His Grandmother laughs as Lanker continues asking her his rather perplexing questions.
"He lives in a hutch and tends to move around all over the woods. This hutch might be made of grass and sticks, but it can also be made of old scrounged up lumber. Old Huffy Scruffy doesn't like to work, however. He seldom goes to the effort of actually building anything stable. Most of the time he simply takes up in some abandoned structure he finds somewhere around, then calls it his. All of his kind are of the same character, to speak the truth."
"Tell me more about him, grandmother," asks Lanker with enthusiasm.
"Well, he keeps a pack of monstrous sized wolves, black as midnight, some three times larger than the biggest German Shepherd dog. These vicious beasts are said to possess the ability to vanish in the woods, then reappear far from the point where they were first sighted. This is a special breed raised by the famous warlock kennel master, Armbruster, who lived in the area for a spell back during Hoover's time. Ole Huffy Scruffy is said to have thirty of Armbruster's wolves, inside two pens of fifteen each. These monsters are raised from pups and trained to believe the pens are inescapable, except with Huffy Scruffy's permission."
"What does he do with these monster wolves?" asks Lanker.
"They help him patrol his assigned territory," replies his mother. "On a full moon if you step outside, Lanker, you can hear the howl of his penned-up wolves in the far distance. Sometimes one can hear them screaming with a blood chilling rage, down through the backwoods from several miles away, in pursuit of some poor shivering common man, only seeking to provide nourishment for his starving family. They also catch the dragons for him, since The Beast is far too lazy to do it himself. He had rather turn Armbruster's wolves loose and sit waiting comfortably inside his horseless carriage for them to bring the meat over to him, nicely slain and sometimes even skinned, many have claimed."
"What does he feed these monsters?" asks Lanker with a gasp.
His grandmother didn't answer his question immediately. She hesitatingly glances over at his mother as she chews her food in deep thought, who bashfully returns her glance.
"When ole Shylock's debtors cannot pay their loans, often their families are demanded of them," his mother reluctantly interjects. "Should these family members fail to deliver on the work requirement, or in their deliverance of whatever vice it may be that ole Shylock demands of them; or should Shylock and his associates simply tire of them being around, then they are never heard from again, as we told you earlier."
"Where do they go? What happens to them?" asks Lanker with a gasp.
His mother sighs, hesitating once again to give an answer, then replies abruptly on behalf of her mother, seeking to relieve her of a perceived obligation to speak a veiled truth.
"Well, nobody knows, son, to be honest about it. Some people claim ole Shylock hands these children and women over to Grinch, and other uncouth Ya-who associates, who in turn, feed them to these raging monster wolves of Sigmund Armbruster. It's a terrible thought, son, and we don't want you to be afraid, but you need to know exactly what it is that all common people in general are dealing with around here."
"Wow! Why doesn't anybody do anything to stop Shylock and this Grinch animal, or person?"
"Shylock owns the entire county.," his mother gazes down at the floor, sighing deeply as she continues speaking, with an air of heavy reluctance lingering in her voice. "He hires the day prowlers and those of the dark. He owns the courts. Over in Bum-lick, the local courthouse itself was built with the money given over by Shylock's ancestors, way back during the days of General Horatio Torello. All of the businesses throughout the province are indirectly owned by Shylock. No person or entity does business here inside this province outside of Shylock's permission. Not even the Federal government nor the largest corporations could, so time has proven with an unerring consistency. Any person hired to do any sort of real job in all of Ye Old Bath Province, is allowed to do so only by making a direct beseech to Shylock himself, who then either accepts or rejects their earnest request. No person wants to get on Shylock's bad side, son.
"According to the word floating around on the wind, those seeking permission to engage business must be blindfolded and led by Shylock's personal palace guards, down a secret foyer into the palace area of ole Shylock's residential estate, with the chief CEO kneeling on his right knee, while he makes humble implore. Shylock becomes ecstatic, according to reliable secondhand information, when those in adjure refer to him as their holy godfather; since he views himself as being God incarnate of the entire province, and the father of all existing there. Without him, he declares, there would be nothing in Ye Old Bath Province. The more this CEO can humiliate himself in complete submission, and uplift Shylock, the more likely ole Shylock will grant permission for him to engage his business endeavor, whatever it may be.
"Most people, especially the out-lander, refuse to accommodate this perverse feature of Shylock's character. Among those who may be willing to do so, even less are willing to hand him two thirds of their business profit in extortion fees for doing so. Those originating from inside this vast province are given much better terms, however.
"Shylock can close one, and his entire family, completely out of the whole state system, with no legal defense, no access to medicine, no hope for employment of any sort, or any type of accommodation. He needs absolutely no justification for his condemnations. He can do so on a mere whim of the moment, should the sudden urge motivate. People have even been forced to endure life inside a dungeon, though they committed no legal offense, simply because some individual made a claim that one person or another made a statement seeking to offend ole Shylock or his family behind his back. The constitution and prudent law don't rule here, son; Shylock, his family, and their associates do.
"As you grow older, you'll find people are virtually terrorized to criticize the provincial system, or any of those who are in charge, regardless of the plateau upon which they stand. They are scared because word might get out, and somebody goes directly back and informs Shylock or one of his family members, who assumes these types of claims at face value. If these multitudes of hired Ya-Whos on patrol don't get him, then some mysterious misfortune suddenly does, such as him dying of mysterious causes inside the local Bath Province hospital there in Bum-lick Town. Even the state crime lab is owned by Shylock, since he and he alone provide its financing capital. So, Shylock can do as he pleases, as well as having done whatsoever to whomever, at his own whim.
"Like I have said so many times before, dear son, all we may do is accept these things as they are and try to live here in peace. Always attend church come Sunday morning and pray that liberty will remain with you throughout the day. Pray for food and shelter, and somehow you can always seem to find it. The good Lord knows what we all need around here, and everywhere else," his grandmother says with a melancholy look on his face.
Lanker narrows his sky-blue eyes, then takes a deep breath.
"Well, I am not scared of any Shylock, Ya-Who, or anybody else. When I get to where I can walk well, I'll show them they cannot mess around with Mr. Beau Weibull!"
"Where did you find a name like that for yourself?" asks his mother.
"I had a dream last night, and a person in my dream called me that. I thought it felt good only to say the name."
"What does it mean?" asks his mother.
"It means the brave one in another language. I think it sounds like a kind of nice ring, myself, don't you?"
His mother begins to chuckle.
"I don't know what to think about that one, son. Sometimes I cannot figure for the life of me, where you come up with some of your ideas. It certainly had to have been a dream."
During the weeks following the new casts with the rubber stoppers being crafted onto his feet and legs, Lanker begins walking with incredible agility. The mouse family makes their way out into his grandmother's hallway, cheering as he moves along.
"At a boy," yells Captain Whiskers, "one of my troops could have never done it better, I tell you."
"Good pie and good food can do wonders for a young boy, let me tell you!" shouts Mrs. Tassel.
The mouse brothers whistle, clap, and cheer, as he soon races about the floor of his grandparent's home, yelling.
"Look, I can walk! I can walk! I can walk at long last!"
One day right before darkness falls, his grandfather returns from work. He sees Lanker scampering about as happily as a mouse in a cheese factory, or a pecan cracking room. He steps into the home through the doorway, then takes a seat in a tied bottom chair, in the kitchen up against the wall by the back door where he enters inside.
"I do declare Lanker, if you keep on scampering around like that, I'll have to take you out on the trap line with me, just as soon as they remove those casts. Would you like that?"
I would love it!" yells Lanker with new excitement. "There is nothing more that I would love to do."
"I'll show you how to walk without making any sound in the woods. You'll learn how to tell by the sign what kinds of game are in the area. Then you will learn how to craft the types of traps designed to collect it. Most important of all, you'll learn how to enter and exit an area, without being detected. Out of all that you will learn, this is probably the most important skill to know."
His grandfather glances over at Lanker's mother.
"Does he have any faded, worn-out blue jeans, and an old, faded cotton or wool shirt?"
"Yes, I think he does," she replies. "Let me step into his room and find them." In a few minutes she returns with the old shirt and jeans.
"To be an effective hunter a person must do as the animals and blend in with their surroundings," he announces as he rises from the chair. He steps out onto the back porch of the house, then returns with a five-gallon bucket filled with black walnut hulls.
"Do you see these?" he asks as he sits the bucket down, dipping his hands into the hulls, picking them up. "These are hulls of the black walnut. This can be somewhat tough to find, but when a person does, it makes some of the best dye for blending in with one's surroundings, that one can ask for."
He proceeds to take half the hulls out of one bucket, then fills it two thirds of the way with water. Into this water he places the worn-out shirt and jeans.
"We'll let these clothes soak for three days. When we pull them out, they'll have transformed in color, to a nice dingy black tint. We'll allow this to dry before you will wear them. When moving close to the soil, the color will blend into an amazement.
"You are four years old now, almost five. You are old enough to carry a knife. I have a nice one crafted especially for you I'll give you to wear. It will be a much smaller version of the one I wear. A hunter and trapper simply has no choice, but to wear this type of equipment as part of his most basic standard gear."
His grandfather disappears around the corner into the dining room, reappearing holding a knife with a three-inch blade crafted from a worn-out flat file. There is also a holster crafted from skillfully tanned hide. His grandfather allows him to hold it, then removes it from his hands.
"You are to touch this blade only when you are in my company, and no other time. You are far too young and might hurt yourself when doing so at any other time. Is this understood?"
"Yes," Lanker replies.
The very next morning before daylight Lanker is awakened by a heavy knock on his bedroom door. The door eases open.
"Are you awake, boy?" asks the heavy muffled voice of his grandfather.
"Yeah, I think so. Why? Where are we going?" asks his grandfather.
"Shh, you must talk quietly, if at all, when you're out in the woods, son."
His huge, powerful, swarthy complected grandfather places his right index finger across his lips as he speaks.