Gordon Dickson - Wolf and Iron

Something about the size and overall shape of Nick’s gift had made him feel hesitant—he did not know exactly why. That was at least one of the reasons he had left it until the last, although opening Merry’s gift first, because she was the woman, and Paul’s second because he was the leader, was only natural.

But now he picked up the small man’s gift, which his knees had told him was a little heavier than he would have expected. As heavy in proportion to its large size as the handgun Paul had given him had been light for its smallness.

He opened the last package and found it was two packages inside, one large and one smaller. He opened the smaller and found three items. An ordinary carpenter’s hammer, a large pair of pliers, and what looked like a small, iron chisel, but with only a short, thick handle; the whole thing less than five inches in length.

“A hardy!” he said, recognizing the chisellike object from seeing the one like it, stuck chisel-edge-up through a hole in one end of Nick’s anvil.

“Right,” said Nick, “that, and the hammer are what you can use to start blacksmithing from scratch. Any good solid piece of steel will do for an anvil. You can find that yourself; and you can build your own forge and bellows. But you need the hammer to beat the metal with, the hardy to cut it with when it’s heated enough, and the pliers to hold it until you can forge yourself a regular pair of tongs. Also, the pliers can be used as pliers. Lots of times a pair of pliers can come in handy—open the other package.”

The last words came out abruptly, cutting off Jeebee’s attempt to thank the smaller man. Jeebee took the hint and opened the larger package.

What tumbled out onto the tabletop, inside a newly sewn leather sheath, was a knife almost large enough to be a small sword. It had the general shape of a bowie knife; and when he pulled it from its scabbard, it was indeed a bowie.

It had a five-inch handle made from disks of leather impregnated with some sort of glue that left them as hard as the plastic he remembered from the world, now lost behind them all in time, and tightly compressed between the cross guard and a heavy brass pommel that screwed to the end of the tang and counterbalanced the massive, twelve-inch steel blade. It had been carefully and evenly honed from the hilt to the upswept tip and then back along the recurved top edge to a thick strip of brass that had been silver-soldered to the back of the blade. It caught the firelight and flashed in his eyes as he turned it over, feeling the weight of it. It was a precious and lethal gift intended for only one purpose, and that was to do damage to any living thing at which it was directed, just like the pistol Paul had given him.

It was curious, he thought, how natural these warlike gifts seemed, and this strangely different scene, from his surroundings even a year ago. He now sat by an open fire in the open air surrounded by darkness with two deadly weapons and a pair of binoculars. These were not the sort of things anyone would have gifted him with before, except perhaps the binoculars, and even these were far more powerful and expensive than any pair even his closest friend might have given him in that earlier time.

“Feel the edge,” said Nick, directing Jeebee’s attention back to the knife. “No, use the ball of your thumb, very lightly, and just stroke it over the edge, away from you.”

Jeebee did so. The edge had been feathered to a razor sharpness.

“You want to keep it like that,” said Nick. “You’ll probably never use it, but just in case. Meanwhile, go right on carrying that other knife you’ve got hanging at your belt, and use that for any ordinary need you’ve got. Except for practicing with it—and I’ll show you how to practice before you leave tomorrow—this new knife of yours, you’ll hope it’ll never leave its sheath. I’ll tell you about that, too, tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Nick. Thank you all,” Jeebee said, looking around at them. “I don’t know how to thank you. But Nick—”

He turned back to the little man.

“Where did you get this?”

“I traded for it quite a time back,” Nick said. “It wasn’t in the shape you see it now when I got it. It had been made as part of a collection set. It’s supposed to be a pretty fair replica of the knife Jim Bowie gave his name to, but near as I could ever find out, nobody knows exactly what the ‘original’ Bowie knife really looked like. For that matter he probably had half a dozen knives like this of different sizes and each one made some different from the others.

“Anyway, it was a collection piece, but it had been used for everything under the sun, including to chop kindling. It’ll do that, too, but I don’t want you to use it for that. I’ve put a fighting edge on it, instead of the chisel edge it had when I got it. So it may look sturdy as hell, but don’t cut branches with it, don’t sharpen sticks with it, and above all don’t drop it on anything hard. I’ve got a sharpening stone for you to take along with it, and I’ll teach you how to use it. With some practice you’ll be able to touch up the edge, but if you nick it or have to rebevel it, you’ll spend half a lifetime looking for a stone that’s long enough to do the job.”

“Believe me,” said Jeebee sincerely, “I’ll take good care of it.”

“You don’t know anything about using a knife, do you?” Nick stared across the table at him.

Jeebee shook his head.

“Good,” said Nick, “better that way. If you don’t know how, you’re not as likely to try to use it and get yourself killed.” Jeebee stared at him.

“What’re you giving it to me for, then?” he asked.

“Tell you tomorrow. Well—one thing I will tell you today. If you ever do have to use it, remember just one thing only. Forget everything else. Just remember to let the weight and the edge work for you. Go up through the belly. Aim for the balls—excuse me, Merry, the crotch—and you’ve got your best chance of ending in the belly. You got that?”

Jeebee nodded.

“What you really want to do is go up under the breastbone. If you go in deep enough there, you’ll hit the heart; or you’ll cut a main artery. The blade’s long enough, but you want to be up underneath the ribs. You’ve got to be good—and lucky—to go between the ribs. Never try that. I’ll show you in the morning.”

Shortly after dawn—and before breakfast, since Nick had said that Jeebee would learn faster on an empty stomach—and even if he didn’t learn faster, be lighter on his feet—the two men stood outside the wagon parallel with and facing each other. They stood about five feet apart, Jeebee just having finished some target practice with the little handgun Paul had given him. As Paul had predicted, it threw high and to the left, but it pointed naturally, and by the end of the session Jeebee was grouping his shots with satisfying consistency.

“Stick it down into your boot,” said Paul, after.

“You’ll just have to do a lot of practicing and get used to it,” he said. “Do a lot of dry firing, but always have it loaded with empty cartridge casings when you do. Saves wear on the firing pin. If it didn’t have a shroud, I’d probably suggest that you let the hammer rest on an empty chamber, but with only five rounds you’ll probably want all the firepower it’s got to offer. Now, reload it and put it down in your boot—no, in the boot with the bowie strapped outside it.”

Wondering a little, Jeebee obeyed. He was now wearing calf-high horseman boots that had been given him and that came up within about four inches of his knee. The sheath holding the big knife was strapped to the outside of the boot.

“Now, maybe you’re beginning to understand?” said Nick. “You reach down and everybody’s going to think you’re going for that big knife when you’re really going for the pistol in your boot. You might even be lucky, with somebody holding another gun on you, and a second person tries to take the bowie from you—because it’s so big and it attracts so much attention—but never thinks to look inside the boot for a holdout gun.”