SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE FORGER AND THE WALL

Sarah Lynne McKenna wore a very proper gown, a pair of window glass spectacles, and an expression of utter innocence.

She dipped her pen in good India ink and looked up, her lovely, light-blue eyes amused as she regarded Jacob -- who looked enough like her to be a twin.

The two were sometimes mistaken for brother and sister, so alike were they -- fair skin, pale eyes, the striking resemblance to a certain pale eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache.

Sarah's pen moved steadily, purposefully: she made frequent returns to the small steel bottle, the conspiracy between half-brother and half-sister transferring itself easily onto good rag paper.

Sarah placed a ruler, drew a line: she continued writing, placed the ruler and drew three lines: more careful, official-looking handwriting, for most legal documents of the era were hand written, and another scribed line.

Sarah leaned back, rolled her shoulders, took a long breath: she carefully, daintily, wiped the steel nib, replaced it in its wooden carrier.

She opened a lower drawer, brought out a whittled quill.

This, too, was dipped.

She looked at Jacob, smiled.

"Tell me again," she said, "how you would describe the horses if you were to sell them."

 

Jacob Keller was just fourteen years old.

He was lean, he was tall, he wore a handmade black suit and he casually unbuttoned the coat, drew it loose and rested his left hand on his thigh, knotted reins in his right.

Jacob was riding one of his Pa's Appaloosa stallions.

Jacob worked with this particular horse quite a bit.

Jacob liked this horse, and apparently the horse liked Jacob.

At least he hadn't kicked Jacob more than twice, and hadn't bit him more than three times.

Jacob worked with him the same way his Pa worked with his horses.

Jacob's mount wore a bridle and a saddle, but lacked a bit.

Jacob knotted the reins, his moves casual, as he said "No, sir, you ain't a-comin' on my Pa's land!"

Two men regarded him -- one with surprise and maybe a little amusement, the other with hostility.

"Boy," he said, "stand out of my way."

Jacob sat upright in his saddle, his jaw thrust out a little, his eyes gone to pale.

"No, sir," he said. "You have no business here."

He was on property his Pa purchased the day before.

His Pa bought property and all stock, and this pair, Jacob knew, intended to remove the stock after the sale, and Jacob was not going to stand for that.

When Jacob was approached, he waited, turning his stallion a little.

The stallion knew what was going to happen and threw his head hard to the right, just before Jacob's left hand cut under his unbuttoned coat and came out with a .44 Colt Army model.

The first shot took the man coming at him through the wish bone.

The second one waited for a triggered command.

The second fellow, the one with a running iron sticking carelessly out of a saddlebag, pulled hard on his reins to try and back his horse, while he grabbed at his own sidearm.

Jacob's Colt spoke a second time.

Jacob Keller knew that Colt's revolver.

It was the one he'd used to send his Mama's murderer to Hell on a round ball with.

It was the one he'd used to shoot the man who tried to murder his Pa, the Sheriff.

It was the one with which he was the most practiced and the most comfortable.

Jacob Keller triggered the second shot.

The second fellow never felt the shot that killed him.

Jacob left the two where they lay, but not before firing a shot from each of their pistols.

 

Sarah McKenna sat daintily, her spine straight, both feet flat on the floor, looking as if she were writing Bible verses instead of a forged bill of sale.

Her forgery was carefully thought out.

She'd seen the hand written documents that were part and parcel of His Honor the Judge's Court.

The handwriting for the bulk of the document was immaculate, regular, precise: the particulars were filled in, on the ruler-scribed lines, with a different pen, and in apparently an entirely different hand: seller's name, description of the purchased saddlestock, their brands, a brief mention of saddles and tack as part of the purchase.

 

Jacob stood in front of His Honor the Judge's desk.

His father stood beside him.

"I bought two horses, yes, sir," he said, and produced the bill of sale.

His Honor the Judge examined it, nodded:  "I know the man who wrote this," he said quietly, "and I believe this is one of the last bills of sale he ever wrote before he fell over dead."

He looked up at Jacob.

"I understand, Sheriff," he said, looking at the quiet lawman with the iron grey mustache, "that two men were found dead a few miles from here."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"What happened?"

The Sheriff looked at Jacob, nodded.

"Sir," Jacob said, "I bought their horses. One fellow was not happy with the other. The one said they had a string of horses and the other called him a liar. 

"I waited for him to write down the particulars on that bill of sale he had already and the other fellow allowed as he'd planned to strand him out here.

"I taken the horses and got out of there, for I feared they would come to blows."

His Honor the Judge considered this, nodded slowly.

"It would seem," he said thoughtfully, "your forethought may have spared you."

"Yes, sir."

"You have the horses."

"I have, sir."

His Honor handed the bill of sale back to Jacob.

"This looks to be in order."

He looked at the Sheriff.

"How does it smell to you, Sheriff?"

"Smells like they got into it and each one shot the other," the Sheriff said bluntly.

"Both men shot in the front, each had a fired pistol in hand."

His Honor the Judge shook his head sadly.

"There is no accounting for stupidity," he muttered.  "Well, the Court is satisfied. Thank you, gentlemen, that answers all my questions."

 

Jacob and Sarah sat together on a stair tread.
They were in the hidden stairway in the back of the Silver Jewel, the one that almost nobody knew about.

"The Judge said the bill of sale was genuine," Jacob said quietly.

Sarah smiled, just a little.

"He also said it was probably the last one written by ... he said he recognized the hand writin'."

"I thought he might," Sarah murmured.

Half-brother and half-sister sat in companionable silence, each staring at something in their own thoughts, until finally Jacob asked, "Why'd you help me like that?"

Sarah looked at Jacob, her expression almost sly, definitely calculating.

"Because I knew I could do it," she said confidently, then she turned a little, laid a warm and gentle hand on his back, between his shoulder blades.

She leaned her head over against his and added quietly, "Your scars are visible, Jacob.  Mine are not."

Jacob frowned.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

He felt Sarah's deep, silent breath, and knew she was arranging her thoughts like a gambler will arrange a hand of cards.

"Jacob, bad folks can ... they know when someone's been hurt."

Jacob frowned, not entirely sure what his half sister was saying.

"I've been with Mama and I've seen ... men look at her ... and I've had to stop bad men from trying something with her, and Mama ... she couldn't ... because she'd been hurt so badly, she couldn't do anything but shrink away from them and freeze up."

Jacob nodded slowly, trying to process a dangerous world through someone else's eyes.

"We're both wounded souls, Jacob," Sarah whispered. "Both of us. That's why we get along so well."

She ran her arms around him, shivered a little as she hugged him, holding him as if she drew strength from his silence, and it occurred to her that hugging Jacob, like this, was as warm and comforting as if she had her arms wrapped around a brick wall.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LA CORRIDA

The Bear Killer raised his muzzle and rumbled quietly.

Marnie was sound asleep on her Daddy's big friendly couch that smelled like the man.

It smelled like her Daddy's soap and it smelled like horses and man sweat and sunshine, and when Marnie slept on her Daddy's couch, she did not have nightmares.

Her arm was thrown over the edge of the couch, little pink fingers just touching The Bear Killer's coat, at least until the big, hard-muscled, blunt-muzzled mountain Mastiff rolled over, came to his feet.

Shelly was sitting at the kitchen table, staring blindly at the smooth tablecloth with wrinkle-folds almost fallen out.

The Bear Killer came over to her, nosed her thigh firmly -- a demand, not a request -- he shoved his nose under her elbow, raised his head, stepped back, looked at her.

Shelly blinked, looked, frowned a little.

He never acts like this, she thought.

The Bear Killer dropped his chin on her thigh, black eyes bright, trying to bridge the communication gap between the canine and the human.

Shelly started to raise her hand to rub his head and The Bear Killer's jaws snapped shut, fast, hard, undeniable: he had a grip on her sleeve, and he pulled.

Hard.

Shelly had two choices: hit the floor, or follow.

She rose, she followed as The Bear Killer pulled her toward the door as surely as a Mack truck would tow a postage stamp.

The Bear Killer stopped long enough for Shelly to shove sock feet into her sneakers, to tie them quickly: he turned, looked at the door, looked at her, chopped his jaws.

I don't know what you want, she thought, but something's out there!

Marnie's eyes opened as the door shut.

She rolled off the couch, pattered across the floor, shoved sock feet into her red cowboy boots, and followed.

 

The Bear Killer led, running a little ahead of her, increasing speed as she sped up to keep up: The Bear Killer stopped at the pasture gate, looked through it, looked back at her, impatient.

Shelly looked, frowned, looked at The Bear Killer, looked again.

Puzzled -- she saw nothing out of the ordinary -- Shelly shot the wooden bolt back, pushed through, secured the gate again as a troika of matched white mares trotted up to her, dropping their heads to greet The Bear Killer, pushing against Shelly, begging for attention -- something they'd never done before.

Not once.

Ever.

Shelly found herself sandwiched between two of the mares, while the third trotted a nervous orbit around them, then came to her, sniffed loudly at her outstretched hand, resumed her circling.

The other horses came over, curious, nervous: Shelly was getting uncomfortable, especially when the entire herd -- every one of her husband's horses -- came down the long pasture, the more distant ones at a gallop, all clearly converging on her -- and then the entire surrounding herd began to circle her, all but two white mares on either side of her, and the one white mare who stopped directly in front of her, trying to communicate something with those wise, liquid, absolutely black eyes.

The herd peeled off and started to run.

Her flankers moved -- not as fast -- they moved Shelly ahead, whether she wanted to go or not.

She threw an arm over each of them and ran, and a pair of red cowboy boots followed at the best speed a five year old girl-child could manage.

The Bear Killer slipped through this confusion of equine legs, ran back to Marnie: he circled her quickly, came up behind and alongside: Marnie threw her arm over The Bear Killer's back and ran after the retreating herd.

Shelly ran.

Shelly clenched her teeth and ran with tears starting down her cheeks.

Shelly had a really bad run the day before, and it was bothering her, when she sat in a silent house and stared at the kitchen tablecloth.

She did not see her tidy, immaculate kitchen.

She did not hear the silence.

She heard screaming and she heard extrication tools and men's quiet, hard voices, and she heard the screaming and she heard metal groan and tear as a mangled car was disassembled from around a bloodied victim who'd been riding with her feet up on the dash of the car.

Shelly ran with an arm thrown over a fire mare's shoulders and her other arm up to slash a shirtsleeve at her leaking face, and a grim-faced little girl pounded after them with a great Bear Killer of a mountain Mastiff helping her along.

The herd strung out the length of the pasture and doubled back, and ran alongside Shelly and Marnie again, slowing as they slowed, and Marnie worked her way through restless horse flesh as they formed a big loose restless shifting cluster, every horse's long nose to the center, all of them expressing a natural understanding that something was terribly wrong, and every last one of them helping as best they could.

Marnie did not get close enough to let Newmommy know that she was there.

When she saw her Newmommy's face was buried in the fire mare's brushed mane, Marnie looked at The Bear Killer and then turned away.

The pair made their way to the fence, slipped between white-painted boards, went back to the house, or started to.

Her Daddy was loafing against the fence, chewing on a weed, watching.

He squatted and Marnie ran up to him, jumped into his arms, but silently: Linn rose, Marnie's young arms tight around his neck, and he turned her a little, hiking her up so she sat on his forearm as they turned and looked toward where his wife was in the middle of the entire herd.

The Bear Killer looked up at Marnie and yawned -- a long, relaxing, tongue-curling yawn, then he laid down with the sudden flump! of a canine who could finally relax.

"I saw all y'all running," Linn said, his voice gentle.

Marnie looked at him, all big innocent eyes and curly hair and solemn expression.

Linn looked to the herd and Marnie saw that smile she loved, hidden inside his face where only she could see it.

"I've heard of the Running of the Bulls," he said thoughtfully, "but this is a different kind of corrida."

Marnie blinked, looked from her Daddy to the horsies, looked back at her Daddy.

"Corrrrr-ee-tha," Marnie said carefully, tasting this new word as if sampling a new dish.

He Daddy kissed her forehead and hugged her again and whispered, "That's my girl," and Marnie's young heart rejoiced, for she was in her Daddy's big warm hug and she was safe and she'd just done something he approved of.

That night after supper, Linn stood with his wife at the kitchen sink.

Shelly rinsed off a scrubbed-clean plate, handed it to her husband: he stacked it in the drain rack, looked at his wife.

"Horses listen well," he said quietly, so only she could hear, "but if you want to talk about it, let me know. I won't push you."

Shelly stopped, her shoulders sagged a little, and she nodded.

"The horses helped," she said quietly as she ran questing fingers through the dishwater, then pulled the stainless steel plug and let the dishwater drain out.

"I've found they do," Linn agreed quietly. 

He smiled as the door opened, then shut: two children and a big black Bear Killer slipped quietly outside, away from vigilant maternal eyes.

Let 'em go, Linn thought, remembering what it was to be a child, running outside after supper, carefree, a creature of joy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I DID IT!!

Marnie Keller tried again.

She had her Daddy's big Apple-horse tied up to the fence.

She'd dragged her Daddy's saddle down and was hauling it across the concrete floor and then across grass and now she was trying to climb the fence while hauling the saddle with her.

It was not working.

Linn watched, leaning casually against the corner of the barn, just around the corner from her, a stem of some weed or another he'd pulled for the purpose, between his teeth: he watched, he studied, he felt the flesh tighten behind his ears -- a grin, hidden, but very real.

Part of his mind held the dim and distant recollection of his own efforts at saddling a horse.

He watched as Marnie tried grabbing the saddle horn -- and failing, her hand wasn't big enough -- then she tried grabbing the cinch, she made it up one board, realized she only had two hands and to get up any higher she'd have to let go of a board and grab the next one, fast --

She made one more board --

Marnie, saddle and all, hit the ground: she rolled, eyes screwed shut, jaw clamped tight: she rolled over on her belly, fisted both hands, ripping grass out of the dirt as she did.

She pushed up, almost leaped to her feet.

Marnie crawled under the saddle.

Linn's eyes tightened a little at the corners as she tried climbing the fence with the saddle on her back like a turtle, with even less success than before.

I could put her on, bareback, he thought, then dismissed the idea: it might work a little too well.

Marnie glared at the saddle like it offended her -- she turned to the fence, her bottom jaw thrust out, stern and rebellious as Churchill's portrait -- she looked at the saddle again, then she wallowed it up off the ground as best she could and hauled and dragged it back into the barn.

Linn strolled casually into the barn, his timing carefully chosen: Marnie, after much effort and strain, managed to return the saddle to its sawhorse, and she was only just realizing she'd scuffed leather in several places, and was trying her Mama's cure for anything scraped:

She spit on it and rubbed it in, on the theory that Mama's spit could take dirt off a child's face, or paint off a battleship, depending on the mother's intent.

Linn waited until she'd rubbed the area under experimentation with a shop rag, then opened the man door and strolled in, stacked leather heels intentionally loud on the concrete.

Marnie stopped wiping, turned, faced the man squarely.

Linn went over to her, reached down, picked her clear up to his arm's length, then he brought her down, twiddled her nose with his mustache and hugged her:  "How's my favorite daughter today?" he whispered.

Marnie was stiff in his arms -- not twisting, not wiggling, just ... almost muscle locked.

She looked down as he held her at nose-to-nose height.

"I hurt your saddle," she said in a little girl's vulnerable voice.

Linn squatted, set Marnie down, looked at his saddle, looked at Marnie.

He wasn't sure what she expected to happen.

He knew she'd been through hell and worse and he needed to let her know that wasn't going to happen here.

He ran the backs of his fingers over the nearest scrape, looked at Marnie and smiled, just a little.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "that's a saddle.  It'll have to stand worse than that!" -- he laughed and hugged her again, then closed one eye confidentially.

"I know what'll take them scrapes out," he said quietly.  "Olive oil."

He rose and started for his workbench.

Marnie bolted.

She ran for the still-open man door, got just outside and stopped, then yelled, "JACOB! COME QUICK! DADDY'S GONNA COOK HIS SADDLE!"

 

It wasn't but a day or two later that Marnie figured out she could ride bareback.

She managed to get a-straddle of her Daddy's Apple-horse.

Marnie helped her Daddy when he worked with the Fire Mares.

She wasn't sure how to ride -- not really -- she didn't want to drum her heels into the Appaloosa's ribs, she'd watched a man do that at the county fair and get thrown right there in front of God and everybody -- but she remembered running with her Daddy as he strode with long Daddy-legs as he and Marnie exercised the three-mare hitch.

"Yup," Marnie said confidently.

The Apple-horse lifted his head, yupp'd.

A little girl's happy laugh sprinkled like sunlit rain across the pasture.

Apple-horse eased ahead into a smooth trot.

Marnie was at once exhilarated and terrified -- she slid a little, recovered, slid the other way, managed to get herself centered.

Daddy doesn't ride like this! she thought fiercely as she tried going belly-down on the horsie's back, and so she sat upright, gripped as best she could with her little legs and yelled "YAAA!"

This time she did lean forward, she got a good double handful of coarse mane and she set her teeth and glared at the world between a horse's ears and for the first time, for the very first time in her young life, Marnie Keller knew what the Mongols felt as they rode into battle: that what she saw between her horse's ears, belonged to HER! -- because She Is Riding a HORSE!! -- and the world beneath their hooves, her horse's and Marnie's both, was hers to CONQUER!

Marnie leaned into Apple-horse's turn: he started lunging now, grunting as steelshod hooves dug for purchase, as clods of sod threw up behind, and an Appaloosa stallion began running, running in earnest now --

Linn's head came up and he listened, then took out at a long-legged stride for the white board fence, stopped, looked over it at the sight of a little girl, her pigtails floating in the slipstream, red cowboy boots hard against his stallion's ribs, a look on her face that made him wonder if she wasn't going to throw her head back and bay like a winter wolf!

Apple-horse ran the length of their long pasture, turned, came back, slowed: Linn was inside the fence now, leaning against white-painted boards, watching his horse and his little girl as they approached.

Marnie sat up straight, or straight as she could with a good double handful of coarse mane hair.

Linn wished mightily for a Kodak at that moment, and he did his best to engrave the sight on his heart.

He saw a little girl, apple cheeks shining in the long red rays of evening's sun, eyes bright as she yelled "Daddy!  Did you see me? Daddy, I rodeit the horsie!"

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WISDOM, AND A STETSON HAT

“Joseph?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Grab it and go.”

Joseph Keller set his ear muffs in place, thrust the safety glasses over his prescription spectacles: he wore work boots and blue jeans, leather work gloves and a big grin.

He ran his foot through the chain saw’s handle, pulled the safety back, turned the choke button, locked the trigger back and gave the starter a pull, gave another.

The chain saw snarled  into a rough idle.

Joseph withdrew his hind hoof, seized the handle, goosed the trigger: he advanced on the deadfall, cocked his head as he considered the lay of the seasoned branches.

Young fingers crushed the orange-plastic throttle trigger, the red-cased chain saw howled happily, and Joseph Keller grinned as he felt the chain bite into wood, as sawdust sprayed his pants legs and his laced-up boots, as he made a swift cut, pulled back as the branch fell.

Jacob leaned forward, made a slash on the cut off branch a if scribing a line.

Joseph nodded, waited for his Pa to step back, then cut the thigh-thick wood with one steady downward cut.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller watched as Jacob swung the splitting ax.

The blade swung true, neatly halving the sawed stovewood.

The corners of Linn’s eyes tightened a little with approval as he nodded, ever so slightly.

In years that followed, Jacob taught his sons, both Joseph, and then Michael, how to properly sharpen an ax, how to properly swing an ax: he taught them to grease the saw blade before starting work, he taught his sons by showing them how and then having them do it – measuring, drilling, tapping in a wooden peg, reshaping wooden pegs that didn’t quite fit and he was able to wiggle out, how to cut off an offending peg that drove in but wouldn’t come back out, drill it out and tap in another one.

John Greenlees Jr. – son of Dr. John Grenlees and his beautiful bride Marnie – bare to the waist, sweating a little, tossed sawed wood into the mule-drawn wagon.

He labored on his Uncle’s farm, off-planet, a favorite place – when he was young, he ran, carefree, through fields, climbed trees and haymows, and when horses were introduced, he ran with the horses through the little hills they had, the way his Mama described running with her Daddy’s horses along Colorado mountain trails.

John Junior’s tanned hide gleamed with just a light sheen of sweat.

Young bones and young muscles delighted in the work: his Uncle had a power saw, and wood was cut to uniform lengths: they had to be stacked and split, and John was stacking them in the wagon so they could be hauled back to the house to be reduced to kindling.

They’d tried splitting it first and then hauling it, now they were going to haul it first and split it on-site, near the house, and see how that worked.

John Jr. climbed into the wagon, stacked what he’d thrown in: if he cribbed it right, he could get half again as much wood in a load as if he’d just thrown in at random.

His Uncle’s mule – a rarity on the planet – waited patiently in the traces; when finally John judged he had enough, he rubbed the mule’s ears, fed it several thick shavings of molasses cured twist tobacker, and then the two of them walked the wagon the quarter mile, around the base of the hill, to the house.

Dr. John Greenlees and his wife were coming the opposite direction, their steam-brougham quiet, almost sedate on the crushed-stone roadway.

Dr. Greenlees consulted with local physicians, and he’d been encouraged to establish a joint practice with the local medical community: they came chuffing up to the house as a grinning John Jr. tossed the last of his load onto a woodpile of a rather impressive size.

John Jr. straightened, grinned, waved: “That’s the last of it!” he declared cheerfully, his young voice carrying in the quiet country air.

“I intended to help with that,” Dr. Greenlees murmured, almost disappointed: Marnie reached over, caressed her husband’s dignified, spade-cut beard.

“Afraid of being outdone by a stripling?” she teased gently.

Dr. Greenlees favored his wife with a mock glare.

“In practical terms,” he said, “keeping my back strong helps during surgery when I’m bent over a little for prolonged periods, not moving.”

His affected pique failed: he laughed quietly and admitted, “I think our young whipper-snapper just outworked Old Whiskers!”

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A GOOD DOSE OF KNUCKLES

Michael Keller, eldest living son of Sheriff Jacob Keller, stepped off the train, looked around.

The porter handed him his grip -- he thanked the man, quietly, courteously, as he'd done since childhood -- he looked around with the eyes of someone who hadn't been home in far too long.

Michael Keller, son of Sheriff Jacob Keller, was graduated from a School of Divinity back East.

Michael Keller, neatly dressed traveler and man grown, took a long, appreciative breath, realized how his blood must have thinned, living in the lower elevations.

This could not keep his pale eyes from tightening with genuine pleasure.

He climbed the handmade, white-oak steps up onto the platform, stopped.

A tall man in a black suit waited at the far end.

Two men walked toward one another, two men in suits, two men with pale eyes.

Father and son clasped hands, then embraced, each crushing the other into him in a wordless, unashamed, very public statement of filial affection.

"Your mother will be happy to see you," Jacob finally said as he and Michael fell back to arm's length, each holding the other's upper arms, then:  "Damn, boy, you're tall!"

Michael laughed to hear his father say it.

Jacob first said that in honest surprise when Michael was fourteen or fifteen years old, when he realized his boy was tall enough to look him in the eye, and seasoned enough to match the Grand Old Man lick for lick in whatever work they were tending.

They picked up Michael's trunk, one on one end, one on the other, packed it to the wagon.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Michael?"

"Sir, do I recall Abbott William is no more?"

Jacob was quiet for several long moments: he lifted the reins, gave them a flip, clucked up the dapple, and Michael could see a shadow draw like a curtain across his father's face.

Jacob nodded, took a long breath, blew it out: the wagon rattled down the broad alley and into the street.

"I took his advice," Michael said quietly.

Jacob looked over at his son, smiled a little.

"Oh?"

Michael looked at his father and grinned -- that quick, spontaneous, boyish grin he'd had since earliest childhood, still there, still bright and unguarded.

"The Abbott went through Seminary in New Orleans."

Jacob nodded, looking back over the dapple's ears: polished harness-bells swung in merry confusion over the mare's collar, adding their celebratory counterpoint to the patient old prad's measured hoofbeats.

"He said priests in training would pack a peach crate out onto a street corner and set up to do some good old fashioned street corner preachin'."

"Do tell!" Jacob murmured, remembering sitting beside his pale eyed Pa when he and his father's old and dear friend spoke of things past -- New Orleans being one the Abbott mentioned.

"He said it was considered good training for the young priests. Taught them how to handle hecklers, how to think on their feet, how to pitch their delivery so it could be heard plainly to the back row without shoutin'."

"You ever try it?"

Michael nodded, sandpapering his palms together.

Jacob knew Michael worked through his University days, not wanting to be like rich men's sons: he'd written home, describing how he'd been looked at with disdain for attending class less well dressed than rich men's sons, despite his consistently high marks. He'd noticed when the shook hands at the Depot that Michael's grip was not at all flimsy, his hands were callused -- all this streaked through the Sheriff's mind as he listened to Michael's calluses whispering secrets to one another as his son slowly, thoughtfully, rubbed his palms together.

"I tried it," he said finally.

"Work out?"

Michael snorted, looked off to the side,looked back at their mare.

"Sir, a drunk called me a damned carpetbagger, a workin' girl propositioned me, and one fellow allowed as I was a damned liar and not man enough to face him bare knuckle!"

"So did you?"

"I did, sir."

The mare's hoofbeats were loud as the patient old nag drew them steadily up the street.

"I stepped down off attair peach crate and the crowd drew back and the bettin' started.

"Someone shouted at me that the man was a known bully and good with his fists.

"I didn't give a chance to get set, I waded in and drove him a good one to the wind and then I spread his nose over most of his face. He was still standin' so I give him a good kick in the wind and that's when he kind of folded up and fell down.

"I looked around and asked if there was anyone else and nobody wanted to step up and take a bite, so I stepped back up on attair peach crate and I looked at that workin' girl and I said gently, 'My Lady, I thank you for your fine opinion of me,' I stepped off attair peach crate and left.

" 'Course, there's always other preachers a-watchin', two of 'em met me and we went and had a beer and they allowed as that was the damndest sermon they'd seen on a street corner, but by golly it was one of the better ones they'd heard, and funny thing, that bullyin' drunk didn't come around causin' trouble after that."

Michael felt more than heard his father's understanding chuckle.

"Sounds like you did all right, Michael."

A comfortable silence grew between father and son, and neither was troubled by the lack of conversation: this companionable silence lasted until Jacob drew up in front of the home place.

A young voice shouted, young feet came running: Michael vaulted out of the wagon, landed flat-footed and was immediately mobbed by shouting, laughing brothers, sisters, at least two dogs and a rooster that came flapping over, landed on the edge of the wagon and let out a triumphant crow, as if claiming himself as the sole cause and reason for the general celebration!

Michael handed his grip to the youngest, his hat to the next youngest: many young hands, more interference than actual help, insisted on facilitating the trunk's transfer from wagon to the house: Jacob stood aside, eyes tightening at the corners, and watched as Michael breathed, "Mama," and Annette stepped out and seized her son like she was drowning and he was the only float in a stormy sea.

Michael held his Mama, and Michael lifted his Mama just barely off her toes, and gave her a little shake: Jacob heard a few muffled noises that made him cringe, at least until Annette gave a gasping squeak, then gripped her son's forearms and whispered, "Thank you, that hurt so good!"

Michael's arrival was perfectly, if accidentally, timed: he and his Pa and a cohort of siblings retreated to the backyard well and its washpan, and a pale eyed squad of Keller young participated in a vigorous and communal washing of the hands, complete with a wonderful confusion of questions, of happy reports of recent events:  at the supper table, normally a place of minimal conversation, convention was happily discarded in favor of shared laughter, of a solemn description of the rooster they named Freight Train, who preferred running to flying, but who invariably declared himself the cause for any celebration: there were two Bear Killers, one old enough to have gone grey around the muzzle, a slow moving canine who sniffed Michael's hand, gave his fingers a leisurely taste-test, then collapsed against his leg with the contented groan of a senior dog whose packmate was finally returned.

Michael found himself obliged to tell about his matriculation, and about his sojourn to New Orleans, which he said he'd done because he wanted to visit the seminary the Abbott attended.

He spoke of street corner preaching, and how the locals looked forward to these peach crate presentations, how they regarded them as part of the local entertainment, and then Michael spoke of the drunk who challenged his manhood.

Several sets of concerned eyes, male and female, older and younger, regarded him with a shared solemnity.

Finally his youngest brother, the one whose haircut looked like his Mama dunked a bowl over his head and then cut around its inverted rim, asked "Michael, what did you do?"

Michael looked at his Pa and decided honesty was the best policy.

He looked around the table and then looked at the anxious young questioner and replied in a voice that sounded remarkably like something his honored Granddad, that old lawman with the iron grey mustache, might have said.

"I gave him a good dose of knuckles."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WITH BELLS ON

"Pardon me."

The biker looked up -- or, rather, scowled his gaze from his gas tank to the woman's voice.

He blinked, still scowling.

She looks like a nurse, he thought, but why in the hell does a nurse wear a gun --

He saw the name tag clipped to her white uniform blouse's pocket flap and saw the gold, six point star embossed on the laminated plastic ID tag.

Deputy Sheriff, he read. Oh great, now some female Barney Fyfe is gonna --

"I need a favor," she said, her voice rough, as if she was trying to control something that didn't want to be controlled.

The gas nozzle clicked off: he looked down, released the squeeze handle, tapped the nozzle twice and then hung it back on the pump.

He turned, capped the gas tank, making no attempt at hiding the push dagger welded to the underside of the gas cap.

Her pale eyes saw it; they went from the hidden weapon in his hand, to his hard, suspicious eyes.

Deputy Sheriff Angela Keller took a step closer, extended her left hand.

The biker blinked, surprised.

He extended his hand, accepted two shining silver bells hanging from a bracket he recognized.

Angela's eyes shifted to a patch on his vest.

He saw her eyes move.

She stepped back just as the dam broke behind her eyes and salt water spilled down her cheeks.

She came to correct military attention, saluted an unshaven, unkempt, openly hostile biker who wore a military patch she recognized.

He swallowed, nodded: he returned her salute -- for a moment, for just a moment, he was tall, lean, disciplined again -- he watched as she turned, as she paced off on the left, as she crossed the concrete lot and disappeared around the corner of the All-Night.

The biker looked at the bells in his hand, turned them, looked closer.

I'd be damned, he thought.

Genuine silver.

He looked at the shadowed corner where she'd disappeared.

I wonder what that was all about.

He frowned, considered, then opened his saddlebag and pulled out a tool roll.

It took him less than four minutes to hang the bells from the big Harley's frame.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller wheeled into the All-Night, pulled up to the island opposite a biker on a Harley, just as the biker was returning something to his saddlebag.

"Howdy," the Sheriff called with a grin, and the biker looked at him a moment longer than Linn expected.

Linn took a step toward him as the biker took a step as well.

"Say," the biker said, almost hesitantly, "you fellas ain't got a nurse on staff, now, do you?"

"We have," Linn replied, and the biker could hear the walls go up in the man's voice. "Do you need medical?"

The biker frowned, rubbed his stubble, turned and looked at his bike, turned and looked back.

"She give me bells for m' bike," he said. "Pure silver. I just put 'em on."

He saw something in the Sheriff's expression, then he looked at the man's badge again and saw it said SHERIFF.

Not DEPUTY SHERIFF.

The Sheriff nodded, just a little, hesitated.

"She tried to give a set of silver bells to someone she'd known since grade school," he said quietly. "He was killed on his bike two hours ago. She was first on scene."

The biker nodded, looked away.

"Damn, that's rough."

"Always is, when it's someone you know."

The biker's "Yeah" in response sounded like his throat tightened down some, and Linn knew from the military patch he wore, this man knew exactly what that was like.

The biker turned, threw a leg over his Harley.

Angela's forehead lifted from her Morgan horse's neck when heard the starter's quick grinding whine, the sheetmetal-rattling startup that is unique to the big Harley road bikes: the Sheriff raised a hand as the man nodded to him, as he jazzed the throttle, as he rode out of the All-Night, and onto the highway.

Linn saw the silver bells hanging from the bike's frame.

 

Angela came out from around the All-Night, went inside, waited.

Her Daddy came in, winked at Marsha behind the counter -- "Don't you ever go home?" he asked, and she smiled tiredly -- "Sharon called off again" -- the Sheriff knew Marsha could use the overtime money, but he also knew what it was to work a double shift.

"Can I bring you back anything?" he asked quietly, and Marsha smiled, shook her head: "I'm good, thanks."

Linn turned, raised a surprised hand as Angela pressed a big paper cup of good hot coffee into his grip.

He looked at his daughter's expression, the puffiness around her eyes.

"You've had a long day," he said softly. "Why'nt you go on home now."

Angela nodded.

"You rode out?"

Angela struck a dancer's pose, graceful in white cowboy boots, and Linn laughed quietly.

"Will you be okay, darlin'?" he asked, his voice Daddy-deep and Daddy-quiet.

Angela nodded, picked up her own coffee. "I'll be fine, Ginger knows the way home."  She tilted her head, gave her Daddy a thoughtful look.  "Want anything else? Dead chicken, pizza, sausage on the roller?  I'm buyin'!"

 

Angela Keller mounted easily, her Ginger-horse dancing out of the shadows.

She walked her Morgan horse with the diamond between the eyes, across the All-Night's lot, steelshod hooves loud in the evening's long shadows: Linn picked up his box of Dead Chicken and fried potato slices, turned, saw his daughter, glowing like an incensed ghost as she rode out to the highway, across the pavement, then disappeared over the bank, and was gone.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SHOW ME

The Sheriff pulled his boots off the corner of the desk and let them hit the floor -- his move was sudden as he sat up, staring at the paper thrust into his hands.

His boots hit the floor flat as his weight came out of the office chair and he rose, turning the paper a little, as his eyebrow raised with his concentrated study.

He blinked twice, looked at the boy who'd tentatively handed him the sheet.

"Take me there," the Sheriff said.  "Show me."

Man and boy made for the heavy timber door: the Sheriff pulled it shut behind them, locked it, turned to the boy.

"Where was this?" he asked, his voice quiet, serious.

The boy wasn't entirely comfortable.

He hadn't expected this response.

"It's ..."

He raised an arm, pointed.

The Sheriff nodded, once.

"Go."

Two figures ran diagonally across the street, skirted around the little whitewashed schoolhouse, came up at the back corner of their little New England Meetinghouse style church.

"Here, sir," the boy said, thrusting a finger accusingly.

The Sheriff regarded the sheet he'd been handed, then the indicated location.

"That's it, all right," he murmured: the boy crowded in close to the man's shoulder as he went to one knee, pale eyes alternating between the sheet and the subject.

"That," he said quietly, "is probably the most accurate drawing I have ever seen!"

A little boy with pale eyes grinned suddenly, delight tickling the inside of his young belly.

The Sheriff considered the drawing again, frowned.

"Why did you draw the back side of the rose?" he asked.

Michael Keller's chest swelled proudly at his Grampa's question.

"Grampa, flowers is pretty on their backside the same as their front!"

The Sheriff raised an eyebrow and considered this for a moment.

"Come with me."

Granddad and grandson rose and headed back across the street.

The Sheriff put his grandson's drawing back on his desk -- he didn't want to risk damaging it by taking it with them -- Michael settled in behind his Granddad, held onto the cantle with both hands, young legs wrapped around his Granddad's stallion as far as he could reach, which wasn't very far.

Emma Cooper opened the schoolhouse door just in time to see her student disappear up the street, riding behind his grandfather, and departing at a right fair velocity.

She blinked, turned, looked at Sarah, who gave Miss Emma her very best Innocent Expression.

 

Linn eased his stallion out of town at a good trot, then gave him his head: he'd ridden his Appaloosa, a horse of spirit and of fire, and fortunately, good judgement: the Sheriff bucked him out that morning, and was grateful Apple showed no tendency to get fractious now.

Apple was in a mood to run, and the Sheriff was in a mood to let him: not far out of town, they doubled back on a mountain trail, up toward a saddle that marked the line fence of the Maxwell family's holdings -- the Sheriff still thought of them as the Daine family, and smiled a little as he silently corrected himself -- they'd settled under an assumed name, and once the courthouse misunderstanding back East was straightened out, they'd resumed their actual ancestral name.

The Sheriff turned his Apple-horse and rode over the saddle, then bore off to the left, toward a sizable rock that looked like a giant reached down and set a chunk of granite the size of a line shack in the middle of a field.

Apple-horse was bitless as were all the Sheriff's saddle stock: man, boy and horse coasted to a stop, and then walked around the big rock.

"Ho," the Sheriff murmured.

Apple's ears swung back toward the gentle voice as he ho'd.

Michael slid off, awkwardly, fell to the ground and landed with an expertise that told of many such dismounts: the Sheriff knew Jacob had a Michael-sized saddle, and knew Michael was no stranger to riding horses of their own string.

He also knew what it was to be a boy, and to fall for the tickle-the-tummy feeling of it, knowing it wasn't far to the ground and he'd be all right when he landed.

The Sheriff ground-reined Apple-horse, patted his warm neck and called him a worthless glue bag, like he usually did, and Apple-horse offered no retort, like he usually did.

The Sheriff walked with his grandson around the rock, to a patch of periwinkle, glowing and healthy in the sun.

The Sheriff squatted.

"Show me."

Michael did not hesitate.

He squatted next to his Grampa, his thigh warm against the side of his Grampa's leg: he leaned forward, took a flower delicately between two fingers.

"Look at it, Grampa," he said quietly. "Everyone looks at the front of the blossom, and the front is nice, but" -- he turned the stem, carefully -- "here, look at its back."

The Sheriff leaned forward a little, studying the back of the flower's blossom.

"That's why I drew the backs of the flowers as well as their fronts, Grampa," Michael said with a quiet intensity. 

Linn laid a gentle hand on his grandson's back.

"Michael," he said, "what did you use to get the colors on those flowers you drew?"

"Sarah had some broken Dixon's crayons," Michael admitted. "I kind of borrowed 'em."

The Sheriff considered this, then nodded slowly.

"Been known to borrow a time or three myself," he admitted.

"I put 'em back!" Michael added quickly, and he saw the corner of his Granddad's eye tighten a little.

The Sheriff considered for a moment longer.

"Michael, take a good look at this patch of flowers. This is what I wanted you to see."

Michael tilted his head a little to the side, studying the periwinkle patch: boy-like, he went down on all fours, shoved his face into them, took a careful sniff: behind him, the Sheriff's eye-corners tightened a little more, for it was a moment where a greying old Granddad remembered what it was to be a happy, impulsive grandson.

 

"Jacob."

Father and son stood in Linn's study, each holding a short, broad glass of distilled California sunshine.

"Yes, sir?"

"I stopped by the Mercantile today."

"Yes, sir?"

The Sheriff tasted his apricot brandy, found it to his liking: it was a new batch, only just arrived.

"Good for what ails ye," he murmured with a quiet smile, and Jacob grinned: both men drank.

Linn set down his empty glass, walked across the room, picked up a paper wrapped package.

He turned, came back to his son, handed him the bundle.

"Michael has a gift," he said quietly. "You and Sarah can draw beautifully, better than I ever could."

Jacob's eyes showed surprise, and he opened his mouth to protest.

"Sir, your maps --" he began and Linn held up a forestalling hand.

"Jacob, you have magic in your hands. You can do more with a pencil than I ever could with all the tools at my disposal. This" -- he handed the bundle to Jacob -- "is for Michael. Let him develop that skill just a far as he possibly can. If it takes schooling, I just happen to know an old Granddad who'll pay for that!"

Jacob was quiet for a long moment, then he nodded thoughtfully and said, "Thank you," quietly, the way a father will when handed an unexpected, meaningful gift.

Linn went over to his empty glass, picked it up, looked at Jacob, raised a questioning eyebrow.

"No thank you, sir," Jacob chuckled. "One's a-plenty."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

STAIRWAY REVELATION

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna sat on a step in the Silver Jewel's hidden stairway.

Jacob sat beside her.

Neither spoke.

This was their refuge, their conference-room, their place of quiet solitude: each had been terribly hurt at far too young an age, each was a wounded soul, hardened and shelled against the world ever hurting them again: each learned how to imitate a normal, rational, ordinary human being, but each was guarded, their true selves hidden behind stone walls of their own manufacture.

Here, in this one place, with a kindred who knew too well each what the other survived, there was comfort neither had elsewhere.

In spite of this shared horror, they were still young -- regarded in their community as were all of their age, not yet adult but not quite children.

"Jacob?"

"Hm?"

Jacob blinked, brought his wandering thoughts back, tilted his head a little.

"Did you ever ... run in the front door and run through the house and run out the back door?"

Jacob blinked, surprised: he frowned a little, he considered, he turned his head slightly, and Sarah could see the puzzlement on his face.

"Nnnooooo," he admitted slowly.  "No, I ... don't reckon so."

Sarah's momentary smile -- more implied than expressed -- disappeared, as if she slipped it back in her pocket like a precious thing she didn't want anyone else to see.

"I did, once," she admitted.

She was looking straight ahead with almost a dreamy expression, as if staring at something only she could see, and perhaps that's what she was doing: she blinked, broke the spell, turned her eyes toward her half-brother.

"My sisters and I were giggling and playing outside," she said, "we were running and chasing one another" -- she lifted her chin and said in a disapproving voice, "Children do that" -- Jacob's ear pulled back a little to hear it, and he carefully kept his own smile from appearing, for he'd heard Sarah's Mama say those very words in a cross tone, and Sarah's imitation of the peevish sentiment was flawlessly the mirror of her Mama's voice.

"Mama, of course, called us down for running through the house, in the front and out the back and circling around for another."

Jacob nodded, once, slowly -- just like his Pa, Sarah thought.

"We stood there like good little girls and received our Mama's scolding, then we turned with heads bowed and bottom lips pooched out and trooped back out on the front porch."

Jacob felt Sarah's long breath.

"That lasted until we got outside and we chased each other around the shed instead."

Jacob felt his face tighten a little in a smile: he understood youthful rebellion, he'd seen it often enough, especially with their little whitewashed schoolhouse so close by.

"One day Mama wasn't ... she was at her dress-works and the Girl was in town picking up items for the household.

"I took off running.

"I started at the front door, I ran through the house, I ran out the back door and off the back porch, I ran around the house and back through the front door and through the house and I did that four times, just as hard as I could run."

Jacob turned his head toward her again.

"There was no fun in it, Jacob," she finally said.  "I rebelled against my Mama, and there was no fun in it."

Jacob considered this carefully.

"Might be because no one else was there to run with you?" he suggested.

"Maybe," Sarah admitted. "Or maybe I grew up."

Silence, again, stretching long in the hidden staircase with the single, high, four-paned window.

"Jacob, did you ever rebel?"

Jacob was silent for several long moments, then Sarah laid her arm across his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I shouldn't have asked."

Jacob turned, slid his arm under hers, looked into her pale eyes with absolutely the saddest look she'd ever seen.

"You're the only one I trust to ask," he whispered, then he hugged her with both arms.

Two wounded souls shared a moment's understanding in the silence of a hidden back stairway.

 

Some things in the Silver Jewel were comfortingly constant.

The girl behind the hotel counter was always Tillie, and she always wore a proper gown from the mid-1880s.

Didn't matter what name she wore when she came through the door that morning, when she was behind the counter, she was Tillie.

The barkeep, whether properly pomaded and wearing the long white apron with a bar towel over the shoulder and a villainously curled handlebar mustache, or whether an attractive young lady in a short skirt and silk blouse, was always Mr. Baxter.

The stamped-tin ceiling remained, the decor remained -- elk antlers and pencil drawings, portraits taken on glass plate or sheets of tin, an upright piano with beer-stain circles on its closed top, along with some scars and scuffs where dancing-girls disported themselves most shamefully on top of the ivory 88 (something not seen in well more than half a century, or so we are told, though we have doubts).

The back stairway still existed, though it remained unknown to all but a very few.

A pale eyed woman in a McKenna gown stepped out of an Iris, onto its middle landing, a hair raising piece of precision transport, possible only because the cloaked Diplomatic shuttle hovered above the Silver Jewel -- near enough to split a playing card edgewise with a pistol, had a certain pale eyed diplomat been so inclined.

Marnie looked around, listening.

The door behind her was locked, in accessible to any but a select few, of whom she was one, had she so chosen.

She looked around the surprisingly dust-free stairway.

It was narrow, it was steep, it glowed with the sunlit richness of hand-sanded wood, carefully shellacked, varnished, skillfully fitted.

Marnie lifted her skirts, stepped carefully down the staircase, felt-soled slippers silent, without even a whisper to betray her passage.

The staircase smelled of ghosts and of age.

They would probably have been ... halfway, she thought.

Right about here.

Marnie gathered her skirts, sat gracefully, the way a woman will when she is feeling particularly feminine ... the way a woman will when she wears an elegant gown of well more than a century agone.

They were ... not children, she thought.

Sarah's hips must not've widened yet.

Jacob was reputed to be as narrow in the hip as his pale eyed Pa.

Marnie frowned a little, considering how her own maternal hips filled much of the available width.

She looked ahead, to vertical boards, carefully crafted, decoratively edged, precisely assembled.

Now that's craftsmanship, she thought.

A sound caught her ear -- a key, entering a lock --

Whither away --

Above me --

Marnie bent her wrist, keyed in a command, rose, turned --

Marnie felt the static as the Iris opened behind her.

She saw the door open above her --

A maid, holding a stack of linens, her eyes widening as she saw Marnie --

 

"Tillie," the maid gasped, shivering, "my God! a ghost! On the back stairs, it's HAUNTED! --"

Mr. Baxter poured a half glass of wine, added a double shot of something water clear, not over thirty days old and most certainly not gained through normal channels of purchase: he pressed the wineglass into the wheat-faced maid's hand, looked at a concerned Tillie.

The maid raised the glass, drained it without taking a breath.

Tillie pulled out a chair and the maid collapsed, shaking, dropped her face in her hands, shuddered.

Tillie knelt before her, reached up, drew her hands away.

"Tell me what you saw," she said gently. "You're safe now, shhh, nothing can hurt you here."

The maid stared at Tillie, her eyes wide, then she blinked, thrust to her feet, stumbled around the corner, behind the bar.

The maid thrust a stiff, shaking finger at a portrait -- at the colorized double portrait of a pale eyed young woman in a shimmering-blue McKenna gown with a fashionable little hat.

It was a portrait Willamina arranged to have taken.

Marnie Keller wore a gown, reverse engineered from the formal portrait of Sarah Lynne McKenna before she left to be married.

The two portraits were alike enough to have been two portraits of the same subject.

The maid's voice was a whisper, her throat tightened as her accusing words hissed from between clenched teeth:

"Her. There. That's the ghost I saw!"

"Did ... she say anything?" Tillie pressed.

The maid stared, wide eyed, looking at the double portrait, looking at the memory which scared her out of a year's growth.

"No," she whispered. "No ... she turned and looked at me, and ... disappeared."

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SOAP BEANS

"WA'L NOW IF IT AIN'T SOAPY!"

The cook straightened, pausing the stirring of his soup beans momentarily: he watched as a pale eyed lawman swung down, glared at him, went back to his saddlebag and fetched out something wrapped in a greasy cloth.

"YOU GOT A KNIFE WORTH USIN' OR DO I HAVE TO USE M' BARLOW I JUST USED FOR GELDING?" the Sheriff shouted back at the bewhiskered, pot stirring fellow: the package thumped down on a surface intended for such purpose, the Sheriff picked up a sway belly Green River and proceeded to cut something in thin slices.

He shaved off a pile of whisker thin whatever until he had a double handful, then he picked it up and sprinkled it in the pot of beans.

"THERE NOW, YOU CHEAP SORT," he shouted, "THAT'LL IMPROVE WHATEVER YOU'RE TRYIN' T' PIZEN THESE POOR FELLAS WITH!"

The cook set his jaw and squinted threateningly.

"NOW IF YOU REALLY WANTED TO HELP, YOU TROUBLE MAKIN' SOAP EATER, YOU'D BRING SOME COFFEE WHEN YOU COME AROUND!"

The Sheriff lowered his head, shoved out his bottom jaw, narrowed his eyes, raised a fist and shook it menacingly: "YOU JUST WATCH!"

He turned and went down his stallion's starboard side, got into the other saddlebag and brought out something else wrapped in a cleaner cloth than he'd pulled from the portside poke:  he carried this over to the chuck wagon, unwrapped it, slid it neatly onto the laid-open work surface and tightened down a brand new, chuck wagon sized, coffee grinder.

"NOW WHO'S BEIN' CHEAP!" the cook bellowed, poking the newly added, shoestring-thin strips of sliced bacon down into the bubbling soup: "YOU BRING ME A GRINDER AND YOU AIN'T GOT NOTHIN' TO GRIND IN IT!"

The cook took a surprised step back and caught the cloth poke the Sheriff tossed under handed.

He lifted it, sniffed it, blinked in surprise and found he had no good retort to make.

Not when a man showed up, shaved in most of a pound of thin shaved bacon and just plainly give him a coffee grinder, and coffee to be ground in it.

"YOU STILL GIVIN' THE PEPPERMINT STICK TO WHOEVER YOU CAN SWINDLE INTO BUSTIN' UP THE BEANS?" the Sheriff shouted, knowing their raised voices were attracting attention and grins.

The cook scowled and opened his mouth to say something as the Sheriff pulled another bundle, this from a coat pocket, unwrapped it and fanned out a half dozen peppermint sticks: he wrapped them quickly, set them in the open chuck wagon, slid in another bundle of probably more of the same, whipped the greasy cloth over what was left of a bundle of sliced bacon, then draped the cloth over it to keep flies off.

"WELL DAMMIT NOW'T YOU TH'OWED STUFF IN MY BEANS I RECKON YOU WANT SOME!" the cook shouted.

A pale eyed Sheriff wiped his hands on his thighs, mounted up, touched his hat brim and turned his stallion: those hands close enough to have heard the exchange, watched the long tall lawman in a black suit canter away, looked at one another, strong and lean young men with expressions of anticipation.

It was not often that pale eyed Sheriff stopped on a drive, but when he did, he always brought something good: working men are hungry men, and once Cookie beat the come-and-get-it triangle, everyone from trail boss to drag rider was grateful for the visit: Cookie's beans had gotten kind of bland here of late, and the lawman's bacon -- and the coffee he brought -- were more than welcome additions to their drive.

 

Willamina Keller stood behind the portable podium on the folding table: she adjusted the wiry rimmed spectacles that rode fashionably, halfway down her nose, as she picked up a half-sheet of paper and held it out, examining it as if she were a schoolteacher assessing a student's work.

"It seems," Willamina said, "that not all young men on a cattle drive, were illiterate."

She looked over her spectacles at the Ladies of their Tea Society, amusement in her expression.

"It seems that random acts of kindness were practiced in the Old West period which we celebrate."

Several expressions of genuine interest were immediately seen among the ladies gathered.

"My Very Great Grandfather was known to visit a cattle drive if he was in that area -- the drives were from where cattle were, to the railyards in Kansas, so oftentimes it was when he was south of here, and east -- he would donate to their chuck wagon.

"I have here a letter from a young cowhand, written after a bountiful repast of sourdough bread, soup beans with plenty of bacon -- he says, 'Bacon was a thing to be wished for, but when Soap Beans showed up, he sliced a good jag of bacon thin and dumped it into our simmering pot of beans."

"Soap Beans," Willamina repeated, smiling as she did: "I can't help but wonder if the fellow who called him Soapy gained employment as a cook on a cattle drive, and his explanation of who the man was, or what he was, got kind of garbled."

Marnie looked at the copy of the handwritten letter and giggled, shaking her head.

"Soap Beans!" she sighed. "I don't know of anyone else who could have called him that and lived!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE MAIDEN DIED TWICE

Angela Keller thanked her maid, her voice as gentle, her smile as genuine, as it habitually was.

It was a good household: children were healthy and active, the Lady of the House was as pleasant in private, as she was in public, and Angela, married now, and a mother, was far better an employer than either of the two households the maid worked for before.

 

Angela broke the red-wax seal with a quiet smile: she recognized both her Papa's handwriting, and the Rose seal he used with his personal correspondence.

Angela unfolded good rag paper, her eyes smiling as she did.

Her smile lasted until she saw the rose drawn in the upper left corner of the sheet.

Angela stopped, closed her eyes and took a long, steadying breath, then she read the letter, and read it a second time.

Angela Keller, wife and mother, and daughter of a certain pale eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache, folded the letter carefully and placed it on the round table beside her chair.

Angela rose and went to the fireplace, pressed a hidden release.

A door swung open -- narrow it was, but tall: Angela reached in, withdrew a double barrel shotgun, with an antler whistle on a neck-lanyard hanging from its muzzle.

Angela opened the double gun, checked -- yes, the swan shot rounds her Papa preferred, were in residence -- she reached into the concealed cubby, withdrew a half dozen brass rounds, distributed these between two pockets on her day-gown, then closed the door quietly.

"Thank you, Papa," she whispered, then she raised the antler whistle to her lips, blew.

 

"My daughter?" the Sheriff said quietly, turning to face the visitor squarely.

They stood at the bar: this stranger, this affable, smiling man with the generous purse, bought for the house, bought the Sheriff his pleasure: the Sheriff listened to the volume of insincerity this stranger was shoveling into his boots -- listened patiently, for he was a lawman, and he was used to being lied to.

Sooner or later, he thought, he's going to slip and show me what he's hiding.

All I need do is listen.

All I need do is wait.

"My employer inquires after your daughter."

A more perceptive soul would have felt the air chill several degrees, or perhaps this slick talking soul chose to ignore the drop in temperature.

"Which," Linn asked slowly, "daughter?"

"Oh, I am so terribly sorry, old boy ... your daughter Angela."

"Angela."

"Delightful child, I am told."

"And you want to know about her."

"Yes, of course. Not myself of course, no, I am inquiring for my employer."

"Who is ...?" the Sheriff asked quietly.

"A certain ... well-off investor, who is willing to pay her well."

"For what, exactly?"

It was not the question of a man with a genuine interest.

It was the question of a man who was deciding just how much violence to visit upon a stranger, who presumed to inquire into matters which were absolutely none of his damned business.

"My employer is a man who makes a great deal of money," the slicker smiled in the artificially cheerful way of a braggart: "he wishes to make even more, and such men" -- he leaned closer to the Sheriff, lowered his voice confidentially -- "such men are often generous."

His wink came perilously close to earning him a face full of beer mug.

The Sheriff looked down at his beer mug, set his beer on the mirror-polished mahogany, his moves slow, deliberate.

His hand released its grip on the mug's handle.

Mr. Baxter backed up a half-step, his eyes going to the abbreviated twelve-bore under the bar.

The Sheriff seized the stranger's lapels, hands moving like striking vipers: he twisted up a good double handful of material, hauled the man off his feet: the Sheriff took a long step back, turned, SLAMMED the stranger into the wall.

Hard.

Ranch hardened arms curled, hoisting the grimacing, gasping confidence man off the floor by a foot and a half, held him easily against the wall.

"Why," the Sheriff said quietly, "does this fellow want to know about" -- he stopped, pulled the man back, until their noses were an inch apart -- "about my, little, girl?"

The stranger reached up, touched the back of his head where it had bounced most uncomfortably off varnished, smooth-sanded boards: he realized, when he unscrewed his eyes and took a look at a set of the coldest, hardest, most unforgiving eyes he'd ever seen, that his career choice had proven rather poor.

"He, he's building a, a, a schooner, schooner," the natty slicker stammered, hoping sincerely he didn't get bounced off the wall -- or anything else.

"My little girl," the Sheriff said quietly, "is not a shipwright."

"He, he, he's naming, naming the schooner," the slicker mumbled, then swallowed.

The Sheriff dropped the man to his feet, released his lapels and seized his necktie instead, pulled up, twisted.

"What," the Sheriff hissed, "is he naming it?"

The slicker swallowed.

"The Maiden," he admitted.

Sheriff Linn Keller felt the cold, bony hand of the Reaper himself clutch around his guts and squeeze.

"The Maiden," the Sheriff echoed.

The slicker nodded, quick jerky moves.

"He's naming a new ship after one that broke her back on uncharted shoals and sank."

"He, he, he wants, wants to break, break the jinx."

The Sheriff twisted the necktie a little more, pushing the man down to his knees.

"Why does he need my, little, girl?"

"He, he'll pay, pay, pay her well," the stranger offered, desperation filling his soul as he finally realized just how thoroughly he'd offended a man he didn't completely realize until too late, was the hard-eyed father of the sole survivor of the original Maiden's shipwreck.

The Sheriff hauled the man to his feet with a shocking ease.

"He wants my daughter on a ship named for one that broke her back on an uncharted shoal," the Sheriff said.

The slicker gripped the Sheriff's wrist, impotently trying to release the choke hold on his necktie: he nodded, little jerky nods.

"Mr. Baxter."

Mr. Baxter came out from behind the door and strode for the heavy double doors, hauled one open, stood back, smiled.

 

Two grinning little boys came running up to their Mama as she lowered the whistle from her lips, two active, healthy, apple-cheeked little boys in knee pants.

Angela flipped the whistle's leather lanyard over the oldest son's head, reached into a pocket, drew out another for her younger son.

"I need your eyes," she said. "Outside with you, and take the positions I showed you both."

Their young eyes became suddenly solemn, their expressive faces serious.

"We may have someone coming who we don't want here. Should a stranger set foot within our picket fence" -- she lowered her head slightly -- "blow the whistle as I showed you. One long and two short."

She turned a little and let them see that she held the double gun in the folds of her skirt.

"Yes, Mama," they chorused.

"Off with you, now," Angela said. "Your father will be home in a week, and we can tell him all about it when he gets back."

Angela looked up.  

"Janet," she said, "should we have unpleasantness, I want you to make your escape through the back -- unless there is someone in back, then through the cellar as we've practiced."

"Yes, ma'am."

Two days later, the Sheriff was loafing comfortably against an ornately-turned post holding the roof over the boardwalk in front of his heavy timber Sheriff's office.

He turned his head and looked diagonally across the street at the dirt where he'd thrown a fast talking slicker out of the Silver Jewel, and invited him to go to Hell, or to San Francisco as he chose, his daughter was not to be disturbed.

He was waiting patiently, and his patience was rewarded: a boy came running up, breathless and grinning, and traded the Sheriff a letter for a coin, then ran at the same pell-mell velocity diagonally across the street, with full intent to turn coin into pie.

The Sheriff looked at the seal: a fish, or some similar sea creature: Angela adopted the insignia as her personal seal, after such a cetacean kept her from drowning when the Maiden foundered, and was lost, some years ago.

He broke the seal, opened the letter.

Dearest Papa, he read.

Your warning was timely.

I found myself obliged to introduce the muzzle of my double gun into a rich man's belly and invite him to so much as breathe wrong.

He insisted that I would oblige him with my presence on a ship named for the Maiden, which foundered, to my very wet distress: I asked if this new ship, one named against all good sense for a ship murdered by Neptune himself, was painted blue-green to further insult the sea-gods.

He actually threatened me, Papa: he threatened to ruin my husband's business, he threatened to have the bank foreclose our house out from under us -- never mind it is paid in full and utterly without lien -- it was not until I drove the gun-muzzles into his overblown gut and then drove the butt of my bird gun into his nose and landed him, bloodied and blind with pain, on his back, that he saw the merits of my argument.

The fact that I eared the hammers back as he looked at me with watering, smarting eyes, added to the authority of my words.

Should he return, Papa, he or his representatives, I shall not hesitate to treat them to a good dose of swan shot, and have so informed our local constabulary. The fact that the Chief of Police is one of your admirers, is of definite benefit.

My husband's fortunes continue to prosper, due in no little part to your wise counsel, and your having helped his initial investment: you steered him away from two mines that failed soon after they were sold, and you steered him away from a railroad that bankrupted.

Those business ventures to which you encouraged him, prospered.

Thank you, Papa.

 

The Sheriff re-read the letter a week later -- a week to the day after receiving it in his hands -- and as he re-read the letter, his eyes drifted to the newspaper, but a day old, brought in on the steam-train.

One of the headlines, appropriately bold and prominent, announced that a particular investor was lost at sea when he sought to break a seagoing jinx, by having a schooner built and named after a schooner that broke her back and sank some years before, with the loss of all hands, of all but one passenger.

The lost schooner was named for the schooner on which his daughter was riding that stormy night.

The Maiden.

The Sheriff considered the bold-faced title above the article:

The Maiden Died Twice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

YES, YOU DID

It was rare for this particular father to go to this particular grave, probably because it had always been so painful.

For whatever reason, his gut told him now was the time.

He'd learned Uncle Will was right when he counseled, "When in doubt, son, follow your gut."

This advice, from an old veteran badge packer to a green-as-spring-grass deputy, proved both sound, and accurate.

A paramedic stood on the concrete firehouse apron with a set of binoculars.

She had a great liking for binoculars.

She'd made good use of them at wrecks, especially if the wreck was a tanker -- she'd do her best to get eyes on its placard so the Irish Brigade would have a better idea what they were getting into -- today she was making a routine, methodical study of rooflines: smoke, she knew, sought height, and a roofline that was leaking smoke, was quite probably a bad thing.

It was by absolute accident that she saw the Appaloosa turn broadside to her as her glass lifted to the cemetery, well higher than she.

Shelly stopped, her forehead wrinkling a little as she realized just which section of the cemetery her husband was walking, and she felt her stomach tighten.

Linn stopped at a double grave, a double stone at a child-long interment.

Their firstborn, the twins, Emil and Gottleib.

Linn closed his eyes, lifted his chin, listened to Apple-horse sampling the grass underhoof.

He smiled.

 

Gottleib, just starting to crawl, reaching for The Bear Killer's big paw, laughing: Emil, scooting, not quite crawling but right next to it, watching his twin brother with wide and wondering eyes: two infant boys in hand-sewn, flannel onesies, each with a gold, six point star carefully embroidered on the seat of their drawers -- a gift from Linn's pale eyed Mama, given with a quiet look that barely concealed her laughter that managed to slip out from under her reserve as she turned each one over to show her handiwork.

Linn smelled clean mountain air and horse leather, he heard The Lady Esther chanting steadily, somewhere in the mountains: he recalled putting a hand around one twin boy's shoulders, the other hand around the other twin boy's shoulders, and he remembered telling them in a quiet and fatherly voice that he was proud of them.

There'd been a violent disturbance at the Firelands hospital -- he forgot just why they were there -- the boys followed their Pa's training and found a defensible position.

Unfortunately, this was a patient room, and the patient was held down with leather restraints, and the patient was not yet medicated, and was wide-eyed, terrified of some unknown threat.

Emil went to the blanket warmer and pulled out a warmed blanket, while Gottleib laid a hand on the shivering back of the patient's hand and said quietly, "We're here. You're safe. We won't let it hurt you."

Between the boys staying with him, and the reassurance of a warmed blanket, the patient calmed a little -- he was still fearful, still convinced something was coming for him, but the twins took enough of the edge off his personal terror that nothing further happened.

Linn received the boys' report and the ER staff's uncomfortable admission that yes, they had to leave the patient without supervision as they had an emergency and they were short staffed, and yes, they don't recommend it but Linn's sons calmed a psychotic patient.

Linn looked at the double stone.

He'd carefully avoided this end of the family section.

He'd listened to people just pour their livin' hearts out all over his boots, grieving for a child, and he'd listened carefully, he'd held a hand or gripped a shoulder or hugged a hard-muscled man with callused palms and a shattered soul, as these folk grieved losing their own children, but he'd frozen his own grief, immersed it in liquid nitrogen and built walls around it.

They were Firstborn, and they were dead.

Linn remembered how the boys would run -- they had two speeds, wide open and dead stop -- they'd run up to the pasture fence, and one or t'other would run along this side of the fence, and one of the Appaloosa would run with him: he'd turn and run back and tag team his twin, who'd run along the fence, and the Appaloosa ran with him: one or the other of the boys would climb the fence and jump bareback, a-straddle of a spotty barrel full of Old Dan, and they'd take out at a flat-out gallop down-pasture with Apple-horse's nose punched out and busting a hole in the wind, with his ears laid back and a grinning boy laid over his neck with a good double handful of as much mane as he could manage, stuck to that stallion's back like a wood tick on a coon hound: more often than not they'd do this after they'd worked themselves at chores until they were tired and they were sweaty, they'd peel off their shirt and throw it over the fence on a return pass and they'd sit upright some, with Apple still just plainly splittin' the wind.

Linn watched them at this, one evening, their healthy bodies glowing in the long red rays of the setting sun.

He did not watch two boys, taking turns, riding a horse.

He saw bare chested GODS, riding the wind itself!

Linn blinked, chewed on his bottom lip, looked at the stone again.

He opened that door in the wall he'd built around the memories, opened it just a little wider.

He remembered Emil would lay a five gallon bucket over on its side and set on it while Gottleib would dance bow legged in front of Linn's favorite saddlehorse, Emil beating a rhythm on the bottom of the laid-over five-gallon plastic bucket, while Gottleib danced, bow legged, left, then right, and Apple-horse would dance with him, left, then right, and Linn remembered the sound of his boys' laughter as they did.

Linn closed his eyes and smiled, just a little, as he allowed himself to haul that door open, and to look at the memories he'd stacked in that stone walled vault.

 

That night he ate with the Irish Brigade.

His wife sat beside him: conversation was brisk, laughter was frequent, insults were common, the good-natured banter of men who'd gone shoulder-to-shoulder into situations that would curl the hair on a bald man's head, and come out the other side.

About the time everyone finished, Linn's hand stole over and squeezed his wife's, just a little, and he leaned toward her and murmured, "Darlin', I am proud of you!"

 

The next planet out in the Solar System, a pale eyed Sheriff considered his son's efforts.

Joseph made a fast and efficient repair on a compressor -- the discharge line work-hardened and cracked, Joseph went to the control panel and brought the second compressor on-line, made sure the valves cycled as they should -- he took the primary off-line, then frowned in youthful concentration as he disconnected the discharge line, spinning pipe unions apart as if he'd done it all his life, brought out the damaged section: he took it to the scanner, analyzed the failure, punched in the commands to spin a better alloy for the purpose: it took him less than fifteen minutes to complete the repair, but with the second compressor on line this close to designated rotation, he noted in the maintenance log that routine compressor rotation occurred 36 hours ahead of time, that repair was completed: Jacob watched, silently, from a distance, as his growing son applied compound to the threads, set the new part into place, tightened the connections.

Jacob waited until his son finished cleaning the compound off his hands, cleaned his work area, and Jacob had to stifle a chuckle as he remembered his own pale-eyed Pa's quiet words as cleaned his tools after a messy job:

"I don't live like a pig, I won't work like one!"

He waited until supper that night, when he sat down to supper with his wife and his young, and he looked very directly at Joseph.

"That was a good repair on the compressor," he said quietly. "What ailed the part you had to replace?"

Joseph grinned -- quick, bright, spontaneous -- "It cracked in the first thread, sir," he replied, blinking as his memory looked at the failed connection again. "I knew it could run like that, but I didn't want it losin' air."

Jacob nodded thoughtfully.

"I watched you work," he said in that deep, fatherly voice he remembered his own Pa using -- he blinked, looked at Ruth in honest surprise, for he'd just opened his mouth, and his father's voice fell out -- he looked back at Joseph and said "Joseph, I am proud of you.  You saw a problem, you recognized a problem, you fixed the problem."  

Jacob leaned forward, just a little, looking very directly at his son.

"Joseph," he said, "I am proud of you!"

 

After supper, after the collective dog pile around the kitchen sink, after dishes were washed and stacked in the drain rack and the kitchen cleaned up, Linn and his wife withdrew to the squad bay.

Linn slouched comfortably against the red-painted brick wall, loafing so naturally his wife wondered if this was a characteristic of Old West lawmen -- she'd heard Willamina, her mother in law, describing how Old Pale Eyes assumed the same posture, leaning on a turned-wood post in front of the Sheriff's office, as if it were his bounden duty to prop up that post.

"I went to the graveyard today," Linn said quietly.

"I know," Shelly murmured, tilting her head a little as she studied her husband.  "I saw you."

Linn grinned -- that quick, boyish, spontaneous grin he reserved for family, and nobody else.

"I can't get away with nothin'!" he mock-complained, and Shelly narrowed her eyes, raised a fist and shook it menacingly:  "And don't you forget it, buster!"

They both laughed quietly, for it was an old joke between them.

Linn's amusement drained from his face like water after washing for supper.

"I realized," Linn said slowly, his expression going from amused to neutral to troubled, "I actually did tell the twins ... that they'd done something well, and I was proud of them."

Shelly waited, blinking slowly, the way a woman will when what she's being told comes as no surprise.

Linn looked at Shelly again.

"Darlin', did I ever tell Jacob I'm proud of him?"

Shelly took a step nearer, laid a gentle hand on his crossed arms.

"Yes," she said, looking him square in the eye.  "Yes, you did."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A GOOD MATCH

A steel 55-gallon drum boomed like a young explosion.

Angela's eyes widened as the white-with-red-trim barrel sailed through the air, badly dented -- dented hell, half the side was caved in! -- she watched, shocked, as Michael absolutely DESTROYED the barrel racing setup they'd painstakingly measured and laid out and set up.

Michael.

Her little brother.

Michael, in a flannel shirt and blue jeans, a maniacal look of utter destructive JOY on his face, grinning like a possum eatin' on a dead horse, yelling and kicking his mount to greater speed, to greater violence, to greater DESTRUCTION!!!

Angela had gone first.

Angela, too, was in flannel and jeans, she trotted her Daddy's racer to the near end of the pasture.

Marnie stood under a stationary vid-drone; one floated along beside her, a second was a little ahead, but keeping pace: Angela rode upright, primly, her Daddy's shining-black racing mare looking like she was mincing on her polished-black tippy-toes.

The horn sounded, the mare turned from a dancing girl into a flat-out arrow, she went from ears-up, head-up, tail arched, to stuck out, low to the ground, shining-black SPEED in a tenth of a second or more: Angela was leaned ahead, her hands flat on the mare's neck as this four hoof SNAKE slalomed like a shaft of black light between the brightly-painted barrels:  left, right, left, right, the end of the string, whip around, come back and make a beeline for the finish gate, done.

Technicians looked from screen to screen congratulating themselves on their camera-work: they had views from above, from ahead, they had the two drones dedicated to Angela, one from above, one from beside and ahead, capturing her expression -- capturing the look of an angel, rejoicing at the sensation of earthbound speed, the absolute DELIGHT on her face as he mare leaned into each slaloming course correction, then laid her ears flat against her skull and drove for the finish gate fast enough to stretch a Guardian Angels' flight skills just to keep up!

Michael waited patiently, watching his older sister and her well-matched mount, the very image of grace, of beauty, of speed, of honestly feminine coordination.

Michael had seen many riders, male and female, and he honestly marveled at how certain ladies, in the saddle, managed to make their mare actually run, and appear ... 

... well, feminine.

Michael was coming of an age to notice such things.

He considered that his sister was making his Pa's shining-black racing mare just that much more coordinated, that much more graceful.

Michael leaned down, patted Lightning's blunt, muscled neck.

"Come on, girl," he murmured.  "Let's show 'em how it's done."

The Fanghorn lifted her head, grunted: Thunder on her left, Cyclone on her right, Lightning began pacing for the opposite end of the ersatz arena, set up in Linn's long, wide pasture.

Lightning outweighed a saddlehorse by at least twice; she was taller, she was obviously more muscled, her bones were both thicker and denser, and her colts showed this same growth pattern: the three had the low, blunt, conical bosses in the middle of their reinforced foreheads, their skulls more than capable of withstanding impacts that would utterly shatter the osteocranial structure of a mere equine.

Vid-techs adjusted their drone cameras' programming to duplicate Angela's video capture.

Michael and Lightning turned, Lightning's pace was ponderous, powerful, her hoof-falls deliberate as they came up abreast of the still-mounted Angela.

Lightning started to dance.

Left-fore and right-hind, then right-fore and left-hind: she danced, her usual silent tread now powerful, ponderous, intentional impacts that Angela's mare felt through her hooves.

Lightning shook her head, snarling quietly, then she growled -- a deep, menacing, I'm-going-to-eat-the-meat-off-your-bones sound that made Angela's mare wall her eyes and throw her head to the side, muttering her unhappiness:  she spun, ready to bolt: Angela's legs tightened as the mare crow-hopped to the side, as she the shining-black racer with voice and with hands.

The mare stood, shivering, watching Lightning, watching this PREDATOR that made her want to escape over the nearest mountain range!

The horn sounded.

Lightning surged forward, surprisingly swift for something of her honest tonnage.

Lightning did not curve gracefully between the barrels.

Lightning put her head down and screamed hoarse defiance and RAMMED the first barrel, sending it straight ahead and over the second barrel -- the second, she threw her head, BLASTED the second barrel to the right, threw her head again, BLAMMO and a mashed-to-ruin barrel flew to the left -- down the arena she went, hoofbeats loud and hard on packed dirt, barrels EXPLODING to the left and to the right, and two younger Fanghorns a-follow, each ramming the fallen enemy, spinning them to the side: Lightning reared, whirled like a ballerina at the end of her run -- she was as light in her spin as any toe-dancer in a frilly tutu -- if you can imagine the power and menace of a D9 Cat with hemorrhoids, in satin toe shoes and a frilly tutu.

Marnie, the dignified, feminine, reserved diplomat well known among the Thirteen -- Marnie, in a McKenna gown and a fashionable little hat -- Marnie, in matching gloves, dropped her frilly parasol and jumped up and down, gloved hands fisted and punching the air, screaming like a cheerleader watching the winning touchdown as it happened.

Lightning put her head down and bawled like an incensed Texas longhorn, she charged down the arena and for the finish gate.

She did not thunder down the arena's length.

Thunder is too mild a word.

She was an insane war tank on four hooves, punishing the earth beneath her for the offense of merely existing!

Her time was not as ... swift ... as Angela's had been.

It was, however, rather the more memorable.

Edited September 15, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SEATING ARRANGEMENTS

 

The Deacon's Bench was bolted to the cement in front of the Sheriff's office.

It was dismounted for a new coat of paint, every year, and was replaced by three, white-plastic, five gallon buckets, turned over: a temporary container stood behind them, repurposed from someone's old bookshelf: it had a glass door and it contained three pillows, as the bottom of a five gallon bucket generally has a cast reinforcing ring in addition to the outer ring, and tends to be hard on the backside after a while.

The Sheriff was parked on one of the five gallon buckets: his son, beside him, sat unmoving and silent.

Finally Jacob spoke.

"Quite a hearse Digger had yesterday."

The Sheriff was quiet for several long moments as he recalled the previous day.

"Yep," he agreed quietly.

Jacob's pale eyes ranged along rooflines, automatically looking for places of ambush. It was a habit he'd cultivated early, a habit that kept him alive on one occasion and possibly two others where someone watching him, saw they were being watched, and retreated.

"First time I ever saw a rat rod hearse."

The Sheriff's eyes tightened a little at the corners as he recalled the candy-apple-red, hand-rubbed paint job, the shining-black frame, an engine that could have pulled a protesting locomotive backwards, all shaker scoop and blower and chrome drag racing pipes and broad, white-letter drag slicks.

"Yep."

Jacob's eyes ranged off to the right.

Silence, again: Jacob was here on a visit, he'd come into town when a local high school boy was taken from the funeral home to the cemetery: he'd listened, he'd watched, he'd pieced together what the story likely was.

"Sir, do I understand the deceased died of cancer?"

The Sheriff was quiet for a moment longer than necessary, and Jacob saw his father blink twice, then nod.

"He did."

Linn shifted, lifted his weight off the pillow, settled back down on the Genuine Bucket Seat.

"Cancer was all through him before they found it. Nothing helped. He quit going to school, he quit chemo after the first session. He said he didn't want to be sick and in pain for what time he had left. He went fishing instead and I had to sit on the administration and the truant officer to keep them from going after him."

"Didn't they know?"

"Nope."

Jacob frowned, slowly sandpapering his palms together.

"Don't reckon he wanted to burden anyone."

Jacob nodded.

Linn looked over.

"I set up traffic control for that one."

"I saw, sir."

Linn swallowed, his gaze distant as he remembered.

"Before the funeral, I caught every one of those high school boys who were friends of his. I pulled 'em in groups of one or two or six and caught 'em all and I let 'em know, and when they came out of the cemetery, I'd stop 'em and look left and look right and I'd flag 'em out one at a time."

Linn paused, remembering the roar of angry exhaust, the scream of rubber on pavement, smoke rising in the still air.

"I'd flag 'em out one at a time and I stuck my finger up and spun it -- burn 'em off for Denny -- I knew they were going to, they'd planned on doing it, and I allowed as I'd not stop 'em."

Jacob nodded.

"They burned 'em off and I made sure they stayed safe don' it ... I told 'em don't go speedin' because there'd be radar watchin', knowin' young fellows with a belly full of grief would be comin' out, and sure enough there were, once you got out away from the cemetery."

"Ours, sir?"

"No. No, Jacob, nobody from here, 'twas State boys watchin' and they never wrote one single speedin' ticket."

Jacob considered this.

"I reckon," he said slowly, "that is a good thing."

Linn nodded slowly.

"Reckon so."

Silence, again.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Sir, what was that about Shake and Monty last night?"

Jacob saw the corners of his father's eyes tighten a little.

"They'd caught a ride to the skating rink," Linn said quietly, "but their ride wasn't there when the place closed down and they couldn't get a ride home."

Jacob thought of the rink, its location: "What did they do?"

Jacob could feel his father's unspoken amusement.

"They strapped their skates back on and roller skated right down the center line toward home."

Jacob blinked, thinking --

Dead of night?

Middle of the road?

Roller skates???

"I saw somethin' pale ahead," Linn said, "it was Shake's right forearm he was swingin' as he skated. That's the only thing I could see in the dark.

"I stopped and give 'em a ride home.

"We stopped at the All-Night and I told 'em I was hungry and I didn't say it but I knew they were too, so we-all set on the bench outside and had us a bite to eat.

"They ate -- chicken and those tater slices" -- Jacob nodded, his own smile tightening the corners of his eyes, for he'd eaten that same meal, many times -- "finally Shake asked me if I was going to give 'em hell for roller skatin' on the highway.

"I stopped and I looked at 'em and said, 'Hell, at your age, I'd probably have done the same thing!' -- that got a laugh out of 'em -- then I said I'd just a soon they didn't get splattered by a drowsy driver, and I'd take 'em home and don't worry about it, they're not in trouble."

Jacob nodded thoughtfully.

They looked off to the left as the utilities truck eased over to the curb, stopped: two men got out, dropped the tailgate, brought the shining, enamel-painted bench out.

"Trade ya!" came the cheerful call from the grinning municipal employee.

The Sheriff rose, picked up his pillow and his five gallon bucket.

Jacob did the same.

The two lawmen stacked their Genuine Bucket Seats in the truckbed, then placed the pillows in the repurposed bookshelf, picked it up and set it in the truck bed: the Sheriff closed the tailgate, turned to the nearest of the utility men and deadpanned, "I do love a good trade!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

HIDDEN DYNAMITE

Strong young men, naked to the waist, seized the deadfall: they'd limbed it off as it lay,  under the watchful eye of a strong man with pale eyes.

They hadn't gotten all the limbs off: a few, at bottom dead center, were broken stubs, driven into the ground from the tree's fall: these few kept the tree trunk from hitting the ground flat.

Gloved hands gripped, tanned hides flexed and stretched as the muscles beneath sun-glowing skin strained: chunks, cut to length, were worked under the deadfall, sledge hammered into place for support.

"OFF!" the pale eyed man shouted: young men released their grips, stepped back.

Chain saws were snatched from the ground, starter ropes pulled, two cycle engines snarled into ill-tempered life: steel teeth, spinning at unholy velocities, cut off the remaining branches, the ones that held the deadfall a little off the ground, weight shifting to the saw-cut chunks they'd just forced into place.

"MEASURE!"

The end of a steel tape was slapped against the freshly-cut base, held firm by a sweating young man's gloved palm: the tape was stretched, a carpenter's pencil made a vicious slash on the freshly-barked trunk: the tape was moved, set, another mark: they made three cuts, each longer than the last by just a little, accounting for the lesser diameter of the upper trunk.

"CUT!"

Idling saws screamed back into joyful life, happily ripping narrow lanes of utter destruction through seasoned timber: they cut carefully, one young man stopping, stepping back and then making his cut from the underside, to the silent approval of the pale eyed man supervising the operation.

"LOAD!"

Saws were shut off, the plastic guards thrust over chain-tooth bars, stacked in the faded orange pickup truck: young men went to one knee beside sawed timber, one coordinated their efforts in quiet voice: at a low-voiced "One, two, three," they got gloved hands under, raised the chunk, turned and stood, timber at shoulder height.

Teams of naked to the waist, sweat-sheened high school age, suntanned and hard-muscled young men stood and packed these seasoned, sawed, standing-dead sources over to the trailer: timbers were loaded, pried into place, stacked.

The other deadfall was cut to lengths where it fell, cut to stovewood lengths: the trunk was rolled, pried, shoved, strained against, they used improvised skids to get it off the ground so their saws would not cut into the dirt: chunks were picked up or rolled, depending on their weight, moved to the splitter.

Later in the day, after the Firelands Football Team returned to the schoolhouse and showered, changed into fresh clothes and jumped back on the bus, they all filed into the Silver Jewel and set down to a good meal -- a good meal, sized for lean-waisted young men who'd been working, and working hard, all morning.

High school boys have been described as walking appetites on two hollow legs, and these certainly were.

Where they'd spent their morning wearing hardhats and visors, earmuffs and Kevlar chaps, now they wore broad grins and suntans and the expressions of strong young men who'd done a difficult thing, and done it well.

There were beneficiaries to their labor.

Some of the wood was sold; some went to a widow woman who didn't have two nickels to rub together, or so said the Sheriff: teams of young men made it their stealth mission to fill her woodshed without her knowing.

Two neighbors noticed; swift representatives rushed up to the neighbors, fingers on lips, swore them to secrecy: this was a special mission, they explained, a mission of vengeance: where the world was going to hell in a handbasket, they were avenging themselves on the world's fickle nature by making it their personal business to do something good, something unselfish, something unexpected -- in this case, providing their widowed neighbor with her winter's wood supply, and likely they'd do it again about midwinter to make sure she didn't run shy.

For some odd reason, both neighbors found favor with this, and agreed with a wink and a grin to keep their mission a secret.

In the big round barn under the cliff's overhang, the Valkyries, the ladies of Firelands High School -- a good percentage of them cheerleaders, but not all -- practiced their hand-to-hand skills under the watchful eye of a pale-eyed nurse in a white jogging outfit instead of her uniform dress, and a short, quiet, smiling man with epicanthic folds at the corners of his Oriental-black eyes.

These high school girls, these Valkyries, trained, and trained hard, as they did, with regularity.

These pretty, feminine, athletic young women, working with volunteers from their sensei's dojo, continued their regular training in a specialized style that combined the best features of multiple disciplines.

When they were done -- their day was not short, but it was not constant, it was kept interesting, thanks to the experience of a pale eyed woman in a white jogging suit, a woman who'd been a Firelands cheerleader herself, a young woman who appreciated the need to keep lessons short, interesting, pertinent, and applicable.

They, too, were bused to the Firelands high school for a shower and a change of clothes.

Their afternoon session involved specialized driving skills, things not normally entrusted to their age group: this had been taught, in this matter, for some years now, and there were two examples Angela knew of personally, where the driving skills they'd taught, kept two local girls from being forced off the road -- once intentionally, one the result of someone else's blown tire and loss of control.

Supper was at the Silver Jewel as well, and the place was honestly packed.

After everyone was seated, Angela came in, wearing a shimmering-emerald McKenna gown and a quiet smile: she smiled, raised gloved hands for attention as the Sheriff came in behind her.

Angela turned, smiled as her Daddy gripped her shoulders and kissed her cheek.

He looked down the hallway toward the kitchen and everyone there saw the man's broad grin.

"You don't need a long winded speech," he said, "not with supper comin' down the hall, so here it is.
"First of all, gentlemen, thank you for your kind attention to Jacob this morning, and to you all for the excellence of your driving skills. 

"If you used what we've taught you for criminal purposes, you would make our life difficult, but each one of you has proven yourselves trustworthy."

He glanced down the hallway again, just as the first tray emerged, steaming, fragrant and ready to set before the hungry young.

"Think of yourselves as hidden dynamite," the Sheriff said. "You are strong, you are trained and in training, and you are all potent, and effective."

He looked down at Angela with a fatherly expression, took a step back.

"Carry on!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

APPRECIATION

Dr. John Greenlees washed his hands with his usual thoroughness.

He smiled a little as he did -- that quiet, hidden smile he seldom let slip, that he very rarely allowed to be seen by the public eye.

His wife, Nurse Susan, looked over her round-lens spectacles, a knowing look he could feel without having to see: he carefully allowed water to drain from his fingers and drip off his knuckles back into the basin, he turned, he accepted the towel his wife held open and ready for his use.

"And how was the Rosenthal household?" she asked quietly.

Dr. John Greenlees smiled.

Dr. John Greenlees chuckled and shook his head.

Nurse Susan's eyebrows raised and she tilted her head a little, the way she did when she was being patient, waiting for her husband to spill the proverbial beans.

"You were there, my dear," he said in that gentle voice of his, then he gave her that wise look of his and added, "I never thought a simple house call would become a community event!"

 

Opal and Polly were, for all intents and purposes, twins.

Never mind Opal had straight, Oriental-black hair and epicanthic folds at the corners of her eyes, while Polly had wavy, cornsilk-fine, sun-blond hair with bright blue eyes: both girls shared Scots-Celtic, milk-fair skin, the kind that sunburns in five minutes or less; their build, their height, their walk, stance, their voices, were identical.

Their Mama dressed them identically, and they took a sisterly delight in each being a mirror for the other.

It was not a surprise, therefore, when a boy from town -- hired to help with ranch work -- doubled over in pain -- was gained medical assistance by virtue of the twin girls coaxing one of the horses to the fence, with both girls climbing from fence to horseback, with young hands and anxious heels urging the patient old carriage-horse into as swift a trot as the old grey could manage.

The twins rode the grey up onto the front steps of their still-under-construction hospital, Polly gripped Opal's shoulder as she stretched, reached, caught the glass teardrop at the end of the bell-pull.

Dr. Greenlees kept what the Sheriff called his "Warbag" packed and ready for just such occasions: he and Nurse Susan were quickly in his physician's surrey, with a fine trotter towing them at a right fair clip out to the Rosenthal spread, just out of town on the firehouse end.

Dr. Greenlees had been a newly graduated, absolutely inexperienced physician, when that damned War snatched him up: he went from having minimal experience, to being dropped into the middle of what he'd confided to the Sheriff as his personal vision of what Medical Hell must look like.

He was anything but inexperienced when he came out the other side of that one.

Now, as he and Nurse Susan made for the ranch house, Dr. Greenlees reviewed what little he knew.

A fourteen year old boy was doubled over, clutching his belly, sicker'n hell.

He hadn't fallen, been kicked, hit, shot, stabbed, nor had he been horned by an ill tempered beef cow.

The boy was beside the barn -- Bonnie McKenna was with him, she'd put a cool cloth on his forehead and she'd stayed with him, bless her! -- she looked at Doc with the grim expression of a mother who did not know what to do, save only stay, and provide what little comfort a maternal presence could offer.

Doc's examination and diagnosis took but moments.

He instructed two ranch hands to pick the boy up and carry him inside.

The table was cleared, and at his instruction, a clean bedsheet laid out on the table: another, smaller table was brought up, and Doc began to lay out his tools with the ease of long practice.

Nurse Susan stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Bonnie, two women with serious expressions and gentle hands: Nurse Susan's voice was pitched to soothe, to reassure: she held the ether mask on the boy's face and drizzled the water-clear, mule-kick-potent liquid onto screened gauze and quietly instructed Bonnie to open two windows halfway, to get some air moving, and make sure all the lamps were out in every room adjacent.

Dr. John Greenlees dried his hands carefully, looked at his wife and smiled a little as he remembered how steady his wife's hands were as she kept the boy unconscious, but not too unconscious: it was not the first time Dr. John Greenlees performed what most called a Kitchen Table Surgery -- in this case, it was an inflamed, swollen, hot, rather angry appendix.

Dr. Greenlees worked with his usual frowning concentration.

He'd sewn men up with cannon nearby enough to shiver the canvas tent he was working in; he'd splinted a man's leg on a battlefield while musket lead seared through the air near enough to sound like a passing bumble bee: it was not tasking to him, to perform abdominal surgery on a skinny, suntanned boy, on a dining room table, with most of the household gathered, silent, watching.

Dr. Greenlees laid in his stitches with his usual precision, working from the inside, out, doing his best to draw the deep muscle layers together so the boy would stand the least chance of herniation in later life -- whatever the follow-up sequelae might be, he knew, the boy would be alive to complain about it, unlike leaving an appendix untreated, which was universally, invariably, fatal.

When the boy was awake enough to string two thoughts together in a reasonable manner, Doc primed him with small sips of something herbal that smelled vaguely like mint, something to keep the stomach from rebelling after ether: Nurse Susan had been most attentive to keep the boy's nose pointed to the ceiling, to keep his head tilted back a little: she'd been ready, in case he'd gotten suddenly sick from the ether.

Dr. John Greenlees knew this, and part of his mind was pleased that he did not have to manage this as well: he could concentrate on his own work, knowing he could trust that part of the process to his wife's experienced attention.

They'd driven back to town, but not before realizing half the town arrived at the Rosenthal house: word spreads fast in a frontier town, and when their doctor departs at a brisk trot, this meant something of interest just happened.

It wasn't until Doc recruited from the Unorganized Militia and had Levi Rosenthal, Clark and her brother, run their arms under the boy and pick him straight up -- carefully, support his legs when you do -- not until he'd run bandage under the boy and around, wrapping the pelvis to hold the folded pad against the freshly sutured incision -- not until they'd set the boy down, carefully, and stepped back -- not until then did Doc straighten, and look around, and realize the porch was populated, the windows crowded, and if a man had hot peanuts and a carousel, he could've set up a county fair in the front yard.

Later that evening, the hired girl brought Bonnie Rosenthal a small package: it contained a flower corsage, and a note from Dr. Greenlees: she wore his expression of thanks upon her matronly bosom the next day, when she went to town.

Dr. Greenlees benefitted from the boy's family: in addition to his usual (quite modest) fee, he was the delighted recipient of a dozen eggs, three jars of this year's freshly canned fruit preserves, and a thank-you note in surprisingly good penmanship from the patient as well.

A few nights later, after supper, Dr. John Greenlees and his wife retired to the parlor, as they usually did, of an evening: instead of settling into their usual chairs, instead of Nurse Susan settling into knitting or embroidery or reading correspondence, instead of Dr. John Greenlees perusing a medical journal, or a week-old newspaper, or a book, the pair turned and faced one another.

Nurse Susan's hands were warm in Dr. Greenlees' cool, slender fingers as the two regarded one another.

"My dear?" Dr. John Greenlees said quietly, the corners of his eyes smiling as the corners of his neatly-curled handlebar rose slightly.

Nurse Susan blinked innocently over her ever-present, halfway-down-her-nose lenses.

"Yes, my husband?"

"Please know," Dr. John Greenlees said carefully, "that I very much appreciate all that you do, and all that you are."

Silence grew between them, but not an empty silence: Dr. John saw the color rise in his wife's cheeks, saw the soft expression in her eyes: husband and wife embraced, the long, contented embrace of a well matched couple who genuinely enjoy one another's company.

 

Edited September 18, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

STEELSHIRT

The silence that followed Deputy Marnie Keller's swift removal of her blouse, and tossing same carelessly to the side, was like the sudden silence that follows a thunderclap.

Marnie spun like a dancer, hands on her hips, the look she gave four rows of seated deputies was smoldering, seductive: her head was lowered a little, she looked at them through long, natural lashes, she had just a hint of a smile on her rich, red lips, and this lasted about one and a half heartbeats, until she bent over, red-faced and laughing, as every one of these lawmen from several counties around, came to their feet, laughing, whistling, pounding their palms together in raucous appreciation.

 

This takes some explaining.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller stepped behind the podium and started without preamble.

"I prefer a universe with you alive and well in it," he said bluntly, "and to that end, we wear body armor."

He looked around, his bottom jaw sliding out a little.

"Back in the American West, it was a mark of dishonor to be found to be wearing a Steel Shirt, as they were called then."  

He smiled a little as Marnie came up beside him, her tread silent, her face solemn.

"It was a serious impugnment of one's honor to be simply accused of wearing a Steel Shirt.

"Lawmen often wore a tightly-woven and sometimes rather thick, silk vest, owing to its ability to stop some projectiles and to impair the ability of a blade to cause difficulties."

He stepped to the side and Marnie took his place.

"Before the American Civil War, it was dishonorable for one man to shoot another.  Dishonorable.  It was a mark of cowardice. Men killed one another with knives, clubs, rocks, fists, feet, singletrees, axes, but not guns. Women, on the other hand, could -- because historically, women are regarded as the weaker vessel."

"Hey Marnie!" came a voice from a back row.  "Are you a weaker vessel?"

Marnie stepped back, spit on her hands, smacked them together and raised her fists:  "Wanta jump on and find out?"

Almost every last lawman there laughed and replied with a loud and chorused "NOOOOOO!" -- probably because every last lawman there had been present when some stupid soul said yes to her offer, and got his backside kicked up between his shoulder blades for his troubles.

"Women in period could shoot men," Marnie smiled, lowering her hands and resuming her position behind the podium: "women could get away with things, to be honest, just like today."

She reached down and pressed a button.

The general and shared expression was one of puzzled surprise.

Muted trumpets, slurring trombones: hidden speakers played the raucous, hip-grinding notes of "The Stripper" as Marnie took a step back, lowered her head and gave the assembled an openly seductive look, and began unbuttoning her uniform blouse.

One button, another, with a flick of the fingers, a twist of the wrist: she turned, gripped the blouse and pulled it free of her beltline, and in time with the music, opened and shut the blouse, with her back to the shocked-silent ranks and rows of local lawmen -- then she spun, a dancer's move, spinning on the balls of her feet, pulled the blouse free, spun it around her head and threw it to the side, dropped into a hipshot pose with one hand on her belt.

Marnie Keller, eldest daughter of that pale eyed old Sheriff, stood before her fellow badge packers, wearing amusement in her eyes, a smile on her lips, and a carefully crafted, hand made, woman contoured, steelshirt.

An honest-to-God, hand-made, contoured and polished, steel shirt.

The Sheriff pressed the button again, silencing the brassy performance: "silenced" is the right word to use, because that's what happened.

Utter, shocked, absolute, suck-in-your-breath-and-hold-it, silence.

A known-effective Sheriff's deputy just stripped, right in front of God and everybody, and stood there like a warrior-saint... beautiful, deadly, untouchable by mortal man.

The silence did not last long.

It took a little bit for things to calm down: laughter, whistles, wolf whistles, applause, a wonderful confusion, the unabashed laughter of men who knew what it was to go into harm's way and trade blows with those who wished to cause harm: once things settled down enough, Marnie resumed her blouse, buttoned it casually as she spoke, turned modestly to quickly tuck it in, returned to the microphone.

"My ancestress, Sarah Lynne McKenna, had three of these made," she said, rapping her knuckles on her now-buttoned uniform blouse -- she grimaced, frowned at her knuckles, shook her hand with a quiet "Owww," then looked up at them again.

"One she had made when she was yet a maiden, and working as an Agent for His Honor the Judge. The second she had made, of thicker material across the belly" -- her open hands sketched across her flat and narrow horsewoman's waist -- "when she realized she was with child, and the third, when she got a little bigger -- though she never wore it, and she took pains to stay out of harm's way while she was carrying her only child.
"Now imagine me getting hit or shot while wearing" -- she knocked cautiously on her steel-backed blouse -- "this.  No padding under it.  I get hit with something" -- she gave them a wide-eyed, almost little-girl expression -- "I'm gonna feel it!"

She turned to the Sheriff and nodded: Linn traded her places, and continued his presentation on the wearing of soft body armor.

"My Deputy brought up a really good point I want you to remember. The vest will stop penetration, but you're going to absorb the impact. That energy is going somewhere, like it or not, and before we get into the demonstration phase, a word from our sponsor."

Another of his daughters -- Angela, who appeared from someplace, they weren't sure quite from where -- slipped behind the microphone as her Daddy sidestepped out of her way.

"Mitchell Stevens, are you here? -- there you are!" -- Angela, in her white uniform dress and winged cap, smiled and pointed, then waved -- "I talked to your daughter yesterday, you should be so proud of her!"

A hand waved from halfway back on the right hand side.

Angela looked around.

"Vests should be rated for both ballistic protection, and also slash and stab protection. There are special ceramic plates that can be added for additional protection, but this is personal."

Angela hesitated, took a breath, frowned.

"Brother Stevens yonder told my Daddy that his daughter was going into nursing, and Daddy" -- she turned and gave the Sheriff that bright, melt-your-heart smile she was so good at -- "Daddy told him to take her to the local police supply house and fit her with level IIIa with slash and stab protection, and get the ceramic ballistic plate that drops into that pocket between your shoulder blades.

"Mitch gave Daddy a funny look and said 'She's going into nursing, not Mogadishu!' and Daddy looked him in the eye and said "She'll need it to protect against all the knives in the back she'll get!"

Angela looked back at Stevens, extended her hand, palm up, and Stevens stood, a rueful look on his face.

"She told me you're right," he admitted, then shook his head.

"That's an aside. Daddy has some more presentation before he gets to the fun stuff. Marnie and I will be back on the range behind us, setting up vests for the demonstration phase. Daddy will handle that too."

Angela skipped up to the Sheriff, came up on her toes, kissed him on the cheek, then hugged him quickly, impulsively, turned to the assembled deputies and squealed "Isn't he cute?" before she skipped away, giggling.

Marnie shook her head, came up behind the podium, shook her head:

"Show-off!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SPARK

Angela Keller grabbed the wrist as it passed: she bent it mercilessly, twisted, swung her leg across the small of her attacker's back and used this double persuasion to introduce her attacker's face to the floor tiles at a brisk velocity.

Michael Keller reacted to the second attacker in his usual mild and understated fashion.

He seized the department store mannikin's arm, twisted it free and swung it, hard.

Victoria, ever the prim, pretty, ladylike and feminine daughter of that pale eyed Sheriff, screeched like a mountain cat, climbed a woman's back and got a good double handful of her hair, hauled back with her knees in the second woman's spine and hauled her over backwards, twisting at the last moment: she told her Daddy later that she wished not to interrupt this sorry soul's intimate conversation with the floor tiles, but she thought it wise to bounce the back of her head off the floor first "kind of to take the starch out of her, y'know."

Michael's heavy-plastic war club didn't cause damage -- it didn't break skin nor crack bone -- it did, however, sting and startle, and when an unkempt man who started to move toward the original pair in disagreement, turned at this unexpected attack, he inherited an injection molded bicep traveling at a right fair velocity, across the ear and the cheekbone.

A scream, shouts, running feet: a panicked clerk picked up a telephone, tried to punch in the mall's panic code and discovered she couldn't remember it, so she turned the phone over and looked frantically for the handwritten file card she'd taped to the underside of her telephone at home -- the file card on which she'd written emergency numbers -- but here at work, all she saw was a bar code and a cheerful "MADE IN CHINA" sticker.

Angela's cuffs snarled around her attacker's wrist -- she snapped "Hands behind your back!" and grabbed the free wrist -- the prisoner fought, until Angela smacked her face into the floor again -- this time there was no resistance getting the other wrist cuffed -- Michael, for his part, abandoned the plastic mannikin's arm in favor of kicking the backup attacker behind the knee, dropping his own knees into the exposed gut: eyes pale, lips peeled back, face the color of stretched parchment, Michael saw the man's squinted-shut eyes widen suddenly in absolute panic.

Michael could not see himself from his prisoner's perspective.

Michael could not see something that looked like a skin-covered skull, all eyes and teeth and snarling like a mountain dragon, claws upraised and descending: a young man's hands, ranch-strong and adrenaline-fired, seized the prisoner, picked him off the floor and flipped him over.

By the time Mall Security arrived, three prisoners were in irons, Angela was holding a wad of tissues to a bleeding nose with one hand as she held up her Sheriff's badge wallet and said, "Hello, boys, remember me?"

 

Ambassador Marnie Keller reviewed the videos in the stillness of her office, one finger resting across her upper lip like a fleshly mustache: she watched as a stranger, someone she'd never seen before, took a startled look at Angela, snatched a decorative plaster statue from the store's display table and swung it, hard, at Angela's face.

"Impressive," a man said quietly, and Marnie smiled: her counterpart drew up a chair, frowned at the screen, then nodded in appreciation as he saw the swift, brutal cooperation of two younger siblings.

"I've heard men threaten to rip someone's arm off and beat them with it," he murmured.  

"Michael is good at improvisation," Marnie murmured, smiling just a little, the way a pleased, older sister, will.

"What else do we know about this?"

Marnie sighed.

"The woman who attacked Angela," she said, "claims she thought she was someone else. The other woman didn't know what was going on but she was going to fight whoever her friend was fighting. The man -- I don't know his relationship -- he threw his lot in with the wrong side and came out in second place."

"I see that," the Ambassador murmured appreciatively. "Are all ... your ... family this ... effective?"

Marnie smiled, then turned to face the Chief Ambassador.

"Yes," she said simply. "Every last one of us. We've all known ... difficulties, and my father is Sheriff, so we were exposed to the evils that men do, at a tender age."

"I ... see," the Ambassador said slowly, then nodded.

"Was this" -- he gestured toward the screen -- "an actual mistaken identification?"

"The woman had drugs in her system, so it's hard to tell what she thought," Marnie said, an edge to her voice. "The others just made bad choices. The initial attacker is charged with assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent, mopery with intent to creep, impersonating a human being, the usual. The other two, simple assault. Oh, yes, all three with resisting."

"And Michael and Victoria?"

"They were no-billed. They acted in defense of a law enforcement officer who was fighting three to one."

The Chief Ambassador nodded thoughtfully: Marnie did not have to look to know a smile was hinting the corners of his mouth upward a little.

"I never realized Victoria was so ... effective."

"She trains," Marnie shrugged. "She was one of the Valkyries, back home, while she was in grade school, until Daddy had her privately taught because the older girls were jealous that she was showing them up. He didn't want the other Valkyries to get discouraged."

"Is Earth all that dangerous, that we have to train children in such skills?"

His question, though quiet voiced, carried implications Marnie couldn't ignore.

She leaned back, then turned to face the man squarely.

"Earth is home," she said, "and there are many good people there. Hurt a child is the fastest way to an early grave. Unfortunately there are enough people that aren't all that good."

Marnie frowned, rubbed her eyes, looked at the Ambassador.

He was honestly surprised to see how tired she looked.

"Sometimes," she admitted, "Earth is a fine place to be from."

 

When it hit the fan, Shelly stepped back, shocked.

She had two sacks full of their purchases.

She'd wanted to go to the City, she wanted to go shopping, like a normal mother does with her normal daughters, and Michael came along for the ride -- Shelly made a mental inventory of his clothes, considering the speed with which he was growing -- but as she stood in the department store, watching three children dismantle a trio of attackers -- as she watched Angela keep a stranger from ball batting her across the face with a foot-high plaster statue -- as she watched her youngest daughter RUN up another woman's back and seize a good double handful of hair and Michael went to war with where did he get that arm good God I'll have to pay for a display mannikin! -- 

 

Marnie's expression softened, and she started to smile, just a little.

The Ambassador looked at her and smiled a little himself.

"Memory?" he asked gently.

Marnie nodded, looked at the man, her smile spreading to her entire face.

"Mama just wanted to be normal," she said. "She wanted me to be a normal girl and to like girl things and to go shopping and ..."

Marnie made a vague gesture with one lace-gloved hand.

"I never really liked all that girly stuff."

The Ambassador raised an eyebrow.

"Forgive me for being forward," he said carefully, "but you do manage to appear to be ... girly."

Marnie laughed, nodded, reached forward and lay her hand on his, squeezed, released.

"Thank you," she murmured. "I've learned the advantages of appearing feminine, but I didn't want ..."

She stopped, blinked, her eyes dropped, cast left, cast right, following memories only she could see.

"When I was very young," Marnie said slowly, "very bad things happened, and they happened when my birth-mother dressed me like a pretty little girl."

She looked at the Ambassador, and he saw something he hadn't expected.

He saw fear.

"I" -- she swallowed -- "I associated looking ... pretty ... with being vulnerable."

The Ambassador frowned a little, turned his head slightly.

" 'Vulnerable' is not a word I would associate with you," he said frankly.

"Thank you," Marnie said quietly. "It took me a very long time to ... it wasn't ..."

She took a few quick breaths, then closed her eyes, folded her hands in her lap, sat very straight and took a moment to collect herself.

"You know," she said slowly, "that I commonly wear red boots."

He nodded carefully.

"When I finally realized that my grandmother was a warrior in a suit dress, when I realized she was ravening Hell in high heels, I decided that's what I wanted to be like.  I watched my Gammaw take down men -- big men! -- I watched her move fast and mercilessly and I knew she was pretty and feminine and she was deadly as the Plague and twice as fast, and that's when I started to really be a girl."

The Ambassador waited, knowing he was hearing a facet of her she'd never spoken of, that she was entrusting him with something she'd kept hidden for a very long time.

He knew she was trusting him with this.

"I was ... happiest in a denim skirt and flannel shirt and red cowboy boots, and Mama wanted me to be a pretty clothes horse, and when I told her I had no interest in going to the City, shopping, she... backhanded me."

The Ambassador's eyes widened slightly and he sat absolutely, carefully, still.

"I didn't hit her back.

"I stepped up and I put my face in hers.

"I could feel the Rage ... that was the first time I really felt it," she whispered. "That's when I felt the blood drain out of my face and I know my eyes went pale and I ... I told her I'll give anyone one chance and she'd just had the only chance I would ever give her, that if she ever hit me again, I would rip her throat out."

"What did she do?"

"She turned the color of wheat paste. I remember she went white to her lips. I turned and left and I was so mad I couldn't see Michael and Victoria and Angela, watching through the banister rails from the stairway. Michael slid in between us and Victoria.

"I turned and I pulled on my boots and I went out in the pasture and whistled up Daddy's stallion.

"I saddled him and led him out into the middle of the pasture and I bucked him out."

Marnie looked at the Ambassador, her eyes wide with memory, her voice soft as part of her relived the moment.

"That was the very first time I stayed aboard.

"I ... am ... honestly ... surprised," she admitted, her words coming slow and separated, as if saying them were difficult -- "I am honestly surprised I did not hit her back."

She looked at the Ambassador and he saw she was breathing quickly now, reliving at least the emotion, if not the memory itself.

"I know how to kill," she said, "with ... just my hands ... and ... if I'd ... I knew if I hit her I would not stop and I'd have killed her."

"Why didn't you?"

Marnie blinked and laughed a little, and then she looked at the Ambassador, her eyes filling with sadness.

"I know how much Papa honestly loves her," she said, "and ... I did not want ... couldn't stand the thought of ... how he would look at me if I had."

Marnie bit her bottom lip, closed her eyes: she took a long breath, blew it out, then shivered.

She opened her eyes and smiled as if nothing had ever been wrong.

"I would like some tea," she said, and he could hear a smile in her voice: "can I interest you in this year's harvest?"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BLOOD, AND DUST

Michael Keller heard his father's quiet words in his memory:

"Boy, don't let your battleship mouth override your tadpole backside!"

Michael's eyes were quiet, his expression calm as he watched the predictable escalation before him.

There were trade agreements to be negotiated; some already had been, but on a particular disagreement, despite his pale eyed sister's considerable skill, agreement had not yet been reached.

Michael's pale eyed Pa taught him to read men, and he and Victoria were both reading the room, and their mutual stillness revealed their observation: that tempers were escalating, beyond Marnie's ability to dampen, to diminish: she was cool, she was doing her best to oil the waters, but when a negotiating party decides they like being the wounded soul better than following a reasonable course, the result is generally a fast slide downhill, and so it was.

Marnie lifted a gloved teaching finger, carefully pointed out to the aggrieved representative that he'd just achieved significant concessions on a lucrative shipping route: he thrust an accusing finger at her and accused her of deliberately poisoning the negotiations against him.

Marnie glided closer, tilted her head, smiled gently: "I have done no such thing," she said quietly, so that only he could hear.

The slap was as bright and as shocking as a pistol-shot.

Marnie made no attempt to evade his open-hand slap: her head turned, quickly, finger-marks standing out against her fair skin.

Marnie's return slap was reflexive and more powerful than he'd expected: her backhand staggered him and brought blood.

Marnie straightened, turned, her face and her eyes both losing their color.

Michael felt his twin sister's hand tighten in his, he heard Victoria's quiet "Uh-oh," then her hand fell away from him and they both withdrew two steps, turned.

Marnie's eyes were white and blazing as she declared, in a voice pitched to carry, "AS THE CHALLENGED PARTY, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE TIME, PLACE AND WEAPONS."

Her voice was for everyone.

Her eyes were for him alone.

"I CHOOSE HERE, AND I CHOOSE NOW, AND I CHOOSE BLADES!"

Marnie bent her wrist, manipulated something on the expanded screen that dilated on the back of her hand: to the challenging official, it was as if the ornate negotiations-room, the shining stone floor, ornate wooden furniture, massive table and delegates, just ... disappeared.

He looked around, startled.

They were in a broad, circular arena, at least a hundred yards across, with six-foot-tall, painted-plank walls: above these, bleachers, ranked at least twenty high, but empty: flagpoles, banners, but no people.

"You are alone," Marnie said quietly as she began pacing around him, slowly, circling him like a predator: his gaze was equally adversarial, his demeanor not at all intimidated by this change of surroundings.

A square door slid open, a black rectangle that opened in reality: a rack hummed out into view.

Marnie gestured to a selection of steel.

"We have everything from surgeon's scalpels" -- she picked up a small, exquisitely honed blade -- "somewhere in my ancestry, a relative was murdered by a surgeon who used one of these to punch up through his gut into his heart when the surgeon was accused of malpractice."

She lay the scalpel down, picked up a short skinner.

"I've used this very knife to skin out game, back home."  She smiled, turned the honed steel, catching the sunlight. "My Daddy used to test its edge by shaving hairs off the back of his arm and then puffing his breath across to blow shaved hair into view."

She slipped the skinner back into its place.

"Or, if you like, here's a hand-forged Bowie, here is a Cavalry saber, though I should tell you that's the one I'm most practiced with. Here's a sailor's cut-toe, here is my grandmother's Schlager blade ..."

Marnie smiled, and the smile was not particularly pleasant.

"Oh, that's right. I get to choose. You challenged me."

Marnie lifted the Schlager blade off its wooden pegs, tossed it at her challenger, then reached up and brought down its twin.

He jumped back and let the blade hit the ground.

The blade rack hummed backward, into the black rectangle: the rectangle closed, and was gone.

"That's no way to treat a blade," Marnie murmured, spinning her steel in a shining figure-eight with the ease and smoothness of long practice and intimate familiarity. "Pick it up."

"I must name my second," he said stiffly, making no move to touch steel.

"Name your second."

"Colonel Bostater."

Marnie bent her wrist, murmured something he couldn't hear: a half-dozen of the dignitaries appeared, startled, looking around.

"Colonel Bostater," Marnie smiled, gliding forward: she carried her blade in her left hand, angled back over her shoulder, extended her right hand. "Mr. Carsey is challenged to a duel of honor, and has named you his second. You are free to decline if you wish."

The Colonel scowled at the duelist, who had yet to assume the steel still on the ground.

"Madam Ambassador," he said courteously, "might I have a word with my ... colleague?"

"Of course," Marnie murmured: she dropped a flawless curtsy, took two steps back, then turned and glided a little distance away, spoke into her wrist-unit again.

To the dignitaries, watching this but unable to interact, it had the appearance of theater: to the challenger, it had the look of solitude.

The duel was being witnessed by no less than twice a dozen, and more arriving by the minute: drinks were distributed, a well-stocked sandwich-board was proving quite popular.

Apparently the prospect of seeing blood on the sand was as stimulating to their collective appetites as it was to their collective sensibilities.

The conversation between Colonel Bostater and the short-tempered negotiator was brief, with neither man looking happy: finally, the Colonel turned, walked over to Marnie.

"Madam Ambassador," he said, "I have agreed to second Representative Matthews. Have you a second?"

Marnie smiled, turned, gestured.

A sizable, white-canvas tent appeared, with a large red cross on its roof: its double flap opening was drawn aside from within, and ranks of white-armored Angela's Angels marched out, in perfect step, each performing a flawless column-right or column-left: they formed two ranks, the width of the tent, stopped with silent, coordinated perfection.

From within the tent, as if to add insult to a situation that was long out of the challenger's control, Victoria emerged: she wore a full skirt and an eager expression as she glided over to Marnie, stood beside her.

"I, Victoria, second my sister," she declared, her young voice clear and carrying to unseen spectators and witnesses.

"A child!" came the sputtering protest. "I can't ... a child?"

"Do you withdraw your challenge, sirrah?" Marnie asked coldly, her words dropping the temperature by several degrees: suddenly sunlit sand was nowhere near as warm as it had been, and her challenger experienced something he'd not felt in quite some time ... the general sensation he'd written a check his sorry soul might not be able to cash.

Michael came out with a double gun in hand, stepped to the center, midway between the contestants: the Colonel moved over beside the negotiator, murmured "You owe me for this!"

Michael raised a hand, turned, looked from one to the other.

"This is a Duel of Honor," he declared loudly, pitching his voice theatrically for the benefit of their unseen audience: "Steel is chosen, Seconds are named. If we have a double kill, the Seconds will continue. Do we fight to first blood, or to death?"

Marnie extended her blade, turned her wrist, sighting down its shining length: she spun her steel, wove a shining silver web about her, made a few thrusts, obviously completely at home with her chosen implement.

She stopped, drew up, raised her blade in salute.

"I give my challenger the choice," Marnie replied. "Which shall we spill, first blood, or life's blood?"

"You can still walk away," the Colonel murmured. "You'll at least be alive."

Her challenger realized he'd painted himself into a corner.

If he backed down, he'd have gutted his own honor, his social standing, his political credibility.

If he fought on her terms ...

"I'm no damned coward," he growled, bending and snatching the blade from the ground.

Marnie smiled and slipped her hand through the sword-knot, tightened it to her satisfaction.

Marnie lifted her chin and called, "Let there be music!"

Across the sand-floored arena, and in the visitors' galleries, the brassy notes of the Espana Cani, the traditional bullfighting theme, sounded -- bright and shimmering across the sunlit sand.

Michael tipped the double gun back over his shoulder, thrust a bladed hand:

"Is the challenger ready?"

A nod in reply, as the challenger leaned forward, knuckles white within the engraved-silver basket hilt as he death-gripped the wire-wound handle.

The brisk, brassy, Latin music, faded, silenced, leaving an expectant hush, a vacuum, in the hot, still air.

"Is the defender ready?"

Marnie came back to correct posture, raised her blade in salute, slashed it down.

Michael raised his free hand, looked from one to the other, chopped his hand down:

"BEGIN!"

What began with a short temper and harsh words, ended with blood on the sand.

Michael stepped back, allowing the challenger to sprint toward Marnie, blade upraised like a switch with which to chastise a naughty girl.

Marnie stood, unmoving, until he was close -- too close! -- she did not so much turn as she flowed: his blade slashed down where she'd been a moment before, just as her engraved silver basket hilt drove into him behind his left ear.

Hard.

He hit the ground facefirst, rolled, tried to get up.

He stopped when he felt honed steel at his throat.

Marnie's eyes were quiet, her face serene as she looked down at him, at blood dribbling from his scalp wound and pooling before soaking into sun-warmed substrate.

"Do you yield?" she asked quietly.

For a moment -- for just a moment -- she thought he might not.

For a moment she considered she might have to whip her point aside and drive her hilt into his face as he rose.

She had no wish to kill this stupid soul, for the dead learn nothing.

The tip of Marnie's Schlager pressed against living flesh and she imagined she could feel the pulse of his carotid artery through hand-crafted Solingen steel.

He looked at his second, standing with crossed arms, he looked at the young girl in a broad, full skirt, he looked at the young man in a black suit with a double gun propped up against his shoulder, he looked at the unmoving, military ranks of battlefield Healers, and he looked back into the hard and unforgiving eyes of the woman he'd backhanded.

"I yield."

 

 

Edited September 21, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BULLDOG!

Marnie came through the front door, her jaw set, pale eyes glaring, as if she expected to walk into a fight.

The house was empty.

Good.

Marnie Keller pulled off her saddle shoes, ran upstairs in sock feet: she tended her skinned knee and forearm in the shower, her jaw set as she scrubbed sand and gravel out of the abrasions.

Once she was sure her wounds were thoroughly cleansed, she picked up a small jar she kept hidden for such moments, dipped the pad of her middle finger into filtered, raw honey, anointed her abrasions: she taped a nonstick bandage over each, she dried off, changed into clean clothes.

She hadn't intended to skin herself up.

Really, that was not what she intended.

She'd scraped herself, she'd bruised her elbow and her shoulder in the process; she went back and regarded what had been her pristine-white cheerleading blouse -- torn now, in two places, bloodied at the sleeve: her pleated skirt would wash, but the blouse was a lost cause.

She had others -- she'd planned ahead and gotten multiple white blouses for the purpose, but not because she thought she'd be wallowed about in the dirt.

Marnie changed into jeans and a flannel shirt and sipped downstairs, frowned at her scuffed, dirtied saddle shoes.

I can get these cleaned up before Mama sees them.

I don't want to listen to her comments if she'd see what ...

Marnie's ear pulled back as if tugged by an invisible thumb-and-forefinger.

She turned, ran upstairs.

Hide the evidence.

 

Marnie's saddles cleaned up in good shape.

Jacob, of course, knew what happened.

He'd seen it.

He'd run over to make sure she was okay.

He'd offered no comment as Marnie regarded her torn blouse sleeve, then her skinned knee.

"Don't tell Mama?" he asked.

Marnie looked at him and nodded, once.

Michael and Victoria didn't see it happen, but they heard some garbled version of events, something to do with Marnie standing up on the seat of a dirt bike and diving off at forty miles an hour to bulldog someone's escaped Hereford bull, which somersaulted the full-grown bull and caved in the side of a school bus.

The truth was not nearly this spectacular.

Marnie had, indeed, been on the back of a fast moving dirt bike -- "fast moving" being a relative term -- an escaped Hereford bull calf, big enough to have a modest set of horns, decided it would be great fun to butt heads and other body parts on the football field, while the football players were practicing.

Marnie commandeered from the "Unorganized Militia," as her pale eyed Papa called it: she squatted behind a dirt bike's rider, she launched -- carefully! -- off the bike, came down with intent to straddle the bull calf and try to ride it.

That didn't work at all.

She ended up with a death grip on its horns as it twisted and spun, trying to dislodge this sudden, unexpected attacker.

Good fortune, or ill fortune, depending on which end of the camera you were on, dictated that Bruce Jones was present, getting some shots for the weekly newspaper.

Marnie knew all was lost when her Mama laid the weekly paper on the table and looked at her daughter -- didn't say a word, just looked.

The timing was perfect.

The bull calf's head was twisting around and he was going down by the starboard beam, Marnie was swung under, legs straight, feet together, toes pointed to the sky: the smaller shot, below the fold, showed the confused tangle of tanned legs and Hereford hide a-sprawl in the dirt, with the bull calf very decidedly down.

The article that followed described the meek and docile manner of the wayward beef after its education at the formidable hands of this formidable, but unnamed, cheerleading Valkyrie.

Marnie's face was not visible, and after the paper came out.

Marnie was grateful that her protective purple underskirt prevented anything immodest from being shown.

There was talk of the photographer "getting the cheerleader's good side" -- which caused Marnie's ears to turn a truly remarkable shade of scarlet.

Shelly did make a surreptitious inspection of Marnie's cheerleading blouses, and saw neither stain nor tear; her blouses were hanging, pressed, clean, without stain or flaw; her cheerleading saddles showed only normal wear that every athletic cheerleader accumulates, and carefully hides with concealing applications of shoe milk, and maybe a swipe of clear nail polish over actual scuffs in the smooth leather.

Shelly did not say a word as she laid the newspaper down.

Marnie looked at the pictures, looked at her Mama and did her level best to look utterly, absolutely, innocent, which of course did not fool Shelly in the least little bit. 

Still, there were no questions, though Marnie felt her Mama's eyes upon her, probably assessing for signs of guarding or favoring a hidden injury.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller looked at the newspaper his dispatcher laid out in front of him.

He frowned at the photo, studied the two images and read the article, read it again, looked at Sharon.

A Sheriff's dispatcher in a small town becomes privy to an incredible amount of information, official and otherwise, and Sharon had a way of finding things out.

Sheriff Linn Keller looked at his dispatcher, looked back at the newspaper, re-read the article, looked back and accepted the mug of coffee she'd drawn for him.

He came home that night and saw Marnie just going into the barn.

She was just shoving into her bright yellow muck boots when his shadow darkened the doorway.

Marnie stopped, then finished shoving her boot down into the yellow overboot and turned.

Linn paced over to her, newspaper in hand: he looked at the front page article, then tossed it onto a nearby hay bale.

Marnie wasn't sure quite what to expect.

She needn't have worried.

He took her hands in his -- carefully, as if she were fine china lace -- he hesitated, then he asked, very quietly, "Darlin', are you hurt?"

Marnie swallowed and bit her bottom lip, then she threw her arms around his neck and he hugged her into him as she squeaked, "Oh, Daddy," as if she were a little girl again.

They sat down on the hay bale and talked, quietly: Marnie described the adventure -- how the bull calf came through, how it left fresh piles on the field that had to be cleaned up before practice could continue, how the bobwarr escapee thought it was such great fun to go head-to-head with scrimmaging football players, how she determined to put a stop to it before someone got hurt.

He listened to her description of squatting on the back of a snarling Kawasaki, how the calf thought it fun to race this noisy machine, how Marnie jumped -- carefully, don't want to dump the bike over! -- and it was accident and not design, that she bulldogged the bull calf to the ground.

Linn frowned a little, nodded.

"Ever bulldog before?" he asked gently.

Marnie shook her head, braids swinging a little as she did.

He picked up the paper, considered the above-the-fold photo.

"Nice form," he murmured.

"Yeah," Marnie half-laughed, then tapped the flared skirt:  "They got my good side!"

 

 

Edited September 22, 2025 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CRATER

Sheriff Linn Keller came back into the Sheriff's office.

Sheriff Linn Keller winked at Sharon -- "Any calls?" -- then paced over to the coffee table and drew his usual big mug, drizzled in what he called Extract of Bovine, took a thoughtful sip, swiped the tan droplets from the underside of his carefully cultivated handlebar.

He was turned, looking through the heavy glass double doors he'd come through earlier, his thoughts very evidently not in the Here and Now.

Sharon, the dispatcher, was privy to considerably more information than she let on.

She gave the Sheriff a long, thoughtful look, then returned to her desk as one of the road deputies marked back in.

The Sheriff took another thoughtful, noisy slurp of coffee, looked over at his dispatcher.

He picked up a straight back wooden chair, packed it over to her, set it down.

"You're going to ask me about it," he said -- a statement, not a question.

Sharon turned her comfortably padded swivel chair to face him.

She tilted her head a little, considering what she'd heard, then pushed ahead into unknown waters.

"I heard," she said carefully, "that someone shot a hole in a bathroom mirror in the high school."

The Sheriff smiled, just a little, set his big ceramic mug down on the corner of Sharon's desk.

"You heard correctly," he said quietly, then winked.

"Someone shot that mirror just graaaveyard dead," he affirmed, picking his coffee back up, then looked at her, his eyes smiling at the corners.

"Thirty-five years ago."

"Thirty-five ..."

Sharon frowned, blinked, tilted her head again.

"I thought ... it didn't just happen?"

"Nope."  

The Sheriff took another thoughtful slurp, knowing the sound irritated the woman: she'd given him hell for slurping before, accusing him of slurping chocolate cake.

"Well?"

"Well what?"  He managed to look innocent, even as Sharon waved a fist menacingly at him, with all the ferocity of an incensed four year old running a bluff:  "You know what, now spill it, mister!"

Sheriff Linn Keller, six foot two of long tall lawman, set his coffee mug down and laughed.

He looked at Sharon and took a long breath, sighed it out, then he spread his hands and declared in a nasal voice, "Well, yas sees, it's like this!"

Sharon thrust her left hand toward the ceiling:  "It's over the boots, save the watch!"

 

Sheriff Linn Keller pulled into a parking space in front of the hospital.

He came through the front doors, a man on a mission: a nurse was waiting on him, waved him through heavy double doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, and into the emergency department.

Linn frowned at a familiar figure on an ER cart, stripped to the waist, his shoes off, all wired up with two IV lines running.

Linn swung over to the side with the least wiring to get in his way, gripped the man's hand.

"Tommy?" he said gently. "Tommy, it's Linn."

Tommy Charleton opened his eyes and smiled weakly.

"Confession," he said, as if the act of speaking was tiring.

"I'm right here, Tommy."

Linn felt the man's hand tighten a little on his.

Tommy Charleton had been school janitor forever and a day: their brick grade school, inside Firelands proper, had originally been The School, grades one through twelve, built to replace the little whitewashed one room school: when the consolidated high school was built, the brick building became just the grade school.

Tommy transferred to the new high school when it opened, and had been there ever since: if it was to be known about the place, Tommy knew about it.

A nurse rolled a three-caster, stainless-steel stool up behind the Sheriff: the man sat, still holding his old friend's hand.

Tommy turned his head.

"Gotta talk."

"I'm listening."

"Replaced mirrors," he said carefully, "and found a crater."

Linn frowned a little.

"Before your time. We kept it quiet."

"Kept what quiet?"

Tommy closed his eyes, sagged a little.

 

Tommy found a tall  narrow window beside the steel double doors in the main entrance, broken out, a cement block on the floor inside the building.

He looked around, then unlocked one of the steel doors, poked his head in and looked around, then came on inside, listening.

He looked at glittering, crumbled glass, he looked left, then right, looking to see if broken glass had been tracked.

Nothing.

He took a step forward, took another, head turning, listening.

A door shut -- distant, heavy, with the distinct click of the panic-bar mechanism securing as it shut.

Tommy legged it for the office, unlocked it, went inside, grabbed a phone and called the Sheriff.

One of the new deputies responded -- Joe something, Tommy heard he'd come down from Alaska after he'd gotten in trouble as a boy -- Joe met Tommy in the hallway and told him to wait outside.

Tommy did.

Until the deputy disappeared from sight, until long minutes passed, until there was a loud BOOOMMMMM from inside.

Tommy fumbled with his keyring, he had to try three times to get the key into the keyhole, he got inside --

"JOE!  JOE, YOU HURT?  JOE!"

Joe came out of the girls' restroom, grimacing, one hand to his ear:  he shook his head, looked at Tommy, motioned him closer.

"JOE, YOU HURT? I HEARD A SHOT --"

"No," Joe said, his voice loud, competing with the red ringing in his ears: "you didn't hear anything."

"But Joe, I --"

Joe reached into a pocket, peeled off half a hundred dollars, pressed it into Tommy's palm.

"That and a case of beer if you hang a new mirror and don't tell anyone!"

 

Linn's voice was quiet as he talked, fingers embracing his mug's warmth.

"Tommy had a heart attack," he explained, "and he made a deathbed confession."

"What did he do?" Sharon asked, surprised: the entire community knew Tommy, and liked him: she'd made the cake for his retirement party there at the school he'd served for most of his working life.

"He's still alive, but he might not make it," Linn said cautiously, "I need to go find the Parson and see if we can't stand up on our knees for the man."

Sharon waited, knowing the Sheriff sometimes ran his ideas back and forth, which he seemed to be doing now.

"Tommy said a deputy -- he was ... I think he left the year before Mama took office -- Tommy called to report someone took a cement block to the front door window. Whoever it was must've chickened out and left by another door when Tommy came in and let the door slam behind him. The deputy came in and was clearing the building ... he went into the girls' restroom and shot a mirror."

Sharon's mouth opened a little and made a surprised little O as she blinked at the Sheriff.

"He ... shot ... a mirror?"

"Yep," Linn confirmed. "Full house .357 Magnum. I reckon that would just deafen a man for a little bit. He give Tommy a chunk of change to hang a new mirror before school started on Monday."

Linn finished his coffee, stood.

"I'm gonna go find the Parson so we can talk to God about it."

"The last time you talked to God about it," Sharon said skeptically, "you banged your shin on a trailer hitch!"

"Wasn't my fault," Linn said quietly, humor bright in his pale eyes: "that rascally hitch jumped out and bit me right on the shin bone!"

 

Sheriff Linn Keller waited until the brisk flow of exiting students diminished, then he stepped into the now-quiet high school hallway, raised a hand in greeting.

Morgan Walters was pushing his dust mop up the hallway, a grin on his face.

He and the Sheriff shook hands.

"Morgan, I need a favor."
"Name it."

"I need to corroborate a confession."

"How can I help?"

Moments later, Morgan's battery drill whined as he unscrewed a mirror from its mount, the Sheriff gripping one side and the bottom edge.

They brought the mirror free, set it down carefully, looked at a minor crater in shattered, glazed brick, then looked at one another.

They set the mirror back in place, Morgan snugged it down: they came back out in the hallway.

Morgan set his drill down on the rolling tool cabinet.

He leaned back against glazed brick and shoved his hands in his pockets like he'd done since earliest childhood.

"Mind tellin' a curious man what happened?"

"I just closed a case," Linn said quietly. "Nobody got killed and the statute of limitations is long since expired."

"So what happened?"

"Years ago -- before Mama was Sheriff -- a green as spring grass deputy came in looking for an intruder, and" -- he looked toward the girls' restroom, hooked a casual thumb toward it -- "he shot the Man in the Mirror."

"Damn," Morgan breathed, "that would be loud!"

"I should smile!" Linn agreed heartily. "The deputy bribed Tommy Charleton with fifty bucks and a case of beer if he'd hang a new mirror and not tell anybody."

"Be damned."

"Tommy's in ER, y'know."

Morgan's expression became instantly serious.

"Heart?"

"Yep."

"Damn."

"The Parson and I were talkin' to God about it," Linn said quietly, "but I reckon the more knees we get to bend, why --"

Morgan nodded, looking a little lost.

"ER, y'say."

Linn nodded.

"Let me know if they ship him?"

"I'll let you know whatever happens."

"You do that. Let me know when he can have visitors."

Morgan waited until the Sheriff was turned, until he was six paces away.

"Sheriff?"

Linn stopped, turned.

"Do you reckon I could offer him fifty bucks and a case of beer to not die?"

Linn considered this, then looked at the middle aged man in the second-hand, green work uniform.
"Might be worth a try."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MONSTERS, OF MY OWN MAKING

Michael Keller dropped into a padded chair the way a man will when he's beyond exhausted.

Legs thrust out, arms draped over the side, head lolled into the upholstery, eyes closed: he sighed out a tired breath, then grimaced.

Why couldn't you have reminded me while I was still on my feet? he thought, debating whether it was worthwhile to get up and tend to his tall, lean-waisted body's needs.

A knock at the door: he slitted his eyelids open as it swung wide, as two female figures glided in, each with a tray and a small folding table: Michael pulled his booted feet back, planted them, leaned forward and rose as his sister and a hired girl snapped the small tables open with a practiced twist-and-jerk, as they set their burdened trays down, lifted shining covers off steaming-fragrant dishes.

"Michael," Victoria said gently, "you've not eaten all day."

"There wasn't time," he admitted, taking his sister's hands in his and squeezing gently: "Thank you both."

The Girl blushed and dipped her knees, hesitated: Victoria was eye level, standing in heels, and she gave him a knowing look and murmured, "Michael, I'm proud of you!" -- then she turned and smiled at the Girl, whispered "Thank you," and turned back to Michael as the Girl dropped a flawless curtsy and flowed out the door, so smoothly Michael would not have been surprised if she had wheels under her floor length skirt.

"Eat," Victoria said. 

Michael's stomach reminded him it was tired of being wrapped around his spine: he waited until Victoria drew up a chair and sat.

Only then did he sit; only then did he pick up a fork and allow himself to admit that whatever was on the plate smelled really, really good!

Victoria ate daintily, Michael did not: he shoveled unabashedly through something that reminded him of mashed potatoes and gravy, but not quite potatoes -- this stung his tongue a little, almost a metallic taste, but quite good -- the meat was thin, tender, an excellent flavor, its gravy darker than the meat -- Michael wasn't sure how that worked, but he honestly didn't care.

He was hungry, he was taking care of that hunger.

Another visitor, another plate: Michael found more of the same before him, now with what looked like buttered, steamed vegetables, some kind of like broccoli but leafier, and yellow-red-and-orange diced something mixed in: these, too, tasted almost familiar.

Almost.

It was always interesting, eating off-planet, in this curious dichotomy of a hotel room that could have come from Earth in the early 1900s, with cuisine unique to this particular planet.

Victoria sipped chilled tea from a tall sweating glass, a napkin cupped under to catch the sweat-drips as she tilted it to drink.

Michael leaned forward to allow the condensation runoff to dribble on his empty plate.

"Dessert?" Victoria asked, smiling, as she finished her first plate, dabbed her lips with a napkin and leaned back.

Michael sighed, set down his sweet tea, shook his head.

"Full as a tick," he said quietly.

"I'll give you five minutes," Victoria smiled. "They have excellent pie tonight."

Michael nodded, worked his back a little -- old habit, after the agonies of his spine's destruction and surgical rebuild.

"Pain?" Victoria asked, concern in her pale eyes.

Michael shook his head.  "Just tired."

"Liar."

Michael gave his sister a long look, then nodded.

"It's better than it was."

Victoria waited.

"I helped move a piano."

"Oh, Michael," Victoria groaned, reaching over to lay gentle fingers on Michael's wrist.

"My own fault," Michael agreed. "I'll be okay."

Victoria withdrew her hand, reached into a hidden pocket: she withdrew a dainty pair of spectacles from a slender glasses-case, slipped them on her face, carefully worked the earpieces into place under her carefully-styled hair, then worked them halfway down her nose.

She did not need to read something, nor to see something more clearly:  no, Victoria wished to make a statement: at her twin brother's statement, "I'll be okay," Victoria lowered her head and glared at him over her spectacles and folded her arms.

She gave him the dreaded Sisterly Scowl of Disapproval, made all the more comical by her wearing an ornate, handmade dress that, like styles of this time on this world, would have been perfectly at home in Firelands in the early 1900s.

Michael was tired, but Michael was better for having eaten: the Girl glided in, stacked and removed their trays; another placed pie with what looked like cinnamon-dusted whipped cream before each, with fresh forks: their nearly empty glasses of sweet tea were refilled, and the pair withdrew, silent on felt-soled slippers.

"Michael, you worry me," Victoria scolded gently, a tilt of her head and a worried smile taking any sting from the words.

Michael leaned forward, elbows on his knees: he thrust his head forward, looked at his twin sister and blinked a few times as he tried to come up with the right answer.

"Thank you, Sis," he finally said.

"Now."

Victoria patted Michael's hand reassuringly.

"I understand there's a spice here that's very similar to cinnamon. I think that's what's dusted on the whipped cream."

Michael leaned back, turned his attention to dessert.

They both picked up their forks at the same moment, they cut off an initial bite at the same time, they sampled this confection made with unknown but warm-and-fragrant fruits at the same moment, and each decided that whatever this was, it was very much to their taste.

 

Michael Keller supervised the offloading of another piano.

A young woman stood beside him, a young woman who was getting used to the idea that it was perfectly all right for women to be feminine, and it was the rule and not the exception that -- on this planet -- women were treated like Ladies.

She'd had difficult times back on Earth.

She was a native English speaker, though not from the American South: her accent was distinctly different, and she was getting used to being immersed in a culture that spoke more slowly, a culture that wasn't as intense or confrontational.

She'd been wounded -- deeply -- she had too many hard memories of where she'd been.

She also had a gift for playing piano.

Michael found her, and Michael recruited her, and when Michael offered her a fresh start in another place, she'd accepted, not understanding until she was Offworld that this "fresh start" was not on Earth at all.

This was the case with many of the women Michael recruited to play piano.

He warned her that she would be not only accepted, but in demand, that the piano was new to these communities, existing only in legend: her skill would be marveled at, her attendance in Church would be expected, and elsewhen, she would be making a good income exercising her gift.

He stressed to each of them that they were very much in demand, and that in this society where she was going -- in this new culture in which she would be immersed -- she would be considered a Lady, she would be treated as a Lady -- concepts which she accepted behind her forehead-plate without difficulty.

It took a little longer for it to sink in behind her breastbone.

Now, as she watched the man powered crane hoist the piano off a horse drawn wagon and set carefully on a low, wheeled cart, she considered just how different things were.

This was her piano -- hers! -- it was expected that a piano-player would have an instrument at her residence: she watched as strong men moved this precious cargo, positioned it, polished its surface, then released it to the second, specialized crew, who opened its upright top and removed protective packing, blocking, then gave it a final tune, made their final inspection.

Other pianos were being positioned about the town, and already there was talk of having her give piano lessons: "I leave that entirely up to you," Michael cautioned, "if you don't wish to teach, that is perfectly fine."

"I don't know how to thank you," she whispered as she ran gloved fingers over imitation-ivory keys.

Michael turned away so she could not see his face: it took him a moment to overcome the sadness that surged up from a place he kept hidden, even from himself.

He swallowed, turned back, his hat very properly under his off arm.

"You already have."

 

Victoria tilted her head and gave her twin brother a knowing look.

"You're punishing yourself," she said in a voice that told him she'd just realized what he'd been doing.

Michael suspected that was the case, but until Victoria put it into words, he hadn't admitted it.

"Reckon so."

"Now you sound like Daddy," Victoria teased, her voice light, and she saw Michael's quick, spontaneous grin -- there, and gone -- she knew she'd just dropped what she called a "Happy Bomb" into his soul.

"Michael, you're working yourself too hard," she pressed.

"I know."

"Is that why you went busting through the barrels back home?"

Michael nodded.

"I wanted to bust something up but I wanted to have fun."

"Lightning seemed to enjoy it."

"She did."

"What about you?"

Michael laughed quietly, remembering the moment Lightning's head lowered and she drove that conical forehead-boss into the first drum, absolutely buckling it and sending it flying a remarkable distance.

"Yeah," he admitted.  "It felt good."

"Michael" -- Victoria tilted he head -- "you have a piano empire."

Michael did not move his head, only his eyes: he looked up at his twin sister and deadpanned, "So I'm the Emperor now?"

Victoria planted one set of knuckles on her belt, raised her other hand and wagged her Mommy-finger at him.

"Michael, you're a magnate now. You've an empire in printing and importing books, you populated the churches with hymnals, with Bibles, with research material and translations and you've supplied pianos and piano-players and now metalworking, you're establishing an empire in minerals conversion without strip mining --"

Michael sighed.

"Yeah," he said, his voice flat.

Victoria gripped his hand, gave him a worried look.

"And sometimes it feels like ashes."

"Yeah."

"You miss Juliette."

Michael's expression was haunted as he considered her statement, then he nodded, slowly.

"Yeah."

"You're trying to bury your grief in work. You're using it to punish yourself."

"You're not the first one to tell me that."

Michael's bottom jaw slid out and his eyes swung to the side.

Victoria knew this meant he was thinking.

Michael leaned back, let his head drop back, stared at the stamped-tin ceiling.

"It's my fault she's dead."

"What?"

"Juliette. That damned plant killed her. I should have been there, I should have ... if I'd gotten her to Central Medical, if ..."

His voice trailed off, his eyes widened, staring, unblinking.

"I should have been there."

Victoria waited while Michael sorted through his demons.

"You're right, Sis," he said finally, his voice considerably softer.

"How's that, Michael?"

"I am ... punishing myself."

He did not have to look to know that Victoria tilted her head a little to the side, the way she and her sisters did when they heard something they'd long known as fact.

"I'm punishing myself, working this hard," then he closed his eyes, his young face fatigued.

Victoria got him up and on his feet, she took his hand and drew him over to the bed and pulled his boots off.

She turned back the covers and grabbed his legs:  "Up you go," she said quietly: she made no effort to undress him, just pulled the light covers over him, brushed her fingertips over his forehead the way their Mama used to.

Michael gave her a drowsy smile, his eyes still closed, unable to fight the fatigue any longer.

"Monsters," he mumbled, "of my own making."

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PLEASE PASS THE SCRAPER

I came to my feet.

Fast.

Shelly rarely came to the Sheriff's office.

VERY rarely.

When she came through my office door without knocking, I knew something wasn't right.

She came in and gave me kind of a funny look -- I'm on my feet, my gut is picking up her upset, my imagination kicked itself into gear and hesitated on the throttle --

"I need a scraper," Shelly said quietly, and her face was getting a little red, and my throttle moved steadily toward the firewall, imagining what in two hells! could possibly have brought my wife here!

Five minutes later I was hugging her and we were both laughing.

 

Sharon looked up as I came back in through the heavy glass double doors.

I grinned at her and I know I looked like a guilty schoolboy.

Sharon wasn't sure whether to be worried, or to scold me, but I could see curiosity prickling out all over her, so I spared her the effort and sat down on the corner of her desk.

"Sharon," I said quietly, "Shelly got all showered up and sweet smellin' and she put on a nice outfit and fixed her hair so she could go to the dentist and get that crown put on from her root canal."

"I remember you said she'd had to have one," Sharon said sympathetically, and I remembered Sharon's description of holding her jaw open for eight hours hand runnin' while her dentist set up an oil rig in her mouth to drill out all four roots of a back molar -- she did not complain about her discomfort, though I knew holding her jaw open that long could not have been easy -- afterward, Sharon spoke of the dentist's patience, and his precision, working that long on that one task.

"She got herself all fixed up, you know how girls are, she went to the dentist ..."

I felt my ears turn red and I chewed on my bottom lip and then said, "Sharon, her appointment isn't today.  It's tomorrow."

Sharon's face started to color up some and I laughed and shook my head.

"She felt just awful foolish," I said as Sharon giggled, cupping a hand over her mouth to try and hide her amusement: "back when I was young and skinny -- back when dirt was young, and so was I -- I was workin' a miserable rotatin' shift, and it had me so confused I went in to work on my day off."

I took a long breath and nodded.

"She felt so foolish ... when she came in and asked for a scraper I thought she was driving west and an eighteen driving east at twice the speed limit hit a stray cow and exploded it all over her pretty car."

Sharon grimaced: something of the kind actually happened a couple years before, and it made a genuine mess of what had been a lovely, brand-new car, not three hours off the dealer's lot.

"Shelly wanted to scrape the egg off her face for not getting the day right, so I give her a hug and took her over to the Silver Jewel and fed her, and I told her I'd done as much and that's just called bein' human."

Sharon closed her eyes and nodded, laughing silently, then she looked at me and said, "Sheriff, if I ever do that, will you take me out to eat?"

I stood up and grinned.

"Darlin'," I said frankly, "I'll take you out for a meal and I'll get you flowers to boot!"

"Sheriff?"

I waited as her expression changed ... she went from womanly-sympathetic to ... well, calculating.

"Would you have a talk with my husband? He's never done that."

I laughed.

"I'll see what I can do!"

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

NO SHEAR TODAY

A fashionably dressed young woman's gloved hand was wrapped possessively around a well dressed young man's arm.

Their subterfuge worked perfectly.

Jacob consulted his pocket-watch, paced slowly toward the opera house's ornate doors: a liveried employee opened the door and bowed him in, and Jacob entered the foyer just as the inner doors opened, and smiling, entertained humanity began flowing out of the two sets of doors.

Jacob's pale eyes saw the soul he was looking for.

He moved easily, passing among moving humanity like a fish in a school of fish, until he came abreast of his pale eyed half-sister.

Her gloved hand raised, wrapped easily about his fore-arm, and they emerged into the street with the other theatre-goers, just another well-dressed couple in a crowd of well-dressed couples.

Evening was settling in, there in the City: gas lights were being lit on the street while there was still light to work by: this couple, man and wife, perhaps, moved with the others, gliding down the walk until they came to their hotel.

They were greeted with grave courtesy as they entered, shown to a table by an obsequious waiter in immaculate livery: Sarah McKenna had informed the maitre-d' that, upon her return, she would require dinner for two, there in the main dining-room: they were seated, and no sooner seated than wine was brought, and coffee, and immediately afterward, their meal.

They sat at a particular table, which Sarah specified before leaving for the evening's performance: they each had a good view of the room, neither had a doorway to their back.

Sarah sampled her wine, raised an eyebrow.

"I have come to prefer the sweet German wines," she murmured after a delicate sip: Jacob's eyes smiled, just a little, as Sarah tilted her head and regarded him with a warm and almost relaxed expression.

Almost relaxed.

"I understand," he said quietly, "you were successful."

Sarah smiled as their first course arrived: she waited until they were alone again before making reply.

"I have found the answers to the Judge's questions," she said quietly, "and it will please him to find that one man in the enterprise is innocent as the babe unborn."

"One man?"

"Three all told. One is the poor fellow who was about to be taken for everything. They'd planned to skin him out of his suspenders, his eye teeth and his spats, they'd planned to leave him penniless and destitute."

"But ...?"

"But I was able to abscond with their stolen funds, and place it in a secured location. All of the men I investigated will sleep well tonight, each believing himself safely in possession of a good amount of gold, of deeds, of water-rights."

"And?"

The second course arrived: Jacob found the beef very much to his taste -- tender, gravy covered, and plenty of it -- Sarah had the fish, and ate as daintily as her half-brother ate heartily.

"What happens tomorrow morning?" Jacob asked.

"On the morrow," Sarah murmured, "each man will follow his usual habits upon rising.

"One will look at his safe, he will turn its handle and try its knob and ensure it remains secure.

"Another man will open his safe and find it empty, save for a note. Only then will he realize this is not his safe, it is a clever copy with the identical combination for its lock."

"Really!" Jacob breathed, stopping to regard his sister with honest surprise. "You went that far?"

"Oh, I did worse than that," Sarah smiled. "I hired two men to carry the replacement safe upstairs on a carrying-litter, with the small safe slung between two poles, and they carried down the safe it replaced in the same wise. When this happens, it is noticed."

"What about you?"

"I was in disguise, as I usually am in such moments," Sarah purred. "They will be looking for a ghost, a shadow, a will-o'-the-wisp."

"Hmp."  Jacob raised an eyebrow, lifted his chin a little: conversation halted as the waiters approached again, taking their empty plates and setting dessert-dainties down in front of them.

Sarah declined more wine, Jacob thanked them for refilling his coffee: dessert was an unexpected treat -- ice cream, with finely diced apples and walnuts in a warm maple sauce.

"My goods are already gone from my room," Sarah smiled, "my bill is paid, I am to be well away from here come sunrise."

"So on sunrise ... two of the three are in for unpleasant surprises, and an innocent man ...?"

"Will be informed where he can pick up his gold. He will also be given a letter outlining exactly how he was taken into the confidence of the first two, and he will be told which court will have jurisdiction over the guilty."

"And the guilty?"

"One will be arrested in his nightshirt. The other -- the one with the duplicated safe -- I can reasonably project will come down the stairs at the top of his lungs, demanding to know how someone could simply walk off with his safe. At that time he, too, will find his collar felt."

There was an incensed yell from upstairs.

"On the other hand," Sarah smiled, "I might have misjudged the timing."

Sarah rose, flowed across the floor, borrowed a walking-stick a man parked behind his chair: as an incensed, yelling, red-faced man in a poorly-fitted suit came storming downstairs, Sarah waited innocently until he got to the bottom, then thrust the cane between his scissoring legs, and managed to introduce his face to the carpeting at a good velocity while making it look like a complete accident.

Jacob came out of his seat as Sarah passed his position; he was two steps behind her when the confidence man sprawled full length on the floor.

Jacob planted a boot on the man's neck and said firmly, "Mister, you lay real still or I'll put a .44 through you."

A discordant whistle from without, another from a short distance away: Sarah drew back, thrust the borrowed walking-stick back behind its rightful owner's chair and returned quickly to their table.

She sat demurely, wineglass in hand, watching with big and innocent eyes as Jacob waved the local constabulary over to him, as he turned the lapel over on his coat to display his six point badge, as he mentioned a particular detective's name: Sarah was not sure what-all her pale eyed half-brother did say, but she did know that this particular fellow was hauled out by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants, and that his nighttime accommodations would be less pleasant than they'd been for the preceding two days.

The doorman smiled as Sarah pressed a coin into his hand, he lifted his topper, raised a gloved hand and summoned a waiting hack: a fashionably-dressed young woman and a well-dressed young man were driven to the depot, where they were shown to the Judge's private car.

Sarah Lynne McKenna tilted her head and regarded the Judge frankly.

"You were right," she said without preamble. "The singer was quite good."

"She does not match your range," the Judge admitted, "but her control is magnificent."

"It is," Sarah agreed, "and she can sustain a note longer than most!"

The Judge gave Jacob an approving look.

"Thank you for getting her out of there," he said quietly. "I know they saw her when she looked like a dance-hall doxy, all painted up and frilled out ... they never saw her looking respectable, but I wished to take no chances."

"My pleasure, sir," Jacob replied with an equal gravity. "I prefer a universe with my sister alive and well in it!"

"Not to mention a good meal," Sarah teased gently, and the Judge laughed.

"If I didn't know you two were brother and sister already," he chuckled, "that would've told me, right there. Only a sister will torment her brother like that!"

Sarah's hand slipped into an invisible pocket and she withdrew a folded sheaf of papers, handed them to the Judge.

"My report," she said, her voice suddenly serious. "Not only did I discover what you wished, I kept an honest but rather gullible man from being shorn like a sheep!"

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

EXTRACTION

"How was the Big City?"

Jacob hung his Stetson on its peg, hitched his trouser legs and sat across the desk from the Sheriff.

"Still there, sir."

"Things go all right?"

"I reckon they did, sir. His Honor seemed pleased."

"He didn't happen to let loose of any dee-tails, by any chance?"

"No, sir. Sarah arranged for a couple fellas to get drug in and another she determined was innocent."

The Sheriff nodded slowly, approvingly: Jacob knew his pale eyed Pa had a broad streak of justice ... probably because he'd been falsely accused of murder, and had to be smuggled home in a coffin for most of the journey ... and partly because his old and dear friend, Jackson Cooper, was a man on the run for some years because of false accusations back East.

Jacob recalled when his pale eyed Pa went back East and left him to run the Sheriff's office for a time: his Pa came back and didn't say word one about what he'd done whilst he was there.

Jacob did not find out for just shy of a year, that his Pa went back and settled Jackson Cooper's accounts.

It took another year and a half for Jacob to find out his pale eyed Pa woke a man with his hand over the man's mouth and his knife to the man's throat: he'd spoken quietly, in the bedroom darkness, he'd told the individual Jackson Cooper was alive and well and his innocence was proven, and he'd come to collect for the grief he'd caused the man.

The guilty party had neither kith nor kin.

His personal fortune was offered in exchange for his life.

The mentioned funds were extracted from under a plank and presented with shaking hands.

Jacob was told the guilty man was found hanging in the barn with a dropped note under him that said, in shaky pencil-drawn letters, "I'm sorry."

Jacob knew Linn had a quiet palaver with Jackson Cooper, once he got back from back East.

Jacob saw his Pa hand him a poke of cash money, and Jacob recalled seeing from a little distance away, the relief on the big town Marshal's face as his Pa spoke -- quiet, pitched so only the Town Marshal could hear.

 

His Honor the Judge rose as the Sheriff came in.

The Judge happily puffed out several huge clouds of tobacco exhalation.

"Cigar, Sheriff? Brandy?"

The Judge didn't wait for an answer: he opened a cupboard, set out short, broad glasses, then a cut-glass decanter, poured two healthy libations.

They drank: the Judge, deeply, the Sheriff, sparingly.

The Judge stoppered the bottle, set it back.

"Sheriff," he said sadly, "sometimes I don't mind being wrong!"

"How's that?" Linn asked.

His Honor the Judge picked up what was left of his cigar, regarded it sadly -- "Either my chaw has caught fahr, or my SEE-gar is about drowned out" -- he dropped the smoldering remains of the Cuban into the spittoon, frowned, sat.

"Sarah," he said, nodding as he did, "Sarah kept me from looking like a damned fool.  Not just a fool, now" -- he looked sharply at the Sheriff -- "but a damned fool!"

"How's that?" Linn inquired mildly.

"I sent her to look into the affairs of a group of men. She found they were not the big criminal giants I'd thought they were, that two of them were swindlers and the third was not only innocent of machination nor plot, the third was about to be fleeced. Sheared like a sheep. Swindled out of his eye teeth!"

The Judge shook his head, ran a hand through his thinning white thatch.

"Oh, I suppose it was well enough done," he sighed. "A good man was spared the loss of fortune, at the cost of his pride, perhaps, but it's easier to cry when you can afford a roof overhead."

Linn considered this, nodded, just a little.

"I don't suppose," the Judge said as he leaned back and sampled his brandy, "you'd be inclined to talk about why the best lawman in these mountains went back East for a month?"
Linn took an assaying sip of his own drink.

"Peach. Good batch."

The Judge waited while cigar smoke stratified in the still air.

Silence grew between the two men, until finally Linn looked at the Judge with quiet eyes and said "Had to see a man."

The Judge grunted, frowned, waited.

Linn sipped his brandy again and elaborately paid no attention at all to the waiting jurist.

The Judge well knew the value of patience, and so he waited, and finally, when Linn drained the last of his peach brandy, he studied the cast-faceted base and said thoughtfully, "Judge, how much cash money do you reckon a man's life is worth?"

"Depends on the man."

Linn nodded.

"I thought as much myself."

He rose, set the empty glass on the Judge's desk, settled his Stetson on his head.

"Thank you for the brandy, Your Honor."

Linn felt the Judge's eyes glaring into his shoulders as he departed.

His Honor the Judge watched the door close quietly, shook his head: "I'll have to send the Black Agent with him next time to find out what he's up to!" 

He sorted through the papers atop his desk, frowning, looked at the closed door.

"Sometimes," he sighed, "gettin' that man t' talk is like pullin' teeth!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

THE PORK CHOPPER

Sheriff Willamina Keller was known as an efficient administrator.

She made no attempt to look like One Of The Guys.

She made no attempt to be One Of The Guys.

She capitalized on the fact that she was a woman in a man's job, and she leveraged that difference to her advantage.

Sheriff Willamina Keller wore a tailored suit dress.

Every day.

She wore nylons.

Every day.

She wore heels.

Every day.

She was polite, courteous, efficient, she was soft spoken until she wasn't, she was pleasant and cooperative until she wasn't, and more times than one she went from patient and soft-spoken to fast-moving, violent and utterly ruthless, generally in a tenth of a second or less.

Sheriff Willamina Keller stood at shift change and addressed two shifts' worth of deputies.

"First off," she said, "well done on three raids in a week. We've gotten -- no, not we."

She stopped and looked very directly from one set of eyes, to a second set of eyes, to a third set of eyes.

"Not we," she continued. "You. You've gotten that stuff off the street.  Well done."

She smiled a little, and then she laughed quietly.

"And I didn't even have to pull in the Pork Chopper!"

The rest of morning brief was just that -- brief -- but it marked a common element in her administration: she recognized her people's efforts, and spoke of her approval openly, in front of everyone, for she well knew the effectiveness of praising in public.

Barrents waited until the day shift's departure, until Nightwatch was gone for home, before approaching the Sheriff.

She was drawing a big mug of coffee -- a white-glazed mug that said DAMNED IF I DO on one side and DAMNED IF I DON'T on the other -- she smiled at Barrents, saw his gaze was on her mug.

"Souvenir from my days in nursing," she said quietly. "Coffee?"

She didn't wait for his reply before grabbing another mug and filling it.

"You're curious about the Pork Chopper."

The big Navajo's black eyes were bright, attentive: this woman had surprised him from the moment he'd picked her up at the airport, and he honestly did not have her figured out yet.

Willamina drizzled cold milk into her mug, turned, looked at the dispatcher.

A third mug, a little milk and sugar, and the pair drifted over to the Dispatcher's desk.

Sharon looked up, surprised -- "Oh, bless you!" she groaned, "I need this!"

"Now," Willamina said quietly. "The Pork Chopper."

Barrents sampled his coffee, found it to his liking, took another sip.

"When I was with a little village department back East," Willamina said, cupping the mug in both hands like an arthritic old woman drawing comfort from its warmth, "we helped with the annual Pot Raids.

"The Sheriff borrowed an early ... I think it was a Huey, the ones that look like a mosquito. Bubble front, open tail."

Barrents nodded:  "Familiar," he grunted.

"They're a piston job and they take aviation gasoline."

Willamina saw something change in Barrents' eyes.

"You're a step ahead of me," she said quietly, "and you're right."

Barrents' eyebrow raised a half inch, lowered.

"The Sheriff was too cheap to pay for av-gas. He put regular unleaded in it."
Barrents' frown was not visible unless you were looking for it.

Willamina was looking for it.

"You guessed it," she confirmed. "Carburetor froze up and they had to auto-rotate down. It was the last time any agency ever loaned aviation of any kind to the county."

She took a couple swallows, closed her eyes, hummed with pleasure.

"Goooooood coffee," she murmured, then looked at Barrents.

"Before it froze up and quit," she continued, 'the Sheriff saw a previously undiscovered pot patch and tried to direct the Forces of Good and Light to this new location."

Barrents waited, his eyes bright, black, unreadable, attentive.

"I knew the man," Willamina sighed. "He could not direct his way out of a wet paper sack. After ground troops asked for clarification for the third time he keyed up and yelled "DAMMIT, THERE!" and threw the talkie he was using.

"I don't know if he expected them to read his mind or what, or know they were supposed to see the five watt Motorola's descent.

"It hit base first in freshly dug-up dirt, and it wasn't hurt."

Willamina took another sip, memories showing in her eyes.

"One town Marshal ... when they went on the annual Pot Raids, they took the county's six-by to haul the crop. Everyone wore blue jeans and work shirts, just string your revolver on your trouser belt and go. The Marshal stuck his corn cutter in his belt."

Barrents' normally impassive expression was showing curiosity now: Willamina's eyes tightened a little at the corners and considered this a minor victory: if she could win over this skeptical Chief Deputy, she could win over anyone in the department.

"Now poor old Joe was built like a broom handle. He didn't have hips at all, so when they came over the ridge and saw the pot field in front of them, he drew his corn cutter and yelled "Tally Ho!" -- only when he did, he cut through his trouser belt and his drawers ended up around his ankles while he stood there with a corn cutter held like the Statue of Liberty."

Barrents' eyes crinkled at the corners: he turned away a little, a smile cracking the reserve he usually wore: Sharon was laughing now, Willamina was smiling.

"Joe borrowed my carbine to ride load guard," she continued. "He was laying down on top of the crop in the back of the six-by until the pot growers started following them.

"He sat up and worked the bolt on my carbine and the pot growers changed their minds."

Barrents resumed his poker face, but could not hide the interest in his eyes.

"They piled it up in the County Fairgrounds, soaked it with Diesel fuel and burnt the whole thing. The Fairgrounds are located in a college town, the college students were gathered around trying to get some smoke and crying because their anticipated recreational supply was going up in flames."

Willamina gave Barrents an absolutely innocent look as she added, "The little hot dog bar across the street sold out that afternoon."

Barrents gave up.

He laughed.

The Great Stone Face fell away and disappeared, and in its place was a fellow Marine with a rotten sense of humor:  Barrents gulped the rest of his coffee, sook his head, chuckled and muttered his way to the coffee table, set his mug down and headed back for the latrine.

Willamina heard the door boom shut, then Barrents laughing.

Sharon gave Willamina a wide-eyed look and said quietly, "Pork Chopper?"

Willamina drained her own mug, blinked innocently.

"Refill?"

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

OUTDONE!

Michael Keller scraped the barn stall carefully, methodically.

He was not in a hurry.

He smiled as he remembered his pale eyed Pa's quiet-voiced observation that "Your Uncle Will told me once that 'Hurry up is brother to mess it up' -- his Pa tipped him a wink and added confidentially, "it's plumb amaaazin' how often I've proven the man right!"

Michael worked steadily: before his spine was damaged, before he had to undergo multiple surgeries to rebuild his entire vertebral column and a significant percentage of afferent enervation, he worked like the energetic young man he'd aspired to be, attacking a task with swiftness and vigor and not stopping until the task was completed, no matter how big.

Now -- now that he'd learned to take things slower -- now that his overhauled, repaired, looks-like-factory-new back reminded him at intervals that a particular exertion, a particular move, was ill-advised -- now Michael approached labor in a more measured fashion.

Returning home was Michael's haven, his solace, his refuge.

Linn knew his son had quite the thriving -- and demanding -- business, providing books, providing musical instruments, to worlds well beyond the Sheriff's ken: his son was busier than he'd realized, in areas he hadn't realized, until Marnie took him on a visit to several of the Confederate worlds.

Linn was honestly amazed at being treated like a celebrity.

Apparently being the pale eyed Pa of a pale eyed, hell raising Diplomat, had made him better known than he'd realized; he'd helped train lawmen from several worlds, yes, he'd consulted and assisted on offworld cases, yes, but the man was honestly unaware of just how famous a figure he'd become.

It settled into his gut with a solid kerthump when a woman in a cheerful, sunny-yellow dress glided up to him, silent as a graveyard ghost.

She gripped his hands, tried to speak, and he realized she was about to cry.

He'd immediately taken her elbow, drawn her a little to the side: they were in a crowd, but the gesture was natural, and said to those around them, and to her, that he wished a moment's privacy: he pulled a bedsheet kerchief from his sleeve, placed it in her hand, and she folded it, pressed it to her eyes, head bowed.

She looked up at him, blinked, and whispered, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said in a gentle voice, "but what kind of trouble did I get into this time?"

His smile was as soft as his voice, and the women laughed a little, then she blinked and took a long breath, looked off into the distance, then turned to him.

"I was nobody, back home," she said, her voice tight: "I did things ... I have a criminal record, back on Earth."

Linn nodded, once, his expression that of a father, listening to a daughter's confession.

"Michael ... he insists we call him Michael, not Mister Keller" -- she smiled a little and Linn expected her to start crying, but she didn't -- "he ... he found out I could play piano.

"He brought me here and he, he, he ....."

She had to stop and collect herself again, then threw her head as if to toss her hair behind her.

"He clean-slated me."

Linn nodded, slowly, once, his eyes intently on hers.

"That's what he called it.  Clean-slated.  He said ... he said when he, he, ran me through something and I felt all tingly and he said it was a decontamination thingy and, and, and that I did not carry anything contagious now, and" -- she looked at the Sheriff -- "oh my God, I could have carried smallpox!"

Linn nodded, slowly.

"Yes ma'am," he said carefully.  "That, or the Galloping Crud."

She put flat fingers against her lips and giggled a little.

"He ... I was nobody back home," she said. "I was ... bad."

"And ...?" Linn prompted.

She looked at him with a vulnerable expression.

"Here ... I'm somebody now. Somebody. I ... they ask me to play piano in church on Sundays. I teach piano now. I ... never ... I've never been a teacher, but ..."

She smiled, looked past him, as if at somebody, or perhaps at a memory.

"I have the most wonderful students," she whispered.

"Your life is better here?" Linn asked quietly.

"Oh, yes, and Michael ... if it was not for Michael ..."

Her hand went quickly to her mouth again, her other arm across her belly -- a guarding motion, betraying a sudden anxiety.

Linn stepped into her, ran his arms around her -- not to hold her, not to trap her or claim her, but to let her know someone understood.

"I," he said quietly, his cheek laid down over top of her ornately piled up hair, "am pretty damned proud of you!"

He held her as she buried her face in his vest, as she gave a little squeak and as she hugged him back the way a daughter will hug her Daddy when she really, really needs those strong and warm and protective arms around her!

 

Michael sipped sweet tea and laughed quietly.

"Sir," he said, "a schoolboy outdid me today."

Linn regarded his son quietly, then sampled his own tea, found it very much to his liking.

"I could say the same."

Father and son shared a look, and both laughed.

Their table was back in a corner: they knew they were the subject of observation and conversation, but at the moment, they did not really care.

"Paper making improved over the years on each planet," Michael said thoughtfully, "but most places it's still kind of crude. Two planets, it's still really crude and they're using chewed weed stem brushes and berry ink."

Linn frowned a little, leaned forward, clearly listening closely to his son's words.

"I'm helping out there. I don't want to simply provide. They have to make their own, but I'm providing Confederate Rippers to take care of all their waste of any kind. I don't want new industry fouling the air or the water."

Linn nodded again.

"Now ... paper."  Michael honestly grinned.  "I was sitting down with about a half dozen schoolboys and they asked about handwriting. I told them about the Palmer method -- the way I was taught -- they asked about something fancier, so I told them what little I knew about calligraphy."

Michael tilted his head, his eyes distant.

Linn could tell, from the quiet smile on his son's face, that Michael was looking at a particularly good memory.

"Sir," he said, "one of those schoolboys took a plain old lead pencil and proceeded to write -- not in true calligraphy, but ornamentally -- he out did me seven ways from Sunday."

"With a pencil you provided, on paper you provided."

"Yes, sir," Michael agreed, "and I couldn't be happier!"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SWISS ARMY HORSE

Children have two, and only two, speeds:

First, wide open, running right up against the governor, and second,

Full stop, generally accompanied by collapse-and-nap.

This, of course, suited The Bear Killer just fine.

Sheriff Linn Keller and his energetic young worked with his deputies, worked with his K9 partners, worked with his horses: he, and they, trained to find the lost, and when Linn noticed his stallion was curious when The Bear Killer sniffed a clothing exemplar, he gave Apple a good sniff too: when The Bear Killer put his nose to the ground and began trailing, Apple-horse put his nose down as well, snuffing loudly, great moist nostrils flaring as he did.

The Sheriff and his deputies not infrequently trained in areas open available to the public.

When his stallion was seen being given a good noseful of scent, when the stallion trailed along behind the big black mountain Mastiff, nose to the ground, blowing minor clouds of dust as he, too, trailed, word spread.

When the Sheriff worked their drug dog around a car, Apple-horse followed his fellow pasture-mate in circling the car, scenting trunks and doors, then thrusting his big equine head into the car's interior.

In honesty, it was not drugs the horse scented, but an apple the Sheriff strategically planted on the console, for he knew he was watched, and he knew the value of subterfuge, he knew the value of misdirection, and -- to be honest -- the Sheriff loved a good joke, and if he could convince people his horse could sniff out fleeing criminals and hidden drugs, why, it might make his life a little bit easier.

If nothing else, it would be a good inside joke.

He neither confirmed nor denied that his horse could smell contraband, though he did arrange with a parolee to stand in front of his stallion with a poke of Giggle Weed in his shirt pocket: Apple-horse shook his head, paced up to the parolee, snuffed the pungent pocket, carefully lipped the dangling Bull Durham string and pulled the prize from the pocket with a quick back-step and a toss of his head, triumphantly waving the cloth poke and getting his picture in the paper in mid-wave... just like he'd practiced with the parolee and the Sheriff in the lawman's back pasture.

The Sheriff quietly had coffee with the County Commissioners, one or two at a time, informally; he let them in on the joke, as he knew the tendency for budget cutting bureaucrats to seize upon what the layman saw as duplicated efforts or resources as a "cost-cutting measure" -- and the Sheriff had no wish to lose any K9 officers because his horses "could do the same as the dogs."

Not that the Sheriff expected this to happen, but he was not a trusting man, and he and his late Mama discussed bureaucracy and bureaucrats at length, and she'd detailed to him how laymen with power over the purse, could make an honest lawman's life difficult.

The Sheriff had a whole filing cabinet full of testimonies and missives from children, mostly -- childish drawings of big black Dawgs, or stick-leg horses that looked more like smiling lozenges.

After his carefully crafted, low keyed, didn't-mean-for-it-to-hit-the-paper efforts (yeah, right!) -- he received one he didn't file.

He framed it.

He hung it in his office.

It was a child's rendering of a horse, with the awkward attempts at accuracy that marks a child's sincerity.

It showed a mostly white horse with tan spots, a stick figure rider with a big yellow star for a chest, a broad brim hat, and spoons and forks and a screwdriver blade radiating out from the horse like a metallic constellation.

It came with a note in a child's printed, wobbly scrawl.

Mommy said Apple is a Swiss Army Horse, it said, and for all the years it hung in the Sheriff's inner office, it never -- not once, not ever -- failed to bring a smile to that lean waisted lawman with the iron-grey mustache.

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WIDOW'S CHOICE

Michael Keller ran four fingers together, down the page, down the neatly-inked columns of entries, down the record of his incredible wealth.

He was not yet old enough to drive, back on Earth.

He was a man of commerce and of substance, on multiple planets.

Michael made it his business to be as stealthy as his pale eyed ancestress, the legendary Willamina, who his pale-eyed father assured him solemnly "could walk in high heels across a field of potato chips while wearing jingle bells, and make not the least little sound."

Michael considered this report, and imagined his dainty, feminine Gammaw, slipping a foot forward, sliding the toe of her shoe under the chips: he'd known elk to do this, in the mountains, sliding a hoof forward, through-and-under fall-brittle leaves, instead of stepping on them.

Michael's Uncle Will said whitetail deer back East did that exact same thing, that he'd watched a deer sneak through a thicket, each hoof slowly, deliberately, slipped under the frost-brittle leaves instead of stepping on the delicate, easily-fractured leaves, as the deer advanced until scenting the hidden human, then reversing the process, all with perfect stealth.

Michael saw to it that his wealth was not hoarded.

Most worlds, most jurisdictions, had taxes of one kind or another.

Michael was careful to render unto Caesar that which was Caesar's, but he also had no tolerance for graft: when bribery was solicited, he brought quiet influence to bear to destroy the bribery culture, to expose the local corruption.

Sometimes he was able to do this quietly, surgically.

Sometimes it resulted in unexpectedly public turmoil: twice he was challenged to a duel of honor: in both instances, his challenger was snatched, transported, thrown alone into a one-acre arena with a single-shot pistol: Michael stood at the opposite side of the one-acre arena, and walked steadily, determinedly, toward his opponent.

One duel saw him plant his cocked percussion pistol against his opponent's forehead, which resulted in his opponent throwing his pistol aside in surrender: no blood was shed, the contest was decided far from a toadying audience or political grandstanding.

The other saw his opponent level the sightless, octagon-barrel dueling pistol as Michael marched steadily toward him: unnerved, his opponent fired, and missed, and turned ghost-white as Michael closed to within three feet.

Again, quarter was given, no blood was shed -- in this second instance, perhaps, we should qualify the result with "No blood was shed yet," as this only made his opponent hate the pale eyed businessman all the more, and in a personal attack across a card table, Michael was obliged to kick the table into his attacker's gut, duck the descending knife and exercise a particularly effective move he'd practiced often.

The attacker's wrist healed, afterward, but with extremely limited movement, and a distinct ability to predict oncoming rain -- and his significant absence from local politics for several years thereafter.

Michael did this to protect his stealth.

Michael quietly, discreetly, supplied whole schools, or sometimes individual classes, with books, with writing materials, with teaching tools: churches that could afford neither piano nor hymnals, found them delivered with an invoice stamped PAID IN FULL -- and there were Parsons whose parish was honestly too poor to pay them a living wage, who found themselves the recipients of a weekly pay envelope that arrived without any indication from whence it came.

Widows woke to the sound of men setting up ladders, to roofs being removed and replaced, to the sight of the straw boss lifting his cap as he handed her an invoice that said "ROOF REPLACEMENT PAID IN FULL," and the straw boss admitting honestly he had no idea who it was paid the bill, only that materials, labor, cleanup, all was paid for, and when they were done, if she'd take a look and make sure the work was to her liking, he would be very much obliged.

 

Victoria came to her sisters, concerned at her twin brother's distresses.

She'd suggested that he'd been working himself entirely too hard, punishing himself for something that was honestly not his fault, and that, in the vast, lengthy and incredibly extensive experience in this mysterious relationship of the male and the female (which she lacked), he should have a new love.

Victoria intercepted the look her older sisters shared.

Victoria turned an incredible shade of red.

Michael walked in on this feminine council of war as his twin sister, her cheeks flaming, vehemently denied that she was casting romantic eyes toward a certain eligible young bachelor -- she looked at Michael and went from the florid face of denial, to red-and-guilty-faced realization that her careful machinations were not only found out, but exposed, and exposed to the last person in the world she wanted to realize her sisterly plotting.

Michael did not ask if he might join them.

He looked from one set of pale eyes to another, then he did what was probably the most sensible thing he could.

He turned around and walked out.

 

Three sisters adjourned to an intimate little cafe on a cobblestoned boulevard, not far from where they'd initially gathered: over flavored teas and little finger-sandwiches and dainty tea-cakes, Victoria was given to understand -- with sisterly patience, with more kindness than Victoria herself had practiced -- that if Michael did find someone, it would be when the time was right, that it could not be rushed: Michael could neither be pushed, nor would Michael tolerate being pushed.

If, on the other hand, Michael remained single, for the short term or the long, so be it.

 

Michael Keller placed a stack of yellow-cover paperbacks on the Mercantile counter.

There were twice a dozen of the half inch thick publications in the stack.

Michael was well enough known, thanks to the Inter-System -- and the fact that he rode up on a Fanghorn, half again taller than any proper saddlehorse -- the proprietor recognized him immediately and came to the counter.

Michael pulled off the top copy and turned it around so the proprietor could see the printed cover.

"I need your advice," he said quietly.

" 'The New Standard Almanack,' " he read aloud, looked curiously at Michael.

"What's an Almanack?"

Michael smiled a little.

"This tracks the phases of the moons, the set of the stars, and the seasons. We've got the past thirty years' worth of weather records, averaged out. Rainfall patterns, first frosts, snow depths -- this is accurate for this general area, understand."

"Are you ... selling these?"

"Not right now," Michael admitted. "I want to publish something that's actually useful. If you'd pass these out to your customers who actually grow things and if you'd tell them I'm asking their advice, and yours -- if you'll look ... here ..."

Michael split the pages open to a green bookmark.

"This is my best guess as to properly planting with the moons' phases, but back on Earth there's only one moon. Here there's two. I've made my best guesses, but that's all they are -- guesses, based on how we planted back home."

He looked at the proprietor.

"See how this is printed. I've left these gaps so folks can write in their observations, and there are instructions as to what I'm looking for."

Michael turned to another bookmark, almost as wide as the page itself.

"For their help, this is a certificate of payment."

The proprietor looked at the certificate, raised an eyebrow.

"A year from now, if they turn in one of these with their observations, written in, they can trade this certificate for hard coin."

"That's ... generous," the proprietor said slowly.

"I pay what it's worth," Michael said bluntly. "I expect accurate observations. If I'm completely bass ackwards wrong on these, I want them to write that. If I'm spot on accurate, I want them to write that. The date of their first frost, their first killin' frost, when they get rain and how much, when they get snow and how much. If they tell me beans grow better if you plant them in this particular sign, or tomatoes grow better when they're planted when Littlemoon is chasing ahead of Bigmoon, write that."

"Beans?" the proprietor asked, puzzled.

"I ... should have remembered that," Michael said slowly, then: "Tomatoes?"

The proprietor shook his head, the blank look still on his face.

"Do I recall you have a native wheat?"

The proprietor blinked, nodded thoughtfully.  "We have, and rye."

"As I recall, your Saloon has some of the best rye bread I've had," Michael said softly, then looked back at the proprietor. "Goats for milk?"

The proprietor laughed. "Oh, ya," he chuckled. "Mama was dry when she birthed me, so a nursin' goat was brought in for me. I was raised on goat milk from hatch to fork, and Mama said I inherited that goat's contrariness!"

Michael grinned, nodded: he knew a door was opened, if the man was willing to share this vignette, was willing to extend a trusting laugh.

"Days are shortenin' up," Michael said thoughtfully. "Winter's headed south toward us, so I'd best not bring any seed just yet."

He looked at the proprietor, reached into a pocket, pulled out a poke and dumped shining coin on the countertop, arranged it quickly into stacks.

"This is yours," he said, pushing the stacks toward the man. "And here" -- he pulled a box from his other coat pocket, opened it -- "pencils, so they can write in what I'm lookin' for. A pencil with each book."

Michael could see the gears turning behind the man's eyes, for there were easily three times the number of pencils as there were Almanacks stacked up.

The Mercantile's owner stared at this unexpected wealth neatly columned up on the smooth wood countertop, looked at the pile of newly published Almanacks, looked at Michael, then offered his hand.

They shook.

"I can help you out."

Michael turned, went to the door, hesitated before he opened it.

Two happy little boys were wallowing all over Lightning's back, reaching for Cyclone's questing muzzle, then Thunder's.

A young woman stood watching them with the worried look of a young mother, or perhaps a responsible older sister.

Michael's grin was quick, bright, as he looked at two happy little boys exploring the broad back of a beast that honestly could have eaten them both and still been hungry, as they reached for the velvety muzzles of two colts that could have taken their hands off clear up to the shoulder.

Michael saw the young woman turn toward him, quickly, the way a woman will when she's startled, or wants to give the impression of surprise.

Michael swept off his Stetson, gave a courteous half-bow, then looked at the boys with the soft expression of a man remembering what it was to be a boy.

"I'm sorry," the woman said, her voice gentle, musical: "my brothers ..."

Michael looked at her and laughed, nodded.

"I was much the same myself," he admitted, then curled his lip, whistled:  "BOYS!" he barked. "OFF!"

Two little boys, big-eyed and scared, froze.

Michael came off the boardwalk, circled behind Lightning: he picked up one little boy, swung him up and dunked him a-straddle of Cyclone.

The young woman saw him murmur to the surprised lad, saw the boy grin, saw young eyes widen with anticipation: bare legs gripped a blond-haired Fanghorn barrel, hands pressed flat just under her mane.

Michael hauled the other vibrating child off the ground -- when he saw his brother wasn't going to be kicked, cuffed, knocked down nor yelled at, when he realized there were two young Fanghorn and two of them -- when he realized his brother was now riding one of these marvelous creatures of legend they'd only seen on the Inter-System -- well, an excited, ready-to-bust-for-happiness boy offered no protest at being snatched off the surly earth and dropped aboard a dancing, restless Thunder.

Michael came back up on the board walk, removed his Stetson again.

"My Lady," he said gravely, "live you far?"

She swallowed twice, her mind running like a Splithoof across the meadow.

"It's right up there," one of the boys offered with the cheerful, high-pitched voice of an enthusiastic male child.

"I seem to have two willing riders," Michael said. "I would offer you a ride, but I know not if it would be proper."

She seemed to come to a decision, even before one of the boys piped, "C'mon, Ma, it'll be fun!"

Jacob looked at her, spoke again, his words careful.

"My Lady, would you prefer to ride astride, or sidesaddle?"

She dropped her eyes and her cheeks turned the same shade of startling scarlet as Victoria's had when Michael walked in on the feminine klatsch.

"I," she murmured, "it would" -- she swallowed.

"I have not a riding-skirt."

"Can you ride sidesaddle behind me?"

She looked at him, blinked, nodded.

"I ... yes, I'd like that!"

Lightning turned her head, muttered something.

Michael laid a hand on her neck, whispered something: the big Fanghorn sidestepped hard up against the boardwalk, then folded her legs, bringing the saddle down to an easy height.

"My Lady," Michael said, "if I may," then he took her quickly, suddenly, under the arms: he picked her up, swung her easily across Lightning, behind his saddle, sitting crosswise.

"Get yourself situated," he said, taking a long straddle step to get his leg over the seat: "hold onto my coat, take me around the waist, whatever's handy for you."

Lightning rose -- easily, smoothly, raising a startled young mother to an unprecedented height.

She ran one arm around Michael's middle, reached down, deathgripped the edge of the saddleskirt with her other hand.

"Whither away, my Lady?" Michael called happily, and two happy little boys raised enthusiastic arms and pointed:  "Up there!"

"Thunder, point," Michael sang, "Cyclone, drag."

Thunder trotted happily forward as Cyclone fell in behind, their happy young passengers giggling the way little boys will when experiencing something unexpected, something absolutely delightful.

 

Michael bellied Lightning down, swung a leg up, dropped the little distance to the ground: he reached up -- "Slide off toward me," he called, caught the woman as she dropped, eased her to the ground, then turned to the boys.

They'd already cascaded off the Fanghorn colts and were happily petting thick, muscular necks, marveling at these boss-headed creatures of legend.

Both young Fanghorns showed their pleasure: their tails were slashing with happiness, and their lips were drawn back to show their fighting canines.

This was a threat display when the tails were dead still.

Michael's hands remained under the young woman's arms longer than he intended: he released her carefully, took a step back.

"My Lady," he said uncertainly, "I only just realized that I have placed hands on another man's wife. I have overstepped myself. Please forgive me."

"My husband is dead," she said quietly, "and these are my nephews. We'd taken them in when their parents were killed."

Michael nodded solemnly.

"My condolences," he said carefully, "on the loss of your husband."

"It's been ... over a year," she said hesitantly.

Michael considered a few moments longer.

"If it would not be an ... intrusion," he said, his adjective chosen with particular care, "and with your permission, I would call upon you again."

She blinked, nodded.

"I would like that."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FASTER, GAMPAW!

John Junior was offworld.

Littlejohn, son of Dr. John Greenlees and Ambassador Marnie Keller, was staying with his Gamp-paw.

He was young enough to regard the world with bright-eyed delight, old enough to get underfoot and be a noisy and curious disruption to everyone and everything.

In other words, he was Linn's grandson, he was a typical healthy active little boy.

Emphasis on active.

At the moment he was standing up in the front of a grocery store buggy, marveling at the sight of stocked shelves scrolling past him.

This was new.

Joseph was used to life, enclosed: only the common area, the cavernous room that served as cafeteria, auditorium, concert hall and whatever else was needed, was the only place in his native Martian tunnels that had a ceiling anywhere near this high.

As far as the wonders, brightly wrapped and enticing, stacked neatly on shelves on either side ... well, Littlejohn stared at these enticing wonders, at least until he got bored with them and frowned as his Gampaw stopped to put a couple items in the buggy.

Linn detested "Shopping" -- which was what his wife did -- no, Linn shopped, with a lower case S, but not until after he'd planned his expedition for maximum efficiency. He regarded shopping (with a lower case S) the same as a military raid: fast, efficient, get in, get it, get out.

Shelly honestly hated shopping with her husband, because Shelly shopped with a capital S. 

Shelly Shopped.

Today, with his grandson in the buggy, Littlejohn laughed happily and turned around to look at his Gamp-paw, turned back, turned toward the pale eyed man again and declared, "Faster, Gamp-paw! Faster!"

Linn looked ahead, looked behind: he hunched over a little, then took out running, pushing the shopping buggy at running speed, while a little boy with a big grin clung to the wire edge and laughed as only a happy little boy can laugh.

It was the same laugh as he used that afternoon, when Linn had him up on Apple-horse with him: Littlejohn was still built close enough to the ground that Linn could ride with one arm around his grandboy, and Littlejohn's feet on the saddle, and Littlejohn grabbed Gwamp-pa's hat and dunked it on his little head and yelled "Faster, Gwamp-pa! Faster!"

Apple-horse, being a perceptive soul in his own right, did not need further encouragement: horse, rider and laughing, squealing grandboy pounded the length of the long pasture, Littlejohn gripping the brim of his Gamp-paw's hat, tilting it back enough he could just see ahead, his Gamp-paw's arm strong and warm around him, holding him safely in place.

That night, warm and drowsy in a bunk where another little boy used to sleep, years before, Littlejohn smiled a little as he relaxed into early sleep, feeling the belly-tickle of almost-falling, because he felt lighter here in Gamp-paw's house -- his young body was used to Earth-and-a-quarter gravity, and he felt considerably lighter here on Earth, and that meant his tummy felt like he was still standing on his Gamp-paw's saddle, with Gamp-paw's arm around him and he went to sleep remembering how happy he was when he hollered "Faster, Gamp-paw! Faster!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WHEN THE UNIVERSE SAYS NO

Angela Keller laid down in her own bunk, under her own roof, secure and comforted with knowing she had family around her: she did not have to have them in sight to know her Daddy and her Mama were across the hall, in their bedroom, that Jacob and Marnie were in theirs, that the twins were fed, changed, sound asleep in their shared rib in the master bedroom.

Angela was tired, and Angela was freshly showered, Angela was in a flannel nightgown that smelled of clean air and sunshine, and Angela fell asleep with that tickle-the-tummy feeling of a young body that's just been worked like bread dough in a baker's hands.

Instead of being kneaded in a bowl, she'd been pounded in a saddle.

Her legs ached, burned, or did, before she quit for the night.

She'd rubbed her Daddy's racer down, she'd cooled him down and walked him down and she'd curried and petted and baby-talked him, the way girls will, and her Daddy's black racer just plainly ate it up, the way horses will.

Angela walked the racer through the barrels first, several times: she'd taken most of the week, working with him after school, picking up his pace, working gradually, steadily.

Her Daddy's black racer was bitless, like the rest of his saddle stock: Angela learned to ride bitless stock, which she was convinced led to a better communication between horse and rider.

Her Daddy taught her consistency was the secret to horses.

By week's end, Angela had the racer up to a fast trot -- not because she was encouraging him to slow down, but because he wanted to go faster, and finally Angela hit the button on the fencepost-mounted timer, she leaned forward a little and whispered, "All right, Midnight!"

Midnight's launch almost caught her by surprise.

Almost.

She leaned forward as Midnight streaked past the barrels, then spun, whipped in and out of the barrels, whirled, ran their length again and through the finish gate, stopped suddenly: Angela reached out and slapped the timer.

Midnight danced, impatient.

"What, you wanta do that again?" she asked, then unwrapped a peppermint, laid way out over the shining black racer's neck, reached down: slobbery lips sucked up the red-and-white-swirly bribe, Angela wiped her hand on her thigh, slapped the timer again.

At the tone, Midnight drove forward again, harder.

Angela leaned forward in the saddle, teeth clenched, muttering, "Go, go, go, go!" -- and Midnight laid his ears back and brushed her boot against the barrels as he snaked through them.

Her times were good.

Her times were beyond good.

Every night, Angela worked herself and she worked Midnight and she slapped the timers and wrote down the times, Angela curried and brushed and rubbed down and grained her Daddy's shining black racer, Angela came in and showered and ate supper and collapsed into bed and slept like the proverbial rock.

There was a barrel race Saturday.

She worked herself and her Daddy's shining black racer for a month.

The night before the barrel race, she slapped the timer, Midnight drove forward like a ball from a field gun.

When Midnight swung around and began his usual snaking slalom between barrels Angela scrounged and swapped for and two she outrightly bought, when Midnight leaned a little, a grinning young face popped up from behind the first barrel, and one from behind the second, and Midnight shied at speed and twisted away like he'd just seen the great grandaddy off all King Rattlesnakes.

Years later, when Angela got her driver's license, when she bought her first car and took it out on the same training pavement law enforcement used, she spiked the brakes at road speed to find out what the car did under panic-stop conditions, and reported the result as very similar to the time Midnight locked his brakes when they were just starting into the barrels.

Angela was not ready for a twist, a half-roll and a panic stop.

At least she thought that's probably what happened.

What she did know, was that Midnight stopped, and she didn't.

In that bright tenth of a second before disaster walked up and introduced itself to her, she realized:

a) She was airborne;

b) She was not in control of her descent;

c) Her mind was running far faster than she ever thought it could, and

d) She had no idea how a parachutist was trained to land and she wished most sincerely she knew!

Whether by design, or by accident -- probably both -- Angela hit the ground heels-first.

Her boot heels dug into the ground.

They stopped.

She didn't.

Angela flipped forward.

Instinct, swift thought, whatever the cause, she tucked, went over --

The ground spun around her, raised up and smacked into her shoulder blade --

Angela half-skidded, half-spun, went over once more --

She spread her arms, squinched her eyes shut, clenched her jaw --

Angela Keller came into the house, but not before she'd walked Midnight some to cool him down, as she always did, and not before she'd tended to Midnight as she usually did, and not before she had saddle and saddle blanket hung up.

The twins waited, each looking as guilty as the other: Michael and Victoria sat across from each other, subdued, silent, at the kitchen table, where supper was almost ready to be set out: they hung their heads and glanced sidelong at the front door, at Angela, filthy all down her front, with her crushed, thoroughly dirtied Stetson in hand: when she skidded, belly down, her Stetson crushed into the ground and saved her face from a personal introduction to the pasture's unforgiving substrate.

Next day, Angela rode her Daddy's shining black racer to the Fairgrounds.

She signed up for the barrel race, paid her entry fee, had the card with her number on it, safety pinned between her shoulder blades.

She and Midnight waited at the chute: at the signal, Midnight drove down the chute, shot into the arena like a streak of cannon-fired ink, shining and black and moving like Hell itself was in pursuit.

Until they came to the first barrel.

Someone left a ballcap on the first barrel.

Angela did not lose her seat this time.

She chose to eject.

Midnight shied, Midnight spun, peeled off to starboard, escaping a memory instead of an actual threat --

When Midnight lost his footing and went over, Angela kicked loose, shoved down hard on the saddlehorn and just plainly ejected out of the cockpit rather than get her leg mashed under the falling horse.

She didn't get mashed.

She hit the ground, rolled once before coming to a fast, hard and most painful stop against the arena wall.

Midnight fought to his feet, shook his head, danced sideways away from the offending barrel, came over towards the unmoving Angela.

Something about six foot long, black as your hat and a foot tall, streaked across the arena like the swift arrow of Death itself: Angela woke up to the familiar scent of dog and the familiar feel of getting her face enthusiastically laundered by a mountain Mastiff.

It was a day of firsts -- the first day she'd ever wiped out in front of an audience, the first time she'd hit her head hard enough to wake up someplace other than where she remembered having just been, the first time she'd ever been in a CT scanner, the first time her Daddy looked down at her with an expression she'd never seen before.

She realized that maybe the reason he looked so funny was because she was in a hospital bed and his head was almost framed by the rectangular fluorescent ceiling panel.

Angela stayed overnight in hospital for observation.

Her Daddy stayed with her, dozing in a chair beside her bed, his arm through the siderails, slid under her hand: he did not lay his hand possessively on hers, he slid it under, and that was a comfort to her: sometime through the confusion, something big and fuzzy and warm launched into the hospital bed and cuddled up beside her.

The Bear Killer laid his big blocky head over her chest, apparently convinced that better than a hundred pounds of mountain Mastiff was therapeutic enough to cure a rainy day.

Angela endured being wheeled to her Daddy's faded-orange Power Wagon, she felt a little funny at being picked up like she was a little girl again, but she allowed her Daddy to set her in the passenger side: something told her he needed to do this, he needed to provide for My, Little, Girl, and so she let him, and without protest.

 

Angela Keller shaded her eyes and smiled as a living waterfall of horses ran down the little grade toward her.

This was the prize of Planet Stonewall's breeding program.

Angela went into the corral and walked fearlessly among them: some were still wild, most were half-wild, at best green broke: she did not fear them, and they were obviously curious about this strange two-legs that smelled of happiness and peppermints.

Victoria rode through the milling, restless herd, Michael following on his own mount: the twins were on surprisingly matched Appaloosa mares, and grinning: Angela looked up at them and laughed.

"I understand you've been barrel racing!"

"We have!" Michael declared. "Wanta try?"

Angela shook her head, caressed a curious, nostril-flared muzzle: "The universe," she said, "tends to tell me no!"

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DAS BOOT

Jacob was hunched over, his voice gentle: he moved his hand in beside his mother-in-law's and said quietly, "Slip your other hand out from under."

She did.

She was holding a crosscut saw with one hand under, a broad shake shingle held down with the other.
"I've got it, slip your hand out now."

She did.

It was all the slack the snake needed.

Patricia pulled her hand free, half-fell, half-rolled.

An inconvenienced and rather unhappy snake started to shoot out from the sandwich she'd made.

Jacob, squatted down, mashed his boot atop the shake shingle, pinning the snake again: he used the back of his knife blade to pin it behind its head, rather than cut off the head and make a bloody mess: he stood, gripping the unwanted creature behind its head, tilting his head and studying the open mouth, the fangs swung down, the amber drop of venom gathering at the end of each of the curved injectors.

 

Patricia was his mother-in-law.

Patricia smiled and rocked and knitted, she looked at the calico cat curled up on the hook rug in front of the stove, asleep: she looked across the room, to the doorway leading to the bedroom where her grandson Joseph slept.

She looked back at her knitting, then frowned, looked up again.

Movement?

What ...?

Her stomach seized itself into a twisted knot as she saw the shadow moving steadily along the baseboard -- 

Maternal instinct and utter terror collided somewhere just south of her beating heart.

Patricia's knitting fell from her now-vertical lap, forgotten: she ran to her husband's easy chair, thrust into the gap between the seat and the upholstered arm, came up with the pistol with which the man had been gifted -- Patricia had shot it before, it was a small caliber, she'd managed to hit a playing card with it --

Patricia ran toward the steadily moving snake, fired and fired and fired again, her eyes welded on the moving shadow, she saw holes appear in the floor and in the baseboard and the hammer fell on an empty chamber --

Patrician turned and tossed the empty pistol into his chair, looked around frantically --

There.

Joseph had been playing with freshly split shake shingles, outside, and brought one inside: he'd found a crosscut saw somewhere, and it too lay on the floor behind her husband's chair.

Patricia charged the snake --

She thrust the crosscut saw under it --

Patricia SLAMMED the shake shingle down atop the snake: one hand under the saw, one atop the shingle, she held it tight, allowing herself the luxury of terror.

Of all the things in the world she feared, snakes topped her personal list; of all the duties she took seriously, keeping her young was equally high a priority: and so this matron, this matriarch, this wife and grandmother, knelt in the nighttime darkness, scared beyond anything she'd ever known, shaking, crying a little, muffling her gasping fears so as not to wake the sleeping grandson in the next room.

Jacob came in less than an hour later, which was about a year and a half by Patricia's reckoning: he saw her down on her prayer bones, he heard her unsteady voice -- "Jaacooobbb," -- she managed to wobble the one word out of her fear-tightened throat.

Jacob was across the room in three strides.

He drove his own hand in beside hers, under the saw; he spread his over hers, bridging around her hand with splayed fingers -- "I've got it, let go now," his voice gentle, quiet, strong, confident -- 

She fell back, fell away; a moment's slack and the creature very nearly made its escape, until Jacob's leg came up, until his mirror-polished boot pressed down, caught it firmly against the floor without actually crushing it.

Jacob manipulated the creature and seized it behind its head.

Jacob carried it outside into the midnight darkness.

Jacob walked maybe a quarter of a mile away from the house before unwinding the venomous creature from around his wrist, before swinging his arm back, before slinging it in a powerful roundhouse, calculated to employ centrifugal force to sling it away from him and prevent any reflexive bite.

Patricia, his mother-in-law, emerged eventually from the necessaries room; she fixed tea with shaking hands, at least until Jacob's return into the night-silent house.

A dignified matron and woman of substance, held onto her son-in-law the way a drowning soul will seize a float in a storm-tossed sea, and he held her, knowing she needed this moment, knowing she was vulnerable, knowing this was what she needed.

She took a shivering breath, her cheek pressed against his collar bone.

"I was so scared," she whispered, and she felt his arms tighten, just a little, in response to her words: she shivered, she hiccupped, she giggled.

Jacob slacked his embrace, and she did too, and she looked up at him, her spectacles sitting crooked on her nose.

"All I could see was that big boot coming up!" she said, and then she laughed, and Jacob laughed with her.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

BOYS AND LEGENDS

 

A pretty young woman stood in the front of the passenger car.

Two rows of seats had been removed, to create a presentation area: the Z&W Railroad had a lively tourist trade, folks from back East and elsewhere came out to see the changing leaves, the Shining Mountains, there were railfans who came to marvel at The Lady Ester and her twin, at the steam-powered inspection car and the rolling stock, they came to hear the ghost stories associated with the railroad, and with the region.

The pretty young woman in the McKenna gown and a fashionable little hat stood, smiling, her hands very properly folded in her apron, as she looked over her spectacles and sized up the carful of folk who'd come to be entertained -- whether by rolling stock, scenery or stories, it didn't matter: she was on stage, and she delighted in the moment.

A skylight was installed not long ago, to afford better lighting in this stage area -- two skylights, really, one on either side of the brakeman's walk that ran the length of the car's roof -- she raised a gloved finger and began, "There is a legend."

 

Michael Keller's face was about a foot and a half long, and getting longer by the minute.

He sadly regarded the broken hatchet handle, he looked at the broad-edged hatchet lying among wood chips and sawdust, looked at it as if it had personally offended him.

Michael was trying to split kindling.

He was trying to do something good.

He was trying to stack up stovewood for his Ma, he wanted to bring in armfuls of split kindling and stack by each stove.

He heard his Pa's step, felt his Pa's hand on his shoulder, felt his Pa squat down behind him.

"Havin' troubles?" Jacob asked quietly.

"Yeah," Michael sighed, holding up the headless handle.  "I kinda broke it."

Jacob reached forward, took the handle: Michael turned, watched his father examine the broken end with interest.

Jacob grunted, nodded.

"I was afraid of that," he said softly.

Michael bent over, picked up the hatchet head.

"I'll whittle out another handle, sir," he said, disappointment in his voice.

"Michael."

Jacob's voice was gentle.

Michael turned, surprised, to see his Pa's pale eyes were as gentle as his voice.

"There's a varmint been skulkin' around hereabouts, givin' folks grief."

"Yes, sir?"

"It's called a Hatchet Hound."

Michael felt a moment's hope that maybe his Pa was not going to make things worse.

Michael's profound sense of disappointment at having let his Pa down by hitting splitwood with the handle instead of the edge, was bad enough: in his young and tender state, the least word of criticism would have wounded his young soul terribly.

A father rarely realizes the strength of his words, especially when they are applied to an honestly adoring son.

"Michael," Jacob continued, looking down at the hatchet handle, "this wasn't broke by one swing."

Michael swallowed, remembering the many times he'd misjudged his swing and hit the handle instead of the hatchet hitting the splitwood.

"Take a look."

Jacob was hunkered, balanced on the balls of his feet: he held the hatchet handle up, turned it slowly, frowning as he studied it, then he looked at his son.

Michael was clearly uncomfortable, but dutifully standing for whatever his father wished to levy upon him as punishment for this offense.

Jacob traced splinters with an analytical finger.

"This," he said, "is obviously the work of that notorious Hatchet Hound."

Michael's young brows puzzled together and his head turned a little, the way his Granddad used to, as if to bring a good ear to bear:  "Sir?"

"Michael, you recall how porcupines will come into camp and chew on leather or ax handles or anything that tastes of salt?"

Jacob blinked, puzzled over this unexpected line of reasoning.

"Yes, sir."

"The Hatchet Hound is kind of like that. Damn things' got a face like a hatchet and it chews hatchet handles -- right here" -- Jacob tapped the broken end of the handmade handle -- "it generally does not bite 'em in two but it'll chew on 'em and weaken 'em."

Michael considered this,then:

"Sir?"

"Yes, Michael?"

"Is there anything I can put on the handle to keep 'em from chewin'?"

Jacob stroked his clean shaven chin meditatively, his eyes distant, looking up the slope of the mountain behind them.

"No," he finally said, "I don't reckon so."

"How," Michael asked carefully, "do we keep it from ... comin' back?"

"We can't," Jacob admitted frankly. "Sometimes it comes back just to aggravate a man after it's been gone for years." 

He gave his son an understanding look.

"Generally they do go away, though."  He winked, gripped his son's arm gently, gave Michael that quiet smile that told the distressed lad that all was well.

"Tell you what. If you reckon you can whittle out another hatchet handle, I'll let you to your labors."

 

The pretty young woman in the front of the car clasped her gloved hands delicately and added, "The hatchet hound is not the only notorious creature in these mountains. There's the Hidebehind, that sneaky sort that follows you through the forest but slips behind a tree when you turn and look for it. If you're ever in the woods and you feel someone watching you, that might be it."

"What about Windigo?" a little boy asked, raising his hand like he was in a schoolroom.

The pretty young woman closed her eyes and shivered, then looked back at the boy.

"Let me tell you what the Windigo isn't," she replied, her voice a little softer: "the Windigo is not Bigfoot. The two are sometimes confused.

"Windigo is native to the East. The Algonquin and other Eastern Woodland tribes believed if someone was evil in their lifetime, they were turned into a Windigo as punishment. They are cannibals. They eat people. They are mean, they are violent, they are the reason I do not venture out without a Winchester rifle and a bulldog revolver."

"What do they look like?" the schoolboy persisted, despite his mother's attempts to shush him.

"No one has survived the Windigo to tell," the pretty woman in the fashionable long gown admitted. "There are wise men who say it's big, hairy, it likes to wipe its feet in its victim's blood and so leaves bloody footprints in snow. I've known people trying to stir up a panic by walking in snowshoes through a wet snow and dropping red paint in their snowshoe prints as they went."

The train continued its journey, whistling cheerfully at granite cliffs and precipitous valleys, chanting across steep but narrow gaps in the mountains: the pretty young woman explained that legends often have some foundation in fact, and the Hatchet Hound was probably invented because porcupines would come into a logging camp at night and would chew up anything with a trace of salt -- ax handles being a favorite, having absorbed the salt sweat of laboring lumberjacks.

"And the One-Eyed Droop," she continued, "is a creature that lies atop tree branches -- it's kind of like uncooked egg white, but with an eye -- it'll droop down one side of a branch and take a look at you, then it'll pull back, almost as if it were disappointed."

She smiled, clasped her hands, then consulted the little watch pinned to her bodice.

"I have an appointment," she smiled, "do excuse me" -- she flowed gracefully, smiling as she went, down the middle row between the passenger seats: heads turned, eyes followed, at least until a feminine voice in front spoke.

"Thank you all for riding with us," a pleasant woman's voice said, and everyone turned, surprised, to see a pretty young woman in a McKenna gown and a fashionable little hat standing in the stage area at the front of the car.  

She set an enlarged portrait on a tripod nobody saw her set up -- a portrait of a young woman with pale eyes, wearing a McKenna gown identical the one the speaker wore.

"This is Sarah Lynne McKenna," she smiled: "my name is Marnie Keller, and I am a direct descendant."  

She gave the passengers and absolutely innocent look as she slipped the dainty spectacles onto her face, slid them fashionably down her nose, looked over the lenses and added, "I am told we look very much alike!"

The passengers turned, looked to the back of the car.

The door had not opened.

Nobody had left the car.

Nobody was at the back of the aisle.

"I am told," Marnie said pleasantly, "that these mountains are haunted, and that the shade of my honored ancestress sometimes walks this very passenger car." 

Marnie batted her eyes and lowered her chin a fraction and said confidentially, "If you see her, please point her out to me. I've not seen her yet but I would love to!"

Two men, their jaws hanging, pointed to the rear of the car, and a little boy looked from Marnie to her portrait to the back door which was still securely closed.

"You're ... all ... looking ..." Marnie said hesitantly, then she lifted her skirts and marched purposefully down the aisle and to the back door: she thrust the door open -- bright, indirect sunlight and the sound of steel wheels on steel rails -- Marnie leaned out a little, looked left, looked right, pulled back inside, closed the door:  she crossed her arms, tapped her foot impatiently, frowning as she did.

Almost every set of eyes welded themselves to Marnie.

Almost.

A little boy's eyes were widening and his mouth opened in surprise as he looked forward, to see the pretty young woman solemnly regarding the enlarged portrait.

Marnie's gown was reverse engineered from the gown in the portrait, each detail painstakingly reproduced: she and her pale eyed Gammaw made it together, and Marnie sat for the formal portraiture.

The little boy watched as the pretty young woman considered the portrait, then turned and looked at him, smiled, gestured with a gloved hand to the portrait.

The little boy blinked, excited, he turned, he saw Marnie smile and look very directly at him, and wink.

He looked to the front of the car, and the pretty young woman who looked identical to Marnie, was gone.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

"D'YE SEE WHA' SHE'S DONE?"

Sheriff Jacob Keller maintained a careful expressionless to his visage.

This was, for him, a rather profound scowl.

He dismounted from his stallion, walked the Appaloosa toward his father, stopped.

Retired Sheriff Linn Keller was coming back to the house.

Jacob had held back and watched as his father peeled the saddle off his own mount.

Jacob had watched from a distance as his father rode the pasture as he always did -- tall, confident, completely at home on horseback, The Bear Killer coursing along beside him.

Jacob watched as the Grand Old Man unsaddled his mount, Jacob sidestepped his stallion to where he could look in the open barn doors and see Linn swing the saddle up to where it always lived, as Linn hung the saddle blanket where it could air out and dry from the ride -- though at their slow pace, he doubted his Pa's horse sweat any a'tall.

He waited until his father was walking back to the house, The Bear Killer at his right hand.

Only the subtle touch of fingers on fur betrayed the retired Sheriff's secret.

Jacob waited, his scowl softening as The Bear Killer galloped forward, nosed his hand in greeting, leaned companionably against his leg and gave that happy yow-wow-wow that was his usual voice when Jacob came around.

Jacob took a step forward as his father extended a hand.

"Jacob."

"Sir."

Jacob reached into his coat and pulled out a folded note, turned it to catch the greatest amount of light.

Linn extended his hand, took it: he ran his old man's fingertips over the missive, looked at it and smiled at the wax seal on the back.

"Dolphin?" he asked, and Jacob could see the smile tightening the corners of his father's pale eyes.

"Yes, sir. She's taken a shine to that sparkly purple wax."

"That's the batch I had made for her," Linn said quietly, and Jacob could hear the pleasure in the man's voice -- he'd had that pretty purple made for her, because she'd always like purple, and he'd had the British waxmaker blend in fine metal shavings to give it a sparkly appearance, because Angela told him once in a child's voice that "Girls like sparklies!"

"I reckon she wants to come out and visit."

"I reckon so, sir."

Again, that pleasant fiction, that delicate dance around the truth: Linn nodded, slid the sealed message into a vest pocket.

"Did you pull a Sarah?"
Jacob laughed quietly, nodded: his father chuckled a little.

"Sarah liked what worked," he said quietly, sadly: Jacob saw -- for a moment, for only a moment -- the grief that lanced through the man again, the sorrow of a man who knew what it was to lose family, a man who remembered a daughter he'd sired, a child of the mountains with his hereditary rage in her veins, her mother's beauty in her face: Jacob saw the mask his father wore, slip, he saw the sorrow the man kept hidden ever since the news that Sarah was murdered by the mob that attacked her father-in-law's schloss.

He'd spoken of it with Jacob as Sarah's stone-in-absence was dedicated, as her cenotaph was placed in the family section of the cemetery: Linn confided to his son that, of all who swarmed through the barred and shattered doors of the old Count's schloss, only one lived to tell what happened, and this sole survivor described a creature of legend and lore, an angel of fire and rage who laid about the Philistines with an American howitzer, a blued-steel Jawbone of a Jack Mule: how she'd shot herself dry against this ravening tide, how she'd dropped the twelve-bore and she'd pulled a pair of revolving-pistols and laid among them as they pressed her back, back up the marble steps, how she'd dropped empty smoking pistols and drew a pair of blades, how her scream as she attacked with shining steel froze men's hearts.

She'd fallen, finally, pierced and beaten and she'd died with a smile on her face, her hand crushing the life from the nearest throat as her steel found another's heart, just before the Schloss filled with fire and with song, for this sole remaining attacker was insane from the experience.

It was a mark of insanity that a woman on horseback flew over this sea of blood and blades, and reached down, and drew a gauzy soul from the dying body, a soul that became solid and recognizable again as it, too, swung a leg over a great, shining-black, winged horse, and the two flew off together, their song pure and powerful and soaring as they flew into the smoke-clouded night sky.

Jacob blinked, pulled himself back to his Pa's place: he saw all this in that bright tenth of a second, when Retired Sheriff Linn Keller's careful poker face faltered, and memory washed across it.

They walked to the house together: father, son, horse and big curly-furred Mountain Mastiff, silent until they reached the porch.

"Jacob."

"Yes, sir?"

"That young man Angela married."

"Yes, sir?"

"You pulled a Sarah."

"I did, sir."

"Tell me about it."

Jacob chuckled a little, and his father smiled to hear it.

"Sarah told me once that the hired help is as loyal as their pocket-book, so I put that to use."

"And ...?"

"I consulted the household's manservant, the two Girls, the hired man outside."

Linn waited.

"The all agree."

They stopped at Linn's front porch, the Grand Old Man looking directly at his son.

"He's treating Angela like a Queen," Jacob said quietly. "Angela herself confirms this."

"She is maintaining separate accounts?"

"She is, sir. I've seen to that."

"Does the household prosper?"

"It does, sir."

"And how does her husband treat the hired help?"

Linn could feel Jacob's quiet smile in his hesitation.

"He treats them ... well, sir."

Linn nodded, once, thoughtfully.

"Even when nobody is looking?"

"Even when nobody is looking, sir."

Linn blinked a few times, frowned, nodded.

"Thank you, Jacob. You are my eyes in these matters."

"Yes, sir."

 

Later in the day, Linn received his daughter, which sounds rather formal.

It was more like Angela drew up in front of her Daddy's house, her Daddy came down the wooden steps with his usual gravity, and that was the absolute end of propriety.

He reached up as Angela came out of the buggy, he seized his little girl under the arms and hoist her up at arm's length, spinning her around like he used to when she was a little girl, and Angela Keller -- well, Keller no more, she was a married woman -- threw her head back and laughed, and when her feet finally found purchase on the earth below, she jumped up and hugged her Daddy, and he hugged her back.

Linn turned and thrust out his hand to the uncertain young man who stood with his hat in his hand: "Put your hat back on, son," Linn said warmly, "and thank you for taking care of my little girl!"

It wasn't until Angela's happy visit, until after they'd eaten, until after the Sheriff asked about the silver mines and the zinc mines back East to which he'd steered her husband's finances: the two hired girls watched from the front door as the happy visitors took their leave, and drove off.

"Did ye see wha' she'd done?" one whispered to the other.

The other hired girl frowned a little, shook her head.

"She turned her husband so he was in th' full sun, so Himself could see him th' better."

"Ah, his eyes."

"His eyes, aye," the first on whispered. "Th' puir man has such terrible cataracts, he's near t' stone blind!"

"Sooo ... when she turned him ... Himself could see th' hand when he extended ..."

"Th' white hand against th' black coat, aye, he cuid see it!"

The first hired girl, the most senior, sighed quietly.

"He an' Herself set such a guid example f'r their young," she said, almost sadly. "They've no' forgotten th' lessons!"

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

TO STRIP THE BLOUSE

Angela Keller laughed as the big Jimmy Diesel woke up.

The former military six-by valve-snarled and settled into a patient, almost menacing rumble.
Angela Keller, Sheriff's deputy and registered nurse, eased the olive-drab truck out of her Daddy's barn -- she whipped it end-for-end, if you can imagine something that big and ponderous whipping around -- okay, maybe she just turned it and backed it, and made it look easy.

Angela is a girl.

Girls do things like that.

Especially mountain girls with pale eyes.

Michael had the shed doors open, he had the flag attached to the trailer's tongue, he stood to the side and flagged his sister back, back, then he held his hands apart -- a yard, two feet, a foot: Angela slowed to a dead-slow crawl, back, back, responding to Michael's head-turned study of the distance between pintle hitch and the water buffalo's hitch ring.

Six inches.

He dropped one hand, held thumb and forefinger apart -- touched them, spread them -- once, twice --

A fist, and Angela's white, crepe soled nursing shoe came down on the brake pedal.

Michael secured the trailer, motioned her forward.

Angela pulled out until Michael raised a fist again.

She waited.

Michael broke the seal -- the waterboo had been sterilized before being parked empty in the shed, waiting for the time when it would be needed.

All seals were intact.

He pulled a mirror from his pocket -- one of his father's tricks, he'd gone to the Mercantile and asked for a scrap of mirror where they custom cut mirror glass -- he edged it with electric tape and kept it in a coat pocket for moments like this.

The beam of reflected sunlight lit up the inside of the immaculately-clean, still-sterile interior: still, it was policy to make a visual inspection before filling.

Michael dropped the hatch shut, gave his sister the thumbs-up.

 

"ALL HANDS ON DECK! NO IRISH NEED APPLY! TURN TO, DAMN YE, OR I'LL HAVE YER GUTS FER GARTERS!"

The Irish Brigade came at a dead run.

The Chief did not raise his voice unless there was a situation, and from the look on his face, there was.

Fitz stabbed a finger at his engineer.

"MULDOON! SHUT OFF TH' HOT WATTER TANK! WE'VE NO WATTER PRESSURE AN' I'LL NO' BURN TH' DAMNED THING UP!"

The engineer gave a curt nod, headed for the utility room to tend that detail.

"NOW FOR TH' REST OF YA!" Fits yelled, his face darkening with the effort. 

"YA REMEMBER YA GIVE ME GRIEF F'R SAVIN' ME EMPTY MILK JUGS AN' FILLIN' 'EM WI' WATTER AND STACKIN' 'EM AWAY!"

He glared at the poker faced assemblage, knowing full well they were probably hard pressed to keep from busting out laughing at his affected histrionics.

"AS FULL OF IT AS YE ALL ARE, WE'LL NEED FLUSH WATTER! AN' YE PROBABLY WONDERED WHY WE DON'T USE COMMODES WI' TANKS INSTEAD 'A' TH' FLUSH VALVES LIKE EVERY OTHER FIREHOUSE IN THE WORLD! WELL, LADS" -- he stopped, looked at a carefully-innocent-expression Shelly, continued in a gentler tone, " -- and Lady" -- then he resumed his stern expression and his loud and powerful voice, "I KNOW HOW FULL OF IT ALL OF US ARE" -- he thrust an accusing finger -- "DON'T SAY IT, MULDOON!"

"Didn't say a word, Chief," Muldoon said, his face twisting with the effort of not cracking into a wide-open laugh.

"I'VE NO LESS THAN TWENTY THREE GALLONS O' FLUSH WATTER STACKED UP F'R T'DAY! THAT'S WHY WE HAVE TOILET TANKS, LADS, SO WE CAN DUMP A GALLON O' WATTER INTO TH' TANK AN' FLUSH WITH! MEANWHILE WE'VE NO WATTER A'TALL! MAIN LINE BREAK!"

The Chief paused, breathed, glared at every last one of the bib-front red shirts ranked before him.

"IF WE HAVE A RESPONSE WE'LL HAVE T' SET UP SUCTION LIKE WE'D TRAINED! CHECK TH' PORTABLE PUMPS AN' TH' DROP TANKS! YE'VE MAPS IN EACH TRUCK SHOWIN' LOCATIONS F'R ALTERNATE WATTER SUPPLY!"

Fitz paused again, taking several long breaths, then he turned as the man door opened and two smiling girls in frilly aprons and pink-check dresses came smiling in, one carrying two big stacked flat boxes of assorted doughnuts, the other carrying a big tray of capped coffee cups.

"We thought you might have your hands full," one of the girls called.

Every last bib-front, red-wool-shirt Irishman broke ranks and rushed forward to assist these lovely ladies in their humanitarian effort.

 

Angela skipped into the Sheriff's office, giggling like a little girl: she seized her Daddy in a happy hug, kissed him on the cheek, then struck a model's leggy pose with one hand behind her head, her eyes half-closed and sultry: "Aren't I the very image of a hardback truck driver?" she purred.

Sheriff, Dispatcher, two deputies and a visiting Township Trustee, collectively lost it.

Angela waited until the general laughter subsided, then tilted her head and looked at her Daddy.

"The water buffalo is out back, it's coupled up and ready. I've got it on automatic. As our rooftop reservoir drops, it'll feed from the buffalo until it's empty, then it'll signal us and I'll go hit the well again."

Linn winked, looked at the Trustee.

"You ... planned this," the Trustee said slowly.

The Sheriff grinned, which was answer enough.

"What ... else ... did you plan?" the Trustee asked slowly.

"We all sat down together. You were given the memo but none of the Trustees cared enough to show up for the planning session."  

The Sheriff thrust a chin at the glass double doors in front.

They could hear Sharon answering the phone -- "no, there's a main water line break. I'm sorry, we don't know but they are working on it right now."

The Sheriff looked back at the Township Trustee.

"The Fire Department mapped every alternate water source. Wells, cisterns, swimming pools, something they call dry hydrants. They've practiced pumping into drop tanks from alternate sources and then suctioning out of the drop tanks into the pumpers, relaying from one pumper to another. I don't know what all they do but they practiced it. The Silver Jewel has a reservoir in the top floor. It's enclosed so it doesn't freeze. Their plan is to shut down the kitchen, notify all guests to conserve, they'll dispense bottles and cans of beverage."

"That was quite a hole where the line broke."

Linn nodded. "I understand it drained the elevated tank."

"I'll have to check with the County Commissioners. I don't know if we have to have the tank reinspected to see if the lining pulled away when the water level dropped that completely."

They heard Sharon saying -- for the fourth time -- "no, there's a main water line break. I'm sorry, we don't know but they are working on it right now."

She lowered the handset to the cradle, picked it back up: Angela went over to help her, as the 911 line was almost as busy as the Sheriff's direct line that was so busy right now, and calls on the hot line got priority.

"What about the hospital?" the Trustee asked.

Linn shrugged. "They've had that covered for years. Generators, water, rations, they're ready for a siege if need be."

Sharon turned, phone in hand: "Sheriff," she called, "that was Grant. He said they've got the bad section dug out and removed, Kittle's is on the way with gravel to bed the new pipe and they have the replacement section they need, at the village warehouse. He said if everything goes right, they should start filling the tank in an hour, but they'll have to disinfect the line and a boil order will be in effect."

 

Shelly smiled and wrote another few lines on the small yellow pad.

"Thanks, Chip," she said. "You too, 'bye now."

Shelly hung up the phone, tore the page free, rose.

She knocked on Fitz's door frame, extended the note.

"Chip over in Carbon Hill called and all-hands. He said they're staging their tanker halfway between there and here and they'll be on the county frequency in case they're needed."

Fitz nodded, took the note, read it, then smiled a little and murmured, "I owe the man a beer."

"Cassel Station should mark in any time, they usually do."

"Rural departments," Fitz said quietly. "We don't use hydrants unless we're in town."

Shelly nodded, thinking of their restored steam pumper and how they had no hydrants "back in the day" -- it was all hand dug wells, or even horse troughs, for what little good that would do.

 

A week later, a meeting in the Commissioner's office: Township Trustees, fire departments (plural), Sheriff's office, Mayor's office, business owners, Firelands Utilities.

"The repair," Grand said in answer to the question, "is holding in fine shape. The original water line was brand X cast from eighty years ago. Good steel went to the War effort -- Second World War -- the civilian market got the low grade stuff. I'm honestly surprised this lasted as long as it did."

"But it's fixed now."

"It's fixed now."

"If this line failed ... what are the chances we'll have more ...?"

"Chances are quite good," Grant admitted. "That's why I've put in a requisition for a catastrophe valve. It'll shut if the water drops too fast. Another break and we won't lose the tank like we did."

The Trustee leaned over and murmured to the Sheriff, "You planned this."

The Sheriff smiled, ever so slightly.

"I helped prepare," he said. "Planning ... no, I didn't plan this, but I'm sure as hell taking advantage of it. Grant wanted that catastrophe valve five years ago but it was more money than the trustees wanted to pay. Now they can't say no."

The Trustee folded his arms and grunted, unconvinced.

Later that evening, two fire chiefs stood at the bar of the Silver Jewel in their undershirts.

Fitz raised his mug in salute.

"Told you I'd buy you a beer."

Chip raised his own mug in thanks.

Their shirts were neatly folded, stored behind the bar: it would not do for an on-duty firefighter, in uniform, to be seen bellied up to the bar.

It would also not do to let a professional kindness go unacknowledged.

Two Chiefs "stripped their blouse" and handed them to the grinning Mr. Baxter, who'd seen such professional kindnesses before.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SPOILED, OUTRAGEOUSLY

Shelly Keller planted her knuckles on her apron strings and scolded, "Linn Keller, you get down off that ladder this instant!"

Shelly's scolding words ended abruptly as he looked at her.

"This wall won't paint itself," he said mildly, giving her his very best Innocent Expression, "and I don't want you up on a ladder paintin'!"

"You know we've people we can call to have this done --"

Linn gave his wife a patient look, then he blinked, considered, and nodded.

"In that case darlin'," he said quietly, "please pass me the lid and I'll close up this can of paint."

"Do you need me to wash out the brush?"

"No ma'am," Linn said, setting the lid in place and tapping it home with the red plastic handle of his screwdriver. "Never painted the first lick, she's clean."

Linn picked up the paint can in one hand, held the unused brush in the other: he backed carefully, stood, set the can down and the brush atop it, took his wife's hands in his.

"Darlin'," he said quietly, "I have benefitted more times than one by listening to my beautiful bride."

Shelly stepped into him as he ran his arms around her, sighed contentedly as she leaned against the solidity of the man's chest.

"You take such good care of me," she murmured.

"I've only got one of you," he chuckled. "That makes you a limited edition! -- besides," he continued, drawing back and regarding her with that ornery look she'd fallen in love with as a younger woman, "you recall when you had the chest crud and Doc told me to take you home, and put you to bed, and spoil you outrageously?"

Shelly laughed quietly, nodded: she'd picked up something upper respiratory, probably from a patient, and she'd sounded like she had the entire Berlin Philharmonic residing in her bronchial tree: Linn took a week off to take care of her, he'd cooked and cleaned and kept her primed with plenty of fluids, the occasional aspirin, and good red meat as soon as she felt like eating.

"Who's a good choice to paint the inside here?" Linn asked quietly -- he knew when his wife said that they had people they could call, she had someone in mind.

"Chesty Hern," she said without hesitation. "He's the best I've seen. He painted Fitz's office and didn't drape anything, he painted ceiling and all and never dripped once."

"It's important not to drip in public," Linn deadpanned.

Shelly swatted his backside, but not hard.

"You know what I mean!" she scolded.

"Make the call, darlin' " Linn smiled. "Paint's here, brushes or whatever he wants to use. If the man's professional about his work I'll not go tellin' him how to do it."