He sighed again.
“So,” he said, flexing his huge arms, “if you’ll light down from your perch on the postman, there, I’ll get to it. I’ve got a long day’s work back at the harness shop, anyway; and daylight’s daylight—”
“But fair’s fair,” broke in Mal, hastily. The Iron Bender lowered his massive, brown-furred hands, looking puzzled.
“Fair’s fair?” he echoed.
“You heard him, harnessmaker!” snapped the Bluffer, bristling. “No offense, but there’s more to something like this than punching holes in leather. Nothing I’d like to see more than for you to try—just try—to tear the head off a Shorty like Law-Twister here, since I’ve seen what a Shorty can do when he really gets his dander up. But like the Twister himself pointed out, this is not just a happy hassle—this is serious business involving Clan laws and Shorty laws and lots of other things. We were just discussing it when you came up. Law-Twister was saying maybe something like this should be held up until the next Clan meeting when you elect a Grandfather, so’s it could be decided by a legal Clan Water Gap court in full session.”
“Court—” Iron Bender was beginning when he was interrupted.
“We will not wait for any court to settle who gets my orphans!” cried a new voice and the black-furred form of Gentle Maiden shoved through the crowd to join them. “When there’s no Clan Grandfather to rule, the Clan goes by law and custom. Law and custom says my protector’s got to take care of me, and I’ve got to take care of the little ones I adopted. And I’m not letting them suffer for two weeks before they realize they’re settling down with me. The law says I don’t have to and no man’s going to make me try—”
“Now, hold on there just a minute, Gentle,” rumbled Iron Bender. “Guess maybe I’m the one man in this Clan, or between here and Humrog Peak for that matter, who could make you try and do something whether you wanted it or not, if he wanted to. Not that I’m saying I’m going to, now. But you just remember that while I’m your named protector, it doesn’t mean I’m going to let you order me around like you do other folk—any more than I ever did.”
He turned back to the Bluffer, Mal and One Punch.
“Right’s right,” he said. “Now, what’s all this about a court?”
Neither the Bluffer nor One Punch answered immediately—and, abruptly, Mal realized it was up to him to do the explaining.
“Well, as I was pointing out to the postman and One Punch,” he began, rapidly, “there’s a lot at stake, here. I mean, we Shorties have laws, too; and one of them is that you don’t have to be represented by a law-twister not your choice. I haven’t talked to these Shorties you and Gentle claim are orphans, so I don’t have their word on going ahead with anything on their behalf. I can’t do anything important until I have that word of theirs. What if we—er—tangled, and it turned out they didn’t mean to name me to do anything for them, after all? Here you, a regular named protector of a maiden according to your Clan laws, as laid down by Mighty Grappler, would have been hassling with someone who didn’t have a shred of right to fight you. And here, too, I’d have been tangling without a shred of lawful reason for it, to back me up. What we need to do is study the situation. I need to talk to the Shorties you say are orphans—”
“No!” cried Gentle Maiden. “He’s not to come near my little orphans and get them all upset, even more than they are now—”
“Hold on, now, Granddaughter,” interposed One Punch. “We all can see how the Twister here’s twisting and slipping around like the clever little Shorty he is, trying to get things his way. But he’s got a point there when he talks about Clan Water Gap putting up a named protector, and then that protector turns out to have gotten into a hassle with someone with no authority at all. Why they’d be laughing at our Clan all up and down the mountains. Worse yet, what if that protector should lose—”
“Lose?” snorted Iron Bender, with all the geniality of a grizzly abruptly wakened from his long winter’s nap.
“That’s right, harnessmaker. Lose!” snarled the Hill Bluffer. “Guess there just might be a real man not too far away from you at this moment who’s pretty sure you would lose—and handily!”
Suddenly, the two of them were standing nose to nose. Mal became abruptly aware that he was still seated in the saddle arrangement on the Bluffer’s back and that, in case of trouble between the two big Dilbians, it would not be easy for him to get down in a hurry.
“I’ll tell you what, Postman,” Iron Bender was growling. “Why don’t you and I just step out beyond the houses, here, where there’s a little more open space—”
“Stop it!” snapped Gentle Maiden. “Stop it right now, Iron Bender! You’ve got no right to go fighting anybody for your own private pleasure when you’re still my protector. What if something happened, and you weren’t able to protect me and mine the way you should after that?”
“Maiden’s right,” said One Punch, sharply. “It’s Clan honor and decency at stake here, not just your feelings, Bender. Now, as I was saying, Law-Twister here’s been doing some fine talking and twisting, and he’s come up with a real point. It’s as much a matter to us if he’s a real Shorty-type protector to those orphans Maiden adopted, as it is to him and the other Shorties—”
His voice became mild. He turned to the crowd and spread his hands, modestly.
“Of course, I’m no real Grandfather,” he said. “Some might think I wouldn’t stand a chance to be the one you’ll pick at the next Clan meeting. Of course, some might think I would, too—but it’s hardly for me to say. Only, speaking as a man who might be named a Grandfather someday, I’d say Gentle Maiden really ought to let Law-Twister check with those three orphans to see if they want him to talk or hassle, for them.”
A bass-voiced murmur of agreement rose from the surrounding crowd, which by this time had grown to a respectable size. For the first time since he had said farewell to Ambassador Joshua Guy, Mal felt his spirits begin to rise. For the first time, he seemed to be getting some control over the events which had been hurrying him along like a chip swirling downstream in the current of a fast river. Maybe, if he had a little luck, now—
“Duty’s duty, I guess,” rumbled Iron Bender at just this moment. “All right, then, Law-Twister—now, stop your arguing, Gentle, it’s no use—you can see your fellow Shorties. They’re at Gentle’s place, last but one on the left-hand side of the street, here.”
“Show you the way, myself, Postman,” said One Punch.
The Clan elder led off, limping, and the crowd broke up as the Hill Bluffer followed him. Iron Bender went off in the opposite direction, but Gentle Maiden tagged along with the postman, Mal, and her grandfather, muttering to herself.
“Take things kind of hard, don’t you, Gentle?” said the Hill Bluffer to her, affably. “Don’t blame old Iron Bender. Man can’t expect to win every time.”
“Why not?” demanded Gentle. “I do! He’s just so cautious, and slow, he makes me sick! Why can’t he be like One Punch, here, when he was young? Hit first and think afterward—particularly when I ask him to? Then Bender could go around being slow and careful about his own business if he wanted; in fact, I’d be all for him being like that, on his own time. A girl needs a man she can respect; particularly when there’s no other man around that’s much more than half-size to him!”
“Tell him so,” suggested the Bluffer, strolling along, his long legs making a single stride to each two of Gentle and One Punch.