Sin Killer

by Larry McMurtry

  Tay-ha believed he could finally talk Chino down, and if he couldn’t, he might just kill him. The thought of owning Rosa excited him more and more. He led her out and kept her till late afternoon, playing with her breasts, probing. Rosa still refused to look at him, and she left at once when he finished. Tay-ha had laid his club down while enjoying Rosa’s body, and when he turned to pick it up he received a terrible shock. A white man was standing there—the white man had his club and was raising it. The man had covered his body with brown dirt, but it was clear from his hair that he was a white man.

  Tay-ha was too stunned even to cry out. Was it the Sin Killer? Already his club was coming toward his face, thick as a log, and fast.

  Using the well-sharpened Mexican sword, Jim cut Tay-ha’s head off. It was smashed and bloody, as Little Onion’s had been. Jim left it for the coyotes and badgers. But he hoisted Tay-ha’s small body and carried him to the bluff. As soon as it was dark he carried the corpse along the ledge to his cave.

  The next morning, just at dawn, the people in the slavers’ camp heard the cry of the Sin Killer for a second time—they heard the Word, emanating from the face of a cliff.

  Then, from the same spot, a body flew out and fell with a thud on the hard desert floor.

  “I thought so,” old Snaggle said, when he went with the others to inspect the headless body. “It was not like Tay-ha to stay out all night. He had already sent that woman back.”

  Blue Foot suddenly felt seriously worried. Tayha’s head had been cut off—this suggested that the killer had a plan. He had come for vengeance.

  Malgres called for unified action. “He’s just in a cave up there,” he said. “If we all go after him we can kill him.”

  None of the other slavers had the slightest interest in climbing the cliff.

  Draga lumbered over and looked at the headless body. She studied the cliff for a long time. An enemy was around. But her eyes had been smoked to dimness. All she could see was rock.

  “Maybe we should leave?” Blue Foot suggested. Ramon approved of that plan. “If we leave as a group he won’t dare attack us,” he said.

  “He attacked Obregon when we were fourteen against him,” Malgres reminded him. “Then he didn’t even use a gun, just a club. I think he could have killed us all.”

  “Let’s just leave,” Ramon said, almost pleading. Draga had no intention of leaving. “There’ll be Comanches along in a day or two,” she reminded them. “We’ll get the Comanches to hunt him down.”

  “What if no Comanches come?” Blue Foot asked. “What if they’re late?”

  They all strained their eyes looking up at the cliff, but it just looked like an ordinary red butte, very sheer. That a man could be up there didn’t seem possible—and yet Tay-ha’s body had been flung down.

  “Tay-ha wanted to buy my captive,” Chino remembered. “I wonder if there was any money in his pocket.”

  He began to search Tay-ha’s pants, but found nothing. Old Snaggle watched with amusement. He knew where Tay-ha hid his money—he meant to get it for himself when nobody was looking. He had come to admire the Mexican woman—perhaps he would buy her, with Tay-ha’s money. It would be a fine joke on Tay-ha, although one he couldn’t appreciate, due to being dead.

  “What if he kills us all, one by one?” Ramon asked.

  Blue Foot was outraged that one white man could disrupt their business so much. It was true that at present he had no slaves to sell himself, but he and Tay-ha had intended to go to Mexico and catch a few pretty soon. Now he would have to go with Bent Finger and old Snaggle, neither of whom was particularly skilled when it came to catching young Mexican slaves. With Tay-ha he could count on half a dozen captives; with the others he would be lucky to get three.

  Later, drunk, Blue Foot decided it was all Tayha’s fault, for carelessly hitting that Ute girl too hard; and as if that were not vexation enough, his own rope was missing. His rope had been right on his saddle but now it wasn’t there. Annoyed, he accused old Snaggle of stealing it, but the old man just shrugged. Angrily, Blue Foot made a tour of the whole camp, looking for his rope. It took a long time to braid a rawhide rope—its loss put him in such a foul mood that he cuffed two or three of the captive boys. Then he asked Chino if he could use the Mexican woman and Chino refused, a very annoying thing.

  “You let Tay-ha use her often enough—why not me?” Blue Foot asked.

  Chino didn’t bother to reply. Rosa sat with her eyes downcast; she was tired of being summoned by men but she was a captive. If she refused she would just be beaten and then dishonored anyway. Only her thoughts were private; no man could have those. She was glad someone had cut off the head of Tay-ha, the man who dishonored her most often, but Rosa had forgotten how to hope. She was a poor woman—who would bother to rescue her from such a place? And yet when she saw Tay-ha’s headless body she felt a little hope. Someone was up there—the slavers were afraid. She hoped whoever it was would kill all the slavers—then she would never have to accept their stinking bodies again.

  56

  They gambled and drank; they posted no guards . . .

  JIM COULD SCARCELY CREDIT the carelessness of the slavers. One of their own had been killed—decapitated, in fact—and yet they made little change in their habits. They gambled and drank; they posted no guards; they staggered around drunk; they didn’t even heed the warnings of their own dogs. Jim had crept in in the night and stolen the rope without being challenged, though several dogs barked. When a dog barked in an Indian camp all the warriors were on the alert immediately. But the slavers only kept dogs to eat—they just ignored the barking.

  Jim had studied the camp thoroughly and was ready to attack. The rawhide rope had been the last piece of equipment he needed. He meant to drag its owner to death at the end of it, as Petey had been dragged; then he meant to kill the rest of the slavers and attempt to guide the shivering captives to a place where they would be safe.

  Jim had prepared one more demonstration—he wanted to spread a little more terror, enough to cause the drunken men to panic—and when they were panicked, the Sin Killer would come among them.

  In the night he led the little mare up the narrow ledge to his cave. She snorted once or twice, probably because she smelled the ram, but she didn’t falter.

  That night he made sure that his sword was still sharp.

  At dawn he was ready. He mounted the mare and rode her carefully along the ledge—as he did, he let the Word pour out. Below, slavers and captives struggled to come awake. When they did they saw a man riding across the face of the cliff, seemingly upon air. It was only just dawn: the sun was not up. As Jim yelled out the Word, men scrambled for their guns. Chino even fired a shot, though he knew the distance was too great.

  Jim and the mare were off the ledge in two minutes—then he loped a wide circle to the east. He wanted to come at the men when the rising sun was in their faces.

  Malgres, Ramon, and Blue Foot decided to flee, but half drunk and gripped by fear, they made a mess of it. Blue Foot’s horse was notably skittish— it had to be approached calmly and patiently, but Blue Foot was too frightened to be calm—he rushed at the horse and the horse bolted. The panic communicated itself to Malgres’s horse, and then Ramon’s. The three men found to their shock that they were afoot at the worst of all times. Ramon fumbled with his gun. Malgres, looking around for a horse he might steal, drew his thin knife and began to stumble toward Draga’s hut. But then, to his horror, the Sin Killer came racing directly out of the face of the rising sun.

  “A long knife beats a short knife every time,” Jim said, as he cut Malgres down.

  Ramon dropped his gun. The Sin Killer came racing past him, after Blue Foot. For a second Ramon felt hope—perhaps the man only wanted Blue Foot.

  Jim killed Ramon with a backhand slash as he rode by. The mare closed with Blue Foot in only a second. Jim dropped the rope over the man and jerked it tight around his legs. Blue Foot’s face hit the stony ground so hard his teeth cra
cked. Before he could try to free his legs Jim turned and raced directly at the slavers’ camp, crying the Word as he came. Blue Foot bounced in the air, hitting rocks, hitting cactus; then he was dragged through a campfire: ashes filled his eyes, coals burned his hands. Jim poured the Word out in full cry, louder than he ever had. He dragged Blue Foot through every campfire as he slashed at the stumbling men. He cut Chino down where he stood. The Word had never poured out of him so strongly—it excited the little mare. Here was her chance to run, and she did run, bursting through Draga’s brush house as if the sticks were twigs. The old woman just managed to crawl out of the way. Too late, the slavers tried to flee—Jim cut them down as they ran. One managed to mount and run but the mare overtook the slaver’s horse as a greyhound might overtake a coyote. The fleeing slaver’s horse threw him. Jim killed him as he struggled to his feet. What was left of Blue Foot still bounced at the end of his own rope. The Sin Killer was still crying out the Word; he turned back toward the camp, racing down on Draga, who faced him bitterly. No one could stop this man—he had cut through her slavers as if they were merely vegetation, and now he was charging at her. Draga felt a poisonous bitterness: a hard life hers had been, and now this sudden end.

  The Sin Killer split her head; he could not stop. He had brought vengeance to the heathen and there were several more, huddled together in terror, screaming. The Sin Killer raised his bloody sword, still crying the Word. He could think of nothing but killing and was about to urge the mare into a last charge into the midst of the heathen, when the Mexican woman sprang in front of him. She grabbed his bridle, fought him for the little mare’s head.

  “Señor, no mas!” she said. “No mas!”

  The Sin Killer found it hard to stop; he wanted to keep killing until there was no one left to kill. But the Mexican woman was stubborn; she hung on to the bridle.

  “No mas, señor—they are only captives,” she cried, clinging to the frothing, sweaty mare who wanted to run some more. The wild sounds excited her.

  The woman would not let go—he would have to kill her to free himself—and he didn’t want to kill her, though he had raised a dripping sword. The Word ceased to pour out of him; he began to stop being the Sin Killer. One of the huddled little boys in the group before him looked like Monty. He saw a terrified girl the age of Little Onion. He remembered his children, his dead children, his dead wife. What the woman said was true. The group he had been about to charge were captives, not slavers. Only this stubborn Mexican woman had kept him from cutting them all down. He began to shake, as he realized what he had almost done. The struggle to stop himself from killing was the hardest he had ever fought. The captives still looked terrified. The sword he carried still dripped with Draga’s blood. Jim dismounted, shaking, and broke the bloody sword over his knee. Toward the captives he felt a sudden shame.

  “It’s all right—I won’t hurt you,” he stammered. When he snapped the sword he cut his hand on the sharp blade. The brown woman found a little of Draga’s whiskey. She washed the wound and bound it. One or two of the captives began to lose their fear. Jim saw that Blue Foot was dead, filled with thorns as Petey had been—it no longer seemed important. For an hour he felt too weak to walk. The captives were cautiously probing among the corpses of the slavers, taking a knife here, a little money there, a belt, a shirt.

  Rosa saw that the white man had exhausted himself with his terrible rage. She herself had known rage, but only for a short time. She had raged at her husband for his drunkenness before he died. She raged at her neighbors for letting their goats into her squash. She had raged at God when her two babies died. But she had not raged as this man raged. He had killed every single slaver, and if she had not stopped him he would have killed the captives too—and killed her as well.

  Rosa was cautious with the man. It took time to recover from such terrible anger. Meanwhile she did her own canvass of the destroyed camp. There was a boy named Emilio who was good with horses—she made him go catch the ones who had belonged to the slavers. She set one of the girls to assembling pots, and what food had been in camp.

  All this time Rosa watched the white man. He seemed spent, able only to sit. His hands still shook. But he did notice that Emilio had managed to bring in the horses.

  “Señor, will you help us—we are far from home?” Rosa asked finally.

  Jim had never felt such weariness. He felt almost incapable of movement, yet he knew he had to move. He nodded at the woman. Of course he would help them, once the weariness passed.

  “Señor, we should go,” Rosa told him. “Too many Comanches come here—they are always coming and sometimes they are many.”

  Jim nodded again. He liked the looks of the boy who had captured the horses.

  “That boy’s good with horses,” he told her. “My packhorse is tied just behind that bluff. If he’ll go fetch him we can load up and leave.”

  Emilio started at once but Jim stopped him. “You don’t have to walk—take the mare,” he said.

  The mare had calmed too. She snorted when the boy mounted but Emilio spoke to her sooth-ingly. Soon he returned with the packhorse. Jim would have liked to sleep, but he knew it was not the time. The brown woman was directing the packing, helping the captives assemble supplies. They should be able to make good time—or they should if only he could shrug off his strange weariness.

  “I don’t know your name,” he said to the woman. “I’m Jim.”

  “My name is Rosa,” she said. To her surprise the man stood up and offered to shake her hand. The gesture was so awkward that Rosa smiled—she had not expected to smile again. But she took the man’s hand and shook it. He did not want to turn her hand loose, but finally he did. He acted like a badly wounded man, and yet he had received no wound. Rosa kept an eye on him, as she worked. She saw that he was dazed. There was a little of Draga’s whiskey left. Rosa took the jug to Jim.

  “We have a little whiskey—it might help,” she said.

  “I might turn sinner if I get drunk,” Jim told her. But then he felt silly. He had killed a whole company of men. Surely killing was a worse sin than drunkenness. He took the jug and swallowed two mouthfuls of the burning liquid.

  “That’s like drinking fire,” he said. But he felt a little energy return. A few minutes later he led the group out of the camp.

  57

  He felt a constant need to rest.

  THE NEXT DAYS were the hardest Jim Snow had ever spent on the trail. The country itself was no harsher than other country he had traveled through—the problem was that he had no energy and no drive. He felt a constant need to rest. He knew he needed to move the freed captives off the great Comanche war trail—and he did lead them east; but compared with other treks he had made, it was a fumbling, uncertain process. He could not seem to keep his head about him: he kept going back in memory to the terrible moment when he had been about to slay the innocent captives with his dripping sword.

  After all, he hadn’t done it—Rosa’s stubborn action had brought him out of his killing frenzy just in time. The crisis had passed; yet he couldn’t forget it, couldn’t quite come back to himself.

  “It’s a good thing no Comanches found us today,” he said to Rosa, as they sat by the campfire the first night out.

  “I’ve got no fight in me now,” he added. “We’d be easy pickings.”

  “The Comanches will see all those dead men—they may not want us,” Rosa told him. “You even killed the old witch. She was a cruel woman—you did good to kill her.”

  Jim knew that was true—Draga’s cruelties had been practiced on his own sister-in-law, Buffum, and countless others. Still, he seemed to have no strength and he could not get his mind off the terrible thing that he had almost done.

  Three times in the next days they saw Indians— and yet the Indians didn’t come close. Probably Rosa was right. The Indians had seen the massacred slavers, Draga with her head split, Blue Foot dragged to death. Rapidly news of the massacre of the slavers spread across the so
uthern plains and deserts—in weeks it spread all the way to Canada. The Assiniboines knew the Sin Killer. They called him the Raven Brave and it did not surprise them that he had killed a bunch of miserable slavers. The Raven Brave was a man to be feared.

  Of the captives only the boy Emilio, who was so good with horses, felt at ease with Jim. The two of them talked about the problems of horses. The other captives kept to themselves. They could not forget that this man had been about to kill them. They weren’t sure they could trust him. The young women held back.

  Rosa managed the trek, managed the camps they made, managed the other captives—most of all, she managed Jim. She was efficient. She knew to make well-banked campfires. With Lord Berry-bender’s fine new rifle Jim made a lucky shot on an antelope. Rosa took a horse and packed the animal in. She butchered it, fed the others, dried some of the meat.

  Jim could not hide how disturbed he felt. He did not like to be without Rosa’s company—she steadied him. She rode beside him all day and sat with him at night. There was little talk. Only once or twice did he return to the moment of conflict, when she had jumped forward and stopped the killing.

  “‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord’—it says that in the Bible,” Jim told her. “I expect that’s the right way.”

  Rosa didn’t answer. She had never liked priests or followed their debates. What she wanted to tell Jim was that she had never been as glad of anything as she had been when she watched him kill the slavers. She didn’t intend to speak of it to Jim—it was better not to speak of one’s shame—but she had been particularly glad when he had killed Tayha, the man who dishonored her most casually, treating her as no better than an animal, even taking her in her bowels. She could never speak of such shame, or hope to be an honorable woman again, but she did not agree that vengeance should only be the Lord’s. She was alive because Jim had been vengeful. It was true that he lost himself in a blood frenzy and had almost gone too far—but she had stopped it, and it was over. She was not going to regret the deaths of slavers. In fact she had gone and spat on Tay-ha’s corpse, and was happy when she did it.