“I hear,” she said, blowing her nose into a strip of burlap the size of a coffee sack.
The chief looked down at Jon-Tom. “Such good thoughts should stay with us allatime. I believe in what you sing. You stay and sing to us on all lonely days and nights.”
“Now wait a minute. I don’t mind sharing my thoughts and music with you, but I’m afraid I can’t do it on a permanent basis. See, my friends and I are on a mission of great importance and. …”
“You stay.” The chief’s hammer-like hand cut the air an inch from Jon-Tom’s nose, then gestured to the young female standing nearby. She wasn’t bad looking, Jon-Tom thought. Rather lithesome—for a professional wrestler.
“You stay and marry my daughter.”
Whoa! “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Two tons of ogre bear tilted toward him. “Wassamatter, you don’t like my daughter?”
Jon-Tom managed a weak smile. “It’s not that. It’s just that, well, it would never work. I mean, we’re not even distantly related, species-wise.”
“What was all that you say about all intelligent species working together?”
“Working together, yes; not living together. I mean, living together domestically, in a state of matrimony, like.”
“Wot ’e means, your supreme ghoulishness,” said Mudge as Jon-Tom’s protests degenerated into babble, “is that ’e don’t know wot ’e’s talkin’ about. I know: I’ve ’ad to listen to ’im spout drivel like that for more’n a year now.”
“Something else,” Jon-Tom said quickly. “I’m already married.”
“Oh that no problem.” The chief raised both paws some ten feet into the air and proceeded to declaim a steady stream of incomprehensible gobbledygook. “There.” He lowered his paws, smiled crookedly. “Now you divorced and free to marry again.”
“Not by the laws of my land.”
“Mebbenot, but you living under law of this land now. Come here.” He reached out and grabbed him by the right wrist, nearly lifting him off the ground as he dragged him over until he stood next to the daughter. She stood half a foot taller than he did and weighted eight hundred pounds if she weighed a hundred.
“Darling.” She put both arms around him and he was treated to the rare experience of a genuine bear hug. The fortunately brief encounter left him with bruised ribs and no breath, as though he’d just spent a week in a chiropractor’s office. Possibly she recognized the fact that blue was not his normal healthy color. As he gasped for air the chief raised his arms and declaimed grandly to the rest of the tribe.
“Big wedding tonight, you all come, plenty dancing and singing, plenty to eat. Though not,” he added as an afterthought, “any of our guests.” A few groans of disappointment greeted this last, but they were swept aside in the general jubilation. The charmingly bucolic scene reminded Jon-Tom of the cheery Night on Bald Mountain sequence from Fantasia, with himself as one of the prime performers.
“So ’is gruesomeness is magnanimously lettin’ us off. That’s big o’ ’im.”
“I suspect he realized, in his slow dull witted way, that it would be impolitic to eat the bridegroom’s companions,” Weegee told him.
“Yeah—until after the weddin’. You wait an’ see. Or rather you don’t wait an’ see because we bloody well ain’t ’angin’ around to find out. First time they takes their eyes off us, we evaporate.”
“What about Jon-Tom?”
“Wot about ’im?” Mudge was less than sympathetic. “’E got ’imself into this lovely fix, wot with ’im ’avin’ to go on singin’ about luv an’ friendship an’ intelligent species an’ all that rot. Let ’im sing ’imself out o’ it. We can’t ’ang around after the weddin’ to find out wot’s goin’ to ’appen to ’im. Got our own lives to think about, we does, and we ’ave to make a break for it while our charmin’ ’osts are still in a good mood.” He whispered to the raccoon standing nearby.
“Wot about you, Cautious old chap?”
“Afraid I must agree with you this time time for sure. Poor Jon-Tom got himself in one great galloping mess. I don’t see way out of, you bet.” He chuckled ruefully. “Better he do something before tonight. Making love to mountain could be dangerous. She get carried away, he find himself in pieces like his duar.”
Mudge and Weegee concurred with the raccoon’s assessment of their friend’s connubial prospects.
They put Jon-Tom and his intended in a cave of their own. The floor was of clean sand. There was a table and chairs and a brace of unexpectedly modern looking chaise longues. Not knowing what else to do he lay down on one. The lady ogre immediately settled into the other. It creaked alarmingly.
The official waiting room, he told himself. Just like waiting for surgery. He wasn’t allowed to leave the cave but he could see his companions strolling about outside. Apparently they’d been given the freedom of the encampment. This forced his thoughts to work faster still because he knew Mudge wouldn’t hang around waiting for him to extricate himself from this new predicament forever. The otter was a friend but not a fool. Jon-Tom knew if he didn’t try something fast he’d find himself completely on his own. Meanwhile the female ogre lay in her longue and stared across at him in what could only be described as an affectionate manner.
Frustrated by the continuing silence as much as his unhelpful thoughts he said, “This isn’t going to work, you know. I told your father that.”
“How you know? Haven’t tried it yet.”
“Take a good look at us. I see you, you see me. I see different.”
“I see two. What more is needed?”
With that kind of axe logic Jon-Tom saw he was in for a long conversation.
“Ever been married before?”
“Once. Was fun.”
“But you aren’t married now?”
“Nopes.”
“What happened to your first husband?”
“He got broke.”
“Oh.” Better shorten the conversation somehow, he thought rapidly. But his usually fast if not always accurate wits had deserted him. Since his suar and spellsinging had gotten him into this situation it was unlikely he’d be able to use them to extricate himself from it. If only his duar was intact. If only, if only—he wondered if another ogre would find her attractive. He couldn’t imagine what she saw in him. Of course, it wasn’t him, it was his haunting sweet songs which had enchanted the entire tribe.
“What’s your name?” he asked her, not really caring but unable to stand any more silence between them.
