Grinning Man

'A man with a poke,' said the grinning man, 'who says he's a blacksmith but his only companion is a boy too scrawny and stubby to be learning his trade. But the boy is just the right size to skinny his way through an attic window or the eaves of a loose-made house. So I says to myself, this here's a second-storey man, who lifts his boy up with those big strong arms so he can sneak into houses from above and open the door to the thief. So shooting you down right now would be a favour to the world.'

Arthur Stuart snorted. 'Burglars don't get much trade in the woods.'

'I never said you-all looked smart,' said the grinning man.

'Best point your gun at somebody else now,' said Arthur Stuart quietly. 'Iffen you want to keep the use of it.'

The grinning man's answer was to pull the trigger. A spurt of flame shot out as the barrel of the gun exploded, splaying into iron strips like the end of a worn-out broom. The musket ball rolled slowly down the barrel and plopped out into the grass.

'Look what you done to my gun,' said the grinning man.

'Wasn't me as pulled the trigger,' said Alvin. 'And you was warned.'

'How come you still grinning?' asked Arthur Stuart.

'I'm just a cheerful sort of fellow,' said the grinning man, drawing his big old knife.

'Do you like that knife?' asked Arthur Stuart.

'Got it from my friend Jim Bowie,' said the grinning man. 'It's took the hide off six bears and I can't count how many beavers.'

'Take a look at the barrel of your musket,' said Arthur Stuart, 'and then look at the blade of that knife you like so proud, and think real hard.'

The grinning man looked at the gun barrel and then at the blade. 'Well?' asked the man.

'Keep thinking,' said Arthur Stuart. 'It'll come to you.'

'You let him talk to White men like that?'

'A man as fires a musket at me,' said Alvin, 'I reckon Arthur Stuart here can talk to him any old how he wants.'

The grinning man thought that over for a minute, and then, though no one would have thought it possible, he grinned even wider, put away his knife, and stuck out his hand. 'You got some knack,' he said to Alvin.

Alvin reached out and shook the man's hand. Arthur Stuart knew what was going to happen next, because he'd seen it before. Even though Alvin was announced as a blacksmith and any man with eyes could see the strength of his arms and hands, this grinning man just had to brace foot to foot against him and try to pull him down.

Not that Alvin minded a little sport. He let the grinning man work himself up into quite a temper of pulling and tugging and twisting and wrenching. It would have looked like quite a contest, except that Alvin could've been fixing to nap, he looked so relaxed.

Finally Alvin got interested. He squished down hard and the grinning man yelped and dropped to his knees and began to beg Alvin to give him back his hand. 'Not that I'll ever have the use of it again,' said the grinning man, 'but I'd at least like to have it so I got a place to store my second glove.'

'I got no plan to keep your hand,' said Alvin.

'I know, but it crossed my mind you might be planning to leave it here in the meadow and send me somewheres else,' said the grinning man.

'Don't you ever stop grinning?' asked Alvin.

'Don't dare try,' said the grinning man. 'Bad stuff happens to me when I don't smile.'

'You'd be doing a whole lot better if you'd've frowned at me but kept your musket pointed at the ground and your hands in your pockets,' said Alvin.

'You got my fingers squished down to one, and my thumb's about to pop off,' said the grinning man. 'I'm willing to say uncle.'

'Willing is one thing. Doing's another.'

'Uncle,' said the grinning man.

'Nope, that won't do,' said Alvin. 'I need two things from you.'

'I got no money and if you take my traps I'm a dead man.'

'What I want is your name, and permission to build a canoe here,' said Alvin.

'My name, if it don't become "One-handed Davy", is Crockett, in memory of my daddy,' said the grinning man. 'And I reckon I was wrong about this tree. It's your tree. Me and that bear, we're both far from home and got a ways to travel before nightfall.'

'You're welcome to stay,' said Alvin. 'Room for all here.'

'Not for me,' said Davy Crockett. 'My hand, should I get it back, is going to be mighty swoll up, and I don't think there's room enough for it in this clearing.'

'I'll be sorry to see you go,' said Alvin. 'A new friend is a precious commodity in these parts.' He let go. Tears came to Davy's eyes as he gingerly felt the sore palm and fingers, testing to see if any of them was about to drop off.

'Pleased to meet you, Mr. Journeyman Smith,' said Davy. 'You too, boy.' He nodded cheerfully, grinning like an innkeeper. 'I reckon you couldn't possibly be no burglar. Nor could you possibly be the famous Prentice Smith what stole a golden plough from his master and run off with the plough in a poke.'

'I never stole nothing in my life,' said Alvin. 'But now you ain't got a gun, what's in my poke ain't none of your business.'

'I'm pleased to grant you full title to this land,' said Davy, 'and all the rights to minerals under the ground, and all the rights to rain and sunlight on top of it, plus the lumber and all hides and skins.'

'You a lawyer?' asked Arthur Stuart suspiciously.

Instead of answering, Davy turned tail and slunk out of the clearing just like that bear done, and in the same direction. He kept on slinking, too, though he probably wanted to run; but running would have made his hand bounce and that would hurt too much.

'I think we'll never see him again,' said Arthur Stuart.

'I think we will,' said Alvin.

'Why's that?'

"Cause I changed him deep inside, to be a little more like the bear. And I changed that bear to be a little bit more like Davy.'

'You shouldn't go messing with people's insides like that,' said Arthur Stuart.

'The Devil makes me do it,' said Alvin.

'You don't believe in the Devil.'

'Do so,' said Alvin. 'I just don't think he looks the way folks say he does.'

'Oh? What does he look like then?' demanded the boy.

'Me,' said Alvin. 'Only smarter.'

Alvin and Arthur set to work making them a dugout canoe. They cut down a tree just the right size - two inches wider than Alvin's hips - and set to burning one surface of it, then chipping out the ash and burning it deeper. It was slow, hot work, and the more they did of it, the more puzzled Arthur Stuart got.

'I reckon you know your business,' he says to Alvin, 'but we don't need no canoe.'

'Any canoe,' says Alvin. 'Miss Larner'd be right peeved to hear you talking like that.'

'First place,' says Arthur Stuart, 'you learned from Tenskwa-Tawa how to run like a Red man through the forest, faster than any canoe can float, and with a lot less work than this.'

'Don't feel like running,' said Alvin.

'Second place,' Arthur Stuart continued, 'water works against you every chance it gets. The way Miss Larner tells it, water near killed you sixteen times before you was ten.'

'It wasn't the water, it was the Unmaker, and these days he's about give up on using water against me. He mostly tries to kill me now by making me listen to fools with questions.'

'Third,' says Arthur Stuart, 'in case you're keeping count, we're supposed to be meeting up with Mike Fink and Verily Cooper, and making this canoe ain't going to help us get there on time.'

'Those are two boys as need to learn patience,' says Alvin calmly.

'Fourth,' says Arthur Stuart , who was getting more and more peevish with every answer Alvin gave, 'fourth and final reason, you're a maker, dagnabbit, you could just think this tree hollow and float it over to the water light as a feather, so even if you had a reason to make this canoe, which you don't, and a safe place to float it, which you don't, you sure don't have to put me through this work to make it by hand!'