Omri was so shocked that for a moment he just stood there. He’d seen Patrick mad before, or acting recklessly, but he suddenly saw that as people get older their characteristics – bad as well as good – become more pronounced. Patrick had always been capable of behaving like this, but now he was big (bigger than Omri – he was halfway through his growth-shoot) all sides of his character were growing with his body.
For a second Omri wanted to fight him for the key. But he knew he’d lose. And his sense of fairness told him that Patrick had a justifiable grievance. Just the same… Omri was not about to walk away and leave all his own little people at Patrick’s disposal. Anything could happen.
He pulled himself together. “Right,” he said. “Since you’ve stolen the key, I can’t stop you. But you’re not going to mess about with my little people.” He picked up the plastic bag, put Little Bull into it and stared Patrick in the face.
“Please get out of my room,” he said.
“So you can hide them. Okay. Go ahead.”
Patrick turned on his heel and strode to the door. There he paused, and without looking round, said, “I should hide them really well, if I were you.” Then he went out.
The second the door closed, Omri rushed to the fireplace and, reaching up, hid the plastic bag on the ledge inside the chimney. Then he heard his dad calling. He hurried through the door, not noticing he had left sooty fingerprints on the white paint.
They drove slowly, so that Patrick could note the way. Patrick seemed quite co-operative and friendly now.
As they bumped up the cart track towards the crown of trees at the pinnacle of the hill, he leant out of the window. “You can see your place from here. What if I just cut straight down through those fields, instead of going by the road? Be much shorter.”
“What will you say – have you thought?” asked Omri’s father.
“Oh, yes. I’ve worked it all out. The thing is, the others are supposed to think you’re on Dartmoor, right? So if I just walk back and tell them I threw up or had a row or whatever, they’ll have to know where you are.”
Omri and his dad looked at each other. “That’s right. So?”
“So. I’m not going back today. I’m going to camp here overnight.”
“On your own? Are you sure?”
“I’m used to camping in our orchard at home, sometimes with my brother but often by myself. It’s nothing. Then tomorrow I’ll kick around – I’ve got my walkman, and a magazine, and I’ll have the food – and then, in the afternoon, I’ll walk back down there and say we all went for a hike on the moor and we got separated, and I got completely lost in some mist and couldn’t find you or the camping-site. I’ll say I spent the day hunting for you and in the end, I just decided to come back here, and got a series of lifts as far as your village with the help of a map. I’ll make myself look all worn-out and grotesque.”
Omri was staring at him. He seemed to be his old self, entering into the spirit of this new adventure with relish.
“But if we’d lost you, we’d have to report it and send out search-parties,” objected Omri’s dad.
“Ah,” said Patrick. That stumped him, but only for a moment. “I know! I’ll say that I left a message for you with the police that I was okay and had gone back to your place.”
“The police wouldn’t let you go alone.”
“Okay! Right! So the police drove me. If I say that, I won’t even have to make myself look as if I’d walked half the way.”
“My wife,” said Omri’s father slowly, “is going to smell a rat. But I think it’s the best we can do. Here we are.”
The car came to a stop right at the top of Peacock Hill, resting in a little hollow, invisible from below. They got out and ran up the slope on to a bank that nearly surrounded the hollow, all but the track entrance. These were the trees that Omri had seen from afar, the ‘peacock’s crown’ that he had often looked at from his room, growing out of the bank in a rough circle. Their roots protruded from the earth like a giant’s knuckles.
The boys stood staring around. It was a glorious spot. In every direction, the hills, fields, woods, and farms of this most beautiful part of England, marked out irregularly by hedges, stretched away, bathed in morning sunlight. To the south, behind them, they could see, three times between three pairs of hills, a dazzling line – the sea.
Turning back, Omri could pick out the thatched roof of home nestling below. As he watched, a tiny figure emerged from under the thatch and moved among the flowerbeds – his mother. Gillon came out after her, turned away and must have crossed the lane… They looked, as the cattle and sheep in the fields looked, like living toys.
As Omri thought those words, he shivered. Soon that was what they would be – living toys. As small to Little Bull and his people as his mother now looked to him. Unconsciously he reached out his hand as if to pick her up, trying to get the sense of her as small, not the strong person he knew her to be, but helpless in his hand.
Patrick said, “Yes, she looks like I felt, when Ruby Lou picked me up, in Texas. You’ll be like that soon. Only it won’t be so civilised.”
“Indians had their own kind of civilisation,” said Omri.
Patrick grunted. “Come to that, I don’t think white people were very civilised. They weren’t in Boone and Ruby’s time. One of them tried to shoot me the moment he saw me, and most of the others were dead drunk.”
Omri turned to him. “Have you changed your mind about wanting to come back with me first?”
“Yes.”
“Why? We could go now. Right now.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Why?” asked Omri again. “You were so keen.”
“I’ve decided I’d rather be the big one,” said Patrick. “Besides, Little Bull didn’t want me. Nor do you two. You want to have your adventure without me.”
This was true and Omri couldn’t deny it. But he felt worse than ever, when Patrick was being so nice about it… all of a sudden.
Omri’s dad, behind them, said urgently, “Come on, we’re wasting precious time!” They turned and ran down the slope, letting the side of the car bring them up short.
Omri opened the front passenger door. His father had been arranging things. He’d put two of the sleeping bags on the seat so Omri would be sitting on them. On the floor was a box containing food, a couple of books, and some other things underneath that Omri couldn’t see.
“Put your behind on these, and your feet on that,” his father was saying. “I’ve got Little Bull’s belt in my shirt pocket. Now. We have to hang on to each other, so the belt will take us both back. Put your anorak on. It’s cold in New York State in October.” He swung himself into the driving seat, removed the spare key from the ignition, put it carefully away in the glove-compartment, and produced the key.
Patrick stood by the car and watched silently.
It seemed Omri’s dad, in his eagerness, had forgotten there was ever any question of Patrick and Omri going back together first. He put the key in the ignition. “Patrick, would you like to turn it?”
“Yes,” said Patrick steadily. “I’d love that.” Omri glanced at him quickly but his face was blank. “Are you ready?”
Omri’s dad turned to look at Omri. His face was flushed, his breath coming fast. “This is the greatest adventure of them all!” he said. “Are you ready, bub?” Omri swallowed hard, and nodded.
His father took hold of his hand. Omri couldn’t tell who the trembling was coming from – both of them, probably.
“Do it!”
Patrick reached calmly in through the window and turned the key.
15
Howl of a Wolf
Silence and darkness.
Omri breathed deep to calm the fear. The air caught unpleasantly in his throat and nose for a split second, nearly making him cough, then struggled into his lungs. It was full of strange smells, so strong they were almost tastes. The principal one was smoke.
He found he was lying on hi
s back. He stared upward. He perceived some light now, but despite the open-air cold, it wasn’t starlight. A dull reddish glow from somewhere away to his left showed him, after some moments, that far above his head was an arched roof made of bark.
As his ears became sensitised to the quiet he realised there were sounds. Seemingly from several directions at once came loud snores. Nearer, there were other breathing noises. A slight rustle, as if someone turned over in sleep. A night bird cried. Then, far away but still spine-chillingly, a wolf howled.
Omri cautiously rolled over, then sat up sharply. His eyes had adjusted now. Some way down what looked like an endless tunnel, running off into total darkness, he could see a fire, burning low. By its faint, ruddy glow, he could see, at regular intervals along the tunnel, posts as thick as the thickest oak trunk. Between some pairs of these hung things like curtains, but they were not of cloth. One of them hung near him and he touched it. It was made of some stiff but smooth stuff, with ridges, a bit like paper. He couldn’t make out what it was.
He felt a draft of cold air. Instinctively he put his arms around his body. Then he looked down at himself and got a shock.
He was naked.
His first instinct was to hide. He scrambled over the earth floor and ducked under the curtain. Beyond it was deeper darkness, but he could make out a sort of room with a raised section against the wall. On this was a mountain range covered with fur in the shape of a sleeping giant.
Omri stared all around, feeling the beginnings of panic. “Dad!” he whispered as loudly as he dared.
There was no answer. Omri felt intensely vulnerable with no clothes on. Cold air embraced his skin from head to foot. He felt a sudden longing to go home. He hadn’t reckoned on this – being separated from his dad, it being night, so dark and cold, so strange, so lonely.
He made himself start to think.
He was in a longhouse, he knew that much. He remembered reading that the longhouses were very long indeed, with many families living in partitioned compartments on either side of a wide central aisle with a number of fires down the middle. This must be Little Bull’s compartment. He was expecting them. He wouldn’t have just left the man-doll lying anywhere. He would keep it near to him. Perhaps it was him, lying asleep under the furs?
Omri stood up beside the raised section, which he realised was a sleeping platform. The top of it was over his head. That made him try to reckon out how big he was, compared to the people here. If a full-sized person was lying asleep under these hides, he himself must be about sixteen or seventeen centimetres high. That gave him a great advantage over people who brought to life plastic figures only eight centimetres tall.
He needed Little Bull – if it was him – to wake up, to take care of him.
He ran from one end of the platform to the other, a distance, to him, of about twenty metres. There seemed no way he could climb up on to it. Then he almost bumped into something at one end – a basket, upside-down. Standing up close, he could smell it – a flowery, dryish smell, like hay but sweeter. It was enormous, with little woven braids crossing around its sides in a pattern. Omri explored it by touch. The weave was stiff, quite strong enough to make a ladder for him. He clambered up, feeling the woody edges firm under his hands and feet. Soon he stood on the gently sloping bottom of the basket, and now there was another sweet smell – Omri recognised it – it was a herb his mum used for stuffing chicken. Sage.
From here it was an easy step on to the platform where the mountains of fur were, and he knew at once he was at the head-end of their sleeping place because he could feel, against his bare skin, a coming-and-going warmth – human breath. He reached forward and touched flesh.
It twitched. He felt it with his hand. It was a nose. What if it weren’t Little Bull’s? He had to take a chance.
He moved his hand, feeling for the eyelid. The eyelashes brushed his fingers. They were opening! Now he saw the faint reflection of light in the white of an eye.
The next moment there was a violent movement – an eruption among the hides – and a hand shot out and seized him.
He got a terrible fright, and for a moment everything seemed to go black. Then, as the warmth of the hand permeated his cold body, he heard a familiar voice.
“Om-Ri?”
The voice was now deep and powerful, a man’s voice, though it was kept low. Omri realised he had never heard or seen Little Bull full-size before.
“Yes! It’s me, Little Bull! I’ve come!”
The hand released him and Omri became aware of the big man lying on his side, looking him up and down. Then he heard a deep-throated chuckle.
“You forget to bring clothes?”
“I had some when I started.”
“Ah,” Little Bull murmured. “Twin Stars must have a plan.” He turned over where he lay, shook someone lying asleep beyond him and spoke some quiet words. There was another eruption among the skins, and Omri, looking far up, saw Twin Stars sitting up behind Little Bull, her hair tumbling around her startled face. He shrank down, covering himself with his hands.
Twin Stars peered at him, put her face against Little Bull’s shoulder and giggled. She spoke to Little Bull, who said, “Wife says, when day comes she will greet you and give clothes. Father also have bare skin?”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Little Bull chuckled. “I know.”
He thrust his hand among the furs that wrapped him and Twin Stars, and Omri heard the sleepy protesting whimper of a small child who must be lying between them. The next moment Little Bull’s hand emerged with Omri’s dad in it, naked as a jay-bird. Omri heard him gasping for breath as if he’d come out of deep water.
“Omri! Are you there?”
“Yes, Dad!” Omri hissed back. “Shhh! Don’t shout!” Luckily the shout was a small shout to match his body.
Little Bull gently set Omri’s dad down beside him. “I’ve nearly suffocated! I thought I had no face again! I couldn’t imagine where I was or what was happening. It was like being trapped in between two damp hot-air balloons!”
“I think Tall Bear was cuddling you under the skins,” said Omri.
“He needs his nappy changed… God, it’s cold out here! Where are we? Why are we nak’d?” His father always said ‘naked’ as if it were the past of a verb ‘to nake’. It was a silly family joke and somehow it made Omri feel better.
He almost laughed himself. “I think Twin Stars forgot to put clothes on the man-dolls.”
“Maybe it was a protest at having to break the taboo and give us faces! Where are all the things we were supposed to bring with us? We’ve got some spare gear if we could find those. It was you who was touching them.”
Omri led the way back to the place on the floor where he had first ‘arrived’. Now his eyes were used to the dark (though they were stinging because of the smoky air) he could see a shape on the ground.
“Look – there they are!”
He and his dad fell on the box and the sleeping bags and dragged them under the curtain. Just as when the little people came to them, the things they had brought were in scale. Omri silently thanked the magic as he groped in the box and found the torch, the candles, some tinned food – and a couple of sweaters.
“How are we going to open these tins?” Omri asked as he struggled into his sweater. “Oh, of course – the tin-opener on your knife.”
“Is the knife there?” asked his dad with sudden anxiety.
“Isn’t it in your pocket?”
“My poor idiot, I haven’t got a pocket, have I?”
“Dad! Does that mean all the stuff you had in your clothes isn’t here? The matches?”
“Nope.”
A thought struck Omri. “What about the wampum belt?”
“If we had brought it, would it be our size or Little Bull’s?”
“His. It came from here.”
“How could it bring us and then disappear? It must have got lost on the way, when I lost my shirt.”
�
�Dad!”
“Don’t blame me.”
“I don’t, but I bet Little Bull will!”
The sleeping bags were there, however, and they lost no time in carrying them to the foot of the sleeping platform, and crawling in. Omri was shivering so much his teeth chattered.
“Dad… Why is it night here?”
“It’s the same time difference as always. It must be nearly morning though – ten a.m. our time in England would be about five a.m. theirs.”
“So why am I so tired?”
“Well, it can’t be jet-lag, can it?” said his father dryly. Omri snuggled down into the sleeping bag, curling his icy feet round each other. His dad said thoughtfully, “It isn’t so scary the second time. But I still find that weird sensation – that feeling of going out of much more than just your body – quite unnerving. And then finding myself clutched to that baby’s stomach with his hot little hands… No doubt it’s just the beginning. I wonder what’s in store for us ‘come the dawn’.”
“I’m glad you’re with me, Dad,” mumbled Omri.
“I wish I had my Swiss army knife.”
A short time later, the wolf howled again, but Omri wasn’t awake to hear it.
Neither Omri nor his dad felt themselves being gently lifted and laid in a safer place. In the morning they woke to find themselves in a vast room, curtained-off on three sides and walled with slabs of bark on the fourth. Omri could see what the curtains were, now: they were dried corn-husks plaited together.
Tall Bear, a giant one-year – old, was gazing at them from above. Little Bull was behind him, restraining him by holding his hands firmly to his sides.
Omri stared at Little Bull. He was of course huge, but also very handsome. His head was shaven above his ears and his plaited hair fell from the crown; he wore earrings, which presumably had always been too small for Omri to see, hanging from holes in his ears, large enough for Omri to have put his fist through. His torso was bare and tattooed into faint, curving lines, crossed with several necklaces of leather, beads and shells. He was smiling.
The Key to the Indian Page 11
