SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THANK YOU

A door opened and a man stepped inside.

The detective looked up, his eyes tired: it had been a long day.

Too long.

I'm too close to retirement to work this hard.

He'd been at it twelve hours, but he'd felt the collar of three wanted men, he'd cracked two cases and testified in one, and now he'd just closed his computer station when someone came in without knocking.

He looked up, expression carefully neutral.

He saw a tall man in a tailored black suit and an immaculate Stetson with an understated silver-and-turquoise hatband: pale eyes under the shadowing brim swung left, swung right as he sidestepped from the door, the familiar move of a veteran lawman: come through the door and get a wall to your back.

He took a step toward the detective's desk, laid a file folder on the man's just-cleaned-off, coffee-ringed, ink-scribbled, green desk blotter.

The detective raised an eyebrow.

"What's this?"

The silent man opened the file for him.

The detective saw a photograph -- an 8x10 glossy, an honest to God photograph, not a computer printout.

It was a man in the act of putting something on a tombstone.

Someone took a photo of the detective visiting someone he knew.

The silent man in the old-fashioned black suit placed a dark grey, round nosed bullet on the photo.

"He was my grandfather," he said, his voice deep, resonant: the detective's mouth opened, he looked up --

Gone --

He blinked.

What the hell just happened?

 

Sheriff Linn Keller stood in front of a rented Jeep, parked near the end of a north-south straight stretch of blacktopped state route.

He stood still, listening, smelling, unmoving, pale eyes busy.

He'd been here before, with his mother, and after, with his own young, to remember.

He gauged the location by remaining landmarks, nodded, once.

Here.

It was here.

He closed his eyes and saw it again, saw it through his Mama's description.

Not far north, less than a quarter mile, a drunked-up twenty-year-old tried to run over a town cop.

Gunshots.

Accurate shots, fast but ineffective, bouncing off the vehicle's tire.

The car screamed south, the cop yelling into his talkie.

The Sheriff's eyes looked north, at the empty stretch of freshly-striped blacktop state route.

He came south.

Granddad Ted had his POV pulled across both lanes.

My Grandma was in the passenger seat, raising the talkie, she'd just keyed up when the oncoming car hit theirs and sheared off Granddad's legs at the knees and Grandma's scream went out on the local police frequency.

They got him to surgery in record time but he died just shy of the surgery doors.

He closed his eyes, hands tightening into fists.

 

The sun just touched the Western ridgeline when a pale eyed man in an old-fashioned black suit stood at a grave.

He'd taken a photograph earlier that day.

Now he bent a little and set a dark grey bullet on top of the tomb stone, beside the one that was placed there earlier, when he tripped the shutter on his telephoto lens Nikon.

A pale eyed Sheriff removed his Stetson, tucked it under his off arm.

"Granddad," he said softly, "I'm not the only one to come here today, but I took the time to talk to the man who did."

Sheriff Linn Keller swallowed, looked at the tombstone in an Athens County cemetery.

"He didn't forget you, Granddad, so I stopped to talk to him."

He blinked, took a long breath.

"I stopped to tell him thank you."

 

 

 

 

Edited June 24, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HELLWALKER

Shelly Keller stepped out of the Iris, into the cool, shadowed interior of her old, familiar firehouse.

She stopped, eyes closed, leaned her head back, took a long breath of air that smelled of fire coats and sweat, of smoke and tire rubber and Diesel exhaust, of coffee and fresh baked bread.

It smelled …

It smelled like home, and right now, home is what she needed.

Shelly Keller straightened her head and opened her eyes.

She stepped over to the drain rack and picked up an oversized mug.

Shelly Keller, Paramedic, firefighter, wife to that pale eyed Sheriff and mother to several genuinely remarkable children and a whole herd of local young who happily adopted her every chance they got, drew a big mug of scalding, steaming coffee.

The longer she stood, the more tired she looked, until finally she walked over to the table and set her mug down.

She moved to the fridge, pulled out a plastic gallon jug of milk, added a long drink to her coffee – she capped the jug with what looked like the last of her strength, set it back, closed the door, then leaned the front of her shoulder and the side of her head against textured white enamel and closed her eyes again.

 

She’d led an after-action debrief.

She was the only one who could.

Neither Chaplain nor Counselor was every truly, genuinely, trusted, unless that Chaplain knew, firsthand, what it was to go through what they’d gone through.

She'd been teaching, Offworld, a remarkably competent paramedic class, when she stopped suddenly, when she felt herself come alive again.

It wasn’t until Shelly’s head came up like a bird dog’s hearing a shotgun break open, not until she’d run for the equipment bay with the rest of her offworld class – it wasn’t until Shelly drove sock feet into her personal fireboots, pulled up galluses and her personal bunker pants with them, not until Shelly shrugged into her Firelands Fire Department firecoat and dunked her stained helmet on her short, efficient haircut, not until Shelly leaped onto the tailboard with two other firefighters and screamed “GO GO GO GO GO!” – not until the truck stopped and one firefighter pulled off firehose and a shutoff valve, wrapped the hydrant and waved the driver ahead, not until the truck laid in from a newly-installed hydrant on a newly-installed municipal water line, not until Shelly dropped off the tailboard with the other firefighter at scene – it wasn’t until she’d grabbed an ax in one hand, hose in the other, and hauled after two running firemen, running the preconnect toward a heavily involved structure – not until she charged into an involved structure did anyone really realize, really genuinely fathom, that she, their paramedic instructor, was actually a fire paramedic in the finest sense of the word.

They kicked the door and made entry – they kept low as heat and a gout of flame exhaled above them – Shelly hauled hard on swollen, woven-linen hose jacket, keeping herself laid against the backup’s back, helping him hold the back pressure: she dropped a knee on the line to hold it as he raised the nob and spun a straight stream in big circles against the crumbling ceiling.

Shelly looked around, planned her initial first-floor search.

They heard someone scream, upstairs… a high, shrill scream, a child’s song of desperation, a single, pure note of silvery despair, the sound of an innocent soul realizing with the dread certainty of Doom that it was about to DIE!

To hear the other fellow tell it later, Shelly cut loose with a string of bad language before she keyed the mike and ordered a backup search team, someone was screaming upstairs and she wanted a ladder on the front side second floor window YESTERDAY!

Shelly charged the stairs on all fours, kept low, looked around at what little could be seen with smoke banked down almost to the deck.

“FIRE DEPARTMENT! WHERE ARE YOU?”

Her voice was muffled by her mask: she took a breath, pulled the mask away and shouted again: “FIRE DEPARTMENT! WHERE ARE YOU?”

Outside, a camera drone moved in response to an anonymous hand’s remote control, back at an Inter-System news station: it was cloaked, so as not to distract rescuers from more vital labors.

Below her, the Elkhart nozzle hissed as it blasted a straight stream in controlled, circular sweeps against the disintegrating ceiling, shattering into coarse drops, raining down onto the conflagration, wet death with futile fingers trying to stop a hot, ravening monster.

Another team dropped into a crouch, advanced, almost duck-walking: the backup man on the hose line thrust an arm out – Search there – the ground floor search team moved forward, calling out, using a fire ax as both a buffer against unseen furniture, and as a seeing-eye cane in an atmosphere that was banked down, hot and low, with visibility reduced to the last few inches above the deck.

Shelly took a breath, pulled her mask again:  “FIRE DEPARTMENT! WHERE ARE YOU?”

A terrified child, crouched behind the clawfoot tub, cried wordlessly, knees hugged to her chest, smoke stinging her eyes and burning her throat.

She screamed again as the door SLAMMED open, as something that looked like a great, powerful, one-eyed, two-legged monster stomped into the room – as it turned that smooth, polished, faceless eye at her –

She squeezed her eyes shut, whimpered as something powerful grabbed her, snatched her up, hugged her –

Shelly’s Confederate field, set on STANDBY for training purposes back at the firehouse, sensed a second life form in close proximity.

Its emergency override activated.

Shelly felt her field activate and she swore, silently, damning her stupidity for not even THINKING about activating it.

No matter.

She had one arm under a child’s bottom, the other around the child, hugging her tightly: Shelly stood, ax in one firegloved hand, no longer feeling the heat, the crushing, humid, incinerating atmosphere, no longer feeling flame or movement of hot, deadly air.

The camera drone backed up, lowered, looked very directly into the wide-open front door with two hose lines running into it, looking into what appeared to be Hell at war with itself.

A figure stomped down what had been an immaculate, well-built, carefully-varnished stairway – a stairway with flames coming up around both sides, a stairway with smoke rising from around the treads, a stairway that collapsed in a bright, spark-blasting cascade as the firecoated figure, clutching a scared child, came out the front door into the daylight, into clear air, into life, into another chance.

The picture was snapshot, extracted, frozen, attached to the Inter-System’s evening broadcast, with a single word above as the headline.

The commentary that inevitably accompanied this still photo featured interviews with their planet’s firefighters, their paramedics, with a young family who suddenly had not lost everything of value, after all.

There was a ten-second clip of the soul walking out of an absolute inferno with a young life safe in her arms.

Shelly was seated on the tailboard of the pumper she’d ridden in on, eyes closed, head leaned back against hand-buffed, immaculately-waxed compartment doors, a half empty bottle of water in her hand, her firecoat laid carelessly on the diamond plate beside her.

In response to the reporter’s question, she smiled tiredly and replied “Yes, I'm a medic.  No, this is not unusual. If you’re going to be a fire paramedic, you have to fight fire, and that’s what we do.”

“But don’t you usually fight it with … water?” the reporter asked.

Shelly looked past him, at the memory of a crying mother receiving her child from the arms of an anonymous firefighter in smoke-dirtied turnout gear and an air mask that made her look more like a distorted Cyclops than a human being.

“Water, dry-chem, purple-K, CO2,” she murmured, "but sometimes …

“Sometimes,” she said, fatigue in her voice, “you have to just have to go hand-to-hand.”

Shelly never heard which of the firefighters tagged her with it, but the name made it to the reporter, into the Inter-System, into local newspapers.

Eventually an honestly, frighteningly, realistic, framed oil portrait arrived anonymously at the Firelands firehouse.

It was a phenomenally accurate rendering of the image from the Inter-System’s news broadcast, complete with the title, Shelly stomping out of the mouth of Neffelheim’s furnace, and the name was rendered in flames against the black smoke of combustion overhead:

HELLWALKER!

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU

"CHIEF!"

The woman's voice was loud, sharp, powerful, echoing inside the hand-laid brick firehouse.

One man, on a mechanic's creeper, under their main pumper, blinked and looked out under apparatus, flashlight and pump seal inspection forgotten at the harsh summons.

Chief Chuck Fitzgerald gave a long, patient sigh, the kind only a chief can give in such moments.

Shelly Keller came storming out from around the brick wall separating the squad bay from the apparatus floor.

She came steaming around painted brick, threw her polishing rag -- had it not been cloth, it would likely have busted a hole in the floor -- she stormed up to the Fire Chief, her lips pressed together, head tilted a little, fire in her eyes and fists at the end of stiff arms.

She stopped, glared, then she turned to the right, stomped a half dozen steps away from the man, whipped around, stomped back, raised a shivering finger under his chin -- 

Shelly's mouth opened --

She snapped it shut, stomped the other way, arms still stiff at her sides.

She stomped back.

She stopped again, mouth open, teaching finger up-thrust as if it were a dagger and she intended to penetrate his chin with it --

Her mouth snapped shut and she stormed off again, and on her third return, Fitz straightened, crossed his arms and took a long, patient breath.

"Don't you sigh at me in that tone of voice, young man!" Shelly snapped, her voice echoing again in the shadowed, brick-walled interior, as grinning Irishmen leaned around apparatus and regarded the scene.

Fitz raised a patient palm toward her and she seized it, towed him briskly over to the wall where the most recent portrait was only just hung.

"Do you see that?" Shelly hissed.  "Do you see it?"

Fitz pretended to consider the oil painting, rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looked at Shelly, looked back at the painting.

"They didn't get your good side," he murmured.

Behind him, Irishmen pounded one another's shoulders and honestly gave up all pretense at dignity, decorum or politeness: firefighters laughed -- they brayed -- they came swarming around the back of shining-red fire apparatus and converged on Shelly, and in spite of her shouted protestations, seized her and hoist her to shoulder height, and proceeded to shout their jogging way to the front, between the nose of the first-out pumper and the door, chanted their way back, bouncing their favorite paramedic as they did:  Shelly yelled, she kicked, she swatted at them, until they dropped her about three feet, caught her and hoist her up again: she made a desperate grab at an overhead elecrical conduit and succeeded only in getting a light film of dust on her fingers before she was brought back down, flipped clear around, until they planted her burnished boondockers on the smooth cement floor, until every man there (for reasons still unexplained) went to one knee, arms thrust at her in supplication as they chorused "Mammy!  Mammy!"

Shelly, now that her fit of pique was abandoned and sailing off on an invisible wind, looked around, raised supplicating palms to the ceiling and shouted "CHILDREN!  I WORK WITH CHILDREN!"

The German Irishman stood, laughing, curling his waxed-black handlebar mustache and chuckling in his very best poor imitation of a vaudeville badman:  "Ja, da Pope is Catholic, vhat else iz newz?"

The Welsh Irishman thrust a bladed hand at the New York Irishman.

"When in doubt," he called loudly, "what is the answer?"

"COFFEE!"

Chief, firefighter, medic, all joined in the happy reply, delivered in a full-voiced shout:  Shelly screeched again as she was snatched back up, carried at shoulder height to the kitchen deck, then swung back down, a chair was pulled out and she was scooted in: a fragrant loaf of still-warm bread landed on a platter, a serrated knife hee-hawed happily through crust, steam rolled into the still air as two lumps of butter and a stack of plates were set out, as mugs were decanted, set out, taken up.

The German Irishman took out his reading glasses, ran them clear down to the very end of his nose, looked over them at Shelly and inquired in an exaggerated nasal voice, "And what, my dear diviner of artistic expertise, do you find offensive by this cultural addition to our professional tenement?"

Shelly's mug -- they knew it was hers, it was bigger than anyone else's, it was hand made, with the print of a baby's hand and in wobbly letters, #1 MOM, under the glaze.

Shelly liked it because -- first -- it held twice what the normal, sizable mugs held;

Second, it had her youngest child's baby handprint on it, and

Third, when she drank down the contents, black letters on the inside bottom of the cup screamed "REFILL!"

Shelly knew that nothing would be allowed to be discussed until they had broken bread.

She also knew that this whole firehouse full of red bib front Irishmen were likely in on that portrait's commission, execution and appearance.

Bread was buttered and eaten, insults were exchanged, coffee swilled: finally Shelly SLAMMED both palms down on the tabletop -- hard -- had it not been a good heavy laminated hardwood tabletop, she'd likely have danced silverware and spilled coffee -- "NOW WHAT ABOUT THAT PORTRAIT!"

The entire Irish Brigade was well into their funmaking phase.

That Shelly rarely, if ever, raised her voice indoors, was suddenly of no importance whatsoever.

Irishmen began arguing, loudly, about the excellence of the portrait, the realism of the flames, how perfectly the artist captured curls of smoke, how smoke clung to the firecoat in thin vaporous feathers, how the character's balance in mid-step was just perfect.

Shelly opened her mouth to protest again when the German Irishman stood and laid a dramatic hand on his breastbone and declared, " 'TIS A FINE AND WORTHY PORTRAIT OF MY TEUTONIC SELF!"

"YOUR self!" the Welsh Irishman countered. "That's MY portrait, you slacker, that was ME at Pokey White's house fire!"

"THE HELL IT WAS!" the English Irishman absolutely roared:  "THAT WAS ME AT TH' DODD WARNE FIRE WHERE OL' DOD THREW THAT ROLL O' CARPET THROUGH THE CLOSED WINDOW AND RIGHT THROUGH THE RUNGS O' THE LADDER I WAS A-STANDIN' ON!"

Shelly looked around, eyes wide, mouth open, head turning as each, in turn, loudly and energetically claimed ownership, authorship and responsibility for the Hellwalker portrait.

Shelly turned, startled, as the Chief set the portrait on the firehouse table.

Every voice stilled.

"Shelly," the Chief said in a gentle voice, the voice he used with scared children, or when persuading his way through an honest misunderstanding, "why does this trouble you?"

Shelly looked at the Irishman behind the Chief, the Irishman beside the Chief, the Irishman on the other side of the Chief.

Shelly stood and looked very deliberately into every man's face there.

"Chief," she said, her voice thick now, "that portrait ... you know that was me, offworld."

The Chief nodded.

Shelly gripped a hard-muscled shoulder on her left, turned her head, gripped the hard-muscled shoulder on her right.

"Every one of you," she said as her throat tightened around the words, "every last one of you could be the Hellwalker. I've seen you guys do things that puts everything I've done, to shame. I don't want this to represent what a woman did. I want this to represent every last one of you and what all of you did."

On another planet, watching the live feed from the cloaked hover-cam, a pair of pale eyed twins squeezed each other's hands as they watched, as they listened to their Mama's words, back home in her firehouse.

A pale eyed Diplomat sat regally in an offworld firehouse, watching the hover-cam's feed on a big screen with two shifts of firefighters and fire paramedics as they all watched their instructor, as they listened to her words.

A nurse in a white winged cap stood watching the stealthy hover-cam's life feed from Earth, a nurse who stood shoulder to shoulder with serious faced combat medics in white-and-red armor, medics who'd trained with the woman in the live feed.

When the live-feed broadcast ended, a pale eyed Ambassador turned and addressed the house, spoke to every last member of their Lights and Siren Brigade.

"She's not just speaking about this bunch," Marnie said.  "She's speaking of every last one of you here."

An arc of armored combat medics thrust fisted gauntlets into the air and shouted in salute, and in every firehouse on every world that Firelands touched, the Hellwalker portrait hung, with a hand written note, in a particular paramedic instructor's looping, elegant, feminine script:

This is every last one of YOU!

 

 

Edited June 25, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

REASONABLE

"Mortals," the man said, managing to almost sneer the word out, "mere mortals walk."

The stranger that rode with him made no reply.

"God Almighty," the man declared, warming to his subject, "in His Divine Wisdom, decreed that this fine creature" -- he patted his chestnut gelding's neck -- "should be made, and given to Man, that Man may know the joy and glory of riding!"

His saddle-partner considered this, eyes busy: the man was watchful, perpetually, unceasingly watchful, but not the way a scared man is, nor a paranoid: no, this was his quiet, natural state, to be aware of all that occurred around him, behind him.

Not long ago he'd spun his shining-gold Palomino and ridden back a short distance, then came cantering back, as if to ensure their back trail was neither watched, nor followed.

His new saddle partner rode on, either uncaring, or completely accepting.

"Now the nobs, the swells," the man continued, spreading his arms as if declaring before a great crowd, "those silk hat sorts think of horses like they think of fine paintings hung on the wall, just a thing, just an expensive play-pretty they can afford to just buy."

His partner favored him with an unreadable look, eyes invisible under the overshadowing hat-brim.

They drew up, looked around: the silent man lifted his chin, turned a little, thrust his chin ahead, then walked his shining Palomino ahead through tall weeds and brush, to a little stream, chuckling happily on its journey from somewhere much higher, happily headed for somewhere much lower.

Neither man considered its antecedents nor its destination: each watered his horse, each slaked his own thirst, each took a moment to look over his mount's hooves, his saddle, his bridle.

Only then did the talkative sort notice something ... odd.

His companion hadn't said the first word, not since their trails converged maybe five mile back.

Neither man was in a hurry.

They'd ridden maybe a third of the distance before the first one could stand the silence no more, and proceeded to fill it with what he apparently believed were wise pronouncements.

They rested for a little, built a small, smokeless fire: when a fire-blackened coffee pot emerged, permanently stained despite being clean, when clear cold streamwater was set a-boil and a cloth-tied ball of fragrant ground coffee was untied and poured in -- the talkative man saw fragments of eggshell in the grounds, and knew a woman's hand prepared this trailside recipe, likely this quiet man's wife -- he felt his jaws water in anticipation, for it had been long and long again since he'd had honest-to-God coffee!

Each man flinched, in turn, at the sensation of his lip on the hot tin cup: both men hunkered, their horses finding graze and shade.

Once they saddled up and started on their way again, the man of many words was not ready to let his idea go.

"Walking," he said contemptuously.

His silent companion listened.

"A man will ride!"

He looked over at his unspeaking companion.

This seemed to strike some sort of chord.

He saw the quiet man's jaw slide out a little, saw him nod, thoughtfully, a single tilt of the head, down, then back.

Encouraged by this apparent agreement -- or, at the very least, a sign that he was actually listening -- the man declared those poor mortals who rode in buggies, in carriages, to be swells and stiff, too good to associate with real men: those who merely walked, were creatures chained to the earth, to be pitied: we who ride, he declared, share that Legendary Speed and Power that the angels themselves couldn't keep up with, once a horse laid its ears back and started to run!

He looked over at his silent companion again, looking for a reaction.

He frowned at the palomino, then looked more closely at its bridle.

He felt something cold start to trickle through his veins.

Men talk, on the trail.

Men share stories, experiences, lies, damned lies and rueful admissions of mistakes, when this can be turned to a laugh.

He'd ridden with men on the far side of the Law, and listened to their accounts, to tales of bad men on either side of Law's pencil-struck line -- bad men to cross, bad men to run afoul of.

He'd listened to accounts spoken of legendary outlaws, of legendary lawmen.

He kicked himself for talking instead of seeing.

A palomino -- a big palomino! -- stallion ... with unadorned black furniture, save only for silver roses on the bridle.

Silver.

With hand chased engraving, roses, unmistakable, looking like they'd been drawn from life.

Black doghouse stirrups.

The same kind a particular lawman he'd heard these owlhoot riders talk about, preferred.

Of a sudden it didn't feel like he was riding a creature whose gait was swifter than a wing-pumping angel.

It felt like this silent fellow beside him was one of those angels, and it was the horse the silent man rode, that had the wings.

They both drew up.

The trail forked here, high up: one trail went west-northwest, the other, almost perfectly, due south.

The man of many words was quiet now, his expression one of discomfort, of the disquieting realization that when a man's mouth is in gear, his brain, often times, is not.

"Reckon I'm for Mexico," he said finally, and he was grateful he spoke when he did, for in the next moment he realized he was suddenly not able to speak at all.

His silent riding partner pushed his hat-brim up with a casually-bent finger.

He looked at the talkative man with ice-pale eyes.

Cold hands clutched around a man's innards as he realized -- that horse, those silver roses, black saddle, doghouse stirrups and those pale eyes! --

Two men turned their mounts and rode their separate ways.

One man rode for Mexico, where his few sins would likely never catch up with him.

The man with pale eyes rode a golden Palomino stallion in the opposite direction, headed for home.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

IT'S OVER. GO HOME

Men looked at one another.

None spoke.

Men exchanged eye contacts, then swung serious-faced eyes toward the Ambassador.

Marnie Keller sat at the negotiating table.

One gloved hand in her lap, one on the table, her head tilted back against the high back of her comfortably padded, high-back chair.

Marnie was, all agreed, a most attractive woman.

Marnie glowed with an inner beauty, with the cheek-flush of native good health: she was athletic, she was graceful, she was a noted dancer, and had secured more treaties than one using her skill as a dance partner to persuade reluctant negotiators to stay, and parlay just a bit longer: it was not for nothing that the Diplomatic Corps held formal, or semi-formal, meals and dances after a day's negotiations.

Men looked at a beautiful woman, a capable woman, a ladylike, feminine woman, whose head was leaned back against the high back of her thickly-cushioned chair.

Fatigue lined her face, she was pale, the strain of a week's worth of steady negotiation was engraving itself on her face.

Marnie Keller was honestly exhausted.

She'd closed her eyes, only momentarily, but that's all it took for her exhausted brain to go on vacation.

An Iris opened, very near the Ambassador's chair.

A lean, serious-faced man stepped out, looked around, raised an eyebrow, then slowly raised his hand, put an upright finger before his lips.

He went over to the Ambassador's chair, stepped on a hidden release, turned the chair slightly: he lifted her arm, draped it over his shoulders as he ran an arm around behind her and under her legs.

Dr. John Greenlees tucked his bony backside, hoist with his legs, picked up his wife.

The whisker-mic was almost invisible, thrust forward from his earpiece to the corner of his mouth.

"Forgive me, gentlemen," he said gently, voice amplified through the whisker-mic, "but my wife is not effective at the moment."

A recognizable and recognized figure in white stepped out of the Iris, stepped aside to allow Dr. Greenlees to carry his limp, relaxed wife like he would carry a sleeping little girl: he stepped into the vertical black ellipse, the cat's-eye closed behind them, and Angela smiled, tilted her head, clapped her hands together and dry-washed her hands.

"Now," she smiled, "I'm new here. Bring me up to speed. What's this about budgeting for guns or butter?"

 

A pair of well dressed, pale eyed twins leaned forward a little, regarding their older brother with pale, unblinking eyes.

"I'm new here, bring me up to speed," Michael said quietly. "What's this about you capturing an alien ship using a bowl of oatmeal and a pair of sock garters?"

"Weren't you undergunned?" Victoria added, blinking.

Good God, Jacob thought, where'd she get those gorgeous eyelashes?

She's not allowed to have those, she's my baby sis!

"Well, y'see," Jacob said smoothly, spreading his hands in a palms-out innocence just like his pale eyed Pa was wont to do in such moments.

Michael, in a tailored black suit and emerald-silk necktie that would have been perfectly at home in the year of our Lord 18 and 85, and Victoria, in a McKenna gown of proper pattern and thread-count material, looked at one another, looked at their older brother, then each thrust their left arm into the air and declared, "IT'S OVER THE BOOTS, SAVE THE WATCH!"

 

Marnie felt the little mind-tickle of her Diplomatic shuttle's amusement as the alien language translated: "Alien vessel, slice propulsive units and welcome uninvited inspectors."

 

 I think they mean cut engines and prepare to be boarded," Marnie thought.

I like my way better, her computer's mind-voice smiled.

"Put me through," Marnie murmured, then in a firm voice, "Alien vessel, you are in Confederate territory. Withdraw."

A moment's hesitation.

They're scanning us.

"What do they see?"

A steel box.

"Can they read what we are, can they scan our capabilities, energy signatures?"

Again the quiet, tickling mind-smile: No.

The alien reply was an enveloping blast of blinding-white energy.

A half dozen Irises opened, a like number of Valkyrie ships appeared, invisible in the alien weapon's splattering corona.

"Alien vessel," six women's voices said, "you are surrounded. Cease fire or be destroyed."

Marnie felt the static flare behind her as an Iris opened in her shuttle's passenger section: she smiled a little as she heard Jacob's step on the decking into the cockpit.

"I came as soon as you called," he said quietly, his hand warm and reassuring on her shoulder.

"Whatta we got?"

"Trespassers," Marnie said bluntly.

"Want me to talk to 'em?"

That may be effective, the Diplomatic computer whispered in Marnie's mind, the whisper emerging from Marnie's lips. They believe they cannot be boarded.

"What'll I face over there?"

Marnie's rich red lips framed her computer's reply in a gentle voice.

Incompatible atmosphere. I'll put you onto their bridge. Two guards with stunners.

"Will my shielding be enough?"

Pish-tosh, the computer whispered, Marnie's bent-wrist gesture speaking to the completeness of integration between Ship and Ambassador: energy weapons only, you're safe, and before you ask -- Marnie's gloved hand raised a teaching finger -- their armor is rated for energy weapons and ceremonial appearance, not what you're carrying.

Jacob grunted.

"Send me over."

 

The Confederacy didn't quite hit the panic button, but there was a sudden, system-wide interest in defensive capability.

Ever since the original Ancestors were abducted by aliens, to serve as disposable mercenary forces against a rival alien civilization, the nature and intent of the Aliens had been magnified, vilified, calumniated, they'd been described as slobbering monsters that ate babies, painted purple stripes on schoolchildren, stole young mothers and did unspeakable things to coal stoves.

The general, thirteen-star-system wide consensus had eventually become "They took us, we killed them off, God willing we're safe but who else is out there?" -- but complacency and years of no contact with any but their own, damped even this thought down.

Still, it simmered, somewhere deep in the collective consciousness, and when the Inter-System showed star maps and the single point of incursion, the howl went up:

THE INVADERS ARE COMING!

Marnie, as usual, was right in the middle of it, listening, directing, mediating, suggesting, recommending, and making every suggestion sound like it was their idea to start with.

She'd nodded in appreciation as men with level heads considered the results of militarization, how a country, a continent, a world with a standing military and weapons of war eventually used them, and rather than oppose this, such effort should be guided, directed, with local conflicts quickly and vigorously mediated and quenched before energies intended to fend of an enemy from the stars, could be turned to more domestic targets.

 

Jacob leaned forward, set his forearms on his knees, frowned a little as he considered the floor between his boots.

He looked up at the twins, then he straightened a little, scooted his chair closer and took Michael's hands in one of his, Victoria's hands in the other.

"I had a little talk with 'em," he said quietly.

 

Jacob waded through a shimmering cloud of crackling, twisting energy.

Two tubular weapons streamed purple beams at him, which inconvenienced him not at all.

He kicked one in the middle, folding it up and driving it back hard against an instrument panel: he seized the baton from the other, twisted, pulled, kicked, then he raised the baton and clobbered one, then the other, quick, hard, slashing hits that had as much effect as belting each across the head with a roll of toilet paper.

Whatever these purple energy tubes were, they had all the substance of the cardboard core of a roll of paper towels.

Good thing I took the fight out of 'em first, he thought as he tossed the crumpled, ruined, lightweight tube to the floor.

He turned, looked toward what appeared to be the bridge crew.

"Hello," Jacob said. "My name is Keller."  He turned his lapel over to show a six point star, hand-engraved with a single word across its equator.

"I'm Sheriff. Stand down."

These beings were almost humanoid looking.

Almost.

Big eyes, long faces, four arms, two legs and a thick ridge up their spine which he didn't realize was a tail, run vertical under their armored uniform.

He heard what must've been a translation of his voice.

One turned and touched a control as he advanced.

A shimmering curtain appeared -- Force field, he thought -- he walked through it, his Confederate shield repelling the force field's energies and allowing him to walk right on through.

He looked around as five of the six shrank back a little.

He turned to the one who didn't.

"I'm looking for the senior ranking officer," Jacob said quietly.

"I command here."

"You have intruded on Confederate space. Leave, and do not return."

"What do you plan to do to my ship, my crew?"

The words were a little stilted, oddly accented, but understandable.

"My complements on your translator," Jacob said, nodding once, then looked around again.

His peripheral picked up movement as he turned.

He responded as he'd trained a thousand times.

His hand locked around the commanding alien's wrist; a beam of some kind seared across the ceiling, throwing sparks, before Jacob's merciless grip-and-twist dropped the device to the deck.

Jacob spun, holding the alien in front of him, between him and the bridge crew: Jacob's eyes were dead pale, his voice changed now -- emotionless, calm, his hand twisting the alien's arm around behind its back.

"You asked what I'm going to do to your ship," he said quietly. 

"You are at the very edge of Confederate space. We have pickets set up to monitor incursions.

"We saw you coming. 

"Your weapons have no effect on us.

"I was able to board your vessel without effort.

"I defeated your security and your effort to employ a personal weapon."

He released the alien, stepped back.

"I could have simply killed you. Our ship could have simply destroyed yours.

"Let me propose another solution."

"The Empire will not let this stand," the alien hissed.

"I don't care," Jacob said flatly, his voice taking on an edge. "Our people destroyed two alien civilizations to the last living soul. We reverse engineered their technology and then improved on it. Right now we could walk into your territory and take everything you have and make it look easy."

Jacob leaned closer, intentionally getting into the alien officer's personal space.

He and the alien were within half a hand of the same height.

"Do you know why we have absolutely no desire to do that?"

Jacob took a fast step back: his bladed hand knifed under his coat, and he had no memory of grip, of draw, of cocking the .44's broad, checkered hammer, of sighting.

It wasn't until his revolver rolled up in recoil, not until the alien emerging from a just-opened doorway at the far end of the bridge, folded over and dropped its weapon, then fell -- not until Jacob cocked the hammer again, then turned, eyes pale, eyes hard -- not until then did it finally sink in that an attempt had been made on his life, and he blessed his pale eyed Pa for setting the example of practicing often and practicing hard.

Jacob's personal field spared his ears the ill effect of a full-house .44 in a metallic, confined space.

The aliens -- including two that followed the first one -- all dropped what they held and pressed their distal limbs to what must have been their hearing organs.

Jacob reloaded his spent round -- slowly, deliberately -- he slid the fired hull into a vest pocket, holstered.

Nobody will be able to hear me, he thought, then called, "Computer."

"Computer," came the reply.

"Can you give the bridge crew the message that I am leaving, and that they should inform their government that this space is claimed and will be defended?"

"Affirmative."

 

The Chief Ambassador turned his hat slowly around in properly-gloved hands as a husband and a son regarded him with solemn eyes.

The Chief Ambassador chose his words carefully.

"Your wife," he said, respect in his voice, "has been guiding, mediating and persuading nonstop for just under a week. I don't think she's gotten a night's rest in that sevenday."

His eyes turned to the private section of the Ambassador's residence, then back to a solemn-faced physician and his quiet, serious-eyed young son.

"She has earned her rest. We have a half dozen offers already, invitations for her to holiday away from everyone and everything."

Dr. Greenlees nodded, considering his practice, reviewing staff available to cover for him, then smiling a little as he remembered -- again -- that the Iris can transport him from holiday to home in a heartbeat when necessary.

"Thank you, Mr. Ambassador," Dr. Greenlees murmured, shaking the man's hand: the Ambassador's eyes were grave as Littlejohn -- who wasn't quite so little anymore -- shook his hand as well and said "Thank you, sir," in a quiet, careful voice.

"It is I who must thank you, Doctor," the Ambassador corrected gently. "Had you not arrived and simply picked her up and taken her home, I would have to have told her, 'It's over, go home,' and I don't think that would have gone over very well."

Two men smiled, and two men shared a quiet chuckle, for both men knew their subject of discussion.

 

"Gunfighter, this is Sheriff."

"Gunfighter."

"Status."

"No other vessels or energy signatures in vicinity, drone buoys operational."

"Roger that. Ambassador, if you please."

An Iris opened just behind Jacob.

"Computer, one final message."

"Computer."

Jacob felt the Iris open behind him.

"Tell them it's over, go home."

Jacob took one step back, and was gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A WATCH, AND A CARD

Law and Order Harry Macfarland looked at the ceiling with unseeing eyes.

The man was dead.

The Sheriff looked down at his old friend, remembered when they were young men, back in Jacksonville, back in the Ohio country.

Before that damned War.

Before they were lawmen.

Back when ... "hell," Linn said, his voice soft, "we weren't much more than boys."

He squatted and carefully, very carefully, gripped the dead man's eyelashes and drew his eyelids shut as far as they would peacefully go.

A single drop of salt water trickled from the dead man's right eye.

Linn had seen that before.

It did not scare him.

He knew this was the eyelid squeegeeing water off the eyeball, nothing more.

He took his old friend's hands and laid them over the man's flat belly, laying one cool, age-wrinkled hand over the other, then laid his hand over them both for several long moments.

Behind him, Jacob stood, his hat correctly under his off arm.

The son thought of the father, and the father thought of the son:  Jacob was trying to think of something intelligent to say, something supportive, something ... decent.

Linn was trying to think of something to say to his son, for he knew Jacob looked up to the Carbon Hill marshal.

"Shall I send for Digger, sir?" Jacob asked.

"No," Linn said quietly. "No, Jacob, have Digger send over a coffin, and we'll let the Masonic Lodge know, so they can hold the Masonic service before we plant him."

"Yes, sir."

 

Father and son set up the saw horses and spread the bed sheets.

They waited respectfully while the women folks washed the body; Harry's daughter, and his daughter in law, performed this last rite, this last act of respect.

Harry was dressed in his usual suit, he'd shaved that morning so he didn't need a shave; his daughter sang quietly, a lullaby she remembered from her mother, as she combed her dead father's hair.

Linn and Jacob and two of the Masonic Brethren used Harry's bed sheet as a sling: they picked him up and carefully, if awkwardly, worked him over to the waiting coffin.

The bed sheet was rolled up on either side and tucked in with him, and a small pillow propped under his head -- his daughters thought this was sweet, to have Linn give the man a degree of comfort even in death, but Linn's reason was more cosmetic: he knew this would help hold the dead man's jaw shut.

They hesitated, then closed the lid.

His daughters wept into each other as the lid was screwed down, as the closed coffin was carried down the stairs, as it was placed with reverent respect on the saw horses.

Linn reached into an inside coat pocket and pulled out a black shawl Ester had given him for the purpose: he draped it carefully over the only mirror in the house, which brought renewed freshets of tears from the dead man's daughters.

Linn finished draping the shawl, then went over and gathered the girls both into him, and held them.

Jacob blinked, clearly not certain as to what he'd ought to do.

Linn lifted a summoning chin, and Jacob stepped closer, inclined his ear to receive his father's command.

Linn leaned his lips to his son's ear, but no command was given: he whispered, "That man is poor indeed that lacks a woman to grieve his death," and Jacob drew back a step, looked at his father, and nodded his solemn agreement.

Word travels fast in a small town.

There was a steady flow of visitors, for Harry was known and liked: the Ladies' Tea Society brought tables and baskets of edibles, nothing big -- nobody would feel like sitting down to a full meal, and it would not be practical to boardinghouse-level feed those who came through to pass their respects -- but sweet rolls, cut in two and laid with good beef, or rolled out pie dough, buttered and sprinkled with ground maple sugar and dusted with cinnamon, then rolled up, cut into snails and baked, provided something that household and guests alike could grab and go.

Deathwatch was, of course, with the coffin's lid open, with the only light coming from a solitary beeswax candle at the coffin's head, and a solitary beeswax candle at the coffin's foot: the next day, Freemasons in white gloves and aprons arrived with due ceremony, hoisted the freshly closed and fastened coffin to shoulder height, and with solemn and silent tread, conveyed the dead man to church.

It was less solemn, but just as practical, that the Sheriff and his son each bore a sawhorse on one shoulder, the carefully folded bedsheet under the Sheriff's arm: their step was as funereal as those who bore the box, their expressions as solemn as those who honorably bore the body.

The Masonic service was brief, as it always was, solemn as it always was, and impressive as it should be; immediately afterward, their Parson spoke the words that are always said in such a moment.

Jacob expected his father to add to the commentary.

Jacob sat with his wife, with their young, and he sat with his hand lightly gripping his wife's, with his arm around his son William's shoulders.

Michael sat beside William, silent, solemn: the boys knew this was a Funeral, and that meant they should be unmoving, and silent, and they were.

Jacob looked over at his father.

Linn looked half sick and half lost and Jacob realized that his father -- who usually had fine words for any occasion -- would not be speaking.

When the box was carried from the church, across the dirt street and into the cemetery beside the Catholic church -- part of it was consecrated for the Catholic faithful, but beside it, the regular cemetery -- Linn and Jacob were two of the pallbearers, with the coffin resting on their shoulders, as befit Masonic tradition.

Harry's daughters insisted on setting up the big table and having a meal, after the service, and here, too, the Ladies' Tea Society made sure there was plenty to eat: Linn discreetly slipped upstairs, unfolded a brand new bedsheet and made up Harry's bed, for the sheet Harry had lain upon, went into the ground with him.

Linn was just finishing when Harry's oldest daughter came in.

Linn straightened, looking as guilty as a schoolboy caught smuggling a frog into the teacher's desk drawer.

"I'd hoped to finish up quicker," he admitted.

Callista Macfarland paced toward him, trying to look composed and not having much luck.

"I want you to have this," she whispered, pressing Harry's watch -- with his watch-chain and teardrop ruby fob -- into Linn's hand.

"Harry has no sons?" Linn asked, and Callie shook her head.

Callie closed Linn's hand around the watch: he laid his other hand over hers, frowned.

"Might you have sons, should they be given Granddad's watch?"

Callie shook her head.

"No," she whispered, then bowed her head, pressed her head into his chest, shook her head.

"He knew he was dying," she squeaked, then looked up at the long tall lawman, looking more lost than Linn ever remembered.

Linn nodded, released her hand and ran his arm around her shoulders.

He felt her open her hand, surrendering the watch's weight into his palm.

He very carefully placed the watch in his coat pocket.

There was quiet conversation from downstairs, but in a dead man's bedroom, silence.

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller knew she'd found a watch, in a wooden box, in the very back of one of the drawers of Old Pale Eyes' desk they found in the old dry works.

It held a number of other treasures, most of which eventually ended up in the Firelands Museum.

Willamina displayed this found watch, once she learned its history from one of Old Pale Eyes' Journals, with the cover open, showing the engraving inside the case: 

To my beloved husband Harry, from your wife, and the year.

It was the only tangible artifact she had of the man: she'd put out a request in the weekly paper for any photographs, any mementoes, letters, anything, but to no effect, and so a solitary watch with a teardrop ruby fob waited patiently in a glass case in the Firelands museum, beside a beautifully hand lettered card: Watch belonging to Law and Order Harry Macfarland, Town Marshal of Carbon Hill.

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CUSTOM FIT

Nurse Susan was a stout, buxom, motherly sort with little round spectacles, a round face and a perpetually cheerful disposition: her hands were never still, forever straightening, arranging, wiping, washing, or tending bruised faces, skinned knees and the thousand other conditions that arrived for her husband's attention.

Nurse Susan, like most of her profession in this era, had little by the way of formal medical education, but had volumes and libraries of practical, hand-on education: her husband, Dr. John Greenlees, was a natural teacher, a gifted teacher, and Nurse Susan, who'd taught school in her younger years, was -- like the best teachers -- a student who applied herself when lessons were to be had.

Nurse Susan was known for the gentleness of both hands and voice, for her sweet and understanding nature, for her brisk and reassuring competence when a man came staggering in with a knife through his hand (or in one case, between his ribs, and he still walking), or a little boy came in cradling a broken arm.

It was a matter of note, then, when Nurse Susan threw a washpan of just-heated water into a man's face, followed it with the hard-swung washpan -- he threw his arms up just before the water hit him, so she bounced the pan ineffectively off his forearms -- Nurse Susan then proceeded to beat the man over the head, fast, vigorously, making the approximate sound of a Banty hen who'd just set on a nest of yellowjackets.

Sheriff Linn Keller was looking generally toward the hospital when the front door threw open, a water-streaming man half-leaped, half-fell out, followed by something fast moving, long skirted and LOUD, with a two hand grip on a dented up washpan, with which she was attempting to custom fit over the man's head as some kind of cracked-enamel-coated, metallic Derby hat, all while screeching like a cross between an incensed whorehouse madam and a fishwife who'd just been cheated out of two bits in coin.

Deputy Jacob Keller excitedly mirrored his father's vigorous response.

Father and son leaned against opposite sides of the porch post holding the shed roof up over the board walk in front of the Sheriff's office, two men in black suits, each casually loafing a shoulder against the turned-wood upright ... unmoving, silent, observing this rather unusual feature of an otherwise uneventful morning.

Each pale eyed man assessed the efficiency of Nurse Susan's movements, the precision with which she addressed the subject of her pique, the brisk speed with which she made those precision movements: when finally the incensed nurse, and the miscreant who'd obviously done something to engage the woman's ire, disappeared behind the buildings opposite, when the sound of running feet swiftly outpaced the indignant exclamations of an incensed Healer's wife, when finally Nurse Susan marched purposefully into view again, father and son remained in their position of observation, saying nothing.

Nurse Susan normally did not just walk.

Nurse Susan, flowed.

Nurse Susan, glided.

It was a joke that she didn't have legs under those long skirts, she had wheels.

Not now.

Now, with a full head of steam, with a dented up washpan that definitely needed some remediative work, Nurse Susan stomped vigorously back toward the polished quartz front of their fine new hospital.

She stopped at the three steps leading up to the big double doors, she hoisted the washpan, she regarded the washpan as if it was all the tin basin's fault, then she gave a very irritated, very feminine, "Oooohhh!" of irritation.

Nurse Susan stomped up the stone steps, seized the heavy door handle, YANKED the door open, and went back inside.

Jacob heard his father's long, patient intake of breath, and knew the Grand Old Man had something on his mind.

"Jacob," he finally said, "do you recall I rotted out another coffee pot two days ago?"

Jacob considered carefully before replying.

"Yes, sir."

"And do you recall I opened the door and slung it out into the street?"

"Yes, sir."

"Jacob, would you count Nurse Susan a patient woman?"

"I would, sir."

"Do you reckon we'd ought to inquire as to what made her mad enough to turn a tin pan into a custom fitted tin hat?"

Jacob considered longer before replying.

"Sir," he finally said, "I reckon I get along just fine with Stetson felt."

He felt his father's silent amusement: he saw the man's hat-shadow nod, slowly, one time, the way he commonly did.

"I'm honestly afraid, sir ... was I to go ask her, she just might try and fit me with attair custom fit tin hat!"

Father and son stood on opposite sides of a turned porch-post, each leaning a shoulder against the wooden upright, and was one close enough to see pale eyes under overhanging hat-brims, one might see amusement in the eye-corners of both father, and of son.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CAPTURE!

Before Sheriff Willamina Keller's Sheriff's office had a Bear Killer, it had a Tank.

The public saw a black-and-tan Malinois, running with the Sheriff as they coursed through town, Willamina in fatigues and desert boots, Tank running alongside, mouth open and tongue happily flapping.

The public saw a black-and-tan Malinois in a Sheriff's vest, sitting in the passenger side of the Sheriff's cruiser, or sniffing vehicles, or suspects: they saw Tank sniffing at lockers in the high school hallway, they saw Tank streaking across a parking lot toward a trainer in a padded bite suit.

The public did not see Tank, at home and without his vest, rolling over on his back, begging belly rubs.

The public did not see Tank, curled up around Willamina's six month old baby boy, one paw possessively over the sleeping infant, while a little pink hand spread over the Malinois foreleg, just as possessive a claim, and both parties satisfied with the bargain.

And the public very definitely did not see Tank, snarling, jumping and snapping at the shining-silver fan spray of cold well water Willamina was trying to use to water her garden, until she gave up and turned the nozzle to straight stream and let Tank jump and snap and snarl at the squirting stream.

Willamina shook her head and laughed quietly as Tank explored the ancient grove of apple trees Old Pale Eyes planted long years ago, as Tank went to the little stream downhill from the grove, as Tank tilted his head, then drove stiff forelegs into the water -- stood over the stream, head cocked, tail swinging, facing downstream, studying something in the water -- then began digging at the water like he was excavating a building's foundation -- Sheriff Willamina Keller stopped and looked, and shut off her garden hose and picked up her little baby boy and turned him so he could watch.

Her son Linn squealed happily and reached a chubby arm toward the energetic Malinois, as Tank tried to dig the stream dry, forepaws windmilling in a small, cold pool of mountain runoff water, and a husband with a camera and an opportunity captured the moment with the press of a finger on a camera's shutter button.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller sighed and went to the kitchen closet, looked inside for a mop.

A very young Bear Killer, black fur and bright eyes and digging forepaws, was busy excavating the contents of his water bowl by virtue of trying to dig a hole through the bottom of the stainless steel container.

A very young grandson gave a happy squeal and crawled industriously toward this happy hydraulic excavator.

Linn hesitated, released his grip on the mop, then grinned and pushed his cell phone out of his uniform blouse pocket.

A couple quick taps, a hoist, a crouch: a toothless little baby boy wearing a diaper and a delighted expression spatted flat-palmed, splay-finger hands in the spreading puddle and gave a contagious laugh, and a curly-furred mountain Mastiff no bigger than the infant, looked up in surprise, both forepaws still in the water bowl, head tilted, ears pricked.

A father with a camera and an opportunity, captured the moment with the press of a finger.

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BIG BOY

Chief of Police Will Keller was promoted to that august office one month to the day after Sheriff Willamina Keller assumed office as Sheriff.

The fact that she assumed the Sheriff's rank with all the subtlety of a charge of C4 duct taped to a highway guardrail, probably explains why her twin brother's coming of rank did not get a terrible amount of public notice.

Willamina, for all that she came into town as low key as a minor tornado, began her tenure with absolute fairness, taking her turn in the Court Officer rotation the same as anyone else.

It was coincidence that her day as Court Officer coincided with her brother's day as Court Officer as well.

Willamina practiced invisibility.

She sat, silent, unmoving, a composed woman with a healthy complexion and a tailored blue business suit dress, watching as a motorist pled his case before the Judge.

"You are charged with stop sign violation," His Honor said, "how do you plead?"

"Not guilty, Your Honor," came the brisk reply.

His Honor the Judge looked over his half-glasses at the motorist, then he nodded once and said, "Speak your piece."

"Your Honor," the man said, spreading his hands in a gesture of sincerity, "the car ahead of me was stopped with its back wheels on the stop line. I was stopped right behind. He went and I went."

"You didn't stop."

"I was stopped behind the stop line, Your Honor. Nowhere in the traffic code does it say that I am required to stop twice."

His Honor looked at the Chief.

"What about it, Chief? Did you see the motorist stop?"
"Your Honor," Will admitted, "I didn't see his first stop. I looked and saw one car go, the another went without stopping."

"So this gentleman could have stopped and you didn't see it."

"That's true, Your Honor."

Judge Hostetler considered for a few more moments, then nodded again.

"Sir," the Judge said to the motorist, "you are correct. You are under no obligation to stop twice. Case dismissed, costs to the Court."

Willamina rose as the Judge stood, waited until His Honor retired from the bench, having heard this last case of the morning.

Willamina glided over to where the motorist approached her twin brother.

"I hope I didn't embarrass you," the motorist said, a little uncomfortably.

Will laughed and shook his head. 

"I'm glad you spoke up," he said frankly. "I don't mind being corrected when I'm in the wrong. It's bad enough to make one mistake without making the same mistake again!"

Willamina waited until Will turned and headed for the door before hooking her arm in his.

"Buy a girl a drink, sailor?" she murmured, and Will laughed again, patted her hand.

"For you, darlin', anything!"

"You realize I've been where you were just now."

"How's that?"  Will looked at his pale eyed twin sister with a grin and a look of honest surprise.

"The Hangin' Judge back at Athens Municipal ruled the same as our Judge here just did, and for the same offense."

Will grunted, picked up his folder.

"I haven't had lunch yet. You?"

Willamina struck a dramatic pose, one leg thrust out, her foot pointed, one hand on her belt and the other behind her head in an exaggerated cheesecake posture: in a sultry and somewhat nasal voice she replied, "Why do ya think I propositioned you, big boy?"

 

Edited June 30, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

YOU LOOK DIFFERENT IN CLOTHES

Betsy was one of the White Angels -- hand picked, intensively trained, experienced in emergency field medicine, in hospital based nursing, in specialties that existed on a little less than one-fourth of the Confederate worlds.

Betsy knew what it was to pump life into a dead chest, breathe air into still lungs, she'd clamped gashes to keep life from geysering out of a broken-glass laceration.

She'd started IVs, getting desperately needed fluids into patients dehydrated or exsanguinated.

 She'd punched specialized devices into precise locations between ribs to reinflate a collapsed lung.

Betsy knew what it was to stride into a collapsed building, to run toward a conflagration, to half-run, half-lunge from one battlefield casualty to another.

Betsy knew what it was to perform under stress.

Betsy also knew the importance of stepping away from the stress, of changing her surroundings altogether, and to that end, Betsy -- a diminutive young woman in boots and blue jeans, following a similarly-dressed Angela -- stepped into the Silver Jewel Saloon for the very first time.

Angela lifted a finger to the barkeep, who nodded: Betsy's eyes were busy, taking in the stamped-tin ceiling, drawings and posters framed round about, she leaned back and looked at the elk antlers over the bar, then at the neatly-pomaded barkeep with the fiercely-curled, waxed-black mustache: her eyes drifted a little to the side and she smiled as she saw a couple, drawn in pencil, apparently man and wife, attired in fashions of an era long past.

"I always did like a man in a suit," she sighed as Mr. Baxter placed two long stemmed wineglasses on the bar.

A pale eyed man in a black suit slid in between the two ladies, ran an arm around each.

"This," he said, a smile in his voice, "is your lucky day!"

Betsy was startled -- she wasn't sure quite what to do -- until she heard Angela's giggle, her "Oh, Daddy!"

Linn turned his head, looked down at Betsy, turned his head the other way, looked at Angela.

"History," he said quietly.

A sweet German wine gluck-glucked from a newly opened bottle into the two glasses.

"Do you know," Linn said quietly as the hash slinger came up behind Mr. Baxter, raised her eyebrows in inquiry, "this is where Old Pale Eyes met an old wartime buddy."  He nodded at the waitress, who smiled, spun with a flare of her full-circle skirt, slipped out toward the kitchen: the three drew back a little, the ladies carrying wineglasses as they headed back to the Lawman's Corner.

"Come here often?" Angela asked mischeviously, and Linn laughed quietly:  "Only to pick up women!"

Betsy wasn't sure quite how to take that, but a sip of wine and Angela's laugh and she decided this was probably all right.

"I'm so used to seeing you in your whites," Linn said quietly, "it's kind of like when the man who became Abbott saw the man who'd become Sheriff."

Linn looked at Betsy, plucked at his lapels: "Old Pale Eyes was the second Sheriff of Firelands County. I'm told we're ringers. He dressed just like this."

"Very businesslike," Betsy said, then frowned.  "It's not ... retro."

"No, no," Linn agreed, his voice gentle.  "This style -- this is hand made, it's period authentic to 1885."

"The man who became Abbott?" Betsy echoed, curious.

The waitress appeared, set coffee in front of the Sheriff.

"Marnie's blend?" Betsy asked innocently, and Linn shook his head.

"Genuine Arbuckle's," Linn said with a wink. "Good stuff, too!"

He added a trickle of cold milk from a sweating metal pitcher, slid cup and saucer back as the lunch special descended in front of him.

"Ladies, can I buy your lunch today? Guaranteed good!"

"We hadn't planned to ... "

Two more plates appeared, settled in front of the ladies.

"Well, in that case," Angela sighed, pretending reluctance before she attacked her double cheeseburger and fries like the starving teen-ager she used to be.

Betsy offered no protest.

"You were asking about the Abbott and Old Pale Eyes," Linn murmured, then swallowed and took a noisy slurp of coffee to clear his tongue. "The very first time they laid eyes on one another after That Damned War, they both stopped and stared at one another, and it was" -- he thrust his chin to indicate direction -- "right at that self-same bar we were standing at earlier."

Betsy's eyes were unblinking, attentive -- unlike Angela's expression, which was closer to tolerant and waiting for Daddy to whip out something unexpected.

"Both men looked at one another.

"Both men recognized one another.

"Both men took a step toward one another and shook hands.

"And both men said what I just almost said, looking at you and Angela in something other than the white uniform I'm used to you both wearing."

Linn took another sip of coffee and then said innocently, "You look different in clothes!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ALL IN A DAY'S WORK

Cinnabar.

No one remembered why the town was named for a cinnamon-red rock that was not found anywhere on this particular Confederate world, and really, it did not matter: it was a name, and people accepted it.

Cinnabar, Marnie learned in her pre-contact research, was settled by Confederates who arrived from the original retraining world, after the original alien abductees discovered their human minds were far stronger, far more flexible, far more capable than their alien abductors realized.

Cinnabar was not a world the aliens settled: they apparently had plans for it, it was terraformed, it had vegetation and wildlife and a remarkably complete profile of organisms that made for a truly living world.

Cinnabar, as far as architecture, looked remarkably like Firelands in the 1880s.

Effort was put into industry, into metals refining, into glassmaking, in the two centuries since their original ancestors rose up and smote their abductors, and took over their civilization.

Effort was made to advance their civilization beyond merely living.

To that end, buildings were painted and trimmed, porch posts were turned, ornate, workmanship and craftsmanship were highly regarded and universally practiced.

Good manners and gentility were likewise practiced.

It was therefore somewhat of a jarring note to hear the full-voiced bay of something no one on this particular planet had ever heard.

Ever.

Although legend spoke of swift creatures called horses, there were no equivalents on this world; there were creatures, generally catlike, that filled that particular ecological niche.

There were wild lupines, of a sort, but none that came anywhere near humans.

When the wild howl off a hellhound in pursuit, echoed from buildings' fronts and shivered, cold and wild, into listeners' hearts, memories carried through ancestral blood caused hair to stand up on strong men's arms, caused women to shrink back from doors and windows, and the sight of The Bear Killer, fangs bared, charging down the center of the street, baying an invitation to come and be eaten, caused a general concern.

The fact that a pale eyed lawman they'd seen on the Inter-System was pursuing, on something that was most certainly not a horse, brought even greater concern.

Steam powered vehicles stopped -- at first, because a man was running, clutching a satchel of some kind with one hand, his hat with the other -- then because something no one had ever seen, save only on the Inter-System, followed, and was closing fast, and then because a towering, powerful creature with bared fangs and a pale-eyed rider leaned over its neck was closing on the first two, and closing rather quickly.

The running man turned, darted into an alley.

The Bear Killer was close now, eyes red and lips peeled back, hair standing up the length of his spine.

Michael and Lightning were laid over in a hard turn, unshod hooves skidding on pavement: Lightning's aft end swung around and the Fanghorn screamed like an insane steam-whistle -- an angry, frustrated steam-whistle -- she scrambled, got her hind quarters behind her, lunged into the alley just as the first pistol-shot cracked between buildings.

It was also the last pistol-shot of the disagreement.

What followed was a scream -- high, shrill, the sound of sheer and unadulterated terror and the horrified realization that part of one's body was being damaged beyond imagination.

The Bear Killer launched off the ground like a surface to air missile -- swift, unstoppable, and target locked -- jaws closed around a forearm -- between an airborne mountain Mastiff coming to a sudden, jaw-locked stop, and the ivory grip on a criminal's forearm, the pistol went flying from a suddenly-nerveless hand, the arm crushed and turned where it shouldn't turn and bled where it shouldn't bleed, and Lightning screamed again, driving her head down, jaws snapping shut an inch above the criminal's face.

It took several minutes for the Constabulary to catch up.

Michael had a torniquet on the felonious arm.

He didn't worry about the fellow trying to get away.

Between The Bear Killer standing, forelegs set apart, fangs bared and lips rippling, between the hoof on the man's chest, Michael Keller had every confidence the prisoner would not be going anywhere.

Especially when Michael told him in a quiet voice, "You do exactly as I say, mister. You do as I say and I will allow you to live to see sunrise tomorrow, otherwise --"

His smile was not pleasant as he hooked a thumb up at Lightning.

"The Bear Killer already et someone yesterday, but Lightning here hasn't et in two days and she's kind of hungry, and right now you smell like blood."

Men came running up the alley; Michael stood, laid a calming hand on Lightning's neck and whispered, "It's all right, girl," then he put his hand behind her foreleg and lifted.

Lightning's hoof came off the prisoner's chest.

"His arm's broke," Michael announced to the arriving, out-of-breath constable, "but he's otherwise fit to hang."

The Bear Killer looked around, trotted to a nearby stream, began noisily getting the taste of blood out of his mouth.

 

Michael and Lightning rode back down the street, moving with traffic; The Bear Killer flowed along beside them, more gliding than trotting: drivers were careful not to crowd them, not from behind, and those that passed, did so with an exaggerated caution.

Maybe they think Lightning eats steam boilers, Michael thought, amused by the idea, but his amusement did not spread to his face, not even to his eyes.

Michael drew up at an intersection, waited for a lull in traffic: they crossed the street, drew up in front of a bank.

Lightning folded her legs and bellied down on sun-warmed pavement.

"Bear Killer," Michael said quietly, and the big black mountain Mastiff touched noses with the drowsy-looking Fanghorn before turning and ascending the bank's smooth stone steps with the satchel taken from the prisoner.

A young mother apologized to the other patrons in the bank lobby as her baby, in its woven-withie carrier, started waving its arms in distress, its face screwing up, for all the world like a juvenile imitation of a sudden summer storm: the mother brought the infant out, laid it on the floor and began a quick, practiced diaper change.

The Bear Killer tik-tik-tikk'd over, snuffed at the child's scalp, gave a surprised little hand a friendly lick.

Mama worked on her end of the child, and The Bear Killer worked on his end, and when Storm Cloud Number Nine decided to revisit itself on a youthful face, when a choking little voice finally cut loose with an enthusiastic caterwaul, The Bear Killer lifted his muzzle and gave a gentle, warbling, "Woooooo" that not only actually harmonized with the child's cry, it surprised the youthful singer into wide-eyed silence.

Tiny fingers went into a suddenly-silent little mouth, then reached for The Bear Killer, until the memory -- I'm supposed to be unhappy! -- returned, and a little face screwed up and darkened again, and The Bear Killer sang gently, quietly, Woooooo," and an infant's eyes opened again, bright and surprised.

When Michael and The Bear Killer emerged from the bank, they had the gratitude of the banker that a transfer of funds had not been lost after all, a lobby of bank patrons was pleased with having seen -- not only this legendary pair in person -- but the canine component actually spared them the nerve-grating cry of a fussy baby.

The mother was grateful for not having to apologize further for this breach of protocol, of bringing her child where the very young normally did not appear.

And The Bear Killer made the Inter-System, yet again, when he swung out in front of an adventurous little girl, who ran, laughing, from her little brother and nearly into traffic, until she collided with something big and black and furry, something that immediately shot forward and seized her laughing, scampering little brother by the seat of the pants, and pulled him back from the curb, then picking him clear off the ground until his pursuing Mama could catch up to the wayward pair.

 

That night, in Dr. John Greenlees' family quarters, The Bear Killer lay on his back, all four paws in the air, and beside him, Littlejohn, who was not so little anymore: both occupied Littlejohn's bunk, and Marnie smiled as she looked at their son, and at The Bear Killer.

Dr. John came up behind her, ran his arms around her belly, laid his cheek against her ear.

"Penny for your thoughts," he whispered.

He felt Marnie's silent laugh as she laid her hands on his, felt her take a long breath, sigh it out.

Marnie turned, hugged her husband, then drew back and took his hand, tilted her head toward their kitchen.

Husband and wife sat at the corner of the table, hunched forward a little, still holding hands.

"Did you see The Bear Killer on the Inter-System?" Marnie asked quietly, smiling a little, her eyes bright.

"Which one?" Dr. John asked.

"You saw them both."  It was a statement, not a question.

Dr. John nodded, smiling a little.

"Did you see this one?"

Marnie reached for the wall-mount, punched in a command, leaned back as the screen lit up.

John recognized the kitchen floor linoleum at Marnie's parents' house, and he smiled at The Bear Killer, sprawled happily on the floor, then he chuckled as two small, round, curious, active little Bear Killers came wobble-strutting up to him and plopped down on either side of his muzzle.

"I expect he was glad to get away from that pair," Dr. John chuckled.

Marnie nodded speculatively.  "All in a day's work!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE DRUMMER, THE DANCER, THE DOG

Mike Hall was a motorhead.

It was Mike's car Willamina commandeered to stop a truckload of stolen livestock, by virtue of asking Mike if he'd help her, for she needed someone who could drive as if the Devil himself were in pursuit, and he had the fastest, most maneuverable hotrod she knew of.

It was Mike's car from which a pale eyed Sheriff stood, an M1 Garand with corrosive primed, metal penetrating ammunition: it was Mike's car that came screaming around the tractor-trailer, slowing just enough for Willamina to dump a clip of metal penetrating into the sidewall of two driving duals, before Mike shot ahead: he held station, grinning, as Willamina drove in another clip of her late Uncle's nearly depleted stock, as she turned and faced rearward and dumped another eight through the truck's radiator and lower engine block.

She turned, dropped into the passenger seat, rifle upright between stockinged knees: she rose enough to stick the ducky antenna up through the roof hatch, she shouted instructions to Dispatch, then she dropped again and barked "GO!"

Mike's grin -- had he died in that moment -- was broad enough it would have taken the mortician a hammer and chisel to remove it.

This selfsame Mike Hall, who custom built his cars, who fine tuned the engines in the Sheriff's cruisers (using technology that violated both proprietary agreements and certain statutes), who balanced their suspension, and who otherwise made Willamina's lead footed Navajo segundo very happy indeed.

Mike was well on in his years now, but he still had magic in his hands, and as Sheriff Linn Keller observed with admiration, "Mike, you can do more with a rounded screwdriver and a wore out pair of slip joint pliers, than I can with a whole toolbox!"

Mike was currently standing on a mechanic's stool, bent over, swearing steadily, quietly, without heat: he profaned the idiot who claimed he could tune up the Irish Brigade's military surplus Jeep-manufactured truck, now set up and serving admirably as their quick attack and grass/brush fire vehicle.

Linn came into the firehouse, not because he had any real business there, but because he knew how genuinely unhappy fire chief Charles Fitzgerald had been when a working truck drove from the firehouse to the so-called mechanic, and was returned on a wrecker hook, "deader'n a whore's heart," to quote the incensed whitehat.

Mike was finishing the last connection.

The Jeep was surplus military, and a military vehicle has to work, no matter what: the ignition wires ran through individual metal conduits -- the so-called mechanic removed them, threw them away, replaced them with common automobile ignition wires, then wondered why they would not work: Linn waited until Mike had the last connection tightened down to his satisfaction, wiped the corrosive proof compound from where a little squished out as he'd tightened them down, waited until Mike straightened, stepped back, wiped his wrench and then his fingers.

Mike looked at him and grinned, and it was still the grin of that high school kid he'd been.

"Let's try it," he said quietly, then nodded to the German Irishman.

The truck started with only a brief touch on the starter, idled smoothly.

The German Irishman tilted his head back, raised his hands to the truck's ceiling.

Linn read the man's lips as he uttered a silent "Thank You!"

Outside, a whistle, a pop: fireworks, for they were crowding the Glorious Fourth.

Fitz came over with the rolling gait of a man who knew what it was to walk a ship's deck on the salt water sea: he did this when he intended to make some grand pronouncement, or when he was ready to stuff someone's boots -- which meant that's how he walked most of the time.

Fitz shoved his head over the fender, squinted at the now-immaculate engine, turned his head to squint at Mike, then in a reedy, fake-old-man's voice:  "How's the muffler bearing, young man?"

Fire Chief and Sheriff laughed and Fitz laid a gentle hand on Mike's shoulder: "Story at eleven," he said in response to Mike's skeptical expression, then he leaned back: "Is she ready to go?"

"All set, Chief. Full tank, too."

"Good."  Fitz turned: "ALL RIGHT, GET HER READY TO ROLL! FIREWORKS AND DRY GRASS!"

"ROGER THAT, CHIEF!" came the unified shout.

Linn leaned back and frowned toward the kitchen deck, then saw movement through the back windows.

Linn was a curious man, and he followed his curiosity to the patio behind the firehouse: it was sizable, it was cut into the hillside and lined with big blocks of native granite, and around its edge, pipe railing.

Two of the Irish Brigade were naked to the waist.

Two of the Irish Brigade were drumming on the railing with what looked like short pieces of plastic pipe, thick as your finger and long as two hands.

Two of the Irish Brigade were half-singing, half-chanting, 

"Law-id, let it rain,

     "Law-id, let it rain!"

Linn drew back from the window and smiled quietly.

He'd been known to address the Almighty, and not always in what could be called conventional prayer.

If these Irishmen have their way of singing their supplication, he thought, far be it from me to comment!

 

The offworld Church was quiet when Marnie and Gracie slipped in.

Marnie opened the front doors just a little, slid in sideways.

Gracie, on the other hand, grabbed the handle and hauled it open as if she owned the place.

Marnie looked around, cautious as ever, then she pushed through the inner doors, eyes busy, sizing up ambush points, exits, cover, concealment.

Gracie shouldered a closing door and followed.

Marnie turned as she walked, still looking for ambush or danger.

Gracie tucked her curlyback fiddle under her chin and raised her bow.

Marnie walked with a dancer's grace: her turns were bigger now, her arms came up, and she closed her eyes.

Marnie was no longer the suspicious, veteran, blood-scarred Sheriff's deputy, nor was she still the dignified Ambassador, mindful of every nuanced gesture, or expression, or word.

Marnie laid her head a little to the side and raised her arms, turning as she did, her steps in time to the waltz shimmering from a mountain fiddle, and she, too, danced before the altar of the Lord.

 

"Engineering, we're ready to start. Can you ramp up the air handlers?"

"On it, Boss!" came the cheerful reply.

Sheriff Jacob Keller handed the firestick to a little boy who was bouncing on his toes and just plainly quivering with excitement.

Their main assembly area, cafeteria, auditorium and do-almost-anything room was built in a natural, rather sizable hole -- tall enough that when the excited little boy extended the shivering firestick to twisted green fuses, when children squealed with delight and anticipation as yellow sparkling fires hissed and sizzled into the fireworks' tubes, when small skyrockets seared upward, then burst in small starbursts and muffled pops, almost every last schoolchild in the Firelands Local School District (Mars) held their hands over their ears and jumped up and down and shrieked in juvenile approval, while The Bear Killer reared on hard-muscled legs and joined the joyful confusion with a loud and happy YOW WOW WOW!

The Firelands colony seized on any excuse to celebrate: the Fourth of July was an anticipated holiday, a designated day of celebration: air handlers drew the smoke-contaminated air up, through the Rippers that turned it back into good clean air and returned it at floor level: grinning men turned sizzling meat on smoking grilles, and  wore aprons that said KISS THE COOK and DEATH FROM WITHIN.

Races were run, trophies given: the celebration continued through midwatch and nightwatch, allowing all hands, even those who labored while most slept, could partake, and could enjoy.

 

Drummers, dancers, Dog, all addressed the Eternal with joy.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CONSORTIUM, OR SOMETHING LIKE IT

Esther Keller sighed patiently as she worked her husband's shirt off his shoulders, as she carefully slid muscled, slightly fuzzy arms out of the linen sleeves she herself sewed for him.

She brought the garment free of her silent husband's torso and handed it to their hired girl.

Esther dipped a cloth in warm water, squeezed out the excess, and began wiping blood from her silent, unmoving husband's face, working with practiced care as she worked blood and dirt from his cheekbone, from the corner of his forehead: her fingers were persistent but careful as she cleaned the split on his ear, as she explored his hair for damage to his scalp.

"My dear," Esther murmured, her voice soft, her question carefully framed, "have you any damage ... below your belt?"

Linn waited until she'd lifted the rag, returned it to the warmed water in the dishpan before snorting and making reply.

He waited because he didn't want his wife to think she'd hurt him.

"My shin bones took a few," he admitted, "but m'boots --"

Esther's lips pressed together and she gave the Sheriff a stern, disapproving look before she squatted -- inelegant, yes, unthinkable in society, for the Matron Herself to debase herself to such a low task as pulling off her husband's boots -- but Esther was a practical woman, and while the hired girl was busy working saltwater into her husband's shirt to soak out the blood -- whosever blood it was -- Esther very practically worked the man's high topped Cavalry boots off his feet, pulled his Union suit up and his socks down and regarded the man's Shin Bones with fingertips and focused green eyes.

"I reckon I'll bruise up some," Linn muttered.

"Are you hurt anywhere else, dearest?" Esther asked, rising.

"My pride," he admitted. 

"Your ... pride," Esther echoed, sensing there was meaning behind the word.

Linn grinned carefully, crookedly.

"Darlin', our son is faster than I am, he hits harder than I do, and he put two men down in the time it took me to take down one!"

 

Annette was not as quiet as Esther in her ministrations to her husband.

Annette kept up a constant, quiet-voiced mutter as she, too, cleaned up her Head of Household.

"Jacob Keller," she scolded quietly as she wiped out a cut on his chin -- she worked carefully, knowing the puffy, discolored flesh beneath would be tender, but knowing also she had to get the wound clean to prevent infection -- "Jacob Keller, please tell me whoever did this to you, is regretting his rash decision!"

"Whattaya mean, his decision?" Jacob muttered, jaw clenched, and Annette stopped, shocked.

"Jacob," she whispered, then he saw fire rising behind he eyes and he heard anger simmering in her throat, "did a woman do this to you?" -- she transformed from feminine caregiver to mad-as-hell Avenging Wife in just under one-and-a-half seconds -- "who was it, Jacob, I'll KILL her!!"

Michael came to the doorway, schoolbook in hand, looked at his father with concern and a little confusion.

"Pa?" he asked. "What's the right way to kill a woman?"

Annette's hands stopped, Jacob's pale eyes focused on his son: Annette looked at her husband, shocked, and Jacob looked at his wife and laughed, then looked at Michael.

"Now Michael, why would we want to kill a woman?"

"Well, Ma just said she'd kill the woman that done that to you and would she beat her with a fryin' pan or would she lay back and have at her with a rifle?"

Annette felt her husband's laughter, she watched the conflict in his bruised face as he tried not to let his face laugh, which failed altogether as Michael offered helpfully, "Ma's pretty good with that rifle, Pa!"

Jacob raised a forestalling hand.

"Your Mama's not going to go killin' anyone just yet," Jacob said carefully, moving his jaw bone as little as possible.

Annette went back to cleaning dried blood off the side of his face and off his neck.

"So what happened, Jacob?" she asked quietly.

 

Jacob caught the arm coming in.

When the attack is sudden and with no warning, there's no time for plans or tactics, it's a sudden, violent reaction with the surprise of knowing Well this is a surprise, while training and muscle memory take over.

Jacob was practiced enough and Jacob's reflexes were good enough that he was able to stop the arm, recognize a knife blade, drive the heel of his hand up under the outside of other guy's jawbone -- hard -- Jacob hooked his leg around the attacker's and bore him over, his good right hand crushing the attacker's forearm.

Something came down and belted him across the head, and it was not the first time Jacob was grateful he wore a stiff creased hat: he dropped onto his attacker, chopped his forearm across an Adam's apple, then half-rolled to the left and kicked the other guy in the side of the knee.

It was an awkward kick and it wasn't powerful enough to do much more than knock his balance a little, but it was enough to down him: Jacob drove his elbow into his supine attacker's face, hard, three times, he stripped the knife from the weakened grip and he came up ready for a young war.

Whatever chunk of stovewood this new attacker was using, whistled through space and missed Jacob's nose by so-close-I-could-feel-it: Jacob thrust the battlefield pickup into the exposed upper arm, twisted, pulled, then kicked and this was a good proper kick right square into the belt buckle.

Jacob staggered back, feeling his nostrils flare, feeling his blood roar with his hereditary, pale-eyed Rage.

His attacker's blood, on the other hand, was starting to run out his attacker's coat sleeve in a rather impressive stream: he grasped at his arm as his knees buckled, as he swayed, as he fell, tried to get up, fell back, staring upward, eyes wide, surprised that this was actually happening to him!

He looked up at Jacob with the expression of a man who realized with honest surprise his death was upon him, and not one damned thing he could do to stop it, and Jacob looked down at him with the expression of a fang-bared predator debating whether or not to close his jaws about his prey's windpipe.

He didn't have to.

A man bleeds to death fast when an artery is cut, and this one did, and Jacob looked up as his Pa disposed of whoever it was decided it would be a good idea to try to visit violence upon a pale eyed Colorado Sheriff.

Jacob saw his Pa seize the other man -- who'd been hit at least twice already, if Jacob was any judge -- by the shirt front, right before he drove a haymaker into the man's wind hard enough to fetch his boot soles off the ground by a couple fingers' worth, just before his Pa cocked his arm back and then drove it forward and caught the man square on the beak with his cocked-back palm, twisting into the punch to drive his body's weight through the heel of his hand hard as he could, right into the attacker's nose.

Blood squirted in both directions when the heel of the Sheriff's hand hit.

Jacob honestly had to admire the strength of a man who could hit hard enough to just plainly cold cock someone with a good hard punch, and he admired his Pa in that moment.

Jacob looked down at the knife he still held, looked at his Pa, then turned as Jackson Cooper came a-stridin' down the street powerful as a team of horses, lookin' unhappy the way a man will when he realizes he's too late to help and he's honestly disappointed for it.

Jacob drew his arm back, threw the knife down into the dirt, stuck it hard and deep, then he pulled a kerchief from his sleeve and said to his Pa, "Your ear's a-bleedin'," and carefully laid bedsheet material under the ear and over it as his Pa brought up a hand to hold it in place.

"You lose any teeth?" the Sheriff asked, and Jacob raised a tentative hand, pressed lightly on his lips, then the side of his jaw, worked his jaw a little.

"No, sir.  You?"

The Sheriff made a quick, frowning exploration, frowned, shook his head, then looked seriously at the ground.

"Looks like your hat's been bent a little."

Jacob frowned, raised exploratory fingers to his head, tentatively touched a suddenly-tender area, then worked fingertips into his hair and brought them out for a look.

"No blood," he muttered.

Jackson Cooper squatted, gripped the dead man's pale face, shook it back and forth a little, slapped it slightly.

"He's dead," he rumbled, then looked at the other, whose efforts to breathe were ceasing as they watched.

"He's dead too, or good as."

Jackson Cooper stood, looked from pale eyed father to pale eyed son.

"Know these fellows?"

"Nah," Linn said carefully, working his jaw as he realized he'd taken a clobberin' fist to the side of his face at some point. "Jacob?"

"No, sir," Jacob replied, then frowned: "Sir, you might want to get that cut" -- he swiped a finger over his own cheek bone -- "tended so it don't scar up."

"I'll fetch the dead wagon," Jackson Cooper rumbled. "Someone yelled you were jumped."

"Yep."

 

Next day, as the formal inquest was heard in front of His Honor the Judge, the Ladies' Tea Society held their own conclave.

While the case was tried with all the solemnity of a masculine courtroom, as men's voices ranged from matter-of-fact descriptions through the Latin phrases beloved by the legal profession, the ladies shared their mutual concerns about their respective spouses, and both the wife of a pale eyed Sheriff and the wife of a pale eyed Deputy, were in concord and in agreement in their opinion that their husbands simply must hold a less confrontational consortium in their professional lives.

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CONDUCTOR

The ER doc looked up and smiled at the sound of sudden, happy, feminine voices.

He liked working Firelands General, as his predecessor called it: their hospital was generally well run, their ER was superb, and the pace was nowhere near as frantic as the trauma centers he'd worked in more urban settings -- until, of course, they inevitably were.

From the sound of it, he thought as he reviewed a new arrival's information.

Sounds like someone's long-lost sister just showed up, or someone got engaged --

He looked away from the screen at the sound of a man's angry voice, then the sudden punch-the-chest concussion of a gunshot --

The ER doc looked around -- Where's the damned phone? -- it's at the nurse's station -- 

He had the impression of something white and fast-moving, something that streaked across his open door and was gone --

A woman's voice, harsh, commanding --

"DROP IT, DAMMIT! DROP THE WEAPON, DROP IT --"

Two more gunshots, louder, heavier, more powerful: his hands went reflexively to his ears, he crouched, rolled forward onto his knees, jaws clenched, eyes squinted shut --

One uniformed man, running --

 

Angela Keller came smiling into the Emergency Department like a gust of cool spring air, tossed a mesh bag of assorted miniature chocolates to two startled nurses in scrubs and clogs: they caught the bounty, looked up, eyes widening: two nurses dropped their treasures on the nearest horizontal surface, squealed happily, threw their arms wide and ran toward Angela.

Angela Keller, in her archaic white uniform dress and winged cap, squealed with them, seized them both in a happy embrace: three nurses jumped up and down like excited cheerleaders, all talking at once, loud, happy, laughing, looking for all the world like high school girlfriends that hadn't see one another for just forever! --

Their arms pulled away and each took a step back at the shouted voice.

One of the two nurses in scrubs crouched quickly against the back of the stainless-steel, computerized, state-of-the-art medications dispenser.

Angela's jaw thrust forward, her hand went to her belt.

No one remembered seeing the gunbelt around her trim horsewoman's waist when she came in.

No one missed the fact that she'd just gotten a handful of blued-steel Smith & Wesson from somewhere, and when Angela ran around the corner of the center island and toward the still-shouting voice, nobody watching could help but realize that war was declared, and they were involved.

One nurse shot up from her crouch like a cork from deep water, reached over the countertop, seized the telephone receiver and punched a blue button, spoke quickly, urgently, then realized her effort was for naught as their sole security officer came through the doors, looking around, hand on his sidearm: he looked at one nurse, then the other, then saw Angela as she turned, looked at him.

Angela sliced the pie.

A quick peek, another, a third: she drew back as a gunshot's concussion slammed against the air.

"DROP IT, DAMMIT! DROP THE WEAPON, DROP IT!" 

Angela went horizontal.

The running officer saw it in slow motion.

She was proned out before she hit the ground -- how she did it, he never knew, she just did it --

Angela fired twice, rolling the engraved Smith's narrow, grooved trigger back through a smooth double action stroke.

Angela Keller was a Sheriff's deputy.

Angela Keller was a Police Chief's niece.

Angela Keller was granddaughter of a particular pale eyed Sheriff with a short temper and really good legs.

Angela Keller was also intolerant of shots being fired in her hospital.

Two rounds of factory loaded, 125-grain, Controlled Expansion Projectile, drove into a subject who may have had a drug related issue, or a psychiatric issue, or a criminal bent, or an attack of stupidity.

Whatever the cause, the action had to be stopped.

Angela Keller, Nurse-Paramedic and Sheriff's Deputy, did just that.

She remained on the deck, rolled up on her strong side, revolver fully extended in an absolutely crushing, two-hand grip.

It was a move she'd practiced, and practiced often, for just such scenarios.

Angela performed under stress, as she'd practiced and practiced and practiced again.

As he'd practiced, one of Uncle Will's officers, who worked hospital security and had been halfway down the back hall when things started, stopped: he had weapon in hand, chest high, pulled back against his shirt buttons, just around the corner from hostilities.

He looked down at Angela, who rolled back, came up on her knees.

He took the corner as she reloaded, fired brass ringing cheerfully as it hit the polished floor.

 

Marnie's face was serious as she looked at her younger sister's solemn image on the screen.

"Unofficially," Angela said quietly, "I'll be no-billed for this one, but we have to wait for the Prosecutor's official pronouncement."

"What about hospital administration?"

Angela's smile was tight.

"When I went in to see them, I had another revolver in my holster and I went in Sheriff's uniform. They were ... not expecting that."

"They didn't know you were a deputy?"

"They claimed they were unaware. I shoved the CEO aside and accessed his computer, I pulled up my employee jacket and I showed them the hospital's agreement that I was LEO and their agreement that they would not interfere with law enforcement procedures by myself or any other such agency."

"You shoved the CEO aside."

"He was on a rolling chair," Angela shrugged. "They went into executive session and came out looking like they'd bit into a sour pickle. They couldn't deny I'd stopped a deadly threat, especially when I pointed out the Jack Doe shot holes in the wall that penetrated the hospital corridor where an X-ray tech was pushing a patient. I dropped the evidence folder on his desk top and pointed out evidence photos taken of the bullet and where it went through the swing arm of the rolling table's siderails and stuck partway through, then I pointed out if he'd fired again, he'd have hit the patient or the tech and the hospital would be shelling out multiples of a million dollars for failure to protect.

"Their legal counsel leaned over and said something to him and that looked like the turning point. They didn't like that a nurse is also a cop but they had to agree I saved them a hell of a lot of difficulty."

"What about the Jack Doe ...?" Marnie asked, dropping automatically into the vernacular she, too, used as a Sheriff's deputy in her own younger years.

Angela smiled: she pulled two bobby pins free, set her white winged cap aside, picked up a round, black cap with a red rose embroidered on its front, and a shining-black bill.

Angela clapped a railroad conductor's cap on her head and said quietly, "I punched his ticket on the Hell-Bound Train!"

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SPLITTER

My grandson Joseph is dead.

Jacob has borne up most manfully under the crushing news of his firstborn's demise.

Daciana knew it before we: she knew a week before, a week to the day, or so my Angela confided.
She hid that terrible knowledge from me for a week, wanting to wait for the official corroboration.

I held her as she wept maidenly tears for the child she remembered: I confided to her uncertain husband, when she fell into my shirt front for comfort, that no matter how old a girl gets, no matter she is wife, mother, matron ... part of her will always be Daddy's Little Girl, and sometimes only her Daddy will give her the comfort she needs, and that he should not feel inadequate for her choice.

We grieved together, men and boys stoic, silent: the women wept for us, and bless their womanly tears, there was that honest relief that they could show such a weakness that we denied ourselves.

Jacob will have it harder than me, for Joseph grew in the same house that Jacob lives in today: he will look around, he does look around and see a thousand memories.

I have one, and a hard memory it is become.

Joseph could draw.

I'd set up a double bit ax in a chunk and I split a half dozen pistol balls in as many shots, and Joseph captured the moment in a drawing of which he was most proud, and which I received with delight.

I look at it now and I remember that broad and boyish smile as he gave it to me.

It is most lifelike, drawn in pencil on a good grade of paper, and I can scarce stand to look at it now.

I shall put it away -- out of the common eye, but where I can look upon it again, should my grandfatherly heart heal sufficiently.

 

Marnie considered her ancestor's words for the hundredth time.

She sat very properly behind the desk, fingertips delicately curved, holding the reprinted Journal open.

She looked at her grandmother and frowned.

"Has that drawing ever been found?"

"No," Willamina smiled. "Where do you think it might be?"

"I don't," Marnie admitted.

"Let's think of the man. He's a grandfather. He's grieving the violent death of a grandson, killed far from home, killed in the early days of the War."

Marnie blinked, her expression that of someone listening to the gears turning between her ears.

"He put it away."

Marnie nodded.

"He did not destroy it. He was a faithful chronicler. I've been through all his Journals and nowhere does it say he destroyed the drawing, or gave it away."

Marnie nodded again.

"You know the man," Willamina almost whispered. "Where might he have put it, that he could lay his hands on it should he so desire, but have it out of sight until then?"

Marnie closed her eyes.

She mentally walked her Grandmother's house.

Gammaw Willamina lived in the same structure that Old Pale Eyes had built for himself and his green-eyed bride.

Marnie knew the house intimately.

"It would be within the house," she said slowly.

Willamina nodded, smiling just a little.

"It would be somewhere he could lay hands on ..."

Willamina nodded again.

"There were no false walls," Marnie said slowly, "and the bottom drawer of your roll top desk ..."

She looked at Willamina.

"It wouldn't be folded ... could it be rolled up and hidden in a long pocket, in your rolltop desk?"

"I thought of that," Willamina admitted, "but no."

Marnie frowned, pressed her lips together, grunted a little.

"So he kept it flat, where he could lay hands in it ..."

Marnie's eyes wandered over the far wall, stopped on a framed portrait.

Willamina saw Marnie's eyes widen, saw her blink twice in rapid succession.

Grandmother and granddaughter rose suddenly.

Marnie looked at her Gammaw, and Willamina saw triumph in her expression.

Two pale eyed ladies skipped over to the stairs, clattered down the few steps, danced over to a pair of portraits.

Willamina held back, smiling as Marnie's thoughts ran across her face, as her hand raised.

"Joseph," she said softly, "grief, sorrow, loss ..."

She looked at the portrait of the Sheriff and Jacob, each standing with a hand on their mounts' neck, and between them, glaring at the camera like she'd like to drop kick it over the nearest roofline, Sarah Lynne McKenna, young and beautiful in a McKenna gown and a fashionable little hat.

"Not that one," Marnie said, glancing at her Gammaw: "he'd laugh at this one.  No, he wants ..."

Her hand was open, fingers straight, and she dropped her knife hand at the other portrait.

"There," she said decisively. "He grieved his grandson, and he grieved his dead wife, and there's where he would bury his fresh sorrow, behind the sorrow he already felt."

Two pale eyed women dismounted the portrait of the Sheriff and his wife Esther: they laid the framed, formal portrait face down on a glass display case and worked the back off the portrait.

"We need gloves," Marnie murmured, looking up with a smile as Willamina dropped a pair of latex-free, Department-issue gloves beside Marnie's busy hand.

They worked the backing free, lifted it away.

They froze as they saw paper, revealed to daylight for the first time in a century and a half.

"It may be fragile," Marnie said hesitantly.

She heard a metallic snap.

Willamina slipped the edge of her lock back under the corner of the paper.

It was not fragile: good rag paper it was, and not stuck down.

Marnie carefully hooked her gloved fingertips under the sheet, lifted, turned.

 

Old Pale Eyes took one last long look at the drawing before he laid it against the back of the last portrait they'd had taken together.

Joseph was behind him, and to his left: the Sheriff stood and fired his Navy Colt one-handed.

Joseph drew it just as the pistol-ball split on the double-bit ax, as it hit two tin cans at once.

He'd drawn the cans dented, perforated from previous bit-split shots, he captured both cans half-spun, half-fallen, smoke rolling thin and vaporous from the open top revolver's muzzle.

He'd captured the drape and wrinkle of his Gampaw's coat, the backs of his knees: Linn marveled at the precision, the ease with which his grandson caught a moment, drank it in with pale eyes and ran it out the end of a Barlow-whittled pencil.

He looked at it and remembered how proud his grandson was to give it to him.

Grampaw Keller laid the image face down against the back of the portrait he'd had taken with his bride, and he placed the backings on the portrait, and fast it up to the picture frame.

He would hang this sorrowful reminder where he could look upon his wife's beauty, and remember, and he could look at it and know the secret it held, a secret only he would know about.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller eared back that stand-up percussion hammer, marveling yet again at the smooth, mechanical precision of the reproduction revolver.

He'd shot this Navy Colt many times.

Today he brought the octagon barrel down level and addressed a double-bit ax, stuck in a chunk, with a tin can on either side.

The Navy cracked and two cans fell to the side, wrinkled a little, each with a hole through the side.

Behind him, a young woman squatted, balancing easily on the balls of her feet, sketching quickly, looking up as her Papa brought the open top revolver down level, looking down at her work.

The sight of her Daddy flowed into her pale eyes, and flowed out the tip of her pencil.

This drawing, she thought, will not be hidden behind a portrait.

She rose, smiled a little as the tourists applauded, as they stopped to talk to the gregarious, friendly Sheriff: she flipped a blank sheet over the one she'd just sketched out, and she moved quickly through the thin crowd, walked quickly to the 1950s-style soda shop, where she took a corner table and a tall sweet tea and proceeded to refine and finish out her pencil work.

When she was done -- when she was satisfied -- she ordered a cheeseburger basket and a milkshake: teenage girls, especially ranch girls, have active appetites, and besides, she wanted to reward herself.

She presented her Papa with the finished work -- matted and framed -- but she kept a photocopy, and framed it as well, and when Ambassador Marnie Keller looked up from her desk in her office at Embassy Headquarters, she looked at what she'd drawn years before, and she looked at a slanted word where an artist's signature might go, and she laughed quietly as she read the signature she'd applied:

Splitter!

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THANK YOU

Sheriff Linn Keller smiled quietly as the Iris split reality like a zipper, three feet to the right of the gravid mare he was grooming.

He ran his hand down the mare's foreleg, raising her forehoof and brushing her fetlocks, his moves quick, practiced: the mare leaned her head over his shoulder, blowing hot, moist breath against his ear and his neck.

Had he been working, had he been sweating, she'd have happily tasted saltwater perspiration, which would have brought a laugh from the man: horses had done that with him since earliest boyhood, and his pale eyed Mama brought a bent wrist to her mouth the first time she heard his young laughter when she saw, and heard, this happen, for the very first time.

Now he was a man grown, a man who found solace and relaxation with his horses, a man whose hands could be both firm and gentle at the same time.

He straightened, laid an arm over the mare's neck: she dropped her forehoof and stood almost daintily, regarding the visitors with black and intelligent eyes.

Introductions were made: Ambassador Marnie Keller occasionally brought visitors, and for some odd reason, she thought her pale eyed Daddy should receive this particular couple.

The woman wore a long skirt, her gloved hand around her husband's arm: she dipped her knees, blushing, as her husband gravely removed his Low Topper, as the Sheriff nodded in reply.

"Mrs. Henderson," Linn said gently, "my daughter tells me you have a matter you wish to discuss."

Husband and wife looked at one another, then back to the Sheriff.

"Indeed we have," Mrs. Henderson said tartly -- Linn swung his eyes to his daughter, who was doing her level best to look utterly innocent, which told the Sheriff she had some instigating hand in today's meeting.

Linn waited.

"It ... concerns your son, Michael."

She saw the change in the Sheriff's face: his expression did not change, but somehow he went from pleasantly neutral to serious in a tenth of a second or less, and Mrs. Henderson had the distinct feeling that an invisible wall just surged up between them.

"Michael," the Sheriff echoed.

"Sheriff ..."

Mrs. Henderson frowned, bit her bottom lip, looked at her husband.

"Our daughter," Mr. Henderson said after a moment, "has a withered leg."

"Go on."

"She usually sits ... at gatherings, she does not ... mingle."

Linn nodded, once, gravely.

"It was a reception, there was dancing, and your son saw our daughter sitting, suddenly alone.

"He went over to her and asked her if he may have this dance."

Mrs. Henderson swallowed, leaned against her husband.

Linn waited.

Mr. Henderson waited several moments, until the silence grew long and awkward.

"He told our Denise that all she had to do was stand, that he'd dance for the both of them."

"And?"

"And ... he had her around the waist ..."
Mr. Henderson took a long breath.

"She stood and he had her around the waist."

"You have to understand, she wears woman's skirts to hide her leg," Mrs. Henderson interjected.

Mr. Henderson nodded.

"He had her around the waist and he danced her around the floor as if she were ... as if she were whole."

Linn's left eyebrow raised a little, just the way the Ambassador's had when she was told this same thing.

"Her skirt ... hid her ... she ..."
Mr. Henderson looked away, blinked a few times, harrumphed gently, looked back, his expression and his voice both soft.

"Sheriff, I have never seen Denise ... laugh ... in public before."

Mr. Henderson swallowed, looked at his wife again and seemed to come to some decision.

"Sir, your son is a gentleman of the first water. He could only have learned that from his father."

Mr. Henderson stepped close, thrust out his hand: the Sheriff took it, and two men looked into one another's eyes.

"Thank you for being the gentleman you've taught your son to be."

 

Edited July 7, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

COLOGNE

Michael Keller lay flat on his back on a hardwood floor.

His knees were drawn up, feet flat, eyes closed, as he decided whether he really wanted to swing his knees slowly to the right again.

Victoria watched him, her face expressionless.

"If it hurts," she finally suggested, "don't."

Michael never opened his eyes.

"Sis," he said, an edge to his voice, "that's actually good advice."

Victoria, silent in a divided skirt and cowboy boots, glided over to her brother, knelt.

"How can I help?" she asked quietly, hands clasped in her lap as she looked at her brother's grim face.

Michael opened one eye.

"How well do you know the Witch of Endor?" he asked, his voice tight.

Victoria blinked, shook her head. 

"Ummm ... what?"

"Never mind."  Michael waved a go-away gesture. 

"No. You meant something."

Michael took a breath, set his teeth together, then put his hands on his thighs, pushed down, carefully, stretching his spine.

Victoria saw the grimace he tried to hide.

"What about the Witch?" she prompted.

"You asked if you could help," Michael gasped. "The only way ... the only thing ..."

Victoria waited.

"Time travel to keep us from riding toward that nervous sentry that fried us with that energy rifle."

Victoria took in a quick, noisy breath through her nose, raised her head, then sighed it out and looked back down at Michael.

"I'm afraid I'm not much help," she admitted. "Is there a position that doesn't hurt?"

"It helps to stretch my spine like this. Knees bent takes the bend out of my L-spine."

Victoria nodded, blinking.

"No good deed, eh?" she asked, and Michael grimaced, then chuckled, looked at his twin sister.

"Yeah."

"You danced her well."

Michael swallowed, nodded.

"And I'm payin' for it."

"You did her a kindness, Michael. That's something."

Michael closed his eyes, twisted his pelvis experimentally, bared his teeth with an indrawn hiss.

"I could always get you that new men's cologne," Victoria offered helpfully. "You know ... Eau de Pain."

Michael nodded, tried to laugh.

"Experience teaches fools," he rasped.

"Do you want to be seen at the spinal --"

Victoria's voice cut off as Michael rolled, carefully, onto his left side, then came up on all fours: he worked his knees ahead until he could get the balls of his feet on the deck.

Victoria reached under his arm and across the chest.

"Ready when you are," she said softly.

Michael rocked back, balancing on the balls of his feet, then stood, carefully.

"Thanks, Sis," he said carefully.

Victoria waited, her young face serious.

"Michael, I understand that's the first time that girl ever laughed in public."

Michael nodded, his eyes closed.

"I'll be all right in a day or two."

Victoria planted one set of knuckles on her belt, started to shake her Mommy-finger at her twin brother, thought better of it and hugged him instead.

"I know you're in pain," she whispered, "but I'm proud of you!"

 

Shelly came through the door and got hit in the face with the smell of bacon and eggs and fresh baked biscuits.

She'd slipped out of the firehouse after B shift took over, hoping she'd come home to breakfast, and she was not disappointed.

Her husband was wiping off the white-enamel stove -- bacon grease was poured into its crock, the crock was cooling on the countertop, fried eggs and a pound of bacon steamed on their platters in the middle of the table.

Shelly set down her warbag as something feminine, flannel and fast moving came skipping across the floor and seized her in the happy hug daughters reserve for their Mamas, and the table was soon populated by family, by breakfast: Angela showed up with a platter piled with hot, steaming, fragrant waffles, and happy conversation filled the morning kitchen as bacon and eggs, waffles and coffee filled the several bellies.

Linn looked at his wife and Shelly hesitated, recognizing the Look.

She lowered her fork, raised an eyebrow.

"Mr. Keller," she said, "what happened?"

Linn cut through fried egg and the underlying waffle with an affected casualness.

"Your youngest son," he said conversationally, which Shelly interrupted with "MY son?"

Linn looked up, laid down his fork.

"Mrs. Keller," he said quietly, "Michael did something very good, and a couple from another star system came to thank me for it."

Angela remembered Michael's pain, and how well he wasn't hiding it, but said nothing: it was important for her Mama to know her young were seen as contributing in a positive way.

Marnie exchanged a knowing look with her younger sister, but as she was delighting in wearing something other than her Ambassador's gown, and with breakfast with family, she chose only to slide a square box across the table to Angela.

Curious, Angela reached for the box, brought it over, looked at the tag, blinked.

"For Michael?" she asked, then, "You didn't!" 

Marnie gave her a wide-eyed look of utter innocence, which of course meant that yes, she did.

Linn looked at his daughters but said nothing.

Shelly looked at her daughters and looked at her husband, but said nothing.

When Michael received the box that evening right before supper, he sat down on his Pa's big overstuffed couch, untied the ribbon bow and opened the box.

He lifted the cardboard lid, laid it aside, reached in, extracted a fancy bottle bearing a hand-lettered tag.

"Men's cologne," he murmured.

His grin was immediate as he read the handwritten tag, ribbon tied to the bottle's neck.

His grin was immediate, a little rueful, but he had to laugh as he read the tag aloud:

"Eau de Pain!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

OCTAVO

Marnie Keller looked like a very proper librarian.

Marnie Keller wore a tailored, emerald-green dress and a serious expression.

Marnie Keller sat with her ankles crossed, her knees together, her lower legs angled to the side, the very image of beauty, of femininity, of propriety: in spite of her few years, she was a young woman who presented a genuine visual image of how a young woman should look, how she should sit, how she should present herself.

Marnie Keller was also possessed of a remarkable focus.

At the moment, her eyes were focused on a single sheet of paper with an intensity that suggested her pale eyes were going to burn a hole through it.

She held the single sheet with curator's gloves; she had not fully unfolded the octavo, she'd opened it far enough to read it, and as she read, she frowned, her other hand floating to her chin, to her upper lip, the move of a thoughtful individual deep in consideration.

The town librarian watched Marnie, and smiled: Willamina, just as well dressed, just as properly postured, seated at this selfsame desk in this very chair, looked at documents and materials with that same studious expression, that exact, concentrated focus.

"Can I get you some oil?" the librarian called gently.

Marnie blinked, lowered her gloved hand to the desk top, mentally swimming to the surface of the deep pool of contemplation in which she'd been immersed.

"I'm sorry?" she asked, and the librarian laughed quietly.

"Your mental gears were turning so quickly I thought you might want a drink of oil."

Marnie laughed quietly, smiled -- the librarian felt the ache of an old friend gone, for Willamina had been a good friend, and her granddaughter here was her very image, especially that quiet smile.

Especially that smile.

"This just arrived from a shirt tail relative back in Cincinnati," Marnie explained. "It's a letter from our fire chief's wife, way back when."

"Oh, how nice! -- which Chief?"

"Sean Finnegan. The letter is from his wife Daisy."

The librarian tilted her head, curious.

"What does she say?"

Marnie laughed.

"She described how Old Pale Eyes was stirring trouble again!"

 

Sheriff Linn Keller removed his cover as Daisy threw a washpan's payload over her back porch rail: she glared at the Sheriff, handed the pan to one of her barefoot young, bade him take it back inside and put a hand on her hip.

She opened her mouth to scold the man, at least until she saw his mouth open, then she closed her jaw, not having come up with an appropriate insult for the man.

"Daisy, might I counsel with you?" Sheriff Linn Keller asked.

Daisy was not quite expecting that kind of a question.

"Wha' wad ye want wi' a puir Irishwoman now?" she asked suspiciously, turning and walking toward the stairs.

Linn paced over to the foot of the stairs, looked to where stones and planks waited, apparently a project mostly in the planning stage.

He looked back.

"Daisy, Sean is a strong and capable man."

"Aye," Daisy replied carefully, "tha' he is."

Linn took a long breath, looked back at the red-headed wife and mother, looked at grinning young Irishmen with big ears and here and there a missing tooth, peeking around the door frame's edge at him.

Daisy saw the Sheriff's eyes shift, turned, shooed her young inside, drew the door to: immediately youthful curiosity swarmed to the nearest window, looked through wavy-glass panes, all red hair and bright blue eyes and healthy, apple-cheeked complexions.

Linn took a step closer, lowered his voice.

"Daisy," he said carefully, "Sean is many things and he does many things well, but he is not a carpenter."

Daisy lifted her chin defensively and Linn saw the warning look in her eyes.

He raised a forestalling palm.

"He has also been a good friend for many years, and I would do him a kindness, but I wanted to ask your advice first."

Daisy was a proud woman.

Daisy was a fierce woman.

Daisy was very much enamored with that big, blacksmith-muscled Irishman of a husband of hers, but Daisy was also a woman, and women are curious, and the Sheriff's careful indirectness piqued her curiosity.

"My ... advice?" she asked skeptically.  "Ye're th' Sheriff, an' ye would ask ... my advice?"

This time Linn looked very directly at her -- almost defiantly so.

"Daisy," he said, "Sean intends to put up a work shed and he intends to build onto the house. He can do this, yes, but I'll be honest, he's ..."

Linn considered his words, choosing to tread carefully.

"Sean is not a carpenter."

Daisy lifted her chin, slowly, her jaw hardening.

"Here's where I need your advice, Daisy. Was I to have the Daine boys come in and put up that shed, would the man take offense?"

"Th' Daine boys."

Linn nodded.

"An' why would ye ha'e th' Daine boys come an' build my husband's shed?" she asked, her voice taking an edge.

Linn's jaw took on its own stubborn thrust.

"Because he is my friend," he said bluntly, "and I would do him a kindness."

"An' who is payin' f'r this kindness?" Daisy asked, suspicion in her voice, uncertainty in her expression.

"Me."

Daisy blinked a few times, brought her hands in front, gathered her apron a little: she frowned, she took a step forward, another, she came down two of the four back porch steps and sat, slowly, eyes wide and unseeing, staring at the ground halfway between the bottom step and the Sheriff's boot toes.

"You would do this?" she asked, her voice suddenly quiet.

Linn nodded.

Daisy blinked again, brought her knuckles to her lips, looked off to the side, then planted her elbows on her knees and dropped her forehead into her hands, the move of a tired woman.

She looked up at the Sheriff, and her expression was entirely different now.

Daisy looked exhausted.

"I'd like that, Sheriff," she admitted.  

"What about Sean?" Linn asked quietly.

Daisy rubbed her closed eyes, then looked back up at the Sheriff.

"Sean told me a priest back in Cincinnati was gi'en a gift, unexpected-like, an' th' priest laughed an' said 'All donations cheerfully accepted!' " -- she nodded, slowly, the way a woman will when she is remembering something, then she looked back at the Sheriff.

"He'd be pleased ye did this f'r him," she said softly, "an' so would I."

 

Marnie Keller read the letter, written in the careful hand of a woman who seldom wrote letters.

It was addressed to family back in Cincinnati, where she'd lived, where she'd met Sean, where she'd thought him dead, fallen from a riverboat and drowned, the place from whence she took her broken heart and headed West: the letter described a conversation about a kindness one man did for another, for no reason other than they were friends.

Marnie let the letter close along its original crease -- she'd opened the folded sheet just enough to read its contents, but no more -- she slipped it back into the envelope in which it arrived, and placed it in a drawer, locked the drawer.

She would have it carefully preserved for archival display, but not today.

After Marnie and the librarian drove back into town, Marnie drove up Graveyard Hill and stopped in the family section of the Firelands cemetery.

A beautiful daughter of the mountains gathered her skirts and knelt before a tombstone, traced gentle fingers over the laser engraved portrait of a woman in heels and a suit dress, a woman who looked out of Eternity with eyes that challenged the viewer.

"Gammaw," she whispered, turning a fresh-cut rose in her fingers, "you'd like what I got in the mail today!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FIRELANDS INTERNATIONAL CRASH PATCH AND POPCORN STAND

A young man sat with four other passengers: men in suits, women in business pantsuits and fashionably large sunglasses.

The private jet was compact, fast, a little noisy; it was built for moving a small number of people quickly, and so lacked the space, the storage of a passenger airliner.

The passengers did not mind.

They were all experienced travelers, they all packed the minimum necessary, or sent luggage on ahead by common carrier, or bought what they needed at destination.

All but one.

A young man sat with four other passengers, staring out the window, part of his mind marveling that the entire damned continent he'd seen so far was cut up, gridded off, that it was squares and boundaries and he was honestly surprised he could pick out round brown tanks, or round blue tanks, or blue rectangles -- sewage treatment plants, water treatment plants, swimming pools ... young eyes followed waterways, lingered on sparkling ponds, remembering the dry and desert country he'd left not long before.

He'd taken nothing with him when he enlisted, reasoning that if he needed it, Uncle Sam would provide it; he brought little back with him -- one satchel -- and he brought back one, and only one, token from his time in a place he never, ever wanted to see again.

His hand rose and pressed against a lump in his coat pocket, and he smiled a little.

"We'll be landing at Firelands International Crash Patch and Popcorn Stand in ten minutes," the pilot called cheerfully: "they have clean restrooms and they usually have fresh coffee."

The young man blinked, smiled a little as he remembered the last time he had coffee at the little airport cut high on the mountain.

He'd been a child when a military cargo plane landed, unloaded something for the Sheriff -- he'd been a little boy back then, they'd opened a crate and a big black-and-tan dog came out, shook himself, and launched after the tennis ball the Sheriff was slamming hard against the pavement.

He remembered an entire aircrew coming out to play ball with a dog the Sheriff hugged and laughed and belly rubbed, and he'd seen the dog later, when the Sheriff came to school to introduce the Malinois she'd served with and now adopted.

He felt the jet bank a little, heard the gear hum and thump under him.

 

"Paul," Sheriff Linn Keller asked, "could you pick up Alicia O'Farrell?"

Paul looked at his lifelong friend and boss, confused.

"Pick up as innnnn ..."

Paul spread his hands in question, and Linn laughed quietly, handed him a memory stick.

"Take her up to the airport. Just before you get there, play this."

Paul raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.

"Can do."

The big, black-haired Navajo took two steps toward the door, stopped, turned, looked at Linn, understanding finally arriving.

Sheriff and Chief Deputy shared a grin and spoke with one voice.

"Hot Wheels."

Barrents laughed quietly, shook the memory stick at the pale eyed lawman.

"Got it!"

 

Alicia heard the knock, her mother's voice, a man's voice, then:

"Alicia?"

Her mother sounded uncertain.

Alicia skipped downstairs in sock feet, blue jeans and a sweatshirt.

"Alicia ..." her mother said uncertainly, and Alicia stopped, her eyes widening uncomfortably at the sight of the broad-shouldered deputy in the doorway, his cover under one arm.

"Nothing's gone wrong," Paul said in that gentle voice of his, and he spread his palms innocently as he said it, "but I need your help. Could you come with me, please."

"I ... what's going on?" Alicia asked uncertainly, looking from Paul to her mother and back before stepping into her red-and-white sneakers and lacing them quickly.

 

The jet descended smoothly, slowed quickly: a Corporal in uniform smiled a little, for the small jet kissed the earth easier than either of the commercial flights he'd endured to get this far.

They taxied a short distance, the engines whistled down, as they always do, and the young Corporal saw the pilot pick up a clipboard and start a timer, ready to mark the turbine run-down time.

A young woman with a pleasant expression opened the side door, lowered the stairs: the uniformed  Corporal stood aside to let two of the women passengers disembark first, likely headed for the powder room.

He stood, bent to get through the doorway, descended, took a long breath, closed his eyes.

It smelled clean.

He hadn't smelled clean for ... well, since he left here a few years before.

His hand came up to grip the sling of a rifle that wasn't there as he turned, eyes busy, suddenly hard and suspicious again, listening, searching.

He heard someone come down the few steps behind him, felt a presence beside him.

The pilot stood with him, just stood for a minute and a half before he spoke.

"It's part of you now," he said in a quiet voice. "I was the same when I came back to The World."

The Corporal turned to him, masking the surprise he felt try to cross his face.

Two men gave each other an understanding look, two men shook hands, held the clasp for a moment longer than may have been necessary.

 

Barrents hit the PLAY button.

A gravelly voice came from the speakers: he turned the volume up slightly as Alicia tilted her head and listened, then smiled.

 

The Corporal reached into his pocket and brought out a shiny red Hot Wheels car.

"My girl," he said softly, "sent me a care package every week. When I told her some of the guys never got anything from home, she'd pack extra. She sent a bunch of these one time" -- he laughed, and the pilot grinned -- "now picture this, a whole squad of hard-bitten Marines down on their hands and knees making dirt tracks and running cars and making vroom-vroom noises!"

The pilot's smile was soft, the smile of a man who knew what it was to be far from home, to get things from home that meant more than the sender could ever possibly imagine.

 

"Mom called him Johnny One-Note," she smiled, "but I always like this song."

They listened as they pulled the final grade and came up beside the runway.

"My father listened to this when he was overseas," Paul said quietly as the singer spun a story: "he always liked the idea that a girl would be watching for him when he came home, that she would breathe thanks for his safe return."

He glanced over at her as they stopped.

Alicia's eyes went from uncertain to big.

Her mouth opened, then she turned and clawed at the door handle.

Two men turned as a girl in a baggy sweatshirt and blue jeans streaked like a blond-haired arrow in red-and-white sneakers, ran to a young Corporal in uniform just turning away from the pilot.

He held something the two men were examining, something small and shiny and red, something the pilot caught as the corporal turned and surged toward the running girl, the Hot Wheels car forgotten, dropped.

Paul Barrents remembered his Pa telling him about how his Mama abandoned all propriety when she laid eyes on him, how she'd charged him and how the net effect was like a pair of trucks colliding: this wasn't quite that, but it did result in denim legs flying, two bodies locked in embrace, turning, and somewhere dimly heard, applause from the other passengers from the little jet.

Paul was never sure whether it was coincidence or not, but he never forgot that, at the moment of collision, an artist he particularly liked sang "I thank Thee, Lord, for bringing Rob MacDunn back safely home!"

 

Paul was at their wedding.

The cake did not have a bride and a groom on top.

It had a little, shiny, red, toy car that had traveled half a world.

Twice.

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BIG MEDICINE

Michael was young.

Michael was lean.

Michael was tall and getting taller: he was not yet close to looking his pale eyed Pa in the eye, but the day was approaching, and they both knew it.

Michael was also puzzling over an idea.

He and one of the Martian schoolboys were well up on the mountain when they dismounted, when they worked their quiet way to a hanging meadow, where they bellied down, where they waited.

Schoolboys are notoriously impatient -- Michael knew this, he'd been one himself -- he reached over, laid his hand over the back of his younger companion's hand and winked.

Slowly, carefully, he turned his head, looked toward the meadow.

Michael was as curious and as interested in history as the rest of his family.

He'd read of Sarah McKenna taking an elk with a hand-knapped, obsidian-tipped spear.

He'd read of Willamina, slipping away and bellying down behind a little rise, peeking through grass and brush and watching elk file -- cautious, majestic, BIG! -- into the meadow.

Michael read delighted, hand-written accounts of hearing their joints click as they walked, of seeing a restless and very gravid cow elk (he'd called one such a "doe elk" at the kitchen table, and knew from shared looks he'd just miscalled something!) -- he himself saw such a very pregnant Mama stop and turn into the sun, and with the sun shining longways on her swollen side, he saw movement of new life within her.

Now he lay bellied down at the edge of that same meadow.

His breathing was slow, controlled, directed down.

The schoolboy that came with him had never seen his breath steam before: Michael gave him a slight smile and an approving wink as the boy pulled his shirt collar up and breathed into it to keep a drifting breath-cloud from betraying their position.

Michael expected to either see a few elk -- not many -- come in from the far side of the meadow, if they were lucky he might see a bull -- he'd shown the Martian classes holovids of the inside of the Silver Jewel Saloon, and they were curious about that set of antlers over the bar.

He'd had to side track and describe Charlie Macneil teaching Sarah Lynne McKenna about life and about death and about life again, with the help of obsidian and rawhide leather and a straight shaft of hand cut wood.

Michael heard his stallion mutter.

His eyes swung across the meadow -- no threat -- they swung to its right margin --

Movement --

He turned his head to get both eyes on the movement --

 

"It was big," the schoolboy said solemnly.

He looked around the classroom, he looked at the class sitting cross legged on the floor in rows of semicircles before him.

"Earth is really big," he said.

"We were way up on the mountain and we thought a string of elk would come in and graze."

He took a long breath, shivered it out, looked at the floor, then looked up again, his eyes just above his classmates' heads, seeing something a couple miles on the far side of the classroom's back wall.

"Michael called it a bull elk," he said, and a hologram sizzled into life beside him: life-size, its rack nearly touched the high ceiling: it was alive, it looked around, blinking, then disappeared.

"Michael put his hand on my back and said 'Stay here and don't move,' then he got up and ran for his horse."

A sleepy-looking Appaloosa stallion appeared beside him, head down, hip shot, looking like he might pass out and fall over, at least until something happened: the stallion's head came up, he spun, ears up and forward -- his white tail slashed spotty flanks as he danced on steelshod forehooves, muttering as his ears laid back flat against his skull.

Even without his trademark black suit, Michael was well known to them: it was Michael, in a faded brown Carhartt and blue jeans that  took two running steps to his stallion, shucked a rifle from the scabbard.

 

Michael's body lit up with living fire as the bull elk trotted toward them.

Michael heard bulls bugle before, but from a distance.

This one did not bugle, it SCREAMED.

Michael planted a hand on the schoolboy's back -- "Stay here!" he said, his voice urgent, then he launched from the dirt and drove toward his stallion.

The Appaloosa was shaking his head and muttering, clearly not liking this situation.

Michael seized his rifle's wrist, pulled it free.

It felt like a toothpick in his hands.

Michael cranked a round into the chamber, took two deliberately aggressive steps toward a bull elk with his fur up and a rack wider than Michael was tall.

"DAMN YOU BIG SON OF A BUCK, GET BACK!" Michael yelled, rage in his voice and a rifle in hand that felt like the famous .30-30 Winchester just might be as effective as a hard thrown rock against this Monster of the Mountains.

The elk looked at Michael.

Michael looked at the elk.

I don't want to gut that thing out, he thought, I'll play hell packing the meat out --

Michael drove a round into the dirt just shy of the bull elk's forehooves.

"GIT ON! GIT!"

Whether it was the sting of dirt, the rifle's sudden blast, or the memory of incensed Daine women chasing a bull elk out of her table garden with a bresh broom, the bull decided maybe he'd actually turn around and go someplace else.

 

Michael sat at his father's desk, frowning at the computer screen.

He had loading books open in front of him, he'd drawn up charts and had columns of data carefully scribed on a yellow pad: his expression was serious, his industry undeniable.

Linn lingered over a late coffee before sauntering into his study with an exaggerated casualness.

He bent over Michael -- he didn't have to bend far -- looked over Michael's head and studied the glowing screen as he rested a fatherly hand on his son's shoulder.

"Ballistics charts?" he asked quietly.

"Yes, sir," Michael said, leaning back and taking a deep breath, then blowing it out.

"Sir, I have not found that for which I search."

Linn squeezed his son's shoulder, just a little, the pulled up a chair and sat.

"Sir, I ... there was this really big elk ..."

"Schlitz," Linn said quietly.

Michael blinked, surprised.  "Sir?"

"The Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull."

Michael shook his head.  "Doesn't ring a bell."

Linn laughed, shrugged.  "I'm old. Never mind. Monster elk, biggest rack ever."

"Yes, sir. Wider than me."

"I've seen him."

"He ... surprised me, sir."

"Rack that size and a neck big enough to hold it up? That would surprise a man on a good day!"

"I had one of the schoolboys up on the mountain. I was hopin' to show him some elk. This fella comes ..."

Linn waited as he saw the memory in his son's eyes.

"Sir," Michael said softly, "that was genuinely impressive!"

"I'd reckon it was," Linn replied, his voice just as soft.

"Sir, it come at us."

"And?"

"Sir, I fetched out my rifle."

"Did it stop?"

"Not until I put one into the dirt in front of it."

Linn nodded thoughtfully.

"And ...?"

Michael swallowed, looked over at his father's gunrack, then looked at his father.

"Sir, that Marlin rifle felt just mighty puny."

"I've ... had things ... that made a rifle feel ... puny," Linn nodded slowly.

"Sir, I could go for a .444 or a .45-70."

Linn leaned forward, elbows on his knees: he drained the last of his coffee, set the mug on the floor, then thoughtfully sandpapered his palms together.

"You could," he agreed.

"Sir, I was looking at ... there's an AR platform that runs a .45-70 Rimless."

Linn nodded again.

"I don't want to go into the belted magnums, or up to a .458."

"Your back?"

"Yes, sir."

Linn nodded, considered, looked to his gunrack.

"If you like, we can try and fine one of those ARs for you to try on for size."

"Yes, sir."

"I can also put a mercury tube in the butt stock of my Marlin. I've already got a shotgun kick pad on it."

"Yes, sir."

"As I recall, you already try to pull a shotgun in two when you bring it to shoulder."

"Yes, sir.  It does help."

Linn nodded again, looked at the evidence of his son's work.

"You're trying to calculate felt recoil."

"Yes, sir."

"That is quite a bit of work you've gone to."
He looked at his son, a smile tightening the corners of his eyes.

"You're doing the right thing."

"Sir?"

"It's easiest to make design changes while it's still in the planning stage," Linn said quietly. "A buddy of mine told me their new firehouse was one inch too short to fit their new pumper, and it took an unholy amount of cash money to fix the problem. Since then, every department in the state takes a physical tape measure, chalk lines and levels, gets the exact height of their tallest apparatus, and then compares this to dimensions on the blueprints."

Michael grinned.  "Yes, sir."

"I'll ask around for that AR. Lower bore axis and gas system might well reduce recoil."

"My ... back ... hopes so, sir," Michael replied carefully.

Linn chuckled, stood, looked at his son.

"I used to complain about my poor old back, until you went through all you did," Linn said seriously. "At my worst I don't have a damn thing to complain about!"

Michael wasn't sure quite how to reply.

"Carry on. I'm headin' for bed."

Michael watched his father ascend the stairs, then looked back at his work, realized that he, too, was about worn out.

Michael cleared his work off his Pa's computer, gathered his charts and calculations, stacked them neatly in a dark-brown briefcase: he checked the back door, set the alarm, turned out the lights.

An Iris opened and closed, and the house was quiet once again.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SITSTER

Jacob was unusually quiet.

His older brothers – the twins, Emil and Gottleib – died before Jacob was born.

Jacob was developing as if he was an eldest, and Shelly was concerned.

Linn’s sister returned to Firelands with a child, and the news that she was dying.

She’d asked her Mama if she could stay, for a little while, and Willamina said “Of course,” her eyes bright as she bit her lip and forbade water to fall from her eyes.

The skinny little girl had pale eyes and the wariness of a child who knew too much about the world and the terrible things the world does to people.

Linn regarded his sister mistrustfully, through eyes heavy with his own misery: he and Shelly had twin boys who died of brain tumors, died in the same day, a statistical impossibility, or nearly so: nobody else in the county, nor in a two county radius,  showed any signs of glioblastoma in the past decade.

Linn had planned to ask his pale eyed Mama how to handle grief: his Mama was a widow-woman now, and Linn thought she might be able to help ease the hole in his heart where two active, laughing, curious, ornery boys used to live.

A pale eyed little girl let go of her Mama’s hand and walked up to a black, curly furred dog well bigger than she, and regarded him with the honest curiosity of a child.

The Bear Killer snuffed at her collar bone, then curled up around her and laid down.

The child’s name was Marnie, and Marnie sat down and stuck her legs straight out and laid her arm across The Bear Killer’s shoulders and looked up and spoke the first word she’d said since her Mama beat on Willamina’s door.

“Bup,” she said, with an emphatic nod, as if her saying it made it so.

The adults withdrew to the living room to talk things over.

Marnie Keller, four years old, a survivor of horrors and hells she’d survived in the drug dens of New York, let her normal hypervigilance fall from her like a dropped cloak.

Surrounded by the warmth and safety of a creature the size of a young bear, Marnie relaxed for the first time in a very long time.

 

Jacob was unusually quiet.

He was about Marnie’s age: her birthday was Christmas, his was early June, and he’d grown up as the oldest son.

Shelly wasn’t sure she wanted more children, and Linn wasn’t going to force her, but when she found herself pregnant, she realized this new life under her heart was not just growing, it was helping her heal.

“Jacob,” Linn said at the supper table, “come up here and set beside me.”

Jacob gave him an innocent look, then an uncertain look: he obediently came out of his chair, came up beside his Pa, worked himself up into the adult size chair.

“Jacob,” Linn said, his voice quiet but serious, “I need your help.”

Jacob nodded, his eyes wide, hands clasped on the tabletop, just like his Pa was sitting.

Shelly covered her mouth to hide her smile, for looking at Jacob told her what Linn must’ve looked like at that age.

“Jacob, you know your Mama is growin’ a filly.”

Jacob knew about horses and fillies and how horses got big and gave birth, Jacob knew how bulls covered cows and sired young on them.

It was an easy concept for him to equate a female child with a filly, and he understood his Mama was not going to birth a creature of hooves and whinny.

“Jacob, we’re gettin’ another child to raise.”

Jacob looked confused.

“Are they on sale, Pa?” he asked innocently.

Linn blinked, took a breath, and Shelly said “Lliiinnnnn,” in a warning voice.

Linn blinked, turned a little to look at his wife, who was leaning back against the kitchen sink, watching the pair.

“Oh now,” Linn protested, “they were on sale at the Mercantile –”

Shelly raised an eyebrow and lowered her head.

Linn turned to Jacob.

“You probably wouldn’t believe that anyway.”

Jacob shook his head solemnly – or as solemn as a four-year-old who knows his Pa is full of it.

“Jacob” – Linn’s voice changed, it got serious, and Jacob shifted in his seat, the way little boys will – “we’re going to adopt a girl.”

Jacob said “Okay,” as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“She’s your age,” Linn continued, “about your height. I’ll need your help to show her stuff.”

Jacob nodded, then looked at his Mama and frowned.

“Mama, aren’t you havin’ your baby?” he asked in a disappointed voice.

“Of course I am,” Shelly laughed, surprised.

“Oh.”

Jacob looked back at his Pa, waited.

“That’s the big news, Jacob. She’ll be here tonight. Your Mama fixed up the twins’ room for her.”

Jacob considered this and nodded, then frowned and looked at his Ma.

“Does this mean I have to do girl stuff?”

Linn and Shelly both laughed, and Linn laid a careful, gentle hand over his son’s, not holding it, just covering it like a warm, fleshly igloo: “No, Jacob, we’ll have plenty of man stuff to do. Your Mama will handle the girl stuff.”

“Okay.”

Linn spread his hands. “That’s it.”

Shelly lifted her chin and Linn saw her eyes go to the door.

“Car,” she said quietly.

Jacob slipped out of his chair, drew back against the wall, getting out of the way: it was not a fearful move, it was habit, ingrained in him since he started to walk.

When Linn opened the door, The Bear Killer came pacing in, headed straight for Jacob, and something with big pale eyes, a blue-and-white check pattern dress and honey colored hair, ran in with him.

Jacob giggled as The Bear Killer gave him a happy face washing, then he looked at Marnie.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m s’posta show ya stuff.”

Marnie and Jacob hugged one another like two magnets coming together, at least until The Bear Killer cold-nosed their faces and they came apart, giggling.

Jacob looked at his Pa.

“I’m s’posta show her stuff,” he said. “I’m showin’ her she’s my sits-ter!”

The Bear Killer dropped his bottom to the floor and gave a quiet whuff! – as if to agree with Jacob’s decree.

“We got horses an’ barn cats an’ a tractor,” Jacob said, “wanta see ‘em?”

Two children joined hands and ran for the front door, a great, black, curly-furred Bear Killer hobby-horsing along behind them: three adults watched their departure, then turned and looked at one another.

“Somehow,” Shelly murmured, “I don’t think this will be a problem after all.”

 

Edited July 12, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CHEAP LESSON

Michael Keller stepped back from his computer.

Young he was, with old eyes and an expression that would have been very much at home at a riverboat gambler's poker table.

He turned his hat in  his hand as he paced back -- one step, two, three -- and stopped, knowing he'd be visible from crown to knees.

"Sir," he said, "a word, if you please."

Sheriff Linn Keller frowned a little, nodded once.

"Sir, the word is thank you."

The Sheriff raised an eyebrow.

"I put your lesson to work and it ... provided me with a cheap lesson."

At the phrase, "A Cheap Lesson," the Sheriff went from being the county's chief law enforcement officer, to a father, listening closely.

He'd used the phrase "A Cheap Lesson" after moments of minor catastrophe, where equipment failure or miscalculation brought things to earth at a rate of thirty-two-feet-per-second-squared, or a tow strap or two chain broke and snapped back, or a tree fell in a direction the feller did not really intend, resulting in a crushed fence, a mashed chain saw, and in one case, a somewhat dented truck cab.

Linn regarded his growing son and said quietly, "Michael, what happened?"

 

Michael Keller pulled the magazine from the .22 target pistol.

He set it on the adjacent table top, laid it where he could see it with both eyes.

Michael Keller gripped the pistol's reciprocating bolt, pulled it briskly to the rear.

Nothing spun out the ejection port.

Empty weapon, he thought, then looked at a spot on the far wall.

He was in the basement of a house rented for Diplomatic purposes.

It had a full basement.

Michael considered the pistol, smiling a little at the memory of giving it a good wringing-out as a boy at home. 

He planned to have it out again that afternoon.

He had a brand new pack of playing cards and absolutely no intention of shuffling or dealing: no, he intended to set them up edgewise and cut them in two.

A .22 is the hardest to cut cards with, simply because of its small diameter.

You can be off the bullet's width and still buzzsaw the pasteboard in two, and Michael well knew the trick of stepping a little to one side or another: edge-on, a card disappears, but if you take a slight sidestep, you can suddenly see it.

He also knew that a .44 was a better choice, as you had twice as much came-and-went, owing to the bullet's larger diameter

This particular .22 target pistol had a trigger like a wish -- clean as a hound's tooth -- he smiled as he remembered this.

One dry fire drop won't hurt, he thought.

Once won't batter the chamber.

He brought the pistol up, the sight picture steadied, his finger eased back on the serrated target trigger --

 

"Sir," Michael said, and Linn saw his son's cheeks flush, "you told me once that the two loudest sounds in the world are bang when you expect to hear click, and click where you expect to hear bang."

Linn nodded slowly.

"I recall."

"Sir" -- Michael took a long breath, then shook his head and laughed a little, his rueful grin crowding through his reserve -- "when I cleared the pistol, the extractor didn't pull the loaded round out of the chamber."

"I see," Linn said carefully.

"I puttied the crater and painted it over, sir. You can't tell it now, but I wanted you to know ... your lessons paid off, all I shot was a poured cement wall, and that was a cheap lesson."

Linn nodded again.

"The good news, sir," Michael continued, "I cut 52 cards in two with 55 shots."

Linn's grin was instant, broad and sincere.

"Sounds good to me, Michael!"

 

After the conversation ended, after the connection closed, Linn leaned back in his chair, a quiet smile on his face.

Sometimes a man wonders if his young actually ever listen, he thought.

It feels pretty good when one calls to say Thank You!

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHAT GAVE IT AWAY?

The Firelands hospital’s nurses were not surprised when children under their care asked unusual questions.

Especially questions about that nice lady that didn’t say much.

Apparently that nice lady came to them when they were scared, when nights were long and lonely and frightening to a wee child who was in a strange bed in a strange place that smelled funny and people came in and did things to them that generally hurt: one of the nurses had to turn her head and squeeze her eyes shut, hard, to compose herself when a little boy on chemo thrust his fisted arm out and almost yelled “Hit me!” when it was time for his treatment.

These same nurses sometimes saw people in their hospital chapel.

Tammy was an old veteran nurse who’d been a hairdresser before becoming a nurse: her hair was always jacked up and elaborate, her makeup was done to perfection, her uniform immaculate: she had the same irreverent, almost jaded sense of humor that was off-putting to anyone not accustomed to the survivor’s sense of humor.

Tammy was told in nurse’s training that a sense of humor was a “coping mechanism.”

Tammy knew enough medics, enough lawmen, enough firefighters, enough fellow nurses, to know a sense of humor was most certainly not a coping mechanism.

It was a SURVIVAL mechanism, and no two ways about it!

Tammy listened to her patients – actually listened – and when a child spoke of that nice lady that didn’t say much, Tammy asked what she looked like.

The answer ran a trickle of cold water right down her back bone.

When Tammy went on break, she passed the chapel’s double doors with the stained glass windows, as she always did.

Instead of just walking past, Tammy hesitated, then pulled the right hand door and slipped inside.

And stopped.

She watched as someone in what looked like a white-plastic spacesuit – red shoulders, red boots, a big red cross on what looked like a thin, white-plastic back pack – rose.

The figure had been kneeling at the altar rail, but stood.

A red helmet with white trim covered most of its face, but a clear faceplate was pushed up and the profile was young, female, and pretty.

Tammy watched the figure flip a stethoscope overhead and around her neck with the casual ease of long practice.

Tammy stopped, stared, wondering if there was a costume party she hadn’t been told about –

The figure brought up a bent wrist, tapped at something on the back of what looked like a wristband, then stepped forward and disappeared as if stepping through an invisible doorway.

Tammy blinked, she felt her mouth open, then shut it: she shook her head, backed against the door, backed out into the hallway.

Tammy went back into the children’s ward.

She didn’t usually work midnight shift pediatrics, but she’d been pulled off Med-Surg as Pedes had a call-off.

Tammy stepped into the pediatric ward and stopped.

A woman wearing a white cap, a white apron and a long dress was holding a little boy’s hand.

Tammy froze again, not wanting to interrupt the conversation, then her eyes went to the wall clock.

She backed up against the door and backed into the hallway.

She still had seven minutes of break time left.

“Coffee,” she whispered, before she headed toward the ER and its perpetual coffee supply.

She stopped as she came abreast of the front desk, stopped and froze and stared at a very old portrait.

Her eyes dropped to the hand-lettered card attached to the bottom of the hand-rubbed, heavy wooden, frame.

Dr. John Greenlees and his wife, Nurse Susan, she read: the pair stood stiffly, unsmiling, in what was evidently a very old-fashioned physician’s inner office.

“Did you see her?” a voice asked from behind her.

Tammy turned, startled, her face the color of wheat paste, as she whispered ...

"What gave it away?"

 

 

Edited July 14, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE ELIJAH METHOD

 

Michael Keller rubbed his eyes and sighed.

It wasn’t a dramatic sigh – it was almost inaudible – his twin sister, working at a desk beside his, felt it more than heard it, thanks to that silent connection twins commonly share.

“Why did I ever start,” Michael muttered.

“Start what?”

“Books. Hymnals, now printing houses, pianos … I’ve got …” – he gestured at a stack of forms, neatly laid out on his completely-occupied-but-organized desk top – “I’ve got firms that want to make pianos domestically, I have churches and concert halls and schools that want to buy genuine Earth pianos, now I’ve got orders for musical instruments I never advertised and I don’t –”

Michael leaned back, pressed his hands against the sides of his head as if trying to confine a persistent headache.

“Your sales figures are phenomenal, Michael,” Victoria said quietly. “You could –”

Michael folded his arms and dropped his forehead on them.

Victoria slipped out of her chair, came over, silent on black-patent slippers, laid a gentle hand on her twin’s near shoulder blade.

“Michael,” she said gently, “you’ve been working on this long enough. Walk away.”

Michael raised his head and Victoria tried not to let surprise show on her face as she realized just how worn-out tired her brother’s face really looked.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

Victoria waited until he’d departed, then she finished her own work, gave his a cursory looking-over, decided it could wait, and followed.

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller sat at her desk, frowning as she worked: she’d scanned everything into her computer, she’d converted everything to electronic files: it was at once a great savings, and more work: she, too, had multiple businesses, mostly pertaining to coffee, tea, and a lively commerce on heirloom crops: her fortunes, like the twins’, were looking distinctly prosperous.

Unfortunately, a business demands time, and time demands concentration, and Marnie was only just returned from sensitive but necessary negotiations: like Michael, she was close to exhausted; like Michael, she worked herself too long, until she started making mistakes, then like Michael, she stopped, she pushed away from it all, she stood, and she walked away.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller smiled a little as he played a video he hadn’t watched in quite a long time.

Marnie, frustrated and exhausted after taking on too much schoolwork in her single-minded pursuit of an early graduation: he’d taken the video as he walked up on her.

Marnie was not bound by convention.

Marnie went where she always went for solace – she went to her Daddy’s horses – and when Linn came cat footing up on her with cell phone in hand, taking video, the wobbly image he captured was that of a pretty young girl, laid down on pasture grass, flat on her back, sound asleep.

A long-legged colt had folded itself up beside her, warm and companionable, and another laid down a little nearer, with its head across her chest, and her arm over its neck.

Linn did not see fit to trouble her.

She was out like a light.

The colts were comfortable.

Linn got far enough away before whittling thick slivers off his ever present plug of molasses twist to bribe the other horses so he’d not disturb his wore out daughter.

 

Marnie caressed her big black Frisian’s neck.

The mare blew, draped her head over Marnie’s shoulder.

It was not long before Marnie packed two bales of hay out of the adjacent barn and stacked them in Snowflake’s pasture, the bales set side by side.

Marnie threw two saddle blankets over them, and laid down.

Her mind honestly hadn’t realized how bone tired her body was until she laid down and curled up on her side, and when she did, a black Frisian grazed nearby, watchful, as a still-wobbly Frisian filly folded her legs and laid down beside the hay bales.

Marnie’s dangling fingers found Frisian hair, and both Marnie and the filly slept, each comforted by knowing the other was there.

 

Angela sized up the situations remotely, then loaded two woven picnic baskets.

When Marnie woke, she found a shiny-red-painted, woven picnic basket covered with a folded white tablecloth, and a note.

When Michael woke, he found the same thing: he reached over, touched the back of his twin sister’s hand with careful fingertips, which brought her to full awareness instantly if not sooner.

Each basket had a hand written note under its hinged lid:

The prophet Elijah was told to go take a nap and have a snack.

Now it’s your turn.

Angela

 

Edited July 16, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TRUST

Linn found himself in conference with his mother more frequently than he'd anticipated.

By his own admission, he was not in the least little bit shy about asking for advice from those who knew what they were talking about.

He'd raised twin boys, at least until they died, but now he had a little girl under his roof, and to be honest, he felt kind of lost.

He recalled when the twins -- Emil and Gottleib -- were still in diapers screaming as if in intractable agony: they were not teething, Shelly had been at absolutely the end of her ideas, so she'd done something she swore she'd never do.

She called the one most intimidating person she'd ever known, for help.

Willamina was there in less than six minutes.

Willamina came in, all business, she went to the downstairs crib where the twins were screaming in discordant harmony.

Her face was serious as she opened one howling mouth a little more, shot her flashlight's beam inside, then the same with the other howling songster: her light thumb-snapped off and she told Shelly, "Draw me a tub of really warm water. Not quite hot but close to it."

Shelly seized on this direction as if it were the Grail itself: she'd been so utterly lost, and now she had direction.

Shelly honestly fled up the stairs, to the white-enamel bathtub, twisted the hot water faucet wide open.

Willamina wrapped the twins snugly in white flannel, picked them up, bounced them a little, her grandmotherly murmur lost entirely against red-wrinkle-faced squalls that exceeded industry safety standards for unprotected hearing.

Shelly was on her knees beside the tub -- the water was a hand's span deep, warm and steaming, when she felt a swirl of cooler air and she knew her pale eyed mother in law was coming through the door with the whimpering twins.

Willamina unwrapped one little boy, then the other, laid them carefully in the tub.

Motherly hands held stiff, protesting, rebellious little limbs, until they realized being warmer and wet felt pretty good.

Willamina waited no more than three minutes before shooting her compact little flashlight's beam into one mouth, then the other.

The twins were relaxing now, their screams settled down to intermittent whimpers.

Willamina handed the compact tactical light to Shelly.

"Look at the roof of their mouths," she said, her voice gentle, and Shelly did.

"See those white spots?"

Shelly nodded, her eyes wide, almost shocked.

"Measles."

They got the twins dried off and diapered, fed and wrapped up.

"Measles," Shelly said, her voice as hollow as her eyes.

Willamina smiled gently and gave the younger woman an understanding look.

"It scared hell out of me when Linn got the measles," she said. "Doc Greenlees came out and knew what to do and what to look for."

Willamina laid Gottleib back in the crib, relieved Shelly of Emil,laid him down with his brother, then steered the younger woman toward the kitchen.

Willamina brewed tea and poured each of them a mug, then reached in her purse and pulled out a silver flask.

"For medicinal purposes only," she murmured as she gave Shelly's tea a healthy dose, then winked: "Nerve tonic!"

 

It had been some years since the twins' death: Jacob came along very soon after, and now Marnie as an underfed four-year-old.

The Bear Killer immediately claimed Marnie, which was good, because Marnie had known things in her young life no child of her few years should ever endure.

She did not scream and flail when touched, but she stiffened, she shivered.

Linn had seen this before.

He went down on his Prayer Bones and Marnie looked at him with honest, wide-eyed terror.

The Bear Killer was laid down beside her and her arm was over his neck.

Linn was satisfied that was the only thing that kept her knees from failing her.

"Marnie," Linn said gently, "I think you don't want to be touched."

Marnie did not answer.

She just looked at her new Daddy, looked at him through a wooden face and wide, scared eyes.

Jacob came up, curious: Linn opened an arm and Jacob stepped right into him.

Linn held his son as he often had.

"Marnie," Linn said, his voice careful, "nobody has the right to touch you if you don't want touched."

Marnie blinked, but made no other move.

Linn released his arm from around Jacob's waist, stood, backed up a pace, then turned and thrust one sock foot, then the other, into his boots, opened the front door, stepped outside.

Marnie reached for Jacob's hand and Jacob returned the reach, then he turned and hugged his new sister, and she hugged him with one arm, the other arm still around The Bear Killer's neck.

 

Marnie sat with her sister at a sidewalk table in front of a fashionable little coffee shop.

"I know what happened to you," Angela said, "back East."

"Oh?" Marnie asked neutrally, sampling her black elixir: the blend was new to the planet, and still commanded a premium price.

"I remember you went from blue jeans to skirts and dresses overnight," Angela said quietly, "and you wouldn't wear anything but handmade. Mama wanted to go dress shopping with you and twice it came to bloodshed."

Marnie's expression was unreadable as her pale eyes regarded her younger sister through a wispy cloud of coffee flavored steam.

"It was the shoplifter's fault," Marnie said easily.

"We'll just leave it at that," Angela suggested.

Marnie frowned, lowered her coffee.

"Do you really want to know why I ... changed ... out of blue jeans so quickly?"

"I know there's a reason."

Marnie placed her cup on its translucent saucer.

"It was a dare," she admitted.

"A ... dare," Angela echoed, blinking: she leaned forward, her voice low, earnest.

"Marnie Lynne, you are the one most peer-pressure-proof soul I know. What do you mean, a dare?"

Marnie's eyes were suddenly very pale, and Marnie's posture was suddenly very controlled, and Marnie's voice was suddenly very unemotional.

"When I learned how to break someone's arm," Marnie said, "when I learned how to over power a joint lock and tear an elbow apart or shred a wrist or break a thumb, when I learned how to heelstrike a nose and dislocate a knee and drive a number two lead pencil through someone's innominate artery -- when I learned how to --"

Marnie stopped abruptly, drew back a little, her eyes closed.

"When you learned how to back it up if you said no," Angela finished for her.

Marnie nodded, then she opened her eyes, and she smiled just a little, but it was not a pleasant smile at all.

It was the smile of someone who knew the feel of splintering cartilage in her grip.

"Once I found out I could kick better in a skirt, and once I learned I could say no and make it stick, I started wearing skirts as a dare."

Her voice was low, the menace unmistakable.

"I can look anyone in the eye and just dare them -- jump right on and do your worst, damn you, and know I can do very unkind things to them if they even try."

Marnie looked down at her bodice, turned up a fashionable little pinned-on watch, smiled, rose, the absolute image of feminine gentility.

"I have to go see Daddy," she smiled. 

"Wait a minute, you can't just drop that in my lap and leave!"

Marnie paid their bill, smiled at the blushing young waiter, keyed a command into her wrist-unit, looked at Angela, tilted her head a little and smiled again.

"Well?" she asked as the cat's-pupil-black Iris opened behind her.  "You coming?" 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DIDN'T EXPECT THAT!

Jacob Keller considered the pasture.

Jacob Keller loafed comfortably against the white board fence, one polished boot up on the bottom rail, arms folded across the top.

Jacob's pale eyed Pa, in an identical pose, stood beside him.

Two tall, lean men in polished boots and black Stetsons, two hard-muscled Sheriffs in tailored black suits, regarded horse flesh and humanity.

Marnie and Angela was standing dead center in the pasture's northern third, straight out from where father and son watched.

"You know," Jacob said thoughtfully, "in an earlier era, they'd be hanged as witches."

"I said that about my Mama," Linn replied softly.

Normally the horses, both saddle stock and the firehorses, were pretty well distributed through the long pasture: they were approaching Marnie, every last one of them, they were on approach and they were coming with purpose.

Marnie Keller, daughter of a pale eyed Sheriff, had lifted her skirts and stepped carefully out into the pasture, her younger sister following: they'd turned and smiled at their father, and at their brother, 

Two genuinely beautiful women caressed the mare that came head-bobbing up to say hello, then they turned and looked the length of the pasture.

Each had a hand on the Appaloosa mare's mane.

Each extended her other arm, palm up: feminine faces turned toward the sun, eyes closed, as they took a deep breath of air that smelled like home!

They sang.

Their voices were gentle, harmonized: they grew in volume, and as they sang, horses the full length of a genuinely huge pasture stopped: heads raised, ears swung and pricked, focused like fleshly radar dishes.

 

Victoria watched the live feed on her computer's screen, Michael beside her: Victoria rested her chin on her fist and gave a disappointed little sigh.

"I'll bet I could do that," she said quietly.

"I'll bet you could," Michael agreed.

"We could go to ... which planet has the biggest herd?"

"They're all about the same," Michael admitted. "We've been moving mares and stallions from Earth and back to keep a good genetic cross section."

Victoria gave her brother a sly look.

"Which one would get me in less trouble?"

Michael grinned.

 

The Ladies' Tea Society populated the choir loft that Sunday.

Angela sat among them in a proper McKenna gown with a matching hat; Marnie, beside her, in a veil, as it might cause questions if someone known to Earth as last seen as Sheriff of the Second Martian Colony, was suddenly seen back on Earth, without having arranged some means of transportation ahead of time.

Angela and Marnie sat side by side in the rearmost row; they were the apex of a human triangle, with nobody seated beside them.

"Did you get that girl's dress finished?" Angela asked, her lips barely moving.

Marnie's gloved hand formed the sign-language letter Y, then relaxed:

Yes.

"Why the rush?" Angela asked.

Marnie's whisper was pitched to reach Angela's pink-scrubbed ear, but no further.

"Her fiancée is returning from service next week. She wanted a special dress. I told her to test drive it today."

The congregation rose at the Parson's request.

Angela saw the back door open, then close.

A lean young man in class A's stepped inside, eyes busy.

An usher raised a finger, stepped three rows ahead, stopped at a particular pew and winked.

A young man in uniform nodded once, his cover under his arm: he slipped into the near-vacant pew, stopped behind a particular young woman.

"You arranged this," Angela whispered accusingly.

Marnie's gloved hand, still on her lap, formed the sign-language letter Y.

She watched as a silent young man sat with a hunter's patience behind a pretty young woman wearing a handmade dress, a dress she'd had custom made with intent to wear it in one week, for a very special occasion.

Marnie and Angela stood with the rest of the congregation after the final benediction, stood and watched from their elevated vantage: Marnie's grin of absolute delight was hidden by her concealing veil, but Angela's face was not at all hidden, nor was her wide-eyed, hands-to-her-mouth expression of feminine delight.

A young woman turned to leave.

She glanced to her left, looked ahead, looked left again, shocked --

She froze --

A strong young man, just returned from overseas, caught his intended under the arms as she LAUNCHED up onto and then over the hardwood pew.

A cloaked camera drone caught her at her ballistic apogee, her hair just starting to float behind her, a pair of strong and masculine hands firm under her arms, her arms wide and her mouth open, just before each crushed the other into the embrace that made other women jealous and other men proud.

Angela looked at Marnie.

"You arranged this, you witch!" she hissed accusingly.

"You sing in the horses, you witch!" Marnie replied quietly, and Angela could hear the laugh hiding under her words.

The couple waited until the center aisle was almost clear before the young man swung her over the back of the pew and down beside him, then he went to one knee and raised a small box, slipped a shining ring on a feminine finger.

Angela felt Marnie's surprise and laughed quietly at her veiled sister's surprised, "I didn't expect that!"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE PRICE IS RIGHT

Sheriff Linn Keller consulted his mental list.

Usually when they went to visit, halfway across the state, he'd drive and she'd sleep.

He felt himself smile, behind his face where no one could see it, as he remembered her quiet voice, how she'd say "You give good ride," before she closed her eyes behind big goggly sunglasses and went back to sleep.

He took pride in giving a good ride.

She'd told him of a squad partner she had, years ago, someone who'd started running ambulance when the word "Ambulance" meant a black vehicle that looked like a hearse, made by Cadillac, driven by a man in a black suit with a plastic smile and a Johnson & Johnson first aid kit.

Whoever this fellow was, said he and the other fellows read where the Rolls-Royce School of Chauffeur, had a final test that was pretty damned hard to pass: the instructor set a glass of water on the dash of the car, and the driver had to bring the car to a full and complete stop, without rippling the water.

Apparently Shelly's old partner from many years before was one of two men who could do it in a Cadillac hearse.

Linn wasn't THAT good -- he'd admitted that in a late-shift conversation with his boon companion Paul Barrents, when they were both still road deputies -- but he did his best to drive smoothly.

Shelly was going to visit relatives.

Usually he went too, he drove, she slept, but her sister would be coming in from out of state, she was looking forward to visiting an old and dear friend she'd known just forever, and he'd told her, "You go on ahead. You deserve a girls' weekend."

He'd begun adding up things he could do in her absence.

There was a kitchen repair he'd wanted to get done, but couldn't as long as she was using it; he'd figured to make a meeting and then an auction the next day ... he had a few days off, he'd been looking forward to these, maybe ride up on the mountain, something he loved to do and hadn't enough time to do under usual conditions.

Shelly asked him to carry her big suitcase out to the car, a portable cooler with bottles of water, the usual stuff she packed and overpacked (Shelly was a girl, after all, and girls tended to overpack), and when she came downstairs, Linn frowned and stopped her.

Shelly wobbled a little as he looked at her.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "you ... are you feelin' okay?"

Fatigue was graven across her face and he saw she was shaking a little, as if she was quivering with utter exhaustion.

Linn stepped in, caught his wife under her elbows.

"Darlin', why don't you get a good night's rest and take out first thing in the morning."

Shelly leaned against him and nodded a little, then looked up at him.

"Morning," she sighed in agreement, then added, "I miss my travelin' partner."

Linn shifted his grip and ran his arms under his wife's arms and knees, picked her up, his face serious.

"You're in no shape to drive," he said quietly, and carried her back up the broad, solid stairs. "I usually drive and you usually sleep, darlin', I'm afraid you'll fall asleep at the wheel."

"I need to call my uncle," Shelly mumbled, "let him know."

"I'll call him," Linn said quietly, in the reassuring voice of a father soothing an overtaxed child: he laid his wife on his side of the neatly-made bed, turned her side back: he didn't bother to undress her.

"Low barometer," she mumbled as he eased her over to her side of the bed and pulled line-dried bedcovers over her.

She was asleep, just that fast.

 

When Linn hung up from talking to her Uncle, he looked toward the kitchen, reviewed the mental list of things he'd intended to get done, then smiled, just a little.

Those things would wait.

There would be other auctions, there would be more meetings.

He only had one Shelly.

Edited July 17, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LEAD PIPE CINCH

Michael Keller didn't really run up the ladder.

He climbed it, but he climbed it really, really fast.

Michael had no idea what he was going to do, nor how to do it, but he'd at least snatched the lariat off Lightning's saddle before he ran for the ladder.

It was bolted to the side of the warehouse.

It rose three stories and curled over, like he'd seen ladders elsewhere.

Below him, shouts, conflicting orders: someone made the mistake of snatching at Lightning's reins, and backed quickly away as she snapped at him, fighting fangs exposed when she peeled her fine-furred lips back for the warning bite: she turned, snarling, sidled up against the building, Cyclone and Thunder flanking her, dancing and shaking their heads, clearly unhappy that their Mama was clearly unhappy.

Michael paid no attention to any of this.

A man was on the roof, screaming.

 

Shelly Keller's framed portrait hung with another portrait, that of her first, second and third paramedic classes, all of them told to look solemn and not one single soul she'd taught was able to do anything but grin for the camera.

The Irish Brigade ran for fireboots and turnout coats, pressed-leather helmets and bunker pants, fireproof gloves and apparatus: the overhead doors rattled open and Diesel engines snarled impatiently, until the doors hit the wide-open limit switch and green lights flared into life, signaling the drivers that the doors were open far enough to proceed out of the bay.

Kenworth pumpers rolled.

Medics followed, two in the squad, one in the rescue with three other firefighters: the officer rode shotgun, fireboot heavy on the steel siren button.

Engine, rescue, squad, constabulary, curious public, all ran with swiftness and haste to where a young man in a black suit came to the top of the ladder and sized up the situation.

Michael looked around, looked at the mostly flat roof, at short vent pipes stubbed up out of what looked like round gravel pressed into asphalt.

He stepped off the ladder and onto the roof, dropped the coiled reata from his shoulder, shaking it loose, his fingers working with eyes of their own as he locked eyes with a wild-looking man swinging a bottle at arm's length and raising an arm to point at Michael.

"Friend," Michael called, "can you tell me what brings you up here to a place like this?"

The man considered, swayed a little: he lowered his pointing arm, raised the other, drank until the bottle was empty, then tossed the bottle over the edge of the roof.

"HEADACHE!" Michael yelled as sirens screamed their approach.

The man staggered for the edge, either wishing to see the bottle's impact, or maybe wanting to see what the siren was.

Michael's arm shot out.

He didn't make a showy spin, he tossed the loop with a practiced wrist-roll, not quite sidehand, not quite underhand: he never had anyone to teach him how to properly sling a loop, so he developed his own method, and it worked.

The loop dropped over the man as he overbalanced, as he screamed and tried to catch himself, and fell off the edge.

Michael dove for the nearest of the vent pipes stubbed out of the gravel.

He took a fast turn, another, pulled: as his reata snapped taut, the pipe collapsed a little, bent some, but Michael held hard and held down.

Plaited leather thrummed and stretched and Michael could swear later he felt a crackle, he heard the man's scream --

He ain't dead if he can still scream --

Michael heard someone coming up the ladder he'd used, he turned and looked and saw the familiar silhouette of a firefighter with a handlebar mustache and a Philadelphia fire helmet.

The firefighter turned, looked down, waved, turned back to Michael.

"We'll have him got," the firefighter declared, "can ye hold?"

Michael nodded grimly.

A voice from below, the sound of a ladder hitting the side of the stone warehouse: a man's scream again, a scream that seemed to fall off to less prominent sounds of pain.

Michael held down on the wrap with the heel of one hand, his other death-gripped around his lariat, holding it tight around the leaning, recontoured lead stub.

His hand-laid reata slacked and the fireman at the ladder's summit waved again, turned triumphantly to Michael:  "He's ours and safe!"

Michael lifted the heel of his hand from where he was pushing down with a desperate strength: he gripped the reata, pulled experimentally, then drew it quickly up, hand-over-hand.

His fingers found the snapped sections before his eyes did.

I don't know if there's any fixin' to this, he thought, then coiled the line, slung it over his shoulder and followed the descending fireman down the hard-mounted ladder.

 

Angela sat beside her Daddy as they watched the debrief on her Daddy's computer in his office.

They listened to the Irish Brigade, that planet's Irishmen, taught in Firelands and trained by Earth instructors: they listened to the dispatcher describe the call as it came in, to the storekeeper who sold the whiskey (for some reason, alcohol seemed to be a common element on every world in the thirteen-star-system Confederacy), from witnesses who first reported a drunk scaling the side of the warehouse, shouting something about ending it all and she'll be sorry when I'm gone.

And then there was Michael.

Michael described arriving on the planet at a friend's invitation, he described Lightning receiving the adulation and adoring attention of most of a school's worth of children who absolutely mobbed the big, heavy-boned and hard-muscled Fanghorn, how Thunder and Cyclone rolled over for belly rubs and chirped in blissful, eyes-closed contentment at the attention: he described seeing the man ascend the ladder, realized there was trouble, and touched Lightning behind her foreleg -- his signal for her to belly down so he could mount.

Linn leaned forward a little, frowning a bit as Michael said, "I cooned up that ladder and saw this fellow all a-sway. He took a drink from the bottle and slung the bottle and I could see he was staggerin' drunk. I yelled for him to get away from the edge and he didn't, so I tossed him a loop and spun a quick hitch around one of those short pipes stuck out of the roof.

"It ruined my lariat," he admitted, "but that lariat paid for itself, for he got close enough to the ground to grab a handful of gravel rather than drive headfirst into the dirt."

"Why did you hitch around the pipe in that manner?" someone asked.

"Long habit. You ever rope somethin' that don't want roped? You take a turn or two around your saddle horn and you bring 'em to a fast stop, peacefully or otherwise."

Michael grinned.

"That pipe I stubbed off on was lead and I didn't know it. It bent some but the cinch held and he's alive to complain about it."

"Oh, no," Angela moaned, tearing a sheet off her Daddy's blank legal pad and wadding it into a ball. "Michael Keller, don't you dare say it!"

"You might say," Michael continued, "it was a lead pipe cinch!"

Linn wasn't sure which made him laugh harder.

Michael's straight faced statement, or Angela throwing the paper wad at his image on the computer screen.

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

REVENGE, AND OTHER FORMS OF ENTERTAINMENT

"Howdy, Abbott."

Sheriff Linn Keller grinned at the Abbott's image, looking sourly at him from his computer's screen.

Someone better versed in "these damned electronic confusers," as Linn put it, managed to route his cell phone's signal through his desk computer: the image was larger, easier to see details, and of surprising quality.

The Abbott shook his head.

Linn leaned forward, frowning: "What's wrong?" he asked quietly.

"Just ... here I am, Abbott in a hand built, locally fired ... we still have wooden gates and ..."

Linn waited, knowing his old friend must be sorting through a whole truckload of stray thoughts to find the ones he wanted.

The Abbott looked up.

"You're a Western Sheriff. You've got a double gun hung up on your wall behind you and you carry a thumb buster .44 in public. You ride horses, you greet me with 'Howdy' and you're doing all that with an on-screen conversation" -- the Abbott threw his hands up, an abbreviated, I-give-up gesture -- "I want to know where's my flying car!"

Linn laughed quietly.

"Been wondering that myself. What's big, new or exciting?"

The Abbott frowned and looked to the side, lips pressed together.

"I see that spot on your bald head. Cancer?"

The Abbott looked back, switching his train of thought to a different set of cerebral rails.

"Yes, they took it off yesterday. I'm supposed to wear a hat when I'm out in the sun."

Linn nodded but offered neither comment nor counsel.

"Linn, you remember you were down here laughing with us as you read out of Old Pale Eyes' Journal."

"Which time?" Linn deadpanned, for at the Abbott's request, Linn came down and addressed various groups on the area's history, and a favorite form of entertainment was to have the Sheriff pull amusing anecdotes from his honored ancestor's handwritten account of life Back When.

"When Old Pale Eyes had his feet kicked up on the corner of his desk with his hat pulled down over his face, taking life easy, and that Eastern girl came in all a-flappin' and distressed, how she just poured her heart out over whatever it was, and she finished and declared she felt so very much better after finding someone who actually listened to her, and she ran out when she heard the train's whistle 'cause she wanted to head back east and resolve whatever it is had her all in a flap, and how that old Sheriff snored softly after she left."

Linn nodded, chuckled quietly: he recalled the entry, and he'd read the account, with the caveat that as Old Pale Eyes slept through the event, these findings are based on the testimony of witnesses who saw the pretty young woman enter all distressed, emerge all smiles, the testimony of a prisoner in the nearest cell who listened closely as he was bored out of his skull being locked up, and very likely a good dose of imagination, for Old Pale Eyes was a man known to pull a man's leg while keeping a straight and solemn face about him.

The Abbott took a long breath, considered his old friend's wordless reply.

"I was in Confession," he said, and Linn raised a palm, leaned forward again.

"Seal of the Confessional," he said quietly, and the Abbott waved the warning aside.

"A nurse from back East," he said, lacing his sun-browned fingers together. "Older man. Your daughters are nurses, I believe."

"Angela is. Mama was. Shelly's a medic and so's Angela. I don't know if Victoria is leaning that way or not."

"She's probably told you about bullying on the job."

The Abbott saw something change in the Sheriff's eyes, saw a tightening of the man's face.

"She's said," Linn replied carefully, "she's handled criminals of every dirty stripe. She's said at least criminals are honest. They'll tell you to your face they intend to hurt you badly or kill you. Angela said she's never been lied to, lied about, screwed, blued, tattooed, reamed, steamed or dry cleaned any faster, any more efficiently, any more viciously, than from her fellow nurses."

The Abbott snapped his fingers, thrust a finger at the screen:  "Bingo!"

"So what did this fellow have to say?"

"The hospital's administrator insulted him, both personally and professionally."

"This nurse's reaction?"

"He's pretty unhappy," the Abbott admitted, "but I don't think he's going to do anything."

The Sheriff grunted noncommittally.

"He told me he'd considered -- now this insult was maybe forty years ago, and he's still angry about it --"

"Must have been some insult."

"He wouldn't tell me what it was."

"Does he have access to this Jack Doe?"

"He doesn't even know if the offender is still alive."

Linn considered for a moment.

"Sounds funny," he said, "you talking about an offender."

The Abbott smiled, just a little:  "You rub off on me."

"Continue."

"This nurse -- he said he'd considered running a knife between the man's ribs."

"Just blowing off steam, do you think?"

"I think he was working through a point."

"And that point?"

"I wish it hadn't been in the confessional," the Abbott admitted.  "I'd rather have set down with him and talked where I could see his face, his ..."

"Body language?" Linn prompted.

"That!"

"Go on."

"He asked me ... I've heard you say similar things in the past ... he said if he'd run a Roman sort sword into this fellow and split his heart, if he'd taken him by the throat and held him and watched the light go out of his eyes and felt his pulse weaken and stop, what then?"

Linn waited, his best poker face automatically in place.

"What then," the Abbott repeated.

He looked at Linn's image on his own glowing screen.

"He said that insult would still be there. The professional and personal hurt he'd inflicted would still be there. He told me that revenge might be exciting in the moment but it would be ultimately unsatisfying."

"And you told him ...?" 

The Abbott looked very directly at his old and dear friend.

"I told him what you've told me," the Abbott replied. "I told him we can't control what someone else chooses to do, but we do control how we respond to it, and if we succeed where that thoughtless soul offered insult, we have a lasting revenge."

Linn considered this for several long moments, then he leaned forward.

"Sound advice," he agreed, then:  "This fellow local?"

"I didn't recognize him, and he didn't say. He didn't sound local."

"You've got a good ear," Linn mused. "Regional accent?"

"Likely back East, maybe urban Suth'n."

Linn laughed at his friend's term: "Now I do know I'm rubbin' off on you!"

"What?" the Abbott blurted, honestly surprised.

"Suth'n, instead of Southern."

"Oh."  The Abbott considered this for a moment, his gaze puzzling across the table in front of him.

"Don't feel bad. I got it from Mama. Pa never did like it."

"What about you and your father?" the Abbott asked, turning the discussion around.

Linn shrugged.  "He's dead and gone some years now. I've forgiven him. Doesn't mean I'm happy with what he'd done or said. I'd still like to take a singletree to the man he was at the time. Had he gotten some years on him, I'd like to think he'd have seen where he went wrong, but that didn't happen."

"And where does that leave you?" the Abbott prompted.

Linn's smile was faint, but it was there.

"My friend," Linn said in a soft and confidential voice, "we are all teachers. Every word we say or say not, every thing we do, or do not, is heard by someone, is seen by someone, and every one of those things teaches a lesson. I've used those times as lessons on how not to treat my own boys!"

It was the Abbott's turn to nod thoughtfully, and Linn's eyes went to the healing lesion on the Abbott's tonsured dome.

"That might make a good subject for a sermon," Abbott William murmured.

"I'll leave that to wiser heads than mine," Linn chuckled. "Was I to get up behind the Parson's pulpit again, likely I'd turn it into a comedy routine."

"That may not be a bad thing," the Abbott suggested wryly.

"Angela told me -- Angela's a medic as well as a nurse, y'know" --

"She's also a Sheriff's deputy, and pretty good at it."

"She is that," Linn grinned, "and I wish I had her full time here, but she's off livin' her own life and raising a whole new generation of ... she's taken nurse-paramedic and ..."

The Abbott waited.

"She's taken everything she's ever done and she's bringing up a whole generation, Abbott. She calls them combat medics and they serve anything from wartime situations to natural disasters and ..."

Linn stopped, looked to the side, looked back.

"I'm side trackin' myself. She said when she went through nursing school, she went in as a veteran deputy and a veteran medic, and when a nursing instructor made casual mention of humor as a coping mechanism, she said she just sat there and looked at the instructor and thought, 'Old girl, you don't know what you're talkin' about.' -- she told me humor is not a coping mechanism, it is a SURVIVAL mechanism!"

"I hear the voice of experience," the Abbott suggested gently.

"How long ago did that nurse you were talkin' about ... how long ago was he insulted?"

"Forty years, he said."

"Damn shame he couldn't debrief right away," Linn muttered. Might've saved him some stomach lining."

"What about revenge, though?" the Abbott asked, returning to the original subject with an abrupt verbal turn.

"What about it?"

"Is it as unsatisfying as he speculated?"

Linn was quiet for a long moment, his eyes veiled, and the he nodded, slowly.

"Yes," he said at length. "Unless you can lay hands on the offender and very personally pound him into the bloody dirt. Kill him quick and there's no satisfaction. It has to be in person, face to face, and --"

Linn stopped, took a long breath.

"Or so I'm told."

"Right," the Abbott said skeptically.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MORTAL

A lean waisted lawman with an iron grey mustache moved easy in his saddle, moving with his horse, perfectly at home, but not relaxed.

The man never, ever, relaxed.

He'd survived That Damned War.

He'd survived being shot, stabbed, cut, run into, run over, he'd survived a Methodist circuit ridin' preacher trying to save his corroded soul, at the top of his evangelistic lungs during a tent revival in another state.

He was a man who paid attention to what was around him, to who was around him, to what was said, and often more importantly, what was not being said.

Sheriff Linn Keller eased his big shining stallion up the mountain path.

The stallion was at home in the mountains: he'd been born at this high altitude, he'd lived nearly his entire life in the thin, mountain air, he was strong and capable and perfectly at home where most of the terrain stood on its side instead of stretched out flat and level.

The Sheriff rode to a place he knew of, a hanging meadow high on the mountain: he'd watered his stallion twice so far, his stallion drank a little but not too much -- he'd known horses he'd have to pinch their nose to get their guzzler out of a stream -- he and his stallion rode a wide, slow circle, listening, smelling, watching.

Sheriff Linn Keller finally dismounted, ground-reined the palomino, stood and stretched and worked his back a little: he'd been thrown from this selfsame horse one time, he'd fallen on a rock the size of two fists, his back gave him grief before than, and more after, and every now and again he had to work his back and maybe twist enough to make it snap and pop once or twice.

The Sheriff's pale eyes were busy: he'd given things a good looking-over from the high vantage of his horseback position, but he did not drop his caution.

Hard experience taught him that evil strikes any time, any where, and without warning.

He looked around and studied the ground, he picked up a broken spearpoint -- unusually light in color, Eastern flint if he was right, likely carried West on a trade route, discarded here after a kill because it was broken.

It slipped into his vest pocket, as he'd pocketed other finds.

The Sheriff sat on a weather-exposed rock, listening, watching.

The stallion cropped grass, slashing his long, blond tail against his sides: occasionally Rey del Sol would lift his head with what looked like an exaggerated casualness, he'd look around, he'd go back to grazing.

Linn allowed his thoughts to wander, just a little, but he did not allow his entire mind to wander.

Esther is pretty well set, he thought.

Was I to inherit a rifle ball through the brisket, she ... she'll have enough to live on.

She's a canny business woman.

She can manage what I leave her.

That silver mine is bringing in a steady profit.

It's not the blazing profit I heard men brag about, but it's steady.

I like steady.

He looked to his stallion again, turned, the watchful half of his mind guiding his eyes like gun turrets.

Jacob will have ... he already has accounts in his name at three banks.

In the event Blue Whistler hits me, he'll be advised of those accounts.

He'll also get almost half interest in two short line railroads back East.

The Zanesville & Western is profiting well from the coal trade.

My daughters each have their dowries set back.

He frowned as a stray thought stomped into his line of reasoning, disturbing the ranks of neatly ordered thoughts he'd been sorting.

The Parson talked about the rich man who said he had everything, he was all set, he had sons and flocks and storehouses of grain, he folded his hands across his prosperous man's belly and the Lord said "You damned fool, tonight I require your soul!"

Sheriff Linn Keller frowned a little as he thought it over, then stood.

"Lord," he said as he took off his brushed black Stetson, "You have blessed me indeed. I have looked at my prosperity like that rich fellow the Parson warned us about."

He frowned again and added in a softer voice, "I reckon there's somethin' about that story I missed ... can't think You'd prosper a man just to yank him out like that."

He squinted up at the heavens, his bottom jaw sliding out.

"Might be that fellow figured he'd gotten all he had on his own hook.

"I've planned and prepared as best I can, Lord, and You get credit for that ... to be real honest," he added quietly, with a silent chuckle, "I ain't that smart!"

He looked down and around the meadow again.

"I am but dust, and to dust I shall return, and that don't scare me."

He squinted Heavenward again, half his mouth pulling up in a crooked grin.

"I recall when I died and I seen the Valley," he added softly.  "I know where I'm goin' for I've already been there!"

He sat again and allowed himself to relax, just a little bit more.

It felt good to get away, for just a little while.

It felt good not to have to be all things to all men.

He returned to the Sheriff's office late in the day, he talked to the town Marshal, to the Judge, to Mr. Baxter (who was arguably one of the best informed people in the county!) -- and when he finally sat down behind his desk, he pulled the broken, light-grey spearpoint from his vest pocket, rubbed it thoughtfully between thumb and forefinger, then laid it in the wooden tray in the wide, shallow top drawer.

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller had this rediscovered, original, Sheriff's desk moved into her office.

It still held artifacts from Old Pale Eyes' administration, and she left each of these touchstones in place, though with time, the level of peach brandy in the bottle in the bottom right hand drawer dropped, and finally depleted, and had to be refilled.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller sat behind what had been his Mama's desk, when he assumed the office of Sheriff.

He opened the top drawer, knowing the ancient, steel nib pens would still be in the wooden tray, and he picked up the broken spearpoint that lived there as long as he could remember.

He held it up and studied it, frowned a little as he did.

Such a simple thing, he thought.

Preserved for all these years.

Mama said it was here when the desk was rediscovered in its sheet-lead sheathing.

His voice was a whisper as he looked at the spearpoint.

"If only it could talk!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A CREATURE OF HABIT

Angela Keller was not happy.

Angela Keller, as a matter of fact, was of a mind to drive screaming along narrow, crooked mountain roads, just as hard and as wild as her turbocharged Dodge would run, screaming with anger as loudly as tires would have screamed on pavement.

She did not do this, of course.

She wanted to.

Instead she drove sedately, almost leisurely, chafing that she was holding to the speed limit: she turned up the driveway of the home place, backed into a parking spot like she'd always done.

Here's where she broke with tradition.

When Angela Keller stepped out of her pretty purple Dodge with the turbo hump down the hood, she started unbuttoning her white uniform dress.

Angela Keller, Sheriff's Deputy, nurse/paramedic, daughter of a pale eyed Sheriff, stripped off her white uniform dress and stormed across the yard, to the green-painted, cast-iron hand pump.

Angela pumped the washpan full, she seized the clothesline rag, yanking it savagely off her Mama's clothesline: she wiped out the dishpan, hung up the washcloth, slung out the first water and pumped fresh.

Angela shoved her black-stained dress into the water like she was trying to drown it.

Angela grabbed the bar of soap, rubbed it savagely into the carbon soiling, her teeth set behind tight-pressed lips: she worked soap into the cloth, she put her muscle into it, and she took her time about it.

Fingers that could delicately wipe the tear from a frightened child's cheek, fingers that could thread an IV cannula into Old Irish Lace veins in the back of a moving squad, were strong and savage as she squeezed, mashed, mauled, ground, soaped and scrubbed again: finally, in a state of shocking undress -- which nobody but two barn cats, and a few horses witnessed -- Angela stomped to the back door, punched in the disarm code with a stiff middle finger, unlocked the door and went inside.

"It's meeee!" she shouted, out of habit as she lifted the lid on the white-enamel washer: she stopped, picked up the spray bottle of stain stuff her Mama used, gave the wet dress's remaining stains a good dousing, worked this into the cloth, then stuffed her white uniform dress into the Maytag, closed the lid, twisted the dial and pressed a button.

Angela picked up a stray towel, dried her hands with precision, then made a mystical pass with fluttering fingers over the filling washer and intoned a musical, "Domino, Monopoly, Bingo and Euchre," before stopping for a moment: shortly, most of the rest of what she was wearing, all but pantyhose and white crepe soled uniform shoes, followed her dress into the Maytag, and she skipped upstairs, barefoot.

A shower helped.

 

Angela Keller looked through the passenger window at the other driver, a grinning young man behind the tiller of a steam brougham.

Angela knew steam technology was advanced, she knew racing vehicles were made: she'd had all the gibes a young man chose to utter, and asked him if there was a paved oval track suitable for racing.

Turns out there was.

Hand laid brick, sanded in and solid: they'd gone to the track and Angela pronounced it adequate, though she suggested the corners should be banked, so drivers would not have to slow their velocity in order to take the corners, which of course was met with derision by a few, but with thoughtful assessment for the less confrontational.

She'd bent her wrist, keyed in a command, smiled.

"When would you like to race?" she asked, and her challenger laughed: "HERE AND NOW!" he shouted.

Angela tilted her head a little, turned, snapped her fingers: an Iris opened behind her, tall, narrow, patiently awaiting her travel.

"Wait here," she said: she stepped through the Iris, the ellipse closed behind her and disappeared.

It reappeared sixty seconds later.

Instead of a vertical ellipse, it was horizontal, at ground level, and it was but a line, eight feet wide and a half inch thick, until it opened.

Something predatory, purple and almost slient came rolling out.

Instead of spoked wooden wheels, the wheels were black, with shiny metallic hubs: the car gleamed, it had glass, something the steam-broughams lacked.

Angela pulled up beside the staring young man with one hand on a throttle lever, another adjusting flame levels.

Angela's pretty purple Dodge stopped.

The passenger window hummed down and Angela smiled, waved.

"Whenever you're ready!" she called, rolled the window up: a hidden panel opened, revealing a row of switches.

MAIN ENABLE - *click* -- a red pilot came on, illuminated the secondary panel.

The young man opened the flame control's globe valve a quarter of a turn, looked at his pressure gauge, thrust the throttle forward.

His steam-brougham surged forward.

Angela eased down on her throttle.

She was to his left.

She held station with him.

She watched as he dropped a set of driving-goggles down over his eyes.

Angela smiled as his hand gripped what he'd told her was the throttle, took it forward two more notches.

Angela barely accelerated, held station beside him.

She looked down.

He was driving what amounted to a convertible, with not much of a windscreen.

He could hear his steam engine working, he would be able to hear every mechanical sound, he would have wind in the face and the sensation of velocity.

Angela glanced at her speedometer.

They were just crossing 45 miles an hour.

"Not bad," she murmured.

She glanced over as her opponent turned his soft cap around, looked at her: his left hand went to the globe valve, opened it further.

Their speed increased a little as they came to the first turn.

Angela dropped back, not wanting to take unfair advantage of the inside lane of the turn: she came up on his right, accelerating through the curve.

She picked up the mic, brought it to her lips.

"Let me know when you want to go fast," she said, her voice amplified through a pair of hundred-watt concealed siren speakers.

She saw his lips move in what was probably something less than polite.

He reached down, thumped the pressure gauge with a knuckle, shoved the throttle lever wide open.

Angela's fingers tapped quickly, activating her red-and-blue pursuit lights: her white uniform she came down on the throttle, and her Dodge shot forward: she eased off as she came into the far turn, she cut the corner tighter than she'd like -- it was a flat turn, she didn't have a banked turn to help her -- she came back, kicked the siren to YELP, killed it as she came up behind him as he came out of his first turn, passed him on the inside.

Angela's eyes widened, she snapped off the throttle, crowded the left side of the pavement, braked a little, then more.

His brougham was shivering -- she remembered her Daddy talking to Jacob about the difference between static balance of newly mounted tires, and spin balance -- she remembered her Daddy talking to Paul Barrents about something called the "Jeep Death Rattle" -- she braked harder, killed siren and lights, waiting for him to sail past.

He didn't.

His steering failed, likely when the right front spoked wheel collapsed.

His brougham nosed down, cartwheeled, flipped: the young man launched, Angela bent her wrist, keyed in a command: "This is Angel One calling central dispatch. Sending my coordinates. Vehicle crash, one injured, request fire rescue."

Angela was out of her car and around to the trunk: she seized a coil of rope, swore, hauled equipment out and stacked it on the ground behind her car: she lifted the floor of her trunk, spun the release, hauled out her spare tire.

Angela ran for the spreading ripples.

Luck, more than anything, landed her challenger in a reservoir.

Angela ran to the ten foot drop, stood on the foot-wide cement wall, looked down at the struggling figure.

She dropped spare tire and rope, threw the coil back toward the steaming, hissing brougham, upside down in the grass: she looked around, saw a stout enough tree, ran the tag end of her line around the tree and threw a quick bowline , jerked it taut, paid out line until she got back to her spare tire.

Angela took her coil, turned, unwound like a coil spring, or a discus thrower.

Line paid out as the coil spun, floated, dropped into the water.

Angela picked up her spare tire, spun in the same manner, threw it as well, then she gauged the water, backed up three steps, took a running start, jumped: she clapped her hands over her face, hit the water feet first, not knowing how deep it would be.

She went down, slowed: she opened her eyes, saw silvery bubbles wobbling upward, followed them with power strokes and scissor kicks.

She broke surface.

She'd gotten to the rope, she'd gotten her challenger over on his back: he wasn't quite panicked, but she was obliged to punch him twice to keep him from grabbing her -- she was not going to risk his climbing her with a drowning man's desperation -- she got his arm over the spare tire, she tied the line through the spare, then she took a moment to hang onto the spare herself, using it as a float.

There was a brisk tug on the line.

Angela turned, looked, raised a dripping hand to shade her eyes.

A grinning firefighter waved, her line in his firegloved hand: "We've got you!"

"Haul away!" she called, and the Irish Brigade brought them in, hand over hand.

"Hold now!" she shouted.  "Pay out slack!"

Angela kept a bent elbow laid over the tire, untied the bowline, freed the line from the spare tire float: she kicked, long, athletic legs making slow and powerful scissors under them, as she ran the rope under her victim's arms, twice around his chest, then she threw another bowline, this between his shoulder blades: she looked up at a mustache, and the face wearing it, at the hat crowning the grinning apparition.

Angela waved.

"Haul away!" she called.

More men appeared, a thick-folded blanket was laid over the cast-concrete edge of the reservoir's wall:  Angela trod water, looked around, waited for her line to splash wetly to the waters again.

She tied it off on the spare tire, waved, then swam, stroking strongly for a rock-fill edgewater.

She got her feet under her, swore quietly as she returned to a creature of the land instead of a graceful, swimming Lady of the Lake: the rocks were slick, her temper was short, and she honestly fell into a hard-muscled man holding a blanket open for her, nearly bearing him over backwards.

She thanked him for the kindness of the blanket, drew it tight across her shoulders, laid firm claim to his arm: the grin under his handlebar mustache was unmistakable, for this member of this planet's Irish Brigade, well knew the White Angel, who'd helped teach their paramedics and a good percentage of their firefighters.

Angela waved off the medics -- "I'm wet, I'm not hurt, how's the other guy?" -- she returned the wool blanket with quiet thanks, watched as their squad disappeared, headed for hospital, probably unnecessary, but prudent -- Angela went back to the trunk of her car, accepted her wet spare tire, dried it with a ratty old towel she kept in her trunk for unexpected cleanup details.

The Irish Brigade swarmed the overturned brougham, got the gas shut off -- there was an automatic fuel cutoff, which had operated, but they prudently used the hand valve at the compressed gas tank's outlet -- Angela settled and secured the spare, returned the trunk's floor mat, reloaded the neatly-crated equipment she'd brought out in order to access a most effective floatation device.

Angela Keller, Sheriff's deputy and nurse-paramedic, squelched in soggy, crepe-soled shoes toward the man in the white hat, planted her knuckles on her belt, tilted her head a little.

He looked at a woman who'd never been anything but immaculate, tidy, spotless, prefect in her appearance: now she wore a dress with black stains, she was soaking wet and still dripping at the hem, her shoes were a fright, and she had a grin on her face that would have required a hammer and chisel to remove.

"You'll want a report," she said.

 

Angela Keller had to wash her white uniform dress multiple times to get the staining from the spare tire, out of the white material.

Her shoes took some attention to return them to serviceable condition, which ultimately included drying in the sun for about a week. 

She could have just thrown them away and bought new -- she was more than prosperous enough -- but Angela grew up in a household that did not practice waste.

Angela came downstairs in jeans and flannel shirt, vest and pearl-grey Stetson: she thrust sock feet into her old comfortable boots, and went outside with towels and a determined expression.

She used a ventilated seat cushion, like her Daddy, but she'd set in it soaking wet, and Angela Keller, Sheriff's deputy, nurse-paramedic and lead footed creature of tidiness and habit, was not going to let her pretty purple Dodge seat smell like she'd just been swimming in an offworld reservoir!

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A HABIT, WELL FORMED

Michael Keller thrust the gas nozzle into his Mama's Jeep.

He'd visited her at work and she'd mentioned she hadn't noticed the fuel level, so he kissed her on the cheek and said he'd tend that detail.

Michael Keller honestly didn't recall the first time his Pa told him, "Take care of your Mama and your sisters while I'm gone" -- he'd later explained, once Michael got size and years on him, and started looking at girls as something other than blocks of space he may not violate -- that the first women a man practices on, practices keeping them safe, is his Mama, and his sisters.

Michael took that responsibility seriously, even as a child.

His driver's license was not a month old when he took his Mama's metallic-green, long-wheelbase Jeep to the All-Night to top it off.

Habit prompted him to bat the latches, a quick left-right, then he reached in and pulled the safety hook to the side, raised sheet metal and set the prop: paper towel in one hand, stick in the other, he checked oil and gave the engine a good looking-over.

No leaks, belts good, wires good, he thought, then lifted the hood, laid down the wire prop, eased the hood shut and set the latches, left, then right.

He went around to the driver's side, flipped open the gas door, unscrewed the cap and let it hang by its rubber retainer.

He gripped the gas nozzle left handed, he'd just thrust it into the Jeep's spring-loaded socket when a motorcycle stopped quickly beside him.

Michael turned suddenly -- he hadn't started the pump yet -- and habit took over.

 

Angela Keller was just wheeling her pretty purple Dodge into the All-Night when she saw her Mama's Jeep, she saw Michael, and she saw a problem.

A motorcycle was pulled up beside Michael -- two on the 'sickle, both in shiny black helmets -- she saw Michael move and she recognized the move.

Michael Keller, son of Sheriff Linn Keller, responded without thinking.

He turned when the motorcycle stopped close.

He saw a pistol thrust toward him.

Habit, well formed, took over: Michael seized the slide, twisted the pistol out of alignment, out of the attacker's grip: his hand snapped forward, he slashed at the feminine face with the pistol's butt, catching the helmet and missing flesh: the driver snapped the throttle, dumped the clutch --

Angela punched her throttle, steered toward the motorcycle, knowing flight was likely: she spiked the brakes as she saw the bike start to lift, then the front tire hit her front bumper and stopped, hard, fast and nasty.

Angela came boiling out of her pretty purple turbocharged go-to-hell machine, fury in her expression and a double handful of Ithaca in her grip: the sound of a twelve gauge being SLAMMED into battery is a loud and shocking thing when you're not expecting to hear it, and despite having just inherited a gut full of handlebars (compounded with his passenger's weight shoving hard against his back), the driver tried to pull the stalled motor sickle back, at least until Angela spoke and his passenger parted company from their shared conveyance.

"Do," Angela said, her voice icy, controlled, quiet: "not" -- she cheeked down hard on hand-rubbed walnut -- "move."

Michael already had a good handful of the passenger's collar and introduced her to the pavement with a fast, hard-muscled pull: he landed on her shoulder blades with both knees before the stolen pistol he'd stripped from her grip finished wobbling across the texture surface of his Mama's Jeep's roof.

"You got your cuffs?" Michael called.

"I got mine, you got yours?"

Michael grinned as he snapped stainless steel around a prisoner's wrist: his moves were vigorous and intended to cause discomfort.

He didn't care.

They'd just pulled a gun on him.

Michael did not tolerate people being impolite toward him, especially at the point of a gun.

"Billy, do something!" the girl screamed as Michael checked the cuffs for tight, then punched the double locks and hauled her to her feet, shoved her hard against the enamel-painted, square-steel pillar holding the canopy overhead.

Billy came off his wheel-crushed motorcycle, let it fall, backed up a step.

"Billy," Angela said, her voice still cold, still quiet, "don't try it. I've killed more men than smallpox. You'll just be one more."

Her finger curled around the trigger -- she dropped it off the side of the receiver, making sure he could see the move, exaggerated the curl into the trigger guard.

He'll run or he'll give up, Angela thought.

He did neither.

His hand drove into his waistband.

It was the last thing he ever did.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller's polished Wellington boot hit the throttle -- hard -- he twisted the siren switch to YELP and set his jaw.

It was not far to the All-Night.

Two more cruisers were enroute and Sharon was calling the squad.

The Sheriff braked hard, swung into the All-Night, pulled nose-to-nose with his wife's Jeep.

Angela Keller raised her shotgun's muzzle to vertical as the Sheriff opened his door, marked in to Dispatch, then stepped out, pale eyes hard, unforgiving.

He looked at the shotgun shell on the pavement -- a wisp of smoke was just trickling out of the once-crimped end -- he looked at the screaming, struggling, handcuffed girl Michael was holding down.

He saw a pistol on the roof of his wife's car.

He came around behind Angela and around behind her Challenger and looked at a body that was just taking its last convulsive attempts at breathing.

He saw the small hole where a fast moving charge of 00 buck went in.

Blood was just starting to emerge from under the supine carcass, which told the Sheriff that yes, there was an exit wound.

He looked at Angela, who looked back with eyes that were just as pale and just as hard and just as unforgiving as her father's.

"Angela," the Sheriff asked quietly, "are you hurt?"

Her smile was predatory, with no trace of humor.

"I made sure that would not happen."

"Good."

The Sheriff went over to the deceased, tilted his head, looked at the pistol near the body.

He looked back up at Angela, thrust a bent foreknuckle toward the grounded weapon.

"His?"

Angela nodded, once, then lifted her head as the squad screamed into view, slowed to turn in.

The Sheriff stood, looked at his son.

"You hurt?" he asked quietly.

"No, sir, but not for want of this one tryin'."

Linn took a step toward his son and the cuffed, prone, sobbing prisoner.

"Sir, her pistol is on the roof of Mama's Jeep. They came up close, she stuck a gun at me."

Linn waited, eyes veiled.

"Sir, I responded as we have trained. Angela kept them from a getaway. I saw that Jack Doe make a move."

Linn nodded.

"We'll have the State boys here for the shots-fired investigation," the Sheriff said quietly. "Meantime, the usual. No statements to the press or anyone but the shots-fired team. Refer all other questions to me."

"Yes, sir," the pair said in chorus.

Linn looked at the shotgun Angela still held.

"Hang right onto that until the shots fired team arrives," he said quietly. "Once you're free, take one of my extras. You know where we keep them."

Angela Keller, Sheriff's deputy, daughter and nurse, nodded, once, coldly.

He looked at his son.

"Stuff her," he said quietly.

Michael gripped his prisoner's upper arms, rocked back on his heels, grunted "Stand up," and brought her to her feet in spite of her lack of effort: he stripped the helmet from her head before inserting her into his father's cruiser.

"I'll let the shots-fired team pull the surveillance," Linn said, looking from his son to his daughter. "When you're clear, you'll debrief. I won't be there, of course."

Angela nodded, once, as did Michael.

"Michael."

"Yes, sir?"

"She stuck a gun at you."

"She did, sir."

"You disarmed her."

"Yes, sir."

"Just the way we've practiced."

"Yes, sir."

"Good," the Sheriff said quietly, then smiled, but with only half his mouth.

My son was saved by a habit well formed, he thought, and felt the deep satisfaction of a father who knew what he'd done, just kept young, alive.

Edited July 22, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

A tired man on a slow moving plow horse took a long, slow breath and looked around.

The town wasn't much.

Neither was he.

Sun bleached boards, some warped and standing out a little from where they'd originally been nailed or pegged.

Dirt road going through the town.

Some timbers were set on the ground, others -- likely the more prosperous, at least when they were built -- were set up on stone -- most rough, a very few, neatly dressed.

A tired man in dusty boots and a weathered Stetson walked his big Sam-horse to the livery.

In his experience, the hostler was a man who knew horses, and generally knew where the best place to eat was.

He swung down from the saddle, patted his big Sam-horse, turned toward the liveryman, who was just stacking his hay fork against the nearest wall.

He took a look at a man with a mustache gone to iron grey, a man with pale eyes and a lean waist, and the liveryman turned dead pale.

Linn's back was protected by his big Sam-horse's shoulder: he'd no idea what caused this reaction, but everything in him kind of lit up: he'd gone from tired and hungry and wanting a cool drink of something he didn't have to dip out of a creek, to bristling and ready.

"My God, man, she's dying!" came the blurted explanation: Linn found himself seized by the coat sleeve, pulled at a panicked run across the street, through a door and into a house.

Two children looked up with the numb expressions he'd seen too often, and he smelled death in the air, almost as if the Reaper waited in a corner, with the smell of the grave rolling off black robes like fog off a swamp.

A woman lay on the bed.

Linn frowned a little as he looked at her.

Her breathing was not good and  neither was her color.

She opened a hand, tried to lift it: her voice was little but a whisper as dry lips shaped a name:

"H - h - hank?"

Linn slipped his hand under hers, laid his other hand over hers, looked at the children.

"Is anyone coming?" he asked quietly, and at his gentle voice, he felt the woman's cold hand squeeze his, just a little.

The boy wasn't but about eight or nine, the girl a little older: they looked at one another, then at this stranger holding their dying Mama's hand.

"Aunt Ruby and Uncle George are supposed to be on their way," the boy offered.

Linn nodded, looked at the woman, looked at the hostler.

"Fetch me a chair," he said quietly. 

"Hank," the woman whispered, her voice a little stronger, and he saw the shadow of a smile as she did. "You came back. They said you were dead."

He squeezed her hand between his -- just a little, enough to be reassuring.

"You're so warm," she sighed, and it was as if she were melting into her thin tick. "You're so warm ..."

Her lips closed on the end of the final word.

Linn sat with the dead woman and her children, just sat.

He remembered holding his daughter, his Dana, as she died of the small pox, as she died in his arms, wrapped in a quilt and burning, bright-eyed, fevered, until she sighed her last breath out against the side of his neck.

He remembered holding dying soldiers' hands as they twisted and screamed and cried and bled and he looked at a little girl, still, silent, looking much like her dead Mama in the face, looking at Linn with an uncertain expression.

He'd closed their Mama's eyes and he'd set his hat aside, and he'd stood as the Parson arrived with two people -- the children ran to their Aunt Ruby and their Uncle George, and Linn slipped his hands from around the woman's dead hand, stood, picked up his hat.

He'd slipped outside, he'd stopped to speak to the Parson, he'd gone to the general store and bought a few canned goods, then he went to the livery again and handed the hostler a pint of something amber.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "No one should die alone."

 

Sheriff Linn Keller re-read his honored ancestor's words.

He leaned back and considered them, and he smiled just a little, for his was an unusual day.

Two young men came home from overseas, two tall, lean, tanned young men with haunted eyes and a watchfulness that only comes from having survived people and places that wished to cause great harm.

One stayed outside, there at the All-Night, pumping gas into their rental car.

The other came inside, for like most young men, he was a walking appetite on two hollow legs.

Marsha, behind the counter, was nervous as a streetwalker at a tent revival.

She knew her boyfriend was coming home today.

She knew she'd told him she worked here at the All-Night.

She was trying not to stare at the door.

The Sheriff asked her for a chicken strips snack pack, he'd set a tall paper cup of coffee on the counter, he'd laid down cash money and asked her who she was watching for: he'd listened, he'd seen the maidenly blush as she admitted her boyfriend was due home today, they were driving out.

Linn picked up his order, winked at her and said "I reckon he'll show," then he stopped and looked very directly at Marsha and said in a serious tone of voice, "He's got something to come home to!"

Linn stepped back, caught movement in the doorway out of his peripheral: he stepped back, turned.

Marsha's gaze followed his.

Marsha did not jump the counter.

She kind of levitated over it.

Marsha gave a screech, she slapped one hand on the countertop, she jumped -- her legs swung over, she hit the cash register, Linn dropped his coffee and caught the register as it slid off the edge of the counter toward him -- he remembered Marsha's "OHMIGAWD HAAAANK!" as she drove like a pastel streak and SLAMMED into a startled soldier's arms.

Linn slid the register back into place, turned with everyone else, then he frowned a little.

A tall, lean man, home from the war, was holding a young woman who was half-crying, half-babbling, whose arms were wound around him with a desperate strength.

He looked up at the Sheriff with honest confusion in his expression.

The second soldier came in with a grin on his face and a bunch of flowers in hand: he laid a gentle hand on Marsha's shoulder blade and laughed, "May I cut in?"

Sheriff Linn Keller stood there and grinned -- he leaned back against the counter, careful not to hit the coffee machine's nozzle -- he watched as Marsha looked up, let go of a complete stranger like he was hot, then Hank threw his head back and laughed the way he used to in high school, and Marsha cupped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide as she backed away from a bashfully-laughing stranger, as she looked at a red-faced stranger and then her grinning boyfriend, as she blurted "Oh I'm so sorry!" and then seized Hank, her face flaming.

The stranger turned a little advanced toward the Sheriff, still looking at the embracing couple.

He turned and looked at the Sheriff, not quite sure what to do next.

Sheriff Linn Keller grinned at the young man, winked, then he turned and slipped behind the counter.

He'd dropped his coffee and damned if he was going to leave a slip hazard on that tile floor, not when he knew where the mop was kept.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PERFECTLY ORDINARY

The Bear Killer laid on the floor, relaxed and perfectly comfortable.

Two wee schoolchildren sat with their backs to his, for all the world using the big curly-furred mountain Mastiff as a pillow.

Another little boy sat cross legged with a book in hand -- a genuine, honest-Engine book -- it was mostly pictures, truth be told, but the little fellow frowned and puzzled and deciphered letters and words and read them aloud, and The Bear Killer, laid over on his side, comfortable with warm humanity backed up against his spine, listened with what looked for all the world like polite attention as a sincere little boy turned the book occasionally to show its illustrations and explain what the picture was.

When the class shifted into its next learning phase, The Bear Killer tik-tik-tikk'd across the polished stone floor, out the door and into the next classroom: a little girl with a truly huge ribbon bow in her hair stood in front of the class and cleared her throat nervously as she prepared to read her handwritten lesson aloud.

The Bear Killer's pace never changed: he coasted up the side aisle, around behind the teacher and beside the girl as she stood uncomfortably before the class.

The Bear Killer sat abruptly, cuddled warm and reassuring against her leg, looked up with shining, adoring eyes and almost whispered a quiet whuff! -- as much as to say, "You got this."

Ilse Hillen stopped, looked down at an old and dear friend: reassured, she took a deep breath, lifted her chin, began to read with new confidence.

A miner looked up from his control panel, reached a callused, cracked, dirt-stained hand down and rubbed The Bear Killer companionably across his shoulders.

The Bear Killer closed his eyes and leaned against the man's leg with an expression that said I'll give you a week to stop that, at least until bright canine eyes snapped open, his ears perked and his fur started to bristle.

The miner jerked his hand back like he'd been stung.

The Bear Killer looked down-shaft, hair rippling the length of his spine and across his shoulder blades: he stalked, stiff-legged, toward the slope, then threw his head back and bayed, a wild, feral, full-voice challenge, an invitation for something in the dark to step forth and join me for dinner, preferably as the main course!

The miner's fingers ran a familiar sequence, he looked at one screen, another as The Bear Killer bayed again, then began dancing back and forth, jaws chopping, yammering like he was ready to rip some dark monster into bloody gobbets.

The miner felt the blood leave his face and his palm slapped down hard on the EVAC alarm.

The tri-tone howler began sounding the length of the shaft, warning LEDs began spitting bright alarm, and a mountain Mastiff that had no business being on the planet Mars, let alone in its excavated depths, bayed yet again, loud, demanding, dangerous, at least until a triangle of lights rounded a distant curve, came wheel-singing out of the shaft, steel wheels on steel rails advancing at Full Wartime Emergency.

The miner shunted the exiting man-trips to a vacant side tunnel long enough to handle two ore trains nose-to-tail: The Bear Killer paced and snarled, then leaped into the miner's cab, looking out the triangular side window, snarling.

The miner threw his motor into reverse, ran the speed up, and as they backed away from the opening, he felt -- more than heard -- the collapse.

Force fields automatically activated, contained the outward explosion of dirty wind, out-blown sand, and rocks.

The miner braked his motor to keep from slamming into the end of the mantrip.

The Bear Killer jumped out, went from car to car, greeting, sniffing, whuffing, tail whipping happily, as if personally taking a head count.

Not one man was missing.

Not one man denied hearing The Bear Killer.

About half of them heard The Bear Killer and knew something was the hell wrong, and headed for evac, and were mounted up and leaving before the alarms sounded.

Every last man there agreed if they'd depended on the alarms alone, half of them would be trapped and most likely, dead.

 

Angela Keller, in a pristine white Sheriff's uniform blouse and skirt, in white cowboy boots with red trim, sat a red saddle with silver trim, screwed down on a pure white Paso Fino mare.

Angela Keller rode down the center of the street, her Paso mare's hooves loud and fast-clattering in that dead-smooth, showy gait, right down the painted center line, a pure-white Mountain Mastiff pacing along beside her.

So far that day, Angela was involved in apprehending one stolen car, two escaped cattle, an escaped prisoner from another jurisdiction, and an adventurous grade-school pair who decided they would ride their skateboards to school, until one hit a thumb-sized gravel and pitched into the other: Angela made good use of supplies she carried in white-stitched, red saddlebags, she tied a textbook perfect sling to support the splinted arm, handed off this first casualty to her Mama's squad, and carefully wiped the other boy's skinned palm with a wet gauze.

Snowdrift shoved herself hard into the side of the first boy's leg as Angela splinted the broken forearm; Snowdrift licked the other boy's uninjured hand as Angela wiped the scraped, bloodied palm of the other little boy sitting on the back bumper of the ambulance.

She looked up at her Mama, smiled, nodded: their second casualty was picked up, swung inside to join his fellow wheelman, and Angela waved at the two young patients through the squad's back windows as they headed for the friendly local Horse Pistol.

Snowdrift kept happy station beside the hoof-clattering Paso mare as Angela rode to the grade school, as she tapped in the door code, as she walked in like she owned the place -- white boots, white Stetson, white mountain Mastiff, blued-steel Smith & Wesson and all: as Angela reported first to the office, then to the boys' classroom, Snowdrift was busy circulating, making friends, disrupting classes and bringing tolerant smiles to schoolteachers and delighted exclamations from the very young.

By the time Angela, Snowdrift, and her Paso mare made their destination -- the local hospital's pediatric ward -- it was considerably later than she'd intended.

From the reception the children gave Snowdrift and Paso alike, Angela didn't feel bad at all about being late.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 24, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A GIFT

Sheriff Linn Keller took a quiet sip of coffee and turned a little, looked over the morning interior of the Silver Jewel Saloon.

Most saloons of the era had sawdust thick on the floor.

This helped in winter, as most buildings had no provision to keep cold air from blowing in under the building, and then up through cracks in the floor: it also absorbed careless tobacco chewers' wet payloads directed generally toward spittoons, and it soaked up spilled beer from accident or ill intent.

The Silver Jewel, however, had no such on its floors: the Sheriff watched as a young man moved tables, stacked chairs, mopped the floor with an efficiency that bespoke Naval service.

"Anything on the hook for today?" Mr. Baxter asked quietly, and the Sheriff smiled.

Drillers had come into the area, drillers that found gas: the town was to have gas lights in the near future, and a company was being formed for laying down pipe, for plumbing this new drill gas into buildings: drillers gravitated to the Silver Jewel, and brought their language with them, and the Sheriff's eyes smiled a little at the corners as he heard a driller's term come naturally from Mr. Baxter's lips.

"No," the Sheriff replied quietly, then took another sip of coffee.

Mr. Baxter nodded, continued the perpetual polishing of his cherished, genuine mahogany bar.

"Have you seen the Blaze Boys lately?"

Mr. Baxter considered, frowned a little, then leaned over the bar, arms folded.

"Matter of fact, they were helping build fence not far from here."

"Both of them?"

"Man that hired them said they work better together. Rarely say a word. It's like each knows what the other's thinkin'."

The Sheriff felt his eyes tighten at the corners -- amusement, unstated, as he remembered how fast and how completely the pair could get in Dutch here in town.

"Nothing pressing. Court won't be for two days, got nobody locked up."

The Sheriff drained the last of his coffee, reached for the other bar towel, pulled it over and set the empty on the towel.

"Been fishin' lately?"

Mr. Baxter's grin was instant, broad and genuine: he did not launch into a lengthy "Fishin' Story" -- he did not have to -- Linn could see the answer was yes, without further elaboration.

 

Linn came out of the office at the new brick-works with a smile hiding behind his eyes.

His wife was a business woman of considerable acumen: she and Bonnie McKenna went in partnership when a clay vein was found, and with the discovery of drill gas, Esther seized on what promised to be a profitable gamble: she established the Rose & Thistle Brickworks, she brought in engineers who knew kilns and brickmaking, and even before gas was laid, construction was begun: the man she hired to run the brick-works gave the Sheriff a list of customers who spoke for the product, all of whom were more than delighted, as freight costs to ship bricks in from back East was beyond prohibitive.

He'd give the paper work to his wife once he got home that evening.

In the meantime, the manager's correspondence was safe in the Sheriff's inside coat pocket.

From there he rode alongside the Z&W roadbed, stopped to talk to two railroaders at the watering tower, handed each a bundle of fresh ground coffee and a small pyramid of cinnamon laced maple sugar: they were in the process of enclosing the water tower to form an office space beneath, and the Sheriff knew they were also installing something for water circulation and maybe heating, he wasn't sure, something to keep water from freezing in their blue cold winter months.

Coffee was welcome, a little sweetnin' for the coffee, even more so: the Sheriff knew the one man was fond of slathering a thick layer of fresh churned butter on his freshly sawed off slice of sourdough, and then carefully scraping that cinnamon maple sugar off the pyramid onto the bread.

He shook their hands and allowed solemnly as if he could not cause any more trouble than that, he'd quit wasting their time, and they watched as he mounted up and rode back the way he'd come.

The Sheriff took a fork-off, away from the railroad bed, walked his shining stallion down hill and across the creek at a sandy ford he knew of: here the streambed was wide, shallow, easily crossed this time of year: he looked at the timber trestle (not a year old!) and then rode up the bank on the far side, and eventually came out behind the firehouse.

The Sheriff reined up, eyes busy, listening.

Not long until twelve noon, he thought, then pushed his watch up out of its vest pocket and pressed the stem, dropping the cover open.

Yep.

Not long.

He eased Rey del Sol ahead, eased the shining-big stallion into an easy trot: he lifted his hat to Miz Emma, the schoolmarm, he waggled his Stetson as happy schoolchildren waved and shouted happy greetings in high and innocent voices.

The Sheriff took his lunch with his wife, in her office on the second floor of the Silver Jewel: she turned her office chair to get the window's light on the correspondence he'd handed her, and he was struck -- yet again! -- by the absolute, feminine beauty of his bride.

Esther sat, if you can call it that: her posture was flawless, she held the handwritten pages as if they were delicate and precious, she'd run her spectacles halfway down her nose and tilted her head back slightly, and the man she married sat and watched and ached silently at the sight of her beauty.

Esther rose, glided -- that's the only word that fits, glided -- over to a filing cabinet, carefully placed the sheaf of communications, turned back to her husband, tilted her head a little.

Esther removed her round-lens reading glasses, placed them carefully in a Japanned case, laid them gently on her desk, then flowed over to her husband, who rose as she did.

"Something troubles you," she said -- a statement, not a question.

He nodded.

"It feels like something is hangin' fahr," he rumbled.

Esther laid gentle fingers across his forehead, across his cheek:  "You're not fevered," she murmured, "and you're not given to fancies."

She frowned, delicately -- it is a true and feminine Lady who can frown, delicately, and she did -- "My dear, if there is trouble undiscovered, you are better served to face it after proper nutrition."

The Sheriff cupped his hands under his wife's elbows, bent his head.

She raised her face in response.

 

Jacob was getting some size to him, the Sheriff realized: his shoulders were filling out his black suit coat in fine shape, his step was brisk, firm, he moved powerfully, the way a young man will when the sun warms his shoulders.

"Sir, Dobson sends his thanks," Jacob said without preamble, and the Sheriff nodded.

"And Lee-roy?"

Jacob laughed, remembering the Frenchman who pronounced it le-ROI, and seemed offended when nobody else spoke likewise.

"He sold out. Dobson bought it off the railroader Lee-roy sold to. Something to do with the railroader's wife bein' unhappy he'd spent that much money."

The Sheriff nodded, and Jacob saw half his father's mouth pull up slightly in a ghost of a smile.

"Thank you, Jacob," the Sheriff said quietly. "I was not sure how that would play out."

Jacob frowned a little -- he didn't have his father's poker face, at least not when he was speaking with the man -- "Sir, is all well?"

Linn looked at his son and he felt his eyes tighten a little at the corners, like something inside him knew a joke that hadn't quite caught up with his thinking brain.

 

That evening at supper, after Linn solemnly spoke the blessing, waited until the table shared a quiet "Amen," then looked at his wife with an expression she recognized.

So did their children.

Linn's eyebrows raised and everyone but Esther said, in quiet chorus, "Hello, Plate!"

Esther gave a sigh -- exaggerated, patient, understanding.

Linn gave her his very best Innocent Expression and said, "Darlin', it's proper to talk to your plate before you eat!"

"My dear," Esther said in that patient and gentle voice of hers, "would you like your beatin' now or later?"

Linn was hard pressed to catch the several sweet rolls that sailed through the air at him: he missed but one, and the hired girl caught that one, took a bite of it and rolled her eyes innocently before handing it back to the Sheriff.

Linn took a bite out of his sweet roll, leaned his head back, eyes closed, genuinely savoring the moment.

"Did anything happen today, Daddy?" Angela asked, her eyes very wide and very blue and far more innocent looking than her Daddy's expression managed.

Linn chewed, swallowed, smiled at his daughter.

"Darlin'," he said in that voice Daddies use when addressing a little girl-child, "I received a gift today."

"What was it, Daddy?" Angela asked with the irrepressible spontaneity of the young.

Linn's grin was quick, relaxed, the way it often was here at home, under his own roof, with his own family.

"I got to come home and set down and eat with my family."

His eyes moved slowly around the table, his eyes almost caressing each member of their household.

"Absolutely nothing happened, darlin'. Quiet and boring, just the way I like it. That's a gift I'll take any day of the week!"