The Berrybender Narratives

by Larry McMurtry

  “Oh yes, your brother Seven has disappeared,” the priest said. “Dire forebodings there.”

  “Tell me . . .but let’s walk while we talk,” Tasmin said. “You don’t seem to be very busy here, on the whole. After all, you were just sitting on a tree reading a book of tales, when I came along.”

  “Ah, but Lady Tasmin, they were moral tales . . .moral,” Father Geoffrin insisted.

  “There’s nothing very moral about a tale, that I can see,” Tasmin said. “Not if it’s a good tale.”

  Father Geoffrin looked rather downcast. He slipped the little book into a pocket.

  “A fine, subtle point, madame,” he said. “I’m a Jesuit—we thrive on subtle points. I suppose that’s why I hate the wilderness so. There’s nothing subtle about a tomahawk.”

  “I’m going, Father, subtle or not,” Tasmin said. “Are you coming?”

  “Happy to stroll along with you, madame,” Father Geoffrin said.

  36

  . . . a company of fiends sprang from the dense morning mist . . .

  FRÄULEIN Pfretzskaner awoke to horror—a company of fiends sprang from the dense morning mist and began to hack at her Charlie—she saw his blood on their hatchets as they struck again and again. The trek east had exhausted them both. All day they had pushed on through heavy grasses, weeds, briars, little swamps, mud; everything that grew clutched at them—even the grasses were waist high.

  “Charlie, we will have to do much chopping before we can farm,” Fräulein said, looking far to the east and seeing only the high waving grass.

  “Then we’ll chop, I guess,” Charlie Hodges said. He himself was a little startled to find the prairies so resistant, the going so slow. By nightfall they had scarcely traveled ten miles toward the distant Mississippi. The hard going had made them both ravenous—in one meal they ate nearly all the cold pork and thick sausages Fräulein had smuggled off the boat. They camped near a little copse of trees—Charlie thought he heard wild turkeys gobbling, not far away.

  “Might get us a gobbler, in the morning,” Charlie said, before falling asleep with his head on Fräulein’s ample shoulder. She herself was still munching corn bread and sausage; she always liked to eat a bit before falling asleep. Better dreams came to sleepers with full stomachs. She munched as their campfire dwindled, the coals glowing. Being off the boat, in this wilderness of grass and weeds, had not yet brought the quick happiness that Fräulein expected. Of course it was good to be free of the English—the English she was done with. But the sky seemed too wide. Munching corn bread helped put down the occasional pulse of apprehension that rose in her now and then, like nausea. Afoot, far from the boat, the wilderness she had been observing seemed more threatening—less easily turned into a prosperous farm. Still, they had traveled only one day. Happiness needed patience. Soon they would build a snug cabin, clear a neat field, produce some jolly, chubby Kinder, stout boys who would soon grow big enough to help Charlie in the rich fields they would plant. They would be so happy together, she and her Charlie, on their good American farm.

  By the time Fräulein awoke and began to scream the hatchets had made an end to Charlie—he opened his eyes in surprise just as death came. Fräulein Pfretzskaner fought to reach him—she wanted at least to close his eyes, but the Indians were around her like a wolf pack.

  Pit-ta-sa, their leader, was surprised at the size of the white woman—usually it was easy enough to capture a woman once her man had been killed, but this large woman was willing to fight. She smashed Blue Blanket’s nose with a skillet and hit Neighing Horses such a blow with her fist that the wind left him; he had to sit down. Pit-ta-sa himself grabbed the dead man’s rifle and hit the woman three times with the butt; but even that, though it staggered her, didn’t make her fall.

  Blue Blanket bled so freely from his nose that thick blood covered his chest and belly. After that day he would be called Bloody Belly. Pit-ta-sa hit the woman again with the gun butt—the blow would have killed a deer, perhaps even a horse, but the woman only sank to her knees. She still held the skillet.

  “I don’t want her, let’s go now—she would eat too much,” Neighing Horses said, when he had regained his power of speech. The woman lurched over, on her knees, and closed her dead husband’s eyes—or one of them, anyway. The other eye had been knocked partway out by one of the hatchet blows.

  Pit-ta-sa ignored Neighing Horses, who often got discouraged if a fight didn’t immediately go his way. Pit-ta-sa thought the big woman was about through fighting; she had begun to realize that her man would never be alive again. Her time with him was over; her fury was already changing to sorrow.

  “No, wait a minute,” Pit-ta-sa said.

  Neighing Horses hated having his opinions questioned, but Pit-ta-sa was always questioning them. He had never seen a woman as large as the one there on her knees, sobbing over her dead husband.

  “Put her on your horse, if you want to keep her,” Neighing Horses said. “She is too big for my horse. She might break his back.”

  “I don’t need to put her on any horse,” Pit-ta-sa reminded him. “It is not far to the Bad Eye’s camp. We’ll just tie her good and let her walk.”

  None of the young braves wanted to use the large woman—they all said they had had enough of women for a while. Pitta-sa found this amusing. What they didn’t want was to have their noses broken by a skillet.

  Then Fräulein sat down. Her Charlie was dead; all her dreams were broken for good. No amount of corn bread, or sausages, or anything else could hold back her hopelessness. Nothing was any longer any good. When the skinny Indian came toward her with leather thongs, Fräulein meekly held out her hands and let herself be tied.

  37

  Draga, a violent woman whose origins were obscure . . .

  MONSIEUR Simon Le Page, though a young man of only twenty-four years, considered himself to be a master of trader’s protocol; he believed himself to have the delicate sense of precedence necessary to deal successfully with native tribes. He would have appreciated the assistance of some intelligent man with whom he could discuss diplomatic niceties and analyze strategies, when tricky situations arose—in a large trading encampment such as the Mandans’, with many chiefs vying for position, tricky situations were bound to arise.

  Unfortunately Simon Le Page had no such bright assistant—he merely had the phlegmatic, incurious, pipe-smoking Malboeuf.

  “Malboeuf, do you even know what protocol is?” Simon had asked, more than once.

  “Monsieur, I just row the boat or skin the beavers,” Malboeuf replied. “I don’t care for fine words.”

  Young Monsieur Le Page had scarcely walked into the large encampment—followed by a horde of filthy children and packs of skinny, slavering dogs—when a delicate situation came to his attention.

  Draga was beating two nearly naked white women with a hot stick just pulled from a campfire. The women, filthy and bruised, seemed too glazed to respond. They each gave a grunt when a blow fell, but only a grunt. To Simon’s eye one looked English, one French. He considered himself a fair student of nationalities, as any trader must be if he were to succeed.

  “Look at the old slut, we should shoot her, monsieur,” Malboeuf said. “Beating those pretty girls.”

  Simon merely nodded to Draga, who paused in her chastisement for a moment to look at him hostilely.

  “If I shot Draga the Bad Eye would have us torn apart sinew by sinew,” Simon reminded him. “I’ll see what can be done for the young ladies in good time. First we have seven chiefs to visit, presents to distribute, and furs to inspect.

  “That’s our reason for being here, Malboeuf,” he repeated. “Furs. Charity will have to wait.”

  In fact it was the distribution of presents that worried Simon most. He would need to make a careful assessment of the ever-shifting orders of precedence among the chieftains. It would be no easy task.

  More than sixty solidly built earth lodges were scattered along both banks of the Missouri River. This
great village of the Mandans had been a busy trading center for many years; from it thousands of choice pelts had made their way north to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s great depot at Three Rivers, the place from which Le Page and Malboeuf had been dispatched.

  Young Simon Le Page stood high in the estimation of his superiors at the Hudson’s Bay Company—otherwise he would not have been entrusted with the Mandan territory, an area where there was sure to be competition from many experienced traders.

  Though Simon’s future looked bright—he hoped to someday direct all the company’s trading operations in the West—he knew that everything depended on precise and careful judgment. The Indian leaders were all jealous men; if one thought another had received better presents, then resentment might smolder or violence flare. Any slip—a musket with a broken trigger, blue beads given to a chief who preferred red beads, an insufficient offering of tobacco—could mean that, instead of a bright future, Simon might have no future. The order of precedence had to be estimated correctly—failure in this task might get one hacked, shot, scalped, killed. Simon was not fearful, but neither was he reckless. One must be supremely alert, and not allow oneself to be swayed by momentary sentiment, as Malboeuf had been when he saw Draga beating the two women.

  Draga, a violent woman whose origins were obscure, could do what she wanted with captives—whip them, torture them, even burn them alive—because of her impregnable position with the Bad Eye, the old, blind, murderous prophet who stood first among the leaders whom Simon had to woo. The Bad Eye was convinced that Draga could talk with the dead and hear what they were plotting—for the dead were always plotting, in the Bad Eye’s opinion. A woman such as Draga, who could inform him of the plans of the dead, was a woman who must be protected, which is why Simon Le Page walked past the two white women, as they were being beaten, without giving them more than the briefest glance.

  “I don’t like this Bad Eye,” Malboeuf said, as they approached the old man’s lodge, the whole surface of which had been piled with buffalo skulls, long since bleached white by wind and sun. There were said to be more than a thousand skulls piled on the humped, earthen lodge. Whenever a chieftain or leader wanted a good prophecy he brought the Bad Eye a buffalo skull. The old man—gross, surly, indolent, suspicious—would feel the skull carefully and then deliver his prophecy. Draga claimed to know what the dead intended. The Bad Eye, for his part, was said to know what the buffalo thought. Together they were capable of producing powerful fears.

  “Do you think they fornicate? Draga and the Bad Eye?” Malboeuf asked.

  “What a thought, Malboeuf,” Simon said.

  Did the prophet copulate with the witch? It was a distracting thought—so distracting that Simon at once put it out of his mind. He had his tasks to think of. He intended, personally, to inspect every peltry before allowing it to be sent north. This was the kind of thoroughness his superiors expected of him. If the trading went well, if the Bad Eye liked his presents, then it might be possible to do something for the two bruised white women, who were even then grunting under Draga’s blows.

  38

  . . . that same long mane of shining auburn hair . . .

  THE steamer was almost in sight of the Mandan encampments—another day would have put them there—when the scuffle occurred with the Teton Sioux, six of whom Captain Aitken had taken aboard as a courtesy three days earlier. He had done so on Charbonneau’s advice—a very large party of Sioux, some two hundred, Charbonneau thought, were milling around on the western bank, showing every sign of hostility.

  “It’s take the six or fight the two hundred, I expect,” he said.

  “The filthy wretches, what right do they have to interfere with us?” Lord Berrybender said, much vexed because the marauding Sioux had driven all the game off the river, where he had become accustomed to taking his sport. Almost every day, from his position on the lower deck, he had managed to bag a buffalo, an elk, or a deer. With Gorska now a drink-sodden wreck it was mostly helpful to have the game within rifle shot—and yet this admirable system had been disrupted by these wild men of the prairies.

  George Aitken had been dubious about the wisdom of taking the six Tetons aboard—but the Sioux had spotted the Piegan and the Hairy Horn, one of their own chiefs, and were jealous. When the six came aboard no one was less happy to see them than the Hairy Horn himself, who refused them even tobacco. He was almost as annoyed at their arrival as Berrybender himself. In his view one Sioux on board the steamer Rocky Mount was plenty—and the Sioux should be himself.

  “Six Sioux can get into a lot of mischief, Charbonneau,” Captain Aitken said. But he knew the interpreter was probably right—better six minor miscreants than two hundred warriors bent on war.

  George Catlin was the only one thoroughly glad to have the new Indians on board, for the simple reason that he was running out of Indians to paint. He and Holger Sten had set up rival ateliers on the upper deck, vying with each other to sketch such trappers or vagrant watermen as came on board. George and Holger had become rather chummy of late; soon they were trading brushes, critiquing each other’s efforts, comparing techniques. George Catlin still mainly stuck to portraits, while Holger Sten executed many rather pallid landscapes. In the absence of Tasmin—an absence that had begun to vex Lord Berrybender exceedingly—both painters had been slyly attempting to get Venetia Kennet to let them paint her with her glorious long hair down.

  “Why she’s a very Rapunzel,” Catlin exclaimed one morning—the two of them had caught a tantalizing glimpse of Venetia shaking out her auburn mane.

  It was that same long mane of shining auburn hair, stretching down to Venetia’s derriere, that produced the brief but unfortunate scuffle with the visiting Sioux. Venetia, feeling rather languid thanks to Lord Berrybender’s excessive attentions, was standing outside their stateroom, brushing out her hair—a process that took a good hour—when a Sioux named Half Man walked up, saw the astonishing mane, and casually began to inspect it with fingers greasy from a scrap of pork Cook had flung at him.

  Venetia, who was hard put to keep her lustrous hair clean in the primitive circumstances that prevailed on the boat, was so outraged by this indignity that she smacked the man hard with her silver-backed hairbrush.

  “Leave off, you filthy savage!” she yelled, with such force that Lord Berrybender at once rushed to her aid, grabbing Half Man by the arm. Half Man was called Half Man because one of his testicles remained hidden in his body; spells, herbs, and incantations had failed to coax it down. Fortunately the novelty of a man with only one testicle greatly appealed to the Sioux women—Half Man had four wives and had been seduced many times by curious girls. He thought his novelty might appeal to the tall white woman with the long hair—he had been about to show himself when she whacked him on the hand, an insult not to be tolerated. Half Man at once drew his knife—he meant to kill the woman, scalp her, jump overboard, and wade ashore with his great trophy scalp; but the old white man lurched out of the cabin and was so rude as to grab Half Man’s arm. Half Man’s knife was sharp—he whetted it carefully every night, since skinning buffalo or other game could easily dull a knife. Half Man shook free, but the old man lunged for him, intent on getting him in a strangle-hold. Half Man whacked hard at the hand, and his stroke was good. Three of Lord Berrybender’s fingers dropped to the deck, among them his trigger finger, a sight which caused Venetia Kennet to scream at the top of her lungs—and her lungs were very healthy. Piet Van Wely, just coming up the stairs, saw an Indian with a bloody knife—Piet at once reversed direction. The deafening screams unnerved Half Man—instead of scalping the tall woman he quickly followed the small fat man to the lower deck, where he sought out his fellow Sioux. The six tribesmen, knowing that the old lord was a powerful chief, decided it might be time to go ashore. Charbonneau, without knowing the extent of the disaster—Miss Kennet was still screaming—at once saw that a boat was provided.

  “I didn’t hurt that old man much,” Half Man explained to Charbonne
au. “It was only three fingers. That woman is too loud.”

  “Well, she’s a musician,” Charbonneau explained.

  Half Man was not mollified. “Who wants racket like that?” he asked.

  Venetia Kennet’s screams continued for several minutes. Tim, the stable boy, was forced to stuff straw in his ears, as a means of shutting them out.

  Captain Aitken, meanwhile, had once again assumed the duties of a medical officer; he bound up Lord Berrybender’s hand, in this task assisted by Cook, who had carved a great many joints in her day and was quick with opinions on matters of a surgical nature.

  Venetia Kennet screamed from shock—then, once she stopped screaming, sobbed for quite some time, not from shock but because she was faced with a deeply unappetizing situation. The loss of half a foot had greatly increased Lord Berrybender’s impatience; what tolerance could she expect now that he had lost more than half the fingers on his right hand?

  The old lord himself wandered distracted around the upper deck, wondering whether the stump of what remained of his finger would be long enough to reach a trigger.

  “Can I shoot—that’s the question, Captain—can I shoot?” Lord Berrybender said. He had already disturbed Captain Aitken’s neat bandage by trying to wiggle his trigger finger—or the stump that remained of it.

  “You must just be patient, sir,” Captain Aitken said. “Must not get the bleeding started up again.”

  “Patience be damned!” Lord B. cried. “Patient is the one thing I’ll not be! Had my way more or less instantly my whole life—don’t intend to stop now! Vicky, stop that bawling and get me Señor Yanez. He is said to be a fine gunsmith—perhaps he can devise me a trigger that I can reach with my little stump.”

  Later, after an extended conversation with Señor Yanez about modifications for the triggers of Lord Berrybender’s many guns, the small Spaniard hustled off and got busy. The old lord, having, by then, drunk a considerable quantity of brandy, sank into a lachrymose state. As he wept, little Mary Berrybender plunked a mandolin lent her by her friend Piet.