Page 54 of Sin Killer


  “His mother, I mean,” Charbonneau continued. “Captain Clark called her Janey—could never quite manage her Indian name.”

  “I’m going to be with him now,” Tasmin said told him. “Will you be coming, monsieur?”

  Charbonneau shook his head—he was staring, blank-faced, at the hills across the river. The two short Europeans lingered with him.

  When Tasmin reached the arena of the operation, William Ashley was prancing around, looking officious and bossy.

  “The danger will be when the arrow comes out,” he was saying. “Very likely our Pomp’s life will come with it.”

  “Get out of here and don’t talk like that, you goddamn fop!” Tasmin yelled, suddenly furious. There was something she didn’t like about Ashley—he seemed the kind of man who might wear scent.

  Shocked, William Ashley backed away. Hugh Glass’s mouth dropped open—he had been with Ashley on the day of his great defeat by the Arikaras, ten years earlier, but had never seen the man so dismayed—although, on the former occasion, men had been dropping dead all around him.

  Tasmin looked around for her husband—as she always did, when she let slip an oath—but Jim was not there.

  “Him and Kit went to stand guard,” Eulalie Bonneville explained. “Drum Stewart’s dead, you know—killed in the first minute, horse bolted, right into the Utes, Jim says.”

  “Jimmy will never trust the Utes again,” Milt Sublette remarked.

  The news of the Scot’s death barely registered with Tasmin. She moved around by Pomp’s head and kept her eyes fixed on him as Father Geoffrin began his work. Tasmin put her mouth close to Pomp’s ear and whispered to him.

  “I’m here, Pomp,” she whispered. “I’m here to help you—don’t die, don’t you dare.”

  Very quickly, Father Geoffrin made two cuts and, to everyone’s surprise, lifted out the arrow; but before anyone could speak he shook his head.

  “Save the bravos,” he said. “There’s a tip I failed to get—the arrow must have hit a rib. If Cook will just let me have those long tweezers …”

  Silently, Cook handed him the tweezers—the probe was longer this time. Tasmin kept her eyes on Pomp— she whispered again in his ear. She did not want him to get the notion that he was allowed to go.

  Pomp, drifting in deep and starless darkness, heard Tasmin speak softly in his ear, saying she was here, she was here; but he couldn’t answer. The easeful darkness held him in its lazy power; he floated downward, deeper and deeper into it, as the soaked leaf sinks slowly to the bottom of a pool, to a place deeper than light. Helpless as the leaf he sank and sank, until, instead of Tasmin’s voice, he heard, “Jean Baptiste … Jean Baptiste!” Then the darkness gave way to the soft light of dream, and there was Sacagawea, his mother, sitting quietly in a field of waving grass, as she had so many times in his dreams. Though her dark eyes welcomed him, the look on her face was grave.

  As always in his dreams of Sacagawea, Pomp wanted to rush to her, to be taken in her arms, as he had been as a child; but he could not move. The rules of the dream were severe—old sadness, old frustration pricked him, even though dreams of his mother were the best dreams of all.

  As usual, when she visited him in dreams, Sacagawea began to talk in low tones of things that had happened long ago.

  “When we were on our way back from the great ocean I took you up to the top of those white cliffs that rise by the Missouri,” she said. “I wanted you to see the great herds, grazing far from the world of men; but you were a young boy then, not even weaned, and I held your hand so you wouldn’t step off the edge of life and go too soon to the Sky House, where we all have to go someday. Now that old Ute’s arrow has brought you to the edge of life again, but the woman who whispers to you wants to pull you back, as I pulled you back when you were young.”

  Sacagawea was looking directly at him—Pomp wanted to ask her questions, and yet, as always in his dreams of his mother, he was gripped by a terrible muteness; he could ask no question, make no plea, though he knew that at any time the dream might fade and his mother be lost to him until he visited her in dreams again. With the fear that his dream was ending came a sadness so deep that Pomp did not want to wake up to life, and yet that was just what his mother was urging him to do— she wanted him to listen to Tasmin.

  “I did not wean you until you had seen four summers,” Sacagawea told him. “My milk was always strong—I filled you with it so that you could live long and enjoy the world of men, the world I showed you when we stood together on the white cliffs. Obey the woman who whispers—it is not time for you to come to the Sky House yet …”

  Then, with sad swiftness, his mother faded; where her face had been was Tasmin’s face, leaning close to his. Pomp tried to smile, but couldn’t, not yet. Even so, Tasmin’s eyes shone with tears of relief.

  At last Father Geoffrin, who had been probing very carefully, withdrew the long tweezers, which contained the tiny, bloody tip of a flint arrow.

  “There … it’s out—and he’s not bleeding much,” Father Geoffrin said. “I think our good Pomp can live now—if he wants to.”

  Tasmin had been watching Pomp’s face closely. Her heart leapt when he opened his eyes.

  “I’ll see that he wants to!” she said, overjoyed that her friend had lived.

  Father Geoffrin—priest, surgeon, and cynic— raised an eyebrow.

  “I expect you will, madame,” he said. “I expect you will.”

  Praise for Larry McMurtry’s

  New York Times Bestselling

  Adventures of the Berrybender Family

  THE WANDERING HILL

  “Larry McMurtry may well be the most reliable American novelist of his generation.”

  —The International Herald-Tribune

  “A page-turner.”

  —The Orlando Sentinel (FL)

  SIN KILLER

  “Exquisite descriptions. . . . Simply irresistible storytelling, rich and satisfying.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “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

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

  —Daily Neves (New York)

  “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

  “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 captiva
ting 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

  “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.”

  —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

  BY LARRY MCMURTRY

  By Sorrow’s River

  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

  BY

  SORROW’S RIVER

  THE BERRYBENDER NARRATIVES, BOOK 3

  POCKET BOOKS

  New York London Toronto Sydney

  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 nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

  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: 0-7434-5143-0

  First Pocket Books paperback edition April 2004

  10 987654321

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Cover design by John Vairo Jr.

  Jacket painting 1968.40—After Albert Bierstadt, The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, 1869. Courtesy of Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

  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]

  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 3

  At the end of Book 2, The Wandering Hill, the Berrybender party, as well as the mountain men, have made their way to a great fur traders’ rendezvous in the Valley of the Chickens, west of South Pass. A foggy early-morning battle with some attacking Utes leaves Bobbety Berrybender and the Scottish sportsman William Drummond Stewart dead; in this foggy fight the Ute chief Walkura and No Teeth, an old shaman, are also killed. Pomp Charbonneau, near death from an arrow wound, is saved by the unexpectedly skillful surgery of Father Geoffrin, assisted by a dream visit from Pomp’s mother, Sacagawea, and by the fierce determination of Tasmin Berrybender, who refuses to let Pomp die.

  Contents

  Characters

  1. PLATITUDES

  2. PERILS OF DEMOCRACY

  3. TRAPPERS IN LOVE

  4. TASMIN WIPES A TEAR

  5. KIT SUGGESTS A TRADE

  6. THE BALLOONISTS ARRIVE

  7. LES OISEAUX

  8. TWO SCOUTS WHO CAN’T AGREE

  9. A WET PROSPECT

  10. THE SIN KILLER LEAVES

  11. A NOVEL REVENGE

  12. A PAINFUL DISCOVERY

  13. AN ANIMAL VICTIM

  14. A LOVE REVEALED

  15. THE ALTAR OR NOTHING

  16. SLEDGEHAMMER AND ANVIL

  17. INNOCENCE THWARTED

  18. THE SIN KILLER TAKES FRIGHT

  19. A PLAGUE

  20. YOUNG WIVES OR OLD AGE

  21. A SERVANT UPBRAIDED

  22. VEXATION OF TASMIN

  23. A RUDE SURPRISE

  24. A HASTY RETURN

  25. A MOONLIT REUNION

  26. AN IDEAL LOOKOUT

  27. PRACTICAL COPULATION

  28. SEVEN PAWNEE BOYS

  29. STABLE BOY AND MAID

  30. AFTERMATH OF BATTLE

  31. A WIFE REBUFFED

  32. A THIRSTY PASSAGE

  33. PERILS OF THE PLAINS

  34. AN UNPALATABLE DRINK

  35. AN OX APPEARS

  36. A THORN POISONOUS AS A SNAKE

  37. FATIGUES OF JOURNALISTS

  38. A BEAR REPULSED

  39. PERPLEXITIES OF PASSION

  40. ENDING WITH EAGLES

  41. A BRIDE ASSESSES HER GROOM

  42. AN UNWELCOME ARRIVAL

  43. AN UNCONVINCING CALL

  44. A SLAVER REFLECTS

  45. AN UNEXPECTED STRIKE

  46. WINTER WINDS

  47. A THIRSTY MAN

  48. IMPATIENCE OF SLAVERS

  49. AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL

  50. THE TRADER FELLED

  51. TASMIN SETTLES IN

  52. A DISAPPOINTMENT

  53. A HUSBAND PREPARES TO DEPART

  54. A LITTLE BOY WAVES

  55. WILLY DOES HIS DUTY

  56. LITTLE ONION AND SIGNOR CLARICIA

  57. A WEDDING IN NEW MEXICO

  58. A SUDDEN ARREST

  59. CAPTIVES

  60. A SOLDIER’S BITTERNESS

  61. POMP DECLINES TO FLEE

  62. REVENGE

  CHARACTERS

  BERRYBENDERS

  Tasmin

  Bess (Buffum)

  Mary

  Kate

  Lord Berrybender

  Monty, baby

  Talley baby

  Piet Van Wely

  Father Geoffrin

  Cook

  Milly

  Eliza

  Tim

  Signor Claricia

  Señor Yanez

  Venetia Kennet

  MOUNTAIN MEN

  Jim Snow (The Sin Killer)

  Kit Carson

  Jim Bridger

  Tom Fitzpatrick (The Broken Hand)

  Eulalie Bonneville

  William Ashley


  Maelgwyn Evans

  Hugh Glass

  Bill and Milt Sublette

  Ezekiel Williams

  Joe Walker

  Pomp Charbonneau

  Toussaint Charbonneau

  Rabbit, baby

  INDIANS

  High Shoulders, Ute

  Coal

  Little Onion

  Greasy Lake

  The Partezon, Sioux

  The Bad Eye, Gros Ventre

  Fool’s Bull, Sioux

  Hollow Foot, Brulé Sioux

  Draga, Aleut

  Takes Bones (The Ear Taker), Acoma

  Red Knee, Pawnee

  Rattle, Pawnee

  Slow Possum, Pawnee

  Duck Catcher, Pawnee

  Thistle-Pricks-Us, Pawnee

  Prickly Pear Woman, Laguna

  Corn Tassel, Chippewa

  Owl Woman, Cheyenne

  MISCELLANEOUS

  Charles Bent, trader

  Willy Bent, trader

  Amboise d'Avigdor

  Benjamin Hope-Tipping, journalist

  Clam de Paty, journalist

  Obregon, slaver

  Malgres, slaver

  Ramon, slaver

  Maria Jaramillo

  Josefina Jaramillo

  Lieutenant Molino, Mexican soldier

  Captain Antonio Reyes, Mexican soldier

  Doña Esmeralda, duenna

  Who been here?

  Fishprick.

  Where you lie?

  Making itch in Sister’s thigh.

  KISKATINAW BOGEY SONG

  (TRANSLATED BY SUSAN MUSGRAVE AND

  SEAN VIRGO)

  Pater semper incertus est. . .

  OLD WORRY

  BY

  SORROW’S RIVER

  1

  It was a day of fine sunlight.

  “LA VIE, voyez-vous, ça n’est jamais si bonne ni si mauvaise qu ’on croit,” said Father Geoffrin, relaxing, for a moment, into his native tongue. His patient, Pomp Charbonneau—educated in Germany, competent in several languages—spoke good French. Tasmin Berrybender’s français, while decidedly casual, was probably adequate, the priest felt, to such a common platitude: life was never so good or so bad as one thought—a proposition which no one who had much acquaintance with the French classics would be likely to dispute.