little man in his plaid shirt, buckskin trousers, high-heeled leather boots and big hat, scrambled frantically up the side of Patrick’s right hand and, dodging through the space between his index finger and thumb, swung himself clear of the horse – only to look down and find he was dangling over empty space.
His hat came off and fell, slowly like a leaf, down, down, down to the floor so infinitely far below. The cowboy gave a yell, and scrabbled with his feet against the back of Patrick’s hand, hanging on for dear life to the ridge beside his thumb-nail.
“Hold your hands still!” Omri commanded Patrick, who in his excitement was jerking them nervously about. There was a moment of stillness. The horse stood up, trembling all over, prancing about with terror. Beside his hooves was some tiny black thing. Omri peered closer. It was the pistol.
The cowboy had now recovered a little. He scrambled back through the finger-gap and said something to the horse which sounded like “Whoaback, steady, fella.” Then he slid down and grabbed the reins, holding them just below the horse’s nose. He patted its face. That seemed to calm it. Then, looking round swiftly but not apparently noticing the enormous faces hanging over him, he reached cautiously down and picked the pistol up from between the horse’s hooves.
“Whoa there! Stand—”
Omri watched like a person hypnotized. He wanted to cry out to Patrick that it was a real gun, but somehow he couldn’t. He could only think that the sound of his voice would throw the horse once more into a panic and the horse or man would get hurt. Instead he watched while the cowboy pointed the gun in various directions warily. Then he lowered it.
Still holding the reins he moved until he could press his hand against Patrick’s skin. Then he let his eyes move upward towards the curved fingers just level with the top of his head.
“What the dawggone heck—” he said. “It sure looks like a great big – Aw, what’m Ah talkin’ about? It cain’t be. Hell, it just ain’t possible!” But the more he looked, the more certain he must have become that he was, indeed, in a pair of cupped hands. And finally, after scratching his gingery head for a moment, he ventured to look right up past the fingers, and then of course he saw Patrick’s face looking at him.
There was a petrified moment when he couldn’t move. Then he raised his pistol in a flash.
“Patrick! Shut your eyes!”
Bang!
It was only a little bang, but it was a real bang, and a puff of real, gun-smelling smoke appeared. Patrick shouted with pain and surprise and would have dropped the pair if Omri hadn’t thrust his hand underneath to catch them. Patrick’s own hand had clapped itself to his cheek.
“Ow! Ow! He’s shot me!” Patrick screamed.
Omri was not much bothered about Patrick at that moment. He was furious with him, and very anxious about the little man and his horse. Quickly he put them down on the bed, saying, like the cowboy himself, “Steady! Whoa! I won’t hurt you! It’s okay!”
“Ow!” Patrick kept yelling. “It hurts! Ow!”
“Serve you right, I warned you,” said Omri. Then he felt sorry and said, “Let’s have a look.”
Gingerly Patrick took his hand down. A drop of blood had been smeared on his cheek, and by peering very close Omri could see something very like a bee’s sting embedded in his skin.
“Hang on! I see it – I’ll squeeze it out—”
“OW!”
A quick squeeze between his thumbnails and the almost invisible speck of black metal, which had only just penetrated the skin, popped out.
“He – shot me!” Patrick got out again in a shocked voice.
“I told you. My Indian stuck a knife in me,” said Omri, not to be outdone. “I think we ought to put him back – your cowboy I mean, of course, not my Indian.”
“Put him back where?”
Omri explained how the cupboard could change him back to plastic again, but Patrick wasn’t having any of that.
“Oh no! I want him! He’s terrific. Look at him now—”
Patrick feasted his eyes admiringly on the little cowboy. Ignoring the ‘giants’, whom he clearly thought he must have imagined, he was doggedly dragging his horse across Omri’s quilt as if he were wading through the dunes of some infinite pale-blue desert.
Omri reached for him determinedly, but Patrick stepped into his path.
“Don’t you touch him! I bought him, I changed him – he’s mine!”
“You bought him for me!”
“You said you didn’t want him.”
“Well, but the cupboard’s mine, and I told you not to use it.”
“And so what if I did? Anyway, it’s done, he’s alive now and I’m keeping him. I’ll bash you right in if you try to take him. Wouldn’t you bash me if I took your Indian?”
Omri was silent. That reminded him! Where was Little Bull? He looked round. He soon spotted him at the other side of the room, busy with his paints. Some beautiful minute designs, showing turtles and herons and beavers, mainly in red and yellow, had appeared on the side of the tepee Omri had made. As Omri crouched beside him to admire them, Little Bull, without looking at him, said “You bring food? I very soon die if not eat.”
Omri looked around. What had he done with the spoonful of stew? But he soon saw that he’d put it down on the table without thinking. There it sat, tilting slightly and spilling a few drops of gravy, but still steaming. He hurried to get Little Bull’s – or rather the Action Man’s – mess-tin (the paper plate had got all soggy) and carefully filled it with the hot savoury stuff.
“Here you are.”
Little Bull stopped work, laid down his paintbrush, and sniffed eagerly.
“Ah! Good!” He sat down cross-legged among the paint lids to eat, dipping some of yesterday’s stale bread in as a spoon. “Your wife cook? Ah. No. Little Bull forgot. Omri not got wife.” He ate ravenously for a few moments and then said, “Not want?”
“I’m having mine downstairs in a minute,” Omri said.
“Mean, Omri not want wife,” said Little Bull, who was now in a much better mood.
“I’m not old enough.”
Little Bull looked at him for a moment. “No. I see. Boy.” He grinned. “Big boy, but boy.” He went on eating. “Little Bull want,” he said finally, not looking up.
“Another wife?”
“Chief needs wife. Beautiful. Good cook. Act as told.” He put his face into the mess-tin and licked it clean. Then he looked up.
“With Iroquois, mother find wife for son. But Little Bull’s mother not here. Omri be mother and find.”
Omri
