King Blood(17)

Geronimo said he had seen shit, too, and also smelled it. 'This is a god?' he jeered, jerking his head at Ike. 'You will be telling us next that he can cure the pox!'

'Even so,' Tepaha said. 'Look you, old man!'

He bared his left wrist, extended it into the dim light from the fire. There was a minute patch of smallpox pits on the wrist – but only there. The deadly pox, the chronic scourge of the red men, had merely touched his flesh and gone away.

The old men were wordless with astonishment. Geronimo raised his eyes wonderingly, the sardonic expression wiped from his face.

'How?' He stared at Tepaha. 'How could this be?'

'Magic. How else?'

'Obviously. But what kind of magic?'

'With magic that only Old Ike can perform. First he casts a spell over a cow – a cow, yes – and the blood of that cow becomes flecked with gold. Then he takes those flecks, and smears them into the blood of the person who has been exposed to the pox. The disease tastes the blood of that person, and flees in terror, leaving only the smallest mark of its bite.'

'And it is always the same? The victim is always cured?'

'Certainly not,' Tepaha said loftily. 'Evil men, including those who are Ike's enemies, die in itching torment.'

Geronimo stood up and took Ike's hand. 'Old Ike King,' he said, 'you and Tepaha are welcome at my fire, and we will eat and drink together, and I, Geronimo, will call you brother.'

The food was pashofa, a kind of gruel made of hominy. Flavored with nettles, it seemed quite tasty to Ike. Yet it was somewhat on the watery side, cooked without so much as a small snake to give it body. And Tepaha, still smarting under Geronimo's recent insults, made hideous faces of displeasure as he ate.

The potent brew served them was also a corn product. When the corn was green, squaws chewed it from the cob and spat their chewings into a large pot. To this – the rough equivalent of a distiller's mash – water was added, and after a certain number of skimmings the pot was sealed, and the contents allowed to ferment.

It was very powerful stuff. As with the food, Ike found it reasonably tasty. Tepaha, of course, did not – or, at least, he appeared not to.

Such a drink, he declared loudly, would never have been served in the lodge of Old Ike King. The most humble beverage a guest might drink in Old Ike's lodge was mescal or tequila, and for honored guests – the equals of Ike and himself – there was real whiskey.

The old men around the fire squirmed in shame, and Geronimo murmured embarrassed apologies. Still, despite a reproving frown from Ike, Tepaha would not desist.

'In the lodge of Old Ike King,' Tepaha said, 'there is always meat. A guest may always fill his belly with good fat beef, and take as much with him as he will on departing. Mush is fed only to papooses, and toothless old dogs.'

'I am sorry,' Geronimo murmured. 'It has been a bad winter. There is no meat in camp.'

'Very bad planning,' Tepaha said reprovingly. 'Such could never happen with Old Ike King.'

'Sorry,' Geronimo repeated stiffly. 'If there was meat, you would be more than welcome to it.'

Tepaha gave him a jeering stare. He said he was beginning to understand Geronimo's reputation for craftiness.

'Yes, now it is clear to me. You save your meat for yourselves, and serve mush to your guests.'

It was the most terrible insult of all. For a moment, Tepaha thought that he might have gone too far. Then, at last Geronimo smiled enigmatically and stood up.

Leaving the tent, he went out into the blizzard, returning after a few moments to announce that meat was indeed available. Not enough for his entire village, but an amount more than adequate for his honored guests.

'And you and Old Ike King shall have it all, O, Tepaha. My people and I will not eat as much as a single bite.'

_… So that was when it had happened, Ike thought. That was how it had come about that he and Tepaha had been fed the Osage prisoner._

'Why, that old son-of-a-bitch!' he bellowed, his voice echoing through the hotel's bar room. 'God damn you to hell, Tepaha – '

'Osage good eating,' Tepaha patted his stomach. 'All Osage good for, eat and screw.'

Then, the doors of the hotel lobby rolled open, and Arlie and Boz entered with their wives. *d*

The two young men were dressed in approximately the same fashion as their father, even to the long knives in their boot-tops. Their squaws, each of whom took up a position behind her husband, wore levis, brightly colored flannel shirts, and buckskin moccasins and jackets.

Joshie was not quite a year older than her sister, Kay, and except for a somewhat more serious expression – a reflection of her life with Boz – might have passed as Kay's twin. Both girls had small full bodies, and were virtually the same height. Both wore their hair long, and so tightly braided as to tauten their faces, giving them a perpetually wide-eyed expression.