_God damn Ike King! he thought. Practically on his death-bed, and he treats his own son like this!_
He took a quick drink, then another. Critch smiled at him gently, gave one of the bronzed hands a comforting pat.
'Don't let it upset you, Judge. I haven't seen my father since I was a child, but I don't imagine he's changed any.'
'No.'
'I've often thought that if he'd treated my mother a little differently…' Critch shook his head regretfully. 'She was part Creek, you know, and she had rather crisp, curly hair. Dad used to accuse her of being part Negro.'
'He did, eh?' Dying Horse laughed angrily. 'Sounds about like him!'
'Of course, there was some intermarriage among the Creeks,' Critch shrugged. 'But what of it, anyway? At any rate, why taunt a woman publicly with something she couldn't help?'
The Osage gulped another large drink, a red flush spreading under the lighter hue of his face. He brought the heavy glass down on the table with a bang.
_Getting a little drunk, Critch thought shrewdly. When will these stinking Indians learn that they can't drink?_
'Mr. King – _hic, hup – _your father is, as you may know, my client in this area. It was my duty, if you could be found, to look you over and to decide whether you were fit to be claimed as his son and heir. I have decided, in the affirmative. The only question in my mind is whether he is fit to be claimed as your father!'
Critch smiled a soft demurral. After all, they shouldn't be too hard on the old man.
'I'll welcome the chance to see him before he dies. I would have gone back before this, but I wasn't sure of my reception.'
'You'll find it satisfactory,' Dying Horse assured him, 'under the circumstances. Now, if you were down on your luck, if you'd been a failure in life and really needed help…'
'I'd certainly never go near Dad,' Critch laughed, ruefully. 'A strange man, my father, but fair – absolutely fair – in his own way. He never excused his own failures, so why should he excuse them in others?'
'But his own son,' the lawyer protested. 'His own flesh and blood!'
'Only if he chose to claim me as a son,' Critch pointed out. 'Which he wouldn't do unless I met his standards.'
They talked a while longer. Then, the lawyer glanced at the clock and remembered an appointment. As he reached for his wallet and beckoned to a waiter, Critch laid a ten-dollar bill on the table.
'My treat, Counsellor. I insist.'
'Nonsense. Business, Mr. King, so we're both the guests of your father. I – ' he broke off scowling, slapping his hip. 'God damn it!' he said. 'I've lost my wallet!'
'Why, that's too bad,' Critch frowned sympathetically. 'Was there very much in it?'
'Well, not a great deal. Fifty dollars or so.'
_God damn! thought Critch._
He lingered over his drink while the attorney hastened away to his appointment. Then, after a leisurely free lunch provided by the establishment, he visited the backyard privvy where he emptied the wallet of money and dropped it down the hole.
Out on the street again, he sauntered through the mid-day throngs, his expression suave and smiling, his eyes alert for yet another wink from fortune. For certainly it would not be smart to present himself to Ike King with such picayune pickings as he had now. There was his ticket to buy, and his meals and incidental expenses. He would be virtually broke on arrival, a very dangerous way to be with a sire like old Ike. Isaac Joshua King might well haul out a fatted calf for the returning prodigal, a figuratively golden calf, but only if the returnee was herding a few steers in front of him as proof of his merit.
The relatively few dollars stolen from Attorney Dying Horse represented nothing more than another chance. It was something to build on, something to be used in trimming a truly well-heeled sucker.
____________________
*Chapter Two*
Raymond Chance had come to King's Junction in the guise of a capitalist, a man seeking likely land in which to invest his money. He was a very plausible and personable man, needless to say, and he was equipped with a number of impressive letters of introduction, all fakes, of course, like his handsomely engraved sheaf of cashier checks. As a guest of the Junction Hotel, which was also the King ranchhouse, he had ready access to Isaac Joshua, who was not unagreeable to selling some of his own land, providing the price was right.
Ike had better things to do, by his own admission, than to drive prospective purchasers over his holdings. Nor was it necessary for him to do so, since his woman could do it just as well, and, like all women, never did nothin' much useful anyways that he could see. Neither could he see (he joked jovially) that he was doing anything chancy in having his wife traipse around all day with such a good-lookin' young feller, because anyone that wanted a half-nigger Creek was sure as hell welcome to her! Still, as a gesture to the proprieties, his son Critchfield could accompany them, the son being good for little else (that he could see) except to be planted in the barn as a pissing-post.
Critch found the daily excursions happy ones. His mother always packed generous lunches – food that was far tastier than any she ever prepared at the hotel. She was also almost consistently good-humored, rarely giving way to the sudden flashes of temper which sent her blinding-quick hands out to slap and pinch and shake him. True, she was always sorry after these tantrums, as quick with pampering as she was with punishment. But while he forgave he could not completely forget, nor relax completely while she was within striking distance. He had never been able to, that is, until the advent of Ray Chance.
Critch was to marvel in later years that such a thorough-going scoundrel as Ray found it so easy to bring out all that was good and generous in people. But under analysis the trait seemed to be largely a matter of ignoring the grossest faults while praising the smallest virtues. Of turning negatives into affirmatives. Under Ray's magic, the ugliest dross became pure gold.
Ray never criticized his sniffling, but praised the manly manner in which he blew his nose. _(Almost had me blowing the damned thing off, Critch remembered wryly.)_ Ray never remarked on his clumsiness, a tendency to trip over his own feet, but praised the fortitude which kept him tearless and unwhimpering. Ray had no jeers nor sneers for his thumb sucking, his nervousness-inspired nail-biting. Merely remarking that it would be a shame to do anything which might mar the finest-looking hands he'd ever seen on a boy.
To demonstrate the strength and grace and other virtues which Ray and no other had ever observed in him, Critch took long runs across the prairie when they stopped during the noon hour. Leaping creeks and puddles. Jumping high in the Johnson grass and weeds tirelessly until he was only a speck in the distance. Winded, he came back much more slowly than he had gone, but that was all right, too. For Ray found much to admire in the way he conserved his strength when wisdom so dictated. Ray had many compliments for his ability to creep through the grass unseen (like a skilful hunter), then suddenly to spring up as if out of nowhere.
He was a lot better at creeping and sneaking than even Ray realized, several times approaching them so closely without their being aware of him that he saw things unintended for his eyes, and he knew he had better creep right back the way he had come from. But being a child and curious, his retreats were unhurried to say the least.
Ray and his mother were the first human beings he had seen at sexual intercourse. But he had witnessed it many times among the so-called lower animals, and none of life's innocent myths or intimate mysteries had survived the onslaught of Elizabethan nouns and verbs, which comprised much of Old Ike's vocabulary. So Critch well knew what he was seeing, even though the mechanics of it were new to him.