Sin Killer

by Larry McMurtry

  “I expect this is just silliness of some sort,” Tasmin said, picking up her son. “Papa will have to pay bribes, I expect—that’s likely all it will come to.”

  “No, Tassie, look!” Buffum said. “They almost shot High Shoulders and now they are chaining him, along with Pomp and Mr. Fitzpatrick. If I hadn’t begged High Shoulders not to fight, I fear they would have killed him.”

  Tasmin realized, with a chill, that her sister was right. Nearly half the Mexican soldiers were clustered around the blacksmith’s forge, their rifles at the ready. High Shoulders was being chained first—Pomp and the Broken Hand were trying to calm him. Tasmin looked around for Kit but couldn’t spot him. As soon as the English party was assembled, Captain Reyes began to speak, rapidly, angrily, and in Spanish. Charles Bent, looking grim, had stalked away—it was clear that it was only with difficulty that he controlled his temper.

  At the smithy Pomp was now being chained. As soon as the captain finished speaking, three wagons were brought into the courtyard. Tasmin caught Pomp’s eye—he did not seem disturbed, but when she started to walk over to him the soldiers looked at her menacingly. Lieutenant Molino stood nearby, so she approached him instead.

  “I had hoped for a word with my friend Monsieur Charbonneau,” she said. “Do you suppose that would be permitted?”

  Lieutenant Molino shook his head.

  “Monsieur Charbonneau is a particularly dangerous spy,” the lieutenant told her. “You must not try to speak to him. You must leave him to his fate.”

  “Leave him to his fate? Surely that’s rather portentous, Lieutenant,” Tasmin said. “He’s no spy at all. He’s been our guide for the past year and a half.”

  “I’m only a soldier, madame,” the young officer said. “I only know what I’m told, which is that Monsieur Jean Baptiste Charbonneau is a particularly dangerous spy.”

  “It’s so odd that anyone could think so,” Tasmin said. “We had a big wedding last week and Monsieur Charbonneau, the dangerous spy, danced frequently with the governor’s wife—and many ladies of the capital as well. Why would the governor’s wife allow herself to dance with a dangerous spy?”

  Lieutenant Molino permitted himself a smile.

  “I cannot speak for the governor’s wife, or the other ladies,” he said, “but if I were a spy like your friend, / would try to dance with the governor’s wife. At a grand dance a woman, even a governor’s wife, might become incautious. She might tell a clever spy exactly what he wants to know.”

  “I’m sure that’s logical—it’s just that it’s wrong in Pomp’s case,” Tasmin assured him. “He’s been so busy keeping us alive these past months that he can’t have had time for spying. But I fear I’m trying your patience, Lieutenant. I have no Spanish—I couldn’t understand your captain. What’s supposed to happen now?”

  “You are all being taken to Santa Fe—you’ll have a few minutes to get your things,” Lieutenant Molino told her. “It would be best if you hurry—Captain Reyes does not like to wait.

  “In Santa Fe you will be under house arrest—I think you will be quite comfortable until certain matters can be resolved.”

  “Oh no! The brutes! I can’t bear it!” Buffum cried. A cart had been brought for the three prisoners. Pomp and Tom, urged by a thicket of bayonets, had already climbed in, but High Shoulders was prostrate on the ground—a soldier stood over him, threatening to hit him again with the butt of a musket. Before he could, High Shoulders managed to struggle to his feet—he was rudely shoved into the cart, which at once turned and made for the big gate of the stockade. Wild with apprehension, Buffum tried to run to him, only to be blocked by the soldiers, who crossed their muskets and made a kind of fence.

  As the cart went out the gate Pomp turned and smiled at Tasmin—he seemed not the least disturbed, though his fellow prisoner the old Broken Hand looked grim.

  An escort of ten cavalrymen fell in behind the cart. It was a windy day; dust soon hid the prisoners and their escort too.

  Tasmin hurried to her father, who had calmed down. He was talking with Charles Bent.

  “I have no influence, not yet,” Charles Bent told them. “I hope to have it someday, but right now I’m just the Mexicans’ milk cow—what they’re milking out of me is money.”

  “But what’s this nonsense about Pomp being a spy?” Tasmin asked. “Of course he’s not a spy.”

  “Captain Reyes thinks otherwise,” her father said. “Probably thinks all Americans are spies.”

  “But where are they going with Pomp?” Tasmin asked.

  “Santa Fe . . . let’s hope he gets there,” Charles Bent told her. “Maybe I can catch Vrain and bring him back— Vrain’s better at managing the governor than I am.”

  “I don’t understand—a few nights ago Pomp was dancing with the governor’s wife—and now he’s under arrest,” Tasmin protested. “Why wouldn’t he get to Santa Fe? What’s going to happen to him?”

  ’� capricious people, the Spanish—too aloof for my taste,” Lord Berrybender declared. “Never forget a slight. I was their prisoner myself, you know, on the Peninsula. Exchanged before any harm was done, although the claret was filthy and the rats big as cats.”

  “Father, do answer me,” Tasmin pleaded. “What’s going to happen to Pomp?”

  She felt, suddenly, a deep apprehension—what had first seemed merely a bewildering charade, in which a straggly group of English travelers were suddenly required to be prisoners of war, had become something much more serious, at least where the three chained men were concerned.

  “The firing squad, probably—usual fate of spies,” Lord Berrybender said.

  In shock, Tasmin stared at him.

  “Usual fate of spies,” he repeated, thinking she might not have heard.

  59

  In her determination to catch the cart. . .

  TASMIN could never clearly recollect her own actions that morning, once her father had quietly revealed that Pomp Charbonneau might face a firing squad—might, in fact, be shot as a spy. In her determination to catch the cart and rescue Pomp she ignored the soldiers with their crossed muskets—in fact, to the great annoyance of Captain Reyes, she burst right through them, knocking three of them down, and ran out the gate, only to stop in despair when she realized that the cart with the prisoners in it was already merely a dust cloud in the west, so far away that she had no hope of catching it. Then a man grabbed her and she began to scream and curse—her curses were so violent that even Captain Reyes, who had started toward her, stopped his horse in surprise.

  The man who grabbed Tasmin was Kit Carson, who had been hiding in the woolshed, where the sheep were sheared. When he saw Tasmin make her desperate dash out the gate he raced to her side and managed to pull her back.

  “Stop it, Tasmin—you have to go get your kit, else they’ll chain you too and throw you across a horse,” he said, giving her a good shake, not unlike the one she had given him when he descended into their camp in the balloon.

  Tasmin realized, despite the shaking, that she was very glad to see Kit. Perhaps he could make sense of the whole confusing business. Besides, she wanted him to try and catch Jim and bring him back. When it came to saving people she put her best trust in Jim. Though her bosom continued to heave she managed to calm herself somewhat. With Kit’s help she hurried upstairs and got together as much kit as she cared to be burdened with. The others—Cook, Eliza, Buffum, Mary Kate, Vicky, and Little Onion and the babies—were already in one wagon, waiting for her. The menfolk, in another wagon, were already proceeding out the gate, with an escort of soldiers all their own.

  “I hid because I thought they might take me too,” Kit said. “I thought I could be more help on the loose—but it don’t look like they want me. I guess they figure Charlie’s got to have some help running the post, with Vrain gone north and Willy gone east.”

  “Besides that, you married a girl of good family— that must have helped,” Tasmin told him. ‘Anyway I want you to go find Jimmy and
bring him back.”

  Kit had to shake his head. “Can’t do it,” he said. “Jimmy’s long gone—it’d take a month to get him back, if he’d come. Vrain’s closer, and Vrain knows the Mexicans better anyway.”

  Before they could talk more, Lieutenant Molino politely led Tasmin to the wagon where the other women waited. Monty and Talley were both crying, unsettled by it all.

  “We must hurry,” Lieutenant Molino said, as he helped Tasmin into the wagon. “I fear it may snow—it might be difficult to get over the pass.”

  “I don’t care about snow,” she said. “I only want to know why your captain thinks Pomp Charbonneau is dangerous.”

  The old captain with the plume in his hat made an angry gesture with his quirt and the wagon with the women prisoners at once started for the gate. Charles Bent was talking to Kit Carson, who was saddling his horse. Kit looked up as Tasmin went by, but he didn’t wave.

  “These soldiers are mostly just boys,” Buffum observed. “It’s too bad all our good fighters left. I suppose they had no notion that we were to become prisoners of war.”

  The wind increased in force. Soon flakes of snow mingled with the swirling dust. Tasmin kept hoping for a glimpse of the cart that held Pomp but could scarcely even see the wagon her father was in. Little Onion tried to keep the little boys warm under a blanket, but they kept popping out, excited now.

  ’At least Lieutenant Molino seems rather sympathetic,” Vicky remarked.

  “Yes, I like the lieutenant, but he’s not the one we have to worry about,” Tasmin said. “It’s that old captain who’s in charge, and he could hardly be described as sympathetic.”

  The snow began to fall more thickly, swirling beneath the wagon, shortening the horizons so drastically that the women could scarcely see their escort, though they could hear the horses tramping just behind them. The women huddled together, pulling blankets around them for warmth. Tasmin’s mind was racing—she scarcely felt the cold. The worsening weather seemed to her an advantage. With visibility so limited perhaps Pomp and the others would escape— jump out of the carts and vanish. Their boy captors would never find them in such weather. Surely they could hobble back to the post, where they would soon be rid of their chains. This notion—of Pomp’s escape in the storm—gave her hope. If only he’ll try, she thought. If only he’ll try.

  60

  Captain Reyes rode with a light heart. . .

  CAPTAIN Antonio Reyes, like Tasmin—the Englishwoman who had cursed him so violently he thought he might have to shoot her—paid little heed to the worsening weather, as the three wagons, the forty-five cavalrymen, and the huddled captives inched across the whitening plain toward Santa Fe. Captain Reyes rode with a light heart, indifferent to the whirling snow, the reason for his lightness of spirit being that in capturing Jean Baptiste Charbonneau he had caught and perhaps would even execute the protege of his worst enemy, the famous explorer William Clark.

  Captain Clark had never met Captain Reyes, or even heard of him. He would have been surprised that this aging soldier in the Mexican army hated him so—but it was true.

  In his youth Antonio Reyes had been the best cadet in his school. In only two years he was made captain, in part because of a brilliant campaign he had led against the intractable Indians in the pueblos west of the Rio Grande.

  But that well-earned promotion was thirty years behind him, and there had been no other. Antonio Reyes was still a captain, not a general and not a governor, possibilities that had been well within his reach when he was a rising young officer. Then, for one reason only, his promising career had stalled: the much-heralded expedition of Captain Lewis and Captain Clark to the western ocean, across the great rich territory that had once been Spain’s and should have been Spain’s forever. Napoleon had interfered, selling the Americans a vast region that should not even have been his to sell. But it was Captain Lewis and Captain Clark, pushing into lands where they had no right to be, that had done the damage, both to Spain and to Antonio Reyes.

  The Spanish authorities in Mexico City and Santa Fe had not been stupid men. They were well aware that President Jefferson had dispatched the two captains across the country and were not blind to the implications for Spain if they succeeded. Official opinion was unanimous: Lewis and Clark must be stopped! And who better to stop them than the brilliant young Captain Antonio Reyes?

  Proudly and confidently, Captain Reyes set out with a company of cavalrymen to intercept the two explorers—set out and failed, not once but four times. These failures, in Captain Reyes’s view, had nothing to do with his own skill. He failed because of the difficulty of the land, coupled with the miserliness of his superiors. The soldiers he led were inexperienced, the horses he was given were indifferent, the supplies were pitifully inadequate. The native tribes were uniformly hostile. The weather was severe, the drought extreme, their marksmanship poor, the buffalo elusive. Many of his soldiers faltered and then simply died. At the end of his second attempt, Captain Reyes was forced to limp back to Santa Fe with only six men. On the fourth and final trip the survivors had literally to limp back, every single horse having been stolen by the sly savages.

  After this ignominy, Captain Reyes was sent out no more, nor was he promoted. The American captains returned in triumph, having crossed the continent with the loss of only one man. Captain Lewis and Captain Clark became big heroes—Captain Reyes was set to drilling cadets. He rejoiced when, a few years later, news reached him that Captain Lewis was dead; but Captain Clark was not dead. He held an important position in Saint Louis, where he constantly urged Americans of all kinds to press on into the country he and his partner had opened.

  A few of Clark’s successors, like young Zebulon Pike, were captured and expelled. Captain Reyes himself was given the job of escorting Zebulon Pike out of Spanish territory; but these were only small victories. Many more Americans came: trappers, traders, scientists, military men, all with greed in their eyes. Mexico broke with Spain and became a republic, but in the vast distances of the West, it made little difference. More and more Americans came, ignoring Mexican claims. Soon they were taking beaver out of every stream and pond. From the East there were frequent rumors of plots against Mexico. Old General Wilkinson, governor of Upper Louisiana, was said to be intent on invading Santa Fe. In Texas waves of immigrants were beginning to challenge the Mexican authorities north of the Rio Grande.

  To Captain Reyes, who knew how hard it had been to do what Lewis and Clark did, Mexican defeat seemed inevitable unless stern measures were adopted. If he had been governor he would have summarily executed every American who entered Mexican territory illegally. Half measures would never stop the Americans. But the governors were themselves too wishy-washy, too attracted to American merchandise as well as the handsome bribes the traders were willing to pay. Now the authorities had even capitulated to the Bents and St. Vrain, allowing them to build their big trading post on the Arkansas. To Captain Reyes it meant that the end of Mexican rule was near. In ten years, perhaps, or twenty at the most, the Americans would take the whole West, slicing off Texas here, Oregon there, California in good time. Santa Fe, poorly defended, with soldiers who were no more than half-trained boys, would fall to whatever American general chose to invade it.

  At last, though, by sheer luck, Captain Reyes had been presented with a chance for revenge. It had been known for some time that Pomp Charbonneau, whom Captain Clark regarded almost as a son, was in the West, guiding a rich Scotsman, himself perhaps a spy. It was known, too, that an English noble family—and the English after all still held the rich northland—were traveling south from the Yellowstone. The English had arrived at the Bent’s just as the governor arrived to attend the wedding of the Jaramillo girls.

  The minute the governor got back and spread the news that he had seen the English, and Pomp Charbonneau as well, Captain Reyes had seen his chance. He went at once to the governor—it was easy enough to persuade him to send a troop of soldiers to capture the English party and br
ing it to Santa Fe.

  The old lord was known to be very rich—once a munificent ransom had been arranged, the English could be escorted out of the country, as Zebulon Pike had been. Since the governor seemed to enjoy socializing with them, perhaps they could be kept in Santa Fe through the winter and sent on their way in the spring.

  Captain Reyes said nothing to the governor about his hatred of William Clark. The governor, in his view, lacked firmness; against the taciturn and treacherous Indians he might employ strong measures, but if Americans or Europeans were involved he sometimes wavered. Pomp Charbonneau, educated in Europe, was said to excel at the social graces. As a dancer he had made a great hit with the ladies who attended the wedding. If he were allowed to reach Santa Fe, social pressure might be brought to bear—Pomp might escape the fate all spies deserved. In Captain Reyes’s mind Pomp Charbonneau was just as much a spy as Zebulon Pike. If allowed to return to Saint Louis, he would certainly inform Captain Clark about how weak the Mexican defenses were. There would be more plotting and, very soon, an American army would advance on Nuevo Mexico.

  Despite the bitter frustration of his truncated career, Captain Reyes considered himself a patriot. He loved Mexico, hated America. He knew the American temperament, knew they would not stop until they had all of the West. They would eliminate the Indians and the Mexicans as well. Allowing the Bents to build their trading post was, in the captain’s view, an act of supreme folly: it was like handing them the keys to the treasury.

  Far away, in Saint Louis, Captain Clark lived the life of a hero—while he, Antonio Reyes, no less gifted, had spent his life as a failure, drilling indifferent cadets on a dusty parade ground. He was too old to expect the kind of glory that Captain Clark had enjoyed so long. But the gods were not entirely unfair. Unexpectedly, he had been presented with a chance for revenge. He had Pomp Charbonneau and he meant to put him before a firing squad as soon as they reached Taos—as good a place as any to line up a firing squad.