The Berrybender Narratives

by Larry McMurtry

  “I must help Jimmy!” Tasmin said, jumping out of the cart. “Do you think any of them could be alive, Tom, after such a crash?”

  “Oh, certainly they’ll be alive,” Tom told her. “Might have to set a limb or two, a task Cook and I can handle, I suppose.”

  Dust had drifted so heavily on the prairie between the cart and the wagon that, for a moment, Tasmin had to stop. She coughed and choked—she could see nothing. But when a breeze thinned the dust a bit and she felt confident enough to stumble on toward the wreck, her heart leapt: there were Jim and Kit, working to try and cut the two horses loose from the busted wagon. The buffalo had evidently wandered on. Here and there the company could be seen, picking themselves up—all seemed pleased to be alive, and Jim was not slow in expressing his admiration for Gussie.

  “I never saw a horse run that fast,” he said. “She saved those babies, for sure.”

  “Why, she did go, didn’t she, splendid old girl,” Lord Berrybender remarked amiably. “A tribute to her breeding, Byerly Turk, you know. Where’s my Milly? Don’t see her anywhere. I was rather in a fog, yester-day—hardly myself. Kept wondering where your mother was, Tasmin. Clean forgot she was dead.”

  “Well, Mother is dead, I fear, Papa,” Tasmin told him.

  Tasmin, Jim, and Kit exchanged looks, but said nothing. His Lordship seemed to be sane again—the great fright and the great race had brought him out of the fog.

  “Great pity about the claret, though,” Lord B. lamented. “Hope we run into that prince again—no doubt he’ll have some to spare.”

  To the east the buffalo still ran, a brown river a mile wide, thousands and thousands.

  “Why do they run like that, Jimmy?” Tasmin asked.

  Jim just shrugged. “Something spooked them, I guess—might have been Indians,” he told her.

  “Or lightning,” Kit suggested.

  “Can we fix it?” Jim asked Aldo Claricia, who was poking around in a discouraged fashion in the ruins of the wagon.

  “Gone … finito!” the Italian said. “We can only use it to make a fire.”

  “We don’t have the guns, either—threw them out,” Pedro Yanez reminded them.

  “Well, we can go back and find the guns—maybe one or two of them ain’t broke,” the Broken Hand said.

  “Best count up the people, first,” Jim advised. “We need to be sure nobody’s missing.”

  “I don’t see young Miss Mary, or the Dutchman,” Tom Fitzpatrick mentioned. “We didn’t leave them, did we?”

  Everyone looked around. There was no sign of Mary Berrybender, or of Piet Van Wely.

  “They weren’t in the cart,” Vicky remembered.

  “Oh dear, I think I saw them walking off a bit earlier, with their nets,” Buffum said. “I’m not at all sure that they came back.”

  “You can’t mean it! My dear brat lost—and she was doing so well with her Greek lessons, too,” Lord Berrybender said. Then he sank down, sobbing, eyes wild again.

  “Slap him, Milly, will you? You’re a good touch,” Tasmin said. “We don’t want him slipping into the fog again, just now.”

  Milly carried out her commission with a will, peppering Lord Berrybender’s cheeks with a succession of stinging slaps, until he waved her away.

  “Not now, Milly—not now,” he protested, thinking the pesky laundress was attempting to arouse him.

  “I’m going back to see if I can find any guns that ain’t broken,” Jim said. “I lost my bow, too—if we don’t find something that will shoot, then we’re looking at starvation time.”

  Just then Prince Talleyrand, very dusty, landed on Tom Fitzpatrick’s shoulder. When the buffalo came he had risen high in the air, but then so had the dust.

  Tasmin insisted on hurrying off with Jim and Kit in the cart, determined to do her best to find Mary and

  Piet.

  “You won’t mind if I look for my sister, will you, Jimmy?” she asked.

  “You can look,” Jim said, “but if they got caught in that stampede there won’t be much to bury.”

  The Belgian rifle and two other guns were recovered undamaged, as were a number of skillets and cook pots. All the clothes had been trampled to rags, and of Lord Berrybender’s claret, only a few shards of glass remained. All the books had been thoroughly trampled—only a page or two, blown by the breeze, fluttered here and there in the grass. Tasmin gathered up every page she saw—there a page of Byron, here one of Mrs. Edgeworth’s, there several pages of Father Geoffrin’s beloved Marmontel.

  “I’d rather read a page than read nothing,” she said, tucking the pages into her bosom.

  Jim and Kit, with Tasmin following hopefully in the cart, searched from one border to the other of the area of stampede—a thing easily done, since the buffalo had beaten away most of the grass—but not a trace of either Mary or Piet could be found.

  “If they’re alive at least they won’t starve—Mary can sniff out tubers, you know,” Tasmin reminded them.

  “She can even talk to snakes—and some snakes are good eating,” Jim pointed out.

  Kit Carson had always been famed for his keen eyesight and his acute sense of smell, and yet he had never sniffed out a tuber, and was not entirely sure what one looked like. In love with Tasmin though he was, somehow just being with her made him feel that his own gifts were slightly inferior. Usually this made him mopey, but on this occasion he was too glad to be alive to mope.

  Far to the east, the buffalo that had almost trampled them had run themselves out and were grazing quietly on the sunny plain.

  “Kit saved us, as much as the mare,” Jim pointed out. “The minute he seen the dust we knew we had to run.”

  They were in the cart—Kit was roaming around by the river, hoping to pick up clues as to what might have happened to Mary and Piet.

  “Good for Kit—I’ll try to control my urge to pick on him for a day or two,” Tasmin said. “Right now I confess I’m rather atingle with the pleasure of being alive. Can’t we celebrate?”

  Jim looked at her curiously, not at once catching her meaning.

  “It’s how I felt after the hailstorm, shortly before we were married,” Tasmin recalled. “I might have been dead, but instead I was alive and atingle! It calls for celebration.”

  When he started to answer, Tasmin stopped his mouth with a passionate kiss. Lately, due to the dust and the dirt, to Monty and the various frustrations of travel, their amours, from her point of view at least, had become rather sluggish, pleasures that occurred when she was half asleep, or else sweaty and rather more in need of a bath.

  Now, though death had been close at hand, it had been defeated.

  “We could have been mashed quite flat, but we’re alive, Jimmy!” she continued.

  Jim realized what she meant—what she wanted. Kit Carson was only one hundred yards away, scanning the riverbank.

  “But Kit’s right there,” Jim said.

  “Hang Kit! I’m so atingle I can’t wait!” Tasmin said, giving him another long kiss. “Quick, quick—I’ll help you get it out.”

  Jim barely had time to stop Gussie before Tasmin had it out.

  54

  Mary Berrybender whacked and whacked…

  MARY Berrybender whacked and whacked with the thorny briars—her dear Piet’s naked back and rump were quite streaked with blood: provident man that he was, Piet had noted the location of an excellent thicket of thorny briars the day before. The two of them had wandered off early, in order to hurry to the briar patch and select just the sharpest thorns so that Piet might enjoy a thorough scourging, a pleasure not always available on the trackless and, in some regions, thornless plains.

  At first Mary had been reluctant to thoroughly cut Piet up with these thorny briars, but he had convinced her that such whippings were commonly practiced in his native Holland, both in public gymnasia and in the basements of many stately homes. Some of the wealthier Hollanders, Piet claimed, even employed a special servant to see that there was always a
good supply of nettles, briars, or stout flexible switches cut from young trees. Sometimes the servant was even required to do the scourging, although that would normally be handled by the lady of the house—or, in some cases, by a cousin.

  “Oh, yes, it’s quite necessary for healthy circulation,” Piet assured Mary, the first time he stripped down and persuaded her to lash him savagely.

  “Keeps the blood flowing … keeps us warm during our cold winters,” Piet said. “Harder, little one. No need to hold back.”

  Not wishing to disappoint, Mary soon learned to lay on vigorously and expertly with either briars or switches.

  Evidently there was a sound biological basis for Piet’s claim of improved circulation; by the time Mary had the blood flowing good, from a few sharp strikes to his rump, Piet would exhibit as perky an erection as could be expected from a man of admittedly modest dimensions. Often it was necessary for Mary to bloody Piet’s whole back, from neck to thighs, before an effusion resulted—after which the two of them would bathe in the cold, swift Yellowstone; then Mary would carefully apply a little of Cook’s useful salve to Piet’s many scratches.

  “A healthy life is the best life, little one,” Piet would invariably remind her, after which he might nap for a bit, naked on a rock, while Mary, never idle when there were scientific investigations to pursue, would set off with her net in search of dragonflies, mantises, or even the lowly grasshopper.

  There were, however, times when Piet’s circulation was very slow to improve; by the time Mary noticed the great dust cloud thrown up by the stampeding buffalo, her arm was already quite tired from whipping, and many of the thorns had broken off during her scourge. They had nothing to fear from the buffalo themselves—the herd passed at least a mile to the south—but for some reason Piet’s dimensions were very slow to expand, though his back and hinder parts were thoroughly bloody.

  And then, most inconveniently, who should appear on the plain to the west of them but Monsieur Charbonneau, accompanied by a piebald man on an equally piebald but very slow horse.

  “Here comes our long-lost interpreter—what shall we do, Piet? He might consider these healthy exercises somewhat unorthodox,” Mary said.

  “Damn Charbonneau, why will he appear at such inconvenient times?” Piet complained. “My circulation is very reluctant today—an excess of bile, I fear. Too much bile is sure to drag down one’s constitution.”

  “On this occasion nothing seems to have come up,” Mary admitted. “Wasn’t it more effective when I merely fondled you under your smock?”

  “Effective, yes … but is life to be merely efficiency?” Piet asked, before dashing into the river to wash the blood off his back. Mary felt rather downcast—she hated for her Piet to suffer disappointment.

  “I suppose I’m about of an age to copulate,” she told him. “I’m as old as Coal, and she has had a brat.”

  Piet at once shook his head.

  “Not the same,” he replied. “I must have my rigors. Rigor! It’s what has made the Dutch a mighty race.”

  “Even so, I think I’ll ask Tasmin what’s the best way to copulate—Tassie copulates all the time and perhaps could provide useful instruction,” Mary told him as she proceeded to rub a good bit of Cook’s salve on his scratched-up nether parts.

  Much as he liked his little English dewdrop, Piet was horrified by this suggestion. Tampering with a Berrybender’s virginity would very likely get him fired.

  Besides, he liked to be whipped, and one of the few things the New World didn’t lack was excellent brambles. A good scourging was far better for a fellow than any form of contact with the female pudendum—so dark, so dank, so hairy.

  55

  “Your friend rides a very slow horse…”

  “NOW there’s a sight, Greasy,” Charbonneau exclaimed, as the two of them came slowly down the slope toward the Yellowstone. “Why do you suppose our little English miss is whipping that Dutchman so?”

  Greasy Lake, plodding along on his good horse Galahad, of course observed the whipping—the naked man’s back was streaked with blood—but he could make no sense of such a proceeding. He had seen many men beat girls—old men almost always beat girls, if they happened to have one handy, as a wife or a slave. But, among his people, men who submitted to beatings by women—much less girls—quickly became laughingstocks. Occasionally one would be laughed right out of camp.

  In his many years of travel up and down the plains, Greasy Lake had seen so many strange happenings that he did not get upset if something a little out of the ordinary happened. Once he had found a live eagle, trapped in the horns of two dead elk. The elk had huge racks and must have locked them in the course of a fight; then both starved to death. But an eagle certainly had no business getting himself caught between the horns of two elk. Greasy Lake had worked for more than a hour to free the bird, which was young; and then, instead of being grateful, the eagle had gashed his hand with its beak before it flew away. The rescue had occurred at a little creek that ran into the Beaverhead River. Greasy Lake immediately washed his wound in ice-cold water, but the gash became infected and his whole arm began to swell. The situation was serious enough that Greasy Lake sought out an old Shoshone woman who was good with herbal poultices. When she found out how he had got the wound she gave him a lecture about presuming to interfere in the problems of eagles.

  “That eagle would have died if I hadn’t saved it,” Greasy Lake protested, but the old Shoshone woman continued to address him spitefully.

  “What do you know—you aren’t an eagle,” she pointed out. “If you are going to go around letting eagles bite you, then quit wasting my time.”

  None of that explained why the English girl was whipping the Dutchman—it just meant that Greasy Lake had learned to take a calm attitude toward things that seemed a little bit unusual.

  “Perhaps they made a sweat lodge,” he suggested. “Sometimes the Sioux and even the Assiniboines hit themselves with branches when they come out of a sweat lodge.”

  Toussaint Charbonneau had been in sweat lodges, and knew that warriors sometimes whacked themselves afterward, but the Dutchman Mary Berry-bender had just scratched up was no warrior. He was a man who studied centipedes and grasshoppers, weeds and seeds. Why would he need a whipping?

  “That was a fine flogging you just gave our friend Piet,” he remarked when he and Greasy Lake finally arrived at the river.

  “Bonjour—yes indeed, monsieur,” Mary said. “Piet finds it extremely hygienic—many Europeans enjoy a good spanking, I believe. I don’t care for the practice myself, though it is said to relieve the menses.”

  “This is Greasy Lake,” Charbonneau told her. “As you can see he slicks himself up with every kind of grease he can find—keeps off the skeeters, he claims.”

  Piet found it odd that the old Indian who accompanied Charbonneau was so splotchy in color. One of his cheeks was nearly white, the other bronze, his arms rather mottled. As a keen student of genetics, Piet would have liked to question the old man about his ancestry, but decided that it might be prudent to wait for a few days until friendly relations could be established.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t get caught in that buffalo run,” Charbonneau told them. “Where’s the rest of the party?”

  “South, I suppose,” Mary said. “We lingered here because of these excellent briars.”

  Greasy Lake was not much interested in the Dutchman but the young woman was a more singular case. He had heard rumors among the Mandans that a sorceress was traveling with the English party, a young woman who befriended turtles and could converse with snakes. He had a notion this young woman was the sorceress. As a gesture of politeness, he tipped his cap to her.

  “Your friend rides a very slow horse, monsieur,” Mary observed, staring fixedly at Greasy Lake, who immediately began to feel regret that he had decided to accompany Sharbo to the Yellowstone. By so doing he had come to the place of a witch, and now he was stuck. In order to leave he would have to turn h
is back on the small English witch, and he did not think that would be wise. She might locate one of the Snake people and instruct him to bite Greasy Lake’s organ while he slept; such a thing had happened to Big Muskrat, of the Crows. Big Muskrat had made an enemy of a powerful old witch, as a result of which a snake had wiggled into his blankets and bit his organ, which had turned black and stayed black for several years. Big Muskrat had never again been able to be of use to women.

  “It might be wise to rejoin our party,” Mary said. “Will you be coming with us, monsieur?”

  “Oh yes,” Charbonneau said. “I wonder if that little boy of mine can crawl around yet.”

  “Indeed he can,” Mary said. “I’m afraid he crawled into a rather sharp cactus only yesterday.”

  As Sharbo, the witch, and the Dutchman proceeded south along the riverbank, Greasy Lake thought he might use the fact that his horse was so slow to good advantage—he might just gradually fade from sight behind them, without exciting the attention of the witch.

  That plan failed because—to Greasy Lake’s dismay—his horse, Galahad, suddenly acquired new energies. The old nag began to prance and even trot— instead of dropping back behind the three foot travelers, he was soon bouncing ahead of them. Galahad, who, to most observers, seemed little better than dead, began to behave like a colt again. This behavior on the part of a horse that was at least thirty years old strengthened Greasy Lake’s conviction that he was dealing with a powerful witch.

  But there was worse to come. Just beyond the dusty patch of prairie where the buffalo had had their run, Greasy Lake looked around and was startled to see, not far to the south, the Wandering Hill. This was a very bad shock indeed—it was the third time in his life that Greasy Lake had seen the Wandering Hill— and to see it even once usually meant death, for the small devils who lived in the hill were known to loose their deadly arrows at the slightest provocation.

  Long ago, near the Little Sioux River, Greasy Lake had seen the Wandering Hill, just a small, conical mound with a single tree on top, and he had escaped the devils’ deadly grass-blade arrows by crawling for more than an hour on his belly in the same tall weeds; years later, near the holy mountains of the Sioux, as he was building a burial scaffold for his second wife, he had seen the hill once more, this time many miles farther to the west. And now here the deadly hill was again, on the Yellowstone, and, what’s more, his prancing horse was carrying him right toward it, a thing that would be sure to affront the short, large-headed devils who lived in it; they would hardly look tolerantly on a man who had been so forceful as to come near their hill three times in his life.