The BLTS Archive - Range War
by R.Schultz (cousindream@aol.com)

---

Disclaimer: Things Trek belong to Paramount and ViaBorgCom.  I am
borrowing a few of their abandoned children and giving them a rare day
out.  They will be returned smiling.  This story is mine under Berne
common-law copyright.

February, 2002, 19,300 words long.

Warning: This is also TrekSmut, and no underage American may enter
here.  Neither may those whose locale or country forbids you entry to
anything risque.  Your masters know exactly what you may be allowed to
read, in order to maintain proper control. And fiction is sorta like
the TV. If the idea doesn't appeal to you, hit the OFF switch, and
leave.  Shoo!

Special assistance this story from Saklani, for Western era
reliability.

Posted to the CaFF, a marvelously depraved assemblage of writers of
Internet fiction.  This will be archived at the CaFF TrekSmut site,
and later to the ASCEM.  May be archived elsewhere, but please notify.

---

Coming down the Plains road, I picked at the three stripes of black on
my sleeve.  Yet even so, still my soul was soothed by the lines of
Cottonwood by the river.  I could see the birds, and clouds of bees
swarming over the beds of yellow dandelion and wildflowers among the
trees.  Even Fort Morgan looked quiet, but looks could be deceiving.
They had a new full block of boarded walk now.  Prosperity was coming
to Colorado state, I guess.

Loewe's General Store was busy, it had four horses and three buck
boards tied up to it.  Bare room at a corner for me to hitch.  My four
draft horses were good obedient critters, especially seeing' how they
didn't have a proper barn anymore.  A barrel of apples were a dollar
and a half, but I'll get one anyways, feed them to my poor horses if
nothing else.  I hoped Loewe would have my barbed wire.  It's a long
ride for nothing if he hasn't got my wire yet.

There were a number of ladies done up in proper dresses on the street.
A few women were in men's pants, or their dresses were caught up into
almost decent split saddle outfits.

Trouble appeared to my side while I was sitting on my plank seat.  It
was one of the half-breed Kazon.  The Hirogen liked to hire them
mostly for odd, and sometimes dirty work. This one suddenly appeared
like a bad smell around me, arrogant and hard as usual.  One of the
Kazon, a bad case I recollected called Fly, he urged his horse right
up to where his horse's head bumps me on it's way past.

I keep my hands in my lap like a proper brought-up woman should.

"Well howdy, Missus Janeway," he said.  "Now that you free of that
useless husband of yours, are you looking for a real man to take you
under his arm?"

John Bee, of course, didn't make any reply, not directly. That was one
thing I always loved about him.  He didn't waste no words in men's
bluster, like most husbands did.  He placed his strong hands over
mine, under my shawl.  Helping me hold both loaded Tredegar's, helping
me know he'd shoot them for me if need be.  He was telling me he was
there, iff'n I needed him.  He was as good a husband in death as he
had been in life, bless his soul;.

Fly laughed as he caressed my chin, all of them laughed. Except for
Cicero, the fourth Hirogen brother, his laugh was all inside and it
had a nasty cutting edge.  Just like the knife Fly was suddenly
holding to my neck.  I knew it would eventually degenerate into the
Kazon having a little fun, and then wandering off to some saloon and
rewriting their fun into something grand.

It might be nasty in my terms, but I'd wind up alive. Probably.

Once Fly had tried to make my unarmed John Bee dance for them, when
they came by our holding, once.  Shot up the ground around his feet,
but didn't get a rile from my John Bee.  I was scared to death while
the bullets are going, but my John Bee refused to move.  Men's
business, he wouldn't show he was scared.

John Bee had been shot four times on the second day of Bentonville,
and out of respect he liked to use the Yankee term for the battle.  He
had been a Coast Artillery man, and his battery had been one of those
who underwent the Union's worst when they were trying to batter
Seccesh forces off of Fort Sumter.  After Sherman flanked them and
forced the Southern forces out of Charleston, Davis made his batteries
men into "Emergency Infantry".  During the attempt to destroy Sherman
by Johnson, my John Bee was shot while leading his red-leg infantry
into Yankee lines.  A rogue Kazon didn't much scare him no more.

John Bee didn't show much fear now, either.  My right Tredegar was
lifted by John Bee and he pulled the trigger only a foot from Fly.  It
shocked me, the blast did, but John Bee brought the barrel down to
train on the next Kazon. The blast whipped the shawl away, leaving
Cicero to look down the barrel of my left Tredegar.

Ball and powder were considered old fashioned now, but it sure enough
blew that Kazon right off'n his saddle and into eternity.

"Lessen you want to get to Hell, Cicero Hirogen," I said, "I'd advise
you tell your Kazon to drop their weapons." After staring down the
long barrel of one of my husband's war souvenirs, he told his gunsel's
to drop their hardware.

Pretty soon the U.S. Marshall showed up, with four of his deputies.
All sporting double-barrel shotguns and itchy fingers.  The law as it
existed, in Fort Morgan, Colorado.

Fly's horse flesh was still as it had been when it's back-shooting
owner had died on it.  Marshall Pointe's curiosity had him take a good
study of Fly.  Fortunately for me Fly was still holding his knife in
his right hand.  His left held his Navy Colt.  Doc showed up, and
Chakotay pulled his shotgun up, out of the way.  Then he thankfully
drew his pointy waxed mustache away from the dead Kazon.  Chakotay
Pointe was a half or quarter breed, but his lack of social standing
didn't prevent him from being U.S. Marshall.  Or his deputies from
being duly sworn.

One in particular had taken up a personal hate for the Hirogen
Brothers and their Kazon renegades.  That was that one with an
enormous blond mustache, called Tom Paris, in especial.  He'd like to
see one of those Kazon or Cicero Hirogen draw down while he had the
drop on them.

Doc wriggled around the dead Kazon, inspected me and turned to
Chakotay.  Doctor Emil Matthew Howard, a patient soul, and I wondered
anew what brought him out here to the edge of the Great Plains.
Pointe Chakotay called him EMH.  I'd also have bet the Doc had a
favoring of Miss Nine, the owner of the fanciest of the local
brothels.

"Observe," he enticed the Marshall.  "Widow Janeway has a shallow cut
in her throat, just beneath her chin.  Mister Fly here probably was
holding his Arkansas Toothpick to her throat.  He was also holding his
pistol.

"Ergo, Missus Janeway was acting in self-defense when she shot him,"
he said.  Chakotay nodded his head in agreement.

The Marshall officially noted the dead Kazon was armed and drawn, and
he proclaimed it self-defense.  Cicero Hirogen and his band of
cutthroats attempted to state I had ambushed Fly.  That I had murdered
Fly.

In a manner of speaking, I had indeed shot him sneaky like, for he had
been too dumb to realize I already had the draw on him.  He was,
however, overdue for meeting his Maker. John Bee did God's Will when
he pulled the trigger.

For my own sins, I was ready to meet my Maker.  John Bee patted my
thigh as Chakotay Pointe repeated to everyone present that Fly's
long-overdue end was justified.

After talking to three or four good citizens loitering about the
corner of Loewe's, cleaning up details, he asked Cicero if he wanted
to bury his Kazon Christian like.  Cicero declined, so Pointe fined
Cicero Hirogen ten dollars for violating various rules of the County,
such as carrying arms inside Fort Morgan township limits.  Ten dollars
would make for a nice little funeral, and would bury Fly, the Kazon,
as deep as any in Fort Morgan could wish.  Marshall Pointe also
confiscated all the Kazon or Hirogen weapons.  Personal weapons inside
township limits were illegal like.  They could pick them up when they
left.

My Tredagar's, however, he never touched, nor even told me to put them
away.

Pointe took his hat off to speak with me, turning his back on Cicero
Hirogen and his Kazon bandits.  Such action plain stating his business
with this shooting was finished.

"Will you be needing an escort back to your farm, Missus Janeway?," he
asked.  Knowing as well as I did he couldn't keep someone out there
forever.

I patted John Bee on his wrist, trying to look confident that we could
keep the Hirogen's at bay forever.  John Bee reloaded the Tredegar
that had fired the one shot.  "We'll have to rely on God's aid, Mister
Pointe.  We shall succeed, or we shall not.  It is in God's hands.
But we thank you sincerely for your offer."

The Marshall looked long at the empty buckboard seat next to me, then
smiled and saluted me.  Afterwards, despite his rebuff, I noted that
two of his deputies hung about the General Store.  Trying to protect
me.  The Lord is my Shepherd, and John Bee, also, shall protect me.  I
re-seated our Tredegar's in their holsters about my waist, and trudged
into the store for my barbed wire.

Loewe had my two rolls of barbed wire all ready for me, and his Negro,
Noah Lessing, immediately rolled one of those unloved rolls onto the
walk in front of the store, then into the back of our buckboard.  Noah
was a good Christian, a faithful attendee at the First
Congregationalist Church when we spent our first weeks in the Fort
Morgan area.  I felt he was probably one of the Elect, despite his
dark skinned heritage.

Miss Selma Nine showed up in her own buckboard as Doc Howard was
having Fly removed to the Mortician.  He'd get a proper burial.

Miss Nine was probably the most popular Madam in Colorado. Mostly due
to the fact her tall blond frame and lovely face was that of the most
extraordinary woman in three or four states.

All who came to the "Borg Palace" wanted to bed the Madam before
they'd take any of her girls.  Both the Town Mayor and Marshall Pointe
had offered her marriage, I had heard. But then, most of the more
pleasant Fancy Girls in the West wound up legal married.  There ain't
many other girls out here that someone could take to wife.

At that point the ladies could then become proper saved souls, going
to church and having children and not talking to girls still being
rolled across the prairie by anyone with the money and desire.  The
Lord forgives our sins.

A few of those proper Ladies I saw on the walk's this morning had
begun as fifty-cent women, but I don't think they'd admit it now.

Today Miss Nine had the irrepressible Delaney sisters with her, though
they were quite upset to see me now.  I had told them my girls,
Katherine Aime and Becky, were feeling quite well now.  They read
their Bible and brought joy to the hearts of John Bee and myself.

At that statement they wept freely on my shoulders, and escaped into
Loewe's with their tears making them incoherent.  The first thing they
did inside was probably to buy a paper twist of hard candies to suck
on.  I should have to tell Katherine Aime and Becky that Miss Nine's
pretty Delaney girls had asked kindly about them.

My innocents enjoyed their moments with Miss Nine and the Delaney
twins.  I myself felt confident they all could be Saved, for the Lord
gave each sister humble and joyous dispositions.

As stated before, Noah quickly had the first roll of barbed wire on
the back of my buckboard, but it was some time before I got the
second.  Inside, some oriental gentleman took two Kazon into custody
for trying to ambush me.  That being his story in any event.  In Fort
Morgan thinking bad of Kazon seems to become easier and easier for
everyone about.

First he had forced two Kazon outside onto the walk, calling for
someone to get the law.  All trafficking ceased while we again waited
for Marshall Pointe.  The two deputies were there immediately, of
course.

It was quite a spectacle, and John Bee and I were transfixed by the
tale as it was told.

This oriental gentleman was standing in back, inside Loewe's.  We
gathered he had encountered many people in his lifetime who had no
stomach for a Chinaman.  So he had moved back from the front and
waited his opportunity to move forward, when Loewe wasn't so busy.

While there he had observed two Kazon wrapping their face's up with
those scarves they always keep twined around their heads.  Kazon with
their faces hidden is a prescription for evil deeds.  Then they drew
their guns and the Chinaman knew for certain that trouble was about
due to happen.

So he drew the long sword that he had strapped to his back, over his
nice eastern cloth coat.  Then he persuaded the Kazon to quiet down
some by dropping their guns and coming along with him.  Onto the walk
in front of Loewe's General Store.  What a spectacle!

Marshall Pointe took his story, ignored the Kazon, and asked the
others if they had seen something.  Miss Nine came forward, and with
the Delaney twins, told essentially the same thing.  Miss Nine
especially said she'd seen the two Kazon masked, and drawing their
guns.  That was when she'd drawn both her pepper boxes.  The Chinaman
had saved everyone a bunch of ruckus when he'd slid that funny sword
across those two bushwhacker's throat's.  If it had been Miss Seven's
druthers, there'd have been a lot of blood on the floor back in
Loewe's store.

The Chinaman was a hero, or as much of a one as a Chinaman can get in
a white man's town.  He'd come in on the Wells from Cheyenne.

Marshall Pointe as much as said the Kazon'd been waiting' for me to
get inside the store.  They was aiming' to bushwhack me, he said.  The
Law on this Circuit was a hanging' Judge, Deputy Paris said to the
Kazon.  He'll love to get a few back-shootin' Kazon 'breeds in his
courtroom to make an example of.  Deputy Tom smacked his lips loudly
when he repeated this in the Kazon's faces.  He didn't much like
Kazon.  Or Mex, or Injun.  His smiling lookin' at the Chinaman,
however, said he now had a higher opinion of orientals.

The Chinaman didn't like hearing' it'd be near a week before Overland
went through again.  Especially after Pointe carefully told him the
two Kazon had friends in town, who weren't any of them any more
religious and law-abiding than the two he'd captured.  They'd be
looking for the Chinaman, and it wasn't much likely that a Chinaman
could hide long in Fort Morgan.

"He could stay with us," I whispered to the Marshall.  "With me and my
John Bee and my girls.  Seeing as how he saved our lives, he'd be
welcome, and then some."

"You don't have a horse?" Marshall Pointe asked.  The Chinaman said he
had come to Fort Morgan under a cloud. Three gentlemen in the Wyoming
Territory were of the opinion that he was far too steady a winner at
games of fortune to be entirely honest.

Miss Nine's Delaney girl Megan told the Marshall two horses were tied
up in the back of Loewe's Store.  Neither one of them looked much well
cared for, and they both bore the Hirogen brand, a big H over crossed
spears.

The Chinaman offered to buy them, if it didn't cost much. Paris
pointed out it didn't matter if they was bushwhacking Missus Janeway,
the horses still belonged to the Hirogen.

"What about the Kazon's kit?" he asked.  Which is how the Chinaman
bought two gun belts and ammo, and three holsters and three Colt
single-action's.  The Chinaman might be without a horse, but he was
now armed pretty good.  Marshall Chakotay sold them right cheaply.

The price of a horse in Fort Morgan was much too high for the
Chinaman, and the only refuge the Marshall could offer was that of his
minuscule jail.  Only the Chinaman'd be able to walk in and out,
unlike the Kazon prisoners.

Marshall Pointe took up the proprieties, introducing Mister Harold
Lapsing Kim, once a resident of Passaic, New Jersey, to me.  I was
introduced as the Widow Kathryn Janeway Bee, once of New Olivet, North
Carolina.  I then introduced my husband, John Bee, also of New Olivet.
Also one-time Colonel of the 21st - 22nd North Carolina Heavy
Artillery.

Mr. Kim managed a smile, though he did not shake my John Bee's hand.
Few people did any more.

Mister Kim had fine manners, kissing my dirt encrusted hand as if it
were that of a fine eastern lady's.  Still, gambling was not God's
work.

Cards.  Gambling.  Get thee behind me, Satan.  Yet, the Lord is my
Shepherd.  I shall place my faith in the Lord.

"You're right welcome with me," I offered Mr. Kim.  "I have a
buckboard if you don't mind sharing it with barbed wire. Iff'n I'm
alive come next Tuesday, Mr. Pointe, I'll get him back here for the
Overland."

Mr. Kim had performed a Christian act by disarming and revealing two
evil sons of Satan.  If the Lord uses him as his instrument, obviously
he is not beyond the sight of the Lord.  I shall provide what comfort
and aid it is possible for me to give to an instrument of the Lord.

"Come with us, Mr. Kim.  We are poor tools of our Lord, but shall
endeavor to aid you and feed you as well as we might."

Three pieces of luggage, not carpetbags, but genuine leather as a
proper gentleman of substance might carry.  They were even gilt
embossed with the initials Mr. H.L.K.  Just like Doc Emil Howard had
his medicine bag gilt embossed with EMH.

Loewe's Negro, Mr. Lessing, had the help of Mr. Kim in loading the
second roll of barbed wire onto my tailgate. Mr. Kim passed on a
silver three-cent piece to Noah, and Noah gave me a saying, delivered
in his best back bay tones.

"Proverbs 3," he said. "To do justice and Judgment is more acceptable
to the Lord than Sacrifice."  The Book means self-sacrifice.  Strike
down evil rather than sacrifice yourself, Mr. Kim."

"Bless you. Brother," I echoed.  "The Hirogen Brothers are; "Poison
under lips," Psalms 140.  You did virtue today, Mr. Kim."

"I'll agree with that," Tom Paris said.  Turning to me, Tom spoke to
me.

"Marshall Chakotay told me to go out with you and protect the both of
you.  I guess that means you'll have to put up with me for a few days,
Missus Janeway.  I'll try to be useful.  Hard work never scared me,
Ma'am.  You feed me good and I'll try to give you some worthy help."

He reached over to pat one of the rolls of wire.  "If it irritates the
Hirogen boys and their Kazon, I'll count it as doing good Lord's work,
iff'n you pardon my mouth, ma'am."

In the event we left Fort Morgan together.  Tom Paris and his
Palomino, Mr. Kim, my two rolls of barbed wire, me and John Bee
sitting the front seat together.

---

On the way back home Mr. Paris and Mr. Kim got to talking as men do,
careless and inquiring.  They sat out alongside each other in the
rear.  Sitting on a pair of horse blankets I had and one arm each on
the wire.  Trying to smooth the ride to my place.  Tom had his
Palomino tied to the end, giving it a rest from carrying him.

"So," Tom began, "That's a mighty different sword you got strapped
across your back.  I seed the shorter one you got carried in a sheath
inside your jacket.  Mind if I see either one of them?"

Mr. Kim carefully presented the longer sword, Tom respecting the
cutting edge he found on it.  He whistled when he casually cut a long
piece from the side of the wheel of the barbed wire roll.

Tom returned the long sword, and was presented with an equally sharp
long knife, or short sword.  "What the hell are these, anyways?"

"Mouth, Mr. Paris," I reminded him.

"Pardon," he replied.

After a minute I heard the match, then smelled the roll-me-own Tom
Paris was smoking.

"As I was saying, Mr. Kim, what sort of sword are these?"

"Japan swords, way of the Warrior, the Bushido.  Full Iaito Katana, a
Taichi, full sword.

"They also got short ones, Meitou.  This is an artistic, a Jedaitou,
see the heron on the hilt?  This is a Meitou, a noted sword.
Twenty-eight inch blade, and it's now registered under my name in a
city in Japan.  All the noted swords are special, and this one is
supposedly six hundred years old."  Tom Paris made a low whistle,
obviously impressed.

"I got it because my regimental Colonel died and willed it to me,"
Harry explained.  "He didn't have no family to give it to and I guess
he thought I was a good bushido style warrior, worthy of the honor of
carrying his sword.  We all lost the short sword when he died.  He
fell into a river and the short sword was never recovered.

"He was a good warrior hisself.

"The dagger here is something I took off a Russian Officer. After
leaving the Japanese service.  Actually I was forced out because in
Japan I was a foreigner.  So I went into Chinese service.

"Stupid thing to do, I found out.  China's army could have been put to
rout by the Philadelphia Police Department, they were so badly
organized.  The Russians killed forty or fifty thousand Chinese, swept
across the Amur river, and the Chinese ceded a big section of Siberia.

"Funny joke was that it was mostly Klingon country, so Russia's spent
all the time since trying to pacify them. Laugh was on them.

"At any rate, the Cossack I got this dagger off of, he was in no
condition to complain if I took his knife.  Found out later that it's
called a Kindjal, which I suppose is Cossack for dagger.  Pretty
souvenir, isn't it?" Harry asked.

Mr. Paris handed back the swords, shaking his head in amazement.  "I
gather you had been in our recent unpleasantness?" Tom asked.

"Yes," Mr. Kim admitted.  "Yankee blue, Captain, I was at Stone River
and Chickamauga, 78th New Jersey, Mr. Paris. And you?"

"4th Texas, Lee and Hood.  I was with Longstreet at The Rock."

"We've got seven-eight following us," Tom said.  Mr. Kim and I both
turned to look.

"Trouble tonight?" I asked.

"Let me check," Tom said.  He pulled his Sharps round barrel rifle out
of his saddle holder on his Palomino, then sat down, waiting' for the
best moment.  He asked me to tell him when I'd crossed over into my
own land.

"Tell me again, Missus Janeway, all of your land is posted for
trespassing, isn't it?  Your husband bought over two thousand acres,
but far less than a thousand is wired, correct?"  I'd told him all
this before.

We rolled past my property line, all of us specially noting it.  In
minutes Tom rolled off the buckboard near some dogwood saplings trying
to flourish in some unnamed gully. He disappeared quick.

Mr. Kim had his new Navy Colt's out, his eyes searching.  He noticed I
had my husband's presentation Tredegar's in my lap.

After a while we heard two sharp cracks, and that was all. Though we
might have heard vague voices on the breeze.

Minutes later, shortly before I rolled into the center of my farm, Tom
ran forward with his Sharps over his shoulder.  I looked a question at
Mr. Paris, and he said that he'd given the Hirogen's tame Kazon a
valuable lesson in trailing and bothering innocent people.  One liable
not to be forgotten easy.

He helped me unhitch the horses, then we led all the horses away to
what constituted my stable area.  It was just sod mounded up until it
provided the side walls to a single long stable.  More sod provided
the interior side walls.  Open wood boxes were the windows, and wood
planks were the roof. Both were sodded over as well.  Nothing fancy,
and I can paper over the box windows later, in the fall.

Not much of a stable, and Tom's Palomino had to be happy sharing a
stall with one of my horses.  Yet the three of us quickly had the
horses free of their harness', and brushed down and cooled, with a bag
of feed to go with their water. Horses needed attention after work.

That was one thing I really liked about Tom Paris, and all of Marshall
Pointe's deputies.  Their horses always seemed good cared for.  The
Kazon's horses always looked like they had mange, and saddle sores
besides.  They needed their horses, but they always seemed to not have
a lick of sense about keeping up their horse flesh.  John Bee always
said someone who'd mistreat their horse would mistreat people.

First thing, I caught and prepared a few chickens for my guests.  Then
I went inside my sod house to cook up a proper meal for the men folk
and my two girls.  After some work on the food, I settled down for
some time with Katherine Aime and Becky.

Tom and Mr. Kim settled some of their kit against the side wall, by
the open window, so it didn't take much to hear them.  I knew they'd
talk of John Bee and the girls as dead, so it didn't bother me none.
Everyone talked that way when they thought I wasn't listening.

Time come for it, they stripped down for work and took turf shovels to
the dig down by the river.  So I didn't hear what they talked about.
I could guess some of it.  Tom took Mr. Kim over to where the three
were buried, by the pair of cottonwood's.

Tom probably told Mr. Kim my John Bee and my two girls were buried
there.  I didn't mind.  So long as my man and girls stayed with me, it
didn't mind what anyone said.

Maybe Tom was also telling Mr. Kim a few things about hisself.  Mr.
Paris had been a drummer boy with Hood in Virginia, and seen a bit of
the war there.  At some point he became a regular soldier, and was
with Hood again at Atlanta and the disaster at Nashville.  He had also
stood with my husband's Corps at Bentonville.  He could recall my
beautiful fruit trees at our place at Mount Olivet.

I also recalled how my land had been strewn with the wrecks of many
brave men, most wearin' blue.

Poor Tom had seen more than his share while with the Secessh Army.

It was even harder coming back and his whole family gone to heaven in
some Kazon raid.  Aunts, Sisters, Parents, the entire family.  It was
the last straw, I guess.  He'd come out of it all with a powerful hate
for Kazon.  Every time I saw him I prayed for him, that the Good Lord
might take him and soften his heart through Jesus.

I hoped he might some day be shrived and saved through the Lamb's
Blood.  I felt he deserved peace.

The sun was setting by the time Mr. Kim and Mr. Paris had brought over
some four or five wheel-barrows each of hard dug sod bricks.  They
carefully began the front wall of my stables, probably making the
coarse jests most men did away from the lady folk.  I don't think the
Lord could mind much if'n a few swear words passed between men.  Hard
workers deserved that much forgiveness.

We all ate outdoors, sitting on one of my logs.  My pigs, Stanton,
Seward, Banks, Butler and Shinplaster came nosing around in case there
was any slops.  Little did they know the fate in store for them some
day.

Weren't much slop.  After digging all that sod out to dry, they dug
into my chicken, biscuits, long beans, gravy and apple cobbler with
relish.  They relaxed with a few hard-boiled eggs, and being outside,
could roll a few cigarettes and light them.  John Bee and the girls,
as usual, didn't hardly have anything.

We all looked to the horizon and the two Kazon riders we could see
there.  Tom got up and pulled his Sharps rifle out again.  He wandered
over to the stable fence.  He leaned on the tree there and took
careful aim at the trespassers.  He took the hat off'n one and they
both disappeared.  Mr. Kim owned that was impressive shootin'.

We all settled back to digest my dinner, a good breeze keeping most of
the insects off.

"He's right, you know.  That was impressive shooting," came from out
of the shadows upriver.

No one said anything much for a minute.  Then I said; "Come near us,
stranger, and sit.  Let me fix you something to eat.  Sit and be
comfortable.  I had a little food left inside, but the chicken's all
gone, less you'd like me to cut a fresh for you?  I can fix up some
eggs and stir fries if you will wait a minute?"

Into the circle of our company and our friendly little fire walked a
small Klingon woman, dressed pretty much as a man might.  Boots,
holstered pistols, deerskin jacket like the scouts wear, a wide
brimmed hat with the front pinned up. Tight men's pants, a Bowie stuck
in her boot and a real pretty smile.  Not much comfort in that smile,
though.  She didn't exactly strike me as a Christian woman might.  But
I shall not judge strangers.

"Hello, Belle Anna," Mr. Kim said.  Already I thought better of her if
she was a friend of the Chinese gentleman.

He rose to do the introductions for us all, and make introduce her to
us.  "Lady, gentleman, let me introduce Miss Belle Anna Torres.  One
time resident of the Indian Territory, and scout for Governor Logan of
Missouri, John Bell Hood and Joe Johnston during the recent
conflagration, and the only female member of the Texas Rangers ever.

"Seeing as how you're not wearing a badge, might we presume you and
that esteemed body have parted ways?" he inquired.

Miss Torres laughed and made a small bow to us all.  "I'd be glad to
make close acquaintance of whatever you've got cold to eat, Ma'am.
After a few months of Buffalo jerky and beans, real home food sounds
like blessed manna from above."

I passed her some cornbread I had, and it pleased me and the Lord to
see her cross herself for the food.  She maybe might be Papist, but
she might be converted to Christianity yet.

"Don't lavish too much praise on my law-enforcing days, Harry Kim,"
she said.  "Like tight shoes and virgins, the Texas Rangers make
themselves out to be better than they actually are."

"Mouth, Miss Torres, iff'n you please," I said.

"My pardon, Missus Janeway," she apologized.

"So what brings you this way, Miss Torres?" Mr. Kim asked. She paused
a moment to make a cigarette, light it, and make the first pull.  I
took the opportunity to go inside and make a proper plate for her
dinner.  If she was from afar, she needed a good plate.

"Just drifting, Harry, doing a little bounty, buffalo hides, railroad
security, shipments from the mines to back east," she explained.
"Drifting, just drifting.  And you?"

"Here and there, picked up a nice souvenir or two, won some money,
lost some money, won a few games.  Whatever.  Would you like to see my
sword?  I picked it up in Japan in the Klingon Wars they had," he
stated.

"The Klingons were fiercesome warriors, hard to fight," he added, with
a look to Belle Anne's face.

"I ain't never found a woman like you either.  You're still one
handsome female, beggin' your pardon, Miss Torres. Mighty handsome.
You got someone close to heart I should watch clear of?"

She failed to comment on that statement, but it was plain obvious Miss
Torres and Mr. Kim had a past history together, however one sided it
might be.  She didn't strike me as a female liable to set down roots
anywhere or pick herself just one special someone.

She wolfed down the cold dinner she got from me, and the rest of us
waited for her to finish and join our jabbering. At the end she give
me back my plate, and Mr. Kim and Mr. Paris joined her in taking her
quarter horse to the stables. Helping her and talking away from the
rest of us, me.

As said before, someone who makes sure their horse gets decent care
can't be all bad.  She took one of my apples for her creature.
Another point in my estimation.

Afterwards Mr. Paris and me sat down for some peaceful early evening,
enjoying the quiet of waiting for time to go to bed.  Leaving Miss
Torres and Mr. Kim be for whatever talking they needed.  I wondered if
Mr. Kim would want to be together with her for the night.  Didn't much
think so, somehow.

Tom had a nice silver-plated Railroad Hamilton to keep track of the
time.  My John Bee had lost his the night we was all bushwhacked in
our sleep.  Typical Kazon trick to bushwhack someone.

Mr. Kim and Miss Torres eventually rejoined us.  They were smilin'
easy, the way old acquaintance's do.  It was a comfortable group of
strangers we made.

"I met a friend of yours," Harry Kim said to Belle Anna Torres.  She
looked up and he continued.  "Miss Selma Nine is in Fort Morgan, and
evidently doing well, too.  She has her own place, the "Borg Palace",
north side of town. Didn't go in, but I met her, and she was might
pleasant to me.  With all respects to yourself, Belle Anna, she's
still the smartest looking woman between Saint Louis and California."

Miss Torres stood up for that.  "Really?" she asked.  Tom chipped in
by saying; "I'd say between Cincinnati and the Sandwich Islands.
Most men see her want to immediately cozy up."  We all chuckled for
that bit of jaw.

It was about that time something powerful hurtful slammed into the
side of my head.  Mr. Paris swept out the fire into embers, Miss
Torres disappeared into the night, and Mr. Kim swung me inside my sod
house.

It hurt pretty bad, but it seemed my ear was the only thing hurt bad.
I directed him to a drawer in my battered English Wardrobe for a
bandage rag.  He found it and his hands took him to the right drawer.

Mr. Kim pulled a flask out of somewhere and brought a screech out of
me when he poured some brandy on my ear. Then he bandaged it with a
big wrapping around my head.

"Relax, Missus Janeway.  I've found wounds splashed with something
with alcohol in it, tend not to get into nasty sorts of wound, the
gangrene ones.  If nothing else, this is fine French brandy.  Should
make you smell real pretty and female-like for a day at least.  Brandy
scent, but nice. Just relax.

"By the bye, it seems like it didn't go deep.  Just surface."

Eventually Belle Anna made her presence known, there by the doorway.
She stayed outside.

"They all rode away as soon as Missus Janeway was shot. Didn't wait to
find out how accurate their bushwhacking was.

We heard her moving.  Then she told us her and Mr. Paris would bunk
down out here somewhere.  In case one of those Kazon got up the
bravery to try it again.

"Can you take care of Missus Janeway, Mr. Kim?  I heard you two
talking, so I presume she's only hurt a little?"

"I think she lost an ear, but I think that's all," Mr. Kim said.
"We'll all see in the morning.  If need be we'll take Missus Janeway
to Doctor Emil.  He seemed a decent sort, seemed to know his craft.
But we'll wait and see."

"Harry," a fainter female voice spoke.  "I hate to tell you when you
seem to be in need, but I'm going to have to leave in the morning."
Pause.  "Me and Miss Nine have things to discuss.  Sorry."

"What will be, will be," I offered.  Outside there was silence.
Inside the need to receive a little comfort from my long-suffering
husband.

"Come, sweet John Bee," I whispered to him.  "I feel better already.
Give me a shot of that fine French Brandy, it'll feel good from the
inside out, too.  The girls are quiet to bed.  I hurt, but your touch
can make it better.  It always has."

John Bee made some noises that I disregarded.  I held him closer, my
hand carrying his hand to me to kiss.  "Come, John Bee, hold me close
this night of all nights.  I stood close to our Lord, tonight, but he
stayed his hand.  He has delivered me one more time, and we should
only think of it as a blessing.  He spared me, and it must because my
duties on this Earth are not yet done."

My hands found buttons and flaps, the intricacies of his shirt and his
pants.  At the same time my own fingers found my own stays and loops,
buttons and lasts.  I brought my John Bee's head down so that I might
line his lips with mine, pressing our heads close.  I burst with love
to know my John Bee was given to me one more time, myself to him. It
was proper and meet, it was as man to wife should be. Sweet and
giving.

My John then began to give of himself to me.  I found his stiffness
meant for me.  His hands were guided by mine, and as my clothes fell
to the dirt floor of our poor sod house, he found my large breasts
with his husbandly fingertips, as always.

"Pinch them," I asked my willing partner.  "Hurt them, enjoy them,
give me pleasure, please, John, as you have before."

His lips hurt my mouth, but it was good.  Man should have joy of his
wife, and obviously woman should have joy of her husband.  It was
meant to be, the Lord constructed us so that each should have such joy
of the consecrated other.  We do a miracle together.

More clothes fell to the wayside, and my hands fell faster upon the
flesh of man.  And my man's hands burned as he took hold of my flesh.
My breasts hurt in his hands, they joyed as his mouth fell to my
breasts, and especially my nipples. They hurt, my body burned, my
hands kept holding a new place on the body of man.

Finally we stood naked against the other.  My hand found his stiffness
first.  So beautiful it was, so perfect to fit into my body, so hot,
so hard, so pulsing.    We stood as Adam and Eve, perfect, made close,
Man onto Woman, meant to be this way, man cleaving onto woman.

"Oh, John, it is stiff, so beautiful and perfect and meant only for
me," I said.  "I know many would consider me to be a wanton woman, if
they knew of me, of what I love to do for you.  But you enjoy it so,
it is a great joy to you is it not?  We are Man and wife.  May I take
you once again in my mouth?  I love so to do it for you."

With that I knelt and took John's stiffness between my lips. I so
enjoyed the way his uncut head fit into my mouth.  The way it slid
across my teeth, the way my tongue found the shape of it naturally
pleasing as it grew stiffer deep inside my face.

The briny taste of him, the perfect way it formed as my head slid
deeper on it's length.  My lips brushed his man-smelling length until
my nose and lips met his body hairs.  It filled my throat, the hair
was not very tasty, but I felt so loving and so submissive to my man
when I had all of him inside my loving head.

Then up, take a breath, slide down him again, my hands clutching and
marking his hips and the muscular rear of his glorious body.  It is
the body of my chosen mate, how could he not be beautiful?

We were both naked now, before our Lord, man striving for his woman,
seeking only his wife's flesh.  We laid him down prone into our bed,
me on my knees beside him.  Still pressing my tight warm throat around
the gorgeous stiff manly flesh that gave me love and two iridescent
children. My head moved in a cycle of love for my man.  His stiffness
burned me with wet glory.  My hands found his belly and his thighs.
My loving fingers found the two globes of seed, my hands fondled them
in pleasure.

My mouth kept him inside me, enjoying, giving pleasure as I knelt by
his side.  Then I sensed, felt, a change.  More stiffness, partially
incoherent words, partly random movements of hands, partly the tight
hold his hand had on my head.

I took my mouth from him, one last bite, one last lick, long and
loving.  Then I was naked and astride my equally naked John Bee.  My
hand found him, wet and hard and waving in the night.  Then I had
guided him to the entrance to my womb.

John Bee was in me, and it was good.

"Let me stay on top, John Bee, let me take you from on top, you know
how much I enjoy that?"  I do not know why it gives me joy, but it
does, and it must be proper for us both.  His hands and body said yes,
as we sped forward in our quick desperate joining of loins.  I felt
flooded with liquid, I had completely forgotten my head wound, my body
wanted to be filled with man.

I cried sharply before John Bee.  Therefore I had the opportunity to
lie on top of my man and smile as he planted his seed in me.  I was
too old to have children now, but the Lord still gave us the pleasures
of bonded man and wife.

It was good.  And John Bee remained hard.  The Lord gave us solace in
each other's arms.  Allowing us to feel comforted even in the midst of
a wilderness.  I smiled and moved my willing body up and down on the
welcome hard maleness of John Bee.  All in all it might be considered
a good night after all.

---

Sunrise light's edge on the horizon, and our day began. Once clothed,
I started cooking breakfast.  Eggs, a new pan of cornbread, a little
fatback, flat bread in the grease, honey, blackberry jam, cut bread,
grits, a few slices of ham out my stone-lined shallow cold-cellar well
in the corner, inside my house.  Apples and buffalo jerky for those
needs them.

Pretty soon everyone was feeling civilized and Belle Anne and Tom
Paris were outside, rolling cigarettes and smoking. Backs to the
stable, but relaxing.  For my fresh bandage, I had my brown bonnet on
when we noticed folk coming up the road, civilized like, no sneaking.
Nonetheless Belle Anne disappeared into the brush and Tom got inside
the protection of the stable's sod wall.

It turned out to be Marshall Chakotay Pointe and his waxed mustache.
Another deputy came along, probably to control two Hirogen brothers
and two Kazon they had with them.

"Morning Marshall," Tom politely offered.  Tom and Chakotay had a few
words, everyone ignored the Hirogen saying Tom was a murderer.

"Hirogen say you ambushed one of their Kazon last night," Marshall
Chakotay said.  "Anything to say?"

"Hirogen say where this happened?" Tom asked.

"Down the road a piece, just before it reached Missus' January's
land," the Marshall said.

"Hirogen say you shot him from a roadside bush.  They say you
bushwhacked this Kazon outrider of theirs," Chakotay went on.

A pause.  "I rose up from a thicket on Missus January's legal posted
land, to ask him what he doing on her land," Tom said.  "He grabbed
his Colt and took a shot at me. Stupid.  Everyone knows you can't
hardly hit the side of a barn most times sitting on a horse.  Not
accurate anyways.

"He shot at me and I shot back.  Right then and there I'm more liable
to hit something than he is.  He took one from my Sharps rifle and
that finished him.  He popped off from his horse and his friends
behind him took off for somewhere else.  Seeing that, I simply ran to
catch up with Missus Janeway and had a delightful dinner.

"Missus Janeway cooks plain and good and plenty of it, Marshall.  I
hope to have some more of her pan fry chicken tonight, I do," he
praised.

Chakotay sat his horse, smiling at me.  I think if Miss Nine won't
have him, he may come to court me some day.  John Bee have to die
first, though.

Another pause.  "I noticed a blood trail from where the Kazon drug
that body," Marshall Chakotay stated.  "Ran straight from where the
body lay, all over the property line to another spot alongside the
roar where I figure he was shot.  Tow or three hundred yards inside
the posting line," he added.

"Weren't no gun in his hand, or then there weren't one in his holster
either.  Looks pretty much that he had his pistol in his hand when he
got shot, and the pistol flew off somewhere where no one could find
it," Pointe said.

"Therefore it's pretty obvious this Kazon had his pistol out when you
shot him." speaking to Tom.  "What's more, he was trespassing, wherein
he didn't belong, and my Deputy Tom Paris was justified in trying to
stop the Kazon from -- again -- violating the land of Missus Janeway.

"Anyone find anything wrong with my reckoning?" he asked. The two
Kazon and two Hirogen boys let a jabbering, but Marshall, his deputy
and Tom Paris ignored them.

"This unfortunate death is a case of self-defense," Pointe loudly
stated.  He then turned to me, a big smile lighting his face.

"If the offer is still open for a little grub, Deputy Carey and me
would be honored if you could find a few scraps for us.  In return
I've a few pounds of good coffee to contribute to your larder, if
you'll allow me."

When the Hirogen and Kazon looked to be getting off their horses, he
reminded they they'd brought him all the way out here for a charge
that didn't amount to anything.  For the horses' sake he let them get
off and stretch a bit.

Chakotay and Carey seemed to enjoy the fresh fried eggs they got with
their fatback and cornbread.  Everyone enjoyed some of Marshall
Chakotay's fresh store ground coffee.  Miss Torres rode back to Fort
Morgan with the Marshall and his company.  We here got ready to go
string fresh wire.

We left one roll on the buckboard, rolled one off, and put two draft
horses into trace to carry it to the point where the Penance River
came near my fence line.  It had been cut down completely by raiders,
and cattle had been put through my barley and some wheat land.  I
figured I lost forty-five acres of crop by them driving their beef
through it.  No need for it.  They could have driven their animals
around my wired land, but they wanted to do damage to the sod-buster.
Wasn't their land, didn't matter.  They did not even own the range
they used for their livestock.  They used it for free, unlike those
like ourselves who paid dollar for it.

In the light of morning Mr. Paris and my John Bee began the
disheartening task of re-wiring the fence-posts.  My head ached from
it's wound, but I ignored it.  If these men could work so hard on
something which might be pulled down this coming night, I could stay
with them.  I kept the buckboard in steady pace with them, and kept
their water fresh.

I also kept lookout for any Kazon and their Hirogen masters.

Eventually we had three string strung on the area where the raiders
had previously cut down all the wire.  We rode back on the buckboard,
us three and a depleted roll of barbed wire.

We put up the two horses, giving all the horses a small bag of grains
to eat.  Then I worked in the stable, cleaning it. Mr. Kim and Mr.
Paris worked on bringing up more fresh sod to the stable in my
wheelbarrows.  We all got the stable cleaned out, and all the horses
moved to a new stall in the stable.

We got the plank roof put on for the outside half, and began laying a
covering of sod.  By lunch you could see how it was going to look.  We
ate in the stable to foil any more attacks on me.  We had a cold
lunch; cornbread, hard-boiled eggs, cucumber slices, cold grits and
bread with jelly.  I warmed up pickled hog's feet and a few more eggs.
A couple slices of ham and cooked buffalo jerky went in the skillet
fat to soften it, and mix it with the eggs.

More coffee.  Nice thing for the Marshall to bring along. Then we went
back to work on the stables.  A few courses of damp sod for the
outside wall of the stables.  Come cold weather I'll cover the narrow
space between north and south stables with canvas weighted down with
more sod bricks.  The horses will survive just fine.

Mr. Tom Paris snuck off into the brush after lunch.  Took my
single-barrel shotgun and his Sharps rifle.  He was going to take a
sneak on what was happening along my north fence. With John Bee alone
with me and the girls quiet, I took the opportunity to comfort myself
by holding him close to me. He had his sword strapped on, and it
excited me to press myself to it's cold length.

Iff'n we get through this all okay, Lord willin', I intend to spend a
powerful amount of winter close to him, enjoying the man flesh put in
so much jeopardy by the Hirogen.  It felt good and relieving to touch
him in the body once more. For some reason I kept thinking him dead
and it were Harry Kim I touched.

For anyone watching, my John Bee looked obvious to being around.  Mr.
Paris showed up for supper, and we had a spare plate of my ham, yellow
cheese, long beans and baked potato with buttermilk.  Then, with it
getting dark, all three of us snuck off to the north fence where the
wire was replaced.

Tom had said that the Kazon and a Hirogen or so had been sniffin'
around by the fence.  We was bettin' that they'd try to pull down my
wire again that very night.

I have to admit that I grew fearful in the dark by myself. I kept
seeing weird things in the night, creatures, bogie men.  Running
creatures in the grass, other creatures trying to make a meal out of
them.

Yet I kept my place of ambush.  I kept telling myself I'd do my duty,
my share.  Tom and John Bee were relying on me. Raiders come back I
had my double-barrel shotgun, and I had my resolve.  Anyone come, I
would use it.  I told myself that again and again.

In the meantime I heard owls, I heard larger creatures coming near and
then retreating.  Badger after chuck, fox after mice, squirrels after
food, ,maybe a coyote after prairie dog.  The life of the prairie
after the sun goes down.

My mouth was dry so I carefully had a little from my canteen.   It
didn't much help.  My mouth was dry because I was scart to death.

I had to stand, then my legs got tired so I sat down again. Always the
sounds of night critters keeping my nerves to edge.

It was Mr. Tom Paris who figured the Hirogen brother's Kazon would be
after my wire tonight.  They'd un-do all the wiring we did today,
they'd figure that'd hurt us bad.

Dunno if that'd be right.  Sometime the more someone push you down,
the harder you rise back up.  For at least a while.  Eventually you'll
get crushed and give up.  But then they'd liable to give up sometimes.
It just depends, I guess.  I think they had it right in part.  They'd
find it easier killin' me than beatin' me down.

Upon asking me, I allowed as how I could hold a position on my fence.
Which meant me squatting behind a copse of Willow.  Shakin' in my
boots, and my eyes big as horseshoes, and afraid of every little noise
I heard in the night.

Odd enough, I fell to sleep.  Just rolled over and fled into sleep.

I awoke broken up as bad as a straw. I couldn't figure out where I
was, or what I was doing there.  I got to my knees with a grunt, and
to my feet with a loud sigh and a sore back making itself manifest.  I
put one hand on a fence post to make myself steady.

Across the fence was a Kazon looking at me.  He saw me, I saw him, he
pulled his Colt out of it's holster.  I brought up my shotgun, he
fired at me.  I could tell immediately my right arm get cut, split,
and I fired my shotgun.  The blast took the Kazon's hitherto unseen
companion in the face.  The companion fell back, dead I guess, and the
Kazon turned and ran for someplace else.

It'd be a close race to say which of us scart worse; the Kazon or me.
I scuttled off as quiet and as fast as I could.  Thinking I might as
well get a few yards between where I'd just shot off my shotgun and
where I should be in case they started firing back where I had just
been.  I tripped over something and hit hard on my side.

Down the fence line I heard some more wild firing, but nothing down
here.  I stumbled in the dark, my hip hollering to me it didn't like
getting dropped on like that.  After a while the firing stopped and I
began to crawl away from the fence, back towards my sod house and
stable.  Somehow the animals, when they began making noise again,
didn't scare me so much.  I had other things to be afraid of.

I kept remembering the face of the Hirogen when he took a load of
buckshot in the neck.  That Hirogen brother would never walk the
surface of the Earth again.  I kept remembering that awfully SURPRISED
face he had.  A lifetime of violence and power and arrogance.  Now he
had met violence itself, and it was at my hand.

I wondered if I had doomed my soul to eternal damnation.  I emptied my
stomach in my sweet wheat, and asked for forgiveness.

The Lord is my Shepherd.  If it is his will I shall triumph. If the
Lord My God giveth me a Sword of Victory, I shall take it and smiteth
my foe hip and thigh.

As I lay trembling inside my sod stable, Mr. Paris and my John Bee
regained this dark sanctuary wherein my horses sheltered.  The Lord
had guided their footsteps through the Valley of Death.

After a short rest, I rose to enter my poor sod house.  In total
darkness there seemed safety.  I tugged at John Bee's sleeve, and
eventually we crawled together to the poor protection of the second
room of our meagre sod home, the bedroom of us both and our sleeping
girls.  We entered in darkness, and met quiet and silence from Katie
Aime and Becky, Lord be thanked.  For long minutes I held him close,
willing my fear and trembling to go away.

Eventually his hands found my graze on my arm.  He then repeated last
night's ministrations.  He removed my dress with careful arms.  He
stripped me naked before man and God. He cleaned my wound with strong
French brandy, then bound it.  In turn I striped him naked, my hands
as tender and soft as only love may make them.

John Bee had received one wound.  A bullet between arm and side of his
chest, wounding both places.  I laid him down and he cried out as I
used our single bottle of guest whiskey on him.  I wrapped him in
soft, clean cotton.  Clean bandages made out of bits of an old shirt
and an old dress. Never had I thought they would be so needed.

With both of us pleasingly naked again he protested, saying he was
Harry Kim, saying John Bee was now dead and buried. I forgave him his
madness, knowing it was the Lord's work. My hands tugged at his
bandages, and I would not be denied the touch of my man.  He might now
wear a long sword over his jacket, but I knew he was my perfect John
Bee Janeway.

My John Bee had once held dark skinned slaves, but he had given their
bodies away and hoped for their souls to be saved.

After the war he had made the required oath to the United States
Government, and he meant it in his heart.  All our neighbors made the
oath with a lie in their heart, and drove John Bee and us away for our
honesty.  We had sold our land in North Carolina, and took the widow's
mite that cheating men offered us.  The little money they gave we used
to buy this land from the railroad's grant.

We had settled here, at the edge between mountains and dry prairie.
Here in the lush grass of the Penance River, flowing east into
nothingness.  It was good enough that here it was yet green and rich,
always filled by melting snows.

Now I held my John Bee close, and I joyed in our closeness. I took him
in my mouth and we both found pleasure in the act.  I kept him in my
grateful mouth and I pleasured in the wash of his seed there.  It was
very good, I felt warm and loving and caring for my man.

We soon found him stiffening again for my mouth and my fast moving
spit-wet hands.  John Bee moaned in painful pleasure for me, and I
straddled him.  Taking within me what was so quintessentially my man,
what was my bounty as wife.  We both enjoyed the act, falling asleep
together and satisfied. We both knew the morning would bring the U.S.
Marshall and his deputies again to our door.

---

We were all sitting or standing calmly, Paris in the open, awaiting
the whirlwind.  It arrived in the form of Old Man Bruce Hirogen and
all his surviving sons, controlled by Marshall Chakotay's bristling
deputies.  As all there were of the Hirogen boys were four furious and
undisciplined back-stabbers, I had the feeling true that we'd gotten
us two of the Hirogen brothers last night.  It pleased the vengeance
in me and gave me a sinful pleasurable shiver up my spine.

If we had put down two of the Hirogen brothers, the father, Old Man
Bruce, must be enraged beyond easy telling.

Mr. Paris was the only one out in the open, me and John Bee were
partially sheltered by my sod house doorway and the stable sod.  Take
a strong bullet to penetrate that sod. Marshall Pointe didn't much
care for our positioning. Neither did the Hirogen.

Seems Bruce Hirogen was unhappy over the blood spilt at my fence line
last night.  Hirogen blood and Kazon blood.

Bruce Hirogen called it an ambush, and it was.  Anyone coming to my
fence last night to cut my wire received a nasty surprise.

My John Bee had already collected six gun belts and four rifles, and
they lay behind my stable sod wall, making our defenses stronger than
before.

Mr. Paris asked if the Marshall had examined my fence line, and
Marshall Chakotay Pointe said he had.  Seven blood trails leading from
the bodies to my cut fence.  Ten fence cutters left in the grass by
the fence.  Hard to refute evidence like that, the Marshall said.

Marshall Pointe had a hard time swallowing the fact that three Kazon
were beheaded by the fancy Japan sword my John Bee....

Japan sword .....

Mr. Kim's Japan Sword ....

My John Bee and his Japan sword ....

Mr. Kim ....

Black hair and dark black eyes and straight black hair and Japan sword
....

Not my John Bee.  I had in my marriage bed ....

Mr. Paris was jabbering with the Hirogen, him waving his Sharps rifle
violently toward the north fence line.  Mr. Harry Kim (oh my God ....)
showing how he beheaded three Kazon last night and fatally wounded
another Hirogen.....

My John Bee.

I got up, leaving my two-barrel shotgun behind.  I stumbled across my
barnyard, then stopped in front of U.S. Marshall Chakotay Pointe.  My
head tilted up and I knew my face must be the face of death itself.

"My husband," I asked, "my John Bee is dead and buried over there by
the willows, isn't he?"

The Marshall let a sad appeal cross his face, one I cannot give solace
to.  I have not the solace for myself, much less him.

"Yes, Ma'am," he sadly says.  "He is dead and he does lie buried over
there."

"And my two beautiful children?"

"They too are dead and they too are buried there.  They are buried
deep and they are buried in that cold hard ground over there, God have
mercy."

"The Hirogen killed them all three, they raided us and killed my
husband and exquisite children, did they not?"

He paused, then, looking directly into the face of Bruce Hirogen
continued.  "Yes," he said, "they did.  The Hirogen murdered them in
coldest blood.  I only lack hardest proof or they would all be dead
today.  Trust me on this."

I moved on, dragging my unwilling self towards my goal of the three
willows and the graves under them.  I did not need to look up, it was
a trail I had often followed.

I wondered why it was I had decided John Bee and my girls were still
with me?  Probably it was that I let my grief rule over me.

Yet three graves were there.  Three cut plank boards for their
headstones.  I planned better, I wanted red marble stone for my dead
family, but now I realized that would only occur if I were to weather
the evil storm of the Hirogen. Most like the Hirogen would triumph
over me, but my Lord called for me to continue the war they had
started.

My cause was just and so long as I breathed, I must now fight it.  I
fell to my knees in that resolve, and first dry, then wet tears
coursed down my aging cheeks.  I am nothing, oh Lord.  I am an aging
near-broken old woman.  Yet I must prevail.  My eyes were wet and my
sobs were continuous until I rolled over onto my side and I slept.

My body is old, Lord, and my soul doubts the rightness of my cause.
My body is old and it hurts badly after those hours in the dirt and
grass.  I am fifty years old and I have seen much I would rather not
have seen.  A task still awaits me, many tasks.

Mr. Tom Paris and Mr. Harry Kim .....

Marshall Chakotay had let us go.  He knew we had acted in
self-defense, against evil men intent on harm, on land not theirs but
mine.  He merely asked that we appear before the Judge when he arrived
in Fort Morgan.  If we lived to that date.  He had three deputies and
he was not entirely assured he and them would survive to that date.

And here?  I had taken a kind and patient Mr. Harry Kim to my bed and
taken him as a wife takes her husband.  No.  Not me.  Me as an old
insane woman.  I could not turn to him, to the pair of them standing
and squatting by my pitiful home. They knew I had fornicated with Mr.
Kim.  Insane or not, I had committed a grievous sin.

Not least on Mr. Kim.  Apart from some chagrin, I am sure he enjoyed
his experiences with me.  Men do that.

My eyes could not look in theirs.  I took a course inside, finding my
bed, finding sleep despite the heat.

---

My clothes were sticky, my collar wet, my brow coursing with sweat, my
armpits smelly.  I felt more beast than human.  I got up and decided a
few things.  One of them being that I would be forgiving of myself.  I
shall await judgment, hoping for forgiveness from on high.  Yet in the
meantime I shall forgive myself.

There was my over-abiding grief, my very selfish grief, my sinning
with Mr. Kim, and not least my killings.  They were necessary, I
suppose, and even more of them to come will be necessary.

I had not made this war, nor had I provoked it.  It was, is, will be
the product of another being's greed and intolerance.  Not mine.  Not
my dead husband's.  Not my ethereal girls, Angelic long before their
untimely deaths. If the Lord hath given me a sword of Victory, I shall
overcome.  If he has not, I shall perish.

The second resolution was that I would take a bath in MY river and I
would wear a nice ribbon in my hair and I shall smell of flowers for
the rest of the day.  And night.  Yes, something to look good in, in
case my Lord called me to him this night.

I think a little vanity was the least of my sins today.  I knew I was
still a becoming woman, even in my senility.

First though, was a worthy dinner for my heroes.

Thick slices off'n the untouched ham in my shallow stone well inside
the house.  Mr. Paris helped me garner chickens, and he killed and
dressed them.  He also found a few eggs, with my help.

Biscuits, fat bacon, a buffalo and noodle soup, long beans, and
northern beans in sugar and pork.  Corn bread, black bread, butter,
cooked and softened dried corn, peas and carrots.  Cooked into a
freshness in water, potatoes baked and potatoes in cut fries.  Two
sugar pies and a lattice apple pie to cheer the nostrils, and to cover
the smell of burning peat.

I worked for hours, the hard honest labor cleansing my mind.

Outside, my men carried sod to my stable walls.  This time they were
building a redoubt for the night.  Vauban they might not be, but they
knew the values of thick walls that stopped bullets.  They'd both been
in war.

I stepped out in the late afternoon heat, carrying my cleanest
small-sized men's jeans, and a short-sleeved white blouse with
mother-of-pearl buttons.  I announced I was going to the river to
wash.  Anyone who wished to cleanse their bodies, the trough and pump
was there for them.  I laid a fine large store bar of soap, smelling
of lavender, on the pump.  With my arms full of guns and women's
things the Lord of someone made me turn to Mr. Kim with a delighted
smile on my face.

I sifted through my words and intent.  I stood there thinking of
saying softly to Mr. Kim; "Anyone wants to watch an old widow get butt
naked and clean herself in ice cold water is welcome to come down and
watch,"

I almost whispered that to him.  I almost tried to will myself to add;
"I pretty much guarantee I'll have a year's worth of goose bumps on me
when I slide into that river."

I don't think I've ever felt so naughty and sinful as I did at that
moment, with those wicked words in my mind and almost on my lips.

Almost.  Yet ....  Though we had been lovers, and he had not made much
of an effort to break clear of my clutches, still .... I had been
crazy as a coot.

We had taken my old near-broken body to his lover's bed.  We had been
good lovers, the man giving me much pleasure, me giving much joy and
desperate satisfaction of flesh.

The word that came to my mind was fornication, and that was a sin.
Yet the Lord had waited until this morning to lift the scales of grief
and give me back my sorrow.  This is a riddle beyond my understanding.
Therefore I shall accept that the Lord has given me the solace of a
lover and I will not question it further.  Or question in my mind why
it was now taken away.

If we have time or opportunity tonight I know I shall offer him once
more my fifty year old body to take as he, we, might wish.  If we
survive.  This shall be a night of bloody deeds, I felt it.  I turned
to the Penance River and my cold bath.

As I disrobed I wished Mr. Kim were here to help me undress, that he
touched me and caressed me as I was unveiled for him.  That he made me
turn for him and bare my aging body. I wanted him to want my fifty
year old woman's flesh.  I longed for him to let me undress him in the
grass, and let me take him in my mouth until he came.  Then for him to
turn me on my back and take me with his stiffness while I cried and
moaned and stuttered with lust.

I imagined all of this, I lusted in my mind.

I needed that cold river water.

---

My body adjusted to the searing cold of the icy water, cold driven
from Rocky Mountain ice fields.  It was hard to make lather, but I
worked on it.

A soft unexpected sound made me hurry back to my guns, while much of
me hoped it was Mr. Kim.  Or even Mr. Paris.  My soul was stained by
carnal thoughts, but I wished the both of them this sun-filled
afternoon.

The water was only shin deep on me when I realized it was Miss Belle
Anna Torres.  She was sitting on the grassy bank, saddle bags
alongside, hands over her knees, intently watching my cold nude body.

"You startled me," I complained.  "Yet so long as you're here, make
yourself welcome.  I've got a spread of food up by my house, in case
you're hungry."  Belle Anna got to her feet and began removing her
clothes.

"I'd rather share that cold river with you, if you don't mind?"

In a few minutes Belle Anna was carefully tip-toeing into my river,
little yips bursting into the mellow air as she gradually immersed her
dainty body into the wet.

Dainty, that was a good word.  I had been thinking of her as
masculine, small but still manly.  Instead her whole body was petite,
almost delicate.  Underneath the tough exterior of ex-Scout and
ex-Ranger, Torres existed as a small woman. More petite than myself,
with smaller breasts and thinner body.  More delicate, more feminine,
very sweet in any eyes.

She noticed me looking and smiled a toothy grin back. Unlikely words
came from her lips.  "If you would allow, I think of you as a small
feminine woman, very attractive.  I hear you know again that you are a
widow, and your children have passed on.  Be careful, some will court
you with lies in their hearts.  Hold out for the better kind ...."

The words unsaid were; "...If you survive this war."

"Here," she said instead.  "Give me your soap, I have a better soap
for us to use.  I can guarantee I know how heavenly it smells on a
woman."  We giggled ....  How long had it been since I'd giggled?

It was a luxury in a wilderness for someone else to soap me and soothe
me, to talk and bring civilization.  It felt delicious.  It also took
a while for me to recall who wore this fancy soap's scent.  It was
Miss Selma Nine.

When I turned to wash Belle Anna's back, she stayed and held me to
her.  Her head dipped, darted, lingered, kissed me.

I went into shock.  Belle Anna's hands held me softly, her face
remained near mine, judging my level of reaction.

She sighed and released me.  Her body rotated in place, and she
presented me with her back to wash.

"Belle Anna," I began, "I am not, please, if I am right ...."

She turned again, resignation in her tones.

"I am sorry," she said, "I should never, I must have known, but you
were so lovely there, within the circle of my arms, a diamond in
Colorado, I am sorry for anything ....  Do you forgive me?"

It seems that Mr. Kim knew of Belle Anna's lovers, including the
delicious Miss Selma Nine, and she had assumed that I knew of her
tastes in women from him.  So that when I invited her to join me naked
in the river, she had read rather more into the invitation than I had.

I drew a hair closer and indicated with a finger she should turn
around again.  Very carefully I washed her shoulders and her back.
When I came to her backside I hesitated for a moment, then I soaped
her butt.  She flinched, but the soaping went off smoothly.  Then she
turned, as did I.  Soon her soapy hands lightly caressed my rear.
Maybe she lingered, but she soon was re-soaping the rest of my back.
It felt odd being nude in the presence of one of those women I had
heard about in whispers.  It also felt ordinary, because surely I
could trust Belle Anna.

She must obviously have come to be one of my defenders, one of my
shining heroes this night of dark events.

Soon we were chattering more comfortably.  Belle Anna failed
completely in filling the role of a moral degenerate, or a danger to
my mortal soul.  I guess she was a danger to me, but she was too open
and content in her existence.  If she had come to help me turn back
the wrath of the Hirogen, I must accept her and pray she will be some
day cleansed in the Lamb's blood.  She is an instrument of right:
therefore she can be redeemed.

For a few minutes we ignored the Hirogen.  I ignored her sins; it was
not my place to judge.  I must ever hold her as a tabula rosa, a clean
slate awaiting the Lord's words.

We lay together on the grass.  She held a beautiful soul, I must
believe that.  Ignoring the insects and deadlines, cooling air and our
shared nudity.  "Belle Anna." I asked, "Just what is it two women DO,
can do, together, how can they make love?"

She had such a smile, a wicked woman's smile.  We both knew I should
have thought better of asking the question, but she answered it
anyways.

From the first she shocked me.  She told of how glorious it felt to
place her head between her lover's legs and use her mouth and lips and
tongue upon the sex of her love.  Then she spoke lovingly of her
lover's nipples, and then she spoke of where she had licked some
women, bringing them much joy.  I now know she was deliberately
seeking to shock me, to see the incredulous expression on my face.

I said, "You put your mouth WHERE?"

---

We were beautiful when we came back to my home.  Me in clean
well-fitting blue jeans and my totally white short-sleeved blouse.  A
black ribbon around my neck held my mother's cameo.  Two holster belts
around my waist held my Tredegar's, a third belt held a Kazon's Colt
in the small of my back.  My finger held my wedding band, and a small
black flat hat was pinned to the top front of the classic double bun
atop my head.  Tight brown shoes buttoned on my feet. They fit
comfortable after many years of use.

Belle Anna was in black gloves, a black leather vest, and a light
yellow silk four-button man's pull-over shirt.  A large black ribbon
tie emphasized her throat.  A pair of dark men's pants and dark boots
were adorned by two gun belt's, and she also left a belly gun in her
waist.  Her black leather pants belt held a gold plated short-barrel
Remington .32 calibre pistol in it's holster.  It glinted in the sun
pretty as get.  Belle Anna looked more a Mississippi river gambler
than anything else, and with a lit cheroot in her mouth she looked
dashing indeed.  I'd given her two short braids and my best wishes.

Mr. Paris was in a bright red and black stripe pull-over shirt, black
string tie, and a red striped gray vest.  His bedraggled range hat was
now tied by a strap under his chin. His mustache was a quarter the
size it had been, and his hair was trimmed.

Mr. Kim wore the brown-toned clothes of the day he come to my spread,
but his hair had been trimmed short.  The scent of fine barber's
cologne hung around them both, as well as big grins and eyes for us
both.  We stood for some minutes, admiring each other.  I probably
imagined it, but I thought Mr. Kim looked at me the way men always
look at their women. They mentally stripped the clothes off them, then
did terribly wonderful loving sinful things to their unresisting
bodies.

"Did you men leave any food for us women?" The first thing me and
Belle Anna had to eat were a few wedges of my lattice-top apple pie.
Then my biscuits and now-soft chopped strips of buffalo.  We were all
more than a bit of a pig that late afternoon, for we finished off the
pies before we dug into the cornbread, ham and eggs.  The girls had
loved my apple pies.  So had John Bee.

Something had changed since this morning.  My eyes looked forward, and
my heart fed one page at a time of my book of grief to the banked
fires of the past.  I could survive my grief in small pieces and over
time.  It was as our Lord always urged us.  Put the past behind you
and look ye to the days to come.

I felt incredibly close to my heroes.  If my good Lord took them, I
prayed they would immediately pass to that blessed place where my John
Bee would greet them, and my girls would make them welcome.

I rose and each in turn stood before me.  My heroes. Without words I
pulled each to me, to my warm soft lips, to my expression of love for
them, my wonderful heroes.  I kissed not in friendship, but in love,
as I had kissed my John Bee and girls in life.

Tom Paris was shy, and he was SO young in years even yet. His mustache
tickled me, it brought a smile to my face to have to fight my way past
his yellow mustache.  He bent again to kiss me again, moving his head
more gracefully this time.  I kissed him and dreamed of long
afternoons by the river, where he might talk of his dead parents and
his Uncle Griffin, of wars and his own tragedies.  Then take his first
steps into forgiveness and his own salvation.

I turned to the next of my heroes, knowing already in my heart that
Mr. Tom might seek my body and my love, regardless of our many years
difference.  He might love me, and I dearly wished to feel his body
and his lust and love. I found this astonishing.

Mr. Kim attempted to kiss my hand, but I seized his head and brought
his lips to mine.

We kissed and I understood.  Our hours together as man and wife had
carved a new future for us both.  We might become more than friends,
now, we could become new minted man and wife.  Perhaps.  I might know
more if we survived this night.

I turned to Belle Anna Torres, my last and newest hero.  Her smile was
mockery, her smile was resignation, her smile was defeat and ashes and
the future.  Yet she leaned forward to accept my grudging kiss, though
she let a fog of sadness smoke her eyes.

The concept of women loving women was something foreign to me, but
Belle Anna was infinitely more than a friend already.  I brought up
memories of close moments with John Bee, I recalled slow kisses on
steamy nights, I recalled passionate moments when we clove the one to
the other.  I remembered Harry Kim bruising my lips, then caressing
them with his lips and tongue.

My body remembered, and I bent my head sideways and touched Belle
Anna's mouth with mine.  I licked her lower lip clean and stabbed my
tongue inside her mouth, lightly, tentatively.  In moments her face
and mouth curved to hold me as a lover might.  Her tongue carefully
touched my teeth, her face raced to nibble on my ear, a licking tongue
found my chin and neck, I sighed into her ear.

Then she broke away, her mouth kissing my already sweaty forehead.

We paused, and the men looked away in embarrassment, not sure what was
happening.  A silent pause, then I moved. Before I could speak Belle
Anna spoke into my regrets.

"I know," she whispered, "It is all you can give me.  Thank you for
giving me that."

We broke, and suddenly we all found something to do.  First there was
a cleaning of my tin plates and cutlery with pump water, restrained
touching by us all, a resplendent moment of loving, and caring, and
comradeship.  We were a bright and shiny city on a hill, the four of
us, dedicated to putting down evil on earth.  Knights of the Round
Table in Colorado, and I was their erratic senile female King Arthur
in skirts.

A golden moment for all of us to remember.

Then.

They were upon us, the ardent servants of the King Who Has Fallen, the
ever shining Father of the Flies.

Tom raised his head, looking into the shadows of the west. A cloud of
menace.  "Horsemen!" he shouted.  An army of Jenghiz Khan.

It was logical, of course.  It was yet still light, and by this light
they could see and avoid my sod pit, and my farm machinery.  They
could see, and they could better see me, us, and avoid any traps we
might have for them.

In any case they meant to have our heads, all of us heroes, even if we
were Knights of the Round Table.

I went into my house and stuffed my pockets with shotgun shells.  My
double-barrel fit neatly into the crook of my arm as I went to stand
outside the doorway of my sod home. I saw Belle Anne darting forward,
two pistols in her hands, a Paladin of the West, a dancer on the
beaten land of my farmyard.

She looked so rakish, so male, so brave as she sprinted to meet the
invader.  Suddenly they were among us and she was among them.  She
built a wall about herself, shooting horses both right and left.  The
shaken and often wounded Kazon she finished off with that golden
plated six-shooter.

Bam!  The.

Bam!  Lord.

Bam!  Is.

Bam!  My

Bam!  Shepherd.

Bam!  Missed.

Each shot meaning another Hirogen Ranch Kazon was gone to Judgment.

Three sped past me, splinters whipped me as their bullets came near.
I gut shot one horse with my shotgun, then shot the rider from behind
at the base of his neck in back.

Bam!  I.

Carefully setting my shotgun under my arm for a moment I sidled around
to the side, then the back of my home.  It was there that I found
myself facing three Kazon with cans of naphtha and pistols in hand.
My Tredegar's were already aimed forward, and I got my bullets off
first.  I kept shooting until all three were lying dead on the ground.

Shall.  Not.  Want.

I reloaded my shotgun, then finished coming around my house.

More horsemen tried bullying their way through my farmyard. Harry Kim
suddenly glided out of nowhere to my east, and his sword dropped all
five Kazon horses in squalling agony.  He split horse bellies and took
off legs and ripped open horsemen as they fell.  He ignored the
bullets from Kazon guns and exacted a fierce price for Kazon and
Hirogen arrogance.

Two more Kazon came out if the west, trying to shoot Harry.

Bam!  He.  Bam!  Leadeth.  Both Kazon took shotgun blasts from me,
both in the sides, falling like cut trees, slow, as if lamenting their
choice of leaders to follow.

I ran to collect their guns. to collect other guns from the Kazon
fallen, my Tredegar's now empty.  My blood sang.  My inner voice sang
of Swords of Victory wielded in my hands as if made of tin instead of
flaming steel.  I was an Old Testament Prophet come to spill the idols
of Judah.

My heart broke, my voice cried in agony, my soul lamented. Tom Paris
fell, I saw him smitten.

Beautiful Tom Paris, and I prayed Jesus took him.  Please, Lord, I
prayed in my anguish.  Mayhaps he was not amongst the select, but
maybe the doctrines of the select are just another human folly.

He is worthy of a place at your side, Lord, all in all, he was a good
man.  He was one of my heroes, Lord.

I watched him change as the bullet went through his forehead.  He was
fighting from behind the sod walls of my stable.  You could see the
change cloud his eyes and give him peace.

There were two Kazon setting my home alight, I do not know if either
were wounded by me.  I took another Colt from the hands of a damned
dead Kazon.  The two Kazon were sheltering on the east side of my
burning house.  They quickly retreated to the side of my house.  I
turned the corner and killed them both with my pistol.

Bam!  Me.  Bam!  Beside.

It was immaterial if I was losing or winning this war.  I am doing my
best, Lord.  The Lord shall comfort me.  He shall giveth me victory
against my foe.  All praise to the Lord. I went looking for more
loaded pistols to salvage.  I found a new Remington pump rifle
instead.

The Lord giveth me a Sword to smiteth my enemies hip and thigh.

Three Kazon in whitish dirty duster coats try to rush me from the
southwest and I emptied the Remington without knowing for sure what I
was able to accomplish.  I have been shot in my hip, and I can feel
the hot blood leaking down my leg.  It hurts, but I can still walk.
Standing erect in my now-burning stables I take up the Sharps rifle
and Army Colt Tom Paris had held in his still-warm and soft flesh.

"We are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon
earth are but a shadow," I quoted from Job, willing forgiveness upon
Tom's soul.  "All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, the
Gospel according to Saint Mark."

I emptied the rifle and Colt into the shadows of men with naphtha and
guns in their hands.  They ran away when I shot at them, all but two
who had to crawl.

Where had I dropped my shotgun?  It was then I realized I was almost
blinded with pain from my left arm and hand.  I looked down at it,
seeing the blood welling out of the terrible wounds in my hand and
wrist.  It hurt so very bad. I shall trust in the Lord.

I stepped out from the cover of the stable walls, making my way as
best I could back across my farmyard.  It was far too full of dead and
dying horses and men for anyone to ride through it now.

My poor sod house was burning fitfully.  My stable was burning much
more lustily, fueled by much naphtha.  My poor horses remained tied to
the trees, but three were fallen and looking very dead.  My innocent
creatures hurt in a fight not their own.  We were given dominion over
the beasts of the field, but surely it were unfair and cruel to take
their lives.  I closed my ears, shooting another fallen Kazon horse in
the head, giving it freedom from it's pain.

Forgive me, oh Lord, for my terrible sins.

I bent to pick up my double-barreled shotgun, swinging it onto my hip,
carrying it in the crook of my bloodied left arm.  Yea though I walk
through the Valley of Death....

I could no longer tell the screams of men from the screams of horses.
They both echoed through my senses, making this truly an early evening
of horror.  This must be what my John Bee endured the days of
Bentonville.  An hour's stroll from our graceful home, but the smells
of burnt powder and horse's innards spilt in the grass, the woeful
cries of bodies wracked and souls going to their maker.

I bent to pluck a Colt from out the hand of a Hirogen, the one named
Marcus.  His eyes were still holding thought, his eyes crying out in
pain through a silent voice.  I put that Colt behind my belt in front,
making it my belly gun.  They that liveth by the sword....

The cold comfort of my stable's stable walls were around me again,
eerie light marking the coming darkness as my stable burned all along
the north side.  Flame spat itself onto the floor, a dull roar
attacking my ears as the board roof beams cracked and bent.

A Kazon face showed itself at the east side, ducking back as I missed
with the Colt.  By instinct I turned to the west in time to see Belle
Anna leap on a fallen horse, skirt around the tossing head of a nearer
horse and turn through the stable's west side.

Oh, such a dancer she was!  The very essence of grace and movement,
tied to the skeins of death itself!  Oh, so very beautiful she was, a
pistol in each hand, the Lord's Sword come to Earth, too beautiful and
shining to be beheld.  She was the nimble glory of Jehovah incarnate,
her very essence shouting vengeance and love.

Her smile was destiny, her feet barely touching Earth as she smiteth
enemies hip and thigh, again and again.

I lost the ability to breath as I saw the three deadly bullets tear
their way through her chest and midriff.

Not my Belle Anna, I prayed the Lord.  In my selfishness I asked the
Lord to take me and let her live.  I am an old woman and of little
further use in the plans of God or men. She is young, she is beauty
itself, please do not take her.

Not yet, Lord, not now, not here, please give her one more minute, one
more hour, one more year, surely she might be given a future, she is
so beautiful.

As beautiful as my John Bee and my girls had been.

No human may know the plans of God.

Belle Anna rested for a second in my kneeling lap, looking forward
into that unknowable vista.  A Kazon appeared in the open doorway of
my burning stable, I saw and felt the bullet enter Belle Anna's
shoulder, burning itself deep into her chest.  She quivered in
approaching death, a rattle in her throat, one hand trying to take
comfort from me.  She was laid over my thighs in collapse as I
crouched to hold my gambler girl to me.  I snapped three bullets at
the Kazon, but don't know if I hit him.

Belle Anna looked up at me, her eyes tearing from the pain. A gout of
blood, two, three flowed from her mouth over her delicate chin.  Her
eyes held knowledge of the passageway opening for her, she felt the
agonies, she looked to me with understanding clearing her eyesight.  I
kissed her on her sweet bloody lips, tasting the copper of her life
passing. She died in my arms.

A flickering brightness, then nothing.  No more giggling baths in a
frigid river, no more pretty women on her arms, no more broad smiles
full of teeth and bravado.

I stumbled to my feet ignoring the broken bundle sprawled on a stable
floor.  Clasping a Colt in one hand, blood dripping down the other
arm.  A Kazon appeared, he had the draw on me and I raised my pistol
to shoot.  Make strong thy arm of Vengeance, my Lord, give it strength
enough to smite this awful foe.

A sword blade appeared in his middle, and withdrew.  The Kazon
suffered the first of his many agonies as his face changed and he
understood he had met the worm that eats all flesh.  He slowly
crumpled, his mouth open in the shout he could never utter.

Harry Kim stood there, his sword still in his hand.  He said; "It's
quiet."

Indeed it was.  Two Kazon lay in the yard behind Mr. Kim, very near my
carefully tended graves.  They had no heads, and I shuddered to think
my Harry Kim had indeed been a hard bright sharp sword of the Lord.

Eventually we understood we had won.  The Lord had given us a terrible
Victory.  The air was sharp with ash and spilt blood, my mouth was
copper and my nose breathed in a flooding carnage, my eyes beheld
crumpled once-living flesh in every direction.  The Hirogen had reaped
a truly bitter harvest.  The night held no more gunshots.  Only the
cries of men and horses, alive or dying.

We had won.  How terrible is Victory, how awful is war. General Lee
had said; "It is a good thing War is so terrible, for otherwise I
might come to love it."

Yet we waited, our hands touching, ignoring the sharp cries of horses
in pain.  Harry recovered my John Bee's Guest Whiskey, sitting inside,
by the doorway of my burning sod abode.  He poured it on our wounds,
mine serious, his two grazes on the inside of his thigh.  I forced him
to leave off his clothes and I bathed his naked flesh with burning
whiskey and dressed his wounds moderately well, with his help.  Mine
must wait for Doctor Emil Howard.

We rose and went into the night to see for ourselves if more of our
foes gathered for another attempt to snuff out our lives.

Mr. Kim's bandaging was as best as he could manage, and it allowed me
to carefully hobble about this battlefield.  Our purpose from the
beginning was to arm ourselves with their weapons, for the next round,
if there was one.  They had killed all my horses, and if I became
infected, they still might have already killed me.  It was night, but
as my house and stable continued to burn down, we had sufficient light
for our task.

Their pistols, rifles and gun belts were mine, Mr. Kim said. It was
thus the custom on the battlefields he had seen in Asia.

I did not fight him, though I thought it ghoulish.  In any event, I
was quite unable to protest by word or deed.  I also could hardly deny
the logic of his actions.  They might come back, tonight or some other
night.  The Servants of the Lord of Lies are never allowed repose.

I simply pulled a not-too-dirty horse blanket to me near where my John
Bee and my lovely girls lay in silent repose. I sat and watched Mr.
Kim accumulate arms, piling them in the back of my buckboard.

He found seven living Kazon, four of which he had not the strength to
pull from beneath their dead horses.  He gave all whiskey on the
outside, and whiskey on the inside.  All weapons were taken, and we
ignored pitiful cries for help that we could not give.  The wounded
horses he finished with bullets to their brains, taking them away from
their incomprehensible agony.

He was re-loading the Colt's when we heard more horses coming.

It was Marshall Chakotay Pointe, two of his deputies, and twelve
special deputies who had obviously come to my aid. Mr. Kim and myself
stumbled to greet them, tears again streaking my ash-black cheeks.
Though I admit I had one loaded Colt in my right-hand holster and
another in my right hand.

It had been a hard night.

---

I awoke confused, startled, afraid, hurting, exhausted.  I smelled of
horse, I smelled horse innards, my breath stank of someone's strong
likker, and I looked into the sardonic smile of Doctor Emil Howard.
He told me to relax, he was going to give me a few swallows of
laudanum to drink.  It was for the pain.

I was laying on my side on three horse blankets laid on the ground for
me to rest on.  Another blanket was my pillow, and a fifth was laid
over me.  It was stuck to me through seepage of blood through my
bandage, but Doc Emil was quick to scissor it off me.  My arm had hurt
so bad it wore me out, and the likker had finally knocked me out.

The opium drink was rich and nauseating, but shortly reality and the
pain flew away.  I could see from where I was that the Deputies were
pulling the bodies out from underneath the dead horses.  It was
grueling work, and horrible, for sometimes the blood and matter from
inside the Kazon had blossomed into a fetid mess.  I saw Mr. Kim cross
my vision with a pair of rifles in his arms, so I knew the act of
salvage continued into the night.

Doctor Emil gave me a few more sips of the Poppies juice, and I shut
my eyes as he cleansed and worked on my wounds. The roaring sting as
he splashed Red Eye Whiskey over my wounds told me he had been talking
to Mr. Kim.  However, he had been with the Unionists at Resaca and
Nashville.  Maybe it was his own discovered way of dealing with
infection.

The re-dressing jerked me awake, my pain forcing me to roar and then
cry in my agony.  He gave me more to drink, then jerked me awake when
he set my broken bones.  I screamed heartmeant.

A few more sips and I idly remembered Doctor Emil Howard had also been
with the Army of the Potomac at First Manassas. He was such a
irritable and testy man.  Yet he was kind and charitable.  He had been
in the Valley of Death, and we must forgive him his small tempers.

Another sip and I went to sleep, ignoring him as he worked on my
broken arm.  Even in sleep I could smell the blood and the guts of
horses.

I dreamed terrible dreams that thankfully fled me as I awoke in the
morning.  The light was gray, heralding sunrise coming closer.  I was
amazed to find Miss Selma Nine ministering to me.  She might be a
terrible sinner, but her manners and her intents were those of a true
Saint.  She chattered in words and phrases that made no impression on
me as she helped me in and out of my primitive little outhouse.

Then I understood, once I was thinking well enough to see her face.
She had come to see if it were true that Belle Anna Torres had fled
this coil of tears.

Miss Nine was still a beautiful, tall and striking woman, but she was
as crumpled as that of someone must when attempting to overcome a
great grief.

A buggy and a buckboard lay in the clear grass, west of my awful
farmyard.  The Delaney sisters were ministering to the small row of
wounded Kazon.  Three Kazon looked unharmed and I suspected their
backs had been broken.  One Kazon had already died of his wounds, and
another looked white and waxy.  He held the hand of Noah Lessing, Mr.
Loewe's Negro, who was reading to him from the Bible.  Seeking to save
his soul whilst there was still time.  The Lord's work be done.

Unsteady on my feet, Miss Nine guided me to an upturned water barrel,
folding another smelly blanket underneath my dizzy body.

For a second she turned to her buckboard.  She lifted one of the
blankets, letting her head dip to place a lingering kiss on the
cleansed lips of Belle Anna.  The blood on her chin had been removed,
and even I saw she was once more so very beautiful.  One of the
deputies followed suit behind her, kissing both Mr. Paris and Miss
Torres.  They that soweth in pain shall reap in joy.

Stumbling, I lay down and returned to sleep's comforts, the scent of
opium thick in my nostrils.

---

Marshall Chakotay Pointe helped me to rise the next time I came awake.
Miss Nine helped me with the outhouse again, then served me a few
small canteen swallows of her semi-hard cider, until I was not so
thirsty.  The sweetness in it was like nectar.  The Marshall put me
back on the barrel, steadying me with his strong hand until my
universe ceased to spin.

My stable and sod house were black ruins, and my farmyard still had
the appearance of Hades Gate.  I tried not to imagine how places like
Cold Harbor and Shiloh must have looked.

I know I smelled terrible, and the horse blanket wrapped around me did
nothing to dispel the miasma.  My heart took comfort in the sight of
Mr. Kim continuing to walk and work, though exhaustion was writ plain
on his face.  My arm still hurt so bad.

A party of horsemen arrived to my west, then stormed into my farmyard
on foot.  It was Bruce Hirogen and three of his Kazon, bad news and
evil intentions incarnate.  He veered to reach me, every step an
outburst of anger.  His Kazon orbited him closely, their hands busy on
the handles of their guns.

"WHERE ARE MY SONS???" he thundered, his face like a prairie fire.
Full of wind, heat, threat and suddenness.  He stomped forward until
he stood in front of me, his teeth showing in pain.

Not expecting it, he slashed me across the face with his riding quirt,
knocking me to the ground.  I cried out in sudden pain as I landed on
my injured arm.  I tried to rise and he slashed me across the
shoulders and face again. Bruce Hirogen raised his hand to strike me
again and again, but Marshall Pointe seized his upraised hand, bowling
over an angry Kazon in the process.

A shotgun blast sounded loud in the air, bring quiet to my farmyard.
One of the badge-wearing deputies stood a few yards from me, his
barrels still pointed skyward.

People in my farmyard suddenly grew aware of what was happening.  I
was crying pitiful in my pain, huddling on the ground before this
unexpected personal attack.  Bruce Hirogen stood frozen in his tracks,
quirt raised in the air, ready to strike me again.  Marshall Chakotay
had a face of red stone, daring Bruce Hirogen to make another move.
If ever a man had a look of approaching disaster in his eyes, it was
Chakotay Pointe.

"Go ahead, Mr. Hirogen," he softly dared. "Touch her again when we're
surrounded by proof of the war you are waging against this single
innocent woman.

"I've counted twenty-nine dead Kazon here this night, and all four of
your remaining sons," he whispered loud enough for all to hear..  "I
have found altogether nine Kazon wounded, including three  outside the
fence.  Two have died, and a third is already on his way to judgment.

"I count seven Kazon dead this week, and two of your sons. This
Christian woman has lost her two daughters and her husband in this
war.

"One of my deputies lies dead on that buckboard, and a woman with him
who once wore the badge of the Texas Rangers.

"The toll of this war now stands at forty-nine dead, Bruce Hirogen,
and more are dying.  I have known hard fought skirmishes in Virginia
that produced fewer dead.

"I must warn you that my patience with your ways and your greed and
your murders has long since gone past any hope of my forgiving or
accepting.  You have made of me a sworn enemy, and I hereby caution
you of continuing in this way.

"Isn't it time to end this war?"

Miss Nine was strong, alone she lifted me back onto my barrel, with
only a little help from me.  Her face was as stony as that of Chakotay
Pointe.  She had lost a lover in Belle Anna, all due to this man and
his insolence, greed, hate and sinful mind.  She too had reached the
limits of her patience.  Bruce Hirogen ignored the righteous anger
about him.

"End it?" he roared.  "I am young enough to start another family, you
half-breed bastard, and I will.  They will live to put an end to your
threats, your life, and that of this obstinate bitch here.  I will
live to see you both in the grave, do you hear?

"It will end as I wish, and you and your Jezebel here will come to
know who has won.

"She may have a victory here," he taunted.  "But it's me who'll win
the war.  I can hire a hundred new Kazon, and I will.  Even Klingons.
I'm the richest man in this state and I can hire an endless stream of
guns until you're a myth of the past and so is she."

Bruce Hirogen folded his arms in triumph, nodding to himself, staring
at his Kazon, knowing he would yet destroy me.  Just for daring to put
barbed wire in a single one of the trails by which his beef reached
the railroad.

Miss Nine stood next to the Marshall, her arm grasping his shoulder.
Her other hand dipped into her pocket, drawing out the .32 calibre
Pepper Box she always carried.  Without hesitation or word she pulled
the trigger, tearing Bruce Hirogen's face into a distended ball as
bullets ricocheted inside his skull.  He fell as if Mr. Kim's sword
had cut off his legs at the knees.

Chakotay and the others stared at her in stupefaction as Bruce Hirogen
sent his soul forward into the mystery.

His faithful Kazon did nothing, not knowing what to do.  One finally
reached for his Colt, but as he was suddenly looking down the barrel
of a shotgun, he thought better of it.

"No, you won't, you murdering bastard," Miss Nine sharply said.  "You
killed my love and it stops here, you aren't going to murder any more
beautiful lovers, this is the last one you'll kill, you piece of
filthy dog meat. It ends here. Right here.  Right now."

---

The Marshall stood, he did not chase me away, as the six of us sat on
my log in front of my one-time sod home. Chakotay, Miss Nine, Harry
Kim, the Delaney Sisters, and me.

"I wish for all of you to listen very carefully.  Above all I want you
all to get your stories straight for when the Judge gets here,"
Chakotay said to us six.

"Everyone here heard you, Miss Nine, they heard you say that Bruce
Hirogen and his back-stabbing Kazon and sons killed your lover.

"We all six know that lover was Belle Anna Torres, may her soul rest
in rapture in the arms of our Lord, amen.

"But from this moment forward we must always say Miss Nine's lover was
Tom Paris.

"When you go before the Judge, Miss Nine, you revenged your lover, Tom
Paris, with a very rash move.  You killed Bruce Hirogen over the
untimely death of Tom Paris, Miss Nine.

"Go ahead and bury Miss Torres in a lover's grave, Miss Nine.  But
bury Tom Paris, her friend, next to her. Alongside each other, in the
heroic rest they both deserve.

"On the single headstone between their graves carve a legend that lets
everyone think you're referring to Tom Paris as your lover, and Miss
Torres as your loving friend.  And not the other way around."

The Marshall paused to wipe his brow with his bandanna, staring
intently at Miss Nine.

"If you all say this small story I can guarantee you no jury in
Colorado would convict you of murder, Miss Nine.  Nor should they.

"Do we have an understanding, all of us?"

---

A soft stifling sun was shining through the new lace drapes, the heat
and the opium conspiring to give me a terrible headache.  I was
disoriented for a minute, but recognized the setting room next to
Doctor Emil's operating theater.  I was lying on a very stiff padded
mechanical table, throat dry, still feeling all my wounds.  My ears
told me some Kazon was next door, almost completely under the
influence of the laudanum.  He was mumbling in snatches, and I knew
the Doctor was laboring to save his life.

I tried to get up, but could not.  It was then I discovered I was
under a thin sheet, and my clothes consisted of but a single shift.
Selma Nine was dozing in a overstuffed Albert chair, and I must have
made a noise.  She was immediately standing alongside me, offering me
another sip of the sweet hard cider she obviously placed much great
medicinal value in.

It was incredibly soothing to feel her hands on me, and a rag of water
to wash and bathe my face.  She adjusted my pillow, then rolled me to
one side and the other, to soothe my stiff body and remove the
wrinkles underneath that were irritating me.  It was luxurious to be
pampered and be taken care of.  The opium drinks I'd had made me quite
dizzy, but my arm and hand seemed to have become only surpassingly
painful.  All of my many wounds ached.  I looked a question at Miss
Nine and she smiled down at me.

"The wounds seem clean and without gangrene," Miss Nine commented,
"but of course we won't know for sure for a day or so.  Emil - Doctor
Howard - seemed confident of your eventual recovery."  She still
seemed as lovely as ever, but her face held the darkness of recent
tragedy.  I could not imagine why she was so solicitous of me, but I
was thankful of it.

"Mr. Kim," she barked unexpectedly.  My Oriental hero slid the doors
open to my left, and quickly walked to my side. He must have gotten
some sleep because he looked much better than he had in my bloody
farmyard.  He held my hand and patted it.

"Mr. Kim," I began, "I have used you most sinfully when my wits were
fled, and I wish to ask your forgiveness...."

"Hush," he said.  "You are a courageous woman.  We are friends.  It is
enough that we are that.  No apologies, no regrets, give me no
confessions, nothing has occurred for which you need seek my
forgiveness.  It is I who owe you.

"Especially give me no words of remorse.  You are not sorry, are you?

"I am proud to have known you, and proud to have fought alongside
you."  He bent very close to my ear, whispering; "I am especially
proud to have known your love."

Mr. Kim gave me a chaste kiss, and it was now well between us.

"Do you know you are famous?" he said.  "Harper's has telegraphed,
asking if you wish to tell your story.  The Battle of Penance River
has made the pages of the papers in San Francisco and New Orleans.
They speak of the hundreds dead and the woman who met her foes with
six-guns blazing. They call you a heroine.  And me.

"They will probably even write a dreadful tale about Miss Nine as
well.  Your secret rendezvous each night with Deputy Paris, where you
both pledged unending love.  Your terrible voice full of threats and
awful curses before you took Bruce Hirogen's life."

Mr. Kim smiled with a mouth of shining teeth at Miss Nine. "Would you
like that, Miss Nine?  They will undoubtedly make you out to be a
pitiful soiled dove with your face shrouded in multiple veil's, hiding
in grief over your brave strong dead Deputy Lover.  You'll be a tragic
figure who took the only avenue possible to revenge your love's
premature death."

She managed a smile back.  "I suppose that is as close as they can get
to truth," she replied.  "Though I hardly feel like a soiled dove."

Her smile was like that of the old Selma Nine.  I felt better to see
it.

"The whole state must be abuzz with your exploits, Missus Janeway," he
said.  "I don't doubt I'll be made into a tall blond veteran of
Gettysburg, once a colonel, come West to forget the terrible death of
my consumptive wife.

"I wonder if I'll be a Secessh colonel or a Yank one?  And if they'll
let me keep my sword?"

They were both trying to make me feel better, and they were
succeeding.

Mr. Kim then laid a small leather pouch in my hands.

"Bruce Hirogen paid each of his Kazon thirty dollar gold to attack
you," Mr. Kim said.  "We got eight hundred in ten and twenty dollar
gold pieces in that bag.  Miss Nine and the Delaney girls didn't have
no qualms about helping me rifle the pockets of the Kazon.  Marshall
Chakotay Pointe looked the other way while the ladies were gathering
your golden legacy."

"The Marshall said there would be enough in other pockets to give all
the Kazon and Hirogen a good Christian burial," Miss Nine added.  A
moment's pause while Miss Nine shook her head.

"I've been given Belle Anna's personal belonging, Missus Janeway.
Belle Anna was never a person who could abide being tied to one woman
all her life.  But she had a small photo of me in her treasure box.  I
was something special to her.  I'll keep that memory bright in my
heart.

"Women like us are rarely even left with that much out of life, Missus
Janeway.

"In your great loss last month, I envied you the fact that you had
something wonderful in your husband and girls to remember."

Neither myself nor Mr. Kim knew what to say.  I'll probably keep the
gold, I thought.  It'd fix up my farm, with considerable left over.
What I'll do next is unknown.

There's Mr. Kim, of course.  The thought of a heathen Chinaman as a
husband gave me goose bumps inside, but not unpleasant ones.  It
suddenly struck me there were plenty of able-bodied men in this neck
of the state who wouldn't be adverse to getting hitched to some
fifty-year-old widow who owned a good rich well-watered two-thousand
acre farm free and clear.

Miss Nine patted my hand again, being comfort for me.  "I'm going to
hold Fort Moorage's biggest and fanciest wake tomorrow, for Belle Anna
and Mr. Paris.  Do say you'll come," she begged.  "Doctor Howard has a
wheelchair and crutches somewhere, and my girls will be delighted if
you'll allow them to help you around.

"Do say you'll come?" she asked.

The war is over.  I'm entitled to a few tomorrow's.

---

continued in 'Range War: Epilog'