John utilized some elementary woodcraft. He hunted for the tallest tree he could find close at hand and climbed it.
From its top he spotted the river, about half a mile away and almost due west according to the sun. And on this side of the river, a mile or two upstream was some cluster of buildings which was probably Sour Ford Inn.
John climbed down again and headed west, not forgetting to keep his eyes peeled for the Terror or even for Tark-ay, assuming the Hemnoid had been left in condition to travel.
However, he met no one. When he reached the river, he found there was a trail running alongside it; and he had hardly proceeded half a mile up the trail before he ran into a group of five Dilbians.
"Hey! Whoop!" hollered the first of these, the minute he got around a bend in the trail and spotted John. "There he is! Where'd you run off to, Shorty? The Bluffer's got half the people between here and Twin Peaks out looking for you!"
CHAPTER 15
"Never," said the Bluffer, as he swung through the forest with John on his back, "again. Nothing with legs. If it's got legs it can deliver itself. The mail's for things that can't get around on its own. That's what the mail's for."
John felt too comfortable to be disturbed by the postman's grousing. He had put his foot down for the first time, when the group he had run into had brought him back to the inn, and insisted on a couple of hours sleep in ordinary fashion. He had gotten them, in the peace of the inn dormitory. When he had woken up, he had decided as well to quit worrying about possible allergies and have something more than paste and pill concentrates to eat.
He had stuffed himself, accordingly. Dilbian bread, he discovered was coarse and full of uncompletely milled kernels, the cheese was sour and the meat tough, with a sour taste to it. It tasted delicious, and he just wished he had been able to hold a bit more. No allergic reactions had showed up so far; and now, with a full stomach, he drowsed on the back of the Dilbian postman, all but falling asleep in the saddle. As he drowsed, he wondered dreamily about his escape from Tark-ay. It all seemed almost too good to be true.
They were descending now into a country of lower altitudes, although they were still far above the central plains of this particular Dilbian continent. The central plains, being warmer in the summer than the Dilbians liked, were only sparsely settled. They regarded them as lush, unhealthy places where a man from the uplands lost his moral fiber quickly and fell into unnamed vices. Black sheep from the respectable communities of the clans often ended up down there, where the living was easy and no questions asked about a man's past.
So, the higher Hollows area was regarded as lowlands, in the ordinary sense by the mountain-living Dilbians. And in fact, John noticed that the countryside here did look a lot different. A new type of tree, something like a birch, was now to be seen among the hitherto unbroken ranks of sprucelike coniferoids of the uplands. And fern and brush began to put in an appearance.
All this could have been quite interesting to John if he had not been half-asleep; and if he had not had other things swimming about in the back of his mind, specifically, that apparently unavoidable meeting with the Streamside Terror, to which events and the Hill Bluffer seemed to be rushing him in spite of himself.
He felt like someone who has been caught in an avalanche, and now was riding it down the mountainside—for the moment on top of the moving mass, but with an inevitable cliff edge looming ahead. What the blazes was he to do, he wondered dully out of his half-awake state, when he found himself suddenly shoved, barehanded against the Terror? Doubtless with an impenetrable ring of Dilbian spectators hemming them both in, as well.
And for what? Why? Everybody from Joshua on through Gulark-ay seemed to have a different explanation of the reasons for the combat taking place. Everybody's patsy, that's what I am, thought John gloomily and dozed off again. Time went by.
He awoke suddenly. The Hill Bluffer had stopped unexpectedly, with a startled grunt. John sat up and looked around with the uncertainty of a man still fogged by sleep.
They were out of the woods. They had emerged into a small valley in which a cluster of buildings stood in the brown color of their peeled, and naturally weathered logs, haphazardly about a stream that ran the valley's length. Beyond the village, or whatever it was, there was a sort of natural amphitheater made by a curved indentation in the far rock wall of the valley. Past this, the path curved on through an opening in the valley wall and into the further forest.
However, it was not this pleasant little village scene that caught John's attention as he came fully awake.
It was a group of five brawny Dilbians who stood squarely athwart the path before himself and the Bluffer.
Armed with axes.
The Hill Bluffer had not said a word from the moment of John's awakening. Now he exploded. In his outrage he was almost incoherent.
"You—you—" he stuttered, roaringly. "You got the almighty nerve—you got the guts—! You dare stop the mail? Who do you think—just who is it thinks he's got the right—"
"Clan Hollows in full meeting, that's who," said the middle axman, a Dilbian almost as tall as the Bluffer, himself. "Come on with us."
The Bluffer took two steps backwards and hunched his shoulders. John felt himself lifted on the swell of the postman's big back muscles.
"Let's just see you take us!" snarled the postman. He sounded slightly berserk. Up on his back, John swallowed automatically looking at the Dilbian axes. John was in rather the same position as someone with a drunken or excitable friend who is in the process of getting them both into a fight. Harnessed to the Bluffer the way he was, there was no way he could quickly get down and loose in the case of trouble; and just at the moment the Bluffer did not seem to be thinking of taking time out to put his mail in a safe place before committing suicide.
"Hey!" said John, tapping the Bluffer on the shoulder. He might as well have tapped one of the Dilbian mountains in a like manner, for all the attention he attracted.
"Spread out, boys," said the head axman, hefting his forty-pound tool-weapon. The line began to extend at either end and curve in to flank the Bluffer. "Postman, officially in the name of Clan Hollows, I'm bidding you to immediate meeting. The grandfathers are waiting for you there, postman. And that Shorty you got with you."
The Hill Bluffer ground his teeth together. Seated just back of the Dilbian's mandible hinges the way John was, it made an awesome sound.
"He's mine." The postman sounded like he was talking through clenched jaws. "Until delivered! Come try to take him, you hollow-scuttling, thieving low-land loopers, you Clan Hollows sons of—"
The axmen were beginning to snarl and look red-eyed in turn. Desperate times, thought John, call for desperate measures.
He leaned forward, got the Bluffer's right ear firmly in his teeth. And bit.
"Yii!" roared the Bluffer—and spun about, almost snapping John's head off at the neck. "Who did that—? Oh! What're you trying to pull, Half-Pint." He tried to twist his neck around and look John in the face.
"That's right," said John. "Get in a fight! Get the government mail damaged! Back on my Shorty world they've got better postmen than that."
"They can't do this to me," rumbled the Bluffer, but his voice had noticeably dropped in volume.
"Sure," said John. "Your honor. But duty comes before honor. How about me? It's as much against my honor to let these axmen take me in. There's nothing I'd like better," said John, smiling falsely, "than to get down from your back here and help you take these Hollows unmentionables to pieces. But do I think of myself? No. I—"
"Listen at him," said one of the axmen. "Help take us to pieces! Hor, hor."
"You think that's funny, do you!" flared the Bluffer afresh, spinning to face the tickled axman. "You just remember this is the Shorty chasing down the Terror. How'd you like to tangle with the Terror, yourself, hairy-legs?"
"Huh!" said the other, losing his good humor suddenly, and hefting his ax. However, he did throw a second look over the B
luffer's shoulder at John and stood where he was.
"All right, men," said the leader of the axmen. "Enough of this chit-chat! When I give the word—"
"Cut it! Cut it!" boomed the Bluffer. "We'll go with you. Half-Pint's right. Lucky for you."
"Huh!" said the axman who had laughed before. But as they all fell into a sort of hollow square with the Bluffer and John in the middle, he stayed well to the rear. Together they marched down into the valley and toward the amphitheater at the far end.
* * *
They went through the village, which under the bright early afternoon sun seemed to have a fiesta air about it, and to the amphitheater. The main road up which they traveled was alive with Dilbians of all ages moving in the same direction and many questions were thrown at the guard around John and the Bluffer. The guard, marching stiffly, with axes over their shoulders, looked straight ahead to a Dilbian and refused to answer.
They came at last to a long, meter-high ledge of rock on which five very ancient-looking male Dilbians sat on one low bench. The one on the far right was a skinny oldster who seemed slightly deaf, since as they came up he was cupping one ear with a shaky hand and shouting at the Dilbian next to him to speak up. As the Bluffer and John were brought to a halt before them, John was astonished to notice the number of other familiar faces in the forefront of the gathering. One Man was there, seated on a sort of camp stool. Ty Lamorc and Boy Is She Built stood not far from the giant Dilbian. And Gulark-ay and Joshua Guy were flanking old Shaking Knees, who—whether in his capacity as mayor of Humrog, or father to Boy Is She Built—was looking important.
"Hey!" cried John, trying to attract the attention of the little human ambassador.
Joshua Guy looked up, spotted John, and gave him a large smile and a cheery wave of one hand.
"Beautiful day, isn't it?" called the ambassador; he went back to chatting in a friendly manner with Gulark-ay and Shaking Knees.
"I can't see him. Where is he? Get him out in the open!" the deaf grandfather on the end of the bench was snapping fretfully.
"Sit here," said an axman. The Bluffer sat down on a bench. John climbed down from the saddle and sat beside him.
"There he is!" said the deaf grandfather. "Why didn't someone point him out to me before. What? Hey? Speak up!"
He was nudged by the grandfather adjoining. The grandfathers conferred, for the most part in low voices. Then they all sat back on their bench, and the central one waggled a finger at the head axman, who stepped out into the open space before the ledge and turned to the crowd.
"Clan Hollows is now meeting in open session!" he shouted. "No fighting! Everybody listen!"
The crowd muttered, grumbled, and took about forty seconds to subside to a passably low level of noise.
"Ahem!" The central grandfather, a heavy Dilbian whose hair was showing the rusty color of age, cleared his throat. "The grandfathers have called this meeting to discuss a matter of Clan honor. In short: is the honor of Clan Hollows involved in the ruckus that one of the Clan Members, the Streamside Terror, has got himself into?"
"Yes!" spoke up Boy Is She Built.
"Who said that?" said the central grandfather.
"She did," said an axman, pointing at Boy Is She Built.
"Keep her quiet," said the grandfather.
"Shut up!" said the axman to Boy Is She Built.
"I apologize for my daughter to Clan Hollows," said Shaking Knees.
"You ought to," said the center Clan Hollows grandfather.
"What'd she say? Hey?" said the grandfather on the end. And they started all over again.
Three minutes later, approximately, things were fairly well straightened out and the meeting underway.
"It seems," said the center grandfather, "that the Terror, wanting this female that just interrupted your grandfather, here, got himself involved with a couple of different types of characters, who may or may not be real people, ended up coming back here with one of the types of characters, known as a Shorty, hot after him, and killing one of the other types of characters, known as a Fatty. Everybody agree to this?"
There was a stir in the forefront of the crowd and Gulark-ay spoke up.
"If the grandfathers will allow a stranger to speak—"
"Go ahead," said the center grandfather. "You're the Fatty top man from Humrog, aren't you?"
"I am."
"You don't agree?" said the center grandfather.
"I just," said Gulark-ay in a voice that reminded John of heavy maple syrup being poured from a five-gallon can, "wished to point out to the grandfathers of Clan Hollows that the Fatty in question is not quite killed. The Terror apparently left him for dead; but it seems now he will recover."
"Well, then, there's no blood feud involved there!" said the grandfather, sharply. "Why aren't we informed properly about these things?"
"I don't know," said the chief axman.
"Speak when you're spoken to," said the center grandfather. He looked out over the crowd. "Where's the Terror? I don't see the Terror."
"He's waiting at Glen Hollow," said Boy Is She built.
"Shut up," said the axman who had spoken to her before.
"Let her speak now," said the center grandfather. "Unless somebody else can tell us why the Terror's at Glen Hollow instead of here? I didn't think so. Go on, girl!"
"The Terror says the Clan can't force a man to dishonor himself. If he'd known the Half-Pint Posted, this Shorty here, had been after him, he wouldn't have moved a step after taking Greasy Face to avenge his honor against Little Bite—"
"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."