SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PLEASE PASS THE DREMEL

"Dear?"

Uh-oh.

I know that tone of voice.

Linn rose, padded, silent in sock feet, back through the kitchen.

Shelly came out of the laundry room, waving the dryer's timer knob between thumb and forefinger, and giving her husband that womanly look that said "You fixed it once, bub, now it's broke again!"

Linn frowned a little as he took the knob from between his wife's fingers.

"I could use the pliers," Shelly said with just a slight edge of irritation in her voice.

"No," Linn murmured, "the shaft's nylon, it'll just chew it up..."

He frowned a little.

"Give me a minute."

Shelly Keller, wife, mother, paramedic and laundress, turned and glared at the offending clothes dryer.

Usually she hung clothes on the line, but the dryer was handy from time to time, and she admitted to herself that she had the same lack of patience as her husband, when it came to equipment that worked against her.

As a matter of fact, she gave the silent dryer what Victoria called her "Stereoptical Glare," which was remarkably effective on spouse and offspring, and equally ineffective on inanimate objects.

 

The first time the dryer knob failed, Linn studied it, nodded:  he mixed up an epoxy compound, happily stirring the black compound with the white hardner until he got a uniform grey.

He puttied the epoxy around the outside of the shaft, then clamped the knob lightly -- lightly! -- in the bench vise, used another flat screwdriver to separate the split plastic a little, and used the first small straight blade to force the epoxy compound as deeply into the split as he could arrange.

He was careful to leave enough of the socket free of epoxy to allow its being clamped in the bench vise overnight, where it could cure and otherwise repent of its sins.

Next day, when he got home from work, Linn took the knob, slid it onto the dryer's timer shaft, gave it an experimental crank, smiled.

This held for about three months.

Now Linn studied the back of the knob, frowned at the D-shaped socket.

I need something to ring that with, he thought, something like a subminiature radiator clamp ... which won't work because it has to fit flush against the dryer's back panel ...

I wonder!

Sheriff Linn Keller, husband, father and fixer of stuff around the house, went over to the boot tray and thrust sock feet into a pair of moccasins, turned, opened the stairway door and went downstairs to his loading room and workshop.

Linn considered the D-shaped socket again, ran his eyes over his reloading shelves.

I know I've got one here someplace ...

There!

He reached for a fired .45 Automatic hull, one of a ballcap full of range pickups he'd scavenged and tumbled clean.

He set the open case mouth against the plastic shaft of the dryer knob's socket, then he smiled, just a little, at the corners of his eyes.

Linn set the ivory-plastic timer knob on the table of his drill press, carefully clamped the rimless base of the empty brass hull in his bench vise, looked up at the orderly, well-filled pegboard behind his bench.

The Dremel's whine was barely audible upstairs as Linn carefully, precisely, sliced through cartridge brass with a cutoff wheel: he'd lost a magazine follower's pin the day before by virtue of its falling to the floor, so he stopped just short of the cutoff ring's parting company from the rest of the casing.

Linn shut off the Dremel, unplugged it and hung it back up, out of the way: he unwound the bench vise, tossed the sawed off hull into the scrap bucket, opened the jaws of his vise a little more and picked up the dryer's timer knob.

He doubled a shop rag, dropped this over the vise jaws, set the gripping flange of the plastic knob down into padding cloth.

The ring was just a wee bit too small to slip on.

Linn picked up a bastard cut mill file, gave the end of the shaft a few strokes, tapering its end, then he deburred the inside of the brass ring, set it over the shaft, tapped it gently down flush with a cute, little bitty, ball peen hammer harvested from a carburetor repair kit he'd bought at auction the year before.

He tapped carefully, precisely: a grey curl of shaved-off epoxy peeled away as he did, and the crack in the plastic closed up as if it were never there.

Linn picked up the timer knob, examined it closely under the shop light's fluorescent glare, nodded.

He hung up the tiny little ball peen hammer, picked up the shop rag, snapped it once, hung it back over the end of a fishing rod he needed to work on -- a guide fell off right after he bought the split bamboo spinning rod at a yard sale a year before -- he shut off the over-bench light, took the dryer knob upstairs.

It was a tight fit on the nylon shaft.

He got it lined up, picked up the pliers Shelly was going to use to turn the shaft, tapped the knob down.

It went.

He turned it experimentally, turned it a third of a turn, a third again, turned it back to the off position, smiled.

Shelly ran an arm around his ribs, leaned her cheek into his upper arm.

"How'd you fix it?" she asked quietly.

She felt her husband's laughter for several seconds before he opened his mouth and let anything out.

"I used a sawed off .45 to fix it, dear," he murmured.  "Hillbilly Engineerin' at its best!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE UPCOMING

Sheriff Linn Keller pulled the pin, aimed the five-pounder, squeezed the handle with a merciless, crushing grip.

A blasting cloud of yellowish powder half-hissed, half-roared, smothering the fire under the car: Linn crouched, looked, shot a short squirt, ran around the other side of the wrecked, smoking sedan, shot another squirt under.

Gasoline, his old enemy: he smelled it, sharp and harsh in his nostrils, it stank of death and pain and he drew the extinguisher back and drove its base into the driver's window.

Linn knew what it was to wade through a river of fire to get to his wife.

Linn knew what it was to seize the edge of a rolled over car and muscle it over so he could get his wife out.

Linn knew what it was for polyester uniform pants to weld themselves to his legs, he knew the smell of his own flesh burning, he knew what it was to look at those scars on his legs every time he took off his trousers.

He'd killed the fires that tried to immolate the wrecked sedan and now he was getting a stranger out: the door was jammed, he pulled the latch again, yanked it, gained, an inch, yanked again --

Got it!

He leaned in, reached over, stoved his thumb as he jabbed viciously at the release button: the seatbelt whirred quietly as it rolled itself up, released from the buckle.

Linn ran his arms under the driver's thighs, behind his back: he pulled back, straightened, turned.

He heard the quiet whupp! behind him that told him gasoline was still running, that it rekindled, that it was time for him to commit that classic military maneuver known as Getting the Hell Out of Dodge.

Sheriff Linn Keller, with a sixteen year old kid in his arms, powered forward into an honest to God sprint.

 

That night, at the supper table, his daughter Dana tilted her head and looked speculatively at her long tall Daddy.

Linn felt her eyes on him.

He looked up, raised an eyebrow.

"There is a question in your eyes," he said gently.

"Daddy," Dana said, "what would you like for Father's Day?"

Linn lowered his fork, slowly, leaned back.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "we need to talk."

 

Linn sat down with the ER physician: it was rare for the Sheriff to ask of the man's time, and Linn consulted with the ER charge nurse before interrupting the man: they sat in the nurse's lounge, Linn handed him a coffee (with three creamers, just the way the Doc liked it).

"That boy I pulled out of the wreck," Linn said without preamble.

The ER doc nodded.

"This is not an official inquiry. How is he?"

The physician did not smile.

"His eyes are my greatest concern," he said quietly, then picked up a tablet, tapped at the screen, swiped a couple times, turned it and laid it on the table for the Sheriff to see.

"This is a close up of his left cornea. Note the waffle pattern."

The Sheriff took a close look, frowned.

"That's the weave from his air bag, pressed into the cornea. It should heal without incident but his eyes are sore. He's ... he'll ache for a few days. Any collision will do that to you."

Linn nodded.

"I understand you got him out of the wreck before it caught fire."

"It was afire when I got there. Shot most of an extinguisher to keep him from roasting."

The ER doc grunted, nodded: he hated burn injuries more than any other kind.

Linn looked at his coffee, rose.

"Thanks, Doc. That's all I need."

"Thank you for the coffee."

Linn stopped at the nurse's station on his way out, spoke with the charge nurse, asked her advice.

An hour later, a box of sandwiches and a fruit tray appeared in the nurse's lounge.

 

Dana walked with her Daddy: it was her day off, she had plans for the evening, she wore a blue-and-white check dress with a matching hair ribbon, and she held her Daddy's hand the way she used to as a little girl.

"Darlin'," Linn said quietly, "you asked what I wanted for Father's Day."

 

That night, as husband and wife lay in bed, holding hands as they usually did, Linn smiled in the dark, and Shelly could feel his smile.

She rolled up on her side, laid a hand on his chest.

"Out with it, mister," she whispered. "What's so funny?"

Linn lay his callused hand on his wife's cool knuckles, took a long breath.

"Darlin'," he murmured, "you recall Dana asked what I wanted for Father's Day?"

Shelly nodded, her hair whispering against the pillowcase.

"I took each of the young aside and spoke with them individually."

Shelly shifted a little, listening closely.

"I told Dana I had what I wanted, I had a beautiful daughter who made square dancing look like an art form. I told Michael I have a son who stands up for what's right. I told Victoria I have a daughter who makes me proud with everything she does. I told Marnie I have a daughter who has out done me seven ways from Sunday, and I couldn't be happier, and I told Jacob I have a son who is Sheriff in his own right, and I told each of them ... I told each of them they'd already given me the very best Happy Pappy's Day I could ever want."

Shelly was quiet for several long moments.

"There's something else, isn't there?" she asked, and she felt her husband's nod.

Linn swallowed, his hand tightening ever so slightly on his wife's.

"I kept that boy from burnin' up in a wreck this morning."

Linn took a long, shuddering breath, and Shelly knew he was remembering what it was to wade through a river of liquid hell to get to her when she was trapped in an overturned car, as gasoline flashed and ran and threatened to immolate her alive.

"I gave a father back his son today," he whispered, his voice tight.

"I don't reckon there's any better Happy Father's Day gift than that!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NOBODY!

The condemned man stood on the edge of a drop-off.

It was probably twenty, maybe thirty feet to the bottom.

A tree -- ancient, twisted with the mountain winds -- stood, its thick, stout limbs extending to all points of the compass, attesting to its never having been surrounded by forest.

The location was chosen at the request of a pale eyed man in a black suit.

The condemned had been officially read his final charges, in the fine and formal language of the tribunal which judged him guilty: his crimes were several, not all were criminal, but the crime for which he was to pay with his life, was very simple.

The judicial system of this particular planet, and the judicial system of the Confederate Central, stepped aside to allow what they saw as an overriding concern for justice.

A hard-eyed Sheriff stepped in front of the condemned man, looked at him for a full minute ... just stood there, stared him in the eyes.

"Mister," he said quietly, "I reckon you've done enough to be killed three or four times anyway."

The condemned man realized -- finally -- that his time was very short: neither bluster, threats nor pleas would move the man he saw before him.

Sheriff Linn Keller's voice did not raise.

It did not have to.

"You killed good men," the Sheriff said, "and you tried to murder my little girl."

His eyes hardened as the dead man watched, fascinated: he'd gone from a man with pale eyes, to a man with nearly white eyes, a man with eyes that looked like they were ice-hard and just as cold, in a face the shade of corpse skin parchment.

"You tried to murder my daughter," Linn said, "and I don't allow that."

He picked up the noose of thirteen turns.

The man tried to avoid the loop.

Linn gut punched him.

Hard.

The noose went over the condemned man's head, around his neck.

Linn turned the hangman's knot so it was behind the prisoner's left ear.

The Sheriff took a long breath, his hands closed into fists, then he hauled back, drew his knee up to his belly, kicked the prisoner in the belt buckle hard enough to bring his feet off the ground and throw him off the edge of the cliff.

The rope's length, the prisoner's weight, the air's humidity and the rope's temperature, all went into the calculations of how much rope to use.

Nobody expected the Sheriff to kick the prisoner off the edge of the cliff.

There was a platform they'd planned on using, a hinged timber square that would have been released with due ceremony.

The Sheriff chose to make his own method, and he made it so all who witnessed this execution, would understand.

Linn stepped to the edge of the drop-off, looked at the quivering carcass swinging below.

Strong men were there, men who'd known war and combat and horrors, but every last one of them carried the image, the sounds of that moment, carried the sensation of cold water running down the inside of their back bones, to their graves.

They saw an Old West Sheriff, arms stiff at his sides, hands twisted up into fists.

They saw a man in a black suit, at the cliff's rocky edge, gripping the hangman's rope in one hand, looking down to where a soul was just ripped free of its living body.

They heard the man's voice, and in it, the rage he'd kept contained.

"NOBODY HURTS MY LITTLE GIRL!"

Linn's voice was ragged, harsh-edged, his voice filled the void between the earth beneath their feet and the Heavens themselves.

"YOU HEAR ME? DAMN YOU, NOBODY HURTS MY LITTLE GIRL!"

 

 

Edited June 3, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TO THROW THE DEAD COW

 

A pale eyed man brushed the white mare's fetlocks, his strokes sure, gentle; his hand was firm and reassuring on her leg, and the mare's chin was laid companionably over the bent-over lawman's backside.

A pale eyed woman put her bent wrist to her lips, willing herself not to giggle at the sight.

She didn't have to giggle: some sense, deeper than the normal five, told the laboring lawman he was the object of some amusement, so he straightened, rubbed the mare's neck, turned.

"Darlin'," Linn said, "you look absolutely gorgeous!"

Marnie Keller skipped forward on the balls of her feet, came up on tiptoes and kissed her Papa on his smooth shaven cheek: she caressed the side of his face with a gloved hand, tilted her head a little to the side and murmured, "Dear Papa" -- then sighed, laid the side of her head against his chest, hugged him, the way she did when she was still a girl at home -- "flattery will get you everywhere!"

Linn had one arm over the mare's neck, one arm around his daughter: were one to stand and observe the scene, it would be hard to tell who, in that moment, looked the more content:  the mare, the man, or the mother.

"What brings you back home, darlin'?" Linn murmured.

Marnie slacked her embrace, looked up, smiled.

"You," she said quietly.

"Me."  Linn grinned -- that open, unguarded, boyish grin she remembered so well, that grin he gave her in those very rare moments when it was just the two of them, and their walls were down.

"Our security division tells me," Marnie said softly, "that your hanging that man just made the entire Diplomatic Corps much, much safer."

Marnie felt her Papa stiffen, just a little:  not stiffen, really, but she felt him tighten up, and she knew his walls were slamming out of the ground and surrounding him, the way they usually were.

"I want you safe," Linn said, and his voice was different: no longer the gentle, unguarded Papa, with his little girl: Marnie heard the hard, uncompromising voice of a father, who had knowingly, intentionally, deliberately, taken a man's life for what he'd done.

Marnie knew it would have made no difference, had her Papa acted with the blessing of the State, which he had, or in spite of it: she knew her Papa was a man with a strong and fiercely protective nature, and she'd watched the vids -- several times -- of her Papa laying violent and murderous hands on the soul who drove a knife into her Mama's chest, just under the collarbone.

Truth be told, Marnie would have done the same, only not quite as crudely, but certainly as terminally.

"Papa," Marnie whispered, "the entire Confederacy -- all thirteen star systems -- is now convinced that Firelands County, Colorado, is the one safest place on planet Earth."

"I wish it was," Linn muttered.

Marnie thrust her chin up, looked her Daddy right square in the collar bone, then raised her lovely, light-blue eyes to his: he was looking around again, the way he did when his guard was up, and he did not want anyone to surprise him: he still had one hand on the mare, knowing her alarm would be instantly palpable, and Marnie knew from long in her childhood that her Papa trusted his horses.

"I wish we'd bring back public hangin' here," he muttered. "Advertise it for two weeks. Hang 'em on Saturday afternoon off the stoplight in the middle of downtown, at twelve noon. Let everyone come and watch. Make it a carnival event. Pickpockets, merry go rounds, sandwich carts, make it an event, and when the world saw the Hanged Man's Dance, they'd know Justice lived here, and the Law prevailed."

He sighed, shook his head.

"Hell, what do I know," he muttered. "Likely there'd be abuses of that too an' we'd have to hang the hangers, and where would it stop?"

"Oh, Papa," Marnie whispered, crushing her Daddy to her, hugging his ribs with the desperation of a scared little girl wishing her Daddy would never leave. "Dear Papa, you are ever the protector!"

Linn's arm was warm and firm around his daughter's shoulders, his hand firm and protective on her off shoulder.

"Darlin' " he rumbled, "what kind of a Daddy would I be was I not?"

Marnie looked up, blinked.

"The planet where I was almost --"

She swallowed, bit her bottom lip.

"They found the actors were suborned. The man you hanged was the off-planet instigator. He wished to cause ... to foment discontent at least, rebellion at the worst."

"Politics," Linn grunted.

"Politics," Marnie agreed bleakly. "Dirty deals, back room deals, under the table deals. Promises, gifts, power grabs" -- she shook her head -- "it's no different than it is here, Daddy."

She felt Linn take in a great, chest-stretching breath, heard him sigh it out.

"Somehow," he said, disappointment in his voice, "I thought it would be better than here."

"No, Daddy.  'Peoples is peoples wherever yas goes.' "

Linn nodded.

"Can you stay for a little? I'm about to throw some dead cow at the fryin' pan."

Linn felt Marnie's silent giggle, and for a moment, they were again a pale eyed Daddy and his awkward, long-legged, giggly little girl, sharing a moment's silliness.

"Yes, Daddy," Marnie smiled. "I'd like you to throw that dead cow for me."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THINK FAST

Chief of Police Will Keller tasted copper.

His chest hurt, and hurt bad.

Will was retirement age, he'd retired once and come back when Firelands asked him to: he was Chief, he was a fixture, he was part of the community, and at the moment, he was thinking fast and hard.

Or thinking as much as a man can when he has a handful of another man's throat, when he has the muzzle of his five inch driven into the other guy's gut hard enough he wouldn't have doubted the muzzle was bulging the hide beside the bad guy's spine.

He felt the bullet's impact and he didn't care.

Chief of Police Will Keller responded as he'd trained and trained and trained again.

He shoved the muzzle of his engraved Smith into the other guy -- hard, at an upward angle so he wouldn't overpenetrate and kill someone on the other side -- and he pulled the trigger twice.

Three gunshots merged into one concussive blast.

Chief of Police Will Keller saw the other guy's eyes, the pupils dilated wide, wide, making them as black as his own were pale, saw the eyes roll apart -- one to the left, one to the right, and Will released the stubbled throat, and a stranger who'd been screaming for money, fell dead.

Chief of Police Will Keller pulled his Smith back into administrative position, responding as he'd trained and trained and trained again, he looked around to his right, he looked around to his left.

Only then did he shove the cylinder release, rotate the revolver, smack the ejector rod, roll the muzzle down hill and dunk in a half dozen shining, nickel plated rounds, only then did he close the cylinder, allowing the empty speedloader to shear off and fall, spinning in slow, slow motion, until it hit the floor with a metallic sound that broke the spell.

Time returned to normal.

Will looked around again, put a hand to his chest, realized he was starting to feel short of breath.

What he said, quietly, was what most men in that situation say: it was not loud, it was not printable, and it was not uttered with any degree of weakness at all.

Linn caught him as his knees started to buckle.

Dana watched her Daddy lay Will down, saw him slap her Uncle lightly, then more firmly, then drive two stiff fingers into the man's throat, down beside the Adam's apple.

Linn ripped the man's uniform shirt open, tore the Velcro strips free, ripped the front panel off his armor.

Dana reached up, keyed the shoulder mic.

"Dispatch, Signal 99 traffic. Shots fired, officer down, scene is secure, get the Irish Brigade here fast, CPR in progress."

Dana listened to her Daddy's voice as he chanted the five-count, as he drove his weight through locked elbows, as he tried desperately to keep his Uncle alive.

 

Jacob rolled out of bed, slapped the comm panel, rubbed his face.

"Sis, what happened?"

His voice was completely awake and that told Marnie Jacob had come to full wakefulness in a tenth of a second or less.

"It's Uncle Will," she said, her voice low, urgent.  "He's been shot."

Marnie saw Jacob's eyes lighten by several degrees; she saw his jaw muscles bulge, she saw his lower jaw slide out.

"Where can I meet you?"

"Jacob, it's a hornet's nest there. Angela and Dana are already on scene and they're ready for war. Daddy is mad as hell, he's at the hospital with Uncle Will, Joseph and Victoria are horseback on the street and they don't look friendly at all. We've got the State Police on their way in, Carbon Hill sent a cruiser, if we show up we'll just be in the way."

Jacob was quiet for the space of several heartbeats.

"Sis," he finally said, "keep me informed."

Jacob turned off the commo, glared at the now-black screen, stood.

Sheriff Jacob Keller, Firelands, Mars, stood, twisted his back around left, turned around to the right, then headed for the shower.

He would get no more sleep that night.

 

The Charge Nurse glared at the ER physician, who glared right back.

"Until further notice, Nurse Keller will have full, blanket and unlimited authority in this hospital," he said, his words clipped, businesslike. "Your authority over her, no longer exists. Her word is law and you will not interfere with her in any fashion or manner whatsoever."

"I am the Charge Nurse," Joan hissed, leaning forward, her jowls wobbling with indignation: "you will not do this!"

"You just earned a week off. Get out of my hospital."

"What!"

"Get out of my hospital, or do I have to call Angela and have you taken out in handcuffs?"

"You wouldn't!"

"There is a Sheriff's deputy outside my door. She's ready to arrest you for interfering at the scene of an emergency, failure to obey the lawful order of a law --"

"She's not a deputy when she's working as a nurse!" Joan shouted.

The ER doc stepped over to the door, opened it.

"Deputy?"

A pale eyed, uniformed Sheriff's deputy stepped inside, cuffs in hand.

"Turn around," Deputy Sheriff Dana Keller said, "hands behind your back."

Charge Nurse John Licht managed to add resisting arrest, and assault on a law enforcement officer, to the charges already preferred by Sheriff's Deputy Angela Keller, the nurse personally attending the injured Chief of Police.

 

Angela stood beside her Uncle's bed, laid a cool, damp washcloth over his forehead.

"You hard headed old man," she whispered.

"He should have shot me in the head," Will muttered. "Wouldn't have hurt a bit."

"I know," Angela sighed.  "You could bounce a cannon shell off that gourd of yours."

She looked at the bruise on his chest, and he looked at the gunbelt around her lean waist.

"You look businesslike," he whispered.

"Until we find your attacker was a one-off, we're taking no chances."

"I was wearing my vest," Will growled. 

"All that energy has to go somewhere. In your case, it hit between heartbeats. It's called the R-on-T phenomenon. If Daddy hadn't been there to start your heart before the myocardium deoxygenated, you'd be assuming room temperature on the coroner's slab" -- she turned, bent a little, glared fiercely at her uncle, her voice little more than an angry hiss -- "and I would never speak to you again!"

Chief of Police Will Keller, faced with a truly angry young woman, did what he often did in such moments.

He took her hand in his, and he laughed.

 

Dana pulled the heavy door open, slipped in, walked over to where her pale eyed sister sat, holding their sleeping Uncle's hand.

"Go home and get some sleep," Dana whispered. "I'll take the next watch."

"Will you be in here with him?"

Dana's smile was reply enough.

"Outside?"

"Every entrance is covered. Lawmen came out of the woodwork and so have the citizens. The Parson opened the Church. Rabbitville PD is bringing Abbot William and a squad of prayer warriors."

Angela swallowed hard.

"It was hard losing Gammaw," she whispered, turning her head a little, hoping her Uncle was sleeping deeply enough not to hear her strained sibilants. "I don't ... I don't want to lose him too."

Dana pulled up another of the ubiquitous, stainless steel, rolling stools, sat on it, ran her arm around her sister's shoulder.

"Me neither," she whispered.

Angela was relieved by an old classmate and veteran ICU nurse, Cammy Hunter; she gave a concise, professional report, formally turned her Uncle's care over to her relief.

She looked down at her Uncle's lined face.

"If he asks, I'll be back in the morning."

"Get a good night's rest if you can," her relief whispered back. "Angela, we need you at your best, and that means a good night's rest."

Angela nodded.

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller was one lawman among several.

He carried his shotgun slung muzzle down, from his left shoulder, as was his preference.

He was fast and deadly with that carry.

He had the modified choke screwed in, he was loaded with 00 buck, and he knew exactly where the shot swarm would print, anywhere from bad breath distance to 30 yards.

Jacob nodded to his fellow lawmen as he passed them.

He stopped outside the intensive care unit, looked at a man he knew.

"Diamond Jim," said Jacob, "what's the word?"

"Diamond" Jim Hern looked at Jacob, grinned.

"Where the hell you been! -- never mind that, he's alive."

"Been away on special assignment," Jacob said shortly. "Alive, you say."

Diamond Jim nodded, his eyes troubled: he looked down the hall, leaned closer.

"I'm not supposed to say, y'understand ... his heart stopped."

Jacob's expression hardened and his jaw muscles bulged.

"He wasn't wearin' his vest?"

"Oh ya, the vest stopped the bullet, but it hit him squarely over the heart. Shocked the heart and ... they did CPR on him and got him back."

"The perp?"

"He killed the b'ar that killed him."

Jacob closed his eyes, took a long breath.

My God, Diamond Jim thought, he's the image of his Pa, a-doin' that!

 

Cammy Hunter didn't hear the door open.

She looked up as two women advanced toward her.

One was in an exquisitely-tailored long gown, with a fashionable, matching hat pinned to her elaborate coiffure; the other wore an immaculate, white, nursing uniform dress, with a gunbelt snug about her middle, and an engraved .357 holstered: where she usually wore a watch, pinned to her bodice, she had a six point star.

Cammie smiled, nodded: she looked at Marnie and said, "I'm used to seeing you in the Sheriff's uniform. You look good like that!"

She thinks I'm Dana, Marnie thought. Dodged that bullet!

Cammie withdrew to the nearby nurse's station, busied herself with charting, more to allow family some time together -- she knew what it was to have family in an ICU bed, especially when said family was the only patient in the Unit.

Will looked up at his nieces, smiled that crooked smile of his.

Just like Jacob, both sisters thought.

"If this is what it takes to get you to visit," he snarled at Marnie.

Marnie lowered her head, raised an eyebrow.

"Uncle Will," she said, "I want you to stand up."

"I ... what?"

"Rise from your bed, sir, and stand" -- Marnie leaned over, trying hard to glare at her Uncle, and failing miserably in the effort -- "so I can kick you right in the shins!"

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HOMECOMING

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller bit her bottom lip, dropped her eyes, swallowed.

She took a long breath and lifted her chin, she looked at the dignified, older man behind his broad, ornate desk.

"Mister Governor," she said quietly, "may I speak ... freely?"

The Governor frowned, placed his hand-rolled cigar in its wide, heavy ashtray:  he rose, carefully, the way a man will when an old injury reminds him of his lost youth.

The Governor walked over to another chair, half-carried, half-dragged it over to the Ambassador.

Ambassador Marnie Keller pretended not to notice the man's almost-disguised limp.

She rose, turned her chair to face the chair he was placing: they sat, intimately close, their knees almost touching.

Marnie leaned forward, as did the Governor, and she took his hands in her own, looked at him, not as an Ambassador, but as someone who knew what it was to have a situation she really couldn't help.

"Mister Governor," she said quietly, "thank you."

Her gloved fingers tightened slightly on his thick, blunt fingers; she looked at his hands, saw the fine little scars that told of a lifetime of honest, hard work.

"Mister Governor, my uncle ... is alive," she said carefully, surprised at how tight her throat felt: "your offer of a company of Confederate Rangers, armed, uniformed, provisioned and ready to kick some serious backside" -- she smiled a little, looked up through long, curled lashes, saw the ghost of a smile on the aging politician's face -- she looked quickly to the side, bit her bottom lip, then dropped her head.

"Richard, I'm scared," she whispered.

She stood, pulled gently at his hands:  he stood as well, as the Ambassador, this collected, unflappable, incredibly strong face of the Confederacy, this genuinely beautiful woman, young enough to be his own daughter, looked at him with water running down her cheeks, with the expression of a vulnerable child, wounded to the quick and unsure where to go.

"I was so scared," she squeaked, and suddenly she was not Marnie Keller, the Ambassador: she was just Marnie, and this dignified older man, with the snows of many years staining the thick thatch on his neatly-barbered scalp, gathered her into his arms and held her, just held her, as everything she'd kept hidden, everything she'd contained, everything she'd confined from the moment she'd heard her Uncle had been shot, her Uncle was in ICU, her Uncle's heart stopped, came leaking out her eyes, and soaked into the older man's linen shirt front.

It is to his credit that the Governor, a politician who was not at all averse to seizing an opportunity, who could have possibly turned this moment of vulnerability into some advantage, just held her, the way a father will hold a frightened child.

The Governor just held her, and let her soak her fear and her rage and her helplessness and her anticipatory grief into the strong, solid chest of someone her gut said she could trust.

She felt him take a deep breath, heard his voice, deep and reassuring, rumbling around in his chest.

"Your uncle is still alive."

Marnie nodded, her face still buried in his shirt front.

"My offer still stands, my Lady. Should you ever need our Rangers, they are available, at any time."

 

Angela Keller liked the positioning of the nurse's station in the Intensive Care Unit.

She'd had it armored, some time back, steel plates separated by layers of expanded foam, hidden by a wood veneer: from here, she had a clear field of fire throughout the entire ICU.

Her Uncle was still their only patient, and that would last only another few hours; he'd been examined by the best in the profession, most of whom looked rather oddly at a nurse with a .357 on her belt and a six point star on her white uniform dress -- but they'd looked with the same expression at lawmen, outside the hospital, inside the hospital, at hard-eyed men who professionally contained their anger.

One of the cardiologists jokingly asked if the President was visiting.

Cold glares were his only reply.

Chief of Police Will Keller was examined, his test results consulted, questions asked; there was the professional Laying On of Hands: outside, four of the White Sisters, silent, faces veiled and hands modestly tucked into voluminous sleeves, marched in step and in formation out of their Chapel, to the waiting van at the ER entrance: their relief, in the same square formation, marched in through the front of the hospital, and hard-eyed lawmen bearing the working-tools of their profession, drew respectfully aside to allow the Sisters their free passage.

The White Sisters held vigil in the Chapel; green-glass Rosaries were marched slowly between feminine fingers, and the Abbott himself stood the first twelve-hour watch with them.

Reverend Burnett was dark under the eyes.

He'd been up since the first word that their well-liked Police Chief had been shot.

Reverend Burnett was tired, his throat was sore: among the congregation, an unofficial rotation was adopted; every couple of hours, a pew would empty, and refill, the new shift inclining their heads in prayer: many of these were Willamina's Warriors, strong young men from the Firelands Football Team, occupying the front pew, left hand side: Valkyries, in their cheerleaders' uniforms, in the front pew, on the right.

Each stood, in turn; each one talked to God about it, and when each finished, strong young men and athletic young women alike intoned a firm -- not a loud, but a firm and determined --

AMEN!

Reverend John Burnett pretended not to notice the portable rifle rack that assumed station at the back of the church, and he pretended not to notice that when Valkyries and Warriors alike came in, they parked their rifles in the rack, under the watchful eye of one of their number whose pump shotgun was in hand, and not in rack.

Somehow the sight of strong young men, and athletic young women, crossing the threshold with rifles at sling arms, was not at all objectionable.

 

The investigation was swift, thorough and effective.

Will's records were complete, Will's records were thorough, and given the documented association with the deceased, with someone who tried to murder a law enforcement officer, warrants were finally able to be issued.

Men whose souls were screaming for justice, were told where to go, and what to do, and who and what to seize.

They did.

When the State Police set up their roadblock, they later joked among themselves that they used a "Willamina Roadblock" -- they'd borrowed a pair of bulldozers and set them in the roadway, with cruisers on either shoulder, lit up, lighted flares across both lanes: at the moment two doors were rammed and two separate raid teams made entry, at the moment two vehicles attempted to flee, one stopped rather quickly with a half dozen 12 gauge slugs through its lower radiator.

The other made it out of town, with a cruiser in pursuit.

It didn't get far.

Not with a wall of track-mounted steel across two paved lanes.

 

Chief of Police Will Keller grumbled as he was wheeled out on an ambulance cot.

"Hell, I can walk," he complained. "I've done nothing but lay in bed and my butt's tired!"

"Would you rather I kicked it all the way home?" Angela asked as she walked beside the rolling cot: she held the siderail with one hand, her Uncle's hand with the other, winked as her Uncle gave a great and exaggerated sigh of resignation.

Red-shirted Irishmen and blueshirt medics gripped the cot's aluminum frame as they headed down the hallway and through ER, out the back door.

"Now py Gott," Will laughed, "that's fancy!"

"Nothin' but the best!" Fitz declared as he opened the back door of a restored 1972 Miller-Meteor, high-top Cadillac ambulance.  "An' you are this fine vehicle's first customer!"

"Well, hell, this calls for a drink," Will grinned, and Fitz laughed, patted his bib front conspiratorially: the cot was lowered, picked up, carefully inserted, secured, the door closed gently behind the three who climbed in with the cot.

Lawmen loaded up and departed, and a straw poll among the nurses tallied the number of single men among them, enumerated two who squirreled away an interested party's business card, and of these encounters, there were three proposals of marriage, one of which actually occurred, a little more than two months later.

The ambulance gave the Chief a nice, easy, perambulator grade ride back to his little hacienda.

Will held Angela's hand all the way there.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "I haven't held a beautiful woman's hand this long, since my wife was still in her right mind."

Angela Keller, Sheriff's deputy and veteran nurse, leaned forward, smiled.

The blue shirted squad captain, on her left, turned his head and stared out the immaculately-clean rear window.

The red-shirted German Irishman, on her right, turned his head to look at something of sudden and intense interest outside the Cadillac's windshield.

Angela was bent over, her head tilted a little, elbows on white-stockinged knees.

She smiled, just a little, gave her Uncle a knowing look, then whispered, "Then I have the better part of the bargain!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ALL RIGHT, YOU'RE IN!

"What'cha workin' on?"

"Finances."

"Oh."

A curious little brother looked at a row of figures, neatly arranged in a column.

He frowned at some of the words he was seeing.

"Cement?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"What for?"

One of Willamina's Warriors lifted his pencil from the yellow legal pad, raised his head, stared at the far wall, then turned to his curious -- or nosy -- little brother.

"You remember the fire department went out last night?"

"Yeah."

"Paula Canter's family got burnt out."

His little brother blinked, confused.

"So?"

"So they don't have two nickels to rub together now."

"So?"

"So I can help."

"With cement?"

His brother stood, reached for his purple Firelands ballcap.

"Where ya goin'?"

"Out."

A little brother followed, curious.

 

Another young man reached for the phone.

"Hello."

"Mitch?"

"Yeah."

"I've got enough for a block foundation."

"I can stand good for a little timber."

"Call around. Use the call list so we don't double call. Willamom" -- he stopped, swallowed, remembered their pale eyed warrior-goddess who ran with them, who taught them deliciously obscene running songs, who had good homemade chocolate chip cookies for them, back when they were still in school, back when they were still playing football, back when the Firelands Football Team became Willamina's Warriors.

Silence grew long on the telephone line, then Mitch spoke quietly.

"Yeah," he said, after a long hesitation. "I miss her too."

 

One, another, then a half dozen pickup trucks pulled up, turned around, backed in, unloaded their just-purchased cargo.

A dump truck pulling a lowboy trailer, a cackling backhoe backed off the lowboy, lowered its bucket, scraped the burnt remnants into a pile: there was so little left -- the house hadn't been much to start with, but it was all the family had -- debris was scooped up, carried to the far edge of the property, buried: once the black, scarred spot was clean, stakes were driven, lines strung.

A portable cement mixer was rolled into position, sacks of cement stacked nearby; a flatbed truck with a water tank pulled in beside it, ran a gravity hose to the mixer.

Strong young men raided their bank accounts, their secret stashes: they knew insurance wouldn't pay much, it never did.

They consulted with the father, with the mother: their original house was little more than a cube, a small cube at that: word spread, more men, more trucks, roof trusses, siding, insulation, and once the dimensions were agreed on for the foundation, another vehicle pulled up and stopped.

The new arrival opened its big, stainless-steel, truckbed-long hatch and started serving sandwiches and bowls of steaming-hot chili.

A young man who'd raided his bank account looked over at his little brother.

His young shadow had a shovel, and he was industriously digging between the two strings that marked where the foundation would run.

He must've felt his big brother's eyes on him, because he turned, stabbed the shovel's bit rebelliously into hard dirt and declared, "I got no money but I'm gonna help!"

Someone whistled; the two looked up, the older brother caught an underhand-tossed hardhat.

He caught it neatly, dunked it on his little brother's head.

"All right," he said.  "You're in."

 

Edited June 6, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I AM NOT A TRUSTING MAN

Jacob Keller grinned as he wiped the tip of the grease gun, then the fitting he just pumped full.

He took immaculate care of the ancient, redbottom 8N Ford tractor: he'd just run it for the very last time, he'd washed it down, paying particular attention to get all the wind blown grass off it, out of it.

The old tractor gleamed in the sunlight.

Jacob carefully ran the rag around the brush hog's bearing, picked up the squashed-out grease.

Both the rear mounted mower and the tractor were antiques, and he'd gotten a handsome offer from a museum for the tractor: when he asked if they were interested in an equally ancient mower, when he sent pictures, he received an immediate offer, and the museum would hand deliver payment at the time of pickup.

Jacob walked over to the workbench, hung the grease gun on its peg, picked up the thick folder: it contained original documentation, he had manuals, original bill of sale, a complete maintenance record.

He raised his head at the sound of a flatbed wrecker, slowing, then turning up their driveway.

 

That afternoon, Jacob rode shotgun with his father as Linn took the family Jeep in for service.

Jacob was silent, which was his usual habit, but when Linn looked both ways at an intersection, he saw his son had a thoughtful -- almost a frowning -- expression, the look Jacob had when he was chewing on a puzzling matter he hadn't quite figured out.

Linn waited.

"Sir," Jacob finally asked, "why don't we do our own oil changes?"

Linn grinned.

"Oil change today," he said, "I'm having them look 'er over for anything under warranty, as the warranty expires next month and whatever's covered, I want fixed on their nickle."

"Yes, sir."

Jacob was silent again.

"Sir ... brakes aren't that hard."  He turned, looked at his pale eyed father. "As I recall, sir, when you were first courtin' Mama, she said she needed front brakes replaced on her Pontiac, you said you could change drum brakes and make the fur fly but you'd never worked on disc brakes. She said 'Oh it's easy, I'll show you,' and she did!"

Linn laughed, nodded.

"You're right, Jacob," he affirmed. "Shelly was her Daddy's step-and-fetch-it, she was his shadow and she learned a hell of a lot more than he ever realized."

"So how come we don't do our own brakes, sir? It would have to be cheaper."

"It would, Jacob," Linn agreed. "Cheaper to change our own oil, too."

He felt his son's curiosity prickling at him as they continued down the highway.

"Last time I changed oil in a Jeep," Linn explained, then looked at Jacob and winked, "it's got that cartridge filter on top, y'see."

"Yes, sir?"

"It takes an O-ring at the base of the housing that goes down over the filter element."

"Yes, sir?"

"I had the devil's own time getting that damned O-ring to seal!"

Linn chuckled.

"Made a hell of a mess, what with oil leaking down the engine and ... well, hell, we used to use old motor oil on the driveway to keep down dust."

"Yes, sir?"

"I'll let the professionals handle that, Jacob. They do it every day and every day and they're good at it. Same with the brakes. I don't have to throw down a Hillbilly Creeper and set my bony backside down on the ground or slide under or anything of the kind."

Jacob hesitated, considered.

"Then there's liability."

"Sir?"

Linn's bottom jaw slid out and Jacob saw a memory tighten his father's forehead.

"Your Gammaw investigated a wreck back East, Jacob. I think she was with Glouster then, it was before she was a deputy marshal with Chauncey. One car hit another and the at-fault attorney was slinging all the mud he possibly could to try and deflect blame."

"Yes, sir?"

"One accusation was lack of maintenance. The struck driver's car was eighteen or so, and the at-fault driver's attorney claimed he was young and neglectful of maintenance. He produced a complete maintenance record because he had his car serviced at the dealership, and he was able to document that the brakes were in A-number-1 shape."

"I see, sir."

"That's why I get all our work done at the dealership. Department as well as ours."

Jacob considered this, blinking as his mental gears rolled over in an oil bath of realization.

"There's no lack of folks who want money without workin' for it, Jacob. If I get into a wreck, I want to be able to produce that third-party maintenance record. We could do our own work and cheaper, yes, but that's a false economy if I get sued and lose."

"Yes, sir."

"As I recall, when that fellow from the museum showed up with a check in hand, you took him to the bank and had them authenticate it before you turned your tractor over to him."

"I did, sir."

Linn slowed, hit his turn signal, waited for traffic to clear before turning into the Jeep dealership.

"Well done on a stranger's check," Linn said.

"Thank you, sir."

"Y'see, Jacob," Linn said quietly, "whether it's a stranger's check, or keeping my backside covered in court, I am just not a trusting man a'tall."

Edited June 6, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

 TRADITION!

"Sir?"

"Yes, Michael?"

Linn looked up from the papers he'd been studying -- ledger sheets, some quite old, others either photocopies, or hand copied onto legal sized, lined, yellow paper, in a feminine hand.

"Sir ... you said Old Pale Eyes gave away a young fortune."

Linn nodded, just a little.

"Yes, Michael. Yes, he did."

Michael frowned.

"Aren't'cha supposed to make money an' keep it?"

"Lots off folks try and do just that," Linn agreed.

"Well ... how come ..." -- Michael frowned, puzzling over this dichotomy between all he'd learned about the world-at-large, unable to justify it against what he knew to be a factual account of a generous man's actions -- "how come he didn't just keep it?"

Linn considered his son's question.

"Michael, do you recall the Canter house burnt down last week?"

"Yes, sir."

"You recall it was a total loss."

"Yes, sir."

"You recall a bunch of people dug into their savings and came a-rollin' in with construction materials and their work boots laced up, ready to work?"

"Yes, sir. You took me out there."

"What did we take, Michael?"

"Two gallon of iced tea, two coils of water line, fittin's, a hot water tank --"

Michael stopped, blinked.

"Sir ... was that was Old Pale Eyes did?"

"It is, Michael."

"Did you spend a young fortune?"

Linn laughed. "It was not cheap," he admitted, "but I had it to spend."

"Oh."

Michael puzzled over this.

"But ... why didn't you just keep it, Pa?"

Linn pushed back from the desk, twisted in his chair the way he did when he was working a kink out of his sway back: Michael heard a muffled *pop* and saw a moment's pain, then profound relief in his father's face.

"What good to keep it, Michael? I've enough to keep a roof overhead, food on the table, meet bills. Paula's family has been fightin' a long run of hard luck and damn little of it was their fault. Way I see it, the right thing to do is to help out however I can."

"Like Jacob cuttin' Old Pete's grass."

Linn nodded.  "He cut Pete's grass for ten years and never a cent did he get for it, but poor old Pete surely appreciated that kindness!"

Michael considered this as well.

"Sir ... is hat what's called tradition?"

Linn laughed, nodded.

"Yes, Michael," he said quietly.  "That, is tradition."

 

The Reverend Doctor Gilead Keller sat on the back steps of the orphanage, cutting slices off an apple and eating them off the blade off his well honed Barlow knife.

He watched with amusement as young Joseph Keller wrestled with an idea, trying to put it in the form of a question.

Gilead waited patiently; he knew children, and he knew Jacob's pale eyed young son would come with his question, and he did.

"Parson," Joseph finally asked, "you preached about good works last Sunday."

The Reverend Doctor Gilead Keller nodded gravely, once, just like his own pale eyed father.

"I can't figure something."

"What's that?"  

Gilead ate a thin slice of apple off his blade.

"Sir ... you said we can't buy our way into heaven."

"Sermon two Sundays ago."

"Yes, sir. If we can't buy our way into Heaven, why do good works?"

Gilead laughed quietly, swallowed.

"You're not the first one to ask," he said gently. "Because it's the Christ-like thing to do. Christ Himself healed, but you don't read in Scripture where he charged sixbits to cure a leper, or a gold eagle to cure blindness."

"No, sir."

"He did that to prove He was Who He said He was, but He did it because it was the right thing to do."

Joseph frowned.

"Sir, Grampa set folks up in business and he paid to have ... I think Grandma said he bought Bonnie McKenna's sewing machines for her dress works and he built the dress works building and he set some fellas up in business and I don't think but one of 'em come back and offered to give him back what he'd put into 'em."

The Reverend Doctor Gilead Keller spit out a fragment of apple seed, tossed what little apple core was left, as far as he could sling it.

"You'll have that."

"Well, sir ..."

"Why come all the way down here to Stone Creek, Joseph?" Gilead asked quietly. "Why not ask your Pa?"

Joseph looked very seriously at his pale eyed relative.

"You're a sky pilot," he said, "an' sky pilots don't lie."

Gilead nodded.

"Besides ... I couldn't figure out how to get into heaven."

Gilead winked, slowly, tilted his head down a little as he did.

"You've been dunked, haven't you, Joseph?"

"Yes, sir, an' that water was cold!"

Gilead threw back his head and laughed, he nodded and looked at Joseph and declared, "Now by the Blessed Mother and seven left handed saints, it's good to see I'm not the only one that about froze when I got dunked!"

He thrust out a delighted hand, and a grinning child shook it willingly.

"Tell you what," the Reverend Doctor Gilead Keller, the pale eyed son of the Reverend Linn Keller, who was cousin to a rather well known Sheriff of that name, said:  "let us make a tradition of generosity, then, but let us not establish a tradition of getting dunked in COOOOLLLDDD WATER!"

The laugh of a child and his elder joined in delighted harmony on the summer afternoon's air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CUFFED 'EM AND STUFFED 'EM

"Marnie," Victoria said in a worried little girl's voice, "I gotta go to court."

"I know, sweets," her big sister said in a gentle voice: she sat on the side of Victoria's bed, two sisters, side by side, speaking in quiet voices.

Marnie stroked Victoria's fine, shining hair, wavy in the subdued light, hair that fairly glowed with the same good health that shone from her youngest sister's cheeks.

"I gotta be a witless."

"A witless," Marnie echoed, and Victoria looked up at her and giggled.

Marnie lowered her head, rubbed Eskimo noses with her little sis.

"Uncle Will got jumped an' I gotta tell 'em what happened."

"I understand you were involved."

Victoria nodded solemnly.

 

Chief of Police Will Keller was restless.

He'd been cooped up in his house, recovering, suffering through his own attempts at cooking, and finally he decided it was time he rejoined the human race and ate some decent food for a change.

Movement, any movement, hurt, and hurt bad -- that's to be expected, he thought to himself, you were a CPR dummy, ya dummy!

Will showered.

Carefully.

He dried off.

Carefully.

He got dressed.

Very carefully.

And he genuinely, sincerely, regretted the effort it took to get sock feet into his shining, well-polished brogans.

He opened his gun safe, looked for the twin to his old faithful sidearm he'd carried for so very many years.

They'll have my belt gun in evidence until every appeal is exhausted, Will thought.

It's possible they won't return it until my heirs and assigns will receive it instead of me.

He blinked, smiled.

No wonder it's not here.

Dummy.

You gave Marnie the twin and you never replaced it.

Well, hell.

What else we got here?

Will selected a slim, compact but efffective single stack self shucker, slid it in an inside the waistband holster: he carefully slid it in behind his waistband, worked the spring clip over his belt, then draped the light weight vest over the hardware.

Two spare magazines went into his hip pocket, another, smaller pistol in a worn leather pocket holster went into his off side front pants pocket, a lock back knife already rode with his keys in the other front pocket.

He reached back, carefully, pressed his backside to make sure the wallet's familiar bulge was still there -- yep -- he closed and locked the gun safe, dropped the colorful drape over it, turned and took a long breath.

Will stood up straight, he squared his shoulders, he paced off on the left, and he paced for the front door.

 

When ten year old Victoria Keller was called to the stand, she slid out of her chair -- a taller than usual chair had been obtained for her, the intent was to make it evident she was but a child, and she had to descend from an adult sized chair.

She marched purposefully across the courtroom floor, looked up at the Bailiff, who looked at the Judge.

"Miss Keller," the Judge said, "do you know what it is to tell the truth?"

Victoria lifted her chin stubbornly -- the Judge was strongly minded of a certain pale eyed Sheriff who used that same expression in court -- "I do, Your Honor," she said firmly, her little-girl's voice high and certain in the expectant hush.

"Please take the witness stand."

Victoria looked at the chair, at the Judge, then clamped her jaw tightly shut.

His Honor made a mental note to ask later if she'd intended to tell him she had nowhere to put it, that it would not go with her bedroom furniture.

Victoria sat, prim, pretty, looking very young in a frilly dress and shiny, flat-heeled slippers.

"Miss Keller, would you tell the Court what happened on the day in question?"

 

Chief of Police Will Keller shut off the engine, sat for a moment, considering how much he appreciated power steering and an automatic transmission.

The car's door was heavy, but the hinges were lubricated; it hurt to open the door, but hell, everything hurt.

He thumbed the buckle's release, stepped out, stood.

It is said that predators have a deeper sense than our traditional five, a more primitive sense that allows them to detect when a prey animal is sick or injured, and therefore an easier victim.

It has been further postulated that this deeper sense is found in human predators.

Whether this was the case, or whether it's that a couple of young toughs saw an old man moving like he was stove up and sore, is quite immaterial.

What matters is that Will turned, glared at the young man who shoved his palm hard into Will's chest, intending to stagger him back.

Chief of Police Will Keller was known to be a patient man.

Chief of Police Will Keller was known to be a longsuffering man.

Chief of Police Will Keller was known to be a man quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

Chief of Police Will Kelller, to those who knew him, was a man you really, really, did not want to anger.

Will's left hand drove forward, seized a big handful of this would-be tough-guy's shirt, closed on an impossibly big handful of material, crushed it into a ball and twisted: he snapped the teen-ager close, then thrust him straight in the air, teeth bared, eyes white and hard, absolute fury like a just-lit boiler building up inside him.

Something small, fast-moving and sounding like a cross between a banshee and an incensed house cat with its tail in a pencil sharpener, screeched out from between two cars, leaped, climbed the second tough's back, the sharp, square edges of her cowboy boots' heels digging into the backs of his legs, into the sides of his thighs: Sheriff Linn Keller's youngest daughter, pretty little Victoria Keller, a sweet and charming girl-child who worked hard to be properly ladylike, climbed this guy's legs like a lineman wearing pole gaffs, she clawed up his back, reached around his face, digging at his eyes, her head snapped forward and she bit his ear, hard, all the while making the sound of an enraged blender chewing on a handful of ball bearings.

The party of the second part, no longer intent on an assault on what looked like a stove up, half crippled old man, let out a screech of his own, turned, grabbing at whatever hellspan of a mountain cat was clawing him bloody.

Will turned, threw the first tough guy face first into the dirt, took a step forward and kicked his assailant in the belly hard enough to bring him off the ground by about four fingers or so: he turned, grabbed a handful of greasy beard and a handful of greasy hair, pulled hard.

Will's leg was conveniently in the way when the backup attacker fell forward.

Victoria grunted when they landed, she bounced up like she was made of gum rubber, she backed up, looking from one to the other, then she bent double, her little pink hands fisted with anger.

Her picture made the front page of the weekly newspaper: behind her, Uncle Will, his hand under his vest, his face solemn, carefully expressionless -- unlike his niece, whose face was absolutely ENRAGED as she screamed, "YOU BIG BULLY LEAVE MY UNCLE ALONE!" -- which was the all-caps caption beneath her picture.

 

The Judge looked from one attorney to the other.

"Miss Keller," he said, "I'm not sure I quite follow what you're telling us."

Victoria stood suddenly, put two fingers to her lips, whistled -- sharp, shrill, loud.

The far door opened.

A man in a padded striking-dummy suit, complete with padded facial armor, walked in, followed by two gowned members of the Ladies' Tea Society, carrying a portable dressing-screen.

One attorney, on his feet -- "Objection! Your Honor, are these theatrics really necessary?"

Opposing counsel, just as fast:  "I'd like to see where this is going, Your Honor."

The Judge raised both hands, just a little, motioned them both to be seated: he watched as Chief Will Keller came slowly to his feet, walked carefully, the way a man will when he has sore ribs, to a position two arm's lengths from the unfolded, carefully-positioned dressing-screen.

The two gowned Ladies retreated within the small enclosure they'd just made.

Victoria strutted up to her Uncle.

"Uncle Will was right... here," she said, with the juvenile certainty of the very young: "one of the bad guys ran up and shoved him like this!" -- she stiff-armed the foam-armored assistant, hard enough he actually staggered back a little.

Victoria turned and looked at the Judge.

"Now the second bad guy" -- she seized the foam-armored assistant, towed her tall helper a couple feet toward her, then one step to the side -- "Right there!" she declared triumphantly -- "now I gotta change clothes!"

Pretty little Victoria Keller, all frilled-out skirt and frothy petticoats and shining little slippers, disappeared inside the enclosure.

Attorneys, witnesses, Judge and bailiff, all looked at one another with the vague uneasiness that comes of realizing that, somehow, control of the courtroom had slipped from His Honor's dignified fingers.

Both attorneys began to rise.

Both attorneys froze, shocked, as something that sounded like an incensed housecat with its tail in a pencil sharpener, came streaking out of the folding screen with all the stealth of an angry blender masticating a double handful of creek gravel: Victoria Keller, the pretty, feminine, ladylike, youngest daughter of that pale eyed Sheriff, screeched and clawed her way up the red-armored assistant's back, climbing him with the delicacy of a lineman digging steel gaffs into a splintery, creosoted pole, clawed nails raking his face, and he did just like the bad guy Victoria swarmed there on the main street of beautiful downtown Firelands started to do, right before Uncle Will performed his Laying On of Hands, lawman's edition.

The foam-padded assistant let out a sincere and spontaneous yell of absolute PANIC, dropped to the ground, buried his face in the deck and tried to wrap his arms around his head to keep this four wheel drive buzz saw of a madder-than-hell mountain cat from ripping his face off.

Victoria hopped off, stood up, looked at the Judge as the folding enclosure discreetly retreated toward the far door.

"That's what happened, Your Honor," Victoria declared, her knuckles triumphantly on her tooled-leather belt: "then Daddy showed up and he cuffed 'em and stuffed 'em!"

 

Edited June 7, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE COMPLAINT

The glazed-clay mug exploded in the Abbot’s hand.

Water, cooled from the olla, sprayed for an impressive distance.

The Abbot sighed, stood, picked up his staff, turned.

The Abbot was one of the Order of the Saints Michael and Florian: he was, in his day, a soldier; before that, he was the son of Southern nobility, and very much in love with a beautiful young woman.

The war separated them; death embraced them both, but kept neither: the Abbot bore war’s traumas as scars on his hide, and the young woman he loved, then and now, was taken by one of the waves of water-borne disease, and slept forever in a New Orleans crypt.

War’s memories pushed him back into the priesthood he’d left; the death of a woman he’d loved, a beautiful daughter of the South named Susan, sent him into the Order.

The Abbot looked at the bandido, laughing, leaning drunkenly backwards, his fellows laughing with him.

The Abbot advanced, his pace deliberate, his knuckles blanching as he gripped his staff like the bayonet mounted musket he’d used to such good effect during what a good and pale-eyed friend called “That Damned War.”

“¡Hola, padre!,” one laughed, “you are looking for a belly full of lead, sí?”

Their laughter faded as the Abbot leaned forward a little, moving faster, as he lowered the end of his staff.

From behind, a rifle shot, loud, harsh in the suddenly-empty Rabbitville street, just before the Abbot snapped his staff up, knocked a bandido's rifle barrel skyward.

Part of his mind heard a Winchester rifle’s action cycled, behind him, its metallic slap-whap lost in the red screaming in an old soldier’s ears, in the enraged roar of a man utterly embracing a long-suppressed battle lust, as a grey-uniformed soldier spun his musket, drove its butt into a man’s jaw, crushing bone and teeth and slashing back with the butt on a murderous return-stroke, knocking an arm and its pistol aside and driving into and then through ribs and guts.

The Abbot was no longer sane.

War and combat, when men are belt buckle to belt buckle in the world of the abattoir, ankle deep in blood, breathing blue smoke and men’s screams, will dash every trace of sanity, of rationality, from a man’s mind, and when the Abbot was faced with greater odds than he could possibly overcome, when he faced more and better weapons than he himself bore, he became that soldier again, fighting for one thing, for one thing alone:

He fought to keep his brothers in grey, alive.

The Sheriff fired a second round, jacked his Winchester’s action, spinning a smoking hull high into the air, flashing as it spun: drunken bandidos, seeing their easy prey was neither easy, nor prey, nor was he a man alone, decided the climate was healthier elsewhere.

They decided too late.

Old Pale Eyes had been a soldier, too, and when he saw a man he knew and respected, a man he was pleased to call Friend and Brother, faced with unfavorable odds, he did what a soldier does.

He killed the enemy, efficiently, quickly, and utterly without mercy.

Villagers peeked timidly from doorways, from behind walls.

A pale eyed lawman shoved fresh rounds into his rifle, hard eyes seeking out places where he himself might hide, or lie in wait, places from which he might emerge, were he the enemy.

A man with a tanned scalp, a scalp surrounded by a thinning tonsure, stopped, breathing heavily: he looked down at the men he’d killed – he’d faced weapons, he’d charged the weapons, he’d attacked the weapons.

The Abbot leaned heavily against his staff, flinched as a familiar hand gripped his shoulder.

“You hurt, Will?” Linn asked.

The Abbot sank to his knees, ran a distraught hand through what little hair he had left.

His good right hand was welded around his staff, and his staff was upright, as if he were holding a musket, muzzle up.

“You were there again.”

“Yeah.”

“So was I.”

Linn knelt with his friend and fellow soldier.

One used to wear Confederate grey, one used to wear Union blue: today one wore a black suit, the other, a robe of unbleached wool.

Neither regretted taking the lives they’d each released from this world.

The dead made their choice, the dead dictated their own result.

Two old soldiers knelt in the dirt street.

Finally Linn said “Y’know, this is hard on an old man’s knees.”

The Abbot looked at him, smiled, just a little.

“I think we need to talk to God about it.”

“About our knees?”

“About being alive to complain about it!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

 

THEY DON’T KNOW HOW 

Michael tapped delicately, just his fingernail, at his sister’s bedroom door.

She opened it, whispered “I was expecting you.”

Michael slipped in as his sister opened the door, turned as she closed it.

“Sis,” he asked quietly, “how’d you know Uncle Will was going to need help?”

Victoria tilted her head a little, gave her twin brother almost a sad look.

“That’s not your question, is it?”

Michael looked away – he looked as guilty as he felt – “No.”

He looked back, distressed.

“Sis, how come you knew and I didn’t?”

“What would you have done to help?” Victoria asked.

Michael stopped, considered.

Victoria saw his body start to answer.

She saw his weight shift, the way he’d trained – the way they’d both trained.

“You would have attacked,” Victoria answered for him. “You would’ve gone for the knees. You would have responded as we’ve been taught, you would’ve done what we’ve practiced.”

Michael blinked again, nodded.

“You would have attacked like a male.”

Michael pulled his head back a little, surprised.

“The guy coming at Uncle Will – the one I climbed – he’s used to fighting guys.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Michael” – Victoria gave an exasperated little noise – “Michael, I’m a girl!”

“Yeah … so?”

Victoria stepped forward, took her brother’s face between her hands, leaned close, looked deeply into her twin’s pale eyes.

“Michael,” she whispered, “they don’t know how to fight like a girl!”

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TEXAS, BY GOD!

Normally the Ambassador arrived at the Chambers discreetly, in a dignified and ladylike manner.

Normally.

It was generally accepted that her Iris would manifest in a secure chamber, where she could freshen herself as necessary, where she would ring for escort; she would take the arm of a lean, slender, tanned, hard-muscled young man in an immaculate uniform -- generally a young man who was blushing furiously, as their Madam Ambassador was at once feminine, ladylike, very proper, and -- to be honest -- gorgeous! -- she would walk slowly around the soldier, standing at correct military attention, and she would then stand squarely in front of this lone guardian and say quietly, "Look at me."

It was local legend that, when she looked into a man's eyes, privately, intimately, that she reached into the man's soul before she spoke, and it was equally a matter of this local legend that she never once, ever, abused that privilege.

Not once.

Ever.

Usually she would come into Chambers on a young man's arm, she would turn, face him and drop a flawless curtsy, and thank him for his kindness.

Less well known was why the young man was, by this point, blushing most furiously.

Just before they reached the Chambers door, Marnie would stop, swing in front of the young man, her gloved hand on his chest to stop him: she would whisper, "Thank you," she would surge up to her tiptoes and kiss him quickly, unexpectedly, on the cheek, she would caress his other cheek with a gloved hand and whisper again:

"Don't tell!"

That is how their beautiful, dignified, ladylike, persuasive Madam Ambassador usually made her appearance in Chambers, before the rows of tables with representatives of the various Confederate states.

Usually.

Today, though, an Iris BOOMED loudly into shocking, unannounced existence, tall, elliptical, stretched suddenly wide --

Something big, black, fast moving emerged, headed straight for the President's table, at the far end of the room --

Steelshod hooves, scarring the polished floor, sparks searing the air as a great, massive, tall, muscled, shining, black and truly HUGE horse whirled, rearing, shining-black hooves, weapons in and of themselves, windmilling the air, inviting an enemy -- any enemy! -- to just DARE TO COME NEAR ME AND I WILL DESTROY YOU! --

A woman, astride this living mountain of bituminous horseflesh, brandishing a shining-steel Bowie with a full knuckle-guard --

This war-mare's whinnying scream filled the shocked silence of the Council's Chambers: forehooves came down, SLAMMED onto the polished marble floor, and a daughter of Odin, pale eyed and beautiful in a shining-silk riding dress and embroidered red cowboy boots, threw back her head and shouted triumphantly, "TEXAS, BY GOD!"

Four men looked at one another, startled: the looked at one another, grinned, they leaped to their feet, chairs falling over behind them with the sudden vigor of their rising:  the chant filled the chamber as the mare reared again:

"TEX-AS!

      "TEX-AS!

           "TEX-AS!"

 

The President of the Confederacy stood, letting this powerful chant fill his soul and inflate his heart: the mare came to Earth again, as did the Ambassador: she sheathed her heavy blade, swung a leg up and over and fell to the floor, landed flat-footed, stood, raised a gracefully-curving arm, turned, smiling, for all the world like a performing acrobat receiving the adulation of a paying audience.

This was no paying audience.

This was the entire Confederate Empire, represented.

Men rose, men pounded on tables, men shouted their approval, all semblance of dignity cast aside, and had there been rafters to hold up the roof, instead of arched stone, they would have shivered with the united power of men's throats, at a full shout.

Fists, palms, feet pounded tables, stomped floors: politicians, representatives, all, abandoned their pretenses and their dignity, and the chant roared like an angry ocean on a storm-punished shore:

"TEX-AS!

     "TEX-AS!

          "TEX-AS!"

 

"We've lost nav."

"We expected that."

"Shoot me a bearing."

"Shooting."  Pause.  "Come to two-seven-oh, negative sixteen."

"Two-seven-oh, neg sixteen."

"Punch seven on my six mark."

"Standing by seven."

"Five, four, three, two, one, mark."

Acceleration pushed them deeper into their chairs.

Level seven acceleration mean the inertial dampeners were barely bothered: interference from a hell-cluster nearby negated use of the Iris system, required use of physical ships.

They knew the Valkyries played here -- played! -- they seared through this Devil's mix of gravitational whirlpools, they screamed between warring black holes, and here, a lone star and its planetary system, perfectly balanced between the infernal whirls of stellar moskoe-stroms.

Here, the one most dangerous planet to access in all the Confederacy, the home of independent-minded, rebellious, contrary and hard headed descendants of those abducted Southrons, back when aliens wanted a disposable, primitive fighting-force.

They picked a population of Texans, on one particular abduction sweep.

In fact, it was the Texans that first turned the alien technology against the abductors, it was the Texans that brought war against the alien civilization, it was the Texans that escaped what had been intended as a prison planet.

Planet Texas had also, on occasion, told the rest of the Confederacy to go pound sand.

Ambassador Marnie Keller was sent to make the first formal inroads into inquiring whether Texas wished to rejoin the Confederacy.

Marnie brought a secret weapon.

This was probably the first time in Confederate history that a Frisian mare was ever transported by Diplomatic shuttle.

 

Something truly huge -- massive! -- paced out of the darkness and toward the men gathered around a fire,

"Hello the fire!" 

Men looked at one another, startled.

A woman?

Here?

Weapons were gripped, men faded away from their fellows, in opposite directions.

"Come in if you're peaceful," came the reply as one man rose, stood beside the fire, making himself plainly seen.

"Hi. I'm Marnie."

A red, elaborately-stitched boot swung over the saddle, over the mare's mane, as the other boot twisted out of a doghouse stirrup, as something shimmery and silky fell to earth, landed flat-footed, stood.

A double handful of something hit the fire, flared up: the biggest horse any of them had EVER seen, raised her head in response, then lowered it, snuffing at the ground, evidently looking for something edible.

Marnie planted her knuckles on her belt.

The man she faced was used to command, she could tell, and she knew there were a variety of weapons, in the darkness, but none pointed at her.

These were men -- but more than that, these were Texans! -- she knew they would be studying her, studying her horse.

She wore her Uncle's engraved .357, belted snugly to her lean waist, she faced this First Contact and raised her chin and said, "My name is Marnie Keller.  I am Ambassador from the Confederacy, my Daddy raised me in Colorado, and I'm hungry! What's on the spit tonight?"

The man she faced tried hard not to look surprised.

He said "We've already et all we fixed."

Marnie stepped closer, laid a gloved hand on his chest, tilted her head a little, the way a woman will when she is addressing a good looking man.

"You're in luck," she said. "I brought a few things."

 

Not long after, with men chewing on sandwiches, on good beef between slabs off sourdough, with coffee boiling fragrantly over their built-up fire -- coffee! Genuine, real, honest coffee! -- Marnie sat on a folding stool, locally fashioned: when it was brought out for her, she picked it up, brought it closer to the fire, examined it closely.

"Nice stitching," she murmured.  "It's not easy to get a good uniform stitch in leather. Here" -- she held it up, showed a particular feature to the man who brought her the stool -- "whoever made this, knows his stuff, look how he handled the change in the leather's thickness and still got it molded uniformly around -- here -- that is some nice work!"

Approving looks were exchanged, there in the darkness: there's no way this stranger in the shining silk dress could possibly know she was complimenting the stool's maker, a leatherworker of known skill.

They sat and ate, sipped scalding coffee, and Marnie asked them about the territory hereabouts, and listened carefully to their replies.

Marnie asked about water, about cattle -- she was met with quiet laughter, for the native wildlife had been nearly eliminated from the planet by the original alien inhabitants, cattle were legendary, known to their ancestors, but never seen thus far; plant life had been brought in and was slowly adapting, reclaiming.

Horses were known, and the shining black Frisian found herself the subject of admiration and of inspection: she patiently endured examination of hooves, teeth, legs; hands caressed her, eyes assessed her, as only Texans can do.

Ambassador Marnie Keller took it as a sincere complement when she was told, "Only a Texan takes such good care of a horse. You sure you're from Colorado?"

 

The Council offered no objection as a stand was brought in, as a bucket of water was provided for the mare, set up on the stand for her easy reach, as a feed trough was moved into position, as a broad and waterproofed tarp was spread under the mare's hooves to catch any second hand horse feed (these were the Chambers after all! -- but this was also a most extraordinary circumstance!)

 

"It seems," Marnie said, "that on all of Planet Texas, no one had ever seen a horse as big as Snowflake" -- she caressed her mare's nose, smiling, looked up -- "my report is prepared, it is comprehensive and lengthy, but gentlemen" -- Marnie looked at the President, then she turned, slowly, orbiting her mare, deliberately looking every last man, every politician, every representative, looking into each and every man's eye there -- she came around, touched Snowflake behind the knee, and the big Frisian knelt, folding her legs easily.

Marnie thrust a red cowboy boot into the portside stirrup, swung her leg over, found the right hand stirrup, settled herself well into the hurricane deck.

"Up, girl," she murmured.

Snowflake stood.

Every man's eye followed the Ambassador as she rose to an impressive altitude, seated on the back of her shining black, feather-footed Frisian mare, lifted her chin.

"MISTER PRESIDENT!" Marnie declared in a loud voice,

"TEXAS WISHES TO REJOIN THE CONFEDERATE EMPIRE!"

Marnie drew her shining, hand forged Damascus blade with its full knuckle bow, a blade given her in token of her Ambassadorial visit, the first they'd had in a decade.

It had presentation engraving on the shining bronze bow's curved surface, but this did not matter.

What mattered was that an Ambassador returned in triumph, and could be forgiven for rearing her shining black mare, thrusting her honed blade toward the heavens and screaming triumphantly, "TEXAS, BY GOD!"

 

 

 

 

Edited June 9, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE DIRTY OLD INDIAN

Sheriff Willamina Keller sewed up a quilt, when she learned her first grandchild was first discovered.

She and her firstborn, her daughter, were estranged, but she was still Willamina's daughter, and when she finally showed up on Willamina's doorstep -- long years after she left, long after screaming words that cut like a wire whip, words that she bitterly regretted, words for which stubborn pride kept her from saying she was sorry -- five years after Willamina made the handmade quilt, it was finally tucked in around her now-four-year-old granddaughter.

Willamina's pale eyed granddaughter absolutely loved the handmade quilt, with the angular Indian Chief's head embroidered in profile on its central panel: somehow the quilt acquired a name, "The Dirty Old Indian," and when Willamina asked her son to adopt this little girl-child, it was while she was hugging the folded, laundered, line dried, smells-like-Gammaw, Dirty Old Indian in one arm the way some girls hold a rag doll.

The quilt discreetly disappeared from an upstairs bedroom, back on Earth, reappeared on another planet altogether: it was a cherished link with home, a tangible reminder of where a family had been.

When Marnie Keller stepped through the Iris, when she looked at her husband with tired eyes, when she just short of collapsed into him, Dr. John Greenlees did as he'd always done, when his wife returned in such a state of profound exhaustion.

Marnie helped as much as she could; a bath, where she had to fight to stay awake -- her husband, washing her back, did not help any, he had a most soothing touch, and whether he was scratching her back at odd moments, or massaging her shoulders, he could relax her faster than anyone, or anything, else that she knew of.

Marnie sat at their little table, wrapped in a fluffy robe, half-listened as her physician husband spoke quietly: their son was well, there were no crises in her absence, he was glad she was home, have some more carrots.

Marnie fell asleep halfway through her steaming little bowl of candied carrots.

Dr. John Greenlees carefully, gently, slid lean, strong arms under her, behind her, stood: he rolled his exhausted wife into him, he carried her to their bed, he eased her down onto the mattress, sliding her feet under the bedcovers.

Before he joined her under bedsheets that smelled of sunshine and clean air, he drew an old and favorite blanket up around her chin.

Dr. John Greenlees was a physician, a prodigy of the healing arts: he was a practical man who lived in the real world, and he knew -- rationally, logically, knew -- there is no healing power in a blanket.

No quilt ever appeared in any Pharmacopoea, no hand sewn blanket was ever listed among healing compounds in any medical journal.

Dr. John Greenlees also knew that this particular blanket was still her favorite, and so the Dirty Old Indian was once again drawn up around Marnie's chin, just like her Gammaw did when she was a little girl.

Edited June 10, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE SERMON UNSPOKEN

 

“Sheriff.”

“Parson.”

Reverend John Burnett looked at Linn’s bandaged right hand.

Sheriff Linn Keller looked at the cast on the good Reverend’s right hand.

“Parson,” Linn said, “walk with me.”

Reverend Burnett slipped his wounded wing back into the black muslin sling, followed Linn silently down their little whitewashed church’s aisle; he hesitated as Linn opened the doors, looked around, then emerged.

The Sheriff looked casually around – casually, that is, unless you were a lawman, in which case you’d notice the man was looking for trouble:  casually, unless you’d seen military conflict, in which case you’d notice his attention to doorways, rooflines, near-to-far sweeps.

Linn had done this for so long it was a natural part of him; it was something he did unconsciously, it was something he did naturally, it was something he did so casually that one might be fooled into thinking maybe he was looking around for a friend to hail most cheerfully.

The two men walked, slowly, ascended the steps to the Silver Jewel: Linn winked at Mr. Baxter, smiled at the cute little hash slinger, led the way to the back room, where the two could talk privately, but not officially.

The cute little waitress showed up with a covered tray, and a folding stand to set it on; she set the tray on the stand, lifted the stamped-metal lid, set a shot glass of distilled sledgehammer in front of the Parson, and one in front of the Sheriff.

She stepped back, lid in one hand, her other hand on her hip.

“Mr. Baxter said to tell you this is for medicinal purposes only,” she said innocently.

The Sheriff and the Parson each raised a shot glass in salute, left handed, drank.

Two empty shot glasses left the room, carefully hidden under the stamped-metal dome on a waitress’s tray.

The Sheriff pulled out a phone, set it flat on the table: he ran it left-handed, then turned it so the Parson could see a picture.

It was … well, it used to be, a locker door.

The Parson raised an eyebrow, looked at the cast on his good right hand.

“I … didn’t do that,” he said quietly.

“I know,” the Sheriff said.  “I did.”

The good Reverend looked at the Sheriff in honest surprise.

“You?”

Linn nodded.

“Is that how you –”

The Reverend looked at Linn’s bandaged knuckles.

“No,” Linn admitted.  “I punched the bulletin board today. I kicked that locker door.”

“Kicked it.”

“Twice.”

The good Reverend raised an eyebrow.

“I saw a man bust hell out of his hand, punchin’ his locker. One of my deputies, matter of fact.”

The Reverend looked away. 

“Yeah.”

Linn looked up, smiled as the hash slinger came in with another tray, this one with the day’s special and sides, and coffee for both men.

“Anything else?” she asked – she smiled at the Sheriff, winked at the preacher, held the tray modestly in front of her like an enamel-coated apron.

“Well, if I were younger and more foolish,” the Sheriff said in the high-pitched, quavery tones of a peevish old man, “I’d ask for a big steak dinner or a winnin’ lottery ticket,” then he assumed his normal voice and added, “but you have to understand I suffer from Hoof in Mouth Disease, and if I forge BOLDLY FORWARD” – he described a knife-hand go-ahead – “I’d end up with my hind hoof squarely between my pearly whites!”

The waitress cheerfully swatted at him with the towel that lived draped over her left shoulder.

Two men turned their attention to their meal.

When conversation finally resumed, the Sheriff thrust his chin at the preacher’s cast.

“Out with it now,” he said, “what happened?”

The Parson was quiet for a moment longer than was necessary.

“You … know about this morning’s squad run.”

“I do.”

“You know what it … was.”

The preacher saw the veils swing shut behind the Sheriff’s eyes, as decisively as the heavy curtains of a playhouse stage.

“Sheriff, that’s the first …”

He swallowed, looked away, grateful he’d already cleaned his plate, for he suddenly had no appetite at all.

“It’s the first time I’ve … responded to … that.”

Linn nodded, slowly, his jaw thrust out a little.

He held up his bandaged knuckles.

“Me too. Same reason.”

“You weren’t on the squad run, Sheriff.”

“No.” 

Linn tapped the screen on his now-dark phone; it lit up again, showed the caved-in, absolutely devastated, stamped-metal locker door.

“This is right after Dana was hurt.”

The Parson paled, just a little.

“The same way?”

Linn nodded.  “Yes. Working undercover, back East.”

The preacher stared at the Sheriff, shocked.

“Dana?”

Linn nodded grimly.

“Someone – Dana, too --?”

The Parson saw Linn’s eyes grow significantly more pale, saw the lawman’s jaw slide out, muscles bulging.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff, I didn’t know –”

“It’s not something we advertise,” Linn said quietly, his voice tight.

“She was set up, Parson, she was betrayed. Dirty internal politics. We had to go straighten them out.”

“Sooooo … when you heard about our run …”

“When I heard what someone did to that girl, yeah. Yes, Parson, I remembered what someone did to my little girl, only I pulled my punch before I broke two bones in my hand like you did.”

Two men sat in silence for several long moments, then the door opened again and a cute little waitress took their empty plates, set a slice of chocolate pie with a thick, frothy layer of whipped cream on top, and a shining-red Maraschino cherry, in front of each man.

Two men left the back room not long after, two men who knew what it was to ride herd on a significant temper, two men who well knew the price of letting slip temper’s reins.

Two untouched slices of chocolate pie with whipped cream and a cherry on top, spoke a sermon the Parson really hadn't intended to present.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND THE CHIEF HAD WORDS

Chief Chuck Fitzgerald set his white Bell cap beside the little podium.

He wore his Class A's, and he was flanked, four on his left, and four on his right, by red-shirted, black-booted, curled-handlebar Irishmen.

One blueshirt, a woman, stood at the far end, on the left; one blueshirt, a man old enough to be her father, stood at the far right.

Fitz looked at a minor sea of clerical collars, suit-and-ties, a few robes, the occasional ornate crucifix, on draped gold chains.

"I understand," he said quietly, "there was some discussion when one of your keynote speakers was delayed."

His expression was not that of a man neutral, nor of a man pleased to be standing where he was.

"Our Chaplain was to have addressed you, yes. The subject of his address was to have been the Chaplaincy in any of the emergency services."

Fitz stopped, closed his eyes, took a long breath, then he reached down beside the podium and touched a control.

The big screen behind him -- twelve feet wide, ten feet high -- came to life, its intensity carefully subdued so as not to sear the retinas of the viewers.

"This," Fitz said, "is a firecoat. Note the blue reflective striping. This picture was taken right after we pulled it brand-new out of its plastic."  He turned, faced the room full of clergy.

"It doesn't look quite as nice and clean now."

The Irishman on his right lifted his chin.

"The Chaplain has blue striping to designate him clearly at a scene. His helmet says CHAPLAIN on the beavertail. Our coats have white reflective."

The woman on the far end spoke up, her voice carrying well in the still meeting-hall.

"My helmet has a short tail and says PARAMEDIC across the back, with the blue star on either side. His has the visible Cross in reflective gold on the sides."

"Our Chaplain was to have addressed you on the Chaplaincy with the emergency services," Fitz said, glaring.

"He won't be here."

"Y'see," Fitz said frankly, "you cannot be effective as Chaplain unless you are taken seriously."

He lowered his head a little, he almost glared as he continued, "You are amateurs. All of you. I would not trust a single one of YOU, as you are now."

He saw a number of expressions -- shock, surprise, anger here and there.

Fitz raised his chin and raised his voice.

"UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN THROUGH THE SAME HELL WE HAVE, UNTIL YOU HAVE SEEN THE THINGS WE HAVE, UNTIL YOU HAVE FACED THE SAME THINGS WE HAVE, YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF DAMNED AMATEURS!"

The screen flashed, shifted: their Chaplain, at a run, coming out of a doorway: behind him, enough flame to make a crisp silhouette, enough light from the camera's flash to show the bright-blue, almost-white reflective stripes on his coat, his helmet: the man's air mask was on a victim's face, the victim was limp in his arms, and he was coming out of a fire structure at a flat-out run.

"Our Chaplain is in hospital being repaired," Fitz continued, his voice no longer at a shout.

"He'd broken three bones in his hand last week. There was a re-injury and he has to have surgery on the hand. 

"He would have spoken more respectfully than me."

He gripped the sides of the podium, his knuckles blanched: had he not such a death grip, his hands would have shaken a little.

"The man is taking his EMT training and he's been making ride-alongs on our squad. So far he's seen things that would curl the hair on a bald man's head."

Fitz ran his palm over his own nearly bare scalp, smiled with half his mouth.

"I can speak with some expertise on that subject."

The leavening of humor eased the tension he'd built.

"Bottom line and here it is, fellas. If one of you damned amateurs comes in and tries to Chaplain us, we're going to remember what it's like to walk down the center line of the highway swinging a head by the hair and stand there and wait while the wrecker drags a convertible out from under a tractor trailer so you can put the head back in its former owner's lap.

"Until you find someone in a house fire and pack them out over your shoulder, until you look at the burned face of someone you knew and realize they're DEAD, until you stand in the Devil's living room with a squirt gun under your arm and HELL ITSELF BOILIN' ALONG THE CEILING, you can come in, you can say your words and pray your prayers and we won't take you seriously!"

A rapid series of images on the screen behind him.

Irishmen on hose lines, anonymous in turnout and helmets; firemen turning away from a fireball, bright and roiling as it detonates, engulfing a wrecked car; a firefighter leaned into a wrecked truck, his wet fireglove fisted in his other glove while he desperately holds a bloodied white cloth against a limp figure's neck.

Not all the assembled clergy looked away.

"Until you're one of us," the Chief said quietly, "you're just a damned amateur, so before any of you assume the Chaplaincy of any of the emergency services, you become one of us first. Otherwise" -- he hooked a thumb at the image of a firefighter, running out of the fire structure with a living soul in his arms -- "you will not be effective."

Fitz lifted his chin and concluded with probably the one most powerful statement he could make.

"Reverend Burnettt is one of us."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

JUST BEFORE SUNUP

It was full dark when Linn woke.

He slid out of bed -- carefully, not wanting to disturb his wife -- he dressed quickly, his clothes were laid out the night before, he slung his gunbelt off his shoulder and carried his boots and moved like a pale eyed ghost, silent, cautious, avoiding the one stair step that squeaked.

Once downstairs -- the hired girl wasn't up yet -- he smiled -- he did not want to trouble that poor hard working soul either.

He'd made preparations the night before.

Now -- now, with a great black shadow padding along beside him -- he opened the front door, stepped out onto the porch, shoved one sock foot into a boot, then the other.

He slung his cloth warbag off his shoulder and headed for the barn, The Bear Killer staying right with him.

Linn's Appaloosa was waiting.

Linn bribed him with some thick shavings of molasses twist tobacker, saddled him quickly, long practice showing in the economy, the efficiency of this simple operation: another minute and they eased out through the gate, turning to close it and latch it behind, before heading away from the Sheriff's home, toward the nearest mountain, via a path that was ancient before the first white face beheld the North American continent.

Apple-horse moved steadily, unhurriedly: Linn appreciated the wild hearted stallion's sure footed confidence, his catlike eyes in the dark: they worked steadily uphill, while stars uncounted and uncountable glowed like diamonds spilled on black velvet overhead.

The air was cool, almost chill: Linn blew out his breath like a schoolboy, he felt the muscles of his face pull a little as he blew a great plume of steam out from him, and part of him, somewhere inside his scarred old lawman's heart, was that delighted schoolboy with a broad grin, blowing a great breath of steam into the still air.

Saddle leather squeaked a little; Apple's hoof-falls were nearly soundless.

The Bear Killer's progress was absolutely soundless.

It took most of an hour to get to where they were going.

Linn did not push his stallion; Apple-horse knew this path well, he'd been over it many times before, in the daylight and in the dark.

They came out in a little flat: there was still mountain above them, enough to water this little place: Linn's saddle stock were all knee trained, and he rode Apple with a bitless bridle: they arrived, Linn swung down, brought the cloth warbag with him.

The Bear Killer followed, interested.

Linn knew his territory and he knew his terrain, and he knew this cleft in the rock, where a petulant giant clove granite with a stroke of a mighty war-ax: the blow split off another great chunk of granite, and formed a corner, and this corner was deep enough to be proof against the wind, it was close enough to reflect heat from the fire, it was tall enough to provide a natural chimney, and it was positioned so Linn could see every approach.

He'd already set his fire, he'd already stacked firewood ready to hand, he'd already set the rocks to place his frying pan on; his fingers had eyes in the dark, a Lucifer match lit the little cook fire, and The Bear Killer sat back, licking his chops in anticipation, as Linn shaved bacon into the pan.

Water from one of his two canteens, for coffee: steam, smoke and sizzle, the smell of woodsmoke and bacon and coffee, the happy anticipation of a huge Bear Killer of a mountain Mastiff, the contented crunch of a grazing saddlehorse.

Linn watched the far horizon as it lightened, as it colored and streaked, as weathered igneous claws and fangs ripped at the blazing sky: he ate hot, tongue-searing bacon and bread swiped in bacon grease, shared his bounty with a sinner's-heart-black mountain Mastiff, he blew on steaming, scalding coffee and burnt his lip on the rim of the blue-enamel cup.

Sheriff Linn Keller was a man who enjoyed his comfort.

He could easily have wakened with his wife, he could have eaten breakfast without the need to fix it himself, he could have seated his bony backside on the thick-quilted cushion on his kitchen chair, and eaten bacon and eggs and smiled at his wife, he could have let the hired girl tend firing the stove and frying the bacon and slicing the bread and cleaning up afterward.

Linn's pale eyes narrowed a little as he hunkered in that rock cleft, looked out over an incredible distance at a phenomenal sunrise, at colors and tints and textures mortal men seldom took time to appreciate.

He scoured his frying pan with a good handful of sand, he dumped the dregs of his coffee on the tiny cook fire, he fed The Bear Killer the last of the sweet rolls he'd brought. 

Linn covered the steaming remnants of his tiny cookfire with sand, stood.

He took a long, deep breath of clean mountain air.

Linn looked again at the horizon; the colors were gone now, the sun was bright as it hoisted itself industriously over the rim of the world and started hauling itself, steadily, hand over hand, into the sky.

Linn rubbed The Bear Killer's ears and murmured, "I don't do this often enough."

a pale eyed lawman and a huge, black, Bear Killing dog rode down off the mountain, to home.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

STAMPEDE!

"Jaysus, Mary an' Joseph," Jacob whispered as the Iris opened and a brown river of hooves, horns and shaggy hide poured out, disappearing from a Canadian prairie into a broad, black ellipse, emerging here on the Confederate world, Brendan.

Joseph Keller had been raised in the Colorado mountains.

He'd learned to ride while he was learning to walk, he'd grown up with his Pa's Appaloosa herd, with big curly furred Bear Killers, he'd learned at a tender age that life was uncertain and dangerous and he learned to be strong, incisive and decisive, mostly because he was his Pa's eldest son, and mostly because that's how his pale eyed Pa was.

Jacob Keller was more at home in the saddle than he was behind the wheel, and right now, he counted that a good thing.

A herd of American Bison was thundering out of the Iris, spreading out in a living river of trampling hell, fit to grind man and horse alike into greasy paste against prairie sod and keep right on a-goin'.

Jacob wasted no more time imploring the Deity for help.

It was time he helped himself, and his Apple-horse was in complete agreement.

A pale eyed Martian Sheriff whipped his stallion end-for-end and welded his backside into saddle leather.

The stallion he rode was firmly of the opinion that the climate was decidedly healthier elsewhere, and he wished most sincerely to get from here to there.

Fast.

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller's lips were pressed together as she seized her saddle, swarmed up three steps to the platform she'd had raised for the purpose: it hummed a little higher, she got the saddle over her black Snowflake-mare.

The Frisian snuffed at the empty feed trough in front of her, stamped impatiently, her long, shining-black tail slashing her flanks.

Her pilot banked hard, came in low over the herd's heads, shot ahead, passed a man on a leaned-out, fast-moving spotty stallion.

The pilot watched his scanner, adjusted course, banked again.

Within the capacious ship, one could have set a glass of water on the deck and appreciated not the first ripple:  outside, atmospheric wings were extended, steelspar airfoils that sliced through the low altitude air: to the pilot, used to the freedom of interstellar space, of vacuum, it felt like he was flying through an ocean of grease.

He had to admit, though, standing his ship on its wing to bank hard and fast, was fun!

He keyed the comm:  "Madam Ambassador, advise."

Marnie swung her leg over, found the other stirrup, settled herself atop her mare, smiled at the thought of what she was about to do.

"Open a channel to Brendan."

Marnie waited, then her pilot's voice: "Channel open, ma'am."

"Brendan, this is Ambassador Marnie Keller, how copy?"

"We copy, ma'am."

"Are you ready to receive?"

"Yes ma'am!"

"Set us down," Marnie said, "we have a very special delivery!"

The pilot grinned, shoved his atmosphere engines' throttle forward with his left hand: he banked hard left, compensating with his boots on the rudder pedals: to a pilot used to interstellar navigation and extra-atmospheric flight, these controls seemed so ... so physical! -- but he had to admit, running a stick, a rudder and twin throttles, was the most efficient means of piloting through atmosphere!

The shuttle was half as long as a Second World War destroyer escort, rectangular with a chisel nose, two stories tall:  it set down in the indicated, open country: landing legs collapsed slowly, the shuttle's flat belly settled against level sod, the big clamshell stern hatch swung open, and a herd of mountain-bred Appaloosas poured out, each of them eager for open air and sunshine, for sod underhoof and grass to be eaten -- and each one broken to saddle by pale eyed members of the same Colorado family.

Planet Brendan was inheriting a new population of bison, of saddle horses, they would soon be receiving beef cattle as well, and wildlife and environmental specialists from several planets were busy planning the exact cross section of predator and prey to introduce, to establish stable, self sustaining and interdependent populations.

The horses were the most eagerly anticipated.

Thanks in no small part to the Inter-System, these bigger than life Colorado lawmen became icons; the image of children of the West blasting out of a wall of steam and bringing justice to the lawless, seized the popular imagination, a pale eyed Sheriff in a black suit seizing the wrongdoer and either pinning him by the neck to a wall, pressing him one-armed overhead, or honestly baptizing the sinner in the nearest horse trough, set the example.

Where horses had been a thing to be wished for, now they were here -- here! -- and running, wild, free, manes and tails flowing in the wind, stallions chivvying their mares jealously away from their competition: there were horsemen, selected from the Brendonian population, trained in Colorado for two years, learning the Art of the Mountain Horse, learning to ride: young men learned from the horses, young men learned to respect the horses, young men learned from a pale eyed family who took them in as if they were family.

Saddles were made, shipped, waiting: the Ambassador rode after the appaloosas, whistling:  her Frisian mare was tall -- big in every dimension! -- but she was fast, she was agile, and Marnie laughed the way she used to when she rode her Daddy's fastest horse, and helped herd their saddle stock when the need arose.

The newly delivered herd ran toward the familiar sight of barns and board fence.

Marnie drew up, watched:  Snowflake was inclined to follow, for horses are creatures of the herd, and inclined to stay together:  Marnie watched as spotty horses flowed through the broad gate, waited until it swung shut behind, then she turned Snowflake and headed back to the shuttle.

Moving buffalo was best done with an Iris, and she was curious to see if they'd followed Jacob.

 

Jacob Keller drew up in the lee of a promontory.

Apple-horse was breathing easy, dancing, the way a horse will after a good run: Apple was used to the thin air high up in the mountains, and breathing was considerably easier, this low.

There was enough room for buffalo to spread out; they lost their momentum, they began to graze.

Jacob saw something silver streak over the horizon toward him.

He walked Apple-horse forward, then up, until they were atop the rise, and watching the distant buffalo herd.

Spread out as they were, with this much open, empty land, they were nowhere near as impressive as when they were a black ribbon of trampling death, hard on his heels.

The Ambassadorial shuttle -- so called because it was transporting the Ambassador, but chosen for its ability to transport a herd of mountain bred Appaloosa -- circled overhead, set down easily, turbines whistling down from inaudible, through the entire range of human auditory perception, the whistle-pitch dropping, until it was gone.

The stern clamshells opened; a woman in a divided riding skirt gown, with a dainty, lacy parasol in one gloved hand, rode out on a truly huge, shining-black horse.

Jacob turned his Apple-horse to the downhill; they rode down the promontory, rode over to his sister.

"Well?" Marnie asked smugly.

Jacob grinned, that ornery, I-got-away-with-it grin he wore as a boy at home, when he pulled off a good one.

"We've started a population!" he declared.

"Yes you have," Marnie agreed. "We've also started a generation of horsemen. We'll have to get enough horses to prevent inbreeding."

"We've horses on ... what ... seven other planets?"

"Eight. Six have enough to add to the gene pool."

"And the buffalo?"

"We'll add to the herd as we're able. Their breeding rate will increase, back home, since their overall numbers are diminished."

Jacob was not listening.

He was remembering what it was to ride ahead of a brown flood that wanted nothing more than to stomp him into a bloody paste, and as he remembered, he looked at his sister, and Marnie saw the memories in his eyes, and the grin on his face that went with them.

Edited June 12, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SIR, AM I BEING SELFISH?

Linn sat down beside his youngest son.

Silence grew long between them as they took their ease on a length-folded saddle blanket, spread over two abutted hay bales.

Two pale eyed Keller horsemen leaned forward, elbows on their knees, their boots dug into the dirt just over the edge of the poured cement pad.

They sat there, in silence, for close to four minutes, just the two of them, looking out over the near pasture.

Linn spoke first.

"You look like you just lost your last friend."

Michael swallowed, straightened, shoved the heels of his hands into the saddle blanket, shoved his bottom jaw out as he considered the right reply to make.

"Sir," he said finally, "am I being selfish?"

Linn considered this question, then he rose, turned to face his son:  he leaned a little bit to his right, quite obviously looking for something: he leaned to the left, made another, apparently equally unsuccessful visual survey, then sat again, ran questing fingers under his hat to scratch at the back of his own scalp.

"Michael," he said finally, "if you had a whole package of cookies out here, and you were usin' 'em to dip up a good gob of whipped cream for each bite, and you were usin' an ax handle to keep your little sister from havin' any, that would be selfish."

Michael laughed in spite of his juvenile pique.

"Somethin' tells me you weren't referrin' to a tub of whipped cream."

"No, sir."

"Michael" -- Linn took a long breath, sighed it out, rubbed callused palms slowly together -- "I can do a lot of things.  I can do all kind of Sheriff stuff, I can change wheel bearings in a John Deere tractor, hell, I can even flirt with the waitress at the Silver Jewel without gettin' smacked --"  he grinned, then laid a gentle hand on his son's shoulder.

"One thing I was never very good at is readin' minds. You'll have to fill me in."

"It's inside, sir. I'll have to show it to you there."

Michael rose with the sudden decisiveness of the juvenile: Linn saw a determined look on his son's face, and he kept his own face somewhere between pleasant, and neutral.

He well remembered what it was to have his feelings hurt by the careless and heavy hand of his own father.

Two pale eyed horsemen walked back to the house, hooked their boots off and left them in the boot tray.

Michael led the way to his father's desk.

Michael keyed in a sequence Linn didn't realize he knew, activated a computer system Linn didn't realize Michael could access, pulled up the InterSystem news.

Michael stepped back; Linn stepped to the side, spun a chair around and up behind the desk, and two pale eyed horsemen sat.

Linn leaned forward, suddenly focused, and Michael looked over to see a mixture of astonishment, delight and dismay on his father's face.

"Jaysus, Mary and ten left handed Saints," Linn breathed.

The screen was of Confederate manufacture; it didn't just display an image on a flat plane, it projected what looked like a reality to the viewer.

Father and son, side by side, saw a bull buffalo that would make his Jeep look small -- saw Big Shaggy coming at a full-on charge, apparently running RIGHT SQUARELY TOWARD ME! -- then the image pulled back a little, and this lead bull was followed by a widening arrowhead of more shaggy shoulders, surging hard as they galloped after the viewer, a clear and obvious pursuit --

Linn could smell dust and manure, he could feel black and cloven hooves punishing the Canadian sod underfoot --

The image swung around --

He saw a pale eyed lawman on a spotted horse rear a little, whip end-for-end, saw the Appaloosa stallion take out at a dead-on, flat-forevermore-GET ME OUT OF HERE GALLOP --

Linn saw his oldest son running away from a genuine buffalo stampede, he saw the Apple-horse Jacob personally trained and tamed and broke to saddle, the stallion Jacob taught to jump and dressage and barrel race, the horse Jacob taught to attack and to handle rioters --

Linn saw his son and a horse he himself had ridden, running like hell from a river of furry death that seemed to have a sincere desire to run them down and reduce them both to greasy compost.

The scene changed; their viewed vantage was higher now, and to the side: what had been an arrow of living bison, became a fanned out delta: what had been focused death, swift, sure and intent, was now spreading out and slowing down, and he saw Jacob and Apple-horse, surveying this spread from an observation point.

He watched as a boxy ship opened its rear doors, as horses he'd personally handled and trained, poured out, as they bunched, milled, circled, a living carpet he could almost smell! --

He felt his son's deep breath, he could almost hear his son's slow exhalation.

"Sir," Michael said, "am I selfish?"

"For what, Michael?"

Linn looked over at his son and was genuinely surprised to see his son's face was wet.

"Sir" -- Michael looked away, cleared his throat, turned back: his voice was a whisper now, as if he did not entirely trust his throat.

"Sir, all that buffalo --"

He stopped, bit his bottom lip, slashed viciously at closed eyelids with his shirtsleeve.

"Sir," he whispered, "all that buffalo, and Jacob a-horseback, and him and Marnie and the herd --"

Young Michael Keller looked at his father, set his teeth together, shook his head.

"Sir, am I selfish to want to be there?"

Linn reached over, laid a fatherly hand over his youngest son's knuckles.

"No, Michael," he said quietly.  "No, that's not selfish at all."

Michael pulled a bedsheet kerchief from his sleeve, blew his nose, loud, harsh -- he wiped the wet off his cheeks -- he looked at his Pa as Linn's hand gripped his son's shoulder.

"Michael," he said gently, "the Ninja were the fiercest and most feared warriors of their era."

"Yes, sir?"

Linn leaned closer, hunched over, his elbows on his knees, his voice quiet.

"Each Ninja was an artist, Michael. The most popular art was flower arranging, and these tough as nails, feared-and-deadly warriors, could shed tears openly and honestly to see the beauty of a glorious sunrise, or when they studied a perfect, flawless porcelain tea cup, or the walk of a beautiful young maiden who knows a man is watching."

Linn bit his own bottom lip, shook his head.

"No, Michael," he said quietly.  "No, you're not being selfish, not at all."

He looked to the screen, with the frozen image of Jacob in the saddle, that ornery, devil-may-care grin on his face as Apple-horse reared, forehooves reaching, mane and tail floating with the speed of his spin.

"Hell, I wish I was there myself!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

YA WANT SOME?

Sheriff Linn Keller was a patient man.

Sheriff Linn Keller was a quiet voiced and longsuffering man.

Sheriff Linn Keller was a man with a quiet smile and a rotten sense of humor, frequently directed at himself -- "I take very little seriously," he once told someone, "especially myself" -- and it was a rare thing for the man to get impressive.

When he did, it was generally just that.

His deputies were serving a search warrant; the homeowner came rip-roarin' up the driveway, skidded to a barely-controlled stop, jumped out of his pickup before it was stopped, screaming that they were trespassing, get the hell off my property, I'm gonna throw you out --

Sheriff Linn Keller came from between two vehicles and caught the charging linebacker by the shirt front and the wrist.

Linn's first training in the Arts Martial were in Judo -- the "Gentle Way" -- and as he'd taught others since, "Let's not take the first offensive move. They're moving against us. Let's not deliver unto the evildoer, let's redirect the evil they do to us" -- whether this was on his mind or not is really immaterial; the sight of a long tall Sheriff, seizing a man who was moving at the top of his lungs, grabbing wrist, shirt front, and introducing the man to a stuck-out leg, and then to a good face full of not-very-neatly trimmed sod ... well, the party of the second part hit hard, the Sheriff landed on top of him, focused his impact through his knees with full intent to either knock the wind out of the man, or detonate an absolute sunball of bright and brutal agony in both his kidneys.

Either one would, hopefully, take some of the fight out of him.

Three deputies converged, a wrestling dogpile ensued; once the prisoner was in irons, once he was hauled to his feet and given to understand that further foolishness would not be well received, once the prisoner kicked a deputy hard enough to slam him back against the side of a cruiser, once the Sheriff was obliged to drive his knee into the prisoner's gut and honestly knock the wind out of him but good, which put a stop to further assaults against himself and his deputies, Linn seized the man by the jaw, hoist his red-faced head up and lowered his pale visage until he and the prisoner were at eye level.

"There's more if you want it," he said quietly. "Ya want some?"

The prisoner, now that the Sheriff spoke the language the man understood ... didn't.

 

Shelly stepped out on the front porch to call her family for supper.

She heard her husband's laugh -- rich, hearty, the way he laughed when something genuinely tickled his funny bone, when his gut was unwinding, letting go of a difficult day.

Rather than shout toward the barn, Shelly skipped down the front steps, just in time to see her laughing husband and the twins coming out of the big sliding doors toward him.

Her mother's quick eye saw Michael reach over to the plastic tub her husband held, swipe a cookie through it; Victoria waited until her brother's hand was out of the way, then dunked her own cookie in the whipped cream, raked it back.

They munched on their illicit treat, whipped cream and cookie crumbs attesting to their guilty pleasure; as Shelly shook her head and sighed dramatically, Linn dunked a cookie into the whipped cream, twisted it out, took a bite:  he looked up at his wife and cheerfully mumbled, "Ya want some?"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LITTLE SISTER CREEK

Ambassador Marnie Keller stood on the creekbank and remembered.

Her pale eyed Daddy used to go back East with his Mama, when she'd take trips back to visit family, or for a reunion, or for anniversaries.

Marnie remembered what it was to stand on a creekbank near the graveyard where her Great-Grandaddy Ted was buried.

Marnie lifted her chin: her eyes were closed as she remembered, her arms were folded, she breathed damp, cool air that smelled of green growing things, she heard wind whispering through healthy green leaves, and she remembered.

Her Daddy gave her a bullet -- she smiled as she remembered, that was the time her Daddy showed her how to read a machinist's micrometer, and they measured bullets together, and screws, bolts, rod stock ... she remembered her Daddy's hands, strong and warm as they cupped her young hands, she remembered his gentle voice, his gentle expression, as he showed her how to run her little pinky finger through the bow of the machinist's mike.

Marnie remembered what it was to put that one solitary bullet on her Great Granddaddy's tombstone, and she looked up at her Daddy and said, "Granddad got one shot off, didn't he?"
Her pale eyed Daddy nodded, swallowed.

"Yes he did, Princess."

"Daddy, if he'd had a .357 like Uncle Will, he'd have kilt the b'ar that kilt him."

Her long tall Daddy dropped his head, chewed on his bottom lip, went slowly to his knees and hugged his little girl to him.

"Yes, Princess," he whispered.  "He would've."

Later that day Marnie wandered, as children will: her Daddy found her by the soft soil bank of Sunday Creek, staring at water that had run yellow with acid mine drainage and yellow dog sediment for well more than a century.

Marnie opened her eyes.

She was standing at a creekbank again, smelling damp ground and leaves, and she was looking at a creekbed yellow with the oxidized sediment of another stream, sterile and dead, from acid mine drainage.

Marnie's mouth tightened, half her mouth turning up in a tight smile.

"Mr. Fitzpatrick, if you please," she said softly.

"Yes ma'am," came the crisp reply.

A Ripper hummed into position, lowering itself into the creek bank.

They were very near the receiving river, and Marnie wanted to make this creek live again.

It took diplomatic persuasion, it took serious re-engineering of their Ripper technology: it took an incredible amount of computer power, a truly amazing containment of the energies involved when matter was ripped apart at the subatomic level: the reassembly of these components was slightly less difficult.

Which is like saying a supernova's detonation is slightly difficult to contain.

It can be done, but not easily ... that is, it's not easy until a science, a technology, advances to the point that it can be done.

Now, instead of containing the Ripper's energies in a small, discrete location, a Ripper-curtain seared into eye-searing, absolutely blazing life.

The control module was suspended at midstream, and started moving upstream at a walking pace.

Beneath it, a vertical, reddish, plastic-looking wall, extending to either side, extending the length of a man's arm into the muddy creekbanks, extending down twice a man's height: sulfur-yellow sediment, water, contaminated creekbank mud, all disappeared: the floating ripper-field was thick as a tall man, and as it moved upstream, behind it --

Clean water, rocks, algae, soil, plants, all stripped of the mine's leached-out metals, no longer acidic, no longer sterile.

The river showed the effects of the clean creekwater.

Instead of a yellowish plume melding easily with the sediment-rich river water, the discharge from this creek was clear, and well oxygenated, and fish swam immediately upstream, tasting waters that were not heavy with silt or with waste.

It took a month or so to clean this one creek; it took longer than that to treat the cause.

Re-engineering what used to be a coal mine involved the same process as cleaning the creek, with the addition of force-fields.

Long abandoned mines, filled with groundwater, had been drained -- some intentionally, some accidentally -- almost invariably, this resulted in catastrophic collapse.

There had been loss of life, of property, and always, always there was groundwater, leaching through strata rich in metals and minerals, emerging from the abandoned mines sparkling and clear, only to quickly turn an ugly orange-yellow with oxygen and with sunlight.

Marnie did not run the machinery, but Marnie was the spark plug that arranged for its manufacture, its employment, its deployment: she'd rolled out maps on broad tables, showed the progress of their machinery, exploring the old mines, finding solid-brass pumps, long abandoned, finding mine rails, what few had not been dissolved from a century and more of immersion in the sulfur-acidified water -- iron rails lasted better than steel -- artifacts were retrieved for display, and were warehoused for restoration, while the Confederate machinery labored silently, steadily, underground.

Marnie explained how the mine's walls, soft and saturated, was unable to hold the overburden once the supporting volume of water was removed -- she explained how the material was reassembled into elements not known on this planet, a yard-thick layer of dense, strong, honeycomb-laced material strong enough to hold the overburden and turn an oil well drill without even scratching.

Marnie pointed out how this underground tunnel system was proof against damage, whether meteor strike, wartime attack, solar flare, electromagnetic pulse: mined-out rooms with great pillars of coal, left to hold up the overburden, could be used as secure storage, emergency shelter: more importantly, the creeks would no longer be poisoned from acidic waters saturated with water-clear, soluble ferrous elements that oxidized to the insoluble, ferric sediment that rendered a waterway sterile for multiple lifetimes.

Water goes where water will, and groundwaters that ran easily into abandoned mines, found other paths; the creek returned to good health, and fish were once more found, and frogs, and crawdads.

One year to the day later, Marnie was invited back to the planet.

It seems this marvel of recovery was deemed worthy of a formal renaming.

Marnie stood on the creekbank with her arms folded and her eyes closed, she felt the ground, soft and fertile and alive underfoot, and she smelled the thousand green growing things, and she slapped at one of the little black woods mosquitoes that was native to the area.

"Madam Ambassador," a deferential voice said beside her, "we would be honored if you would choose a name for this waterway."

Marnie smiled, just a little, lifted her chin, opened her pale blue eyes.

"I so wanted a creek clean enough for my little sister to swim in it," she said softly, looked at the dignified older man beside her.

"Can we call it Little Sister Creek?"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NUFFIN'

Michael's grade school class was being given a tour of the Firelands high school.

They were passing by the biology room door when Michael stopped, backed up a step.

Two other fourth-graders stumbled, startled by his fast stop-and-reverse: his teacher, in the lead, walking backwards, raised her chin, ready to call his name in a scolding tone.

She was interrupted by the sound of an explosion.

The autoclave was one of the automatic models, the kind that exhausted its steam into the water jacket surrounding it.

The autoclave, like all of its kind, had a pop off valve.

The autoclave also had a flaw in its primary containment vessel.

Time, uncounted heat-and-cool cycles, pressure-and-relief cycles, corrosion, all served to weaken the flaw.

Bad luck ran the flaw toward the threaded socket the popoff valve screwed down into.

When Michael stopped, curious, he saw a high school student holding a beaker of something close to him while lighting a Bunsen burner at arm's length, as if keeping something flammable as far away from a fire as he could.

Michael's teacher watched the tall, skinny fourth-grade little boy with pale eyes, whirl, dive across the hall -- he tore open a glass door -- viciously -- he was most of the way back across the hall with the red pressure bottle when the teacher realized it was a CO2 extinguisher, he'd pulled the pin and he was leaned forward, reaching for the door.

When the steam explosion blasted through the classroom, it caught an upperclassman from behind, threw him forward, threw the beaker of denatured alcohol spraying over the lighted Bunsen burner.

Michael drove the base of the extinguisher hard into the tile floor, rammed his weight through his young arm to penetrate the CO2's wafer, raised the horn and blasted a cold, smothering fog over the flame.

Strobes, a warbling klaxon, shouted voices: Michael moved grimly ahead, sweeping the fire with narrow strokes, fighting the hard-to-see blue flame grimly, determination clenching his jaw shut, hard.

The class ran, panicked, for the door, spilled out into the hall, falling, scrambling, falling hard against closed locker doors on the opposite wall of the glazed- brick hallway, made their feet, headed for the nearest yellow-painted doors to the outside.

Michael treated the extinguisher like the weapon it was, he waded into a fight with an enemy he knew and hated, and when the extinguisher sighed its last, he dropped the shining-red cylinder, turned left, turned right, looked back.

He saw broken glass, he saw alcohol, wet, unburned, and he saw he was standing in a puddle of the stuff.

Michael's teacher was making a fast head count -- she'd gotten the fourth grade tour group around the corner and down a side hall -- 

I'm short by one --

Michael!

Michael Keller, all long legs, blue jeans, cowboy boots and a flannel shirt, ran down the hall, saw his class, skidded to an awkward stop: he scrambled on all fours, got his legs under him, ran for the tail end of the line, looked around with what he hoped was an innocent expression and yelled "Present!"

The teacher lifted her chin, led her class like a mother hen leads a train of chicks: once they were outside, once she ran another head count to make sure, she walked over to her pale eyed student and asked quietly, "Michael, what did you do?"

Michael blinked and said, "Nuffin'."

 

Michael usually rode horseback to school, even on days when the weather was not terribly good.

His father rented -- or used to rent -- a stable uphill from the grade school building, at least until the original owner died, and the pale eyed Sheriff purchased it, and the land it set on: Michael saddled his Appaloosa, Michael swung into the saddle, Michael set out over the back trail that lead uphill from the school, away from buses and cars and teachers and students.

He rode to the first fork, then he and his Apple-horse paused at the fork, looking around.

They went downhill.

The All-Night was about a half mile down this path, and Michael would often stop in and get two apples, and his Apple-horse would walk in if someone held the door for him, and would shamelessly bum treats from anyone present, which meant that Michael got to eat one whole apple without interruption, because Apple-horse was happily accepting candy bars, snack cakes, bananas or other dainties from anyone sucker enough to be charmed by the panhandling equine.

Michael and Apple-horse came down the path and across the little mountain stream that ran behind and beside the All-Night, and then they stopped.

Apple-horse backed up a step, danced back two more: Michael's eyes widened, he yelled "NO!" -- Apple-horse surged forward, cleared the steep banks of the little stream like a crack in the sidewalk, clattered across the concrete of the All-Night, just as a pine fell atop a car and two children beside it.

Michael looked around, thinking fast.

He saw what he needed.

Michael sidled his Apple-horse up beside a construction crew's truck, leaned over, seized a lightweight chain saw, swung it out: to the staring observers who heard the splintering crash of pine branches landing, the sudden-cutoff-screech of a child, it was as if a young knight was charging into battle, raising a sawtoothed weapon as he prepared to engage the enemy.

Michael kicked free of his stirrups as Apple swung side-on, steelshod hooves skidding on cement: Michael hit the ground, his feet stung as leather bootsoles slapped hard against unyielding pavement, his switch flipped the toggle to ON, his young hand crushed throttle and safeties in an unbreakable grip, he reached across, seized the pull rope, slung the saw down and yanked the pull start.

A pale eyed mountain horseman proceeded to perform surgery, his moves precise, quick, efficient.

Men came running up; branches were seized, thrown back and to the side; Michael assessed the tree's lay, where it bore against gas pump, against car, how it overlay two children.

Gloved hands seized the branches as they cut free and fell, then the trunk that lay over two scared, bleeding children: the pipeline crew's foreman looked at Michael, slashed at the trunk with stiff fingers: Michael nodded grimly, throttled up the saw, men's hands seized the bared trunk.

Steel teeth seared through fresh pine, throwing fragrance and sawdust into the air: the blade melted easily through bark and through wood -- Michael came off the throttle as the blade just cleared -- another marked slash, another cut, men hauled off another chunk.

Blueshirt medics appeared from somewhere.

Michael didn't care.

He backed up a little more, cut the trunk from beneath so it would not sag and bind his blade: the foreman nodded hardhat approval at Michael's efficient use of someone else's chainsaw.

His work done, Michael backed up, worked his way behind people busy actually doing something: he stepped up on the truck's back bumper, found a rag, wiped sawdust from the saw's blade and casing, set the saw back where he'd gotten it.

He turned to find a man's hand thrust at him, and a stubbled, dirty faced foreman attached to it.

The foreman clenched the dead stub of a cigar between yellowed, coffee-stained teeth, lines wrinkling the corners of his eyes with an approving expression.

Michael took the man's out-thrust hand without hesitation.

"Son," the foreman said, "that was good work."

"Thank you, sir."

 

When Michael got home, covered with sawdust, his twin sister came out on the porch and stared at him.

Michael looked down and realized he was snowdusted with sawdust.

"Michael," Victoria said slowly, "whatever have you been doing?"

Michael looked down at himself, all covered with fragrant yellow sawdust, looked up at his immaculate, tidy, frilly, feminine little sister and said, "Nuffin'."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MY ESTEEMED COLLEAGUE

The Appaloosas were not twins.

Their riders were.

The Appaloosas were focused on the immediate destination.

Their riders were not.

Neither of the horses made it into the All-Night.

Both the horses stood outside the All-Night, expecting -- almost demanding -- the adulation of their public.

Their riders did not.

Michael stopped and pulled a copy of the weekly newspaper from its wire rack, showed it to his twin sister.

He honestly did not know Bruce Jones was anywhere near.

Bruce was editor, reporter, photographer and chief broom pusher for their weekly newspaper.

Bruce Jones wore his camera like most men wear a necktie.

Bruce Jones put Michael's picture in the paper: he was running a chainsaw, a stream of yellow sawdust flowing from the cut as he abbreviated a tree's trunk: branches, fresh-cut ends a shocking-bright yellow, lay where they'd been seized, thrown free; men gripped the trunk to keep it from falling further, and beneath, pinned by the bifurcation in the fallen pine's upper branches, two children.

Michael showed the front page picture to Victoria, who h'isted her nose in the air and sniffed, "Show-off!"

Michael grinned and slapped the newspaper on the counter, with a dollar bill, then he and his sister seized the necessary provisions for their expedition: snack cakes, chips, a selection of candy bars, a half dozen apples, four of which were consumed before they left the All-Night's lot.

Not that their horses needed another couple apples, you understand; between being stroked, petted and fed apples, snack cakes and other crackle-wrapped dainties by several other customers, most of them school-age children who just adored the hell out of the spotty-coated, striped-hooved Appaloosas, their mounts were indulged with junk food as if they were spoiled children.

A disapproving mother, her voice raised in a self-righteous scold, one time told Michael he should not be feeding such a beautiful animal such terrible things, and as he swung into the saddle, he grinned and declared, "Lady, it's what powered Sergeant Reckless in the Korean War!" -- which left Her Indignance startled, open-mouthed and silenced, in that order.

Michael and Victoria paid for their sacked-up dainties, mounted up, paused to let passers-through and tourists, to take pictures.

It never failed to surprise them that people wanted photographs of them, on horseback.

The Sheriff's twins accepted horsepower under the saddle as a normal part of their lives; Michael routinely employed Apple Power to get to school and back, and Victoria did, about a third of the time, unless she was feeling girly and dainty that day, in which case she took the school bus.

Today, though, today they turned their mounts and returned to the narrow little path they'd used earlier; they rode up behind the Firelands museum, through a hidden cleft and into a high meadow few knew about.

They rode a wide circle, pale eyes busy: they converged on the line shack, Winchester rifles shucked: with one on overwatch, the other made entry.

Moments later they propped the door open, unloaded provisions and saddlebags, unsaddled their horses and turned them loose.

They wouldn't go far.

There were still apples and snack cakes to be had.

 

Victoria Keller, twin to Michael Keller, daughter of that pale eyed Sheriff, sister to the most recognizable faces in the Confederacy, gripped the smooth handle of a double bit ax and swung.

Her swing was fast, controlled, accurate: she worked with the grim certainty of someone intending to cleave an enemy from crown to teeth, and she did not miss.

Fortunately her intended was straight grain pine, and she was splitting kindling: whoever last occupied the ancient line shack, didn't bother to refill the kindling box, nor refill the water bucket.

Water was not a problem.

Kindling, now ... not refilling the kindling was pretty damned impolite.

Michael stacked fresh canned goods on the shelf; the labels were already peeled off, but the contents were written on the can's galvanized surface with permanent marker, and a date -- not of expiration, but of purchase.

They never lasted anywhere near their expiration date.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller raised a hand, stroked his carefully curled handlebar mustache as he read the front page of the weekly paper.

He was leaned back in a folding tin chair in the lobby, his steaming mug of coffee on the corner of the dispatcher's desk; he sat between Sharon's big, heavy, old-fashioned wooden desk, and the front wall.

"Careful, leaning back like that," Sharon cautioned.

Linn's pale eyes narrowed a little as he got deeper into the article.

"Anything good?" Sharon asked.

Linn frowned, just a little.

Sharon leaned forward a little, concern in her voice.

"Sheriff?"

Linn blinked a few times, looked up , toward the opposite wall, honest surprise on his face.

"I honestly had no idea," he murmured.

 

An elderly man picked up his phone.

He was a few days from retirement.

He was smiling a little, for he'd been reflecting on his years of work, and what he'd accomplished, and there was something remaining to be done ... something that would give him a great satisfaction.

He put the phone to his ear.

"Landers."

Superintendent of Schools Tom Landers listened, smiled a little.

"Put him through."

Pause.

"Sheriff, how are you today?"

 

Tom Landers stood and smiled, nodded at the applause.

"You've been talking about me," the retiring Superintendent of Schools said, "and yes, I put a lifetime into my work, and yes, I did the best I could, but I'd like to do something special for my retirement.

"You see" -- he paused, looked around -- "my work has been to educate our young.

"Part of education is recognition. It is wise to recognize our young when they put their lessons to good work. I can't do that with everyone, but I can do that with one, today."

He picked up a round gold medallion on a colorful ribbon.

"Michael Keller, could you come up here, please?"

He looked at the Sheriff -- pale eyed, in a handmade, carefully tailored black suit that could have come from the 1880s, Stetson balanced on his lap, boots polished to a mirrored shine, mustache carefully curled -- beside him, his youngest son, in an identical suit and boots: Michael stood, placed his Stetson on his seat, walked up to the Superintendent's podium.

Landers looked at Michael, looked at his father, his mother, his twin sister: he smiled as he saw the shoulder-to-shoulder row of Irishmen, the red-shirted firefighters who turned out with a grin and a ready laugh, any time there was a civic event: he saw former students, families of students, teachers, colleagues.

He rested a hand on Michael's shoulder, winked, then turned the red-eared lad to face the audience.

"I was not in the school when an accident happened with an autoclave," the Superintendent said. "A steam explosion knocked over a beaker of alcohol, which caught fire and burned a student. Michael here" -- he looked down at the Sheriff's youngest son with an approving expression, looked back up -- "was passing by the chemistry room door when the autoclave blew apart.

"Michael here is ten years old."

He paused.

"Fourth grade, folks.  Fourth grade.

"He told me later he noted the location of every exit, every fire pull station, every fire extinguisher.

"He made a dive for an extinguisher, he slammed into the classroom and he put out the fire and kept a student from being burned to death, and I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say that.

"Later that same day -- that evening, as a matter of fact -- he saw a tree uproot and fall onto a car and onto two children.

"He was into action faster than anyone there.

"Michael seized a chain saw and began cutting the children free.

"There were men there who know about such things."
Landers stopped, swallowed: he frowned, swallowed again.

"Such things as how to cut a fallen tree without it rolling, or without a cut piece falling on the trapped victim.

"Michael's swift work allowed the medics to get to the victims and stabilize their conditions.

"Michael Keller," Superintendent of Schools Tom Landers declared in a loud and formal voice, "as my final act before retirement, I now present you with this Award of Honor, on behalf of a most grateful community!"

The entirety of Firelands came to their feet, pounding their palms together in agreement and in celebration: there were juvenile shouts of "Yay Michael!" and whistles from grinning Irishmen, and Michael Keller nodded, his face turning an incredible shade of absolute scarlet.

It took several minutes for the happy commotion to die down.

Superintendent Landers waved them down, waited until they were seated

Bruce Jones squatted, duck-walked forward, raised his camera, waited.

Retiring Superintendent Tom Landers, descended from Fireland's first Sheriff, pulled the chrome plated microphone free, lowered it to Michael's level.

"Michael, would you care to say a few words?"

Michael Keller looked at his father -- he swallowed -- the assembled saw his young shoulders raise as he took a deep breath -- the Michael turned and looked at the Superintendent.

"Sir," Michael said decisively, his words carefully enunciated, "a wise man" -- he turned and looked very obviously at his father -- "once taught me, 'Son, if you have nothing to say, say nothing.' "

Michael looked back up at the Superintendent.

"With your permission, sir, I will yield the microphone to my esteemed colleague, Victoria."

Victoria Keller rose, prim, dainty, frilly in her dress and shiny slippers, with her carefully finger curled hair and a hair ribbon:  she minced up to the podium, stopped, looked at her Daddy and smiled, just a little, then she turned to her twin brother, planted her knuckles on her hips and declared loudly:

"SHOW-OFF!"

The weekly newspaper captured the moment, and put it on the front page as a full-color, split photograph:  the left half of the front-page picture was a pretty little sister, knuckles on her belt, addressing her grinning twin brother in what looked to be an honest-to-God scold: the picture's right half, with Victoria hugging her red-faced twin brother and kissing him on the cheek, and above them, at the podium, retiring Superintendent of Schools Tom Landers, holding a forgotten microphone, laughing.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND THE AMBASSADOR WORE BLACK

Marnie Keller held the short, broad, cut-glass tumbler, swirled the amber payload that shone and glittered within.

The Ambassador looked at her, frowning a little.

"Madam Ambassador," he asked carefully, "is something wrong?"

Marnie looked up, placed the squatty glass on the table, untouched.

"You should be celebrating."

Marnie nodded, slowly, thoughtfully.

"There is reason to celebrate," she admitted.

"Have I ... perhaps ... offended?"

Marnie looked up at her dignified counterpart, immaculate in his tailored, grey, officer's uniform.

"Mister Ambassador," Marnie replied formally, "you have not offended. Far from it. You are a gentleman in the finest sense of the word. Never doubt that."

She looked out the window at the city, all spires and roofs and the occasional bell tower.

"You prevented a war, Marnie," he said softly. "That alone is reason to celebrate."

"I know."

She folded her arms, lowered her head, closed her eyes.

"Might I be so bold ... as to inquire ..."

"It is not a personal matter," Marnie said, then she took a deep breath, blew it out, puffed her cheeks as she did, looked at the Ambassador.

"It's personal."

The Ambassador lowered his glass from mid-chest to tabletop, took two careful steps toward her, stopped.

Marnie looked seriously at him.

"You and I both carry confidences, given us with the expectation that they will not be divulged."

"We do," he agreed quietly.

"I am about to invest you with such a confidence."

The Ambassador felt a guilty anticipation, almost -- he realized -- almost as if Marnie were to profess her feelings toward her.

His swiftrunning mind sprinted ahead, considering her state as a married woman, how he might carefully, discreetly avoid a potentially embarrassing entanglement --

"Mister Ambassador," Marnie said slowly, "you know my sister is a nurse."

The Ambassador nodded, carefully, wondering now if perhaps it was this angelic relative who held feelings for him.

"We've discussed many things," Marnie said, "and one of these is addiction."

The Ambassador was an old hand at wearing a poker face, especially in moments where he realized he was probably on the wrong track entirely, and this felt like one of those incredibly mistaken moments.

"Mister Ambassador, addiction is said to skip a generation. My grandmother's mother was not just a drunk, she was a damned drunk. My Gammaw Willamina was Sheriff, and one of the few things she was genuine hell on, was drunk driving. She had absolutely no mercy on a drunk."

The Ambassador, completely at sea with this unexpected redirection of his thought processes, nodded gravely.

"If it skips a generation, my father should be a damned drunk as well, and he has absolutely no indication of addiction of any form. Not substances, not behaviors."

"I see."

"I seem to suffer a complication of this terrible ancestry."

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

Marnie looked sadly at the Ambassador.

"Mister Ambassador," she said, "I know we celebrate with a good belt of Kentucky Drain Opener, but ..."

The Ambassador waited as Marnie paced over to the window, looked out, her profile achingly beautiful, her skin aglow with good health, her hair shining like a healthy animal's pelt.

"Mister Ambassador, I dare admit this to you, and to nobody else."

She turned to face him, her McKenna gown flaring slightly with the abruptness of her turn.

"If I took that drink, it would plunge me instantly into a black depression. Most people get a lift, a buzz, a euphoria. I don't get even a momentary from that. I slug it down, I singe the hair off my tongue and I get depressed as hell, fast, hard and nasty."

Marnie's head came up, her eyes widened and went dead pale as she looked at the startled Ambassador.

The harsh, rapid cl-clang, cl-clang, cl-clang of a hand-pumped fire alarm peeled her lips back from her teeth.

Marnie spun, ran for the door, slapped the back of her hand high up against the exit door, then dropped the backs of her fingers to the door's handle.

She looked at the Ambassador, nodded firmly: "You may want to duck," she said quietly as she squatted.

Marnie opened the door carefully, a hand's-breadth only, her shoulder ready to drive into it, to slam it shut.

Nothing.

She peeked out, quickly, cautiously, then swung pale eyes toward the ceiling.

"No smoke showing," she called over her shoulder. "Time to go!"

 

Michael slouched.

Michael's elbows were on the table, his knuckles against his cheekbones as he stared at his untouched chocolate hot fudge Sundae.

Linn watched his son, across from him, seated at the ornate round-topped ice cream parlor table.

"Sir?" Michael asked.

"Yes, Michael?" Linn replied quietly.

His youngest son looked up at his father, his expression almost ...

Miserable, Linn thought.

"Sir ... you told me when it's the right thing to do, you do it."

Linn nodded.

"Sir, grabbing that extinguisher and putting out the fire was the right thing to do."

Linn nodded slowly.  "Yes it was, Michael."

"It was the right thing to do," Michael said faintly, his young voice sounding distant, uncertain.

He looked up at his pale eyed father.

"When I grabbed that chain saw and started cutting, sir ... it wasn't mine to take, but I took it because 'twas needful."

Linn nodded again, slowly, carefully.

"I'd say it was," he agreed.

"Sir ... how come everybody's asking me what I want to do when I grow up and then they tell me I'll be a fireman or a deputy and they're not letting me answer and I'm only ten years old and I don't know what I want to do!" Michael blurted, his words running together: he spread his hands, knocked his spoon to the floor: he grimaced a little, slid out of his chair, picked up the spoon, wiped it against his pants leg and looked at his untouched sundae, then at his father.

Linn waited until Michael was seated, until Michael took his first taste of the sundae, before sampling his own.

Father and son ate in silence for some time.

They finished about the same time, both father and son picking up the glass sundae bowl and tilting it so they could spoon-scoop the last of the chocolate syrup.

"Michael?" Linn finally said, looked up and smiled at the girl who brought them each a mug of coffee: Michael might be only ten, but he and his father used coffee to get the sweet-and-sticky off their teeth, and besides, they both liked their coffee.

"Michael," Linn said quietly, "they did that same thing with me."

"They did?" Michael asked, surprised.

Somehow it was difficult for him to imagine his long tall Pa as young and uncertain as he himself felt.

Linn nodded. "Oh, ya," he said, as he smiled with half his mouth. "I reckon it was natural. Mama was Sheriff, Pa was FBI, Uncle Will is Chief of Police."

"Yes, sir," Michael said quietly, sampling his own coffee and discreetly swishing it around before swallowing.

"I was asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, then they'd tell me what they thought that answer was. Never gave me a chance to answer."

Michael nodded.  "No, sir," he agreed.

"You've got time to think it over."  Linn raised an eyebrow, smiled just a little. "Uncle Will told me one time that 'Hurry up is brother to mess it up' -- Linn leaned confidentically over his coffee mug, winked -- "and many's the time I proved him right!"

Michael grinned, then laughed, just a little.  "Yes, sir."

"Now as far as your extinguishment.  You did the right thing" -- he raised a finger -- "at the right time" -- another finger -- "in the right way" -- a third finger -- "and to the right degree."

"Yes, sir."

"When you saw that tree come down on that car and knock two kids down, you didn't know how badly they were or they weren't hurt."

"No, sir."

"The right thing was to get that tree the hell out of the way so they could be assessed."

"Yes, sir."

"Your Mama was able to start treatment because you got the tree the hell out of the way."

"Yes, sir."

"Your Mama told me one was pretty badly hurt, and if she hadn't been able to get to her as quickly as she did, she would very likely have died."

Michael froze, looked at his Pa with an intensity Linn rarely ever saw.

"Sir?"

Linn nodded.

"Michael, you did the right thing at the right time. You could have stood back and let someone call for the squad, you could have let trained professionals handle it, but in that moment -- who there could run a chain saw as well as you did?"

Michael considered this, his eyes drifting a little to the side as he did.

"You were who was needed, you were where you were needed, you did what was needed. Damn few grown men could have done as well."

Linn raised his coffee mug in salute.

"Well done."

Michael raised his own.

They drank.

 

Marnie stopped, sniffed, turned, slapped the back of her bare hand against a door.

"It's down this hall," she said: she turned to the Ambassador.

"Head on downstairs. Tell the fire brigade it's on the third level, east hall, MOVE!"

Marnie crouched, pulled the door open a little, peeked in, looked again.

She thrust through the heavy wooden door.

A tall, narrow panel to her right -- she reached up, found the handle, pulled, reached in.

Her hand closed around a yard-long cylinder, thick as her wrist: she pulled it free of its spring clips, she felt, found a second, yanked it free.

They weren't the fire extinguishers she was used to, but they were extinguishers.

She skipped down the hall, squinting as the smoke thickened.

A door opened; a woman came out, coughing, smoke trailing, almost clinging to her.

Sarah ran an arm around her, shoved her down the hall, the way she'd come from: she seized the door, hauled it open, crouched.

Sarah seized the knurled collar, pointed the nozzle at the end of the cylinder at the fire, twisted.

A pretty young Ambassador in a McKenna gown snarled deep in her slender throat as she directed the cold breath of the frost-dragon she held against the fire in the corner of the office.

She blasted cold suffocation at the fire until her cylinder went dry -- she dropped it, backed up, found the first one she'd laid down near the door, came back, three feet of high pressure extinguishment clamped under her arm like a lance.

The image that made the Inter-System was taken from a firefighter's helmet cam.

Marnie was screaming defiance, fury in her face and in her stance, the spreading white cloud of death over the fast-rising fire: Marnie was half silhouetted by the hellish light, she was very clearly a woman at war with something she intended to utterly, absolutely, most sincerely, KILL!

 

Marnie emerged from the front doors, composed, dignified: she found the Ambassador, walked over to him: silent, she took his arm, lifted her chin, and marched back into the building.

Firemen opened the doors at her approach; she and the Ambassador climbed the stairs in silence, and men whose profession it was to war with the Dragon, nodded with respect as she passed.

Marnie and the Ambassador returned to their offices.

Marnie waited until the door was closed behind her before she released the Ambassador's arm, swung around the corner of the table, looked at distilled sledgehammer in a short, broad, cut-glass tumbler.

"Mister Ambassador?" she said quietly.

"Madam Ambassador?" he replied.

Marnie picked up the amber, turned it in her fingers, pale eyes considering the light refracting through its several facets.

"Do you remember what I was saying about a black depression?"

The Ambassador nodded.  "I remember."

Marnie looked at him and snarled, "Well, forget it!"

She started to raise the glass.

The Ambassador's hand on her wrist stopped her.

"Give me a moment."

He turned to where he'd set his own down.

He turned, drink in hand.

Each raised theirs in salute to the other, drank.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE HAPPY PAPPY

Dr. John Greenlees, M.D., Chief Surgeon and Chief Medical Officer of the Second Martian Colony, Firelands, paused before making the initial incision.

He always hesitated before breaking the sanctity of what he saw as created perfection.

He'd been chastised as a young intern, as he hesitated in this selfsame manner before making his initial incision, for a simple appendectomy: he hesitated now, and smiled a little, and thought reverently, May I never, EVER, take this for granted!

Dr. John Greenlees took a long breath, let it out, then made his first, surgically-precise, cut.

His son, John William, clapped his chubby little hands together with delight as his father made the first cut into the hand decorated cake, the one with sprinkles and the carefully-applied words in contrasting icing, "Happy Father's Day!"

Dr. John Greenlees carefully extracted the first slice, dropping it precisely on its dessert plate.

John Junior accepted the plate and the recycled-plastic fork, pattered happily over to the table and very carefully, very precisely, placed his First Slice on the table at his Little-John-Greenlees-sized chair.

Sheriff Linn Keller paused, closed one eye, leaned his head a little to the left, then a little to the right, sizing up exactly where he wanted to make his first cut.

Shelly folded her arms, patted her foot impatiently.

"Oh, for Pete's sake, just cut!" she muttered.

Linn stopped, laid the knife down, looked at his wife with innocent eyes, knowing he was tormenting her.

"Darlin'," he said gently, "this cake is a work of perfection, and I don't want to spoil perfection with a careless cut!"

Shelly, her arms across her bosom, rippled impatient fingers on her biceps as if drumming them on a tabletop.

Linn blinked -- if it's possible to exaggerate a wide-eyed innocent blink, he did -- he picked up the knife, raised it, frowned.

"Michael," he said, "if we know the circumference, how do we calculate the radius?"

Michael Keller (whose sentiments in this matter were distinctly similar to those of his visibly impatient mother) considered a moment.

"Sir," he said, "that doesn't apply."

Linn puzzled his brows together.

"Why not?"

"Because circumference is pi-D, radius is half the circumference, and this is not pie, it's cake."

"Oh," Linn said, as if that explained anything.

The ancient, sway bellied butcher descended through two layers of chocolate cake, whipped frosting and the carefully-applied words in contrasting icing, "Happy Father's Day!"

 

Retired Chief of Police Will Keller stretched, twisted a little, grimaced and then sighed with relief at the muffled triple-pop as he worked the aggravations from his back.

He looked up at the shave-and-a-haircut knock at his front door, and he smiled.

Very few people used that hail.

He watched as an Iris dilated, tall, slender, elliptical, then widened, and a really good looking young woman in a tailored, springtime-yellow dress stepped out, smiling, holding a cake on a plate.

Will grinned as Angela skipped over to him like a little girl, kissed him quickly on the cheek, set the cake down on the table and turned to his cupboard.

"Happy Father's Day, Uncle Will!" she exclaimed. "How's for coffee?"

Will laughed quietly, waited until Angela set out plates and forks, until she decanted the coffee she knew would be fresh brewed, as was his habit of a morning.

When a beautiful young woman breezes into a man's kitchen, all bright eyes and a smile, all long legs and high heels, all laughter and happiness, a man's heart can't help but rejoice.

 

Dr. John Greenlees looked up from his now empty dessert plate.

"You made this," he said, and smiled when he did.

Marnie looked at him with wide and innocent eyes.

"I could have bought you one," she said. "I understand the bakery back home is running a special on them."

John reached over, took his wife's hand.

"You went to the trouble to make this for me," he said softly. "Dearest, thank you, you've made an old country doctor very happy!"

 

Happy Pappy's Day.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I'D LIKE TO HAVE HELPED

Sarah Lynne McKenna ran the tip of a finger slowly around the rim of a delicate wineglass.

She sat in the dining salon of the finest hotel in Denver.

A string quartet played quietly on their little stage; the music was quite good, and usually Sarah would give the musicians her rapt attention, for she'd made friends early in her childhood with thespians, with entertainers, with those who trod the boards and shook their trotters, and she knew how very much the adulation of an audience meant to those who performed.

This evening, though, she was subdued -- almost brooding -- as she considered an offer.

Sarah Lynne McKenna was a complex and complicated individual.

Earlier in the day she'd been a strumpet, laughing too loud, squeaking with delight as a careless hand slapped her backside; she'd curled her finger under the chin of a man of finance and of influence and of certain illicit habits involving other peoples' money, and she'd divested him of half his clothes before he seized her and threw her clumsily on the bed.

He, in this moment of less than brilliant judgement, was well into his cups, so to speak.

Sarah, in this moment of her investigation, was not.

She hit the bed, bounced, rolled, came up on her feet: he crouched, came scuttling around the bed, Sarah employed leverage and surprise to throw him over her shoulder, and flat on his back -- fortunately for his intoxicated carcass, he did land on the bed -- Sarah landed atop him, her hands busy caressing his collar bones, looking at him with what he interpreted as open lust.

She bent down, kissed him delicately, then slid her smooth, powdered cheek along his stubbled cheekbone until her lips were just at his ear and whispered, "Tell me more about stealing those water rights, you robber baron, you!"

Sarah Lynne McKenna's finger traced idly around the delicate wineglass rim as she smiled, just a little, as she remembered judging the man perfectly: men love to talk, they love to brag, and with encouragement, with alcohol, and yes, with false and feminine promises of unmitigated, utter, absolute, animal lust, a vain and foolish man can be persuaded to spill his closely guarded secrets.

He did.

He detailed for this face-painted strumpet, this harlot who so obviously desired him, exactly how he was stealing water rights, he bragged on the success of forging a variety of documents, and when Sarah, her eyes fixed and unblinking on his, whispered, "Show me how," he very obligingly did.

Sarah sat in the dining salon, a beautiful woman, cultured and modest; her early training, as her Mama's fashion model, when Bonnie McKenna paraded her ten year old daughter on stage, in corsets and foundations and face paint, wearing the latest Parisian fashion as manufactured by the McKenna Dress Works -- her early training, when she would slip away to the theater next door, where she was taken in by the players, the actors, the singers -- her early training in quick-change, thanks to her theatrical schooling and her mother's encouragement -- gave her the ability to become someone else, very quickly.

She'd been a face-painted woman of easy virtue earlier in the day, dressed and painted like a hussy; she had the proper harlot's walk, her gaze could set a man's soul a-smolder with genuine, honest, animal lust, and in that guise, the Black Agent of the  District Court gained the information she needed, then thanks to powder discreetly decanted into a drink, she'd reduced her drunken braggart of a mark to possession: he was snoring when the hotel room door was unlocked, when a team off detectives and officers entered, and packed him out, still dead to the world.

Sarah Lynne McKenna sat -- regal, achingly beautiful, the image of a woman of quality, very obviously waiting for someone -- her skirt discreetly draped over a small satchel which contained certain incriminating documents.

This, and her written report, would guarantee a certain scoundrel, a particular robber, a thief who worked with the pen rather than the pistol, would be looking at the world from between steel bars for a considerable span of time.

A tall, well-dressed man walked up to her, his hat in his hand.

"Forgive me," he said gently. "I was delayed."

"I understand the lobster is quite good," Sarah said, lifting her finger from the rim of her wineglass.

Jacob Keller sat, lifted his chin to the waiter:  "Whiskey and ditch," he said quietly, "and the Lobster Thermidor."

"An excellent choice, sir," the waiter murmured.

Jacob looked at his sister, raised an eyebrow.

"You never fail to amaze me," he said quietly.

"Oh?"

The waiter reappeared, placed Jacob's glass, inquired if Milady would care for aught more, then disappeared again.

"You look absolutely flawless," Jacob said quietly.

Sarah looked at him through long, curled lashes, smiled ever so slightly, and Jacob was reminded yet again how honestly beautiful his half-sister was.

"I have scars," Sarah said quietly, "and no, I won't show them to you."

"Sis," Jacob replied, his eyebrow raising a little, "is there something you need to tell me?"

Sarah picked up her wineglass, gave him a smoldering, half-lidded look: she sipped delicately at the shining-red California vintage, lowered her wineglass, placed it very precisely on its thin wooden coaster.

"No, Jacob, the man who scarred me is long dead, and when I visited his soul in Hell, I scarred him for all eternity."

Jacob neither believed his sister's statement, nor did he disbelieve: he'd long held the opinion that women were mysterious creatures, and he firmly believed women sometimes wrought in realms unknown to mere men.

"There's something else," Jacob pressed.

Sarah's lips thinned, pressed together: she frowned, just a little, then blinked, dismissed the troubling thought.

"It's Daciana."

"What about her?" Jacob asked -- then, concerned, he leaned forward a little -- "Is she all right?"

"She's fine," Sarah said quickly, not wanting to distress her brother.  "As a matter of fact, she ... you know she is a gypsy woman."

"I know. She's also a herb woman. Doc goes to her if he needs something particular."

"There are certain ... things ... a woman can do," Sarah said slowly, "that can ..."

Sarah frowned, considered her words carefully.

"Jacob, a woman sets a great store by her appearance."

Jacob nodded.

"I knew a woman whose face was terribly scarred in a terrible fire. She took prussic acid rather than live with what she'd become."

Jacob frowned, nodded: he'd known a number of cases where women suicided, for a variety of reasons.

"Daciana ... can ..."

Sarah frowned again, pursed her lips.

"Jacob, do you believe in magic?"

Jacob Keller, firstborn son of Sheriff Linn Keller, lawman, husband and father, considered his sister's appearance, and her words.

"Why?"

Sarah tilted her head, looked at her pale eyed half brother.

"Jacob, I wear scars under my corset. They remind me of those times when things were too close to going very wrong. Daciana can work gypsy magic and get rid of those scars."

Jacob frowned, leaned forward again: he leaned back as his Lobster Thermidor arrived, as the waiter set Sarah's plate before her as well; Jacob waited while Sarah tore open her bread, buttered it -- Jacob marveled at how feminine she could look while simply buttering bread -- Sarah smiled at her brother, raised a finger, turned her head and drew a bent-finger knuckle along her right cheekbone.

"Do you see this, Jacob?"

Jacob frowned, pausing in his own pursuit of the hot, fragrant bread.

"I was found out. A red-hot poker was laid against my face to mark me."

Jacob's face went white, his eyes went cold and his bottom jaw slid out.

Sarah waved a pshaw-go-away hand at him:  "Oh, don't worry, they're dead now."

Jacob's frosty glare did not diminish: he stared at his sister, who placed her bread on the plate and shook her head.

"All right," she sighed. "I killed everyone who helped. Two I poisoned, one I thrust a skinning knife into his kidneys and watched him wallow in a back alley until he died. I'll admit, that one was satisfying."

Her voice was quiet, her expression pleasant: had Jacob not been ready to rip someone's throat out for hurting his sister, he'd have shivered at the cool words framed by Sarah's lovely red lips.

"Then I killed the man who laid a red hot brand against my cheekbone.

"I went to Daciana, and she worked gypsy magic. She offered to use the same magic on my other scars.

"The marks engraved into my back are gone, Jacob, but I kept the scars on my front. I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and remember how I got them."

Jacob had not touched his meal, other than to pick up his bread.

His expression was hard, uncompromising, as he glared steadily at Sarah.

"And the man who burned your face ...?"

"I went back to him," Sarah said quietly, "and I let him see my face.  I had him take a good look, with good light, then I let him watch while I heated that same poker red hot.

"I drew back and then drove that red hot poker into his right eye, and I did not stop until it came out the back of his skull."

Jacob nodded, considered his drink, looked back up at his sister.

"I'd like to have helped."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE SHERIFF'S GALLON

 

Sheriff Linn Keller winked at the girl at the cash register as he came breezing into the grocery store.

His wants were few -- one, as a matter of fact: a gallon of milk.

That's all he wanted.

A gallon of milk, so he could milk his coffee and his dull, boring, morning oats.

Of course, the doughnut case had its draw, and he headed that-a-way ... it can't hurt to look ... maybe there would be a cinnamon roll with a nice thick layer of cream cheese icing.

There were three, as a matter of fact, but that's not what claimed his attention.

A pretty little girl with great big blue eyes, with curly blond hair and wearing a big bright smile and a ruffly pink sundress, was solemnly helping her Mommy pick out a cake from the refrigerated case.

Linn watched this child of maybe three or four years, carefully carry the top hat shaped, clear plastic container and its enclosed cylindrical cake, walking like a dainty little girl, carrying her treasure like the precious prize it was.

He watched as she frowned at the side of the shopping buggy, as she stretched waaaaay up on tiptoe, as she raised her prized cake in its top hat shaped plastic container, as she absolutely SLAM DUNKED THE CAKE INTO THE SHOPPING CART!

Sheriff Linn Keller could not help himself.

He laughed, and when he laughed, it was with the delight of an incurable People Watcher who filed such moments away in his memory, to be trotted out at a handy moment later.

The mother, startled, hadn't realized he was there -- the Sheriff had a habit of moving with all the fuss and bother of a summertime cloud -- Linn's ears turned a little red as he admitted, "My own young were very much the same!"

He had another moment, when he set his sweating-cold gallon of milk on the conveyor belt at checkout; ahead of him, paying for her purchases, a mother looked down at her two year old, who was (as Angela described it) "just plainly throwing a Stereoptical Fit" -- the mother was obviously embarrassed at her two year old's tantrum, and looked at the Sheriff as if to apologize to the man.

Linn took a long step forward, seized the screaming child under the arms, hauled the red-faced little boy high in the air -- high enough the child described a brief ballistic arc, rotating a half turn at the apogee of his trajectory -- the Sheriff caught him easily, brought him in until he was nose to nose with the shocked-silent child, until their noses touched, until the little boy saw one big pale eye and heard the Sheriff's silly, high-pitched voice, "Peekaboo!"

Linn knelt and set the lad's feet back down on the tile floor, winked at the little boy, grinned at the mother, stood.

Linn paid the cashier -- he was still grinning -- he accepted his change, laughed when the cashier scolded, "Where were you when I was babysitting!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

KIND OF A POOR CHOICE

A hard-thrown can of peaches caught the Sheriff right across the forehead.

It wasn't often Old Pale Eyes got surprised.

It was even less often that Old Pale Eyes got surprised and the thief made an escape.

Linn blinked the pain from his eyes, snatched up his hat, snarling.

The Bear Killer went down on his chest, haunches digging, the hair snapping up the length of his spine and across his shoulders, his black eyes unblinking, shining, looking to Linn, looking hopefully, looking almost pleadingly.

Linn's eyes were as pale as The Bear Killer's eyes were black: the Sheriff's teeth shone ivory, just like the mountain Mastiff's fighting canines.

"GIT 'IM!" Linn shouted, and The Bear Killer had no need to be told twice.

Linn mashed his Stetson down on his head, turned, took one long-legged stride.

His next step was halfway to a sprint.

The Sheriff came off the boardwalk at a run, snatched his stallion's reins free before his boots splatted flat on the ground, and Old Man Garrison was prepared to swear the Sheriff hit a set of springs when he did.

The lawman vaulted into the saddle, his stallion whipped end-for-end: one thing the big shining Palomino loved, was to run -- he loved to find a coyote when he and the Sheriff were out and riding, he'd take out after the yodel dog, ears back, he'd whip around obstructions as the yodel dog tried to escape, he'd stab at the 'yote with forehooves and snap with yellow equine teeth, and when Linn chopped down his engraved Colt's revolver like he was throwing a rock, when he'd fire a shot from the saddle, the .44 slug would roll the yodel dog and steelshod hooves would finish the job in a brutally effective fashion.

Rey del Sol took out after The Bear Killer, joyfully pursuing, knowing the Sheriff's blood was up, knowing this would be a hard, fast and probably violent run.

The Bear Killer had two pursuit modes.

When The Bear Killer sang, it was with the voice of Hell's demons, a triumphant paean of impending death, blood and utter, violent, bloody destruction.

Perhaps more frightening was when The Bear Kill ran as he did tonight.

Silently.

The Sheriff stood in the stirrups, knees flexed, bent low over his stallion's neck, hands flat against warm-furred flesh: it wasn't so much the Sheriff rode a horse, it was more like horse and rider became one united mind, one magical creature with the swiftness of a mountain stallion and the intelligence of a pursuing predator.

A hungry, vicious, deadly predator.

Linn gave Rey del Sol his head.

He made no attempt to guide the stallion.

They shot across the street, down the alley between the library and the side of the Silver Jewel, Rey leaned hard over, hooves digging into the dirt -- Linn felt the stallion grunting with each steelshod thrust -- 

A man's scream shivered the evening air --

Linn saw The Bear Killer, in slow motion, soar off the ground, clamp onto a man's arm.

Linn knew what those jaws could do.

Linn -- when The Bear Killer was a pup -- could take a stick in two hands, The Bear Killer would grab hold, Linn could pull, hoist, shake, he could back up and drag the pup -- while he was still small enough to drag -- he could step back, lift, swing The Bear Killer in circles, with the young Mastiff happily snarling as he spun in a circle around the laughing lawman.

Now, though, it was not a stick in his jaws.

It wasn't a lawman swinging him in a big circle.

The Bear Killer launched off the ground, snapped a canine version of a toothy bear trap around the coat-sleeved arm: the speeding canine's velocity was about twice that of a running man, and when he came to the end of that arm's arc of travel, better than a hundred pounds of curly-black-furred Mastiff yanked a man off his feet.

The Sheriff was out of the saddle while the stallion was still running.

Between having an arm yanked nearly out of socket by the sudden SLAM of a grown Mastiff coming to the end of that brachial leash, and the impact of a lean, mad-as-hell lawman coming down from horseback height, the would-be thief had sudden and serious cause to regret the poor quality of his recent choices.

The Sheriff came half-dragging, half-force-marching a cowed, bruised, bloody-nosed, dirty thief back to the Mercantile.

Gary was waiting at the door.

He'd heard the commotion, which was pretty much over by the time he was around the glass topped counter and out onto the boardwalk.

The thief was easily persuaded to return the funds he'd seized from behind the counter.

Whether it was Mrs. Garrison glaring over her round spectacles like a disapproving schoolteacher, whether it was the LeMat revolver in the one armed proprietor's waistband, whether it was the Sheriff's iron grip on the back of his neck, or the happy, grinning, tail-thumping, cheerfully-snarling dog the size of a young bear ... whatever the cause, the Mercantile enjoyed the return of 100% of the missing funds.

 

Another Sheriff, another century, another Bear Killer, another proprietor.

Same old Mercantile.

Linn's pale eyed Mama persuaded a holdup he really shouldn't pursue a criminal career, by virtue of driving a round of .45 automatic through the oiled boards between his sneakered feet.

Linn himself ducked to the side, caught the hard-thrown can of condensed milk, shifted it to his other hand and returned the throw.

The would-be robber, missed.

The pale-eyed Sheriff, didn't.

The Bear Killer made one stiff-legged jump and cut loose with something between a roar, a bay and the scream of hell's hungry demons pursuing a runaway soul.

To the criminal's two partners, it looked like this canine the size of a half grown bear inflated half again bigger, it looked like he had jaws three feet long and fangs twice that length, and each one fancied hellfire-red eyes were searing like burning steel into his very soul.

The shoplifter's two associates were more intelligent than their leader.

They froze.

They looked to their left, just as the Sheriff's hard-thrown can of noon freight sailed through the air and caught their mastermind right across the forehead.

The girl behind the counter shattered the momentary silence as she jacked the slide on her twelve gauge.

Sheriff Linn Keller smiled, just a little.

He reached up, squeezed the transmit bar on the mic clipped to his lapel.

"Move in," he said quietly, then he addressed the proprietor's oldest daughter.

"Diane," he said, "you got buckshot in that thing?"

"Yes, sir, I do!" she declared firmly: to her credit, her finger was outside the trigger guard, she had the stubby interpersonal howitzer at port arms, just as the Sheriff taught her, just as Marnie taught her, just as Angela taught her, just as she'd practiced and practiced and practiced again.

"Diane, how far is it from you to them?"

Diane shifted her feet, she set her left foot ahead a little and her right foot a little to the side, taking the same stance she used when slamming heavy shot into steel silhouettes.

"Twelve feet six inches."

"How much shot spread will you have?"

"One ounce of double ought buck will spread to two inches max."

The Sheriff smiled at the trio.

"That means if you reach for that gun in your waistband, if any of you three try anything at all, you're going to have a rat hole through your guts I can run my fist through. You raided the register and thought you'd get away but the back door's locked and you can't get out except through me."

The back door opened behind them.

"You two, on your knees, hands behind your heads."  

Linn gave a quick, shallow nod to the two deputies emerging from the back room.

"You."

Linn stepped forward, seized their leader by his shirt front, pulled hard, threw him face first onto the floor, dropped a knee into his tenderloins.

Diane heard three sets of handcuffs snarling shut around felonious wrists.

"Now I'm gonna take that gun out of your waistband, and then I'm gonna read to you from this little card I'm going to scan into my arrest report."

The Sheriff's card -- he kept several in his uniform blouse pocket for occasions such as this -- was not the only thing scanned into the arrest report.

There was also surveillance video.

The Sheriff replayed it, after he'd appended it as a file, and he could not help but smile to see just how pleased The Bear Killer looked once the three had been reduced to possession.

 

 

Edited June 18, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MADAME AMBASADEUR'S DISPLEASURE

 

 A strikingly-beautiful woman in a shimmering, lace-trimmed McKenna gown swept through the glass doors of the Sheriff's office, nodded pleasantly at Sharon, glided across the polished quartz floor of the Sheriff's office lobby as if she were the Queen, or perhaps the landlord.

She raised her closed umbrella, rapped sharply at the closed door of the Sheriff's private office, opened the door, walked in without waiting for anyone's let-be.

Ambassador Marnie Keller, representative-at-large for the thirteen-star-system Confederacy, closed the door behind her, hung her umbrella on the old-fashioned halltree that held the Sheriff's Stetson.

She turned, planted her knuckles on her slender waist, then she raised her hand, extended her finger, shook it at her pale eyed Daddy.

Linn came to his feet when a beautiful woman crossed his threshold; his eyes smiled, just a little, their corners tightening as Marnie shook her Mommy-finger at her long tall Daddy.

Marnie's lips were pressed together, thin, pale: she lowered her arms -- gloved hands fisted, arms stiff with disapproval -- she turned and marched the few steps across the front of the Sheriff's solid desk, turned, marched back, glared at the Sheriff: she shook her head, turned, marched the few steps back again, turned, came back, faced her Daddy squarely.

"Sheriff," she said quietly.

"Madam Ambassador."

"Move this desk."

"Why?"

Marnie glared coldly at her father.

"Because I wish most sincerely to kick you right in the shins!"

Father and daughter leaned slowly toward one another: arms stiff, knuckles on the desk top, pale eyes wide, unblinking, burning with ice-fires, each one into the other's pale orbs.

"Marnie?"

The Sheriff's voice was quiet, gentle, reassuring.

"Yes, Daddy?"

Marnie's voice was equally gentle.

"Try it and I'll spank you."

"Sheriff?"

"Yes, Ambassador?"

"You'll have your hands full."

They both broke at the same moment: their expressions went from stern and solemn, to laughter, like a mountain landslide breaking loose and cascading with a shocking velocity: their laughter was genuine, but silent: when each regained their composure, each took a deep breath, blinked a few times, looked once more -- but without the unblinking, confrontational stare they'd both used.

They both straightened.

Marnie tilted her head speculatively.

"How's for coffee?"

"How's for secrecy? As far as this world knows, you're still Sheriff on Mars, and your government and mine are agreed that we can't let that feline out of the burlap!"

"I'm Angela, remember?"

"Yeah, and I remember Jacob showed up at the hospital and said he'd been away on special assignment. You're taking chances, dear heart."

Marnie shrugged.  "So how's for coffee?"

"It'll stunt your growth," the Sheriff grinned, a warning note in his voice.

 

Father and daughter sat in the conference room, at the head of the table, at its corner: their conversation was quiet, intimate, but intense.

"Daddy," Marnie said, laying her gloved hand on her Daddy's, then gripping it firmly:  "Daddy, you took a terrible chance at the Mercantile."

"What, my Willy Mays catch?" Linn grinned.

Marnie's expression was solemn.

"Daddy, three to one odds, you could see a gun, they'd just raided the till."

"I had 'em out numbered."

"Daddy, you blew it!" Marnie hissed. "You should have led with your gun muzzle!"

"It worked out," Linn said dismissively. "His gun wasn't in working order anyway."

Marnie raised one eyebrow, lowered her head, gave her Daddy her very best Disapproving Glare.

The Sheriff gave her his very best, wide eyed, Innocent Expression.

Neither of them was what you'd call convincing.

"Daddy," Marnie sighed, shaking her head, "there will always be more criminals, but there's only one of you! -- and I want you! around for a long time to come!"

The Sheriff laid the fingertips of his other hand very lightly atop the back of his daughter's lace glove.

"I could say the same thing to you," he almost whispered. "You were set upon by purposed murderers, your shuttle was shot down, you've been between two armies ready to march with fixed bayonets, you've --"

Marnie raised a forestalling palm.

"Daddy," she said, "please tell me -- at the very least -- you were wearing the plate I gave you."

Linn blinked, then nodded.

"Yes, Princess. I was wearing your plate."

"Good. You know Angela was wearing her plate when she waded through burning gasoline and sustained no damage."

"I know."

"You know it's proof against a 105 howitzer at point blank."

"I know."

"You know you can jump into a pond and muck about for a day or two on the bottom and you'll have air to breathe and it'll keep you warm, you can walk out into a blizzard and it'll keep you from freezing --"

"And it makes me younger, smarter and better looking, and at my age I need all the help I can get."

"Dad-deee!" Marnie scolded, the way she did when she was an exasperated little girl. "You know better than that! It's CHOCOLATE that makes you younger, smarter and better looking, and it also contains isoflavones and anti-oxidants!"

"Which means if I eat chocolate, I won't rust," Linn grinned.

Marnie raised her hands, fingers spread, shook her imploring palms at the ceiling:  "Do you see what I have to put up with?  You see this?"

She lowered her arms, looked at her pale eyed father.

"Daddy," she said softly, "as you lead, so shall your troops follow. If you're not going to keep yourself safe for you, then set the example for them."

Linn's mental line of banter stopped dead.

He blinked, looked at his daughter.

"You know," he said softly, "you're right."

Marnie gripped her father's hand again.

"I've only got one of you," she repeated. "I saw how torn up you were when Gammaw died. I don't want to see how bad all of us will be when you finally get hauled off this mortal coil a-kickin' and a-squealin'."

Linn was quiet for several long and solemn moments.

"Darlin'," he finally said, "your Mama is younger, smarter and better lookin' than me" -- his solemnity was split open by a quick grin -- "and she's left handed to boot!" -- Marnie smiled a little, for it was a line he used often -- "and I've benefitted by listening to the wise counsel of those who are younger, smarter and better lookin' than me."

Linn took his both his daughter's hands very gently in both of his.

"I shall take your wise counsel, darlin', and thank you for it."

"Thank you, Daddy," Marnie whispered, her eyes glitter-bright: she looked away, bit her bottom lip, swallowed, looked back, opened her mouth to say something.

"I can still turn you over my knee, you know."

As soon as he said the words, Linn knew he'd just said exactly the wrong thing.

Marnie's expression paled and her eyes grew frosty-cold: she stood, she lifted her chin, and the Sheriff could feel the cold cascading off the walls she'd just slammed up into position.

"I killed the last two men who tried to hit me," she said coldly. 

"No man lays hands on me and lives, Daddy. I won't be hurt again, not even by you."

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND THE MEMORY WAS GOOD

The Valkyries accepted it as normal that they could mind-link.

That is, they accepted it after they got over the initial surprise, after they got used to the idea, after they realized they actually had some control over the process ...

... after they mutually agreed that the potential for abuse was too great to be ignored, and unless circumstances were dire, that an unannounced connection would be more than impolite.

They did find it an efficient and swift means of passing information, of sharing lessons learned, and in less than stressful moments, it was a delightful means of sharing memories.

Gracie -- Valkyrie One, callsign Gunfighter -- descended from Kentucky carpenters and moonshiners, residents of the mountain overlooking Firelands, back on Earth -- let slip the recollection of riding her mule into town, a plain girl in a plain dress and work boots, who responded to catcalls and jeers by pulling a double twelve-bore from the scabbard under her leg and propping it up on her thigh: she'd glared at the troublemakers who were suddenly very uncertain at this new development -- the scabbard was on her right, they were on her left, they had no idea she had access to a street howitzer -- and when she looked very directly at them, she turned her mule to face them, and then she reached her thumb up and cocked the right hand hammer on her double gun, and then she reached her thumb over to the left hand mule ear and hauled it back as well, and then she smiled...

Just a little...

... well, for some odd reason, nobody saw fit to comment further.

The encounter was not significant to the Valkyries.

They shared the physical sensation of riding the mule.

These Valkyries -- all of them related, in some degree or another, to that pale eyed Sheriff's family -- well knew the intimacy they shared with their Interceptors, and they felt much this same intimacy with Gracie's memory of riding that sure-footed mountain mule.

A pale eyed Ambassador was seated at her desk, and as sometimes happened, she felt a whisper in her mind, and so she sat up straight, she placed her feet flat on the floor and her hands on her lap, she leaned her head back a little and closed her eyes.

I'm here.

Her thought was but a whisper, a whisper that every Valkyrie heard clearly.

The question came from every mind, and Marnie tasted the flavor of each unique, living soul, she saw the starfields around them, she saw the blue-green planet another orbited, she heard the nav-systems singing as another twisted happily through a meteor swarm, the ship's pilot laughing like a happy child dancing under a sprinkler on a hot summer's day.

Every one of the Valkyries had the same question, and the question was as genuine as a woman's impassioned whisper to a lover, as spontaneous as a child for whom the question was suddenly the most important thing in their spontaneous world:

What's it like to ride a horse?

 

A polished boot thrust into the black doghouse stirrup, and just before the rider swung into the saddle, a corner-of-the-eye flash of gold against black: the black saddleblanket with its gold border, and the gold six-point star with the word SHERIFF embroidered beneath.

The sudden shift, from stable and unmoving earth underfoot, to sitting on a slick leather saddle as this living soul beneath was shifting, moving, acquiring its own equilibrium.

The feel of reins in the hand, the knowledge that the bridle had no bit, that the horse was knee-trained and well-trained, that their mount was more than a friend, the horse was a well-trained and absollutely trusted partner.

They smelled leather and horse sweat and clean mountain air and they felt the slightest shift of equine musculature, and every one of the Valkyries smiled, because they knew what was about to happen.

Muscled legs gripped the horse's barrel, a quick intake of breath, the jaw muscles tighten in anticipation --

Bucking out a horse can be a wondrous experience indeed.

The entire far flung squadron of Starfighters anchored themselves in position as their pilots were gripped by the memory of bucking out a genuine mountain Appaloosa: they each felt the shock up their spine, every one of the Valkyries felt and heard the grunt, the saddle-squeak, hooves hitting hard ground, their teeth click together, they moved with the horse and part of their mind knew this was dive, buck, sunfish, crow-hop --

The spotty mare stopped, head down, legs splayed out:  she shook her head, gave a little jump, got her hooves under her and shivered, then she stepped out just as smooth as you please, and there is no better feeling in this world than bucking out a good horse, and riding forth, knowing that you are the absolute ruler and final authority in this, your mountain demesne, and that this, your throne, was the absolute Seat of Power:  they each felt the wind in their face, the sun on their shoulders, and the Ambassador, sitting at her desk, alone in her office, smiled a little at the memory, and the memory was good.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND THEN THEY WERE GONE

"John Bridges."

The man's grip was firm, he looked the Sheriff directly in the eye.

"Have a set."

The two men sat.

"Is your son around?" Bridges asked.

Linn smiled just a little, at the corners of his eyes.

"No, he'd be in school today."

Bridges nodded, his eyes swung low to the left and he frowned a little, and Linn knew he was ordering his thoughts, trying to figure how to say whatever it was, was on his mind.

"Sheriff, your son did mine a kindness."

Linn nodded, once, slowly.

"My boy ..." -- Bridges shook his head, laughed a little, then took a great breath and blew it out as if giving up a pretense.

"I never had much use for schoolin' and that has not done me any favors," he said frankly. "My boy ... had the same mindset."

Linn nodded again, once, slowly: he was leaned forward, elbows on his knees, paying close attention to the man's words and to what his posture, his gestures, his expressions were also saying.

"Your boy ..."

Bridges smiled a little, then he leaned forward, set his sweat stained Stetson on the chair beside him.

"Sheriff, your boy set down with mine and listened.

"I don't reckon anyone ever did that before, just set down with him and ... listened."

He frowned.

"God knows I should've listened to him more," he muttered, then he frowned and continued.

"M'boy was goin' on about how he didn't have much use for school and 'twas a waste of time and he'd never use what they were a-teachin' him, and your boy said 'Let's build a house.'

"Now that took Zeph by surprise."

He chuckled, rubbed his work-callused palms slowly together.

"They didn't start raisin' a foundation but your boy allowed as they needed to figure how much timber it would take. 

"Him and m'boy went out and looked at some trees and your boy showed him how to figure how many planks a man can saw from a trunk, and how tall was that tree and if the planks were this long how many could he get with that water powered saw them Daine boys used, and he set down with him and allowed as how big did he want his house, and he showed him how to figure how many siding boards it would take to shell it in, how many corner posts and how could he get those from a tree trunk, and how many.

"He put that schoolin' to work, Sheriff.

"Now Zeph has a good head on his shoulders, don't get me wrong here, he's smart as a whip -- when he wants to be" -- two fathers shared a knowing look, two fathers grinned momentarily, each giving the other a peek behind his wall of cautious reserve -- "once Zeph caught fire on the notion, why, he jumped in with both feet and the two of 'em got to sketchin' out on a plank and another plank and they used chalk to figure out -- I think Zeph said they figured on how many pegs they would need to peg everything together, your boy pointed out that everything took time, how much time would it take just to drill holes for the pegs -- they figured this out and your boy said if we figure on havin' the timber already cut and planks cut and seasoned and ready to go, where is it piled up and how many steps from there to the house and how long to move every plank and they didn't get all that time figured but Sheriff" -- the man shook his head -- "your boy didn't teach by tellin' him things. 

"He asked questions, and he taught Zeph by Zeph's own answers!"

Linn nodded.

He knew Jacob would set down with his fellow students and help them over a rough spot, or work with them memorizing dates and places and speeches and suchlike, but he had no idea Jacob worked in such detail.

It didn't surprise him, really -- Jacob was quite intelligent -- but this was new information to him, and it was information that pleased him greatly.

"Today Zeph said your boy allowed as memorizin' them fine speeches was important, as he could quote from 'em when 'twas needful and he could hold his own with "Men of Trade and Commerce" and I don't reckon Zeph will be rubbin' elbows with them mucky-mucks, but he's seein' that all that schoolin' is not such a waste of time after all."

Linn nodded again.

Bridges stood, picked up his hat, turned it thoughtfully in his hands, took it by the crown, ready to set it on his head.

"That's all I got, Sheriff. Came to say thank you."

The two men shook again.

"I appreciate your stoppin' by," Linn said quietly. "Ever'body and their uncle likes to stop in and just pitch a wagon load of belly ache. Feels kind of good when someone stops to say something went right."

Bridges was quiet for a long moment, then he looked very directly at the pale eyed Sheriff.

"You've a son to be proud of," he said quietly, then he turned and left.

Linn stood, stared long at the closed door, listened to the man's boot heels as they diminished on the board walk, and then they were gone.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IT’S ME AGAIN

 

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller rode slowly down the alley from the Depot, and onto the main street.

Jacob rode with his usual erect posture, he rode with his head up, pale eyes busy under the shade of his carefully-brushed Stetson.

It was not far to the livery, and it was not far from the livery to their little whitewashed Church, and it was not far from the Church to the Sheriff’s office, and it would not be far for him to cross the street and a little uphill to the Silver Jewel, and when he was done there, why, out the back door and he’d have the livery in sight.

Jacob walked his Apple-horse down the stock ramp, walked him down the alley and across the packed dirt street, down the alley.

He swung down from the saddle and handed Apple-horse’s reins to Shorty.

“We’ve been to Texas,” Jacob said quietly. “Give his shoes a good lookin’-at if you would, please.”

“Sure thing,” Shorty said, squinting a little. “Wondered where you been.”

Jacob nodded, reached into his vest pocket, handed Shorty coin enough to tend four horses: he turned, walked back up the alley.

Shorty saw him hesitate, then turn, then cut behind one building to get to another.

“Now there’s trouble,” Shorty muttered to Apple-horse, as the stallion lowered his nose and nudged Shorty’s vest.

“Yeah, you know I’ve got m’ plug there, don’t ye?” Shorty muttered good naturedly as he fished out a plug of molasses twist and sliced off a few thick shavings:  Apple rubberlipped them happily from the hostler’s hand as Shorty rubbed the stallion’s neck and called him a good for nothing politician.

Jacob ascended the steps to their Church’s double doors.

They opened on the corner of the building, and there was a little bit of a deck in front of them.

Jacob hauled open the left hand door – if anyone was watching, they would have seen him look around before he did, and when he opened the door, he would have been seen scanning the interior before he stepped in: his hand rose as he crossed the threshold, and his hat was in his hand as he drew the door shut behind him.

Jacob stopped, appreciating the silence, the cooler interior of their simple Church.

It always feels peaceful in here, he thought, then he looked up – at the hatch that went into the bell tower – he’d been lowered through that hatch after having been shot, and had his Pa not stopped his blood with the Word, he’d have died right where he was standing now.

Near to death or not, it still felt peaceful.

Jacob turned to face the Altar and the big rude Cross on the back wall.

His pace was slow, measured, deliberate, his boot heels setting a cadence – he used that same pace when he was approaching a man with intent to lay hands on him, to take him into custody, or to throw him over the nearest wall, whichever came first.

It was the pace he unconsciously used when he was tending something of importance.

Jacob walked slowly down the center of the Church, remembering.

He recalled when Sarah was a little girl, when The Bear Killer was still small, when he was following a bug and Sarah was trying to get him to stop wandering around and distracting the Parson’s sermon, and Jacob’s eyes smiled at the corners to remember how she’d fallen, all petticoats and little stockinged legs and shiny slippers thrust suddenly up in the air, how she’d come back up on her feet and how she shook her Mommy-finger at The Bear Killer and scolded “Now you stop that!”, and he remembered how The Bear Killer looked at her with those shining, button-bright eyes and a canine expression of utter, absolute innocence.

Jacob remembered a mountain fiddler of considerable skill who played one of them-there fancy airs like he was an Eastern swell playing a violin at concert – and how he’d walked it quickly into a brisk Turkey in the Straw, and how bride and groom laughed and joined hands and whirled and spun down the aisle, and how the rest of the wedding party danced down the aisle behind them, and how the entire church emptied out, one pew at a time, and how every woman and every girl there was snatched up for a dance partner, and Jacob could not but smile to remember the general feeling of shared delight as they did.

He came to the front pews and stopped.

His Pa was of a habit, he’d come here when he was troubled, and he’d talk to God about it.

He’d done that when the train derailed and an iron rail – before Esther got the iron rails changed out for good steel – one rail worked loose and thrust up through the belly of a passenger car, to great loss of life, to destroyed cars, to derailment.

He remembered how his Pa found a little girl, unmoving and for all the world looking like she was dead – he lifted what used to be the wall of a passenger car from her and he threw that wall, so great was his rage – he picked up that little girl thinkin’ she was dead, and he’d thrown his head back and screamed his rage and his sorrow and his own grief, for he’d buried his little girl, back East, and when he looked at this pretty little child, limp and unmoving in his arms, he saw his own little Dana, the child of his loins, dead from fever and the small pox.

Jacob remembered his Pa telling him how he’d come in here and he’d fallen to his knees and cried out to the Lord that he wished to adopt this child as his own, and Jacob laughed silently at his Pa’s description of Charlie Macneil crouching behind the Altar, and how he’d boomed in a deep voice, “AAND SOOO YOOOU SHAAALLLL!” – ‘twas Macneil and Sean, Jacob thought, or maybe the Parson … their Parson wasn’t above pulling a good one like that.

Jacob stood there at the head of the aisle and remembered, and he looked at that big solid Cross on the back wall, and he did like his Pa had done many times.

He talked to God about it.

 

Jacob Keller was two days out on a lonely trail, riding from water to water, as travelers had done for more years than men wrote down history in this dry part of the world.

His canteens were full and he was not pushing his horse; his stallion was mountain raised, he was tough and thick-blooded, and he breathed easier in these low lands than a native horse would, owing to being used to life a mile higher in elevation.

Jacob felt Apple-horse change under him – that’s the best he could describe it, change, kind of like watchin’ a hound dog change from relaxed and loose to tight and focused when he sees some game animal they were after, only ‘twas no game animal his stallion sensed.

Jacob looked where his horse was looking and saw a handful of buffalo – a mixed lot, cows, calves and two bulls, one staying a respectful distance away from the herd bull.

It’ll do to stay shy of those, Jacob thought; he had great respect for Big Shaggy – he’d seen how fast they could move, and he’d honestly not want to try to outrun one, even if he was on his Apple-horse here.

Jacob turned his hat slowly around his hands, staring sightlessly at the smooth, closely-fitted, hand-varnished floor boards.

He looked at the Cross.

“Lord,” he said quietly, his voice filling the vacant sanctuary, “I can forgive any man any thing.”

He looked down at the hat in his hands, turned it again, frowned.

“Lord … how do I forgive me?”

 

Jacob’s stomach fell about ten feet when he saw a mother and two children, apparently gathering greens or herbs or something.

They apparently had no idea the buffalo were anywhere near.

Jacob saw the herd bull turn.

Apple-horse was quivering like a drawn bow: Jacob honestly had no need to lean forward and give his stallion, his knees: Apple near to shot out from under him – Jacob’s legs were tight around the spotty stallion’s barrel, he reached down, hauled out his Winchester.

Apple-horse was known for his speed.

Jacob had ridden only one horse that was honestly faster, and that was his Pa’s black Outlaw-horse, but Apple had greater endurance and was nearly as flat-out blazing fast.

It wouldn’t have mattered.

As fast as Jacob was, the buffalo was faster.

 

“Lord, I tried,” Jacob said.

“I’ve gone over it, Lord. Not a single thing I could have done would have done a damn bit of good.”

Jacob considered maybe taking a shot might have done it, but he’d seen how utterly ineffective the .44-40 is against a running buff: with his Pa’s Sharps, maybe, but not with his Winchester.

By the time he got there, two children were dead and the mother was coughing up blood, her chest caved in, and the bull shaggy was swinging around for another pass.

Jacob ho’d his Apple-horse and brought his rifle down level and set that shining brass bead right between attair buffalo’s eyes and squeezed the trigger and he felt the rifle shove against his shoulder and he kicked Apple-horse and his stallion leaped forward and out of the way and that bull buffalo came rip roarin’ back just in time to collapse deader’n hell on top of two of the three he’d just killed.

 

“Lord, it taken me some difficulty but I got ‘em buried decent.”

He looked down at his boots, he looked back up at the Cross.

“ ‘Twas a widow woman, Lord, they were her only children and now they’re all dead and I couldn’t stop it.”

Jacob’s voice was heavy with self-accusation, with honest grief.

“I can forgive any man any thing, Lord.”

He swallowed, heard his words echoing into silence before speaking again.

“Lord … how do I forgive me?”

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE FRONT PORCH RAILING

 

A pale eyed man sat in a rocking chair on his own front porch.

His hat was hung on the left hand upright of the rocker's back.

It was a good solid rocking chair, a man's chair, made of Eastern chestnut he'd had freighted out for the purpose, and it was double wide, so he and his wife could sit, together.

He'd had it built, back when Esther was still alive.

Esther's chair, inside the house, was more elegant, more delicately built, more ... well, if it's possible to fabricate a rocker to actually look feminine, this one did.

Linn sat alone on the front porch, sat over to one side of the double rocker, as if somehow his wife might appear from ... somewhere ... and set down beside him again.

Linn sat, staring at the distant mountainside; part of his mind saw enough to assess for threats, and seeing none, raised no alarm.

The rest of his mind was not looking through his eyes.

Linn blinked as a soft wall of something pastel glided across his vision, as he smelled soap and lilac, as something gentle and feminine sat beside him.

Father and daughter sat together, in silence, for several minutes.

A voice, gentle, musical, suited to the evening's quiet.

"Drowned any flies lately?"

Linn blinked, looked at the forgotten tumbler in his hand, at its payload of distilled California sunshine.

"How long have you been holding that?"

Linn took a long breath, blew it out.

"Long time."

"If you hold it long enough out here, you'll drown horseflies."

"Gives me something to chew on."

Sarah Lynne McKenna, oldest daughter of that old pale eyed lawman, laughed quietly, and Linn smiled in spite of himself.

"I remember when a gnat landed in my breakfast and I looked at you and said 'Papa, there is a gnat on my eggs,' and you said that would give me something to chew on."

Linn looked at Sarah for the first time -- God, you're beautiful! -- he spoke, his voice gentle.

"You remembered that."

Sarah lowered her lashes, gave her father a seductive look, and then she was gone.

Linn stood suddenly, threw the glass as far as he could, damning the waste of perfectly good brandy.

He leaned against the porch rail, hung his head as his hands closed slowly, tightly, into shaking, enraged fists.

For a long moment he wished most sincerely that Death was a human, that Death was corporeal and physical and in arm's reach, and then he lifted his fisted hands from the porch rail and screamed.

All the rage, all the helpless, frustrated, boiling, bottled, suppressed, hidden grief he'd lived with -- he'd lost his wife, his daughter was killed in Germany, his grandson, dead in France, killed in that damned WAR! --

It wasn't the first time a pale eyed, retired, keeps-to-himself lawman screamed his rage.

It was perhaps the only release he allowed himself.

It was always of an evening, and always from his front porch.

This was the first time he'd poured brandy beforehand.

Even in his grief, he was testing himself.

He'd known too many men who'd turned to the bottle in times of grief and of loss, and a part of him tested for weakness.

He turned -- savagely, glaring, his eyes pale, his face white, pale eyes blazed like ice-fires at the empty rocking chair where the image of his daughter sat a moment before --

His rage unspent, he seized the solidly-built heirloom, threw it with all his strength over the porch rail.

A pale eyed man leaned his weight through his palms, his chin in his chest, close-trimmed fingernails raking splinters out of the smooth-sanded railing.

An old lawman stood, alone, on his front porch, an old man who felt suddenly empty.

It was the first time he'd faced his Rage.

Linn looked up at the high peaks, painted red with the long red rays of the setting sun, and he remembered how he and his wife used to stand out here of an evening, and watch the mountains at sunset, and he remembered the first time Sarah -- still a little girl, visiting here with her parents -- stood with them, how she stared with an innocent child's awe and wonder at the colors and the shadows.

She'd never lost that sense of wonder, and many's the time she'd come over after supper -- she'd take Linn's arm and steer him out on the front porch and she'd tell Ester, "I'm going to help your husband watch the sunset, want to come along?" -- and the three of them would stand against that selfsame porch rail, and watch the mountains change with the evening's fires.

Maybe Sarah came back to remind me again, he thought.

Maybe she knew I needed to turn my badger loose.

He snorted, shook his head.

His voice was Daddy-gentle as he spoke to the evening's quiet.

"Esther, darlin'," he said softly, "I miss you."

A puff of evening breeze, like a maiden's kiss, caressed his close-shaven cheek, and was gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

KNOCK OFF THE DUST

A woman sat at a desk, her attention on the work of her hands.

Her fingers knew the work; she moved with the practiced ease of someone who'd performed such tasks many times before.

Her attention was focused, unwavering; she took almost an exaggerated care in what she did.

Pipe cleaners were employed for multiple purposes: she cut one into a half dozen pieces, used these to carefully, precisely, clean out the bronze nipples of the percussion cylinder.

She hadn't dismounted the nipples for some time; her personal rule was, once every half-dozen general cleanings: she reinstalled the nipples with a good layer of Standard Oil Mica Grease from one of the four, genuinely ancient, cans she'd bought at auction, while still a very young girl.

Ambassador Marnie Keller could have been her ancestress, the one for which she was a twin-like image: as she sat, her spine straight, her feet flat on the floor, working silently beside a window, high in a government building, as she sat wearing a tailored McKenna gown and high shoes with sharp little heels, as she sat with her fashionably ornate hat placed on a plaster bust of Julius Caesar, she could genuinely have been her ancestress, magically transported through time and through space, to tend this familiar and oft-practiced task.

Marnie Keller satisfied herself of the quality of her work before reassembling the Colt Navy revolver.

She reloaded with conicals, with powder enough to bring the bullet's nose barely below the mouth of the chamber: she'd already prepared one such sixgun, and she was ready to stake her very life on its function: this first revolver was already discreetly holstered, hidden beneath draped and colorful cloth.

Marnie capped the newly-cleaned, freshly-lubricated, precisely-reassembled revolver.

She washed her hands thoroughly, dried them carefully, worked her hands into the thin, lacy gloves she favored; she picked up her stylish had, turned to look in the mirror, set it at an angle on her head, smiled.

Her hair was already done up in the ornate coiffure she affected for Diplomatic appearances: her trademark appearance was intentional -- ancestors of the Confederacy had been Southrons, abducted during that bloody internecine event she simply called, "That Damned War."

Everyone who heard her use the term, agreed with her usage; it was a point of pride that every citizen of their far-flung Confederacy could track their ancestry back to that moment in time.

When Marnie appeared, wearing a McKenna gown, this was close enough to Antebellum ladies' fashion to be a statement -- I Am One Of You -- while still appearing different from the actual style of that moment: her appearance was calculated to convey beauty and femininity, charm and grace, and her conduct and her words would convey aught else she wished to have understood.

Marnie normally favored a .357 revolver for her everyday carry.

There were times when she preferred the Navy Colt.

She explained to her rather skeptical father, one evening as she claimed his arm and walked with him from house to the back pasture fence, that if she wished to bring the fear of God and the Devil to the sinners, short of a 97 Winchester with black powder loads, a Colt Navy that squirted an accusing finger of fire and belched out the sulfurous breath of Hell itself -- and its deeper-voiced concussion that the nitrocellulose detonation of a full-house .357 -- was a more powerful persuader.

Father and daughter stood at a whitewashed fence, their presence masked by fields of otherworldly origin, and watched the Sheriff's herd together, and Linn remembered reading accounts written by Old Pale Eyes, and he remembered his Mama's exploits with a shotgun.

He laid his arm across his daughter's shoulders and drew her carefully to him -- carefully, so as not to dislodge or disturb the broad brimmed hat she wore, pinned to her coiffure.

"Darlin'," he rumbled quietly, "I reckon you might have something there."

 

Not every world was welcoming to outside influence.

Not every world was impressed or pleased with a pale eyed Ambassador whose relatives rode horses, wore a star or went their way with a Winchester rifle.

Not every world wished commerce with the rest of the Confederacy.

Marnie stepped from the diplomatic shuttle with a parasol in hand and a quiet smile on her face: she was met by a frowning man who stepped toward her, stopped at arm's length and snarled, "We don't want you here."

Marnie stopped, blinked innocently, tilted her head a little as she studied him, giving him the full benefit of those big lovely eyes, as she gave the impression that he was the most interesting thing she'd seen in a very long time.

"Is it just me," Marnie smiled, "or do your sentiments extend to the whole of the Confederacy?"

The man raised his hand, just a little.

It held a tube about as big across as two writing pencils.

Whatever this device was, coughed, gave a little puff of gas: Marnie's response was to draw a pair of Navy Colt revolvers.

Her first two shots drove into two mens' guts -- the one who'd just shot a dart into her, and one to his left, raising another, similar device: two more men, about ten feet back, saw Marnie turn toward them, saw her raise both revolvers toward them.

They did not live long enough to see the squirt of fire that followed the bullets that drove each of them through the face.

Marnie cocked both revolvers, turned slowly, on the balls of her feet.

She looked with eyes of polished glacier ice at the only man left.

He lifted his chin, held open hands a little away from his body, their palms toward her.

Marnie glared at him, her breath controlled, her face hard and unforgiving.

"Who decided this action?" she asked quietly.

"Our President-General," he said: as hard as he was trying to appear defiant, he could not keep a little quiver from his voice.

Marnie eased the hammer down on one of her Colt Navy revolvers.

"What did they shoot into me?" she asked.

"You may as well know," came the reply -- his voice was without emotion, almost without hope.

"You're dying."

"We're all dying, but I'm sure as hell not leaving my ghost here!"

"Oh, but you will. You've been injected with a poison. A little dart --"

"How long?"

"Any time."

Marnie's smile was tight, humorless.

She eased her Colt's hammer down, rotated the cylinder, set the hammer down on a fired nipple: she slid the revolver into its hidden holster, drew its twin, did the same.

"Since I am not yet dead, I wish to address your President-General."

"I'm afraid there's no time for that."

"Your poison should have had some effect already, shouldn't it?" Marnie smiled, and she saw a momentary uncertainty in her opponent's eyes.

She reached down, found the dart -- trapped in her defensive field and undamaged -- she held it up between thumb and forefinger, showed it to him, slipped it into a field-insulated pocket in her gown.

"What was your intent?" she asked.  "That a mere woman would have fallen back into the shuttle and been taken away, that her death would serve as your warning?"

She saw the man swallow -- as if trying to swallow something sticky, with a suddenly dry throat -- and nod.

"I don't kill easily," Marnie said quietly, stepping closer. "You intended to murder the Ambassador and send my carcass back as a warning."

Marnie's face was dead pale and her bloodless lips pulled back from even white teeth.

"When you attack an Ambassador, you attack all she represents, and I represent the entire thirteen star-system Confederacy," she hissed.  "Is that what you want? Do you want war? Because that's what you've done. You've declared war, and there's no way your planet will survive!"

Three Interceptors appeared behind and above her, three Interceptors with Hellbore cannon trained directly on the startled survivor, three warships that appeared without a sound, that hovered without motion or wobble.

"I wish to address your President-General. Otherwise we'll hold a conference of our own and decide whether we want to spiral your planet into your sun so you can burn up slowly as you fall, or whether we want to spiral your planet out of orbit and into the cold and dark of interstellar space, so you can freeze to death and live long enough to enjoy the sensation. Or maybe we'll slice your planet in two or blow it into a cloud of dust. Unless we want to pulverize your planet's surface and rebuild it from the subatomic level. How do you feel about becoming compost so I can grow my prize winning roses?"

"We ... did not ... anticipate this ... complication."

Marnie raised her bent wrist to her lips, murmured a command.

A pair of hover-cams materialized, one on either side of this sole survivor.

"I thought you might have something like this," she nodded. "They are probably armed as well."

One rotated; there was a brief, intensely-bright beam, which disappeared as the hover-cam was crushed into a ball the size of Marnie's fist, as it hit the ground, glowing red with heat.

She glared at the other camera.

It leaped away as if seized by an invisible fist, and perhaps it was: she knew the Valkyries could perform surgery with their energy-fields.

"Now.  I I recall correctly, you  have the means to contact the Confederate Central. You have twenty-four hours to arrange a conference. We'd like to avoid unnecessary bloodshed --"

The man reached under his coat, pulled out a ball, pressed a control: Marnie heard a rising whistle, saw the ball start to flash.

The ball was ripped from his hand, seared to an incredible altitude, detonated.

"You were going to kill yourself," Marnie murmured.

"To kill you, yes."

Marnie smiled, shifted her weight seductively, reached up the way a woman will, reached to her hair as if to ensure herself it was still arranged as she wished it.

"You've failed," Marnie smiled, then she spun -- she whirled like a dancer, on the balls of her feet, her wrists bent back a little, a very feminine move -- she spun, once, took the man's arm just above the elbow, drove a hatpin through the base of his skull.

Marnie drove her hatpin very precisely through the man's brainstem.

He collapsed like a sack of ground beef.

"You wanted to die," she addressed his staring face. "Glad I could help."

Ambassador Marnie Keller looked around, lifted her skirts, lifted her chin and stepped over the dead man, walked back to her Diplomatic shuttle.

Before she stepped up onto the rear ramp, she tapped the side of her shoe against the side of the ramp.

A final insult.

She was knocking the dust of that land from her shoe soles.

Ambassador Marnie Keller waited until the ramp was lifted, until the shuttle lifted off, until her pilot announced they were in orbit, and the Valkyries gave the all-clear, no pursuit, no hostile launches, no energy weapons in evidence.

"Set a course for Central," Marnie said quietly. 

"Yes ma'am."

"I'll be in back, reloading."

"Yes, ma'am."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WILLIAM'S QUESTION

William looked half-sideways up at his Pa.

William's shirt was dark with sweat, and so was his father's: they were both in a shocking state of undress -- they'd stripped down to their shirts and drawers and boots, they were without coat or vest -- both were laboring, as must be done when tending a ranch, mending fence, scraping stalls, performing the never ending God's honest labor that constitute keeping a ranch going.

"Sir?"

Jacob held a plumb line against a cedar post, frowned, moved the plumb line behind the post, then to its other side:  satisfied, he wrapped strong, twisted hemp cord around the heavy brass plumb bob, looked at his son, nodded.

"Sir, how come -- Grampa was in the War --"

Jacob nodded, shoveled dirt in around the fence post.

William picked up the tamper and began industriously packing down the dirt his Pa put in the hole.

Jacob waited; William had trouble doing more than one thing at once, which struck Jacob as perfectly normal: Annette complained good-naturedly that her pale eyed husband had a one track mind, and Jacob not infrequently laughed and agreed with her, and on their way to town, when the crossed the Z&W tracks, he'd stopped their carriage on the tracks and looked left, to the bend, he'd looked right, toward that far bend, then he'd grinned at his wife and murmured quietly that he was lookin' for his train of thought.

William was younger than Joseph was when Joseph ran off to war.

Jacob didn't talk much about his oldest son.

William knew Jacob spent time at the local cemetery, looking at a stone with no body under it, a stone with Joseph's name and a few lines of hand carved beneath it.

William knew his father sorrowed for the loss of his firstborn son, but he never spoke of it, and only then, reluctantly.

"Pa," William tried again, setting his tamper between his boots as Jacob filled the hole level full of damp, crumbled dirt, "are all wars alike?"

Jacob stabbed the bit of his Ames shovel into the ground, leaned on the handle, stared at the ground for a long moment, then looked at his son.

"Most are," he said quietly. 

"Pa, what started Grampa's war?"

Jacob grimaced, reached up, set his gloved hand against the fence post, shook it.

"Trade me," he said quietly: shovel and tamper exchanged hands, and Jacob began driving the tamper against fresh dirt -- his strokes were harsh, vicious, and William knew Jacob did not like being reminded of such matters.

William was a curious boy, William was an obedient son, but William lost an older brother and William had seen his Grampa, rest his soul, brooding on that damned War, and William had questions.

Jacob worked his way around the fence post, driving the tamper hard, driving himself harder, and not until he'd circumnavigated a barked-off cedar post, not until he'd stopped, not until he'd set the tamper down and leaned it against the post and wiped honest sweat off his face, did he speak.

"William," he said, "I'm kind of dry."

"Yes, sir?"

"Let's get us a drink."

"Yes, sir."

Father and son went over into the shade.

Jacob picked up the canteen, pulled the plug, handed it to his son.

William drank deeply, handed it back to his Pa.

Jacob drank deeply as well, turned his face up, sloshed a little on his face: he shook his head, the way he always did, handed the canteen back, and William plugged it, hung it back on the fork they generally used when working this part of the spread.

Father and son sat on a rock -- it wasn't in the way, so it hadn't been grubbed out -- and Jacob took a long breath, blew it out.

"You ask about war."

"Yes, sir."

"You asked what started your Grampa's war."

"Yes, sir."

"I asked him about that," Jacob said quietly. "He allowed as politicians didn't get their way so they set good men ag'in one another. He said if they'd just set down and talked instead of gettin' all high and mighty, why, they could've worked out their differences and not killed a hell of a lot of good men doin' it."

William considered this, frowning a little as he did.

"Once things got pretty far along, they set down and talked and that was the war's end," Jacob continued bitterly. "I reckon all wars are like that. Stupid men make stupid decisions, they get a hell of a lot of good men killed, then they set down and talk about it and it's over."

"Yes, sir," William said quietly.

"Trouble is ... good men want to put an end to the war as quick as they can and that's why Joseph went over there and got killed."

"Yes, sir?"

"I don't reckon his death made a nickel's worth of difference to those politicians that started the whole thing, but it sure as hell made a pile of hurt back here."

William made no reply.

"It's just like two men fightin'," Jacob said quietly.  "All you get out of a fight is hurt faces and hurt feelin's. From what I can see, that's all you get out of war."

Jacob looked at his son, half his mouth pulled up a little in a sardonic expression.

"I ain't the brightest candle in the chandelier, William," he said quietly. "I reckon if you ask twenty different men that same question, you'll get twenty different answers."

"Yes, sir."

Jacob looked at the fence post they just tamped into place.

"William?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Does that fence post look good to you?"

William considered their latest labor with a serious expression.

"Yes, sir."

"It looks good to me too. What say we pick up our tools and go get ready for supper. We been at this all day."

"Yes, sir."

A pale eyed father and a pale eyed son rose, picked up canteens, tamper, shovel and post hole digger: they loaded their tools back on the wagon.

Jacob picked up a shallow tin pan, carried it to the patient old mule harnessed to their wagon; William walked with him, emptied the second canteen into the pan, waited until the mule drank.

Father, son and patient old mule headed back for the house.