Meanwhile Omri had carefully lifted the machine gun out of the cupboard and set it beside him. The nearness of his weapon seemed to restore him.
“Begin, Corporal!” said Patrick, who found he rather liked giving orders he knew would be instandy obeyed.
“Right, men!” Fickits barked. “Pay attention! I am about to demonstrate the workings of this ’ere weapon, a marvel of military science. I will first break it dahn and put it back together—”
“Never mind that, Fickits,” interrupted Patrick. “Just show them how to shoot with it.”
The corporal instantly changed tack.
“I will first demonstrate the method of firing.” He dropped to one knee, aimed over the heads of the crowd, and fired off a short but noisy burst. Bullets whistled through the air and caused a flurry among the rhododendron leaves.
The Indians watched this impassively. They didn’t seem to grasp what had happened. But Little Bear leapt up beside Fickits and shouted something. He must have told them that each bang represented a bullet, or with luck a dead enemy. At that, the Indians jumped up and started yelling excitedly and pushing towards the platform. Almost at once a fight broke out among those wanting to be the first to try the gun. Corporal Fickits stared at the scrimmage in dismay.
“You’d better give these blighters some orders, sir!” he shouted at Patrick above the uproar. “Goin’ on like that, it won’t do, sir!”
“It’s your gun, Corporal! You give the orders!”
“Me, sir? Ain’t there an officer about, sir? Or at least a sergeant!”
The scrimmage below was getting wilder. One burly Indian had already laid two others out cold and was scrambling up onto the platform.
“You’re in charge, Corporal! Go on, tell them to behave. They’ll listen to you!”
After a baffled moment, Fickits saw that the Indian had laid hands on his gun and was swinging the barrel wildly in all directions. This galvanised him into action.
“TAKE YER ’ANDS ORF THAT GUN!” he bellowed.
His voice was not that of a corporal, but of a regimental sergeant major. All at once the howling mob of Indians fell silent. Even Little Bear looked impressed. The Indian at the gun found himself hiked upright by his hair (all Fickits had to get hold of) and flung off the platform.
“Nah then, you bunch of ’orrible little men!” roared Fickits. “You touch this ’ere weapon when I says you will touch it, and NOT BEFOWER, DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? Or you will find yourselves wishin’ that your mothers ’ad never met your fathers, IS THAT CLEAR???”
There was a profound silence. Even the birds in the bushes seemed stunned.
“Wow,” breathed Patrick. “That’s telling them.”
Corporal Fickits proved a godsend. He knew a great deal about military hardware, not only machine guns. As fast as Omri put the soldiers into the cupboard, made their weapons real, removed them from their owners, and placed them on the matchbox platform, Fickits instructed his now-obedient students how to work them. Soon they had two field guns, ten hand grenades, three bazookas, two more machine guns, and a small pile of automatic rifles. The Indians appeared to like these best. When they discovered that they could actually run while firing them, it took all Corporal Fickits’ newfound authority to keep any kind of order, and even so it was a miracle that no one got hurt during the training. The boys set up stripped twigs and round pieces of trimmed bark as targets, but as there was a limited amount of ammunition, every Indian was given only five rounds to practice with.
Fickits was uneasy about the larger guns.
“Firing artillery, sir, ain’t something you do any old how. Any ’alfwit can blast off with the ’andguns, sir, or throw a grenade, but if you’ll take my advice you’ll leave the ordnance pieces out of it. You need a properly trained crew for artillery, sir. Not rabble like this lot, sir.”
“If that’s your advice, Corporal, we’ll follow it,” said Patrick.
Corporal Fickits’ expression did not change, but he seemed to swell up inside his uniform like a miniature pouter pigeon.
“Thankysir!” he said, making it all one word.
Little Bear was getting impatient.
“Braves know shoot now-guns,” he said urgently.
“Time go back!”
Omri had been, he now realized, secretly dreading this moment. There was his Indian, not yet fully recovered, no matter what anyone said, about to be plunged into a life-or-death situation.
But he knew there was no way to avoid it. People had to do what they had to do. However, that didn’t mean Bright Stars had to go into danger.
“Can you leave Bright Stars here?” Omri asked.
“Yes,” said Little Bear. “Leave wife. Omri take care. Bring old white she-bear when time come for Little Bear son. But no let stab with claw in backside!”
Omri and the Indian looked at each other for a moment.
“Good luck,” said Omri.
“Need help from Great Spirits. Then fight well, win against French, Algonquin enemy.”
“Did the Algonquins help attack your village?”
“Algonquin lead. French follow. Now go back. Take vengeance.”
“I wish I could see it,” said Omri.
“And me,” added Patrick, who had overheard.
It took some time to assemble the now heavily armed Indian troop and prepare them to leave. Bright Stars directed Omri to bring her some flowers, which she crushed in her hands, producing a colored pulp with which she smeared Little Bear’s face in streaks. Others were decorating themselves with mixtures of mud and some other colors they had had with them.
Every time a bird flew overhead they all looked up apprehensively. Omri thought they were afraid it might attack them (as indeed it might, had the boys not been there to guard them) but Little Bear, after one such overpass, said:
“Bad omen if shadow fall on braves before battle.”
The last Indians were leaving Bright Stars’ pool, smearing patterns of mud on their torsos. Omri looked at the now murky water in the coffee-jar lid. It had a reddish look where the sinking sun caught it. He turned away, glad that he didn’t believe in omens.
Chapter 16
“If’n Ya Wanna Go Back …”
Corporal Fickits marched his troops into the cupboard and lined them up in two ranks in the bottom of it. The machine guns were lifted in. Fickits saluted Patrick. “Trainees drawn up and ready, sir!”
“Thanks, Corporal. You’ve done a good job.”
“Thankysir.”
“Now you’re going back where you came from, Fickits. Don’t forget how it feels to give orders. You’ll be a Sergeant in no time.”
Fickits permitted himself a grin. “Yessir. Thankysir.”
Omri told Little Bear to instruct his men each to put a hand on the Shoulder of the man beside or in front of him, so the whole group was physically linked. “And they must all be linked to you, Little Bear, so you’ll take them back with you.”
Little Bear was in the paddock, fetching his pony. He had to get Bright Stars to give him a leg up. He bent over and put his hand on her black head. She gazed up at him, her eyes sparkling, this time with tears. She seemed to be begging him for something, but he shook his head. Suddenly she reached up, seized his hand, and pressed it to her cheek. Then she turned and ran into the tepee.
As she entered, Boone’s face appeared at the flap.
“Hey! Pssst! Injun!”
Little Bear, who was riding toward the ramp, turned his head. “Give it to those Frenchies!”
I give.
Little Bear mounted, waved at the boys, rode down the ramp and, catching the reins up chest-high, galloped to the cupboard. His pony jumped the bottom rim and swerved to a sudden stop to avoid the ranks of Indians. Little Bear barked a command. All the Indians put their hands on each other’s Shoulders. The nearest brave put his on the pony’s rump.
“Omri shut door, send!” ordered Little Bear. His face was burning with impatience.
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p; Omri gave himself a second to take in the group. The painted braves in their double row looked proud, ferocious, eager. They were obviously looking forward to the coming battle without a trace of fear. The weaponry caught the sun and glistened with readiness to do what it had been made to do. For a moment, Omri was swamped by doubts. It was like … like mailing death. Why should he help to kill people …? But he was caught up in it now.
“Go on!” urged Patrick. “Send them!”
“Wait—Fickits!” said Omri. He picked up the little corporal, who was Standing at attention just outside the cupboard, and set him by himself on the shelf. Then he shut the door firmly and turned the key.
For a long moment, they didn’t breathe. Then Omri opened the door. His hand was shaking and he jiggled the cupboard a bit as he did it. Two or three of the Indian figures, now plastic, fell over. It was like dominoes, each knocking down another until most of them lay tumbled across each other on the floor of the cupboard. Only Little Bear and Fickits and a couple more were still up-right.
The boys stared at the scene in a dismay they couldn’t control. Boone, who had crept to the edge of the seed tray and was leaning over to look, voiced their feeling.
“Looks like a massacree, don’t it?”
“Don’t be stupid, Boone!” Patrick almost shouted. “They’re just plastic now. They fell over because Omri jogged the cupboard.”
“Sure,” said Boone hastily. “Sure, Ah know that! Ah wuz just sayin’—”
“Well, don’t!”
“You ain’t superstitious, are ya?”
“Of course not!”
Now there was a feeling of intense anticlimax. There seemed nothing they ought to do. It was getting chilly. They sat for a bit, but that became intolerable because of what they were all imagining.
“Let’s go in.”
Again Patrick took the cupboard, with its Contents, and the bag of weaponless British soldiers, and Omri took the seed tray.
Bright Stars and Boone retreated into the tepee, just in case they met anyone on the way back upstairs, which was just as well, because as they passed Gillon’s bedroom on the first floor, the door opened and out he came.
Omri and Patrick started guiltily. They couldn’t help it.
“What’s all that?” Gillon asked, not because he partic-ularly wanted to know but just out of idle curiosity.
“Just some stuff we’ve been mucking about with,” said Omri. He tried to push past, but Gillon stood in his path.
“Oh, it’s that fantastic little house you made last year,” said Gillon. “And the leather tepee. Often wondered what had happened to that. Never seen one like it in the shops …” Before they could do any thing, he’d picked the tepee up to examine it.
It was one of the worst moments of Omri’s life. There was nothing he could do. There were Bright Stars and Boone, crouching on the earth, exposed—discovered. Everything seemed frozen—neither Patrick nor Omri could move, and the little people sat absolutely motionless. Omri’s eyes were fastened to them helplessly. They were so obviously alive—so vulnerable! He waited, as a condemned man waits for the ax to fall on his neck, for Gillon to notice them.
Gillon, however, was looking only at the tepee in his hands.
“This really is a mini-marvel,” he said. “I love the paintings. Has Dad seen these?” He peered closer. “This little beaver—and the porcupine … they look dead genuine, like those cave paintings we saw in France … And the way the poles are attached, inside, it’s really a work of art.”
With that he plonked it carelessly back on the earth, nearly knocking Boone’s head off, and swung away down the stairs singing a pop song at the top of his lungs.
Patrick did a perfect imitation of Matron, spinning on his heel and falling in a mock faint on the landing. He lay there with the cupboard on his stomach and his eyes wide open and crossed. After a second he sat up.
“Whew, that was close!”
Omri was still rooted to the spot. Boone was lying, half in, half out of the tepee, on his back. His eyes looked crossed too—quite genuinely. After a few moments he wriggled all the way out and stood up, wiping the sweat off his face.
“Jeez, son,” he complained, “d’ ya have t’ skeer a fella like that? An’ the li’l lady … ’Tain’t right, with her bein’ the way she is, skeerin’ her that-a-way. Might bring somethin’ on.”
Omri put his face down and whispered through the flap. “Are you okay, Bright Stars?”
There was no answer. Cautiously Omri lifted the tepee again. Bright Stars was sitting perfectly still, her face down on her knees.
“Bright Stars? Answer me!”
Patrick had stood up and was peering anxiously over Omri’s Shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Let’s get up to my room.”
They went up. Omri carried the seed tray very carefully. Inside, they locked the door and put the seed tray and the cupboard down on Omri’s desk and turned on the lamp.
Bright Stars stood up. Her face had a greyish look under the brown.
“Son come now,” she said clearly.
“Ah knew it!” said Boone. “Git that ol’ bat in the white headpiece back.”
“Bright Stars need no one. Need water. Knife. Omri bring, then leave.” She signed that he should put the tepee back to cover her.
“Are you sure, Bright Stars? Little Bear said—”
“Little Bear go fight. Bright Stars make son. Go.”
Though very uneasy, Omri obeyed her. He fetched some boiled water, cleaned out the pond and refilled it. Boone carried a bucketful of water to the flap of the tepee and laid his pocketknife beside it. “That’s t’ cut the cord, y’ know,” he confided. “Animals bite it through, but Ah guess th’ Injuns is beyond that.”
After a short time, Bright Stars’ hand came out through the flap of the tepee and took in the bucket and then the knife. After that, she fastened the flap firmly shut, and all was quiet.
There seemed nothing to do but wait. Omri knew that with white people, anyway, the first baby often took a long time to be born. His mother had been half a day producing Adiel, she’d told them. Perhaps with Indians it was different.
Patrick was uneasy. “If anything happened to her, Little Bear wouldn’t ever forgive us! I wish he’d taken her back with him. Shouldn’t we bring Matron?”
“Bright Stars said not to. Matron’s awfully bossy. Maybe she’d just upset her.”
“Well, I think she’d be better off back in her own village.”
“I wish I knew what was happening—back there!” Omri burst out.
“Yeah! If only we could get back somehow.”
They sat, the three of them, the boys on chairs, Boone on the “couch” of rhododendron leaves where Little Bear had sat. Every now and then, Boone stood up and paced the ground outside the tepee. He kept biting hunks off a block of tobacco he had with him and chewing at it and then spitting it out. He was obviously very worked up.
Finally he stopped.
“Ah shoulda gone with ’em,” he said. “Ah knew at the time Ah shoulda.”
“That would’ve been crazy, Boone,” said Patrick. “Someone would have shot you just because you look different, and you’re white.”
“Mebbe Ah could’ve stayed in the tepee and shot the Frenchies from cover. Ah could’ve done somethin’. Thet Injun’s mah blood brother. His fight oughta be mah fight!”
“We need you here, Boone.”
“Whut fur? Ah ain’t no use here!”
“Well,” said Omri, “you can help with the baby.”
Boone’s jaw dropped. “Me? Watcha take me for? Babies is wimmin’s bizness!”
Just at that moment, they heard a little cry from inside the tepee. It wasn’t a baby’s cry. In a flash Boone was crouched at the flap.
“Lemme in, lady, ya cain’t be alone in thur! Ah’ll help ya! Ah brung a dozen calves into the world, an’ a foal once’t, an’ they’re a lot bigger’n a baby—Ah know whut t’do!”
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br /> There was a pause, and then a slight movement at the tent flap. Boone grinned a rather wobbly grin over his Shoulder at the boys.
“Ya see? She trusts me,” he said. “Don’t fret, now. Li’l Bear’ll be glad he made me his brother, you wait.” The flap was loosened and Boone started to crawl in. But just before he disappeared, he turned once more.
“Ah wuz thinkin’,” he said. “If’n ya really wanted to go back, and watch the battle—”
The boys looked at each other, then leaned forward incredulously to listen.
“Wal, whut Ah wuz wonderin’ wuz … Does it have t’be the cupboard? Mebbe it ain’t the cupboard so much as that thur fancy key. Did ya ever try the key in somethin’ bigger? Like that great big box, for instance, that we wuz all on before.”
Another little cry, more of a gasp, came from inside the tepee.
“S’ long, boys—wish us luck!” Boone said, and crawled the rest of the way, leaving both boys in a ferment of excitement at the possibilities of this amazing new idea.
Chapter 17
As Far As You Can Go
“Would it work?”
“How do I know? I never thought of it.”
“We never asked ourselves whether the cupboard was part of what makes it happen. Maybe he’s right. Maybe the cupboard’s just a cupboard, and the magic thing is the key.”
They turned both at once to look at the chest.
The top of it still had scattered bits of Kleenex, boxes and other things on it. Omri went over to it and swept all this off. Then he opened it. It was full of his private stuff.
“It’s not big enough to hold both of us at once.”
“We couldn’t both go together anyway, you wally.”
“Why not?” Then he realized. Of course! Someone would have to stay behind or there’d be nobody to turn the key.