Sin Killer

by Larry McMurtry

  Willy Bent was happily convinced that he had the best wife in the world: a pert, pretty wife who in his opinion was much to be preferred to the long-legged bossy English girl Jim Snow had married. Owl was a steadier companion than the violent Mexican beauty his own brother was about to take to wife. Willy could not imagine that Owl would ever embarrass him to the extent of hitting him in the head with a heavy pot, as Maria had hit Charlie.

  And yet, of course, no wife was likely to be entirely perfect or always easy to accommodate. This morning, as always, disagreement arose as he was enjoying the coziness a few more minutes, trying to work himself up to departure.

  “I can’t be an Indian all the time, dern it, Owl,” Willy protested.

  “You are an Indian all the time,” Owl reminded him, in a pleasant voice. “My own father, Yellow Wolf, made you a member of our band. My father wants to take us on a buffalo hunt, and I want you to stay with us— we’re going on a buffalo hunt.”

  Willy didn’t answer. It was true that Yellow Wolf had made him a member of the band, but it still didn’t mean he was free to live the Indian life all the time. He had begged Owl to come live at the fort, but she wouldn’t—she didn’t like the smells, or really anything about the white man’s ways. It was a puzzle to her how her Willy, whom she loved deeply, who had tried both ways of living, could not see how clearly superior the Cheyenne way was. And yet, with the beautiful prairies all around them, he still insisted on going away to do some foolish white man’s business of some kind.

  “I like being with the tribe,” Willy assured her, not for the first time. “Maybe I can spend all summer with your people next year, if Charlie can find someone else to supervise the hauling. But I still ain’t an Indian and there’s times when I have to go to work.”

  “You’re an Indian, my father says so,” Owl repeated—she was stubborn when she had her mind set on something.

  Willy thought it would have been wiser of the Almighty to create women without tongues, since even Owl, the most agreeable woman he knew, still didn’t scruple to use her tongue to create unease in his breast.

  Owl didn’t press her case, but she didn’t like it that Willy was always wearying himself trying to please his brother. She had seen for herself how happy Willy was when he could be with the tribe for a few weeks, hunting, racing horses, letting her tend to his needs. Willy never got a bad look on his face at those times; some nights he slept so deeply that even the bright morning sun didn’t wake him. Owl felt that if she could just keep him with the tribe long enough, as they moved around following the buffalo herds and enjoying life, Willy would soon lose the habit of thinking so much about money. Of course, it was all right that Willy and his brother had brought white man’s goods to the People. She herself loved colorful beads and cloths, blue particularly, and was quick to put to use the various awls and needles Willy brought her. But all it took to procure those goods was a few skins, and with buffalo so plentiful, skins were easily obtained. Just because the whites had attractive goods was no reason to exchange the cool, airy Cheyenne life for some smelly trading post. In her opinion, being crowded together, as white people were, led to disputes and quarrels that were unlikely to arise where people were free to spread out and go where they pleased.

  Still, when Willy got a big frown on his face, Owl desisted. She gave him a tickle or two in an intimate place and then popped out of their robes and helped him get his gear together. There was no point in trying to stop a husband from going away—of course, even Cheyenne husbands often went away when they felt like raiding a little, or just riding around without the impediment of womenfolk.

  Indian or no Indian, Willy could never leave his Owl without an awareness of how much he was going to miss her in the chill, hectic months of trekking that lay ahead. Never once had he made the long trip across to Westport Landing without various kinds of trouble presenting themselves. Sooner or later Indians of one band or another would show up, demanding presents and hoping to steal a horse or two, or a gun. The weather would either be too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry. Sometimes animals would sicken inexplicably; other times men would turn up gimpy But despite the troubles and perils of the road, the company was prospering. They knew the route well now, and were more efficient trekkers than their rivals. Willy wasn’t quite as single-minded about commerce as his brother was, but Willy wasn’t lazy, either, and he meant to be rich someday.

  Owl stood demurely by Willy as he saddled up and prepared to leave.

  “I’ll be quick to track you down when I get back,” Willy assured her. Owl did not like for him to touch her in public, so he gave her the briefest of hugs, mounted, and loped away.

  For an hour or more Willy traveled with a lump in his throat. He had a lonely feeling and also a worried feeling. Owl could say all she wanted to about the good Cheyenne way of life, but there were no guarantees in the Cheyenne way of life, or the white way either. It was common knowledge that smallpox had wiped out the Mandans and the Arikaras, strong tribes both. The same disease might come to the Cheyenne—besides which, the Cheyenne were a fighting people. Owl might get snatched in a raid, or killed in a battle, in which case he might never again lie with her in their comfortable robes, enjoying being man and wife. Willy always worried when he left Owl—his mind seemed to conjure up nothing but bad images, some of them rather unlikely. Buffalo were unusually plentiful that fall, and the old bulls were unreliable. What if Owl were off doing some chore and got gored by a buffalo? Also, there were panthers that lurked around Indian camps, hoping to snatch a colt or a young mare—what if one got Owl? Such thoughts were so worrisome that it was all Willy could do to keep from turning back—and he might, in defiance of all commercial good sense, have turned back had he not spotted a horseman far ahead on the prairie. The horse was white, an unusual thing in itself. As Willy approached—not before checking his pistol and his rifle—he saw an old Indian man, sitting on a scrap of blanket, chanting. A white man sat astride the horse. As he came closer Willy saw that the white man wore a look of dejection. Perhaps he had been traveling with the old Indian long enough to grow tired of listening to him pray.

  When the old Indian finished praying and stood up, Willy recognized him—it was old Greasy Lake, a prophet he and Charlie had encountered several times in their first years as trappers on the upper Missouri. The old man had even helped them out once by informing them of the approach of a large band of Piegans. Willy would not have expected to meet old Greasy—a man of splotchy complexion—so far to the south.

  “Hello, Greasy, who’s your friend?” Willy asked, nodding toward the white man, who was gaunt, with dark circles under his eyes.

  “I am Clam de Paty monsieur,” the white man said. “I am from France and I want now to go back.”

  “I don’t know about France, but I expect we can get you to Saint Louis,” Willy told him. “I have eight wagons up ahead—we’re Saint Louis bound.”

  “He was one of the men who could fly,” Greasy informed him, nodding at Clam. “He was with the Sin Killer and the Broken Hand and all the English. I don’t know where they are.”

  “I do,” Willy said. “They’re with my brother at our new trading post, all except Jimmy Snow, who’s helping me with the wagons.”

  “You could make the trading post in a day if you’d care to, sir,” he added.

  Clam shook his head. He did not want to rejoin the English and the Americans—he wanted to be out of the wild, to live again in a place where there were cafes and theaters, newspapers and jolies laides. Yet he wasn’t in such a place: the wild still surrounded him, and he was almost too tired to hope. If there was a chance to make Saint Louis, he wanted to take it.

  In late afternoon, as dusk spread over the prairies, they caught up with the caravan—the white horse turned out to belong to Greasy Lake—he was merely sharing it with the white man.

  When Jim Snow, like Willy Bent, expressed surprise at finding Greasy Lake, the old prophet revealed his reason for traveling so
uth.

  “It’s because of the white buffalo,” he told them.

  � white buffalo?” Willy said. “Now that’s something I’ve never seen, and I’ve seen a passel of buffalo.”

  “I’ve not seen one either. Where is it, Uncle?” Jim asked.

  “With the Comanches,” Greasy Lake told them. “It was born on the night when many stars fell—it is still just a calf. All my life I have waited for this white buffalo, and now it has come.”

  Though the old man accepted a little food, he refused to stay the night. He mounted his white horse and rode on by moonlight.

  Clam de Paty ate only a mouthful or two of venison. He was really too tired to chew. A space was made for him in one of the wagons and he was soon asleep.

  Willy and Jim sat up most of the night, not saying much, just watching the fire flicker. Willy had a question he wanted to ask Jim, and yet when he tried to come out with it, he grew embarrassed and kept putting it off. And yet, the question nagged him so that he finally asked it.

  “Do you miss your wife much, Jimmy?” he mumbled, finally.

  Jim Snow was surprised. Why would Willy Bent care whether he missed Tasmin? He remembered how wide Tasmin’s eyes had been when they made love just before his departure.

  “Some,” he allowed, finally. “I miss her some.”

  What he mainly wished was that Willy Bent was less talkative.

  “Then you’re like me—I’m already missing my Owl,” Willy admitted. He felt better for having said it.

  He was hoping Jimmy Snow would talk a little about the way it felt to miss a wife, but Jimmy didn’t. He just stared into the fire—his manner seemed so stiff that Willy did not pursue the matter.

  In the night Clam de Paty had a painful dream. In the dream his old colleague Benjamin Hope-Tipping was in their balloon, hovering over Paris. Now Ben was over Notre Dame, over the Invalides, over the Seine.

  Ben was trying to make the balloon descend, so Clam could climb aboard. Clam went running along, underneath the balloon, from which Ben had dangled a small ladder for Clam to climb up. But the balloon never quite came low enough—the small ladder dangled just out of reach. Clam jumped for it but missed; he jumped for it a second time, but missed again. Too tired to jump a third time, he fell back and watched helplessly as the balloon rose and rose, above the Hotel de Ville, above Notre Dame, above Montmartre. Clam could no longer see Ben; the soft shadows of Paris were replaced by a wide white sky, as vast and empty as the prairies. The sky turned the color of blue ice—in it great yellow bears were flying like birds. The bears had long beaks, like the birds that had hit their balloon. Clam squeezed his eyes shut; he did not want to see the long-beaked bears, or the ice blue sky. He felt a swirling around him, he felt birds beating him with their wings, then he felt nothing.

  When Willy tried to shake Clam de Paty awake in the morning to offer him coffee, he at once found that he was shaking a cold, stiff leg, the leg of a man who had died during the night.

  “I guess he was just plumb wore out from all the traveling,” Willy said, as he and Jim dug the grave.

  “The man said before that he was finished—he wasn’t lying,” Jim said.

  56

  It was chill on the parapet. . .

  IT seemed to Venetia Kennet, now Lady Berry-bender, that she had never played the cello so well. With no trekking to do, she was free to practice; though her technique was undoubtedly rusty, her tone seemed to her to have deepened. In the evenings particularly she liked to sit on the parapet and play the somber sounds of the cello mingling with the other sounds that came at dusk: the bleating of sheep, the neighing of horses, the calls of night birds. It was chill on the parapet, and yet Vicky warmed as she played. Sometimes, coming in late from a hunt, Lord Berrybender would hear the strains before he was even within the gates.

  “Fine girl, my Vic, fine girl,” he often said—sometimes he even wept.

  “Don’t know what I’d do without her,” he mumbled.

  “You don’t have to do without her,” Signor Claricia pointed out, with a wink at Amboise d’Avigdor. “She’s your wife.”

  “By God, you’re right—keep forgetting she’s no longer a mistress,” Lord B. said. “Threatened to tear my throat out at one point, but now she’s docile as a kitten, on the whole.”

  Signor Aldo Claricia did not think the cellist was docile as a kitten, or ever would be, but when he heard her stroking her cello he too was sometimes moved to tears. The music made him long for olive trees and little yellow songbirds and carriage wheels rolling over cobblestones. Would he ever see an olive tree again? Aldo Claricia was far from sure. But when he heard the cello he could not but remember the many beauties of his home.

  Another listener who invariably wept when Vicky played the cello was Maria Jaramillo; if the concert was a long one she would usually be sobbing uncontrollably by the end of it, to the puzzlement of her little sister, Josefina, herself happy as a lark, mainly because in only a few days she would be marrying her Kit.

  “Why, Maria? How can you be so sad when it’s almost time for the wedding?” Josefina asked.

  “I don’t know—leave me alone—what if I made a mistake?” Maria sobbed. It was not lost on her that the one person in the post who was wholly unmoved by the rich, sad sounds of the cello was her husband-to-be, Charles Bent, who generally did his accounts just before dinner—Charlie let nothing interfere with the vital work of his accounts. It seemed to Maria that he might have let the accounts wait, for once. He might have come to their little room by the stable and asked her to dance, or tried to kiss her, or at least held her hand.

  “What if I’m not happy when we marry?” Maria asked, grabbing a mirror to assure herself that her beauty, which had brought her nothing but compliments her whole life, was not lost. The mirror did reassure her—though, at the moment, she was rather puffy from crying. It irked her that her plain little sister was so radiant with happiness at the prospect of marrying her Kit. Maria wanted to box Josefina. She wanted to feel what Josefina felt, and yet she didn’t.

  “The governor is coming in three days,” Josefina reminded her. “You better not cry like this when the governor is here—Papa will be angry.”

  “Go away” Maria ordered. But she knew that Josefina’s warning was accurate: the wedding was approaching. She had allowed herself to be put in the path of an august event and would now have to play her part in it as best she could. And yet, when Josefina left, Maria lay on her narrow bed and sobbed, troubled by the great uncertainty she felt. She had said yes to Charles Bent, but would she like him, once the deed was done? Why had she bargained away her freedom? Why couldn’t she be happy, as her sister was? None of the questions really had answers—hearing the Englishwoman’s music only made her sadder and more perplexed.

  “I do believe that’s Handel she’s playing,” Father Geoff remarked to Tasmin. They stood on the balcony, not far from Vicky. The goats and sheep were being brought into the courtyard for safety—several of the goats wore little bells, which tinkled in melancholy accompaniment to the notes of the cello.

  “What’s the longest spell of happiness you can remember enjoying, Geoff?” Tasmin inquired. “Think hard before you answer.”

  “If you really want hard thinking, I fear I’m not the man for you,” the priest warned her. “But I imagine about twenty minutes is as long as we mortals can stay in a state of pure happiness. Can you copulate for twenty minutes, Tasmin?”

  Tasmin shrugged. “Possibly, if I am indulged—but I’m not indulged,” Tasmin allowed. “My husband’s an honest rambler, he can rarely be persuaded to tarry for twenty minutes, but Pomp is something worse—he’s so elusive that I’m not sure why I’m still bothering to try.”

  ’Ah me, the slippery fellow’s eluded you again— gone off with St. Vrain to attempt to recover the Bents’ lost silver—and just when your husband’s gone off too,” the priest said. “I suspect you thought that at last you’d have Pomp to yourself.”

&n
bsp; That was exactly what Tasmin had expected—it was one reason she had immediately acquiesced to Jim’s departure, only to have Pomp hurry off almost at the same time as Jim. It had made her so angry that she had kicked a footstool, and now had a swollen big toe to show for it. Why would Pomp leave, just when they might have enjoyed a bit of privacy?

  “I’ve sometimes felt that your young Monsieur Charbonneau would make a better priest than I make,” Father Geoffrin told her. “What’s certain is that I’d make a better libertine than him. You wouldn’t find me running off to look for a cartful of ugly silver if I had white loveliness available to me.”

  Tasmin shrugged again.

  “I’m no longer very white, thanks to the sun,” Tasmin reminded him. ‘And I’m pregnant. Perhaps that puts him off.”

  Below them the two little boys were playing with their tiny lamb. Signor Claricia had become fond of the two little toddlers and had made them whistles, which they blew piercingly and incessantly. Pomp himself had made the lamb a collar and a lead, so the boys could lead him. The lamb’s only escape was to collapse from exhaustion, which it did often, bleating weakly. Yet when the little boys proposed to let it alone for a bit the lamb followed them, just as the bear cubs once had.