SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DADDY, YOU WERE RIGHT

Sheriff Linn Keller looked up at the interrupting rat-tat, tat on his office door.

His mood improved a little as he saw the shadow on the other side of the frosted glass had wings on its head.

He was on his feet by the time his door opened and Angela looked at him with light-blue eyes and an innocent expression.

"Walk with me?" she asked.

Linn came around his desk, picked up his Stetson: Angela claimed his arm and Linn winked at Sharon and said, "I'll be out with a younger woman," and Sharon laughed: "You rake!"

Father and daughter emerged through the heavy glass doors, looked around, crossed diagonally over to the Silver Jewel.

Linn gripped the heavy, polished, waxed, brass door handle, pulled, wondering momentarily if the ghosts of previous pale eyed lawmen were gripping it as well: it was an irrational thought, and he shoved it aside.

Angela folded her arms, looked around as if savoring what she was seeing: she smiled at Tilly behind the hotel counter -- it didn't matter who worked the counter, she was always Tilly, just as the barkeep was always Mr. Baxter -- and Angela lifted her chin to Mr. Baxter as they turned the corner at the end of the polished mahogany bar.

"Two coffees, please, Mr. Baxter," she said, knowing her words would be heard, then she leaned closer and added, "Make one of them an Irishman's Fist."

Mr. Baxter winked.

He knew how to make a stout Irishman.

Father and daughter went back to the Lawman's Corner, hesitated, then Angela shook her head.

Linn opened the door to the back room.

 

Linn took a noisy slurp of coffee, dashed the tan droplets from his carefully groomed handlebar mustache.

Angela sipped delicately at her Stout Irishman.

Mr. Baxter was no stranger to manufacturing Irish coffee, but he'd come up with something significantly stouter than the average variety: if one of the ladies ordered it, they received a tall, ornately scalloped coffee cup that held an impressive volume, and its content -- hidden beneath whipped cream and a cherry on top -- packed the authority of an Irishman's wallop.

Thus, the Irishman's Fist.

Angela plucked off the cherry, chewed it viciously, swallowed: she indelicately inhaled the whipped cream cap, then drank a third of the potent payload before coming up for air.

Linn raised an eyebrow.

"Daddy," Angela said quietly, "you were right."

"I usually am," he rumbled in a deep, reassuring Daddy-voice.

"No false modesty here, is there?" Angela asked, almost bitterly.

"What happened?"

Angela looked off to the side, her pretty face hardening, then she looked back: she closed her eyes, hand hands closed into fists, then relaxed: she spread her fingers, placed her hands flat on the tabletop, pressing down a little, as if afraid her hands might betray an unwanted tremor.

"Daddy, do you remember when we were little, we'd sit on the couch with you and you'd read to us?"

Linn smiled, just a little, nodded: he looked up as the hash slinger opened the door, peeked to make sure it was safe, then came in with her order pad in hand.

"What's good today, Marcia?" Linn asked innocently, knowing Marcia would have a smart remark ready for him.

Marcia looked at Angela, sighed.

"Did he ever tell you what I asked his deputy the first time I saw him?" Marcia asked.

Angela shook her head, blinked with a convincing innocence.

"I asked him if the Sheriff here was married, and the two of them looked at one another and laughed, and Old Pale Eyes here said yes, he was married, and I pulled his deputy aside and asked if he was happily married!"

Marcia and the Sheriff both laughed.

"Darlin'," Linn sighed, shaking his head, "a hot woman and a cold glass of water and I'd die of a heart attack!"

"Before you die, we've got a really good patty melt with onions and peppers grilled on it, comes with cole slaw, salad, cottage cheese or floor sweepin's and fries or onion rings."

Linn nodded to Angela.

"I had floor sweepin's yesterday," she said, "so how about the special with cottage cheese and onion rings."

"And you, handsome?"

"Same thing."

"I hoped you'd want a cold glass of water," the waitress pouted: "I'll bring coffee for your refills."

Angela waited until she the door closed behind her to take another pull on her liquid Irishman.

"Daddy, you read from Old Pale Eyes' Journals."

Linn nodded, slowly, remembering what it was to have Keller young piled up on his left and on his right, and the youngest laying claim to his lap.

"You read one time where the man wished Death were human."

Linn hesitated, took a long, slow breath, nodded.

"You were right, Daddy."

The door opened again; the waitress came in with a steaming pot of coffee, topped off the Sheriff's mug, carefully refilled Angela's, then brought over a squirt can of whipped cream and foamed a fresh cap on top.

Angela laughed.

Linn looked at her, surprised, and so did the waitress.

"I'm sorry," Angela giggled, "I ... I almost said 'What, no cherry?' and I had the mental image of you sticking that squirt nozzle in my ear and filling my empty head with foam!"

"Don't give me any ideas, sister," the waitress mock-snarled: she retreated again, and Linn looked at his daughter and asked quietly, "What happened, Princess?"

Angela took a long breath, planted her elbows on the red-and-white-check-tablecloth, rested her forehead on the heels of both hands: she finally leaned back, shook her head, took another sip of her coffee, wiped at the foam mustache it left behind.

"Confederate medicine is ... quite advanced," she said softly. "Your ... you'll never have cataracts, for one thing."

Linn nodded.

He'd had a good start on the damned things, and a visit to a Confederate world cured that, and a few other things, and made it look easy.

"As good as medicine is, it's ... it doesn't always work, and -- Daddy, the worst part -- things happen and I'm not there to fix it or stop it or --"

She stopped, snapped her jaw shut as if she'd said too much, then she leaned forward, reached across the table, took her Daddy's hands in hers.

"How many times have I heard you say that same thing?" she whispered. "You used to flagellate yourself because you didn't know something you couldn't have known, or you weren't there to prevent something when it's not possible for you to have prevented it."

Linn looked at his daughter, felt her hands squeezing his.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "you are not supposed to imitate my bad examples."

The door opened -- the waitress came in with a tray -- and Angela whined, "But Dad-dee! i want a pony!"

Linn looked up at the waitress, looked at Angela and replied, "I'm sorry, darlin', they don't have pony on the menu today."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ALL YOU HAD TO SAY WAS NO 

Every hand-picked member of the elite guard disappeared.

Every highly-trained member of the elite guard had the same experience.

Every eminently qualified member of the elite guard felt a hard hand seize the back of his collar and pull.

Every well-trained, immaculately-uniformed member of the elite guard fell backwards – as if they’d been standing with their boot heels at the edge of an elevator shaft – they fell into darkness, they landed in water – COLD water! – every member of the elite guard got his legs under him, found bottom, stood.

Each of the Twelve heard a mechanism of some kind, the water level dropped: they were blind, it was more than full dark, there was a gurgle as the last of the water was sucked out of a drain, God knows where –

Air.

Warm air, blowing from behind each man, then light – subdued, indirect, revealing each man to be isolated, alone, in a black-walled, cylindrical, glass-smooth-sided chamber.

A voice, a man’s voice, quiet, almost bored.

“You can strip off and hang your clothes to dry, or you can wear them, your choice.”

The chorus of shouted protestations went unanswered.

 

“Mister President-General.”

Startled, the President-General looked up, looked around: he rose from his chair, backed up a step, looking around for his personal guard.

A pale-eyed woman in a McKenna gown faced him, her hands very properly folded in her apron.

“Where – how did you –”

“How did I get in here?” she smiled, her voice gentle. “The same way your men got out. They are unharmed, by the way, and they’re quite safe, even from themselves.”

“This is OUTRAGEOUS! How dare you –”

The woman took a step forward, her eyes suddenly as pale and as hard as he’d seen on the Inter-System broadcasts.

“HOW DARE YOU SEND YOUR ASSASSINS TO MURDER ME, MISTER PRESIDENT-GENERAL!” she shouted, the cords standing out in her neck. “YOU ARE A COWARD AND YOU DESERVE TO BE HORSEWHIPPED!”

The President-General jumped back to his desk, snatched open a drawer, dropped to his knees: he threw a wild shot at the woman, then three more, aimed shots: his smoothly-curved, streamlined pistol had almost no recoil, it fired with a subdued spit! spit! spit! – the woman smiled, reached with thumb and forefinger, plucked each of the three darts that actually came somewhat near her, from the invisible field surrounding her: she dropped them in a force-lined pocket in her skirt.

Ambassador Marnie Keller glided toward the President-General.

Fists beat on a door, shouted voices: “Mr. President! Sir! Unlock the door!”

“He’s occupied,” Marnie called in a cheerfully musical voice.

The President-General raised his pistol, desperately firing, until the magazine ran dry: he brought the pistol back, staring at it in apparent shock, until it was cut in two.

An angry woman with ice-pale eyes slashed down with a heavy-bladed knife.

A very sharp knife.

A knife that bit into the dart pistol’s plastic housing, tore it out of his shocked grip, half-cut and half-broke it in two as it hit the desktop.

Marnie lifted the knife’s tip, set it under the President-General’s chin, raised it.

His head came up, persuaded by the feel of Damascus steel pressing against the tender flesh under his lower jaw.

"Stand, you cur."

A truly beautiful, pale-eyed woman in a McKenna gown spoke the word between clenched teeth, spoke in little more than a hiss, then when the man was standing, she spoke in her normal, feminine, gentle voice

“Mr. President-General,” Marnie said quietly, “every member State in the Confederacy is perfectly welcome to tell the rest of the Confederacy to go pound sand down a rathole. All you needed to do was say no, we don’t want a diplomatic visit. We’d have been happy to accede to your wishes.”

Her voice was quiet, her eyes unblinking.

“But to send assassins – to send men with the intent of murdering a mere woman, of having her fall backwards into her shuttle, which would bear her dead body back as a warning? Did you really think you could intimidate us?”

Marnie shook her head, made a little tsk-tsk sound.

“Mr. President, when you attacked a Diplomat, you declared war on the entire Confederacy. Do you know how many inhabited planets there are in thirteen star systems?”
Marnie waited for the man’s reply.

He swallowed, but gave no voice.

“Every member planet of the Confederacy is quite literally up in arms, ready to declare war.

“On you.

“Right now I have entire companies of soldiers, quite literally screaming, for your personal blood.”

She leaned intimately closer and whispered, “Your, blood.”

She leaned back, smiled pleasantly, the tip of her blade still pressed into the tender flesh under his jaw.

“I have attack squads, elite infiltrators, who’ve volunteered to bring me back your hide … after they skin you.”

Her smile was genuine, gentle, feminine.

“After they skin you … alive.

“I have regiments drilling and practicing for a full-on assault on your planet.

“I have a squadron of Valkyries who’ve already plotted the exact places to burn holes through your planet’s crust, clear to the core, to maximize the volcanic hell that will erupt and send you into a volcanic winter.”

Marnie tilted her head, regarded him as if he were an interesting insect.

Her knife’s tip never wavered.

“I killed your assassins. We sent you the video account our hover-cams took of the event.”

Marnie looked around, looked back.

“Your personal guard are … elsewhere.”

Marnie looked up, blinked, her expression pleasant.

“Ah, they’re ready to use explosives to blow your security doors open. If I were you, I’d duck.”

Marnie lowered her knife.

“Remember, Mr. President, I can find you, anytime, anywhere, and neither guards nor walls will protect you from me!”

A black ellipse appeared behind her; she stepped backwards, the Iris disappeared, like a cat’s pupil slamming shut, and then the heavy, steel-reinforced door blew out of its frame, shot across the room, slammed against the wall.

Armed men rushed through dust and smoke as the President-General’s eyes rolled up in his head and he fell bonelessly to the floor.

 

A pale eyed woman rocked slowly in her handmade chair, ordered and purchased well more than a century before by a man with pale eyes.

He'd placed the order with those lean Kentucky moonshiners that lived on the mountain overlooking Firelands.

It was originally made for a red-headed woman with green eyes, a woman who would bring her young up onto her lap and read to them.

Marnie had her own child in her lap, her left arm around him, her right holding a book:  she read in her gentle mother’s voice, a fanciful tale of dragons and castles and monsters and heroes, and her husband looked over at the sight of their son, sound asleep with his head against his Mama’s collarbone.

Dr. John Greenlees, silent in fleece lined house slippers, came over and carefully, gently, slid his surgeon’s hands under their son, lifted him, rolled him in against his chest: father and mother bore their child to his bed, and John waited for Marnie to draw the blankets down before he gently, carefully, eased their sleeping child into his own bunk.

Dr. John ran his arm around Marnie’s waist, pulling her hip into his.

Marnie turned, came up on her toes, whispered something into her husband’s pink-scrubbed ear.

Dr. John Greenlees, physician and surgeon, blinked, his eyes suddenly wide:  he turned, a delighted look on his face, and he seized his wife under her arms, hoisted her off the floor, spun her around – Marnie told him later he had this “big idiot grin” on his face – Marnie threw her head back and laughed, one leg bent up behind her, then he set her down, carefully, spread his hand, placed it carefully on her flat belly.

“You’re sure?” he whispered.

Marnie gave him a knowing smile, her voice an intimate whisper.

“A woman knows.”

 

On another planet, light-decades from Marnie’s underground Martian quarters, the President-General shivered his way into a tub of hot, scented water.

He was alone, at last – here, he was told, he was proof against any known scanner, secure from any electronic intrusion, a bomb could go off outside and he would be more than safe.

He’d been assured – assured! – that, despite that devilish Ambassador’s tricks, she could not possibly get in here, not here, not in his secured quarters, and certainly not in his bath chamber!

Nobody could possibly intrude –

The outer guard heard the President-General’s panicked scream.

Weapons ready, they released the doors, swarmed in –

and found the naked, dripping President-General, wide-eyed, standing in his bath, staring at an even dozen of his elite personal guard who’d just appeared out of nowhere.

The President-General’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell bonelessly into the hot, scented bathwater.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND A BROTHER SPOKE

Sheriff Jacob Keller laughed as his Appaloosa stallion paced out over the mountain.

He'd been too long away from here, from here!, from home, from high places and sky and clean air.

A man doesn't appreciate the open, he thought, until he's lived underground!

He'd bucked out his Apple-horse, he'd bribed him and saddled him and fooled with him and called him the unprintable things he always did, and Apple-horse snapped at him the way he always did, and Jacob's spine felt the way it always did when a vigorous mountain horse bucked out with him a-straddle of said swift soul.

Jacob was not known to be Sheriff on Mars.

Earth still thought his pale eyed sister was Sheriff.

As far as anyone outside his immediate family knew, Jacob was on "detached duty" -- he'd shown up at the Firelands hospital with a few hundred other lawmen, when one of their own was hurt; he'd shaken hands, made vague allusions to duty elsewhere, then he'd disappeared again.

Today, though, today he was high on the mountain overlooking Firelands, and glad for it.

He smiled as he heard a horse coming up the mountain path he'd just used.

He recognized the gait.

Slower than his Apple-horse's, less distinct -- Apple was steelshod, and his sister's big black Frisian was barefoot.

Jacob knew Marnie would ride her big black Snowflake-mare carefully, for a Frisian's shoeless hooves can be harmed by rocky terrain, and this mountain was just that, but he also knew a little bit would not be harmful.

Jacob looked at his sister as she came around the bend, started toward him, looking very feminine and very proper and very old-fashioned, in a McKenna riding skirt and a matching little hat pinned atop her elaborately upswept hairdo.

Marnie rode up beside Jacob, until their legs nearly touched.

"John just said the nicest thing to me," Marnie said without preamble.

"Good morning to you too," Jacob grinned. "You wanted to see me."

Marnie lifted her chin, then looked to her right, taking in a truly gorgeous vista, the kind you can only see from high on a mountain, and through clean air.

"I do miss this," she murmured.

Jacob waited.

Marnie looked back.

"John wants me to quit the Diplomatic Corps."

Sheriff Jacob Keller trained for his entire lifetime, to maintain a poker face when surprised.

He was honestly hard pressed to do so now.

"I know there have been attempts on your life," he said carefully.

Marnie nodded, looked back at her brother.

"John said my duty lay with family now."

Jacob's eyebrow raised a little, then lowered as he thought, What's changed? -- and Marnie saw his pale eyes drop to her flat belly.

"I am better protected than was Sarah Lynne McKenna when she had Black Smith make her a steel corset, and her expecting."

"Sis," Jacob said quietly, his voice serious, "have you ever sung to Little John?"

Marnie Keller, Sheriff's deputy and diplomat-at-large, wife and mother and sister and daughter, a woman who'd brought war and who'd negotiated peace, a woman who'd prevented internecine slaughter and who'd bullied, bullfeathered, a woman who'd laid on second hand horse feed with a trowel, a woman who'd stood between armies assembled and ready for a mutual slaughter, looked at her pale eyed brother in honest and absolute, surprise.

Of all the things he might've asked her, this was nothing she'd anticipated.

"Have I ... do I sing to him?"

Jacob nodded solemnly.

"Marnie, I never saw you happier than when you were mother to your first two. I never saw you hurt so bad as when you consigned their bodies to the Eternal. I remember you used to sing in church and it was gorgeous, I remember you sang one day when The Lady Esther was on the up grade and pullin' hard and I set there behind a rock as you sang to that four-count chant, and I cried like a lost child to hear the beauty of your voice."

Jacob stopped, frowned, considered, then pushed ahead.

"Marnie, do you sing to Little John?"

Marnie blinked, rapidly, as if her eyes were stinging, and she swallowed, bit her bottom lip, nodded.

"Yes," she whispered.  "Yes I do, Jacob. I sing very softly, and he sleeps when I sing."

"You opened the door," Jacob said flatly, "so I'm comin' through it. Quit that damned diplomat's job. You're not Sarah McKenna, you're not the Black Agent, you're a mother with a child under her heart and a husband who worries himself sick when you're who knows where ridin' the front end of a nuclear pile that could explode as quick as exhaust. Let someone else do it. Pa told me one time they'll post your job before your obit hits the newspaper, and he's right."
Jacob shifted in the saddle, looked very directly at his pale eyed sister.

"I'll tell you the same as I told Uncle Will when he got shot.

"I've only got one of you, and I want you around for a long time to come!"

Marnie looked at him with big and vulnerable and distinctly light blue eyes, she looked at him as womanly tears gathered and spilled and she dropped her head and then she leaned forward.

Snowflake knelt, quickly, easily; Marnie dismounted and so did Jacob.

Brother and sister embraced, high on a Colorado mountainside, and Jacob held his sister as she buried her face in shirtfront linen and dampened his chest down some.

Jacob held her and let her get it out.

It was rare that Marnie -- hurt badly as a child, guarded as a girl, mistrustful as a young woman, wearing an exterior of diamond, shining, hard, durable and beautiful to the eye, hiding secrets in its depths -- Marnie, wife and mother and diplomat and warrior -- it was rare indeed that Marnie ever showed this vulnerability to anyone.

She'd never let her husband see it, she'd only let her Daddy see it one time.

Jacob felt her pull a little and he slacked his arms, pulled a bedsheet hankie from his sleeve, offer it to her.

Marnie hiccupped, wiped her cheeks, blew her nose: she wiped her eyes again and whispered huskily, "I've made a mess of your kerchief."

"It'll wash," Jacob said bluntly.

Marnie looked up at him, patted his chest with her gloved hand.

"Jacob," she whispered, "that's the nicest thing you ever said to me!"

 

 

 

Edited June 26 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LAST PLACE

“Brother Chaplain.”

“Madam Ambassador.”

Marnie paced to the center of the spacious hall, her sharp little heels loud on the mirror-polished floor.

She stopped in the exact center of the long, rectangular room.

The Confederation was in session; she was surrounded by tables, by men, by the impressive decoration and architecture and formality of such a meeting.

That she chose to walk to its center, that she chose this highly unusual means of addressing the Confederate, guaranteed she had their undivided, if for no other reason than it was out of the ordinary.

Marnie turned, faced the President’s table, with the Chaplain standing beside him.

“Brother ChapIain, I remember a wedding you performed, in which you discussed several symbolic values of the wedding service.”

The Chaplain nodded gravely.

“It is symbolic for the bride to stand here, for the groom to stand there, we assemble wearing our best to show due respect, the rings have their symbolic messages, and you especially mentioned that the bride is symbolic of the Church, and the groom, of the Christ.”

The Chaplain nodded, slowly, again.

Marnie tilted her head to the side, just a little, turning as she spoke, including all in her address.

“I was raised by a man who put a great premium on respect.

“My father extended respect and courtesy to all he met.

“My father regarded every female, of any age, to be a LADY! – and it was a marvelous thing, to see a common streetwalker, in his courteous presence, suddenly become, a Lady.”

Marnie smiled a little, turned, including everyone present, in her words.

“Gentlemen, my father is also a man of laughter. He told me once of reading the words of a woman who raced horses professionally, and she told of one race where she was with child, she rode a pregnant mare, and my father laughed as he said, ‘The four of them came out in last place!’ “

Marnie’s smile was broad and genuine as she turned suddenly to face the President’s table.

“Mister President, I would like to think I have been effective in my office, and I wish my office to remain so.”

Marnie paused wet her lips: at every table, men leaned forward a little, looking closely at this beautiful woman in the floor-length gown.

“Mister President, I have prevented wars, I have negotiated agreements, I have established trade. I was personally responsible for rejoining Planet Texas into the Confederacy, and most recently a corrupt regime was replaced, partly because I walked into harm’s way and spoke the language they understood.”

Marnie stopped, frowned as if uncertain, looked at the floor, hesitated.

She looked up.

“Mister President, I would not detract from the effectiveness of my office. To that end, I beg leave to tender my resignation.”

Two men’s voices shouted – startled, loud – WHAT??? – a half-dozen shouted NO, followed by a groan.

Marnie raised gloved palms, turned, as if smoothing out the lumpy carpet of sound: she composed her palms in her apron, then lifted her chin.

Marnie placed a maternal hand on her still-flat belly.

“Mister President,” she said, “I don’t want the four of us to arrive in last place.”

Marnie's sharp little heels were loud in the hall as she lifted her chin and lifted her skirts and paced back to the President's table, slipped through the little gap, turned to face the Chaplain.

"We are made in God's image," Marnie said quietly, "and so is this new life I carry. As the wedding holds many symbolic references, I go now to tend this spark of the Divine."

The Chaplain nodded, gripped her hands, leaned his shaggy, ponderous head close.

"Go, with an old man's blessing," he whispered, and then he smiled.

"I don't think you'll ever have to worry about last place."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PICTURES

"MAMAAAAAA!"

A little boy's delighted shout echoed in the hangar bay as Little John scampered on fast and chubby legs, arms wide and his little-boy grin wider.

Marnie Keller, Sheriff Emeritus and late Ambassador-at-Large for the Confederacy, knelt quickly to receive this juvenile Charge of a Two Year Old Brigade -- although she wore a Confederate plate across her tenderloins, flawlessly camouflaged by her sculpted, custom fitted corset, she automatically protected her belly and the new life hidden therein.

Dr. John Greenlees wished, and not for the first time, that he had a magic switch imbedded in his earlobe, so he could reach up and snapshot whatever his eyes were seeing.

He wanted to remember this picture forever, his wife, laughing as she rocked back, hugging their little boy, and a moment later, the delight in her eyes as she looked at him, and he knew she'd resigned, and she was happy about the decision.

Marnie rose, shifted their happy, laughing little boy to her left hip, molded herself into her husband and hummed with pleasure as he tasted her mouth, as she laid her head against his collarbone, as the three of them embraced and the rest of the world around them didn't exist anymore, at least until footsteps approached, until Valkyries squealed and hugged and jumped up and down like a bunch of excited high-school girls, until their Flight-Commander gathered as much humanity into his arms as he could manage, his Teutonic-blue eyes shining with delight.

Marnie looked across the bay, at the airlock door, where a tall, lean waisted man in a black suit and Stetson loafed comfortably against the wall, grinning.

Firelands, in such moments, could be both intricately and elaborately organized, and utterly spontaneous: Marnie found herself propelled by happy humanity to the big cafeteria, meeting hall, gymnasium and stage, where she was steered toward a red-velvet-upholstered, comfortably-padded, elaborately-carved throne: Marnie laughed as a table was brough to her (not the other way around!) -- then dishes and casseroles and loaves of bread and gut-rumbling smells and Marnie realized just how hungry she was.

Any people who've had to fight to survive, any people who work hard, will seize any excuse to celebrate.

It seemed to Marnie as if most of Firelands Colony came in, sat at the table or orbited close to it, she'd never shaken so many hands, she'd never been congratulated as many times, in her life! -- and somehow she was still able to load her plate with fork-tender beef, spiced mashed potatoes and steaming, savory gravy, she still drank great volumes of diluted fruit juices, and in spite of the happy hubbub, Little John Greenlees proved himself to be his father's son.

Little John got his belly full and promptly went to sleep.

 

Husband, wife and child entered the quiet haven of their quarters.

Marnie's luggage had already been delivered, including a few cases she'd forgotten about; she looked at them, decided to put them away at a later time.

Marnie stripped and showered and emerged in a nightgown and said quietly, "John, would you think me terrible if I laid down for a nap?"

Dr. John Greenlees, physician and surgeon, looked up from his annunciator: two women were in labor and he was being requested to Labor & Delivery.

"My dear," he said quietly, "I think that would be an excellent idea."

Dr. Greenlees threw the covers back, waited for Marnie to lay down, covered her carefully, brought the bedclothes up around her neck: he leaned down, kissed his wife gently.

"I have to find my catcher's mitt," he whispered.

Marnie smiled, caressed her husband's smooth-shaven jawline.

"Get your practice in," she whispered back, then she smiled sleepily, rolled up on her side and cuddled into the mattress.

Marnie was asleep before her husband was out the door.

 

"Jacob?"

Jacob looked up, smiled.

Ruth rejoiced to see her husband smile.

Outside their quarters, he was reserved, taciturn, almost stoic: the most she'd seen, outside their private area, was a slight tightening at the corners of his eyes.

She'd heard a wondering report, one time, but one time only, of Jacob's having laughed, but that was more than a year ago, and only one other person saw it.

"Jacob, I'm reading about the Black Agent."

Jacob nodded.

"She was ... quite the ... she was quite active."

"Yes, she was."

"From all the pictures you've showed me ... she and your sister could be twins."

Jacob nodded again.

"Jacob, are all your women so ... active?"

"My Gammaw was," Jacob grinned. "My Mama, not so much. She was a hell raiser when there was need, but Gammaw could bring the sinners to heel, fast, hard and nasty!"

"Jacob" -- Ruth hesitated -- "Jacob, your sister ... I know she was Ambassador, and I know she was Sheriff before you ..."

Jacob gave her his very best Innocent Expression.

"Jacob, she's always been a perfect lady. I've never seen her as impressive as the Black Agent."

Jacob laughed.

"Darlin'," he rumbled, his voice pitched to be reassuring, the way he remembered his pale eyed Pa doing, "Marnie is as effective and she's as violent and she's as fast and as deadly as Sarah Lynne McKenna ever was. She's scoured every one of those accounts of Sarah McKenna and she's drawn what lessons she can from them."

"She's been such a good mother with young John," Ruth said thoughtfully.

"Yes she has."

"Was Sarah McKenna a good mother?"

The question surprised Jacob -- so much so that his wife saw the honest astonishment in his light-blue eyes.

He blinked, looked at Ruth, disappointed.

"I'm sorry, dearest," he said softly. "I don't think she ever had the chance."

"Would she have?" Ruth asked softly.

Jacob looked away, brought his knuckles to his lips, frowning thoughtfully.

Later that evening, Ruth heard the quiet, whispering scrape of Jacob's charcoal pencil.

He often turned to a sketch pad to work out ideas, or problems, and after he'd finished, after he'd gone into his office to tend a last minute detail, Ruth opened his sketch book and took a look at the last half-dozen pages.

She smiled at his charcoal rendition of his grandmother, in a nurse's uniform, with a child on her hip and a cocked pistol at full extension -- Ruth knew that story, she'd read the newspaper articles and she'd seen the picture that made the local paper.

She turned the page, saw Marnie laughing, her head thrown back, on her knees, hugging her little boy to her in the hangar bay.

She saw what must have been Sarah McKenna -- it could have been Marnie -- bent over a cradle, lifting out a wrapped infant: another image, on the same page, handing the child to a maid in a traveling-cloak, with her hood up -- this one, a woman in silhouette, fleeing down a tunnel, while at its mouth, a woman with suddenly hard eyes turned.

The last page.

A woman stood beside an empty cradle, a woman all in black, with a revolver on each hip, a knife's handle thrust up over her shoulder, a shotgun in both hands and absolute fury in her expression.

That must be when Sarah defended the Schloss, she thought.

She defended an old man, and an empty cradle.

I think she would have made a good mother.

Ruth blinked against the sudden sting in her eyes, closed her husband's sketch book quietly, paced thoughtfully over to the comm-panel, discreetly left Marnie a message -- low priority -- asking if she'd join her for tea.

She had something she wanted to tell her.

 

Jacob hooked off his boots and left them in the rubber boot tray, strode in sock feet across the kitchen, seized his mother in a crushing hug, brought her off the floor and shook her a little, the way he usually did.

Shelly's spine rippled and popped and she groaned "OW that feels so good!" and Jacob eased her down to the floor: he kissed her on the forehead, asked "What's for supper, Ma?" and danced back before she could swat him with a dishtowel.

Jacob grinned and waited for his father to rise, to come around his desk with his hand extended.

Jacob took his father's hand.

Linn turned his head a little, looked closely at the delight in his son's face, raised a questioning eyebrow.

Jacob opened his mouth, hesitated, looked away, frowned, looked back.

"I'm going to need some good sound advice."

"I think I can arrange that."

"I have some news," Jacob said quietly, then added, "Grampa."

 

 

 

 

Edited June 27 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HOW DO I FIX THIS ONE?

Jacob Keller worked steadily.

He took turns on the post hole diggers, stabbing the steel jaws into good dirt, lifting out dirt and dumping it as neatly as he could on the pile he was making: he'd gotten three holes dug so far, he'd dug them deep enough so a fence post could be set solid and tamped in place.

He knew he was being watched.

That did not matter to him.

He and a hired man worked steadily, the hired man looking often toward the house.

The man of the house -- "that damned Rosenthal," he'd muttered between clenched teeth -- was the kind of man who'd complain if he were hanged with a new rope, at least to hear the hired man tell it.

Jacob shared the man's opinion.

Jacob was not working for a wage, like the hired man; matter of fact, Jacob was not expecting pay of any kind for this work.

He was working for the girl he knew was watching from behind an upstairs window.

He was doing this for Sarah.

The day before, Sarah McKenna -- she refused to accept the name Rosenthal -- frowned out her upstairs window, puzzling out a dark area that hadn't been there the day before.

It was still early.

Sarah slipped down the back stairs, her silent tread perfected by many years of practice.

Sarah was not yet in her teen years, but she knew what it was to move silently, in order to avoid unpleasant encounters: she made it down the back stairs, listened, crept through the kitchen and out the back porch, she gripped the railing, swung under it and dropped to the ground.

She crouched when she landed, soaking up the drop, freezing, listening.

Sarah knew what it was to hate.

She hated her sot of a father, long dead now, and the terrible things he'd done to her.

Sarah hated him for the things he'd done to the girls upstairs in the Silver Jewel.

She hated him for what he'd done to her Mama, and Sarah was one of the only mourners present when her unwashed sot of a bullying, woman beating father, was consigned to an unmarked grave in the Potter's Field.

It would be more accurate to say that Sarah was not a mourner.

She was more of a celebrant.

She waited until the man was lowered into the hole -- she'd have preferred to see him dropped face first into the hole -- she waited until the hole was filled, until Digger took the dead wagon, the grave diggers, their tools, and departed for Firelands.

Sarahs' Mama was there, wearing a second hand gown, carefully altered to fit her: Bonnie was not there as a mourner, either, she was there for her daughter, a skinny, bruised starveling in a patched dress.

Sarah waited until everyone else was left, then she walked up to her Daddy's grave.

Sarah snerked in a very unladylike fashion, and then Sarah spit on her Daddy's grave.

Bonnie opened her mouth to admonish Sarah.

She closed her mouth on words unsaid as she realized just how much hatred a pretty little girl's face could hold.

Sarah's head bowed a little as she remembered, as she crouched, silent and unseen, beside the back porch, then she rose, ran light, swift on the balls of her feet, slid through the fence and ran out into the pasture.

She found the dark area she'd seen from her bedroom window.

She found it by virtue of nearly falling into it.

 

Jacob worked the fence post a little, held up a plumb line, kicked in some dirt, worked the post again.

Satisfied, he scraped in dirt and proceeded to tamp it solid, while the hired man went to see if that damned Rosenthal was going to let him get bobwarr to fence off this hole.

It did not surprise Jacob that the hired man didn't show up until he was tamping the fourth post into place.

Young he might be, but a judge of men he was, and he judged this hired man as no more ambitious than he absolutely had to be.

 

"You there! I'm not paying you to stand around and do nothing!"
Jacob's bottom jaw thrust out and he flexed his leather-gloved hands into fists, opened them slowly, turned.

"That's right," he said, pulling off one glove, then the other, and dropping his forearm over the handle of his holstered Colt. "You're not payin' me one red cent."

"I, what, where's my fence, I paid good money to have this work done --"

"Just bringin' the bobwarr," the hired man called as he hauled the commodity from the wagon, out of sight on the other side of some brush: Rosenthal glared angrily, turned, stomped off.

Jacob and the hired man tagged wire to fence post, drew it tight; Jacob leaned into the fence stretcher, they made four turns around the periphery of the hole, four rows of wire to keep what few cattle remained, from falling into the hole.

Jacob and the hired man stopped, straightened, looked toward the house, looked at one another.

"Milk of human kindness," Jacob drawled, and he and the hired man laughed quietly, while a pretty, pale eyed girl watched from an upstairs window.

 

Jacob Keller washed up outside, bare to the waist as was his habit.

His Pa washed up with him, just not as thoroughly: Linn could tell from his son's sweaty shirt that he'd been doing a man's amount of work, and he could tell from the care Jacob took when raising his arms, that his shoulders were fatigued.

Linn knew what it was to dig post holes: he and his son took turns with the task, when the need arose.

"Did you see where the mine caved in over past Rosenthal's place?" Linn asked as he shrugged into his shirt.

"Yes, sir," Jacob replied, sloshing out the washpan of dirty water and pumping some fresh.

Linn waited for Jacob to lather up again, to scrub his young hide: Linn picked up the small brush and handed to him -- "Thank you, sir," Jacob said quietly, then began scrubbing around and under his fingernails.

"You're getting a good set of shoulders on you, Jacob."

"Thank you, sir."

"Been usin' a post hole digger?"

"Yes, sir."

Jacob scoured his arms, his neck, behind his ears with a coarse cloth: he bent forward, used a dipper to run clean water over the back of his head, his neck, then his arms.

Linn watched Jacob put on a fresh shirt, rather than the soiled, sweat-soaked linen he'd been wearing.

Jacob smiled a little as he remembered Sarah bringing out a cold pitcher, after the hired man took the wagon and went elsewhere: she waited while Jacob drank, and drank deep, then she looked at him with big and adoring eyes, she leaned in close and kissed him on the cheek.

"I reckon I'll sleep good tonight, sir," Jacob said.

"A man does, workin' hard like that."

Linn looked seriously at his son.

"Jacob, thank you. You didn't work like that for a wage. You worked like that because 'twas a decent thing to do."

"Yes, sir," Jacob grinned.

"You didn't do that for Rosenthal."

"No, sir."

Linn looked at his son, raised an eyebrow.

Jacob saw the smile hiding  at the corners of his father's eyes.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Sir ... Sarah ..."

Linn waited.

"Sir, she brought me out a pitcher of cold water with some fruit squeezin's in it."

Linn waited.

Jacob looked very seriously at his father.

"Sir, if she was my sister, would she be that nice?"

Linn considered for a long moment.

"Jacob," he said slowly, "I've known brothers and sisters to fight somethin' fierce."

He considered for several long moments, shook his head.

"I don't reckon so, Jacob. Was she your sister, she'd be my daughter, and she'd be under my roof, and I'd like to think she'd be as sweet here as she is there."

Linn allowed himself the slightest of smiles.

He asked quietly, in a father's understanding voice, "You ain't sweet on Sarah, now, are you?"

Jacob looked bleakly at his father.

"No, sir," Jacob replied hollowly.  "I'm not worth it."

Linn stared at his son's shoulders as Jacob slid his vest on, picked up his sweat stained hat and headed for the house.

It took him several long moments to realize his mouth was open in honest to God astonishment.

He closed his jaw, blinked, felt his brows pull together.

Now how, he thought, do I fix this one?

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

COME, LET US REASON TOGETHER

Sean Finnegan was an impressive man to behold.

Sean wasn't as tall as Jackson Cooper, and he wasn't as Herculean as Jackson Cooper, but in the language of the time, "he warn't no slouch."

Sean and the Sheriff squared off the day Sean stepped off the steam train at the Firelands depot, and the Sheriff stepped up to him and said loudly, "NO IRISH NEED APPLY!" and raised his knuckles.

Sean had never been one to back down from a fight.

He was, after all, Irish: more than that, he was a fireman, and over and above that, the rest of his firefighting fellows were offloading from the train and watching, and the fight was on.

When the close contest finished, when the Sheriff lay on the boards and shook his head to clear planets, stars and little tweeting birds, he looked up with one eye swelling shut and the crooked grin of a man who didn't duck in time and said, "Had enough?"

The two had been fast friends ever since: Linn took the man's wrist, Sean hauled the Sheriff to his feet, Linn clapped a hand on the Irishman's shoulder (dear God what's this man made of? Iron?) and roared, "I CAN WHIP ANY MAN IN THE TERRITORY AND THIS MAN JUST WHIPPED ME! THIS IS THE FIRE CHIEF AND HE SPEAKS WITH MY AUTHORITY! IF ANY DOUBT THIS, STEP RIGHT UP, THE STORE IS OPEN!"

Sean stared into his beer: he was hunched over a little and his shoulders were rounded forward, and this was a very unusual posture for the big red headed fire chief.

He felt someone beside him, felt a familiar hand clap him on the shoulder.

One man, and one man only, dared risk such a familiarity.

"You look like you lost your last friend," Linn said softly, then looked at Mr. Baxter, lifted his chin.

Sean took a long breath, opened his mouth to say something, shook his head.

The Sheriff thanked the pomaded, neatly-dressed barkeep, slid him a coin, turned around and leaned back against the bar, mug in hand.

"Sheriff," Sean said quietly, "how much do ye know about wimmen?"

Linn sampled his beer, found it to his liking: he turned side-on to the bar, facing his old and dear friend.

"Sean," he said, just as quietly, "I learned a long time ago that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

Sean blinked thoughtfully, stared deep into his half empty mug.

"Women especially," Linn said thoughtfully, "I know just enough to get into trouble."

"Aye," Sean sighed, raised his mug, took a long drink.

He raised a finger, slid his empty across polished mahogany.

"It's no' me Daisy."

Linn nodded, looked closely at Sean, clearly interested in what he was saying -- and in what he wasn't saying.

"It's me eldest dotter."

Linn groaned and nodded.

He, too, had sired a girl-child, and she too was proving less ... easy ... to raise than were his sons.

"Now me boyos" -- Sean thanked Mr. Baxter, slid him a coin, took a loud and careless slurp of beer -- "me b'hoys are fine lads.  Fine lads! They speak their mind an' there's no doubtin' wha' they think when they say it!"

Fire chief and Sheriff raised their heavy, faceted, sweating-cold mugs, drank, lowered their mugs.

"Me girls --"

Sean turned abruptly, leaned back against the bar, frowned, turned to face the Sheriff, one elbow so solid on the mahogany a man might think it was taken to root in the glass-smooth wood.

"Yeah," Linn agreed after silence stretched long between the two men.  "I know."

"It's a worrisome thing," Sean said, shaking his great head slowly: "was me Daisy t' die ... would our Kathleen listen t' me wi' her mither gone ..."

Linn looked sharply at his old friend.

"Sean," he said quietly, an edge to his voice, "is Daisy unwell?"

"No," Sean husked, waving his hand as if to dismiss a pesky fly: "no, she's fine as frog hair, but a man thinks o' these thing --"

Fire Chief and Sheriff raised their heavy, faceted, sweating-cold mugs, drank.

 

Daisy tilted her head, looked at the red-headed Esther Keller with frank and open interest.

Esther looked back, smiled a little.

"Ye're a damned lucky woman, y'know that," Daisy said with her characteristic lack of tact.

Esther sipped her tea, found it to her liking: she closed her eyes, hummed with pleasure, then looked at Daisy and replied, "Oh?"

"Y'know wha' I mean," Daisy hissed, leaning forward and placing her delicate china teacup back on its Japanned saucer. "There's no' a woman i' this county! tha' wouldn' gi'e her eternal soul f'r a year! t' ha'e yer husband!"

Esther gave her an innocent look, sipped her oolong delicately: "This is exquisite," she murmured.

"Now don't you exquisite me, Mrs. High-and-Mighty!" Daisy snapped, leaning forward, glaring at what could arguably be one of the more powerful and influential people in the entire County. "When yer husband bought th' Silver Jewel, he bought the girls, he bought me! Property we were! D'ye know wha' he did? -- wi' them, wi' me?"

Esther blinked, waited, knowing that she would have as much luck stopping her own steam locomotive as she would have stopping the green-eyed wife of the Irish fire chief.

Daisy gripped her knees through skirt material, leaned forward.

"Ye know it a'ready," she said, her voice low, almost menacing: "she set up Bonnie i' business, th' workin' girls tha' wanted t' stay an' work elsewise, yer husband made i' happen! He gave me the kitchen, gave it t' me, an' no strings! No percentage! Mine, free an' clear! He's no' takin' payments n'r profit!"

Daisy lowered her head.

"You watch that Bonnie McKenna," she whispered. "She's burnin' a candle i' th' window f'r yer husband!"

Esther lowered her teacup, folded her hands carefully over her knees, tilted her head sympathetically, gave Daisy a knowing look.

"I know, dear," she said in a gentle voice. "That's why she is my best friend."

 

"Sons are easier," Linn agreed. 

"Aye."

"Sons don't come struttin' down the hall behind their Mama with her little nose in the air, holdin' a wooden spoon like the Queen's War Club and threatening her brothers with it!"

Sean chuckled, nodded, gave the Sheriff a sidelong look, then shook his head and laughed.

"Sheriff," he rumbled, "tha's exactly wha' m'dear Kathleen did!"

Daisy McKenna set her tray down at the foot of the back stairs, on a little table that was fortunately unoccupied: she slipped into her kitchen, snatched up a wooden spoon, stormed out of her demesne and down the hall, holding her wooden war-whacker like the Queen's Scepter: she came into the saloon proper like Storm Cloud Number Nine, she smacked the Sheriff across the backside -- hard! -- she punched her fist into her husband's flat gut (with all the effect of gut punching a marble statue), she came up on the balls of her feet and thrust an accusing finger in her husband's face and snapped, "Ye're a damned lucky man an' don't you e'er f'rget it!"

She spun, drove her finger into the Sheriff's necktie just above the stickpin -- "Ye've a treasure i' that wife o' yours!" she snapped, then she h'isted her nose in the air and stormed back down the hall, for all the world like a retreating thunderstorm, all crackling lightning and vague muttering as she departed.

Linn rubbed his smarting backside thoughtfully; he and Sean looked at one another.

"Sean?"

"Aye?"

"Do you recall I said somethin' about knowin' a little bit about women?"

"Aye."

Linn hoisted his beer mug.

"I reckon I know a little less than I thought I did."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IT'S EASIER ON THE TEETH

Esther Keller examined the naked bird's carcass with a critical eye.

By virtue of a very slender, very sharp knife, she'd managed to extract all the shot pellets she'd spotted.

Esther did not want her family to break a tooth -- dental procedures were less than pleasant -- she was scrupulous, attentive, concentrated in her effort.

Esther grew up as Daddy's Girl -- at least until the damned Yankees came through and destroyed everything she knew -- she'd gotten away with her Daddy's racer and the clothes on her back, she'd fought back from a homeless orphan and established herself in business, she'd steered her course back East with a ruthless efficiency: she'd repurchased the Wales plantation, then sold at a profit, she'd established a newspaper, a second, she'd profited and then she sold all these achievements and followed her niece West.

Esther grew up in the Carolinas, a child of wealth and privilege, she'd grown up learning to whistle, to whittle, to run with her brothers and to fight them when necessary, and she'd shown a remarkable aptitude with a shotgun.

Now, as a wife, as a mother, as a matron of Firelands society, Esther Keller smiled a little as she prepared the birds she'd wingshot: as good as the hired girl was, Esther was better at reducing a feathered carcass to ready-for-the-pot: Esther made it look easy, and the hired girl paid close attention, for she'd learned long ago to pay attention to those folk who made something look easy, that was not!

 

Jacob considered the work of his hands.

He'd made a press of sorts, a press in which he could put a big marble sized gob of clay: lower the handle, lift it, carefully remove a hemisphere of damp clay.

It didn't always work well and sometimes it didn't work at all, but Jacob ended up with about three dozen thin shelled clay hemispheres.

He let these dry, then he set the halves together, mixed up some soupy clay and used it as glue, welded the haves together to make a hollow sphere, and let these dry in the sun.

It took him a week, but he ended up with hollow clay balls half again bigger than a hen's egg.

His Mama loved to wing shoot.

Back East, swells would stroll manicured grounds, and at their approach a box would open and pigeons would fly out; some shot glass balls, but Jacob had no liking for cleaning up broken glass, not when sun dried clay could be left lie, to break down and soak back into the ground with the next rain.

When he finally asked his Mother to bring her gun and come to the back field with him, she was curious, but acceded:  he mentioned she might want to bring her wax ear plugs, the ones she'd fabricated with care and with effort.

Jacob waited for his Mother to work the custom fitted bees wax plugs in her ears, then he grinned, hefted one of the clay balls, crouched, then slung it high, underhand.

Esther's gun came to shoulder -- she did not raise the gun, the gun mounted itself -- her left hand barrel barked and the clay ball disappeared in a puff of dust and fragments.

Mother and son laughed with delight.

Jacob picked up another, looked at his Mother.

Esther nodded.

Jacob crouched and sent another sphere into the clear blue sky, and another handmade clay sphere turned into a puff of dirt.

Supper that night saw laughter at the kitchen table: there were birds, tender and toothsome, and though the Sheriff and his son chewed cautiously, they found but two shot pellets between them, and avoided breaking anything when they did: conversation turned to Jacob's invention, and Esther's delight.

One of the Sheriff's little daughters regarded her Mommy with big blue eyes and said, "Mama, how come you didn't just go shoot s'more birds?"

Esther laughed, tore loose another strip of breast meat, regarded it thoughtfully, ate.

"I believe shooting the clay is easier on the teeth."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

YOU MADE MY LITTLE GIRL CRY

Angela Keller remembered what her pale eyed Daddy said.

He'd described being mad enough to bite the horn off an anvil, he'd described being ready and more than willin' to rip some deserving soul's throat out, or maybe twist his head off his neck and boot it over the nearest roofline.

He'd described wanting to grab a Buick from the curb and sling it clear to the other end of town, and he'd described wanting to collapse into a corner and cry like a lost child, and he'd said he felt like doin' all of those things at the same time.

Angela Keller's eyes were pale, her face was hard, her jaw set: she drove carefully, cautiously, courteously; she pulled into a space near their little whitewashed Church and got out of her pretty purple Dodge, she pressed the door lock button and shut the door and she chewed on her bottom lip as she walked, silent on thick crepe soles, as she climbed the steps to the corner-opening doors, as she opened the door and went into their little whitewashed Church.

It was by sheer and fantastic coincidence that Sheriff Linn Keller was loafing against the wall inside the foyer of his Sheriff's Office, in the little sun warmed airlock between the heavy glass outer doors, and the heavy glass inner doors: coffee in hand, he surveyed the street with quiet eyes, his mind a considerable distance from his lean waisted carcass, at least until he saw a familiar, waxed, turbocharged Dodge cruise slowly down the main drag, with a pretty young woman in a white winged cap and a blue cloak, behind the wheel.

Linn leaned a little to his right so he could watch.

A father knows his daughter.

Linn saw Angela climb out of her car.

Usually she would have made a sweep of the area first.

She didn't.

That wasn't right.

She locked and closed her door -- that, he knew, was habit -- she didn't look around before she walked toward the back of the car and up onto the sidewalk.

Something, he knew, had her more upset than she'd been in a very long time.

Sheriff Linn Keller set down his coffee, scanned the area, pushed through the heavy double doors, strode purposefully across the street, eyes busy.

 

Angela stood under the bell tower hatch as the doors closed.

She looked up at the hatch and remembered standing here as a little girl, listening to her pale eyed Daddy tell her about another Jacob Keller, who defended their town with a buffalo rifle from the bell tower above.

They'd climbed the solid, screwed-in-place wooden ladder, they'd unlatched and pushed open the hatch, they'd stood in the bell tower and looked around and her Daddy said the reavers came down here, they rode this far, they tried to escape down these alleys -- here, here, here -- but their escape was blocked with wagons, with barrels, with bobwarr -- he raised a laser rangefinder to his eye and shot distances to particular landmarks: Angela took her turn with the rangefinder (she was a little girl and looking through Daddy's rangefinder was fun!) -- Angela blinked, looked down at the floor, searching the age-darkened, refinished boards, looking as she always did for that older Jacob's bloodstains.

Angela rubbed her face, sniffed, pulled out a kerchief, pressed it to her closed eyes, bit her bottom lip.

She looked deeper into the church, walked slowly, silently down the aisle, trailing her fingertips along the ends of the pews, almost as if caressing the shoulders of a row of old friends.

She stopped at the front, closed her eyes, remembered.

Smoke, dust, blood, screams ...

... the smell of burnt flesh, the copper odor of blood ...

... her fingers clamped tight around an arm, she pulled a screaming man down, dropped her weight through her palm, shut off the artery inside his upper arm, trying desperately to keep his life from pumping out where the rest of his arm used to be --

Angela remembered the plastic lid in her desperate grip as she twisted it free, slung it viciously to the side, sloshed sterile saline onto a sterile dressing, laid it gently against the left side of what used to be a woman's face -- it was a steam burn, bleached out white, the eyeball was -- 

Angela's teeth clicked together as she shoved the memory from her.

She never noticed the wash of sunlight as the doors opened, closed again, she did not hear her father's boot heels as he came down the aisle toward her.

She felt his hands on her shoulders, felt him pull her into him.

Angela was on her knees, sobbing, as memories, too many memories, overwhelmed her defenses.

She fell into her Daddy's chest, she seized him like he was a float and she was drowning, she half-choked, half-screamed, half-sobbed, drowning in grief, drowning in suppressed horrors, drowning in the hells she'd swum in.

She reached desperately for the lives she couldn't save, those lives just out of her fingertips' reach, she leaped, trying to catch those souls being ripped from their bodies, and over it all, a nodding, skeletal finger, rubbing its bony palms together, a figure with a scythe over one shoulder, bare skull grinning and nodding "Good, good."

Sheriff Linn Keller had absolutely no idea what happened.

He knew the human soul will soak up grief to a point, then it has to discharge, and this discharge was often a single trigger event, sometimes quite trivial.

He knew his daughter was a truly remarkable soul, gifted, talented, she was a Healer in the truest sense of the word, he knew she was one of the strongest souls he'd ever seen.

She was also Daddy's Little Girl.

Linn felt the warning buzz of the Confederate plate he wore: he looked up, his augmented field letting him see frequencies insensible to the human eye.

Sheriff Linn Keller had the reflexes of a panther, the speed of a mother when her young was in danger.

Sheriff Linn Keller uncoiled like a spring, jumped into the air, seized the hover-cam: the sudden addition of the man's weight overrode the camera's inertial stabilizers and it dropped, mometarily losing power to its stealth-field.

Sheriff Linn Keller's face was pale, drawn tight over his cheekbones: his eyes were dead white, his lips peeled back, his face betrayed the soul-deep fury of an enraged father.

He held the hover-cam in an unbreakable grip, glared into its autofocus lens, snarled deep in his chest.

It was not the most flattering of pictures.

It was not the image of a calm, deliberate, logical, rational, measured, utterly fair, lawman.

Heretofore, the idealized image of an Old West Sheriff had been quite different from what the Inter-System showed now.

This was a very human facet, this was the father, not the lawman.

It was the image of a father, enraged.

"DAMN YOU!" he roared.

"DAMN YOU TO HELL!  

"YOU MADE MY LITTLE GIRL CRY!"

 

The entire Irish Brigade surrounded Angela as she clung to her Mama.

Every man there crowded in close, a protective wall of humanity: every man there knew what it was to lose someone, in very bad circumstances, and every last one of them had tried to drown the memory in a lake of liquid sledgehammer, or had seen the memory in the reflective surface of his locker, and tried to run his fist through that memory and utterly, absolutely, destroy it.

They sat together -- medics, firemen, Nurse and Sheriff, there in the old part of the firehouse, the tall, narrow horse house section.

Angela stared sightlessly into the depths of a scalding mug of shimmering blackness, she smelled firehouse coffee, she felt her Mama's hand on her left and her Daddy's hand on her right.

Her voice was quiet as she spoke.

She had no idea when the tears started, fell into her coffee, fell to the table.

She described what she'd seen in cold and clinical terms.

She described what she'd smelled, and its cause; she spoke of hearing an injured man's soul sigh out from between his teeth, escaping with his last breath, she spoke of holding a man's shoulders as he convulsed and screamed wordlessly, a steel beam through his guts, just before his eyes rolled apart and he relaxed under her hands, as he fell silent and moved no more.

She described the children, and for most of the silent, supportive listeners, these were the worst.

Angela's face ran the range from sorrow to helplessness to grief and back to impotent RAGE! -- she hammered the table with both fists and shook her head, her face scarlet as she screamed "I WAS TOO LATE! I WASN'T THERE AND I COULDN'T HELP THEM AND THEY DIED AND IT'S MY FAULT! I'M SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO HELP THEM!"

It was the first time the Irish Brigade, the Sheriff, her mother, or the entire Inter-System, ever saw her like this.

She'd been the image of calm in a storm, she'd been the quiet, efficient organizer, the director, the organizer in chaos, in disaster.

Hers was the image of the healer.

Hers was the horse a healing child rode, hers were the hands that soothed a suffering brow, that delivered a child at the roadside when the stork was faster than the family vehicle, hers was the calm and rational voice that brought order out of utter confusion.

Today they saw what happens to even the strongest soul when it is burdened beyond its ability to endure.

Shelly reached over, picked up Angela's coffee mug, wiped the splashed-out coffee from the tabletop; Angela took the mug, drank deeply, drained the mug.

She slammed the mug down on the tabletop, made a face like she'd just taken a good slug of pickle juice.

"God, that's awful," she gasped.

"Ya want some more?" Fitz snarled, and Angela thrust the mug at him.

"You're damned right!" she shouted. "I hate firehouse coffee, keep it comin'!"

 

On another world, the big screen behind the Chairman turned off.

A dignified older man in a necktie and a whitecoat turned his swivel chair to face his colleagues.

"And this, gentlemen," he said quietly, "is why we need more schools of medicine, more schools of nursing, and we are desperately in need of schools for Field Paramedicine!"

The vote in favor, was unanimous.

 

Edited June 29 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DEATH RODE AN IRON HORSE

Sarah Lynne McKenna -- briefly, Mrs. Daffyd Llewellyn -- plucked daintily at the fingers of her black gloves.

She sat on the comfortable little couch in the Judge's private car, a widow in full mourning.

Her husband, Daffyd Llewellyn, was not in the ground a week before Sarah heard the rumors.

Her husband, Daffyd Llewellyn, had done what he'd done, back East, as a Cincinnati fireman: in an era when "surround and drown" was the mantra, he chose to follow his Welsh warrior's blood and charge the burning structure, with a hose line if possible, with an ax if not.

He'd fought his way upstairs in the boarding house, the big red-headed Irish fire chief profaning his way in the man's wake: the fire was an inferno below them, the next floor was smoking and started to sag, Daffyd flinched back as the floor -- the only passage to the stairway he'd just ascended -- fell in with a great roaring tornado of living flame, seeking the roof, seeking its vent, spreading along the ceiling, eating blindly at everything it touched..

Daffyd had gotten a smoke-blind, choking woman out, but she turned, barely able to speak -- "My baby," she wheezed, then collapsed: Sean roared for help and an Irishman charged the stairs, seized the woman over his shoulder, packed her outside and to safety and clean air.

Llewellyn sidled along the wall, found the bedroom, fumbled blindly until he found wooden bars and blankets, until he heard the child, crying, in its crib.

He wrapped it in all the blankets in the crib, he kissed the crying infant's forehead and whispered, "We're in for it now!" -- he turned, stepped out of the little windowless room.

He locked eyes with the Chief, then the floor collapsed with a roar and a crackle and the laughter of Hell, yawning to claim as many souls as it possibly could.

The distance was too great to jump.

Daffyd looked left, looked right: he looked at the Chief, and each man saw the knowledge of Death in the other's eyes.

"SEAN!" Daffyd roared. "CATCH!"

He had barely enough room to half-step back, then he threw the wrapped child through the flames.

He saw the infant flying in slow motion, saw the devil's fingers searing the fluff from the soft blanket, saw Sean's hand spread, saw him catch the child just as neat as you please, pull it to his chest.

Daffyd Llewellyn, the Welsh Irishman with the big grin and a booming laugh, husband to the pale eyed Sarah Lynne McKenna, veteran fireman and when necessary a bare knuckle brawler, felt his warrior's blood searing in his veins.

He had one chance.

He fell back, surged forward, leaped, a warrior heading into battle, and as he gathered to leap, he yelled "SAINT FLORIAN!"

When the Irish Brigade found what was left of the man, on overhaul, they carried a rough box into what used to be a boarding house.

A carriage pulled up, and driving the carriage, a pretty young wife, veiled now, wearing widow's black.

No one had summoned her.

No runner carried the alarm, no messenger delivered the fell news: as was not unusual with these women with pale eyes, the knowledge was upon her, and as the long box was carried out at shoulder height, the widow was there to receive it.

Six Irishmen bore their fellow to the dead wagon, and they held for a long moment before they slid the box in: they held as a widow laid her gloved hand on the wood, as she leaned her forehead against the rough box and said goodbye, and then turned, her hand on her belly, where not many nights before, good seed was planted in fertile ground.

She gathered herself and lifted her chin, she marched over and spoke quietly to Digger, who stood with his shining topper in hand to receive her: their quiet-voiced conference concluded, Sarah stepped back into her carriage, brought her shining black mare around, and departed.

 

The whispers were that the fire was set.

The sources were ... persuaded ... to divulge what they knew.

Discreet inquiries were made, proofs were gathered, often times those being interrogated didn't realize they were being interrogated, such was the skill of the Black Agent, and now she sat on the comfortable little couch in the Judge's car, part of the train for Firelands, and waited as the conductor poured water and lit the spirit-lamp to heat water for tea.

Sarah closed her eyes and remembered speaking to the engineer, handing him a cloth bundle, telling him that when they were out of town and on a hard pull, to throw this in the firebox, and he accepted the string-tied cloth roll, handed it to the fireman.

 

A man was found, some time later, dead: no autopsy was conducted, all anyone knew, was he'd been stabbed in the gut.

There was no forensic dissection of the dead man's abdomen to reveal the blade was of a particular length, or of a certain width, that it had been introduced just below the bottom of the breastbone and had migrated upward, and very precisely into the heart, apparently by someone well practiced at the art of murder.

Apparently, at least from witness accounts, the man bumped into a woman, or maybe she bumped into him, nobody was sure, but she continued on her way and the man fumbled at his belly, turned, took a step and fell dead, with the knife still inside him.

The woman was said to be of medium build, with nothing unusual about her, wearing a faded grey dress: she'd turned down an alley and disappeared.

 

The fireman opened the firebox, tossed in a grey cloth bundle, followed this with a shovel of coal, Ames steel singing with the vigor of his toss.

It didn't take long for a faded grey dress to be reduced to smoke and ash.

Sarah Lynne McKenna steeped some dried mint leaves with her oolong, stirred in a few broken-off, crystalline lumps of brown-colored sugar that smelled deliciously of maple and of cinnamon.

When finally they arrived in Firelands again, a pretty woman in widow's black paused long enough to examine herself in the mirror.

She wore full mourning; even the brooch at her throat was black.

She reached behind, unfast the brooch's clasp, removed it, slipped it into a pocket: she withdrew another, with a shining-scarlet, absolutely blood-red ruby mounted in its center.

She fast this in place around her neck.

She thanked the boy for bringing her carriage, and she drove up Graveyard Hill, and drew up in front of a fresh grave.

The widow Llewellyn laid a hand on her belly and whispered to the fresh turned dirt.

"I carry a son," she said softly, "and he shall carry his father's name."

She smiled, just a little, and her eyes hardened and turned pale as she rested a maternal hand on her maternal belly.

"Sleep well, dear husband," she whispered, "you can rest now, for your murder is avenged."

A woman in widow's black, with a brooch the color of fresh blood at her throat, climbed into her carriage, and was gone.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LIGHT WORK

"SHERIFF!"

The shout was loud, commanding, echoing from the false-front buildings.

"SHERIFF, DAMN YOU, GET OUT HERE SO I CAN KILL YOU!"

A window slid open over the ornately-frosted door to the Silver Jewel Saloon.

A pair of shining-blue shotgun barrels eased out the window.

"SHERIFF, I'M A-WAITIN'!"

A tall skinny fellow in a worn shirt and a broke brim hat stood, legs apart, his posture comically awkward -- he was apparently imitating what he'd read in the penny dreadfuls, about how two gunmen would walk down the street toward one another, how they would stop and see who could outdraw who.

A lean young man in a tailored black suit ran his hand over his horse's rump, murmuring quietly so the Appaloosa wouldn't launch a kick at an awkward moment.

He brought his rifle up to shoulder, raised his thumb, fetched the hammer back, lowered his cheek bone down onto smooth Winchester walnut.

The doors to the Silver Jewel opened soundlessly and a pair of shotgun barrels emerged with a white-apron barkeep close behind.

A fashionably-dressed young woman in a shining, polished, pinstriped carriage clucked to her mare, snapped the reins, upped her pace to a good honest trot.

"SHERIFF!"

Sarah Lynne McKenna drove smartly past the little whitewashed Church, past their one room schoolhouse, past the Sheriff's office.

She smiled a little as she passed the red-faced fellow -- he was somewhere between a tall boy and a young man, just old enough to make unbelievably stupid decisions, and young enough to carry them out on impulse -- Sarah looked at Jacob and smiled, just a little, and stood.

She turned, raised her own rifle.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller was puzzling over the dimensions on the barn he planned to have erected.

He'd sketched the structure, he'd calculated how much dirt would have to be dug, how much stone would be required to be cut and laid for a good solid foundation -- he intended to have a good part of the bottom floor dug into the hillside, for protection against winter's cold.

He was concentrating on his work when he heard the first shout.

Go away, you damned drunk, he thought.

If someone wants me they'll come beat on my door.

He laid a straight edge on the sheet of good rag paper, dipped his fine tip steel nip and wiped it carefully on the inside of the ink bottle, prepared to scribe an exact, precise line --

Hoofbeats, comin' right smart.

Who's trottin' a horse in town?

Carefully, precisely, the steel nib laid light and gentle on paper, he drew a straight line, defining the roofline he planned: the stroke was swift, and just as he zipped the pen down the edge of the steel rule and lifted it free, several gunshots sounded at once.

Linn lifted his hand, frowned, then opened the drawer, removed a cloth and wiped his pen: he laid it back in the drawer, stoppered his ink bottle, left the sketch on his desk blotter.

I'd best go see what the hell is goin' on.

Sheriff Linn Keller opened the door a little, looked out.

Movement, above --

Gunbarrels --

Esther's office?

He watched through the three-fingers-wide gap in his barely-opened door as a double gun withdrew, as a window closed, as blue smoke drifted away.

Linn looked down, then up the street.

Why in the hell is fellow just layin' in the street like that?

He looked past, saw Jacob lay his rifle's barrel back over his shoulder, raise a hand in greeting.

Linn opened the door further, saw Sarah McKenna step daintily from her carriage and onto the mounting-block in front of the Mercantile, her rifle over her shoulder the way she often carried her parasol.

Well, hell.

Looks like the excitement's over.

He drew back, considered, shrugged.

Where was I?

Sheriff Linn Keller closed the door, turned, went back to his desk, sat.

He'd just laid out the footprint of the bottom floor of the barn when he heard Jacob's step, Jacob's knuckles on the door.

Jacob came in, closed the door, stood with his Winchester across his arm in front of him, in much the same pose as those skinny Kentucky moonshiners when they had a flint rifle with 'em.

Linn considered the stones he'd had those Italian stonemasons cut for him on another project, made a note on a second sheet, looked up.

"Is all well?" he asked quietly.

Jacob's smile never descended from the corners of his eyes.

"I made my report to Jackson Cooper, sir," Jacob said quietly, then Linn saw the imp of mischief in his sons pale eyes as he added, "We took care of your light work for you."

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 1 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

COTTON BALL, AND A HANDSHAKE

A dignified older man in a tailored grey, military-cut suit, thanked the security officer with a grave courtesy.

He stood, pearl-grey Stetson in hand, and watched as a smiling young woman soothed a scared-eyed child, watched as she adjusted a machine with lights and numbers, with tubing descending from what looked like transparent bags of transparent liquid: she consulted two other machines, then she lay careful fingers against the child's forehead, stroked the hollow, waxy-looking cheeks, for all the world like a loving mother soothing her child after a nightmare.

Nurse Angela looked up at the Ambassador, raised a finger -- A minute, please -- he nodded, once, carefully, doing his best to blend into the wall behind him, knowing he was very much out of place here in an Earth-hospital's, children's ward.

Angela tucked the covers around her young charge's chin, winked, then turned to a plastic-covered keyboard: a quick flurry of fingers and she entered her charting, then she turned, stripped off her gloves, dropped them in the trash can and stepped on the floor mounted sink valve.

Even her nurse's handwashing was both quick and efficient, and absolutely feminine.

Angela came over to the Ambassador, took his arm.

"I'm due for a break," she smiled. "Join me?"

 

Angela Keller looked around at her solemn-faced, attentive students: the patient was lethargic, obviously unwell: the subject of their training that day was the hands-on phase of post-operative wound care.

For a rarity, this post-op wound was infected -- fortunately, the infection was yet small, confined to the surface -- Angela coached one student through wound culturing, gathering material on the sterile swabs, placing them in the transport vial, the student noted the necessary particulars on the adhesive label, it was placed in the refrigerated carryall for transport to lab.

Angela's quick ear picked up a commotion in the hallway.

The door was shoved open -- a wild-eyed woman with a scalpel in her fist looked around, screamed "STAY AWAY FROM ME!" and grabbed a startled nursing student, put the blade to her throat.

Angela's move was fast and unexpected.

Her hand snatched at the instrument tray, drew back, snapped out as if she were slinging a Frisbee.

It wasn't a flying disc.

Angela was around the bed, she grabbed the suddenly-released student, threw her into her classmates -- Angela brought one leg up to her belly, drove her thick crepe sole into the screaming woman's gut and  folded her in two with the full-wartime-emergency, adrenaline-fueled side-snap-kick.

Angela's leg came down, she spun, graceful as if she were dancing, and in a way, she was: she'd practiced this dance step many times, though always in private, and with a heavy bag for a dance partner.

Her foot came down, she came around, the woman hit the wall, a hypodermic syringe hub-deep in her eye: Angela finished her spin, drove another kick hard into the woman's gut, knocking every bit of wind, and all the insane fight, out of her.

Angela's teeth were bared, her eyes were pale, she seized the woman's shoulders, slammed her down to the floor, dropped her knees into her ribs, then onto her upper arms.

Angela's voice was tight, controlled, as she instructed her shocked, staring students.

"Betsy, were you cut?" she asked: Betsy's eyes were wide, scared, and she shook her head.

"Good. Roll gauze."

Angela thrust out her hand, palm-up.

"We have a penetrating eye injury here. We have to stablilize the penetration" -- she unscrewed the loaded syringe from the needle -- "we do this by bandaging both eyes. Give me that paper cup."

Angela's fingers were swift, sure: she'd cold cocked the crazy woman.

Habit prompted her to bring her bent wrist to her lips.

"Firelands Dispatch, this is Angel One, I need backup, tango down, code strong."

 

The hospital's director looked up, startled, as his door SLAMMED open and a pale eyed nurse stormed in.

He rose, frowning: "JUST ONE MINUTE,YOUNG LADY YOU CAN'T JUST --"

Angela seized him by his necktie and dragged him across his desk, bringing most of the desktop contents with him.

She grabbed him by throat and crotch, she SLAMMED him to the floor, she stood over him, her face the color of sun bleached parchment, her eyes as kind and gentle as the polished heart of a high mountain glacier.

Angela Keller, nurse, healer, teacher, was clearly not happy.

"Mister Smith," she said her voice cold, "I understand you abolished our security section."

Smith tried to growl something, tried to roll over and come off the floor, an Angela drove her knees into his shoulders and pinned him down.

She held up a scalpel.

"Your recognize this," she said quietly. "We use these to cut people open."

She lowered it to his throat.

"You abolished our security section. We have no security in case things go bad."

"You're fired," he wheezed, and Angela pressed the blade against his neck -- the side of the blade, not the edge -- Smith's eyes widened as she leaned down a little.

She pulled a black wallet from somewhere, dropped it open to reveal a six pointed star.

"At this time I identify myself as a law enforcement officer," she said, her voice edged with equal amounts of authority and suppressed fury. "A patient took this very scalpel and tried to cut one of my students' throats, because we did not have security officers to watch a known violent patient."

Smith heard voices outside, then he looked up at a man in a tan uniform, a shotgun in both hands and an irritated look about him.

"Mister Smith, you are under arrest. The charge is resisting the lawful order of a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest without violence, negligence resulting in assault and accessory to assault with a deadly weapon. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

"You can't do this!"

"Diplomatic credentials," Angela snapped.  "You will be prosecuted according to our laws, unless you prefer to be prosecuted here, but I guarantee, little man" -- her smile was not pleasant -- "your tenure with this facility is at an end."

She looked up at the pale eyed Sheriff with the iron grey mustache.

"Can I borrow your cuffs, Daddy? I don't have anywhere to carry them in this dress."

 

The Ambassador leaned against the fence, his arms folded over the top rail and the saddleblanket that kept him from dirtying his coatsleeves: he had a polished boot up on the bottom rail, and he watched with open admiration as a young woman rode a shining-black mare.

She saw him watching, and rode over.

"Mister Ambassador."

"Madam Nurse."

Angela laughed.  "You make it sound like I'm running a whorehouse!"

The Ambassador laughed.  "Not my first blunder," he admitted, "and likely not my last!"

Angela smiled, crossed her forearms over her saddle horn, leaned over a little:  "Mister Ambassador," she said softly, "you're not supposed to imitate my bad examples!"

The Ambassador laughed, nodded, looked up at her.

"She's gorgeous," he murmured.

"She's nowhere near grown, either," Angela said, caressing the long-maned Frisian's neck. "When she gets her full height, you won't be able to look over her back without a stool!"

The Ambassador whistled his admiration.

"This is Cottonball, out of Snowflake.  Her mother was just as pure a white."

The Ambassador raised an eyebrow, considered the shining-black mare, and realized he was having his leg pulled yet again.

He took this as a good sign.

"You'll remember I asked you to consider returning."

"I remember."

"You asked for time to sleep on it."

"Daddy taught me at a tender age to sleep on any important decision."

"Your Daddy is a wise man."  

The Ambassador paused, waiting as Angela considered.

"They want me back? After treating Mr. Smith the way I did?"

Angela shook her head. "As long as he's a part of that hospital, I'll have nothing to do with it."

"He's been fired."

Angela nodded.  "Good."

 

Angela, as a child, used to accompany her mother and her older sister to the quilting sessions of the Ladies' Tea Society.

Angela, like any child, had a short attention span.

Angela saw her sister Marnie smile, just a little, and her spirits lifted: that meant Marnie was going to get in trouble, and Angela was all for aiding and abetting anything Marnie did.

Marnie picked up a particular heavy sewing needle, held it so Angela could see it, nodded.

Angela looked at the selection, chose one of the same.

The ladies looked to the other side of the room as someone spoke, and when they looked away, Marnie slung her arm out, snapped it out, and her needle drove into the wall and stuck.

Angela's eyes glowed.

It took her some time, but she, too, learned to throw a sewing needle.

Marnie showed her the entries in her Gammaw's archives, those notes and letters where Sarah McKenna confided in someone about learning to throw spike nails, railroad spikes and sewing needles.

When time came to give injections to their livestock, the used syringes were repurposed: her Daddy and Jacob used them for precision oiling, and Marnie used them for weapons, filling the barrel with water for weight and throwing them at straw filled dummies.

When Angela needed to stop someone from cutting her student's throat, giving a syringe an accurate throw was neither a one-off, nor was it a fluke.

There was something to be said, after all, by joining a group of women who gathered to do their needling.

 

"Mr. Smith is no longer with the facility, and the facility is most grateful to you for keeping your student from harm," the Ambassador said. "The review was held and you were exonerated, and they asked me to try and talk you into returning."

"Full diplomatic credentials and authority, same as before?"

"Same as before."

Angela turned her Cottonball-mare, sidled her up against the fence, stuck out her hand.

"I'll take it."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I'M ONLY GOING TO TEACH

Sheriff Jacob Keller was restless.

Jacob's wife Ruth smiled at her husband as she rocked and knitted.

Ruth supervised the construction of the elevated garden beds in a new section of the caverns, an area that had been mined out, an area with soaring arches to hold up the planet overhead: this deep, they were proof against hostile radiation with no further protection needed.

Their living quarters had layers of protective fields -- solar mass ejections occasionally, rarely, but historically had, reached as far as the Red Planet: human kidneys were especially susceptible to radiation damage, and Ruth's kidneys worked fine, thank you very much, and she intended to keep them in that same condition.

To that end, Ruth chose prevention over treatment: she remained in those areas with Earth-normal gravity -- she'd told her pale eyed husband, "I watched my father suffer terribly from kidney stones, and I wish to have nothing to do with them!" -- and Jacob, remembering that Dr. Greenlees warned that the low, Mars-normal gravity meant calcium left the bones, entered the blood and gathered in the kidneys, quietly shared his beautiful bride's sentiments.

Jacob was prowling, pacing, frowning a little, until he felt his wife's eyes on him.

"My dear," she said gently, "perhaps you'd like something to settle your nerves. A gallon of strong coffee, perhaps."

Jacob stopped: try as he might, his poker face failed him: Ruth saw his shoulders shiver a little, then he gave up and laughed, gently, nodded.

He came over, bent, kissed his wife gently, carefully, the way he always did.

Ruth looked at him with knowing eyes and murmured, "My dear, one would think you are the one with child! You're prowling like a restless cat!"

"Something's wrong," Jacob said softly. "I don't know what and I don't know where, but something's wrong!"

Ruth laid her knitting in her lap, took her husband's face between her hands: he steadied himself on the arm of her rocker as he knelt, and the two looked into one another's eyes for a long moment.

"I trust you," Ruth whispered. "If you feel something is wrong, then it is. My mother --"

She stopped, bit her bottom lip, dropped her eyes.

Jacob took her hand between both of his.

"Your mother," he said softly, "is a Wise Woman. My Gammaw had the Second Sight. Pa said he couldn't get away with anything!" -- Jacob's grin was sudden, bright, youthful.

Jacob's eyes dropped to his wife's still-flat belly.

"I'm trying to think of something intelligent to say," he whispered, and Ruth took care of the matter for him.

She leaned forward and kissed him again.

 

Marnie Keller laid a hand on her belly, wobbled her other hand to the nearest wall, staggered to the latrine, groaned.

She lost her breakfast twice that morning already: she drank water, more than she wanted, mostly so she'd have something to throw up when the sickness hit her again.

"It's a boy," she groaned. "It's got to be a boy. Mama said she never got sick with her girls!"

 

Angela Keller's head came up.

Her mouth was dry and she felt her gut tighten.

"No," she whispered.  "Not again, please God not again!"

She listened to the emergency alert, broadcast hospital-wide: disaster in progress, casualties expected, mass casualty protocol was now in effect.

Her students were already trained to emergency-basic level.

Angela's nursing students responded as they'd been trained, as they'd drilled, as they'd practiced.

Pretty young nursing students shucked their white dresses and climbed into serviceable coveralls, spun stethoscopes around their necks and slung the crosspacks over one shoulder and across their bodies, and reported to the designated response points.

I'm only going to teach, I'm only going to teach, I'm only going to teach, Angela thought, until her teeth clenched together, hard, and she stood suddenly, hands fisted.

She slid a hand inside her waist opening, pressed a sequence of buttons, disappeared.

 

Fitz blinked, looked at the equipment cupboard.

Why is that door open?

Why is there a horse in my firehouse?

A hand appeared around the edge of the cupboard's door, swung it shut.

Angela Keller, in her immaculate nurse's uniform and an embroidered pair of white cowboy boots, stood with a Halligan tool in one hand and a fire ax in the other.

"If I don't survive, bill my estate," she almost shouted: she set the tools on the table, reached inside the waist of her dress.

Fitz wasn't sure quite what she was doing: he set down his coffee, came down the three steps from the mess deck to apparatus level.

Angela pulled what looked like a wrestler's belt from inside her uniform dress -- it was thinner, almost rectangular -- Fitz stopped, puzzled, as Angela worked a release of some kind, and the plate fell in two: instead of a single plate, it was now two plates, each half the thickness of the other.

She buckled the first one around her waist, on the outside of her dress, not bothering to hide it under immaculate white cloth.

The other she shoved into a saddlebag.

It was too big to be stable, so she drove a hand into the warbag, came out with a silver roll of all purpose, fix-anything tape: a few turns, and she secured it -- she stuffed the tape back into her saddlebag and glared at the Chief.

"I know it looks awful," she said, "but it works!"

Angela picked up the Halligan and the ax, stepped up on a convenient, folding metal chair, shoved an ornately-stitched, immaculate, white, cowboy boot into the doghouse stirrup, swung easily into the saddle.

She looked squarely at Fitz, a war-goddess in white, a weapon in each hand, and then horse and rider ...

... disappeared.

 

I want a custom plate, she'd told the Ordnance Department's chief.

I want something that will protect my horse as well as myself.

As long as you're on the horse it will be protected.

What about dismount?

Tell you what, the ordnance chief told her: wear this.

Press this release -- here, and here -- now it's two plates. 

As long as one plate is on the horse, the horse is as completely protected as you.

 

Angela emerged from a drift of thick smoke, Cottonball's hooves loud on pavement.

She swung a leg up, dropped an incredible distance, landed flat-footed, ax in one hand, Halligan in the other.

Angela drove her Halligan into a gap, extended the handle for leverage, threw her weight against it.

Metal groaned, cracked: she worked the Halligan deeper into the gap, pried again: a third time and the latch surrendered, the door surrendered to her vicious pull, then the shove.

Angela looked at scared young eyes looking back at her.

"Hi, I'm Angela," she said. "I'll bet you'd like to get out of there."

 

The first patients arrived at the hospital horseback, instead of by ambulance.

Three shivering children, two girls and a boy, were helped down from the Frisian's shining back: more hands grasped the woman, bent over the saddle, her face and one eye bandaged.

Angela gave a succinct report, led Snowflake to the side, where she could climb up on a low wall.

She shoved a white cowboy boot into the doghouse stirrup, slid a hand into her waist opening, keyed a transport sequence, disappeared.

 

Chief Charles Fitzgerald looked up at the summoning knock on his door.

A tired looking nurse slumped her shoulder over into the door frame.

"I cleaned up your tools," she said, "and hung 'em back where they belong."

Fitz looked at her and snapped, "Don't be takin' my tools without askin'!"

"WELL PARDON ME ALL TO HELL!" Angela shouted back.

 

Fitz and the Sheriff sat in the Sheriff's Office conference room, each man leaned back in his chair, contemplating the eternal secrets hidden in the depths of a steaming mug of fragrant, hot coffee.

"Sheriff," Fitz said quietly, "I wanted t' talk t' you ... privately."

Linn nodded, slowly.

"It's Angela."

Linn nodded, again, slowly.

"She ..."

Fitz frowned, leaned forward.

"You might think I'm crazy," he said quietly, "but Angela appeared -- just poof! -- appeared -- in m' firehouse, she took a couple tools from the equipment cupboard and poof! disappeared."

Linn nodded, again, slowly.

"She showed up later in th' day an' said she'd cleaned up m' tools and put 'em away and then poof! Gone again!"

The Sheriff nodded, slowly.

Fitz rubbed his face with his free hand, picked up his mug, took a noisy slurp.

Linn knew this was the move of a man who needed a moment's normalcy, who needed the reassurance that something was as it should be.

Fitz looked at the Sheriff.

"I've not made any record of it and there's no video record of it happenin'."

"Good," Linn said quietly.  "Keep it that way."

"Sheriff," Fitz said carefully, "is there somethin' I should know?"

Linn considered for a long moment, frowned at the wall behind the Fire Chief.

He sat up, drained his coffee, set the mug down, a decision made.

"Yes there is," he said. "Jacob is Sheriff on Mars. Marnie was the Ambassador for the Thirteen Star System Confederacy, she's not Sheriff anymore, and she's expecting, so she's retired. Angela is the most famous medical face in the Thirteen Star Systems. They have interdimensional travel, weapons that can evaporate a planet, crush a star into an infinitesimal spot of gravity, they can tear matter apart at the subatomic level and reassemble it into whatever elements or compounds they need. Angela wears an interdimensional transporter and what you saw is not known to any Earth government. Angela carries diplomatic credentials for the Confederacy and is quite literally untouchable by any Earth authority.

"There's also this."

He opened a file folder, pulled out two sheets, slid it over to the Fire Chief.

It was a child's drawing -- crude, but recognizable.

One showed a figure with a triangle for a skirt, sticks for legs, with tall white boots and a white cap with wings (complete with birdfeather scallops) -- the figure had white eyes and a smile and was holding an ax and a curved stick.

The second sheet had the woman with the triangle skirt and white boots, at the head of a crude black horse, and three stick figure children aboard, with something laid over the saddle.

"That," Linn said, "is where your tools went. Angela needed them for extrication."

"Extrication," Fitz said slowly.

He frowned.

"Sheriff," he said, "ye forget we're already advisin' on fire fightin' apparatus an' procedures. We've been trainin' new faces, Confederate faces from yer thirteen star systems.

"Yer wife's teachin' right here in th' firehouse, teachin' classes from yer thirteen star systems. Now don't go tellin' me --"

"Fitz --" Linn began, and the Fire Chief cut him off.

"She's one of us, Linn," Fitz hissed, hooking a stiff thumb at his breastbone. "One of us!  She's a medic and a damned good one!"

Fitz shoved an accusing finger at the Sheriff.

"You know and I know the fastest way t' get int' trouble is to go chargin' in and find you're overmatched!"

Fitz's jaw muscles were bulging, his forehead was frown-wrinkled and his voice was dead serious.

"I mean this, Linn.  If she needs t' borrow tools like that, she needs the rescue and a crew t' go with it!"

Fitz paused, breathing deeply:  he looked away, looked back.

"Dammit, Linn, I know what it is t' bury a child! I buried my little girl!"

Fitz hissed his words from between clenched teeth.

"I don't want t' bury Angela too!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 1 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A BETTER SERMON

Come Sunday, it felt like most of the county was in their little whitewashed church.

Hymns were sung with vigor, with enthusiasm, not entirely in tune but with heartfelt sincerity, in accordance with the Scriptural admonition to "make a joyful noise unto the Lord."

Weddings were community affairs, entire families attended these as well: a crying child at a wedding invariably got a laugh from the Irish Brigade and a most hearty "A crying child bring luck to the marriage!" from the Parson.

Their sky pilot, the good Reverend Burnett, did his best to preach the Word, and to bear witness as befit his faith, but sometimes the Parson stopped talking.

He'd just stood up to the pulpit, turned to the marked passage in his soft-from-long-wear Scripture, when his head came up -- there was the sound of a wagon bolt being beat hard and mercilessly and with the speed and vigor that spoke of honest fear, and the Parson used the deep breath he'd taken to begin his sermon to shout, "IRISH BRIGADE! GET OUT! ESTHER! TAKE OVER!"

Esther Keller, the Sheriff's wife, stood, spun, put two fingers to her lips and whistled, high, shrill, unladylike:  "LADIES' TEA SOCIETY, WITH DAISY! RUNNERS! BLAZE BOYS WITH ME! SCOTT, THOMAS, ZACHARIAH AND PETER, WITH THE IRISH BRIGADE, PETER REPORT TO DAISY AND THOMAS TO THE SHERIFF! MOVE!"

The congregation, on its feet now, shifted to allow swift, energetic boys to depart the church at an honest run, leaping from the little porch to the street below: Linn looked at Jacob, nodded.

Jacob returned the nod, quietly, efficiently, gathered the youngest: he'd be needed to ride herd on the young, for when families came to church, the entire family attended, and when the adults were needed, child care was already delegated.

Sarah was gone already: Bonnie, distressed, flowed with the rest of the congregation out the doors as the Parson bowed his head and implored the Almighty ride with those who ran, and those for whom they ran -- then he, too, quit his station in their little whitewashed Church: he passed through the short passage and into the Parsonage, where his wife was already loading supplies set back for that purpose into two sizable woven baskets.

Reports from fleet young messengers determined whether the Ladies' Tea Society would prepare food in Daisy's kitchen there in the Silver Jewel, and transport prepared meals, or whether they would mobilize wagons, equipment, supplies and enough hands to set up a mobile field kitchen.

In this effort, Daisy was Queen of all she surveyed, she was efficient, she was fair, and she was intolerant of stupidity, but she was just as quick to praise: when one of the Blaze Boys, who'd made his fourth running trip to report developments, Daisy seized the lad, her hands firm on either side of his face, she kissed him soundly on the forehead and then set her nose close to his and murmured, "It's a fine job ye're doin'," and she was ready to swear later his grin ran twice around his head and was as bright as sunrise that morning.

Sean came up to the Sheriff and the Parson, tired, hot, sweating, the way a man is after a working fire -- fighting fire is nothing short of hard, dirty, just plain work! -- but like most of his profession, Sean reveled in his exhaustion, and pushed himself with no mercy at all when it came to fighting the Beast.

He turned so the pair could see a woman sobbing into her husband's chest, but not for grief or for loss, but with relief: the only thing she'd hoped to save from the burnt out house was their wedding quilt, and what jewelry her grandmother bequeathed her, and both were saved.

As they watched, another Irishman came out from the overhaul, brushing dirt off something else.

"The family Bible," Linn murmured.

"Aye," Sean nodded.  "I've seen it b'fore.  The Book don't burn!"

WJ Garrison nodded from behind them.

"Let me know what they need," he said. "I'll help as much as I can."

Linn nodded: the proprietor of their Mercantile was known as a generous man, and carried a surprising number of residents on his books. He'd known hard times and he'd known the unexpected generosity that meant so very much when he'd had so very little.

"Nobody's spoken for the rental houses I had built," Linn said softly. "I reckon the bigger of the two just might come in handy."

Sean's hand rested on his old friend's shoulder for a moment, then he strode forward to lend a hand with overhaul.

 

Church was spontaneously reconvened that evening.

The Parson looked at his congregation, looked down at young Sarah McKenna and the fat, black, curly furred pup at her feet.

If you can call a creature the size of a young cub a "pup."

The Parson stopped, stepped from behind the pulpit, bent forward a little and took a deliberate, very exaggerated look at Sarah's Twain Dawg.

The Parson looked at Twain Dawg, stretched out on his back, all four paws in the air, sound asleep.

The Parson looked at Twain Dawg, looked at his congregation, looked back at Twain Dawg, then blinked and stepped back behind his pulpit.

"I had a fine sermon ready for this morning," he said, "but Twain Dawg reminds me that you don't need to hear it. You have all, every last one of you, lived a better sermon today than I could ever deliver from up here."

 

 

Edited July 2 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ALL RIGHT, WHO'S NEXT?

Linn's stallion had no problem with the weight.

He had a second set of boots behind him.

Good high grade boots they were, too.

The Sheriff well knew the value of a shekel, and he demanded the best quality saddles, the best quality boots, the best quality tools -- he knew buying cheap was a false economy, but that was not an unusual mindset of the day.

The good, high grade, embroidered stovepipe boots were wearing an eight year old grandson, and the grandson had both a look of happy anticipation, and a good hold on Grampa's gunbelt.

Grampa had a skyrocket -- one, single, Chinese made, hand rolled, pointy-nosed, bamboo-sticked, scarlet-red-paper-wrapped skyrocket, hung over a picture in his study, waiting for the glorious Fourth, and every time his grandson saw it, he remembered his Grampa's promise.

"We'll set that one off together," Linn said solemnly, and then winked, and when Grampa winked, that meant they had something between the two of them, and it went no further -- like when Grampa set down in the Silver Jewel with his grandson across from him, back at Grampa's table in the corner, and they had pie before supper, and ol' Grampa winked and said, "Don't tell your Mama I spoilt your supper," and Joseph winked back, or tried to: he was young enough he screwed one eye shut and the other one kind of followed suit, as is common with the very young, but it was okay 'cause ol' Gramapa laughed and said, "Two for the price of one!"

The stallion's tread was sure on the rocky path; it was a familiar trail to the shining-gold Palomino, it was familiar to the Sheriff, it was almost familiar to his grandson, who was busy looking down over the edge of the trail, looking dizzyingly down as the mountain fell away from his young eyes.

"Joseph," Linn asked quietly, turning his head a little, "do you reckon we're high enough here?"

Joseph swallowed uncertainly, then he hazarded a quiet "I reckon so," and he felt as much as saw his Grampa's head nod, just a little.

"I reckon you're right," he said. "Now let's find us a good place to fire this thing."

Joseph did not dare shift, not even a little bit.

The precious skyrocket was in his Grampa's grip, carried sideways across his flat belly.

That wasn't why Joseph did not dare shift in his seat.

There were other skyrockets, other fireworks in the saddlebags behind him, and he durst not move, lest he disturb a young forest of bamboo sticks bristling up from Grampa's warbags.

Linn sidled his stallion up against a handy rock that seemed made for the purpose -- "Joseph, step off onto this rock," he said, then he reached behind, slung the saddlebags of his shoulder and dismounted as well.

Linn stopped, looked at Rey del Sol.

The horse looked back at him.

Linn looked at Joseph.

Linn's horse looked at Joseph.

Linn looked at his horse again.

Linn's horse looked at him again.

Linn pulled out a plug of molasses twist tobacker, and the stallion's ears came forward -- his lips fluttered, he was clearly interested.

"Joseph," Linn said, "could you help me with this?"

Joseph grinned as Linn shaved thick curls off the tough plug, dropping them neatly into Joseph's upturned palms.

Linn's genuine Barlow knife snapped shut with a sharp, metallic sound; he thrust it back into one of his several vest pockets.

The skyrocket -- that one precious, oft-desired skyrocket -- lay on the rock beside the lean lawman's shoulder.

Linn looked around, frowning a little, studying: he nodded, as if he'd made a discovery.

Joseph looked back and forth -- he wanted to see what his Grampa was seeing, but he wanted to see his Grampa's expressions.

"Let's take a look at this," Linn said thoughtfully, walked around the big rock a little.

Joseph followed.

Linn stopped, hunkered, pulled a smaller skyrocket from his forward saddlebag.

"Joseph," he said, "which way is Firelands from here?"

"That way, sir," Joseph said, thrusting out a young arm.

"Just so," Linn agreed. "Now let's see which way this crack runs."

Joseph looked closely at what his Grampa was doing.

"Now ... if we run the stick down like this ... we don't want too much drag to slow it down."

"No, sir."

"It can't be too shallow or it won't fly up, it might flop over and come after one of us."

"Yes, sir."

"Reckon you could outrun one of these, Joseph?" Linn grinned, and Joseph's heart soared to see it, for it was not often that his Grampa, this feared lawman with an iron grey mustache, let slip his professionally impassive mask.

"I don't think so, sir."

"I know I couldn't," Linn grunted. "There. Now let's light us a punk."

"Yes, sir," Joseph breathed, his chest tightening with excitement.

Linn fired the punk, blew on it until it glowed brightly.

He looked back at Joseph, who was doing a good job of looking like he was containing himself.

Linn remembered what it was to be young, and for a moment he felt his grandson's contagious delight.

Smoldering punk tasted the twisted paper fuse, sizzled, hissed: Joseph's eyes were big, his breath stilled in his throat, as sparkling fires ate their way up into the red tube, he started to breathe again as the skyrocket hissed -- sudden and harsh and vicious, like a snake gone mad -- then it was gone, sparkling, bright, arcing out over the mountain.

An old man, and a young boy, watched as the first Fourth of July skyrocket soared into the dark Colorado sky, as it burst in a spray of burning red balls.

Linn looked at his grandson and laughed at the lad's expression of unmitigated delight.

He picked up another skyrocket, slid the stick into the crack in the rock, held out the punk.

"You light this one."

 

An old man with pale eyes watched soaring balls of sparkling silver as they incised bright lines across the nighttime sky.

He watched big bursts of colored fires, of sudden, bright concussions, of trailing, twisting, crackling silvery spirals and the other incendiary inventions launched from what used to be a corral in beautiful downtown Firelands.

He closed his eyes and smiled a little, then he picked up a red skyrocket he'd been saving.

His grandson was dead, killed in that damned War over in Europe.

He looked at the paper wrapped missile.

His eyes were going bad, the way an old man's eyes will, but he knew -- there on the side -- a name, drawn in good India ink, in the Sheriff's own handwriting.

Joseph.

The Sheriff looked to his left, to his right.

Grandchildren stood with him, their attention divided by the fireworks driving skyward from the old corral, but their Grampa had set two boards together and now he was setting skyrockets in the gap between the boards.

Young eyes watched with eager impatience as an old man's fingers pulled the fuses toward him, as he struck a Lucifer match and lit a punk, blew on it, bringing it to a bright, fiery red.

Each of the children had put their name on a skyrocket.

Grampa's skyrocket was first.

An old man with pale eyes touched his glowing punk to the first fuse.

Smoldering punk tasted the twisted paper fuse, sizzled, hissed; sparkling fires ate their way up into the red tube.

An old man watched the first of his skyrockets sear a blazing red line against the night sky, as several grandchildren jumped up and down and squealed with happy excitement.

Linn waited until the rocket arched over, until it burst in a blazing red chandelier.

"All right!" he declared happily, holding up the smoldering punk, "who's next?"

 

 

 

Edited July 4 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ASK DADDY HOW HE DOES IT

Angela Keller, in her immaculate, tailored, nurse's uniform and winged cap, projected herself with a ladylike posture, a graceful and purposeful walk, an efficiency of motion and directness of speech that well befit the popular image of Nurse, of Healer.

Whether she stood, or sat, she was the very image of propriety, of very correct posture.

It was significant, then, when Marnie saw her sitting, legs spread, holding a trash can between her knees, her head hung miserably over the grey-metal can, groaning.

Angela did not look up as she heard water running, as she heard a washcloth being crushed in an impatient fist: she raised her head and let her sister wipe her face, carefully, with the expression of a mother caring for her own young.

"How do you do it?" Angela gasped.

Marnie rose, went to the dispenser, came back with a shimmering glass of something water clear.

"Drink."

Angela did.

She slugged down a tall, heavy glass of cold water with just a little twist of lemon.

It hit bottom and came roaring back up, and Angela managed to shove her face into the can, just in time

Marnie pulled up a chair, sat: she took the can, held it.

Angela raised her hands to her head, pressed her palms against her temples, groaned.

"Hangover?" Marnie asked with her usual unsympathetic directness.

Angela lowered her hands, swallowed: Marnie took her empty glass -- Angela had no idea how she'd done it, but she had another glass of water in hand -- Angela sipped, took a bigger sip, tried to get the taste out of her mouth, swallowed.

"Take it slow," Marnie said. "Let your stomach get used to the idea."

"How do you do it?" Angela gasped.

"Do what?"

"You know."

Marnie reached for her sister's face, cupped gentle fingers under her chin, lifted.

"I don't read minds," she whispered.

"You went into that garage. Hermey's garage, the one that blew up and you started CPR and got him out just before it collapsed."

Marnie blinked, waited.

"You kept a man alive after he fell and ran a rebar through his throat, you've been on wrecks that looked like a slaughterhouse, you've --"

Angela closed her eyes, swallowed hard.

"And you've seen worse," Marnie said quietly.

"I never wanted to," Angela whispered.

"You chose to."

"I don't want to see all that anymore. I don't want to smell it, Marnie, I don't want to --"

Angela looked up, misery in her eyes and sorrow in her voice.

"Marnie, I can't help it, I'm needed and I run to it, I RUN to it, and I don't want to, Marnie, I don't --"

Marnie waited.

"I don't know what to do," Angela squeaked.

"I know exactly what to do," Marnie said decisively: she set the trash can aside, took her sister under the arms, stood.

Angela was surprised that Marnie actually picked her up, picked up her full weight -- my God, I didn't know you were that strong! -- Marnie tilted her head a little:  "Legs under you, now, can you stand? -- good, now step over here and wash your face.  Cold water. Fresh washcloths above the sink and to the right, towels just below."

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller grabbed the beam, twisted under it, got his shoulder under heavy steel: jaw clenched, he shoved hard against the I-beam, looked at the engineer, nodded.

Hydraulics whined and Jacob shoved the I-beam into position.

The engineer stopped the pump, opened the needle valve to bleed the pressure, pulled the piston out from under: his face was the color of putty as he looked at the Sheriff.

"If you hadn't been there," he said haltingly, "I'd have --"

"You'd be dead and I'd have paperwork," Jacob said firmly: he turned, gripped the engineer's shoulders.

"Mikhail, you're damned good at what you do. I can't afford to lose you. I've seen what happens when a man's killed in a roof fall" -- Jacob's eyes unfocused momentarily as the memory came roaring back in full living color, as he smelled and he saw and he heard a moment he tried hard to forget.

Sheriff Jacob Keller closed his eyes, took a long breath, then looked at the engineer again.

"I don't have that many friends," Jacob said quietly, "and I can't afford to lose one!"

 

"Marnie, I don't know if I can do this anymore."

Marnie waited while her sister closed her eyes, leaned her shoulder into the wall, bit her bottom lip.

"They've seen me go into a disaster and bring order out of chaos. They've seen me grab a shredded and bloodied arm and stop the bleeding. I'm televised over thirteen star systems, Marnie" -- she looked at her sister with a helpless expression -- "Marnie, I'm a goddess, at least to her them tell it, but I'm not God, I'm just me --"

Angela brought the back of her hand to her mouth, bit her knuckles, closed her eyes, shivered, looked at her composed, dignified, strong and collected big sister.

"Marnie, how do I handle this?"

Marnie stepped up to her sister, took her by the elbows, looked very directly through long, curled lashes, and said quietly, "Ask Daddy how he does it."

 

Sheriff Linn Keller went into a room he'd had built onto the back of the house.

It was a sizable room, built to his specifications: its poured-concrete floor formed the ceiling of a new section of basement.

Sheriff Linn Keller did not formally forbid his family from entering, but he never invited them in, and when he entered, he entered alone, and shut the door carefully behind him.

Nobody heard anything when he went into the room, and that was intentional.

He'd designed and had built an exceedingly, utterly, very completely soundproofed, room.

His family noticed that when he'd had a particularly bad day, when he'd had a day that would blast the eyes from a normal man, one that would bleach every sense of sanity from a normal mind, the Sheriff would spend time with his horses, or he'd busy himself with ranch work, or he'd retire into this room, and stay there for a while.

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller picked up the turned-hickory riot baton, ran his thumb through the lanyard and ran it over the back of his hand, then he faced the practice golem and said, "Activate."

Sheriff Jacob Keller looked with pale eyes at the fighting golem, at this robotic opponent his sister used to bust, damage, destroy, shred and otherwise disassemble in less than gentle fashion.

He looked at the golem with pale eyes, and he felt his blood chill several degrees as he projected all the rage, all the fear, all the stress, all the terror and helplessness that skulked about the hidden corners of his memory.

Sheriff Jacob Keller drove into an absolutely murderous attack on a man-sized, computer-driven practice dummy.

The Sheriff's practice room was sound proofed, and a good thing it was.

The sight of a pale eyed lawman with absolute murderous RAGE blazing from his face, moving with the speed and efficiency of a man who knew what it was to kill, with bare hands and with blunt tools, was frightening enough.

To hear such a man scream with a voice well beyond that murderous rage that he felt, is absolutely guaranteed to drive a spike of solid ice clear through a strong man's beating heart!

 

Sheriff Linn Keller turned on the sound system, smiled just a little as he keyed up his favorite playlist.

He was naked to the waist and he held two cast iron dumbbells with hexagonal heads, each one with 35 LB cast into the ends.

They'd been his mother's.

He'd had the room soundproofed.

He did not want his family to hear anything he did in this room.

The Sheriff looked at a framed portrait, a framed image in full color: Sheriff Willamina Keller, in her trademark, tailored blue suit dress and heels: she stood regally, she was looking directly at the camera, he chin down a little, as if to invite the viewer to step closer, if he dared, or as if she were ready to reach out and seize the viewer by the throat, all with that quiet smile of hers.

He swung the dumbbells, he curled the cast iron weights, then he squatted, planted them on the painted concrete floor, thrust out into push-up position, waited.

He'd had an impressive speaker system installed.

He dropped his head as the music started, as the deep, powerful pioneering notes from the largest flutes of an honest-to-God pipe organ, reached into his chest and sang, almost too deep a note to be heard.

He never saw the Iris that opened.

Angela squinted as "In the Hall of the Mountain King" blasted against her, a full-frontal attack: she took a half-step back, until she felt Marnie's hand between her shoulder blades.

Angela watched as Linn drove down between the cast iron dumbbells he used as push-up handles.

He was merciless, he was brutal: his two daughters watched as the Sheriff pushed himself, punished himself, as he drove through fatigue and through pain and through anger and through the many times he'd wished he could just put his fist through a face or a situation and put an end to it, and couldn't, because he was the SHERIFF and no matter what someone said to your face, you couldn't give them a good face full of knuckles --

He drove himself precisely, rigidly, in time with the powerful notes, driving DOWN and back UP and again and again, he worked himself into a sweat: he paused at full, quivering extension, as one song ended and another began.

The music he chose was powerful, loud, angry, the kind a man listens to when he's mad as HELL and he wants to seize and rend and break and DESTROY!

They watched as their Daddy, his body rigid, drove DOWN and UP, knuckles white with the effort: they could not hear it, but they knew every time he came UP, he grunted, just a little: he did that when he was tired, and they knew they would not hear it for the music.

They watched their Daddy come back up to full stand, then he gathered his legs under him and launched from a crouch, toward the heavy bag hanging from its stand in the middle of the room.

His yell was loud, powerful, enraged: he charged the bag, he attacked the bag, he just plainly exploded on that bag: boot heels, elbows, fists, chops, if fury and rage and distilled anger ever had a physical manifestation, this was it.

Had her long tall Daddy unloaded on a living human, he would have murdered it twice over.

At least twice over.

Marnie's hand closed on her sister's forearm and they stepped backwards, back through the still-open Iris: the silence was a shock, almost a chill as they stood once again in Angela's quarters.

Marnie turned and took her sister's hands.

"Angela," she said quietly, "how much do you know about electronics?"

Angela blinked, confused.  "I ... can spell the word," she said haltingly.

"Capacitor."

Angela shook her head.

"A capacitor stores electricity and then discharges it. That's us, Angela. We take on stress and we take it and we take it and the charge builds inside us. We can get rid of it, we can discharge that electrical surge, or it kills us slowly, from the inside. You're a medical professional, you know what stress does to the human system. It also discharges like a lightning bolt when you're not expecting it."

Marnie tilted her head a little to the side, blinked.

"Sometimes you find your little sister hugging a trash can."

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller scrubbed his naked carcass, soaping off sweat and stress and feeling his muscles relax under the hot water.

"God, I feel better," he sighed.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller put the 35 pound, hex-headed dumbbells back on their rack, toweled his neck, behind his ears.

He turned, frowning: he took a step forward, another, nostrils flaring.

Lilac?

 

A young woman with pale eyed pushed the heavy wooden doors open.

The gymnasium was empty, as she'd hoped.

I feel like an idiot.

Angela wore shapeless grey sweats and sneakers, and a dark blue terry cloth sweatband.

She stopped, took a breath, closed her eyes, flexed her hands.

She felt the knuckle guards, padded where they bore against her talented hands: she took a longer breath, took another.

She heard the whispers in the silence, she heard the ghosts that circled her in the darkness, she smelled burned flesh and the coppery blood-smell and she remembered gripping a man's arm and feeling the burned meat slide off the bone and she remembered how soft the flesh was when she tried to stop another from bleeding to death where broken plate glass fell like a guillotine and she heard the whistling hiss of live steam from a cracked high-pressure line and a gurgling scream of the man who inhaled it and didn't have the chance to exhale, and her pale eyes snapped open, blazing with absolutely fury, incendiary with the hereditary white fires that washed her soul.

Angela leaned into a full-out sprint, she drove as hard as she could against the varnished hardwood, her legs swung up and her heels drove into the bag.

Angela Keller, Angel of Healing, teacher and comforter and daughter of a pale eyed Sheriff and sister to another, screamed with rage and uncorked her badger against the heavy bag.

It took her a while, but when she was done, she was shaking and she was sweaty and she felt like a wrung out dish rag, and she was honestly ready to collapse to the floor and just lay there on the cool boards for a while and recover.

She didn't.

Tired, sore, worn out, she turned away from the bag, then she spun, fast, unexpectedly, drove a snap-kick into the bag.

Hard!

"Take that, damn you," she muttered.

A pale eyed woman with a dark sweat streak down the back of her sweat top staggered her exhausted way to the showers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 5 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I'M IN

When The Firelands Gazette appeared in the dispensers, it never lasted long.

It was a weekly publication, its origins went back to shortly after the town's founding; the newspaper was burned out once, failed through the Great Depression, and was now resurrected, thanks to a certain pale eyed Sheriff with really good legs and a quiet smile.

Sheriff Willamina Keller flew back East to talk to a descendant of the paper's founder.

Bruce Jones was taking journalism back East.

He was also about out of money.

When the Sheriff came to his apartment and took his hand, placed it on her arm and announced that he was taking her out for dinner, she was buying, he did what most short-on-cash, missed-two-meals-today college students would do.

He agreed.

Bruce ate slowly, savoring his meal: she'd taken him to the Sportsman, one of the best restaurants in the university town, down by White's Mill on the lower end; when the cheerful young waitress came to their table and chirped, "Oh, how nice, you've taken your mother out for dinner!", why, Willamina never missed a beat: while Bruce's ears turned an extraordinary shade of incarnadine, Willamina batted her eyes innocently and lisped in an old-lady voice, "He's sutch a nithce young man," and her cheeks pinked a little as Bruce looked at her with a genuinely guilty expression.

Willamina ordered for them both, knowing Bruce would likely choose the cheapest items on the menu, out of politeness.

Willamina waited until he was finished with his meal, until they both sampled the dessert of the day (Willamina called it Chocolate Lasagna, it was a chocolate, five layer cake with whipped cream), told the waitress to keep the coffee coming, they were holding a council of war: a womanly wink, a surreptitious folded bill slipped into the waitress's hand, and Bruce felt distinctly uncomfortable.

He'd heard about this pale eyed Sheriff.

He'd heard she was a truly beautiful ice queen, that she was a hell raiser with white fires that blazed like flamethrowers from hard and polished eyes, that she was in the habit of kicking cars out of her way and throwing dump trucks over the nearest roofline, just before she started getting mean with people.

This didn't quite jibe with the quiet, feminine, but very much in-charge woman in a tailored blue suit dress and heels, sitting across from him.

"Bruce," she said as she added a trickle of cream into her coffee, "are you familiar with your antecedents?"

Bruce blinked, surprised.

"Yeah, a little, I suppose."

"Are you familiar with The Firelands Gazette?"

Bruce blinked, shook his head.

"Not really," he admitted.

"Bruce," Willamina said, "you're majoring in journalism. How's your job market?"

Bruce looked away, pressed his lips together, frowned a little.

"That good," Willamina said sympathetically.

"Yeah," he said. "Last year's ... friends of mine ..." -- he shook his head, sighed.

"One counted herself lucky to publish a grocery chain's corporate newsletter."

"Ouch," Willamina murmured sympathetically, then the looked very directly at the young man across from her, toying with his coffee cup's curved handle.

"Bruce, you wear an ancestor's name. My great-grandfather and he were friends."

Bruce blinked, did a quick mental calculation. "Great-grandfather?"

"Well, he was a little greater than that," Willamina smiled -- she had a truly charming smile, and her misstatement of the ancestral hierarchy was deliberate, a trick to catch his interest, and to add a moment's humor to leverage the conversation in her favor.

It worked.

Bruce chuckled, nodded, frowned, considered.

"I think I remember something about it but ... not much," he admitted.

"Firelands, in the mid-1880s. Like any Western town, it was starving for news. The local newspaper was consumed like water down a dry man's throat. It was burned out when two hired drunkards firebombed the wrong town's newspaper, and then it moved into a new building across the street, and finally went out of business during the Great Depression."

"I see."

"Most of it's still there, for a miracle, though I doubt that hand-set linotype would be very efficient in this modern age."

Bruce leaned forward, suddenly interested.  "The original linotype presses?"

Willamina nodded, smiling a little.

"We need a newspaper, Bruce. We need that local news. We need to read about the football team, the rifle team, we need the local scandal sheet everyone reads to see who got caught. Interested?"

Bruce considered, blinking rapidly.

"I own the newspaper building and its contents," Willamina added, leaning forward a little, lacing her fingers together, forearms pressed into the edge of the table. "I bought them from my family's estate. It's been preserved. It hasn't been plundered. There's a photography studio next door and we bought it as well, it's untouched. A time or two my ancestors had to put the fear of God into stupid people who thought to break in and look around."

"Do the presses still work?"

"Low humidity, dry air, metal doesn't rust as bad in the mountains as it does here below. I can't say they'll work, but I don't think they're hurt any."

Bruce whistled. "Talk about your special edition ... genuine linotype print!"

"There are other options. A modern printing press, or contract with an established newspaper to print your editions."

"That would probably be the most cost efficient," Bruce admitted.

"It would also be easier to put photos in your newsprint."

Bruce blinked, his eyes suddenly distant, and Willamina could almost hear the gears turning between his ears.

"I understand you'll be graduated in a month."  She slipped a hand into her suit jacket, pulled out an envelope, leaned forward and laid it where his dessert plate had been.

"That contains a prepaid cab voucher to the Albany crash patch, and a ticket for a chartered flight back home. Ever fly in a Lear?"

Bruce looked at her with honest astonishment.

"I ... haven't said yes," he said cautiously.

Willamina smiled. "You are not given to drink nor to partying. Keep it that way. I've arranged for grant money to start up your newspaper. There is only one catch."

"Catch," Bruce echoed, feeling his stomach sink.

"Back in its early history, the Firelands Gazette was originally established by a gifted newspaperwoman, Duzy Wales. My very great grandfather asked a personal favor of your very great grandfather, the original Bruce Jones."

She hesitated, bit her bottom lip, continued in a softer voice, then she reached into her inside jacket pocket and pulled out a file card.

"If you could run this on your masthead, I would ... take it as a ... personal favor."

Bruce took the card, surprised, looked at the precise, feminine script, at once ornate and looping, and yet completely legible, and ... 

Efficient was the word he was looking for.  

Yes.

Efficient.

He read Willamina's single, handwritten line, he nodded, he read it aloud.

"Duzy Wales, Editor-at-Large."

He smiled a little, looked at the Sheriff.

"I take it ... there's a story behind this?"

Willamina smiled, stood, and he stood as well.

Bruce Jones nodded, slipped the file card in his shirt pocket.

"Some of the guys bet the ponies, or play poker," he said quietly, "but I'm a fan of a sure thing."

Bruce Jones stuck out his hand.

"I'm in."

 

Edited July 6 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
Missed a comma!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO HER

It wasn't that unusual for officers from another department to visit the Sheriff's Office.

It was a little bit unusual when one of the visiting officers turned toward the front door and started to laugh.

It was a little more unusual for the Sheriff to come through the heavy glass doors, bent well over to keep a laughing little boy riding his shoulders, from cracking his head on the lintel.

A grinning, laughing Sheriff, a laughing little boy in knee pants, all shining eyes and white even teeth and delight and giggles, and Linn straightened, reached up and took the lad under his arms, brought him up, over and off, set him down on the floor, went to one knee as the little boy shoved the too-big Stetson up so he could see the pale eyed lawman.

"Can you wink?" Linn asked, dropping an eyelid, and the little boy screwed up half his face, squinting both eyes shut:  Linn took the Stetson, spun it with a showy flip, set it back on his own iron grey thatch.

"Two for the price of one!" he declared happily. "Gimme five!"

An absolutely delighted little boy wound up his arm, smacked the proffered palm, hard.

Linn yanked his hand back shook his hand, shook his head:  "That wasn't a five! That was a six and a half!"

Sharon stood, came over, bent:  "I'll bet you'd like a doughnut," she said quietly, and a bright-eyed little boy looked up at her and declared "Yis!"

Sharon gave the Sheriff an understanding look, took the lad by the hand, led him over toward the coffee pot: Linn watched as she retrieved a carton of milk, picked up a doughnut with a napkin, took the happy lad into the conference room.

Linn stood, grinning like a happy kid, then he looked over at a familiar figure: he strode across the polished quartz floor, thrust out his hand.

"Jerry, how've you been?"

Jerry shook his hand, sighed.  "Been better," he admitted.

"Well, hell, c'mon in and tell me about it!"

Jerry hung his eight point milkman hat beside the Sheriff's Stetson, dropped heavily into a chair.

Linn straightened, put his hands to the small of his back, groaned, then put his hands on his desk, bent his knees, grimaced as he took the weight off his back:  he twisted a little and Jerry made a face.

"That sounds painful," he muttered.

Linn straightened his knees, slowly, twisting one way, then the other.

"Yeah," he admitted, then sidled over to his chair, sat.

"You dyin'?" he asked bluntly.

"No, not yet."

"What's goin' on?"

Jerry leaned forward, elbows on his knees: he clapped his hands gently together, rubbed his palms slowly, thoughtfully.

"I should have listened to Marnie."

"How's that?"

"You recall a couple of my guys arrested the wrong man."

"I recall something about it, yes. Give me the background again."

Jerry sighed, hung his head.

"Captain of the ship," he said quietly, "sucks!"

"Sure does. Scheist rolls downhill but heat rises, and screw-ups can make it hot for the man in charge!"

"Well, it did," Jerry admitted.

"You fired?"

"No. No, I got ... spoken to."

"Bad enough."

"No, y'see ... two of my guys grabbed a Jack Doe at a grocery store. They were off duty, they thought they recognized someone wanted for a pretty serious offense, so they nabbed him. The guy they were after was supposed to be armed and dangerous, so they took the fight out of him fast."

"How?"

"Gut punched him and kidney punched him, got him in irons, hauled him out a back door, shoved him into the undercover car and brought him back to headquarters. Started interrogatin' him.

"Turns out the guy they nabbed was prior law enforcement."

"Ouch."

"Retired."

"Uh-oh."

"With adult onset asthma."

Linn raised an eyebrow.

"And early heart failure."

"Which of my daughters was involved?"

"Marnie, the good lookin' one."

"All my daughters are good lookin'."

"The one that looks like your Mama did."
"Ah. So how does she figure into this?"

"She got the takedown on cell phone and followed my guys in, she pulled me aside and showed me the video and said they had the wrong man. I asked how she could be sure.

"Turns out the wanted man was already locked up."

"So why'd they grab this old retired guy?"

"One misremembered the description."

"What happened when Marnie told you the wanted man was already behind bars?"

"Marnie went in with me.  I sent my guys out into the hallway. Turns out this Jack Doe was never fingerprinted, they never looked at his ID, never looked at a photo of the wanted man.

"I had my secretary bring in the portable fingerprint machine, we scanned his hands and excused ourselves to the hallway.

"Turns out my guys screwed up but good."

"I can see a double handful of violations from what you've said so far."

"It gets worse."

"Figured it would."

"When the prints came back -- with the retired officer flag -- Marnie took me by the elbow and turned me, she said quietly that this man was of the revolver-and-war-club generation, if I took those two in, ripped them a new one, stripped them of commission, badge and gun, in front of this man they'd wronged, that he'd be satisfied with their getting a new one reamed out, that's how things were handled in his day.

"I didn't. Union would have a field day with  that one."

"So what happened?"

"Our insurance payments just went up, Council is screaming for my blood."

"The two that pulled this stunt?"

"I fired them that day. Oh, they appealed, but the appeal was turned down flat when everything came out."

"And?"

"And the insurance company just paid out a settlement that'll make his retirement way the hell more comfortable."  

Jerry shook his head, looked ruefully at the Sheriff.

"Linn, I should have listened to your daughter. If I'd done that --"

"He might've sued anyway," Linn interrupted. "Jerry, you had to make a decision. The man in charge can be wrong, but he can never be in doubt. You made a decision. It's over."

"I might get fired."

"I might die of a heart attack or get hit by a meteor."

"Yeah," Jerry mumbled.

"Doesn't make it hurt any less, I know. You et yet?"

Jerry shook his head.

"C'mon over to the Jewel. Let's see if they've got any pie ain't been et yet."

Linn handed Jerry his hat, settled his Stetson on his head, gave his old friend a knowing look -- "You have to be properly ungrammatical in such matters," he said, "it's not as easy as it looks to sound like a poor dumb hillbilly!" -- he opened his door as an anxious-looking young mother froze, her closed fist raised, ready to knuckle a summons on his closed door.

"Yes, ma'am?" Linn asked quietly, looking down at the two-year-old boy in knee pants -- the one with powdered sugar on his face and down his T-shirt's front.

"Sheriff, thank you," she gushed, then she blinked and swallowed, the way a woman will when she blurts out something she really hadn't intended to.

Something told Linn she'd tried to prepare something intelligent to say, and something else fell out from between her teeth when she opened her mouth.

"Actually, I needed his help," Linn said quietly, and Jerry could hear a father's smile in the tall lawman's voice. "Y'see, I was in need of a quality control inspector for a batch of doughnuts, and your son was able to help us out with that detail."

 

 

Edited July 7 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

YOUR DADDY'S SECRET

Victoria Keller came out of her Mommy's Jeep at a dead run.

Her child's voice hung on the summer air, a delighted smile plainly audible in the half-shouted "Marneeeee!"

The Bear Killer bounced out of the Jeep after her, galloped along beside her, looking adoringly at the happy, laughing little girl with apple cheeks and flying, ribbon-tied braids.

A pale-eyed young woman in a McKenna gown and matching hat turned, opened her arms, snatched her running little sister up and off the ground, swinging her around, laughing.

A little girl's laugh and a big girl's laugh mingled with the still-running legs as Victoria's giggles cascaded down the back of Angela's gown.

"I thought you were Marnie!" Victoria protested, light-blue eyes wide and innocent as the door opened and a broad grin stood in the doorway, followed by her big strong Daddy.

Linn dropped to a squat, took Victoria under the backside, stood, ran his other arm around Angela and declared happily, "How's Daddy's favorite girl!"

"Hey!" Victoria protested, shocked, "I thought I was your favorite girl!"

Linn laughed, threw his head back, hugged his girls tighter, looked at Victoria and closed one eye.

"I'll let you in on a Daddy-secret," he said, leaning his forehead down against her hairline: "whichever of Daddy's girls is here, is Daddy's favorite!"

"There, see?" Angela teased, sticking out her tongue and laughing.

"Come on inside, you two," Linn said, turning, steering one daughter and carrying the other: "let me help your Mama with the groceries before she turns that dreaded Intercontinental Ballistic Frying Pan loose on me!"

 

A tall, lean-waisted lawman opened the door for a pale-eyed young woman in an immaculately-tailored McKenna gown.

Angela murmured a quiet, polite "Thank you," as she always did, then she smiled at Tillie, laughed as Mr. Baxter turned, struck a pose and curled his arm as if to show of his manly musculature.

Angela twisted, skipped around behind the bar, kissed Mr. Baxter on the cheek:  "Bless you," she murmured, "you remembered!"

"One Strong Irishman, coming up!" Mr. Baxter declared, his ears and his cheeks reddening -- Angela had that effect on him -- she smiled and replied, "Just water with a twist of lemon, please!"

"Anythin' for the lady!" Mr. Baxter boomed, striking what he intended as an heroic pose:  Angela swept back around and took her Daddy's arm, as if nothing untoward had happened, and she glided smoothly along beside him as if she were on wheels instead of heels.

They sat in the back room, father and daughter: Angela sat primly, decorously, with that contagious, almost-hidden smile guaranteed to bring delight to any man who saw it.

"Daddy," she said softly, "thank you."

Linn raised an eyebrow.

"What did I do this time?"

"It's what you didn't do."

"So not doing was the right thing to ... not do?"

"Something like that. Double negatives always confused me. Spanish is easier, double negative are acceptable and unambiguous."

"Trust me to confuse the issue, but I'm kind of confused."

"Daddy."  Angela almost whispered the word as she laced gloved fingers together, leaned forward ever so slightly, her hands barely pressing against the edge of the red-and-white-checkerboard tablecloth hanging over her edge of the table. 

"When I was in here last, I was wound up like an eight day clock. I slugged down that Irish Wrecking Ball like it was root beer, and you didn't ... offer ... any free advice."

"Sometimes you have to find out for yourself."

"I found out."

"What was your conclusion?"

"First, once it hit bottom, it sandbagged me across the back of the head but good. Second, it felt reeeeally good. Then I got depressed as hell and I didn't like the way that felt."

"And when Mr. Baxter asked you ..."

Linn curled his arm like he was making a muscle.

Angela laughed, nodded. "Exactly!"

Father and daughter looked toward the door, then at each other again, and they both laughed, just before the door almost exploded inward and two braids with a little girl attached swirled through the opening, all flaring skirt and scampering legs and big bright eyes.

Linn looked at Angela and laughed, and she laughed with him.

 

After three chocolate hot fudge Sundaes and much laughter, a father and two daughters walked down to the firehouse where another of their number was teaching a class: what used to be a patio behind the kitchen deck, was now roofed, with what looked like wood-shingle siding belt buckle tall, windows from there to the bottom of the shake-shingled roof.

The building was an illusion; Confederate force fields, engineered to look real, at least to the students.

From the rest of the world's view, it was the same open, stone-flagged patio it had ever been.

Under its roof, a class taught by the best instructors in the art of Paramedicine.

Shelly Keller was just finished with the evening's instruction: she'd assigned study material, advised of the upcoming exam, she'd handed out the hands-on practical testing rotation, and was just ready to dismiss the class when a happy little girl's voice declared "Mommeeee!" and something frilly and girly and absolutely delighted, ran up the center aisle.

Shelly Keller, Paramedic, Firelands Fire Department and Emergency Squad, went to one knee, arms spread, to receive the slamming impact of a delighted little girl: a long, tall lawman, a living legend known by every one of these Outworld students, strode boldly up behind his daughter, turned, addressed the class.

"I think this translates to Class Dismissed," he said in that deep, confident voice they'd heard before, but only in the Inter-System broadcasts.

Edited July 8 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A GHOST, AT NIGHT

Mary woke.

Irish-blue eyes snapped open in the darkness: she lay, frozen, her heart hammering: she slipped slender fingers under her pillow, found her green-glass Rosary, closed her hand around it: she brought it out, quietly, found the Cross, kissed it.

Rosary crushed in one fist, she threw her covers back.

It's the ghost, she thought, her thought-words a whisper in her mind.

I've heard it b'fore.

'Tis a ghost, it must be a ghost, none but a shade would wander th' house so!

Mary crossed herself, reached for her robe, spun it about her shoulders: she thrust bare feet into fleece-lined slippers, closed her eyes, took a long, steadying breath, blew it out, gripped the Cross between thumb and forefinger.

The words came easily, naturally, a lifetime's habit: 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen!

Mary swallowed, crept closer to her door, leaned her head against the varnished wood, listened.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller came wide awake, suddenly -- his eyes were wide, he was listening, he felt the blue fires racing along his nerves as he SLAMMED into full consciousness --

He breathed through his open mouth, he breathed silently, he was hungry for air, his heart was hammering, war raged through his body, he was ready to rise up and fight for his very life --

You're under your own roof, he thought.

You're in your own home.

You're safe.

His hand reached to the side, as it always did, seeking the reassurance of his wife, warm and real, solid beside him --

-- and his hand closed on cold bedsheets as reality walked up and backhanded him across the face with a cold dead fish.

Esther was dead and buried these many years, and he still reached for her.

Linn threw the covers aside, sat up, buried his face in his hands, forbidding himself the grief that still flooded his soul.

He'd told his own young, when grief visited itself upon them, that tears were the prayers we offer when we can't get words out our thick and swollen throat.

He had no tears, only a silent voice, screaming in anguish into the silence, a voice unheard by human ears, but surely sensible to the Almighty, Who understood such things --

Esther, dearest, I miss you!

Linn rose, thrust into a pair of fur lined moccasins.

Well, hell, might as well get rid of some second hand coffee.

Can't sleep anyhow.

 

Mary turned her faceted-glass doorknob ever so slightly, green-glass Rosary still in her grip.

She held her breath, turned it a little more, felt it release.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our --

An Irish-blue eye peeked out the slightest of gaps between the barely-opened door, and the door frame --

Mary's breath stopped as her throat slammed shut, as she froze, as something pale and shadowy glided in complete silence past her door.

 

Linn walked, out of long habit, with a silent tread.

He could move with all the clatter of a passing cloud, when walking the warped and dusty boardwalk's planks, while wearing well polished, hard heeled boots: here, on the hallway rug and in moccasins, his stealth was complete.

He knew his house, he knew where to step over to avoid the one squeaky board.

I don't want to wake Mary, he thought.

That poor girl works herself constantly.

She needs her sleep.

If I wake her, she'll fire the stove and start breakfast, and I don't want to rouse her, poor thing!

 

Mary eased the door shut -- she turned the knob, pressed the door into its frame, released the knob, slowly -- silently -- 

Don't let it know, don't let it know, don't let it know --

Mary sank to her knees, remembered the Rosary in her hand, swallowed, her lips moving soundlessly:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, save me from yon ghost!

 

Linn looked around, relieved.

It is just plain amazin', he thought, how much better a man can feel!

Linn ascended the steps to the back porch, careful to put his weight at the side of the steps so as not to creak them.

He hesitated before going back into the house: it was cool out, peaceful: he listened, letting his spirit flow across the land, or so it felt like.

He turned the back door knob -- carefully -- he eased the door open, slipped inside, closed the door silently, allowed the knob to turn back.

I can heat coffee, he thought, but that'll wake Mary.

I'm tired enough I think I can go back to sleep.

Reckon I'll do that.

Linn's eyes were used to the dark. 

He stepped with confidence, stepped over the squeaky board.

I don't hear anything from Mary's room, he thought, and smiled inwardly, grateful he didn't wake the hired girl.

 

Mary was still on her knees.

She lifted her head, peered through the keyhole --

Something silent, something light and flowing --

Mary's breath caught again and she felt fear run cold fingers down her back bone -- then it was gone -- Mary clasped her hands, raised them to her bowed forehead.

Saint Michael, I am but a weak and fearful woman, protect me from evil and from creatures that roam the dark!

 

Another Sheriff, another century: this Sheriff sat at a desk in the Firelands museum's research room and library.

Pale eyes considered documents recently received, including letters from one of Old Pale Eyes' hired girls, to family back East: these letters had only just arrived at her desk, she'd carefully scanned them into the library's system, slipped them into clear-plastic, archival sleeves: once protected, she studied them, frowning a little as she did.

"Something interesting?" a pale eyed girl asked, tilting her head a little, the way she did when something caught her curiosity.

Sheriff Willamina Keller smiled at her granddaughter Marnie.

The two looked more remarkably alike than should have been possible, despite their both wearing tailored, electric-blue suit dresses, and heels: both had pale eyes, both had rich, auburn hair with red the sun brought out, and both had pale eyes.

"These came in the mail this morning," she explained. "I've cross referenced this to one of Old Pale Eyes' hired girls."

"Really," the younger woman breathed, leaning closer, studying the plastic-protected paper. "What does she say?"

Sheriff Willamina Keller laid an affectionate palm on her granddaughter's spine.

"Apparently," she said, "my old home place was haunted. She wrote about seeing a ghost at night."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 23 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

JUDGEMENT

 

A one square mile park existed in the capital city.

It was known simply as, "Neutral Ground," and anyone could come or go without let or interference, by international agreement -- a condition dictated by the Supreme Confederate.

A small marble building stood in the very center of the park.

The building was quite small -- a tall man could walk into it, wearing his hat, and not have to duck -- under the domed roof was a fluted pedestal, a column about shirt pocket tall.

Atop this short pedestal was a circle of marble, big across as a man's hand can span, two fingers thick, and round, and in the center of this, a single, brass, bottleneck rifle cartridge, covered with a glass bell jar, and sealed.

Engraved on the front edge of the little marble circle it stood on, was one word.

JUDGEMENT

 

 

Young Michael Keller was more than familiar with CPR.

Michael had to work at it, but he was able to run a perfect strip on a recording mannikin. He had to put more beef into it because he lacked the weight to drive vertical down onto the victim's breastbone and get a good compression depth, but he could get the depth, on an adult, at least for a short time.

He listened to his Mama explaining this new concept to a new class of offworld students.

He and Victoria not infrequently sat in on these classes, partly because it was their Mama teaching, but mostly because they were ten years old and intensely curious about everything, and this had to do with lights and sirens and the Irish Brigade and that was exciting, especially to children young enough to still see wonder in the world around them.

Michael noticed he seemed to be the recipient of several surreptitious glances and even some outright stares.

He noticed these were directed at him -- and not at his twin sister Victoria -- he was not at all sure why this was, and filed a mental note to ask about it later.

The twins listened to Shelly describing the anatomy, the physiology, the hydromechanics of compressing the heart between the breastbone and the spine: she was frank in her presentation, and said in so many words that the older the patient, the more the chance ribs would either break, crack or separate from the cartilage connecting rib with breastbone.

Children, she said, were more flexible in their bone structure and often would not break, but they would be quite sore for some time after.

Michael frowned when he considered his own state of continuing chest and rib pain.

He felt a presence behind him, he smelled lilac: ten-year-old Michael Keller slipped from his seat, turned, looked at his sister Angela, then looked toward the nearest exit and nodded.

Two children and a nurse, not wanting to further distract the students' attentions, slipped from the class, and were gone.

 

"You've been checked out on this."

"Yes, sir."

"Threat level is expected to exceed three at most. You have six settings. Do not exceed what is necessary."

"Yes, sir."

The energy-rifle was about the same weight as the one the sentry was used to using.

Until now, he'd never stood watch for real.

He'd been listening to his barracks-mates, hearing them tell horror stories about how the Quartermaster is a bottom polishing bureaucrat, more concerned with balancing his books and making himself look good, how he didn't want to explain the need to recharge an excessive number of capacitor magazines -- never mind this recharge was at no direct cost, no accounting was kept of the (nonexistent) cost of such a recharge, and the Quartermaster would rather underestimate the energy required per shot -- he could always get more troops, but balance-sheets were permanent.

There had been other rumors as well, how infiltrators were coming in with power shields and hell-bombs, coming in with indigenous wildlife running interference for them, getting close and firing the short-range propellor charge to arc the hell-bomb into the middle of the occupied zone, incinerating themselves and everyone else in the process.

A green sentry reported to the Corporal of the Guard, presented his rifle for inspection.

"Level Three?" the Corporal asked.

"Yes, sir. Quartermaster said that's all I would need."

The Corporal shrugged, handed the energy-rifle back:  "I'll be around at irregular intervals. See that you're not sleeping when I get there."

"Yes, sir."

 

Michael Keller and his twin sister looked at one another, looked at the saddled Fanghorn pacing inside the corral.

Michael looked at the handler.

"How does he rein?" he asked, and the handler laughed: like most people on this world, he'd seen Michael and Victoria on genuine Western Appaloosas -- the handler had a print made of a screenshot taken from the Inter-System broadcast, the moment after the twins came BLASTING out of a wall of steam, Winchester rifles in the lead -- by sheer, unadulterated luck, the camera caught the muzzle-flare of Michael's first shot, and this was the framed print the handler had hung up in his office.

He well knew who the twins were.

"She's not bitted," came the careful reply, "she responds to neck-reining."

He looked at the twins, looked at the fanghorn.

"Sometimes."

"What does she like?"

"Like?"

"To eat."

The handler shrugged.  "Nothing special."

"Pa bribes his Apple-horse with molasses twist," Michael said thoughtfully, "and" -- he pulled out a cellophane wrapped, red-and-white-spiral candy disc -- "ours like these really well."

"Daddy calls it Horsie Crack," Victoria offered helpfully.

"How does she ride?" Michael breathed, and the handler began to regret he'd ever agreed to show these two, this planet's version of a saddlehorse.

"She's rough," he said.

"Is she bucked out yet?"

"You don't want to try."

Michael turned, shoved his hat back by shoving a stiff finger under the brim.

"Wanna bet?"

"Believe me, you don't -- NO," the handler yelled as a skinny, fast-moving, ten-year-old boy slid between the red-painted metallic bars and strode boldly toward the suddenly-watchful, clearly-mistrustful Fanghorn.

She's big, Michael thought.

I'll have to shorten those stirrups.

He stopped, pulled on the twisted ends of the peppermint: at the crackly sound, the Fanghorn mare was less watchful and more curious.

It may've been this two-legs was smaller than the others, and less of a threat.

Maybe it was the scent of peppermint, or perhaps a deeper sense found neither mistrust, fear nor hostility.

Her ivory fighting fangs brushed Michael's palm as she lipped the peppermint from his flat palm.

Michael caressed her neck and whispered, "You're big!"

He worked his way back to her foreleg, ran his hands down her leg.

She brought her head around and regarded his exposed backside as he picked up her forehoof, examined the unshod hoof, set it back down.

Michael eyeballed the stirrup, unbuckled it, shortened it what he judged to be about the right amount -- he'd done this enough times before, he was comfortable with the idea -- he ducked quickly under the high-clearance belly, busied himself with the starboard strap.

The Fanghorn danced impatiently, surprised, perhaps: no one had ever ducked under her like that, and she swung her head around to watch what he was doing.

Michael unwrapped another peppermint, held it out, wiped his hand on his pants leg afterward -- "Horse slobber," he said aloud, then cocked his head and held out a hand.  "C'mon, girl."

The Fanghorn mare followed him to the edge of the corral.

There was no mounting block inside the corral, of course, and the horse was bigger than his Gammaw's Frisian had been, and so Michael climbed up the boards, swung a leg over -- "C'mere, girl," he said, slung a leg over the saddle, drove his boots into the stirrups, straightened.

The reins were knotted and the knot was on her mane -- it wasn't a decent Western saddle, there was no horn -- Michael frowned and said, "We'll have to get you a good saddle!"

The mare grunted, started walking, bobbing her head vigorously.

"Oh, no," the handler groaned.

"Oh no what?" Victoria asked.

"She's going to --"

The Fanghorn gathered her haunches and Michael took a deep seat, clamped his young legs around as much barrel as he could, leaned forward, grinning: he had the distinct feeling he'd just thrown a leg over a keg of dynamite and the sputtering fuse was about to disappear into the bundle, and he was right.

Just not the way he'd expected.

Instead of bucking out, the Fanghorn mare shot straight ahead, toward the opposite corral wall, she shoved hard against packed dirt, and something tall and muscled and a very pale tan, something with a twisted horn and fighting fangs and a grinning young rider, sailed easily over the corral rail, and headed for the horizon just as fast as she could run.

 

Marnie touched her comm-panel, smiled as a familiar young face filled it.

"Hello, Victoria," she said quietly, "how are --"

"Marnie we gotta problem," Victoria blurted into her wrist-comm. "Michael's on a Fanghorn an' they just took out an' there's soldiers that way an' that's where they been fightin'!"

Marnie's eyes went from warm and light-blue, to hard and icy-pale.

"Stay put," Marnie said. "I'm on my way."

 

If Valkyrie One -- Gracie Maxwell, callsign Gunfighter -- had put out the alert in words, she might have said, "Valkyrie Flight, Ambassador One has a situation, sector twelve, coordinates eight-eight-one by six-two-seven by eight-four-zero, spherical approach."

She did not, of course: words were too clumsy, too slow, too inefficient.

As soon as Marnie stepped through the Iris, as soon as she lay down on the contoured pilot's couch, as soon as her ship overlaid her body and joined her mind and became an extension of her living self, Gunfighter, and then the Valkyries, knew instantly that Marnie was piloting a warship that put their Interceptors to shame, and running it with the natural ease of running her own toned, athletic body.

The Interceptor fleet appeared, equidistantly spaced, around a planet in Starsystem Twelve: invisible to any but each other, they waited, at least until they felt Marnie detonate into utter, absolute RAGE.

 

Michael shoved his Stetson down on his head, angled it a little so the oncoming wind wouldn't rip it tumbling into the slipstream.

Michael was not a stranger to horseflesh.

He'd grown up riding before he was walking, at first in his father's arms, then straddling his Pa's horse's neck, or riding behind: as soon as he was able, he was in the saddle, and like any growing boy, he delighted in sheer, unadulterated SPEED!

He learned early and well to take care of his horses, not to push them too hard, especially this high up: Michael learned to read his horses and he learned how they felt when all was well, and he learned how they felt when something was wrong -- sometimes before his pale eyed Pa picked up on it.

Michael stood in his stirrups, leaned forward, hands pressed against the Fanghorn's neck, just below her mane.

"COME ON, GIRL," he yelled, "LET'S SEE WHAT'CHA GOT!"

Horse and rider, not knowing two nations were in conflict, rode to where two branches of opposing forces had extruded out into what had been a neutral territory.

 

The sentry slipped the override from his crossbelt, slid it into the energy rifle.

Quartermaster said he would need nothing past setting three.

If the locals are running wildlife ahead of them, he thought, I'll need more than a three.

He touched the power control, ran it up to full power.

There.

Let 'em try now!

 

Michael remembered what he'd heard about the Fanghorns, how they were fierce, combative, deadly: the herd's stallions fought until one, and only one, was fit to mate; the herd's mares fought in the same manner, and to the same end: when, finally, the Herd Stallion and the Herd Mare faced one another, they were pretty well fought out.

Not always.

Michael knew the mares were jealously protective of their own.

He remembered being told that if the mare's head came up, her ears came up and she started shivering a little, and then he saw her mane rippling, she was getting ready for a fight.

That's exactly what she was doing, right now!

Michael laid the knotted reins down on her neck, his young legs tightening a little more.

Young Michael Keller's eyes lost their color.

Bloodless lips pulled back from even white teeth.

"Whattaya got, girl?" he whispered.

 

Something light tan, all fangs and screaming and windmilling hooves, reared at the edge of the woodline.

Something -- someone! -- My God, the infiltrators are riding those things! --

 

Marnie Keller felt the sunball of agony that detonated around Michael, searing through his young body.

He wore a Confederate plate across his tenderloins, but the energy-rifle at max output could cut through a starship's shielding, and when he triggered at this oncoming, screaming, charging, attacking monster, the sun-bright detonation as the energies were turned back on themselves threw the sentry back thirty feet and gave him the worst sunburn he'd had in his life.

The feedback seared through Michael's young body.

The Fanghorn, startled, reared, whirled, ran.

A ten year old boy in a black suit and well polished boots lay as still as death itself, arms thrown wide, pale eyes unblinking and unseeing.

 

Nurse Angela Keller's head came up.

She stood, her eyes gone as colorless as her face.

Her class had never seen her run before.

They saw it now.

Angela Keller triggered the override she carried: every elevator came to her floor, stopped, opened.

She stepped into the nearest, hit a button: the doors slid open and she sprinted for their ER.

Angela bent her wrist, spoke quickly, urgently: she hit the automatic doors hard, turning to slam into them with her shoulder blades.

The charge nurse -- an impatient, older woman who was used to giving orders to God -- turned to glare at Angela.

Angela lifted her hand, dropped open a black-leather wallet: her Diplomatic credential blazed bright, and her voice was raised, with the sharpened edge of command:

"DIPLOMATIC OVERRIDE, NOW HEAR THIS! CODE BLUE ENROUTE, PEDIATRIC, PRIORITY ONE OVERRIDE, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"

Angela seized the Code Blue cart, swung it into position, her fingers danced over the cardiostimulator: she heard the unit clerk's voice, quiet and professional on the hospital wide annunciator, "Doctor Cardio, ER, stat. Doctor Pete Cardio, ER, stat" -- Angela made a mental note to thank the unit secretary, and the charge nurse came up to her, lips pressed together and thunder on her brow.

"I am in charge here," she hissed, "you do NOT! come into my department --"

Angela twisted, drove every bit of anger and stress and anticipatory fear into a heelstrike: she drove the old bat's nose with the heel of her hand, witnesses later swore the lean young nurse brought the corpulent charge nurse's feet an inch off the floor in the process.

An Iris opened.

A pale eyed woman in a McKenna gown stepped toward Angela with the limp figure of an unmoving child in her arms.

The Code Blue team descended on their patient.

It took four orderlies to drag the cold-cocked charge nurse back into a treatment bay to be seen.

Ambassador Marnie Keller backed up, back into the Iris: the black, cat's-eye portal closed, disappeared.

 

The military hierarchies of two warring nations came awake and alert in one hell of a hurry.

Communications flashed to Headquarters and beyond; heads of State were rolled out of comfortable beds, informed that hostilities were escalating where none had been, that a level-six detonation occurred, with only one casualty, a sentry whose story was not making any sense at all: a forest fire, started by the detonation, was being contained, the respective militaries, who'd had intermittent hostile contacts, were gearing up for full-on assaults.

Then came the Ambassador.

Holographic images appeared simultaneously in National and State capitals, and in military headquarters: the images were familiar -- very familiar -- Ambassador Marnie Keller's projected hologram looked around with cold eyes, and spoke.

"An assault was made by personnel under arms, and in in uniform," she said coldly, "against an individual bearing Diplomatic credentials. As this is a Confederate credential, the offending military has committed an act of war against the Confederacy as a whole, bringing deadly force to bear, with no prior declaration."

Her voice was quiet, her voice was iron.

"This sneak attack on the Confederacy, committed under arms and under color of military authority, is a declaration of war. Right now we have a rogue planet in tow. Had we not seized this frozen planet, wandering through space, you might have been able to see it in a century and a half. 

"It was on a collision course with your planet. We're ready to advance that timetable."

The hologram looked real, as if one could touch her and feel the smoothness, the warmth of her pale cheeks, or feel the fabric of her tailored McKenna gown.

"I understand your respective nations are ready to move on one another."

Her smile was anything but warm.

"I claim Primacy. There will be no further hostilities. That is not a request. We will conduct an investigation and determine the facts of this assault, and we -- AND WE ALONE -- will handle it!"

 

Michael swum to consciousness, briefly.

Light ... voices, the professional murmur of medical ...

"Shall we prep for transplant?"

"Do we have one available?"

"We'll have to grow a new heart, this one is destroyed."

Michael summoned all the strength, what little he had left, winched his eyes open, just a little.

"Let me go," he whispered. "It's ... beautiful there."

 

One of the Interceptors spiraled down, extended its steel legs, settled to the ground.

Victoria's eyes were big and scared as the shining silver bird's jaw dropped, as a figure removed its black visor, sat up, shook her hair loose, stood.

Gracie knelt, took Victoria by the shoulders.

"Michael's been hurt," she said quietly.

Victoria turned big, scared eyes to where the flash, the explosion had been.

"Is he dead?" she asked, her throat dry.

"No," a familiar voice said, and Gracie released Victoria's shoulders, stood.

Marnie knelt, took Victoria's hands.

"We need to find out what happened," Marnie said quietly.

Victoria looked toward the distant woods, a couple of miles distant.

"My ship is analyzing the blast. We'll have results fairly quickly. Let's get you to safety."

 

The tribunal was held in one of the Capital buildings: evidence was presented, testimonies given, then the Ambassador stepped into the room -- through a doorway, not an Iris -- and at her arrival, the Presiding Marshal stood, smacked his gavel on the sounding-block three times, hard.

"Ambassador, arriving," he called, and every man there stood.

Ambassador Marnie Keller glided forward.

"Gentlemen," she said, her voice pitched to carry, "the Confederacy has primacy in this matter, and we have authority over its entirety. This is not a matter for debate, nor for discussion, and I don't care if you don't like it."

She turned, slowly, looked at every man there, stopped and looked very directly at an individual she knew from the reports.

"You."

Marnie lifted her chin, her eyes pale, hard, her voice tightening:  "YOU, SIRRAH, MURDERED MY LITTLE BROTHER!"

A uniformed soldier stood, turned his gaze from her, looked straight ahead.

Marnie glided forward, turned, facing him, then she lifted her chin, looked left, looked right.

"I claim Blood Right," she said, reaching for the back of her neck: she brought her arm back, brought a shining, curved blade into view.

"I am given full authority by the Confederacy to bring about the ultimate penalty," she said, "should that be my choice."

The soldier closed his eyes, swallowed, wished most sincerely he was anywhere -- anywhere! -- but here.

An Iris opened beside Marnie.

A Winchester rifle came out of the Iris.

It was attached to a naked-to-the-waist, ten-year-old boy, with a broad, white bandage down the center of his chest.

He walked carefully, as if in pain.

He looked at the soldier, reached into his jeans pocket, pulled out a shining-brass rifle cartridge.

Michael Keller breathed carefully: Marnie turned, slipped an earpiece into his left ear, adjusted the almost invisible boom mic.

"This," Marnie declared, "is my younger brother Michael.

"When the accused fired on my brother -- a child, in the saddle, unarmed -- the weapon's discharge was powerful enough to override the protections of the plate that he wore.

"The energies burned out his heart and caused other damage.

"Confederate medical specialists were able to regrow a heart, thanks to donor tissue from his twin sister, and transplant it: other damage will take longer to heal, but he's made of tough stock."

Marnie turned, raised her blade in salute to her brother, brought it back up and slid it into the hidden sheath at the back of her neck.

"Michael Keller, on behalf of the Confederacy, you are given Blood Primacy."

Michael Keller looked at the soldier, standing beside his legal representation.

"You killed me," Michael said softly -- it was the best he could do -- the microphone amplified his voice, so that everyone could hear it.

Michael held the Winchester across him, muzzle angled down to his left, Marnie standing on his right.

Michael held up the loaded round.

"We use a rifle much like this," he said, "back home, for executions by firing squad."

He stopped, breathed carefully, close his eyes in pain, opened them.

"Last I used this rifle, I dropped a bull elk with it. I know what it'll do to an elk."

Michael pressed the bullet's copper jacketed, lead tipped nose into the loading gate, thumbed it in, brought the rifle up to high port.

"You killed me," he said, jacked the rifle's lever open -- hard -- he slammed the action shut -- hard.

"Your life belongs to me now!"

Michael turned a little, set his feet, looked very directly at the pale, sweating, just-starting-to-tremble soldier.

"Mister," he said, "is your war still going on?"

The soldier swallowed, wet his lips.

"No, sir," he managed.

"So your war is over."

"Yes, sir."

"How many would be dead if your war had kept on?"

The soldier swallowed again.  "I ... don't know, sir."

Michael jacked the lever open, hard.

He caught the shining, spinning round, drew his arm back, pitched it underhand at the soldier.

Startled, the prisoner caught the round.

"Nobody's bein' killed," Michael said, "not even you. I died and that's killin' enough."

 

A shining-brass rifle cartridge stood under a glass bell jar, on a marble pedestal, in a domed marble building, in the middle of neutral ground.

It stood in mute testimony to the war that ended after its only casualty rendered judgement.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 10 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THANKS, SIS!

"You're quiet, Boss."

Linn blinked, came back to the here-and-now, looked at his lifelong friend and now chief deputy, Paul Barrents.

Linn nodded shallowly, turned pale eyes back toward the windshield.

"I know that look," Paul pressed. "I've seen it too many times."

Linn nodded again.

"I heard Michael broke some ribs."

Linn nodded silently.

"I heard tell he jumped off the Washington Monument and hit the Reflecting Pool."

"Yeah."  Linn's voice was dry, almost a whisper.

Barrents looked ahead, braked, pulled to the side of the road.

"There he is."

Two lawmen got out, walked up toward the fugitive.

"Hello, Laramie," the Sheriff called, and a Bramha bull turned its big white head toward the lawman and lowed a greeting.

The Sheriff leaned against the big humpback's neck, rubbed its ears: the bull closed its eyes, apparently enjoying the attention.

Barrents flagged a car on past: Linn and the big imported beef were completely on their side of the center line, and the sizable bull paid the passing vehicle no mind a'tall.

Barrents reached up, pressed the transmit bar on his shoulder mic.

"Dispatch, Two. Unit One is in conference with the subject."

 

Linn and Paul waited until the rancher arrived, until Linn led the big beef into the stock trailer, waited until the Bramha was grained and fooled with and called the quiet names Linn always called it.

He and Michael helped the rancher add to his fence, setting more posts, stringing more strands of wire: this time, though, it was not structural integrity that failed, it was trespassers, not latching a gate behind them, that allowed the big humpback bull to wander out and explore.

Linn and his chief deputy headed for their next appointment of the day, which was cancelled before they got there, so they turned back toward Firelands and plans for a noontime meal.

Not a word passed between the two.

They walked into the Silver Jewel, removed their Stetsons.

Both men looked at the whiteboard, set up on an aluminum easel for the noon meal: they looked a the day's special, looked at the waitress, nodded once, then headed back for the Sheriff's table.

The waitress wasn't far behind, with the day's special steaming and fragrant: she set two plates down in front of them even before she got their coffee poured.

"Sheriff, how's Michael?" the waitress asked. "I heard he had open heart surgery."

Linn thanked her quietly as she poured his coffee.

"Well, yes and no," he said, "Michael got hit with high voltage and they had to replace his heart altogether."

The waitress gave him a skeptical look.

"They were going to install one that ran on AA batteries, but he'd have to have a zipper in front so he could change batteries easily, and then they'd have to put in a plug so he could plug in an outside power source while he took out the old batteries," Linn deadpanned.

The waitress shook her head, looked at Barrents.

"Is he always this full of it?" she complained, then looked back at the Sheriff.

"He had some repair work done, he's taking things easy and the docs tell us he should heal up in fine shape."

The waitress laid a light hand on the man's shoulder.

"Sheriff," she said seriously, "you're full of it, but you are a perfect gentleman. Michael takes after you, just like Jacob did."  She opened her mouth to say something else, thought better of it.

"Need anything else?"

 

Marnie sighed, leaned against her husband: Little John sprawled on the couch with them, his head on his Mama's lap: one minute, he was looking at Marnie with big adoring eyes, and the next minute, he was sound asleep.

"He's like an old b'ar," Marnie whispered, smiling as she stroked his silk-fine hair. "He gets his belly full, he gets warm, he sets down and goes to sleep."

Dr. John Greenlees smiled, laid his cheek over on his wife's rich red-auburn hair.

"The world's shortest retirement," he murmured.

"I'm still retired, John."

"Until something else comes up."

Marnie sighed.

"You asked about the baby."

Marnie opened her light-blue eyes, smiled a little.

"The very best minds in the field tell me there's less hazard to the baby from using an Iris, far less hazard, than from taking a shuttle."

Marnie nodded, closed her eyes again.

Father, mother, son and the unborn, relaxed in the quiet of their quarters, slept.

 

A pale eyed girl applied a sticky salve to the long, forked burns on the Fanghorn's face, on her shoulders, on the front of her chest, down her flanks.

The mare stood for the child's attentions.

She was the only one who could get close to the restless mare.

Victoria baited her way in with peppermints, she ran the hand-held scanner near the mare's light-tan fur, then she took the pine-scented salve she'd used on her own horsie and smeared it on the raw burns forking along the Fanghorn's hide.

Victoria was careful, Victoria was gentle: when she was done, once she'd capped the nearly empty jar and wiped the unguent off her fingers, the mare snuffed at her and laid her jaw against Victoria's back.

The Fanghorn's fur grew back, but along the burn tracks it grew back pure white, forever marking the lightning-fires that seared the horse and came too close to killing its rider.

 

Michael Keller lay on his belly, snarling quietly into the mouthful of pillow he'd bitten down on.

His burns were healing; reconstructive surgeries restored muscles and nerve tissue that were burned away, an osteostim was used to re-grow the heat-damaged spinal prominences that had to be cut away: Michael squeezed his eyes shut against the pain -- he refused to let them numb the area, it had been dead before, and Michael did not want to lose part of his body again.

He submitted patiently to tests after tests after exams after scans after questions, he stood, he bent, he walked and then ran on a treadmill, he stood in front of a scanner, arms in the air, silent, defiant.

Finally he was brought into a room with one man who looked like a doctor.

"Michael," the doctor asked, "have you any questions for me?"

Michael's bottom jaw slid out and his hands closed into fists.

"Yes," Michael said quietly. "Am I gonna turn into a girl?"

The doctor blinked, surprised.

"Why would you ask that?"

"My heart -- this heart -- it's my sister's heart. Mine's gone."

"Yours was very badly damaged. It could not be healed."

"Pa said that when someone gets a heart transplant, they become like whoever the heart came from. If the heart came from a singer, they could sing better. If it came from an artist, they could draw better. Victoria is a girl."

"Victoria?"

"My sister. It's her heart."

"It's actually your heart."

"It came from her."

"Only part of it. We used it as a master template to re-grow your own heart."

"From her heart."

"Almost."  The physician considered, hesitated, tried again.

"A twin is the most compatible tissue donor," he began.

"What about my brother Jacob? Or my Pa?"

"You were being kept alive with machines. We had to move fast just to keep you alive. Your sister was available, and she was a much better choice than either your brother or your father."

Michael stopped, blinked, then looked bleakly at the physician.

"Pa said he was hurt bad once. He told our Doc at least he was alive to complain about it."

The physician waited.

"I'm not gonna turn into a girl?"

"We've seen no indication that could happen."

"Can I go home now?"

The physician considered, nodded.

"Yes, Michael.  You can go home now."

 

Victoria opened their front door, slipped out of her shoes, left them in the rubber boot tray.

She froze, then turned quickly toward her Daddy's study.

Michael rose as she ran toward him, then she stopped, uncertain: she looked at her twin brother with light-blue eyes.

Victoria might have hesitated, but Michael did not.

He spread his arms, he hugged his twin sister, holding her with a desperate strength, his lips an inch from her ear as he whispered, "Thanks, sis!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 10 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FANCY PANTS AND THE DEAD CHICKEN

 

The undertaker was more than happy to accommodate the man in the tailored suit.

Even on the frontier, appearances counted: when a man wore what was obviously quality material, and had it altered to fit him well, it spoke of good taste, it spoke of breeding and culture, and hopefully it spoke of money to be made.

When such a man came into the funeral parlor and removed his brushed Stetson and spoke with respect to the owner and proprietor, estimations of such a man will naturally increase just a bit more.

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller, having made due inquiry of a man he'd never met, in a town he'd never been in, spoke with the voice and the words of a man of education, but a man of practicality; he listened carefully to the top-hatted proprietor's replies, nodded, shook the man's hand, and indicated he woud return, upon the morrow.

His arrival in town, of course, was noted: when a well-dressed man on a good-looking stallion comes into town, a new face always generates comment: when that new face has quality leather on his horse, when he has a horse that few men would choose, when his first stop in town is the Undertaker's ... well, this does start folks wondering.

The town Marshal watched him with narrowed eyes, as a lawman would: this was not one of the local community, not a rancher -- at least, not a working ranch hand -- and very obviously not a cattleman.

Few men rode a stallion, as they tended to be trouble when any nearby mare came fresh; stallions were often headstrong and harder to handle, but this Appaloosa seemed to behave himself in fine shape.

A quiet voice beside him:  "Wonder what Fancy Pants is doin' here."

"Know him?"

"Nah. I know his kind. Gambler, most likely."

"Hmp."  The town marshal spat brown tobacco juice, frowned.

"Wonder why he's goin' int' the funeral parlor."

"Hell, maybe he's dead an' he don't know it yet."

"He's trouble."

The Marshal nodded.  "His kind always are."  He spat again and sneered, "Fancy Pants!"

 

"I wished to speak with a man of knowledge," Jacob said slowly.

The undertaker bowed a little:  "You flatter me, sir."

Jacob smiled, just a little.  "It is my observation," he said carefully, "that those who tend the dead tend to be better educated than their counterparts in medicine."

Jacob watched the man's reactions closely, knew he'd just scored on the plus side of the man's ledger.

"I would inquire as to local custom."

"Of course, sir."

"In the unfortunate instance that a ... client ... has a price on his head, and is ... retrieved," Jacob said carefully, "are the remains brought here, customarily?"

The undertaker blinked, thinking quickly, trying to craft an answer that might put coin in his purse.

"It has been done," he admitted.

"I would observe the proprieties," Jacob continued, "and no, I am not a bounty hunter."  

He turned over his lapel, showed the star on its back side.

"In the event that such an individual were presented, what would it cost for a traveling casket?"

The undertaker smiled, just a little, for here was the distinct possibility that he might indeed make some profit.

 

Jacob took a long, savoring drink of almost-cool beer as the barkeep snatched the coin as if he were afraid someone might take it from him.

Jacob lowered the mug, looked in the pitifully small excuse for a mirror: he half-turned, asked the barkeep, "Where can a man get a decent meal hereabouts?"

The barkeep sighed more than laughed, looked over at the free lunch, or what was left of it.

"Widow Haskins has a boarding house down the street and on the right," he said.  "She'll feed ye."

Jacob drained his beer, nodded, set the mug down.

The barkeep picked it up, raised his eyebrows: Jacob shook his head, smiled just a little:  "Thank'ee anyhow, I'm good."

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller turned, stood away from the bar, slid his hands just under the open coat.

A man moved to block his exit from the bar.

A younger man was behind and beside him -- younger, less sure.

"What are you doin' in my town, Fancy Pants?"

"You received my telegram" -- a statement, not a question.

This wasn't the reply the man was expecting.

"What telegram?"

"The one you got an hour ago. I watched the boy carry it into your office."

"You."

"Me."

The town marshal looked like he'd just bit down on a sour pickle: he turned, jerked his head toward the door: he and his compadre started toward the door.

The marshal stopped.

The barkeep was backed away now, his hands were empty -- Jacob had been ready for the man to dive for a shotgun under the bar -- with the barkeep out of the way, Jacob had a clear shot at both of the troublemakers, if need be.

The marshal opened his mouth as if to say something, frowned, closed his mouth.

First smart thing you've done so far.

A widow-woman looked up at the careful knock on her doorframe, smiled as a well-dressed young man smiled, just a little, his hat in his hand.

"I do beg your pardon, ma'am," he said in a gentle voice, "but I was told a man might find a meal here."

"We've chicken, and more than enough," she replied. "Please, come in."

"Thank you, ma'am," Jacob said quietly.  "I do love dead chicken."

Conversation at the boarding-house table was quiet and pleasant, likely because a well dressed man sat at one end of the table: his voice was gentle and his eyes smiled, his words were careful and he told of how the Blaze Boys, back home, stole a skyrocket and some Lucifer matches, and brought down fire from the heavens, and ended up with a white blaze on their scalps as a result: his account of the moment was humorous, he brought laughter to the table, and when the meal was finished, he thanked the widow-woman and held his Stetson in front of his flat belly.

He considered, he blinked and looked away, then he looked back and smiled, and said in almost a child's voice, "My tum-my is smiling."

 

The next day, the undertaker heard a wagon draw up in the alley beside his funeral parlor.

Curious, he went into the back room, lifted the latch as someone knocked from without.

The proprietor opened the sliding door, surprised, then saw the familiar shape of a blanket-shrouded body in the wagon's bed.

The rented wagon departed several minutes later, with a nailed-shut rough-box in the back:  Jacob drove to the depot, supervised the loading of the box into a freight car, then went up to the telegraph window, slid a small sheet of paper through the barred opening, with some coin.

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller waited for the reply, slid a second sheet and more coin through the bars.

A well-dressed man with pale eyes untied the Appaloosa stallion from behind the wagon, led it up the stock ramp and into the stock car.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller looked up as Jacob came into his office.

Linn slid a flimsy across the desk toward him.

Jacob picked it up, nodded: he turned, paced slowly, deliberately toward the door, settled his Stetson on his head.

He rode over to the bank, handed the flimsy to the girl behind the teller's bars: she smiled at him, and he winked at her, for they'd gone to school together: not long after, Jacob swung back into the saddle, crossed back over to the Sheriff's office.

Linn looked up again at Jacob's return.

"Is there aught else, sir?" Jacob asked quietly.

Linn smiled.  "No. Is all well?"

Jacob considered for a long moment.

"Sir, I've known crooked men in high places."

Linn nodded, slowly: Jacob knew his father had known such, himself.

"I considered that a crooked town marshal might want a cut of bounty money I inquired of the undertaker and he allowed as yes, the town marshal laid claim to any bounty money that passed through his town."

Linn nodded, his eyes narrowing slightly, and Jacob knew that his father had known such less-than-completely-honest folk himself.

"I sent a telegram ahead to let him know I'd be in his town but not for long. Didn't say why. He come in the saloon and braced me, likely figured I was a card sharper."

Linn raised an eyebrow as Jacob grinned.

"Did it come to anything?"

"No, sir. I reminded him of the telegram I'd watched the boy fetch into his office. He couldn't deny that one and he didn't like it a'tall."

"You collected the bounty."

"I did, sir."  Jacob patted his coat pocket.

"You didn't tell him you'd collected a man with a good price on his head."

"No, sir."

"I asked the Judge about such matters, and he'd have no legal claim against your bounty."  Linn leaned back in his chair, considered for a moment, looked back at Jacob.

"Anything else?"

Jacob smiled, just a little.

"Sir, there's a widow-woman runs a boarding-house there in town. 'Gainst you're ever through there, you might want to stop and eat off her table."

"Good?"

"Best dead chicken ever did I eat."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MOONRUNNER!

Marnie Keller thrust a bladed hand at the Earth-normal student: "Mikhail, yes?"

"Miz Marnie, what's a moonshiner?"

Marnie Keller laughed a little -- her students all smiled, for they loved it when Miz Marnie came to teach: she was quick to laugh and quick to listen, and as hard as they tried to steer her from the lessons, she managed to steer them right back and make them like it.

Mihail grew up in Earth-normal gravity -- most of the younger Martian children did, as there were many fewer health problems.

Those who grew in Mars-normal were taller, but their bones were more fragile, even when later exposed to Earth-normal gravity.

Mikhail, like his robust Georgian father, was heavy boned, well muscled, quick to laugh: his mother played the balalaika, his sisters were accomplished violinists (though one sister insisted on studying with Gracie every chance she got, and preferred the quick, lively mountain airs of the Valkyrie's ancestral mountains!), and Mikhail was a singer of surprising talent, despite his few years.

Marnie heard him sing a Russian dirge, and at thirteen, the minor chords and hereditary sorrow she heard in his voice, brought her to sniveling tears for its beauty: he'd stopped, shocked, and she'd embraced him, sobbing and laughing both and when finally she could speak, she whispered -- she didn't trust her voice -- that such beauty could move stony mountains and melt Arctic glaciers, and she hugged him again and begged him sing, sing for her.

"Yes, Mikhail?"

"Miz Marnie, what's a moonshiner?"

Marnie frowned, pursed her lips, tapped her cheekbone with a meditative finger: she turned her head a little to the left, rubbed her chin, turned to her right, rubbed along her jaw: her moves, though feminine, though thoughtful, were also exaggerated: her young charges began giggling, for when Miz Marnie pretended to be terribly thoughtful, it meant she was going to be entertaining!

"I need a show of hands," she said, pulling out a slim, rectangular screen and tapping and swiping on it: "How many of you here have heard of something called NASCAR?"

Puzzled schoolchildren, in an underground Martian classroom, looked at one another, looked at Marnie.

"O-kaaay, how many of you know how to change points, plugs and condenser?"

More puzzled looks, a low-voice conversation between two sons of engineers, speculating on devices used for distillation.

Marnie dusted her hands briskly together.

"Okay.  Field trip!"

Young eyes widened with anticipation: when Miz Marnie declared a Field Trip, it was an adventure!

 

Inductive learning was refined greatly since the days the first Confederate abductees were injected with alien knowledge.

Each of the children had the sensation that they were the only one walking with their beloved Miz Marnie.

Marnie paced around something kind of oblong, with windows and maybe it's a metallic cockpit but there's no exhaust, what kind of ... is it maybe a storage pod? -- wheels, not antigravs ... how primitive IS this thing?

Marnie walked around the front of the old-fashioned black Pontiac, caressed the yellow Indian head hood ornament, smiled a little: Uncle Pete had such a car, many long years ago, and she'd been fascinated by this Indian head ornament in the center front of the hood.

She reached in and under and did  something, there was a metallic sound, she raised a hinged black cover, picked up her young charge, stood him -- and her -- each of them had the impression they were the only one with her -- 

"This," Marnie said, "is an engine. It is an internal combustion power unit, using an exothermic reduction-oxidation reaction to convert energy to linear, then rotational motion."

A wave of the hand and the heavy, oil bath air cleaner disappeared.

"This is the carburetor. It determines the fuel-air mixture. It is naturally aspirated, which means it uses air under atmospheric pressure. It's filtered through an oil bath to catch dust and foreign particles you don't want in the mechanism" -- a wave of the hand, the air cleaner reappeared, section by section -- she ran an arm around her student's waist, picked up the child, stepped back, drew the hood down, latched it.

She walked the child around to the passenger side, opened the door, opened it.

"Climb in, have a seat."

The child looked in, smelled gasoline and oil and rubber and dust: Marnie closed the heavy door, skipped around the front of the car, climbed in the driver's side, turned the key, stomped the clutch, set her heel on the throttle, put the ball of her foot on the starter switch, looked at the grinning child.

"Showtime!"

Transport on Mars was silent, or nearly so, except for the steam engines used for the subway system -- these looked very much like the legendary The Lady Esther, back in the equally legendary Firelands, though their native engines were powered by a nuclear pile instead of burning coal, and they had a complete steam recycle: they retained all the external, visible, moving parts, the sounds, the feel of live steam.

Everything else was silent, or nearly so.

When Marnie thrust her leg forward, young eyes widened, young hands gripped armrest and dug into cloth-covered upholstery: a well-tuned, poorly-muffled Pontiac V8, in a shining black Plymouth moonrunner's car -- the twin for one driven by Old Devil Maxwell, who drove as if the devil himself was after him -- cleared its throat and began snarling, a deep, mechanical, throaty, menacing challenge to any who dared oppose its free travel!

Marnie laughed with delight.

When she learned to drive, a classmate had a muscle car, and let her drive it once, and once only: Marnie had a total lack of fear, she had marvelous coordination, and she took one of the mountain roads half again faster than her classmate had ever taken his built, printed, ported, balanced, tuned up and tricked out pavement burner.

Marnie never forgot how that fast, responsive car felt, and she never lost her love for a fast car.

She hooked the floor shifter -- her young charge had no way of knowing this was custom and nowhere near stock -- into reverse, eased quickly backwards, hauled the big wheel around, stomped the clutch, hooked the gearbox into go-forward gear, looked over and grinned.

"Hold onto your liver!" she shouted happily, wound the throttle and dumped the clutch.

Driver and passenger were thrust deeper into their seats:  Marnie ran the gears, she got to third, came screaming out of the gravel driveway and onto a paved two-lane road, mashed the throttle:  rubber SCREAMED under them and behind them and the big black Pontiac fish tailed and grabbed pavement and LAUNCHED down a straight stretch, Marnie powered fourth and yelled "HANG ON!" and they hit the hump in the middle of Hill's Bottom and went airborne, a poorly muffled Pontiac V8 singing power and Marnie singing joy and they hit hard and sparks blasted from the bottomed-out under carriage and Marnie wound the speedometer up, she drifted the barely-banked curves, taking pavement at a velocity they were never intended to withstand.

She blew past something black-and-white, something with a flashing red gumball machine on top that began to pursuie.

"LOOK IN THE MIRROR! YOUR SIDE!"

The student looked in the vibrating round mirror, saw the police car, lit up and struggling to pursue.

Marnie came up on another black Pontiac, laid on the horn as she passed: her student saw this one turn quickly into a side road and disappear.

Marnie double-clutched third, mashed the go pedal roared up Marolt's Hill, the big engine screaming defiance against Man and gravity, they topped out and ran a quick S-turn, ran the ridgeback for another couple miles, slowed quickly at a four-way stop.

"This is Tatman's Crossing," Marnie explained: she stopped the car -- an octagonal red STOP sign was on their right, which the student didn't realize until they were stopped, started and gone -- Marnie turned to the right, drove sedately down the road, turned up another gravel road, pulled up beside a barn, tapped her horn twice.

The barn door slid open and she backed in, using the mirrors to navigate as she did.

Mikhail was amazed at the ease with which she drove backwards, with mirrors -- and because the students were mind-linked in this common experience, every one of his classmates shared his admiration at her skill.

Marnie shut off the engine with a cheerful "Last stop, all out," she reached over, opened her student's door and then her own: she climbed out, skipped around the front of the car, patted the Pontiac's hood ornament on her way past, opened the heavy passenger door.

"That," Marnie smiled, "was what a chase car does.  The other car -- the one we passed" -- she extended her arm, made a showy roll of her wrist, a screen came into existence, and showed her passing an identical black Pontiac -- "the other car was hauling cargo."

"What kind of cargo, Miz Marnie?" -- the young voices were a delightful chorus, young eyes looked around, the illusion maintained that only one child walked beside their teacher, when in reality all of them did.

"This," Marnie said, spreading her arms, "is the heart of the operation."  

Marnie clapped gloved hands sharply together, twice.

"Lights!"

A collective "Oooh" -- young eyes took in the sight -- and young minds realized they had absolutely no idea what they were looking at.

Marnie snapped her fingers.

A clay flowerpot appeared before her -- a flowerpot the size of a five gallon bucket.

A shaft of light illuminated the planter; Marnie made a magician's pass, gloved hand circling above the dirt, then she made a come-here gesture, and something green -- several somethings green -- began to grow.

Time-lapse photography was nothing new to them; they'd seen such any number of times.

They watched as four plants grew, tall, slender, healthy: as something cylindrical, with tapered ends and a hairy end, manifested.

Marnie seized one, twisted it free, peeled back the husk

"This," she said, "is corn."

She plugged it back onto the cornstalk, where it rejoined, as if by magic -- well, the magic of holography, but in the childrens' minds, this was their beloved Miz Marnie, and she did stuff!

"If we let the corn ripen fully and dry, we can grind it, we can add water and yeast, we can let the yeast ferment the corn's natural carbohydrates. It'll produce carbon dioxide and alcohol.  If you want a better grade of moonshine" -- Marnie smiled -- another wave of her hand, another planter, wheat shot up, grew, ripened:  she stripped ripened grains from a stem, spread them out on an invisible table: she plucked a watering-can from nowhere, sprinkled the seeds: the can disappeared, another wave of her gloved hand.

"Come closer. Watch."

The child -- the students, all seeing through one set of eyes -- looked, saw the seeds sprout.

"Here's the secret," Marnie said. "We grind these sprouts. We'll add them to ground corn, we'll add whatever else we want -- fruits, cut up fine, we might add sugar, but don't make the mistake of using sugar only. You want good high quality moonshine!" -- her admonition, with a smile and an upraised finger, was answered with accepting smiles.

"Now all this is fermented, we maintain a known temperature for a known length of time, but if we let it set too long" -- she wrinkled her nose -- "it'll sour and it's ruined.

"Now. The mash goes into the still here" -- a wave of curled fingers, the conical cap lifted from the copper still's body, mash poured in -- they could smell the scents of fermentation, of fruits -- "Your nose is the best gauge to know when your mash is ready to run."

Marnie danced back a few steps, pirouetted like a ballerina, slashed a hand down, launched a fireball the size of a child's fist: it seared a blazing line to the underside of the still, flared into life.

"We want too cook it off now.  The cap goes back on" -- it settled into place -- "and you paste the cap down, like this, with strips of burlap dipped in wheat paste."

"What's wheat paste?" a curious young voice asked, and Marnie felt curiosity prickling from several of the children.

"A lesson for another time. Alcohol will evaporate off, you can't heat it too much, just enough to drive off the alcohol your busy little yeasties have been making for you.  The vapors rise through this copper line -- the line goes into the thumper, to catch anything that burps over -- vapors come out here, and you run crick water over your coil to cool it --"

"What's crick water, Miz Marnie?"

"Another field trip!" Marnie smiled, and several of the students cheered quietly.

Marnie picked up a pint jar, slipped it under the copper stub sticking out of the condenser.

"Your firsts and your lasts will contain fusel oil. The more sugar you add, the more fusel oil there is. This batch is almost all ground sprouts, only a very little ground corn, so it should make some really good high grade moonshine likker."

Marnie turned, raised a teaching finger.

"This is called moonshine. Those who make it are moonshiners. Those who take it to market are moonrunners, because back home, it's illegal to make this and sell it. The police try to catch the moonrunners, so generally you'll have a chase car" -- Marnie thrust a hand at the Pontiac, dozing in the forward part of the barn -- "and you'll have a cargo carrier, which hauls crates of moonshine."

Marnie picked up the glass jar, sniffed.

"Can I taste it?" a young voice asked hopefully.

Marnie set the jar down, knelt, rested gloved hands lightly on the hopeful little boy's shoulders.

"I'm sorry, Mikhail," she whispered, and each student heard her lips frame their individual name -- "but this is just a simulation" -- the barn, the still, the black Pontiac faded, and they were in the underground classroom again.

"Awww," every last student complained, and Marnie laughed, and every last student there felt her arms around them, hugging them tight.

 

For some odd reason, the recreational simulators had a sudden interest in a program called "Moonrunner."

It was a new program, and it had nothing at all to do with simulated sojourns on Luna's surface.

 

Edited July 11 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHITTLIN'

Sheriff Linn Keller picked up the heavy bottom glass.

He usually looked into the depths like a fortuneteller staring into a crystal ball.

He usually considered the mysteries in shimmering amber, unless what he had was water clear and not over thirty days old, in which case he looked into the mystery contained in liquid crystal.

He did neither.

Mr. Baxter dispensed the local product, the Sheriff picked it up, downed it, set the empty back on the burnished mahogany and then took a drink of beer.

Then he took a breath.

Mr. Baxter lifted his chin, looked at the glass, looked at the Sheriff.

Linn shook his head.

Mr. Baxter retrieved the short, squat glass, set it under the bar to be tended in a free moment.

"You had me worried, Sheriff," he said quietly.

Linn raised an eyebrow.

"I've seen that done before."

Linn's expression was carefully neutral.

"A man wants to get drunk in a hurry will take a drink of beer, he'll take a breath, slug down  Two Hit John 'til he runs out of wind, takes another swig of beer and then breathes. Doesn't taste the fire that way."

"I'll remember that."

Mr. Baxter grunted, regarded the lean lawman with the iron grey mustache with an appraising eye.

"Sheriff, was I to make a guess, I'd say you were in pain."

Linn's silence gave affirmation to the barkeep's guess.

The Silver Jewel was but lightly tenanted at the moment, and no one in easy earshot; Mr. Baxter leaned over the bar, forearms crossed.

Linn leaned toward the man, considered for another moment.

"Esther cut me."

Mr. Baxter was pretty good at a poker face his own self, and that was fortunate, elsewise he might've hit the floor, or at least his chin, where his jaw dropped open in utter astonishment.

Mr. Baxter saw the corners of Linn's eyes tighten, just a little, and he knew he'd just been had.

The Sheriff had a way of settin' a man up and then droppin' a load of surprise on him, and more often than not he'd set a man up for a laugh, and Mr. Baxter had the sneaking suspicion he'd just been set up.

 

Linn saw smoke before he smelled it, and he did not like what he smelled.

His stallion smelled it and did not like it any better than his pale eyed rider.

No wild creature likes fire, and there was wild enough in the Sheriff's stallion to be unhappy.

Linn gigged the shining Palomino into a trot.

If there was fire, he needed to know where it was, which way it was headed, and how fast.

The wind shifted just as they came over a little rise.

It was already burnt here, at least on one side, a trick of terrain or prevailing wind kept it from burning grass and brush on his left --

-- but the wind's shift sent hungry flames into tall grass and Rey del Sol danced sideways, away from the sudden flare of flame: Linn's leg raked painfully against a burnt-over bush.

He turned the stallion, gigged him with his heels, and his shining mount needed no further encouragement to commit to that classic military maneuver known as "Get the Hell Out of Here!"

The fire turned on itself and starved itself out without causing any real damage.

Two days later, Linn noticed the muscle on the outside of his right shin bone was kind of sore.

When he stripped down for bed, he ran questing fingers over horseman's muscle and found a lump.

Frowning, he went over to the bedroom window, set his bare foot up on the sill, looked at his shin bone in the best light he had, scratched at what looked like maybe an infected hair.

He squeezed out a drop of pus, then a drop of blood.

He shrugged, wiped his fingers on the inside of his nightshirt.

Next night, it was still tender, still trying to swell up.

Linn frowned, dug at it, squeezed it again, got out a drop of corruption and then a drop of blood.

After supper the third evening, he addressed his wife -- Esther smiled as he did, she swore it sounded like he was taking off his hat when he spoke to her, never mind he was inside and wasn't wearing one -- "My dear, could I ask your sound advice?" -- and they retreated into the Sheriff's study.

Linn went to the window, set his booted foot up on the sill and pulled up his trouser leg.

"Dearest," he said, "could you take a look at whatever's aggravatin' me here?"

Esther came over, slipped a dainty pair of spectacles over her ears, peered carefully at her husband's leg.

"There's something in there," she murmured, pressing it gently with her thumbs.

"I've been workin' at that thing for two days now," Linn said. "If there's somethin' in it, let's get it out!"

"I'll need a --"

Linn turned the handle of a slender, very sharp blade toward her, then placed it on the window sill.

Esther won't accept a blade or a scissors from anyone, he thought, and she won't hand anyone a knife or a scissors unless it's to her daughter, on her deathbed.

Esther picked up the knife, tilted her head.

"I'm not really certain what," she murmured, "but there is something in there ..."

She squeezed it again, gently.

"Feels deep," Linn muttered.

"It looks like ... there's a little band over it, holding it in ..."

Esther took a short grip on the blade, held it between thumb and forefinger.

Carefully, expertly, she guided the honed edge against whatever she was seeing --

She flinched back as something popped out of the Sheriff's shin, something black and just shy of an inch long.

Linn reached down, gripped the fire-blackened thorn, pulled it the rest of the way out.

"Well I'll be damned," he said softly, turning it and looking at it.

"What is it?"  Esther laid the knife down on the windowsill, tilted her head curiously.

Linn chuckled.

"You remember a couple days ago I rode up on a fire that burned itself out?"

Esther worked the spectacles from behind her ears, folded them carefully, slipped them into an embroidered glasses-case.

"Rey del Sol shied when the wind flared the fire up. Shoved my leg into a burnt-over thorny bush."

"That's why it wasn't infected much," Esther murmured.  "It was burnt clean, otherwise you'd be dying of lockjaw."

 

Mr. Baxter chuckled, shook his head.

"Sheriff," he said quietly, "here's hopin' that's the only time Miz Esther ever takes a knife to you!"

Linn grinned, straightened.

"I reckon with a good tilt of Two Hit John inside me, why, that'll prevent infection."

Mr. Baxter closed one eye and intoned solemnly, "And it tastes better than carbolic!"

Linn hoisted his beer mug in salute.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DUTCHMAN'S JUSTICE

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller's face was expressionless as he turned off the screen.

Ruth Keller came back into the parlor, sat carefully in her rocking chair: Jacob rose when she came into the room, as he always did, and Ruth smiled gently to see her husband's gentlemanly acknowledgement that a Lady had just entered the room.

Ruth sat carefully, on a pillow she and her mother fashioned for the purpose.

Ruth smiled again as she looked at her husband, one self-conscious hand on her belly.

"Did you always rise for your mother and your sisters?" she asked quietly.

"No," Jacob admitted with a bashful grin. "No, I had to cultivate the habit."

She saw his eyes grow a little distant, the way they did when he was remembering.

"Pa made mention of the habit, and I tried it -- but my bratty little sisters would leave the room and come back in and leave the room and come back in and laugh at my Jack-in-the-box."

Ruth blinked, puzzled.

"Jack-in-the-box?" she asked, and Jacob laughed.

"I'll have to get you one. Or I can pull one up here ..."

He turned the screen back on; Ruth heard his quick patter of keys, he turned the screen and she watched the animation.

She didn't jump when the lid flew back and the Jack-in-the-Box popped out, but her eyebrows did raise rather quickly.

"A common child's toy. If the child is too young, it can scare 'em."

"I see," Ruth murmured.

"I was looking at pending cases back home," Jacob said thoughtfully. "There's an open case, still under investigation."

 

Jacob Keller waited in the shadow.

The stepladder was set up in another man's garage.

Jacob looked at common hardware store rope, tied off to a rafter: a short section of rope lay across the rafter, and a crude loop.

His vision was quite good.

He saw the rope was tied off with multiple overhand knots, two of which accidentally formed square knots, a third forming a granny -- the loop itself was commercial manufacture, available at any hardware store in a double handful of Western states.

The rope itself was a little dusty, he knew, as if it had slept on a shelf somewhere for some long time.

Jacob waited until the man he was waiting for, came into the garage.

Jacob took a quick step forward, seized him from behind -- one gloved hand over the man's face, he pulled the head back and to the side, pressed something cold and metallic against the exposed throat -- a hiss -- he caught the limp body as it collapsed.

He worked fast.

Jacob climbed the stepladder, not an easy task as his other arm was around the limp figure's chest, holding him from behind.

He got up to rafter height, grabbed the rope, dropped the loop over the twitching figure's head, made sure it was settled around his neck, then dropped him.

Jacob descended the ladder, laid it over, looked around, then he returned to the shadow, activated the Iris, disappeared.

 

"Michael. Victoria."

The twins looked up from their just-emptied dessert plates, watched as Linn forked up his last bite of pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

"Did you get filled up?" Linn asked in his gentle Daddy-voice.

"Yes, sir," the twins chorused.

"Is your homework done?"

"Yes, sir."

"Chores are finished?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Conference, my office."

Shelly gave her husband a quizzical look: Linn gave her the slightest of head-shakes, barely a quarter of an inch, but enough so his wife knew that she was not to be part of whatever was about to happen.

Linn rose, picked up his plate, his silverware, his empty coffee mug, carried them over to the sink: he took his wife's shoulders from behind, leaned down and nibbled the side of her neck, whispered "I'll take care of the dishes, darlin'."

"Mmm," she purred. "Promises, promises."

Linn refrained from smacking his wife on the backside -- the children were watching, after all -- he slipped around the head of the table, approached the twins, standing at the opposite end, waiting, big-eyed and watchful.

They entered the Sheriff's study.

The twins sat on the long, comfortable couch; Linn turned his office chair around, faced them, sat.

The twins considered this was probably a good sign: if this were a matter of discipline, their father would be on his feet.

Linn frowned at the floor, rubbed his palms together slowly, thoughtfully, looked up.

"How much do you know about the juvenile justice system?" he asked.

Brother and sister looked at one another, looked at the Sheriff, shook their heads.

Linn took a long breath, exhaled through his nose, clearly uncertain, and this was more disconcerting for the twins than if he'd addressed them on some wrongdoing.

"Sir," Michael hazarded, "have we done something wrong?"

Linn looked up, surprised, then they saw his ears turn a little red.

"No, Michael. No, neither of you have done anything wrong." 

The Sheriff straightened.

"I have what might seem to be bad news."

The twins each looked as puzzled as the other.

"You remember that Nisley fellow tried to murder your Uncle Will."

"Uncle Will saw his reflection in the store window," Michael replied.

"Uncle Will turned and took the ax away from him and drove the head end into his gut," Victoria added.

"Well, they had a hearing, and Nisley is not competent to stand trial."

"Oh, bull," Michael protested: Victoria's mouth opened, she hesitated, then asked, "He's gonna get away with it?"

"He's being evaluated and sent home with an ankle monitor."

"Home."

Linn nodded.

"For trying to kill Uncle Will with an ax?" Victoria said slowly, then both twins' eyes turned toward the gun case, and Linn could almost hear the gears turning in two young skulls.

"I wanted to mention the juvenile system," Linn said quietly, "because if you try anything against Nisley -- if you decide you have to kill him because he needs killin' -- this isn't Wyoming back when Old Pale Eyes was still alive. We have to let the system handle this."

"The system didn't handle it," Michael said bitterly.

"I know," Linn cautioned, "but it's the best we've got. We'll do nothing. Nothing at all."  

He looked from his youngest daughter to his youngest son and back.

"Understood?"

"Yes, sir," they both chorused, and they looked their long tall Daddy in the eye when they said it.

"Thank you," Linn said gravely. 

"What about Jacob and Marnie?" Michael asked.

"And Angela," Victoria added.

"I'll talk to them, too."

"Sir" -- Michael's young face was serious -- "sir, why did they turn him loose like that?"

"Not competent to stand trial," Linn repeated. "He doesn't understand what he did, he's not competent to understand the courtroom proceedings, nor to participate in his own defense."

"Sir, what's stopping him from doing it again? That ankle monitor won't --"

"I know, Michael. I made that same argument to Prosecution and the Judge both, and I entered my official protest at the decision."

The Sheriff's phone rang.

"Excuse me," he said politely, sat up straight, slid the phone from his shirt pocket. "Keller."

Michael and Victoria watched as their father stood abruptly.

"When?"

Each twin's hand found the other's: each felt the other's excitement as their father said, "On my way."

Linn looked at his children, looked at the phone, slid it back into his shirt pocket.

"Doesn't matter now.  Looks like Nisely hanged himself."

 

Ambassador and Sheriff Emeritus Marnie Keller stepped through the Iris into her brother's parlor, to the delightful smell of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls and freshly-steeped Earl Grey tea.

She hugged Ruth, smiling, murmured "How did you know?" -- then seized a sweet roll, closed her eyes with pleasure as she bit into the still-warm, freshly-frosted spiral.

"Oh, God, that's good," she mumbled through her mouthful. "I've been craving these!"

"We've Earl Grey and mint both," Ruth offered as the ladies sat: Jacob could not but smile at the sight.

Their quarters would have been at home in the mid-1880s, and were very similar to the surroundings with which his offworld wife was familiar, and comfortable: both Ruth and Marnie wore long gowns, neither had much of a belly yet (though he knew this would change), and he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, delighting at the sight of two truly beautiful women, pleased to see one another again.

Jacob waited for the feminine kaffeeklatsch started to slow down, then he lifted his head a little and said gently, "Sis, could I borrow you for a minute?"

 

The Sheriff asked the roommate what happened, and the greasy-looking fellow looked away, mumbled something.

"Run that by me again," Linn said mildly.

"I said he was on his phone, man."

"Was he talking to somebody?"

"No, man, I think he text somebody."

"What happened then?"

"He got a text, man."

"A text. From who?"

"I dunno, man, he diddn' say."

"Where's the phone now?"

"I dunno, man."

Linn stepped closer and smiled, just a little.

He was close enough to smell the unwashed roommate, close enough to feel his body heat.

"Where's the phone?" the Sheriff asked again, closing his hands, then opening them again.

"He, I, it, I got it, man."

Linn held out his hand.

"Give."

 

When Linn came out of the house, he surveyed the front of the garage.

Barrents turned, saw him approach, came out to meet him.

"Nothing is touched," he said. "Ran a beam of light at ground level to try and highlight any footprints."

"Any luck?"

"No."

"Ladder on its side, dead man hanging by the neck. Anything overtly suspicious?"

"No."

"We'll need to dust the ladder for prints. Glove up before you set it up and cut him down. Preserve the knot."

"Right."

Linn looked at his segundo.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You already know what to do."

Barrents winked. "I know you, Boss. You spoke out of habit."

 

Angela came into Jacob's parlor, all smiles and bright eyes and a big plate of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

She hugged the ladies, skipped over to Jacob, laughed as she hugged him, whispered "I made your favorite," and Jacob hugged her again and grinned, "Floor sweepin's, baloney and pimento cookies! My favorite!" -- Angela smacked him on the shoulder with a sisterly "Oh, you!", picked up a still-warm cookie and stuffed it between her brother's teeth.

Jacob hadn't gotten to borrow his sister yet.

He had to wait for the happy conversation to slow down a little before interrupting.

"Now that you're all here," he said, "I suppose you're wondering why I called this meeting."

Angela picked up a cinnamon roll and threw at him: Jacob caught it, looked with dismay at the smeary mess of icing on his hand, stood up and went to the sink: a quick, one-handed wash-off as he ate the offending missile with the other, then he washed that hand as well, dried his hands, turned and accepted a big, steaming mug of freshly brewed Earl Grey with a little mint and honey.

"So what's the big announcement?" Angela asked, doing her best to sound like an impatient little sister.

"I just saw on the news where that fellow who tried to kill Uncle Will, hanged himself."

"Good riddance," Marnie declared with a limp-wristed wave. "I do love good news this early in the morning!"

"Any findings?" Angela added.

Ruth tilted her head a little, interested, listening without comment.

"According to Pa's report, he suspected the roommate -- he has a record, he's One of the Usual Suspects -- but his prints weren't on the ladder and his DNA wasn't on the rope they cut off the garage rafter."

"What ladder?"

"From the crime scene photos, he'd set up a stepladder to hang himself with and kicked it over, either a-purpose or when he tried to climb back on."

Ruth grimaced, shivered.

"Autopsy findings?"

"Pending. Dollars to doughnuts he's juiced up on something."

"I wouldn't doubt it," Angela muttered. "I heard the court let him off on insanity."

"I heard that, too," Marnie murmured. "I was all set to go hang him myself."

Jacob grinned.  "Don't 'cha just love it when we don't have to work?"

Marnie and Angela looked at one another, looked at Jacob.

Marnie reached into her reticule and pulled out a bright-scarlet rose, fragrant and wet with dewdrops: she handed it to Ruth, who exclaimed with delight, smelled it, savoring the familiar scent, then pinning it to her bodice.

Angela and Marnie each slipped two fingers into a pocket, drew out a gold coin.

Jacob drew out his own. 

A Rose on one side, the superimposed Seal of Solomon and the Chrisian Cross on the reverse: pale eyes looked into pale eyes and into pale eyes, then looked at the coins they held.

"I was ready to Rose Court him," Marnie said quietly. "Nobody tries to kill family and gets away with it."

Angela nodded slowly, her eyes distant: she looked  at the coin, turned it over, slid it away.

"Same," she said quietly, and somehow neither Jacob nor Marnie doubted the deadly effectiveness of their pale eyed sister, should she make such a decision.

"Dutchman's Justice," Jacob said as he slid his coin back into its hidden pocket.

"Dutchman's Justice?" Ruth echoed, puzzled.

"Back when Firelands was still the frontier," Marnie explained, "there was no such thing as an insanity defense. If someone was so insane that they killed someone, they were too dangerous to be allowed to live, so they were hanged for the good of society. I'm not sure why, but it was known as Dutchman's Justice."

 

 

 

 

Edited July 13 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103