Gordon Dickson - The Right to Arm Bears

“Yes,” said Bone Breaker, staring off across Bill’s head at the distant courier ship, “I guess I’d have to say that. A man can’t just give up being Lowland champion wrestler without some kind of good reason.”

“Or,” said Bill, “being outlaw chief.”

“Well, that too,” admitted Bone Breaker.

“Yes,” said Bill thoughtfully, “I guess you might have had your problems too along that line if luck hadn’t turned out the way it did. You had Sweet Thing on your side, and she knows a thing or two—”

“She,” said Bone Breaker, “surely does.”

“To say nothing of her old daddy, who’s as tricky as they come; and who probably wouldn’t have objected at all getting a real tough cat for a son-in-law to help him with the innkeeping business.”

“Well, now that it’s all over,” said Bone Breaker, “I have to admit More Jam’s pretty much been on my side all along.”

“But there wasn’t much they could do directly to help you,” said Bill. “So it was sort of handy—my coming along. You couldn’t very well quit outlawing without being licked in a fair fight. And you couldn’t very well let yourself get licked by any other real man, especially from around these parts, and still keep your reputation after you retired. But of course, if a Shorty like me won a fight with you, and I flew out of here a few days later, that’d still leave you top dog—locally, at least. Of course, you didn’t have to quit outlawing just because a Shorty beat you. It wasn’t as if I was a real man.”

“No, but it was a sign to me—you winning like that,” said Bone Breaker sadly. “I was getting slow and weak, Pick-and-Shovel, and it was only a matter of time until somebody else took me. I could tell that.”

“Oh, you don’t look all that old and weak yet,” said Bill.

“Nice of you to say so, Pick-and-Shovel,” said the Bone Breaker. “Oh, I might stand up to any other real man around here for a few years yet. But I sure can’t stand up to a fire-eating Shorty like you.”

“Well, it’s particularly nice to hear you say that,” pounced Bill. Bone Breaker’s gaze centered on him remained calm and innocent. “Because this mixed-up memory of mine’s been giving me all sorts of trouble about that fight.”

“Memory?” queried Bone Breaker, with rumbling softness.

“That’s right.” Bill shook his head. “You remember you must have hit me quite a clip in that storehouse, even if I did get out of it on my feet, first. I was laid up for a few days afterward. And that knock on the head seems to have got my memory all mixed up. Would you believe it, I find myself thinking that I touched your leg, lying on the floor, before all those logs came tumbling down, and covered you up.”

“My!” Bone Breaker shook his head slowly. “I really did clip you one, then, didn’t I, Pick-and-Shovel? Now, what would I be doing lying down on the floor, waiting for some logs to roll down on me?”

“Well, I guess you’ll laugh,” said Bill. “But it just seems to stick in my head that you were not only lying there, but that you pulled those logs down on yourself, and it was that that made folks think I’d won. But anyone knows you wouldn’t do that. After all, you were fighting for your old free way of life. The last thing you wanted was to get married and settle down to innkeeping. So I tell myself I shouldn’t think that way. Should I ?”

Bill shot the last two words hard at the big Dilbian. Bone Breaker breathed quietly for a second, his eyes half-closed, his expression thoughtful.

“Well, I’ll tell you, Pick-and-Shovel,” he said at last. “As long as it’s just you, and you being a Shorty, I don’t guess I mind your thinking that, if you want to. After all, your thinking it happened like that doesn’t do me any harm as long as you’re getting in that flying box there and going away. So, you go ahead and think that, if you like and I won’t mind.”

Bill let out a deep breath in defeat. Bone Breaker had managed to weasel out of it.

“But I’ll tell you something,” went on Bone Breaker, unexpectedly. “I’ll tell you how I like to think of our fight.”

“How’s that?” asked Bill, suspiciously.

“Why, I like to think of how I was tiptoeing along in the darkness there—and suddenly you came at me like a wild tree-cat,” said Bone Breaker. “Before I was half-ready, you were on me. Next thing I knew you’d knocked my sword spinning out of my fist and split my shield. Then you picked up a log and hit me. And then you hit me with another log and the whole pile came tumbling down as you threw me through the wall of the storehouse, jumped outside and threw me back in through another part of the wall, just as the rest of the logs came tumbling down and covered me.”

He stopped speaking. Bill stared at him for a long moment before he could find his voice.

“Threw you through the wall, twice ?” echoed Bill, his voice cracking. “How could I? There weren’t any holes made in the storehouse walls!”

“There weren’t!” said Bone Breaker, on a note of surprise, rearing back. “Why, now, that’s true, Pick-and-Shovel! I must be wrong about that part. I’ll have to remember to leave that part out when I tell about our fight. I certainly am obliged to you, Pick-and-Shovel, for pointing that out to me. I guess my memory must have gotten a little mixed-up—just like yours did.”

“Er—yes,” said Bill.

Suddenly, a great light burst upon Bill. Anything a Dilbian said had to be interpreted—and he had been looking for Bone Breaker to admit the truth about the duel in a different way. This , then, was the admission—in the shape of a story about Bill’s prowess too wonderful to believe. So he had picked up this nine-hundred-pound hulk before him and thrown it through a wall of logs, not once, but twice, had he?

“But, after all,” Bone Breaker was going on, easily, “there’s no reason for us to go picking on each other’s memories. Why don’t I just remember the fight the way I remember it, and you remember it your way, and we’ll let it go at that?”

Bill grinned. He could not help it. It was a violation of the rules of Dilbian verbal fencing, which called for a straight face at all times, but he hoped that his human face would be alien enough to Bone Breaker so that the Dilbian would not interpret the expression.

Whether this was the case or not, Bone Breaker did not seem to notice the grin.

“All right,” said Bill. Bone Breaker nodded in satisfaction.

“Well, I guess I’ll be rolling home for dinner, then,” he said. “You know, Pick-and-Shovel, you’re not bad for a Shorty. Something real manly about you. Pleased to have met you. So long!”

He turned and left—as abruptly as had the Hill Bluffer. Watching him go, Bill saw him stop to speak to another male Dilbian who had been examining the courier ship, but who now hurried to intercept the ex-outlaw chief.

There was something undeniably respectful about the way the other Dilbian approached the big, black-furred figure. Whatever other changes had occurred in Bone Breaker’s life as a result of his losing the fight to Bill and taking up innkeeping, it was plain to see that he had not lost anything of his local stature and authority in the process.

But just at that moment, out of the corner of his eye, Bill caught sight of the tall, lean man who had been talking to Anita by the open hatch of the ship, picking up what was evidently a suitcase and turning as if to head off through the woods.

“Hey!” shouted Bill, starting to run toward him. “No, you don’t! Hold up, there! I’ve got some talking to do to you!”

The man stopped and turned as Bill ran up to the ship. Anita, who had been just about to go in through the hatch, also stopped, turned and waited—thereby presenting Bill with a small problem. He had wanted a clear ring for his encounter with the tall man.