Grinning Man

'I got nothing to hide from a man with a gun,' said Alvin.

'A man with a poke,' said the gri

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

'I never said you-all looked smart,' said the gri

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

The gri

'Look what you done to my gun,' said the gri

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

'How come you still gri

'I'm just a cheerful sort of fellow,' said the gri

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

'Got it from my friend Jim Bowie,' said the gri

'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 gri

'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 gri

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 a

Not that Alvin minded a little sport. He let the gri

Finally Alvin got interested. He squished down hard and the gri

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

'I know, but it crossed my mind you might be pla

'Don't you ever stop gri

'Don't dare try,' said the gri

'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 gri

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

'Uncle,' said the gri

'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 gri

'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, gri

'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 ru

'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 ru

'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!'