The Key to the Indian

by Lynne Reid Banks

  Omri’s imagination was out of control. He could see Boone and Ruby, trapped in the vast slippery wet whiteness of the bath, running frantically, trying uselessly to climb the sheer sides, with the great monster behind them. He saw Kitsa, an innocent but deadly pawn to her killer instincts, dabbing at them with lightning claws… He saw Ruby, the lace of her white wedding dress snagged on those claws, being hooked into that waiting mouth – he remembered his own near fate in the mouth of the settler.

  Oh God! It was too hideous! He should never, never have left Patrick alone with that key!

  He became aware of the utter stillness of his father beside him. “Was the coracle upside down? Could they have turned it over and hidden under it?”

  Patrick shook his head. “It was upside down, but I looked.”

  “Where? Whereabouts in the bath?”

  Despairingly, Patrick mumbled, “I tell you they’re gone.”

  “Where was it?” Omri’s father suddenly roared.

  “Right over the plughole.”

  “AH!”

  In a flash, he was out of the car, with Omri, bewildered but suddenly with a pinprick of hope, after him. Moving as fast as his bad knee would let him, his father hobbled up the path and into the house. He brushed aside Omri’s mother, who had heard the car and was coming to meet them, and struggled up the stairs at the front-door end. Omri and Patrick came after him, in fact at the top Patrick dodged ahead. By the time the other two reached the bathroom, Patrick was already hanging over the tap-end of the bath, trying to poke his fingers down the drain.

  “Is it big enough? Could they have gone down there to save themselves?”

  “Easily.”

  The drainpipe was old, like everything else in the cottage. It was open. It didn’t have the usual metal fitting in its opening to stop things going down. But Omri’s father picked something up. It was a little round metal thing like a tea-strainer.

  “Your mother always puts this in the mouth of the drain when she lets water out,” he said. “To stop hairs and things blocking it. But, see, it’s been moved.” He picked up the coracle, a round black toy boat about ten centimetres across, made of wicker with an oilskin cover and a wooden seat. He looked at the boys. Hope was stark on his face.

  “My bet is, Boone got himself and Ruby under the upturned coracle, and edged it down the bath until he was over the drain. Then they moved this strainer out of the way, and down they went. Fell, or jumped.”

  Patrick looked as if his knees might collapse under him.

  “You mean, they might not be dead?”

  “I mean they might have escaped from Kitsa. But if they did go down there, they could easily have drowned.”

  “Lionel?”

  They all spun round. Omri’s mother was standing in the doorway, a look of hurt bewilderment on her face.

  “I thought you were rushing up here like a madman because you needed to go. Don’t I get even a hello after two days?”

  Omri’s father and Omri rushed to hug her.

  “Sorry, Mum – it was just—” But of course he couldn’t explain. Omri’s dad leapt into the breach.

  “Patrick told us he’d dropped his – er—”

  “My watch—”

  “Ah, yes, down the drain. He’s terribly upset. Sorry, darling.” He gave his wife a contrite kiss.

  “Well. Okay. So how did it go?”

  Omri’s dad looked into her face, and then looked away. Omri got some faint inkling of how extremely difficult it is for happily married people to keep secrets from each other.

  “It was… it was…” he said with a helpless air.

  “It was absolutely fabulous, Mum,” said Omri.

  His mother gave a big, bland smile.

  “I want to know everything,” she said. “Every tiny detail. Come on down. Why are you limping?”

  “We – we had a bit of a fall. In the mist. It’s nothing.”

  “Oh, good. As to Patrick’s watch – how could you possibly drop it down there? I put the strainer in, I know I did.”

  There was a silence. Then she sighed and said, “Boys… I don’t know. Come on, then,” and went out.

  “What’ll we do?” whispered Patrick.

  “First thing,” Omri’s dad whispered back, “you must call down there and see if they answer. Then drop a weighted string down and see how deep it is. After that…” He shrugged. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” And he limped out, leaving the boys alone.

  They called down. Nothing. They dropped a string weighted with a toothbrush. It went down about thirty centimetres and then the pipe bent.

  “There’s one good thing,” Omri said. “The water goes down very slowly. Mum’s always complaining about it. If they jumped they would have landed in the water in the pipe and it would have carried them down the downpipe quite gently.”

  “If they could swim.”

  The boys went to the window. They could see the pipe running down the outside corner past the kitchen. There was an open drain with a grating down there.

  “Maybe they’re there, maybe the grating caught them!”

  They raced downstairs and round to the back. But there was nothing on the grating. It had big spaces between the bars, through which two tiny people could easily have been washed by a downflow of water.

  “Then what? Where would they go? Into the big drain?”

  “We’re not on mains drainage,” said Omri. “All our waste water goes into – oh NO!”

  Leaving Patrick to follow, Omri raced back into the house. His father was in the kitchen with his mother, who was just handing him a mug of coffee.

  “Dad! The septic tank!”

  Omri had no time to think about avoiding involving his mother. All he could think of was Boone and Ruby Lou in the ghastly sewer tank under the flowerbed in the front garden. Nothing mattered except getting them out. If they were in there. If they were still alive, not devoured or drowned or asphyxiated or frightened to death down there in the vast echoing smelly darkness.

  His father literally dropped the mug of coffee which shattered on the tiles. He grabbed his wife by the shoulders.

  “Stay here,” he said. “Don’t come out!”

  Then he was bolting past the boys, through the front part of the house and out into the garden.

  At the edge of the central flowerbed, he halted. “A crowbar!” he shouted. “Omri! Fetch that iron rod I clean the culvert with!”

  For a moment Omri’s mind was a blank. Then he remembered seeing it across the lane in one of the bays. When he returned with it about ten seconds later, he found his father and Patrick struggling to lift the heavy manhole cover with their hands. They could barely shift it.

  Omri’s father snatched the rod out of Omri’s hands and applied it to a special slot in the lid. It was like lifting a huge, heavy stove-lid. Omri, watching helplessly, remembered it had taken two men to lift it when they’d come to empty the tank. He drew in a sharp breath. They’d emptied the tank! Quite recently! At least it wouldn’t be full. And there were the little bugs down there, reducing the ‘solids’ (ugh!) to harmless sludge. And the water drained away all the time. Maybe they wouldn’t drown, if they’d got that far through the pipes safely.

  His father strained and gave it his full strength. And the lid moved! As soon as it came off, the boys fell on their knees on the earth and put their heads into the manhole.

  “Boone! Ruby! Are you in there?” And Patrick added between desperately clenched teeth, “Oh, please! Be in there!”

  Their voices echoed bleakly round the inside of the tank.

  24

  Visitors

  For long seconds, the echo of their own voices was all that came back to them, and the dark shadow of despair threatened them again.

  And then, amplified by the awful depths, they heard a well-known Texan voice.

  “If thet’s you, Patrick, Ah wouldn’t advise ya to git us outa here. If’n Ah wuz you, Ah’d leave us here ter rot. Because if’n Ah ever git
out, Ah’m a gonna bust yor nose wide open. Ah’m gonna kick yor big ornery butt. Ah’m gonna shove that thur boat o’ yorn right down yer mizzable throat. An’ then, when Ah done all thet, Ah’m gonna shoot ya full a lead, right through the belly-button!”

  “Oh, Boone! Oh, Boone!” was all Patrick could say, grinning through tears of joy, as if the prospect of being busted, kicked, choked and shot by his cowboy was all he could wish for, world without end.

  The next moment he had practically dived headfirst into the tank. Omri and his dad had to catch hold of his feet to stop him falling right in. A moment later a hollow shout from within told them to drag him back out.

  He emerged, filthy to the elbows but triumphant. In each hand he held a tiny sludge-blackened figure.

  Boone had somehow, incredibly, managed to keep jammed on his head his ten-gallon hat, which he now wrenched off, showing untainted red hair and a white crescent at the top of his filthy face. He took the hat by its brim in both hands and began to belabour Patrick’s hand with it.

  “Ah’ll kill ya. That’s what Ah’ll do, ya varmint! Ah’ll beat ya to death! Of all the stinkin’est places Ah ever bin in, an’Ah bin in plenty, that thur has gotta be the worst! Look at me! Ah smell like Ah fell in the privvy!”

  “Well, as a matter of—”

  “Don’t you utter a dad-blamed word, ya mizzable no-count low-life kid, you!” His voice pitched up and went British, in a mockery of Patrick’s. “Whay don’t yew go a-boatin’, Boone, yew’ll love it, it’s quait safe! Boatin’ – who in heck that wuz ever born in the State o’Texas knows or cares anythin’ about boats! Hosses – yep. Boats? No, sir! As fur water, Ah don’t even like drinkin’ the stuff! But Ah tried. Agin all that’s decent and natural fur a Texan. Ah tried, jest t’please ya, but then what? Ya left us to make a meal fur thet gol-danged rotten cat that darn near killed me once awready! And as if thet wasn’t enough, we had t’jump down a well and git ourselves half-drownded, and then—”

  While he raved, Omri removed the other figure from Patrick’s hand. It was Ruby of course. He held her gently and looked at her. She wasn’t wearing her wedding dress any more. She was dressed for riding. Her beautiful blonde hair was all filthy and wet and so were her clothes. But she didn’t seem to notice. She was leaning out of Omri’s hand, waving both arms at Boone, and cheering him on.

  “You tell him, Billy! You give it to him, lover! If you don’t I will! Oooooh, if ever I miss havin’ kids, I’ll only have to think they mighta bin like that lousy snake-eyed Pat, that I thought was the greatest kid on earth, and I’ll just thank m’lucky stars I ain’t got none!”

  “Ruby—”

  “WHAT!”

  “I think Patrick’s really sorry.”

  “Sorry ain’t enough for what we bin through!”

  “Would you like to clean up?”

  She seemed to notice Omri for the first time. She squinted up at him through the dirt, and her angry face softened.

  “Well now, that’s a purty darn silly question, I’d say.”

  “Come on. I’ll take you.”

  As Omri turned towards the house, he thought he saw a face at the window nearest the door, but it vanished.

  They crept upstairs, Omri and Patrick, to the bathroom, scene of the crime. Omri ran warm water into the coracle, which was about the size of a jacuzzi to Boone and Ruby. He put a drop of bubble-bath in to make it smell nice, and cut a clean face flannel into towels for them while Patrick carved a couple of chips off a cake of soap. They laid these on the wooden seat that spanned the circular coracle, and set a sort of screen around it made of two opened books (kept handy by the loo).

  It was Patrick who thought of pouring a dribble of shampoo into a lid and lowering it into the newly-made ‘bathroom’ so Ruby Lou could wash her hair. At that, Omri, not to be outdone, found an old mascara brush of his mother’s and washed it carefully so Boone could use it to scrub his back.

  “You’re going to have to have a good wash this time, Boone,” he couldn’t resist saying as he dropped it over the screen. He could already hear groans of pleasure as Ruby Lou lowered herself into the hot water.

  His dad had had an even better idea. He arrived a few minutes later with the lid of a ChapStick full of Scotch. He opened the “screen” a crack (to be greeted by a modest shriek from Ruby) and pushed it through.

  “Drop of the hard stuff for you, Boone,” he said.

  “A drop!” screamed Ruby. “A bucketful, more like! You shouldn’t encourage him. I just got done makin’ him give it up again!” But the capful of whisky was speedily dragged in and they could hear appreciative gulps and lipsmacks, and then they heard Ruby say, “Okay, buster, no need to hog it all, save a snifter fer Ruby – I need it as bad as you do!”

  “Let’s leave them in peace,” Omri’s dad whispered.

  “What if Mum wants to come into the bathroom? Or Gillon?”

  “Gillon’s at a friend’s. Mum’s busy. Anyway I’ll stand guard.”

  The boys left the bathroom and heard the lock click into place. Omri said to Patrick, “He’d have done it, I bet. Everything he was threatening you with. If he’d just been big enough, you’d have been a gonner.”

  “Wouldn’t have blamed him,” Patrick mumbled.

  They went into Omri’s room.

  The first thing Omri saw as he walked in was a tiny black horse standing in a makeshift corral on his desk. But the next thing he saw made him stop in his tracks. There beside the horse was a plastic bag. It was empty. And then he saw four little plastic figures standing in a row.

  “Patrick—” he croaked out. “You didn’t—”

  “No. I nearly did. I damn nearly did.”

  Omri stared at him speechlessly.

  “Listen, Om. You think Boone was mad. I was ten times madder. No, now just listen. After you left, I spent the day hiking and picnicking, and then I camped out on the hill for the night as I said I would, and I was just, like, seething the whole time. Then I came back down here and fed your mum that line we agreed to. I don’t think she believed a word of it, but for some weird reason she didn’t argue. Then I had to settle down here for a whole day yesterday, with nothing to do but think of the fun you and your dad were having without me.”

  Fun… Omri dropped his eyes. “Go on.”

  “So last night I just couldn’t stand it. I came in here and started looking for where you’d hidden your little people. It wasn’t too hard, because you’d left fingerprints on the door and I could see they were soot. So I looked up the chimney and I found them right away.”

  Omri scowled. So much for his brilliant hiding place.

  “Well, I had the key, so I put them in the cupboard, and I was going to do it – all of them – but then I thought, no, one at a time was better, and I was going to bring Little Bull first because I knew he was looking after you. I wanted to… to take him away from you, kind of. But I thought I’d just bring Matron first. Of course she was no fun at all, she was so mad at me for interrupting her work – she said a whole bunch of soldiers wounded at a place – or maybe it was a battle – called Dunkirk had just been brought in and she had no time for children’s games. So I sent her back, quick.

  “Then I brought Sergeant Fickits. He was okay. He sat and talked to me and told me about the army – it sounds really good, I might just join when I’m older – the Royal Marines, I mean, not the ordinary army. And I found myself telling him about you guys going off to the past without me and how I wanted to – well, to do something about it. Only Fickits was against it. He said, what about comradeship and team spirit, and what if something was going on – even if Little Bull was just carrying you when I brought him and he suddenly fell down, he might squash you, and if things were really going badly for the Indians there might be danger for you, too. Was there?” he asked eagerly. “Did you have a terrific adventure? What happened to your dad’s leg?”

  “I’m going to tell you everything. Just please finish your part.”

  “We
ll, Fickits made me think about it a bit, like imagine what might be happening and how me sticking Little Bull in the cupboard might cause something worse to happen. So I just got Fickits something to eat – I wanted to open a can of beer for him but I knew your mum’d notice – and we ate together and talked some more and then he said he had to get back because of Suez. I said, what’s Suez? and he told me I was an ignorant young git. But he was really nice otherwise, and you’ve got him to thank I didn’t bring Little Bull after all.”

  “But you did bring Boone and Ruby Lou.”

  “Yeah. Well they’re mine, I couldn’t see anything against that, and I was still mad and I wanted to have some fun. So I brought them, and we had a great time together. They told me what-all they’d been doing—”

  “You’re talking like him—”

  “And how they’d opened a saloon and eating house. Like, Ruby runs it and does the cooking and keeps the customers in order, sort of, and Boone did all the decorations, with paintings all over the walls, and folks come from miles around to see it. They used to call it just Ruby’s Saloon but now everyone calls it the Picture Palace. Isn’t that funny? Think of all the places that’ll be called that in a few years, because of movies! And Boone’s and Ruby’s place is the first!”

  “Was.”

  “Is, was, what’s the difference? It’s all just happening, isn’t it?”

  Omri nodded slowly, remembering Little Bull’s spiral of time.

  “As soon as they’ve had a wash and got their clothes dry, we must send them back. They had to close the saloon for repairs after a bit of a fight at the bar, but they need to get back. Isn’t it fantastic that it’s all turned out okay?” he said with a carefree laugh, as if nothing at all bad had happened. “Let’s go back to the bathroom and see how they’re getting on.”

  And off he went. Omri heard him tapping on the door, and his father letting him in. But Omri stood for a moment looking at Matron, Fickits, Little Bull, and Twin Stars with Tall Bear in her arms, and thought: I could bring them. I could. But something inside him said No. It’s over. Omri felt the heavy sadness again and pressed the argument, the simple argument: But I could! I’ve got the cupboard. There’s the key, stuck in its lock. I could!