A feeling that old fires had begun to blaze in his stomach; that his lungs were all but choked on the fumes from them.
A feeling that his heart, despite its increasingly heavy pounding, might stop beating at any moment.
He finished dressing, sat down on the bed for a time to rest. He got to his feet again, trudged to the door and went out into the hall.
He and Tepaha met at the stairs, and they descended to the bar room together. Over stiff drinks, they grunted and grumbled at one another, and Tepaha revealed that he also had slept badly. Unlike Ike, however, he had pinpointed the cause.
It was the kitchen squaws. Old age had made them slovenly and careless, so that the best of food became botched in their hands. Consequently, there was such an uproar in a man's guts after eating that the thunder of it made sleep impossible. And he was indeed lucky to be wakeful, since he otherwise might die of the squaws' evil messes.
Ike said he was full of shit.
'Critch's been eatin' their cookin' for six months, ain't he? A swell young fella that ain't never et in nothin' but the finest places. He says the food's fine, an' I reckon he knows more than a stupid old bastard like you.'
Tepaha said Ike was full of shit.
'Shit,' they said in unison, glaring at each other. And they went in to breakfast together.
They ate considerably more than usual – Ike to show his contempt for Tepaha's opinion; Tepaha to show that he was as hardy as Ike.
Then, with Ike's sons and Tepaha's granddaughters gone on their day's rounds, the two old men returned to the bar.
They had several more drinks, occasionally nodding over their glasses; talking hardly at all. After an unusually long silence, Tepaha said it was time for their walk, and Ike declared flatly that they had just returned from it.
'Tryin' to trick me, huh?' he jeered. 'Think I don't know what I'm doin' no more.'
Tepaha started to voice a profane rebuttal; suppressed it after a sharp look into his old friend's face.
'You too smart for me, Old Ike,' he said; but was not quite able to resist a small jibe. 'Too bad you not so smart with Creek-nigger wife.'
'Hell,' Ike grumbled. 'Bein' a Creek didn't make her a nigger. Ninety-nine to one she wasn't. I was just jokin' her.'
'Sure. I just joke, too,' said Tepaha.
Ike gulped down another long drink, felt a turgid boiling inside him. He passed a hand over his brow, wiping away the cold, oozing sweat, and gradually a sly look spread over his face.
'God damn,' he laughed. 'Damned if I didn't put the joke on her.'
'How? What you say, Old Ike?' said Tepaha.
Ike sat grinning, not answering him.
When he spoke, it was of the good days when they were young, and they had fled a Mexican firing squad together.
'Kids nowadays don't have no guts no more like we had, Tepaha. Lock 'em up and tell 'em they're gonna get shot in the mornin', an' they'd probably play with their peters all night.'
'Kids no damn good,' Tepaha agreed.
Ike had another huge drink. He needed it to offset the effects of the first one. At least, he needed it.
Tepaha asked him how he had happened to be in Mexico in that long-ago time. Ike said there was nothing unusual about it.
'Reckon I was about twelve when I took out from Louisiana, and into Tejas. Didn't have hardly nothin' with me but my clothes an' this old Collier five-shot. You ever see a Collier, Tepaha? Well, they was flintlocks – pistols, and they started makin' 'em about 1810. Don't know whether they was ever issue or not, but this blue-coat had one, an'…'
His voice died, but his lips continued to move. Filling in a gap in the story which some part of his mind chose to keep silent. Then, after two or three minutes, he again became audible.
'… mission wasn't too bad, but two years of it was all I could hold. They just wasn't anything interestin' goin' on; if it was interestin' the padres stopped it, an' them mission Indians sort of rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, what the hell, Tepaha.
'What kind of life was it for an Indian to hang around bein' told what to do an' when he could do it. I'm not sayin' the padres was mean to 'em, but – '
'Padres should have beat red asses,' Tepaha said scornfully. 'Mission Indians – God damn soup Indians! Sing, pray, maybe so get nice bowl of soup. Shit!'
'Well, that's the way I felt,' Ike continued. 'So I was a growed man, by then, fifteen an' some, so I just took me off into Mexico which was right handy there. Borrowed me one o' the mission horses to start with, an' when it got used up I started borrowin' from the Mejicanos. Done some other borrowin', too, like a bit of money now an' then t'spend in the cantinas. An' what with one thing an' another, I finally wound up in that jail where you was…'
He looked at his empty glass; pushed it aside. He picked up the bottle and drank from it – drank until Tepaha gently took it out of his hand.
'You say you start out from Louisiana, Ike. Was your home?'