King Blood(9)

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.