The Berrybender Narratives

by Larry McMurtry

  Remembering, suddenly, Fräulein Pfretzskaner’s terrible end, which could so easily have been her own, Buffum began to sob.

  Venetia Kennet began to cry also. The thin, fading light filled her with the deepest melancholy, the darkest sorrow. His Lordship, her great hope, was gone, doubtless to be frozen—and now she found herself pregnant with his bastard. Cook had confirmed her status only that day. The pregnancy that had once been her hope was now her despair. The seed at last had sprouted, but the noble seeder was gone.

  As Buffum sniffled and Venetia Kennet sobbed, a new sound reached them over the roar of snow—a high chant of some kind. They all turned and there was the Hairy Horn, calling out a high, eerie chant. He had thrown off his blanket—he faced the storm almost naked.

  “The Hairy Horn wishes to end his life’s journey soon,” Mary said. “The melody he offers up now is his death song.”

  “Wouldn’t pay too much attention to that claim,” Charbonneau said. “He’s said as much before and yet he’s still eating a good portion of vittles, every day.”

  Venetia Kennet, too distressed to stand on ceremony, flung herself into Tasmin’s arms and gasped out her secret.

  “I am going to have a baby—you are not the only one, Tasmin,” she said.

  Tasmin gave the weeping cellist a consolatory pat or two. At least the woman was not without vigor, a desirable quality in the New World they were voyaging into.

  “I wasn’t the only one anyway, Vicky—there’s our merry Coal,” Tasmin said. “If you ask her she’ll make your baby a snug fur pouch. Why, we can establish quite a nursery up on the Yellowstone—at least we can if we survive this desperate weather.”

  53

  Getting the bear out proved a challenge . . .

  MAELGWYN Evans liked to claim that he got through the bitter winters along the Knife River through the precaution of having taken six hundred pounds of wives: three Winnebagos and a Chippewa. Maelgwyn himself was skinny, but his lodge north of the river was well caulked, and the warm poundage of his four wives was proof against even the coldest night.

  Of course, this stratagem only worked if he was in his lodge when the bitter weather struck. He and Jim Snow had gone three or four miles north, meaning to take a fat buffalo cow, before the blizzard hit. They easily killed a cow, took the liver and sweetmeats and a bit of flank, and were hurrying back to shelter when they saw the three men from the steamer come crunching ashore and start shooting into the buffalo herd, evidently oblivious to the fact that a high plains blizzard was swiftly advancing toward them.

  “The one doing the shootin’ is my wife’s pa,” Jim said. “The old one.

  “She says he’s stubborn,” he added, watching the scene across the snowy plain.

  “A man from the north, I expect,” Maelgwyn said. “No one stubborner than a northman. Not practical minded, like us Welsh.”

  Jim eyed the hunting party, eyed the approaching storm, eyed the boat. He was calculating as to whether he had time to race over and try to get the hunting party to safety. He had had a chilly tramp north; once he knew that he was upriver from the steamer he rested for a day, allowing Maelgwyn’s wives to feed him thick stews and rub him well with bear grease taken from a fat grizzly that Maelgwyn had killed in its den earlier in the fall. Getting the bear out proved a challenge, even for a Welshman with four stout wives.

  “It was a wide bear in a narrow den,” Maelgwyn said. Always eager to talk, he described the adventure at some length, while Jim dozed and got his rub. His Ute wives had the same habit; he could expect a good rub when he showed up. Tasmin had never rubbed him in that fashion, but of course he had yet to supply her with the fat of a hibernating bear. He wondered, as he dozed, if it was not more practical—as Maelgwyn claimed—just to have Indian wives, women well able to cure skins, pick berries, gather firewood, tan pelts.

  “One of the benefits of life out here on the baldies is that not many English come this way,” Maelgwyn said. “But now there’s a steamer full of ’em. I don’t know that I like it.”

  Maelgwyn was respected by all the beaver men, north and south, because of the high quality of his pelts. Other trappers sometimes brought in more pelts, but Maelgwyn’s were always prime—he secured the silkiest beaver, the fox pelt with the most shine, weasel tails, and pelts taken from wolves with their long winter hair. He traded no pelts with flaws—even John Skraeling, who didn’t like the north, stopped at Maelgwyn’s from time to time, taking his excellent furs back to Santa Fe.

  “It’s the wives,” Maelgwyn claimed, modestly. “I’ve trained every one of them. I’ve my own little fur factory, here on the Knife.”

  Jim concluded that there was no way he could get to the foolish hunters before the storm engulfed them. Nobody, white or Indian, could do much in a whiteout. The only thing to do when a blizzard came was find a warm place and wait. He and Maelgwyn had to make haste themselves. The whirling snow was waist high when they got back to Maelgwyn’s lodge.

  “I expect those English will freeze,” Jim said.

  “It’s likely, unless the buffalo save them,” Maelgwyn said. “Buffalo crowd up in a storm. If the English can stay in the midst of them it’ll knock some of the wind off. I was saved that way myself once, up on the Prairie du Chien—got in among two or three thousand buffalo. I had to keep moving, but I survived.

  “If it clears by dawn, then the bad cold will hit,” he added. “They have quite a few buffalo down. I expect we could find them by starlight, if the blow lets up.”

  “I don’t know that old man, but he’s my wife’s pa,” Jim said. “When the wind dies we might better try.”

  54

  “Not a cork broken, not one”

  THE buffalo Tim crouched behind was cooling—it had died. Snow blew over the dead beast and over Tim. By chance his hand fell on the knife he had dropped earlier. Though he felt little hope, he grasped the knife with both hands and began to try to scratch out a little cave, beneath the carcass. He couldn’t feel his feet, but still had some feeling in his hands. His ears stung like fire. He pressed his face against the dead buffalo and sucked in his breath as he worked. Slowly the trench deepened. He could just squeeze a little way beneath the hairy, inert body. He raked and raked, but then somehow lost the knife again. He tightened his coat around him and crowded in under the buffalo as best he could, shivering so violently that he thought his bones might snap. At moments he wondered if he had already died. He seemed to hear Lord Berrybender talking, going on about some great Spanish battle he had fought long ago. Tim heard him, then didn’t hear him, then heard him again. Until the two men came in the starlit night and tried to get him to his feet, Tim had not been aware that the wind had died. He was at first not sure whether he was alive or in heaven, though surely his hands would not hurt so if it were the latter.

  “Come on, you’ve got to walk,” Jim told him. “It’s not far to the river—we can’t carry both of you.”

  “It hurts too much, I believe I am frozen,” Tim said, very surprised to see Lord Berrybender staggering around, only a little distance away.

  “Mustn’t forget that Belgian gun,” Lord Berrybender was saying. “Expensive, that fine Belgian—belonged to my hunter. Rather sentimental, my hunter. Lost his boy and killed himself.”

  “We can come back for the gun, sir,” Maelgwyn said politely. “We have to get you shipboard and see to your feet, and the boy’s.”

  Lord Berrybender just then noticed Tim, stumbling along supported by another stranger, a prairie fellow of some kind.

  “Why, Tim . . . stout lad, stout lad,” he said, feeling for a moment like weeping. The small fellow was hurrying him away, allowing him no time to gather his possessions.

  “Might just grab that Belgian gun, Tim,” Lord B. said. “Can’t manage it myself, with my stump.”

  “Can’t hold it, Your Lordship, hands won’t work,” Tim admitted.

  “Nonsense, blow on your fingers, that’ll do the trick,” Lord Berrybender instruc
ted. “Not disposed to lose that gun.”

  “You won’t—I’ll get it later,” Jim said, annoyed at the selfish old fool.

  “A savage could pick it up—thoroughly wasted on a savage,” Lord B. began; but then he noticed that the two rescuers were looking at him in a not entirely friendly way. He could always send Charbonneau ashore to gather up the weaponry—or even Señor Yanez.

  “But where’s Gladwyn, sir?” Tim asked. “He usually carries the guns.”

  “Stout lad, you’re right, of course,” Lord B. said. “Gladwyn’s job, quite clearly. But where is the fellow?”

  “Gladwyn?” Maelgwyn asked. “That’s a Welsh name, a bit like my own. Was the fellow Welsh?”

  “Possibly Welsh—or was he a Cornishman? Fear I’m too cold to think clearly,” Lord B. said. “Haven’t got a spot of brandy on you, I don’t suppose? Might clear my head.”

  Neither Jim nor Maelgwyn were encouraging on the matter of brandy.

  “But mustn’t we look for him, sir? Gladwyn, I mean,” Tim blurted. It seemed to him a dreadful crime that the two of them were being saved while Gladwyn was being left.

  There ahead of them, not half a mile away, sparkled the lights of the steamer Rocky Mount. It was by far the most welcome sight Tim had seen in his life. And yet no effort was being made to assist Gladwyn back to the warm haven of the boat.

  “Gad, what became of the man?” Lord Berrybender wondered. “He was there, of course. We both rather clung to the buffalo—it was warm for a bit, before it died.”

  He looked behind him for a moment, as if a glimpse of the prairie where he and Tim had almost frozen might refresh his memory; then it came back to him!

  “Why yes, I remember now,” he said. “It was rather discouragingly cold. Then Gladwyn stood up and said he had someplace to go. Someplace to go. And off he marched.”

  “Where could he have had to go?” Maelgwyn asked. “There was no place to go.”

  “Yes, that’s rather a puzzle,” Lord Berrybender replied. “A good man in his way, Gladwyn. Never broke a cork, in all the years I had him. But up he stood. Said he had someplace to go and that he might be some time. So off he went. Unusual man. Never quite knew what made Gladwyn tick. Greatly skilled with the claret, though—greatly skilled. Not a cork broken, not one.”

  55

  “Sons of Madoc, habeas corpus, kitchen maids in love with valets . . .”

  TINTAMARRE’S barking brought Tasmin out of a sound sleep, though it was scarcely dawn. The window in her stateroom was quite frosted over. Tintamarre had taken to sleeping in a corner by the galley, with the Charbonneaus. Now he was barking furiously.

  When Tasmin opened her door she was greeted by air so cold that she was reluctant to go out, but when she did skip to the rail, just for a moment, to investigate the commotion, she saw, with an immediate deep flush, her husband, Jim Snow, attempting to boost her wobbly father high enough that the engagés could grasp him and pull him aboard. Not only was her father alive, but so was Tim, being assisted up the ladder by a small man in buckskins.

  All sense of cold vanished: Tasmin knew her husband had come for her, just as she had hoped he would, and by some miracle, he had even saved her father. Without even waiting to put on her slippers, which she could never find when she was in a hurry, Tasmin raced downstairs. Jim Snow had only just stepped on board, among the Charbonneaus, Cook, Captain Aitken, and the engagés, when Tasmin flung herself into his arms. To his extreme embarrassment she kissed him hard on the mouth—Jim quickly pushed her away and reached down to lift the shivering Tim into the boat. He gave Tasmin only a furious glance, a look that confused her. After such a long absence, was she not to be ardent? For a moment she felt on the verge of tears, so disappointed was she, but the small man in buckskins who had come aboard with Jim spoke to her in a kindly fashion.

  “You’d be the wife, I expect,” he said. “I’m Maelgwyn Evans.”

  “I’m the wife—not much wanted, I guess,” Tasmin said.

  “Ah, it’s just his shyness,” Maelgwyn said. “Bashful Jim is what we always called him.”

  Tasmin passed rapidly from hurt to indignation. Jim had turned away; he was helping her father hobble on to his stateroom.

  “You are always too forward, Tassie,” the wakeful Mary said. “Your Mr. Snow was in no mood for such a brazen display.”

  “Shut up, I was just glad to see him,” Tasmin said.

  Before she could even follow her husband a great cry went up from the kitchen. Eliza, Cook’s buxom assistant, the one who was always breaking plates, came sobbing out of the galley and attempted to fling herself over the rail into the icy Missouri. Only quick action on the part of Maelgwyn Evans kept Eliza from fulfilling this desperate design. Maelgwyn caught a foot, just as Eliza was going over the rail—George Catlin, disheveled and confused, stumbled over and helped the small fellow pull the sobbing scullery maid back on board. The Hairy Horn, who, during the night, had concluded that his death song had been premature, was smoking his pipe as if nothing untoward was happening at all.

  “What can it mean? Is the girl insane?” George Catlin asked.

  “Not at all,” Mary said. “Eliza was merely in love with Gladwyn, who is now lost and presumed frozen.”

  “But perhaps he isn’t frozen,” the rattled painter said. “It is very wrong to jump to conclusions where life and death are concerned. Habeas corpus, you know.”

  “If you don’t shut up I’ll certainly punch you,” Tasmin told him. “I’m in no mood for pomposity just now.”

  “I’ll go look for Mr. Gladwyn—he might be a countryman of mine,” Maelgwyn said. “There’s not too many of us Welsh, in this wild region.”

  “Many! I’m surprised there are any,” George said.

  “Oh yes, we were once quite a group—came over to seek the sons of Madoc, you know. There’s a lost tribe here somewhere, but we can’t seem to find it. We’re rather dispersed now—I rarely see a Welshman. I’d be glad for a talk with this Gladwyn, if he ain’t frozen to death. Always curious about my countrymen.”

  “Sons of Madoc, habeas corpus, kitchen maids in love with valets, old chieftains singing their death songs and then not dying . . . I’ll soon be insane myself if I have to listen to much more of this talk,” Tasmin informed them. She stared hard at the Hairy Horn, who had just accepted a large saucer of porridge from Cook, who went on cooking no matter what the frenzy.

  “Don’t frown so at the Hairy Horn, Tasmin,” Mary pleaded.

  “But wasn’t it a death song he was howling last night?”

  “It seems he was merely practicing,” Mary replied. “His death is now postponed until the summer.”

  Just as she spoke there was a fluttering of feathers and a green bird landed on the railing. “Schweig, du blöder Trottel!” Prince Talleyrand remarked.

  “If only Mademoiselle were here to welcome him,” Mary said.

  56

  At this Tim began to blubber loudly.

  “DAMNABLE method! . . . damnable!” Lord Berrybender insisted loudly, between howls of pain. Jim Snow and Toussaint Charbonneau had cut his clothes off and were vigorously rubbing snow on his frostbitten limbs, while Captain Aitken and Maelgwyn Evans did the same for Tim, who yelled even more loudly than Lord B.

  “Yes sir, but it’s the only method that gives frozen flesh a chance,” Captain Aitken reminded him, as he went firmly on with his rubbing. Careful attention had to be paid to even the smallest patch of frostbite: cheeks, ears, hands, feet, groin, toes all had to be checked.

  “You would go ashore despite the chill, sir,” Captain Aitken reminded His Lordship, whose groin area presented a particularly ticklish problem due to an evident leakage of urine, which had of course frozen hard on the noble lord’s legs.

  “Of course I went ashore, why not? Killed forty buffalo, too—only proper sport I’ve had on this wretched expedition,” Lord B. insisted. “Somebody ought to be fetching those expensive guns instead of harassing me with this damned
snow.”

  Then he howled more loudly as Charbonneau began to address his yellowish legs.

  Tasmin, Bobbety, Buffum, Mary, and Venetia Kennet all watched the proceedings impassively, from a corner of the stateroom.

  “I had not expected to look on my own father’s nakedness, not in this year of our Lord 1832,” Buffum intoned, in her new nun’s voice.

  “Leave, then—who asked you to stay?” Tasmin said.

  “Father is rather a horror,” Bobbety said. “Very foolish of him to piss himself. If I am ever faced with an extreme of cold I will endeavor to empty my bladder immediately.”

  “Good for you,” Tasmin said, painfully aware that her husband had scarcely glanced her way; he concentrated on rubbing snow on her father’s cheeks and hands. Though she maintained an icy demeanor, inwardly Tasmin seethed. It was all very well to attempt to save her father’s few remaining appendages, and the stable boy’s too; but Jim could have spared her a look, even a smile—only he hadn’t.

  Venetia Kennet stared straight ahead—she meant to maintain her station as Lord Berrybender’s loyal wife-to-be, but she didn’t feel she had to follow the hospital work too closely. Her stomach, in fact, did not feel entirely settled; like Tasmin she was experiencing some queasiness in the mornings. She declined to look directly at Lord Berrybender’s body, but it did occur to her to wonder whether he would be in possession of any toes and fingers at all, by the time she managed to coax him to the altar, an ambition she had by no means abandoned, despite the steady diminishment of appendages. Captain Aitken did not appear to be overly optimistic, when it came to fingers and toes.

  “I expect the boy will lose two fingers, perhaps three, and about as many toes,” he said. “There is also some doubt about his right ear.”