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Copyright © 2007
Jeff Falkingham

Big Ahl

"I'm gonna squeeze yer head till yer eyes pop out," he growled. I had no doubt that he meant it. I closed my eyes as hard as I could, hoping I could at least postpone the inevitable. Suddenly, I heard a clear, calm voice.

"Unhand the boy," the voice said.

"Ain't no bizness o' yers, stranger. Stay out of it," warned Big Ahl.

"It is always a gentleman's business when a brutish lout mistreats children and small animals," came the reply.

"Oh, a gen'lemun's bizness, is it?" smirked Big Ahl. "Well, let's see how the gen'lemun likes th'bizness end o' this!"

WIth that, the big Swede flung me aside and pulled out his hunting knife. I'd heard rumors he'd killed more than one man with it. As its blade gllistened in the late afternoon sun, I could swear I saw notches on its back. I never got a chance to count 'em, though. Before I (or Big Ahl) knew what happened, the knife was lying in the mud. My protector had knocked it away with one swift swing of his walking stick.

"Aw, who needs a toad-stabber," snarled Big Ahl. "I can break you and your cane in half with my bare hands."

Again, I had no doubt that he meant it. Big Ahl had gotten his nickname for good reason. He stood nearly six and a half feet tall, and I'm guessing he weighed well upward of two hundred pounds. It was all muscle too, the result of many years of lugging traps and pelts. My friend, on the other hand, was more than a few inches shorter, and as much as a hundred pounds lighter. But as they say, "It ain't the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog that counts."

As the Swede charged forward like an angered grizzly, my friend assumed a pose I'd seen only in magazines, pointing his cane out in front of him like a sword. With a quick thrust to the gut, then an overhead blow to the noggin, he soon had his attacker doubled over to half his size. When Big Ahl next looked up, he was nose-to-nose with the sharp end of a shiny blade that had somehow emerged from the tip of the cane.