King Blood

by Jim Thompson

  "Shit," they said in unison, glaring at each other. And they went in to breakfast together.

  They ate considerably more than usual—Ike to show his contempt for Tepaha's opinion; Tepaha to show that he was as hardy as Ike.

  Then, with Ike's sons and Tepaha's granddaughters gone on their day's rounds, the two old men returned to the bar.

  They had several more drinks, occasionally nodding over their glasses; talking hardly at all. After an unusually long silence, Tepaha said it was time for their walk, and Ike declared flatly that they had just returned from it.

  "Tryin' to trick me, huh?" he jeered. "Think I don't know what I'm doin' no more."

  Tepaha started to voice a profane rebuttal; suppressed it after a sharp look into his old friend's face.

  "You too smart for me, Old Ike," he said; but was not quite able to resist a small jibe. "Too bad you not so smart with Creek-nigger wife."

  "Hell," Ike grumbled. "Bein' a Creek didn't make her a nigger. Ninety-nine to one she wasn't. I was just jokin' her."

  "Sure. I just joke, too," said Tepaha.

  Ike gulped down another long drink, felt a turgid boiling inside him. He passed a hand over his brow, wiping away the cold, oozing sweat, and gradually a sly look spread over his face.

  "God damn," he laughed. "Damned if I didn't put the joke on her."

  "How? What you say, Old Ike?" said Tepaha.

  Ike sat grinning, not answering him.

  When he spoke, it was of the good days when they were young, and they had fled a Mexican firing squad together.

  "Kids nowadays don't have no guts no more like we had, Tepaha. Lock "em up and tell "em they're gonna get shot in the mornin', an' they'd probably play with their peters all night."

  "Kids no damn good," Tepaha agreed.

  Ike had another huge drink. He needed it to offset the effects of the first one. At least, he needed it.

  Tepaha asked him how he had happened to be in Mexico in that long-ago time. Ike said there was nothing unusual about it.

  "Reckon I was about twelve when I took out from Louisiana, and into 'Tejas.' Didn't have hardly nothin' with me but my clothes an' this old Collier five-shot. You ever see a Collier, Tepaha? Well, they was flintlocks—pistols, and they started makin' "em about 1810. Don't know whether they was ever issue or not, but this blue-coat had one, an'..."

  His voice died, but his lips continued to move. Filling in a gap in the story which some part of his mind chose to keep silent. Then, after two or three minutes, he again became audible.

  "...mission wasn't too bad, but two years of it was all I could hold. They just wasn't anything interestin' goin' on; if it was interestin' the 'padres' stopped it, an' them mission Indians sort of rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, what the hell, Tepaha.

  "What kind of life was it for an Indian to hang around bein' told what to do an' when he could do it. I'm not sayin' the 'padres' was mean to "em, but—"

  "Padres should have beat red asses," Tepaha said scornfully. "Mission Indians—God damn soup Indians! Sing, pray, maybe so get nice bowl of soup. Shit!"

  "Well, that's the way I felt," Ike continued. "So I was a growed man, by then, fifteen an' some, so I just took me off into Mexico which was right handy there. Borrowed me one o' the mission horses to start with, an' when it got used up I started borrowin' from the 'Mejicanos.' Done some other borrowin', too, like a bit of money now an' then t'spend in the 'cantinas.' An' what with one thing an' another, I finally wound up in that jail where you was..."

  He looked at his empty glass; pushed it aside. He picked up the bottle and drank from it—drank until Tepaha gently took it out of his hand.

  "You say you start out from Louisiana, Ike. Was your home?"

  '"Florida!"' Ike suddenly shouted. "Don't you ever remember nothin'?"

  "Florida home of Seminole'; Tepaha said. "Most same as Creek." And after a silence, he asked, "You part Seminole, ol' Ike, how come chase across Louisiana?"

  He could not explain his curiosity. In all the decades they had been together, he had given hardly a second thought to his friend's origins. But now, inexplicably, the matter had become of great moment to him.

  "...ain't part Seminole," Old Ike was snarling. "Ain't part Creek "r Cherokee "r Choctaw "r Chickasaw. But when they started movin' the Tribes up the trail...'bout 1830 it was for my people..."

  As before, his lips continued to move, but soundlessly. Omitting that which his mind preferred to keep silent, or which was too painful for telling. But Old Tepaha was able to supply much that was missing for himself.

  The Five Tribes had owned much of the richest land in the south. Industrious, inventive, and well-educated, they were increasingly the envy of their white neighbors. And as the white population grew, exerted more and more pressure on Congress...

  The forced exodus of the Tribes from their homeland was one of the most shameful and least remarked episodes of history. Uprooted, thousands upon thousands, they were herded west-by-north to a wilderness across the Arkansas, where they were to have their own nations and live forever in freedom. They would be "happier' thus, of course. It was for the red man's "own good'.

  The unwilling migration began in the 1820s and ended some twenty years later. Many who began the journey did not complete it. So very, very many that the route by which the red men made their forced march became known as The Trail of Tears.

  The white government generously decreed that the Indians be allowed to take all their possessions with them to their new homeland. Everything—including Negro slaves. And then as now, a Negro was anyone having Negro blood, however infinitesimal the amount might be...

  Tepaha gave Ike a sharp look—which told him nothing at all, of course. Hesitantly, he said, "You overseer's boy, Old Ike? Maybe bluecoat's son?"

  "Who the hell say so?" Ike glowered. "What's the difference, anyways?"

  Tepaha shrugged; said that there was none. "Just asked, ol' Ike. You say you not Indian. Not Seminole or Creek or—"

  "GOD DAMN!" Ike burst into uproarious laughter. "God damn if that wasn't a joke on her!"

  His laughter grew louder, more violent. He began to shake with it, eyes bulging, the veins on his neck standing out. He coughed, gasping for breath, but still the laughter would not stop. His eyes found Tepaha's, inviting him to share in the joke of his heritage—and the impending joke, the greatest jest of all. Then, very slowly, he arose from his chair and drew himself up majestically.

  "I am Old Ike King," he said in Apache. "Lions flee at sound of my name, and great bears grovel before me and lick at my balls, lest I beat them with a small stick. In my lodge there is always meat, and—"

  His heavy body crashed to the floor, shaking the entire building.

  The kitchen squaws came running in, crying out with alarm and wonder. But Tepaha stamped his foot at them, cursing terribly, and drove them from the room. For the senseless chatterings of squaws will creep like maggots through a man's ears and into his brain, creating such havoc that his own speech becomes likewise idiotic. This is well known.

  Tepaha went down on his knees at the side of his fallen friend. He said, come, Old Ike, it is time now to make plans—and he drew an arm of Ike's across his shoulders, put his own arm around Ike's back. And slowly, an inch at a time, he stood up. Miraculously lifting the dead man with him.

  Staggering, knees buckling with the terrible weight, he started for the stairs. For they were brothers, and he was Tepaha, chief 'vaquero' for Old Ike King.

  He made it to the foot of the stairs, shakily felt for and found the first step. After several attempts, he managed to bring his other foot up on the step. Then, stood there panting, a great rattling coming into his chest; his eyes all but blinded with sweat.

  "By God," he mumbled, his heart thundering like a war drum. "You one heavy son-of-bitch, Old Ike..."

  He got his foot on another step, started to bring his other foot up with it. But something had happened to the stairs, something so strange, that he was transfixed
with wonderment. Could only watch as they slowly became perpendicular, then gradually bent down over him until he was looking up at the ceiling.

  From somewhere came the sound of a mighty crash. So great that its echoes seemed never to end. There was a moment of incredible pain, and then bliss such as Tepaha had never believed possible.

  '"By God, we do it, Old Ike," he thought proudly.'

  The kitchen squaws came running in again, and now the clattering of their voices was such as to demolish the brain of the wisest man. But Tepaha had already deafened his ears to them.

  Permanently.

  Epilogue

  The lowest of dogs may piss on the loftiest of dead men...

  This is well known.

  Arlie commented idly on the fact one fall Sunday afternoon when the two brothers, accompanied by Joshie and Kay, visited the last earthly resting place of Old Tepaha and Old Ike. The two men had not been buried in the despised fashion of whites—for why should they? Instead, their fully-clad bodies had been placed in a comfortable sitting position, then covered over with rock to form an Indian 'wickiup.' They were thus protected from the teeth of varmints, but not entirely from the elements, which, after all, they had lived with all their lives and might need in death (so far as anyone knew). It was possibly this last which inspired Arlie's remarks that Sunday afternoon:

  "Heard me a story once about a Osage that was buried in a 'wickiup.' Seemed like he'd owned several pet bitches an' their smell was still strong on him. So naturally every damn dog in the Nation come around to take a piss on his grave. Well, it turned out that he wasn't really dead at all, just in what they call a state of suspensive annie-mation, or something, an' all this dog piss leaked through and snapped him out of it. He came bustin' out of the rocks, an' went back to his village. But it was the funniest God damn thing, Critch—you know what happened?"

  Critch nodded smiling, having heard the story: no other Indian would speak to the man, or give any sign of recognizing his existence; not even his own wife, when he had intercourse with her. As far as the Indians were concerned, a man who died stayed dead, and this creature who had returned to them was only an evil spirit.

  "Well' Arlie took a critical last look at the graves. "Just one thing missing, I guess. There ought to be a war spear sticking up betwixt "em, with a scalp hangin' from the top. Just don't seem right somehow without it," he added, sidling a glance at his brother. "Critch, y'wouldn't feel hurt, would you, if I slipped into your room some night an' lifted a little hair?"

  "I wouldn't feel hurt," Critch said. "But you would."

  Arlie laughed and slapped him on the back. They headed their horses homeward, the two girls following.

  As they rode, Arlie spoke seriously to his brother. "Kinda late to be thankin' you, Critch, but better late than never. Anyways I'm obliged to you for not tellin' the marshal that I stole that money off of you."

  "Quite all right," Critch said easily. "Think nothing of it."

  "O' course," Arlie continued thoughtfully. "I reckon 'I' was kinda doin' you a favor by not tellin' him I stole it from you. The kinda money that was, it wasn't exactly comfortable t' have a claim on it."

  "But I did claim it, dear brother. I admitted that it was mine."

  "Uh-huh, sure. After you'd had time to think up a story to go with it."

  "Why don't we put it this way?" Critch said. "You don't owe me anything, and I don't owe you anything."

  Arlie hesitated; then, shook his head. Said he reckoned Critch did owe him something. "Look how I spoke up for you when the marshal had you pinned for murderin' Big Sis! Claimed I done it myself, didn't I?"

  "What about it?" Critch said. "I did the same thing for you."

  "Yea, sure. Because you wanted to make yourself look good to Paw! I know, because I, uh—Anyways, you knew danged well you wasn't running any risk by confessing! What the hell? If Marshal Harry'd had any idea that either one of us killed that woman, he'd've arrested us right away instead o' standing around talkin' for an hour!"

  The brothers stared at each other. A teasing smile played around Critch's lips, and Arlie slowly reddened.

  "Like you was sayin', little brother," he grinned sheepishly. "You don't owe me nothin' and I don't owe you nothing. We was both tryin' to make up to Paw. We both knew we was safe confession' t'the murder. Reckon we think so much alike that, uh..."

  He broke off, giving his brother a long, penetrating look. Then, asked if he could ask a fair question.

  "By all means," Critch said.

  "Well, looky, then...how do you honest-to-God feel about me? I mean, do you ever sort of feel that you'd like to, uh, have this place to yourself? If you could work it out safe and easy, I mean."

  "I'll ask you a question," Critch said. "The same one."

  "Well, uh, would you believe me if I told you?"

  "Would you believe me if I told you?" Critch asked.

  Arlie scowled at him. Then, gradually, the scowl crinkled into a smile, and he burst into whoops of laughter.

  "God damn, little brother! They's sure as hell one thing for sure!"

  "Which is?"

  "We may have to bust our ass on this place, but we sure ain't never gonna get bored! No, sir, they ain't never gonna be a dull minute for you an' me!"

  Critch chuckled agreement.

  As they rode on through the fall afternoon, Joshie and Kay, who had been primly decorous theretofore, were suddenly overcome with a spasm of giggling, the sound of which drifted up to the two men. Arlie tried to make his face severe—after all, he was the family's eldest now. Failing miserably in the attempt, he spoke chidingly to his brother.

  The squaws were getting out of hand, he declared, and it was largely Critch's fault. For where you had one squaw with a man and one without, there was no damn telling what might happen. And what the by-God was wrong with Critch that he didn't marry Joshie?

  "What's the hurry?" Critch shrugged. "I'll get around to it some day."

  '"Some day?' What kind of answer is that? You like her don't you."

  "Very much. In fact, I think she's the most delightful female I've ever known."

  "Well, she's crazy about you, too. So marry her, dammit! She needs a man, and you need a woman."

  "Oh," Critch said innocently. "You mean we need each other to sleep with? That's why we should get married?"

  Arlie said, why, sure, what else, adding that he had been greatly concerned about his brother's sexless state. "It just ain't natural for a man not to be gettin' his stuff," he said darkly. "An' it sure don't do a squaw no good either. Why, it plumb makes me shiver t'think what might happen, if you an' Joshie don't start knockin' it off pretty soon. Might go crazy as bed bugs."

  "Well, gracious me!" Critch said. "We certainly can't have that, now can we?"

  He looked over his shoulder, swung an arm in a beckoning motion. The two girls immediately drew abreast of them, and Critch lifted Joshie from her saddle and onto his own.

  She cuddled against him happily, giving him the reins of her horse. While Arlie stared dumbfounded, Critch suggested that his brother and Kay take a long ride by themselves, since he and Joshie had private business to transact at the hotel.

  "We usually take care of it at bedtime," he explained, "but that suddenly seems too long to wait. I hope you don't mind...big brother?"

  Arlie gulped; scowled. "Now, look here—" he began. "What the hell's goin' on here? What kind of business you takin' care of, anyways?"

  "Well..." Critch arched an amused brow at him. "Let's just say that it isn't fiddling, but it's something that rhymes with the word."

  Joshie again burst into giggles, quivering deliciously against him. Kay gave Arlie a resigned look, then rolled her eyes heavenward.

  "Ho, boy," she sighed, "you plenty damn stupid, ol' husband."

  "But—but—God dang it!" Arlie looked helplessly from his wife to Critch and Joshie. "I mean, why, hell's fire—!"

  He blinked his eyes. Vigorously shook his head in the manner of a ma
n recovering from a hard punch. Somehow, as Critch began to draw away with Joshie, he managed to raise his voice in a feeble facsimile of insouciance.

  "Ride her easy, little brother! Take your spurs off before you mount!"

  "Leave spurs on," Kay called. "Make ol' Joshie jump!"

  "I jump anyway!" Joshie called back happily. "Ol' Critch, he plenty damn man!"

  The End