SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HOT COMMODITY

The Confederacy, system-wide, enjoyed the same Ripper technology as the Martian colonies.

Waste of all kinds, without limit, went into the Rippers.

Waste was disassembled at the subatomic level, reassembled into what was needed: thanks to certain long-half-life isotopes, energy was not lacking, and where there was energy, electricity and its distribution and use increased, and with it, the Inter-System.

White Angel, Red Mare was one of the most recent publications to enjoy the popular imagination's consumption.

The Inter-System, which was finally becoming a standard system-wide, had news reporting down pretty well, and the folk running the operation were looking for something other than just ... well, news.

Someone got the bright idea of discussing matters of interest, not necessarily news.

One of these shows opened with Angela, teaching class, animated, engaging, taking the lessons in small, high-intensity chunks: she was in perpetual motion, her skirt never stopped swinging, her hands were never still, and subjects that might otherwise have been dull and boring suddenly became interesting.

Best of all, her lessons were remembered, because in the practicum, she had a talent for linking didactic learning with hands-on application: she involved the patients, she involved the doctors, to their surprise, perhaps to their condescending amusement, until they realized just how well Angela was manipulating their responses.

Not surprising, really.

Angela had been one of the best interrogators her pale eyed Daddy's Sheriff's office ever knew.

After the justly-famous Sheriff Willamina, of course, who was reputed to be able to charm a chunk of stolid, unemotional granite into brisk conversation.

A man with a voice two octaves deeper than the last note on the low end of a piano was asked about her.

He was holding a copy of White Angel, Red Mare, and he looked at the cover with a sardonic twist of half his mouth and offered his studied opinion that this was sheer, unadulterated, bull stuffin's.

The interviewer asked him why.

He pulled back a sleeve and showed an arm -- terribly scarred, the shiny flesh of healed burns -- he said, "She kept me alive.  I know."

When pressed for details, he said quietly, "All I'll say was, when they worked on the burns and cut off scab like they had to so it could heal, she held my good hand and asked me to sing."

He looked at the cover, looked at a fierce Valkyrie, riding to war and slinging leaden death from both hands.

"Angel she is," he said softly, "but not like this."

 

Angela and the burn specialists all wore Confederate fields -- not for defensive purposes, but rather to contain any pathogens their bodies might harbor.

Each scrubbed with careful detail, each put on new sterile garments, but each wore the absolute guarantee that there would be no contamination carried into the burn ward.

Angela wore her usual whites.

It's what the patients expected to see.

Administration learned it's what the patients wanted to see.

Angela was known, and no matter a patient's vision, they could see this feminine healer in a winged cap and white dress, and they knew it was someone they trusted.

The others all wore surgical masks.

Angela did not.

She was adequately protected by her field, and she knew how important it was to see a familiar face.

He was a strong man, he was a big man, he was a man with a deep voice and a powerful, booming, utterly sincere laugh.

He was a man who worked hard when he worked, played hard when he played, a man who delighted in his children and who utterly adored his wife, and he was a man dying of burn injuries, or had been, until Angela and her team arrived.

Angela coached him with breathing exercises, encouraging his healing lungs to expand: alone, the two of them, she encouraged him, one step at a time -- breath in, she inhaled with him, hold one, two three, ease out, and because it was just the two of them, because she worked with him, because she looked him in the eye and because she treated him like a man, not a powerless victim, he breathed with her.

She brought in twenty pound weights, the same octagonal dumbbells her Gammaw used as push-up handles when she exercised in her living room to the driving beat of In the Hall of the Mountain King played by two madmen on bull fiddles, at high volume: she coached him through curls, through presses, and when he was able to roll over on his own -- she'd expanded the physical therapy table, widened it, he gritted his teeth and fought his healing, eschar-stiffened body and got over on his belly -- she set the weights and had him grip them and said "Push up off the table now."

She pushed him, she encouraged him, she squatted so she could keep eye contact with him, she waved a fist and threatened to knock him into the middle of next week if he didn't at least try, damn you, I know you can do better! -- both her fists were a third smaller than one of his, and from the size of his arm, he could probably have put her most of the way through the nearest wall, and so her threat to belt him a good one struck him as funny, and while he was laughing, his hands flexed and gripped cast iron and he stiffened his core and pushed against the dumbbells and shivered his way to a slow, painful, but triumphant, full extension.

"I did better with her," he said, "than I did when they had to cut off proud flesh and burn scar. They'd give me something for the pain but they couldn't give me enough. She was right there with me and she'd grab my good hand and she'd glare at me and she'd say squeeze her hand if it hurt."

"And did you?" the interviewer asked quietly.

He nodded, almost sadly.

"I ... I'm afraid I squeezed her hand," he admitted. "She never admit I hurt her but likely I did and I'm sorry for that."

He looked at the camera, looked at the interviewer.

"I never got to tell her I was sorry I hurt her."

"What else did she do?"

The man picked up the book, sneered at the cover, tossed it back onto the table.

"When it hurt the worst -- when sweat was a-poppin' out on my forehead -- she had ... 'twas like Mama used to do when I was fevered, she'd .. she took a cool cloth and laid it over my forehead and wiped my face."

"What else did she do?"

He smiled a little, a faraway look in his eyes.

"She ... asked me ..."

He was hesitant: the interviewer nodded encouragement.

"She asked me to sing."

"To ... sing?"

He took a long breath, nodded.

"I'd told her I used to sing in Church, and she asked me to sing when the pain got too bad."

"What did you sing?"

He snorted.

"I wanted to sing somethin' loud but the only loud ones I knew" -- he gave the interviewer a knowing look -- "is the kind you can't sing where your Mama can hear.

"No, I allowed as if she wanted me to sing, an' she was so gentle with me, I'd sing her somethin' gentle."

He nodded, his eyes distant.

"I sang Green Grow the Lilacs."

 

Nurse Angela held the man's hand.

She'd reinforced her field parameters so his pain would not result in her crushed hand, and a good thing, too: she consulted the PSI he'd put on her, and raised an eyebrow, for his squeeze would probably have crippled her hand.

She knew he was in pain and she knew the painkiller they had available wasn't going to help enough when they were excising the healing burns' eschar.

Distraction techniques, she thought, and remembered he'd said he used to sing.

She shifted her weight, looked at him.

"Sing me something," she said.

His jaw was clenched, sweat beading his face: she wiped his forehead, his face, with the same gentleness she'd wiped her brothers' faces when they were fevered.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and began to sing.

His voice came from a well about fifty feet deep, his voice deep and resonant: he halted a couple times, teeth clenched as the pain spiked, but he continued.

Angela knew helpelessness, and this was one of those times: she could do little to ease his grief, so she had to ease her own.

She sang with him.

He sang words, he sang octaves lower than she: her voice was wordless, her pure soprano spun like magic off a violin.

His vision was hazed as he sang, as he clung to her hand to keep from exploding with agony, as he controlled himself enough to hold his notes true and measured.

 

"It was one of the hardest things I've ever done," he said in that deep, powerful, controlled voice that seemed to come from several yards below his boot tops, "but I sang and I sang as perfectly as I could.

"I sang for her."

He looked at the interviewer, and grief carved his face as he remembered.

"She sang with me," he said, "and water ran down her face as she did, but she never lost a note as she sang with me, and she never let go of my hand."

He looked at the book's cover.

"No woman who sings through tears, to ease my pain, could ever be" -- he stabbed a blunt finger at the book's cover -- "that!"

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE LADY'S FACIAL

Sheriff Linn Keller twisted his head to the side.

A thick-bladed knife drove into the packed dirt where his left eye had been a tenth of a second earlier.

The Sheriff brought his knees up -- hard -- hooked a heel around his attacker's throat, just as something landed on the man's back -- something with pale eyes, bared teeth, something sizzling like a she-cat, attacking with all the ferocity of a mother panther protecting one of her pride.

Sarah Lynne McKenna, the pretty young daughter of Bonnie Lynne McKenna, came out of the Mercantile with her Mama and her twin sisters, Polly and Opal: three lovely ladies, fashionably dressed, their purchases stacked in an orderly fashion in the back of their shining-clean buggy.

Bonnie took a long step from the boardwalk into the carriage, then turned and started to reach for a daughter.

Sarah waited for no such convention.

As a matter of fact, she abandoned the family unit altogether.

Sarah Lynne McKenna launched off the boardwalk and hit the packed dirt street running.

She'd witnessed something she never thought she'd see in her lifetime.

A man slipped up behind the Sheriff, punched him hard in the back of the head, drew a knife.

Something in Sarah ignited.

She went from a demure, ladylike, soft-spoken, very proper Young Lady, the daughter of a woman of business and culture, to a pastel streak, blazing diagonally across the street.

She did not just run.

Her mind was screaming like a steam locomotive at full throttle, lifted from the tracks by a giant's hand.

She ran a fast inventory of her entire on-board armory.

She was a schoolgirl.

She did not have so much as a hatpin to fight with.

She had something better.

She had a brain.

She did not slow as she came past the horse trough: she dropped a clawed hand, scraped up a handful of fresh, cold mud, she ran up the attacker's back as he leaned over the Sheriff, knife upraised.

Sarah seized him around the neck, drove a handful of mud into the attacker's wide-open eyes, into his nose, between his teeth: she threw herself to the side, then released, hit the ground, rolled.

It was all the opening the Sheriff needed.

It took Sarah a moment to get her hands pressed against the street, to come up on fingertips and toes and jump into the air like a startled housecat, and by then the Sheriff was facing his attacker and performing what would be politely known as the "Laying On of Hands."

Sarah heard the phrase in church, and she'd read of it in Scripture, though she doubted mightily if the Sheriff's version of "Laying On of Hands," was the kind the Parson referred to.

Sarah circled warily, making her way back to the horse trough, washed her hands carefully, delicately, careful not to immerse her ruffled cuffs in cold water, nor to drag them across its algae-slimed rim: she backed up, slinging the cold from her fingertips, as the Sheriff just honestly pounded the dog-stuffing out of his would-be murderer -- he got in close and beat the living hell out of the mud-blinded attacker with elbows, knees, then boot heels.

The Sheriff's personal philosophy was to not start a fight, but to never lose one; he long maintained there are no rules in a fight, beyond win: anything was fair, and if someone was foolish enough to pick a fight with the man, he made it his personal business to beat them so badly that -- next they saw him on the street -- they'd cross the street to avoid coming close to him.

It wasn't until after the Sheriff wound down, not until after he was done stomping on the man's hands and kicking in a few ribs, not until he was satisfied this attacker would not be getting up anytime soon, that he saw the knife.

It took a while for his attacker to heal up enough to appear in court on a charge of attempted murder.

Witnesses were called, Bonnie McKenna among them, and -- to the general surprise of the onlookers -- Bonnie's daughter Sarah.

Sarah rose and crossed the small space in front of the Judge's desk and was sworn in as formally as if she were adult: she sat in the witness chair as if she were the Queen, and her hardwood chair was a padded throne: dignified and not at all intimidated, despite wearing the short skirts of a schoolgirl, she added her sworn testimony.

"I saw that man" -- she lifted an accusing finger to the visibly-worse-for-the-encounter defendant -- "hit the Sheriff in the back of the head with his fist, and I saw that man" -- again the accusing finger rose, steady, accusing as a gunbarrel -- "pull a knife and stand over the Sheriff."

"What happened then?"

"I ran to help him."

"You ran ... to help, or you ran for help?"

Sarah's glare was as frosty as anything a grown woman might've given: she lifted her chin a degree and said coldly, "I believe I spoke clearly."

"Yes, of course," the attorney harrumphed. "Please continue."

"I carried no weapons. I could not stab nor shoot, so I did what I could."

"Which was ...?"

"I scraped up a handful of mud from beside the horse trough, I ran up his back and I gave him a good face full!" Sarah declared, raising her voice, her hands closing tight with the memory.

"You .. gave him a face full ... of mud?"

The attorney stopped, stared at this unexpected, loudly stated declaration.

"Right in the eyes, up his nose and in his mouth," Sarah snapped. "If he can't see, he can't fight well. I had him around the neck, I jumped off sideways and that pulled him off balance and then I let go so the Sheriff could finish the job."

"I ... yes."

The attorney looked at His Honor the Judge, who was hiding a smile behind a cupped hand.

"Nothing further, Your Honor."

It wasn't until after the trial's conclusion, after His Honor pronounced sentence and swung the gavel, not until court was adjourned, that His Honor had the Bailiff bring Sarah back over to the bench.

His Honor stepped down from the small elevated platform his bench was built on: he regarded Sarah with calculating eyes, then squatted, his knees audibly protesting the move.

"Sarah," he asked quietly, "I don't believe I ever knew of a young lady using mud as a weapon!" he said gently. "Why ever did you use that approach?"

Sarah blinked innocently, raised her eyebrows, lowered her head a little and said in a confident whisper, "That bad man is kind of ugly, Your Honor. We women use facials to improve our complexion. I knew the Sheriff would take his measure but I felt sorry for him so I decided to give him a mud facial and improve his looks a little!"

Sarah Lynne McKenna, whispering in the fabricated voice tones of a little girl, winked at the Judge, backed up a step and curtsied, pirouetted on her toes and skipped across the courtroom to where her Mama waited.

Edited April 29, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GLASS SACK

Jacob Keller was not yet a Sheriff's deputy.

Neither was his sister Marnie.

Jacob and Marnie were, however, the oldest children of that pale eyed Sheriff who kept the county peaceable, or did his best to keep it that-a-way.

Both pale eyed young had their chores taken care of; both saddled up, both rode off, confident in their safety, secure in the knowledge that -- if need arose -- they could disappear into the mountains and provide for themselves for however long that need might be.

Today, though, Jacob had an idea, and he wished to explore it.

Marnie saw Jacob ride off in the past, saw him come back with plastic trash bags partly filled, generally with a scowl and with quietly profane opinions about litter bugs and trashy sorts that ought to have their refuse dumped in the middle of their living room floor -- generally he'd look at his solemn faced sister and say something like "On the other hand they probably live like pigs and they'd never know the difference!"

Once Jacob came back with a barely filled sack, one he was carrying very carefully: the sack was knotted, worse for wear, carried like it contained live rattlesnakes or maybe nitroglycerin: Marnie heard the crystal rasp of broken glass as Jacob carefully placed the ragged trash sack and its contents in a trash can.

"Sis," he said, looking at Marnie with a carefully neutral expression, "if I keep findin' broken glass, I'll have to get me a glass sack!"

Marnie raised an eyebrow, crossed her arms, gave her brother a skeptical look.

Jacob could not help but grin and thrust his chin at her: "You look just like Mama when you do that!"

Brother and sister laughed, and their laughter in clear air and sunshine was the magical charm that dispelled Jacob's clouded-brow pique.

"I'll see what I can come up with," Marnie smiled. "I take it you were cleaning up broken glass and it cut through the sack."

Jacob nodded, frowned, went around and rubbed his Apple-horse's jaw, whispered to him: Jacob's hands caressed their way down the stallion's neck, his ribs, back to his hind quarters: Jacob picked up the right hind hoof, pulled a little tool out of his pocket, scraped carefully at the horseshoe, tapped it a couple times before setting the hoof down, satisfied.

"Did he step on glass?" Marnie asked in a worried voice -- she unfolded her arms, her eyes wide and concerned as she stepped up and caressed Apple-horse's long nose.

The stallion pressed his forehead into her bodice, closing his eyes with pleasure: he'd done this as long as Marnie could remember, from his youngest days as a wobbly legged colt, first wandering away from his dam.

"No," Jacob said quickly. "God be praised, no he didn't, but I swung his backside around and jumped down to check real quick!" -- he looked at the GI can -- "I threw a fast knot in that trash sack to close the hole and loaded it all back up again."

"You're not the paid trash hauler, Jacob."

"No," he agreed, "but broken glass doesn't break down and if I just leave it, someone's likely gonna get cut on it."

Marnie nodded. "That's so."

"I'll figure out somethin', sis," he said, his voice softer now.

"Did you find anything interesting?"

"You mean like that rusted to hell Remington under the trestle? No," he grimaced. "I don't know if the museum can use electrolysis to strip the rust or if it'll make a better exhibit as a fused red lump."

Marnie nodded thoughtfully.

"Where was that glass?"

"Downstream from the trestle. It's heavy glass, most of it's kind of sun burnt purple. I guess it got washed out of the sand after a good rain."

"All in one place?"

"No.  No, it was kind of strung out over a hundred yards of creek bed, and you know how boys like to run the creek bed!"

Marnie smiled a little.

When she and Jacob were much younger, they ran, laughing, fearless, barefoot up and down that same creekbed, looking for pirate treasures or whatever else young imaginations could come up with.

"Pa said he checks under bridges right along regular with a big magnet. He said folks throw stolen goods off bridges to get rid of it."

"Find anything good under the trestle?"

"Nah. Just that rusted up Remington."

 

Jacob Keller leaned over the plank railing of a bridge not far from town.

The grass was a different shade of green, and the grass looked vaguely diffferent from what Jacob was used to seeing.

He didn't pay it much attention.

When Sheriff Jacob Keller was asked to help investigate a murder-and-theft near his father in law's ranch, he went and listened to what the local law knew, had found out, he listened to their suspicions, he nodded carefully, and he asked what was missing.

"His daughter said a small safe was gone from the murder scene."

"A safe," Jacob repeated. "About how big and how heavy?"

He'd asked around, found another businessman with the same kind of safe: he asked to see it, tried it with a magnet, straightened, turned to his brother lawman.

"I'll leave sound advice to the business owner, to your good sense," Jacob said quietly. "I want to try something."

He strode from behind the counter, headed for the front door, long legs striding quickly toward his tethered stallion: he bent his wrist to his lips, spoke quietly, his words bringing a puzzled frown to the local constable's forehead.

"Sis, do you know where Pa keeps that big fishing magnet of his?"

 

Jacob Keller tossed the big square magnet upstream, line slipping from between leather-gloved fingers: he drew it back, slowly, carefully.

So far he'd gathered a furry covering of natural ferrite, he'd recovered a cinder looking rock he thought might be a meteor, and he'd brought up almost a handful of square cut nails.

He worked patiently, methodically: a safe was heavy and likely it would have gone over from dead center of the bridge, right where the stream pooled beneath.

It wasn't there.

It was actually about twenty feet down stream.

Jacob worked his way downstream until he hit whatever this heavy object was, then he brought in a hover and used it to winch whatever-this-was, straight up out of the water.

It was the safe.

It took some forensics, but fingerprints were actually raised from the water-immersed safe: Jacob heard later they'd gotten a confession, the murderer was overheard talking about the job with his partner: Jacob returned to help with the interrogation, and as he told Marnie later, "When I came in that interrogation room and just stood there and looked at the two of 'em, they kind of give up and spilled the beans."

Marnie gave her pale eyed brother a gentle look.

"Jacob," she said, her voice soft, "Angela can persuade a paving brick to recite the Gettysburg Address. She charms her way through an interrogation."

Marnie tilted her head, smiled a little, then laughed.

"All you have to do is go in there and give them those cold eyes of yours and they're convinced you're going to fillet them on the spot if they don't sing like a mine canary!"

 

[Brazos Bottom Bill Miller]

These are great!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

(blush)

(shoves hands in pockets)

(ears turn red)

(kicks dirt)

... thank'ee kindly ...

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HOW TO START A BEAR KILLER

One man walked backwards, carefully, carrying the foot end of the ambulance cot.

It was the funeral home's cot, the old Type 30 back breaker, the one every veteran medic detested.

Modern ambulance cots had a powered lift, and had a hydraulic lift in the rig to bring the cot up and in, out and down, under power, without the need for the Olympic weightlifter's clean-and-jerk technique for raising or lowering a loaded cot.

One man at its foot walked backwards, carefully: another of the Irish Brigade had him by the back of the belt, and was walking half-forward but mostly sideways, steadying his partner and acting as point man as they carried the unmoving, sheeted figure from the still-steaming wreck, across the ditch and up the bank, to the funeral home coach.

The Bear Killer, all bright eyes and curious head tilt and curly black fur, watched with interest, managing to stay out of the way, but when the Sheriff received something small and scared, something that wrapped young arms around his neck and young legs around his waist, The Bear Killer's ears and tail came up.

The Bear Killer danced along with the Sheriff, looking up at the little boy with a lost expression, a little boy whose cheek was laid over the Sheriff's shoulder, staring blankly, blinking occasionally, looking more lost than any child should ever feel.

The Sheriff climbed into the back of the ambulance, sat on the squad bench.

They made a few careful attempts to unwrap the child from around the Sheriff.

Best they could do was get an arm free to take a blood pressure.

The Bear Killer made three tries before he managed to boost himself into the back of the squad.

The Sheriff rose, moved down a little, sat again, then patted the smooth tan upholstery:  "Bear Killer, up," he said gently.

The Bear Killer put two paws up on the squad bench, tilted his head, looked hopefully at the little boy holding onto the Sheriff as if his grip on the man was the only thing keeping him from falling off the face of the earth.

Strong hands boosted the growing Mastiff up onto the bench.

A whine, a nose, a lick: a scared little boy lifted his head from the Sheriff's left shoulder, looked across the lawman's front at something furry and black, with a busy tail and a hopeful expression.

The child didn't make ER entry by being wheeled in on an ambulance cot.

He was carried in by a long tall Sheriff who was not going to deny a child comfort after what had to be absolutely the worst day of the boy's young life so far.

He'd been belted in, he'd been in the back seat: he had no obvious injuries and he hadn't said a word since the moment the Irish Brigade drove a pry bar into the gap by the door handle and made enough of a hole for a set of hydraulic jaws.

He'd just set there and stared at what used to be his mother, fallen forward against the now-deflated air bag.

The Sheriff lifted his chin, silently querying the ER nurse: she led the way to a treatment bay, tossed a pillow on the raised exam table.

The Bear Killer stayed at heel, looking up.

"I need your help," the Sheriff said gently -- almost whispering, the boy's ear was close to his lips, for he'd clung tightly again, sudden, desperate, as they pulled up to the ER dock.

"This is The Bear Killer," the Sheriff almost-whispered, "and he's kind of scared. Do you think if I help him up and you down, that you can help him not be so scared? It would mean a lot to him!"

The Sheriff bent, laid the boy down on the ER bed.

"Okay, you're down. Let go and I'll get The Bear Killer up here with you."
Young legs unwrapped, young arms released: a little boy's backside lowered to the flat sheet, a man's strong, reassuring hands carried his weight, warm and strong against the child's back: Linn bent, gripped The Bear Killer, swung him up in the bed with the boy.

The Bear Killer cuddled up against the child's ribs, rested his cool, wet nose over the boy's shoulder, watching with button-bright eyes: his tail whap-whap-whapp'd against the bedsheet as a pink little hand spread over curly black fur.

It was not quite proper medical protocol for a young mountain Mastiff to share an ER cart with a patient, but it was not quite proper protocol for a little boy to be in a crash that killed his mother: nobody there was about to object, as everyone there knew, or knew of, both The Bear Killer, and Snowdrift, the pure-white mountain Mastiff who was as well-trained (and effective) as her melanistic littermate.

The Sheriff was there when the boy's father arrived.

The Sheriff saw where the man wiped the wet from his eyes before coming in to see his son, to receive the doc's assessment.

His son had not said the first word -- none of the Irish Brigade heard him speak, although he looked at doctors and nurses and technologists with bright and sometimes scared eyes, he never made the first sound.

It wasn't until his father picked him up and said "The Doc says we can go home," that the boy twisted, reached an arm out toward the Sheriff.

The Sheriff caught the young hand, pressed it carefully between his own, gave the boy a solemn wink.

The Bear Killer had not abandoned his station on the ER cart.

The Sheriff picked him up, brought him over and the little boy ran his hand awkwardly through The Bear Killer's curly fur.

One of the nurses stood beside the Sheriff as they watched father and son leave, as they heard the slow, heavy steps of a man who'd just lost half of his living heart, but had to carry on for his son's sake, because that's what a father does.

The Sheriff was still holding The Bear Killer, rubbing his ears as the restless pup reached up and licked his chin.

"Is he a trained therapy dog?" the nurse asked, smiling a little as The Bear Killer gave her a happy doggy smile, his tail swinging happily through the air.

"I'd say he's started," the Sheriff said quietly, as he considered that it wasn't just a grieving little boy that was benefitting from a warm and fuzzy Bear Killer's attentions.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BACON FOR BREAKFAST

The honed edge of Maxwell steel shone bright in the moonlight.

The blood was almost as bright and shining.

The cut was not deep, but the cut was on the throat.

The hand that laid over the Sheriff's wrist was cool, gentle, a woman's hand: he could not move, he could not resist as the hand pushed his wrist away, his hand with it, and with his hand, the knife.

The Sheriff looked up at the glowing, partly-silhouetted face of Sarah Lynne McKenna, wearing a white nightgown with ruffles at the throat, ruffles darkening with her life's blood.

Her face either glowed or moonlight played tricks: the sky above her, behind her, was black, with sharp, accusing light-daggers for stars.

The Sheriff could not move.

He lay on his blanket roll.

Sarah sat a-straddle of his belly, her head tilted a little to the side, almost smiling.

He blinked, horrified at what he'd done: the cut on her neck was shallow, but it was bleeding steadily, darkening the ruffled collar of her flannel nightie.

Sarah's expression was gentle as she released his wrist.

She reached up, pulled down her ruffled collar, ran a fingertip very precisely the length of the three-fingers-long, shallow, steadily bleeding cut.

At her fingertip's passage, both incision and exsanguination disappeared.

She lowered her hand, leaned forward, caressed his lightly stubbled cheek, whispered "Rest now," then she leaned down and kissed his forehead, and his eyes closed, and he relaxed.

 

Esther Keller was awake with the sun.

She was usually an early riser, but she was up earlier than usual -- the maid was distressed to find Herself already in the kitchen, staring out the window at meadow and mountains and frolicking colts.

Esther turned with a gentle smile and raised a calming hand: "My husband slept in the mountains last night," she said, her voice gentle, "and I know the nightmares that plague him."

The maid muttered worriedly about men who'll sleep on a stone bed rather than a warm one, men who'll leave their wives alone to worry for their well-being and not get a wink o' sleep, all the while firing the big Monarch stove, shaking ashes, carefully laying the gradual fire so as not to shock the cast iron and cause a heat crack: her sister unwisely fired a stove with hard coal, back East, and it cracked with a gunshot, and only the fact that the Master of the House was well into his cups, and thought it a good joke and quite funny, only his drunken, good natured roar that he was tired of that stove and they should have a new one on the morrow, saved her from the sack, or worse.

Mary had tea as quickly as she could possibly arrange; water in the kettle was warm from the banked stove, and it did not take terribly long to boil, and all the time Mary was preparing tea and laying out bread and butter and preparing to fry up bacon and eggs, diced ham meat and diced onions and Mexican peppers, Esther stood at the kitchen window, looking to the lightening horizon, worrying for her pale eyed husband.

 

The Rosenthal household was a study in feminine decorum.

Levi Rosenthal, who'd married Bonnie McKenna when his no-good brother was murdered in Denver (good riddance! Levi thought uncharitably when he'd heard the news), was the sole rooster in a henhouse populated with what he honestly had to admit were genuinely, absolutely, utterly, beautiful ladies.

Bonnie Lynne McKenna made it her personal mission to emerge from her bedroom fully dressed, fresh-faced with her hair elaborately done up, in a properly-fitted McKenna gown and matching gloves.

Her daughters, her children, were as children everywhere: they learned by observation and by imitation, and so they, unfailingly, did not emerge from their own bowers of slumber until they, too, were styled, fully dressed, and presentable as Very Proper Young Ladies.

Levi had always been tidy about his person; he'd been a businessman all his life, and he well knew the value of a proper presentation, a proper first impression, and so, here at breakfast, a man in a tailored suit and a properly knotted tie sat down for breakfast with his beautiful wife and three genuinely beautiful daughters.

Their younger children begged to be allowed to sleep at a classmate's house; they would be along later in the day, but neither Levi nor Bonnie doubted that they would be as well dressed and as decorous as Bonnie, Sarah, Polly and Opal were at this moment.

Bonnie blinked big violet eyes and looked at Sarah with an interested tilt of her head.

"Sarah," she asked, "I know you're a light sleeper. Did you hear anything ... unusual ... through the night?"

Sarah Lynne McKenna smiled, her eyes wide, innocent, pale as the Sheriff's: Bonnie swallowed, for she knew those eyes, and she knew why Sarah had those pale eyes, and there was an active conspiracy to keep the truth from Sarah until her next birthday -- at fourteen, she'd be old enough to be told.

Not until.

Sarah blinked, long, curved eyelashes sweeping almost audibly as she did.

"I heard nothing ... unusual, Mother," she said, her voice gentle.

Bonnie puzzled a little at this.

"I thought ... I may have been dreaming," she finally murmured, "but I thought I heard a door, and a horse."

"I dreamed a cow was looking at me last night," Levi said, laying his hand carefully over his wife's smooth-skinned knuckles: he smiled a little and looked at his daughters and winked.

"There are few things more terrible than to be judged by a cow in the middle of the night!"

Feminine laughter, subdued, gentle, a father's smile, a maid turning away so the family could not see her indecorous stifling of her own laugh: such was breakfast with the day's dawn, there in the Rosenthal household.

Sarah hadn't lied.

She'd heard nothing unusual.

She'd crept barefoot down the stairs in her ruffle-collared, white-flannel nightgown, carrying her flat-heeled slippers: she'd saddled, she'd mounted, she'd ridden, following a call, a trace, she followed the nocturnal summons of a man who was fighting ghosts, a man tortured by nightmares, a man who lacked the wife who would lay a hand on his breast and absorb the horrors so he could fall back, exhausted, sweat-drenched, and sleep the rest of the night.

Sarah hadn't lied.

She'd heard nothing unusual the night before.

She spoke but the truth, there at the breakfast table: the sounds she heard as she left the house were perfectly appropriate for someone slipping away unnoticed, and then returning unnoticed.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller was reading the most recent communications to the Sheriff's Office when a sharp double-rap at the closed door seized his attention.

He lay the letter down, turned the four-wheel swivel chair, rose: the heavy door opened and an old woman labored in, hunched over and on a cane, unsteady for even the few steps she took: she stopped, her long sleeves covering her hands, both hands laid over the heavy wooden cane's crook head, her face hidden by the heavy shawl pulled over her head.

The woman finally turned a little, and with what seemed to be the last of her strength, managed to close the heavy door.

The Sheriff swarmed out from around his desk, seized a straight-back chair, strode for the old woman.

His visitor straightened -- smooth, youthful hands emerged from long, thread-worn sleeves, threw back the shawl --

Sarah Lynne McKenna, eyes bright and delighted, seized the astonished Sheriff in a delighted hug.

"Did I fool you?" she asked, and her voice was that of a happy schoolgirl, and the Sheriff released the chair and seized his visitor and hoist her from the floor, laughing quietly -- he was a man of strong feelings, and the laughter he felt would normally have been expressed loudly and powerfully, but his cheek was against hers and his lips but an inch from hers: she felt his breath, warm on her ear, and she felt the tickle of his iron-grey mustache as he hoist her from the ground.

He set her down, carefully, then frowned, as if a memory returned: he raised a hand, loosed her collar, drew it down, examining her neck quickly, pale eyes serious, as if expecting to find something.

Sarah waited while strong fingers drew down the collar on the left of her neck -- then the collar at the right side of her neck -- he blinked, clearly uncertain.

Sarah gave him those big, innocent eyes.

"Is everything the way you remember it?" she asked quietly, then she reached up, traced a fingertip along her neck.

A fresh cut -- raw, bleeding -- appeared.

The Sheriff was a strong man.

The Sheriff was a man not easily startled.

The Sheriff's eyes widened.

His hands came together, he seized the bedsheet kerchief from where he carried it in his sleeve -- the telltale habit of a military man -- Sarah's smile never diminished as she ran her fingertip over the bleeding cut, and it -- and the blood from it -- disappeared.

Her hand raised, caressed his cheek, then ran around the back of his neck and pulled.

Her pull was gentle, but she drew his head down to hers as easily as a plow horse might draw a postage stamp along behind it.

"You have such nightmares," she whispered, "and I did not want you to suffer as you slept."

She kissed his forehead, the way she'd done the night before, then she stepped back, threw the shawl back up over her head, picked up the cane from where she'd hooked it over the hardback chair he'd brought.

A crippled-up old woman labored unsteadily out the door to the Sheriff's office, and onto the boardwalk, and as the Sheriff stared at the open door, he heard her cane and her heavy breathing, until it gained the end of the boardwalk, and was gone.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ELEGANT EFFECTIVENESS

Marnie Keller sat across the round table from her diplomatic counterpart.

Negotiations -- at least the formal negotiations -- were done for the day: she and the Chief Ambassador were comparing notes, each referring to notes they'd taken -- he, on a data tablet, Marnie in an actual notebook.

They'd observed quietly, carefully, attentively, while pretending borderline boredom during the several meetings: now, here, in the quiet of their assigned quarters, they reconstructed the power structure of the governments with which they were working: who held the titles, who actually made the decisions, who had the influence, who the yes-men were.

One meeting does not a complete picture make: there would be other meetings, unofficial groupings, in which both the Chief Ambassador and Marnie would be participating.

Marnie slipped her halved steno book into a stasis pocket in her immaculate gown.

The Ambassador was convinced she could, and probably did, conceal two shotguns, a team of horses and a broadsword in that beautifully fitted gown, thanks to a combination of seamstress's skill and Confederate technology: Marnie rose, stretched, twisted, twisted again, grimacing and then giving a very satisfied sigh.

"I heard that," the Chief Ambassador muttered.

"You should hear my Daddy when he twists like that," Marnie smiled, "or Mama, when Daddy picks her up and gives her a little shake -- brrrrp!" -- she trilled a vocal illustration as her finger traced up an invisible spine.

The Chief Ambassador rose, gave Marnie a calculating look.

"And tonight?"

"Tonight," Marnie smiled, tapping her cheek thoughtfully with a gloved finger, "we are to dinner for conversation and the subtle swordsmanship of those who wish to turn us to their advantage."

She lowered her head and gave the Chief Diplomat a knowing look.

"I intend to dance a truly scandalous tango with my husband, who is coming in for the event. This will make me less an incisive diplomat and more a delectable morsel to be conquered, at least in the eyes of three particular men who've been holding back information we can use. Once they see my husband and I smoldering our way across the floor, and he expresses his regret afterward that he must leave and return to his medical practice, I plan to smile and tease and get men to talk without realizing they are telling me things they wish they'd kept secret."

Marnie put her hands on womanly hips and took a seductive step toward the Chief Ambassador, looking sultry, wicked and tempting: she turned, turned back, and she was once again the professional, polite, calculating Ambassador.

"You intend to dance a truly scandalous tango," the Chief Diplomat smiled, picking up his pearl-grey cover: he smiled thoughtfully as he studied the hatband as if it were suddenly interesting.

"Isn't that a rather elegant way of saying you intend to charm them out of their eye teeth?"

Marnie laughed quietly, sighed.

"You know me so well," she murmured as an Iris opened beside her.

Dr. John Greenlees stepped through, immaculate in a tailored suit: he inclined his head politely.

"Chief Ambassador, "he murmured, "has my wife been behaving?"

"Do I ever, darling?" Marnie murmured, leaning back into her husband's front, leaning her head back against his collar bone and reaching up to caress the side of his face.

The Chief Ambassador sat, after Marnie and her husband departed: the reception would be starting, and soon, and of course the dance, afterward.

He considered the obvious chemistry he'd just seen between husband and wife, and he smiled a little as he recognized that yes, men would see Marnie as all the more desirable after seeing her dance what would be a deliberately provocative, absolutely scandalous, profoundly seductive tango with her husband.

She'd done it before, and with good results.

Elegance, he thought as he moved toward the door.

Elegance, and effectiveness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SEND IT!

Fire runs fast and deadly in a wood frame house.

A young mother sobbed, crouching against the wall, terrified, blanketed infant in her arms.

She had no idea where the fire started, or how: their children at school, her husband at work, her baby, fed, changed, sleepy: she laid down on the big double bed, curled up on her side, closed her eyes … just for a minute, just a short nap …

She woke, confused, her throat starting to get sore –

What woke me?

What’s that noise?

It took a few moments of eye-watering blinking to realize –

That’s the smoke alarm!

Her eyes snapped wide, she released her arm from around her baby, rolled over –

Her eyes went to the bedside table, the phone –

 

“Firelands Sheriff’s Office, what is the nature –”

“MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE AND WE’RE TRAPPED UPSTAIRS!”

Sharon hit the howler, dropped stiff, curved fingers on the transmit bar.

“Firelands Fire Department, house fire with victim trapped,” she said, her voice crisp, professional: she read the address off the screen, then turned back to the screaming woman.

“Ma’am, ma’am, slow down now, are you –”

The Irish Brigade heard the hysterical woman absolutely SCREAMING her address, the same location Sharon read off the enhanced-911 screen.

The Irish Brigade emptied the house.

Doors slammed, engines started, overhead doors clattered quickly open, and the Firelands Fire Department came boiling out into the sun.

Fireboots were heavy on turbocharged Diesel throttles, gloved hands firm on steering wheels: the Chief’s boot came down on the floor button, searing thirteen volts of direct current into the brightly-polished mechanical siren as the driver reached up and hauled down on the air horn lanyard.

It was a maxim that drivers might ignore a screaming siren, they might not yield for wail, yelp, or hi-lo, but if they thought an eighteen was about to eat them for breakfast, they got the hell out of the way.

Fast.

A hundred pounds’ air pressure through twin, roof mounted, chrome trumpets, blasted the roadway clear ahead of them, while the bumper mounted, air bearing mechanical siren, screamed like a soul damned and tortured in sulfurous fires.

Pumper, tanker, rescue and ambulance, four fast-moving, shining-red vehicles, all speed and lights and screaming urgency, all with the same destination, the same thought:

A woman was trapped, and her infant child.

Fitz snatched the heavy, professional mic from the clip, voice tight: “Pump One on scene, she’s out the upper story windows. Engine Two, lay in from secondary supply. Tanker, set up drop tank, stand by water shuttle.”

 

Jacob Keller watched on his office screen as the Irish Brigade hit the door, as they attacked the Dragon with water and with profanity, as they penetrated the fire structure to lay the wet stuff on the red stuff.

Carbon Hill’s fire department was not long in arriving for Mutual Aid: monitor positions were set up, shining straight-tip nozzles blasting straight streams of pressurized water through heat-broken windows, shattering off ceilings and raining wet death on the fires within.

A window opened, a woman leaned out, holding a bundle in her arms: she was terrified, red-faced, half screaming, half crying: what she was screaming was without words, but her meaning was clear.

Two men ran up, unfolding the life-ring as they ran:  Shelly and her father ran up, a doubled bedsheet between them.

“WE’VE GOT THE BABY!” Shelly yelled, her voice high, sharp, penetrating: she and her father shouldered the firemen aside, set up under the woman, under the window.

Smoke was banked down in the room behind her, rolling in thick clouds around her as she leaned out as far as she dared.

Bruce Jones ran up, froze, looked left, looked right, decided he had the best angle right where he stood: he raised his camera, started to shoot, grateful for the digital chip’s image capacity.

He’d shot fire scenes with film cameras, shooting 24, shooting 36 exposures, then changing film and missing shots while he hastily replaced exposed slide film: worst were the times the tongue of the film slipped out of the takeup spool, and he missed every last shot after that.

Shelly and her father drew the sheet taut.

“DROP THE BABY!” Shelly screamed. “WE’RE READY TO CATCH!”

The mother, panicked, hugged the child, sobbing.

“SEND IT!” Fitz bellowed.

Bruce’s finger was heavy on the shutter button.

He’d zoomed in on the mother, he saw her face clearly, twisted with fear, with grief: she lowered her child, grief plain on what would otherwise be a pretty face.

The camera snapped time off in slim chunks.

He caught her expression as she lowered the child.

He caught her release, her hands an inch from the child as it fell.

He caught the oblong, wrapped baby falling between Heaven and earth.

He caught the bedsheet as the falling baby landed, the bedsheet distorted downward from impact.

He kept shooting: the medics ran for the squad, their patient safely slung between them, he caught the Irishmen SLAM the steam-curved wooden rim of the life-ring against green siding, he raised the lens back to the mother, just in time to catch the room behind her ignite and blast fire and hell out around her.

The mother’s fall was one of the images that made the weekly paper.

She trailed smoke as she fell from the window, she fell absolutely at the top of her young lungs, the sound freezing the blood of everyone who was not actively in the fight.

It was more accident than anything else she landed on her back on the life ring.

The Irishmen lowered the apparatus, an anonymous set of fire-coated arms scooped her up, carried her at a clumsy run for the squad.

One of the pictures Bruce took ended up framed, in the firehouse.

A fireman – full turnout – bunker pants, big black fireboots, coat and gloves and helmet, visor thrown back, his eyes fixed on the squad as if he could winch himself there with the sheer power of his gaze: the woman, curled up in his arms, eyes squeezed shut, hands fisted, drawn protectively into a fetal curl.

 

Just shy of twenty years later, a rookie firefighter stood and studied an old, framed photograph on the display wall.

He wore the red bib front shirt that was traditional attire for the Irish Brigade.

His boondockers were polished to a high shine, he’d graduated from the Fire Academy with honors, he’d proven himself in a more urban department, but when the opening presented, he transferred to the Firelands fire department.

He stared at the image of a fireman, turnout coat stained with experience, a look on his face that said I AM GOING HERE, AND HELL ITSELF WILL NOT STOP ME!, and the new guy looked at his mother’s image – impossibly young, beautiful, curled up and terrified.

A hand gripped his shoulder.

“I’m glad you were there that day,” the young man said softly, without turning to look.

He knew whose hand it was.

The old veteran firefighter’s hand tightened a little.

“I’m glad I was there, too,” he said gently.

“HEY MURPHY!” came the demanding shout. “YOU GONNA CUT THIS RETIREMENT CAKE OR WHAT?”

An old veteran of the craft, and a young man just starting, looked at one another and laughed.

“When in doubt,” Murphy grinned, even white teeth gleaming under his manicured handlebar mustache, “cut the cake!”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

YOU WERE RIGHT

Sheriff Linn Keller was met by their hired girl.

She gave him a concerned look as he handed her his Stetson.

She hadn't missed a new hole in his coat -- low, shredded outward, as if he'd fired a revolver from inside his coat's pocket.

He saw her eyes drop, saw them raise, saw her raise one eyebrow.

"Let me fix that," she whispered, then turned and looked quickly behind her, then back -- "before Herself finds out."

The Sheriff smiled quietly, nodded: he unbuttoned his coat, handed it to the maid, who offered no comment as to its unexpected weight.

Linn walked back to the kitchen.

Esther was waiting, dignified, beautiful -- she was always beautiful in Linn's eyes, whether just wakened from a night's rest, whether frowning over ledger-sheets, whether carefully composed while discussing business matters with subordinates, clients or bankers, whether wiping a child's tears or cleaning a bloodied little knee.

She smiled up at her husband, placed her delicate, eggshell-china teacup back on its saucer, rose to meet him.

Linn came into the kitchen wearing the silver-and-black-front brocaded vest she'd made for him a year before: beneath it, a white-linen shirt, vertical pleats down its front: he wore a ribbon tie today, and Esther's quick eye saw neither hole, blood, slice nor smudge.

Linn took her hands, raised them to his lips, kissed her knuckles, gently, carefully.

"My dear," he murmured, "have I told you today how lovely you are?"

"Not in the past six hours, no," Esther smiled, tilting her head and giving him a knowing look.

"Mr. Keller, I know that look. What ever have you been doing, you charming scoundrel?"

Linn lifted his head and laughed quietly -- that easy, relaxed laugh nobody ever saw, save only when he was at home, with his wife, and not under stress.

He caressed the angle of her jaw with careful, gentle fingertips.

"Your advice was sound, dearest," he said gently.

"Of course it was sound," Esther said tartly, lifting her chin a degree, mischief in her expression: "I would give you no other!"

Linn leaned forward, ran his arms around his wife, drew her warmth, her curves, her scent to him, laid his cheek carefully over atop her elaborate, auburn hair.

"I benefit often from listening to my beautiful bride."

"Mr. Keller?"

"Yes, Mrs. Keller?"

"If you don't stop shilly-shallying around and tell me what you've been up to, I'm going to punch you right in the liver!"

She felt her husband's silent laughter: she did not have to look to know his face would be coloring, his ears reddening with suppressed mirth.

Linn released his bride from his gentle envelopment, took a half-step back -- he knew the hired girl was just coming into the kitchen, and did not want to bump into her -- "Mary, is there coffee?" he asked hopefully, knowing full well there was, as he walked into a fragrant cloud of coffee when he set foot across the threshold.

Linn waited until the maid was past him, then he backed a step, took two steps to the side: he waited until Esther was seated, before lowering himself into a chair.

"Shall I serve the meal?" the maid asked quietly, and Esther did not miss the hopeful look on her husband's face.

"Yes, Mary, thank you," Esther said gently: in an era where meals were properly consumed in the Dining Room, it was not uncommon for the Sheriff and his family to eat in the kitchen.

Esther looked at her husband, waited: Linn spread his hands like a schoolboy about to spin a genuine whopper.

"Well, ya see, it's like this ..."

 

A well dressed man was not a rare sight in Carbon Hill.

There were mine owners, men of business and commerce, men who rode in on the steam-train and came over to the Carbon Hill Saloon for a drink or a meal, and so when a man known to the Sheriff came in, he looked around.

The place was smoky, run-down, the bar was three planks laid over two big wooden barrels, upturned: the piano was out of tune and badly played, men laughed and swore and slapped down hands of worn pasteboards, coin exchanging across frayed felt table tops.

The well dressed man at the bar was in earnest conversation with the barkeep:  "I say it's so!"

"And I say," the barkeep riposted, "it ain't! Now let's see the color of your money!"

The man that came in, came in searching: he didn't find who he was looking for, at least not right away.

He looked in the mirror behind the bar -- any bar worth a damn had a mirror -- this one did, but it was about as big across as a man can span with two hands, and he did not see the man arguing with the barkeep looking in it.

He didn't see this because the front door opened, and the town Marshal stepped through, took a sidestep to get his back to the wall -- a lawman's habit, formed early and proven useful.

The man took a step away from the bar, his hand slicing under his open coat --

Sheriff Linn Keller was already moving: he was a long pace closer when his finger hauled back on the hideout revolver's trigger, when the .38 he carried in his off coat pocket spoke, loud and decisively, when he blew a ragged hole in the coat's pocket and drove a lead slug into the ambusher's kidneys.

A work-hardened arm came down, knocking the drawn pistol from the would-be murderer's hand: Sheriff Linn Keller seized the evildoer, introduced him face first to the sawdust floor.

Law and Order Harry Macfarland, to his credit, did not flinch at the sound of gunshot: he came over, his pace unhurried, regarded the Sheriff, considered smoke drifting out of his coat pocket, looked at the figure breathing its last on the floor.

Harry was always a long winded sort, prone to lengthy speeches and flowery words, and, having considered what appeared to be the totality of circumstances,  gave one of his lengthy, flower speeches.

"Shot your coat," he grunted.

The Sheriff gave an equally lengthy speech: he turned to the barkeep, laid a coin on the plank and said, "You win the bet."

 

Linn sat at his kitchen table, under his own roof, looked at his beautiful, green-eyed bride, considered that she was as genuinely lovely as the first day he laid eyes on her.

"My dear," he said, "you told me I should consort with a better grade of criminal."

Esther nibbled delicately at the dainty little finger-sandwich and regarded her husband with knowing eyes.

"I served a summons on a crooked businessman," he said quietly, "and he'll appear in court this week."

Esther's expression went from knowing to quietly skeptical.

"Is that why you shot a hole in your coat?"

Linn's eyes were wide, innocent.

"Me?" he protested, fingertips dramatically to his pleated shirtfront.

Esther lowered her head, looked at him through long, curled lashes:  "Mister Keller," she said quietly, "you never take off your coat at the door unless there's been damage. You smelled of sulfur, sir, when you embraced me."

Linn gave an exaggerated sigh, shook his head, looked helplessly at the maid -- who was trying hard not to smile -- he spread his hands again like a schoolboy about to spin a genuine whopper and complained in a nasal, exaggerated voice, "Does ya knows me or what!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MAKE SURE HE'S DEAD FIRST

It only took a moment to die.

He'd ridden the vengeance trail for ... well, as long as he could remember, ever since terrible things were done to him as a child.

He did like many brutalized children do.

He'd shoved the memories back into a dark room, he'd laid up block and stone and mortar and cement and he'd braced it with rock cribbing and coal mine bratticework, he'd learned how to imitate a normal human and how to appear ordinary and unremarkable.

This worked well until the monsters finally bored through the rock and flowed out into his consciousness and immobilized him.

One moment he was in his mid-twenties, a medic who'd just backed the rig into the bay after a long day's work: he was reading the mileage off to his copilot, he'd turned off the ignition and reached down for the rotary battery isolation switch on the side of the driver's seat mount.

He'd turned it one click, two clicks, and he flashed back.

His partner had no idea what happened.

She knew he was a young man, a strong man, she'd watched him lift impossible weights when lives depended on it, she'd seen him move with unnatural speed to snatch a child out of the roadway when a confused, trauma-shocked grade-schooler wandered away from a wrecked car into Interstate traffic, and only her fast moving partner kept another young soul from shaking hands with the Eternal.

She knew him to be damned good at what he did, she knew he wore the Expert Combat Medic's badge on his uniform blouse pocket, and she knew he never talked about what he'd done when he wore Uncle Sam's baggy fatigues.

All she knew was he froze, eyes wide and staring; he collapsed over the steering wheel, crying like a frightened child, and she did the best thing she could.

She held him, and let him cry himself out.

That night he resurrected black resolve and hung a .44 revolver in a shoulder rig, he pulled out a black-leather badge wallet, and with it, the badge and commission card he carried when he wore a uniform of another color, and he started making inquiries.

It may have been his mother's death, grief might have been his trigger; maybe it was the monsters that finally broke through the walls he'd laid up as a child.

He called his boss and arranged personal time off for the next week -- he'd accumulated more than enough, he'd never taken a day off nor vacation in his years behind the wheel for the company -- and he began to hunt, starting on his laptop.

The trail was cold, but he knew where to look, and who to look for.

He searched for the monster who did those unspeakable things to him as a child.

He intended to find this monster, and he intended to kill this monster.

It would not be murder.

Not in his mind.

It would not be murder if he walked up behind him and clove an ax from crown to teeth in the middle of downtown at twelve noon.

He made a phone call to a man he knew.

He arranged a meeting.

He drove to the state's capital to meet with a police detective of his acquaintance.

A flicker of movement -- to his right -- his eyes swung right --

Deer? he thought -- he was in the passing lane, he came off the throttle --

He never saw the out-of-control vehicle that came screaming sideways across the median, and he did not remember the collision.

 

Somewhere over an Interstate highway, invisible overhead, a police helicopter, returning from a search, but now watching traffic, saw two vehicles, collide: following vehicles braked hard, evaded.

It was a genuine miracle no one was rammed, that no one rammed into the stopped, steaming vehicles, broken and unmoving in the passing lane.

 

He smelled antifreeze and his own blood, he smelled hot oil.

He tried to reach for his .44.

I need backup, he thought, intending to put a hard-cast bullet between the eyes of ... whatever caused his current state of agony.

I'm dead, he thought.

It was hard to breathe.

He tried to reach the .44, he tried to move --

The last thing he remembered was something screaming -- 

Demons sound just like a fire siren --

Red lights, men's voices.

He thought he saw an angel, looking at him with pale eyes.

She folded her wings, smiled.

Pressure on his neck, fingers, searching for a pulse --

Voices, loud, confused --

"PULSE IS WEAK -- "

Hands, movement, pain -- 

"I'VE LOST HIS PULSE!"

Something, crushing his chest, then something slammed him like a thunderbolt.

 

A hand on his shoulder, a voice.

He opened his eyes.

"Do you know where you are?" a man asked him -- professional voice, serious face, a little penlight in his fingers --

A doctor?

I'm not dead?

He remembered the blast of searing agony a moment before --

He took a fast inventory.

"Not in Heaven," he rasped.

"What else?"

"Feet ..." He paused to take another breath.

It hurt to breathe.

"Feet cold," he managed.

"Not in Hell, then," another voice offered.

The Doctor looked up, annoyed, then looked back down.

"You must be alive, then."

"Yeah."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

He considered for a long moment, looked around, eyes only, afraid to move his neck.

"Hospital?" he croaked.

The doctor nodded.  "Yes."

"I remember ..."

A straw touched his lips: he drank, gratefully.

Lukewarm water never tasted so good.

"A deer," he gasped. "I thought ... a deer, coming from my right."

"Rest now. You're in good hands."

It hurt too much to nod.

He felt a warm, strong hand grip his, and he opened his eyes.

It was the police detective he'd called.

"I secured your weapon," he said quietly. "It's safe."

"Thanks."

The detective leaned over, forearms on the siderail, carefully guided the straw back to his lips.

"We found the guy you were looking for."

"Where?" he managed in a hoarse whisper.

"I found him assuming room temperature on a coroner's slab."

He closed his eyes for a long moment, looked back up.

"Where now?"

"They'll hold the body three days, then it'll be cremated and planted in Potter's Field."

"Never asked a badge for a favor," he croaked.

The detective nodded. "Go ahead and ask."

"Make damned sure he's dead first."

 

A pale eyed man in an old-fashioned Western-cut suit smiled at the nurse, typing at the nurse's station.

He turned his lapel over, displayed a six point star.

She smiled, pointed diagonally across the hall, held up four fingers.

She received a wink and a quiet smile: more eyes than hers followed him as he paced silently to the room, knocked, stepped inside.

Someone sighed: a feminine voice said sadly, "Why can't I find one like that?"

Jacob Keller walked over to the hospital bed, shook hands with two police officers -- one in uniform, one in a suit -- who were there, hopefully, just to say hello: he turned to the patient, sitting up a little, thanks to the bed's motorized positioner.

"We heard you'd been T-boned," Jacob said quietly.

"Not my idea," his old friend said quietly, carefully: he held unnaturally still, as if the simple act of breathing, of talking, was painful.

"Ribs?"

"Yeah."

Jacob looked from one city officer to the other.

"Gentlemen, a word, if you please?"

They withdrew to the hallway for a quick conference, ignoring feminine glances that tried hard not to be noticed surreptitiously ogling what they apparently considered desirable masculinity.

"I was told he was hit on the Interstate," Jacob said quietly. "Is there more to the story?"

"Should there be?" the detective asked.

"I've been away on special assignment," Jacob said, turning his lapel over: "Firelands County, Colorado. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and I want to make sure I don't know enough to make a donkey out of myself."

The detective was quiet for a long moment, then he said, "Nothing more than he was in a wreck, he's a long way from home and we didn't want him to feel forgotten."

Jacob nodded.  

"Thank you for that," he said quietly, handed the detective and the uniform each a business card. "My direct number," he explained. 

They went back inside.

"How long before you're back to oilfield tooldressing?" Jacob asked.

"Be a while," came the wheezed answer.

Two nurses came in with a cart and supplies:  "Excuse us, gentlemen," one said briskly, "time for dressing changes!"

Jacob saw his friend's lips frame Thank you: three lawmen turned and left.

 

Reverend John Burnett turned, delighted at the familiar voice.

"Jacob!" he exclaimed, thrusting his hand out: "Where in the world have you been?"

"Parson," Jacob declared, throwing his hands wide in an exaggerated gesture of sincerity, which the Parson recognized as the signal Jacob was about to stuff his boots full, "would you believe my particular talents are so much in demand, I'm passed around like a box of Cracker Jacks?"

The Parson laughed, and those of the Irish Brigade in earshot grinned, and more than one thought, Same old Jacob!

"Actually, Parson, I came to see you in particular, can we talk somewhere?"

"Of course."  The Parson gestured to the kitchen deck: both men drew coffee, added a little milk, stepped out the back door, onto the concrete patio with benches and tables and the little low stone wall that held the hillside back.

Jacob frowned, considered his coffee, sampled it, savored it: no matter who made it, firehouse coffee was universally good.

"Did something ... happen, Jacob?" the Chaplain asked carefully.

"Not to me, Parson. I've got a buddy that might be needful of your wise counsel."

"Fill me in."

The Parson eased himself down on a sun-warmed stone bench, leaning forward a little to put his weight on the meat of the backs of his thighs, instead of on the bones of his backside.

"He'd ..."

Jacob frowned, considered, lifted his head, looked off into the distance.

"Parson, a buddy of mine rode the vengeance trail. He'd spent some years trackin' down a man who'd done something terrible. He rode out fully intendin' to send him to hell and he got there a half hour too late."

He turned his head, looked at the Chaplain.

"He's been in a wreck -- totally unrelated -- but he might need wise counsel now that he's had a come-to-Jesus moment."

"Is he a deputy?"

Jacob nodded.

"Local?"

"Anything but. He'll be a while rehabbin' from his injuries. I think I can talk him into comin' out here to heal up."

"I'd be happy to help."

"Obliged."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TO THE LADIES

The Sheriff's wife looked nothing like a sailing-ship.

Jacob's wife Ruth was stout, motherly, buxom, apple-cheeked: her eyes shone with delight, pride, quiet and understated merriment: she was most comfortable in a matronly, floor-length gown, she preferred to present herself and to appear as had her own mother, as had her grandmothers, as had the ancestral women of her Line.

She did not look at all like a sleek vessel with masts and sails, but in movement, as she advanced toward where the Iris would manifest, her movement was smooth, determined, and in her movement, perhaps, she did indeed appear to be a ship under sail: beautiful, smooth, and giving the distinct impression that I am going HERE! and NOTHING! will stop me.

Ruth shared that smooth coordination that seems common to the female of the species, the ability to time her appearance, or her arrival, to optimize her particular goal: she crossed the room with that peculiar smoothness that led more than one observer to inquire whether, perhaps, she might actually be using wheels under her floor-length skirt.

Their son Joseph was in school: Ruth glided to a stop, folded gloved hands in her apron, lifted her chin and looked at that particular spot where she determined the Iris should appear.

As if on her command, it did, and exactly where she apparently intended it should.

Whether its appearance, its timing, its location, coordinated because of her intent, or in spite of her intent, is quite immaterial: Ruth prided herself on being a dutiful and very proper wife, and her appearance at her husband's return, was the proper thing for a wife to do.

The black ellipse opened: Jacob stepped through -- or, rather, he bounced: a man grown he was, but he walked with the energy of a schoolboy: his wife, dignified, proper, hands in her apron and chin lifted, watched with a schoolteacher's formal gravity as Jacob fairly bounced over to her, stopping just short of a crushing hug.

Sheriff Jacob Keller stopped before his wife, a fine and striking example of masculinity: tall and broad shouldered, with a horseman's waist and strong legs, properly attired in a tailored black suit, in a linen shirt with an emerald-green necktie, broad and puffy and held with a single, rectangular, tastefully-small ruby stickpin.

A husband regarded his wife with delight in his shining eyes: he lifted her gloved knuckles to his lips, held her hand carefully, as if it were a fragile little bird he was afraid of crushing.

"My dear," he murmured.

"My husband," Ruth replied, her cheeks coloring.

"Pa!"

A little boy's happy shout -- young feet charged across the smooth, sintered-stone floor -- Jacob dropped, turned, seized their energetic young son as he leaped: Jacob rose, stepped back to absorb the impact momentum of solid young muscle, and he swung his laughing son around, hoisting him up to arm's length before bringing him back down.

Ruth tilted her head, smiling -- not indulgently, but with understanding: she saw the spontaneous, uninhibited delight of youth, and she saw the laughing strength of a father.

Jacob set their son down, turned to his wife, took her hand again.

"My dear," he said, "is all well?"

Joseph was containing his excitement -- he wished to report to his Pa the progress on two particularly difficult school projects that turned out really well -- but he waited, giving the impression of a pressure-vessel confining the energies of a detonated explosive, while trying to appear outwardly unaffected by the hidden, inner stresses.

"All is well," Ruth replied gently.

"I would counsel with you, dearest," Jacob said gently, and Ruth smiled, that quiet, wise smile of a woman who took pride in being one of her husband's closest confidantes.

 

Jacob was methodical, meticulous, attentive: nothing of importance or urgency transpired during his brief absence; he'd not announced his departure, nor his return; to the Martian colonies, it was as if he'd never been gone, and that suited him fine.

He ran with Joseph through vacant halls to an experimental area excavated well underground, running easily in this low-gravity area: his son took pride and delight in explaining to his father the progress he and two schoolmates were making with their terraforming project.

Jacob was honestly impressed.

There were four words, discovered but not settled, in the so-called "Goldilocks zone" of their respective yellow stars -- terraforming them would make them habitable -- they would have some minerals, yes, but not the variety that came with a living world after eons: there would be no limestone, for instance, as this is made of skeletons of oceanic calcium accretors, compressed and changed into true rock strata with time and with pressure: there would be no coal, as these worlds never knew worldwide tropical conditions that laid down plant matter, thick rich, which was then buried, compressed, reduced to carbon rich strata: in like wise, these planets would have no oil deposits.

Water there was, but trapped, scattered: it would take the terraforming, and recovery of water from the depths, to convert these barren, rocky spheres into habitable worlds.

Joseph's work reverse engineered alien tech, something not even the best minds of the Confederacy managed to do: what this schoolboy in knee pants accomplished, in a square mile of underground experimentation chamber, would have to be scaled up: what he'd done in a month's time, converting imported strata to an inch of arable soil, was but a start, a proof of concept.

He'd done it, though.

A father's quiet approval, expressed in so many words, while looking his son in the eye, would later be described by the son as worth more to him than any riches he'd ever accumulated.

 

Jacob rapped his knuckles on an olivewood rectangle.

He'd given it to the Rabbi, a gift, and halfway a joke: he complained good naturedly that there was nothing to knock on in this modern underground colony, maybe he'd have to get the clergyman a plank to knock on, and so it was that this rectangle of olivewood -- "genuine Israeli timber!" Jacob described it -- was bolted to a standoff just inside the Rabbi's quarters.

The two were old friends; Jacob, like many in the colonies, came to the Rabbi for wise counsel, for conversation, sometimes just to visit: the Rabbi was younger than Jacob, but he seemed to carry the wisdom -- and humor -- of the centuries with him.

He was also an artist when it came to spinning his Fedora before putting it on.

"I'm not good with a nightstick like Bumper Morgan," he'd told Jacob once, with a merry twinkle to his dark eyes, "but I can spin a Fedora!"

Jacob handed the Rabbi two bottles of something dark, with a label printed in Hebrew: the clergyman's delight was evident -- "they're Kosher," Jacob said quietly, "and they one comes from my supplier in --"

"I know where it comes from," the Rabbi interrupted with a chuckle.  "He is my bother in law.  Come in, sit, sit!" -- the two sat, Jacob shooting up like a cork when the Rabbi's wife glided in with two glasses: she smiled modestly, opened one of the two bottles, picked up the second to spirit it away to her stores when Jacob spoke.

"Miz Miriam," he said, "thank you."

The Rabbi's wife stopped, surprised, gave Jacob a wide-eyed look, then a smile: "For what, Sheriff?"

"Ma'am," he said, his Stetson held across his belly, "you care enough to present a proper appearance.  Thank you for caring enough about being a proper Lady to look like one."

Miriam looked at her husband, then at Jacob, cheeks coloring as she smiled a little: she lowered her eyes modestly, turned, glided into the next room.

The Rabbi was quiet for a long moment: Jacob settled his Stetson back on his head, sat.

Normally Jacob would have removed his cover upon crossing the threshold, but the Rabbi wore his black Fedora, and although it was not Rome, Jacob chose to do as the Romans -- or in this case, the Rabbi -- and resumed his cover.

"It means a great deal to her," the Rabbi said softly, "that ... you spoke."

"Credit where credit is due," Jacob replied, looking at the dark purple liquid in the long stemmed wineglass.  "I was recently offworld ..."

He frowned a little, his jaw sliding out: the Rabbi waited, watching his old friend with a knowing expression.

"I spoke to a mother and thanked her just as ..."

His eyes went to the doorway through which the Rabbi's wife disappeared moments before.

"She asked me why ... and I said her daughters both conducted themselves as Ladies, with a capital L."

Jacob's smile was gentle, the look of a man remembering a particularly good memory.

"I told her ... children learn by observation ... and by imitation," he said slowly, "and there is only one place they could have learned to conduct themselves in such a way."

The Rabbi nodded thoughtfully.

"Then I looked her right square in the eye because I wanted her to hear what I was about to tell her.

"I said, 'Thank you for being the Lady that they have chosen to be."

Jacob saw the Rabbi's eyes crinkle a little at the corners.

Both men picked up their wineglasses.

"To the ladies."

They drank.

 

Edited May 4, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A MAN'S NOTION

Father and son sheltered beneath a tin roof.

The Sheriff built it out from the side of the barn, partly to shelter horses, partly to shelter equipment, partly to shelter whoever might need to duck under to get out of bright sun or rain.

Right now he and Jacob sat on a plank bench, side by side, leaning back against sawmill cut planks that made up the leeward wall.

Silence grew long between them.

Inside, a horse stamped, restless: Jacob's young ears caught the swish of horsehair against timber as a tail swung: something warm and furry jumped up on the bench beside him, and his hand caressed the barn cat as it purred up against him, chewing companionably on his thumb, not enough to draw blood, but enough to let Jacob know who was boss.

Jacob's eyes tightened a little at the corners as he fearlessly caressed their chief mouse killer.

Father and son sat unmoving, not speaking: rain rattled steadily on the tin roof overhead: the Sheriff flashed the joint where corrugated tin butted up against siding; the gap between boards on this side of the barn were filled with oakum, driven in between vertical planks with a caulking iron -- though there was precious little caulking needed after careful fitting of planks, one against another: still, he'd done a careful job, making his barn proof against winter's winds, so far as he was able.

The occasional, unusually-fat drop hit the tin roof, a sharper, louder note; there was a light rattle of hail earlier, but hailstones were half the size of Jacob's little fingernail, and disappeared after less than a minute.

He recalled his Pa said if hail lasted, especially if hail stones got sizable, he'd be watching for the sky to turn green.

"Sir, why would the sky turn green?" Jacob asked, honestly puzzled: he'd known it to turn amber, but never green.

"If she turns green, Jacob," his pale eyed Pa said quietly, "duck into the nearest groundhog hole and pull it in after you, tornado's a-comin'."

Jacob had never seen a groundhog -- he'd asked his scholarly sister about the creature, and she'd called it an Eastern marmot, described it as something like a prairie dog, only the size of a Beagle dog that excavated holes in a pasture that could break the leg of an unsuspecting beef, or a horse.

Jacob considered all this, but never questioned his Pa about finding a nice friendly groundhog hole if there were no groundhogs: he'd have to make do with the root cellar, he reckoned.

"Somethin' is on your mind," Linn said quietly, his pale eyes busy.

"Yes, sir," Jacob admitted.

Silence, again, while Jacob arranged his thoughts, sorted through them, put them into words before speaking.

"Sir ... there's been wars."

Silence again.

His Pa took off his Stetson, laid it in his lap, leaned his head back against the plank behind him.

"There have been wars," Linn agreed, his voice soft, the way it got when he was halfway between remembering with his mind, and remembering with his gut.

"Sir, I can ... I can use a rifle to keep a section safe."

Linn nodded, just a little.

"I was considerin', sir ... we've gone up ag'in numbers of men, but they were bunched, like they intended to run us over."

Linn nodded again, remembering.

"Sir ... if they'd spread out in a line ..."

"Squad tactics," Linn said quietly.

"Sir?"

"If they'd planned ahead and formed a wide line, we'd have had a harder time stoppin' all of them, especially if they all advanced at the same time, at the same speed."

"Yes, sir."

"They didn't plan, Jacob. They bunched up and charged all together. That's how we were able to stop 'em."

"Yes, sir."

"You're thinking ahead."

"Yes, sir."

"You're wise."

"Sir?"

Linn looked over at his son, approval in his eyes.

"When a man thinks ahead like that, when he considers what could happen and how would he handle it, why, if somethin' like that happens to him, he's already figured out what to do and he'll be that much faster figurin' on what to do."

Jacob blinked, absorbed his father's words.

"One man with a rifle has to be sneaky and hid," Linn continued. "If you've a company, a squad, a number of men and they're drilled in infantry or cavalry or squad tactics, and if they're practiced and drilled, you can tell 'em to advance on such-and-such a position and they can take it, but if they're not ... if all they've got is a rifle and good intentions, a man with a plan can sprag their plans."

"I see, sir."

"You recall how we practice hand signals."

"Yes, sir."

"You recall how Sarah learned mirror-talk."

"Yes, sir."

"We used bugles in that damned War."

"Yes, sir."

"We drilled and drilled and drilled again, learnin' the calls. First part of the bugle call let us know who it was meant for, then the last part said what to do."

"Yes, sir."

"I one time got two outlaws to surrender, that-a-way."

"Sir?"

"I had two men ride back and forth on our side of a ridge, raisin' dust. One of 'em had a bugle and I had him sound advance for a nonexistent company. The outlaws were watchin' that little short ridge line, waitin' for the cavalry itself to come a-boilin' over at 'em and I rode in behind 'em and allowed as they could give up and be taken in, or the Cavalry could come and turn 'em into a pair of sieves.

"Turns out neither one particularly wanted to sort flour in some woman's kitchen, we took 'em in to stand trial an' nobody got killed."

Jacob's eyes smiled at their corners.

Rain was steady, light; the wind was still -- the wind normally carried from behind them to ahead of them, they were seated in the lee of the barn; silence between them again, filled by the steady patter of rainfall.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Sir, do you reckon there will be another Lincoln's War?"

Linn was quiet for several long moments.

Jacob felt as much as saw his Pa take a long breath in, let it out slow.

"I hope not, Jacob," Linn said softly. "I've seen things ... terrible things ... that damned war ..."
His voice softened, faded: Jacob risked a look at his father, fearful of what he would see.

As he feared, his father's expression was haunted.

Linn closed his eyes, took another long breath, pushed the memories from him.

His hand closed about the crown of his Stetson: he stood, abruptly.

"Jacob," he said, "it's damp and chilly out here, and I've a notion for some coffee."

"Yes, sir."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HOW TO GET IN TROUBLE

WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

Michael Keller grinned as he leaned over Cyclone's neck.

The Fanghorn was nowhere near grown, but sufficiently matured to tolerate his saddled weight.

Victoria, for her part, stood, feet shoulder width apart, knees flexed: her pupils dilated as Cyclone lowered her head, advanced into a fast walk.

This alone was ... intimidating.

Part of Victoria's mind knew Cyclone was just walking quickly.

Part of Victoria's mind knew those steel-hard, unshod hooves could crush anything living underfoot and turn it into bloody paste.

She didn't care.

Cyclone stretched out into a mild trot, circled the pretty girl with long, blond curls and a ribboned dress, Cyclone orbited Victoria, then ran straight away from her.

I'm ready, she thought, leaned forward, eyes wide, pupils dilated, rich red lips peeled back from even white teeth.

Michael's expression combined delight and recklessness as he brought Cyclone around, fast.

Cyclone was a predator, and Cyclone was fast, and Cyclone swapped ends like a cutting horse, and Cyclone knew what Michael wanted, and that was to run!

She bore down on Victoria, who crouched slightly, young muscles toned and tensed and ready --

Destruction and death, a bony boss that could bust a brick wall, fangs that routinely rended living flesh as she ate bloody, quivering meat to supplement her her herbivorous diet --

Michael leaned a little to his right, one hand death gripped on the saddlehorn, the other reaching --

Victoria's hand seized Michael's arm like a clawed trap snapping shut around prey, and Michael's ranch-tempered grip was hard around his sister's upper arm --

Victoria didn't so much lift from the earth as she was BLASTED off the earth --

She rose, she spread her legs, petticoats white in the sun --

Michael's triumphant yell, Victoria's delighted shriek and Cyclone's whistling scream combined, pounding hooves joined by Thunder, swinging alongside, and Lightning, her own joyful blast shivering the quiet afternoon air: a mother Fanghorn and her foals thundered across the treeless expanse, Victoria happily hugging her brother, her legs wrapped around as much broad Fanghorn barrel as she could arrange.

The reports came in soon after.

It seems their happy exercise, something they'd practiced back home with their Daddy's horses, this running pickup, was caught by one of the Inter-System stealth cameras.

On those planets where Appaloosa horses were being introduced, riders tried this same running pickup.

There were falls, bruises, a few broken bones: one luckless individual's nose was laid across their face after a failed grip, after a swift-swinging hoof came perilously close to causing a catastrophic injury, and through channels that were both swift and not entirely official, Michael and Victoria -- who by now were taking turns, jumping Thunder and Cyclone over obstacles, across gullies, onto stationary and then moving railroad flatcars as they passed through a shallow gap -- two pale eyed riders were given to understand that their fine examples were resulting in injuries by those who sought to emulate their energetic examples.

Demand for Earth horses increased on the Confederate worlds.

At diplomatic functions, at cultural exchanges, at formal and dignified meetings, careful suggestions were made -- except where the suggestions were quite overt, these generally from children who'd seen Michael and Victoria on the Inter-System -- and a lucky few, unofficially, ended up riding double with one or the other of the twins.

Back on Earth, the Sheriff's steady old mare was recruited, spirited away courtesy of tobacco-shaving bribes and Iris technology: this patient old dapple-grey gave a surprising number of folk their first introduction to the terrifying, delightful magic of their first horseback ride.

Few of those who rode this patient old mare were children.

Michael and Victoria met with those adventurous young who'd tried a running pickup, such as they'd seen on the Inter-System, and failed: Michael arranged for a boy half his age to have his broken arm repaired at a facility that would have been quite out of reach otherwise, Victoria sat with a young woman whose face bore the startling colors of severe bruising, but a physically repaired nasal septum: they shared girlish observations, they giggled, the girl with the hoof-broken nose confided that she felt like a princess with a thousand courtiers vying for her hand, then she touched her still-tender beak and admitted, "Just not quite the way it happened!"

Michael and Victoria did not abandon their beloved Appaloosa saddle horses.

Their System-wide trademark was still to ride side by side on near-identical spotty horses, Michael in his suit, and Victoria in a proper, divided-skirt gown ... but now that Thunder and Cyclone were big enough to ride, they were seen more often mounted on a creature known to most of the System as fast, dangerous, unpredictable, carnivorous, short-tempered and just plain dangerous.

Marnie asked the twins to appear on a particular world at a particular time, where she would be involved with a delicate negotiation: she asked Michael to ride Buck, one of her Daddy's stallions, and she gave her younger brother a look that he recognized.

Victoria rode Cyclone.

The twins appeared -- no one saw where they came from -- but Buck's steelshod hooves, sharp in the noontime air, and Cyclone's rocky hooves, her cadence slower, somehow more menacing, seized attention, stares and shocked expressions: traffic came to a fast standstill as brother and sister cantered down the centerline of the main street, in the capitol city, and set their course for the imposing, turreted structure a quarter mile away.

Their arrival was timed with the noon recess.

Marnie, smiling, gracious, flowed out the front door, delegates coming with her, bees following a lovely, fragrant flower: Michael and Victoria drew up, dismounted.

Cyclone was not yet tall enough to require a belly-down to allow Victoria's dismount; Michael's long legs made dismount from his Pa's stallion look easy.

Michael went around to Buck's head, rubbed his jaw, pulled his hand away as yellow teeth snapped at his hand: he shook a fist at the stallion's face and whispered, "You'll get your chance," and dropped his reins.

He turned, offered Victoria his arm: they walked, dignified as two teen-age pretenders could manage, toward their older sister.

Marnie looked over their heads, looked at Michael, her eyes smiling.

Michael smiled in reply as he heard Buck grunt.

Marnie turned, raised a hand: Michael turned and saw one of the delegates just departing Buck's saddle, at both a high angle, and at a high velocity: the delegate hit the ground, rolled, grimaced: he scowled, came up on all fours, came back at the stallion.

He grabbed the saddlehorn, got a foot in the stirrup.

Buck circled, fast: the delegate made a desperate grab for the cantle -- for a miracle, he made it -- he hopped on one foot as Buck spun again, slung the delegate for a surprising distance.

The delegate fell, rolled, came back up, face scarlet.

Marnie hid her smile behind a glove.

Michael was busy investigating the refreshments laid out for the delegates.

He handed Victoria a delicate, lily-shaped glass off something chilled, red and smelling of some kind of fruit: he made himself a sandwich, turned, took a happy bite.

The delegate managed to get into the saddle.

Buck just stood there.

The delegate looked confused.

He looked ahead and down, then leaned down to try and reach one of the reins.

Buck folded his legs and rolled over, trapping the delegate's leg beneath his barrel.

The delegate yelled, tried hitting at the stallion's neck, at least until strong yellow teeth closed around his wrist like a vise.

Michael sauntered up to the stallion, rubbed his nose, looked at the delegate.

"I'd not try that again," he said quietly. "Buck here likes breakin' arms. Someone beat him and he's been mean ever since. Was I you I'd asked him politely to let go."

Michael took a casual bite of sandwich.

Cyclone came over, nose thrust out, snuffing at the sandwich:  Michael offered her a bite, let her take the sandwich: the Fanghorn's canines were bright, pure-white ivory-looking as she threw her head back, tossing the sandwich deeper into her mouth.

"Now Cyclone here," Michael said conversationally, "would rather rip off yer arm and eat it. Buck here, he just likes to break 'em. Someone beat him and hurt him and he has not forgotten it."

"Make him let go," the delegate wheezed. "Please!"

"Don't tell me," Michael shrugged.  "Tell him."

"Please let go," the delegate whispered hoarsely, eyes swinging to the stallion.

Michael unwrapped a peppermint, held it out on a flat palm.

The stallion released the wrist and drove his muzzle down on Michael's palm -- it looked like he was going to take the hand off clear up to the elbow -- but it was a game Buck played: he drove his nose down hard on Michael's palm, but the only thing yellowed equine teeth claimed was the red-and-white swirly peppermint.

"Yup, Buck," Michael said quietly, and rubbed the stallion under the jaw.

The stallion rolled over on his hooves, stood, shook himself: the delegate's foot, thanks to a doghouse stirrup, was not trapped, and fell free.

"Mister," Michael said as the man got up, blustering, threatening, "you tried to steal my horse."

Michael pulled the piggin string's knot, dropped the lariat from the saddle into his hand, shook out a loop.

"Horse thievin' is a hangin' offense."

"You wouldn't," the delegate gasped.

Michael opened the loop, gave it a flip, began to spin it: he'd read where Old Pale Eyes could not play poker to save his sorry backside, but he could deal with the best of 'em; he read where Old Pale Eyes could not spin a lariat, and he determined to acquire the skill.

Victoria skipped happily over to Cyclone, her gait that of a little girl on a sunny afternoon, and she came away from her mount with a lariat as well.

Two pale eyed twins spun their loops in perfect synchronization, skipped through the loops, spun them overhead, down over themselves and back up: they coiled the plaited reatas, looked around.

"You think that branch will hold a man's weight?" Michael asked, and Victoria pretended to study the particular structure.

"Naw, he's kind of heavy. We need a stouter branch."

They looked at the delegate, who was backing away, wide-eyed: he scrambled for the safety of his fellow delegates, to the derisive laughter of most of them.

Pale eyed twins looked at one another and shook their heads.

"Just can't have any fun these days!" they complained in unison.

Buck dropped his head, snapped at Michael's backside, came away with a kerchief: he danced back, bobbing his head and waving the captured kerchief like a prize.

This, of course, made the local newspaper, which Marnie shared with them the next day: two well dressed, teen age twins, each holding a coiled reata, each looking at the stallion throwing his head and waving a flag of triumph, and beneath, the caption:

How to Get Into Trouble Without Even Trying!

"The delegate," Marnie said, and neither Michael nor Victoria had to ask just who this delegate was, "needed taken down a peg. Thank you for helping."

"Buck gets the credit," Michael said innocently.

Marnie gave him a knowing look.

"The threat of getting his neck stretched as a horse thief was just the right added touch."  She playfully brushed the tip of Michael's nose with a gloved forefinger, her eyes bright and merry: "he didn't know whether that was fact or invention, and he was afraid Diplomatic Offense would make it a very real possibility!"

She blinked, looked at Michael.

"Why did Papa name that particular stallion Buck?"

Michael grinned.

"Ever try to ride him, Sis?"

"Nnnnooo," Marnie replied slowly, her expression a little less certain than she'd been.

"If you ever try it, eat your Cheerios and pack a lunch," Michael grinned, " 'cause before you can do squat with him, you've got to buck him out, and let me tell you, he'll do his best!"

 

Edited May 5, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MAY I HAVE A WORD?

Sarah Lynne McKenna sat, aloof, dignified, icy, alone in the Judge's private car.

She'd gotten information the Judge wanted, and she would present to the Judge in her current attire -- a fashionable hat worn at a stylish angle, a properly fitted gown, with foundations and firmaments that made her look more ...

... mature ...

... than her relatively few years.

She'd disported herself as a slattern, she'd strutted in stockings and a shockingly brief, fur-trimmed silk dress (why good Lord! it was halfway up her calves!) -- she'd draped herself over an influential man after sitting unbidden in his lap, after smiling and priming him with drink and with unspoken promises, she'd gotten inside his guard and inside his confidence, and before he passed out from the powders she'd introduced to his final drink, she'd even towed him by the hand like a steam tugboat might tow another, larger watercraft -- although it was neither through oceanic waters she towed him, nor did she guide him into any safe harbor.

Now Sarah sat, a very proper young lady, reading: she heard the air set up under her feet, and she smiled, just a little.

She'd paid attention when she'd ridden the train, she knew when the air set up after cresting the final grade that she was six minutes to Firelands.

Sarah McKenna closed her book, replaced it in the Judge's desk: where most fashionable young ladies might be reading a work of poetry, or perhaps a religious tract, Sarah was reading from Blackstone's Law, a legal reference well known to the judiciary.

Sarah was an Agent of the Court, and she had news for the Judge.

The Sheriff looked up as a well-dressed young woman swept through his door.

It took him a moment to realize it was Sarah.

She stopped and overlapped gloved fingers before her flat stomach, looked coolly at the standing lawman.

"May I have a word?" she asked, and -- like her appearance -- her voice was disguised: what he heard, held a chill, a maturity he didn't normally associate with this pale eyed get of his loins, this child who did not know her true paternity until her fourteenth birthday.

"Of course," the Sheriff said courteously: he stepped to a chair, drew it out, gestured.

She flowed across the floor, settled herself into the chair, frowned, then rose.

The Sheriff was still on his feet.

"Do you remember," she said quietly, her voice a little less frosty, "showing Jacob how to take a pistol from a man's hand?"

Linn blinked, surprised.

"I remember," he said carefully.

Sarah lifted her chin and looked very directly at this tall, impressive figure of masculinity with those quiet, light-blue eyes. 

She swallowed -- she saw his brows draw together a little, saw him turn his head ever so slightly, she knew he realized her discomfiture.

"Jacob and I practiced that," she said quietly.

The Sheriff nodded, once, slowly.

"We practiced it many times."

Again that slow, measured nod.

"We didn't just practice it -- we both worked on it, he's good, he's really good" -- her eyes were bright with the memory, but not with tears -- "we still practice it."

"And you are telling me this ...?"

He let the question dangle, a trick he used to keep information coming.

Sarah reached up, pulled out a long hatpin, laid it on his desk: she reached up again, with the other gloved hand, pulled another long hatpin, laid this on the desk as well.

She lifted the hat off, straight up, with both hands, and placed her fashionable, broad-brimmed hat on the desk over the hatpins.

Sarah looked at the Sheriff, blinked a few times, her eyes swinging to the side, then she looked at him again, thrust herself forward: the Sheriff found himself in his daughter's embrace, he felt her shivering a little, and he did the only thing he could think of in that moment.

He ran his arms gently around her and held her.

"It kept me alive," Sarah almost whispered, her voice unsteady, then she looked up: "What you taught Jacob kept me alive!"

The Sheriff brought one hand free, caressed her powdered cheek with the backs of his fingers: he dipped his knees, Sarah released her grip: he took her under the arms, picked her up like she was a little girl, he brought her up to eye level, and Sarah felt that peculiar thrill that comes of knowing she was in the presence of a truly strong man.

"Darlin'," Linn said quietly, his nose almost touching hers, "you're the only one of you we've got."

He hiked her up just a little, almost tossing her up by all of one inch, and he ran his arms around her again, this time holding her tight, a father's strong and protecting arms, uncaring that she'd chosen to present herself to the world as a woman grown.

He held her like she was his little girl, and in that moment, that's exactly what she was.

She held him just as tight, and he wrote in his Journal, after her death, when he remembered the moment, it was the only time she squeaked, "Oh, Daddy," like she was a little girl again.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller looked up as his twins came out of an Iris, there in his study.

They were holding hands, which meant they both wished to speak to him: he turned a little, his eyes smiling as Michael announced, "Permission to come aboard, sir!"

"Granted," he nodded.

Victoria's expression was troubled, her chin was determined, and she took a half step forward.

"Daddy, may I have a word?"

Linn's eyes went back to his desk, at the open Journal, at the account of a pale eyed father and his pale eyed daughter: he closed the reprinted book, rose, came over to his children.

Something told him he just might know what they wished to tell him.

He was right.

 

Edited May 6, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HARRY DID WHAT HARRY DOES BEST

A lean waisted lawman on a good looking Appaloosa stallion drew up, looked at the grinning, barefoot boy watching from the end of the boardwalk.

He was a boy like many others: cloth cap, indolent posture, a sharp and watchful expression, the kind who knows what's going on, calculating quickly whether there's anything in it for him.

The boy turned, sauntered down the narrow alley beside the building.

The Sheriff waited, looking around, eyes busy: he waited a long minute, then followed the urchin with the knowing expression and the calculated slouch.

The Sheriff walked his stallion across the street and down the little alley.

He leaned down a little: a coin shone a little as it dropped from one hand into another.

"Obliged for your help," the Sheriff said quietly, four more silvers following the first.

He saw surprise in the lad's eyes and his own eyes tightened approvingly at the corners: the boy's face showed no change at all.

"You'd play a good game of poker," the Sheriff rumbled.

"Nah," the boy grinned. "My baby sis skins me at poker."

The Sheriff's eyes smiled a little more, and he nodded, once: "Yep."

The boy squinted up, allowed himself a knowing smile: "You too?"

"Surprised?"

"Kinda."  The boy wrinkled his nose a little, and the Sheriff saw new freckles scattered across healthy-- if slightly dirty -- cheeks.

"I can see through a man like window glass," the Sheriff admitted, his voice low: "if he's lyin', I know it right away, but women" -- he shook his head, chuckled -- "women can pull the wool over my eyes fast, hard and nasty!"

The boy considered this, filing it away as Very Useful Information.

He'd seen this Sheriff work, he'd seen this Sheriff question men, he'd seen this Sheriff call a man on his lies.

If there was a living creature that was proof against this particular lawman's skills and abilities, he personally wished to fight shy of them: if they could bamboozle the Sheriff, how much more could they slicker him!

"Seen Macfarland lately?" the Sheriff asked casually.

"He'd ought to be back just any time. I think he went down-street to talk to th' Padre."

Another coin, a wink:  "Obliged."

 

Law and Order Harry Macfarland hung his flat crowned townie hat on its peg, went to his desk: he pulled out a bound book and a pencil, he frowned a little as he put his thoughts on paper.

The Padre was a wise man, but a fair man: he absolutely would not violate the seal of the Confessional, but he had pointed Harry on more than one occasion toward things he'd ought to look at, and his quiet observations had been useful to Carbon Hill's taciturn town marshal.

A shadow, a silhouette, outside the front window: Harry continued writing, his scalp tightening a little behind his ears, they way it did when he had a grin that wasn't going to be allowed out to play.

The door opened and a man's shoulders blocked the doorway, along with the rest of him: a step, two, the door was shut quietly, firmly.

Harry's Barlow-whittled pencil ran quickly across the page.

The Sheriff did not interrupt the man's progress: he waited until Harry closed the book, opened the drawer, placed book and pencil with precise care, closed the drawer, looked up.

"You got him."

The Sheriff nodded, once.

"Hell, sit yourself down, you're makin' me tired just lookin' at you standin'."

Harry pretended to ignore the slight change of expression as the Sheriff sat: he had a few poorly healed injuries, and Harry knew the man had to sit carefully, thanks to a bad fall years before.

"What else did you find out?"

Linn frowned a little, looked to the side: he rose, pulled the chair right close to Harry's desk.

Harry tossed him a pillow -- he caught it, squeezed the calico padding, looked at Harry, raised an eyebrow.

"Hair pillow?"

Harry blinked, looked away, looked back, nodded.

Linn raised an eyebrow, nodded.

"Obliged."

He eased his backside down with the hair pillow between his tailbone and the hard chair.

He knew the story behind the pillow, and though he might accept his friend's kindness and use it to pad his backside, he would do so with courtesy, for the pillow had been a gift from someone Harry cared for.

Harry waited.

"Father Mayer doin' all right?"

Harry nodded, leaned back until the back of his chair hit the chair rail.

He saw the Sheriff's eyebrow raise.

"I ain't goin' to fall," Harry muttered, as if responding to a verbal challenge, the chair slid out from under the man: Harry's teeth clenched as he slid, as he fell, as he knew there was nothing to do but ride it out.

The Sheriff waited while his old friend rolled over on his side, got up, set the chair in place and glared at it as if the chair had acted, knowingly, maliciously and deliberately.

"Mine does that," Linn offered quietly, and Harry gripped the back of his chair, looked at the Sheriff, dropped his head and laughed quietly: he'd been in the Firelands Sheriff's Office when one of the four legged office chairs flipped out from under the Sheriff, leaving the man flat on his back, legs straight in the air, boot heels to the ceiling.

"If it's any help," Linn said with a straight face, "I have a standing order for new chairs with the Mercantile."

"Yeah, you and that broad ax," Harry muttered. "Ain't it kind of expensive, bustin' up a chair when it kicks out from under you?"

"Not any more," Linn said quietly.

"Nah? You skin flint, you're tighter'n John Wesley's hat band!"

Linn leaned forward, elbows on his knees, sandpapering his palms together slowly as Harry settled himself back in the offending furniture.

"Harry," he said finally, "I set the old chair out in the street and lean the ax up ag'in the porch post so's it can see what's goin' to happen to it, and then I got and get that new chair.

"I fetch it back and set it nose to nose with the old chair and I go over't the Silver Jewel and have me some coffee or some-such, I'll wait'll that old chair warns that new chair about what happened, then I'll go and take an ax to the chair that throwed me an' I'll let attair new chair watch it. So far that new chair has not offered to throw me, not once!"

Harry considered this, his only comment a raised eyebrow: a solemn faced Sheriff and a solemn faced Town Marshal regarded each other impassively until neither one could stand it any longer, until they both laughed.

Once they both came up for air, Harry looked at Linn and said "Now you didn't come over here just to tell me about educatin' a new chair."

"No."

Linn shifted his backside a little, worked his back, frowned.

"A young man come to me yesterday, Harry, and I ... didn't know what to say to him."

Harry nodded, once, leaned forward, hands not quite clasped on the green desk blotter.

"He had trouble about him ... he looked like trouble laid itself over his shoulders like a blanket and it'd been there so long it was part of him, but he looked just awful lost. Come to find out that heavy blanket of trouble he'd been wearin' was fell off and gone and he didn't know what to do now that it wasn't there."

"What happened?" Harry asked, leaning forward a little more, clearly interested.

"He'd set out for vengeance. Family was killed that shouldn't have been and him that did it, realized he'd killed the wrong people. He took out and when this young fella come upon the situation that night, once he l'arned who did it, he took out after 'im.

"He said he'd been followin' this murderer better'n a year."

"Did he find him?"

Linn nodded, his bottom jaw slid out a little.

"Found him freshly killed over'n the City. He'd been accused of card cheatin' and come out in second place."

"And this fella that was after him ...?"

"Got there right after it happened. He went over and looked into his dead eyes and then he left. Never said a word to no one."

"So how'd you get in this?"

"He got off the steam train in Firelands and come over't the Silver Jewel for a meal.

"I saw he looked just awful lost, like he was ... like someone pulled a cork out of his boot heel and just drained him out and he was read to collapse like an empty water bag."

Harry blinked, considered: he'd seen that look before.

"I stood him to a meal and a beer, and he got to talkin'.

"Harry, he sounded ... hollow.  He sounded lost. He'd had purpose for a year and he'd intended to kill the man that killed his kinfolk and now that was out the window, and I reckon he felt like a compass needle that lost its magnetic and just set there and wobbled."

Harry waited.

"I asked him if there was family he could go home to, and he allowed as there was, I asked him if he had a trade and he spoke of furniture making and his family's Mercantile back East, and I allowed as there was demand for such where the country was expandin', and he didn't say much after that.

"I saw him back on the steam train and he headed east, but he ..."

Linn looked at his old and trusted friend.

"Harry, he just  looked so ... lost."

"Reckon so."

Linn shook his head, straightened in the hardback chair, then leaned forward again, frowned.

"Sometimes," he admitted, "it is troublin' to not be able to fix somethin'!"

Harry nodded wisely.

He didn't speak a word of agreement -- he didn't have to -- Harry did what Harry did best.

He listened.

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AN ANGEL, ON A COPPER COLORED MARE

Reverend John Burnett sat beside an old man's bed, listening to his labored words.

Modern medicine did all that was possible to stay the beast that ate the old man alive: he'd refused further treatment, knowing it was hopeless, knowing that trying to stave off the inevitable would mean he'd suffer longer.

He'd suffered enough.

The old man smiled -- just a little -- he lifted his hand, turned it, the move of a man who wishes human contact.

The Parson gripped the man's hand, gently, carefully.

"Calluses," the old man whispered approvingly, and closed his eyes: a few breaths, he opened them again.

"Not ... afraid to die," he whispered, gave the Parson a knowing look.

"I'm good with the Lord," he said, pausing mid-sentence to take another breath.

Oxygen hissed quietly through the two-pronged nasal cannula.

"There's a Heaven, Parson."

Reverend John leaned forward a little, listening closely.

"I seen angels, years ago."

"Angels," the Parson echoed.

The old man swallowed, gave a shallow nod.

"Thirsty."

The Parson picked up the pink plastic cup of water, moved it so the straw just touched the old man's lips.

He took three careful swallowed, nodded.

The Parson set the plastic cup back on the sidetable.

"Angels," the old man repeated, then looked at the Parson, amusement in his tired eyes.

His breath caught, his hand tightened momentarily, then relaxed.

Behind him, a voice, a hand on his shoulder: he rose as the nurse laid efficient, professional fingers against the old man's emaciated throat, then spun the pastel stethoscope from around her neck, dropped the smooth ear-tips into place, laid the bell against the old man's breastbone.

She listened -- it seemed to the Parson she listened for a very long time -- then she rose, laid her stethoscope back over her neck, looked at the Parson and shook her head.

 

Linn Keller was fifteen years old, tall and skinny, pale eyed and good-natured: he and his Mama were horseback, following the dispatcher's summons.

Willamina's aging, copper mare, Cannonball, named for her dam, labored through deep snow and deeper snow: she and her son took turns breaking trail, headed for a curve they knew of, toward a call for help the dispatcher received and relayed.

Equipment and manpower was fighting the storm, headed their way as best they could, but the Sheriff knew she and her son could get there faster, and so they headed into the teeth of the blizzard with what they needed.

Willamina almost rode past the truck, buried in the snow: Linn stopped behind it, reasoning the contour of the snow likely reflected the moving map in his head: he stopped to try and reconnoiter, then frowned.

He dismounted, pulled a folding shovel from behind the saddle, slogged forward: he thrust the handle ahead of him, hit something that wasn't snow.

He and his Mama started digging.

Lights were bright in the ranch truck's instrument panel.

Willamina reached through the wheel, turned off the ignition -- the engine wasn't running -- but she did not like the looks of the driver or his young passenger.

"Carbon monoxide," she said, her voice loud against the wind: "they're out of the wind here. Let's give it a minute to change out the air."

Linn nodded, waded back to his Appaloosa mare, led her forward.

He dug enough snow to get the door open further, providing a temporary windbreak for his Mama and at least two horses' heads.

Willamina climbed over the man's lap with a silver rescue blanket, wrapped the child: unfasten the seat belt, bring the comatose form toward her, she tucked in the tag side, rolled a little boy she remembered back over against the door, brought the blanket around and tucked in.

She checked his pulse, laid her cheek against his nose, nodded.

"He's breathing," she said. "Help me with Jake here."

They got the father wrapped -- quickly, the snow was whipping in, apparently intent on filling the cab.

Willamina took a World War II surplus wool blanket, dug and thrust and grunted and shoved it in under snow piled up on the truck's cab roof, draped it over the open door, gaining a little shelter.

Linn busied himself excavating, pacing himself, knowing if help arrived -- if they could fight through drifts with a snow machine and sled, they'd want room to work to bring the patients out.

The mares were quite happy to have room to stand without standing in snow.

The old man rallied, roused, at least a little bit, then went back to sleep.

The wind slowed: snow was still coming down, but not as heavy: Linn paused, straightened, then grinned, looked at his Mama.

They heard the snow machine snarling its way toward them.

 

The Parson stood with a young woman who stood with one arm across her belly, gripping her elbow, while her teeth tightened a little on her knuckle.

"He told me he wasn't afraid to die now," she said, her voice just short of breaking apart and falling to the floor in shattered pieces.

"What did he tell you?" Reverend John asked in a kindly voice, knowing that in such moments, it was important for family to speak of their memories.

"He said he and my brother went off the road and got hung in the worst blizzard we'd had in years. He said they ran the engine to keep warm and he'd gotten a call out to the Sheriff's office, and he said he ... he said the exhaust ... he ..."

She buried her face in a folded kerchief for a long moment, the Parson's hand warm and reassuring on her back.

She raised her head, took a breath.

"When they got them to hospital, they had them both on oxygen. Carbon monoxide poisoning. They said if the Sheriff hadn't got there and gotten them into clean air, they would have died."

The Parson nodded.

She looked at him, wiped one eye, then the other.

"He didn't tell me it was the Sheriff. I didn't know she was even there, not for ... not for years, not until I read the actual reports.

"He said an angel came in and floated him out of his truck.

"He said he saw her on a copper colored horse, he said her wings were broad and white and sparkled with snow, and that's the last he remembered until he woke up in hospital."

 

Willamina and Linn drew back while the Irish Brigade swarmed in, brought the man out, logrolled him up into their chest, sidestepped through the deep snow and laid him on the broad plastic sled: they brought the man's grandson out, wrapped in his silvery cocoon, laid him with his grandfather, covered them both: Willmina and Linn mounted up, watched as the Irish Brigade labored through snow, one machine ahead of the other, snarling their way back to Firelands.

For a moment Willamina thought the man raised his head and looked at her, but then dismissed the notion: likely a trick of light and shadow, or wishful thinking.

They sat their mares, side by side, Sheriff and her teenage son, then she pulled the wool blanket free, shoved the truck's door shut with a booted foot.

She turned her mare to face her son.

"I think we still have some hot chocolate at home that hasn't been drunk up yet," she said innocently.

Linn grinned.

"Yes, ma'am!" 

 

A rancher rose from the hospital bed, stood, stretched.

It's nice not to hurt, he thought, and laughed quietly at the sensation.

He turned and looked at the skinny, worn out, old carcass in the hospital bed, and he looked surprised.

He looked to his right, toward a sorrowing young woman, salt water tears soaking into a bedsheet hankie, and he looked sad.

He turned and looked out the window, and his expression was suddenly one of delight, of anticipation.

An angel on a copper mare spread snow-sparkling wings and extended her hand.

"Saddle up," she called cheerfully, "work's done, time to go home!"

Edited May 8, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SOMNAMBULATION

Sheriff Jacob Keller slept flat on his back, holding his wife's hand.

Ruth lay beside him, but she was more restless in her sleep: she might roll up on her side facing him, she might lay on her back, but she never pulled her hand from his.

It was something they never told anyone -- it was their secret -- but their last words before submerging into the dark lake of slumber were, "I love you," their first words upon awakening were a drowsy, "Yuvs you," and when they slept, they slept holding hands.

Jacob, unlike his predecessors, did not suffer nightmares.

Like his pale eyed sister, he'd strode boldly into his nightmares when they tried to plague his childhood sleep: he'd seized control of his nightmares, he'd put nameless terrors and shapeless monsters to flight.

He maintained that same habit for the rest of his entire life, and slept soundly as a result.

Ruth, however, was not only a wife.

Ruth was a mother.

When her quick ear heard the quiet hiss of a door opening, she was out of bed and on her feet, she was heading for the sound and moving fast.

Littlejohn's bare feet were silent on the hook rugs and sintered stone floor, one hand on The Bear Killer's shoulder: his eyes were half-lidded, but not awake: the door released its intruder-prevention protocol long enough to open for the recognized life forms, hissed shut as they passed.

Littlejohn was sleepwalking.

Ruth caught up with him just as the airlock was starting to cycle shut.

She half-dove into the airlock, shouldered the door hard -- red lights flashed bright, the airlock's safety engaged and the inner door pulled open -- Ruth seized Littlejohn around the ribs, pulled, jumped back out of the airlock vigorously enough to stagger backwards across the hallway and hit the green-enamel-finished wall, her son clutched to her front.

The Bear Killer danced along with him, eyes shining, looking up at Ruth with an expression of honest delight: he might not know quite what was going on, but it looked like fun, and if it was fun, why, The Bear Killer was all in!

Ruth squatted awkwardly, her voluminous flannel nightgown allowing her the knee room as she descended to her little boy's level.

"Littlejohn," she said in a quiet, concerned-but-gentle mother's voice, "where are you going?"

"Pa needs me," Littlejohn replied, his words slurred with sleep.  "I'm helpin' Pa!"

"Your Pa needs your help in here," Ruth said briskly, standing: she took Littlejohn's warm hand, walked him back down the hall, back into their generous underground quarters.

The Bear Killer watched, tail-swinging and happy as Ruth threw his covers back, got him to climb back into his bunk, covered him up:  she realized Littlejohn's eyes closed somewhere on the walk back, and he was asleep before he was horizontal.

The Bear Killer thrust up onto the bed, laid down beside the boy, cuddled up close, a warm and reassuring presence.

Ruth went to the door, keyed in a sequence, changed the programming to keep Littlejohn from going walkabout in his sleep.

Jacob's hand twitched slightly as Ruth slipped hers back into his: she cuddled up against her husband, heard his near inaudible hum of pleasure as he felt her, warm and womanly, beside him.

Ruth would complain later to her mother that men must have a habit of forgetfulness.

Her husband never had nightmares nor any troubled sleep at all, and their son had no memory of trying to go out the airlock into the Martian night.

 

Edited May 9, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MATCHLESS

A small, furry, sinners-heart-black Bear Killer cocked his head curiously, watching two well dressed children picking up spent .22 hulls with needle forceps.

Michael and Victoria believed in leaving the range better than they found it: consequently, they were taking home a zipped-shut plastic baggie of yellow modeling clay, a trash sack containing what used to be a box of kitchen matches, a torn, discarded candy wafer wrapper, and the sack of meticulously gathered scrap brass.

Earlier in the day, they'd each set an old fashioned tin dinner bucket on one of the Sheriff's range's benches, along with a thermos: they set their warbags up, halved the lump of yellow schoolroom putty, walked out to one of the falling plate racks and laid a thick arc of clay on top of one round steel plate, stood the plate up, then stuck in a half dozen kitchen matches.

Brother and sister walked back to the shooting bench.

Young eyes are keen eyes, and Michael and Victoria were using iron sights, and .22 target pistols.

They were also using good old fashioned competition, laying wagers on their next shot.

Neither shot with intent to cut a matchstick in two.

Each shot with intent to graze a match head and light it afire.

Sums were named and agreed on.

Pistol sights settled on their intended targets; each adjusted their stance, or stepped a little to the side, to get the best contrast with the blue-sulfur tip.

When they ran through the new box of kitchen matches, they declared a recess: each opened their dented dinner bucket, ate the lunches they'd brought, poured steaming-hot tea, sweetened with honey.

After their shared benchtop lunch, Michael reached into a coat pocket and donated a roll of candy wafers he'd been given nearly a year before: he did not like their taste, and thought it a fine time, a fine way, to get rid of them.

He divided the roleau in half, gave half to his twin sister: each child stuck a half dozen slim wafers in the clay, each one surreptitiously turning the wafers a little so they weren't exactly edge-on: candy wafers are brittle, and turning them enough to be easily seen, would guarantee a hit.

No wagers were laid on these.

This, after the frustrating shattering of most of the match heads (out of a box of kitchen matches, Victoria lit three and Michael, two), it felt good to shoot something small that shattered reliably enough to restore their confidence.

Wafer fragments they left lay: these would dissolve and disintegrate, wildlife would consume them, and no harm.

There were observers, there were the curious, drawn by the slow and deliberate pace of precision fire: had this been something unusual, word would have spread quickly, but this was not something unique, nor was it particularly interesting.

The shooting accuracy of all the Sheriff's young was accepted in the community as a given: if comment there was, likely it was confined to the fact that Michael shot thus, casually, unofficially, in a black suit and necktie, and Victoria, in an ornately-ruffled dress that stopped just past halfway down her shins.

When they returned home, they went via the Mercantile, and bought two boxes of kitchen matches.

The twins had used their Mama's only box of modern day Lucifers, and thought it wise to replace what they'd used, with an extra box, for good measure.

This was discussed at the supper table, where Michael declared solemnly their Mama was matchless, but that's not how they wanted to leave her.

Linn raised an eyebrow, looked at his wife and offered the quiet opinion that she was indeed a matchless individual.

Shelly gripped her husband's hand and looked quite pleased with herself.

Michael did his best to look innocent.

Victoria, for her part, slung a sweet roll and bounced it off her grinning brother's scalp.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PORTRAITURE

It was the Sheriff's weekend off.

Willamina's teenaged son consulted older men and listened carefully to their answers, then he went to his mother.

He asked her for her help.

"Mama," he said carefully, "could you teach me how to wash clothes and cook, at least on a survival level?"

Willamina, surprised, blinked, looked at her son, solemn and tall and serious-faced.

Willamina's eyes tightened at the corners.

Willamina blinked again and tried not to smile.

Really.

She tried.

Her son managed a straight face as his pale eyed mother giggled, as her face turned red, as this pale eyed Sheriff of Firelands County cupped her hand over her mouth, as she turned away: Willamina snorted (delicately, of course -- she was a Lady, after all!) -- she turned back, her face red, then she took two quick steps to her son, gripped her shoulders, dropped her forehead into his collar bone and abandoned herself to laughter.

Linn, having absolutely no idea quite how he'd managed to trip her funny bone, looked a little puzzled, but he ran his arms around his Mama and held her, and she felt contagious laughter flowing into his lean frame.

She'd looked up at her son, delight in her eyes, the she laid the side of her head against him and sighed, laughing silently:  she nodded, she took a long breath, she drew back.

"I can do that," she said.

Linn had polled older men, men he respected; he'd asked them quietly, when alone with them, and in confidence, what they wished they'd done as young men, and a surprising number of them said they wished they'd taken their Mama aside and asked her to teach them how to launder their own clothes, how to cook, at least enough to keep body and soul together.

Linn considered this, and approached his Mama accordingly.

It paid off.

Linn quietly, discreetly, but steadily, took over such duties as the household laundry: he fixed meals for himself, and as time passed, more often than not, Willamina would come home to the smell of a home cooked meal.

Not everything went smoothly.

One of her good cotton blouses ended up being tumble dried and came out sized to fit a Barbie doll.

That caused a misunderstanding and sharp words: Willamina went back later and apologized for telling Linn he was forbidden to tumble dry anything but bath towels, and she brought him a bowl of maple pecan ice cream as a peace offering.

He tried making a meat loaf and had some miscalculation, some distraction, that ended up with smoke in the house and pizza for supper.

These things happen.

Because her son carefully, incrementally, assumed more housekeeping duties, Willamina had more time of a weekend to pursue her research into Firelands' past.

Now Willamina sat in the back room of the library, in the fine stone house that was Mr. and Mrs. Daffyd Llewellyn's home, back when Old Pale Eyes was still Sheriff.

Willamina was tracking ancestry, puzzling through tangles of bad handwriting, mistaken entries, children confused with spouses and vice versa: she'd just un-knotted a particularly intricate jumble of inconsistencies, but with the help of death records, tombstone photographs and an immense amount of corroborative cross-checks, she'd finally straightened out the mess, she straightened in her chair, she stretched.

She heard a step on the stair: she smiled as one of the school's Lunch Ladies came in with rectangular, wrapped in cloth.

Willamina smiled as the woman approached her desk, as she unwrapped the cloth, revealing something framed, behind glass.

Willamina frowned a little, rose, tilted her head, then her eyes widened and her mouth opened in a surprised O of delight.

The two women looked at one another, then back to the framed drawing.

"We were remodeling," the woman said, "and my husband cut out an old section of wall and found another wall behind it."

"And this ...?"

"This was hanging from the old original wall."

"And your house ..."

"We ... you did the deep dive into real estate records."

Willamina's eyes lit up.

She turned to her computer, fingers pattering rapidly over plastic keys.

"Give me the address again."

She pulled up the record and gave a very un-Sheriff-like, but very feminine-delight, squeak as she read the original owner's name.

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna's expression was serious, almost solemn, as she carefully worked warm soapy bath water into The Bear Killer's fur.

The big mountain Mastiff sat, warm and content, in the slipper tub full of warm water.

Eyes closed, a piled crown of soap suds between his ears, he looked like Big King Mug Wump, receiving the massaging adulation that was his due.

Sarah's Mama's bath powders added their fragrance to the little room; Sarah worked carefully, she soaped and scrubbed The Bear Killer carefully, thoroughly, then rinsed him off with dippersful of water.

Her Mama hired a traveling artist, who was painting their portraits: Sarah ignored him as she attended to The Bear Killer.

Neither child nor black mountain Mastiff paid any attention to the gentle scrape of artist's charcoal on the textured rag paper.

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller hung the charcoal drawing of The Bear Killer in the Firelands Museum.

She hung it near a faceless mannikin wearing a little girl's frock of the era, an illustration of children's styles of the era: the drawing showed a contented-looking canine in a bathtub, a frowning little girl with finger-curls and a frock very similar to the one on the mannikin, clearly in the act of giving an old friend a bath.

The big black mountain Mastiff looked very directly at the viewer with an expression of contentment, and a crown of soapsuds carefully piled up between relaxed, wet ears.

Willamina took a step back, laid her hand on the shoulder of a truly huge, sinner's-heart-black, curly-furred Bear Killer leaning, warm and companionable, against her leg.

She felt his body shift as his massive tail swung with approval.

"Don't get any ideas, buster," she muttered, and looked down, and The Bear Killer looked up with an utterly adoring expression.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BIG MEDICINE

A tall, lean waisted Sheriff rose, took a step forward, thrust out his hand.

Jacob's younger brother stepped forward, gripped the offered hand.

Each wore a tailored black suit, a brushed Stetson, polished boots, and a broad grin.

"You're still ridin' that impressive horse?" Jacob asked approvingly, and Michael's ears reddened a little as he nodded.

"I need some advice," Michael said, getting to the point with his usual directness.

"Grab a set, like some tea?"

Michael gave his big brother a grateful look:  "I would KILL for some tea!"

Jacob laughed again. "Hell, you don't need to commit insecticide, I'll just get you some!"

Jacob went over to the dispenser, keyed in a command: he reached in, withdrew a tall, sweating-cool glass of sweet tea with a little twist of mint, then drew one for himself.

Michael drank a third of his, then came up for air: he sat the glass on a handy shelf, turned to Jacob, sat on a tall, three-legged stool, hooked a boot heel on the bottom rung.

Jacob sampled his sweet tea, found it very much to his liking.

"What's on your mind, Michael?"

Michael's expression was suddenly solemn: his bottom jaw slid out and he frowned, and Jacob leaned forward a little, his own face carefully impassive.

"Jacob, I've got a good rifle."

Jacob nodded, slowly, thoughtfully: he'd long admired his brother's custom stocked Marlin, a tapered-octagon-barrel, one-of-a-kind in .32 Winchester Special -- deadly accurate it was, as good as most bolt rifles Jacob knew.

"I need a better one."

Each picked up their tea, took a careful sip.

"Yon .32 Special is no slouch," Jacob said carefully. "It's taken sizable game reliably."

Michael's eyes swung along the baseboard and he swallowed, clearly less than comfortable: he looked up and said quietly, "I need an AR in .45-70."

Jacob raised an eyebrow.

"Fill me in," he said quietly, mentally running over the shoulder fired artillery at his disposal.

"I was going to go an FN-FAL or an M14," Michael said, "but that won't be big enough."

"What are you going up against that you need an elephant rifle?"

Michael's expression was almost haunted.

"Jacob," he said quietly, "when the aliens put the Confederate ancestors on alien worlds, they terraformed most of 'em and eliminated native species when they did."

"You found one they didn't."

Michael nodded.

"What are we lookin' at, size-wise?"

Michael closed his eyes and shivered, remembering.

"I thought to try shotgun slugs, Jacob, but I ... need ... something long. Lots of sectional density. Forty cal at least, I'd rather a .45 and 500 grains minimum. I thought the AR action to soften recoil."

Jacob nodded thoughtfully.

"What are you goin' up against?" Jacob asked quietly.

"I don't know what they're called," Michael said, "but they've long since killed off everything the aliens put there. Lightning didn't want anything to do with the entire damned planet. Water's not fit to drink, she turned her nose up at native grass, we come a-past a fruit tree and somethin' ... I reached for whatever that fruit was and somethin' come stingin' out of that fruit and tried to drive into my hand. They told me later it'll get inside you and multiply fast, it'll get to your core and eat you from the inside out. I washed Lightning's legs off with a brass bristle brush and rubbing alcohol to kill any ticks."

"Were there?"

"Didn't see any," Michael admitted, "but I'm not takin' the chance!" Michael said, his voice husky, his eyes looking at a memory, a horror only he could see.

Jacob rose, took one step toward his brother, stood over him -- not menacing, but strong -- his voice was decisive as he said, "Michael, what are you up ag'inst?"

"There are people that want to leave the settled worlds and go there. It's a new discovery. I think they're idiots" -- his voice was bitter -- "they've ... if they live long enough ..."

Michael snatched up his glass downed the rest of the tea.

I hope he never tries whiskey, Jacob thought.

Alcoholism skips a generation.

Gammaw's Mama was a damned drunk but Gammaw wasn't and Pa wasn't, I'm not.

If he gets this upset and pounds whiskey like he just slugged that tea, he's done for!

A suspicion rose in the back of Jacob's mind.

Look for the motive, his Pa taught him.

What motive does Michael have, to want to go to such a place?

Who is he protecting?

He ... that girl he was sweet on ... Juliette ... she's dead and he scattered her ashes ...

"Michael," Jacob said quietly, "are her folks going to that planet, in spite of your warnings?"

Michael looked sharply at his older brother, not at all surprised.

"Yep."

"You've told them what they'll be up against."

"I have."

"The whole family is determined to go?"

Michael shook his head. 

"No. Not everyone."

Jacob considered this.

"When do they go?"

"Tomorrow."

"The whole family."

Michael nodded.

"Even her."

Michael nodded again.

"What is her name, Michael?" Jacob asked quietly.

"Violette Starr," Michael said, just as quietly.

"Does she want to go?"

"No."  He looked past his brother.  "No, but she's ... her Pa said they're goin', and that's it."

Jacob sighed, shook his head.

"Michael," he said softly, "often times it's best to leave a man to his folly."
Michael's jaw set stubbornly and he looked away.

Jacob drained the last of his tea, set the glass down decisively.

"I don't have an AR in .45-70," he said, "but I might have something you can use."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PLEASE PASS THE BACKHOE

Michael waited.

He was silent, cloaked, concealed by technology rather than by vegetation.

His curry-down of Lightning's legs with alcohol and with a wire brush actually did not happen.

He knew brother Jacob saw him currying Lightning after that fashion, once before: he'd made the mistake of riding Lightning, back East, and she'd gathered a shocking number of ticks.

Michael cussed himself silently for riding his beloved Fanghorn when the Confederate field generator was in for maintenance.

Lightning, for her part, enjoyed it: she offered no objection to the metallic brush, he felt her near-sensual -- no, hell, it was sensual! -- the feeling of cold alcohol and the rough caress of the brass bristle brush brought her genuine pleasure.

Michael realized this was probably because they shared an empathic link, triggered by their mutual murder: he did not pretend to understand it, he did not examine it closely, he simply accepted it.

Behind him, in the sizable shuttle, Lightning was happily bedded down on thick straw, and flanking her, both Thunder and Cyclone: all three wore saddlebags, and under the saddlebags, field generators.

Michael had not been fully forthcoming with his brother.

This planet Violette's father intended -- beat fist on table, by God! we WILL do this! he'd roared, which Michael recognized as "I will do this and my family will come with me" -- and so, against what Michael considered good sound advice, he'd arranged a Pilgrim's Iris to this one, unfinished planet.

Michael knew the man surveyed the world, Michael knew the man picked what he considered an ideal location for a farm, for a home, for the place he intended to build and raise his family and his legacy.

Michael knew, when he'd ridden the man's intended homestead -- ridden with his own and Lightning's fields operating, with Thunder and Cyclone flanking, alert, their predatory senses alert -- had they not had these protective energy barriers in place, the grass itself would have driven in just above their hooves and begun feeding on them, they would have been injected with parasites similar to the ones that infested what looked like ripe, attractive fruits.

Michael knew he'd have to work fast, once the man arrived with his family.

The shuttle's stealth field made them invisible; they dropped fast, but under perfect control: they hovered, turned, grav-rep fields silent, not affecting the infected grasses on this, a terraformed section that looked as if it should grow good rich Earth crops.

Michael threw the shuttle's shielding out across the grass and under the Iris as it appeared: he raised walls, a roof, he waited while the pallets were levitated out, placed.

The family came out with them: husband and wife, two sons, two daughters.

The Iris disappeared behind them, an invisible wall rose behind them: they were suddenly alone, on a new planet.

Michael dropped the rear gate of the shuttle -- the interior was suddenly visible, as if a hatched opened in reality -- he rode Lightning out, stopped.

Thunder and Cyclone paced out, silent, watchful: they turned, facing outward, clearly sensing that all was not well.

The father raised an accusing arm.

"YOU'LL NOT STOP US!" he roared. "I CLAIM THIS LAND!"

"Claim what you like," Michael said mildly, "but it's already taken."

"TAKEN!" -- an indignant roar -- fists doubled, face reddening -- "TAKEN?"

"I own it, but it's for sale."

"YE THIEVIN' SASSENSACH! WHAT'S YER PRICE?"

"Your daughter's hand in marriage," Michael said quietly, "and your guarantee of safety for the rest of your family."

"You?" came the incredulous reply. 

"You ... want me ... to guarantee the safety of my family?"

"That's the price, and I'll tell you why."

Michael never raised his voice; his posture astride Lightning was relaxed.

Thunder and Cyclone mutterred, stamping, shaking their heads: Lightning was restless and Michael caressed her neck reassuringly.

"You're standing on energy insulation. It's separated you from the ground by a couple of inches. You're walled in and there's even a roof to keep out seeds and spores but not the air itself."

"So you think you can imprison us!"

Michael shook his head.

"Mister, that grass will eat you alive. Reach for a fruit and it'll drive needles in your hand that will inject creatures that'll eat you from the inside out, fast. There are monsters on this planet that would swallow you whole and not be satisfied it had even eaten. Now if you still want to set foot on this ground, that's fine. I've named my price, but you'll have to give me your daughter in marriage and then you set foot off that deck alone and we wait and see what happens. If it kills you, your family goes home or somewhere safe. If nothing happens and I am full of second hand horse feed, I give you" -- Michael lifted a bulging leather sack the size of two fists -- "twice this amount of gold coin."

Michael lowered the sack to his saddle horn, suddenly, knowing the sound of coin would carry to them.

"A man should always have a choice, so there's yours."

The man glared, pride stiffening his back.

"There's nothing wrong with that grass!" he snapped.

He turned, made to take a step to the right, stopped when he felt the elastic firmness of the force-wall.

His wife looked at him, worried, but afraid to say a word: his sons glared at Michael, the daughters drew closer to their mother.

"Violette," Michael said, "will you be my wife?"

She looked at her father, big-eyed and scared, looked back, shook her head.

Michael sighed, his shoulders lowering.

He looked at the man and said, "You're sure you want to kill yourself."

The man tried to advance toward Michael.

Cyclone and Lightning turned, fangs bared, stamping.

It was the first time Michael knew that a Fanghorn's mane could bristle.

He tapped his wrist control quickly, reconfigured the force-walls:  "GET INSIDE THE SHUTTLE, NOW!" he yelled: he turned Lightning, gigged her toward the shuttle: he stopped her, kicked free of the stirrups, jumped onto the shuttle's broad, flat roof.

He whirled, came into the back of a battleship-grey, riveted-steel gun tub: he dropped into the gunner's seat, hauled back on one charging-handle, then the other, allowed assisted springs to SLAM the breechblocks into battery, shining brass bottleneck rounds seating into the chambers.

Something big, grey, scaled and fast moving came toward them -- it wasn't any dinosaur Michael ever saw illustrated, it was worse, it was carnivorous and it was coming straight at them.

Energy shielding made a square cornered tunnel from where the Iris had been, into and around the shuttle: even if the family didn't go inside, they were safe.

Michael was taking no chances.

Hydraulics whined as he rotated the tub, brought the gunsight to bear.

A pair of 20mm antiaircraft guns detonated, drove into the oncoming monster's chest.

Smoking brass hulls sang as they fell, breechblocks cycled, slammed home.

Michael fired again.

Four shells penetrated, detonated.

The monster, tall as a shot tower and utterly massive, muscled, intent on making these interlopers into a snack, collapsed.

Michael climbed out of the seat, dropped another five round clip into the left gun, into the right, resumed his seat, shifted his aim.

The shuttle's energy field kept the weapon's concussion from himself, from Lightning and the colts, from the family, shocked and staring in the force-tunnel, but it allowed the strange, offworld concussions to blast out across the countryside.

These sounds did not dissuade three more monsters from following the first: two abreast, one following, clawed arms reach to seize, to rend, to stuff living victims into great, toothed jaws.

Michael fired three times, coldly, precisely: three more carcasses hit the ground, twitching.

Michael consulted a screen, satisfied himself they were safe, at least for the moment.

He unrolled a ladder, let it drop, climbed down: the ladder rolled back up, stowed itself when he stepped off.

Michael had not raised his voice, not once, through this entire encounter, and he did not raise it now.

"Mister," Michael said, "you would not make a light snack for just one of those things."

He faced the settler squarely, hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

Inside of a day there will be no carcasses left. The grass will make a meal of them."

He paused, letting his words sink in, not only to the settler, but to his shocked-silent wife, his staring children.

"Now you're welcome to stay if you really want to, or I can call up an Iris to take you home."

 

Jacob looked up at the door chime, rose as a solemn-faced Michael crossed his threshold.

Jacob turned and keyed in a command, took two cold glasses of sweet tea from the recess, handed one to his younger brother.

"Your advice was sound," Michael said. 

Jacob nodded.

They drank.

"What about the girl?" Jacob asked quietly.

Michael looked away, his jaw sliding out, then he shook his head, closed his eyes.

Jacob nodded, set his glass down, opened his arms and hugged Michael.

"I'm sorry."

Michael hugged him back, then released: Jacob slacked his own embrace, Michael sat, staring at something a couple miles on the other side of the far wall.

"I didn't shame the man," Michael said softly. "I didn't let him step off the ... I could have let him set foot on ..."

Michael picked up his tea, chewed on his bottom lip as he tried to order his confused thoughts.

He took a sip, frowned.

"I could have let him set foot on the grass and I could have let his family watch him die right there."

"But you didn't."

Michael shook his head.

"What about Violette?"

"I told the old man I owned the ground and I'd sell it, the price was his bride's hand in marriage."

"Did that work out?"

"No."

"He's alive to complain about it."

Michael nodded.

"So is his family."

Michael nodded again.

"You gave a man a choice. He could have died and you kept him from it."

"I kept them all from dyin', Jacob."

"Was the 20mm overkill?"

Michael swallowed, set down his tea.

He keyed a sequence on his wrist-device.

Jacob was suddenly in the gun tub, at least visually.

Michael could feel Jacob's pulse pick up as he realized just how BIG those monsters were!

Jacob's hands went reflexively for the charging handles, he hissed in frustration as they passed through the holographic image: Michael dissolved the projection.

"One thing I'm grateful for," Michael said quietly.

Jacob turned, blinking, took a long breath, looked at his younger brother.

"I'm awful glad I didn't have to call you and say 'Please pass the back hoe!' "

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TALKED HIM INTO IT

Sheriff Jacob Keller's shoulder ached where the club smacked him.

His father in law, shocked, stared at the sudden, unannounced, unprovoked attack -- the response of a good man with absolutely no combat experience.

Jacob, on the other hand, came around with a fast sweep of his arm, trapped the extended arm, twisted: his knee came up to his belly, then he kicked down and out, and his attacker went down, in too much pain to scream: elbow and knee both broken, the club fell to the ground.

Jacob whipped around, knocked another blow aside -- he saw the shine of a knife -- for a moment it looked like an insane waltz: Jacob took the man's extended arm by the wrist, his other hand around the second attacker's waist: he spun his dance partner -- far less than gently, muscles first developed on his Pa's ranch and kept in tune and in tone with long practice, with hour upon hour of grappling with practice drones -- Jacob snapped the man out and used his attacker's departing weight, and an iron grip about the wrist, to break the second attacker's wrist.

The third one was moving in when the second one came into Jacob's arm's reach: he was committed to close, and did not realize the folly of his choice until Jacob took him by the throat and the crotch, picked him up overhead, SLAMMED him into the sod.

Neither Jacob nor his father-in-law realized the animal roar they were hearing, came from Jacob's own throat, at least until Jacob stopped and took a deep breath.

He turned, turned again: his blood was up, he was more than willing to kill anyone who wished to pursue the matter: finding no more attackers, Jacob took a long breath, then looked at his three attackers, looked up at his father in law.

"Well," he said, "that one's ... kinda broke, and that one's broke too ... this fella here" -- he nudged the third, eyes-bulging, painfully-gasping figure with the toe of his well polished boot -- "I reckon his head broke his fall."

Jacob dusted his hands briskly together, looked around, hand flat on his belly: a politician might place dramatic fingertips upon shirtbreast linen before making a profound statement, but Jacob's was the move of a man with a revolver under his coat, a man wishing to be able to knife his gun hand under the opened coat and get an unobstructed grip on his blued-steel attorney.

He turned, pale eyes busy, looking at every possible concealment where an attacker might lay back with a rifle: his gut told him these three, coming in a rush like they did, were the only threats for at least this initial attack.

Jacob looked at his father in law.

"Sir, if you could ride for the local Sheriff, I'll ride herd on these three 'til he gets here."

 

Angela Keller had nothing better to do that particular day than to tag after her brother, especially when she got the automatic alert that he was engaged in something strenuous.

An Iris opened and a woman in nursing whites and a dark-blue, red-edged cape, stepped out with an Ithaca shotgun cocked-and-locked at low ready.

She stepped closer to Jacob, turned her back to him: she faced outward, eyes busy.

"Did you turn your name tag around?" Jacob asked mildly.

"No," she snapped. "Sitrep."

"These three appear to be all there are."

Angela turned, handed Jacob the shotgun, ran a hand into her cross-body warbag.

"Let's see what kind of damage you've done here."

The local Sheriff was just under a half hour arriving; by that time, Angela had fingerprints, iris prints and DNA tags filed with field mugshots.

She also had all three prisoners removed to hospital: one with a mild concussion, the other two with at least one fracture and a serious case of regret: Angela, her name tag turned to show her Deputy Sheriff's credentials, handed the Sheriff a manila folder for each of the removed prisoners, and her quiet-voiced statement that as soon as their injuries were stable, they would be transported to his hoosegow for incarceration and due processing.

When the man -- rather hesitant, as he was facing both a deadly effective Sheriff he'd only seen on the Inter-System, and he was also facing a soft-spoken, utterly beautiful woman who wore a laminated plastic tag that pronounced her deadlier than smallpox -- asked how long that might be, Angela slipped one of the files from his hand, opened it, turned a page, another, a third.

"This one," she said, "has a fractured knee. Circulation is compromised. He'll be in surgery for a few hours to save the leg. I would imagine he'll be a week at minimum, and he will be unable to walk, even with crutches. With your permission, he can be maintained in the prison wing, and if you like, we can transport your prosecution team to formally charge him while he's healing."

Jacob's father in law was watching all this, listening: the man had never had to handle much by the way of violence in his life, and the sight of what was very obviously deadly attack was an honest shock.

He considered what he'd seen, what he'd heard, what he was hearing.

He remembered Jacob seizing the third attacker, raising him overhead, then slamming him to the ground, instantly taking every last bit of fight out of him.

And he remembered Jacob's words.

"I reckon this fellow's head broke his fall."

A prosperous plantation owner, father to this pale eyed Sheriff's wife, was loath to laugh, but he could not prevent a quiet smile at Jacob's words.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller drummed fingertips slowly on his desk top, considering what he'd just watched.

He blinked, looked from where the hologram had been, looked at his youngest son.

"Tell me more about that planet," he said quietly.

"The Originators -- that's what those ancient aliens were called -- at least someone called 'em that" -- he grinned -- "they terraformed captured worlds and put captured Confederates on 'em."

"How many worlds?"

"Two, sir. One they terraformed and it worked fine. This one you just saw --"

"The one with something you had to stop with antiaircraft guns."

"Yes, sir. That one. They didn't terraform it completely and native species just came rip-roarin' into the terraformed sections and took 'em over."

"You asked Jacob for a AR in .45-70."

"Yes, sir."

"And you ended up using a pair of 20 millimeters."

"Yes, sir."

Linn's expression was serious.

"Michael," he said quietly, leaning forward and looking very seriously at his youngest son, "I prefer a universe with you alive and well in it."

Michael's expression was suddenly solemn.

"Yes, sir."

"I understand from what you've told me, and from other corroborating evidence, that you kept a man from killing himself and his family."

"Yes, sir."

"You offered him choices and then you got impressive with the local ... fauna."

"Yes, sir."

"And after you cut loose with a pair of Bofors, he saw the reasonableness of your argument."

"Yes, sir."

Linn took a long breath, leaned back again, frowned.

"Let me be sure I'm understanding this correctly."

Linn steepled his fingertips, frowned at the joint between the far wall and the painted ceiling.

"You acted to keep people alive."

"Yes, sir."

"You tried to spare the man's pride."

"Yes, sir."

"You allowed him to express his hard headed intent."

"Yes, sir."

"And when you climbed into a World War II gun tub and cut loose on a mountain with claws and teeth, when his family finally listened to your telling them that the grass and the fruit and everything else on that planet would kill them, you refrained from any I-told-you-so."

"Yes, sir."

Linn rose, looked very seriously at his youngest son.

"Michael," he said, "you did the right thing, and I am pretty damned proud of you."

He stuck out his hand.

Father and son shook.

Linn sat, and so did his son.

"I might have to have a talk with Jacob," Linn said quietly.

"How's that, sir?"

"I understand he used a man's head to break his fall."

"I see, sir."

"Do you know what the worst part is, Michael?"

Michael blinked, frowned, considered.

"No, sir."

"When Jacob told me he used a man's head to break his fall, he said it with a perfectly straight face!"

Father and son regarded each other with a solemn expression, which lasted for exactly four seconds, before laughter claimed them both.

"Sir," Michael said quietly, "it sounds like Jacob was listening to your accounts again!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HARD RIDER

Sheriff Linn Keller leaned his head back against his Jeep's headrest.

Fatigue and relaxation whispered seductively: rest, now, relax, a moment won't hurt.

He opened his eyes, took a long breath: he thumbed the seat belt release, pulled the door handle, shouldered the door open.

He hit the ground on his side, rolled, came up snarling, pain and anger waking him back up: he brushed viciously at his sleeve and pushed the Jeep's door shut -- deliberately, carefully, one click, two clicks, a shove to make sure it was fully closed.

I need to scrape the barn, he thought, and headed toward the metal sided red barn.

His wife Shelly looked around automatically -- years of having children as runners, as messengers, as an extra set of hands, and she was still looking to dispatch one of the pale eyed Keller young after their father.

Supper was nearly ready, and she knew he was home.

It wasn't until she wiped her hands on the dishtowel that lived over her left shoulder, not until she and the young Bear Killer went out to the barn, that she realized just how hard a day he'd had.

She knew he'd been up longer than he would ever ask his people, that he'd worked more hours in the past 36 than he would ever require of a subordinate.

She also knew her husband was a hard headed and contrary man who would start a task, who would set his teeth into it, and who would not surrender the work until it was not just done, but done to his standard and his satisfaction, and he a hard man to please.

A man who rode himself mercilessly.

Shelly waited until her husband had the stalls cleaned, fresh straw down; she stepped to the side, where he could see her: he stopped, then deliberately stood the fork back against the wall, hosed off his bright yellow muck boots, hooked them off and slid the plastic bags off his Wellingtons before hanging the overboots upside-down on the rack he'd made for them.

Shelly looked at the man sized boots in the bent-steel rack and remembered the row of little boots that used to live there -- Marnie's red rubber boots, Angela's pink boots, Michael's black boots with the yellow stripe around the sole ...

Linn staggered, caught himself, allowed Shelly to steer him toward the man door.

He didn't quite fall asleep in his mashed potatoes -- there existed in his Mama's archives, a picture of him at a very young age, in his high chair, head laid over and his ear planted in his mashed potatoes ... sound asleep.

He'd gotten his shower, he'd filled his belly, Shelly suggested he lay down and "take a little bit of a nap," knowing full well that when his head hit the pillow, he'd be out until sunrise and maybe after: he was coming into his weekend off, and so he could sleep in, and she contented herself with cleaning up after the meal, at least until she heard the urgent sound of sock feet hitting the floor, until she heard her husband coming downstairs at a pace that told her he'd caught something on scanner or maybe on the talkie he insisted having turned on but turned down, on his bedside table.

He grabbed his gunbelt, threw it over one shoulder, clapped his Stetson on his head, thrust one sock foot into a boot and drove it home, bent to get the other one on, seized the door and hauled it open.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Shelly called.

Sheriff Linn Keller stopped, startled: he looked at his wife, fatigue and puzzlement claiming an equal percentage of his face, at least until a half dozen neurons started firing simultaneously.

He looked down.

He'd come rip roarin' down stairs and was prepared to go charging into a situation ...

... without his trousers.

Shelly never said a word.

She didn't have to.

His sagging shoulders, the drop of his head, the exhausted exhalation, said as plainly as words his realization:

If he was so dog tired wore out as to start out the door without his pants, he would not be effective in a situation.

Shelly spoke of this, over tea, when her daughters visited later that evening: they knew their father, they knew their brothers, they knew how men drive themselves, and three Keller ladies sat together at one end of the kitchen table, smiling and then giggling a little at the mental image of the Sheriff in an unbuttoned uniform shirt, hat on his head and boots on his feet, gunbelt over one shoulder and an irritated look on his face.

And no trousers.

 

Edited May 14, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GOOD EXAMPLE, BAD EXAMPLE

Angela Keller sat in a padded chair, a tall, sweating-cold glass of sweet tea on the expanded-metal, green-enamel-coated table beside her.

"You look tired," Dr. Hermes said quietly.

"It's my Daddy," she said in a soft voice.

The physician straightened, then leaned forward, concern in his voice: "Is he all right?"

Angela smiled tiredly, nodded: she picked up the sweet tea, took a sip, caught dripping condensation with a white-linen napkin.

They were both taking a moment's respite from the day's work.

Rain doves called gently in the distance; they heard steam powered buses, distant voices, the usual sounds for this time of day: they sat in a partially-enclosed area, sheltered against sun and rain, but open to air, a place where hospital personnel could come to take a moment.

"My Daddy," Angela said, replacing her glass on the table, "works himself harder than he would ever work anyone else."

"Even his sons?" the physician asked dryly: he and Angela looked at one another and laughed quietly, for they'd both known patients, young men mostly, who complained bitterly about how hard the Old Man was working them: one case was genuine overwork, a case of taking advantage of free labor, but the other case was nothing but laziness, and both medical professionals labeled this second young complainant as a spineless drone, lazy to the core, and destined to do less than the minimum required to just get by.

Angela frowned, fingertips resting daintily on the slick, green-enamel-coated tabletop's wafflework.

"His sons," Angela said slowly, then looked very directly at the physician and added sternly, "my brothers" -- her pale-eyed glare held for all of four seconds before they both laughed -- "my brothers work themselves just as hard and just as mercilessly."

The doctor considered this.

"I'm trying to ... I think that would make good material for a presentation, though ... I would have to present to a group of men who worked themselves in that same manner."

"There are," the physician said thoughtfully, "such men."

Angela closed her eyes, tilted her head back, looked up through one of the decorative trees -- there was a constant research, there was constant experimentation in importing Earth flora and fauna to the outer worlds, but these were weighed against the knowledge of the ill effects of Earth's experience with invasive species: harmless in their native habitat, overwhelming and sometimes even harmful when introduced into another region. The tree spreading above her was not an Earth tree; she did not know its name, only that its leaves were a rich, thick, waxy, dark green, almost as if it usually grew in a more arid climate: the leaves were blunt lanceolate, with pink flowers on their tips.

Honeybees worked these flowers with their usual industry.

At least honeybees don't cause harm, Angela thought, smiling a little as two such came down to investigate the fat condensation drops on her glass of tea.

Five minutes later, Angela seized a hand coming in, pulled: she jointlocked the wrist, cranked the offending arm up behind the offender's back and introduced said sorry soul's face into the wall at a respectable velocity.

Three men in suits and Derby hats had themselves confused with someone important, she'd realized: when one made as if to seize her wrist, his face reddening as the other two shouted they would not be delayed, they were too important for a mere woman to put them off, she knew they would not content themselves with merely shouting, with merely seizing her forearm.

Deputy Sheriff Angela Keller, daughter of a pale eyed Firelands County Sheriff, responded as she had been trained, and stopped the first offender from unlawfully laying hands upon her person.

Two more who took offense to her words had to be persuaded, less than gently, that they were indeed not going to prevail, that their authority in her facility was nonexistent, and the appearance of fast moving, uniformed, serious faced young men further reinforced that the pale eyed Sheriff's nurse's words would be obeyed, that they, individually and severally, would conform to and abide by her instructions.

Peacefully.

Or otherwise.

Angela honestly did not care which.

Neither did the Hospital Police who responded to the disturbance, though they kidded her good-naturedly upon their return to gather more information for their report: they assured her with artificial solemnity that their jobs were minimized by her having contained the situation prior to their arrival, which was not exactly the case, but as their comments were delivered with the same grin and the same ornery looks that she was used to seeing with her Daddy's deputies, their meaning was clear.

This, of course, had to be pursued officially, and it was, and after the official proceedings, Angela was once again in the sheltered portico, listening to honeybees working blossoms, watching condensation run down the sides of her glass.

She heard a door open, heard measured steps approach.

"Doctor Hermes," she said quietly, not looking up.

He sat down in the green-enamel-coated, expanded-metal chair beside her, looked at Angela speculatively.

"How was the hearing?" he asked, his voice quiet, as it usually was.

"We were no-billed, as we expected."

The physician nodded thoughtfully, unwrapped a thick sandwich.

"And your actions? he asked before taking a sizable bite: he'd missed lunch, and the sidewalls of his stomach had been sandpapering together for the past few hours.

"Ruled justified," she said. "In fact, my counter-charges were upheld, and all three were fined."

"I take it they were less than pleased."

Angela smiled tiredly, looked up.

"His Honor had to swing the gavel to shut them up," she said, "and then he reminded them that their actions merited incarceration, and one more outburst would result in their spending half a year enjoying the county's hospitality."

"How did they take that?"

"I'll let you know. They'll be released in six months if they behave themselves."

The doctor laughed quietly, nodded, looked at her again.

"We were talking about your father, and your brothers."

Angela sipped her tea, her doubled linen napkin wrapped around the glass to prevent condensation from dripping on her immaculate white uniform dress.

"Yes, Doctor, we were."

"When you use them in your presentations," the Doctor said, "you can use them as good examples of ... good examples."

"And?" Angela asked, raising one eyebrow and smiling a little.

"And those fellows who are staying at the Crossbar Hotel you can use as good examples of bad examples."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE DAUGHTER WAS RIGHT

Shelly Keller folded her arms and leaned her shoulder into the door frame.

She crossed one ankle casually over the other, stood silent, watching her husband's efforts.

Beside her, Snowflake sprawled comfortably on a spread out bath towel, unconcerned, almost asleep.

Sheriff Linn Keller glared at the heavy bag hanging from its homemade welded-steel frame, then -- faster than Shelly's eye could follow -- he assaulted the training device with spaced attacks, combinations of chops, kicks, punches, elbow strikes, knee strikes -- Shelly could not but admire his speed, his precision, his control.

She very carefully avoided looking at his face.

To the best of her knowledge, nothing happened in the county to earn this degree of his displeasure.

It wasn't uncommon for him to use the heavy bag to burn off rage, frustration, anger, irritation or the honest desire to rip someone's head off and drop kick it over the nearest roof's peak.

Shelly stood in the doorway and waited.

It wasn't until after he'd showered, until after he'd put on clean clothes, until after they'd had supper that he spoke.

Sheriff Linn Keller, chief law enforcement officer of the county, a swift, deadly guardian of the public good, swept up his wife's hand, kissed her knuckles and regarded her with the gentle expression of a man who was not only married to her, but was just as happy as if he had good sense.

"My dear," he murmured, "thank you."

"There is ice cream," she nearly whispered as he drew her in to him.

He lowered his head, nuzzled his nose against hers: "You are expert at spoiling a perfectly good sour mood, you know that?"

He felt her hum with contentment as she molded herself into him.

Apparently the two of them were interested of dessert that burned off calories instead of taking them in.

 

Marnie broke the round red seal and unfolded the handwritten note.

Pale eyes tracked quickly over her Daddy's regular, legible, deliberate script.

Dr. John Greenlees watched as his wife stood, the note in one hand, her other arm bent, a forefinger laid across her upper lip like a thoughtful mustache.

Marnie felt her husband's eyes on her, looked up, her expression soft.

"This is so sweet," she said quietly.

Doctor John was not surprised when she went to her desk, laid the note out flat on a scanner plate and punch in a comm code.

"Angela? Victoria is coming on line. Did Daddy send you a note? -- here ... here's what he sent me."

 

Victoria blinked, leaned forward, read the handwritten note displayed on her screen.

Michael sat beside her, reading it with her.

The twins smiled quietly.

Michael's hand went down and rubbed The Bear Killer pup behind his ears, and Victoria smiled again to hear the curly-furred little fellow give a great, tongue-curling yawn of contentment.

"Daddy is so proud of her," Victoria whispered.

"He told me once he was proud of me," Michael replied quietly. "I was walking on air the rest of the day!"

"Did he send you anything?"
Victoria shook her head a little, pale eyes re-scanning her Daddy's handwriting.

"Me neither. Maybe he doesn't know."

"We'll be home for supper in a few days. We can tell him then."

"Did the Inter-System get it on the air?"

"Our raid? I hope not," Victoria said quietly. "Not after we went through there like a murder cyclone."

"It was a hostage situation," Michael pointed out. "We had to take care of it."

 

Family converged on the familiar old kitchen table.

The girls moved with coordinated purpose, the guys stayed out of the way, at least until Angela stepped out on the back porch, brought a .22 revolver level and bounced a bullet off the thick shoulder of the cast bronze dinner bell.

It was entirely unnecessary, of course, but she'd read where Sarah McKenna did that once, and her Gammaw Willamina did that on occasion, and so she did too, at random mealtimes, in memory of and in solidarity with those remarkable ancestresses.

The meal was lively and animated, Michael and Victoria happily described their progress with Thunder and Cyclone -- "only they're still growing," Michael complained, "and we had to have their saddles rebuilt twice so far to account for" -- his hands described an expanding circle -- "Mama, you complained about Jacob and I hitting our growth spurt and our pants kept getting too short" -- his grin was quick, bright, and Shelly laughed a little and nodded as she remembered -- "well, Fanghorns hit growth spurts, and their barrel --"

Again, Michael's hands described an expanding circle: the Sheriff nodded his understanding.

"Daddy," Angela said, and there was something her gentle voice that silenced the table, "we were involved in a hostage rescue. Marnie is handling diplomatic cleanup, but here's what we did."

Angela passed what looked like a medium sized laptop to her Daddy.

"It's set to auto-play when you open it up."

The Sheriff leaned back as Shelly removed his now-empty plate and flatware: he set the laptop on the cloth placemat, opened it, watched.

He'll frown at first, Angela thought, then he'll plant his elbows on the table and lace his fingers, then he'll press his mustache into his forefingers and frown a little as he watches --

Linn watched without comment, his only move, an occasional blink: silence covered the table.

Angela knew the recording ended when the Sheriff closed the lid, carefully, handed it back.

He looked at Marnie.

"As if you didn't have enough to handle with thirteen star systems," he said in a father's gentle voice. "Are you involved with straightening out this particular mess?"

"Yes, Daddy," Marnie said quietly -- for all that she used the term "Daddy," her voice was mature and confident.

The Sheriff shook his head.

"Mama told me," he said slowly, "that in the military, Captain and above was all politics -- that was the big reason she got out -- County politics are bad enough --"

He looked very directly at Marnie.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "right now you must be up to your earlobes in diplomatic alligators!"

"You could say that," Marnie admitted.

"If it's worth anything, I'm pretty damned proud of you."

He looked at each of the others -- his gaze stopped on each one -- on Michael, on Victoria, on Angela, and again on Marnie.

"Each of you is genuinely remarkable," he said quietly. 

He nodded toward the laptop as Angela slid it in her blue-canvas carryall.

"You each, and you all, have my respect, and my admiration."

His quiet praise, simply stated, hung on the air, at least until Victoria rose and went to the freezer.

"That deserves ice cream. I brought a gallon of maple pecan and a gallon of Fudge Ripple.  Mama, do we still have chocolate syrup?"

Angela Keller did not have to look to know what her Daddy's reaction to Victoria's practical approach.

Daddy's face will be turning red, Angela thought, and he will be laughing silently.

Not until she made her silent prediction did she turn her head and look.

She was right.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IT WAS NOT AXLE GREASE

When an enemy commander looks through binoculars and sees self propelled artillery being driven over the ridgeline -- deliberately skylining itself, intending that it should be seen -- the commander is going to be reconsidering his life's choices.

When a high-school wrestler steps into the ring, and opposite him, an opponent steps in that has him by a head and a hundred pounds, the atmosphere can change, and not for the better.

When skeptical townsmen and minor politicians saw three women file into the meeting-room, their persuasive and well-practiced arguments they intended to present, suddenly became much less persuasive.

When Shelly Keller, in her military-creased blue uniform shirt with the medical wings on one pocket flap, the shining name tag on the other, came out of the anteroom door and stepped behind the podium set on the table in the front of Council's chamber, they expected this: elected and appointed officials, mostly folk with a small amount of authority, mentally clutched their arguments like something precious.

The point was petty, but for whatever reason, it became a sticking-point, and it was about to be shattered.

They expected this Earth instructor to present herself and argue in favor of certain apparatus on their emergency squads.

They did not expect a slightly taller woman in a white nurse's dress and winged cap, who emerged from the anteroom on silent, crepe-soled tread, turning to stand on Shelly's right.

Nor did they expect the Confederacy's best-known diplomat in a velvet gown and ornate picture hat, to emerge from the anteroom, to flow with decorum and beauty, and stand on Shelly's left.

They anticipated an Earth instructor.

The absolutely did not expect this level of diplomatic firepower.

"You're here to argue against our specifications," Shelly began without preamble. "Captain Crane, if you please, sir."

A tall, flat-waisted man stepped out of the anteroom as well: he joined his wife behind the podium, assumed an easy parade-rest, waited.

"We specify that every squad has a power lift," Shelly said, her voice carrying well and clearly, "and that every ambulance cot is powered as well. Let me show you why."

She stepped back, took the Captain's arm, walked him around in front of the tables across the front of the Town Council's chambers, appropriated for this meeting of several districts.

Shelly wore a stethoscope around her neck, as did her daughter, still beside the podium.

"You are objecting to the cost of these power lifts," Shelly said. "First of all, your argument is that they represent an unnecessary expense."

Her smile was thin.

"Your argument is invalid. You are not paying for their purchase, you are not paying for their maintenance, you are not paying for their replacement."

She saw surprised expressions -- either someone fed these representatives a bill of goods, or they were exercising a petty authority and trying to throw their weight around, to the detriment of their emergency services.

"In the bad old days, ambulance cots were raised, lowered, height-adjusted and placed in vehicles, by" -- she turned sideways, flexed an arm, displaying an impressive amount of feminine bicep -- "good old Armstrong Power!"

She spun the stethoscope from around her neck, attached a small square device just above its double bell.

"After years of hoisting some unholy tonnage on these Type 30 Back Breakers, this is what happens."

She squatted, wrapped one hand around the inside of the Captain's knee, placed the bell of her steth against the other side of his knee joint.

The Captain did a slow, deep-knee bend.

Men cringed to hear the cartilaginous sounds transmitted to hidden, but very efficient, speakers, thanks to the small square device on her stethoscope -- something like a stalk of celery being twisted in a bowl of crispy cereal just doused with milk.

"I won't begin to detail the damage it does to the back," she said, "even with proper lifting techniques, after years in the profession, it has its ill effects. Having a powered cot and a powered squad lift is necessary to the continued long life of your emergency responders' knees and backs."

The Captain looked down, winked solemnly, then turned and resumed his position beside the ladies behind the table.

"Now."  Shelly clapped her hands briskly together, scrubbing her palms enthusiastically as she smiled, bright-eyed.  "I am willing to entertain your arguments as to why you do not want these injury prevention devices on your emergency response vehicles."

Angela raised a hand as a screen hummed down from the ceiling -- a screen nobody knew was there -- a screen installed quickly, quietly, while everyone was filing into the chamber, shaking hands and reinforcing their bureaucratic self-importance.

"This," Angela said, "is one of the most recent surgeries I assisted on.  It is a joint replacement. The patient's knee was beyond salvage, thanks to abusive levels of over work."

She smiled as men looked away, suddenly uncomfortable at the sight of a human knee joint being surgically opened.

"It is a maxim in medicine that prevention is far cheaper and far less work than treatment and rehabilitation," Angela continued. "I am very interested in preventing operations of this kind from becoming necessary."

She pressed a control; the screen blanked, hummed back into a hidden recess overhead.

 

Fitz was watching remotely -- he'd set up a laptop on the kitchen counter there at station, the entire Irish Brigade was gathered behind him, coffee in one hand, something edible in the other -- their local bakery's doughnuts were legendary, but Cookie just mixed something with cream cheese, diced onion, diced garlic, spices of several kinds and just a trace of peanut butter: an entire bundle of celery was dissected, laid out and spread full for the Irish Brigade's taste test, and at the moment, quite frankly, as they watched Shelly and Cap and the deep-knee-bend, as they then heard the lovely Madam Ambassador, a vision of beauty and persuasion, speak with a quiet, good-natured authority, their celery stalks could have been puttied full of axle grease and they honestly would not have noticed.

Cookie mixed up another batch of whatever that cream cheese stuff was, and laid out a plate, dumped out an entire box of crackers: the Irish Brigade laughed, swore cheerfully, started to spread oval saltines with Cookie's creation, and when the Iris opened and Shelly and the Captain stepped out onto the apparatus floor, a cheer went up, the persuasive pair was swarmed, Shelly was hugged, hoist, hand-kissed, twirled like the dancer she was: the Captain was glad-handed, back-pounded, cheerfully handed a ribbon decorated cane with a squeeze-bulb horn duct taped to it and a ribbon-dangling file card marked CERTIFIED CRIPPLED UP OLD GEEZER.

In general, the Irish Brigade rejoiced that another bunch of self important folk had been disabused of the notion that they could micromanage where they had no expertise, that their friends and colleagues on other worlds were spared bad backs and bad knees, and when they taste tested whatever that stuff was Cookie just mixed up and they spread thick on crackers and topped with sliced olives, all hands agreed -- from White Hat clear down to New Boots -- that things turned out pretty well.

 

Edited May 19, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A CLEVER FAKE

A very proper young woman in a McKenna gown sat behind the Judge's desk, in his private car.

Her spectacles were halfway down her nose, as was proper for the era; she was reading a small book, holding it daintily in gloved hands, the very image of period-authentic femininity.

She did not look up as she heard the skeleton key thrust into the lock, as she heard the greased lock mechanism turn, as she heard the door open, as sunlight brightened the private car's interior.

Father, mother, and active young son waited for the uniformed porter to swing the door wide open, then step back: they advanced, tentatively, looking around at velvet curtains and pillows, at the tidy sofa that doubled as a narrow bed, and they stared openly at the young woman seated behind the desk, appearing as much a part of the furnishings as the ornate crown molding or scrollwork window trim.

The mother's expression betrayed her surprise.

She'd expected the interior of the private car to smell ... musty, dusty, disused, stale -- she'd expected dust, neglect, frayed cushions, faded upholstery.

She was not expecting it to look ... well, clean.

Her son raised a phone, turned, grinned at his image on the screen, thumbed a selfie.

Sheriff Linn Keller rode as he always did -- as if he were part of his stallion, as if he and the horse were one creature -- he touched his hat-brim when the tourist family looked like they had a question, and the delighted little boy caressed Apple-horse's shoulder as his mother asked whether the Sheriff ever heard stories or rumors of someplace in town being haunted.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, "this whole territory is haunted" -- he thrust a chin at the Judge's private car, with a boxcar separating it from the passenger car -- "we have to keep the Judge's car locked to keep ghost hunters out. It got so bad they'd try holding a seance on the floor and spill wax on the rugs, they stole lamps and doorknobs, so we had to give up and just lock it."

The tourists, of course, wished to see inside, and they were only a few steps from where they could buy tickets for the seasonal train rides so popular with visitors: the Sheriff leaned down to speak quietly with conductor and porter, who each nodded, and so it was that an adventurous little family from back East was given access to the Honorable Judge Donald Hostetler's private railcar.

When the train pulled out, the Sheriff and his stallion were in the stock car: first run of the day was to Carbon Hill, where the Sheriff had business.

The family rode in the private car and were soon joined by the Sheriff: for some odd reason, they did not feel comfortable addressing the silent, very proper young woman in the McKenna gown, seated behind the Judge's desk, but the Sheriff brought an boyishly engaging grin with him, and soon he was being asked about the history of the area they'd be visiting.

"Carbon Hill," the Sheriff explained, "had a minor boom in coal mining.  It's wet coal, brown coal, there's still a very little mining going on, but not much. Carbon has been restored for the tourist trade, and yes" -- he winked at the mother -- "they have ghosts."

"What kind of ghosts?" the little boy asked, big eyed and eager.

"Nothing scary," the Sheriff said. "My wife met one over there when she was in high school."

"She did?"

The Sheriff nodded.

 

Shelly Crane folded her arms and glared out the door.

She could barely see out the barred window of the iron box that served as Carbon Hill's jail.

Railroads of the era would donate a metal box to its whistle stop towns, to serve as the town jail: the door was either all barred, or was boilerplate sheet metal with a barred window.

There was commonly one barred window toward the back, somewhere high above the hole in the floor that served as the communal toilet.

Dark, airless, roasting in summer and freezing in winter, this small prison was too much bother to break up and haul off for scrap, and so it still stood when Shelly made the mistake of getting in a car with a few other cheerleaders and the high school quarterback.

They came over to Carbon "so I can be alone with my girl," and when the jock tried to put the moves on Shelly, she backhanded him a good one.

He grabbed her by her ponytails, dragged her out of the car, shoved her in the old cell, shouldered the door shut -- he looked down, found the old padlock, ran it through the staple, pushed it shut -- he glared at her, went back to the convertible, and Shelly was left, alone, locked in the reportedly haunted prison box as a carload of classmates she thought were her friends, laughed and drove away.

She did not waste time or energy shaking a solid door; she lacked a source of light, she lacked any tool to help herself escape.

She listened to the silence, turned, looked across the interior, eyes busy.

No ghosts, she thought, listening to the night, listening hopefully for the sound of a car stopping, turning around, returning.

A half hour later she gave up listening.

She glared out the little window, wondering how long it would take someone to come over here.

Nobody lived in Carbon anymore, there were no businesses -- she'd heard talk of restoring a few buildings for the tourist trade.

Someone will come, she thought, closing her crossed-arm hands into fists.

She heard hoofbeats, lifted her head curiously --

A horse?

She stared, mouth open, as a man in a black suit, a man with a curled handlebar of an iron grey mustache, came down the street, his Appaloosa stallion at a spanking trot.

She recognized the man.

It must've been the light -- no, not the light -- that's not --

Willamina is Sheriff.

That looks like her twin brother Will.

I never saw Will in a black suit before.

Or a Stetson!

She watched him stop, saw him turn his spotty horse and she felt him look at her.

His eyes were shadowed by his hat brim -- she could not see his eyes at all, but then moonlight is a tricky thing -- he rode up to the box, dismounted, reached in and gripped her hand gently, and said in a deep and reassuring voice, "I'll bet you'd like to get out of there."

Shelly swallowed, nodded, not trusting her voice, grateful for the feel of his strong, reassuring, callused hand.

He found the key -- she told him Everett, the football jock, picked up the lock from the ground and locked her in because she slapped him for being improper -- the pale eyed man with the iron grey mustache bent and she heard the swish of leaves brushed aside --

He straightened, she heard the sound of a lock releasing, he drew the door open for her.

 

"Folks tell me I'm just the very image of the second Sheriff of Firelands County," Linn said. "Just between us here and the fence post, I still think 'twas the ghost of Old Pale Eyes himself that let my wife out of that iron box."

"Did you ever take her back to the box ... you know, just to look at it?"

Linn gave the tourist family his very best, big-eyed, Innocent Expression: "I'd not dare," he said, fabricated dread exaggerating the moment, "she'd likely pick the thing up and beat me about the head and shoulders with it!"

When they arrived in Carbon, the Sheriff was met by a grinning boy running out from behind the Saloon with a bail-capped bottle, sweating-cold: he ran up to the Sheriff, who thanked him gravely, flipped the bail and tilted the bottle up, draining it: he thanked the urchin, turned and looked to the other side of the street.

"That young fella," he said, "would likely be pleased with a good cold Sarsaparilla."

He flipped the barefoot urchin a coin and a wink, lifted his reins and rode on down the street, and a delighted boy from back East happily accepted the bail-capped bottle of genuine Western Sody Pop.

He watched as the boy picked up a loose board from the Boardwalk and carefully slipped the Sheriff's empty bottle under the weathered plank, set the board precisely back into place.

When the Eastern boy was done with his cold Sarsaparilla, he dawdled back from his parents, turned and tried to pull up the weather-bowed board -- only the boardwalk here was not loose, it was not bowed nor weathered, it was new construction, and solidly screwed down.

He set the empty beside a porch post, ran on swift-sneakered feet back to his parents, who were looking at the restored Marshal's Office.

 

An Eastern boy submitted a photograph and won an award.

It was taken in a private railcar.

An interesting photograph, it had a book, suspended barely above the desktop, as if being held by ghostly hands: a pair of woman's dainty, round-lensed spectacles hung in midair, perfectly aligned, as if worn halfway down a spectral nose.

But of course this photo had to be a clever fake.

We all know there's no such thing as ghosts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SNAKEHIPS

Littlejohn was in class.

He sat, relaxed, a boy in shorts and a T-shirt with a Fanghorn on the front, a rearing, fanged, blood-muzzled predator wearing a bright-green Derby hat and the words beneath, "I'LL HAVE ANOTHER BEER!"

Littlejohn was tall and lean -- he wasn't the tall-and-skinny of Mars-normal gravity, he spent as much time as he could in earth-and-a-quarter gravity, guaranteeing his physiology would remain as Earth-normal as possible.

In his younger years he complained about the extra work it made for him -- children are naturally lazy creatures, in many cases, and Littlejohn was no exception -- but when he saw the agonies of fellow Martians suffering the internal tortures of kidney stones, when his father explained quietly as he removed the stones with quantum-phased forceps that reached through living tissue as if it was not there, gripped the offending, often microscopic calculi, and extracted them without making an incision, "The human body is designed for Earth gravity, John. Mars gravity doesn't stress the bones enough and they shed calcium, and the body gets rid of extra calcium through the kidneys."

He dropped the offending calculus on a microscope slide and Littlejohn examined it, startled at how aggressively spiked it was.

He saw just how badly grown men hurt when attacked from within, and suddenly the young son of a Martian physician, had no further objection to living in Earth-and-a-quarter gravity.

The classroom was in Mars-normal gravity.

Littlejohn sat cross-legged, eyes closed, the learning helmet making him look like he was sitting under a 1950s hair dryer.

He'd exceeded the education necessary for a bachelor's degree; he was, for all intents and purposes, in a greatly improved version of medical school, thanks to reverse engineered alien technology (and in this case, modifying what had been used as straight-up implements of torture, used on abducted, uncooperative humans back during the Taking -- implements that injected red agony directly into human brains, rather than the learning the aliens intended to impart)

Littlejohn breathed easily, absorbing information with his usual speed, when the floor shivered under his backside.

He sat on a thick-folded saddleblanket -- he'd asked his Grampa Linn if he could have it, and he still smiled a little when he remembered how his Granddad grinned when he handed him the horse-smelling, hair-covered, red-and-black-striped saddle blanket: his Mama wanted to launder it, and Littlejohn wouldn't let her, because the smell reminded him of how it felt to ride his Grampa's horses, how it felt to be a giant on the earth, carried as swift as the wind itself on a hard-charging Appaloosa stallion.

Littlejohn's eyes snapped open and his hands tightened on his bare knees as he fought to transition from a detailed, immersive study of the mesenteric arterial system, and the sudden, disorienting return to his suddenly-darkened classroom.

Emergency lights snapped on, as did wall-reinforcing structural containment fields.

Littlejohn realized he was hearing a bugle.

General Quarters, he thought as he took a long, steadying breath, as he counseled his young body to calm: All hands, battle stations!

His classmates had been in the usual variety of states when learning: some were building physical representations of their geometry lessons, others were wearing the hair dryer looking apparatus, directly absorbing college level instruction; a few were seated in a semicircular group, discussing the books they'd been reading with their attentively-listening teacher.

Littlejohn looked around as his fellow students calmly closed their screens or their books, as they looked to their teacher, waiting.

Littlejohn did not wait.

He bent his wrist, keyed in a command.

A holographic projection appeared ahead of him: it was polarized, only he could see it.

Earthquake, he thought.

Not an attack.

Safe here.

He sent his Mama a quick all's-well from his location, opened the hologram and shifted its display.

Part of his mind registered the teacher clapping her hands twice, her classroom signal to pay attention: Littlejohn studied the display before him with part of his mind, while another part heard the schoolteacher announce that she was not sure quite what happened, but they would remain here, that they were perfectly safe in this classroom.

Littlejohn leaned forward a little, his expression intent.

"Miss Mapes," he called, his hand in the air, "Group Seven is on a mine-tour field trip."

Miss Mapes looked at Littlejohn, her expression going from motherly reassurance to reminded concern: her eyes widened, her hand came up to cup her mouth.

Littlejohn stood easily, strode with all the boldness of a ten-year-old on a mission toward the now-sealed classroom door: he keyed an override code into his wrist-unit as he moved, the door snapped open at his approach, shut firmly and hissed into a seal behind him.

Sheriff Jacob Keller mobilized his troops.

The very first thing he did was hit the panic button -- it was red, plastic, big around as a tea saucer, wall mounted, with the word PANIC in bright yellow letters on its smooth, domed surface: it was the General Quarters alert, followed by his confident voice chanted into the old-fashioned, curly-cord mic: "General Quarters, General Quarters, this is not a drill, this is not a drill."

He turned to his screen, fingers pattering quickly on the screen.

The temblor was sizable, significant, damaging: Jacob ordered diagnostics on the underground railroad, on the honeycomb of tunnels that connected the Mars colony underground: he considered rooms and hallways were fabricated by melting rock, compressing it with a triple-layered honeycomb structure, suitable for holding incredible weight: melted substrate was compressed to impossible degrees, rendering the material far denser than its original state.

Between density and the honeycomb structure, their corridors, the train's tunnel, their living, meeting, working and educational structures, were proof against stresses, intentionally strong enough to withstand serious tectonic activity.

Jacob considered the increase in stress on particular sections.

"Sector Seven, Sector Seven. All hands, avoid corridor seven two five one, structural failure imminent, stand by containment fields. Subhabitat seven romeo, evacuate, evacuate, evacuate. Damage control to sector seven, stand by for catastrophic structural failure."

 

Littlejohn ran as only an adrenalized ten year old can run.

The mine's entrance was abandoned, the duty shift having already evacuated to reinforced shelter.

He climbed into the shuttle, powered up, his wrist-unit bypassing all lockout authorizations.

He keyed in a command and two troop carriers were mag-levitated into engagement behind him.

If I can find them, Littlejohn thought, I'll have to get them out safely.

His young hands closed on man-sized controls, he reached his ten year old foot down and mashed the rectangular throttle pedal.

Lights blazed from the yellow-and-black-striped, locomotive-shaped shuttle, and he shot down the tunnel.

 

"Mine Rescue shuttle, Sheriff One," Jacob called, frowning at his screen.

Littlejohn appeared -- of all the people on Mars, Littlejohn was absolutely not one he'd expected to see.

"Cave-in down here," Littlejohn said, young eyes intent on the cone of concentrated light shoving the dark away from

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

... oops, glitch ...

... typical computer related problem ...

... mechanical in nature ...

... something to do with the loose nut operating the keyboard ...

... let's see if we can pick this back up ...

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Ambassador Marnie Keller rose abruptly.

The table was small enough to be intimate, large enough to be formal: she sat with two men, alone in a conference room.

Two governments contested over what each insisted were important matters, each government stubbornly head-butted with the other, the Confederacy was asked to send an arbiter, and they'd each mutually aired their grievances when the Ambassador stood -- without warning, abruptly, her eyes suddenly very pale, her face serious.

She projected a hologram onto the table before them.

It was her brother.

"Ambassador, this is the Sheriff," Jacob said formally, "we have a situation."

"State your situation," she replied crisply, her voice businesslike, her face growing more pale as she spoke.

"Your son is driving a mine rescue vehicle into a mine cave-in. We have a group of grade school children trapped, unknown casualties. I am routing Rescue in behind the collapse but after the earthquake we just had, there are no guarantees they'll be able to make it."

Marnie closed her eyes for a long moment, opened them to see Littlejohn's determined face, distorted a little by the mine locomotive's camera: the contrast between the Spartan and industrial interior of the vehicle, and the youth and slight stature of its driver, made the image more shocking.

One of the men, seated at the table, stared at Littlejohn's determined but very young face, whispered "He's about my son's age."

Two men locked eyes as the other said "I have children," and swallowed.

Marnie said "Keep me informed," collapsed the hologram. "Gentlemen, I must go."

They both rose and spoke with a spontaneous but united voice.

"How can we help?"

 

Littlejohn braked hard, the trailing cars ramming forward a quarter-inch apiece, slack in their couplers giving them just enough momentum to jar him a little and BANG BANG BANG surprisingly loud in the dust-thick mineshaft.

Littlejohn frowned, studied the control panel: he tried one switch, another: floodlights he wished he'd had earlier seared the tunnel in a harsh illumination.

Another switch.

A recessed spotlight behind its armored cage rotated, shone on the pile: he steered it up, across.

There's a hole, he thought.

I can get through that.

He looked around again, snatched a pair of gloves -- too big.

They'd have to do.

Tools? he thought, frowning: seeing none, he swung down, ran forward, scrambled up the pile of busted rock and sandy soil.

He pulled off his gloves, keyed his wrist-unit's light, wiggled through the little gap near the ceiling, slithering on his belly like a snake, sincerely regretting he was wearing schoolboy shorts and T-shirt.

 

Jacob moved coordinating operations to the auxiliary station in the common room.

Families gathered: the entire colony shook with the planet-wide temblor, something very unusual on this normally-stable world.

Jacob projected a hologram into the middle of the Common, big enough for him and everyone else to see.

He projected another image-panel: Littlejohn was digging his way up the collapsed pile, toward an elliptical black hole near the top of the pile: their last sight of him were sneaker soles kicking as he worked through, as he disappeared into whatever was on the other side.

"Mine Rescue Team Two, report progress."

"Proceeding East on the intercept tunnel," came a man's confident voice. 

"We have Medical on speeders behind you."

"Roger that."

Pause.

The holographic green line that was the second rescue team slowed, stopped.

"Control, Mine Two, we're collapsed here. Backing to a spur so the digger can move in and stabilize."

An anonymous hand closed on Jacob's shoulder: he reached up blindly, laid his hand firmly on a man's knuckles.

He had no idea if the hand belonged to a miner, a father, or a colonist.

He did know that their young were in that collapse, somewhere, and in that moment, every one of them was a parent.

 

An Iris opened in dusty darkness.

Men experienced in such matters turned on twin helmet lights, breathed easily through filtered masks.

They worked silently.

No conversation was needed.

Heads tilted back, examined the overhead, looked at the pile.

Shovels, pry bars, picks and gloved hands assaulted the incarcerating cave-in.

 

Littlejohn breathed slowly, through his nose.

Dust hung thick in the air.

He slid down the scree on his belly, genuinely regretting his choice of attire, though in fairness, all he'd expected to do was go to school and sit in a classroom, and then go to his father's clinic and practice suturing again.

He found children -- dusty, shocked, silent: he looked around, swung his light slowly, searching.

"Where's the teacher?" he asked.

"We don't know," someone replied, then coughed.

"Who's Second?"

"Abraham."

"Abraham, report," Littlejohn called, searching.

One of the schoolboys stepped forward, blinking against the thick dust, raised a glowing tablet, tapped it a few times.

"Call the roll," Littljohn said quietly, giving the children some structure: as Abraham called names, they fell into line.

Three were missing, and the teacher.

Littlejohn frowned at his wrist-unit, wishing it was a more adult model -- he could have used an adult's scanner function -- 

"Where was she when this caved in?" Littlejohn asked.

"We were here, I think ... she was gathering us together when the ground shook and then it all fell in and she's gone," a little voice said quietly -- there were no tears, there was no panic, just uncertainty.

Littlejohn pointed up at the hole he'd slithered through.

"We can get you out through there," he said. "One at a time."

"What about the teacher and the others?"

"We'll find them," Littlejohn said grimly. "Right now we have to get all of you to safety."

A rock fell, then a hiss of loose dirt.

"There might be aftershocks," Littlejohn said quietly, looking around.

"Has anyone looked down-tunnel?"

"It's dark," a frightened young voice said.

Littlejohn considered.

The fractured ground above was weak and could cave in again, but he had to get them out -- they could go deeper into the mine, but the cave-in was where rescue would start --

His Grampa Linn's voice whispered in his memory.

Sometimes you have to do something, even if it's wrong.

"We're getting out of here," he said decisively, "the way I came in.  Stay in line.  First one, climb up here with me.  Tail End Charlie, keep watch down-shaft, listen for any cave-in further down."

Littlejohn, not much shy of ten years old, scrambled up a pile of broken rock and sandy dirt, a classmate clawing his way up beside him.

Two schoolboys began digging at the small opening, enlarging it enough to get through, letting more light into the dusty confinement.

 

"Mars Control, this is Team Two."

A pause.

"Team Two, identify," Jacob said, puzzled: he looked at his deputy, frowned.  

"Who in the hell is Team Two?"

"Marnie sent us," the unfamiliar voice replied, and Jacob's eyebrows raised.

"I should have expected that," he muttered.

"Team Two, go ahead."

"We're clearing a second cave-in. It's not much. We should be through in a few minutes. Status on your victims."

"Status unknown. Waiting for report." He clicked the mic twice. 

"Littlejohn, what is your status?"

 

Littlejohn pushed against his classmate's shoe soles, shoved him through: a schoolboy rolled down the dirt and rocks into blinding light, then strong hands grabbed him, pulled him carefully upright.

Littlejohn's face was momentarily in the dusty ellipse.

"Reverse airflow," he called, "it's hard to breathe in here!" -- then he drew back, and was gone.

A miner swung back into the cab of his tractor, keyed in a command: it took a few moments for the air handlers to stop, then reverse, but when they did, they began pushing clean air through the hole the first rescued child came through.

 

Men worked silently, grimly.

They'd mined on their respective worlds.

They knew cave-ins.

On their worlds, the strata were prone to fall in broad, flat, incredibly heavy layers -- swift, silent, no warning, just crushing death.

Digging at sandy, unstable soil, at crushed, shattered rock, gave them a great feeling of unease: they kept looking up, as if expecting the fatal inverted funnel above them to let go again and bury them.

For all their discomfiture, they worked steadily and without complaint.

This cave-in was not as serious as the one where they were headed.

Marnie looked up at the two representatives, still seated, watching the holographic image on the table between them.

Both men stared, silent, watching live-feed images from miners' cameras, from the stationary locomotive Littlejohn initially drove down-shaft.

Then they saw it.

A little boy, hair dirty, face dust-smeared: hands, then head and shoulders, then he shot through, skidded down the pile.

Broad-shouldered men in canvas mine coveralls blocked the camera for a moment, then the image swung, froze.

A little boy, big-eyed, looking into the camera ...

... alive ...

 

The excavator operated on advanced principles never seen in any Earthside excavation.

A force-lance drove through the cave-in at its base, widened: dirt was picked up for the width of the tunnel, hoisted all of the width of a man's fingernail.

The entire caved-in mass was enveloped.

It was disassembled at the subatomic level, reassembled into something at quarter-density -- instead of pure Crush, where orbiting electrons were crushed into nuclei, creating the densest possible element, this was only one-quarter as dense: it was formed into hexagonal tubes, it was fashioned into a broad arch, far more than capable of supporting the entire weight of planetary mass above.

They advanced steadily, creating a hex-tube wall ten meters thick, an archway they walked through as if passing through a clean-swept pedestrian tunnel with smooth walls.

 

Littlejohn helped the smallest children up the pile, boosting them with hands and with encouragement: one by one, he got them out, pausing each time, eyes closed, taking in a precious breath of clean, dust free air before ducking back into the thick air inside.

Tail End Charlie was a little girl who'd started her morning in a brand new white T-shirt with a big green frog on the front and the words KISS ME above and below.

Now her T-shirt was dirt brown and so was her once-cornsilk hair.

She turned and looked at Joseph.

"You're the last one," Joseph said, "let's get out of here!"

"We're not alone," she said, and pointed down-shaft.

Littlejohn shot his wrist-light down into the darkness.

Lights -- clusters of three lights, moving a little, approaching.

 

"I SEE A LIGHT!"

Men advanced at a run, heavy boots pounding the dirt as they ran.

They saw a little girl, a skinny boy, an empty chamber, a pile of rubble and light and clean air coming in an elliptical hole near the ceiling.

One man peeled off his mask and helmet.

"Is anyone missing?" he asked.

"The teacher," Littlejohn said in a serious young voice, "and three students."

The man turned.

"Scanners," he said, and two men surged forward, glowing devices in their hands.

 

Transport cars shot up-shaft at illegal speeds, running each rescued child to Medical, then returning just as swiftly: one by one parents hugged, then ran for Medical as their child was identified, was declared safe.

Finally only teachers and a very few parents remained, watching solemnly as men experienced at such matters, dug where their scanners told them to dig.

They uncovered a hand, then a snatch of pastel material --

Jacob's hands closed into fists and he closed his eyes, took a long, silent breath.

The hand on his shoulder was long gone, departed for Medical to be with his child, Jacob had no real idea which one, and he didn't care.

He waited, silent, unmoving, watching as men seized rocks and rolled or threw them aside, as dirt was cleared.

He looked at another image -- movement, as a surprised miner turned --

"I heard something," a voice said.

The camera's image was unsteady, as if its wearer was advancing --

The image jerked again, and this time a man's voice, a full SHOUT --

"I FOUND 'EM! THEY'RE ALIVE!"

A miner squatted in dusty darkness, gathered two scared schoolkids into his arms, stood, ran for his fellows, a third child gripping his hip pocket and running to keep up.

Jacob threw his head back, took a quick breath, and talked to God about it.

Ambassador Marnie Keller watched two men as they stood, as they faced one another, as they shook hands.

Her final report would involve having shown these rescue operations to both governments' ruling bodies, and how both governments realized they were stronger together than apart.

The teacher was Irised to an offworld hospital -- her injuries were serious, but with advanced care, survivable -- she would not be returning to duty for some time, but she was alive to complain about it.

And when Littlejohn walked into Medical, filthy, knees and elbows skinned, coughing up dirt and shedding sand as he walked, he stopped and looked sadly at his father and said, "I ruined my T-shirt!"

 

 

Edited May 19, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

... again, my apologies for what was obviously my screw-up ... trust me, I can get in trouble just settin' in my easy chair ...

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SUNSET, AND A BALE OF HAY

A skinny boy sat on a saddleblanket.

He'd spread it out the full width of the hay bale, then sat at one end, as if hoping someone would set down beside him.

He'd dragged the bale out of his Grampa's barn where the afternoon sun hit.

He didn't get much sun on Mars.

Littlejohn sat down, leaned forward, elbows on his knees and forehead in his hands.

He'd gotten a talking-to for grabbing the mine tractor, he'd been spoken to about jumping into a situation, he'd been addressed for acting before he thought.

He'd also been praised by more people than he could count, he'd been hugged by grateful parents and upheld as a fine example of what a young man should be.

Now he'd probably be spoken to again.

He'd keyed up an Iris without his Mama's let-be, nor his Pa's, and he'd gone to the one place where he knew he'd not get any of that.

He went to Grampa Linn's ranch, back on Earth.

Littlejohn took a long breath, grateful his Pa used that quantum extractor field to strip the excess mucus his lungs produced in response to the dust he'd inhaled -- he could breathe ever so much better now -- his father set up something resembling an assembly line, with filthy-faced children in quick-fabricated seats, and he'd swung the ceiling-mounted apparatus from one to the next to the next, mapping their pulmonary trees, clearing the dust out of noses and sinuses, mouths and tracheae, he'd brought all the contaminants out of every last alveolar bulb: each got a breathing treatment, mostly sterilized saline mist: Littlejohn showered afterward, he'd gotten himself clean, but his Mama (like mothers everywhere!) insisted on inspecting him, which consisted of turning his ears forward and looking behind, of carefully wiping inside his ears like he was still just a little kid! -- he'd protested, "Aww, Maaaaw," like boys everywhere, but he'd held still for her ministrations.

Now he sat on a saddleblanket and a bale of hay, he felt mountains around him and sun on his bare legs, he felt wind on his arms and on his face, and he closed his eyes.

He didn't hear their approach.

He felt fur, warm and welcome, as The Bear Killer leaned happily against his shin bones, and his hands lowered and opened and The Bear Killer greeted him with a face-washing that was received with absolutely no protest.

Something warm and solid eased down beside him and he felt a wrinkle of denim push into his hip and he smelled his Grampaw and he ran an arm around strong, manly ribs and leaned his head into the reassuring comfort he was hoping for.

"I heard about your rescue," Linn said quietly.

He felt Littlejohn stiffen a little.

"Are your hands sore?"

Littlejohn opened his eyes, surprised, blinked a few times, then pulled away, brought his hands around, looked at them.

Linn saw his grandson close his hands, then open them, saw his shoulders sag.

"A little," he admitted.

"John," Linn said in the quiet, gentle, deep tones of a grandfather who remembered what it was to be a boy with easily bruised feelings, "I'd be interested to know how much dirt and rock you moved with just your two hands."

"Mama wasn't happy," he admitted.

"And Doctor John?"

"He didn't say much about it."

"That bad."  Linn's voice was sympathetic.

Littlejohn nodded.

Linn's arm draped over his grandson's shoulders, at once understanding, and protective.

"You acted, John," Linn said quietly. "You saw people were in danger and you acted."

Littlejohn nodded.

"Nobody else was there, John. We know they had rescue teams that came in behind you, but you were there before anybody else was. You got to them first. You took action. You let them know they were not alone."

Linn tightened his arm around his grandson's shoulder -- just a little -- just enough to emphasize what he was saying.

"They were scared as hell, John," he whispered, and somehow that whisper carried more weight than if he'd declared it in an orator's voice.  "They were scared and you let them know help was there. You organized them and you ran a head count, you set a sentry at your back and you got your people out."

Linn came off the bale -- he didn't stand, he swung around, he squatted, he reached up and lightly, very lightly, gripped his grandson's shoulders.

His eyes were wide, unblinking, and a distinct, light, pale blue.

"John," Linn said, and John could hear the smile in his voice, "I am pretty damned proud of you!"

A skinny boy who'd been told contradicting things at home, a skinny boy who'd just been told exactly what he should have been told in the first place, came off the hay bale and ran his arms around his long tall Granddad.

A Western Sheriff with an iron grey mustache closed his eyes and held his grandson and whispered again, whispered, for his lips were almost touching the pink-scrubbed young ear.

His arms tightened as his warm breath tickled the fine hairs of a ten-year-old boy's left ear.

"You did well, John, and I am proud of you!"

Edited May 19, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A KIND MAN’S STRENGTH

 

An anonymous arm thrust itself through the partially open door, a white-waxed-paper doughnut sack swinging from gripping fingers.

An unsmiling diplomat looked up, closed her eyes for a long moment as this unexpected visitor whistled, a quick, liquid, two-note question.

Angela pushed the door open a little, stuck her head in:  “Marnie? Permission to come aboard?”

Marnie removed her pince-nez from the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes: she rubbed the contact points with gloved fingers, heard her sister close the door, heard the doughnut sack land gently on the table.

“ ‘I’m thinking about you’ is only words,” Angela said quietly. “Doughnuts say it better.”

Marnie opened her eyes, glared at her sister and snarled, “You’d better have white cream filled in there!”

“Chocolate iced stick, your favorite.”  Angela went over to the wall mounted dispenser, keyed in two mugs of hot tea: she carried the glazed-enamel mugs back to the table, set them down, pulled out a chair and sat.

Marnie’s gloved hand gripped the now-open sack’s edge; Angela seized the other side: they pulled, quickly, tearing the sack open.

They’d done this as children, which earned them a scolding from their mother, which of course meant that every time they brought doughnuts home, that’s how they accessed the pastries.

“Do I guess why you’re here?” Marnie asked before taking a dainty nibble of fresh, fragrant, still-warm pastry.

“Go to hell and eat your doughnut,” Angela said, then took a quick bite out of her own: she closed her eyes and chewed happily, swallowed.

“Mmm, strawberry,” she purred.

“Mama is allergic to strawberries,” Marnie said quietly.

“That’s why I eat them here and not there.”

Two sisters sipped steaming Earl Grey, lowered their doughnuts, each tilting her head to the left, each regarding the other with assessing eyes.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well what are you going to lecture me about?”

Angela’s eyes widened innocently.

“Why would I lecture you?”

Marnie’s eyes closed halfway.

“Littlejohn.”

Angela sighed, shook her head.

“No,” she said.

“Says the woman without husband or children.”

“Says the woman who came to warn you.”

Marnie raised an eyebrow, raised her defenses.

“Warn me?”

“You know Littlejohn went to see Daddy.”

Marnie turned her head, just a little.

Angela trained to read body language.

So had Marnie.

Each knew the other was looking at the other for more than politenesss.

Both knew the they were assessing each other, part of the interrogation skills they’d learned from their pale eyed Daddy, and from subsequent law enforcement training.

“It’s not Littlejohn,” she said. “It’s Daddy.”

Marnie’s defensiveness had been a glass shield, held in front of her, to let her see clearly, but protect her from attack.

Now that shield hit the floor and shattered.

“Daddy told me what he told Littlejohn, Marnie,” Angela said quietly, leaning forward, her forearm pressing into the tabletop.

“Aannnddd ….?”

“Daddy did what Daddy does. best”

Marnie’s stomach fell several feet.

“What did Daddy do?” Marnie asked, her throat suddenly dry.

Angela closed her eyes, opened them, took a sip of tea, swallowed.

“You know Daddy … knew … someone before he married Mama.”

Marnie turned a gloved hand a little in reply.

“When Daddy talked to Littlejohn, he was … he’d … just gotten a death notice.”

Marnie nodded, barely, as her sister’s words confirmed what her gut was afraid of.

“Daddy was always gentlest when he was hurt.”

Marnie tore her half of the doughnut sack, carefully, laying it out flat, placing her half eaten, chocolate iced, white-cream-filled on white waxed paper: she placed her hands in her lap and gave her sister her disconcertingly unblinking attention.

“When I got there, Daddy had me hold a 2x4 under one edge of a lid.”

“A lid,” Marnie echoed.

Angela took a deep breath, looked to the side and blinked twice, then looked back.

“Her name was Rosalee,” Angela said quietly, “and Daddy loved her … once …”

“Rosalee?” Marnie asked, shaking her head a little.  “I’m not …”

“They remained friends, apparently … Rosalee lost a leg to infection and Daddy paid for her power wheelchair, and he helped her … financially … several times.”

Marnie raised an eyebrow, just a little.

“He said … he was screwing a rectangular wooden lid above the pegboard over his workbench, out in the barn.”

Marnie frowned, turned her head a little, listening closely.

“He said the lid was from a rotted-out old chest Rosalee’s father built her when Rosalee was a little girl. It had a horse shoe in the middle of the lid and it was painted silver. Over the years the bottom rotted out and the sides decayed, but she kept the lid … he said it reminded him …”

Angela picked up her tea, took a sip, took another, then she seized a glazed twist and bit into it with a surprising ferocity.

“So you’re saying Daddy was hurting when he talked to Littlejohn.”

Angela slurped tea noisily, indelicately, chewed: she swallowed, harrumphed.

“Marnie, what did you tell Littlejohn about his going into the cave-in?”

Marnie’s bottom jaw shoved out, slowly, as she considered: Angela could not miss the hardening of her sister’s expression.

“I was not very … understanding,” Marnie admitted, looking away, looking toward Littlejohn’s bedroom.

“You weren’t, but Daddy was,” Angela said quietly. “Did you talk to Littlejohn for Irising out without telling you first?”

Marnie blinked several times, shook her head.

“No. No, I didn’t. Not yet.”

“You know he went.”

Marnie nodded.

“Of course you did,” Angela murmured. “Mothers always know.”

“Ours did,” Marnie replied, and there was no smile in either her voice, nor in her eyes.

She looked at Angela, her voice softer, suddenly vulnerable.

“How’s Daddy?”

Angela lowered her head, glared at her sister.

“You know Daddy. He’s got that wall up again. ‘I’m fine, nothing’s wrong, pardon me while I hold the world at arm’s length.’”

Marnie’s lips pressed together as she nodded, as she lowered her forehead into the heel of her gloved palm.

“Stupid, stubborn, hard headed, contrary,” she muttered.

“Obdurate, recalcitrant, mule-brained,” Angela added helpfully.

“That too.”  Marnie threw her head back, took a great, open-mouth gulp of air, like she was coming up from too-deep a dive.

“He confirms what I’d taught in a psychology presentation,” Angela said.

Marnie raised an eyebrow, curious.

“When a truly strong man is in pain, if it’s at all possible, that truly strong man will be kind.”

Marnie nodded, closing her eyes against a memory her sister’s words resurrected.

“Yes,” she whispered.  “You’re right.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A CHOIR OF GHOSTS

Sarah Lynne McKenna waited behind two great boulders.

Erosion, or catastrophe, loosened them from the mountainside above, who knows how many years before: smaller rocks provided sun-warmed, surprisingly clean, dry seats for herself and Gracie.

Gracie had her fiddle with her -- Sarah had her in a gown in the City, wearing a glitter mask, while Sarah, also in a glitter mask, and in a scandalous dancing-girl dress and frillies, shook her trotters on stage and netted them both an unexpectedly good purse.

Now they were returned home, Gracie back in her usual shapeless hat and colorless dress, Sarah almost as drab: Gracie's riding mule was sleepily consulting the local vegetation, while Sarah's huge Snowflake-mare drowsed in the sun nearby.

"I think it's here," Sarah told Gracie a few minutes earlier, when Sarah consulted her watch.

Gracie's eyes were bright with anticipation.

Sarah described the new, lower-pitched whistle The Lady Esther wore, something Bill the engineer wanted to try: Sarah and Gracie both knew where the echo was funneled by trackside topography, and Sarah, with her perfect pitch, speculated the lower-toned whistle would have what she called "a spooky sound."

The Lady Esther was barking as she pulled the section -- there was a grade, not enough to really slow her velocity, but enough Bill had to give her more throttle to keep his speed, and that meant her four-count chant was loud and powerful -- moreso as she came into the natural sound funnel.

Gracie chinned her fiddle, ready to spin a curlyback melody with the steam engine's cracking chant.

She raised her bow, eyes closed, absorbing the steam engine's rhythm into her very soul.

Then Bill hauled down on the whistle's chain.

Gracie's eyes snapped open, wide, wide ... Sarah's eyes met Gracie's, and the two felt their breath catch.

It didn't sound spooky.

Spooky wasn't a comprehensive enough term for what they both heard, for the very first time.

The lower pitched steam whistle, directed and partially delayed by this trick of geographic structure, didn't sound like a single voice.

It sounded like an entire, harmonized, spectral, choir.

Gracie's eyes wandered a little to the side as she replayed its voice, feeling it shivering in her bones, she looked back at Sarah, her expression the same marveling, wondrous look of a child beholding a field full of lightning bugs for the very first time.

Gracie was so utterly entranced that The Lady Esther was past them, and gone, before she remembered ...

... her fiddle was under her chin, as forgotten as the rosined bow, not budged from its vertical position.

Gracie's voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

"Sarah," she managed, "that was as gorgeous as the church choir."

Gracie blinked a few times, looked back at her dear friend, blinked.

"That sounded like a choir of ghosts!"

 

 

Edited May 22, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103