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 towards 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 Bull, and Patrick sat down on the end of the bed, masking the poor cowboy who was still toiling along over the lumps in the quilt.
Just in time! Omri’s mother opened the door 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 blazer 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 of 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 Bull to school!”
“You can do what you like about Little Bull, 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.
OMRI PUT THE cowboy and horse in his shirt 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 a metre square, made of planks. There was certainly no visible way out of it for the cowboy. Omri put him carefully down into it. Looking 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 pony, some fragments of apple for them both and, later, some cottonwool and scraps of material for bedding, the cowboy deliberately covered his eyes by pulling down his big hat brim. 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 for 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 pyjamas, and then went to see how Little Bull was getting along on the far side of the crate.
He’d finished the painting. The tepee looked really good. Little Bull 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 Bull out.
“Are you okay? Anything you need?”
He should have known better than to ask.
“Plenty! Want fire in longhouse, keep warm, keep wild animals away. Want tomahawk—”
“So you can chop bits out of my leg?”
“Little Bull angry when say that. Sorry now. Use tomahawk cut down trees, chop firewood, kill bird—”
“What bird?”
Little Bull replied with a very good imitation of a cock crowing. Then he did a mime of catching it, putting its neck on to 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. Birds from plass-tick. Good tools. But fire – now. Chief Little Bull say!”
Omri sighed. He went to the waste paper 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 willow-bark and twigs from where Little Bull 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 fifteen centimetres from the entrance to the longhouse, first moving the tepee to safety. Then he struck a match and soon there was a cosy blaze.
Little Bull crouched beside it, his red skin glowing and his eyes bright with pleasure.
“Little Bull, can you dance?”
“Yes. War dance, wedding dance, many kind.”
“Would you do one now so I can see?”