SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

An Aside

The Lady Esther, in my imagination, is an early Baldwin diamond-stacker, but in the stories I've spun, I wrote of her being fired with coal: this would argue for her having a coal stack rather than the traditional diamond stack.

I am incurably romantic when it comes to things like steam engines, big furry hound dogs, truly huge horses and Appaloosas: Apple-horse was very real, and I grieved in private when Granddad sold him, but that's beside the point.

Steam locomotives, whether rail mounted or traction engines, are something I've long loved.

A very few times I've heard a steam whistle in the hill country back home, sounding like ghosts singing in the faraway wind.

Gracie seemed to like it.

This that I'm trying to link, sounds kind of like The Lady Esther sounds in my imagination.

So much for author's comments.

Back to the story line.

Steam Whistle on a High Trestle

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MIRROR

"You're quiet."

Esther Keller's words were gently spoken: supper was a subdued affair, as if the entire family knew something wasn't quite right, but nobody was really sure just what.

Esther's pale eyed husband considered for a moment, then tore another sweet roll in two and puttied each half with a thick layer of fresh churned.

He looked at the hired girl, watching warily from a little distance back -- she'd had to have sawed a hole in the wall to retreat any further -- his eyes were as gentle as his wife's voice as he said, "Thank you, Mary. That was genuinely good."

The hired girl looked uncertainly at Esther, then gave a quick knee-dip before slipping out of the room.

Linn's youngest looked at him with big and innocent eyes, knowing on one level something was not quite right, but with a full belly and gentle voices, nothing could be terribly wrong -- at least not in their young worlds.

It was not until after supper, not until Esther supervised their young into tending their studies, not until she'd withdrawn, slipped silently down the hall, and entered her husband's book-lined study, that she spoke further.

Sheriff Linn Keller looked up at the sound of his wife's voice: he closed the volume he held, crossed the room, took her hands in his -- carefully, as he always did -- behind closed doors, in the privacy of the moment, he kissed his wife with the care and the gentleness he practiced whenever possible.

Linn drew back a little, looked at the comfortably upholstered seat Esther favored: she sat, dropped her eyes and tried to hide her smile at the admiration in her husband's eyes, wondering for the hundred thousandth time what he ever saw in her that made him think she was anywhere near graceful.

Linn picked up his own chair, brought it over, placed it, sat.

Esther waited.

Linn frowned as he arranged his thoughts.

"You'll remember," he said quietly, "I described what I saw in the Valley."

Esther's eyes widened, then narrowed: her green eyes were very direct, their shining intensity, reply enough.

Linn lifted his head, considered the texture of the ceiling, allowed his eyes to follow the crown molding, then looked back down at his wife.

"Often times when a man asks another man's advice," he said thoughtfully, "the best thing I can do is help find the answer he's already got."

"I have noticed your skill," Esther replied carefully, "in helping with these ... discoveries."

She tilted her head thoughtfully.

"I take it you helped someone find such an answer?"

Linn nodded.

"Stranger he was, out on East Branch. He looked just plainly lost."

Esther considered the moments when her husband's expression was just that -- just plainly lost -- she said nothing, just listened.

"We set a small fire and made coffee, we set and he talked and I listened."

Esther's eyes never left her husband's: she was motionless, her expression, her posture telling her husband that she was giving him absolute and undivided attention.

"He'd lost someone not long ago, and he was troubled by it."

Linn's bottom jaw eased out as he leaned back, took a long breath, blew it out.

"I fetched out my Scripture and he throwed a couple ideas at me, so I went over and set beside him so he could see the Word."

Esther's head turned, just a little, and she leaned forward ever so slightly.

"He said she -- didn't say who 'she' was, just ... she'd been terrible scairt at what was to come.

"He wondered aloud what comes after dyin'."

Esther frowned just a little: Linn saw it and nodded.

"You've heard me describe what it was like to die twice. You heard me talk about seein' the Valley and how I did not want to come back."

He frowned, considered, pressed forward.

"I didn't tell him about that.

"He quoted Ecclesiastes, how the dead know not any thing, he wasn't comfortable a'tall with that idea, so I turned to Luke -- 'This day you will be with me in Paradise' -- he gave that a good thinkin' over and allowed as that must be the right of it.

"Come to find out he'd already considered Luke. I reckon he just needed someone to show him again."

"Did he seem satisfied with what you showed him, dear?" Esther murmured.

Linn leaned forward, took his wife's hand again, nodded.

"He already had the answer," he replied gently, raised her hand, kissed her knuckles. "I just had to hold up the mirror so he could see it."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A FORMAL INTRODUCTION

Sean Finnegan, the broad-shouldered, blacksmith-armed Chief of the Firelands Fire Department, aggressively planted a broad brogan on the polished brass foot rail and leaned muscled forearms on the mirror polished mahogany bar top.

His head was thrust forward, as was his jaw, his face was set and he glared into the broad mirror behind the bar with a ferocity that had stopped bar fights and caused hard men to stop whatever it was they were doing at the moment.

The man beside him was not at all intimidated by the big, red-headed Irishman's expression.

Each man held their silent counsel, even when Mr. Baxter slid a brimming, cool, freshly-beheaded mug of beer in front of each: the pomaded barkeep looked from one hard man to the other hard man, raised an eyebrow, lifted his chin in response to another thirsty patron's summons.

Sean laid a broad, blunt-fingered, but surprisingly gentle hand between the other fellow's shoulder blades.

"Yon's a fine, strong woman," he said softly. "She's borne ye fine young an' I doubt me not she's callin' ye anythin' but decent while she's doin' of it."

Sheriff Linn Keller glared at his pale eyed reflection, worked his jaw, then shook his head, sighed quietly and straightened: he took a long pull on his beer, hesitated while a girl slipped a plate in front of him, her hand cool as she laid it over Sean's companionable knuckles, still laid across an impressive percentage of the Sheriff's back.

"You must eat," she almost whispered. "Another child means you'll be busier now."

The Sheriff turned, looked at the girl -- she was about fifteen or so, he was surprised she wasn't married already -- he smiled, almost sadly, and said "Thank you, darlin'," in a gentle voice.

She gave him a big-eyed innocent look, her eyes liquid and dark, then she turned and skipped like a little girl back down the hallway toward Daisy's kitchen.

Linn slid his plate over toward Sean.

Sean slid it back.

"Th' lass is right," he rumbled.  "Ye must keep up yer strength! Just think o' all that ye maun be doin' now! Why, ye'll have young t' teach how t' whistle an' how t' whittle, how t' --"

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna sat alone in the Sheriff's study.

His cavalry saber normally hung on the far wall in the Sheriff's office, where he could turn, and look at it, or he could reach up and fetch it down easily.

He kept his saber sharp -- the Sheriff was particular about its edge -- it was good steel, it took a good edge, and Sarah had managed to remove it to the Sheriff's study, for reasons of her own.

She worked steadily, quietly, studying the blade's edge, studying the edge the Sheriff placed: it was not smooth, it did not shine with the precision of a razor's shaving edge: no, this almost sparkled.

Sarah ran her palm along its length, moving her flat hand slightly from its spine to its edge, feeling the coarse edge: she remembered examining Dr. Greenlees' scalpels, and how they had this same sparkle-looking, miniature-sawblade edge.

Sarah slipped curved steel back into its scabbard, hung it on a likely peg.

Upstairs, the women were attending Esther, who was in labor: Sarah left that duty to those with experience in the art: she slipped out, silent in her flat-heeled shoes: she would return, but she wished to take a moment away from what felt like stifling femininity.

She stood and considered the saber, hanging on a peg, at a convenient height for a man to grasp, and whispered, "A man's infant son should take its first solid food from the tip of his father's blade," then she turned, took a deep breath, flowed back up the stairs to the bedroom.

Neither her absence, nor her return, had been missed.

Sarah resumed her silent, solemn watch, a step behind her mother Bonnie, and Daisy, the sharp-tongued, green-eyed Irishwoman.

Sarah watched as Dr. Greenlees turned, slung the contents of the washpan out the open window, poured water from the pitcher into the basin, washed his hands yet again: Sarah watched with pale and assessing eyes, knowing Dr. Greenlees' obsession with cleanliness was reflected in the rarity of infections among his patients.

Sarah blinked, saw Esther had a blanket wrapped infant at her breast.

She saw the woman was also still in delivery position.

Sarah blinked, took a step back as Esther's head snapped back, teeth clenched, as the fingers of her free hand clawed up a good handful of bedsheet, as her sweaty face turned scarlet and she gave a stifled groan.

Dr. Greenlees leaned in, he did something, Sarah couldn't see quite what --

He turned a fleshy, discolored, misshapen --

Another baby? Sarah thought, her mouth opening: she saw Daisy bouncing on her toes, saw her mother bend a little and blot Esther's forehead, Sarah heard feminine voices as from a distance --

 

"And what if Esther births me a little girl child?" Linn asked quietly.

Sean chuckled, nodded his understanding: his Daisy was with child herself, though she'd barely begun to show: Sean was father to a little red-headed Irishman and a red-headed girl-child himself, and he too faced the quandary of not knowing what he'd have to teach his daughter: when he told Daisy he'd build their little red-headed warrior princess a fine Irish war-chariot and teach her the ways of the legendary Queen Boudicca, Daisy's Irish-green eyes snapped, as did her voice, and she threatened to unscrew Sean's head and stuff a yard of good Irish peat down his neck before puttin' his head back on upside down so he'd ne'er see straight again, which of course meant Sean laughed that great powerful manly laugh of his, and he'd snatched up his Daisy-me-dear and crushed her to him and whirled her around, and he'd planted his mouth on hers while she thrashed and kicked and hit at him, until she melted and returned his attentions, and likely that's how she ended up wi' a bit of a maternal belly today.

"There's somethin' on yer mind, now," Sean rumbled quietly so only the two of them could hear, and Linn glared at his reflection and nodded.

"I can do many things, Sean," Linn said thoughtfully. "I can fix what's broke and I can make bad situations better, or at least give it a damned good try."

Sean considered this, took a pull on his beer.

"If Esther needs something built, I build it, or arrange to have it built. If she can't reach something, I stretch up and get it."

Sean nodded again, set his beer down, turned his head slightly, listening.

"Esther ... I can't ... she's got to deliver this child herself," Linn said. "I know the ladies are with her, I know Doc Greenlees is there, but Esther is the only one who can do this, I'm just in the way ..."

Sean looked to his left, then turned and looked around, making certain nobody was in earshot.

He lowered his great head again and said in low voice, "I ne'er felt s'damned helpless as when Daisymedear was hatchin' an' I couldna' help!"

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

"That," he said decisively, "is exactly the case!"

They both looked at their beer.

"Ye've no' touched yer sandwich."

"I've no appetite."

"Nor have I."

The girl had halved the sandwich before bringing it out.

Each man seized half, ate it like he was starved: they washed down their quick meal with the rest of their beer, straightened.

"Reckon I'd best go see."

"Aye."

 

Two men and a Bear Killer waited in the Sheriff's study.

They listened to the quick patter of young feet descending the stairs.

Sarah Lynne McKenna opened the door, folded her hands in her apron.

"Gentlemen," Sarah said formally, "if you could come with me, please, introductions are in order."

Sean and Linn looked at one another, looked at The Bear Killer.

The Bear Killer looked up at them with an expression of bright-eyed, tongue-wobbling, tail-swinging, canine delight.

Sarah let The Bear Killer out: she well knew that excited Bear Killers and little boys share the common characteristic of a Bladder the Size of a Walnut, and young though she was, she knew enough to prevent misunderstandings whenever possible.

Esther lay on fresh linens, she wore a fresh nightgown and held a red-faced, flannel-wrapped infant to each breast.

Linn leaned down, kissed her forehead, whispered, "You're beautiful."

"Liar," Esther smiled.

The Bear Killer launched up onto the bed from the other side, drove his blunt black muzzle into the nearest bundle, sniffed loudly, tail swinging: he sniffed at the other, cocked his head and gave Esther a puzzled look.

"Yes, they're both mine," Esther murmured.

"Bear Killer, down," Sarah said quietly: The Bear Killer turned, jumped to the floor.

Esther looked from one newborn to the other, with the gentle expression of an exhausted mother.

Bonnie gripped the Sheriff's arm, gave him a knowing look.

"Mr. Keller," she said mischeviously, "I believe introductions are in order."

 

"Run out of my own house," Linn muttered.

He and Sean walked side by side, Apple-horse following.

"Ah, lad," Sean rumbled, "let th' ladies reign this day. God knows yer Esther worked hard enough for't!"

"She did that," Linn said in a wondering voice, then:

"Twins."

He shook his head.

"I know Esther was big, but ..."
He shook his head, his voice distant.

"Twins."

"Aye!" Sean roared happily, dropping a massive hand to the man's far shoulder and shaking him companionably: "ye're a man wi' loins s'potent that ye sire yer young in LITTERS!"

Two men laughed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CURIOSITY

 

Michael and Victoria were known to the Confederate worlds, thanks to the Inter-System.

They were known, in part, because Michael was commonly mounted on a lightning-patterned Fanghorn, and Victoria, on an Appaloosa mare: more often than not, even on a State visit, they were flanked by a pair of half grown Fanghorn, one on either side.

It was not considered the least little bit unusual that something black-furred and pink-tongued paced along with them, something that was very obviously comfortable in their company, something accepted by equine and Fanghorn alike, even here on a world where canids never developed.

Although The Bear Killer was not considered unusual, when found in their company, the general public was somewhat wary of this unknown creature: they knew Fanghorns ate meat on occasion, though Michael was careful not to go into particulars, just as the general public knew that one does not approach an Appaloosa from behind, nor startle it from any direction, and so The Bear Killer was regarded with a healthy degree of caution.

Except, of course, by children.

There is a natural and mutual affinity between the young of any species.

When The Bear Killer looked around and yawned, displaying a fine set of fighting ivory, when The Bear Killer sat and surveyed this, his new (if short-lived) kingdom, The Bear Killer assessed his surroundings.

Not just threat assessment, which was natural, given his bloodline.

The Bear Killer considered the variety of scents with a professional nose.

Michael and Victoria were busy with whatever it was they’d been invited for; The Bear Killer picked up no scents of stress, heard no changes in voices that indicated a danger was about: given this assurance, he touched noses with Thunder, as if sharing a silent communication.

The Bear Killer assessed his surroundings with a professional eye, approached a child with a half eaten sausage sandwich.

The Bear Killer did what The Bear Killer did very well.

He regarded the dainty, the edible, with big, dark, puppy-dog eyes, and whined a little, and the child did what the child did very well: he offered The Bear Killer the uneaten half.

The Bear Killer’s tail swung with unmitigated delight as he took the offering, carefully, gently: tentative young fingers stroked his sun-warmed fur, and The Bear Killer happily scrubbed a trace of sausage grease off a laughing little boy’s hand.

More children gravitated toward the little boy’s quiet laugh: The Bear Killer’s jaws were open in a happy doggy grin as he accepted the adulation that was his rightful due.

At least in his mind.

He’d closed his eyes and gave a happy, puppy-like yow-wow-wow, gentle, contented, which delighted his young supplicants.

The Bear Killer’s head came up, suddenly, ears perked.

This sudden move caused the adoring young to hesitate, to draw back a little.

A baby, blanket wrapped and in a wicker basket, decided it was not happy at being ignored: its tiny face screwed up and reddened, and it gave the first hesitant sounds of a little one just fixin’ to cloud up and rain all over the place.

The Bear Killer twisted, wove through the crowd, ran to the unhappy infant: forepaws on the table, he shoved his blunt muzzle into the basket and gave a loud, curious sniff.

The infant, who was concentrating on drawing the energies from the Dark Universe in order to distill them into a truly devastating, earth-shattering scream, paid no attention, at least until The Bear Killer’s warm tongue taste-tested the back of a tiny, clenched fist.

An infant’s eyes snapped open, startled, and saw something big, black, close by.

Surprised, the Baby in the Basket did what babies do, and that was reach for The Bear Killer.

The crowd parted as two Fanghorns eased forward, curious as to what their companion was seeing, or perhaps at the strange noises this odd discovery made a moment ago.

The Bear Killer tilted his head curiously, regarded the undecided little red-face with button-bright eyes.

The baby, perhaps remembering that he’d set upon a course of Pique and Unhappiness, waved his little pink fists and screwed his face up again, and this time cut loose with a baby-sized caterwaul.

The Bear Killer threw his head back and sang with the child.

Startled, the baby stopped crying, looked with big-eyed surprise at this source of a harmonious counterpoint: a few more moments, he cried again, and again The Bear Killer gave a gentle, sustained “woo-woo-woo” – not a full-voiced howl, more like an expression of sympathy, or of understanding.

When the baby stopped to take a breath and recharge his systems, he looked up to see two more faces regarding him with solemn curiosity.

An infant is likely not able to recognize that three carnivorous Messengers of Death, three engines of bloody destruction, were regarding him from very close range.

An infant, however, can recognize a kindred soul, and so this particular infant, bare moments from having loudly voiced his general unhappiness with the universe at large, gave a gurgling laugh and reached up, batting its little pink fingers at what it didn’t quite recognize, but wanted to explore anyhow.

Cyclone lifted her head and looked at Thunder, and Thunder lifted his head and looked at Cyclone, and The Bear Killer gave a little pink face a happy lick: two Fanghorns chirped, a baby laughed, and a young mother smiled.

She might not know what a Fanghorn was, she certainly did not know what a Bear Killer was, but she knew what guardians were, and her maternal instinct told her that her child, in this moment, was probably safer than it had ever been.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MARNIE, IT WASN'T MY FAULT!

Michael threw his head back, took a quick, exasperated breath, then lowered his head and glared at his Big Sis.

In that moment, Michael did not care they were not on Earth.

He did not care that politics were involved.

He honestly did not care that Fanghorn canines absolutely ruined a child's coat, that the child had been hoist off the ground and transported at a hard-hooved trot, that there'd been screams, shouts, accusations.

"Marnie," Michael said with the sincerity of a Little Brother Who'd Just Been Wronged, "Thunder was doing as he'd seen The Bear Killer and Tank in training!"

Marnie Keller, Ambassador-at-Large for the thirteen-star-system Confederacy, Untangler of Diplomatic Difficulties and Political Misunderstandings, lowered her face into a gloved hand, shook her head and muttered, "I should never have gotten out of bed!"

She looked up at Michael.

"We can't just go around --"

Michael's stiff finger stabbed at a touch screen, and the holographic reply lit up.

 

A deputy in a bite suit advanced, bowlegged and awkward, swinging a switch, shouting.

Tank stood beside his handler, alert, black eyes target-locked on the subject.

"Hold," the handler said softly, gripping the quick release.

Tank held.

The waddling bite suit dropped the thin switch and pulled a rubber knife, grabbed for a child-sized dummy.

The deputy released the Malinois.

Tank needed no further command.

A black-masked, tan arrow shot across the intervening distance, seized the bite suit's arm: the momentum of 70 pounds of lean muscle and bone, running flat-out and clamping steel-trap jaws on the bite suit's padded arm, was enough to bring a braced, prepared, grown man off his feet.

The Malinois pulled, growling, tail swinging.

Not far away, two pale eyed children and three Fanghorn watched.

Thunder chirped and Cyclone echoed the chirp; Lightning's head was lowered, her eyes closed with pleasure as Michael used a coarse brush to curry around her jaw and around the base of her ears.

It wasn't until they'd left, not for a day and a night and a day again, that Michael realized how fast Fanghorn young can learn.

Paramedic training was not the only skill being exported to the Outer Worlds -- unofficially, without the knowledge or permission of governments or politicians.

The Sheriff had been approached by brother lawmen, on other planets, and agreed to help them start their own K9 officer programs.

Michael and Victoria were intimately familiar with K9 officers, their training, their capabilities: many's the time they would each lace on lightweight boots and take off at a run on mountain trails with a leashed Malinois or Shepherd or Staffy: working dogs take exercise, they have to burn off their energies, and children have these energies to spare: Michael and Victoria would travel a distance on foot and hide, and the variety of K9 partners would track them: Michael and Victoria would conceal certain compounds that were officially "Of Concern" -- they would hide them and hide them well, and they rejoiced when keen noses sniffed these out.

This training was not exclusively conducted on Earth.

Michael found out, entirely by accident, that both Thunder and Cyclone had scenting abilities that were --admittedly not as keen -- but pretty damned good, they learned that, like the Malinois, they were sight hunters, they already knew they were pursuit predators, with a love for running.

It was an honest misunderstanding when, at a demonstration before influential folk of politics and of business, that a genuine call came in: two children were lost -- Marnie later suspected this was a surreptitious, unofficial test, invented on the spur of the moment by a skeptic who didn't really believe these quadrupedal creatures could actually track someone.

A jacket was produced, and a hat: Malinois and Fanghorn muzzles both explored these, snuffing loudly at the olfactory exemplars.

Tank scented the air, as did Thunder: men drew back, for they'd seen Tank at speed, they'd seen those ivory fangs open and snap shut, hard, on a padded arm, they'd heard that deep snarling, utterly intimidating growl as the bite-suited quarry was downed, pulled steadily to prevent escape.

Tank and Thunder scented the ground, moving with purpose: Thunder's head came up, nostrils flared, then he surged forward, weaving through people and into the park behind.

Tank forked off to the left, toward a low building.

Tank came back, fairly strutting, with an apple-cheeked little girl running beside him, her happy laughter as bright as the sunshine that warmed the scene.

The scene as Thunder returned was not quite as ... pastoral.

A red-faced little boy kicked bare legs and swung indignant arms, his face red with loud-voiced protestations.

He was not happily accompanying the half-grown Fanghorn.

He was swinging from clamped-shut jaws.

Thunder's head was up, his ears were up, his tail was up, he was fairly strutting as he trotted back to the gathered assemblage: the Malinois and the Fanghorn both arrived at the same time, the little girl clapped her hands with delight, and the little boy was unceremoniously dropped about a foot as Thunder relinquished his prize.

The back of the little boy's jacket was fang-pierced and soaked with slobber, the six year old child was mad as hell that he'd been found out, but worse, that he'd been packed back like luggage!

 

Marnie sighed and shook her head.

"You don't understand, Michael," Marnie said quietly. "Thunder could have --"

"So could Tank have," Michael cut her off. "We trust Tank because he's trained. I trust Thunder because I've trained him. He learns fast, Marnie. He knows to be careful with children. He hasn't eaten one in a week."

Marnie turned, eyes wide and alarmed, until she saw her little brother's eyes.

Marnie was Ambassador, yes, but Marnie was also a mother, with a boy-child of her own, and Marnie was a Big Sister with multiple brothers.

"Michael," she sighed, "nobody realized Fanghorns have -- well, fangs -- not until Thunder brought that little boy back with big holes in his jacket."

"I'll replace the jacket," Michael interrupted.

"Nobody realized Fanghorns could scent. Nobody realized Fanghorns could scent-trail or find lost kids."

"Nobody asked me," Michael interrupted again. "I could have told 'em."

"Michael, you don't realize," Marnie said, exasperation edging her voice. "Not only are we opening up canines in law enforcement on who knows how many worlds, now I'm getting requests for police Fanghorns!"

Michael stopped, blinked, then frowned, concerned.

"This ain't good," he said quietly.

"Like it or not, Michael, you're right in the middle of it. You can grab hold of this situation and guide it, you can ride the tsunami and steer it, or it can crash and destroy."

Michael sat down slowly, the enormity of Marnie's words taking root -- fast! -- in his quick young imagination.

"This," he said softly, "is not what I'd planned on."

"You've established a good commerce in hymnals, in publishing, in general literature," Marnie said quietly, gliding over and sitting beside her suddenly deflated younger brother. "It's your choice whether you wish to guide Fanghorn propagation and training. If there's a market demand, there will be people willing to feed that market, legally or otherwise."

Michael swallowed hard, stared at the far wall, his mind working.

"Think about it," Marnie said quietly. "You are the current Interstellar Expert on Fanghorn behavior and psychology. Imagine back in Old Pale Eyes' time, if you were the one individual controlling the sales and training of horses --"

Marnie let the idea dangle.

Michael sat there, staring, mind busy: Marnie withdrew, left her younger brother to his thoughts, and she didn't see him again until that evening.

Michael was currying Cyclone, bent over a little: he had her off forehoof up, between his knees, he was scraping her unshod hoof, then lightly brushing out the fetlock before letting it back down.

Cyclone's chin was laid over Thunder's withers, her eyes closed.

Marnie was honestly surprised.

She never knew a Fanghorn could actually look contented.

Michael lowered her forehoof -- he hadn't seen Marnie yet -- he laid one arm over one Fanghorn neck, the other arm over the other Fanghorn neck: sandwiched between two warm, living, intelligent creatures, he sighed, hung his head.

"It wasn't my fault," he said miserably. "Honest, it wasn't my fault!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PASTURE BEDTIME

Michael slept between two Fanghorns, while another orbited him, restless, watchful.

Michael slept as do the young: mindless of the hard ground, uncaring of the thin pad between his sleeping bag and his father’s grassy pasture: neither Thunder nor Cyclone slept – they were picking up on Michael’s dream-state, and though neither made a sound, each cuddled in closer on either side of the sleeping bag.

Lightning was not so discreet.

She stopped periodically, shook her head, rumbled deep in her chest, predatory fangs gleaming in moonlight: when a solitary figure opened a gate and slipped through, she was instantly on alert, ready to charge, to guard, until the wind carried a familiar scent.

Michael’s eyes rolled beneath closed lids; his breath came more quickly as his deepest mind processed the day: his eyes snapped open, he took a quick, gasping breath, sat up suddenly, throwing the unzipped sleeping bag open.

Thunder and Cyclone’s heads were up, their ears perked: Michael heard their greeting-chirp, saw a silhouette: he blinked his eyes, his hand dropping to his rifle, then releasing.

Michael’s father squatted at the foot of the sleeping bag.

Michael heard the plastic sound of a cup being unscrewed from a thermos – he heard something gurgle – steam rose from something, still hot, and the barely moving breeze carried the scent of hot chocolate.

“I thought you might be restless,” Linn said quietly as Lightning hung her big head over his shoulder, curious nostrils working at the smell.

Michael sat, cross-legged, bent well forward, accepted the cup: he took a careful sip, savoring the rich flavor, sipped again.

“How’d you know, sir?” he asked quietly, for the night pressed down round about them, stars bright overhead, horses holding well back from the Fanghorns, almost invisible in the dark.

Linn did not answer.

He didn’t have to.

 

Michael rarely rode Lightning on Earth.

Michael even more rarely rode Lightning outside the protective screening fields that surrounded his father’s ranch.

He’d tossed caution to the winds, he’d ridden a distance away, until he saw something just a nickel’s worth out of the ordinary.

Michael heard the freight in the distance – the main line ran through here, some miles from Firelands – he honestly preferred the sound of The Lady Esther and steam whistles to Diesel power and air horns, but nobody bothered to consult him on how to run their railroads, and besides, it had been that way since his earliest memory.

What was not ordinary was the vehicle, pulled parallel to the coarse gravel ballast beside the grade crossing.

It was bright afternoon, the air was still and clear, Michael could see the distance without difficulty.

Lightning picked up on his increasing unease: she muttered, turned toward the figure as it did something at the open door of its car.

Lightning’s ears both swung back at Michael’s quiet, “Oh, no, no, no!” – he leaned forward and Lightning responded with a will – she surged forward, driving into her sudden, predatory gallop –

The train was close, now, too close –

Michael stood up in the stirrups, his hands flat against Lightning’s broad, hard-muscled neck, he heard someone screaming “DON’T DO IT, DON’T DO IT, DON’T DO IT!” – it wasn’t until he took a quick breath that he realized it was his voice screaming.

Michael’s eyes were wide, unblinking, he shoved his face into the wind, tears stripped out the corners of his eyes by the wind of their passing –

The man stood in the middle of the tracks, raised both arms, palms open to the Heavens above.

Michael heard his defiant scream, just before the freight hit him, just before his eternal soul was honestly blasted out of his body by the impact of a Diesel locomotive running better than seventy miles an hour and backed by a mile of freight behind.

Lightning threw herself sideways, skidding, dancing, fighting: she shook her head, her own steam-whistle anger a discordant counterpoint to air brakes and air horns.

 

Michael held the plastic cup of hot chocolate, stared at the dark blue sleeping bag: he sat cross legged on insulation and on flannel, Thunder cuddled protective and warm on his left, Cyclone just as close and just as watchful on his right.

Lightning paced slowly around them, finally stopping, folding her legs, bellying down behind him with her head laid over his shoulder.

“I couldn’t … I wasn’t … fast enough,” he said hollowly, and in the dim light, Linn knew his youngest son’s expression was the same thing he’d seen in his own mirror after terrible events, after too many terrible events, and his son’s words were the same ones he himself had spoken in such moments.

Michael looked up at his father.

“I tried,” he almost whispered.  “I honestly tried!”

Linn nodded slowly as Cyclone laid her head over on his cross-legged lap, as his hand found the soft fur behind her ear, as she closed her eyes contentedly and chirped, a sleepy little note of utter bliss.

“I hear the same thing from the Irish Brigade,” Linn said quietly, in that reassuring voice fathers use in such moments.  “They don’t get called until the fire is through the roof and nothing they could honestly have done, but they’ll say ‘We lost a house today’ or ‘We lost someone today’ – not their fault at all, but …”

Michael felt more than saw his father take a long breath, imagined his father’s T-square shoulders rising and falling slowly as he did.

“He shouted a name,” Michael finally said, his voice distant.

He was honestly not sure if he’d given this intelligence when he debriefed or not.

“He raised his arms and yelled “Here I come, Annie!”

Linn nodded.

“I kind of suspected.”

“Sir,” Michael asked, “who was Annie?”

“His wife,” Linn replied quietly. “She died a year ago today.”

“I see, sir.”

“We do our best, Michael, but sometimes things happen. In spite of our best efforts, in spite of having a fast mount” – Lightning muttered something and Michael drained the last of his hot chocolate – “sometimes we just can’t stop it.”

Father and son were quiet for long minutes.

Linn leaned forward, extending the thermos, and Michael accepted a refill.

“I diced up some Polish sausage with green peppers and onions. It’ll fry up for a good breakfast, if you’ve a mind.”

“It sounds good, sir.”

“Your Mama works tomorrow so I’ll be fixin’ breakfast.”

“Sounds good, sir.”

Linn spun the thermos a little, swirling up the settled-out chocolate:  “Not much left, you want it?”

“No thank you, sir, I’ve plenty.”

Linn tilted the thermos up, drank what was left, capped it: Michael handed him the empty cup, heard the plastic scrape as Linn replaced it on the chrome-ringed body.

“Sir?” Michael asked as his father rose.

Linn hesitated, turned to face his son squarely.

“Sir, why’d you come out?”

Linn was quiet for several long moments before he spoke in a quiet voice.

“Thought you might need a shot of somethin’ warm,” he finally said.

“Thank you, sir.”

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A TALL MAN'S BOOTS

The slap was loud, sharp, followed by the sound of a body hitting the street.

A woman shivered, gasped, her shocked-wide eyes seeing bright crimson drops appearing under her.

Her face -- half of it, at least -- was numb for several seconds.

In those several seconds, there was the sound of boot heels.

A man's boot heels.

No words were said, no warning given, no threats uttered: the woman tried to come up on one elbow, then dropped again, terrified, wishing she could crawl under the pavement and hide.

She heard sounds she'd hoped she'd never hear again, the sounds of men at war with one another.

There'd been three of them, one grabbed her, she pulled loose, she'd shouted "NO!" -- that's when the biggest of them backhanded her, hard.

She closed her eyes, afraid to move, afraid not to move.

More meaty sounds, grunts, the sound of a body falling -- hard -- another sound, like someone's head bouncing off the wooden wall.

Running feet, as if someone broke and ran from the fight, followed by a muted snarl, a man's scream, then more screaming, high-pitched, panicked, almost unintelligible: begging for help, begging to get a monster off him, and more snarling sounds.

Something landed in the street -- something limp, bloodied, eyes wide, staring, eyes that did not belong to a sane, man, a rational man -- it took her several moments to realize they did not belong to a conscious man.

A boot stopped, just ahead of her half-curled fingers. 

Its mate came up close alongside the first.

A shadow, a presence, a voice.

"They'll not trouble you again," the voice said -- deep, reassuring, comforting, then:

"Are you hurt, ma'am?"

She lifted her head -- timid, afraid, shivering, afraid it was a cruel trick, afraid a hand would sear through the air, would slap her again --

A pale eyed man in a black suit squatted, his head tilted a little: his coat was unbuttoned, his black Stetson was still on his head, and his knuckles showed traces of blood and of bruising.

People gathered, as they always do, perhaps drawn by an agonized man screaming while canine fangs pierced an arm, dragged him steadily, keeping him from rising, from resisting: a hand, warm and reassuring, did not swing to slap, but rather descended, feather-light, warm and reassuring, onto her shoulder:  " 'Scuse me," the man said courteously, then rose.

The boots disappeared.

Her face still stung, her nose dripped steadily, and she was afraid to move.

She heard voices, as from a distance; she heard a man whimper, a man's voice should never whimper like that, she thought, and then she saw the boots again, and her breath caught.

Something the size of a young bear paced alongside the boots, something with teeth long as daggers, something with rippling black lips and bristling fur that looked almost comically out of place -- the rest of the fur was almost long, almost curly, and was very, very, shining black, and its polished jet eyes never left a man being carried by his coat like a man would carry a piece of luggage.

The voice again, she thought, only this time the voice was not the quiet, reassuring tones that addressed her earlier.

"I'm gonna set you down," the voice said. "If you try gettin' up, I won't pull The Bear Killer off you this time. He hasn't et anybody for a week and I'll just let him make a meal of you."

A hand opened, the coat released, its wearer dropped to the pavement, curled up a little, whimpering.

She allowed strong hands to slip under her arms, she caught her breath as she was hoist quickly to her feet, then she gave a timid little sound as the strong hands that hoist her became strong arms under her, and she closed her eyes and tried to shrink as much as she could for fear that -- as much as she wanted to believe she was safe -- her defenses were shattered, she realized she was powerless to prevent anything from being done to her --

A whisper, like a father carrying a terrified child:

"You're safe now, shhh, you're safe, I've got you" -- then the voice changed, but when it spoke, it spoke gently: "Get the door for me," and she felt herself carried into cool shadow, she felt herself being turned a little, then carefully set into a chair.

A cloth -- cool, wet, the hand behind it gentle, careful, wiping her face --

"I must look a fright," she quavered, and only then did she dare open her eyes.

The cool, wet cloth was streaked a little with blood, the cloth was held by a hand: the hand came from an arm, the arm disappeared into a dress-sleeve, and the dress was worn by a pretty young woman with pale eyes.

She heard the boot heels again, that same measured, deliberate pace: a door opened, a door closed, men's muffled voices from without: the sharper accents that had to be the police -- they always sound like that, she thought -- gentle fingers touched her nose, the pretty young woman's gentle voice, almost a whisper -- "I don't think it's broken" -- and she felt the last of her reserves collapse.

She leaned forward into feminine arms and all the fear and the terror and black memories of having been beaten before, shattered the fragile dam she'd built.

A municipal officer and a Sheriff in a black suit stopped and looked at the closed door, then at one another, their faces hardening.

"Damn a man that'll make a woman cry," the constable muttered as he and the Sheriff shook hands, then the town cop climbed up onto the tailboard of the Black Maria: the horsedrawn rig clattered down-street, and a man with pale eyes watched it go.

Something big, black, curly-furred and content sat beside the tall lawman's leg.

The Sheriff did not have to bend any at all to caress The Bear Killer's ears.

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FLOWERS, AT WORK

There was the sound of the man door opening, light brightened the firehouse interior: footsteps, voices, a quiet laugh.

Shelly frowned at the passenger side of the squad.

She was particular about her rig: the inside was to her satisfaction, it was restocked, it was organized, it was clean!! -- she took exquisite pains to ensure her rig was IMMACULATE!! -- she took a long look down the side of the squad, bent a little, catching the long reflection in the waxed surface, knowing the public judged by appearances and she was damn well going to make sure HER rig looked GOOD --

The shout went up from the equipment bay, men's voices, several of them --

Loud --

Echoing, inside the hand-laid brick firehouse's interior --

MEEDDIIIICCCC!"

Shelly dropped the polishing rag, yanked the compartment door open, seized the orange jump box: there was the sound of a slamming door, of running feet, Shelly came around into the bay at a dead run, her face serious, eyes wide --

She skidded a little as she stopped --

Her jaw dropped open --

Shelly Keller, wife of Sheriff Linn Keller, firefighter-paramedic and feminine presence on A shift, set the jump box on the pumper's tailboard as she stared, as she looked from one grinning face to another, as the friendly local florist walked up to her with an opened box, handed her a bouquet of flowers nested in sparkly tissue paper, as the entire Irish Brigade laughed and applauded and shouted approving words she didn't hear.

The next morning, when B shift took over, Shelly found her husband waiting for her.

They walked out the same door the florist came in.

Husband and wife walked down the apron, holding hands; they crossed the street and went uphill, toward the Silver Jewel, their pace slow, unhurried.

"I got the flowers," Shelly finally said.

"I know."

She heard the smile in his words, a smile he was working hard not to show.

A few more steps; they waved at a passing pickup truck, the driver grinned and waved back.

Running feet from behind them; they drew back against the front of a building and two schoolboys pelted past them, books under one arm -- " 'Scuse meee!" -- they were racing, and Shelly felt Linn's hand tighten ever so slightly on hers.

She looked, and the smile he was trying so hard to hide, was flowing across his eyes and contaminating the rest of his face.

He gave up, he hugged his wife, he laughed.

They resumed their walk.

Once they were inside, once seated, Shelly waited impatiently while the hash slinger in the pink-and-white checked dress poured their coffee and took their order, then she gave Linn a knowing look.

"The flowers are lovely," she said quietly. "Thank you."

"I had Matt include a vase," the Sheriff said. "I told him otherwise that ornery bunch you work with would saw off the stems and arrange your posies in a chamberpot."

Shelly sighed dramatically.

"Knowing that ornery bunch," she agreed, "they would!"

She planted her elbows on the table, bridged her hands under her chin, regarded her husband thoughtfully.

"Why send 'em at work?"

Linn gave his wife a knowing look.

"Sending flowers to your home is good," he said, "but Uncle Will taught me it's better to send flowers where a woman can be seen, getting those flowers. He did that with Crystal. He said her face was just shinin' when she came home that day. Seems her co-workers sizzled and hissed like cats."

His voice was peevish and spiteful as he quoted his Uncle's account of what feminine observers said.

" 'Eew! I hate you! My husband never sends me flowers! Eew! I hate you!' -- he grinned as his voice returned to normal.

"He said Crystal just absolutely preened when she told him about it!"

Shelly looked up from her coffee, smiled a little as she did.

"The guys said you must've done something," she murmured, "that I was mad at you and what ever did you do to require flowers?"

Shelly's voice was light, teasing, then she stopped and she felt a chill layer over her like a refrigerated cloak.

Her husband was not smiling.

She saw his jaw come out a little.

"There is," he admitted slowly, "a reason."

He took a long breath, looked away, looked back, then reached across the table and took both her hands in his.

"I saw two men in the cemetery yesterday."

Shelly's eyes were wide, unblinking, she was trying hard to read her husband's face, trying hard to anticipate his words, the way a woman will when she just realized there is bad news in the wind.

"I hung back as they stood at a grave. 

"I watched as they very carefully opened a little container and carefully scattered dust over a man I knew.

"The older man opened a red-backed book and read from it, the two of them bowed their heads, I watched as they wiped their eyes and turned away and got in their car and left.

"Come to find out, they drove out from back East to keep a promise.

"The man I knew ... his daughter died, diabetic complications and then a post-op infection. They replaced a heart valve from inside, they went into the groin and up a great vessel and you'd know more about that than me."

Shelly nodded, listening closely.

"The older man laid a red rose and a yellow rose on the dust, and then they left."

Linn looked very seriously at the woman he'd loved since he was a very young man.

"That old man was just tore apart when he laid flowers on the dust that used to be someone he knew and loved, someone he'll see no more and someone --"  she felt his grip tighten, just a little, then relax -- "someone he'll never be able to hold her hands and ..."

Linn's voice ground to a halt and he bit his bottom lip again, looked down at the tablecloth, looked up at his wife.

"Darlin', Uncle Will said not to send flowers when he dies. He wants 'em while he's alive to smell 'em."

The hash slinger came sashaying toward them and Linn released her hands, leaned back as the teen-age girl set the big, awkward-looking tray on an adjacent table, brought their piled-full plates over, set them down.

Linn waited until the skirt-swinging waitress retreated before looking very directly at his wife.

 

"I came too close to you dyin' twice now," he said quietly. "I don't ever want to take you for granted, and I don't want to be that old man, layin' flowers on what used to be someone he loved."

He grinned, reached for the salt and pepper.

"I'd rather you got flowers where the guys can torment you about it!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DISGUSTING, SHE SAID!

 

Retired Chief of Police Will Keller absolutely scowled his gaze around the baseboard like he would direct a searchlight.

The rug was clean and in place, he'd wadded up plastic cling wrap and tossed under it in a few places so it would not slip.

The couch was clean, the square backrest cushions set up on end like diamonds, laid against either arm of the couch.

He turned and looked at the kitchen.

Precise, rigid, minimal: the only sign of disorder was the wrinkling of the trash can liner.

Will frowned at it, as if his expression alone could straighten its irregular stress convolutions.

The plastic trash can liner was not impressed.

Will frowned his way into the kitchen, looked at the clock.

He put a fresh filter in the basket, added coffee, added water to the reservoir, set the pot under the basket and pressed the red rocker switch.

He didn't set out a box of doughnuts.

No, that health nurse would be here shortly -- sent by the insurance company, she came every year to make sure he was walkie talkie, sane, rational, and not likely to be a risk that would cause the insurance to spend money on him.

She should be here between three and five, he thought.

His quick eye caught movement through one of the three diagonal panes in his front door.

He frowned.

She's too early, he thought.

Retired Chief of Police Will Keller routinely wore a belt gun around the house.

He wasn't wearing one as he went to the door -- not all nurses understood when they saw guns in the house -- but his off hand slipped into a trouser pocket and gripped the .38 hideout he'd carried all those years as a lawman.

He never went to the door unarmed, nor did he have a normal front door: no, his was solid wood: anyone shooting through it would need something potent indeed to penetrate, and the door frame was reinforced against a kicking attack.

Will's hand was firm around the handle of his J-frame as he took a quick look through the inch-thick Lexan window: he did not hesitate to unlock the door, to draw it open.

Something female with pale eyes and a white winged cap laughed her way through the door, seized her Uncle in a delighted hug: Will laughed and hugged his niece as she kissed his cheek, as she spun free, gripping his hand:  "How's for coffee? I'm dying!" -- she released his hand, skipped into the kitchen like a happy little girl.

Will shook his head and chuckled a little as he shut and locked the door.

"You the insurance nurse?" Will called as Angela poured fresh, steaming coffee into the biggest mug in her Uncle's cupboard -- the one that said FAVORITE UNCLE in what looked like a childish scrawl, which it was.

Angela took a ceramics class in grade school and poured, trimmed, fired, decorated and glazed a genuinely sizable mug, deliberately making FAVORITE UNCLE look ... well, childish.

The mug was two decades old and more, and so far, Angela was the only one who really used it.

Angela stopped, frowned, turned to face her Uncle: she considered for a moment, shook her head, went to the fridge and pulled out the Genuine Antique Milk Pitcher, a half gallon plastic jug of Extract of Bovine, and added a splash to her hefty mug.

She set the jug back on the shelf, capped it, shut the door, gave her Uncle her Very Best Innocent Look, blinked.

"Insurance?" she echoed, then she took a noisy, inelegant, un-ladylike slurp of coffee, swallowed, savored with her eyes closed, and hummed with pleasure.

Will shook his head and muttered his way into the kitchen, opened the cupboard door, stopped.

There was quick rat-tat, tat on the door -- light, feminine knuckles, he judged.

"I'll get it," Angela called like a little girl, skipping toward the front door like a kindergartener instead of a veteran nurse apparently just off shift, or maybe going to work.

Will's hand slid into his pocket and he faded left, watchful, suspicious.

He'd been shot at before.

He didn't expect Angela to squeal like a schoolgirl, to seize the visitor and jump up and down, and he didn't expect the visitor to grip Angela's elbows and squeal and jump up and down.

Will shook his head, turned, reached up and pulled down two coffee mugs.

Coffee gurgled into glazed ceramic.

Will set two steaming mugs of fresh, hot coffee on the kitchen table -- one at his place, one in front of one chair, he moved Angela's mug to the chair she favored -- and he politely ignored the happy cascade of feminine vocabulary as two women talked, fast and delighted, both talking at the same time and both apparently comfortable with the arrangement.

Will opened the fridge back up and pulled out a bowl of fruit he'd prepared earlier, on the theory that a visiting nurse would want to see he was eating healthy, and besides, with two ladies present, it would look pretty in the middle of the table.

His late wife Crystal favored that particular bowl for holding fruit --

Will stopped, remembering, then blinked: he closed the refrigerator door slowly, turned, set the bowl carefully on the table: he turned, opened a drawer, pulled out a square potholder, lifted the bowl, set it on the potholder.

Crystal gave him hell one time for putting a cold bowl directly on the tabletop.

She'd been dead a lot of  years and he still took pains not to put condensation rings on the table.

Will sipped coffee and watched with amusement as what must have been two well acquainted nurses talked nonstop, delight in their voices, animation in their gestures: he pulled a few grapes loose, ate them, leaned back in his chair and waited.

The visit was more like a happy reunion: when the two ladies finally wound down enough to get down to business, the questions for Will were actually very few: a quick listen to his lungs -- the visiting nurse exclaimed happily "You have beautiful lungs!" and Will growled something to the effect that his lungs were beautiful because his face wasn't; a quick blood pressure, Angela recited her Uncle's height, weight, list of medications and allergies -- "He is distinctly allergic to falling from ladders, small paychecks and large bills," she said, which set the ladies laughing again, and after the visiting nurse left, all smiles and sunshine, Will considered the closed door and finally turned to his pretty young niece.

"Darlin'," he rumbled, "what was all that?"

"Oh, that," Angela said with an exaggerated, limp-wristed wave: "I told her you are so disgustingly healthy, and after that, what is there to say?"

Will frowned and tried to harrumph skeptically, and when that didn't work, he took another sip of coffee.

"Now Uncle Will," Angela scolded gently, swiping her skirt under her and sitting again, "Elizabeth and I went through nursing school together, we hadn't seen one another in just forever, and besides" -- she tilted her head and gave him a smile that could melt the heart of a marble statue -- "how else could I get rid of her so I can spend time with my favorite uncle?"

Will gave Angela a knowing look.

"Even if my health is disgusting and I have pretty lungs?" he grinned.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

APPLIED GYMNASTICS

Ambassador Marnie Keller believed in balance in her life.

Ambassador Marnie Keller laced on a pair of soft, light, flexible shoes, took a running jump, soared onto the long, polished, laminated wood beam: she stopped, crossed her ankles, then spun: she bent, one foot flat on the beam, her other leg straight out behind her, suede-slippered foot pointed, arms out to her sides, the very image of feminine grace and beauty.

She straightened, her moves incorporating both those of a gymnast, and a ballerina: schoolgirls stopped and stared in awe as their beloved Madam Ambassador flowed, danced, tiptoed, twirled and cartwheeled the length of the smooth, varnished beam: she came to the end, hesitated, frowned, crossed her arms, tapping a thoughtful finger against her cheekbone before gathering herself, launching into space, tucking and reverse-somersaulting, landing flat on her feet in a deep crouch, arms straight out.

Marnie stood, came up on her toes, one arm out and down, the other curved overhead, again a ballerina's pose, then she laughed, clapped her hands, skipped over to the girls in pastel tights and slippers: as Marnie knelt, young femininity gathered around her, chattering, hugging, everyone talking at once, a flock of pink and lavender chicks clustered around a laughing mother hen.

A quiet set of eyes watched from the far corner: dark eyes they were, in a man's face: the feeling in his breast was almost that of a schoolboy, suddenly short of breath at beholding what he knew would be absolutely the love of his life.

Dr. John Greenlees read the famous Firelands Journals.

He'd read the passage where Old Pale Eyes confided to paper what he never, ever confided to a living soul with the spoken word.

Now he understood what that old lawman with the iron grey mustache meant by ripping the living heart from his breast and laying it, still beating, at her feet.

Marnie deferred happily to the gymnastics coaches.

It was at their invitation, that she appeared; it was at her request, that they relinquished the balance beam for her use; it was to her credit, that when the young gymnasts asked Marnie to teach them, that she looked at the coaches and suggested gymnastics was a process, and baseline skills had to be perfected before subsequent skills could be added.

"But," she said softly, "everything you are, adds to what you do" -- she pointed at the beam -- "there!"

Marnie came up quickly, raised her arms and pirouetted, lowered her arms: Dr. John marveled as she transformed from kneeling and shining-faced, both arms full of adoring young, to a towering, graceful swan, swimming among a clutch of chicks.

"Now it doesn't always work out well," Marnie laughed, raising a teaching finger and smiling.

 

Marnie was still a girl at home.

Marnie was coming up the sidewalk from the bank, headed generally toward the Silver Jewel.

Marnie was not yet in high school.

Marnie was, however, representative of a significant sum, gained through careful investment.

She'd been reviewing her investments with Beatrice, the astute soul who ran the bank and ran it well: her sound advice doubled Marnie's profits, twice now, and Marnie thanked the warm, grandmotherly soul in a quiet and serious voice as she considered a rather healthy bottom line.

Marnie usually wore her trademark red cowboy boots.

Today she wore saddle shoes, with their softer, more rubbery soles.

When she was confronted by a jealous classmate, Marnie twisted away from a clawing grab at the schoolbooks she carried: Marnie was also a dancer, and a good one, she was a horsewoman, with horse-toned muscles from the collar bones down: between both well-practiced skills, her evasive twist became a side-snap-kick, she folded her tormenter with a belly full of hard-driven foot.

Two pickup trucks were pulled, nose-in, toward the horse trough, almost touching: Marnie took a running jump, came up on the hitch rail, skipped easily down its length, jumped lightly to the ground, and got some distance.

Her Daddy saw to her early and continued training in various less-than-gentle disciplines on how to Pacify Thy Neighbor, whether such pacification was desired, or not: Marnie was both fast, good, and quite effective:  she also knew further hostilities would be less understood than a simple kick-and-run.

Her tormentors would have to climb the steps to the boardwalk and engage in a running pursuit, or run around the back of the parked vehicles.

If her tormentors were boys, Marnie would have a concern for a pack pursuit; as they were girls, and folding the ringleader fast and effectively, would in all likelihood stop them from further chase, Marnie slipped into the first alley and disappeared.

She considered, as she changed from her schoolgirl dress and saddle shoes, into loose jeans with a diamond panel sewn into the crotch, to allow a full-extension kick without denim binding her style, that her beloved red cowboy boots would have been less useful when running the length of the hitch rail, that her cheerleading saddles were more flexible and more grippy than leather boot soles.

She smiled grimly as she changed clothes.

Her tormenters opportunistically sought her out, and their ringleader wanted to cause her harm.

Marnie knew where to find them: she'd identified them as potential trouble, she'd studied each of them individually, she knew their habits.

 

Marnie skipped across the gym floor to her husband, red-faced and laughing: children waved and shouted, and Marnie turned and waved, took her husband's arm, and made her escape into the cool outer hallway.

Marnie's red cowboy boots were still in her carpet bag, she still wore her soft gymnastic shoes, and she was almost skipping like a happy schoolgirl.

"Dearest," Dr. John murmured as they emerged into sunlight, as their driver opened the door of their diplomatic brougham, "you were gorgeous!"

Marnie threw her head back and laughed, she spun like a dancer, out to arm's length, spun back into his arms, kissed him quickly, lightly, then bent backwards -- his arm was around the small of her back, her arm was up and curved -- she laughed, straightened.

"At least," she said, giving her husband a look that promised more to come, "I didn't have to run the length of a hitch rail and jump over the end of the horse trough!"

Dr. John Greenlees, and a uniformed Confederate driver, both blinked, looked at Marnie, looked at one another, and both men had the distinct feeling that whatever Marnie was referring to, just whistled over their heads and was gone.

 

Edited May 31 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DIGGER, YOU DON'T LOOK SO GOOD

Esther Keller was a woman of culture and of commerce.

Esther Keller was a mother, a wife, a woman well known about Firelands as cultured, genteel, unfailingly courteous: like most women of moment, she was also considerably deeper than those qualities which met the common eye, and she was exercising one of those qualities as she stood in her front parlor.

Esther Keller, wife of that pale eyed old lawman with the iron grey mustache -- Esther Keller, genteel businesswoman and cheerful instigator of the Ladies' Tea Society -- Esther Keller, in a tailored gown and matching gloves, with a pleasant and gentle smile on her face, raised a pistol and fired three rapid shots into a man's belly.

The day started ordinarily enough, though when her trip on the steam train was interrupted by a boulder that decided it was tired of living near the mountain's summit and set off to see what life was like in the valley below, a boulder that hit another and split, and consequently blasted through the only set of vacant seats in the passenger car -- not to mention both port and starboard walls of said passenger car -- well, perhaps this woman of the antebellum South might have harkened to superstitions of an earlier era, or perhaps those from her husband's Appalachian upbringing: signs and portents are not at all unknown to hillfolk, after all.

The passenger car was immediately regarded by its inhabitants as either supremely lucky, because not a single soul sustained the least little injury from the experience, or the passenger car was supremely unlucky, because a spalled-off boulder seared through the walls like a tea-saucer thrown edge-on by a petulant giant's tantrum-child: however it was, Esther opened her private car to all who sought refuge, and soon humanity's throng populated the car rather intimately.

One fellow insisted that his luck was suddenly immensely good, that he would challenge all comers to a game of poker: Esther stood, declared she'd play him, and produced a stack of gold coin.

Wagers were laid, cards shuffled and dealt: one card, another, a bet made, countered: coins jingled into the space between the players -- a young fortune grew, flowed to one side, then diminished, flowed to the other: finally, when the available lagniappe was piled on Esther's side of the desk, the gambler -- still believing he was riding a streak -- bet the last item of value, a particularly handsome watch.

Esther did not match his bet with coin: rather, she unpinned the dainty, jewel-cased watch from her bosom, laid it beside his.

Cards were laid; men leaned forward: there were groans of sympathy, for Esther's hand was considerably better than his.

Esther picked up his watch, pressed the stem, smiled gently: the gambler rose as well and bowed, and Esther reached for his hand, pressed the watch into it.

"I have never played such a skilled opponent," she murmured. "It would be my honor if you would accept a gift from one who appreciates a good game."

The gambler didn't make a great fortune that day, but when he and his fellow travelers disembarked from the private car -- as he and his fellows, as the hangers-on at the depot stood and solemnly regarded the splintered hole through both walls of the passenger car -- he had his watch back, he had his funds back, and he had the feeling that maybe luck wasn't measured in sudden wealth.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller's return to his house was considerably earlier in the day than was usual.

It was also at a significantly faster velocity that was usual.

This did not concern his golden stallion, for Rey del Sol was a runnin' fool, and no two ways about it: Linn drew the stallion up short -- unexpectedly so -- the big Palomino reared, shaking his head, unhappy, muttering, though whether at their finding a dying man at the foot of his porch steps, or because of the abrupt stop when the mount wished to continue running, is not entirely certain.

What is certain, is that a blood trail started on his front porch, and ended where a man lay on his back, a man whose color was genuinely ghastly, a man who was bleeding steadily from three small holes, just south of his belt buckle.

Esther Keller stepped out onto the front porch, frowning at blood on the painted surface, her expression that of an annoyed housewife considering the best way to get that stain off her pristine porch planks.

"My dear," Linn said, his voice hardening, "are you ... what did he do to you?"

Esther saw her husband's eyes go pale, saw the skin start tightening over his face.

"I was followed home," Esther said quietly, "by a footpad who demanded my traveling funds and my watch."

Her gloved hand raised and she pressed dainty fingers to the watch, a gift from her husband.

"As I wished to surrender neither my virtue nor my worldly goods, I presented an argument to the contrary."

The Sheriff went slowly to one knee, turned his head a little, frowned as he looked into a set of eyes from which the light was only just departing.

No use to ask who he's with, he thought, then looked at his wife.

"Ever see him before?"

"He was a passenger on the train," Esther replied. "I suppose he believed I looked ... prosperous."

The Sheriff stood.

"He'll prosper the worms now," the Sheriff muttered, then extended a hand and kissed at his palomino.

He mounted, looked very directly at his wife.

"I'll get Digger and the dead wagon so he doesn't stink the place up any more."

 

Digger gave the Sheriff what few effects the dead man had.

"I reckon Esther will have the maid scrub the blood off the porch," the Sheriff said. "I suppose I can just throw dirt over the blood outside."

Digger loosed the dead man's drawers, exposed three small holes in a location which gave both men discomfort to look at.

Digger looked back up at the Sheriff and hesitated.

"Digger," the lawman said, "you don't look so good."

Digger's eyes went to the lid of the rough box.

He and the Sheriff set it in place and screwed it down.

Digger would plant it in Potter's Field, at the county's expense, same as always, but for now he just wanted to get the lid on, to block the sight of where the woman shot an intruder and genuinely changed his entire attitude.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

  I DON'T WANT A SISTER, SIR!

 

Jacob Keller, all four foot nothing of preschool masculinity, stood very still as he watched his father kneel at a grave.

He watched as his long tall Pa reached a hand out, slowly, laid it atop the rough edge of a rectangular slab of polished-front quartz.

He'd helped his Pa rake and seed the ground to try and coax grass to grow after a late frost.

The stone was no wider than a normal monument, the grave no broader, but Jacob knew two small bodies slept under the sod, their names sandblasted into its mirror polished face.

Same date of birth, same date of death, two names:

Emil on the left, Gottleib on the right, and beneath, the family name, Keller.

When Jacob's long tall Pa said "Let's take a ride," Jacob did not hesitate.

He scampered across the barn, grabbed an ancient wooden crate that originally held bottled sarsaparilla or sody pop or something, dragged it noisily across concrete to the passenger side of that faded orange 1968 Dodge Power Wagon his Pa called the "Lemon Dog," climbed in the passenger side and cheerfully slammed the door.

Jacob knew his Pa had something on his mind, and he had an idea what it might be.

They putty-putted up Graveyard Hill, Linn not saying a word, and Jacob wondering why his Pa wasn't muttering darkly about that gutless wonder of a V8 engine the way he usually did, and this told Jacob that his general feeling of unease just might be justified.

It wasn't until Linn stood and walked away from the grave, not until he leaned casually against the bed of the truck, that his bottom jaw slid out and he frowned at the far horizon and then nodded a little, as if he'd come to a decision.

"Jacob."

"Yes, sir?"

"How would you like a sister?"

Linn suspected Jacob knew something, though he didn't know quite what: his son's response confirmed his suspicion.

"Permission to speak freely, sir," Jacob said cautiously.

Coming from a four year old, the formal phrase was almost funny, but Linn did not so much as smile.

He's heard me say that, Linn thought, making a mental note to be cautious in future when young ears could hear.

"Granted."

"Sir, I don't want a sister. I want Marnie."

Linn blinked, surprised, then nodded.

"You like Marnie." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes, sir. She's scared and The Bear Killer likes her and I showed her where the barn cat had kittens and that mean ol' calico spatted at her an' we went up in the mow and looked in a bird nest and saw them little bitty birds an' she said it was nice here an' it smelled good."

His words came out all in a rush, piling up on one another, the way an excited little boy's words will.

Linn leaned back a little and considered this.

"Tell you what, Jacob," he said finally. "Since you've put some work into showing her stuff ... why don't I see if we can't have Marnie instead of just a sister."

Jacob nodded firmly, then grinned. "Yes, sir!"

Linn rose, opened the passenger door of the Lemon Dog, picked up his long-legged, denim-covered, four year old son and swung him into the cab.

He stopped, looked very directly at Jacob, and said solemnly, "This calls for a banana split!"

 

When Linn and Jacob backed the Lemon Dog into the barn -- Jacob behind the truck, solemnly and confidently ground-guiding his Pa back, seeing his father watching him in that big West Coast mirror -- when he raised and crossed his forearms overhead and his Pa stopped and shut off the engine, Jacob scampered forward and hauled the sliding door shut and latched it, ran back to the cab of the truck, reached up to accept the steaming, fragrant, flat, white-cardboard-boxes his Pa handed down.

Linn handed off the pizzas, closed the truck's door quietly, firmly.

"Jacob."

"Yes, sir?"

"Do you remember what it was like, having big brothers?"

Jacob stopped, and Linn stopped with him.

Steam floated up from the vents in the boxes as silence draped itself over Jacob like a heavy cloak.

"Yes, sir," he said, his voice suddenly younger, suddenly vulnerable.

"Jacob, your Mama is going to have a baby. Your Grandma said she will have a boy-child. Do you reckon you can be a big brother?"

Jacob lifted his four year old chin, gave his father as much of a determined look as a little boy can manage when holding supper, hot and fragrant, in both hands.

"Yes, sir," he said. "As long as I can have Marnie instead of a sister."

Father and son walked together across the clean-swept cement floor.

"Jacob," Linn said quietly, "I think we can arrange that."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WRITTEN PRE-PLANS

Sheriff Jacob Keller stood shoulder to shoulder with Sheriff Linn Keller.

Both men were tall, with the muscled shoulders and lean waists of their bloodline, both wore tailored black suits and polished boots.

Both wore brushed black felt Stetsons and an amused expression.

Children -- very young children -- ran with young colts, barely weaned: bright eyes and happy laughter, tails and manes and quiet hoofbeats: multiple Bear Killers ran with them, most were half grown or less, the biggest was full grown, the size of a young bear, pure white, with black eyes and shining-wet black nose.

Older children marveled at mares and stallions, two of the oldest brushed out manes and fetlocks and fearlessly patted and caressed hind quarters before walking behind to carefully brush out long, flowing tails.

Of all the sounds either Sheriff loved, the sound of happy children was crowding the top of their personal lists.

There were other children, drawn back a little, children of an unnatural slenderness, an unnatural height for their few years: these, too, had horses, gentler ones that somehow knew these Martian natives -- though descended of Earth stock -- were fragile, and must be treated with care: these children tired easily, as Earth gravity was considerably heavier than what they were used to; they rested often, but their formerly pale faces were flushed, their cheeks pink with delight and with exertion, and their laughter, too, could be heard, their delight, shared.

All the children, truth be told, were Martian.

Those nearer, those raised in Earth-and-a-quarter gravity, moved easily, moved powerfully.

Their musculature, their bone structure, stressed for a greater pull than they were experiencing here: they kept a careful separation from their more delicate fellows, for they'd seen back home the consequence of carelessness, how easily injury and fracture could occur.

"Jacob," Linn said quietly, "upon my demise, do you want Keller Mountain?"

Sheriff Jacob Keller's forearms were laid over a saddle blanket, the blanket draped over the top rail of the fence, and his polished boot was up on the bottom rail.

Had his weight not been well supported, he might have sagged.

Jacob blinked, but he did not hesitate.

"Yes, sir," he said quietly.

"You've experience enough to take over as Sheriff here."

"How soon should I plan on returning, sir?"

His father was quiet for several long moments.

"Jacob, a buddy of mine was fire chief back East. He said the State Fire Marshal's office had the bright idea of requiring every volunteer department to have a written pre-plan for fighting any fire in any structure in their district, so if no command officer showed up when the whistle blew, all they need do was get into the file, pull that file jacket and fight the fire one-two-three by the numbers."

Jacob frowned a little: he knew bureaucracy, and he knew what he was hearing, was a bottom polishing bureaucrat's attempt at justifying his job.

"Your point, sir?"

Linn's eyes tightened a little at the corners, the way he did when he approved of an incisive answer.

"He said he had written pre-plans for every last building in his fire district, save only one, and guess which one burnt during his time in office."

"Ahh-huhhh," Jacob said quietly.

"The moral of the story."

Jacob waited.

"If I plan for it, it'll never happen. My buddy had written pre-plans on file for black helicopters air-dropping radioactive zombie fleas, insurrectionist saboteurs scuba diving the abandoned, flooded coal mines underlying his jurisdiction, tunneling up under the big propane tank there in his district and setting shaped charges against its bottom to create a BLEVE and incinerate the township."

Jacob waited.

"He said because he had all those pre-plans on file, nothing he planned for ever happened."

Linn turned his head, looked at his oldest son.

"This way -- planning on what happens when I die -- I'll live forever!"

Father and son looked at one another, each seeing the quiet smile in the other's eyes, then they looked out over the field, at children and colts and mares and stallions and galumphing Bear Killers and laughter and sunshine.

"Yes, sir," Jacob replied quietly, and Linn could hear the smile in his son's voice.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IN MATTERS OF STYLE

Jacob Keller was thirteen years old.

Jacob Keller was lean by nature, made moreso by ranching and horses and happily running the mountains with The Bear Killer and whichever of the Sheriff's K9 officers were available.

Jacob Keller had the stamina, the endurance, of a child born to the high altitudes, one who exerted himself in thin air: he had the trim waist that comes of being an age-appropriate appetite on two hollow legs, to quote his long tall Pa.

Jacob Keller was troubled when his Mama complained it was hard to find jeans to fit him, to find jeans with a waist significantly smaller than the inseam.

He was even more troubled when his Mama spoke of his having hit a growth spurt -- right after he'd gotten brand new jeans -- Jacob honestly didn't notice, he lived in boots, like his Pa, and if the denim tended to ride up the boot top to a greater degree, he honestly didn't care.

His sister Marnie had a disturbing habit of silence, of watchfulness, and so when she noticed Jacob's discomfiture at his Mama's comments, Marnie pulled him aside.

One hand cupped confidentially around his ear, her lips close to his earlobe, her warm breath puffing the fine hairs of his external auditory pinna, she proposed an idea that struck Jacob as remarkably sensible.

Marnie studied her pale eyed Gammaw's methods.

Marnie practiced her pale eyed Gammaw's crafts.

When Jacob went to his seventh grade classes the next day, his shirt had red bandanna material very neatly, very precisely, sewn over the flaps of his shirt pockets, and the cuffs of his brand new blue jeans had a broad margin of red bandanna material extending their length.

Jacob's red pants cuffs, on the first day, garnered the expected number of jeering comments.

Marnie's blue-denim school dress, with its red-bandanna collar overlay and a broad band about its hem, received almost no catty comments, because ... well, she was a girl, and girls do things like that, just like the previous  year's vogue of bib overalls with ornate embroidery of the bib.

On the second day, there were fewer comments about Jacob's red bandanna trim.

On the third day, here and there, red bandanna trouser cuffs were seen.

By month's end, the fad was widespread: red bandanna cuffs, as far as the eye could see.

Marnie and Jacob conferred, and consulted, they held a powwow and a palaver and a council of war.

The red bandanna material was carefully thread-snipped, removed: in its place, blue bandanna material.

As Jacob described it later, "BAAA,  and the sheep fell right in line!"

Within a week, blue bandanna trim, as far as the eye could see.

Marnie and Jacob consulted, and realized they had something here.

They waited until end of the month.

Curtain fringe appeared, even on Jacob's shirt pocket flaps; curtain fringe trouser cuffs, draping his mirror polished boots.

"BAAA, and the sheep fell right in line!"

Jacob Keller spoke of this, on another planet, when he and a group of young fathers were discussing family and offspring and customs and fads, and Jacob told his story with a grin and a laugh.

"By the end of that third month," he said, "it was the end of the school year, so that was the end of our Grand Experiment. I have no idea how far we could have taken it, but we were willing to try!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

AND SO THEY LEARNED

Marnie's young face was serious as she listened to her Uncle Will.

She picked up the safety glasses, slid them on her young face.

She turned her denim jacket around, put it on backwards.

She picked up a pair of leather gloves her New Daddy gave her, worked her hands into them -- they were a little big, but she'd make them work -- and she tilted her head and frowned a little as she studied her Uncle Will's method.

He reached down and gave the gasoline furnace a few more pumps -- "to keep the pressure up," he explained, "you can tell by the sound if it's running low" -- he dropped in a chunk of paraffin the size of Marnie's thumbnail, stirred it, ignited it with a match: she watched without question or comment as he stirred the lead, skimmed the dross, tapped the skimming ladle off in a coffee can a third full of lead waste.

It was chilly enough the furnace felt good, radiating against Marnie's front.

Uncle Will cast his bullets in what amounted to a topless, doorless shed, enough to break the wind, not enough to trap lead vapors.

Marnie watched as he plied ladle and bullet mold, as he carefully tapped the sprue plate and returned sprue to the pot, as he opened the aluminum mold and dropped the shining-silvery bullet into his heavily-gloved palm, as he carefully dropped the bullet into a bucket of water, set far enough from production as to keep from splashing the least little droplet into the lead pot.

Marnie watched, Marnie listened closely: Uncle Will taught, not so much with words, as with example: when he spoke, there was purpose, there was reason.

Uncle Will quietly explained how he held the lead ladle a few moments to let the weight of melted lead to fill the mold out completely.

He spoke to excess heat, and not enough heat.

When Marnie's young brows puzzled together when he dropped the searing-hot bullet into water, he explained that it surface hardens the bullet and helps prevent leading the gunbarrel when shot.

Marnie did not cast any bullets on the first day.

Marnie tried a few on her second day with Uncle Will.

On the third day, she cast up twenty bullets.

On the fourth day, fifty.

On the fifth day, her Uncle brought out a two cavity mold, and he and Marnie cast up half a thousand bullets between the two of them.

Marnie was not yet in grade school when Uncle Will taught her numbers, and how numbers were used: he taught her grains' weight, showed her how to use the balance beam powder scales, impressed the need for absolute precision.

Uncle Will taught her about burn rates and pressure curves, as if she were adult and cognizant of equations and applied chemistry.

Marnie whether because of, or in spite of, the terrors and survival lessons branded into her soul in her youngest years, was a fast learner: she learned as if her very life depended on her ability to absorb, process and utilize new information.

Most children of her age will learn letters and numbers from a television screen; some may learn from newspapers, Scripture, and patient parents.

Marnie learned to make sense of the printed word thanks to the patience of a pale eyed Uncle and his reloading books.

Years later, after Marnie birthed another pair of children, she considered how best to teach her young things that would be useful and necessary, and she remembered her Uncle Will, how he taught her the need for fine motor skills to cast bullets, the mathematical skills to set up a powder scale, a powder measure, how to read a micrometer, she remembered the smile in his voice when he first sat her on his lap and had her look in a cartridge case -- yes, there's powder, looks like the right powder level -- young fingers slipped the rim of the charged case into the shellholder and she picked up a fragrantly lubricated bullet.

Marnie remembered the very first time she set a bullet on the flared mouth of a .38 Special case.

She remembered reaching up and gripping the handle of the loading press.

She remembered bringing the handle down, carefully, steadily, feeling the bullet as it entered the case, as the handle bottomed out, as she lifted the handle and almost snatched a loaded round from the shellholder.

Marnie remembered the sense of wonder as she stared at the finished product.

She'd scrounged brass at the range, she'd dumped brass in her Uncle's tumbler and turned it on and set the timer, she'd come back the next day and, under her Uncle's watchful eye, she'd dumped the contents into a wire basket, she'd twisted and shaken the contents to get rid of abrasive tumbler medium.

She'd inspected the cases, lubed them lightly, she'd resized and deprimed, she'd reprimed, she'd gone over the loading tables with her Uncle.

He taught her which powders work better for a long barrel and which for a short, which powders are prone to flash and which have the least muzzle flash.

Through it all, Uncle Will made it interesting!

Marnie realized it has to be interesting, otherwise it'll not be absorbed as well, if at all.

Martian children began their lessons far younger than children on Earth.

Marnie saw to it that Martian children saw schoolwork being given practical application in the Colony's daily living: whether it was measurements (weights, length-height-width, volume of a shaft, feet per second of air moving, illustrated with a laser grid moving at air velocity, illustrating cubic meters per second) and she'd gone so far as to set up a gasoline fired pressure furnace in order to melt lead.

Those students who were so inclined, worked one on one with their beloved Sheriff Marnie and with Sheriff Jacob, and they learned to cast shining-silver bullets, they learned about alloys and associated this with alloying steel for particular purposes: they cast, they weighed, they measured, they handloaded, and one-on-one with one of their Sheriffs, they took ammunition they'd fabricated -- from scrounged brass cases through tumbling, inspection, resize/deprime, reprime, charge; they took bullets they'd cast, lubed, sized, they loaded bullets that I made! into charged cases, they got to drop these live rounds into a blued-steel cylinder.

Martian children, not just young of their Sheriffs, learned early in their young lives, actual application of schoolwork-grade lessons.

They learned these things willingly, for that most engaging reason a child of any age can have.

They learned, because this was fun!

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A QUESTION NOT CONSIDERED

A railroader sat hunched over a sizable bowl of what looked like soup beans and cornbread.

It smelled of onions and ham meat and a promise of warmth and comfort.

The railroader did not waste any time doing it justice.

His expression was not welcoming -- he looked like a man troubled -- he sat alone, he sat the way a man will when he wishes to be left alone, and he was.

The man shoveled the full bowl into his growlin' gut.

He hadn't intended to get aught else, but when Daisy herself came out and pulled away the empty bowl, and set a broad slice of fresh baked pie in front of the man, she handed him a fork and said tartly, "See if that's fit t' eat," before she swung around and scowled her way back to her demesne.

 A black suit with a man inside of it settled into the chair opposite his.

The man had a slice of pie on a plate and a fork in the other hand.

The railroader glared at the Parson.

The Parson didn't quite glare, but he did not smile.

Both men cut into their pie.

The Silver Jewel was as it always was: layered with tobacco smoke and talk, laughter, the smell of beer, the rumble of a mug being slid the length of the bar.

Someone tried playing a tune at the piano, but gave it up for a bad job: the railroader and the preacher saw movement, saw someone else set down in front of the ivory 88.

They didn't see who, and they didn't much care: the pie was good, and for the moment, that's what counted.

"Got a question," the railroader grunted.

The Parson leaned back as the hash slinger set down two beers, took away the railroader's empty.

The Parson looked across the table, nodded.

"Friend of mine's had a hard way to go."

He frowned, considered the pie in front of him, his fork hesitating in its cut.

"He musta bent my ear for ... hell, most of an hour."

The Parson raised an eyebrow. 

"Must have needed to talk," he offered.

"Yeah," the railroader grunted, then took a gulp of beer.

"Yesterday a fellow I know ... his wife's dyin' and he needed ..."

The railroader's eyes grew distant, almost haunted.

"I give him what I had on me and Bill, he passed the hat over't the roundhouse and we figure he can stay with his wife until she's ..."

He looked past the Parson, remembering his friend's voice, the look in the eyes of a man who knows he's losing the one soul he loved most in the world, and not one damned thing he can do to stop it.

The railroader looked back at the Parson.

"They's several that's had a hard go of it, Parson. They were needful to lean on my shoulder and I let 'em, an' that's been kind of hard on me and then I thought, hell, what about you -- you got a whole church full of folk who come a-runnin' so they can dampen your shoulder down when they're grieved."

The Parson looked at the man in honest surprise.

"I had to think, 'What about him?' -- so here's my question."

The railroader laid his fork down and looked across the table at Parson Belden.

"How can I help prop you up?"

Silence grew long between the two.

Each man picked his fork up again and finished working on their pie.

When both were done, when they'd washed down the crumbs with a good pull of beer, they set their mugs down and the Parson gave thought to the railroader's question.

He nodded, slowly, as if he'd found an answer.

"If you'd pray for me," he said quietly, "I would be very much obliged."

The railroader nodded, laid a few coins on the table: the Parson raised his hand, smiled, just a little.

"I figured you wanted to talk, so already paid for your pie."

The railroader's smile didn't spread south of the corners of his eyes.

"Obliged."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE TEACHER'S GENTLE TOUCH

Jacob had a boulder on his left, a log ahead of him, and a clear line of sight.

He also had a Sharps rifle in hand, and the sudden feeling that things were worse than he'd ever known.

Smoke drifted through trees, filmy, wispy, almost invisible, save where the odd sun-finger thrust through clouds overhead and through leafy trees.

Jacob's thumb hooked around the heavy hammer, brought it back to full stand, felt it drop into the full cock notch.

I do not know what you are, he thought, but you are goin' go HELL!

Jacob brought the Sharps to shoulder, his world shrinking to sights and a figure with too large a head, some kind of shiny silver suit, something that cast a magic spell over butternut soldiers and floated them up off the ground and toward what looked like a pointy ironclad -- if ironclads floated on air instead of in water.

Jacob felt his finger curl around the Sharps trigger, felt the world drop away from him, suspended in the space between heartbeats --

Jacob gasped, shivered, eyes wide, staring, hands closing convulsively, as if they'd held gunmetal and walnut a moment before: he blinked a few times before he was able to return to the here-and-now.

When he did, his father was sitting on the floor with him.

Jacob was sitting cross legged on the hook rug, blinking, confused, looking at his father, at his father's hand withdrawing from the side of his head.

It took a few more moments for Jacob's mind to remember.

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller sat in his office on Mars, a Sharps rifle across his lap.

He frowned thoughtfully, brought the hammer back to half cock before dropping the breechblock -- an old habit, cultivated as a boy, when handling his Pa's Sharps.

His pale eyed Pa traded an old farmer a 97 Winchester for it and each man thought he'd skinned the other fellow out of his eye teeth -- it was truly a good trade, as each man was honestly ashamed to look the other fellow in the eye afterward, so sure was he of having just pulled the slickest, most profitable trade of their entire life!

His Pa recognized the sawed off Sharps rifle for what it was.

The barrel was ruined -- someone cut it back to twelve inches and hogged the chamber out with a hand drill, from the look of it, likely in a misguided notion to shoot .410 shotshells.

His Pa had the rifle rebarreled with a tapered octagon, he'd specified no rear sight dovetail, as he intended to mount a vernier tang peep.

When he received the finished product, he paid the shop that did the work, in spite of the unwanted dovetail: in the years that followed, he cut and fitted a blank to fit the unwanted dovetail: he did a fine job, too, as Jacob recalled, his fingers tracing over the finished product.

This rifle was factory converted from the tobacco cutter, and its firing pin had three kinks in it -- down from the heavy percussion hammer, over to get it behind the breechblock, then forward to hit the metallic cartridge primer: if the hammer remained down, the tip of the firing pin protruded, and would shear off if the breechblock dropped without cocking the hammer first.

Jacob Keller considered that fine old rifle and remembered asking his Pa about it, and if Old Pale Eyes had such a rifle.

Jacob's Pa was quiet for longer than was necessary.

"Jacob," he said seriously, "you recall your sister is being considered for Mars."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you know why your sister, particularly?"

Jacob gave his father a long look.

"No, sir."

Linn shoved his bottom jaw out, frowned, looked down.

Father and son crossed their shin bones and folded down into a cross legged conference there on the floor of the study, each one on a hand made rug.

"Jacob," Linn said quietly, "there are things ... that you might need to know."

"Sir?"

"Do you believe in UFOs?"

Jacob turned his head a little, as if bringing a good ear to bear, frowning a little as he did.

"Jacob," Linn said carefully, "we are not alone in this universe. I figure any Creator God Who can make the infinite and all things in it wouldn't stop at just one populated planet."

Linn rose -- easily, gracefully, picked up his Sharps rifle from the rack, sat again.

"I can't say this particular rifle was used in Lincoln's War," he said slowly, "but a rifle very much like this one ... Old Pale Eyes ..."

Linn took a long breath.

"There are things I've hid out of the Journals."

"Sir?"

Linn scooted forward -- legs still crossed, sliding ahead on his backside, rifle across his lap -- was Jacob not so surprised he might have laughed a little.

Linn leaned forward, placed a careful palm against his son's cheekbone, laid his fingers over Jacob's ear, closed his eyes.

Jacob closed his own.

His body fell away from him.

He smelled gunsmoke and he felt war in his belly and he felt fear.

He pulled back, dropped around the edge of a big rock with a log laid against it.

He watched, staring.

Something shimmered down through the trees, like clear water -- it turned into a pointy ended steam boiler, long and cylindrical, at least that's the closest he could think to describe it.

A door opened -- somehow, he wasn't sure how -- a ladder came down, Confederates raised their gunbarrels toward this new threat.

A figure -- bid head, skinny arms, all silvery -- made a move like he was casting a net over them and butternut-grey Confederates fell to the ground, unmoving.

He watched in shock as one, then another, was lifted -- them big headed fellers just laid a flat hand on a man's belly and picked him up, floated him right up off the ground and walked him into that pointy silver Ironclad thing.

Jacob felt the hammer under his thumb, he saw the sight steady on that unnatural big head --

The Sharps spoke, shoved against his shoulder --

Linn withdrew his hand and waited for his son to get his bearings again.

"Jacob," Linn finally said, his voice serious, "Old Pale Eyes dropped one of 'em. They got the carcass loaded and got out of there pronto. Alien abductions are not a new thing."

Jacob blinked, nodded.

"They don't abduct folks out here," Linn said, his face unsmiling. "We tend to shoot back."

"Sir," Jacob said carefully, "wasn't there a ship landed in the back pasture?"

"That was one of the Valkyries," Linn explained, then looked away, frowning. "You don't know about them yet. Forget I said anything."

"Sir?"

"The Valkyries are on our side. Marnie doesn't know about them yet. There was a problem with time travel. Say nothing about it, Jacob. I hope I haven't thrown a knot in the timeline, at least not worse than has already been done."

Now Sheriff Jacob Keller sat in his office on Mars, holding that same old rifle his Pa had across his lap when he laid a hand on Jacob's cheek bone and told him without words a story he'd hidden out of the old original Journals.

Now that Jacob was Sheriff on Mars, now that Berserkers left over from the aliens' internecine warfare attacked Mars Colony and met with justice thanks to a pale eyed Sheriff with her Uncle's .357, now that Jacob didn't just know about the Valkyries, he knew each of them personally -- now he knew why his Pa told him what he had, when he had.

Marnie sat Jacob down when he took over as Sheriff on Mars, and told him about the Confederacy, about aliens abducting Southrons for a disposable mercenary force, described how the aliens laid open their greatest vulnerability.

Their shielding and their weapons were all energy based.

It took subsequent human minds, enhanced by the learning helmets, to create shielding against kinetic weaponry -- but by then the aliens were long extinct, killed off by the supposedly-inferior race they'd abducted to do their dirty work for them.

Jacob only knew of one space engagement (there's been more than that, he just didn't know about the others), and the Valkyries used glorified cannon instead of ship-mounted ray guns.

Jacob did know that space was so overwhelmingly, unbelievably huge, that even a lightspeed ship would take centuries to cross the great distances involved -- for that reason alone, warfare between spacefaring civilizations was now unknown, or so Marnie claimed.

Jacob looked at her and considered her words carefully.

"If that's the case," he said slowly, "how come there were two alien cultures intending to kill the other one off?"

Marnie gave her brother an appreciative look.

"I asked the same question, Jacob," she said, and he heard the no-nonsense deputy's voice in her spoken reply. "Apparently they were close enough that the limits of their systems were close enough to make contact, and that was enough for both of them to try and kill off the other."

"So that's why Valkyrie ships slip between dimensions to get from here to there," Jacob speculated, "and that's why they use good old fashioned cannon when they do."

Marnie lowered her lashes, gave her brother a seductive look, which he knew was the same as a cat switching its tail as it gauged the distance to its next intended meal.

"Their ... cannon ... are hardly old-fashioned," Marnie purred. "Rail guns that fire tungsten headed telephone poles."

Jacob whistled. "What, no Warthog cannon?"

"I haven't suggested it," Marnie admitted. "Honestly, I'm afraid to."

"Why? Will they mount rotary telephone pole launchers?"

"Each ship mounts double barrel Gauss guns, Jacob, they carry several projectiles on rotary loaders. Makes them look ... not quite pregnant, but they've got a belly bulge."

"Remind me not to make 'em mad," Jacob said softly.

"The aliens' personal armor is ... at least on the ones that attacked us here, their armor won't stop a club or a bullet. It'll stop an energy weapon, but not a bullet."

Jacob closed his eyes again and remembered the afternoon his Pa gave him this fine old Sharps rifle, and he remembered a pale eyed ancestor in Union blue who used a Sharps rifle to stop a Southron from being abducted by aliens.

"Sis," he finally said, "thank you for telling me this."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IT AIN'T ALL  BAD

Angela Keller sighed her breath out as her sister tightened the laces on her corset.

Angela had the trim, feminine waist of a horse-maiden, and now it was being mercilessly trimmed even further by that Devil's invention that women submitted to in the name of beauty.

Angela had worn something similar, but not as honestly vicious, when working as a nurse -- she'd had it custom made, it was steel boned, it helped her back, for the nursing profession is no stranger to work related back injuries, but this -- this garment was designed to constrict the waist, with no thought given to back support.

Her sisters helped dress her, for she was making an appearance back home, she was to be in Firelands, in garb and in character as Old Pale Eyes' green-eyed, red-headed bride Esther: she would present before an open meeting of the Ladies' Tea Society, held on the clean-scrubbed Depot platform, after which she would present yet again in the passenger car as The Lady Esther pulled the combination run over the mountains and toward the City.

A wig, a hat, cosmetics, colored contact lenses -- she'd leaned back to allow a fellow medical professional administer the tinted scleral lenses, and when she sat up, she rose, blinked, smiled, turned: she raised an emerald-gloved hand, fingers curled a little, she'd smiled and murmured, "How do you do, my name is Esther," and Victoria's breath caught as she pattered her hands together with delight.

This was not her beloved sister Angela -- not now -- no, this creature in a shimmering emerald gown, all red hair and startling-green eyes, with a rectangular red-ruby in the hollow of her throat -- 

This was not Angela.

This was not Sheriff's deputy and Healer, this was not Big Sister and nurse: no, this was a creature off magic who'd just stepped through the mists of Time itself, a creature who smiled and said gently, "How do you do, my name is Esther."

She'd done this before, before school let out for the summer.

History class had a field trip.

They were not surprised to be met by a pale eyed Sheriff on a big stallion, a man in a severely-tailored black suit and an unsmiling expression.

They were not surprised at the sight of an unsmiling deputy on an Appaloosa stallion, not far distant, silent, watching.

They were very much surprised to be met by a woman of culture and of gentility, looking so absolutely unlike anyone they'd met thus far in their young lives: they boarded the passenger car, and while underway behind live steam, with a background of motion and of rail-joints rhythmic underfoot, with the occasional howling scream of a harmony-tuned steam whistle and the four-count bark of a mountain Baldwin locomotive, they watched as a pale-eyed man formally introduced "my wife, my Esther," formally brought her gloved knuckles to his lips and politely excused himself "as I have pressing matters of office to tend."

History can be interesting, especially when a gifted storyteller describes buying a bankrupt railroad and turning it around -- when that storyteller is engaging, charming, pleasant, and most of all, interesting -- instead of dry facts, instead of just ... well, stories ... they found themselves drawn into dirt street and brightly-painted saloon, genteel dinners and sharp business negotiations.

Her words drew them from a moving railcar onto a riverboat -- she stood in the presentation end of the restored passenger car, with room enough to move, as she produced a Schlager blade from somewhere, turned side-on to her young audience and wove a silver web of shining steel before her as she stepped into an opponent.

It was not your typical classroom lecture.

Angela was a nurse, yes, she was a teacher, yes, but she was also her father's daughter, and her father had the storyteller's gift.

She told a story as did he: as she did, each one under her voice, was drawn in, and became part of the living adventure she described, until -- by the time they reached destination, after the steam-train eased to a stop, after stairs were placed at the foot of the black-painted, cast-iron steps descending from either end of the passenger car -- every last history student from the Firelands High School, honestly felt as if they'd actually been where Esther Keller had trod.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller removed his Stetson, eased his head up ever so slightly, looked through a screen of healthy green wheatgrass.

Paul Barrents, his chief deputy, second-in-command and lifelong friend, looked at the slingshot in Linn's hand.

He did not say a word; one raised eyebrow sufficed:

You're not really going to do that!

Linn took another cautious look, then raised a little, drew back, let fly, ducked.

There was the sharp, metallic, Doppler teowk! as the steel ball bearing hit the I-beam leg of what Linn referred to as "the tipple."

Barrents knew it was called something else, but he knew his boss spoke in the ancestral culture of his Appalachian heritage, and coal mines used something called a tipple, and if this wasn't exactly the same thing, it was close enough.

Especially when he was deviling the private guards that circulated from one mine location to another to discourage thefts and vandalism.

He and Barrents moved.

They knew the mountains and they knew how to stay hidden, they each wore an earpiece and they each had a lapel mic: Dispatch could contact them easily, they could hear Sharon without anyone else hearing the transmission, and their stealth was more than sufficient to get into another firing position.

Twice more, the pair lined up a shot, whistled a steelie through the clear, still air, smacked the steel structure, eliciting angry shouts from Security, who finally realized they were probably being deviled by that pale eyed Sheriff again -- it was a game they played, begun when Security made the mistake of bragging on their skill at spotting skulking trespassers.

"DAMN YOU, SHERIFF!" one of them yelled, "USIN' A SLIENCER IS AGAINST THE LAW!"

The Sheriff whistled another steelie against the I-beam structure, then he and Barrents withdrew, quickly, silently: Barrents drove, they'd parked where they could coast silently for a distance before starting the engine -- not something they did routinely, it's probably not good to coast a modern automatic transmission any distance, but once couldn't hurt.

That evening, after Linn changed into a clean suit and posed for pictures -- solemn, unsmiling, with a pleasant, charming, quietly smiling, green-eyed and red-headed woman in a McKenna gown and picture hat on his arm -- he and Angela met Shelly and Victoria in the Silver Jewel for supper.

Angela murmured to Victoria; the former leaned back, eyes wide, the latter precisely placed one drop of something in each of her sister's eyes.

Linn gave his daughter a concerned look as she blotted her closed eyes with a tissue: she looked at her serious-faced Daddy and smiled gently.

"The things we do for beauty," she sighed, then tilted her head and smiled.

"Was your day difficult, Sheriff?"

Linn considered the startled yell when he launched the first ball bearing, heard the security guard's angry protest, remembered how he'd been approached as he emerged from the Sheriff's office, approached by the security guard who reported someone with a silencer was shooting at him and his partner to try and scare them away from a particular mine opening.

Angela saw the smile at the corners of her father's eyes.

"My dear," he said gently as he held his wife's hand, "you've had it worse than I, but" -- his smile flowed down from his eyes and became a grin -- "... today?"

He chuckled just a little as the cute little hash slinger showed up with coffee and two baskets of hot, steaming rolls.

"Darlin', it ain't all bad!"

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THAT LOOK

Marnie Keller crossed toned, athletic legs under her long skirt, tapped a gloved finger speculatively against her cheekbone, and looked steadily at the long tall Sheriff who'd gently removed Robert's Rules of Order from the table and persuaded the Powers that Be that said parliamentary process should be donated to the nearest open window: he'd succeeded in taking the meeting from a formal, stuffy, structured affair, into an informal, shirtsleeves-level round table discussion, and he'd done it by making each and every member feel as if they -- the individual -- was a necessary part of the process.

It started as a County Commissioner's meeting, it started as a budget session, it started with agendas and jealously-guarded territories: Marnie watched silently as her Daddy turned territories around: he maneuvered and blatantly, overtly, openly, manipulated each member into arguing the merits of someone else's budget priorities -- the man's quiet gift of genuine persuasion was something Marnie long admired and tried to imitate, and on occasion, put to very good use.

By the time the hours-long meeting concluded, the budget remained intact, necessary services were funded, two Commissioners who'd hoped to fund pet projects went away feeling virtuous, having chosen to act for a greater good, and a pale eyed Ambassador in a McKenna gown rose from her unseen position, glided into the hallway, and waited for her father to emerge.

He did not seem surprised as she claimed his arm and murmured, "Going my way, handsome?"

The Sheriff pushed open the exit door and the pair stepped out into nightfall.

Marnie keyed open an Iris.

"I'm buying," she invited.

Father and daughter stepped through a dark ellipse and into Marnie's quarters on Mars.

"Grampa!" a happy voice declared, and Linn squatted, caught his running grandson under the arms, hoist him with an effort and a grimace and set him back down.

"Good Lord, John," he declared loudly, "what are they feedin' you, T-bone steaks and high nitrogen fertilizer?"

"Backstrap and Ezekiel's Bread!" John declared, planting his knuckles on his belt and puffing out his young chest.

"Your Mama invited me for supper. Reckon she's got anything that hasn't been et yet?"

Marnie gave them a patient look.

Dr. John came in from the next room, towel in hand and delight on his face: he finished drying his hands before shaking his father in law's callused grip.

"John" -- he lowered his eyes approvingly to his son, then back to the Sheriff -- "watched the live feed during your meeting. He's been watching your methods."

Linn raised an eyebrow, looked at Marnie, who was transferring steaming, fragrant platters and bowls to the table and managing to look both exquisitely feminine, and notoriously guilty, at the same time.

"He's been using those skills in school, too," she murmured. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's persuaded the teachers to give him a diploma instead of a grade card!"

"They still have grade cards?" Linn asked, surprised.

Marnie gave the table a visual once-over, nodded with satisfaction, swept her skirts under her, sat.

"Linn, would you say Grace?" Dr. John asked quietly, looking from Linn to his son.

Marnie glared at her husband and muttered, "John, don't you --"

"GRAAACE!" Dr. John, Sheriff Keller and Littlejohn chorused, then in unison, looked down at their tableware and declared, "Hello, Plate!"

Littlejohn looked at his Mama with absolute, youthful innocence and said, "Grampa told me about an old-timer who talked to his plate before he'd eat."

Marnie slid two fingers into a hidden pocket, pulled out a set of lensless spectacles, slid them halfway down her nose: she glared at the men in her life over her glasses, drumming disapproving fingertips on the tablecloth, until neither she nor they could stand it any longer, and they all laughed together.

Mashed potatoes had made their circumnavigation of the table, a steaming bowl of what must have been vegetables of some kind followed, and Marnie addressed her father -- after returning her Spectacles of Disapproval to the hidden pocket -- "Children learn by observation and imitation."

Linn added a ladle of fragrant, steaming, colorful vegetables to his plate, passed the bowl, accepted the gravy.

"John has been observing your methods and imitating them."

"I see," Linn said carefully. "You made mention of that earlier. Is this repeated for emphasis?"

Marnie stopped and looked very directly at her Daddy.

"It means, sir," she said quietly, "you continue to be an Influence for the Good."

Linn looked at his grandson, blinked in surprise: young John looked at his Grampa, then at his Mama.

"Well, darn," Linn finally said. "I'll have to take pains now to show him how to be a rascal and a scoundrel, just like me!"

Marnie picked up a sweet roll, shook it threateningly:  "Do I have to put my glasses back on?"

"Glasses or not," Linn murmured to young John, "your Mama can blister paint with That Look!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

JUST IN TIME

Sheriff Willamina Keller opened the package, then carried it quickly up the stairs of the Firelands Library to her back office.

Willamina was perpetually engaged in genaeology research, and in researching the history of Firelands: it was not at all uncommon for artifacts to be hand delivered, or mailed in.

This was one such.

She laid the newly arrived bundle on her desk, laid open the heavy paper wrapping.

It was a Bible -- ancient, worn, soft from much use, its spine broken.

Inside, the stub of a pencil, apparently a marker.

Willamina frowned as she looked at the bracketed passage, her lips moving silently as she read, then she looked at the notation in the margin.

She frowned.

"Just in time," she murmured aloud.

The book yielded no further secrets -- not even a name, no family tree, no notes, no other bookmarks -- smudges, wear, but nothing else to help her unravel its story.

She looked at the return address again -- someone she'd never heard of, but she knew the rural route on the return.

"Stone Creek," she murmured, and smiled.

Later that morning, the Sheriff drew up before a tidy little house not far from where a hardscrabble community called Stone Creek used to stand, long ago, before the Depression killed businesses and communities.

She knocked on a door.

 

An old man stared at muddy water in his gold pan.

He'd hit a streak.

This wasn't gold territory.

He'd thrust his pan into sandy sediment, scraped it viciously along solid rock bottom, brought it up and swirled it gently, with the practice of many years of searching.

Gold fever bites deep and gold fever bit him to the bone and he'd spent years cussin' himself for a fool and a damned fool, chasing a dream: he'd froze, he'd sweated, he'd labored, he'd mined, all chasing that yellow dream, and now he found it.

He found it.

He swirled out the lighter sand and mud, he'd dunked his pan and swirled it again, he'd frowned and squinted and dipped and swirled again.

Black sand.

He hadn't expected to find black sand this far south.

He frowned, he searched, he swirled, tired eyes scouring the mysteries of the moving wavelets of shining-black --

There.

One flake.

One, single, solitary, flake.

He closed his eyes, he let the pan flop over and dump out, his act that of a man disappointed.

He tried again -- he drove the pan deep, brought it up, sloshed out half the water.

There it was, looking at him like it was all his fault.

A nugget.

A nugget the size of his thumb.

He stared at it.

He picked it up, frowned, raised it to yellowed teeth, bit it tentatively, looked at the mark his careful bite left.

It left a mark.

It ain't pyrite.

Gold.

I finally found gold.

His thoughts were not celebratory.

His belly did not rejoice, his blood did not sing, he did not scream with triumph and caper like an insane marionette.

He slipped the treasure into a belt poke and looked at the pan.

A dip, a swirl, two, then two more nuggets appeared, none as large, but suddenly... plentiful.

He picked twenty nuggets out, most the size of his little fingernail or so.

He worked until the sun got low on the horizon, squatting on sand, working the pan.

He looked up at his patient old mule and didn't say anything.

His patient old mule looked back and didn't say anything either.

The old man rose, slow, stiff from squatting too long.

He hobbled over to his mule, laid an arm over her neck.

Someone asked him, long ago, why he'd named his mule 'Darlin',' and he'd told them she was a damn sight better'n the wife he had: his mule listened, his mule didn't argue, his mule didn't tell him nothin' he did was right, and his mule didn't demand he drop whatever he was doin' to tend to whatever it was she wanted done.

More than one man, with whom he held such correspondence, gave him an understanding look: men went West to become someone they hadn't been, men came West to get away from bad decisions or bad lives, men came West to become somebody entirely new, and more than one with whom he discussed his mule, knew what it was to leave a loveless marriage.

The old man made camp a mile away, someplace where he had a good field of fire, and solid cover to his back: as was his habit, he consulted Scripture just before going to bed, lighting a blanket-blocked candle so he could read, but the candle could not be seen.

He considered he had more wealth in his poke that night than he'd seen in his lifetime.

He leaned back against friendly rock and considered.

With that kind of wealth, a man could buy --

Buy.

He considered the word.

Buy?

What could I buy, that would bring me happiness?

Clothes?

Hell, what I'm wearin' is good enough.

I'm warm.

Buy?

A ranch, a farm?

I'd have to work it myself.

I have no sons.

Not less'n 'twas was big enough to make profit right off, I couldn't afford to hire hands.

No.

Might be I'd show up in town somewhere and get myself a genuine woman cooked meal, instead of whatever I fixed out here with a frying pan and a spit.

He opened his Scripture and let the worn book fall open.

He squinted, rubbed his eyes -- it wasn't easy to read, these days, his eyes were going bad, same as the rest of him -- he read the Word and frowned.

He looked up at Darlin' and considered, then he looked up at the stars and nodded, and then he spoke softly.

"Reckon so, Lord," he said, then he doused his fire and snuffed what little was left of his precious candle, he spread his bedroll on the softest part of the hard ground, and slept.

 

Reverend Linn Keller nodded his approval at the boy's lesson.

"You've a good eye for detail," he said quietly: "you've correctly calculated the board feet needed, you've totaled up the number of pegs it'll take to fast up these beams ... here, what's this? -- he looked closer, and the orphan saw a slow smile grow across the Parson's face.

"Now by golly," he murmured, "you even figured in cost of two drill bits and the time it would take to sharpen each of them after ..."

His voice tapered off and he nodded, remembering the lad's paying close attention when a local carpenter bored holes in seasoned timber, when the bits were examined and dressed and more holes bored: it was not until he reviewed this lesson, this calculation on cost to raise a barn, that he'd realized this attentive student counted the number of holes before sharpening was needed, the length of time per sharpen, he'd made separate notation on cost of a sharpening stone with the addendum that most carpenters already have a stone with them and cost of a stone would not be added if the work was hired out.

The orphanage was a place of perpetual motion: the young were tasked, but not cruelly nor unnecessarily: when the Parson finished going over the boy's lesson and pronouncing it particularly well done, he looked up at a young messenger's summons.

He returned to the schoolroom not long after, a thoughtful look on his face.

He excused himself, he asked one of the orphan girls where his wife was -- he'd long stopped trying to find her himself, he'd jokingly told his pale eyed cousin his beloved bride was like a fly in a barnyard, just here, there and someplace else, and fast! -- he found his wife patching up a little boy's scraped knee, he waited until her motherly ministrations were complete, then he asked in a gentle voice, "My dear, may I counsel with you?"

His wife glided over to him, looked curiously at him: they turned and went into the Chapel.

Her heart tightened a little.

He didn't go to the Chapel to discuss trivial matters.

She clapped her hands to her mouth when he turned over a poke and dumped a genuine fortune in nuggets and dust on the altar.

"I spent the last dollar we had this morning," he said quietly, "and when I did, I told God it was up to him, I'd just thrown a knot in the end of my rope so I wouldn't fall off!"

Husband and wife knelt, and gave thanks for this sudden bounty.

That afternoon, an old man was found, dead, not far from Stone Creek.

He was face down, his hand on an open Bible, the stub of a pencil beside it.

A passage was bracketed -- where the rich man declares his wealth, where the Almighty requires his soul that night -- and in the margin, in a surprisingly tidy hand, the words, "JUST IN TIME."

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller thanked the old man for his story, and for the tea, and the visit.

His grandfather was an orphan here in Stone Creek, his grandfather spoke of their pale eyed Parson and how, one day, an old man came and gave the Parson something, and they found that old prospector just outside of town that afternoon, face down and dead.

His mule was known to the orphans, and the man's grandfather learned leatherworking, and made a bridle for the mule, with the name Darlin' along the cheek strap, and he told Willamina the children loved that gentle old mule, and tended it carefully until it finally died of old age.

He said their pale eyed Parson gave his Granddad that Bible that looked to be the only thing of value the old prospector had, and he in turn passed it down to one of the orphans, and the story came with it, and the old man thought the Sheriff might like it for their museum.

Willamina thanked him kindly for that thoughtfulness.

She cranked a file card in an ancient manual typewriter and wrote the brief story of how this particular Bible came to their museum, and set it in the glass display case, with the Book open to the pencil bracketed passage, and the stub of a pencil laid beside.

She made no attempt to explain the words in the margin.

 

 

Edited June 10 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HE MADE MY LITTLE GIRL CRY

“El Ciego,” a voice murmured.

Men drew back, what few were in the Rabbitville street: a lone rider on a shining-gold Palomino, a rider who moved with his horse, so completely at home in saddle leather as to appear to be part of the horse, looked neither left, nor right, as he rode.

The Palomino moved at little more than a walk, but the rider seemed to draw a long cape behind him, a cape made of silence: more than one who beheld this pale eyed Sheriff made the sign of the Cross, and shivered, as if at a passing chill.

A long tall lawman with an iron grey mustache, a man with pale eyes and well polished boots, rode through the open gates of the Rabbitville monastery.

Mexican-dark eyes followed him, but none dare follow their eyes.

This was El Ciego – the blind one – for it is not possible for one to have such eyes, such blind eyes, and still be able to see.

The rider dismounted and thanked a barefoot boy, who led the Palomino into the Monastery’s stable: one of the Brethren, hands in his sleeves, bowed a solemn greeting, opened the door for the visitor.

The Abbott was on his knees before the High Altar: he did not look up as a door opened, then closed, as the quiet, measured pace of a tall man entered, his pace confident and unhurried.

The visitor stopped, knelt: he smelled of leather and horse sweat and sunshine and open spaces, and he knelt beside the Abbott, head bowed in respect.

The Abbott crossed himself and rose; his visitor rose with him.

Two men walked up the gently sloping aisle, two men turned toward the heavy door.

The door opened, the door shut, and they were gone.

 

Abbott William smiled a little as he sipped cool water.

Sheriff Linn Keller sipped as well.

“Adam’s Ale,” Linn finally said, his voice quiet, gentle:  “Genuine Rock Juice.”

“I remember when we shared a jug of something better,” the Abbott murmured, smiling a little, and the Sheriff nodded at the memory.

“You’re troubled, my friend. Is that why you’re here?”

Linn nodded, slowly, the reply of a controlled man.

The Abbott spread his hands.

“How can I help?”

The Sheriff leaned back, considered the tall, heavy, genuine glass tumbler sweating before him.

“I took care of it,” he said.

“But it troubles you.”

Linn nodded, fingers tracing down the sweat-beaded glass.

The Abbott waited; he took another sip, savoring the drink: he’d been in the fields with the Brethren, cultivating: he believed no leader should be above laboring beside his fellows.

The sun was hot, the sky clear, the work was … well, it needed done, and now, in the cool and the quiet of his quarters, he sipped water, slowly, gratefully, accepting it as the gift that it was.

Linn took a long breath, frowned a little, and the Abbott knew he was almost ready to talk.

Almost.

The tonsured old ex-soldier waited.

He and the Sheriff fought shoulder to shoulder, back in That Damned War; they’d shared rations, they’d shared a campfire, they’d shared a jug and a laugh, and each dropped his professional mien when – years later – they met by utter accident, and suddenly became two old friends who hadn’t seen one another in far too long.

Now the Abbott waited while his old friend lined his thoughts up before he marched them out of his mouth.

He looked at the Abbott.

“I just honestly beat the livin’ dog stuffin’s out of a man today.”

The Abbott nodded, slowly, studying the thick rim of his water glass.

“Any particular reason?” the Abbott asked quietly.

He looked up.

In an era when men rarely smiled in public – in an era when a smile could be seen as a sign of weakness – the Sheriff lowered his head a bare degree-and-a-half, and gave a truly predatory, wolflike smile, the smile of a man who’d just enjoyed something he’d done.

 

Dana Keller was the Sheriff’s daughter.

Dana Keller, unlike her pale eyed Pa, had deep, startling, Kentucky-blue eyes.

Dana Keller, unlike her red-headed Mama, had silk-fine hair, cornsilk yellow with hints of gold.

Dana Keller was a happy child, Dana Keller was a beautiful child, and Dana Keller, on this one particular day, was in the Mercantile.

Now the Firelands Mercantile was a crossroads for every strata of society: it was the only store of its kind, and so it was the county’s center of general commerce.

If a man was needful of a new rifle, he’d go to the Mercantile.

If a woman needed sewing notions, she went to the Mercantile.

Dana Keller was in the Mercantile for very important reasons, which included talking quietly to the kitty sleeping on the crackers, which included looking around with a child’s innocent interest, which included trading the smiling proprietress two precious coppers for two carefully wrapped sticks of peppermint candy.

Unfortunately, an individual with an ill temper and an utter lack of good sense was also in the Mercantile, complaining about a lengthy litany of grievances: prices, the weather, the government, and finally, the Sheriff.

Dana blinked with surprise and with dismay as she stepped back, away from the nasty man who proceeded to call the Sheriff several things that should not be repeated in polite company.

The one-armed proprietor saw Dana’s bottom lip wrinkle up a little, her eyes getting big and watery, the way a little girl will before her little heart overflows with grief from experiencing some terrible injustice: when tears spilled down her cheeks and she turned and scampered from the Mercantile, the one-armed proprietor said “Mister, that was the Sheriff’s little girl. Now if you’re buyin’, set your purchase up here and pay for it, otherwise get out!”

The sneering reply, something to the effect of tearing off the man’s other arm and using it to beat him to death, was interrupted by a hard and callused hand seizing his windpipe.

The sight of a pale-eyed Sheriff dragging a man outside by his throat was enough to draw the attention of the curious.

The sight of the pale-eyed Sheriff releasing his grip with one hand, driving his left hand into the man’s chest and twisting up a good handful of material and then hoisting him off the ground, caused several souls to bring their beer outside the Silver Jewel and lean back against the dusty, painted clapboards to watch the show.

And, finally, the sight of the Sheriff hauling this individual off the ground, one-handed, holding him at arm’s length before walking down the warped board steps to street level, and casually holding this example of Walking Indiscretion at arm’s length overhead – walking easily and naturally as if he were unimpeded by a struggling payload that was pulling vainly at the man’s forearm – they watched as the Sheriff walked this indiscreet soul into the alley beside the Mercantile.

Men’s voices hushed: even the sizzle of a Lucifer match scratching into life seemed intrusive: there were some meaty sounds, some pained grunts, a rather loud sound, as if a body were introduced at a fair velocity into the side of a building.

Men grinned and hoisted their heavy beer glasses in salute, and drank.

 

A pale eyed Sheriff sat with the tonsured Abbott in the cool of the latter’s private cell, sipping cool water and letting the quiet soak into their bones.

“So that’s what I did,” Linn concluded.

The Abbott nodded slowly, almost approvingly.

He looked at Linn drained the last of his water, set the tall, thick-sided glass on the folded napkin.

“Linn,” he said finally, “did you baptize this particular sinner?”

The Sheriff’s eyes tightened a little at the corners.

“Let’s just say I give him his Saturday night bath a few days early.”

Silence grew between the two men, a long and approving silence, the kind that exists between good friends.

Linn finally smiled with half his mouth.

Abbott William leaned forward, listening, as Linn said all that a father need say.

“He made my little girl cry.”

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ONE EVENING, AFTER DARK

Shelly Keller just honestly screamed.

She didn't just scream.

She screamed and she jumped up and down and clapped her hands, and when she turned, her expression was that of a child -- a child who'd just been handed their absolute heart's delight -- something they'd wanted in, well, forever.

Shelly Keller was standing in front of a big round slice of sawed-off tree trunk, a slab set up on a heavily built tripod: torches burned on either side, there was carnival music somewhere in the background, but here, where a grandmother just hauled back a single bit ax until it laid back along her spine and then slung it two-handed overhead, here where the ax made one turn and stuck in the slab -- it was nowhere near the center, matter of fact it was bottom dead center -- Shelly reacted with absolute DELIGHT, because she'd stuck it, first throw!

The Sheriff grinned with delight, and when Shelly quit jumping up and down like the excited cheerleader she'd been when she was still a schoolgirl, she came running back and Linn stepped out and she SLAMMED into him and the SEIZED one another and he whipped her around, legs swinging, her eyes bright, and her laughter was only momentarily interrupted when he dropped his head and kissed her, right before he shifted his grip and tossed her up and caught her under the arms and spun her around again, his laughter merging with hers.

Bruce Jones caught the moment, with the husband holding his wife up at arm's length, with the wife's fisted arms thrust upward in triumph, and both of them -- well, when you looked at the picture on the front page of the weekly Firelands Gazette, you could look at that picture and hear them both laugh with delight.

It was the yearly carnival, when the main street was shut off and rides were set up, hucksters sold their wares, games of chance benefitted various civic groups or school groups, the Marching Band had a doughnut stand set up (their stand took three days to set up, as the whole operation was screened in to keep flies off the product, they were frying doughnuts on the spot, and the smell of fresh doughnuts -- plain, iced, or powdered sugar dusted -- tempted more than one soul to reach for their wallet!)

The Sheriff stopped as a little boy scampered up to him:  "Hey Sheriff, trade ya knives!"

The Sheriff released his wife's hand and dropped into a hunker.

He frowned with a mock seriousness at the grinning little boy and said, "Trade knives, y'say!"

"Yeah!"

"Sight unseen?"

"Yeah!"

"You got a knife?"

"Yeah!"

The Sheriff reached into a coat pocket, withdrew his closed hand: he screwed one eye shut, held the hand up.

The little boy was trying hard to keep from laughing as he held his own closed hand up.

The Sheriff dropped his hand, opened it:  "I got a gen-you-wine Barlow knife!"

The little boy opened his hand and the Sheriff hesitated.

"You sure you want to trade that one?"

"Yeah!"

The Sheriff frowned, then took the trade: the delighted little boy ran off into the evening, and the Sheriff looked around, lifted a hand, walked over to a man he knew.

He handed the man an Old Timer lockback and winked, and the man nodded once, and smiled.

The boy nearly died of cancer the year before.

The Sheriff brought his patient old dapple mare around for children to ride, and the man's dying son was one of those who the Sheriff seized about the waist, and swung into the saddle, and walked beside the gentle old mare as the boy gripped the saddle horn and looked around with a delight he hadn't felt for some long time.

The Sheriff promised him come summer carnival, why, he'd trade knives with the boy if he had a mind, and every night, every last night in hospital, before he'd go to sleep, a little boy who'd lost all his hair and most of his hope would whisper, "I'm gonna trade knives with the Sheriff."

A crackle of firecrackers rattled from an alley, followed by a cloud of smoke and the sound of running feet.

Linn turned, legged it to his cruiser.

He'd been waiting for this.

He grabbed a bag he'd prepared, he circled behind the bank and ran, skidded to a fast stop as two little boys stopped, startled, almost running into the long tall lawman.

A pair of nine year olds, with guilt all over their faces, looked into the stern, pale eyed face of an unsmiling, long tall lawman with an iron grey mustache.

He hunkered again, spine straight, looked seriously from one uncomfortable set of eyes to another.

"Fellas," he said quietly, "I believe I heard firecrackers."

One guilty party gave the other guilty party a look that was half accusation and half I-hope-I-can-get-out-of-this-one.

"I don't know about you," the Sheriff continued quietly, "but I don't like firecrackers."

Two boys in blue jeans and guilty expressions looked like they wished they could crawl under the sidewalk and slink away.

"Firecrackers aren't big enough."

The Sheriff swung the slim bag around, set it down.

He reached in and pulled out two skyrockets and handed to one, then two more and handed to the other.

"So here's what we're goin' to do."

He looked around, saw a length of downspout.

"Come over here."

A quick wrap with duct tape and the downspout was slanted onto a utility pole, pointed out away from town.

The Sheriff took one skyrocket, slid it into the bottom of the downspout, handed over a long nose lighter.

"Fire one," he said quietly.

Four skyrockets chased one another into the evening sky, magician's wands arching over and detonating in long fingers of red-ball fire, disappearing into the dark as they burned out: the Sheriff took the long nose lighter back and said, "I don't like firecrackers. They ain't big enough!"

When he rejoined his wife, she handed him an ice cream cone: "What kind of trouble are you causing now, Mr. Keller?"

He looked at her, innocence in his eyes and chocolate ice cream on his mustache: "Why, Mrs. Keller, I have no idea what you mean!"

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HAPPPY PAPPY'S DAY

Ruth Keller, wife of Sheriff Jacob Keller, composed the photograph carefully.

Her subjects were on the floor, on a colorful, braided, oval rug of her own manufacture.

Ruth Keller was a woman of means, and had grown up in a family of means.

The women of her line sewed, but only a little; they had servants for such tasks.

The women of her line hired rugs made, or purchased them already made, but Ruth wanted to make a statement, and so she consulted those who made such things, and she made a rug.

Jacob lay on that rug now -- he was naked to the waist, fatigue engraving his face: their infant son lay on his chest, arms thrown wide, relaxed, wearing a diaper, with his Daddy's Stetson hat balanced over his diapered backside.

Father and son slept peacefully, the former sprawled comfortably on a hand made rug, the latter sprawled on his Daddy's warm fuzzy chest.

Ruth considered the shot, then raised the camera Jacob gave her: she took several shots, and when she was done, she glided over to a nearby chair and sat.

Ruth placed the camera on the table, tilted her head a little and smiled, the quiet smile of a wife and mother enjoying a moment.

 

Another woman, another camera, another planet: a very young Marnie Keller, eyes wide and mouth open, gripping the saddle horn with one hand and her Daddy's hand with the other, astride a horse for the very first time in her young life: another shot, the same more-than-happy expression as she stood behind her Daddy in the saddle, gripping the bunched-up denim shoulders of his jacket: Shelly was far enough away to show the horse was in motion, but near enough to capture a Daddy's unabashed grin and his little girl's confident wonder.

 

An entire Martian student body emerged from an Iris at a flat-out run, emerging in the Sheriff's back pasture.

Linn watched, eyes quiet, as young faces turned up, eyes wide and marveling, looked around, mouths open, and the entire Martian student body just sort of coasted to a stop.

They spent their lives underground, for the most part, they lived in tunnels and in rooms with smooth stone walls, but here -- here, with nothing overhead but blue sky and clouds, with nothing on either side but white painted board fence with gaps they could easily slide through -- here, where air smelled fresh and clean and sunlight was warm on bare arms and bare legs, they were not confined, they were not limited.

They knew what it was to sojourn onto the Martian surface, with its black sky and thin atmosphere, visible only near the horizon; most knew what it was to climb Mount Firelands, several knew what it was to come sledding down its side on heavy plastic sleds.

For most of the children, this was their first time Out In The Open, and every last one of them stopped and marveled.

Shelly watched as Linn walked among them, a magnet among iron filings: Martian schoolchildren clustered around him, all talking at once, and Shelly saw the flash of white teeth under her husband's iron-grey mustache.

It did not take long at all for children to run, to chase one another, it did not take long for horses to come head-bobbing up toward them, it did not take long for The Bear Killer to bay a happy greeting and come streaking into the pasture, and in the middle of all of it, a long tall Sheriff sat on a hay bale he'd positioned earlier that morning, for this very purpose: children populated his lap, sat beside him, climbed on him: his Stetson occupied young heads, young arms claimed his hugs, young heads leaned against his chest and his arms and his back, before young legs carried their young owners laughing across the pasture again: horses were marveled at, talked to, petted, caressed: The Bear Killer and Snowdrift both, flowed through the student body with expressions of canine contentment, and when one or the other would lay down and roll over, many willing hands gave belly rubs.

More than one Martian schoolchild returned home with hay and chaff in their clothes and in their hair; none had suspicious brown stains on their shoes, a certain the Martian Sheriff discreetly applied shield generators in their shoe soles.

Sheriff Jacob Keller was of the opinion that second hand horse feed really shouldn't be tracked back into the schoolroom.

On the Sunday following, Father's Day, photographs were displayed in the Common on Mars, where they held church services; on Earth, in the Firelands church; pictures of fathers and their young, pictures of happy laughter, of youthful exploration, of adoptive paternal consultation on a bale of hay with a white firehorse hanging her head over a lawman's shoulder, as if joining the conversation.

And in the back of the Firelands church, an old man bowed his head and smiled a little, for he'd kept a promise.

He and his grandson carefully, reverently scattered the ashes of someone they'd both loved, on the grave of her father.

A child sleeps most peacefully on Daddy's chest, and now she would sleep forever on the bosom of her long dead father.

His grandson put his arm around the old man's shoulders and whispered, "Happy Pappy's Day, Grampa."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MOUNTAIN ROSE

Esther Keller knew she was watched.

She did not mind.

Esther Keller wore a particular pair of gloves -- they were heavier than she usually wore, they were permanently stained, and as a result, they may not have been her favorites, but they were in the top three.

Esther worked the soil beside their little whitewashed Church.

The western side of the Church got the afternoon sun.

Esther Keller made it a personal project, once she set her cap for the Sheriff, back when both she and Firelands were younger, to grow roses beside their Church.

Esther's mother did so love roses, and grew beautiful rosebushes, back in the Carolinas, back when Esther was a girl.

These were Canadian roses, not Carolina roses: Esther had to research, Esther had to consult with those who knew more about such matters, but Esther was diligent and persistent, and Esther marked out the soil, and worked up the soil, and enlisted necessary assistance to work improvement into the soil.

Her result was a healthy, green, bloom-heavy growth that added its welcome fragrance to the mountain air.

Esther worked the soil, even after her beloved roses were well established: the plants responded to her care, and long years after her death, they remained.

Women of Firelands, daughters and granddaughters, grew roses as well:  Sarah Lynne McKenna went so far as to rent an unused attic room over the Mercantile, a room to which she had more windows added -- glass was not common, glass windows were still a sign of prosperity -- but in winter, with what little sun could philter in, the attic room smelled of roses year round.

Some said Sarah experimentally mounted a beehive in the attic in winter, though either her experiment was not successful, or it was sheer speculation; later generations mentioned the possibility in passing, but not even that pale eyed Sheriff Willamina's investigations could corroborate the apiarist in her honored ancestor's range of skills.

Esther Keller knelt on a thick-folded blanket pad as she worked, as she bent forward, as her steel gardening trowel worked into the dirt, loosened the dirt, as weeds were pulled and water carefully added.

As she worked, Esther knew she was watched, and she smiled a little, for she knew why.

Men who look upon a woman, as she is being womanly, will see that woman as more feminine.

It is a matter of documented fact that a cowhand would ride for hours to stop in front of a homesteader's shack, just to sit and watch the homesteader's furiously-blushing daughter, sitting on her front porch, sewing.

A woman who sews, is seen as more feminine.

A woman who carefully cultivates her roses, is seen as more feminine, and the masculine soul responds to such a sight.

That night, after Esther changed her skirt and washed her hands, after she'd washed her gardening gloves in the washpan behind the back porch, after she'd dried her hands and glided into the house, she lifted her face to her husband's, melted herself into his front, and sighed contentedly to feel strong and masculine arms around her.

The Sheriff held his wife for several long moments, his eyes closed.

The Sheriff was a man who'd known war and loss, injury and defeat, grief and pain and terror.

The Sheriff was a man who did not take a single good moment for granted.

The Sheriff buried his face in his wife's coarse, red-auburn hair, smiled as he inhaled her scent.

Husband and wife held one another, each content, in that moment, to be nowhere else in the entire world.

Esther Keller, wife, mother, woman of commerce and society, felt strength and warmth and protection, smelled horse sweat and saddle leather and man sweat.

Her husband felt warmth, and he felt her arms holding and not pushing away, and he smelled clean mountain air, he smelled his wife's bath salts, and he smiled with his eyes closed.

He'd watched his wife, this bringer of life, mother of his young, bringing life from the earth itself as she cultivated around scarlet blossom stems.

There was a name the Sheriff never spoke to anyone -- not even to his wife -- it was something he held, secret and hidden, and never even entrusted to his most personal Journal.

You are my Mountain Rose, he thought, and his arms tightened ever so slightly more, and he nuzzled his face into her hair again as her arms tightened, just a little, in response.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A PROPER BLESSING

Sheriff Linn Keller came downstairs -- or, rather, the Sheriff went upstairs, and Linn came back down.

When he changed out of uniform and showered and put on clothes, he was just himself, for all that he wore a sidearm around the house as casually as he wore his jeans.

The Sheriff was closed and quiet and watchful and not entirely trusting.

The Sheriff carried himself with a quiet authority and an almost genteel reserve.

Linn came grinning downstairs in sock feet, got as far as the kitchen, went down on his Prayer Bones and then on his side, and a grinning, toothless baby boy squealed happily and scooted towards him -- he couldn't quite come up on all fours yet, but he was close -- The Bear Killer had been coaching the big-eyed, wobbly-headed son of a pale eyed lawman, and so far, this particular fruit of the loins made a fair imitation of swimming to get from where he was, to where he wanted to be.

Linn ran a hand under the lad and a hand over the lad, he rolled over on his back and a toothless, laughing child of the mountains found himself rolled up onto Da's flat belly: Shelly smiled as she looked away from the stove, wishing for the hundredth time for a camera, taking the mental snapshot instead.

The Bear Killer flumped down beside Linn, muzzle thrust over his belly, jowl warm against a pink-skinned, bare little leg: Shelly knew here husband would delight himself with their youngest, and the more he laughed and made a Tom Fool Idjut of himself, the rougher his day had been.

Shelly well knew her husband found antidote from the day's difficulties in coming home to his wife and his young.

The Bear Killer closed his eyes and gave a long, contented sigh as Linn's hand caressed curly black fur: the family was complete now, he could relax, just a little.

The front door opened, closed: Linn heard boots hit the boot tray, heard sock feet scampering toward him: young and enthusiasm converged with a joyful Laying On of Hands (to The Bear Killer's enthusiastic approval), and Linn managed to roll two tall, growing, giggling children into his embrace.

Marnie lifted her head, looked at the youngest: Linn saw her look at him, then at the baby, then back.

Linn looked, and grinned.

As generally happened, the youngest of Keller Mountain's lineage, was sound asleep, safe and warm on dear old Dad's belly, just that fast.

Linn knew both Marnie and Jacob could conk out just as fast.

He also knew this was not a good thing right before supper.

They felt his belly muscles tension, and rolled away, came up on their knees: Linn sat carefully, cradling the sleeping infant, hand cupped around the back of that fine-haired head.

"I reckon we'd best warsh our hands before we eat," he said quietly, and two pale eyed children nodded and scampered upstairs to tend that detail.

 

Sheriff Jacob Keller lay on the just-reconstituted rug, a sleeping infant on his belly, arms spread and draped bonelessly across warmth and security.

The Bear Killer lay beside Jacob, his muzzle on Jacob's middle, laid up against a bare, pink little leg.

Jacob's hand moved slowly, caressing canine fur, smiling as he did.

He remembered such moments, when he was very young, back home in the mountains.

He had no idea if his infant son would remember what it was like to sleep like this, laying on his Pa, but Jacob knew he would remember what it's like to come home, and hear that happy squeal, to pick up a grinning little boy, to lay down with The Bear Killer dropping his jaw beside Joseph, warm and content on Jacob's flat, hard-muscled belly.

I will remember this, he thought.

Another pale eyed lawman, fourteen light-minutes away, hesitated as  he sat at his kitchen table.

His wife set a steaming, fragrant plate in front of him, then sat, looked at her own filled plate, looked around the table.

Linn reached over, slid his hand under his wife's.

"I remember coming home," he said softly, "with you fixing supper, and a lid-dle boy baby in diapers would swim towards me on the floor."

Marnie's hand tightened and she smiled with the memory.

"I remember," she whispered, then they bowed her heads.

Shelly frowned a little at Linn's hesitation, glanced over, frowned.

"Linn Keller, don't you dare," she warned, picking up a sweet roll and shaking it at him.

"Yes, dear," Linn said gently, and to her surprise, he actually said a proper blessing.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DADDY, IN THE MOONLIGHT

Marnie smiled as she read.

Angela dropped onto the padded bench beside her, harvested from a church gone out of business back East, and shipped out at their late Gammaw's direction: she'd had it thickly, comfortably upholstered, and installed in her office in the Firelands museum.

Marnie sat, smiling, cupped her hand over her mouth as her sister skipped up the stairs, silent on white crepe soles.

"It's not the newspaper," she said, "so it's not who got caught this week."

Marnie looked up, looked back, laid her splayed fingertips along her collarbone and laughed quietly.

"Listen to this," she murmured, then straightened, shifted her weight, harrumphed delicately, and read an account she'd gotten God-alone-knows-where, and as she read, Angela leaned toward her a little with that same quiet smile the two sisters frequently shared.

 

Sean Finnegan set his beer down firmly, turned to the younger man.

"So ye think ye can knock an Irishman down wi' one punch?" he challenged, his voice loud, powerful, but not hostile.

A young fellow -- well built, rangy, like most workin' men in that part of the country -- blinked and realized what he'd drunk had come up as bragging words, and from the look of this red headed, broad shouldered mountain that just squared off at him, his battleship mouth just might have overloaded his tadpole backside.

Still -- he'd said the words -- he couldn't go back on those --

He squared off, raised his fists.

"One punch," Sean warned.

Men's heads turned, watching, listening.

They were in the Silver Jewel.

The Jewel was a saloon, and a saloon was a men's refuge, and within this masculine enclave, with risqué paintings on the walls, with occasional dancing girls for entertainment, with jokes and oaths and coarse jests, with gambling and drinking and outrageous lies, it was a place where men could be ... well, men.

This was an era where men practiced the immaculate manners of the gentleman, so far as they knew them: even common men were deferential and respectful to Ladies, less so to saloon girls, or fan dancers, and not at all to the women in bawdy-houses or cribs.

It was an era where a man's word was his bond, where a liar, once found to be such, would never be believed again, and so when a young fellow who'd liberally partaken of Tongue Oil uttered his declaration that he could deck any man with one punch, and this big blacksmith-armed Irishman took him up on it, he could not back down from his own challenge.

He squared off to the big Irishman, considered the height of the fellow, realized a punch to the face was not feasible due to reach, and besides it tended to break bones in the hand: no, his best bet would be to drive a good one right under the wish bone.

His punch was swift, he stepped into it, at the moment of contact he twisted slightly to bear the weight of his lean young body through his muscle-locked arm.

Sean did not even grunt.

The young man paled slightly as Sean smiled and said in a quiet voice, "My turn."

The prudent thing would be to run, he realized, but that would mark him a coward: no, better this return punch kill him, or cripple him for life, than to be known as a coward.

He swallowed, nodded, prepared to receive the punch that -- from the size of this fellow's shoulders, and from the lack of effect of his best punch to the man's gut -- he'd likely sail backwards through the nearest wall, and skid to a dusty stop halfway into the next county.

Sean reached forward and laid an almost fatherly hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Many a man's tongue has got his own nose broke," he said quietly. "Do you now finish your beer, an' go on your way."

 

Angela smiled, her eyes distant, her head tilted back a little as Marnie's words spun the scene in the still air.

Silence, when she finished reading, then:

"Our pediatrician is leaving."

"Oh?"

If Marnie were wearing spectacles, she would have lowered her head and looked over them.

That a pediatrician was leaving was hardly the conversation she'd anticipated.

That Angela's expression held something, told Marnie there was more to the story.

"Transcription caught me in the hall," she said, "the only guy in that department. Nice fellow, shirt and tie, nerdy but he's okay. He handed me a folded note and asked me to give it to the doctor that's leaving."

Marnie's eyebrow lifted a little as she considered the possibility that a young man was smitten with an older woman.

"I read it before I gave it to her," Angela said, her eyes bright, her expression pleased. 

"You didn't want to hand her an illicit proposition," Marnie suggested.

Angela thrust a combination point-the-finger and palm-up affirmation: "Per-zacktly!"

"What was it?" Marnie prompted.

Angela took a long breath.

"It was handwritten -- gorgeous handwriting, by the way -- it was from that transcriptionist, and it said he was genuinely sorry she was leaving: her dictations were clear and understandable, and when she dictated on a well-child visit" -- Angela's eyes met Marnie's, as if to emphasize a point -- "her voice smiles.

"I gave the note to the doctor, and she read it, and I thought she was going to cry."

Marnie considered this for several moments.

"Angela?"

"Hm?"

"You said it was hand written."

"Mm-hmm."

Marnie's expression was that of a child who knew a secret.

"You're sure it was his handwriting."

Angela's brows puzzled together a little and she turned her head as if bringing a good ear to bear -- you got that from Daddy too, Marnie thought -- Angela nodded, then added, "He even signed it, why?"

Marnie closed her eyes, like she was looking at a favorite memory.

She smiled when she looked at her sister.

"Because that sounds like something Daddy would do."

Marnie leaned confidentially toward her sister and asked quietly, "I thought maybe Daddy was moonlighting!"

 

 

Edited June 17 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TO SEEK, IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

Angela Keller wore a pair of round lens, wire rimmed spectacles, sized to ride halfway down her cute little nose.

Angela Keller wore a McKenna gown and an expression halfway between pleased and surprised.

Angela Keller looked at three rows of chairs, occupied with serious faced youth in suits and Sunday dresses.

Angela Keller looked over her spectacles at the well packed, standing room only room, at the gowned members of the Ladies' Tea Society, at the new young who suddenly swelled their ranks to the room's capacity.

Angela was a nurse, and Angela exercised a nurse's efficiency.

"We are known as students of history and of research, of genealogy and discovery," Angela said, her voice carrying well as the air handler system kicked on to handle the heat of more bodies than usual in the back room of the Silver Jewel.

"Thanks to my pale eyed Gammaw, the Tea Society is also a training organization."

Angela gripped the wooden forestock of the same Mini-14 her Uncle Will carried when he rode his sister Willamina's horse to rescue his late wife Crystal, many years before.

"Gammaw also saw to it that any who wished instruction on keeping yourself safe, received proper instruction."

Angela stood behind the small podium, rifle upright in her gloved hand.

"We continue that fine tradition.

"I've been approached by several who wish to partake of such training, and thank you all for coming."

Angela looked very directly at the silent, solemn youth, neatly ranked in folding chairs.

"That you come dressed for the occasion, tells me you respect the organization. Thank you for that respect."

She smiled, laid the rifle back down on the table.

"We can't cover everything in one meeting, of course, but we can get a good start."

 

Victoria propped a polished boot up on the stone in front of what was his Gammaw's house, pulled the knot loose, loosed the laces and tugged at the tongue and then re-laced them, tied them in a quick, efficient, secure knot.

Her Gammaw's house, behind her, was still in the family, of course -- it was too full of history to sell to strangers -- Victoria straightened, began arranging plates, setting out fresh home baked cookies and bottles of good cold well water.

She smiled a little as she heard the sound of approaching feet, running in cadence.

She smiled a little more as she heard the sound of young voices, chanting a mildly obscene running song.

Her twin brother Michael crested the slight rise to her left: beside him, a broad shouldered football player, staff upright, red pennant at its end, a bleached-bone-white Totenkopf hand painted on the wind-rippling, scarlet triangle.

"DETAAAAAIL, HAALT!" Michael's strong voice called, then "FALL OUT!"

Strong young men, red-cheeked young women, breathed deep, their breathing controlled: some arched back, hands on their belts, others bent forward, hands on their knees: water was handed out, eager hands grabbed cookies -- there is a universal affinity between the energetic young, and fresh, still-warm-and-soft, homemade, chocolate chip cookies -- this was originally the purview and custom of the Firelands High School Football Team (unofficially, Willamina's Warriors), but now it included a few young mothers from the Tea Society.

Angela ran with them, as had her pale eyed Gammaw, in boots and ruck and rifle at sling arms: she and Michael circulated among football players, high school girls and grown women alike: a hand on the shoulder here, a reassuring hand-squeeze there, a few were guided to the side of the road and parked on quickly-spread blankets, in the shade of an accommodating tree.

Mountain folk are a hardy lot.

Football players and cheerleaders kept themselves in shape, year round: newcomers had been working up to this for a few months.

This was their first full run behind the scarlet guidon.

Two of the young mothers felt like they were ready to collapse, but Angela saw something in their faces she hadn't seen before ... a deep feeling of triumph, visible, glowing.

She knew if they kept running they would over tire and might discourage: she had them remain with her, explaining that she did not want them to overextend, that they were not used to both halves of the run, that their muscles needed recovery -- "I do not doubt you could go on," she said, "but I want you to build steadily, not catastrophically."

Fatigue is a powerful persuader, and besides, Willamina's Warriors would be running in cadence back to the high school, where they would shower and change and then disperse back into the community-- their coaches saw these as recognized team exercises, and so were sanctioned and encouraged by Administration.

The mothers, the other newcomers, stretched carefully under Angela's guidance: Victoria and Michael both ran with the Warriors on their long loop back to the high school; they would run, cross country, back to their house, two lean children of the mountains moving easily in the thin, high altitude atmosphere, they would arrive home with apple cheeks and matching grins, and they would tend the necessary chores before showering and changing clothes.

The twins had supper on the table when their pale eyed Pa made it home.

Their Mama wouldn't be home until the next morning, when B shift took over, but they made it a point of pride to have breakfast ready for her when she got home.

Angela ate with them that night.

As usual, laughter was a visitor to their table; there was the ceremonial "Pass me a biscuit," and that's exactly how it arrived -- airmail -- there was talk of the day's activities, and Angela sat with her Daddy later that evening and they went over the lesson plan for the Tea Society's next meeting.

World situations led to anxiety, and anxiety, without direction, can bore into a tizzying downward spiral.

The Tea Society would not all embrace physical conditioning to the degree of Willamina's Warriors.

Few there besides Angela and the twins could drop and knock out a fast twenty push-ups, other than the Warriors.

The Tea Society could, however, improve not only their personal fitness -- a confidence boost right there -- they could also take definitive measures to keep themselves safe.

It was no accident that Angela had the Sheriff's issue Mini-14 on the table when she presented last, and had one conducted an assay of ownership of certain, long distance, hole punching devices -- if one were to spectate at the Tea Society's meeting at the Sheriff's range -- one might be impressed by the percentage of honest burghers who chose to improve their skills with high speed, heavy metal injection devices, of varying kinds.

The Tea Society held additional classes, there were cooperative and collaborative efforts: as soon as soil thawed sufficiently, soil was tilled and gardens planted: elevated garden beds were constructed, as they warm more quickly in spring, and can be tilled, planted, cultivated and harvested without bending over, which made them a favorite in monasteries and Medieval castles that may have to withstand siege for lengthy periods -- canning jars and lids, pickling salt and vinegar came into greater demand at the Mercantile.

The world as a whole was steadily becoming less a certain place.

The Tea Society, founded by the green-eyed, red-headed wife of that pale eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache, was established for social networking, back when.

It continues, to this day: then as now, it serves those who seek, in uncertain times.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE PINK HORSE TROUGH

Sarah Lynne McKenna staggered up the night-darkened alley, one arm across her belly, one bloody-gloved hand holding her skirts up.

Her other hand pressed intermittently against dust-filthied clapboard as she wobbled, as she swayed toward the street ahead, as she tried desperately not to fall.

She bent double and heaved, spat, staggered another few steps.

Almost there.

Blood, bright, shining, moonlight-reflecting splotches, marked her passage.

Sarah's face was bloodied, as was her bodice: she coughed, gagged, spat again, trying hard to regain her balance, her equilibrium.

She stopped, willed herself to silence as she came to the mouth of the alley.

She fell against the corner of the building, breathing ragged, her vision shrinking to what she was hoping to find.

Another few staggering steps and she fell face-first into the horse trough.

Sarah opened her mouth, swished horse trough water in and out of her mouth: she came up, blowing like a whale, gasped, coughed, fell forward on her knees again, went under.

A strong hand drove through the water, seized her jacket between her shoulder blades, hauled her out: a street cop, his face hard, expecting to find another damned drunken whore.

He saw a woman with a blood soaked bodice, a woman dribbling blood out her mouth, and he realized he had a victim and not a wastrel.

Sarah coughed, pulled from his grip, leaned over the slick-slimed edge of the horse trough and threw up again, spending the last of her strength to grip the edge.

She remembered her grip failing.

She remembered falling, remembered the water closing over her again.

When she woke, she was clean, she was in a fresh nightgown and lying on clean sheets in a room that smelled of soap and of carbolic.

A woman a little older than she turned, tilted her head, flowed over toward her, gave her a long, serious look: Sarah's eyes closed slowly, opened again.

"How long?" she wheezed.

"A few hours," the nurse murmured.

"I have to --"

A hand over her collar bone: "No," the nurse said gently.

She sounded like Sarah's Mama when Sarah was sick and fevered in bed, and wanting to get up.

Just the one word -- No -- gentle, but backed by womanly authority.

Sarah relaxed back against clean sheets and a thin mattress, closed her eyes again.

 

The stock ramp dropped firmly into place.

Jacob Keller was of no mind to wait.

Had it been just him, he'd have launched his Apple-horse out the door the moment the stock car's doors rumbled open.

It was not up to him.

He was here with his father.

Jacob tightened his cinch, checked it again, turned to look at his father.

Sheriff Linn Keller's moves were deliberate, unhurried, precise, calm.

This -- the deliberation, the lack of haste, the precision of his father's moves, told Jacob that his pale eyed father was beyond enraged.

The Grand Old Man was more than furious.

His pale eyed Pa had not said two words on the train ride from Firelands.

Jacob well knew that, when the Old Man was absolutely controlling himself like this, that his father was more than willing to rip someone's head off and sling it over the nearest roofline, skin somebody else alive with a dull spoon, and after that, he was more than prepared to get just plainly unpleasant with anyone who was left.

Linn checked his cinch, patted his big golden stallion's shoulder: he took a moment to bribe Rey del Sol with a few thick shavings of molasses twist, before he led his favorite go-to-war mount down the stock ramp.

Jacob followed, leading his Apple-horse.

Father and son stopped, mounted as one.

Two pale eyed lawmen rode past the depot and down the street, into City traffic.

 

It took some little time to figure out exactly what happened.

The City detective knew his people, his bailiwick; the pale eyed Sheriff knew people, knew how they behaved, knew what to look for that told whether a man was lying, or uncertain, fearful, or truthful: they traveled the alley, the Sheriff reading sign like he was tracking a wounded animal.

In a way, he was.

Jacob could read sign as well as his Pa, better sometimes -- though he wished powerfully he had the ability of the legendary Charlie Macneil, who was reputed to be able to track a fly across a glass pane! -- still, there in morning's light, they found cord, a knife, a cosh: they found blood, an impact-point where a man's head was introduced at a fair velocity into the side of a bawdy-house.

Then they saw the body, mostly because they saw blood first -- thick, dark, coagulated.

The Sheriff motioned the detective to freeze: pale eyes moved, and nothing else: then the Sheriff stepped in, seized the dead man's shoulder, rolled him over.

The detective pulled back fast, eyes wide, shocked, his stomach rolling over inside of him.

Jacob took a step forward, interest on his face and a frown on his forehead: he studied the several injuries, grabbed the dead man's jaw -- broken -- he bent, moved a step to his right, bent low again, studying the head injuries.

"She marked him," Jacob murmured.

The Sheriff put two fingers under the dead man's broken jaw, looked at the broad and bloody wound under his ear.

"Look around," he said quietly.

The detective came back over, took a look at the chunk of meat missing from under the dead man's ear, turned away and tried hard not to heave.

Jacob squatted, looked under a building.

"There, sir," he said. "Looks like a stray cat is eatin' on it."

The detective gave up and vomited at least a week's worth of meals.

 

Another detective sat in with Sarah, with her father, and with her brother.

The detective had three sharpened pencils laid out and ready.

Sarah looked at the familiar face under the brushed Derby hat.

"Mr. Milford," she said quietly, "do you remember your interest in a case recently involving the disappearance of a businessman's wife, and the subsequent discovery of her body?"

"It was found in New Mexico, yes."

"The deceased in our case today is the perpetrator."

The detective leaned forward, clearly interested: his pencil scratched busily on his note pad.

"I had business in the area," Sarah said, "and when he presented himself, I declined his attentions."

The detective looked up from his note-taking; he blinked, looked down, looked up again to confirm his impression.

Two pale eyed lawmen were not blinking.

He looked back at Sarah.

"He swung his slung shot at me," she said, "but I anticipated his swing, and caught the blow on my back. I'm afraid it'll be bruised."

Detective's eyes met Sheriff's eyes; the unspoken agreement was to not corroborate this statement.

"He had cord for binding, he seized me by the hair and tried to pull me off my feet.

"I thrust myself into him.

"He produced a knife.

"I seized his wrist and drove my shoulder into his chest.

"He went back into a buildling -- I intended that he should hit his head -- it was not enough to loose his grip on my hair.

"I found his ear was available, but an ear can be bitten off and little effect it will have.

"I opened my jaw wide and I bit the side of his neck.

"I suppose a madness came upon me."

Her voice was quiet; her hand sought Jacob's, squeezed hard -- the grip of a young woman who can look back on terror and know that she is safe, but a young woman who wants the reassurance of a strong man's hand.

He squeezed back.

His grip was not hard.

His eyes sure as hell were.

"He screamed and tried to pull away.

"I knew if I lost my grip on his knife, my life would surely be lost, and so I shoved my face deeper and I bit until my teeth met and I tore loose what I'd bitten."

Her voice was quiet, her eyes almost closed, her words very precisely enunciated.

"He released my hair and I twisted, I got my knee in his gut and I threw him to the ground.

"I felt his blood splash across me and I spat out his ... I spat out what I'd bitten, and I remembered what had been done to a young woman -- seized, beaten, bound, cut and tortured and found dead -- and I was ... sick."

Sarah's breath was a little quicker now, her eyes still almost completely closed, her hand shivering where it was tight, tight around Jacob's.

Jacob brought his other hand up and laid over hers, pressed gently, sandwiching her cold hand between his warm ones, the unspoken message plain:

You're safe.

We're here.

Nothing bad can happen now.

You're safe.

"I'm ... afraid ... I went a little mad," Sarah said hesitantly, with an uncertain laugh.

"I wished to be free of his gore.

"I thought of a nearby horse-trough.

"I staggered down the alley and I was sick, oh, I was so sick! -- I found ... the horse trough was ..."

She stopped, took a few quick, shivering breaths.

"I fell into the water and I tried to get that taste out of my mouth and a policeman grabbed me and pulled me out and he saw I was all bloody and I just want my Daddy --"

Sarah, who'd borne up strongly, who'd been quiet and unshaken until this moment -- Sarah, whose voice had been quiet and controlled -- 

Sarah's voice tightened into a squeak and her face twisted up and she reached blindly for her father.

She buried her face in his shirt and shivered, and Jacob released her hand and she seized her Daddy with the desperate grip of a terrified child.

Jacob looked over at the detective, jerked his head a little -- Leave -- they two departed the room, leaving a daughter in her father's arms to try and regain some feeling of safety.

Jacob drew the door quietly behind them.

"I, ah," the detective said, "I think I have all that I need."

"You solved a murder," Jacob said quietly. 

"Do ... you ... really ... think she" -- the detective's eyes went to the closed door -- "could she have done that to a man's neck?"

Jacob considered for several long moments.

"Sir," he said finally, "I don't know. I wasn't there. I did see a cat chewing on something. Might be some animal came along and chewed on his neck."

Jacob's eyes went to the door.

"Me, I'd say she did it."

 

When the policeman blew his whistle, when he pulled the woman out of the water for the second time, when a wagon was summoned to take the unconscious, bloodied woman to the private hospital, one of the responding officers shone his Bullseye lantern into the still-moving waters.

He looked, and he shivered, and he covered the lantern's lens.

For some odd reason, the sight of a pink horse trough was troubling to him.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS

 Ambassador Marnie Keller tightened her flight harness, set her high-button shoes very precisely on the rudder pedals, gripped the stick in her right hand and throttle in her left, and took a long breath.

This was entirely unnecessary.

Marnie knew, when she closed her eyes and relaxed her mind, that she would interface with the flight control system, and that stick-and-rudder controls would suddenly seem clumsy and ponderous, but it's what she was used to.

Besides, she liked the feedback, the feeling that she was actually flying this crate, not just thinking about it!

"Spam in a can," she murmured, remembering something she'd read from Earth's early spaceflight stories, which got her a curious look from the uniformed young captain seated beside her.

"Madam Ambassador, are you sure about this?" Captain Tinkerson asked quietly.

"Of course I'm sure," she replied. "A tornado is spinning up, and my brother is down there."

Marnie's smile was quiet, her eyes were closed as she saw through the shuttle's sensors.

"I am debating," she murmured.

"Debating, ma'am?"

"Do I want to go in like a fighter jet, or just slice through it like a pocket knife?"

The Captain blinked, opened his mouth to ask another question, when it felt like the elevator suddenly dropped and his stomach didn't bother to come along for the ride.

The Captain heard Marnie's quiet laugh.

What kind of insanity did I volunteer for?

 

Michael Keller grinned viciously as he scaled his hat toward the liveried and clearly uncomfortable maitre-d'.

Michael was running, teeth bared.

He headed for the hotel's heavy double doors like he was heading for a personal enemy.

Wind shivered the weighty portals.

Michael hesitated, looked through thick glass.

It felt like the weather itself challenged him.

Defiance unfolded in Michael's soul.

He knew this weather and he knew what it could do, and that was an affront to a strong young man.

He saw a thin cloud of dust blow down the street, and his wrist-unit vibrated and began the muted wail of the air raid siren that meant tornadic activity was detected.

Michael dropped his shoulder against the doors, shoved: he squinted -- unnecessarily, he realized, his personal shield kept wind-blown debris from touching him -- he turned, looked up toward the lowering, fast-moving sky, set his jaw -- a stubborn expression, seen on multiple generations of pale eyed men, and not a few pale eyed women as well.

He turned -- something, almost heard over the wind's roar -- his expression of boyish rebellion fell from his face like a dropped porcelain mask, replaced by the pale eyed, serious look he wore when he was about to tear into someone who'd just earned his serious displeasure.

A young mother staggered, in the street, reaching for her little girl, who -- as Michael spotted them -- went down on all fours, red-faced, crying.

Terrified.

"We're not havin' this," he muttered, hands tightening into fists.

Michael bent double, powered into a wind-staggered run.

 

"I see them," Marnie murmured, her voice confident, her face relaxed.

The Diplomatic shuttle's force-wings extended and the Captain felt them bank, felt them come about in a sweeping turn, felt the deck angled under him instead of level.

He very definitely wasn't used to this.

In his world, spaceflight was conducted in straight lines, or at carefully calculated angles.

In all his years of traveling short-hop transports through vacuum, he'd never once flown in living air, at least not like this.

Takeoffs, landings, were all vertical, precise.

Not like this.

Not like ... 

... birds?

This business of cutting through a living storm like slicing through meat with a blade was entirely foreign to him.

Instead of fighting her for control, instead of powering into his own neural interface, he relaxed his mind, he took a long, steadying breath, dropped both his hands and gripped the edges of his seat with white-knuckled intensity.

He felt acceleration and he knew this wasn't the storm's doing.

Marnie took the boxy, rectangular Diplomatic shuttle's shielding and reconfigured it into an aerodynamic force-envelope -- she adjusted wing area, wing length, as necessary to optimize control in this fast-changing turbulence -- the Captain saw her throttle ease forward, felt their speed increase -- he interfaced with the controls, enough to read their velocity, something he never did in "Real Flight" -- he saw something foreign -- turn-and-bank and rate-of-climb indicators, things never seen in spaceflight craft, but seen now as if they were hard-mounted instruments bolted in front of his face.

He had the mental impression of huge oval air intakes, yawning into the storm, inhaling great volumes of air, crushing air through metallic turbine buckets and igniting it with injected fuel and blasting it rearward as living flame, thrusting hard through tapeered, stainless-steel exhaust --

Marnie corrected, lowered her nose, came in over the town: she saw the pocket of still air, aimed for it, dropped her left wing and came around hard, fast, snapped level.

He saw her hand reach forward, grip something invisible, pull down.

Vague thuds shivered somewhere under him.

He heard her mental whisper -- Gear down, three green, brakes checked -- 

God Almighty, what is she doing?

This isn't how you land!

He felt Marnie's quiet chuckle in his mind, he felt her murmured "Hold my beer, Captain."

Somehow that didn't make it any better.

Buildings passed under them, fast, almost blurred: they dropped toward the street, he felt them hit, bounce, hit again, then he was thrown forward in his harness as Marnie fired retros, he felt her angle the shields to direct searing-hot reaction exhaust forward and up, instead of straight ahead.

She spread their shields, walled both sides of the street ahead for a hundred yards, then angled the flat force-wall up and over them, bringing silence and still air to what had been a storm-driven wind tunnel.

 

Michael bent double and ran ahead, angled with the wind and ran an arm under the little girl's belly.

He brought her up, ran for the mother, who was trying to shield her face from the blast.

Clouds were low overhead, turning slowly, not far from forming a funnel.

Michael raised his head, threw his shield into a head-high wall, ran to the woman.

She fell as the wind stopped, as she was suddenly fighting ... 

... nothing ...

Michael caught her, his arm around her waist: he turned, using momentum and leverage to burn off her directional energy.

For a moment it looked like they were dancing.

For Michael, it was an automatic response: he was a dancer, and a good one, and the mother was also known to cut the rug -- but usually in less strenuous circumstances.

Had Michael not been experienced in certain Oriental disciplines of throwing thine enemy over the nearest sedan, had he not been well practiced in redirecting unwanted advances, he could never have managed to keep himself, the child he held, and a startled, storm-fighting mother, upright. 

As it was, the wind stopped as if a door was shut.

Something big, square, solid, suddenly occupied the street: it rose, dead silent, turned end-for-end, lowered again.

Michael's arm slacked from around the mother's waist, handed the little girl to her Mama.

He and the mother looked at one another and they both laughed -- she, uncertain, maybe a little embarrassed; Michael, grinning, strong and confident.

Michael began singing, softly, turning, the mother turning with him.

They stopped, the mother stared, open-mouthed, as the boxy back end of a shining-stainless-steel Diplomatic shuttle opened, its rear wall lowering into a ramp, as a very well known Diplomat rode out astride a shining-black mare that stood taller at the shoulder than most grown men.

Marnie tilted her head a little and smiled, and Michael laughed and looked at the uncertain little girl with the wind-touseled hair in her mother's arms.

Michael turned to Marnie and declared loudly, "Ain't this just a terrible way for friends and neighbors to get together!"

Marnie laughed and leaned forward a little in the saddle.

"If I'd known there was a dance," she countered, "I'd have brought my husband!"

 

Edited Thursday at 02:54 PM by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I DON'T WANT TO QUIT

Of all the lessons Angela's pale eyed Daddy taught her, the one she took the most closely to heart, the one she practiced most assiduously, was one he taught her on a finger-aching, feet-freezing, snow-down-the-back-of-your-neck winter evening, when they were making what he called a "Running Ree-pair" where a deadfall mashed their back pasture fence.

Angela was a child of the mountains, an equestrienne, and although she was very much a feminine soul, she was also -- by her own admission -- a Daddy's Girl, and she listened closely when her Daddy spoke.

His use of a come-along to true up two fence posts, rather than grab them and wallow them into position, was accompanied by his quiet, "When in doubt, cheat."

She must've given him a funny look, because he stopped, leaned against one of the straightened posts, tamping rod in hand: "Cheat every chance you get, cheat as often as you can, cheat to the greatest degree possible."

His grin was contagious and almost boyish as he clarified, "Not as in illegal, immoral or fattening, but take every advantage. Let the machine do the work and take every advantage."

He lowered his head a fraction and winked, the way a father will in a private moment:

"Use-a the head and save-a the back!"

Angela Keller was no stranger to hard work.

It was a distress to her Mama that Angela would rather run a big John Deere and pull a hay baler, than to go shopping in the City; it was a matter of maternal concern that her daughter, rather than taking body sculpting lessons and choreographed, leotard-clad exercise sessions, preferred to pull on boots and leather gloves and throw -- throw! -- bales of hay.

Shelly knew what it was to lose the battle of wills with a daughter; in a bright moment of frustration, she'd backhanded Marnie when Marnie said she didn't want to go to the City, shopping, with her Mama: Shelly realized in that moment just how many sets of young eyes were watching, then she saw every trace of color drain out of Marnie's eyes, and she had the distinct feeling she'd  pulled the pin on a live grenade.

Angela was home now, Angela was in the field throwing hay -- she was helping a neighbor, whose baler lacked a thrower, like her Daddy used -- Angela seized a bale with one hand, twisted, slung it onto the wagon, turned, SLAMMED her leather-gloved hand down on another, gripped its strings right-handed, and slung it after the left-launched counterpart.

Angela sought out such things when she was frustrated.

It helped to handle bales of hay in the same manner she'd like to handle bottom polishing bureaucrats, supervisors who had more authority than good sense, and other low and aggravating forms of life.

Angela stopped, unscrewed the cap from the red-and-white water jug, tilted it up and took a long drink, pouring it into her open mouth without touching the nozzle: she capped it, set it back in the shade, skipped ahead and seized another hay bale, two-handed, tossed it viciously into the wagon.

When she came back to the house, after a shower, clean clothes and sitting down with a tall glass of good cold wellwater at the empty kitchen table, Angela closed her eyes and took a long breath.

She was still simmering.

She hadn't let herself get mad as hell.

Just as fear is a choice, so is anger: danger is very real, persons can block a good soul's actions for good reason, or for no reason: Angela thought of "The Talk" she'd been given in the Supreme Confederate.

She'd been instructed that she couldn't cross-transfer medical procedures, devices, even knowledge, from one society to another.

She'd immediately pointed out that she'd already done this, that multiple patients were benefitted as a result -- her own brother, for instance, received the attentions of three worlds' worth of medical skills and discoveries.

Angela thought of the latest shift she'd worked in the Firelands hospital.

She remembered having caressed a child's head with her gloved hand, surreptitiously introducing a particular variety of nanites to attack this terminal patient's cancer.

The Supreme Confederate told her she couldn't do anything like that.

Angela was her father's daughter.

She was also her Gammaw's granddaughter, and that meant she was:

a) sneaky,

b) fast,

c) deadly when occasion demanded, and

d) she honestly did not give a good damn with rules she disagreed with.

Her investigation revealed the Supreme Confederate, in this case, was one self-important, bottom polishing, seven carbon son of a bureaucratic paper shuffler who decided he'd cause Angela trouble in order to justify his own job.

Angela knew the condition of another pediatric cancer patient in the Firelands hospital.

Angela knew she had a little time to work with.

Angela knew she didn't have any intention to conform to nor abide by this bureaucrat's well-worded justification to prevent cross-cultural contamination.

Angela did, however, know it was wise to cool off, if one had a good head of steam built up, and so she welcomed a day in the hay field, seizing bales of hay as if she were seizing a particular rulebound rascal by the nape of the neck and the seat of the pants.

It wasn't until after she'd showered and changed, not until after she'd set in the cool and the silence of the home place's kitchen, that she decided bureaucracy could go fly a kite.

Snowdrift laid her muzzle on Angela's thigh and regarded her with dark and adoring eyes.

Angela's hand automatically began caressing the big, snow-white, mountain Mastiff's shoulders and neck.

"Snowdrift," she murmured, "would you like to take a ... riiide?"

Snowdrift's ears came up, her mouth opened, she minced back, dancing on her forepaws.

Angela laughed, drained the last of her water, rose: her glass went in the sink and Angela went upstairs, and came skipping down in her nursing whites, her red-trimmed, blue cape about her shoulders and her dark-blue warbag diagonal across her body.

 

Angela breezed into the pediatric wing, Snowdrift beside her: the big Bear Killer of a mountain Mastiff tik-tik-tikked happily from one bed to another, happy young hands greeting her, subdued but obviously delighted young voices greeting both Angela and the happy, tail-swinging canine.

Angela went straight to a particular bed.

"Thomas," she murmured, taking his hand.

Young eyes opened slowly and she felt his hand squeeze hers, just a little.

Angela smiled at the other nurses; they looked up, smiled -- somehow the shift went better when Angela showed up, even if she never appeared to do anything -- Angela found it easy to conceal a scanner, gave young Thomas a confirming assay.

She bent a little, looked very directly at a face that was more pale, more drawn, than any child should ever be.

"Thomas," she murmured again.

He opened his eyes as if winching his eyelids open.

"Thomas, do you still want to ride horses with me?"

She saw the smile in his eyes, the smile that tried to lift the corners of his mouth.

"I've been fighting," he whispered slowly.

Angela slipped the scanner back in her blue-canvas warbag, brought out a small silver injector: she pressed it quickly, lightly, against the side of his neck, knowing full well this simple act was felony level in multiple jurisdictions -- no doctor ordered it, no overseeing board approved this medication, this treatment; she had neither obtained, nor even sought, permission from Thomas's parents.

Angela Keller was not going to let this child die of cancer.

Angela was an artist, and had been sketch artist for her Daddy's Sheriff's office; she had subbed for a bank teller, when they had intel that a robbery was being planned, and in the courtroom, her sketches were entered into evidence, which won the case.

Angela was also rebellious enough to defy the direct order of an individual who fancied he actually had some authority with the thirteen star system Confederacy.

Thomas's eyes cracked open again.

"I want to ride the stars," he whispered.

Angela palmed the injector, the silver device disappeared into her warbag through sleight-of-hand.

"Kind of hard to saddle a star," she smiled.

"You ride horses between the stars," he managed to whisper.

Angela held his cool, limp hand between both of hers.

"I've been known to do that," she admitted.

"I want to ride with you."

"Thomas," Angela said quietly, her voice serious, "you remember we were watching TV two nights ago and you asked about the medical nanites they were talking about."

Thomas blinked slowly, his eyes steady on hers.

"I just had a custom batch made. That's what I just injected you with. It'll start your recovery but it won't do all the work."

"Will it help?" he whispered.

"It'll help."

"Good."  He swallowed with an effort.  "Hate chemo."

Angela nodded, just a little.

"After the last," he whispered, his throat rough, dry, "I wanted to give up."

Angela tilted her head slightly, her eyes never leaving his.

"I realized I could quit fighting and it wouldn't hurt anymore."

Angela blinked, nodded just a little.

"If I get better ... can I ride with you?"

Nurse Angela Keller bit her bottom lip and nodded.

"You're damned right," she whispered back, her voice suddenly husky.

"Good."

He took another quick breath, as if he'd come to a decision.

"I don't want to quit."

 

Security was passing by the Chapel, stopped.

It sounded like someone was beating on ... something.

He pushed the door open a little, took a cautious look, then stepped inside.

A nurse was kneeling before the altar.

She was bent over, as if her forehead was on the altar rail.

She raised both fists, brought them down on polished wood -- hard -- in a regular, powerful, punishing rhythm, and finally she stopped, and he saw her shoulders were working, as if she were containing some great, private sorrow.

The officer withdrew.

He'd known staff to slip into the Chapel after something particularly bad; more rarely, after something unexpectedly good.

He knew this nurse.

He knew if she'd had something that brought her to drop ranch-hardened hammerfists onto varnished wood, that she was best left to her grief.

 

Angela Keller lifted her face to stained glass and a brass cross.

Water ran down her cheeks as she remembered a young voice.

"I don't want to quit."

 

Security saw the only nurse who wore whites, leave through the automatic ER doors, with a white dog the size of a young bear.

He stood and watched, his expression thoughtful, as one of the ER nurses came over to him, curious.

He didn't look over at her.

She followed his gaze, watched Angela get into her pretty purple Dodge, a truly huge, pure white, curly-furred copilot sitting upright in the passenger front seat.

"I don't know what happened," the officer murmured thoughtfully.

"She either had really, really bad news, or she had equally good."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WOMEN!

Michael Keller raised a hand to his hot, stinging cheek and blinked in surprise at the retreating shoulder blades storming away from him.

The slap had been swift, unexpected: she'd caught him a good one right on the cheek, then she turned and almost ran.

He replayed the preceding few moments, sorting through the memories of the words that fell out from between his teeth, trying to puzzle out just what he'd said that earned Loraine's sudden displeasure.

He'd stopped, he'd touched his hat-brim, he'd called her by name.

He blinked as he remembered.

She stopped as if astonished out of a daydream: she looked at him, her expressions flowing across her face.

Michael's forehead wrinkled a little as he found it.

"Michael Keller!" she'd demanded, "you graduate early, you disappear, and you think you can just come back like nothing ever happened?" -- SMACK! -- and while Michael was trying to get his mental legs under him again, she turned and stormed off, arms stiff, hands fisted.

He arrived at the home place at the same moment Angela emerged from her pretty purple Dodge.

Michael drew up his Apple-horse, frowned at his big sis.

He saw she was closing her car door slowly, carefully ...

... precisely ...

... and this did not bode entirely well.

When Angela was upset, when she was boilin' mad, when she was ready to run her arm down someone's throat, grab them by the ankles and rip them inside out with one hard pull, she tended to close doors with a quiet precision, rather than slam them as Michael had seen elsewhere.

Angela saw Michael.

She closed her eyes, she took a long, steadying breath, then she opened her eyes, walked around the car toward the house, and she looked back up at Michael.

She stopped, and Michael saw the intensity of his gaze.

Is she going to belt me too? Michael thought.

I haven't said a word!

"Michael," Angela said quietly, "what happened to your left cheek?"

Michael's bottom jaw slid out, he pressed his lips together, then he looked down and shook his head.

"Loraine Thrapp slapped me," he said.

Angela's expression changed -- she was suddenly calculating -- "Why?"

Michael shook his head, dismounted, walked up to his sister.

He's nearly tall as I am, Angela thought.

I'll have to start wearing heels again!

"She said I graduated early and just disappeared and when I called her by name, she allowed as I thought I could just come back like nothing ever happened, and SMACK!" -- his hand arced through the air, in pious imitation of the unexpected palm to the side of his face.

"Were you ... involved?" Angela asked carefully.

Michael's expression was startled, honest: "No!"

"Ever have her out on a date?"

"Sis, I never had a girl out on a date until I went offworld!"

"So you never promised to marry Loraine."

"No."

"Never kissed her."

"No."

Michael looked closely at his big sis.

"You're trying to keep me from noticing."

"Noticing what?" Angela asked innocently, giving her pale-eyed brother her very best Look of Utter Wide Eyed Innocence.

"Somethin' has you wound up, Sis," Michael said quietly. "I've got a rifle and Pa's got a backhoe. Who do I need to go after?"

"Oh, Michael," Angela groaned: she opened her arms, hugged her brother, held him for a long moment.

When Michael leaned back a little, he looked very directly into his sis's light-blue eyes.

"I made sure a little boy will live," Angela whispered.

Michael turned his head a little -- just like Papa! she thought -- Michael frowned and said slowly, "That's a ... good thing?"

Angela bit her bottom lip, nodded.

"Then what's got you tore up?"

Angela's hands dropped from Michael's shoulders to his hands.

She bit her bottom lip, she looked down.

"Sis?" Michael asked quietly as the first saltwater ran liquid crystal down her cheek.

"It's a good thing, Michael," she whispered.

"So tell me what's a good thing."
"He's going to fight it, Michael. He's going ... he set a goal and he's not going to quit!"

Michael's grin was broad, instant, bright, his hand tightened on hers:  "Sis, that's great!"

"I know," Angela squeaked as her face reddened, as her expression crumpled and screwed up and she let go of his hands and ran for the front door, trying to muffle womanly sobs and not having much success.

Michael Keller stood with his Apple-horse hanging his long jaw over his shoulder, with Snowdrift warm and companionable against his leg: the three of them watched Angela run for the front door, fumble the mechanism open, almost fall inside: the moment the door shut, hard, they heard the wail of distress she'd held in until she was inside.

Michael Keller, son of a pale eyed lawman, brother to several women, stood with a stallion and a pure white Snowdrift-dog, staring at the closed door, considering that everything he knew about the opposite sex could probably be tamped down in a sewing thimble, and have room enough to pour in a quart of whiskey on top.

Michael looked at Apple-horse's big dark eye, looked down at Snowdrift, looked at the closed front door.

He shook his head and raised his hand to his still-scarlet cheek, and said the one word uttered by perplexed men, in similar situations, since time immemorial.

"Women!"

 

 

Edited Saturday at 01:09 AM by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NOT TODAY

"Sir?"

"Yes, Michael?"

Two lean and pale eyed men sat their saddles well, there in the Colorado sunlight: father and son, both in tailored black suits and neckties.

Lightning was very near foal, and Michael would return to her later that day, unless he received a zippo from one of the veterinarians tasked with monitoring the gravid Fanghorn, but for today, he felt the need to straddle his Apple-horse and ride with his father.

"Sir, am I correct in concluding the world does not want saving?"

A pale eyed father considered his son's words carefully, frowned a little as he considered his reply.

"It sounds," he said finally, "like a question that comes from disappointment."

It was Michael's turn to consider his reply.

"Michael, I've known good men to leave law enforcement because they didn't like telling people things they didn't want to hear."

"Yes, sir?"

"Sometimes, Michael, what they want to hear is unimportant. What they must hear may make them unhappy, but they have to be told."

"Yes, sir."

"As far as us -- any of us in the emergency services, bustin' our hump to keep people safe ..."

The Sheriff took a long breath, looked to mountaintops in the distance, then looked at his son.

"Sometimes it does feel like you're beatin' your head against a wall, and sometimes it's easier to give up and drop out and let the world go to hell."

"Yes, sir?"

"If all of us under the Lights and Siren did that, where would the world end up?"

The Sheriff's voice was heavy, as if he genuinely appreciated the weight of his question.

"God knows I've been tempted to just walk away, Michael. I've run myself nubbin-down to build a case only to have it either pled out or out-on-probation."

Michael was surprised to hear this.

He very carefully said nothing, and slipped on his long-practiced poker face. 

He felt more than saw his father's jaw harden.

"I keep at it, Michael, and so does your mother. She sees people OD'd or dead from their own foolishness, the same ones over and over again until they finally do something so stupid they can't be saved."

"Mama thought about walking away too?"

"We all do, Michael. At one time or another, every one of us thinks of just saying to hell with it and walking away."

"But ... you haven't."

"No."

Two Appaloosa horses walked, slowly, down the dead center of the pasture.

"Do you reckon to, sir?"

The silence was longer this time.

"Not today," Sheriff Linn Keller said finally.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ONE OF THOSE TIMES

Sheriff Jacob Keller practiced what his white-capped little sis called Therapeutic Communications.

Jacob considered it definitely therapeutic if he communicated in such a manner as to clearly convey his meaning.

When Sheriff Jacob Keller communicated clearly and unambiguously, it was because he wanted something understood, and understood with not the slightest amount of doubt.

Jacob Keller well knew his father's observation that "Show me and I'll forget it, tell me and I won't remember, but involve me and I've got it forever!"

Sheriff Jacob Keller, accordingly, smiled gently as he held his wife's hand, as the two of them walked through fusion-smoothed tunnels, as they passed through airlocks and into the practice chamber.

Jacob had an old-fashioned, red-velvet-padded chair, almost a throne, ready for his wife: he seated her, raised her knuckles to his lips, and looked at her with light-blue eyes.

His expression was that of a husband, very much in deep and most affectionate love with his wife.

"My dear," he said softly, "I find I need you to know something important."

Ruth gave him a puzzled look.

"Dearest, do you remember, when you slipped up behind me and laid a hand on my back, and I spun and knocked your arm away? -- and you were upset for a moment?"

Ruth blinked several times, remembering, feeling the hurt, the rejection at her husband's sudden and violent action.

She remembered he'd hit her arm -- hard -- it bruised, it ached for a time after, she remembered the crushing clamp of his hand on the slenderest part of her forearm, just before he released and jerked back as if he'd just grabbed a forge-heated length of cherry-red, steel rod.

Jacob turned and hung his hat and his coat on pegs.

He turned and smiled at his wife, winked.

Ruth blinked, surprised.

She knew her husband sparred with mechanical simulacra, but somehow she didn't think these humanoid devices would be as realistic as ... as the one coming up, fast, behind Jacob.

Jacob did not so much move, as he exploded.

His response was reflex, too fast for his wife's startled mind to keep up with.

The first featureless, grey, smooth-surfaced training golem was only just hit the ground when the second one lunged, trying to thrust a blade into her husband's tenderloins.

Again -- his move -- fast, startling, violent.

Ruth's breath caught, her splayed fingers went to the base of her throat, her lovely eyes widening to a remarkable degree.

Part of her mind -- but only part of it -- realized the second attacker's arm now bent the wrong way, that the leg bent inward, as if the knee joint were installed sideways.

Jacob turned, hands up, bladed.

Another attacker, running toward him from behind Ruth's throne.

Jacob swept up the knife, charged.

Ruth stopped breathing.

Her husband's face was dead pale.

Jacob's flesh stretched taut over high cheekbones, two scarlet dots of color standing out on pallid parchment.

He had this attacker by the throat -- she heard the crunch of a windpipe -- his hand drove repeatedly into its belly, driving a foot of honed steel up and under its breastbone, until her husband's fisted grip was wrist-deep in his opponent.

Jacob released the knife, still shoved up behind the training golem's breastbone: he shoved, hard, threw the dead grey simulacrum from him.

He turned, smoothly, hands open, eyes dead white, his head lowered slightly: his mouth was closed, his breathing deep, steady, his moves still those of a prowling cat.

It was the very first time Ruth ever -- ever! -- saw her husband as the feral creature he kept carefully hidden.

Jacob stopped, turned again, straightened.

"Endit," he said, and Ruth heard the tinny double-beep of the computer's acknowledgement.

Jacob took a long breath, blew it out.

He went over to an alcove, pulled out a coarse white towel: he wiped his face, wiped behind his ears, the back of his head, back of his neck, under his chin: he looked at Ruth.

Sheriff Jacob Keller picked up his coat and spun it around his shoulders, thrust arms into sleeves.

Only then did Ruth realize ...

He's wearing his pistols.

He didn't use them.

Jacob fast up his coat, plucked his brushed black Stetson from its peg, settled it on his head.

He approached his wife, offered his elbow.

"I believe," he said gently, "there is cold tea to be had, and I am thirsty."

Husband and wife walked from the practice room where broken, man-sized mechanicals lay on the floor, dead in reality as well as simulation: Jacob's efforts were vicious enough, complete enough, to terminate their function.

"Dearest," Jacob said, his voice soft as they walked slowly through glassy-walled, fusion-smoothed tunnels, "I train for attack."

Ruth waited.

"I've made it clear throughout the Colony that no one is to touch my back."

Ruth's step remained steady.

Jacob stopped, turned his wife toward him.

Ruth was honestly surprised to see how sorrowful her husband's eyes were become.

"Dearest," he whispered, "please ... as you love me ... please, do not ever come up behind me and startle me!"

Jacob hugged his astonished wife -- sudden, hard, desperate -- he crushed her into him, his cheek laid hard against hers as he whispered, mustachioed lips an inch from her pink-scrubbed ear --

"Dearest, please, if I ever hurt you from that ... if I hurt you because ..."

She felt his shiver, heard his swallow.

"I could not live, knowing I'd hurt you!"

Ruth pushed away from him, held his face firmly between her palms.

"Jacob Keller," she whispered, "don't you dare die before I do!"

Jacob blinked, then nodded.

They turned and resumed their journey toward the mess, toward cold sweet tea with home grown mint.

"My Gammaw," Jacob said slowly, "told me there are times where the only right answer is 'Yes, ma'am.' "

He looked at his wife.

Ruth saw the slightest tightening of the corners of his eyes, saw the smile trying hard to not be seen.

"I believe," Jacob said, the smile shouldering through his reserves and broadening his face, "this is one of those times!"

 

 

Edited Saturday at 08:08 PM by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THINGS JUST KINDA ... HAPPENED

Michael Keller held up a device he'd described, sketched out, and finally had to build.

He wanted to build it, rather than just get one from home: he knew his efforts were being watched, studied, considered.

Businessmen, blacksmiths, woodworkers, cooks and bakers were gathered -- fascinated and very willing students of Michael's appetite, and his problem solving efforts to assuage that particular condition.

Michael's mother described her pale-eyed son (many times) in the selfsame manner (and identical wording) as her pale-eyed mother-in-law described Shelly's husband.

Michael, and his father before him, in their younger years, were somewhat exasperatedly (but honestly) described as "A Walking Appetite on Two Hollow Legs!"

It should probably be mentioned at this point, that Michael was an unholy number of light-years away from the land of his nativity.

Had he sustained this degree of hunger "back home," he would very likely have stopped at the All-Night and picked up two large slices of pizza, consuming this before supper after the studied principle that it is not necessarily wise to eat too much on an empty stomach.

As it was, there was no equivalent to the All-Night on an entire planet, nor was there pizza.

Michael's solution grew from his verbalized desire for a particular Earth dish for which he had an appetite.

The very first pizza on this particular world was surprisingly similar to the product Michael remembered, though not exactly -- he'd had to hunt through local markets to find something that resembled tomatoes (never mind their coloration, purple with yellow stripes) -- these cooked down, when diced very fine, into an acceptable sauce -- it wasn't the tomato sauce he remembered, but if you overlooked texture, seeds, and of course color, which lightened when baked -- well, he was able to come up with tomato sauce.

He'd described pepperoni, which drew blank looks, until he'd likened it to a Brightly Spiced Sausage -- exemplars were obtained, sliced thin, fried, sampled: the crust was simplicity itself; Michael and a half dozen culinary specialists of this particular world, went though the local market like a diplomatic tornado: Michael made liberal use of the Coin of the Realm, as their snatching up different spices, grinding them between palms and taking a good sniff, interfered with the merchants' business (which it really didn't -- the sight of a Diplomatic personage, made famous by the Inter-System, in the middle of men and women alike, all talking at the same time, animatedly, loudly, with the gestures that seem to be part and parcel of the profession, attracted attention, the curious, and business!)

Michael Keller took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves -- literally -- he washed his hands thoroughly, carefully, he was handed a towel to dry off: he stopped and looked very directly at the blushing young woman who'd slipped close enough to hand him the towel, and thanked her quietly: he turned back to his culinary construction, never noticing that the towel, as soon as his back was turned, was clutched to a developing bodice as if it was something precious.

Michael asked the baker to form the dough, and roll it out: he knew if he took over and did everything, it might look like showboating, or it might look like he was trying to be Big Chief I Know Everything Hotshot, and -- despite his few years -- he knew involvement was key to any learning experience.

Purple sauce was ladled carefully onto the round, rolled-out crust; an excited young man came in with that planet's very first Pizza Spatula, just finished, broad, thin wood on a long handle: Michael asked the right people, and these right people recruited the brickmasons who built the pizza oven, who fired it carefully to set the clay: cheese graters were known, though not cheap; Michael had a woman of about his Mama's age apply sprinkled cheese, and when asked why not lay on thin slices instead, he held up both palms and said "This is a test run, folks. This is the way I've always made it, but y'know, if you can get uniform thin slices, that just might work!"

The thin sliced, fried, cooled, spiced sausage was then spread with a skill Michael admired: he likened it to halfway between a professional card sharper, and the precision of a chess player: card sharpers were known, but chess, for whatever reason, was a game not known here.

It didn't matter.

Michael slid the brand-new, never-used, thin-wood pizza spatula under the prepared product with a single, controlled, precise thrust, the kind of thrust a professional pool player might use.

Their First Prototype Pizza in this Entire World was then borne out to the hot, ready oven: Michael slid it in, and with a lift, a pull, he deposited the product on hot, smooth stone, afternoon's sun coming down, illuminating the interior with indirect brightness: Michael knew roughly how much time it would take to bake, and by then, the lowering sun would shoot into the oven's interior.

 

"Heirloom tomatoes?" Victoria asked: she stood in an ornate and well-kept flower garden, wrist bent and brought up close to her lips.

"I recall Mama got heirlooms so we could keep growing from our own seeds."

Victoria smiled a little, remembering how she delighted in gardening, smelling the rich earth, bringing plants a-sprout indoors and carefully transplanting them, covering them with bottomless plastic two-liter bottles to protect them from nighttime frost.

"And I'll need the formula for making pepperoni."

Victoria blinked, then looked at her wrist-unit's screen.

"Michael," she said, "just what are you up to now?"

"I got hungry for pizza."

"Michaelll," Victoria said, turning her head a little, her voice with that slight rising note her Mama used when interrogating an unwilling subject.

"It's not my fault, Sis," he protested, "really it's not, it's just ...things just kinda happened!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

GRAMPA BURNT THE BACON!

Two men hunkered under a rock overhang.

There was room enough for their horses, room enough for a big Bear Killing dog, there was room enough for a fire.

The weather was pleasant, they had bacon, they had a genuine, honest to God can opener and dumped a can of beans in the hot bacon grease after they'd knife-tipped thick slices of fragrant, fried bacon and laid the almost-stiff strips across a leafy fork to cool.

Two men ate in silence, drank cold streamwater, their backs to the overhanging rock, looking out at the drizzly wet countryside, at their mounts, drowsing on soft grass, heads hanging, looking like they were ready to fall over dead.

That was a lie, of course: a sound, a movement, and they would be suddenly heads-up and ears-up and scenting the source of the alarm, as would The Bear Killer.

For his part, The Bear Killer did not look dead.

He looked with a dark-eyed intensity, with an expression calculated and calibrated to tug at the hearts of those who had edibles.

This, of course, worked and worked well: both father and son shared torn bread, swiped in bacon fat and beans, and each donated a couple half strips of the thick, fried, Dead Pig to The Bear Killer's health and well being.

Hunkering is something they were used to, a posture with which they were both completely comfortable, as were most outdoorsmen of the era.

Finally Michael spoke, his voice quiet.

Jacob's eyes went to his son at the near-susurrant syllable.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Michael?"

"Sir, there is something in your eyes."

Jacob's smile hid behind his face, and he nodded.

It was not long after he'd gotten the death notice from the government that his son Joseph had been killed, overseas: they weren't even decently into that damned European war and already he'd lost a son.

Michael, his second born, was too young for the draft, but not by much.

Jacob looked down at the fire, trying to hide his thoughts.

"It's Grampa, isn't it, sir?"

Jacob looked up, his reserve dropping to the ground, honest surprise on his face, then he chuckled, his mind working fast.

His thoughts had not been of Old Pale Eyes, but there was a story associated with this very rocky overhang, and Jacob pulled it off the shelf of his many memories and looked it over kind of quick.

"Michael," he said finally, "your Grampa and I had bacon under this very same overhang, long before you were born."

"Yes, sir?" Michael grinned, looking less like the serious young man he tried to present himself as, and more like the eager boy Jacob wanted to remember.

"Pa burnt the bacon."

"Sir?" Michael's young forehead wrinkled in surprise, his eyes wide with near-dismay at the thought of ruining some Perfectly Good Bacon!

Jacob nodded solemnly.

"He was not happy," Jacob sighed, shaking his head. "I don't think anyone in the world is harder on him than The Man In The Mirror, and I reckon he was cussin' himself inside somethin' fierce."

Michael's expression slid from surprise to sorrow.

Jacob knew Michael could be stoic when the need arose.

Hell, Michael had faced down unpleasant sorts more times than one, and he'd give the impression he was whittled out of white oak a-doin' it, but in unguarded moments -- in moments that involved family -- Michael could be ... vulnerable? ... soft hearted, perhaps.

Jacob took pains not to tread on this vulnerability.

'What happened, sir?"

"Pa, he pulled the fryin' pan off the fire and set it down on the sand -- 'twas damp, the water had been up not long before -- the pan hissed out a big cloud of steam and I didn't hesitate one bit.

"I run my knife into that cloud of steam and speared me the blackest, burntest strip and I fetched it out and laid it acrost half a sweet roll I'd tore open and I allowed as that's just how I like it."

Michael considered this, nodded carefully.

In the fullness of time, Michael started to notice women folk, and Michael became sweet on a girl, and Michael spoke with her Papa first before he went to one knee before her with a ring, and when his new bride distracted herself and ended up searing supper, Michael pulled the bedsheet handkerchief from his coat-sleeve, dried the distaff's distressed eyes, kissed her forehead and whispered, "That's just the way I like it," and he smiled a little as she half-laughed, half-cried into his shirt front, and he remembered hunkering beside a fire with his Pa, with bacon in the frying pan and a family story being shared.

The rock overhang was undistinguished.

It never had any grand exploits attached to it.

No shootouts, no outlaw hideouts, no great achievements nor terrible disasters lent their names to its location.

In time, it did acquire an official name, entered into local government records and onto official maps.

To Michael, and to his sons, and to their sons afterward, it was Burnt Bacon Rock, where fathers and sons ceremonially hunkered, to share bacon, and family legend.