King Blood(64)

'Florida!' Ike suddenly shouted. 'Don't you ever remember nothin'?'

'Florida home of Seminole'; Tepaha said. 'Most same as Creek.' And after a silence, he asked, 'You part Seminole, ol' Ike, how come chase across Louisiana?'

He could not explain his curiosity. In all the decades they had been together, he had given hardly a second thought to his friend's origins. But now, inexplicably, the matter had become of great moment to him.

'… ain't part Seminole,' Old Ike was snarling. 'Ain't part Creek 'r Cherokee 'r Choctaw 'r Chickasaw. But when they started movin' the Tribes up the trail… 'bout 1830 it was for my people…'

As before, his lips continued to move, but soundlessly. Omitting that which his mind preferred to keep silent, or which was too painful for telling. But Old Tepaha was able to supply much that was missing for himself.

The Five Tribes had owned much of the richest land in the south. Industrious, inventive, and well-educated, they were increasingly the envy of their white neighbors. And as the white population grew, exerted more and more pressure on Congress…

The forced exodus of the Tribes from their homeland was one of the most shameful and least remarked episodes of history. Uprooted, thousands upon thousands, they were herded west-by-north to a wilderness across the Arkansas, where they were to have their own nations and live forever in freedom. They would be 'happier' thus, of course. It was for the red man's 'own good'.

The unwilling migration began in the 1820s and ended some twenty years later. Many who began the journey did not complete it. So very, very many that the route by which the red men made their forced march became known as The Trail of Tears.

The white government generously decreed that the Indians be allowed to take all their possessions with them to their new homeland. Everything – including Negro slaves. And then as now, a Negro was anyone having Negro blood, however infinitesimal the amount might be…

Tepaha gave Ike a sharp look – which told him nothing at all, of course. Hesitantly, he said, 'You overseer's boy, Old Ike? Maybe bluecoat's son?'

'Who the hell say so?' Ike glowered. 'What's the difference, anyways?'

Tepaha shrugged; said that there was none. 'Just asked, ol' Ike. You say you not Indian. Not Seminole or Creek or – '

'GOD DAMN!' Ike burst into uproarious laughter. 'God damn if that wasn't a joke on her!'

His laughter grew louder, more violent. He began to shake with it, eyes bulging, the veins on his neck standing out. He coughed, gasping for breath, but still the laughter would not stop. His eyes found Tepaha's, inviting him to share in the joke of his heritage – and the impending joke, the greatest jest of all. Then, very slowly, he arose from his chair and drew himself up majestically.

'I am Old Ike King,' he said in Apache. 'Lions flee at sound of my name, and great bears grovel before me and lick at my balls, lest I beat them with a small stick. In my lodge there is always meat, and – '

His heavy body crashed to the floor, shaking the entire building.

The kitchen squaws came running in, crying out with alarm and wonder. But Tepaha stamped his foot at them, cursing terribly, and drove them from the room. For the senseless chatterings of squaws will creep like maggots through a man's ears and into his brain, creating such havoc that his own speech becomes likewise idiotic. This is well known.

Tepaha went down on his knees at the side of his fallen friend. He said, come, Old Ike, it is time now to make plans – and he drew an arm of Ike's across his shoulders, put his own arm around Ike's back. And slowly, an inch at a time, he stood up. Miraculously lifting the dead man with him.

Staggering, knees buckling with the terrible weight, he started for the stairs. For they were brothers, and he was Tepaha, chief vaquero for Old Ike King.

He made it to the foot of the stairs, shakily felt for and found the first step. After several attempts, he managed to bring his other foot up on the step. Then, stood there panting, a great rattling coming into his chest; his eyes all but blinded with sweat.

'By God,' he mumbled, his heart thundering like a war drum. 'You one heavy son-of-bitch, Old Ike…'

He got his foot on another step, started to bring his other foot up with it. But something had happened to the stairs, something so strange, that he was transfixed with wonderment. Could only watch as they slowly became perpendicular, then gradually bent down over him until he was looking up at the ceiling.

From somewhere came the sound of a mighty crash. So great that its echoes seemed never to end. There was a moment of incredible pain, and then bliss such as Tepaha had never believed possible.

_'By God, we do it, Old Ike,' he thought proudly._

The kitchen squaws came running in again, and now the clattering of their voices was such as to demolish the brain of the wisest man. But Tepaha had already deafened his ears to them.