King Blood

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 could 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!' *b*

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