Sin Killer

  By the river her father and Vicky still seemed to be faced off. Tasmin was rather fearful that violence might erupt—and it did erupt, but not from the riverside. It came in the form of a loud fit of sobbing, the source being Buffum, who flung herself into Tasmin’s arms.

  “Oh hell . . . now what’s wrong with you?” Tasmin asked. Buffum, usually wan and quiet, if capable of distinctly sharp sarcasm, had been looking unusually cheerful, even beautiful, for the past few weeks, and had even offered, on more than one occasion, to tend to the little boys for an hour or two, while Coal and Little Onion performed prodigies of labor about the camp.

  For a time Buffum sobbed so hard she could not get breath to speak, while Tasmin made soothing sounds and occasionally stroked her woeful sister’s hair.

  Mary who hated to see her sister Buffum get even the most cursory attention, soon showed her impatience with Buffum’s lachrymose fit.

  “Do make her hush, Tassie,” Mary insisted. “Nothing is as boring as listening to a rich girl cry.”

  “Rich girl?” Tasmin said. “What possible good’s it being a rich girl here? Show a little sympathy for your sister—for all we know she’s grievously ill.”

  “Not a bit of it!” Mary insisted. “The mater spoiled her outrageously and now we must have our conversations interrupted by all this wailing.”

  “I don’t recall that it was much of a conversation anyway,” Tasmin remarked, still stroking Buffum’s hair, which was rather lank. “Why can’t you just go and beat your boyfriend? Bessie here may not wish to reveal this sorrow, which is likely a profound one.”

  “It is a profound one!” Buffum declared, glaring at Mary. “The fact is I’m in love with a Ute and I don’t wish to leave, tomorrow or ever.”

  “Miscegenation—I suspected it,” Mary said. “Father will be most distraught.”

  “Well, first things first—which Ute are you in love with?” Tasmin asked.

  Four Utes still wandered around the camp, hoping to pick up a few last presents. Buffum pointed to a tall, handsome youth who was in conversation with Jim Bridger. Tasmin had noticed the boy herself, several times—his looks were indeed striking, and he wore nothing but a loincloth.

  “His white name is High Shoulders,” Buffum informed them. “I find him singularly beautiful and I shall love him till I die.”

  “You evil slut, now you’ve lain with our brother’s murderer!” Mary hissed.

  “Oh, do leave off,” Tasmin said. “Our brother was run over by a horse. I will admit that if I were inclined to copulate with a Ute, young Mr. High Shoulders would be the most likely candidate. It would no doubt be a good deal more normal than flagellating a Dutchman with brambles.”

  “Oh, Tassie, he is so beautiful!” Buffum declared. “I was by the river when he came to me the first time. As you can see, he doesn’t wear much—just that little flap, which he quickly removed. I confess I could not look away—Tim, as you might suspect, is a rather stubby lad. High Shoulders at once presented himself to me and we began to fornicate to the most blissful lengths—I even suspect that I may already be with child.”

  “They must have been blissful lengths, if you’re already pregnant,” Tasmin said, not unkindly. She remembered her own blissful lengths with Jim and her surprise at how quickly Monty was planted in her— apparently the famous Berrybender fecundity had not been at all affected by vigorous travel in the West. Lay down with a Berrybender and a child will soon enough arrive, Tasmin thought.

  “You are evil hussies, both of you,” Mary declared. “I far prefer Piet’s mild hygienic practices, myself.”

  The half-insane light was once again in her eyes.

  “Now Buffum will give birth to a wicked little halfbreed , further debasing the Berrybender escutcheon,” she continued.

  “Pomp’s a half-breed—surely you don’t consider him wicked?” Tasmin replied.

  “No, but it’s plain that you hope to be wicked with him,” Mary said. “Perhaps you have been already, even though joined in holy matrimony with Mr. Jim Snow.”

  “Let’s take one imbroglio at a time, if you don’t mind,” Tasmin said lightly, well aware that a direct or too emphatic denial would only fan Mary’s flame. Besides, the fact was that Buffum’s dilemma was immediate. The company’s departure was imminent. What was to become of Buffum and her handsome Mr. High Shoulders? Was he to travel with them, far from the land of his people, or was Buffum to be left behind, to live, improbably, as a Ute wife? It was certainly a dilemma Tasmin had not expected to be presented with, but of course such things would always happen and a decision would have to be made. She stole another look at the slim youth, High Shoulders— a striking young man in every way. Tasmin could not but wonder whether she would have approved of the union had the Ute been short, squat, and toothless, rather than sharp featured, graceful, and lean. Ugly men might, of course, have fine souls; some she had seen in the London salons, though ugly as frogs, seemed to enjoy clear success with ladies both elegant and highborn. Her sister would not be likely to disregard a fine body should one present itself.

  “This iniquity shall not go unpunished,” Mary said, but neither Tasmin nor Buffum paid any attention to her—Mary soon hurried away to make the news known to Piet.

  “What am I to do, Tassie? I can’t leave him—I can’t—and we are to depart tomorrow, Jim Bridger declares.”

  “Somehow I don’t think you’d last long with the Utes,” Tasmin told her. “I think we’d better take your handsome savage with us, if he’ll go. Jimmy won’t much like it—he doesn’t trust Utes—but then, who knows when we’ll see Jimmy again?”

  It was then, as Bess rushed off to her young man, that Tasmin noticed that Monty, unaware of the passion storms swirling around him, had dropped off the breast and was sound asleep.

  15

  “Stop calling me a wench . . .”

  TASMIN found herself secretly pleased that her sister Bess had been so enterprising as to take a handsome lover. This development would give the trappers something to talk about for a while, so that they were unlikely to take any particular notice if she were to wander off in the woods with Pomp Charbonneau, known, in any case, to be her very close friend.

  Where was he, though, her Pomp? She found that she could not keep from throwing glances at the glade where they had recently been embracing. Tasmin was not exactly worried, and yet she did wish Pomp would appear—even a distant glimpse of him would be reassuring. When he didn’t appear, little by little, anxieties crept in. Was he perhaps having second thoughts— reminding himself, for example, that it was Jim Snow’s wife whom he had just been kissing? He had seemed to welcome her kisses—but then, where was he? Being so very inexperienced, perhaps he merely did not suspect how anxious ladies were likely to become, or how insecure they could be, even about long-established affections, and of course, only more so about affections that had only been acknowledged for a few hours.

  In Pomp’s arms, with his mouth on hers, Tasmin had felt certain enough about his love—though she was not yet entirely sure about his desire. Hadn’t he confessed to her himself that he really didn’t know how to desire? Tasmin considered desire an easy thing, usually; a thing quickly awakened, though perhaps not likely to appear with uniform intensity either among men or women. There were days, after all, when she felt not the slightest desire to copulate with Jim. That need came often enough, and intensely enough, but there were times when it was absent. Pomp had so far been exempt from these rhythms—entirely normal rhythms, in Tasmin’s view. After all, if lovers were constantly at one another, how could work get done and children reared?

  Pomp, she felt sure, was merely untouched in that way—she considered that it might be delicious work to get him going and bring him up to speed. But at the moment, she would be content with something simpler: she merely wanted him to reappear, to give her at least a look that might suggest that he wanted to continue what they had begun. The fact that he did not reappear was beginning to annoy her. Men, she
knew, were rather of the out-of-sight, out-of-mind disposition. She doubted that Jimmy Snow, wherever he might be, had given her two thoughts since he departed; perhaps Pomp, a male after all, was merely trying to catch a fish, or something, quite unaware of the anxious flutters in Tasmin’s breast. He was not yet quite back to full strength—he might merely be taking a nap in the cool glade. Tasmin deposited her sleeping child with Little Onion and strolled down toward the trees, meaning to look for Pomp, but before she could put that plan into action, matters came to a head between her father and Vicky. Lord Berrybender gave a loud cry—evidently Vicky had rushed in and bitten the old fool. Lord B., wild with fury, managed to deal her a roundhouse blow, knocking her off her feet and into the shallows of the river. The mountain men, always happy to divert themselves by watching fights, gave a wild cheer, though it was not clear to Tasmin which combatant they were cheering for. Vicky Kennet came at Lord Berrybender again, kicking his peg leg out from under him; she then grabbed his crutch and began to beat him with it—her fighting spirit provoked even wilder cheers from the mountain men. Then Lord B. managed to catch her ankle; he succeeded in upending her. The two of them rolled around near the river’s edge, neither able to gain a clear advantage. Lord B. cursed, Vicky screamed insults—a few of the trappers began to stroll down toward the scene of the combat in order to watch the fight at closer range. Tasmin thought she had better go too, perhaps attempt to break up this violent tussle before anyone was very much hurt; but before she could reach the struggling couple, Pomp Charbonneau, the very man she had been hoping to see, emerged from the forest, the carcass of a small deer across his shoulders. He quickly waded the river, dropped his dead buck, and began to urge armistice on the wrestling couple. Much relieved to see that Pomp had merely been hunting, Tasmin hurried along; but by the time she reached the river her father and Vicky had given up punching one another; both sat, wet and exhausted, staring into space. Pomp helped Lord B. get his peg leg adjusted.

  “What a tussle, Papa,” Tasmin said. “I assure you we’ve all been most entertained by your efforts to subdue a helpless woman.”

  “Subdue her? I want to muzzle her—you see where she bit me,” Lord Berrybender complained, pointing at a tiny spot of blood on his throat. “I won’t be able to sleep a wink, for fear she’ll slip in and finish the job.”

  “Now why would our Vicky do such a thing?” Tasmin asked. “I hope you haven’t been suggesting improprieties again—I warned you about that myself.”

  “That’s right—you bit my hand,” Lord B. recalled. “I ought to muzzle you and this wench too.”

  “Stop calling me a wench, you old pile of guts!” Vicky demanded, her nostrils flaring.

  And yet, a moment later, when Lord Berrybender struggled to stand up, it was Vicky who helped him, returning the very crutch she had been beating him with.

  “I never saw such obstinacy,” Lord Berrybender remarked, though in a considerably softer tone.

  “So it’s the altar or nothing—is that the case, my dear?” he added, thoughtfully.

  “That’s right—the altar or nothing,” Vicky said. “I’ll be your wife, I reckon, but I won’t be your whore.”

  Lord Berrybender heaved a sigh. Then he put an arm around Vicky’s shoulder and the two of them started up the hill.

  “It might as well be the altar, then,” Lord B. remarked, to Tasmin’s complete astonishment.

  The mountain men, far from sure what they were witnessing, nonetheless produced a hearty cheer, as the old lord and the young cellist walked away from their combat hand in hand.

  Behind the trappers Tasmin spotted Buffum, standing shyly by the side of High Shoulders, her towering Ute, who seemed to be trying to figure out what the men were celebrating.

  “There, do you see that?” Tasmin asked Pomp, with a nod at her father and his bride-to-be.

  “I guess they made it up—and there’s venison for supper too,” he said, smiling.

  Tasmin, despite her relief that Pomp was all right, felt a flush of irritation. Made it up? Was that all he saw in the situation?

  “It’s more than that—he’s going to marry her—it’s what Vicky’s planned for since the moment my mother broke her neck,” Tasmin informed him. “I thought my father would elude her, but he didn’t. She’s won . . . and good for her. Don’t you see?”

  Pomp got out his knife and prepared to butcher the little deer. He heard a note of irritation in Tasmin’s voice and looked up, wondering what was wrong. Tasmin realized that Pomp was merely being practical—getting a meal ready—and yet it irked her that he should have been so untouched by the storm of emotion he had just witnessed; if he was untouched by her father’s acknowledgment that he was attached to Vicky, perhaps he was untouched, also, by the fact that they themselves had kissed. If he had strong feelings for her, he was evidently willing to let them wait until the task at hand—cutting up a deer—had been performed properly. It irked her so much that she gave the helpless carcass a vigorous kick.

  “Wake up, Pomp!” she demanded. “My father’s getting married, my sister’s taken a savage lover, and then there’s us. Rather a lot for an afternoon, wouldn’t you say?

  “There is us, isn’t there?” she asked, her confidence slipping.

  “There’s us,” Pomp agreed, calmly. “Do you want to sneak off for a minute, once I get this deer butchered?”

  “That’s exactly what I do want—to sneak off for a minute, once you get this wretched deer cut up,”

  Tasmin told him. ‘And you might consider hurrying, if you don’t mind. I’m afraid that you’ll soon realize that I’m a very impatient person.”

  “I’ll hurry,” Pomp said, kneeling by the carcass.

  With an effort Tasmin restrained herself—it was on the tip of her tongue to explain to the young Nimrod that in her opinion kissing should come first and mundane chores a distant second. Any of the trappers could easily have butchered the deer. She started to make that point, but held back—she had glanced up the hill and noticed that Father Geoffrin was watching the two of them closely, a fact which irritated her mightily. Father Geoffrin, a great reader of risque novels, was always the first to spot new currents of emotion, should any happen to swirl through the camp. Tasmin didn’t want the nosy priest knowing about herself and Pomp—not just yet. So, instead of immediately drawing Pomp into the bushes, Tasmin waded into the river and washed her face and neck. Even a Jesuit couldn’t object to that, or conclude that something might be afoot.

  All the same, refreshing as the splash was, Tasmin felt a sag of weariness at the thought of the intractability of men. When she met Jim Snow he had known nothing of women except the bare physical facts. Of course, Jim had grown up in a wilderness—how could he have learned? But Pomp had been educated in a castle in Germany, where by his own admission he had observed cooks and chambermaids making merry with their lovers. And yet it was beginning to dawn on Tasmin that Pomp might know even less about women than Jim had. Was she always, then, doomed to have to be the teacher? Would she never find a man who could teach her, someone who would dance her off to bed without her having to forever be leading and expostulating? In the whole camp, the discouraging fact was that the only man who did understand her feelings was a little French priest, whose real interest was in romantical novels and well-stitched French clothes. Must she simply flounder from innocent to innocent until, old and jaded, she accepted one of the cynical old frog princes of the London salons, perhaps for no better reason than that she would at least not have to explain to him the realities of love?

  Tasmin didn’t know—she still meant to take Pomp into the woods and kiss him to her heart’s content— but since that was her plan, she thought it might be wisest to give Father Geoffrin a wide berth until the thing had been accomplished.

  How irritating that the priest seemed able to read her emotions as easily as he read his Marmontel!

  16

  “Not for nothing have I read my Laclos . . . ”

  “
BUT that’s why I understand your emotions better than you understand them yourself,” Father Geoffrin informed Tasmin—who had at once forgotten her resolve to avoid him until her romance had been consummated—if it should be.

  The two of them, having attacked the tender venison with their hands, were licking grease off their fingers.

  “Not for nothing have I read my Laclos, my Crébillon, the divine Madame de Lafayette, my Restif, and all the others,” he went on. “I am so well schooled in the subtleties of love that a peek into your own feelings requires not the smallest effort.”

  “I suppose what you’re saying is that I ain’t subtle, like your powdered French ladies,” Tasmin grumped. “Is that what you’re saying, Geoff?”

  She was watching Pomp assist Jim Bridger in doctoring a mare who had something amiss with her foot.

  “Would you say that a sledgehammer hitting an anvil is subtle?” Geoff asked, with a wicked smile. “That’s about how subtle you are, my beauty.”

  “It’s hardly a flattering metaphor, and I’m not your beauty,” Tasmin told him. “I feel like crying and you’re not helping, even though that is generally thought to be a priest’s duty.”

  “Tasmin, you can’t make Pomp Charbonneau into what he’s not,” Father Geoff told her affably. “He’s not a lecherous man. Perhaps you can maul him into what you want him to be—but perhaps not. After all, not all love succeeds—if it did, think of how monotonous life would be.”

  “Shut up! I’ll make this succeed,” Tasmin said. “I’ll make Pomp want what I want. Why shouldn’t he?”

  Father Geoffrin shrugged.

  “He’s a very calm fellow, Pomp,” he observed. “Perhaps he prefers his calm—he won’t have much of it if you succeed in entangling him in your lusts.”