SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IT STARTED WITH HER

A little girl with pale eyes dismounted, dropped her reins, caressed the Appaloosa mare's nose and whispered, "Wait."

A little girl in a denim skirt and pantyhose untied a blanket from behind her saddle, pulled a thermos from her saddlebag, a brown paper lunch sack from the other saddlebag: she spread the blanket out on a grave, arranged her lunch and her drink and sat cross legged and looked at the ancient, polished stone.

"Hi, Gammaw," she said, as if she were actually having a conversation.

Marnie Keller was still in grade school, but she was an avid and admittedly voracious reader, and she'd read all she could about her Gammaw Esther.

Esther was a businesswoman, and Esther knew how to make money, and Marnie learned hard and vicious lessons at a very tender age, and one lesson she learned, was the value of money.

Marnie looked at the double stone, considered its other half, the one with the six point star hand engraved into polished quartz.

"Grampa," she said, "I'm not ignorin' you, I just can't think of anything brilliant to say!"

She turned her gaze back to Esther's side of the stone, the one with roses cut into the shining surface.

"I don't need college to know business," Marnie said quietly. "You didn't go to college for business and you turned out okay."

She bit into her peanut-butter-sliced-beef-bacon-and-banana sandwich, chewed happily.

She looked at the sandwich, frowned.

"People always need food," she said thoughtfully, "they always need clean drinking water and they always need clothes."

Marnie took another bite, chewed, took a sip of chocolate milk, let her mind relax, let her mind open.

"Bananas."

She looked at her sandwich.

"There's money in bananas. They're not native but people like 'em enough to spend money to buy 'em."

She filed this idea away for future reference.

"Gammaw, you invested in things ... silver mines were new and when they hit silver you got your investment back fast, and if they went bust you lost money."

Her young voice was soft, thoughtful as it followed her wandering thoughts.

"You kept at it and you learned what worked and you made a lot of money at it. You built a brick-works when they drilled and hit natural gas ... you knew bricks were too expensive to freight in from back East and you knew bricks were in demand and you spent money and made a lot more."

Marnie sat, cross-legged, considering what she'd read, what she'd heard, what she'd learned.

 

Marnie Keller, Diplomat, wife and mother, smiled and thanked the farmer quietly as he handed her a shovel.

Marnie set it against the hillside sod, set her foot on it, drove the steel bit into the ground: she cut a narrow plug, brought it out, squatted.

The sight of a Diplomat, a well known public figure, coming to his hillside farm and asking if she might take a look at his ground, was unusual enough.

To see a woman handle a shovel like she'd dug dirt before, to see that woman pull on a pair of thin, transparent gloves, to see her pick up the dirt, crumble it between her fingers, lift it, smell it -- well, this wasn't quite the behavior he'd come to expect from someone who traveled between worlds more easily than he drove a wagon load of produce to town.

Marnie considered for a long moment, then she rose, pulled off the gloves, expertly turning one inside-out, capturing the clinging soil, then the other; she nested one glove inside the other, stuffed them in a pocket.

"I will pay you," she said, "to see if two particular plants will grow in your soil."

"Yes, ma'am," he said courteously.

"This is an ideal location. You have what's called volcanic soil. It's rich, it's fertile --"

"It's up on a hillside, ma'am, and it's easier to plow down below, where it's flat."

Marnie smiled, slipped a pair of rimless spectacles on her face and slid them halfway down her nose: she smiled gently, looking for all the world like a kindly schoolteacher as she took his hands and explained, "This isn't a crop we're farming. I want to see if the plants like the soil.  If they do, they grow better on a hillside, but we don't want to plow the ground. I don't want to see the hillside slip and weather when it rains, so we won't be plowing.  Just one spaded test plot for each of the two kinds of plants."

"Well, yes, ma'am, I reckon that'll do fine."

Marnie reached into another pocket, pulled out a blue cloth poke, handed to him.

"The only thing we have to trade for wages is our time. You've taken time away from your farm that you could have been working. I won't ask a man to do that for nothing."

He hefted the poke: curious, he pulled its drawstring neck open, looked inside, blinked, looked back at her.

"Yes, ma'am," he repeated.

"If I may, I'll have a crew come and spade up two plots. They won't be large, and we'll take pains to make sure we don't cause erosion or other damage.  They'll explain what they're doing, where the plants are, what to look for."

 

Marnie Keller, Diplomat, was also Marnie Keller, plotter and schemer.

She quietly took soil samples from likely locations, grew two kinds of plants under the same particular spectra as their planet's sun, 

She approached landowners with the best soil for her purposes, she paid them well to let her spade up test plots and actually grow the plants: when she found the best locations for growing coffee, for growing cacao, she either contracted with farmers to cultivate the plants for her, or she bought the ground and brought in men skilled at growing these particular crops.

Marnie Keller knew that, during that damned War from which the Ancestors were abducted, men wished mightily for coffee: this desire became part of ancestral legend, and when Marnie served genuine, honest-to-God coffee! at Diplomatic functions, when she served chocolate -- as brownies or as cake or as bars of the stuff -- she was seeding a potential market.

Quietly, steadily, Marnie found the best soils for growing; she employed those most skilled at processing, she invested to meet a demand she created, and in so doing, Marnie Keller, Diplomat, became Marnie Keller, woman of business and of commerce.

She knew that locally grown products gave a sense of ownership, a sense of independence: yes, there were those miraculous devices reverse engineered from alien technology that could manufacture anything, including coffee or chocolate, but it just wasn't the same -- Marnie was an observer of the human condition, and well she knew the stubborn and independent streak that was woven deep into Confederate DNA:

We grew this.

This is ours.

This is better than factory made because this came from our land!

 

A woman in a McKenna gown and a fashionable little hat dismounted from her Appaloosa mare.

She dropped the reins, caressed the mare's nose, whispered, "Wait here," and untied a blanket from behind her saddle.

A pale eyed woman spread a blanket over a grave, set out her lunch and her drink, looked at the laser engraved portrait of a pleasant looking woman with an elaborate coiffure from a century and a half before

Marnie poured steaming-hot coffee, then reached over, trickled a few drops onto the sod, crumbled a little of the brownie, dribbled these onto the grass in front of the gravestone.

"Gammaw," she said, "I didn't invest in silver mines.  At least" -- her pale eyes were light blue as she smiled and admitted, "Not yet, anyway."

She looked at her peanut-butter-sliced-beef-bacon-and-banana sandwich and smiled.

"I've invested in coffee growing and cacao for chocolate production," she said, "but I haven't gone into bananas yet."

She took a bite of her sandwich, chewed happily, closed her eyes with pleasure:  "This is so good!" she mumbled through her mouthful: she took a sip of coffee, smiled at the other half of the gravestone.

"Grampa," she said, "I'm not ignoring you, I just can't think of anything brilliant to say!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ONE MAN LIVED

 

Parson Belden smiled a little as he drove out of Carbon Hill.

He'd gotten a note that a friend of his was recovering from a broken leg.

The Parson loaded up coffee and flour, a basket from Daisy's kitchen and a freshly whittled Limber Jack, for if he recalled rightly, his friend had a child, and children sometimes need amusement.

He'd made about a mile out of town when someone came out in the road and raised a musket.

The Parson was in That Damned War with Old Pale Eyes, and he'd seen enough issue muskets to recognize this one instantly if not sooner.

Trouble was, the musket was coming down to bear on him and before he could shout, stand or jump, something hit him in the left side, something burned like he'd just been whipped across the ribs with a red hot fireplace poker.

The Parson grimaced, flinched, collapsed: his horse shied, snorted, threw its head away from the grasping hand that seized its bridle.

The Parson was hanging out of the buggy, hanging sideways, ready to fall out.

A kid.

I've been shot by a kid.

The tall boy stopped, cranked his head to the side, bent a little, turned.

"THAT AIN'T HIM!" he yelled angrily. "YOU STUPID -- THAT AIN'T HIM!"

"DON'T CALL ME STUPID!" came a shout and another about his age came running out, running up.

The Parson twisted, overbalanced, fell: he managed to flex enough to land on his shoulders, slammed to the ground.

I'm under the wheels.

If they move the wagon I'll be run over.

"Well who is he!" the first one demanded.

"It's the Parson and YOU SHOT HIM, I DIDN'T!"

"YOU'RE THE ONE TOLD ME TO!"

The Parson took a breath, took another.

"He's still alive," a voice said fearfully, and the Parson knew he was in real trouble.

"Reload. Ya gotta kill him now."

"Me kill him? You do it!"

"He's seen you, he'll know who you are, they're gonna stretch YOUR neck!"

The Parson got enough wind in him to clear his vision.

He watched as the kid fumbled with the flap on his possibles bag, then stared at the end of the ramrod like he'd never seen one before.

He pulled out a paper cartridge, dropped it, his hand shaking.

He reached in, pulled out another.

The Parson had been a soldier.

He'd been in that damned War.

He'd been shot.

He'd been in belt buckle to belt buckle battles, he'd been sliced with the end of a bayonet, he'd come away too close to being spitted on Enfield steel.

He'd come too close to dying to be killed by some kid who was gunning for somebody else.

The Parson came off the ground and seized the musket, he swung it hard, driving the toe of the stock into the kid's gut and doubling him over.

He bent, seized the dropped cartridge: muscle memory took over and the Parson bit the end off the paper cartridge, dumped powder down the bore, turned it, knocked off the paper and thumbed the greased Minie ball into the muzzle.

The ramrod seemed to shoot out in response to his fingers; he thrust the ball home with long, practiced thrusts, brought the steel ramrod and spun it neatly, thrust it back into place beneath the barrel he'd seen too many of.

He bent, dumped the possibles, seized a percussion cap box: he twisted it open, pulled one out, straightened, pressed the cap down on the nipple.

He raised the musket and drove the gasping kid in the back of the head, hard, then he turned, leveled the musket: he stepped forward and to the side to get his horse out of the line of fire, shouted "HALT! HALT, OR I FIRE!"

The fleeing youth turned, raised a rifle to shoulder.

The rifle fell from nerveless fingers as a Government issue freight train drove a hole through his wish bone and ripped his soul out of his body with its passage.

The Parson brought the musket down, his hand dropping, closing at the exact place at what used to be his beltline, grasping empty air where a cartridge box used to live.

He turned, picked up one of the spilled paper cartridges, reloaded, quickly, with the practiced ease of a man who'd done this many times before.

He capped the musket, looked around, circled his carriage, listening, looking, old reflexes, old habits, coming to the fore.

Finally he went back to the boy who'd shot him.

He squatted, turned the boy over.

The discolored face told him what he'd suspected: he pulled the vest open, pressed his hand flat on young ribs, his face expressionless.

Parson Belden considered for a long moment, then he carefully picked up spilled percussion caps, spilled paper cartridges, the miscellaneous useful foo-far-raw he'd dumped out of the possibles.

He slung it across his chest, rose, looked around.

Only then did he let himself think about the pain in his side.

I'm still breathing.

Hurts like hell but I'm breathing.

He climbed back into his buggy, laid the musket back in the seat beside him: he peeled out of his coat and vest, practiced fingers explored a bloody gouge.

He felt a bare rib in the wound.

The Parson's teeth were set together before he was done with his tactile exploration: he wiped bloodied fingers on a kerchief, dismounted to gather the dropped reins, climbed awkwardly back into the carriage, and did not bother to put his coat back on.

He clucked to his shining-chestnut Morgan horse, brought him about, headed back the way he'd come.

 

The Sheriff sat on the other side of the table from where Doc was working on the Parson's ribs.

"Marshal Macfarland wired that you'd come through town wearin' a bloody shirt," he said quietly.

The Parson grittted his teeth as Doc wiped the wound with carbolic.

"Parson," Dr. John Greenlees said quietly, "I do believe that is the most profane silence you've uttered today."

Linn looked at the Parson, considered.

"You were bushwhacked," he said -- a statement, not a question.

"Is that what it was?" the Parson hissed from between clenched teeth.

Doc helped the sky pilot sit up; he held a clean bandage against the shallow but colorful wound, carefully wrapped it to hold it in place: the Sheriff helped pass the bandaging around the Parson's chest.

"They intended to waylay WJ Garrison."
The Parson's pain was not enough to stifle his curiosity: he turned, looked at the Sheriff.

"Word had it WJ was carrying a sum of money. Apparently it got talked around to where he had a whole safe plumb full of money there in the buggy with him. From what you've told me, they figured to shoot the man, take his loot and disappear."

The Parson nodded.

"You kept an honest man alive, Parson. Those two that tried to waylay him died of their own stupidity."

The Parson grunted, grimaced; Linn surmised this was not strictly physical pain, for the man had honestly tried to leave the War long behind him.

"Parson, listen to me," Linn said, his voice low, urgent: "those two chose to commit suicide. It's a shame they used you as their means, but that's all it was, Parson. You did no murder, you did no wrong!"

 

Long years later, a woman with pale eyes read words entrusted to India ink and good rag paper.

She sat beside another pale eyed woman who was helping sort and make sense of letters, records, newspaper articles.

"Just look at that handwriting," Marnie murmured. 

"Handwriting was Everyman's art," Willamina affirmed. "A good clear hand was seen as a sign of education and of good breeding. There were those whose writing was poor, but so far, everything I've found that Old Pale Eyes wrote, was very clear and very carefully inscribed."

Marnie re-read the Sheriff's official account and smiled a little as she read the words of a lean waisted man with an iron grey mustache.

It was not so much a battle as a skirmish, she read, quickly engaged, and just as quickly ended.

She reread the words, read the last words aloud, for they seemed the more important.

One man lived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE DIRECT APPROACH

 

The hostage’s eyes were wide, scared.

She tried to scream.

A hand over her mouth, a thumb pinching her nose shut, kept her from making a sound.

Something came around where she could see it – a knife – it came in close to her throat.

Her eyes slammed shut as the world detonated around her, then the hand over her face relaxed and fell away and so did the knife.

A young woman stood in front of the bank, her ears screeching behind what felt like a concussive cotton stuffing, suddenly useless in the sudden silence.

She was afraid to turn around.

She turned around anyway, turned and looked down.

The gunshot that freed her, shocked the city street into silence.

The subsequent scream, as she saw the unmoving, bloodied result, broke the spell.

 

Marnie Keller looked up from the handwritten account.

Her eyes trailed across the wall until she came to the formal portrait of Sarah Lynne McKenna, taken as a birthday present on her fourteenth birthday.

Beside it, the only known portrait of The Black Agent.

On Marnie’s fourteenth birthday, she’d taken a copy of Sarah's portrait to a local hairdresser and asked her to fix her hair like the picture.

When she was done, and after Marnie laced herself into a properly boned corset and put on the petticoats and foundations and finally the handmade dress, she set the portrait beside the big oval full-length mirror.

She looked from the portrait to the mirror, frowned: she went to her jewelry-box, selected a particular necklace, draped it about her neck so the stone glowed against the high, modest collar: a final inspection, and she nodded in satisfaction, then she went to a cabinet, unlocked a door.

Marnie withdrew a pair of custom Charter Arms revolvers – spurless hammers, three inch barrels, cut for full moon clips – she slid each into its hidden holster, easily concealed within the dramatic fall of her voluminous skirt.

Genuine Bulldog revolvers, such as Sarah Lynne McKenna carried, were quite scarce, and when available, either priced out of reason, or worn beyond safe use.

.44 Charter Bulldogs were, however, available.

She went back to the account her ancestress wrote, the account of a robbery gone bad.

 

I’d gone into the City, she read.

I had business with a certain detective.

I went as The Black Agent.

I find it convenient to disguise myself as a young man; the properly aggressive stride, the broad brim of my hat, the right clothing, and I passed easily for a man.

I was to meet the detective in front of a particular bank.

I am particular to be precisely on time.

I was in the alley beside the bank, consulting my watch.

I was early by three minutes.

I heard a scream, cut off, then an angry man’s voice.

I looked across the street, availing myself of the excellent mirror a plate glass window provided.

My hand automatically went to my belt: I carried an unadorned Colt’s revolver, and on the left, two knives, both balanced for fighting or throwing, and both sharpened on a coarse stone.

A coarse stone gives a coarse edge, a slaughterhouse edge, the better for cutting flesh.

None of this was in my mind.

I came around the corner of the bank and behind a man who was screaming that he would kill her if anyone came near.

It was simplicity itself to slip up behind him and introduce the muzzle of my Colt’s to the base of his skull.

If I have the opportunity, I will put a bullet very precisely through the base of the skull: this causes an immediate, boneless collapse, utterly without twitch or jerk.

I drew back, quickly, I ran down the alley and into a hide I’d prepared ahead of time: where an active young man, all in black, ran in the back door of an establishment, it was an attractively-gowned young woman who emerged unhurriedly from its front, carrying a small grip.

Marnie Keller looked again at the portrait and smiled, just a little.

Her Daddy was taking her to the Silver Jewel; it was her fourteenth birthday, he said, and the Ladies’ Tea Society wished to celebrate with her.

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller smiled a little as she remembered her fourteenth birthday celebration.

She turned a page on her glowing screen: she and her pale-eyed Gammaw were side by side, behind the ornately-decorated birthday cake: two pale eyed women, identical in height, their hair identically arranged, wearing identical dresses, looking enough alike to be mother and daughter, or perhaps older sister and younger sister.

The Ambassador felt an old, familiar ache: her Gammaw was gone and had been for years.

Marnie still missed her.

She looked at the picture and smiled again.

She still had the same dress.

It still fit her.

She’d worn it earlier today, as a matter of fact.

 

Marnie blinked, looked up, touched a key, smiled.

“Happy Birthday, darlin’,” her pale eyed Daddy called. “You want to come home so I’ll have an excuse to go to the bakery?”

Marnie laughed with her Daddy:  “No, and don’t you try baking one either!”

“Why not? I can bake a fine chocolate brick!”

Marnie looked over a nonexistent set of spectacles.

“How is your business venture going?”

“Well indeed, Daddy! I have speculators lined up wanting to buy into my businesses!”

“Which they’ll want until they can steal plants and grow their own.”

“No doubt!” Marnie sighed.

“Have you tried growing anything besides coffee and chocolate?  You said something about cultivating bananas.”

“I’ve been growing tea here for several years now,” Marnie said quietly, smiling a little, “but – no bananas yet.”

“Yet, We Have No Bananas?” Linn sang.

Father and daughter, separated by fourteen light-minutes, laughed – separated by distance, yes, but with the help of Confederate commo, united with a father's silliness, united with their shared laughter.

 

Marnie looked at her ancestress’s subsequent entry.

The detective ate carefully, as if he had something on his mind.

I was hungry enough to have eaten half a beef, but I did not: as is my habit on State occasions, I ate sparingly, I ate with an intentional daintiness.

My two year old nephews would have been far less than satisfied with the volume I consumed.

When finally my companion's repast was consumed, when the charming but obsequious waiter inflicted himself on us to refill the detective’s wineglass – I had one sip, and only one – the earnest young man in the immaculate suit leaned forward a little and said quietly, “I am given to understand that we have The Black Agent to thank for today’s little … adventure.”

“Oh?” I asked archly. “Pray tell, what was this little … adventure?”

He glared at me:  “You know very well –”

I cut him off with a flip of my hand, a dismissive wave of gloved fingers: “My dear Charles,” I murmured, smiling a little as I did, “I fear my crystal ball has not  yet arrived from Europe, and so I am quite at a loss to know just what you mean.”

“Look,” he said bluntly – to his credit, his words were quiet, though I could hear the heat in them – “you can’t just go around shooting people!”

“I?”

I gave him my very best Innocent Look, which I am told is quite convincing.

“I fear I have only just arrived from Firelands. Would you care to examine my train-ticket?”

He looked away, looked back, took a deep breath and sighed it out.

“See here,” he said sternly, “I should not wish to have to arrest you!”

“For what?” I blinked, knowing his weakness for long eyelashes and a wide-eyed expression. “I can produce most credible witnesses to attest that I was nowhere near when this little adventure occurred!”

He frowned, looked away: he looked back, then looked past me, surprised.

He stood, suddenly.

I favored the dignified older gentleman approaching our table with an innocent assessment, calculating my facial expression to reflect feminine surprise: my posture was relaxed, I betrayed no mistrust.

Charles blinked as the man seized his hand and gripped it most firmly, his other hand on the detective’s shoulder.

“My boy, thank you,” he said firmly. “You and your associate kept my daughter alive!”

Charles was quick on his feet, Charles played quite a good hand of poker: Charles gave a shallow nod and said “Thank you, sir, you are too kind!”

“Nonsense! Word has it that you recruited The Black Agent! How you and he knew this would happen is well beyond my comprehension, sir, but your associate was both swift and certain in keeping my daughter safe!”

His hand never stopped pumping the detective’s; so vigorous was his manipulation of the detective's forearm, that I would not have been surprised had water gushed out Charles’ ears.

The older man turned to me, gave a half-bow: “My dear, forgive the enthusiasm of a very relieved father, but your dinner companion is to credit for my daughter’s very life being saved by a ruffian who sought to use her as a shield for his escape!”

I blinked, my eyes intentionally widened, as I looked at Charles: my gloved fingers went to my lips and I murmured a surprised little “Oh!” as if I were an addled female suddenly in the presence of someone famous, someone significant.

Charles stared at the man’s shoulders as he departed, then sat slowly: he looked at his wineglass, picked it up, drained it, set it down, looked at me.

I smiled, just a little.

“Charles,” I said softly, “sometimes the direct approach is the best approach.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A TRUSTED FRIEND

Marnie laid a gentle hand on her Daddy's forearm.

"You look so sad," she murmured.

Linn was staring out the back porch screen, looking at something only he could see.

Marnie looked at the back yard, the clothes line, the herb garden, the well, the fence and field beyond: she felt her father take a quick, deep breath, the way he did, then let it out slow.

He turned, hugged his daughter, and she hugged him back.

"Just rememberin'," he said softly, and then something big, black, curly furred and happy came into view, with an equally happy little boy, who -- for the very first time in his young life -- was running, barefoot, in grass.

It was unusually warm that afternoon, so much so that Littlejohn wore shorts and a T-shirt rather than something warmer: Linn smiled a little as he remembered his Aunt Mary, rest her soul, fussing at him for going barefoot on what she called "that cold ground" -- Littlejohn laughed, coasted to a stop, bent over, ran his fingers through green grass, marveling at this new sensation.

"Why so sad?" Marnie asked softly.

Linn turned pale eyes to his daughter, his face serious.

"Last time your young --"

His voice caught as he remembered the unusually tall, unusually thin little boy who'd stripped off his power suit and felt Earth's gravity in full, for the first time, how he'd labored with a single minded determination until the honest fatigue of suddenly tripling his weight became too much and he struggled back into the compensating suit.

"He slept well that night," Marnie said, smiling as she, too, remembered.

Linn swallowed, nodded, folded his arms.

"Daddy" -- Marnie's voice was a whisper -- "I can't tell you not to grieve. I won't tell you to let them go. They were your blood."

Linn's jaw muscles bulged and he nodded, just a little.

"A man protects his family," he said, and Marnie heard the edge sharpening the long notes of his voice. "I wasn't there to protect them."

"No," Marnie whispered. "I was, and they were dead before I could get to them."

"Are there more death squads out there?"

"I don't know, Daddy. As near as we can tell, their programming woke them up when they found a settlement that wasn't theirs, and... they attacked. Space is so unbelievably big ... there could be more, yes."

"You can spot them now?"

"We can," Marnie said, then hesitated before adding, "We can now."

Littlejohn scampered across the yard again, laughing, The Bear Killer galumphing along with him: Linn -- despite his memories -- had to laugh, for it was something he'd seen, and seen often... a laughing little boy, a great Bear Killer of a dog.

Jacob laughed like that, when he was a little boy.

So did Michael.

So had Emil and Gottleib.

He blinked, swallowed, bit his bottom lip.

"Marnie," he said quietly, "the twins -- my ... my other twins."

Marnie tilted her head, looked up at her Daddy.

Linn looked at his daughter, wondered if he should be addressing Angela instead.

"You're wondering about glioblastoma."

Again that shallow, tightly-controlled nod.

"Neither Michael nor Victoria show any sign of it. Neither does Littlejohn, nor I, nor Angela."

Marnie looked over a set of nonexistent spectacles and added, "Neither do you."

Linn blinked, surprised. "Oh?"

Marnie smiled, patted his arm, then came up on her toes to kiss him quickly on the cheek: he saw the same look of delight and of mischief in her eyes that he saw when she was still a girl, when she'd come up on her toes and kissed his cheek like that.

"You don't think we're not keeping an eye on you, now, do you?" Marnie teased, then she patted his low ribs gently with the back of her hand. "Why do you think you haven't had gallbladder pain?"

"You ... worked on that too?"

Marnie gave him That Look again.

"Let's just say there are crystals that will never grow up to be gallstones, and sludge that will never cause you discomfort again."

"Without havin' to cut holes in me."

"Call it an early birthday present. I prefer you in good health and free of pain."

The front door opened; a youthful torrent of happy energies charged up the broad stairs, The Bear Killer surging along with them: Linn heard Victoria's big-sister admonishments, and shortly after, running water.

"I would say," Marnie speculated, "that Victoria has Littlejohn either charmed or buffaloed, that he's getting a nice warm shower, with instructions to wash his feet rather thoroughly, and he'll be asleep on the couch once he's downstairs!"

Linn went up the stairs, sockfoot silent, smiled as he came far enough up to see.

Littlejohn was showered and dried off, he was in clean clothes, and he was laid down on the rug in front of the bathroom, sound asleep, The Bear Killer cuddled up with him.

Linn went back downstairs, got a soft, fuzzy blanket off the long, well padded couch in his study, brought it back up.

A long, tall, pale eyed grandfather draped a soft, sun-warmed blanket over the hard-playing, hard-sleeping grandson.

Littlejohn never woke as strong and grandfatherly arms worked the blanket under him, rolled him up against a manly, flannel-shirted chest, carried him downstairs.

A watchful Bear Killer followed along.

Linn paused in front of the couch, looked at The Bear Killer, thrust his chin at the upholstery.

The Bear Killer piled up onto the couch.

Linn laid Littlejohn down and The Bear Killer immediately relaxed around the sleeping little boy, clean, warm, wrapped up in a blanket, cuddled up with a trusted and vigilant friend.

Marnie took her Daddy's hand, looked at her son, looked up at her Daddy and whispered, "Told ya!"

 

Edited October 16, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HAR-MEGIDDO

An Englishman frowned at his wineglass.

It emptied itself far too quickly for his liking.

His meal was surprisingly good: an impeccably attired young woman recommended the hotel for his meal, and her recommendation was very definitely to his benefit.

Other than for his empty wineglass.

A movement at his elbow; he supposed it was the maitre d', come to fill the shocking emptiness of his wineglass: he ate another forkful of truly excellent beef, blinked, leaned back, looked.

He shoved his chair back, stood suddenly:  "My apologies, Sister," he said with a careful half-bow: "I regret I did not realize it was you --"

The white-gowned nun raised a forestalling palm.

"Might I join you?" she asked quietly.

"Please." 

The face-veiled nun glided to the chair opposite: a waiter hurried to draw her chair out, to scoot her in.

"Thé, s’il vous plaît," she murmured: the waiter bowed, hurried away.

Another appeared, refilled the Englishman's glass.

"May I offer you something, Sister? Surely tea will not suffice --"

The hand raised again, a gentle gesture: "Merci, mon Colonel," she replied, and as she did, the Colonel tilted his head and frowned curiously.

"Forgive me, Sister," he said, "I am unfamiliar with an order that covers the face --"

The nun lifted the corner of her veil, long enough for the Colonel to bite back the gasp of surprise that came unbidden.

He saw a scar -- a horrible, diagonal slash, an excavation of violence and cruelty, beginning at the corner of her eye, blazing a wide, reddened ditch across her face, down and across her neck --

She dropped the veil.

"I have my reasons, mon Colonel," she said, her voice a little hoarser now:  "I used to sing opera."

"My apologies, good Sister," he replied uncomfortably. "Had I any idea --"

She lifted her chin, or so it appeared -- with the veil over her face, it was not as easy to tell -- the waiter appeared, placed a delicate, gold-rimmed teacup and saucer before her, disappeared.

"Please, mon Colonel," the veiled sister murmured, "do eat."

The Englishman pushed his plate away, picked up his refilled wineglass.

He watched as the veiled Sister lifted her veil, slipped the teacup beneath: not until she drank, did he.

"May I offer you a glass?" he asked, intrigued. "The vintage is surprisingly good."

"I have a question, mon Colonel."

"You are of French extraction, then?"

She hesitated.

"New Orleans," she said, her native's accent flawless, gentle.

"How, then, may I be of service, Sister ...?"

"Sister Mercurius," she replied, placing the emptied teacup on its saucer and pushing it a little from her.

"Of course."

"I would ask you of your travels."

"My ... travels?" he echoed, leaning forward a little setting down the wineglass.

"Have you been to Jerusalem?" she asked bluntly.

"Jerusalem?"

"You wear the pilgrim's scallop on your lapel, mon Colonel. It is a traditional insignia for those who've made the Jerusalem pilgrimage."

He nodded, slowly, turning the slender glass stem between thumb and two fingers.

"Yes, Sister Mercurius," he said slowly, "I have."

"And your travels in the Holy Land," the veiled nun pressed.  "Did they include the Valley of Megiddo?"

He looked at her in honest surprise.

"Yes, it did."

The waiter removed his plate and her teacup and saucer, refilled the wineglass, bowed, disappeared.

The veiled nun leaned forward, hands clasped, barely visible in her voluminous sleeves: "The Valley, mon Colonel. Napoléon said it was big enough for all the armies of the world to maneuver in it."

He nodded slowly, his eyes becoming distant with the memory.

"Yes," he said softly. "Yes, Sister. Take it from an old campaigner. All the armies of the world could indeed maneuver there!"

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller read the handwritten words of a woman long dead, a woman known to disguise herself as the occasion might demand.

She remembered looking up on an Israeli valley, looking with the eyes of a Marine who'd known combat.

She stood shoulder to shoulder with an officer whose dark eyes surveyed the valley as completely, as efficiently as she.

"Napoleon said all the armies of the world could maneuver here," Colonel Willamina Keller murmured, and her Légion counterpart nodded.

"I believe they will," he said softly.

He laughed a little, nodded, then sighed.

"It is inevitable, mon Colonel," he said softly, his native accent slipping out unbidden: "this is where it must happen. All the world will come here, in the last, and fight until the last living soul is dead, until the souls of the dead are taken in harvest."

"But only those who are worthy."

"Now you sound like our Viking!"

"And who is to say that angels don't ride horses, like the daughters of Odin?" Willamina said softly. 

The Légionnaire looked out across the distance, his expression haunted.

"If I am to fall in battle," he said softly, "may my soul be taken by such an Angel!"

Colonel Willamina Keller thrust her bottom jaw out stubbornly, turned, looked at the Legionnaire.

"I'll see what I can do," she said, and her voice left absolutely no doubt that it would be done.

Willamina looked up from Sarah's account of inquiring of the traveling British officer, his observations of the Valley of Har-Megiddo, and she remembered standing and looking and imagining what that last battle must be like.

Did John of Patmos see a modern battlefield? she wondered.

Was his description of locusts ... was he describing attack helicopters?

She stood abruptly, looked at her startled granddaughter.

"I have to go," she said crisply. "Lock up when you leave."

"I, of course, is everything all right?"

Marnie watched as Willamina strode out the door, heard her heels, brisk on the steps, the floor, heard the outer door open, close.

Ten minutes later the same heels sounded a brisk cadence down their little whitewashed Church's center aisle.

Willamina stopped, looked up at the rough cross on the back wall, considered, her bottom jaw thrusting stubbornly out.

"I raised my hand and swore an oath," she said, "and I wore Uncle Sam's ugly baggies and went among the heathen and smote them hip and thigh."

She hesitated, her jaw still stubbornly run forward.

"If you're considering recruits for the Valkyrie Brigade," she said, "if you need riders to harvest souls from the battlefield, let me know.  I told a man I'd be there to fetch his soul to Paradise."

A pale eyed woman in a tailored blue suit dress and heels saluted, executed a flawless about-face, paced off on the left, strode with a regular, military pace down the center aisle.

She pushed the door open, stepped out, clattered down the ancient wooden steps, looking around, looked up.

Valkyrie, she thought, and smiled a little, imagining a winged shadow slicing across the starry night sky.

I'd like that.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 17, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GOD GRANT ME SONS

A pale eyed Captain dismounted, walked over to a fallen log.

A young soldier sat, eyes wide, staring.

The Captain had seen this before.

Matter of fact, he’d done this very thing himself.

He settled himself on the log beside the soldier.

It was warm, there in the sun: a very slight breeze, leaves falling, birds.

Two men sat in silence.

“You hurt?” he asked quietly.

“No, sir.”

Silence, again.

“Where you from?”

“Warren County, sir.”

“Pennsylvania.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Captain nodded, considered.

“My Pa said we had family from out that-a-way.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Captain waited another minute, looked over at the wide-eyed, staring, silent young soldier.

“You fought today.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your first battle?”

The soldier swallowed: he never moved, he didn’t shudder, but the Captain saw fear flow back into his wide, staring eyes.

“Yes, sir.”

The Captain nodded again.

“A man sees things in battle he’d never seen before.”

“Yes, sir,” the young soldier said in a faint voice.

“He learns something about himself when he does.”

The soldier closed his eyes and shivered.

“Yes, sir.”

“What did you learn, son?”

“I was scared, sir,” the soldier whispered. “I was plumb yella scared!”

“You’re not alone,” the Captain admitted.

The soldier looked at the Captain, surprised. 

“Sir?”

Captain Linn Keller looked at the soldier, nodded solemnly.

“I don’t know who was screamin’ the louder,” he said, “them Rebs a-comin’ at us, or us a-runnin’ towards them, or that little voice behind my eyeballs screamin’ at me to drop my sword and run like a scared little girl!”

The soldier blinked, surprised:  an officer, admitting to being scared?

“Did you, sir?”

Linn laughed quietly, shook his head.

“No,” he admitted.  “No, I was right in front, leadin’ the charge. Once you’ve kicked the hornet’s nest there’s no gettin’ away and all you can do is stand there and fight.”

“Yes, sir,” the soldier said faintly.

“As I recall,” Linn said in a quiet voice, “I did some powerful thinkin’ afterward.”

“Sir?”

“I recalled my wife and how she felt when I held her. I recalled my farm and how good the dirt smelt when I plowed up a furrow. I remembered my old Sam-horse and how the lake sounded when them waves come in and breathed ag’in th shoreline, and I figured I had me a choice, I could run off and go home and live the rest of m’ life, or I could see this through.”

The private looked at the Captain, considered the man’s words, then looked back into the woods, back toward their encampment.

“I thought of runnin’,” came his quiet admission.

The Captain nodded.

“I don’t want to be a deserter, sir.  I don’t want to be a coward, but I was … scared.”

“Bein’ scared doesn’t make you a coward, son. Bein’ scared is good.”

It was the Captain’s turn to stare into the woods, eyes wide and unseeing.

“When you’re scared, you’re more alive than you’ve ever been. You see better, you hear better, you’re stronger and faster and you think more clearly.”

“All I was thinkin’, sir, was I wanted to get home an’ see my folks again.”

“Then you’ve somethin’ to fight for,” the Captain said, certainty in his voice. “The faster we can end this damned War, the faster we can all get home where we belong.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You hungry?”

The young soldier blinked, surprised, as he realized that yes, he actually was hungry.

The Captain worked an apple from a coat pocket, handed it to the young soldier.

“Here. I run across a tree still had a few on it. Ate my fill.”

The young soldier accepted the apple, bit into it mumbled “Fank oo, thrr” through his happy mouthful.

“After my first big battle – nearly got m’self killed, damn fool that I was – I set down like we’re doin’ now, and I did some serious thinkin’, just like you’re doin’.”

Linn stood, dusted off the seat of his blue uniform trousers: he removed his cover, scratched his head, looked at his horse, settled the hat back on his head.

“I reckon supper ought to be ready right here directly. Come on in before it gets too late, you don’t want shot by a jumpy sentry.”

The private stood, frowned.

“No, sir.”

He looked at the Captain.

“Sir,” he said, “I was fixin’ to run off.”

Linn looked at him, nodded.

“But you didn’t.”

“No, sir.”

A Captain rested a fatherly hand on a young man’s shoulder.

“If God grants me sons,” he said softly, “I hope He gives me one as brave as you are.”

Edited October 17, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A WORK AS YET NOT DONE

 

Michael Keller stood at the introduction, took his place behind the podium: like his grandmother Willamina, he stood on a cut-down wooden pallet with plywood screwed down to make a standing surface.

He gripped the microphone, adjusted it down a little, looked out at a sea of familiar faces, and grinned that familiar, quick, boyish grin the community remembered so well.

“Pa told me a certain three letter Federal agency wanted to know what most people were afraid of.”

An eleven year old boy in a tailored black suit, with a green-silk necktie and a rectangular ruby stickpin, wandered his gaze from left to right across a sea of ladies in McKenna gowns, at a lesser number of men in less formal attire.

“Turns out most folks are more afraid of public speaking than an IRS audit, a root canal, or a used car salesman!”

His grin was contagious, the chuckles, spontaneous: Michael leaned back, placed dramatic fingertips to his breast, waved a braggart’s finger at the ceiling and declared “I, of course, have no such fear!”

Victoria, her hair elaborately coiled and pinned, in an immaculate gown and shining little slippers, surged to her feet, stomped around the corner of the front row, advanced with her bottom jaw out and scowling: she stopped, shook her finger at her twin brother and declared, “Show-off!”

This gained more laughter, and dispelled any tension the room might’ve held.

“You are all familiar with the portraits of Sarah McKenna and how she’s the twin for our Gammaw, and how she’s a twin for Marnie.  Now Victoria –”

Michael thrust an orator’s exaggerated hand toward his sister, who folded her arms, lowered her head a little and tapped her foot audibly –

“Victoria looks very much like herself, and I’m glad for that.  We’re twins, but as far as looks, she got the better end of the deal.”

Michael smoothed the front of his coat, his young face losing its smile.

“Gammaw did an immense amount of research, and so has Marnie. We still have information coming in. One recent, was an account from the Rabbitville Monastery.”

 

A Faceless Nun drew a chair up beside a dying man’s pallet.

“Is there someone I can write for you?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t reckon there is,” the sufferer said slowly.  “I’m dyin’.”

The Sister took his hand, pressed it gently between hers.

“Sister,” the man said, “have you ever seen angels?”

“Yes,” the Sister said quietly.

“Were they riding horses?”

“The one I saw,” the Faceless Nun replied quietly, “rode a huge black horse with immense white wings.”

“She wore a … ‘twas like someone took a cook pot and put it over her head only there was cut outs upward for the eyes.”

“It was pointed, just a little, with a plate running down the nose.”

He smiled a little, as if relieved.

“She wore one of them Spanish breastplates.”

The nun raised a finger, stood: she thrust her hands in her sleeves, turned, disappeared: when she came back, it was with a lap desk, with two pencils, with paper.

She began to draw, quickly, confidently.

A warrior-goddess emerged from her pencil – or perhaps it was a shield-maiden – greaves covered her shins, she wore boots to her knees; a skirt of plates, a woman-sculpted cuirasse: the horse was rearing, wings spread, nostrils flared: clouds rolled in behind her, emerging from one whittled pencil, then another as the first wore down: and in her hand, upraised, a lance, with blazing white fire at its tip.

She held the drawing up, held it close so he could see it.

He smiled a little, or tried to.

“That’s her,” he whispered.

“She said my work wasn’t done, and she rode off without me, rode off into the sky and left me there.”

One tear – only one – escaped his reserve, ran out the corner of his eye and down the side of his face into his ear.

“Why’d she leave me?” he whispered.

“Do you remember,” the Veiled Nun murmured, laying the drawing aside and taking his fever-hot hand again, “you swam a torrent and brought two boys to safety?”

He blinked, confused, then remembered, nodded weakly.

“You spoke a kind word to a woman who was standing in front of an apothecary.”

He shook his head, just a little, whispered “Don’t recall.”

“She was convinced her sons were dead. She was a widow woman and now her children were dead, because she looked away only a moment, and they were gone, and she feared they’d gone to look at the river and fell in.”

He blinked, listening, trying to remember.

“She was going in to buy poison.

“She intended to go home and drink the poison and die in bed in an empty house.

“She didn’t buy the poison, because you spoke kindly to her.

“She went home instead, and found her boys waiting for her – they were naked, they were toweling off, their soaked clothes thrown over the clothes line, but they were alive.”

She squeezed his hand for emphasis.

“You saved three lives that day.”

 

Michael turned to the drawing of a woman in a helm and curiasse, holding a lance with a blazing tip, standing beside a huge, winged horse: the image projected on the screen behind him was clear, beautifully detailed, well enough drawn to almost look like a black and white photograph.

“The story I just told you,” Michael said, his young voice carrying clearly to the back row, “was recounted by the Veiled Nun, and duly noted by the Abbot, and I owe thanks to the Rabbitville Monastery for providing us with this account, and this corroborating drawing, rendered by their” – he frowned, sorted through his notes, ran young fingers down a handwritten page.

“Sister Mercurius,” he read, then looked up and smiled.

He pressed the control beside the podium.

The drawing shrank to half the screen; the formal portrait of Sarah McKenna came up, occupying the other half.

Both pictures retreated into upper left and upper right quadrants, and lower left and right were filled by the Black Agent, and then by the image of Willamina, in a McKenna gown.

Four women, all with the same face.

“Now it would make a good tale indeed,” Michael said, “if I were to tell you the Veiled Nun told the dying man to wait a moment, she’d be right back, and then she came back dressed like this” – he highlighted the armored Maiden with her enormous, winged destrier – “so I’ll leave it to you to decide whether a warrior’s soul was finally finally borne off by a Valkyrie, or whether a dying man found comfort in finding someone who believed what he was saying.”

 

A woman sat easily in her saddle, a young man behind her, both of them looking through the window at a meeting, with a young man in front speaking, with women in fine and colorful gowns sat attentively in rows, listening.

“He speaks well,” a young soldier said.

“Yes he does.”  The woman smiled as they listened to the speaker’s presentation.

“Do you see the woman in the second row, with the pink-and-white dress?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“She is the granddaughter, three times removed, of the woman you spoke to in front of the apothecary.”

“Be damned.”

“She and three others in that room would not be there, had you not lived to bring her boys out of the water.”

“I guess you were right,” he said softly. “It wasn’t my time.”

A great, black horse turned, trotted easily away from the window and up the street, riding quickly away from town and into the night.

Victoria frowned, turned, looked out the window.

I thought I heard a horse, she thought, but her pale eyes saw nothing.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TITLE

 

Michael Keller rose, stood, bowed his head.

The rest of the long table bowed their heads as well.

"God Almighty, we come before You with a list, so we don't forget anything."

Michael stopped, looked around: Marnie gave him One Of Those Looks, for she knew her little brother better than most, and she knew he was up to something.

Saying the blessing before a state dinner was not, in her opinion, the time to show off.

"First of all, Lord," Michael said, his young voice clear and carrying well the length of the table of dignitaries and notables, "we thank You for Your many blessings, both those we recognize and bring us happiness, and those that do not bring us happiness but we know there's a lesson for us in it.

"Last on the list, Lord -- there's only two items, God, I hate long lists -- spare us the curse of the long winded blessing, Amen!"

Heads raised, amused looks were exchanged, approving looks were directed at the young man in the tailored black suit who seated himself with a little more care than might be expected.

Victoria, on his left, was ready to whisper "Show-off!" like she usually did, but she blinked, looked at Marnie: two pale eyed Keller women shared something unspoken, a look of concern.

That evening, after negotiations, after discussions, after tours and persuasive discussions disguised as casual or inadvertent meetings with the Ambassador, Marnie glided into the quiet of a little church she'd spotted earlier in the day.

She went in alone; though she usually had an entourage, she usually had a discreet group seeing to her safety, to her needs, this time she slipped away from them, knowing she'd hear about it later.

It didn't matter.

She needed some alone time.

Marnie flowed down the center aisle of the empty church, stopped at the end of the aisle, bowed her head, dipped her knees: she wet her lips, folded her gloved hands very properly in her apron, lifted her head, looked at the carefully polished, symmetrically tapered Cross that seemed to hang in empty space behind the Altar.

Marnie suspected there were discreet arms holding it away from the wall, giving the illusion of suspension; the exact mechanism was not important, it provided a focus, a representation.

She considered the shining, polished, dust-free Cross, then she turned, walked slowly to the nearest pew, turned, sat ... she sat, shoulders rounded, her head lowered into her hand and her elbow on her knee.

She looked up, her face tired, lined.

"They were so close, Lord," she whispered. "So close."

She lowered her head into both hands this time and sat, still, unmoving, silent: when finally she looked up, it was with misery in her eyes and sorrow in her expression.

"I nearly failed, Lord," she squeaked. "If I ... there's no way I was capable of stopping them."

She threw her head back, took a fast, deep breath.

"I'm not that eloquent, Lord. Michael is eloquent. I'm ..." -- she swallowed -- "Lord, those words weren't mine. You must've given them to me. Thank You for that."

Marnie closed her eyes, bowed her head again, sat alone in the comforting hush of an undistinguished little church she'd seen.

She needed to be alone.

She needed to shelter her spirit, at least for a little while.

She needed a quiet and peaceful church.

 

Marnie ran down the corridor, laughing like a happy little girl, her skirts hauled up in a two-fisted grip to keep from tripping.

The Rabbi stopped, turned, smiled at her approach: she misjudged her velocity in the lighter Mars gravity, the Rabbi braced himself and caught her: Marnie's head went over his shoulder, she pulled back, breathing hard, cheeks flushed.

"Rabbi, you were right, thank you!" she blurted, her eyes shining with delight.

"You're welcome, I'm sure," the Rabbi said uncertainly, "but ... what happened?"

Marnie gripped his shoulders, dropped her hands, turned and fell back against the wall, her head back, eyes closed, breathing deeply, and in that moment, the Rabbi considered that Dr. Greenlees was a fortunate man indeed, to have such a woman for a wife!

Marnie opened her eyes, looked at their head Chaplain.

"Rabbi, some time ago I ... admitted ..."

She swallowed, leaned her head back against the wall again, puffed out her cheeks and blew out a long breath.

"I admitted I didn't think I was the right woman for the job."

"Which job?" the Rabbi asked bluntly. "You're wearing so many hats it's a wonder you fit through the airlock!"

The Rabbi didn't quite frown, but his brows did pull together, a surprisingly serious expression for such a young face.

"Come. Let's have a nice klatsch. You can sit and tell me what happened."

Marnie bit her bottom lip, blinked.

"I've a little boy who misses his Mama, and a husband who's almost as bad," she said softly, "if I may have that klatsch later ...?"

"Of course. Now don't leave me hanging, what happened?"

Marnie sighed out another deep breath.

"I didn't prevent a war, Rabbi," she said, "but I talked the major powers out of an initial battle that would have set off a war. I was asked to come in and arbitrate. I had no idea what to say, but when I opened my mouth, the words were there."

She looked at the Rabbi, her eyes a light blue shade.

"You told me the Lord would provide, Rabbi. He did. Thank you for that wisdom, you were right!"

 

Marnie bent her wrist, looked at the small screen, at Victoria's serious young face.

"Michael is all right."

"What happened?"

"He fell and landed wrong. The docs ran a complete diagnostic on his spine. It looks like he cracked his coccyx in two places. He'll be sitting carefully for a while."

"He's lucky it didn't completely fracture," Marnie said bluntly. "Daddy broke his on the stairs a lot of years ago and it still gives him grief!"

Marnie was one hallway junction from her quarters when the far airlock opened and something young and fast moving came pelting down the hallway, arms wide:  "Mommeee!"

"I'll call you back," Marnie said, broke the connection: she went to her knees, spread her arms and received the happy collision of a big broad smile attached to a laughing little boy.

Marnie Keller, Ambassador, preventer of conflict, woman of commerce, laughed as she realized that, of all her titles, the one that shivered the corridor with a juvenile shout was the one of which she was proudest.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TO RIDE THE DRAGON

William Linn helped his Mama and his sisters into the surrey.

Shining black it was, polished, gleaming, trimmed with red pin striping: the seats were upholstered, hand painted scrollwork ran around the edges of the roof: it was Sunday, it was a day when a family would get dressed up and go to church, when they would ride in a vehicle rather than horseback, or afoot.

Jacob, of course, did not.

Jacob Keller was Sheriff, and he knew he might have to make a swift departure; he rode one of his stallions, he kept easy station with his eldest son as they drove to church, as they drove from church.

Will -- he was never William Linn unless there was a formal introduction, or he was about to be disciplined -- knew his father was troubled.

His father neither fidgeted, shifted in his seat nor troubled his immaculate, brushed Stetson, but Will knew his father, and he knew by the set of the man's jaw, by his cold and pale eyes, that a matter troubled him.

Jacob frowned as he rode beside his son, then without a word, his stallion spun, headed around and across behind the surrey, down an alleyway and past Shorty's livery.

Will reckoned he knew where the man was headed.

 

Will set the tines of his fork gently on the barn floor and looked at his Pa.

"Sir," he said without preamble, "I have a fear of my own temper."

Jacob was shaping a peg, for a repair: his hatchet stopped, he considered for a moment, they he lay down both unfinished peg and the shaping hatchet, and he turned to face his son.

"Sir, I have not let my temper slip its reins, but I'm afraid the time may come when I'll get mad enough just to let go and let my badger out, and I'm scared of how bad I'll do."

Jacob blinked, considered: he took a step closer, rested a fatherly hand on his son's shoulder, nodded, then he turned and looked at a bale of hay.

Father and son sat, both of them hunched forward a little, forearms on their knees.

Jacob considered a moment longer, then he said softly, "Will, I'm afraid of my own."

Will blinked in honest surprise.  "Sir?"

Jacob nodded solemnly.

"When I was a boy -- you know how the boys hereabouts will take out into the mountains and get into stuff, push over dead trees, throw rocks, go fishin'?"

Will nodded.

"You mind that swampy place up past Kemper Laddie's place where the creek bends and pools and then runs downhill kind of steep?"

"Yes, sir."

"We'd go up there fishin' in those bends and pools. One of the older boys grabbed me and rubbed my face full of cattail fuzz and I got it in my mouth and my nose and 'twas chokin' me and he let go and laughed.

"I had me a brand new cane pole.

"I broke that cane pole over my knee and I come after him and I was mad clear through, Will, I was plumb red-eyed go-to-hell mad and I was fixin' to drive that splintery spear point through his guts and out his back.

"Well, he was bigger'n me and longer legged, he took off a-runnin'.

"I figured he'd head for home so I run a shortcut I knew and I grabbed the double gun and I lay wait."

Will's eyes were fixed on his father's, unblinking, leaving no doubt at all he was listening with both ears.

"He must've figured somethin' was wrong 'cause he stopped and I reckon he seen me and he hollered my name and asked if I was there.

"I allowed as I was and he could step right up and we'd finish it and he allowed as he was sorry, he was just a-funnin' me and I allowed as he near to smothered me and I was goin' to kill him, and we hollered back and forth some and that cooled me down and I realized what I was a-doin', so I eased the hammers down and rolled over behint that brushy deadfall and I left.

He was another hour waitin' to make sure I was gone."

Jacob took a long breath, sighed it out.

"There's a temper we-all have, Will. Comes with pale eyes and hot blood and it's inherited. My Pa had it and your Aunt Sarah had it, rest her soul, her boy Daffyd had it -- they had one hell of a horn lockin' when Daffyd run off to Cincinnati, and that's when Sarah took her broken heart -- she'd just lost her husband and her son said things in anger that would scald the fur off a paving brick -- you recall when he come out here lookin' for her."

"I recall, sir."

"My Granddad said his wife Esther" -- Jacob looked at Will, grinned, that quick flash of a grin he had when his guard was down, when he was recalling something special -- "my mother ... said that awful temper of ours was like a dragon in our belly, and Pa said that was awfully close to the right of it, for he said when it got to whippin' around inside of him, that's when his temper was at its worst.

"I've seen your Granddad when he let his badger out, and 'twas a sight to scare a strong man."

Will considered this: he remembered his Granddad, but his memories were those of a child, and the Granddad he recalled was of a soft spoken, patient old grandfather who always had time for his grandchildren, who always listened to his grandchildren.

A great black Bear Killer of a curly-furred mountain Mastiff came bounding into the barn, looked happily at the pair, turned to look behind him: a pretty little girl in her Sunday frock came strutting importantly into the barn, the way a little sister will.

She looked at her Daddy and at her Big Brother and she announced importantly, "Mommy said to tell you," then she lifted her hand, and with it a little brass bell, which she shook happily, filling the shadowed, straw-scented enclosure with the happy tintinnabulation of her mealtime summons.

Jacob blinked innocently, looked at his daughter, turned and looked at his son.

"Darlin'," Jacob said, "we will be right there!"

A happy little girl with a big bow in her hair went skipping out of the barn, a big furry Bear Killer pacing happily along beside her.

Father and son stood.

It wasn't until they'd set their Stetsons on their heads and walked out of the barn before either spoke.

"Thank you, sir," Will said in a serious young man's voice. "I'll try not to ride the dragon."

Jacob gripped his son's shoulder gently, gave an understanding squeeze.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Linn Keller came to town, to Firelands, for the first time as many men did.

He rode slowly down the dusty, hard packed main street, pale eyes busy, hard, assessing the terrain, looking for ambush points, watching men's hands.

He made eye contact with the Sheriff.

The two men gave one another a long, hard look.

One was looking for trouble coming into his jurisdiction.

The other had swum in trouble, bathed in trouble, lived in trouble like a fish lives in water.

Linn wasn't Sheriff yet.

He wasn't a Captain anymore.

He was a man with a bellyful of crooked small town politics, mayors that pocketed his wage instead of paying him, he was tired of his arrests being countermanded: as town Marshal back in Kansas, he'd walked into the saloon where the Mayor and Council were meeting, he'd decked the Mayor, taken a shotgun away from the bartender and drove the butt end into the man's gut, he'd picked up various items of furniture and various Councilmen and thrown them about the saloon, and when he was done, he removed the cold-cocked Mayor's wallet, took it to the bar, and had the barkeep witness as he counted out an exact amount -- two months' wages he'd not been paid yet -- he stuffed the rest back into the wallet, told the barkeep the Mayor was good for all damages, then dropped the wallet on the cold-cocked politician's paunch on his way out the door.

Linn came West with his old Sam-horse and a broken heart.

He came West with hard memories of bloody battles and finding his wife dead and his little girl dying.

He carried grief and loss and suffering enough to last ten men their lifetimes.

He rode into Firelands, a long, tall, lean-waisted man with pale eyes and saddled up on a plow horse.

Somehow his height made the choice of a plow horse reasonable to the eye.

Linn stabled his horse with the crippled-up hostler -- Shorty his name, but Linn could tell right away the man knew horses, and when Shorty was done looking over old Sam-horse, Linn said quietly, "You ain't from Texas, now, are you?" -- Shorty turned and glared at him, which Linn figured was the man's usual expression -- "only a Texan takes such care of a horse!"

"I was about t' ask ye the same," Shorty snarled, then his face softened a little.

"Ye'll be wantin' a meal. Th' Silver Jewel yonder -- Sam waters his whiskey an' it's cheap stuff t' start, but ye'll find no better --"

Shorty stopped caressed the big horse's questing nose.

"Not you, Sam. Dirty Sam that runs th' Jewel."

Linn shaved off some molasses twist off a plug, held it out, kissed at the plow horse:  Sam-horse turned, ponderously, carefully, lipped the treat off a flat palm.

"Bribes as well as any politician," Linn murmured, and Shorty saw something in the man's eyes he'd seen too often:  a deep and abiding sadness, almost overwhelming the affection the man had for what was probably the only friend he had in this entire world.

"Daisy's Kitchen puts out good grub and it's on clean plates. Th' rest o' th' place ain't that clean. Beds are almost clean, there's girls upstairs."

Linn nodded.

"Meal sounds good," he admitted. 

 

Sheriff Tom Landers looked out the loophole of his shuttered window.

That long tall stranger was headed for the Silver Jewel, his saddlebags over his off shoulder.

Military man, he thought.

Cavalry, from those boots.

Looked like a Cavalry saber with his rifle scabbard.

Moves like a panther.

 

Landers was meticulous in his record-keeping.

He was a man who took pride in his ledger and in his record book.

He laid his pen down and looked up at the summoning knock on his door.

Didn't hear anyone come up on the boardwalk.

A woman, maybe an Indian ... damn difficult to walk quietly on that boardwalk!

Landers paced over to the door, opened it a little, his left side turned toward the door, right hand back and gripping the handle of his Army Colt.

He opened the door and regarded the pale eyed stranger with his saddlebags over his shoudler.

"Howdy."

The man stuck out his hand.

"Linn Keller. Past town Marshal back East and in Kansas."

"Keller," Landers said thoughtfully.  "You ain't the one that knocked the dog stuffin' out of the mayor and council, now, are ye?"

The man regarded Landers with quiet and pale eyes.

His answer was as lengthy and as long winded as the Sheriff expected.

"Yep."

"Well, hell, come on in. You et?"

"Daisy filled me up in fine shape."

"You didn't drink no water, now, did you?"

"Coffee."

"Good thing," Landers grunted. "We buried some folks was diseased, now we're seein' th' Epizootic and I think the water's bad from that pump out back of the Saloon!"

Keller nodded. "Obliged."

"Yer deputy was through here a month ago or better."  The Sheriff gestured to a chair, pulled his office chair out from behind the desk, sat.

Linn folded his carcass into the indicated seat.

"Cavalry?"

Linn nodded, once.

"Shorty was too. Liveryman. Took a rifle ball through the leg, pulled a pistol on the doc that wanted t' saw it off. Leg's not that great but it's still bolted on him."

Linn nodded again.

"Don't say much, do ye?"

Linn looked at the Sheriff and the lawman saw his visitor's eyes change.

"I decked yer lawyer," he said quietly.

Landers leaned back suddenly, his chair thumping hard against the wall.  "Ye don't say!"

Linn nodded, once. "He was Bully Raggin' a woman and her little girl. I allowed as he'd be wise to make his apologies. He allowed as he'd not."

"And?"

"I drove him a good one up under the chin. Laid him out cold. He's alive but I reckon he'll have some loose teeth."

Landers considered there were no bark-ups on the man's knuckles, but he could hear truth in the man's voice.

"You just bought yourself a good chunk of trouble, friend. Lawyers know the law."

"Yep."

Landers considered for a long moment, seeing an opportunity had just walked in the door and set down across from him.

"You lookin' for work?"

"Might be."

"I can offer you a deputy's position."

"How's the pay?"

"Poor, like any lawman's."

Linn nodded.  "Reckon so."

"Yer deputy that was through here had good things to say about you."

Linn nodded but offered no comment.

"I might need your advice."

"How's that?"

Linn slipped two fingers into a vest pocket, pulled out a ring, tossed it to the Sheriff.

"That was my Uncle Jake's."

The Sheriff caught it, looked at it, raised an eyebrow.

"You wouldn't know a man named ... Hiram ... by any chance?" he asked carefully.

Linn made a sign.

Two men rose, took a ceremonial step toward one another, shared a grip.

"Past Master."

"Yep."

"You asked about advice."  Landers handed the Masonic ring back.

Linn thumbed the ring back into a vest pocket, turned, picked up his saddlebags, set them on the desk.

He pulled out what looked like a side-sewed leather sausage, handed it to Landers.

"Feel that for weight."

Landers hefted it, surprised at how heavy it was.

Linn reached over, gripped a wanted dodger, turned it face down: he worked the string loose at one end of the sausage, trickled out some gold dust, waited for Landers to take a good look at it.

"Is the bank honest?" Linn asked quietly.

Landers nodded.  "It is."

"Help me get this dust back into m' poke."

Landers waited while Linn opened the end of the buckskin sausage again; he picked up the dodger, bent it carefully into a U, trickled and tapped the heavy paper, held it while Linn finger-brushed the dust free and back into his poke.

Landers considered this might have been a test of his own honesty as well.

"The bank's about to go to court," he said, "and I'm bringin' charges. They pulled one hell of a dirty deal on the Widow McKenna."

"Bonnie McKenna?" Linn asked carefully, and Landers looked sharply at the man.

"How ... did you know that?"

"That's the name Slade spoke when he was addressin' her ... improperly."

"Slade is in on it too."

Landers saw a deep and abiding anger, and he saw something else.

The man had light blue eyes, but when he spoke Slade's name, and when he heard Landers mention the "dirty deal," those light blue eyes became distinctly more pale... pale, cold, like polished ice.

Landers considered briefly, then decided: he'd never been a man to hesitate when he saw the right path to take.

"Tell you what," he said. "I'm thinkin' to retire. What say you take over as Sheriff. I've got complete records on how the banker and Dirty Sam that owns the Silver Jewel ... "

Landers' jaw slid out.

"Maybe you best sit down.  I'll fill you in on what-all's been going on. I've got a complete record of my investigation. I've got witness statements, I've got everything set up to go to court, but I'm tired."

Linn nodded.

"Hell of a note," he replied. "I ride into town, deck an attorney and become Sheriff."

He remembered that worn looking woman with those big violet eyes, and the big-eyed little girl clutching her Mama's skirt, with a rag doll locked in the bend of her elbow.

He nodded.

"I'll take it."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

APPLE PICKIN' TIME

Victoria's mouth open in dismay at the sight of her twin brother and his Fanghorn.

"MICHAEL!"

Michael's knife sliced easily through the red-ripe apple, halving it easily: he gave half to Lightning, who lipped it delicately from thumb-and-forefinger, and Michael sliced his half again, longways, cut out the core and the stem.

He paid careful attention to the work at hand, as his knife had a slaughterhouse edge, and various pale scars on thumbs and fingers attested to the sharpness with which he maintained his blades.

"Michael, you can't just EAT THAT!" Victoria fumed.

Michael chewed happily, swallowed.

"Got any salt?" he asked mildly.

Victoria's arm were stiff at her sides, her gloved hands fisted: a pretty girl with big pale eyes, a fashionable gown and hat and an irritated expression, stomped around in a small circle, giving vent to a prolonged, feminine "Oooh!" -- the ancient trademark and insignia of an irritated twin sister.

She stopped, raised a gloved fist: she closed one eye, sighted over the threatening fist:  "Michael, I could knock you into the middle of next week!"

"Wednesday or Thursday?" Michael replied neutrally, taking another bite of apple: he wiped the blade casually on the thigh of his tailored trousers, slid the blade back into its hidden sheath, blinked innocently at Victoria, who glided silently toward him, for all the world like a cornsilk-haired battleship on an attack run.

"Michael," she said quietly, her voice full of menace, "I know these were grown from Marnie's seeds, and I know yes they're apples, but Michael, this is not Earth!"

"The Pope is Catholic," Michael said, halving another apple and giving it to the happily chirping Fanghorn: he offered the other half to his twin.  "Like some?"

Victoria crossed her arms, patted her foot like an impatient schoolmarm, glared at her twin brother:  "Mi-chaelll," she hissed, "you know what I mean!"

Michael stopped, turned, faced his twin sister squarely.

"No, Sis", he said, all humor and good nature gone from face and voice both.  "I don't. And since I don't have a crystal ball, why don't you spell it out for me!"

Victoria realized she might have pushed too far.

She also knew she was the female and therefore entitled to push too far.

"Michael," she said, exaggerating the patience in her tone, "these seeds are from Earth."

"Yep."

"This is not Earth."

"Okay."

"Michael, what trace elements are in these apples that are not in Earth apples?"

Michael squared off with his sister, stepped close, closer: he glared square-level-on into his twin sister's wide, unblinking, ice-pale eyes and said quietly, "I do not know, sis, but I know it healed my tailbone!"

Michael felt a degree of satisfaction from Victoria's surprised, involuntary blink.

She bent her wrist, tapped a command: a horizontal ellipse opened beside her, she thrust in a gloved hand, seized a medical scanner, brought it out.

"Hold still," she muttered, frowning at the instrument: she tapped expertly at the control screen, swung around behind her twin brother, ran the scanner down his spine, hovered for several long moments level with his backside.

Lightning, for her part, hung her broad, blunt muzzle over Michael's shoulder and purred happily.

Victoria looked up at the Fanghorn -- glared would be the more correct term, as she wanted a free field of scan to get a complete assay of her twin brother's much-abused, often-repaired back bone and its associated structures.

"Michael," she said quietly, "have you run a scan on yourself?"

"No, why?"

She turned the scanner so he could see it.

Michael was not versed in the handheld medical scanner's operation, nor in the display: he blinked, shook his head.

"Michael," Victoria said seriously, "there's no trace of breaks in your tailbone!"

Michael rolled his eyes Heavenward, raised both hands:  "God Almighty and seven left handed saints," he shouted as the Fanghorn mare swung her muzzle upward as well, "isn't that what I just told her?"

"You said it didn't hurt," Victoria corrected her in the snooty voice of a snooty twin sister: she turned off the scanner, wrapped the shoulder strap around it, thrust it back into the horizontal black ellipse, which disappeared as soon as she withdrew her gloved hand.

"Same difference."

"No it isn't, Michael."

Victoria blinked a few times.

"You need to be seen, Michael."

"Why, what's wrong?"

"That's just it, Michael! There's nothing wrong! No scarring, no surgical staples, rods, clips, braces, bedsprings, nothing!"

"So?"

"Michael" -- Victoria took an uncertain breath -- "do you remember I told you the scar down your spine looked like a set of railroad tracks after three derailments and an explosion?"

"You also couldn't wait to tell Mom! 'Hey Mom, guess what! Michael broke his BUTT!' "

Victoria colored a little, looked away, pressed her lips together, looked back.

"Okay, so I said that."

Michael waited.

"Michael, most of your scarring is gone."

"What scarring?"

"Mi-chaelll!" Victoria exclaimed in sisterly exasperation.

Victoria turned to Lightning.

"Is he always this obstinate?" she demanded.

The Fanghorn blinked, long, curved eyelashes sweeping the air.

"And another thing!" Victoria snapped, thrusting a gloved finger under her twin bother's nose. "How come your horse has better eyelashes that I do?"

Michael gave her a patient look, caressed the Fanghorn's jaw, leaned his head against her: the mare's head was draped contentedly over his shoulder as Michael murmured, "See what I have to put up with? I come here for some peace and quiet and my twin sis has to check out my butt!"

Victoria raised spread-finger palms to the heavens and gave an irritated little "Ooooh!" and then turned back to her twin.

"Michael," she said, "why don't we take some apples back for analysis?  If they actually helped you heal, they might help someone else!"

Victoria opened another horizontal Iris, brought out a sack of some type: they busied themselves picking apples, until they had about a half peck, at which point Michael cut another one in two, fed half to his Fanghorn and looked at Victoria.

"Michael, don't you dare," she said warningly.

Michael grinned and fed the other half to Lightning, looked back at his sister, grinned:

"Butt butt butt butt butt!" he teased.

Victoria pulled a green apple free of its branch -- a green apple is harder and hurts worse when it hits -- she wound up, stepped into the throw, aimed to hit Michael in the chest with her very best split-finger pitch.

She didn't miss.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE CHILD'S QUESTION

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna was a very proper young lady.

Most of the time.

Sarah Lynne McKenna was a quiet and well behaved young girl.

Most of the time.

Sarah Lynne McKenna practiced the customary decorum expected of a girl-child.

Most of the time.

Sarah Lynne McKenna was also appropriately curious, outgoing, inquisitive, highly intelligent and utterly unafraid -- of any one, of any thing.

It came as no surprise to her mother -- nor to the Sheriff -- that Sarah stopped in front of Jacob Keller, that she placed her gloved hands firmly on the sides of his head, that she looked seriously into his pale eyes.

She stared, she looked from one pale eye to the other, as if driving her personality deep into his soul, as if willing her very essence to reach deep, deep, and find the answers she expected, answers she suspected, answers she sincerely hoped might be the case.

Jacob Keller, for his part, stood very still: he knew he and Sarah were very close to the same age, he knew she was pretty, but it wasn't until she stopped him and gripped his head in both hands and stared, hard and unblinking, into his eyes that he realized ...

... Sarah has pale eyes, just like Pa.

He did not wonder that she had pale eyes like him.

He wondered that she had pale eyes like his Pa.

Sometimes a man has to be smacked with a hard-swung freight locomotive before he'll realize what might be in front of him all the time, and this was the case with Jacob Keller, son of Sheriff Linn Keller.

Sarah's mother knew -- she'd had quiet, intimate conversations with her closest friends, including and especially the Sheriff's wife Esther -- but neither Jacob nor Sarah were made privy to these quiet-voiced discussions.

Indeed, it was not until the Christmas following that Linn formally presented Sarah with her Mama's Bible, found among the artifacts and records when he forcibly purchased the Silver Jewel Saloon, and with this Bible, he acknowledged, formally and publicly, that Sarah Lynne McKenna was the get of his loins.

Apparently the drunken, wife-beating sot of Sarah's late Mama's husband, traded Sarah's Mama's Bible for a shot of cheap, watered whiskey.

It took some years after that for Jacob to corroborate exactly how he and Sarah were half-brother and half-sister, but by then they two mutually decided they were brother and sister, and formed a close alliance, which served them well in the years that followed.

Years before, though, when Sarah was still quite young, she marched up to the Sheriff as he came down the boardwalk, stood very deliberately in the man's path.

A long, tall, pale eyed Sheriff stopped and regarded a resolute and deliberate girl-child who obviously had a purpose.

The Sheriff removed his cover, nodded.

"Sarah."

"Sheriff," Sarah said seriously, "I would speak with you."

Linn raised an eyebrow.

"This sounds serious."

"Yes, sir."

Linn considered, turned.

"Please. Come in."

He opened the heavy timber door, stood back, allowed a very young Sarah Lynne McKenna to precede him into the Sheriff's office.

A very proper young lady seated herself, lifted her chin, crossed her slim, stockinged ankles beneath her short, ankle-length, young girl's hemline, regarded the Sheriff as he hung his Stetson on a peg, brought his wheeled office chair out from behind his desk, seated himself.

He leaned forward, clearly interested, clearly curious.

Children of Sarah's young vintage normally did not speak in such a mature or serious manner.

He would have expected giggles of uncertainty when faced with an adult of his station.

Sarah had not the least trace of a smile.

"Sheriff," she said without preamble, "my Mama thinks well of you."

Sarah watched the man's face closely, made a mental note of his reaction: she'd learned from a very young age to watch, to actually see, and she saw the Sheriff's eyebrow raise -- unconsciously, involuntarily, a betrayal of genuine surprise.

"I see," the Sheriff said carefully.

Sarah gave the Sheriff an irritated look, as if finding him hopelessly slow.

"Sheriff," she repeated with emphasis, "my Mama thinks very well of you."

"She has ... told you this?" Linn asked carefully.

"She wishes she'd married you instead of Miz Esther."

The Sheriff lifted his chin, slowly, very slowly, then lowered it: not a nod, more a realization.

"Sheriff, do you remember when you decked the late Mr. Slade?"

Linn turned his head slightly, as if to bring a good ear to bear.

"You remember that."

His words were less a question than a statement.

"I do, sir," Sarah said firmly. "Mama was quite taken by you."

Linn blinked several times, trying to formulate an appropriate answer.

He honestly never expected to hear such a thing, much less from a child! -- but he was a lawman, and lawmen will get information wherever they might.

Besides, he recognized this as -- at least potentially -- a powerful complication in his life.

"Sarah," he said carefully, his voice father-gentle, pitched to be reassuring -- "does your Mama know you're here?"

"No."

"Can you tell me why you're telling me these things?"

Sarah Lynne McKenna stood, planted her knuckles on her beltline: she thrust her bottom jaw out and positively glared at the Sheriff.

It must be said that Sheriff Linn Keller had a pretty good poker face.

By his own admission, he could not play poker to save his sorry backside, but in real life he could run a bluff with the best of 'em, and he'd carefully schooled himself in The Poker Face.

He counted this a very good thing as a young girl stood and shook her Mommy-finger and demanded of him, "Sheriff, why didn't you marry my Mama when you had the chance?"

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

YOUR FATHER'S SON

Chief Deputy Paul Barrents rested a careful hand on the Sheriff's shoulder.

He stood on the opposite side of the ER cart from the doctor who was carefully, delicately, tending the cut on the Sheriff's cheekbone.

"Boss," Paul said in a quiet and admiring voice, "I wasn't quite sure whether to cheer, cuss or set up a popcorn stand!"

"Yeah, God loves you too," Linn muttered: the doc lifted his hands, frowned over his surgical mask.

"Sheriff, please, hold still."

"My apologies, Doctor," Linn said formally as Barrents nodded, drew back, turned and left the room.

Michael and Victoria stood side by side, holding hands, looking anxiously at the broad-shouldered, hard-muscled Navajo.

Barrents stopped, turned, rested a big, browned, callused hand on each of their shoulders.

"He's being worked on," Paul said quietly. "He's got a cut over his cheek bone. I don't know where they got one on short notice, but he's got a plastic surgeon stitching him up. The doc said it shouldn't leave more than a trace of a scar."

"But he should have a scar," Victoria protested. "A Heidelberg dueling scar!"

Barrents laughed, bent, hugged Victoria:  she hugged him back, quickly, tightly, the way she always did: Michael stood, solemn, silent, Stetson very correctly under his off arm, his suit immaculate.

"I reckon the Doc will be a little while yet. He said he's laying in stitches under the surface and then he'll throw in another row on top. At least I think that's what he said. Your Pa could tell you."

The twins looked at one another, looked at the Chief Deputy.

"Did they cut his shirt off?" Michael asked, his young voice serious.

"No. No, thank God for that. He's stripped down to the belt --"

He stopped as he saw Michael's grimace.

"What's wrong?" Barrents asked quietly: ever the lawman, he was reading his audience carefully, knowing information sometimes came unexpectedly, and out of long and carefully cultivated habit, if there was information, he wanted it.

"Pa carries two sets of cuffs on the back of his belt," Michael said quietly, "plus a flat little automatic inside the belt. That'll not be kind to lay on."

Barrents opened his mouth to say something, closed his mouth, nodded.

 

It started as a domestic call.

The road deputies were tied up with other calls.

Sheriff Linn Keller grinned boyishly, noted the address, headed for the door:  he turned, raised an arm to his dispatcher -- "Ta-ra, Floss!" he called cheerfully, to which Sharon shook her head, the way she always did.

It was a full-on, screaming, throwing dishes and cookpots, domestic, all right:  The Bear Killer flowed out behind the Sheriff, hitting the ground like a great, solid, silent shadow, a walking pool of curly-furred darkness: Linn strode for the front door, hammered on the closed portal with the heel of his fist:  "SHERIFF'S OFFICE! OPEN UP!"

A serving platter sailed out a side window, spun bright-white in the sunlight, hit the neatly-mowed grass, tumbled, spun -- unbroken -- 

*BAM BAM BAM* "SHERIFF'S OFFICE! OPEN THIS DOOR!"

The door opened and a little girl with big, scared eyes looked up at the Sheriff: she had a tennis racket in one hand and a rag doll in the other.

"Thank you darlin'," Linn said, and the little girl stepped in front of him, her blue eyes big and sincere, and she held the tennis racket up.

Linn looked past her, gripped the racket, surged through the portal, brought the racket back and peeked quickly around the corner to the kitchen.

He swung -- hard -- a teacup bounced off the racket and the woman who'd just thrown it caught it, reflexively, stopped, looked with startled eyes at the teacup and at the Sheriff, then her face went from surprise to anger and she wound up to throw again.

Linn looked to his left, twisted as a frying pan went spinning through the air where he'd just been a tenth of a second before.

Barrents arrived just as the kitchen window exploded -- wood, glass, curtains and two men, clutched in a fighting embrace: they hit the ground, rolled, the Sheriff doubled up, thrust his legs out, his bootsoles on the other combatant's belt buckle: Linn was on his feet as the other guy rolled, came up on all fours, snarled.

Two men launched for one another.

Something black and fast moving described a low ballistic arc: shining white fangs clamped hard on the heavy winter coatsleeve, better than a hundred pounds of Mastiff muscle came to the end of that short leash: man and dog hit the ground, and it wasn't the black, curly-furred Mountain Mastiff that found himself being dragged in a poor man's Nantucket Sleigh Ride across the grass.

Barrents turned and laughed at the sight of an incensed woman brandishing a tennis racket, hanging out the kitchen window, screaming something unintelligible.

Barrents grabbed the yelling man's free arm, The Bear Killer jumped on top of the man, dropped his muzzle to the man's ear, snarled loudly: between being put in irons, and the imminent threat of having the side of his head ripped off, the party of the second part chose to cease hostilities as Linn went back inside.

Barrents pulled this Jack Doe to his feet and looked up at the sound of something heavy being overturned, at the sound of a woman's voice, suddenly cut off: Barrents held his prisoner upright with one hand, in front of the cruiser, where the camera could see them; he ran two fingers into his uniform blouse pocket, pulled out one of several identical cards, and began reading Miranda's Warning.

He came to the last line, stopped, looked up as the woman's screaming began again.

The Sheriff was coming out the front door with something angry, energetic, very loud, wearing equal parts blue jeans, sweatshirt and red-faced anger: from what he could see, Barrents surmised the Sheriff got the wife in irons, had her around the waist, facing away from him, and was carrying her while she thrashed and kicked, absolutely at the top of her lungs.

A little girl strutted along behind them, carrying a tennis racket like a royal scepter.

She looked over toward Barrents' cruiser -- her young face lit up with childish delight -- and of all the loud-voiced sentiments uttered that day, Barrents' favorite was when this little girl dropped her Tennis Scepter, threw her arms wide, ran for The Bear Killer, yelling "Doggeeee!"

Once the Sheriff got the woman in his cruiser, once he'd gotten her seat belted in and the door closed, he filled the passenger side of his cruiser with a mountain Mastiff and a happy little girl who was delighted to keep company with a big black fuzzy doggie who sat in the footwell and laid his chin in her lap and looked at he with shining-black, absolutely adoring eyes.

The Sheriff didn't realize he was hurt until he looked in the rear view mirror, then looked down at his uniform shirt and realized either he was second cousin to a stuck pig, or he was bleeding more than he'd realized, and he'd have to soak that shirt in salt water now.

 

Chief Deputy Paul Barrents waited with the twins for the Sheriff to come out of the treatment room.

The Sheriff had a large and puffy bandage covering much of the left side of his face.

He carried his stiffening uniform shirt: fortunately for official propriety, his body armor had the Sheriff's star embossed on its left breast.

Michael and Victoria stood, regarded their father solemnly, looked at the surgeon following the lawman out into the hallway.

"Doctor," Michael asked with a straight face, "will he be able to play the piano?"

Victoria rolled her eyes.

Barrents looked from physician to Sheriff to the twins, standing shoulder to shoulder in the hospital hallway.

The physician shook his head, gripped the Sheriff's shoulder.

"Michael," he murmured, "you are your father's son."

 

Edited October 23, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE CHOICE WE MAKE

Jacob Keller rode with both ears open, eyes busy, like his Pa before him.

The habit kept him out of Dutch more times than one.

His Apple-horse slowed from a trot, swung his head to the side, stopped, ears forward, curious.

Jacob frowned, leaned forward a little, pale eyes scouring the thicket, the mountainside behind: on occasion, he'd confided -- or complained -- to his pale eyed half sister Sarah, that the mind is never busy, his was forever turning over one thought or another, or playing music: he reviewed what he'd just been hearing, and after the second or third look, realized what he'd heard was an exclamation.

A pained exclamation, from a youthful throat.

Jacob eased his stallion ahead.

"Find," he nearly whispered: the stallion's ears swung back, at his near-sibilant, then forward again.

Jacob could tell Apple-horse was curious.

That alone would probably be more useful than Jacob telling Apple to do something he'd never been trained to do.

They pushed through brush and branches, stopped suddenly.

Jacob found himself eye-to-eye with a boy.

Jacob was not short by any means.

Jacob was a grown man who looked his long tall Pa square in the eye, and his Pa was counted a tall man.

Jacob was also mounted.

It was remarkable, then, that a child of less than ten years' vintage, was eye level with Jacob.

It was even less ordinary that the very red face was upside down.

Jacob looked up, saw the boy's leg was caught in a fork.

He looked down at the lad, stood in the stirrups, gripped the boy by the shoulders, hauled upward, fast, hard and unexpected.

A young boy's leg came free, Jacob's grip was a point of leverage, and to the surprise of horse, rider and unsuccessful acrobat, the boy fell against Jacob's back, grabbed, slid off the horse, hit the ground.

Apple-horse sidestepped, turned, thrust a curious nose at a grimacing boy Jacob knew.

He sat, waited: the boy drew up his leg, rubbed it carefully, pulled his pants leg up and his wool sock down.

"Broke?" Jacob asked.

"I don't think so."

Jacob dismounted.  "Don't try to stand," he said, "not yet."

He squatted, gripped the boy's foot under the heel, looked at an uncertain, pained young adventurer.

Jacob knocked on the sole of the boy's shoe -- carefully -- then again, more firmly.

He nodded, rose, held out his hands: the boy took them.

"Stand up now," Jacob said, his voice gentle.

He pulled, the boy rose: he leaned his weight on the leg, took a tentative step.

"Hurt?"

"Yeah, where I scraped it."

"Was it broke, you'd have shot back up into that tree when I knocked on your shoe sole."

"Huh?"

Jacob, like his father, practiced the Poker Face: for a miracle, it worked this time, and he did not laugh at the boy's nose-wrinkled expression.

"Hold out your hand."

Jacob took the boy's forearm, carefully, cradling it but not gripping it.

He tapped gently at one fingertip, then another.

"Nothing hurts."

"No."

"Was your arm broke, or even cracked, when I did this" -- he tapped again -- "you could put your finger on exactly where it hurt, and that's exactly where it's broke."

Jacob's eyes smiled a little at the corners at the boy's puzzled expression.

"Take a pebble," Jacob said, holding an invisible pea gravel between thumb and forefinger.

"Now drop it in water."

He opened thumb and forefinger.

"When it hits the water, you've got rings runnin' out from it."

The boy blinked, listening closely, out of curiosity if nothing else.

"When I tapped on your finger tip like that," Jacob explained, "them rings run up your arm and they'll come out where there's a flaw in the bone. Cracked or broke plumb in two, it'll show up where it's broke and you can put your free hand's finger right exactly on the spot where she's broke."

That night Jacob described coming eye to eye with a red faced little boy, hanging upside down where he'd slipped climbing a tree: his description had his wife, his children and the hired girl all laughing.

After supper was over, after they retired to the parlor and Jacob fetched out his Scripture for the night's reading, his son William Linn came over beside his chair and asked in a serious voice, "Sir?"

"Yes, Will?"

"Sir, why is it when something happens, you come home and tell us the funny of it?"

Jacob looked into his son's serious young eyes and considered his answer carefully.

"Will," he said at length, "walk with me."

Jacob laid the Scripture on his chair; father and son walked to the front door, looked out, then went out on the front porch.

Jacob leaned against a turned, decorative porch post and thrust his jaw out, which Will knew meant the man was thinking over what he wanted to say.

"Will," Jacob said at length, "that's an intelligent question."

He looked at his son, nodded thoughtfully.

"I don't say much when things happen ..."

He looked quickly to the horizon beyond the pasture where Boocaffie was grazing and lazily slashing his tail.

"When something bad happens, Will, it sticks to our soul like hot tar. I've seen things that would send an average man runnin' away screamin' hard as he could."

Jacob's voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"Those are my ghosts, Will. Those are the terrible things I can't forget."

Jacob's pale eyes stared unseeing into the distance.

Will waited.

"I bring home the funny ones, Will. I bring back the ones I can smile at, the ones that don't give delicate folks nightmares. I try to remember the funny ones.

"If I would not want to tell it in front of your Mama and the girls, I won't speak of it, save if it's needful."

 

Michael and Victoria sat down with their Pa, their young faces serious.

"Sir," Michael asked quietly, "the way you told it, that domestic was funny."

The twins saw a smile hiding at the corners of their father's eyes.

The world may know him as an efficient lawman, but they knew him as their Pa, they knew him as a man who laughed.

Linn nodded slowly, carefully, trying to divine what was behind the question.

"Sir, a domestic isn't often funny."

Linn nodded again, considered: he beckoned the twins closer, leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and so did they.

"I carry grief and loss enough to last ten men their lifetimes," he said quietly. 

The twins, solemn-eyed and attentive, nodded, once.

"I have seen terrible things that would curl the hair on a bald man's head."

Again the united, slow nod.

"Those are my ghosts to carry. I've earned 'em. No one else should be burdened by them."

He looked at his youngest, from one set of young eyes to the other set of young eyes.

"I try to remember the funny ones, the ones that bring a smile.  If I didn't ..."

Linn too a long breath, sighed it out.

"That's why it's impolite to ask someone what was the worst thing they've ever seen. Those things we try hard not to remember.  I try to remember the funny ones."

Linn closed one eye, looked left, looked right, then said in a confidential voice, "Besides, you already know your Old Man is a commodion. I'm so full of it I need flushed!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE DAMNED FOOL

A lean-waisted horseman in a tailored black suit leaned over the crib.

Opposite him, a younger version, lacking only wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and an iron-grey mustache to be the man's twin, a son leaned over the crib from the opposite direction.

Inside the crib, kicking happily at the unexpected attention, a little girl baby squealed happily, chewed on her fingers, tried to roll over.

Jacob looked up at his father.

"Sir?"

Linn looked up at his son.

"Yes, Jacob?"

Jacob looked down at his little baby sister, he reached in with a careful hand, laid his finger in her hand and honestly couldn't stop himself from grinning at the strength of the child's grip.

"Sir, I'm looking at those little bitty fingers."

Linn waited.

He knew his son had something on his mind.

"Sir, if ever I had any doubt about the existence of a Creator God, all I need do is look at the perfection of those little bitty fingers!"

Linn nodded, slowly, thoughtfully, making a mental note to speak of this observation to the Parson.

It might make fodder for a sermon.

Linn reached in, picked up the smiling, toothless, warm little bundle of wiggle and squeal, brought her carefully up, out, laid her against his chest, her face over his shoulder.

She couldn't quite hold her head up yet and so Linn walked around the crib to his son with the little girl baby's head laid over on hand sewn black suit coat shoulder.

"Know what my first thought was when I saw her?" Linn asked quietly, and he made no effort to hide his smile from his son.

"What's that, sir?"

Linn lifted the child, held her a little away from him, exaggerated a distressed expression and quavered, "I was one of those?"

Esther flowed across the floor, came up beside her husband, relieved him of the happy little girl who'd managed to get a good grip on his mustache: Esther sighed, gave her husband a patient look as she coaxed the little hand from around the handlebar half, then she bounced the little girl against her bosom and murmured, "My dear, I shall never get her to sleep with your perpetual interference!"

Linn grinned, leaned in and kissed his beautiful bride: Jacob managed to hide his own smile, he looked away, not wanting to intrude on a private moment: his father's public image was far different from his private self, and Jacob counted himself fortunate to have seen his father with the man's guard down.

This was not the first time that father and son contemplated their very young.

There were occasions when The Bear Killer was introduced to the crib, where he curled up around a restless, fussy, crying baby, where he lifted his muzzle a little and gave a quiet, gentle "OOOOOOooooo," singing with the unhappy young: invariably the baby's cry ceased, the child looked with big and surprised eyes at the furry-black guardian, and unless it was something unremitting, like teething, attentive femininity invariably found a sleeping child, cuddled up close to a very pleased-with-himself mountain Mastiff.

Esther and the hired girl objected to this, the first time Linn tried it, but after a sleepless night with a fussy baby, The Bear Killer's presence was welcomed when it became apparent that he had an almost magical effect on a fussy infant.

There were other babies, there always were; Linn sat on the porch, Jacob beside him, when his wife brought out a liddle boy-baby: the child looked around with big and interested eyes as Linn bounced him gently on his thigh, big callused hands gripping the warm little child around the chest:  "My son," Linn murmured, pride swelling his chest as he regarded this fruit of his fertile loins:  "Myyy son!"

His Son squealed with happiness, chewed with toothless gums on his happy little fist, and Linn picked him up, grimaced as the child dripped and dribbled, and he looked down at the big wet stain on his leg.

Esther looked at him with quiet amusement, hiding her smile behind a hand.

It took considerable strength of will for Jacob to remain quiet as Linn rose, holding the young waterworks at arm's length:  "Here, Maw," he said, "take yore kid!"

Jacob grew up with good memories of his Pa, stripped down to his shirt and drawers and moccasins, laying on the floor with a determined little baby just taking its first tentative meander on all fours: his father, standing spraddle-legged, holding a pair of clothespins down at arm's length as a little baby stood, her long tall Pa bent over, towering above her: she held the clothespins, he did too, and Jacob remembered that trick when his own young were first learning to stand up, for a baby will walk with confidence while they're holding onto Pa's fingers, their arms overhead, gripping -- and Jacob grinned with delight the first time Linn let go of the clothes pins and the bowlegged little baby took several steps across the floor, until she suspected something wasn't right, she looked up and realized --

-- hers were the only hands holding the clothespins --

She stopped, sat straight down on her padded little bottom, with a look of surprise on her face.

This generally preceded happy, laughing young, scampering across the floor, and more times than one it involved a wet, squealing, laughing, scampering escapee from the bathtub, being chased by an adult with a towel.

Jacob watched as his Pa would pick up a little one and swing them waaaay up in the air, and a delighted child would feel their tummy flying with them, but they were delighted 'cause there is no safer place than in their Pa's hands, and they would scatter childish giggles all over the floor, or all over ground, wherever they were swung up and spun around like their Pa delighted in doing.

Linn had his youngest little baby girl in hand, he swung her waaay up toward the ceiling, he brought her down fast in a swinging arc, like she was a leaf swing left and swinging right as it fell on an autumn breeze:  he swung her waay down toward the floor, skidded her to a gentle stop on the hook rug, then he went to one knee and looked at his son, his eyes a light blue, his walls down, his defenses, gone.

"There is nothing in God's green earth," he told Jacob in the quiet and contented tones of a man who was happy to be right where he was, "that can make a damned fool out of a grown man quite as fast as a little child!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FALSEHOOD, FLIGHT AND BLOOD

Six men in white gloves and aprons bore the coffin at shoulder height.

Their tread was silent, their faces grim: they bore one of their own up the ramp, through a newly installed side door and into the private railcar.

A widow in black preceded them, silent as a ghost, more gliding than walking: she ascended the nearly-level ramp, paced into the private car, ensured the drapes were properly positioned on the low, hastily-assembled stand: the coffin was placed, discreetly secured: normally it would have been at about belt buckle height, but with the vibration, the starts and stops of a train trip, the coffin was placed lower, its top about knee high.

The men murmured their condolences to the silent widow, heavily veiled, who stood with one black-gloved hand on her husband's box: the door was closed, the ramp withdrawn.

Esther Keller drew the heavy curtains over the windows, locked the doors: her husband was not known in these parts, and it was not likely she would have a visitor: she was a woman alone, and not inclined to take chances, and so she turned the heavy bolts on the door locks, ensuring her privacy would not be interrupted.

She consulted her watch.

Another six minutes, by her estimation; ten, at the very most: she drew an upholstered, embroidered chair up beside the coffin, sat.

She leaned closer and listened, then smiled.

The regular sigh of a hand operated bellows, slowly operated, told her the man within was alive and well.

She dare not open the coffin until they were underway; at the earliest possible moment, she rapped a quick, delicate series of knocks, a coded message -- 

She pressed the hidden catch, lifted the lid --

Sheriff Linn Keller sat, took a great, gasping breath: disembarking from his long box was a bit awkward, but with the help of the chair Esther positioned, he swung a long leg out, then the other, stood beside the coffin, smiled at his bride.

"Thank you, my dear," he said quietly. "We are two-thirds of the way home."

Husband and wife embraced, quickly, almost desperately.

There were men who wished Linn's life: he'd made enemies, powerful enemies, who'd been discovered and destroyed, their personal fortunes seized to repay those from whom they'd swindled and stolen: word went out, back East, that this pale eyed Western Sheriff was killed, murdered, that his body was being returned home for interment, that his green-eyed bride traveled with him, silent, a black ghost sorrowing over her lost love.

The Sheriff found and exposed a slicker, a scoundrel, a high level thief: the story is well known, though it occurred back East, and interrupted the newlyweds' celebratory journey: there'd been confrontation, accusations, there'd been a blade in the dark, swift, unexpected, transfixing a cheat who wasted his last honorable offer: Linn backhanded him, challenged him to a duel of honor: blades were chosen, and as the two men squared off, fighting steel in hand, the cheat thrust a hand into his vest and came out with a pistol, just before blood-slimed steel pierced the front of his vest.

From the inside.

Behind him, Esther Keller, her jaw set, her face pale and her Irish-green eyes blazing with a woman's utter fury, held the wire-wound handle of one of her fencing schlagers: women have a marvelous perception when it comes to the unspoken, and she was personally ensuring this encounter between two men would be fair.

Or perhaps she could not have seen the pistol, and wished only to ensure her husband's survival.

Whichever the case, the man's pistol hit the floor, unfired; Esther drove her sharp little heel into the man's tenderloins, took a two-hand grip on her fencing blade, yanked hard and managed to free it before he hit the ground, dead.

Her husband raised his blade in salute to his wife:  Esther raised her own in like manner, then they looked down at the dead man, looked at one another and smiled.

Here, then, was his chance to escape, alive.

Esther flew into the nearby town and sought out a man of who she'd heard, showed him her husband's medallion -- a surprisingly lifelike rose stamped on one side, and on its reverse, the superimposed Seal of Solomon, and the Christian Cross, with the letters. B.O.L.D.

"I seek a bold man," Esther said, controlling her breathing as she showed him the medallion.

He produced its twin, showed her the one side, showed her the other.

"My husband is falsely accused," Esther said quietly, her voice low, urgent: "the accusation is murder, the accusation is false. Until it is so proven, we must get him home in safety and in secrecy."

So it was that a fine coffin was procured, well padded, a small, hand operated bellows installed, with the intake-tubes releasing fresh air near the occupant's head, and discharging beneath.

The Order of the Rose, this Benevolent Order of Law Dawgs, took care of its own: a coffin was borne onto the riverboat and into the cabin which had been occupied by a happily, newly wed couple: the widow withdrew into the room, she took her meals alone, and explained her great appetite with a hand on her belly and mention of a child, which she was now obliged to raise alone.

The Order takes care of its own, and has since earliest history: the coffin was met by men in white gloves and aprons, with the jewels of their Fraternity about their necks, for the Sheriff was also a Freemason: his journey, by boat, by rail, by carriage, was less than entirely comfortable -- but as he observed as they ate together, using the coffin's flat lid as a dining table, "Darlin', I'm alive to complain about it!"

 

Charlie Macneil and Sean Finnegan stood shoulder to shoulder on the Depot platform.

Charlie received the coded message with the Society's identifier; he puzzled over the letters, consulted an encryption book to rearrange the letters; he worked carefully, methodically, double-checked his work, then put away the encryption key and brought out another book, divided the letters into groups of five, looked through the alphabetized columns, ran a finger out to the side.

His wife saw him raise an eyebrow.

She was an Agent in her own right; she knew her husband, and she knew the look on his face as his eyebrow raised, as he leaned back slightly, as he gave a very nearly inaudible "Hmm!"

Finally he read the decrypted message, read it again, nodded.

He look up at his wife's patient expression.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "we're goin' to town."

She put her hands saucily on her hips, turned her shoulders a little, smiled suggestively as she generally did.

"Oh? And what are we doing in town, sugar?"

Charlie rose, came around the table, took his wife's hands in his, raised them to his lips.

He kissed her knuckles, one hand, then the other.

"Today," he whispered, "we celebrate!"

Miz Fannie's eyes went wide.

"I knew it!" she whispered.  "I just knew it!"

Charlie chuckled quietly.  "I reckon you did, darlin'," he replied. "You and Miz Esther are as conniving as you both are gorgeous!"

Husband and wife embraced, conversation was suspended for several long moments as they shared a communication for which words were entirely unnecessary.

"Flattery," Miz Fannie whispered, "will get you everywhere!"

"I'm countin' on it, darlin'," Charlie mumbled as he nibbled her earlobe.

Miz Fannie giggled and whispered, "Keep that up and we're goin' nowhere!"

Charlie gave a reluctant sigh, drew back: Miz Fannie put a fingertip on his lips, gave him those big, lovely eyes and he felt his heart quicken a little as she whispered, "Later, my love!"

Now he and the big, knuckle-scarred, broad-shouldered Irishman stood side by side, watching as The Lady Esther came easily to a stop, as she always did.

The newly installed side door swung open on the private car.

"Now that's new," Charlie murmured.

Linn stuck his head out and grinned, waved. 

"Hey Charlie!" he called cheerfully. "I need a hand with this!"

Linn jumped down, almost ran up the white oak treads at the end of the depot platform, seized Charlie's hand and shook it with obvious and enthusiastic delight -- then he did the same for Sean, clapping his free hand on the big Irishman's carved and marble-hard shoulder -- he looked from one to the other, stopped, and they saw something in the man's eyes that surprised them.

They saw a genuine affection, then they saw his walls go back up.

"I need a drink," he declared, "and the two of you are goin' to help me, but meantime I need to secure this fine and fancy coffin box in my cellar 'gainst the day when I'll need it!"

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I HATE NOT KNOWING

Retired Chief of Police Will Keller allowed himself a moment of relaxed satisfaction.

The Silver Jewel was lightly tenanted at this hour; a few souls lingered over their breakfasts, himself included: the warmth of his heavy mug, freshly refilled, was a welcome comfort to his increasingly arthritic fingers.

He smiled a little at the memory of coming to the Jewel for breakfast with his wife, rest her soul, before that damned brain tumor took her sanity and then took her life: he held the sorrow at arm's length and allowed himself to remember Crystal as she was, when they first met.

That was a very long time ago.

That was when his sister Willamina became Sheriff.

Will raised his coffee, took a small, savoring sip, looked up as a lovely set of pale eyes regarded him, as a feminine head tilted, as someone he remembered so well as a little girl, swung womanly hips and sat opposite him.

Angela leaned forward a little, looked at him almost ... sadly? ... she said "Uncle Will, I'm so sorry I didn't know you were here!"

Will slid his old, wrinkled hand forward, gripped her young, smooth hand lightly, carefully.

"Darlin'," he rumbled, "mind reading is not part of the act!"

Angela smiled -- she still has the same, bright, sudden smile she had when she wore pigtails and pinafores, Will thought.

I hope she doesn't see through me like my sister could!

"I just got off work," Angela said, smiling up at the waitress:  "Western omelet with everything but mushrooms and I would KILL for some coffee!"

Will chuckled, turned his mug slowly, slid it across to her.

Angela smiled, laid gentle fingertips on the back of his hand.

"That's sweet," she murmured.  "Please, Uncle Will. I'll wait for mine."

Will nodded, withdrew the mug.

"You look worried," Angela said gently. "What's going on?"

Will had that sinking feeling he got when his twin sister found out he was up to something, and called him on it: he stared at his coffee, considered changing the subject, then he remembered how much of a bulldog both Angela and Marnie were with interrogations, and he knew he'd not have a moment's peace until she worried the words from him.

"Darlin'," he said slowly, "I may have a problem."

"Oh?" A coffee cup floated to the table before her: she was busy studying her Uncle's face, the set of his shoulders, reading his body language.

Will took a long breath, looked to the side, looked back.

He's come to a decision, she thought.

"You know I've been givin' blood."

"I know you've been giving blood since you were back in Ohio."

Will nodded.

"Last three times I tried to give, my left arm ... I blamed it on my arm, but hind sight and all that."

"Hind sight," Angela prompted. "What?"

"It clotted off almost right away."

Will saw Angela's professional mask drop into place.

"I gave out of my right arm and it worked fine, but yesterday it ... clotted off almost right away."

Angela nodded, shallow, careful:  "Go on."

"My CBC said I have too many platelets."

"And?"

"And I've got to go see a hematologist. My primary thinks I may have APS."

"Antiphospholipid syndrome."

"We don't know for sure."

Angela nodded again, leaned back as her breakfast arrived, steaming, fragrant and colorful.

She seized the pepper, as she always did, gave it a healthy sprinkling without tasting it first, as she always did.

"What else do we know?" Angela asked bluntly, cutting into the omelet.

"They moved my colonoscopy up a year."

"Positive hemoccult?"

"Yep."

"This after they removed a precancerous polyp last time you were scoped."

"Yep."

"What else?"

Angela ate with a good appetite, looking away from her Uncle only long enough to cut or spear bites of breakfast: a platter of hot, fresh, flaky rolls arrived, Angela thrust the handle of her fork at it, shoved her chin at it: "Help me eat those."

Will picked one up, thumb split it, troweled on a thick layer of butter: he reached over, snagged the honey, gave it a careful drizzle, closed it and set it Angela's plate, then he did the same for himself.

"What else?" Angela repeated, and Retired Chief of Police Will Keller, an old veteran of law enforcement, a man experienced and hardened by life's harsh lessons, discovered that this white-uniformed nurse with a winged cap, this lovely daughter of the mountains, was every bit the Sheriff's interrogator she'd always been.

"I'm not losin' weight."

"No?"

"Not much."

Angela glared at him, her head lowered, one eyebrow raised.

"I'm losin' around the middle. My belt is loose."

"Mmmm."

Will leaned back as the hash slinger refilled his coffee, asked if he'd like any dessert.

Will looked at his lovely young niece, considered.

"Yes I would," he said. "Apple pie with ice cream. Two of 'em."

"Coming right up."

The waitress turned with a flare of skirts, swung her hips back toward the kitchen the way a woman will when she knows a man is watching.

"I know either one of these is not good," Will said slowly, "and I know neither of these might amount to anything, or they could mean I need to go pick out my tomb stone and tell Digger what-all I want sand blasted on it."

Angela nodded, swallowed, took a noisy slurp of coffee.

Will considered for a long moment: Angela saw his lower jaw thrust out, saw his good right hand close into a fist, saw his brows draw together.

"Dammit," he muttered, "I hate not knowin'!" 

 

Edited October 27, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHOSE REALITY?

Children see the world very simply.

There is no "We'll see," or "Perhaps," there is either yes, or no.

There's no middle ground.

A child is all-in, or utterly disinterested.

Some speculate that animals share that simplistic view.

Of all who saw The Bear Killer charging after a running man, none doubted in the least little bit that the mountain Mastiff was utterly at war, a weapon, loosed like an arrow, fangs bared and Hell's challenge baying from a great, muscled, curly-furred chest.

The Bear Killer ran in front of the man who'd run from police, who'd run from the Sheriff, who'd run from the storekeeper.

The Bear Killer reared up on hind legs, screaming war and death, red eyes blazing with hate and with ready destruction, ivory fangs chopping at empty air, absolutely SCREAMING as only a war dog on attack can do.

What nobody could figure, though, was The Bear Killer faced away from the man he'd just stopped.

Man and beast both stared, open mouthed -- the former in terror, the latter, with hate -- at something nobody else could see.

Hard men in uniform ran after the pair, flanked out, not understanding what in the hell was actually going on, knowing only that The Bear Killer didn't take down the running man -- he'd stopped him -- but The Bear Killer was quite obviously protecting the man from something they could not see.

 

Michael Keller's knees tightened around the Fanghorn.

Lightning felt her rider lean forward in the saddle.

Fanghorn and rider, united in purpose, launched after the fleeing felon: the local constabulary tried to stop a running man with a knife, he'd run up onto the highway and through traffic, he'd threatened his foot pursuers with the knife, he'd evaded and run and Michael swung aboard Lightning and yelled "YAAA!" and Lightning didn't need to be told twice.

A big, hard-muscled, genuinely ugly horse -- if you could call it that -- peeled her lips happily back, exposing polished-ivory, fighting canines: Michael and Lightning ran a fast slalom between stopped vehicles, startled men: they soared over the stamped-metal guardrail, landed on the other side.

Michael felt Lightning lower her head, he felt her blood-blazing eyes lock onto the target, he felt her notch up her velocity just a little more.

Death rode the wind, and Death had red eyes, and pale eyes rode with them, and two hearts sang for joy that they were in pursuit.

 

Hard hands seized the shivering man's arm, pulled him back: something white, fast moving and deadly ran past them, and silver shone in the sun.

"BEAR KILLER! GET 'IM!"

The Bear Killer didn't need to be told twice.

Mountain Mastiff and a deputy Sheriff in a white uniform dress screamed into their attack.

This was not your usual attack.

Deputies Sheriff rarely wear a skirted uniform in the field; a white uniform for law enforcement was unheard of, other than for ceremonial purposes, and firearms, not fighting blades, were the rule and not the exception.

Deputy Sheriff Angela Keller, daughter of that pale eyed old lawman with an iron grey mustache, screamed into her attack, spinning a pair of long, slightly curved, extremely sharp blades.

A pretty, pale-eyed nurse, an Angel of Healing with a Glock on her belt and death in her heart, spun a web of shining steel before her, a cloud of honed edges nothing smaller than a robin could possibly hope to penetrate.

Beside and behind her, rearing, roaring, a mountain Mastiff the size of a young bear, inviting whatever it was, to come into reach.

Hard hands held a shivering man's arms as he stared, eyes wide, his face the very image of utter, unadulterated, TERROR.

 

Two police officers lowered their carbines and watched as a Fanghorn drove like a shining-blond arrow -- it was not possible for something that tall, to look both short, and very long, like a running pheasant that is suddenly three feet long and pale as a ghost.

It wasn't possible, but she did.

A man in a mask and a robe turned, raised his blade, just before the conical boss of a Fanghorn's armored forehead drove him in the chest and knocked him off his feet and through the air and into the stream beyond.

Lightning threw her head up and screamed, mouth open, fangs shining: she launched from the streambank, landed in the water, turned, dancing, reared and screamed again, brought her neck back like a snake ready to strike.

Men watched, frozen, as her head drove down, out of sight below the edges of the steep streambank.

 

Death sang that day, in the throat of a war-dog and on the slaughterhouse edges of two Cossack sabers that wove a wall of interdimensional destruction.

The superstitious folk of the American South, the Sheriff had been told, carry a straight razor in their hip pocket, not so much as an antipersonnel weapon, but because base metal repels spirits and creatures not of this world, and a sharpened edge can cut a ghost or a malicious spirit.

Nobody could see what the deputy in the white uniform dress saw, nobody could see what she was addressing with a silver wall of honed death, nobody could see what caused the mountain Mastiff's fur to stand up in a rippling ridge the length of his spine.

Nobody but the man who stood, open mouthed, watching in shock, as lawmen held his arms.

The Mastiff stopped, still bristled: he snarled, then lowered his lips over shining ivory fangs, looked up at the pale eyed woman who crossed her Cossack sabers before her, then spun them one last time, thrust them into their sheaths, walked back to the man who stood as if rooted.

She stopped, looked at the prisoner's pale, sweaty face, looked deep into his eyes.

"It's gone," she said quietly. "You're safe now. Go with these men. They will keep you safe."

 

Michael rubbed Lightning's leg, just above her off forehoof: she raised her hoof, he caught it across his thigh, brushed her feathery fetlock, felt her bring her neck about and lay her jaw gently across his shoulder, the way she did when she was pleased.

Michael was almost done grooming her down when his Pa walked in the barn.

"Hello, darlin'," he grinned at the towering Fanghorn, and held out a palm: Lightning happily lipped a trio of swirly-red-and-white peppermints, crunched them happily.

"Heard you two had some excitement today," Linn said quietly, caressing the big mare's jaw as she nuzzled the front of his barn coat.

"Fellow went nuts and tried to hold up a general store," Michael said casually. "We were in the neighborhood when the pursuit went down."

Michael straightened, looked at his Pa.

"You had some excitement, too."

Linn chuckled, shook his head, parked his backside on a handy hay bale.

"Yeah, someone slipped a fella a hand rolled dusted with something. I don't know what he was seein'. He's detoxing now. Angela picked up on it right away. She said he was seeing demons or monsters and he was running away from the police to lead whatever-it-was away from us, and then it swung around to eat him."

Michael whistled.

"Any idea what he was on?"

"They're trying to figure that out now."

"Wow."

Michael rubbed Lightning's jaw and Linn grinned as the big, fanged mare closed her eyes and chirped like a sleepy bird.

"Was your guy with a knife on something?"

"Stupidity," Michael said bluntly. "He thought he could take on half a dozen cops and outrun everyone."

"I take it he didn't."

"No, sir. Lightning drove him center chest and knocked him into a young river, and then she stood over him and grinned."

"Grinned."

Michael and his father looked solemnly at one another, each trying his best to hold a poker face.

Neither one was successful.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SILENT AS SNOWDRIFT'S PAWS

"Thank you, Doctor."

The Sheriff's voice was quiet, courteous as it always was: he blinked a few times, considered the far wall, frowning as he did.

"We will continue to try and --"

The Sheriff looked sharply at the man.

The county coroner closed his mouth, looked away.

The Sheriff looked at the still figure under the white sheet, then he looked at the Coroner.

"Your report, at your convenience."

The Coroner watched the man's retreating shoulders as the Sheriff paced slowly out of the sterile, harshly-lit morgue, as he crossed the threshold and let the heavy door swing shut behind him.

A pure white mountain Mastiff was waiting for him in the hospital lobby.

As usual, the happily wagging Snowdrift was being mauled by a young herd of children.

The Sheriff stopped, looked at them: two mothers looked uncomfortably at the solemn-faced lawman, until they saw the ice melt from behind his eyes.

Snowdrift stood, paced over beside the Sheriff sat, looked up at the lawman.

"I do beg your pardon," the Sheriff said, his voice as courteous as it had been with the Coroner, "but Snowdrift and I have an appointment."

Lawdog and Law Dawg both steered a course around two young mothers and three happy preschoolers, and out the main door, and into the cool darkness of the early night.

Linn believed he thought better in the saddle.

He honestly preferred his horsepower under his backside instead of under a tin hood, but then he considered himself a hopeless romantic, an anachronism.

An Appaloosa stallion, a pure-white mountain Mastiff and a long tall Sheriff headed toward the main street, steelshod hooves loud and echoing in the see-your-breath chill.

Linn's eyes were busy, as they always were: he didn't live long enough to be a grandfather, by being careless, or inattentive: he looked around, seeking those places where he himself might lay ambush, waiting in a shadowed spot to deal death from hiding.

Their little whitewashed Church's lights were on, bright and welcoming, and the Sheriff headed for it as to a lighthouse.

He tethered Apple-horse to the hitch rail alongside, he stopped and considered the hardy Canadian rosebushes -- the originals planted by his many-times-great-grandmother Esther Keller -- he smiled a little at the thought, at the realization that even here, his ancestral line shone through.

He swung down, caressed Apple-horse's neck.

He turned, eyes swinging left, swinging right, scouring the buildings opposite, their rooflines: not until he was satisfied, did he move.

That the Church's lights were on, meant it was occupied.

His ears told him why it was occupied, and so his tread was as silent as Snowdrift's paws as he ascended the steps, as he carefully, quietly pulled the door open.

His cover came off as he crossed the threshold -- old habit, he'd developed it as a child -- his pace from the door to the end of the center aisle, was soundless.

He stood, lifted his head a little, and allowed himself a quiet smile.

Angela Keller stood, her chin lifted, her hands folded in her apron.

She stood as one point of a living hexagon.

Six daughters of the mountains, their voices raised in a complex, interweaving, six-part harmony, something ancient -- something Medieval, Linn guessed -- he would not know a madrigal if it landed on his shoulder and cawed -- but whatever it was, was beautiful.

Angela sang with her eyes nearly closed, for she sang from her soul, she sang from deep within herself: the other ladies, members of their Church choir, had no idea what magic she brought, they only knew that when she sang with them, they all sang better.

They did not know how much better.

Angela's father, that long tall Sheriff who stood at the end of the aisle with his hat in his hand, that hard-muscled dealer of justice and enforcer of the Law, listened to the voices, pure and soaring and interweaving, six voices in utterly flawless harmony, and he remembered a still figure under a Coroner's sheet, and he remembered his own Mama's voice, and he remembered holding his newborn son for the very first time, and he dropped his head a little as salt water scalded its way down his cheek.

He stood and listened, he allowed the voices' combined harmonies to flow through him, carrying colors and joy with them, and finally he turned, and he pushed open the door, and he walked silently down the steps and he stopped and pulled a bedsheet handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his face and blew his nose loudly, almost viciously.

A long tall Sheriff rode across the street at a long angle, tied off his stallion at the hitch rail in front of the stone building with the heavy glass double doors.

A pure-white Mountain Mastiff flowed inside with him, wagged up to the night dispatcher, dropped her chin on the dispatcher's lap, closed her eyes with pleasure as she got skritchies and doggie cookies.

"Oh, Sheriff. Angela said she'd be at Church tonight, she was meeting a group there for practice."

The Sheriff smiled a little, just a little -- almost sadly, she thought.

"I was just there," he said quietly. "How's for coffee?"

"It's fresh, just made it an hour ago."

Linn nodded, drew half a mug, added a long drizzle of milk.

"How do you sleep, drinking coffee this late?" 

"Helps me get to sleep," Linn grunted, "and it keeps me from over sleeping!"

"I'll bet," she muttered.

Snowdrift sighed happily, her muzzle still on the dispatcher's thigh.

"She'll give you a week to quit foolin' with her," Linn said quietly.

"What did the Doc have to say?"

"He couldn't tell what cocktail that Jack Doe was on. He thinks it might be another designer drug. They'll run more tests to try and find out."

The dispatcher shook her head.  "When did he have that heart attack?"

"Just before they started to cuff him. Doc said whatever it was that gave him those hellacious hallucinations, ran his heart to death doin' it."

His night dispatcher shivered. "And I thought Boone's Farm was bad!"

"Nothing else before I got scrape up some sack time?"

"Get some rest, Sheriff. We'll call you if we need you."

Linn slugged down the rest of the mug, washed it out, hung it upside down on the drain peg.

Snowdrift pattered happily after him as he pushed open the heavy glass doors.

 

Angela smiled as her long tall Daddy walked slowly down the aisle toward the ladies.

Their rehearsal was finished; they were starting to dribble out.

Angela turned, smiled, skipped happily toward the Sheriff like a happy little girl: she gripped his hands, came up on the balls of her feet, kissed her Daddy's cheek, bouncing a little on her thick, cushioned, white-crepe heels.

"I heard you singing," Linn murmured softly.  "Thank you, darlin'."

Angela blinked, tilted her head a little, frowned as she studied her Daddy's face.

"The Doc doesn't know what it was."

"No."

"I could find out, Daddy."

"No."  Linn frowned.  "No, darlin', we don't dare."

Angela's eyes swung to the side, toward the few who were just leaving: until they were out of earshot, she would not be free to express her opinion of this business of keeping the Confederacy a secret.

"Mama's working tonight."  It was a statement, not a question.

Linn nodded, once, slowly.

"They will have had supper already."

Again that slow nod.

"And you haven't."

Linn waited.

Angela tapped her Daddy's flat belly gently with the back of her hand, shook her head, gave an exaggerated sigh.

"Daddy, if you keep missing meals, you won't throw a decent shadow!"

Linn shrugged.  "Trust me to cause trouble!"

"Dad-deee!" Angela whined petulantly, shoving her bottom lip out and planting her knuckles on her belt like a little girl with a size-twelve pout.  

"Comes in handy, darlin'," Linn said softly, his eyes turning a light blue as he teased his little girl: "once I'm skinny enough, I turn sideways and disappear. Comes in handy if someone's shootin' at me!"

Angela rolled her eyes, raised her spread-finger hands to the ceiling, looked down at Snowdrift:  "See what I have to put up with!"

Snowdrift tilted her head, curious, not entirely sure what was going on, but entirely convinced it somehow meant food.

Angela hooked her arm in her Daddy's and steered him toward the back of the church.

"I understand the Silver Jewel's kitchen is still open," she said confidently, "I'm hungry, and I'm buying!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

RESEARCH ASSISTANT

A long tall Sheriff with an iron grey mustache swung down from the saddle.

Mountains surrounded them, a mountain loomed tall and strong behind them: trees, thick and straight, thrust aggressively toward the sky.

The Sheriff's stallion drifted forward a few steps, drank almost daintily from the cold-running stream.

The Sheriff folded his long tall carcass, or so it seemed, lowered his bony backside onto the log beside a discouraged looking schoolboy.

Silence grew long between the two.

Neither looked at the other; both studied the distance, the stallion, then the dirt at their feet.

The Sheriff spoke first, and his voice was soft, almost reverent.

"Sun feels good."

The schoolboy frowned and shifted uncomfortably. 

"Yes, sir."

Silence, again: neither moved for some long time.

The boy knew he should be in school.

He knew he'd been found out, he'd be in trouble, he couldn't get away, not from the Sheriff! -- but the lean waisted lawman was just sitting there, quiet, like everything was as it should be.

I'm caught.

Might as well go back.

The schoolboy shifted his weight, as if getting ready to rise.

"Did you hear a thunder clap last night?" the Sheriff asked quietly.

"Sir?"

"Long about ... oh, I'd say 'twas just shy of low twelve."

The schoolboy blinked, frowned.

"I was restless last night. Couldn't sleep. Got up and had me some coffee and went outside lookin' around in the dark."

The Sheriff's voice was soft, gentle, a father's voice talking to his child just before the child drifted into sleep.

"You've seen shootin' stars."

"Yes, sir."

"There was a bright one last night. Come sailin' in from the East like a silver streak."

The Sheriff shook his head.

"Bright, dear Lord! that thing looked like 'twas cuttin' the sky open, then it looked like it blew up and threw a few fingers a-blazin' out ahead of it, and 'twas gone. Most of a minute later, boom!"

The Sheriff's quietly spoken word carried the power of the heavenly explosion, by its very gentleness.

"I have no idea what that was, but by golly 'twas a powerful explosion to make that big a boom!"

"Yes, sir."

"Last winter -- 'twas not far from here -- snow on the ground, it'd thawed and refroze so it was a heavy crust, wouldn't hold a man's weight but almost -- there was one of those booms and I saw rocks a-layin' on crusted snow."

The schoolboy looked curiously at the Sheriff.

"Meteors, they're called. Rocks from the heavens. I reckon when God Almighty made this-yere earth he had some rocks left over and they're rollin' down hill and they end up here."

The schoolboy considered this and nodded thoughtfully.

"They looked like they'd been melted some, and they had slag pits in 'em, but they were heavy. I tried 'em with a magnet and ever' one of them, the magnet stuck."

The schoolboy's imagination was engaged, his eyes were on the quiet voiced lawman.

The Sheriff looked at his sitting companion.

"What say we get you to school so you don't miss somethin' important?"

The schoolboy grimaced, looked down, said in a quiet and discouraged voice, "Yes, sir."

They rose; they walked over to the Sheriff's stallion.

The Sheriff froze, frowned a little.

The schoolboy followed his gaze.

Linn lifted his head slightly, thrust his chin in the direction of his study.

The schoolboy looked, then darted forward, seized a rock big as his two fists.

He picked it up, brought it back.

The Sheriff tilted his head a little, then bent at the waist, studying it, but made no effort to take it from the boy.

"Looks kind of melty, don't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Kind of the color of iron."

"Yes, sir."

The Sheriff looked up and smiled, just a little.

 

Miz Sarah looked up as the Sheriff and a missing schoolboy darkened the doorway.

They both walked to the front of the class.

"Miz Sarah," the Sheriff declared, "there was an explosion last night that caused me some concern."

Miz Sarah, the pretty young schoolmarm in a mousy-grey dress, blinked with surprise.

"My goodness," she murmured, blinking innocently, "whatever was it?"

"Miz Sarah, have you a magnet?"

"I have!"

The schoolboy walked forward as Miz Sarah swung behind her desk, opened a drawer.

He set the slagged-grey-rock-melt on the desktop.

Miz Sarah touched one end of her red-and-silver-painted bar magnet to it.

There was a quiet *click!* and the rock -- if that's what it was -- stuck to the magnet.

"This young man," the Sheriff said quietly, his hand on the schoolboy's shoulder, "helped me find evidence of the cause of the explosion. Right there it is."

Miz Sarah looked up, overtop of her wire rimmed spectacles.

"A fireball?"

"A big one!" 

The Sheriff's eyes smiled as he gave a young shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"And this young man was kind enough to help me find this evidence of its cause!"

The Sheriff touched the brim of his hat, turned, paced out, followed by every set of eyeballs in their little whitewashed schoolhouse.

Sarah tilted her head and smiled at the reddening schoolboy.

"Not all lessons are gained in the schoolhouse," she murmured. "Please take your seat, and" -- she tapped the meteor fragment with a delicate forefinger -- "thank you for this!"

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

COLD AIR

Four stories up, a woman's head stuck out a window, then her shoulders, then she leaned out up to her waist.

She drew back a little, looked behind her.

Smoke -- hot, thick, black -- rolled out around her: behind her, flame flickered hungrily, coming to new life with air from the open window.

She'd gotten three people out.

That's all she had time for.

The third was a child, a little girl who looked at her with big, scared eyes, a little girl who nodded wordlessly as Marnie crouched with her -- "Honey, will you trust me?" -- their eyes were stinging, tears seared from their eyes from hot smoke -- Marnie took the child under the arms, rose, swung her out the window, held her out as far as she could.

A yell from below as men with blue bib front shirts and pressed leather helmets held a taut canvas ring.

They'd caught three that dropped from a window -- they were on the ground, sore but safe -- 

"LET HER GO!" came the confident boom of a man's voice.  "WE'RE READY!"

Marnie released her grip on the little girl and skirts, legs, curls, fell through cold air and space, scared eyes locked on Marnie, hanging out the window watching --

The little girl landed, flat on her back, legs and arms a-sprawl, she bounced --

"WE GOT HER!"

Marnie choked back a sob.

I did it.

They're safe.

She looked down, at that tiny little round green postage stamp of a life ring, the life ring she'd watched them make, the life ring that just saved three people.

Now there was just her.

Fire rolled overhead, forcing her down, trembling.

Of all the things Marnie Keller had faced in her lifetime, of all the shades of Hell that tried to seize her and drag her from this mortal coil, from all the attempts on her life and all the fears she'd faced, her two worst terrors clawed at her now.

She smelled her hair singe, she felt heat driving radiation lances through the shoulders of her dress.

She looked down.

"JUMP, MARNIE! WE'LL CATCH YE, LASS!"

"I'm scared," she whispered, tears streaking her cheeks: What if I jump too far out, what if I miss, what if what if what if --

Marnie coughed, squeezed her eyes tight shut --

I wish I was a little girl at home --

She reached blindly for the window sill, gripped it: one leg out, the other leg out, she turned, dropped, grabbed the windowsill, hung, her fingers slipping --

"WE'VE GOT YE, LASS!"

Fire roared, a sudden hot gout from the Devil's throat.

Marnie pushed the tips of her toes against the brick, her fingers slipped free, she fell --

Cold, clear air, cloudless blue sky, someone's scream, bright, piercing --

Marnie landed flat on her back.

She hit canvas, she felt strong arms take up the shock of her SLAM into a taut green circle, her arms and legs were streaming behind her, they collapsed, slapped painfully against canvas and polished wood rim --

Marnie rolled over on her side, felt strong hands grip her, help her upright: she  reached blindly for the first masculine chest, clutched it desperately, buried her face in dark blue wood and screamed her fear and her desperation and her unaulterated sheer TERROR.

She screamed because she was no longer a grown woman.

She wasn't a seasoned Ambassador, she wasn't a blooded warrior.

Old traumas rise like miasma from a swamp, or like a cloud of methane from the seabottom, to swallow ships without warning: the horrors a scared little girl survived, overwhelmed her defenses, and it was not a grown woman that clung desperately to a strong man who held her just as tightly, it was a scared little girl who was afraid of being hurt again, a terrified little girl who'd been held out a tenth story window of a New York tenement by a drug-addled tweaker who screamed that he was going to drop her, drop her, drop her.

It took a while for Marnie to get her legs under her -- longer to get her mental legs back -- she staggered a few steps, steadied by grim-faced men, then she bent over and threw up a week's worth of lunches.

Her knees failed and she fell sideways, out cold.

One of the firemen -- they were all new firemen, trained at Firelands, returned to their own world with this new knowledge -- behind them, a newly manufactured pumper guzzled water from two dump tanks, spat it out in streams held by grim-faced men as another truck, shining red cab and stainless tank, rolled up beside, extended a square chute, dumped twice a thousand gallons of water into the lower of the two drop tanks.

Marnie felt herself being hoisted, how, she wasn't sure: it wasn't until she was moving that she realized --

-- she was in a squad --

-- someone was taking her blood pressure --

-- she opened her eyes, blinked --

Someone took her hand, gently, carefully:  "Madam Ambassador?"

Marnie blinked, grimaced, then looked -- almost in  panic -- "Did they get out?"

"Which ones?"

"I -- we were trapped --"

"You got them out, Madam Ambassador. You got them out safely."

"Are they hurt?"

"No. They're fine."

Marnie's head dropped back, she closed her eyes, shivered, brought her arm across her eyes, started to cry again.

"I was scared," she squeaked.  "I was so scared!"

 

The Ambassador frowned as he turned his pearl-grey hat slowly in his hands.

He walked, slowly, toward the hospital bed, toward the pale figure lying unmoving, her arms on top of the covers, her head turned, staring at the wall.

He removed his glove, reached for her hand, carefully gripped her fingers, studied her face.

She turned her face toward him.

He felt her shivering -- as much as she tried to stifle her tremors, she couldn't -- she swallowed, whispered, "I'm sorry."

The Ambassador's expression was as honestly astonished, as utterly puzzled, as his voice.

"Marnie ... you're a hero, you were trapped, you got everyone out!"

"But I was scared," she squeaked, her face crumpling again.  "I was so scared!"

"I know," he said. 

The Ambassador felt a presence, smiled as he did.

"There's someone here to see you."

The Ambassador released Marnie's hand, stepped aside.

A set of pale eyes with a long tall lawman wrapped around them, released the siderail, lowered it, drove his arms under the covers, picked his little girl up.

"Daddy," Marnie squeaked, and the Ambassador smiled, turned, left the room as silently as he could.

Sometimes a girl just needs her Daddy, and this was one of those times.

 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

JUST LIKE SARAH DID IT

 

Marnie looked up at the sound of knuckles on the doorframe.

Jacob folded his arms, leaned his shoulder casually against the portal, crossed his legs, the very image of indolence.

“I hear tell you had some excitement,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, well,” she said, pulling a clean shirt over Littlejohn’s arms and head, “I didn’t have anything else to do.”

“Littlejohn,” Jacob asked, grinning at his nephew, “have you heard the one about the Farmer’s Daughter and the Harley Davidson Motorcycle?”

“Yis!” Littlejohn declared happily, then looked uncertainly at his Mama.

Jacob shook his head.

“I’ve been askin’ that question for better’n thirty years,” he muttered, “I finally find someone who has, and he’s not but two years old!”

“Yis!” Littlejohn declared with a happy flash of even white teeth, then he turned and scampered happily into the next room.

Marnie rose -- Jacob saw she was in a skirt and her red cowboy boots, instead of her usual McKenna gown -- he crossed the floor slowly, very obviously studying her.

“Well?” Marnie asked impishly. “Everything where you remember it?”

Jacob stopped just out of arm’s reach, exaggerated his inspection as his eyes studied her down, studied her up.

“You’re in a full circle skirt,” he said. “Gives maximum flexibility for kicks, sweeps and defensive legwork.”

He saw the curtains slam shut behind her pale eyes.

“You’re in your fightin’ boots. I’ve seen what you can do to a door or a sheetrock wall with those heels.

“You’re wearing a swordsman’s shirt. Sleeves are loose, allows for maximum offensive flexibility. You’ve got a wrist-knife on the inside of each forearm.”

His jaw eased out a little.

“You’re wearing a belted sixgun, you’ve got a Maxwell knife down between your shoulder blades and I’d be surprised if you didn’t have a hand-and-a-half bastard sword in your hairdo.”

“What’s your point, Jacob?” she asked irritably.

Jacob’s face was serious.

“You just came through a trial of the spirit, Sis,” he said quietly, and Marnie’s ear pulled back a little at what she didn’t hear.

He didn’t call me ‘Little Sis.’

“You … noticed.”

She looked away, crossed her arms, suddenly uncomfortable, and Jacob took no satisfaction in knowing he’d just scored a hit.

“You’re dressed like you’re ready for a fight.”

“Maybe I’m just changing my personal style.”

She looked back, irritated.

“Okay.  I was afraid, Jacob,” she said bluntly. “You happy now?  I froze!”

“You didn’t look very froze-up to me.”

“You weren’t there.”

“The Inter-System drones were.”

Marnie threw her hands in the air, turned, turned back: “Can’t I ever have ANY privacy?”

“Not when you’re the famous Ambassador,” Jacob said quietly. “Face it, Sis, you are --”

“And maybe I don’t want to be! Did anyone ever ask me that? No!”

Marnie stomped up to Jacob, shoved her finger under his nose, her pale eyes blazing.

Jacob stood, arms folded, his eyes quiet, waiting for her to continue.

“I didn’t ask to be Sheriff on another world, Jacob. I might as well have been drafted!”

Jacob blinked, once, waited.

“I didn’t want to be Ambassador, Jacob, I was never appointed, elected, selected, it was because --”

“It was because you took charge when a meteor nearly cut your ship in two,” Jacob interrupted. “It was because you got dumped into situations and you grabbed the reins and brought order out of chaos. You ended up an unofficial adjunct to an Ambassador who found out you can charm the petals off a daisy, you can sweet talk harsh and angry men into accord, you can persuade the hard headed -- “

Jacob paused, took a breath, continued.

“Marnie, you have a gift, the Confederacy saw it and they manufactured a position for you, because you’re damned good at what you do!”

Jacob never raised his voice, he didn’t shout, he didn’t grab his sister and shake her: no, his voice hardened, and Marnie could hear the steel in his words.

Jacob uncrossed his arms, reached forward, put his fingertips on Marnie’s elbows.

“Marnie.”

She looked up at him.

“You’ve prevented wars. You’ve brought trade agreements and you’ve created accord. You’ve started coffee plantations, you’re on your way to being a woman of commerce and you’re already a woman of influence. I might be missin’ somethin’ here, but I don’t see where you failed!”

Marnie glared at her brother, then squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head, stepped closer, dropped her forehead against his collarbone.

Brother and sister embraced, held one another for several long moments.

“You weren’t there,” Marnie whispered.

“No,” Jacob admitted. “I wasn’t.”

“Jacob, do you remember Daddy reading to us about Sarah McKenna?”

“Which time?”

Marnie could hear the grin in Jacob’s voice as he drew back, looked at her with light-blue eyes, the eyes he wore when he was pleased, when his defenses were down.

“When she … when she was in the Detective’s Academy.”

“Professor TJ Hunt’s School of Detection.”

“Something like that. Someone wanted to burn Sarah out. They set fire under the wooden stairs. She’d prepared ahead of time, she had a … a metal brace or something in a cupboard beside the back window … no, it was a ladder. She had an escape ladder but she also had a rappelling setup and that’s how she got everyone out and down the ladder, until two of them got on the ladder at the same time and it broke.”

“She got the Professor out and down the rappel, and then she made it partway before the line burned in two.”

“I wasn’t smart enough to mount a ladder, Jacob,” Marnie said bitterly. “I didn’t have a rescue harness rigged up and ready.”

“No,” he agreed, “but our entire damned Irish Brigade made double damned sure their students on that planet knew their stuff.”  Jacob’s palms were warm as he opened his hands, gripped her arms just above her elbows -- but only just enough to be reassuring.

“Sis, you worked with what they’d trained to do. You got everyone out that window. You coached ‘em to drop straight down with their arms crossed over their chest. They did like you said and they’re alive, even that little girl that was last out before you!”

Marnie looked up at Jacob, her eyes haunted.

“There’s something else,” he said, frowning. “What happened?”

Marnie shook her head, remembering what it was to be held out a tenement window, feeling her dress tear, seeing how far it was to the ground, she remembered feeling every ingrained, inbred, genetically programmed fear of falling every child has from birth, and she remembered doing to a child what a tweaker threatened to do to her.

Jacob leaned into her, wrapped his arms around her again, laid his cheek over on her hair.

“Bottom line, sis,” he said quietly, “you did what you do best.  You kept your people alive. Yes, you were scared, and yes, maybe you froze, but you pushed through it and you, kept, your, people, alive!”

Jacob’s voice was quiet, little more than a whisper, but his voice was intense, his voice carried absolute conviction and was utterly devoid of any doubt whatsoever.

Marnie nodded, looked up at her brother’s eyes, saw a smile hiding in them.

“Besides, Sis, I’ve got braggin’ rights now,” he said gently. “I can tell everyone my baby sis is a genuine hero!”

Marnie Keller, wife to the chief surgeon of the Second Martian Colony (Firelands), Sheriff Emeritus, Ambassador to the Confederacy, responded in the same manner as her honorable ancestress replied to her pale eyed Papa.

Marnie hauled of and kicked her brother in the shins.

Hard.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SIGNS AND PORTENTS, ON STEELSHOD HOOVES

"I can hear you thinking."

Shelly's voice was quiet in the nighttime bedroom.

Her husband lay beside her, still, unmoving: he'd made not a sound since slipping into bed, since taking her hand the way he always did, since pulling the covers up under his chin and giving one final wiggle before systematically relaxing his long tall carcass.

"I'll try not to stare at the ceiling quite so loudly," he replied, his voice quiet.

Shelly rolled up on her side, laid her hand in the middle of his fuzzy chest.

"What is it?" she whispered, leaning her cheek against his shoulder.

She felt him swallow, felt him take a long breath, heard him sigh it out.

"Marnie and I talked."

Uh-oh.

"What about?"

"She'd walled off some things that happened to her when she was a little girl back in New York."

Shelly heard her husband's voice sharpen, like putting an edge on bladed steel.

"What kind of things?"

Linn took another long breath: his hand tightened ever so slightly on his wife's, then he released, rolled over, sat up.

"I need coffee."

Husband and wife catfooted down the broad, solid-built staircase that had seen multiple generations come and go: Linn looked over at the banister, looked past it into the kitchen, remembered happy children sliding down its polished length, remembering how happy Marnie looked when she slid down and caught herself on the solid bottom post, taking up the shock with her moccasin covered feet.

Linn said not one more word until they reheated what little coffee was left, until they sat, until he'd added the ceremonial drizzle of milk to his and muttered his ritualistic "Extract of Bovine" as he did.

Shelly waited.

Linn frowned as he leaned over his finger-gripped mug.

"Damn my sister," he rumbled -- his voice was a whispering hiss -- "had I a bushel basket of Hebrew shekels, I'd hire the Witch of Endor to resurrect her so I could beat her to death!"

Shelly blinked, surprised: it was rare for her husband to reveal such a deep and abiding anger.

"She was a druggie and --"

His lips peeled back from clenched teeth, his eyes were white, hard: he set his mug down, flattened  both hands on the tabletop to keep them from trembling with the rage he refused to let himself feel.

"You saw the Inter-System where Marnie got those people out of the fire structure."

Shelly nodded.

"You saw the enhanced version, where they AI'd her actions and words inside the room before she finally jumped."

Shelly nodded again.

"They didn't show everything."

"Oh?"

Linn glared straight ahead.

"It didn't show her screaming in terror, it didn't show her throwing up and passing out, it didn't show" -- he stopped, picked up his coffee, took a taste, swallowed.

"It didn't show me in her hospital room."

"What did you do?"

"The Ambassador came and got me. I knew it was serious, the man never just shows up unannounced. I got there and Marnie was catatonic."

"What!"  Shelly whispered, shocked.

"In the classic sense of the word. Just lying there, staring at the wall.

"I dropped her siderail and ran my arms under her, I rolled her into me and she was stiff, Shelly, I might as well have picked up a plaster cast, until she smelled me and realized it was me and then she hung onto me like she was drowning and I was a float."
"Oh, dear God!" Shelly whispered.

"She ... 'twas like you'd sliced open a boil, she poured out the corruption that was done to her.

"She'd held out that little girl and dropped her onto the life ring -- you remember seeing that."

Shelly nodded.

"She said that was the one worst moment.

"She said she was that little girl's size when a tweaker hung her out a tenement window screaming he was going to drop her and she was screaming in terror and she felt her dress tearing and for her very life she has no idea why she didn't fall and die on a New York sidewalk from ten stories up."

Shelly's mouth hung open and she looked half sick.

"That's not all she told me, Shelly."

Linn looked at his wife, his expression hard, unforgiving.

"Damn my sister's soul to hell! -- Marnie --"

He set his coffee down, pressed the heels of his fisted hands hard against the tabletop.

Shelly felt her husband's fury in the vibrations of the heavy, ancient, wooden kitchen table.

"She's back on Mars," he continued quietly. "She's back with her little boy and her husband and her people there. Jacob said she's not wearing her McKenna gowns, she's gone back to her denim skirt and red cowboy boots and she's wearing her knives, or at least she was for the first 48 hours."

"And you kept this from me."

"We both did. She didn't want you worried."

"Linn!" Shelly hissed. "I'm her mother!"

Linn nodded, looked at his wife.

"We can go there, or she can come here. You know Littlejohn will absolutely love it."

Shelly dry-scrubbed her face, set her elbows on the tablecloth and pressed her face between her hands.

"On the other hand, she's a woman grown, darlin'. She might not want --"

Shelly's glare was enough to cut off his words.

Husband and wife drank coffee and sat up for a while.

 

"I don't see why I have to ride a mule," Shelly complained.

"Billy's a good saddlemount," Linn explained patiently. "He's steady and intelligent and he's used to carrying the girls."

"He's a mule!"

"Keep your voice down, darlin', you'll hurt his feelin's."

He considered a moment.

"Would you rather take the Jeep? There'll be room enough to set it."

Shelly's irritated glare was reply enough.

"Okay," Linn sighed. "What-all do you need to take?"

"I have the suitcases packed."

"I'll fetch 'em out to your car."

Shelly stood to one side as Linn backed her car up to the front porch, as he loaded her suitcases, as he closed the hatch-glass and the rear door.

He secured the house and set the alarm, he came around the passenger side and opened the door, waited for Snowdrift to launch into the passenger front seat: he closed the door, came around to the driver's side, opened the door for his wife.

"I suppose you're riding a horse," she muttered.

"No room for a horse in your car," Linn said with a straight face.

Shelly sighed patiently, climbed in.

She waited for her husband to stride to the barn, to ride back; he drew up in front of her car, she saw him bend his wrist, manipulate something on his sleeve-hidden wrist-unit.

An Iris appeared before them.

Linn rode through it, disappeared.

Shelly followed.

 

Littlejohn laughed and ran with two other boys of a similar vintage: all three wore T-shirts and short pants, all three had the apple cheeks and grinning visages of healthy children, and all three streaked across the manicured yard and disappeared around the house, the way healthy, active little boys will.

A liveried servant carried two of the suitcases, Linn carried the other two: Ruth's mother came smiling up to Shelly, delighted for the visit, and when Linn emerged, he shook hands with his counterpart, whereupon the men withdrew for discussion and brandy, not necessarily in that order.

Jacob and Ruth, Marnie and Dr. John were not long in arriving.

Linn marveled at how women can manage to coordinate such matters.

A meal was laid and places set, as if they'd long been anticipated, until he considered that maybe they actually were anticipated: Marnie, absolutely gorgeous in her trademark McKenna gown, looked across the table at him, her eyes bright and vulnerable, and he saw her lips shape the words, "Thank You," and he winked at his little girl: there were times when a girl needs her Daddy, yes, but there are times when a woman needs other women, and Linn reckoned this was one of those times.

Besides, he reasoned, Little John needed room to run and "get the stink blowed off him," as Uncle Will put it.

 

Dr. John joined them, after the meal; they declined cigars, to the relief of their host -- "Never took up the habit," he admitted, "not after trying one as a child and turning the color of spring grass!" -- three men laughed quietly, for this was a shared experience: each of them, in early childhood, had what they agreed was a "Negative Experience" with cigars, and based on that early childhood experience, swore off the habit before it even got started.

They were content to leave the ladies to their devices.

Michael and Victoria arrived as well; they turned their mounts into the pasture with their Pa's stallion (their host was kind enough to sequester his mares an acre away, so as to prevent misunderstandings): Michael joined the men-folk, though he was offered mint-sweet tea rather than the ceremonial brandy, followed by the chilled, truly excellent sweet tea.

Conversation ranged through local politics, little of which Linn really followed, as every district, every political entity, is its own unique structure; all have similarities, but all have enough differences that the Sheriff was more than content to accept his host's explanations without comment, though he did listen closely, and understood most of what he was hearing.

A servant slid open the burnished, square-paneled doors, waited: he was acknowledged, approached, spoke quietly.

Their host turned to Linn and Michael with a troubled expression.

"It seems," he said, "there is a disagreement in town, and perhaps our appearance might be beneficial."

Linn nodded, looked at his son.

"I'll get saddled up, sir."

"Charles. Have Pacer saddled for me."

"Right away, sir."

 

Three men rode down the paved main street.

The one in the middle, half a length ahead of his flankers, was known to the populace: exactly how he was known, Linn wasn't sure: very likely, he had some influence in local politics, but he'd never really inquired.

When he asked their help, though, Linn did not hesitate to add the implied authority of himself and his son.

Father and son flanked their host, two pale eyed men in tailored black suits, each with a shotgun hanging on the off side of the saddle, from a piggin string looped over the saddle horn: father and son rode tall in the saddle, moving with the ease of horsemen born: as well as their host rode, his was the posture, the ride, of a man not entirely at home in the saddle.

A genuine Western Sheriff and his son, however, did not so much ride their horses, as they became one with their horses.

 

Marnie excused herself from the ladies, watched on her wrist-comm.

From what she saw, there was no confrontation, there were no remonstrations: her sister-in-law Ruth's father consulted with a group of men, apparently quite amicably, while two quiet men in tailored black suits turned their mounts to face in opposite directions, their eyes busy: they made no move, said no word: when finally hands were shaken, laughter shared, when the plantation owner stepped up onto a mounting-block and into his saddle, the three turned and rode off.

Apparently the presence of two notables, was sufficient to guarantee that men were willing to discuss, to talk, to come to peaceful accord.

Marnie returned to the ladies, to a feminine discussion of their latest crop, planted in accordance with the signs, which immediately segued into talk of signs, and of portents, and Marnie smiled at the thought of the unexpected appearance of two genuine Western men, who rode with their host.

Portents, she thought, on steelshod hooves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HANGMAN, HANGMAN

A man sat, unable to move.

He sat, blindfolded, manacled to an interrogation throne, unable to move more than his fingers.

He shivered -- he gasped -- clothed though he was, he felt more naked than he'd ever been, for moments before, a woman's fingers pressed lightly against the sides of his head, just before her mental claws drove deep into his brain, bringing a spontaneous scream of terror as she closed her eyes and drank of his memories.

The interrogation was swift, the interrogation was efficient: transcribing all she'd recovered, took considerably longer, during which time the prisoner remained immobilized, alone in the personal darkness of a black-silk blindfold.

The Supreme Confederate was in special session, owing to the severity of events recently discovered.

Members of the Supreme Confederate were discreetly questioned, their responses monitored by more than mere instruments; those deemed worthy of further study, did not arrive for the next day's legislative session.

A special tribunal was held, a tribunal attended by a carefully selected representation of the Full Confederate: twenty men sat in judgement of eight of their own, twenty men listened carefully as questions were propounded to the accused, their answers given, and then carefully shredded by an incredibly well prepared prosecution.

All eight were unanimously declared guilty.

 

Linn waited three days before meeting with his daughter.

It was equal parts Sheriff and Deputy, equal parts Daddy and Daddy's Girl.

Linn held his daughter's fingers, carefully, delicately, as if afraid her fingers were fine china and his clumsiness might break them off.

Marnie looked at her Daddy with the eyes of a daughter who was still healing from some terrible experience.

"Darlin'," Linn said gently, "you weren't wearin' your Shielding."

"No, Daddy," she whispered, and he saw something change behind her eyes, in the same moment he felt her fingers just start to curl, as if to close into fists until she stopped them.

He waited.

Marnie looked at her Daddy, and her eyes were no longer those of a girl, healing.

"Daddy," she said quietly, and he heard her voice hardening, "I told my shielding was to be overhauled, improved, upgraded."

"And?"

"And they lied, Daddy. They waited until I was working on a negotiation, and they firebombed the building."

"Without your shielding."

"Without my shielding."

"With everyone in the building."

"Collateral damage. Acceptable losses."

She spat the words, her lips twisted with disgust.

"They intended to murder me, Daddy. Eight of them convinced themselves I was a threat and I had to be stopped before I became more powerful."

"What did they fear?"

"They were afraid I'd become so popular, I might rise to the Presidency, or maybe even take over as a dictator, or a warrior goddess."

"Will you?"

"I don't have a crystal ball, Daddy. I don't intend to, but I could be nominated for office."

"Do you want it?"

Marnie shivered.  "No," she said quietly, emphatically.

"Good enough."

Marnie looked at her Daddy, her expression hard: he noticed the first fine lines at the corners of her eyes, visible now that her anger was boiling, now that she was working hard to hide it.

"The Eight are being tried, Daddy. I ... interrogated ... each of them and spent an unholy amount of time and good pulp paper writing up my findings."

"Which were?"

"The Eight swung their influence.

"They tried to poison my reputation.

"They failed.

"They were behind the attempt on my life some years ago, when I went back with a shotgun and cleaned house like I was assaulting a Fun House. We thought it was a random event, we thought we got everyone when I went through and laid out carcasses like I was stacking firewood."

"Not your brightest move."

"I had to do it, Daddy. They shot me. I had to show that you don't shoot an Ambassador and live to tell the tale."

She smiled, just a little, laid a gloved hand on the Sheriff's forearm.

"Especially since I was still Sheriff on Mars."

She tilted her head, smiled a little.  "A girl has to protect her reputation, you know."

Linn laid a hand on his daughter's, his deputy's, fingers, nodded.

"I understand."

"Of all the people in the world," she sighed, "you would."

"And what of these eight you told me about?"

"I've given my testimony. They showed the Inter-System vids as evidence. There were no surveillance cameras, but I was able to extract the exact M.O., names of the leg men who set the incendiaries, names of everyone involved in the planning. I was able to establish they intended to start the fire low, fast, hot, burn out the stairs, block the exits, trap everyone upstairs so they'd have to jump and die, or burn and die."

"I see."

Marnie frowned, bent her wrist, pulled her sleeve back, then looked up at her Daddy.

"They have a verdict. Like to come along?"

 

Eight restraint thrones, heavy wood with steel manacles, each with an occupant, sat on the gallows.

One was rolled on steel casters onto the hatch at the center of the platform.

A coarse, heavy noose was placed around the blindfolded prisoner's neck.

Only then was the blindfold removed.

A pretty woman in a McKenna gown flowed across the gallows, removing the prisoners' blindfolds, untying the knotted silk, tucking them into her cloth belt like trophies.

She walked slowly across the row of condemned men, hard little heels loud on the close-fitted boards, stopping and looking very directly into the eyes of each.

She walked the length of the gallows, stopped at the last man, the man whose interrogation throne sat on the hatch.

She turned, addressed the crowd.

"You saw the trial on the Inter-System," she said, her voice amplified by a hidden microphone she wore near her lips, carried by focused projectors strategically positioned throughout the town square.

"You know these eight stood accused of murder by arson, of conspiracy, of attempted murder.

"They committed many more crimes than these and today they pay the ultimate price for their betrayal of the civil trust.

"These eight" -- she extended an arm -- "cost the lives of six innocent souls, all in an attempt to murder me. The consequence of murdering those six innocents, is that they shall be hanged by the neck until they are dead, and may God have mercy on their corroded souls!"

Marnie spoke clearly, her voice ringing in the hushed, solemn air.

She turned, stepped slowly in front of the man with a noose around his neck.

She bent at the waist, gloved hands on her knees, looked the condemned man in the eyes and whispered, "I forgive you."

She straightened, backed up a step.

Sheriff Linn Keller stepped in front of the condemned.

"I'm her father," he said quietly, "and I do not."

The hatch opened, the heavy restraint throne dropped less than a foot; they heard his neck snap as the rope jerked taut.

Eight men were forgiven by the pale eyed Ambassador, each in their turn.

Eight men were hanged by a father who didn't forgive.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND THE GYPSY RODE SIDESADDLE

Women were a favorite topic of discussion -- in the Silver Jewel, over beer; across trailside fires, over coffee or cold creekwater or a sociable splash of whiskey and ditch -- truth be told, women talked about men just as ardently, just as frankly, and truth be told, often just as lasciviously.

Male and female alike attired themselves according to the dictates of the moment.

Men wore anything from coarse working clothes to fine suits; women dressed in the same range of attire, and for the same reasons, and so it was not at all unusual to see a Sheriff in his tailored black suit, standing shoulder to shoulder with a red-bib-front-shirted Irishman from their fire department, having a sociable beer at Mr. Baxter's bar, while elsewhere in the same establishment, men attired for riding, or mining, or drilling, could in the same moment be seen.

A lean waisted man in a tailored black suit stopped in front of the Mercantile and removed his cover.

The woman he addressed almost never wore the fine McKenna gowns that were almost de rigeur for the ladies of Firelands: her dress, her backless clogs, her over-large headscarf running most of the way down her back, would have been more at home in a European village.

Daciana stopped, looked up at Jacob with that knowing smile, and somehow Jacob knew that Daciana either planned this meeting, because he had a question, or she knew he had a question and planned that they should thus meet.

"Good Milady," he said carefully, "I would counsel with you."

Daciana blinked, tilted her head a little, the way a woman will when she is intrigued -- in this case, by the formality of his address.

"You speak as if I am a Gypsy Princess," she said softly, her words accented by her native upbringing.

"I know I address Royalty," Jacob said, his voice as serious as his expression.  "I would therefore speak with due respect."

Daciana blinked innocently, stepped closer, patted his chest in a grandmotherly fashion -- she was younger than he, but somehow managed to look like a wise old babushka -- "Chakob," she whispered, "you haff more behindt your question."

Jacob considered: like his father, he cultivated his very best Poker Face.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied carefully. "I have."

 

An hour later, Jacob lowered himself carefully into a hand-embroidered, comfortably-upholstered chair at Daciana's small kitchen table.

She was the wife of the town's telegrapher.

She'd been a trick rider with a traveling circus that disintegrated when it reached Firelands; she'd walked boldly up to Lightning, wearing her trick rider's scandalously-revealing leotard, she'd taken his hand, looked him squarely in the eye and said "You vill be mein huzbandt" -- it was a statement of fact, not a request, not a speculation.

Daciana was the town's "Yarb Woman" -- she had regular commerce with the ladies of the Clan Maxwell, up on the mountain, for Daciana knew that medicinal herbs -- "yarbs," as she'd heard them called, back East -- were often local, and she wished to include the local "yarbs" in her herbal repertoire.

The Sheriff, for reasons of which Daciana had never been clear, built her a great, round barn and arena under the overhang of the great granite cliff: sheltered from the elements, proof against snow, it was built solidly, built tight against winter's winds: it was tall, tall enough Daciana had thick, hand-twisted rope tied off to the ceiling rafters, rope up which she and Sarah would climb, laughing, hand-over-hand, shapely and muscled legs thrust straight out, satin-slippers pointed as the climbed, each straining, each with a smile, neither willing to admit to the other just how HARD it was to maintain enough grip to hoist their body's weight -- hand over hand, to the ceiling, slap the beam, then back down, careful not to slack their grip, lest they burn the flesh off their palms!

Daciana's house was spacious, brutally efficient, painfully clean, exquisitely organized: Daciana's life in a circus wagon dictated the merciless economy of a saltwater sailor in the organization and maintenance of her living space.

All this ran through Jacob's mind like streamwater freefalling from the lip of a cliff.

Daciana placed a steaming cup of something fragrant before Jacob, sat, placed her own teacup on the table before her, laced her fingers together in the little steam-cloud rising from her drink.

"You vant to know zomdinks," she said quietly -- Jacob was not at all sure whether her words were deliberately mispronounced, to maintain her aura of the Gypsy fortuneteller, or whether it was honestly her native accent, or if both might be the case.

"Sarah," he said bluntly. "I dreamed last night she was fighting from a staircase against overwhelming odds. A woman ran down a hidden chamber behind a bookcase. She had Sarah's child and she was making an escape while Sarah fought what looked like a young army."

Jacob felt a chill trickle down his backbone as he saw the veils draw together behind Daciana's eyes.

She looked up at Jacob and it felt like she drove her gaze into his soul like a woman would drive an icepick into a man's heart.

"You drink," she said. "Drink all.  Now."

Daciana picked up her own delicate teacup, two-handed.

Jacob did the same.

The pair drank.

Daciana set her teacup down, set it aside: she reached across the table, snatched Jacob's empty teacup from his surprised fingers, inverted it, smacked it -- hard -- against the tablecloth.

Jacob was honestly surprised it did not shatter.

Daciana froze, as if holding a monster imprisoned under inverted, eggshell china: she closed her eyes, lifted a hand: her fingers moved as if knitting something invisible in the air above the teacup.

Jacob watched, fascinated.

Daciana's eyes were closed now: she swayed a little, whispering, and to Jacob's ears it was as if something whispered with her -- a dry whisper, like snake-scales crawling across a desert-hot rock.

Daciana lifted her teacup, looked at the clump of soaky-wet tea leaves on her immaculate, red-and-white-checkered tablecloth.

She seized her own teacup, clapped it over Jacob's pile of soggy leaves, lifted it, looked at Jacob, her eyes wide, shocked.

"Go," she whispered. "Go now!"

Jacob rose, hesitated: he gave a grave half-bow.

"My Lady," he said gently, "thank you --"

Her glare stopped his words like a slap in the face.

Jacob Keller feared no man.

Jacob Keller had faced up to, and faced down, a variety of large and angry men bearing a variety of weapons.

Jacob Keller had looked Death square in the eye and dared it to do its worst.

Jacob Keller admitted to himself that he honestly had not the sand to do anything but pick up his Stetson and leave.

Had he looked back, he would have seen a Gypsy healer, hands pressed to her cheeks, looking at a soggy pile of tea leaves, grief and tears on her face.

She waited until the door closed, the she snatched the scarf tight over her head, drew it close about her neck.

She turned, slipped through her tidy, spotless house, out the back door.

Wood.

I need wood.

Lightning brought her home a broom, but a broom with a painted handle.

That would never do.

Daciana seized the ax from the woodpile, twisted it free.

She squatted, brought it up behind her backside, swallowed, opened her mind.

Nobody saw a Gypsy woman, riding an ax sidesaddle, knees modestly together, shoot silently into the sky.

 

Daciana stood in the smoking ruin of what used to be a nobleman's schloss.

She closed her eyes.

Sarah, she called.

Sarah, I'm here.

Daciana felt the several shades, spirits of the newly dead.

She turned, eyes closed, seeing clearly.

She smiled.

Sarah!

Sarah Lynne McKenna, Daciana's old and dear friend, smiled at her, opened her arms, ran to her: the two embraced -- Sarah felt solid and real, she smelled of lilac water, of sunshine and mountain air, just the way Daciana remembered.

I've been killed, Daciana.

I know.

Sarah placed delicate fingertips under her dear friend's chin, bit her bottom lip.

It was my time, Daciana heard her whisper.

Daciana nodded, grief weighting her heart.

My daughter is safely away.

Sarah's whisper was wordless, heard more in Daciana's mind than in her ears.

I know, she whispered in reply, feeling scalding saltwater building behind closed eyelids.

I saw her carried down the passage.

She is one of the Order, Sarah mind-whispered. See her, that you may know her when you see her again.

Daciana felt Sarah's fingertips, like feathers on her temples, and she smiled as she saw the woman through Sarah's eyes.

I will know her, Sarah.

She will sail for New York, and thence by rail to Firelands. She will travel as a young widow with her newborn child. Have Jacob raise her as his own.

I will, Daciana promised, her lips moving as she mind-whispered in reply.

Let my bones sleep here, Sarah whispered. They will be found, and in due time, returned.

Your bones will rest, but will you?

Sarah smiled, stepped back.

Jacob's son Joseph will come to war, she whispered: Sarah turned, quickly, her McKenna gown flaring, flowing: now she stood in a skirt-of-plates, shin-armored, flat-heeled, knee-high boots, a steel, woman-contoured curiasse with a hand-engraved, realistically-limned rose between steel mounds.

Sarah raised an ancient helmet, lowered it over her head: a huge, shining-black mare appeared beside her, wings spread, then folded.

I must be ready when Joseph is killed in battle, she smiled, and then both she and her winged Snowflake-mare ...

...disappeared ...

 

Jacob looked up, surprised, as something crossed the far meadow, then came at him.

He stopped, frowned.

It took him a few moments to admit to himself that he was seeing ...

... a woman?

Flying?

He felt no alarm, just an honest curiosity: he recognized Daciana at a hundred yards or better, stood as she slowed, stopped, as she dismounted from a double-bit ax, as casually as if she might step off a high stool.

"Ve don't alvays fly brooms," Daciana explained. "It mutst be voodt. I couldt ride a fence rail but ist hard on mein bottom."

"O-kaaay," Jacob said carefully.

Daciana grounded the broad ax, leaned the handle against the fence railing, her face serious.

"Chakob," she said, "komm."

She beckoned.

Jacob stepped closer, uncertain: he held very still as she placed gentle fingertips on his temples.

"This voman," Daciana whispered as an image came clearly and most unforgettably into his mind, "ist bringink you Sarah's childt. You vill raise her as your own. The voman bringink her can be trusssted mit all thinks."

Jacob blinked as Daciana withdrew her fingertips.

"And Sarah?"

"You vill know," Daciana said quietly. "Raise her childt as your own, Chakob."

Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller, who'd seen many interesting and unbelievable things, watched as a Gypsy Healer picked up a broad ax, set her backside on it as dainty and as feminine as his own mother riding sidesaddle, as she lifted her chin, as she shot silently across his pasture and up into the evening sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DID YOU RUN, DADDY?

Sarah Lynne McKenna breathed deeply, silently, rigidly and mercilessly disciplining herself against breathing with the great gasps she desperately wanted.

She pressed herself flat against the doorway, grateful for the corset that flattened her already-trim middle, pulling at the sides of her skirt to draw them into shadow.

She held still, shoulders pressed against the closed, locked door, head turned sideways, froze: her fashionable, flower-trimmed hat was behind her thighs, probably crushed now, held with one hand.

Her pursuers thundered up the stairs -- three flights she'd climbed, fast -- she knew her best bet was to freeze, for the human eye is geared to pick up movement -- she closed her mouth, dry-swallowed, breathed through her nose.

She was operating as The Black Agent, but instead of her usual all-black male attire, she became just another of the well-dressed women about town: she'd picked the lock on a small strongbox, she'd blessed the Swiss watchmaker who taught her about locks, taught her how to defeat most of them -- she worked constantly with locks of various kinds, educating herself in how to get through their protection, silently if possible, with overwhelming force if that need arose.

She'd seized the handful of documents in the strongbox, stuffed them into her bodice, quickly buttoned her dress back up, then she closed the strongbox, turned, frowned.

A sound at the door --

She skipped across the carpeted floor, raised the window she'd previously unlatched against the need for a swift getaway --

Sarah hung by gloved fingertips, dropped to the next roof, landed on its narrow ledge, then stood: she walked with the confidence of a tightrope walker, skirts hiked just enough, silent in the moonlight: another window, also left unlatched as a precaution, and she was back in the building.

As soon as she got halfway down the hall, she heard men's voices, angry shouts.

She automatically pulled back into the shadow of the doorway, grateful for the evening and for the hotel's frugality in spacing gaslights well apart.

Sarah waited.

"DID HE SEE ANYONE!" came the shout, then the reply, another voice:  "NO! STOP ANYONE YOU FIND! FIND THOSE PAPERS!"

Stop anyone, Sarah thought.

Even a well-dressed matron about town.

"NOBODY HERE! CHECK UPSTAIRS!"

Sarah waited several seconds, then hazarded a quick peek.

Nobody in sight.

GO!

Sarah ran down the hall, away from the stairs, running on the balls of her feet: she stopped, turned the key in a side door, opened it, slipped through, closed it silently, locked it again, thrust the key into a pocket.

She closed her eyes, leaned back against the door, breathed slowly, deeply, steadying herself.

She crept down the back stairs -- the ones only used by staff -- she came to the back door, drew it open an inch, looked out as far as she could swing a visual arc.

Open wider, look wider.

Nothing!

Sarah slipped out, closed and locked this outer door.

She could have taken a defensive position against her pursuers.

She could have used various implements of deadly persuasion she carried, to permanently stop her pursuit.

This time, though, she used the weapon at her disposal which stood her the greatest chance of success.

Sarah snatched up her skirts and ran like a scared little girl.

 

"Daddy?"

Linn looked up from his ledger, smiled as a pretty little girl looked at him with big innocent eyes.

"Yes, Princess?"

"Daddy, was Saw-wah brave?"

Linn smiled a little, looked at the framed, split-image of Sarah Lynne McKenna in a gown of the period, and of his Mama, in an identical gown: they could have been twins, clones, they could have been the get of a magical mirror, so alike did they appear in that photograph.

"Yes, darlin', she was."

"Was Sawwah ever afraid?" Victoria asked, blinking, giving her Daddy the benefit of her long, lovely lashes, almost out of place on a girl of her few years.

"I reckon she was, now and again."

"Did Sawwah run?"

Linn leaned back and laughed, he rolled his chair back from his desk, opened his arms.

"Come here, darlin'," he said gently, and Victoria happily skipped over to her Daddy, allowed herself to be picked up and set on his lap.

"Sarah was brave, yes," he murmured, "and Sarah got into dangerous situations. She did it because she was an Agent of the Court. Kind of like working undercover today."

Victoria blinked again, and Linn made a mental note to make another appointment with his chiropractor, for his lovely little baby girl (who wasn't nearly so little anymore!) had him cranked so tight around her little finger, he'd have to have his back bone unwound professionally.

"Darlin', sometimes the right thing to do is run."

"It is?" she whispered uncertainly.

"I've run."

Linn saw genuine surprise -- almost disappointment -- in his youngest daughter's expression.

"When it's something bigger and meaner than me, you bet your bottom dollar I've run!" he grinned. "Do you remember when I tackled that State Trooper?"

Angela shook her head slowly.

"There was a garage fire and a car was fully involved. The troop was underfoot and in the road, truth be told, but when I saw the fire was under the front of the car, I ran.

"Now that time I ran towards danger instead of away from it.

"I God's honest tackled that trooper and I hit him hard, just before the fire cooked off that car's front bumper. It had those energy absorbing pistons, y'see, and when they get so hot they explode."

Victoria's eyes widened as she imagined her Daddy making a flying tackle, just before the bumper exploded like shrapnel in her young imagination.

"I almost got out of the road," Linn continued with a rueful smile. "The bumper caught the heel of my boot and I thought I'd broke my ankle. Didn't, but it knocked that boot heel loose!"

"Was the trooper mad, Daddy?"

"He was, until he saw where that bumper cut through the side of that garage when it blew. I told him it would've cut his legs off at the knees and he looked real funny and he said that's the first time he'd thanked a man for knocking him down!"

Linn looked at Victoria speculatively.

"Your Mama is a brave woman, too, y'know."

Victoria nodded.

"Your Mama ran, too."

"Did the bumper hit her too?"

"No, no," Linn said quietly, hugging her to him: " 'twas another fire, a propane tank blew and another was ... well, your Mama said when that first one blew and she saw two others were right in the worst of the flame, she committed that classic military maneuver known as the Advance to the Rear!"

Victoria giggled, cuddled into her Daddy's shirt front: he was warm and he smelled good, and she liked it when her Daddy held her like this.

"Daddy?"

"Hm?"

"Daddy, was that the day they had a dim bulb new guy that tried to put out the hydrogen fire?"

Linn drew back, startled, looked at his daughter with genuine surprise.

"Come again?"

"You know, Daddy," she said in a sincere-little-girl voice:  "a tanker was stopped an' it vented an' it lit off from static and Fitz said it's safer to just let it burn an' the new guy grabbed a dry-chem an' climbed up and hit it with dry powder."

She remembered all that? he thought. 

Dear God, let me remember she has a photographic memory every time I open my mouth!

"What ... happened ... when he hit that hydrogen fire with the dry-chem?"

"It exploded, Daddy," she said, her eyes big and sincere, "an' he come down off the tank an' he hit the ground an' he quit the Fire Department that day!"

"I see," Linn replied carefully, making another mental note, to never underestimate the intelligence of this female child!

"Daddy, would you have run from that?"

Linn considered for a moment, then he said, "Darlin', I was there when it happened.  When Fitz said to just let it burn, it's blowing out the safety popoff, I was happy with that. When that newbie climbed up and blew himself off like that, I was kind of surprised, but no ... I didn't run."

Victoria regarded her father with solemn approval as he added, "I wasn't about to hit a hydrogen fire with a dry-chem either!"

Victoria hugged her Daddy again, the sudden, happy hug of a little girl, and the moment graved itself into a mental snapshot that pale eyed old Sheriff referred to, time and again, for the rest of his entire life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

RETIREMENT

The .44 Bulldog spoke a language even the most hardened sinner could understand.

20 grains of FFF and a 200 grain pistol ball addressed the man extending a splayed hand, intending to seize the money Sarah held in a gloved grip.

His hand closed on empty air a moment after his vest button disappeared.

In his next heartbeat, he realized the woman he'd accosted, the woman of whom he'd demanded how she got that much money, had a gloved hand thrust at him, an arm extended, that something bright detonated a foot from his belly, and then he had no more heartbeats left.

Sarah backed up a step, pulled the blocky Bulldog pistol in close to her ribs: she turned, eyes pale, hard, glaring like a mother tiger protecting her cubs.

Nobody moved.

The shock of a blackpowder concussion in a room is enough to freeze the hardiest soul into stillness: Sarah alone moved, and that was to return her money to her reticule, to draw it shut, to turn slowly round about.

"A footpad tried to rob me," she declared loudly. "A big man tried to take an honest woman's life's savings!"

"Make way, make way," a voice shouted: men stood aside, or were shoved aside: a police-officer stopped, stared at Sarah, at the man on the floor, unmoving, at the Bulldog revolver in her gloved grip.

Sarah made a move, the revolver disappeared; she took a step closer, raised her palm, dropped open a flat, square wallet.

"Send for Detective Hendricks," she said, and it was not a request.

When Sarah left, it was on a man's arm, a man who wore his police-badge on the lapel of his coat, a man who'd shoved his Derby hat aggressively forward, a man who winked at a colleague, to be seen leaving with such a delicious little morsel, a morsel who steered the detective abruptly into the Chief's office, pulled the door firmly shut, shoved the detective from her and laid her bronze shield on the Chief's desk.

"This," she said, pulling a folded paper from her sleeve and flattening it open, "is my authorization, courtesy Judge Donald Hostetler of the District Court, and this" -- she thrust a bladed hand at her shield -- "is my identification. Congratulations, Chief, this is the second time in your career you've seen The Black Agent in person!"

A detective who'd come back to his feet with intent to lay less than gentle hands on this treacherous female, suddenly stopped: the Chief's door opened, and the Chief Detective stepped in.

He gave his subordinate a hard look and said quietly, "Get out."

He looked at the Chief, looked at Sarah.  "How much have you told him?"

"That I am The Black Agent, and that he's met me before."

"I wondered what you looked like," the Chief said quietly. "Not at all what I expected."

"No," she said. "I suppose not."

The Chief looked at his Chief Detective, then back at Sarah.

"And what brings you here?"

"A brigand tried to steal my life's savings," Sarah said. "I had to persuade him that he really shouldn't."

"You persuaded him."

"With a .44 Webley, yes. If you'll ask the officers on scene, you'll find the pistol he'd employed."

"He had a pistol."

Sarah's eyes half-lidded and what could be seen, was cold and hard and slick as glacier ice.

Her voice was just as cold.

"I believe I just said that."

The Chief harrumphed.  "Yes, yes.  Quite right, quite right."  

He picked up the paper, read it, read it again, raised an eyebrow.

He folded the paper, very carefully, along its original crease-lines, rose, handed it and Sarah's badge wallet back.

"I think that rather wraps it up?" he said, looking meaningfully at his Chief Detective.

"I would strongly suggest so, sir."

"Then I shall bid The Black Agent a very good night."

Sarah inclined her head.

She and the Chief Detective turned; she took his arm, and they glided out of the Chief's office, looking like a smartly-dressed couple about town.

Neither spoke until they were halfway to a quiet restaurant they knew of.

"So what really happened?"

Sarah smiled a little.

"I was sent to recover certain incriminating papers," Sarah said quietly, knowing that hack-drivers not infrequently eavesdropped on their passengers, and not wanting to be overheard. 

"So did you?"

"I did."

"What did the dead man want?"

"He wanted my money."

"Your money."

Sarah sighed patiently, rolled her eyes.

"I've been investing," she said, "and I did not want my home bank to know just how much I've profited."

He nodded.  "I understand.  I've been investing as well."

"I understand zinc mining back East has proven surprisingly profitable. My ... the Sheriff received a postcard from back East, a photographic postcard with what looked like a great pile of dirt and men standing in front of it."

"Oh?"

"The inked caption read, 'One Million Dollars' Worth of Zinc Ore.' "

"I see."

"Zinc," Sarah explained patiently, "is what's used to galvanize metal and keep it from rusting."

The detective nodded.

"Zinc. I'll have to look into that."

They drew up in front of the restaurant; the driver was paid, the couple entered.

Try as he might, the detective was not able to get Sarah to admit to anything else, only that she'd obtained -- she never said how -- possession certain incriminating documents for which she was warranted by the Court, in the investigation of a criminal case.

She never did admit to a thick bundle of cash money, large bills and tied with a silk ribbon, that just happened to accompany those incriminating papers.

Next day, a well dressed young woman disembarked from the train, walked from the depot to the courthouse, knocked on the Judge's door and opened it without waiting for an answering summons.

His Honor Judge Hostetler looked up, annoyed.

Sarah proceeded to unbutton her bodice.

His Honor removed the smoldering Cuban from between his teeth, leaned back, stared openly as Sarah made free with her attire -- not immodestly so, but very surprisingly so, for she'd always conducted herself as a chaste young woman -- she withdrew a sheaf of papers, laid them on his desk, then fast up her bodice again.

His Honor the Judge laid down his Cuban, picked up one sheet, another, then the bundle: shuffling through them, his face broadened with delight.

He looked up, smiled.

"This is the evidence we need," he said, satisfaction in his voice: "now if we could recover the money he swindled them out of!"

A bundle of high denomination bills, tied with a silk ribbon, hit the papers on his desk.

He looked up, startled.

Sarah shrugged, turned:  "I get results," she threw over her shoulder as she glided for the door.

She never did tell the Judge about the second strongbox she'd found, she'd opened, she'd pillaged.

The gold coin from that first, unmentioned strongbox went in a strongbox of her own, in a clever little cubby she'd engineered into the side wall of her closet, behind a concealing phalanx of hanging gowns.

A girl has to look to her retirement, after all.

Edited November 4, 2024 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WATCHER

William Linn ran his arm under his mule's neck, leaned into Jack-mule's warm fur.

The mule's ears swung back, then slowly forward again: he brought his head around, Will rubbed the neck, dropped his arm, rubbed Jack under his jaw bone, and considered yet again that the jaw bone of a jack mule was a right poor weapon if a man was intent to go up against a bunch of Philistines.

Will's pale eyes swung back up the mountain and he smiled a little, remembering.

He'd been a boy when he first went up on that particular meadow.

His Pa called it Spearpoint.

It didn't look a thing like the pointy end of a killing shaft.

His Pa called it that because Will's Aunt Sarah -- when she was younger than him -- went up there with a knapped obsidian head wet-rawhide-laced onto a seasoned shaft, and she'd taken an elk with it.

His Pa said 'twas the legendary Charlie Macneil who took her up there, Charlie showed her how to skin out and bone out the meat, Charlie showed her how to tie down the packs of eatin' meat on the pack horse, and Charlie rode back into town with her.

Charlie had cut a sprig -- Pa called it a sprig of acacia, Will thought, smiling at the memory -- he'd dipped the evergreen pine sprig in the elk's blood and stuck it in Sarah's hat band, then he'd striped her cheeks, two streaks of blood, badging her with a creature's life.

His Pa said Sarah never, ever took any life for granted, not man, not beast, for she'd taken a life, that she might provide food for her family.

When Will was still a boy, he used to slip up to the Spearpoint.

He'd wait, he'd watch, and if he was quiet enough, if he'd snuck up without making a sound a'tall, he'd watch the elk.

Will looked at the herd with the eye of someone who knew what it was to harvest meat on the hoof for the table.

He also looked at this selfsame herd with the eye of someone who knew what it was to take a life, up close and personal, to see the light go out of the eyes that looked up at him, and know that he, Will, was the cause those eyes would see no more, ever.

Will watched the herd and Will assessed the herd and Will picked out the gravid does, the barren does, he selected which would be proper for harvest, which should be spared.

He leaned against his Jack-mule and looked up the mountain and remembered this, and he felt the corners of his eyes tighten a little as he smiled inside.

His Pa taught him to keep his feelings to himself.

Will seldom smiled, he seldom frowned, he cultivated a quiet spirit and a poker face.

Will's Pa, Jacob, was Sheriff, and Will was his right hand: here Will stood, well up on the mountain, a six point, hand-chased star in a buttoned vest pocket, a man grown, and he'd just come down from the Spearpoint meadow.

A grown man he was, yes, but sometimes he liked to Injun up on the elk like he did as a boy.

He watched them, flattened behind the same slight rise, looking through the same brush he'd used as concealment, the same rise and brush Sarah used.

Will had the same gift for drawing as his younger siblings.

He'd come back from Spearpoint, and he'd taken a precious sheet of paper, he'd set down at the kitchen table when nobody was around to interfere, or shake the table or bump his elbow, and he remembered, and the memory flowed out the Barlow-sharpened pencil's tip and onto the paper.

He'd left the drawing for his Pa, and his Pa admired the drawing well enough that he'd put it in the back cover of the family Bible -- the big one they ceremonially wrote in names and dates, births and deaths, the big book they used rarely -- his Pa read nightly from the Scripture he'd used since he was a boy, leaving the larger tome for signal events in their lives -- and the drawing Will made at his kitchen table slept in the back of the Book.

Will had no way of knowing that paper would be rediscovered years after his Pa's death and burial, that it would be seen and held and exclaimed over by women with pale eyes, that it would end up matted and framed and displayed behind protective glass in the Firelands museum.

All Will knew was, as he stood high up on a mountainside, in the company of his favorite riding mule, that he delighted in this one simple pleasure: whether it was following the flight of a swift little bird from one branch to another, whether it was following the soaring circles of the great birds of the mountain as they rode updrafts and thermals, whether it was the rare sighting of the increasingly-rate mountain cats that laid ears back against round skills and hissed angrily ...

Will's great delight in life was to watch, like he'd done as a little boy.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

YOUR HAND, MY DEAR

Jacob Keller picked up his son in one arm, his daughter in the other.

His little boy grabbed his Pa's Stetson, dunked it on his own head and laughed as it came down to the bridge of his nose.

His little daughter put her finger to the corner of her mouth, the hugged her Daddy with the quick, happy spontaneity of a happy little girl-child.

The photographer fired the flash-bar, burning magnesium dust seared the air and a cloud of smoke rose, rolled toward the ceiling: it was a rare thing for a photographer in this era to get a spontaneous expression of filial delight, but somehow, unexpectedly, he'd managed.

When he developed the plates, when he fixed the image, when he washed it in clean water and let it stand and dry off, he presented the plate to the pale eyed Sheriff and his wife.

They exclaimed in delight, for it was exactly what they'd hoped for: it was a perfect depiction of Sheriff Jacob Keller, lawman, husband and father, in a moment at home with his family.

More formal images were taken, of course; these were duly examined, and pronounced good, but by far the favorite image of husband, of wife, of photographer as well, was the one where the Sheriff was laughing, with a laughing little boy usurping his skypiece as his own, and a happy little girl delightedly embracing her big strong Daddy.

 

Another Sheriff Jacob Keller, another planet altogether: photography was somewhat more advanced than the days when flash powder was used to illumine a photographer's subjects.

Jacob Keller stood, stiff, one arm at his side, his hand thrust inside his coat, looking as stuffy and as officious as he possibly could: his rich red mustache was curled into a truly villainous handlebar, he looked sternly at the camera, then turned his head and winked at his wife and said "Well?  Do I look enough like a stuffed owl?"

Mother and children laughed: Jacob squatted quickly to receive the charge of his son and of his daughter: in accordance with the whispered conspiracy they'd engaged in earlier (which conveniently excluded the photographer and his in-laws, in whose study the photographs were being taken), Jacob's little boy happily snatched the brushed-black Stetson from his Pa's head, dunked it down on his own, laughing: Jacob stood and his little girl hugged her Daddy, laying her head happily over on his shoulder, giggling shyly for the camera.

Glaring light flashed, the image chemically seared on glass plates: copies were made, at the request of Jacob's delighted father-in-law: he took pleasure in hanging the image of his grandchildren laughing with their father in a moment of what looked like unplanned, spontaneous happiness.

The other photograph was taken with more conventional methods, but was no less cherished.

It was a close-up, just Jacob and his wife, and had his father-in-law any doubt as to the gentlemanly nature of the man his daughter had chosen to marry, they were utterly dispelled, and the photograph reminded him of the moment when Jacob looked at his bride and murmured, "Your hand, my dear," and raised it to his lips, and looked at her with a gentleness few outside immediate family ever saw.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SIZZLE, SPIT, CLAW AND BITE

Sheriff Linn Keller seized the man by his throat and his crotch.

His grip was fast, hard, crushing, painful.

It didn't last long.

The Sheriff could not hear his angry roar.

Everyone else could.

The Sheriff was known as a patient man, the Sheriff was known as a reasonable man.

The Sheriff was now known as someone who would cheerfully throw an opponent through a plate glass window.

Perhaps "cheerfully" isn't the right word.

When a lean waisted lawman's eyes turn dead white and he can't hear himself screaming, when he spins once and throws a grown man with the ease of slinging a child's doll, when he drives the offender through the window, climbs out after him, picks him up off the sidewalk and shoves him face first in the only remaining horse trough on the main street and holds him underwater until a great gout of bubbles come to the surface, when he hauls the man's head out by the hair, picks him up overhead and body slams him to the sidewalk -- hard! -- it probably can't be said that the Sheriff was cheerful.

Paul Barrents slammed his hand down on the offender's chest -- hard -- he drove claws into him hard enough to bring up all the shirt and most of the underlying chest hair, he hauled the man off the ground and pinned him against the brick wall beside the blasted-open window, he pinned him hard and hissed, "Give me an excuse."

The Navajo Chief Deputy, best friend of the pale eyed Sheriff, peeled his lips back to show clenched white teeth.

"Just one. Please."

 

There was, of course, court action that followed.

The Sheriff was exonerated.

It seems that video of the event showed the Sheriff faced a knife, close-in, that his actions were to keep himself from getting flayed, filleted or gutted, not necessarily in that order, even if it did involve the unorthodox method of launching the offender through a window.

The court stared in open astonishment as an expert in knife fighting demonstrated just how much damage could be done to the human body, with the help of an anatomic dummy, followed by multiple witnesses who knew the offender and swore under oath as to the assaults and murders performed by said offender.

Perhaps the greatest surprise was the Sheriff's youngest daughter, Victoria.

She was addressed by the Judge, as she was not yet of majority, nor even close: she was able to assure His Honor she knew the difference between a lie and the truth, that she would speak the truth, but it wasn't until she came out of the witness stand and said "Let me show you what he did, and what I did to him," that the court realized they hadn't grasped the entire situation.

One of the Sheriff's deputies, about the same height and build as the man who tried to gut the Sheriff rather than submit to arrest, wore a padded suit for the occasion.

Victoria was wearing a frilly dress and anklets, her little block heels clicked sharply on the floor as she stepped forward, looked around and said, in a child's innocent voice, "There I was, minding my own business, when that man" -- she turned, thrust an accusing arm at the defendant -- "tried to grab me."

"Tried to grab you?" the prosecutor asked.

"Well, he did grab me, and I'll show you how."

"What did you do afterward?"

Victoria seemed to draw inside herself: she closed her eyes and shivered, then she opened her eyes, and her eyes were pale.

The deputy seized her wrist and snarled, "You're coming with me!"

It was the first time in Firelands history that a pretty little girl in a frilly dress and hard-toed dancing shoes, turned into an honest to God wildcat in a little girl's body.

Victoria didn't try to pull away. 

She thrust into her attacker, just like she did on the sidewalk in front of a building under renovation.

Victoria was an Irish dancer.

An Irish hardshoe dancer.

Victoria drove two fast kicks into the shin bones, drove her steel-plated heel down onto the deputy's arch -- and made him grateful he'd listened, and wore jackhammer sabatons over his boots and under the red suit's padding -- she literally climbed his frame, clawing, raking, her fingernails leaving chatter-marks in the suit material.

He tried -- reflexively, spontaneously -- to block her.

She grabbed his arm and drove her teeth deep into the padding, reached up, clawed his cheek, surged up further -- she climbed his frame without mercy and with a surprising speed -- her fingers were clawed, rigid, she seized his cheeks and pulled her face up to his and drove her teeth into his neck, or tried to.

She started screaming when he first grabbed her wrist.

She didn't stop until she buried her teeth in the red suit's neck, or as near to it as she could.

Victoria pushed free, dropped easily to the floor, spat out a chunk of red padding: she smoothed her skirt down, then she spun, glided across the floor on her toes like a ballerina, spun back into the witness stand.

Victoria looked at His Honor the Judge with big, innocent eyes.

"It was easier with my attacker," she said in the pure, innocent voice of a child: "that red suit is kind of hard on my fingernails."

For some odd reason, Defense had no questions for this witness.

After the ER physician and two nurses were sworn in, after they gave their sworn testimony that the injuries on the defendant were indeed consistent with clawed fingernails, that there was not just a bite mark on the defendant's neck, but a chunk bitten out of his neck, that they'd taken evidence photographs of the bruising on her wrist, bruising consistent with being seized -- hard -- they'd carefully taken fingernail scrapings from Victoria that were DNA matched to the defendant -- though Prosecution was forbidden to bring in the offender's past attacks on young female children -- the jury had very little difficulty upholding the Sheriff's justification in his actions.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller went back to the building under renovation and spoke with the new owner.

He offered to pay for a replacement window, as he'd been the one who broke it.

The new owner thanked the Sheriff for his kind offer, then he thrust a chin at the hole where the window used to be and said, "It was old glass, single pane. I couldn't afford to heat the place with glass like that. I'm replacing it with a double thickness of insulated glass."

He gave the Sheriff a long look and said, "It was coming out anyway."

The man's eyes hardened and Linn knew there was something behind his words, and he was right.

"I heard what that fellow did," he said quietly. "Sheriff, I've got a girl at home. Can you teach her to fight like that?"

Linn considered for a long moment, then he thrust his bottom jaw out and nodded.

"I know someone who can."

 

Victoria Keller danced across the barn floor, steel-tapped heels and hard-toed dance shoes loud on smooth cement.

She glided like a magical creature, floating on her toes with the ease of a ballerina.

She spun and high-kicked, but she didn't give the graceful, pointed-toe kick of the Irish dance she practiced so much.

When she turned, when she kicked, she kicked for the chin of a ballistic dummy she'd positioned for the purpose.

She kicked it under the chin, a precise strike with the hard, reinforced toe of her hardshoe, then her hands fisted and she spun again, drove her heel into the dummy's belly.

Victoria Keller, the pretty young daughter of a pale-eyed Sheriff tore into the ballistic dummy with claws and fists and feet and elbows, she drove it to the floor, she seized it and hauled it off the ground and slammed it face-first onto the concrete, she jumped as high as she could and drove her heels into its kidneys and then she stood it back up, danced backwards from it, drew her Daddy's stainless Walther and walked ten rounds from the bottom of its breastbone to the bridge of its nose.

She had the fresh magazine slammed into the handle before the empty mag hit the floor.

Victoria Keller saw the sights, the screaming-bright orange front, sharp and clear, perfect in the flat-black rear notch, and she heard something she didn't expect, something she didn't recognize, something she didn't know she was doing.

She heard herself snarl, deep in her young chest, and she realized ...

This is what Daddy meant by the Rage.

The pale eyed daughter of a pale eyed Sheriff held the sight picture for a long moment more, then thumbed the hammer-drop, shoved it back up, holstered her Daddy's pistol.

Victoria closed her eyes, took a long breath, blew it out, then she squatted and started picking up her fired brass.

A girl has to be tidy about these things, you know.

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DESCANT

Victoria Keller was in a mood.

Victoria Keller crossed her arms, lowered her head a little, shoved her bottom lip out in a girlish pout, and frowned.

Michael's Fanghorn knelt behind her, draped her broad, bony muzzle over the pretty little girl's shoulder, chirped happily, and then purred.

Victoria gave her a sidelong glance, raised a pink-scrubbed hand, caressed Lightning's fine, silky fur, and frowned harder.

"You're not helping," she whispered.

Lightning purred louder -- purred isn't quite the right word:  a cat purrs deep in its chest, achieving a surprising resonance even with its small size -- this Fanghorn was half again bigger than a tall horse, and her several purrs were quite a bit more varied than either Michael or Victoria realized.

Lightning's jaw-drape over Victoria's shoulder was warm, gentle, and careful, as if the big Fanghorn realized she could positively crush this young two-legs if she lowered her head too far.

Victoria rested her hand across Lightning's cheek, leaned her head against the fanged quadruped's skull, closed her eyes.

Lightning sang.

Her purr went from a flat, deep-toned flutter, to a sustained, purring chirp: the note rose a third as she inhaled, lowered a third with exhalation, and Victoria smiled a little, allowing the Fanghorn's gift to penetrate her personal pique.

Victoria raised her head a little, opened her lips, sang a harmonizing note.

Lightning sang again, and Victoria sang with her.

 

Michael's face was serious as Angela explained why Victoria was to be seen in-hospital.

"I should have been there," he muttered.

"Now you sound like your father," Angela said, giving him an approving look.

She saw the slight shift in his posture as his forearms pressed against the handles of his concealed sidearms; she was looking for the move, she knew it's a move her father would have made, and though she knew what to look for -- though she'd seen her father do the very same thing -- Michael's press-check was so slight, so subtle, that had she not intentionally been watching for that specific thing, she'd never have seen it.

"Did you test her attacker for diseases?" Michael asked quietly.

"He refused consent," Angela admitted, "so I had to persuade him."

"Please tell me you treated him like Pa did."

Angela smiled.

"Actually, I had a court order and enough deputies to force the issue."

Michael nodded.

"What'll she be treated for?"

"Nothing we can't cure."

Michael looked seriously at his big sis.

Michael Keller, eleven years old, serious-faced and solemn-eyed, regarded the white-uniformed nurse with light-blue eyes, and Angela knew this meant he was no longer ready to rip someone's throat out: rather, he was doing as he'd heard his father do, many times, when dispelling unwanted stress, and she was right.

"So you're testing her for rabies."

Angela looked away, bit her bottom lip, crossed her arms and did her very best to maintain a poker face.

"Yes," she said at length. "We're testing your sister for rabies."

"I need to talk to her," Michael sighed, shaking his head.

Angela tilted her head curiously, regarded her younger brother and raised her eyebrows.

"Oh?"

Michael looked at her and grinned:  "Now you sound like Ma!"

Angela laughed, nodded. "I'll take that as a complement!"

Michael's young face sobered and he looked very directly at Angela.

"I need to tell her I'm proud of her."

 

Michael stood a handful of yards away, watching.

By his own admission, he had a big idiot grin on his face.

Michael knew his older sisters sang like angels, he knew his twin sister practiced long and hard at Irish dance, and he knew she practiced her singing, though -- like Marnie -- she kept that particular light under a bushel.

Now, though, with no one around to hear (or judge), Victoria sang, happily, without reservation, her young voice high, pure, perfectly controlled.

Victoria sang with her eyes closed, with her head tilted back a little.

Michael saw her happy expression, and he saw Lightning, her head raised, her own eyes closed, and Michael just stood and listened as his Fanghorn sang a wordless soprano descant, her feral voice soaring in flawless formation with Victoria's voice.

Michael had never heard Lightning sing.

Ever.

Michael found himself obliged to pull a bedsheet kerchief from his coatsleeve.

He'd wondered why, on rare occasion, he'd seen his Pa dab the happiness that leaked from his eyes, when he saw, or heard, something of particular beauty -- the only times Michael really remembered, were in church, when the girls came down from the choir and stood in a circle at the end of the center aisle and sang in as many harmonized facets as there were singers.

Now, as Michael blotted the damp from his own cheeks, he understood.

Two swift and deadly females sang together for the joy of singing, and a young man in a tailored black suit and Stetson rejoiced to hear them so.

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FAN DANCER

Something white-skirted with long, shapely, stockinged legs sashayed through the heavy glass doors of the Sheriff's office, struck a pose and said seductively, "Hey, sailor, how's for some coffee?" -- and then the Sheriff's daughter laughed, ran across the floor and jumped into her Daddy's arms.

Sheriff Linn Keller met his daughter's charge, hugged her off the floor, spun her around, set her down, his arm around her waist:  he tilted his Stetson aggressively forward and snarled, "Always did like t' carouse wit' a youngah woman!" -- which got a giggle from his daughter and a head-shaking sigh from his dispatcher.

Angela came up on the balls of her feet, then sidestepped -- a dancer's sidestep, quick, graceful, precise -- she snatched up two mugs, filled one, then the other, set them down and drizzled in just the right amount of milk, handed one to her Daddy, took a long drink of her own, eyes closed, savoring the hot, fragrant sacrament.

"OhdearGodthat'sgood!" she gasped, took a deep breath, puffed her cheeks as she blew it out: "You would not believe just how bad offworld coffee can be!"

Sheriff Linn Keller raised an eyebrow, looked at his daughter with open amusement.

She's forgotten why I never make the office coffee, he thought.

Angela reached up, patted her Daddy's chest affectionately: "You'd be proud of Michael!" she said quietly, and there was something in her voice that led that lean waisted lawman with the iron grey mustache to turn his head a little, as if to bring a good ear to bear.

"Daddy, you remember how Victoria tore into that child snatcher like a honey badger."

"I was thinkin' bobcat, but yes ... I remember."

"Daddy, Michael ... didn't do that."

"Oh?" Linn said quietly, and suddenly his eyes were not an affectionate light blue anymore, and Angela could feel the cold cascading off her Daddy, like a chill downdraft sluicing down the mountainside.

"No," she said positively, and took another long sip of coffee.

"Daddy, do you remember Gammaw telling you how she got in between two arguing men, back in Chauncey, she said she put on her used car salesman's hat and sold them both such a line of bull and a bill of goods that she honestly swindled them out of the bare knuckle brawl they were sizing up for?"

Linn nodded slowly. 

"I remember her telling me, yes."

"Daddy, do you remember doing the same thing?"

Linn blinked, frowned. "Nnnooooo ... I reckon I might have, but don't recall any pa'tickelars."

"Trust me, Daddy," Angela said with the quiet, confidential voice of a woman sharing a secret, "you have, and you're good at it."

She smiled with her eyes as she added, "Michael has that down cold!"

She turned and refilled her mug: she knew her Daddy would top his off when he felt like it.

"Michael," Linn echoed.

"Michael."

"Used car salesman."

"Used cars and snake oil, and he made 'em like it!"

Linn nodded slowly, remembering Michael, not many years before, pulling a clandestine pistol and head-shooting rock snakes when they came a-slither from the coarse rock fill, with full intent to partake of he and his twin sister.

He remembered Michael blasting out of a steam-cloud at full gallop, Winchester in hand and war in his heart, and how he'd run down one and shot two more.

"Michael," he said, studying his daughter's lovely, long-lashed eyes.

"Michael is not neglecting his education, Daddy. He's gotten more and better than he could have at University."

"I know ... during the Victorian era ... young men went on world voyages for the same reason."

"Bingo."  Angela took another drink. "Can I have ten gallons of this to go?"

"Just what, pray tell, did Michael do to earn your admiration?"

Angela smiled, savored the feeling of warm caffeination sliding down her throat.

"Michael is very good at public speaking, Daddy. He's ... he said he wears a suit because he's taken more seriously, and he wears his Stetson because he's associated with a Western Sheriff."

"I see."

"He intervened when an argument started -- he was to present from stage, two presenters got into a shouting match about Michael, one declared he was too young, he could not possibly know enough to present to grown men, the other man tried to speak to Michael's experience.

"Michael rode Lightning down the center aisle -- it was in an auditorium -- Lightning sidled up to the stage and Michael stepped out of the saddle and onto the boards.

"By this time the men having the argument were beyond caring that the curtains drew open at Michael's signal, before he rode down the aisle, before Lightning bellied down and stretched her neck out and took a nap.

"Michael seized control of the discussion.

"He addressed the man who was expounding that Michael was too young to have any useful experience: he agreed with the man, he drew him along, then he led the argument into the ludicrous, to the point that he got the man to agree that anyone still wearing a diaper shouldn't be turned loose in public, let alone presented on stage as a guest speaker.

"Michael got the crowd to laughing at his obvious exaggerations -- he described a schoolboy in knee pants playing marbles in the dirt -- he turned to the other fellow and proceeded to get him to describe Michael as second cousin to Socrates and nephew to Euclid and probably blood brother to Pythagoras himself."

"Michael did that," the Sheriff said skeptically.

"Michael laid it on with a trowel, Daddy, Michael got both men to laughing.

"He took two men who were only moments from trading punches right there in front of God and everybody, and brought them to accord, and then Michael thanked them both for their kind introduction and told them -- and the audience -- that if it was not for these fine fellows' efforts, he, Michael, would never have known these things about himself.

"At this point the pair was content to leave the stage."

 

Michael Keller stepped out from behind the podium.

He wore an earpiece and a near-invisible boom mic: he stepped a little closer to the edge of the stage.

"I never liked those things," he said, hooking a thumb at the podium: "it always feels like I'm trying to hide behind it, and you didn't come here to see a podium!"

His grin was easy and natural, his voice engaging and friendly.

"I'm supposed to pitch the idea for a new wing for your friendly local hospital.

"I'm supposed to talk you into footing the bill for construction enough to effectively double the size of what you have.

The hospital favors it. They've got lists of medicine men, surgeons, specialists, they've got nurses, therapists, they've got lists of people lined up and ready to call. They're seeing enough demand to justify the specialty hospital. What they lack is funding to build it.

"Let me tell you what such specialties can do."

He looked to the side, lifted a summoning hand.

A screen raised behind him, glowed softly, ready to receive the images from the approaching, uncloaked hover-cam.

"I understand there are ladies who do this for good money," Michael said innocently as he unfast his coat, peeled it off: his vest followed, then gunbelt, shirt, and necktie.

He unbuttoned his Union suit, pulled his arms out of the red, elastic-wrist sleeves, let it drape behind him.

"Now I don't strip for just anybody," he said, "you-all better feel kind of special, because I don't usually show folks what you're about to see."

He turned side-on to the crowd.

The hover-cam came close.

Magnified on the truly huge screen behind the stage, Michael's back.

Surgical scars marked his back, told a tale of pain and of repair.

Michael turned, pointed a hand at the screen, pressed the stud on a laser pointer.

"From here" -- the red dot wobbled a figure-eight at the base of his skull, where the hair was neatly barbered across -- "to south of the belt, and no I won't drop my drawers to show you" -- again that grin, again a responding chuckle -- "I had to have a complete overhaul. This was handled by specialists whose skills are far and away above even the best general surgeon."

The hover-cam shut off, withdrew silently as the screen went dark, sank back into its slot in the stage floor.

"Specialists kept me alive after my back bone was burned -- you've seen what happened to me on the Inter-System documentary. I'm told it hit the entirety of the Thirteen Systems, so you've seen it.

"That takes specialized equipment that a regular hospital lacks.

"That requires a specialty in pediatrics and in pediatric trauma, in reconstructive orthopedics and reconstructive neurology.

"I draw breath today, I walk today, I am returned to normal life today, because I had a specialized hospital and equipment and personnel.

"That is what we're asking to have built."

Michael pulled up his Union suit, slid it back on, fast it up: shirt, vest, emerald-green necktie, gunbelt, coat, and finally his Stetson, which had waited patiently, dunked over the podium microphone.

"I was given a figure on how much it would cost, and the cost is considerable."

He reached into a coat pocket, pulled out something shiny and crinkly: he unwrapped three red-and-white-swirl-striped peppermints.

Lightning's head came up, then the rest of her.

A hand signal, Lightning sidled up hard against the stage.

Michael held out his palm and his fanged, cone-bossed saddlemount lipped the Horse Crack from his palm, crunched happily.

Michael unbuckled a saddlebag, reached over, unbuckled the other.

He pulled out four heavy canvas tubes from each, one at a time, set them on the stage, set them on end.

When he released the tied-shut cloth necks, the tubes fell over.

Heavy, quite heavy from the sound of their impact.

"Every world has its currency," Michael said, "and every world has metals that are regarded as particularly valuable."

He looked to his right, raised a hand again.

The two men who'd quarreled openly about Michael's qualifications approached.

"Gentlemen," Michael said, "each of you take a sack, untie it and examine the contents."

As the sacks were untied, Michael turned back to the audience.

"I'm not going to ask you to shell out that kind of coin without showing you what I think," he said. 

"Words are cheap, and anyone can say anything."

Michael gestured to the two men who were looking at the wealth they'd just poured out into their hands, the genuine fortune they could see and the greater fortune still contained in the long, heavy sacks under their arms.

"Here's the seed money for your new hospital expansion. That should pay for half of it. Now it's up to you."

Michael swung a leg over his saddle.

Lightning stepped daintily away from the stage -- those watching, both from the comfortably-upholstered chairs, and those watching via the Inter-System, were honestly surprised that something as truly huge, as solid and powerful as a fully-grown Fanghorn mare, could step as daintily as she did.

Michael walked Lightning up the aisle as the audience came to its feet: he lifted his Stetson in salute, then ducked as they passed through the doorway.

 

"Daddy," Angela said softly, "if Michael doesn't follow you into law enforcement, he could be either a stand-up comedian, or a professional snake oil salesman."

Linn swirled the last of his coffee, stared into his mug, then slugged down what was left: he looked at his daughter sourly and grumbled, "I'd rather have a fan dancer than a snake oil salesman!"

"Well, there's always politics," Angela said innocently, batting her eyes: she rinsed out her mug, hung it upside-down on a drain peg, then sashayed toward the front door, exaggerating her hip-swing while whistling "The Stripper."

"Oh Gawd," Linn groaned, "now she's gonna take up fan dancin'!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

APPEARANCES

Sheriff Linn Keller stepped closer, his eyes pale.

A determined young fellow set his jaw and squared off to him.

Linn came within half a foot of him, pale eyes glaring.

He never said a word.

The stranger came into town and made his brags about how he was going to out-draw that damned old lawman with the iron grey mustache.

Linn heard about this and went over to the Silver Jewel Saloon to brace him.

The Sheriff cultivated the gift of a stealthy tread: the stranger was busy downing a beer when the Sheriff came up beside him and spoke.

Quietly.

"I understand you're faster than me."

The stranger froze.

He honestly hadn't seen the Sheriff come in.

He'd raised his beer mug with his right hand, and him a right handed man.

The Sheriff shoved in close, too close! -- he took the beer mug from the surprised stranger, handed it to Mr. Baxter.

"Outside," the Sheriff rumbled.

The stranger's eyes changed and he started to draw, at least until a hard hand seized his wrist before he had a grip on his Smith & Wesson's handle.

The Sheriff relieved him of the pistol.

"Outside," he said quietly, his voice sounding like it was echoing up from a deep well with boulders grinding in slow circles at its bottom.

They went outside.

Linn reached in a pocket, laid a stack of coin on the bar.

"Mr. Baxter, drinks on the house, and nobody follows us."

 

Marnie Keller regarded the newspaper account through window-glass lenses.

Marnie Keller was a high school freshman.

Marnie Keller was young and honestly beautiful, Marnie Keller wore a dress and no makeup, Marnie Keller wore an interested expression, her forefinger like a fleshy mustache across her upper lip as she studied the yellowed newsprint in its protective plastic sleeve.

Her grandmother looked through her own spectacles -- both ladies had their lenses halfway down their nose, Willamina's readers and Marnie's rimless, costume glasses -- and Marnie murmured, "Old Pale Eyes had a set on him, didn't he?"

Willamina looked at her granddaughter with more amusement than surprise.

"What did he do this time?" she smiled quietly, and Marnie heard the smile in her Gammaw's voice.

"It says here -- I love the grammar of the day -- "

Marnie scanned the article, distilling it from its period prose to something less elegant but more concise.

"It seems he was braced by a fast-draw artist in the Silver Jewel."

Willamina raised her eyebrows, still regarding her lovely young granddaughter with an interested expression.

"Oh?"

Marnie read on, seeing the action play out in her mind's eye.

 

The Sheriff pulled the corral gate shut behind him, slid the board latch into its socket.

He thrust the Smith & Wesson back into its holster.

"Look around," he said quietly. "Nobody here to see you."

"I'm faster."

"Might well be." 

The Sheriff smiled, just a little -- a wolflike lifting of the lips, revealing his canines more than his incisors.

"I can take you!"

"You can try."

"I ain't afraid of you!"

"No sense in it," Linn agreed.

"Ain't you goin' to back away?"

"Why? Up close like this, we both die."

"Well ... then ... who'll know?"

"They won't."

Silence grew between them.

"Nobody here to see you. Nobody followed us out of the saloon. You die or we both die, nobody will see it, the Judge will rule it homicide and you'll be planted in a pauper's grave, face down so you can see where you're going."

The Sheriff reached two fingers into a vest pocket.

"I can offer you a train ticket or a stage coach ticket. You can get across the Mr. and Mrs. Sippi on this, go where nobody's heard o' ya."

A nervous lick of the lips, a hungry look at the ticket.

"Or we can draw, take your pick."

 

"The article speaks of how confidently he stood, how quiet and ready he appeared."

Willamina smiled quietly as she turned back to her own work.

"Appearances," she hummed. "Works playing poker, too."

Marnie made a mental note to ask her grandmother about her poker playing skills.

In later years she admitted her Gammaw probably played a hell of a game of poker, but somehow she never got around to actually finding out.

Marnie did, however, use Old Pale Eyes' technique to discourage a fellow from shooting her, some years later, but that's a tale for another time.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE MACTAVISH MANEUVER

A pale eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache rode slowly into Firelands.

He was wore out, bone tired, irritated, aggravated and not in a good mood at all.

He'd been following a man -- Parnell Mactavish -- he knew the man, he expected to have a horn lockin' with the man, he expected it would come to blows or maybe to gunfire.

Mactavish was sly, Mactavish was good at not getting caught, Mactavish was wanted across three states and a territory, and the Sheriff set out to get him.

After a week -- after laying ambush, after cat footing through brush and over rocks, after watching a shack and tracking the man and after doing his level best to catch a puff of smoke in a spring breeze, the Sheriff gave it up for a bad job and headed back towards home.

He came just short of the firehouse when he heard a hail, drew up: Sean raised a summoning arm, strode purposefully out of the tall, narrow horse house and looked up at the Sheriff with a serious expression.

"A boy was lookin' for ye," he said, " 'twas summat a' th' Doc's hospital."

Linn nodded, once, kneed his Palomino into a trot, headed for their fine stone hospital, open for business and under construction.

 

Marnie Keller was still in her cheerleader's uniform.

She was prowling the Potter's Field, studying the tombstones.

Slick Shaw, she read, and beneath the name but above the date, incised in italics:

Tried, and found wanting.

"I wonder what that was about," she murmured.

Another stone, a name she recognized from her research.

"Clara, buried face down," she said softly, and smiled.

She looked at another stone and remembered how her pale eyed Gammaw described burying her mother, after cranking a set of handcuffs as tight as she could squeeze them on the woman's dead ankles, after putting a pair of shoes on her the woman made Willamina wear on a date, just out of meanness.

You're buried face down as well, Marnie thought.

You were too much of a drunken sot to realize just how deeply you could make your own daughter hate you.

Marnie cast about, searching, and finally found the stone.

It was white bronze -- zinc, she knew -- as old as the other markers in the graveyard, it showed none of the weathering, none of the blurring she saw on the oldest gravestones.

Parnell Mactavish, she read: she squatted, ran delicate fingertips across the incised italics above the date:

Never got caught  

"So you're the one," Marnie murmured.

 

Linn was out of the saddle before Rey del Sol was stopped: he strode for the hospital's main door, hauled it open without bothering with the bell-pull.

He was halfway to the surgery door when it opened, when Nurse Susan stood, all starched apron and white cap and disapproving glare: the Sheriff honestly did not give a good damn whether she approved or not.

"You sent for me," he said -- a statement, not a question.

Nurse Susan held out a note: "Read this first," she said softly.

Linn frowned, unfolded the half-sheet, looked up.

"Your handwriting."

"I wrote down his last words."

Linn's eyebrow raised, then he turned a little to get better light on the flowing, feminine script, and he read.

 

Marnie's fingers rested on the clear-plastic protector as she read the flowing, feminine script of a long-dead nurse, the wife of the original Dr. John Greenlees.

She looked up at her Gammaw, then back down to the note.

"You are the one man I could not shake," she read aloud. 

"I tried every trick I knew, to lose you.

"Finally I just give up and come into town to wait on you.

"The Doc says I have --"

 

Linn looked up at Nurse Susan.

"Aneurysm."

He pronounced the word carefully, as it was not familiar to him.

"Doctor John diagnosed him a year ago," she said.

Linn looked back down at the note.

 

"You are the damndest trail hound I ever saw," Marnie read, then looked up at her Gammaw.

"That's it?"

Willamina opened a folder, handed Marnie another sheet in a plastic sleeve.

"Death certificate," she said, "for one Parnell Mactavish, cause of death, abdominal aneurysm."

"Sooooo ... he ... he came back to town to give up?"

"I can't say for sure," Willamina admitted, "but looking at everything we've found ... I think Mactavish got tired of being chased, so he decided to come into town, maybe he wanted one last beer as a free man, or maybe he was going to try to walkdown Old Pale Eyes."

"The Mactavish Maneuver," Marnie murmured.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

COME ON, HAMBURGER!

Sheriff Linn Keller was particular about his leather.

It was natural that  his son Michael be just as particular.

Michael went to the same Amish craftsmen as had his father.

Like his father, he paid them well for their work, and work it was: none had ever seen a Fanghorn, nor really knew what she was, other than she had hooves and four legs and somewhat resembled a horse, so in their minds, that's what she was.

The biggest and arguably the ugliest mare any of them had ever seen.

Michael had them fabricate another roping saddle, mostly because it's what he grew up riding, and when they were done, he tried it on the big Fanghorn, he consulted her to ask the fit: satisfied, he paid them the agreed-upon price, plus a bit.

Lightning knelt, bellied down on Tuscarawas County sod, rode off, around a barn, and disappeared, as he'd done before.

Michael was careful simply to walk Lightning, there among the Amish: it wasn't until he emerged from the far end of the Iris, on his sister-in-law's planet, that Lightning leaned forward, stretched herself out and began to split the wind.

Taller, longer-legged, Lightning was every bit as fast as the best of his father's Appaloosas: she wasn't as nimble -- a cutting horse she'd never be -- although she was more than maneuverable enough to chase down what looked like a cross between an ox and a Hereford beef, on her native world.

Michael knew he'd miscalculated when he saw the fence ahead.

Lightning saw it at the same time.

For a moment Michael wished mightily for his Pa's Outlaw-horse, that black racer that made his sister swear the gelding could jump the moon, was he so minded: he tried to turn the Fanghorn, tried with knee, with weight, with his hand on her neck, with his voice.

Lightning laid the coal to her boiler, responded to Michael's command with a powerful acceleation: Michael's knees clamped her big barrel as best he could, his palms were flat against her neck, just below the silky mane --

Lightning did not lift off gracefully and float over the fence, like Outlaw did with his sister riding -- no, Lightning drove her forehooves powerfully into the sod, then her hind hooves, she did not so much jump the fence as she detonated off the ground and sailed over the top rail, landed, kept on running, slowed as the ground rose before her.

Michael didn't realize just how tight he'd clenched his jaw until he relaxed the pressure on his molars.  

He reached up, realized his brushed black Stetson was still on his head, thanks to the snugged back strap and his tilting his head down so the passing wind would push the hat onto his head, rather than rip it away.

Lightning slowed to a canter, then slowed more, circled, threw her head up, whistled triumphantly and shook her great head happily.

Michael caressed her neck.

His face felt funny.

It took him a couple of moments to realize why.

He had as broad a grin as he'd ever had in his entire LIFE!

 

Michael saw Ruth's father's herdsman (would Jacob's wife's father be my father in law? Michael wondered) standing, knuckles unhappily on his belt, elbows chicken-winged out, staring after a retreating beef, the image of frustration.

He turned as Lightning paced up, unshod hooves silent.

Michael looked after the retreating beef, looked back toward the herdsman.

"Yeah, that fence buster did it again!" he declared unhappily.

"You want him?"

"He's fast," the herdsman warned.

Michael grinned, picked up his lariat from the saddlehorn:  Lightning danced, for all the world like a four-footed ballerina.

"YAAA!" Michael yelled, leaning forward: Lightning didn't shoot forward like an arrow from a bow, her acceleration was more like a powerful locomotive accelerating on sanded rails to prevent wheel-slip.

It took her several seconds to get her velocity up, but once she was moving, Michael had the idea that his guardian angel would have to have a good two-hand grip on his shirttail just to keep up!

Lightning shoved her blunt nose into the wind and laid into a flat out gallop: Michael spun the hand-plaited Mexican reata, building his loop.

He'd never tried roping from the Fanghorn.

He had run down meat animals for her, or rather he'd been coincidentally in the saddle when she took out after edible protein.

Come up alongside, Michael thought, and he had the mind-flash of casting the lariat, dropping the loop over the running beef's head, of dallying line around the saddlehorn as his mount dropped its haunches and brought the quarry to an abrupt halt.

Whether because of Michael's mental image, or in spite of it, Lightning came up beside --

The loop floated out and dropped neatly over bovine horns --

Michael spun three quick turns around the saddlehorn, hauled back on the tag end, Lightning dropped her haunches, dug in her rearhooves, forelegs stiff --

The reata snapped taut, twanged like a plucked guitar string --

This particular beef, or what passed for a bovine on this world, had never been roped.

When braided leather brought it to a fast halt, when it stretched enough to take up the shock of a sudden stop, the beef tried to keep running and ended up running on its hind legs for an insane moment, until it ran out from under itself and landed flat on its back.

This was the very first time this world had ever seen cattle roped, from the saddle, for real.

The herdsman's jaw, by his own admission, dropped down to about his belt buckle to see this marvelous sight, and somehow this fence busting steer, having just been taught (the hard way) who was boss, offered little protest at being led back to its assigned pasture, to the encouraging, youthful shout of "Come on, Hamburger!"