The Right to Arm Bears (38 page)

" `You can't fool me!' shouted the second brother. `I know you're the Cobbly who lives in this woods and who's already eaten one of my brothers. But you can't get in at my front door.'

" `In that case,' answered the Cobbly, `I'll just have to huff and puff until I blow your house down, too.'

" `You can't blow down a house made of logs!' cried the second brother—but in spite of his brave words, he was afraid, and he covered up his head with his blanket just like the first brother had done.

"Meanwhile the Cobbly took a big lung full of air and began to huff, and puff, and huff, and puff—until at last, bang—a log flew out of the wall in front of him, and then another, and then another—and the next thing you knew he'd blown to pieces the house made of logs, and he got in and gobbled up the second brother!"

The groan that arose from the crowd at this point in the story was the deepest and most sincere tribute that tale had received so far.

"The next night," said Bill, and paused dramatically, "the Cobbly went hunting again. He hunted and he hunted, and though he was sure the third brother was there in the forest, he couldn't seem to find where his house had been built. At last, a little ray of light shining out through the darkness led him to it. It was no wonder the Cobbly hadn't been able to recognize it as a house. He had passed it two or three times already. Because this house was made—" Bill paused again and his audience held its breath, "of stone!"

For a long moment the villagers continued to hold their breath in automatic anticipation. But then, slowly, expressions of puzzlement grew on their faces. They began to breathe again. Many of them were casting sidelong glances at each other, and a muttering began which spread through the whole group. Finally, from the rear somebody spoke up.

"Did you say of
stone
, Pick-and-Shovel?"

"That's right," said Bill.

"You mean, of pieces of rock?" asked More Jam from the front ranks.

"That's exactly right," replied Bill. "The third brother made his walls by starting with large boulders at the bottom, and working up to smaller and smaller rocks, fitting them together as he went and packing them tight with wet clay that dried hard after a little while. He bedded his rafters in the stone walls at each end and then built a roof of heavy timbers sloping down from a rooftree mounted on four posts lined up and sunk in the earth inside."

As far as Bill knew, no Dilbian had ever thought of making a house with walls of stone. Apparently, he noted now as he watched and listened from the top of his barrel, the idea was equally as novel to the villagers. It took some little time for the buzzings of incredulity and amazement to die down. But at last, they all quieted like interested children, and he saw their eyes back on him once again.

"Go on, Pick-and-Shovel," said More Jam. "Here the third brother was inside his house made of stone, and there was a Cobbly outside knowing he was in there. What happened next?"

"Well, I suppose you can guess," said Bill, "that Cobbly just didn't turn around and go away and leave the third brother alone."

The villagers hummed their understanding and hearty agreement. It would be no sort of Cobbly at all, they obviously thought, who having gobbled up two of three brothers should leave the third brother in peace.

"The Cobbly knocked at the door—it was a wooden door but three bars held it securely on the inside—" began Bill, but this time he was interrupted from the front rank of the audience.

"
Soheknockedonthedoorandsaidhewasatravelerand-
askedifhecouldcome-inandthebrothersaidno—
" exploded Perfectly Delightful, plainly unable to stand the suspense any longer.

"That's right," said Bill quickly, before the rest of the audience could jump on the excited Perfectly Delightful for interrupting. "And, of course, the Cobbly replied the same way he had to the first two brothers, saying he'd huff and he'd puff and he'd blow the house over. And do you know what the third brother said?"

Shaking their heads, his audience replied almost as one Dilbian that they did not—not without some hard glances thrown in Perfectly Delightful's direction, although she was insisting on her ignorance as loudly as the rest of them.

"The third brother said," said Bill, " `You may huff and puff as long as you want, Cobbly, but you won't be able to blow this house over!' And with that, he turned back to his work, which was putting some final clay around the fireplace he had built into one wall of his house."

"Well," went on Bill, "the Cobbly huffed, and he puffed, and he Huffed and he Puffed! And he HUFFED! But he wasn't able to move that house of stone at all."

Spontaneous cheers rose from the inhabitants of Muddy Nose Village at this information.

"But that Cobbly wasn't giving up—" said Bill when the cheering had died down somewhat. Instantly, a new, complete hush prevailed. He felt the Dilbian eyes hard upon him.

"The Cobbly looked at the door and knew he could never get in there," said Bill. "But then the Cobbly looked up at the roof—and what did he see up there? It was the chimney of a fireplace that the third brother had just built. And in the top of it, was an opening leading right down to the inside of the house. So he jumped up on the roof—"

The audience groaned in new dismay.

"He crept up the logs of the roof until he was at the base of the chimney. He climbed up the chimney. He saw the hole was there. And, without stopping to look, he dived right down it!"

The villagers gasped. Bill stood where he was, in silence, letting the image of the Cobbly's springing down the chimney on a defenseless third brother build itself in their minds. Then he spoke again very slowly.

"But—" he said, and paused again, "the third brother had expected something like this. He had already had some twigs and wood ready in the fireplace underneath his cooking pot, and he had the cooking pot, which was a very large one, full of water. When he heard the Cobbly sneaking around the roof and beginning to investigate the chimney, he had lit the fire under the cooking pot. When the Cobbly dived down the chimney, he dived right into the cooking pot, right into the water and drowned. And the third brother cooked him and had him for dinner, instead!"

It must have been doubtful whether Muddy Nose Village in the Lowlands of Dilbia had ever witnessed such a reaction over the happy ending of a story as took place then. Even Bill himself, half-deafened on top of his barrel, where he deemed it prudent to remain—could hardly believe in his own success as storyteller.

"There's just one thing, Pick-and-Shovel," said More Jam, when order was restored. "Didn't you say something about all this having something to do with your grandfather? How does your grandfather come into it?"

"Actually," said Bill, "he was my grandfather several times removed. And he actually didn't come into it until quite a few years later. You see, after the story of the three brothers got around, a lot of us Shorties started building houses out of stone. It was back at a time called the `Middle Ages,' back where I come from. They built some stone houses that were as big as this village, and you just couldn't get into them."

There was a momentary mutter of puzzlement from the crowd at this unfamiliar name, but it quieted quickly. Bill found that their attention was still with him.

"Some Shorties," said Bill, with a heavy emphasis "some," "began to take advantage off these big stone houses of theirs that nobody could get into—sort of the way the outlaws and Bone Breaker take advantage of that valley of theirs. So ways had to be found to get into those stone houses, somehow. So my grandfather came up with an idea. You couldn't walk up too close to one of the walls of the stone houses because they'd throw big rocks and things like that down on you from windows high up in them. There were even some houses that had extra walls around them with platforms inside so that people could throw things down on anyone trying to get over the wall from the outside—"

"That's what those outlaws do," muttered a voice from the crowd.

"But you say your grandfather figured a way around that sort of thing?" put in More Jam mildly. The crowd quieted down, waiting for Bill's answer.

"As a matter of fact, he did," said Bill. "He got to thinking, why not make a sort of big shield you could push ahead of you to keep the rocks off and push it up close to the wall, and then start digging inside the shield and dig down and underneath both the shield and the wall and come up on the inside!"

Bill ended on a bright, emphatic note. Then he waited. But there was no reaction from the villagers. They merely stood, staring at him as the seconds slid away into silence. Bill saw More Jam stir and sneak glances to his right and left, but the fat Dilbian held his silence. It was Flat Fingers, who finally broke it.

"Well, I'll be chopped!" exclaimed the blacksmith. "Why didn't we think of that!"

Flat Fingers' words suddenly released the tongues of the individuals in the staring audience—it was as if a plug had suddenly been pulled out of a full barrel—comment and exclamation gushed forth. Suddenly, all the villagers were talking at once—more than this, they were breaking up into small groups to argue and discuss the matter among themselves.

A crowd of villagers surrounded Flat Fingers, who was hoarsely giving directions and expounding upon the practical steps that could be taken to build such a shield.

Bill felt a sudden punch on his elbow that staggered him. He turned swiftly and found himself facing Sweet Thing, who was apparently trying to get his attention.

"Pick-and-Shovel, listen!" said Sweet Thing urgently. "I came up here to tell you but you were talking to everybody at the time, so I had to wait until you were through!"

"Tell me what?" asked Bill.

"What I saw, of course!" said Sweet Thing. "What do you think?"

Bill took a strong grip on his patience.

"What did you see, then," he inquired in as calm a tone as possible.

"Him, of course!" said Sweet Thing exasperatedly. "Aren't I telling you? And he was sneaking out of the Residency. Well, I knew he wasn't supposed to be in there when you weren't in there, so I came right up here to tell you about it. But you were so busy talking I had to wait. So I'm telling you now. That Fatty was up to something, as sure as I'm More Jam's daughter!"

"Fatty?" echoed Bill jolted. "You saw Mula—I mean Barrel Belly coming out of the Residency just now?"

"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.

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.