Look Behind You (The Order of the Silver Star) by Elisabeth Wolfe Page B

there were times when he missed being in the fabled Frontier Battalion, and this was one of them.
    Hitler was a psychopath, dammit, a menace to society—no, to civilization. Just seeing his face in the newsreels they played at the Lantex over in Llano made Matt’s trigger finger itch. Somebody needed to see that crook either locked up or shot. And it galled Matt that those fatheads in Washington would let London take some guns and bullets and buckets-o’-bolts but not a handful of private citizens who happened to be the best in the world at what they did, who could put that... that... Stinkkatze where he belonged: 7 either behind bars or six feet under.
    By the time Matt had pounded his frustrations into the last fencepost, however, the air had grown thick with the scent of early bluebonnets, and the sun had come out but hadn’t yet burned through the still-impenetrable fog. The creek seemed blanketed in fragrance and liquid light. He squared his broad shoulders and looked around, his skin prickling with that odd sense that told him something was about to happen.
    And suddenly, something did.
    “Top o’ the mornin’ to ye, Matt,” said a female voice with a lilting Irish accent.
    Matt spun to see a tall woman, nearly a match for his own height, standing next to his horse. She was dressed in a flowing, medieval-looking dress that was some kind of emerald green silk trimmed with gold, her curly red hair cascading down her back and her green eyes dancing with more laughter than her small smile might convey. His brain supplied Fairy , but that didn’t make any sense. She looked human enough—though he had no idea where she’d come from. The fog looked undisturbed, and she didn’t seem to be damp from it at all.
    He cleared his throat and removed his soggy hat. “You have the advantage of me, ma’am. Do I know you?”
    She laughed, which sent a shiver down his back. “No, we’ve not met, and no, you needn’t ask my name. Even if I gave you a name, it mightn’t be the right one.”
    “Um. Well. Can I... help you with something?”
    “ Nil, mo chara , I have come to help you.” 8 She stepped up to him, and before he could shy away, she fastened a golden necklace with a green gemstone pendant around his neck. “So long as you wear this stone, no harm will come to you in battle. But with the gift come these geasa : 9 tell no one whence it came; wear no orange; and never bend your knee or raise your arm to Hitler, even in jest.”
    “Not even to shoot him?”
    “Well, for that, sure,” she replied with a chuckle, stepping back a bit. “But ye know what I mean.”
    “That—dumb salute.”
    “Indeed.”
    He tucked the necklace inside his shirt collar, thinking he felt the stone thrumming with some kind of music he couldn’t hear, and shivered again. “Is... ma’am, do you know something I don’t?”
    “Quite a lot. But you’ll learn the reason for the gift soon. And when you do, go without fear. I’ll see to matters here. Fare ye well.” She kissed his cheek—and vanished.
    Stunned, Matt put a hand to his burning cheek and looked around for some sign that would either prove he’d been dreaming or prove that he hadn’t. The fog rolled back swiftly, but the growing light revealed no trace of anyone having walked up by any path other than the one he’d ridden along on the way out, and the ground where he was standing didn’t give any conclusive evidence of a second pair of footprints… although there might be a little more clover than had been there when he’d arrived. Yet as he straightened again, the unfamiliar weight of the pendant thunked against his breastbone, thrumming as before.
    So he hadn’t dreamed it. But he still didn’t understand what had happened.
    The fence was finished, so Matt drew a deep breath and put on his hat, gathered his gear, and rode back to the house, still in a daze. By the time he got both gear and horse put away, his watch told him it was time for dinner.
    But