Sin Killer

by Larry McMurtry

  Hugh Glass didn’t care for Charlie Bent—in fact he resented the rooster of a fellow, pecking at him with questions about everything.

  “Where’s Abby Mr. Glass?” Tasmin asked innocently, looking around for the young bear.

  “Dern, we et Abby,” Hugh admitted; the news shocked everyone within hearing distance. Even Jim Snow was surprised.

  “We was for four days without food,” Hugh Glass explained—everyone wore horrified looks. The Broken Hand turned white at the news, and Pomp Charbonneau, who had caught the bear cubs in the first place, let slip a sigh of sadness.

  “It was that or eat one of ourselves,” Hugh went on. “Of course, she didn’t suffer none—she was sound asleep when we shot her—never opened her eyes.”

  Then the old trapper gulped and looked strange.

  “It was wrong—I’ll never live it down, for that bear trusted me!” he said. “We should have et Billy Sublette, but Milt didn’t believe he could help eat his brother, so poor little Abby it had to be.”

  Then, overcome, the old man howled like a wolf and burst into tears—seeing the rough old trapper so broken brought tears to many an eye. Kit Carson, who had loved the little bear, cried like a baby himself—all the weeping astonished the Bent brothers, who could not quite grasp the tragedy. All these tears because Hugh Glass and the Sublettes had eaten a bear?

  “You never met her—you fool!” Kit Carson stammered. “She was our pet.”

  Charles and Willy, startled by the fact that everyone was looking daggers at them, were about to walk off when Hugh recovered himself sufficiently to mention the fate of Teddy Tombali, a man acknowledged by all to be a very superior wagon master, after which it was Charlie Bent’s time to be upset. There was just time, in his view, for the wagons to make it across the barren lands without the handicap of seriously bad weather; but that was hardly the only consideration. Teddy Tombali had not been sent to Taos only so that he could indulge his taste for dancing with plump seftoritas. He had been sent to collect a cartful of silver work from the pueblos along the Rio Grande. It was Charles Bent’s opinion that pueblo silver would soon catch on with their customers in the East. Belts hung with conchas of silver, heavy rings with turquoise stones set in them would someday be fetching a pretty price once they were distributed to fashionable merchants in Cincinnati or Philadelphia. The loss of reliable Teddy Tombali was bad enough, but the loss of a cartful of salable silver was an outrage that had Charles Bent hopping mad. None of the merchants in Santa Fe, Mexican or American, would be averse to fleecing the Bents should they get the chance. Where was their silver now? Charlie tried to question Hugh Glass in detail, but Hugh was not much help. He kept breaking into loud sobs at the memory of the dead bear cub. When asked if he had seen a cart, or any silver, Hugh— in Charlie’s experience a tricky old fellow himself— grew extremely vague.

  “I didn’t see no cart,” he insisted, “and didn’t even know the dead man was Teddy until they turned him over.”

  Even when primed with a cup of brandy, Hugh Glass was little help. In no time he drank himself into a stupor and stumbled off to have a nap in the rear of the blacksmith’s shop.

  Under the circumstances, Charlie felt the need of an immediate consultation with his partners, Willy and St. Vrain.

  “We need that silver—you better go, Vrain,” Charlie said. “They trust you in Taos.”

  St. Vrain shrugged. “The silver is gone, and you’re wrong about the trust,” he said. “No one trusts anyone in Taos.”

  “We need that silver,” Charlie repeated.

  “Dern it, you’ve said that sixteen times,” Willy scolded. “It’s gone, Charlie—what you ought to be thinking of now is who’s going to lead this wagon train to Saint Louis.”

  “That’s simple, you are,” Charlie said. “I’m getting married in two weeks—I can’t do it,” Charlie continued. ‘And I need to keep Vrain here to help out with the politics.”

  Willy had expected some such answer—his brother could always be counted on to pick him for irksome tasks—and struggling across the plains, with winter coming, drought already there, and the Indians troublesome, was as irksome as any task could be. In his opinion it was already too late in the season to safely start such a journey; and the reason it was late in the season was that Charlie kept cramming peltries and anything else he thought might sell into the wagons. Six wagons would have been plenty; eight were too many to protect.

  “I don’t want to go,” Willy said, though without heat. The wagons were loaded and ready; somebody would have to lead them, or a whole season’s profits would be lost.

  “I’d send Kit but the little fool’s getting married too,” Charlie explained.

  “Weddings can be postponed,” Willy pointed out.

  “Not this one—the governor’s coming,” Charlie reminded him.

  “I’ll go if I can have Jimmy Snow to help me,” Willy said—he saw no reasonable way out of the dilemma.

  “Jimmy would do—but his wife’s with child,” Charlie said. “He may not want to leave her. Why not take Jimmy Bridger?”

  “Nope, I need Jimmy Snow,” Willy insisted. “He’s the Sin Killer—the Indians know better than to crowd him. At least the Cheyenne won’t, nor the Osage.”

  “For that matter you could take both Jimmys,” Charlie went on. “I have no reason to keep Jimmy Bridger here all winter, eating my grub. He eats enough for five or six men—it’s a pointless expense. Take ’em both.”

  “I won’t—Jim Bridger’s too unpredictable,” Willy said, firmly. “He don’t follow nothing but his own nose. He’s likely to turn off and head for Texas, or China. I won’t have him.”

  Charles didn’t argue the point. Jim Bridger was known among the mountain men for his abrupt, even whimsical departures from whatever route he had been set.

  “What if that bossy English girl won’t let Jimmy Snow go?” he asked.

  “Jimmy may be married but he don’t look married,” Willy told him. “You look a dern sight more married and you ain’t even had the wedding yet.”

  Charlie sulked at that. There was no doubt that Maria’s hurtful action with the pot had cost him a certain amount of face—also, though he tried not to show it, a certain amount of confidence. He had assumed that once Maria had agreed to marry him, she would comport herself properly, become a docile wife. But now he wasn’t so sure, and besides that, there was the expense of a big wedding to be borne. With the English occupying the main suite of rooms, the governor of New Mexico would have to be housed in a first-class tent, which was even then being set up in the courtyard, as far from the English quarters as possible, so as to minimize friction between the testy old Lord Berrybender and the equally testy governor. The governor was bringing a military escort, which was only prudent, but there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t turn it on the Bents. Relations with the Mexican government were never entirely smooth—it was mostly through St. Vrain’s diplomacy that mutual distrust was kept at a handleable level.

  Under the circumstances the last thing Charles Bent needed was to lose a cartful of silver—and all because the otherwise trustworthy Teddy Tombali had been too fond of dancing. It was vexatious, all of it, but one thing Charles Bent had learned was not to waste time brooding about matters that could not be changed. Action was what had got him what he had—action would enable him to get more, and to secure it. The eight wagons were ready to move out. It was time to start them.

  Charlie was headed across the courtyard to put a proposition to Jim Snow when he saw, to his intense vexation, that his brother Willy was mounted and almost out the gate of the stockade. With a roar Charlie just managed to stop him. Willy, looking annoyed, turned his horse and trotted over to his brother.

  “What in hell do you want now?” Willy asked.

  “I want to know where you think you’re going— that’s what!”

  “To visit my wife, where else?” Willy told him. “I’m going to see Owl. You didn’t suppose I’d head off to Sai
nt Louis without visiting my wife first, did you?”

  “But the wagons are ready to start—can’t you see that?” Charlie protested.

  “So? Do you suppose I intend to walk every step of the way with them?” Willy countered. “Hire Jimmy Snow, get him started, and tell him I’ll catch up with him in three days. Nobody’s likely to bother him in that length of time.”

  Charlie would have liked to pull Willy off the horse and give him a good thrashing, but of course there were several idlers watching, so he shrugged and turned away.

  In a moment Willy was out the gate and gone, heading for the Cheyenne village where Owl Woman lived with her family—as a respectable young woman of the Cheyenne she had found it impossible to tolerate the cramped, close ways of the whites. She had spent only two nights in the trading post—she did not like the smells of closed-in people and had insisted on returning to the plains, where the cleansing winds soon blew away bad odors. Owl Woman was very fond of her husband, Willy Bent, but that was no reason to lead a smelly, closed-in life, with a lot of terrible odors in one’s nose. Owl Woman, rather fastidious, didn’t see why she should change her healthy way of living for one that was obviously not as good.

  53

  Tasmin had been yawning . . .

  “GO! GO! GO immediately! You have my fondest blessings!” Tasmin said, when Jim came into the room and told her that Charles Bent had just offered him money to lead the goods caravan back to Saint Louis— or, if not all the way to Saint Louis, at least to the Missouri River, by which point the worst dangers would have been passed. She had stretched out on her bed, attempting to read Mr. Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, a copy of which had been discovered in the trading post—Tasmin found the work so bland and tedious that she had laid it aside and was about to nap when her husband entered. Monty and Talley had been taken by Little Onion to inspect a tiny lamb which the sheepherders had brought into the trading post, judging it too weak to survive outside.

  Before the drowsiness induced by Mr. Goldsmith’s bland prose had come over her, Tasmin had been vaguely wishing that Pomp might appear. She had been thinking restless, vaguely carnal thoughts. But it was Jim, not Pomp, who entered to inform her that he had just been offered a job that would take him away from her for two months.

  “I didn’t make no promises about Saint Louis—just to help get them to the river,” Jim said. “Once they’re on the river, Willy can manage it well enough, I expect.”

  Of course, Charles Bent had pressed him to go all the way, the reason being that he considered Jim’s judgment, on the whole, to be better than his brother’s. But Jim remembered how irked Tasmin had been when he left her while she was pregnant with Monty. He knew she would be irked again if he was gone when the second child came—but he felt he could easily make it to the Missouri River and back with time to spare—and Charlie had offered him more money than he had ever expected to make. It had become more and more obvious to Jim that he would need to begin to earn money at some point. Sooner or later he and Tasmin would probably find themselves in a place where the frontiersman’s subsistence skills were not enough. Here was a chance to earn cash, something he had rarely had before.

  Tasmin had been yawning when Jim entered—he supposed she would be angry, as she generally was when he proposed to leave. The other two times he had just gone off—this time he thought he had better deliver the news himself. He was very surprised when Tasmin indulged in another great yawn and merely waved her hand, as if his impending departure was a thing of little moment.

  “I knew as soon as we got here and I saw all this bustle that you’d soon be leaving,” she told him. “You don’t enjoy company much, Jimmy—it’s rather amazing that you still seem to like me. Besides, there’s really no reason why you should spend the winter watching my belly get bigger—it can’t be a particularly attractive sight.”

  Tasmin was right—the bustle of the trading post did irritate him—but that was not the main reason he had accepted Charlie Bent’s offer. The main reason was money.

  “It’s not your belly, it’s just the wages,” he said. “With two little ones we’ll be needing cash.”

  “That we will—if we live,” Tasmin said, feeling her spirits sink. She had rarely felt more mixed, more confused. Her first thought, when Jim announced his news, had been a wicked one: with Jim gone she could at last have a shot at Pomp in reasonable privacy. With Jim gone perhaps she could coax Pomp into being a lover. He could be a wonderful lover, she felt, if she could just get him started.

  And yet it was only Jim she felt really safe with; she was touched by the fact that he had broken his pattern. Instead of letting her find out from some of the men that he was leaving, he had taken the trouble to inform her himself, and had even explained that he was leaving in order to earn money that his family would in time surely need.

  All this bespoke concern; it was a development she would certainly have welcomed happily a little earlier in their marriage, as any wife would have.

  And yet, now, her first thought had been vain, selfish, adulterous. She wanted her lover, and yet she could not but feel new admiration for her husband. What could be rarer than to have a husband change his ways for the sake of his wife and children?

  For a moment Tasmin felt so crowded with confusing feelings that tears came into her eyes. Jim saw them and felt he might as well go. At least he had informed her of his intention, as he had been asked to.

  But when he turned to go Tasmin grabbed him, pulled him down, and hugged him tightly, her cheeks now shining with tears.

  “We’ll be wanting a house, I guess,” he said, hoping to soothe her. “Might find a cheap one in Taos.”

  “Not Taos—Santa Fe. I’ve such a preference for capitals, if there’s one handy,” she said, hoping she hadn’t offended him by brushing aside his suggestion.

  Jim was amused by Tasmin’s switch—sobbing one minute, she became picky the next.

  “All right, Santa Fe,” he said, hoping to leave her happy. Mindful that Charlie Bent was an impatient man, he gave Tasmin a quick kiss and started to get up, but Tasmin was staring at him in obvious invitation.

  “Shut the door—a little peck won’t do—let’s have a good rut,” she said. “I know your Mr. Bent is very impatient, but there are situations where wives come first. Besides, by the time you come back I’ll be so big you’ll hardly be able to get in me.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” Jim said.

  But he obeyed, got up, and closed the door.

  Tasmin’s habit of speaking bluntly about conjugal matters still took him aback. And she was just as direct physically as she was in her speech. She simply extracted him from his pants and handled him until he was nearly ready to shoot before allowing him entry. Then, once he had shot and they were done, she locked him in with her legs in such a way as to suggest that perhaps they weren’t done.

  “Stay awhile, my sweet—stay awhile,” Tasmin said. Her eyes seemed to grow very wide at such times. Jim knew Charlie Bent would be fretting—nonetheless he stayed awhile.

  54

  . . . the lamb gave a surprisingly loud bleat. . .

  MONTY never knew when his father might show up and tickle him in his fat little ribs, reducing him to a cascade of giggles. Often, if Talley happened to be nearby, his father would distribute his tickling impartially, tickling Talley too, while Talley’s mother watched and smiled. Talley would giggle so uncontrollably that he would grow red in the face and have to gulp in order to get his breath.

  On this occasion both boys had been absorbed in an inspection of the tiny lamb the sheepherders had rescued. When they reached out their hands to touch the white, soft fur, the lamb gave a surprisingly loud bleat, causing them at once to jerk their hands away.

  Then Monty’s father came, and his mother. Across the courtyard the great oxen were mooing. Monty feared the oxen but could not stop looking at them. Then there was a round of tickling—his father held Monty high above his head, and spun him round until he w
as dizzy. When his father sat him down Monty toppled into Little Onion’s lap, where he often napped.

  “I consider small children to be the only honest people,” Vicky Kennet remarked. Since reaching the trading post her cheeks had filled out, her beauty returned. Her hair was very long again.

  “I suppose they may be the only sincere people,” Tasmin agreed. “The poor little things can’t help it.”

  Jim, about to lead the small caravan out of the gate, turned and waved at his wife and son.

  “Wave at your father, Monty,” Tasmin commanded. When Monty just looked puzzled she held up his small hand and waved it for him.

  “Say bye-bye,” Tasmin ordered, but Monty did not say bye-bye. Although he was interested in the small lamb, he wished Little Onion would take him away. When his mother spoke to him in a certain tone he felt confused and didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know why she insisted on waving his small hand at his father.

  “Now I’ve confused him, as usual,” Tasmin admitted. “Look at him, hopelessly trapped in his small integrity.

  “But it doesn’t last long, this early honesty,” she said. “I was an accomplished liar by the time I was five, and the skill has stood me in good stead.”

  She smiled, and Vicky smiled too.

  “How else is one to manage two men?” she asked, smiling.

  “How else is one to manage even one?”

  Monty, tired of the lamb, yawned and began to wave. It became a new trick he could do—he waved at his father, he waved at his mother—he waved and waved, giggling at his own brilliance. He even waved at the frightening oxen as they were going out the gate. He waved at Talley who waved at him. Delighted with this new skill, the little boys waved and waved.

  55

  No wife could possibly be as cozy . . .

  QUIT pestering me, Owl,” Willy Bent muttered, to his wife. It was just dawn—soon he would have to pull himself out of his warm robes and away from his even warmer, bright-eyed wife and head across the frosty prairie to join Jim Snow and do what he could to see that the big eight-team caravan, packed with a fortune in trade goods, made its way safely to the company’s warehouse in Saint Louis. It was never easy to leave Owl. No wife could possibly be as cozy and good as she was; it seemed that she anticipated his every need and did her best to satisfy it before he himself even realized that he was needing anything. It might be a good rubbing with some fragrant grease, or it might be tender tidbits of dog, which Owl plucked from the stew pot and fed him with her fingers. It might be some new moccasins, which fit perfectly, or it might be some husband-and-wife activity, which was usually followed on Willy’s part by a long, deep nap.