King Blood

by Jim Thompson

  She had sought out the conductor, and told him of the theft—the embarrassing and compromising fact that she, a married woman, had given herself to a man and been robbed in the process. It didn't seem likely that she would have been desperate or stupid enough to do so, but she 'might' have. In which case, he, Critch King, was in very serious trouble.

  On the other hand—and this seemed more likely—something had happened to delay her in the toilet. She had taken sick, or her clothes had become conspicuously soiled by their love-making and had to be cleaned, or—Or?

  He had to find out. He had nothing to lose by learning the truth. So bracing himself, putting on an air of easy self-assurance, he left the platform and went back inside the car.

  Kerosene lanterns burned at either end of it, rocking and swaying with the motion of the train, dimly illuminating its dozing cargo of humanity. Seeping through the grimy windows, dawn provided more light. So, well before reaching the seat where he and the girl had been sitting, Critch could see that it was unoccupied.

  He went on through the car, and into the next one, and so on through the remaining three cars of the train. He retraced his steps, pausing once to display his ticket to a yawning conductor. The man showed no interest in him whatsoever, and, breathing easier, Critch returned to his own car and the platform where he had been standing.

  Still no sign of her. Cautiously, Critch reentered the car and gently tested the door of the women's toilet.

  There was no response for a moment. Then, with a dull rattle of metal, it swung open. The lock had been broken. Glass, from the shattered window, covered the floor. Critch took a startled glance at the scene. Then, swiftly pulling the door to, he entered the opposite door to the men's toilet.

  He locked it, stood leaning against it. Cursed softly, as he pondered this new riddle.

  The woman had jumped the train, apparently. Or, in view of the broken lock, she had been forced to jump it. Someone had broken in on her, and to escape that someone she had smashed the window glass and made her escape.

  The train had stopped twice since he had last seen her. As it slowed for those stops, she could have jumped without serious risk to herself. As, also, could the person who had broken in on her, and from whom she was obviously fleeing.

  But why—what—?

  There could be only one answer. Someone else had known about the money belt which now rested around his middle. It hadn't belonged to the woman he had taken it from—else she would have cried out for help instead of jumping the train. Also, axiomatically, it hadn't belonged to the person who had driven her from the train (and doubtless pursued her out of the window), or that person would have sought to recover it legally. But one thing 'was' a cinch!

  He, Critch King, had stumbled onto something big. 'Very big!' Only for very high stakes would the pursued woman and her pursuer have gone to such lengths as they had.

  Critch undid the belt, dipped into its pockets for the first time. His hand jerked with surprise at the first sheaf of bills he produced, almost dropping them into the open toilet. Excitedly, he drew out another sheaf, and another, making a rough count as he did so. By the time he had emptied all the belt's pockets, his heart was pounding as it had never pounded before, and he was faint with the shock of his discovery.

  He lowered the toilet seat, sat down on it. He heard the conductor's muted bellow of ''King's Junction,'' and the train slowed and stopped, and went on again.

  Critch recounted the money, distributing it sheaf by sheaf in the cunningly constructed pockets of his suit. The tailor who specialized in such clothing had boasted that a fortune could be concealed in the suit without the slightest telltale bulge. Standing up and critically examining himself, Critch saw that the tailor had made no idle brag.

  Seventy-two thousand dollars—'seventy-two thousand dollars.' Yet no one would have guessed that he was hiding as much as a dollar shinplaster. He had stolen a couple of hundred dollars out of the woman's purse, so all together—

  'Seventy-two thousand!' It was more money than he had ever dreamed of having. It was, in fact, too damned 'much' money to show up with at his father's household. Even with Old Ike's very liberal views about the acquisition of money, it was far too much, particularly since most of it was in five-hundred and thousand-dollar bills. The old man would simply declare him a murderer, or at best a large-scale bankrobber, and summon a Federal marshal. And a hell of a lot of good it would do Critch King, even if he could make anyone believe the truth as to how he had come by the swag.

  It was one of those cases where a lie wouldn't help and the truth was damning. If nothing worse, he would be disowned by Old Ike, disqualified for any share in his father's fortune. Obviously, then, his possession of so much money would have to be kept secret. And that being the case...

  A plan began to form in his mind. The first step in that plan was leaving the train at the boom city of El Reno, and then—Or, no, that wasn't quite the first step. Right at the moment, there was the money belt to be got rid of.

  Critch tried to raise the glazed window. It was stuck, of course; the damned things were always stuck. Critch hesitated, then raised the lid of the toilet.

  It was not truly a toilet, in the modern sense of the word. Merely a privy, which opened directly onto the roadbed. Critch dropped the belt into it. Then, after an approving glance at himself in the mirror, he lighted another cheroot and stepped out into the corridor.

  The conductor was surveying the disarray of the women's restroom. He turned, his eyes sharpening with suspicion, as Critch came into the areaway.

  "What's your name, mister?" he demanded.

  "My name?" Critch considered the question, taking a thoughtful draw on his cigar. "I don't believe," he said coolly, "that that is any of your God damned business."

  "Maybe I'll make it my business! Where you been sittin' tonight?"

  "All over your filthy train," Critch said, "trying to find a seatmate who didn't stink or snore. Regrettably, I found no one who didn't do both."

  "You was settin' next to a young woman, wasn't you? For part of the night, anyways. I know you was!"

  "Indeed?" Critch flicked ashes from his cheroot. "Now, let me tell you something 'I' know. That unless I am immediately provided with the drawing-room I was promised by your Tulsa ticket agent, you are going to find yourself out of a job."

  "Drawing roo—'huh?"' The conductor blinked stupidly. "Now, looky, here—"

  "Drawing room," Critch repeated firmly. "This train carries one car for first-class passengers, so I know you must have a drawing-room available by now. You will get my luggage out of the baggage car and take me to it, instantly."

  He extended his baggage checks, loftily holding out a five dollar bill with them. "Your tip," he explained. "Well? What are you waiting for, man? I want to get cleaned up before we arrive in King's Junction."

  The conductor took the checks and the money, his dull face registering confusion. Then, in sudden alarm, he tried to thrust them back at Critch.

  '"King's Junction?"' he said. "Mister, we passed King's Junction fifteen-twenty minutes ago!"

  "You 'passed' it!" Critch said with a fine show of incredulity. "After all my instructions to your man in Tulsa, you carried me past the Junction!"

  "B-but—but I called it out. Maybe you didn't hear me, but—"

  "I left instructions that I be called personally! Incidentally, King is the name. Critchfield King."

  "But no one told me nothin' about—'King?"' said the conductor. "Did you say—are you any relation to—to—"

  "I am. Isaac Joshua King is my father. You've heard the name, I imagine?"

  The conductor nodded miserably. Had he 'ever' heard of him! Everyone connected with the railroad, from president to porter, had heard of Old Ike King and dreaded incurring his wrath. Not so long before, when the railroad had been somewhat slow in paying for a couple of runover cows, Old Ike had had a train log-chained to its tracks; delaying it some six hours until a division superintendent coul
d arrive by special train to apologize and make a payment in person.

  Ike King was a law unto himself. As the personal friend of at least one president of the United States—a man who had visited the Junction and hunted with him—the laws governing ordinary mortals seemed simply not to apply to him.

  So now the conductor cringed and mumbled repeated apologies as Critch berated him. Never guessing the young man's real reason for the tirade. Forgetting his suspicions, the mystery of the shattered window and the missing woman, as Critch mercilessly bawled him out.

  "—a disgrace. This railroad and everyone connected with it! Talk about your slow trains through Arkansas! I could have crawled faster than this thing travels!"

  "Well, y'see, this is a local, Mr. King. Has to stop at every wide place in the road. Now we got an express that—"

  "I'll bet! Probably has a top speed of twelve miles an hour!"

  "No, sir. It can hit twenty-twenty-five, if the grade's right. But—"

  "Oh, forget it. Who cares?" said Critch, with exaggerated weariness. "You've carried me past my stop. Now, I assume you're going to tell me that you don't have a drawing room available."

  The conductor nodded unhappily. "Did have one until a little spell ago. If I'd known—" He broke off, beaming with sudden delight. "Your brother! Now how the heck could I have forgot?"

  "My brother?" Critch frowned. "What about him?"

  "I mean, he's the one that got the last stateroom! You can share it with him!"

  Arlie greeted Critch enthusiastically, enveloping him in a bearhug which the latter could have well done without in view of the money he was carrying. At last releasing himself, Critch shot a questioning glance at the young Indian who lolled on one of the room's upholstered benches—an Apache youth with a bandaged hand and citified clothes. Arlie said that they could talk openly, since the young man knew barely a dozen words of English.

  "Gonna make it damned hard for him in El Reno," he added. "But he had to have a fling at city life, so Paw told him to take off."

  "I see," Critch smiled, and he attempted to introduce himself. But through lack of usage, the Apache language had become virtually so much Greek to him. And it was left to Arlie to perform the introductions. He did so at some length, the youth apparently being rather stupid and having to ask numerous questions. Finally, however, the Indian grunted in understanding, and grinned a hopeful question at Critch.

  "Whiskey?" he said.

  "Why, yes," Critch smiled. "I have a—"

  "But he ain't getting it," Arlie declared. "The son-of-a-bitch ain't gettin' no more until we hit El Reno. Hear me, I.K.'—he spat out another fluent stream of Apache. "No more."

  The youth subsided, sulking with displeasure. Arlie turned his attention back to his brother, raining question after question upon him, his last question, significantly, being a casual inquiry about their mother.

  Critch replied that he hadn't seen her for years, and that he had no pleasant memories of her. "I'd rather not talk about her, if you don't mind, Arlie. The past is past, and there's no point in looking back. I've managed to do very well, in spite of everything."

  "A fool could see that," Arlie smiled warmly. "Paw'll be plumb proud of you. How come you didn't get off at King's Junction, anyways?"

  "We-el' Critch pursed his lips judiciously. "I had considered it. But I wasn't sure of my welcome, and I saw no reason to go home aside from the sentimental ones."

  "No reason!" Arlie exclaimed. "Heirin' big in Paw's will wasn't a reason?"

  Critch assumed an air of puzzlement, asserting that Old Ike could surely have little or nothing for his sons to inherit.

  "Now, I did run into an Osage lawyer over in Tulsa—he appeared to be a pretty good fellow, at first—"

  "He wrote Paw about you," Arlie chuckled. Claimed you stole his wallet."

  "A real shyster," Critch nodded equably. "First, he stuck me for almost twenty dollars worth of drinks. Then, he showed up at my hotel the next morning and threatened to make a bad report on me if I didn't pay him five hundred. I told him I didn't care what he did, since I knew that my father was a relatively poor man."

  '"Paw, poor?' He's got some debts sure, but how come you figured he was poor?"

  "Well, he never really owned any land. He had some under lease in the Strip, but most of it he just moved in on, and took."

  "An' he's still got it, too, little brother! Got just what he always had. Them land-openings didn't change a thing with Paw."

  Critch shook his head wonderingly. "But how in the world...?"

  "Let me tell you," Arlie grinned, and he did so; relating a tale that was already familiar throughout much of the Southwest.

  Arlie, Boz and Old Ike had all used their right to stake out homesteads of one-hundred-and-sixty acres. In addition, some fifth of Ike's lighter-skinned Apache followers wearing city clothes had staked out claims of similar size. Like the Kings, however, they had not made the Run, the race for homesteads, but had "soonered' the land, putting their stakes down on territory which Old Ike had held from the start.

  "You know what I mean, Critch? You savvy "sooner"?"

  Critch nodded his understanding. A sooner was a person who slipped across the border ahead of the starter's gun. In years to come, it was to become an affectionate second-name for Oklahoma—that is, "the Sooner state'—as was Jayhawk to become a nickname for Kansas and Cornhusker for Nebraska.

  "O' course," Arlie continued, "there was a lot of fuss about it. But I reckon you know it'd take more'n fuss to move Paw, an' lucky for him he had the political pull to ride the storm through."

  "Good for him," Critch murmured. "But you've only accounted for a few thousand acres, Arlie. How did he recover the rest of his holdings?"

  "With money," Arlie shrugged. "I mean, he bought up the homesteaders' claims. A lot of "em didn't have the money to carry them through a bad year, an' had to sell to Paw. The others—well, they got kind of nervous with so many Indians livin' around "em. Got the idea, somehow, that their scalps might wind up on a pole if they didn't sell. So—"

  "I see," Critch said. "I think I get the picture."

  "Now, don't get no wrong ideas," his brother protested. "Maybe they had a leetle pressure put on "em, but they all got a fair price for their claims. More'n they were worth in most cases. You wouldn't remember, bein' away so long, but a heap of the land out here just ain't fit for nothing but grazin'. Try to put a plow to it, an it'll blow away on you. Frankly'—he shook his head, troubledly, "I wish Paw didn't have so danged much land. Wish we had less land, and more money to work it with. I tell you, Critch, I get so damned worried at times that..."

  He shook his head again, his voice trailing off into silence. Then, his expression clearing, he said, well, to hell with it.

  "You and me'll work things out together, little brother. I couldn't do anything with that God damned Boz, but now that I got him out of the way..."

  "Uh—out of the way?" Critch said.

  "I killed the son-of-a-bitch. Prodded him into makin' a try for me, and then I gutted him. I just had to do it, Critch. He'd've got me if I hadn't. There was a couple of times when the bastard would've killed me if I hadn't been watching sharp."

  "That sounds like Boz, all right," Critch nodded. "He was always mean and sneaky." And he silently added to himself that the manner of Boz's death was also typical of Arlie. Boz had bitten off far more than he could chew in tying into the middle-brother. Despite Arlie's open countenance and bubbling good humor, he could be deadly hard when he had to be. More importantly, he was smart enough to get away with the results of his hardness—transferring the bee from his own back to his victim's.

  As the train poked along through the prairie, Critch nodded and smiled as Arlie rambled on genially. Nodded and smiled without actually listening, slowly coming to a decision in his own mind.

  He wasn't going back to King's Junction. With seventy-two thousand dollars in his poke, he didn't need to go back. It was sufficient to support him in luxu
ry to a ripe old age, so he could do quite well without his inheritance from Old Ike. In fact, as Arlie painted the picture, the inheritance was more potential than actual. The King holdings were burdened with debt, and Ike's feudal manner of doing things made that debt doubly burdensome. He, Critch, could easily be a very old man before his potential wealth became a reality. And it was highly unlikely that Arlie would allow him to live to be an old man.

  Arlie appeared to like him, and doubtless did. Still, he would regard Critch as a threat—just as he had regarded Boz as one. So...

  'He'd be on his home ground, Critch thought. Home for him, and strange territory for me. I don't buck another man's game; I was a sucker to even think of it. Mr. Critchfield King will settle for what he's got, and stay healthy!'

  At El Reno, Arlie dismissed the Indian youth with a few silver dollars and a guttural torrent of Apache. Then, grabbing up Critch's bags with his own, he tossed them onto the dray of the town's leading hotel.

  "We'll register-in later," he told his brother. "Right now, we got to get over to the U.S. Marshal's office."

  "Marshal's office?" Critch blinked. "What for?"

  "So's I can report that little accident that happened to Boz, like I came here to do," Arlie said. "What's the matter with you, boy? Ain't you been listenin' to nothing I said?"

  "Well, uh—But I've got some business to take care of, Arlie. Suppose I get it out of the way while you see the marshal, and we can—"

  "Suppose," Arlie cut in, "you come along to the marshal's office with me like you already promised to do. Sort of give me your moral support, as the sayin' is."

  "But—but it's very important that I—"

  "Might not be," Arlie said firmly. "No, sir, it might turn out a hell of a lot more important for you t'be introduced proper to the marshal. There's a flock of sharpers and high-binders floodin' into El Reno, and a dude-lookin' fella like you could get mistook for one of "em. Yes, sir," he added slowly, "you could get mistook awfully easy, Critch. Wouldn't be at all surprised if you was picked up an' shook down before you'd gone a quarter-mile."