“Law-Twister!” The voice of One Punch brought Mal abruptly upright. He saw that the vanguard of the Dilbians coming out of the village was almost upon them.
“How’d you like me to sort of pass the word what this is all about?” asked One Punch. “Then you could just make your appeal without trying to explain it?”
“Oh—fine,” said Mal. He glanced back at the stone. For a moment he felt a great temptation to take hold of the two rust-red iron handles and see if he actually could lift it. But there were too many eyes on him now.
The members of the Clan came up and sat down, with their backs straight and furry legs stuck out before them on the grass. The Bluffer, however, remained standing near Mal, as did One Punch. Among the last to arrive was Gentle Maiden, who hurried up to the very front of the crowd and snorted angrily at Mal before sitting down.
“Got them all upset!” she said, triumphantly. “Knew you would!”
Iron Bender had not put in an appearance.
“Members of Clan Water Gap,” said One Punch, when they were all settled on the grass and quiet, “you all know what this Shorty, Law-Twister here, dropped in on us to do. He wants to take back with him the orphans Gentle Maiden adopted according to Clan law, as laid down by Mighty Grappler. Naturally, Maiden doesn’t want him to, and she’s got her protector, Iron Bender—”
He broke off, peering out over the crowd.
“Where is Iron Bender?” the oldster demanded.
“He says work’s work,” a voice answered from the crows. “Says to send somebody for him when you’re all ready to have someone’s head torn off. Otherwise, he’ll be busy down in the harness shop.”
Gentle Maiden snorted.
“Well, well. I guess we’ll just have to go on without him,” said One Punch. “As I was saying, here’s Iron Bender all ready to do his duty; but as Law-Twister sees it, it’s not all that simple.”
There was a buzz of low-toned, admiring comments from the crowd. One Punch waited until the noise died before going on.
“One thing Law-Twister wants to do is make an appeal to the Clan, according to Mighty Grappler’s law, before he gets down to tangling with Iron Bender,” the oldster said. “So, without my bending your ears any further, here’s the Law-Twister himself, with tongue all oiled up and ready to talk you upside down, and roundabout— Go ahead, Law-Twister!”
Mal put his hand on the stone of Mighty Grappler. In fact, he leaned on the stone and it seemed to him it rocked a little bit, under his weight. It did not seem to him that One Punch’s introductory speech had struck quite the serious note Mal himself might have liked. But now, in any case, it was up to him.
“Uh—members of Clan Water Gap,” he said. “I’ve been disturbed by a lot of what I’ve learned here. For example, here you have something very important at stake—the right of a Clan Water Gap maiden to adopt Shorties as orphans. But the whole matter has to be settled by what’s really an emergency measure—that is, my tangling with Iron Bender—just because Clan Water Gap hasn’t elected a new Grandfather lately, and the meeting to elect one is a couple of weeks away—”
“And while it’s not for me to say,” interrupted the basso voice of the Hill Bluffer, “not being a Clan Water Gapper myself, and besides being a government postman who’s strictly not concerned in any local affairs—I’d guess that’s what a lot of folks are going to be asking me as I ply my route between here and Wildwood Peak in the next few weeks. ‘How come they didn’t hold a regular trial to settle the matter, down there in Clan Water Gap?’ they’ll be asking. ‘Because they didn’t have a Grandfather,’ I’ll have to say. ‘How come those Water Gappers are running around without a Grandfather?’ they’ll ask—”
“All right, Postman!” interrupted One Punch, in his turn. “I guess we can all figure what people are going to say. The point is, Law-Twister is still making his appeal. Go ahead, Law-Twister.”
“Well… I asked about the Clan holding their meeting to elect a Grandfather right away,” put in Mal. A small breeze came wandering by, and he felt it surprisingly cool on his forehead. Evidently there was a little perspiration up there. “One Punch here said it could be done all right, but it was a question who’d want to suggest it to the Clan. Naturally, he and the other grandpas who are in the running for Grandfather wouldn’t like to do it. Iron Bender would have his own reasons for refusing; and Gentle Maiden here wouldn’t particularly want to hold a meeting right away—”
“And we certainly shouldn’t” said Gentle Maiden. “Why go to all that trouble when here we’ve got Iron Bender perfectly willing and ready to tear—”
“Why indeed?” interrupted Mal in his turn. He was beginning to get a little weary of hearing of Iron Bender’s readiness to remove heads. “Except that perhaps the whole Clan deserves to be in on this—not just Iron Bender and Maiden and myself. What the Clan really ought to do is sit down and decide whether it’s a good idea for the Clan to have someone like Gentle Maiden keeping three Shorties around. Does the Clan really want those Shorties to stay here? And if not, what’s the best way of getting rid of these Shorties? Not that I’m trying to suggest anything to the Clan, but if the Clan should just decide to elect a Grandfather now, and the Grandfather should decide that Shorties don’t qualify as orphans—”
A roar of protest from Gentle Maiden drowned him out; and a thunder of Dilbian voices arose among the seated Clan members as conversation—argument, rather, Mal told himself—became general. He waited for it to die down; but it did not. After a while, he walked over to One Punch, who was standing beside the Hill Bluffer, observing—as were two other elderly figures, obviously Grandpa Tricky and Forty Winks—but not taking part in the confusion of voices.
“One Punch,” said Mal, and the oldster looked down at him cheerfully, “don’t you think maybe you should quiet them down so they could hear the rest of my appeal?”
“Why, Law-Twister,” said One Punch, “there’s no point you going on appealing any longer, when everybody’s already decided to grant what you want. They’re already discussing it. Hear them?”
Since no one within a mile could have helped hearing them, there was little Mal could do but nod his head and wait. About ten minutes later, the volume of sound began to diminish as voice after voice fell silent. Finally, there was a dead silence. Members of the Clan began to reseat themselves on the grass, and from a gathering in the very center of the crowd, Gentle Maiden emerged and snorted at Mal before turning toward the village.
“I’m going to go get Bender!” she announced. “I’ll get those little Shorties up here, too, so they can see Bender take care of this one and know they might just as well settle down.”
She went off at a fast walk down the slope—the equivalent of about eight miles an hour in human terms.
Mal stared at One Punch, stunned.
“You mean,” he asked him, “they decided not to do anything?”
A roar of explaining voices from the Clan members drowned him out and left him too deafened to understand them. When it was quiet once more, he was aware of One Punch looking severely down at him.
“Now, you shouldn’t go around thinking Clan Water Gap’d talk something over and not come to some decision, Twister,” he said. “Of course, they decided how it’s all to go. We’re going to elect a Grandfather, today.”