“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.”
He pronounced this name with a peculiar emphasis, and Bill saw both the blacksmith and the Hill Bluffer stiffen to attention. The Hill Bluffer stared at him.
“You tangled with One Man?” the Bluffer said, almost in a tone of awe. “Why, nobody ever went up against One Man alone. Nobody!” He glanced aside at Bill. “There never has been anybody like One Man, Pick-and-Shovel,” he explained. “He’s a mountain man like myself, and he’s called One Man because in spite of being an orphan, with no kin to help, he once held feud with a whole clan, just by himself—and won!”
The Hill Bluffer turned back to More Jam almost accusingly.
“You never tangled with One Man!” he repeated.
More Jam sighed regretfully.
“No, as a matter of fact, I never did, the way things worked out,” he rumbled thoughtfully. “I’d heard of him, up there in the mountains, of course. Just as he’d heard of me, down here in the Lowlands. Then one time we just happened to run into each other in the foothills back a ways from here, and we got a look at each other for the first time.”
More Jam paused, to sigh again. Flat Fingers and the Hill Bluffer were staring at him.
“Well, go on More Jam!” boomed Flat Fingers, after a moment of stillness. “You met him you say—and you didn’t tangle?”
“Well, no, as it happened. We didn’t,” said More Jam; and his eyes swung about to catch and hold the eyes of Bill with a particular intensity. “It’s quite a little story—and as a matter of fact, that’s what brought me up here this morning to talk to Pick-and-Shovel. I got to remembering that story, and it began preying on my mind—the strange things that could happen to keep a couple of bucks from tangling, in spite of all their being primed and hardly able to wait to do it!”
Chapter 9
“You mean—?” the Bluffer stared down at More Jam. “In spite of both of you being in the same place and eager to go, something happened to keep the fight from coming off?”
“Well, yes. In fact a couple of things happened …” said More Jam, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. “The place One Man and I happened to run into each other was a place called Shale River Ford—”
“I know it. Good day’s walk from here,” said the Bluffer promptly.
“Yes, I guess you would know it, Postman,” said More Jam. “Well, there was a sort of celebration of some kind going on when we both landed there at the same time—I forget what it was. But the minute the folk there saw One Man and I had run into each other, at last, they asked us to put off our little bout until the next day. So they could get word out to all their friends and kin to come watch. Well, now, we couldn’t be so impolite as to say no—but what am I thinking about?”
More Jam broke off suddenly in mid-sentence, his gaze returning to Flat Fingers and the Bluffer.
“Here I am yarning away like the old dodder-head I am,” said More Jam, “never thinking you two men must have come over here to talk some kind of important business with Pick-and-Shovel. Well, I won’t hold you up a moment longer. You go right ahead with your business and I’ll hold my story for another day.”
“No business. That is, nothing that can’t wait,” broke in the blacksmith hastily. “Go on with the story. I never heard it before.”
“Well, maybe I’ve got a duty to let everyone know about what happened, at that,” said More Jam thoughtfully. “Though, as I say, I just wandered down here to tell it to Pick-and-Shovel, and actually it’s more for him than for telling back up in the mountains anyway. I was just saying … where was I?”
“The Shale River Forders had asked you and One Man to hold off the fight until the next day,” prompted the Hill Bluffer.
“Oh, yes … well, as I said earlier, it was really a couple of things that happened to keep us from tangling.” More Jam’s eyes drifted around to hold Bill’s strangely once more. “One to each of us, you might say. You see, as long as we had to wait until the next day, there was no reason we shouldn’t have a party the night before. So the Shale River Ford people got a rousing time going. Well, after a bit, One Man and I went for a walk outside, so we could have a chance to hear each other talk. You know how it is when you meet somebody in the same line of business, so to speak …”
More Jam glanced at Flat Fingers and the Hill Bluffer. The blacksmith and postman nodded with the seriousness of dedicated professionals, each in their own lines of business.
“Happened, we had quite a talk,” continued More Jam. “I might say we even got to know each other pretty well. We finally split up and headed for a good night’s rest, each of us looking forward to the fight the next morning, of course.”
“Of course,” rumbled Flat Fingers.
“But then it happened,” said More Jam. He gazed sadly at the Bluffer and at Flat Fingers, and then, unaccountably, his eyes wandered slowly back again to meet the eyes of Bill.
“It?” demanded the Bluffer.
“Would you believe it,” demanded More Jam, staring at Bill, “after I’d left One Man—it was a pitch-black night out, of course—on the way back to the Inn, I bumped into someone who told me that my maternal grandmother had just died back down here at Muddy Nose?”
“Your grandmother?” began Flat Fingers, wrinkling his nose in puzzlement. “But I thought—”
“Well, of course,” went on More Jam smoothly, ignoring the blacksmith and keeping his gaze on Bill, “no ordinary person would ever have thought of trying to get from where I was all the way back to Muddy Nose to pay my last respects to my grandmother, and still make the trip back again in time for the fight the next day. No ordinary person, as I say. But in those days I was in pretty good shape, what with one thing and another. And I didn’t hesitate for a minute. I just took off.”
“But your grandmother—” Flat Fingers was attempting again, when More Jam smoothly interrupted him once more.
“—Wasn’t dead at all as it turned out, of course,” said More Jam, his eyes still fixed on Bill’s. “As folks around here know, she lived to be a hundred and ten. It was just some kind of a rumor that this stranger had picked up and passed on. And of course, it was so dark out when he told me that I di
dn’t know what he looked like. So I was never able to find him again.”
“Good thing for him I bet!” muttered Flat Fingers. “So you went all the way home and didn’t get back in time for the fight? Was that it, More Jam?”
“Not exactly,” said More Jam. “As I say, I was in pretty good shape in those days. I turned right around when I found out the truth, and headed back toward the foothills. And I made it back, too. I got back to Shale River Ford just as dawn was breaking. But you know, when I hit the door of the Inn, I sort of collapsed. I just fell down and passed out. It was plain for one and all to see that after a round trip like that, I was in no condition to fight.”
“True enough,” said the Hill Bluffer, with an expert traveler’s judiciousness.
“So that’s why you didn’t fight One Man?” interposed Flat Fingers.
“Well … yes, and no,” said More Jam mildly. “You see a funny thing had happened to him, too—I found out after I woke up. Just as One Man was heading back to the Inn, himself, the night before, after talking to me—I told you how dark it was out—”
“You told us,” put in Flat Fingers.
“Well, dark out as it was,” said More Jam, “One Man didn’t see this hole in the ground. And he stepped right into it and twisted his ankle. Broke it, I think, although it was kind of hard to tell; his legs were so muscley. Of course,” added More Jam, deprecatingly, with a glance at Flat Fingers and the Bluffer, “nobody was about to call One Man a liar if he said he thought his ankle was broken.”
“Ha!” snorted the Bluffer. “That’s right enough!”
“And, of course,” added More Jam mildly, “nobody would think of doubting my word that I’d actually had somebody come up to me in the dark who I couldn’t see, and tell me a false rumor about my grandmother being dead.”
“I’d like to see them try it!” growled Flat Fingers. “That’d be something to see!”
“So, one way and another,” wound up More Jam, his gaze returning to Bill, “neither One Man nor I was fit to have that fight after all. And the way it worked out, we never did meet again. Though I hear he’s still alive, up there in the mountains.”
“He sure is,” said the Hill Bluffer. “Says he’s all worn out now and decrepit! Him—decrepit!” The Bluffer snorted again, disbelievingly.
“You shouldn’t jump to conclusions though, Postman,” put in More Jam, almost primly. “You young men in the prime of life, you don’t know what it’s like when your bones start creaking and groaning. Why, some people might even look at me and think I might have as much of a shadow of my own old strength left. But I tell you, if it wasn’t for my daughter’s cooking—and my stomach’s so delicate nowdays I can’t handle anything else—I’d have been dead long ago. You may not believe One Man’s being cut down by age, but an old hulk like me knows better.”
The Bluffer muttered something, but not loudly enough, or in a tone disbelieving enough, to emerge as obvious challenge to the innkeeper’s statement.
“But there you have it, Pick-and-Shovel,” said More Jam sadly, turning back to Bill. “That story of mine, of how I had my chance at One Man and then missed out on it—through no fault of my own—has been preying on my mind for a couple of days, now. I just figured I had to step up here and tell you about it, so it could be a caution to you. I know you can’t hardly wait to get at Bone Breaker, just like I couldn’t hardly wait to get at One Man, and vice-versa. But things you wouldn’t believe can crop up to interfere with the most promising tangle in the world.”
He sighed heavily, apparently remembering Shale River Ford.
“So I just wanted to put you on your guard,” he went on. “Something just might come up that’d threaten to keep you from meeting Bone Breaker for that duel. But if it does, let me tell you, you only have to turn and call for More Jam for anything his old carcass can manage by way of help. Because it means a lot to me, your taking Bone Breaker, it really does.”
“It does?” said Bill puzzled. “Why to you, in particular?”
“Why, because of this delicate stomach of mine,” said More Jam, patting the stomach in question tenderly. “Oh, I know some folks in Muddy Nose think I’m going against tradition, when I back up my little daughter in refusing to let herself be taken off to Outlaw Valley to live. But if Bone Breaker takes her away, who’s going to cook for poor old More Jam? I can’t move out there with her and turn outlaw at my time of life—even if my old bones would stand the hardships. On the other hand, if he’d do like she wants and settle down here in Muddy Nose, I know I’d always have a bench at their table. Or maybe he’d even want to go into the inn business with me. So, as I say, if you ever find yourself in a position where you have to think about not tangling with Bone Breaker—for his sake, of course—just stop and think instead about More Jam, and see if it doesn’t help!”
He closed his eyes, patted his mountainous stomach again, very tenderly, and fell silent. Bill stared at him, baffled.
“All right, Pick-and-Shovel!” said the blacksmith’s voice.
Bill turned to find Flat Fingers stooping over him with a leather cord in his two, huge furry hands.
“Hold your arm out, there,” rumbled the big Dilbian, “and I’ll get you measured for your little blade and buckler— though much good they’re likely to be to you—”
Bill’s mind had been whirling ever since More Jam had finished talking. What it was spinning about, mostly, was the strange glances the rotund Dilbian had kept shooting at him while telling the story about his own near-fight with the mountain champion, One Man. Clearly, More Jam had been trying to convey some sort of message. But what was it? Bill tried to make some kind of connection between the story of the near-duel and what Anita Lyme had said to him the evening before. Maybe there was more to this business of organizing the villagers to defy the outlaws than he had thought. On the other hand, clearly More Jam was offering to be an ally of some sort. Anita had suggested that he get the blacksmith on his side. But just how was he supposed to do that? Flat Fingers obviously had a pretty low opinion of Shorties, physically at least. The blacksmith was not likely to accept as a leader someone with whom he was not impressed, and how could Bill impress him—particularly, physically? Offhand, he could think of nothing in which he could even begin to put up a showing against one of the huge, male Dilbians. He certainly could not outrun them, nor outjump them, nor—
Bill’s mind broke off in mid-thought. A bit of information about the level of Dilbian science and technology from the hypnoed information had just sat up and clamored for attention in the back of his head. Dilbians, he remembered suddenly, had never heard of a block-and-tackle. He turned to the blacksmith, and taking advantage of a split-second pause in the argument between that individual and the Bluffer, he threw in a few words of his own.
“So you don’t think much of me?” he said.
The attention of both Dilbians returned to him. The blacksmith burst into sudden, thunderous laughter.
“No offense to you either, Pick-and-Shovel,” he said, still laughing. “But you really don’t expect me to take you for being the equal of a real full-grown man. Now, do you?”
“Well, no,” retorted Bill, drawling the words out. “I kind of hoped you’d take me for something better than a real man—one like you, for instance!”
The blacksmith stared at him. For a moment, Bill thought that he had overdone the brashness and insult, which, the hypnoed information in his head had informed him, passed for everyday manners of conversation among the Dilbians. Then the Hill Bluffer broke the silence in his turn with a booming and triumphant laugh.
“Hor, hor, hor!” bellowed the Hill Bluffer, giving the blacksmith a mighty slap between the shoulder blades. “How do you like that? I told you! I told you!—and here you were thinking he was just as meek and mild as some little kid’s pet!”
The swat on the back, which would probably have broken Bill in two, plus the Hill Bluffer’s words, apparently woke the blacksmith out of the stunned co
ndition into which Bill’s words had thrown him.
“You?” he said incredulously. “Better than me?”
“Well, we don’t have to fight about it to find out,” said Bill, with the best show of indifference he could manage. “I suppose you think you can lift something pretty heavy?”
“Me? Lift?” Flat Fingers’ hoarse voice almost stuck in his throat under the combination of his astonishment and outrage. “Why I could lift twenty times what you could lift, Shorty!”
“I don’t think so,” said Bill calmly.
“Why, you—” stuttered the blacksmith, balling a huge furry fist ominously. The Hill Bluffer shouldered between him and Bill. “You actually want to try—” words failed Flat Fingers. He tried again. “You want to try to outlift me?”
Bill had a sudden inspiration—born of the fact of the Dilbians being strict about the letter of the law, while playing free and loose with the spirit of it.
“Well, of course,” said Bill in a deprecating voice, and borrowing a page from More Jam’s technique, “I’m just a Shorty, and I’d never have the nerve to suggest that I might be able to outlift you ordinarily. But I just might be able to outdo you at it if I had to, and I’m ready to prove it by moving something you can’t move!”
Flat Fingers stared at him again.
“Why, he’s sick!” said the blacksmith in a hushed voice, at last turning to the Hill Bluffer. “The poor little feller’s gone completely out of his head!”
“Think so, do you?” said the Hill Bluffer smugly. “Suppose we all just go up to that forge of yours, get something heavy, and find out!”
“Uh—not right away,” said Bill hastily. “I’ve got a few things to do around here, first. How about just after lunch?”
“Suits me …” said the blacksmith, shaking his head and still looking at Bill peculiarly, as if Bill had come down with some strange disease. “After lunch will do fine, Pick-and-Shovel. Just wander up to the forge, and you’ll find me there. Now, hold out your arm.”