Blueberry meets with Tommy by the Mothership, which has been parked near the warren for a while now. The Mothership has landed, and is grounded until further notice. Maria and Woodstock have taken a walk into town.
Yin-Yang is accompanying them today, pushing a wheeled cart, with big wheels, designed to be easy for a fluffy to push over the rough forest floor. Another Faucheuse invention, put together at Tommy’s request, on Blueberry’s behalf. A second toughy, Swampy, a dark green and brown earthie who, like Cocoa, suffered as a poopie babbeh under the old smarty’s reign, is helping Yin-Yang. He’s big for a fluffy, thanks to a diet of Flufftopia’s ÜberFluff Tuff Fluff kibble. Bits of leaf and twig and vine are lodged in his fluff, and he actually seems to prefer it, especially after Woodstock praised him for “gettin in tuch wif Mummah Gai-yaw”, and, during bath time, he complains that he has to start all over again. Tommy chose his name because the look reminded him of Swamp Thing, though like Swamp Thing’s counterpart at Marvel, Swampy has red eyes.
With Tommy coming along for the ride, Blueberry reckons that Yin-Yang and Swampy are enough toughies for today’s activities. One hoomin could kill scores of fluffies barehanded, Blueberry knows, thanks to the vague memories of his past life, and the things the Bone Fluff has told him. But Tommy is a pacifist through and through, and Blueberry hopes he won’t have to unleash the nuclear option. He hadn’t had to yet. Tommy’s mere presence makes it clear that Blueberry, figuratively, holds all the cards.
They may have big, tough, stupid friends, but he’s got a hoomin. They’ve got a pair of aces, he’s got a royal flush.
Who they are will soon be apparent.
The cart is loaded with a single, untouched brownie.
Tommy is waiting, puffing on an atomica, his own invention.
“Gentlemen. Let’s go do some business.”
Blueberry’s herd isn’t the only game in town, though they are the biggest.
The second biggest herd has staked their claim on a clearing in the forest where some of the best tasting berries in the forest grow. Beautiful, yellow berries that verge on gold as they ripen.
At least, they’re the best tasting berries that don’t make you shit out all of your organs, or kill you in some other unpleasant way.
They’ve got the biggest, strongest, dumbest toughies in their herd guarding the place, given carte blanche to punish any fluffy from another herd that tries to break in. There are already several fluffy corpses surrounding the perimeter, with various bodily fluids oozing from various body parts, some fluids not originating from their own bodies.
Fluffies have a great sense of smell, thanks to their canine DNA, and feral fluffies have developed a more sensitive sense of smell that can identity which herd a given fluffy is from. So, identifying intruders is easy, and despite the thickness of the guards, they can’t be fooled into believing that the intruder is supposed to be there.
Humans, on the other hand, can be fooled into accepting an intruder with just a jumpsuit and a mop. Nobody ever pays attention to the janitors, and they’ve got free reign to go anywhere. Even top-secret meeting rooms need someone to clean them.
So, with breaking in impossible, and unleashing the H-Bomb (H meaning Hoomin) being the last resort, that leaves Blueberry with another option: negotiate, and barter. Tommy and him have met with the smarty of the other herd, and worked out a deal: one brownie, in exchange for all the berries they can carry. The other smarty actually snickered as he accepted the deal. Tommy and Blueberry plan to take the other smarty to the cleaners. He doesn’t know about the cart.
Tommy hasn’t pointed out that he could just walk in and take the berries, because he wanted to see how Blueberry was going to handle this, and Blueberry didn’t disappoint.
“Otay, yu udda hewd dummehs haf da feew-gud num-- whaaaaaaaaa? Wut am dat?”
Blueberry gestures smugly at the cart, a poopie-numming grin on his face. The toughies present are all silent, letting their bosses do the talking. Tommy is also silently watching, finishing his atomica.
“Dis, smawty, am cawwed cawtsie. Wif cawtsie, Bwuebewwy can cawwy wotta bewwy nummies. Am vewy speciaw hoomin magic. Wun whowe feew-gud nummie, fow aww da bewwy nummies Bwuebewwy can cawwy. Dat wuz deawsie.”
The other smarty, black as night, is furious. He’s been hoodwinked. Blueberry doesn’t feel bad about it. From what he’s heard from the other herd, the black smarty is almost as bad as Blueberry’s predecessor. If his herd finds out he blew this deal, they’ll revolt, and stage a coup.
“Dat nu am faiw! Bestest smawty hewd nu haf cawtsie!”
“Dewe am nu faiw. Dewe am jus Bwuebewwy.” Blueberry states, borrowing a line he once heard the Bone Fluff say. It always seems to work when the Death of Fluffies uses it on departed fluffies who refuse to accept their fate, but for Blueberry, it isn’t always successful. This time it is, and it silences the black smarty.
“Bwuebewwy an smawty had deawsie. Am nu Bwuebewwy fauwt smawty nu fink. Smawty knu Bwuebewwy fwend am hoomin, smawty knu Bwuebewwy haf hoomin magic, haf hoomin hewp Bwuebewwy cawwy wots of bewwy nummies.”
“That’s right, dude.” Tommy chimes in. “You should have thought about this. Didn’t you think that the deal seemed too good to be true? Now you’ve got a choice. You can either take the L, fill this cart with berries, and get your brownie, or…”
“Ow?” the black smarty says, not sure if he wants to hear the answer.
Tommy doesn’t enjoy what he has to say next. He doesn’t even like thinking about abusing fluffies. Again, he’s a pacifist. Every word of the threat is a bluff, he knows it, Blueberry knows it, Yin-Yang knows it, and Swampy knows it.
But the other herd doesn’t know it. Eventually, the black smarty, horrified, interrupts. Tommy internally sighs in relief. He was starting to make himself nauseous.
“Otay! Otay! Smawty gib bewwy nummies! Pwease stawp tawkies! Tuffies! Gu git mowe bewwy nummies!”
“Uh, I can help you pick th–”
“Otay! Jus pwease, nu mowe owwie tawkies!”
Half an hour later, the cart is full of glistening, golden berries. Now all three fluffies need to push it back together, slowly, carefully, so none of the precious cargo spills. Tommy will escort the trio back to the warren’s entrance, in case the black smarty pulls anything. This isn’t Tommy’s first drug deal.
Tommy tries to give the black smarty the brownie, as promised, but the smarty, now terrified of him, insists that Blueberry’s herd keeps it.
“Su fwuffies git bewwy nummies an feew-gud nummie.” Yin-Yang notes.
“Yup, the cash and the drugs. Another win for Team Blueberry!” Having finished the last atomica, and yes, it deserves the italics every time, Tommy pulls out another and lights it.
The trio slowly pushes the cart home.
“Bwuebewwy fink hewd nu am gun make anudda deaw wif udda hewd. Bwack smawty, uh, um…”
“Is wise to our tricks?”
Puff, puff.
“Dat souwn wite.”
Puff, puff. A fly passes through the smoke and, a few minutes later, crashes into a spider-web, pleasantly surprising the occupant.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. That smarty isn’t gonna be around for long, I just know it. And whoever replaces him will probably be more willing to play ball with us. They’ve probably been hoping for an excuse to kick him out, and we just gave them one.”
“Aww fwuffies wike tu pway baww.”
“What I mean is, they’ll be willing to do business with us. We were only screwing the black smarty on the deal because he’s, well, an ass, and needed taking down a peg. If their new smarty is even half as decent as you, Escofluff, we’ll do fair business with him.”
“Otay, mistah Tommeh. But Bwuebewwy haf kwest-yun.”
“What’s up, Big Fluff?”
“Wai mistah Tommeh awways caww Bwuebewwy Ess-cuh-fwuff? Dat nu am Bwuebewwy namesie. Namesie am Bwuebewwy.”
As Tommy launches into a lecture on the history of the Columbian drug trade, Pierre, once again, stares blankly at a screen. He saw the whole thing, and is dumbfounded at how far this is going.
Eventually, he decides not to worry about it. As he told them, the herd is Tommy and Maria’s responsibility now, and if this story ends with Blueberry dying in a hail of bullets in a drug den, that’s on the Fondas.
It’s their problem now.