The Right to Arm Bears

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Just a little while ago, while you were talking. Probably just after you started talking."

  Bill felt a sudden, grim uneasiness clutch at him just under his breastbone.

  "I'd better go take a look—" he said, and began to head out through the crowd and down the hill. He discovered that Sweet Thing was coming along with him, and thought briefly of telling her to let him investigate alone. Then it occurred to him that it might be handy to have her along in case there was more information about the sighting of Mula-ay at the Residency, which she had not yet managed to get out.

  At any rate, she stayed beside him as they reached the Residency, and went in through the front door. Nothing seemed amiss in the reception room, so Bill proceeded to go through the rest of the building. Room after room, he found nothing wrong, no evidence of any reason that would explain a visit by the Hemnoid to the human Residency.

  It was not until they got clear back into the warehouse and the workshop corner where the program lathe and other tools were racked and hung on the walls that Bill got his first feeling that something was wrong. He stopped, facing the workshop corner, and slowly ran his eyes over it. What was different about what he was seeing now from what he had seen when he was last here? For a long moment he was unable to identify that difference. Then suddenly an empty space on one of the tool-hung walls seemed to leap at him.

  Where the empty space was, the hand-laser welding torch had hung. It hung there no longer.

  "What's the matter, Pick-and-Shovel?" demanded Sweet Thing, almost crossly, in his right ear. "What are you just standing there like that for?"

  He hardly heard her. Understanding had leaped upon him like a wolf from the underbrush. Mula-ay knew that Bill had gone down into the valley the night before. He also knew that now all the village Dilbians knew it, and shortly the whole countryside would know it. The connection between that knowledge and the missing laser torch flashed suddenly white and clear upon Bill's mind. That torch could kill, its murderous beam slicing through the bone and muscle of a Dilbian back to a Dilbian heart, from as much as fifteen feet away. With that torch, this coming night, back in the valley, Mula-ay could find a moment when Bone Breaker was out between the houses, alone in the darkness. He could torch the outlaw chief from behind, and leave him there with the obviously Shorty-made weapon beside him. After that no one could blame the Dilbians for believing that Bill had once more reentered the valley and avoided a duel by killing his opponent in the most cowardly and treaty-breaking way possible.

  Bill jerked suddenly out of his thoughts and spun on one heel. He had to catch Mula-ay before Mula-ay could get back into the outlaw valley.

  Then his shoulders sagged, and his spirits with them. He remembered now how long he had gone on talking after first spotting Sweet Thing in the crowd, standing beside More Jam. Mula-ay would have too much of a head start. There was no hope of Bill catching him before he was safe back behind the gates and the stockade of Outlaw Valley. And the villagers would never be able to finish making their shield, get it up against the outlaw wall, and dig in to the valley under the stockade wall before night would put a halt to that operation.

  Mula-ay would be left safely behind that stockade wall in Outlaw Valley as night came down. And a word from him to Bone Breaker would be enough to set sentinels on watch, so that Bill could not safely climb down the cliffs a second time to warn the outlaw chief.

  Chapter 22

  Sweet Thing was still demanding to know what was wrong with him. Bill collected his wits. He pointed at the empty space on the wall.

  "There's a thing gone," he said to her. "A sort of a Shorty thing, but if Mula-ay uses it, he could hurt somebody. And he's already got a head start toward the valley so that we couldn't catch up with him and get it back from him."

  "But what'll we do now?" said Sweet Thing.

  "Why don't you tell your father to wander out and into the outlaw camp," suggested Bill. "He can keep an eye on Mula-ay without letting anyone know what's up, and if Mula-ay tries to do anything with the thing, he can set up an alarm."

  "Set up an alarm, huh!" said Sweet Thing scornfully. "If Barrel Belly tries anything with that thing, whatever it is, my dad would just jump him—from behind, of course, so as not to get hurt by the thing—and squash him!"

  "Ah—yes," agreed Bill warily. Personally, he had little faith that any Dilbian, even Bone Breaker himself, would come close to being a match with the massive, heavy-gravity muscles of the Hemnoid. More Jam may have been something of a terror in his youth, but he was old now, and he was fat—there was no gainsaying those two points. Bill did not share Sweet Thing's daughterly confidence in More Jam's physical abilities. But on the other hand, More Jam was as wily as anyone among the Dilbians, and not likely to let himself be trapped into a match with somebody who could easily overpower him.

  "I'll go right away," said Sweet Thing, and not wasting any time about it, she turned and barreled out of the room. Well, he thought, that was that. But it was not much. The situation called for more active measures than simply sending More Jam to keep an eye on Mula-ay.

  It was still only midmorning, but there was no hope of getting the villagers up to and under the stockade barring the entrance to the valley before night fell. And once night had fallen, it was an odds-on chance that Mula-ay would be able to evade More Jam long enough to kill Bone Breaker.

  Something must be done—and it must be done before sundown. Bill thought about the plan of attack on which he had sold the villagers, running over it in his mind to see if there was not some way by which it might be speeded up so that they could take the valley this same day, while daylight lasted. But it was just not possible.

  Suddenly he jumped to his feet with an almost Dilbian-like snort of triumph. It was true the mantelet and sapping operation . . . which was the technical, military term for the tactic he had explained to the villagers—would not breach the Outlaw Valley's defenses before nightfall. But he had forgotten entirely that the Middle Ages had had other, even simpler ways of taking castles by storm. He had forgotten, in fact, the most obvious one of them all.

  He turned and hurried out of the Residency, and back up the road to the blacksmith shop, which was now a-swarm with male Dilbians from the village and the farms around, most of them with weapons of some sort—ranging from actual swords down to axes, and heavy-handled native scythes. The Bluffer was looking on interestedly as Flat Fingers supervised the construction of the mantelet, or shield, which Bill had described. Bill slowed his headlong pace and sauntered up to the group. As usual, it was a few seconds before the Dilbians looked down and noticed him standing there.

  "Oh, there you are, Pick-and-Shovel," said the blacksmith. What do you think—shouldn't the skids be longer, there, under the back of the shield?"

  Bill examined the structure. It looked to his human eye to be nearly as tall, wide, and heavy as the actual stockade fence of the outlaws themselves. Only the brute muscles of the Dilbians could entertain the thought of using such a thing, let alone transporting it through the several miles of woods that separated the village from the valley entrance. It was evidently designed to be moved on three pointed logs which served as its base and would operate as skids or runners on which the weight of the shield would bear, as it would push toward the wall. The shield was set just behind the points of these logs, sloping backward, and was heavily braced, towering to perhaps fifteen feet above the logs at its upper edge. Bill smiled agreeably at the sight of it, and nodded his head vigorously.

  "That's just fine, Flat Fingers," he said. "The men pushing it certainly ought to be safe behind that, as they go up to the wall. Yes, it'll be good protection, that shield. There's nothing like being safe, when you attack a bunch like those outlaws."

  "Well, it'll get us in close all right," said the blacksmith, though he frowned a little at Bill's second repetition on the word "safe." "Then once we're close, we'll dig under and tear into them."

  That's the spirit!" said Bill enthusiasticall
y. "Guard yourself as much as possible until you get inside, and then tear into them. Don't be disappointed if it takes a little while to dig under the wall. Better to be safe than sorry, I always say."

  "Oh, we won't be disappointed, Pick-and-Shovel," rumbled Flat Fingers grimly. "We've been waiting to tangle with those outlaws too long to cool down, just because we have to do a little digging to get at them."

  "Good, good!" said Bill strongly. "I know you are. But it doesn't do any harm to play safe, does it?"

  "What do you mean `play safe'?" exploded the village blacksmith. "What's all this about, `playing safe' you keep talking about. We're going in there to tangle with those outlaws, the sooner the better!"

  "Of course you are!" replied Bill hastily. He saw the Bluffer's face approach and peer interestedly down at him over the left shoulder of the blacksmith. Bill went on. "There's just no point in getting any more men hurt than have to be. That's why I suggested this way of getting into the valley. After all, it's the safest way, even if it does take a longer time than some other ways."

  "What other ways?" roared Flat Fingers. "You mean to say there's other ways—quicker ways? Ways you didn't tell us about because you thought we were worried about keeping safe?"

  "There's lots of other ways, of course," said Bill. "But after all, as I understand it, man for man those outlaws are a lot tougher than you are—"

  "Who says so?" roared one of the Dilbians who had been working on the shield. He was holding an ax which he flourished in Bill's direction in a way that made Bill's throat go dry. Suddenly there was bedlam, all of the village males shouting at Bill. Flat Fingers bellowed them all back into silence, then turned ominously back to face Bill.

  "Now, you listen to me, Pick-and-Shovel!" said Flat Fingers. "We're all Muddy Nosers, here—the sort of men here who'd tear that wall down with our bare hands, if we thought it could be done that way! Are you trying to start trouble—or something?"

  "Why, no—of course not!" said Bill hastily. "Why, I'll be glad to tell you of the quicker ways to get in through the gates in that stockade. As I say, there's lot of them—"

  "What's the quickest?" demanded Flat Fingers.

  "The quickest?" echoed Bill. "Well, the quickest would be to use a tree trunk."

  The assemblage of Dilbians stared at him blankly. It was hard for Bill to believe that their minds did not spring immediately from his suggestion of using a tree trunk to the idea of using it as a battering ram against the gates. The concept was so obvious to him that it was hard to see how it could not be obvious to these Dilbians.

  "You take a log," explained Bill. "You trim off all the branches, except for a few that you leave along its length for handholds. Then you get as many men to pick up the log all at the same time as you can. Then, holding the log, they run at the gates in the stockade end-on."

  To his surprise, the Dilbians continued to stare at Bill, after he had stopped speaking, with blank or puzzled looks.

  "And what'll that do, Pick-and-Shovel?" asked Flat Fingers finally.

  "Stop and think," answered Bill, "and you can imagine it for yourself. Suppose we had a bunch of men pick up one of those logs over there"—he pointed to the pile of loose logs on which he climbed the day before to hang the block and pulley from the rafter—"and ran that log at you, end-on, as hard as they could. What do you think the end of that log would do to you—or to anything else that it hit?"

  For a long moment, it seemed that Flat Fingers still did not understand. Then, very slowly, his expression began to change. His eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped, his nostrils spread—and without warning he let out a war whoop that seemed to split Bill's eardrums—and leave him slightly deaf for several seconds.

  At that, it was probably just as well that he did not have the full sense of his hearing in the moments that followed. Because, in a second Flat Fingers was explaining to the rest of the villagers, and inside of two minutes the area was bedlam again. Villagers whooped, hollered, roared with laughter, and pounded each other on the back as they described the principle behind the use of a tree trunk as a battering ram.

  "Let's go!" trumpeted Flat Fingers, making himself heard over the rest of the din. "We don't need to take a log to them. We can chop one down when we get there!"

  Take off, they did. Bill, staring after them in a sort of deafened wonder, was in danger of being left behind as they streamed off from the village into the woods at a pace that his shorter human legs could not match. But, abruptly, he felt himself snatched up and sailed through the air to land with a thud in the saddle on the Hill Bluffer's back.

  "Hang on, Pick-and-Shovel!" the postman shouted, infected himself by the general excitement. "We'll be up with the ones in the lead in two minutes."

  Chapter 23

  Having said this, the Bluffer proceeded to increase Bill's steadily growing respect for him by proving himself almost as good as his word. In his ride on the Bluffer before, Bill had somehow come to assume that the pace at which they traveled was pretty close to the practical limit for the Dilbian beneath him, considering the burden he was bearing on his back. In short, Bill had not experienced the Hill Bluffer's running before. But now the postman set out to stretch his legs—and the result from Bill's point of view was awesome. The landscape whizzed by at something between twenty-five and thirty-five miles an hour. And the jolting threatened to shake Bill out of the saddle within the first fifty yards.

  Luckily for him, however, once the Bluffer had caught up with the leaders of the group, he dropped back to a rapid walking pace, which was a good deal easier on his rider.

  Bill unlocked his legs and arms from the straps and sat up. He looked back over his shoulder. The whole village seemed to be streaming after them. The citizens of Muddy Nose were on the march at last against the outlaws.

  In the front strode the biggest and best males of the community, literally tramping out a path through the brush, and chopping down small trees that impeded their way. They detoured only around the larger trunks. Behind them came the younger members of the community and the village women, flanked on both sides and followed by a rear guard of lesser and older Dilbian males. Then Flat Fingers began to sing, and the others took it up until the whole party was joining in.

  The subject matter of the song—or chant—was nothing remarkable. It seemed to deal with an individual who had a perfect mania for throwing other individuals and things down his well. But it seemed to please its singers vastly.

  * * *

  Souse-Nose's wife's old uncle

  He liked his grub real well.

  One day he came to visit,

  And said, "I'll stay a spell."

  "Oh, no you won't!" said Souse-Nose

  And he threw him down the well!

  —Threw him down the well!

  Now wasn't that a sight?

  He threw him down the well so far

  That he was out of sight!

  Souse-Nose's wife saw him do this

  And she let out a yell.

  "What do you mean by doing that?

  I love my uncle well!"

  "Then go with him!" said Souse-Nose

  And he threw her down the well!

  —Threw her down the well . . . etc.

  After disposing of his wife's uncle and his wife, Souse-Nose rapidly threw down the well, according to the song, a number of other relatives, some neighbors he didn't like, a hammer that had dropped on his toe the week before, the family cooking pot (because it was empty)—and then proceeded to start throwing down the well various individuals among the marching villagers themselves, as the singers began to pick on each other.

  It was all apparently hilariously funny to the Dilbians—but at the same time, Bill felt a slight shiver run down his back. The song was a humorous song, but it was also a grimly humorous one, and the tone in which it was sung was very nearly more grim than it was humorous. In fact, for all the comedy in the words, Bill realized that what he was listening to was the Dilbian equivalent of a war so
ng. The villagers were working themselves up emotionally for combat with the outlaws. For the first time, Bill began to feel some misgivings about the forces he had set in motion. Leaning forward, he spoke into the Hill Bluffer's right ear.

  "Bluffer—" he said. "Bluffer, listen to me for a moment, will you. I'd like to ask you something—"

  But he might as well have been speaking to some ten-foot-high boulder rumbling at the head of an avalanche. The Bluffer was roaring out the song about Souse-Nose with the rest, completely carried away by it.

  Bill sat back in the saddle, abruptly prey to a new fear. If the Bluffer was beyond his control—how about Flat Fingers and the rest of the villagers? The rolling chant of the voices around him was hypnotic—even Bill himself felt his breath coming quicker and the blood pounding in his ears.

  He was still fighting for self-control, when the Bluffer beneath him, with the other leaders of the village party, rounded the turn into the narrow ravine that led down to the entrance to the valley, and stopped.

  Before them, the gates in the stockade were already shut and barred, and the heads of outlaws, as well as the upper rims of shields were showing over the points at the upper end of the upright logs which made up the stockade. There was nothing surprising in finding the valley prepared in this way. Singing and marching as they had been, the villagers undoubtedly had been heard a good half-mile or more off. Now, a few furry arms swung in the air above the stockade, and a few good-sized stones sailed toward the front rank of the villagers—but fell short. In reply, the villagers crowded into the narrow entrance of the valley and began to sing about outlaws being thrown down the well. The outlaws shouted back insults and challenges, but the solid chorus of the villagers overwhelmed them.

  . . . Throw you down the well so far,

  That you are out of sight . . .

  —chanted the villagers.

  Meanwhile, Flat Fingers had ceased singing and was rapidly issuing orders. A team of axmen had already headed off into the woods nearby, and the sound of chopping could occasionally be heard in the moments of relative silence between the singing of the villagers and the insults hurled by the outlaws. Shortly, there was the crash of falling timber—followed by a male-voiced cheer that drowned out even the singing.