smiled a little, looked long into her Daddy's eyes, then she threw herself into him, hugged him quickly, impulsively, like she used to when she wore pigtails and pinafores:  "Oh, Daddy!" she whispered, then she kissed him on the forehead, stood quickly, turned, turned back.

"I made pecan pie," she said abruptly, "and whipped up some cream to throw at it!"

Linn rolled his eyes and groaned, "I haaaate it!" -- then he grinned and said "I might have to eat it all so nobody gets sick!"

At least a half dozen fresh-baked sweet rolls sailed through the air and smacked him in the head.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

STILL IN THE HOME PLACE

Sheriff Marnie Keller sat cross-legged, along with the rest of the class: the children were young, but they were tall, owing to growth in about one-third gravity: they were also blessed with not having the health issues that native Earthers suffered, living in low gravity -- such things as calcium leached out of their bones and into their blood, which caused cardiac issues, kidney stones and other forms of distress.

Marnie, of course, suffered none of those, owing to the time she spent in Earth-normal gravity -- both in her quarters, and when she was in the Spinner, a particular piece of engineering the colonists were fiercely proud of and almost nobody but the Sheriff used.

Marnie looked around at clean-scrubbed, shining, healthy young faces:  a little girl looked hopefully at the pale eyed woman in the Olympic skinsuit and asked bashfully, "Shewiff, tell us a story."

Willamina looked around the circle, smiled as the chorus of juvenile "Please" filled the air, then she raised her hands and nodded.

"I know," she said, "just the story you'd like to hear."

Boys and girls alike folded their hands, or laced their fingers together, leaning eagerly forward: when the Sheriff told a story, it was always interesting, and it was always fun!

"Once upon a time," the Sheriff began, the looked around, hesitated.

"What does it mean, 'once upon a time'?"

"HOLD MY BEER AND WATCH THIS!" every last child chorused, to the teacher's distress and the Sheriff's laughter: it was a cherished custom -- the Sheriff's inquiry, the children's delightful response, the teacher's exaggerated-woeful expression (which she secretly enjoyed as much as the Sheriff and the children) -- at which point the Sheriff tapped an imaginary cigar, sneered half her face up and said in a horribly exaggerated gangster voice, "It's like this, see, nyaa, nyaa."

As the Sheriff told her story, as she wove another reality on the hushed and expectant air, young eyes grew distant as they were drawn into the tale, as they became part of what Marnie was describing.

There is a magic to a storyteller's voice, just as there is magic in an artist's hand:  Marnie had, at one time or another, drawn every young face in this circle, and her voice entranced every last one of them.

 

A lawman with pale eyes and an iron-grey mustache drew his stallion to a hoof-clattering halt in front of the schoolhouse.

At his nod, a grinning schoolboy hauled the door open, and an Appaloosa stallion stepped daintily up and into the long hallway, steel horseshoes loud on the polished stone floor.

A stuffy schoolmaster -- short, balding, officious, clearly someone who had himself confused with somebody important -- turned, startled, as a lean waisted lawman rode a horse, a horse! -- into his classroom!  Why, this was unheard of!

"Mister Higgins."

A schoolboy stood, staring at this man he'd last seen from the platform of a departing passenger car.

"Yes, sir?"

"Mr. Higgins, I understand you gave this class an account of your summer's adventures."

"Yes, sir."

"Your account said something about being trapped on a roof, with the house afire."

Young Master Higgins swallowed, remembering the moment.

"Yes, sir."

"At your recitation, you spoke of jumping from the roof."

"Yes, sir."

"You spoke of being caught by a horseman."

"Yes, sir."

"And you were called a liar."

Young Master Higgins looked uncomfortably at the schoolmaster, a man of notoriously short temper, a man prone to use belt or cane at the least provocation.

The pale eyed Sheriff turned his stallion, faced the schoolmaster.

"I am the man who caught Mr. Higgins," he said. "His account was factual. You called him a liar. You will apologize to him."

"I WILL DO NO SUCH THING!" the schoolmaster shouted.  "SEE HERE, THIS IS MY CLASSROOM --"

Apple-horse reared, lashed out with his forehooves, grazing the man's bushy Dundreary weepers, driving steel into the wall behind his head: he came down, shoved his head into the man's chest, shoved him hard into the wall, held him there.

"I don't like a man who'll call someone a liar," the lawman's quiet voice said: "matter of fact that makes me unhappy."

Apple-horse backed up, one step, two, three, more: the Sheriff sat very straight in his saddle, his expression one of contempt.

"YOU ARE A DISRUPTION! I DEMAND YOU LEAVE THIS CLASSROOM AT ONCE, AND I SHALL SUMMON THE CONSTABLE --"

Apple-horse spun, drove both hind hooves into the side of the man's desk: it was heavy and well made of Eastern hardwood, but the impact drove the scarred impress of a pair of horseshoes into the wood and thrust the desk backward by two feet.

The Sheriff dismounted.

He walked up to the schoolmaster, his eyes very pale, his voice very quiet.

 

"What do you suppose happened now?" Marnie asked, looking around.

Young eyes were wide and excited, their imaginations fully engaged: there were whispers, conferences with neighbors, then hands thrust up.

"The Sheriff hit the schoolmaster!"

"The horse ate him!"

"The schoolmaster jumped out the window and ran!"

Marnie listened to each theory, smiling, nodding to acknowledge each one:  finally she raised her hands for quiet.

"The Sheriff," she said, "was a man who communicated very clearly when he wished."

 

The Sheriff seized the schoolmaster by the necktie, jerked him up close.

"You pompous excuse for a man," he hissed, "you will apologize to Mr. Higgins and you will admit that you, sirrah, are the liar, and not he, or I will backhand you in front of this class and prove you the coward you've shown yourself!"

"You, you can't --"

The Sheriff backhanded the schoolmaster, hard, released his necktie:  he drew two knives from somewhere, turned, drove them into the desk top, where they stood, quivering.

"You have been challenged to a duel of honor," he said, his voice low, menacing: "you will chose time, place and weapons and you will choose now, or I will choose for you."

The color ran away from the schoolmaster's face, for the Sheriff's face was dead pale, and stretched over the bones of his face like dried parchment stretched over a mummy's skull, and there was absolutely no softness at all in the man's pale eyes.

"I, no, no," he gasped.

The Sheriff stepped into him, seized him, spun him about: with an iron grip at the man's belt and the scruff of the neck, he ran for the open window, threw the screaming coward out into the side yard.

 

"Now," Marnie said, "when I was a little older than all of you, I went to auction with my father.

"They were auctioning off some items, and one was an old desk, and I wanted the desk.

"I didn't know why, I just ... wanted it, so I bid on it and I bought it."

Marnie picked up a boxy little control, passed a fingertip over its screen, tapped a few times:  a hologram faded into existence in the middle of the circle.

Rectangular it was, and it rotated slowly:  Marnie waited until the image was solid looking, then she turned it so its top could be seen.

"Here along one edge," she said, "I saw where two knives had been driven into the desk top."

She looked down at the control she held: another caress of her white-gloved fingertip, another touch, and the desk turned level, rotated slowly, displaying the damaged side to everyone in the circle.

"Horse shoes," came the awe-struck murmur.

"I always meant to sand out those knife scars and the horseshoe scrapes," Marnie smiled, "until I found an account written by Old Pale Eyes, about riding into a schoolhouse and causing trouble."

"You got it here?" one little boy asked hopefully, and young eyes turned toward the Sheriff, who shook her head sadly.

"No, I'm afraid not," she said in a regretful voice.  "It's still in the home place, back in Colorado."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THREE CANDLES

Sheriff Linn Keller scraped a rock along the little shelf, crowding off dirt and sand and making a level place: the candles were short, fat, suitable for such an improvised stand.

He stepped back, shucked out of his coat, his shirt: Esther set the candles on the little shelf, struck a Lucifer, cupped her hand to shelter the little flame.

"I wish we hand a lantern," she sighed, "but these will have to do. You'll need to be close."

Linn hung coat and shirt and vest over a bush, unbuttoned his red flannel longhandles down to the belt, pulled arms out of sleeves and let the top half hang behind.

Husband and wife looked up, into the night sky: whatever detonated overhead was loud, whatever it was, blasted shrapnel around them for a considerable distance:  their horses jerked, shied, danced, walling their eyes and grunting, but not wanting to leave each other, not wanting to leave the safety of their riders. in spite of the detonation, in spite of fragments of something driving around them like grapeshot.

Esther untied the cloth roll, spread the tools she commonly brought on such expeditions:  Linn backed up toward the candles, allowed Esther's gentle hands to turn him, waited, his face impassive.

"Oh, dear," Esther sighed, the way she did any time she patched skinned knees, or pulled splinters, or mended the many other injuries that men and active boys accumulated on a routine basis: Linn carefully ignored the sensation of steel working around inside his hide as Esther took a pair of tweezers and worked at something imbedded in his hide.

"I don't know what that was," she muttered, "but it was loud!"

The Sheriff closed his eyes and willed himself to calm.

Something had fallen from the sky -- it came in overhead, bright, he remembered artillery shells arching toward him on the battlefield -- he wasn't sure what it actually was, but he reacted out of old memory: he'd seized his wife, spun around, one arm hard around her belly, crushing her into him, bending over her to shelter her with his body as much as he possibly could, his other hand planted flat on the rock face: he'd bent over, eyes screwed shut, teeth clenched, waiting for the explosion, the detonation, waiting for steel to blast through his carcass, waiting to be blown in two the way he'd seen men killed when artillery opened up on them in that damned War --

-- light, bright, a searing white glare, heat on the back of his neck --

Shrapnel rattled off the rock around him, something hit him: Esther felt her husband flinch, heard his grunt: he sagged a little, then straightened:  he released his belly-crushing grip on his wife, pushed away from the rock, turned.

Esther turned as well, her green eyes wide, afraid: she did not remember gripping her sleeve-knives, but she raised fisted hands, the sharpened, slender daggers like silver fangs, shining in the near-darkness:  she turned a little, breathing through her mouth, breathing silently, ready to sell her life very dearly indeed if that was her fate.

Linn turned slowly, crouched a little: like his wife, he had no memory of filling his hands:  blued steel gunbarrels looked deep into the surrounding darkness:  Linn looked to his stallion, to his wife's gelding:  something was snarling, something deep, menacing, an animal sound, primal ...

It's me.

I'm snarling.

The horses ... a little skittish, but they're calming.

No danger

Linn holstered both revolvers, looked up.

Something bright, something so bright if it were any larger it would sear the eyes, a streak.

Falling star, he thought.

"Esther," he said quietly, "are you hurt?"

"No," came the quiet voiced reply.

Linn turned, puzzled:  Esther took three quick steps toward him, took his face between her hands.

"Linn, what is it?" she whispered.

Linn closed his eyes, sagged a little:  alarmed, Esther took him under the arms -- it was more gesture than support, for he was taller than she by a head and more, and his collapse would have taken her to the ground -- but her touch seemed to bring him strength, and he straightened.

"I've been hit," he said, and Esther heard surprise in her husband's voice.

Linn raised a hand, felt something imbedded in the back of his neck, a little to the right, where the meat is thick and muscle is strong and deep.

Whatever it was, was ragged, it was dug in, and it was hot!

 

Sheriff Linn Keller stood in front of a rock face, the last rays of sunset illuminating just the barest trace of candle wax on a little natural shelf.

His finger caressed the deposit -- little more than a stain, really -- 

Found it!

He looked around, considered the entry he'd read in Old Pale Eyes' journal.

This has to be it.

Esther used three candles for light.

They were placed on a little shelf ... chest high on a tall man, like this.

Light would reflect off the rock, and three candles set together would give light enough to pick shrapnel out of the back of his neck.

"How much you want to bet," he said, and Marnie heard the smile in his voice, that smile she heard when he made a discovery, a connection with something he'd been looking for -- "how much you want to bet this is where Old Pale Eyes got hit by that meteor fragment?"

Marnie came over, studied the shelf:  she frowned, thrust out her bottom jaw, looked at her Daddy.

"It's too light yet to try three candles," she said, "but with that light colored rock behind ... it would reflect at least a little."

"Three candles, it said. Fat ones. Old Pale Eyes was tight as bark on a tree but he didn't hesitate to use all three candles."

"That tells us the injury was very real."

"Yep."

 

Esther gripped the black cinderlike chunk with a folded kerchief to keep from cutting her fingers, twisted: human flesh is a surprising thing -- thin, easily burned, but tough:  she'd had to perform minor surgeries afield, first on her adventurous brothers, and in later years, on her pale eyed husband and his sons, and others on occasion: she frowned, her lips pressed together: she knew she was hurting her husband, but he neither flinched nor gave any sound.

A final twist, a pull: she ran questing fingertips over the back of his neck, over his bare back, looking for any further insults:  she found one, but it was easily removed, a straight splinter rather than a convoluted fishhook: Esther went back to the first one, squeezed it, wiped it with her kerchief, felt something snag.

Another wipe and she felt it pull free.

Linn waited as Esther dabbed something cold on his wounds, as she pressed something cloth against both places, as she pulled up his longhandles and said in a quiet voice, "Get dressed, dearest, I don't want you to catch cold," and Linn stopped short of groaning a mock-juvenile "Yeeessss, Mmmaaawww."

He was satisfied Esther would not smack him, but he depended on her to take care of him in such moments, and he was not about to jeopardize the comfort of a woman's hands in time of need.

Besides, he was trying hard to bring himself back to calmness.

It is no light thing to find oneself on the battlefield again, under the spreading iron curtain of an artillery barrage, even if that returned was but a moment's length.

 

"You think it was a meteor?" Marnie asked, looking around.

"I think it was a fireball.  Remember he described bright light, a feeling of heat on the back of his neck?"

Marnie nodded.

"He would have grabbed his wife around the waist and bent her over to shelter her from a shrapnel burst."

"How would he know?"

"A Civil War artillery shell would burn as it flew.  A timing charge would have been a compressed powder train. He could've seen the meteor coming too fast and too bright and reacted as if he was on the battlefield again."

Marnie considered this, nodded.  "That would fit."

"He wrote about hearing shrapnel rattle on the rocks. Apparently nothing touched the horses. Just his ill luck to get hit with a jagged chunk of slag."

"Slag," Marnie repeated thoughtfully.  "Impact would have numbed the area until the heat dissipated." 

She looked up at her pale eyed Daddy.  "Heat cautery?"

Linn nodded.  "Could well be."

"So if I came up here with a fishing magnet, I might well find fragments of the meteor that hit Old Pale Eyes."

Linn nodded.  "Might well."

Linn looked at his daughter.

"There is a question in your eyes."

"Esther unrolled something."

"She carried some tools in case she had to work on someone. Forceps, likely, I'd imagine she had something to sew with. Doc Greenlees might've given her suture needles for all I know."

Linn could see the gears turning behind his daughter's pale eyes.

"What did she put on his wound, I wonder ... carbolic?"

"Unless she had a little pot of honey."

Marnie turned, eyes busy: she looked at their horses, then at her father.

"Raw honey is good for burns. I'd say you're right on that one."

Marnie looked around, paced slowly around, studying the terrain, then the ground:  she looked around, looked up, came over and regarded the wax stains on the shelf.

Linn came up close behind his daughter, leaned forward, laid his hand on the rock, ran his arm around her belly, felt her shiver a little, felt her nod.

Linn leaned back; his daughter turned, looked up into his face, her hands flat on his ribs.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Princess?"

Marnie blinked, swallowed, then hugged her Daddy, pressing her ear into his breastbone.

She felt her Daddy laugh, just a little, the way he did when he was just a little uncertain about something.

She looked up at him again.  

"Daddy, I felt so very safe when you did that."

Linn bent a little, hugged his little girl, picked her up: she was near to grown, she was a young woman in her own right, but when he held her like that, he was saying without words that he wanted her to stay Daddy's Little Girl forever, and Marnie hugged her Daddy back, content in that moment to be Daddy's Little Girl.

Linn watched from his saddle as Marnie walked over to the rock face, as she sidled Outlaw-horse up against the sheer stone, as she unwrapped three somethings and placed them on the wax-stained shelf.

Father and daughter rode off the mountain as light failed, as stars spilled out in a thick carpet overhead: horses' hooves were sure, loud on the rocky trail: behind them, three short, fat candles stood together on a rock shelf, while overhead, a single streak of fire drew a shocking-white line across the darkness above.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DEHYDRATION

Sheriff Marnie Keller caught the punch coming in, seized the wrist, pulled: a body flew over her extended leg, she turned, knocked a grab out of line, seized a belt buckle, hauled: a second body collided with the first, which was just coming off the ground:  a scream, a white-suited, spread-eagle Valkyrie landed atop the first two, who'd just rolled face-up --

Jacob and Joseph both grunted as Marnie's weight landed on them, and The Bear Killer jumped happily around them, his happy yow-wow-wow joining the collective Keller laughter --

Two men in ghillie suits studied the front of the Sheriff's house through high-quality, high-powered binoculars.

They regularly rotated to similar surveillance locations; thus far they'd seen absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, and honestly had no idea why Sheriff Linn Keller, of Firelands County, Colorado, was under surveillance: there had been no sign of anything illegal, immoral, or even suspicious; the man couldn't be bribed (the government sent men to try), any seized narcotics were accounted for, he was not running any brothels, drug dens, he wasn't running guns to Mexico nor white slaves to overseas or domestic buyers; the pair honestly had no idea why they were watching the man, but their orders were to watch, and so they did.

All they saw was his ranch house, his Jeep where he'd backed it into its regular parking spot: horses, barns, sons, a pretty daughter an equally lovely wife, and two huge dogs.

Two agents watched, taking turns, on what was probably the one most gratefully boring assignment either one had had in a very long time.

"Anything?"

"Nothing. Not a soul since the Sheriff went inside. Just that big white dog asleep on the porch and the other one went around to the back pasture."

"Here.  I'll take over."

The second agent shifted into position, rubbed his closed eyes, then looked through the binoculars at an absolutely uneventful ranch house

The only things moving were horses in the far pasture and a white mountain Mastiff yawning drowsily on the front porch.

 

Shelly stepped out on the front porch, planted her knuckles on her apron strings, shook her head:  she clapped her hands twice, called "Children!  Oh, children!"

Angela, beside her, looked disapprovingly at brothers and sister, wrestling in the grass:  they stopped, rolled over, sat up, grinning, laughing, brushing off dirt.

"Wash up and get ready for supper," Shelly said:  she and Angela turned and went back inside, at least until Angela emerged with a broom, tossed it at Joseph, who caught it neatly.

Jacob stood, spread his arms and legs:  "Broom me off," he said, and a few quick swipes sufficed to get the worst off him:  Jacob returned the favor.

Marnie stood, grinning: her white Olympic skinsuit retained nothing, thanks to its integral repulsor-field.

Shelly paused her setting the supper table, looked at Angela and sighed, and Angela shook her head in agreement:  outside, on the front porch, came a squeal and more laughter: none had to look to know that Marnie had darted ahead, grabbing Jacob's ribs and tickling him without mercy, and they knew Joseph ran up behind Marnie and did the same to her:  Jacob's head would've snapped back with his howling laughter, Marnie's head would have snapped back in the exact same manner, and Joseph's face would be lit up with the fiendish delight of a little brother happily tickle-torturing his Big Sis!

Angela sighed and shook her head.

"Mother," she asked sorrowfully, "was I ever like that?"

 

The Ambassador took a bite of Shelly's pot roast:  he closed his eyes, chewed with pleasure, sighed, shook his head.

"Thank you, my dear," he said gently as he looked at Linn's wife.  "My mother used to make this, and yours is better than a young man's memory of his mother's cooking!"

"Now that's high praise," Linn murmured.

"You do know," the Ambassador said, "that you're being watched."

"I know."

"You also know that the field shows them an uneventful farmhouse."

"Yep."

"The Sheriff" -- the Ambassador looking meaningfully at Marnie -- "and I have discussed at length the subject of first contact."

"And?"  Linn took a bite of fresh-buttered sweet roll.

"We don't believe the time is quite yet. There is an important announcement to make first."

"Oh?"

"The entire colony is unanimous in its decision to secede."

Linn smiled, just a little.

"Is that the term you'll use ... secession?"

"It is," Marnie said firmly.  "We've already taken the vote. The American contingent is unanimous. Secession is absolutely the term we wish to use."

"And the other nationalities?"

"Unanimous with us."

Linn nodded.  "Are there fail-safes?"

"We've found them already. Biological, mostly, some hidden computer viruses designed to take out our vital systems and then erase themselves to prevent subsequent discovery. We even found some few who'd been hypnotized to destroy the colony should there be any such attempt."

"Once you make your announcement you'll have to be very circumspect in what transmissions you receive."

"And any shipments from Earth. There have already been devices launched toward us that were ... suspicious."

"Suspicious hell," the Ambassador snorted. "They were designed to look like relay satellites that would shoot out of orbit into the pressure domes and detonate a small fusion device."

"They still think the colonists are exclusively on surface."

The Ambassador nodded, savoring a just-forked bite.

"Plus they can transmit a kill-code to the computers," Linn offered.

The Ambassador looked at Marnie; Marnie smiled quietly.

"I see," Linn said. "I take it your computers aren't what they were."

Marnie rolled her eyes, sat up very straight, tried to look very innocent.

"Yyyooouuu could say that," she replied, blinking rapidly, then looked at her mother.

"What's for dessert?"

 

"You realize we might die out here."

"What from?  Boredom?"

"Exactly. Why do they have us watching him anyway?"

"Because the surveillance cameras won't work here and the drones don't show a damned thing."

"Maybe there's nothing to see."

 

Joseph lingered after dessert, looked at the Ambassador, curiosity plain on his youthful face.

"Sir," he said, "what's it like on your worlds?"

The Ambassador's smile was broad and genuine: he leaned forward, steepled his fingers, looked down at the tablecloth and frowned a little.

"We have many worlds," he said slowly, "but the Earthlike worlds ... I assume those are the ones that interest you?"

Joseph nodded.

"They are very much like here," the Ambassador said. "For the most part, we are still very lightly populated. We have no big cities. Most of them are towns. Most of them are ... developmentally, they're very much like your Old West."

Joseph's eyes glowed.

The Ambassador could almost see horsemen in the tall boy's invisible thought-bubble.

"You're thinking men on horseback.  Yes, that's a favorite. We have schools and we have steam power, for the most part. Steam can be maintained with a lower level of technology and we aren't populated enough to maintain a high technology yet. Almost every world has high-tech communication, at least from the individual planet to the nearest starbase."  

The Ambassador paused, considered, continued.

"We teach our young as best we can, we show them the mistakes Earth made and continues to make, we impress upon them that we must tread lightly lest we cause the same to happen on their worlds."

"Do they listen, sir?"

"Not always," the Ambassador admitted, then looked again at the Sheriff's oldest daughter.

"As the Sheriff said, people are people wherever you go."

 

"Pardon me, gentlemen."

Two men in dark green work uniforms turned, surprised, to see a uniformed Sheriff's deputy extending each of them a rectangular plastic card.

"A man dehydrates fast, this high up. Especially if he's insulated and lying out in the full sun."

"Ummm ..." one said, "excuse me?"

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller smiled.

"My mother is a paramedic," he explained, "and she taught me it's easier to prevent than to treat. If you two dehydrate, you'll develop leg cramps and kidney stones. You don't want 'em. My father has had both."  

He smiled.

"It's policy that a lawman doesn't accept edible gifts, even if it's sealed bottles of water, so here's a gift card for each of you. Please. Voice of experience. Rehydrate yourselves!"

Jacob smiled, turned, walked out the front door: they saw him mount an Appaloosa stallion, turn, ride off.

Two men in green work uniforms looked at one another, looked at the prepaid gift cards, looked at where a lean young lawman just rode off on horseback.

When two men in green work uniforms departed, each had the anticipated coffee in one hand, and a sandwich under the arm, but each also had a bottle of water in the other hand.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ANTIDOTE

"Jaysus, Mary, an' Joseph," Sean whispered, crossing himself as he spoke the potent words of a man in distress: he lifted the bedcovers from the side, enough to expose the woman's hand: he already knew she was dead, but he wanted to gauge her stiffness, and found her fingers were only just starting to stiffen.

He drew the bedcovers back down over the discolored hand, then he drew the covers slowly, respectfully over the still face.

A man seized his arm, groaned "Nooooo, she can't breathe like that," then he let go of Sean's muscled arm, backed up, eyes wide with horror, with realization, with the grief of a man who woke to find his wife dead in bed beside him.

Sean came out of bed like he'd been clap boarded across his backside:  no one hammered on a man's door before sunup unless it was fire, murder or the cows were out, and as Sean had no cows, but he was the white helmet Chieftain of their Irish Brigade, he drove sock feet into his boots, hauled up his drawers and thumbed his galluses over his shoulder as he reached for his white, pressed-leather helmet and legged it for the door.

It hadn't been a fire.

His neighbor, a quiet and hard working man, gasping, shaking, gesturing:  Sean seized the man's shoulders -- "Steady on, lad, wha' ha'e we?" -- the man pointed, then twisted, ran, Sean behind him, and Daisy behind Sean, their firstborn after his mother, and curious blue-eyed, red-headed Irish young looking after.

Daisy was as swift a runner as any: she seized up her nightgown, sprinting after her husband, whose gait seemed deceptively slow until one considered just how much ground each manly stride covered -- three figures ran through the first streaks of sunrise red, lancing over the far horizon toward them -- they ran into an open door, up the stairs, into a bedroom: the man stopped, seized the bedpost to keep from keeling over, and in a half-groan, half-cry, almost whispered, "Darlin', wake for me," and then he collapsed to his knees as Sean tapped the still form beside her half-open eye, as he laid gentle fingers against her cheek.

Daisy turned; their oldest was just coming into the room.

"Run for th' doctor," she said quietly. 

A red-headed Irish lad ran, barefoot, in his nightshirt, for their fine little hospital.

 

Captain Crane rubbed his forehead, took a long breath, blew it out.

"You know," he said quietly.  "You just know."

Shelly lay a gentle hand on her Daddy's arm, nodded.

The call came in before sunrise: when a call comes in at that hour, experience told them, it's more often than not a death.

They'd been right.

The coroner was there in short order, and the Sheriff: it was just outside the corp limits, so it was the Sheriff's jurisdiction -- county, not municipality -- the Captain guided the elderly husband into their kitchen, sat him down, reheated coffee for the man: they talked quietly, as the widower stared into the steaming, fragrant beverage his wife made for him the day before, and left cold in the pot to be reheated as needed, as she always did.

He swallowed hard.

"The last words we'd say to one another," he said, his throat tight, "were 'I love you,' and we'd fall asleep holding hands."  He shook his head.  "Forty years and more we were married, and this was the first mornin' she didn't ... she wasn't holdin' my hand and she didn't ... I told her I loved her and she didn't reply."

Crane nodded.

He, too, was a widower, and knew what it was to wake and find his own wife dead, her fingers stiffening as this man's wife was, gone too long for any hope of resuscitation.

Shelly spoke quietly with the Sheriff and the coroner, helped transfer the deceased from her own bed onto the mortuary cot: they slipped quietly out the front door.

Helmets and Stetsons were removed as the covered body was dollied to the funeral coach.

Shelly waited until the mortician was underway before going back inside.

 

The Irish Brigade was subdued at breakfast: Sean was solemn, very unlike his jovial self.

He'd known the neighbor for some years now, and liked the man; his wife was a sweetheart, and sometimes came over with a fresh loaf of bread, or a pie, or a kettle of stew for the Brigade: the general mood in the firehouse was one almost of defeat.

 

Chief Fitzgerald took his turn with breakfast dishes, as he always did: the engineer watched him sidelong, gauging the Chief's mood.

Fitz glanced over.

"I knew them both," he said quietly.

The engineer nodded.

"Knew 'em for years."

The engineer rinsed another plate, stacked it in the drain rack.

Fitz scrubbed the last plate, frowning the way he did when he was thinking, and the engineer saw the man's jaw thrust slowly out.

The last plate, the last dish, was washed, rinsed, stacked to drain: silverware, clean and rinsed, went into its own drain cup to drain and air dry with the plates.

 

Two chiefs, more than a century apart, looked around the inside of the same firehouse, and came to the same conclusion.

The morning's sorrowful discovery lay heavy over the firehouse, then and now, and the Chief, then and now, looked around and gauged his men the same way his engineer gauged him.

It is very likely both men trod an identical path from the firehouse to their little whitewashed church -- or, rather, to the Parsonage attached on its downhill side.

Neither history, letters, diaries nor journals record just what transpired, there at the parsonage, but there are multiple accounts of what transpired, later that same day; those who were inclined to inquire into such matters, researched the old original accounts, and when the weekly edition of The Firelands Gazette came out the next day, in the very center, were two accounts, each page mirroring the other.

On the front page, a shot of their pumper, in front of their little whitewashed church: a bride, in gown and veil, stepping onto a peach crate and the onto the tailboard of the first-out firefighting engine, and beside it, an engraved image of their steam machine, with bride and groom where the German Irishman normally rode: the caption referred to the article within, and when the paper was laid open, the left-hand page was a reprint of an account from the 1880s: an engraving of their Steam Masheen with its three-horse hitch, matched white mares, surging hard against padded collars; standing in the driver's box, their very own Irish fire chieftain, whip curling in mid-air, reins in his off hand, looking stern and serious as he drove: on the tailboard, where the engineer normally rode, a bride and groom, laughing and clutching a handhold as they were run through town: the mirror page, the modern-day page, the bride's veil and gown flowing in their slipstream, one hand gripping the chrome crossbar, her other arm around her husband, bouquet still clutched in her hand: then and now, each Chief knew how to snatch the wet blanket of discouragement from his firehouse: and whether the newlyweds are run through town on a horse-drawn, smoking, steam-whistling, polished Ahrens steam engine, or whether they're on the tailboard of a shining red Kenworth powered Pierce pumper, screaming through town with air horns and with the great gusting laughter of red-wool, bib-fronted firemen, they were happily subjected to the same rough humor as was common when Firelands was yet the frontier.

A wise chief knows his men, and a wise chief will do his best to apply the necessary antidote to a situation, and as delightful and memorable as it was for the happy couple, it was equally necessary to lift the spirits of men whose job it was to take care of whatever was wrong.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NOISY AS A COUPLE OF GHOSTS

Marnie was off duty, and as she often was, when off duty, she was in a denim skirt, a silk blouse, and her gleaming, polished, spotless, trademark, red cowboy boots: her long, thick, auburn hair was braided, as she commonly kept it, in twin braids: those who knew her, knew that if her braids were swinging free, either over her shoulders in front, or behind her, all was well and she was a laughing, very pretty young woman.

Gracie Daine watched as Marnie's eyes turned a distinctly lighter shade, as she casually took her braids and began wrapping them around her neck, one clockwise, one counterclockwise, the ends securely tucked.

Gracie was home from the Navy, and more than delighted that Marnie was home from college.

Gracie, as was her habit, was in a nondescript dress, she wore tights and work socks and a scuffed and dusty pair of work boots:  where Marnie generally rode a spirited, dancing, shining-copper mare, Gracie commonly rode an undistinguished, dark grey, sleepy looking mule.

Both mounts were outside, in evening's shadow, hidden on the windowless side the concrete block building.

Marnie slipped a hand her vest, shifted ever so slightly, and Gracie drew her hand-forged Damascus blade from its sleeve sheath into her hand, laid the blade back along her forearm, looked at her old and dear friend: the look they shared said Ready, and two young women moved like a pair of ghosts out the propped-open front door of the All-Night.

Two pair of eyes saw them leave: one pair was shining-black, like polished obsidian; the other pair was glacier's-heart white, but theirs were the only eyes to see the ladies depart, for every other pair of eyes in the house was on the two lawmen, and the three they faced.

Paul Barrents wore the department issue selfloader on his belt; Jacob, on the other hand, had a single action .44 in a carved gunrig, and this was the subject of sneering derision.

One of the three demanded that Jacob justify his choice of carry.

"Mister," Jacob said quietly, and those who knew the pale eyed deputy, knew that when he spoke quietly under stress, it meant that he was more than willing to rip someone's guts out and strangle them with same, "I do not justify myself to you or to anyone else."

"I think I'll take my Glock and --"

Two deputies took a fast sidestep: they moved apart, one with a pair of single action .44s cocked and aimed, the other with a double handful of combat Tupperware.

"Hands in plain view," Jacob almost drawled, "do exactly as I say or you will be shot."

The living tableau inside the All-Night froze, at least until the metallic shak-shak! of a pump gun slamming into battery shocked the three into panicked flight.

The night clerk followed them with the muzzle of her stubby twelve-gauge, but held fire: Jacob laid his thumbs over hammer spurs, powered into a pursuing sprint.

 

Three strangers, three who had themselves confused with someone important, dove into their car: the nozzle was still in the gas fill when they screamed a few miles' worth of rubber onto the pavement, as they took out, as the pump island shut down and the alarm light began flashing to show the breakaway had done just that.

An arm stuck out the passenger front, one out the passenger rear, Jacob saw bright bursts from the gunmuzzles: Jacob saw a rifle's muzzle thrust out from behind another gas pump, the Winchester's nitro powder crack echoing down off the overhead canopy: a second rifle shot and the arm stuck out the back window went limp, and Barrents realized the front seat passenger's head was hanging at an odd angle, just before the car rammed at full throttle into the concrete abutment where a culvert ran from the ditch across under the roadway.

Marnie stood up, very deliberately opened the Winchester's action, sending the spinning .30-30 hull into the air:  she closed the action briskly, laid a thumb over the hammer, looked at Jacob.

Three cold-eyed deputies walked up on the steaming, idling car: the radiator was cracked at the very least.

Jacob pulled out a small, powerful flashlight, looked inside, looked at the driver.

"You just hold real still," he said, his voice hard, cold and unforgiving.  "I'll call the ambulance for you but you are under arrest. These two shot at me and that makes you complicit to attempted murder of a law enforcement officer."  He allowed himself a thin smile.

"In case you didn't know, that's a death penalty crime, and hangin' is still legal in this county."

 

Sheriff Linn Keller placed a numbered yellow-plastic chevron beside each of the fired casings, beside each of the dropped pistols: dollars to doughnuts they were stolen, they generally were.

He looked at the ambulance, at the rescue which was the second-out ambulance: one man with his neck in a collar, belted down on the cot, the other with his arm well bandaged, similarly secured.

The coroner was on his way to view the body of the third individual, the one who inherited a .30-30 through the head after it went through the arm of the back-seat gunner.

Sheriff Linn Keller walked up to his daughter, looked very directly into her pale eyes.

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Good."  

Pause.

"I see you've wrapped your braids around your neck."

"Yes I have."

"Good."

He looked at Gracie.

"You okay, darlin'?"

Gracie nodded.

"Jacob."

"Yes, sir."

"Did you fire shots?"

"No, sir."

"Any other casualties?"

"No, sir."

"How many rounds did they get off?"

"Four and two, sir. Four from the front seat, two from the back seat."

"I'll check the All-Night for damage. We'll try to account for the fired rounds."

"Yes, sir."

"I'll call the shots-fired team."

"Yes, sir."

Linn looked around.  "What started this?"

"Youthful stupidity, sir. The deceased had himself confused with someone knowledgeable. Demanded I justify my choice of sidearms. I told him no. He said he had a Glock that would put me to shame. Paul and I introduced the three of 'em to our gun muzzles and told 'em hands in plain view and do as I say. When Susie behind the counter shucked her bird gun into battery, they ran."

Sheriff Linn Keller nodded, looking into the All-Night, at the curious and apprehensive faces looking back at them.

"Jacob, you're with one prisoner, Paul, with the other."

"Yes, sir," two deputies said, and strode for the shining-red rigs, climbed in the back.

"Marnie."

Marnie looked at her Daddy, lifted her chin ... defiantly, it seemed.

"I'll not ask you any questions. That will be for the shots-fired team. You have 72 hours before you're required to make a statement. Meanwhile I'll review the cameras."

He looked at her and she saw his eyes soften, just a little.

"I'm damned glad you're not hurt."

"Tell Jacob that too."

"I will."

 

Susie was visibly shaking as Linn came into the All-Night.

Linn came around the counter, gathered her into his arms:  she clung to him, shivering, buried her face in his chest, allowing herself to release the fear and the stress she'd been holding in.

Linn held her and let her shake, waited until she steadied, then looked down at her healthy, freckled, farm-girl complexion.

"Susie," he whispered, "thank you for watching out for my deputies."

Susie closed her eyes and shivered, he felt her take a long shuddering breath, then she looked up at him and said in a small voice, "Your Mama taught us we can curl up and whimper and die, or we can smite the Philistines and run screaming into battle."

"Darlin'," Linn smiled, "I would say you handled your jaw bone of a jack mule just fine.  Do you suppose I could trouble you for the surveillance recordings for tonight?"

Susie nodded, a little jerkily; she was the owner's daughter, she had keys to everything, and by the time her father got there, Susie already had the information downloaded to a pair of discs, with copies for both the Sheriff and the State Police shots-fired team.

Linn interviewed everyone in the All-Night: the man could become who he needed to be, and he did not formally interview, as much as he had a quiet, individual conversation with everyone there -- at least that's how it seemed with everyone he spoke with: like any good interrogator, he had the gift of getting inside someone's confidence, and to do that, he used his personal knowledge of the people of his county.

I need to talk to Mama and thank her for teaching me that, he thought, then the realization that his Mama was cold and dead and six foot under, in the family plot in the Firelands graveyard, walked up and belted him across the face with a cold dead fish, and he found himself obliged to stop, and close his eyes, and take a deep and steadying breath.

Susie came out from behind the counter -- by then the place was empty, the way it will occasionally -- she walked over to Linn.

"Sheriff," she said, "when everything started over here -- in front of the coffee dispensers -- Marnie and Gracie were back here, and they faded back and out the door."  She turned, watching the action play out again on the screen behind her forehead.  "I remember Marnie wrapped her braids around her neck and they slipped out just as noisy as a couple of ghosts."

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PEACEFULLLY, OR OTHERWISE

It is not possible for a woman to scream for thirty seconds nonstop.

It is not possible for a set of human lungs to contain air enough for a full-throated, full-powered, charge-into-battle, opera-trained, mad-as-hell SCREAM for more than about five, maybe six seconds.

Men fell, bleeding; men slammed to the ground with their own agonies, whether shouted, or groaned, or hissed out between teeth clenched against the bloody foam that was the last statement of their lives: Marnie laid about her attackers with speed and with ferocity and with two blades and with an absolute lack of mercy.

Marnie Keller, Sheriff of the Second Martian Colony, wore a calico gown with a long skirt, she wore a white, flat-crowned, woven-straw hat with a swallowtail ribbon in back, and she wore a smile, at least until a voice shouted "IT'S HER! GET HER!" and something like a fist drove deep into her middle.

Marnie was smiling and holding the Ambassador's arm, she'd just dismounted from a polished, shining, glossy-black carriage with yellow and red pin striping, pulled by one of the stoutest-looking, most muscle-bulging horses she'd ever seen, a horse that drew the enclosed brougham as if it were towing a postage-stamp: it was a State visit to Sevenworld, Marnie's favorite: she and her brother had been obliged to enforce the peace, and had done so: it was a frontier world, and Marnie and her brother spoke the language they understood, and this was her first return.

The Ambassador assured her they would be well received, and perhaps they would have been, had those associates of persons seized by the hard hand of the law, not sought revenge: in the moments while her confused brain was sorting out the sensations of having just been shot, Marnie heard her Gammaw's voice, quiet and confident:

"When you put someone in prison, they don't forget you, and their family doesn't forget you, and their associates don't forget you."

The Ambassador, shocked, felt Marnie flinch, heard her grunt: he was a man of persuasion, yes, a man of reason and of discussion, but he had been a soldier, in his time: his gloved thumb slipped under the tab of his flap holster, wrapped around the Navy Colt's smooth walnut handle, brought out the .36 percussion as two shots splintered through the brougham beside his head.

Marnie felt the world rolling to the left: she powered her foot into the ground, stopping the world's movement by main strength alone, she released the Ambassador's arm, went down, down, falling down a long dark deep well --

The earth rose up to meet her --

Marnie felt the cobbles slam into her shoulder, into her back --

A great wet black nose filled her vision --

Bear Killer?

What are you doing here?

Marnie's ears heard her own heartbeat, heard the loud snuffing breath of her curly furred guardian, then she heard a concussion, another:  the Ambassador was seized, thrown, trampled, hard hands laid onto Marnie's gown, jerked her off the ground.

Marnie saw The Bear Killer's wise, dark eyes, she heard his thoughts.

You have a choice, she heard.

Join me, and be free of pain.

We will run the mountains again, and you will be young, and laughing, and free, and I will be young, and running with you.

Something drove into Marnie's ribs -- she felt it as if from a distance, felt something break --

A fist, she thought detachedly --

I'm in shock, I can't feel pain --

Something detonated inside her.

Marnie Keller, heir to the pale eyed bloodline, carried an hereditary curse.

Another race called it the Berserkergang: Marnie called it The Beast, it was the Rage that lived within her, scaly, powerful, dangerous: she'd had to learn to control it, and with her pale eyed Gammaw's help, with her pale eyed father's help, she'd contained it, she'd hidden it, she'd confined it.

Until now.

Marnie was on a State visit, a gust of the Ambassador, and therefore entitled to all Ambassadorial courtesies, to all Ambassadorial protections.

They rode without guards, without a surrounding screen of protection, and now ...

... now Sheriff Marnie Keller, of the Second Martian Colony, came off the ground at the top of her lungs.

As a guest of the Ambassador, and against her better judgement, Marnie went unarmed to Sevenworld, or so it appeared: she lacked her trademark Smith & Wesson belted around her trim middle, but she had her blades, hidden in the handmade gown tailored for just such a purpose, and when Marnie came off the ground, it was at the top of her lungs, and fighting.

She fought with edge and point, she fought with pommel and she fought with her knees and her sharp little heels: if it's posssible for a tornado to wear calico, if a Texas cyclone can wear a long skirt, this one did: men shrank back, partly because of the sustained scream, partly because their close-pressed numbers were being scythed down in a blood and in pain and in an impossible flare of skirting.

One blade broke and Marnie never slowed. 

A feminine hand caught a forearm coming in, seized, twisted: bone breaking is one of the more painful agonies that can be felt, and when two bones break and are badly displaced, the effect is immobilizing and blinding: thirty seconds of full-voiced scream, with men packed too close to escape: two more shots were heard, the octagon barrel pistol seized and employed as a weapon, and now men died from honed steel and bludgeoning steel as well: Marnie slowed as the crowd pulled back, ran, fled in terror, and suddenly she was alone, gunbarrel in hand, with splintered wood and a percussion lockwork barely attached, her handmade Damascus knife in her left: blood stood out bright on her parchment-pale face, her breathing was ragged, she was coughing blood: she turned, snarling, crouched, eyes wide, eyes dead shining ice pale, teeth bared, the image of Death itself:  twice did she turn, then she looked at the brougham.

The driver was long gone, the horse was standing patiently, the Ambassador was on the ground, not moving.

Marnie straightened, walked over to the groaning man, picked up his revolver, clicked it through: he'd gotten off three shots before he was avalanched.

"Bear Killer," Marnie whispered, sagged, fell back, sitting upright against the shining, black-enamel, pinstriped, carriage wheel's spokes.

Part of her mind remembered reaching inside the Ambassador's bloodied coat, finding the emergency commo.

She slid her thumb under the spring loaded shield, pressed, held for a long three-count.

 

Valkyrie Squadron dismounted.

The original Interceptors rested on inclined launch ramps in the underground bays.

The Valkyrie interceptors had no such need: their newer augments meant they disappeared from here and reappeared there.

They used powered flight, of course, which was necessary for shorter range travel, but when Gracie felt Marnie's Rage, when she felt Marnie's distress, her augmented mind-link with Valkyrie Squadron meant the entire squadron appeared in the launch bay.

Cockpits opened downward, like great sleek dangerous birds of prey opening their metallic beaks.

Young women wearing shining black helmets released their belts, stood, walked confidently toward their wing commander.

Commander Hake came into the bay almost at a run.

"The Sheriff is down," Nancy said, and her husband's face paled significantly.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller felt like he'd been gut punched.

He was grateful for a lifetime of practice, keeping a poker face was a way of life with him, and it served him well here.

"Our Ambassador is badly injured," the serious-faced young man in the grey uniform said: "your daughter has been shot and is in surgery."

"Advise assistance required," Sheriff Linn Keller said, his voice tight.

"You may want to get here, sir. We will provide an iris."

"Location of iris."

"Your choice, sir."

"Inside my barn."

"Can do, sir."

Sheriff Linn Keller picked up his phone, punched in a number.

"Fitz?  Linn.  Let me speak to my wife."

Pause.

"Dearest? Grab your warbag, the big one. Marnie's been shot."

 

Dr. John Greenlees, M.D., carefully knotted his young son's necktie.

"Sir?" John Junior said.

"Yes?"

"Sir, is Mama gonna die?"

"Yes, she is," Dr. Greenlees said, working the knot up into position.

He laid a fatherly hand on his son's shoulder.

"We will all die, John. Death is the natural end of life. I doubt if your Mama is going to die just yet, though."

A little girl looked at her Daddy with worried eyes.

"I don't want my Mommy to die," she said, her voice very near to tears.

Dr. John Greenlees gathered his children to him, held them tight, tight.

"I don't either," he whispered.  "Knowing your Mama, if Death walks in the room, she'll turn him around, bend him over and kick his bony backside up between his shoulder blades!"

 

Paul Barrents rode up beside Jacob.

Barrents preferred a riding mule, and always had: he'd bought this one off Gracie, when she went into the Navy, and it had proven a steady and reliable mount. 

His mule wasn't terribly fast, but it had stamina, and in the mountains, Paul preferred staying power to blazing speed.

He glared his black Navajo eyes at father and son before they could say anything.

"She's family," he snapped, and Linn and Jacob looked at one another and nodded.

Five they were:  father, son, brother, sister and family by choice.

Five rode into the Iris, and disappeared.

 

Dr. Greenlees slapped the incoming button.

"What is it!" he snapped, the stress of knowing his wife was there, and under another physician's knife, uncharacteristically abbreviating his normally calm temper.

"Dr. Greenlees, this is Dr. Whitechapel. I'm the surgeon who operated on your wife. Stand by for report."

Dr. Jonn Greenlees sat, leaned forward, frowned. "Go on, Doctor."

He listened to the clinical words, the precise description: the surgeon described regrowing the damaged half of her kidney, rather than removing the damaged organ as might have been done in Dr. Greenlees' world; he described having rewoven, regrowing, reconnecting nerve fibers, something utterly beyond Dr. Greenlees' experience; he described realigning, reconnecting, and biologically welding the broken ribs -- "I will not go so far as to say she won't be a walking predictor of an approaching thunderstorm, but it's not likely she'll experience any discomfort from the procedure, short or long term."

Two children stood to the side, solemn-faced, listening: they grew up in an atmosphere where professional language was part of the everyday vocabulary, and between what they heard, and what they saw on their Daddy's carefully-impassive face, they relaxed, just a little.

After the surgeon's report, after their Daddy asked some questions, he received another call: it was one of the Ambassador's men, who said they were sending an iris:  Dr. Greenlees directed them to project it here, in his office.

A dignified physician in an old-fashioned black suit and tie, with two children, one holding each hand -- the little boy, in a suit and knee pants and necktie, a little girl with finger-curls and a little straw hat and a paisley frock, stepped together through the round black opening, and disappeared.

 

Bear Killer, what are you doing here?

I never left.

I missed you.

I missed you too.

I've decided to stay.

Good.

Will I see you again?

 

"MY NAME IS SHERIFF LINN KELLER," he said, his voice loud and harsh.

"I don't give a damn who you are," a voice snapped from halfway down the bar.

Jacob took three long strides and drove the butt of his shotgun into the man's kidneys:  Linn cycled the fore-end of his riot gun -- Shak-shak BOOM! -- and a charge of 00 buck drove into the beer joint's ceiling, guaranteeing he had everyone's undivided attention.

He slid a red round into the magazine, then another: his street howitzer now had a full magazine, and one up the pipe, and he was more than willing to make use of every round.

"My little girl," he said, "was attacked not a quarter mile from here. Her name is Sheriff Marnie Keller and she was with the Ambassador. She was shot. I want to know who shot her and who all was involved and I don't care who I have to cut apart to find out and I don't care if I have to cut every living soul to ribbons."  His eyes were very pale and his face was corpse-white and stretched tight over his cheek bones.

"First one to tell me what I want to know gets a beer."

 

Marnie sat beside the Ambassador's bed, her hand in his.

"Good morning," she said softly.

The Ambassador's eyes opened, closed halfway.

"Don't try to move. You had several broken bones."

"It feels like it."

"You also had some ... they found something they have to fix."

"I know."

He looked at her, fighting the narcotic that almost held back the pain.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I should not have ... insisted ... diplomatic ..."

Marnie smiled.  "Don't worry," she said quietly, leaning closer so he could hear.  "If you ever tell me to disarm again, I'm going to deck you right in front of God and everybody!"

"Do that," the Ambassador agreed, grimacing.

Marnie rose, carefully -- for all that their medicine was remarkably advanced, she found herself obliged to move carefully until she was completely healed -- the nurses murmured politely that the Ambassador was being taken for another treatment.

Marnie held up a hand, took the Ambassador's again, gripped it firmly.

"Look here, handsome," she said firmly, "I will not countenance any but a full recovery, do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he whispered, and managed a little bit of a smile.

Marnie did not release his hand.  "I'm serious," she said. "I love a good waltz and you are the only man I've waltzed with who doesn't step on my toes or my gown either one."  She grinned -- she didn't smile, she grinned, and he saw the maiden she'd once been, behind that smile -- "well, besides my father!"

Marnie stepped back, watched the Ambassador being rolled out the door.

A knock on the doorframe, a young woman in a grey uniform dress, scarlet shoulder tabs and lapel points designating her a member of the Ambassadorial staff:  "Sheriff?  You have visitors, please come with me."

 

Marnie gave a happy little squeak as she threw herself into her Daddy's arms, hugged him: he hugged her back, but very carefully:  he didn't know how or where she was hurt, and he was honestly surprised to see her on her feet:  he'd expected her to be pale and silent in a hospital bed.

Jacob stood back, holding Angela's hand:  she was bouncing on her toes, clearly wanting to rush up and grab her Big Sis, and when Marnie went to one knee and opened her arms, she did.

 

Later that day, Marnie held another woman's hands, held both of them in both of hers: she turned, nodded to a dignified man in a black suit.

"Mrs. Ambassador," she said formally, "may I introduce my husband, Dr. John Greenlees, late of Earth and of Mars."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GOOD!

 

Angela twisted, weightless, unable to breathe: one knife was gone, driven into the sandpaper skin of some saltwater creature she barely convulsed away from: she turned, eyes burning, scalding, she dare not shut her eyes against the agony --

Something dark, fast moving, coming in --

The sound of impact --

Angela woke, shivering, sweating, clutching her bedclothes: instead of a knife, she had a bunched-up handful of bedsheet, and instead of drowning in the cold Pacific, she was shivering, gasping, in her own bed, in her own home, under her own roof.

She sat upright, eyes wide, staring at the far wall, chanting the silent mantra I'm safe, I'm home, I'm safe, I'm home, I'm safe, I'm home, calming her breathing, slowing her heart, soothing her shivering limbs, wishing she had something on her stomach so she could at least throw up.

Angela threw back her covers, found her red-and-gold embroidered Turkish slippers, stood: she was damp and sticky and she wished for a hot bath, but it was God knows how early in the morning and there is no way she would disturb the girl to fire the stove and draw her bathwater and heat more to fill the slipper tub:  no, she would make her ablutions silently, alone in the nighttime house.

Angela drifted down the stairs, a ghost with braided hair, stepping carefully, counting as she went; as a child, she made a game of moving silently, and she memorized which steps squeaked, which one step gave a sudden *crack* instead of a good honest groan; she shifted her weight, stepping to the far right, then the far left, the far left two more steps, and down.

Angela carefully, quietly, tapped water out of the stove's reservoir: she washed herself quickly, efficiently, toweled herself, alone in the darkness of their back room: she was still restless, she was wide awake, her night's terrors not far below her calmed surface.

Angela pulled on her still-damp flannel nightdress, opened the back door, stepped outside, grateful for the cool air.

She looked around, breathing deep of the night, of its stillness.

A shadow detached itself from the corner of the house, padded over to her:  The Bear Killer snuffed loudly at her legs, leaned companionably against her, groaned with pleasure as she rubbed his shoulders: she felt his body move as his great, powerful tail swung its silent happiness.

Angela squatted, caressed The Bear Killer, whispered "I'm so glad you're here, Bear Killer," and The Bear Killer laid his great head over her shoulder and groaned his quiet delight that he too shared the night with another restless soul.

Angela blinked, looked into that dark face, those shining eyes, bright in the setting moonlight.

"I had that nightmare again," she whispered, and The Bear Killer began washing her face:  Angela grimaced, giggled, turned her head, and The Bear Killer's muzzle nuzzled her hair and he began industriously laundering her behind her left ear, as he'd done since she was a very little girl.

Angela submitted to his ministrations, then stood, looked around.

She remembered how the ship sounded.

Not a crash ... a crash would be too high-pitched.

Almost a boom, and the splinter of timbers, and Angela ran for the stairs, for the deck.

She laid herself hard against the mast, pressing herself into the straight grain of what was once a tall fir, proud and strong in the Eastern mountains, now a skeletal shaft holding sails and stays: men ran, shouting, boats lowered, but not quickly enough:  men jumped as their dying ship rolled, and Angela climbed onto the mast as she rolled over, as the mast lay level, as the dying ship groaned like it was in great pain.

Angela jumped a little as the waters rose; she shucked out of her enveloping gown, she swam in her frillies, and then she heard the first scream.

She turned -- her hair was braided in preparation for bed, though she was not yet undressed -- she saw something roll out of the water, a triangular fin: a sailor -- she remembered him, he had a golden earring and a pleasant smile -- jerked as if he'd been punched, then he went under: a single hand emerged, clutching, seeking anything, anything -- and then it, too, was gone.

Angela's knives were in her hands, her hands were fisted around their wire-wound handles: she remembered Jacob's wife Annette telling her to avoid the Barbary coast, avoid San Frisco if at all possible, that she was nearly taken, to be sold: that if Angela were taken by pirates, that she should take her own life rather than end up locked in a slave's collar, chained in a hareem, branded and sold to a heathen Pasha.

Angela swam with knives in hand, at least until something bumped her, something that felt like sandpaper.

Angela took a quick breath, shoved her face under, opened her eyes, looked around.

The agony was almost blinding.

She would have slammed her eyes shut against the pain but for the dark shape coming at her, an accusing finger of death --

Angela rolled, stroked, turned --

A fin, headed her way --

A breath, a dive --

She drove one knife into its gills -- she missed the eye -- whatever it was didn't swim, it convulsed, trailing a dark streak: another came up, fast, hit the Leviathan amidships, ramming it with a hard nose.

Angela fought for the surface, took a breath.

Something came up under her, something smooth: she gripped the dorsal, she wrapped her legs around something long and living and she found herself towed toward white foam, living white lines of ocean water, foaming against --

Shoreline! --

Angela Keller, the pretty young daughter of the pale eyed Sheriff, sent by His Honor the Judge on an investigation, waded ashore in her shoes and her stockings and her corset, with a knife in one hand: she turned, but her unseen savior was gone:  she took a few more steps, then bent over, coughing, and threw up what felt like a hogshead of seawater.

Angela Keller threw her head back, took a deep breath of clean mountain air: she didn't remember sitting down, but sitting she was, and The Bear Killer sat with her.

Angela's breathing was fast, deep: she calmed herself with an effort, she put her arm around The Bear Killer's shoulders, leaned her head against his.

"I was so scared," she whispered, and she felt The Bear Killer lay his chin over top her head and groan a little, and then he gave a quiet whuff as if to say that she was safe and he would keep her safe.

 

"Daddy,"  another Angela asked, in another century, "we need to talk."

When a little girl-child of ten years uses the dreaded phrase of a grown woman, it not uncommonly draws a surprised look from one, or perhaps both, parents.

Sheriff Linn Keller looked at his darlin' daughter and nodded a little.  

"What's on your mind?"

"Daddy, I don't want to disappoint you."

Linn frowned a little, gave her a serious look.

"So far you haven't," he said carefully. "Is there something you need to tell me?"

Angela nodded.  "You and Mommy were talking about a sailing ship."

Linn and Shelly exchanged a look: they hadn't spoken of tentative vacation plans with their young, mostly because they'd discussed and then dismissed the possibility.

"Daddy, do you remember reading to me about Angela Keller back when, and how and His Honor the Judge wanted to use her to find out stuff like the Black Agent only Angela's ship foundered and sank an' she had to kill a shark an' a dolphin towed her ashore an' she nearly drownded?"

Linn's lifetime of self discipline nearly failed him.

He'd carefully schooled himself in maintaining a poker face, but when his little fourth-grade daughter gave him such an uninterrupted rush of words, had he not been well practiced as he was, he would have laughed -- and he knew that laughter, at this moment, could close doors and bruise feelings and damage any future communication with his pretty little girl-child.

Linn laid down knife and fork and slid his plate away from him.

He rose a little, turned his chair to face Angela squarely, then he stood again and slid his chair over.

Angela stood and turned her chair to face her Daddy.

Linn hunched over with his elbows on his knees and took Angela's soft little hands in his big man-sized hands, and he looked deep into his little girl's eyes and said softly, "Darlin', you have my undivided.  I remember reading you that."

Angela looked half-hopefuly, half-sadly at her Daddy.

"Idawanna ruinit the vacation Daddy but Idawanna go onnit the sailin' ship," she nearly stammered.

Linn slid out of his chair, went down onto his Prayer Bones: he lifted his little girl, hugged her into him:  he held her, tight, his eyes closed, feeling her warmth, her restlessness, her life!

Angela felt her Daddy take a big deep Daddy-breath, and then she felt his words puffing warm and whispery and tickly against her ear.

"Darlin'," he said, "are you done with breakfast?"

"Yes, Daddy," she whispered.

"Let's you and me take a walk."

"Okay, Daddy."

Linn released his little girl, watched as she scampered to the front door to put her shoes on: he looked at Shelly and said "My dear, forgive me, but another woman wishes to claim my time," and he said it so innocently that Shelly could not help but laugh:  she nodded, for she well remembered time her own Daddy spent with her.

Father and daughter walked outside, and out to the barn, and a little past: they stopped to look over the pasture, Linn looking over the fence, Angela climbing up a board or two until she could as well.

"Your Mama and I," Linn finally said, "decided we really didn't want to go on a sailin' ship."

Angela looked at her Daddy, surprised.  "Why, Daddy?" she asked. "You sounded like it would be fun!"

Linn looked at Angela, then looked the other way, looked back.

He chewed on his bottom lip and frowned, and finally admitted, "Your Mama gets so dreadfully seasick, darlin'. She didn't dare try it for fear of havin' to bend over the rail for the whole trip!"

"Oh," Angela said in a small voice.

Angela turned her head and looked at her Daddy.

"Then I don't have to worry about sharkses or swimmin' in the salt water."

"Nope," Linn said firmly.

Angela looked out over the pasture, gave a single, emphatic, twin-braids-bobbing, "Good!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHEN LINN MET SHELLY

Linn pulled unnecessarily at the saddle blanket.

It was just thrown over the top board of the corral, it could have been wrinkled or folded in two and it wouldn't have mattered, but he felt self conscious and he felt his ears heating up and he grabbed the blanket and give it a pull and yanked every last wrinkle out of it, took a long breath.

Apple-horse waited patiently, knowing he was going to be saddled: he neither minded, nor did he resent: he waited patiently, his head turned toward the newcomer that smelled of apples, hoping for another tasty bribe.

Linn grabbed the near stirrup, threw it up over the saddle horn.

He opened his mouth to comment about how the stirrup always, every time, without exception, fell unerringly on the hammer spur of the horseman's holstered revolver and that's why a man only carried five beans in the wheel, but then he stopped and said nothing, because he was in the company of someone he'd had a crush on for a very long time, and he knew she'd just lost her mother, and for the life of him he couldn't think of anything intelligent to say.

He gripped the saddle blanket, gave it a little flip and a tug, turned: it was something he'd done often, he was practiced at it, the woven pad caught the air and planed perfectly, exactly where he wanted it, and the saddle blanket draped itself flawlessly over --

-- the bare ground.

Apple-horse wasn't there.

Shelly giggled as Linn looked at the blanket, half dismayed, half accusing, his mouth opening and then biting shut as if to prevent something from leaving his mouth that he didn't want anyone to hear:  he bent over to snatch up the blanket.

Apple-horse, who'd silently swapped ends and backed up a couple of steps, eased forward and delicately, precisely, peeled back his rubbery horse lips and clamped strong yellow teeth on Linn's exposed bandana, very neatly pickpocketed the lean-waisted young man, nodded his head vigorously, waving the bandanna like a captured trophy flag.

Linn spun the saddle blanket back up onto the corral's top rail, leaned his head sideways a little, planted his knuckles on his gunbelt.

"Do you have to do this when I have company?" he complained.

Apple-horse nodded again, clearly enjoying himself.

Linn walked up, gripped the bandana with one hand, tugged: he pulled a cellophane wrapped peppermint from a vest pocket, pulled:  at the brittle crackle, Apple-horse happily surrendered the bandanna, thrust his nose at the delicacy, snuffed loudly:  Linn held the red-and-white hard candy out on a flat palm, and Apple-horse rubber-lipped it with a surprising delicacy, crunching happily.

Linn rubbed his stallion's neck, murmuring to him -- actually threatening him with seven kinds of violence, cocking a fist and then shaking his finger at the stallion -- he led Apple-horse back to where he'd been, turned, gripped the saddle blanket, then released it and turned back quickly.

Apple-horse looked at him with an equine equivalent of an innocent expression.

Shelly, for her part, was red-faced, the back of her bent wrist pressed to her lips:  she'd been giving considerable effort not to laugh, for she knew Linn was trying hard to make a good impression, or at least not make a bad one; she knew what it was to be nervous, to have a crush on someone, and not want to make an absolute fool of herself: Linn turned away from the spotted saddlehorse, reached for the saddleblanket, and Apple snaked his head forward, snapped at the bandanna again.

Linn seized the saddleblanket, a pull, a snap of the wrist, the blanket planed neatly over Apple's back: Linn smoothed it, patted Apple's flank, turned and gripped the saddle.

He turned, looked: the horse was still there, unmoving.

Grip, turn, hoist: the saddle described its arc, dropped neatly into place:  Shelly saw Linn's face change and she knew, from his expression, from the sureness of his hands, that he was doing something he loved:  she'd never saddled a horse in her life, and she knew it had to be done right, to prevent saddle sores and to guarantee the saddle didn't slide around and end up hanging under the horse's belly -- which pretty much exhausted her knowledge of the subject.

Shelly stood patiently, almost shyly, beside the closed gate, waiting to see what Linn was going to do next.

Linn took the knotted reins, walked the few steps up to Shelly.

He removed his Stetson, set it on the saddle horn:  Apple-horse stopped, dead still, tail switching, but otherwise unmoving.

"Shelly," Linn said, "I am tryin' hard to come up with something intelligent to say."  He chewed on his bottom lip and frowned. "I about give three different lectures until I realized none of 'em would do you a bit of good."  He took a long breath, looked away, looked back.

"Ever ride a genuine Western Appaloosa stallion?"

 

Shelly laughed as Apple-horse eased into a trot: she'd never had her legs around the barrel of a horse, she'd never felt life beneath her like this ... she heard a whistle, and Apple-horse turned: she rode with the reins in her off hand, her right on her thigh, sitting bolt upright and almost terrified: Linn shortened the stirrups to fit her, and she had her weight on the balls of her feet -- "Heels down," he'd admonished, "don't come up on 'em, you'll cramp up your calves" -- she had to make a conscious effort to lower her heels as Apple-horse turned.

Linn raised both arms, whistled again:  Apple-horse lowered his head, grunted, and began to run.

He and Shelly had trotted a half mile at least away from the lean waisted horseman; Apple-horse stopped and turned at the distant whistle, and at command, Apple did what Apple loved to do:

Apple-horse, Linn's favorite saddlemount, lowered his head and drove a hole in the wind with his nose and ran for all he was worth!

Shelly leaned forward, terrified, exhilarated: her knees clamped tight, her hand crushed the bitless reins in her grip, she slitted her eyes against the wind --

Something inside her was screaming with delight, something silent, something felt --

Shelly never knew what sheer honest to God SPEED was, not until now --

Apple-horse swung right, then left, described a large arc, came back to Linn, slowed:  Linn's hand was raised, bladed, he turned, Apple-horse turning with him:  Linn lowered his hand and Apple stopped, and Linn unwrapped another peppermint, Apple's ears coming up at the brittle crinkle of cellophane plastic untwisting from the treat.

"Dismount from the left," Linn said quietly, "always mount and dismount from the left" -- Shelly twisted her right foot free, brought her leg way up and over, and Linn caught her as she lost her balance, his hands tight, wide, strong around her high ribs: she was surprised at his strength, for he had her full weight, and turned, and set her down gently on the pasture grass.

"Thank you," Shelly said, her voice husky. "I've never ridden a horse before!"

"You'd never know it," Linn grinned, looked over his shoulder.  "Apple, what do you think?"

Linn felt a tug at his hip pocket:  Apple backed up, waving Linn's bandanna again.

Linn felt Shelly's laughter more than heard it:  he looked at her and said, "I reckon he liked it too."

Linn released his grip on her, suddenly, as if he'd forgotten he was still holding her:  Shelly caught his hands, looked almost shyly up into his light-blue eyes.

"Thank you," she whispered.  "It's been difficult since Mom died, and this ... helped."
Linn wrapped his arms around her, held her close, leaned his cheek over on top of her head.

She felt his long breath in, then slowly out.

"I didn't have the least idea what to say," he murmured, "but I knew that saying nothing was absolutely the worst thing I could ever say!"

Her arms, tightening around his ribs, was answer enough.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE GREEN EYED QUEEN

Dearest Cousin Rachel,

How I delighted to discover that at least one more of our family yet draws breath.

Esther Keller looked up, considered her next words.

Her mare grazed nearby: Esther knew the mare was mountain-bred and mountain-raised, a wilder creature than the horses she'd ridden back East as a girl: was there a threat, the mare would let her know, as would Sarah's impressive, bear-cub-sized dog -- assuming, of course, the bear cub was nearly waist tall on her, and not done growing.

I write this with a granite boulder for a desk, with a mountain for my chair: I raise my eyes and my gaze runs with Mercury's swiftness to the horizon, many more miles distant than I could ever have seen in my native Carolina.

You asked if I missed home, dear Cousin, and of course I miss that which was.

We all do.

You asked if I am well, and I am: more than well, in fact.

Esther frowned, hesitated: it would be too easy to list her accomplishments, her wealth: at best, she would seem a braggart; at worst, she would be rubbing a relative's face in the fact that she, Esther, was of greater financial worth now, than if she'd inherited all her father's lands and holdings.

She thought of the Z&W Railroad -- under her leadership, under her ownership, she had two tracks laid, steel rails with rolling stock better than the big railroads back East: hers was the first railroad west of the Mississippi to use the new Westinghouse air brakes, and to use the new safety couplers rather than the link-and-pin couplers: Esther was appalled when she spoke with men who were missing fingers, men who walked the backbone of a moving railcar, keeping their feet like a bluewater sailor in a rough sea, treading rain-wet or snowy or icy car roofs with a brakeman's club, turning the big cast iron handwheels to apply or release individual brakes on individual cars.

Esther thought of meetings with mine owners, of her own quiet investments in certain mines, ranches, business ventures: through careful inquiry and careful funding, she'd become arguably the wealthiest woman in the Shining Mountains.

Her dear friend Bonnie McKenna was far better known, for hers was a dress-works, and hers was a product to which women aspired: women wished to appear fashionable, and so Esther, with her railroad connections, ensured French fashions, exemplars in miniature sewn as doll-dresses, attired on china-head dolls and carefully packed in padded trunks, were run by express trains to Firelands, each railroad cooperating with a fellow railroad to deliver these months faster than those shipped round Cape Horn by oceangoing vessels: with Esther's help, Bonnie had the latest fashions on the market before San Francisco's fashion houses even knew what the year's fashion changes were.

Esther Keller dipped her steel nib in the tiny inkwell, a small metal cylinder not as big around as her sewing thimble: her husband had used it during the War, it had a hinged metal cap that sealed absolutely, and fit into a small writing-desk: Esther did not use a desk, for she knew of this particular boulder, naturally crafted by elements and time for her purpose: she did bring a folded quilt for the rock shelf beneath her backside.

Esther's pen hesitated, gleaming-wet with good India ink: she lifted her head, smiled a little.

Water ouzel, she thought, and remembered the first time her husband had her riding up this mountain.

He'd bade her dismount, put his finger to his lips: Esther wore a divided skirt and rode astride, at his suggestion, and in spite of her voluminous garment, she'd managed to tread silently with Linn for a little distance:  he'd sunk down, almost slithered, lifted his head an inch, an inch more.

Esther, curious, disregarding the damage she was doing to her silk blouse, slithered up beside her husband.

She remembered the day, when she lifted her head a fraction and a fraction and a fraction more, watched a bull elk lay his antlers back along his spine, when this great and powerful lord of the mountains gave his squealing, whistling call: she remembered how the elk's breath steamed and almost glowed as it crossed a shaft of sunlight spearing through the trees: her pen moved, as if of its own volition, and she described for her Eastern cousin the sight, bringing memory to life with the help of ink-black squiggles on good rag paper.

Papa suffered so from catarrh, every spring, from the pollen and from the swamp-vapors, she wrote: such is almost completely unknown here in the mountains.

I find my complexion is much improved, this high up, children are stronger, apple-cheeked, healthier overall: those who suffer terrible diseases in the lower elevations, come to the higher, where the air is clean, to improve their health.

You asked if I might return home, and I must say that I am home: I have a husband who treats me like a Queen, our family is --

Esther blinked, lifted her pen, considered, then laid a hand on her belly, where new life hid beneath her beating heart.

She drew a quick line through the last few words.

I am with child, she wrote quickly, and am content.

Esther smiled again, for in her memory she heard the bull elk again, and she remembered that magical morning, when she and her husband, alone, far from prying eyes, spoke of their plans for the future: they spoke with more than words, they spoke with their hands and their lips, and they spoke with their passion: Esther's smile changed as her hand caressed her still-flat belly.

This, too, would change, and soon, she knew: she closed her eyes and felt a moment's fear, for every woman regards childbearing with anticipation, with apprehension: still, her own mother bore several young for her husband, and Esther intended to do no less for hers, and their Day of the Elk, as she'd written of it in her diary, was the day their family's first seed was planted in fertile ground.

Esther, quite honestly, planned it that way.

She re-read the words she'd written, she waited for the ink to dry: the octavo sized sheet went in a flat leather wallet she'd had made for the purpose, and was returned to a saddlebag; the little metal ink-bottle was capped, put away, as was the wiped-clean pen.

Esther Keller, the red-headed, green-eyed wife of Sheriff Linn Keller, stepped up onto a convenient granite stone that served admirably as a mounting-block, swung her divided-skirted leg over, settled into the saddle:  she looked around, took a long breath, nodded.

Of the queens upon this earth, of those crowned royals, she was chief, for she, Esther Keller, on this fine and sunny day, allowed herself one moment's hubris, before she shook her head and laughed at herself.

For a moment, though, for one delicious moment, she allowed herself that quiet satisfaction as she sat, well mounted, alone, with the world prostrating itself at her feet.

For that moment -- for that one, solitary, glorious, sunlit moment -- she, Esther Keller, was Queen of the Mountains.

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE KENWORTH BELL

Chief Charles Fitzgerald considered the helmet, shelved above the turnout coat, above the bunker pants shoved over fireboots.

It was a new helmet, the visor was not scratched, the shell unstained.

I used to be a New Boots, he thought.

This fellow is anything but a damned rook.

Fitz looked at the name under the helmet, printed out on the department's label maker, a protective backing peeled off, pressed into place:

FITZGERALD, M.

A voice from behind him, the voice of a friend and not of a fellow firefighter: Captain Crane nodded and said, "We're lucky to have him."

"I know," Fitz replied.  "He's good at what he does."

"But you're worried."

Fitz nodded.

"He'll do fine."

"But will I?"

Fitz turned, looked at the Captain with almost a sad expression.

"I remember my father."

The Captain nodded.

"Even when I was a grown man, he'd correct me and raise hell with me as if I still put my feet under his table."

"I've ... seen that happen," Crane said carefully.

"I don't want to do that."  He turned, regarded the squad captain with troubled eyes.

"Did your father know he was doing that to you?"

Fitz shook his head.

"Did you ever speak with him about it?"

Fitz snorted.

"The only thing that would light the Old Man's fuse was to tell him he was wrong. He was so damned sure of himself ... 'The fool hateth reproof' and the Old Man was no fool, but he did nothing unless he was sure it was the right thing to do ... he hated imperfection ..."

Crane waited, patiently; in this moment he was less an officer and more a friend, lending a sympathetic ear.

"He knew he couldn't expect perfection of anyone else, but he sure sought it in himself," Fitz said softly. "If he ... he hated being corrected because it meant he'd been wrong and of all the things in his life, he couldn't forgive himself for not being right!"

"And you're afraid you'll be the same way?"

"No."  Fitz shook his head, looked at his son's new, never-worn helmet, looked at the new, unstained coat, the bright, flawless, screaming-green reflective material, knowing it would not remain unsullied very much longer.

"No, I'm afraid I'll order him around like he is my son and not as a firefighter."

Fitz looked at Crane speculatively, his mood changed as quickly as turning a page in a book.

"You don't do that with Shelly."

Crane nodded slowly.

"Any secret to that?"

Crane looked away, half his mouth twisting up in a sardonic smile: he looked back, nodded.

"When I ... I commented to the Sheriff that Shelly was putting on weight."

Fitz gave his Captain an interested look.

"I said she didn't want to get so damned fat her knees would wear out.

"The Sheriff looked at me and said 'You are talking about another man's wife,' and that stopped me cold.

"I realized he was right.

"Shelly is my little girl. I taught her to use a spoon. I patched her skinned knees and her bicycle tires and I remember every moment from newborn to now but it wasn't until the Sheriff told me I was talking about another man's wife that I realized ..."

Crane's voice trailed off: he looked into the distance, his hands shoved into his hip pockets.

"She hadn't told me she was pregnant, Chief. I wasn't seein' fat. I was seein' my first grandchild and I didn't realize it."

Fitz nodded.

"Cap, let me show you something."

They walked up the three steps to the kitchen deck, past the dividing wall between the squad bay and the apparatus floor, down the three steps: Fitz walked past the pumper, to the tanker, in the center: Fitz walked up to its stern, reached down, patted the broad, spotless, stainless-steel rear bumper.

"This," he said, "will stop about anything."

The Captain nodded.

"A buddy of mine worked at Kenworth in Chillicothe. He said there was a bumper leaned up in a corner and for some odd reason it was mostly holes, and the holes were suspiciously knife shaped."

Crane frowned, curious:  Fitz grinned and said, "Remind me to show you my genuine stainless steel Kenworth knife sometime."

"O-kaaay," the Captain said carefully.

Fitz knocked on the back bumper with his knuckles.

"I've got it worse than you, Cap," he grinned. "When Marc was five, he was running here in the firehouse and I told him, 'No running, Marc,' and he looked at me and bulled that bottom jaw out, he turned and took out a-runnin' again and BLANG ran his head right into this selfsame bumper."

Fitz trailed his fingertips across the shining stainless steel, searching his memory for a dent.

"I think it was about...  here.

He looked at the Captain, grinned.

"Whole damned truck rang like a bell!

"Marc stopped and shook his head, he looked at me and bulled that bottom jaw out again and took out runnin' again, only this time he was careful not to run into anything!"

Fitz's voice had gone from reminisce to humor; he laughed a little, shook his head.

"If I'm still here when he has a boy, I expect my grandson will do the very same thing!"

Fitz looked around, picked up one of the polishing rags draped over the back of a convenient chair: he began to polish the back bumper, slowly, thoughtfully, the way a man will when he is not polishing steel as much as he is burnishing memories.

The German Irishman came up beside the Captain, gave the Chief a concerned look.

"Did he find some dirt?" he asked, and Cap chuckled, shook his head.

"No," he sighed, "sometimes a man just has to polish a Kenworth bell."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HI, MOM!

It was not at all unusual for Sheriff Willamina Keller to sit on a folding tin chair in the Firelands High School hallway, patiently darning socks or knitting.

She'd sit and weave a woman's magic, running needle and thread east and west, then north and south, darning and repairing socks, working over a wooden darning egg.

This honestly fascinated the guys.

Her children were involved with band, or marching band, or track, or other extracurricular activities, and when it was humanly possible, the Sheriff was also a mother, and she'd park herself in the hallway and look up with a smile when the guys -- almost always the guys -- would stop and watch, fascinated:  almost always they'd grin:  "Hi, Mom, what'cha doin'?"

When Willamina was at school, and sitting the hallway like this, she was always Mom, and she always had a smile and a greeting, and every one of the guys that stopped to marvel at this feminine sorcery -- this magical reweaving, this restoration of the damaged -- every one of the guys who stopped, went away feeling like she'd spoken with them individually, as if they were one of her own.

Sheriff Willamina Keller would be on the sidelines at a football game, whenever possible, as "Just Mom" -- bouncing on her toes like an excited schoolgirl, putting two fingers to her lips to whistle, loud and shrill, as the home team made a hard-fought touchdown.

Sheriff Willamina Keller sometimes appeared on stage for assemblies, generally in the company of either Tank, the Shepherd-Malinois cross she'd gotten from the Marine Corps, or The Bear Killer: she would give stern warning about how these were working dogs, how they were trained for takedowns and trained to neutralize dangerous and armed criminals, and behind her, a deputy in a bite suit would be charged, seized and quite honestly floored by the momentum of a sizable canine locking an impressive dentistry on whatever padded area was necessary.

This was generally while the other of the two of the Sheriff's K9 officers was happily wallowing on the stage behind her, playfully laundering a laughing preschooler's ears, while Sheriff Willamina Keller sternly warned of the warlike qualities of her K9 officers -- right before she looked down, planted her knuckles on her belt, scolded "You're supposed to be all big and nasty! Shame on you, go get the bad guy!" -- at which point, the K9 of the first part released a tail-wagging grip, the bite-suited deputy got up, went into an aggressive crouch, and the K9 of the second part launched into an attack run .. to the squealing giggles of a preschooler, whose ears were being laundered again.

It could be accurately said that Sheriff Willamina Keller was not a stranger to the school system.

It could, however, be counted somewhat unusual for her Jeep to come to a tire-screaming halt on the paved roadway, to suddenly reverse, to smoke all four tires as a high-heeled foot came down hard on the go pedal, as she launched into and out of the parking lot, through the manicured grass, down over the bank, out of sight behind the schoolhouse.

It could be counted equally unusual to see a pale-eyed woman in a tailored suit dress and heels, hands open and bladed, running like a track star past the geometry classroom windows, two lengths behind a truly huge, black-curly-furred Bear Killer of a dog, and it should charitably not be counted against her that she ran absolutely at the top of her lungs.

Right before she put a silver whistle between her teeth, pressed both palms over her ears, blew and blew hard -- and never missed a stride.

We hope for this charity because the moment was most distracting for Geometry, Chemistry and Home Ec, all of whom had windows on the back side of the school building, all of whom saw a well-dressed woman make Jesse Owens look like a rank amateur, right before she leaned back, skidded to a stop, came down on her prayer bones and seized an unmoving student's shoulders, rolled him over on his back, seized his head and tilted it well back, and laid her ear down against the unmoving senior's mouth and nose.

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller's pale eyes were busy: she checked her mirrors often, she scanned her instruments, she saw everything around her and in front of her, and she reached over to rub The Bear Killer's thick, furry, muscled shoulders.

The Bear Killer's head came around and she felt his fur bristle, just before she felt -- and heard -- his chest-deep rumble, his warning snarl he gave right before he was ready to go to flesh-ripping WAR with someone -- or some thing -- very, very evil.

Willamina felt her face tighten and she did not need a mirror to know her eyes were dead pale, she felt the warmth run from her soul, she felt the scaled monster of her temper uncoil and sing power in the darkness under her heart where she kept it imprisoned.

Willamina and The Bear Killer knew one another and knew one another well.

Willamina's reflexes would have done credit to a fighter pilot.

She nailed the brakes, hauled the wheel hard left, mashed the throttle.

Her Jeep screamed against pavement, she intentionally fishtailed, she took her direction of travel from The Bear Killer's compass: she swung into the high school parking lot, shot across the gravel, trusting her partner's instincts: her Jeep lost traction and got about an inch of air as she went over the bank, as she mashed the go pedal again to swing the back axle around.

The Bear Killer's paws were restless on the dashboard, his fur up, war in his heart and muttering in his throat.

Willamina threw the Jeep into a hard side skid, slid to a stop.

Sheriff and K9 bailed out of the Jeep and ran along the back of the brick schoolhouse.

Willamina's eyes were locked on her quarry.

She ran with a grim determination, she ran with hands bladed and rigid, ready to strike and ready to kill if need be, for she recognized an old enemy she'd fought before:  beside her, The Bear Killer bayed his hell-hound's war-challenge.

Faces crowded the schoolhouse windows as they watched a woman they knew seize a just-fallen student's shoulders, watched her throw him effortlessly from side-lying to flat-on-his back, watched her throw the side of her head down against his face, watched as she put her mouth on his and drove two long breaths into him just before she laced her fingers and planted the heel of her hand and began to drive her weight through elbow-locked arms, mashing his breastbone mercilessly down toward his spine.

The Sheriff was old acquaintances with the Reaper, and she was not going to let that dread enemy harvest this young soul!

 

A hand gripped the Sheriff's shoulder.

"We're here," a voice said unnecessarily as Willamina saw Medic's blue opposite her:  she looked up, nodded.

Willamina kept up compressions until the medic had the EKG wires untangled -- they always tangled -- she heard the brittle snap, snap, snap as the electrodes were driven into the wires' spring-loaded holders -- she waited until the electrodes were on his chest, until the medic said, "Off."

Willamina leaned back, threw her head back, took a deep, desperate breath, like a swimmer coming up from a long dive.

The Bear Killer thrust his nose under her arm and she laid her arm over his neck, grateful for his solid presence.

Practiced fingers on the carotid groove.

"No pulse."

Willamina leaned forward again, began driving life down through the student's breastbone.

 

It took a year and a day, or about eight minutes, to get the student onto the cot, belted down, the IV started: red-shirted firemen seized the cot, wheeled it on command, hoisted on command, loaded and secured the cot:  medics inside, a folder from the school nurse was passed to the medics, the doors slammed and the Omaha-orange-and-white squad eased ahead, toward the access road.

Willamina sagged, turned as a familiar voice said "I'm jealous."

Her hand rested on The Bear Killer's shoulder as she looked at the grinning fire chief.

"Man and boy, I've been in this man's army fifteen years, and I have yet to get a field CPR save."

Willamina blinked, sniffed, pulled the kerchief out of her sleeve, remembering.

She'd kept pace with the cot as the Irishmen wheeled it toward the waiting squad.

The lad opened his eyes, looked at her, tried to say something.

The clear-green-plastic mask was lifted from his face, Willamina leaned close to hear his whispered words.

"Hi, Mom!"

 

A little more than a month later, Willamina was in her office, reviewing a case they were ready to close: the intercom buzzed.

"Hello," she said absently, finger heavy on the reply button.

"Sheriff, there's a stripper to see you."

Long pause.

"I'll be right out."

Sheriff Willamina Keller opened her office door, walked toward the dispatcher's desk, toward a familiar, grinning schoolboy who was busy unbuttoning his shirt.

"TAKE IT OFF, TAKE IT OFF!  TA-RA BOOM, TA-RA BOOM!" Sharon cheered as the young man unbuttoned his shirt, shucked it off, spun it overhead and tossed it to the delighted dispatcher.

"I got a tat," he declared proudly, and Willamina looked at the healing pacemaker scar -- low, so the lad could still shoot trap, Dr. Greenlees was a trapshooter and knew better than to implant the power pack in the right shoulder -- Willamina tilted her head and looked at the tat, black block letters where a name tag might be sewn on a uniform blouse.

The single word:

PACEMAKER

She ran delicate fingers over the letters, looked into his grinning eyes, nodded.

"I like," she said slowly, "your tat."

The lad's face reddened a little, then a tall skinny high school kid seized Sheriff Willamina Keller in a most heartfelt embrace, held her tight, his lips close to her ear.

"Hi, Mom," he whispered, and Willamina hugged him back.

A badge packer often practices a poker face; a badge packer almost always practices keeping their feelings hidden, contained, controlled.

This wasn't one of those times.

Happiness leaked out of the Sheriff's eyes, and nobody faulted her, not one little bit, as she heard those words again in her memory:

"Hi, Mom!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A MISUNDERSTANDING

The first thing to catch a man's attention was something fast moving -- something with red hair and big green eyes -- as this was in a respectable Denver hotel, and as this was heading from outside, on the sidewalk, in through the held-open doors and through the lobby towards the kitchen, it was something that seized the attention of the hotel's patrons.

Men in suits and ladies in fine gowns stepped back, quickly, for though the lead element of this interesting sprint team was absolutely silent, the two pursuers were anything but, not that anyone could understand a word of Chinese, but none could miss the shouted nature of the words, nor the meat cleaver and long, curved knife they held.

The first two were past Sean before he could react, before the Sheriff and his son could get from the alcove where they were discussing a business deal with men of influence and power, to the big Irishman's side.

Daisy slammed through the kitchen doors as Sean turned, drove a broad set of Irish knuckles into the face of the next pursuer in line, seized the fourth's throat and banged his head briskly into the pigtailed gourd of the fifth: as the entrance was suddenly blocked by a broad, red-faced and thoroughly irritated Irishman, and as a cold set of eyes and a pair of Colt's Peacemaker revolvers stood on either side of this broad and beefy son of the Old Sod, any further pursuit was instantly halted.

A whistle, outside, the discordant shrill of a bobby's whistle, imported from London for the Denver constabulary: from within, a crash, a shout, a woman's angry voice, then the ringing gong of a frying pan, once, again, followed by ...

... silence ...

Sheriff Linn Keller looked quickly at the Celtic warrior at his side.

"Go," he said, his voice low, urgent:  "Sean, we'll hold the door, go!"

Sean did not need to be told twice.

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller stood behind the podium at this regular meeting of the Ladies' Tea Society.

As was her habit, she wore a gown of the period, a gown that duplicated what an ancestress wore, perhaps in this very room:  she was Sheriff, she was wife and mother, and she was a gifted seamstress, thanks to her Aunt Mary:  as a matter of fact, she'd sewn this particular gown on Aunt Mary's treadle Singer sewing machine.

Willamina looked up from her notes, smiled.

"The fire chief's green-eyed wife Daisy," she said, "had been mistaken for a demon."

 

Sean stopped so quickly Linn nearly ran into the man's backside (his quick mind considered this might be kind of like running into a log wall), and Linn leaned a little to see past the man.

He was interested in what in two hells was happening.

Daisy had run through the swinging doors into the kitchen like her skirts were on fire; she was dead silent and moving fast, and the two pursuing Chinamen were pursuing like a pair of baying hounds, one with a meat cleaver, the other with a long, curved knife: from within, a crash, loud and harsh language, but no longer in men's voices.

The twin doors exploded outward, and with it an absolute wall of feminine, shrieking, Gaelic maledictions, punctuated by a hard-swung frying pan: both Oriental fugitives bore the signs of having made the very abrupt acquaintance of Daisy's chosen weapon, and she was whipping cast iron about as if she were swinging a buggy-whip: as quickly as her attackers pursued her into the hotel, they fled, their velocity increased both by the memory of having just been beaten about their faces and heads with a hard-swung skillet, and doubtless also by the absolute elastic cloud of Gaelic profanity Daisy was driving before her like an elastic wall!

Jacob stepped to the side to allow their exit; Daisy stopped at the threshold, stood there, left foot forward and the frying pan up, ready to block or strike, her cheeks bright red and standing out like two apples on a linen towel: she took several moments to steady her breathing, then she squared her shoulders, thrust her chest out, looked about coldly and declared to the staring sidewalk crowd, "WELL?  HA'E YE NOTHIN' BETTER T' DO THAN T' STARE AT AN HONEST WOMAN?" -- she turned, stomped back inside, snarled her way back to the kitchen, shoved Linn to the left and Sean to the right and slammed her way back into the kitchen.

Another few moments and Daisy emerged.

She stomped up to her husband, to the Sheriff:  she seized one man by his left arm, the other by his right arm, declared "YE'VE BROUGHT ME HERE AND I'M NOT FIXIN' YER MEAL! ONE O' YOU TWO IS BUYIN'!" -- and with that loud declaration, she steered two men as if she were a schoolmarm towing a naughty schoolboy by the ear, delivered them to a table, planted her knuckles on her belt, glared at one, then the other.

"WELL?" she demanded.  " A GENTLEMAN WILL DRAW OUT TH' CHAIR F'R A LADY!"

Linn reached for the back of a chair, drew back as Sean did as well:  both men reached, both men drew back, both men laughed, and Daisy turned to the Sheriff, shook a knotted-up fist under his iron-grey mustache:  "I'D OUGHTA KNOCK YOU INTO THE MIDDLE O' NEXT WEEK! LAUGHIN' AT A PUIR DEFENSELESS LADY --"

"Wednesday or Thursday?" Linn asked innocently, and Sean barely caught his wife's arm as she drew back to launch a punch.

The waiter came over, clearly uncomfortable:  he cleared his throat, waited until Daisy was seated and scooted in, until Sean and the Sheriff were seated.

"It seems," he said, "that the delegation in our lobby was most entertained.  I am informed that your drinks are on the gentlemen."

Jacob joined them after several minutes.

The waiter offered a selection of wines for the lady, to which she snapped "After a' that, I'll need guid Irish whiskey t' settle m' nerves!" -- husband, wife, father and son, each hoisted a short, fat glass of liquid sledgehammer, drank.

They ordered; the special of the day suited all concerned, and after the waiter disappeared into the kitchen, Linn looked at Daisy, looked at Jacob.

"Do we know," he asked carefully, "what started all this?"

Their glasses were collected, refills dispensed:  Daisy picked up hers, drank a second after the first like she was drinking water.

"Sir," Jacob said in a carefully gentle voice, "it seems that Daisy was mistaken for a demon."

Sean's beefy face reddened further: he looked at Jacob, frowned -- an impressive sight indeed, for the man generally had as close to a perpetually cheerful demeanor as could be managed -- Jacob nodded.

"Chinamen believe demons have green or yellow eyes. They saw Daisy and had they caught her, they'd have knifed her."

"I wasn't about t' let 'em make fillets o' me," Daisy snarled: she reached over, seized her husband's glass, drank it, set it back. "I knew where t' go, an' I did."

"From the look of those two," Linn offered, "I'd say you spoke the language they understood."

"They called m' Daisy a demon," Sean rumbled as another glass appeared before him and Daisy both: the Sheriff and Jacob were still sipping cautiously from their first.

Daisy slugged hers down, glared at her husband, and Linn had the impression he was in the presence of a bundle of blasting powder with a short and sputtering fuse.

Their meal arrived: to her credit, Daisy ate with a good appetite, though she ate in a sullen silence: Linn and Sean spoke quietly, Jacob -- as usual -- watched, listened, not only to the conversation, not only the green-eyed Irishwoman who quite frankly worried him, but also he listened to conversation around him.

They finished their meal; only then did Jacob drink the last half of his first glass of Two Hit John, as did the Sheriff:  Sean slugged his down, drew Daisy to her feet.

The Sheriff paid their bill, and a little more; the bowing, obsequious waiter murmured his gratitude, and the four were watched as they made their way for the front door.

Sean halted with Daisy:  she turned, addressed the well-dressed businessmen and men of influence and power, gathered as they always did:  she lifted her chin, and in a clear voice declared, "My thanks t' th' gentlemen who kindly provided refreshment in a time of need."

Every man there rose:  two bowed, and Daisy dropped a flawless curtsy:  they turned and stepped out into the sunshine.

Linn looked ahead and left, Jacob, ahead and right: it was their habit, it had kept them both alive more times than one: none present offered any hostile action, nor harsh word, and a waiting carriage took them quickly to the depot.

Daisy waited, then allowed her big strong husband to take her under the arms and swing her from carriage to earth: only then did her payload really hit her, and a good thing it was that Sean's big Irish hands had a two-hand grip on his diminutive wife's ribcage: no more had her feet hit the ground than he swung her a little, brought her up, carried her as if she were a little girl:  Sean mounted the steps into the private railcar, eased to one side as Jacob swarmed up after him, opened the door, stepped back.

As Sean turned and threaded Daisy through the open door, feet first, Jacob heard her giggle.

"They called me a demon?" she slurred, then as Sean lowered her onto the velvet upholstered sleeping couch, she rolled her eyes and called out, "Wheeeeeee!"

Linn opened a cupboard, withdrew a blanket:  Sean rolled her up on her side, covered her, tucked her in, drew up a chair and sat beside her:  Linn brought out another cloth, worked it under her flushed cheek and over the edge of the velvet upholstery, draped it into a trash can:  he and Sean shared a look, Sean nodded and winked by way of thanks: he'd never seen his beloved Daisy put away drink to that degree, and that the Sheriff silently, discreetly made provision for a rebellious stomach, told Sean the man wished to quietly prepare for any subsequent unpleasantness.

There was none, for a miracle; Daisy slept soundly all the way home, even when Sean carried her the short distance from the depot, to their house:  she roused only once, as Sean and the hired girl took her down to the altogethers and into her nightdress, when she murmured sleepily, "They thought I was a green-eyed demon?" and giggled like a little girl, and Sean looked at the hired girl and said softly, " 'Twas a misunderstandin'."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WISDOM OF A LITTLE CHILD

Sheriff Linn Keller looked up the stairs.

The stairway was broad, nearly twice as wide as a normal staircase of its era.

His house was old.

He knew its history.

He wished the place could talk.

In his imagination he pictured the original builder carrying his wife upstairs, her gown draped and hanging under his strong and masculine arms.

He remembered carrying his own wife upstairs, her handmade wedding gown draped and hanging under his own arms.

He remembered little children, charging happily downstairs on Christmas mornings, the boys on the stairs and Marnie on the banister, sliding down with her legs crossed behind, natural shock absorbers that soaked up her momentum before she hit the bottom post, and he smiled as his thoughts wandered further.

Marnie was only just chosen for the Mars launch: it would be another six months before she would actually launch; until then, he knew, she would be undergoing physical and psychological exams, she'd be intensively trained in a variety of disciplines, as would her husband-to-be, John Greenlees Jr, medical prodigy and physician in his own right.

Linn was not considering Marnie Keller, soon to be a peacekeeper on a foreign planet: he was remembering Marnie Keller, his little girl, a child who came to him when he was newly wed, when she was newly orphaned, when she was just brought to Firelands by his dying older sister.

It was quiet in the old ranch house; Linn's memory ranged wide, remembering his little girl when she was still just that.

A little girl.

She'd gone to church with them one day, a day when the ladies of the church were preparing a feed for some occasion, he didn't recall quite why: he remembered the guest parson said the table grace from the pulpit.

Or started to.

Twenty minutes later, as good smells filled the sanctuary and the congregation was wondering whether this was a blessing prayer or another sermon, Marnie settled things as only a little child can: when their guest parson paused for breath, she jumped up and yelled "AMEN! LET'S EAT!"

The sound of a child's voice, loud in the pause, startled their guest parson into a hesitation, which the congregation filled with laughter: when a little child speaks the common mind, laughter is the applause, and even their long winded guest had to laugh:  he'd nodded and said "Wisdom, from a little child!"

Marnie's latest portrait, showing a smiling young woman in a riding skirt and red cowboy boots, caressing the neck of her Daddy's Appaloosa, looked so very grown-up, so mature.

Linn looked at the picture and smiled a little, for he remembered Marnie, the very first time she'd been introduced to her Daddy's saddlehorse.

Apple-horse lowered his head, curious, snuffed loudly at this giggling little two-legs:  Marnie's eyes were wide, wondering, she raised a careful hand, caressed his neck, then looked at Linn and declared happily, "Horsie Puppy!"

The silence of the well-kept old ranch house was filled with the quiet laughter of a father, remembering the wisdom of a little child, shaking his head and murmuring, "Amen! Let's eat!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

RAISING THE HAIR

Jacob Keller looked down at his horse, fifty feet below.

He'd climbed a narrow path, God alone knows how it existed on the side of this cliff.

It was up behind the Museum but well back, out of the common eye: it faced West, it faced the afternoon sun: Jacob had good light to work by, and for this he was grateful.

The granite wall was warm against his shoulder as he paced carefully, sometimes on boot directly in front of the other -- How do girls walk like this? -- he looked down again, pressed his shoulder more firmly against the cliff beside him.

Why am I doing this?

Peer pressure from some dead guy?

Jacob closed his eyes, took a long, steadying breath, looked down again.

Why do I keep looking down?

I'm testing myself.

Am I afraid?

Not yet.

Will I be?

Reckon I'll find out.

Jacob read of the High Lonesome -- not only the skull busting, world spinning, blot-out-reality drunk that went by that name, but also the location, the place.

His Pa never told him where it was, only that when the time was right, he'd find it.

His sister Marnie never told him, either, and when he tried to follow her, he realized in short order he was following a pinch of dust tossed to the breeze: she'd disappeared, and try as he might -- he wasn't a bad tracker, but Outlaw-horse's hoofprints disappeared, just -- gone -- firm, clear impressions in soft ground, and where he'd expect the next print to be, nothing.

He'd considered, projected where she might've gone, pulled out his binoculars, glassed the probable lanes of travel.

Nothing.

He'd finally given up.

Jacob went home, he'd just unsaddled his Apple-horse, laughing at his father's naming every one of them Apple -- "Saves work," he said, "I don't have to remember a bunch of names that way" -- and his phone vibrated, he hung the saddle over the top rail of the whitewashed fence, frowned, pulled out his phone and looked.

Marnie sent him a photo, zoomed in as far as he phone would take the shot: he was standing beside his saddlehorse, binoculars in hand: it was taken at a downward angle.

That night Jacob studied the accounts he remembered, interrogated his Gammaw's computer program, read everything he could find on the High Lonesome, and in the process, he found one -- and only one -- reference to his forbear, his pale eyed ancestor whose name he wore -- one solitary account of that earlier Jacob Keller, who feared one thing only, and that was heights.

Jacob leaned back, thinking hard, frowning: he found other accounts of Jacob going up to the High Lonesome, and why: he read of the White Wolf, watching him from the end of the ledge, yawning and sleepy-looking, disappearing in a twist of fog that looked like it corkscrewed into the rock shelf, and was gone.

Jacob Keller remembered all this as he came to a broadening of the narrow goat-path.

He'd arrived.

There, the bench, just the right height for a seat: there, fifteen feet ahead, the widening shrank and disappeared, and had to be where the White Wolf had been.

Vision, ghost, portent? he wondered silently, then squatted, looked into the broad slit of an opening.

Just big enough for me to wiggle in, he judged, but no way am I going in there!

Not unless there's need.

Jacob turned, surveyed the world as it fell away from his feet: he was thrice a hundred yards and more above his Apple-horse; it was a long way down.

Jacob the Ancestor felt the world pulling him toward the edge, he thought.

I don't feel that.

Jacob turned, looked at the genuine bench seat, turned, parked his backside, leaned back.

I've done it.

I've found High Lonesome.

His eyes tightened a little at the corners, that secret, quiet smile of satisfaction he allowed himself in such moments.

In this, at least, he had a sense of achievement.

He'd wanted to find this mystic place of enlightenment, this refuge of his ancestors, this solitary seat of contemplation and realization -- he'd wanted to find this place for years -- and in his self-testing, this challenge, this weighing himself against that seminal ancestor, he'd sought to search his soul for fear of the one thing that troubled his namesake.

He hadn't found fear.

Jacob Keller looked to his right, half expecting to see a yellow-eyed, white-furred guardian of wisdom, ready to impart some great secret of the Universe.

He saw rock, he saw distance, he saw mountains, he saw skyline.

Jacob stood, took a long breath, headed back down that narrow goat path he'd just come up.

His concentration was on his footing, on his careful progress: there was no convenient way to look behind him, and no need, really: that which was behind him, could only be gained by the path he was now descending, and so he did not look to see a set of feral-yellow eyes regarding him with a steady expression of lupine approval.

The White Wolf watched as the lean young man descended, disappeared:  a moist black nose smelt the bench where he'd been sitting.

It smelled of someone the White Wolf knew from long years before, but more importantly, this two-legs with the pale eyes did not have the stink of fear for having come here.

Jacob Keller swung a long leg over the saddle, found the starboard stirrup, turned his Apple-horse to look up at where he'd been: he could not see it, for the path curved around the mountain just enough to keep it from the common eye, but as he looked, he heard a howl -- a long, sustained, wild song, from a furry lupine throat, serenading the darkening sky above, and Jacob felt that wild wolf-song raise every last hair on his flannel-sleeved arms.

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SHENANIGATOR!

Chief Deputy Linn Keller stood shoulder to shoulder with his partner, Paul Barrents: the former, a long, tall, lean waisted lawman with milk fair skin and pale eyes; the latter, the broad, blocky, hard-muscled, weather-browned Navajo: each one stood, silent, staring, their thoughts betrayed by an open curiosity fairly prickling from each of the men as they stood in the middle of the main street, watching a contingent -- led by a hastily recruited handful from the local high school marching band -- proceeded with obvious celebration (and noise) right up the middle of the main drag through beautiful downtown Firelands, hub of commerce and industry, center of culture and commerce.

Leading this noisy, laughing, scarf-waving group was Sheriff Willamina Keller in her trademark blue tailored suit dress and heels, strutting as if she were the Drum Majorette herself, though instead of spinning a glittering knobkerrie, she swung a triplet of silk scarves -- two were pale blue, one was pink.

This was not bad enough.

Behind the Sheriff, and ahead of the marching band, the Ladies' Tea Society, all smiles and period gowns, fine hats and matching gloves, carrying a red-brocade sedan-chair: the padded handles rested on the shoulders of four of the Ladies, others marched beside and behind, and the bearers were frequently relived: in the chair, a red-faced, grinning young man, waving, half-delighted and half-embarrassed.

Linn and Paul drew back to the curb as they passed:  both lawmen came to attention and saluted, waited until the celebratory cortege passed by, watched as it came to a halt in front of the Silver Jewel.

The Marching Band dispersed, dissolving from disciplined ranks to a scattering of laughing high-school kids; they loaded instruments into one of the waiting vans, climbed into two others, drove away; the sedan chair was hustled down the alley behind the Silver Jewel, and its occupant, gripped by both arms by laughing, chattering Ladies of their Society, was escorted with pomp and celebration through the ornate double doors.

Linn looked at Paul.

Paul looked at Linn.

"There's a party, and we weren't invited?" Linn asked.

"For-sake and for-sooth," Paul replied, "let's crash it!"

Two lawmen paced off on the left, strode boldly across the pavement: they made their officious and authoritative entrance into the Silver Jewel just as Linn's pale eyed Mama, their County Sheriff, the pale eyed spark plug of the Ladies' Tea Society and instigator of spontaneous shenanigans, slapped her flat hand on gleaming mahogany and demanded in a loud voice, "MR. BAXTER! DRINKS ON THE HOUSE, IF YOU PLEASE! TODAY WE CELEBATE!"

The grinning young barman with his first attempt at a mustache began to set 'em up:  Willamina distributed drinks, admonishing one and all not to sample them yet, this was a toast, hold action until she said otherwise -- her words were said with a smile, her voice almost a caress and almost a laugh, and nobody there thought to spoil the mood by imbibing prematurely.

Linn and Paul found mugs of steaming coffee pressed into their hands: Willamina turned, holding a short, broad glass of something amber -- Linn had seen her in such moments before, she knew Mr. Baxter, in all his incarnations, knew to give her iced tea instead of distilled sledgehammer -- Willamina curled her lip and whistled: "NOW HEAR THIS, ATTENTION TO THE CENTER DECK!"

The Silver Jewel hushed, and hushed quickly: Willamina could pitch her voice to cut like a blade, and when she wanted to be heard, she made herself heard.

She paced over to the guest of honor, sitting pink-cheeked and red-eared at a table with two blue candles and one pink:  Willamina draped the pastel scarves around his neck, laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, looked around, all smiles and delight as she announced:  "MY FRIENDS, WE SHOULD CELEBRATE WHEN THERE IS JOY, AND WHEN WE DRINK, WE DRINK TO THE MAN OF SUCH POTENCY OF LOINS THAT HE SIRES HIS YOUNG IN LITTERS!  TRIPLETS!  TWO BOYS AND A GIRL!"

Willamina turned a little, raised her glass higher, drank:  all present, Linn and Paul included, drank.

"Now this poor man," she continued, "is going to need all the help he can get!"

Laughter, nods of agreement, murmurs:  glasses were lowered, some set on convenient tables.

"Mr. Baxter, the first round is on me, all else is on them," Willamina cautioned with an upraised finger: the colorful scarves still draped, drifted from her feminine grip:  she set her glass down on an adjacent table, laid her other hand on the Guest of Honor's other shoulder.

"Accordingly, this man is being gifted with an addition to his house:  they currently have only one bathroom!"

Groans; shaken heads; a few exaggerated their sympathy by lowering foreheads into their hands and moaning.

"When the Daine boys are done, they will have a bedroom for each child, they will have a full bath upstairs and downstairs both, and a half-bath downstairs!"

The young man sitting in the saloon chair opened his mouth; his eyes widened:  obviously this was the first he'd heard of this.

"A local dealership is donating a troop carrier for his new Brigade," Willamina continued, then her voice became sorrowful and her expression doleful indeeed:  "His poor long suffering wife --"

Groans; all present either shook their heads or nodded, but all understood the Sheriff's meaning.

"His poor longsuffering wife will be receiving diapers, ODORPROOF USED DIAPER CONTAINERS" -- at this point four red-shirted members of their Irish Brigade, and two blue-shirted medics, whistled, clapped and shouted their unabashed approval -- Willamina laughed and waved at them as they yelled "GO GET 'EM SHERIFF!" -- and Willamina raised her voice to rise above their noisy approval -- "AND WE'VE ARRANGED BABYSITTING SERVICE AS NECESSARY, SO THEY CAN GET AWAY FROM TIME TO TIME!"

Willamina bent, kissed the new father on the cheek:  she skipped, laughing, over to her son and his boon companion, took each by the arm and declared, "Two handsome men! My lucky day! Let's go somewhere quieter!" -- and so they departed, leaving the new father to congratulations, a good meal, many good wishes, and envelopes being deposited on the table before him.

Sheriff Willamina Keller and two deputies, arm-in-arm, laughed and almost strutted across the pavement, diagonally across the street to the Sheriff's Office:  one deputy gripped one door handle, the other deputy seized the other, the heavy glass double doors were hauled open and Willamina swept inside as regally as the Queen herself.

Linn didn't find out for some time the real reason for this raucous celebration; it wasn't until he and his family had his pale eyed Mama and Shelly's father over for Sunday dinner that Willamina let the feline out of the burlap.

"I'd found that an old friend died some time ago and I hadn't heard," she said.  "I wanted to backhand Old Bony Face, and I did."

"Sounds reasonable," Linn murmured.

"If I'm going to smack the Reaper, I'm going to do it right," Willamina smiled, "and what better way to defy death than to celebrate life?"

"Twins run in our family," Linn said thoughtfully, "and now we have triplets."  He gripped Shelly's hand lightly, grinned.  

"Don't get any ideas, mister," Shelly snarled, then laughed, and the adults laughed with her.

"Strikes me this must be a remarkably healthy climate, to foster so many multiple births," the Captain murmured.

Linn nodded thoughtfully.  "Reckon you're right."

Later that day, Linn hugged his Mama on his front porch.

"I'm sorry, Mama," he whispered as he held her.  "I hadn't heard of that death."

"You didn't know him," Willamina murmured.  

"How'd you engineer all that for him?"

Willamina pulled back, looked up at her son, smiled.

"Hey, if I'm going to pull shenanigans, I'm going to do it right!"

"My Mama," Linn said, approval in his voice, "the Shenanigator!"

Edited May 21, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
Better title

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AUTOMATIC PILOT

Sheriff Willamina Keller was well respected in her department.

When it came to matters domestic, so far as possible, her troops made sure she was available for motherly or wifely details, and when it was time for Linn to go to Prom, everyone in the department quietly arranged to have things covered: Prom was on a weekend, the Sheriff had weekends off, and unless it was something absolutely, catastrophically disastrous, the general agreement was that it would be handled without troubling their pale eyed boss.

And so it was that Willamina was awake, and dressed, and sitting at her kitchen table with a fresh pot of coffee just brewed, when her son came in shortly before midnight.

Willamina looked up with a smile:  "I knew you were coming."

Linn came in ... not that he was long faced, but his mug started at his hairline and looked like it went down to about his knees.

He drew out a kitchen chair, sat, stared with hollow eyes and a lost expression at the sugarbowl:  Willamina watched as he chewed his bottom lip, she knew he was considering his words carefully, and finally he looked up and said softly, "Mama, I made a decision."

Willamina leaned forward a little, her hands around her heavy ceramic mug:  she slid a fresh-poured over in front of her son, tilted her head a little to the side.

"What's going on?"

"I took Shelly home."

Four simple words.

Four words that sounded like he should have said, "I murdered my best friend," or "I strangled a puppy."

Willamina waited, sipped her coffee, watched the silent agonies on her son's face.

"Mama" -- he stopped, frowned, tried again.

"Mama, do you remember how Pa treats you when we're out in public?"

Willamina blinked: she did remember, she remembered well indeed -- her husband treated her like a queen, every time, without exception.

"And you remember that's how he treats you here at home."

Willamina blinked, slowly, gave the slightest of nods.

Linn threw his head back, took a deep breath, sighed it out, closed his eyes.

"Mama, I ... I got ... interested ... in Shelly."

Willamina waited.

Linn looked at his mother.

"It was after the dance.  I took her ... we were alone, and I wanted to show her how the moonlight worked its magic on the mountains ..." 

His voice trailed off, he blinked; Willamina remembered how the moon did indeed change the mountains, and she could see how a young man, impassioned and unsure, would want to share something of beauty in a newly intimate moment.

"Mama, we stood and we held hands and we looked out over the nighttime world, just the two of us."

 

Shelly's hand was warm and soft in Linn's gentle grip.

The world fell away from them, limned by the moon's gentle glow: the mountains were no longer harsh, sharp, craggy: they were softer, gentler on the eyes: here and there, lights: houses, buildings ... overhead, the sky, almost black, here and there clouds glowed their way across the starry-decked firmament.

Linn had intended to make a dramatic, showy wave of the arm and declare, "I give you ... the night!"

He'd intended to and didn't.

"I come here to think," he said softly.  "I've never shown this to anybody."

Shelly turned toward him, turned her face up: she caressed his cheek.

"Nobody?"

"Nobody."

Linn swallowed, lowered his face a little.

"Shelly?"
"Hm?"

"May I kiss you?"

Shelly suppressed a giggle -- somehow she knew that would shatter his almost-fearful approach -- her reply was to run her hand the rest of the way behind his head and draw his mouth down to hers.

Linn's arms tightened around her.

It wasn't much of a kiss, a tentative, delicate touch:  each felt the other shiver, a little, and Linn felt a fire light in his boiler.

 

"Mama," Linn said, "I kissed her and I liked it."

Willamina nodded, her coffee forgotten.

Linn looked up at his Mama.

"I told her I had to take her home now."

Willamina's eyebrow twitched and Linn knew he'd surprised her.

Likely she thought I'd been intimate, he thought, and he felt his ears warming and he knew his face was turning red.

"I took her home, Mama, and I talked with her Pa, and I came on home."

His head hung in adolescent misery; he looked at his mother and asked, "Was I a damned fool?"

"Why would you ask that?" Willamina asked quietly, remembering her coffee:  she took a casual sip, lowered her mug.

"Mama ... I kissed her and I liked it and I ... Mama, I was afraid ... of being improper."

He almost spat the word.

"I'd heard about how ... I'd heard of ... I was afraid when my automatic pilot lit up that ..."

He closed his eyes and took another deep breath, opened his eyes.

"Mama, I like Shelly. She is very much a lady. I was afraid of ... insisting."

Willamina considered this, looked at her son.

"Am I to understand that you were a gentleman?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You had the choice of gentlemanly behavior, and you took it."

"I did, ma'am."

"You chose to take her home rather than risk impropriety."

"I did, ma'am."

"Then you did the right thing."

Linn blinked several times, rapidly, processing this unexpected affirmation.

"Ma'am ... "  He frowned; Willamina waited.

"I was about to ask you what Shelly will think ... but mind readin' is not part of the act."  He nodded, considered.

"Reckon I'll find that out tomorrow."

"Quite probably."

Linn lifted his coffee mug, drank it down, stood.

"Thank you, Mama."

Willamina gave him an innocent look.  "For what?"

"For bein' there," he said. "This business of an automatic pilot is not as easy as I thought it would be."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE SAME ALL OVER

Jacob Keller eased the breechblock back just far enough to see the brass base, then he ran the fore-end ahead, briskly.

He did not engage the safety.

He looked over at Paul, standing on the other side of the doorway, pistol in hand: Barrents held his issue sidearm in front of his chest, pointed down, his free hand open, not quite covering it.

Linn's fingers moved, quickly:

Me high, you low, buttonhook, on three.

His fingers closed into a fist, then raised, one at a time.

One.

Two.

Three!

On the third finger, Linn swung around, drove his well polished Wellington boot hard against the door, just beside the doorknob: it was something he practiced, it was something for which he'd invented and built a simulator, it was something he did and did well:  wood splintered, the door shivered and slammed open, and Linn powered through, gunmuzzle first.

The fight was fierce, brutal, close-up and brief: the twelve-gauge drove death ahead of it once, twice, the reports distant -- part of Jacob's mind registered the phenomenon of "Auditory Exclusion," and filed it away on a dusty shelf as something interesting he might want to look at again, later, but not now.

No, Jacob was too busy: something seared past his cheek, barely burning the skin over his cheekbone: he saw the two as they turned, carbines in hand, bringing them to bear: Jacob let his shotgun do his talking for him, and two druggies who botched a home invasion-cum-kidnap, paid for their stupidity with the ultimate penalty levied by the law.

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller stepped back as her deputy swung the cement-filled ram: the door frame splintered and Marnie drove through, shoved her double gun ahead and triggered the right barrel, swung the double twelve-bore, yanked the rear trigger.

She dropped the shotgun, drew her .357, held it close against her side, turned, pale eyes searching: she spun around a doorway, fired once, again: two others decided they wanted no part of what she was dispensing, threw their weapons from them, raised their hands.

 

Jacob slammed the action open, shut: he strode forward, into the kitchen, yelled "HEY!"

The third -- the one that drew a fiery finger along his cheekbone -- turned, screamed, high-pitched, like a terrified, desperate woman, finger hard back on the illegal machine gun's trigger.

Jacob's third shot was like a leaden fist that drove through the murdering home invader's face.

The body fell back against the back door through which he'd tried to escape, slid to the floor.

 

Marnie went through the rest of the building, Death in a white Olympic skinsuit.

She found no one else.

She came back -- the second two she shot were dead, the two survivors, the ones who had a serious attack of good sense and threw down their weapons, were in irons, hauled outside by her deputies, and the first two she shot, were dead beyond belief.

Marnie took several long breaths: her eyes were pale, hard, her jaw set: she picked up her double gun, reloaded: she looked left, looked right, before stepping out the ruined front door:  she stepped outside, glaring at the gathering crowd.

Apparently there'd been some resistance to the idea of putting the prisoners in the prison wagon. 

At Marnie's approach, these opponents shrank back.

Marnie stopped, turned, head lowered a little, one hand wrapped tight, tight around the straight, checkered wrist of her Damascus double gun, her other hand wound up into a fist:  she turned, she glared her pale gaze into every eye, then she raised herself to full height, threw her shoulders back.

"I JUST SENT FOUR TO HELL TODAY," she shouted, "THESE TWO WILL HANG FOR COMPLICITY" -- she smiled, a crooked, sardonic twist of half her mouth -- "THEY'LL GET A FAIR TRIAL AND THEN WE'LL HANG 'EM!"

She kept turning, her gunbarrels leaned back against her shoulder, as she'd had the Two Pipe Shoot Gun since emerging from the house where she'd found her attackers were waiting.

"ANYONE WHO TRIES TO KILL ME," she shouted, her cheeks reddening, "HAD BETTER KILL ME FIRST LICK BECAUSE I WILL FINISH WHAT'S STARTED!"

She thrust a hand toward the door, where the first shrouded form was being carried out on a folding canvas litter.

"FOUR CONSPIRED TO KILL ME, WELL HERE THEY ARE!"

 

Jacob did not flinch as the bullet burn along his cheek bone was wiped, carefully, with something that felt like it'd been dipped in liquid fire.

Paul Barrents watched with impassive, approving eyes: he knew that simple wipe of the brownish-yellow-stained gauze had to hurt.

Sheriff Linn Keller came into the room, looked at his wooden-faced son, looked at Barrents.

Paul looked at Linn.

"Good fire discipline," he said, "safe weapon handling, effective tactics."

"And?"

"And we got the hostages out alive.  All of 'em."

Linn nodded, slowly, looked again at his son, and Barrents saw the man's jaw muscles bulge just a little.

Had the perpetrators not been dead already, Barrents knew Linn would have disappeared into the night, and would have reappeared only when he'd extracted the criminals' eternal souls.

The hard way.

 

That night, over a clandestine communications system, a pale eyed Chief Deputy Sheriff looked at the image of a pale eyed Martian Sheriff.

"I hear you had some excitement," Jacob said.

"Turn your head to the left," Marnie replied, leaning closer to her screen:  Jacob saw his sister's eyes harden.

"Who did this to you?"

"It's taken care of, Sis."

"Jacob," she said quietly, "are you all right?"

Jacob considered for a moment, then he rose, went over to his gunrack, pulled down a shotgun, the twin for the one he'd used that day.

"The name's Samson," he said, "and I favor the jaw bone of a jack mule."

Marnie nodded, reached out of frame, brought back a double twelve-bore.

"Funny," she said. "I could say the same thing."

"I take it you had to speak the language they understand."

Marnie nodded.  "You could say that."

"You okay, Sis?"

Marnie rested the double gun across her lap, leaned back, nodded.

"I am now."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE VALUE OF EDUCATION

 

From The Firelands Gazette:

BRAWL AT THE SHERIFF'S MANSION

===

Insult, Delivered and Answered

===

A genteel Dinner, upset with an airy Word

===

Blades, Blood and Silk

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller settled into her chair, smiling as she read: she hid her smile behind a hand, her forefinger like a fleshy moustache across her upper lip:  Dr. John Greenlees looked up from his keyboard, smiled ever so slightly to see his wife relaxed, to see her enjoying herself.

He'd had concerns, ever since she came back from a diplomatic mission, healing from having been shot at close range: Dr. Greenlees was called in to consult on her case, and it took stern self discipline for him to look at his wife's injuries with the cold eye of a surgeon, of a clinician, instead of a husband: he found himself more an observer than a participant: the ball passed through one kidney, destroying its lower half, and rather than remove the devastated organ, he observed as technologies he'd long wished for, and only dreamed of, disassembled her injured kidney and reassembled it, starting at the subatomic level, essentially re-growing the organ in situ.

He'd watched, silent, intent, as damaged nerves were mapped, re-grown: the surgeons ran a scan of her entire body and removed two cysts, found three precancerous processes and activated her immune system against the cancers that would have developed, had the processes not been removed: again, bloodlessly, and with apparent ease.

He waited until his wife's belly was closed -- considering that suturing deep muscle tissue, then the shallower layers, and finally the skin -- would have both scarred, and required considerable recovery time, with at the very least, a short term disability -- but here, thanks to Confederate medicine, Confederate surgeons, the incision was closed as if it never was.

Dr. Greenlees was steered to his wife's side, near the head of the narrow operating platform: he took her hand, watched as something with little blinking lights was removed from behind her head.

Marnie opened her eyes, blinked a few times, looked at her husband, puzzled.

"Just lay still," Dr. Greenlees said behind his clear face shield: he wore something that she recognized as a surgical gown, though it looked more like a seamless, near skintight spacesuit that ended at the wrists, leaving his hands bare.

Marnie looked around.

"Do you know where you are?" Dr. Greenlees asked automatically, and Marnie saw one of the other gowned figures smile a little as he did.

"Clinical setting," she said slowly, "it's quiet ... I feel funny."

"Anesthetic," Dr. Greenlees suggested. "They use a different kind here."

Marnie's eyes snapped open and she was suddenly wide awake: the telltales on the wall showed her increase in endorphins, adrenaline, blood glucose, heart rate, blood pressure, rate and depth of respirations -- in short, she remembered, and she was ready to come off that table and go to war.

"Easy," Dr. Greenlees soothed.  "You're safe."

"The Ambassador?"

"Outside, pacing like a pregnant cat," Dr. Greenlees chuckled.  "The man threatened to go to the chapel and flagellate himself in penance for getting you hurt!"

"It wasn't his fault," she groaned.

 

Two weeks later, after going back and straightening out the stupid souls who attacked a diplomatic entourage on an official visit, Marnie was home.

The colony, of course, followed her exploits off-planet with the rabid enthusiasm of hard-core sports fans: they watched the live-feed as Marnie charged the burst-open door, as she drove justice into the understanding of the perpetrators, and of that far-off community: they cheered as she dropped the empty double gun, drew her blued-steel Smith & Wesson:  they chanted "GITTEM! GITTEM! GITTEM!" as the holo-camera followed her through the house, as she reduced the remainder to possession, peacefully or otherwise:  all eyes watched the big screens, the small screens, work came to a halt as the entirety of the Firelands colony watched their Sheriff -- their Sheriff! -- announce in a loud voice, "They'll get a fair trial and then they'll be HANGED!" -- and the colonists cheered, shouted, whistled, pounded one another on the back: they did not drink the entire stock of home brewed beer, but they came within a few liters of depleting the colony's supply entirely.

Marnie came home to applause, whistles, cheers: it felt like she'd shaken every hand in the Colony, and only the common knowledge that she'd gone so soon after having surgery, kept her from being back pounded in congratulations:  was it possible and had there been a vote, it is very likely they would have elected her to any office known to man, and by unanimous acclaim!

Dr. Greenlees watched his wife with a quiet smile: he knew there were ramifications to having been shot, he'd known men -- he'd personally known men -- who'd been shot, back on Earth, and who'd never been the same since: their physical wounds healed, but the psychic injury remained, and so he was greatly encouraged when his wife's face reddened delicately, when she closed her eyes, when he saw her shoulders wiggle with suppressed laughter, when she finally gave up all pretense and leaned her head back and gave joyful voice to her mirth and merriment.

 

From The Firelands Gazette:

"A minstrel show of recent memory was well received in the community, and our own matrons of society, Esther Keller, and Bonnie McKenna, hosted the players in the Sheriff's home.

The meal was a gala event, music and laughter entertained all present, until one of the players remarked his offense at a comment received from the audience, that his banjo was missing a string.

The opinion was stated that this was obviously an uncultured peasant, one without musical appreciation: the laughter spread among those players who were guesting within, but all traces of pleasantness fell from the faces of their hostesses as if they'd released a pair of china stage masks and let them fall to the floor.

Our own Esther Keller called for a Strauss waltz: an unseen musician flawlessly played in flawless 3/4 time, and both Esther Keller and Bonnie McKenna danced with their husbands, but only for the space of several bars.

Esther Keller released her husband and turned to the arrogant soul who so dismissed the character of the audience-member and said, "Sirrah, if your banjo was said to be missing a string, then I submit that your instrument is indeed lacking."

The player, whose good sense may have been swimming in the Sheriff's brandy, blustered that a mere provincial could hardly be expert in such matters.

The Sheriff called to the hidden violinist to come forth, and an individual in a plain, greyish dress stepped into the room, quite at odds with the fine attire of the attendees:  in her hands, a curly-back fiddle, well known to our community:  the guesting player was asked by a cold-voiced matron, his estimation of this individual: emboldened by his former statement, fueled by foolishness and doubtless lubricated by drink, the reply was that this could hardly be the violinist they'd just heard: a nod by Miz Esther, and our own Gracie Daine once again spun a graceful, flawless waltz into the air.

The blustering player shouted an interruption -- "The violinist is hidden, and this is a fraud!" -- at which point Esther Keller, matron of society, benefactress of the arts, soundly backhanded the scoundrel, and the fight was on.

 

Marnie laughed, and as she laughed, she felt something unwind inside her, something she'd kept tightly bound somewhere behind her belt buckle: she shook her head, re-read the words, sighed happily and looked at her quietly smiling husband.

"What happened next?" Dr. John Greenlees asked, raising an eyebrow the way he did when he didn't quite want to say "Spill it, Toots!"

"I'm in the middle of a brawl in Old Pale Eyes' home," Marnie laughed, "Esther just backhanded some fellow who insulted the Daine family, the Sheriff decked another one and pulled a pair of fighting knives and invited a third to a duel of honor, right here and right now."

"Sounds like fun," Dr. Greenlees murmured, trying hard to look innocent.

"Oh, it gets better," Marnie smiled, scanning down the page, running her finger ahead of her thoughts:  "it seems that ... here it is ... Esther Keller, matron of society and patroness of the arts, brought out a pair of dueling blades and invited the first bigmouth to a duel of honor ... and he declined when she tossed a silk kerchief in the air, and sliced it in two with a turn of her wrist."

"I thought it was only you pale eyed hell raisers that did that kind of thing!"

"Well," Marnie shrugged, "maybe she was contaminated.  She did marry that pale eyed Sheriff!" 

Marnie rose, laid down the printed sheet, walked over to her husband.

Dr. John Greenlees rose when his wife did.

Marnie's walk was that of a woman who knows a lover's eyes were upon her: she put one trim foot ahead of the other, like she was on a balance beam, or a model's catwalk: she walked on ball bearing, her hips swiveled, her shoulders turned, she was the living, breathing vision of seduction, her head lowered slightly, so she looked at the man she wanted through her eyelashes.

"Dr. Greenlees," she breathed as she pressed herself into her husband, "I have designs on you."

Dr. John Greenlees embraced his wife, lowered his mouth to hers, tightened his arms around her.

Neither one minded, not one little bit.

 

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

RESPECT

"Jacob?"

"Yes, sir?"

Sheriff Linn Keller studied his growing orchard with a critical eye.

"Ever thing of leaving?"

Jacob walked over beside his father, stopped when he was shoulder-to-shoulder with the Grand Old Man.

"Are you telling me to leave, sir?"

"No."

Silence for a time, filled -- at least in Linn's imagination -- with the sound of gears turning inside his son's head.

"Sir, you taught me to look deeper than the words."

"Yes, I did."

"I must wonder, sir, the reason for your inquiry."

"You must wonder, or you must ask?"

Jacob turned and faced his father squarely.

"Are you sending me away, sir?"

Linn turned and considered placing a fatherly hand on his son's shoulder, decided against it: it might seem artificial, contrived, and he knew he was treading perilous ground with his question.

"Jacob, you are my son, and you are my right hand. I am not about to send you away. I am not about to suggest that you leave. That'll happen on its own, once you find a filly that suits your saddle."

Jacob considered this, frowned.

"Then, sir," he said slowly, "I am to marry a horse?"

Linn rubbed his nose, frowned, looked at the ground, looked back at his son, realizing how much his boy had taken after him:  Jacob just reduced the tension with humor -- something Linn used, and used to very good effect.

"Jacob," Linn said at length, "I will not dictate who you should marry."

"Thank you, sir."

"My father ..."

Linn looked away, looked across the back pasture, suddenly uncomfortable.

"My father disapproved of the first girl I brought home," he said quietly, "and of the second."
Jacob waited.

"When I took my load of furs over to Chillicothe to sell 'em to Scotty, I met Connie and we were married while we were ... while I was not yet returned home."

Jacob considered this, nodded.

"Every boy comes a time when he figures he can whip his old man," Linn said softly. "I never come to that point, not to the day of my father's death." 

Linn was silent for several long moments.

Jacob waited.

He knew there was more behind those words, and he was right.

"I rebelled against my father, Jacob," Linn said a little more softly.  "I married Connie without his consult or his let-be.  I come home and I allowed as Connie was my wife and I looked hard at him and dared him to say one word to the contrary."

"Did he, sir?"

"He did not."  Linn's voice softened.  "Ma, she taken Connie off an' they talked about wimmen-things and Pa, he kind of swallowed and nodded and asked me what my plans were, and I allowed as I'd saved back some coin and me and Connie, we would head north where the ground was deep and black and easier farmin' than the hill country, and he nodded, and 'twas like he kind of closed himself up some."

Linn took a long breath.  

"He sold me the mare and a wagon and me and Connie, we pointed our noses toward the North Star and ... well, hell, you've heard all this before."

Jacob waited, not wanting to interrupt his father's thoughts.

"Jacob," Linn said slowly, "if I have offended you, tell me."

Jacob considered long before he replied, for he, too, knew he would be treading uncertain ground.

"Sir," he finally said, "you have never taken an action unless you were satisfied it was the right thing to do."

Linn nodded, just a little.

"I have no call to rebel against you, sir. I have never found your decisions to be... offensive."

Linn nodded again.

"You asked if I'd thought about leaving, sir."

Jacob frowned, thrust his jaw out, turned, squinted toward the opposite horizon, turned back.

"Where would I go, was I to strike out on the fiddle foot?"

Linn looked at something well beyond the far side of the pasture.

"Jacob, I have seen cities," he said slowly, "I have seen great marvels of nature and of man. I have been shot, stabbed, cut, run into, run over ... I have seen things that would curl the hair on a bald man's head."

"Yes, sir."

"I saw all of those things ... back East, back where people are plentiful."

Jacob nodded again.

"Sir," he finally said, "I am not the brightest candle in the window, but I'm not entirely ... stupid."

"Stupid you're not," Linn muttered.

"Sir, unless I find that filly you're talking about, I don't reckon I have any need to leave. I've seen cities, sir, and right happy I was to be shuck of 'em.

Was I to want excitement, why, I'll go down to the fire house and allow as no Irish need apply and I'll have all the excitement I can handle."

Jacob saw Linn's near ear redden, and he saw his father was suddenly trying to stifle a smile as he imagined Jacob squaring off bare knuckle against the entire Irish Brigade.

"If I want marvels of nature, sir, I've got it all around me. Marvels of man's hand, hell, I can find that about anywhere I've been.  Likely I'll find more as I see more of the world, but no sir, I don't have any screamin' need to go hell-a-tearin' for the horizon."

Linn nodded.

"Unless you want rid of me, sir."

Linn shook his head, still staring into the distance.

"No, Jacob," he finally said.  "No, I do not want that at all."

He looked at his son again.

"When the time comes you'll have need to set out on your own...when that time comes I'll respect the choice you make."

"Thank you, sir."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

REGRET

Jacob Keller looked up from the Journal, his eyes suddenly wide, almost shocked: his mouth was open a little as the full weight of what he just read hit his young soul.

"Oh my dear God," he whispered.

Jacob planted his elbow on the desktop, his hand cupping over his mouth, his eyes staring overtop the computer screen, swinging toward the front door, remembering the conversation he and his father had the day before.

"That's why," he whispered to his curled fingers.  "That's why!"

 

Old Pale Eyes closed his eyes, shook his head slowly, seeing it again in his mind's eye, feeling the impact as he backhanded the offender, hard.

His jaw muscles bulged as he clenched his teeth tight together, forbidding himself to even whisper the denial his soul was screaming.

If it's possible for a man to feel his soul falling into a bottomless well, he did.

 

Angela Keller stood in front of her mirror, turning a little: her new dress fit to perfection -- her Mama had to let it out a little in the bodice, as she was ... developing ... as young women will.

Satisfied, she sat, picked up her hairbrush, examined her face, then set about working on her hair.

Automatically, unconsciously, she parted her hair right down the middle of her scalp, along a pink line.

An old, long-healed, scar.

 

Jacob Keller came home from San Frisco, having gone there on his father's business: the miscreant he'd been sent to fetch home in irons, was dead already, and Jacob bore the certification of unnatural death from the proper authority.

He also brought home a pretty young woman -- Annette, her name, daughter of a recently ruined family, heir to nothing now -- a young woman he'd rescued from slavers, a young woman who watched Jacob ride up on a fine Appaloosa stallion, a fine looking young man who proceeded to dispatch her kidnappers with a pair of engraved Colt's revolvers: she admitted silently, as she sat blushing beside her new husband, that -- were he ugly as a mud fence after a spring rain -- he would still be a shining knight in her eyes, especially with those shoulders!

It did not escape her quick, feminine eye, the envious glances of other women: she remembered what it was to ride beside him, atop the enclosed hack, with the other young women he'd untied, freed, released -- they rode on top, because he'd thrown the bloodied bodies of the kidnappers into the hack as if they were sacks of potatoes: they'd driven the coach-and-team right up the walk to the front of the police-station, where the Mayor and the Chief of Police were declaring to reporters and public alike that the city was safer than it had ever been, at which point the young women came swarming down off the hack and advanced in full cry, declaring the outrage done them, how neither the Mayor nor their constabulary prevented their abduction, their bondage, their being gagged and blindfolded and packaged for delivery to the sea-side flesh-pots in exchange for filthy lucre -- Annette and Jacob, untying his shining stallion from the rear of the hack, mounted and made quickly for the depot, where they met a sky pilot of Jacob's acquaintance, and were duly united as man and wife, on a railroad platform, right in front of God and everybody.

Jacob came home with his wife beside him on the buggy-seat, and he drove to his father's house.

Linn saw them coming up the driveway in the rented buggy, and Jacob saw something on his father's face he'd wanted to put there for several years.

Jacob dismounted, coolly ignored his father, walked around the carriage: he hoisted his wife out, swung her free, lowered her gently: he placed her gloved hand on his arm and walked around the front of the rented nag and looked very directly -- rebelliously -- at his father.

"Sir," he declared, "may I present my wife, Annette."

As hard as Jacob's eyes were, as much as he wanted to shove the moment in the Grand Old Man's face, he saw something he was suddenly sorry to see.

Jacob looked at Old Pale Eyes, his father, and he saw shame on his father's face.

 

Angela leaned a little to the side to see around the computer screen.

"Jacob?" she called.  "Are you all right?"

Jacob stood up, swallowed:  he took a plastic-laminated, six-inch ruler he used for calligraphy and slipped it between the pages as a bookmark.

Annette took a step toward her visibly upset brother, opened her arms.

"Jacob, what's wrong?"

Jacob took his little sister's hands, then he looked down at the top of her head, worked his fingers into her hair, searching.

"Jacob?" Angela laughed.  "What are you looking for, cooties?"

Jacob drew back a half-step, bit his bottom lip, shook his head, then he hugged his baby sis.

"Jacob?"

Angela's voice was worried now.

"Jacob, what happened?"

 

Angela and Joseph were alike enough they were more twin than not: Joseph took a look at his big brother Jacob, picked up a rock, slung it.

Jacob wasn't looking at them, at least not until he got hit -- hard -- he took a step behind the woodpile, but not before he got nailed twice more:  Joseph had a good aim and a good arm, and Angela, laughing, picked up a rock and joined in, though her awkward throw cast the stone wide.

Jacob dipped down, picked up a rock -- big as his hand, flat -- he gripped it between his fisted thumb-and-forefinger, drew it over his shoulder, cast it -- vertical it was when he released, it flew straight and true, Jacob was hurting from being hit several times and he intended to nail his little brother squarely between the eyes.

The wind caught the rock, it planed to the left and caught Angela right in the center of the scalp.

She went down in a petticoated heap and Joseph ran, abandoning her: Angela got up, crying, and ran for the house.

Jacob's heart hit his boot tops.

He could've run, he knew, but he'd get it all the worse when he was found:  no, best to go inside and face what he knew was coming.

He hadn't expected his father to backhand him.

Linn wound up his good left arm and backhanded his eldest son as hard as he could swing his work-hardened muscles: Jacob's feet came off the ground, he hit the wall, slid to the floor, shocked: in pain, yes, but the realization that his father just hit him -- for the first and only time in their lives -- he looked up at his Pa, and he felt fear, fear that the Old Man would hit him again, and the memory of all the times his dead Mama's husband beat him came rip-roaring out of memory.

Jacob's head hit the wall when he did, and his vision hadn't cleared enough to see anything but his father turn away from him.

Neither spoke of that moment, neither gave it voice: Jacob never discussed it with his sons, or his wife, and Linn didn't either, not until he sat down that evening and dipped his steel nib pen in good India ink and he gave the account to immortal rag paper.

I must apologize to my son, he wrote: I backhanded him out of anger.

I saw something in my son's eyes I would surrender my eternal soul to see gone.

I saw betrayal, and I saw fear.

I gave my son cause to fear me.

He may never trust me again.

Damn me.

I struck my son, out of blind anger.

I just destroyed any trust we ever had.

 

Jacob steered his little sis into the kitchen.

"Jacob?" Angela asked.  "You look half sick."

Jacob sat at the kitchen table, stared across the tablecloth with a lost expression.

"Angela," he said softly, "I just found out why Pa asked me if I'd thought of leaving."

Angela tilted her head to the side -- just like Marnie, just like Ma, Jacob thought -- "Jacob, are you leaving?"

He shook his head.

"No.  No, but I just read in that Journal where Old Jacob -- where Old Pale Eyes asked his son Jacob that same thing, if he'd ever given thought to leaving."

"I don't understand."

"Pa asked me the same thing. He'd been reading that Journal."

"Is that why you're upset?"

Jacob shook his head.

"No.  No, I just read where Old Pale Eyes ... y'see, Old Joseph and Old Angela ganged up on Old Jacob and pinned him behind the woodpile, throwin' rocks at him.  He was hit several times, hard, and it hurt. He picked up one rock -- one! -- threw it at Joseph, only it curved and caught his little sis right here."  His bladed hand described an imaginary wound track on his own fine-haired scalp. "She parted her hair on that scar for the rest of her life."

"Ow," Angela sympathized.

"Yeah, but it gets worse."

Angela sat, her blue eyes big, luminous.  

"Jacob, what happened?"

"Old Pale Eyes saw his little girl hurt and he backhanded his son."

Jacob saw the alarm in his little sister's expression.

"Brought him off his feet, he hit the wall and slid down and just laid there afraid to move, afraid the Old Man was going to beat him the way he'd been beat before."

"Oh, no," Angela whispered:  she well knew the story of Old Jacob and his whip-scarred back.

"Pa read that and he asked me if he'd ever hit me when it wasn't justified, and if I'd ever give thought to leavin', and that's why he asked me." 

Jacob nodded toward his Pa's desk, there in the adjacent study. 

"He was afraid of havin' made the same mistake as Old Pale Eyes did."

 

Angela waited until Jacob re-shelved the journal, left.

Angela slipped in, paged quickly through it, read the account:  her eyes stung with sorrow, with unshed tears as she read a man's words as he flagellated himself on paper for having betrayed his son's trust.

Angela remembered something she'd read in her Gammaw's library, something Old Jacob wrote, describing how he'd gone into his Pa's bedroom after the Grand Old Man died, how he'd taken a belt and beaten the empty bed, screaming "Hit me again, damn you!" and then knelt, weeping bitterly into the ticking that still smelled of his father, grieving because he'd never made peace with his father for that one most terrible betrayal.

"That's why," she whispered, then she looked at Old Pale Eyes' journal again, at the final words of this most unhappy chapter in his life.

I never asked my son's forgiveness for what I did to him that day.

Of all that I have done in my entire life, this is my one most terrible regret.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MOTHER'S DAY AND THE PARSON

Reverend John Burnett scratched his head and frowned at the notes he'd made, arranged neatly in a small stack of file cards so he could keep track of where he was.

He picked up the stack, looked at them, leaned over and dropped them in the trash can beside the pulpit.

There were smiles, mostly among the young: this generally meant their Parson was going to speak without notes, and almost always that meant a shorter sermon, and that meant they could set down to Sunday dinner all the sooner.

"I had a fine sermon all polished up and ready," he said thoughtfully, "I was going to tell you why we've steadfastly refused to become one of the mainstream denominations."

He looked out over the assembled, he saw several lean forward, interested: this was not at all what they were expecting to hear, this was News, and if it was News and they were hearing it here first, why, they didn't want to miss a thing.

"I was going to hold forth on how the mainstream denominations went into politics big time, I was going to discuss draft dodgers during Vietnam going into divinity school to escape the draft and how they took their liberal ideology with them, how they rose to command rank in their denominations and turned what had been religious organizations, into political action groups.

"I was all set to beat fist on pulpit and declare that we proclaim God's Word and we leave politics to the individual, but something came along to knock all that into" -- he looked at the trash can -- "well, I was going to say into a cocked hat, but I'd look pretty silly wearing a trash can.

"Let me tell you about Mother's Day."

 

Parson John and his wife sat down in a little restaurant just outside Cripple Creek, on the main highway.

Mrs. Parson was older than the Reverend by almost a decade: it was rarely an issue, though today, when the waitress chirped cheerfully, "Oh, how nice that you brought you mother out to eat!" and Mrs. Parson looked at her husband with big and shocked eyes.

Parson John decided against telling the waiting waitress that this was his wife -- he gave her their order instead -- and he gave his longsuffering wife a patient look when she hissed, "Don't you DARE tip that girl!"

He did; he reasoned that she was trying to be kind.

The good Reverend and his wife were no more than three bites into their deluxe omelets when the Parson's head came up and he started looking around, his expression serious.

A woman, coughing: his eyes found her, diagonally across the restaurant:  as he watched, the sound of her coughing ceased, but her shoulders were still working, as if she was trying to cough yet.

Parson John said later he crossed that restaurant floor in three long strides -- exactly how, he had no idea -- the little old husband was backing out of the booth, eyes wide and shocked -- Parson John was running on automatic pilot: he reached in, seized her hand and pulled.

He reasoned later she must have been a dancer.

She came out of that booth easy as you please, he spun her around and she pirouetted like Ginger Rogers: he got his arms around her, one hand grabbed the other fist.

Once, twice, thrice: he hit her three times hard, squeezing her belly, trying to drive the obstruction out of her throat.

Third pull, he thought, and nothing happened!

Refresher class was yesterday.

They just outlawed back blows.

Abdominal thrusts didn't work.

I have to do SOMETHING even if it's wrong!

"I had the woman over my arm like I'd broken open a shotgun," he said, surprised that his voice was as steady as it was: "I hit her once, with the flat of my hand, between her shoulder blades.

"The blockage, whatever it was, hit the floor, I felt her struggle in that first breath.

"I took her shoulder -- my thigh was under her backside -- I drew her upright and asked, "Can you cough?" and she did, and she nodded, and I looked up."

Parson John looked around, his ears red and warm as he remembered the moment.

"You know how sometimes you open your mouth and something stupid falls out?"

The Parson raised his arm, waved his hand a little, laughing, and his congregation laughed with him.

"I'm standing there with my leg under another man's wife's backside, my arm is around her belly, I look around and EVERYONE in that restaurant is ON THEIR FEET and in a semicircle around us, WATCHING."

He laughed again.

"So what did I do?  Open mouth, insert foot, I raised a teaching finger and declared, 'Big sigh of relief all around!'"

He took a long breath, shook his head.

"Our meal was free that day," he said softly, "the little old couple paid their bill and got out of there and they were probably embarrassed to pieces.

"That wasn't all."

Reverend John stopped and gripped the podium with both hands, as if to steady himself as the next memory turned itself into words.

"A mother screamed and I'm on my feet, she's holding an infant and it's turned an awful color" -- he looked at the Irish Brigade, he looked over at the Sheriff and his family, and he saw memories in their eyes -- They know what I'm saying -- "I took the child and it's not breathing.

"I sat down on the edge of their table and my thighs are downhill, I laid the child down and two fast pats on the back -- they weren't pats, I smacked that little child like I'd trained and something fires out and splats against Mama's slacks, I feel the baby wiggle and it gets a breath and all of a sudden it's telling the world it doesn't like being handled by some strange man that beats it on the back!"

He paused, wished for something to drink -- the memory, he realized, dried his throat out terribly -- "I handed the crying child back to the mother, I apologized for the mess on her slacks, and went back to my wife, and I just sat there for a while until my deluxe omelet got cold. 

"The moral of the story is this."

He looked at the Irish Brigade, he looked at the Sheriff's wife, he looked deeper into the congregation to people he knew, people who knew exactly what he was saying because they'd been there too.

"Folks, I could make any number of Scriptural references to these.  I could talk about being my brother's keeper. I could talk about the man from Samaria who unselfishly healed another. I'd be gilding the lily if I did, so here's the bottom line.

"Learn how to do what I've done. Learn more if you can. Statistically you're more likely to use your skills on your own family than a stranger, unless you're professional in the life saving business, but please, take it from an old man who just wanted to take his wife out for Happy Mother's Day."

He looked around, his expression open, vulnerable.

"Take the training, folks. Someone you love just might need it."

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE FAVORITE

A little boy looked around, big-eyed, marveling: his mother had spoken of going out West and taking a scenic train ride, and how it would expose her son to the Great Outdoors and get him away from screens and games and the city, and her husband agreed: he had business meetings, and arranged to meet his wife and son at the end of their train ride.

It would be much like train travel, back when: their luggage would ride in the luggage car, they would ride in the passenger car, they would eat as they rode, only they would be drawn by a genuine steam engine!

They read the brochures, watched the on-line videos, and the mother saw something take root in her son's young imagination as he studied The Lady Esther's stately approach to the station, fascinated (as are all boys) by all those moving parts, by steam shooting out here and there.

He and his mother laughed and marveled as they stood with railfans and tourists alike as The Lady Esther made a scenic run-by: cameras and camera phones swung as she passed, and she reversed back to the passengers, and a little boy whose world had been paved streets and glowing screens suddenly expanded as his young heart fell in love with cast iron and radiated heat and the romantic idea that this was no mere machine ... this was a living creature of magic and fire!

He took a close-up of her, he came up near the cab and he shot a photo of the portrait on the side, an oval portrait of a beautiful woman with red hair and a quiet smile, the curled banner beneath declaring her name -- The Lady Esther -- he looked longingly at the cab and wished he might share that magical space with those men of legend in their hickory-striped caps and bib overalls, those mighty commanders of steam and smoke, those men who manipulated levers and sorcery.

The passengers boarded and were underway: like any well-run railroad, this one had a timetable, and this railroad took pride in being on time:  the boy was curious, as are all lads his age, and his quick young ear heard something almost woody, something cadenced, something not quite slow, but definitely purposeful.

It was coming up the aisle behind him.

The lad sat beside his mother, right on the aisle, and he looked over and he saw a gun.

A big gun.

A gun with a six point star inlaid into its figured walnut handle, a gun that was wearing the tallest Sheriff's deputy he'd ever seen, striding slowly up the aisle, to the front of the car, and then something followed this giant of legend and myth, something incredibly black, something with curly fur, something taller than the seated boy, something powerful that filled the aisle as it passed.

Where the deputy's boot heels were loud, purposeful, commanding, this creature that followed -- this bear, maybe -- was absolutely, utterly, silent.

The conductor was giving his cheerful greeting and welcoming one and all to the Z&W Railroad, headquartered out of Firelands, Colorado, "one of those you-can't-get-there-from-here places" -- his red cheeks, his jovial voice, his smiling expression all served to reassure, to entertain -- "and here for a word is our own Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller, who will be going with us for part of our route today."

Jacob tuned, removed his uniform Stetson: he was four fingers over six feet, lean waisted and broad shouldered, and feminine eyes devoured this image of Western masculinity: in an age where being a man worthy of the name was seen with decreasing frequency, this image of a proper ideal quickened more than one female heart.

"First of all," he said without preamble, "we do not have mock holdups, so you don't need to worry about that interruption. Mr. Charleton here knows all there is to be known about the Z&W Railroad and its operation, feel free to ask him anything. Cell phone service is spotty but we do have backup communication. You may've noticed the wires beside the tracks, for instance."  

The pale eyed deputy thrust a chin toward the nearest window.

"We maintain hard-wired telegraph communication. We have an emergency set on board. Should the need arise, we can clip onto the wires thanks to a pair of long poles, we can use the portable telegraph to contact whoever we need to. Mr. Charleton here is conversant in brass pounding."

He looked around, waiting: no questions arose, so he continued.

"We have well equipped emergency services, even this far West. My mother is a paramedic and a good one, we know every last road in these mountains, and we can get from here to there, peacefully or otherwise, and we generally don't care which."

Jacob laid a hand on a huge, broad head.

"This is The Bear Killer," he said, " he is a Sheriff's K9 and duly deputized, and he came by his name honestly. We feed him used car salesmen and tax collectors twice daily, he'll rip your hand off up to the shoulder and if you believe that I'm also selling interest in a bridge in New York."

His quick, honest grin and bantering tone of voice coaxed quiet laughter from the carful of tourists.

"We're coming up on a grade and the train will slow as a result. She's an early model, not like the compounds you're probably familiar with. Compounds ran high pressure steam and had a high-pressure and a low-pressure cylinder stacked one atop the other. Our engine today, isn't, so she slows some on a grade.  My horse and I will step off the moving train, we have business elsewhere, but I did want to stop and say howdy.  Questions?"

A little boy with big and wondering eyes looked at his mother and said, "A real horse?"

Jacob laughed, nodded.  "A genuine, honest-to-God, mountain bred Appaloosa stallion, fast enough to split the wind, mean enough to throw a rider over the moon itself!  Why, one time it threw me towards the crescent moon and I hung there for a week by my belt where the pointy end of the moon caught me behint the gunbelt and I had to wait until the phase changed and crowded me off!"

Jacob replaced his Stetson with a grin, paced back down the aisle: he winked at the lad on his way by, and a Sheriff's deputy with a huge black curly furred Bear Killer of a dog, disappeared out the back door.

That night, just before he plugged in his phone to charge while he slept, he swept through the pictures he'd taken that day, reliving moments, his young imagination delighting in memories he'd captured.

His mother came over and slipped the phone from his sleeping fingers, looked at the screen and smiled.

He'd gone to sleep staring at the one favorite memory he'd captured that day.

His mother swept back and forth between two of the pictures:  her son, grinning, absolutely thrilled, sitting in the saddle of an honest-to-God, mountain-bred Appaloosa stallion.

His mother swept the picture aside, replaced it with her son's favorite.

It was taken from the window of the passenger car, after they'd come out on the flat and picked up speed.

A pale eyed Sheriff's deputy, on a fast moving stallion, its neck straight out and its nose punching a hole in the wind, and the rider grinning like a little boy, leaned forward in the saddle, his Stetson angled down to keep it on his head as they paced the train.

The hooves were blurred, the mane and tail flowed in the wind, her son was swinging the camera a little as he took the shot: whether by accident or design, he'd put his subject in the right hand one-third of the frame, leaving room for the horse and rider to run into: a professional photographer's trick, when capturing motion, and in this shutter-snap his mother could almost hear galloping hooves as she, too, looked long at this favorite picture.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HOME

A pale eyed lawman considered the territory ahead of him.

He'd been in the saddle two days longer than he'd planned.

He'd mediated a dispute between two men, a dispute involving water rights, property rights, grazing rights; each was hard headed and contrary, each one was convinced he was in the right: it took all the Sheriff's powers of persuasion to get them to look at the law books he'd brought, the statutes governing such matters: neither the Sheriff, nor the two landowners, were attorneys, but each considered himself reasonably intelligent:  between the three of them, they determined among themselves what the statutes said, what their lawful rights actually were, and what they were not.

The Sheriff left with the feeling that Solomon, King of Israel, should have been called in to consult on this matter, and he left knowing each of the men was dissatisfied, but to the same degree:  the art of diplomacy, he'd heard, was making sure everyone was equally unhappy.

Well, that's what I got, he thought: the two of 'em agreed and shook hands, and that's as bonding as a signed contract.

I know them to be men of their word.

They'll abide by that agreement.

He was on his way home now, satisfied: he'd stopped by two ranches of his acquaintance, he'd left off a cloth wrapped bundle from his wife -- sewing notions they were, and spices Esther grew in her yarb garden, picked, dried, ground and jarred up in cute little glass jars she found someplace, God alone knows where she got 'em but Esther had a way of finding such things: he'd asked the blushing daughter of one rancher if she'd take that bundle to her Mama, and he'd taken her by surprise when he did, for his Apple-horse came up on the lass when she was sewing on her front porch, and when that half-wild Appaloosa wanted to tread softly, why, he could walk up on someone as near to dead silent as the Sheriff himself, and he was famous for his silent passages.

The second ranch, he knew, was more prosperous, and so when he was invited to light and set, and the wife set an extra plate at the table, Linn knew they had enough they'd not be going anyone hungry to feed this extra visitor, why, he accepted their hospitality, though this rancher's wife, too, got one of Esther's bundles, and right glad she was to have spices for cookin' and notions to sew with.

A paper of pins was a precious thing in the outlying areas, where the general store might be two, three days' ride, and Esther's bundles generally had buttons, needles, thread of different colors, things women-folks needed, for clothes wore and tore and had to be repaired.

This second ranch was as hospitable as he remembered, and in the course of conversation mention was made of an old-timer who lived in an isolated shack, a man of education and solitude and they'd not seen him for some time, could the Sheriff take a look-see and make sure he was doin' all right, and Linn knew the question beneath the words: they were busy at the ranch and he was going near to the fellow's shack, as neighborly as they were, it would be a kindness to them to check on the fellow while he was in the nearby.

That, too, was not as simple as he'd wanted, for the old fellow was dead, and not very long: he'd laid down in his own bed and surrendered his essence to the Almighty, and Linn found the note on his table, weighted with a knife, written in a clear, regular hand: it referenced the ranch Linn just left, for they'd been kindly to this old fellow, he had no one else in the world so he left his holdings to them, and his worldly wealth.

Linn rode back to the ranch and as soon as he was spotted, the family gathered, for that could only mean bad news, and they were right.

A couple hundred acres of ground added to their ranch, a small poke of coin -- a sizable sum, to be sure, for gold coin adds up fast -- Linn sketched out where he'd buried the fellow, and he'd set at the dead man's table with his saddlebag journal and he'd written the account of what he'd found, and sketched the inside of the shack, showing the location of the deceased, where he'd secreted his gold, the cook stove and table -- which was all the place contained.

"Johnny One-People," Linn said aloud as he leaned back, looked over at the still form, then resumed sketching:  the fellow had been asked why he'd built such a small residence, and he'd drawn himself up to his full height and said stiffly, in his foreign sounding accent, "Ist big nuff fer one people," and so Johann Chipalinski became Johnny One-People.

 

Angela Keller shaded her eyes, looked out the window, wishing window-glass could be made smooth and not wavy: she sighed, turned back to her Mama.

Esther gave her daughter a patient look.

Her husband was overlong returning home: this was not unusual -- he was Sheriff, and he was gregarious, an entertaining and welcome guest wherever he went; Esther marveled, many times, at her husband's ability to be stern, cold, hard and uncompromising in one moment, and in the next, he'd say something that had equally hard and uncompromising men laughing, and their skeptical wives smiling: Esther well knew the use of gentle humor in dealing with men of business, men of commerce, men of influence, but she still delighted in seeing her husband's practice of the art.

"I know, dear," Esther soothed.  "He'll be home today."

"Yes, Mama," Angela said softly, dropping her eyes, then turning to the window again.

Esther smiled quietly as she saw her daughter's rounded shoulders square up, as she saw youthful delight come up on the balls of her feet: there was too much light to see a reflection in the window, but Esther knew Angela's bright-blue eyes would be wide and delighted and her hands would be just covering her mouth:  Esther knew her daughter would reach down, snatch up her skirts and turn like a petticoat whirlwind and head for the front door with all the ladylike decorum of a gust of wind, and she was right.

Angela stopped abruptly, seizing the porch-post to halt her running momentum, then she snatched an embroidered kerchief and waved it overhead, bouncing excitedly on her toes like a little girl, and Esther looked out the window, through the lower corner of the top pane where it wasn't wavy at all, and she saw her husband lift his hat, as she saw his stallion rear, as he saw his darlin' daughter on his front porch, rejoicing at her dear Papa's return.

Esther's hands came to her mouth, too, but slowly, thoughtfully, with two steepled fingers against her lips and her fingers otherwise interlaced:  she smiled, she remembered being that delighted girl, not quite a woman, rejoicing unreservedly as her Papa came into view on his fine Morgan horse, back in the Carolinas.

Sheriff Linn Keller saw a small figure in the distance, a young woman with a bright-blue ribbon in her hair, a ribbon he knew matched her gorgeous bright-blue eyes: he saw her flutter a kerchief overhead in a broad arc, and he drew his Apple-horse to a coasting stop:  the pale eyed Sheriff lifted his Stetson, held it well overhead, and his stallion came up in a windmilling rear, a trick Linn taught him long ago, and used to good effect, many times.

Linn knew Angela would be bouncing on the balls of her feet like a happy little girl -- he couldn't quite see this at this distance, but he was satisfied she would be -- and he knew Esther would be watching, and from that particular window.

Sheriff Linn Keller had been in the saddle longer than he'd intended:  he'd done good work, and now he was home, and glad he was for it.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DID I DO ALL RIGHT?

Sheriff Linn Keller lifted his hands, touched the brim of his uniform Stetson.

He practiced in uniform and he qualified in uniform and he competed in uniform: he was absolutely deadly with a revolver, he was a snake with a single action, and today he wore the department issue sidearm -- as did the others on the qualifying range.

Not everyone was in uniform.

Linn knew he had to set an example; he knew that as he led, so would his people perform.

There were deputies in blue jeans and sneakers, and there were two women.

The women were notable.

One, with pale eyes, wore a long gown and a picture hat: the issue duty belt didn't quite match her handmade dress, but it fit her perfectly -- it was a ladies' belt, flared to fit the feminine contour, and she was equally obviously comfortable wearing it.

The other female on the line wore a tailored suit dress and heels, but she had gorgeous, bright-blue eyes, and her gunbelt was just that -- a gunbelt, not a duty belt.

It was also her thirteenth birthday.

The shooters stood barely behind a white line, facing a row of steel silhouettes, painted white: in the center, a dinner plate sized circle, hinged at the top.

"SHOOTERS! ON THE LINE!"

The shooters shifted a little, getting their stance.

"AT THE WHISTLE, YOU WILL DRAW AND FIRE TWO ROUNDS CENTER MASS! YOU WILL HAVE FIVE SECONDS!"

Silence flowed over them like an invisible blanket.

"SHOOTERS READY! STAND BYYYYY!"

Eight men and two women waited a young eternity for the whistle.

Angela heard the whistle and the world disappeared: she saw the silhouette, she saw her front sight come up and punch straight forward like she'd practiced and practiced and practiced again: she felt the slide slam back, she saw the front sight come back down and she triggered her second shot: the flapper in the middle of her target flew back, flew back a second time.

Angela took a long breath, looked left, looked right: at the whistle, she holstered.

Marnie, beside her, holstered slowly, deliberately.

Behind them, targets were scored: Angela Keller, her wavy blond hair pulled back and tied with a bright blue hair ribbon, looked at her target through lash-veiled eyes.

Marnie looked over but held any comment.

She did not want to break her little sister's concentration.

"SHOOTERS! ON THE LINE!"

 

Angela remembered what her Daddy taught her about shooting on the clock.

She remembered to use all the time available, when the relay was a timed event: when the steel plates were removed and the 3D mannikins set in their place, Marnie was pleased to see the look in her little sister's eyes.

Angela looked at the 3D mannikin like a hungry fox will look at a hen.

"SHOOTERS! ON THE LINE! ADVANCE TO FINGERTIP DISTANCE!"

Eight men and two women paced forward: each squared off to their simulated opponent, reached forward until they could just touch, then dropped their arm.

"AT THE WHISTLE, DOUBLE TAP!"

Speed Rock, Angela thought, smiling a little, a smile that didn't quite make it to the outside of her face: at the whistle, her pistol was in hand, slammed two rounds into the mannikin's belly so fast it sounded like one shot.

Angela saw the holes, dark and ugly, on the fresh new overlay.

The whistle again, then the rangemaster's voice.

"SHOOTERS! ON THE LINE! HALF DISTANCE, STRIKE, STEP BACK AND DOUBLE TAP!"

The line halved the distance.

Bad breath distance, Angela heard her Uncle Will's quiet comment, then something she'd read:

Belt buckle to belt buckle.

Angela Keller swatted the thoughts to the side, they were extraneous, distracting.

At the whistle, Marnie slammed forward, lithe and fast as a striking rattler, the heel of her off hand driving into the mannikin's face, hard enough to lift it off its hook: Angela's strike was nearly as fast, just as powerful, and both ladies drove two rounds of hardball into their dismounted, falling mannikin.

The rangemaster gave three quick tweets:  "COLD LINE, CLEAR WEAPONS!" he shouted: Angela and Marnie both took a quarter-turn step to keep their muzzles downrange as they dropped their mags and racked slides back, each cupping her off hand over the ejection port to catch the ejected round: each of the ladies holstered a locked-back slide and took three paces back.

"HEY MARNIE!" came a shouted voice, "QUIT BEATIN' UP ON OUR MANNIKINS!"

Marnie shot a cold-eyed glare at the chaffing deputy; beside her, Angela hid her nervousness with an affected disinterest, flipping her hair back (unnecessary, but it was her birthday, and she could be forgiven the gesture) and looking elaborately uninterested in the proceedings.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller tabulated the scores, recorded the results: everyone passed their qualification, though some scored higher than others: the Sheriff carefully refrained from mentioning that his darlin' daughter outshot every one of the men there, until every one of the men formed a semicircle and demanded, loudly, to know how badly the Sheriff's little girl outshot them.

Angela looked at Marnie, suddenly uncertain at these loud and demanding voices, at least until eight grinning lawmen parted and revealed a birthday cake, a stack of paper plates, and nine men and one woman happily, loudly and not entirely on-key, sang a most enthusiastic Happy Birthday to a young, pretty, furiously blushing, thirteen year old girl with bright blue eyes and wavy blond hair.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CONSEQUENCE

 

The woman lifted her chin and regarded the prosecutor, the jury, even His Honor the Judge with contempt.

"I didn't know the child was with him," she said icily. "I didn't mean to run her over."

"But you meant to run over him."

"Yes, the wretch!"

"You saw him and you saw your chance to kill him, so you whipped up your horse and ran over him -- hooves, buggy and all."

The woman thrust out her chest and her jaw, threw her shoulders back:  she stood, she drove a gloved finger at the prosecutor and declared at little less than a full shout, "YES, I RAN HIM OVER! HE'S DEAD AND GOOD RIDDANCE!"

"You didn't realize he wasn't your husband."

The woman's cold expression melted slowly to dismay, then disbelief.

"Mr. Rock, could you step out here, please?"

A tired-looking man in a grey suit stepped out from behind a corner, sorrow and betrayal in equal amounts all over his face:  he looked at the woman on the witness stand and groaned, "Christina, how could you do this?"

Christina Rock's eyes widened and her mouth fell open.

Mr. Moulton thrust an accusing finger at the woman.

"YOU DELIBERATELY MURDERED A FATHER AND HIS DAUGHTER," he shouted, "YOU HAVE CONFESSED TO INTENTIONALLY CAUSING THEIR MURDEROUS DEATH, AND NOW YOU REALIZE THE MAN YOU MURDERED, WAS INNOCENT!"

Christina Rock's knees failed her: she lacked strength enough to remain standing: she sat, slowly, then leaned forward, as if she were crumpling.

"The witness may step down," His Honor the Judge said quietly, and the bailiff had to assist the confessed murderess from the stand and to the table for the defense.

"Prosecution calls Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller!"

 

Jacob's jaw fell open as he saw the woman bearing down on a man and his daughter.

His mind held the frozen image of her face -- a snarling mask of hatred -- her whip, upraised, the rented mare, eyes walling, running in fear and in pain --

Jacob ran across the dirt street, seized the mare's bridle, tried to drive his boots into the passing dirt to vault onto the mare's back: he fell back -- not enough swing -- he fell back, dragging the mare's head down with him, trying desperately to avoid her hooves --

Something slashed across his face, the back of his neck, something like living fire --

A hoof hit his thigh, his leg went dead --

Jacob grabbed the bridle, higher, twisted the mare's head: his weight, his momentum, something, and the mare's head went down, twisted: Jacob tried to lock his agony behind clenched white teeth as the mare came down on his injured leg, as the buggy ran over the mare, as he saw spinning steel sail over him, then the back wheel, its gravel-tortured, steel-bound surface leaving a dirty tear across his chest --

Jacob felt the scaled monster in his belly tear loose of all restraint.

Rage, beyond any reason, seized his living soul, and he became a beast.

Jacob set his boot against the struggling mare's chestnut mane, roared his pain, his anger, his utter fury, he shoved and pulled and got his leg free: he was on all fours, then upright, scrambling into a run --

He seized the woman as she came to her feet, he took her by the throat, he cocked a fist, the Beast blazed from his eyes, hatred powered his arm, he launched a punch with full intent to rip the head from her neck with one mighty blow --

Some shred of sanity penetrated his red-eyed rage: he released her throat, he lowered his fist.

The woman snarled and backhanded him, hard.

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller did not stay his hand.

He drove his bony fist as deep as he could into her middle, he put his weight into the punch, he hit her hard enough to bring her feet off the ground and knock every bit of fight out of her.

 

His Honor the Judge looked at the jury foreman.

"Mister Foreman," he said, his voice gravely formal, "how say the jury?"

"Guilty, Your Honor.  So say we all."

His Honor the Judge, the honorable Donald Hostetler, nodded.

"The court thanks the jury for its service."

The Judge looked at Christina Rock, then at the Bailiff, nodded.

"The defendant will rise."

The woman rose.

She was pale, she was breathing quickly, but through her nose: she knew the hard hand of justice was about to close about her, but she tried to present something of a dignified appearance.

"Christina Rock, you are found guilty by a jury of your peers, and it is my unhappy duty to sentence you for your crimes."

His Honor frowned, took a long breath.

"I take no pleasure in sentencing a woman, in spite of the severity of your offenses.  

"You did, deliberately and intentionally, assault an officer of the law with a weapon.

"You did, deliberately and intentionally, otherwise assault an officer of the law.

"You did, deliberately and intentionally, use a horse and buggy to murder an innocent man and his child."

"Your Honor, mitigating circumstances may enter," the Attorney for the Defense began, but the Judge silenced him with an upraised palm.

"There is neither excuse nor is there justification for what you have done, madam. I have no choice but to sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may God have mercy on your soul."

The crack! of the descending gavel was as startling and as abrupt as a pistol-shot in the hushed courtroom.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LAUGHTER, IN THE DARK

Shelly looked at her husband's face and wished for a way to keep the memory.

She wanted to remember him just as he was in that moment.

Linn eased the bedroom door open, looked in at his little girl, asleep, relaxed ... an apple-cheeked angel with wavy blond hair, her quilt pulled up to her chin: one hand, relaxed and open, peeked from under the top of the quilt, and her head was a little to the side, the image of an angel.

Shelly looked at her husband's face and she saw another angel, for the face of a father, in an open and vulnerable moment, is the face of the man's very soul.

Father and mother, husband and wife: they two stood for a moment longer, then drew back, eased the bedroom door shut, silently: they turned, their hands found each other, and they retired to their own bedroom.

Linn knew The Bear Killer was silent, curled up just a little on the hook rug in front of their front door: sometime through the night, he might come pacing upstairs, and would sleep at Angela's bedside, facing the stairs -- unless she had a nightmare, in which case he would vault easily onto the mattress beside her, and cuddle with her to keep her safe.

No nightmare in all of Creation would DARE to challenge The Bear Killer!

Linn sat down on his side of the bed, slowly, carefully:  Shelly knew this was because the man fell on wet stairs years before, broke his tailbone: it healed without complication, but she remembered the next day, when he called his mother and declared, "Hey Mama! Guess what! I broke my butt!" -- which made Shelly's eyebrows disappear under her wig line, so to speak.

She knew Linn had to set down carefully, even on a mattress, for if he came down just wrong, it hurt.

Linn sat, and sat without rising suddenly: he was still, very still, and after Shelly laid down, slid under the covers, she realized the mattress was shaking a little.

She reached over, laid gentle fingertips on Linn's naked back.

She felt his muscles, rhythmic, almost convulsive -- Oh God, what's triggered his grief? -- Shelly knew her husband was a very deep individual, and as hard as he tried to contain his personal sorrows, sometimes they came out in unguarded moments and ran wet streaks of misery down his cheeks.

Linn shifted a little, then turned and lay down, and Shelly withdrew her arm to keep it from being pinned against the mattress.

He was still ... shaking ... he finally rolled up on his side and laid his arm across his wife and Shelly realized the man wasn't crying.

He was laughing, and trying hard to laugh in silence.

Shelly Keller, paramedic and firefighter, wife and mother, did what any good wife would do in that moment.

She punched her husband in the gut and snarled in a whisper, "Don't scare me like that!"

Linn hugged his wife to him, turned his face into his pillow and laughed all the harder, muffling his mirth in downy feathers and blue-and-white striped ticking material:  he finally came up for air, wiped his eyes on the bedsheet, looked at his wife and started laughing again.

Shelly raised finger-spread hands to the ceiling.

"A child," she groaned.  "I'm married to a child!"

Linn shoved his face further into the pillow and gave unreserved voice to the approximate sound of a chicken laying a paving brick.

 

"Daddy?" Angela said in her soft little voice.

Linn leaned back, rubbed his eyes: he pushed his office chair back a little, turned.

Angela strutted importantly around his desk and climbed up into his lap, her young face serious.

"Daddy," she said, "Marnie was reading to me about Old Pale Eyes and his little girl Angela."

Linn nodded, slowly, once.

"Daddy, did you name me after her?"

"Why would you ask that?"

"Old Pale Eyes was named Linn an' you're named Linn an' he had a son Jacob an' you have a son Jacob an' he had a daughter Angela --"

Angela stopped as she saw her Daddy's eyebrow twitch up a little.

"Well, now, let's see," Linn said thoughtfully.  "Old Pale Eyes was the Sheriff, and his name was Linn."

Angela nodded solemnly, her startling-blue eyes wide and innocent.

"His son Jacob was a Sheriff's deputy, and I have a son Jacob who is a Sheriff's deputy."

Angela nodded again.

"If I recall right," Linn continued, his voice Daddy-gentle, "Old Pale Eyes was married to a Carolina Belle named Esther Wales."

Angela blinked several times, her brows puzzling together.

"And I am married to your Mama, Shelly Crane."

Linn stood, picking up his little girl.

He walked over to where a series of framed portraits hung on the wall.

"This," he said, "is Jacob with his sons.  This one went off to fight the War."

"Joseph," Angela declared with an emphatic nod.

"Right you are."  Linn smiled at the little girl, happily straddling her Daddy's waist.  "But Daddy, Joseph was Old Linn's grandson but he's your son!"

"And Old Pale Eyes had another daughter.  What was her name?"

"Ummm," Angela hummed.  "There were the twins and --"

She blinked.  "But Daddy, you don't have twins!"

"No," Linn admitted.  "Do you remember the name Dana?"

Angela frowned again, looked at her Daddy.  "Old Pale Eyes had Dana?"

"Your little sister's name is Dana."

Angela nodded.

"So Old Pale Eyes and I both have a daughter named Dana, but Joseph is my son and not my grandson."  Linn hitched his daughter up a little.  "Now darlin', what brings on this line of questioning?"

"Daddy, Old Jacob was Old Pale Eyes' deputy an' Jacob is your deputy an' Old Pale Eyes was Linn an' you're Linn an' Old Pale Eyes had a little girl named Angela and she blowed up the outhouse an' does that mean I'm s'posta blow up the outhouse too?"

Angela watched her father's face change, from the inside:  she knew he was trying hard not to let his smile show, but it filled his eyes and turned the corners of his mouth up and wrinkled the corners of his eyes and she felt him laugh inside his belly the way he did when he was trying to be quiet, and her Daddy shifted her and took her under the arms with his big strong Daddy-hands spread and he hoist her waay up until she giggled and thrust a little pink hand up to touch the ceiling.

"Angela, do you remember why Old Angela blew up the outhouse?"

Angela looked suddenly sad as she admitted "No," in a small, little-girl's voice.

Angela's Daddy set her down on the corner of his desk, he stood in front of her, threw his hands wide and said in a nasal voice, "Well, ya see, it was like this," which brought another freshet of giggles from his little girl.

Linn reached over, spun his office chair in behind him, sat -- carefully -- he leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"Who told you about Angela blowing up the outhouse?"

"Marnie," Angela said bashfully, as if reluctantly surrendering a secret.

"Did Marnie tell you why she did it?"

Angela shook her head, swinging her hair and trying very hard to look innocent.

"Her big brother told her the Slimy Monster from the Sulfur Crick was hidin' in that outhouse," Linn explained, "and he said it would reach up and grab her if she wasn't careful."

Angela's eyes grew wide with concern.

"Angela was afraid that Said Slimy Scoundrel would maybe grab someone else too, so she decided to do dastardly deeds to this scoundrelly soul."

Angela regarded her Daddy with wide and wondering eyes.

"She knew her Daddy had sticks of blasting powder in the shed, and she knew where he kept Lucifer matches in a glass jar. She took a stick of powder to the kaibo, scratched match and lit it and THREW that sizzling stick into the dark depths and then she yelled down through the outhouse seat, "TAKE THAT YOU MEAN OLD MONSTER!"

Angela's eyes were very wide as she imagined the moment her namesake declared war on a terrible creature of fearful abilities.

"Lucky enough her big brother was right there, he snatched her around the waist and ran her back and around the corner of the shed before she went kerboom."

Angela frowned, considered this new information.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Princess?"

"Do we have any blasting powder?"

"No, Princess, I'm sorry, we don't."

"Oh."  Angela considered this.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Princess?"

"Do we have an outhouse?"

Linn laughed.  "No, Princess, the back house is long since torn down, filled in and gone."

"Oh." 

Another pause, another puzzling moment as a little girl considered all she'd just heard.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Princess?"

"Is the Slimy Monster from the Sulfur Crick still here?"

Linn smiled gently, picked his little girl up, brushed a silky wisp of hair back with a gentle finger.

"No, darlin'.  No sulfur cricks hereabouts so it got mad and left."

"Good," Angela declared with an emphatic nod.

Linn looked at her and laughed a little.  

"Don't you think you could blow up a slimy ol' monster if you had to?"

"But Daddy," Angela protested, "I'm just a little kid!"

 

Sheriff Linn Keller held his wife, whispering the story into the bedroom dark, and it was his turn to feel the silent laughter of an amused spouse.

As usual, husband and wife fell asleep holding hands, and tonight, husband and wife fell asleep smiling, thanks to a little girl who asked a question.