The Return of the Indian (10 page)

Irrational fury seized him. He crouched down. “I’ll kill her,” he ground out between his teeth.

Boone looked up at him.

“Don’t you kill mithin’, kid. Th’ critter wuz only follerin’ its instincks. Ya cain’t blame a cat fer
bein’
a cat, even if’n it do fall on a fella as fierce and sudden as a Texas hurricane.”

“I’ll—we’ll get you another horse.”

“Yeah, you do that. Ah’ll git to be pals with it, same as I wuz with this’n. Someday. Ah guess. A man ain’t whole without a hoss.”

He replaced his gun in its holster. “Jest now kin Ah have a shovel?”

Patrick swallowed, cleared his throat and said, “We’ll bury him for you, Boone.”

“Thanks, son, Ah’d be obliged t’ ya.”

Omri fetched a trowel from the greenhouse and dug a small hole in a flower bed just under a nodding Chrysanthemum. Boone took the bridle off the horse and laid the saddle over his arm. Then Patrick picked up the body. It was still warm, and strangely heavy for its size. He laid it in the hole and Omri covered it up and made a little mound. They stood for a moment. Then Boone settled his hat back on his ginger head.

“Cmon, then,” he said. “We’d best be gittin’ back t’ th’ others, before somethin’ happens to
them
.”

Patrick carried the cowboy back through the rhododendrons.

There was no sign of Little Bear and Bright Stars, and for a moment Omri’s heart seemed to leap into his mouth. But then Little Bear walked—actually walked, though slowly and unsteadily—out of the ruined long-house.

“Where you go? Why leave?” he demanded.

Patrick stooped and opened his hand so Boone could step out onto the seed tray. As far as Omri could judge, the cowboy looked as always; but Little Bear seemed to know at once that something had happened. He even guessed what.

“Where horse?” he asked Boone.

“Daid,” Boone answered shortly.

No more was said, but the Indian touched Boone briefly on the Shoulder before turning back to Omri.

“Now we put braves in box.”

But this time it was Patrick who had been doing some thinking.

Just a minute, Little Bear.”

Little Bear turned to him. “What minute? Do now!”

“Okay, so say we bring forty Indians to life. Then what?—I mean, what will happen right away? Because you can’t go back and start fighting the French right away.”

“I go back ry-taway! Why no?”

“Because you’re not well enough. No, Little Bear! You can’t be. So we’ll have forty other people on our hands.
We’ll have to feed them and look after them until you’re ready. That might be day s—weeks.”

“Who weak? I strong!”

“Seven days,” said Patrick, holding up seven fingers. “That’s a week.”

Little Bear glowered. “No week. No wait. If stay here, not help tribe, they make new chief.”

“I tell you what,” said Patrick. He reached into his pocket. “We’ll get Matron back. See what she says.”

“May Tron?”

“Yes.” Patrick held up the formidable little figure in her tall cap.

Little Bear made a face. “What use white woman with face like old beaver?”

“She saved your life, so you’d better not be rude. She’s like a doctor.”

Little Bear looked shocked. “No woman, doctor!” he exclaimed.

“Well, this one is. She took the metal out of your back last night. If she says you’re healed enough to fight, okay, we’ll get started on your army. If not—we’ll wait.”

And he put Matron in the cupboard.

When he opened the door, she was standing blinking at the sudden sunlight. She had a newly starched cap perched on her head.

“Ah-ha!” she cried when she saw the boys. “I thought as much! The more I thought about it, the more certain I was you’d need me again! So, do you know what I did? I popped a few things into my apron pocket, just in case.”

She hitched up her skirt and climbed over the rim of the cupboard.

“Think ahead,” she said. “That’s my motto.” Then she saw Little Bear standing before her with folded arms and uttered a shriek, but it was not of terror.

“What on
earth
are you doing out of bed! Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“Not kill seif,” said Little Bear calmly. “Maybe kill you.”

She bore down upon him. “Nonsense, my good man, you’re delirious, and no wonder. This is absolutely out-rageous, twenty-four hours after—ahem!—
major
surgery and here you are, on your feet instead of flat on your back—I mean, on your front! Lie down
at once!”

To the amazement of the boys, and no less perhaps to Little Bear’s own surprise, he found himself obeying her commands. Clearly it never occurred to her that he wouldn’t. He lay down on the pile of leaves and she knelt to examine him. Bright Stars ran to help her. Together they took off the dressings. Matron peered closely at the wounds, then sat back on her heels.

“Unbelievable,” she said. “Fantastic! If I didn’t see it I would never credit it. Beautiful! You know,” she went on as she took a tiny bottle and some cotton from her capacious pocket, “the trouble is,
we
live an entirely unnatural and unhealthful life. Eat the wrong foods, don’t exercise enough … Look at this man. Just look! Superb specimen. Not an ounce of fat on him. Bright eyes, perfect teeth, skin and hair gleaming with health—splendid!

And if something does go wrong, his magnificent, well-oiled defense system springs into action and hey presto! He’s practically healed.”

She washed the wounds, then took out a hypodermic needle, and squirted it briefly at the sky.

“Just to be on the safe side,” she said. “Trousers down!” And before Little Bear could grasp her intention, she had pulled his buckskins down and plunged the needle into his bottom.

Little Bear had borne a lot of pain without a flinch, but this humiliation was too much. He let out a roar as if he’d been gored by a buffalo.

“What
a silly fuss! There! All over!” said Matron brightly, withdrawing the needle and rubbing the spot briskly with the cotton. “Just in case of infection, but really there’s little fear of that. He’s practically as good as new. What a Constitution! Of course,” she added mod-estly, “I didn’t do a bad job on him, if I do say so myself.”

“Would you think he’d be well enough to—well, to do something—pretty active?” Omri asked.

“Try stopping him,” said Matron. She rose to her feet and dusted the earth off her knees. “Personally, if he were on
my
ward I’d say bed rest for another day or so, but a body like his knows its own business best.”

“Could he ride, say?”

“That’s up to the horse!” quipped Matron, laughing rather horsily herseif. “Well, I must be off!”

Meanwhile, Little Bear, who had scrambled hastily to his feet, now drew his knife and threatened her with it. But Matron, not at all alarmed, wagged her finger at him.

“Tsk, tsk, naughty man! That would never do at St. Thomas’s.” She turned her back on him without a qualm. Baffled, he lowered the knife. “Astonishing, these primitives,” she remarked to Omri as she strode back to the cupboard. “Perfect control over the body—none at all over the emotions.”

Back in the cupboard she offered Omri her hand, and then burst out laughing again.

“Aren’t I silly? How could we shake hands? Oh, but do try! I’d just love to shake hands with a giant, even if it is
all a very convincing dream.” Omri took her tiny hand between finger and thumb and solemnly shook it.

“Cheerio! Do call on me in any future hour of need!”

“We will,” said Omri, closing the door.

He turned from the cabinet to find Little Bear’s eyes fixed on him.

“Old white she-bear say I good,” he said. “Now Patrick, Omri, keep word.”

The boys looked at each other.

“Right,” said Omri, taking a deep breath. “Let’s get started.”

Bringing forty Indians to life sounds like quite an undertaking, but it took a remarkably short time to accom-plish. They did a few first, just to be on the safe side; but when the first half dozen had clambered out of the cupboard and were at once greeted by Little Bear, who regaled them in his strange language, which they all seemed to understand, Omri and Patrick didn’t delay further.

“Let’s put all the rest in at once!” said Patrick excitedly, and this time Omri made no objections.

Soon the seed tray was jammed with men, milling around, sitting on Patrick’s fence, admiring Little Bear’s pony, exclaiming in dismay at the ruined longhouse, gazing covertly at Bright Stars and examining the paintings
on the side of the tepee. One or two tried to enter this, but Little Bear barred the way. Boone was in there. None of them knew how the Indians might react to him, so they’d decided to hide him.

The new Indians didn’t pay any attention to the boys at first, or to anything in what, to them, was the distance. Everything on the seed tray was in scale with them, and soon they settled down in rows, cross-legged, to listen to what Little Bear had to say.

He dragged the matchbox bed into position before the tepee and stood on it, making it a platform. From there he addressed them in a loud, commanding tone for several minutes.

Omri and Patrick sat well back, shaded by bushes.

“It was a good idea of yours to be outdoors,” whis-pered Patrick. “Seems more natural, and there aren’t huge bits of furniture and so on to worry them.”

Omri didn’t react to this praise for his idea. If they had stayed inside, Boone’s horse would still be alive.

They watched. After a while, Little Bear stopped speaking and beckoned imperiously to the boys, who crawled forward on their knees till they hung over the seed tray. Little Bear pointed to them dramatically, and all the little Indians turned to look.

Their reaction was curiously unsensational. Some uttered muted cries; one or two leapt to their feet, but then sank down again after glancing at Little Bear and seeing him unafraid. Evidently he had given them some explanation for the presence of giants in their midst, which
they had no difficulty in accepting. The “Great Spirits” business, no doubt. Omri couldn’t help smiling at Little Bear’s obvious pride in having such beings at his command. It clearly gave him a lot of prestige in the eyes of these tribesmen he was hoping to lead into battle.

After a few more words to his audience, Little Bear turned to the boys.

“Make now-guns,” he ordered.

They knelt, irresolute. Omri had never really taken to the idea of Indians running amok with machine guns, hand grenades and artillery. Anything could happen, especially if they got overexcited. But Little Bear was scowling horribly at their hesitation.

“Make now-guns
now!”
he thundered. “Little Bear give word to braves!”

“Oh, dear,” said Patrick ironically. “That does it, then. I’d better fetch them.”

He jumped to his feet. Omri said, “While you’re in the house, ask my mum to give you something for us to eat. For
them
to eat.”

“Anything else you can think of?”

“Yes. Bring some horses for Boone to choose from.”

“One thing at a time,” said Patrick. “Boone’d better stay out of sight.” And he pushed off through the bushes.

While he was gone, Omri thought he ought to have a word with Little Bear.

“These now-guns, as you call them, are very, very powerful. And they’re complicated. They can’t be used without special training.”

Little Bear curled his lip in scorn.

“I see what soldier do. Point gun. Pull trigger, like gun French, English soldier fight with Indian. But kill more! Shoot many, many!” Little Bear made a noise like the chatter of a machine gun. The other Indians reacted with excitement.

“But the bigger ones—”

“Omri show how!”

“You don’t think
I
know, do you? As you keep reminding me, I’m only a boy.”

Little Bear frowned. The rows of seated Indians below him seemed to sense his doubt, and began murmuring to each other uneasily. Little Bear raised his hand to silence them.

“Omri put now-soldier in box. Him show.”

Omri considered. There was actually no option to bringing some modern soldiers to life, however briefly, because their plastic figures were attached to their weapons. Omri’s plan had been to do as he had done once before, when he’d wanted a bow and arrows for Little Bear. He had brought an old Indian to life and taken his weapons from him, meaning to transform him at once back into plastic. But he had promptly dropped dead of a heart attack. Omri thought that some artillery sergeant might be made of sterner stuff. Perhaps it would be worth a try.

“And what about these?” he asked, holding up a soldier from the time of George the Third (who, according
to a verse Omri recalled from somewhere, “ought never to have occurred”).

“Try,” said Little Bear tersely.

Feeling a bit guilty at doing it without Patrick, Omri put the five scarlet-clad soldiers into the cupboard. At once the clattering of metal on metal announced that the soldiers and their mounted officer were ready to emerge.

“Little Bear, you’d better go in there with them. Better if you talk to them first, and decide if you want them.”