corner behind a high stand. Provided there weren’t too many other kids in the shop, he might be able to give Little Bull a quick look at the Indian women before he bought one, which would be a very good thing. Otherwise he might pick an old or ugly one without realizing it. It was so hard to see from their tiny plastic faces what they would be like when they came to life.
“Okay then, I’ll take you. But you must do as I tell you and not make any noise.”
He put him down on the seed-tray and gently shooed the pony up the ramp. Little Bull tied it to its post and Omri gave it some more rat food. Then he crawled on hands and knees over to where the cowboy was now sitting dolefully on the carpet, his horse’s rein looped round his arm, looking too miserable to move.
“What’s the matter?” Omri asked him.
The little man didn’t look up. “Lost muh hat,” he mumbled.
“Oh, is that all?” Omri reached over to the skirting-board and pulled the pin-like arrow out of the wide brim of the hat. “Here it is,” he said kindly, laying it in the cowboy’s lap.
The cowboy looked at it, looked up at Omri, then stood up and put the hat on. “You shore ain’t no reg’lar hallucy-nation,” he said. “I’m obliged to ya.” Suddenly he laughed. “Jest imagine, thankin’ a piece o’ yor dee-lirium tremens fer givin’ you yer hat back! Ah jest cain’t figger out what’s goin’ on around here. Say! Are you real, or was that Injun real? ’Cause in case you ain’t noticed, you’re a danged sight bigger’n he is. You cain’t both be real.”
“I don’t think you ought to worry about it. What’s your name?”
The cowboy seemed embarrassed and hung his head. “M’name’s Boone. But the fellas all call me Boohoo. That’s on account of Ah cry so easy. It’s m’soft heart. Show me some’n sad, or scare me just a little, and the tears jest come to mah eyes. Ah cain’t help it.”
Omri, who had been somewhat of a cry-baby himself until very recently, was not inclined to be scornful about this, and said, “That’s okay. Only you needn’t be scared of me. And as for the Indian, he’s my friend and he won’t hurt you, he’s promised. Now I’d like you and your horse to go back into that big crate. I’ll stick the knot back in the wood, you’ll feel safer. Then I’ll get you some breakfast.” Boone brightened visibly at this. “What would you like?”
“Aw shucks, Ah ain’t that hungry. Coupla bits o’ steak and three or four eggs, sittin’ on a small heap o’beans and washed down with a jug o’ cawfee’ll suit me just dandy.”
“You’ll be lucky,” thought Omri.
He crept downstairs. The house was still asleep. He decided to cook breakfast for himself and his cowboy and Indian. He was quite a good cook, but he’d mostly done sweet stuff before; however, any fool, he felt sure, could fry an egg. The steaks were out of the question, but beans were no problem. Omri put frying-pan over gas and margarine in pan. The fat began to smoke. Omri broke an egg into it, or tried to, but the shell, instead of coming cleanly apart, crumpled up somehow in his hand and landed in the hot fat mixed up with the egg.
Hm. Not as easy as he’d thought. Leaving the mess to cook, shell and all, he got a tin of beans out of the cupboard and opened it without trouble. Then he got a saucepan and began pouring the beans in. Some of them got into the egg-pan somehow and seemed to explode. The egg was beginning to curl and the pan was still smoking. Alarmed, he turned off the gas. The centre of the egg still wasn’t cooked and the beans in the pan were stone cold but the smell in the kitchen was beginning to worry him – he didn’t want his mother coming down. He tipped the whole lot into a bowl, hacked a lopsided slice off the loaf, and tiptoed up the stairs again.
Little Bull was standing outside his longhouse with hands on hips, waiting for him.
“You bring food?” he asked in his usual bossy way.
“Yes.”
“First, Little Bull want ride.”
“First, you must eat while it’s hot, I’ve been to a lot of trouble to cook it for you,” Omri said, sounding like his mother.
Little Bull didn’t know how to take this, so he burst into a rather forced laugh and pointed at him scornfully. “Omri cook – Omri woman!” he teased. But Omri wasn’t bothered.
“All the best cooks are men,” he retorted. “Come on, you’re going to eat with Boone.”
Little Bull’s laughter died instantly.
“Who Boone?”
“You know who he is. The cowboy.”
The Indian’s hands came off his hips and one of them went for his knife.
“Oh, knock it off, Little Bull! Have a truce for breakfast, otherwise you won’t get any.”
Leaving him with that thought to chew over, Omri crossed to the crate, in which Boone was grooming his white horse with a wisp of cloth he’d found clinging to a splinter. He’d taken off the little saddle, but the bridle was still on.
“Boone! I’ve brought something to eat,” said Omri.
“Yup. Ah thought Ah smelt some’n good,” said Boone. “Let’s git to it.”
Omri put his hand down. “Climb on.”
“Ah, shucks – where’m Ah goin’? Why cain’t Ah eat in mah box, where it’s safe?” whined Boone. But he clambered up into Omri’s palm and sat grumpily with his back against his middle finger.
“You’re going to eat with the Indian,” said Omri.
Boone leapt up so suddenly he nearly fell off, and had to grab hold of a thumb to steady himself.
“Hell, no, Ah ain’t!” he yelled. “You just put me down, son, ya hear? I ain’t sharin’ m’vittles with no lousy scalp-snafflin’ Injun and that’s m’last word!” It was, as it happened, his last word before being set down within a few centimetres of his enemy on the seed-tray.
They both bent their legs into crouches, as if uncertain whether to leap at each other’s throats or turn and flee. Omri hurriedly spooned up some egg and beans and held it between them.
“Smell that!” he ordered them. “Now you eat together or you don’t get any at all, so make up your minds to it. You can start fighting again afterwards if you must.”
He took a bit of clean paper and laid it, like a table cloth, under the spoon. Then he broke off some crumbs of bread crust and pushed a little into each of their hands. Still with their eyes fixed on each other’s
