Having previously seen to the hitching of their own horses at the Hargrave barn, Scunsthorpe marched off in that direction, trailed by his silent but intimidating associates. As Malone watched them go, a dubious Owen Hargrave ignored the reek that emanated from the giant and sidled up to him.
“While I appreciate your intervention, Mr. Malone, I fear it to be as futile as it was timely. That viper will return tomorrow, as his promises are as assured as his demeanor is detestable. You have bought us time for a last supper, if nothing else.”
“Don’t say that, Hargrave.” Having started toward his mount, Malone found himself accompanied by the farmer and his wife while their three children attended his long, massive legs. “There still be time to perhaps fulfill the terms o’ your deed.”
“Now you jest with us, Mr. Malone,” declared Louisa Hargrave. “Or do I take it you propose to level a quarter section of woodland in a night? Anyone who would put forth such a notion might well be called mad.”
“He might indeed, m’am, while likewise takin’ no offense at the designation.” Reaching his animal, Malone began to hunt through one of the oversized backpacks while simultaneously advising Eli’s oldest sister. “I’d keep my distance from Worthless’s mouth, young missy.”
Blond, precious, and wide-eyed, the girl replied solemnly even as she peered up at the wide-lipped tooth-filled aperture hovering above her. “Why, mister? Will he bite me?”
“I think not. But Worthless, he has a disgraceful tendency t’ drool, and sometimes it burns.”
As if to counter this assertion, the huge black head bent low. A thick tongue emerged to lick the face of the little girl, who hastily backed away, wiping frantically at her cheek while shrieking delightedly. The stallion then turned one jaundiced eye on its master, snorted, and resumed cropping the weeds near its forelegs.
“Hungry, he is. That’s most usual his condition.” The mountain man looked thoughtful, as if contemplating something of more profound potential than a bag of oats. “Kin I impose on you fer some feed, Mr. Hargrave?”
“Yes. Yes, of course, Mr. Malone.” Turning, the farmer barked at his son. “Eli! Get the wagon. Load it with hay and bring it back here.”
“Yes, Pa!” As the boy turned to go, Malone called to him.
“And barley, boy. If you kin find any barley, Worthless dotes on the stuff. I usually don’t feed it t’ him because—well, he’d keep eatin’ it until he were ’bout ready t’ explode. But bring it if you kin find some.”
“I will do so, sir!” And with that the lad was sprinting over the rise in the direction of his home.
From the saddlebag the mountain man removed a hinged length of shaped and polished wood. As the farmer looked on with interest Malone snapped it straight, the metal hinge that connected the two lengths locking securely in place. From the trim and design it was easy enough to divine its purpose: it was an axe handle. Rummaging deeper in the same saddlebag, the visitor drew forth the corresponding blade. It was double-bitted and slid tightly onto the business end of the handle.
Hargrave studied the reconstituted tool. “Never seen anything quite like that, Mr. Malone. That wood—looking at it, I’d say it had to be black walnut.”
“A reasonable guess, but an invalid one, sir.” Malone made certain the twinned blade was secured to the handle. “This be m’pinga, a type of wood from near the coast of East Africa. Some folks calls it ironwood, but there’s all manner of wood called that. This kind is too heavy t’ float, and too tough to break.”
The farmer considered the massive implement. “And that head, that must be at least a four-pounder. Or is it five? And as strange a steel as I’ve ever seen.”
“Twenty.” Malone held the implement out at arm’s length to check the straightness of the handle. Held it out with one hand. “Made the blade meself, from the body of a fallin’ star.”
Hargrave laughed. “Begging your pardon, sir, but there’s no such thing as a twenty-pound axe-head. Double-bitted or otherwise. Isn’t no man could swing one.”
“Probably you be right, sir. I’m just funnin’ you.” So saying, Malone lifted the axe without apparent effort and rested it on his right shoulder. Removing his wolf’s-head cap, he placed it in the same saddlebag from which he had extracted the components of the axe and started off toward the nearby woods. Looking back over his shoulder, he called out.
“Y’kin lend a hand if you wish, Mr. Hargrave, but in any event I aim t’ render what service I kin before the designated time o’ surrender tomorrow.”
Halting before the first tree, a noble red pine, the mountain man unlimbered the axe, brought it back, and swung. Entering the tree parallel to the ground, the massive steel cutting edge sliced halfway through the thick trunk.
“Mercy!” Putting her free hand to her chest as if she had contracted a sudden case of the vapors, Louisa Hargrave gasped aloud. For his part, her husband uttered a word that was as uncharacteristic of him as it was of considerably greater potency than those he normally employed in the presence of wife and family. Whereupon he whirled and raced off in the direction of their simple yet comforting homestead.
“Owen!” his wife called out. “Where are you going, husband?”
He yelled back at her. “To get my axe! And to hurry the boy along!” He looked beyond her, stumbling as he ran, and raised his voice. “We’re going to need the team to shift timber!”
All the rest of that morning and on into the cloudy, slightly muggy afternoon, Amos Malone and Owen Hargrave cut and chopped, chopped and cut. According to the terms of the mortgage as deciphered by the mountain man, it was not necessary for the farmer to clear the timber off his land in order to satisfy the terms of the deed: it was only required that he cut it down to prove that he intended to develop it. Pine after pine, oak after oak, came crashing to the earth as the two men toiled. Malone paused only once, to place a heavy blanket across the back of his vigorously feeding steed and secure it tightly in place. Hargrave admired the mountain man’s concern for his animal, though he did wonder at the need for a blanket in such mild weather. The farmer felled one tree to every ten of the big man’s, until finally his aching arms gave out and the fiery blisters he had raised on his palms prevented him from wielding the axe any longer.
He nearly broke down when young Eli bravely attempted to take up the slack. Though he struggled manfully, the boy could barely raise his father’s axe, let alone swing it.
Taking a break to down a full quart of the cold well water periodically fetched by Mrs. Hargrave, Malone concluded the imposing draft by wiping the back of a massive hand across his mouth. Then, unbuttoning his buckskin jacket, he slithered out of it and handed it to the boy, who all but collapsed under the load. Shirt followed jacket and lastly, after assuring the boy’s mother the deeply stained attire contained nothing likely to imperil her son’s life or future mental development, Malone divested himself of a cotton undershirt from which any hint of the original whiteness had long since fled screaming.
“Here, son: if ’tis work you want, set yourself to seein’ that those there garments get tidied up a bit, as they ain’t been washed in quite a spell.”
Standing nearby, holding the water bucket and striving with all her might to look anywhere save directly at the massive spread of hairy chest, shoulders, and muscular arms now revealed before her, Louisa Hargrave had the presence of mind to remark, “Have they truly ever been washed, Mr. Malone?”
The mountain man turned reflective. “Memory plays tricks on a man.” His expression brightened. “I do recollect on one occasion fallin’ in the course of a serious bad storm into the Upper Mississippi one time last year. Pulled meself out reasonable clean somewhere in the vicinity of St. Louis.” He smiled down at her and at the mound of clothing in whose approximate locality her eldest son was presently submerged. “I reckon that this time, a touch o’ soap wouldn’t be out o’ line.”