“Still, let me.”
Omri couldn’t be bothered making any more objections. Emma tenderly lifted the little black horse between finger and thumb and put it in the cupboard.
“Will it go back at the same time as the doctors come forward?”
“Yes! Oh, do let’s get on with it!” said Omri impatiently.
The door was closed on the live horse and the plastic men. The key was turned. Emma, her ear to the mirrored door, grinned ecstatically at Omri: She could hear tiny voices questioning each other in the darkness. Her hand went to the key, but Omri stopped her.
“Listen,” he said quietly. “One of the tricky things is, when they see us, trying to get them to believe it and not think they’ve lost their minds. Our best bet with these modern people is to get Matron to explain.”
Matron was ready and eager, impatient to get the team out and to work on her patients.
“Leave it to me,” she said. “Just let me in that cupboard.”
“But what will you say?”
“I’ve thought it all out,” she said. “Most men, if you just tell them what to do in a businesslike fashion, will follow directions without thinking about it. One proceeds on the assumption that they’ll do as they’re told, and they do. However, they may be forced to think a bit if they see you two, so I suggest you keep out of the way.” She nipped back into the longhouse, presumably to make sure everything was in perfect order, then hurried out, down the ramp and across to the cupboard.
“Right you are,” she said. “Open sesame!”
As she slid through the partly open door, Omri put his hand stealthily in at the top and lifted out the plastic figure of Boone’s horse.
“Here,” he muttered to Emma. “This was your daft idea—you’d better take care of it.”
She took the little figure from him and looked into its plastic face.
“He’s happy to be home,” she said mysteriously. “Now Patrick isn’t completely on his own, anyway.”
10
A Rough Ride
PATRICK BROODED, HIS chin on his hands, his elbows on his bent knees. He was sitting in the massive shadow of Boone’s corpse (not that Patrick allowed himself to think this in so many words, but he was quite sure in the back of his mind that that’s what it was), trying to think, and at the same time trying not to think. The two conflicting efforts canceled each other out. His mind was a blank. His eyes were unfocused.
Suddenly they did focus. They focused on something he hadn’t noticed before. Heaven knows why, because it was absolutely enormous. A vast black mountain range on the horizon. And it was moving.
It was heaving. It was threshing. One part of it, at the far left-hand end of the range, was rearing itself up. Up, up—into the sky!
Patrick sprang to his feet and shaded his eyes. The vast black mass was erupting in a series of bounding curves and angular jolts. It was awesome, like witnessing the primeval forces that created the world, throwing up volcanic ranges from the hot laval center of the earth.
But abruptly Patrick lost his sense of awe and terror. He threw back his head and laughed.
Because now the mountain range finished heaving and stood upright on four titanic legs, revealed for what it was.
It was a horse!
It must have been lying motionless in what to Patrick was the distance—its spirit, or whatever, somewhere far away in place and time. And now it had come back to itself, and stood up and—“Cripes!”—it was lumbering toward him!
Patrick ran. He ran back toward the sheltering bulk of Boone. He hid himself under a vast flap that was the lapel of Boone’s plaid shirt collar, tucked under his bristly chin.
As Patrick ducked behind this flannel “curtain,” he heard a strange, almost musical sound, like a wheezing groan. A huge fleshy knob just above the neck band moved—along—then back, making the shirt collar shiver and shift. At first Patrick had no notion what was happening, but as the groaning sounds went on and the motion of the lump in Boone’s throat continued, he suddenly realized.
Frightened though he was—the thundering tread of those colossal hooves was shaking the ground like a series of earthquakes as they approached—Patrick registered with an incredulous sense of relief that the bristly skin above the shirt was warm, and that the groaning sounds were rasping breaths, and that the lump was Boone’s Adam’s apple.
“Boone, you’re alive!” Patrick breathed, feeling a sudden intense happiness. He almost kissed the Adam’s apple as it slid past him. But then he sensed the horse’s tremendous head coming down on him, and he crouched, trembling, behind the collar.
He felt a rush of hot, powerfully horse-scented breath that came right through the thick flannel. Then there was a loud sound like the rumble of distant thunder as the horse blew through its lips. The horse was smelling Boone. Next it nudged the cowboy’s shoulder with its nose, causing another sort of earthquake that had Patrick rolling over on the stones.
He peered out from behind the flap.
The first thing he saw, vast as it was, was recognizable as a hoof. The sloping horny part was about twice Patrick’s height, with a fringe of coarse black hairs hanging over the top of it.
Patrick never knew afterward what possessed him to take the action he now took almost unthinkingly. He knew he had to get out of this desert unless he wanted to die of heatstroke, thirst, or the attentions of wild creatures. He needed to escape. So, instinctively, he acted.
He took a run at the hoof, scrambled halfway up the hard slope on hands and feet, grabbed a handful of the coarse black hair, and hauled himself up to a kind of ledge where the gigantic leg bone started.
There he almost panicked. The hoof he was on was planted firmly in the sand, but at some stage it would start to move, probably very fast. Patrick looked at the tempting slope to the ground and nearly slid straight back down again to short-term safety.
But then he thought, No. I must get out of here and this is the only way.
He hurriedly took several of the long black hairs of the horse’s fetlock, twisted them together, and knotted them firmly around his waist. Then he reached as high as he could and took a strong grip with both hands on more of the hairs, at the same time bracing his sneakers on the ridge at the top of the hoof.
He felt surprisingly secure, ready for anything. So he thought. He had absolutely no idea of the terrifying experience that was in store for him when the horse, getting no response from its prostrate master, abruptly threw up its head, turned swiftly, and started to gallop across the desert sand.
Patrick had always loved terrifying rides at fairs, the scarier the better—the centrifugal drum was one of his favorites, and that rocket that spins and plunges and twists and whirls around all at the same time. But no fair ride ever dreamed up by an ingenious showman could compare with standing braced on the hoof of a giant horse as it races over hot sand.
Over and over again the great hoof would rise in the air, leaving Patrick’s stomach far below, and sweep through a monstrous arc that had Patrick dangling high above the sand. If he hadn’t tied himself on securely, nothing could have saved him. The hoof would bend and turn in such a way that his body would be twisted and flung almost upside down, before the hoof plunged down again to strike the ground with a sickening jar. The speed alone was enough to make most people faint, but Patrick grimly hung on.
Yet his handgrips became weaker and weaker as the crazy, fantastic, nerve-and-bone-racking ride went on and on. To make matters worse, dust and stones, struck up from the ground by the flying hooves, flew through the air and pelted Patrick all over. He didn’t feel these at the time. Every bit of his mind, and every muscle and sinew, were preoccupied with the single task of holding on. He didn’t know that his eyes were screwed shut, that his breath was coming in jolts, that with every breath he uttered a cry or a groan. For him, all was sickening motion, whirling blackness, jarring blows, and absolute terror.
By the time it stopped, he was almost unconscious. His handholds had
given way, though one wrist was still held by a tangle of hairs. He hung from this, and the tie at his waist, like a rag doll. His whole body was covered with bruises; his throat was choked with dust so that he could scarcely draw breath.
Gradually he came back to his senses and straightened up painfully. He opened his eyes with difficulty—they were caked with wind tears and dust. He peered dazedly around him.
There seemed to be a lot going on. Noise, movement. At his level, near the ground, he could see a lot of other huge hooves, moving and stamping. The ground itself was not sand, but packed earth. There was a very strong horse smell, probably dung. He raised his eyes and saw some vast posts and rails, and the heads of a number of horses besides his own. Straight before him was a wooden cliff about six times Patrick’s height.
The hoof he was still attached to lifted and made a pawing movement that brought it level with the top of this cliff. Patrick then saw what it was—the edge of a wooden sidewalk. Now he could see gigantic feet, some in cowboy boots with villainous spurs attached, others in lighter footwear all but covered by long skirts, striding past with vast steps that thundered on the boards.
Patrick took advantage of the horse’s hoof being, for the moment, planted on the sidewalk, to free himself—just as well. No sooner had he slid down the sloping hoof to the wooden floor than his horse’s head swept down and its giant slabs of teeth, as big as tombstones, bit scratchingly into its fetlock, exactly where Patrick had been tied a moment before!
It was dangerous to try to cross the sidewalk—any one of those mighty thundering feet could crush him on the way. From his viewpoint it was like trying to make it across a ten-lane highway during rush hour.
But he couldn’t stay here. Already the horse was snuffling at him, nearly sucking him up into its cavernous nostril. Patrick ran out of range and found himself surrounded by the feet. He must get out of here! He must find someone to help him!
Just then he saw some boots coming to a standstill right beside him. Curiously, they were not brown or black, but bright red and shiny. One scarlet lace had come untied and hung down to the ground.
Patrick put his head back as far as it would go and looked upward.
He could see a whole sky of frothy white petticoats and the hem of a red satin dress, a long way above him. It was a lady.
She had come up onto the sidewalk from the dirt road and had paused for a moment. Again he acted without thinking, grabbing the red bootlace and heaving himself up—though he ached in every limb—onto the arched instep where he could find comfortable and safe refuge among the crossed red laces and metal-ringed lace holes.
I’m safe! he thought.
That was his opinion.
11
Ruby Lou
THE FEET MOVED ON, across the sidewalk, not along it. This ride was quite pleasantly unexciting after the other. Patrick heard a thud as the lady boldly pushed open some swinging doors. Then she walked inside.
The street sounds—the clopping of hooves, the thudding of feet, the sound of wagons and voices and barking dogs—changed to other sounds, familiar to Patrick from Western films. He knew at once he was in a saloon. There was a piano playing a jangly tune, and lots of voices shouting and singing cheerfully. The smell in the air was of alcohol, cigarette smoke, cheap scent, sweat, sawdust, and leather.
The lady who was unwittingly carrying Patrick made straight for the bar. She rested on a rail the foot he was on. It was dark down there, and the smell was pretty bad. Patrick wondered how he could attract the lady’s attention, or whether it would be fatal to do so. He could hear her voice among the other voices.
“An’ who’s gonna buy me a drink, boys? Ruby Lou don’t take kindly to drinkin’ alone, and she never, never pays for her own liquor!”
There was no shortage of offers. Patrick saw men’s feet crowding around the red shiny boots and heard the jovial cries of male voices above, yelling, “Yea, Lou! I’ll buy ya a dozen!”
“Good ol’ Ruby Lou! Have one on me, sweetheart!”
“Okay, okay, don’t crowd me now!” Ruby Lou said sharply, and the boots shuffled reluctantly a step backward.
Patrick could hear the noisy glug-glug-glug of whisky being poured from a bottle, and he could smell it, too. Whisky made him think at once of Boone, and so it seemed a quite incredible coincidence when Ruby Lou’s voice suddenly echoed his thoughts.
“Hey, where’s my favorite fella?” she cried. “Where’s Boone? Boone always makes me laugh!”
“Boo-Hoo Boone? Make ya cry, more like!” jeered one man, and the rest all burst into mock boo-hooing.
Ruby Lou took offense on Boone’s behalf.
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a soft heart,” she said. “Trouble with you boys is, you ain’t got hearts, or if ya have, they ain’t got no more feelin’s in ’em than chunks o’ rock! It don’t mean he ain’t got guts, neither! Gimme a man with feelin’s, even if he do git through two-three of my best lace-edged hankies every time we hear a hard-luck story!”
She shouldn’t have said that. The notion of Boone mopping up his tears with lace hankies was too much, even for Patrick. As the crowd of men above him burst their sides laughing, Patrick, below on the red leather, laughed too until, weakened as he was, he slipped.
He felt himself sliding down the side of the boot, and grabbed the red bootlace. This broke his fall, but it gave Ruby Lou’s foot a tug.
As he climbed back up to his perch, he saw her huge hand coming down toward him. He crouched low in the opening of her boot. He didn’t realize that he was digging his hands and feet into her instep until he heard her say peevishly, “I got me a itch on my tootsy. This saloon is turnin’ into a real flea circus!”
And her fingers, with their sharp nails, began to prod around the lacings. Patrick tried to dodge, but suddenly one finger fell on him, squeezing him hard against a metal-rimmed lace hole so that he thought his back would break and he writhed frantically to free himself.
“Hey! This is some flea that’s bitin’ me!” she squealed. She picked Patrick up between finger and thumb, and the next second he was being swung through the air.
Ruby Lou set Patrick down on the bar.
All at once the noise in his immediate vicinity stopped. The sudden startled silence spread backwards until even the piano player faltered and faded out. Patrick stood ankle-deep in a puddle of whisky (the fumes nearly knocked him out), looking upward fearfully at the semicircle of enormous faces around him, waiting helplessly for one or another of them to raise a meaty hand and swat him flat.
No one did.
Instead the bartender, who was standing on the other side of the bar with a bottle of whisky in his hand, dropped it. It fell on the bar with a (to Patrick) ear-numbing clunk, making the whole bar jump, and to his horror began rolling slowly toward him, spilling whisky as it went.
Seeing it approach, Patrick raced to get out of its way. He ran as fast as his aching legs would let him, hearing the huge bottle trundling along the wooden bar behind him, nearer and nearer. Surely, surely it must soon roll over him like a steamroller!
But luckily for him it didn’t roll straight. Abruptly he heard the noise stop as it reached the edge. There was a brief pause before it shattered on the barroom floor.
He stopped running and turned, panting.
The eyes of every person in the saloon were fixed on him, and every bloodshot eye was popping. vast mouths hung loosely open; bristly faces were paper-white or mottled purple.
“Wh-wh-what IS that?” gibbered one man at last, pointing at him with a trembling finger. “Boys, am I seein’ things, or—is—that—a li’l—tiny—ackshul—fella?”
Before anyone could reply, Patrick sensed a quick movement behind him. He spun around instinctively, to find himself staring straight up the barrel of a six-shooter.
“Whatever it is, I don’t like it!” growled the owner, and fired.
The noise alone nearly killed Patrick, though the gun wavered at the last second (did a red
shiny bulk lurch against the shooting arm?). The bullet ploughed into the top of the bar right next to him, splintering the wood.
The next moment, complete chaos broke out.
The barman, who had reeled back against the enormous mirror which reflected the whole room, suddenly and silently sank out of sight behind the bar. This seemed to act as a signal. The giants at the bar just went crazy, bumping into each other, throwing punches, firing their guns at random in a series of horrific explosions. One of the light fixtures was hit and came crashing down, causing total panic.
There was a concerted mass movement backward, away from the bar, followed by a rising thunder of boots stampeding on boards, causing massive vibrations that had Patrick involuntarily dancing up and down on the bar. Twenty or thirty men cut a parting through the smoky air as they forced their way out through the narrow doorway.
One little fellow, the piano player, tripped, fell, and was ruthlessly trampled underfoot by the rest. When they’d all gone, he lay there for a moment, winded, before picking himself up. He gave one terrified backward look toward the bar, cast his eyes upward as if in prayer, let out a weird sound, and fled, clutching his hat.
The swinging doors went whump-whump-whump, backward and forward, on emptiness, before coming to a stop.
Patrick gingerly took his fingers out of his ears and glanced around the saloon, expecting to find himself alone. But he wasn’t, not quite.
Standing a few yards down the bar, the exact distance that Patrick had run away from the bottle, was a giantess with blond hair and a rather low-cut red satin dress. It was hard for Patrick to judge, but she looked quite pretty. She wore a sparkling necklace of red stones and dangly earrings and a very funny expression as she looked at him.