The fall weather continued cold. Tasmin’s main worry was Petey—all six of the children were continually popping out of their blankets, despite the cold wind. Little Onion did her best to control them, but six small people with wills of their own stretched the attention of even the most competent nurse.
Buffum had hardly stopped sobbing since their departure. Though well aware that it was all to the good that High Shoulders had not been taken—undoubtedly he would have been chained again—she didn’t like being without her husband.
“I miss him exceedingly—I can’t help it,” she sobbed. “I need him—it’s been that way since the day we met. I should have let him take me to the Ute country—there’d be nothing to separate us there.”
“Mortality might,” Tasmin reminded her. “You’re lucky you didn’t mate with a rambler like Jimmy—he’s been gone more than he’s been present, in the years of our marriage.”
“I don’t suppose you’re easy to live with, Tassie,” Kate Berrybender remarked crisply. “If you were easier, Mr. James Snow would probably abide with us more often.”
“Don’t you miss him terribly?” Mary asked. “I would miss Piet bitterly, if we were ever to part.”
“What a bunch of rampant sentimentalists,” Tasmin replied. “Did you ever see the like, Geoff?”
The disorder in his bowels had left the priest exhausted, sallow, withdrawn. He managed only the smallest shrug.
“Major Leon says it’s a thousand miles to Vera Cruz,” he remarked. “It seems rather a long way to go.”
“My question wasn’t geographical,” Tasmin complained. “Certain couples may not be well suited to constant proximity. What do you think?”
“All I know is that I’ve been twenty times,” the priest said. “The person I miss is myself—the self I enjoyed before we entered this region of bad water.”
Tasmin found that she could contemplate the long journey ahead of them with a certain degree of composure precisely because Jim Snow had been quick enough to avoid being taken, a fact that at first vexed the officials considerably. Jim had done what Pomp Charbonneau should have done—skipped away. Tasmin had no doubt that he was following them—he would appear and reclaim his family at a time he deemed best. She was confident of it. They would just have to deal as best they could with the vicissitudes of the day, whether bowel trouble or feverish babies, bad weather or a bumpy oxcart, until Jim came and got them. Talk of the great distance between Santa Fe and Vera Cruz did not dismay her, because she didn’t expect to be going anything like that far. Indeed, on the whole, she was glad to be out of Santa Fe—it had served its purpose, which was to be a safe nursery.
Major Leon had not taken long to abandon his ideal of a parade-ground military appearance. Many of the young soldiers were so affected by the water that they could scarcely sit on their horses. Major Leon had ridden ramrod straight for the first week, but he gradually let go his formality and spent much of his time riding beside the oxcarts, chatting with one or another of the Berrybender sisters. Lord Berrybender he avoided, though he did sometimes chat with the large and amiable Juppy and the one-eared boy, Amboise d’Avigdor. Amboise and Juppy had become friends.
“I don’t think we have anything to fear from this major,” Tasmin told her sisters.
“Why do you say it, Tassie?” Mary asked. “Because he likes women,” Tasmin replied. “And we’re women if we’re anything.”
It seemed to her that beneath Major Leon’s amiability there lurked a deep strain of melancholy— of sadness even. It was unusual to find a military man who was so eager to have his captives like him. Sometimes, in the midst of conversation about something inconsequential—his bugler’s inept bugle calls, or military medals, of which he had quite a few—Major Leon would suddenly pause and look vacant, almost as if he had received a punch that deprived him of breath. At these moments he would turn his horse and ride some distance from the company, alone with whatever memory he needed to be alone with. He seemed a lonely figure, struggling with a sorrow he could not share.
At such moments Tasmin found him touching, but she could not quite bring herself to ask the Major what his trouble was.
Kate too had become fond of Major Leon. “Why do you think he looks that way, Tassie?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but I find I like the Major,” Tasmin said.
“I like him too,” Kate replied.
27
To his astonishment she even bared a breast.
THE DAY THE BERRYBENDERS had been rounded up and sent away, Julietta found that she had been locked in her room. Worse still, her shutters had been nailed shut. When she discovered this treachery on the part of her aunt she didn’t waste energy in tantrums. Eleanora was not impressed by tantrums, and neither was her husband. The Governor, it turned out, had been replaced, and the new governor, a wizened old soldier, was not someone Julietta could appeal to.
Later, when the door was unlocked and the shutters opened again, Julietta learned from her sister that she was to be sent back to Spain. She had become yet again a bargaining chip on the gaming table of Europe—a pregnancy by the old English nobleman would have definitely upset the game.
Julietta was concerned with none of that, because she intended to leave Santa Fe at once, and she meant to leave with Joaquin, her blacksmith. As soon as her shutters were open she went to the window and emitted a keen whistle, the sort a hunter might use to call back his dog.
Amazed, Joaquin looked up—there was Julietta again, smiling at him. She blew him a kiss. To his astonishment she even bared a breast. Joaquin was transfixed. That evening at dusk Julietta came to him, back to the heat, the sweat, the bed of rags. Her acceptance was tepid, but Joaquin was too excited to notice. He was swept away. He told Julietta that he loved her. He promised to do anything she asked. If it was necessary to risk his life he would do it gladly.
Julietta visited Joaquin three times, slowly tightening her grip.
Very often the horses Joaquin was to shoe were stabled at the smithy overnight. A blacksmith could not afford to be lazy. The horses of the cavalrymen had to be properly shoed.
Julietta was no mean horsewoman. On the third visit she made her selection, went briefly back to her quarters, and returned when it was fully dark with a bundle of warm clothes. She then reminded Joaquin of his promise.
“You said you’d do anything for me,” she told him. “You said you’d risk your life.”
“Sí,” Joaquin replied, not without a certain alarm. “Whatever you ask.”
“What I ask is two horses—we’re taking them now, you and I, and we’re going to catch up with the English,” she told him.
“Steal horses?” Joaquin replied, shocked. Stroking him gently, as she might a greyhound, she led him around to the horse stalls.
“I’ll take the thoroughbred,” she told him. “But señorita, I’m only a blacksmith—I can’t ride. Only my donkey, a little,” Joaquin protested.
“I’ll help you,” Julietta assured him. Still, he looked horrified. She thought she might have to dispense a few more caresses, even take him quickly, to calm him down. But then she changed her mind. She had had enough of being mauled by this peasant. Let him just do as she commanded.
“But señorita, they hang horse thieves,” Joaquin stammered, very frightened.
Julietta softened her tone a bit. Unless treated gently, he might panic and betray her. He was not a tall man, but the sorrel horse was small—he should be able to manage. The thoroughbred was more skittish. There were no sidesaddles in the smithy—because of the threat from Indians, the ladies of Santa Fe were not encouraged to ride. Ladies out for a canter might never be seen again.
“If they catch us they will hang me,” Joaquin repeated several times.
“If you keep quiet they won’t catch us,” Julietta insisted. Avoiding the Plaza, she led the horses through the narrowest, darkest alleys she could find.
When it was Joaquin’s turn to mount he swung himself onto the hors
e so awkwardly that the sorrel crow-hopped and threw him hard. Exasperated, Julietta dismounted and steadied the sorrel until Joaquin finally managed to crawl aboard and find his stirrups. The stars were still bright. Her aunt Eleanora was a notoriously late sleeper. It would be noon before anyone realized they had left. She thought the soldiers might conclude that Joaquin had accidentally left the stalls open, allowing two horses to escape; then he fled, for fear of punishment.
The only person who saw the two riders make their way south under the starlight was an old woman whose habit, on starlit nights, was to sit out beside her little hut with her tame goose. She liked to study the heavens; she was called Oriabe, though some of those whose fortunes she told just called her Grandmother. Her goose squawked twice, when the lady and the blacksmith rode by. “Be polite, you’re just a goose,” Oriabe scolded. She liked to sit out all night, until the stars began to fade. She wished she had not seen the two riders. A large owl was hooting from a nearby tree when the riders passed. Owls, of course, were harbingers of bad fortune—fatal fortune, in fact. She knew this owl, which often hooted from that tree. Oriabe meant to have a word with the bird, someday soon. She meant to ask it to find another tree to sit in. Owls were sure to scare away people who might need their fortunes told, and besides that, it was hard to make a proper reading of the stars with a big owl hooting all the time.
28
If it seemed a good time to go north, he went north . . .
JIM SNOW WAS USUALLY QUICK to decide on a course of action; once decided, he worked efficiently to carry out whatever plan he had made. The ability to weigh options and act on his decisions had served him well all during the years when he had acted singly. If it seemed a good time to go north, he went north; and on the whole he preferred north to south. The water supply was too chancy in the south.
Now, though, having slipped out of Santa Fe ahead of arrest, Jim could not immediately decide on a plan. His family were already miles to the south—of course, one of the helpful things about travel in dry country were the dust clouds that any company threw up. Kit Carson was hardly out of sight before Jim spotted the dust of the first patrol—in the clear high air such dust clouds were visible many miles away.
Jim had no difficulty in eluding these young soldiers—he merely went higher into the rocks. The soldiers were not skilled at mountain pursuit. They explored a ridge or two and gave up. Soon the dust cloud was moving in the opposite direction, back toward Santa Fe.
Jim had gone north mainly because he wanted to intercept High Shoulders, who was hunting somewhere to the north. He wanted to prevent High Shoulders’ arrest. Jim looked around for a campfire, or some evidence that High Shoulders was in the vicinity, but he found nothing. The hills were empty.
Finally he made a campfire himself and kept it going all night. If High Shoulders was nearby he would notice and investigate. High Shoulders had shown himself to be a skilled reader of country. Together they could easily catch up with the slow-moving ox-carts that were carrying their wives and children away south. Then a plan of rescue could be devised.
Jim felt a mild annoyance with Kit, for being so henpecked that he had gone scuttling back to his Josie when he might have been helpful to Jim and the Berrybenders. Thanks to his association with the Bent brothers, Kit could go in and out of Santa Fe at will. He might easily have found out how many soldiers were in the escort, and whether the officer in command was reliable or unreliable. Information of that sort would have been useful, but Kit had felt no need to secure it, a lapse Jim meant to tax him for, the next time he saw him.
Jim felt confident that he could catch up with his family and free them, but that would immediately create a real dilemma. Where was he to take them once he freed them? They could not go back to Santa Fe. If they went east to the Bents they ran the risk of being rearrested. The Bents were not strong enough to repulse a Mexican army. Besides, the Bents knew that they had to maintain good relations with the Mexicans—the very existence of their business depended on it. One wrong move and they might lose all their property, or even find themselves in jail.
Then there was Texas, where Lord Berrybender talked idly of starting a cotton plantation; Lord Berry-bender took it for granted that, one way or another, they would get there, but Jim was less confident. He himself had never been much south of the Canadian River. Hugh Glass had been there: he did not paint a rosy picture. Between them and coastal Texas lay hundreds of miles of unknown country—unknown, that is, to whites but thoroughly known to the Comanches, the Kiowas, the Apaches—all, so far as Jim knew, implacable enemies of the whites. Oxcarts filled with women and children would surely tempt them: slaves for the markets in Mexico. At the moment the Berrybenders had an escort of soldiers, and Jim supposed the best plan would be to keep the escort, at least until they got past some of the Apaches. Reaching Texas from the south might be safer than trying to penetrate from the northwest.
In the night Jim gave up trying to think too far ahead. Life was unpredictable—Tasmin, unpredictable herself, insisted it was. Jim could never figure out what Tasmin might do, and the two of them together could not really see what might be coming next.
“Life happens day to day!” It was one of Tasmin’s favorite mottoes, and Jim had to admit that it seemed to be true. Even if he made, to his own satisfaction, a decision as to how to approach Texas, there was small likelihood that their arrival in that place would happen as planned. Crossing any hundred miles of country was sure to bring surprises.
Around dawn Jim began to get an uneasy feeling. Someone or something was watching him. He thought he would have heard a man approach, even a stealthy man—yet he had not heard the rustle of a bush—nothing. He wondered if it might be a cougar. He was wearing buckskins. Joe Walker claimed that a cougar had once jumped him while he was wearing buckskins—Joe thought the cougar had mistaken him for a deer. As soon as the animal realized its mistake it ran away, as frightened by the encounter as Joe had been himself.
Jim looked around him nervously—he didn’t want a mountain lion to land on his shoulders by mistake.
He had camped beneath a steep hill—above him one hundred feet or so was a jumble of boulders—excellent hiding places for any man or animal that hoped to hide. High up Jim saw something move—he thought it might be a bear. Jim reached for his rifle; when he did the figure above him raised his rifle too, in salute. The fellow on the mountain had a hunched look—it was not the first time he had been mistaken for a bear; in fact, he cultivated the look, because it scared away fools, a species which Bill Williams—usually called Old Bill—did not suffer gladly.
Jim was startled to see the man. Bill Williams was said to have moved into Ute country. What was he doing a day north of Santa Fe? It was the unpredictability principle again. Anyone was likely to be anywhere.
Jim had only met Bill Williams once or twice and had no particular opinion of him, though Kit Carson and other mountain men held very firm opinions about him—and the opinions were hardly positive. He was said to have a thunderous temper and to think little of killing, whether the man killed was friend or foe. That in itself was a failing common enough among the mountain trappers, who over the years, in violent brawls, did much to thin their own ranks.
Kit Carson, who knew Bill Williams well, having once trapped with him in the Ute country, raised a more uncommon possibility. Food had been scarce. Two or three men had fallen, and exactly what had occurred to them in that harsh time had never been made exactly clear. Jim particularly remembered one remark of Kit’s: “Nobody who knows Bill Williams walks in front of him in the starving times,” Kit said. “Keep that in mind if you’re ever with him when you’re about the only thing left to eat.”
Jim remembered the remark as he waited for the hulking mountain man to make his way out of the boulders and come to camp. He did hunch along like a bear and his buckskins were black with use. Cleanliness had clearly never been of major interest to Bill Williams.
“I hear you preach!” Bill Will
iams said loudly when he stumped into camp. He was of formidable size and had a wild mane of hair.
“No, I don’t,” Jim told him. “I cry the Word a little, once in a while.”
“I’ve preached all my life—converted sixty heathen so far,” Bill remarked, looking at Jim in a none too friendly way.
“When you’ve converted sixty heathen to the Lord you can call yourself a preacher,” Bill Williams continued, speaking loudly, as if daring Jim to challenge his claims.
“I don’t know enough scripture to be able to convert folks,” Jim admitted.
“And yet you call yourself the Sin Killer,” Bill Williams said, tilting his head to one side and looking at Jim suspiciously.
“No, I call myself Jim Snow,” Jim replied. “Some of the boys called me Sin Killer when I was younger. It’s just a nickname.”
“Well, I may borrow it, if I keep going with my converting,” the man said. “You can get another nickname.”
Jim was beginning to find the man’s tone irritating. There was no friendliness in anything Bill Williams said. Jim didn’t like his rude tone—he did not like being insulted at his own campfire.
“If you can’t be polite, then I’ll fight you,” Jim told him. “I won’t have rude behavior.”
“You won’t, eh! You puppy!” Bill said, his face coloring with fury. “I shot a sneaking Ute this morning and I might just shoot you, if you sass me.”
“The Ute was probably my brother-in-law—did you kill him?” Jim asked.
“No, but I put a bullet in the sneaky skunk,” Bill replied. “He got in some brush and I didn’t care to flush him out—I left him for the bears. And it don’t mean a goddamn pickle to me that you’re related to the man.”
He leveled his rifle at Jim but as he did Jim stooped quickly, plunging his hands into the hot ash of the campfire—then he flung the ash and any coals that might be in it right into Bill Williams’s face. The ashes were not particularly hot, but they blinded the man for a second, and two or three small coals went down his shirt, causing him to hop and yelp—he dropped his rifle as he attempted to shake out the burning coals. There was one fair-sized stick still smoking in the campfire. Jim snatched it and hit Bill Williams hard, right in the face, causing his nose to explode with blood. The man fell backwards, blinded, blood-smeared, and still writhing from the coals inside his shirt.
The Berrybender Narratives Page 98