The Return of the Indian (3 page)

He had always known that he would be tempted to put Little Bear and Bright Stars into the cupboard again and bring them back to life. His curiosity about how they were getting on—that alone tormented him every day. They had lived in dangerous times, times of war between tribes, wars aided and encouraged by Frenchmen and Englishmen who were fighting on American soil in those far-off days. Boone’s time, the time of the pioneering of Texas, a hundred years after Little Bear’s era, was dangerous too.

And there’d been another little man, Tommy the British medical orderly from the First World War—they’d magicked him to life to help when Little Bear was kicked by his horse, when Boone was dying of an arrow wound … Tommy might, just might still be alive in Omri’s world, but he would be terribly old, about ninety by now.

By putting their plastic figures into the magic cupboard, by turning the magic key, Omri had the power to recall them to life. To youth. He could snatch them from the past. The whole business nearly blew Omri’s mind every time he thought at all deeply about it. So he tried not to think about it too much. And to prevent his yielding to temptation, he had given his mother the key. She wore it around her neck on a chain (it was quite decorative). People often asked her about it, and she would say, “It’s Omri’s really, but he lends it to me.” That wasn’t the whole truth. Omri had pressed it on her and begged her to keep it safe for him. Safe … not just from getting
lost again, but safe
from him
, from his longing to use it again, to reactivate the magic, to bring back his friends. To bring back the time when he had been—not happiest, but most intensely, dangerously alive himself.

When Omri came back downstairs with the copy of his story, his brothers were both back from school.

Noticing that their parents were fairly gibbering with excitement, they were both pestering loudly to be told what had happened, but, being decent, Omri’s mother and father were refusing to spoil his surprise. However, the moment he entered the room his father turned and pointed to him.

“It’s Omri’s news,” he said. “Ask him to tell you.”

“Well?” said Gillon.

“Go on,” said Adiel. “Don’t drive us mad.”

“It’s just that I’ve won a prize,” said Omri with the
utmost carelessness. “Here, Mum.” He handed her the folder, and she rushed out of the room with it clutched to her bosom, saying that she couldn’t wait another minute to read it.

“Prize for what?” asked Adiel cynically.

“For winning a donkey race?” inquired Gillon.

“Nothing much, it was only a story,” said Omri. It was such a long time since he had felt this good, he needed to spin it out.

“What story?” asked Adiel.

“What’s the prize?” asked Gillon at the same time.

“You know, that Telecom competition. There was an ad on TV. You had to write in for a leaflet from the post office.”

“Oh, that,” said Adiel, and went into the kitchen to get himself something to eat.

But Gillon was gazing at him. He paid more attention to ads, and he had remembered a detail that Adiel had forgotten.

“The prizes were money,” he said slowly. “Big money.”

Omri grunted noncommittally, sat down at the table and shifted Kitsa, who was still there, onto his lap.

“How much?” pressed Gillon.

“Hm?”

“How much?—Did you
win?
You didn’t get first prize?”

“Yeah.”

Gillon got up. “Not—you haven’t won three hundred quid?”

Adiel’s face appeared around the kitchen door, wearing a look of comical amazement.

“WHAT! What did you say?”

“That was the first prize in each category. I thought about entering myself.” Excitement and envy were in Gillon’s voice now, making it wobble up and down the register. He turned back to Omri. “Come on! Tell us.”

“Yeah,” said Omri again.

He felt their eyes on him and a great gleeful laugh rising in him, like the time Boone had done a tiny brilliant drawing during Omri’s art lesson and the teacher had seen it and couldn’t believe her eyes. She’d thought Omri had done it somehow. This time was even more fun, though, because this time he
had.

He was sitting watching television some time later, when Adiel came in quietly and sat down beside him.

“I’ve read it,” he said after a while. His tone had changed completely.

“What?—Oh, my Indian story.”

“Yes. Your Indian story.” There was a pause, and then Adiel—his exam-passing brother—said very sincerely, almost humbly, “It’s one of the best stories I’ve ever read.”

Omri turned to look at him. “Do you really like it?” he asked eagerly. Whatever rows he might have with his
brothers, and he had them daily, their good opinion mattered. Adiel’s especially.

“You know perfectly well it’s brilliant. How on earth did you dream all that up? Coming from another time and all that? It’s so well worked out, so … I dunno. You actually had me
believing
in it. And working in all those real parts, about the family. Blimey. I mean it was terrific. I … now don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t quite credit that you made it all up.”

After a pause, Omri said, “What do you mean? That you think I nicked it from a book? Because I didn’t.”

“It’s entirely original?”

Omri glanced at him. “Original? Yes. That’s what it is. It’s original.”

“Well, congratulations, anyway. I think it’s fabulous.” They stared at the screen for a while and then he added, “You’d better go and talk to Mum. She’s sobbing her eyes out.”

Omri reluctantly went in search of his mother, and found her in the conservatory at the back of the house watering her plants. Not with tears—to his great relief she was not crying now, but she gave him a rather misty smile and said, “I read the story, Omri. It’s utterly amazing. No wonder it won. You’re the darkest little horse I ever knew and I love you.” She hugged him. He submitted briefly, then politely extricated himself.

“When’s supper?”

“Usual time.”

He was just turning to go when he stopped and looked
at her again. Something was missing from her general appearance. Then he saw what it was, and his heart missed a beat.

“Mum! Where’s the key?”

Her hand went to her neck.

“Oh … I took it off this morning when I washed my hair. It’s in the upstairs bathroom.”

Omri didn’t mean to run, but he couldn’t help it. He had to see the key, to be sure it wasn’t lost. He pelted up the stairs and into his parents’ bathroom. The key was there! He saw it as soon as he went in, lying on the ledge beside the basin with its silver chain coiled around it.

He picked it up. It was the first time he’d held it for a year. It felt colder and lighter than he remembered. Its twisted top and complicated lock part clicked into place in some memory pattern. And something else clicked at the same time, something that had been hovering in his mind, undefined, since he’d read the letter.

His story
was
original. Adiel had relieved his mind when he’d used that word. Even if you didn’t make a story up, if
you
had the experience, and
you
wrote about it, it was original. So he hadn’t cheated. But the story wasn’t only his. It also belonged to the little men—to Little Bear, and Boone, and even to Tommy, the World War I soldier. (It belonged to Patrick, too, but if Patrick had decided to deny it ever happened, then he’d given up his rights in it.)

And suddenly Omri realized, as he looked at the key, that his triumph wouldn’t really be complete until he’d
shared it. Not just with his parents and brothers, or with the kids at school. No prize, no party could be as good as what he was thinking about now. This was his reason—his excuse to do what he’d been yearning to do ever since that moment when the cupboard door closed and transformed his friends back into plastic.

Only with Little Bear and Boone could he share the secret behind his story, the most exciting part of all—that it was true.

He turned, went out of the bathroom and up the remaining stairs to his attic room.

Not for long
, he was thinking. “I won’t bring them back for long. Not long enough to cause problems. Just long enough to have a good talk. To find out how they are.”

Maybe Bright Stars had had a baby by now—a pa-poose! What fun if she brought it with her—though it would be almost too tiny to see. Little Bear had made himself a chief while he was with Omri, but when he returned to his own place, his father might still be alive. Little Bear wouldn’t like being an ordinary brave again! And Boone—the “crying cowboy” with a talent for art, a deep dislike of washing, and a heavy thirst … It made Omri grin to think of him. Writing about the little men and their adventures had made them so clear in his mind that it hardly seemed necessary to do what he was going to do.

With hands that shook, Omri probed into the depths of the chest till he found the box-within-a-box-within-a-box. He eased it out and closed the lid of the chest and put the boxes on top. Reverently he untied the string on the largest box, opened it, took out the next, and repeated the operation.

In the last box, carefully wrapped in cotton, was the plastic group consisting of a brown pony, an Indian brave, and a young Indian woman in a red dress. The brave’s left hand was upraised in farewell, his other arm circled the woman’s waist and held the rope rein. The woman, her long brown legs hanging on each side of the pony’s withers, had her hands buried in its mane. The pony’s head was alertly raised, its ears almost meeting
above its forelock, its feet braced. Omri felt himself quivering all over as he stood the tiny figures on his hand and stared at them.

“You’re coming back,” he whispered—as if plastic could hear. But they wouldn’t be plastic long!

The cupboard was ready. Omri stood the figures not on its shelf but on its metal floor. Then he took a deep, deep breath as if he were going to dive into a cold, uncertain sea. He fitted the key into the lock, closed the door, and turned it.

Let it still work. Let it—

He barely had time to think his thought before he heard the tiny, familiar sound—minute unshod hoofs drumming and pawing on the metal!

Omri let his breath out in a rush. His heart was thumping and his hand shook.

His fingers were still around the key. In a second he had turned it back and opened the mirrored door. And there they were—

No. No—!

Omri’s fists clenched. There was something terribly wrong. The three figures were there, all right. The details of life, which the dull-surfaced plastic blurred, were there again. The shine on the pony’s coat, the brilliance of the red dress, the warm sheen of brown, living skin. But—

The pony was right enough. He was prancing and stamping his feet, fretting his head against the rope. As Omri opened the door and the light fell on him, he
pricked his ears again and whickered nervously. On his back sat Bright Stars. But she was no longer in front. She sat back, almost on the pony’s haunches. And before her, but lying face down across the pony’s back, was a limp, motionless form.

It was Little Bear. Omri knew it, although he couldn’t see his face. His head and arms hung down on one side of the horse and his legs on the other. His buckskin leggings were caked with earth and blood. Omri, against his will forcing himself to peer closer, saw to his utter horror where the blood had come from. There were two bullet holes, almost too small to see, high up on his back.

Omri’s mouth was wide open with shock. He looked at Bright Stars. She was holding the pony’s rein rope now. Her other hand rested on Little Bear’s broad Shoulders as if to steady him and keep him from sliding off the pony’s back. Her face was frenzied. She had no tears in her eyes, but they were so round Omri could see the sparks of light in the whites. Her tiny teeth were clenched in a desperate grimace.

When she saw Omri, she started like a fawn with fear, but then the fear faded from her face. Her hand left Little Bear’s back for a moment and reached itself out toward Omri. It was a gesture of frantic appeal. It said, “Help us!” clearer than words. But Omri couldn’t move or speak. He had no notion how to help. He only knew that if he didn’t, if someone didn’t, Little Bear would die. Perhaps … perhaps he was dead already! What could he do?

Tommy.

Tommy’s medical knowledge was not exactly up to date. How could it be, when he had only been a medical orderly in the First World War? But he was the best idea Omri could come up with, shocked and numbed as he was.

He beckoned Bright Stars forward with one hand, and while she was guiding the pony over the bottom edge of the cupboard, Omri reached back into the smallest box. The plastic figure of the uniformed soldier was at the bottom, complete with his bag with the red cross on it.

As soon as the cupboard was empty, the horse and riders clear of the door, Omri slipped Tommy in and closed it again, turning the key forward and back in a second. That was all the magic took.

“It’ll be all right,” he said to Bright Stars, as she sat on the pony on the top of the chest near his face. “Tommy will fix him.” Then he opened the door again eagerly, and reached his hand in.

The bag was there. And the uniform, neatly folded, with the orderly’s cap upside down on top of the pile. And the boots. And the puttees, the khaki bandages they wore around their legs in that war. Neatly rolled, inside the cap. Nothing else.

Omri let out a cry. He slammed the cupboard door to shut out the sight of that neat little pile of clothes, empty of their owner, who no longer needed them. He knew instantly. He knew that Tommy didn’t live to be an old man. That one of those big German shells he had talked
about, those “Minnies,” or perhaps some other weapon, had Struck him down. His snubby, cheerful face, his bravery and his gentle hands were gone, with so many thousands of others, into the mud of the trenches.

Omri had never experienced death at close hand. No one he knew well had ever died. An uncle had “jumped the twig,” as his father called it, last year, but in Australia. A boy at school had been killed in a car crash, but he wasn’t in Omri’s class.