SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SAWMILL CUT PLANK

Old Pale Eyes subscribed to a personal, military, neatness.

His black suit was brushed, his necktie carefully knotted, boots polished, his curled handlebar carefully waxed: he long maintained that careful grooming reflected a careful mind, and whether because of his appearance, or in spite of it, his work, his courtroom presentations, his careful persuasions when he arbitrated a dispute between rivals, neighbors or competitors, reflected the orderly and logical operation of a disciplined mind.

Old Pale Eyes was a man who planned ahead.

He'd planned for today.

He'd originally intended to go up-mountain and across the saddle, down the other side and through a natural, long archway -- very nearly a tunnel -- and emerge near the narrow goat path that led up to High Lonesome.

He'd intended to go there, where he could sit, alone, on a natural stone bench, and let the sun soak into his old bones.

He'd intended to take something he could to ss to curious cubs, if any were nested in the low, deep cave that opened beside the natural stone sittin' bench.

He didn't go.

Old Pale Eyes sat down on a sawmill cut plank he'd fashioned into a rude bench, attached to the barn: he sat on the sunward side, in the lee, where sun's warmth could soak through his black suit, and into his aging carcass, and hopefully chase out the aches and pains he'd accumulated over the years.

Old Pale Eyes knew why he sat here, rather than high on the mountain.

If he sat here, he was near the house -- he was near to where Esther might step out onto the porch and flutter a dishtowel at him, and for a moment he smiled, just a little.

Esther.

Esther of the shining, red-auburn hair and the ready laugh.

Esther, all green eyes and womanly curves and that knowing look that could see through him like a glass window.

Linn closed his eyes and leaned his head back against weathered boards, remembering the sound of her step as she approached, the whisper of petticoat material as she swept her skirt and sat beside him, graceful as a dancer with that simple act of just sitting.

His right hand opened a little, as if asking her to slip her hand in his, the way she used to, when he'd sit on this self same bench and she'd come out of the house and sit with him.

Linn felt The Bear Killer shift and sigh dramatically and roll over, pressing lightly against the side of Linn's high Cavalry boot top.

Esther was long dead, but other eyes watched the old retired lawman, taking his well earned ease in the sun -- younger eyes, pale eyes, unobtrusive and watchful guardians of a man they'd respected for years and saw no reason to change now.

They knew the Grand Old Man was near to stone blind now, his hearing was much less than it had been: his laugh was still as quick, his mind as sharp, as it had been, but he was slowing noticeably now.

He'd not asked for the help, he'd not asked for overwatch, but this was family, and family took care of their own.

Especially when they were taking care of an old retired Sheriff who'd given very bad men serious reason and cause to wish him harm.

 

Reverend Linn Keller, cousin to the pale eyed lawman with whom he shared a name, sat in the lee of a shed with a sleeping, blanket wrapped child in his arms.

He leaned his head back against weathered timber and closed his eyes.

The child he held was sleeping, finally: the good Reverend sat up all night, bathing the child in tepid water to bring down the roaring fever: Parson and patient were about worn out from spending the night fighting the disease-fires that tried to incinerate a young body from the inside, and now, now they sat in the sun, in the warmth, sheltered from the prevailing wind by a well built shed behind the Parson's back.

When Mrs. Parson came out, she stopped, smiled at the sight of her exhausted husband, finally getting some rest: given her druthers, she'd druther have him in bed, she'd druther have pulled the quilts over him and tucked him in like a child, she'd druther have given the poor man some good rest.

She was, herself, worn out, but she was used to it -- women were then, and are still today, made of stern stuff, and she considered there was room enough on the plank bench for her to sit as well.

The older children, there at the orphanage, saw the Parson and his wife sound asleep on the bench, and shushed the other children as needed, and the older children took over fixing the evening meal, and when something tickled the good Reverend Keller's nose, he wiggled his mustache, opened one eye, saw a grinning little boy teasing his beak with a fuzzy headed weed stem: husband and wife woke slowly, then rose, carefully not commenting on the numb state of their backsides, and the moment they stood, they ran face first into a fragrant cloud of supper's invitation from within the Orphanage.

They rose from the sawmill cut plank bench, warmed by the sun and by each other, and the Reverend Linn Keller, cousin to that pale eyed lawman of the same name, carried the still-sleeping, blanket-wrapped child inside, into the inviting cloud rising from what the children finished preparing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CELEBRATE

Will Keller added a cube of paraffin to his lead pot and stirred gently.

He picked up a long nose lighter and ignited the thick smoke boiling off the hot lead, and kept stirring.

He had a stack of ingots cast in the bottoms of inverted aluminum cans -- he had enough to run him a good long time -- and he commenced to cast a few fast discards after dipping the aluminum mold, corner first, into the hot lead.

Will worked slowly, methodically.

He remembered casting lead with his nephews, with his nieces.

He taught them the art of pouring lead, of filling out a mold, of reading the bullets -- wrinkles, frosting, fracturing when the mold opened, all told a tale the caster needed to know.

Will did not teach by talking, and he did not teach by showing.

Tell me and I'll forget, he'd heard years before, show me and I won't remember, but involve me -- 

He felt his eyes tighten at the corners, a smile he didn't allow to the rest of his face.

Involve me and I've got it forever!

It was windy enough he had a constant air flow through his intentionally drafty shed.

The gasoline pressure furnace was hot in front of him; he had a silvered survival blanket hung up above him and draped down behind him, a propane heater to keep his back side warm, but not enough blanket to trap lead fumes.

Will was an old man now, and lead poisoning from inhaling casting fumes was likely not what would kill him, but he saw no sense in taking chances.

Just like the grinding visor he wore, and the welder's cap.

His hair was getting quite thin these days, and he preserved his balding scalp from any pops or splatters with the welder's beanie.

He'd come back from the eye doc that morning with a grin hidden inside his face it would take a hammer and chisel to remove, for he'd gotten good news.

There'd been some indications he was experiencing damage to the macula, those sensitive retinal structures he didn't want damaged: pressures were too high inside his eyeballs, the doc explained, use this eyedrop twice a day and when you use the nighttime drop, wait five minutes more and then apply this second eyedrop.

Will did this faithfully.

He'd gone back for a revisit that morning.

The eye doc discussed his findings upon finding Will's intraocular pressures at a concerning level, and he pulled no punches, knowing Will the way he did: he said in so many words, "Will, I really hate to tell you this, but you have glaucoma."

Will remembered the man was almost reluctant to say this.

Will considered that maybe the doc experienced people weeping or collapsing or growing enraged at being told they would go blind if they were not treated.

Will did none of these things.

"Now the Devil has a name," he'd replied, "and we know how to fight it."

He remembered how the eye doc looked like someone dumped a big can of relief right over his head.

He'd come back from being told his pressures were well within normal range, the drops were working, keep it up, and the very first thing Will did was go into the Silver Jewel and order up a shrimp basket.

When Will celebrated, he had shrimp.

Will loved shrimp, his late wife Crystal was allergic to seafood protein -- not iodine, the protein itself -- but now, now that he was a man alone, he could fix fish at home, and when he ate at the Silver Jewel -- when he ate in celebration -- he had shrimp.

Will began casting.

He appreciated the precision with which a man could cast bullets.

He delighted in filled-out driving bands, smooth sides to the semi-wadcutter noses: any that did not meet his approval went back in the pot, at least until he got his mold up to working temperature, which with the aluminum mold blocks, was fast -- once he hit his stride, he'd drop the freshly cast bullets out of the mold and into a five gallon water bucket beside him, on the theory that it would case-temper the lead.

He was, however, scrupulously careful to not splash.

He had no fear of water inside the mold: any water that would end up in the mold's cavity would flash evaporate and would no longer be a factor, and Will counted this a good thing: once, and once only, had he experienced a steam explosion while melting lead, when he was slipping chunks of lead pipe into his pot and there was a trace of water in what he'd added.

That's when he started wearing the full face visor instead of just safety glasses.

 

Betsy looked at Angela in honest puzzlement.

Angela unpinned her nurse's cap, set it on her desk, then picked up the grinding visor and dunked it on her fair hair.

"Why do you need that?" Betsy asked in honest bewilderment -- Angela wore a Confederate field generator that could stop anything short of a thermonuclear detonation, and with recent enhancements, it probably could withstand that too -- Angela stopped and looked at Betsy, then smiled as she lowered the visor over her face, then opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of leather welder's gloves.

"When in Rome," she said, "wear what the Romans wear!"

Betsy shook her head as Angela disappeared into the Iris.

 

Will looked to his left to see a set of white stockinged legs being discreetly covered by his rubber gunsmith's bluing apron.

"Well, hell," he growled, "pull up a five gallon bucket and have a set."

Angela eased her skirted backside down on the inverted, white-plastic, five-gallon bucket, tilted her head and watched her Uncle cast for several more minutes before speaking.

"I got this sudden hunger for shrimp," she said, "and I brought pie."

Will stopped casting for several moments, resting the mold blocks on the rim of the cast iron lead pot, then he nodded, dippered another pour into the bullet mold.

"Pie?"

"Blueberry. And there is ice cream."

Will grunted.

"And I suppose you want me to help you keep it from spoilin' or some such."

"Something like that."

Will turned and looked into the depths of his quench bucket, considered the considerable hoard he'd cast already.

Angela watched as he turned the fire out under the lead pot, then dippered lead into inverted aluminum cans to ingot the liquid lead.

"I suppose," he said, "I'll be able to gag it down."

Angela smiled quietly.

"I didn't want you having to celebrate alone."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

PAYIN' THE PREACHER

Mrs. Parson opened the side door of her kitchen, the one that opened out onto the mostly enclosed back porch.

"Sheriff?" she said, concern on her face and in her voice. "Is everything all right?"

Sheriff Linn Keller removed his Stetson and chewed on his bottom lip.

"Ma'am," he said gently, "would the Parson be in?"

"He's in back. Please come in, it's cold out!"

Linn wiped his feet on the coarse mat laid out for that purpose and stepped into her warm, tidy kitchen, extended his hand, and with it a familiar looking package: a cloth-wrapped bundle that smelled delightfully of freshly roasted, freshly ground coffee.

Mrs. Parson smiled, looked up and her words of thanks dropped back down her throat as she saw the Sheriff's eyes drive past her, as she heard her husband's step in the hallway.

The Parson could not see Linn's face for the glare washing around his silhouette -- he was in front of the door's window -- but his wife turned and stepped over to the counter with a ribbon-tied bundle, and he could see the look of concern on her face.

"Sheriff?" the Parson said, coming over with his hand out. "What's wrong?"

Linn gripped the man's hand as Mrs. Parson took his Stetson and hung it on the hall tree by the back door.

Linn reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a thick envelope, handed it to the Parson.

"We need to talk."

Mrs. Parson was already adding coffee from the Sheriff's special delivery, to their coffee maker.

The Sheriff and the Parson sat opposite one another at the little table, the scent of the fresh ground coffee filling the kitchen as Mrs. Parson carefully poured it from its cloth poke into the ceramic jar where she kept her fresh coffee.

The Parson waited.

He watched the Sheriff shift uncomfortably -- he knew the man broke his tail bone years before, and sometimes he had to shift a little when he sat down -- but the Parson also read the man's face and his general body language, and he knew there was more to this than an arthritic backside.

The Parson's fingers rested on the envelope and the man frowned.

He'd examine the contents later.

"Parson," the Sheriff said slowly, "I sharpened my pencil and figured up the price of a hekatomb."

"O-kaaay," the Parson said slowly. "If I remember my ancient Greek correctly, that could be anywhere from a dozen to a hundred bulls."

"Twenty, to be exact."

"I ... see."  A pause.  "And the occasion?"

The Sheriff leaned back, grinned crookedly, then shook his head and laughed.

"According to legend, when Pythagoras was conceived of his famous Pythagorean Theorem, he leaped naked from the bath and ran through the streets shouting 'Eureka!' -- and he sacrificed a hekatomb out of gratitude for what he considered a Divine Revelation."

"Isn't it a little cold to be running wet and naked?" Mrs. Parson said gently, and the Sheriff's face turned a truly incredible shade of red: his eyes crinkled shut as he turned his head a little to the side, the way he did when he laughed silently.

"Yes, ma'am," he finally hazarded, with a gasp and a chuckle, "it surely is!" -- and stopped himself before he started talking about having fallen through the ice, or having helped get people out of cold water where they'd fallen through ice in the past.

Coffee gurgled into glazed, white-ceramic mugs, fragrant steam a welcome greeting as a mug was set in front of each man: each solemnly trickled a little milk into their coffee, each took a noisy, ceremonial slurp

The Sheriff dashed tan drops from the bottom curve of his sculpted handlebar.

"A hekatomb?" the Parson asked, his voice quiet, and he placed curved fingertips on the still sealed envelope. "Isn't that a bit extravagant?"

The Sheriff's eyes went from merry to solemn, and he leaned forward a little, placed his forearms on the tablecloth.

"Parson," he said, his voice serious, "I just spent arm, leg and eye teeth on furnace repair."

"Oh?"

"Firebox was burnt through and we were getting CO into the living space."

The Parson leaned back a little, his eyes widening as the Sheriff's words hit bottom.

"Oh I see oh," he replied.

The Sheriff nodded toward the envelope.

"Mama talked about payin' the preacher one time when she dodged a head on collision. I was with her at the time, couldn't have been more'n nine or ten. She whipped her Jeep onto the shoulder and fishtailed it back and didn't flip, somehow ... she mashed the go pedal and we clawed our way back up onto pavement and didn't hit anyone gettin' back up onto the roadway."

Linn's eyes were staring a hole through the faceted milk glass sugarbowl, then he looked up at the Parson.

"I never said a word and neither did she, least until she looked over at me and said after this we had to pay the preacher."

Mrs. Parson glided back over to the table with two big slabs of pie.

She set one in front of her husband and the other in front of the Sheriff and laid a motherly hand on his back.

"You'll have to help me out here," she said quietly. "I don't want that pie to go to waste, for waste is a sin, and the minister's wife should not be allowing sinful activity in her kitchen."

The Sheriff looked at her, just as solemn as the old Judge, and said gravely, "In the interest of our souls' sakes, Mrs. Parson, I shall endeavor to stave off such sinful activity!"

 

 

 

Edited February 24 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

¿CON SU PERMISO?

Snowflake's head lowered slightly as her forelegs went into a predatory crouch.

Curly fur stood up down her spine and across her shoulders and a low, menacing rumble started somewhere a mile and a half south of her chest, deep and powerful and fit to pour cold water down a man's spine was he close enough to hear it.

Feral-yellow eyes had a radar lock as her ears flattened.

Adult eyes widened, adult arms spread out protectively, children froze, startled, not entirely sure what to make of this white-furred Mountain Mastiff's sudden change.

Two truly huge creatures launched, all fangs and fury, stopping just before collision, each yammering, snarling, slashing at the other, filling the air with rage and with fury and with shining ivory death: jaws snapped, claws danced on the polished floor, and two littermates that hadn't seen each other in far too long drew back and rushed again, collided, spun away from one another and rushed again, each knocking the other over and happily tangling in absolutely joyful, massively powerful, utterly noisy and most vigorous, reunion.

Jacob stood to one side, laughing: Marnie smiled behind her gloved knuckles, delicately raised to her lips: Angela watched with the patient tolerance of a mother herding a clutch of noisy, active, five-year-old boys, Betsy went to her armor-padded knees and laughed with delight, spreading her plastic-armored arms as if hoping this hard-muscled pair would come share their joy with her as well.

They did.

The Bear Killer and Snowflake both froze, looked at Betsy, then charged: the collision drove her over on her back, her white-with-red-trim-armored legs flew into the air, and two mountain Mastiffs punished the air with their tails as they gave the diminutive Confederate nurse a happy face laundering, as Betsy's sounds of giggling delight filled the Martian classroom.

There is a curious affinity between the very young human, and the canine of any age: the entire class of happy, giggling schoolchildren converged on the pair, and the sound of a happy, muted yow-wow-wow from one or the other mixed like a simmering stew in the childish laughter of a spontaneous moment.

The day's planned lessons got kind of wrecked, as you can imagine, but absolutely nobody objected.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller turned when he felt the air shift.

There hadn't been a sound until he turned.

His good left hand knotted up into a work-hardened fist and he crouched slightly, lowering his center of gravity, lifting his heels just a little, his pale eyes target locked on this new presence in his Sheriff's office.

He set his coffee down and lowered his head.

A sinner's-heart-black mountain Mastiff that hadn't been seen here for just shy of a year growled -- low, powerful, menacing.

Sharon turned, startled, her eyes wide with alarm.

The Sheriff raised a fist, shook it a little, not much.

"You think you can take me?" he said, his voice coarse.

The Bear Killer's teeth gleamed as black lips pulled back, allowing more of his dee-chested snarl to fill the stone-walled lobby.

Man and Beast launched in the same moment.

The collision was not as loud as Sharon expected.

Its nature was very definitely not what Sharon expected.

Linn grunted at the collision of a hundredweight and more of lean muscle and self-propelled death and destruction: his arms locked around The Bear Killer's ribs and they spun, fell: the Sheriff's pained grunt told of the unexpected nature of his landing as he hit the floor, flat on his back, with The Bear Killer atop him.

Sharon blinked, hesitated, uncertain whether to call for backup, to call the squad, to call the National Guard -- at least until the Sheriff's laughter filled the room, until the eyes-squinted-shut man sputtered as The Bear Killer gave him a very happy face-washing, as he came up and hugged the big mountain Mastiff, completely ignoring the possibility (and the subsequent reality) of dog hair on his black suit.

The Sheriff was a man of dignity and a man of composure and a man of patience and longsuffering, but sometimes you just have to sit on the floor with a delighted hound dog and laugh as you rub his neck and back and rolled-over belly.

When the Sheriff stopped in at the All-Night on his way home, Marsha was behind the register, leaning over the counter, staring as The Bear Killer galloped into the store, nose up, scenting, and then running up to her and planting big black paws on the counter to give the staring, startled, and utter delighted clerk several Mastiff-sized doggy kisses.

Marsha leaned as far over the counter as she could, her hands busy, and The Bear Killer -- by the Sheriff's later description -- "was just eatin' that up" the way a happy hound dog will when greeting old friends.

Marsha skipped from behind the counter with a colorful cardboard bucket and thrust it at the Sheriff.

"Over fry," she said, "I made too much and I don't want to throw it out. Boneless chicken" -- she looked at The Bear Killer, looked at the Sheriff with the pleading expression of a little girl who wished very much to spoil a boon companion.

"¿Con su permiso?" she asked, and the Sheriff laughed and nodded.

"Si, Marcita," he said, his voice soft, the way a father's voice is when he grants a favorite daughter her wish: Marsha was not his daughter, but he'd watched her grow up, and he'd always called her Marcita -- Little Marsha -- it was an endearment, and she knew it, and she would hear that term until the day he walked her down the aisle, the day he kissed her cheek and whispered, "You may be a married woman, but you will always be my little Marcita," but that would not be for some time yet.

In the meantime, there was fried boneless chicken to share with The Bear Killer.

 

 

Edited February 25 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

WARN'T GOOD

Esther Keller was the green-eyed, red-headed, Carolina Irish wife of that pale eyed old lawman with the short temper and two shirt sleeves plumb full of arm.

Esther Keller would likely have been hanged as a witch had she been born very many years earlier.

Esther Keller ruthlessly angled and maneuvered to snatch Old Pale Eyes out from under her friend Bonnie McKenna, who had designs on the man, and she did so with an efficiency that put seasoned business moguls to shame.

Esther and her pale eyed husband had a very open communication.

Either could talk to the other about anything comin' or goin', with frankness and with candor, and frequently did, though they took pains to hold their more private conversations out of earshot of anyone else.

Esther was also a woman of remarkable perception -- not at all unusual for what the mountain folk called a Wise Woman -- and so when she found her husband communing with his horses instead of his wife, when she observed he'd stopped brushing his stallion's mane and was just standing with his forehead leaned against the Appaloosa's neck, she knew something wasn't quite right.

She also knew she should not interrupt.

Esther Keller well knew the healing qualities horses have.

She did not pretend in the least little bit to understand quite how it worked, only that it worked: she remembered her husband's quiet observation that he thought better in the saddle, and she'd ridden with him when they had no particular destination, but he had need to ride and think, and so she rode in silence, watching her husband closely, womanly intuition, personal knowledge, all gleaning information from the man's posture, his movements, the way he turned his head, the way he guided his mount without visible movement.

Esther was still not entirely comfortable with riding her paint mare, bitless: her first paint, Edi, had been a truly superb mount, and this was her only colt: Edi was gone now, and Linn held his wife as she wept over what most of the era considered just another working tool.

Esther may not have been entirely comfortable riding her bitless horse, but she'd learned the horse knew her rider better than her rider realized: reins were more a formality, until she realized that by laying the reins against this Edi's neck, plus her shift in weight and knee-pressure, Edi responded as well or better than a bitted horse.

On this one particular day, Esther knew her husband was returned home, but he'd not yet come into the house, and this was unusual.

He might unsaddle his own horse, yes, he might look the barn over and talk to the hired man, yes, he might be tending any of a dozen things, but it was unusual for him to be gone overlong, and so Esther gathered her worries and her skirts and went out to the back pasture to see if all was well.

She stopped when she realized ... it wasn't.

Esther heard of something in the county, a tragedy, she had no particulars -- which irritated her, Esther was the kind of woman who found things out, and all she found out was it was something bad -- and now, with her husband leaning against his stallion, one arm hooked over Apple-horse's neck and the curry brush dangling at the end of his free arm, Esther's spousal instincts told her all was not well.

She glided toward her husband, carefully avoiding piles of second hand horse feed: she came around the stallion, approached from the opposite side, approached from directly in front of her husband.

Apple-horse turned his head in quiet greeting, and Linn looked up.

Esther blinked in honest surprise.

Her husband was a strong man, and no one disputed the fact: he'd survived things that would have killed ten men, he'd faced up to and faced down a variety of large and angry people bearing a variety of weapons, and if one were to believe stories she'd heard, the man shook hands with St Peter himself before being turned away from the Pearly Gates because his work was not yet done -- as a matter of fact, Esther took some credit for that last, as she stopped his bleeding out, there on the floor of the Sheriff's Office, by speaking the Word, and by dragging his essence back to his long tall skinny carcass by the sheer determined force of her feminine will.

Or so she preferred to believe.

He was a strong man, but every fiber of his being spoke of fatigue, of ... not defeat ... discouragement, perhaps, or ...

...sorrow?

Linn's arm was still over Apple's neck.

He raised his hand as she raised hers, and he took her hand in his, his grip careful, gentle.

"I heard ... something of today," Esther murmured hesitantly.

Linn's expression was haunted as he looked past her at the day's memories lingering like a miasma.

He looked at Esther, nodded, once, and said quietly, "Warn't good."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

KNOCKDOWN!

The bottlenecked cartridge brass spun from the rifle as blued steel shucked a fresh round into the chamber.

Jacob Keller's pale eye was steady behind the ghost ring peep as steel plates either swung, spun or dropped: he dropped low behind cover, thumbed fresh rounds into the loading gate with the ease of long practice.

He pulled a slim grenade from under his coat, pulled the pin, slung it away from him -- behind his back, throwing it where he'd been -- it detonated and he scampered forward, passed the first cover and dropped behind the second, drove four more rounds into the simulated opponents, he shot the red, tea-saucer-sized bonus plate and sent it spinning off its fence post, then shot the stop plate.

The stop light blazed, the stop howler buzzed and Jacob stood and ceremonially jacked the last empty from his Marlin, held it so the timekeeper could see into the open bolt:  "Confirm empty?"

"Confirmed empty, close and drop."

Jacob closed the action, pointed the rifle downrange and dropped the hammer, slung the old familiar rifle muzzle down from his off shoulder, as was his preference.

Sheriff Jacob Keller closed his eyes, took a long, sighing breath, then murmured, "End."

He opened his eyes and looked out at the barren Martian landscape, at the holographic projectors that fabricated the familiar Sheriff's range from back home.

Every bullet he fired was gathered, funneled into a coffee can slightly older than Jacob: it was being dollied back on a looped cable, it dumped automatically into the Recyclo, brass hulls were gathered and tossed into the hopper as well: this, and a minor handful of just plain dirt, would be torn down at the subatomic level and reassembled into loaded .30-30 rifle ammunition.

Even the fragments of the flash-bang he'd tossed behind him as a distraction to his movement would be gathered and recycled.

When the automatic cleanup was finished, the coarse, red-sandy soil would be as unblemished as it had been before Firelands colony was established.

 

Victoria Keller smiled as she ran delicate fingertips across the buckle of her floral-carved gunbelt, cinched snugly around her maidenly, corseted waist.

She looked at the deputy beside her and said quietly, "You're good at what you do. You've done this before," and the tall, uncertain-looking lawman glanced at her and muttered, "Thanks, I think."

"Shooters ready!" came the call, and Victoria saw the deputy draw into himself the way he always did in a match.

"Stand byyyyy ...."

Beeep!

Victoria took one step to the right, drew: her pistol came up by itself, she had no sensation of grip, of draw, of raise or punch-out: she marveled as the red dot swung smoothly past the plate, she felt the pistol fire itself, she felt more than heard the deputy beside her firing, his cadence regular, planned.

Ahead of them, a long rack, six plates on either side.

Victoria's shots cadenced with the deputy's -- plates fell in symmetrical sequence -- until the last plate.

The deputy's sixth plate slammed down -- rack cleared -- Victoria's last plate remained standing.

They both dropped magazines, racked slides, they both caught the round in midair, then the deputy blinked, his mouth opened, he looked at the plate rack and the looked at Victoria.

The Sheriff's daughters routinely outshot everyone.

This time he outshot her.

Victoria showed her pistol to the timer, lowered the slide, thrust the muzzle downrange and dropped the striker, holstered -- she turned to the grinning young deputy, swatted him on the arm.

"Told ya you could do it!"

Angela, back behind the line, had field glasses to her eyes, hid a knowing smile behind her face.

She saw the lead smear at the edge of the plate, down low, where impact leverage would be the least.

She'd watched Victoria's rounds drive the plates not far from the bottom -- square hits, hard enough to knock them down, but this grazing hit was not enough to wobble torch-cut steel.

She asked Victoria about it later, and Victoria surreptitiously looked around before murmuring, "You have no idea how hard it is to shoot the gap between two plates!"

"You almost didn't," Angela replied quietly as Victoria drove the loader down into the magazine and fed it another loaded round.

"He needed a win," Victoria murmured. "Look how many times we've taken the trophy. Now he's got braggin' rights."

"I know him," Angela sighed. "He won't brag."

"You know what I mean."  Victoria thumbed the reloaded magazine into its carrier, straightened, dropped the black-plastic loader back into her range bag.

"Yeah," Angela smiled, watching the young man in question grinning red-faced and self-conscious as his fellows shook his hand, pounded him happily on the back at his win.  "I know."

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

LA MANCHA

Fourteen-year-old Marnie Keller crossed her stockinged ankles and tucked horse-toned legs a little to the side as she sat at her Gammaw's desk there in the Firelands museum, in the back room where Willamina found respite in "Looking At Dead People" -- plunging into, swimming in, her only genuine obsession.

Ancestry Research.

Marnie was wearing a suit dress -- her Gammaw helped tailor it to Marnie's changing form -- her hair was carefully styled, she was the image of blooming beauty, and her flawless face -- completely free of makeup, like her Gammaw -- frowned a little as she studied the entry in the handwritten account open before her.

"I know that look," Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller said as she sat, and Marnie looked up from the book, concerned.

"Gammaw," she said quietly, "are you all right?"

Willamina hesitated a moment too long before nodding.

"Barometer just dropped," she replied, looking away.

"Liar."

Willamina's eyes snapped to her granddaughter, hard, authoritative, then almost immediately softened.

"You're short of breath more often," Marnie said, "you're wearing boots instead of shoes so nobody can see your ankles swelling."

Willamina slipped her readers on her face, then lowered her head to peer over the frameless lenses at her granddaughter.

"You," she said quietly, "are your Grandmother's Granddaughter!"

Marnie gave Willamina a long, unblinking look.

"Gammaw," she said quietly, "what can be done about it?"

Willamina took a long breath, blinked, nodded.

"Nothing," she admitted. "Story at eleven" -- she looked at the open account in front of her pale eyed granddaughter -- "I see you're reading some of my works."

"You signed it 'La Mancha,' Marnie said, her fingertips just touching the page in question. "Why The Stain?"

Willamina took another long breath, then stood, rolled her wheeled office chair over close to Marnie.

"You know I'm a Marine."

Marnie nodded.

"You don't know why I enlisted."

Marnie shook her head.

 

Willamina's eyes were pale, hard, her face the color of putty, stark-red lips pulled back from even white teeth, and the color stood out in her cheeks like dots of paint over her cheekbones.

She moved quickly, silently: her first strike knocked the football jock on his face -- she'd laid the club across the back of his head, just under the point of the skull, laid him out -- then she thrust a pillowcase over his head and swung the sawed-off, recycled-table-leg war club and mashed his right hand.

She pulled back, then bent, seized his belt, rolled him over on his back.

Two more swings and she broke his collarbones -- left, then right -- she pulled his legs up so his knees were bent, she swung the club fast, hard, viciously, swinging with rage and with all the unbridled, uncontrolled rage she'd never dealt with, not in all the years since she was abducted, tortured, since she watched her boyfriend tortured to death, since her Mama called her a troublemaking liar, ever since she left her drunken sot of a mother and ran off at age sixteen to live with relatives she'd only visited once.

Willamina stopped, took several long breaths, considered, then smiled, and her smile was far less than kind.

She swung the club in short, swift arcs.

She broke both her victim's feet -- broke the arches -- then she belted his kneecaps, hard, intending to shatter them as well.

Her first blow was enough to stun her victim.

All that followed caused so much pain he was not able to cry out.

Willamina walked up to his head, squatted, gripped the pillowcase, pulled it free, then walked away, calmly, slipping the engine-turned shaman into the stained pillowcase.

She did not look back.

 

Marnie listened quietly to Willamina's account.

"I was never accused," Willamina said quietly. 

"What was your reason?" Marnie asked bluntly.

Willamina smiled with half her mouth and Marnie saw her eyes change, as if the woman was satisfied with what she'd done, and not at all regretful.

"He was a sports jock. Big Man On Campus. Football was his Golden Ticket and I took that away from him."

"Did he ever know ... did you ever tell him it was you?"

Willamina shook her head.

"No, but I knew I had to do something to contain that rage."

"What did he do that enraged you?"

Willamina looked very directly at Marnie.

"You'll make a good interrogator," she said frankly, "so here it is. I was on the school bus. Sophomore year. He leaned across the aisle and belted a science nerd in the jaw just because he could. The man was a bully and a coward, his only claim to fame was sports, so I took that away from him."

"Did you ever regret it?"

"No," Willamina said firmly. "Not once, not ever, but I did realize forensics might somehow tie me to him.

"I burned the club I used, I burned the clothes I wore -- everything -- I went there on foot and even burned the boots I wore, burned 'em in a high temperature industrial incinerator in another county, without witnesses."

"How'd you manage that?"

Willamina smiled gently. "I knew someone who ran a sewer plant that burned their waste sludge. I knew the local police took their seized pot there to be burned in the sewer incinerator" -- she looked at Marnie with amusement -- "the operator was a ... connoisseur ... of the wildwood weed, and the local detectives knew it, and they liked to torment the man by requesting he personally incinerate what they'd confiscated."

"And that's where you burned your clothes."

"And the cut and split table leg, yes."

"Thorough," Marnie said quietly, nodding her approval.

"I got to thinking ... no matter how thorough my ... efforts ... I might miss something and be accused, so I kind of got cold feet and decided I'd apply for early graduation and go into the Corps, and I did both."

"Did they ever suspect?"

"No. No, the ... I understand they spoke with anyone in school that would talk to them, and they ended up with a list long as your arm of people this Jack Doe bullied and beat up, and my name wasn't on the list."

"So your enlistment was a waste."

"Oh, no," Willamina laughed, pausing to take a few breaths -- "you didn't see that," she said meaningfully -- "no, I needed that discipline to control the blood we share. That's why I got your Daddy into the martial arts early, that's why I sponsored your starting the Arts early."

Marnie realized her fingers were still touching the handwritten account her Gammaw penned years before.

"La Mancha?"

"The stain," Willamina nodded.  "I was so afraid I would stain Uncle Pete and Aunt Mary with what I'd done, I figured if I went into the Corps, it would either dry up and blow away, or I'd be away from here if anyone came after me and it wouldn't stain them as bad."

 

Edited February 28 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A GOOD NIGHT'S REST

"Jacob?"

Sarah's voice was quiet, there in the back stairway in the Silver Jewel.

She felt him turn his head a little, toward her, as they sat side by side on a step, hidden from the rest of the world.

"Did you ever ... kill someone ... and then just leave them?"

Jacob considered for several moments before he said quietly, "You know I have."

"Besides him."

"Besides him?"  His voice was almost amused. "Twice now. You?"

He felt Sarah's silent laughter: she slipped a hand under his, laid her other hand over it -- gently, not confining, just ... just there, warm and alive and either reassuring, or getting reassurance from him, he wasn't sure which, only that her hands felt warm and gentle and kind.

He blinked, surprised: he knew she was a life taker, even this young, and yet her touch was gentle, her words soft, her very mien was nothing but kind, and he realized -- yet again -- that he had absolutely no idea how to figure out these puzzling creatures called "The Female."

"Yes, Jacob," she whispered into the quiet. "I have."

Jacob's head tilted back and his eyes traced the corner, where the stairway's outer wall met the ceiling, and momentarily wondered whether the builders used a ladder, or built a scaffold -- likely a scaffold, as this part of the Silver Jewel had been rebuilt by the Daine Boys, those blue-eyed Kentucky carpenters who were absolute wizards with anything wood.

"You men have it easier," Sarah murmured, leaning into her brother and tilting her head over until it touched his: he felt her hair, a thick cushion against his ear and his scalp, and he smiled a little as he realized this caused him to feel protective toward her.

Sarah smiled a little, too, feeling his hand tighten ever so slightly, and she knew she'd just manipulated the response she wanted -- something that gave her a feeling of satisfaction.

"Easier?" Jacob echoed, and he felt her nod, ever so slightly.

"You men can roll a carcass into the ditch and cover it with rocks, but we poor helpless girls have to have someone come and take care of the body for us!"

He felt her lift her head and he turned a little, looked at her as she batted long eyelashes and affected an absolutely innocent expression -- so flawlessly innocent, that he lowered his head and glared at her from under his eyebrows and murmured, "Poor helpless girls? Little Sis, you are the least helpless girl I know!" -- and his hands shot to her ribs, tickling her: Sarah's face reddened, he heard her teeth click as she snapped her mouth shut to contain her laughter.

Jacob stopped tickling her almost as quickly as he'd started: Sarah retaliated by raising both clawed hands toward him, moving her fingers as if she were tickling him: Jacob turned red instantly, snorted, twisted, upper arms clamped tight against his ribs as Sarah practiced the Deadly Dreaded Sisterly Remote Tickle -- she was not touching him, but he writhed and hissed between clenched teeth as if her fingers were dancing on his ribs, a particular torture she discovered as a child, and used to torment him ever since.

She stopped, she sagged a little, interlaced her fingers, bent forward and leaned her forehead on her entwined hands with a quiet groan.

Jacob was instantly serious, all thoughts of the Dreaded Remote Tickle, gone.

"Sis," he said quietly, reaching across her back and gripping both her shoulders -- "sis, who do I need to kill?"

Sarah leaned into him again and shook her head slightly.

"You know the Judge uses me to find things out."

"I know you tend to bring men back in irons, or have the local constabulary do it for you."

"You like using that word, don't you?"

"What, constabulary?"

Marnie glared at him, one eyebrow raised: "You know what Jackson Cooper told Council!"

"Oh, yeah," Jacob said thoughtfully, smiling with half his mouth. "He said he'll be Town Marshal, but damned if he'd be called Constable!"

"And you've used the word ever since."

"Sounds good when you say it fast," Jacob replied innocently.

"Details," Sarah dismissed his comment with a wave of her hand.

"Sis, I'm serious. Is there someone after you?"

Sarah was quiet for several moments longer than was necessary, and Jacob felt his gut tighten.

"There will always be people after the Black Agent," she said softly. "I've stained that name ... permanently, I'm afraid, but I've been careful not to link it with ... me."

"You're sure you're safe."

Sarah turned quickly, her knee pressing firmly into his, and she lifted her hands, took his face between careful fingers.

"Jacob," she said seriously, "as long as I am either with you or with Papa, I am never safer!"

Jacob gave Sarah a long, serious look, then nodded, once, just a little.

"You worried me, talking about leaving bodies lay."

"That was the Black Agent."

"What was it this time?"

Sarah smiled -- no, she did not smile, it was more a twist of her mouth.

"The Black Agent picked a man's trouser pockets while he enjoyed the attentions of a willing doxy -- and it wasn't me!" she added sternly as she saw the corners of her brother's eyes tighten mischeviously -- "we were in a bordello, and I arranged for a certain ... individual ... to receive certain ... entertainment, which guaranteed he was most distracted, and while he was... while his attentions were elsewhere, I pickpocketed his vest and his trousers and wax impressed every last key in his possession."

"Go on."

"It took me a day to fabricate that many keys, and it took me some little time to sort through them to get into the places I needed to go, including the bedroom where he kept a girl chained to his bed."

Jacob's eyebrow raised and his eyes turned a little more pale than usual.

"I unlocked the heavy steel collar from around her neck and whispered that she had just under a half hour to gather all she could and leave. I hoarsened my voice and she thought me a man -- I was all in black, and in trousers and boots -- I opened his strongbox and his safe, I plundered his ill-gotten gains and stuffed them into a grip and handed them to the woman he was keeping.

"She and I slipped down the back stairway and out to the street, we left the building just as he was going in the front.

"I took her arm and we ran like two criminals -- which I suppose we were -- I ran her two streets over and whistled up a cab, I gave her instructions as to which train to board, and she had more than enough funding to start a young business and then some, so she had train fare.

"I ran back and stopped just short of the rear of his hotel and waited in shadow.

"I'd barely glanced at the papers I'd stuffed in my own black bag, I secreted this under my black cloak, I waited in that shadowed corner as he looked around, as he swore, as ... Jacob, he looked to be almost in panic!"

"What happened then?"

Sarah's smile was predatory, the kind of almost lustful expression one would never, ever expect on such a young and beautiful face.

"I called in my own voice and I asked if he was looking for the papers I'd taken.

"I did not move.

"I had my dirk in hand, and when he ran toward me, I thrust out my leg and tripped him, and then I was on top of him, and I drove my dagger through his tenderloins hard enough I pinned him to the ground!"

Sarah's face was changed now, from the dark joy of a righteous warrior, to something darker, something murderous, something that knew bloodlust and reveled in the sensation.

"I didn't pin him down with my blade, not really, but a knife thrust into the kidneys hurts so very badly the victim cannot cry out.

"He writhed like a worm on a fish-hook.

"I drove my boot sole down beside the blade and I seized the wire-wrapped handle and Jacob, I honestly could not pull it out, so I took my other blade and thrust it into his neck -- I thrust and twisted and drew it out a-twist, and his life's blood spilled in that moonlit alley.

"I washed that blade in a rain-barrel and wiped it dry, I sheathed it and slipped through shadows to a place I'd prepared, where I changed, and emerged from the front of a business, as if I had every right to do so, myself and my carpetbag and my appearance of a decent woman on the street at night.

"I examined the papers on the train home, and the portion of monies I'd kept for my own use."

Sarah smiled, and it was that gentle Sarah-smile he knew so well, the smile he'd seen melt men's hearts. "After all, a girl has to provide for her own upkeep.

"The papers were of immense value to His Honor the Judge, which is why he sent me to secure them in the first place. I've never told him just how I obtained them, nor of my little adventures involved in securing them, but Jacob" -- she laid a hand on his arm and looked very seriously at him -- "I left that man dead in a back alley, and I slept well that night following."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A PLACE OF SAFETY

Sheriff Linn Keller slouched against a post in his cement-floored barn.

The barn was big enough to house his Mama's six-by -- the one with WILLAMINA stenciled along the hood instead of a serial number -- big enough to contain tractors, stalls, hay, a workbench and projects in various states of disassembly.

Right now his project slipped easily between his fingers -- good hemp rope, twisted, stretched, with a noose of thirteen turns in one end.

He'd tied it not an hour before, he'd tied one and untied it, stretched the rope out, tied another in the opposite end: this one was to his satisfaction, and he gripped the thirteen turns, slid it an inch, nodded.

He looked over at his workbench, not really seeing it, just thinking, and finally he coiled the length of rope, left the noose a-dangle, tied it with hay string to keep it neatly coiled, and sat down on a saddle blanket covered hay bale to wait.

The Bear Killer sat beside him, then finally laid his square, strong chin on the man's leg, closed his eyes in genuine pleasure at the gentle caress of a scar-streaked, weather-tanned, work-callused, hand.

He opened one eye as The Bear Killer shifted, the pulled from his leg, as the big plumed tail smacked him in the side of the thigh, as he heard happy toenails dancing across the smooth cement floor and smelled his daughter's lavender-water scent.

Angela was on her knees, happily wooling The Bear Killer with both hands, while the big blocky canine wiggled like a happy pup: she looked up at her Daddy, her lovely face absolutely shining with happiness:  "I didn't want to wake you!"

"I wasn't asleep," Linn mumbled, opening the other eye and leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

"How'd it go?"

Angela rose, skipped over to her Daddy, whirled, dropped onto the blanket covered bale beside him with all the catastrophic collapse of a schoolgirl: she leaned against her Daddy's shoulder and leaned her cheek over into the tan canvas and gave a long, near-silent sigh as The Bear Killer came over and dunked his jaw on her knee and looked at her with what had to be described as an absolutely adoring expression.

"It went," she finally said.

"I tied a noose of thirteen turns."

"I saw that."

"I have a backhoe and forty acres," he added, and she heard the quiet mischief in his voice, and she knew without looking the corners of his eyes would be crinkling up a little, the way they did when he was trying hard not to smile.

Angela hugged her Papa, quickly, tightly, burying her face against his neck the way she used to as a little girl, when she would sigh "Oh, Daddy," and she felt his silent laughter as she did it again.

"Now darlin'," Linn finally said in that quiet, deep, reassuring Daddy-voice, "tell your old Pa what happened."

Angela leaned across his lap and looked pointedly at the noose, then pulled back and gave her pale eyed Daddy her Very Best Innocent Expression.

"I won't ask how you found out," she said, batting her eyes, reminding Linn yet again of when she was a little girl trying to get away with something.

Linn turned and hugged her into him and this time he made no effort to contain his laughter: father and daughter hugged and laughed, and The Bear Killer danced back a little, tail whipping with delight.

Linn let go, then took her hand carefully between his, and Angela was shocked -- again -- by how absolutely hot his hands were: they'd always been that way, her Mama complained sleeping with Long Tall and Handsome was like sleeping with a furnace, and Angela giggled as the stray memory streaked across her thoughts, her Mama's description of putting her cold feet against the small of his back and eliciting a spontaneous, startled and surprisingly shrill yelp.

"Daddy," Angela said almost hesitantly, "somebody grabbed me."

Angela had the sudden feeling she'd just lit the fuse on a bundle of Du Pont Sixty Per Cent Nitroglycerin Dynamite (which hasn't been made in better than a century), for her father's eyes went cold and white and she could feel silence cascade off him like a cold downdraft off a winter mountain slope.

"What," he said quietly, "happened?"

 

Nurse Angela Keller was briefing the oncoming shift at the nurse's station when a hand gripped her backside and squeezed.

Angela's response was instantaneous.

Her elbow came around and caught the grabber across the ear, she continued her power twist and drove her other fist into his low ribs: Angela worked with her changing balance instead of against it, she drew her knee back to her breastbone and drove the heel of her white uniform shoe into the geographical center of whoever it was seized her posterior in an unwelcome and overly aggressive grip.

Whitecoats fell back away from this sudden explosion of violence.

It would not have mattered if they hadn't.

Angela's fuse was lit and she was responding as she'd trained, and trained, and trained again.

Her horse-strengthened hands seized the shoulders of a surgeon's whitecoat, her knee came up, drove into his descending face at a respectable velocity, then she released her grip, rocked back a little and drove him in the wind with her foot -- again -- this was not the pleasant, smiling, soft-voiced Angel of Mercy the medical world knew and respected: no, this was something with fangs and iced-granite eyes and a snarl that belonged in the throat of a feral feline with tawny fur, not from the flawless-complexioned, beautifully-feminine Daughter of the Shining Mountains.

The surgeon fell back several feet, collapsed, Angela advancing -- fast -- as he fell, hit the floor, rolled up on his side, curling up, eyes squeezed shut against the pain.

Angela seized his wrist, pulled hard, drove her fist three times into his exposed armpit, then she drew back, hands open and bladed, crouched a little, and snarled, glaring at the shrinking sycophants.

She actually ... snarled.

Her fellow nurses drew back, wide-eyed, getting the nurse's station counter between them and the violence; the cloud of white-coated watchers -- medical students, interns, the usual hangers-on that surround a renowned surgeon -- pulled back until they were pressed against the wall.

Angela glared down at the groaning, retching surgeon, watched as he curled into a fetal ball, in more pain than he'd known in his lifetime.

Angela surged forward, went to one knee, seized his necktie, twisted: she intentionally strangled him for a few moments as she brought his face up from the polished tile floor.

"Next time," she hissed, "I will not hold back!"

She released his necktie, stood, lifted her skirt a little and examined her leg, then looked coldly at the surgeon and said, "You owe me a pair of stockings, damn you!" -- then she turned to the clutch of frightened colleagues, regarding her as if she'd just grown fangs, horns and claws.

"Do not ever," she said quietly, coldly, "tolerate anyone grabbing your fanny!" 

Angela Keller closed her eyes, raised her arms, then lowered them -- slowly, ceremonially, crossing fisted forearms as she exhaled: when she opened her eyes, they were her normal very-pale-blue, and she was once again her pleasant, gentle, smiling self.

 

"I can testify on your behalf," Linn said quietly. "You are still a commissioned Sheriff's deputy and I can present your training file."

Angela nodded, caressed The Bear Killer's shoulder.

"You look troubled, darlin'."

"I fought cold," she said softly, then looked at her Daddy.

"Daddy, you remember reading to us about Sarah McKenna and the Rage she felt, how Old Pale Eyes fought that same Rage, and you've felt it --"

Angela's jaw snapped shut and she looked away, she swallowed, she looked back.

"Daddy, I did not feel any of that. I didn't ... I didn't go all Berserkergang. With what they did to me back East ..."

Angela shivered, leaned against her Daddy again, and this time it was with a hurt little girl's vulnerability, not with the strength of a warrior, not with the laughter of a happy child.

Linn hugged his little girl into him again and she shivered and made a little squeaking noise, and Linn held his little girl as she allowed everything she'd contained, finally let go, in the only place where she felt safe.

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SUNRISE OVER SAIGON

Sheriff Willamina Keller thrust a hip at the diner, one hand on her belt and the other holding the serving tray at shoulder height as if she'd done it all her life.

"I changed my hair, do you like it?" she simpered, patting her Marine-short bob and batting her eyes, then she spun, skirt flaring, and skipped, giggling, back down the hallway toward the kitchen.

The entire interior of the Silver Jewel Saloon went dead silent.

Mr. Baxter polished a glass and smiled quietly, watching the various patrons lean over to look down the hall, as if not entirely sure they'd seen what they'd just seen.

Willamina had come out of the kitchen in a waitress's frilly-edged apron, packing a tray full of breakfast for a table full of regulars: she'd spun the orders in front of them with the ease and expertise of a card sharper dealing poker hands, she'd struck a saucy, leggy pose, looked around and said "Anything else, boys, and I'm not on the menu!" 

One of the fellows said later, "I opened my mouth and something stupid fell out," then he reddened and added, "You ain't the regular waitress!" and that's when Willamina went all pin-up doll on them.

Conversation picked up as they heard feminine laughter from what was still called Daisy's Kitchen, even after all these years, and Willamina came steaming down the hallway with another tray piled full of steaming breakfast: she stopped at another table -- "You fellas decided yet? I can recommend the Diced Road Kill with Floor Sweepin's Special!" -- her laugh was contagious, her eyes shone with honest mischief, she took their order and powered back toward the hallway that opened at the end of the bar, and not a few men appreciated the sight of those gorgeous, sculpted, stocking-shining horse-toned gams as she retreated on another mission, neither slowed nor inconvenienced by the fact she wore her trademark electric-blue suit dress and heels.

The Silver Jewel's wait staff that morning, quite honestly, resembled a petite tornado in a suitdress: she was everywhere at once, she kept coffee refilled, when a mother came in with a restless little boy, she reached across and placed a brand-new toy car beside his plate, which kept him occupied and happy; when three tables finished at the same time and came up to Mr. Baxter to pay their bill, Willamina came skipping down the hallyway with a loud "OH NO YOU DON'T!" -- she snatched their meal checks, slapped them on the bar, put two fingers to her lips and whistled -- loud, shrill, commanding.

"ALL HANDS NOW HEAR THIS!" she declared, her voice strong, her expression delighted: "YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED WAITRESS WILL BE WITH YOU IN TEN MINUTES. SHE HAD TO GO HAVE A CRY BECAUSE A YOUNG SOLDIER CAME IN FOR BREAKFAST BECAUSE HE SAID HE HAD UNEXPECTED LEAVE AND HADN'T HAD THE CHANCE TO TELL HIS PARENTS YET AND HE DIDN'T WANT TO WAKE THEM EARLY!"

Willamina looked around, delight in her expression, and she continued.

"AN OLD MAN ASKED ABOUT THAT YOUNG SOLDIER AND WHEN THE WAITRESS TOLD HIM, HE HANDED HER A TWENTY AND SAID HIS MONEY'S NO GOOD HERE AND IF HE ASKS, TELL HIM AN OLD MAN REMEMBERS SUNRISE OVER SAIGON!"

Willamina stopped and blinked a few times, then she bit her bottom lip and swallowed and continued, with a little less authority.

"THE WAITRESS'S GRANDDAD SERVED IN D'NAM AND SHE TOLD ME HE NEVER SAID A WORD ABOUT HIS SERVICE UNTIL HIS DEATHBED WHEN HE TOLD HER HE'D BEEN SPIT ON AND CALLED A BABY KILLER WHEN HE CAME OFF THE FREEDOM BIRD, AND WHEN THIS OLD MAN SAID HE REMEMBERED SUNRISE OVER SAIGON, SHE ENDED UP IN THE LADIES' ROOM CRYIN' SNOT BUBBLES HARD, SO I TOOK OVER FOR THE MORNING!"

Willamina turned, snatched the cap off the man beside her -- he looked like a just-passing-through trucker -- she seized his ears and pulled his head down: she kissed him in the middle of his bald head, carefully set his cap into place and said, "ALL HANDS, EVERY ONE OF YOU, BREAKFAST IS ON ME TODAY!"