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Chapter 14

Silently, Bill blessed the inspiration that had come to him earlier when he had originally begun to challenge the blacksmith. That inspiration should get him out of his present fix now, he told himself firmly. But in spite of that inner firmness, he felt his stomach sink inside him as he looked around at the grim, furry faces ringing him in. He forced himself to maintain his casual voice, and the careless smile on his face.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he said lightly. He turned and looked into the crowd. "Where's More Jam?"

"What's More Jam got to do with it?" growled Flat Fingers, behind him.

"Why, just that he was there when you and I had our little talk," answered Bill, without turning. "He's my witness. Where is More Jam?"

"Coming!" huffed a voice from the back of the crowd. And a moment later, More Jam himself shoved his way through the front ranks and joined Bill and the others under the shed roof.

"Well, now, Pick-and-Shovel," he said. "You were passing the shout for me?"

"Yes, I was," said Bill. "You were over at the Residency this morning and maybe you were listening when I had my little talk with Flat Fingers. I wonder if you could think back and see if you remember just what I said I'd meet him here at noon to do? Did I say I'd outlift him?"

"Let's see, now," rumbled More Jam. "As I remember it, what Pick-and-Shovel here said was—`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.' "

More Jam cocked his head at the blacksmith.

"Sorry not to be able to back a fellow townsman up, Flat Fingers," said Sweet Thing's father sadly, "but that's what Pick-and-Shovel said, all right. And he suggested that you get together after lunch and you said `Suits me . . . ' " More Jam continued, repeating the conversation with as much accuracy as if he had been a recording machine.

Bill let a slow, silent sigh of relief escape him. The Dilbians, he knew, had the rather elementary written language that made the Bluffer's job as postman possible and necessary. But Bill had gambled on the fact that, like most primitive cultures, it was the Dilbian custom and habit to depend on the memories of living witnesses to any agreement or transaction.

However, the verdict, Bill noted, was not in yet. The crowd was still silent.

Bill's breath checked in his chest once more—but just then a swelling wave of thunderous, bass-voiced Dilbian laughter began to rise and ring about Bill's ears from every direction. Everybody was laughing—even, finally, Flat Fingers himself. In fact, the blacksmith showed an alarming intention of slapping Bill on the back in congratulation—an intention Bill only frustrated by hastily backing up against the stout belly of More Jam.

"Well, well, well!" chortled the towering blacksmith finally, as the laughter began to die down. "You sure are a sneaky little Shorty, at that—and I'm the first man to admit it! No offense about my flying off the handle and saying you cheated, I hope? If you feel we ought to tangle about it, right now—"

"No, no—no offense!" said Bill quickly. "None at all!"

General sounds of approval from the surrounding crowd greeted this magnanimous attitude on Bill's part. By this time the shed was completely hemmed in by the villagers. It occurred to Bill that this might be a good time to try to get them on his side against the outlaws, striking while the iron was hot, so to speak. He stepped up on a pile of logs.

"Er—people of Muddy Nose," said Bill. For a second, his voice threatened to stick in his throat. For all the crowd's present good humor, Bill could not forget the ominous quiet that had hung over them a moment earlier when the blacksmith had accused him of cheating. It was a little like public speaking to a convocation of grizzlies. Nevertheless, Bill fell back upon his innate stubbornness and determination, and went doggedly ahead with what he had intended to say.

"—As you all know," he said, "my main job here is to help all of you to make your farms turn out bigger and better crops. But as you all know, too, I haven't been able to do anything about this yet because I've been tied up with a problem about Dirty Teeth and a bunch of outlaws headed by Bone Breaker—whom you all know well.

"But I'm sure you can all understand how this could keep me busy," went on Bill, "because these same outlaws have been keeping you people here around Muddy Nose busy for some time.

"So, I just wanted to mention that perhaps the time has come for you and me to join forces and see about settling the hash of these outlaws once and for all," said Bill. "When I first landed in this community, I was given to understand that you might not be too interested in following a Shorty that wanted to do away with the community menace up in Outlaw Valley. I can understand that—you didn't know anything about me. But now, though I do say it myself who shouldn't—you've seen me have this little competition here with your village blacksmith, who's as good a man as they come—"

Bill paused to wave in Flat Fingers' direction, and Flat Fingers scowled from right to left—that being the male Dilbian way of taking a bow when referred to on public occasion.

"At any rate, I thought that maybe now we might get together and start to make some plans about cleaning out the outlaws . . ." For the first time, Bill began to be conscious of a good-natured, but rather obvious, lack of response from the crowd before him. In fact, from his elevated position on top of the logs, he now saw some of the outer members of his audience beginning to turn away and amble off.

"Believe me," he said, raising his voice and speaking as earnestly and forcefully as he could, "Muddy Nose Village can't get better and richer and stronger until those outlaws are settled. So what I thought was that we might get together a town meeting . . ."

The crowd, however, was visibly breaking up. Individually and in small groups they began to scatter, turning their backs on Bill and drifting off into the body of the village. Bill continued to talk on, almost desperately. But it was plainly a losing cause. Very shortly, his audience was down to its hard core. That is to say—Sweet Thing, More Jam, the Hill Bluffer, and Flat Fingers. Feeling foolish, Bill stopped talking and climbed down from the pile.

"I guess I don't convince people very well," he said in honest bewilderment to those who remained.

"Don't say that!" said Flat Fingers strongly. "You convinced me, Pick-and-Shovel! And I'm as good as any three other men in the village, any day—" He checked himself, looking apologetically at Sweet Thing's male parent. "—men my own age, that is."

"Why thanks, Blacksmith," said More Jam with a heavy sigh. "Nice of you not to include me—though of course I'm only a shadow of my former self." He turned his head to Bill, however, and his voice became serious. "In fact, you've got a friend in me too, Pick-and-Shovel—just as I told you yesterday. But that doesn't change things. If you figured this village to fall in line behind you in a feud with the outlaws, you should've known better."

"You sure should have!" interrupted the Bluffer emphatically. "Why I could've told you, Pick-and-Shovel, you'd never get anywhere impressing these people by being tricky. They know Shorties can be sneaky as all get out. The Tricky Teacher proved that. What they want to see if what you can do in the muscle-and-guts department. What you've got to do is just what you're set up to do—and that's tangle with Bone Breaker. Lay him out! Then these people will back you against the outlaws."

"I'll get started right away on that blade and buckler, Pick-and-Shovel," put in Flat Fingers. "Let's see if I can find something around here that's particularly good blade material."

"Guts-and-muscle department . . ." muttered Bill thoughtfully, echoing the Bluffer's words. That was certainly the department in which everyone seemed to be eager to have him operate—including whoever or whatever was responsible for his being in this place and situation in the first place.

It was hardly to be considered that Mula-ay had been telling the truth, this morning in the woods, when he had claimed Bill had been deliberately put on the spot by human authorities simply to save face in the case of the Muddy Nose Project. On the other hand, some of the things the Hemnoid had said had chimed uncomfortably well with some of the things Anita had said when he spoke to her in Outlaw Valley.

Either Anita had been as badly misled about the true situation here as Bill had, or . . . It occurred to Bill that the cards might be stacked more heavily against him than he had thought, even when he had sat thinking in front of the communications console after his unsuccessful attempt to contact Greentree or anyone else off-planet. There seemed to be no way out of his duel with Bone Breaker unless he could figure out who or what had put him in this situation, and what the true aims and motives of everyone concerned were.

In any case, Anita was going to have to provide him with some answers. That meant he must talk to her again, which meant another penetration of Outlaw Valley, which could hardly be done in the broad light of day . . .

"Muscle-and-guts department?" he repeated again, looking up at the Bluffer. "I suppose it would take a little muscle—and guts too—to get in and out of that Outlaw Valley after it's been shut up for the night?"

The Bluffer stared back at him in astonishment. Sweet Thing and More Jam also stared. Some little distance away the blacksmith raised his head in astonishment.

"Are you crazy, Pick-and-Shovel?" demanded Flat Fingers. "The gate to that valley is locked and barred the minute the sun goes down and there are two armed men on guard until it's opened up at dawn. Nobody goes in and out of that valley after the sun's gone down!"

"I do," said Bill grimly. "I think I'll just drop in there tonight; and I'll bring back that piece of metal outside the outlaw's dining hall they use as a gong, to prove I've been there!"

 

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