Sin Killer

by Larry McMurtry

  These culinary broodings, prompted by the shocking threat to her dog, could not long distract Tasmin from the prospect that must be faced. Either she had to persuade her prairie protector to take her to Santa Fe with him or she had to say goodbye to him and resign herself to the tedium of the boat.

  “Mr. Snow, I quite regret that I’ve had so little opportunity to hear you preach the Word,” Tasmin said carefully. “I’m sure a sermon or two would improve my character immensely—besides, I have two sisters who entirely lack religious instruction. You could have a splendid parish if you would ever consent to be our chaplain.”

  In fact she could not imagine him putting up with the raucous Berrybenders for ten minutes; she was rattling on merely to stall his departure, which she knew might come at any moment; and once those great gray prairies swallowed him up, she would be unlikely ever to see the Raven Brave again, a thought that made her unaccountably low—she who could casually dismiss in an instant most men of her acquaintance.

  “I’m a bad hand in a crowd—I get riled too easy,” he said, glancing for a moment at the steamboat.

  “But you said that you sometimes guided parties of traders—could we English really be so much worse?” Tasmin asked. Some devil in her insisted that she keep pressing the man, although there was no logic to it.

  Though Jim Snow didn’t answer, Tasmin thought he was beginning to feel, a little, the difficulty of the moment. Perhaps despite himself he had begun to like her at least a bit—he looked to the southwest, as if weighing in his mind’s eye the difficulty of attempting to convey such a troublesome baggage as herself across those barren miles.

  “It’s too early to head to Santa Fe,” he repeated. “If we was to leave now our animals would most likely starve, and we would too.”

  Though it was clear that Jim Snow could not be immediately persuaded to take her with him, Tasmin nonetheless felt a little encouraged by his patience in explaining to her the folly of what she contemplated—she felt she might even be growing on him a little.

  “I’ll put it to you plainly, Mr. Snow,” she said. “I can’t tolerate that boat. I didn’t come all this way to the New World to listen to my family pursue their usual quarrels. If you won’t take me to Santa Fe, then I’ll hire Monsieur Charbonneau to guide me—he’s quite experienced, I believe.”

  “Sharbo, that old fool! Why, it would be the end of you in a week!” Jim Snow said, his voice registering a high degree of indignation, though, fortunately, not religious indignation this time.

  “But he traveled with Lewis and Clark,” Tasmin pointed out. “I suppose he must know these prairies rather well.”

  “No!” Jim Snow said. “It was the captains that kept Sharbo alive! He can speak Mandan and Ree and a few words of Sioux, but if you took him ten miles off the river and spun him around a few times, I doubt he could even find his way to Saint Louis without starving.”

  “Then it’s an impasse,” Tasmin said, amused to have pushed the Raven Brave to such uncharacteristic volubility. “If I must go and you refuse to take me, then I fear I have no choice but to make do with inferior help.”

  Jim Snow, it was clear, was not much accustomed to lengthy conversations with women. Tasmin’s careless refusal to abandon what to his eyes were almost suicidal plans was beginning to exasperate him. His jaw was clenched—he looked around the broad prairies as if about to flee.

  “I guess I could send you Pomp, if I could find him,” Jim Snow said. “Pomp’s reliable—he might get you there.”

  “Pomp? Pomp who?” Tasmin asked, startled that he would wiggle out of her net by offering another guide.

  “Pomp Charbonneau—he ain’t a bit like his old fool of a father,” Jim said. “Pomp was raised up over in the old country and knows a passel of languages, but he trapped with me on the Green River and lived to tell about it, which not many can claim.”

  “I’m sure young Mr. Charbonneau is all you say, but I’d still rather have you,” Tasmin said, with a bold look—why not cast the fat directly into the fire?

  For a moment Jim Snow looked entirely exhausted—probably until that moment his life had been entirely free of the kind of demands spoilt young females make. In no time, it seemed to Tasmin, she had worn the young man down—before he could recover, or reach a decision, a screaming was heard from the direction of the boat: here, to Tasmin’s intense irritation, came Bobbety, Buffum, and Mary, the first two yelling at the unexpected good fortune of her rescue.

  “Oh, damn them, the bloody little fools!” Tasmin said, unable to conceal her intense dismay.

  In an instant she was being shaken like a rag by the Sin Killer.

  “You’re hell-bound for sure if you cuss like that!” he said. “I won’t have no sinful speech!”

  “It just slipped out, sir, I swear it,” Tasmin said, timorously—her brains rattled like peas from the violence of his shaking, and her teeth cracked against one another.

  “I’ll do better—I promise no curse will escape my lips,” she said, desperate to undo the damage her careless outburst had caused. But it was too late. Those flinty eyes looked into hers for a moment, and then the Sin Killer turned and left. Before her incompetent brother could properly beach the pirogue, the gray plains had swallowed him up.

  “I say, who was that gentleman you were wrestling with, Tassie, in the year of our Lord 1832?” Bess asked, in her most grating tone. Tasmin at once slapped her sharply—she had quickly acquired the American habit of addressing all problems as violently as possible.

  “When I require a calendar I can quite well acquire one from the stationer’s, Bess,” she informed her stunned sister.

  “But Tasmin . . .,” Bobbety began; he stopped at once when Tasmin doubled up her fist and shook it at him.

  The wicked Mary smiled.

  Tasmin raced as quickly as she could out onto the prairie. Mr. Snow had been gone but a minute, it seemed—perhaps she could catch him yet. Perhaps the temper aroused by her careless words would have cooled—if she could just find him, there might yet be hope.

  Gone he was, though—as far as she could see there was nothing but the sighing grass. Tasmin could scarcely believe it—where had he gone? All around her was featureless plain and empty sky. So confused was Tasmin by this emptiness that, once she gave up and stopped, she would have been hard put even to find her way back to the river, had it not been for the loud braying of Tintamarre, who had found a muskrat hole and was attempting to bark its inhabitants to death.

  “But who was it, Tassie . . . mayn’t I even ask?” the tearful Buffum said, when Tasmin returned. Still in a dark temper, Tasmin did not reply.

  “I know who it was—Sin Killer,” the sinister Mary said.

  Without another word being spoken, Tasmin rowed them back to the steamer Rocky Mount—all, that is, except Tintamarre, who was still barking into his muskrat hole.

  8

  In her red fury Tasmin had forgotten . . .

  BOBBETY and Buffum Tasmin quite refused to forgive—in her view it was entirely their fault that the Raven Brave had got away, leaving her to examine her own surprisingly turbulent feelings. Could she be falling in love with this scarcely articulate young American? Since she reached the age of twelve, men Tasmin had no interest in had been falling in love with her—could it be that matters were now reversed? Had she been making a fool of herself over a man who didn’t want her?

  Or did he want her? A day or two more and she might have had him, she told herself. Three days more and he would have been happy to take her to Santa Fe, or Samarkand, for that matter.

  Yet now the Raven Brave was gone, tramping alone somewhere on the great pallid prairies.

  Tasmin had yanked little Mary up by her scruff and flung her into the pirogue, curious as to how this malignant sprite could have known that the man who was shaking her was called the Sin Killer.

  “Big White talks of him,” Mary said. “All the Indians do.”

  In her red fury Tasmin had forgotten that they h
ad three wild chiefs on board—all three had been to Washington to meet the president, and were being returned, under Monsieur Charbonneau’s care, to their respective tribes. All three chiefs were old: they lounged around the lower deck all day, amid the greatest disorder, smoking long-stemmed pipes, spitting, snoring, painting themselves up most garishly, and occasionally rolling a kind of dice made from elk bones.

  “And since when do you speak the languages of the Mandan, the Blackfoot, or the Sioux?” Tasmin asked. She knew that, in Master Jeremy Thaw’s opinion, Mary was the family’s best linguist, able to babble tiresomely in Greek, but Tasmin tended to disregard Master Thaw’s opinion.

  “Big White is teaching me Mandan, and the Hairy Horn helps me to comprehend the dialects of the Sioux,” Mary said. “The only one who won’t help me is Blue Thunder, who is a Blackfoot of the Piegan band.”

  “It is hardly ladylike to conspicuously display one’s knowledge,” Tasmin reminded her. “Do I flaunt my Portuguese?”

  In fact she could scarcely utter a syllable in that peculiar tongue, though it was true that a skinny hidalgo, of a vaguely Iberian nature, had seen her once at a horse race and proposed marriage immediately.

  “Are you going to fornicate with the Sin Killer?” Mary asked—she had ever been strikingly direct.

  “Perhaps I shall—we’ll see,” Tasmin told her.

  “If you plan to travel the prairies you had best take me,” Mary said.

  “You brash mite, why would I?” Tasmin asked.

  “So you won’t starve—I can sniff out tubers, tasty tubers,” Mary said, as they pulled alongside the steamer Rocky Mount.

  9

  He lumbered away like some small dirty bear . . .

  TASMIN’S first thought, once getting on board, was to rush down to the underdeck and question Monsieur Charbonneau closely about her new acquaintance, Mr. Snow—but of course she had scarcely stepped on deck when a garrulous regiment rushed at her, each member eager to relate to her various iniquities that had occurred in her absence.

  “Why, Tasmin, you look wild as a deer,” Lady Berrybender said—she was already walking unsteadily from the effects of her morning tipple.

  “I was just picnicking, Mama . . . exploring the prairie glades a bit,” Tasmin said—she had no intention of mentioning the Raven Brave to her mother, though she did gossip a little with Mademoiselle Pellenc, who drew her a bath and combed the many tangles out of her wild hair.

  Mademoiselle Pellenc was the only female on board whose cynicism matched Tasmin’s own. For all that, the violently hot-blooded Frenchwoman flew like a shuttlecock from Señor Yanez to Signor Claricia and back again; the latter was rather too garlicky, the former a good deal too quick, but Mademoiselle was not slow to inform Tasmin that she had just acquired a fresh prospect.

  Tasmin supposed for a moment that she might mean Lord B. himself, supposedly still fully occupied with the languid cellist, Venetia Kennet.

  “Non, non, Herr Sten!” Mademoiselle said. “He presented himself to me in the laundry—he is a fellow of modest dimensions, I am afraid.”

  “I wouldn’t expect too much in the way of passion from a Dane,” Tasmin said. “What else is new that I should know?”

  “The German slut, she gives herself to the big American—Big Charlie,” Mademoiselle said.

  Tasmin found herself completely unmoved by this news, or by various other tidbits of gossip that Mademoiselle offered. She no longer much cared what this rabble of displaced Europeans did with themselves. As soon as she was dressed in a clean shift she hurried down to the underdeck to locate Monsieur Charbonneau, the man who knew Jim Snow.

  Toussaint Charbonneau was a tall, graying man of a decidedly shambling nature, kindly, but never really clean or wholly sober. His buckskin shirt was invariably stained, his leggings often torn. On this occasion Tasmin found him soon enough, sitting at a filthy table with his plump young Hidatsa wife, Coal. Old Gorska, equally untidy, had been sitting with them but he hastily moved away when Tasmin appeared; she had more than once given him notice that she would tolerate none of his low Polish insolence. He lumbered away like some small dirty bear the moment she appeared.

  Tasmin liked Coal, a girl round of form and merry of eye; she was perhaps fifteen, and greedy for trinkets, an appetite girls seemed to share. Tasmin had won her for life by presenting her with a tortoiseshell comb, which she wore to splendid effect in her shiny black hair. To Tasmin it seemed a pity that such a lively creature had been taken to wife by this pettish old fellow, Charbonneau, no prize that Tasmin could see.

  “Bonjour, monsieur,” Tasmin said at once to the old tippler. “Could you please tell me what you know about the Sin Killer?”

  Tasmin had spoken politely; she was hardly prepared for the pandemonium her words produced among the chiefs. The old Hairy Horn jumped up as if pricked, brandishing a gleaming hatchet. Big White rose too and took up his great war club, referred to as the “skull smasher” by Monsieur Charbonneau. The Piegan Blue Thunder looked wary—even a few of the engagés drew their knives, as if expecting immediate assault.

  Old Charbonneau, the man to whom Tasmin had put her question, seemed, for the moment, quite paralyzed—the pinch of snuff he had been in the process of carrying to his nose rained like powder on his untidy tunic.

  “Why, miss,” he said, in astonished tones, “how would you be knowing Jimmy Snow?”

  “I went rather adrift in my pirogue,” Tasmin explained. “Mr. Snow found me and brought me back—if he hadn’t come along I expect I’d still be adrift.”

  At that point Charbonneau, the Hairy Horn, Big White, and several engagés all rushed to the rail—they all stood gazing at the somber but empty prairie.

  “Which way did Jimmy go, miss?” Charbonneau asked.

  “I am not a compass—I did not ascertain his direction,” Tasmin said—she had thrown the red nations into turmoil without learning even one useful fact about the Raven Brave.

  “Jimmy’s sly—he might be lurking—that’s what’s upset the chiefs,” Charbonneau stammered. “Jimmy can sneak up on a prairie chicken and catch it, which is a rare skill. It’s best to be watchful with Jimmy around.”

  At that point they all heard a high whistling—a great flock of swans, hundreds and hundreds, were passing directly overhead, a fact which seemed to stimulate even sharper anxiety amid the chiefs and the engagés. They clearly did not like being beneath so many swans.

  To Tasmin all this stir and hubbub was quite ridiculous. It was a fine day—the boat was moving steadily—what harm could come from a flock of birds? What astonished her was that her rescuer, Mr. Snow—who was only one man—inspired such fear that half the men on the boat felt they must rush to arms—yet still, she didn’t know why.

  It occurred to her then that there was one person who might be helpful, the cheerful and muscular Captain George Aitken, the master of the steamer Rocky Mount.

  Less than a minute later, to George Aitken’s mild surprise, Tasmin presented herself on the bridge.

  10

  “Our West is not much like your gentle England.”

  MR. Catlin’s easel and paints were set up on the bridge, but of that silly cackler there was no sign—Tasmin was alone with sturdy Captain Aitken, who was studying the river with a practiced eye.

  “Oh, Mr. Catlin—no, miss,” he said. “Mr. Catlin’s gone ashore with your father on a hunt. I believe they are hoping to scare up a bear.”

  “How thrilling—we’ve so few in England now—just what the Gypsies have,” Tasmin said. “May I ask if you’re acquainted with Mr. Jim Snow? I mentioned him to Monsieur Charbonneau and I’m afraid caused quite a stir.”

  “Jimmy, why yes, I know him pretty well,” Captain Aitken said. “I thought that was Jim you set ashore this morning—bit of a tussle you were having, it seemed.”

  Tasmin blushed—she had not supposed this honest captain had seen her violent shaking. Of course he had a spyglass—no doubt an indispensable tool on such a r
iver.

  And yet Captain Aitken quietly went on with his job. He did not appear to feel that a tussle on a riverbank between a lad and a lass was a thing much out of the ordinary.

  “That was my fault—I fear I let slip a mild oath—it was more than Mr. Snow could tolerate,” Tasmin admitted.

  “That’s Jimmy—he’s preachy unless he’s drunk,” Captain Aitken said. “Best not to cuss in his company unless you have to, though he’s a rip-roaring cusser himself when his blood is up. Smacked you on the cheek, I see—didn’t he, miss?”

  Tasmin did have a bit of a bruise on one cheek, though this bluff professional man had been the only one to mention it. Her mother might well have mistaken it for dirt, but Mademoiselle Pellenc, no stranger to slappings, must surely have seen it for what it was.

  Tasmin found that she liked Captain Aitken the better for his candor—she gave him a smile and he returned it.

  “When I mentioned Mr. Snow’s name belowdecks it stirred up quite a fuss,” she said. “Can you tell me why?”

  “Jimmy’s an Indian fighter,” Captain Aitken said, speaking as casually as if he had just informed her that Mr. Snow was a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker. “Oh, Jim can trap and he can hunt as well—he and Pomp Charbonneau have trapped all the way up on the Green River, and not many can say that.”

  “I have heard of young Monsieur Charbonneau,” Tasmin said. “Is he an Indian fighter too?”

  Captain Aitken looked at her for rather a long while—something of the weariness that had been in Jim Snow’s face when she challenged him to take her with him could be seen in Captain Aitken’s face as well, though the captain’s gaze held no trace of unfriendliness. He just looked tired—nothing seemed to tire men so quickly as even a few minutes’ questioning by a persistent woman.