The Indian in the Cupboard (10 page)

Omri was silent. That reminded him—where was Little Bear? He looked around. He soon spotted him at the other side of the room, busy with his paints. Some beautiful, minute designs, showing turtles, herons, and beavers, mainly in red and yellow, had appeared on the side of the tepee Omri had made. As Omri crouched beside him to admire them, Little
Bear, without looking at him, said, “You bring food? I very soon die, if not eat.”

Omri looked around. What had he done with the spoonful of stew? But he soon saw that he’d put it down on the table without thinking. There it sat, tilting slightly and spilling a few drops of gravy, but still steaming. He hurried to get Little Bear’s—or rather Action Man’s—mess tin (the paper plate had got all soggy) and carefully filled it with the hot, savory stuff.

“Here you are.”

Little Bear stopped work, laid down his paintbrush, and sniffed eagerly.

“Ah! Good!” He sat down cross-legged among the paint lids to eat, dipping some of yesterday’s stale bread in as a spoon. “Your wife cook? Ah. No. Little Bear forgot. Omri not got wife.” He ate ravenously for a few moments and then said, “Not want?”

“I’m having mine downstairs in a minute,” Omri said.

“Mean, Omri not want wife,” said Little Bear, who was now in a much better mood.

“I’m not old enough.”

Little Bear looked at him for a moment. “No. I see. Boy.” He grinned. “Big boy, but boy.” He went on eating. “Little Bear want,” he said finally, not looking up.

“Another wife?”

“Chief need wife. Want one beautiful. Good cook.” He put his face into the mess tin and licked it clean. Then he looked up. “With Iroquois, mother find wife for son. But Little Bear mother not here. Omri be mother and find.”

Omri couldn’t quite see himself as Little Bear’s mother, but he said, “I might try. I think there were some lady Indians in Yapp’s. But what if I get one and make her real and then you don’t like her?”

“I like. You get.”

“Tomorrow.”

Little Bear grinned at him happily, his face smeared with gravy.

Patrick had come up behind him.

“Let’s put them together and see what they do!”

Omri jumped up quickly.

“No!”

“Why
not?”

“You idiot, because yours has got a gun and mine’s got a bow and arrow and one of them’s sure to kill the other!”

Patrick considered this. “Well, we could take their weapons away from them. Come on, I’m going to!” And he reached toward the bed.

Just at that moment there was the sound of steps on the stairs. They froze. Then Omri swiftly moved the dressing-up crate enough to hide Little Bear, and Patrick sat down on the end of the bed, masking the poor cowboy, who was still toiling along over the humps in the quilt.

Just in time! Omri’s mother opened the door the next second and said, “Patrick, that was your mum on the phone. She wants you to come home right away. And Omri—it’s supper.” And she went.

Omri opened his mouth to protest, but Patrick at once said, “Oh, okay.” With one quick movement he had scooped up cowboy and horse in his left hand and thrust them into his pocket. Omri winced—he could easily imagine the horse’s legs being injured by such rough treatment, not to mention the matter of fright. But Patrick was already halfway out the door.

Omri jumped up and grabbed his arm.

“Patrick!” he whispered. “You must be careful! Treat them carefully! They’re
people—I
mean, they’re alive—what
will you do with them? How will you hide them from your family?”

“I won’t. I’ll show them to my brother, anyway, he’ll go out of his mind.”

Omri began to think he might go out of his. He shook Patrick’s arm.
“Will you think?
How are you going to explain? What will happen? If you say you got him from me I’ll do worse than bash you—you’ll ruin everything—they’ll take the cupboard away—”

That got through to Patrick at last. He put his hand slowly back into his pocket.

“Listen then. You can look after them. But remember—they’re mine. If you put them back in the cupboard, I’ll tell everyone. I’m warning you. I will. Bring them to school tomorrow.”

“To school!” cried Omri aghast. “I’m not bringing Little Bear to school!”

“You can do what you like about Little Bear, he’s yours. The cowboy’s mine, and I want him at school tomorrow. Otherwise I’ll tell.”

Omri let go of his arm and for a moment they looked at each other as if they’d been strangers. But they weren’t strangers; they were friends. That counts for a lot in this life. Omri gave in.

“All right,” he said, “I’ll bring them. Now give them to me.
Gently.”
And Patrick brought man and horse out of his pocket and tipped them very carefully into Omri’s waiting hand.

O
mri put the cowboy and horse in his sock drawer while he had the quickest supper on record. Then he raced upstairs again, stopping only to pinch a few grains of Gillon’s rat feed for the two horses.

Shut up in his room, he took stock. A room this size was like a sort of indoor national park to the cowboy and the Indian. It should be easy enough to keep them apart for one night. Omri thought first of putting the new pair straight back in the cupboard, and then bringing them back to life next morning in time for school, but he had promised Patrick not to. So he decided to empty out the dressing-up crate and put the cowboy and his horse in there for the night.

The crate was about two feet square, made of planks. There was certainly no visible way out of it for the cowboy.
Omri put him carefully down into it. Looking down at him, he felt curious—about his name, where he came from, and so on; but he decided it was better not to talk to him. The cowboy had clearly decided that Omri was not really there at all. When his big hands reached down, carrying some cold stew, grain for the horse, some fragments of apple for them both, and, later, some cotton wool and scraps of material for bedding, the cowboy deliberately covered his eyes by pulling down his big hatbrim. It was only when Omri reached in one final time to give him a drink of water in a minute green glass bottle that he had found in the bathroom cupboard, that the cowboy spoke a word.

“Take that filthy stuff outa here!” he suddenly shouted in his strong Texas accent. “Ah ain’t aimin’ to drink no more o’ that as lawng as Ah live!” And he heaved the bottle (which was almost as big as himself) up by its base and tipped its contents out onto the boards at the bottom of the crate.

“It’s only water,” Omri ventured to say.

“You shet yer mouth!” shouted the little man. “Ah won’t take no lip from no gol-darned hallucy-nation, no, sir! Mebbe Ah do drink too much, mebbe Ah cain’t hold m’likker like some o’ them real tough guys do. But if’n Ah’m gittin’ the dee-lirium tremens, and startin’ in to see things, why couldn’t Ah see pink elly-fants and dancin’ rats and all them purty things other fellas see when they gits far gone? It ain’t fair fer me to see giants and blue deserts and git put in boxes the size of the Grand Canyon with no one but m’little hoss fer comp’ny!” He sat down on the pile of hay, took the horse’s nose in his arms, put his face against it, and began to sob.

Omri was shattered. A cowboy crying! He didn’t know what to do. When his mother cried, as she did sometimes when things got too much, she only asked to be left alone till she felt better. Maybe all grown-ups were like that. Omri
turned away and got slowly into his pajamas, and then went to see how Little Bear was getting along on the far side of the crate.

He’d finished the painting. The tepee looked really good. Little Bear was now in the longhouse, arranging his blanket for the night. The pony was tethered to his post on a long rope. Omri took out the rat food and gave it to him. Then he called Little Bear out.

“Are you okay? Anything you need?”

He should have known better than to ask.

“Plenty! Want fire in longhouse, keep warm, keep animals away. Want tomahawk—”

“So you can chop bits out of my leg?”

“Little Bear angry when say that. Sorry now. Use tomahawk cut down trees, chop firewood, kill fish—”

“What fish?”

Little Bear replied with a very good imitation of a fish swimming. Then he did a mime of catching it, putting it onto a block, and, with a whirl of his arm, chopping off its head with gleeful relish.

“I don’t know about that!”

“You get. Tomorrow. Fish from plasstick. Good tools. But fire—now. Chief Little Bear say!”

Omri sighed. He went to the wastepaper basket and picked out the remains of the other fire that he’d thrown away in there. There was quite a lot of the firelighter left. He gathered up some of the bits of willowbark and twigs from where Little Bear had been working. “You’re not having it inside, though—far too dangerous!”

He arranged the fire on the packed earth of the seed tray, about six inches from the entrance to the longhouse, first moving the tepee to safety. Then he struck a match and soon there was a cozy blaze.

Little Bear crouched beside it, his red skin glowing and his eyes bright with pleasure.

“Little Bear, can you dance?”

“Yes. Many kinds.”

“Would you do one now so I can see?”

He hesitated, then he shook his head once.

“Why not, though?”

“No reason dance.”

“Maybe if I got you a wife—”

The Indian looked up eagerly. “You get? Give word?”

“I only said I’d try.”

“Then Little Bear dance. Then do best dance—love dance.”

Omri turned off his light and drew back from the scene. It looked amazingly real, with the fire making shadows, the little horse munching his grain, and the Indian sitting on his heels warming himself, wearing his colorful headdress and chief’s cloak. Omri wished he himself were small enough to join Little Bear by the fire.

“Om-ri! Are you in bed? I’m coming up in five minutes to kiss you good night!”

Omri felt panicky. But it was all right. The fire was going out. Already Little Bear was standing up, yawning and stretching. He peered up through the darkness.

“Hey Omri! Paintings good?”

“Great!”

“You sleep now?”

“Yes.”

“Peace of Great Spirits be with you.”

“Thanks, same to you.”

Omri peered quickly into the crate. The poor cowboy had crawled away into his makeshift bed and was snoring loudly. He hadn’t eaten a thing. Omri sighed. He hoped Patrick was making plans and arrangements. After all, if Omri could keep
his Indian secret, Patrick might be able to do the same. All might yet be well. But Omri certainly wasn’t going to try the experiment again. It was all just too much worry.

He climbed into bed, feeling unusually tired. His mother came in and kissed him, and the door was shut. He felt himself drifting off almost right away.…

When suddenly a piercing whinny sounded. And was answered by another.

The horses had smelled each other!

They were not so far apart—and the cowboy’s wasn’t tied up. Omri could hear his little hooves clattering on the bare boards of the crate, and then the whinnies began again, high, shrill—almost questioning. Omri thought of putting on his light, but he was awfully tired—besides, what could he do? They couldn’t possibly reach each other through the planks of the crate wall. Let them whinny their heads off, they’d soon get fed up.

Omri rolled over and fell asleep.

He was awakened just after dawn by shots.

He was out of bed in about one fifth of a second. One glance into the crate showed him all too clearly that the cowboy and his horse had escaped. The second glance showed how: A knot in the wood had been pushed out (or perhaps kicked out by the horse), leaving an oval-shaped hole like an arched doorway, just big enough to let horse and rider through.

Omri looked around wildly. At first he could see nothing. He dropped to his knees beside the seed box and peered into the longhouse. Little Bear was not there—nor was his horse.

Suddenly some tiny thing whizzed past Omri’s ear and struck the crate beside him with a ping! Twisting his head, Omri saw it—a feathered arrow the size of a pin, still quivering from its flight.

Was Little Bear shooting at
him?