King Blood (3 page)

Well?

She made a good whore, the runaway wife of Old Ike King. Her reputation for giving satisfaction spread so rapidly that Ray had to do no pimping once he had started her. For here, in sameness, she found variety. In sameness, she found a challenge. Something which lent itself to delightful testing and experimentation, with unfailing reward to her senses.

She made a good whore… as a practitioner. One who was more and more pleased and pleasing with each transaction. And that was the trouble with her. Here, as in everything else, she defeated herself.

It was enough for her, the act itself. She meant to demand money; usually she did demand it. But often, in the excitement and anticipation of the moment, she forgot to. And when she did not, well, a little toying with her by a patron, a pretense of being broke or disinterested, would make her drop her demands. Some men even boasted that they had got her to _pay them._ The only complaint ever made against her was that she plumb wore a fella out.

At fourteen, Critch had known for some time that his mother was getting it pounded for money, and he unemotionally accepted the fact as a necessary fact of life. She did it with Ray? Why not with others? He was dependent on her for support; without her earnings his ever-fascinating association with Ray would be impossible. And, so he was grateful to her. Perhaps, in the deepest recesses of his mind, there was buried a sickish shame. Perhaps, also, there was anger and hatred for Ray for bringing her to this. But these feelings were well-buried. Things so deeply sunk in the subconscious that they must twist tortuously to the surface, distorted (and distorting) and manifesting themselves in attitudes unidentifiable with their source.

He was still fourteen when his mother was lost to him. Lost twice. The second time was when she fled him and Ray with a pimp, never to be seen or heard of again. The first time…

Well, that was the only time that counted. For she had ceased to exist for him after that. After that, he blotted her out of his mind, for he could not think of her without vomiting.

He had gone to sleep late on the night in question. Ray and his mother were arguing violently in the adjoining room, making sleep impossible. Finally, their voices died and he dozed off, but not for long. He came awake with a sudden start, a sick chill creeping up his spine at the strange sounds from the other room.

He had never heard anything like them before. Which was natural enough. It was only during the last year or so, during the restless dawning of puberty, that he could stay awake after ten at night. Only during the last year or so, whereas his mother had been whoring for more than two years. And a whore may not be bruised and battered without lessening her income. Ray had managed to restrain himself. Tonight, however, Ray had been pushed too far. He had nothing to lose by beating her, that he could see. The silly bitch had been busy all day. One customer after another. Yet she'd wound up the day with less than she'd had at the outset. Her money given away along with her body. Free ass and money to go with it!

She lay sprawled on the bed on her stomach, scanty gown drawn up over the flaring buttocks which Ray, teeth gritted in his white face, was promising to beat off of her.

He raised his belt high; brought it down with a slashing
craack!
upon the rounded hummocks of naked flesh. They quivered and squirmed, delicate shivers running through them like things with an existence of their own and distinct from the rest of her body. Ray paused, panting for breath. There was silence, motionlessness for a moment, while the dimmed coal-oil lamp flickeringly limned the scene: a lewd nightmare by a drunken Dore. Then, there was a slight twitching of the undulant sand-colored torso; a small impatient movement. And from the pillows came a muffled sob: querulous, questioning. Prompting.

Ray's eyes blazed. The belt whipped up and down, up and down, furiously raining blows upon the ever-hungering flesh. And, silently, the door to the adjoining room opened, and Critch looked in on them.

He moved instinctively, without a split-second's thought. A simple reaction to Ray's action. Hurling himself between this man and his mother; automatically stopping what had to be stopped, as the blink of an eyelid stops a probing. Because it must. Because there is great loss if it is not.

And then, looking up at Ray, a little frightened by what he had done. Frightened and apologetic. Yet still driven by an inbred urge, he struck feebly at his idol, causing the man to fall back a step.

'Y-you can't do that,' he quavered. 'You don't… y-you can't – mustn't hit a woman.'

The voice was his, but the words, the age-long injunction, at least, were his father's. A she, girl or woman, could not be hit. It might make her titties rot or screw-up her innards (which were plenty screwed-up to begin with, and not like the good guts of a man). _I ever catch you hittin' another gal, boy, I'll yank off your pecker an' flog you t' death with it._ The Apache, Tehapa, Old Ike's oldest and dearest friend, had endorsed the tabu against the hitting of shes, although he had privately added a qualification. It was bad medicine to beat woman (just as it was bad to beat young children, when their peters and pussies were still inside them and might be injured thereby). But there _were_ occasions when it was not only well but necessary to _kill_ a woman. This was so, and all wise men knew it.

And now, Critch looked up at Ray fearfully and apologetically. But stubbornly, with a sense of righteousness. 'You can't, Ray,' he stammered. 'I'm s-sorry, but you mustn't.'

'No?' Ray smiled, cocking a quizzical brow. 'Now, why is that, hmmm?'

'Because!'

'Yes? Why because?'

'You know. Because it's – it's – '

Critch couldn't find the words to explain. Given time, he might have conjured them from the shadows of the past, but he was not given time.

His mother was suddenly behind him, knotting furious fingers in his hair. Giving him a twirling yank that sent him staggering across the room to come up solidly against the wall.

He slid down the wall, sat down on the floor with a small thud. A little dizzily he stared at the hate-filled face of his mother. And words came to him from the mouth of that face, a torrent of filth from the whore's vocabulary.

Mothersuckin' turd, grannygobbler, jismeater, screwing little shit. 'What d'ya mean, huh? Hah? What d'ya mean hittin' Ray? I'll learn you, yuh bastard! Beat the fuckin' piss out of yuh!'

She started toward him, hesitated; sidled an approval-seeking glance at Ray. His face was expressionless, and she humbly lifted his hand and tried to kiss it.

He pulled it away from her. Crossing the room to Critch, he held the hand down to him. Hesitantly, Critch took it and was helped to his feet, his eyes shifting between his mother and Ray. Between woman and man. Scowling whore and smiling gentleman.

'You see how it is, Critch? You try to help her, and you see what happens? You see? You see what happens?'

Critch stared at the woman. She stared back at him stolidly, scornfully. And then her expression changed, and then it changed again. And again and again and again, as its owner sought to adjust and sort out, and find some verity that could be lived with. And at last finding only what there was to be found, all that there ever is for anyone, be it gold or base-metal or merely dross. But inevitably acceptable, in any case, because that is all there is and there is no more.

She accepted it as she had at the beginning. A worst that was still the best. Eyes narrowed sensuously, painted mouth parted with promise, she lay back down on the bed and rolled over on her stomach.

'Critch?' Ray held out the belt, smiling. 'It's all right, Critch.'

Critch looked at the belt. He looked at the woman on the bed, and back again. Numbly; frozen. His emotions locked on dead-center in this endless moment in time. They caught there, caught between the irresistible force of heredity and the immovable object of circumstance. How can one move, when there is no place to move to?

As if from a great distance, a sound came to his ears. A faint creak, a fainter slithering. Terrified, fighting with everything that was in him, Critch struggled to hold his gaze steady, to keep it from moving to the bed. Yet little by little, that something that was at the very core of his being crumbled and gave way, and silently screaming he went over the precipice.

The sleazily revealing nightgown was slowly sliding upward. Slowly, so slowly, like the faulty curtain on a play.

First, there was only the hint of a shadowy cleft. Then, with a small jerk, a definite glimpse of it; the beginning of a cleavage which widened gradually as the gown slid higher and higher. Now, twin hillocks of softness; sand-colored, swelling and flaring, and curving in to the tiny waist. Now, the shadowy canyon shallowing between those hillocks; tapering, as they curved, into the faintest of indentations, and disappearing entirely at the dimpled base of her spine…

No more then.

Never any more for Critch. After this, there would never be anything. Nothing that would make him draw back, or prod tellingly at his conscience.

_'You see how it is, Critch? You see?'_

I see.

_'Beat that yellow ass, boy! Pound that pretty tail!'_

Critch took the belt. *b*

Mr. Isaac Joshua King,

King Junction,

Oklahoma Territory.

Dear Sir:

This is to urge you to ignore the highly complimentary letter anent your son, Critchfield, which I wrote you earlier today, as I have since found that my endorsement of him was wholly unwarranted. These are the circumstances:

_While having refreshments with your son, I suddenly discovered that my wallet was missing. With apparent generosity he paid our bill with a ten-dollar banknote, and I thought no more of the incident until several hours later – after I had written my first letter to you – when I was called upon by the proprietor of the establishment we had visited. He had the ten-dollar banknote, a worthless wildcat, with him. Since it had been spent by a companion of mine, though a stranger to him, he wished me to make good on it (which, of course, I did)._

Now, sir, I remember this particular banknote well. I had carried it in my wallet for a long time, more or less as a souvenir, and I had marked it in a distinctive fashion as a reminder that I was not to spend it. There could not possibly be two such bills with two such markings. Under the circumstances, there cannot be the slightest doubt that your son, Critchfield, stole my wallet.

I don't know how or when he did it. Nor do I know why such a prepossessing young man, who is obviously not in the slightest need of money, would stoop to thievery. Yet the damning truth is clear, and there can be no denying it.

With sincere regrets,

Washington Dying Horse

Attorney-at-law *c*

It was almost noon, of the fourth day after the theft, and Critch was still in Tulsa. A deadly inertia had gripped him, one born of funk and the fear of failure, and he could not move himself to do what he must do.

He paced the floor of his cheap hotel room, the cheapest which the smallest claim to fastidiousness had allowed him to take. Desperately, he slammed the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. Taking out his billfold, he again recounted its contents.

Not enough, he thought ruefully, returning the wallet to his pocket. Rather, there was barely enough for the basics of his plan. By the time he paid his modest hotel bill and bought his ticket to King's Junction, he would be just about broke. Maybe a few dollars left over for food and a few drinks along the way, but no more than that. He'd be broke when he reached the junction. Which simply meant that the trip would be wasted. For he'd won only half the battle in his acceptance by Attorney Dying Horse.

Old Ike King was the one who had to be convinced. Old Ike, with his thousands upon thousands of valuable acres and the untold wealth that went with them.

Ike King would accept no one as his heir who was not completely worthy – worthy by
his
standards. And those standards would be extremely rigid where Critch was concerned. He was under a very big cloud, was Critch. The old man would have him identified with his wife's faithlessness and treachery. Only success, money – concrete proof that he had risen far above this evil disadvantage – would satisfy Ike.

_Or maybe not, Critch thought hopefully. Maybe I'm being too hard on him. After all, I haven't seen him in thirteen years. So maybe_…

Maybe nothing. The fact that he'd been away for thirteen years was the trouble. Old Ike hadn't been able to keep tabs on him, as he had with his sons Arlington and Bosworth. Arlie, who was a year older than Critch, and Boz, who was a year older than Arlie, had remained with their father all these years. Working on his vast holdings, unquestioningly doing his bidding. And they'd damned well managed to please him – to prove their right to be his heirs – or Old Ike would have kicked them out. He, Critch, on the other hand…

Critch grinned wryly, his mind sliding off on a tangent as he thought of the high-sounding names.

_Critchfield, Arlington and Bosworth._ His mother had copied them from the hotel register. As stupid as she was, it was a damned good thing that there'd been no travelers named Screwingwell or Fartsinajug!

His moth – he jerked his thoughts away from her. Brought them back to his two brothers.