King Blood

'Meanin', the more distance there was between us the safer I'd be?' Arlie shook his head, grinning. 'Huh-uh, little brother. Huh-uh. Because I know something about you that you don't even know yourself.'

'Such as?'

'Such as somethin' you can't do. Oh, you think you can. Prob'ly thought about doin' it plenty of times. Prob'ly even planned t'do it. But it's God danged lucky you never tried, because you couldn't no more do it than you could rub your ass an' your elbow at the same time. An' the reason I know you can't do it is because I can an' I know what it takes. An' you ain't got what it takes, little brother. You just ain't got it.'

'I ain't got what it takes,' said Critch, 'to do what?'

'To kill. You could maybe hire it done. I figure you maybe might hire it done if you was in the proper fix t'do it. So… 'Arlie's drawl faded off into the silence, his grin dying with it. And once again he became the concerned big brother, the doer of good deeds. 'So,' he resumed slowly. 'So I reckon it's a plumb fine idea for you to come back to the Junction with me, Critch. Don't you? Don't you reckon it's just about the finest idea a fella ever had?'

Critch nodded dully. 'Plumb fine,' he said.

____________________

*Interlude*

_Arlie went to I.K.'s sleazy hotel around midnight. The Indian youth had a half-breed whore with him, but he had remained dressed in anticipation of young King's visit; and he promptly handed over a sheaf of thousand-dollar bills as soon as he had dismissed the naked girl. Arlie counted the money; emitted an awed whistle of appreciation. 'God damn! A whole ten thousand dollars, huh?'_

_'I steal good, yes?' I.K. beamed modestly. 'Do plenty all right for my ol' frien', Arlie?'_

_'Uh-hah, plenty,' Arlie drawled. 'Kinda puzzlin', though. I coulda sworn that Critch had maybe a dozen packets of dough stashed in that coat of his instead of just one.'_

_'Did have,' I.K. nodded promptly. 'I get bank to cash into t'ousand-dollar bills. Make easier to carry, you know.'_

_Arlie said that that had been real smart of him. And kinda dumb of the bank, when you come to think of it. 'They didn't ask you no questions, huh? Didn't want to know how come a God damned greasy-assed Injun kid like you got himself so much money?'_

_I.K. made a sudden dive for the door. Arlie caught him, and twisted an arm behind his back. Not until the Apache youth was on the verge of having his shoulder dislocated, did he at last gasp out a confession. 'Up there! Behin' chimney hole!'_

_Arlie pried loose the flowered-tin cover of the chimney outlet, and scooped the money out onto the bed. Counting it methodically he discovered the amount to be a hundred dollars short of seventy-two thousand. I.K. sulkily explained the shortage. 'Cash bill with dirty 'ief bartender. Give me thirty dollars for hundred.'_

'Thirty dollars, huh?' Arlie said, taking out his wallet. 'Well, here's thirty more for you. You be real careful with your spendin', an' you can live on it for quite a while.'

_I.K. cursed him vilely. 'God damn you, ol' Arlie! You promise me half!'_

Arlie said, well, that made them both pretty sneaky, didn't it? Anyway, he continued, it would do the youth no good if he was given all the money. It would go into the pockets of smarter thieves, and he would go into jail in less than a week.

I.K. cursed him at length. He pleaded. Abruptly, he attempted an attack. The cursing and begging accomplished nothing, of course. Anticipating the attack, Arlie fended it off with a suddenly outthrust boot, the spur of which ripped the Apache's pantsleg from top to bottom.

Arlie whooped with laughter at sight of the ruined trousers. I.K. continued to scowl and curse for a time, then joined in the laughter. Arlie took a pint bottle from his hip pocket, and they drank together. Friends, to all appearances.

_To all appearances_…

_For it was not the Apache way – it was not I.K.'s way – to betray one's intentions with a display of enmity._

____________________

*Chapter One*

In her room at the King's Junction ranchhouse-hotel – the room which she had formerly shared with her late husband, Boz – Joshie King drew the window shade tight, stealthily lit the coal-oil lamp and stood facing the mirror. Naked, she shivered a little with the early morning chill; shivered also with the tantalizing, demanding urge which had seethed through her plump little body since the day, three weeks before, when she had seen Critch for the first time. _God damn, she thought,_ thinking the words with the complete innocence with which she would have spoken them, without reference to their meaning. _God damn, he pound my stuff plenty soon, I betcha! That Critch, he screw me good!_

Placing her hands behind her head, she examined her armpits – entirely hairless now, painfully denuded a hair at a time. She had seen pictures of bare-shouldered women, women in evening gowns; deciding, after the closest scrutiny, that they had no hair in the pits of their arms. She was not sure whether they were born that way, or whether they had achieved the condition themselves. But she was sure that such swell-lookin' women, with all their little niceties, were the kind that would appeal to a swell-lookin' fella like Critch. And she was prepared to go to any lengths to make herself like them.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, and looked thoughtfully down at herself. Despite her tightly plaited hair, with its concomitant tightening of her facial tissues, her brow puckered in a puzzled frown.

Well, she thought, were they or weren't they? Were those swell-lookin' women only hairless between their arms, or was the area surrounding their stuff also without hair?

There was no way of knowing, she guessed. Despite her most earnest searching, she had been unable to find a picture of a woman – swell-lookin' or otherwise – in the nude.

Joshie scowled, pondering the riddle. Then, hesitantly, her hand went to her crotch, and she began a half- hearted plucking of its tightly curled hair. She ceased almost as soon as she began. It hurt too God damned much, and it also impinged upon a practice which was strictly tabu.

At any rate, what did it matter, what did it really matter whether she was haired or hairless there? Critch had been pleasant to her since his return to the Junction three weeks before, but he had carefully avoided anything resembling an overture either on his part or hers.

That he wanted her, she was sure. Wanted her as badly as she wanted him. But he definitely did not want, and was determined not to have, the inevitable result of an intimate relationship.

Critch would have great plans for the future. A swell-lookin' fella like Critch would have to have. And there would be no room in such plans for an Apache bride.

He would have no squaw for a wife, not Critch King. He wouldn't, because he had no intention of staying here on the ranch a day longer than he had to. Joshie was sure of it. Everyone else apparently thought otherwise, including Old Uncle Ike and Old Grandfather Tepaha. But Joshie knew better. She had had more opportunity than anyone else to observe Critch, to study his attitude and read between the lines of his speech. And she knew._

Bleakly, she turned despairing eyes upon the mirror, looking into it and beyond to a future of loveless emptiness.

There could be no man for her but a King. This was so, a fact accepted by all. Something that could not be changed, and which she could not contemplate changing.

She would have Critch or no one. And she could not possibly have Critch. Unless…

_What if his life depended upon her?_

_What if she had certain information which could compel him to marry her?_

She glanced toward the window; noted, in the thin margin between casing and shade, a grayish adulteration of the darkness which presaged dawn. Arlie and her sister, Kay, Arlie's wife, should be awake by now. Awake and talking. That much Joshie knew from her past eavesdropping outside their door. And while she had learned virtually nothing that was of use to her, nothing that she could piece together into the complete and conclusive, she had