SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AN OLD MAN’S QUESTION

Marnie Keller whistled, a shrill, piercing warble, a warning – COMING THROUGH, MAKE A HOLE, PEOPLE!

It was the annual Outdoor Dance, a springtime celebration, almost always held too early: once, and once only, had the weather actually been pleasant; more often than not, they danced in snow: instead of treading a measure on snow-dusted, not-quite-thawed sod, the dance was moved to the quickly-swept, paved parking area.

Western men -- even young Western men -- are a breed apart.

Western men are descended from ancestors made of living rawhide and tempered steel.

Western women’s ancestresses, without exception, had a spines of laminated whalebone and sheer force of will.

When the Firelands High School held their annual Outdoor Dance, young women wore gowns and heels, their hair styled and makeup immaculate: strong young men laughed and strutted in fitted suits and polished boots, and the most popular portraits taken at the professional’s tent involved strong and laughing young men, holding their smiling date in both arms, cradling her easily in hard-muscled arms, and the young woman looking at the camera with sparkling eyes and the smile of someone who – for perhaps the first time – appreciated the strength of the young man who hoisted her off the ground and held her proudly, for all the world to see.

When Marnie came – not from the roadway, not riding her steelshod mare on cold-slick pavement, but pounding across the brushy meadow behind the football field, then through the far goalpost, whistling, yelling – when she drew up fast, her mare rearing and screaming, two female creatures celebrating the spring they felt advancing toward the mountains – when Marnie launched from the saddle toward a young man, it was less an arrival than an assault.

Marnie Keller, a high-school sophomore, was not wearing the flowing gown and formal heels her classmates wore: no, she was in a red skirt and vest, a flannel shirt and her trademark red cowboy boots, and as she planted her crossed palms on her saddlehorn, kicked free of carved doghouse stirrups and thrust up, as her bootsoles found the slick leather seat, her eyes were bright, feral, and locked like an attacking falcon’s on her quarry.

As the mare turned suddenly, Marnie launched like a missile, precise, unstoppable, arms wide: the newest student turned, startled, caught her under the arms, his hands wide, strong: the impact took him back a step, another: Marnie’s head was over his shoulder, her voice laughing in his ear, her arms tight around him, while her mare circled away, trotted toward an inviting patch of grass.

Red Duckworth set her down, carefully, looking at her with undisguised astonishment, his face turning a bright red: he let go of her like she was hot, at least until Marnie seized his hands, looked boldly at him and said loudly, “MY NAME’S MARNIE, YOU’RE RED, LET’S DANCE!”

Gracie Daine grinned wickedly, nodded to her fellow musicians – a brother with a fiddle, another brother with a five string banjo and her Granddad with his Gut Bucket Bull Fiddle Bass.

Gracie sawed out the introductory notes to “Turkey In the Straw,” and the entire student body present shouted “YES!” – the adolescent young often need the familiar to break the ice, especially in a social situation, and couples coalesced, turned, formed up into squares: one of the guys ran up with a concrete block, set it in the very center of the squares: another stepped up on it and started to call the spontaneous square dance that formed up in the cold, snowy parking lot of the Firelands High School.

 

Chief Diplomat Marnie Keller laughed and threw her head back, spinning from one set of uniformed, sturdy, masculine arms, to another: she wore her McKenna gown, but she wore red cowboy boots as well, and she reveled in the relaxed, unguarded joy of a spontaneous dance, in the middle of the street, at twelve noon, in this planet’s capitol city.

One man, another, all skilled, all strong: Marnie delighted in this spontaneous expression of joy, this public celebration with strong, dedicated guardians of the public’s safety: she’d mentioned, on her last visit two months before, her Gammaw’s experience in Jerusalem – how, at twelve noon, everything stopped: cars stopped in the streets, people poured out of shops and homes, and a hundred spontaneous circle dances formed up.

Marnie recounted her Gammaw’s memory with a smile, with the genuine affection of speaking a good memory, and her words landed on fertile ground.

On her return visit, she was taken by the hand and asked to come outside.

Firefighters, soldiers, policemen, ladies in dancing dresses and tentative smiles, and across the street, on a platform, two fiddlers, a deep-voiced Mexican guitar and a five-string, and Marnie laughed and clapped her hands with delight.

Her Senior Diplomat grinned as he came to the edge of the platform and declared loudly, “CHOOSE YOUR PARTNERS!” and the square dancers formed up in the middle of the street, at high twelve, right in front of God and everybody.

Marnie admitted later she’d not danced as well since the day she made the new kid in school feel welcome.

 

Victoria Keller was subdued at supper.

She didn’t quite pick at her food the way she did as a child, when she was troubled, or upset: she did eat, just not as much as she usually did.

Michael, across the table from her, ate the way he usually did – as if he were filling two hollow legs, the way a growing boy will.

Victoria finally leaned forward and said to Dana, “Trade me seats?”

Dana looked at her Mama, raised an eyebrow momentarily, then slid back, stood: the two sisters traded chairs, Victoria sat and reached across the corner of the table and gripped her Daddy’s hand.

“Daddy,” she said, her young voice troubled, “what was I supposed to do?”

Linn stopped, turned his chair a little to face his daughter squarely, laid his other hand on hers.

“What happened, darlin’?” he asked in his quiet, reassuring Daddy-voice.

Big tears started to well up in her eyes and she lowered her head, chewed on her bottom lip.

“Daddy,” she said in a soft, little-girl’s voice, “Michael and I were at a State function with Marnie.”

Linn nodded, his face carefully neutral: he looked very directly at his youngest daughter, making it very plain that she had his attention.

All of his attention.

“Daddy,” Victoria said, “an older man came up to me afterwards.”

“Go on.”

Linn glanced at Michael, who was busy with a strategic assault on a broad slice of good homemade apple pie.

“He told me …”

She swallowed, looked at her Mama, who was listening closely.

“He told me I was very much a Lady – he said it like you do, Daddy – and he said for me to tell Mama” – Victoria looked at her mother as tears spilled over and ran down her healthy pink cheeks – “he said to tell Mama thank you.

“He said I was a Lady, and I could learn how to be a Lady from only one living soul and that was my Mama and thank you for caring enough about being a Lady to be that example for me to learn from” – Victoria’s face was red now and she stopped, wiped viciously at unbidden tears that were running freely now – her face crumpled in apparent misery as she mumbled, “I asked him why he was telling me this and he said he’d buried his little girl fifteen years ago and he couldn’t tell her these things, but he said a Lady needs to know that she is appreciated, and then he patted my hand and he got up and he walked away and he looked so old and he looked so sad.”

Victoria came out of her chair, almost fell into her Daddy: Linn turned his chair, picked her up, set her on his lap like she was still the little girl she used to be, and he held her as she sobbed into his shirt front, as she clung to him, and not for the first time, Linn looked helplessly at his wife, at an absolute and utter loss to understand this beautiful, vulnerable creature who responded with tears instead of with pride.

He was a husband, he was a father, he was Sheriff and chief law enforcement authority of his county.

He was used to striding boldly into situations that sane and rational people were running away from as hard as they could go.

He was used to handling things and handling people that would curl the hair on a bald man’s head.

For all his skill, for all his authority and strength and ability – for all that he rarely felt at a loss – he found himself faced with something well outside his expertise, something far removed from his comfortable response zone.

He did the only thing he could think of.

He gave his wife a helpless look, and he held his little girl, and he let her cry.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

YOU’RE NOT WHO I THOUGHT YOU WERE

It was not easy to surprise Jacob Keller.

He’d survived things few grown men could survive, while he was well too young to sprout chin whiskers.

Such experience often results in what, in our modern day, is called “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” or “Hypervigilance Syndrome” – Jacob simply thought it normal, for he saw it in his father, that pale-eyed Sheriff, he saw it in Lightning, their telegrapher, he saw it in the irascible, unpredictably temperamental Mercantile proprietor, he saw it in men who’d been in what his Pa called That Damned War, he’d seen it in men who’d fought other wars.

He was willing himself to relax, he was trying to wean himself from the perpetual watchfulness that was his habit.

He regretted this choice the moment a fist came out of nowhere, caught him under the eye, knocked him back and against the wall.

Jacob bounced, rolled, came up with a small revolver in his off hand, a knife in his right, and death in his pale eyes.

He’d been hit like that before, by a man who horse whipped his pregnant Mama plumb to death and tried to do the same with him.

Jacob was not going to be hurt like that.

Not now.

Not ever.

He flipped the knife, held it like an icepick, edge out.

The man he was after was ready, but he was slow – too slow – his hand was still closing around his pistol’s handle as Jacob fired for the man’s guts.

Jacob aimed for the belt buckle.

He hit just under.

He fired as he surged forward, then punched, the blade flicking out: his fist aimed roughly for his attacker’s ear, which laid the honed edge right about the great vessels of the neck.

Jacob was past him, twisted, fired again, drove a round from the bulldog .44 – twin to the pair his pale-eyed sister carried – into the twisting man’s kidneys.

Jacob Keller crouched, snarling, as the man sagged, then fell, his hand gripping his laid-open neck, trying vainly to stay the spray of red life screaming silently onto cold and snowy ground.

Jacob walked around to where the dying man could see him.

He saw defeat in his attacker’s eyes.

“You’re not him,” the dying man managed to gasp.

Jacob stood, pistol in one hand, knife in the other, with absolutely no trace of softness, of forgiveness, of understanding in his pale eyes.

 

Angela Keller smiled grimly as she glanced in the rearview mirror.

Whoever was after her was fast, but not fast enough: few vehicles could keep up with her turbocharged purple Dodge, fewer could hold the road through the turns like she could: Angela spent good money for the best tires available, she’d taken professional instruction on driving pursuit, she’d taken courses in Vehicular Escape and Evasion, she’d been personally tutored by the lead-footed Chief Deputy, an obsidian-eyed Navajo with a liking for big engines and the vigorous use thereof.

Angela let off the throttle, let the speeding vehicle close a little, then held distance.

She bent her wrist, spoke quietly.

“Firelands Dispatch, Angel One calling Officer Assist, requesting backup.”

Three harsh, attention-getting tones came from the hidden speaker of her Sheriff's band radio, then the dispatcher’s efficient, clipped voice: “All units hold traffic, Officer Assist. Angel One, proceed with traffic.”

“This is Angel One,” Angela said, both hands on the wheel now, speaking a little more loudly but knowing her words would be clearly transmitted, thanks to the same Confederate technology that automatically routed her interdimensional wrist unit’s traffic to her car’s repeater: “I am being pursued by a Road Rager. I am inbound from the east on the state route, ETA two. Position units to block, I will stop just past the Sheriff’s office, clear the decks, this is no drill!”

Two uniformed deputies and a long tall Sheriff sprinted for the front door.

“Firelands PD, Dispatch.”

“Copy direct, where do you want us?”

The Sheriff hit the saddle, the ignition and the shifter at the same moment: “Angela will stop just past my office. I’m backing in between here and the funeral parlor. Uncle Will, I want you one block past, ready to block. Murphy, same latitude, back into the alley opposite and face Will. When Angela stops, pull out. We'll close the box ahead and behind!”

The deputy ahead of him pulled ahead, backed swiftly into the alley opposite the funeral parlor.

Linn back into his own hide, dropped the shifter into go-forward gear, foot heavy on the brake.

He looked up at the shotgun in its roof mount and smiled grimly.

Someone just made a really bad choice, he thought.

Time to make it worse.

Angela came over the rise, horn blaring: her pretty purple Dodge’s tires screamed as she threw her car sideways, as she bailed out, shotgun in hand: Angela ran around to the passenger side, crouched behind the passenger front tire, out of sight.

She heard the pursuing truck coming.

To her right, two cruisers pulled out, crossways of the street, closing it off.

Don’t hit my car, damn you, she thought, then smiled as the pursuer locked up his brakes, squalled to a shivering stop.

Two Sheriff’s cruisers pulled out from the alleys behind, lit up: as they’d practiced, as they’d rehearsed, they shoved their noses toward the stopped vehicle,  their push bumpers just touching the truck’s back bumper.

Two uniformed lawmen brought shotguns level.

A pretty young woman in a white winged cap and a white nurse’s uniform came up over the car’s hood from her position behind the engine block, laid her shotgun down level.

Her Ithaca was steady, unblinking, her pale eye looking through the generous rear peep at the pursuer’s face with the bright brass bead superimposed over his features.

His passenger sideglass exploded inward, then his driver’s side, and two shotguns thrust into the cab of his truck.

On his right, a strong young voice: “SHERIFF’S OFFICE! DO NOT MOVE OR YOU WILL BE SHOT!”

On his left, the familiar, hard, pale eyes of a well known Sheriff, and just below them, something black, round, and big enough to serve as the express tunnel to Hell.

“Now,” the Sheriff said, his voice quiet, “put it in Park.”

The shifter chuckled into Park.

“Raise both hands, slowly.”

The driver looked ahead, his eyes widening, and suddenly he looked half sick.

“That’s not –” he began.

A pale eyed, white-uniformed nurse advanced, shotgun unwavering.

She came to the driver’s window.

“You’re not who I thought you were,” he gasped weakly.

 

Mr. Baxter knew trouble when he saw it, and this fellow was trading too much money for too much drink.

He’s come to the wrong town if he’s looking for trouble, the neatly-pomaded barkeep thought, polishing the gleaming mahogany bar.

“Come this way often?” Mr. Baxter asked pleasantly.

Nick Gilkey gave him a hard look.

“Lookin’ for a man,” he muttered.

“Once you find him,” Mr. Baxter asked, turning to fill a patron’s empty mug, “what then?”

“I’m a-gonna kill him.”

Mr. Baxter used the sway belly butcher to ceremonially swipe the foam off the full mug of cellar-cooled beer: he wiped the long-faceted sides of the heavy glass mug quickly, expertly with a towel, set the mug down in front of the fellow who wanted it, accepted a coin.

“Be sure you’re right,” Mr. Baxter warned, “be sure it’s a fair fight.”

“No man steals my woman,” he muttered as he pushed open the ornate, heavy front door.

 

Angela was watchful as the vehicle came up fast behind her.

“Pass and be damned,” she muttered, easing a few inches closer to the shoulder.

He didn’t.

Angela realized he was going to ram her.

At his speed, he'd hit her hard enough to cripple her car, possibly throw her off the mountain road.

Angela mashed the go pedal.

The collision was sudden -- she'd been fast, not fast enough -- it was enough to startle, enough to kick the safety systems, not enough to detonate airbags, but enough for Angela Keller's pale eyes to go dead white, for most of the color to drain from her face, for her knuckles to blanch as she gripped the wheel as the turbocharged engine shoved her back into her seat.

The impact set off warning alarms; she hit the fuel pump override, the turbocharged Dodge shot ahead like a scared jackrabbit.

“You want to play?” Angela hissed, tires protesting as she took a curve faster than they liked. “Come and get me, damn you!”

 

“I thought it might have been accidental,” Angela said, her voice even, despite the white fire in her still-pale eyes: “but when he came rip roarin’ up behind me again, and when he started around to try and PIT me, I hit the gas and called for help!”

The Sheriff, the Chief Deputy, the Chief of Police and the county prosecutor looked at Counsel for the Defense.

“You’ve already heard the bodycam recording of his spontaneous utterance,” the Sheriff said quietly, “that he thought she was someone else. That speaks to intent.”

“What do you intend to charge him with?”

“Assault on a law enforcement officer, with aggravated specification.”

“She’s not a law enforcement –” the lawyer blurted.

Angela turned her ID around to display the side with the gold six point star.

Counsel for the Defense sagged and said, “Oh.”

The Sheriff rose, his daughter rising beside him.

“Counsellor, you and your client have some talking to do. Your client is in Interrogation. You can talk there.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MANAGEMENT STYLE

Sheriff’s Deputy Dana Keller stopped and looked at the Sheriff.

He saw fatigue coloring the half circles under her eyes, but he saw pride in her carriage and watchfulness in the way she carried her strong arm, inside of her forearm against the handle of her sidearm.

“Yes, sir?” she asked quietly.

“A word, if you please,” the Sheriff said quietly, standing away from the open conference room door.

Sheriff’s Deputy Dana Keller nodded, not even looking at the coffee pot that had been her destination.

The Sheriff followed her in, closed the door quietly behind him.

Dana turned and faced the Sheriff squarely.

“Have a set,” he said quietly.

“I prefer to stand,” she said, and once again he saw the back bone that was the heritage, the legacy and the stubbornness of his pale eyed children.

“Something needs said,” the Sheriff said, “so I’ll use plain language.”

Dana nodded shallowly, once, the way she’d seen the Sheriff do.

“First order of business. Nothing’s gone wrong and no complaints.”

She nodded again, that bare dip of the chin: had she been wearing her uniform Stetson, instead of carrying it under her off arm, the brim would nor have moved half an inch.

“I understand you could sell used cars.”

Dana’s expression was one of honest fatigue: he saw her eyes tighten a little at the corners, and this concerned him.

He’d seen her so tired she didn’t smile and he knew she was close to that point right now.

“How long have you been on the clock?” he asked.

“Same as you,” she said bluntly.

“You’ve been awake six-and-twenty hours.”

She shrugged.

“When it hits the fan, you hit the saddle and stay there.”

“You sound like Marnie.”

“Jacob, actually.”

Linn nodded, considered.

“You’ve got your teaching degree. How would you like an Academy position?”

“I’d like a meal, a shower and a night’s rest.”

“Barrents just came in after a good night’s rest. I already told him I’m going to go sack out for at least a day. He’ll cover for me, and I’ve arranged for relief coverage for your shift.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, gratitude in her fatigued expression.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

She nodded.

“Darlin’, we see the worst that happens –”

“They’re my ghosts to carry,” she interrupted. “I knew that when I raised my right hand and got sworn at.”

The Sheriff nodded.

“Come on, then.”

He turned, opened the door, led the way out.

Two shifts’ worth of deputies were waiting on them.

Usually shift change involved a sit-down debrief where the off-going shift reported to the on-going shift as to what went on, and what was pending would be presented.

Occasionally this was done less formally, here in the lobby.

The Sheriff looked around; voices stilled, eyes turned toward the lean waisted lawman with the iron grey mustache.

“We had two bad ones today,” the Sheriff said without preamble. “Barrents will fill you in. Dana and I have been up way too long, we’re going to get a shower and a meal and unless the world cracks and falls apart and we have to be there to take a report, I hope to not be disturbed.”

Nods, quiet murmurs, mostly “Yes, sir,” with a snide, anonymous, nasal “Rriiight, baawwwssss.”

The Sheriff grinned tiredly at that one.

“Now the last call of the shift.”

He looked at Dana, who didn’t so much look back at him, as much as she just looked worn out.

“Two fellows were into it and about an inch from either calling attorneys or trading punches. Dana got in between them and heard one out, she heard the other one out, she put on her Used Car and Snake Oil Salesman’s Hat and she didn’t just stuff their boots, she laid it on with a trowel and made ‘em like it.”

He looked proudly at his daughter and said, “She disarmed them with reason and rotten humor both, and she got them both to laugh as she did it. I don’t know how she did, but however it was, it worked and worked well.”

He turned, squared off toward his daughter.

“Dana,” he said, “I am proud of you!”

“Thank you, sir,” she said quietly.

“Anything else?”

“The Baluster case,” a deputy frowned. “Was that one dismissed?”

“No, but he did get probation. We can expect him to re-offend and if he doesn’t pry another door open tonight I’ll miss my guess.”

“He was working the back doors out in the county. I know where he left off. We’ll watch that area.”

The Sheriff nodded his approval, looked around again.

“Aught else?  No? Good. Barrents, you have the conn.”

““Rriiight, baawwwssss.”

The Sheriff raised supplicating fingers to the ancient, stamped-tin ceiling: “Two million comedians out of work and this is what I get!”

He grinned at the oncoming and the off-going, nodded.

“Good enough. We’re going home.”

 

To her credit, Dana did not fall asleep on the drive home: she sat in the passenger seat, the family’s supper warm in a tablecloth-lined withie basket on her lap.

“Thank you,” she said softly as they turned onto their paved driveway.

“For … ?”

“For telling me I did good.”

“I’ll always tell you that, darlin’.”

“No,” Dana shook her head, her eyelids sagging. “No, not … for that.”

“For what, then?”

“For saying it in front of everybody.”

Linn spun the wheel, backed into where he usually parked: he shut off the engine, reached over, slid his fingers into his daughter’s hand, between her palm and the basket.

She released her steadying pressure against woven, split hickory, hand made back East and brought back after a vacation trip – she gripped her Daddy’s warm, strong, reassuring hand.

“Darlin’,” he said quietly, “my Mama taught me that. Criticize in private, praise in public. I wanted you alone when I was seeing if you were all right, but when I wanted to brag on you …” – he let the thought dangle.

Dana looked well more than exhausted, but she managed a little bit of a smile.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “It felt good.”

The Sheriff released his seat belt, opened his door. 

“Let’s get you inside before I have to carry you and supper both!”

 

It had been a very long time since this particular pale eyed Daddy carried this particular pale eyed daughter upstairs and put her to bed.

Daddy held his little girl, passed out and relaxed, safe in arms she remembered from earliest childhood, her head laid against his shoulder, allowing herself to relax, knowing she was safe.

Shelly turned the covers back.

Dana had showered and she'd come downstairs in nightgown and slippers, and after her Daddy laid her down and her Mama covered her up, after they closed her bedroom door, they turned to one another and embraced, and held one another for a long moment.

"Rough day," Linn whispered -- a statement, not a question.

Shelly turned her face a little and replied with a whispered "Yes."

"I'll clean up downstairs," Linn whispered: he dipped his knees, reached behind his wife's knees and brought her off the floor, then kissed her carefully, delicately, on the tip of her nose, then twiddled his mustache against her nose, which made her giggle.

He carried her into their bedroom and he got her into the bunk and covered up, he sat down beside her and gave her a quiet look.

"I am the luckiest sod to stand in boot leather," he said, his voice quiet, gentle.

Shelly's eyes were heavy; she was having trouble staying awake, but she had enough strength to favor her grinning husband with a curious look.

"I got to carry two beautiful women across the threshold tonight," he whispered: Shelly smiled and closed her eyes, and just that fast, his exhausted wife was asleep.

Michael and Victoria were busy downstairs handling cleanup: Linn joined them, they fell into their usual efficient assembly line: little was left over (Snowdrift helped), dishes were washed, dried, set away: Victoria pulled out the dust mop and gave the kitchen floor a "lick and a promise," not that it needed it: she set the dust mop back in its tall, narrow cupboard with the hand painted flower border the Aunt Mary she never knew painted the day sixteen-year-old Willamina arrived, long years before.

Young eyes are observant eyes.

In years that followed, Victoria would scold her Daddy in a gentle voice -- she told him a girl looks for a husband that shows the same qualities as her Daddy, and he'd set the bar so high -- she placed a bent wrist dramatically against her forehead, pretended to near-faint -- that she despaired of ever finding a suitable husband.

Michael, for his part, whispered to his wife in a warm and intimate moment that he was most grateful for his father's teaching, and when his beautiful bride smiled and asked what he meant, he freed an arm from the intimately-warmed bedcovers, and with a thumb-and-forefingers Italian gesture, said his Pa didn't teach him how to handle women ... his Pa taught him how to treat -- he looked very directly at his delighted young bride -- and with that Italian gesture for emphasis, he declared, "a Lady!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LOUP-GAROU

Frenchy was but one of the names he'd used.

At the moment it was what he'd used, skinning the unwary with a crooked game; he'd cashed out and left before their suspicions elevated to an accusation.

Frenchy liked a sure thing.

Fortunately for men like him, miners at payday were free with their funds, quick to take a game of chance: most paid up -- almost always with groans or exclamations of displeasure -- so far Frenchy was slick enough to fleece the unwary and move on without facing a knife, or worse.

Frenchy smiled as he came down the street.

Well-dressed men, women in fine gowns, the swells, the monied, coming to the Opera House: oh oui, here a man with quick fingers could unburden these poor souls of the weight of their purses!

Frenchy moved silently, smoothly: he was not as well dressed as these élite, but he was clean, his suit and his hat brushed and in good repair, he was barbered and shaved and his moustache, immaculately sculpted: had he a colleague to cause a disturbance, he judged, he could make off with at least two ladies' necklaces, possibly even the woven-gold bracelet he saw worn over an emerald-green wrist.

Frenchy took another step toward the bracelet and a man turned, stepped between him and the bauble: a hard hand shot out, seized the thief by the necktie, pulled hard, brought him off the ground.

A set of hard and pale eyes blazed into the Frenchman's wide and frightened orbs, and a deep, quiet voice said "Hello, Francois."

He remembered that voice, and the voice ran something cold down the middle of his back bone.

He remembered that hand, a hand that closed about the back of his neck a year ago and more, a hand attached to a man that tracked him like the legendary Apache.

No, not the Apache.

Francois managed to escape the Apache.

This man -- this unnatural creature of the mountains, was less Apache than ...

Wolf, he'd been told when his name was Jack, over an owlhoot campfire, told to him by another man on the run.

"That damned pale eyed Sheriff," he'd been told, and the other man -- a hard man Frenchy had  known for years, a man unafraid of Le Diable himself --  lowered his voice to a whisper and said "He ain't natural," and looked up with frightened eyes and said, "He ain't no man, Jack. He ain't no man, he's a damned curly wolf!"

All this seared through Francois' mind as he choked, as he strangled, as his feet swept vainly above the ground, as pale eyes burned into his own.

Those eyes, those damned eyes! -- Francois felt his feet touch the ground, he choked, coughed, tried to grab the wrist, tried to pull the hands away from his necktie --

Frenchy came off the ground again and this time he passed out before he was let down again.

The other well-dressed patrons watched, shocked, silent, as a city police officer wove and thrust through the crowd: the man holding the choking man off the ground turned over the lapel of his well tailored suit, to reveal a six point star.

Frenchy woke in a jail cell, with three other men. 

The turnkey picked up his truncheon, stomped down the row of cells, stopped, frowned between the bars.

Three men were pressed back against the bars, staring at a prisoner backed into the corner, eyes wide and panicked, whimpering, curled into a tight ball, bulging eyes darting fearfully about, as if afraid something would ooze from between the rough stones forming the wall.

His whimper turned into a full-throated scream:

"KEEP HIM AWAY! KEEP HIM AWAY FROM ME!"

"WHO?" the turnkey shouted.  'Keep WHO away?"

Frenchy's eyes saw what no one else could see.

He saw a face inches from his own, a face with hard, polished, dead-white eyes.

It took a few tries, but those who listened finally figured out what he was screaming, but they still didn't understand why.

Frenchy ended up wrapped in a heavy canvas jacket, dragged out into an enclosed carriage by men in white coats and white short-billed caps, and as the Asylum's wagon was taken at a brisk trot away from the jail, Frenchy's screams continued until his voice was too worn out to continue:

"LOUP-GAROU! LOUP-GAROU!"

 

Esther Keller claimed her husband's arm once again, the woven-gold bracelet shining about her emerald-gloved wrist.

They made their way from the Opera House to their hôtel, to the excellent restaurant therein.

They were just inside the door when a white, enclosed carriage trotted past, the occupant screaming and throwing himself against the sides of the reinforced transport.

Husband and wife looked at one another.

They recognized the voice.

Esther's gloved hand tightened on her husband's arm as they were shown to their usual table.

Linn slid Esther's chair in under her, swung around to his own seat, eyes busy: even here, at a corner table where none could approach without being seen, he was watchful, alert.

Esther gave him an amused look.

Linn looked at her, managing to look both amused and suspicious.

"My dear," Esther said softly, "I have heard you called many things, but never a werewolf!"

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

UNPRODUCTIVE SHADOW

Tumblers chuckled quietly as the dial turned.

A combination lock safe was expensive to purchase, heavy and expensive to ship.

If a man had such a device, it meant he had something worth protecting that made the expense, worth it.

Skilled fingers turned the dial, sharp ears listened to the mechanism whisper oiled-steel secrets to itself.

The dial turned the other direction; a hesitation as resistance was felt, a look at the dial, the resistance-point noted.

A hand gripped the polished brass handle, pulled slowly, carefully.

Bolts pulled back as the handle turned, the door swung open.

The safe's secrets were secret no longer.

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna consulted her notes as she sipped tea in her room.

She'd admitted one of the hotel staff a few minutes earlier, a young girl, nervous, anxious, eager to make a good impression: Sarah put her immediately at ease, thanked her for bringing tea and sandwiches, gave her a quiet, reassuring smile as the girl admitted it was her first day.

Sarah put a finger to her own lips and smiled as if at a memory, then admitted when she tried taking a tray upstairs for the first time, she'd stepped on her hemline and ended up wearing the contents of the teapot! -- at which they laughed, the quiet, shared laugh of two young ladies in a moment of confidence.

Sarah locked the door behind her, ate one sandwich half quickly, the way she did when no one else was present and she was hungry, then the other half more slowly as she pulled her notebook from a hidden pocket and opened it again.

Sarah had flowed like a shadow, all in black, silent on felt-soled slippers, unseen in black-velvet stockings and pantaloons and a black-velvet blouse: her face was hidden behind a black-silk veil, covering her from her eyes down, with a black silk scarf concealing her head down to her eyebrows.

Thin silk gloves, sheer enough to not impede her delicacy of touch; a black pouch containing small tools, lock picks, a burglar's jimmy, even a wrapped chisel and a hammer with leather glued to its striking-face to muffle the sound of a blow: doors opened at her skilled efforts, the safe yielded its secrets, she'd examined its contents by moonlight through the uncurtained windows: one page, another, then she'd replaced them, exactly as they'd been before their careful extraction.

She carefully, silently, closed the safe's heavy door, turned the handle, returned the dial to its former position.

She'd come in through a door; she left through a window -- for all the occupant's cautions, the window's latch was absurdly simple, and a moment's effort with a black-painted, schoolboy's metal ruler, turned the simple latch back into engagement after she'd exited, after she stood on the ledge, a shadow among shadows, invisible while obliging clouds curtained the moon's silvery face.

She stepped confidently along the ledge, glancing toward the moon, judging the clouds: feet against the brick, hands gripping the soldered copper downspout, she lowered herself, grateful for solid workmanship: she reached a leg out, found the handrail, shifted her weight onto the little wooden porch beside a back door.

She gripped the thin, dyed rope she'd tied to the railing a few hours before, brought the valise up, hand over hand: slippers went into the valise, a pair of ladies' shoes came out: a carefully-folded garment, unfolded and snapped briskly, once, thrown on over her head, a dark dress, in deep shadow: Sarah worked quickly, silently, dropped the dress in place over her head, shimmied it down over her body, fast it with the swift, efficient experience of someone skilled at quick-change since childhood, since she modeled her Mama's fashions on stage for the West Coast buyers.

Silk scarves went into the valise, a shawl came out: when the moon emerged once more, a female figure in a grayish dress moved with the pained slowness of an old woman, carrying a valise and the weight of many years on her hunched shoulders as she disappeared down the big-city alley.

 

Just shy of noon the next day, a brisk rat-tat, tat, at the Judge's chamber door.

He took the freshly-lighted Cuban from between tobacco-yellowed teeth, glared at the door.

"Enter!" he barked, spat a fleck of tobacco from his lip.

The door opened and Sarah Lynne McKenna glided into the room, as beautiful as ever, her dress tailored to fit her more than attractively.

The Judge harrumphed and frowned, which told Sarah that he was schooling himself carefully to not acknowledge her appearing desirable in his eyes.

She approached his desk, tilted her head a little and blinked innocently.

"May I report?" she said quietly.

"Don't give me those innocent eyes, young lady," the Judge snarled: "what did you find?"

Sarah sighed, picked up the cat that decided the chair was a fine place for a nap: she cuddled the feline to her, smiling a little to feel the warm purr against her bodice.

"I found," Sarah said quietly, "absolutely nothing."

The Judge frowned, leaned forward, interested.

"I bribed his bookkeepers, I befriended his maids, I opened his safe -- he had it installed two months ago -- his papers were valuable, but nothing of probative value."

Sarah opened her notebook, handed it to the Judge.

"This is a complete inventory of his safe."

The Judge frowned, studied her immaculate handwriting, nodding as he did.

"I'm sorry, Your Honor," Sarah said at length, and he frowned up at her, handed back the notebook.

"I fear I have been a most unproductive shadow."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ENOUGH!

One bullet seared through the air, punched a small spiderwebbed hole in an incredibly expensive Mercantile window behind Jacob's shoulder.

One dug into the dirt, howled off to destinations unknown, while a third kicked stinging dirt up under a stray dog's belly, bringing a distressed yelp and a radical increase in the wandering canine's forward velocity.

"NOW BY GOD!!" Jacob roared, drawing a handful of Plow Handle Justice, "THAT is ENOUGH!"

Blued steel rolled around, lockwork chuckled metallic secrets to itself, five inches of hand-engraved, blued-steel, .44-caliber revolver barrel came down level ahead of an unblinking, hard, pale eye.

In that frozen one-tenth of a second, before a practiced finger tripped off a single round of hard-cast .44, nobody -- not the shocked onlookers, not the glaring, pale-eyed sister with a Winchester rifle rising toward her shoulder -- nobody doubted that when the Sheriff's voice raised in uncharacteristic anger, that hostilities were about to end, and end very quickly.

Sheriff Jacob Keller handloaded this particular round himself.

Sheriff Jacob Keller had a world of faith in a heavy, hardcast bullet, backed by a good charge of a slow smokeless powder, and when his personal .44 Magnum spoke with a voice of shocking thunder, when 240 grains of homemade freight train drove into the seasoned post inside the corner of the building the holdup was cowering behind, witnesses swore later the impact was felt upstairs, through every set of shoe soles standing on its wooden floors, even a bookkeeper in the back corner room opposite testified that he felt like someone just hit the building with a large, fast moving, heavy, hard-swung, war club.

Whether it was the sound of a .44 Smith and Wesson Magnum shattering the air, whether it was the sound and the feel of the flat nosed bullet splintering a structural upright, whether it was the sudden realization of just how bad a decision he'd made, the holdup screamed like a little girl, threw his pistol out into the street and shrieked his sincere desire to continue living by virtue of discontinuing hostilities.

An hour before, Marnie's face lit up Jacob's screen.

"Jacob?" she asked. "Could I borrow you for a couple of hours?"

He grinned at his pale-eyed sis: "Nothing going on here, whattaya need?"

"I've got a holdup situation and I need you to stop it."

"What should I bring?"

Marnie gave him that quiet look that brought a wicked smile to his face: he had no idea what his Big Sis had in mind, but whatever it was, it was not going to be pleasant for someone.

Just what Jacob was hoping for.

45 minutes before, Jacob stepped through an Iris, into his Pa's barn: he reached up, caressed one of the barn cats, who happily chewed on his knuckles, the way she always did; she rolled over, he rubbed her belly, which brought all four claws and sharp teeth into the leather glove he wore (Jacob knew his cats, and never fondled them barehand, lest he lose blood over the deal).

Once the cat finished lacerating his worn, stained work glove, Jacob picked up saddle blanket and saddle, stepped out into the pasture, curled his lip, whistled.

35 minutes later, a tall, lean-waisted Sheriff came cantering into town on a good-looking Appaloosa stallion: he rode up to the saloon -- of course -- every world in the Confederacy had saloons, for the same reason every Western town had one -- Marnie stepped out, dignified, aloof, gloved hands folded properly in her apron.

Marnie spoke quietly, and Jacob nodded, and then the dignified, gowned, aloof Diplomat planted a gloved hand on the railing and jumped like a schoolgirl -- Jacob had his stallion sidled up against the railing -- Marnie landed behind him and Jacob gigged his stallion, gave his best imitation of a chopping, full-voiced-screaming, Comanche battle cry.

They charged the Mercantile, across the street: Apple-horse surged up onto the boardwalk, Marnie slid off the stallion like water off an oilcloth, she seized the Mercantile's black-ceramic doorknob, gave it a twist and a kick and leaned back, and Jacob, screaming like an Iroquois swinging a war club, laid down against Apple's neck.

Apple-horse was no stranger to riot training, and part of his riot training was riding through doorways.

Apple-horse responded as he'd been trained

A genuine, honest-to-God Appaloosa stallion reared, inside the general store, screaming, yellow teeth bared, steelshod hooves cutting blazing-silver destruction through the already-tense atmosphere.

The proprietor's wife's hands clutched at her high stomach and she fell back into a chair, eyes wide, mouth open, shocked into silence.

The proprietor's chin dropped to his belt buckle, and his knees sagged a little as he gripped the edge of the glass topped display counter.

The now-panicked holdup dropped his loot and ran out the back at the top of his lungs.

Jacob was laid down alongside Apple's neck as the stallion charged through the slow-closing double doors into the back room -- Apple knocked over a crate of apples and a stack of dry goods -- he turned --

Jacob felt as much as heard the pistol-shot -- wild, unaimed, a shot that punched a hole in the sky overhead as the holdup fell out the back door and ran for safety, ran toward the main street, ran across the pavement and down the alley and he fell, rolled, came up, shaking, as something red-and-white, something fast moving, something pounding against the earth like a vengeful steam compactor, something that looked like DEATH IS RIDING A PALE HORSE AND HE'S RIDING AFTER ME! and he threw a shot, snapped it like he was throwing a rock, he fell back around the corner and shivered, then he stuck his pistol around the corner and triggered three shots, fast.

He tried a fourth shot.

Click.

Sheriff Jacob Keller dismounted as Marnie cranked the lever on her engraved Winchester: they advanced on the alley, Marnie climbed the steps toward the saloon, leaned around the corner, rifle shouldered left-handed, three fingers fanned out against the painted corner of the Saloon, the Winchester's checkered, stained, curly-maple fore end cradled between thumb and forefinger, pale eye steady behind the flip up peep sight.

"Ready," she said quietly.

Jacob raised his hand-engraved, gold-inlaid .44 Magnum revolver.

"THIS ENDS NOW!"

The Sheriff's voice was sharp, commanding, controlled: it echoed, perfectly understandable, clearly enunciated.

"THROW OUT YOUR WEAPON AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN PLAIN VIEW!"

Jacob waited the space of three heartbeats -- until he saw two empty cartridge cases bounce into view.

Until now, Jacob kept his temper rigidly controlled.

He'd been analytical and detached, even to the point of enjoying a naughty schoolboy's secret joy at the prospect of rearing a stallion inside the Mercantile, of hearing his favorite warhorse screaming a challenge, shocking and LOUD!! inside the structure.

This ... this was different.

He was not going to be shot at again.

He felt anger uncoiling like a scaly monster deep inside him.

"NOW BY GOD!!" Jacob roared, "THAT is ENOUGH!"

 

The Inter-System carried it on the evening news.

Thirteen star systems' worth of Confederate viewers saw a genuine Western Sheriff cantering a genuine Western Appaloosa into town, saw him confer quickly with the Ambassador -- their Ambassador! -- saw them execute their raid on the Mercantile: they watched as their prim, dignified, feminine, altogether beautiful Ambassador, shouldered a Winchester rifle, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that she could punch the heart out of the Ace of Spades left handed or right handed, from here to yonder, and she didn't much care how far yonder was.

They watched as a long, tall, slim waisted Sheriff settled a disagreement with one shot.

They watched as a Sheriff half-frogmarched, half-dragged a cheap tinhorn of a holdup to the town's lockup, his Appaloosa following behind as placidly as a sleepy old dog, and they watched as big-eyed little boys gathered in front of the town's calabozo, waiting for this heroic figure of strength and justice to emerge into the sunlight.

They watched as a long tall Sheriff took a grinning little boy around the waist and swung him up into the saddle, and how the happy little boy laughed with delight as the Sheriff walked down the street with the stallion following, how an anxious mother regarded the Sheriff with an uncertain expression as he swung the laughing little boy down and handed him to his Mama.

The mother regarded the tall, tail-slashing stallion uncomfortably and asked, "Isn't he dangerous?" and Jacob grinned like her little boy and caressed Apple's jaw and murmured, "Yes, ma'am, he certainly is, but he's already et today" -- he touched his hat-brim, swung into the saddle:  Apple-horse turned, trotted a few yards up the street, and Jacob whipped off his Stetson and yelled EEYAAHOOO! as a genuine Western stallion put on a fine show of buck, twist, crow-hop, sunfish, dive and buck:  he stopped, shivered like he was shaking a pesky horsefly from his hide, then stepped out just as nice as you please in his usual easy gait.

The cloaked hover-cams swung to the pale-eyed Ambassador, standing on the boardwalk in front of the saloon, her Winchester across her and laid over in the crook of her elbow: she looked very directly into the camera's lens, looked at each of the viewers spread across thirteen star systems, shook her head and sighed, "Show-off!" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

OLD TORNADO

Ambassador Marnie Keller was on her feet and moving fast.

She ran over to where a server stood, shocked, white-faced, horrified.

She'd been carrying a tray worth more than her entire net worth.

A careless diner rose, bumped her elbow.

Fine glassware was not yet within this world's technological ability: four delicate, thin, graceful, crystal wineglasses fell over, fell off, tumbled in horrified-to-the-beholder slow motion to the floor, shattered, wine spraying across floorboards and onto trouser cuffs and the waitress's long apron.

Marnie saw the server's face go pale, saw her start to stagger back in shock.

Marnie didn't try to catch the tray as it, too, flipped over and began its slow-motion tumble to the deck: instead, she caught the server, turned her, hugged her quickly, ranch-trained arms holding the girl's weight as her knees collapsed, equestrienne's legs planted to take the sudden weight.

Marnie turned them both, leaned the girl back against the back wall, her pale eyes bright, intense.

"It's all right," she whispered. "I have more!"

The waitress looked at her -- at this famous, pale-eyed Ambassador, a public figure of influence and politics, a creature of near-legend -- Marnie pulled out a chair, sat the girl down.

A manager came over, blustering, loud: Marnie stopped him with an upraised palm, as effectively as if she'd thrown up a glass wall.

She took the waitress's hand, patted it between her gloved palms.

"I saw what happened," she murmured. "It wasn't your fault."

Marnie's wrist-unit buzzed, then gave a harsh, discordant tone that commanded her instant attention.

She tapped the screen to silence it, frowned a little as she read the message, read it again.

She looked back up at the trembling waitress.

"Is there a basement banquet room?" she asked quietly, her voice urgent.

The waitress nodded.

"How do we get there?"

The waitress swallowed, blinked.

"There's a stairway, just down this hall."

"How big is the room downstairs?"

"Twice ... twice as big as ... this," she stammered, swallowing.

"I need you to lead all these people down there, now," Marnie said, her voice urgent, then she stood, pulling the girl to her feet.

Ambassador Marnie Keller, the dignified, feminine, beautiful, controlled, composed representative of thirteen star systems and its coordinating government, stood quickly, pulling the server to her feet: she placed two fingers to her lips, whistled.

Marnie practiced that whistle from earliest childhood, ever since she saw (and heard!) her pale eyed Daddy whistle, loud and commanding, the sound carrying to the furthest corner of his longest pasture.

Marnie took a deep breath, feeling the power focusing through the lens of her diaphragm: she'd sung opera, she'd sung with power and control, and she put that power and that control into what she announced into the shocked-silent atmosphere.

"ALL HANDS, NOW HEAR THIS," she shouted. "THIS IS NOT A DRILL. WE HAVE A TORNADO INBOUND. IT'S HEADING STRAIGHT FOR US. I NEED ALL OF YOU TO FOLLOW THIS YOUNG LADY TO THE DOWNSTAIRS SAFE ROOM. NO QUESTIONS, ON YOUR FEET, FOLLOW HER AND DO IT NOW!"

Marnie bent her wrist, spoke quickly, urgently, into her wrist-unit: she looked at the server with eyes that were no longer warm and understanding, eyes that held neither comfort nor sympathy.

The server saw the hard eyes of a polished marble statue, as cold as the frozen heart of a mountain glacier, and for a moment she knew the meaning of fear as those eyes drove cold into her soul.

"Get them to safety," Marnie said, her voice low, urgent, then she turned and strode purposefully for the front door, bent wrist to her lips.

 

Gracie Daine lay supine on her flight couch, relaxed, mind-linked with her ship.

She heard Marnie's call, she reached out to her flight-sisters.

An Iris opened ahead of the silver Starfighter.

A sleek, powerful, dangerously silent ship -- with the nose art of a screaming girl in cowboy boots and a flannel shirt, a Stetson and gunbelt, with a revolver out-thrust and flame from its muzzle, a warship with GUNFIGHTER in aggressive lettering underscoring the hand-painted insignia -- disappeared.

 

Marnie shoved the doors open, squinted as wind drove sandy dust into her face: her personal shield activated automatically -- she still had to push against the wind -- she raised a hand reflexively, then lowered it, as if to use her hand to block debris from scouring her cheeks again.

She looked up, then out, ran into the middle of the street and swore, quietly, inelegantly.

Green sky, she thought, then she looked at clouds and at what was circling under the clouds, and she swore again, considerably louder.

Her wrist-unit vibrated and she heard Gracie's amused thought:

Coming in for a landing, dearie, get out of the street!

Marnie leaned against the wind, staggered toward the front of the meeting hall: something long and silver descended, its needle nose into the wind like a weathercock: it hovered, unaffected by the gusting wind.

Silvery, articulated legs and broad rectangular feet extended.

Gunfighter touched down easily, with an almost inaudible whine of atmospheric turbos running down.

The winds stopped as if turned off with a switch.

Marnie, no longer leaning into the wind, walked up under what she suspected was an antenna, thrust forward from the pointed nose: this big silver interstellar bird opened its bottom jaw into the still air, and a figure in a black skinsuit stepped out, reached up, gave the spherical black helmet a twist, a pull: the helmet hovered in midair, then floated back to the bird's open jaw, found its berth, docked automatically.

"How big do you want the force-dome?" Gracie asked.

"Cover the town."

Gracie smiled a little; she felt her sister pilots appear -- they were a mile apart, flanking the town and facing the tornado, their overlapping fields protecting the capital city.

Marnie consulted her wrist-unit, looked at Gracie.

"How directly will it impact us?"

"You couldn't have steered it better with an engineer's T-square and a fiddlestring," Gracie said bluntly. "If you hadn't called us, this town would be toothpicks."

"I had everyone get to the basement," Marnie said. "I'd better get in there before they murder that poor little waitress!"

"Good thing you did," Gracie murmured, smiling a little as she looked up into the tornado as it came twisting angrily over them, frustrated by the force-dome that denied it the destruction it desired.

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller clattered downstairs, intentionally making three times the noise necessary: she swept into the basement room, raised her palms for attention, then brought her wrist-unit in front of her, manipulated the screen.

A floating image of their city materialized in the room, sudden, spectacular, glowing.

"This," Marnie announced, "is where we are. This red arrow" -- a pointed indicator appeared, bobbing a few times, then disappeared -- "is specifically where we are.

"Outside, three Starfighters have landed and have their force domes overlapped over the city to keep it from being torn apart."

"What happened?" a voice called, and Marnie smiled.

Something spinning, cloudlike and genuinely ugly came twisting into the room: silent, menacing, without substance, but real enough people pulled back quickly.

"A tornado came straight for us. We have a relief force inbound to assess damage and treat casualties. This is a serious tornado, folks, I've seen what they can do and this one has already caused damage and once it's past us, it'll continue."

Marnie looked around, saw a drab figure in a waitress's uniform in the far corner.

Marnie thrust a bladed hand toward her, motioned her over.

It took a little for the waitress to thread and weave her way through the crowded room.

Marnie turned her, faced her toward the assembled: she stood beside this uncertain-looking young woman, one arm across her shoulders and gripping the woman's far shoulder, the other hand gripping her near shoulder.

She turned to the waitress, whispered "I'm sorry, we've not been properly introduced. I'm Marnie."

"I'm ... I'm Katherine," the waitress stammered through a suddenly-dry throat.

"Folks," Marnie announced, her voice pitched to carry to the far rows, "this is Katherine and I've known her for quite a long time now" -- Marnie's quick smile added just the right humor to her good-natured fabrication -- "had we not had two Starfighters to throw a force-dome over the city, this building would be reduced to kindling and toothpicks, but you down here would be safe."

She squeezed Katherine's shoulders.

"Thanks to her, your safety is guaranteed. I never rely on only one thing, whenever possible I have a backup. I had no idea if the Starfighters would be close enough to respond, and they were. If they had not been, Katherine here would have kept all of you alive."

 

It became a hallmark of this particular meeting-house that it served its beverages in tall, delicate, fragile wineglasses, gifts from a particular pale-eyed Ambassador: once the tornado was past, after dignitaries and politicians and men of commerce and influence returned upstairs, following the furiously-blushing waitress who was suddenly the object of approval and unaccustomed attention, they found the broken glass and spilled wine, gone as if they'd never been -- the tray was spotlessly clean and laid on a staging-table -- and at each table, at every occupied position, a chilled glass of a truly exquisite vintage stood: delicate, long-stemmed crystal, just starting to sweat with condensation, and in the meeting-house's wine cellars, two crates were found that no one remembered ordering or receiving.

The first crate contained wax-sealed, gracefully-tapered, green-glass bottles with labels bearing the image of a red-headed woman in a Stetson and skirt, cowboy boots and gunbelt, extending a flame-muzzled revolver, with the words GUNFIGHTER RED beneath: its vintage was rose-colored and flavorful, pleasant to the nose and palate.

The other crate contained square-cornered, dirty-grey bottles of heavier glass, with a black-glass stopper: the contents were potent, dark, and the label bore the image of a conical cloud scouring buildings from the earth, and beneath this, in aggressive black letters against a yellow band, OLD TORNADO.

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IVORY 88

Victoria hissed.

Victoria was old enough to travel off-planet.

She'd found she really didn't want to, not all that much, unless it suited her, of course.

Girls are like that.

Linn managed to work the hand sewn quilt over her and around her a little, but he didn't work the quilt in between them.

Victoria was sound asleep, and leaned up against her Daddy, and she was sound asleep, and the pure-white Mountain Mastiff was piled up on the couch beside her, curled up, her muzzle on Victoria's thigh..

Had it been Michael, asleep and cuddled with ol' Pa, he would have snored.

When Michael's pale eyed Pa slept, he snored.

Linn snored fit to rattle the windows.

Shelly threatened to have a shelf built outside her bedroom window so she could set an unmuffled lawn mower outside the window pane and let it run so she could sleep at night, for without her husband's nocturnal chain saw, she couldn't get to sleep.

At the moment, though, Linn draped his arm over his little girl -- who wasn't as little as she used to be -- he was quite pleased with knowing his darlin' daughter wanted to stay at home with her big strong Daddy.

Victoria wrinkled her nose, sighed, cuddled against her Daddy, still sound asleep.

She hissed again.

Shelly could tell from the look on her husband's face there was nowhere in the entire world he'd rather be.

Michael Keller, on the other hand, was in a saloon, with a beer on the piano and a grin on his face, with a Derby hat cocked rakishly to the side and ruffled sleeve garters halfway up his wiry biceps, and he was happily thumpin' a mean tune on the ivory 88.

He'd asked the owner if he could try something that might improve the saloon's business.

Metallurgy, metal refining and metalworking, had not progressed to the point where this world was fabricating something as complex as a piano -- they were casting iron, steel refining was not well advanced, but it wasn't far behind.

When this happened, there would be metal piano frames and wire strings and wound sttrings.

Until then, there were legends of the upright box called a "Piano" that made music.

Michael had one delivered to this particular saloon, chosen because it didn't really have that much business, though it had a fair location: Michael wasn't the world's best piano player, but he had a good ear, he was good at chording, and he'd learned enough saloon grade tunes that -- after the saloon opened that evening, after the barkeep asked what in two hells did that glorified coffin do, after the curious came in, attracted by honest to God music -- the saloon ran out of beer and had to make an emergency run across town to fetch in kegs and bottles of Barley Pop for folk who came in to marvel at this exclusive wonder.

Michael discreetly recruited ladies, most of whom weren't all that young, who could either play piano already, or could learn fast: those ladies who could play, he explained in due time, were mostly from Earth, were mostly souls who'd tried to make a good go of life, but they'd been thrown curve balls or run into misfortune they hadn't planned on: they were more than happy to leave the life they knew, behind, to put their particular talent to use, and they were quite happy to wear the feminine styles of the particular world they were on.

Michael neither misled them, nor did he lie to them: he didn't tell his Pa what he'd done, he'd just gone looking, recruiting the way he'd learned his Pa conducted an investigation, only instead of finding suspects, he found widows, he found women with a damaged past, he'd found women who wanted to start over, he'd found women who could play piano.

Michael set up a half dozen of these adventurous souls, one to a city, each with their own piano, in a saloon, with the understanding that these piano playing women were not to be mishandled in any manner whatsoever, that their pianos would be maintained and tuned and the pianos themselves were not to be harmed, and when the saloon-owners saw how much their business improved for the installation of this upright music maker, they were inclined to keep both the piano and the piano player from harm.

Michael, occasionally, relieved his piano player: Lightning waited patiently outside, her adopted young waiting with her; they were not tethered -- they were backed up against the front of the building, or against the walkway, all three of them, Thunder and Cyclone angled out a little, very evidently backed up so nothing hostile could get behind them, while they watched forward.

Michael grinned up at the patrons, male and female alike, who clustered around this marvelous music machine.

Michael had the gift of disconnecting the piano playing part of his mind from the conversation part of his mind: one of the spectators complained that they were lookin forward to seeing a Sweet Young Thang in a ruffly dress and stockings, and another asked Michael, "Why'nt you wear a dress for us when you play?" and Michael laughed, dropped a quick "Shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits!" on the ivory keyboard, thrust a declarative finger toward the ceiling and shouted happily, "NO!" -- then went back to playing, at least until his feminine relief arrived, wearing a frilly dress and stockings:  she came in beside Michael, they looked at one another and began playing a brisk, four-handed version of Chopsticks, Michael rose and relinquished stool and red-velvet cushion to the smiling, older woman, and he slipped over to the bar, where more men waited, wishing to purchase a piano for their own saloon, from Michael, the only piano dealer on planet.

 

Michael came home, but not before taking a long, hot shower, not before donating his clothes to a laundry hamper somewhere other than home: he was not about to come home smelling like tobacco, like beer, like a saloon.

He came through the door, wearing his usual tailored black suit and an emerald-green, puffy silk necktie with a square ruby stickpin the size of his little fingernail: he came in, left his boots in the boot tray, saw his Pa with Victoria sound asleep against him, and a huge white plume of Snowdrift-tail sticking out from under the draped quilt.

His Pa was asleep, too.

Michael crept sock foot into his Pa's study.

He knew where his Pa kept what he needed.

He eased the broad center drawer open, removed a sheet of note paper, turned it over so the blank backside was up.

Michael Keller hooked two sharpened pencils out of the pencil tray.

When he was done, he went on upstairs and went to bed, content knowing Lightning was pastured with her young, knowing the interference-fields would keep anyone from seeing a Fanghorn mare and two Fanghorn colts in amongst his Pa's horses.

He left a pencil drawing of a little girl, her head laid over against her Daddy, he left the drawing of a Daddy, sound asleep, one arm protectively draped around over the quilt, hugging his child into him, and Michael drew the aft half of a mountain Mastiff, stuck out from under the hand sewn quilt.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

1/3: DAMN YOU, WHERE’S MY DAUGHTER!

It was a bad night.

I woke up.

No.

No, my eyes SLAMMED open and I seized Esther’s wrist as if I were afraid she was about to fall down a bottomless well.

My green-eyed bride convulsed, twisted: we seized one another and I am not the least little bit ashamed to admit we grabbed one another with raw, God’s-honest, FEAR.

Sheriff Willamina Keller blinked as she read these words, her eyes wide, unblinking.

Willamina knew men of her very-great-Granddad’s era were hard men, men with the bark on, so to speak – and for such a man to admit fear, meant that he’d been beyond terrified.

Willamina herself had seen grief, loss, terror, death, war, destruction that civilized people politely denied ever existed: war had given her a twisted sense of humor and a warped view of reality and of propriety, and war had given her a survivor’s mind.

She rubbed her forehead, took a long breath, swallowed.

“Granddad,” she whispered, “what did you see?”

 

Daciana had been a trick rider with a circus.

Now she was wife to the town’s telegrapher, she was a “Yarb Woman” who consorted with native healers, learning from them, brewing nostrums and decoctions that eased women’s cramps, men’s headaches, she knew the healing herbs.

A few – a very few – knew she had her Grand-mère’s crystal ball.

These very few saw her peer into its crystal depths, her face inverted, distorted: no hand, save hers alone, had ever touched it, not since the day her Grand-mère wrapped it in a scarf and gave it to her,  and then picked up a heavy set of shears and handed to her.

Daciana took the shears, startled: when her fingers closed about the big, heavy finger loops, something seared into her, something like a minor bolt of lightning.

Ma vue est la vôtre, she’d murmured in that wise, gentle voice of hers: she’d kissed Daciana, formally, on both cheeks:  “my sight is yours. Go, now, child.”

Daciana stared, wide-eyed, afraid, at the shears, at her Grand-mère, knowing with a sudden, shocking clarity, that this was the last she would ever see the woman alive.

Daciana seized the older woman in a desperate embrace, her voice a muffled sob, and she felt the beloved old woman’s hands, warm, gentle as they’d always been, on her back: again, the whisper, “Go,” and Daciana turned, ran, crying, clutching the scarf and its spherical gift to her stomach.

Thus had an old Gypsy grandmother transferred her Second Sight to her chosen recipient: the old woman smiled quietly as the child ran, knowing she ran with fear, fear of the terrible knowledge she’d just inherited, and Daciana felt the old woman walk, slow, pained, to her narrow cot, felt her lie down, felt her surrender her essence to the Almighty.

Daciana woke the same night the Sheriff and his wife woke.

She woke suddenly – she slipped out of bed carefully, so as not to disturb her husband – she thrust her feet into backless slippers, whispered quickly to the next room, where moonlight seared through a cold, barren sky to blaze, silver and harsh, on her kitchen table.

Daciana reached up, lifted a covered object from a shelf, placed it in moonlight’s silver: she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, lifted the scarf, passed her hands over the ancient crystal sphere.

She placed her hands flat on the immaculate tablecloth, opened her eyes, stared into shimmering depths, eyes wide and unblinking.

Daciana saw a man on a golden horse, riding furiously through a twisted, hostile landscape, barren trees with branches like claws, illuminated by flashes of lightning:  clouds glowed and muttered overhead as the man raged at the darkness, and beside him, something black, swift, silent, something with blazing red eyes and shining ivory fangs.

Even his shining-gold stallion had red eyes, the eyes of a predatory beast.

She heard him, and perhaps that was the most frightening of all.

“WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER, DAMN YOU!  WHERE IS SHE???”

 

A pretty young woman with pale eyes squeezed cold stream-water from her kerchief, pressed it firmly against the corner of her forehead.

She’d taken a blow – she remembered falling, then impact, she woke –

Blood on the ground –

She had no idea where she was, she had no memory of how she got there, and she ached in places she didn’t know she had places, but she was alive, alive! –

She heard a snarl, menacing, threatening, and her hand closed about the wire-wound hilt of a blade she did not know was there.

It took her another moment to realize the snarl she heard was from her own throat.

 

A husband’s fingers were gentle against his wife’s cheekbones.

The window was beyond her, the moon well beyond his wife: she could see his face, his grim expression, she felt his breathing – controlled, powerful, the breathing of a predatory animal.

She felt his fingers trembling slightly as they brushed her cheek bones.

“You, too?” he murmured.

Esther swallowed, nodded, knowing her shadows face would be a dark mask to his eyes.

Covers were thrown back, bare feet thrust into fur lined moccasins: he hesitated, slipped out of his moccasins, dressed with the swift efficiency she’d long admired and had seen many times.

This time, though, he moved with a deadly purpose.

Esther dressed as quickly: he waited for her to finish before turning to the bedroom door, gunbelt around his middle, shotgun in hand.

He turned back toward her.

Her hand touched his, his hand gripped hers.

Whatever was going on, whatever nightmare roared through both their nighttime slumbers, they would face it together.

 

Daciana’s breath caught.

She recognized the woman in the blue gown.

She saw her thrown about like a beetle shaken in a match-box.

She saw the box break open, she saw impossible blossoms and she felt herself shaken, as if yanked from behind, and she felt herself hit something –

Daciana raised her hand to her forehead, expecting to find a gash, expecting to feel blood, hot, wet, sticky –

She lowered her hand –

Nothing, she thought, surprised.

She looked at the crystal ball, looked into its depths again, her face pale.

 

Jacob Keller fed his stallion a thick pinch of molasses cured tobacker shavings, saddled the dancing Appaloosa, swung into the saddle.

He had possibles enough in his warbag for a few days afield.

He had no idea what in two hells was going on, but he knew where to go to find out.

Jacob Keller rode across his pasture, through the back gate, down a mountain path, a swift-running Deathbringer on a pale, spotty horse.

Edited March 8 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

2/3: THE SHERIFF AND THE SHEE

 

Whether it was a quantum disturbance, whether her Diplomatic shuttle crossed a dark-matter string within the Iris, whatever the cause, it seized the stout, inflexible ship and shook it like a terrier shakes a rat.

Normally the ship would fly into the Iris and instantaneously reappear elsewhere, having slipped between dimensions.

At least that’s how Marnie though it worked.

This time, though, when it shot into the Iris, the ship groaned like a lost soul, alarms started and cut off just as quickly.

The Diplomatic shuttle could withstand a proximity detonation from a high-yield fusion device, with absolutely no damage.

This very shuttle withstood the slap of a magnetostar’s swinging arm.

It was one of the toughest, the most durable, one of the most survivable ships, in the entire Confederate space service.

Marnie thrust herself back in her seat, pulled desperately at her flight harness, trying to secure herself.

Marnie felt the ship separate like an amoeba – for a moment it was two separate shuttles – then she was alone.

She looked over at the pilot’s empty chair and realized they had no lights, no power, she had no pilot, they were falling, and she had no idea how to restart their engines.

She released the ends of her flight harness as both the lights and artificial gravity went out.

She looked at the empty, dark screens, the dead control panel.

The red emergency lights came on.

She leaned forward, hit the shield retractors, shoved her hands hard against the panel to push herself back into in her seat.

Panels retracted from the transparent metallic windows and she swore, loudly, sharply.

She was right, they were falling.

Marnie gritted her teeth, leaned forward, reached to her left, hit the one control she knew would work.

A hatch blew free atop the shuttle, a small rocket ignited, launched, pulled a drogue free, then a genuinely huge, colorful parachute with it: another rocket fired, at an angle away from the chute, its built-in distress beacon screaming into the ether.

Marnie barely made it back into her seat when felt the ship almost stop in mid-air.

She had weight again.

She knew the parachute was efficient.

This one was extremely efficient.

She hadn’t been wearing her flight harness – why should she, it was a milk run, like driving your car from one parking space, straight forward into the next parking space.

She was trying to find the ends of her harness when she looked out the front windows and saw she was far lower than she’d realized.

She remembered the control panel coming at her, fast.

Marnie rose slowly, standing, swaying a little, holding the cold and wet kerchief firmly against her throbbing forehead.

She looked around.

“Well good, kids,” she muttered, “where’s my shuttle?”

She twisted, the world rolled out from under her and slammed up against her back.

Her teeth clicked together as the back of her head hit sandy dirt.

 

Two Aladdin lamps cast bright, harsh light on the kitchen table.

Esther watched as Linn smoothed the hand drawn map out on the immaculate tablecloth.

He looked up at his wife.

“You saw where she was.”

Esther nodded.

“What was your impression of where she was?”

“I can take you zere,” a familiar voice said.

Husband wife turned suddenly to see what looked like an old European peasant-woman, standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Good enough,” Linn said, his voice clipped, businesslike. “What do we need?”

“She iss hurt,” Daciana said quietly, backless clogs silent on the kitchen floor.

She went to a cupboard, withdrew a teacup, set it on the stove: the teakettle was warm, but not hot – she tapped it with the backs of her fingers, nodded.

Crushed, fragrant herbs trickled from her fingers into the cup; warm, steaming water gurgled over the thick mat of crushed herbals.

Daciana set the teakettle down, picked up the cup, carefully, holding it with both hands.

She turned.

Daciana, a Gypsy trick rider, herb woman and friend to the ladies of Firelands, turned: she was no longer the diminutive, soft-spoken soul they’d long known: she turned, her face shining as if illuminated by a shaft of moonlight – pale, majestic, cold, beautiful …

… commanding.

Daciana glided forward, one step, another, moving with an almost ceremonial grace.

She lowered the teacup to the table, released it: she passed her hands over it twice, then she picked it up.

She did not so much turn as …

… to the hard-eyed Sheriff, it was as if she was suddenly a statue, animated marble, turning on a platform instead of a human turning with muscle power.

She rotated, the cup swinging to him: she stopped, suddenly, mechanically.

He almost expected to hear a metallic click! of some hidden mechanism.

Her eyes were dark, compelling.

She was beyond unmoving: her stillness was unnatural.

Esther watched, knowing in her eyes.

Linn took the teacup, drank.

He closed his eyes, shivered.

Esther felt Daciana’s fingers, light and cool, touching her behind the earlobes, letting her see what her husband was seeing.

 

Apple-horse’s hooves were loud in the chilly moonlight as Jacob powered him up and across the road, toward his Pa’s house.

He knew his Pa was not alone, and he knew all was not well.

Jacob knew his green-eyed mother was a Wise Woman, he knew she had the Second Sight, even if she never admitted to it when he asked her – she’d only smiled, that secretive smile a woman has when she knows a secret has been guessed.

Jacob had been told, years before, some skills, some knowledge, were the property of the Distaff, there were powers and gifts no man would ever command.

He’d been given the impression the Second Sight was one of these gifts.

He also knew stopping blood with the Word, and blowing fire, were two gifts that were supposed to be beyond the ability of any man to either use, or even remember.

He knew his Pa had done both, and his Pa was sure as hell no woman!

Jacob also knew his Pa was not alone, and all was not well, and Jacob came off his Apple-horse, rifle in hand, and he came up the steps and across the porch and into his Pa’s house, dead silent.

He recognized Daciana, standing behind his mother, her fingers touching the back of his Ma’s neck like she was rubbing out a persistent headache like she’d done before.

His Pa, though …

His Pa stood, holding a teacup, staring straight ahead with the expression of a man ready to go to war.

 

Linn heard it, not far away.

A woman’s lament, wavering, not a scream, not yet ... sorrow it was, a voice that grew into the scream he expected, a voice that fell into sobs and sorrowing.

Rage detonated, ignited, erupted in his chest.

He gripped the wire-wound handle of his fighting knife, looked around, drew the blade free.

This was the Banshee, and any who heard the Shee, heard the lament of someone who was about to die.

I can take you, Daciana whispered.

I can take you to someone who knows.

She will not tell you willingly.

He moved, swift, silent – he seized the old woman, kneeling by the stream, seized her by her white hair.

She will not tell you willingly.

He pulled her head back, put his knife’s edge to her throat.

His voice was half-snarl, half-hiss from between clenched teeth:

“Damn you,” he snarled, then he shouted:

“DAMN YOU, WHERE’S MY DAUGHTER!”

 

Three horses streaked across moonlit terrain.

Something like a wrinkled, twisted, metal box with a hole torn in its side, lay with a colorful silky cloth draped over it – only the box was the size of the Mercantile, and the cloth draped over it would have completely roofed the Silver Jewel.

They came over a rise, drew up, searching.

One of the three, frowning, eased his stallion forward – a walk at first, then as Apple-horse felt Jacob’s excitement, as The Bear Killer bayed and streaked ahead like the black arrow from Death’s bow, Apple surged ahead.

Jacob was out of the saddle before the stallion was halted: he landed, boot heels driving into the sandy soil.

Marnie felt a firm hand grip her shoulder, felt herself being rolled over onto her back.

She felt skilled fingers brush gently against her aching forehead.

Marnie opened her eyes, looked up into a set of pale eyes.

“D-d-daddy?” she asked in a tiny little voice.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

3/3: ONE HELL OF A NIGHTMARE

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller opened her eyes as Dr. John Greenlees placed the last delicate little suture into her laceration.

“Welcome back,” he said quietly, tied off the suture, cut it with a quick slice of the curved, edge-honed needle: she felt him do something to her numbed forehead, felt him press something against her throat, heard the quiet hiss of an injector.

Her headache eased off.

“The pilot –” she began.

“Is fine,” Dr. John said quietly, his hand on her shoulder.

“What happened?”

“You’ll be debriefed. Now lay still, you’ve a concussion.”

“Daddy?” she blinked.

“He’s been notified that you’re fine,” her husband said reassuringly, his hands professional and his eyes concerned.

Marnie groaned, closing her eyes, remembering …

She’d looked up at her Daddy, she’d looked up at Jacob, she’d wondered what ever got them out of their jurisdictions, and then she saw Esther.

Esther?

Marnie looked back up at the pale eyed man with the iron grey mustache, down on one knee beside her, pressing her left hand between his callused palms.

She looked to her right, looked at Jacob, down on one knee, holding her hand between both his palms, his hands as strong, as warm, as reassuring, as…

Sarah blinked, confused, looked over at Esther.

Esther’s eyes smiled with a secret understanding as she raised a finger to her lips.

 

Willamina Keller read her very-great-grandfather’s hand-written account, frowning a little as she did.

Beside her, her granddaughter, Marnie Keller, scrolled slowly through census records, making occasional notations on the yellow legal pad under her right hand.

Marnie looked over, saw her grandmother’s fingers were steepled, saw the older woman frowning thoughtfully at the open book in front of her.

“Did Old Pale Eyes get into something interesting?” Marnie asked quietly.

Willamina nodded slowly.

“I just found something I was looking for.”

She looked at Marnie, her expression thoughtful.

“I’m going to leave you a key. It’ll be in my secondary safe deposit box.”

“O-kaaay,” Marnie said uncertainly, turning to face her grandmother.

“You will know the right time to access it. Until then, it’s in your name – it won’t be touched upon my demise.”  Willamina turned, faced her granddaughter squarely, leaned forward with a serious expression.

“You will know the right time, Marnie. Wait for that moment.”

Marnie nodded, her fourteen year old face serious.

 

Marnie looked up at this man who was the living, breathing twin of her pale eyed Daddy.

She looked at the absolute clone for her younger brother.

The Bear Killer snuffed at her bloodied forehead, laid down with his chin warm and firm on her shoulder, gave a worried little sound, sighed.

“I see where you tried to start a fire,” Linn said quietly.

Marnie swallowed.  “Yeah,” she managed to gasp.

Something black, broad and elliptical opened.

Several men in shiny white suits stepped through, men with boxes on their heads, boxes with windows in front of their faces.

Neither Jacob, his father, nor his mother could move.

The Bear Killer lifted his head, his tail thumping a greeting.

A woman approached – a woman in a whorishly short skirt, a woman in white stockings and shoes, with a blue cape and a white winged cap: another woman, in a uniform – a man’s uniform! – they approached the paralyzed trio.

They were surrounded; they could not move; they did not feel panic – somehow they knew they were in no danger – Marnie looked up and smiled a little and said, “Took you long enough!”

“You hit a cosmic string, dipstick,” the uniformed woman said:  she knelt at Marnie’s head, looked very directly into the Sheriff’s eyes.

“Dear God,” Dana whispered, “you’re him!”

Dana unbuttoned a blouse pocket, slipped in two fingers, withdrew a card, thrust it into the Sheriff’s coat pocket, then drew back and looked at the man as Marnie was moved – somehow, he was paralyzed, he could not see what they were doing – Where are you going with my daughter! he screamed mentally, unable to move.

Dana bit her bottom lip, whispered quickly, urgently.

“My name,” she said, her lips forming feminine sibilants in the chilly moonlight, “is Dana Keller. I am your descendant. You look enough like my Daddy to be his twin, and he’s Sheriff of Firelands County.  That” – she hooked a thumb toward the serious-faced young woman with the white winged cap – “is my sister Angela. She’s … medical.”

Angela looked up.

“Concussion,” she said in a businesslike voice. “Let’s move!”

Dana hesitated as the white-uniformed team rose, started for the Iris.

“That,” she thrust a bladed hand at the retreating hover-litter, “is my sister Marnie. She is Ambassador for the thirteen star system Confederacy, and she is the very image of Sarah Lynne McKenna.”

Dana followed The Bear Killer, and The Bear Killer followed the litter, at least until they disappeared into the Iris: he stood, tail swinging, then looked back as Dana stepped into its enveloping darkness, as the Iris closed, and was gone.

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller read her ancestor’s words.

She waited until Marnie left, then she unlocked a drawer, removed a long, slim, string-tied cardboard box, drove to the bank.

She needed to open a safe-deposit box in her granddaughter’s name.

 

Dana handed Marnie the contents of the safe-deposit box.

Marnie motioned to a chair.

Three sisters looked at this one Journal that had never made print, this original that their grandmother kept away from common knowledge: it was a smaller book than the others, entirely hand written.

A business card was still in it.

They read Willamina’s note.

Marnie,

If you’re reading this, you are reading what already happened to you.

If it hasn’t happened yet, don’t read this.

W.

Three sisters read the note, looked at one another.

Marnie picked up the Journal, opened it to the bookmark, withdrew a business card.

“Dana,” Marnie said, “this is yours.”

She handed Dana one of the professional business cards she carried as a Sheriff’s deputy back home.

It was yellowed a little, it was very slightly wrinkled, as if it were …

... old …

Marnie picked up the knife, blinked.

It had been a gift from an asteroid miner.

Damascus steel, refined from asteroid iron: on the blade, carefully if crudely hand-chased, Ambassador Marnie.

Her hand went to where the knife usually lived, hidden in whatever garments she wore.

Yesterday, she thought, this was bright, clean ... now there's just a trace of ... not rust ...

Age?

Marnie looked at the scars on its spine, ran delicate fingertips over them, remembering how she’d found a likely rock, how she’d raked fire from the back of the blade to try and start a fire, how she’d gotten dizzy and dropped both rock and blade and then collapsed.

Quick fingers paged through the only account in this heretofore-unknown Journal.

“It’s like … it was important enough for him to write it down, but maybe he didn’t think anyone would believe him.”

“I like the last line.”

Two sisters hung over the shoulders of the third, and they read the last line, silently, together:

If that wasn’t real, it was one hell of a nightmare!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A SEASON OF GIVING

Michael Keller grinned as he crossed the threshold of a one room schoolhouse.

Confederate worlds were anywhere from lightly populated to very thinly populated, even lo these many years after aliens abducted Southrons, intending to create a hybrid-trained, disposable, mercenary force to use against their advanced-technology opponents.

After overthrowing their captors and annihilating their dying civilization to the last living soul in a collective detonation of utter rage, after finding themselves set upon by the civilization they'd been meant to fight and finding themselves obliged to visit utter, absolute, merciless, unforgiving war upon these new attackers -- after destroying this rival interstellar civilization -- Southrons threw themselves outward, onto each of the planets, through the predecessor of the now-improved Iris technology.

Some planets were barely populated as a result; industry was developing, and so you had some worlds where repurposed, reverse-engineered alien technology created gleaming spires and glass-and-steel cities with paved streets and culture developing from what men remembered, to much less advanced worlds.

Michael carried a stack of books, a gift for the school.

These were reprints of four editions of McGuffey's Eclectic Readers: he'd consulted with the schoolmarm, and he'd shown her the editions, and he'd delivered these directly from Earth into her hands.

Other copies -- master copies -- were being duplicated in the planet's capital city, but these ... these were straight from Earth.

The schoolhouse emptied out behind him, children staring at the massive, fanged creature with silky-blond hair and lightning streaks chasing the length of her sculpted, muscle-defined carcass: she was bellied down, blinking sleepily, content to sun herself: hard up against her right ribs, a Fanghorn colt; on her other side, hidden from the common view, another, cuddled up just as close.

Michael stopped, planted his knuckles on his belt.

"Thunder," he said in a scolding voice, "you're right in my road!"

Thunder, an orphaned Fanghorn colt abandoned by the herd when its dam died of unknown causes -- Thunder, adopted by Lightning, raised his head, looked drowsily at Michael, opened its fanged jaw and gave a heartfelt, relieving, generally resounding and quite length, belch.

Michael raised spread-finger hands to the heavens:  "At least excuse yourself!"

Lightning rolled over, fencepost-thick legs waving, inviting a belly rub.

Michael turned, spread his hands helplessly:  "I'm gonna need some help here!" -- and Thunder, arched his back and his neck, paddling at the air as at least ten pair of young hands began happily scratching his warm, fine-furred belly.

Cyclone's head poked up over Lightning, her chin draping over the saddle: if it's possible for a creature that eats both grasses and bloody meat, a creature with fangs and a matured voice that was as loud and as harsh as an industrial steam-whistle, if it's possible for a creature that can lower its bone-bossed head and drive through a brick wall, to look at once innocent, and wistful, Cyclone did, probably because Cyclone was a girl, and girls know how to use those big dark eyes with those long, sweeping eyelashes.

Laughing schoolchildren split and ran, laughing, around Lightning: Cyclone rolled over to receive her belly rubs as well, happy as a Beagle dog.

Michael stood beside the schoolmarm and laughed a little.

Last time he'd been here, this same identical scene played itself out, much to the delight of two Fanghorn colts, and several enthusiastic schoolchildren.

 

Angela smiled.

She remembered a young lady in a white winged cap and a white uniform dress, hand cupped over her mouth.

Angela remembered how she'd looked back at the paper she held, its envelope falling forgotten to the floor.

"I got the posting," she whispered, her eyes huge: teacher and student embraced, each hugging the other with the fierceness of someone who'd gotten exactly what she wanted.

Savannah, Angela's student, had gotten a posting on Planet Ten, where she'd interned: she looked at the confirmation again, looked at Angela, blinking, unsure whether to jump up and down and scream, or just stand there and vibrate.

Angela saw something cross behind her eyes, a look of momentary uncertainty.

"What is it, Savannah?"

Savannah looked up at Angela and asked, "If I'm a working medic, do I still wear my cap?"

Angela gripped the shoulders of Angela's puffy-sleeved uniform dress and lowered her head a little, as if looking over a set of nonexistent spectacles.

"Savannah, what does it say?"

"That I am assigned to House Twenty-Seven as a nurse paramedic."

Angela smiled quietly, nodded.

"That means," she explained, "you will most certainly wear your cap. You earned that, the hard way. You will also be a blueshirt medic, because you earned that, the hard way."

Savannah nodded solemnly.

"If you're at a fire scene, your cap comes off and the helmet goes on, and trust me" -- Angela raised a hand, rubbed careful fingers into her scalp as if massaging a tender spot -- "you'll WANT to wear that helmet!"

She remembered how she'd tilted her head a little and shared a secret smile, then whispered, "I have something for you."

Savannah watched as Angela bent over and picked up a cardboard box from behind her desk, set it on the corner, opened the flaps.

She remembered how Savannah's jaw dropped open as Angela pulled out a brand new fire helmet -- blue it was, with a reflective arch that said MEDIC: the six-armed blue star under the arch, and centered on its forehead, a white-reflective, white-winged-cap.

"Savannah," Angela said softly, "you are without any doubt at all, the one most capable student I have ever taught. You earned this!"

Savannah swallowed hard, took the helmet -- gingerly, as if she was afraid it would break -- she turned it, saw her name, black letters on a reflective white band across its back.

Angela remembered how Savannah looked at her, how soft her voice was as she said, "Thank you."

Angela stood in the empty classroom and smiled as she remembered Savannah's controlled pace as she left the classroom.

Angela started counting as her student crossed the threshold, turned, went down the hall.

"Dirty second one, dirty second two, dirty second three ..."

Nurse-Paramedic Instructor Angela Keller laughed aloud as the hallway's academic hush was absolutely shattered by an honest, full-voice, top-of-the-lungs "EEYAAAHOOOO!"

 

Dana's uniformed presence in the high school had nothing at all to do with law enforcement.

She was between calls, she remembered hearing something about the band director needing repairs made to a failed solder joint on a French horn, and she'd intended to pop in, see if she could arrange for repair or replacement.

She hesitated as she came past what she knew was study hall: on impulse, she slipped soundlessly in the back door, looked at the teacher, smiled, put a finger to her lips.

The teacher, surprised, nodded: she watched, but did not rise from where she'd been seated, grading papers.

Angela bent over a student from behind, whispered, "You doing okay?"

He nodded, sighed, tapped his paper with the eraser end of his pencil.

"I'm not getting this," he muttered.

Angela looked at his work, nodded.

"You're on the right track," she said quietly, pulling a pen from her pocket and using it as a pointer. "See here -- that's right -- now we need to isolate X."

Her whispered voice smiled as she continued, "Formulae are like children. If you give candy to one, you'd better do the same for the other, or they'll throw a fit."

"Sounds like my little brother."

"Yeah, I got one of those too. So what we do to this side of the formula, we have to do to the other. In this case" -- her pen moved to illustrate -- divide this by sixteen.  Go ahead."

He did, wrote down the value.

"Now do the same for the other side of your equation."

"One-X."

"Or X. That's the key. Isolate X."  She gripped his shoulder, thrust the gleaming-silver pen back into her uniform blouse pocket. "Congratulations, you just solved it!"

Dana straightened, waved at the teacher, turned and slipped out of the study hall.

She'd been noticed, but it wasn't until her departure that the student realized it wasn't a teacher that just handed him the hammer he needed to knock the obstructing mental block out from under his mental gears.

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller sat across from her father, looking both elegant and dangerous in her tailored McKenna gown.

Elegant, because she was a genuinely beautiful woman; dangerous, because she was looking at her father with that half-smile that told him she'd been up to something.

"There is a question in your eyes," she said softly.

The Sheriff nodded, leaned forward, crossed his forearms on the coffee-ringed desk blotter.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "I've faced up to and faced down large and angry people carrying a variety of weapons."

Marnie nodded, that quiet, I-know-a-secret smile on her lips, in her shining, pale eyes.

"You know I've waded into situations that sane and rational people were running away from just as hard as they could go."

Marnie nodded again, tilted her head a little, the way she did when she was interested.

"Darlin', there's all kind of movies made about space aliens and fleets of alien ships."

Ambassador Marnie Keller nodded once more, unblinking eyes steady on her father's face.

"How true is that?"

Marnie blinked a few times, frowned a little, then she rose slightly, scooted her chair a little closer to the Sheriff's desk.

She folded her forearms on the desk and hunched forward a little, the very mirror of her father's posture.

"You want the truth?" she said, her voice quiet, flat, the voice of someone who knew what she was saying and was deciding whether to be circumspect, or to give a full disclosure.

The Sheriff nodded, once.

Marnie blinked a few times, took a long breath.

"There are three that we know of," she said, her voice flat, expressionless.

"There's Earth. That's one. There's the Confederacy. That's two."

"What about Mars?"

"That's a little of both. There is only one other alien civilization that we know of."

"How much of a threat are they?"

Marnie considered for several long moments.

"They are far enough away that Earth's radio signals, its lasers shot into space, everything, will take another couple of centuries to reach them. Earth is safe."

Linn nodded solemnly.  

"I am the Sheriff," he said finally. "This is my county. If I needed to know if I should negotiate for planetary defenses."

"Not yet," Marnie said softly. "If it comes to that, we will ..."

Marnie smiled, looked down at her white, lace-edged cuffs, looked back up at her pale-eyed Daddy.

"Humans are still the most dangerous animal we know of," she said softly, "and in the Confederate mind, Earth has tall guardians on shining gold stallions who keep it safe."

Marnie smiled, just a little, as her Daddy's ears reddened.

"We've had to have understandings with the only other civilization we know of. Space is big enough that they stay in their territory, we stay in ours, everybody's happy."

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

"Good."

"You have a significant tactical advantage."

"Oh?"

"One ancient shipload of cybernetic Berserkers attacked our colony. I'm told it was the last of the doomsday weapons the aliens deployed just before they raided Earth for mercenaries."

Veils dropped behind Marnie's eyes and her face went absolutely expressionless.

"Their powered exoskeleton suits were armored against energy weapons."

The Sheriff's expression hardened.

He knew these Berserkers were what killed his grandchildren, and part of him still wanted to personally hunt them down.

"They are not proof against ..."

Linn's eyes dropped to the engraved Smith belted snugly around Marnie's slender waist.

Marnie's smile was wolflike, her eyes were pale and without any trace of warmth.

"I give you the gift of safety," she whispered, "and the gift of knowledge: they have no defense against the weapons you command!"

 

 

Edited March 11 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SHARP AS AN ADDER'S TOOTH

The Sheriff was a pale eyed man with an iron grey mustache, a short temper and a simmering sense of humor that tended to surface when lesser men would resort to a punch or a profanity.

The Sheriff was a man with fast reflexes and had sent more souls sent to the Eternal than most communicable diseases.

The Sheriff was a man who believed firmly that violence begets violence, and when another man begat him violence, he begat right back, faster, harder and more thoroughly, until the begetter sincerely regretted begetting.

As a result, the entire male population of Firelands County and territories beyond, knew the utter folly, the absolute stupidity, of laying a hand on this quiet voiced lawman.

When he was grabbed without warning by a local woman and dragged away from the Silver Jewel's mahogany bar and down the hallway out of sight, it was a remarkable moment -- had a man done this, the Sheriff would doubtlessly have continued progress in that general direction, but the miscreant would have preceded him outside, by virtue of being thrown through the back door, without benefit of opening the portal first.

This did not stop a woman from invading, from violating, this particular lawman's personal space.

Daisy Finnegan, the red-headed, green-eyed, sharp-tongued wife of that broad-shouldered, good-natured, knuckle-scarred Fire Chief, seized the Sheriff by his necktie and towed him away from the bar and down the hall toward her kitchen, her heels loud on the clean-swept boards.

Daisy shoved the Sheriff hard against the wall, planted her knuckles on her belt and glared at the lawman.

Linn blinked, reached up as if to smooth down his insulted necktie.

Daisy swatted his hands aside, muttered something in Gaelic, frowned as she rearranged carefully-knotted silk, straightened his collar and smoothed down his coat lapels.

"There," she snapped, then shoved a finger at his chin, her eyes spitting green fire.

"Ye've caused me a problem!" she declared, scowling.

Linn looked down at the bristling Banty hen of an Irishwoman, considered her for a few moments, then replied mildly, "What did I do this time, darlin'?"

Daisy's finger snapped up again, shook itself viciously at his Adam's apple.

"Don't you darlin' me, you long tall womanizin' rake!"

"Would you rather I called you apple pie?"

"And that's another thing!" she shouted. "Ye're lookin a' me wi' those damned innocent eyes!"

"But darlin'," the Sheriff blinked, "I am innocent!"

Daisy shook her fist threateningly at his collar bone as she hissed, "Ye look s' damned innocent ye've got t' be guilty o' somethin'!"

"I spoil my wife," Linn said softly, "and I just bought Angela a new saddle --"

Daisy threw her hands in the air, half-turned, turned back.

"Now there ye go! Ye ha'e no idea wha' ye've done!"

Linn gave Daisy a patient look, knowing their voices were conducted efficiently down the hall and to ears that were elaborately pretending not to be listening: men were hiding grins behind beer mugs, mustaches were stroked to hide their expressions behind work-callused hands.

"There's a woman who's ashamed t' speak t' ye!"

"Oh?"

" 'Oh?' " Daisy snapped. "Is that a' ye ha'e t' say?  She's ashamed t' show her face i' thi' daylight an' all ye can say is 'Oh?' "

Linn spread his hands helplessly.

"Darlin'," he said, shaking his head, "I don't read minds and I don't have a crystal ball. You'll have to fill me in."

Daisy hauled off and punched the Sheriff, hard: she glared up at the man and spat, "Damn ye f'r bein' s' damned honorable!"

"Now you've got me just all kind of confused," Linn said in a gentle voice.

Another woman emerged from Daisy's kitchen.

Linn recognized her.

He removed his Stetson.

"Mrs. McGillicuddy."

 

Sheriff Linn Keller knocked.

His stallion grazed behind him, indifferent to anything but tender spring grass and the feel of sun, warm on his shining gold hide.

A woman answered, regarded the Sheriff suspiciously.

Linn held up what looked like a stack of trays, with two cloth-wrapped bundles on top.

"Welcome," he said.

"You're expectin' me to pay for that?" the woman said sharply. "I know your kind! You'll try and get my confidence and you'll --"

Linn shoved the stack against her middle, his eyes changing.

She took it, surprised: he turned, walked wordlessly back to his stallion.

She almost threw the delivery after him, then she caught the welcome scent of coffee -- fresh, fragrant -- she looked down, lowered her head, sniffed.

She looked up, at the rider's retreating shoulders.

Young eyes regarded her solemnly as she carried the unexpected delivery to the nearby table, set it down.

She picked up one bundle, lifted it to her nose, took a long, savoring smell.

Coffee, she thought.

She set this one aside, picked up the other, flatter, lighter bundle.

She pulled the string, set it aside -- it was good string, she'd have use for it -- unfolded the cloth.

Her eyes widened as her fingers sorted through this unexpected wealth.

A half dozen spools of good silk thread.

Two papers of pins, a paper of sewing needles, a needle holder, and a note.

She set this aside.

Beneath, a flat box, and in the box, a handful of pencils, four lumps of chalk, and under this box, like a tray, three framed slates.

She looked at her three children, at three sets of solemn, watchful eyes.

She stacked the slates, placed the chalk atop them, unfolded the note.

Welcome.

We're glad you're here.

No signature, just ...

Welcome.

She read the word, she heard the man's voice as he'd handed her this stack.

His voice was gentle, warm.

Welcome.

She remembered how she'd rewarded his kindness with harshness.

She closed her eyes, her cheeks burning with shame.

There was only one soul in town she knew, and somehow she knew this one soul would know who did her this kindness, and maybe -- just maybe -- she could make this right.

The Widow McGillicuddy spun her shawl about her shoulders, spoke quietly to her children: she handed each one a slate and a lump of chalk and told them to get their wraps, she was walking them to school.

 

"You've reason to be mistrustful," Linn continued as the woman's face positively flamed, as her eyes fell, as she drew the shawl tighter around her shoulders.

The Widow McGillicuddy opened her mouth, tried to say something: the Sheriff fancied the woman wished the floor would open up and swallow her.

The Sheriff winked at Daisy, turned, pushed open the back door, his Stetson settling on his scalp as he crossed the threshold: sunlight, bright and blinding, seared against wood-paneled walls, then it was surprisingly dark as the door shut again.

Daisy shook a fist at the closed portal: "An' ye've no' th' decency t' hear a puir woman out!" she shouted, leaning forward a little, her voice echoing back in her face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE WHITE BRIGADE

Sheriff Linn Keller's pasture was flooded with white.

Laughing young ladies in white winged caps, white uniform dresses and stockings, and white ...

... cowboy boots ...

I never knew they even MADE white cowboy boots! he thought, watching laughing young women with shining eyes and expressions of utter delight coo, murmur, stroke, admire, whisper -- and laugh -- 

Every last horse in his pasture, all of them -- the mares, his stallion, the half-dozen white fire horses, the colts -- had two, sometimes three pretty, apple-cheeked ladies in white, paying attention to them.

More drifted in from the far end of the pasture, until each lovely young lady had a horse she was doing her level best to turn into a pet.

Every last one of his horses was willing to give them about a week to stop that.

Linn had no idea how many worlds were represented here.

He remembered the first time she'd done this.

He hadn't the foggiest what his darlin' daughter was up to.

He did know he trusted her, he did know she'd been the spark plug behind getting "Equestrian Therapy" started, and he did know -- he felt his ears redden as he rolled this one over in his mind -- he did know he'd considered the whole idea hokum, until he saw the actual benefit, until his darlin' daughter explained that children have a natural affinity for horses, that horses were gentler around children (with exceptions, and he didn't have any exceptions in this pasture, that was the next pasture over) -- that children naturally fell into a horse's rhythm, they moved with the horse, this improved their balance and their coordination and strengthened their trunk muscles, and Linn looked down at the ground and felt half ashamed that he'd been skeptical in the first place.

Now, she had a whole crowd of nurses in his pasture, spoilin' his saddle stock, and at this stray thought, he smiled, quietly.

They were honestly doing en masse what he tried to do, one on one.

He didn't have saddles enough for all the ladies to ride, but knowing Angela, she'd have 'em ridin' ... he didn't have to worry, something that looked like a stainless-steel shoebox hummed out of an Iris, towing another shining-steel shoebox, and Angela went over to it and proceeded to refresh her (oh God how many are there!) nurses or students or whatever-the-hell-they-were, how to saddle a horse, by virtue of having everyone grab a saddle blanket and throw it on the horse like this, and she was like a butterfly in a field of flowers, skipping here to there to someplace else, her voice quiet -- Linn blinked as he realized all these beautiful young ladies were wearing an earpiece with a whisker mic -- he slipped his own into his ear and listened, smiling a little: Angela was talking to women, she was talking the way women will talk to one another, free of the constraints of addressing those logical, factual minds inside men's skulls.

He'd watched her do this before, and he reckoned she'd done this with these selfsame ladies-in-white, and he knew Angela liked to refresh important procedures.

Like saddling horses.

The Sheriff set a polished boot up on the bottom rail and watched as Angela's quick hands smoothed out a blanket here, gave another a twitch, caressed a velvety nose and a warm neck and pronounced this blanket well set, she spoke of wrinkles and saddle sores and then she led the flowing white crowd back to that low-floating shoebox.

"Saddles are heavy," she reminded, "and kind of awkward, but there's a trick to it.  Watch."

Angela threw the near stirrup over the saddlehorn, her gentle line of patter smiling in her Daddy's ear as she did: she described, she demonstrated, she turned and swung and the saddle rose and dropped very precisely on a gelding's back.

It took a while for the cautious, uncertain, apple-cheeked young ladies to get their mounts saddled: Angela was never in a hurry, but she was never still; she personally checked each girth, she made very certain each and every saddle was properly placed, well secured, and in spite of her swiftness, her efficiency, she never hesitated to caress each and every individual horse, as if that one equine was her absolute favorite in all the known worlds.

The Sheriff considered his lifetime of semi-pro girlwatching.

Was I still young and single, he considered, I'd likely make a damned fool of myself here!

Angela had the -- nurses?  Students? -- form a circle around her, the horses' noses to the center, toward where Angela and her saddled gelding stood, and she showed them how to mount, and dismount: her moves were easy, showing the result of many years of happy practice.

Linn knew every one of these ladies had done all this before, but he also knew Angela liked to be thorough, and he knew Angela had that peculiar gift of being able to go over familiar ground and seem neither insulting nor condescending.

Some of her novices blushed furiously as they brought their horses over to the mounting block very near where the Sheriff watched from outside the tall, whitewashed fence, and Linn allowed himself the momentary thought that perhaps they were blushing because they thought him a genuine stud ... right before he laughed, silent behind a poker face, and admonished himself.

Stud?

Hell, a hot woman and a cold glass of water and you'd die of a heart attack!

Linn turned, shaved several coarse curls from a plug of molasses cured tobacker, fed to his shining- black racer.

"Glue Hoof," he murmured, "you ready to have those kids at the hospital maul you ag'in?"

Glue Hoof sniffed at his middle, where he'd shoved the plug back into its foil package and into his vest pocket.

"You bum," Linn murmured.

Sheriff and mount walked together to the gate.

The latch clacked a sharp note as Linn's gloved hand slid it open.

Most of the Sheriff's riding stock filed out, all but the vigorous mounts in the back pasture: horses are herd animals, and his herd was used to this maneuver, though never all at once: they fell into a single line behind Angela on her Daddy's spotty stallion.

The Sheriff waited until the long string was passed, then he swung the gate to, shot the latch and mounted up.

"Tail End Charlie, bringin' up the rear," he sang quietly, a snatch of an obscene marching song that was one of the few things he really remembered about his Uncle Pete.

A school bus was waiting in the hospital's back parking lot, students and patients were coming out into the springtime sunshine, knowing the horses would soon arrive.

The Sheriff grinned.

He scheduled one day a week to participate in this, and with the sun warm on his back and the sight of a string of horses -- and their lovely mounts -- ahead of him, why, he had a grin on his face broad as  Kenworth's front bumper.

"Dispatch, this is Six," he called.

"Six, Dispatch, go."

"The White Brigade is on the move."

 

 

Edited March 13 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE LINCOLN METHOD

Michael Keller dismounted carefully.

Michael Keller was still in grade school, but not for much longer: until he passed the specialized exams that attested to his superior performance, until he was officially graduated far earlier than the school board wanted to allow, he was still a student, and he was still doing his fifth-grade lessons the same as the other students.

He was also curious, well-read, and he was his father's son.

Michael Keller read where Old Railsplitter himself used to do his lessons on the back of a shovel, with a charred stick, as books were rare, and paper even moreso, and for this reason, Michael Keller brought in a flat bottom shovel one fine morning.

The class ran, skipped, walked, dawdled, laughed, chattered, whistled and otherwise brought a wonderful confusion into what had been a still and empty classroom a moment before: the teacher gave Michael a curious look, planted her knuckles on her waist and asked, "Michael, whatever have you there?"

Michael Keller was his father's son.

Michael Keller blinked and gave his teacher his very best Innocent Expression.

Unlike his pale-eyed father, Michael could actually pull that one off.

"Mrs. Hern," he said, shining eyes wide and sincere, "I read in Lincoln's biography where he did his lessons on the back of a shovel by the light of his family's fireplace. I thought if it's good enough for Old Railsplitter, it's good enough for me!"

His little-boy grin was bright and contagious:  Fern Hern (she could still kick her parents for naming her that) waved the class down into their seats: like any good teacher, she saw an opportunity for a classroom-wide lesson.

"And how did that work out for you, Michael?" she asked.

"Not very well," he admitted, turning the shovel over and showing her the backside. "I had to scour it clean with sand before I started, and we don't have a fireplace so I used a charcoal briquette. I did it out on the front porch so Mama wouldn't bless me for gettin' dirt in the house" -- he looked ruefully at his hands -- "and it was hard to scrub all the charcoal off. I should've worn gloves but Lincoln didn't so I didn't either."

"I see."

"Then I thought, what if I make a mistake, so I tried rubbing out what I'd written and that made a big smeary mess and I had to scrub that part with sand again to get it clean and that's kind of hard on the fingers, so I allowed as I'd not make any mistakes, but then I thought what if everyone in class did their lessons on a shovel and came to school with dirty hands and stacked their shovels here under the blackboard -- you'd have a whole row of dirty old shovels and they'd drop dirt on the floor and make more work for the janitor, and he works hard enough the way it is, so I just gave it up for a bad job!"

Michael's rapid patter, his long and run-on sentence pronounced in a little boy's innocent voice, his sincere expression and animated gestures (just like his pale eyed Pa, couldn't talk without his hands!) all conspired to bring a smile to the teacher's grandmotherly face.

"I see," she murmured. "And what have we learned from this?"

Mrs. Hern looked over the class. "Anyone?"

A hand went up:  "Yes, Barbara."

Barbara brought her hand down, stood.

"Use chalk instead of charcoal," she said brightly.

"Lincoln didn't have chalk," Michael said almost sadly.

"Use a board?" a voice rose from the back row.

Several more hands, several more suggestions: Mrs. Hern raised her palms and smiled gently, nodding a little, then turned to her student, still holding the flat bottom coal shovel.

"Michael," she said, "what can you tell us about the shovel itself?"

Michael grinned, hefted the flat bottom coal slinger.

"Pa said Uncle Pete worked for the Z&W Railroad back when, and when he left, this shovel came with him. It still has the Z&W stamp, just the letters. Pa said the railroad's mark is a rose and he said that's kind of hard to just stamp and a shovel is not worth engravin'."

"It doesn't look too dirty," Mrs. Hern said hesitantly.

"No ma'am. I knocked all the loose off but I left my homework so you could read it, only I figured you didn't want to handle a dirty old coal shovel so I did it the usual way on paper."

Michael parked the shovel in front, against the chalkboard. 

"Might I take my seat now, ma'am?"

"Yes, Michael, thank you."

Mrs. Hern looked over the class and smiled.

It wasn't how she'd planned to start the school day, but she reasoned that Michael might be right.

If it's good enough for Old Railsplitter, it's good enough for him!

Edited March 14 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SWORDS ARE EASIER

Ambassador Marnie Keller hugged her surprised-but-delighted Mama with all the ferocity of a daughter who was beyond words.

Ambassador Marnie Keller felt animal warmth behind her and turned quickly, seized her Daddy in the same crushing embrace.

Ambassador Marnie Keller did not know which felt better, the maternal arms of her mother, or the strong and protective arms of her pale-eyed Daddy.

Linn looked over his daughter's head, lifted his chin just a little, and Shelly moved in, pressed herself against Marnie's back: they both felt Marnie's stress running off her like water from a soaky-wet- saturated blanket, felt her tremors as she was finally able to give up whatever had her wound up like the proverbial eight day clock.

Sheriff Linn Keller was, by his own unashamed admission, a Certified Old Softy.

More times than one, he'd confided to the few he truly trusted, that his daughters each had him wound around her cute little finger so tight he had a standing appointment with that Chiropractic Bone Cracker, to get his back bone un-knotted on at least a weekly basis!

When Marnie turned and seized him like she was drowning and he was a float, he followed the advice he'd given young men whose wife birthed them a little girl-child: wife or daughter, if she's upset, hold her as long as she wants held, however long that might be.

In this case, he held both his wife and his daughter: he had no idea a'tall what Marnie had been into, but he knew she was his little girl -- for all that she was a grown woman, a wife and a mother and an Ambassador as well, she was still his child.

No matter how old a man becomes, his daughter will always be Daddy's Little Girl.

And on some level, no matter how old or how mature a woman becomes, she will always be Daddy's Little Girl, even if she is hidden deep within, unseen and carefully hidden.

Marnie took a long breath, smelling her Daddy, strong and manly, smelling her Mama's shampoo, smelled beans simmering on the stove, smelled the kitchen, just the way she remembered it smelling when she was a little girl in pigtail and red cowboy boots.

Shelly murmured, "Oh, the beans!" -- she slacked her arms, pulled a little: Linn loosed his own long-armed envelopment, he smiled down at Marnie -- she looked up into his eyes, that light blue she saw when he was being Daddy, and not Sheriff.

Shelly picked up a flat steel spatula and stirred the beans carefully, the bit edge of the spatula hard against the bottom of the pot, making sure nothing was sticking: several careful, turning passes, to make sure she covered every square centimeter of the bottom surface, before she brought it out, tapped off the excess.

Marnie patted her Daddy's uniform shirt front and whispered, "Thank you, Daddy," then she turned and helped her Mama set out bowls and plates and heavy ceramic coffee mugs.

It wasn't until after Victoria and Michael arrived -- Victoria scowling, looking like Storm Cloud Number Nine, not until after Michael came in with an air of satisfaction and almost-familiar blossoms as he stepped through the Iris.

Marnie automatically went to her little sister, steered her into her Daddy's study where they could talk: Linn pretended not to listen as Victoria spoke angrily of short-sighted misogynistic half-baked myopic wire-rimmed sandal-wearing academic incompetents, and he and Shelly looked at one another and bit their bottom lips to keep from laughing as Marnie said sympathetically, "Don't mince words, Victoria, tell me how  you really feel!"

Victoria seized Marnie's arm, turned her away from the kitchen, leaned into her and spoke quietly, urgently: Marnie listened, nodded; they held their hushed conference, then turned and came back into the kitchen.

"Victoria," Linn said quietly after their initial assault on their well filled plates, "you looked like you could bite the horn off an anvil."

Victoria gave her Daddy an uncertain look.

"Darlin', I have a shotgun, a backhoe and forty acres," Linn continued in a gentle voice.

Victoria's bottom jaw slid aggressively forward and she looked at her Mama, then at Marnie.

"Victoria and I have a meeting with a certain University Administration," Marnie replied for her.

Linn looked at Marnie and then at Victoria.

"My offer stands," he said, suddenly serious. "What happened?"

Victoria swallowed, lifted her chin, obviously trying to look Very Grown Up -- Linn considered she was coming into that delicate part of her life someone once described as being "Between the Ages of Thirteen," and he considered several possibilities, then shoved them all aside, preferring to hear his daughter out.

"Daddy, I ... all I want to do is get an education."

Linn nodded, slowly, once, his face solemn.

"The professors asked me if ... I was told children are not allowed in University classes, that I was obviously someone's little sister and I had to leave."

"Did you?"

She gave him a hard look -- startling, from a young lady of so few years, and such natural beauty.

"I will have a conversation with them," Marnie said quietly, "and I will remind them just how much funding Victoria gifted to their University, prior to enrolling. If that doesn't work" -- Marnie's eyes hardened -- "I will challenge whoever I must, to a duel of honor. Somehow those elitists tend to pull in their horns when they're faced with sharpened steel."

Linn nodded, frowned a little.

"Marnie, what about you? What happened, darlin'?"

Marnie took a long breath, sighed it out.

"I spent a week" -- her voice was quiet as she stared a hole through the sugarbowl -- "an entire, bloody, week! -- convincing a world that their metals refining was ... that we'd be happy to take care of all their waste of all kinds.

"It took the full week! -- I showed them videos, slides, 3D holographic projections, I showed them ... Daddy, we can take care of all their stack gas, all their slag, for free, no strings -- I finally got them persuaded ..."

She leaned back, rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, groaned tiredly.

"Honestly, swords are easier."

Linn's gaze shifted to Michael, who was busy practicing invisibility, or trying to.

"Michael?"

Michael swallowed.

"I sold another two dozen pianos, sir, and I hired piano players to go with them."

He looked across the table at his sisters and admitted, "I didn't have it anywhere near as bad as they did!"

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A CHILD'S LAUGH

Littlejohn stood on the depot platform, eyes wide and wondering as The Lady Esther coasted into station, her stack clean, steam wisping white from the pop-off valve, from the classic diamond stack.

The Lady Esther commanded attention as she came in, powerful, breathing easily, hissing with contained power, radiating an animal warmth from her boiler as she passed, as she eased ahead, as she stopped with the passenger cars perfectly placed for disembark, with the boxcar in position to have the heavy bridge dropped into position to roll a heavy cargo onto the depot platform.

Littlejohn was not gazing in awe at the engine -- he would, of course, for he'd stared, fascinated, by the steam powered underground locomotives that ran under the Martian surface, connecting the widely separated Colonies -- no, Littlejohn stared at something bigger, more powerful, more majestic than this living creature of cast iron and brightwork.

Littlejohn stared at the mountains beyond.

Ever since his first trip to his Gampaw's ranch, Littlejohn had shown an affinity for the high country, for holographic reproductions of what his pale eyed Mama called "Back Home."

Littlejohn felt a sense of awe, of wonder, of distance -- something so very lacking with the underground colonies of his homeworld.

Anyone watching would think him a child entranced by the Baldwin locomotive, and they may be forgiven for this assumption: The Lady Esther was honestly beautiful -- not only was she brightly painted, hand polished, buffed up and bright, she was also built to be pleasing to the eye: few things in the railroad world match the classic profile of the early Diamond Stackers of the American West.

Littlejohn was, of course, a child, and like most children, his attention span was often measured in negative numbers:  he happily jumped off the end of the Depot platform, landing flat footed, laughing: after the train was pulled out and gone, chuffing importantly up the tracks, he hunted over the coarse gravel ballast until he found the telltale grey that meant flint, and he spent delightful moments striking these sharp-edged treasures at a long angle against the rail, throwing sparks and laughing.

Littlejohn tossed the rock back onto the roadbed, turned, ran on sturdy young legs and breathing easy.

His Mama kept their quarters at 1.25E -- one-and-a-quarter Earth-gravities, which meant that here on Earth, Littlejohn had no trouble running and exerting himself -- the Colonies also operated at the reduced atmosphere as Firelands: the colonists' bodies acclimatized accordingly, which was thought to improve their survivability in the event of partial depressurization.

Here, though, it meant that the laughing little boy chasing around the Depot was not inconvenienced in the slightest by Earth gravity, nor by the high altitude.

Littlejohn squealed with delight as his Gampaw grabbed him under the arms and swung him high in the air, as he swung back down and up again, as a little boy laughed in the sun and an older man with an iron-grey mustache laughed with him.

Elsewhere, behind a locked office door, father and son embraced: the Doctors John Greenlees sat and caught up -- a viewscreen is fine, but when the son visits the father, there is much good talk, and talk they did, at least until the increasing sound of a giggling little boy penetrated the locked door.

Dr. John Greenlees the Elder opened the door to find a grinning Sheriff holding a red-faced, laughing little boy by the ankle.

The Sheriff came in, the door was closed: a laughing little boy was flipped around, raised up until his unruly hair just touched the acoustic tile overhead, then dropped down, fast, and stopped just before his feet touched the carpet.

Sheriff Linn Keller grinned at a father and another grandfather and said quietly, "Nothing brings out the damned fool in a grown man like a little child!"

Edited March 15 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NIGHTTIME ON THE MOUNTAIN

Joseph Keller sat beside his long tall Pa.

Joseph's pale young eyes were busy, studying the distance.

Joseph's eyes tightened a little at the corners, they way they did when he was pleased.

Joseph's pink-scrubbed hand, dangled down at his side, was being happily laundered and taste-tested by a curious coyote pup.

Jacob Keller had not the strong dislike of heights of his own father, and he determined to instill this same lack of fear in his own son, for he saw it as an impediment.

Jacob would program the exercise deck on Mars with narrow ledges on a sheer cliff-face: he fabricated the High Lonesome, where father and son sat now, so when Jacob and young Joseph rode up to the Firelands Museum and stabled their horses in the restored, functional and working stone stable adjacent, both climbed the hidden, twisting, narrow path that (for some odd reason) nobody outside the family ever seemed to really see, not on maps, not in person.

They sat on what might have been a stone bench carved from native granite by a giant's hammer-and-chisel: they each brought a foam seat cushion, for both padding and insulation; Jacob wasn't sure which discomfited his bony backside faster -- the hard surface, or sucking the heat out of his hip pockets.

High Lonesome had a narrow cave, one that opened as you got deeper: Jacob brought The Bear Killer here, on his fourteenth birthday, brought his old and dear friend's carcass: it was a task, bringing that much dead weight up that narrow path, but he did it: The Bear Killer's bones were back in the deepest recess, wrapped in a favorite blanket.

Jacob interred The Bear Killer with sorrow and with grief and with the gift of unashamed tears, soaked into the blanket, there in the still and the dark: Jacob emerged, Jacob stood, Jacob raised fisted arms and took a breath clear down to his boot tops and Jacob screamed, once, long, powerful, blasting every bit of sorrow and of loss and of misery into that one, long, sustained, shivering cry, and then he went to his knees and sobbed, his face to the cold rock.

A pale eyed man heard that one long scream, and he too leaked water from his eyes, for he'd done the same, in his time, and for the same reason.

Now the son of that pale eyed man, and his own son, sat on a shelf where generations before them had come, to be alone, to sort things out in their mind, to consider and to think, away from distraction and away from interruption.

The cave was a den -- this year, a Mama Coyote had her pups in the defensible safety of its depths, and while she skulked and bristled and growled, nose and eyes barely visible, one of her cubs -- curious, as are all young -- came out and partook of meat Joseph stripped from his sandwich.

He'd tossed chunks toward the suspicious mother, who glared and stared and finally nibbled mistrustfully at the offering.

Her cub had no such misgivings.

Joseph's fingers tasted like beef, and Joseph's eyes smiled as the cub scrubbed flavor from his fingers, and his Pa laid his own sandwich on Joseph's lap, and so cub and Mama 'Yote both ate more.

Jacob came here, time and again, just to relax in a familiar place: he routinely solicited the wise counsel of his beautiful bride, of his brother in law, of others there in the Colony whose wisdom was proven: he'd climbed Firelands Mountain, looking for a good place to sit and think, and the only time he found a good place to park the backside of his atmosphere suit, early in his term as Sheriff, he'd nearly been run over by two screaming kids on a plastic sled, tobogganing down-slope of the ancient, extinct volcano in one of the Colony's favorite daredevil sports.

No, there was something about home ... something about the Shining Mountains where he'd grown up.

Jacob knew there were more cubs inside, and he knew the mother was watchful.

Jacob was called into a conference on Planet Texas, where a formal, diplomatic request was made to introduce buffalo, prairie grasses, and coyotes: apparently the idea of Yodel Dogs serenading two moons was well ingrained in the popular imagination.

Jacob would need more than one Mama 'Yote and three cubs to establish a healthy breeding population, but he also knew what happened when rabbits and cactus were introduced to Australia, what happened when Asian carp escaped their impoundments.

Jacob made specific mention of several instances of such meddling.

As much as he enjoyed hearing canid serenades, he counseled against introducing a non-native species.

Here, tonight, father and son sat together, relaxed, looking into the distance, while snarling Mama 'Yote snapped at her returning cub, glared mistrustfully at Joseph, and retreated into the den after her adventurous young.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WILD IMAGINATION

Victoria walked with all the prim propriety of a well-dressed little girl who knew she was well dressed, who knew she was girly and pretty, and was indulging herself in the self-centered feeling of being a pretty girl.

She looked around with a pleasant smile and bright eyes, as if expecting all the males, old and young alike, to prostrate themselves before her natural beauty.

That lasted about two and one-half seconds.

Ten minutes later, Victoria Keller stomped into the Mars infirmary, a sour look on her face, her bloodied glove to the back of her head, a wadded-up kerchief against a bloody and rather painful wound that she knew was entirely her own fault.

Investigation was swift and discreet, remedial measures were taken, the wound was decontaminated, closed, dermal regenerators used to resect the wound from its depths, outward: even the tickling touch of a tool Victoria saw used before, something with a long and fancy name, would guarantee not only would there be no scar, but that her hair would grow naturally over the injury, until no trace remained.

It would take sensitive equipment indeed to divine the skidding damage to her skull from something sharp, something driven with intent to kill.

When Marnie came back into the infirmary, she thrust into the dressing area: Victoria held her dress by its collar, examining the back of the collar for something: she looked at Marnie with innocent eyes and announced, "The blood came out."

Marnie stopped, tilted her head, regarded her youngest sister with a maternal eye.

Was Victoria her daughter, she might've inherited a backhand across the cheek: Victoria knew this, and stiffened a little, her jaw and her eyes hardening rebelliously.

Marnie closed her eyes, took a long breath, then opened her eyes and sat, gracefully, as elegant in a pleated cheerleader skirt and red cowboy boots, as if she were wearing her trademark McKenna gown.

"Victoria," she said softly, "we need to talk."

 

Victoria Keller lifted her chin haughtily.

She did not skip like a little girl, she did not strut like she used to as a child; no, she flowed with the grace of a truly beautiful child of transition, moving smoothly from girlhood to womanhood, feeling as if it was her rightful place in Creation to be the one most beautiful female in existence, and letting the world and all its inhabitants know by her walk, her carriage, her appearance, that she expected everyone and everything to make Royal Obeisance to her accordingly!

This lasted until she came to the end of the railcar, where a man of her acquaintance was bent over, quietly profaning a greasy automatic coupler, setting a flat-end punch against a recalcitrant pin and driving it with a single Jack.

Victoria's peripheral caught movement.

Something swift, black, manlike leaped over the railing of the passenger car, something gunlike in hand: a streamlined, black-sheathed arm took the railroader around the neck, Victoria heard the whining scream of a hand drill, and the attacker made as if to ram the drill bit through the back of the railroader's skull, in that assassin's spot where the spine rises to meet the foramen magnum.

Victoria's soul lit up.

She did not remember drawing her revolving-pistol from its hidden pocket.

She remembered seeing the serrated ramp, bright and orange, drop like a rock with a solid unmoving THUMP! into the rear notch and she wondered momentarily Who in the hell just fired my gun? and the black Ninja dropped drill, railroader's neck and all bodily control.

Victoria tried to whirl as she sensed an attacker behind her -- she wasted a tenth of a second witih a silent profanity, directed at herself -- even white teeth bit hard into the forearm that tried to take her around the neck, something sharp grated against her skull and only after hearing that nails-on-the-chalkboard sound of an icepick scraping against bone did she feel the pain of its tearing through the skin at the back of her head.

She brought her pistol down, drove a round through her attacker's knee, seized a finger, tore it back until it touched the attacker's wrist: she whirled, fired twice into the second attacker's head, she turned, snarling, a second revolver appearing in her free hand.

Victoria crouched a little, no longer full of immature vanity and juvenile pride.

Now she was what she felt like she really was.

Something inside her sang for joy, a terrible dark destructive seductive JOY, that she was capable of VIOLENCE, that she could bring JUDGEMENT! --

Victoria turned, straightened, looked around again: a sophisticated enemy that knew her, might wait for her to complete her initial threat scan, might wait for her to straighten and take that long, cleansing breath, might wait for this dropping of her guard.

She waited, alert, almost vibrating, an injured animal, ready to attack.

Something trickled down the back of her neck.

Victoria holstered her left hand revolver, opened the cylinder of her right-hand, airweight Chief's Special, smacked the empties out, twisted full-wadcutter rounds from the rubbery loading strip, into the empty chambers.

She holstered her right-hand revolver.

"Save and end," she said, and the underground training chamber returned to its usual empty, stone walled appearance.

 

Marnie waited until Victoria was dressed, until she'd brushed her hair and replaced her fashionable springtime hat and pinned it in place.

"Victoria," Marnie said quietly, "that was an ... interesting ... training scenario."

Victoria waited, suspicion in her eyes and stillness in her posture.

"How did you come up with ... Ninja assassins ... on a Colorado railroad?"

"You've looked at the file."

Marnie nodded.

"That's just one scenario."

"So I saw."

"I'm not ..."

Marnie frowned, not wanting to sound like a scolding mother.

"Victoria, I'm ... concerned."

Victoria raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?" she said quietly, and Marnie wasn't sure if her little sister reminded her of her long tall Daddy, with that raised eyebrow, or if that single skeptical syllable reminded her more of her Mama in a moment of maternal displeasure.

"You turned off the safeties."

Victoria shrugged. "I wanted it realistic."

"Victoria ... with the safeties off, you could have been killed."

Victoria's eyes were unblinking as her hand started to raise, as if to touch the recent injury to the back of her skull.

"I know."

"If that icepick bit instead of skidded, you'd be ... damaged."

"I know," Victoria said with a dismissive wave of her daintily-gloved hand, then she planted rebellious knuckles on her slender, girlish waist and gave Marnie a challenging look.

"What about everything I did right?"

Marnie hesitated.

"Second attacker," Victoria pressed. I was behind the curve and I still came out on top. Good reactions. Threat scan afterward, ready through a moment when my guard would normally be down."

Marnie nodded, almost reluctantly. "There ... is, that," she admitted.

"You told me ... no, not you.  Hans."

"Hans?"  Marnie frowned, turned her head a little as if to bring a good ear to bear: now it was the younger sibling who saw a Daddy-habit in her older sister.

"Hans. He was teaching the Valkyries. He said the Japanese air force in the Second War trained with pain, if they screwed up they got the bamboo across the backside, and he said pain is a very powerful persuader. Daddy said the same thing after his kidney stones and after he fell off a horse and hit a rock."

Victoria indulged her hand its exploratory rise, her fingers their exploration of where something sharp tore her scalp open and scraped a gouge in her skull.

"Not to mention the sound," she whispered, then she blinked and gave her sis a patient look.

"Lesson learned. Between sound and pain, I'm not likely to repeat that mistake!"

"Does that mean," Marnie said, trying to sound gentle, trying to sound persuasive, "that you'll stop turning off the safeties?"

Victoria's pale eyed glare was answer enough.

 

A father often does not realize the influence he has on his child.

A father, too often, has absolutely no concept of how deeply a careless word can wound, nor how well a positive comment can influence for the good.

When a long, tall, pale eyed father picked up his pretty young daughter and stood her on a bale of hay so she was closer to eye level with him, she knew this was because he was trying to show without words, that he didn't want to talk down to her like she was a little girl.

She knew when his bent forefinger caressed the softness of her healthy-pink cheek, with his other hand lightly gripping the outside of her other arm, he was reflecting on her beauty and how much she really meant to him, and Victoria -- young though she was -- knew that in this moment, her father -- this hard man who'd stared down large and angry people bearing a variety of weapons -- this callus-handed man who'd tamed horses, who'd thrown men through a window or into a horse trough, this man who'd picked up and packed off weights (when necessary) that would make a normal man cringe -- that her Daddy, in this moment, was open, and vulnerable, and her best bet was to give him her very best Innocent Look, in hopes of heading off any fatherly lecture on not inheriting Ninja icepicks in the back of the skull.

"Darlin'," Linn said quietly, his normally pale eyes a light but distinct blue, "I have a confession to make."

Victoria did not expect this -- in a way, she did, something like this, but not ... not sustained vulnerability, not a confession! -- her eyes widened a little more --

"You," he said softly, "are my youngest daughter."

She nodded, hesitantly, realizing that he was showing her his heart, knowing he could be very easily bruised, knowing she had to tread very carefully indeed!

"No matter how old a daughter gets," Linn said with an uncharacteristic gentleness, "no matter ... a girl, a young lady, a woman, a wife, a mother, a matron ... it doesn't matter ..."

Linn's hands were on her shoulders now, light, warm, strong, reassuring ...

A Daddy's hands, she thought.

Not a father's hands.

A Daddy's hands!

Linn swallowed as if he were suddenly nervous, and Victoria realized she was seeing what her Daddy must've looked like when he and her Mama first met, and he was suddenly uncertain, adrift in an uncharted sea.

"Darlin', it won't matter how old you get, nor how old I become," he said firmly, his hands tightening only slightly, to emphasize his words: you will always, always! -- be Daddy's Little Girl!"

Victoria laughed uncertainly as her Daddy hugged her quickly, almost desperately, and she realized he was realizing she was coming into maturity, that she was leaving girlhood and entering womanhood, and he didn't want to let his Little Girl go.

"I wanted to put you on a high shelf," he whispered as he held her, "and drop a glass bell jar over you, and keep you young and beautiful and pure and undamaged forever."

He released his embrace, leaned back a little, took her soft young hands in his big callused, scar-traced ones.

"That is neither practical nor is it possible, darlin'."

He bit his lip and frowned a little, as if he was suddenly uncertain, then he looked at her and said quietly, "Don't ever forget that, darlin'.  You will always be Daddy's Little Girl."

Victoria felt her eyes stinging and she squeaked, "Oh, Daddy," and threw herself into him, held him with all the desperation of a scared little girl, and her Daddy ran an arm under her backside and around her back and picked her up, and held her, and in the quiet of a Colorado barn, a father and daughter shared a moment that neither of them forgot, for the rest of their lives.

Marnie watched, hidden, shadowed, one hand on a black Bear Killer's shoulder.

She'd followed Victoria, she'd listened, she'd watched, she'd waited for their pale eyed Daddy to admonish Victoria for her foolish choice, she'd waited for his fatherly admonition about how unwise it was to disable the safeties in the simulator.

She'd expected him to --

-- to what?

Scold her?

Turn her over his knee and spank her?

Marnie blinked, swallowed, they she keyed an Iris and stepped back, and The Bear Killer backed into the portal with her.

 

Marnie sat with her sleeping child leaned against her.

She'd been reading to him, after supper, and like his father, Littlejohn got his belly full, he got warm and relaxed, and he'd fallen asleep.

Marnie closed her book, smiled a little, her arm around their little boy.

She remembered how her Daddy told her much the same thing, about how she would always, always! be Daddy's Little Girl, and she was never to forget that, and she remembered the times when -- even after she was a grown woman -- there were times when she needed her Daddy's arms and her Daddy's voice and at times, her Daddy's help, and how he'd never, ever! failed to give them.

Marnie stroked her son's fine hair, remembering how her Daddy offered not one single word of remonstration to her unreasonable little sister, and she smiled.

Somehow her Daddy did a better job of advising caution, by standing her sister up on a bale of hay, than Marnie could possibly have managed with an hour's womanly scolding.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

JOHN HOLLISTER, IS THAT YOU?

Jacob Keller caught the punch coming in.

Literally.

He turned and caught the flying knuckles with the palm of his hand -- he seized the fist with a work-hardened hand, turned, grabbed the attacker in a fast and unexpected bear hug, hauled him off the ground -- Jacob was young, fast, lean, rangy, a hell of a lot stronger than his he appeared to his attacker --

Jacob's grin was broad and genuine, he slacked his crushing embrace, pounded the man's shoulder, yelling happily, "JOHN HOLLISTER IS THAT YOU! YOU DOG, HOW IN THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!" -- he turned, thrust two fingers into his flannel shirt pocket, slapped his palm hard onto the stained, damp-ringed bar -- "BARKEEP! THIS MAN'S MONEY IS NO GOOD HERE!  GIVE HIM WHAT HE'S HAVIN'!"

Jacob turned, delight in his eyes and deceit in his heart -- "DAMMIT JOHN I THOUGHT I LOST YOU THERE! REMEMBER THAT BANK JOB UP IN WISCONSIN? YOU DOG, YOU TOOK THAT CUTE LITTLE TELLER AND KEPT HER FOR A WEEK! HUH?  HUH?  YOU DOG!" -- Jacob grabbed his own drink (Co'Cola, straight) -- took a hasty gulp.

The two sat -- the stranger cautiously, a little puzzled, but as he watched the barkeep swipe up two Jacksons and replace them with a fresh beer, he realized maybe a short-tempered punch just bought him a night's drinking.

He had enough of a load on that the reference to a bank job didn't sink in until he took a long pull on his refilled Brown Pop.

He frowned, puzzled, looked at Jacob and said "What bank?"

Jacob's grin was bright, delighted, his voice loud: "YOU REMEMBER! WE BEEN ROBBIN' BANKS ACROSS THE STATE AND THAT'S THE LAST JOB WE PULLED OFF BEFORE WE MOVED INTO MINNESOTA! BY GOD NOW THOSE WERE THE GOOD OLD DAYS!"

A confused hand made a patting motion:  "Not so loud," he protested, looking around uncomfortably.

"WUZZAT? CAN'T HARDLY HEAR NO MORE, JOHN! THAT LAST JOB WE PULLED -- MINNESOTA, Y'REMEMBER? THE SAFE BLEW BEFORE I COULD GET AWAY FROM IT! BEEN DAMN NEAR DEAF EVER SINCE!"

Jacob grabbed the man's shoulder, shook it happily:  "DAMMIT JOHN, IT'S GOOD TO SEE YOU! LIKE OLD TIMES, HEY?  HEY?"

Jacob waved at the barkeep, slapped another twenty on the bartop: "GIVE M'FRIEND HERE SOMETHIN' GOOD! TOP SHELF!"

Jacob turned back, watched as three brain cells fired at the same time and the man he'd kept from slugging him, decided something was rotten in the wood pile, and got up to leave.

He didn't get far.

Two undercovers grabbed the man, got him in irons and frogmarched him out the door while another came over and sat cautiously on the recently vacated barstool.

Jacob folded the twenty he'd never released, handed it to the undercover officer, who was shaking his head.

"That," he admitted frankly, "was not what I expected!"

Jacob shrugged. "It worked back home. Figured it would work out here."

"Colorado?"

Jacob nodded, handed the man his ID wallet.

The undercover opened it, smiled quietly, nodded, handed it back.

"Any relation to Willamina?"

Jacob grinned -- sudden, bright, the grin of someone with a very happy recollection.

"My grandmother."

The man thrust a hand at Jacob, and Jacob took it:  "She saved my father's life over there."

Jacob nodded: he didn't have to ask where "over there" was.

"I appreciate the help tonight."

"Glad to. Beats listenin' to drunk college students throwin' up green beer in the gutters."

The undercover shook his head, sighed: "Yeah," he admitted. "If we hadn't been after this guy" -- he hooked a thumb over his shoulder -- "I'd probably have been down there, bustin' underagers."

"Fun fun," Jacob sighed, nodding sympathetically: he tilted up his unadulterated soda pop, drained it, stood.

The barkeep looked at him, his face serious.

"You two robbed a bank?" he asked cautiously.

Jacob grinned. "Nah," he admitted.  "Lied through my teeth."

"You stopped a barfight," the barkeep said appreciatively. "He's caused me trouble before."

Jacob winked at the man, nodded: the undercover stood, looked around.

Two lawmen, anonymous in blue jeans and flannel shirts, left the little riverbend bar, each alert, each scanning, each dedicating a part of his mind to formulating the report he'd write about the incident.

 

"Pa?"

Jacob blinked, grinned, looked at the lean little boy seated close beside him on the upholstered couch.

"Yes, Joseph?"

"Pa, did you go to University?"

Jacob grinned, nodded:  "Yes I did, Joseph.  I had that miserable experience."

Joseph frowned, puzzled, looked back up at his Pa.

"I thought University was where you learned stuff. Like school, only more of it."

Jacob nodded solemnly.

"It's like anything else worthwhile," he explained. "You get out of it what you put into it, but you have to go to a good high grade University to get good high grade results."

"Didn't you go to a high grade, Pa?"

"Parts of it were," Jacob nodded.  "My Gammaw went there."

"Gracie went there too!" Joseph declared, bouncing with the happy enthusiasm of the young.

"Yes she did," Jacob nodded, remembering Gracie telling him about knifing two attackers in an Ohio University alleyway. "She got as much good out of the place as she could, but she didn't really think much of the place."

"Oh," Joseph said, frowning a little.

"Once I got as much good out of the place as I wanted, I came home again."

Joseph considered this, frowning at the opposite wall as his young mind worked.

"Pa," he said in a cautious voice, "do I have to go to University?"

"You don't have to, no."

"What if I wanta go?"

"Then we'll arrange it."

Joseph folded his hands, rested his upper lip on two steepled fingers.

Jacob waited: he was inclined to rest a fatherly hand on his son's hunched back, but thought better of it, not wanting to hurry his son's conclusion.

Ruth watched; she was almost in arm's reach of the pair: she'd positioned herself so their son could not see her, but she could hear their discussion.

Joseph leaned back, looked at his Pa, his young face serious.

"Pa," he said, "might I think on it a while?"
Jacob's expression was serious as he pretended to consider his son's question.

It is to the man's credit that he did not laugh; an earlier generation would have made some condescending remark, but Jacob did not.

"Joseph," he said gently, looking over his son's head and winking at his wife, "my Pa tried to teach me at a tender age that 'Hurry Up is brother to Mess It Up' -- he stopped, looked very directly at his son's solemn gaze, raised an eyebrow for emphasis and finished, "and y'know, it's plum a-MAAAAAzing how often I proved the man right!"

Jacob winked at his son and Joseph winked at his Pa, and Ruth turned a delicate shade of scarlet as she pressed a lace-edged kerchief to her lips and turned away, trying hard not to laugh, trying hard not to spoil this moment between father and son.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 17 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A MAN, ALONE

"That's good string," I said quietly, throwing a quick bowline in the line: I pulled off about a yard of string, handed the factory wound spool to the boy, nodded him to back up:  he backed, and so did I.

"Notice the wind is to your back," I said, "that means it's pulling on this kite -- now when I toss this up, you run backwards and let the wind catch it, okay?"

A little boy's eyes shone with delight as I threw the colorful diamond into the air, as the wind caught it, pulled, soared.

He ran backwards a few steps, stopped.

String spooled off by accident -- he looked at the spool in his hands and realized he hadn't intended to let lit slip like that -- I saw the light of discovery in his eyes and he paid out string -- too much, the kite flattened out and started to drop --

He pulled, the kite recovered, the wind caught it again, and a little boy's imagination soared into the clear mountain air, pulled aloft by a diamond of paper and wood.

Apple-horse came head-bobbing over to me and I caught his saddlehorn and vaulted aboard and I'll tell you, I felt pretty good, for I remembered what it was to teach my boys how to fly kites.

I didn't know this little fellow from Adam, I didn't know what facet of God's will steered me here.

Hell, maybe this snapshot in time was for my benefit as well as his, I don't know.

I do know I'll not forget even white teeth and a delighted, apple cheeked face, a child's happy laugh in the sunshine!

I turned and saw his Mama watching from a little distance away:  I lifted my Stetson to her and she waved, and Apple-horse and I cantered off, for we had business elsewhere.

I'd no idea what the business was, nor where it was, but so far my day off was turnin' out pretty good.

Now I could have stayed home and worked, there's always things that either need done, or will need done, and a man can work himself plumb to death was he inclined. 

Mama told me once "They'll work a willin' horse to death."

Warn't nothing critical needin' done, and I felt a need to get off by myself: Shelly was pulling an extra shift today -- we usually had our days off together, I'd likely take her and our Irish Brigade something from the Silver Jewel for supper, I routinely did that when she worked an extra shift.

I rode a little ways into the back country, the high country, and I recalled from maps and from generations of Journals, fragments of What Had Been.

Yonder, across the valley and off to the right, there used to be a little spread, don't recall its whole history but that's where a man sent his son hell-a-tearin' for help because his wife and his widowed sister in law both went into labor at the same time.

As I recall, one or t'other of 'em had twins and I laughed a little inside as I recalled readin' Old Pale Eyes' account of that big blacksmith-handed Sean Finnegan, the big Irish fire chief, just a-poundin' this poor fellow on the back, congratulatin' him at the top of his Irish lungs for sirin' his young in litters!

I turned, frowning, hooked my fingers and pushed up on my vest pocket.

I consulted my watch, smiled, thumbed it back in as a steam whistle shivered in the darkness, screaming defiantly against granite cliffs and the twisting wind.

The Lady Esther, I thought.

Right on schedule.

Hell of a lot of history there, too.

I thought of Old Pale Eyes and how deep his grief ran when his niece Duzy died.

She'd damn neart died on the train -- I forget just how it happened -- someone shot her, he had the engineer lay the coal to 'er and as I recall, they set a speed record on that particular trackage, gettin' Duzy to help.

I felt my eyes sting -- I know what it was to lose folks, I know what it is to be so damned helpless you can't do one single solitary thing to fix it -- and I felt that same ache when I read his words, how he knelt beside her and held her hand with one of his and pressed a cloth over the hole in her chest and how he whispered -- he begged -- 

Don't leave me, darlin'!

I'd said those same words, and I'd said them to people I never met before, I held a woman's hand and whispered those same words to her as she was cut out of a bad and bloody wreck.

Her hand was dead white and stone cold and warn't much life left in her and she made it, God Almighty knows how 'cause I sure as hell don't ... another wreck, a girl with really minor injuries, deader'n a hammer and I have no idea why one lived and the other didn't.

I taken me a long deep breath of good cold air and when I breathed out, I did my best to breathe out them memories, or at least the unhappy part.

There's just an awful lot I don't know.

In my line of work, a man can soak up way too much stress and unhappiness and if you don't find some way to get rid of it, why, it'll kill you from inside, slow and sneaky.

There's times I've addressed the heavy bag and done my level best to honestly kill it, barehand.

There is no satisfaction in shooting a personal enemy.

It's too easy.

There is much more to be had with the laying on of hands.

I have tore into the heavy bag with fists and feet, elbows and knees, I have tore into it hard enough to tear it down, I've ripped the screw eye out of an over head beam, I've torn through the heavy canvas cover -- it took a good while to do it and I'd punched it with the short end of a PR24 baton and drove a hole in it, my own stupid fault -- and when I laid into the heavy bag, 'twas needful for me to get rid of that much rage so I'd not slip and let it come blazin' out at the wrong time and at the wrong people.

I considered that as Apple-horse moved under me, as I moved with him, as the sun warmed me through my Carhartt.

Now you can train dogs to sniff for cadavers, explosives, drugs, illicit food products at the airport, you can train a dog to track, attack, retrieve, sniff out cancer, seizures, diabetes.

I reckon if you had a dog trained to sniff out stress, it could've trailed me easily.

When I swung my leg over Apple-horse's saddle, I was feelin' as pleasant and friendly as a honey badger after an IRS audit.

Ridin' off with nowhere pa'tickelar to go and no pressin' task to be tended, ridin' forth and bein' steered to where a little boy was trying to figure out how to get a kite in the air, ridin' through lifetimes of memories, why, I reckon big chunks of stress fell off of me like I was sheddin' broken glass.

It's not that often I get off by myself that-a-way, but py Gott! when I do, it feels pretty good!

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVE

Michael's visit was well timed.

By design or by accident, when he rapped on my closed door and brought in a basket of good smells and the meal to go with it, he was a most welcome interruption: I needed to look at something other than screen and paper work, and I needed to do something other than push a pencil and burnish my backside on the office chair's padding.

Now Michael is getting some height to him, he's still skinny and he's still rangy and he's still stronger'n hell -- I've been told that hand-to-hand practice with him is like trying to wrestle a chimpanzee, he's all cords and lean muscle and he's fast, God almighty is he fast! -- and he's like I was at his age.

He's a walking appetite on two hollow legs.

We sat down together and just plainly devoured a double bacon cheeseburger apiece, he got us both a half-and-half -- fries and onion rings both -- and he got me a guilty pleasure I'll indulge in once a week at most, a cherry Coke -- the only sound between the two of us was the crystal hiss of salt sprinkled on fries from torn open paper packets.

Not a word passed between the two of us until we'd plainly inhaled our meal.

Likely Shelly would give us hell for eatin' like that, but it was just us two, so what the hell.

Once we'd finished, once we wadded up waxed paper and stuffed it in our empty drink cups and packaged everything up as compact as we could, Michael leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and looked at me, so I leaned forward with my elbows on my own knees and I looked at him.

"Sir," Michael said seriously, "I found out why Victoria got careless."

I nodded and I felt my face mask up.

I've practiced that Innocent Expression and it hadn't worked yet, I'd practiced the Poker Face and that worked with everyone but my wife and my daughters -- it didn't work with Mama, rest her soul! -- anyway, I nodded once and Michael's bottom jaw slid out a little as he considered just how to say what was on his mind.

"Sir, you asked Victoria if something happened, and she didn't exactly answer you."

I nodded, once, slowly.

"Something happened, sir, and it put the fear into her."

I stopped.

I've been told when I stop like that, silence cascades off me like cold air slides down a shadowed mountainside.

I felt myself near to glare at Michael, then looked away.

I did not want to throw up any walls.

Was he bold enough to come to me with something this serious, I wanted to hear him out!

I looked back.

"Sir, you recall Victoria dances Irish hardshoe."

I nodded: many's the time I'd marvel at how she just plainly levitated and glided across the floor, or so it seemed, strong young legs doin' things that are impossible according to the Known Laws of Physics.

"She was dressed for the part and she'd brought a half dozen girls from the Firelands colony with her, and afterward she said a fellow tried to get improper with her.

"She set him to rights in short order and I'm told she genuinely took his measure."

I waited while Michael frowned and rubbed his palms together.

"This was backstage, sir, in the dressing room area. I wasn't back there then."

I waited, considering his phrase "I wasn't back there ... then."

Michael took a long breath and said, "Sir, I took witness statements. The only thing everyone agreed on was that fella that wanted to ... handle ... her, changed his mind at the top of his lungs, and when he finally got out of there, why, he was missin' some teeth, his jaw was broke, his ear was split, he'd a broken finger or two and Victoria was behind him as he went a-limpin' out, she was dancing up on her toes like she does, like a ballerina, only every other step she was kicking his backside a-doin' it."

I waited.

Michael ran two fingers into a vest pocket and pulled out a folded paper, stood, laid it on my desk blotter.

"If you want him," Michael said, "there's his particulars. Marnie said she'll arrange you an Iris."

I felt my bottom jaw slide out and I let my face frown, just a very little.

"Does this Jack Doe know who Victoria is?"

Michael's eyes were pale and unblinking under his Stetson.

"He does now, sir. I visited him at the doc's office where he went, and I allowed as he'd picked on that pale eyed Sheriff's little girl."

"Did you take any... action?" I asked quietly.

I never knew it was possible for a boy of thirteen years to smile and look that much like a God's honest wolf.

"I did worse than that, sir," he said quietly. "When I told him he'd just tried to maul the darlin' daughter of that pale eyed hell raisin' Sheriff that rode Death's pale horse and skint men alive for the fun of it, why" -- he raised a hand, thumb and forefinger squeezing an invisible rubber bulb -- "the color ran out of his face like red ink out of an eye dropper."

I nodded.

"Michael," I said quietly, looking at the folded paper, "thank you. You've done well."

I considered for a moment, looked up.

"Does Marnie know?"

Michael grinned.

"Sir, they're sisters. They know."

"I wonder who will get to him first, Marnie or Angela."

"My money's on Angela, sir," Michael said without hesitation. 

He was right.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ANGEL ONE, ON STATION

A shining, spotless, hand-waxed, absolutely immaculate Dodge Charger whispered promises of speed as it turned, as it reversed, very precisely, very exactly, into a parking spot behind the fire house.

A really nice set of legs emerged from the car, accented by a feminine pair of heels, by a pleated, knee length skirt, by a set of shining pale eyes and the healthy complexion that comes of clean living, and growing up on a small ranch in the mountains.

A feminine smile preceded the confident young woman who emerged from the car.

Deputy Sheriff Angela Keller, RN/Paramedic, locked the turbocharged Dodge, closed the door quietly: she went to the opening trunk lid, pulled out a small sign she'd had custom made, placed its weighted base on the stone wall behind her car, closed the trunk lid.

Fitz looked through fragrant steam rising from his sizable, glazed-enamel coffee mug, his eyes smiling at their corners.

It was a standing joke.

When Angela parked, she put a sign up, RESERVED FOR ANGEL ONE, with a cheerfully cartooned, warty amphibian wearing a dunce cap, and beneath this, VIOLATORS WILL BE TOAD.

As the sign never appeared until after Angela was parked, there was never any danger of violators actually becoming a lumpy dunce, but it did make a fine standing joke.

Angela came smiling into the firehouse, eyes shining, skirt swinging: she stopped as the door closed behind her, she stuck a leggy pose, looked at Fitz with mischief in her eyes and said "Hey, sailor, buy me a drink?" -- Angela skipped over to the man, dancing over on her toes, she seized the laughing fire chief, taking his hand, coffee mug and all, putting her other arm around him and dancing a few steps: Fitz was always quick on his feet, literally and figuratively, and a laughing Fire Chief and a gorgeous Nurse-Paramedic sang a delightfully obscene Irish melody as they glided in mountain sunlight slanting through crystal windows, whirling circles between the stainless-steel sink and the just-polished kitchen counter.

Angela spun out to arm's length and back, her skirt flaring: she came into Fitz's arms, her shoulders across his chest, her head leaned back against his shoulder, looking up at him with bright and laughing eyes.

Angela spun away, releasing his coffee mug, and the hand that held it -- not one drop of genuine Liquid Firehouse Wakeup had spilled -- she put her hands on her hips and teased, "And you thought I'd forgotten you!"

Fitz put a dramatic hand to his breast, and in an absolutely terrible mock-Irish accent he lamented loudly,  "Forget me? Forget me, the sexiest man ye've e'er met?  Ye wound me, darlin'!"

"Yah, a hot woman and a cold glass 'a' watter an' ye'd die of a heart attack!" the German Irishman called from the cab of the first-out pumper.

"Yah, whatta you know," Fitz snarled, swatting the comment away with a dismissive air-slap of his go-away palm.

Angela drew a gurgling, steaming mug of coffee, tilted her head and looked at the Chief, who was, to be honest, divided between openly ogling her stockinged legs, and wondering just how in two red handed hells she'd gotten so womanly, so damned fast!

"Mama's out on a run?" Angela asked, drizzling milk from a murdered-open cardboard carton, into her big, heavy mug: she took an experimental sip, grunted, wiped the dribble from her chin and the grabbed a nearby dishtowel to wipe her mug, her hand, and her chin: "Mmm!" she grunted. "Scalded the hair off my tongue!"

"Careful," Fitz deadpanned, "that's just freshly brewed."

Angela raised an eyebrow and lowered her head, set her mug on the table and wagged her Mommy-finger at the Chief: before she could come up with a snappy comeback, the overhead door chuckled open and they heard the suddenly-loud backup alarm as their first-out squad backed into the far bay.

Angela waited until they were inside, waited for the mileage to be read off and noted down, waited for the shutdown sequence, waited for doors to open and crew to emerge.

She even waited for the exhaust duct to be plugged onto the squad's exhaust pipe, for the shoreline to be plugged in and checked, then she yelled "Mommeeeee!" and ran with the arms-wide, laughing abandon of a happy little girl: she hugged Shelly, laughing, turned and seized the Captain in a jump-up-and-hug-him-tight embrace -- "Gampaw!" -- and every last member of this modern day Irish Brigade either grinned, or laughed quietly.

Crane set his shining-faced granddaughter down, brushed her cheek with the back of one finger like he'd done since she was a wee child: "Darlin'," he said quietly, "you are as gorgeous as your Mama!"

Angela took her Mama around the waist, hugged her hip-to-hip, looked at her and then at her Gampaw: "I guess I get it honest!" she said with wide-eyed innocence, then mother and daughter looked at one another again, and both of them laughed.

"Does your father know you're here?" Shelly asked quietly.

Angela raised a finger and winked, then skipped over to the multi-phone: she pressed the intercom button, lighting it up; she picked up the hand mic -- "Dispatch, Firehouse, she called.

"Firehouse, Dispatch, go."

"Angel One is on station, would Firelands Actual be there?"

"Ah-firm."

"Please advise."

"Roger that."

Angela clicked off the intercom, hung the heavy GE mic back on its steel clip.

She turned, put her hands on her waist, gave her Mama and Grampa an impish look.

"I ordered in," she said. "Boneless garlic wings, onion rings, hard boiled eggs and beer!"

Shelly dropped her face into her hands: "Oh, Gawd," she groaned, "I'll have to sleep in a gas mask!"

"Okay, maybe not beer," Angela amended, "we are on duty!"

 

Sheriff Linn Keller sat with his wife, his daughter and his father in law, happily chowing two of his favorite things -- the garlic chicken and the onion rings -- Shelly nibbled delicately at hers, glaring at her husband.

"You'll find out what a cork feels like!" she threatened. 

"What, and cause a gas explosion?" Linn countered innocently. "I'll just open a window."

"You'll flip a switch, throw a spark and blow the roof off the house," Shelly muttered darkly. "I ought to have 'Hindenburg' tattooed across your backside!"

"Promises, promises," Linn grinned as he bit down on an onion ring.

Angela smiled quietly: "I suppose you're wondering why I called you all together today."

Linn swallowed, set down the uneaten half of his fried, breaded onion ring, and gave his pale eyed daughter his full attention.

Angela looked at Shelly.

"You know Victoria was grabbed."

Shelly's face betrayed what she felt: she nodded, once, going from a sudden, cheek-flaming flush to going white to her lips.

"You know Victoria stopped the attacker."

Father and father-in-law looked at one another, faces professionally impassive, though if one sat at the table with them, one would see both men's fingers closed, slowly, as if wishing they were closing about a neck, or perhaps fisting up before an attack.

"Victoria is a dancer, and she has a dancer's strength and coordination. Victoria is an equestrienne, and she has the trunk and leg strength of a horsewoman. Victoria has pale eyes and blood to match, and Victoria seized and broke fingers on both her attacker's hands."

Angela's voice was quiet, but there was something in her eyes that told the others at their table that her unspoken rage was running deep and hot.

"Victoria was still wearing her hard dancing shoes.

"Victoria kicked him twice in the jaw. It was broken in two places and he lost at least two teeth.

"Victoria was attacked in her dressing room after a performance.

"She came out of her dressing room as her attacker limped away -- he couldn't run, she'd gotten him in the knee with those hard little shoes, and she skipped along behind him as he fled, kicking him in the backside as gracefully as if she were still performing on stage."

Linn took a long breath, his eyes closed: he deliberately opened his eyes, nodded.

"Daddy."

Angela looked very directly at her father.

"You told me once there's only one cure for a sheep killin' dog, that once they get the taste of blood they never quit and the only cure is a bullet."

Linn nodded, once.

Nobody saw how she'd brought it to the table, but Angela flipped her fingers like she was rolling a coin between them, only instead of a coin, her thumb swept against the cross lug and snapped open a knife Linn knew, a knife he'd given her.

Angela held it up, inspected its edge closely, her voice quiet, a slight smile on her rich, healthy lips.

"I've made a study of methods of torture," she said, her words precise, measured: "I've dissected corpses and I've butchered animals for the table, I've skinned for furs" -- the blade snapped shut with a wipe of her thumb, the knife disappeared, and she opened her empty hand, a magician's move -- "as satisfying as it might be to skin him alive, or to remove certain offensive parts of his anatomy, I didn't do that."

"Why not?" Shelly asked quietly, her voice tight: her father looked at her, surprised, for this was a side of his daughter he'd never seen.

Anger.

Deep, boiling, soul-deep, quiet, controlled, motherly, rage!

Angela looked at her Mama, that quiet smile still on her face.

"I brought in a priest, Mama. I gave him a chance to repent. I don't know if he did or not and I don't really care."

Angela's eyes were pale now, very pale and very hard and polished like glacier ice.

Linn could feel the cold cascading off her soul and flowing across the table as his beautiful daughter spoke, her words quiet, gently framed, as she raised her hand, as that knife appeared again, as it snapped open with the metallic snap of the lock engaging.

"I killed him," she said simply. 

"I drove this blade through his brainstem.

"He died instantly, he felt nothing at all. No torture, no screaming, no violence, just" -- the knife snapped shut -- "gone."

Angela looked at her Daddy, at her Mama, at her Gampaw, then she smiled and reached for the big plate in the middle of the table.

"Dig in," she said cheerfully, hooking two onion rings and raking them onto her plate. "I'm hungry and we don't want this to get cold!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PERSUASIION

"Sheriff, what is the most difficult part of your job?" the pretty woman across from him asked.

Jacob knew the era of a table or a hand held microphone, and hand-carried or dolly-mounted news cameras were a thing of the past: cloaked camera drones were standard, and he knew he and the reporter were both being viewed by multiple drones simultaneously, allowing an editor to switch from one to another, depending on who was speaking, or what action was taking place.

Jacob considered, smiled, just a little: then he frowned, tapped trimmed fingernails delicately against the tabletop, looked back up at the reporter.

"I'd have to say," he replied, his voice gentle, "the disappointment."

Of the several replies the reporter expected, this was not one of them.

"Disappointment?" she echoed. "I don't understand."

Jacob smiled, almost sadly.

"I know everyone here," he said. "I'm pretty much on a first name basis with every last colonist here, and most of 'em in the other two colonies. Everybody knows me" -- he grinned -- "my Gammaw complained once that she might respond to a situation and there's all kind of family and friends gathered, and she's the only one in uniform ... everybody remembers her, but she's seen so many folks in those situations, she doesn't remember everyone she's run into!"

The reporter smiled a little and nodded her understanding.

"The hardest thing is disappointment. I know everyone, or just damn neart. When I have to respond to something, and someone I know has done something they shouldn't have, why, it's ... just a terrible disappointment to me."

He looked frankly, almost sadly, at her.

"I want to think the best of folks. I know just about everyone is good and decent and upright and honest, and those that aren't ..."

His jaw slid out and he shook his head.

"That's the hardest part. Someone I know, goes bad."

"Is it difficult to arrest someone you know?" she pressed.

"No," Jacob said firmly. "Once they cross the line and become a criminal, I tend that detail no matter who 'tis and no matter how influential they are, politics be damned."

 

Marnie and Angela sipped tea and watched the Inter-System, watched the interview clip.

"He sounds just like Daddy," Angela murmured.

"Mmm," Marnie hummed in agreement, lowering her teacup.

Victoria sat, silent, eyes swinging from one big sis to another, just taking it all in.

"Did you hear about Uncle Will?" Marnie asked, draining her teacup and setting cup and saucer down on the round, cloth-covered table top.

"No, what happened?" Angela asked, a note of concern in her voice.

Victoria's eyes widened: she looked sharply from Angela to Marnie, waited.

Marnie gave Victoria a motherly look. "It's okay, you can breathe," she whispered, and Victoria exhaled, her face reddening.

Marnie looked back at Angela.

"He caught someone trying to Slim Jim open a truck door."

"O-kaaay," Angela said slowly, setting her own cup and saucer on the table.

Victoria drained her teacup, followed suit, waited, pale eyes wide and unblinking.

"The perp reached into the truckbed and pulled out a machete."

"I see," Angela murmured, looked over at Victoria's solemn face. 

"Victoria, have we been notified of a line-of-duty death?"

"No."

"Have we been called home due to injury of a family member?"

"No."

"What may we conclude?"

"Uncle Will is either unhurt, or he's so stubborn he's forbidden anyone from notifying us."

Two older sisters looked at one another and laughed.

"She's got him down pat, doesn't she?"

Victoria looked worried: she closed her eyes, took a long breath, let it out.

"Turns out this fellow wanted to steal a heavy four-by so he and his buddy could rip an ATM out of the concrete."

"Oh, my!"

"Trouble is, the new ones have an underground cash box. You can break off the above ground part and all you get is electronics. These guys must not've known that."

"What about the machete?" Victoria asked quietly.

"Evidence," Marnie said simply.

"Uncle Will's not hurt."

"No."

Angela's voice was quiet and serious as she looked at Marnie and asked her only question.

"When do they bury the guy that pulled it on him?"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PROPER

Sheriff Linn Keller poured a big mug of coffee.

He'd come through the doors, unsmiling, which was not a usual thing.

He'd stopped and looked at Sharon and asked, "Anything critical?"

His dispatcher regarded him with an appraising eye.

His uniform was immaculate, his boots well polished, his uniform Stetson was at his usual angle, the uniform itself pressed and presentable, but his face ...

She shook her head.

Sheriff Linn Keller actually sagged a little as she watched; he straightened, raised his arms straight out in front of him, half-lidded his eyes and staggered forward:

"COOOFFFFEEEEEEE!" he moaned, then dropped his arms, looked at Sharon with his usual cheerful expression, and laughed.

She threw a wadded up sheet of paper at him.

Barrents came up to partake of boiled neurotoxin with him, looked at him:  "Boss," he said quietly -- he called him "Linn" in private or informally, he called him "Boss" when he was worried -- "you look worn out!"

"Snowdrift had puppies last night," Linn murmured, slopping milk into his mug: he set the carton down, picked up a napkin, wiped up the stray drop that leaped out of the mix.

"Be damned," Barrents murmured. "I know I'd not seen her for a while. How many?"

"Seven," Linn said. "Six made it."

Barrents grunted, nodded.

"Angela there?"

"Hell, she was in a surgical gown and gloves!" Linn laughed. 

"Anybody else?"

"Everybody but Jacob. He sent Joseph in his place."  Linn laughed quietly. "First time the boy's seen birthin'. I've got to get him out here for calving, or when the mares foal."

"He's got to learn."

"Jacob has him to his father in law's ranch aplenty. He's helped dress birds for Sunday dinner."

Barrents sampled his coffee, frowned.

"Scald the hair off your tongue?"

The Navajo grunted, amusement in his obsidian eyes: it was an old joke between them.

"I reckon the kids laid claim to as many as they could."

"Would you believe I had to set up a boxin' ring and put on my referee's shirt?"

Barrents gave his old friend a knowing look, and this time his smile extended well beyond his eyes.

 

The Bear Killer -- the original Bear Killer, the one that went to Mars -- snored.

Joseph Keller lay on a hook rug, a gift from a friend of Ruth's mother.

He lay on his side in the catastrophic relaxation of a little boy, one arm over The Bear Killer's ribs, his pink-scrubbed hand bright against the mountain Mastiff's gleaming black coat.

His maternal grandmother rocked and knitted, smiling a little as she did, for a grandmother will rejoice in silence at the sight of a healthy child, and moreso when the child is asleep in front of her fireplace, in her home, and for the moment, the room was full of tranquility.

 

Michael went to one knee and removed his hat.

A little girl looked at him, all big, wide-set eyes and shining face and frilly dress: she laughed and ran forward and hugged Michael, spontaneously, innocently, and Michael hugged her back and laughed quietly, for the joy of an innocent child is a contagious thing.

Her mother hesitated, uncertain: Michael was a Famous Person, and she'd intended to attempt an introduction, perhaps to ask if her daughter might give him a hug, but events often cascade faster than a mother's intentions can react.

The child's face wasn't quite right, and Michael recognized that, and he honestly did not care.

They slacked their happy embrace and the little girl looked over Michael's shoulder, blinking, and Michael saw absolute wonder in her expression.

He released her, leaned back a little, and she launched past him.

Michael looked up at the mother, who was somewhere between surprise, awe, delight and distress.

Lightning was behind him, standing watchfully, protectively: Thunder and Cyclone were grazing not far away, but came over, curious, as this pink and giggling little creature seized Lightning's foreleg and laughed with delight, hugging what had to be the equivalent of a warm, fur covered, white oak.

Lightning lowered her broad, hard-boned head, sniffed, her breath blowing the child's ruffles: the world held its breath as a happy little girl's giggles filled the air, as she stroked Lightning's blunt nose with wondering fingers.

Michael squatted beside her, one arm around her waist: he reached around her, there was the crackle of cellophane, and two swirly red-and-white peppermints dropped into a little girl's hand.

"Hold it out flat," Michael whispered, and she did, and Michael momentarily wondered if a mother behind him was going to pass out or have a case of the vapors as Lightning -- her fighting canines visible, shining ivory and gleaming in the sunlight -- very delicately lipped the Horsie Crack from a big-eyed little girl's delighted palm.

Cyclone ducked under Lightning's belly, nosed Michael between the shoulder blades, then seized his hat from behind, backed up, bobbing her head and waving his black Stetson like a flag, extorting the pale eyed Fanghorn-rider for her share of the peppermint treats, and that's when three more children came forward, all wonder and stroking hands and marveling eyes, and Michael was glad he'd dumped just short of a whole bag of peppermints in his coat pocket that morning.

He'd not handed out this many treatskis at one time before, and he was glad he'd come prepared.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller had been seen on the Inter-System in candid moments, saddling his favorite stallion and bucking him out, competing with brother lawmen in steel plate shoots, or tossing clay and chalk balls in the air and detonating them into clouds of colorful dust -- toss, draw-and-fire, one time he tossed a can of corn in the air and ended up wearing a good percentage of the contents -- he looked ruefully at the supposedly cloaked hover-cam and said "That's not quite how I'd planned it" -- he'd been see on the Inter-System, laid over his stallion's neck in pursuit of a running criminal, he'd been seen making an apprehension, he'd been seen seizing a holdup's gun hand, twisting it behind his back for a fast disarm, then slamming the criminal face-down across the counter and cuffing him fast and less than gently, and once -- to Linn's red-faced chagrin as he watched the replay, afterwards -- he'd taken a mouthy young tough by the front of his shirt, hauled him off the ground, packed him over to the horse trough and gave him his Saturday night bath, a few days early.

This long tall lawman, this keeper of the peace, this figure of legend seen on screens over thirteen star systems, was also seen laughing like a damned fool.

It seems he'd laid down on the hook rug in his study, and a cardboard box full of fuzzy Mountain Mastiff pups dumped the box over (their Mama went off to explore the feed bowl, and her progeny didn't want their feed faucets leaving) -- but when this pack of grunt-and-wobble discovered something with an iron grey mustache lying on the hook rug, why, they proceeded to snuff his ears, nibble his fingers, tug at his collar and then collapse with a dramatic sigh on whatever part of his anatomy was convenient: this long tall keeper of the peace laid on his side, laughing, while fuzzy pups piled on him and gave great dramatic sighs and collapsed in contented sleep.

Only one picture was taken of this, and that by his wife, with her phone: hover-cams did not intrude into his home, and this one photograph was only seen by family, and it ended up in a montage.

A nurse in a winged cap, gloves and a surgical gown, a tall boy in a black suit down on one knee, which children and Fanghorns around him, a little boy asleep on a hook rug, warm in front of a fireplace and with a curly-black mountain Mastiff cuddled up with him, a Sheriff and his stallion, the lawman with Stetson in hand at arm's length and the stallion, humped up and all four feet off the ground, head down in mid-buck, mane and tail flying.

Shelly saved them, printed them out, arranged them in a framed montage.

She folded her arms and looked at the montage for a long time.

She nodded, and she smiled: alone in the house, her voice was a whisper.

"Now that's proper."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND THE PREACHER GOT SOAKED

Sheriff Jacob Keller frowned at his reflection.

The man that looked back at him was dressed in his Sunday-go-to-meetin's.

He'd knotted his green silk necktie and puffed it out properly, and like Michael, he had a rectangular ruby stickpin about the size of his little finger nail: faceted, gleaming, contrasting richly against the emerald silk, it was -- other than his wedding ring -- the only jewelry the man affected.

He'd been invited to speak at church, Offworld, and as it was his father in law who extended the invitation, he accepted.

He'd been welcomed by the community, especially after helping find two lost kids, after splinting a man's broken leg and fashioning a travois to transport the injured man -- and after apprehending a particularly violent criminal who'd tried to strangle a young mother as she was bathing her infant (Jacob quietly arranged for a table, two chairs, two windows and a door to be replaced afterward).

Now, for whatever reason, their Parson wished him to deliver a guest sermon, subject of his choice.

The church was about twice the size of the small whitewashed structure in Firelands.

It was filled -- word spread fast, and folk came from a distance to see this famous soul, to hear what he had to say.

Ruth, Marnie and Angela sat together: Joseph sat beside his Mama, a solemn-eyed little boy in knee pants, The Bear Killer sitting just ahead of him, alternating between laying his warm, furry jaw on Joseph's thigh, and on Victoria's knee, and the ladies were whispering bets to one another on how long it would take The Bear Killer to start to snore.

Jacob visited their Parson ahead of time to get an idea on possible subjects of discussion, on what to avoid, were there any particular community sensitivities he might wish to trim from any presentation; they finally decided the ecclesiastical community on Mars, as a whole, would make a proper topic for the Sunday sermon.

Their Parson asked Jacob about his church back home, on Earth, and Jacob's expression changed: where he'd been careful, controlled, circumspect in his replies, he became more open and animated, talking about Firelands, Colorado rather than Firelands, Mars.

He mentioned frontier churches and circuit ridin' preachers, he spoke of an ancestral Bear Killer who found a wandering beetle more interesting than the Sunday sermon, and a very young Sarah Lynne McKenna loudly admonishing The Bear Killer of that era to behave himself 'cause they're in church, complete with a scolding expression and an upraised Mommy-finger, which united both Parson and Sheriff in laughter as Jacob told the tale.

The Parson suggested Jacob ride up to their Church, horseback, in pious imitation of the Circuit Riders he'd described, and Jacob had absolutely no objection, for he spent too little time in the saddle and welcomed an opportunity to get horsepower under him for a change.

The congregation planned to be outside, to see Jacob ride up on that fine, spirited spotty stallion.

They planned to stand outside in pleasant spring breeze and warm spring sunshine.

That's what they'd planned.

 

The ladies were all frills and flutter and feminine ribbons and parasols, smiling and laughing quietly as Ruth's father drove their carriage toward the church.

Ruth's parents both regarded the sky with an increasing disquiet.

Springtime, they knew, could have weather, and weather could be brisk, and so their carriage was driven a little more briskly than the sedate trot they'd planned.

Jacob intended to wait, to delay his departure, so as to arrive after the family, and he too considered the lowering sky and the increased wind.

"Apple," he said to the restless, muttering stallion, "what say we step it up a bit."

Apple stepped out in his long-legged, ground-eating trot, a deceptive pace that covered ground faster than a man would realize, and this suited Jacob fine, until they got to the bridge.

 

When the rain started, it came down fast, hard: the congregation was already entering the church, filing in under roof: the broad front porch was crowded, at least until the wind started.

Rains this early were cold rains and it took but little windblown precipitation to persuade the faithful that perhaps unity within was better than sightseeing without.

For his part, Jacob did not pay attention whatsoever to the rain.

He'd looked ahead at the bridge, at the little boy fishing from the bridge, at the little boy that squinted up at the first cold, fat drops, at the little boy that struggled up and slipped on the slick beam that formed the side of the bridge, as the boy fell in.

Jacob gigged Apple-horse into a gallop, swung right.

Apple stiff-legged to a stop and Jacob swore, quietly, sincerely, through clenched teeth.

Apparently it was already raining higher up.

The stream was moving fast and dirty, the boy fell in this side and was already swept under the bridge.

Apple reared, whirled: Jacob saw something downstream -- a hand, there and gone -- he and Apple-horse found a path paralleling the waterway --

There, he thought.

Looks like a shallows.

Hooves drove into water, Jacob's pale eyes scoured the surface --

Sandbar in the middle.

The stream is split, this side, that side.

He's not here --

Apple-horse felt Jacob's knees, his heels, Apple jumped forward --

Jacob vaulted from the saddle, landed hard on soft sand and flat rocks, boot heels driving into the drift --

He waded out into the water, knee deep, belt deep --

Something rolled up against his legs --

Jacob took a deep breath, doubled over, drove both arms shoulder deep into that TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY COLD WATER!! --

Cloth, flesh, movement --

Hands that saddled horses, that set fence posts, that seized criminal wrongdoers, hands that changed a baby's diaper and wiped tiny little noses and caressed a wife's jawline, hands that seized bales of hay and threw them easily, clamped down on cloth and an arm and locked shut as surely as a Number Two Newhouse trap.

Jacob slogged out of the water, hauled a little boy up and over his forearm, breaking him over his arm like a shotgun.

A little boy coughed a little, threw up dirty streamwater, coughed again.

Jacob swung into the saddle, gigged Apple-horse up onto the bank as the rain came down harder, soaking all three of them.

 

"Here he comes," someone said, pointing: heads turned, necks craned.

A figure on a galloping horse came into view, but something was wrong.

Instead of a dignified man riding a horse at a purposeful, steady gait, this rider was hunched over a little and didn't look right, and he was moving as if Hell itself was snapping at his coat tails.

Pale eyed ladies slipped through the packed crowd, murmuring politely and shoving less than politely.

Jacob drew up in front of the church, Apple-horse blowing, his breath steaming.

Jacob swung down, a blanket wrapped little boy shivering in his arms.

"Make a hole, people," Angela shouted, her voice carrying the unmistakable authority of someone who knew what it was to command troops: they took the cold, wet, shivering child into an anteroom.

Angela listened as Jacob explained, briefly and simply, the boy fell into fast moving water and he'd gotten him out, wrapped him in the blanket roll he kept behind his saddle: Marnie gripped his shoulder, turned him, looked very seriously into his eyes and asked in a quiet voice, "Jacob, are you all right?"

"I'm soaked and both boots are full of water and I would commit insecticide for some coffee," he replied with that quick, boyish grin of his, "but the Parson asked me to give the sermon, so here I am!"

A long tall Sheriff squelched his way to the front, dripping water every step of the way: he shook hands with the Parson, stepped behind the pulpit, looked out over the packed church.

"The best sermon I ever heard was the briefest," he said, "this might not be the very best, but it'll be in the top five."

His grin was contagious, his coat was dripping, his Stetson was in his hand, steadily dripping water from its brim.

"I had a fine sermon all polished up and ready to go, but that boy I fetched in fell off the bridge when the rain started."

His voice was serious now, all trace of that good natured expression, gone.

"When help was needed, I jumped right in and helped. I reckon that's as fine a sermon as a man can give."

He laughed a little and said, "That concludes my sermon, I'm soaking wet and just cold as a wedge and if I don't get some coffee inside me I'll catch my death of the live-forevers!"

He looked at the regular preacher and gave him that that contagious, boyish grin, winked and said "Parson, she's all yours!"

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I WAS AFRAID

A pale eyed Sheriff considered the quiet voiced question.

The Sheriff wore a black suit with a carefully knotted necktie.

His son wore a black suit as well, his tie was as carefully tied: both sat their horses in the welcome warmth of the afternoon sun, considering the incredible spread of mountains and meadows before them.

"You have a question," Linn had said, and this surprised Jacob: he'd not given any indication that he was turning over a query in his mind, he'd carefully not let on his consideration that he might want to pick the right time to ask, yet here his Pa knew ... somehow.

"Sir," Jacob asked bluntly, "were you scared?"

Linn crossed his palms over his saddle horn, leaned forward, took the weight off his backside, gave his spine a little twist: Jacob heard two muffled pops, then a third: this much he saw in his peripheral, for both men were looking over their horses' ears.

Besides, Jacob did not need to look, to know that a momentary expression of pain, followed by relief, would chase across his Pa's face, and be gone.

"You know I was in that damned War," Linn said quietly.

"Yes, sir."

"Time or three I was right concerned."

"Yes, sir?"

"Most times ... Jacob, war is hell in ten flavors. It's either boredom and routine and march your men back and forth to keep 'em busy and out of mischief, then when a fight comes, you're so damned busy of a sudden you don't have time to be scared."

"Yes, sir."

"You know I come West after bein' Town Marshal back East."

"Yes, sir."  Jacob paused, and when his Pa did not continue, he hazarded, "Chauncey, sir?"

Linn nodded.  

"Yep. Little coal minin' town. They even had a zinc mine. Someone told me what looked like a big pile of dirt was one million dollars in zinc ore. Found out later the man was exactly right. Someone had a photographer come and take a picture of it and he put it on postcards and sold 'em. He had to write on the picture in white ink -- "One million dollars in zinc ore, Chauncey, Ohio", elsewise folks would ask why he was tryin' to sell postcard pictures of a pile of dirt and rocks."

Jacob felt the corners of his eyes tighten a little: he'd known snake oil salesmen in his time.

"Yes, sir," he said carefully.

"I reckon I told you about Butcher Knife Joe gettin' all drunked up, he knifed one fella and come allowin' to cyarve his name in my liver."

"Sir?"

" 'Twas Village Council meeting night. I was there so they could belly ache about my wage and anything else you can think of and when a boy come in and allowed as Butcher Knife Joe was comin' up the street allowin' to cut me up, why, them councilmen started layin' bets on how long I'd last.

"Do you know what I felt, Jacob?"

Jacob blinked, puzzled, looked over at his father, who was still staring into the distance.

He wasn't staring at miles and at mountains, he was staring at a memory.

"I didn't feel anything, Jacob. That damned war burnt all the feelin's out of me.

"I paced off on the left and 'twas like I was leadin' men into battle again.

"I could hear drums and I saw knees rising and falling to my left and to my right like waves, like wind on wheat ..."

His voice drifted off a little; he blinked, took a long breath, continued.

"A man was comin' at me with a blade in his hand and I felt ... nothing."

He looked over at Jacob.

"Nothing."

"Yes, sir?"

"Joe pulled out an Army Colt and he taken a shot at me, and he taken another, and he fired off all six. He clipped my coat and he clipped my hat and I walked up on him, I grabbed his wrist when he come up with that knife and I drove the muzzle of my Navy Colt up into his guts and I pulled the trigger and blew his soul out through his back bone.

"He hit the ground and I stood there and watched the light go out of his eyes.

"I holstered my revolver and I taken his and I turned and walked back up the street and back to the little brick blockhouse that was the Village Hall, and I walked in and tossed the village back their badge and told them to go to hell, I was going West, and I packed all I had left in the world in one grip and saddled up my good old plow horse Sam and we taken the steam train that night and I never looked back."

Jacob nodded.

"I didn't feel anything, Jacob," he said softly. "That damned war just bled me dry for ... I didn't feel joy nor grief, 'twas all bleached out of me like sun bleachin' old bones out white in the desert.

"I come West and I was town Marshal a couple places, but I didn't feel a thing there neither, least not until the Mayor allowed as they weren't goin' to pay me, so I busted a chair across his back and threw the Council President against a wall and taken my wages out of the Mayor's wallet and made the barkeep come over and watch me count out what was due me before I tossed the wallet back on the man's chest."

Linn was quiet for several long moments.

Jacob waited.

"I come on West, Jacob. I found gold in that dry Kansas riverbed. I kilt a man that tried to sneak up and steal Sam-horse. I didn't care. I saw sunsets and sunrises that looked like God Almighty was paintin' with living fire, and I felt nothing. 

"I watched a herd of buffalo overtake and knock over a covered wagon in the distance, and when I got there, the two ox they had pullin' it were dead, trompled and busted open and ugly, and the biggest piece of anyone I found was two shoes and a sun bonnet. Everything else was paste beat into the ground.

"I didn't feel a thing there neither.

"It took me a good long while before I started feelin' anything a'tall, Jacob."

He turned in the saddle and looked very directly at his son.

"I have you to thank for that."

"Me, sir?" Jacob practiced the Poker Face, but his practice failed him utterly; his expression was one of the genuine Flabber Gast.

"I knew I'd obliged myself to raise you up considerable better than you'd known. 'Course marryin' your Mama helped too."

"Yes, sir."

"You asked about fear, Jacob."

"Yes, sir."

"There's twice I genuinely felt fear."

"Yes, sir?"

"Once was when I threw the wall of that wrecked passenger car off Angela and picked her up and she just hung there limp like a rag doll and I just knowed she was dead."

The man's voice was heavy with the memory as he spoke, his words slow, as if he had to pull them through the earth itself to drag them into the sunlight where they could be seen.

"Maybe that was more grief than fear.

"When you got shot when the Reavers come rippin' through town and you and the Parson each had a rifle in the bell tower and you took a rifle ball through the shoulder."

Linn took a long, open mouth breath, sighed it out, his eyes distant again, scanning the horizon without seeing it.

"I laid my knife crossways of the wound for you was bleedin' out and I laid Duzy's hand on the knife and my hand on hers and I spoke the Word and stopped your bleedin'."

Jacob blinked, then he nodded, just a little.

He remembered that night, he remembered being lowered -- fast! -- through the hatch and into the church below and laid out on the floor, he remembered his Pa's face pale and tight and serious as hell lookin' down at him, he remembered Duzy, and those big violet eyes, and he remembered his Pa pressed something on his shoulder and of a sudden heat drove through him and right before he passed out he realized he was going to be all right, he just had to rest some.

"There was one time," Linn added thoughtfully, "one time when I honest to God Almighty felt Gen-You-Wine, Mon-You-Mental, fear!"

Jacob waited, breathing carefully, eyes wide and unblinking as he considered there hadn't been much he could think off to make this man fear anything!

"I reckon you should know this, Jacob."

"Yes, sir?"

Linn's jaw slid out, he took a long breath, frowned at his saddle horn and chewed on his bottom lip, then looked back at Jacob.

"Women folks put stock in their trifles," he said seriously. "Your Mama has a fine set of sewin' shears and I one time used 'em to cut big sheets of paper I needed halved for map making."

Jacob's eyes changed: Linn saw the understanding, and the concern, in them.

"When Esther found out I'd used her good sewin' scissors for cuttin' paper, why, I could see the green fires lit up behint those lovely eyes of hers, and I will tell you honest now..."

He grinned crookedly --

"I seen them green eyes a-spittin' fire and I was genuinely afeared!"

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A LITTLE CHILD

Ambassador Marnie Keller, feminine and dignified in a McKenna gown and matching gloves, a quiet smile on her face and a fashionable little hat pinned a little off-center to compliment her elaborate hairdo, slung her Ithaca muzzle down from her left shoulder and looked at her father.

Sheriff Linn Keller rose, his face serious.

"Marnie?" he asked quietly. "What's wrong?"

Marnie swallowed hard.

The Sheriff's eyes were hard, pale, assessing: he gauged her stance, her balance, her color; he took note of her expression, her breathing, of feminine fingers lightly gripping her shotgun's fore-end, the determined look on her face.

He turned his head ever so slightly, as if to bring his best ear to bear: he spoke again, his voice quiet, a little deeper, the way a man will speak when one of his own has been threatened.

"Darlin'," he said, "who do I need to go after?"

Marnie looked at her father, he voice hollow, almost faint.

"I promised Littlejohn I'd be all right," she said.

Linn's eyes widened slightly and Marnie read alarm in his stance: he moved, fast, came out from around his desk, ran his hands under her arms.

Marnie did not collapse, but she did lean into her Daddy, hugging him, taking one long, shuddering, indrawn breath, sighed it out.

"I'm not hurt," she whispered.

Linn lowered his head, looked fiercely into his daughter's eyes.

He did not speak.

He did not have to.

Marnie knew this man, this quiet man, was ready to go to war.

She laid her head against his collar bone and whispered, "It's all right, Daddy.  It's all right now."

 

Littlejohn regarded his mother solemnly as she prepared to step through the Iris and assume her diplomatic duties.

"Mama," he said, and Marnie stopped, turned, then she stopped altogether and stared.

Her son, her little boy, all nine years' worth of growth, of laughter, of play and of learning, stared at her with an earnestness, a solemnity, she'd never seen before.

"Come back when you're done, Mama," he said, and she'd never heard him use that voice before: "Promise me you'll be back."

Marnie flowed over to a serious-faced little boy with wide and unblinking eyes, a little boy in knee pants and a pullover shirt with the image of a locomotive with a horse's head and hooves and the words IRON HORSE beneath: she hugged him quickly, then held his shoulders as she knelt and looked very directly into his eyes and whispered, "I'll be back," and kissed him on the cheek.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, and Marnie's heart cooled several degrees.

He'd never called her "Yes ma'am."

It was always, "Yes, Mama."

Marnie turned her face away, frowned, debated.

She was expected, her skills were needed to arbitrate a territorial dispute, she was requested because both sides either knew her, or knew of her, and trusted her:  she turned at Threshold, her skirt twisting as she did, and she looked back at Littlejohn, who stood, watching ...

He's almost glaring, she thought.

It's like he knows ... something.

"I'll be back," she said soundlessly, her lips framing the words -- seen, unheard, but real -- then she rose gracefully, turned, and stepped through the Iris.

 

"I told Littlejohn I'd be back," Marnie said quietly as she settled into a chair, drawn up beside the Sheriff's desk.

"He had ... I don't know. A premonition, maybe ... usually it's only women who ..."

Linn waited, then offered, "Our bloodlines are converging with every generation. He may be able to manifest what only women have been able to do."

"Negotiations fell apart," Marnie said quietly. "If I hadn't been wearing my Confederate field, I'd have been killed in the first volley. It's considered bad form for an Ambassador to wear a Field, but I can hide a multitude of sins under a long dress."

Marnie saw her Daddy's eyes pale by several degrees.

"When it started, I got between ... I ..."
Marnie had grounded the muzzle of her shotgun between her feet: she patted its figured walnut rearstock.

"I found it necessary to address the sinners in a language they'd understand.

"We made for the Shuttle. I fought a rearguard action" -- she looked at her Daddy, tilted her head a little -- "you remember you showed me how to skipshot against a wall, and how skipshot off the ground, how the pattern fanned out at knee height?"

The Sheriff nodded, his face carefully expressionless.

"I ... kept their heads down and got us back to the shuttle, and we got out of Dodge before any of us were belted in.

"There will be official repercussions, there will be sanctions and charges and court actions, there always are, and if war breaks out we'll land on 'em with an occupying force in strength enough to kick every last one of their backsides so far up between their shoulder blades --"

Marnie closed her eyes, leaned her forehead down on her shotgun's recoil pad.

"All I could think of was Littlejohn, Daddy."

Marnie raised her head, looked at her father with eyes he'd never seen before.

"He knew, Daddy.

"He knew.

"Somehow.

"All I could ... I heard him telling me to ..."
She groaned, lowered her head again.

"Marnie," Linn said softly, "do you remember saying that to me?"
Marnie looked up, over the brown rubber recoil pad, blinked.

"I was leaving for work and you came down the steps and you stopped and looked at me all serious and said 'Daddy, be careful,' and I recall that surprised me."

"I remember," Marnie whispered, lifted surprised eyes to his.

"I ran to you and I grabbed you and I told you I'd lost everybody but you and Mama and I didn't want to lose you too.

"You picked me up and I remember how strong you felt and you twiddled my nose with your muts-tash and you whispered that you'd be coming home 'specially for me."

Linn waited as Marnie's eyes filled with the memory, as she looked suddenly at him.

"I remember when you came home, you had a knife slice across your belly."

"Barely broke the skin," Linn grunted. "Didn't even need stitches."

"I knew when it happened, Daddy. I felt it."  Her hand went to her own belly, feeling the memory again, a memory she'd kept hidden, pushed back into her mind's dark places where she kept things she didn't want to look at.

"I came back to you," Linn said quietly, "and you came back to Littlejohn. Do you know why?"

Marnie shook her head slowly.

"I came back to you because when I faced off to that fella, I could hear your words, like you were saying them a foot away from my good ear."

Linn's words were as quiet as his expression.

"When I heard your voice, I stepped back, fast."

Marnie lost a significant percentage of color from her face.

Sheriff Linn Keller grinned at his daughter, gave her a wink.

"Never underestimate the power of a little child!"

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

OUTCOME

A curious son of the Shining Mountains regarded his horse with an assessing eye.

He'd asked his Pa a question, when the man was busy, and his Pa hadn't answered: Joseph didn't press the matter, realizing he'd asked in an unhandy moment.

He went ahead and finished his chores -- there were always chores! -- but he worked steadily at them and got his assigned tasks finished.

His Pa turned, saw his son was missing, then he heard the ax, the clatter of seasoned wood, and he smiled inwardly, the corners of his eyes tightening a little.

Joseph often disappeared once his chores were done -- but he never disappeared without purpose -- he'd tend schoolwork that either needed finished, or that he wanted to be better prepared for; he'd read, and if it was at all possible, Jacob did not his son's reading.

Jacob's pale eyed Pa told him at the same age that "All the wisdom in the world is found in books," and his Pa was a man who enjoyed reading, and because his long tall Pa read, and enjoyed reading, Jacob read, enjoyed reading as well: because Jacob, as a father, read, and his son saw him reading, his son, and Jacob's other children, read as well.

Joseph was not reading, though.

He might've headed for the house, but Jacob knew if Joseph saw a water bucket needing filled, he'd fill it, if he saw the woodbox needed filled, he'd fill it.

Then he'd go read.

Jacob smiled again as he worked on the harness, carefully tapping the  clean-punched leather layers over the rivet's shaft, dropping the copper collar over and then peening the rivet flat: a half dozen more to go and he'd be finished.

The sound of an ax cleaving seasoned wood echoed off the side of the house and down into the barn where Jacob was working.  

Jacob smiled.

His son disappeared, yes, but he saw something that needed done, and he was doing it.

Joseph packed an armload of kindling into the house, carefully arranged it in the kindling bucket, overflow stacked vertically in the corner of the kitchen woodbox.

Schoolboys talk about anything and everything, and Joseph's school chums described stacking a minimal amount of wood to make the woodbox look full.

Joseph considered this household heresy: he took pride in his work, and when he was done, kindling was jigsawed vertically in the kindling bucket, so tightly it would take a wiggle-and-pull to coax the first piece out.

It was after this that he looked around, frowning. 

He was alone, his curiosity was up, there was bacon on the platter, fried up and in plenty, so he grabbed four strips -- one disappeared between strong white teeth -- the other three left the house by the back door, and they took Joseph with them.

Jacob looked up after he'd hung the repaired harness, after he'd inspected his saddle, after he'd carefully considered the other saddles hung there in the barn, after he'd carefully gone over bridles with pale eyes and strong, callus-edged fingers: he looked up as Joseph came into the barn.

Boys at loose ends will saunter, Jacob knew, and Joseph did not saunter: his step was purposeful, betraying his inherited restlessness, his spinning energies that invigorated his pale eyed soul.

Jacob looked at his son, marveling at how fast his firstborn was growing.

"Learn anything in school?" he asked.

Joseph looked seriously at his father.

"Sir, was wondering about something."

Jacob nodded once, hung a bitless bridle back on its peg.

"I didn't know the answer so I found it."

Jacob frowned a little, turned to face his son.

This much conversational preface meant that his son thought this important enough to address.

Joseph considered for a moment, then pushed forward, through his thoughts.

"Sir," he said, "I wondered if horses like bacon."

Jacob's eyebrow rose.

"And?"

"They don't, sir."

Jacob's face was solemn.

"Do we have a reasoned conclusion from this?" Jacob asked formally.

Joseph smiled, sudden, that bright, broad grin that spoke of his inner orneriment.

"Yes, sir," he declared happily.  "More for me!"

 

Michael Keller smiled as he read the account of a grandson's happy declaration.

The words were written in a careful, disciplined hand, by a man long dead, but living in legend, and in a pale eyed boy's imagination.

Reprints of Old Pale Eyes' Journals enjoyed a surprisingly broad circulation, and were popular reading on the Confederate worlds, for the same reason they were enjoyed in Firelands County.

Old Pale Eyes made a grand use of the simple declarative sentence.

It is always interesting to look at the world through someone else's eyes, and the subject matter, told firsthand by a man who lived in interesting times, provides marvelous grist for the popular imagination's mental mill.

Michael Keller read Old Pale Eyes' account of his son Jacob, laughing at his son Joseph's solemn pronouncement that he'd wondered if horses liked backon, and Michael could not help but wonder himself.

Michael absolutely loved bacon.

Michael could not imagine anyone who didn't.

He knew there were probably poor deprived folk who lacked a taste for this culinary delight.

He was quite happy he was not one of them.

In due time, another Journal would be added to, on a glowing screen rather than on good rag paper, with a steel nib dipped in good India ink: another pale eyed Sheriff would smile as he committed his account of a father's conversation to a more durable storage than his memory.

Michael read about a conversation, he wrote, something to do with a boy's question:

"Do horses like bacon?"

My youngest son Michael read that question, and so he conducted what he called a "Scienterrific Spearmint."

I think he stole the phrase from a comic strip somewhere.

He fried up a pound of bacon and offered it to several of my horses.

They preferred molasses cured chawin' tobacker.

He came to me, solemn-eyed and a little distressed.

I think he thought he was going to end up eating most of the pound himself.

A pale eyed father leaned back and smiled as he looked at the memory again, that of a distressed-looking boy solemnly regarding his long tall Pa.

He said -- with a degree of disappointment -- that the horses did not care for bacon, but a Fanghorn mare and her two colts ate the whole pound, and none left for him!

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PROMISE ME YOU'LL BE CAREFUL

Angela Keller, the pretty, pale eyed daughter of a pale eyed Sheriff, turned slowly to face the uniformed military officer.

Her eyes were cold, her eyes were pale, color stood out almost like dots over her cheekbones, and the rest of her face was dead white.

A sane man, a rational man, would have recognized these as warning signs of impending doom, death, destruction and utter ruin.

Unfortunately, the military officer had himself confused with someone important.

Angela pressed a button on her wrist-unit, closed her eyes, took a long breath, and counted silently to five.

Then she opened her eyes, and she smiled.

A sane and rational man would have backed away -- not that it would've saved him -- but the officious uniform with a self-important bully inside, leaned in a little closer, probably intending to intimidate this slender female in a nurse's white uniform.

His mistake registered in a detonation of pain, of shock, of the sensation of inheriting the front bumper of a Mack truck somewhere below his breastbone.

Deputy Sheriff Angela Keller, RN, exploded with the cold control of someone with multiple colorful belts in a variety of Oriental methods of un-gently pacifying thy neighbor.

Angela Keller responded with the brutally efficient Israeli hand-to-hand system intended to keep hardened warriors-to-seasoned-citizens safe in a close encounter of the unpleasant kind.

In short, Angela Keller used knees, elbows, heelstrikes and a side-snap-kick to fold up this blustering, bullying, interfering officer like a cheap suit, and drive him backwards into two soldiers standing behind him.

When the four soldiers accompanying the officer looked up, startled, they were looking down the business end of four Ithaca twelve-gauge shotguns, held by a like number of lean young men in Confederate-grey, diplomatic uniforms.

Angela stalked closer to the gasping, lower-ranked officer, waited until his soldiers got him to his feet.

"Captain," she said, her voice frosty enough that vapor should have been visible with her words, "I outrank you, I outrank your superior officer, I outrank your field commander, and I outrank your Chief Exec."

Her words were quiet, her words carried authority, and her words brooked no argument.

"You will leave my facility, and you will take your damned interference with you. If you return, you will be shot on sight. There will be no military presence here other than Diplomatic personnel. We treat wounded no matter who they are."

"This isn't over," the Captain managed to gasp.

Angela backhanded him, the sound loud in the shocked-silent medical tent.

"Get out," she hissed, "and remember this the next time you try throwing your weight around!"

Angela waited until his soldiers followed him out, then she raised her wrist-unit to her lips, spoke quietly.

Thirty seconds later, the medical tent was surrounded with Vietnam-era armored personnel carriers and just over a hundred armed Diplomatic troops: overhead, an Iris opened, and a half-dozen Huey gunships emerged at ten-second intervals, forming a noisy, clattering ring overhead, slowly orbiting the hospital tent. They would be replaced by boxy, silent Diplomatic Swifts, but not until the noise and motion of another world's warbirds established the authority of the Diplomatic Corps at a battlefield hospital.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller's face was grave as he listened to his daughter's quiet-voiced words.

He heard matters in her voice that she'd not put into words, and that concerned him.

"Darlin'," he said, "are you wearing your Shielding?"

"Yes, Daddy," she said --  normally her voice would have been lighter, normally she'd have dropped her eyes like a little girl, and maybe even she'd have flushed ever so slightly.

Today she did not, and that notched up the Sheriff's concern for his little girl's safety.

"Darlin'," he said, "please tell me you are carrying."

Angela smiled, just a little.

"I want to show you something, Daddy."

Angela rose, turned, motioned to someone off-camera.

"Daddy, do you remember Betsy?"

Linn smiled.

He'd been introduced to one of the most competent nurses he'd ever seen at work -- Betsy, short, pretty, fast, competent: Angela told him she thought of her as "Bitsy" because she was just an itsy bitsy little thing, until she saw her working.

Betsy came into camera view.

Angela leaned forward, expanded the camera's field of view.

Betsy looked like a little girl playing at being a superhero of some kind.

She wore what looked like faceted, white-plastic armor with red forearms, red shoulders -- red shin guards -- she carried a white helmet with a red crest.

Angela had Betsy turn around, obviously modeling the suit.

On the chest, a big, six armed blue star, the same insigna worn by Angela's Mama, a paramedic with the Firelands Fire Department: the same big, unmistakable insignia on the back.

She wore fingerless black gloves, and whether she wore white-plastic boots, or whether they were simply covering sabatons, the effect was that of a pretty girl in plastic armor.

Angela turned her, traced a forefinger in a big rectangle, from across the shoulders to across the low hips.

"This is the Confederate field generator," she said. "It's two fingers thick and it can power two households under full draw. The suit" -- she turned Betsy again -- "thermal controlled, soaks up sweat, recycles drinking water, and it can take a hit from a 20mm recoilless rifle firing depleted uranium."

"Dear God," Linn breathed. "Plastic can take that?"

Angela and Betsy both laughed.

"No, Daddy. The ... we use a regenerative field. When something hits, its energy is used to strengthen the field. The harder the hit, the stronger the field. Energy is absorbed, stored, reused."

Betsy lifted a white-plastic-looking helmet, slid it over her nurse-short hair: it left her face open, at least until she pressed a control and a visor dropped quickly to chin level, overlapping the high neck.

"Now that," Linn said quietly, "is impressive."

"It's practical," Angela sighed. "These idiots!" -- she spat the word -- "Daddy, I'd hoped the Confederacy would've learned from Earth's mistakes."

Linn frowned, leaned a little closer to the screen.

"They're the same as we are, Daddy. Just the same. Old men throwing their spleen at one another until they put young men out to die for them, they kill off the best and the brightest and when there's blood enough that one side or the other decides the cost is too high, they sit down and talk."

Angela's voice was bitter, harsh: she thanked Betsy quietly, looked back at her Daddy.

"Thank you, Betsy," Linn called, and the shy, blushing nurse in what looked like toy plastic armor, smiled a little and waved, then disappeared to the side.

"Marnie is running herself ragged, trying to put out fires, trying to stop the wars."

"Wars?" Linn's ears pulled back a little as he frowned again.

Angela nodded sadly.

"I had to backhand a Captain this morning and throw him out of my hospital tent."

"You were saying."

"We have Diplomatic troops surrounding us with orders to let no one in but field medics and patients."

"What about field artillery?"

"We've generators enough to keep a force dome over the compound.  It'll catch a 500 pound blockbuster and it won't even sound like a firecracker."

Angela smiled, and the smile was not kind.

"Don't worry, Daddy. The warring parties have been given strongly worded instructions from the Diplomatic Corps that -- until they have their own field medics -- the Angel Brigade is not under their command or control, and is not answerable to either side, and if they don't like it, they've been given the understanding that we can field more men in uniform and under arms, than they have total population in their respective countries. When they realized that interfering with the Angel Brigade  would risk their entire military being flattened, they pulled in their horns."

"Angela," Linn said seriously, his voice quiet, "you are at risk for assassination. Small men with a small amount of authority are dangerous when that authority is challenged. You're at risk for a sleeper disguised as one of the wounded."

"I know, Daddy. I'm wearing Uncle Will's .357."

Linn's smile was not at all kind.

He knew how well Angela could run that particular Smith & Wesson.

"Promise me you'll be careful," he said quietly.

"I promise, Daddy."

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SHADOW WALKER

A Scotsman once said, "A sentry protects as much ground as his bootsoles cover."

A sentry paced slowly in the nighttime stillness.

Fires were banked, the evening Tap-To had been beat on deep-voiced drums that lacked the rattling snare across their bottoms; soldiers were in their tents, and moving from one shadow to another cast by twin moons in a cloudless sky, another shadow.

The sentry stopped, turned, bored, disinterested: his pace was casual in the cool night air.

He neither heard, nor felt, a shadow that flowed from beside a bush, that fell in behind him, matching his pace step for step, until he passed into another shadow: when he emerged into moonlight again, his silent companion was gone.

Michael Keller squatted, eyes busy, listening with more than his ears.

Michael remembered his sister's account of running through what had been a battlefield, running desperately toward casualties, stopping to check for signs of life: there were dead, too many dead! -- here she cinched a torniquet around a leg to stanch what life was left and keep it from running out into the incarnadine puddle already gathered: there, she slapped a foil dressing on a chest wound, taped it quickly on three sides, slapped the other half of the foil packaging, sterile-side-to, taping it on all four sides: she told the frightened, gasping soldier "Breathe in," then she clamped her hand over his nose and mouth and hissed, "Breathe out!" -- blood and trapped air bubbled out her one-way valve, hastily fabricated and effectively employed: her pale eyes glared into his with an imperative, a command: his jugulars were bulging, he was struggling to breathe, but this woman, this angel, by suffocating him with her hand, was making his breathing easier.

Angela left a flashing tracker on each of the wounded: she ran from one to another, doing what she could with what little she had.

The battle made itself known with no warning, at least not to her.

She had no time to prepare: she hadn't found out through regular channels.

She had time to grab a shoulder bag she kept packed for the unforeseen, and she'd run, and she'd come out just in time to be too late, too late! -- 

Then she was shot.

She felt her field set up when the slug arrived, suspended, held with invisible energies that surrounded her, kept her safe: another, a minute later: someone was deliberately targeting her.

Angela raised her wrist to her lips, spoke urgently: her words triggered a programmed response, her words galvanized and mobilized twenty handpicked nurse-paramedics she'd trained, she'd worked with, she'd tried and tested and found each of the twenty to be absolutely reliable, extremely competent, well motivated, and available.

Another slug, captured as she knelt by another handsome young body: he lay still, his eyes half open, teeth showing, white, even, a fine young man in the stillness of death.

She did not need to press her fingers into his throat to know there would be nothing there.

It was later when Angela went to the command tent, later when Angela set up her field hospital tent, later when she accosted the enemy field commander after she threw a lower ranking officer out.

It was later when word spread, and spread fast, that someone was deliberately targeting her -- after the battle was over -- after both sides withdrew from the field -- when the only thing moving was a solitary Angela, white against the grasses.

Now a shadow waited, watched, listened.

Technology not known to this world drew lines from Angela's positions, to the point from when came the assassin's shots.

Technology unseen located the individual responsible, the one sniper who intentionally attempted to murder a noncombatant.

A shadow flowed from the bush and into a tent, a shadow that clung to the ground, a shadow with a knife held between its teeth, a shadow that flowed into the tent.

No sound came from beneath nighttime canvas.

No movement disturbed the taut, wax-and-turpentine-coated cloth, shining with nighttime dew.

The shadow did not emerge.

 

Michael was showered, in clean clothes and shined boots, silent as a technician compared the exemplar from the captured rifle to the heavy slugs captured by Angela's personal field.

Four sets of pale eyes regarded the comparison, then looked at one another as the words were pronounced:

"We have a match."

 

Michael had no need to move like a shadow again; he'd been inside the tent, he'd sent a location pulse: now, when the Iris opened, it lowered over the sleeping man.

The tent was found empty the next day.

 

A prisoner was brought into the classroom by large, hard-muscled, hard-eyed guards.

The classroom was empty, save for a woman in white, a woman wearing a winged cap, quietly grading papers at her desk.

The guards released the man's arms: wordless, they withdrew, closed the door.

The woman never looked up.

"You tried to murder me," she said, making a mark on a paper, setting it aside, bringing another sheet in front of her.

"I'm a soldier," came the stiff-voiced reply.

"Yes," Angela agreed, setting the paper aside, bringing another onto her green desk blotter.

"You kill soldiers. You don't kill noncombatants."

"I kill anyone on the other side. Those are my orders."

"I reviewed your orders," she said coldly. "You are not supposed to shoot noncombatants."

"You were helping the enemy. That makes you the enemy, I don't care what kind of fancy clothes you're wearing."

Angela finally looked up, then she laid her pen across the paper she hadn't examined yet.

"What you did," she said quietly, "was to commit a war crime. Where I'm from, that's called attempted murder."

"YOU MADE YOURSELF AN ENEMY WHEN YOU HELPED THEM!" he shouted.

Angela stood, walked slowly down the aisle between classroom tables, stopped just out of arm's reach, tilted her head a little as if she were examining a biological specimen.

"Our legal section is reviewing exactly what orders were given," she said, her voice even. "You will be held until your orders are reviewed. It may be such a thing that you were acting under orders. If that is the case, whoever gave those orders will be prosecuted as the murderer. In the meantime, both sides have been given --"

"YOU CAN'T DO THIS! I'M A SOLDIER!" he shouted angrily, hands tightening into fists, his face reddening with the strength off his defiantly-shouted challenge.

"Fear response," Angela said mildly. "Inappropriate aggression to prevent unwanted information --"

Her reaction was faster than his attack -- not surprising, as she expected his punch.

The floor came up to meet him, his arm screamed with pain, his wrist felt like it was going to twist off his forearm, and then something detonated an absolute sunball of agony into his tenderloins as a pair of white-stockinged knees speared into his kidneys, crushing him into the floor and knocking two weeks' worth of wind out of him and paralyzing him with unutterable, absolutely blinding, PAIN!

A man's voice, gentle:  "Pardon me, my dear."

Hard hands SLAMMED down on his shoulder blades, crushed up two good handfuls of material, hauled the prisoner off the floor, turned him.

A fist drove into his gut hard enough to bring his feet off the floor.

The punch was delivered upward, up through the belly and into the diaphragm, intending to shock the lungs into standstill, intending to cause the greatest distress, intended to punish as well as immobilize.

He remembered behind dragged -- how far, he didn't know, where to, he didn't know.

All he knew was, when he was finally able to take a breath and roll over, he hurt worse than he'd hurt in his entire life.

That he had to wipe away tears to see was of no matter.

That he saw steel bars when his vision cleared, was of no consequence.

He could not prevent the memory of a set of pale eyes, inches from his, a quiet voice.

The words.

The words that ran a trickle of cold water down his back bone.

"You," a man said quietly, lips barely moving beneath an iron-grey mustache.

"Tried to hurt.

"My.

"Little.

"Girl."

He'd seen soldiers disciplined.

He'd heard soldiers scream with pain when they were buck-and-winged.

He'd heard of soldiers being horse whipped, he'd heard descriptions of men screaming as plaited, oiled leather sliced through skin and muscle and laid ribs bare.

Nothing -- nothing! -- frightened him more than those quiet words, as those pale eyes, an inch from his.

Not after being downed by a mere woman.

Not after being hoisted off the floor like he was a rag doll.

Nothing put cold, clattering fear into him like those quiet-voiced words.

"You.

"Tried to hurt.

"My.

"Little.

"Girl."

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SHORT, FAT, AND SLOW 

Victoria Keller had the marvelous ability to look like ... well, whatever she chose to look like.

She'd grown up reading about the legendary Sarah Lynne McKenna, who learned the art of the Quick Change from modeling her Mama's fashions for the San Frisco buyers, and from haunting the theaters, next door and elsewhere: she'd learned tricks of presentation, not only foundations and face paint and wigs and costumes, but how to stand, how to move, how to project not just the voice, but the personality as well.

Victoria Keller read of the legendary Sarah Lynne McKenna's physical attributes -- not her stature, not her build, but rather her ability to become instantly, brutally, unexpectedly, violent.

Victoria had not the childhood traumas that burned Sarah Lynne McKenna's soul into a hard, charred knot, that made her hard and vicious and brutal and merciless and utterly, completely, absolutely, without a conscience -- when it suited her.

Victoria decided there were facets of this personality she should adopt.

To that end, she selected one of the fuzzy pups Snowdrift watched and herded and taught and nursed, and Victoria hauled buckets of steaming-hot water to a small galvanized tub out in the barn, knowing it would cool off, and cool quickly, being poured in a cold tin tub set on a cold concrete floor.

By the time she added soap and changed into a rain jacket, her hand thrust in the water told her it was just right, and so she picked up her selection from the fuzzy black litter and dunked it in the tub.

Victoria's hands were careful, Victoria's hands were firm: she worked soapy water into the pup's curly black fir, carefully gave this smaller, shining-black version of her Mama a bath.

Sarah Lynne McKenna used to do this with The Bear Killer, back in her day.

Victoria concentrated on her work, even going so far as to pile soap suds atop this little Bear Killer's head like a bubbly crown.

This lasted about three and a half seconds, until a vigorous shaking prompted Victoria's squint and turn-away, grateful that she'd worn the rain jacket.

Satisfied, she brought the pup out, dunked it in a galvanized bucket of clean, warm water, used a paper cup to carefully rinse soap suds down off the head and ears and down the back bone.

This, of course, prompted its own cascade of vigorously slung water.

Once Victoria got the pup rinsed off and toweled down, this little ball of soaky-wet, gleaming-back wiggle and grunt, closed its eyes and sneezed vigorously -- once, twice -- Victoria transferred it to a big fluffy bath towel, and sat down on a hay bale and brought the pup up onto her lap and dried it the rest of the way with careful, almost delicate attention.

Pups, little boys and pale eyed Daddies all share a common characteristic, one that Victoria, for her few years, knew well.

This little black furred fellow blinked as he was dried off; he'd filled his belly; warmed from bathwater and from being wrapped in a fresh, dry towel, held on Victoria's lap, he stood on wobbly legs, then fell over with a dramatic sigh, and was instantly asleep.

You're just like an old bear, she thought, remembering her Daddy's words on the subject.

You get your belly full, you get warm, you fall asleep!

Victoria slipped a collar around the pup's neck, drew it carefully snug.

It had the usual vaccination tags, owner's name and phone number, and the pup's name.

"Hello, my name is 45. If I'm lost, I belong to the Sheriff," and a phone number.

Victoria remembered talking about naming this pup with her Daddy.

"He'll become Bear Killer when he's big," she said, her voice serious, "but right now he's 45."

Linn looked at her curiously, smiled a little.

"He's ... 45?"

Victoria blinked, giving her big strong Daddy her Very Best Surprised Little Girl look: she wasn't a little girl anymore, she was starting to look womanly, but Victoria practiced being who she wanted to appear to be, and at the moment, she knew, she was better served by appearing to be, Daddy's Little Girl.

She gave her Daddy those big lovely eyes and said in a little girl's voice, "Daddy, you said the .45 Automatic is short, fat and slow, and it gets the job done."

Victoria held up the pup she was cuddling, still nested in the towel, still muzzle-thrust out over her forearm, and still sound asleep.

"I think this one fits that description!"

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

JUST ANOTHER DAY

The Bear Killer rolled over on his back.

Under other conditions, his rippling black lips, the exposing of ivory canines, the deep rumbling growl, would give pause for consideration and perhaps a re-evaluation of certain life choices.

At least in the sane, rational, adult mind.

This ... didn't happen.

As a matter of fact, when The Bear Killer's voice raised a little, from that deep, chest-echoing, primal snarl that originated somewhere millennia ago when lupine ancestors were among Earth's apex predators, the behaviors that started this unmistakable vocalization only increased.

The Bear Killer lay on his back, happily thwapping his thick, plumed tail on the floor, while eager, giggling schoolchildren massaged his chest and his belly, looking at one another with expressions of absolute, utter delight.

Michael sat cross legged, grinning, a book open on his lap.

He hadn't intended to read for this schoolhouse full of children.

He'd intended to deliver a stack of books, he'd intended to touch his hat brim in deferential respect to the schoolmarm, he'd intended to saddle up.

That's all he'd intended to do.

The Bear Killer came along with him, for no particular reason; Lightning and Cyclone, of course, flanked him as he rode, and although the schoolhouse full of children knew what the Fanghorn was, although they'd seen Michael riding in, although they saw the smaller Fanghorns flanking, none of them knew what The Bear Killer was.

This world never evolved lupines, nor any of their kin.

Children and dogs have a natural affinity for one another, and when The Bear Killer trotted happily up to them, tail swinging and mouth open in a doggy smile, children -- especially the youngest children -- did what children always do.

They reached out, and they giggled, and soon Michael was sitting cross legged with a big idiot grin on his face.

Cyclone and Thunder begged for attention as well, finding it with the older students.

Dignity was cast to the winds.

A truly huge mountain Mastiff was on his back, reveling in all this attention, two juvenile Fanghorn rolled over on their backs, heavy hooves pawing happily at distant clouds overhead: a schoolmarm leaned against the frame of their one room schoolhouse, hiding her smile behind a hand, even white teeth biting her knuckle lightly to keep from giggling.

She ended up bringing Michael one of the books he'd brought.

Michael turned so his shadow cast on the page -- he'd no wish to barbecue his eyeballs, reading from white paper in direct sunlight -- the schoolmarm asked Michael in a gentle voice if he'd read to the students.

Cyclone rolled over, shook herself, stuck her neck out and belched, then came over beside Michael and folded her legs.

Thunder got up, shook, trotted around his dam and over behind Michael, slipped easily between wide-eyed, marveling schoolchildren, and settled down opposite his sibling.

Michael looked up, grinned.

"This book," he said, "was written by a fellow named Mark Twain. That means riverboats and steam engines and that's for another time."

He held the book up, showed the cover, turning as he did.

"This one is Tom Sawyer, and I particularly like it!"

Michael Keller worked his bony backside a little, getting comfortable, sitting cross legged on the ground: he opened the book, he began to read.

Children listened with wide and marveling eyes, young hands resting in curly black fur, or the fine, silky fur of two quietly-snoring Fanghorn colts.

 

Next day, another world: Michael was riding through a pass not unlike many of the passes back home, when Lightning whipped end-for-end, snarling.

The Bear Killer was not with him.

Cyclone and Thunder were already facing their back trail, then they turned, one facing left, the other right.

Michael felt Lightning's warning rumble -- it was an impressive thing, forking a horse that made his Gammaw's Frisian look small, and feeling that deep, feral snarl he'd heard before, that snarl that meant blood was about to be shed.

Michael reached back and down and gripped his rifle's checkered wrist, brought it free.

Something landed on Lightning's hind quarters: Michael twisted, his back screaming at him for his foolishness.

Michael drove the gunmuzzle into a tawny skull, jerked the trigger: he turned to face forward, teeth set against his spine's agonies: he jacked the lever as Lightning twisted, reared.

Michael was almost blind with pain.

He laid down over Lightning's neck, willing himself to silence, jaw locked against his internal agonies.

Lightning's head snapped to the left -- fast -- she reared, she came down hard --

Michael gripped his saddle horn left handed, his rifle across the saddlebow, he blinked stinging eyes, then hissed as Lightning came off the ground, came down, hooves bunched: Michael shoved his pain aside, looked over to where Lightning was driving a forehoof into something tan and furry.

Michael could not straighten up, and every time Lightning came down on something, it drove an explosion of utter agony up his backbone.

He didn't raise his wrist to his lips.

He was bent over already.

All he had to do was gasp a few words.

Victoria came out of an Iris on her Daddy's Appaloosa, Angela came out, threw her cruiser broad side of the road, skidding up dirt, lights spitting alarm.

Marnie appeared behind with four lean young men with shotguns and irritated expressions.

Angela came around the front of the cruiser, sizing up the situation: her eyes went for the trees on the uphill side of the road, her shotgun's muzzle following her eyes.

Marnie's shotgun spoke, then Angela's: Victoria faced the opposite direction, eyes busy, scanning the trees.

Cyclone and Thunder were busy driving bloodied muzzles into something that was apparently edible.

One large and very hard hoof held what was left of a crushed skull down while they took turns gorging on the remains of a tawny cat of some kind.

Lightning was growling -- Angela blinked, then laughed -- she'd heard saddlehorses make noises of many kinds, but she'd never heard one growl -- that chest-deep, menacing, I'm-going-to-eat-you-and-your-entire-family sound a predator makes when they are a mile and a half past unhappy.

There honestly wasn't enough left under Lightning's broad, rocklike hooves, to eat: she'd very efficiently turned something that might have been a big cat of some kind, into furry paste.

She walked fearlessly, patted the muttering Fanghorn's neck, looked up at Michael.

"You okay?" she asked, then she saw Michael's face and knew that no, he was not okay.

Feminine hands coaxed the Fanghorn ahead, away from the bloody, greasy patch in the hard packed roadway.

Angela patted Lightning's thick foreleg:  "Down, girl," she murmured, and Lightning, sounding like a distant thunderstorm had taken residence in her chest cavity, folded her thick legs and bellied down.

Thunder and Cyclone looked around, disinterested: a nearby stream claimed their attention, and they went to wash their faces and their palates in clean running water.

"I turned too fast," Michael hissed between clenched teeth.

He felt the too-familiar pressure of a scanner easing down the curve of his back bone.

Angela looked across Lightning's back at her sister, her expression serious, then raised her wrist-unit to her lips.

"This is Angel One," she said quietly. "Diplomatic priority, requesting injured Diplomatic staff transport direct to Central Medical."

Michael was still doubled over, not daring to move.

"All I wanted was to deliver some books," he gasped.

Angela reached back, pressed on the saddlebags -- empty -- "Did you deliver already?"

Michael tried nodding, grimaced as he realized that was a supremely bad idea.

An Iris opened in the roadway.

Angela caressed Lightning's neck, then her jaw.

"Up, girl," she whispered, and Lightning turned her bone-bossed head, one eye regarding Angela -- she wasn't sure what Lightning's expression was -- the big Fanghorn rose, easily, smoothly, as if realizing movement was a bad thing for her rider.

Victoria held out a hand, made a kissing sound.

"Here, kitty, kitty," she called, riding her Daddy's saddlehorse forward and into the Iris.

Horse, rider, Fanghorn and colts all disappeared into the black void of the Iris: Angela skipped around it, jumped into her cruiser, pulled through it -- she didn't understand what little she knew about Iris technology, but she knew she could drive through it from its back side like a bead curtain, and did.

Marnie and four Confederate guards climbed in.

Angela eased the shifter into reverse, left her red-and-blues on, and backed through the Iris.

"Do you suppose the Sheriff will object to your being out of the county?" Marnie asked quietly.

Angela swatted her on the arm and laughed.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I'M GLAD YOU'RE HERE

Victoria and Michael were twins.

Victoria was still slender and girlish, with the suggestions of contours that meant Daddy's Little Girl wasn't going to be so little much longer.

Michael was growing in height.

He was not yet sprouting chin whiskers, and likely would not for a few years, but damned few, if his pale-eyed Pa was any judge.

Consciousness returned to Michael's system with all the subtlety of a slammed door: his eyes snapped open, his hand tightened a little -- even in the induced relaxation of a painkill field, the feel of a warm, strong hand in his was a comfort.

Michael's eyes snapped open.

He was flat on his back -- he was carefully positioned, with rolled material bracing under his knees, under his ankles.

His hand tightened a little on his Pa's and he swallowed.

No boy wants to look vulnerable in front of his Pa, but Michael could not help it: he'd known pain that absolutely destroyed his reserves, and this most recent recurrence shattered the reserves he'd built against that particular, very personal betrayal in front of the Grand Old Man.

"Sir," he whispered, swallowing again, "I'm glad you're here."

Linn's hand tightened a little on his son's, his other hand lowering, sandwiching Michael's hand between both of his.

"I won't ask how you feel," Linn said quietly. "They showed me your pain index. I doubt if I could have taken that level of pain."

"Warn't good," Michael gasped, making a very small, experimental move, shifting his hips ever so slightly.

"What happened, Michael?"

Michael's eyes ranged across the ceiling of his hospital room, he blinked twice, then looked at his Pa.

"The cats," he whispered, and Linn felt his son's hand tighten again with the memory. "Sir, the cats -- they hunt in packs, they bite through the back of the skull --"

Linn shifted a little, turning to look very directly into his son's face.

He nodded, once.

"Go on."

"Sir, it's my fault. I let my mind wander."

Linn considered this, frowned a little.

"Looked to me like you did quite a bit right."

"I was careless," Michael almost spat, his voice bitter.

"You handled a hot potato someone dropped right in your lap. Tell me how it started."

Michael hesitated.

"I felt Lightning," he said, his voice distant. "I felt her and I knew something was not right. I bent and leaned back and shucked out my rifle."

He looked up at his father.

"That didn't hurt, sir."

"What happened next, Michael?"

"Something hit her in the hind quarters. I felt the claws dig into me -- into her --"
Michael's eyes were confused.

"I didn't get clawed, sir, I -- she --"

"I know.  What did you do next?"

"It was Lightning," Michael whispered. "I felt her -- I felt the cat dig into her -- I twisted around and drove the muzzle --"

His voice trailed off as his eyes grew distant, looking at the memory.

"You stopped the threat," Linn said quietly.

"Yes, sir, that's when I realized I'd hurt myself, a-twistin' like that."

"What do you remember next?"

"I doubled over, sir. It hurt too much to do aught else."

"Marnie said you called for backup. That was sensible."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you remember making the call?"

"No, sir," Michael admitted. "All I can recall is grippin' the saddle horn and Lightning was landin' hard and it hurt ..."

Memory leaked, hot and wet from the corners of his eyes: he squeezed his eyes shut, tight, turned his head away, started to raise his arm.

Something soft laid against the side of his face and he stopped his arm before he could lay it across his eyes.

His Pa was pressing a kerchief against the corners of his eyes, one side, the other.

His folded hankie was warm and smelled of clean laundry, of home.

"I'm sorry," Michael hissed through clenched teeth.

"Michael," Linn said, his voice quiet: Michael felt the bed creak as his Pa's weight came on the shining-steel siderail, as the older man leaned over, closer to his son.

"You've nothing to be sorry about," Linn said, his voice deep, gentle, reassuring.

"You got hit with more pain than a grown man can take. You nailed a mountain cat before it could swarm up and bite you through the back of your skull. You kept Lightning alive. Victoria already took care of the claw-digs on Lightning's hinder, but she said Lightning didn't much like it."

"Victoria," Michael whispered, his eyes opening, almost panicked. "Sis, is Sissy okay?"

Linn grinned, then laughed.

"Victoria had her belly down so she could reach the cat digs. She cleaned 'em out, she poured in some peroxide and she wiped some ackumpuck into 'em so they'd not infect."

"How'd Lightning take it?"

"She stuck her neck out and screamed like someone goosed a steam whistle."

Michael chuckled through his distress.

"I've got her and her colts at home. They still don't like molasses twist."

"I'm sorry, sir."

Linn grinned, squeezed his son's hand again.

"Don't be. It's given Victoria an excuse to spoil 'em."

Linn straightened a little, looked over, hooked a rolling steel stool with the toe of a boot.

He released the siderail latch, one-handed, eased it down, sat, never releasing his son's grip.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Michael?"

Michael turned his head a little, looked at his father.

"I'm glad you're here."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

VULCAN, I NEED YOUR HELP

It used to be a hardware store sledge hammer, at least until Kid Mike bought it.

He smiled a little as he picked it up -- it looked like a toy in his callused, knuckle-scarred hands -- he took it home, he gripped it not far from its head, frowned, slid his hand down a little more, nodded.

A few strokes with the crosscut saw and what the local hardware sold as a two-hand sledge hammer was now Mike's new, one-hand, blacksmith's Single Jack.

Most Single Jacks swung back when Fireland was young, were lighter than this, but still substantially heavier than most one hand hammers: they were used to drive a star drill, to drill holes to place shots of powder, or later, of that new-fangled waxy-stick dynamite stuff.

The principle remained the same, though: this modern day blacksmith needed a hammer that hit with both control and with authority.

Kid Mike he was known to certain women with pale eyes -- he'd been called that by a laughing Sheriff who taught him that yes, he can actually dance (though she had to wear her highest heels!), and since then, more pretty women with pale eyes danced with him in the big round barn under the granite cliff's overhang.

Mike withdrew his work from the forge, gauged the color, set to work with a steady rhythm: he'd started with three ceremonial taps on the anvil, something his father did, and his grandfather before him: it was Willamina -- or maybe Marnie -- who taught him this was to chase out any evil spirits that may be lurking in the iron, three strikes for the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, three strikes for the three leaves of the Shamrock: she'd tilted her head and folded her arms and smiled up at him with those lovely, barely-light-blue eyes and said, "And if it's good enough for Granddad, it's good enough for me!"

Mike raised his hammer and began his work.

 

Michael adjusted the hover-screen where he could see it best, smiled a little as his Big Sis stepped out from behind her desk and addressed the class.

"This is an in-service," she said, "you're all on shift so I won't take long. The best presentation I ever sat through was also the briefest. This might not be the best, but it'll be in the top ten."

Michael saw appreciative looks from the class: he recognized two nurses who'd taken care of him earlier this same morning.

Most, he knew, were new students, though his pale eyes picked out the six armed blue stars that marked the medics among them.

"This is my friend Mike," Angela said, smiling, her voice pitched to be heard to the back row of the lecture hall.

She ran her arm around the man's waist and hugged into him, and the visual was almost that of a little girl playing nurse hugging her big strong Daddy.

If Angela wore her highest heels, she would have looked Kid Mike square in the collar bone.

It's not that she was that tiny.

It's that Mike was just plainly that big.

Angela released her one-armed hug, drew back, looked up, smiled.

"Mike, hold out your arm."

Mike raised a muscled arm -- bigger in circumference that most of the ladies' thighs -- he extended it like an ancient, twisted, very solid oak branch, horizontal above the winged white cap she wore.

"Mike is a blacksmith," Angela said, "and a damned good one.  There are good blacksmiths, Mike is damned good!"  

She smiled up at the man and saw his ears were reddening.

She looked back at the class.

"Today's subject is Therapeutic Communication, and Mike here has helped me make a very important point in the past, so here it is."

She stepped to the side and said "You can relax now, I'm almost done embarrassing you."

Mike grinned like an unabashed schoolboy.

Angela gave the roomful of assessing femininity a knowing look and said, "Sorry, ladies, he's married."

A hand rose in the back and a voice called hopefully, "Yes, but is he happily married?" -- to the quiet laughter of the rest of the nurses, and the red-faced grin of the bashful-looking blacksmith.

Angela raised a teaching finger.

"Here's my point," she said, then pulled up a chair, stood on it, laid a hand on Kid Mike's sculpted shoulder.

"If I look at Mike here, if I clap my hand on his shoulder, if I give him a grin and a wink and a laugh and I tell him 'Mike, that hat looks awful, I'd ought to knock it off your head and stomp it into the ground,' he knows from the wink and the grin and the hand on the shoulder, he knows from the laugh and the bantering tone of voice, what I'm really saying is, 'Mike, that's a good looking hat and I wish I had one just like it!"

Angela paused, looking around, her face going from cheerful to serious.

"If I send Mike an e-mail or an IM or a text or a note and he reads, 'I oughta knock that hat off your head and stomp it into the ground!' -- without the wink, or the grin, or the hand on his shoulder -- why, that's an invitation to a young war!"

Angela ran her hands around his elbow, pulled his arm up level, slid his short shirt sleeve back to show the phenomenal, sculpted muscular hypertrophy that is part and parcel of a blacksmith's visual signature -- "Just look at this arm! In case of a tie, Mike here is NOT coming out in second place!"

Angela pulled his arm down, patted his shoulder, murmured "Thanks, Mike," and stepped off the chair.

"So here's the lesson and we're almost done.

"Ninety percent of communication is nonverbal. 

"Ninety percent."

She let the words hang.

"The words you use are only ten percent of the message. We think of a phone call as efficient. It's not as good as face to face. A written note, a text, an E-mail, is stripped even further of the valuable clues and cues that signal what is actually being said."

She looked up at Vulcan, folding his arms across his broad chest.

"If you doubt that, just send Mike a note about his hat."