Sin Killer

by Larry McMurtry

“It’s a damn big chore to leave your best friend with,” Kit announced—he hoped the appeal to friendship would make Jim change his mind.

  “They didn’t fly all this way without no kit,” Jim pointed out. “I imagine their slave will show up pretty soon and help you with them.”

  Kit suddenly had a thought. Perhaps the two men were eccentric millionaires, out for a long lark in the West. Perhaps they were as rich as or even richer than Lord Berrybender or the prince of Weid. Maybe if some mild danger arose he could hurry them out of harm’s way and then convince them that he had been the one thing that stood between them and death. It might be that they’d want to make him rich for performing such noble service. It would serve Jim Snow right if he managed to get rich off these strangers. For that matter, it would serve everybody right.

  Kit was so pleased with his new notion that he could not resist trotting after Jim.

  “That’s right, you go away . . . leave these folks to me,” he said. “I bet they make me rich, once I save them.”

  “I hope they will—if you do save them,” Jim said. Then he put the little mare in a lope and hurried off, happy not to have to hear any more rattle from Kit.

  10

  Jim Snow had no sooner ridden off. . .

  JIM SNOW had no sooner ridden off than the two journalists, wearing looks of extreme dismay, came running over to Kit.

  “Where does he go?” the Frenchman in the red pants asked—there was indignation in his tone. “When will he come back, this Sin Killer?”

  “We had rather hoped to speak to him, you see!” the Englishman remarked, as shocked as he was annoyed.

  “It won’t be today,” Kit assured them. “Not unless you can run as fast as that mare can lope.”

  “This is an outrage!” the Frenchman spluttered— he was very red in the face, though not quite as red as his bright pants. “If we were in France I would call him out!”

  Kit found the remark puzzling.

  “Why call him out when he’s already out?” he inquired.

  “My colleague means he would challenge Mr. Snow to a duel,” Ben explained—he had calmed a little.

  Kit Carson usually managed to maintain a solemn, even dignified demeanor, easy to do when traveling with an unsociable person like Jim Snow, who was out of sorts most of the time anyway. On the other hand, when some absolutely ridiculous notion was expressed in his hearing he was sometimes given to bursts of hilarity—these giggle fits, as he called them, often lasted so long that they became something of a trial to those who knew him.

  The notion that a short Frenchman in red pants could be so foolish as to challenge Jim Snow to a duel was just the kind of nonsense that caused Kit’s sense of humor to get the better of him. He burst out laughing, but of course there was no one to tell the joke to except old Greasy Lake, who was over by the river, chanting over the fallen balloon.

  “Why are you laughing, monsieur? In France a duel is a serious matter,” Clam de Paty insisted—he was finding America less and less to his taste, an awkward thing since, at the moment, he was far out in the middle of it.

  Ben Hope-Tipping, annoyed himself by the young fellow’s unseemly response, nonetheless realized that his colleague’s abrupt mention of a challenge to the Sin Killer did, under the circumstances, smack of the ridiculous.

  “Not sure a duel is quite the wisest course in this case, Clam,” he remarked. “It would seem that the Sin Killer is famous precisely because of his facility in battle. After all, you can hardly write the fellow up if you’re dead.”

  The same thought had occurred, though belatedly, to Clam de Paty himself. Fortunately the man who he had threatened to call out was now almost out of sight—there seemed to be little practical danger of a response from that quarter.

  “Pardon, ” he said, in chilly tones, to his more circumspect colleague. � duel is no mere brawl, no massacre, no mere thing of fisticuffs—it is, like everything in France, a civilized engagement, a contest with rules. With a pistol in my hand, monsieur, I assure you I am not to be taken lightly.”

  Ben decided to ignore his friend’s absurdly puffed-up conduct—they were not, after all, out with their seconds in the Bois de Boulogne. Still, he could not but be irritated by the young frontiersman’s giggling, which seemed to cast their whole enterprise in an undignified light. Clam de Paty despite his rather erratic temperament, was a leading, perhaps the leading, force in French journalism—had he not interviewed Prince Metternich himself, and Czar Alexander, and the empress of France, not to mention numerous Bourbons, generals, and acrobats?

  His own credentials, for that matter, were not evidently the poorer. He too had interviewed lords, ministers, Mrs. Jordan, two Rothschilds, a Baring, even the great Wellington himself. It was bad enough to have their fine, expensively made balloon punctured by some wayward American birds—were they now to be reduced to standing around in wet clothes, on the barren American prairies, being laughed at by a young frontiersman and ignored completely by a rather blotchy old Indian? Ben prided himself on his ability to maintain a level temperament—a good, sound Dorset temperament, on the whole, in clear contrast to the frequent oaths and curses his more volatile Gallic companion was apt to burst out with. Just at the moment, though, Ben found that he was becoming rather vexed. After all, the sun was setting, and there was no sign of Amboise d’Avigdor or the wagon, in which were plenty of dry clothes. They seemed to be faced with a long, damp night. Why was this young fool still giggling?

  “Do endeavor to control your hilarity, Mr. Carson,” he said sharply. “I confess I can’t quite figure out what’s so funny.”

  “I just got tickled at the thought of that French fellow in the red pants fighting a duel with Jimmy,” he admitted.

  ’And why is that amusing, monsieur?” Clam asked.

  “Because Jimmy would kill you before you could twitch,” Kit informed him calmly. “Jimmy don’t hold back when life or death’s involved.”

  Jim Snow, already miles to the south, was only visible for a second or two, above the waving grass.

  “Will he come back, do you think, Mr. Carson?” Ben asked—obviously there was no immediate hope of an interview, though it was the interview of all interviews that would have done most to enhance the authenticity of their great Western expedition.

  “Oh sure, Jimmy will show up someday,” Kit told them. “He’s got a wife and baby back with Ashley and the trappers.”

  Just then a cloud passed between them and the sinking sun. Though it had been a warm day Ben felt suddenly chilly. Their not quite fully deflated balloon floated on the river, snagged on a number of stiff branches. The old piebald Indian was still chanting, though not so loudly.

  “I suppose we should rescue our balloon, Clam— possibly it can be patched,” Ben remarked.

  “It’s awkward being wet,” Clam admitted. “Where could that foolish boy be?”

  “He was rather fearful when we left,” Ben recalled. “Seemed rather convinced that those red fellows might do him harm.”

  “What red fellows?” Kit asked, alarmed. He had no idea how far the balloon might have floated before the cranes downed it—with Jim now gone and two obviously helpless strangers on his hands, the thought that there might be bad Indians somewhere near was entirely unwelcome.

  “Oh, quite a bunch of painted fellows stopped us,” Ben informed him. “Upset our young interpreter rather a lot. An old fellow on a white horse seemed to be the leader. What was it Amboise called him, Clam? The Partezon, was it?”

  “That’s right—the Partezon,” Clam agreed. “No paint on him, though the other fellows were painted up rather grotesquely. That’s when we decided to go up in our balloon.”

  “I believe we rather frightened the savages when we went up,” Ben remarked. “They ran off, but the two old fellows didn’t.”

  Kit began to regret that he had burst out so at Jim— if ever the two of them needed to stick together, it was now. But of course, as usual, Jim had left.

&nbs
p; “Best think of our balloon,” Ben insisted. ‘Amboise is sure to turn up soon. If a muskrat were to nibble our balloon, it would only be harder to patch. Once we’ve saved it we can build a roaring fire and get out of these wet clothes.”

  “No fire tonight,” Kit informed them immediately. It was sadly obvious that the two men lacked even the most elementary practical sense.

  “I’ll help you get your balloon off the snags,” he said, “but we can’t be building a fire, not with the Partezon around.”

  “But sir, no Indians are around—we flew over several miles of prairie and it all looked quite empty,” Ben insisted; both he and Clam were horrified at the thought of a night spent in their sopping clothes.

  “How many miles did you come?” Kit asked.

  “Ten, maybe,” Ben said. “What do you think, Clam?”

  Clam de Paty shrugged. Once in the balloon, he had applied himself to the cheese and the cognac—calculations of distance were none of his affair.

  “We flew until the birds came,” he told Kit. As the guardian of French precision he tried to avoid vague statements.

  “No fire tonight,” Kit repeated firmly. “Ten miles ain’t far enough. An Indian can smell smoke ten miles—this Indian particularly.”

  “But we’re very wet, Mr. Carson,” Ben reminded him. ‘And once we wade around saving our balloon, we’ll undoubtedly be even wetter. Surely you can’t expect us to spend the night in damp garments.”

  “I should certainly hope not,” Clam added. “What business is it of the savages if we enjoy our fire, monsieur? Civilized men cannot be expected to sleep in wet clothes.”

  “Take your clothes off and sleep naked, then,” Kit advised. “If you start a fire I’ll be leaving, and the Partezon will probably be coming.”

  “Sleep naked—in this chill?” Ben asked, horrified at the thought. “Couldn’t we make just a small fire, one not apt to roar? What harm could there be in that?”

  “The Partezon will come and burn you in it, that’s what harm,” Kit told them. “He probably didn’t think you could really fly off or he would have burned you already.”

  Without wasting any more time on chatter, he waded into the river and began to disengage the soppy silk of the balloon from the sticks where it had snagged. Darkness was falling and the work was chilling but Kit’s imagination had just served up a warming thought. If he helped save the balloon, maybe the bal-loonists would let him go up in it with them. If he came floating down into Ashley’s big camp in a red balloon it would show all the boys—and Tasmin particularly—what a clever fellow he was. None of the mountain men had ever ridden in a balloon. If he returned to the Berrybenders in a balloon his stock was bound to rise—maybe Tasmin would look at him with new eyes.

  It was not easy extracting such a large, floppy object from the snag-filled river. Greasy Lake had no interest in the rescue, but Ben Hope-Tipping stripped off and came in the water to help. He seemed to appreciate Kit’s efforts, unlike the Frenchman, who maintained an airy indifference.

  By the time they got the balloon safely free of snags and spread it on the grass, a pale moon had risen. Greasy Lake, without a word of good-bye, rode off just as darkness fell.

  “Strange old fellow—where do you suppose he’s going?” Ben asked.

  “He don’t know himself—Greasy just wanders,” Kit said.

  11

  Mainly the Ear Taker hunted people . . .

  WHEN the Ear Taker was a boy, hunting in the dry canyons, the People called him Takes Bones, because he was always picking up small bones or animal teeth from carcasses in the desert—bones or teeth that he then worked into fishhooks, awls, spear points; but once he reached adulthood some of the People began to call him Who-You-Don’t-See, because of the exceptional stealth of his attacks, most of them aimed at lone travelers, white traders, careless soldiers. Mainly the Ear Taker hunted people—white or Mexican usually— but when he hunted animals his stealth worked just as well. He could even surprise antelope, most cautious of animals. If he saw several antelope grazing together he would anticipate the direction of their grazing and go flatten himself in the grass, well ahead of the grazing animals. Hunting naked at times, he flattened himself until he became as much part of the ground as a lizard or a snake. The antelope would sometimes walk right over him, coming so close that he could strike one with a light spear tipped with poison—the poison old Prickly Pear Woman had taught him to make from the secretions of a toad. Prickly Pear Woman was actually white, but she had been taken prisoner as a small girl and had lived with the People most of her life— some of the People even regarded her as the grandmother of the tribe. She had dug herself a little room beneath the roots of a great prickly pear—she had learned to move among the prickly pear so smoothly that the thorns didn’t stick her, a feat not even the Ear Taker could manage.

  The Ear Taker was short, but it was agreed that he could outwalk anyone in the band. He could walk from moonrise to moonrise, licking dew drops off sage leaves or grass blades if there was no water. Old Prickly Pear Woman had told him of the terrible cruelties the whites had visited on the People long ago—many grandmothers ago. When the whites came into the lands of the People they at once began to order people around—the People, having always been free, didn’t like this and made a revolt, killing many whites. But then many more whites came and made all the People prisoners; to ensure that the People could never rise up again, an old governor commanded that all warriors over a certain age must have one foot chopped off—and the chopping was soon accomplished, leaving the People a tribe of cripples. For a generation all the warriors had to hobble on one foot, a terrible humiliation.

  To a great walker like the Ear Taker no greater humiliation could be imagined—even though the chopping had occurred many grandmothers ago, and the warriors of the People now walked on two legs again, the Ear Taker decided to devote himself to avenging this old cruelty.

  At first he tried to avenge the atrocity precisely in kind, by sneaking up on sleeping traders or soldiers and chopping off one of their feet. It was easy enough, in Santa Fe, to find victims, most of whom had passed out from drunkenness; but the Ear Taker soon discovered that chopping off feet with an axe or a hatchet was not easy to do correctly. Twice he struck too high on the leg and his victims bled to death. Two others he managed to strike cleanly, so that at least two white men had to hobble through their lives as the old warriors had hobbled.

  In time, though, the Ear Taker thought of a better, more easily effected revenge: ears. All white men were vain; they fancied themselves lords of the earth—with an ear missing, a white man’s vanity could never be repaired. In the Ear Taker’s view, the loss of such a prominent feature as an ear would be a humiliation worse than death to many of the proud white traders.

  Once the choice was made, the Ear Taker began to build his reputation. He haunted the caravan routes into and out of Santa Fe to the east or the south, using his great stealth to slip up on unwary traders as they slept and quickly remove an ear—before the victims could even become fully awake, the Ear Taker was gone.

  He soon discovered that the first essential for such work was a knife that could be made as sharp as a razor; and by great good luck, he soon found such a knife. The Ear Taker joined with some Apaches to ambush a little bunch of soldiers bound for the City of Mexico. More than twenty Mexican soldiers were killed, including a captain who possessed a very fine knife. The Ear Taker kept the knife and spent many days sharpening it until the blade was so keen that he could cut flies in two in the air, or bees or other flying insects.

  The Apaches with the Ear Taker had, of course, mutilated the soldiers in the traditional ways, castrating them, poking out their eyes, disemboweling a few of them—but they had no interest in ears, which meant that the Ear Taker had twenty sets of ears to practice removing. And he did practice. Since ears were mostly gristle, it was possible to remove them— if one’s knife was sharp enough—while causing the victims little immediate pain. The p
ain, for the whites, would come when they awoke and discovered that they had received an injury that was conspicuous and permanent. A man with a leg cut off might get a wooden leg, but no one could get a wooden ear. A man’s humiliation would be there for all to see.

  By the time the Ear Taker had finished with the twenty corpses, his technique was perfect: with his left hand he grasped the ear, stretched it, and with his right hand, cut just at the juncture of ear and scalp. Soon he could perform the motions perfectly, in only a second—then he would be off, into the desert or the prairie, gone before his victims could even figure out why one side of their head was suddenly bloody.

  In two months, by stalking the caravans from the east, the Ear Taker had removed a dozen ears. Soon, horrified trekkers, white, black, or Mexican, began to arrive in Santa Fe lacking an ear. The governor and the military could not fail to take note. This singular but terrifying threat to a man’s appearance would soon begin to act as a brake on the Santa Fe trade. Traders from east or south had always had to contend with droughts, blizzards, or hostile Indians—but now they faced a new threat: an assailant whose pleasure was to cut off ears. This fiend, this Ear Taker, seemed to be able to succeed no matter how many guards were posted. In a few cases he had even taken ears from some undisciplined guards who had nodded off for a moment.

  To the military’s dismay, the Ear Taker had one huge advantage: no one had ever seen him, or had the slightest idea what he looked like. Barefoot, dressed like any other Indian, the Ear Taker could walk around the plaza in Santa Fe in perfect safety— a small man, dark, modest, friendly, never questioned or suspected by any of the soldiers whose ears he might eventually take. Except for old Prickly Pear Woman, none of his own people would ever have supposed that Takes Bones, a modest toolmaker exceptionally skilled at working bones, had become the dread Ear Taker.

  By the time the Ear Taker had wreaked his vengeance for a year, several once-proud traders had given up the trade and sought safety in the East. In Santa Fe the governor became even more alarmed—he even delegated a company of soldiers whose one duty was to hunt down the Ear Taker. The soldiers marched off, first east, then south—they caught no one, but while they were marching, the Ear Taker took three more ears. The soldiers got lost near the Cimarron River and almost starved—six were killed in a brief engagement with the Kiowa. The survivors came back to Santa Fe, having failed completely. How were they to find a man no one had ever seen? The governor then thought of trying to tempt the Ear Taker into committing a rash act. He had three condemned men taken a few miles out of town and left to wander—they were, of course, being watched closely from a distance. The condemned men were not bothered, but one of the soldiers who were supposed to be watching had his ear taken off while drunk. No one saw anything and there were no tracks to follow, but a few days later, a trader named Bates claimed to have seen the Ear Taker fleeing in the dawn, having just taken an ear from a sheepherder. Bates described the Ear Taker as unusually tall, though in fact he was a very short man, not even five feet in height.