King Blood by Jim Thompson Page A

picked up his dust-smeared hat; straightened to find himself looking into a pair of amiable but steely eyes.
    'Nice day,' the man greeted him pleasantly. 'Mind telling me who you are, mister?'
    'You're God damned right I mind!' Critch snarled. 'Who the hell are you?'
    'Name's Tilghman, Bill Tilghman.'
    The name didn't immediately register on Critch; the fact that this was one of the West's most famous peace officers. He made a profanely filthy suggestion to the man – or rather he started to. The first word or so was barely out of his mouth, when the cold muzzle of a.45 jabbed into his stomach.
    'Now, reach!' the officer said. 'Get those hands up!'
    Critch got them up, looking around wildly for Arlie. They had become separated in the fracas, and now he could see him nowhere.
    The two deputy marshals came back from the street; looked interestedly at Critch. 'What you got here, Bill?'
    'Someone with some pretty bad manners, for one thing. Let's see what else he's got.'
    'Sure thing.'
    The two deputies moved in for a search. Then, just as one stopped to feel Critch's trousers and the other yanked his coat open…
    'Hey, there, you fellas! What you doin' to my little brother?'
    Arlie pushed through the crowd, dropped a protective arm around his shoulders. Almost faint with relief, Critch heard him say that, sure, this was his brother. Been away from home since he was a kid, but now he was comin' back to stay.
    'Mr. Tilghman, this here is – '
    'We've met,' Tilghman said, and he turned on his heel and walked away. Critch was introduced to the other two men, Deputy Marshals Heck Thomas and Chris Madsen, who returned his nervously effusive greetings with dry amusement.
    'Well, let's see, now,' Arlie said. 'That's about all you fellas, ain't it? No one else that might take Critch for somethin' that he ain't?'
    'There's still Jim,' Madsen said. 'He was headin' for the marshal's office the last I saw.'
    'Good,' Arlie said. 'That's right where we're goin'.'
    As they went on their way, he good-naturedly cursed Critch, inquiring how he had ever managed to live so long with such ostensibly offensive manners; shaking his head to Critch's explanation that the bad jolting he had gotten had caused him to lose his temper.
    'Better watch where you lose it from now on, boy,' he said, and Critch meekly promised that he would.
    They reached the Federal building, ascended to the marshal's headquarters on the second floor. In the outer office, a heavy-set young man with the profile of McKinley was laboriously filling out a warrant on a rickety typewriter. Arlie introduced him as Deputy Marshal Jim Thompson.
    'Ol' Jim used t'be a school-teacher, Critch. His uncle Harry is the marshal here.'
    'Neither fact,' Thompson shook hands, smiling, 'having anything to do with my present employment. Incidentally, my full name is James Sherman Thompson.'
    'Now, don't that beat all!' Arlie exclaimed. 'Ain't hardly no one in the Territory that ain't a reb, but ol' Jim always mentions his middle name! Probably'll get him killed some day.'
    'I doubt that,' said U.S. Marshal Harry Thompson. 'I doubt it very much.'
    He stood in the doorway of his office, a tall distinguished-looking man with coal-black hair and eyes, who bore some resemblance to the now-retired outlaw, Frank James. He was well-spoken, immaculately dressed in spotless linen and black broadcloth. For a United States Marshal is a high government official, comparable in rank to a Federal Judge, and not the roughneck two-gun man of popular fiction.
    He gave his nephew a look which sent that young man hurrying back to his typewriter, then courteously gestured the King brothers inside. He listened impassively, the tips of his fingers pressed together, as Arlie told of the killing of Boz. When Arlie had at last finished, with a nervous rush of words, the marshal remained silent for a long moment. Then, leaning forward casually, he plucked the knife from young King's boot-top.
    'A genuine Bowie, isn't it?' he