Orson Card: Grinning Man

The first time Alvin Maker run across the grinning man was in the steep woody hills of eastern Kenituck. Alvin was walking along with his ward, the boy Arthur Stuart, talking either deep philosophy or the best way for travellers to cook beans, I can't bring to mind now which, when they come upon a clearing where a man was squatting on his haunches looking up into a tree. Apart from the unnatural grin upon his face, there wasn't all that much remarkable about him, for that time and place. Dressed in buckskin, a cap made of coonhide on his head, a musket lying in the grass ready to hand - plenty of men of such youth and roughness walked the game trails of the unsettled forest in those days.

Though come to think of it, eastern Kenituck wasn't all that unsettled by then, and most men gave up buckskin for cotton during summer, less they was too poor to get them none. So maybe it was partly his appearance that made Alvin stop up short and look at the fellow. Arthur Stuart, of course, he did what he saw Alvin do, till he had some good reason to do otherwise, so he stopped at the meadow's edge too, and fell silent too, and watched.

The grinning man had his gaze locked on the middle branches of a scruffy old pine that was getting somewhat choked out by slower-growing flat-leaf trees. But it wasn't no tree he was grinning at. No sir, it was the bear.

There's bears and there's bears, as everyone knows. Some little old brown bears are about as dangerous as a dog - which means if you beat it with a stick you deserve what you get, but otherwise it'll leave you alone. But some black bears and some grizzlies, they have a kind of bristle to the hair on their backs, a kind of spikiness like a porcupine that tells you they're just spoiling for a fight, hoping you'll say a cross word so's they can take a swipe at your head and suck your lunch back up through your neck. Like a likkered-up river man.

This was that kind of bear. A little old, maybe, but as spiky as they come, and it wasn't up that tree 'cause it was afraid, it was up there for honey, which it had plenty of, along with bees that were now so tired of trying to sting through that matted fur that they were mostly dead, all stung out. There was no shortage of buzzing, though, like a choir of folks as don't know the words to the hymn so they just hum, only the bees was none too certain of the tune, neither.

But there sat that man, grinning at the bear. And there sat the bear, looking down at him with its teeth showing.

Alvin and Arthur stood watching for many a minute while nothing in the tableau changed. The man squatted on the ground, grinning up; the bear squatted on a branch, grinning down. Neither one showed the slightest sign that he knew Alvin and Arthur was even there.

So it was Alvin broke the silence. 'I don't know who started the ugly contest, but I know who's going to win.'

Without breaking his grin, through clenched teeth the man said, 'Excuse me for not shaking your hands but I'm abusy grinning this bear.'

Alvin nodded wisely - it certainly seemed to be a truthful statement. 'And from the look of it,' says Alvin, 'that bear thinks he's grinning you, too.'

'Let him think what he thinks,' said the grinning man. 'He's coming down from that tree.'

Arthur Stuart, being young, was impressed. 'You can do that just by grinning?' .

'Just hope I never turn my grin on you,' said the man. 'I'd hate to have to pay your master the purchase price of such a clever blackamoor as you.'

It was a common mistake, to take Arthur Stuart for a slave. He was half-Black, wasn't he? And south of the Hio was all slave country then, where a Black man either was, or used to be, or sure as shooting was bound to become somebody's property. In those parts, for safety's sake, Alvin didn't bother correcting the assumption. Let folks think Arthur Stuart already had an owner, so folks didn't get their hearts set on volunteering for the task.

'That must be a pretty strong grin,' said Alvin Maker. 'My name's Alvin. I'm a journeyman blacksmith.'

'Ain't much call for a smith in these parts. Plenty of better land farther west, more settlers, you ought to try it.' The fellow was still talking through his grin.

'I might,' said Alvin. 'What's your name?'

'Hold still now,' says the grinning man. 'Stay right where you are. He's a-coming down.'

The bear yawned, then clambered down the trunk and rested on all fours, his head swinging back and forth, keeping time to whatever music it is that bears hear. The fur around his mouth was shiny with honey and dotted with dead bees. Whatever the bear was thinking, after a while he was done, whereupon he stood on his hind legs like a man, his paws high, his mouth open like a baby showing its mama it swallowed its food.

The grinning man rose up on his hind legs, then, and spread his arms, just like the bear, and opened his mouth to show a fine set of teeth for a human, but it wasn't no great shakes compared to bear's teeth. Still, the bear seemed convinced. It bent back down to the ground and ambled away without complaint into the brush.

'That's my tree now,' said the grinning man.

'Ain't much of a tree,' said Alvin.

'Honey's about all et up,' added Arthur Stuart.

'My tree and all the land round about,' said the grinning man.

'And what you plan to do with it? You don't look to be a farmer.'

'I plan to sleep here,' said the grinning man. 'And my intention was to sleep without no bear coming along to disturb my slumber. So I had to tell him who was boss.'

'And that's all you do with that knack of yours?' asked Arthur Stuart. 'Make bears get out of the way?'

'I sleep under bearskin in winter,' said the grinning man. 'So when I grin a bear, it stays grinned till I done what I'm doing.'

'Don't it worry you that someday you'll meet your match?' asked Alvin mildly.

'I got no match, friend. My grin is the prince of grins. The king of grins.'

'The emperor of grins,' said Arthur Stuart. 'The Napoleon of grins!'

The irony in Arthur's voice was apparently not subtle enough to escape the grinning man. 'Your boy got him a mouth.'

'Helps me pass the time,' said Alvin. 'Well, now you done us the favour of running off that bear, I reckon this is a good place for us to stop and build us a canoe.'

Arthur Stuart looked at him like he was crazy. 'What do we need a canoe for?'

'Being a lazy man,' said Alvin, 'I mean to use it to go downstream.'

'Don't matter to me,' said the grinning man. 'Float it, sink it, wear it on your head or swallow it for supper, you ain't building nothing right here.' The grin was still on his face.

'Look at that, Arthur,' said Alvin. 'This fellow hasn't even told us his name, and he's a-grinning us.'

'Ain't going to work,' said Arthur Stuart. 'We been grinned at by politicians, preachers, witchers, and lawyers, and you ain't got teeth enough to scare us.'

With that, the grinning man brought his musket to bear right on Alvin's heart. 'I reckon I'll stop grinning then,' he said.

'I think this ain't canoe-building country,' said Alvin. 'Let's move along, Arthur.'

'Not so fast,' said the grinning man. 'I think maybe I'd be doing all my neighbours a favour if I kept you from ever moving away from this spot.'

'First off,' said Alvin, 'you got no neighbours.'

'All mankind is my neighbour,' said the grinning man. 'Jesus said so.'

'I recall he specified Samaritans,' said Alvin, 'and Samaritans got no call to fret about me.'

'What I see is a man carrying a poke that he hides from my view.'

That was true, for in that sack was Alvin's golden plough, and he always tried to keep it halfway hid behind him so folks wouldn't get troubled if they happened to see it move by itself, which it was prone to do from time to time. Now, though, to answer the challenge, Alvin moved the sack around in front of him.