SHORT STORIES!

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MUSH!

"YOU CAN NOT!"

"I CAN TOO!"

"YOU'RE TOO LITTLE!" -- then "DANA LYNNE DON'T YOU DARE --"

I heard Marnie's angry-big-sister voice change, the way an exasperated Big Sister will do, then I heard hooves in a fast cadence and Dana's angry "SAINT FLORIAN, SAINT CHRISTOPHER AND THE BLESSED MOTHER, LADIES, RUN!" and I knew things just went from what-the-hell to God-help-us-all!

I sprinted from where I'd just backed into my usual parking place out in front of the house, toward the barn: the gate was open, not the gate we usually used, not the regular sized gate -- oh, no, that would be too easy -- no, Dana had the big double gate open, the one I used when I had the Ladies harnessed, the matched white mares that drew the Fire Department's steam pumper.

She wasn't hitched onto the pumper -- it lived in the firehouse -- but she had the Ladies harnessed up to the practice buggy, which was welded tubing and sheet metal, a couple heavy timber crosspieces and a broad seat bolted down to fashion a driver's box.

Three white mares came surging out through that wide open double gate with the synchronized thunder that only a matched team can produce.

My youngest daughter, Dana -- my little schoolgirl in pigtails and pink cowboy boots and a handmade dress -- swung a blacksnake whip and snapped a hole in the air over the lead mare's ears.

That's not what caught my attention.

Not the sight of a pretty little red-faced, mad-as-hell little girl standing up in the driver's box, holding onto a clothesline rope tied to either side of the welded-steel, red-painted dash board ahead of her, gripped with a little girl's white-knuckle clutch.

That's not what I noticed.

And it wasn't the sight of a braided blacksnake whip that a pretty little girl, a child, for Chrissakes! -- a child, swinging a whip, and apparently good at it! -- no, what I noticed was that the Ladies, the matched white mares, were harnessed -- harnessed, yes -- but none wore so much as a bridle.

No bit.

No reins.

Dana's blood was up, she was mad as hell, I recognized the pale eyed Rage, dynamite in a small package, and she was running the Ladies flat out, just as hard as they would go, and I tell you plainly, those ladies were running!

I'd worked with the Ladies, my children worked with the Ladies, these matched firehorses were exercised daily, Old Pale Eyes took a particular interest in Sean's matched white mares and the family kept that tradition all these years.

The Ladies were born high in the mountains, they were worked and trained and exercised high up where the air was thin and their blood was thick and rich, where their lungs were bigger, where they could run as fast as a lowland horse and pull just as hard as a lowland horse because they'd been born to the high country and raised in the high country and all this stomped around in the back of my head as I got a saddle on my stallion, as Marnie got a saddle on my black racer, as we took out after her, and I damned the time it took to shut that big broad double gate so the rest of the stock wouldn't make their escape!

 

Fire Chief Charles Fitzgerald had absolutely no idea what was about to happen.

He'd stood and stretched and walked out through the bay and down between the trucks to the man door in the front of the firehouse.

Fitz looked around and considered sitting on one of the flat stones that lined the broad concrete apron, then he looked up at the sharp sound of hooves.

His ear caught this because the Ladies ran with a synchronized gait -- they did this naturally, it was not a matter of training -- he heard a girl's voice call "Ho, now, ho there," and then, louder, "GEE! GEE, LADIES, GEE!" -- then a loud, commanding "HO!"

Fitz stared as the Fire Mares swung just as nice as you please, down the main street and onto the firehouse apron, and they stopped, slashing their tails and somehow looking very pleased with themselves.

"Chief!" Dana called, gesturing:  "Jump on! Something to show you!"

Chief Charles Fitzgerald of the Firelands Fire Department and Emergency Squad paced across the concrete apron, climbed into the welded steel driver's box.

"They're voice trained," Dana explained, "and I wanted to show you."

She handed him the black snake whip.

"Just hold onto that, we won't need it."

Fitz took the coiled whip, looked at it, lowered it into his lap.

Dana stood.

"LADIES!" she called -- her voice loud, sharp, pitched to carry -- "LADIES, HAAWWW!"

The mares swung left in response to her command.

"NOW GEEE!"

The mares turned right, off the firehouse apron and onto the main street.

Fitz turned and looked with honest astonishment at this pale eyed little girl holding onto a length of tied-off clothesline to steady her as she stood.

 

We come down the street hell-a-tearin', right down the painted center line.

Marnie was coming up just shy of abreast, on my left, and I fetched up my left hand and leaned back in the saddle and Apple-horse slowed and so did my shining black racer, and we saw Dana was just coming out of the firehouse and Fitz was seated in the driver's box.

The air was still and I could hear Dana's voice, strong, clear and commanding.

She'd just brought the Ladies off the firehouse apron and onto the street and I heard her young voice echo, strong and clear, off the building fronts:

"MUSH!"

The ladies stepped out and fairly strutted as they did.

I saw Fitz's head turn toward her and I saw the surprise on the man's face and I saw his lips frame the word:

"Mush?"

By now we were close enough to hear.

Dana still held the steady rope with one hand as she put her other hand's knuckles on her belt:

"Yes, mush!"

And any pique or anger I'd held shattered and fell to the pavement when I heard Fitz's reply.

"WHATTAYA MEAN, MUSH?" he protested, as they came abreast of us, headed up hill on the main street.

"MUSH?  DANA, THEY'RE NOT SLED DOGS!"

 

 

Edited August 11 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ABOUT AS FRIENDLY AS A SORE TOOTH B'AR

Sheriff Linn Keller drew a minor storm cloud along over his head as he rode up the main street.

His jaw was set out far enough his front teeth met, very precisely, instead of overllapping.

His posture was as correct as it always was, he still moved easy in the saddle, moving with his stallion's smooth pace, but those who knew the man knew he was not in any kindly mood.

Apple-horse stopped off a sudden, not quite ready to shy, but not far from it: Linn blinked and realized he'd wrapped that dark cloud around him and he'd not seen the last mile or so of his ride, least not that he recalled.

He leaned back in the saddle and Apple-horse planted his forehooves, dropped his head, shook his head briskly, tossing his mane as he did.

Linn stared -- openly, unashamedly -- at whatever in God's creation sat smoking in front of the Silver Jewel Saloon.

He studied on this apparition, then he walked his stallion forward as his mind dissected the image --

That is a boiler, he thought, steam cylinder and piston, fly wheel way the hell up on the side, why ain't it down lower like a locomotive --

What's that movin' on the fur side?

He walked Apple-horse forward, swinging well behind whatever this big, heat radiating smoker was, he eyeballed the bright-painted steel spoke wheels, he saw sunshine gleam off black grease on what he recognized as gears small and gears large, and he saw a fellow in overalls with a hickory strip engineer's cap industriously working the handle of a portable water pump, transferring water from tthe horse trough into a square tank on the back.

One of the Blaze boys was grinning as he worked the handle of the water pump that filled the trough, the engineer worked the handle of the One Arm Johnny, swinging in an impressive, steady arc.

Linn shook his head and rode on, as he had business, and he dragged his cloud of unhappy discontent with him.

 

 

The Lady Esther sang, sad and lonesome, against granite cliffs and through the snaking river well below.

I swallowed hard.

My wife was not a month in the ground and I still expected to see her come around the corner with her spectacles halfway down her nose and a quiet smile on her face, some paper or another in her hand, and a question for me, or something to show me, or just because she wanted to step into my arms and be held.

I remembered the feel of her maternal belly against mine, and I remembered lying beside her at night, my hand on her belly and her hand on mine and the both of us marveling -- again -- at the feel of new life moving beneath our spread fingers.

I set there on my stallion and that ache reached up and wrapped around my heart and I tore it loose and snarled as I drove it back into its iron kettle, and I screwed the lid down tight.

I had no time for feelings.

Not anymore.

I did not deserve them.

I blamed myself for the pregnancy that murdered my wife.

I did not blame the child.

Doc got her out -- Esther wanted to name her Dana, and I'd held her in church this morning, she wore a christening gown cut from Esther's wedding gown and Bonnie said something about keeping it safe, to sew into Dana's wedding gown when that day came.

I did not care.

Dana was a baby, Dana was a child, Dana was my youngest, and I felt just as fatherly toward her as I'd felt toward my other several young, but that's about the only feelin's I had left.

The Lady Esther grieved to the mountains and the mountains sorrowed her voice back, and I set there in my good hand made saddle and glared into the uncaring distance.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller watched the steam tractor laboring across the field, watched -- patient, silent, unmoving -- as the tractor was hitched to a God-awful big plow, as the engineer hauled on levers and looked back and looked at his gauges and slung coal into the boiler and I smelt good dirt as they turned it over, cut with a broad gang plow, and I watched the future chuff and bark across a patch of level ground, and I watched men gawp and stare and marvel at this land locomotive that could cut more steel into sod than a good team could ever hope to do.

I watched as they set up in an adjacent field and belted that-there bright green and yellow and red painted machine to something and they forked shocked wheat into it and it run out a shining gold stream of wheat and the straw went elsewhere and this was done under power and done fast.

I felt Jacob ride up beside me and stop and we just set there and watched for a while.

"Jacob," said I, "is this the future?"

"I reckon so, sir."

"Did you see how many plows that thing pulled?"

"I did, sir."

I looked over at Jacob and he had the admiring look of a young man who understood these new modern inventions.

Me, I just felt tired.

"Jacob," I finally said, "I am going to call it good for the day."

"Yes, sir."

"Come get me if there's fire, murder, or the cows are out, but otherwise I don't reckon I'll do much more for a while."

I was honestly surprised at how tired my voice sounded, even to my own ears.

Jacob gave me a long look and finally said "Yes, sir."

Apple-horse and I went on back home, I looked at them cross hatched cuts in the packed dirt where that locomotive on big spoked wheels come out from where it stopped in front of the Silver Jewel so both the machine and its engineer could get a drink.

I unsaddled Apple-horse and rubbed him down, I grained him and hooked my arm over his neck and just leaned into him for several long minutes.

"At least you're still here," I said softly, and Apple-horse, he turned his head toward me like he understood, and I realized why I was a-dawdle there in the pasture.

I did not want to go back into that mausoleum that used to be a home.

 

Edited August 13 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

MORNING AFTER

Willamina didn't realize she'd been asleep until she woke.

She lifted her head and smiled, fatigue in her smile, exhaustion in her eyes: her son stood in the doorway, knuckles still raised after having discreetly giving his usual rat-tat, tat.

Willamina's pale eyes swung to the wall clock.

Linn came into the room, silent on well-polished Wellington boots.

He came around the far side of the desk, squatted, balanced on the balls of his feet, warm hands carefully laid over her left forearm.

"Mama," he said, his voice quiet, "may I drive you home?"

Willamina's shoulders sagged a little more and she nodded.

Linn ran his arms under her knees and around her back and picked her up with surprising ease.

Willamina giggled tiredly, laid her head against her son's shoulder and gave a little sigh.

"I used to do this, when you were little," she mumbled, words slurred with exhaustion.

"I know the day you had today," Linn replied, and Willamina heard the quiet concern in his voice.

"I just ... wanted ... to relax," Willamina almost groaned, and Linn carefully, competently, carried his Mama down the short staircase and across the lobby of what was becoming the Firelands Museum.

Willamina heard the front door open, heard Linn's quiet-voiced thanks as if from far away.

She remembered being carried, she remembered how good the cool air smelled: movement, she felt herself placed in the front seat, and she automatically scooted a little to the side, reached for the seat belt.

She smiled as an anonymous hand -- probably her son's, she was too tired to open her eyes -- drew the belt across her.

She felt as much as heard the buckle snap into engagement, she had only the vaguest memory of being driven somewhere, she smelled home and fried onion and fried meat and bacon and she realized she hadn't eaten, but she was too tired, and then she heard footsteps very far away and hands unbuckled her ankles straps and pulled off her shoes and a quilt, warm and soft, and she curled up on her side like she was a little girl again and cuddled into her own bed and that's the last she remembered.

 

Linn carried his exhausted Mama up the broad staircase.

He knew she'd been running wide open all day.

It had been one of those days, everything was happening and she was everywhere at once: he'd been out of town on assignment, when he got back with a prisoner, he waited until his transfer was booked in and secured before allowing anyone to fill him in -- elsewise he might have locked this high escape risk convicted felon, in a broom closet, and gone hell-a-tearin' out the door after whatever all was going on.

He was tired as well, but not as bone tired exhausted as his Mama the Sheriff.

He knew she intended to relax by working on more ancestry research, and sure enough that's where he found her, and the night culminated with his packing his Mama upstairs, and laying her in her own bed, removing her shoes and covering her fully dressed.

He might pack his Mama like she was a tired little girl, he might pull a thick, fluffy, handmade quilt that smelled of sunshine and fresh air over her, but this was his Mama and there is no way in two red hells he would even think about undressing her for bed!

Next day, an hour and a half later than her usual rise time, Sheriff Willamina Keller came downstairs, looking altogether as fresh and rested as if nothing at all had gone on the day before.

Linn turned from the stove with a grin on his face, plate in one hand and spatula in the other.

"Bacon and eggs," he said, "sausage patties and waffles. Coffee's a-brewin'."

Willamina laughed a little, skipped across the kitchen on the balls of her feet and kissed her son on the cheek, took the plate, looked around at the bounty hot and steaming on the table, at two places set, she looked at the organization on the stove (and the utter lack of a spatter-mess!) and then looked up at her tall son.

"You've been busy," she said softly, and Linn grinned as morning sun filled the room and made his Mama's face look young and healthy again.

"I've had a good teacher," he laughed. "You want more eggs?"

Willamina looked at the plate she held, tilted her head and looked back up at him.

"One more," she said. "Three's a lucky number, and I'm starved!"

Linn laughed, turned back to the stove: another egg, cracked against the side of the cast iron, more bacon in the pan with it, and the stainless-steel screen over the pan to trap the grease spatter.

He lifted it briefly to sprinkle the hand-ground seasonings on the egg, turned and opened the waffle iron, flipped the finished product onto a stack, set this stack on the table and turned off the waffle iron.

The wall phone rang, Linn snatched it up: "Morning, JW, this is Linn, how's your pulse a-beatin' today?"

Willamina picked up a strip of bacon, chomped it quickly, and in a less than ladylike manner, pale eyes wide and innocent as she looked at her grinning son.

"Whattaya mean, how'd I know it was you?  I'm psychotic!  I mean psychic!"

Willamina's smile spread to her shoulders -- Linn saw her silent laughter in their movement as she set her plate down, drew out her chair, turned back as if expecting Linn to hand her the phone.

"No, she's fine, I'm feeding her breakfast. Poor thing's so skinny if she drank a redpop she'd look like a thermometer."

Willamina planted her knuckles on her waist, patted her foot and glared over a set of nonexistent spectacles in mock aggravation.

"Sounds good," Linn grinned, then the pleased look fell from his face and his voice became dead serious.

"JW," he said, and Willamina was struck by how much Linn sounded like his late father, "thank you for givin' enough of a damn to call and ask. That's ... proper."

Willamina nibbled on another strip of crispy-fried, thick-cut bacon as Linn hung up the phone, carefully, silently.

He looked at his Mama.

"JW wanted to make sure you were all right."

Willamina nodded.

"He's retiring, you know."

Linn nodded.

"I want you for my chief deputy."

Linn considered this, nodded again, then looked past her at the table.

"I heated the plates," he said, "but them eggs are gettin' cold just settin' there."

Linn held his Mama's chair as she sat, and he scooted it in just a little, before orbiting the table and assuming his own seat.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SILENT AS HONED STEEL

"Michael Keller, I know that look."

Michael's expression did not change as he looked at his twin sister.

"What have you been up to now?"

Michael blinked and opened his eyes very wide, he blinked rapidly and placed innocent fingertips against his carefully-knotted necktie:  "Me?" he protested, rolling his eyes and playing the fool to the point of exaggeration.

Victoria planted her knuckles on her belt, then she raised one hand and shook her Mommy-finger at her twin brother: "Yes, you, Michael! You've been up to something!"

"You would make a good old-maid schoolteacher," Michael grumbled, blocking his twin's good-natured swat:  "If you must know --"

Victoria thrust spread fingers toward the painted ceiling overhead:  "Men!" she exasperated, then looked back and gave an impatient huff! the way she did when she was a little girl being teased.

Michael crossed his arms, then raised one finger: "Well, y'see, I found a secret hatch in the church back home!"

Victoria froze, turned her head a little, then leaned forward, all focused attention.

"I remember," she said slowly, "when Gammaw found that secret door in the schoolhouse -- that long skinny one where Sarah McKenna hid a rifle --"

"Pa still has it," Michael grinned, "and I've shot it."

"Hatch," Victoria pulled him back to the subject. "Where, how, what, how, who --"

 

Mr. Baxter hung a beer mug by its handle from a side peg.

He had other glasses thrust over wooden pegs, he had a bottle upside down with the neck thrust downward between two pegs and a strip of cloth holding the bottle around the equator to keep it upside down -- "Beeswing," he would tell the curious, "it's some fancy kind of wine with the settlin's in the neck so I can pour 'em out easy" -- but the beer mug hung on a peg meant he had a message for the Sheriff, and he didn't want anyone else to know about it.

The Sheriff learned of the message first from Daisy, the red-headed Irish fire chief's wife who ran the kitchen in the Silver Jewel: the Sheriff came in the back door and Daisy scampered out, seized his arm and pulled hard.

Sheriff Linn Keller was a dancer -- not as good as his wife, or his daughters, but he wasn't bad, and he was able to reverse his course down the hallway toward the bar, and swing into the kitchen instead.

Daisy's face was serious: "Mr. Baxter has summat for ye," Daisy said, her voice low and serious -- "use th' hatch up here, no one can see ye" -- she pulled at his coat-sleeve, towed him the length of her kitchen, her wooden spoon upraised, less scepter and more weapon, though nobody was in front of her to receive its woody impact.

From the outside, it appeared Mr. Baxter consulted at the hatch, opened from the kitchen side: a hand and a wooden spoon emerged, apparently in a threatening manner: Mr. Baxter held up flat palms in a placating manner, then leaned closer to the portal, spoke quietly.

When he drew back, it was with a split, buttered, still-warm biscuit thrust unexpectedly between his teeth: he drew back in surprise, the hatch slammed shut, and Mr. Baxter returned to his station, looking around to see who might need a refill, and chewing on a genuinely excellent, fresh-from-the-oven, thickly-buttered biscuit.

When the Sheriff turned to thank Daisy for her help, he found his own teeth separated by a similar baked bread item: Daisy swatted him across the backside with her spoon -- "G'wan, now, an' keep yersel' safe," she scolded, "yer wife'd ne'er speak to ye ag'in if ye'd get yersel' killed!"

 

Michael Keller followed the handwritten account in the reprinted Journal, and Victoria, seated close beside him, followed along, both with eyes on the reprinted page, and also in her imagination, picturing the action as it occurred in Firelands, back when.

 

Someone threatened to kill me, he thought.

That’s nothing new.

He came down the hallway, silent on the balls of his feet, eyes busy.

He looked over at Tom Landers, lifted his chin.

Tom drifted over, slouched companionably against the corner of the hallway.

“There,” Tom grunted, and the Sheriff saw it.

A man looked away, turned, made for the front door.

“Watch for who pays attention,” Linn muttered, and set off in unobtrusive pursuit.

He paused just inside the doors, looking out the gap between the doors – he pushed through them, emerged, eyes going to the rooflines, down to the alleyway, to all the places he’d hide if he intended to kill someone from bushwhack.

He saw movement – there, and gone –

He’s going up the back of Digger’s place.

The Sheriff turned, headed to his right: his pace was firm, regular.

I’ve got just enough time to make the church, he thought: he paused just inside the double doors, the ones that opened on the corner instead of the front or the side.

He looked at the roofline, looked to the false front over Digger’s funeral parlor.

He saw a hat lift, saw the eyes under it, saw an individual duck –

He saw the rifle barrel beside the hat.

He closed the door, stepped back quickly.

No wood-splintering shots came through the door.

Had I a rifle, he thought, I’d climb the bell tower and take him.

I could skate acrost that little hallway and into the Parsonage.

He’ll be expecting that.

Where else …?

Linn’s eyes swung down the center aisle and to the Altar, and the man smiled quietly.

Parson Belden opened the door from he parsonage, sauntered through the short hall connecting the two buildings: he passed the window that looked out onto the street, sunlight shining bright on white-linen shirtsleeve, and that is very likely the only thing that kept the man alive.

He was not expecting company, and so he was minimally dressed: that is, he was not wearing his coat.

His vest, yes, which is the minimum a man wore to be considered dressed – in those far off days, a man appearing in public wearing a shirt was tatamount to parading proudly wearing nothing but BVDs in the more modern times – he came into his Church and blinked, then smiled, as he looked up from the open Scripture and saw the Sheriff.

Linn gave a curt nod.

“Parson,” he said, “I need your help.”

The Parson turned, set his soft-from-much-use Scripture on top of the piano: “Name it,” he said, in the voice of a man who knew what it was to go to war.

 

“It says here,” Michael breathed, nail-trimmed finger tracing the reprinted page, “that he and the Parson slid the Altar aside and rolled back the rug, they opened the hatch the Parson did not know was there.”

He felt Victoria’s nod, as her shoulder was firmly against his, her head down, following his finger’s trace across the printed page.

“He says …” Michael continued softly, and he stopped at Victoria’s silent laugh.

“Cobwebs,” she half-shivered, half-laughed.

“And dust,” Michael added. “A ‘bare trace of light’ around the short door in the back of the church, and…”

It was Victoria’s turn to feel a silent laugh through their pressed flesh.

“ ‘I hoped most sincerely nobody stacked firewood against it,” she read aloud.

Brother and sister leaned back, blinked, their imaginations united in the shared and manufactured moment of what it must have been for their pale eyed ancestor, sneaking out a back exit nobody knew about.

They looked at one another, smiled.

Michael handed Victoria the book, he rose and snatched up his coat: a moment later, an Iris opened behind the Firelands Church, and two well-dressed twins stepped out, dismissed the Iris, looked around.

Michael’s grin was broad and genuine, unlike Victoria’s impassive survey of their surroundings: she appreciated being home as much as Michael, but where he was openly delighted, she was cautiously solemn.

“He would have come out there,” Michael said softly, then he opened the book and read, frowned, re-read, turned the page.

A pale eyed young man raised an arm and pointed with his bladed hand, and an attractive twin sister in a knee length frock and shining slippers, skipped along beside him as they retraced their ancestor’s path of escape, and assault.

 

I considered carefully before I moved.

For a moment I thought myself of Esther’s roses, planted thick and rich alongside the Church, and I remembered a moment when she had me by the lapels of my coat and she scolded in a whisper, “Mister Keller, you are not to die before I do, or I shall never speak to you again!” – I’d laughed and I’d hugged her and I’d nibbled the side of her neck with my lips and she’d tried to push against me for a moment, until she absolutely melted in my arms and she lifted her face to mine –

I shook my head, dismissing the memory.

Esther might be dead but by God! I wasn’t, and if someone wanted me dead, I would damn well return the favor!

I looked cautiously around the corner, moved, moved again: I was three buildings down the street, I moved toward the street –

An empty freight wagon came up the grade, noisy, rumbling, all harness bells and long eared mules and rattling the way an unladen heavy hauler will.

The human eye is drawn to movement, I thought.

I waited until the wagon was abreast, until it was just past, and I ran.

I scampered across the packed-dirt street, my eyes on the roofline, and sure enough, he was watching the wagon.

I got into the alley and coasted to a stop, breathing deep, and a smile pulled my face wider.

I knew the feel of that smile.

No windows opened on the alley and that’s good because I know how vicious that smile I felt, would look, was I to see the reflection.

My coat was unbuttoned already.

I climbed them covered stairs Digger had built so he could pack goods up to the roof into that little shed of his he built for storage – I heard he tried to rent that little patch of ground behind his parlor and rent was too high for his taste and so was the sellin’ price, so he allowed as he’d spent twice the money to build them covered stairs and make ‘em wide enough to carry coffins up or down and a shed on the roof to keep them or whatever else he figured was worth storin’ – sometimes that man don’t have a lick of good sense – anyway I went up them stairs cautious-like and I set my weight at the sides of the tread to keep from any squeak or snap.

I got to the top and taken me a quick peek and then taken me another, and I come up and cat footed over behint Digger’s rooftop shed.

I crossed behind it and worked my way around and peeked around the side he’d not likely be lookin’ at.

He was dustin’ tobacker into a cigarette paper, and he was facin’ away from me, but was I to advance from here he’d pick me up quicker than if I come from the other side of the rooftop shed.

I moved quick and I moved silent and I looked and he ducked his head and scratched off a Lucifer match and I ran.

I was halfway to him by the time he knew anything wasn’t right and he looked up all startled and I had him by the throat and I bore him backwards over the edge of that short false front and I held him there with my knife’s tip dug in between his ribs about a half inch, just enough to get his attention and let him know if he tried anything at all he was dead.

“You,” I said quietly, “want to kill me.”

He tried to say something and realized the hand rolled was wet-welded to his bottom lip.

I felt him try and I thrust that knife in between his ribs and angled it up to where I knew it would count and he give a funny little grunt and I crushed my hand around his wind pipe and fetched that knife out and drove it in ag’in and then I went all Singer Sewin’ Machine on him and drove that blade in under his Wish Bone and then I drug him back and threw him acrost the roof and I stood there and watched a man die.

My breathin’ was steady and I looked down at my hand and warn’t much blood on blade nor on my hand and that kind of surprised me for last time I felt like that, a man come into the Sheriff’s office and said to my face he figured to kill Jaccob and I pinned him ag’in the wall by the neck and I drove him so many times up through the high guts I was blood to my wrist.

I taken me a long breath and looked around and considered I’d just inherited me a rifle and whatever proud-ofs the carcass had on it, and hopefully there’d be something to tell me who sent this fella, and when there warn’t, I figured I’d have Sarah put on her Black Agent hat, for she is just a wizard and a wonder when it comes to findin’ things out.

I straightened up and listened, and that freight wagon was long gone and warn’t any other sound to be heard, and that always surprised me after a death, how silent it often was.

 

Michael Keller’s voice was quiet as he read the final words of his ancestor’s handwritten entry.

Victoria shivered a little as she heard this ancient account, pronounced like a sentence of doom by her brother’s gentle voice:

“Silent as honed steel.”

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

FAULT

Three things happened at once.

Victoria's eyes snapped wide, she hunched over like she'd been punched in the gut, and her bone china tea cup clattered to its saucer and sloshed out amber oolong as she clamped her jaw shut against the pain.

Cyclone's head snapped up and she backed quickly away from the hitch rail, dancing, muttering, her canines exposed and her mane bristling, which sent curious children a-scatter like a covey of frightened quail chicks.

Michael fell back, clutching his thigh high up, eyes squeeezed shut against the general sensation of inheriting a steelshod hoof with no warning and no preparation.

The ladies of this genteel meeting stared as Victoria half-rolled, half-fell from her chair, as she hit the floor and rolled up on all fours.

What went down to the spotless, rug-covered boards was a pretty young woman.

What came up was a pale-eyed, bared-teeth, snarling creature of war.

Victoria Keller, the gentle, genteel, daughter of that pale eyed Colorado Sheriff, seized a double handful of skirt and petticoats and launched herself toward the closed door separating the ladies' meeting from the outside world.

Victoria would later extend an official apology and personally supervise the replacement of the broken, hinge-hanging door.

Michael was like his older brother Jacob: he was known to be skilled with horses, and his advice was in constant demand among the several worlds with putative horse-herds: Michael was a young man in the green strength of youth, and like young men who knew horses, he delighted in bucking out a good saddlemount, especially on a frosty morning, when the world was clear and sharp and he could see from here to the rim of Eternity, or so it felt.

Michael was also a good judge of horseflesh, and he knew the mean ones, he knew the ones who thought it great fun to crush a rider's leg against a tree trunk or a fence post or a wall.

Michael knew how to train horses and he'd grown skilled at earning horses' trust, and when he was asked to consult on a particular horse, he approached as he always did, he talked quiet to the horse and didn't try to crowd the horse and he let the horse gallop away from him and back toward him and usually if he stood fast the horse would dodge him or would stop, and this particular horse ...

... didn't ...

It happened so fast Michael was honestly not sure quite how it happened, but it felt like that horse whipped around and slammed him broad side and somehow a hoof hit Michael right below the crease in his right thigh, high up, and knocked him halfway into next week: between the whole-body impact and what felt like an axhammer to the leg, he hit the ground rolling and tried to curl up a little.

Part of Michael's brain screamed that men with a foot caught in a stirrup got dragged to death, that cowboys carried a .44 to shoot their horse if this happened, he looked after where he'd heard the horse retreat and he tried to get up.

Pain persuaded him otherwise.

Michael fell back, jaw locked shut, eyes blurred with pain: he found the plastic handle of his pistol and he had the sudden sinking feeling that -- as effective as this double stack self shucker had been in the past -- this was a horse, it just put him down fast hard and nasty, and his handful of Tupperware Lightning Bolt suddenly felt pretty damned puny!

 

Victoria executed a perfect point-shoulder-roll after she reduced the door to its component parts: she went hairdo-over-highbuttons, all petticoats and stockings and the sound of a mountain cat expressing genuine displeasure.

Cyclone screamed.

It was rare the Fanghorns vocalized.

It was the first time this world ever heard a Fanghorn sing war and death and utter ruin, and it was the first time Cyclone was seen to swing broadside and drop to her belly, suddenly, a living wall of flesh and fur for Victoria to SLAM into!

She twisted off the ground, seized the roping horn and threw a shapely, black-stockinged leg over the saddle -- Cyclone did not stand, she LAUNCHED off the ground, and for a moment, daylight slid under her rock-hard, unshod hooves -- Victoria thrust into the black doghouse stirrups, bent over, pressed her palms against the Fanghorn's blunt, hard-muscled neck.

A pretty young woman's scream and a Fanghorn's canvas-tearing roar shivered the air, and Victoria reached back and down and shucked her rifle out of its scabbard.

 

Michael saw that man killin' horse coming.

His Pa told him once if he ever run across a genuine man killer he'd know it but he might not know it until too late.

You were right, Pa.

I got to move!

He couldn't get up.

His leg was useless and the rest of him didn't feel much better.

He extended his arm and pointed his hand and time slowed, time didn't so much crawl as it snailed.

Michael saw the inner anatomy of a horse's structure and he saw the horse coming straight at him and he saw his gunsights with an absolutely shocking clarity and he felt his wrist shiver a little and part of his mind thought My wrist feels funny and then something blondish-grey drove through his field of vision and a voice between his ears said Not-horse and his pistol lowered a little and he stared as something rammed that oncoming horse right in the breast bone and knocked it Galley West and Michael remembered thinking That's the first time I ever saw a horse fly sideways, and then pain sloshed through him like five gallon of gasoline vigorously sloshed into a bonfire and red agonies claimed him again and his head sagged against his arm and he heard the click of his teeth coming together and then things got kind of hazy.

 

Victoria heard Michael's descriptions of the connection he felt with Lightning.

He'd tried different terms for it, and none fit.

It wasn't a mind link, it wasn't a soul link, he didn't really know what to call it, but Victoria divined it was a connection of some variety.

Until this moment, she never understood.

Now -- now, with her sharp little heels locked around Cyclone's barrel, with her Marlin rifle held two-handed and the hammer back, with her own teeth bared and war in her heart, she felt the connection twins routinely feel -- she felt Michael's pain as if it were her own -- but the female processes pain differently, and she remained in the saddle, functional and thinking --

She knew what Michael knew: the charge, the collision, the hoof out of nowhere, the leg suddenly numb, the raised pistol as Death on steel horseshoes came back for another pass.

Victoria realized with a grim and vengeful satisfaction she was feeling this same connection with Cyclone.

She felt herself lower her neck and tuck her head and aim herself like a living missile, she felt herself running with speed and control and utter power, she felt the living certainty that she was going to KILL this horse-thing that hurt one of her herd, and then Cyclone drove her low conical boss into the oncoming horse's breastbone.

Victoria was welded into the saddle, her legs were tight around Cyclone's ribs, her grip crushed around hand-checkered walnut and blued steel, and it still whipped her forward and snapped her teeth together.

To her credit, the collision, the involuntary tightening of every muscle in her body, did not trigger the Marlin, and part of her mind filed a memo for later review, something to do with thanking her Daddy for his admonition to "Keep your Booger Hook Off the Bang Switch!"

Lightning did not simply ram a horse.

Cyclone hit the horse hard enough to drive through it.

The horse was thrown to the side, breastbone and ribs broken -- it was an instant incapacitation -- Cyclone came around again, fast, hind quarters low and digging as she swapped ends, as she thrust forward, Death in a fur covered torpedo.

Victoria had to grab the saddlehorn as Cyclone threw sideways and half-danced, half-skidded, and Victoria felt a deep and deadly satisfaction as Cyclone's head came up and drove down and her carnivorous canines crushed the vertebrae at the base of the horse's skull.

Cyclone ripped the neck bone free, slung it aside, threw her head up and reared and SCREAMED and the sound was beyond chilling, it was a terrifying, soul-freezing sound of a war-carnivore declaring victory and claim, and Victoria felt her jaws close and she felt bone crush between her teeth and she tasted hot and living blood and she drove her head down and ripped quivering, still-living flesh from the carcass of the vanquished ENEMY!!

 

Michael woke to the familiar feel of hospital linens and the familiar sound of monitors and the familiar smell of soap and sunshine and disinfectants.

He opened his eyes. blinked.

His father was in a chair beside his bed, a familiar red covered book in hand, another with a soft, worn, blue cover on the hospital table in front of him.

Michael's mouth was dry and he honestly ached.

"How long?" he managed to croak, and his father snapped the book shut, set it up with the blue covered volume.

Michael recognized it: the Book of Common Prayer, the one his father used when talking to God about other folks ... generally asking for their healing, and Michael felt the confused combination of gratitude and shame at realizing his Pa was asking the Almighty to heal him for what felt like his own foolishness.

Linn picked up a glass of water with a bent straw in it, held it in position.

Michael drank gratefully.

"Feel like talkin'?" Linn asked in the gentle voice of a father at an injured son's bedside.

Michael swallowed, nodded.

"Your leg is repaired. It wasn't broken but it pulled the hip out of joint. That's fixed and they've done ... something ... about everything that was stretched out. They repaired" -- he frowned, held up one fist and cupped the other hand around it -- "apparently something broke along the rim of the socket and that's fixed, they said it should be good as before the injury."

Michael blinked but made no reply.

"The chief surgeon said they used things they learned when they rebuilt your spine."

Michael nodded shallowly, grimaced.

"I reckon you're sore."

"Yes, sir," Michael managed, shifting his position in the bed and regretting the move instantly. 

"Sore in places you didn't know you had places?"

Linn's expression was both understanding, and distressed.

"Yes, sir."

Michael blinked, his mind waking up a little more.

"Victoria?"

"I'll get her."

Linn rose, winked: he picked up both books and left the room.

Something feminine, long skirted and determined swarmed into his room a moment later, and Michael looked up into his twin's pale eyes.

He raised his hand and she took it in both hers.

"You okay?" he whispered.

"You're the one in a hospital bed, and you're asking if I'm okay?" Victoria laughed quietly, and Michael relaxed a little to hear it.

Victoria tilted her head, regarded her supine twin with a gentle expression.

"You should see your bruise," she said speculatively.

"I'll need a big mirror."

"Speaking of which" -- she patted his hand -- "Angela is personally taking over your rehab and your physical therapy. She'll be here with thigh high boots and a horsewhip to make sure you're doing your exercises."

"Promises, promises," Michael muttered. "She doesn't need a horsewhip."

Victoria raised her eyebrows in mock surprise.

"No?"

"No," Michael grunted. "All she has to do is that finger-thing."

"Oh, you mean the Dreaded Remote Tickle!"

Michael glared at his twin.

"Yeah."

"What's this I hear about the Dreaded Remote Tickle?" a familiar voice challenged from the doorway.

Michael groaned and raised a wrapped hand, stared at his wrist.

"Oh, yeah, didn't anyone tell you? You sprained your wrist. It'll be okay. Now" -- Angela pulled the siderail release at the bottom, then the top, lowered the curved, shining tubing fall guard -- "let's get you on your feet, shall we?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

KINDA SLOWER 

Retired Chief of Police Will Keller stared at the cripple stick his nephew leaned on.

"Well, hell," he said quietly, "best come on in."

Michael looked up at his Uncle and nodded, and labored the rest of the way to the front door.

He followed his pale eyed Uncle to the kitchen table, took the indicated seat, hooked his cane over the back of the chair.

Will went over to the counter, lifted the plastic lid on something that looked edible -- "Your sister made this," he said as he sliced off two slabs of something Michael recognized as a Bundt cake, or at least something baked in one off those ring pans, as his Mama called them -- Will set the thick slice on a plate, set the plate in front of Michael, turned and interrogated the refrigerator's interior.

He came out with a bottle of "Squirty Stuff" -- he shook the can, inverted it, anointed Michael's slab of something baked and doubtless good, with a thick layer of white foam -- Michael smiled quietly as his uncle muttered "Guess I'd better find a fork for you," and waited until his Uncle Will slabbed off another chunk for himself and emptied the colorful pressure can on his own thick slice.

"Your sister said she put cherries in this," Will grunted. "She knows I like cherries."

"And nuts," Michael grinned, waiting to pick up his fork until Uncle Will was set down and picking up his own.

Will dropped his fork like it was hot.

"Dammit," he snapped, then rose and went to the cupboard: two mugs, a fast pour from the steaming pot, another trip to the fridge, this time for a plastic half gallon jug of milk.

"There!" he declared as he thumped Extract of Bovine onto the tablecloth. "Knew I was tryin' to remember somethin'!"

"Thank you, Uncle Will," Michael said quietly.

They ate in a companionable silence: at one point, Will picked up the depleted pressure can, leaned back, gave it a casual toss toward the trash can beside the fridge -- "Two points!" -- when finally their plates were cleared and coffee down to the halfway mark, Will leaned forward, forearms on the tablecloth, and looked very directly at his waiting nephew.

"How's the leg?"

"How's yours?" Michael countered -- but with a grin -- Will chuckled, nodded -- "You go first."

"It's been better," Michael admitted. "Angela tells me to walk, it'll keep me from stiffenin' up. She recommended the cane, said it made me look dashing."

"That's one way to do it," Will muttered.

"Yeah," Michael agreed cynically. 

"Does it help?"

"It helps," Michael admitted. "Beats up on my self esteem, but it helps."

"Trust me," Will growled. "Use the damned thing as long as you have to so you don't fall. Healing after reinjury takes longer."  He glared over his coffee mug.  "Voice of experience."

Michael nodded thoughtfully.

"You drive?"

Michael shook his head.  "Caught a ride."

"Didn't know if you were ridin' that big horse of yours."

Michael smiled a little.  "I'm workin' up to straddlin' the saddle again."

"You be careful with that now."  Will frowned.  "You broke your hip?"

"No, sir.  Dislocated it."

Will grimaced, looked away, muttered "Dayamn!" then looked back, understanding in his eyes.

"I can see why you're ... cautious."

"Lightning's distressed," Michael admitted, and Will saw sadness in  his nephew's expression. "She snuffed at my hip and then she laid down and curled up around me and leaned her head ag'in me ..."

Michael looked away, blinked, swallowed, and Will let him have the moment.

"What do the doctors say?"

"They said ease into it, work up to it."

"I'd say you're young and you're tough and you'll be fine," Will said bluntly, "but that's easy to say and it's an awful lot different when it's your hip and not mine!"

Michael laughed quietly, nodded: Will saw him blink, saw his eyes slide to the side, knew something occurred to his nephew he wanted to talk about.

"Uncle Will," Michael said softly, "that's the first time a horse ever honestly wanted to kill me."

Michael looked up and saw his Uncle was listening closely, his full attention focused through those pale eyes, his still-callused hands half-closed.

"Go on."

Will's voice was quiet, a father's voice.

"You know I carry a nine."

"I know you're pretty damned good with it."

"I didn't get a shot off."

Will nodded, waited.

"That little plastic pistol felt just awful puny, Uncle Will. Awful puny."

"I reckon it would," Will agreed.

"Jacob still carries a .44," Michael said thoughtfully. "The man is a snake with a single action."

Will nodded thoughtfully. "I remember," he said in a soft voice, and Michael saw a memory tighten the corners of his uncle's eyes, and he wondered what Jacob did to impress the man.

"If all I'm going up against is a man target, this nine is just the berries," Michael said thoughtfully. "Jacob said there's no substitute for momentum, and if I'd had a .44 when that horse come back at me I'd ..."

His voice tapered off and he looked ruefully at his Uncle and added, "If the dog hadn't stopped to squat, maybe he'd have caught the rabbit."

Will nodded.  "I've heard that, too."

Silence grew long between them.

"Michael, do I recall you went to a box magazine .45-70?"

"Yes, sir."

"You wanted a rifle that would put down something big."

"Yes, sir."

"You made a reasonable choice."

"Thank you, Uncle Will."

"I will leave it to your good judgement what to carry on your belt."

It was Michael's turn to give a thoughtful nod.

 

Uncle Will thumbed his lockback open, slit the envelope and extracted a hand written letter, and grinned as he unfolded it.

He recognized the artist's work -- Victoria often drew him pictures -- this showed a very recognizable Michael, in the saddle: he had the wooden cane in a behind-the-back carry, he was a-straddle of what looked like a patient old mule.

Behind mule and rider, looming like a fine-furred battleship, a disapproving looking Fanghorn mare with lightning-streaks patterning the side of her neck, fighting canines just visible -- protectiveness, not threat -- and beneath, in Victoria's delicate, looping script:

Can't keep him out of the saddle.

At least he's starting slow!

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

SHORT, FAST AND HIGH ENERGY!

Captain Crane sat and stared at his pie.

It was a good size slab of the Silver Jewel's fluffy chocolate pie, with half again that much whipped cream on top.

A big mug of coffee steamed beside it, shimmering a little as the chief medic rested his elbows on the red-and-white checkered tablecloth and stared at the fluffy white thickness overlying the fluffy chocolate thickness.

He saw a hand and he saw the hand grip the back of the chair opposite, and he saw a familiar black suit with a Sheriff inside of it, set down across the round table from him.

He saw a hash slinger's full skirt flare and swing beside him and he heard the Sheriff's quiet "I'll have what he's havin'," and the Captain waited until another big slab of fluffy chocolate whipped whatever-the-hell set itself down in front of his son-in-law.

Linn waited a minute or so and the asked quietly, "You goin' to eat that, or do you figure to stare it to death?"

The Captain blinked, looked up at the grinning Sheriff.

"I didn't hear any tone-out for a woman in labor," Linn said quietly, "so you didn't just deliver a baby."

"No," the Captain said quietly, shaking his head a little.  "No baby."

"You set like this when something good happened."

The Captain was quiet a moment longer than was necessary, then he nodded.

"Yes," he agreed.  "Yes, it was."

Linn leaned back, spread his arms.

"Well don't leave me hangin'," he said in mock distress, "what happened!"

The Captain sighed -- long, slow, deep, in, out -- he blinked, considered, picked up his fork, set it back down.

"You know the ... handicap residential place just short of the county line."

Linn nodded, fingers finding his own fork but not picking it up yet.

"You know I'm a CPR and first aid instructor."

Linn nodded again.

"None of the other instructors wanted to teach a class at that residential place, so they asked me and warned me what it was and I said it sounded interesting, I could pitch it to their level of understanding."

Cap picked up his coffee, sipped carefully, frowned.

"I had no idea what I was gettin' into, so I went over with my usual materials and I figured they'd probably not benefit from the written materials as much, but I distributed 'em anyway."

"So how'd it go?"

"I ... "

Cap's voice trailed off, his eyes distant, and the shade of a smile softened his face.

He picked up his fork, eased it slowly through the point of his pie, tried the first bite and found it very much to his taste.

"I worked with 'em and Linn, they're not stupid!"

"Didn't figure they were."

"They might learn different but they can grasp a new idea and they can figure out how to apply that idea."

Linn nodded his go-ahead, tried his own pie.

Cap chuckled quietly, took another bite, savored it, swallowed with the expression of a man who was quietly pleased with achieving something he'd feared would be difficult.

"I didn't give the class like I usually do," he admitted, took another sip of fragrant, steaming-hot, black coffee:  "I gave it to 'em in short chunks -- one idea, I give it to 'em like a tent revival preacher -- I got wound up and I give it to 'em in small, high-energy chunks, hell at one point I said 'Can I get an aa-men!' and damned if every last one of 'em didn't throw up their hands and 'Aaa-men!' right back at me!"

He cut off another tall chunk of fluffy snowcap pie and looked at the Sheriff with an absolutely delighted expression.

"Now don't you know," he said quietly, his voice filled with the satisfaction of a man who'd done a difficult thing and was pleased with the result, "but every last one of 'em was able to give it back on the return examination!"

The Sheriff nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

"All a man had to do," he said with the quiet speculation of a man who wasn't there, but was happy with the report, "was give 'em a chance!"

Cap nodded, stabbed another bite, chewed happily, swallowed.

"Yep," he said firmly, and took a noisy slurp of coffee. "That's all they needed."

"So you gave it to 'em in small chunks -- short, high-energy, like Billy Sunday on a down hill run."

The Sheriff grinned, thrust his fork through white fluffy and down to the plate beneath.

"I'll have to remember that!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

RIDE THE SPECIAL AGAIN

It took some arranging, but we managed to get folks to church that Sunday.

Esther arranged it -- I'm happy to leave her railroad to her -- I give it to her for a wedding gift and I see no point in takin' it back, that would be impolite and she'd probably cloud up and rain all over me and then Miz Bonnie would likely come stompin' over here with a fryin' pan and I would come out in second place for makin' her dearest old friend and confidante cry.

Come to think of it, was I to make Esther cry, I'd deserve whatever they-all did to me!

I'm driftin' off to the side here.

I meant to write about goin' to church down in Stone Creek today.

Parson Belden announced last week services would be in Stone Creek at the orphanage and we'd have a special train set up to take everyone down,

Esther arranged for the second engine to pull this special, while The Lady Esther stayed on her home rail line and took care of necessaries here.

Several folks inquired -- of the Parson, after church, of me at odd moments, of Jacob on the street or in the Silver Jewel -- would they need to bring a picnic basket and they-all received the same message the Parson give from the pulpit, that they'd be fed once they got down there.

I reckon at some point folks quit listenin' for he did say that, I do recall him saying it.

It was a festive occasion.

Folks generally wear their Sunday-go-to-meetin's for Sunday services, and going to another church for services was a change from the ordinary.

Folks work hard and play hard and when they worship, they take it seriously, and the after worship is often as vigorous as a fire and brimstone sermon.

I doubted me not there'd be horse races, there'd be shootin' matches, there'd be women gatherin' in the shade or inside the Orphanage settin' and talkin' and if I recalled my cousin's wife aright, she'd be ordering her troops like a European feldmarschall, if I correctly remembered the term from conversation with a visiting nobleman, and she'd have a spread fit to feed the thrashers.

Now it's been some long time since I was in my cousin's orphanage.

They'd built with an eye toward mobility -- something I never realized -- apparently there was something happened that my cousin realized he could lose the Orphanage structure and then where would the children sleep, so when he rebuilt, he had the Daine boys make the bunks so they slotted together, they were solid when put together but knocked apart without tools and they could be stacked as component parts elsewhere -- then someone noticed they could be reassembled, with the help of very little more timber, to form seats, kind of short pews -- when we went into the Stone Creek Orphanage for services, a grinning little boy was happily pulling the bell-rope at their regular church but everyone was going into this bigger building.

My family was there, as was most of Firelands -- they rode the special steam train with white flags on the engine to show she wasn't on the timetable -- once they got there, engine and tender unhitched and got switched around onto a side track and bypassed the stopped train, and hitched onto what had been the back of the train so she got pulled home with the engine in the lead.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect Esther had the spur lines that went for the mines, arranged so she could service those customers and provide some kind of a turn around. Don't know for sure, the railroad is her business and not mine. I'm content to let her run it.

Now where was I.

Orphanage, that's right.

I hadn't seen so many folks scrubbed up clean and shinin' in some time.

Stone Creek is not that big, but about everyone was there, nearly all of Firelands was there, Mr. Baxter left a trusted adjutant in the Silver Jewel and Daisy fixed up whatever could be dished out without her bein' there, ahead of time.

I told Rye Miles some time later he'd ought to make a broad side poster to paste on the side of them pianos he kept all tuned up and he laughed and said there wasn't that much business to warrant the printing of it, and pasting a broadside on the side of that lovely polished wood struck him as a poor idea, and I had to agree, for every last one of them pianos were shined up and gorgeous.

Bonnie and her girls and Esther and my girls were gathered in a cluster like a covey of brightly colored quail and I'd no idea what-all they were discussin', one or another would pop her head up like a prairie dog and look around and duck back into their conference, and I figured they were either plannin' on takin' over the country, or deciding who was going to play the piano for services.

Turned out Bonnie and one of her twin daughters played for about half the service and that's the first time I ever heard them old familiar hymns being played with four hands instead of two and by golly now that was gorgeous to listen to.

I honestly don't recall one single word of what my cousin the preacher said that Sunday.

I do recall the White Sisters came up from the Rabbitville monastery and sang, and by golly that was genuinely lovely, and I slid my bedsheet kerchief out of my sleeve and wiped at my eyes at the memory of Sarah singing like that.

I recall Esther settin' beside me and I recall us holdin' hands like we generally did, and I recall Jacob sittin' solemn and proper with his new bride and I recall the meal afterward was genuinely good, and after the service word spread that the benches we'd been settin' on were actually the orphans' bunks, just put together a little different, and a voice shouted "BREAK 'ER DOWN! BREAK 'ER DOWN!" and men happily kicked and knocked the benches apart and it took some loud command to keep them from turning 'em back into bunks just yet, so they ended up stacked ag'in the wall with shouts and laughter and the occasional improper word, which was invariably followed with a shouted "SORRY, PARSON!" and then everyone laughed, for men at labor often engage in coarse language, and habit is a hard thing to break.

Many hands helped with the cleanup and when finally the bunks could be put back together and set where they usually went, why, damned if everyone hadn't stayed for the Reassembly, for word had spread how them Daine boys made the beds to slot together and knock apart and they wanted to see this!

Esther and I and our family rode in the private car, as we usually did, and I didn't feel the least little bit guilty ridin' on velvet upholstery instead of the unpadded wood of the passenger cars everyone else rode: everybody was well fed, Daisy gave me a knowing look and a nod, which she told me later was to say that she was pleased that my efforts at marshaling the field kitchens down there the day before and getting the cooking done ahead of time, was the right thing to do, especially the baking of the many pies that went on.

As good as the meal was that Sunday, I heard the most comments about those pies, and I was careful to give full credit to the many ladies that staffed Daisy's field kitchen for the event.

When Esther I went through and tucked in my several young that night, I recall the drowsy, heavy lidded question that brought a shared look between Esther and myself, and the memory is a good one.

"Pa," my young daughter asked, sleep weighting her eyelids and thickening her words, "can we ride the Special again sometime?"

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

 WAILROAD

Marnie smiled up at Michael as she quickly, efficiently, changed the infant's diaper.

Victoria sat with the exhausted mother, listened as the worn looking young woman whispered and sagged, tea forgotten in hands that betrayed the fine tremors of a woman close to her absolute limit.

Michael held the plastic bag, received the soiled diaper, the used cleaning cloths Marnie produced from somewhere -- he did not pretend to know where or how she got the stuff she did, only that she did -- he handed this off to a uniformed adjutant, who disappeared with his sackful: Michael knew it would go into the Diplomatic shuttle's Recyclo, and he'd bring back new, unused diapers and cleaning cloths, and probably a medico-forensic analysis of its contents.

Typical Marnie, he thought, over-achiever extraordinaire!

As if hearing his thoughts, Marnie smiled at her younger brother.

"Papa used to change your diaper in his office," she smiled, and Michael gave her a skeptical look.

"Oh, yes. You'd be butt naked on the green blotter on his desk and he'd be grinning like he'd just been given the Koh-I-Noor Diamond."

"Yeah, and he rubbed whiskey on my gums when I was teething."

"It worked, didn't it? -- Victoria had such difficulty with teething," Marnie murmured.  "Like this little fellow here.  Notice how he's chewing on his fist, lots of slobber?"

Michael nodded, probably wondering whether Marnie was going to reach into a magic pocket and pull out a bathtub full of hot, soapy water for the occasion.

"Victoria had such a time teething," Marnie said with genine sympathy. "If anyone was going to turn out a boozer because Daddy rubbed her gums with Old Crud Cutter, it would be her."

Michael looked to the door, where curious or impatient heads leaned in, looked around, and were dissuaded from entry by uniformed Confederate troopers -- polite, soft-spoken, but firm -- Marnie sighed and picked up an apple-cheeked little boy-baby, wrapped in a white-flannel blanket, freshly diapered, and brought him in close, rubbed noses with him, to the infant's open-mouth delight.

Victoria smiled and gently excused herself; she came over and joined Michael and Marnie in a quick conference.

"He may be hungry," Marnie murmured as two troopers came over and spoke quietly with the young woman: she gave Marnie an appreciative look and departed with the grey-uniformed young men.

"They'll take her home," Marnie said quietly, "and they'll report back as to whether she has other needs we can take care of."

"She seems nice," Victoria said thoughtfully.

"She is," Marnie confirmed. "I had a few minutes before the conference starts" -- she checked her wrist-chronometer -- "and we can join the delegates in time for opening ceremonies."

Chief Ambassador Marnie Keller and two younger siblings rose and headed for the door, which was opened for them by lean young men with sharp eyes and immaculate uniforms.

Just before they entered the big conference room, Marnie hesitated and too a look outside, where the Diplomatic brougham was just leaving with the young mother and what had been a loudly-fussing little boy-baby.

"I do hope she feeds him soon," she sighed. "Otherwise she'll find herself aboard the Wail Line!"

Michael laughed and shook his head as he followed his sisters into a cloud of applause filling the conference chamber.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

STATE INTENTIONS

Sarah Lynne McKenna bent a feminine wrist and cooed at the restless stallion like it was a fussy little baby.

Sheriff Linn Keller rolled over on his backside, sat up, glared at the head-bobbing Appaloosa.

Apple-horse circled Sarah and stopped, laid his head over her shoulder in what the Sheriff's daughter Dana called a "Horsie Hug," and seemed absolutely unimpressed as the Sheriff came to his feet, swatting dirt from his trousers.

Sarah caressed the stallion's nose and whispered secrets into the swinging ear and Apple-horse managed to look very pleased with himself.

The Sheriff did not appear to share that sentiment.

Rather than stomp up to the horse and give his favorite saddlemount a piece of his mind, the Sheriff bit back harsh and sulfurous words, locking them behind even, white teeth, he turned around and stomped over to his Stetson with a newly reshaped crown -- he swatted it vigorously against the side of his leg, knocking an incredible amount of dirt from it -- he punched out the crown, frowned as he squeezed the original creases into it as best he could.

He looked down and saw a lucky peso he kept behind the braided hatband, fell out and was shining in the dirt, so he bent over to pick it up as well.

Apple-horse could move with utter silence, and did: no sooner had the man bent over and gripped the shining gold coin, than Apple-horse nosed him hard in the backside, lifting his head and throwing the man collarbone-over-bootheels into the dirt again.

Now the Sheriff was a lean man, the Sheriff was a well-muscled man, the Sheriff had the reflexes of a cat: whether he sensed the approach of this impolite intruder, or whether he was honestly caught by surprise, he managed to tuck a shoulder, roll a somersault and come up on his feet: he spun, one fist cocked, and found an equine forehead shoved firmly against his.

Man and horse stood head-to-head, each one pushing, neither yielding: Sarah's gloved fingers went to her lips, her eyes widened, she waited for the Sheriff's shoulder to drop -- she'd fought enough men to know if they're going to make a move, their shoulder will drop first -- but the Sheriff did not launch the cocked punch.

Neither did he back down.

Sarah saw his shoulders raise and knew he was taking a good double lungful of air, and she expected an angry voice, delivered loud and harsh in lieu of a fist to the horse's jaw.

In this, she was correct.

Sheriff Linn Keller, his forehead pushing hard against Apple-horse's forehead, roared, "WHAT IN THE BLUE HAYIL ARE YOU INTENDING!"

 

Angela Keller rarely drove into the City anymore, but her Mama wished to go shopping, and Angela knew Shelly loved to shop with her daughters.

Angela's pretty purple Dodge moved smoothly through traffic, at least until they were closer to the particular mall her Mama favored.

Shelly noticed Angela stopped with most of a car length between herself and the vehicle ahead, and when possible, she stopped in such a way as to keep an avenue of escape open on one side or the other.

Angela also drove with her coat pulled back behind her and the handle of her sidearm exposed, just like her pale eyed Daddy.

Angela's eyes were busy -- side mirror, ahead, other mirror, ahead, scanning, watching, anticipating, planning -- on one such occasion, Angela murmured "Hold on," then spun the wheel, mashed the go pedal, squalled her tires and shot through a gap in the cars, made a hard right down a side street, took another street, pulled into a business lot and backed into a parking space: Angela's eyes were wide, pale, calm -- unlike her Mama, who felt anything but calm, whose fingers were welded to the grab handle above the passenger front door -- Angela made some adjustments on a radio panel forward of the shifter, an elaborate, touch-screen system she'd never seen before -- they listened as city police toned out for a car-pedestrian collision, then the follow-up report of man down appeared to be a carjacker, a bystander was standing on the gun that was knocked from the injured man's grip.

Shelly looked at Angela and said "We didn't hit anybody, did we?"

"No, Mama, but I saw him coming."

"You ... saw him coming."

Angela's smile was quiet, the gentle Angela-smile she gave to reassure a frightened, injured patient.

"Think about it, Mama. This is a high-performance car with two women in it. Bad guy sees this and thinks easy mark. I get the hell out of Dodge, he runs after us and gets hit ..."

Shelly blinked, nodded, leaned back in her seat, considering that she'd never even seen the danger approach.

"I will admit," Angela murmured, "I was ready to flip on the PA and inquire of the dim bulbs ahead of us why they weren't moving when the light went green and they just sat there, but I thought it would be impolite if they heard 'DRIVER IN RED SEDAN STATE INTENTIONS' when they had a pedestrian crossing in front of them I could not see."

 

Judge Donald Hostetler flicked the ash from his hand-rolled Cuban.

He stood on the back porch of their courthouse and looked out toward the mountains, returned the smoldering stogie to tobacco-yellowed teeth.

"My father," he said softly to the Sheriff, "was in Southeast Asia ... doing something he couldn't talk about."

The Sheriff nodded and loafed comfortably against one of the ornately turned porch posts.

"He said there were short takeoff aircraft that operated in the jungle -- short strips, a conventional plane could never land, let alone take off from them -- but there were back country airstrips, complete with Air Traffic Control and of course ... problems."

The Sheriff waited, his imagination translating the Judge's "problems" as a bamboo-framed hut surrounded by native sorts with AKs, coolie hats and black pajamas.

"He said he heard ATC come on frequency.

"He said they cultivate a slow, smooth, Suth'n accent that doesn't get excited for anything.

"He came on freq and said in that slow, smooth voice, 'Water buffalon on runway one, state intentions."

The Sheriff raised an eyebrow and turned his head to look at the Judge.

"In the language of Air Traffic Control," the Judge explained, "if they say 'Pilot on Runway One, state intentions,' it sounds polite and professional, but pilots all know it really means YOU BLOODY IDIOT YOU DON'T HAVE A BRAIN IN YOUR HEAD! WHAT IN TWO INFERNAL BLAST FURNACES DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING OR DO YOU EVEN KNOW!"

The Judge smiled at the Sheriff.

"Of course the pilots all picked up on it ... 'What's the takeoff roll on a waterboo?' and 'I hear the airspeed isn't that great' and 'Cargo capacity is pretty good on the standard model' and ATC had to come on and shut them up."

 

Next day, Shelly was thrown forward against her seat belt as the Captain spiked the brakes on their squad.

A car apparently panicked at realizing a lit-up-and-blowin' squad bearing down on their back bumper and locked the brakes and stopped in the dead center middle of the roadway.

Shelly snatched up the mic, flipped a switch, keyed up, and her voice came out through a pair of well polished, shining-chrome, Federal 100 watt siren speakers.

"DRIVER IN GREEN BUICK, STATE INTENTIONS!"

 

Edited August 26 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A GOOD CLOSE SHAVE

Sheriff Linn Keller saw the feminine silhouette, black against the long red rays of morning sun.

Scarlet-orange shafts radiated from just over the mountain's edge, straight lines that drew the eye to her steady approach.

The Sheriff turned and paced toward the big double doors, rolled open to allow morning sun and fresh air into the barn.

Sarah Lynne McKenna marched up to the man, stopped, glared up at him with all the determination her young years could manage.

"I am," she said quietly, "not happy with what I must report."

The Sheriff considered The Black Agent -- she wore a fine gown instead of her black working clothes-- he nodded, once, lifted his eyes and looked beyond her, his gaze swinging center-left then center-right.

"You've been busy," he said quietly, in that deep, reassuring Daddy-voice she found so reassuring.

"What did you find?"

"He acted alone."

Linn's left eyebrow twitched up a little, settled, his only expression of surprise.

"Alone."

Sarah glared off to the side and the Sheriff knew her gloved hands were tightening into fists.

"I made diligent search," she said quietly, discontent underlying her words like a deep, hidden current: "I sat with men, I drank with men, I batted my eyes and got them to talk and bribed barkeeps to water my drinks, I wore scandalous skirts and danced in my garters and got men to talk."

"What did you find out?"

"Nothing," she admitted. "Not one damned thing."

The Sheriff waited.

Sarah waved a limp wrist: "Oh, I found you discussed, I found seven different accounts of how you killed your attacker -- did you know you used your Cavalry sword again, by the way, the head fell to the street and landed at the schoolmarm's feet and it bit the hem of her dress and said very unpleasant things before she kicked it into the horse trough!"

The Sheriff's other eyebrow rose.

"I listened, I pried, I primed, I coaxed and wheedled and flattered and I learned more scandals and more sins and by the way, I must report to His Honor the Judge in a matter --"

Sarah frowned a little, started to turn, turn back.

"But I did not find any conspiracy, I did not find anyone who sent this fellow to kill you. From everything I've been able to excavate, he was just ... him."

"Disappointed?" the Sheriff asked.

Sarah pressed her lips together, frowned harder, shook her head.

"No," she finally admitted. "I just didn't expect to start shaving this early in the morning."

"Shaving."

Sarah planted her knuckles on her waist the way she used to as a little girl.

"You know. Occam's Razor. William of Occam. The simplest answer is probably the correct answer."

"Ah."

"I must go report to the Judge. I did find three matters in which ..."

She smiled, and the smile was not pleasant.

"In one matter, investment will gain a good return. In another, an investment will be catastrophic and investors will lose everything they put in, which will not stop those selling investment opportunities."

She looked at the Sheriff, her face betraying an inner discomfort.

"Then there is a matter which will bring significant discomfort to one of his fellow Judges if it ever comes to light of day."

"What do you expect he will do with that one?" Linn asked quietly.

"Knowing the Judge," she replied slowly, her expression slipping into the thoughtful, "he will go to his friend and attempt wise counsel."

"God willing it'll work."

"God willing," she echoed, then looked up into the lawman's pale eyes again.

"But no. No conspiracy, no hired murderer, just one stupid individual."

Sheriff Linn Keller watched his woods-colt get glide across the pasture to her big Snowflake-mare, saw the mare belly down and wait patiently for Sarah to mount, then levered her huge black carcass upright.

Pale eyes followed the pretty young woman as she turned and rode toward town.

"Occam's Razor," he murmured, then nodded ever so slightly.

"Thank you for a good close shave."

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

CHARGE!

The hospital operator's voice was not entirely steady as it came out of our black-plastic talkies' grilles.

It was me and my partner and a custodian, we stopped and looked at one another as commo came through in a hospital code that fooled no one at all, then we heard the *pop* of the overhead speakers.

I remembered thinking it must be serious, to key up radio and hit the overhead speakers at the same time.

The message was brief.

'CODE STRONG EMERGENCY ROOM, CODE STRONG EMERGENCY ROOM."

I launched.

I was working hospital security because I'd shot the monster that kidnapped a girl I knew, I'd set the cross hairs just left of the edge of his wish bone and put a .308 through him the moment I saw him.

The girl was with him, she was blindfolded, she was tied and gagged, she was in no shape to do anything but stumble along with him as he dragged her through the woods as a human shield, least until I had eyes on him.

I'd dropped him where he stood.

Mama slapped me right in the middle of the Sheriff's office and she'd stripped my badge and that girl's mother wound up and backhanded my Mama just as hard as she could hit her and I turned my back on my mother and I left.

I went to the hospital and talked to a man I knew and just that fast I was hired on for hospital security, and now my partner and I and a janitor were pounding down the long hallway to ER.

I hit the double doors hard and we slammed through them and I saw it was down to my partner and I.

Doug was older and stouter and he was a good man to have at your side and I laid the coal to my efforts and lowered my shoulder and turned a little to hit the doors with a good percentage of my back as I wanted that door OPEN and I didn't want to break my collar bone hittin' it at this velocity.

I came into ER and I saw the problem.

The problem was a head taller than me, and I am six foot and two fingers in my sock feet, and this fellow was throwin' a nurse across the exam room and I locked on like I was a missile and he was an enemy vessel and I caught him halfway between belt buckle and breast bone and I hit him full speed and I didn't hold back none a'tall.

I drove him backwards -- hard -- when we looked at the surveillance later and slowed it down, when I hit him, it whipsnapped his head back against that brick wall and it didn't Cold Cock him but it slowed him down considerable.

Trouble was, when he fell, he collapsed down on top of me, so there I am layin' on the floor with seven foot of skinny dead weight down on me not movin' and Doc Greenlees is standin' over there laughin' his damned fool head off.

I worked out from under this Jack Doe's carcass and we get him hauled up on a gurney and we got the leathers on him, the nurses got an IV started and they shot an x-ray of his head while he was layin' there nice and peaceful.

Doc patted me on the shoulder and showed me what he was carryin' -- a laser grip five shot .44 revolver -- he said, "Don't worry, Linn, I had you covered!"

I worked my shoulder for I'd bruised up some hittin' two heavy doors at speed, and I didn't feel like cussin' the man for just shootin' the mook instead of makin' me work for a livin'.

Once they had things quieted down, why, Uncle Will and a young officer came in and I let ER give him their statement.

If Uncle Will needed anything from me, why, he knew where to find me.

Turns out he did, so we all ended up in the doctor's lounge drinking surprisingly good coffee and watching the video playback.

Uncle Will looked at Doug and at Doc and he must've felt safe enough to talk, so he raised an eyebrow at me and I knew that meant sit still.

Uncle Will allowed as Mama made that scene of firin' me because there were politics involved.

I didn't much care.

A young man's pride is easily stung, and anything Mama had to say to me, she'd have to say her own self.

Me, I had no regrets at all about putting a .308 through that fellow, and I knew I'd sleep well that night.

I didn't find out until later the kidnapped girl's mother ripped Mama a new one, she called Mama anything but white, she SCREAMED in Mama's face and told her exactly what she thought of someone who would fire the only soul on this earth who did ONE DAMNED THING to get her daughter back -- which of course everyone in our department and plenty of folks in several others were working our collective backsides off to find the girl and get her home safe -- Mama told me later that it was politics and I finally found out the whole of it, and as painful as it was to my pride, I can see why she did it.

I still think she went overboard, but I wasn't Sheriff yet and she was, I wasn't dealin' with politics and she was.

I did hear her out, after I got off shift and went home, and she was waitin' up for me.

I did get the badge back, after the shots-fired investigation cleared me.

When she pinned the badge back on me, I stood there in the middle of the Sheriff's office in front of two shifts who'd gathered for the investiture, and right there in front of all of them told Mama, "Sheriff, if you ever do that again, it will be quits between us, personally as well as professionally."

She realized then just how badly she'd erred.

I saw something in her eyes that told me she realized just how badly she screwed up, then I saw those pale eyes harden up and she said "Understood."

I worked hospital security about two weeks, until my reinstatement, and we never had any more seven foot hell raisers.

 

Edited August 29 by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

STILLWATER

Sarah Lynne McKenna was a ghost.

She moved steadily, stealthily, flowing more than walking between trees, through brush, over deadfalls, following a path that had seen more than wildlife pass this way.

Sarah wished mightily for her brother Jacob.

Jacob was a tracker.

Jacob had been schooled i the art by the legendary Marshal Charlie Macneil.

Jacob would be able to puzzle out the story printed on this mountainside broadsheet.

Sarah faded back into the shadowed background and froze, cloth-wrapped Winchester rifle across her thighs: eyes busy, ears alert, she listened, she smelled, she waited.

It was rare for Sarah to leave the schloss -- not with the old Count weak and ill, not with her infant daughter needing her Mama -- but Sarah was uneasy, Sarah was not contented, Sarah's instinct was to scout the mountainside above the schloss.

Her maid looked up, smiling, when Sarah slipped back in through the hidden passage, emerging from behind a bookcase that opened silently, and closed just as silently: Sarah carefully spragged the mechanism so intruders could not use the same entry.

Sarah accepted her little girl-baby from the maid, bouncing her ever so gently, marveling yet again at the perfection in those tiny fingers.

"I found the spring," Sarah whispered.

The maid's eyes widened and she nodded, once.
You were right," Sarah whispered, looking down at her infant daughter again: "the water was exquisite!"

 

Marnie Keller rarely rode the mountains back home, not since she'd very publicly climbed aboard the Mars shuttle with her new husband, not since she'd been featured in the infrequent news broadcasts from Mars: in the public's mind, she'd gone there in a sleep-ship, and she would die there, and being found here at home would raise too many questions.

Still, there were times ... there were times when nothing would do but that she saddle up and ride the mountains.

Confederate technology assured her she was alone.

Marnie rode up to the mountain pool where Sarah Lynne McKenna used to dive, naked, from the high cliff above, until she was obliged to set powder behind a formation and drop a huge boulder into the still water to keep a murderer's body on the bottom -- a boulder which made further diving too dangerous -- a boulder which hid the accumulated gold that would not be discovered until Marnie found it, and then drilled and shot the rock, until Marnie set up a small, hidden, entirely unofficial mining operation to process all the sand in the deep, natural, rock bowl.

Marnie sat on one of her Daddy's mares and looked around, and populated the stillwater pool with memories.

She realized she was thirsty.

She also knew Beaver Fever was endemic in these mountains now, and she'd absolutely no wish to come down with the Wichita Awful-Awfuls, as she'd called the condition -- though she'd also attributed the name to a variety of ailments.

Marnie dismounted and ground-reined the mare, slid her rifle from its scabbard and slung it across her back.

There's a spring hereabouts, she thought.

A spring should be safe.

Surface water is easily contaminated but a spring should be all right.

It took her a half hour to find it, and she still ran a scan of the springwater before she cupped both hands and drank: the water was ache-your-teeth cold, but it was good -- mineralized water is always better than the recycled, purified, sterile water back on Mars.

For one thing, it just naturally tastes better.

Marnie made it back to her Daddy's ranch without being seen, and Marnie unsaddled the mare and brushed out the mare and bribed the mare again, and she stood with one arm hooked over the mare's neck until shadows stretched purple and cool over her Daddy's pasture, soaking up the comfort a horse provides, something she did often as a child, something she did whenever possible as Ambassador.

It would be too difficult to try and maintain a horse in the subterranean Martian colony -- the low gravity would lead to electrolyte imbalance, decalcification of the bone structure with concomitant hypercalcemia of the blood and its inevitable cardiac complications -- so Marnie leaned her cheek against the mare's mane, and she smelled horse and she smelled mountains and she closed her eyes and gave a long, quiet, contented sigh, and for a few happy moments, her inner turmoil calmed, thanks to time spent beside still waters.

 

 

 

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

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DOPPLER SHIFT

Marnie was still a mistrustful little girl.

Marnie was also a bright, intelligent, curious little girl.

Marnie did not trust this long tall fellow with the curly mustache, but she didn't quite mistrust him.

She flinched when he touched her, and she saw sadness in his eyes when she did, and this troubled her.

If her pale eyed New Daddy was a star, she was a small planet, in cautious orbit -- present, not always where he expected to find her ... always watching, always wanting something, but not knowing quite what she wanted.

Marnie climbed the whitewashed boards and sat on the flat top and watched her Newdaddy working with horsies.

He watched how they came to him, how they trusted him, how they rubbed against him and hung their chin over his shoulder, how even the Horsie Puppies came to him and looked at him with trust, and she realized -- on some level -- that if they trusted him, maybe she could trust him too.

Marnie felt the fence shiver a little under her and she felt movement on her right.

Jacob climbed the fence, threw one leg over, then the other, hooked boot heels behind the next rail down and scooted a little closer to her.

Marnie reached out a hand and gripped his.

Jacob was safe.

Jacob was close to her size.

Jacob's hand squeezed hers, cautiously, and she squeezed back, looked at him, then looked at her Newdaddy.

They sat on the top rail and watched as the tall, lean man with pale eyes and a curly mustache moved -- surrounded by horses, all crowding in and competing for attention -- he went into the barn and came out of the barn and he spun a saddle pad onto a spotty horsie and then brought the saddle back, twisted and hoisted and slung the saddle nice and easy and it looked like he floated it on the spotty horsie's back.

marnie looked over at Jacob and saw delight and a broad grin and Marnie wanted to feel like that but she'd built a wall around her young heart and she forbade herself from wanting anything.

If she didn't want anything, she couldn't be disappointed.

Young eyes watched as the Sheriff, their Pa, worked with his stallion, made sure the cinch was tight enough, watched as he kind of levitated off the ground with one leg slung up fast and easy and he come into the saddle and made it look easy.

The stallion muttered something and the other close-crowded members of the herd backed up a little, as if they knew what was about to happen.

Marnie's hand tightened as he eyes widened, as the spotty horsie spun under her Newdaddy: she saw delight in his pale eyes, though his face remained impassive: the horsie jumped a couple times -- "That's a crow hop," Jacob breathed -- then the horsie stopped, and shivered, and paced off just nice as you please and Newdaddy and the horsie kind of flowed across the pasture and doubled back and come up beside the fence where Marnie in her frilly dress and shiny slippers, and Jacob in blue jeans and boots and a big boyish grin, sat and watched.

"Who's first?"

Marnie heard warmth in the voice and delight hiding in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and she watched as Jacob swarmed off the fence and onto the horse, as he settled in behind the saddle and run his arms around his Pa and gripped his belt, holding on just behind the holster that was such a regular part of the man's attire Marnie paid it no mind anymore.

She watched as they rode -- easy at first, then faster, and Marnie's eyes hadn't come down from the wide-with-I-want-to-do-that as they came back up the pasture, Apple-horse driving hard against the pasture sod, as her Newdaddy leaned forward and Jacob leaned forward with him and Apple-horse punched his nose into the wind and laid his ears back and ran!

They made an orbit of the pasture and Marnie saw Jacob was grinning twice as broad as his face actually measured, the way a little boy will when he is absolutely delighting in something he loves, and the her Newdaddy and his spotty horse came back up the pasture, slower -- Marnie did not know the gait was called a trot.

If she had to put a name to it, she'd probably have called it a strut.

This would not have been at all inaccurate.

They came up in front of her and Apple-horse stopped and looked at her like he was expecting something from her, then he sidled up against the fence and her Newdaddy said "Marnie's turn" in a quiet voice, and something grabbed Marnie's young stomach and pulled it down deep into her belly.

Jacob got a boot onto a fence rail, threw his weight to the side, grabbed the fence and climbed back onto whitewashed planking.

"Darlin'," her Newdaddy asked in a soft voice, "would you like to try ridin'?"

Marnie's eyes were big and vulnerable and Marnie's feelings were at war with themselves.

"You can ride ahead of me," her Newdaddy said, "or you can ride behind, like Jacob did."

Apple-horse sidestepped and turned and shoved his nose into her belly and snuffed loudly, for all the world like he was inviting her personally.

"Tell you what," Linn said thoughtfully. "How about you try the saddle yourself, and I'll walk?"

Marnie blinked in surprise.

Linn swung down out of the saddle, then he came around and reached up: Marnie felt big strong hands under her arms and around her ribs, he brought her easily off the fence and swung her down and swung her back up and she was paralyzed, she was terrified, she was exhilarated, she was in the saddle, blinking, wondering what-all just happened.

Linn rubbed Apple-horse under his long jaw, bribed him with some thick shavings off his plug of molasses twist: Marnie heard her Newdaddy's knife snap shut, watched him take off walking, seized the saddlehorn in almost a panic as the saddle moved under her and she didn't quite know what to do.

Apple-horse's reins were knotted and dropped over the saddlehorn.

Marnie did not reach for them.

She didn't know enough to grip the reins.

Apple-horse was bitless; rein pressure against his neck, a shift of the weight, pressure from one knee or the other -- Apple-horse responded to his rider, and he was used to the Sheriff's weight and the Sheriff's connection, and this little weight on his back was unfamiliar but not at all objectionable.

Apple kept pace with the Sheriff.

Linn stopped, sidestepped to his left, called "Haaawwww," and Apple-horse came around to his left -- slowly, almost majestically in response to the Sheriff's having drawled out the word.

Had his voice been sharp and curt, Apple would have swapped ends to cut the course change.

"Yup now," Linn called, and Apple paced off into a nice easy trot, the kind that doesn't look like much but covers ground in good shape -- it wasn't a singlefoot gait -- Linn had horses that could run a nice smooth singlefoot, but Apple wasn't among them -- Linn turned, watched, saw Marnie straighten in the saddle.

She's doing better than most adults, he thought approvingly: she's even let go of the saddle horn.

Apple got close to the far end of the pasture and came around, smooth, easy, a nice, wide turn, and Linn's belly tightened up as he recognized Apple's change.

He couldn't say later exactly what it was -- there was no laying back of his ears, he didn't punch his nose out, he didn't bunch up and gather himself like a spring coiled up ready to launch -- but Linn knew his stallion was about to take out way too fast for a green rider.

Apple didn't care.

Apparently neither did Marnie.

Apparently Marnie knew Apple was about to try something, and apparently Marnie approved of whatever it was, because Marnie threw herself forward and grabbed a good double handful of coarse black mane and yelled "GO HORSIE!"

Marnie had no stirrups, Marnie was in much too big a saddle, Marnie's knees were bent and her shining little slippers had nothing to grip and neither did her little bare legs and she did not let this stop her.

Apple-horse, the Herd Stallion and favorite saddle mount of that pale eyed Sheriff, did what he loved to do, and that was RUN! -- he laid into a flat-out gallop and when Marnie spoke the memory, many years later, as Ambassador, she likened it in much the same words as her sainted grandmother described her red mare Cannonball -- "When that horse ran, it felt like I was a-straddle of a cannonball fired from a field gun!"

Her Newdaddy's memory of he moment was somewhat different.

He saw his stallion, neck thrust out straight, all four steelshot hooves a-diggin', he saw speed and he saw power and he saw a self propelled, red-spotted arrow driving right for him, he saw a little girl with HUUUGE wide eyes, with a grin broad as two townships in Texas, producing a delighted squeal, not quite a scream but close, that Doppler shifted as they whistled past, EEEEEEEeeeeeeee, and Linn only vaguely remembered Jacob, rejoicing on the top rail of the fence, both fists in the air, jumping up and down on the flat top rail in a triumphant, juvenile, war dance!

 

 

 

Edited Monday at 10:25 PM by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

DISPATCH, SAY AGAIN

The entire Irish Brigade came to what you might call a screechin' halt.

Every man Jack -- Chief, Captain, firefighters, medic, everyone but the cat in the window, stopped.

The address was familiar, it was not far from their little stone hospital, but the nature of the call is what caused a confusion.

Beyond the firehouse, road deputies stopped and looked at one another, then looked at the grey-plastic Motorola speaker bolted to the equipment rack.

People with scanners stopped what they were doing and looked at their receivers.

A bay door started chuckling open, shivering as segments bent and rolled overhead to open the portal to the outside world: Captain Crane and his fast moving daughter slammed the doors to their squad, Shelly twisted the cap off the erasable marker, stuck the cap between two fingers as she poised to write on the transparent, self-stick shelf paper with which she'd covered the padded dash to make a writing surface.

Mic in hand.

Button down.

Professional voice.

"Dispatch, squad one, say again nature of call."

Dispatch hesitated, as if gathering the strength to say it again, or perhaps Sharon needed to steady herself first.

"Man in a bathrobe with a toilet plunger, running around the yard yelling and beating on the ground."

The sound of the 911 phone in the background, a hesitation, fingers still down on the transmit key: several seconds of dead air -- something Sharon NEVER did -- then the huff of her quick little exhale, the way she did right before transmitting.

"Firelands Squad One, man down, no pulse, same location."

 

Frances was the hospital's electronics wizard.

He'd kept Uncle Sam's shipboard electronics running under circumstances he rarely spoke about, only to complain about cramped installs, hard to get to locations, needing to dismantle half the ship's guts to get to what he needed to repair, and generally exaggerating his difficulties to try and convince himself that he actually had it better in the civilian world.

Frances lay barefoot in his front yard, frayed yellow bathrobe around his portly self, still clutching the toilet plunger.

He groaned up at his wife, kneeling beside him, bit back a pained profanity, felt her fingers drive into his throat in desperate search for a corroborating pulse.

He vaguely remembered saying something half intelligent (but only half) -- like maybe "Where'd you come from?" -- then he kind of faded and only vaguely remembered cold air on his belly as his robe was pulled open, as things were done to his chest, as he was picked up, and set on something that wasn't wet with nighttime dew.

 

Sharon watched as the Sheriff set up the big screen in front of her desk, as doughnuts were set on her desk and a tray with multiple cups of coffee, as traces of cinnamon and of vanilla rose as the coffee cups were uncapped -- Sharon always did like it when Angela got coffee, she didn't just get plain old coffee, she mixed up frou-frou coffee for herself and for the dispatcher -- two shifts' worth of deputies were ranked behind her seated, leaning, standing, all waiting to see the after action report.

"You all know Frances," the Sheriff began, thumbing a button: an image appeared, a stout, older man bent over, frowning at the interior of something that looked expensive, medical and complicated, in what looked like their hospital's intensive care unit.

"We got the call."

Another button, Sharon's voice: 

"Man in a bathrobe with a toilet plunger, running around the yard yelling and beating on the ground."

His thumb moved again.

This time it was video, from a doorbell camera, distorted at the edges: Frances was indeed running in a circle, in the yard, swearing as only an old Navy salt can, bent over double and vigorously striking at something grey and fast moving.

The image froze, enhanced: a rat was frozen in mid-scamper.

"The culprit here," the Sheriff continued solemnly, "is reportedly dispatched, courtesy the cat,  adopted the next day by Frances's wife -- who, by the way, started CPR the moment he hit the ground and very likely is the only reason he's alive today."

He looked over at Angela, who managed to look completely innocent as powdered sugar dribbled down onto her white nurse's uniform bodice: "This is why I preach and preach and preach CPR training," she mumbled through her doughnut. "Early intervention before myocardial deoxygenation."

"Yyyeahhh," the Sheriff replied slowly, gestured to his daughter with the remote:  "What she said."

Coffee, doughnuts and solemn nods were the general reply.

"Frances has a brand new pacemaker and his wife said the rat is caught and killed."

Another press, and the image of Frances, a fixture in their community, a man who sang in their church, who fixed their electronics and swore at malfunctioning laptops until he persuaded them to work again, a man who laughed and told outrageous lies about his Navy days and then laughed at his own stories.

The image showed him in barefoot mid-gallop, ragged yellow bathrobe afloat in the night wind, bent over in mid-strike, toilet plunger bearing down on the grey streak of a fleeing rat he'd heard scampering around inside his galvanized trash can.

The Sheriff could look innocent when he wanted, and he looked innocent now as he asked the assembled, "Do you reckon I'd ought to make an 8x10 glossy of this and give it to him?"

 

Author's note: This is based on a call I responded to with the Marshal's office.

His name wasn't Frances and doorbell cameras were long into the future, so no actual video.

I was the one who started CPR, not his wife.

The real-life rat got away and as far as I know, was never apprehended, despite the wanted poster the next door neighbor kid drew and duct taped to a pole not far from the scene.

 

Edited Tuesday at 03:28 PM by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

 BILLY GOAT, IN A DRESS

Courtesy was part and parcel of everyday life.

Gentlemanly behavior was an ideal, a goal; men practiced the art of good manners with one another, and ladies, with their more elaborate customs and courtesies, did as well, though in fairness one might expound upon the feminine tendency to hide knives in sweet words and barbed insinuations in what otherwise sounded like innocent comments.

Men sometimes did this as well, though more often than not, instead of a verbal riposte or a flounce and a huff, men tended to settle things in rather a more violent manner.

Men wished to not be seen as weak; women wished not to give anyone an opening for gossip or for finger-pointing.

This worked until the Holland boys' billy goat broke loose and made it to town.

Now that billy was mean -- the boys would tease it and torment it and get it to buttin' and Billy's end finally came when it lowered them curved horns at Sullivan Maxwell's bent over backside when the old man was gatherin' up kindling wood -- Billy he lowered his head and shook them curvy horns and taken out at a dead run and rammed Sullivan in the Hind Quarters and not only did he drive the old man forward a remarkable distance, 'twas said Sullivan plowed up a dirt furrow with his Eagle Beak of a Nose, and that armload of kindling got scattered hell west and crooked.

You might've heard about that one, Sullivan took the broad ax and when Billy was grazin' all unconcerned, why, Sullivan walked up and clove the head from that billy's shoulders with one mighty swing of that hand made broad ax.

I'm a-gittin' ahead of myself.

Before that mean billy ended up on Sullivan's spread, it come to town and allowed as it was going to Head Butt anything it damn well pleased, and unfortunately, Esther Keller was crossing the street about the time Billy come around out of an alley and saw her.

Now Esther was a woman of quality, and Esther was a woman of gentility, and Esther, in her childhood, was the pampered little girl of a Carolina plantation owner.

Esther roamed that plantation more'n the boys did, generally on one of her Daddy's fine horses, much to her very proper mother's consertation, her sisters' comments and whispered words behind other feminine hands on properties adjacent.

Esther didn't care.

She felt genuinely free on the back of a good saddle horse, Esther disguised herself in jockey silks and won a purse at the County Fair under an assumed name, and Esther out-rode and out-ran her brothers to the point that they complained bitterly (and fruitlessly) to their Pa.

Esther is also the woman who saddled her Daddy's fastest racer, loaded up her Daddy's dueling pistols, who disguised herself as one of the hired girls after the damned Yankees murdered her Daddy and her brothers and hanged her Mama and her sisters after doing things to them no woman should ever know -- Esther knew herbs and potions and Esther helped prepare the meal, and the other girls there saw what she was doing, and looked at one another, and said not one word as what looked and smelled and tasted like an excellent meal, was served to the officers who ordered the murder of Esther's family, and who ordered that Esther, the only survivor, should be found, arrested, and returned.

Esther took out on her Daddy's racer and she knew where to find the only two Yankees who actually stood between herself and freedom, and her Daddy's dueling pistols spoke a language these bluecoat invaders understood.

This was the Esther Keller who was crossing the street with the delicate step and pleasant expression of a woman descended of Suth'n nobility.

Billy the Goat didn't care about her antecedents.

Billy saw that long, broad skirt.

Billy the Goat launched with all the happy bully-charge of an ill-tempered goat.

Esther Keller was many things: wife, mother, matron, but she was genuinely a skilled dancer.

Esther twirled and took a half-step back, just enough for Billy to drive into a cloud of cloth, and Esther's quick hand seized something and pulled, and then jumped, and her skirt parted company from its bodice and Esther's jump allowed the flowing cloth to remain impaled on Billy's black, sharp, curved horns.

Billy stopped, confused, aggravated, blind: Esther was upon him in a moment, winding cloth around his head, fast, tight -- she seized Billy behind the front legs, laid her forearm against his horns to keep him from throwing his head back and impaling her -- she hauled Billy up and onto a knee and by then running men converged and Billy was quickly hogtied.

Esther stood back, then bent, hands on her knees, standing in the middle of the street wearing a single petticoat below her bodice: she breathed deeply, steadily, glared green-eyed and fierce at the struggling, screaming goat with what used to be her skirt, tightly wound around its head.

Esther felt as much as heard her husband behind her.

She turned, planted her knuckles on her belt and glared up at the long tall lawman.

Now Sheriff Linn Keller was a veteran of That Damned War, he'd been shot, stabbed, cut, run into, run over, and a street evangelist tried to save his corroded soul.

It was right difficult to surprise this particular Sheriff.

Esther Keller, wife, mother, matron, fixture about town, glared up at her husband, and he looked back at her with an expression of utter, unmitigated, surprise.

"Mrs. Keller," he said softly, "what have we here?"

Esther's bottom jaw thrust out and she half-turned, thrust an accusing, trembling finger at the struggling, goat-screaming prisoner.

"This," she declared, "is a new wonder of the world, Mr. Keller! I'm surprised you've never heard it it!"

Men were standing outside the Silver Jewel by this time, beer mugs in hand, staring, grinning, elbowing one another: from the other side of the street, Digger stared through the front window of his viewing-parlor, crowding in between two display caskets to take in the excitement.

Mrs. Garrison stood out in front of the Mercantile, one hand to her bodice in a feminine gesture of utter astonishment.

"This," Esther announced loudly, turning, sweeping a wrist-bent arm up in a theatrical gesture of universal inclusion, "is the Grand Arrival of the BILLY GOAT IN A DRESS!"

 

Marnie Keller peered over her schoolteacher lenses and smiled at the Ladies' Tea Society as she finished her presentation titled "Billy Goat in a Dress," and she slid her notes together, tilted her head a little the way she did at the end.

"Now who says it was boring back in the day?"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

ME TOO

Sheriff Jacob Keller unbuttoned his handmade black coat and drew it open a little, sat across from one of the Valkyries.

Gracie's spherical black helmet was more a symbol of office than the item of utility it had been.

Jacob knew Gracie's personal field was well more effective than his own, and his own would keep him warm, dry, safe, and breathing, in hard vacuum and in radiation enough to reduce living flesh to a wisp of ash in a tenth of a second or less.

Gracie wore her black flight suit like a second skin; her suit was as shining-glossy-black as her helmet, the black fingers that wrapped around her heavy ceramic mug were as sure, as dextrous, as sensitive, as if she were barehand.

Jacob did not pretend to understand how.

He only knew that it was, and as Jacob was a practical man, he filed that under "G" for "Good enough."

Gracie smiled quietly as she regarded the shimmering tan liquid, then took a slow, savoring sip, eyes closed, concentrating on this one item only.

Jacob suspected the other Valkyries had some kind of a mind-link with their Warrior-Sister, and each of these remarkable souls -- most of whom were light-minutes to light-centuries from the underground cafeteria, auditorium, meeting room and dance hall excavated under Martian dust -- were savoring the same sensations, in the same moment.

Part of Jacob's mind knew this involved some kind of quantum communication, but again, he had neither instruction nor understanding of these matters, and simply accepted them.

He did, however, consider he might be shockingly primitive in that attitude, much like natives solemnly regarding a Great White Hunter speaking into a microphone, and a distant voice replying from the speaker, and simply accepting this as White Man's Magic.

Gracie looked up with a knowing smile as Jacob paused to consider whether he was just such a primitive.

"Oh, it gets worse," she whispered. "Do you remember reading about our brief sojourn into time travel?"

Jacob looked very directly at this woman he'd known all of his life -- for a moment he remembered the quiet, hard-eyed mountain girl in a mousy-grey skirt and men's work boots and a man's flannel shirt, riding into town like an anachronism, mounted on a patient old mule, with a double  barrel twelve gauge scabbarded under her lean, sinewy leg -- none of the Daine/Maxwell tribe were aught but skinny, spare, rangy and tough as hell -- he remembered Gracie, almost silent in class, Gracie loading what few groceries they purchased, on muleback and disappearing back into the mountains.

He tried to reconcile this with the confident, level-eyed woman across from him, shook his head.

"Initial trip was by accident," she said quietly. "I spent better than a century in my ship being repaired, just as my ship repaired itself."

She tilted her head a little, smiled, then reached out a black-skinsuited hand, gripped Jacob's hand firmly for a moment, then released.

"I had such a crush on you," she admitted, and Jacob blinked, surprised, at the maidenly blush that crossed her face, and he grinned -- that quick, boyish grin of his -- and they both laughed.

Gracie tapped the coffee cup with one shining-black finger.

"I am so very glad Marnie has a coffee line," she sighed, "and I bless those industrious folk who found there were plants very much like sugar cane to boil down for molasses!"

"I take spells," Jacob admitted, "sometimes I'll add honey to my coffee and sometimes molasses."

"Molasses has iron."

Jacob nodded, smiled quietly. "We have our own hives here."

"Really?"  

Gracie's eyes widened, delighted.

Jacob nodded, leaned back as a steaming plate of scrambled eggs, a half dozen strips of still-sizzling bacon and two thick slabs of toasted sourdough with fresh churned butter slid into place in front of each of them.

Jacob ginned up at the blushing girl in a headscarf and a Star of David necklace.

"Miriam," he murmured, "bless you, you're a gem!"

Miriam's eyes shone at the praise, then she looked with awe at Gracie.

"You're a Valkyrie," she whispered.

Miriam picked up her spherical black helmet: where it had been featureless when she placed it on the seat beside her.

Now it had the same nose art on the sides as she had on her Starfighter -- the image of a screaming young woman in a cowboy hat and fringed skirt, ornately-stitched cowboy boots and Stetson falling back on its storm strap, astride a fire-tailed Starfighter, a fire-blasting revolver in each hand

Under this, in an ornate, gold-and-black-shadowed calligraphy, 

GUNFIGHTER!

Gracie tapped the helmet with one shining-black forefinger and smiled, "That's me!"

Miriam's fingers went to her lips: her other hand gripped Jacob's shoulder as if to steady herself.

Jacob looked from one to the other with an expression of puzzled concern, which did not diminish when Miriam whispered "Thank you," and then spun and nearly ran back toward the kitchen.

Gracie smiled across her plate at Jacob, who turned and looked with honest curiosity at the Valkyrie he'd known since childhood, watched her snatch up the pepper shaker and briskly season her untouched eggs: she took a quick bite, leaned back, hummed with genuine pleasure, nodded.

"Granddad Sullivan used to pepper his pan gravy BLACK," she explained as she picked up a rasher of still-hot bacon: she bit into it and shivered with delight, chewed, and again Jacob wondered if what he'd just seen was her reaction, or the collective response of all the mind-linked Star Sisters, sharing this one sensual moment.

They ate, then, and they did full justice to their shared breakfast: it wasn't until the meal was finished, until each leaned back in their molded-orange-plastic chair (what rule is it that requires cafeteria chairs to be universally ugly?), not until Miriam refilled their coffee, that conversation resumed and returned to Gracie's involuntary incarceration in a natural cavity under Daine Mountain.

"The Supreme Confederate debated time travel," Gracie sighed, "and they wasted an incredible amount of effort and time and research on it.
"I finally brought my Starfighter into the conference chamber, and believe me, when a full-sized Starfighter materializes over the long conference table, it tends to get everyone's attention!"

Jacob chuckled, remembering when he and Marnie each rode into that same chamber, each on their favorite saddlehorse: he knew exactly what she meant by getting everyone's attention, instantly, if not sooner.

"I gave them my testimony and explained the only instances of time travel I knew of, were all accidental, and from absolute, sheer and utterly incredible coincidence, each time the destination was Earth:  I told them time travel was so unstable and frankly dangerous to our known timeline, that it was something we shouldn't really trifle with.

"I didn't tell them that they were well more than a century from even fringing on anything time-capable, I didn't tell them that we -- the Valkyries -- had made two rescue runs involving time travel, and that we were mutually agreed that its risks were too great, not only from a practical sense, but from a philosophical as well."

Jacob considered this, nodded.

"I'm not much of a philosopher," he admitted, "so I'll leave that to your good judgement."

Gracie took another sip of coffee, looked at Jacob with the expression of a woman who knows her breakfast companion has something further to say.

"Gracie," he said softly, and it was her turn to see a blush spread over the other's face.

He looked up at her and for a moment he was the awkward, bashful boy he'd been, when they were in school together, and he was talking with her, one-on-one.

"I ... had quite the crush on you, too."

She nodded.

"Some of the best memories I have are riding the mountains with you," she murmured.

Jacob nodded, and this time he grinned.

"Yeah," he admitted.  "Me too."

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 01:50 PM by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103