Of course, there would be an outcry. Captain Reyes didn’t care. Let them court-martial him, strip him of his rank, take away his few decorations. If worse came to worst he might have to face a firing squad himself— Captain Clark had powerful friends, and the death of his favorite was not something he would take lightly. Even without Captain Clark’s long reach, there would be annoyance. Why had a lowly captain taken it upon himself to kill a young man the governor’s wife had been pleased to dance with? But Captain Antonio Reyes was willing to face whatever came. Across the prairies, by the wide Mississippi, Captain Clark would soon know that his favorite was dead. A lowly captain in the Mexican army, a man he had never heard of, would at last have taken his revenge.
61
. . . with the snow still swirling . . .
“COME ON, boy—it’s our chance!” the Broken Hand whispered. “It won’t snow much longer. Kit’s out there—he won’t be far. I tell you he gave me a sign.”
In the night, with the snow still swirling and the wind keening, High Shoulders had chewed the flesh off his own wrists and slipped his chains. With the same chain he strangled their two guards, boys so young and so frozen that they scarcely realized they were dying. High Shoulders took the boys’ muskets and at once disappeared into the swirling snow. The Broken Hand, still chained but convinced that Kit Carson would soon rescue them, was about to follow the Ute. But Pomp Charbonneau hadn’t moved.
Tom Fitzpatrick couldn’t understand why Pomp wasn’t hurrying. Their own lives might be forfeit if they didn’t flee while there were a few hours of darkness left.
“You go on—find Kit,” Pomp told him. “I’d better stay.”
“What? Why stay—our Ute practically chewed his hands off to give us this chance,” Tom Fitzpatrick whispered.
“If we all three escape, Captain Reyes might take it out on the others,” Pomp said. “He might shoot some of them.”
Tom Fitzpatrick heard a rustling from the soldiers’ campfire, not thirty feet away. He wasted no more time on debate—unless he could find Kit and get his chains knocked off, he himself would probably be retaken anyway. On the great plain east of Taos there were not many places to hide. But Kit was a loyal man, and he had given a sign—he wouldn’t be far. With no more said, the Broken Hand disappeared into the blizzard. He kept his legs wide apart, so his leg chains wouldn’t clink.
Pomp slid down from the wagon and laid the two dead boys side by side, closing their eyes when he finished. They had been huddled together sharing a ragged blanket when High Shoulders, an apparition out of the blizzard, threw the deadly chains around both their necks at once. Now, at least, the storm would not annoy them. Pomp spread the blanket over both their faces and weighted it down with rocks, so the howling wind wouldn’t uncover the dead boys. Then he pulled his own blanket close around him and waited for what the morning would bring.
62
She shook her head . . .
“SOMETHING about you makes me very uneasy— it always has,” Tasmin said.
“What?” Pomp asked.
She shook her head, uncertain but deeply worried.
“It’s a struggle to keep you in this life, that’s all I know,” she said.
In the confusion she was able to slip over and talk to Pomp, the only person in the whole company who wasn’t confused. Captain Reyes, discovering the escapes, at once dispatched Lieutenant Molino, with fifteen cavalrymen, to try and recapture the fugitives. The remaining soldiers, seeing their two dead comrades, were fearfully guarding the other prisoners, many of them pointing their guns at the half-frozen captives. Bayonets were brandished, although none of the captives were doing anything other than trying to stay warm, feeding small bits of brush into the flickering campfires. Captain Reyes was staring to the east, expecting at any moment to see the captives being brought back.
“I wish you’d run—I don’t know why you didn’t,” Tasmin argued. “You’re the one they’re convinced is a spy. Why didn’t you go?”
“Captain Reyes is quite upset,” Pomp told her. “If we’d all escaped, he might start shooting people.”
“All right—but what’s to stop him from shooting you now?”
Pomp had been watching Captain Reyes closely— every time their eyes met, the captain’s flashed with hatred. Something had him stirred up, something that went well beyond the routine matter of arresting trespassers on the Santa Fe Trail. But Pomp had never been to Santa Fe—the two of them had never met. The captain’s hatred was inexplicable, unless he just hated all americanos on principle, which of course could be the case.
“I wish you weren’t always so calm—it’s maddening,” Tasmin told him. “I ain’t calm, I can tell you. I don’t want you to get shot.”
Pomp tried to put his arm around her but Tasmin shrugged it off.
“You can’t jolly me, Pomp, not today,” she said. “You should have escaped.”
Pomp was beginning to think she might be right. There was something excessive about Captain Reyes’s anger. Dimly he remembered a dream in which his mother warned him about a feathered man. He had not had such a dream for years. But here was an angry little soldier with a plume. Was he the feathered man?
And yet he had not wanted to go with High Shoulders and the Broken Hand. He had wanted to stay with Tasmin. Probably Kit had the other two safe by then.
Tasmin’s irritation with his calm made Pomp wonder. The captain hated him—the other two he had arrested because they were too dangerous to transport unchained. But the captain didn’t really want them; the captain wanted him, and there was something deadly in his intent. He should have fled, but he hadn’t. He should be poised to fight, and yet something in him lazed, was calm, as if he had come to a place and a moment that had been long prepared, in which his own part had been fixed by powers greater than himself. Jim Snow, in his place, would have killed Captain Reyes somehow, and taken his chances. But Pomp was not inclined to do that.
“You’re quite the strangest man I’ve ever known,” Tasmin told him, bitterness creeping into her tone. “You won’t help yourself—you won’t. When Geoff took that arrow tip out of you he said you could live if you wanted to, and I assured him that I’d see that you wanted to. God knows I tried my hardest, but I failed and I don’t know why. It wasn’t enough—it didn’t work!”
Again Pomp tried to put an arm around Tasmin but she jerked away, crying, and stumbled back toward one of the campfires.
To the east Pomp saw puffs of snow rising like a cloud, as dust had risen the day before. Lieutenant Molino was on his way back. In a few minutes he arrived with the soldiers he had left with but without High Shoulders and the Broken Hand.
“They were met by someone,” the lieutenant said at once—he knew Captain Reyes was not pleased.
“We saw the tracks of four horses—someone followed us in order to save them,” he added.
“It was Carson, the one who married the little rich girl,” the captain declared. Then he pointed at Pomp.
“The fourth horse was for him, but he didn’t run,” Captain Reyes said, fury in his voice. “Why didn’t you run, Monsieur Jean Baptiste Charbonneau?”
Pomp was surprised that Captain Reyes knew his full name, but he replied politely.
“I am not a spy, Captain,” he said. “I merely worked for Seftor Stewart, who was collecting animals for his zoo. When he was killed I helped guide these people to safety, that’s all. I don’t believe your governor considers me a spy. He was quite courteous at the recent wedding. Why should I run when I have committed no crime?”
Captain Reyes looked at him soberly for a moment, but his jaw was twitching, and when he spoke he was almost shouting.
“You have made a misjudgment—a fatal misjudgment,” he said. “You are not in a court, and the governor is far away. I am a military man. You are the protege of Captain William Clark—undoubtedly his spy, sent to appraise our defenses. Under military rules I am allowed to shoot spies wherever I find them.”
He turned and walked through the ranks of soldiers, tapping this one and that. Soon eight soldiers, nervous and uncertain, were drawn up in a kind of line: an uncomfortable, fidgety firing squad.
The captain walked over to Pomp.
“Get out of the wagon,” he ordered.
Assisted by two soldiers, Pomp got out and took an awkward step or two. The inept-looking firing squad was in front of him, the great empty plain behind. Despite Captain Reyes’s evident distemper, Pomp still considered that it was a bluff—a bluff designed to get him to make some admission about Captain Clark’s intentions—or the American government’s, or somebody’s. Or was he wrong? Was the captain the feathered man his mother had warned him that he must avoid?
Tasmin and Lord Berrybender, at the same moment, realized what was happening. Lord B. at once stumped over on his crutch.
“I say, Captain, surely this is rather abrupt,” he said. “I can vouch for our good Pomp—he’s no spy at all. No good to shoot him—I fear I must insist. Surely we can work out an exchange.”
Captain Reyes took a musket from one of the trembling soldiers and swung it like a club, smashing Lord Berrybender’s crutch, hitting his peg leg, and sending Lord B. crashing into the snow.
“Do not interfere again,” Captain Reyes said. “You are not a lord here. I consider all Englishmen spies. It would not trouble me to shoot you too.”
“Not trouble you? What sort of a captain are you?” Lord B. asked, as Vicky Kennet helped him to his feet.
Several soldiers stopped Tasmin, but she struggled free and rushed over to the nice, sympathetic Lieutenant Molino, who was clearly startled by what his superior had just done.
“Lieutenant, can’t you stop this?” Tasmin pleaded. “Your captain is too upset. He has no reason to shoot anyone.”
Lieutenant Molino looked worried—he had not expected the usually calm Captain Reyes to do anything so unexpected.
“It is not correct,” he said, hesitantly. “We were to bring all prisoners to Santa Fe—I heard the order myself. Santa Fe is where we deal with spies.”
“Then hurry—stop him before it’s too late,” Tasmin urged.
With some reluctance Lieutenant Molino stepped forward. The firing squad had just raised their muskets—Pomp, still calm, stood watching.
“Wait, Captain,” Lieutenant Molino urged. “We were to bring all prisoners to Santa Fe. The governor said so himself. I fear this is not going to please him.”
Captain Reyes carried a long pistol. Without a word he raised it and shot Lieutenant Molino directly in the forehead. The dead man fell back against Tasmin, knocking her into the snow. Father Geoffrin ran over to shield her—who knew who this mad captain might shoot next?
Pomp knew then that he should have been quicker to heed his dream. It was, after all, the feathered man he faced, the man his mother had known he would meet someday. The feathered man had just killed his own lieutenant, who was acting properly.
Tasmin’s head was ringing—she had hit the ground hard and was bleeding from a cut on her temple. She tried to stand up but her legs gave way.
“Get a knife, Geoff—stab him!” she begged. “We have to do something or he’ll kill us all.”
Father Geoffrin watched as the shaky, cold little firing squad attempted to prime their weapons.
“This is a very inept firing squad,” he told her. “Maybe they’ll all miss.”
“There’s eight of them, Geoff—they won’t all miss!” Tasmin yelled. She struggled to free herself, but the priest hung on to her grimly, fearing the captain would shoot her if she broke free.
At Captain Reyes’s signal six muskets blazed. Two misfired completely. A bullet hit Pomp in the leg, another nicked his shoulder. The other bullets kicked up snow well beyond their target.
“Now that is a rare novelty for you,” Lord Berrybender remarked. � whole firing squad—and they missed.”
For Captain Reyes what had just happened seemed a last humiliation, the crowning ignominy of his many wasted years. His handpicked firing squad had failed to kill or even seriously wound Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who still looked at him without alarm. Worse, he himself, in a moment of terrible disdain, had impulsively killed a fine young officer, a soldier whose promise was not unlike what his own had once been. This, the captain knew, meant the end. He would be court-martialed and very likely executed; and he deserved to be. At a supreme moment of crisis he had allowed his personal feelings to override the necessary discipline of a soldier. He had, in every way, disgraced himself.
But if he must die, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, the favorite of Captain William Clark, would die too. He snatched a musket from a young cavalryman’s hand and walked toward Pomp.
“Kill him, one of you! Your captain’s mad!” Tasmin cried. “He may kill us all! Mutiny while you can.”
The shivering boys did not understand her. They were too cold to act, too puzzled.
Captain Reyes advanced toward Pomp until he stood at point-blank range. Only then did he raise his musket. For a moment he allowed his gaze to meet that of the young man he was about to kill. The young man’s eyes were unfrightened, undisturbed. Once he looked into his intended victim’s eye, the captain, to his great surprise, could not turn away, for in the young man’s eyes he seemed to see understanding—even sympathy— neither of which Captain Reyes had ever been offered in his life. It was as if the condemned man, the favorite, saw it all: the early glory, then the bitter failure on the plains, the stalled career, the dull cadets, the dust. He saw it all; he understood.
Then, while Captain Reyes was considering the possibility that he had misjudged this quiet, sympathetic young man, a gun went off. Pomp Charbonneau fell, as Lieutenant Molino had fallen. The understanding eyes went blank. Captain Reyes turned, to see what fool had fired, and realized, to his shock, that the drifting smoke came from his own musket. He had fired.
Tasmin Berrybender screamed—a scream long and terrible, echoing off the distant mountains. Her scream caused a nervous black gelding to rear up and throw its rider. Tasmin broke free of Father Geoffrin and ran to Pomp; her sleeve brushed that of the stunned Captain Reyes as she ran.
After a moment Captain Reyes walked over to the nearest soldier and handed him the musket.
“Corporal, I require your pistol,” he said. The corporal fumbled for a moment, then drew the pistol and handed it over. Captain Reyes at once put the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger. He fell under the corporal’s horse, his blood soon reddening the thin snow.
With Vicky Kennet’s help, Lord Berrybender limped over to where Tasmin knelt by Pomp.
“Why, it’s like the bard,” Lord Berrybender said, looking around him. “Dead men everywhere you look. Exeunt omnes, or pretty nearly.”
Tasmin removed her cloak and spread it over her dearest love.
“Is he gone, our Pomp?” Lord Berrybender asked Father Geoffrin.
“He’s gone, Your Lordship,” the priest said. “Gone as gone.”
The women came slowly round: Buffum, Vicky, Mary Cook, Eliza, Little Onion—she still held both the little boys.
“Oh no, not him . . . not Pomp,” Eliza cried. “He was ever so kind to us girls . . . dear Milly and me, I mean.”
“Not a fighter, though, Tassie . . . not like your Sin Killer,” Lord Berrybender said, putting his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Jimmy would have scattered these poor shivering Spanish boys like quail, if he had been here.”
“He wasn’t like Jimmy, no,” Tasmin answered, sad, beaten, yet not really surprised. “I expect Pomp might have been a saint, if he hadn’t met me.”
The ground being judged too hard for grave digging, the five bodies were put in the cart where the prisoners had ridden. Tasmin insisted on riding in it too, with Pomp. Monty clutched Little Onion tightly— he was afraid of his mother when she looked so. The snow had stopped falling. Cold sunlight sparkled on thornbush and sage. Ahead, hidden in cloud, lay the rising road to Santa Fe.
PRAI
SE FOR LARRY McMURTRY’S
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
BERRYBENDER NARRATIVES
BY SORROW’S RIVER
“An exciting, humorous, but often heartbreaking story that unfolds across magnificent, dangerous, and often deadly landscapes.”
—Booklist
“If you went looking for the literary sources of the Berrybender Narratives you’d find them not only in the western potboilers of an earlier era but in the yarning that one imagines took place at a rendezvous of trappers and mountain men. . . . McMurtry doesn’t do much hemming and hawing. He simply plunges right in and wades right through and climbs up the opposite bank.”
—The New York Times Book Review
THE WANDERING HILL
“Another bull’s-eye from the master.”
—Daily News (New York)
“McMurtry may well be the most reliable American novelist of his generation.”
—The International Herald-Tribune
“A page-turner.”
—The Orlando Sentinel (FL)
“A wonderful pageant. . . . Compelling and memorable characters. . . . An engrossing, exciting, and sometimes heart-rending saga of the American West that shows McMurtry at his best.”
—Booklist (starred review)
SIN KILLER
“Exquisite descriptions. . . . Simply irresistible storytelling, rich and satisfying.”
—The 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.”