The Berrybender Narratives

by Larry McMurtry

  “Only the white bears can kill a man who has eaten the lightning,” the Hairy Horn remarked, before retiring to his blanket for the night. What he really wanted was for Sharbo to offer him his woman; such a fine plump girl would be good, but Sharbo, though he had lived long among the Mandans, was like other whites in that regard. He did not share his woman, which was a pity. A girl so young and bouncy would be a good thing, for an old man.

  When the old chief left, Gorska walked over to Charbonneau.

  “When the buffalo?” he asked, in his limited English.

  “I can’t say,” Charbonneau admitted. “It’s been a wet year—lots of the little water holes are full. The buffalo don’t need to come to the river yet.”

  Gorska shuffled off, not satisfied. Every day Lord B. asked about the buffalo. He seemed to think it was Gorska’s fault that there were none for him to shoot.

  Charbonneau walked over and said a few words to Big White, repeating what he had told the Hairy Horn about Jim Snow. Big White hardly listened—he was a vain old fellow who still believed that the strength of his own arm was all the security he needed against an enemy. He had even put it out that he had single-handedly killed a white bear with his great club, a claim that made even his own young warriors snicker: they knew that the bear was barely quarter grown, little more than a cub, and had been groggy from a winter’s sleep when Big White clubbed it.

  Charbonneau understood that Big White, the Mandan, was a braggart, and that the Hairy Horn was just a loquacious old man who babbled on to anyone who would listen to him. The only one of his native charges who worried him was the Piegan, Blue Thunder, a powerful man given to sudden, explosive rages. The first wisdom he had been offered about the tribes on the upper Missouri was that the Blackfeet were those who should be given the widest berth. Though there were many beaver in the streams west of the Yellowstone, few white men had harvested many and escaped with their own hair. Captain Clark had particularly warned the English lord about the Blackfeet, but who knew what an English lord would do?

  The tall Piegan had passed through Washington in silence—the president’s flattery had not impressed him, though he did consider the white man’s axes very superior tools and had been quick to gather up a good supply.

  Though Toussaint Charbonneau had been up and down the Missouri River more than twenty times he had never enjoyed the luxury of such a fine boat as the steamer Rocky Mount. He and Coal had a snug bunk under an overhang. Coal kept their baggage neat, busying herself to see that he was as comfortable as possible; though her efforts were appreciated they did not keep Charbonneau from feeling old, tired, and overburdened; he felt he might be making his last trip up the capricious river on whose banks he had spent much of his life. It seemed to him that there was a sadness about these long plains that seeped into men who traveled them too long. That sadness had seeped into him. Too much was expected of him—too much. In his memory Charbonneau had begun to loop back to the time when he and his Bird Woman, Sacagawea, whom Captain Clark called Janey, had made the great trek to the ocean, with their boy, Pomp, just a baby on Sacagawea’s back. Of all the women he had known, his Bird had been the quickest of mind; even when she did not know the words that were being spoken she could figure out what was intended, what was at stake. None of his other women had had so lively a mind.

  Coal knew that her husband was a man of many sorrows, sorrows too old for her to grasp. Her main hope was that she would soon be with child. She dreamed of a fat little boy—once her husband saw that he could still be a maker of sons some of his sorrow might go away. To insure that there would be a child, and a male child, Coal did everything the old women told her to do. She watched the moon, she took certain herbs. Sometimes when Sharbo was drinking with the boatmen Coal would try to entice him away before he became too tired. Sometimes when he came to their pallet ready to sink into sleep Coal would manage to arouse him just enough that he could be a man for a few moments, long enough to fill her with his seed.

  Yet Coal sometimes felt that her husband’s sadness must have come into her, along with his seed. She was by nature a cheerful girl, and yet, sometimes, lying by Sharbo and listening to him snore, she could not keep sadness away—could not choke back her tears. Her husband was old, he might get drunk and fall overboard; someone might kill him; he might simply die, as old men did. Then, whether she liked it or not, she might have to become the wife of some cruel warrior, like Blue Thunder. Every night Coal listened carefully to the call of the night birds; she was listening, particularly, for the trumpeting of the great tundra swans, birds that came every year to the Swamp of the Swans. The old women told her that if, mating, she heard the call of the tundra swans, it would be the best of omens. Then she would soon deliver a fat little boy; then maybe her husband would cheer up.

  14

  . . . George Catlin, his death at hand, took the only course open to him . . .

  GEORGE Catlin felt bold enough one morning to ask Lady Tasmin at breakfast if she would care to sit for her portrait—he was at once rebuffed so rudely that he promptly went below and cajoled—with an offer of a new musket and some blue beads—the Piegan Blue Thunder to sit in her stead. After all, it was Indians, not English ladies, that he had come west to paint. Mr. Gainsborough had painted plenty of the latter.

  Tasmin knew that the cranky painter was becoming rather too fond of her—even sharp rudeness didn’t really discourage him. A week had passed since Jim Snow returned her to the boat—a week during which she had remained so snappish and surly that both family and servants did their best to stay out of her way.

  “Blue Thunder will be my first attempt at a portrait of a Western Indian,” George said—he did not allow himself to be discouraged by Tasmin’s rudeness and had gone back upstairs to finish his coffee. “You can come and watch me work, should you care to, Lady Tasmin.”

  “Why would I want to watch George Catlin paint a picture of an Indian when I can see the Indian for myself?” Tasmin asked Mary, when George had gone off to assemble his equipment.

  Nevertheless, since there was little to do on board except stare at the muddy water of the featureless prairies, Tasmin and Mary drifted down to the lower deck. The Piegan was painting his face in vivid reds and yellows, in preparation for the sitting. Big White and the Hairy Horn ignored these preparations—both were sulking because the painter had not chosen them instead of Blue Thunder.

  “I think you and I should gather up our kit and immediately leave this boat, taking only Tintamarre as our protector,” Mary said.

  Tasmin ignored the comment. For a week she had thought of nothing but escape, and yet she had had just enough experience of prairie life to convince herself that escape, at the very least, might prove impractical.

  “Eliza has now broken three more plates,” Mary continued. “Mama and Papa will soon be eating off the bare boards—and besides, if we don’t hurry, we’ll never catch your Mr. Snow.”

  “In a logical universe I would not be pursuing Mr. Snow, Mr. Snow would be pursuing me,” Tasmin observed, noting that the painted Piegan was a strikingly handsome man.

  “Perhaps he’s following us, even now,” Mary said. “Perhaps he means to kidnap you and ravish you.”

  Tasmin could not suppress a laugh at the wildness of the little creature’s imagination.

  “You’ve been spending too much time with Vicky Kennet,” Tasmin said. “It is she who secretly dreams of wild ravishments—I believe she is growing rather tired of our old papa.”

  On the lower deck, near the rail, Mr. George Catlin was waiting with clear impatience for Blue Thunder to finish adorning himself. The Piegan wore a beaded war shirt and had draped himself with a great necklace of bear claws.

  “I do believe it will take him longer to paint himself than it will take me to paint him,” George said.

  “I wouldn’t mind sitting, I suppose, should you tire of painting these aboriginals,” Venetia Kennet, a new arrival, declared. She had unloosed her auburn hair, wh
ich fell well below her waist. Both Señor Yanez and Signor Claricia had offered to slave untiringly for her throughout their lives, and yet neither had yet been admitted to the sanctum of her boudoir.

  “I’m surprised you aren’t at your scales, Vicky,” Tasmin said. “Such a demanding discipline, the cello.”

  Venetia Kennet ignored that thrust. The humid air induced in her a heavy languor. For Tasmin Berrybender she felt the blackest hatred, of the sort one beauty is likely to harbor for another. Vicky’s principal hope was that Lord B. would soon get off on a hunt, sparing her, for a day, his heavy but inattentive embraces.

  Just then Mademoiselle Pellenc came down from Lady Berrybender’s cabin carrying Prince Talleyrand, the ill-tempered old parrot, to allow him his daily airing. Mademoiselle detested the flea-bitten old bird, but Lady B. insisted that Mademoiselle be the one to air him—after all, they both had French names.

  No sooner had Prince Talleyrand been released from his cage than he hopped up on the rail near where George Catlin was rapidly sketching in Blue Thunder’s wildly tinted profile. The parrot seemed to take more interest in the likeness than any of the other spectators—the scraggly old bird tipped his head curiously, from side to side.

  “Good morning, Prince Talleyrand,” George said, hoping that a great eagle might sweep down and relieve them all of the filthy bird. It was hard to get a profile right while enduring the scrutiny of a querulous old parrot.

  “Schweig, du blöder Trottel!” Prince Talleyrand said, raspily but distinctly—even Mary Berrybender gaped with astonishment, while Fräulein Pfretzskaner, who sometimes amused herself by teaching the bird random insults, blushed a very bright red.

  “What did he say?” George asked, in shock at having been rudely addressed by a parrot.

  Holger Sten, the Danish painter, let out a roar of laughter—to his mind the parrot’s remark was quite appropriate.

  “ ‘Shut up, you silly fool,’ that’s what he said,” Holger informed them.

  “It’s just a country phrase—customary,” Fräulein Pfretzskaner mumbled, departing at once to seek her Charlie.

  George Catlin, always a quick worker, thought he had Blue Thunder’s profile just about right—it only needed a little lengthening of the chin. He was well aware of native impatience; for the moment speed was more important to him than finesse—he could always touch up the likenesses once he got back to Philadelphia. He meant to call his portfolio Vanishing Races, and he knew the native races would vanish—the very fact that he was traveling up the Missouri in a steamboat meant that, for these wild, warring peoples, the end was not far off.

  Lord Berrybender, trailed by his man Gladwyn, came slowly downstairs, feeling rather heavy in his bowels, just as George Catlin finished his adjustment of Blue Thunder’s chin. Lord B. tramped over to the easel and took a look.

  “Why, hark the heralds, you’ve got the brute to a T,” His Lordship remarked.

  Pleased by this unexpected compliment, George Catlin picked up his little canvas and handed it to his sitter, Blue Thunder, hoping the Piegan would like it too. In this he was to be disappointed: instantly the Piegan’s passive manner turned to one of horror and rage. He slapped at his painted cheeks, as if to assure himself that they were still part of his face; then he grabbed a hatchet and advanced on the horrified painter, uttering a high, chilling shriek—George Catlin, his death at hand, took the only course open to him, which was to vault over the rail into the river.

  Lady Berrybender had been following her husband down to the lower deck, a glass of gin in one hand. Blue Thunder’s wild shriek startled her so that she missed her step and plunged straight downstairs, knocking Mademoiselle Pellenc into Señor Yanez, who in turn fell against Gorska Minor, who had been cleaning a gun. People toppled like dominoes; Big White and the Hairy Horn dashed to Blue Thunder’s side, and the three of them began to gobble like angry turkeys—at least that was how it sounded to Tasmin’s ear. Blue Thunder seemed disposed to leap into the water and finish off the sputtering painter, and he might have, had not Monsieur Charbonneau rushed up and restrained him.

  “I say, what a racket—what’s upset them, Charbonneau?” His Lordship asked.

  “Why, it’s just that in the picture Blue Thunder only has half his face—that’s the cause of the racket,” Charbonneau explained. “Blue Thunder thinks Mr. Catlin has stolen the other half of him—once he feels himself good and knows that he’s all there, I believe he’ll quiet down.”

  Holger Sten turned to wink at Piet Van Wely, who shared his dislike of the cranky Catlin—but Piet Van Wely was staring hard at the fallen Lady Berrybender, whose eyes were open, whose mouth gaped, and whose neck was bent at a most startling angle.

  “Oh, Constance is always fainting; eats too much,” Lord Berrybender said, hardly glancing at his wife. “Gluttons frequently faint.

  “Do get up, Constance,” he insisted. “I’m about to leave for my hunt—mademoiselle, perhaps you might better fetch the smelling salts.”

  But Mademoiselle Pellenc, Señor Yanez, Signor Claricia, Gorska Minor, Tasmin, Mary, and even Bobbety and Buffum, alarmed by the Piegan’s shrieks, all knew what Lord Berrybender had not yet realized, which was that his wife, Lady Constance Berrybender, a heavy eater, would never need smelling salts again. She lay on the lower deck of the steamer Rocky Mount, stone dead of a broken neck.

  15

  . . . Mademoiselle Pellenc, whose duty it had been to tend the bird . . .

  IT was hours later—after the dripping George Catlin had come back on board, after peace had been restored with the chieftains, after Lady Berrybender had received one last kiss from each of her children, after her hair had been combed one last time by Mademoiselle Pellenc, after her shroud had been sewn tightly shut by the skilled seamstress Fräulein Pfretzskaner—that someone happened to remember Prince Talleyrand, Lady Berrybender’s parrot. A search was made, but to no avail. Prince Talleyrand had evidently flown away.

  “It seems you were right to begin with, George,” Tasmin said to the painter, so stunned by what had happened that he had not even bothered to change out of his wet clothes.

  “It is the river Styx we’re traveling on,” Tasmin continued. “Not only has it taken poor Mama in the general direction of Hades, but we’ve lost her parrot too.”

  George Catlin was silent, for once. His comment about the river Sticks had been only a rather poor jest.

  “As for Prince Talleyrand, good riddance, I say,” Bess piped. “Smelly old bird.”

  But Mademoiselle Pellenc, whose duty it had been to tend the bird, could not accept the loss of her once-despised feathery charge.

  “Now I am the only French,” she cried.

  “Well, no, there are the engagés,” Tasmin reminded her, but she gave the poor half-crazed woman a comforting hug anyway.

  16

  Now, in the bright morning, a grave was being dug . . .

  JIM Snow watched the burial party from a sizable thicket of plum bushes. For a moment he feared the big red dog might catch his scent, but the dog merely looked his way for a moment before trotting off behind a large procession of children and servants, their goal a low bluff where several engagés were laboring to dig a grave.

  The old parrot had alighted at Jim’s campfire the night before. Now that the family whose pet the old bird had been were trooping up a hill, in plain sight, Jim rather expected the bird to rejoin them, but the parrot showed no interest in the grieving group. Instead it happily plucked the ripe, tart plums.

  Though Jim Snow had walked briskly south most of a day he had been unable to get the bold, barefoot English girl in the muddy dress off his mind. In truth, his conscience was bothering him somewhat, where Tasmin was concerned. When she cursed he had shaken her so hard he feared she might have cracked a tooth; and yet he doubted that his shaking, or anything else, would long prevent her from leaving the boat and striking out for Santa Fe. Clearly she was a young woman of uncommon determination. Jim could not imagine why such a
girl, or such a family, would be traveling up the Missouri River with winter coming on. There was nothing to be expected in the high Missouri country except wild tribes and bitter cold. Santa Fe, with its bustling trade, made a far likelier destination, and yet the big steamboat had already passed the usual embarkation points for Santa Fe. What the passengers meant to do in such wild country was a puzzle to Jim. Of course, the men could hunt, but it was hardly necessary to travel two thousand miles upriver to find good prairie hunting—the Osage were even then killing buffalo in abundance not a day from where the boat floated.

  After a night of brooding—a night spent so close to the Swamp of the Swans that he didn’t dare make a fire—Jim had retraced his steps to the Missouri. He caught up with the steamer on the afternoon of the fifth day, watching the prairies carefully for any sign that a party had headed west. Since then he had quietly followed the steamer, expecting, any day, to see Tasmin and some of the company disembark and strike out. When the old bearded hunter, the great lord, and the others had tramped ashore to hunt, Jim hung well back, watching. It was obvious that none of the party had the slightest notion of how to conduct a prairie hunt. The old lord tramped around smoking a long pipe, whose smoke any animal and many men could smell from a great distance; besides that, the group had made no effort to keep quiet. The most they could have expected from such a noisy approach was to surprise a greedy black bear in a plum thicket. Bears were sometimes inattentive, but deer and antelope, hearing such loud voices, would be unlikely to linger until the hunters came in range.

  Jim had hidden himself in an overgrown buffalo wallow while the hunting party passed—the old lord was upbraiding his servants at every step. They passed within forty yards of him, quite unaware that they were being watched; for Indians bent on war they would have been easy prey. A little later, while the party was returning to the boat, Jim killed a young antelope with an arrow. He considered taking a haunch out to the boat, but decided against it, and dried the meat. If he went to the boat it would only stir up the three chiefs, whom he could see plainly enough, standing in their blankets and paint. He felt it would not be long before the adventurous girl came ashore—maybe, despite the risks, he could devise a plan for taking her to Santa Fe. He was wading across a little creek when he heard, just faintly, the Piegan’s high war cry and saw a man jump off the boat into the river. The Piegan was enraged, that was clear, but Jim could not make out what had stirred him up. From the boat there came a babble of voices but there were no more war cries; the hubbub soon died down. The steamer made no progress for the rest of that day. At dusk Jim waded into the river and gigged a fine catfish, using a gig made from a two-pronged willow branch. He was eating the catfish when the old parrot sailed in and made himself at home.