Sin Killer

by Larry McMurtry

  “Father, that wasn’t Lady Constance you were slapping,” Tasmin told him, speaking calmly, even soothingly. Her fear was that some link was broken, the link that attached her erratic parent to his sanity. Usually Lord Berrybender’s look was that of a selfish old brute, but better that, she thought, than the look of a madman. Perhaps if she spoke softly and addressed him gently she might be able to help him reclaim his wandering spirit.

  That hope was very soon dashed.

  “Look there, Tassie! It’s the stag of Glamorgan— he’s eluded me many a year,” His Lordship said, pointing. “Can’t think where I’ve left my rifle. Don’t see the stag of Glamorgan every day.”

  Tasmin looked and saw only the Thoroughbred, Gussie, which Tim was leading to water.

  “No, that’s merely your mare, Augusta, Father,” Tasmin informed him, still speaking quietly. “We are presently in America, fast by the Yellowstone River, you know. This is the American plain, not some Scottish glade. And our dear Lady Constance, your wife, my mother, lies buried far away, on a hill by the Missouri.”

  At this Lord Berrybender looked weary, and suddenly sat down, his back against the wagon wheel.

  “It’s very strange that you should say such things, Tassie,” he told her. “Hard to think why you’d go on with such nonsense unless you’ve been into the brandy. Wouldn’t surprise me if you have been into the brandy. I was often into it, when I was your age. Guzzled down quite a quantity, I assure you.”

  He sighed.

  “You know, I feel like taking a good nap,” he said—a moment later, head tilted back, mouth open, he was snoring.

  “God damn the luck, he’s gone off! Crazy as a loon … and don’t you be telling Jimmy I cursed,” Tasmin declared to Kit.

  “I won’t, I won’t,” Kit promised.

  52

  Both stared into the distance, solemnly.

  WHEN Tasmin got back to the cart she found that Jim and Monty had established a stable if rather stiff peace. Both stared into the distance, solemnly.

  “My goodness, couldn’t you at least whistle him a tune or something?” Tasmin asked. “He’s really not that hard to amuse.”

  “Never could whistle good,” Jim admitted.

  Vicky Kennet, on the other side of the wagon, was nursing her Talley, whose meal taking was interrupted briefly by screams from Cook, as His Lordship’s bullet was extracted from her thigh. The successful surgeon, to everyone’s surprise, was Father Geoffrin, who, after a minimum of probing, captured the bloody slug with his tweezers.

  “Why, good for you, Geoff,” Tasmin applauded. “It’s the first useful thing you’ve done in six months.”

  “Oh, I was rather a keen student of anatomy once—attended several operations,” Father Geoff said lightly. “I might have made a fair surgeon, I suppose, only I lacked application. Still do.”

  Cook, who had not thought it quite proper that a French Papist should become familiar with her naked limb, nonetheless thanked him sincerely and promised to remember him when next she made a pudding.

  Millicent, for her part, could not seem to stop crying, though her copious tears earned her scant sympathy from the Berrybender party, since she had been quick enough to put on airs and boss them about since Lord B. had made her his mistress. Finally Tom Fitzpatrick, whose sympathies were broad, took the troubled laundress for a walk by the Yellowstone.

  Tasmin did not at first reveal her suspicions about her father’s sanity. Soon she got her baby to laugh and her husband to smile. When Tasmin was near, Jim became somewhat more playful with Monty, tickling his bare feet with a blade of grass or letting him grab at a brass button on his hunting shirt. Vicky Kennet went off to help Cook with the meal; no one wanted to trust the preparation of vittles to the clumsy Eliza. In the distance all could see Lord Berrybender, slumped against the wagon wheel, sound asleep.

  Long after the evening meal was eaten and the sun lost beyond the distant hills, light seemed to cling to the long grassy prairies. Faint stars appeared, and the call of night birds was heard, though it was not yet fully dark. The sky deepened to rose and purple; the white orb of the moon shone, as if to assist the lingering light.

  Though nothing had been said directly about Lord Berrybender’s sanity or insanity, a deep collective melancholy seemed to seize the Europeans, starting with Tasmin, who wondered if she would ever have the pleasure of showing off her fine son to old Nanny Craigie, who had raised all the Berrybenders and had been left behind to deal with the several children who had not been invited to travel.

  Pedro Yanez, sitting not far away, feared that he would not live to taste again the oily sardines of Barcelona.

  Aldo Claricia, his companion, felt that he would give much to eat just one luscious tomato from the fertile fields of Italy.

  Venetia Kennet, rocking little Talley in her arms, thought that if she could have just one wish it would be to enjoy once more an opera at Covent Garden.

  Father Geoffrin pined for a glimpse of the excellent milliners of Paris, while Bobbety missed most opportunities to attend lectures at the Royal Society—he feared he had not yet quite mastered the complex systems of Linnaeus.

  Mary Berrybender, deprived of her helpful tutorials with the late Master Thaw, felt a wish to get back to her Greek, while her friend Piet Van Wely, sweaty from the day’s heat, imagined an icy skate on the frozen canals of Holland.

  Cook longed to be back in the great kitchen in Northamptonshire, where there was an abundance of ladles and pots, and of reliable kitchen maids as well. At home such a bumbler as Eliza would have been immediately sacked.

  Buffum felt that the time had come for her to secure adequate drawing lessons, while her old lover Tim dreamt in the night of musky milkmaids, eager for his embraces.

  The weepy Millicent’s more modest hope was merely that Lord Berrybender would refrain from pinching her so cruelly.

  In short they all of them, wanderers from the old country—Tasmin, Buffum, Bobbety, Mary, Vicky, Geoff, Piet, Pedro, Aldo, Cook, Eliza, Millicent, and Tim— were, for the first time on their long journey, in one mood: the homesick mood. Would those cherished pleasures and traditions, so longingly imagined, ever be theirs again? All were inclined to doubt it—had not the violent prairies already claimed Fraulein Pfretzskaner, stout Charlie Hodges, Old Gorska and his son, Gladwyn, Master Thaw, the somber Holger Sten, Lady Constance Berrybender, many engagés, and even the able Captain Aitken? Big White had fallen, it was said. Bobbety had only one eye, and Lord B. himself was much whittled down—Lord Berrybender, whose enthusiasm for the hunt had carried them across the Atlantic, down the serene Ohio, up the muddy Missouri, and now along the swift Yellowstone. Had he now drifted free of his senses, as Tasmin feared? And what would become of them all if, indeed, the master was mad? Only little Kate Berrybender, secure in her attachment to Mr. James Snow, had betrayed no interest in the question.

  Even now the old lord was up, bellowing for Lady Constance, whose neck had been broken so long ago.

  Jim and Kit and Tom Fitzpatrick had all seen bear tracks that day—in the long twilight Jim and Kit went off for a walk—it wouldn’t do to have a grizzly shuffle in and snatch a baby. The old parrot, Prince Talleyrand, who had attached himself to the Broken Hand, wandered around the campfire, occasionally snapping up a scrap.

  Tasmin could just dimly see, as twilight finally turned to full dusk, the tall figure of her father, stomping around the wagon on his peg leg, yelling dimly heard curses. He would not lower himself to visit the common campfire but insisted on Cook bringing his vittles, which Cook reluctantly did.

  When Jim returned, having seen no bears, Lord Berrybender, though now well fed, was still roaring for his wife to present herself.

  “He’s gone off, you know, Jimmy—he’s insane,” Tasmin told him.

  “I expect he’s just drunk,” Jim replied.

  All the claret was in the wagon, of course. Lord Berrybender guarded each bottle as jealously as an eagle might guard its eggs.
/>
  “There’s more to it,” Tasmin insisted. “Listen to me! He thinks Milly is my mother. He thinks Gussie is a Scottish stag. He’s gone off, I tell you. I’m afraid Berrybenders have rather a tendency to do that. All of us might be considered rather eccentric, but some of us actually go mad.”

  “Happens here too,” Jim assured her. “It’s womenfolks mostly, it seems like. Old Maudey Cockerell, who helped raise me, was mostly cracked.”

  “What happened to her?” Tasmin asked.

  “She wandered off in a blizzard and froze,” Jim said.

  “At home we’ve a castle where we’re sent, when we go off,” Tasmin informed him. “Fortunately we’re rich. Castle Dismal, it’s called—a great pile on the Scottish coast. Poor folks, of course, are just packed in Bedlam. My own beloved cousin Cimmie went off on her wedding day and had to be sent to Castle Dismal—it’s stuffed with maiden aunts, second cousins once removed, batty uncles, dim younger sons, demented bastards, and the mildly deformed. I went there once to visit Cimmie. They’re all waited on by servants not much less crazy than themselves. Cimmie insisted on being served fried mice on toast, and so she was. Nothing to do but listen to the wind wail over the North Sea. Papa’s own brother, Elphinstone, went out and flung himself off the cliff. They hear his lonely spirit wailing in the storms, and there are a great many storms.”

  “That won’t help us with your pa,” Jim observed. “Too far away.”

  “Correct,” Tasmin said. “Castle Dismal, I fear, is rather out of reach.”

  Venetia Kennet overheard the conversation— indeed, soon the whole camp was alerted to the fact of Lord B.’s derangement. When Cook took him his vittles he mistook her for Gladwyn and demanded that she serve the port.

  “I wonder if he’d respond to a little Haydn,” Vicky conjectured. “I might just try my cello. It used to calm him when I practiced my scales.”

  “Have a go, Vicky, if you dare,” Tasmin said. “You alone have some chance of calming him, though I doubt it will be with your scales.”

  53

  The heat had been blistering all morning…

  THE heat had been blistering all morning; the women, even Cook, had reduced their garb to the minimum that modesty required. Even the thinnest shifts were quickly sweated through. The babies were itchy and fretful—of shade there was none.

  Little Onion was the first to hear the tremors. She was walking with Coal, who soon heard them too. They both began to run toward the wagon, Coal holding Little Charlie tight. Tasmin was driving the wagon that morning, thinking she might just be able to manage her father, who was now clearly crazed. But she began to feel uneasy, and so did the horses. The ground seemed to be vibrating, a thing she had never experienced before. At first she thought she might have a broken wheel. She had just got down to look when Jim and Kit came racing up.

  “Run to the cart, go!” Jim commanded. “Tom will whip up that mare.”

  Then he and Kit began to fling things out of the wagon—everything portable went, including Lord Berrybender’s claret.

  Lord Berrybender, waking from a short nap, saw his precious claret being flung out and opened his mouth to protest, but then thought better of it. He felt they might be experiencing an earthquake—though how could an earthquake happen on such open prairie?

  Tasmin stood for a moment, paralyzed—she felt in terrible danger, but could not identify the peril— although the ground was shaking.

  “Run, I said—don’t stand there!” Jim said, giving her a shove.

  For the first time since her marriage Tasmin realized that her husband, too, looked scared. The Indians hadn’t scared him, the blizzards hadn’t scared him, bears didn’t scare him, but now he was scared— a realization that put Tasmin to flight. If Jim was scared they must all flee. The cart was near—Tom Fitzpatrick was urging the women into it, telling them to hold tight to their babies. Pedro, Aldo, Tim, Bobbety, Geoff all made for the wagon.

  “We might just make the hills—might just, if we fly,” the Broken Hand said. Little Kate jumped out of the cart and dashed for the wagon—Jim hastily yanked her aboard.

  Tom lashed Gussie, who at once broke into a run— Jim was driving the wagon, urging the horses on. Tasmin just glimpsed the terrified white faces of Bobbety and Father Geoffrin as they raced.

  The swift Gussie soon outran the struggling wagon horses. The irregularities of the prairie caused the cart to bounce, as Tom had warned, but he didn’t slacken his speed.

  Then Tasmin smelled the dust and heard the rumble. To the west the whole horizon was dust—clouds of it rose high in the sky. It was a moment more before she saw the buffalo, throwing up the dust as they raced in a great stampede, right toward the two puny, speeding vehicles—thousands and thousands of buffalo, running as one beast and shaking the ground as they came. Tasmin clutched Monty tight, convinced that they were all surely doomed. The sight that had caused even her husband to blanch froze her with terror, though not for long. It took all her strength to cling to the bouncing cart while holding her child. Tasmin wished she had stayed with Jim—if they were all going to die, let it be together. The little hills they were racing toward seemed infinitely distant, the buffalo not nearly so far—she already felt choked by the smell of the dust.

  Yet the old Broken Hand had not given up, and neither had Jim and Kit—Tasmin saw them flogging the wagon horses, now stretched into a full run.

  Now and then the Broken Hand would glance at the buffalo and then at the hills that were to be their salvation, if they could only reach them. Tasmin remembered how grim Tom Fitzpatrick had looked when the Blackfeet were chasing him—yet he had won out then, with the help of her husband—perhaps if Gussie didn’t fall or the cart break apart he would win out again.

  Tasmin found that she could not take her eyes off the charging buffalo—their beastly concentration as they raced many thousands strong held her spellbound. She had no idea how far away the herd was— perhaps half a mile, at most—but she felt no hope. Against such a maelstrom of brute nature, who could possibly stand?

  Then she saw several antelope, racing, as they were, for the hills—several antelope and six wolves. The beasts had made the same judgment as Jim and Tom and Kit.

  “If we just don’t hit a gully we might beat them!” Tom yelled, lashing Gussie afresh.

  Once or twice they bounced high but they didn’t hit a gully; the women clung grimly to the sideboards Jim had had Signor Claricia build.

  Little Onion, with no baby to worry about, was by far the calmest person in the cart. She kept her eyes fixed on the charging buffalo—then she grabbed Tasmin’s arm and pointed. Tasmin was at first puzzled—the buffalo were now very close—but what Little Onion drew her attention to was that the herd did have an edge, and along it the beasts were not so thickly packed. There were gaps in the wall of brown.

  Then the Thoroughbred, Augusta, racing strongly, suddenly seemed to see the buffalo herself—for a moment her nostrils flared and she flung up her head in surprise, but, in a moment, as if having assessed the danger, her strides quickened, her legs became a blur of motion—everyone hung on, teeth gritted, and then Augusta zigzagged between a few straggling buffalo on the herd’s edge and raced up the slope they had been making for.

  “My God, what a horse—saved us all!” Tom said, as the mare, sides heaving, slowed and finally came to a stop.

  “She saved us, but what about Jimmy and the rest?” Tasmin asked, looking back with apprehension—the wagon, considerably slower, was not yet to the slope or free of the pounding herd.

  “Whip ’em up, Jimmy! You’ll make it! Whip ’em up!” the Broken Hand yelled.

  Jim and Kit were whipping them up and were just at the edge of the herd as the full tide of beasts swept by.

  It was just as safety seemed at hand that catastrophe struck: a lone buffalo suddenly veered from the herd and ran straight into the struggling, straining cart horses. Tasmin watched with horror as the wagon bounced high and came down on top of the bewi
ldered buffalo, whereupon the wooden vehicle simply burst apart. Everyone—Jim and Kit, her father, Millicent, Bobbety and Geoff, the Mediterraneans, Tim, even little Kate—flew out of the wagon in all directions.

  “Now there’s an odd bust-up for you,” the Broken Hand commented. “They get past ten thousand buffalo and then one old cow’s brought them to grief.”

  “I must help Jimmy!” Tasmin said, jumping out of the cart. “Do you think any of them could be alive, Tom, after such a crash?”

  “Oh, certainly they’ll be alive,” Tom told her. “Might have to set a limb or two, a task Cook and I can handle, I suppose.”

  Dust had drifted so heavily on the prairie between the cart and the wagon that, for a moment, Tasmin had to stop. She coughed and choked—she could see nothing. But when a breeze thinned the dust a bit and she felt confident enough to stumble on toward the wreck, her heart leapt: there were Jim and Kit, working to try and cut the two horses loose from the busted wagon. The buffalo had evidently wandered on. Here and there the company could be seen, picking themselves up—all seemed pleased to be alive, and Jim was not slow in expressing his admiration for Gussie.

  “I never saw a horse run that fast,” he said. “She saved those babies, for sure.”

  “Why, she did go, didn’t she, splendid old girl,” Lord Berrybender remarked amiably. “A tribute to her breeding, Byerly Turk, you know. Where’s my Milly? Don’t see her anywhere. I was rather in a fog, yester-day—hardly myself. Kept wondering where your mother was, Tasmin. Clean forgot she was dead.”

  “Well, Mother is dead, I fear, Papa,” Tasmin told him.

  Tasmin, Jim, and Kit exchanged looks, but said nothing. His Lordship seemed to be sane again—the great fright and the great race had brought him out of the fog.

  “Great pity about the claret, though,” Lord B. lamented. “Hope we run into that prince again—no doubt he’ll have some to spare.”