King Blood (Armchair Detective Library) by Jim Thompson

Author:Jim Thompson [Thompson, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Crime, Mystery & Detective, Hard-Boiled, General, Murder, Oklahoma, Fathers and sons
ISBN: 9781562870454
Publisher: Otto Penzler Books
Published: 1994-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

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*Chapter Two*

Now, in this first hour after dawn, the village of King's Junction was wide awake and working. A hammer rang on the anvil of the blacksmith's shop. At the feed store a wagon was being loaded. Apache clerks, apron bedecked over their buckskin and levi costumes, were washing windows and sweeping the wooden walk of the general store.As the two King brothers rode out of town, Tepaha's two granddaughters riding behind them, Arlie was greeted by and gave greeting to the Junction's various workers. But he had not a word nor a glance for Critch. Similarly, Joshie and Kay rode in haughty silence, neither acknowledging the other's presence with so much as a look.

Critch lighted a cheroot, made a tentative gesture of offering one to Arlie. The latter looked stonily straight ahead, and Critch returned the cigar to his pocket.

He knew the reason for Arlie's attitude, or thought he did: Old Ike's cozying up to him, his youngest son. Yet there was nothing new in this: Ike had been behaving thus ever since his return. So why should Arlie take such great offense this morning?

Had Arlie simply had too much of it? Or had something else happened that he, Critch, was unaware of?

He didn't know, but he knew that Arlie's anger could not be allowed to continue. Until he recovered the money, he must stay on his brother's good side.

They crossed the railroad tracks, and took one of the rutted, reddish-loam roads which led out into the ranch proper. Wordlessly, they rode through the fine spring morning, threadily misted with the early sun's lifting of the night's dew. Stalks of young, uneared corn wafted in the breeze like long lines of green flame. The heavy-sweet smell of embryonically budding alfalfa drifted to them from distant acres.

Critch sniffed it with exaggerated interest, hoping to attract his brother's attention. Failing to, he cleared his throat noisily.

'Uh, about that alfalfa, Arlie,' he said. 'How do you find it as a crop?'

Arlie made no answer for a time; seemingly intended to make none. Finally, however, he asked Critch what the hell he was talking about. 'What do you mean, how do I find it?'

'I mean, isn't it pretty hard on land like this? I've heard that it took a lot out of the soil, used several hundred tons of water per acre.'

'Huh. An' just where did you hear that?'

'I'm not sure,' Critch said. 'It's just something I heard or read somewhere. For all I know, it's all nonsense, but I thought you'd know the facts.'

The implied compliment was more than Arlie could resist. He said, with forced grumpiness, that, hell, how would he know what was what? He'd never been nowhere nor read nothin'.

'But I guess it ain't a real good crop for out here,' he went on, his tone warming slightly. 'Not real fittin' for the soil an' climate, an' it can be damned bad for cattle. Bloats 'em to beat hell they get too much of it.'

'Yes?' Critch frowned. 'Then why is it planted?'

'Because that's what the folks that planted it wanted,' Arlie shrugged.

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