The Right to Arm Bears (dilbia) Read online

  “Hold on!” said the center grandfather. “Hold on. Let’s get things straightened out here. Who’s Greasy Face?”

  Boy Is She Built pointed down at Ty Lamorc, beside her.

  “This Shorty female, here.”

  The crowd muttered among itself and craned its necks, looking over the shoulders of those in front of it to get a look at Ty.

  “Female!” the grandfather next to him was shouting in the ear of the deaf grandfather on the end. “Shorty FE-male!”

  “They come in pairs?” the deaf grandfather said, interestedly.

  Boy Is She Built went on to explain. It was approximately the same story Joshua had given John originally, except that in Boy Is She Built’s version she and the Terror were reported as invariably speaking in tones of great calm and reasonableness; while Shaking Knees, Joshua, and all others sneered, whined, bellowed, and generally used the nastiest voices they were capable of using, when they were quoted.

  “That still doesn’t explain,” said the center grandfather when she was through, “why the Terror isn’t here to speak for himself.”

  “He says it already looks as if he had been dodging a fight with Half-Pint. He’s not going to have it look as if he was hiding behind the grandfathers. He’s there waiting for the Shorty now, in Glen Hollow for all the world to see. And if the Shorty doesn’t reach him, it isn’t his fault!”

  “Hmph!” said the center grandfather, thoughtfully. He conferred with the other grandfathers. “Hey? What say?” the deaf grandfather could be heard demanding at intervals. Finally, they all sat back on their bench and the center grandfather spoke out again.

  “As far as the grandfathers of the Clan can see,” he said, “there’s no reason this shouldn’t be a personal matter between The Terror and the Half-Pint, here—except for one thing.”

  He paused and cleared his throat. It was like banging a gavel for order. The crowd became the quietest it had so far become.

  “The facts are these,” he said. “The Terror has had his mug spilt by a Shorty who is a guest in Humrog.” He glanced at Shaking Knees. “Right?”

  “Right,” replied Shaking Knees, inclining his head as one gentleman of substance to another.

  “To hit back, the Terror has tried to spill the mug of the guest Shorty by stealing away a member of the guest’s household. That little Shorty female, there, Greasy Face.”

  Everybody looked at Ty.

  “All right. Now, along comes a male Shorty—Half-Pint Posted here—having a claim on Greasy Face, and chases after the Terror to get his female back. And the grandfathers of your clan aren’t such unfeeling old geezers—” he paused to glare at the audience “—even though you all seem to think so most of the time, that they’d require him to give her back. So why not let the Terror and the Half-Pint meet? Well, there’s only one hitch.”

  The center grandfather leaned back, readjusting the creases in his large belly and looked right and left for approval. With nods and grunts, his fellow grandfathers gave it to him. Even the deaf grandfather seemed to be fully briefed and in favor as he nodded with one hand cupped about his ear.

  “The hitch is this,” said the center grandfather. “Now the rules and customs of real men are not set up at random. There is always a purpose behind them. And the purpose behind affairs of honor is to enable real men to live honorably and safely, one with another.”

  “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous!” muttered Boy Is She Built. “What I think, is—”

  “Shut up!” said the axman.

  “Therefore, it is not just the honors of two individuals at stake in such instances, but the whole structure of custom by which we live. In this instance, now, it may well be honorable for man to fight with man; but is it honorable for man to fight a Shorty—considering all that a Shorty is, in the way of size and differentness? In short, if we let this Shorty fight the Terror it’s the same thing as admitting he’s as much a man as any real man among us. And is he? What kind of proof have we got that he deserves to be treated like one of us, like a real man?” The center grandfather paused and looked out over the crowd. “Anybody who has anything they want to say on this question can now speak up.”

  “Ahem!” said Shaking Knees.

  “Mayor?” said the center grandfather. Shaking Knees rolled forward a couple of ponderous paces.

  “Just thought I’d clear the record,” he said. “I don’t claim to be any expert on the Half-Pint here, or Greasy Face, or any other Shorty. But I just thought I’d mention,” he rubbed his nose with one large-knuckled hand, “that Little Bite here is a guest in Humrog. And speaking as the Mayor of Humrog, I don’t exactly guess that Humrog would be making a guest out of anyone who wasn’t entitled to be treated as a real man.” He smiled widely around the crowd. “Just thought I’d mention it to you Clan Hollows folk.”

  The grandfathers consulted.

  “Well, now,” said the center grandfather, after the huddle was over. “The way the grandfathers of Clan Hollows think is this. Everybody here knows the folks in Humrog, after all we do most of our trading there. And we know that Humrog folks generally know what they’re talking about. So if the folks in Humrog are pretty generally sure that Little Bite, there, is the same thing as a real man, the grandfathers of Clan Hollows and the folks of Clan Hollows are willing to go along with the way they think, as far as Little Bite is concerned.”

  “Thanks. Humrog thanks you,” said Shaking Knees.

  “Not at all. However,” went on the center grandfather, “deciding Little Bite can be taken for a real man, is one thing. Deciding Half-Pint, just because he’s a Shorty, too, is a real man as well is something else again. After all, Little Bite didn’t come hunting the Terror for an affair of honor—” he broke off suddenly, and his voice took on the first tinge of politeness it had yet shown. “One Man?”

  “If I might—” the great basso of One Man rumbled politely off to John’s left; and John, turning his head and peering around the bulk of the Hill Bluffer, saw the giant Dilbian rising. “If I might just say a few words to the eminent grandfathers of this ancient clan.”

  “The honor’s ours, One Man,” the center grandfather assured him.

  “Very good of you,” said One Man. The whole assemblage had gone dead silent and One Man’s scarcely-raised voice carried easily to all of them. “An old man like myself, now, who has lived long enough to be a grandfather in my own clan, if I had one, and was worthy, sees things perhaps a little differently from you younger people. It’s enough for me nowadays to sit feebly in my corner, letting the fire warm my old bones, and ponder on the world as it goes by me.”

  “Now, One Man,” said the center grandfather, “we all know you’re nowhere near’s feeble as all that.”

  “Well, thank you, thank you,” said One Man, lifting an arm like a water main in acknowledgement and then letting it drop, as if its weight was too much for him. “I’ve got a few years left, perhaps. But it wasn’t myself I was going to talk about. I was just going to mention something of how things look to me from my chimney corner. You know, as I watch the passing parade I can’t help thinking how much things have changed from the old days. The old customs are falling into disuse.”

  “Never said a truer word!” muttered the deaf grandfather on the end of the bench. He now had both hands cupped behind both ears.

  “Children no longer have the old respect for their parents.”

  “You can bet on that!” growled Shaking Knees, scowling at his daughter.

  “Everywhere, the old way of doing things is being replaced by the new. Where this will lead us nobody knows. It may be that the new ways are better ways.”

  “So there!” said Boy Is She built, tossing her nose up at her father.

  “We cannot, at this moment, say. But certainly we seem stuck with a world now in which we are not alone, in which we must deal with Shorties and Fatties, and maybe other creatures, too. This leads me to a suggestion which in my own limited judgment I consider rather sou
nd; but I hesitate to push it on the venerable grandfathers of this Clan, being only an outsider.”

  “We’d be glad to hear what One Man has to suggest,” growled the center grandfather. “Wouldn’t we?” He looked around and found the other grandfathers nodding approval.

  “Well,” said One Man, mildly, “why not let them fight and make up your minds afterwards whether Half-Pint deserves to be regarded as a man—depending on how he shows up in the fight? That way you don’t risk anything; and whichever way you decide, you’ve got evidence to back you up. For after all, it isn’t size, or hair, or where he was born that makes a man among us. It’s how he behaves, isn’t that correct?”

  He paused. The grandfathers and the crowd as well, including such diverse elements as Shaking Knees and Boy Is She Built, muttered their approval.

  “A lot of people have thought that it might make somebody like the Terror look foolish, facing up to someone as small as a Shorty. Something or someone that small, they thought, couldn’t possibly have a hope of standing up to a toothless old grandmother with a broken leg. But the Terror seems willing. And if the Half-Pint seems willing, too, who knows? The Half-Pint might even surprise us all and actually take the Terror.”

  There was a roll of laughter from the crowd and One Man sat down. The center grandfather shouted at the chief axman; and the axman shouted for order. When comparative silence was re-established, it was found that Gulark-ay had taken several ponderous steps toward the bench of the grandfathers.

  “What’s this?” said the center grandfather, as the chief axman whispered in his ear. He consulted with his fellow grandfathers.

  “Very well,” he said at last; and raised his voice to the crowd. “Quiet out there! The Beer-Guts Bouncer’s got something to say and your grandfathers can’t hear anything short of a thunderstorm with you yelling around like that!”

  The crowd noise dwindled to near silence.

  “Speak up!” said the center grandfather to Gulark-ay.

  “Well, now, I kind of hate to shove in like this,” said Gulark-ay in robust tones very different from the voice he had used to John, that morning before in the forest. He hunched his fat shoulders and was suddenly and amazingly transformed from a sleek Buddha to an overweight, but clumsily forthright and honest-looking, lout; somewhat embarrassed by being the center of all attention. “I wouldn’t want to mess in the business of Clan Hollows, here. And I sure wouldn’t want to say anything against that fine suggestion One Man made just now. But fair’s fair, I say. I guess I ought to tell you.”

  “Tell us what, Beer-Guts?” inquired the center grandfather.

  “Well, now,” said Gulark-ay, scuffing the earth with one sandal toe, and turning red in the face. “Nobody likes Little Bite better than I do, but it’s a fact, he’s getting old.”

  “Something wrong with that?” inquired the center grandfather, sharply.

  “No—no,” said Gulark-ay. “Nothing wrong with it at all. But you know, Little Bite doesn’t say much; but I happen to know he’s been wanting to leave his job here and get back to his home on that other world, for a long time.”

  “What,” said the center grandfather, “has all that got to do with us?”

  “Well, Little Bite, he wanted to go home. But his people back there, they wanted him to stay here. Well, some little time ago he figured maybe he better just mess things up here a little; and then his people back home would send someone else out to do the job right and he could quit. Well now,” said Gulark-ay, “I don’t blame him. A Shorty his age, with nothing but real people twice his size around him all the time, it’s not the sort of thing that would bother me, myself. But I can see how something like that would be for someone his size—like asking a kid to go out and do a full day’s work in the fields, same as a man. And, of course, around here he doesn’t have his machines and gadgets to make life easier for him. So, as I say, I don’t blame him; all the same I wouldn’t have done what he did. Didn’t seem right.”

  Gulark-ay stopped to mop his face with a corner of his robe.

  “Sure is thirsty, standing out here talking like this,” he said. “I could go for a drink.”

  He got a good laugh from the crowd. But the grandfathers did not join in.

  “What do you mean—‘done what he did?’ What did Little Bite do?” demanded the center grandfather.

  “Well, he just thought he’d kick up a little ruckus by mixing into the Terror’s business. Then Terror—any real person would have figured on it, of course—took off with Greasy Face and it got a whole lot more serious than Little Bite had bargained for. So he had to call in the Half-Pint there. Well, now, the truth is, the Half-Pint never saw Greasy Face before in his little life. It’s all a story about him wanting her back from the Terror, like a real man might.”

  The center grandfather turned. His eyes focused on Joshua Guy.

  “Little Bite?” he said.

  “I’m right here,” said Joshua, standing up.

  “Is what the Beer-Guts Bouncer’s telling us, the truth?”

  Joshua brushed some pine needles from a fold in his jacket with a casual flick of his hand.

  “With all due respect to the grandfathers of Clan Hollows, and the people of Clan Hollows,” he said, “I am a guest in Humrog, and a representative of the Shorty people. Accordingly, to dignify the Beer-Guts Bouncer’s accusation by taking any notice of it would be beneath my official dignity.”

  Joshua smiled winningly at the Clan Hollows grandfathers.

  “Accordingly,” he said, “I must refuse to discuss it.”

  And sat down.

  CHAPTER 16

  There was a moment’s dead silence and then the closest thing to a collective gasp that John had ever heard uttered by Dilbians. Being the type of people they were, it was more grunt than gasp—rather the sort of sound that comes from a punch in the stomach.

  Then, a knowing babble arose.

  The grandfathers sat back on their bench, looking grim. The center grandfather consulted to his left and to his right. Then he addressed the assemblage.

  “Quiet down!”

  They quieted, eagerly listening.

  “Beer-Guts,” said the center grandfather, to Gulark-ay. “You said Half-Pint here never even knew about Greasy Face until Little Bite got in touch with him. Then maybe you can tell us just why he’d come chasing after her, wanting to fight the Terror.”

  “He didn’t,” said Gulark-ay.

  “He what?”

  “Half-Pint,” said Gulark-ay, “never even knew he’d have to fight the Terror, maybe, to get Greasy back. Little Bite never let on that might happen. If he had, he’d never have got Half-Pint to go after her. You don’t think any Shorty would seriously consider tangling bare-handed with—what was it One Man said?—even a toothless old grandmother. Half-Pint wouldn’t have been willing at all.” He threw a grin at John. “He’s not willing now. Find out for yourself. Ask him.”

  “Hey—” said the Hill Bluffer, shooting suddenly to his feet.

  “Sit down!” said the center grandfather.

  “Are you giving the government mail orders?” roared the Bluffer.

  “Yes, I’m giving the government mail orders!” snapped the center grandfather. “On Clan Hollows ground, in full Clan Hollows meeting, I’m giving the government mail order. Sit down!”

  The Bluffer, growling, sat down.

  The grandfathers went into session together. They talked for a minute or two, then sat back. The center grandfather spoke out.

  “Here’s the decision of the grandfathers,” he said. “With all respect to One Man and others, this whole business smells a little too fishy to your grandfathers. Accordingly, it’s our ruling that Greasy Face be sent back with Little Bite, and Half-Pint along with them. No affair of honor to be allowed between the Terror and the Half—”

  “NOW YOU LISTEN TO ME!” thundered the Hill Bluffer, rising like a stone from a catapult. “Clan Hollows or no Clan Hollows. Grandfather or no grandfathers. A
nd if the Beer-Guts Bouncer doesn’t like it, he knows where to find the government mail, any time. You think this Shorty here isn’t willing to tangle with the Terror?”

  “Sit down!” yelled the center grandfather.

  “I won’t sit down!” the Bluffer yelled back. “None of you know the Half-Pint. I do. Not willing! Listen, when a bunch of drunks at Brittle Rock tried to make him do tricks like a performing animal, he fooled them all and got away. Then Boy Is She Built tried to drop him over a cliff. Does he look dropped? On our way here the bridge at Knobby Gorge was rucked up out of our reach. He climbed up a straight cliff with nothing to hang on to, to get it down and let us over after the Terror.”

  The Bluffer swung around and flung out a pointing arm at the chief axman.

  “And what happened when you and four of the boys tried to take us in just outside the valley here? Who wanted to help me clean up on the five of you? And who didn’t have any doubts about the two of us being able to do it, either?” He glared at the chief axman. “Huh?”

  He swung around back to John.

  “How about it, Half-Pint?” he roared. “The hell with the Clan Hollows and their grandfathers! The hell with anybody but you and me and the Terror? You want to be delivered or not? Say the word!”

  John heard the Bluffer, and the swelling roar of the crowd rising behind him. All this time he had been sitting with one thumb rubbing pensively back and forth along the top edge of his belt buckle, listening to what was being said, and thinking deeply. He had time to figure out what was behind most of what was happening; and when the Bluffer had leaped up just now and gone into his impassioned speech, it had rung a bell clear and strong inside John Tardy.

  So when the Bluffer bawled his question, John had his answer ready. The words were still in the air when John was on his feet himself, and shouting.

  “Show me this skulking Terror!” he shouted. “Lead me to him! Who hides behind his grandfathers and his clan and won’t stand and fight like a man!”