The Key to the Indian (17 page)

B
oone and Ruby went home, clean, shiny, rather drunk and in a much more mellow mood.

“Ah fergive ya, son,” Boone said to Patrick just before they left, and added, “Shucks, is it muh soft heart, or is it the whisky talkin’?” Ruby even gave him a kiss. And a few hours later, Patrick himself, with his little people in his pocket, was put on the train.

He went off quite cheerfully, his mind afire with Omri’s story, told to him faithfully throughout most of what had remained of their last day. He couldn’t be entirely sorry he hadn’t been there, but: “I’m going next time!” were his
parting words. Omri said nothing. He couldn’t possibly tell him yet that there would be no next time.

Omri and his dad longed to spend time together mulling over all that had happened, but his dad said, “Not yet. I’ve neglected Mum, and I feel bad about it. I feel bad altogether, about shutting her out… I think we ought to try to get back to normal, and not keep creeping off together.”

So life went on as before in the Dorset longhouse. Gillon went back to school. Adiel came home for the next weekend and their mum cooked a proper Sunday lunch. Omri thought she was a bit quieter than usual but he was so busy with his own thoughts and memories he didn’t pay her much attention.

And then one day, a week after their return, his mother came into his bedroom without her usual knock when he was doing his homework. He turned to see what she wanted and caught a look on her face that he had never seen there before.

“I think this probably belongs to a friend of yours,” she said.

And she came to him with something between her finger and thumb. She laid it carefully on his exercise book. Then she went out again.

He didn’t notice her leave. He was staring down at the tiny thing she had laid there. It was so small that nobody would have noticed it if they had not been looking for it. Less than two centimetres long and no wider than string;
but you could see the pattern on it if you peered very closely.

The wampum belt.

He left it there with a glass of water on top of it lest it blow away in the breeze from his window. And went downstairs.

His mother was in the kitchen sorting laundry. She was always banging on at them for leaving tissues and other things in the pockets of clothes they threw in the wash, and now she was going through the pockets herself. Omri’s eyes went to the pile she’d already done and saw at once the shirt his father had been wearing the day they had set off.

He stood silently and she knew he was there but for a long time she just went on working without a word.

Then she said, “I suppose I’m never going to see them now.”

And it burst on him like something exploding in his brain.

Of course! It was through his mother that he had inherited whatever he had of Jessica Charlotte’s gift. She had some too. She had seen the ghost. She knew things.
She knew about this
. She had known all the time. Or for ages, anyway.

He went up behind her and touched her arm.

She turned quickly and held him. “You’re right,” she said passionately, though he hadn’t spoken. “It’s too dangerous. God, I’ve been so frightened sometimes! I’ve been so frightened!” And she was crying.

“You knew – about Gillon’s puppet dream?”

She nodded. “I still thought you were dead in the car, though.”

“And before? My story about the Indian?”

“Yes. I couldn’t let you know I knew. But now I can because it’s going to stop. It has stopped. Hasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God,” she said.

How had she held it in? Pretended all this time that she didn’t notice, didn’t know? Let them treat her as if she were practically dim-witted? How had she let them do all that they’d done?

“You’re wonderful, Mum,” he said humbly.

“No. You shouldn’t give me credit. It’s something inside. I know
you
understand.”

“Does Dad know you know?”

“No, but you can tell him. Don’t tell the boys
anything
, though. Don’t ever tell them. They’d never let it rest.”

That night, when his dad came to his room to say goodnight to him, Omri showed him the belt.

“Where did you find it?”

“It was – it was in your shirt pocket.”

“We must send it back.”

“Couldn’t we keep it?”

“Omri, no! You know what it is – it’s got part of the history of the tribe woven into it. They need it, the way they need the false face. You know in the bible when the Israelites
were driven away from their land, they carried their religious scrolls and their history with them, otherwise they would have lost their sense of who they were. We need our history, all of us.”

“Dad, do you know about Dunkirk?”

His father gave him a comic look of amazement. “Of course.”

“And Suez?”

“I was only four when Dunkirk happened, but I was
well
around for Suez. Neither of them were glorious British victories exactly. But you have to know about them.”

“Will you tell me?”

“Yes. In fact, I’ll insist on telling you. First we do this.”

He set the cupboard gently, almost ceremonially, on Omri’s desk. Omri picked up the wampum belt very carefully by one of its tiny fringed ends and laid it on the shelf.

“They’ve had a week,” his dad said. “I’ve been following their trek on a map, thinking where they could have got to, each day… If nothing terrible’s happened, they could have crossed the border by now, beyond the reach of the settlers. If only we could be sure!”

“I just hope this belt goes back to its owner, and not to the place it came from.”

“Mightn’t it be better to bring Little Bull back and just give it to him—?” his dad said. Omri could see the eagerness in his eyes.

“No, Dad. We can’t bring them back any more.”

His father’s face fell. “You mean, never?”

“No. Mum agrees.”

His father was stunned and couldn’t speak at first. “
Mum – knows?
”

“Dad. Are you surprised?”

After a long moment, he shook his head. “I did wonder,” he said. “Especially when she seemed to swallow all that guff of Patrick’s, and didn’t twig about Gillon’s dream. I’m glad. It’s gone right against the grain, keeping it a secret from her. But of course, I should have known. She has the gift, too… And she says – we’re to stop?”

Omri nodded. His dad heaved a great sigh.

“You know best, Om. Both of you. I’m going to miss them, though!”

They took a last look at the belt which was their final link. Then Omri closed the cupboard door and turned the key. While they were standing there,
willing
the belt to go back to wherever Little Bull was now, Omri suddenly said: “Dad, guess my dream.”

His father looked at him in amazement.

“Like the Indians do?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know how.”

“If you try to guess, then I can tell you.”

“You – you dreamt they got there safe, and—”

“No. I dreamt I was in some kind of battle. The soldiers around me were Indians. Someone was shooting at us. And I had nothing but a pencil in my hand. And I heard Little Bull’s voice say, ‘We are of one mind.’”

“Well, I don’t know, bub. Perhaps, with your gift, you foresaw something that’s up ahead for you, something – to do with the Indians. In the future. Listen, it’s good. It shows they’re going to be around a long time, still fighting battles for their people. The Canada option was never going to be easy.”

“What about the pencil? I wanted it to be a gun but it wasn’t.”

“Well, you know what I feel about guns. They just kill people, they don’t settle anything. They say the pen is mightier than the sword. A pencil could be just as mighty as a pen.”

Omri wasn’t clear what he meant. But he was comforted. He took the tiny plastic strip out of the cupboard and wrapped it in a scrap of paper and put it away in the cashbox. Just before he closed it, his dad said, “Put this in too. Otherwise
I
might be tempted.”

And he laid the magic car key in the cashbox.

As he closed the lid, a gust of wind blew through the open window. Omri raised his head. “Smell that, Dad?”

“What?”

“Like new hay. Only it can’t be, not in October.”

“So what is it? – I can’t smell anything.”

“It’s sweetgrass,” Omri said. A grin of pure pleasure lit up his face. “Twin Stars is making a basket. They got there.”