Page 24 of Sin Killer


  Draga had not expected to have much luck with the Sans Arc—like all the Sioux bands, they were difficult; but she had made the trip to the camp anyway, in order to bring the Bad Eye a report. Now that he was too fat to move around much he had begun to worry about messiahs and other prophets. It made him anxious to think that there was a Buffalo Man of some sort living with the standoffish Sans Arc. Any little threat caused him to build a new sweat lodge or go into a big trance. In two minutes Draga could easily have beaten the little white man to death with a stone, or even a big stick—but the Sans Arc maintained a good guard, so good that she was forced to go back to the skull lodge and report complete failure.

  “A Sans Arc named Three Geese started all this,” she said. “And that’s not all.”

  “What else?” the Bad Eye asked. He hated bad news.

  “They have given the white man two wives,” she said.

  “Is that all?” the Bad Eye asked. “Why should I care how many wives they give him?”

  “These wives are twins,” Draga continued. “They are called Big Stealer and Little Stealer, although they are the same size.”

  “Why are you bringing me all this terrible news?” the Bad Eye exclaimed. That the Buffalo Man should be married to twins was the worst possible news. Twins always had formidable powers—twins married to a Buffalo Man could lead to any number of calamities: wars, pestilence, flood. The old women were already talking about the likelihood of a great flood in the spring; there was too much snow upriver, they had heard. A terrible flood might even threaten the skull lodge—the Bad Eye might have to move himself to higher ground, which would be a lot of trouble.

  “Maybe this Buffalo Man will just get sick and die, twins or no twins,” he said.

  “We won’t be rid of him that easily,” Draga said darkly.

  Gladwyn was not quite sure what kind of special person he was supposed to be, but it was clear that the people who had taken him were determined to treat him well. They made him a warm tent and fed him tender buffalo liver and their fattest puppies. His bloody clothes were taken away and a suit of soft, warm skins was fashioned for him. He was not required to do any work at all. The most they required of him was that he come and sit outside his tent, by the campfire, when visitors came to see him. The boy Grasshopper was given a lance and made to stand guard so that no one could threaten him or get too close. He was always guarded; Three Geese saw to that. It was no secret that the Brulés and the Miniconjous were jealous of the fact that the Sans Arc had a Buffalo Man. There was danger that some envious warrior might just walk up and stab him out of pique. Grasshopper was told to lance anyone who made a suspicious move.

  All Gladwyn had meant to do, when he stumbled away from Lord Berrybender in the terrible blizzard, was die somewhere out of range of the old man’s hated voice. Lord Berrybender continued to give him orders even as they were freezing, orders about guns, orders about firewood. Gladwyn, His Lordship’s man for many years, decided to die as his own man. He was about to curl up and let the blowing snow cover him forever when he had the great luck to stumble on to the buffalo cow just as she was laboring to get her calf out. Something had gone wrong in the birthing; the calf wouldn’t quite come free, and when it finally did, with Gladwyn pulling and tugging at the warm calf, the cow’s lifeblood came too, only slowly—so slowly that Gladwyn was able to use her warmth to keep alive. She was still alive when the six wolves came and began to eat her calf, though she died and was growing cold when the Indians came.

  At first, when he was not sure what his captors meant to do with him, Gladwyn gave some thought to escape—but his half-formed plans were soon abandoned. He would probably just get lost and freeze after all, and even if he were very lucky and managed to get back to the boat, what would it gain him? He would once again be merely Lord Berrybender’s man. When the theft of the claret was discovered, very likely he would be the one blamed.

  Once in a while he did miss Eliza, Cook’s fumble-fingered assistant, who readily offered her ample body to his embraces; but once the Sans Arc presented him with twin wives even Eliza soon faded from memory. It was true that the twins, Big Stealer and Little Stealer, bickered constantly, and sometimes grew so hot that they came to blows—but that was only to be expected of sisters. Him they never neglected. When he wasn’t on show for envious visitors he lounged in his tent, naked amid warm robes. His efficient wives rubbed him with oils, attended quickly to his lusts, and even fed him with their fingers—tender morsels from the stew pot.

  Gladwyn had no way of knowing how long his comfortable celebrity would last, but he didn’t trouble himself by looking ahead. His lodge was warm, his wives competent, the prairies thick with buffalo. The tribe gave him a pipe and ample tobacco; his wives kept his pipe filled; Gladwyn smoked and rested. Blizzards blew, snow fell, geese probed in the Mandan corn, wolves howled, the hunting birds—eagle, hawk, owl—hung in the white sky or came dropping down on sage hen, quail, hare, or the incautious rat; the great bears slept in their dens, buffalo pawed the snow and grazed, while the Sans Arc hunters made many kills; slowly, in this way, the winter passed.

  The complete Berrybender Narratives

  Now available in paperback

  Sin Killer

  “ Irresistible . . . full of blood, blunder and myth.”

  —The New York Times

  Wandering Hill

  “ The Wandering Hill is full of rich incident and provocative people.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  By Sorrow’s River

  “ Lively, funny, historically illuminating and, best of all, full of unforgettable individualists.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  Folly and Glory

  “ Like a cross between John Ford and Quentin Tarantino: a genre-bending Western farce that follows the misadventures and couplings of a sprawling English family and its hangers-on as it makes its roundabout way across the West in the 1830s.”

  —The New York Times

  www.simonsays.com

  Praise for Larry McMurtry’s New York Times Bestselling Adventures of the Berrybender Family

  SIN KILLER

  “A sprawling parody of the frontier encounter. … Sin Killer is a zany, episodic ride. With gusto and nonstop ingenuity, McMurtry moves his cast of characters and caricatures steadily upstream.”

  —The Washington Post

  “An adventure-filled, lighthearted farce.”

  —People

  “A story as big as the West itself. … If Sin Killer is the standard, the other three [Berrybender Narratives] can’t get here fast enough. … Lewis and Clark, meet Monty Python.

  —Chicago Tribune

  “A goofy jaunt through the Wild West.”

  —San Jose Mercury-News

  “Sin Killer is without a doubt Larry McMurtry’s most enjoyable book in years … Part soap opera … part romance … part farce … and altogether thoroughly wonderful.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  “Quirky. … It’s never less than entertaining and is often fascinating.”

  —Fort Worth Star Telegram

  “A floating operetta, a rawboned, ungainly, obstreperous novel, shamelessly over the top and ceaselessly entertaining. … First-class entertainment.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  “It’s excellent for sure, and a lot more.”

  —Daily News (New York)

  “Sin Killer is the start of a fascinating saga. … I want the rest. And I want it now.”

  —Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)

  “This is a very good book. … The Berrybender Narratives promise to be McMurtry’s finest works since Lonesome Dove.”

  —Sunday Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)

  “[A] bright, boisterous parade of a novel. … Energetic and big-hearted.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “The indefatigable Larry McMurtry has rounded us up yet again. … Sin Killer is a comedy, though it can be downright
grim—a balance that McMurtry achieved on his last novel, Boone’s Lick, and that no other writer of westerns has quite matched.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Sin Killer promises a variety of excitement to come. … You’ll want to be along for the journey.”

  —The Orlando Sentinel

  “[A] hilarious good time. … Wonderfully funny and smart. … The wait for the next installment will be far too long.”

  —The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)

  “Sin Killer is full of captivating characters as fun to love as they are to hate, characters at the mercy of a cunning and mischievous creator. … Loaded with incident and steeped in ribald humor.”

  —The Columbus Dispatch

  “Another masterful work. … A captivating, engrossing read.”

  —The Sunday Oklahoman

  “McMurtry’s storytelling skills are on fine display. … Wild adventures and colorful characters. … A fine effort by one of the nation’s best writers.”

  —The Tampa Tribune

  “Another ambitious, larger-than-life adventure … comic, witty, and bloody.”

  —Edmonton Journal

  “This is McMurtry at his best.”

  —The Houston Chronicle

  More Praise for Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author LARRY McMURTRY

  “A poet, a resonant scene-setter and a master of voice.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “What an imagination he has! When it comes to spinning a good yarn, few writers can do it better than McMurtry.”

  —Houston Post

  “Larry McMurtry has the power to clutch the heart and also to exhilarate.”

  —The New Yorker

  “Larry McMurtry is one of American literature’s native treasures.”

  —Boston Herald

  BY LARRY MCMURTRY

  The Wandering Hill

  Sin Killer

  Sacajawea’s Nickname: Essays on the American West

  Paradise

  Boone’s Lick

  Roads

  Still Wild: A Collection of Western Stories

  Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen

  Duane’s Depressed

  Crazy Horse

  Comanche Moon

  Dead Man’s Walk

  The Late Child

  Streets of Laredo

  The Evening Star

  Buffalo Girls

  Some Can Whistle

  Anything for Billy

  Film Flam: Essays on Hollywood

  Texasville

  Lonesome Dove

  The Desert Rose

  Cadillac Jack

  Somebody’s Darling

  Terms of Endearment

  All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers

  Moving On

  The Last Picture Show

  In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas

  Leaving Cheyenne

  Horseman, Pass By

  BY LARRY MCMURTRY AND DIANA OSSANA

  Pretty Boy Floyd

  Zeke and Ned

  LARRY McMURTRY

  THE WANDERING HILL

  THE BERRYBENDER NARRATIVES, BOOK 2

  The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author for the sale of this “stripped book.

  A Pocket Star Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2003 by Larry McMurtry

  Originally published in hardcover in 2003 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-7434-5142-2

  ISBN 13: 9780-7-434-5142-0

  eISBN 13: 978-1-439-14147-2

  First Pocket Books paperback edition November 2003

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered

  trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Cover design by John Vairo, Jr.

  Front cover illustration by Robert Hunt

  Manufactured in the united States of America

  For information regarding special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or [email protected]com.

  The Berrybender Narratives are dedicated to the

  secondhand booksellers of the Western world,

  who have done so much, over a fifty-year stretch,

  to help me to an education.

  BOOK 2

  Abandoning the steamer Rocky Mount, which is stuck in the ice near the Knife River, the Berrybender expedition makes its way overland to the confluence of the Missouri and the Yellowstone, where we find them snugly ensconced at the trading post of Pierre Boisdeffre.

  CONTENTS

  Characters

  1 An Unexpected Reappearance

  2 Tasmin’s Restlessness

  3 Pomp Stands Apart

  4 Otter Woman’s Complaint

  5 Nature of Angels Disputed

  6 Vicky Kennet Ambushed

  7 A Slap in a Blizzard

  8 A Snowy Visit

  9 Kit Carson Gets a Nosebleed

  10 The Sin Killer Reflects

  11 Bobbety Loses an Orb

  12 The Wandering Hill Relocated

  13 The Hairy Horn’s Reluctance

  14 Coitus Interruptus

  15 Gladywn’s End Discovered

  16 Kit in Love

  17 Reunions and Departures

  18 Glooms of Deep Winter

  19 Cook’s Refusal

  20 Absence of Wet Nurses Feared

  21 Two Models in a Windstorm

  22 Assiniboines Puzzled

  23 Bobbety’s Bad Shot

  24 The Mediterreaneans Escape

  25 Jim Snow’s Dilemma

  26 Tasmin Gets a Back Rub

  27 Little Onion Takes Flight

  28 Efficacy of Rattlesnake Rattles

  29 Thin Air of Canada

  30 Maternal Musings

  31 Perplexities of a Father

  32 The Broken Hand Endangered

  33 A Piegan Stabbed but Not Dead

  34 Vicky Cuts Her Hair

  35 Lord Berrybender Enraged

  36 Tasmin Thinks It Through

  37 Surprised by Sex

  38 A Longing for Sardines

  39 Piet Finds a Bear

  40 Lord B. Gets His Claret

  41 Minatarees Pose for Presents

  42 A Portrait Interrupted

  43 Kate Tames the Sin Killer

  44 Tasmin Defies Her Father

  45 A Disorderly Departure

  46 A Mite in the Armpit

  47 Pomp Catches Two Cubs

  48 Wild and Not Wild

  49 Blue Thunder Meets His Cousin

  50 Homecoming Is Never Simple

  51 Lord Berrybender Befogged

  52 Homesickness Attacks the Europeans

  53 A Narrow Escape

  54 The Naturalist Well Whipped

  55 The Wandering Hill Follows Along

  56 Tasmin Meets a Bear

  57 Difficulties with Utes

  58 Tasmin’s Drunken Fury

  59 Fog and War

  60 The Jesuit a Surgeon

  CHARACTERS

  MOUNTAIN MEN

  Hugh Glass

  Tom Fitzpatrick (The Broken Hand)

  Jim Bridger

  Kit Carson

  Eulalie Bonneville

  Joe Walker
>
  Milt Sublette

  Bill Sublette

  Zeke Williams

  FROM SIN KILLER

  Lord Berrybender

  Tasmin

  Bess (Buffum)

  Bobbety

  Mary

  Sister Ten (later, Kate)

  Gladwyn, valet, gun bearer

  Cook

  Eliza, kitchen maid

  Millicent, laundress

  Venetia Kennet, cellist

  Señor Yanez, gunsmith

  Signor Claricia, carriage maker

  Piet Van Wely, naturalist

  Tim, stable boy

  Father Geoffrin, Jesuit

  Jim Snow (The Raven Brave; Sin Killer)

  Toussaint Charbonneau, interpreter-guide

  Coal, his wife

  George Catlin

  John Skraeling

  Malgres

  NEW

  Pierre Boisdeffre, trader

  Pomp Charbonneau

  William Drummond Stewart

  Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied

  Karl Bodmer, his painter

  William Ashley, trader

  Herr Hanfstaengl, Pomp’s old tutor

  David Dreidoppel, Prince Maximilian’s hunter

  INDIANS

  The Hairy Horn, Oglala Sioux

  Little Onion, Jim’s Ute wife

  Otter Woman, Minataree

  Weedy Boy, Minataree

  Squirrel, Minataree

  Blue Thunder, Piegan Blackfoot

  Climbs Up, Minataree