King Blood (21 page)

He caught up with them a few steps short of the hotel-ranchhouse; made affable inquiries as to the cause of their wretched condition. Arlie explained nervously, and the marshal voiced suave concern.

'I imagine you're completely worn out, aren't you? Can't think of anything but eating and getting to bed? Well, gentlemen' – he looked from one to the other, dark eyes suddenly turned crystal-hard. 'I'm afraid such creature comforts will have to be postponed for a while. Indefinitely, you might say. I have some questions to ask you.'

'Uh, questions?' Arlie gulped uneasily. 'Questions 'bout what.'

'Forget it!' Critch said curtly. 'I'm eating breakfast and then I'm going to bed. The marshal can postpone his questions, or do the next best thing!'

'Which,' said Thompson, 'would be what?'

'Go shit in your hat!'

Critch reached for the door. Paused abruptly, hands half-raised, as he looked down the blue-black barrel of the marshal's forty-five.

'That remark you made,' Thompson said, 'became the epitaph of the last man who made it to me. I wonder if you'd like it to be yours?'

Critch shook his head; managed a weak grin. 'I'd prefer to postpone it, sir. Indefinitely, you might say.'

'Or until you've answered my questions?'

'Or until then. But we do have certain rights, Marshal. Before this goes any further, we're entitled to know the nature of your questions.'

'You're right, of course,' said Thompson, reholstering his gun. 'Please forgive the omission. My questions – to which I expect complete and satisfactory answers – are concerned with robbery and murder.'

_ c_

They were assembled in the hotel's bar room – the brothers and the marshal, Ike and Tepaha. A bottle and glasses of whiskey sat before the two old men. They sipped at it occasionally, their seamed faces expressionless; reflecting not the slightest interest in what was happening or what might happen.

'… well, Arlie?' the marshal was saying. 'I'm still waiting. What's your answer?'

'Sure, Marshal Harry, sure. Now, uh, lessee…' Arlie wrinkled his brow thoughtfully. 'Just a minute now. It'll come to me in a minute. Uh, mmm, uh – What was that question again, marshal?'

'The same as it was the first fifteen times I asked it! The same as it was damned near an hour ago!'

'Uh, yes, sir?'

'All right, I'll repeat it once more. Three weeks ago, give or take a day, you paid off approximately seventy thousand dollars in indebtedness against this ranch. _Now where did you get the money?'_

'Where did I get it?'

'You heard me!
Yes!'
_

'Mmm,' said Arlie. 'Now, lessee…'

In the old days, thought Tepaha, there was no interference from men of the law. A bad son was simply reported to his father, who dealt with him as he deemed best. For who was better prepared to sit in judgment than the father, who more able to decide the proper punishment? Surely, since it was the offender who was punished, it was he who should be judged, not the offense he committed. Surely, though errors might sometimes occur, they were much less frequent when the father, rather than the law, passed judgment. This was so, and it could hardly be otherwise. For the father's judgment was of the individual, and there was honor in it as well as knowledge. And the law's judgment was of the faceless mass (and created by that mass) – and this in the name of justice!

At any rate, thought Tepaha, there was no wrong in stealing, except from friends and family. Others who were stolen from were themselves criminal, since, by making their property stealable, they had doubtless tempted an honest man to thievery.

Similarly, it was impossible to defraud an importunate creditor. The worst that could be done to them was not as bad as they deserved. And how could it be otherwise? Trust was not something you gave a man one day, withdrew the next, and re-extended a third. This patently was not trust at all, but rather the most heinous fraud. Real trust was permanent – not something given when unneeded, and taken away when one's need was worst. This was so. Only a law which boasted of its blindness would hold otherwise.

Ol' Marshal Harry full of shit, thought Tepaha.

'For the last time, Arlie,' said Marshal Thompson. 'I'm asking for the last time – '

'I'll answer the question,' Critch said. 'Arlie got the money from me.'

'Of course, he did.' The marshal turned on him grimly. 'I wondered when he or you would get around to admitting it. He stole the money from you, and you – '

'Stole
it from me?' Critch gave him a wondering look. 'Now, why in the world do you think – ' He broke off, bursting into laughter. 'I'm sorry, marshal. I'd entirely forgotten the little joke we pulled on that Indian kid. I guess you must have forgotten it too, eh, Arlie?'

'Now danged if I didn't!' Arlie declared, and immediately began whooping with laughter. 'Don't see how I coulda forgot it neither, the way we had ol' I.K. goin'. Funniest thing you ever saw, Marshal Harry!'

Thompson looked sourly from one brother to the other. 'You expect me to believe that? That it was all a joke?'

'I hardly see how you can believe anything else,' said Critch, 'as long as Arlie and I say it was a joke.'

'Why, sure,' Arlie said warmly. 'You sure as hell couldn't believe I.K. He's the biggest damned liar in the Territory, and they's plenty of people that'll swear to it.'

Thompson said to let it go; whether the money had been stolen from Critch or whether Critch had given it to Arlie was not really important. The –

'Oh, I disagree, Marshal,' Critch broke in. 'The truthfulness of I.K. could be of the greatest importance. After all, if he lied in one instance he'd doubtless lie in another.'

'Forget it!' Thompson snapped. 'All I want to know is where you got that money – almost seventy thousand dollars?'

'Oh, one way and another,' Critch said airily. 'Gambling, cotton speculation; that sort of thing.'

'Can you prove that?'

'Naturally, I can't. No one could. Fortunately, I don't have to prove it. However' – he smiled pleasantly, 'I believe I can lend substantial credence to at least one part of my statement, if you'd care to join me in a game of poker.'

Thompson said he didn't care to, or need to. He already knew where Critch had gotten the money: from Ethel and/or Anne Anderson, alias Big Sis and Little Sis Anderson.

'Mmm,' Critch frowned thoughtfully. 'Ethel and Anne Anderson. Now where have I heard those names before?'

'Don't pull that stuff on me, mister! You stole that seventy thousand dollars from one or both of them, _and I can prove it!'_

In the old days, thought Old Ike King, a man did what he was big enough to do, and mostly there wasn't much difference between the men whose necks he stretched or who stretched his, if so it was to be. Mostly there was nothing personal in it, however it was. It was just a case of taking or being taken, killing or being killed. Well, sure, there was fellas that boohooed and whined about it – but there was fellas that would cry if you hung 'em with a new rope. And, sure, maybe you wished things was a different way; but they wasn't, and all you could do was hold out and hope.

In the old days, thought Old Ike King, a friend was someone you wouldn't kill, even when you had the chance, and vicey versa. A friend was someone you'd kill for and vicey versa. A friend was someone who did no wrong, no matter what he did; who saw you as doing no wrong, no matter what you did.

Now the
padres
weren't bad fellas, in their own way. But it was only natural that they should be mixed up about right and wrong, since they seldom got shot at or scalped, if at all. It was easy for them to believe that there was a fella with a long gray beard who lived up in the sky and looked out for everyone or anyways never let 'em get killed unless it was for their own good. It was easy for them to believe that there was a hell deep inside the earth; instead of its really bein' where you didn't have to dig for it.

In a funny kinda way, Old Ike King and the
padres
really thought a lot alike. They believed that whiskery fella up in the sky wasn't never wrong about nothing, whereas Ike believed that it was friends, those closest to him, who did no wrong.

You had to believe in 'em, see? You'd go out of your mind if you didn't, what with having to decide a hundred times a day what was right or wrong or halfway between.

To come right down to cases, what the hell could you believe in if not your friends and family? A man that would doubt them and believe an outsider would have to be a plumb sorry asshole…

'… afraid I don't understand, Marshal,' Critch was saying. 'You state that I stole the money from the Andersons, together or singly, yet you don't seem to have any idea of the amount they had. I do hope this isn't normal procedure for you, sir. To draw an analogy, you could charge a man with horse-stealing, with no proof that the horse ever existed.'

Thompson lowered his head doggedly, his face reddening. 'We know this,' he said. 'The Andersons were in business for approximately ten years, during which time they killed close to forty well-heeled travelers. It's not unreasonable to believe then that their aggregate loot amounted to seventy thousand dollars.'

'Maybe, maybe not,' Critch shrugged. 'The sisters had expenses during those ten years. It's not unreasonable to believe that those expenses amounted to forty or fifty thousand.'

'I'm talking about their net loot! After expenses!'

'Umm-hmm. I assume your estimate was arrived at after consulting the various relatives and heirs of the murder victims? They told you the probable amount the deceased had on their persons.'

'Correct. There was one man alone who had more than ten thousand.'

'Yes? And what did some of the others have?'

'Well, there was one with seventy-five hundred, and one with four thousand plus, and another with close to eight thousand, and – '

Thompson broke off, his mouth literally snapping shut. Silently, he berated his nephew for persuading him to venture forth on what was patently a fool's errand.

Critch laughed softly. 'Well, Marshal? If the individuals you mentioned are typical, the sisters must have netted closer to half-a-million than seventy thousand. What do you suppose happened to the rest of it?'

'Don't get smart with me, young man!'

'I wouldn't think of it, sir. You've got trouble enough in store for you, as it is. It's my guess that the heirs of practically every missing person in the country are going to claim that their loved ones were murdered by the Andersons, and that said loved ones possessed small fortunes in cash or its equivalent at the time of their demise. By the time the claims are all filed and adjudicated, to no one's satisfaction, of course, I suspect that you and the people who appointed you are going to have something in common that you don't have now. You're both going to wish you were dead.'

The marshal grunted, silently guessing that Critch was probably right. In any case, he had no intention of finding out by filing charges against young King. There was simply no evidence to support an arrest. No proof that the Andersons had had anything to steal, or that Critch had stolen it.

For his part, Critch was not feeling nearly as easy as he acted. He still could not bring himself to look at his father. Nor had Old Ike spoken a word, or otherwise indicated what he felt. That he must know or be reasonably sure that the money was stolen seemed certain. And whether the law, as represented by Marshal Thompson, could prove it meant nothing to him. Old Ike was his own law. He passed his own judgments.

'Well, Marshal?' Critch leaned against the bar, easing the weight from his injured ankle. 'I believe I've said all I have to say. Do you still want to arrest me?'

Thompson shook his head; said that he'd never wanted to arrest anyone in his life. 'So, no, I don't want to arrest you. In fact, I didn't come here with any real hope or intention of doing so. I'm probably not as familiar with the criminal code and the rules of evidence as you seem to be. But I'm sufficiently versed in them to know when I have a case against a man and when I don't – and I obviously didn't in this instance. As long as I was here, of course, I tried to do my damnedest. But the main purpose of my visit – I believe I mentioned it earlier, didn't I? – is murder.'

'Murder?' Critch blinked. 'What murder?'

'The murder of Ethel (Big Sis) Anderson.'

'But that's cra -!' Critch broke off, made a business out of lighting a cheroot. Gained a few seconds' time to think.

There was something wrong here; something subtly out of key in the marshal's attitude and tone. A charge of murder would naturally take precedence over any other, so why…? Never mind, Critch thought, never mind. The question was, how to use it to his own advantage. Get himself solidly back in the good graces of his father.

'Well, Marshal…' he shrugged. 'Perhaps, if you're going to accuse me of murder…'

'I'm not sure that I am going to. Perhaps I'll charge Arlie instead.'

He turned to grin coldly at Arlie, who was gulping a drink of whiskey. Arlie choked, spluttered and let out an indignant howl of denial.

'That's a God damn lie! I did not neither kill that woman!'

'So?' The marshal's brows went up. 'Then if you didn't, Critch did. I know that one of the two of you is guilty. You see, gentlemen…'