Gordon Dickson - The Right to Arm Bears

“Grown even a bit more yet, since I last saw you, Gentle Maiden,” said the native postman, agreeably. “Done a pretty good job of it, too. Here, meet the Law-Twister Shorty.”

“I don’t want to meet him!” snapped Gentle Maiden. “And you can turn around and take him right back where you got him. He’s not welcome in Clan Water Gap Territory; and I’ve got the Clan Grandfather here to tell him so!”

Mal’s hopes suddenly took an upturn.

“Oh?” he said. “Not welcome? That’s too bad. I guess there’s nothing left but to go back. Bluffer—”

“Hold on, Law-Twister,” growled the Bluffer. “Don’t let Gentle here fool you.” He glared at the three male Dilbians. “What Grandfather? I see three grandpas—Grandpa Tricky, Grandpa Forty Winks and—” he fastened his gaze on the smallest of the elderly males, “old One Punch, here. But none of them are Grandfathers, last I heard.”

“What of it?” demanded Gentle Maiden. “Next Clan meeting, the Clan’s going to choose a Grandfather. One of these grandpas is going to be the one chosen. So with all three of them here, I’ve got the next official Grandfather of Clan Water Gap here, too—even if he doesn’t know it himself, yet!”

“Hor!” The Bluffer exploded into snorts of laughter. “Pretty sneaky, Gentle, but it won’t work! A Grandfather’s no good until he’s named a Grandfather. Why, if you could do things that way, we’d have little kids being put up to give Grandfather rulings. And if it came to that, where’d the point be in having a man live long enough to get wise and trusted enough to be named a Grandfather?”

He shook his head.

“No, no,” he said. “You’ve got no real Grandfather here, and so there’s nobody can tell an honest Shorty like the Law-Twister to turn about and light out from Clan Territory.”

“Told y’so, Gentle,” said the shortest grandpa in a rusty voice. “Said it wouldn’t work.”

“You!” cried Gentle Maiden, wheeling on him. “A fine grandpa you are, One Punch—let alone the fact you’re my own real, personal grandpa! You don’t have to be a Grandfather! You could just tell this Shorty and this long-legged postman on your own—tell them to get out while they were still in one piece! You would have, once!”

“Well, once, maybe,” said the short Dilbian, rustily and sadly. Now that Mal had a closer look at him, he saw that this particular oldster—the one the Hill Bluffer had called One Punch—bore more than a few signs of having led an active life. A number of old scars seamed his fur; one ear was only half there and the other badly tattered. Also, his left leg was crooked as if it had been broken and badly set at one time.

“I don’t see why you can’t still do it—for your granddaughter’s sake!” said Gentle Maiden sharply. Mal winced. Gentle Maiden might be good looking by Dilbian standards—the Hill Bluffer’s comments a moment ago seemed to indicate that—but whatever else she was, she was plainly not very gentle, at least, in any ordinary sense of the word.

“Why, Granddaughter,” creaked One Punch mildly, “like I’ve told you and everyone else, now that I’m older I’ve seen the foolishness of all those little touches of temper I used to have when I was young. They never really proved anything—except how much wiser those big men were who used to kind of avoid tangling with me. That’s what comes with age, Granddaughter. Wisdom. You never hear nowdays of One Man getting into hassles, now that he’s put a few years on him—or of More Jam, down there in the lowlands, talking about defending his wrestling championship anymore.”

“Hold on! Wait a minute, One Punch,” rumbled the Hill Bluffer. “You know and I know that even if One Man and More Jam do go around saying they’re old and feeble nowdays, no one in his right mind is going to take either one of them at their word and risk finding out if it is true.”

“Think so if you like, Postman,” said One Punch, shaking his head mournfully. “Believe that if you want to. But when you’re my age, you’ll know it’s just wisdom, plain, pure wisdom, makes men like them and me so peaceful. Besides, Gentle,” he went on, turning again to his granddaughter, “you’ve got a fine young champion in Iron Bender—”

“Iron Bender!” exploded Gentle Maiden. “That lump! That obstinate, leatherheaded strap-cutter! That—”

“Come to think of it, Gentle,” interrupted the Hill Bluffer, “how come Iron Bender isn’t here? I’d have thought you’d have brought him along instead of these imitation Grandfathers—”

“There, now,” sighed One Punch, staring off at the mountains beyond the other side of the valley. “That bit about imitations— That’s the sort of remark I might’ve taken a bit of offense at, back in the days before I developed wisdom. But does it trouble me nowdays?”

“No offense meant, One Punch,” said the Bluffer. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

“None taken. You see, Granddaughter?” said One Punch. “The postman here never meant a bit of offense; and in the old days I wouldn’t have seen it until it was too late.”

“Oh, you make me sick!” blazed Gentle Maiden. “You all make me sick. Iron Bender makes me sick, saying he won’t have anything against this Law-Twister Shorty until the Law-Twister tries twisting the Clan law that says those three poor little orphans belong to me now!” She glared at the Bluffer and Mal. “Iron Bender said the Shorty can come find him, any time he really wanted to, down at the harness shop!”

“He’ll be right down,” promised the Bluffer.

“Hey—” began Mal. But nobody was paying any attention to him.

“Now, Granddaughter,” One Punch was saying, reprovingly. “The Bender didn’t exactly ask you to name him your protector, you know.”

“What difference does that make?” snapped Gentle Maiden. “I had to pick the toughest man in the Clan to protect me—that’s just common sense; even if he is stubborn as an I-don’t-know-what and thick-headed as a log wall! I know my rights. He’s got to defend me; and there—” she wheeled and pointed to the large boulder lying on the grass, “—there’s the stone of Mighty Grappler, and here’s all three of you, one of who’s got to be a Grandfather by next Clan meeting—and you mean to tell me none of you’ll even say a word to help me turn this postman and this Shorty around and get them out of here?”

The three elderly Dilbian males looked back at her without speaking.

“All right!” roared Gentle Maiden, stamping about to turn her back on all of them. “You’ll be sorry! All of you!”

With that, she marched off down the slope of the valley toward the village of log houses.

“Well,” said the individual whom the Hill Bluffer had called Grandpa Tricky, “guess that’s that, until she thinks up something more. I might as well be ambling back down to the house, myself. How about you, Forty Winks?”

“Guess I might as well, too,” said Forty Winks.

They went off after Gentle Maiden, leaving Mal—still on the Hill Bluffer’s back—staring down at One Punch, from just behind the Bluffer’s reddish-furred right ear.

“What,” asked Mal, “has the stone of what’s-his-name got to do with it?”

“The stone of Mighty Grappler?” asked One Punch. “You mean you don’t know about that stone, over there?”

“Law-Twister here’s just a Shorty,” said the Bluffer, apologetically. “You know how Shorties are—tough, but pretty ignorant.”

“Some say they’re tough,” said One Punch, squinting up at Mal, speculatively.

“Now, wait a minute, One Punch!” the Hill Bluffer’s bass voice dropped ominously an additional half-octave. “Maybe there’s something we ought to get straight right now! This isn’t just any plain private citizen you’re talking to, it’s the official postman speaking. And I say the Shorties’re tough. I say I was there when the Half-Pint Posted took the Streamside Terror; and also when Pick-and-Shovel wiped up Bone Breaker in a sword-and-shield duel. Now, no disrespect, but if you’re questioning the official word of a government mail carrier—”