SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

VANTAGE POINT

Michael Keller could tell something was wrong.

He and Victoria rode side by side, Victoria on her Daddy's shining-black racer, he on his Fanghorn: he was becoming steadily less patient with the need to conceal the Confederacy from his homeworld, and was frankly more comfortable on worlds he'd never trod (or ridden) -- because he was accepted on these worlds.

Michael was often asked why he did not use the same saddleblanket his sisters did -- a black blanket with a gold, six point star -- and his answer was always the same.

"I am not yet old enough to be a sworn officer," he'd say, "and I will not fly under a false flag" -- and so Michael Keller, son of a genuine Western lawman and an honest-to-God Fire Paramedic, rode where he pleased, with a rifle scabbarded under his leg, atop a horse with an appetite for fresh meat, a horse half again bigger than the full sized gelding his twin sister rode.

Michael knew something was not right because Lightning stopped, muttering: Victoria's gelding drew up as well, clearly unhappy -- restless, dancing, shaking his head, in spite of Victoria's soothing murmurs, in spite of her hand caressing his neck.

Michael and Victoria were invited to a children's hospital, they were guests of honor at the opening of a new wing; they were received with fanfare, a marching escort.

Crowds filling the broad, smoothly-paved street, drew back at their approach: a pale eyed young man in a tailored black suit, riding a truly huge, silver-patterned Fanghorn mare, and a genuinely gorgeous young lady in a frilly gown and fancy-stitched, mirror-polished cowboy boots, riding a strutting, shining, healthy-coated gelding, rode side by side down the very center of the street, toward the hospital, where a brass band and a speechmaker's podium awaited.

Lightning stopped, shivered her hide, turned her head, muttered.

"Victoria," Michael said quietly.  "With me."

He leaned forward, ever so slightly: startled celebrants drew quickly back as the Fanghorn swung her fang-bared muzzle, snarling.

Victoria debated whether to lean down and back and shuck her Winchester, decided against it: Michael was not going for his, she would wait on his lead.

The Fanghorn penetrated just short of a hundred yards, stopped.

The crowd was drawn back from them, all but one small, distressed soul, a little boy dressed up for the occasion, with tears streaking down his reddened cheeks.

Jacob and Lightning walked slowly forward, and Lightning folded her legs, laid down, curled protectively around the distressed child.

Michael dropped a boot from the stirrup, planted his bootsole flat on the ground as Lightning grounded herself: he swung the other leg over and back, stood.

Michael went to one knee, pulled a kerchief from his sleeve, carefully wiped the wet from the sniveling, uncertain child's cheeks: carefully, the way his Pa had done him when he was younger, Michael put the snot rag over the little reddened nose, pinched lightly and murmured, "Blow."

The lost little boy wrinkled his eyes shut and blew, loud.

Michael wiped the wee child's nose, carefully.

"What's wrong?" Michael asked, his expression sincere, gentle: he saw the slight distortion that told him hover-cams were behind the little boy, looking at Michael's face, and likely one floated above and behind him, capturing the little boy as well.

"M - m - my Mama's lost," the little boy stuttered.

"Was she close by?"

The child nodded.

"Do you remember what she looks like?"

Again the nod.

"Tell you what," Michael said, his voice gentle. "C'mon up-saddle with me. We'll look for her together."

He picked up the child, turned: Lightning raised her head, snuffed loudly at the child's midsection, chirped.

Jacob swung a leg over the saddle, found the far stirrup:  "Yup," he said gently, and Lightning rolled over to get her legs squarely under, then stood easily.

Lightning turned, slowly, Michael holding the child around the waist.

"Do you see her yet?"

They turned, slowly, a complete rotation.

"Tell you what. We'll find her. Yup, girl."

Fanghorn and shining-black gelding turned back toward the reception stand.

Michael and Victoria rode up in front of the bunting-draped stage:  Michael turned Lightning, lifted his Stetson, grinning, and the crowd roared: Lightning reared, threw her head back, screamed happily:  children held their ears and jumped up and down, squealing with excitement, women fluttered their kerchiefs, men raised walking-sticks and hats in happy salute, and for several long moments, all was confusion and noise.

Michael held his young charge around the waist, dunked his Stetson on the little boy's head, which brought giggles from his guest and laughter from both crowd surrounding, and dignitaries above and behind, on the stage:  Michael lifted the hat, used it in a grand, sweeping gesture, tilted his head and asked the boy, "What do you think of that?"

A little boy, delighted but uncertain, put a finger to his mouth and laughed and turned a remarkable shade of red.

Michael turned Lightning, looked up at the podium:  "Pass me a microphone," he called, and a silver cylinder was handed down to him.

Michael waited for the crowd's celebration to die down a little before he raised the mic and spoke.

"First off, I owe these fine folks on stage an apology!" Michael declared.  "I reckon they had all kind of fine language all polished up and ready to sprinkle all over us, and I just messed that up."

Again, laughter: Michael grinned.

"My Pa is a wise man and my Mama worked hard to beat some manners into mmm -- I mean teach me some manners," he amended, rolling his eyes and whistling a few innocent notes: he said, "Ladies first," and handed the mic to Victoria.

Victoria glared daggers at her twin brother, composed herself, turned her shining-black Outlaw-horse and faced the crowd.

"Daddy is a wise man," she echoed, "and he taught us that if you have nothing to say, to say nothing."

She thrust the mic back to Michael, who grinned to receive it.

"Pa also taught us," Michael continued, "two useful rules of public speaking.

"First, the mind absorbs only until the backside grows numb.

"Second, the longer the speaker's wind, the harder those chairs get."

He laughed silently as dignitaries and citizenry chuckled their appreciation.

"When I was invited to speak," Michael said, "all I needed to hear was 'Children's Hospital.' Most of you know I was hurt pretty badly, while I was healing up from being hurt pretty badly."

Michael lowered the mic, took a long breath: his expression was troubled, and Victoria gave him a concerned look, sidled her Daddy's shining-black racer closer.

Michael took another breath, lifted his head, continued.

"I'm living proof of the good hospitals do. You're dedicating this one so you don't need a long winded speech from me. What I need" -- he grinned, that quick, contagious grin almost everyone there remembered from watching the Inter-System -- "what I need is to make introductions.

"Folks, this is my twin sister Victoria.  She is smarter than I am, she's better lookin' than I am, and she's left handed to boot, so she's got it all over me!"

Michael let quiet laughter subside, continued.

"This" -- he paused -- "This is Lightning. She's a Fanghorn mare. She's fast, she's strong, she was hurt when I was. She knows what it is to have to heal up and she's the reason I healed faster than anyone expected."

Michael took a shivering breath, swallowed.

"That's Outlaw."

Michael thrust a chin at Victoria's restless, hoof-mincing mount.

"Outlaw is a racer and he's really fast, and when he lays his ears back and runs, he can punch a hole in the wind, and if your guardian angel doesn't have a good two-hand grip on your shirt tail, he ain't a-gonna keep up!"

Michael grinned to hear the appreciative laughter.

So far he'd done nothing but speak the plain truth.

"Last on my list," he said, "and I like short lists ... this young fellow belongs to someone, I'm not sure who, but he told me his Mama is lost.  He knows where he is, but his Mama's the one that got lost--"

Young arms thrust out and a young voice declared in a high, happy tone, "Mama!"

A woman came through the crowd, turning, slipping between spectators: she came into the clear and ran up to Michael and Lightning, her arms extended toward her child.

Lightning folded her legs, bellied down, chirped happily: mother and child reunited, Michael grinned up at his twin sister, who gave an exaggerated sigh and a my-patience-is-wearing-thin eye-roll.

"Yup, girl," Michael whispered, and Lightning stood.

"I reckon I've caused enough trouble for one day," Michael grinned, turned to the man behind the podium. "Sir, my apologies for stealing your thunder, the stage is yours!"

Michael stood in his stirrups, stretched, handed the microphone back: he turned, lifted his Stetson as the crowd gave a great and spontaneous roar of approval.

Lightning and Outlaw both reared -- Outlaw, lighter boned, windmilled his forehooves quickly, while Lightning's rear was just that -- a rear -- she rose to an impressive height, came down with a surprising lightness, paced forward to where a mother was hugging her child.

A huge, meat-eating Fanghorn with shining-ivory canines snuffed loudly at a giggling child, and chirped happily as the mother caressed her blunt, silky-furred nose.

 

A pale eyed Ambassador watched the proceedings, her restless child on her lap: Littlejohn thrust a pink-scrubbed hand at the screen and declared "Whitening!" and Marnie boundced him gently, whispered, "Yes, dear, that's Lightning," and she laughed a little when her son saw another horse and shouted "Outwaa!"

Marnie sighed patiently, watched the rest of the dedication, the ceremonial cutting of the ribbon, the tour of the shining-new facility: she watched as Lightning stuck her muzzle in a punchbowl and drank noisily, to the laughter and delight of the assembled (and the distress of the catering staff), and watched as Michael was obliged to draw up beside a table so children could be hoist into the saddle for pictures.

Marnie shook her head as Michael dunked his Stetson on yet another young head, as more pictures were taken, as Victoria quietly charmed young and old alike as she stood, one hand caressing her Daddy's shining-black Outlaw-horse.

The camera swung back to Michael.

Marnie could stand it no longer.

She leaned closer to the screen, thrust an accusing finger and declared, "Show-off!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FIRST

There were those learned souls whose business was animal behavior.

Most commonly, the best in the field had a veterinary background, an understanding of gross anatomy and the particular physiology of the creatures of their specialized study, and at least a little experience.

Learned speculation and careful analysis of detailed scans gave these Professors of Letters and Learning, certain scholarly insights, and so it was they viewed holovids of a pale eyed boy with a grin on his face, leaned over the neck of a fang-bared Fanghorn, both of them moving at a truly remarkable velocity: these scholarly sorts frowned disapprovingly at the sight of a drowsy-lidded Fanghorn bellied down as a pale eyed lad brushed her down, as she lifted her chin and closed her eyes contentedly to receive the brush's caresses along the corners of her jaw, as the brush ran with quick, expert strokes the length of her vulnerable throat.

Educated heads wagged disapprovingly and comments were exchanged among these researchers: perhaps their disapproval might be better understood if one considered Earth's polar bear, the only bear that does not change expression before attacking, and the sight of a child riding one as one would saddle a horse: in the short term, a novelty, but sooner or later, this audacious rider would become lunch, or so the experts prophesied.

Michael maintained his own study, but his insights were both firsthand, and based on experience: not the experience of letters and of a formal, professorial education, but rather that of being there and being part of the experiment.

Michael was not so much surprised as he was intensely interested when Lightning surged after a bull, when Lightning drove down and crushed a bull's spine at the back of its neck, when Lightning drove her muzzle into warm, quivering flesh and ate with obvious relish: Michael watched as other Fanghorns came in and fed as Lightning went to the nearby stream and sloshed her muzzle noisily in a pool, drank, raised her head and belched: Michael absorbed from his simple presence the loyalty of the Fanghorn, he saw what seemed to be mated pairs in the herd, saw their protection of their young, saw fights -- fierce, vicious, brutal, but (thus far) never fatal.

He remembered the raiders that apparently intended to firebomb his family home, how he and Lightning came out of an Iris in time to stop this armed assault and this brutal arson, and how Lightning happily ate both living and dead, almost daintily tearing off their heads and eating this dainty before satiating her appetite with the rest of their miserable carcasses.

Michael observed Lightning's appetite for meat was not a regular thing; personally, he thought it possible meat protein was a supplement and not their main nutritional intake, and the longer he observed his mare, the more he was convinced he was right on this matter.

Lightning and Victoria received many invitations, formal and otherwise; anything from a child's scrawl on coarse, grade-school paper from a lonely child who didn't have anyone to play with, to formal galas and balls, with stuffy protocols and stiffly-attired totems of power and politics.

Michael was content to let the Diplomatic Corps handle such things.

He knew Lightning was still healing, though to the untrained eye, she was hale, hearty, swift and strong, just as he, Michael, looked the very image of health -- unless one were to see him in unguarded moments, shaking, pale, sweat running down his face, hiding his misery from the world.

He could not hide his pain from Lightning.

One thing he observed, especially after the visits to various children's hospitals, was that Lightning had an affinity not only for his own moments of pain, but an affinity for the injured young as a whole.

It was a moment of novelty indeed when Lightning lay down and curled protectively around a crying little boy whose Mama was lost, but it was something that surprised Michael not at all.

He'd known dogs, he'd known horses, with just such an affinity, just such a sense, just such a protectiveness: his Pa had a particular old mare who looked like she was going to fall over dead from sheer, unadulterated boredom, until she was brought to the Firelands hospital, until children in hospital gowns and hopeful expressions were hoist into her saddle, until a long, tall, laughing Sheriff with a hard grip on the back of a quickly-installed belt steadied the horn-gripping child walked beside the mare: she went around the circle, greeted each one, accepted caresses and carrots and handfuls of tender, long grasses, brought in for the purpose, and that good old mare was never happier than when she was with these fragile young.

So it was with Lightning.

No other Fanghorn in recorded history ever displayed this quiet union with any human as did Lightning with Michael, and truth be told, Michael never felt such affinity for any horse as he did with this swift and deadly Fanghorn.

Michael was not the only one to build memories.

Pale eyed sisters carefully chronicled their adventures together, and one used these observations, courtesy remote devices that hovered invisibly near, to entertain both herself, and her growing, energetic, curious little boy.

Marnie Keller was both wife and mother, she was (when absolutely necessary) brought back into Diplomatic service, though she'd made it clear she was more than content to raise a husband and a son, thank you very much: on one particular day, when she'd engaged a holography communication suite and she'd sat facing a semicircle of negotiators on an important matter, she'd come out tired, but satisfied she'd gotten the best deal she could.

Littlejohn and her husband were deep into their own research, something to do with apple pie with ice cream and chocolate sauce with sprinkles and miniature marshmallows: Marnie opened her mouth and realized she was about to sound Just Like Her Mother, so instead she joined them and found their Grand Experiment very much to her taste.

After their less than orthodox supper, Marnie interrogated her comm-screen: Dr. John was washing supper off his son's face (it was time for the lad's evening bath anyway, so the good Doctor tended both details at once) and as he brought the towel-wrapped towhead back into the living room, he ran squarely into a cloud of his wife's laughter.

Marnie's cheeks were pink, she was leaned back from the screen: she'd clapped her hands together, clasped them in delight, she looked up at her husband, her eyes shining:  

"John, come here and look at this!"

Father and son came around behind Marnie, watched.

Michael stood beside the saddle, the saddle stood on a swept-bare rock: Michael was two fingers shy of knee deep in what looked like fresh white powder.

Lightning's head was tilted curiously, for all the world like an inquisitive dog imitating a wine connoisseur: she pawed delicately at the crystalline fluff, lowered her muzzle, pulled her head back quickly, startled at how easily her muzzle penetrated.

Lightning snuffed at the fresh powder, blew small clouds of the stuff into the cold air, shoved her nose in and threw her head back, slinging snow like a happy child.

Lightning, this truly huge, swift, deadly, powerful Fanghorn, this dread killer of bulls and eater of bloody beef, this survivor of weaponry that could slice an Old Earth battleship in two, dug at the snow with both forehooves, then laid down and rolled, all four legs in the air, grunting happily and reveling in an ersatz dirt bath of fluffy white stuff.

A pale eyed boy on a distant planet, a pale eyed Ambassador in a McKenna gown, a medically credentialed father and a warm, damp, towel-wrapped, arm-waving child, laughed in the unity of delight as Lightning, for the very first time in her entire life, rolled in fresh snow.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DID I KILL IT?

Esther Keller saw it from a quarter of a mile away.

She reached over, seized the engineer's sleeve,, thrust a gloved hand toward a bright, coruscating ball of something bright, something that looked alive, something that threw out tentacles that looked like lightning.

Esther laughed and clapped her hands with delight: the last time she'd seen St. Elmo's Fire was when she was a child, taking a sea voyage with her father, well before the War.

Bill squinted, stared at this eye-searing ball of energies that looked like it was ... rolling? Floating? -- toward him, toward them, following the steel rails.

Suddenly the steam powered inspection car did not feel nearly as good a shelter as it had been a few moments before.

Jacob leaned forward in his saddle, interested.

He'd never seen anything like this before.

He looked over at his father.

Jacob didn't feel interested any longer.

He felt scared.

A long tall lawman with pale eyes and an iron grey mustache leaned forward -- Rey del Sol, his shining-gold Palomino, thrust forward, running toward the long, gentle bend in the railroad tracks.

The Sheriff was riding to war, and Jacob was hard after him, wondering what in two hells his father was doing, especially when Linn brought out his rifle, rose in the stirrups, and began laying deadly accurate fire right into a rolling ball of unearthly fire.

Jacob saw a ball of blazing light.

Even at this distance, the searing-blue plasma's signature reflected brightly from the big, enclosing windows on the approaching inspection car.

Esther saw a ball of blazing light, then she saw her husband, leaned forward on his stallion, riding straight for ground-mounted lightning, firing his rifle empty.

Esther stood, frozen, shocked, one hand cupped over her open mouth, one pressed against her high stomach, her eyes wider and whiter than Bill had ever seen.

He turned, nodded grimly to the fireman, who slung coal left-forward, right-forward, left-back, right-back, squinted into the fiery hell inside the firebox, shut the door.

They had their speed up, Bill had his pressure up, he opened the throttle, felt the inspection car surge forward.

He reached up, seized the whistle-chain, pulled hard. 

The Lady Dana screamed shrill defiance and charged this new enemy.

The Sheriff threw up a leg, dropped to the ground: he landed flat-footed, thrust the rifle back into its scabbard, pulled both revolvers and advanced, firing as he ran.

"SIR, NO! SIR, DON'T DO IT!" Jacob shouted as he pulled his double gun's hanging loop free of the  saddlehorn, as he hit the ground flat-footed, as he charged the rolling ball of electric hell.

Jacob did not stop to wonder what his father saw.

All he knew was, his father was attacking whatever this was, and he would fight beside his father, come what may.

Jacob came up beside his father and raised the double gun.

Esther's face was pressed close to the heavy, curved glass, her breath fogged the chill, clear surface, her hands were pressed flat against the pane.

She saw Jacob step forward, firing purposefully, firing deliberately: he broke open his gun, jerked the fired hulls free, dunked in fresh, closed the action as his father ran back to his stallion.

Esther could not hear her husband.

She did not need to.

When he came back with his Cavalry saber in hand, she knew exactly what he was seeing.

Esther stepped back, drove a green-eyed glare like twin daggers at the engineer.

"RUN THAT THING OVER!" she shouted.  "RUN IT DOWN AND KILL IT!!"

Bill grimly ran the throttle as far as it would go.

Esther heard the engine bark against her load, felt her laboring powerfully underfoot.

She watched as Jacob fired twice more, watched as her husband ran past him, sharpened blade thrust out ahead of him.

Jacob reloaded, sprinted in pursuit of his father --

"DAMN YOU, YOU'RE NOT TAKING ME NOW!"

"No," Esther whispered as her husband was thrown as if from an explosion.

Jacob leaped to the side, fired twice in mid-air, hit the ground, rolled, came up.

The Lady Dana roared through the space where they'd been moments before, ran through the ball of blazing plasma:  Jacob reloaded, nostrils flared, his blood up, but the enemy was gone, vanquished, disappeared.

All that remained was the smell of ozone.

Jacob turned, walked over to his father.

Linn lay on his side, unmoving, eyes wide and unblinking.

Jacob heard The Lady Dana coming back, he paid no attention to the inspection car: he laid the backs of his fingers against his father's mouth.

Part of his mind registered that his hands were without shiver or shake.

Part of his mind heard his mother's running approach.

He looked up, his young face serious.

"He is breathing, Mother," he said formally.

Esther Keller dropped to her knees, seized her son's shoulder to steady herself.

She laid a gloved palm against Linn's cheek.

"You fool," she whispered.

"You heroic, idiotic, stupid, headstrong, magnificent, fool!"

Esther looked at Jacob, her eyes glitter-bright, and almost smiled as Jacob raised an eyebrow, just like his father did in such moments of puzzlement.

Esther swallowed hard.

"He saw every death he's ever known," she whispered. "He saw Death and he saw every demon in Hell who ever wanted to take a man's soul, and he knew he couldn't possibly win."

"He attacked anyway."

Esther nodded.

Linn's eyes opened a little, he blinked, opened his eyes a little more.

It took a moment to focus on his wife's face.

"Safe?" he managed to gasp.

"Yes," Esther whispered. "Safe."

It took a few more breaths before  the man had strength enough to grimace.

"Sir?" Jacob asked. "Your orders, sir?"

"The enemy."

His voice was hoarse, barely audible.

"Defeated, sir. They are fled."

It was several minutes before wife and firstborn son could get the long tall Sheriff back on his feet.

He seized his saddlehorn, leaned against his stallion, teeth clenched.

Jacob hung his double gun back over his own saddlehorn, returned to the railroad bed, brought his father back his Cavalry saber.

Carefully, silently, Jacob slid the gently curved, shining blade back into its scabbard under his father's rifle scabbard.

Linn's shivering slowed, his posture improved: he looked back toward the railroad tracks, looked at the inspection car, looked back at Jacob.

Jacob squared off to his father, took a step closer.

"Sir?"

"Jacob," Linn asked quietly, "did I kill it?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GHOSTS IN THE RAIN

Michael Keller smiled, just a little.

He knew he was followed, and he knew who was following him.

He also knew he was tired of hiding.

Michael Keller bent his wrist down, pulled back his sleeve, made an adjustment: he was a child of the mountains, he knew the mountains, and he knew the weather, and he knew rain was a-comin' and comin' soon.

When it arrived, it arrived fast: big, fat, really cold drops, the kind that precede a genuine toad strangler.

Michael sat a-straddle of his Fanghorn, leaned his head back, took a deep breath.

His Confederate field kept the rain off himself and Lightning both; Lightning's supplemental plates, one under each saddlebag, enhanced their mutual protection: he could've been hit by an antitank round and felt nothing, and heard very little.

Lightning was not comfortable as lightning crackled overhead, and so Michael set a course for Carbon Hill.

They trotted squarely down the painted center line; there was no traffic, the only vehicles occupied were at intersections, or sitting in front of one of the only two businesses in town.

 A lack of vehicles did not indicate a lack of occupants.

The pair was followed by several sets of eyes.

Horse and rider -- or, rather, Fanghorn and rider -- set a brisk, noisy pace, hoofbeats loud and echoing between restored buildings.

Watching eyes stared, surprised at what they saw.

They should have been soaked in the downpour.

They weren't.

Rain should have been pouring off the rider's Stetson.

It wasn't.

The black-felt skypiece should have been shiny, soaky wet.

Nope.

There should have been mud, or at least some sign of wet, on the feathery pasterns.

There should have been.

There wasn't.

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller swung a leg over her Appaloosa mare.

Spinner whirled, turned toward the just-opened Iris, surged through and kept on going.

Marnie pulled her sleeve back, adjusted her field, drove into the rainstorm, galloping across the field just west of Carbon Hill.

Mud and water threw up behind them.

Marnie rode with a set jaw, with harsh words clenched between her teeth: she had dark thoughts for her bratty little brother, thinking he could reveal something they were trying to keep secret from Earth -- 

Marnie leaned forward, urged her mare to greater speed as her temper overrode her good sense.

Marnie Keller, Ambassador for the Confederacy, drove down the middle of the short main street in Carbon Hill at a flat-out gallop.

She, too was seen.

 

"Firelands County Sheriff's Office."

"I'd like to report a ghost."

There was a long silence.

"Ummm ... could you say that again, please?"

"Look, I know it's crazy," the voice almost stammered, "but two ghosts just ran through here, one was the biggest horse I ever saw and the other looked like someone from the cowboy days, she was on an Appaloosa and her ears were pinned back and she was runnin' just flat out and I'm here to tell ya, lady, their hooves never touched the pavement and it's pourin' down cats, dogs and little green fish and they were both bone dry!"

 

Michael looked around, looked behind him, he felt the corners of his eyes tighten.

You want to run, sis? he thought.

"Lightning," he said, "go!"

Lightning grunted, her cadence changed: she started to reach, she started to stretch, Michael steered her off pavement onto a mountain trail he knew of.

Lightning laid her ears back and sailed across an arroyo Michael would have never tried on one of his Pa's horses.

Lightning landed easy on the other side and kept right on running.

Marnie leaned back in the saddle -- Spinner turned, leaned hard, ran parallel to the gully: Marnie ran her downhill, across the shallow, up the other side, steelshod hooves digging into the rain-soft dirt.

She crested the gully's shallow bank, saw Lightning's hind quarters just disappearing around a thicket.

I've got you now, she thought.

I know these mountains!

 

Bruce Jones, Chief Editor, reporter, photographer and window washer for the Firelands Gazette, ducked quickly into his Buick.

He started the aging vehicle, set the defroster, the heat, turned up the fan, turned on the windshield wipers, pulled on the headlights.

Ghosts, he thought.

Willamina spoke of ghosts.

I never believed her, not really.

Bruce looked left, looked right, left again -- he'd been T-boned once by a speeding driver from his left, which explained his paranoid second look to the left before pulling out of the alley onto the main street -- he accelerated smoothly on the main road, headed toward Carbon Hill.

I wonder how much alcohol was involved.

 

Michael laughed with delight as Lightning ran a slalom in between the trees -- she leaned hard left, then hard right, then left again: when horse and rider are well matched, each knows the other's will, each knows what the other sees, smells, feels, senses.

Fanghorn and Human ran flat-out through the driving rain, reveling in running on the ragged edge of control, they both felt wet and muddy ground slip beneath steel-hard, unshod hooves.

Michael willed Lightning left again, and straight ahead --

Car coming --

We can make it --

"LIGHTNING, RUN!"

An offworld Fanghorn thrust her neck straight out and punched her blunt, bony nose into the wind, pinned her ears back and drove hard against the soggy earth, across pavement, then hard up the steep trail, running with runoff from higher on the mountain --

 

Bruce Jones saw something big and pale, tall as a man and twice as long as a horse, streak across the road in front of him --

A horse and rider it was, but long as a locomotive and moving like a streak --

The mental snapshot he took, just before he stiff-armed the steering wheel and nailed the brakes, hard, was a lean rider in an old-fashioned black suit, leaned forward in the saddle: the horse's mane, coal-black, streamed back into his black suit, a thick black horsetail streaming long and floating like shredded silk --

Bruce fought the wheel, felt his Buick shudder to a stop, just shy of where the ghost crossed --

OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD --

Something long and pale launched from the shoulder, soared over his hood, disappeared into the rain.

At the risk of doubting his sanity, he had to admit that he'd just seen the ghost of someone he'd only seen in pictures.

It had to be a ghost.

In this rain she would've been soaking wet and streaming water.

She wasn't.

Bruce Jones, Editor, Reporter, Chief Photographer and Executive Broom Pusher, sat frozen, white knuckles standing out stark and pallid against the tanned backs of his hands.

Suddenly he had no trouble believing he just might have seen, not one ghost, but two.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller pulled up behind a familiar Buick, stopped, lit up.

"Bear Killer," he said quietly: the big mountain Mastiff jumped easily to the ground, and at the Sheriff's gesture, went up the passenger side of the vehicle.

Rain spattered loudly on the brim of the Sheriff's rain-covered Stetson.

He tapped a bent knuckle on Bruce Jones' window.

A wide-eyed, rather pale Chief Editor, Chief Photographer and Reporter, rolled down his window, looked at the Sheriff with eyes the size of saucers.

"Linn," he said, "I need a drink."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PAYIN' THE PREACHER

Marnie Keller stormed up to her bratty little brother, waiting calmly for her, his Fanghorn drowsing beside him, not in the least bit winded after a good run in thin air.

Marnie raised an angry Mommy-finger, she took a deep breath, ready to blast her sibling with full-house rage and angry admonitions.

Michael gave her a patient look, almost a pitying look, and that made her even madder.

Rain still fell: the ground here was sandy, it was solid underfoot, apparently well enough drained it wasn't muddy: neither Fanghorn nor Appaloosa were wet, neither was muddy, neither had the slightest trace of mud on shining forehooves nor feathery fetlocks behind, and neither mount seemed the least little bit concerned that the rain was coming straight down and they were bone dry.

Marnie went to seize Michael's necktie.

His Confederate field was a rubbery, invisible barrier that kept her a foot from touching him.

"Temper, Sister," Michael said in a gentle voice, smiling as he did: Marnie jerked her bent wrist to her lips, tapped a frowning command, thrust through their suddenly conjoined fields, seized the front of Michael's coat.

To her surprise, he shoved into her, his hands slammed into the front of her shoulders: he seized a handful of her dress material, she felt surprisingly strong fingers grab, twist.

Each one jerked the other closer.

"MICHAEL WESLEY, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING!" Marnie screamed in her younger brother's face, her complexion darkening with anger.

Michael regarded her calmly and replied in a mild voice, "Do you think it'll rain today, Sissy?"

"MICHAEL KELLER, YOU ANSWER MY QUESTION!"

"I do like the way it smells when it rains," Michael said quietly, blinking slowly, like a cat.

Michael felt her change, released his grip on her dress: she shoved away from him and he dropped back into a fighting stance, one fist cocked, the other arm in downblock position.

"Jump right on," he invited, and she saw the first trace of anger in his young eyes.

Marnie circled to her right, both hands up, bladed, ready to attack or to grapple: Michael was close enough to a carefully selected rock to prevent her circumnavigation.

"You're mad, Sissy," Michael goaded. "You can't think straight when you're mad."

As much as Marnie wanted to slap her Little Brother, as much as she wanted to rage and punch and shake him until his teeth rattled, part of her mind knew he was right.

The rest of her was mad as hell and intending to establish her dominance, preferably in a satisfyingly violent manner.

Each lowered their hands, the obstructing rock face beside them: something shoved Marnie from behind.

She spun, fist cocked, and looked into a huge, liquid, black eye, surrounded with silky-blond fur.

A huge, liquid, very black eye with long, sweeping, black eyelashes.

Lightning nuzzled Marnie's middle and gave a quiet, birdlike chirp.

Marnie spun, thrust an accusing finger at Michael.

"YOU PUT HER UP TO THIS!" she shouted.

Michael blinked, eyes wide, and gave her his very best Innocent Expression.

Marnie felt the great, heavy, bony muzzle lay over her shoulder, felt the Fanghorn lower her head a little: automatically she reached up, caressed the silky-fine fur, calming her own turmoil to keep from upsetting a horse: she'd had a number of saddlemounts who showed this selfsame horsy caress, this expression of trust.

Michael waited.

Marnie closed her eyes, took a long breath: she finally ducked a little, turned, faced the Fanghorn.

Lightning nuzzled Marnie's trim middle, snuffed loudly, grunted.

"No, I'm not pregnant," Marnie murmured, then smiled and whispered, "Not for want of trying, just between us girls!"

She slipped a gloved hand in a pocket, came out with several wrapped peppermints.

Lightning chirped happily as Marnie unwrapped them, offered them on a flat palm: she unbuttoned her now-wet glove, slipped it and its mate off, went over to the hip-shot Spinner, got into a saddlebag and extracted another pair of gloves.

Michael waited.

"Do you feel like talking now," Michael said irritatingly, "or do you just want to smack me around some?"

Marnie paced up to her younger brother, stopped.

"You," she said, her voice and her posture both stiffening, "are just as infuriating as your father!"

Michael shrugged.

"I get it honest."

Marnie raised gloved hands to the lowering clouds, part of her mind still surprised that she could see the now-fine rain falling, but her face was not wet.

She lowered her hands and lowered her face and said "Michael, do you know how close you came to dying?"

She saw Michael's eyes harden and she knew she'd just said absolutely the wrong thing.

"All right. I know that glare --"

"Sissy, do you remember Gammaw told us she'd seen the Valley?"

Marnie closed her mouth on words unsaid.

"She hit that mine or that IED or whatever it was and it killed her crew and flipped her Hummer and by the time they got her to Ramstein, she'd miscarried."

Marnie's mouth was dry.

She'd heard her Gammaw speak of the event, she remembered how her Gammaw sounded.

"You remember Gammaw said she walked the Valley of the Shadow, and the Valley was not a dark and foreboding place like we imagine."

Michael took a step forward.

" 'The Valley is green, and it smells of a thousand green growing things' " he quoted. "She's right, Sissy. It is, and it does, and I was sent back just like she was, because my work wasn't done."

"Your work does not include waving State secrets in public like a banner!"

"Maybe it does, Sissy. Maybe I'm tired of hiding. I'm not telling any lies here on Earth, everything that's been said is true, or half true: I'm away on rehab. I'm being medically evaluated. I'm undergoing equestrian therapy. All that's true. 

"Sissy, everywhere else in the Confederacy, I'm me and I'm accepted as me and I don't have to hide anything, but here?"

Michael took a breath, his young face distressed.

"Victoria and I were graduated early. Strings got pulled to get that done. Yes we did the work and yes we earned the credits and yes we busted our backsides to get all that completed and yes we're in college level classes but Sissy" -- Michael paused, took a long breath.

"Sis, I can't tether off in front of the Silver Jewel and go in for a fish sandwich. I can't tie Lightning to a hitch rail in front of the drugstore and have a chocolate hot fudge Sundae. I can't ride up behind the firehouse and go inside with a box of doughnuts. If I'm home I have to make sure the Field is up so nobody can see Lightning in the pasture."

"So you come here and ride right down the middle of the street."

"In Carbon Hill, in the rain," Michael countered.

"Do you know what you did, Michael?"

"I went for a ride in the rain. I jumped an arroyo too wide for any horse."

"You nearly caused a wreck."

"Was there a wreck?"

"No," Marnie admitted, then flared, "but you could have!"

"No boom, no foul."

"Michael!"

 

Conference was held in the firehouse.

Present were the County Sheriff, the Chief of Police, the Chaplain, and the Editor, Chief Reporter, Head Photographer and Designated Duster of Shelves, Bruce Jones.

Four men regarded the stack of doughnuts on the platter in the middle of the table.

Four men raised their coffee and took the first noisy, ceremonial, communal, slurp.

The Sheriff and the Fire Chief both dashed clinging droplets from the bottom of their respective handlebars.

"Reverend," the Editor asked, "tell me about ghosts."

"They exist," the Chaplain said simply.

"Oh, lovely," Jones groaned: he selected an iced cake doughnut, took a bite, chewed, trying to get his mental feet under him again.

"Sheriff," the Chaplain suggested, "I believe you can tell us something about ancestral appearances."

Linn looked at the Fire Chief.

"Fitz, tell us about Big Red."

Fitz shifted in his seat, his half-eaten doughnut forgotten.

"We've had a famous line of duty death, an' ye've heard it spoken of," Fitz said quietly. "Daffyd Llewellyn threw a wrapped infant across the very breath of Hell's chimney an' th' child was saved.

"Daffyd had but one chance to escape an' that was t' jump th' same gulf himself, an' he was lost."

Fitz's eyes turned toward their gleaming Steam Masheen, restored and gleaming, fully functional and in demand for festivals, fire conferences and historic re-enactments.

"We've had a couple bad ones, Jones."

Fire Chief Charles Fitzgerald looked very frankly at the newspaperman.

"Every time we have a bad one, every time, someone sees or hears th' steam wagon runnin'."

Jones looked very intently at the Fire Chief.

"Sometimes they'll hear horses at a gallop, sometimes they'll hear th' fire bell. A few times they'll hear a snatch of Irish war-ballad from a blacksmith's chest an' they'll turn, all surprised, an' look. 

"F'r a moment, f'r just a moment, they'll see Sean Finnegan standin' up in th' driver's box swingin' that blacksnake whip out o'er the mares' heads, snappin' a hole in th' air a yard above th' lead mare's ears, an' they'll see th' Steam Masheen -- yonder -- only she's alive, Newspaper Man.

The machine's alive, Mr. Newspaper Man, she's fire in her belly an' steam fra' th' pop off valve, an' they'll see men hangin' onto 'er an' ont' th' wagon behind.

"An' then they disappear.

"They'll see three white mares lungin' in their collars an' they'll feel hoofbeats underfoot but they hear nothin', she's dead silent, all but that snatch of Irishman's song, an' sure enough we'll get a bad one, so if y' e'er see th' Steam Masheen runnin' like all th' demons of Hell are chain' after, grab yer camera an' yer note pad an' come along quick-like!"

The Sheriff nodded, looked at Jones, smiled, just a little.

"Marnie and I were on business over in Denver," Linn said quietly, "and in one of the lower levels, where they house the detectives, there are some old portraits in the hallway.

"Marnie stopped and took a picture of one.

"It was an ancestress, Sarah Lynne McKenna. She'd done considerable detective work back in the late 1880s.

"Marnie sewed her Prom dress, using the one in that formal portrait as an exemplar.

"One of the detectives stopped me a week later and thanked me for Marnie showing up in that dress she'd made."

Jones looked at the Sheriff with a puzzled expression.

"Marnie never went to Denver that week, let alone wore that gown as she glided silently down the hallway and stopped in front of that portrait and disappeared."

Jones raised an eyebrow.

"There are ghosts in these mountains," the Chaplain said quietly. "An engineer on the Z&W Railroad told me of seeing the twin for their engine coming at him full throttle, on the same track. He saw her at well more than a mile, where the track curves. He started braking, hard, he expected the train to come back into sight, and he didn't see any train.

"He brought his train to a halt just as he came around a bend of his own and saw the trestle was washed out and gone."

The Chaplain chuckled a little.

"I think every member of the Z&W Railroad showed up for church that Sunday."

"It's an ancient and honored tradition," Linn said with a straight face. "When something happens like that, it's said you have to pay the preacher on Sunday."

Mr. Newspaper Man Bruce Jones picked up his doughnut, studied it, lowered it, looked at the Fire Chief, and the Sheriff, at the Chaplain.

His voice was quiet as he said, "Parson, I'll see you on Sunday!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ANALYSIS

Michael Keller was highly intelligent.

Michael Keller was marvelously talented.

Michael Keller had yet to survive the Rage that was his blood-legacy.

Thus far, Michael Keller had been hard headed, contrary, rebellious, stubborn, clever -- in other words, he was an absolutely normal child of the high mountains.

Michael did not hesitate to reply when his father called to ask his whereabouts.

 

"Michael," Linn said in that strong and confident voice of his, "are you well?"

"I am, sir," he replied -- Linn heard the smile in his son's voice -- "has something happened?"

"I was ... concerned ... after a close one on the highway."

"That was my fault, sir," Michael said without hesitation. "Sequelae?"

Medical terminology, Linn thought: not surprising, with Angela for a sister and as long as he's spent in hospital!

"You made the paper."

"Sir?"

"It seems your appearance was interpreted as ... a ghost."

Michael looked up, looked at Lightning, contentedly grazing not far away.

"A ... ghost, sir?"

"The car you ran out in front of," Linn began, then hesitated. "You know Bruce, with the newspaper."

"Of course, sir."

"He nailed the brakes."

"No collision, sir?"

"No, but Marnie and Spinner sailed right over his hood, and he thought she was the shade of Sarah Lynne McKenna."

Linn wished mightily Michael was on a desk unit instead of his wrist-comm.

He'd like to have seen his son's body language during this conversation.

"Who did he think I was, sir?"

"He never said," Linn admitted, "but he did say that ghost horse was tall as two men and half again longer than The Lady Esther."

Michael looked over at Lightning, who was industriously rolling in a patch of coarse, dry grass.

Michael whistled softly, laughed a little: Lightning rolled over, got her hooves under her, stood, shook like a dog and chirped.

"She sounds happy," Linn said, and Michael heard the smile in his father's voice.

"Yes, sir. She's been rolling in dry grass."

Linn nodded, stopped short of telling Michael to brush out her back, where the saddleblanket covered.

He'll know to do that.

No sense to say it.

He'll know.

"Michael ... there's something I need."

"Yes, sir?"

"Could you ... go back to that hospital where they overhauled your back bone?"

"Sir?"

Linn heard a chill in his son's reply.

"Michael," Linn said quietly, "I've buried sons. Their deaths were from glioblastoma of the brain. I want you seen."

Michael looked over at Lightning, shoved his jaw out.

"Can do, sir."

He tapped the wrist-unit.

"Sissy?" 

Sarah's voice sighed patiently from his wrist-comm.

"Michael, why do you call me that?"

"Because it makes you mad," Michael admitted, then his face grew serious.

"Pa said he wants my brain tested for glioblastoma."

"Victoria is already in testing."

Michael's bottom jaw thrust out and he felt his blood cool a few degrees.

"Which hospital?"

"The one where they... where you were."

"Did they ever get stables built like they promised?"

Marnie blinked, turned to another screen.  

"Stand by one, Michael."

Michael rose, walked over to Lightning, caressed her ears: the big Fanghorn draped her jaw over Michael's shoulder and muttered happily.

Michael had his Fanghorn saddled, he was mounted, he had the command ready on his wrist-comm when Marnie replied.

"Michael?"

"Right here."

"Yes. They have stables."

"Are they big enough for Lightning?"

"Yes, Michael. I asked and they are big enough."

"On my way."

Michael tapped his wrist-comm twice, looked up as the Iris opened.

A horse and rider passed through a black ellipse and disappeared.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CAN'T DO MUCH ABOUT IT

I slung the saddle blanket over my stallion's back and turned.

Esther didn't even look at me.

She come out with hers and spun it over the mare, give it one little twitch and 'twas dead smooth.

Me, I had to pull and tug and run my hand over it to make sure 'twas smooth and flat.

Couldn't help but admire that ... I'd one time told Jacob it was Women's Magic that she could do that, and he looked at me just as solemn as the old Judge and agreed with me, so maybe I wasn't terribly wrong on that one.

We saddled and cinched and mounted up.

I never looked at her and she never looked at me, we turned as one and rode side by side for the gate.

I leaned down and drew the bolt, backed my Apple-horse and Esther rode through as was her due.

I followed, she waited without looking as I closed and fast up the gate.

I come up beside her and we were both looking straight ahead.

I stopped.

We both started out on the same moment.

I don't pretend to know how she could ride with me that precisely -- I reckon it's the same way she danced, a man who knows how to dance and who knows several different steps and runs through 'em in a random way, why, I've done that with Esther and she's followed me just fine as frog hair, so I reckon that's how.

I'd figured to ride up Graveyard Hill myself, for I was unhappy, and I wished to take a look at my thoughts, and Esther rode beside me and I reckoned that a good thing as well.

Not one word passed between us.

Two riders abreast, eyes busy, moving with our horses, we rode up the packed-down, crushed-stone roadway and through the big arched cast iron gate and we rode to the family section.

I drew up and rose in my stirrups, looked around, then studied my way down the row of stones.

There weren't many.

I'd bought a good chunk of what was available, near to this whole row.

Digger had our stone bought and carved already, my fancy coffin and Esther's both slept in the cellar under the house against the day when we'd need 'em, I bought and paid for the stone and carving ahead of time.

I looked at the little stone, the one with the lamb carved on top, and I remembered the day that fellow who blamed Esther for his son's death -- claimed she'd witched him -- he fetched a shotgun out of his dead son's box, for we buried our infant son Joseph the same day he was a-buryin' his son -- he took a shot at Esther and four of us took a shot at him.

He missed.

We didn't.

Joseph, dead in his little wood box, soaked up two of the heavy shot meant for my wife, only 'twas our daughter Angela who was downstream of the box.

I'm not sure which happened first, I know Angela saw the White Wolf and hollered "Doggie!" and started toward it: I don't know if she fell and then he shot, or if he shot, the coffin stopped the shot and then Angela fell.

I'm not sure.

It does not matter.

I looked at that little carved lamb on the small stone and I remembered a laughing, red-cheeked infant.

I closed his eyes and remembered how he smelled, how he laughed when I held him up over my head, when I whirled around with his legs swung out and sailin' through the air with his Pa's big hands around him, and I recall how I felt when I picked him up out of his crib and he was cold and just startin' to go stiff and he was deader'n a hammer.

Doc said we'd done nothing wrong, sometimes an infant in perfect health just slips away from us in the crib for no reason.

I remembered all this as I looked at that little bitty stone.

There was a son, after Joseph, one who went East for schooling and never came back, least not to stay: he grew and became a man and answered the Call, and last I heard he was preachin' down Texas way and then he went back East.

A man tries to plan, and plan I did.

I had plans for Joseph.

I wanted to lean back and rage at Heaven itself, to demand why my son was taken.

I felt Esther's mare sidle up beside me.

I looked over at Esther and we recht for one another's hands.

"I don't know either, dearest," she murmured. "I've asked, but there's ... no answer."

I swallowed, squeezed her hand carefully, very gently, nodded.

A man told me once that no parent should ever have to bury a child.

I'd had to, more times than one.

No parent should have to, but it happens.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE GHOSTS OF FIRELANDS

Two pale eyed men waited in an uninteresting pastel room.

They were dressed alike, which neither pleased them, nor did it displease them: they were both equally irritated, but they were as patient as they were irritated.

"Jacob?"

Jacob looked over at his younger brother.

"Pa said our brothers died of glioma."

Jacob nodded, slowly, his face solemn.

"Pa hasn't and Uncle Pete didn't and Uncle Will hasn't."

Jacob nodded again.

"I calculated the odds."

Jacob raised an eyebrow, waited.

"I realized I didn't have enough information to calculate accurately."

Jacob considered this, then winked.

"You are smarter than most," Jacob said softly. 

"They already examined Victoria's brain."

Jacob waited.

"Absolutely nothing wrong. No signs of the concussion she had when she fell on the school playground that time."

"Does she snore?"

Michael didn't quite smile as he replied, "She never did before, but ever since she fell and smacked her gourd like she did, she snores like a freight train!"

A delicate tap at the door, a technologist in colorful scrubs leaned in:  "Jacob?" she asked, then smiled at Michael and said "This won't take long."

Jacob rose, stopped, squared his shoulders, paced off on the left.

Michael recognized the same action their long tall Pa took when he rose to proceed to an official or meaningful function.

 

Angela sat at Marnie's table, cooling tea forgotten: she had charts, diagrams, photographs, analyses: Marnie listened closely, silently, to her sister's professional medical presentation, picked up a hand drawn diagram -- showing the cancer's vine-like progression of an actual case, through an actual living brain, captured at different points in the patient's last months -- she studied the diagrams again, mentally reviewed Angela's explanation.

"He would not last long, then?"

"Not more than a few months."

"It would affect higher functions?"

"It would insinuate into the brain, yes. It would drive slender fingers throughout, conceivably it could affect vision, hearing, speech, mentation --"

"Does Michael know this?"

"He's intelligent. Very likely he's looked this up already."

"Treatment prognosis?"

"If it's caught early, if it's monitored and every last hidden cell found and killed, he'll survive. Catch it early enough, he'll have minimal deficits."

"Has he shown deficits?"

"You said he'd gotten impatient and he'd ridden Lightning right out in the open, back home."

Marnie nodded.

"That is a change in his judgement. It could be youthful rebellion, or it could be due to an organic focus."

Marnie closed her eyes, took a long, slow breath through her nose.

"Marnie, I think we should have Littlejohn seen."

Marnie's eyes snapped open.

 

"You can get dressed now, Jacob."

"Thank you, ma'am, but I'll wait for my brother."

He saw something in the technologist's eyes.

"Ma'am, is there a problem?" he asked, his voice gentle.

"If we find something," the tech said carefully, "it may be decided to ... intervene ... immediately."

Jacob raised an eyebrow.

"Perhaps you should get dressed."

"Thank you, ma'am.  I'll do that."

 

Angela followed Marnie with her eyes.

Marnie seated herself at her desk, touched a key.

"Yes, Jacob."

"It's Michael."

Angela surged to her feet, came around behind Marnie, bent, her face serious as she studied their brother's image: it was a little shaky, as if he'd taken off his wrist-comm and held it out at arm's length so they could see his face.

"I'm listening."

"He just went in to be scanned. Nobody ran out of the suite wavin' their arms and screamin' in panic when they scanned me. The young lady running the machine said if they found something in Michael, they would want to work on him right away."

"Have they found anything?"

"He's only just gone back."

Jacob's expression hardened.

"I didn't know they were ready to work on us right away if they found anything," he said slowly, his eyes growing steadily more pale.

"It's a life threatening condition, Jacob," Angela said firmly. "If there is anything there, if there is the least trace of anything there --"

"Does Michael know that?"

"I don't know," Angela admitted.

Jacob stood; the scene wobbled badly as his wrist-comm went back around his wrist.

Jacob extended his hand and gripped his father's firm handclasp.

"Sir, I'm glad you're here."

"Have they found anything?"

"I've been scanned and told nothing, sir. Michael is being scanned now."

The Sheriff nodded.

"You are fully dressed?"

Jacob's forearm pressed ever so slightly against his side, until he could feel the handle of the holstered sidearm.

"I am, sir."

"Good. We'll receive their report together and on our feet."

"Yes, sir."

 

Three pale eyed men in old-fashioned, carefully-tailored black suits, their Stetsons correctly under their off arm, boots polished to a high shine, waited for the bespectacled, dignified, older man to review the findings that had been reviewed, discussed, analyzed.

He stood.

"Jacob."

Jacob lifted his chin.

"Sir."

"We find no abnormalities indicative of glioblastoma."

"Are there other significant findings, sir?"

"There are the usual, individual anatomic variances we expect to see, but nothing to indicate any malignant process."

"Is there anything concerning, sir?"

"No. No, we find nothing concerning on this examination."

"Thank you, sir."

Marnie and Angela sat side by side behind Marnie's desk, watching on the screen.

Littlejohn sat on his Mama's lap, happily chewing on his fist.

"Michael."

"Yes, sir."

"Michael, we are seeing evidence of old injury ... I've reviewed your file and you are truly a remarkable young man, to have survived all that you have."

"Thank you, sir."

"In reviewing your most recent scans," the specialist said -- his words were slower now, very precisely enunciated, and Michael did not consider this a good sign -- "we are appreciating nothing to indicate gliomal invasion."

"Is there anything of concern, sir?" Michael asked bluntly -- Linn's ear pulled a little to hear it, as if tugged by an invisible thumb-and-forefinger: Michael's words were very precisely enunciated.

He sounds like a no-nonsense street cop getting to the bottom of something, Linn thought, but the thought brought him no pleasure.

"Nothing beyond evidence of some truly skilled spinal surgery, cranial repair behind your left ear, but nothing beyond that."

"Your prognosis, sir."

The physician peered benevolently through his black-rimmed spectacles.

"I believe the phrase I'm looking for," he said, "would be 'Outrageously good health.' "

"Your findings are negative for malignancy, sir?" Linn asked quietly.

"Yes, Sheriff. Negative for any pathological process of any kind."

 

Marnie hadn't realized she was holding her breath until she exhaled, bit her bottom lip, ran her arms around Littlejohn, nuzzled her face into the twisting, fine-haired crown at the back of his head.

Angela's breath was loud, fast, deep and gusting.

Marnie looked at Angela, then down at her son.

"How soon?" Marnie mouthed.

"Today, if you like."

Marnie rose, one arm under her son's bottom, one around his belly.

An Iris opened, two women and a child stepped into the black ellipse.

An hour later, two women, a child and three black-suited men stepped out of an Iris, into the still air of their little whitewashed church.

Across the street, and a little uphill, the newspaper's chief editor, head reporter, main photographer and executive shelf duster, Bruce Jones, was just finishing up and locking up for the night.

He'd worked late, but he was a single man; when he worked late, he'd stop at the All-Night for something nutritious and healthy, like dried-out pizza on their rotisserie: if he was lucky, he'd get it at a discount, owing to its leathery texture.

He stepped out, closed the door, turned the key in the lock; he opened the panel, tapped in a code, the light went from green to red.

He turned, looked across the silent, nighttime street.

Voices?

No, not voices.

Singing.

He turned a little, frowned, tilted his head, listening closely.

Women's voices, and beautiful.

Coming from the ... church?

This late?

Bruce listened; the voices faded, and were gone, and by the time he got close enough to the Church to look through the windows, all he saw were the curved tops of empty pews.

Bruce turned, flipped up the security panel's lid, tapped in the disarm code: the light went from red to green, he thrust the key back in the lock.

He had an addendum for the special edition he was running, one he'd probably be ridiculed for, but he was a newspaperman, and he intended to write what he knew to be facts.

He woke up his computer, mentally arranging the words he wished to add to his article.

Here it is, he thought.

The Ghosts of Firelands.

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CHURCH

Victoria Keller sat primly beside her Daddy, looking very girly and proper in a handmade Sunday frock that would have been perfectly at home on a pretty young girl in the mid-1885s.

Michael sat beside a young mother, on the far side of his Mama: like his Pa, he wore a severe black suit, a white shirt with vertical pleats, and an emerald-green necktie with a square ruby stickpin: his Stetson was in his lap, his boots polished to a mirror shine, and like his Pa, his was impassively solemn.

The Bear Killer was on the floor at their feet, curled up around a stray infant rescued from the Infantry: a fussy baby's inconsolable cries were silenced when a huge, curly-black, Bear Killer of a mountain Mastiff paced back to the nursery, under the standing joke of a hand painted shingle hung over the door -- "Infantry" -- history did not record which wise wag mounted this bad pun, but it hung there for at least two World Wars' time, and for that reason alone, was maintained as one of the ancient touchstones of the institution.

The Sheriff walked quickly back as well, following The Bear Killer: a tearful young mother watched as a pale eyed Sheriff with an iron grey mustache expertly fed her child, changed her child, wiped and powdered and diapered a shining little bottom, as he pulled out a flask, dipped the tip of his little finger in a capful of something and wiped it on a teething baby's gums.

The sleeping baby was on a blanket, on the floor, the mother seated between Michael and his mother: she watched as her exhausted infant slept, contentedly curled up with a very pleased-with-himself canine big enough to be saddled and ridden by a two-year-old.

Reverend John Burnett's sermon, though well written and interesting, was not what the congregation remembered.

Reverend Burnett pressed a control; a panel slid aside, a grey screen hummed almost silently upward, stopped.

The Reverend picked up something the size of a can of condensed soup, stepped from behind the pulpit: he descended the three steps, put his finger to his lips -- the man's smile was a quiet, grandfatherly expression -- he knelt, and on the screen, the congregation saw The Bear Killer, close up, curled around a sleeping, apple-cheeked, absolutely cherubic, child.

"Bear Killer," the Parson asked, "are you a good boy?"

The Bear Killer's tail happily pounded the polished floor.

"Are you helping the baby sleep?" the Parson asked -- hidden speakers, a surprising number of them, cleverly concealed, carried his gentle voice to every corner of the little whitewashed Church.

The Bear Killer's mouth was open in a happy, doggy grin: he chopped his jaws and gave a happy "whuff!" -- and the vigorous delight of his furry tail was plainly seen on the elevated screen.

"Bear Killer, I'm going to preach a sermon."

The Bear Killer's eyes closed, his head hit the floor, and a sinner's-heart-black, curly-furred, Bear Killer of a mountain Mastiff, snored.

Reverend Burnett shut off the hand held camera, stood, laughing silently: he winked at the Sheriff, turned, walked quietly back up to his pulpit, set the camera on the shelf in the pulpit's hollow back.

Nobody remembered the Parson's sermon that Sunday.

Nobody forgot the sight of The Bear Killer's gentle snore as the Parson's camera captured the image of a sleeping child, safe and warm against a fiercely protective guardian, nor said guardian's closed eyes and quiet snore at the mention of the word "Sermon."

Perhaps the image was a better sermon than the carefully crafted words the man prepared for the day's service.

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CHOP JOB

A pale eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache regarded the signs of ruin.

It was probably the only time the Mercantile closed.

WJ Garrison was taking the day off -- three days, actually, so he and his wife could attend a wedding some distance away -- Town Marshal Jackson Cooper received the breathless report from a stray lad playing hooky from evening chores, he instructed the excited lad to run and get the Sheriff, who was at home and very likely finishing supper.

Jackson Cooper was, to put it politely, a tall man: the Sheriff was reckoned tall, at six foot two, and Jackson Cooper was a hand at least taller, some said two hands, if a man split the difference and said a hand and a half he might be close: it was known that his wife, Emma Cooper, the schoolmarm, was anything but tall, and it was almost comical to see the two of them together, especially at a Saturday night dance when the Marshal would just honestly fetch his wife clear off the ground and whirl her about, to their mutual laughter -- but we're not talking about his sweet, grandmotherly wife.

No, we're talking about a genuinely large man, broad of shoulder, a man who could walk up to and walk off with, just about anything he wanted, including Missouri mules, blacksmith's anvils, and the odd steam locomotive.

He was also considerably faster, especially his hands, than folks realized, and he used that to his good advantage.

Another advantage he exploited every chance he got, was his gift of stealth.

For a walking mountain of good honest muscle, Jackson Cooper was as near to silent on his feet as a man could be.

When the Sheriff and his son came into town at a gallop, it was to find Jackson Cooper emerging from the forced-open back door to the Mercantile, with a squirming, swearing, threatening, protesting thief in each hand.

Jackson Cooper looked at the Sheriff, raised an eyebrow.

The Sheriff nodded, just a little.

Jackson Cooper banged two thieves together, smacking their skulls soundly against one another.

"I'll unlock the hoosegow," Jacob said, and a black-suited lawman on an Appaloosa stallion, walked beside a truly large town Marshal, carrying two limp, limb-dangling criminals as casually as another man might carry two items of luggage.

 

Linn and Jacob lit a lamp and looked around.

"WJ won't like this."

"No, sir, he won't."

"Made a mess of things."

"Yes, sir, they did."

Father and son looked at the opened safe.

The door was still fast shut, but the safe was turned over on its top, heavy iron casters like stubby round feet pointed toward the ceiling.

A brand new double bit ax lay on the floor, the safe's wood bottom had been cut through, the contents removed and stuffed in a gunny sack -- both ax and poke having been taken from current inventory.

Linn picked up the lamp, brought it over: he held it over the bottomless safe, saw where they'd tried to cut through the next shelf in the safe.

"I reckon Jackson Cooper interrupted 'em before they could get any further," Linn speculated.

"Yes, sir, reckon so."

Linn looked around, shook his head.

"I hate to leave this mess for 'em to come home to, but I don't know where he kept anything."

"Might be we'd ought leave it as is, sir, so he can see just what-all they did, and how much."

Linn nodded.

"Jacob, is there a yard stick yonder?"

Jacob turned, looked, stepped across the room and returned with the item.

"Take me a measure on this safe."

"Yes, sir."

Linn set the lamp down on WJ's desk, brought out a small notebook and a short pencil.

Jacob laid the yard stick along the safe's side, consulted the scale, read off the width: its length was the same, its height half again its side measurement.

"Three shelves, if I recall right," Linn speculated, noting down this remembered observation.

He looked at Jacob.

"Do I recall a safe cracker just got sent to the State Pen?"

"I believe so, sir."

"Do I recall he expressed his contempt in court for safes like this?"

"He did, sir."

"He was quoted in the newspaper."

"I read it in their newspaper, yes, sir."

"Jacob, have we still that newspaper?"

"We have, sir."

Linn considered for a long moment.

"WJ and his wife will come back into town tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

"I reckon he'll be inclined to listen to me this time."

"Sir?"

"I warned him these safes have a wood bottom and they were susceptible to what thieves call a Chop Job."

Jacob considered the ruined safe, upside down in the middle of the floor, double bit ax laying beside it.

"Reckon we can secure that back door, sir?"

Linn nodded.

"Yes, Jacob, I reckon we can."

 

WJ Garrison was a thrifty man.

WJ Garrison was a man not given to frivolous expenses.

WJ Garrison was not willing to listen to the Sheriff's recommendation of a Mosler safe -- "I'll have a new bottom put in, Sheriff, but I'll use white oak!" -- at least, until the Sheriff offered to pay half on a new, steel bottom Mosler.

If Old Pale Eyes is so foolish as to just give away money, WJ thought, why shouldn't I be canny enough to accept it?

Stores of the era were known to have safes -- a man didn't spend good money on one just to be spending money, he had to have something valuable inside it -- and so the safe was a target: this was not the only time the Mercantile would know a criminal's predations, but thanks to that old pale eyed Sheriff, it was the last time anyone ever pulled a chop job, at least under that particular roof.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

QUIET, SWEET AND GENTLE

Miss Sarah's head came up and so did her skirts.

She reached down, seized a double handful, haul her hemline clear of the ground and sprinted for the schoolhouse door.

She made no attempt at stealth -- not at the sound of conflict -- she saw Billy Martin smack the city kid, hard, she saw the usually-closed, usually-concealed panel that hid her rifle, open, and she saw her prized .40-60 laying on the floor.

The city kid went down, came up, glaring: "I'll get you," he muttered, and Billy jumped up and drove both feet into the city kid's belly.

Sarah clapped her hands, once.

Billy climbed off; the city kid rolled over, gagging, gasping to breathe, blood dripping from a flattened nose.

Billy looked down at the .40-60, looked up at Miss Sarah.

"He tried to take your rifle," he said simply. "I stopped him."

Sarah knew her students; she knew her students' families; she knew Billy's father was honest as the day is long, and she knew Billy was just like his father.

"Thank you, Billy," Sarah said crisply. "Please join the others outside."

"Yes, ma'am."

Sarah seized the city kid by his shirt front -- she bent over, SLAMMED her hands into his chest, CLAWED up a good double handful of material -- she hauled him off his feet, pinned him against the wall.

"Get your wind," she said softly, shifting her grip to keep blood from dripping on the cuffs of her dress, knowing that gravity would pull his legs down, this would expand his diaphragm, this would help him breathe.

She held him pinned against the wall -- he was as tall as she, for Sarah was not a tall young woman -- when she finally released her pin, his heels fell a bare inch before he was supporting his own weight.

Sarah's eyes were pale, her lips were pressed together: she seized the offending child's arm, spun him around, grabbed him by the nape of the neck and marched him out the front door, down the steps, and out into the street.

Emma Cooper turned from Billy: she and Sarah exchanged a single, wordless nod, and Sarah knew her rifle would be replaced in its hidden cubby, the panel closed, and school would resume as normal.

In the meantime she was taking her young charge home.

A hard-eyed schoolmarm with rimless spectacles halfway down her nose and a grim expression on her otherwise-pretty face, half-shoved, half-dragged a recalcitrant, nose-bloodied student the length of the street and up the short side street and to his house.

 

The next day an enraged father presented at the schoolhouse.

"WHICH OF YOU IS SARAH!" he shouted.

Miz Sarah lowered the book she was reading aloud for a group of children; she looked at him over her spectacles, smiled and said, "I have that honor, sirrah."

He stormed up the center aisle, accusing finger poking holes in the air as he came:  "YOU HIT MY SON!"

Sarah closed her book, handed it to the nearest student, and smiled.

She glided toward the red-faced man, tilted her head and said gently, "Your son is a thief, sirrah, and he tried to steal from me!"

The man raised a fist, took a step forward.

"MY SON IS NOT A THIEF!" -- his shouted words were cut off with a strangled wheeze as more pain than he'd ever known, detonated not far south of his belt buckle, and what had been the face of a composed, calm, smiling young woman, dissolved in a haze of bright sparkles as the floor came up to meet him.

Sarah stepped around behind him, lifted her skirts, dropped into a half-crouch and drove the sharp little heel of her high-button shoe as hard as she could, into the man's right kidney.

"Caleb, Michael and Samuel," Sarah said, rising. "Help me drag this sinner outside."

Willing young hands grabbed coatsleeves, coat-collar, shoulder material: a groaning, retching man, eyes shut against the pain that seared through his soul, was dragged out of their little one room schoolhouse: they rolled him without ceremony down the steps, Sarah put two fingers to her lips and whistled, raising a summoning hand.

Town Marshal Jackson Cooper came over, curious: Miz Emma stood in the doorway, prim, proper and disapproving, her hands very properly folded in her apron; Miz Sarah stood, equally composed, one hand on a youthful shoulder, her other hand on another youthful shoulder: her voice was gentle as she thanked her young charges for assisting her in this very unpleasant detail, and if they would return to their places within, she would be back shortly.

"Marshal Cooper," Emma Cooper said, lifting her chin, "this ... this scoundrel came into our schoolhouse and caused us to fear he was about to commit violence on Miss Sarah!"

Jackson Cooper's face darkened: it was not often he allowed displeasure to show in his expression, but as he looked down at the groaning man curled up on his side in the dirt, it was evident from the big town Marshal's face that he was far less than happy with what he'd just heard.

"I shall tender a written report for the arrest record," Miss Sarah said quietly. "We do wish to press charges."

Jackson Cooper looked at Miss Sarah, his expression softening considerably: he removed his battered, misshapen skypiece -- it used to be a fine, well-made Stetson, a gift from the Sheriff, at least until he got nervous, which he did when speaking with the ladies -- Sarah glided forward a step, laid gentle fingertips on his big, tanned hands before he could crush and twist his hat into a shapless felt sausage yet again.

Jackson Cooper swallowed, he felt his ears redden: he looked up at his wife, who smiled, just a little, and nodded.

Jackson Cooper harrumphed self-consciously and mumbled, "Miss Sarah, I always did admire how you talk with that fancy language of yours."

He ducked his head and looked at her sidelong and she saw his complexion redden like a bashful schoolboy as he said softly, " 'Tender a written report.' "

He bent down, grabbed a big handful of the man's coat between his shoulder blades.

"I reckon assault on a schoolteacher will do to start with," he said as he picked up the curled-up prisoner as easily as he would a luggage.

"His Honor the Judge will be holdin' court tomorrow. I reckon this fellow can stay in the hoosegow until then."

 

 

 

 

Edited September 30 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE ESCALATOR TO HELL

Michael Keller touched a control, sent an image to the big screen in the front of the classroom.

"Her name was Sarah Lynne McKenna, known also as the Black Agent," Michael said, "and as you can see here -- this portrait on the left is taken from a glass plate negative -- and the portrait on the right you will recognize as my sister, Chief Diplomat Marnie Keller."

Michael's quick ear heard someone breathe, "They could be twins!"

He turned, thrust the pointer at the speaker, smiled.

"Yes ma'am, they could, and it gets better.  This" -- he touched another control, the split screen with two portraits became a split screen with three portraits.

"The woman on the right is my grandmother, Sheriff Willamina Keller. This is her formal portrait which still hangs in my father's office back in Firelands. If we switch this out for Grandma, some years younger and in her hand-sewn prom dress --"

Three identical women, three identical poses, three identical gowns.

"Gowns two and three were sewn on a Singer treadle machine. We still have it and my twin sister uses it regularly. My Grandmother" -- the right hand portrait spread to cover the entire screen -- "was hell on a greased griddle when she got her dandruff up.

"Her temper is hereditary, as are the pale eyes. Pa and I work continually to keep ourselves on an even keel. I've seen what happens when my Big Sis turns her badger loose" -- the image of a snarling badger, all claws and teeth and looking like it was ready to jump out of the screen at the viewers -- "well, things get kind of strenuous, and that's why I want to talk about this first image, Sarah Lynne McKenna."

Another image: Michael remembered the quiet click-slide noise of his Gammaw's slide projector, and somehow he wished there were such a transition between pictures here -- then he pushed the thought aside as an irrational distraction, and continued.

"Here is Sarah with a Denver detective. This portrait hangs in the Denver Police Department Detectives' Bureau hallway to this day, and it's been said Sarah's shade visits it. I've never seen it, but I know the men who said they did, and I choose to believe them.

"Now."  Michael wagged the tapered, yard-long pointer over his shoulder at the screen behind him.

"This is a page from the Fireland court docket. I've taken the liberty to illustrate a few places, and to add material from the official, hand-written record.

"It seems that a student from the Big City decided to steal Sarah's rifle -- the one she kept in their one-room schoolhouse, the one hidden in a concealed panel, the one he broke the lock to get into.

"Another student confronted him, ducked when the city-boy thief tried to smack him with the rifle barrel, and drove a haymaker into the city boy's snot box."

Michael's terminology wasn't quite what they were used to, but the class followed closely, learning from context and projected illustrations.

"Miss Sarah, as she was known, was one of the two schoolteachers. Emma Cooper was the paid teacher, but Miss Sarah worked just as hard and taught just as much. She taught for the joy of teaching, or so she said in a letter, mailed shortly before her murder in Germany, and that's another story."

An image of a globe; a dotted red line began in the Western mountains, arched over the majority of the continent, across blue ocean, dropped into a red-outlined, irregular shape on a land mass marked EUROPE.

"Miss Sarah was not at all gentle when she came back into the classroom."

The screen turned grey; a tornado, menacing, twisting, hauling debris into the air, rumbled powerfully through hidden speakers.

"She grabbed that city kid and drove him up against the wall and held him there until he got tired, then she took him by the scruff of the neck and frogmarched him to his house. Wasn't far, Firelands was not a large town in those days and it's not much for size today.

"Next day the father showed up, all loud mouth and threatening gestures, and demanded to know who Miss Sarah was.

"Miss Sarah" -- the image of a slim, diminutive young woman in a mousy-grey dress, with her hair pulled severely up into an old-maid walnut atop her head, transfixed with a knife-whittled pencil, came up on the screen -- "looked over top her spectacles and said she was, and he came up and cocked a fist at her and allowed as she'd hit his boy and he didn't allow that."

Michael grinned, set his pointer's rubber end on the toe of his boot -- habit, that's how he grounded his rifle when he set the butt end down -- "Miss Sarah, that skinny little schoolteacher, just honestly decked him.

"She took him to the floor in more pain than he'd ever known, she mule kicked him in the kidney to make him feel worse, she got a few of the boys to help drag this trouble maker outside and roll him down the steps to the dirt street, and she had the Town Marshal pack him off to the calaboose until the Judge held court the next day."

Students and teacher alike watched as the drama played out on the screen.

"Now."

Michael held the pointer like a pool cue, slowly swept the entire class with his eyes, touching everyone's gaze with his own.

"Next day, in court."

 

"All rise."

The entire population of the crowded courtroom came to their feet.

"Firelands District Court is now in session, the honorable Judge Donald Hostetler presiding. God bless this honorable Court!"

His Honor the Judge frowned, lifted the lid on his cigar humidor, harrumphed, looked around: he lowered the lid, picked up the gavel, smacked it on his desk top.

"Be seated."

The Judge sat, and so did everyone else.

"First case."

"Walter J Sukey and son vs Sarah Lynne McKenna, assault in two counts."  The Bailiff handed the Judge a thin sheaf of papers. "Related to Sarah Lynne McKenna vs Charles Sukey and Walter J Sukey, theft, attempted theft, vandalism, damaging of school property, menacing and assault."

His Honor the Judge whistled.

"Mr. Sukey, you or your counsel will present your case."

 

Michael narrated the re-enactment as it played out on the screen.

"This class," he said, "concerns human psychology. There is an excellent arena for studying applied psychology, and that is in a court of law, where everyone is trying to get the most advantage from every words, every phrase, every question, every answer.

"Let's skip the boring parts.

"Here" -- the image froze -- "His Honor just asked Sarah to stand.

"She is a schoolteacher, so she is wearing her plain, mousy-grey schoolteacher's dress. She has her spectacles halfway down her nose, as was her habit, and as they were more for decoration than for use. I understand her eyesight was quite good.

"Notice, though" -- he thrust the pointer at the image -- "she stands between the Sheriff and his son Jacob."

Michael grinned that quick, contagious grin of his and he added, "My father's name is Linn and his firstborn son is Jacob. I'm not going to speculate about coincidence, but it comes in kind of handy when we want to portray Firelands in the late 1800s. That's actually Marnie standing between them.

"Now my Pa is a tall man and he's a lean waisted man and that makes him look taller, and Jacob is built just like him, only Pa has a nice thick mustache and Jacob's isn't thick enough to make a good handlebar yet, but he's workin' on it.

"Notice with Marnie in between the two -- if she's a twin for Sarah and my Pa and my older brother look just like the men they're named after -- well, this is what the court saw when Sarah stood.

"She looks almost like a little girl, flanked by two broad shouldered, long, tall lawmen."

Michael winked, jerked his head toward the screen and declared, "Applied psychology!

"Now when they did this, the defendant wasn't happy at all, for he was a sizable man, and not because he worked for a living.  No, he was a city man, and his size was more table muscle than the kind you get from hard work."

 

His Honor the Judge looked at Sarah, looked at Sukey.

"Mr. Sukey, please stand."

Sukey scowled, stood.

"Could the two of you stand out in the middle of the floor, please?"

Sarah lifted her chin, paced coolly to the middle of the floor.

Sukey scowled his way to her side, which made her look all the smaller.

"Mr. Sukey," the Judge said, "are you telling me you cocked a fist at this ... little girl?"

"This -- this -- outrageous woman," Sukey sputtered, "hit my son!"

"This court has sworn testimony otherwise, sir. The question remains, did you or did you not raise your fist to her?"

Sarah turned to her table and said quietly, "Please bring me a chair."

"I, SHE, SEE HERE!"

The Judge smack his gavel, loudly, suddenly: Jacob brought Sarah's chair out, set it beside her, withdrew.

"Mister Sukey, your son is a thief. We have that testimony and the Sheriff's investigation corroborates this. Your son was apprehended in the act of theft, your son was seen damaging school property to execute this theft, your son --"

"MY SON DID NO SUCH THING!"

Sarah Lynne McKenna, schoolteacher, stood up on her chair and backhanded the shouting Sukey.

Hard.

"You, sirrah, have called me a liar," she declared in a firm voice, pitched to carry:  "I DEMAND SATISFACTION, SIRRAH!"

Sukey blinked, shocked:  "Satis -- satisfaction?"

Sarah spun two blades, held them out:  "Take one, and I shall take the other, and we'll settle this."

Silence claimed the courtroom.

Not one soul there moved.

"I'd suggest you take it," the Sheriff said, rising: "you are a liar and you are a coward, and if you do not --"

"What? You'll shoot me?"

"I won't have to," Linn said in a gentle voice. "Do you see these ladies behind me?  They are the Ladies' Tea Society. The one right behind me is the schoolteacher's mother. She has a Navy Colt on her person, and she can split playing cards four shots out of six at fifteen feet with it."

The Sheriff paused, continued.

"The woman beside her is my wife. She has a double twelve-bore among the folds of her skirt. It is a tight choked bird gun and it's loaded with swan shot and I guarantee at this distance it'll open up about two inches is all.

"Now on the other side of the schoolteacher's mother, you've got Daisy Finnegan, and she's got a worse weapon than my wife.  She has" -- the Sheriff smiled, just a little, just enough to look wolflike -- "she has a wooden spoon. I've seen her beat a grown man to his knees with that thing.

"You have been challenged to a duel of honor.  For the life of me I don't know why. You have no honor about you. You threaten a small woman and you get beat to the ground by a small woman, and you can't take her with your fists so you take her to court."

The Sheriff sighed, shook his head.

"I honestly feel sorry for you, mister. I don't see how you can live with being such a coward."

 

"So first," Michael said, "she stood up between two tall men, which made her look all the smaller, then she went out in the middle of the floor, which made her look smaller, then she stood up on a chair to backhand him, which made her look smaller while making him look like a clod."

Michael smiled, just a little, turned to look at the screen, looked back.

"Applied psychology at its best."

"What happened then?" -- a hand raised, a voice spoke a question.

Michael laughed.

"Now that's the part we really didn't want to re-enact for your viewing pleasure," he said.

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna was more than expert with blades of various sizes.

She'd fought on pavement, on gravel, she'd fought on a sandbar in the middle of a river, but she'd never fought standing on a chair.

She faded back from the first slash, counterslashed: Sukey's blade passed just at nose level, hers caught up with his and sliced a shallow, painful cut across his knuckles, just enough to sting.

Sarah spun her blade, down, then up, caught his, steered it away, brought hers down on a fast arc, sliced two buttons off his coat.

He made the mistake of looking at her face.

Sarah's eyes were pale, but her smile was genuine.

He hesitated, surprised, and inherited an intentionally shallow slice across the tip of his nose.

He jumped back, yelped, dropped his knife.

Sarah jumped down, landed on the balls of her feet.

"Pick it up," she said.

He stared at her, horrified.

"I SAID PICK IT UP, YOU COWARD!"

He looked at his bleeding knuckles, at the blood on his hand from his sliced nose.

He turned, ran for the door.

Sarah picked up the dropped blade, slid it back into its hidden sheath, wiped her own edge daintily on a kerchief, slipped it away as well.

She put her hands on her hips, turned slowly, turned a full circle.

"Your Honor," she said, "I don't seem to have any accusers.  Move to dismiss."

His Honor the Judge swung his gavel -- BANG! -- "So ordered!"

 

Michael Keller turned off the screen, turned to face the class.

"So there's the lesson for today," he said. "Applied psychology played this man like a fiddle. He rode the escalator to Hell, and was so publicly shamed that he had to go back to the city where he could live in a coward's anonymity!"

Edited September 30 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IT WAS NOT WASTED

 

“Gunfighter, this is Diplomat One.”

Gracie smiled.

Marnie did not have to use voice comm, not when she flew The Ship.

Marnie was as mind-linked with The Ship as the Valkyries were with their Interceptors.

It would have been more efficient to translink – but Marnie made it clear she distrusted the idea of allowing anyone access to her thoughts.

Besides, she’d said, there is an elegance to the spoken word.

“Diplomat One, Gunfighter.”

“Good news. Michael shows no signs of glioma.”

“I could have told you that, Diplomat.”

There was a good length of silence, unbroken even by static.

“Come again?” Marnie finally said, and Gracie smiled to hear the honest surprise in her voice.

“How’s for coffee, Diplomat? You’re buying!”

 

Marnie Keller sat at a table in their combined auditorium, cafeteria, meeting hall, dance floor and general purpose assembly room.

Marnie wore her usual McKenna gown; she sipped tea from an eggshell-porcelain teacup.

Gracie wore her pilot’s shiny-black skinsuit, spherical helmet thrown back between her shoulder blades: black-gloved hands held the oversized coffee mug delicately, as daintily as Marnie’s gloved fingers held her delicate porcelain.

Gracie closed her eyes and sighed in honest pleasure as she felt good coffee warm her insides.

“I needed this,” she sighed.

“I wanted to tell you as soon as I heard myself.”

“You’re pregnant?” Gracie asked, her eyes snapping open, her expression honestly surprised.

“No, no, no,” Marnie grimaced, making a wrist-bent go-away motion: “Michael!”

“Oh, that.”  Gracie turned her head away, turned back.

“I told you it was a waste of time, Marnie.”

“Yes, you said that,” Marnie echoed coolly.  “Upon what do you base your premise?”

“Well now if you ain’t Miss High and Mighty,” Gracie declared, planting her knuckles on her belt:  she tried to glare at Marnie, and Marnie refused to play, and the two ended up laughing – one of those curious interactions seen between the female of the species, for reasons men seldom if ever are permitted to understand.

“Marnie, do you remember when Victoria came to us for help?”

Marnie blinked her eyes, surprised.

“No,” she admitted.  “No, I … don’t …”

“Oh.”

“What do you mean, oh?”

“You’ll find out anyhow,” Gracie muttered, leaned forward, shiny-black elbows on the table, her oversized, thick walled mug held in both hands.

“Victoria came to us. She knew the entire Valkyrie squadron was stopping here on Mars, she met us and asked our help.

“She knew something about the nanos we carry. That’s how our Ships keep us alive. Nanos take care of cancers, pathogens, anything that’ll cause us trouble is destroyed.”

“You said cancers.”

“Mm.”  Gracie nodded, her face in her coffee cup. “Renal cancer is an especial concern with radiation exposure. We’re well enough shielded, but before shielding was perfected, we had to have something to keep us from developing not just cancers of the kidney. Medical nanobots, and they weren’t our invention – I’m not sure where the Confederates got those – anyway, Victoria knew something about them and she said Michael might die and she wanted to inject him with nanos so he’d live.”

“Aren’t those made exclusively for … post-adolescent females?”

Gracie shrugged.

“When she said Michael might die otherwise, I thought what the hell. She gave him some and she gave that big ugly horse of his some. I have no idea if they helped the horse or not – I’m satisfied since she’s still alive, they didn’t see her as an enemy, elsewise she’d have been dead five minutes after Victoria ran her hand against the fur to wipe the nanopaste on bare hide.”

“So why …”

Marnie frowned, mentally reviewing the question: she took another sip of tea.

“Gracie … you … they examined Michael and found he was cancer free.”

“I know. Thanks to the nanos, he will be.”

“Since the nanos are designed for females only, will they attack his … masculinity?”

“No. I consulted the Confederate experts. I thought the subject might come up, so I got the answers I needed before talking to you about it.”

“Good,” Marnie muttered as she drained her tea. “Michael is already sneaky and he’s conniving and now he’s getting rebellious. If he became a girl, he’d be a homewrecker for sure!”

“No, you’re safe there,” Gracie assured her.

Marnie stared off into the distance, remembering how she’d sung here when the hall was empty, and she was alone, and how she was able to pitch the echoes of her voice in the stillness.

“You said he’d been seen, he’d been evaluated and all was well.”

Marnie looked back at her.

“You didn’t know this?”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Marnie confided, leaning toward her old friend just a little.

“Daddy was worrying himself sick. You remember when the twins died of brain cancer, and then Joseph?”

Gracie nodded.

“Daddy blamed himself. I hope he doesn’t blame himself now. He could not have possibly done anything to have caused it. He had to … Michael and Jacob were both tested. You can see where Michael was hurt, there were healed fractures in his skull and they saw the spinal repair.”

“Your Daddy would not have been as comforted by being told Victoria shot Michael with fighter pilot nanobots.”

“No. He understands doctors and testing.”

Gracie nodded.

“A waste of time, then.”

“Pretty much.”

“Unless … maybe it was not time wasted.  Not if it eased the man’s mind.”

Marnie nodded, her eyes distant, haunted.

“Bingo.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AN IRISHMAN’S BLESSING

 

Sean Finnegan leaned his thick, muscled shoulder into the door frame and stared at his wife.

Daisy owned the kitchen, ever since that pale eyed, hell raisin’ Sheriff came into town and kicked it into submission, ever since he took a dirty saloon an’ house of ill repute and rebuilt it, cleaned it up, got rid of the whorehouse and set the place to rights, ever since it became respectable and clean and a credit to its name.

The Silver Jewel.

Sean stared at his wife as she muttered her way around the kitchen, complaining about the stew, frowning at the gravy, glaring at bread, hot, fragrant and golden, as it came out of the oven: he watched as she laid a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder and murmured that she was doin’ a marvelous job, and then she whirled and planted her knuckles on her apron strings and declared, “Finn MacCool, wha’ are ye starin’ a’ two hard workin’ women for?”

She snatched up a sweet roll, stepped up to him, shaking the fresh, hot bread menacingly:  “Ye men are all all alike!” she scolded loudly. “Ye’re no’ but mouth an’ hands an’ ye’ve but one thing on yer minds!”

Sean opened his mouth to protest and she thrust the sweet roll between strong, even teeth.

“It’s all ye think about!  FOOD!”

Daisy’s hired girl, pink-cheeked, laughed silently while she added chopped onions to the stew and stirred.

Sean raised a finger and chewed while his wife poked her finger into his chest for emphasis, her scolding diatribe a steady stream of Gaelic, Western English and some Spanish for flavoring, and when Sean finally was able to swallow and clear his tongue, he took his wife gently by the shoulders and said “Daisymedear, I’ve been kissed by another woman!”

Daisy froze, her mouth open in astonishment.

The hired girl stopped her stirring, looked with wide and shocked eyes at the big Irish fire chief.

Daisy had been up on the balls of her feet:  she sagged slowly down onto her heels.

“It’s Sarah,” Sean said sorrowfully.  “She’s left us.”

Daisy’s expression went from astonishment to dismay: she brought her bent wrist to her mouth, her other hand going to her high stomach: “Dead?” she squeaked.

The hired girl looked sidelong at the couple, and Sean saw the look of dread on her pretty young face.

“No, no, no,” Sean murmured, his big, thick, blacksmith’s arms wrapping gently around his wife.  “Sarah is alive and well.”

Daisy shoved viciously against her husband’s broad chest, glared up at him, shoved an accusing finger under his nose.

“Finn MacCool,” she snapped, “dona’ ye play wi’ a puir woman’s feelin’s now! Wha’ ha’e ye been up to, ya womanizin’ rake?”

Sean looked at his wife with an expression of genuine sorrow.

He cleared his throat, swallowed, harrumphed again.

“It’s bad,” Daisy whispered, pulling a kerchief from her sleeve, crumpling it against her mouth:  “it’s bad!”

“I saw her off a’ th’ station t’day.”

“It’s tha’ German count!” Daisy snapped.  “That cradle robbin’ scoundrel –”

“It’s his son.”

“What!”

Daisy stood, mouth open: she’d met the Count, she’d been charmed by his manners, she’d thought he’d seduced their puir innocent Sarah, spirited her off to those dark German mountains – his son?

“His son hasna’ been here,” Daisy said faintly, “an’ she’s goin’ … she’s  …?”

“Aye. She is to marry a man she’s ne’er seen.”

Daisy leaned against her husband’s chest, held him desperately, as if afraid reality itself may fall away from her if her grip slacked in the least.

She looked up at Sean.

“She kissed ye, then, before she left?”

Sean nodded.

Daisy shoved her face into her husband’s chest:  the hired girl pretended to see Daisy’s shoulders working, the way a woman will when she doesn’t want her grief heard.

Daisy finally came up for air, her face wet: she bit her bottom lip, looked up at her husband, patted his chest, nodded.

“Did ye gi’e her our blessin’s, then?”

“I did, Daisy.  I did.”

“Then ye did right,” Daisy sniffed.

Somehow she managed a smile, made a fist, punched her husband’s breastbone, then she leaned against him again, held him, and he held her back.

“Wherever she goes, Daisymedear,” he said in that strong, gentle, reassuring voice of his, “she’ll ha’e an Irishman’s blessing in her pocket!”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE LADY SAID NO!

Part One

 

Steel hissed like snakescales on desert rock as Marnie drew her blade.

Accept your death, the voice whispered.

Marnie snarled, drew her second blade, crouched a little: she folded her twelve inch wakizashi back along her forearm, blade out; her left hand Bowie was point-up, edge out, and thirsty.

Marnie’s weight was on the balls of her feet, her eyes were white, polished, iced, hard, and she never felt so alive, so alive! – as death came at her, intent on claiming yet another soul.

All magic is based on belief, she thought.

You trapped me here.

You thought I would regard this as magic.

You thought my belief would kill me!

Marnie snarled deep in her chest, took a deep breath, she breathed deep to her center, breathed to her hara, she bent a little at the waist and screamed, “NO!”—and the full weight of her pale eyed Rage shot her voice like a lance to where it needed to go.

 

 

A pale eyed Sheriff raised his head, his eyes narrowing.

His shining-gold stallion laid his ears back, danced – a fine sight, his head up, his tail up, mincing as if tiptoeing to music only he could hear –

Sarah!

The Sheriff looked over at Jacob, who reached down, shucked out his rifle, nodded.

Two lawmen leaned forward in their saddles, two stallions surged into a gallop.

One of their own was in trouble.

They had no idea how they knew.

 

Valkyrie Flight went from routine patrol to full wartime acceleration.

Ten Interceptors keyed in coordinates, activated their Irises, shot though the nonexistent gap between universes, came out impossibly far from where they’d just been.

They emerged in wheel formation, and they emerged with weapons charged and ready.

Diplomat One – known among the Valkyries simply as The Ship – was drifting, powerless, derelict: outwardly intact, but without any appreciable energy signature.

Only the core, which existed extradimensionally, remained active and awake, and the core was screaming.

No Ship was complete without its human half, and its human half was physically there.

Her mind was not, and the Ship screamed in pain and in loss and in grief and in agony.

The Valkyries knew what they were facing, they’d been briefed on these traps, they’d studied remnants of powerless traps, they knew how dangerous these traps were.

Before they blew this one to hell and loose atoms, though, they would have to go in and get Marnie, get her before whatever loose hell was in the trap, killed her.

The Valkyries knew these traps immobilized the ship, extracted any sentient mind, then killed the mind – by convincing the mind it faced an enemy it could not vanquish.

Gracie – callsign Gunfighter – smiled, touched her Valkyrie sisters’ minds, then moved in on The Ship.

Ghostly tendrils opened like caressing fingers from her Interceptor’s flat, shining, mirror-silver belly, drew The Ship close, held it like a lover as Gracie’s mind flowed into the captured vessel, as she touched The Ship, as she soothed it like she would soothe a terrified child.

Three more Valkyries floated in, each docking gently, until The Ship was encased by Interceptors, with a half dozen surrounding it.

Gracie backtracked Marnie’s course: she scanned the back trail, smiled.

Hang on, Marnie, we’re coming!

Ten Valkyries smiled, ten Valkyries locked weapons on the trap.

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna fired with both hands, a rolling, chopping barrage, left-right-left-right, her blocky Bulldog pistols driving fingers of dirty fire and invisible death: four men sough her death, four men fell: Sarah dropped, peeked over the back of the passenger car’s bench as someone yanked open the back door.

Gunsmoke hazed the interior, someone was sobbing – a girl screamed as the door opened, as daylight seared into the sulfurous interior –

Sarah stood, fired twice, side stepped out into the aisle, advanced toward the still-open door, her tight-fisted gunmuzzles as wide, as unblinking as her hard and pale eyes.

A shout, a warning: Sarah twisted, dropped, fired her left-hand pistol: something hit her, hard, she felt like she’d been punched, deep, punched hard and deep and she was instantly sick, soul-deep sick, she landed on her side, both hands crush-gripped around her Bulldogs’ checkered grips.

The train was slowed here, slowed on the grade, and the Sheriff gigged his stallion into a jump.

Rey del Sol was used to this, the Sheriff made a game of it, jumping onto a moving flatcar:  the shining Palomino staggered a moment, then stood, snorting, splay-legged as the Sheriff came out of the saddle, as Jacob’s Appaloosa landed behind, as Jacob’s bootsoles landed flat on the flatcar’s rough-timber deck.

Two lawmen advanced, running, leaped the gap, landed on the passenger car’s platform.

The Sheriff hauled the door open: two lawmen charged the length of the car, shoving the curious viciously aside.

Glass shattered ahead of them, they heard a bullet strike high behind them.

Two lawmen, side by side, raised their rifles, fired.

 

Marnie sliced the black lump of Death cleanly in two, spun, cut the next one, stabbed down and impaled a third: she looked at it and laughed as it squirmed, pinned to the ground, looking like an animated eggplant.

Marnie brought her twelve-inch-bladed wakizashi around, slowly cut into the eggplant.

“I hope this hurts,” she murmured as she made another careful cut, then a third.

The eggplant screamed, stubby little arms and stubby little legs thrashing:  Marnie shook her head, made a tsk-tsk sound: “I don’t believe you,” she murmured, then sliced it in two, pulled her Bowie free.

Gracie Daine dunked two rounds of buckshot into her old familiar double gun, wrapped her legs around her riding mule’s barrel:  “YAAH!”

A Kentucky mountain girl in a loose skirt and work boots, stood in her stirrups and charged a standing, roaring, clawed-paw-swinging Grizzly B’ar.

Gracie thrust her double gun out, fired one barrel, then the other, swung away, reloaded, came about for another run.

Her mule laid its ears back, gathered itself, charged.

Nancy dropped a steel visor over her face, couched a long, sharp lance under her arm, leaned forward, dug her heels into an armored destrier’s ribs:  “SAINT CHRISTOPHER, SAINT FLORIAN AND SEVEN LEFT HANDED SAINTS!”

The big war-horse’s hooves pounded against sod and dirt, throwing up clods and mud –

Nancy braced herself for the impact, locked her muscles –

The lance drove into the standing Grizzly, just under its breastbone, the lance driving deep, splitting tissue, shattering the spine and penetrating out the back –

Nancy’s voice was loud in the steel helm as she screamed, “I SAID NOOOOO!”

An olive drab Jeep engine screamed as a dainty, feminine slipper mashed down hard on the teaspoon throttle, as delicate fingers gripped the shifter and ran the gears, as a gloved hand gripped the firing control, squeezed the red button: twin lines of tracers from fender-mounted, belt-fed Brownings drove forward as she charged the grizzly.

She threw her spherical black helmet back, let it drop between her shoulder blades, pulled the wheel left to bring the tracers across the grizzly’s chest as she screamed, “I SAID NOOOOO!”

Gunpowder, gunshots, women’s screaming, defiant voices and a wounded grizzly’s roar combined, echoed, filled their little universe with confusion and with war.

A pilot in a black skinsuit ran the throttle forward, the unmuffled Merlin engine sang speed and power as she flipped the gun switch to GUNS, eased the stick forward, set the Mustang’s crosshairs on the grizzly, squeezed the trigger.

Six fifty-cal Brownings sang a snarling counterpoint to the Merlin’s scream as she dove, every tracer round converging on and absolutely ripping apart the biggest monster of a grizzly the Valkyrie had ever seen.

Every Valkyrie went to war with the full knowledge that she was the baddest thing to hit space, each individual Valkyrie knew she was deadly swift and absolutely unconquerable.

Each Valkyrie knew that her skills at war were more than sufficient to utterly destroy this mind-ripping monster.

None – not one -- had any doubt, any doubt at all, that she, personally, was the one thing that would absolutely, positively, without any doubt whatsoever, blow this damned mind-trap to HELL!

One Valkyrie’s belief was enough to overload the mind-trap’s circuits.

Eleven Valkyries, riding to war, were more than utterly devastating to its circuitry.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE LADY SAID NO!

Part Two

 

The Sheriff shoved the door, hard – he had to shove it hard, as a body on the passenger car’s forward platform lay against it, dead.

Jacob followed his father; he swarmed up the ladder, looked quickly, fore, then aft: he looked again, reached down, took the offered rifle barrel.

Jacob ran forward, the length of the car, looked over: he ran back, jumped from one car to another, looked down: satisfied there were no enemies in ambush, he ran back, climbed back down the ladder.

 

Marnie settled back into her body, still on its contoured couch.

Marnie relaxed, let her mind expand.

The Ship woke up.

Marnie twisted almost sensually as she saw galaxies and light-centuries of distance, as she saw energy sleeting invisibly through the vacuum, as she tasted her ship’s energies, as she heard her Sisters and their ships.

For the very first time, she allowed her Sisters to touch her mind.

Ten Valkyries smiled, then united in their purpose.

Every Valkyrie lay on her contoured couch, eyes closed, her body relaxed.

Every Valkyrie’s eyes turned to the trap, still shattered from their destructive assault.

“You tried to kill one of us,” Gracie said. “I don’t let that pass.”

The enveloping Valkyries released from The Ship, formed a ring of steel around her: they turned as one toward the trap.

The trap was not large; the size of a tractor-trailer, perhaps, a little longer, cylindrical: the Valkyries dispersed slightly, symmetrically, each targeting the trap with both a pair of hyperdense lances, and a swarm of smaller projectiles.

“It’s overloading,” Marnie warned. “Shields.”

“Shields hell,” Gracie snapped. “Envelop that thing!”

Ten Valkyries spun into position, their force fields interlocking, containing the trap in an impenetrable force-sphere: they accessed energies from multiple universes to contain the explosion – though a matter-antimatter explosion is genuinely impressive, the energies of multiple Valkyries was sufficient for complete containment: indeed, this one was turned back on itself: they held for several minutes, until the hellish reactions were complete, then dropped shields.

All that remained of the Trap was a tiny pellet of pure neutronium.

Gracie opened an Iris and slung it into the nearest dwarf star.

 

Jacob came back into the car, saw his father kneeling beside a woman’s unmoving figure.

A pistol barrel shoved out toward the kneeling man.

Jacob’s rifle was to shoulder – another passenger seized the extending arm, drove it down – the shot went through the floor –

The Sheriff looked up, annoyed: he rose, seized the offending passenger about the throat, picked him up with one hand, ripped the pistol free with the other, tossed it to Jacob.

Jacob lowered his rifle, caught the pistol.

“Shall I throw him into the ravine, sir?”

“No. We’ll hang him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Linn still had his would-be murderer by the throat: he threw the choking, purpling prisoner forward, not caring where or how he landed.

“Tend that one,” Linn said, went back down on one knee.

Sarah looked up at him, grimaced.

Linn laid his hand over Sarah’s: she whispered, “Reload me.”

Linn broke open the Bulldogs, ran tanned fingers into the pocket she dedicated to reloads, pulled one, then another of the stubby, blunt rounds from their loops, dunked them into the emptied chambers.

He closed the pistols, carefully, placed them back in her gloved grip.

Sarah looked up at the Sheriff, bit her bottom lip.

“You’re hurt.”

It was not a question.

Sarah nodded.

“Where?”

“Left side.”

Linn pulled her lacy traveling-vest open, saw the hole.

He pulled out a short, very sharp blade, pulled dress-material up with thumb and forefinger: carefully, delicately, he slid the honed edge into the bullet hole, cut straight up, straight down, parted the material, frowned.

He ran his finger into the hole and found a smooth, metallic dent.

He raised an eyebrow.

“It didn’t penetrate,” he said quietly.

“I think I broke a rib.”

“Do you want me to take a look?”

“No. Help me up.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

“I’ll play hell holstering just laying here!”

Linn rose, planted a polished boot beside her soft ribs, brought his right boot up beside her soft ribs on the other side: he squatted, got his hands under her arms.

“Ready?” he asked.

Sarah nodded, gasped as the Sheriff hauled her off the floor, held her.

Sarah’s face was ashen, her breathing was rapid, shallow: she felt with her thumbs, found the holsters, slid her Bulldogs into discreet gunleather.

“Can you stand?”

“No,” she whispered.

The Sheriff snarled, “Stand anyway” – he dropped his hands – his left went around behind her shoulder blades, his right swung down under her knees – he did not give her the chance to collapse.

“Who wants you dead?” the Sheriff asked.

“The first man I killed,” Sarah gritted as the last of the color drained from her face. “He’s out on the front platform.”

“No he’s not,” Jacob said, looking out the now-glassless door. “He fell off a mile back.”

“He’ll not go far,” Linn muttered.

Jacob laid his coat out for her to lay on; Linn knelt, laid Sarah as gently as he could manage, tried to ignore the little click as her teeth snapped together against the pain.

He peeled his own coat off, lay over top of her: an anonymous passenger surrendered a thin pillow for under her head.

Jacob glared at the man sitting on the floor, the one rubbing his throat, the one counting himself lucky to be alive, if only for a few more days.

Five miles to Firelands felt like it took a year and a half.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller reached into a dark-stained gunny sack, brought out a human head by its hair.

“Is this him, Sarah?” he asked.

Sarah looked at the severed human head, slack in death, ugly and discolored.

“Is there a scar behind the right ear – diagonal, with two cross hatches?”

The Sheriff looked, nodded. “Yep.”

“That’s him,” Sarah whispered. “That’s the one that recognized me as The Black Agent.”

“Who else knows?”

“The ones we killed,” Sarah grimaced.

The head went back into the poke.

Dr. Greenlees looked at the Sheriff, raised an eyebrow.

Linn’s eyes were quiet, veiled.

“Easier than bringin’ the whole carcass back.”

Dr. Greenlees considered this for a long moment, then nodded.

“They were already on the train when I boarded,” Sarah whispered, her words delivered carefully, the way someone will when they have a broken rib. “They braced me and demanded to know if I was The Black Agent. I told them I was Mrs. Susan Stubblefield and I was married to a respectable businessman, thank you very much, and they should not trouble a lady with wild accusations.

“One of them seized my arm and said I was coming with them.”

“What did you do?”

Sarah smiled, her eyes went to the contoured steel vest she’d worn over her corset, then to her Bulldogs, in arm’s reach in their gunbelt-and-holsters on a little table beside her hospital cot.

“The lady,” she whispered, “said no.”

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GRIM

Two men watched as a lean waisted Sheriff with an iron grey mustache looked the place over, his back to the wall at the foot of the stairs, before he came on into the Silver Jewel Saloon.

The lawman carried a rifle, he carried it by the wrist and laid back against his shoulder, muzzle up: he came around the corner of the genuine mahogany bar, paced almost silently to the halfway point, stopped and planted a shining boot up on the brass foot rail.

The Silver Jewel was a popular place, both for a good beer, for the free lunch, for the fine results of Daisy's Kitchen: Mr. Baxter was known to keep a gold scales, miners could trade gold dust for a drink, and the barkeep was scrupulously honest in his dealings: games of chance were fair, cheats were not tolerated, and the Jewel had an excellent reputation as a result.

When the crowd came in from the hangin', business was brisk; the girl came out from the kitchen with a loaded tray, men moved for her, because men enjoyed seeing a pretty girl's smile, and men smelled the good food as she passed, and more often than not, that meant more business for Daisy.

The Sheriff was grim, unsmiling.

The Sheriff was a man with no liking for the taking of a life.

The Sheriff was not the kind to hesitate when a man had to be stopped; when the Law said a man must die to atone for his deeds, his were the hands that carried out the sentence, and he'd hanged the man who tried to shoot him in a train car, and as he did after every hanging, he came into the Silver Jewel and lifted his chin to the barkeep.

Mr. Baxter took a tall glass and poured it near to level full with something distilled, amber, and potent.

The Sheriff slid a coin across the bar, picked up the glass, drank.

He drank down its contents in one breath, set the glass heavily on the bar, turned, threw back his head and shouted into the waiting silence.

"I SENT ANOTHER ONE TO HELL TODAY!"

He glared about, daring anyone to challenge his authority: he turned, paced the length of the hall to the back door: they heard the back door open, they heard it shut, and he was gone.

 

Another century, another lawman.

Sheriff Willamina Keller paced into the Spring Inn, her rifle held by its grip, blued-steel barrel laid back against her shoulder.

The short-haired, pale-eyed Sheriff moved with a panther's grace, moved with the smooth pace of a dancer.

She usually trod the oiled boards with all the noise of a passing cloud.

She didn't.

Men grew silent the moment she crossed the threshold.

When the Sheriff herself showed up with rifle in hand, the matter was serious.

Willamina glared at the men at the bar, swung her cold gaze to the right, to those seated, or standing and playing pool: her boot heels were loud as she paced the length of the cement block structure, as she turned, as she sat, her back to the wall, the only occupant of a round table.

She laid her Winchester rifle across the table in front of her.

Jelly himself came over to her, a water glass of something distilled, amber, and potent.

The Sheriff laid a bill on the table; Jelly swept up the cash, set down the glass, retreated.

Quickly.

Sheriff Willamina Keller glared at the glass, then her lips peeled back from even, white teeth.

Those nearest might have heard her snarl, were they near enough: she seized the rifle in one hand, the glass in the other, stood abruptly, knocking the table over with the violence of her ascent.

Willamina's face was pale, colorless skin taut over high cheekbones:

"I SENT ANOTHER ONE TO HELL TODAY!"

She tilted the glass up and drank it down, a full water glass of Old Sledgehammer, set it down -- hard -- on an adjacent tabletop, strode for the door.

Men drew back to let her pass.

Every man there knew she'd sent a deserving soul to his reward.

Every man was grateful that he was not on the receiving end of her temper.

 

Old Pale Eyes pumped another tin cup of water, drank: he'd had four so far.

Daisy pumped him a fifth, added a paper of powders, stirred it with her finger, handed the tin cup to him.

He drank this last cupful, turned away and heaved up his guts, getting rid of the distilled payload he'd swilled in the Saloon.

Daisy wordlessly pumped him another: she waited until the pale eyed Sheriff emptied his stomach twice more, then she snapped the towel from her shoulder, thrust it into his hand.

Linn wiped his face, turned his head, coughed: he handed the towel back, nodded his thanks, picked up his rifle, started to leave.

Daisy laid a hand on his arm and he stopped.

"Ye don't have t' punish yersel' like this," she said softly.

He looked at her with haunted eyes.

"I hate killin'," he said hoarsely. "I've seen too much of it."

" 'Twas not your doin'. He killed himself when he tried t' kill you."

The Sheriff nodded, grimaced, harrumphed, turned his head, spat.

"I know that here" -- he tapped his forehead -- "but here" -- he thumped his breastbone -- "Daisy, it troubles me!"

Daisy shook her head, her lips pressed together.

"Ye're a guid man, Sheriff," she said firmly, quietly: "ye don' need t' be punishin' yerself!"

"I have to, Daisy," he said, his voice hollow, his eyes haunted. "I have to."

"Why?" Daisy whispered, her eyes wide, bright, innocent.

"Because I don't ever want to enjoy it!"

Daisy watched as a man with too much weight on his shoulders walked away, mounted up, rode the length of the back of the Jewel and up the alleyway, and was gone.

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BACKTRAIL

It takes somethin' to surprise me.

Something was ahead -- The Bear Killer's head came up, he looked at me and looked ahead and I heard him mutter -- 'twas not that deep chested growl and his hair didn't stand up, but his ears was pricked up and he looked more curious than ready to tear into somethin'.

My stallion stopped, his head came up and his ears were forward, like he was curious, too.

Now I don't make claims to be the brightest candle in the window, but I'm not entirely stupid, though I'll admit time and again I felt pretty much like the north end of a south bound horse, some of the things I've done, but I figured if I dismount and cat foot ahead and somethin' is there that's meaner than me, why, I'd be better off on the back of a fast moving stallion, so I stayed in the saddle and we walked ahead and Rey del Sol, he was quiet as a white tail deer sneakin' past me when I was a boy in the woods back in the Ohio country.

The Bear Killer stopped and my stallion stopped and I seen why they were curious, and I looked on a-past what they saw for sometimes bad things will follow behind a distraction only this time I didn't see anythin' bad a-follow.

What I did see was a little girl with wet streaks and distress on her face, and she was holdin' onto a little bitty puppy and she looked up at me and I reckon the Old Softy in me took over, for I come out of the saddle and come up to her and went down on one knee, for good Lord she warn't no bigger'n a cake o' soap.

I laid a hand across her back and dabbed the wet off her cheeks with the kerchief from my sleeve and that little brown pup snuffed at my hand and give me a lick, and The Bear Killer come over and proceeded to snuffy snuffy that little girl and her pup like he was readin' the Canine Newspaper.

"Why hello, darlin'," I said, and I pitched my voice gentle, for she was wee little and even down on one knee I was long and tall, and that alone is enough to put some fear into a child: "is your family lost?"

She give me just absolutely the most woebegone look and nodded and her eyes filled up ag'in and I could tell she was cared for, her dress was in good repair and clean and she was barefoot but she was clean, and I taken a close look at her hair and didn't see no Greybacks crawlin' around, so she'd come from someplace where she was taken care of.

This was far enough out I didn't know everyone -- damn neart, but not everyone -- no towns nearby, so either 'twas new folks or pilgrims.

"Do you live close by?" I asked, and she nodded, and I pressed the folded kerchief against her cheeks -- she closed her eyes and I dabbed it ag'in her closed eye lids, and she let me -- I looked at the little brown pup she was a-holdin' and said, "This here is The Bear Killer," and The Bear Killer sat and tilted his head a little to the side and looked down at her, and she looked up at him and looked at me and said "He's vew-wy big."

"Yes he is," I agreed, and I couldn't help it, I smiled with the sayin' of it, for there is something about the innocent statement of a little child that'll bring happiness to a man's heart.

"My name's Linn," I said, and I kept my voice soft and gentle. "I do not believe we have been properly introduced. Might I know your name?"

She cuddled her face bashfully down into her pup's fur and looked at me with a big set of brown eyes and said softly, "Mawwy."

"Your name is Mary?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Well, Mary, now that we are friends, can you tell me your Mama's name?"

"Mama," she said with the straightforward innocence of the very young.

"Can you tell me your Pa's name?"

She looked at me sadly, shook her head.

I figured if he's dead, I didn't want to distress her with the admittin' of it, so I didn't press.

"Mary, do you live hereabouts?"

She shook her head, frowned just a little, looked at me as if not quite sure what to add.

"Mary, have you been walkin' long?"

She nodded.

"Can you tell me where you started?"

She blinked like she was trying to remember.

If she's wandered off and lost, I thought, likely someone will come a-lookin' for her.

A troubling thought came to mind.

If her Mama was a widow-woman and she was hurt or dead, this child might've left to find help, or a meal.

"Mary," I asked, "did something happen to your Mama?"

Mary shook her head.

"Your Mama is well?"

Mary nodded.

"Have you any brothers?"

Mary shook her head.

"Have you any sisters?"
Mary shook her head again, then blinked and I saw a thought come into her eyes.

She looked at me and said, "Auntie gonna have a baby!"

Her eyes were wide, shining, delighted, her smile showed even, white teeth: I couldn't help but smile as well, for delight in a child is a contagious thing.

"Bear Killer," I said softly, "back trail."

The Bear Killer's head came up and he give me that happy look of his, the way he did when I'd task him with a game and we'd set off following someone.

I swept Mary up in my arms, we clumb up atop my shining gold stallion, me and Mary and her little brown pup, and we set off after The Bear Killer.

He half ground-trailed, half air-trailed: a time or two he cast back and forth, and I seen in the dirt where little rocks were turned over or stacked, like an exploring child might play with pebbles, here and there a wet spot where maybe a little pup stopped to water the ground.

It took us a little more than an hour but we come into a clearing I knew of, and a family I knew, and I dismounted and reached up and brought Mary down and set her feet on the ground and she ran a-scamper toward the mostly built house.

The door came open and a worried looking woman shaded her eyes and then dipped her knees to receive a happy little girl, and I come up with my hat in my hand and I said "Ma'am, how can I help?"

She give me a grateful look.

"My sister is in labor," she said, "it is her second child and it should not be long now -- I only just realized I hadn't seen Mary, I needed her to bring in some wood."

"I'll tend that, ma'am, and water as well.  Have you a coffee pot?"

"Sheriff, I would kill for some coffee!"

I laughed. 

"Tend your sister, ma'am, I'll fetch in wood and water."

 

The Bear Killer loafed comfortably on their front porch, watching the little brown pup run back and forth and cock his head and pounce happily on rocks and sticks, the way a puppy will, and once little Mary got home, she became a Very Proper Young Lady and me, once I had their wood box filled and the stove fired, once I'd heated water and made tea -- I left a fresh ground poke of coffee on the table and four cones of sugar -- the ladies were most pleased with sweetened tea, and I admitted that my coffee is fit to strip varnish off a rockin' chair, and I would take their leave now, so The Bear Killer and my stallion and me, we took a bearing off the tall peaks and headed back towards Firelands.

The Ladies of the Tea Society came out on the Hot Foot with covered baskets and sacks of flour and bolts of cloth and them foo-far-raws that women-folk bring to one of their own when a little one is about to arrive.

They were in plenty of time to help deliver a fine healthy little baby boy and I was just as glad they tended that detail, deliverin' babies I'd just as soon leave to their capable hands.

Fetchin' a lost little girl back to her Mama, now, that genuinely give me a good feelin'.

 

Edited October 3 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BEARLINGS!

Sheriff Linn Keller rose to receive his visitors.

On his left, a curly-furred, shining-black canine, seated.

On his right, a curly-furred, pure white canine, seated.

The Sheriff is a tall man, half a hand over six foot tall, but sitting beside two mountain Mastiffs the size of ursine young, he looked smaller.

The effect was only slightly diminished when the lean waisted lawman came to his feet, owing to the sheer size of his canine companions.

The Bear Killer regarded the world through calm, shining-onyx eyes, as did littermate Snowdrift: through a trick of genetics, her fur was pure, flawless white, but she was not albino: her eyes, like The Bear Killer's, were shining black, as were their stippled, damp noses.

His visitor looked over the desk, her expression bashful: she looked uncertainly up at her Mommy, then up at her Daddy, she held her Daddy's hand and then looked back at the Sheriff.

"Go ahead, honey," her Mommy said gently.

"Fank you," the blond haired child said, her diction hindered a little by two missing front teeth, which made her all the more adorable: she brought up an envelope, held it out.

The Sheriff leaned over, took the envelope, thanked her quietly: the childish lettering looked to have been drawn with a marker.

The Sheriff smiled, opened the envelope, unfolded the sheet.

"Bear Killer," he said in a gentle voice, "look at this."

He held the sheet to the side.

The Bear Killer looked at it, sniffed, nostrils flaring: the Sheriff pulled it back before the mountain Mastiff could taste-test it.

He held it over for Snowdrift's inspection: she, too, sniffed at the drawing.

The Sheriff smiled at the drawing, remembering his own young, their first awkward attempts at rendering images on paper, then looked at the little girl.

"Thank you," he said in a quiet, fatherly voice. 

"This will hang where everyone can see it."

"It meant so very much --"

The mother stopped, looked at her husband.

"When Sheri testified ... she was terrified."

The Sheriff nodded.

He remembered how small, how vulnerable she looked, when she was called to the stand.

He remembered how she looked -- desperately, he thought -- at her Mama.

It was rare for the Sheriff to have The Bear Killer in court; to his memory, he'd never had both The Bear Killer and Snowdrift in court at the same time, and he honestly could not recall why they were both there.

He did remember both canines rose at the same time, paced over to the witness stand where the little girl sat, big-eyed and scared.

The Bear Killer snuffed at her ear, then laid his head in her lap: Snowdrift nosed her hand, and suddenly a little girl wasn't quite so scared anymore.

A little girl with big, vulnerable eyes gave her testimony, one hand on a sinner's-heart-black mountain Mastiff's neck, the other hand on a snowdrift-white mountain Mastiff's shoulder.

The Sheriff had no idea where it came from, but his office received a framed photo of a little girl on the witness stand, flanked by two truly huge canines, each the size of a young bear, each looking very directly at the camera, as if daring the world to just try to harm to this child!

The framed photograph hung in the Sheriff's lobby beside another framed picture.

It was obviously a child's drawing, crude, yes, but unmistakable: a stick figure girl with a smile and her arms out, touching a smiling, stick-figure, bear-sized black dog on one side, and a smiling, bear-sized, pure white, stick-figure dog on her right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND THE BLACK AGENT SANG

"I'm gut shot."

Cold and pale eyes glared down at someone too young to die, too old to put his feet under the Old Man's table, too contrary to work an honest job and too badly wounded to live.

"You tried to kill me," the Black Agent said coldly.

A cough, a grunt: the wallowing of a dying man, the silence as Justice stood and watched.

"Is there anything you'd like to say before you die?"

"Mama," he whispered in a hoarse voice.

The Black Agent went to one knee beside the dying man.

His vision was failing.

All he could see was the black Cavalry boots, the black duster.

His color was ghastly; cold fingers pressed against his temple, held for several seconds, lifted.

"Mama," he husked, "useta ... sing ... to me."

"What would your Mama sing?"

A few more gasping breaths.

"Cross," he finally managed. 

The Black Agent stood, looked around, listened; she looked to where the horses were tethered, then she came back, behind him.

A quarter of a mile away, two lawmen followed the tracks of a running horse.

One drew up, looked at his partner, who came over.

They looked down at something dark, a single round spot the size of a man's thumb nail.

"You hit 'im, all right."

"Didn't hit him well enough."

They looked ahead.

"Prime territory for an ambush."

"Yep."

"What say we split up."

"Yep."

They started to lift their reins when they heard it.

A woman's voice.

Two lawmen looked at one another, each seeing the surprise in the other's face.

What? one asked soundlessly as the other tilted  his head a little, turned to catch the sound more clearly.

 

Two lawmen found the body of a gut shot man, curled up on his side.

They saw tracks where someone else had been there, but the tracks they saw were a man's boots, with the broad, flat Cavalry heel.

They rode a circle, tried to cut the trail of this unknown visitor, but whoever it was left over rocky ground and try as they might, they couldn't find whoever else had been there.

It didn't matter, the man that tried robbing a bank and failed, the man that tried killing a town marshal and failed, paid for his foolishness and died a lonely death.

 

The Sheriff looked up as the heavy timber door opened, as a familiar figure paced in, looking like a bundle of fuse-sizzling dynamite in a black duster and a wide brimmed black sombrero.

The Sheriff rose as his visitor paced slowly up to his desk.

Sarah Lynne McKenna took off her broad felt skypiece with a dramatic sweeping yank, glared at the lean waisted lawman with the iron grey mustache.

"Did you hear about the bank robbery?"

The Sheriff looked closely at her, turned his head slightly, as if to bring a good ear to bear.

"Ours?"

"No."

He shook his head.  "Hadn't heard."

"Holdup panicked."

"How bad?"

"Tried to kill the town Marshal."

"And?"

"Paid for his stupidity."

The Sheriff nodded, slowly.

"Reward out on the deceased?"

Sarah shook her head, frowned, turned: she strode across the floor, away from him, picked up a grip stacked in the corner behind the folding cot.

She came back to the Sheriff's desk.

"Anyone in the cells?"
The Sheriff shook his head.

"Good. I'm changing clothes."

 

Parson Belden lifted his head, smiled a little as he heard a familiar voice in the Sanctuary.

The Parsonage connected to the Church by a short hallway; it was not uncommon for folks to come in and talk to God about this or about that, it was not at all unusual for their well-tuned piano to be used for practice or lessons, and when a sudden cloudburst chased folks in under roof, Mrs. Parson delighted in firing up the teapot to help folks warm up from a sudden damp chill.

There were times, like this, when the Parson was at his studies, or working on a sermon, when the Ladies would come in and sing.

Firelands was blessed with truly remarkable singing voices, and he was hearing one of them singing a particular favorite of his.

The Parson closed his eyes, and remembered what it was to be a child, listening to his mother sing The Old Rugged Cross.

 

"Pete?"

"Yeah?"

"What do you reckon that woman singin' was?"

Silence grew between the two lawmen, leading a dead man's horse, with the dead man bent over the saddle.

"Didn't see no woman's tracks."

"Nope."

"We looked."

"Yep."

Silence, again, then:

"Pete, do you reckon we was listenin' to a ghost?"

Pete considered the possibility, looked back at the carcass behind them.

"Don't reckon 'twas his ghost."

Most of a mile passed beneath horses' hooves, then:

"Don't reckon that was a ghost, Pete."

"No?"

"Nope."

"How you figure?"

"Ghosts don't have no truck with church hymns."

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DEATH, WITH A RUBY STICKPIN

Michael Keller responded as he'd been trained.

Michael Keller was invited to speak before a group he'd never met, on a planet he'd never heard of, in a galaxy he had no idea existed.

Michael Keller wore a tailored black suit with a pleated-front shirt, an emerald-green, shining-silk necktie, with a small, rectangular ruby stickpin.

His boots were polished to a high shine, he had a double handful of Winchester rifle, and he took a quick, slice-the-pie peek around the corner.

He was an invited guest, at least until two police speeders fell to the ground, their guts burned out by some sabotaging device: a muffled explosion, then gunshots, and the two policemen who were supposed to be more window dressing than actual security, were knocked back, hit the ground hard.

Michael's Fanghorn raised her head, fast, more flowed than anything else.

Michael seized the wrist of his Winchester rifle, pulled it free, cranked a round in the chamber: he motioned Lightning down, ran for the corner, took a slice-the-pie look.

He looked again, drew back quickly, just before the corner of the building exploded in a spray of splinters, just before a bullet the size of his thumb gouged a ragged hole in seasoned, painted wood corner trim.

Michael dropped to a squat, brought his rifle barrel around and level, and fired two fast, aimed shots.

He heard an unfamiliar whine, a whine that diminished, that receded into the distance.

Michael stood, took another quick look.

Gone!

He turned, ran to the downed officers.

For all their lack of awareness, they at least wore body armor of some kind, though they both had their arms wrapped around their chests like they both had a busted rib.

Michael squatted beside one, made sure he was breathing, that he had a pulse, turned to the other, looked at his insignia of rank.

"You want 'em?" Michael said, his eyes pale, his face losing color fast: he felt the Rage surge in his young belly and part of his mind screamed caution, caution, the Rage will eat you alive, just before he shoved the voice of caution to the side, just before the senior officer gasped, "Get 'em!"

Michael turned, sprinted to his saddled Fanghorn: Lightning dropped to the ground like an express elevator, surged immediately to her unshod, iron-hard hooves as Michael's weight hit the saddle: Michael thumbed rounds into his Winchester as the Fanghorn shot forward, around the corner.

Michael saw something receding into the distance.

So did Lightning.

A scream shivered the cool evening air, an unholy, entirely foreign-to-this-world scream that sounded like an incensed, enraged, mad-as-hell steam whistle.

I should have asked how long their fuel lasts.

Lightning leaned out into a dead-on run, just as hard as she could go, hooves cutting into the hard earth underneath, faster than any Earth horse Michael had ever ridden.

Michael leaned forward, his good right hand welded around the hand-checkered wrist, the barrel laid over his left elbow and his left hand gripping Lightning's silky black mane.

You tried to kill a lawman, he thought, his eyes narrowing against the wind.

You're bought and paid for, damn you!

 

"We can't go much longer!"

"You idiot, why couldn't you steal one with a full charge!"

"How was I to know it was low!"

"You bombed the police skimmers?"

"They're burned out by now."

"We're in the clear, then."

A look rearward, an oath.

"That damned lawman is after us!"

"I THOUGHT YOU BURNT OUT THOSE POLICE SKIMMERS!"

"IT'S NOT OUR POLICE, IT'S THAT DAMNED SHERIFF! HE KILLED JACK AND MICK, HE'S GONNA KILL US!"

Two men turned, shot a panicked look rearward, just as the capacitors depleted, just as the stolen skimmer fell, just as it dug into the dirt, flipped.

 

Michael leaned back in the saddle.

Lightning slowed, snarling loudly: she stopped, screamed at the inverted skimmer, forehooves drumming a challenge, an invitation to war.

Michael never knew her to drum her forehooves like this before.

He glared at the inverted skimmer, remembered two lawmen down, hit center chest with something that would have killed an unarmored human body.

Michael felt the Rage again, and so did the Fanghorn.

A bony, conical boss slipped under the skimmer's rim: Michael felt Lightning snarl as she threw her head up, threw the skimmer over, as she reared and hit it, hard.

Whatever clear dome material covered the cockpit, withstood the flip, was undamaged in the inverted landing, was not hurt in the inverted skid, did not withstand the impact of a full grown Fanghorn.

Michael was screaming with rage, Lightning was screaming with rage, two bloodied men in the skimmer were screaming with fear.

Somehow Michael realized Lightning was feeding off his feelings.

"LIGHTNING, STAND DOWN!" he shouted. "LIGHTNING, STAND DOWN!"

Lightning backed up a step, another, shaking her head, screaming: her reflection of his Rage was deafening, terrifying: her fighting canines were exposed, she snapped twice at the skimmer, as if she was about to run her muzzle through what was left of the spiderwebbed, misshapen dome and rip them apart before she gulped them down.

Michael threw a leg up, fell better than six feet, landed flat footed: he walked slowly, deliberately, coldly controlling his Rage, walked around his screaming Fanghorn, raised a caressing hand, rubbed her muzzle.

A gunbarrel drove through a gap in the devastated dome, fired.

Michael slowly, deliberately, coldly, raised his rifle, brought it to shoulder, cheeked down and set the shining front bead on the man that just tried to kill him.

He felt the sear drop into the half cock, drop into full cock.

Part of his mind noticed the thumb-sized slug was still spinning, trapped in the Confederate plate-field.

Eternity held its breath as a pale eye behind the receiver mounted peep stared, unblinking, as his finger curled around, caressed the smooth trigger.

Lightning's head came up, hovered directly above Michael: her polished-bituminous eyes glared at two men frozen, afraid to move, two men looking at Death with a Winchester rifle, at Death with bared ivory fangs.

Michael held very still, then he laid a thumb over the hammer spur, raised the muzzle, lowered the hammer.

Police skimmers flowed around them, two to a side.

Michael looked at the uniformed officers swarming out of the marked, light-flashing skimmers.

One of them came up to him: Michael laid his rifle barrel back over his shoulder.

The policeman looked at the ruined skimmer-dome, looked at Michael, asked with honest surprise, "What did you do?"

Michael's smile was without humor.

He reached up without looking.

Lightning laid her jaw over his shoulder, closed her eyes as he caressed her silky-furred muzzle.

"They made my horse mad," Michael said, then he reached forward, pinched his fingers together around the spinning slug until his manipulation of the plate-field slowed it to a stop.

"Here."

He turned and dropped the still-hot slug into the policeman's surprised palm.

"The one in the green shirt tried to shoot me. There's the proof."

He looked around, looked up at an angle, saw the slightest wobble in reality that betrayed the hovercam's cloaking field.

"I reckon the Inter-System followed us out. You might ask them for a copy of their recording."

 

That night, as Marnie supervised Littlejohn's supper, she glanced over toward the Inter-System broadcast.

Littlejohn was mastering the art of feeding himself, or pretending to, which is why Marnie generally had to supervise his efforts.

Marnie turned to the screen, stared, watched a pale eyed young man in a tailored black suit, leaned forward in the saddle, riding to war in pursuit of the criminals that tried to rob a bank, tried to kill two lawmen, tried to kill him.

She watched as the stolen getaway fell, flipped, landed upside down.

She watched, open mouthed, as a screaming Fanghorn threw the crashed skimmer like she was flipping a trash can lid.

She watched as iron hooves destroyed the unbreakable dome, as a rifle barrel shoved out at the young man in the black suit, as the pale eyed son of a long, tall Colorado sheriff, brought his rifle slowly, inexorably to shoulder, as he became Death itself, Death with pale eyes and a ruby stickpin.

She watched as her younger brother made a choice, as the camera zoomed in on his thumb laying over the hammer spur, as he raised his rifle's muzzle and lowered the hammer.

If ever a big sister wondered if her younger brother had any amount of judgement, she didn't have to worry anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LE AIMANT

 

Michael Keller laced his boots tightly, almost viciously.

Victoria snugged hers up as well, looked over at her brother's vicious yank on his boot laces: she stood, went over to a drawer, opened it, pulled out a new pair of boot laces, brought them back.

Michael was glaring at the broken bootlace in his hand, his eyes cold, his jaw set, as if it were all the bootlace's fault.

He looked up at his twin sister's sympathetic expression and smiled -- almost sadly, she thought -- he accepted the charity with a quiet "Thank you," and proceeded to remove the old boot laces.

Victoria noticed his efforts to remove the old ones was considerably less vigorous than the effort that broke them in the first place.

Victoria stood squarely in front of her twin brother as he laced his boots up again, as he shoved in powdered sock feet, as he snugged the laces and tied them coldly, tightly, precisely.

Victoria waited until he stood, then she took his hands and looked Michael in the eye.

"Michael," she said in a gentle voice, "you're taller than me now."

Michael nodded.

"I'm taller than you if I wear Gammaw's heels."

Michael nodded again, his face somber.

"What's wrong?" she whispered, her eyes shifting from his left eye to his right and back.

"Sis," Michael said, and she heard the sadness in his voice, "I am le aimant à merde."

Victoria blinked, hugged her brother.

"No you're not," she said quietly, then she took his hands again.

"Michael, do you remember that book Gammaw gave me?"

"Which one?"

Michael's grin was instant, broad, genuine: reading was a shared delight, and each had been gifted many books by their pale eyed Gammaw.

"The one that said 'Here I am, send me.' "

"Oh, yeah," Michael breathed, remembering: "the one written by the astronauts' wives!"

"Do you remember we both said 'Here I am, send me'?"

Michael nodded.

"Michael, God takes us at our word. He sent you where you were needed. That's not why things happen. They would've happened anyway. God needed you there to take care of it."

Michael chewed on his bottom lip, looked away, uncertain: he learned, later in his life, that being raised with a sense of responsibility, sometimes coupled with a child's tendency to assume blame where no blame is warranted.

"God needed me?"

"No. The people who were there, needed you."

Michael frowned a little, considered, nodded.

Victoria turned, hooked her arm through his.

"We can go run, or we can dance," she smiled, "and these aren't my dancing shoes!"

Michael pulled his arm free of his twin sister's, turned to face her squarely, gripped her elbows carefully, lightly, using only his fingertips.

"Sis," he said, his voice serious, "you can take a perfectly good sour mood and just ruin the hell out of it!"

Victoria giggled like she did as a little girl.

Brother and sister embraced, then they picked up their rifles, slipped out the door, set the alarm, ran out into the nighttime dark, ran for the mountain path they'd run a thousand times before.

Two children of the mountains challenged the night-dark granite peaks.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NOW THAT THEY'VE SEEN PAREE

Shelly shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable.

Michael wore a military uniform -- not original, that was still in the Firelands museum -- but he wore a pair of engraved, copper plated Colt revolvers in a gunbelt and holsters that duplicated what still slept in the glass display case in what used to be Sarah and Daffyd Llewellyn's fine stone house.

Michael wore a World War 1 uniform, correct in every respect: he stood at correct military parade rest behind the podium set atop the folding table his Gammaw used to use when she addressed the Ladies' Tea Society.

The Society met this night, a history lesson was requested.

Michael was his usual smiling, engaging self, the very image of one Joseph Keller, who'd run off and joined the fight shortly before the US jumped into the War to End All Wars.

"Most young soldiers," Michael said, his young voice clear and carrying well to the back row, "look like kids in uniform, especially those who've never seen action."

Had I now known Michael planned his presentation, I'd have thought someone dumped a bucket of ghostly takeover under his campaign hat: he went from smiling, almost cocky, cheerful, to cold, reserved ... dear God, thought I, he's even got that thousand meter stare!

I know that stare.

I saw it often enough in my Mama's eyes.

"Yes, we went, and yes, we fought," Michael said, his voice suddenly serious: "those who lived, sometimes did not come home.

"Farm boys went to Europe, boys who'd never seen more than a hand built barn and the backside of a plow horse. 

"Farm boys, mountain boys, green as spring grass until their first battle" -- he stopped, swallowed, his hands closed quickly, almost convulsively.

He opened them deliberately, closed his eyes, took a long, calming breath.

"They saw Europe.

"They stepped off a troop ship and marched through what used to be ancient Londinium, now called London, a modern, big city that exceeded anything on US soil ... then they were freighted across the English Channel.

"They saw the land ancestors came from, they saw buildings and grand marble edifices, they saw humble cottages, they saw grand stoneworks and statues and the cathédrale d'Notre Dame."

He practiced that phrase, I thought, and smiled just a little: Michael always was one for authenticity, for accuracy.

"Many of them did not come home, not because they were killed in battle, but because the world was a wide and marvelous place."

He looked back at me, at his Mama, seated beside me, and I felt Shelly shiver a little as those pale eyes of his drove into hers.

"There is a letter in the Firelands Museum," he said, "and it says in part ..."

Michael smiled, and Shelly clutched my hand, as if afraid his words would carry her away like driftwood in a torrent.

"Mama," he said gently, "forgive me if I do not come home, but there's so much to see here!"

He turned, thrust his arm dramatically toward a young lady seated at the piano, rolled into the back room for this very purpose: she began a bright fanfare, and with two others, similarly attired, sang a popular ditty of the era.

Three beautiful young women in dresses from the mid-1919s sang, "How will you keep 'em down on the farm,

"Now that they've seen Paree!"

 

Joseph Keller's original uniform was being restored by professionals in the art; the careful replica Michael wore, was hung up in its place.

Shelly and I took it out and detached the limbs from the mannikin in order to get the uniform back on it; we reassembled it, positioned it in the tall glass display booth, the replica campaign hat at a careful angle, reflecting an original photograph I saw taken in France, of US Doughboys, tall, skinny, cocky as hell.

I put the gunbelt around its waist, slid the heavily waxed, polished-up, copper plated Colt revolvers  back into gunleather: I closed the door, locked it, set the alarm.

Shelly was staring at it, that wide eyed stare that meant she was looking at something only she could see.

"Dearest?" I asked gently.

She took a long breath, blew it out, folded her arms, turned to me.

"All I wanted," she said quietly, "was a nice, normal family."

"You wanted normal," I replied in an equally quiet voice, "and you married me?"

"I wanted little girls that played with dolls and tea sets, I wanted little boys that ran toy trucks in the dirt, I wanted to dress them up and take them to church with their little faces shining ..."

She leaned against me, sighed.

"Children never turn out the way we plan for them," I almost whispered.

"Why?" Shelly groaned. "Or why not. They're children, Linn, Michael ... Michael should be reading hot rod magazines and looking at girls and making faces at them ..."

She looked up at me.

"Bring them home, Linn. They're just children."

I looked at the display case, at the World War I uniform, I looked at my wife.

"After all they've done already?" I asked softly. "Michael is just shy of an orator. He handles a crowd like a politician, he's been a hero ten times over and more. Angela is seeding paramedic squads and nursing schools all through the stars, Marnie --"

Shelly shook her head, her forehead buried in the front of my flannel shirt.

"No, no, no ... no, don't ..."

She looked up at me.

"Not already, Linn. They should be just starting middle school."

"They're well into their college education," I said gently. "Angela is quietly establishing herself. Michael is already a public figure. Marnie is an Ambassador, our children have out-done their old man seven ways from Sunday and I couldn't be prouder!"

I held my wife, and she held me, and I looked at the display case and said thoughtfully, "How will you keep 'em down on the farm, now that they've seen Paree?"

Shelly lifted her face, looked at me with those soft and vulnerable eyes of hers and said, "I hate it when you're right!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 6 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A BROTHER'S BOOK, A SISTER'S BLADE

Michael Keller was fresh from a shower and a change of clothes.

He came downstairs, swift and noiseless in sock feet, swung around the end post and grinned at his Mama, all flannel shirt and slicked back hair and even white teeth.

"Hey Ma, guess what!" he declared. "My book's been published!"

Shelly Keller was an experienced mother.

Shelly Keller was not surprised by very much.

Shelly Keller knew Michael survived more than most grown men would even see in a lifetime, that he'd trodden planets she'd never heard of, but somehow the thought that a son (who to her way of thinking ought to be building plastic models and reading comic books) had written and published a book -- well, this genuinely took her by surprise.

She draped the damp towel over the empty, wire drying rack on the sink, turned, smiled a little -- his brothers and he all had that ornery grin, like they'd just gotten away with something -- she couldn't help but smile in return as she inquired, "What book did you write?"

Michael threw his arms wide, palms toward her, a gesture of innocence that didn't fool her one bit.

"Well, ya see, it's like this," he said in a nasal voice, then laughed quietly and turned, walked over to his father's desk, picked up a copy, brought it into the kitchen.

Shelly blinked as he handed it to her.

The cover had Michael one his father's Appaloosa stallion -- Michael, with his hat in one hand and a grin on his face, the stallion in full windmill rear -- a slender young man in a black suit and an emerald-green necktie, his twin sister standing beside the horse holding a quickly lettered sheet of cardboard that said SHOW-OFF! -- and above the picture, the title:  I Grew Up in the Mountains.

"How ... did you come to write a book?" Shelly asked, running her fingertips gently over the cover.

"It started out as a writing assignment. The professor liked what I wrote so well that he said I should write more. All I wrote at first was one chapter. I don't have patience to write a whole book, Mama, but I can write one story and one story is a chapter and if you stack enough of 'em up and sew 'em together along the left edge, why, she's a book!"

"I see," Shelly said faintly, looking at her son as if looking at someone who was suddenly a stranger.

"The Professor said I should write this -- once I started, why, I couldn't quit" -- he grinned in honest delight -- "he said enough people wanted to read about me, they knew something about me from the Inter-System, and I didn't know ..."

Michael hesitated, wet his lips, chewed on his bottom lip.

"Mama, I'm getting rich off this one book!"

 

Victoria Keller laughed as she skipped rope with a group of girls.

Mothers smiled and watched from behind screen doors or windows, a few from the nearest front porches.

Victoria's long curls bounced, her teeth shone, white and even, her laughter innocent as it joined with the other girls'.

It didn't last.

A vehicle stopped, fast: Victoria spun, knees bent, hands bladed, as tires screeched, as a door flew open, as man got out, looking at her.

Victoria knew the look.

She'd heard her pale eyed Daddy talk about it.

He called it a targeting glance -- he'd then called it Target Lock, and it meant someone was going to try and take whatever their eyes just locked onto.

"Run," Victoria said quietly, her hand going behind her.

The other girls stopped, confused, looking at her.

Victoria spun, twisted as the man grabbed at her: all anyone could agree on, afterward, was that Victoria was fast, that something silver sliced through the warm, scented afternoon air, and that a man went down with a broken knee and blood coming from a deep slice running the length of his forearm.

Victoria did not stop: she skipped to the side, her other hand coming up, a silver pistol crushed in her young grip: "SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!" she shouted at the car's driver, her eyes dead white, two dots of color standing out over her parchment-taut, dead-pale cheekbones.

The driver looked at her through the passenger sideglass, turned the wheel fast to the left, romped on the gas.

The vehicle started to move, tires squalling: Victoria fired four times, four spiderwebbed holes blasted through safety glass, just before the crazed sideglass crumpled in a shining, crystalline cascade: she drew her arm back, slid the pistol into its hidden holster, turned and glided over to the gasping man on the ground, ignoring the car as its tires stopped screaming, as it coasted into the street, slowing, until it crashed into something and stopped. 

Victoria's polished-granite eyes were wide, unblinking.

A moment before she'd been a pretty girl, skipping rope with other girls, some younger, some older: now she was a creature carved of shining glacier ice and rage, something not of this earth, something

... deadly ...

Victoria turned toward the screaming man, clutching at his bleeding forearm, afraid to move, his left leg looking decidedly misaligned.

Victoria walked around behind him, dropped quickly into a squat, her blade across the man's throat: she pulled it a little, just a little, just enough to slice through a layer of skin, just enough so he could feel sharpened steel burning against his soul.

"Do not move," she hissed.

"You can't do this!" her attacker gasped.

"I can't what?" Victoria whispered. "Kill you?"

Her smile was as cold as her eyes; her canines seemed to grow -- they didn't, of course, but to a man whose life was being tasted by a honed edge, Victoria's wolflike smile looked like she wanted to bite into his neck and drink deep of his life's blood.

"I've killed more men than smallpox," Victoria murmured. "I just killed your driver. If you move, I'll kill you too, and I'll sleep well tonight!"

 

The Ambassadorial team and the constabulary arrived at the same moment.

The prisoner was seized, his arm bandaged; Victoria was quickly surrounded by armed, uniformed men with grim expressions, pulled back to just short of the Iris.

Marnie glided between the Ambassadorial detail and the constabulary, addressed the responding representatives of Good and Light.

"My sister will cooperate fully with your investigation," she said pleasantly, "twenty-four hours after we've had our debrief. We will now proceed with our Ambassadorial investigation."

 

Two days later, Victoria uncoiled, launched a kick to the side of the full-contact golem's knee.

Marnie clapped her hands once, shouted "BREAK!" and Victoria danced back.

Victoria wore the same dress she'd worn skipping rope, the same dress she wore during the attack: she carried the same weaponry hidden about her person, and she stood, straightened, accepted the towel from her sister's hand.

"I thought you might train better with the golem," Marnie said quietly.

"Yeah, thanks," Victoria replied, snapping the towel over her shoulder.  "The golem doesn't break as easily as a sparring partner."

Victoria tilted up the hand tank, drank deeply: she came up for air, once, then drained the rest of the half-liter hand tank.

"You were dry," Marnie murmured.

"Yeah," Victoria gasped, wiping her face again.

"You testified well this morning."

"You taught me well," Victoria said quietly, controlling her breathing.

"How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"Know you were under attack?"

Victoria squared off at her older sister, her eyes pale, hard, unforgiving.

"I know what they did to Angela, back East," she said, her voice tight, menacing. "I know what they did to Gammaw when she was sixteen."  

Victoria glared at her older sister, her hands fisted.

"Angela told me nobody would ever, ever, do to her again what they did to her back East.

"I listen, Marnie. I listen when women talk. I listen when they finally open up and they need someone to talk to and listen and not judge and I hear them."

Victoria's eyes were haunted by things no girl of her few years should ever know, then her expression went from haunted to deep anger.

"Nobody," Victoria said quietly, "is going to lay hands on me."

"You haven't answered my question."

"I answered it at the deposition."

"I need to hear it from you."

"The car came to a fast stop. Some Jack Doe got out fast. He looked at me, he came at me fast, he was open and ready to grab and I was not giving him the chance. He put my safety at risk. I responded as I've been trained."

"He might not have intended you harm --"

Victoria's glare was enough to cut off Marnie's feeler: she knew this Jack Doe obviously intended harm -- he'd confessed to intent to kidnap, he and his partner were fully intending to extort a genuine fortune for Victoria's return, and if they had to do things to make her scream, well, that was the cost of doing business.

"You killed the driver."

"That was my intent."

"Nice shooting, by the way."

"I've a good teacher."

"Would you like something more effective ...?"

Victoria considered her quiet voiced sister's question carefully.

"What I would like," Victoria said finally, "is a 105 recoilless rifle in a package the size of my Walther. I'd like a .458 Weatherby Magnum the size of my .357 saddlegun and I'd like Old Pale Eyes' Cavalry saber that fits into my knife sheath."

Two sisters looked at one another and said, their voices in chorus, "And people in hell want ice water!"

Victoria finally smiled, just a little.

"I'll keep what I've got. It works."

Marnie made a mental note to put in a work order to have the sparring golem repaired.

Her pale eyed little sister's well practiced kick broke the golem's knee again.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A FATHER'S SPEECH

I walked over to the wall phone.

"Sheriff Keller."

A little girl's voice -- near tears, or so she sounded -- 

I looked at Shelly and I reckon she saw the alarm in my eyes.

"Daddy," my youngest daughter quavered, "I want to come home!"

I felt my blood run cold and I felt my jaw slide out and lock: Shelly knew something was wrong, she rose, her eyes went to the panel where we kept two rifles and two shotguns.

"Where are you now?"

 

I offered no protest as Shelly followed me into the darkness.

She'd slung a gunbelt around her waist, she shrugged into a warm coat and thrust sock feet into work boots, she mashed a knit toque down over her hair and she had her medic's backpack on.

I saddled three horses.

Victoria got along real well with Midnight -- she was a racer, she was surefooted, she was every bit as fast as my black gelding, Outlaw, and that's saying something.

Midnight liked Victoria, and Victoria liked the mare.

I kept Victoria's saddle hung up and ready, and Midnight stood shivering.

I reckon she could smell what I was feelin'.

Shelly was caressing my stallion's neck, murmuring to him: Pig Iron was tough as his name and sometimes he was hard to handle but when it hit the fan he was all business, and besides, when Shelly baby talked him, he was like a love sick puppy with her.

The Bear Killer was on Mars with Marnie, Snowdrift was between the two of us, looking from one to the other and I know she either smelt what I felt, or she was pickin' it up like she'd pick up radiation from a radio mast, for her hair was starting to ripple up the length of her back bone.

I couldn't hear her but I figured was I to lay hands on either side of her chest, I'd feel that deep, menacing growl that said she would be pleased to rip someone's hand off clear up to their shoulder.

I bent my wrist, keyed in a command, saw the radar roger on the little screen.

An Iris opened up.

Right before we went through, I fetched the shotgun up from where I'd slung it from a piggin' string off my saddlehorn, for my little girl was ready to cry, and that meant I was ready to start a young war.

 

Marnie's gown flowed as she paced.

She wore a fashionable little hat, a fitted McKenna gown, and she wore an absolute, pale eyed mask of deep, boiling, barely suppressed, anger.

Marnie stomped up between the rows of tables, toward the Supreme Confederate himself, she raised a gloved  hand, her Mommy-finger extended: her head was down a little, anger clouded her brow, she opened her mouth, her hand shaking a little as she did --

She snapped her jaw shut, whirled, stomped back down the double row of heavy, ornate, hardwood tables.

She spun again, came back toward the President's seat, stopped halfway down the table from him: she closed her eyes, opened her gloved fists, clasped her hands very properly in her apron.

Marnie lifted her chin, took a long, cleansing breath, blew it out through pursed lips, opened her eyes.

"Mister President," she said, her voice brittle, no-nonsense: she pitched her words to carry well in the chamber; she understood its acoustics, and knew just how to adjust her volume for the greatest clarity.

"When I was first made aware of the Confederacy," she said, "I thought it would be better than Earth.

"I thought that maybe, just maybe, the Ancestors would remember Earth's follies and Earth's stupidity and Earth's idiocy, and they would engineer a society that was better than Earth."

Marnie turned slowly, pacing again, turning her head to look at each man there, every representative of every world: the hall was filled, not a chair was vacant, and not a voice interrupted this pale eyed woman whose influence was felt to the furthest reaches of the Empire.

"I am disappointed to discover," she continued, knowing her words were being recorded, her image transmitted, "that the Confederacy is no better than Earth."

Marnie paced further down the tables, came to the end, turned, flowed back, moving so smoothly one might suspect wheels under her long skirt instead of the sculpted, athletic legs of a natural horsewoman.

"You are aware of the kidnap attempt on my baby sister" -- she'd chosen her phrase carefully -- "you know the attempts on my own life. You are aware of the political machinations behind the murder attempts, and investigation continues on this most recent kidnapping attempt. We're still determining whether this was a simple kidnap for ransom, or whether there were deeper political implications."

Marnie spun again, raised a gloved hand, snapped her fingers.

A hologram appeared, surprisingly detailed, extremely realistic: a tall man with an iron grey mustache who turned, picked up a handset connected to its wall-mounted base with a curly, elastic cord of some sort.

They saw this lean, pale eyed man they recognized from news holos lift his head and look at his wife.

They saw the wife's look of apprehension, then of determination.

They heard the conversation.

The holo-image split, became two separate realities.

One half was the lean waisted Colorado Sheriff striding into his study.

The other half was a frightened child, a similar handset in her hand, attached with an elastic, curly cord to a base that hovered in mid-air as if it were bolted to an invisible wall.

They saw what they'd previously seen as a pretty young woman: the look on her face, her withdrawn, fearful posture, her voice, made her look like a scared little girl.

They heard her voice -- tight, almost a squeak --

"Daddy," they heard, "I'm scared, can I come home?"

 

The hologram disappeared.

In its place, a lean waisted man astride a steel-grey stallion -- a man in a black Stetson, a fleece lined vest, a cold eyed glare and a shotgun propped up on his thigh, rode out of an Iris that was never supposed to appear here in the Hall of the Confederates.

A woman rode beside him, a woman on an Appaloosa mare: the reflective, six-armed Blue Star was large, prominent on her backpack.

Between them, astride a shining-black, dainty-hooved mare, a pale eyed girl with a ribbon in her hair, a pretty little girl with a fearful expression, looking to her big strong Daddy.

The horseman was not there as Sheriff.

The horseman was not there to make a speech, and yet his oration was unmistakable.

His knuckles were blanched as he crush-gripped the pump gun's checkered wrist. This was the only betrayal of the depth of his anger.

He was not seen to move a muscle, yet he guided his iron-grey stallion: they turned, slowly, his daughter and his wife wheeling with him as he turned, as he deliberately, precisely, looked into every single face there.

He uttered not one single word.

He did not have to.

When he finished his slow, deliberate, cold-eyed, circling glare, he looked to his wife, looked to his daughter, lifted his chin a fraction of an inch.

Father, mother, scared little girl and snow-white mountain Mastiff, turned and rode through the waiting Iris, and disappeared.

Marnie, gloved hands still properly folded in her apron, looked very directly at the President of the Confederacy.

"This concludes my father's speech," she said, her voice strong, ringing in the chamber's hush.

"As I can offer nothing further, I will bid you a very good night."

A pale eyed Ambassador raised a gloved hand, snapped her fingers, disappeared.

 

 

Edited October 7 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SAFE

 

I don’t usually use a broad ax for splitting wood.

A broad ax is considerable heavier and harder to swing and that’s what I wanted.

I was mad clear through and I wanted to cause as much damage as I could and it made me mad that I couldn’t do the damage I wanted, to what I wanted, so I figured to split wood.

‘Twas needful and ‘twas a way for me to get rid of wantin’ to cleave a man’s skull clear down to his belt buckle.

I set a block of seasoned, saw-cut stove-length on the splittin’ stump and I taken that heavy broad ax and I stopped and looked at its edge.

I considered some and then I taken up the sharpenin’ stone and set my backside down and stoned on that ax edge.

I never had any great likin’ for Lincoln.

He got us into that damned war.

Nobody had much good to say about him until he was killed, then everybody and their uncle figured him to be step brother to Jesus Christ.

I figured he’d worked honest before he got into politics and one thing he said stuck with me, and if a man does one good thing in his life maybe that’s enough.

He allowed as if he had two hours to cut down a tree, he’d spend the first hour sharpenin’ his ax.

I set me down and I worked on that edge until I was satisfied, and then I commenced to murder me a good pile of kindling, and I done it all with that big heavy broad ax instead of a double bit like I usually used.

There’s times when a man can’t kill who he wants to.

I couldn’t.

My daughter Angela went off on a sailin’ ship – the Maiden, the ship was named – she was headed north on the Judge’s behalf, she was tasked with findin’ out some things about a man, but the ship gutted herself on a reef and sank and my little girl damn neart died in black water and night.

I didn’t know any of this.

I didn’t suspect a hell of a lot until I got her telegram that said her ship sank and she was alive and on her way home.

Angela was her Mama’s daughter but she’d never been tried as metal in the forge like Sarah had.

Angela had to be pretty damned tough, to swim her way free of a sinkin’ ship, she fought in the water when one of them big man eatin’ fish tried to take her, she lost a knife when she drove it into its gills and the knife pulled out of her hand but I told her it’s like fightin’ a grizzly and all you got is a knife, you drive the blade in and leave it and he’ll bleed out inside and Angela she clung to me like she was drownin’ again and I was a float and I held her and she cried like she was a scared little girl who’d just had blue hell and sixbits scared out of her and I just held her and let her cry.

I never felt so much a failure in all my entire life.

I’m her Papa.

She’s my little girl.

I’m supposed to keep her safe.

I know she’s a woman grown – she’s a beautiful young girl and she can sing like an angel and she’s as sharp at business as her Mama, rest Esther’s soul, but she’s still my little girl!

I swung that ax on a frash chunk of stovewood and I swung it hard and I clove seasoned wood with one stroke.

I couldn’t kill what tried to kill my little girl.

Sure as hell wanted to.

I did the next best thing.

I swung that broad ax and I swung it hard, for we always need wood.

 

Victoria Keller sat in her Daddy’s chair, behind her Daddy’s desk, and she read one of her Daddy’s books.

Victoria sat very properly, she sat in a very ladylike fashion; she wore a denim skirt and a flannel shirt, she wore a gunbelt and her Walther, and she had its twin under her denim vest.

Victoria’s complexion was clear and flawless, her hair held back with a dark blue ribbon that matched her flannel shirt, and she read the words of a long-dead Sheriff.

She read the words of a man whose anger was too deep to plumb, whose fear masqueraded as anger, whose frustration came out through a hard-swung ax.

She read about Old Pale Eyes, and she leaned back in her Daddy’s chair, and she remembered how her Daddy’s knuckles stood out, blanched with the strength of the grip he had around his shotgun’s hand-checkered wrist.

She remembered how absolutely silent he was when the three of them rode into the Supreme Confederate.

She remembered how ramrod his back was, how cold his glare was, how set his jaw was.

She remembered the creepy-crawly feel of her plate-field as invisible, silent weaponry tried to vaporize them, for it was quite against protocol to bear arms into the very heart of the Confederacy, and only technology that actually exceeded that of the Confederate scientists, kept them from being shivered into atoms.

Victoria remembered when her Daddy first saw her, how he bent a little and wrapped her in a big crushing hug and held her tight, tight, how he straightened and her feet came off the floor.

She remembered his breath, hot, controlled, against the side of her neck.

She remembered the only words he spoke, and those were a whisper:

“You’re safe now.”

Victoria remembered her Daddy setting her down and nodding to his shining-black Midnight-horse, how he stood and waited until she was in the saddle, before mounting up himself.

Victoria remembered Snowflake orbiting them, her hair standing up the length of her spine, as her Daddy rode that s-l-o-w circle in the very center of Confederate Hall.

Victoria remembered how sharp and shocking-loud Pig Iron’s hooves were, as if he knew he needed to walk with a deliberate, intimidating, pace.

Victoria re-read the words written by hand well more than a century before, the words laid in good India ink on rag paper: she read of an earlier Angela’s apprehension, she read of an earlier Angela’s resolve, she saw in her mind’s eye a young woman lift her chin and march up the inclined plank onto the ship’s deck, in spite of her misgivings, in spite of her formless apprehensions.

Victoria read of hearing the ship hitting the reef, the sound of wood exploding, of timbers groaning as the Maiden heeled over, dying in the night.

She read of how the dying ship sounded alive somehow, and of how cold the water was, and how moonlight penetrated the surface as she fought away from the falling, dying vessel.

She read of moonlight underwater and she read of knowing the approaching shadow was Death itself.

Victoria closed her eyes and took a long, calming breath, opened her eyes and dove back into the handwritten account as if she were joining her ancestress in cold saltwater.

She read of feeling her fisted grip on the checkered maple panels of her fighting knives, how she twisted and stabbed and missed with one knife but drove the other blade in deep, she read of black in the water and knowing it was blood and the devil-fish and its teeth were gone with her knife.

Victoria shivered as she read of stroking powerfully for the surface, how she blew saltwater from her nostrils, how another great fish – smooth, cool, not coarse and sandpapery like the one with a great mouthful of teeth that rolled up to try and bite her in two – came up under her, and she caught the fin sticking up out of its back, she managed to get her remaining knife in its sheath as the fish towed her to where waves shattered in phosphorescent lines and sprays against a shoreline.

Victoria re-read the words of a man who wished mightily to kill the reef that gutted his daughter’s ship, he wished to lay hands on the dark Fate that tried to consign his daughter to a saltwater grave, and the best he could do was to take out his rage at a woodpile.

The man was long dead, the wood he split long since burnt or rotted, the ship sunk and forgotten, save for records like this; her older sister’s long-dead namesake slept forever on the other side of the continent.

Victoria Keller closed the Journal and set it to the side.

She planted her elbows on her Daddy’s green desk blotter and dropped her face into her hands.

Victoria hadn’t slept for a day and a night.

She was wore plumb out.

Nightmares haunted her pillow, fear chased away her bedroom slumber, but here … here in her Daddy’s chair, here at her Daddy’s desk, she felt safe.

Victoria closed her eyes and she let herself relax.

Snowflake laid her head in Victoria’s lap, and that’s how the father found his daughter: she’d crossed her forearms and laid her head down and she slept in her Daddy’s chair, at her Daddy’s desk, with one of her Daddy’s journals near to hand, and a shining-black-eyed, snow-white, watchful mountain Mastiff sat patiently, chin resting on the exhausted girl’s lap.

When a long tall Daddy with strong and reassuring arms carried his little girl upstairs and laid her carefully in her bed, she rolled over on her side and curled up like she used to when she was still in pigtails and pinafores, and she felt her Daddy draw the covers up around her, and she felt the tickle of his muts-tash as he kissed her good night.

Now she was safe.

Now she could sleep.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE HORSEHAIR SEAMSTRESS

 

Bonnie Lynne McKenna gave the Sheriff a concerned look, then she swept over to him and took his arm.

She looked at the Sheriff's solemn expression, she turned her head and looked at the window directly above the entrance to the Silver Jewel.

Another woman watched, a woman with green eyes and red hair and a concerned expression.

Bonnie looked at the Sheriff again and murmured, "Come with me, please," and steered him across the dirt street.

The Sheriff's steps were not quite wooden, but he was clearly troubled: his gait loosened up a little as they got to the board walk, to the steps up into the Silver Jewel.

Esther met them just inside the ornate, frosted-glass-swirled door with the polished brass handles and brightly-painted green framing.

Two ladies took the Sheriff upstairs and into Esther's office.

Just before they ascended out of sight, Bonnie turned, made a three-finger sign to Tillie.

 

The Sheriff was veteran of that damned War.

The Sheriff had seen grief and loss enough to last ten men their lifetimes.

The Sheriff had survived enough to kill several men.

It took something to trouble the man; he'd looked slaughter and grief in the face and never missed a beat -- all this the ladies knew -- and they knew by the way he allowed them to steer him, to set him down, something troubled the man to the center of his very soul.

A light tap at Esther's office door: it opened gently, Tilly peeked in, tray in hand, came in with a small bottle of distilled California sunshine and a worried expression.

Esther took the tray, whispered her thanks: Tillie listened, nodded, slipped out, closed the door behind her.

Esther poured a short, stout-bottom glass full of apricot brandy, handed it to her husband.

Linn downed it like it was water, handed it back.

He looked at his wife, he looked at Bonnie.

"Ladies," he said gently, "forgive me."

Two well dressed women looked at one another, looked at the Sheriff.

"I fear I am not a seamstress."

Two women looked at one another again.

To their credit, their shared smile did not reach any lower than the corners of their eyes ... other than a pinking of their cheeks.

 

Dr. John Greenlees gave his patient a drink of peach brandy.

To his distress, he was out of apricot brandy: his last bottle only lasted two years: he shook his head sadly and considered commenting on his rampant consumption, then decided against it.

Nurse Susan (she was his wife, but everyone knew her as Nurse Susan, rather than Mrs. Doctor), gave him a wise look: like most wives, she knew her husband better than he knew himself, and she correctly surmised the comment he decided not to give.

His patient already had several belts of Old Crud Cutter behind his belt buckle; he was well enough anesthetized from a rather incautious self-administration of distilled painkiller, that he offered no protest as Doc cut the horse hair stitches that held the man's wound together.

Doc cleansed the wound and stitched the wound back up, wrapped it with a clean, boiled, sun-dried bedsheet bandage and gave his nearly numb patient after-care instructions: the man's son arrived and took his father home, and Nurse Susan gave the son the after-care instructions, and a paper of powders, with instructions to mix them with water and a healthy pinch of sugar and prime his father with it the moment he woke up, that it would help the big head and the bad belly that was sure to follow his father's robust self-administration of poor man's painkiller.

 

The Sheriff spoke quietly, in the hushed haven of his wife's office.

He described how he'd pulled hairs from the man's horse, standing to the side so he wouldn't get kicked, how he'd washed off the long, strong hairs and he'd dipped his fingers in the man's whiskey and used the alcohol-wet finger-grip to strip the length of the horse hair to get it absolutely clean, then he'd taken the biggest needle he had and stitched the man's cut together as best he could.

"I washed it out good," he said softly, "it already bled and I reckon that washed out whatever was in there, and he was pretty likkered up ag'inst the pain already, so I told him grit your teeth, I'm sewin' you up, and I did."

The Sheriff looked at Bonnie Lynne McKenna, proprietress of the McKenna Dress Works, a gifted seamstress in her own right: the Sheriff looked at his wife Esther, remembered marveling at the skill she showed in creating clothing from a flat piece of cloth, unrolled from a heavy bolt of cloth.

"Ladies, please forgive me for crowdin' in on your territory," he said softly. "I had to sew men up in the field durin' that damned War, and I reckon that's why it troubled me some."

He chuckled and shook his head a little.

"I am not a seamstress, and I am sure as hell not a Horsehair Seamstress!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

APPREHENSION

Michael Keller was not watching as the glowing punk was lowered until it touched the twisted, green fuse.

Michael Keller did not see the smoke, the spray of bright sparks as the fuse burned into the bottom of the skyrocket, and he did not look up at the wizard's wand hissing angrily into the cloudless blue sky overhead.

Michael was astride his Fanghorn, they were surrounded by the celebrating crowd, and Michael had the distinct feeling that something was about to happen.

Lightning, having been bribed with peppermints, roasted peanuts (suddenly a planet-wide favorite, since seeing Michael feed his Fanghorn handfuls of the fragrant treats) and the occasional flower plucked delicately from a passing bouquet, or offered by a giggling, delighted child, paid no attention whatsoever to either skyrockets, or his rider's angst: having snacked, having gotten warm in the sun, Lightning folded her legs, bellied down on the sun-warmed pavement, curled her head a little to the side, and began to snore.

As usual, two or three curious little children listened, giggling as they did: Michael, dismounted now and standing beside his beloved Fanghorn, winked at them -- which let them know they were watched, but they weren't going to be shooed off -- and as sometimes happened in such moments, the younger and more innocent of the children cuddled up against Lightning's shoulder or the base of her neck or her ribs, and leaned their heads against her, and were quickly asleep.

Michael suspected it was because Lightning purred when she was content, and she was content when the young of any species gathered close to her, and cuddled, and napped.

Michael turned slowly, eyes busy: he listened, suppressing a vague sense of apprehension, a sense of dread.

Too many things had happened recently for him to relax, for him to join the general celebration: like his pale eyed father, he chose to observe, to stand ready to respond to whatever situation might present.

 

Marnie Keller faced her dread as she received the Ambassador.

She wore her usual trademark McKenna gown and gloves; she stood with her hands folded very properly in her apron: her hair was carefully, elaborately done -- it was evident she was expecting his visit, and equally evident that she took his visit seriously.

The Ambassador turned his pearl-grey uniform hat slowly, thoughtfully between grey-gloved fingers: he frowned at his hatband, looked up at Marnie.

"It seems," he said quietly, "that you have allies."

Marnie lifted her chin a fraction, waited.

"There were those who wished your dismissal."

Marnie's posture was as cool as her silence.

"Many more were quite firmly in your favor."

Marnie raised one eyebrow, just a fraction, eased it back down.

"Your most vocal proponent, believe it or not, was Colonel Alphonsus Bernard Cresthaven the Third."

Marnie blinked, looked at the Ambassador in honest surprise.

"Your position is secure, Madam Ambassador. It seems that you are admired for your devotion to doing that which you see as the right."

The Ambassador frowned, consulted his wrist-pad.
"Do forgive my brevity, my Lady, but my presence is demanded elsewhere."

Ambassador Marnie Keller inclined her head, dropped a flawless curtsy: the Ambassador gave a grave half-bow, straightened, smiled quietly: the maid saw him out.

Marnie spoke, for the first time, her words soft in the silence.

"Colonel Alphonsus Bernard Cresthaven the Third," she murmured, then giggled like a little girl, clapped her hands, shook her head in amazement.

"That insufferable, boring, loveable old braggart!"

 

Michael Keller mounted his Fanghorn, lifted his Stetson in happy acknowledgement: he'd been present for a cornerstone ceremony, he'd been shown architect's drawings of the intended firehouse, of the squad bay; Michael was introduced to their newly certified firefighters, paramedics, dispatchers; he'd been shown their shining-new vehicles, they'd taken delight in detailing their supply chain to keep these new-to-this-world vehicles fueled and maintained.

Michael asked few questions -- he asked the height of the highest point on their first-out pumper (the deck gun), he asked the height on the pumpers' bay door, he pretended not to notice the concerned looks as architects and builders realized the door wasn't big enough to accommodate their first-out pumper.

He himself did not point it out.

Marnie told him later that his discretion saved several faces and quite a bit of funding that would otherwise have been invested in a rebuild, once the problem was discovered, the hard way.

As Michael mounted, as his Fanghorn stood, as the Iris opened and Lightning reared, threw her head back and screamed happily into the evening's air, Michael allowed himself a grin, allowed himself to relax, just a little, but it wasn't until he emerged in his Pa's back pasture that he gave a great sigh of relief.

 

 

Marnie sat, picked up her tea, took a tentative sip.

The Ambassador had not delivered bad news.

She could relax now.

 

Michael unsaddled his Fanghorn, forked her gourmet mix of offworld vegetation, alfalfa and spearmint: as she drove her blocky, fanged muzzle into her repast, Michael leaned on his fork and grinned, and finally allowed himself to relax.

Maybe he wasn't a magnet for misfortune after all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 08:28 PM by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND THE IRISHMAN LAUGHED

Sheriff Linn Keller's well polished boots were on the corner of his desk.

His chair was tilted back a very little bit: he'd pushed it back against the wall to keep it from kicking out from under him.

His hat was over his face, hands overlapped on his flat belly.

He was quite busy.

Appearances can be deceiving.

To the uninformed, the man may have looked like he was snoozing, getting a nap, taking life easy.

Between his ears, he was laying out the project.

The Sheriff was a planning man, the Sheriff was a meticulous man, the Sheriff was a thorough man.

Most of the time.

If someone were unintelligent enough to light the man's fuse, he could be more precipitous and less meditative.

When it was possible, he would think a project through before starting action -- whether it be serving a warrant, negotiating prices, refereeing a disagreement between hostile parties.

At the moment, he was building a stable.

When finally he reached up, settled his Stetson in place, dropped well-polished boots to the deck and stood, he'd constructed the stable behind the Sheriff's office no less than six times.

He picked up a folded sheet of paper, a knife whittled pencil, paced silently out the front door and down the alley and eyeballed exactly where he intended to build, and then he began writing down a materials list.

 

It wasn't far from the firehouse to the Sheriff's office.

Sean strolled up beside the railroad bed, looking around, the very image of indolence: like the Sheriff, the man wasn't quite what he appeared.

Sean Finnegan was the blacksmith-muscled, scarred-knuckle, street brawler of an Irish fire chief, whose first act upon arriving in Firelands was to get into a good old fashioned knock-down, drag-out fight with the county Sheriff.

Of all the challenges he'd been issued, of all the insults thrown in his face, this had been the one and only time that a loud, harshly declared "NO IRISH NEED APPLY!" actually worked out to his benefit.

As good as Sean was -- as experienced and hard-muscled and experienced at the manly art of Knocking the Dog Stuffing Out of your Opponent as Sean was -- the Sheriff genuinely matched him blow for blow, punch for punch (the man was lean but good Lord he could hit!) -- Sean managed an admitted lucky hit to the man's cheekbone, the Sheriff went down, hard.

Sean stood there, one fist up to guard, the other wiping blood from his lips: the Sheriff looked up, grinned crookedly and asked, "Had enough?"

He'd reached up, Sean reached down, the Sheriff was hauled to his feet as easily as a man picks up a rag doll and the Sheriff clapped a bloodied hand on the Irishman's shoulder and declared loudly, "THIS MAN IS FIRE CHIEF, AND HE SPEAKS WITH MY AUTHORITY! IF HE GIVES AN ORDER, CONSIDER IT THE SAME AS IF I GAVE IT!" -- and then he'd taken Sean and his Cincinnati firemen to the Silver Jewel Saloon for beer and a meal.

Sean knew his authority as Fire Chief would not be respected in the far and wild Western lands the way it had been in the civilized and populated East.

He knew when the Sheriff fell, when he came back up and declared Sean's authority equal to his own, that the Sheriff was guaranteeing the Firelands Fire Department would be respected.

On that day a lifelong friendship was forged.

It was therefore no surprise that a red-headed Irishman frowned at the Sheriff's labors, that a red-headed Irishman sized up what appeared to be in the works, that a red-headed Irishman withdrew, to return with a handful of red-shirted Irishmen.

Linn already had the ground leveled, he already had measurements and lines scratched into the hard earth, he already had timber stacked, he had pegs and drills and Osage orange mauls (two of 'em!) set out and ready, and he was just picking up a pry bar to move the first of the foundation stones into place.

Sean stepped up, frowned at the lines in the ground, at the cut, shaped ashlars carefully offloaded from the retreating freight wagon.

"It's the stones ye'll be settin' first," he said -- a statement, not a question.

Linn leaned on the pry bar, nodded.

"First one," he said, "goes in the northeast corner."  He thrust a chin at the indicated location.

"Ye heard him, lads! We start there!"

Irishmen seized the low, rectangular stones, set them in place: Sean stood beside the Sheriff, turned and looked curiously at the man.

"Why th' northeast corner?" he asked quietly.

Linn replied, equally quietly, "At the building of King Solomon's Temple, the first stone was laid in the Northeast corner."

"Ah."

"I believe in tradition."

Sean nodded.

"A man should," he agreed. 

"There's stone enough for three sides. You can see where I've scratched in the footprint."

Sean lent a hand, the Sheriff laboring with the rest of them: the stones were cut to his specification, they were neatly dressed, set directly on packed, undisturbed, hard-as-a-rock earth: he had them laid so the joints overlapped, so holes in the stones lined up, but without mortar: the foundation was two courses high, and when the last stone was laid, which neatly completed this assembly, Linn brought one end of a heavy timber off the ground, packed it into the C-shaped enclosure, set it down.

"I need to mark this now," he said, "and drill it" -- he thrust a bladed hand toward long iron pins -- "I'll pin this through the foundation and into the ground."

"Ah," Sean breathed: "and those plates yonder?"

"When I drove those pins," Linn explained, "it'll mushroom out the end of that iron rod and she'll be like a rivet head."

Sean nodded, as did the nearest Irishmen.

Men labored with precision, with strength, but without haste: when the noon train came coasting into town on a clean stack, the Sheriff declared it mealtime: they trooped over to the Silver Jewel and partook of Daisy's cookin' and an incredible amount of beer, for working in dry air at that altitude will dry a man out.

The Sheriff told Sean, as they built, that he was in no hurry, that his father taught him -- Linn looked at Sean and said wryly, "The Old Man tried to teach me at a tender age that Hurry Up is Brother to Mess It Up, and" -- he threw his hands out in an honest declaration -- "it is plumb AMAZIN' how often I've proven the Old Man right!'

Sean Finnegan, the big, hard-muscled Irish fire chief, threw his head back and laughed, the good hearty laugh of a man worthy of the name: he nodded, as did nearly every member of the Irish Brigade present, and all agreed that their own fathers would say the same!

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GHOSTS, PFFT!

"Drivel."

A newspaper, refolded, spun across the kitchen table, skidded a little, fell to the floor.

"Did you read that birdcage liner?"

A wife looked patiently at her husband: he'd just gotten home from work, he'd brought home milk and bread and hamburger meat, he'd brought home the weekly newspaper.

"Not yet," his wife admitted: supper was fragrant in the air and almost ready to set on the table.

"Ghosts."

"Ghosts?"

She smiled a little as she set out the bread platter, as she lifted the lid on her Great-Aunt's genuine cut-glass butterdish.

"Oh, Jones said he saw a couple of ghosts."

His wife raised her eyebrows, but offered no further comment.

"Mark home yet?"

"He's working after school, dear."

"That's right."  Her husband frowned, looked away, looked back.

"He's making money for college, dear."

"Yeah," the husband said in a discouraged voice. "I know."

His wife did not pursue it any further.

She knew her husband wished mightily to put his son through college.

She knew the expense would honestly cripple them.

She knew her husband's health was not good enough to continue working after retirement, and that would be necessary to pay back student loan money, even if his son got work after being graduated from a four year.

Husband and wife looked at one another, surprised.

They both heard it.

A sudden, unexpected silence ... and then hoofbeats, the sound of a horse, approaching at a nice, easy trot.

A summoning knock on the door -- heavy, authoritative, brisk.

The husband went to the door, opened it a little.

His wife watched, apprehensive: he spoke with someone outside, he reached forward, just a little --

The husband stepped back, surprise and puzzlement sharing equal space on his face.

He turned, looked at his wife, turned back, looked outside, closed the door quietly, turned the lock.

He looked at his wife, baffled.

She watched as he carried a canvas sack to the kitchen table, untied its neck, turned it over.

He'd carried the sack as if it was heavy.

It was.

Silver coins cascaded, clattered, shone in the kitchen light directly over the table.

His wife wiped her hands on her apron, came over, tentatively picked up a coin.

" 'One Ounce Pure Silver,' " she read, looked at her husband.

He sorted through the shining treasure with stiff fingers, looked up at his wife.

"These are old," he said quietly.

"How much is silver now? Thirty-five dollars an ounce?"

"More than that."

She turned, shut off the stove, turned back.

They began counting coins, stacking them in shining columns of ten.

When the table was stacked with regular rows and columns, when they made a count, when they re-counted, when they made a fast multiplication, they sat and stared at one another, stared at the treasure.

When their son got home that night, he was told he'd be going to college after all.

The wife stopped in the Sheriff's office the next day.

"The Sheriff stopped by last night," she said with a delighted expression, "and I stopped to say thank you."

That night her husband came through the door with a grin on his face, which faded quickly as he saw his wife seated, hollow-eyed, at the kitchen table.

She looked up at her husband.

"You told me the Sheriff rode up on a big Palomino and handed you a sack of silver."

"Yeah," he said cautiously.

"That wasn't the Sheriff."

"The hell it wasn't!" he exclaimed, "I saw him, I talked to him! I know him!"

His wife spread out the newspaper he'd tossed across the table the night before, smoothed it out, looked back up at her husband.

"Maybe you should talk to the newspaper."

"Why?"

"I stopped at the Sheriff's office to thank him."

"O-kaaaay," her husband said, drawing the word out uncertainly.

"The Sheriff was at home all night last night."

"How do you know?"

His wife's eyes dropped to the newspaper, rose to her husband.

"He's been flat on his back with the flu."

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 08:31 PM by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103