SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LIGHTNING ROD

"Yes ma'am," Sheriff Linn Keller said politely. "Thank you for calling. Goodbye."

He hung the phone up, leaned back, shook his head, sighed.

"Trouble, Boss?"

Linn looked up at his Chief Deputy, shook his head.

"Just part of the job," he said quietly. 

"She raisin' hell, was she?"

"Yep."

Linn looked at the yellow pad under his hand, added a few words, struck a bold line beneath.

"How's Uncle Will?"

Linn smiled, just a little.

Paul Barrents was one of the few people outside of immediate family that referred to their again-retired police chief as "Uncle Will."

Linn sighed, shook his head, leaned back in his chair.

"He does like cabbage rolls."

"Uh-oh," Barrents said, frowning and looking closely at his old friend.

"Uh-oh what?"

"When I know it's not that good a situation and you put a good face on it, it's worse than I thought."

Linn nodded, looked off to the side, sandpapering callused palms together, looked back.

"You know he has a pacemaker."

"I know he complained to high Heaven he can't run a welder now because of it."

"Yeah." 

Linn flattened his palms on the green desk blotter.  

"When they put in the pacer, they only wired the left half of his heart."

Barrents frowned a little, leaned forward, obviously listening closely.

"Now that his heart is depending more and more on the pacer, the right half lags, it backs up fluid into his lungs, he wakes up suffocating and has to spend the rest of the night sitting up."

Barrents grunted, his face suddenly expressionless.

"The girls brought him cabbage rolls and mashed potatoes and he really liked those.  His cardiologist gave him water pills and they're doing a fine job. You wouldn't know anything's wrong, to look at him."

"He's what ... ninety?"

"Will be in a few months."

Barrents waited.

"They're arranging an appointment to get him in and rewire him some."

Barrents chuckled.

"Rewire him?"

"I can say that," Linn grinned -- that sudden, ornery grin Paul remembered well -- "he's the one ... a buddy of his had a heart valve replaced and Uncle Will said something about the man having a valve job done."

Barrents laughed a little, nodded.

"That sounds like him, all right!"

"If he can joke about a valve job, I can joke about him getting rewired!"

 

Chief Deputy Paul Barrents hadn't been gone ten minutes when Linn looked up at the delicate knuckling of his door: Angela slipped in, closed the door behind her, set a steaming paper cup from the All-Night in front of him.

"Vanilla and chocolate coffee, just the way you like it," she said quietly.

"Have a set and speak your mind."

Angela looked at her Daddy, raised an eyebrow.

"What happened, Daddy?"

"Nothing.  Sit."

Angela swept her white nurse's skirt under her, sat, frowned, then looked at her Daddy.

"It's Uncle Will."

"Go on."

"Daddy" -- Angela laced her fingers tightly together, dropped her hands into her lap, she looked at her pale eyed Daddy with an expression of honest distress: in that moment she looked less like the competent, professional, honestly beautiful Nurse and Healer that she was, and instead looked like a distressed little girl, not far from crying.

Angela's words tumbled out the way they did when she was a little girl, distressed over something that grieved her young heart, when she was with the one person in all the world she trusted could make anything right, no matter what it was.

"Daddy, I ... there was an ... undiagnosed pancreatic cancer in the pediatric ward. If they'd found it, that would've meant surgery and chemo and radiation and I found it first so I waited until the family left the room and I took it out."

"And this was ... where?"

"Here. Firelands. Our hospital, here."

Linn nodded.

"I used Confederate technology. I took it out without cutting ... I never broke skin ... Daddy, I got it all, I swept the entire body and I got it all and I didn't tell anyone and I won't, Daddy" -- Angela looked at her father as her tears started to glitter, just before they started running over the forbidding dams behind her eyes -- "Daddy, you remember Nancy died of pancreatic cancer and there wasn't one, damned, thing, I could do!"

Angela's hands were fisted, pressed into her thighs, her voice was a strained whisper, almost a squeak:  she brought a hand quickly to her mouth, bit her knuckle, closed her eyes:  Linn waited until his little girl collected herself.

She took a long breath, blew it out, sat up very straight: she uncrossed her ankles, placed her feet flat on the floor, her palms flat on her knees.

"Daddy," she said -- a Daddy knows his little girl -- in that moment Linn knew how difficult it was for Angela to contain herself, but she was managing.

"Daddy, I took the cancer out of a child and nobody knows and I can fix Uncle Will and he won't let me!"

Angela Keller, nurse, Healer, Sheriff's deputy and Big Sister, gave up trying to hold her distress.

She dropped her forehead into her hands, and as her big strong Daddy sat down beside her and gathered her into his arms, she turned to the warmth and the strength and the comfort her Daddy had always been, and for a minute or two, or maybe longer, she was a little girl again, sorrowing her distress into her Daddy's shirt, safe and protected in his strong, manly arms.

She let him drape a bedsheet handkerchief over her nose, let him pinch lightly and whisper "Blow," and Angela blew her nose, and her Daddy dabbed at her reddened beak and very lightly, very carefully, swiped the wet from her cheeks and held her as her storm passed, and he murmured in his deep, resonant, comforting Daddy-voice, "Darlin', a prophet is not without honor save in his own country. Likely Will still sees you as the pretty little girl you used to be. He's an old man, dear heart, and old men have long memories."

She sniffed, shivered a little, nodded, her winged cap whispering against his shirt collar as she did.

"They've got a treatment plan. He's doin' fine on those water pills. He complains about gettin' up three times a night to get rid of some second hand coffee, but he's alive to complain about it, ain't he?"

Linn curled a finger under Angela's chin, lifted her face to his: his eyes were light blue, his expression was open, unguarded, something few people ever saw: he kissed his little girl on her forehead, content to sit and hold her however long she needed held.

 

That evening, Michael presented himself at his father's side, frowning.

"Now there's a serious expression," Linn said, squatting and looking very directly at his son. "What's on your mind?"

"Sir" -- Michael considered, frowned again.

"Sir, I thought the Confederacy would be better than it is."

"How's that?"

"Well ... sir, you recall Victoria and I ... there was a shootout and we put a stop to it."

"I recall."

"You recall I had to bust those rock snakes to keep Victoria safe."

Linn's expression was serious and he placed a firm hand on his son's shoulder: his voice was deep, resonant, the voice he used when speaking of important matters, whether with his son, or with an adult.

"Michael," he said, and his tone brooked neither dissent nor discussion, "you kept yourself and your sister both alive that day, and I am still pretty damned proud of you for that!"

Michael's eyes widened with surprise: like his pale eyed father, he practiced a poker face, he practiced a neutral expression, but sometimes his surprise slipped through, and this was one of those times.

"Sir, Marnie was nearly killed. We helped keep her safe. I took cover like you taught me, Victoria advanced to distract and when she saw an opportunity, she took out the team leader and I laid into 'em with rifle fire from cover."

"And you were presented with a military award of merit, and offered admission into their elite military college."

"Yes, sir."

Michael shifted uncomfortably.

"Sir, I thought they'd be better than us, but they're not."

"No, they're not, Michael," Linn said softly.  

"Sir ... Uncle Will was talking about that and he said 'People is people wherever ya's goes,' and I didn't want to believe it."

Linn nodded slowly.

"I know, Michael.  We want to believe the best of someone, and when they disappoint us ... well, it's disappointin'."

"Yes, sir."

Michael considered for a few moments longer, frowned, then looked at his father again and said, "Sir, it's the bad apples that get all the attention."

Linn rose, dropped his bony backside onto the handmade pillow in his office chair, glad to get his weight off his knees.

"Yes it is, Michael. Squeaky wheel and all that."

"Sir, am I right in believing most folks are good?"

Linn considered for several moments before nodding thoughtfully.

"Most folks aren't really bad, Michael," he finally said. "I'd like to think most are good, yes" -- he grinned -- "but in my line of work I generally don't see many of the good ones!"

 

That night, as Linn and Shelly stared at their nighttime ceiling, his hand found hers, squezed gently.

"Darlin'," Linn murmured, "now that we've got a minute, how was your day?"

Shelly sighed, rolled over, laid her arm across her husband's chest, sighed.

"It was worse than two terribles," she groaned, then kissed his bare shoulder.

She felt her husband chuckle, then sigh.

"What happened, dear heart?"

Shelly hesitated, then almost whispered, knowing her lips were in a straight line with her husband's ear.

"Fitz broke a shoelace."

Shelly felt curiosity prickle all out of her husband's hide.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Oh."

"What do you mean, oh?" she asked, nuzzling her nose into his warm, soap-scented shoulder.

"It's been ... I've felt like a lightning rod all day," Linn explained. "I figured if things were that bad all over, I'd better ask you and get it off your chest."

He felt his wife giggle silently, the way she did in such moments: she hugged her arm tight around his ribs and whispered, "Fitz's shoelace is really the only thing that went bad all day! Honest!"

Husband and wife laughed quietly in the darkness.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A SHORT LIVED AFFAIR

The Silver Jewel was a high grade saloon.

Stamped tin ceiling, genuine mahogany bar -- not just the bar's top, the whole bar, an unimaginable expense with its ornately carved panels, its heavy brass, brightly polished boot rail, with well made furniture and good solid tables and a large float glass mirror behind the bar -- mirrors behind the bar were not at all rare, the size of this one, was definitely rare, for most had a mirror the size of a schoolboy's text book, as a matter of simple economics.

When that pale eyed Sheriff took office, he hired the outgoing Sheriff to work the Jewel and keep it peaceable: Tom Landers was a man who knew men, and a man who could spot a card sharper, a man with a quick eye who could, more often than not, spot a double deal, or a deal from the bottom of the deck.

It was rare that hostilities escalated beyond the level of a minor skirmish in the Silver Jewel.

The barkeep, Mr. Baxter, a jolly sort with slicked down hair parted in the middle, a ready laugh and an immaculate white apron, was cobra-fast with a bung starter; fights that started in reach of his good right arm were generally ended with a brisk application of his war hammer, and it was suspected that he kept a double barrel street howitzer under the bar (he did).

The Silver Jewel rarely saw serious disagreements.

When they occurred, they were very brief.

Sheriff's deputy Jacob Keller, the pale eyed son of that pale eyed Sheriff, knew that his apparent youth would invite comment, especially by those with distilled stupidity poured down their neck and swimming behind their belt buckle: when he came through the Silver Jewel, nodded to Tom Landers and received the man's return nod, with a shift of the eyes, Jacob knew there was something out of the ordinary, and so he set a boot up on the sparsely populated brass rail and asked Mr. Baxter politely if he might have a sandwich and coffee.

Jacob intentionally stood nearest the individual Past Sheriff Tom Landers indicated, with that simple shift of his eyes: Jacob was just out of arm's reach, and Landers was mostly hidden behind the gathered drape of the little stage's curtains, elevated above floor level, with a carbine in hand.

Jacob looked frankly at the individual, taking him in from his townie shoes to his round-crowned Derby.

"What are you lookin' at?" came the expected snarl.

Mr. Baxter lifted his chin; the hash slinger slipped behind the bar, Mr. Baxter murmured to her, nodded to Jacob: she blinked, smiled at the lawman's neatly-attired son, turned and skipped out from behind the bar and around to the kitchen -- she blushed as she did, and Mr. Baxter would not have been surprised to hear her giggling like a schoolgirl.

To her credit, she didn't.

She did, however, skip quickly, lightly, on the balls of her feet, down the hallway and past Daisy's kitchen, she slipped out the back door, turned, snatched up her skirts and ran up the alley and into the main street, looking hopefully for the Marshal.

Mr. Baxter moved casually nearer the two men and the trouble he expected to start: he casually polished one of the spotless, heavy-bottom beer mugs, held it up, inspected it closely and polished it a little more, until he was in easy reach of his bung starter.

He didn't hear the exact exchange between Jacob and the troublemaker.

He did see movement -- fast, violent -- Mr. Baxter blinked, he gripped the smooth hardwood handle, leaned over the bar a little, and realized he wouldn't have to intervene after all.

It was a short lived affair.

Jacob Keller was a man who knew men; despite his youth -- the troublemaker's sneering reference to his Mama's milk being wet on Jacob's lips brought no reaction -- as a matter of fact, it wasn't until Jacob quietly told the man to keep his tongue behind his teeth lest it be ripped out by its roots, that anything happened.

Nobody there was quite sure what they just saw, not even Tom Landers, who was ready to snap his carbine down to level.

The stranger didn't see Jacob move.

Jacob was moved in too close for anyone to see.

Jacob Keller, not yet in his sixteenth year, was the firstborn son of that pale eyed lawman, and a student of his father's methods.

He was a student of anyone who could teach him useful skills.

Jacob said once that he was a thief, and proud of it: if he saw a move that would keep him alive, if he saw a trick or a slight that would keep him alive when it counted, he'd steal that move or that trick or that slight.

He'd seen how Town Marshal Jackson Cooper would get in close to someone -- too close, by common wisdom -- but the man had a cat's reflexes -- he had the fastest hands of anyone Jacob ever saw -- and so Jacob came in close to this troublemaker, he seized the revolver around the cylinder, locking it up, before it could be brought anywhere near level -- and he brought his knee up, hard, as he did.

By the time Town Marshal Jackson Cooper got there, Jacob had the stranger's guns on the bar, both the stubby Smith and a hideout, and he was dragging the groaning, curled-up, too-sick-to-resist prisoner across the floor toward the ornately frosted double doors.

Barfights in the Silver Jewel were a rarity, seldom spreading beyond an initial encounter, and like most of them, this one was a short-lived affair.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ONE MORNING, ON THE MOUNTAIN

He was being followed.

Some things a man just knows.

Jacob knew.

Jacob's Appaloosa stallion picked up on his rider's alertness: Jacob felt the stallion's head come up a little, felt his step lighten, quicken, the way a horse will when it senses an imminent conflict.

Jacob had gone to war on this horse.

He'd ridden among men who wished him harm, and he'd found a fellow warrior under his saddle, a fighter who was only too happy to lay about the Philistines with faster and more powerful anatomic structures than the jaw bone of a jack mule.

Jacob gigged the stallion ahead, quickly, turned him, got a rise between himself and whoever might be following: pale eyes busy, Jacob waited, then reached back and down and slid his Winchester from its scabbard.

If there was war to be had, he'd chosen his battlefield, and he'd chosen to have the terrain working with him instead of against him.

The path narrowed: there was only one approach, and unless whoever was following had wings, they'd have no choice but to come up to where he'd turned his stallion, in order to turn around and talk to him, or turn around and leave.

A voice -- a woman's voice, soft, pitched to carry but a short distance -- "Can I help?"

Jacob turned, saw a familiar figure: he laid his thumb over the Winchester's hammer, eased it down to half cock, stood.

Was he able, he'd have hopped on one foot while booting his own backside with the other.

Sarah Lynne McKenna tilted her head a little, regarded her pale eyed half brother with interest.

She was a-straddle her big black Frisian mare.

His stallion and her mare knew one another.

The mare wasn't come fresh yet, so the stallion had no romantic interest in her, but the stallion did not alarm at the approach of a stranger.

Neither Sarah nor her horse were strangers.

"Anyone behind you?" Jacob asked quietly.

"No. I made sure."

"You took the cutoff to get up here."

"I knew you'd be waiting here, so I took the cutoff, yes."

Jacob shook his head, disgusted: his bottom jaw thrust out, he stomped back to his stallion, thrust the rifle viciously back into its floral carved, background dyed scabbard.

He heard Sarah drop from her saddle -- she dismounted like he did in carefree moments, she'd throw up a leg and drop and land flat footed -- she skipped over to him, laid a gloved hand on his forearm, her expression serious.

"I would speak with you," she said quietly.

Jacob went from aggravated with himself to silent, calm: he cast his emotion from him, slung it over the rim of the drop-off, imagined his insides to be a still, dark pool.

Emotion clouded the mind and fogged up a man's reason, and he'd learned long ago to divest himself of such distraction -- even if he'd selfishly indulged, when he realized Sarah pulled a fast one on him.

"You know the Judge recruited me, Jacob."

Deputy Jacob Keller, a lean young man in a tailored black suit, nodded, just a little.

"His Honor wanted me to slicker information out of wanted men."

Again that shallow, careful nod, his pale eyes betraying nothing.

Sarah's eyes paled a little and she smiled, if you could call it that.

"One of the men I was beguiling fancied me a common ... he fancied he could put his hands where I don't allow."

Jacob nodded again.

"I teased him, Jacob. I led him on and I fired his boiler and I whispered in his ear and genuinely lit his belly on fire inside, and I got him to tell me what I wanted to know, and when he ran his hand where I don't allow, I ran a blade up under his wish bone and put an end to it."

Jacob nodded.

"Then I seized him by the throat and crushed his wind pipe to keep him quiet" -- her eyes were wider, she was seeing it happen again, she was feeling cartilage crush and splinter under her grip -- "and I opened the door to the private car and threw him off the steps.

"We were on a long trestle and he fell far enough to kill a man from the fall alone.

"I'd moved fast enough there was no blood on the floor. I washed my blade and scoured it clean, I threw the wash water out the door while we were moving, I dried my steel and rubbed it down with limestone dust like the Japanese, and I put the knife away, I changed clothes and then I sat down at the desk there in the private car and wrote my account of what he'd told me."

Jacob nodded, again, no more than a quarter inch arc-of-travel on the brim of his brushed black Stetson.

"Of course he didn't go to Hell with a full wallet," Sarah whispered. "Why throw a man off a train unless you strip him of his money first."

"Practical," Jacob grunted: he was not sure whether his pale eyed half sister was telling him the truth, or telling him a tale to see how he'd react, and he reflected that as a Sheriff's deputy, should his sister confess to a crime, he would be duty bound to uphold and enforce the Law.

If, he thought, the Law was the right thing to do.

"Jacob, he's not the first man I've killed."

"No?"  

"You don't seem surprised."

"I wasn't but a boy when I killed the man that killed my Mama and tried to horse whip me to death," Jacob said quietly, and he saw a shadow of sadness cross behind his half-sister's eyes.  "I can kill a man and sleep well afterward. I reckon after all you've been through, you're the same."

Sarah nodded. "That's why I wanted to talk to you."

Sarah turned, sat heavily on a convenient shelf on the rock towering beside them: she lowered her face into her hands, then lifted her head a little, her palms pressed against her cheeks.

"I keep thinking about Angela," she said in a soft little voice. "Papa found her in a wreck and took her in like his own. She's never" -- she looked at Jacob -- "she's never known what we have, Jacob. She's never been hurt like we have."

Jacob nodded, slowly: his younger brothers and sisters had all been raised without the brutal -- indeed, the deadly, violence he and Sarah survived in their early childhood.

"Angela is like an angel," Sarah murmured. "She's innocent. She's ... soft."

Sarah swallowed, looked out into the distance.

"Jacob, what if ... what if I'd been raised like Angela? Would I be ... soft?"

Jacob looked at Sarah, considered.

"How does it feel to kill a man?" he asked quietly.

"This last one?"  

Sarah almost smiled.

"It felt good, Jacob."

She tilted her head, looked at him -- she looks happy, he thought -- maybe because I'm the only one she can be honest with?

"He grabbed my leg and he said the filthy things I'd heard before when ..."

Sarah closed her eyes, took a long, shivering breath: Jacob saw her stiffen, he almost felt the cold rolling off her as she remembered every time things were done to her.

"It felt good," she whispered.

"Tell me why you've killed the men you did."

"They deserved it, Jacob. Every last one I've killed, earned it."  She looked very directly at her half-brother.  "You?"

Jacob nodded, again, just that little bit of a head tilt.

"They earned it," he said quietly.

He looked at her again. "Tell me about the ones you didn't kill."

He felt satisfaction at the surprise in her eyes.

"You haven't killed everyone you've gone after."

"No."

"When you gussied up like a dance hall girl and went after that man the Judge said killed Pa ... you could have brought in his carcass, and you didn't."

"No," she whispered, looking away.

"You banged him over the head and brought him in, in irons."

Sarah looked half sick, nodded.

"I wanted to kill him," she whispered. "I wanted to, but I had to bring him back ... "

Jacob waited.

"If I'd killed him, Jacob, I could have -- I could have! -- and nobody would blame a mere girl for shooting him in the back from a distance, but I had to bring him back, Jacob, I had to! -- Papa means so much to the entire --"

She dropped her head, bit her bottom lip.

Jacob laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Yes he does," he said softly, then he got up, swung his bony backside closer, until his hip touched hers, until his arm was around her, holding her tight against him.

"What would I have been if I'd been raised by Pa from the word go?" he asked quietly. "I'd not be able to kill a man so easy. I'd not be hard like I am."

He looked out, toward the horizon.

"Maybe I'd be able to feel ... happy."

"Oh, Jacob," Sarah groaned, "you're not supposed to imitate my bad examples!"

Jacob released her shoulder, leaned back, looked at her in honest surprise.

"Come again?" he protested. "Little Sis, I've seen the look on your face when you hold them fuzzy little kitty cats, I watched you down on your knees with Mother when she was tending her prize roses and you'd close your eyes and smell a blossom, I've seen the delight in your face when you come out to show off a new dress you particularly like --"

Sarah lowered her head and looked over a nonexistent set of spectacles at her pale eyed counterpart.

"I've seen you do the same," she whispered, and Jacob dropped all pretense of reserve, and grinned.

Sarah laughed, quietly, hugged Jacob, laid her cheek against his and sighed a breathy whisper in his ear.

"Thank you," he heard the careful sibilants, her breath warm as it stirred the fine little hairs on his ear: "I'd forgotten that!"

"Sis," Jacob asked quietly, "when you reported to the Judge ... did you tell him you knifed that fella?"

Sarah shook her head. "I told him what the man told me, I gave him a verbatim account of his exact words -- my memory in these matters is quite good -- I said he left the room and did not return."

"The room."

Sarah's eyebrows raised, her eyes widened: "A private railcar is a room on wheels, isn't it?"

Jacob made no reply: finally Sarah shrugged and said "I didn't lie to the man. I did tell him everything he wanted to know."

"That's why he swore out a warrant for his arrest."

Sarah nodded.

"How long until someone finds his carcass?"

"It's already been found. I picked his pocket earlier and stripped his money and put the wallet back. He'll be identified tomorrow."

Jacob nodded, slowly, thoughtfully.

"I don't reckon," he said as slowly as his nod, "that Angela could do what you're doin'."

"Nor could your brothers do what you've done."

Jacob held both Sarah's hands, lightly, loosely, as he studied Sarah's features.

"Might be what was done to us, gave us what we need to do what's needed."

Sarah's hands tightened on his.

"Might be," she whispered, "you're right!"

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BATTLE CAT

The descending hand was big.

The kitten it swept up, wasn’t.

A set of pale-blue eyes looked into the deeper blue eyes of a young kitten.

A Sheriff’s deputy had just stepped out of the little log fortress that was their Sheriff’s office.

The deputy saw this uncertain, wobbly, fuzzy little kitten, and did what came natural.

He swept it up, brought it up to eye level.

“Why hello there,” he said softly, then turned the little fellow, set the kitten on his right shoulder.

A tiny kitten dug tiny claws into black suit-coat material and looked around with wide and shining eyes.

Jacob looked around for a Mama-cat.

Finding none, he considered the boardwalk’s construction, allowed as maybe there was a Mama-cat gave birth under the lower end, where the street went downhill some, and about that time he heard raised voices, and the voices did not sound pleasant.

A little blue-eyed kitten clung to a shoulder as Jacob swarmed up into his Appaloosa’s saddle, turned, paced across the packed-dirt street.

 

Two men were squared off to one another, angry words and angry gestures declaring their mutual unhappiness.

Jacob considered for a bare moment that it would be handy to have The Bear Killer with him, then pushed the thought aside.

Jacob rode up between the two, turned his stallion, crowding the two men back and away from one another.

Jacob’s appearance, this stallion thrusting between them and then turning, forcing their backstep, so startled them that they forgot for the moment their particular pique.

Jacob turned his mount end for end, slowly, looked from one man to the other, waited.

The man on his right half-asked, half-demanded, “What’s that on your shoulder?”

Jacob had honestly forgotten the kitten.

Jacob’s Pa was quick on his feet when it came to disarming a situation with humor.

Jacob looked the man square in the eye and said solemnly, “This? Why, this is my Battle Cat.”

Jacob looked from one man to another: the other fellow leaned over far enough to see the kitten on Jacob’s shoulder.

“Be damned,” he murmured. “How’d you get ‘im to stay up there?”

“Oh hell,” Jacob grinned, looking from one to the other – as long as Apple-horse was between them, they weren’t fighting – “he rides my shoulder right along reg’lar. I was out for a gallop and a fence jumpin’ yesterday and Battle Cat hung on like he’d been sewed to me!”

“Battle Cat.”

Jacob nodded solemnly. “Gen-you-wine, feerce froshus man eatin’ attack critter.”

If his intent was to disarm a disagreement with humor, it worked: one man, then the other, chuckled: the fellow on his right shook his head.

“Battle Cat,” he sighed. “Hell, I cain’t get away with nothin’!”

“You two get everything out of your systems, or do I have to sic this-yere flesh rippin’ monster of a man killer –”

“No, no, don’t do that,” the fellow on his left protested, raising his palms as if warding off evil: “I wouldn’t want t’ spoil m’ good looks getting’ all clawed t’ pieces!”

Jacob waited until the pair went about their business, sat there looking around, and saw a Mama-cat carrying a kitten, at the lower end of the boardwalk in front of the Sheriff’s office.

He eased Apple-horse on across the street, dismounted: he squatted where he’d seen the cat disappear through a little gap between warped, dried board, and packed dirt: he reached up, stroked the kitten, brought it down from his shoulder:  he held it in against his chest, stroked it, whispered “You saved me some work,” then set it down.

A little blue eyed kitten mew’d and scampered happily in under the boardwalk.

Jacob rose, turned, led Apple-horse to the hitch rail, dropped the reins over and went on inside.

His Pa was standing behind the desk, sorting through some papers and frowning a little.

He looked up as Jacob hung his Stetson on its peg.

“I heard some excitement,” Linn said distractedly. “Amount to anything?”

“No, sir,” Jacob replied. “I let my Battle Cat sort things out.”

Linn’s hands froze in mid-sort: he looked at his son, raised an eyebrow.

Jacob grinned, something he shared in private, and with family or trusted friends.

“I don’t reckon their heart was in a fight,” he said. “I rode up with a kitten on my shoulder and allowed as that was my Battle Cat, and they laughed and that was the end of it.”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A GOOD TEACHER

 

Michael Keller took a long breath, closed his eyes, blew it out.

He knew he stood a good chance of being shot.

A very good chance.

He'd just watched two of his father's deputies hit, saw them drop.

His young hands clutched his 92 Winchester.

So far he hadn't been spotted.

He knew he had to move, and when he did, he had to be fast and accurate.

Likely he could make hits that counted, at least until he crossed what his pale eyed Pa called the Dead Line -- the point at which he could be seen.

And shot.

I'm damned if he's going to beat me! Michael thought -- fear and anticipation warred for primacy in his young chest, in his anxiety-twisted young guts.

Neither won, but Michael's adrenaline pump was hammering right up against the governor.

He rolled over, dropped prone.

He knew the other deputies started out by running.

He didn't.

He rolled out from behind cover just far enough --

Six shots, six fast-levered shots, the shining brass bead of a front sight going right where he wanted them to --

Michael rolled back behind cover, drove six handloaded .25-20s into the loading gate.

Now. 

Move!

Michael rose, dove behind the next plastic 55 gallon drum, shoved a boot out, yanked it back.

Paintballs drove into the cinders where polished boot leather had just been.

Michael reached up, grabbed the rim of the barrel, dumped it over, kicked it, hard.

Paintballs hammered against the rolling blue plastic drum and Michael snapped a shot at the mannikin's head.

The automated opponent's head detonated in a great showy flash of flame.

Michael Keller came up on one knee, his rifle's muzzle still trained on the mechanical opponent: he rose slowly, covering the mortally-wounded enemy, advanced on it, hammer back, finger curled around the trigger.

He walked up to it, lowered his rifle's hammer to half cock, then reared back and drove a kick into the track-mounted mechanical monster, folding it over backwards.

He turned, looked at his father, standing with a clipboard and a pleased expression.

He looked at Victoria, jumping up and down like a cheerleader, he looked at Sheriff's deputies, whistling and grinning and air-fisting him -- him! -- then he saw Victoria's eyes widen and he spun, drove three fast rounds into the resurrected, radar-guided, headless paintball mechanism.

A stranger stood beside the Sheriff, regarding Michael with professional eyes.

The stranger and the Sheriff walked up to the sizzling, snapping, shorted-out mechanical device.

Michael slowly ran three more rounds into his loading gate, listened to the spring whispering as he topped off his rifle, then he walked up and joined them.

Two men and a boy looked at the ruined device -- a high-priced, high-tech, computer-guided, radar-eyed, track-mounted paintball machine built into an anatomic mannikin.

"Between the eyes," the salesman murmured.

"Yes, sir," Michael replied.

"You cleared the six-plate rack as fast as I can with an AR."

"Yes, sir."

"Young man" -- the salesman looked at the Sheriff, looked at Michael -- "you are the only one so far, to survive!"

"Yes, sir."

Michael looked at his Pa, who was trying hard not to grin.

"I have a good teacher, sir."

[Singin' Sue 71615]

Something for me to read...when I get in a better mood

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

8 hours ago, Singin' Sue 71615 said:

Something for me to read...when I get in a better mood

Please get better, dear heart!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE WHITE ONION

Marnie Keller turned sideways, smiled a little at her full-length reflection as she caressed her expanding middle.

She spun a robe around her shoulders, thrust her feet into a pair of fleece lined slippers, tied the ribbon belt around her waist, glided into the kitchen.

Pancakes, she thought.

Blueberry pancakes.

Marnie tapped the screen on the wall-unit, said "Six stack of blueberry pancakes, bacon fried crispy, two eggs fried over medium and wheat toast with butter." She released her finger from the screen, then touched it again.

"And tea. Earl Grey, big mug, teaspoon of honey."

 

Angela Keller keyed in her destination, stepped through the Iris, stopped, blinked in surprise.

Marnie's fist was cocked, her other hand holding a plate with a half dozen cylindrical cans -- "YOU IDIOT MACHINE, I SAID A SIX STACK, NOT A SIX PACK! I DON'T WANT PANCAKES IN A CAN, I WANT A STACK OF SIX PANCAKES!"

Marnie ran out of wind, stopped, took two deep breaths.

"IS THAT SUCH A HARD CONCEPT FOR YOUR TRANSISTOR BRAIN TO UNDERSTAND?"

Marnie's face was dark, the cords in her neck were standing out, and Angela was not at all sure whether her sister was going to drive the plate full of canned pancakes into the control panel, whether she was going to drive her fist through the touch screen, or whether she was going to step back and throw the cans, one at a time, just as hard as she could.

Part of Angela's mind considered that the ceramic plate that held the cans, would make a fine Frisbee, if flung as a weapon at the offending dispenser.

Marnie turned -- as she saw her sister, her rage fell from her face like water cascading off an oilskin, and was gone.

She placed the plate and its wobbling cargo on the table, blinked, tilted her head a little.

"Hello," she smiled, "you're just in time for breakfast!"

The dispenser hummed again: Marnie reached in, pulled out another plate: bacon and eggs, hot and steaming, and then a big mug of shimmering-brown tea.

"Why ... don't ... I try some canned pancakes," Angela said hesitantly.

Marnie set her plate down, waved a hand at the dispenser: Angela walked gracefully, delicately, as a matter of course.

As she approached her now-quiet-voiced sister -- her full-powered screaming RAGE ringing in Angela's memory, if not off the walls -- she walked as if she were treading on eggshells.

"Earl Grey, honey, big mug," she told the dispenser, then reached in and retrieved her steaming-hot beverage.

Angela picked up a can -- it was about the size of a beer can, back home -- she pressed both thumbs under its lip, popping the top up.

She ran a butter knife inside the can, between its cargo and the sidewall, turned it upside down.

A stack of pancakes fell out -- smaller than she was used to, hot, shining with butter and honey and a dusting of cinnamon.

"Blueberry?" she asked.

Marnie glared at her.

Angela picked up her plate, set it over with her sister's platter.

Marnie glared daggers at the dispenser as Angela went over and spoke to it; she came back just as Marnie opened another can of pancakes, dumped it without ceremony atop the first can's contents.

"Did you enjoy your time back home?" Marnie mumbled through a full mouth.

"I did," Angela replied, daintily spreading a napkin on her lap, unfolding a second, tucking it into her collar and draping it delicately over her bodice. "I saved a child's life."

"Show-off," Marnie muttered, took a noisy slurp of tea.

"You act like you're starving."

"I am."  Marnie bit savagely at a bacon strip. "What else?"

Angela blinked innocently, cut into her pancakes with her fork.

"I went in disguise," she said quietly.

Marnie grunted, seized the pepper shaker, peppered her eggs severely.

Angela withheld comment, though privately she considered just how much of an inferno her own throat would feel, had she seasoned her eggs to that degree.

"Disguised. As what?"

Angela smiled, forked up a bite of blueberry pancake.  "An onion."

 

The Lady Esther whistled cheerfully to the depot as she departed.

A good percentage of the passengers in the only passenger car, were tourists, and of these, the very young were restless and impatient, deprived of their screens and hand-held entertainment.

Children are, however, resilient, and when they can't entertain themselves with the familiar, they will look for something interesting, and one little boy regarded the unmoving figure, all in white.

"How come you have a scarf over your face?" he asked with the bluntness of the young.

The featureless female figure turned its head, which reminded the little boy of a special-effect he'd seen on TV, where a marble statue turned its head and spoke.

"I'm a nun.  I am one of the White Sisters."

"What's a White Sister?"

"We are of the Order of St Mercurius," she replied gently. "We are Sworn Religious, and as part of our sacred vows, we hide our faces from the world."

"How come?" the lad persisted.

 

Angela smiled as Marnie inhaled the last of her eggs, cut into another can's worth of pancakes.

"So what did you tell him? -- oh God this is so good!"

Angela's eyebrows raised a little and she laughed quietly, smiling behind her heavy mug of burgamo-scented tea.

"I told him he had to promise never, ever to tell, and then I lifted my veil."

"You didn't!" Marnie breathed, delight in her eyes and a smile broadening her face.

"Oh, yes," Angela nodded.  "I thought ... if I'm disguising myself like Sarah McKenna used to, why not go all the way?"

"The scar?"

"The scar," Angela nodded, lowering her mug, tracing a line from the corner of her eye down her cheek, down over her jaw bone and across her throat. 

"Nonflexible collodion, a painted-on scar line.  I lifted my veil and whispered to him that I used to sing opera."

Angela sighed and laughed quietly.

"When we arrived at Rabbitville Station, I stood to get off, and as I walked to the back door of the passenger car, I could hear the little boy -- he was probably pointing at me -- tell someone, "She's a White Onion!"

 

 

Edited July 23 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE MAIDEN'S LAST VOYAGE

Angela Keller had doubts, when His Honor the Judge asked her to go to a distant place, and find a certain man, and try to find out certain things.

His Honor the Judge, she thought, was perhaps too impressed by Sarah McKenna's skills.

Yes, Angela had the same blood as Sarah, and yes, Angela was the daughter of that pale eyed old lawman, and yes, Angela was possessed of the wiles and the skills of a truly lovely maiden of the mountains, but still ...

Still, she doubted.

Angela was not about to let doubts stand in the way of an attempt.

The Judge would not have asked her to find this man unless the matter was important, very important, and so she kissed her Daddy and packed her grip, she rode the steam train and hired a hack and traveled to the saltwater seaport she'd heard so much about: she purchased passage on a ship headed north, north along the seacoast, north where rumors of gold were only just starting.

She stood at the ship's bow, one hand on smooth railing, she felt wind and salt spray in her face, she felt the great canvas boom above and behind her, she rode the deck as she rode a horse, easily, naturally -- others, landsmen, inexperienced in riding the saltwater sea and the wooden steeds that breasted the waves, bent over the railing and lost their appetites and everything they'd eaten for a week, but not Angela.

She stood, beautiful, laughing, she looked over as the ship's-captain came up to her with an approving look: it was rare to find a woman of such beauty, a woman who could walk his holystoned deck with the ease of a veteran sailor: a voice called, he turned, then turned back to the maiden, touched his cap-brim, and strode off to attend the summons of his first officer.

 

"I saw them leave port," a man said quietly -- a man whose skin was darkened, toughened by sun, by salt-spray, by wind, a man with palms like horn and the perpetually, half-curled hands of a seaman, used to hauling lines and hoisting rigging.

" 'Twas a day of rare beauty," he said, "and aye, your daughter stood at the prow."

He stopped, closed his eyes, remembering the moment.

" 'Twas the ship's maiden voyage, it was, and she left harbor like a maiden sheds her cloak on her wedding night -- young and untried and beautiful, and she slipped into the open sea, and there was a beauty about her."

He bowed his head a little, nodded.

"And your daughter was aboard."

The Sheriff's fingers rested on the telegraph flimsy.

His hand was steady, his eyes were quiet, but his eyes were very pale as he listened to a saltwater sailor's words.

"She foundered on a Northern reef, she did."

"Foundered," the Sheriff echoed.

"Aye. She was gutted, she was. We saw her roll over."

The Sheriff stared at the far wall, nodding very slowly, very slightly.

"We searched, we did, but we saw her go down by moonlight, an' damned few souls it was we hauled from th' watter."

The Sheriff looked sharply at the sailor, at his suddenly haunted expression.

"Requiem, there were," he said after a moment, after swallowing a knot in his throat: "great fishes they are, wi' teeth fit t' bite a man in two."

He looked at the Sheriff.

"We hauled what was left o' the Captain aboard, an' the mate said t' drop 'im back, an' we did."

"What did you see?" the Sheriff asked quietly, and the sailor looked at him with the same eyes as men he'd seen after battle, after the internecine slaughter back during That Damned War.

"He was bit in two, he was," the sailor whispered hollowly. "All gone fra' th' belt, down."

Sheriff Linn Keller closed his eyes, took a long breath, nodded.

"There were damned few bodies, an' but three left alive."

The Sheriff nodded, looked very directly at the man.

"No sign of my daughter," he said -- it was a statement, not a question.

"No, sir. Not so much as a ribbon from her hair."

Linn nodded, his fingertips still on the folded flimsy.

He rose, thrust out his hand.

"Thank you. This is more information than I'd gotten from anyone else."

The sailor's gaze was direct, his grip firm: "I know what 'tis t' lose a mate," he said quietly. "I've no idea how hard it is t' lose a daughter."

Linn watched the man's shoulders as he turned, as he walked away with the rolling gait of a man more at home on living water than here, where the deck underfoot was still and unmoving.

He turned back to his desk, picked up the flimsy, unfolded it, reread it.

Ship dead.

I live.

Home soon.

Angela

Sheriff Linn Keller folded the flimsy again, slid it into an inside pocket, took a long breath, raised his chin.

I have to tell the Judge, he thought.

I have to tell Esther --

He closed his eyes as he realized, again, that his Esther, his beloved, was long since cold and dead and buried.

I still want to talk to her he thought, and he ached at the thought.

Sheriff Linn Keller closed his eyes for a long moment, then snatched his Stetson vigorously -- almost angrily -- from its peg, settled it firmly down on his head.

He had to tell the Judge, yes, and tell him he would.

Right after he went over to their little whitewashed church and talked to God about it.

Edited July 24 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BACK TO THE VALLEY

“Where’s Michael?”

Victoria looked up, gave her pale eyed Daddy her very best Innocent Expression, which of course told the suspicious old lawman that she was not innocent in this situation.

“Is Michael in trouble?” she asked, lowering her head a little as she did.

“No, darlin’ … but I need to keep track of him.”

Victoria chewed on her bottom lip, then looked back up at her Daddy.

“He went to ride the Fanghorn again.”

Victoria saw her Daddy veil his eyes, the way he did when he didn’t want anyone to know how he was going to react: he turned, headed for the door: she watched as he swiped the bottoms of his feet, thrust sock feet into his boots, straightened: he set his Stetson on his head, considered, then turned and went into his study.

Victoria watched from the kitchen table as her Daddy divested himself of his duty belt, as he went to a gun case and pulled out a double gunrig.

Victoria knew what that meant.

When her Daddy parked his everyday hardware and belted on a pair of .44s, it meant he was going into a serious situation.

Linn looked at the rifles in the gun case, considered his options, then pulled out his Uncle Pete’s Garand, slung the cloth bandolier of stamped-steel, brass-filled clips across his chest.

“Old Timer,” he said softly, “I have need of your services.”

Linn slung the Garand muzzle down from his off shoulder, strode out the front door.

A little girl’s scared eyes watched the door shut behind him.

Linn went out into the pasture – he’d hung saddle and saddle blanket on the fence – he brought two fingers to his lips, whistled.

He lowered his hand, thumbed his lock back open, pulled out a plug of molasses twist tobacker and casually shaved off several thick curls, dropped the plug back in his pocket.

Of the several in his herd that came to his summoning whistle, one was dominant, the Herd Stallion.

Linn bribed him with the tobacker, rubbed his neck.

“I need your help, old friend,” he whispered, then he parked the Garand against the fence, slung saddle blanket and saddle over the dancing stallion’s back.

Linn looked at the stallion, stepped back, reached for the Garand.

He turned back, quickly, drew the cinch tighter.

It was a game the stallion played.

Linn disliked knuckling a horse to keep it from swelling up with air when he tightened the cinch; if he turned away, his stallion would exhale, and Linn could turn and cinch it up snug: honor satisfied, the rider was secure, and the stallion was satisfied he’d pulled another one off on his rider.

Linn drew the Garand’s bolt back just enough to see shining copper, eased the bolt shut again, thrust a boot into the doghouse stirrup, swung aboard.

Three heartbeats later, a tall, well-built Appaloosa stallion cantered out of a vertical black cat’s eye of an Ellipse, with a rider propping a Garand rifle up on his hip.

Horse and rider rode in a slow circle, looking, listening: Pig Iron’s ears swung, listening to unfamiliar sounds.

Linn had never been here.

He’d studied it – he’d read the reports, he’d called up maps of the area, he knew where his children were introduced to the Fanghorn, he’d followed Michael’s wild ride on the maps, at least until a nervous sentry did his level best to incinerate both rider, and mount, and damn neart succeeded.

Pig Iron froze, ears forward, muttered.

Linn’s hand was firm, reassuring on the Appaloosa’s neck.

“I see ‘em,” he whispered, then dismounted, dropped the reins, made a hand-gesture:

Stay.

Pig Iron’s ears laid back, then came forward, but he stayed.

Sheriff Linn Keller, a stranger in a strange land, eased the bolt back on the Garand and fed a shining brass round into the steel chamber – slowly, carefully, silently as he could.

 

Michael Keller sat dejectedly on a rock.

Lightning – that’s what Michael called the Fanghorn, for the forked burn patterns growing in pure white on his tan-furred hide – was different from some Earth horses in that he wasn’t afraid to lay down.

The Sheriff saw his son, sitting, a caressing hand on one hell of a horse’s neck – if horses had a blunter, blockier head, a head with fighting canines and a projecting, blunt horn in the middle of their forehead.

Linn crept closer, squatted, lowered one knee to the ground, the Garand across his middle.

He saw Michael swallow, saw him look with an unhappy expression at the distant treeline.

“How come I couldn’t stay dead?” he asked.

The Fanghorn made no reply.

Linn froze in place.

He was more than familiar with what the courts call a “Spontaneous Utterance.”

He had no intent to use anything Michael said, in a court of law, but he had a serious worry on for his youngest son, and that one rhetorical complaint told him his worry was well founded.

“They grew a new heart for me,” Michael continued, then he was silent for almost a full minute.

He looked up, saw his Pa.

So complete was his misery that he made no effort to greet him.

Linn rose, slung the Garand, muzzle down, looked at the Fanghorn with its big head laid companionably across Michael’s thighs.

“This is Lightning,” Michael said softly. “He’s m’ bud.”

The plug ugly creature grunted, closing its eyes with apparent pleasure at Michael’s caress.

“I didn’t want to come back, Pa,” Michael admitted.

Linn nodded.

He didn’t want to get too close to the Fanghorn, didn’t want to startle it – there was an obvious affinity between his son and this imposing quadruped – he stopped again, went back into his squat with one knee down.

This time the Garand stood upright beside him, his left hand around the fore end.

“I saw the Valley,” Michael said, his voice a little softer.  “I … didn’t want to come back.”

Michael stared, wide eyed, at a memory only he could see.

“I laid on my back on the ceiling like Old Pale Eyes and I looked down at myself like old Pale eyes and I was kind of surprised, sir.”

Linn waited.

“I saw Angela and a big ugly woman layin’ on the floor with a bloody nose. I saw people working on me, machines – they cut my chest open but I couldn’t feel it –"

He looked at his Pa, his eyes wide, unblinking.

“I didn’t realize how small I was.”

Linn waited.

“The Valley is green,” Michael whispered, then added, “I didn’t hurt there.”

Linn nodded, carefully, thoughtfully.

“You’re not the first one to tell me that.”

Michael looked half-hopefully at his father.

“I didn’t want to come back from the Valley my own self.”

Michael’s expression went from hopeful to surprised.

“I recall ‘twas green,” Linn almost whispered, “and it smelled of spring, it smelled of a thousand green growing things. There was a spring, and water runnin’ over a rock, and I drank, and it was cold and it was sweet.”

Linn’s expression was distant as he spoke; he blinked, looked at his intently-listening son.

“I got sent back because my work wasn’t done,” Linn said, his voice gentle, fatherly: “I’ll tell you how I ended up there, one of these days.”

“Was Marnie there for you too?”

Linn shook his head slowly.

“No, Michael. Marnie didn’t come for me.”

“Oh,” he said, disappointed.

“When you saw Marnie … she was horseback?”

Michael’s pale eyes widened.

“How’d you know?” he breathed.

“Because when Sarah Lynne McKenna came for me, she was a-ridin’ that big black Snowflake mare, only she … the mare she rode, had wings, and Sarah wore armor and she had the lost Lance of St Mercurius upright and socketed in her right stirrup.”

“So did Marnie,” Michael whispered.  “Only I wasn’t … I didn’t think …”

“Didn’t think I’d believe you?”

“No, sir,” Michael admitted in a small voice.

Linn took a long breath, blew it out, nodded.

“Some doctors told me … afterward, when I described what I’d seen … they said what I saw was a brain dying from anoxia, a comforting hallucination before death.”

Linn looked very directly at his son.

“What I saw, what I lived … was no hallucination, Michael.”

Father saw relief in his son’s eyes.

“I was worried for you, Michael.”

Michael looked down at the lightning-patterned Fanghorn.

“I had to come back here,” he said in a small voice, then looked at his Pa.

“You told me if I fell off a horse, if I got throwed, I had to get right back up into the saddle.”

Linn nodded.

“I had to come back, sir.  I had to ride Lightning again.  I had to jump the fence yonder and run into where we’d been.”

Michael leaned forward a little, his eyes, his voice beseeching: “I had to!”

Linn nodded slowly.

“I understand,” he murmured, then asked with the hint of a smile, “Reckon you can make it home all right?”

“Yes, sir,” Michael said, looking down at the nearly-sound-asleep Fanghorn.

Linn rose.

“Come on home when you’re ready, then. Your Mama is fixin’ meat loaf.”

Michael’s quick grin, his anticipating look of innocent delight, said more clearly than anything that the Sheriff’s fears had but little foundation.

A lean waisted man with a brace of .44s on his belt and a Garand rifle propped up on his hip, rode into a black ellipse on a distant planet, emerged in his own pasture: not long after he’d hung up his hat and hooked off his boots, not long after he wiped the Garand with a silicone rag and parked it back in its glass door gun case, the front door of the solid-built ranch house opened again, and a pale eyed lad stepped inside, hooked off his boots and hung up his Stetson as well.

That night, after supper, Victoria and Michael were talking quietly as they sat, side by side, freshly showered and in their flannel jammies and parked on the top step of the broad staircase.

“Pa said he’s seen the Valley like I did,” Michael whispered, his knees drawn up, arms around his shin bones, his chin on one knee.

“He was afraid you’d go back,” Victoria whispered.

Michael looked at her curiously.

“Back to the Fanghorn?”

Victoria’s eyes were big, luminous, almost fearful, as she whispered her reply.

“He was afraid you were going back to the Valley.”

 

Edited July 28 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THAT'S NOT WHAT I TOLD HER

Deputy Sheriff Dana Keller was tall enough to look her long tall Daddy right in the collar bone.

Deputy Sheriff Dana Keller was a horsewoman, a dancer, trim of waist, toned of muscle.

Deputy Sheriff Dana Keller did not so much walk, as she glided: she'd walked into a barfight, picked up a beerbottle, laid a man out with one blow across his face, she'd snatched up a pool cue and beat the hell out of a second, then she tossed the broken stick aside, seized a third one by his wrist and his waist and spun the startled combatant around in a quick two-step, in perfect time to the beer joint thumping out of the scarred juke box, right before she drove him belt buckle first across the bar so Jelly could belt him across the back of the head with a lead-shot-filled, leather war club.

Deputy Sheriff Dana Keller was known as a pale eyed badge packer with a quick smile, a contagious laugh, and a tolerant, very fair nature: like her long tall Daddy, if it was at all possible, she would separate two parties in dispute, hear one out, hear the other out, and take it from there.

Deputy Sheriff Dana Keller was well known, and well liked, in the community.

She was also a walking lie detector, with no tolerance for being lied to.

When a smiling, womanly Sheriff's deputy, with a great, shining-black, curly-furred Bear Killer at her side, tilted her head, smiled pleasantly, then told the school's principal that he would produce the person of one Clara Fritter forthwith, the principal considered that things were about to go badly, or extremely badly, and in either case, his best bet would be to produce said person.

Forthwith.

The grade-school principal returned to his office with the disapproving, scowling teacher following, with ill grace.

Angela waited until they were inside, then she shut the door, firmly, stooped, slid a wedge under the door and kicked it once.

She turned, smiled, and so did The Bear Killer.

Neither smile was particularly pleasant.

"I have something you need to see," she said, and opened a manila file folder.

"I don't see what this has to do with me," Fritter snapped, until Dana showed her the picture.

Principal and teacher looked at the glossy enlargement, shocked.

"This," Dana said quietly, "is the student you forced to run at recess."

"I .. but ... he's ..."

"My brother Michael," Dana interrupted coldly, "had heart surgery. You were presented with doctor's orders that he is not to be exerted, and you forced him to run."

Dana did not raise her voice.

As a matter of fact, she spoke quietly.

"I cannot trust a teacher who intentionally, knowingly, violates a physician's written order. A teacher that would do that, would retaliate, and I am not going to allow you to place a vulnerable student at risk."

"I didn't -- didn't know --"

"You knew," Dana said, her voice hardening. "Michael told you himself. You were handed the doctor's orders. I am giving you two choices. I take you out of here in irons, right here and right now." -- Dana reached behind her, unsnapped the cuff case, spun a shining set of stainless Smith & Wessons on her bent middle finger as she brought them forward into view.

"Or you can leave under your own power. You have time enough to retire. Now's the time."

"This is blackmail," the shocked teacher whispered.

Dana leaned forward a little. "This," she hissed, "is attempted murder, and nothing would make me happier than to put you behind bars for the rest of your disagreeable life."

 

Angela Keller looked up, her eyes pale and marble-hard.

"She did what?"

"She forced Michael to run at recess."

Angela Keller closed her eyes, closed the folder she held, took a long, steadying breath, then opened her eyes and looked at her sister.

"How's Michael?"

"He's being evaluated."

"Miss Angela?" one of her students asked, approaching uncertainly. "We saw on the news where ... Michael was hurt, that he'd ... had a procedure ..."

"Word travels fast," Angela said bitterly.

The class was silent, every student nurse's eyes on the uniformed Sheriff's deputy, and the huge, shining-black mountain Mastiff that stood beside her, looking up adoringly at the pair.

The students knew them , at least by sight, thanks to the Inter-System, and the knowledge that their own Miss Angela's brother -- the same one they'd seen punch through a cloud of steam with a Winchester rifle and a hard-running Appaloosa -- underwent a major surgery of some variety, something to do with war narrowly averted, something to do with a major diplomatic event that spared lives and brought peace.

It wasn't until then that they put all the pieces together and realized the cost of that peace had almost been the death of that young and heroic figure.

Another of her students stood.

"Miss Angela, Miss Dana," she said, "what do you need us to do?"

"Where is he now?" Angela asked.

"Cardiac Intensive Care."

Angela began a quick mental review of her students' progress on the cardiac system.

"He's so far skinned everyone there at poker."

Angela stopped, turned, looked at her pale eyed sister with an open, honest, genuine expression of surprise.

"Poker?"

Dana shrugged. "He is his father's son."

Angela dropped her face into her hand, shook her head slowly, groaned, looked up.

"Deuces, treys and one eyed jacks wild?"

"What else?"

"He's skinned 'em out of their eye teeth?"

"In spades."

Angela looked at her class, spread her hands helplessly, her mouth open: she shook her head, sighed loudly, looked at The Bear Killer, looked at her sister, looked back at the class.

"See what I have put up with?"

 

Michael Keller clenched his teeth -- carefully -- he rolled over, eyes closed, willing himself not to hurt.

It didn't work.

His fingers grazed the switch that could have shot morphine, or something much like it, into his system.

No.

Gammaw's Mama was ... I don't want to be like her.

Pa said addiction skips a generation.

It might skip more than one.

"Here, let me --" he heard, felt gentle, gloved fingers brush his.

"No," he gasped.

"No?"

"I don't want it!" -- his voice was low, vicious, he looked at the masked nurse, startling her with the anger in his young eyes.

"But ... you're in pain ..."

"I'm alive."  His voice was hoarse, a harsh whisper.

The gloved hand withdrew.

Michael finished rolling up on his side, then he eased bare legs from under the covers, pushed his elbow deep into the mattress, levered himself slowly to an upright position.

"Help me up," he gasped.

"Michael, if you --"

"I gotta get rid of some second hand coffee!"

The startled nurse blinked, then gripped him under the elbows, steadied him.

Once necessaries were tended, once he was returned to his bed, pale, shivering, but relieved, the nurse looked at him and said quietly, "You don't drink coffee."

Michael looked at her and tried to grin.

"It's what my Pa says."

The nurse sat carefully on the side of his bed.

"I'll bet you say lots of things your Pa says."

"Yes, ma'am." 

 

"I'LL KILL HER! WHERE IS SHE?" Shelly demanded.

Linn raised supplicating palms toward his wife, opened his mouth to say something.

Shelly thrust a stiff finger at her husband: "DON'T YOU TRY TO SHUSH ME, MISTER! SHE COULD HAVE KILLED OUR SON AND I'M GOING TO KILL HER!"

"She's been taken care of," Linn said quietly.

Shelly glanced to the left, where a big set of pale eyes, framed with red-auburn hair and ruffles, regarded her from over the stairway banister.

"Angela, go back upstairs," Shelly said sternly.

"No," Linn said. "If you're going to commit murder, she should watch."

"What?" Shelly snapped.

"She's been taken care of, dearest," Linn repeated patiently.

Linn turned to their solemn-faced daughter.

"Victoria?" he asked gently. "Have you ever seen your mother this angry?"

"No," Victoria said in a small, uncharacteristically little-girlish voice.

"Do you know why she's this angry?"

Victoria nodded, then looked at her mother.

"Mommy, please don't kill her," she said in an exaggerated little-girl's voice.

Shelly glared at her daughter, at her husband.

Victoria spoke again, still in her uncharacteristic, lisping, innocent-little-girl's voice.

"I'm going to kill her, Mommy. I know where she lives, and I know how to pick the locks she uses, and I'm going to use a knife 'cause it's quiet."

Let 'em blow off steam, Linn thought.

Let 'em vent.

De-escalate.

 

Two days later, Angela Keller tilted her comm-pad so she and Michael both could see her pale eyed Daddy.

"Got kind of an odd call the other day," Linn said. "Michael, you any better?"

"Yes, sir," Michael lied.

"I know what two cracked ribs hurts like," Linn said solemnly. "I can't imagine what it's like to have my brisket hacksawed in two and spread with hydraulic jaws."

Michael blinked, nodded.

Angela saw gratitude in her younger brother's eyes, and she realized how important it was that her Daddy just validated her brother's God's-honest pain.

"The odd call, Daddy?"

Linn was looking steadily at his son: he blinked, remembered how Michael just plainly astonished that salesman with the automated paintball mannikin, the day before everything happened to him -- he looked at Angela's image, nodded.

"It seems someone threatened the teacher that nearly killed Michael."

"Do we know who?"

Linn was quiet for several long moments, his jaw thrust out thoughtfully, then he looked back.

"It seems she found a knife driven into her mattress. No sign of forced entry. Just the knife someone drove into her mattress, right where her heart would be if she'd been in the bed."

"Knife," Angela echoed. "How big?"

"Big," the Sheriff said. "Eleven inch butcher."

"Prints?"

"None. No tracks, no cameras, nothing taken."

"There's something else."

"There is."

Sheriff Linn Keller took a long breath.

"She got a phone call afterward. She said it was something out of a horror film, a little girl's voice saying she was going to kill her and she'd never know when, or where."

Angela stood on the far side of Michael's bed, as if she were intentionally staying out of Angela's comm-screen's camera.

She waited until the screen went dark, until Angela slid the screen into her carryall, that she said in an exaggerated, uncharacteristic, little-girl lisp, "That's not what I told her."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SATISFACTION

Law and Order Harry Macfarland cultivated a semi-indolent appearance.

The man was often seen leaning against a post in front of the Carbon Hill Marshal's Office, surveying the street with quiet eyes.

The man gave the appearance of a cultivated laziness.

It was an illusion he wished to preserve, for he often used that misconception to his benefit.

Carbon Hill was in Firelands County, and on occasion, their pale eyed Sheriff would come to visit, sometimes on official business, but more often than not, just to come over and say howdy.

When he did, the Sheriff would prop up that same porch post as the Marshal; one on one side, one on the other, each ensuring the other kept the post upright so the overhang would stay up and shade the boardwalk, or continue to shed rain water, or snow.

Silence lay over both men's shoulders like a cloak.

It was not uncommon for them to spend an hour or so, just standing, leaning, watching.

Those who took note of such things -- if they abandoned their own attentions and turned their observations to the lawmen -- observed that, within that hour, at least one individual would be approached by one or both of these quiet, watchful guardians: what followed could be something as benign as a greeting, a handshake, perhaps quiet laughter, there in the middle of the street.

Rarely did it come to something unpleasant, but when it did, the effect was noteworthy: one sunny afternoon, as Law and Order Harry Macfarland laid hands on a man who didn't wish to be the object of his attention, Harry took him by the front of his coat, shook him and spun him and hooked a leg behind the other's knee to down him: Harry found himself gripped in a similar manner, and it wasn't his erstwhile prisoner who hit the ground first.

It was, however, his erstwhile prisoner that hit the ground second, and when he did, he just laid there, at least until that pale eyed Sheriff handed Harry the war club he'd liberated from a nearby woodpile, and used to belt the offending party a good one across the back of his head.

It was understood to be a courtesy, from one lawman to another, that the Sheriff picked up the limp form, packed him to the nearest horse trough, and gently slid him -- face first -- into the cold, shimmering, fresh-pumped water.

Once the prisoner was relieved of his proud-ofs and a few things he shouldn't have in the hoosegow, he was locked in the iron box provided by an earlier railroad, the one that went bankrupt, the one the Sheriff bought, gave to his wife for a wedding present, the one that became the successful Z&W.

Harry peeled out of his coat, held it sadly at arm's length, shook his head.

He and the Sheriff stepped out the back door and took turns brushing the dirt from it.

Harry finally allowed as he'd have to have a new one made, for that was his last coat and he was trying to keep it clean: the next day, two carriages pulled up: one with four well-dressed ladies from Firelands, another with two hired men, two sewing machines and a variety of packages.

The village hall was the only building in town with room enough to work: it was commandeered, the treadle Singer sewing machines brought in, along with bolts of cloth and satchels containing measuring tapes, shears, pins, needles, thread, chalk and other tools of the tailor's trade: not only did they fit Law and Order Harry Macfarland with a new suit coat (actually two, a fact they hid from the Mayor, who came by to see what the excitement was), they also provided him with two new pair of trousers, two vests and four shirts.

Bonnie McKenna was in the middle of it all: she, like the other ladies, knew cloth and knew not only how to cut from a bolt to get the maximum finished product per square foot of material, she was also helping, pinning, adjusting, measuring, spooling up bobbins, and as the ladies of town found they were there, and in business, Bonnie opened another container and began unloading dressmaking fabrics.

When the Mayor arrived to see what was going on in His Village Hall, he was seized by the ladies, divested of his coat: he found himself being measured, assessed, cloth of different types were held across his chest, he was measured again, and his politician's mind realized he may have arrived at a fortuitous moment: it did not take long to fit the Mayor with a new suit and send him on his way, with the whispered promise to fit his wife with a new Sunday gown if she'd stop in: the Mayor's suit was at no charge, Bonnie told him with a conspiratorial wink, and today only, women's dresses were half off!

The town hall was suddenly a popular place: the McKenna Dress Works, which usually produced its wares for shipment to larger population centers, fabricating and distributing sized-up exemplars of current styles from the Parisian dolls they received by train, months ahead of the sea-borne exemplars of the newest French fashion via ocean-going vessel: the McKenna Dress Works also provided fashions for the local population, and well-to-do visitors from far-flung lands who passed through the Silver Jewel invariably expressed their delight that this rustic and rural location was capable of providing its ladies with fashionably contemporary attire.

The Sheriff came away with a feeling of satisfaction.

He'd provided his friend with two new suits and the promise that his original would be returned to him, laundered, mended and ready to wear.

Bonnie McKenna came away with a feeling of satisfaction, measured in profit: the Sheriff paid her well for her expedition, and she'd turned that much coin and more by sewing ladies' attire alone.

The Mayor came away with a feeling of satisfaction.

His wife had a fine new gown (at a good price!) and he had a new suit, as unofficial payment for the use of their town hall's spacious meeting room.

Perhaps the most satisfied was the Sheriff's wife, two days later, when she accidentally encountered the mayor's wife, who took pains to tell Esther just how much of a gentleman her husband was, and also her son Jacob: she'd been very favorably taken by Jacob's natural courtesy, and she laid gentle fingertips on the back of Esther's hand as she almost whispered, "The apple falls not far from the tree, and there is only one place your Jacob could have learned to be a gentleman!" -- and she'd shifted her eyes to look at the Sheriff, discussing matters with a local rancher, then looked back at Esther, and two women shared a silent, unspoken understanding, and after the Mayor's wife went on her way, Esther Keller looked at her son, handsome and well-mounted as he rode up the street.

It is very fair to say that, of all who came away with a good feeling that day, it was Esther Keller who felt the greatest degree of satisfaction.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

          MAPMAKER

"This is Sheriff Keller."

The principal pressed a button, put the call on speaker, looked at the woman standing too-near his chair, a disapproving scowl on her face.

"Yes, Sheriff."

"My daughter Victoria will not be at school today."

"I, ah, I see ... is she unwell, Sheriff?"

There was a long silence, then the man's voice -- cold, hard, an edge to it -- "That idiot teacher that ran my son nearly killed him. He had to be flighted out and he's in Intensive Care, not expected to live. The doctors want to try some kind of a Hail Mary and they need donor tissue from his twin sister."

"Oh, dear," the principal murmured: the look he gave the woman beside him, was suddenly much less understanding than it had been.

"I am in conversation with the County Prosecutor," the Sheriff continued. "We are discussing criminal charges against Clara Fritter. I expect to have his decision before noon."

"I, ah, I see," the principal said hesitantly. 

"You might want to give her a call and let her know not to set foot on school property. I don't think she'd want to be seen arrested in her workplace."

"I, ah, I will ... tell her. Thank ... thank you for letting me know, Sheriff."

He pressed the hangup button, looked at Clara Fritter.

"I suggest you leave," he said quietly.

"I will do no such thing --"

"If I call the Sheriff and ask to have you removed for trespass ..." the principal said, letting the threat dangle.

The principal was honestly surprised.

He didn't know it was possible to stomp indignantly down the hall and out the door, while wearing soft soled Hush Puppies.

 

Angela knelt, took her little sister's hands in her own.

"We need your help," she said in a quiet voice. 

Victoria nodded, big-eyed and solemn: her Big Sister would not ask unless it was serious.

"You remember you let the doctors biopsy your heart muscle so we could grow a new heart for Michael."

Angela nodded.

"We need something similar."

Victoria blinked, tilted her head a little, the way she did when her curiosity was starting to prickle.

"We need to map your spine."

 

"Michael."

The voice was a whisper on the breeze, a voice from far away --

"Michael."

Michael opened his eyes.

"Welcome back."

Michael blinked, slowly, swallowed.

"Thirsty," he whispered.

He felt a straw touch his lips.

He drank.

Water never tasted so good.

Michael looked up, saw his sister Angela smiling down at him.

"Hi," he croaked. "Can I go home now?"

"Not yet, but there's someone here who'd like to say hello."

Michael felt something heavy hit the mattress, felt something warm and heavy land beside him as if it were taking root.

"Bear Killer," he whispered, as a great, black, curly-furred mountain Mastiff laid his blunt muzzle up beside Michael's ear.

"Michael, we had some problems."

Michael smiled, just a little.

"We fixed the damage in your chest, but there were ... complications."

The Bear Killer snuffed at his ear, taste-tested the corner of his jaw, laid his chin down beside Michael's head and gave a great, noisy, dramatic sigh.

"We think ... a clot lodged in your spine and we were afraid your spinal cord was starved for blood."

Michael looked up at the surgeon, his pale eyes wide, attentive.

"We seem to have removed the clot before it could cause permanent damage."

He looked at Angela, nodded.

"We mapped Victoria's spine and used it as a guide to check yours for function."

"Did it work?" Michael asked.

"We have yet to find out," the surgeon admitted. 

"Whattaya need?" Michael asked.

"It's going to hurt, Michael," Angela warned.

"So what else is new," he muttered. "Let's do it."

Surgeon and nurse each lowered their respective siderail.

"Michael, I'm going to swing your legs --"

Michael swung his legs, hooked his heels over the edge of the mattress, then clenched his jaw as the pain hit him: eyes squeezed shut, he crossed his arms tight across his chest and hissed in a breath through his tight-locked jaw.

The Bear Killer was behind him, warm, reassuring, a constant pressure against his back.

Angela's hands were tight on his upper arms. "Not so fast," she cautioned.

"Like hell," Michael snarled: he worked his bony backside against the mattress, twisted forward, pushed off, into his sister's arms: Angela caught him under the arms as his feet hit the floor, as Michael snarled, willing his legs to work.

The surgeon watched as Michael lifted one leg, then the other, placed each bare foot with an exaggerated care on the polished, spotless floor.

"Bear Killer," Michael groaned.

The Bear Killer flowed off the bed, sidestepped up to Michael's left side, looking up at him with an expression of canine concern.

Michael was panting from pain -- his chest still hurt like homemade hell -- he shook his sister's hand from his arm, then seized her wrist to steady himself.

Angela heard her little brother snarl, deep in his young throat, as he brought his left leg up and forward.

The surgeon was watching closely, assessing his patient's efforts with professional eyes.

He could not hear Michael's muted words.

Angela could.

Michael took one step, a second, a third, a fourth, and with each step -- an effort greater than any he'd ever had to put forth in his entire young life -- "Work, damn you!"

 

The rehabilitation was carefully monitored; it took longer than anticipated.

Michael's procedures were groundbreaking, the stuff that guarantees a surgeon's career: lessons learned in his surgeries, in his rehabilitation, were disseminated throughout the several medical communities in the Confederacy.

Michael's misfortune proved a boon to the healing arts; lives were saved, thanks to procedures invented to keep him alive; even back on Earth, lives were saved in his name.

When the Irish Brigade rolled up their sleeves and gave blood, two of their number were found to be Baby Baggers -- they lacked a particular antibody on their cell surfaces, which made them ideal donors for infants in Rh crisis, infants in need of an emergency, whole-volume transfusion -- they gave blood because they didn't know what else to do to help the son of one of their own, and in so doing, they too saved lives, and not a few of them.

That, too, is its own story.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A PAINFUL THOUGHT

It was a man's scream -- loud, powerful, though whether a scream of pain, or of anger, was not apparent.

Kohl heard a deep concussion, the sound of timber, heavy timber, breaking, then the sliding rush of rock, more shouts --

Kohl looked left, looked right, powered into a run, toward the scream, the sound of a cave-in.

"HAMISH!"

Kohl pulled out his bandanna, skidded to a stop: a wall of dust was rolling toward him from the next room.

He jumped to the side, thrust his rag into the accumulated groundwater, pulled it out and crushed it in his fist, tied it over his face, squinting as the dusty cloud rolled over him: he squatted, then went to one knee, head down, eyes hard shut against the airborne dirt.

It took forever -- or so it felt -- for the dust to thin enough he could see.

For a miracle, the light on his cap was still lit -- how, he had no idea.

"HAMISH!"

 

Dr. John Greenlees tossed his black satchel in the back of the physician's surrey.

Shorty had his trotter harnessed up and ready. 

Dr. Greenlees, like a good percentage of anyone available, headed toward the mine, towards the cave-in, towards what was either very bad, or much worse.

His chestnut trotter lifted his head, lifted his tail, set out smartly, shining and healthy, pacing the way he had on the racetracks, drawing the two-wheeled physician's surrey at a good velocity.

Dr. Greenlees couldn't help himself.

He knew he was going into blood and pain and shattered bodies and probably death, but for this moment, he felt like a young man again -- sun on his shoulders, wind in his face, a fast horse in rein, and a grin on his face!

 

"HAMISH, DAMN YOUR SCOTTISH EYES! SING OUT!"

"Damn your Hunky eyes," Kohl heard -- to his right, then a cough.

Dust still hung heavy in the mine.

Kohl looked around, remembering how the room had been -- timbers set up in a honeycomb, holding the mountain while men labored beneath -- he took a step, took another --

A cough, the sound of a rock, knocked aside --

"Watch where ye're steppin', ya damned clubfoot --"

Hamish coughed, coughed again, spat.

Kohl backed up a step, went to one knee --

Dirt, with two eyes -- the eyes were all that didn't look like dirt.

"Dammit, Hamish, whattaya doin' under all that?"

"What's it luik like!" Hamish gasped. "I'm takin' a nap an' I pulled a' this o'er me t' keep me warm, now dig me out, ya lazy --"

Hamish coughed again.

Kohl squinted against the dust, sized up the situation, started grabbing rocks, throwing them aside.

"I'd help ye," Hamish groaned, "but I'm feelin' lazy t'day --"

"Shut up," Kohl snarled. "Ye're distractin' me from my good work!"

 

Sarah McKenna grabbed another two covered baskets, walked quickly to the back door of the Jewel: she did not bother with the steps, she jumped, landed easily and ran the few steps to the waiting carriage.

She spun, hiked her skirts, charged the steps, ran back inside.

Men would be digging, men would be hurt, men had to be fed.

The Silver Jewel had provided food for disasters before.

Sarah waited until she had all she could fit in the family's shining, pinstriped carriage, then she climbed into the driver's seat, settled herself comfortably into the black-leather, tuck-and-roll upholstery, unwound the reins and released the brake.

Moments later, she, too, was headed for the mine.

 

"Can you stand, Hamish?"

"Stand hell," Hamish coughed, then groaned. "Damme, tha' hurts!"

Kohl looked his old friend over carefully, stopped at the man's hand.

"Yer hand, Hamish. Yer left hand."

The Scotsman raised his injured mitt, grimaced.

"Damme," he whispered as he saw shining-red blood, a swollen and misshapen knuckle.

"Let's get ye outside," Kohl said, looking around. 

Two men staggered, slid, each using the other to keep from falling on the irregular, shifting surface, heading blindly through dust and darkness with a single butter lamp on a man's cloth cap for light.

In the distance, a shout, a sustained "Halloooo!"

Hamish coughed, spat.

"Took 'em long enough, now where's th' shaft out 'a' here?"

 

Sarah McKenna was not quite a tornado in a long skirt, but she was a force to be reckoned with.

She remembered what her pale-eyed Sheriff said once, and commenced to draft from the Unorganized Militia.

Men without direction are men frustrated, and frustrated men are prone to get into disagreements, or worse: Sarah came charging up to a pair of them, seized each by the front of his shirt and pulled hard:  "I need your help," she said urgently, "and I need it five minutes ago!"

At her direction, planks became tables, timbers became supports: she seized a tablecloth by one corner, threw it, thrust a chin at a miner: "Grab that edge!" -- a tug, a snap, the red-and-white checkered cloth settled into place: she spun, skipped back to the carriage, seized the second tablecloth, a third: she threw the second one at the miner, holding a corner: he grinned, caught an unfolding edge, gave it a snap, they settled another tablecloth like they'd done it all their life.

Three tables, three tablecloths: Sarah grabbed another miner by the wrist, pulled hard -- it was like pulling a deep-rooted forest oak -- she released the wrist, planted her knuckles on her belt, glared at a bearded, scowling miner with lines in his face and calluses on his hands and she snapped, "I need help and you're the best man for the job! Are you going to help me or not?"

A maiden she might've been, but she was her mother's daughter, and Sarah Lynne McKenna's instinct told her this was the right approach: she loaded him with two withie baskets of food, bade him pack them from carriage to table.

Sarah spun, quickly, her skirt flaring, arms up and wrists bent -- her eyes were big as she looked at the towering, hard-bit miner, as she looked to the mine's opening.

Two figures that looked to be made of the same earth they were excavating, came out of the portal, one holding his hand across his middle the way a hurt man will, the other had the Scotsman's arm around his shoulders.

They squinted, blinked, stopped, looked around.

The sun was low in the sky -- they'd gone in before the day had a decent start -- two men emerged, blinking at the glare.

Sarah McKenna smiled quietly as she unpacked the baskets, as she set out food, as men yelled and whistled, tossed miner's caps in the air and gave vent to their delight that the only two who were unaccounted for, just emerged, back into light, back into life.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TO BEND THE KNEE

"Michael, he's crying!"

Michael looked at the screen, at his twin sister's distressed face.

She'd come to see to Lightning, the Fanghorn Michael was riding when they were nearly vaporized in the War that Wasn't, a war for which Michael was given full credit for stopping, for which Michael was almost elevated to sainthood when he appeared at the execution hearing and gave the condemned prisoner, a loaded round of .32 Winchester Special, and with it, Michael gave the prisoner back his life.

Lightning was backed up against the corral fence, swinging his head back and forth, screaming in distress.

The net effect was that of a steam-whistle from some outsized locomotive, screaming either in heat, or in agony: Victoria's tearful face filled the hand-held screen and she pleaded, "Michael, I can't get near him, what am I going to do?"

Michael hit the nurse call, clenched his teeth.

"On my way."

 

There were those in the administrative hierarchy who saw advantage to be gained.

The Inter-System flashed the image of a determined boy, lips peeled back and jaw locked against the pain he felt -- he was grey with pain, sweat beads were popping out on his forehead and sheening his forearms, the backs of his hands as he clutched the padded handles of the walker -- he labored slowly, painfully, through the gate, while behind him, watchful men with energy rifles stood ready.

Michael got just through the gate, stopped.

"Mister Mitchell."

One of the watchful men slipped sideways through the narrowing opening: the gate stopped before it was fully closed.

"Yes, Mr. Michael."

"Mr. Mitchell," Michael said quietly, then paused, closed his eyes, took a few breaths.

"If anyone hurts Lightning," he said, his young voice strained, "I will personally skin them alive."

He lifted his head, glared at the man and added, "With a spoon."

Michael turned, looked at the Fanghorn as it trotted left, trotted right.

Mitchell backed out, quickly, recognizing the behavior of a Fanghorn readying an attack.

Michael advanced the walker another step, wallowed one leg forward, then the other.

Pain gnawed at his breastbone, seared through his ribs, sizzled down the bony prominences of his spine: he was in pain, he was in constant, gnawing pain: he'd been told it would be temporary, he'd been told as soon as nerve tissue knitted and got used to the idea that it wasn't injured anymore, the pain would go away, but as yet -- as yet, the agonies of having his rib cage spread, of having burned bone cut off his spine, after having a newly grown heart implanted, after surgery and test and therapy and treatment and surgery again, he was getting the idea that maybe -- just maybe -- he would live in agony for the rest of his life.

Michael advanced the walker another step, swung a leg forward, his snarl weakened to a throat-tight hiss.

The Fanghorn screamed for them both.

"DON'T YOU DARE!" Victoria screamed: she slung both hands in an arc, and a shimmering wall sparkled into life between her and the raised energy-rifles: the wall curled around, enclosing the corral on three sides.

Michael felt the static from Victoria's wall crawl across his skin: what hair he had left, was on his face and the top of his head -- everything else was seared away, gone, never to return, thanks to the burns he received when his plate finally failed.

The Fanghorn crow-hopped, then whirled, thrust powerfully toward Michael, stopped, shivering, then laid down and curled protectively around the grey-faced, sweating, injured child.

Michael threw the lightweight walker as far from him as he could and he collapsed, hugging the Fanghorn's neck and burying his face in burn-scarred fur, his jaw locked: he forbade himself to cry, he silently damned the saltwater that leaked from screwed-shut eyelids.

He didn't have to worry about that.

The Fanghorn raised its head and screamed for both of them.

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller wiped her face, looked at her reflection in the mirror.

"It has to be a boy," she groaned. "With this much morning sickness, it has to be a boy!"

She took a steadying breath, took another sip of water, waited until she was sure it would not come rip-roaring back up her gullet: she turned, examined herself critically, then opened the door and exited the small latrine.

She glided into the conference room, smiling as she usually did, inclining her head politely as she was announced:  "Ambassador, arriving."

Marnie flowed to the center of the room -- instead of a podium at one end, and everyone facing her, the room was circular, and she was in the middle.

"You make it sound like I'm a sailing-ship," she smiled. "Perhaps I'll have to have a pleasure-boat and name it Ambassador."

Polite laughter rippled through the rings of medical professionals present.

"Most of you here have something to do with my brother's survival," Marnie said without further preamble. "To each of you, my thanks. The Confederacy has expressed its gratitude financially, and each of you has seen your personal purse enriched by your efforts.

"I know concern has been expressed by Michael's having recently absconded from treatment."

She turned slowly as she spoke.

"This does not in any manner express a lack of confidence in the collective skills and abilities of the many healers who have labored on his behalf, and who are continuing to do so, despite his absence."

At her request, the podium was circular, upright, almost an abbreviated column: she orbited its belt-high chapiter, gloved fingers daintily caressing the unadorned, circular marble tabletop.

"You must remember," she said carefully, "we are dealing with an eleven year old boy who died and was sent back because his work wasn't done. Michael died."

She let the echoes die before continuing.

"Michael died, and he has seen the Valley. Those of you who work with terminal patients are no stranger to being told of the Hereafter. I've seen it myself, as has my father, as have multiple of our ancestors. Most commonly we were given the understanding that our work was not yet done, and so we either chose to return, or we were returned.

"In most cases, we didn't want to come back. Michael didn't. It'll take him some time to stop considering life a punishment. I likened it to being condemned to live -- a terrible fate indeed!"

Marnie paused, hands clasped in her apron, her eyes wide, sincere.

"It took me a number of years to un-learn that mistaken idea," she admitted, her voice softer, thoughtful.

She lifted her chin, continued

"It is not unknown for a patient, especially a young patient, to express impatience at those closest to him in such moments." 

Her slow, orbiting pace never stopped; she was constantly turning, in order to include everyone in the elevated banks of circular rows.

"This is an expression of frustration. The young want immediate gratification. They want results five minutes ago. A child's world is back and white. Yes and no. To tell a child "We'll see" is to say "I don't have the guts to tell you no," and a child knows this.

"Michael is no longer in hospital, and that is due to my office. I know formal protests were lodged, your legal system was engaged, and both hospital and legal system learned quickly that they have no authority to override the Diplomatic Service.

"In order to allay your concerns, let me show you something."

Marnie made a quick gesture -- she cast a handful of glitter high into the air -- it became a swirling, sparkling cloud, then a holo-field -- each individual there seemed to be looking directly at the scene.

"This," Marnie said, "is a Fanghorn. It's similar to an Earth horse -- quadrupedal, hooved, intelligent, herbivorous, herd mentality -- and like horses, there are breeds and subspecies of Fanghorns.

"They are so named because they have fighting canines, with which they are truly deadly.

"They have a bony, blocky head that is quite different from the graceful taper of the Appaloosas of my girlhood."

For a moment, it seemed a happy, laughing, pale-eyed girl was riding an Appaloosa directly at each one there: most of the faces smiled as they realized the girl they saw, mounted on a fast-moving spotty horse and backed by snow-capped, shining mountains, was the Ambassador, at a younger age.

The photograph morphed: now it was a blocky head with a protruding, blunt, menacing cone of a bony spire, wide-set eyes, fangs gleaming as the Fanghorn's head raised, and astride this menacing mount, a pale eyed boy, solemn-faced, but with an expression of satisfaction, as if he were exactly where he was supposed to be!

"Healing," Marnie continued, "is as much psychological as physical.

"You are medical professionals. Every one of you is professional, credentialed, trained, certified, licensed, experienced."

Marnie raised her voice for emphasis, her words ringing loudly as she declared firmly, "Every one of you is just pretty damned good at what you do!"

"Now."  Her voice was returned to her usual pleasant tones. 

"You should know what Michael is doing."

The circular room, filled with ascending banks of medical professionals, stared as the scene over Marnie's head.

It showed a boy they recognized, half-sitting, half-laying over a Fanghorn's neck.

The Fanghorn had white zigzag streaks from jaw to tail; the fierce, fast, fighting mare, known for its hostility and for its propensity to attack unprovoked, lay on its side, curled protectively around the barefoot boy in the hospital gown.

Michael wore one other thing none of them had seen before.

Michael Keller, survivor and patient, lying with a fast, fierce, fighting mare, wore a look of contentment.

Marnie waited several long moments before continuing.

The scene changed: it showed a bespectacled man in a military uniform, standing beside a horse.

"My friends," Marnie said, "Theodore Roosevelt once observed that the outside of a horse is good for the inside of the boy, or of the man. I am inclined to agree. Michael has chosen to add this particular modality to his rehabilitation. I, for one, believe it will improve his recovery."

 

Victoria stood without complaint, a silent guardian, holding the crystal force-wall in place.

It wasn't until Michael rose, until he fought his leg over the big mare's back, not until the Fanghorn rolled over to get her hooves under her, that Victoria lowered her arms, eased the ache in her shoulders, twisted herself left, then right, easing the ache in her back.

She turned, gestured: the gate swung open at her gesture, armed men were scooted back, carefully, without knocking them over: she made a crystal-walled passage, and Michael laid over the Fanghorn's neck, chewed his bottom lip as -- for the very first time -- he was able to bend his knees.

 

Edited July 28 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE GAMBLE

Air hissed from the percussion nipple as the ramrod was pushed steadily down the short octagon barrel.

Sarah McKenna laid the striped ramrod in the lid of the open buggy-case, picked up a percussion cap, walked to the scratch: she capped the nipple, brought the buggy gun to shoulder.

It was Sunday.

It was after church.

It was a day of rest, a day of being sociable, a day when men and boys ran foot races, when parishioners took their turn hosting the Parson and his wife, when folks visited one another.

It was when the Sunday shooting match was held, behind the town's corral.

Shorty had the horses all moved out and to his livery, the distance was not great, and targets were dependent on who was shooting: Sarah was in competition with a half dozen other shooters, all with their Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes and their Sunday-after-church guns.

Sarah had this one purpose built.

The Daine boys, up on the mountain, were gunsmiths, moonshiners, woodworkers: Sarah described what she wanted, and paid them for her idea: a hinged case, velvet lined, a half stocked, sawhandle, muzzle loading pistol with a detachable stock: she wanted something small, a .45 caliber would be fine, and she'd be using a patched ball -- oh, and percussion mechanism, please.

What she received, pleased her immensely.

Now she raised that same stocked pistol, cheeked down on the custom fitted, detachable stock.

The gun cracked.

Sarah smiled, just a little: there were exclamations of delight, others groaned: her shot was a little off center, but unmistakably within the black borders of the Ace of Spades.

Such a contest can bring out the competitive nature in men, and in women as well.

The shooters kicked in a coin -- not much, to start with -- winner take all.

Sarah walked back to her carriage, placed a cleaning patch on her tongue, got it good and wet: she spit patched the barrel, ran a dry patch, wiped the muzzle with the palm of her hand (she kept an old pair of gloves for this very purpose) and blew through it, capped the nipple and lowered the muzzle to the ground -- *blap!* -- dust jumped away from the muzzle.

She measured the target charge, poured it down the bore, placed a grease patch over the muzzle.

Sarah was scrupulous when she loaded her target pistol: she turned the sprue carefully up, then pressed it down with a single steady stroke of her loading stick, placed the ramrod on the open gun case's lid, picked up a percussion cap, returned to the corral.

One by one the shooters were eliminated.

Those remaining tossed their coin into Mr. Baxter's upturned Derby hat.

One of the Irish Brigade, impatient, demanded that they stop shooting at cards and instead turn the cards sideways.

This elicited a lively debate.

Finally the consensus was that the cards would indeed be turned sideways, but the distance would be halved.

A string was produced, run from the far side of the corral, to the scratch: the string was doubled, a new scratch was dragged into the corral dirt at the bight, and eight shooters stepped up to the scratch.

This round left two, and only two, still in competition, and the impatient Irishman was not among them.

"Sixbits on the boy!" a voice rang out: "Piker!" came the sneering reply. "Double eagle on the girl!"

A flurry of wagers, collected into a different hat, but still under Mr. Baxter's care: he looked around, called "Place your bets! We're down to two shooters! Winner take all, place your bets!"

Tillie, behind him, scratched bettor's names and wagers on a plank, using a lump of chalk donated by an anonymous schoolboy.

Sarah smiled, reached into a hidden pocket, pulled out two coins, looked at Jacob.

"Two double eagles say I beat'cha," she said quietly.

Jacob ran two fingers into a vest pocket. "How many times you want that?"

"I've only got two more on me."

"Bet it all?"

"Bet it all!"

Coins flashed as a minor fortune was tossed carelessly into the kitty.

Tillie wrote down their names; bystanders goggled at the wealth tossed into the bartender's round-crowned cover, at the increasing amount in the Stetson beside.

Two fresh playing cards from a marked deck, confiscated by Tom Landers while policing gambling in the Silver Jewel, were set up, edge-on to the two shooters.

Sarah and Jacob each loaded -- Jacob with his '73 rifle, Sarah with her Sunday-go-to-meetin' buggy gun.

The spectators saw gunmuzzles rise, as each shooter took a long breath, saw gunmuzzles lower and steady, as deep breaths were let out.

Two guns spoke in the same moment.

Two cards fluttered in the afternoon sun, cut cleanly in two.

Twice more the pair fired; by mutual agreement, they moved back three paces, then three more, and with each setback of the firing line, both Mr. Baxter's derby, and the spectators' Stetson, got a little heavier.

Finally Sarah and Jacob looked at one another, looked at the barkeep, looked at the crowd.

"We can do this all day," Sarah declared, "or we can win this one, sudden death."

Murmurs, assents, a voice: "What's sudden death?"

Sarah pointed at a schoolboy.

"Step forth, young man," she commanded, as if she were royalty: "I am the Queen, and I require a champion!"

Jacob grinned, stepped back a pace, his rifle's muzzle to the vertical.

Sarah handed the boy two Barlow knives, bade him slip one in his pocket: she took the other, opened it, stood, held it up.

"Amos has a brand new Barlow knife," Sarah declared, "and he has bet me my half of the winnings!"

Sarah folded the Barlow, dropped it into Mr. Baxter's Derby.

Eager eyes, and a little boy, followed Sarah to her buggy: no eyes were more attentive than those of an adoring schoolboy who stood to win another genuine Barlow knife, as Sarah reloaded her buggy gun.

Sarah came back, capped her buggy gun, tilted her head and smiled at her half-brother.

"I'm broke," she admitted. "You got a coin?"

Jacob grinned, pulled out a silver dollar.

Sarah set the crescent buttplate into her arm, cheeked down, the buggy gun's octagon barrel at a high angle: "Throw!"

Something that used to be a coin, howled through the air: eager boys chased after, one brought it back in triumph.

Sarah and Jacob both laughed at the dented silver circle.

"Your turn!" Sarah declared happily.

Jacob shouldered his rifle, muzzle angled sharply upward.

"Throw!"

Sarah spun the coin fairly, straight up as she could manage.

Jacob's rifle cracked --

The coin disappeared --

Singing, it fell, and landed in Mr. Baxter's upturned Derby hat full of wagers.

Cheers, yells, whistles: Mr. Baxter reached into his hat, pulled out the twice-shot silver dollar: two shooters, a barkeep and an eager little boy examined the bent and deeply dimpled silver, passed it from hand to hand to hand, held a quick, low-voiced conference, then the three of them walked over to the corral fence.

"Jacob hit the coin's edge," Mr. Baxter declared, holding up the misshapen silver, then handed it over for inspection: "Sarah hit the coin solid, Jacob just clipped it."

He raised both his arms, and his voice.

"How say you all?" he shouted, and a voice shouted back, "SARAH!"

The name grew, became a chant:

"SARAH WON!

"SARAH WON!

"SARAH WON!
Sarah Lynne McKenna threw her head back and laughed, she hugged Jacob, one-armed, and Jacob hugged her back, one-armed:  winnings were distributed, according to Tillie's chalked record, and when Mr. Baxter handed Sarah his hat full of winnings, Sarah reached in, raised a Barlow knife to arm's length overhead, then handed it to the grinning, delighted little boy beside her.

 

"It would make an even better tale," Sheriff Linn Keller said as he sat on the side of his little girl's bed, holding her soft little hand and speaking in a quiet voice, "if I could reach into a vest pocket and pull out a worn old knife and tell you honestly we had the one Sarah gave the schoolboy."

Victoria looked at her long tall Daddy with the drowsy eyes of a little girl whose Daddy just told her a bedtime story.

"I've got a Barlow, but I'm afraid it's one I bought new, at our friendly local Mercantile."

Victoria's eyes were too heavy to hold open: she closed them, sighed out a contented breath.

Linn slid her arm under the covers, tugged the quilt up around her chin:  "Night, Princess," he whispered, kissed her forehead.

He stood carefully, then walked, silent on sock feet, to the open bedroom door where his wife was loafing against the door frame, smiling a little.

"Daddy?" she called in a drowsy, little-girl voice.

Linn turned, looked back at his youngest daughter.

"Can I have a buggy gun?"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PIG IRON

A pretty little girl stood in front of her mirror, brushing her auburn hair, smiling a little as she tied a ribbon in it, remembering how the sun brought out the red in her hair.

She dressed properly for the occasion.

When she came downstairs, when she walked very primly and very properly to the barn, when she slipped the latch on the gate and whistled for her Daddy's steeldust stallion, she held out her palm and the two red-and-white-swirly peppermints she'd just unwrapped.

Victoria was careful when she harnessed her Daddy's big horsie.

Her Daddy told her she couldn't ride Pig Iron, he was too much horsie for her, but he didn't say anything about not harnessing him to the buggy.

Victoria climbed up into the carriage.

"Pig Iron," she called, "Mush!"

Her Daddy's big stallion lifted his tail, lifted his head: he trotted smartly out of the barn.

"Pig Iron!" Victoria called. "Gee!"

Pig Iron swung obediently to the right.

Victoria sat very primly, very properly, feeling very proud of herself as she and Pig Iron trotted easily down the driveway, onto the county road, then up the highway a few hundred yards and onto the carriage road she and her Daddy had ridden many times before.

When a pretty young girl in a shining, pinstriped carriage comes coasting up the driveway, when a steeldust stallion tows the buggy with as much effort as a Clydesdale towing a postage stamp, when the pretty girl with the shining red-auburn hair and a ruffle-and-lace-trimmed, very old-fashioned gown calls "Pig Iron! Haw!" and the stallion swings left, when she calls "Ho!" and the stallion stops, tail slashing ... well, the sight is enough to draw broad grins from the men, and approving looks from the women.

A skinny old mountaineer with a face that looked to be carved from a dried apple came over, took Victoria's hand, helped her from the carriage as if she were the Queen herself.

Victoria tilted her head a little and smiled.

"I need to see the gunsmith," she said, and her voice was far less that of a little girl than it had been the day before.

 

"Damn, you're big," Sheriff Linn Keller murmured.

The fanghorn came pacing over, muttering.

Linn held out a palm, held out an offering of molasses twist tobacker.

The fanghorn threw its head aside, snorted.

"Well, hell, my horses like it," Linn muttered: he pulled out his next approach, unwrapped the round, red-and-white peppermints: at the brittle crackle of cellophane unwrapping, the Fanghorn's head snapped back, just as fast.

For all that its approach had the velocity of a striking cobra, its taking the peppermints was just as gentle, if slobbery:  Linn automatically wiped the horse slobber on the leg of his jeans, then rubbed the Fanghorn's ears.

"You gonna let me saddle you, you big son of Vesuvius?"

Michael leaned on his hospital walker, watched as his Pa saddled the big horse -- it was easier for him to think of Lightning as a horse -- Linn ran a hand under the Fanghorn's blunt, muscled jaw, pulled.

"C'mon, fella," Linn muttered.

Men stared in honest astonishment as the towering Fanghorn -- a hand taller than the biggest Frisian the Sheriff ever saddled -- Michael waited by the mounting block.

Linn knew the Fanghorn had seen Victoria stand on the block.

Linn looked at the fanged creature.

"Stay," he said quietly.

For a miracle, the Fanghorn stood.

Linn watched Michael struggle to make his leg work.

He wanted -- he ached -- to take his son under the arms, set him on the mounting block, then as necessary, hoist him -- hell, he'd taken his son around the waist and swung him bodily into the saddle, when he was younger, when he was a laughing little boy --

Michael lowered his head and honestly snarled.

He seized the denim above his left knee, picked up his uncooperative leg: he swung his hips, planted his foot on the block, glared at his pale eyed Pa.

"I hate slippers," he said, then half-fell forward, seized the fender, pulled.

He managed to wallow his other leg up on the block -- it was not easy, but he made it.

Lightning stood patiently, waiting.

Michael stood, shivering.

This was the most his legs had worked since he made his escape from hospital.

He looked up at the saddle -- it was custom made, it was a Western saddle, Michael looked at the saddle horn, out of reach --

He teetered awkwardly, moved his right foot to the side, leaned again and drew his left foot nearer his right, grabbed the saddle skirt with one hand and another handful of denim over his left knee --

He pulled, he tried to lift his leg --

Linn stood, watched, waited, knowing it was his son's fight, it was his son's war that he and he alone had to fight.

Doing nothing, in that moment, was one of the hardest things that pale eyed old lawman ever did in his entire life.

The Fanghorn swung its big head around, muttered something, then folded its legs and bellied down.

Michael practically fell over the saddle.

Linn watched as his son grabbed the gullet, as he wallowed, the saddlehorn digging painfully into his belly.

He shoved back, teeth locked together, his breath coming in fast, pained gasps: he leaned back, took as deep a seat as he could manage.

"Yup, Lightning."

The Fanghorn rocked upright: Michael had a death grip on the gullet as he looked left, looked right.

Linn came over, took his son's foot in one hand, the stirrup in the other.

"How's for length?" he asked quietly, then crossed under Lightning's chin, manipulated the off side in like manner.

"Still long."

"Hold on."

Michael felt one stirrup, then the other, come up to where they felt right.

"Likely I'll have to let that back out," Linn said, "once you get your legs back."

"Thank you, sir," Michael said.

He released his grip on the smooth, rolled leather edge, sat up straight.

"Help me, Lightning," he whispered.

Linn stepped back, fighting to keep a poker face.

It is hard for a father to see his son so near tears, knowing his son wanted to show no weakness before his father, knowing his son could not give vent to frustration or pain or grief or misery, not as long as the Grand Old Man had eyes on him.

Lightning had no such reservations.

Linn was not a man who scared easily, but when a horse that made his stallion look small, a horse with a ramming horn and fighting fangs slung its neck like a snake, raised its head and screamed like an industrial grade steam whistle gone mad -- well, he was not at all ashamed to admit he shrank back a couple steps.

Michael's nerves were healing, as were his bones; the unexpected weakness in his ventricular wall was regrown, from where it tore during the exertion mandated by that incompetent of a schoolteacher that made him run during recess: Michael's young body was healing, but Michael's body had the memory of literally years in the saddle.

Linn remembered his daughter telling him about the benefits of Equestrian Therapy -- personally, he'd considered it a load of manure, until he'd gone with her and seen the good that it actually did.

Lightning set out, orbiting the big corral: Linn assessed his son's posture, he frowned at his son's head, gauged how much Michael was bouncing -- or in this case, wasn't bouncing.

Linn frowned.

Damn, that's a smooth gait, he thought, and for an insane moment, he wondered what it would be like, riding this tall and powerful killing machine.

 

Victoria laid out the handwritten sheet on the gunsmith's bench, ran delicate fingers down neat rows of her tidy, feminine script.

Sarah McKenna Buggy Gun

.45 caliber

Eight inch octagon barrel

Curly or birdseye half stock with detachable shoulder stock

Single wedge with nose cap

Percussion with patent breech

Green velvet lined compartment box

Victoria looked at the old man with the long, tapered beard, saw him nod, slowly, saw the smile that started deep in his eyes, then spread to their corners, the way her Daddy did.

"Any engraving?" he asked, his voice gentle.

Victoria smiled, picked up a steel ruler and a pencil.

She scribed four lines, quickly -- as if drawing the upper flats of an octagon barrel -- the old gunsmith watched as a pretty girl, dressed like girls ought to be dressed, worked woman's magic with a common pencil: it was as if a scrolling vine and leaves flowed from graphite, became very realistic vine-work on the top, then the first flats just under.

Victoria looked up, saw a bare lock plate lying flat on the workbench: there was only just room enough on her paper.

She traced around the lock plate, frowned, saw a matching percussion hammer, placed it on the paper and sketched around this too.

She drew a short vine, with leaves, up the percussion hammer, referring to the actual hammer -- drawing on paper was easy, she knew, but transferring this to steel was not nearly so -- then a rose, behind the hammer, a vine snaking under its bottom, a spray of roses ahead.

She looked at the old gunsmith.

"Drawing is easy," she said. "I've never tried engraving. Can this be done?"

The old gunsmith pulled out a pair of spectacles, slid them on his face, studied her sheet, nodding slowly.

"Caleb."

A decades-younger man came over.

"Look."

Caleb looked at the drawing, raised an eyebrow.

"I will be sawed off and damned."

Victoria looked at him -- she very frankly ran her eyes up, then down, then back up -- "I hope not," she said, "that sounds painful!"

Caleb looked at the old man.

"I'll fetch it."

The old man laid the paper back on his workbench.

"May I keep this?" he asked.

"Of course," Victoria replied, surprised.

"This won't be cheap, y' realize that."

Victoria dropped a small leather poke on the workbench, worked the purse string neck open, shook out two, half-ounce gold coins.

The old timer picked one up, studied it: the coin had a milled edge, it was stamped with a stylized, ornate X on one side.

On its reverse, a line across its equator: above the line, in an arc, ONE HALF OUNCE; on the lower half, below the equator line, FINE GOLD.

"Daddy said good work is worth its price. Will one ounce of gold cover it?"

 

Caleb set the hinged wood box on the old gunsmith's workbench.

"It took me a while to find this."

The old gunsmith lifted the catch, opened the box.

Two men looked at the handwritten specifications, at the engraving pattern hand drawn as they'd watched.

They looked at the half-stocked, octagon barreled, buggy gun in its green velvet lined, compartment box.

They looked at hand chased engraving, at the vines, skillfully enough done to look like living silver, still bright against the browned octagon barrel's flats.

They looked at the single rose, behind the percussion hammer, at the vine snaking under its bottom arc, at the spray of three roses ahead.

The old man worked the buttstock free of its recess, looked closely at how it coupled into the pistol's saw handle.

"We'll make another," he said quietly. "Might be we'll make a few."

"What's that on the butt plate?"

Two craftsmen studied the crescent butt plate, solemnly regarded its polished, waxed, bright and untarnished surface: in spite of its antiquity, in spite of its having been asleep in a fitted box for a century and a half, its engraving was deep, distinct, legible.

One man looked at another, and both admitted later it felt like someone poured a dipper of cold water right down their back bone.

An ancestor made this buggy gun.

An ancestor's hands chased the graver in pure silver.

An ancestor made two of these buggy guns, identical save for the single, ornate letter in the crescent butt plate.

One had a capital S, for Sarah.

This one had a deeply engraved, ornate, V.

Caleb asked his Uncle, "What's that girl's name?"

His uncle looked at him, looked at the buttstock, very carefully returned it to its custom fitted recess, closed the lid, slowly, and pressed home the latch.

"Victoria," he said quietly.

 A shadow moved, filled the doorway.

"Yes?"

The old gunsmith picked up the box, dust free from having been cloth wrapped for all these years.

"Miss Victoria," he said, "this is yours."

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BACK TO SCHOOL

Michael Keller glared at the screen.

He had another screen under his hand, a soft tipped stylus: he worked math problems quickly, efficiently: his teacher nodded her approval, made a few notes on her own screen.

"Well done," she said in a voice that reminded him of his twin sister.

Miss Thompson was tiny, to be honest: she was a full hand shorter than his sister Victoria, with big, vulnerable eyes and a sweet nature: Michael liked her from the moment she was introduced, and he took her instruction very much to heart.

Michael's skill with numbers was well in advance of his fifth grade education, and so Miss Thompson introduced new concepts, new procedures: Michael, with the quick mind of youth, absorbed them like a thirsty man absorbs a good beer: Miss Thompson did her best to hide her utter delight at his progress, for she'd studied to teach advanced students, and had to overcome serious difficulties to matriculate through her own higher education, especially with the appearance of a child.

Michael was cold and focused in his lessons: at one point he admitted that his twin sister was better than he in school, and so Miss Thompson sent an inquiry, and two days later, when Victoria stepped through an Iris, thinking she was going to groom and sweet-talk and absolutely spoil Lightning, she found her twin brother and a tiny little woman instead, and Victoria began her own advanced education with her twin brother.

Education was not solely screen time, it was not entirely classroom -- that is, if one considered a hospital bed, a classroom setting -- Michael and Victoria researched the materia medica, scouring the literature for information on Michael's condition, each immersing their young minds in a vast ocean of information that they quickly realized was too overwhelming for them to absorb.

They instead concentrated on Michael's physical rehabilitation.

Miss Thompson was recruited from Earth -- Michael never did find out how his Pa learned of her, only that he did, and he hired her and paid her well -- Marnie let it slip that she made a habit of running common dirt into a Ripper, then recombining its subatomic elements into such useful compounds as ... oh, like gold, in half-ounce or one-ounce coins, stamped with an ornate X on one side, and the weight on the other: gold sold quickly and without question, and when Michael examined one such coin and asked, "Marnie, what's that fancy X for?" -- why, Marnie explained that, back before what Old Pale Eyes called That Damned War, the Confederacy issued a ten dollar coin.

It featured an ornate, stamped X -- the roman numeral for ten -- which in French is "Dix" ... the coin was called a "Dixie" and the nickname was then used to mean the entire Confederacy.

Michael thought that appropriate, and Victoria acquired a leather drawstring poke of half-ounce coins, reasoning that they just might come in handy.

Miss Thompson came along when Michael and Victoria went to ride Lightning.

Miss Thompson froze when she saw just how BIG the Fanghorn was.

Miss Thompson's jaw dropped about a yard when she watched Victoria strut fearlessly up to the fanged, monstrous beast and feed it peppermints, laughing as she wiped horse slobber off her palm and onto her skirt.

Miss Thompson honestly stared as Michael fought his unwilling legs, using tricks and slights and the walker he despised, to get the saddle on absolutely the tallest (and ugliest) horse she'd ever seen,

and Miss Thompson put one hand to her stomach and the other hand to her cheek as the Fanghorn knelt and allowed Michael to wallow aboard.

She didn't realize until the Fanghorn stood, until Victoria ran ahead, laughing and calling "Here kitty kitty!" -- not until the Fanghorn shook its head, then threw its head back --

-- she expected a loud and powerful whinny --

-- she did not expect to hear what amounted to a steam whistle in heat.

Victoria turned, skipping backwards, clapping her hands and laughing, and the Fanghorn reared, drove hard hooves into the ground, rocked back and stabbed the earth again -- it's going to kill her it's going to kill her it's going to kill her --

Victoria laughed again and turned, running, then spun around, clapped her hands and called "Here kitty kitty!" and the Fanghorn came after her, rocking back and driving down like an insane hobby-horse, and Miss Thompson realized ...

... they were playing ...

... here was a child of eleven years, playing tag with a monster of a beast that could crush her with one hoof-strike, with a partially paralyzed child on its back, and the children are ...

... laughing?

Victoria skipped to the center of the big corral, turning to watch as the Fanghorn set out with a long-legged pace, turning to watch Michael with big, adoring eyes.

Victoria's hands clapped to her cheeks and then flattened against the base of her throat and Miss Thompson heard her take in a quick gasp -- she gave a squeal --

Victoria Keller began jumping up and down, excited, her hands were fisted, her arms were working like she was gripping an insane exercise bar and chinning herself and she was yelling "DO IT AGAIN MICHAEL DO IT AGAIN MICHAEL DO IT AGAIN!" and Miss Thompson couldn't see it --

-- but she did see the look Michael gave her --

-- and then she realized --

Michael was moving with his mount.

His legs were moving with his mount.

His legs ... his legs are moving!

Michael threw back his head and let out a wordless yell of pure triumph, and the Fanghorn threw its head back and sang with him, and Victoria jumped up and down and screamed with excitement, and a diminutive little schoolteacher who'd known nothing but ridicule all of her life, screamed with them.

 

On another planet, a pale-eyed Ambassador stopped in mid-word.

Her little boy was leaned up against her and her arm was around him; she was holding a book, reading it out loud to him, and he was almost asleep, his head over against her.

Little John felt his Mama's heartbeat pick up and he felt her take a quick, excited breath.

Little John raised his head to see the shining look of delight on his Mama's face as she breathed, "Michael!"

 

Angela Keller was in mid-lecture: she'd just changed images on the overhead screen, she turned back to her students, when her eyes unfocused and she blinked, surprised.

Angela Keller gasped, dropped her head, grabbed the table to steady herself, swallowed: she raised a bent wrist to her lips, murmured quietly, turned to the side, listened: she raised her head and said crisply, "Advise when able," lowered her wrist, closed her eyes for a long moment, then wet her lips and turned to face her class.

"My apologies for the interruption," she said, then cleared her throat, bit her bottom lip.

"I ... was advised on a case I've been following."

She turned back to the screen.

"Now. Back to the matter at hand. Owing to the short half-life of medical grade nanobots ..."

 

"Sheriff? Janice Thompson. I'm fine, thank you, and you can be proud of your twins."

A pause.

"That's correct. They've both more than surpassed the remainder of their fifth grade term. With your permission, I would like to enroll them in advanced classes."

Michael and Victoria looked at one another, smiled.

"Tomorrow, then. I'm looking forward to seeing you both.  Goodbye."

Sheriff Linn Keller hung up the kitchen phone, turned to his wife, smiled.

"Darlin'," he said, "how's for a road trip?"

"I'm teaching tomorrow. How far are we going?"

"Several million light-years. When's your class?"

"Ten AM."

"We'll have you back in plenty of time."

Linn looked at his worried wife: she knew Michael was in the very best of hands, but that didn't allay her motherly concerns.

"Michael can move his legs."

Shelly froze -- her eyes opened wide, wide -- she had no memory of moving, just the sudden impact as she SLAMMED into her husband and seized him in an excited, crushing hug.

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THAT'S M'BOY!

Jacob Keller wiped carefully at his wife's wet cheek.

She swatted his hand away and snarled, turned her head away from him, chewed on her knuckles.

The maid laid a gentle hand on Jacob's forearm: "Come wi' me, sor," she murmured, "I've summat f'r th' babe."

Jacob Keller picked the blanket wrapped, red faced, vigorously squalling baby from Annette's lap, followed her into the kitchen.

Jacob had seen babies fed with bottles before, but his wife swore and be damned no child of hers  would ever drink from such a thing! -- and here the maid had a bottle prepared.

She handed it to Jacob, then when he had it turned work-wise and ready to plug into the proper opening, the maid reached up and squeezed the nipple to get a little milk on the outside.

"Walk about wi' him," she said softly, " 'tis a comfortin' thing t' be carried about, like."

Jacob Keller, husband, father and now rather distressed, decided that perhaps his best course of action was to get the fussy baby outside, to give his wife relief from a hungry child's demanding scream.

Joseph took the bottle readily -- once he realized what it was -- Jacob's Appaloosa was still saddled, so he stepped up on the mounting block (something he usually disdained) and carefully swung into saddle leather.

"Yup," he murmured, and his stallion yup'd, and Jacob eased him into a trot, hoping the bouncing would be beneficial to the grunting, hungry, bottle-guzzling lad.

"Sor!" he heard, and the sound of a woman, running: he brought his stallion about, found the maid running after him, waving a towel: "Ye'll need t' drape this o'er yer shoulder, an' lay th' babe o'er th' towel, an' he'll likely spit up, y'see, an' let th' towel catch it an' no' yer coat," she said in a rush, and Jacob leaned down, took the towel and thanked the hired girl.

Jacob walked the stallion back toward his board fence.

Boocaffie was watching him, slinging his tail and looking bored.

Jacob hooked the gate open with the toe of his boot, eased Apple-horse inside, swung down, pulled the gate shut and threw the gate's heavy latch.

Boocaffie came over -- most of a ton of beef on the hoof, each horn just shy of four foot long -- and Jacob grinned as the curious bull came up and snuffed loudly at little Joseph.

Jacob rubbed Boocaffie's ears and laughed a little, somehow managing to hold infant and bottle in one hand -- it was awkward, he nearly dropped the bottle, he grabbed it just in time and went into a squat.

Boocaffie lowed quietly, lowered his head, begging for attention.

Jacob managed baby and bottle both, thanks to his now horizontal lap, freeing up a hand to rub the happily blinking Texas longhorn.

"I used to ride your Pa," Jacob said, laughing a little at the memory:  "matter of fact I was about Joseph's size here. Pa said I come a-runnin' out of the house buck nekked, nothin' on but m' hat and m' boots, I clumb up on your Pa's back an' hollered giddy-up, an' your Pa took out through th' board fence and we ended up trottin' right down the main street in town, scandalizin' the ladies hell west and crooked!"

Boocaffie, unimpressed by the story, lowered his head and began cropping grass again.

Jacob sighed, stood, walked slowly to the gate: he opened it a little, slid through sideways, closed it and threw the heavy latch.

He didn't try to find a mounting block: frowning, he debated whether to try and hold baby and bottle in one hand while grabbing the saddle horn with the other: he pulled the bottle free, shifted it to his right hand and Joseph let out a squall.

Jacob frowned, pulled down his little boy's lip, blinked.

"Dam-nation, boy," he said, "you're growin' teeth! No wonder your Mama's cryin'! You oughta be ashamed of yourself, bringin' her t' tears like that!"

Jacob powered into the saddle, shoved the storm plug back into Joseph's mouth, turned back toward the house.

By the time he got down the road a little and turned around and come back, the bottle was nearly empty, Joseph was nearly full, the infant went from noisy to starving and now drowsy, and Jacob remembered to throw the towel over his shoulder and lay the baby over the towel.

Good thing he remembered.

Jacob dismounted, packed the sleeping infant inside: Annette met him at the door.

Jacob kissed her, delicately, handed his hat to the hired girl, lowered his forehead until it just touched his wife's.

"Dearest?" he whispered.

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Dearest, I've weaned calves, I've weaned pup dogs, but I've never weaned a baby before."

Annette laughed a little, took the sleeping lad from his grinning father, accepted a clean towel from the maid and laid Joseph over her cloth-draped shoulder.

"He's just like his father," Annette said quietly.

Jacob gave her a dismayed look: "Dear God, no!" he protested. "He cain't be all that ugly!"

Annette gave him One Of Those Looks and said, "He's just like you, Jacob. You get your belly full and you get warm and sit down and you fall right asleep!"

Jacob grinned, nodded a little and murmured, "That's m' boy!"

 

Edited July 30 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HUNKER

A pale eyed Sheriff squinted into the distance.

He stood unmoving beside a rocky out crop, silent, watching, listening.

Nothing moved.

The silence was complete.

Overhead, stars, hard, bright, harsh: not even a wisp of vapor could be seen from one desolate horizon to another.

Sheriff Jacob Keller's eyes swept the high places, the vantage points, where a distant rifleman might hide: he quartered the ground ahead of him, searched it near to far, the way his Mama taught him.

He looked to his left.

A couple dozen tombstones stood in regular rows, the sandy ground mounded up over each grave.

Damned poor testament to a man's life, Jacob thought.

Polished rock, date of birth, date of death, a line or two.

Pale eyes rested on a stone he'd stood and looked at, more times than one.

That man grabbed a child and threw him from harm's way before he himself was killed.

Hand picked for the Mars mission, highly intelligent, a hero back home.

Here?

Here there's a rock and an empty grave.

Jacob took a final look around, moving nothing but his eyes.

Habit it was, old habit: he knew from earliest childhood that the human eye is sensitive to movement, and if he held still, he stood the least chance of being seen.

Jacob moved.

A tall man in a tailored black suit, his emerald-green necktie carefully knotted, flowed easily away from the rocky upright, paced silently through Martian sand: the airlock opened as he approached, closed behind him.

Jacob was surprised when he walked past the Earth-grav classroom, not far from the portal: a little boy was in the hallway, hunkered down, leaned back against the wall.

Jacob had been a boy once, and he recognized the signs of juvenile unhappiness.

Jacob stopped, looked at the lad, then turned his own back to the wall, hunkered with him.

Sheriff Jacob Keller took off his Stetson, set it on the spotless floor beside him, looked over at the unhappy little boy.

"You look like you lost your last friend," he said gently.

The lad looked sidelong, a little, nodded.

Jacob laid a gentle hand on the boy's far shoulder, then he crossed his legs and sat his bony backside on the floor, looked frankly at his hallway buddy -- maybe eight years old? he thought -- 

"Did someone die?" Jacob asked gently, and the boy shook his head, sighed, leaned over against Jacob: he shoved his legs straight out, dropped his head back against Jacob's companionable arm.

"I miss Sheriff Marnie," he sighed.

Jacob chuckled a little -- silently, but the boy could feel his laugh -- Jacob nodded, took a long breath, sighed it out.

"You want to know somethin'?" he asked gently, looking at Mexican-dark hair and a bowed head, "so do I."

The boy's head came up, his black eyes wide, astonished.

"She's my sister, y'know."

The boy blinked, confused.

"And she's going to have a baby."

The boy opened his mouth, looked away, looked back, clearly trying to process something that conflicted with what he'd believed.

"Sheriff Marnie is a married woman."

"But, but, she's ..."

He looked away, at the closed classroom door.

He looked back.

"Sheriffs get married?" he asked, his voice very young, very innocent, very surprised.

Jacob nodded.  "I'm  married."

"Oh."

"My wife's going to have a baby too."

The boy considered this.

"Sheriff?"

"Hm?"

"Will Sheriff Marnie ever come back?"

"Oh heavens yes!" Jacob grinned.  "This is her home."

"How come she's never here?"

Jacob chuckled again, squeezed the boy's off shoulder gently.

"Adults get busy with stuff," Jacob explained in a gentle and fatherly voice. 

"Yeah, I know," the boy said in discouraged tones.

"What're you doin' out here, anyway?"

"I didn't want to play recess."

"What are they doin' for recess?"

"Dumb stuff. Sheriff Marnie took us on trains an' stuff!"

Jacob nodded.  "Trains are more fun than dumb stuff," he agreed.

The schoolroom door opened; the teacher looked at Jacob and her young charge, her expression going swiftly from concern to disapproval to surprise.

Jacob gripped his Stetson, rose easily, held his skypiece politely over his belly:  "My apologies for this young man's absence," he said in a gentle voice, "but we have been in conference."

Sheriff Jacob Keller remembered what it was to be young, and he remembered an older man who'd spoken with him in a schoolhouse hallway when Jacob was honestly bored to tears and sought some respite by escaping the schoolroom: a wise, older man told his teacher in a gentle voice, and with an innocent expression that he, Jacob, had been in conference, and that spared him a scolding.

Many years later, after the schoolboy became a man, he too passed on such a kindness, but that was many years to come.

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller nodded, once, in formal acknowledgement of the applause filling the room.

Her role in averting a war, at the cost of nearly losing her younger brother's life, had been discussed; the example she'd set for him, and his forgiving a man the injuries that nearly killed him thrice over, were credited to Marnie: she was expected to make a speech, and so she lifted her head, and smiled gently, then she turned, raised a gloved hand.

It was surveillance from a stationary camera.

"This is my brother Jacob," she said. "He is Sheriff on Mars, the office I formerly held."

She tilted her head a little, looked back at the audience with a gentle expression.

"I am supposed to be retired, but the job keeps pulling me back" -- she waited for polite chuckles to diminish -- "there are times when one wonders if they actually did any good in this lifetime.

"I'd like you to hear what this little schoolboy has to say."

The image behind her came to life.

The Sheriff looked at the young fellow and said gently, "You look like you lost your last friend."

Her audience saw the little boy lean his head against a reassuring, fatherly chest and admit sadly, "I miss Sheriff Marnie."

Marnie turned back to the audience; the screen went dark.

"My brother sent me this today," Marnie said, steepling her gloved fingers and bringing them thoughtfully to her lips.

"Thanks to your recognition today, I'll never have to wonder if I've ever actually done something worthwhile. Thanks to this little boy, I'll never have to wonder if there's someplace I can actually call home."

 

Two days later, a teacher looked at her wrist-comm and smiled.

She looked up:  "Manuel?"

A dark-eyed son of a Mexican engineer turned, surprised.

"Someone to see you. She's waiting in the hallway."

Manuel looked at the door, puzzled -- he turned hopeful eyes to the teacher --

"Manuel, no running in the classroom, please!"

A little boy, heedless of protocol, turned sideways to dive through the barely-open automatic doors --

Marnie was already going down to one knee when the doors started to hiss open: her arms were wide and she hugged the happy little boy with Mexican-black hair and a smile bright as sunrise.

The teacher could not help but smile as she heard the delighted exclamation that quickly emptied her classroom:

"Sheriff Marneeeee!"

Edited July 30 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Esther Keller took off her dainty little spectacles, closed her eyes, rubbed the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger like she did when she was tired.

She'd been tending the book keeping for the Z&W Railroad -- her bookkeeper took sick and after Doc Greenlees laid the man out on his kitchen table and took out his appendix, Esther allowed as the man ought to heal up a while before coming back to work -- she'd taken over the books, found them to be very much to her satisfaction, and made a mental note to give the man a raise in pay.

She turned her cushioned swivel chair at the careful knock on her door; she smiled a little, for only one person knocked politely -- a careful rat-tat, tat, gently delivered.

The door opened a little and a pale eyed man leaned his head in and asked gently, "Safe to come in?"

Esther rose, glided over to the door -- she knew he wouldn't be able to see her expression if she remained at her desk, not with the window behind it, and daylight's glare washing out her shadowed face -- she drew the door wide open, and tilted her head a little, assessing her husband's pleased expression.

"Mr. Keller," she said gently, "you're up to something!"

Sheriff Linn Keller laughed, picked up his wife's hand, kissed her knuckles.

"I can't get away with nothin'," he complained in a mock-peevish voice:  Esther ran her arm around her husband's back, molded herself to him and looked up adoringly at the long tall lawman.

"Just what mischief have you been into, Mr. Keller?" she whispered.

Linn chuckled and hugged his wife gently, as if she were delicate, and she might break if he were too vigorous.

"Darlin'," he murmured, "I have been chasin' a blessin'!"

"Really!"

Esther's eyes were very wide, very innocent:  she batted her long, curled eyelashes at him and placed delicate fingertips against her bodice in an exaggerated surprise: "you, of all people?"

Linn laughed quietly, turned, shut the door.

He had the expression of a schoolboy who'd just hidden a frog in the teacher's desk drawer.

"Darlin', you recall Simon got hurt timberin' here last week."

"You mean Mr. Peterson."

"Peterson," Linn nodded.  "I keep thinking Simon Peter."

Esther blinked innocently at her husband's unexpected admission.

"Anyhow he's laid up and I went to see him."

"Oh?"  Esther turned, glided to her little sofa, swept her skirts under her and sat, patted the velvet padded cushion beside her.

Linn hung up his Stetson, paced silently over to her, turned, folded his frame carefully into the cushioning.

"Better'n the wagon seat," he muttered.

"What were you doing with the wagon?" Esther asked, looking down at her husband's hand.

He has such pretty hands, she thought, then lifted her head and returned her attention to her husband's words.

Linn was leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he often did when he was comfortable: he had that boyish half-smile about him, and somehow he managed to look both contained, private, and yet most pleased with himself.

"Darlin', I took a wagon load of truck out to him. I know he don't have two shekels to rub together, so I stopped by the Mercantile and consulted someone younger, smarter and better lookin' than me."

"You talked to Mrs. Garrison."

Linn grinned -- quick, spontaneous, there-and-gone, the way he did when he was alone and comfortable with someone he trusted.

Esther knew Mrs. Garrison was well older than her husband, and she knew her husband was prone to coax a laugh from whatever situation he had, and she knew Mrs. Garrison would be pleased to be called younger, smarter and better looking.

She also knew her husband had been up to something with which he was well pleased.

"I don't know Simon all that well."

Esther refrained from correcting him; his hesitation and his slight frown told her he'd just realized he'd miscalled the subject of his discussion yet again.

"I don't know his family either, but if anyone in town does, Mrs. Garrison will know."

Esther nodded assent, her hand resting gently on her husband's.

"I allowed as he'd got hurt and likely they could use some groceries and what-all would she suggest."

Esther nodded again.

"Now that's all well and good.  That's the easy part. A man like him, he's proud enough to provide for his family and he'll not take kindly to bein' called a cripple nor to havin' charity shoved at him, even if he's needful."

Esther blinked, listened, her head tilted a little the way she did when she was interested, when she was listening closely.

"I drove up to their place and set the brake and his boys come out and I got 'em gathered in and told 'em I needed their help but first I had to clear it with their Pa, and I asked Mrs. Garrison how many boys there were and I had her fix me up with that many Barlow knives and sharpenin' stones, so I handed 'em each a good high grade stone and they were a little uncertain about this, and then I fetched out a poke and I said I needed 'em to keep real quiet, and I commenced to handin' out Barlow knives."
Esther looked at her husband, her eyes bright with delight, as he laughed silently at the memory.

"I told 'em I still needed their help, to stick close by, and I went in and talked to Simon."

Esther's silent sigh was enough for Linn to shake his head, he'd done it again.

"Anyhow I went in and told Simon I'd run him that foot race now and he laughed and I fetched out a flask and offered him a tilt for the pain and he taken a touch with me, and I got all serious and I rubbed my hands together kind of slow and allowed as I needed his help.

"He looked at me real funny and he looked down at that hurt leg of his and allowed as he wasn't much good to nobody and I allowed as he'd not ought to sell himself short, I was needful of a particular help and he was the only one that could and that got him just curious as hell."

Linn laughed, again, still silent, and Esther was as delighted as the expression on her husband's face.

"Darlin', I told him I needed to polish some scars off my corroded soul and for that I'd ask his blessin', and he looked at me like I had a fish stickin' out of my vest pocket and I allowed as I'd show him what I needed.

"I went outside and me and his boys commenced to fetchin' in big sacks of flour and coffee and salt, and I give his wife a paper of pins and a sack of sewin' notions and a bolt of calico cloth, we hauled in just all kind of truck and he's layin' there just surprised as hell and I come over once we were done and I taken his hand and I said all serious-like, "It would be a blessin' on me if you'd let me do this for you," and he allowed as there's no way he could pay for all that and I said I needed to sand the dents and scars off my corroded soul and if he'd let me just give this to him, why, it'll go a long way to savin' my eternal soul from boilin' in hump fat for all eternity."

Esther lifted her face a little, laughing quietly.  

"You didn't!"

"Oh yes I did!"

"Mr. Keller," Esther giggled, "you are a schemer!"

Linn shrugged.  "I figured if I can save myself from Perdition and do him some good at the same time, why not?"

He winked at his wife and whispered, "I'm bein' all kind of selfish here, y'know!"

Esther swatted at him, then she leaned in close to him, laid her head over on his shoulder and sighed happily.

"Mr. Keller," she said, "you're a poor liar."

"Mrs. Keller," he said, "you're right!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ONE OF THOSE

Dr. John Greenlees watched as his wife charged out of the Iris, stomped across the room, glared at her bed, started to reach up to unpin her fashionable little hat, stopped: she glared at her husband, stomped up to him, came up on her toes and kissed him and said, "I need to throw a stereoptical fit."

Dr. John Greenlees' eyebrows raised and he said mildly, "That's nice, dear."

Marnie tried to glare at him.

Her glare lasted about eight seconds, after which it crumbled into laughter.

There was a slither, a splash, a happy "Mommeee!" and something pink, wet, fast-moving and buck naked came streaking out of the bath chamber, slid on the floor, skidded on his backside and ran into his Mama's feet.

He looked up, all big eyes and innocence, and declared loudly, "Hi!"

Marnie looked at her husband and only then realized his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, he was wet-speckled, he'd obviously been giving Little John his bath and came out when the Iris chime sounded.

Marnie dropped to a squat; she pulled her dress material back against her shoetops to keep from covering the giggling little boy: she took him firmly under the arms, and between the little boy's efforts, and her own, he came to his feet, still dripping water.

"Finish your bath and get all dried off," Marnie smiled, her voice Mommy-gentle, and Little John declared "Hokay!" and took off running for the bath chamber.

John came over and offered his hands.

Marnie took them.

He helped bring her upright; she paused a moment, surprise on her face.

"The baby?" John asked, then thought she wasn't far enough along, she couldn't be Quickening this soon, and Marnie shook her head, wobbled again, grabbed her husband's arm.

"I gotta sit down," she mumbled: John helped guide her into the nearest chair and she sat for a moment, blinking slowly.

"That's been happening," she said slowly. "Just like my last pregnancy. I get dizzy as hell when I stand up."

Her husband nodded, his eyes busy: Marnie knew he was assessing her, not looking at her, and offered no objection when his long, slender fingers found her wrist pulse.

"How's Michael?" he asked quietly.

Marnie sighed.

"That good?"

"Oh, Michael is coming along fine. I'm having the medical reports routed to your inbox. It's ..."
Marnie took a long breath, her lips pressed together the way a disapproving woman will.

"Hospital administration is not made of horsemen."

"I don't understand."

"Michael is spending as much time as he can with that Fanghorn horse -- you know, the really big, ugly one? -- he's regaining use of his legs by saddling that big hell raiser. I spoke with Physical Therapy and they agreed his progress would be nowhere near this good was he in their care and with no saddle time."

Dr. Greenlees nodded, slowly.

He'd had his own differences with hospital administrations.

"I've had to pull every negotiator's trick out of my saddlebag. I don't want to just pull rank and club them over the head with Diplomatic Override, but I won't let them take over Michael's care just because they're unhappy he's in the saddle instead of on a treadmill."

"Perhaps a treadmill would be useful."

"It will, once he's able to use his legs again. He's regaining function, John. He's riding heels down, he's putting his weight on the stirrups, he's moving with the horse. He's able to carry that God-awful heavy saddle from its peg over to the mounting block. It's not pretty, he ... when he walks ... he's ..."
Dr. Greenlees held both his wife's hands, waited.

He knew this was hard for her to put into words.

"The best he can do, John ... is kind of a drunken shamble."

Marnie bit her bottom lip.

"Remember ... he and Victoria would go running, they'd take one loop or another and run it like an obstacle course ..."

"I remember," John said gently. "I tried it once.  Thought I was going to die!"

"Michael wants to run it again. That's why he's pushing himself and riding as much as he is. He's getting his legs back, John, it is working!"

Dr. John Greenlees nodded, slowly.

"Have you had supper?" Dr. John asked quietly, but before Marnie could reply, something fast moving, mostly dry and wearing white flannel jammies, came running barefoot out of the bath chamber and charged his Mama.

He hit a wet spot from his first passage through here.

His feet shot ahead, his backside hit the floor, he ended up rolled against his Mama's shin bones, rolled back and looked up with a delighted little-boy grin.

"Did you brush your teeth?" she asked quietly.

"Aw, Maaaw," he complained in a little-boy voice: Marnie lowered her head, raised one eyebrow, and he recognized this as Mama's Sign that No More Foolishness Would Be Tolerated!

Little John got to his feet, ran back for the bath chamber.

Dr. John Greenlees looked at his son's departing backside, looked at his wife and asked, "I was one of those?"

 

Michael Keller opened the gate.

It was nighttime; nobody was about -- had the staff known a Diplomatic Personage was anywhere near, the full staff would've turned out, and that was exactly what Michael did not want.

He walked slowly, awkwardly.

He could almost -- almost! -- get into a decent pair of boots like God Almighty intended, instead of those hated hospital slippers: he'd rather have his boots on, simply because that would mean his legs were strong enough to thrust into them.

He draped the saddle blanket over the saddle, pulled it free, nearly went over backwards: he caught himself, wobbled, staggered awkwardly out into the corral.

Lightning was pacing back and forth, snorting.

Michael hung the saddle, stepped up on the block, unwrapped two red-and-white peppermints.

The Fanghorn threw her head, danced away, then turned, lowered her head and stuck her neck out, for all the world like she was sneaking up on the treat.

Michael waited.

She drove her lips into his palm like a striking viper, lifted her head, happily crunching the peppermints, while Michael wiped the horse slobber off on his jeans leg.

Lightning waited while Michael slung the blanket over and worked the wrinkles out.

She folded her legs and knelt and Michael stopped and said, "Thank you" in a quiet voice: he got the saddle on, said "Stand," and whether because of his command, or in spite of it, the Fanghorn stood and waited patiently for Michael to tighten the cinch.

He closed his eyes, climbed back up on the block.

He lifted his left leg, brought his knee up, his jaw set as he forced the unwilling limb to his will.

He lowered his leg, then raised it more quickly, got his foot into the doghouse stirrup, grabbed saddleskirt and cantle and hauled himself off the mounting block.

His leg didn't want to cooperate.

He swung it down, swung it back up.

He only just got it across the saddle.

Lightning swung her head around, looked at him as if asking what in the world was he doing back there.

Michael, for the first time under his own power, got himself into the saddle and got his starboard hoof into the stirrup.

"Yup, girl," he murmured.

A little boy with legs that were relearning how to work, and a Fanghorn who liked peppermints, trotted out the open gate, and into the planet's night.

 

Marnie was considering the menu displayed on the screen and was about to suggest something when the screen flashed, a chime sounded:  "Ambassador, this is Director James."

"Yes, Mister Director, how can I help you?"

"Your brother Michael ... you don't know where he is, by any chance?"

Marnie's face and her voice were equally serious.

"He's not there?"

"He is not, madam Ambassador."

"I'm on my way."

"I'm quite sure that won't be --"

Marnie cut the connection, keyed up an Iris, shot a zippo to her sister.

If Michael was in the wind, either he'd been taken, or he'd taken off.

She knew where to start looking.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller came out of bed like he'd been clap boarded across his backside.

Shelly was slower to rouse, mostly because her better-than-a-warm-brick husband wasn't there.

Linn was dressed, fast, he slung his gunbelt around his middle, picked up the double twelve that lived at his corner of the headboard, and headed for the door.

Shelly heard it, realized she'd heard it once before.

It sounded like a steam whistle in heat.

Sheriff Linn Keller came out his front door, a canine shadow silent and deadly at his heels.

He listened -- 

Hooves --

Something's spooked the herd --

Linn stepped out into the night-dark grass, listening, watching --

Movement, in the pasture, something visible between the whitewashed boards --

The Bear Killer rumbled a warning.

Linn frowned, turned his head as if to bring a good ear to bear --

That's Michael's voice, he thought.

He advanced on the whitewashed boards, looked under the top plank --

"Well I'll be damned."

Linn came through the gate, The Bear Killer bristled and suspicious beside him.

"Hi, Pa," Michael called cheerfully, as if it was a normal and routine thing to ride an off-planet beast with fangs and a blunt horn, at two in the morning.

"I ... wasn't expecting you," Linn admitted.

"Pa, my legs are workin' better!" Michael declared: Lightning swapped ends, Michael leaned forward, came up in the stirrups a little, his hands pressed against the huge mare's neck just under her mane.

Linn watched, assessing his son' ride, as best he could by moonlight: Michael rode back, sidled the lightning-patterned Fanghorn up against the board fence, reached over and pulled himself out of the saddle.

He tried to climb down: he closed his eyes, one step, another, a third ...

Linn waited.

Michael stood beside the fence, holding on by one hand.

He released his hand, lowered it to his side.

Linn waited.

"Pa," Michael said, "I can walk."

Michael took a step -- it was awkward and it was shaky -- he took another, he sped up as best he could until he was making kind of a fast shamble.

The cloud came away from the moon and Linn saw his son's jaw clench and he leaned forward and Linn knew Michael was going to run.

He did.

He leaned forward far enough he started to fall forward, he managed to make his legs move fast enough to keep that from happening.

For the first time since Michael was nearly killed, he ran.

He couldn't stop.

Linn laid the double gun down, went to one knee, opened his arms and his son SLAMMED into him and seized him, shivering and gasping, and Linn held him and whispered, "You did it, Michael!" and Michael leaned back a little and looked at his Pa and said "I did it, Pa," and behind him, something that looked like a very large, very ugly horse -- with fangs, with a fighting, bony cone thrust out of its bony, reinforced head -- slung its neck upward, pointed a pale muzzle to the stars, and screamed like an insane steam whistle.

Father and son hugged one another for several long moments, then Linn slacked his embrace and tried to think of something intelligent to say.

He didn't have to.

Michael had a grin on his face broad as two Texas townships, and the Fanghorn made enough speech for the both of them.

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

EVAPORATION

"He won't like this."

Sheriff's Deputy Dana Keller looked at her partner.

"No," she agreed.  "He won't."

They looked around the inside of the apartment.

The landlord came in with them, looking around as if afraid he would find big holes kicked in the walls and slaughtered animals hanging from hooks.

What they saw was an empty apartment with absolutely nothing untoward in sight -- other than its tenant's belongings missing, and the tenant as well. 

Dana turned to the landlord.

"Did she tell you she was leaving?"

"N-no," the landlord said nervously, shaking his head, fluttering his hands as if uncertain what to do with them.

"Is the rent paid and current?"

"Yes yes yes," came the nervous stammer.  "She, she, she always paid, paid on time!"

"When is her rent due next?"

"In a mmm, mmm, mmmonth."

Dana looked around, checked the bathroom, opened several drawers, the closet.

"I see no signs of foul play," she said. "Did she have a car?"

"It's, it's, it's in the garage."

"Show me."

Somehow Dana was not surprised to find the garage empty.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller looked up at the knock, motioned his daughter in: he was on the phone, a serious expression on his face.

"I roger that," he said, his voice pitched deeper, that businesslike voice that told his daughter that his Daddy was in full Sheriff mode.

"Thank you for the advisory."

Linn hung up the phone, looked at Dana.

"She's gone."

"I'm not surprised."

"Apartment's cleaned out, car's gone, nothing forced, no sign of anything unusual."

Linn took a long breath, nodded.

"We'll give it a day or three in case she turns up. Put out an APB, vehicle and person."

Dana nodded, once, that single efficient acknowledgement she picked up from her father.

 

Michael Keller lay patiently on the scanner's table.

He knew he wouldn't be able to feel whatever was being beamed through his body to see what was inside.

In his imagination he pictured a wall of red lasers, starting at his head and passing like a latticework wall the length of his body, then coming back and oscillating between belt buckle and collar bone.

It wasn't until he was returned to his hospital room, not until his white-uniformed sister knocked on his door and smiled her way in, that Michael showed any but a carefully neutral expression.

Angela skipped over to his bedside like a happy little girl, took his hand in hers, looked at him with those big, pale eyes -- all Michael knew was that she was pretty, he was as yet too young to be mesmerized by her genuine beauty -- she said, "How would you like meatloaf for supper?"

Michael's expression was reply enough.

Angela released his hand, went to the opposite wall and grabbed one of the ubiquitous, stainless steel, rolling stools, dollied it back, sat.

She lowered the siderail, leaned forward, speaking quietly.

"Michael," she said, "there was considerable debate on whether to use medical grade nanos to speed your healing."

"You mean like the Valkyries use?"

"Almost. Those have a long half-life, years at least. Medical grade nanos have a half-life measured in days."

Michael wasn't sure what to make of this, but he nodded.

"I wish they'd used Valkyrie nanos, Michael. I wasn't consulted and I didn't have any say in the matter, and it turns out that you've healed far better than anyone expected."

Michael nodded again.

"We've arranged to have you and Victoria withdrawn from school. You're listed as privately educated, and as the school is liable seven ways from Sunday for what happened to you, they are not about to offer any protest at all."

Michael nodded again.

"Now let's talk about you. I understand you went home and saw Daddy."

Michael nodded solemnly.

"Tell me about that."

"Sis, do you know what a Fanghorn is?"

Angela blinked, surprised.

"Didn't ... you and Victoria and Daddy ride Fanghorns not long ago?"

"Tame ones. Well, they weren't that tame, but they weren't wild."

"I remember seeing the holovids. Ugly things."

Michael grinned, quick, bright, boyish.

"They're big, Angela, really big! You 'member Gammaw's Frisian?"

Angela nodded, smiled: when she was a little girl, she rode Willamina's Frisian, and complained later it was like throwing a saddle on the dining room table.

"Lightning is bigger'n that!"

"Lightning?"

Michael nodded, his eyes widening as he looked at a memory, as he drew back ever so slightly.

"Michael?" Angela asked gently. "What are you seeing?"

Michael closed his eyes, turned his head away: "Nothin'," he mumbled.

"Michael, it was something," she persisted.

Michael looked back, his eyes haunted.

"I was shot, Angela," he whispered. "I was wearin' my plate but I got shot with somethin' that could cut a battleship in two and it ... nearly killed me and I was on a Fanghorn when he did and now my Fanghorn has white fur streaks, all jagged like lightning bolts where it burnt through my plate-field!"

Angela blinked, nodded, swallowed.

She knew all this happened; she hadn't seen the memory in his eyes until now.

"I went home last night," Michael said slowly. "Me and Lightning. Pa come out and I dismounted and I walked toward him and then I thought ... "

Michael turned his face away.

"I dunno what I thought."

"What happened, Michael?"

"Sis, I can't walk much. My legs don't want to work right, but I wanted to show Pa I was all right, I walked like I was drunk and I thought I'm gonna run and I did!"

Angela's eyes widened and her hands tightened on his.

"I couldn't stop," he admitted.

Angela smiled the way she did when she was trying not to giggle.

"I blammed into him."

He grinned as Angela's giggle escaped her professional reserve.

"You didn't!" she whispered, delight widening her eyes.

"Oh yeah," Michael grinned, then sobered.

"It was real late. I didn't think about what time it would be there."

"Every world has a different length of day," Angela affirmed. "It's hard to keep track."

"Pa's herd was afraid of Lightning. All but his stallion. They were all on the other side of the pasture and Pig Iron kept pacing back and forth, shakin' his head and he was not happy!"

"Lightning is a mare, isn't she?"

"Yeah."

"She's a very big mare."

Michael nodded again.

Angela patted his hands, frowned, considered.

"Michael," she said gently, "do you know you've just helped six children so far?"

"Huh?"

"When they regrew your heart from Victoria's cells, they proved it could be done. It hadn't ever been done before. They were able to grow her cells but with your DNA signature."

"Ummm ... okaaay?"

"Now that you proved it can be done -- they could have grown a heart with her DNA and had to give you anti-rejection medication for the rest of your life -- now they can grow an organ from close donor tissue, but with the recipient's DNA signature."

"What about my spine?"

"They mapped Victoria's, but it is different enough from yours it wasn't much help. They had to fall back on something old fashioned."

"Oh."

"Michael."  

Angela gripped his hands, looked very directly at him. 

"Michael, it is not possible for you to have lived. What you went through should have burned out every nerve in your body. It ruined your heart and that had to be replaced. When that idiot teacher --"

Michael's eyes turned pale, hard: his pupils dilated, he lowered his eyelids to half mast, and Angela could almost feel the cold cascading off her little brother as he sat upright in his hospital bed.

"Let's change the subject," Angela whispered. "I have someone I'd like you to meet."

 

Michael and Angela stood on either side of a girl about his height.

Angela pressed an injector against her neck; the hiss was nearly inaudible.

"Juliette?" Angela said gently. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Miss Angela," came the soft-voice reply.

"Juliette, do you remember ... we were testing your eyes?"

"Yes, Miss Angela."

Michael heard a little bit of a tremor in her voice.

He reached for her hand, stopped.

"Juliette," Angela said, "do you remember me telling you about my brother?"

"Michael Newheart?" Juliette smiled. "I remember."

"He's here with us."

Angela nodded to Michael.

"Juliette, it's dark out. There's not much to see, and that's what we want when we take off your bandages."

"Yes, Miss Angela."

Michael gripped Juliette's hand, carefully, lightly.

"Hi," he said uncertainly. "I'm Michael."

Juliette smiled, lifted her chin.

"You have a new heart," she said.

"Yeah."

"I have new eyes, Michael, but I don't know if they'll work!"

"Did they grow them for you?"

Juliette nodded, swallowed the way someone will when their mouth is suddenly dry.

Angela carefully pulled the little tabbed tape at the back of Juliette's head, unwound the white bandage, rolled it carefully as she removed the three layers from the girl's closed eyes.

Michael looked at her.

He felt her hand tighten in his.

Something big and pale moved, not far away, and Michael ran his other hand in his pocket, pulled out two red-and-white swirled peppermints.

Juliette heard the brittle crackle of cellophane unwrapping.

So did the Fanghorn.

Michael pulled Juliette's hand up, turned it palm up.

"There's someone I want you to meet," he said.

Juliette opened her eyes.

A grey-muzzled Fanghorn lashed her head down like a striking viper, expertly taking the peppermints from the child's palm.

Michael wiped the horse slobber off her palm with a bandanna.

"This is Lightning," he said. "She taught me how to walk again."

A little girl blinked, looked around, looked up at stars, rich and thick across the night sky, looked back at a pale-grey Fanghorn, happily crunching peppermints between strong, flat teeth.

She caressed Lightning's muzzle.

"You're beautiful," she whispered.

Michael pretended not to notice the wet that ran down her cheeks.

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A HABIT OF PERSONAL EXCELLENCE

 

Esther Keller was the red-headed, green-eyed wife to that long, tall Sheriff with the iron grey mustache.

Esther Keller was a Lady of the Old South.

Esther Keller was gently born, to use the correct phrase; she was ladylike, feminine, genteel in word and in deed.

Esther Keller paid careful attention to any task to which she turned her hand.

If she was writing, whether in a ledger, whether a note to a friend, an order for a merchant, her penmanship was truly exquisite: her father complimented her early in her childhood on the beauty of her script, and she strove ever since that day to improve her hand even more.

Her father was long dead, but she still strove to write with the very best skill she had.

If she was cleaning, she did a thorough job, to the point of kneeling to wipe down baseboards, the lower sides of a door's edge that would never be seen; she wiped the shelves in her cupboard, even the furthest, least-likely-to-be-seen corners.

 Her attention to detail extended to her powers of observation.

She'd taken pains with her hair, as she always did; it was layered in shining fashion, pinned and placed and surmounted with a ribboned hat that matched her shimmering, emerald gown.

She'd watched her husband knot his tie with ease and with precision; she'd smiled with maternal pleasure as Jacob, standing next to his father and just over shoulder-tall on the lean old lawman, knotted his with an equal precision.

Linn puffed the lower part of his necktie out, as did Jacob, each one's face serious as they regarded their respective reflections.

"Jacob," Linn said quietly, "you've never protested gettin' dressed up for Church."

Esther's ear inclined itself to this quiet conversation; she listened to their son's reply.

Jacob considered his image, looked in the mirror at his father and asked bluntly, "Is it required, sir?"

Esther held her breath.

Such a reply might be considered an insubordination.

She's seen men backhand a boy for such words.

Linn froze, then turned to face his son.

Jacob turned, faced his father.

Esther was not sure whether to breathe, flutter her fan, or find something large and heavy to hide behind.

Father and son looked at one another for several long moments, each stone-faced and solemn.

Esther was honestly not sure which one cracked first.

She saw the tightening around her husband's eyes, she saw his face redden just a little -- his ears first, then his cheeks, then his eyes narrowed as he made his best attempt to contain his feelings --

Jacob's ears were flaming as well --

Father and son both started to laugh:  Linn opened his arms, gathered his son in, leaned his head back and laughed silently at the ceiling:  he finally took a great gasping breath, father and son released their mutual embrace, and Linn looked at Jacob and started laughing again.

Esther could not see Jacob's face, but she could see his shoulders working, and she knew he, too, was doing his best to be silent, but his father's mirth and merriment was contagious, and both father and son allowed themselves to enjoy the moment.

 

The occasion was not Sunday church, but rather a Saturday night dance, in the great round barn the Sheriff built for Daciana to ride her trick pony, after her zirkus disbanded in Firelands, under less than amicable conditions.

Daciana had only just married Lightning -- a month into the marriage, and the Z&W Railroad's chief telegrapher was honestly still not sure just how it happened, only that it did, and by his own admission, he was just as happy as if he had good sense.

Daciana's speech was still heavily accented (which just charmed the daylights out of her adoring husband), but when she sang, her voice had a remarkable purity -- a perfect complement to the same clear tones, the same perfect pitch as Sarah McKenna: Bonnie, too, once she was coaxed to sing, had a truly beautiful voice, and the three in harmony was honestly a treat to hear.

The Saturday night dance, however, was not a place where the ladies sang.

No, here it was fiddles that sang, here it was the music of the mountains: an old Mexican not uncommonly joined them, with an outsized guitar that sang in a deep-toned voice, adding a solid background -- or maybe a foundation -- for the other musicians.

However it was, when pickers and fiddlers both have an ear for music, when they can listen to a tune one time and reproduce it flawlessly, when a Strauss waltz or Turkey in the Straw either one can be had at request, they gave occasion for the entire town and the surrounding county to relax after a week's hard work, and to celebrate together.

The Sheriff was a noted dancer; as many men wished to dance with the ladies, that many ladies wished to dance with the Sheriff:  Linn said on more occasions than one, that he didn't dance, he kind of turned around in circles and Esther floated, she was that good, which -- to look at her -- was absolutely true.

Esther Keller could anticipate her dance partner's move, and flow with it, and make even a poor dancer look good, and her husband could take any of the ladies and make them look that much better.

Jacob didn't quite have the gift, but he was working on it.

People who've looked the Reaper in the face and dared him to do his bony-handed worst, are people who will play as hard as they work: the Irish Brigade participated enthusiastically in the Saturday night festivities, making up for inexpertise with enthusiasm.

 

As usual, there were outliers who were there either to see trouble caused, or to cause it; there were those who skulked in the outer darkness, nursing imagined slights, generally with the help of Liquid Judgement Wrecker: it became increasingly rare for them to create difficulties, because the Sheriff, his son, the entire Irish Brigade, and the nearly seven foot tall Jackson Cooper would descend on them like the proverbial ton of bricks: the Sheriff's approach was to either belt them over the head with a singletree, or kick the wind out of their gut, or otherwise get their attention, and then donate their carcass to the nearest horse trough; the Irish Brigade, every man of which hailed from the famous Porkopolis, the Queen City known for slaughterhouses and street brawls, and happily set their heels and went hammer and tongs with anyone who wished to cause trouble: when it started outside, it wasn't unusual for the entire round barn full of celebrants to pour outside and form a circle, yelling encouragement -- it was almost comical to see a handful of troublemakers being thrown from one group to another to the merry tune of "The Irish Washerwoman" right before said sorry souls were given their Saturday night bath, the hard way.

After this first time, when Firelands in general and Old Pale Eyes in particular, all united to show any and all troublemakers that this wouldn't be tolerated, such an occurrence became ... well, extremely rare.

Extremely rare.

As a matter of fact, after the first time, when all and sundry gave the troublemakers far more trouble than could possibly be enjoyed, interruptions of the intoxicated (or any other) kind, ended.

Unfortunately, lessons of the kind are often forgotten.

Better than a year later, a celebrant decided he'd start the fight outside, but he'd intimidate everyone inside with a pistol-shot first.

He'd planned to shoot for the feet of anyone who emerged -- "I'll make 'em dance!" he'd bragged -- but when hard men came boilin' out of multiple doors at the same time, when he found himself the focus of hard faces and hostile intent, he realized his judgement in this matter had been incredibly, unbelievably, bad.

Esther Keller was a woman who took pains to perform her tasks very well indeed.

Esther Keller came elbowing through the crowd, turning sideways and making a hole where none had been.

Esther Keller knew a particular resident's coat had a sixgun belted on under it.

Esther Keller's left hand seized the coattail, yanked it out of the way.

Esther Keller's good right hand came up with a handful of Colt's revolver, just as the troublemaker brought his pistol up toward the onrushing Sheriff.

Esther Keller did not miss.

Neither did the woman beside her.

Neither did the Sheriff.

The net effect of a pair of .44s, backed by a good charge of soft coal, and a .36 caliber conical ball, similarly fueled, was as decisive as it was immediate.

Esther Keller stood for a moment longer with her arm extended, as did Bonnie Lynne McKenna: they, and everyone around them froze, while two blue-smoke doughnuts wobbled through the air toward where a man had been standing a moment earlier.

Bonnie's arm lowered slowly, as did Esther's.

Bonnie slipped a .36 Navy, given her by the Sheriff not many years before, back into its hidden holster.

Esther turned, reversed the pistol she held, extended it:  "Thank you," she said pleasantly, "I believe this is yours."

Whatever Esther Keller did, she took pains to do well, and as she turned back and looked at her long, tall, uninjured husband casually reload his revolver, she was most profoundly grateful she'd cultivated the habit of personal excellence.

 

 

Edited August 3 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ICEWATER

Victoria Keller was eleven years old, the same age as her twin brother.

Victoria Keller inherited the pale eyes, the hot blood, the mercurial temper of her father.

Victoria Keller inherited the single minded determination of more ancient ancestresses.

Victoria Keller missed finding a particular schoolteacher at home, one dark night, and so did the next best thing.

She left a message, an unmistakable threat, and then she spoke a promise to the vicious dictatress who caused the tear in her twin brother's ventricular wall, who indirectly caused the subsequent clot that deprived his spine of circulation, who was very nearly the cause of Victoria's twin brother's death.

That he did not die, Victoria heard it said, was due solely to the intervention of the Almighty, that the hands of many were employed in a desperate effort to keep him alive, but between very nearly vaporized by a nervous sentry and then being heart-burst by a vicious wasp of a man-hating schoolteacher, there was no reason on God's green earth her brother should be alive.

Victoria was a beautiful child, experiencing those first startling changes that meant she was leaving girlhood behind and entering that mystery known as womanhood.

Victoria was honestly beautiful.

Victoria Keller, the beautiful, youngest daughter of Linn and Shelly Keller, closed her eyes slowly and felt her hands close into slowly tightening fists.

Her sister Angela was trying to explain something to her, something she did not want to hear.

Angela opened her eyes and looked at Angela, and Angela -- nurse, healer, Sheriff's deputy, big sister, teacher -- heard her own words grind to a halt as Victoria looked at her.

Angela had never before seen such raw, unmitigated, unadulterated, straightforward HATRED in her younger sister.

 

Michael was breathing heavily.

He'd stripped out of the hospital gown, balled it up and threw it across the room.

It was a gesture, but a most unsatisfying one: the gown opened up and hit the wall almost soundlessly.

Michael wished to slam it like a bowling ball against a hanging sheet of boiler plate.

He sat on the side of the hospital bed, glared at his left leg.

He closed his eyes, took a long, deep breath, then leaned back a little, tightened his belly muscles -- he used every compensatory mechanism he could think of to get his leg to work like he wanted -- he was able to bring his knee up, then up again, and on the third try he brought it up faster, seized his thigh, pulled, grabbed his ankle, hauled his foot up across his other thigh.

Michael rested a moment, his breaths coming shorter, more shallow.

He picked up the round tin olive green can of US GI foot powder, dusted his foot, set the can back down on the mattress and picked up a sock.

He slid it onto his foot, then pushed his ankle forward until it fell off his knee.

He leaned back, twisted, grimaced, barely kept it from hitting the floor.

His right leg came up with a little less difficulty.

It took Michael most of a half hour to get his socks on.

He lowered his head, glared from under half-closed eyelids, his jaw clenched, set.

Michael twisted the foot powder can shut, set it back on the mattress, grabbed his blue jeans.

He'd been wearing little more than a hospital gown and those damned hospital slippers for far too long.

He had to stop, close his eyes, concentrate.

How am I going to do this?

I can't stand up yet.

How do the astronauts do it?

They float weightless and pull their legs up and put their pants on both legs at the same time.

The astronaut said they don't put their pants on one leg at a time like a normal man.

I won't either.

Michael Keller gripped the waistband again, crushed denim in his young fists.

He took a few breaths, quickly, then tightened his belly muscles, willed his thighs up, fell backwards onto the bed.

Michael Keller snarled, teeth bared, eyes clenched shut as he fought to get uncooperative feet pointed --

I could give up.

I could relax.

This is more than I've done since she killed me.

Michael's eyes snapped open.

No one was there to see white fires blazing in a tall boy's soul, none was there to see eyes go hard and cold as polished marble.

None was there to hear his snarl as he muscled his jeans up, as he relaxed his belly, as his legs slid into denim.

Michael had to wallow left, then right, to get his waistband up to his waist.

He fast up the button, the zipper, he rolled onto his right elbow and pushed up to a sitting position.

He shoved triumph from him, snarled as he lifted his hand, drove clawed fingers into the flannel shirt laying beside him.

It was far less difficult to get into his flannel shirt, his fingers knew the work as they spidered down his front, setting buttons precisely, accurately, into the correct buttonholes.

Michael looked at the closet.

His boots were in there.

He grabbed his belt, thrust the tag end viciously through the first belt loop.

He worked so hard to get his belt around his middle that he made twice the work of it.

He finally circumnavigated his lean waist, cinched it tight, the one hole tighter.

My boots are in there.

He looked at the hated walker, that constant, silent reminder he was a cripple.

Cripple!

"Damn you," Michael whispered, focusing his hate on the walker: he tried to come to his feet, he started to fall, he grabbed the walker, twisted his hips, got his left foot forward a little.

Michael pulled the walker to him, turned it, leaned his weight on it, got his legs under him.

Now, Michael thought.

STRAIGHTEN!

 

Angela dropped a pillow on the floor, knelt on the pillow, took Victoria's hands in her own.

"She had a stroke," she said gently. "A stroke can change someone's personality. She wasn't like that before --"

"I don't care," Victoria said, just as quietly, but with an edge to her voice that ran a chill of fear through Angela's soul. "She tried to kill Michael, and I am going to kill her."

"Victoria, you can't do that."

"You mean I'm not allowed to," Victoria corrected her. "I can kill her, Angela. I plan to knife her, and I plan to let her see me do it. I want her to know she's going to die and I want her to know it's me --"

"No, no," Angela interrupted, shaking her head.  "You're not able."

"I am able," Angela said with a self assurance that honestly shocked her older sis.

"Victoria, it's not her fault she turned --"

Victoria's eyes changed suddenly, something Angela hadn't seen in some time.

She hadn't seen it since she and Marnie went into a situation with the full knowledge that they were going to kill someone, and they might get killed in the process, and she knew that in that moment, when Marnie's eyes went just as cold and just as hard and just as white and just as ice-polished, that Marnie honestly did not give a good damn, she was going to war!

"She's somewhere safe," Angela persisted, her voice pitched to soothe, to reassure.

"What about Michael? He's not safe. You said so. He could have more complications. He could still die!"

Angela blinked.

"Yes," she admitted.  "Yes, he could."

"Angela," Victoria said in a voice that was much too young for the words that she spoke, "I am Judge and I am Jury and I am going to kill her."

 

Clara Fritter heard the heavy steel door open, listened, hoping for footsteps coming down the shining, featureless hallway.

She surged to the front of her cell, gripped the bars.

A robot cart rolled into view.

Clara watched as a rectangular hatch flipped open, as a tray was extended on rollers: matching rollers extended from the front of her cell.

The tray disappeared into the enclosed box inside Fritter's cell.

She watched the door shut on the robot cart, watched it roll on silent rubber wheels, down the hall and out of sight.

Her serving box unfolded, exposing the tray.

Clara listened, ears straining, she heard the heavy door open at the end of the sterile, institutional hallway.

"HEY OUT THERE!" she shouted. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"

The solid boom of a heavy steel door closing was all the reply she had.

 

Michael Keller reached down, ran his fingers through the leather pull loops.

He took a long breath, gritted his teeth, willed his leg to shove, to straighten --

His powdered, sock foot, slid into his boot, almost snapped into place as the heel cup gripped his foot intimately, the way it always did.

Michael gasped, then took a few quick, convulsive breaths.

I did it!

I got my boots on!

Michael worked his pelvis, walked his bony backside to the edge of the chair, gripped the walker's padded handles, thrust forward and muscled his way up.

Not good enough, he thought.

He took several breaths, then -- with a surge, a detonation of will -- he stood.

He stood.

Michael turned, slowly, awkwardly, then he leaned his shoulder against the closet's doorframe.

He picked up the walker.

He inverted it and reached up, hooked one leg under the brim of his Stetson, slid it out a little, a little more.

His hat fell -- dropped over the end of the walker --

Michael lowered it, slipped its smooth tubing legs through his hands, gripped.

He picked up his Stetson, settled it on his head.

Michael turned the walker over, set four legs on the ground, glared at the closed door.

 

"WHO'S THERE!"

Footsteps, real footsteps, someone besides that silent food cart --

"Let me out," Fritter demanded.  "LET ME OUT OF HERE!"

Sheriff Linn Keller looked through the bars at the prisoner in the small, sterile cell.

"You tried to kill my son," he said conversationally.

"I WILL NOT STAND INSUBORDINATION! I KNOW HOW TO TREAT BOYS! YOU'RE ALL ALIKE AND I HATE YOU ALL! I HATED YOU BEFORE I STARTED TEACHING SCHOOL -"

The Sheriff waited until she wound down.

"You hate males as a whole," he said quietly. "Boys who start in your class at honor roll level, you give straight D's or fail altogether. When they start the next year under another teacher, their grades skyrocket back to where they were."

"I KNOW HOW TO TREAT THEM!" Fritter raged.

"So do I," the Sheriff said, his words just as mild as hers, were not.

"My daughter tells me you had a stroke. She said it altered your mentation and let your natural meanness run free."

"You're just like every man I ever knew," she hissed. "You like controlling your women! Well, I won't be controlled!"

The Sheriff raised an eyebrow.

"Looks like you're controlled right now."

Fritter screamed, ran an arm between the bars, clawing at the Sheriff, raking the air an inch from his face.

"I don't know if you can be treated," the Sheriff said. "We will try. If you cannot be rehabilitated, you will be locked away so you cannot hurt anyone ever again."

Fritter screamed, thrust against the bars, trying to reach the Sheriff's eyes with clawed fingers.

Linn turned, walked away with an insultingly slow pace, leaving her screaming, clawing futilely at where he'd been standing.

 

"I want to kill her," Victoria hissed, glaring straight ahead at something only she could see.

"People in hell want ice water," Angela countered, "and that doesn't work either."

 

The floor supervisor looked up from her charting, startled.

She saw a Stetson advancing towards the nurse's station.

She rose and saw the Stetson was wearing an eleven year old boy under it.

She stared openly.

He was dressed.

Fully dressed.

Michael stopped, leaned his weight on the padded handles.

"Tell my sister," he said, "that I want some icewater."

The supervisor blinked, turned to another nurse, who was looking at Michael with open-jaw astonishment.

"Get him some icewater," the floor supervisor said.

"NO!" Michael said firmly.

"No?"

"TELL MY SISTER," he said, his voice tight, "THAT I WANT ICEWATER. TELL HER RIGHT NOW.  SHE'LL KNOW WHAT I MEAN."

"I don't think you should be up, young man," the charge nurse said in an attempt to reassert her authority.

Michael Keller slapped her down hard with two words that guaranteed she would do exactly as he said.

"DIPLOMATIC OVERRIDE!"

 

Marnie Keller swept into the Director's office, turned, planted her gloved hand on the protesting secretary's collarbone, shoved hard.

Marnie slammed the door behind her.

The Director had -- until now -- seen Marnie as a pleasant, diplomatic, agreeable negotiator.

Today she was neither.

"Mister Director," she said, her voice tight, "we've taken your nursing supervisor, fifth floor, into custody, and we will be filing charges of interference with Diplomatic authority. You, of course, as her supervisor, are culpable and will be charged as well. We also have troops saturating the hospital to guarantee there will be compliance with Diplomatic authority."

The Director sat down heavily, his mouth suddenly dry.

"Until now we have been most pleased with the care given our colleague."

The Director tried to look composed as he rose, shifted his weight, sat again.

"We are willing to continue care at this excellent facility, but only as long as it is universally understood that when a credentialled member of the Diplomatic Corps issues an override, that override is accepted immediately and without question."

 

Lean young men with bayonet-tipped rifles and immaculate grey uniforms came to attention as Marnie marched up the hallway.

A figure waited for her in the middle of the hallway, a figure in a Stetson, sitting on a wheeled, stainless steel stool, with a walker in front of him.

At her approach, he gripped the walker, muscled his way upright.

She stopped ten feet from him, regarded him coolly.

Michael Keller spun the walker to one side, stood on his own two legs.

"I understand," Marnie said coldly, "you want icewater."

"That's what I want."

"Walk with me."

Marnie glided up to her youngest brother, spun around, stood on his left.

Her position was intentional.

Michael was right handed, and when Michael carried, he carried on the right, and Marnie was leaving his gun hand free.

"At your speed," she said quietly. "We're in no hurry."

One of the grey uniformed adjutants discreetly followed with the walker, his tread intentionally silent.

The hallway was most of twenty yards long at this point.

By the time they made the end of the hallway, Michael was pale, sweating, Marnie could feel him shaking, and she knew he was in pain.

They reached the end of the hall, stopped.

Michael slumped against the cool, solid, polished-stone wall.

"I want to go home," he said, his voice hoarse.

"And?"

Michael looked at his sister.

"I'm not ready yet," he admitted.

"And?"

Michael looked at his older sister.

"I want to go home, Marnie. I want to scrape stalls and wheelbarrow manure like I used to. I want to run the Cub and rake gravel back into the driveway and I want to run the course with Victoria again, and" --

Michael stopped, swallowed, chewed on his bottom lip, looked up at his sis, vulnerable: for a moment, for just a moment, he let her see inside, see how scared he was, then he closed his eyes, took a long breath, and composed himself.

Dear God, he's just like Daddy! Marnie thought.

"I want to go home and have Mom's meatloaf."

He looked at her and added quietly, "That's what I want, Sis, but people in hell want ice water, too!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHOSE LAW?

Doctor John Greenlees held his wife's face very gently between his hands, kissed her, carefully, delicately.

"Dearest," he murmured, "you are the one most beautiful woman in all the worlds combined!"

Marnie wanted to shove him away, she wanted to turn her face from him and whine that she was getting fat and ugly and nobody could possibly think she was attractive.

She knew that Little John was watching, that his bright and adoring eyes watched all they did, and she well knew the results of conflict in the home.

She dropped her head against her husband's chest and sighed, and Dr. John Greenlees held his wife and laid his cheek over on top of her head, and closed his eyes, content that he was the luckiest sod to ever stand in shoe leather.

Breakfast was finished, the table cleared, the day was started: Jacob was still Sheriff, as Marnie was with child, and although she knew her Gammaw tended the Sheriff's office even when pregnant -- within limits, of course -- she was not her pale eyed Gammaw, and Jacob was content to remain as Sheriff of the Second Martian District (Firelands).

Thus it was that Marnie swept into an underground classroom to the happy cries of "Sheriff Marnie!" -- though instead of her Sheriff's uniform skinsuit, she wore the floor length gowns of nearly two centuries ago, a trademark that made her instantly recognized in all the Thirteen Systems.

Marnie was careful to coordinate her presentations to mesh with the teacher's lessons: the very young were given a healthy background in human anatomy and physiology, knowing their small population would have to train its own medical professionals (this, of course, was determined before the Confederacy entered the picture, but the principle was sound and was kept).

Marnie exclaimed with delight as she was shown a stack of hand drawn images, most childish and crude, a few showing talent, a very few showing genuine skill -- the one that showed the most skill, had a silvery horse, forelegs stretched out in a gallop, hind legs drawn up, but most remarkable was the set of wings.

Marnie studied the image -- she blinked, she noticed the deeper chest, coming out like the keel of a boat -- she noted the muscled pectorals, then she realized the legs were more slender, almost delicate, the hooves were dainty and small -- changes that might be expected in a creature of the air.

The entire class regarded her solemnly: she was surrounded on three sides by children of the colonists.

Marnie tried to remember which of the planets might have flying horses -- surely this level of accuracy wasn't a child's imagination! -- and a young voice asked, "Sheriff Marnie, can horses really fly?"

Marnie blinked, then she smiled a little, remembering what it felt to ride her spotted mare -- or better yet, her Daddy's shining black Outlaw-horse -- she remembered feeling like her stomach fell away like a released bomb in wartime, leaving her light, free, a creature of the air as she sailed over a fence.

Marnie closed her eyes, smiled, then she opened her eyes and looked up.

"Yes," she said.  "Yes, horses can fly."

 

Michael Keller was stripped down to his hospital gown again, he was flat on his back on the scanner table again, he was enduring another round of testing and examinations ... again.

The doctors that examined him did not treat him like he'd just guzzled a quart jar of nitroglycerin.

The nurses did, but not the doctors.

One of them ran something down his spine, something that tingled a little as he did.

Michael's eyes tightened a little as the device rode over where bony prominences had been -- tender places, he willed himself not to feel the pain even a light pressure caused -- the doctor lifted the device and asked quietly, "What did that feel like?"

"It hurt," Michael admitted.

"According to this, it hurt a lot."

Michael's jaw slid forward, his eyes narrowed.

"Yeah," he gasped.

"Doctor Harrison, could you look at this please."

Another of the cold-handed, white-coated physicians came over behind Michael.

There was a quiet-voiced discussion; a broader apparatus was run slowly down his back, on either side of his spine, and something that felt like a dry paintbrush descended his spine with these side-running sensor plates.

Michael listened to the low-voiced discussion, held as still as he could while three whitecoats talked about him as if he weren't even there.

"Michael," one finally asked.

"Yes, sir?"

"Michael, you were able to run a few nights ago?"

"Badly, sir. I couldn't stop. I ran into my Pa and nearly knocked him over."

"And since then ... have you been able ...?"

"No, sir. I'm staggering like a drunk and I can't get my legs to run."

"So there are good days ...?"

"And bad days, yes, sir."

The plates and the paintbrush were lifted away from his spine.

"Can you lie on your back?"

"It hurts if I do, sir."

"We won't ask you to do that, then."  

A pause, then:

"Does it hurt when you're riding?"

"It hurts all the time, sir. It's nonstop."

"We can give you something for the pain."

"No thank you, sir."

"Michael, there is no sense in hurting when you don't have to."

"Yes there is," Michael said abruptly. "My Gammaw's Mama was a drunk. Pa said it skips a generation. If that's the case, Pa should be a drunk and he's not. Maybe it skipped his generation and it'll hit me."

He could not see the surprised looks exchanged behind him.

"Pa said we carry the genes for addiction. I'm not gonna take the chance!"

Two of the doctors started to say something; they stopped.

"Michael, does riding help you?"

"Yes it does!" Michael said firmly. "It wasn't until I started riding that my knees bent when I wanted them to. My legs work better when I ride. I'll hurt for a day after but I can move better afterward."

"Michael, what are you riding?"

What do you mean, am I riding Western, English, am I riding a roping saddle, a McClellan, one of those funny English postage stamp saddles? Am I riding a trotter, a racer, a barrel racer, am I riding a Morgan, a Frisian, an Appaloosa?"

"Nothing ... so involved. You're riding horses, then."

"Yeah, kinda."

Michael felt as much as heard the doctors shift uncomfortably. 

"Kinda horses?" one prompted.

"I'm riding a Fanghorn. Her name is Lightning and she's the biggest horse I've ever seen in my life."

"You're riding a Fanghorn?" one blurted. "We ... no ... that's not possible!"

"Mister," Michael said coldly, "did you just call me a liar?"

Shocked silence, then "No, of course not!"

Michael's eyes were veiled, his jaw set: he was certain he had indeed been called a liar, and the thought did not make him happy at all.

"Michael, we are seeing definite progress," the first doctor said carefully. "I honestly never would have thought to incorporate riding into your rehabilitation."

Michael waited.

He had the distinct feeling there was a "but", a "however" or something equally qualifying to follow.

"We'd like you to continue what you're doing."

 

A nine year old girl looked at the stranger in the mirror.

The scarring around the stranger's reflection were less noticeable.

She turned from the mirror, looked at the screen, looked at the Inter-System broadcast.

The announcer was solemnly discussing something about a heart, and Juliette blinked, listened closely as the announcer continued, as images shifted, melted smoothly from one scene to another.

Juliette's breath caught as she saw a familiar figure: her heart swelled as she saw a familiar face.

 

Michael Keller held out his palm for Lightning's quick-as-a-snake strike that lipped up the peppermints without hurting his hands: he wiped horse slobber on the leg of his jeans, swung his leg twice before he could bend the knee and bring it up high enough to drive into the black doghouse stirrup with silver tackhead trim.

"Easy, girl," he murmured, then he bent his right knee as much as he dared, pushed.

He managed to bend over the saddle.

Michael wallowed forward, reached back, grabbed as much slack as he could twist up into his grip, and dragged his right leg over.

Michael was frustrated, yes, but his determination overrode his frustration: he got his other boot in stirrup leather, he blessed his long tall Pa for shortening the stirrups.

Michael leaned forward, worked his bony backside until his seat felt right.

"Come on, girl," he murmured.  "Let's get in some trouble!"

 

Juliette breathed in an adoring voice, "She's beautiful!"

Her mother turned, looked, puzzled, thought she must've misheard her daughter.

Juliette's mother didn't realize her daughter wasn't talking about a well-known figure she'd seen before on the Inter-System.

She didn't realize Juliette murmured adoringly at the first thing she saw since geetting her new eyes.

Juliette was talking about the face of a blocky-headed, heavy-boned Fanghorn mare, and not the handsome rider on its back in a black, silver-trimmed, Western saddle.

 

Marnie keyed in the commands.

It seemed, to each of the schoolchildren, that they were the only one with their beloved Sheriff Marnie.

They sat behind her, their hands gripping her sun-faded-tan, canvas coat: they bent their legs at the knees to keep them out of the way, and they felt as much as heard the horse snap her wings out, shining, pure-white wings, feathers symmetrical and laid in ordered fashion the length of the wings.

Each of the children felt the horse go swiftly into a trot, then lean out into an outright gallop.

They leaned forward when their Sheriff Marnie leaned forward, each looked around to see they were running as hard as they could go toward cliff's edge --

Hooves drummed hard against the earth, forelegs lifted and curled against the chest as the mare's powerful hind legs shoved one last time, and they were falling, falling --

Wings, strong, curved: each child felt the horse turn, bank, begin soaring on a warm updraft.

 

Michael gripped Lightning's barrel as best he could, which wasn't much.

He'd had bars set up for her to jump, and jump she did.

Normally Michael's legs would be bent, clamped tight, but his legs didn't work much at all.

Michael felt her gather herself, felt her charge the pipe barrier, felt her shove off and soar, and they were flying, for that one long glorious moment, they were a creature of the air --

Michael felt a moment's shock as he realized he'd floated up out of the saddle and there was no way in God's green earth he was going to get back into leather in time --

 

Sheriff Linn Keller looked down at his son, felt Michael's hand tighten on his own.

Michael was glad his Pa was there.

"How soon can I ride again?" he asked.

"The docs say as soon as you climb out of bed and get dressed."

"So I can't ride in my underwear," Michael said quietly.

His Pa's expression never changed, though his voice did.

"Might cause misunderstandin's," Linn said carefully, and Michael heard the smile behind the words.

"I could ride buck nekked right down Main Street," Michael offered innocently.

"And scandalize all the wimmen folk."

Linn laid his other hand over his son's fingers.

"I reckon I'm supposed to ask something stupid like are you sore."

"I'm sore, sir."

"Lightning looks like she rides smooth."

"Yes, sir."

"How well does she jump?"

"She's ... the first part of her jump ... it's not like Apple-horse, sir."

"How is it?"

"She's fast off the ground, sir. She doesn't jump out long like Apple does, she's fast up and that's what put me out of the saddle."

"Think you can stay on her?"

"If my legs worked better I could, yes, sir."

"The doctors said that fall seems to have shocked something into conducting better."

Michael was quiet for a long moment.

"Sir?" he asked at length.

"Feel like walking?"

Michael's lower jaw slid out and he nodded.

"Yes, sir," he said firmly. "I do!"

Linn waited until his son was dressed -- with help, it did not take a half hour to get his socks on -- once Michael was ready, Linn positioned his son's boots.

Michael slid off the bed and used his weight to get his slick-powdered feet into properly-fitted, decoratively-stitched boots.

Linn held out his hand.

"No walker," he said quietly.

"Yes, sir."

Michael set his feet shoulder width apart, took a long breath, blew it out.

He stood.

Linn lowered his hand when he realized Michael would rather collapse than accept that charity.

Michael did not collapse.

When Linn walked backwards from the hospital room, he raised his pearl-grey Stetson, set it on his head as he crossed the threshold to the room.

Michael followed, his expression grim, determined.

Linn knew it would divide his concentration to raise his skypiece and set it on his head as he, too, crossed the room's threshold, and this division of his attention could lead to a collapse.

Michael raised his black Stetson, settled it firmly in place.

He and his father walked the length of the hallway, to the point where Michael leaned against the wall, in pain and in exertion, and it was here that Linn handed him a small envelope.

Michael was concentrating too hard on now showing his pain, to read the contents of an envelope.

It wasn't until he was back into the hospital room, not until he was stripped down again, not until another device was passed slowly up either side of his spine, that he even remembered the envelope.

Michael waited until he was alone before opening the note.

 

"Daddy gave him a note?" Angela asked.

Marnie's face looked at her from the glowing screen.  "It's from a girl," she said, and two sisters looked knowingly at one another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PIG IRON, PIG HEAD

Sheriff Linn Keller said later he was "wanderin' like a lost soul."

His wife watched with worried eyes as her husband sauntered through the back pasture.

This was concerning.

Shelly knew her husband -- perhaps better than she knew herself -- and she knew his pace was usually purposeful, decisive, deliberate.

To see him take a few steps, look up, look around, look down, wander a few more, as if indecisive in the least decision ...

... well, this worried her.

Pig Iron wandered with him.

Part of the time Linn had his hand on the stallion's neck, part of the time he had his arm hooked over the big steeldust neck, part of the time -- and this alarmed Shelly the most -- Linn gripped the horse's dark mane, and leaned his face into the long, ebony-black hair, and just stood there, his shoulders slumped, looking like he would collapse if the horse walked away.

 

Linn looked up as Pig Iron came pacing up to him.

He shaved off some molasses twist from his rapidly depleting plug.

"At least you like this," he said. "Michael's plug ugly didn't like this a'tall!"

Pig Iron liked it and bummed for more.

Linn looked at what was left of the plug, held it out.

Pig Iron chewed happily.

"Good for ya," Linn grunted.  "Kills worms."

He walked a few slow steps, the stallion almost floating along beside him.

"I laid hands on a man today," the Sheriff said softly.

Pig Iron blinked, ears swinging.

"I'll help any man but this fella ..."
Linn's eyes hardened and so did his jaw muscles.

"Damned parasite," he muttered.  "I had enough of his complainin' and whinin'. I grabbed him by the shirt front and I swung him around and allowed as my boy was hurt and couldn't walk, and he'd worked ten times as hard as this damned parasite!" -- he spat the word -- "worked in the past three months! -- he whined that I had good insurance and he didn't have nothin' and he was not a well man and I slammed him against the building and allowed as that hadn't stopped him from stealin' tools and copper from new construction."

Linn took a long breath, leaned his forehead into his stallion's mane.

"Michael is bustin' his backside, tryin' to walk again. The doctors said his runnin' a week ago was a fluke and not to expect it again."

Linn's hands gripped his stallion's mane and he shook his head, grinding his face into the coarse, long hair.

"If he did it once, he can do it again. Adrenaline maybe. I've heard of men paralyzed and in a wheelchair that got up and ran when an airplane fell into a building next to 'em."

He lifted his face, rubbed silvery hair with a flat palm, turned and looked at his stallion's jaw line.

Pig Iron turned his neck and laid his head over the Sheriff's shoulder, for all the world like he understood.

 

Shelly hesitated before lifting her chin.

"Phone call while you were out," she said. "It's on the whiteboard."

Linn nodded, turned to the erasable board beside their wall phone.

He punched in the number.

"Yeah, Mitch."

Shelly pretended not to listen.

"He did? No loss there.  How bad did he stiff you?"

Another pause.

"I'm not surprised. I'll take care of the back rent. I sent him your way so I'll take care of what's owed."

Shelly rinsed off the plate, set it silently in the drain rack, reached into soapy dishwater for the next.

"Appreciate your lettin' me know."

Shelly rinsed the last plate, slipped it edge-on into the rubber-coated drain rack.

Linn looked at her.

"I told a man to get out of town today."

"Oh?"

"Damned parasite. He lied to my face. I told him to get the hell out of my town, get out of my county, get out of my state."

"He got out?"

"He's not livin' in that apartment I vouched him in for."

Shelly dried her hands, hung the towel carefully on the oven door handle, paced over to her distressed husband.

"You gave him a chance," she said softly.

"Yeah, and no good deed goes unpunished."

"Tell me about it," Shelly sighed.

"You're worried about Michael."

Linn nodded.

"Men are born with a Mr. Fix-it hat, and you can't fix-it."

Linn nodded again.

 

Michael Keller leaned forward a little in the saddle.

He was not breathing well.

After the last three falls he was in considerably more pain than he'd been.

Each time he'd gripped the big Fanghorn's bridle, gasped "Up!" and he was hauled to his feet.

The Fanghorn seemed to regard it as a game.

Michael was not entirely used to being swung well more than twice his height into the air, but each time he kept his grip and Lightning set him down on his feet.

Each time he fought and wallowed and sweated and gasped his way back into the saddle.

He was weak, he was shaking, he was soaked with sweat and covered with dirt, and he was not quitting.

He was very definitely not quitting!

He gripped the gullet with both hands, clenched his teeth agains the pain, he picked up the reins.

Michael refused to let anyone bit Lightning.

His horses back home were not bitted and he'd made decent progress in knee-training Lightning, at least until he'd gotten hurt.

"C'mon, girl," he gasped.

Lightning whirled left, gave a single crow-hop.

Michael willed his legs tighter, damning the weakness that kept him from --

Lightning stopped and gave a surprised squeal.

Michael felt his legs tighten.

He bent his knees, just a little, he put his weight down -- 

Michael clenched his jaw, snarled, "Lightning, go!"

The Fanghorn shot her neck straight out and screamed defiance.

Michael Keller felt his legs tighten again and he leaned forward, palms flat on the Fanghorn's neck.

Lightning shot out the open gate, screaming like a steam whistle gone insane, Michael's triumphant yell lost somewhere in the sonic jumble of their slipstream.

Michael fell twice more that day.

Michael got up each time and got right back in the saddle.

Michael limped back to his hospital room, stopping often to lean against the wall, to grip the protruding chair rail: he was pale, he was sweating, he was trembling, he was obviously in pain, and only one of the staff nurses dared get close to him.

Even she stopped when he gave her a pale eyed Death Glare.

A white-uniformed nurse with a winged cap, with four striped-dress students in tow, filed past the nurse's station and into the private room.

The door shut with a decisive sound.

When Michael Keller emerged, he was clean, shining hair slicked back and combed down, his Stetson was under his off arm and his pale-eyed sister in her immaculate nursing uniform dress had her hand laid delicately around his forearm: solemn-faced, the little entourage marched slowly down the hall and to the elevators, and staff stared after them as patient, Nurse and students, all disappeared into the steel-door car.

When the car's shining doors opened on the lowest level, the car was empty.

 

Juliette jumped a little, her eyes big, as the black cat's-eye's vertical ellipse opened.

She watched as Michael came out, with the nurse who'd come and asked her help, on his arm: Michael hung his Stetson with the ease of long familiarity, there in the back room, the private room behind the Lawman's Corner of the Silver Jewel Saloon.

Michael gathered his strength, took a long breath.

Juliette looked at Michael, trim and well dressed in a proper black suit and emerald-green necktie, and Michael looked at a girl a year younger than he, in a properly ornate calf length dress, held out with hoops or petticoats or whatever girls wear under a big skirt.

Michael inclined his head politely.

Juliette crossed one white-stockinged leg behind the other, dropped a flawless curtsy.

Michael grabbed for the back of a chair, set his left foot forward, clenched his jaw as the room started to rotate around him, then steadied.

He looked up and grinned crookedly and Juliette ran over to him, eyes wide with alarm.

"Lightning," Michael said quietly, "says hello."

Angela shook her head, watched as her little brother straightened, still gripping the back of the chair to steady himself.

"Michael," she sighed, "you are just as pig headed as your father!"