The other scalawag was bigger and stronger, with the face of a dyspeptic baby. Turning his head to his right, he elevated a copious glob of spittle toward an inoffensive stand of broomweed. The stranger promptly matched the prodigious expectoration, with somewhat different results. The weed upon which he chose to spit swiftly shriveled and curled in upon itself, in the process venting a slight but perceptible twist of smoke. Eyes widened in the underling’s baby face and his lips parted in surprise.
This did-you-see-it-or-did-you-not moment in time was sufficient to persuade Scunsthorpe, at least for the moment, to caution restraint on the part of both himself and his suddenly wary associates.
“I repeat myself, sir.” Despite his own not inconsiderable height, Scunsthorpe found himself having to tilt back his head in order to meet the newcomer’s gaze. “With all goodwill—”
“One can’t offer what one don’t possess,” the stranger interrupted him. “Leavin’ aside fer the nonce the matter o’ what limited quantity of goodwill you might or might not enjoy, I do now find myself takin’ a sudden interest in the proceedin’s.”
Bold as the suspenders that held up his pants, Eli Hargrave stepped forward. “He’s trying to take our timber, sir! Our timber and our farm!”
“Hush now, Eli!” Cradling the baby in one arm, an alarmed Louisa Hargrave hastily drew her son away from the menfolk. “Get back here and be quiet!”
From within the depths of the stranger’s mighty face mattress, a smile surfaced, as unexpectedly white among the black curls as a beluga in a lake of coal slurry. Its unanticipated brilliance dimmed as its owner regarded the boy’s father.
“Is what the boy says true, Mr. …?”
“Hargrave. Owen Hargrave.”
The stranger extended a hand. At first glance Hargrave thought it similarly clad in buckskin, but closer inspection revealed it to be ungloved, if extraordinarily weathered. The fingers completely enveloped his own.
“Malone. Amos Malone.”
As he guardedly shook the newcomer’s paw, Hargrave reflected that he’d heard locomotives whose voices were higher pitched.
“And I,” the gangly ringmaster of the discussion declaimed, not to be left out of this sudden fraternity, “am Potter Scunsthorpe. Investor, speculator, developer, and now rightful owner of this land.”
Malone turned to him. Between the mountain man’s unblinking stare and his personal aroma, Scunsthorpe was tempted to retreat. But he held his ground.
“By what right d’you claim this family’s land?” the giant asked him.
Though it was nothing more than a piece of paper, Scunsthorpe held the deed out before him as if it were made of steel. “By right of this, as attested to under the laws of the great state of Wisconsin and the United States of America!”
“With your permission?” Without waiting for it, the mountain man took it from a startled Scunsthorpe’s hand as deftly as if plucking a petal from a daisy.
“If you damage that,” the speculator warned the giant, “I can have you arrested! Not that it would be of any consequence anyway. There are perfect copies on file with the county clerk.”
The mountain man chuckled once. “Last time anyone tried t’ arrest me were the Maharaja of Jaipur. Claimed I’d stolen one o’ his fancy aigrettes right off his turban. Tried t’ feed me to his pet tigers, he did.”
Nearly oblivious now to the adults around him, Eli Hargrave stared wide-eyed at the visitor. “Tigers! What happened?”
His beard preceding his smile, Malone peered down at the boy. “Why, we ended up sharin’ a meal instead.”
“You and the maharaja?” Eli murmured wonderingly.
“Nope. Me an’ the tigers.” Holding the document up to the light, Malone studied it carefully. Looking on in silence, Owen Hargrave was plainly puzzled, his wife suddenly afflicted with an unreasoning hope, while Scunsthorpe quietly marveled that the excessively hirsute creature who had appeared among them could actually read.
When the giant finally lowered the deed and turned to the farmer, his tone was solemn. “I’m afeared this ’ere fella has you legally dead to rights, Mr. Hargrave.”
“Ah, you see?” Scunsthorpe relaxed. The wanderer’s intrusion was after all to prove nothing more than a momentary, and in its own way entertaining, interruption. “I have told you nothing less than the truth, Hargrave.”
“Well, mebbe not entirely all of it, as I sees it.” Malone held out the document.
Scunsthorpe frowned. It was an expression he used often and did not have to practice. “I fail to follow your meaning, sir.”
A finger that might have come off one of the nearby oaks lightly tapped the deed. “As I read it here, says you can’t take possession fer at least five years an’ not at all after ten if the property in question has been properly cleared and prepared fer farmin’.”
A country bumpkin, Scunsthorpe thought to himself. Verily a great huge one, but a bumpkin nonetheless. “Quite so, sir, quite so. I must commend the accuracy of your swift perusal. Preparation for farming means clearing, by which one must take to mean felling the obstructing timber. Which of its own accord is most certainly of considerable value. In the case of such clearing, transfer of ownership is indeed denied for a minimum of five years and forbidden, upon full payment of terms by the designated mortgage holder, after ten.” Struggling not to chortle aloud, he turned to his left and once again gestured at the dense, unbroken forest.
“If Mr. Hargrave can, as noted, fell all of the timber under discussion, I will most certainly be compelled to withdraw my present claim to the property. All he must do in satisfaction of the terms of the deed is accomplish this by the time specified thereon.” He made a show of squinting at the document. “I perceive that to be ten o’clock on the first of October.” He smiled humorlessly. “That date falls, I believe, on Tuesday morrow.”
Malone nodded at the paper. “Then we’re all bein’ in agreement, sir.”
Scunsthorpe was by turns now baffled as well as irritated. “Once again, I fail to follow your reasoning, sir.”
Malone indicated the wall of untouched woodland. “If the timber on Mr. Hargrave here’s land is felled by ten o’clock tomorrow, you’ll take your leave o’ him and his family and leave them and this land in peace.”
The colored gentleman broke out in an unrestrained guffaw while his giant baby of an associate looked bemused and, not entirely comprehending the proceedings, commenced to employ a forefinger to mine a portion of his soft, undersized nose in search of unknown ore. Scunsthorpe stared, grunted, and then grinned.
“Verily, Mr. Malone, sir, you are a man who hews to the letter of the law, even if it be for nothing more than one’s amusement.” In lieu of a better stage, he was reduced to sighing dramatically. “So be it, then. I had hoped to conclude this awkward business today. But on your insistence, and as a matter of common courtesy, I will delay, not returning tomorrow until the appointed hour.” His expression narrowed, sharp as the cleft in a tomahawked skull. “I shall bring along for company and purposes of expeditiousness the sheriff of Newhope, in case any further fine-tuning of legalities shall be desired.”
“Lookin’ forward to it,” Malone replied impassively.