"I spoke to her," replied Bill shortly. He turned toward the outlaw chief. "She suggested I could ask you whether you wouldn't let the Hill Bluffer and myself out of the gate, even if it has been closed for the night. I'd like to get back to the village before morning."
"She did?" answered Bone Breaker, with that same deceptive mildness of tone. It was impossible for Bill to tell whether the Dilbian was intending to agree or refuse to let Bill and the Bluffer leave. The Hill Bluffer chuckled—for no reason apparent to Bill. Mula-ay chuckled again, also.
"You mean," Mula-ay said, "you're going to go off and leave the little creature here, after all?"
Bill felt his ears beginning to grow hot.
"For the moment," he said, "yes. But I'll be back, if necessary."
"There you are!" said the Hill Bluffer happily. "Didn't I say it? He'll be back. And I'll bring him!"
"Anytime, Pick-and-Shovel," rumbled Bone Breaker mildly. "Just so it's in the daytime."
"Of course I'll come in the daytime," he said. "I wouldn't be leaving now, but after talking to—ah—Dirty Teeth, we decided—that is, I decided—to get back to the village tonight."
"And why not?" trumpeted the Bluffer, in something very like a challenging tone of voice.
"No reason at all," said Bone Breaker mildly. "Take all the time you want. Come on, the two of you, and I'll see the gate opened and both of you let out."
The outlaw chief headed off toward the end of the valley where the wall and the gates were. The Hill Bluffer absently started after him, and Bill was forced to run in an undignified fashion after the Dilbian postman and jerked at the belt of his harness in order to alert the Bluffer to the fact that Bill could not keep up with his strides.
"Oh?—sorry, Pick-and-Shovel," chuckled the Bluffer, as if his attention had wandered. He paused to scoop up Bill in his two big paws and plump him down in the saddle on his back. "You kind of slipped my mind for the moment . . . are you all set, up there?"
Bill replied in the affirmative and the Hill Bluffer once more started off after the Bone Breaker.
For the first time, Bill began to realize what kind of favor the Bone Breaker was doing by letting him out after hours. Opening the gate was far from a simple procedure. First the guards had to find torches of resinous wood and light them. Then with the help of Bone Breaker and the Hill Bluffer they removed two heavy cross-beams from the inner side of the gates. Finally, with a great deal of heaving, puffing, and shoving, the gates were forced to rumble open, squeaking and roaring as they each traversed on a sort of millstone arrangement, with one round wooden wheel rotating upon the flat surface of another. At last, however, the gates stood open.
"Well, good night and good traveling, Bluffer. You too, Pick-and-Shovel," said Bone Breaker.
Bill and the Bluffer returned the good night, and the Bluffer headed out into the patch of outer darkness beyond the gates and the reach of the flickering torches. As that darkness swallowed them up, Bill could hear the gates once more rumbling shut on the millwheel-like arrangement behind them, and over this rode a powerful shout, which could only have come from the lungs of Bone Breaker.
"Remember, Pick-and-Shovel!" he heard. "In the daylight!"
"What's the matter, Pick-and-Shovel," growled the Bluffer underneath Bill. "Aren't you going to promise him?"
"Oh—" said Bill, startled. He raised up in his stirrups, turned his head, and shouted back as loudly as he could. "I promise—by daylight, Bone Breaker!"
The Bluffer chuckled. Behind them, Bill could see the outlaw chief nodding in satisfaction. Bill turned his head back toward the front, and sank down into his saddle, adjusting himself to the sway and plunge of the big body of the Hill Bluffer, striding beneath him. The lanky Dilbian postman said nothing except to chuckle once or twice to himself. Since Bill was too tired to inquire what the joke was, neither one of them said anything further, until they were once more treading the main street of Muddy Nose Village and the Residency loomed before them in the moonlight.
"All right, light down here," said the Bluffer, stopping abruptly before the Residency's front door. Bill complied.
"Are you staying here—" Bill began, but the Bluffer was ahead of him.
"I'm off down to the Village Inn, myself," the Dilbian replied. "If you want me, that's where you'll find me—from now until dawn, that is," grumbled the Hill Bluffer.
"Well—ah—I'll probably have lots of things to keep me busy early in the morning here—"
"You can say that, all right!" interrupted the Bluffer. "They say this blacksmith called Flat Fingers, here in the village, is a pretty good workman, but it's my guess you're going to have to stand over him all the time he's at it. Well, I'll stand there right beside you. We'll mosey up to his forge tomorrow morning and see what kind of promises we can get out of him."
"Flat Fingers?" echoed Bill, puzzled. "Blacksmith? What would I be wanting a blacksmith for?"
The Bluffer chuckled slyly.
"Why, to make you one of those sissy Lowlander fighting tools they call a sword—and a shield, of course! You didn't think they had things like that just lying around so you could go pick one up when you needed it? You Shorties take too much for granted."
"Sword?" echoed Bill, by this time thoroughly confused. "Shield?"
"I don't blame you," said the Hill Bluffer, but chuckling again. "It'd gall me to the very bone, too, to have to fight with gadgets like that. But there's no choice." He paused, peering down at Bill in a way that was almost sly. "After all, you were the one who challenged Bone Breaker, so he's got choice of place and style—and you can bet he isn't going to tangle without his blade and buckler. Trust a Lowlander for that."
Bill stood, frozen, staring upward at the big furry shape of the Dilbian, looming over him.
"I challenged the Bone Breaker to a fight with swords?" he managed to get out, finally.
The Hill Bluffer released his inner glee in a sudden roar of laughter that shattered the sleeping silence of the darkened village.
"Thought you'd missed out on the chance, didn't you?" he sputtered, finally calming down. "I could have told you different as soon as we left the valley, but I thought I'd let you chew on your hard luck for a while first. Didn't I tell you you were lucky to have me? The minute I heard Bone Breaker say Dirty Teeth was staying there because she wanted to, I saw what was up. She'd got some female notion about not wanting you to tangle with Bone Breaker. That was it, right? So later on after you'd gone out to talk to her, I got Bone Breaker alone in a corner and put in a few good words."
"Good words . . . ?" echoed Bill, an uneasy suspicion beginning to form in his mind.
"You can bet I did," said the Bluffer. "I said it was a real shame you and he weren't going to be able to tangle after all—especially as you'd said you'd find it interesting, and I was sure he felt the same way. I pointed out that after all we didn't have to have a real spelled-out challenge, just as long as folks thought there'd been one. I said he could tell his folks you'd said to me that it was a lucky thing Dirty Teeth didn't need rescuing, because you could have taken him with one paw tied behind your back."
Bill gulped.
"And he could say," went on the Bluffer gleefully, "that the minute he'd heard this from me he told me that he'd never believed the story about the Half-Pint-Posted and the Streamside Terror—that he didn't believe any Shorty could last two seconds with a man like him—and he didn't mind if I passed the word along to you. And I did, and you challenged him, naturally, right away, swords or anything he wanted."
"Swords . . ." said Bill dazedly.
"I know how you feel," said the Bluffer with sudden sympathy. "Kind of sickening, isn't it, when a man's still got the teeth and nails he was born with? Anyway, we can get you one made, and the duel's on. Everybody knows about it by now. That's why Bone Breaker and I arranged for him to holler after you through the gate to come back in the daylight, and I nudged you to holler back you would, meaning you'd be around to tangle as soon as i
t was convenient, in daylight and in front of witnesses. But I agree with you about those swords. It's sure a measly way to fight."
The Hill Bluffer sighed heavily.
"Of course, maybe I shouldn't worry about it," he said brightening. "Maybe you Shorties like fighting with tools. You seem to use them for just about everything else. Well, grab yourself a good night's sleep—and I'll see you at dawn!"
Chapter 8
Bill awoke from a confused dream of rolling thunder, as in a heavy thunderstorm, in which Kodiak bears had risen up on their hind legs, put on armor, and begun a sort of medieval tournament which he was being compelled to join. Then he became more fully awake and realized that the thunder was the roaring of a Dilbian voice, shouting Bill's own Dilbian name of Pick-and-Shovel, and that the nightmare was no dream but merely the dream-twisted facts of his previous day on Dilbia.
He opened his eyes to the sight of one of the Residency's spare bedrooms. Scrambling out of bed, he pulled on his pants and stumbled down the hall in his bare feet to open a door and step into the reception room at the front of the Residency. Standing in the middle of the room and still shouting for him was a Dilbian. But it was not the Hill Bluffer, as Bill had automatically assumed it would be. Instead, it was the strangest-looking member of Dilbia's native race that Bill had so far encountered.
He was the widest being on two legs that Bill had ever seen, in the flesh or in any reproduction of any alien race humans had discovered. Bill had so far adjusted to the size of the Dilbians in his one day among them that he had felt prepared for anything the race might present him with. But the individual he looked at now was beyond belief.
He was a Dilbian who made Mula-ay look skinny. This, in spite of the fact that he must have been a good head taller than the Hemnoid. What he must weigh was beyond the power of Bill's imagination to guess. Certainly, at least double the poundage of the ordinary Dilbian male. So furry and round was he, that he had a jovial, if monstrous teddy-bear look to him; but this impression was immediately diluted by the fact that, hearing Bill come through the door, the fat Dilbian whirled to face him, literally on tiptoe, like a ballet dancer, as if his enormous weight was nothing at all.
"Well, well, there you are, Pick-and-Shovel!" he beamed, chortling in a voice like the booming of some enormous kettledrum. "I had a hunch if I just stood still and yelled about for you, a bit, you'd come running sooner or later."
"Grnpf!" growled Bill, deep in his throat. He was only half awake, and he had never been one to wake up in an immediate good humor. On top of this, having been summoned from sleep, and down the long cold floor of a hallway in his bare feet, by someone who seemed to be using the same technique a human might use to call a dog or cat to him, did not improve his morning temper. "I thought you were the Bluffer!"
"The postman?" the laughter of the roly-poly Dilbian shook the rafters. "Do I look like that skinny mountain cat? No, no—" His laughter subsided, his humor fled, and his voice took on a wistful note. "No bluffing of hills for me, Pick-and-Shovel. Not these many years. It's all I can do to waddle from place to place, nowadays. You see why?"
He gazed down at his vast stomach and patted it tenderly, heaving a heavy sigh.
"I suppose you'd guess from the looks of me that I enjoyed my food, wouldn't you, Pick-and-Shovel?" he said sadly.
Bill scowled at him. Then, remembering the duty he owed as a trainee-assistant assigned to this area, he managed to check the instinctive agreement that was about to burst from his lips.
"Well, I—ah—" he began uncomfortably.
"No, no," sighed the Dilbian. "I know what you think. And I don't blame you. People herebouts have probably told you about poor old More Jam."
"More Jam?" echoed Bill frowning. He had heard that name somewhere before.
"That's right. I'm the innkeeper here," said More Jam. "You've already talked to my little girl. Yes, that's exactly who I am, Sweet Thing's poor old father; a widower these last ten years—would you believe it?"
"Sorry to hear it," muttered Bill, caught between confusion and embarrassment.
"An old, worn-out widower," mourned More Jam, sitting down disconsolately on one of the room's benches that were designed for Dilbians—which, however, in spite of its design, creaked alarmingly underneath him as his weight settled upon it. He sighed heavily. "You wouldn't think it to look at me now, would you, Pick-and-Shovel? But I wasn't always the decrepit shell of a man you see before you. Once—years ago—I was the champion Lowland wrestler."
"Long ago?" echoed Bill, somewhat suspiciously. He was waking up, automatically, remembering Dilbian verbal ploys. The unkind suspicion began to kindle in his mind that More Jam was protesting his weakness and age a bit too much to be truthful. He remembered the lightness and quickness with which the rotund Dilbian had spun about on his toes as Bill entered the room. If More Jam could still move that mass of flesh he called a body with that much speed and agility, he could hardly be quite as decrepit and ancient as he claimed.
Not only that, thought Bill, watching the native now through narrowed eyes, but Bill's experience on Dilbia so far had begun to breed in him a healthy tendency to take a large grain of salt with anything one of them claimed about himself.
"Tell me," Bill said now, becoming once more uncomfortably conscious of the iciness of the boards under his bare feet, "what did you want to see me about?"
More Jam sighed again—if possible, even more sadly than he had managed to sigh before.
"It's about that daughter of mine, Sweet Thing," he answered heavily. "The apple of my eye, and the burden of my declining years. But why don't you pull up a bench, Pick-and-Shovel, and we can go into this matter in detail?"
"Well—all right," said Bill. "But if you'll wait a moment or two, I'd like to get some clothes on."
"Clothes?" said More Jam, looking genuinely surprised. "Oh, those contraptions you Shorties cover yourselves up with. You and the Fatties. Never could understand that—but go ahead, don't mind me. I'll just wait here until you're ready."
"Thanks. Won't be a minute," said Bill gratefully.
He ducked back through the door and down the hall back into his bedroom, where he proceeded to get the rest of his clothing on. Now at least dressed and shod—he returned to the reception room where More Jam was waiting.
Before he had fully traversed the hall, and long before he had opened the door to the reception room, a booming of Dilbian voices informed him that More Jam was no longer alone. Even with this warning, however, he was not prepared for the sight that greeted his eyes as he stepped back into that room. Two more Dilbians had appeared. One of them was the Hill Bluffer. Another was a Dilbian with grayish-black, rather singed-looking hair on his forearms, who was fully as large as Bone Breaker. It was not, thought Bill as he stepped into the room without being noticed at all by the three natives, that any of them were larger than he might have expected. It was just that all three of them together seemed to fill the reception room well past the overcrowding point. Not only this, but the sound of their three voices, all talking at once, was deafening.
"There he is!" said the Hill Bluffer proudly, being the first to notice him. "Pick-and-Shovel, meet Flat Fingers—the blacksmith in the village here. The one I was telling you about."
"That him, hey?" boomed the blacksmith in a decidedly hoarse voice. He squinted down at Bill. "Why if I was to make him a regular blade, it'd be bigger than he was! And a shield—why if I was to make him a shield and it fell over on top of him, he'd plumb disappear!"
"You too, huh?" roared the Bluffer, making Bill's ears ring. "Didn't you ever hear about the Shorty that took the Streamside Terror? Didn't I tell you about him?"
"I heard. And you told me several times." Flat Fingers rubbed his bearlike nose thoughtfully. "Still and all, it stands to reason. I say a regulation sword and shield's too big for him. Who's the expert here, you or me? I've been shoeing horses and arming men and mending kettles for fifteen years, and what I say is, a regular blade and buc
kler's too big for him. And that's that!"
"All right!" shouted Bill quickly, before the Hill Bluffer could renew the argument. "I don't care what size my sword and shield are. It doesn't make any difference!"
"There!" boomed the Bluffer turning on the blacksmith. "I guess that shows you what these sissy fighting weapons of you Lowlanders are worth! Even a Shorty doesn't care what they're like, when he has to use them! I'd like to see some of you iron-carriers wander up into the mountains bare-handed some of these days and try your luck man-to-man in my district. Why, if I wasn't on official duty, more or less, with Pick-and-Shovel here—"
"Ahem!" More Jam interrupted at this point by clearing his throat delicately—delicately, that is, for a Dilbian. However, the sound effectively stopped the Bluffer and brought his eyes around toward the wide-bodied individual.
"Far be it from me to go sticking my oar into another fellow's argument," said More Jam sadly. "Particularly seeing as how I'm old and decrepit and fat, and have a weak stomach and I've long forgotten what it was like back in my wrestling days—"
"Come on now, More Jam," protested Flat Fingers. "We all know you aren't all that old and sickly."
"Nice of you to say so, Flat Fingers," quavered More Jam, "but the truth is with this weak stomach of mine, that can't hardly eat anything but a little jam and bread or something like that—though I do try to force down some regular meat and other things just to keep myself alive—I'm lucky if I can leave the house. But it's true—" He looked sidelong at the Hill Bluffer, "that once I'd have taken on any mountain man, bare-handed."
"No one's putting you down, More Jam," rumbled the Hill Bluffer. "You never used to tangle with a lot of sharpened iron about you!"
"True, true," sighed More Jam. "And true it is, that our younger generation has kind of gotten away from the old way of doing things. Just like it's true that I never had anything in the way of a weapon about me—that time I happened to be up in the mountains and ran into One Man."
The Right to Arm Bears Page 18
