Sin Killer

by Larry McMurtry

  “I am set afire!” he cried, just as Lord Berrybender entered the kitchen, hungry, as he always was, after a brisk ride.

  “Hoping for a bit of something—a hen perhaps—something to last me till dinnertime,” he said.

  Then he noticed Signor Claricia, his carriage master, very red, his shirtfront drenched—yet still the man was pouring water down his throat.

  “Why, what’s made the man so thirsty?” he asked.

  Cook pointed to the bowl of stew. “The stew’s a-burning him, I fear, my lord,” she said. “It’s made with the local peppers—too strong for civilized people.”

  “Oh fiddle, not likely,” Lord Berrybender said. “I like peppers myself. It’s the reason English food is dull. Not enough peppers.”

  He picked up Signor Claricia’s abandoned stew and sniffed it. Then he sniffed again, approvingly.

  “Got any more?” he asked.

  Little Onion was horrified; Cook no less so. Catastrophe loomed.

  Cook rarely lied, but she thought she must lie this time.

  “Just a bit for the local girls,” she said.

  Signor Claricia noticed Lord Berrybender looking hungrily at his stew.

  “No, no!” he said. “You’ll be scalded.” “To each his own,” Lord B. remarked. “Smells good to me. If it’s too peppery for Aldo I don’t see why I shouldn’t eat his. Do you suppose I can have a fresh spoon?”

  Cook was about to protest that all the spoons were dirty, but before she could, Eliza, who had failed to note Signor Claricia’s agony, handed Lord Berrybender a soupspoon.

  “Thanks, my girl,” he said, and dug into the stew.

  Little Onion wondered if she ought to flee. She had only hoped to improve her friend’s health a little, and now Lord Berrybender was about to have his mouth set on fire.

  But to everyone’s astonishment, particularly Aldo Claricia’s, Lord Berrybender ate the stew as he would any other dish. In a moment the bowl was empty.

  “Very tasty,” he said. “Best stew I ever had, in fact. Why not give the hen to the local girls—that way I can have a bit more of this good peppery stew.”

  Signor Claricia could hardly believe what he was seeing.

  “But isn’t it hot?” he inquired.

  Lord Berrybender accepted a second large bowl from Cook, sniffing it as if it were a rare wine.

  “Of course it’s hot—it’s supposed to be hot, signor,” he said. “That’s the whole point of the chilis.”

  He ate the second bowl with relish. “Hope you’ll see that we always have a good supply of those tasty little chilis—the green ones,” he said, when he finished. “The red ones I find rather bland.”

  Cook contemplated the stew, of which there was still plenty. She knew she had better learn to cook it. When His Lordship liked a dish he would soon be calling for it again.

  When Aldo Claricia found out that Little Onion had provided the stew in hopes of improving his health he flew into a fine Mediterranean rage, which Little Onion weathered patiently. Later in the evening she had her reward. Signor Claricia, once asleep, was breathing normally. The chilis had cleared his head. The next morning he was feeling so good that he did something he had always wanted to do. He pinched Little Onion’s bottom and tried to give her a hearty kiss.

  Little Onion was profoundly shocked. What was Mr. Aldo thinking? She fled to the nursery, trembling and confused. Buffum, Vicky, and Mary were all there, helping Tasmin watch the babies. When the women understood that all that had happened was a pinch and a kiss, they were much amused.

  “That’s just how men are,” Mary assured her. “Particularly, it’s how Italians are,” Buffum added.

  “Shut up, for her it’s important!” Tasmin insisted. “It’s one of those moments when life changes. I’m myself good friends with Kit Carson and George Catlin and Father Geoff. Doesn’t mean I want them kissing me, of a sudden.”

  “Then they can kiss me!” Petal exclaimed, though she had not been following the conversation.

  “But perhaps his intentions are serious,” Buffum suggested. “Perhaps he wants to marry our Onion. I do believe she loves him. What then?”

  “Each of us has followed our hearts,” she added. “Why shouldn’t Little Onion have some happiness? Jim hardly needs two wives.”

  “Mr. James Snow can have as many wives as he wants,” Kate Berrybender said.

  Mopsy began to whine, as he often did at stressful moments.

  “Be quiet, you puppy!” Petal ordered. “I will take this up with Jim when he comes back,” Tasmin promised. “Though I will say that being allowed to follow one’s heart is no guarantee of earthly bliss.”

  Petal began to drag the dog around the room by the tail, which irritated Monty. He came over and tackled his sister. Mopsy escaped. Petal bumped her head on the tile floor.

  “Bumped,” she cried, hoping for a broad show of sympathy. But her mother and her aunts remained unimpressed by her injury, so she flung herself into Little Onion’s arms.

  “Shameless child,” Mary remarked. “I fear our Onion is too softhearted.”

  “Go away, Mary,” Petal said.

  15

  . . . very staid, very severe.

  DOÑA ELEANORA KNEW that lecturing her young niece on the scandalous impropriety of her liaison with Lord Berrybender was bound to be wasted breath. Julietta Olivaries, reckless to a fault, vain from birth, secure in her high position, would not listen. Yet the Governor’s wife herself had come especially to try and persuade Doña Eleanora to make some attempt to curb this wild girl, whose excesses were so blatant that they seemed to threaten civic order. Santa Fe was not Paris—it was a small place, and its handful of respectable families were very staid, very severe. The behavior of young señoritas was strictly chaperoned. Girls married whom they were expected to marry. The young officers might priss and preen a bit, flirting with their superiors’ wives and daughters; it was a way of livening up balls. Doña Eleanora, herself a renowned beauty in her youth, had had suggestions whispered in her ear by some of the bolder young officers. A few had even attempted to bestow kisses on her fine plump shoulders, but in Santa Fe, by and large, courtship was a game with strict rules. Doña Eleanora had made a good match—her husband ran the Treasury. With any luck he would be governor someday himself, besides which he was handsome, lively, and the best dancer in Santa Fe. He knew the rules and codes as well as she did. Once a charming young officer had been seated by Doña Eleanora at dinner. He let a hand rest on her knee, a gesture she tolerated. But when the hand attempted to move up, Doña Eleanora took it in both of hers and pushed it away. “Someday, perhaps,” she said. “Not now.” After all, why close off possibilities? Her handsome husband might die. Besides, just across the table, her husband was paying witty attentions to the Governor’s young niece. Life, after all, was to be lived. Her husband would soon have to make his biannual visit to the City of Mexico—a long and hazardous trip. The “someday” might come for the young officer, if it appeared that he was capable of playing by the rules.

  Rules, however, meant nothing to Julietta Oli-varies, a young woman bitterly discontent in her exile and determined to do exactly as she pleased. When her aunt suggested that she might be a little more discreet in her liaison with Lord Berrybender, Julietta arched her lovely neck and practically spat with fury.

  “Some peasants saw you naked in a buggy, doing something ugly with that old Englishman,” Doña Eleanora told her. “You’ll bring disgrace on us. At least you could go inside, if you want to do these nasty things.

  “Besides, it must be awkward,” she added—she tried to picture herself doing the nasty things in a buggy and concluded that it wouldn’t work. But Julietta, of course, was young and lithe. Acrobatic love would come easier for her.

  “I like doing things in a buggy,” Julietta told her aunt. “I don’t care if the peasants see me.”

  “But he’s so old!” Doña Eleanora remarked, trying to think of some argument that would register with
this defiant little bitch.

  Julietta gave her an icy smile. “You forget my history,” she said. “That old French banker they married me to was nearly eighty. He even had a wart on his prick. Then they put me in a convent and the nuns beat me. When I ran away they caught me and sent me to Mexico, where I was expected to marry an old hidalgo, whose bad sons raped me. I bit one of them, so they sent me here, to the end of the world. I can behave any way I want. There are no more places they can send me, unless they give me to a wild Indian or something. Lord Berrybender is a great noble. He does as he pleases. If we want to play games in a buggy no one can stop us!”

  “His wife is a fine musician,” Doña Eleanora remarked.

  “She was only a servant,” Julietta replied, with a look of scorn. “She bores him and I don’t.”

  Doña Eleanora gave up. No one could control this girl—there was no one in either the New or the Old World who could make her behave. She took her pleasures where she found them. The Olivarieses had always been that way.

  Later, when Julietta flounced out, Doña Eleanora tried again to picture what had gone on in the buggy. Would she, a woman of mature dimensions, be able to do it? She had to admit that it was an exciting thought.

  16

  A troublemaker, that one—a great beauty . . .

  THE GOVERNOR didn’t quite know how to begin. All Santa Fe was talking about Lord Berrybender and the Olivaries girl. A troublemaker, that one— a great beauty with an absolute absence of morals. The old families who supported his governorship were outraged. Some of them wanted the English people sent away. Pressure was mounting on the Governor to do something. And yet, in financial respects, the old lord had been liberality itself. His wife and daughters spent lavishly in the Plaza, on jewelry mostly. His cook bought pigs and sheep and goats for the table. Lord Berrybender even had no objection to ransoming himself, when the time came to leave. He was a genial, agreeable man of the world who much enlivened Santa Fe’s staid society. If the Oli-varies girl hadn’t shown up, there would have been no trouble—perhaps a wife or two would have been seduced, but wives were always being seduced, if not by Lord Berrybender, then by someone else. It was this wild highborn girl who upset everything.

  So the Governor had invited Lord Berrybender to the Palace, to talk about the situation, and Lord Berrybender, as genial as ever, had come.

  Still, the Governor didn’t know quite how to begin.

  “Julietta is very beautiful, yes?” he offered. “She certainly is,” Lord Berrybender agreed. “I met her father at Salamanca—he was on the other side, of course. The whole family’s beautiful. Julietta’s a top-grade beauty. She’s got that long Oli-varies neck.”

  “And your lovely wife?” the Governor inquired. He felt in a heavy quandary. Who was he to tell this English lord what to do? He might be the Governor of Nuevo México, and yet, facing Lord Berrybender, he felt like a provincial clerk.

  “Haven’t seen much of Vicky lately,” Lord Berry-bender admitted. “Got my hands full with Julietta— vexing little wench she can be. No inclination to stint, when it comes to fornication.”

  “There was something about a buggy,” the Governor said, awkwardly. “The people are talking, a bit.”

  Lord Berrybender looked puzzled. Something about a buggy. What about a buggy?

  Then he remembered—it had been Julietta’s idea. She was always looking for ways to spice up the tupping—had little interest in just the common old grind. It had been touch and go, he had to admit. Of course, Julietta was nimble as a cat. No problem for her to skip around. A little harder for himself, of course, but the occasion had been on the whole a success. Julietta got quite stirred up. But how the devil had the Governor learned about it?

  “Some people saw you—some peasants,” the Governor told him.

  “Doesn’t surprise me—I told Julietta there were bound to be people around,” Lord Berrybender replied. “Annoyed her that I bothered to mention it. Called me provincial. Me! High and mighty folk, the Olivarieses. Of course I didn’t want to look a prude. Suspected there might be a peasant or two, peeking at us. But there’s no restraining a girl like Julietta, not when she’s bent on her pleasure.”

  “A man in your position, a great nobleman, should be careful,” the Governor mumbled.

  “Now, now, Governor, you’ve got it backward,” Lord B. said pleasantly. “It’s the peasant folk who have to be careful. A man in my position doesn’t have to be careful. That’s the whole point of being a man in my position—you can do as you damn please, and the devil take the hindmost.”

  The Governor made no answer. He looked unhappy.

  Lord Berrybender felt a little bored. What the devil did the man want? To chide him over a little tupping? Julietta would be much amused, once he reported.

  “How’s your wife?” he asked. “Didn’t see her at the dance last night. Missed her, in fact. I always enjoy a dance or two with Margareta. Crippled as I am, I still like to hobble around with the pretty ladies.”

  Since discovering his wife in the storeroom, whipping Tomas, the Governor had become a silent man. His secretaries and scribes didn’t know what to make of it. Sometimes he sat silently at his desk most of the day, staring out the window. He was the Governor, a man who wielded great power, and yet now he felt powerless. It seemed to him that the peasants, even the barefoot Indians, were luckier than he. He could not get the thought of his sweaty wife out of his mind. He didn’t like even to walk past that storeroom. There were other handsome boys in his employ; lately several of them had looked down in embarrassment when he approached them. Perhaps they too had been led to the storeroom, stripped, and whipped. A governor could not stop work. Already more than one hundred documents awaited his signature. And yet he sat; he looked. At home Margareta ignored him. When she did look at him it was with defiance.

  Lord Berrybender saw that the Governor seemed to be preoccupied—at mention of his wife he had seemed to flinch. Mildly curious, Lord Berrybender tried again.

  “Doña Margareta is well, isn’t she? No trouble, I hope.”

  “She likes to whip boys,” the Governor blurted out.

  “What’s that?” Lord B. thought he must have misheard.

  “She whips boys,” the Governor said, tonelessly, ashamed of speaking and yet unable to stop.

  Lord Berrybender supposed that to be a small matter. Servants often needed disciplining.

  “Good for her,” he said. “Doesn’t do to be soft with servants. I’ve had plenty whipped myself.”

  But the Governor, now that he had launched into his revelation, wanted the matter made clear.

  “They are good boys, all of them,” he said. “She whips them because it gives her pleasure.”

  Lord Berrybender, about to take his leave, sat back down in his chair.

  “Oh, I see—that kind of whipping,” he said. “Do the boys enjoy it?”

  It occurred to him that he had been rather attracted to Doña Margareta when he first got to town. There was scorn in her look—he found that rather interesting. A man only needed to know how to put such feelings to good use.

  “The boys are ashamed,” the Governor assured him. “Some of them may even leave the service.”

  “Oh now, that’s surely unnecessary,” Lord Berry-bender replied. “Women will play their games—no wilder I suppose than what Julietta and I did in the buggy—though if it’s only a one-way game that’s rather different.

  “Wouldn’t have supposed it to be a Latin flourish,” he added. “Far more of an English thing—or German—or Dutch. My daughter Mary used to flagellate her little botanist, you know, and he’s as Dutch as they come.”

  Lord Berrybender felt rather wistful—he wished he had made a point to get to know Doña Margareta better.

  “You might try taking her to England, Governor,” he said. “There’s a different attitude toward rustication there. Doña Margareta could easily find plenty of English lads who’d let her whip them. Some have even been known to pa
y for it.”

  The Governor was nonplussed. “Pay to be whipped?” he asked.

  “Why not?” Lord B. said. “I suppose it reminds them of school. Canings and such. I never liked it particularly, but it’s surely no reason to leave the service. All part of the great sport of love. Julietta bouncing up and down in a buggy, while Doña Margareta would rather be whipping a boy. Whatever it takes, I say. Whatever it takes.”

  17

  Below them in the Plaza, the grandees of Santa Fe . . .

  JULIETTA’S WORSE THAN I ever was,” Tasmin remarked to Father Geoff.

  Below them in the Plaza, the grandees of Santa Fe were enjoying their evening promenade. Old widows, dressed in black, strolled hand in hand. Vicky stood watching too, with angry eyes. Her husband, Lord Berrybender, was hobbling along with his young mistress, whose beauty was evident even in the dusk.

  “Oh, you weren’t so bad—you’ve only had one affair, unless I missed something. Perhaps a rather limited one at that.”

  “Very limited—it hardly counts,” Tasmin said. “I was prepared to be faithful to Pomp forever, and yet now I can hardly remember him.”

  “When I married Albany I supposed I’d be happy,” Vicky said. “I supposed I’d have someone to promenade with, in the evenings.”

  “Now, now . . . no self-pity,” Tasmin told her. “We’ve all made our beds. There’s no reason to suppose they’d be easy beds.”

  “And also no reason to think a little slut from Spain would show up and steal Albany,” Vicky said. She could barely control her bitterness.

  Lately Tasmin had had a talk or two with Julietta Olivaries and had to admit that she rather liked her. She was determined to escape the inevitable arrangements that were made for highborn girls in the old country. Tasmin had begun to suspect that she and Julietta were a good deal alike. Of course, the girl was willful—but so had she been.