Spacepaw (15 page)

“If you want my opinion, Pick-and-Shovel,” he said at last, judiciously, “I think the blacksmith could lift that much and—say, two more logs, as well.”

“Would you say he could lift that much and
three
more logs?” asked Bill.

The Bluffer considered.

“Well,” he drawled finally. “I’d have to say no, I don’t think he could.”

“Suppose I added four logs to that stack,” said Bill. “You’d be pretty sure then he wouldn’t be able to lift them?”

“Sure I’d be sure,” said the Bluffer promptly.

“Well, I’ll just add those other four logs on, then,” said Bill.

He went back to the stack of logs and did so. As he took hold of the rope running over the rafter to the block-and-tackle, and began to put his weight on it, a trace of uneasiness crept into him for the first time. There was over half a ton of dead weight at the other end. The block-and-tackle might be able to lift it—but the question was, could he? For one thing, the added weight was making the friction between the rope and the rafter over which it ran a not inconsiderable item to be dealt with. At his first tug, it seemed as if the load would not move. Then—Bill remembering the fury that had been born in him back in the woods into which Mula-
ay
had kidnapped him. He set his teeth, wound his hands in the rope—and
pulled.

For a long second, nothing happened. Then the rope gave, first a little, then a little more. Soon he was able to change his grip and the rope began coming steadily down toward him. Still, he did not count the battle won until a sudden gasp from the crowd behind him told him that the stack of ten logs had finally swung free and clear of the pile below it, visibly into the air.

Gratefully, he let go of the rope, and turned to look. Sure enough, the load he had just lifted showed daylight between it and the top of the log pile.

“Well, there it is,” said Bill mildly. “I guess I did manage to lift a little bit, after all.”

He dusted his hands together, turned back, and released the brake on the block-and-tackle. The load it was supporting fell with a crash back on to the top of the stack beneath. Bill surreptitiously locked the brake in place with a thrust of his thumb against the rachet he had provided for that purpose. Then he turned back and walked over to the bench where the Hill Bluffer was still sitting.

“Well,” Bill said, “I guess you and I might as well be wandering back on down to the Residency. I just wanted to show what I could do if I had a mind to do it. But I can’t really expect Flat Fingers to go and try and lift that same weight, too. So I’ll just leave it there; and we’ll be going—” The Bluffer had gotten to his feet, and Bill had already turned toward the Residency when an angry snarl behind him turned him back.

“Just a minute there, Pick-and-Shovel!” snapped the blacksmith. He strode over to the rope still hanging from the opposite side of the beam from which the block-and-tackle itself depended, and grasped it firmly in his two huge, furry hands.

Then, without warning, he threw all his weight upon it. The rope twanged, suddenly taut—and alarm leaped inside Bill. The rope he had chosen was perfectly adequate to the task of lifting the load he had just lifted—otherwise it would have broken. But he knew how a rope that will not break under a steady pull will part under a sudden jerk that snaps it. For a moment, hearing the bass-viol note of the rope as it straightened out, Bill was sure that this was what had happened in Flat Fingers’ huge hands.

But then he saw that the rope had held. Not only that, but although the great shoulder muscles under the black fur of Flat Fingers were bunching heroically, and the block-and-tackle was creaking painfully, the load was not lifting.

The line was now as taut and straight as a bar of iron. The whole body of the blacksmith vibrated with the effort he was making. But, as the long seconds slipped away, it became obvious he was not going to be able to do it.

A single, jeering laugh rang out from the surrounding crowd. With a speed of reflex that seemed unbelievable in one so big, Flat Fingers suddenly let go of the rope, spun around and took three long strides into the crowd, to reappear a second later dragging forward by the neck and arm a somewhat smaller, male Dilbian. Having got the other out where there was room to swing him, the blacksmith shook him like a terrier shaking a rat.

“You want to try it, Fat Lip? You and one of your friends, together, want to try to lift it?” roared Flat Fingers.

He let the other go, and Fat Lip staggered for a moment before gaining his feet. Then, however, licking his lips, he took a look at the rope, and turned to shout a name into the crowd.

In response to that name another Dilbian of about the same size came forward. Together, grinning, they hauled on the rope.

However, for them as for the blacksmith, the lock held the brake on the block-and-tackle in place. Instead of the rope running through the pulleys as it had for Bill, they—like Flat Fingers—were reduced to trying to lift by main strength the dead weight not only of the logs but of the block-and-tackle itself. They did not succeed. In fact, a third Dilbian was needed to help them before the bundle of logs could be swayed, creakingly, up into the air.

A mutter, a rumble, a general sound of awe ran through the crowd. They stared at Bill with strange eyes.

“Well, Blacksmith!” said the Bluffer, with something very like a crow of triumph in his voice. “I guess that settles it?”

“Not quite, Postman!” replied the blacksmith. He had stepped back to the forge and picked up a rather long sharp knife from a small table near it. Now, approaching the tied-up bundle of logs, and shoving the three who had lifted it out of his way, he cut the rope above the block-and-tackle and below it, tossed it aside and retied the cut end of the lifting rope directly to the rope binding the load together. Then he stepped back, and turned to Bill.

“All right, Pick-and-Shovel,” he said ominously. “Let’s see you lift it now.”

Bill did not move. But his heart felt as if it had just stopped beating.

“Why should I?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you why!” said Flat Fingers. He reached down and picked up the block-and-tackle in one large hand and shoved it before Bill’s eyes. “Did you think a professional man like me could have something like this pulled right under his nose and not know what’s going on? The only reason you could lift those logs was because you used
this!
This gadget, right here!” He shook it, fiercely, almost in Bill’s face. “I don’t know how you made it work for you, and not work for me—but this is how come you managed to lift those logs!”

“That’s right,” said Bill calmly. The sweat was prickling under his collar.

“Hey!” cried the Hill Bluffer in alarm. “Pick-and-Shovel, you aren’t saying—”

“Let him answer me, first,” rumbled the blacksmith dangerously. In the mask of his furry face, his eyes were suddenly red and bloodshot.

“I said,” repeated Bill distinctly, “of course I did. As you all know”—he turned toward the crowd of Dilbians just outside the shed—“my main job here is to teach you all how to use the tools that us Shorties brought you in order to make your farming less work, and make it produce more crops. Well, I just thought I’d give you a little example of what one of our gadgets can do.”

He pointed at the block-and-tackle, which the blacksmith still held.

“That’s one of them,” he said, “and you just saw how easy it made lifting those logs. Now wouldn’t you all like to have a gadget like that—”

“Hold on!” snarled Flat Fingers ominously. “Never mind changing the subject, Pick-and-Shovel! You set up a weightlifting contest. You claimed you could outlift me. But when it came down to it, you used this. You
cheated!”

The word rang out loudly on the warm afternoon air. From the crowd around there was dead silence. The accusation, Bill knew, was the ultimate one among Dilbians.

It was the old story of the spirit versus the letter of the law, again. What held true for laws held true also for verbal contracts and personal promises. Bill had conceived the block-and-tackle as a clever way of discharging an apparently impossible promise. But what Flat Fingers was saying was that Bill had promised one thing but delivered another.

There was all the Dilbian world of difference between the two things. What Bill had intended to pull off was something clever—and therefore praiseworthy. What Flat Fingers was claiming was anathema to all Dilbians.

The absolute inviolability of the letter of the law was the cement holding the Dilbian culture together. It was the one thing on which farmers, outlaws, Lowland and Upland Dilbians agreed instinctively. Not even the Hill Bluffer would stand by Bill if it was agreed that he had done what the blacksmith said. The penalty for
cheating
was death.

The crowd about the forge was silent, waiting for Bill’s reply.

Chapter 14

Silently, Bill blessed the inspiration that had come to him earlier when he had originally begun to challenge the blacksmith. That inspiration should get him out of his present fix now, he told himself firmly. But in spite of that inner firmness, he felt his stomach sink inside him as he looked around at the grim, furry faces ringing him in. He forced himself to maintain his casual voice, and the careless smile on his face.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he said lightly. He turned and looked into the crowd. “Where’s More Jam?”

“What’s More Jam got to do with it?” growled Flat Fingers, behind him.

“Why, just that he was there when you and I had our little talk,” answered Bill, without turning. “He’s my witness. Where
is
More Jam?”

“Coming!” huffed avoice from the back of the crowd. And a moment later, More Jam himself shoved his way through the front ranks and joined Bill and the others under the shed roof.

“Well, now, Pick-and-Shovel,” he said. “You were passing the shout for me?”

“Yes, I was,” said Bill. “You were over at the Residency this morning and maybe you were listening when I had my little talk with Flat Fingers. I wonder if you could think back and see if you remember just what I said I’d meet him here at noon to do? Did I say I’d
outlift
him?”

“Let’s see, now,” rumbled More Jam. “As I remember it, what Pick-and-Shovel here said was—
‘I’m just a Shorty and I’d never have the nerve to suggest that I might be able to outlift you ordinarily. But I just might be able to outdo you at it if I had to, and I’m ready to prove it by moving something you can’t move.’ ”

More Jam cocked his head at the blacksmith.

“Sorry not to be able to back a fellow townsman up, Flat Fingers,” said Sweet Thing’s father sadly, “but that’s what Pick-and-Shovel said, all right. And he suggested that you get together after lunch and you said ‘Suits me …’ ” More Jam continued, repeating the conversation with as much accuracy as if he had been a recording machine.

Bill let a slow, silent sigh of relief escape him. The Dilbians, he knew, had the rather elementary written language that made the Bluffer’s job as postman possible and necessary. But Bill had gambled on the fact that, like most primitive cultures, it was the Dilbian custom and habit to depend on the memories of living witnesses to any agreement or transaction.

However, the verdict, Bill noted, was not in yet. The crowd was still silent.

Bill’s breath checked in his chest once more—but just then a swelling wave of thunderous, bass-voiced Dilbian laughter began to rise and ring about Bill’s ears from every direction. Everybody was laughing—even, finally, Flat Fingers himself. In fact, the blacksmith showed an alarming intention of slapping Bill on the back in congratulation—an intention Bill only frustrated by hastily backing up against the stout belly of More Jam.

“Well, well, well!” chortled the towering blacksmith finally, as the laughter began to die down. “You sure are a sneaky little Shorty, at that—and I’m the first man to admit it! No offense about my flying off the handle and saying you cheated, I hope? If you feel we ought to tangle about it, right now—”

“No, no—no offense!” said Bill quickly. “None at all!”

General sounds of approval from the surrounding crowd greeted this magnanimous attitude on Bill’s part. By this time the shed was completely hemmed in by the villagers. It occurred to Bill that this might be a good time to try to get them on his side against the outlaws, striking while the iron was hot, so to speak. He stepped up on a pile of logs.

“Er—people of Muddy Nose,” said Bill. For a second, his voice threatened to stick in his throat. For all the crowd’s present good humor, Bill could not forget the ominous quiet that had hung over them a moment earlier when the blacksmith had accused him of cheating. It was a little like public speaking to a convocation of grizzlies. Nevertheless, Bill fell back upon his innate stubbornness and determination, and went doggedly ahead with what he had intended to say.

“—As you all know,” he said, “my main job here is to help all of you to make your farms turn out bigger and better crops. But as you all know, too, I haven’t been able to do anything about this yet because I’ve been tied up with a problem about Dirty Teeth and a bunch of outlaws headed by Bone Breaker—whom you all know well.

“But I’m sure you can all understand how this could keep me busy,” went on Bill, “because these same outlaws have been keeping you people here around Muddy Nose busy for some time.

“So, I just wanted to mention that perhaps the time has come for you and me to join forces and see about settling the hash of these outlaws once and for all,” said Bill. “When I first landed in this community, I was given to understand that you might not be too interested in following a Shorty that wanted to do away with the community menace up in Outlaw Valley. I can understand that—you didn’t know anything about me. But now, though I do say it myself who shouldn’t—you’ve seen me have this little competition here with your village blacksmith, who’s as good a man as they come—”

Bill paused to wave in Flat Fingers’ direction, and Flat Fingers scowled from right to left—that being the male Dilbian way of taking a bow when referred to on public occasion.