The Berrybender Narratives

by Larry McMurtry

  Tasmin did consider Cook, a forthright woman who had raised twelve children, in spotless cleanliness and considerable fear of their mother, while also taking a large hand in the raising of the many Berrybenders. Yet Cook, a widow, was shaped like a barrel, and was quite prickly when approached, as old Tom Fitzpatrick was finding out, to his frustration.

  “You’re right, there’s Cook,” Tasmin admitted. “If Cook can produce twelve, I suppose Piet and Mary might manage one or two.”

  Tasmin had been heartened by Jim Snow’s return. After all, she liked him, and their ruts, as she put it, cleared their heads. But there were other, more complex considerations. Why should Little Onion be childless, while all around her babies were arriving? The advantage to polygamy, as she saw it, was that it spread around certain chores, the conjugal chore not least among them. Jim, after all, was married to Little Onion, though he claimed it had only been at the urging of her sister Sun Girl, then his wife, but now dead. Still, he had married her—was it really fair that he offered her nothing in the way of pleasure after the loyalty she had given so freely both to Monty and to Tasmin? He presumably enjoyed her sister; why wouldn’t he enjoy Little Onion as well?

  “You’ve a wicked gleam in your eye—a very wicked gleam,” Vicky remarked.

  “Supposing I do?” Tasmin said sharply, annoyed that Vicky had become so keenly observant of her moods.

  “I can’t recall that I ever claimed to be a saint,” she added.

  Vicky’s casual comment merely served to remind her of how much more acute women were than men in regard to the intricacies of love. Jim Snow could sit beside her for a year and never have the slightest suspicion of what was on her mind, yet Vicky, newly pregnant, not too well, constantly set upon by Lord Berrybender, had nonetheless a probably not inaccurate picture of what Tasmin was contemplating.

  “Read much in the old romances, my dear?” Vicky asked, with a languorous smile.

  “If you mean Miss Austen, I don’t find her particularly romantic,” Tasmin declared. “Can’t say that I care much about marriage arrangements among the middle classes.”

  “No, not Miss Austen,” Vicky argued. “I mean the old romances: King Arthur, the fair Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad . . . that bunch.”

  “Nanny Craigie read us a bit about the knights,” Tasmin recalled. “I don’t know that I believed it. Why, for goodness’ sake?”

  “I was just thinking that the rule of chastity was rather extreme, in those days,” Vicky said. “Much worshiping at a distance. Very courtly love. Knights sighing with great passion but never exactly allowed to get down to it.”

  “Why would I want to read nonsense like that?” Tasmin asked. “It’s worse than middle-class marriage. At least in Father Geoffrin’s naughty French books, people do get down to it. In fact, they seem to do little else.”

  “Oh well, don’t mind me,” Vicky said. “I don’t quite know why Guinevere popped into my head. Perhaps I recall some girlish fancy of having a fine brave knight love me eternally, though scarcely being allowed to do more than kiss my hand.”

  � fine vision, but that’s hardly Papa,” Tasmin reminded her.

  “No, it’s not,” Vicky admitted.

  They bounced on, saying no more about the matter. Jim had led the party onto the plain east of the mountains, but a few great peaks, snowcapped and hidden in cloud, were visible to the west. Jim Bridger, Tom Fitzpatrick, and the Sublette brothers frequently spent their days in the foothills, hoping to find streams that still had beaver. Game had been scarce, but that morning Lord Berrybender, dashing ahead, had managed to kill a buffalo and an elk. The journalists, following on their palfreys, scribbled industriously whenever the company halted for any reason. In this instance they stayed behind to watch the buffalo and the elk being butchered, the butchers on this occasion being Pomp and young High Shoulders. Pomp, his shirt off and his arms bloody to the shoulders, seemed to be doing most of the cutting. Jim himself had told Tasmin that none of the mountain men were as skilled at taking every usable part of an animal as Pomp Charbonneau.

  “He was trained not to waste a scrap, and he don’t waste a scrap,” Jim told her.

  Pomp, seeing the ladies bouncing past, gave them a friendly, if bloody, wave. Signor Claricia and Seftor Yanez stood disconsolately around the rapidly shrinking carcasses, while Cook, somehow spotless, received the bloody slabs on large platters acquired, like the wagons and much else, from William Ashley.

  The two journalists stood over Pomp, who politely pointed out to them the variously named cuts as he removed them. While the ladies watched, he carefully cut thin slices from the buffalo liver, squeezed a bit of bile on them, and handed them to the journalists—a prairie treat to sample.

  Ben Hope-Tipping seemed none too pleased with this raw meat, but Clam de Paty with a great, all-embracing gastronomic tradition to defend, ate his with apparent relish.

  “It’s rather like liver of aurochs,” he said, with a touch of pomposity.

  Tasmin gave Pomp only the briefest wave—it was clear that Vicky had her suspicions. She tried her best to pretend coolness, though dissembling in the matter of the emotions was not something she did particularly well.

  “If you want to know a secret, Vicky, I’ll tell you one,” she said. “My husband won me with a slice of deer’s liver. I woke with the most terrible hunger, so he killed a nearby deer and presented me with a slice of the liver, barely scorched. I can’t say that I’ve ever tasted anything better.”

  But a glance at Vicky convinced Tasmin that the cellist was now well off the scent of herself and Pomp. Vicky looked white, sick—too unwell to be concerned just then with Tasmin’s wicked notions.

  “It was the sight of that blood—all that blood—and the men drenched in it,” Vicky said, weakly. “I fear I may have to hop down and be sick.”

  The mention of blood put Tasmin suddenly more or less in the same state as her stricken stepmother. She felt faint.

  Vicky made good her vow, jumped down, and stumbled away a few steps before kneeling down, after which she was sick.

  Tasmin’s queasiness at once increased—it had been that great pool of blood beside the dead buffalo. She felt more than a little quaint herself. A moment later she too was forced to step down and stumble off, quite as sick as her stepmother.

  28

  Probably the Cheyenne had just been feeling good . . .

  THE SEVEN Pawnee boys were out on a lark when they heard the popping of a rifle and noticed a strange party of whites, strung out on the prairies a mile or so away.

  “There’s some whites, let’s go kill them,” Red Knee ordered, in his usual rude, impetuous way. Red Knee had been the one to suggest that they break off from the tribe’s big summer hunt and go steal some horses, a thing they had not yet managed to do. Only the day before they had tried to run off some horses from a small Cheyenne encampment, but the Cheyenne were too wary—their guards saw the Pawnee boys long before they were close enough to the herd to run off any horses. Then a very hot pursuit ensued—too hot for Rattle, the oldest and most experienced of the group. It was Rattle’s misfortune to have the weakest horse of any of the Pawnees, a horse whose wind easily gave out. Two of the Cheyenne warriors who pursued him were almost close enough on his tail to count coup; but they pulled up and let the little raiding party go. Probably the Cheyenne had just been feeling good; probably they were more amused than anything that these reckless Pawnee youngsters thought they could actually steal horses from the mighty Cheyenne. If the pursuers had been in a different mood, less happy because of a poor hunt or perhaps bitter because one of their own warriors had been killed, then all seven of the Pawnee boys might have been run down and killed—of this Rattle was sure, but when he said as much to Red Knee, that wild one just looked at him as if his remark was too stupid to deserve an answer.

  “No puny Cheyenne is going to kill me,” he said smugly.

  They all knew that Red Knee was impossibly vain— in fact there were
plenty of Cheyenne who could have killed him easily, but there seemed to be little point in saying that to him; now, without even counting the white people or trying to determine just how strong they might be, Red Knee was ready to ride right into battle.

  “Wait a minute,” Rattle insisted. “I think that’s a bunch of those trappers. They are terrible fighters, those men—better than the Cheyenne.”

  Various of the other young Pawnees looked uncertain, too, at the prospect of attacking a party of whites. Slow Possum, particularly, had a few objections. He had come even closer than Rattle to being killed by a Cheyenne—a Cheyenne warrior on an extremely fast horse had actually counted coup on him, but instead of killing him, the Cheyenne had merely whacked him on the head a few times with the flat of his hatchet. Then he pulled up, laughing. The Cheyenne simply refused to take the Pawnee boys seriously—they had laughed at them, when they might have killed them.

  “We don’t have any guns,” Slow Possum pointed out. “Those white people probably have a lot of guns. I think it’s a hunting party, and the whites don’t hunt with bows.”

  “The Sin Killer hunts with a bow,” Rattle reminded them. “He’s around here somewhere—old Greasy Lake said so.”

  This reminder sobered Red Knee a little. Though privately he considered himself a match for the Sin Killer, or any other of the trappers, he knew that if he said as much the others would just laugh at him and then probably turn and go home. Everyone knew that the Sin Killer had eaten the lightning and thus could not be killed by conventional means. Only someone in league with a powerful witch would have a chance against the Sin Killer.

  Of course, Slow Possum had just been guessing—he had no way of knowing whether the Sin Killer was with this party of whites.

  “I don’t think he’s here—it’s just some hunters— and I see some women,” Red Knee remarked, pointing. “Maybe we could catch a woman, or at least scalp one.”

  It usually fell to Rattle to make the case for conservative behavior. They had been lucky with the Cheyenne, but they might not be lucky with the whites.

  “It’s too risky—let’s just watch them for a day or two,” he suggested. ‘At least we could crawl a little closer and try to get a count.”

  “He’s right,” Slow Possum counseled. “There’s whites all over the place. There might be some hiding—maybe they spotted us.”

  He and Rattle and the others waited anxiously—it seldom did any good to try to talk Red Knee into behaving reasonably. He took all such counsels as affronts to his courage. Red Knee would only restrain himself if an older, proven warrior reined him in. Of course, raiding was always a little dangerous; even very great warriors were sometimes killed, usually because their courage propelled them into hopeless situations.

  Rattle was hoping that, for once, Red Knee would be sensible and spend a few hours scouting the white party to see how many men it contained. But Rattle knew this wasn’t likely. If Red Knee charged the whites, the rest of them would have no choice but to follow him. Not to support a comrade would be the blackest cowardice.

  Red Knee didn’t want to hesitate, to think it all out. He was a warrior—and in no mood to wait, or plan. The fact that there were several women in the group convinced him that these white scalps would be easy picking. What glory that would mean when they got home—whereas, otherwise, only derision awaited them, for they would be returning without a single stolen horse. He had no interest in sitting around arguing with Rattle and Slow Possum.

  “Maybe if we wait until tonight we can steal their horses,” Rattle suggested, though he doubted that Red Knee would accept this sensible compromise.

  His doubt was accurate.

  With a high, echoing war cry Red Knee raised his lance and charged.

  29

  . . . Tim and Milly were required to wander. . .

  TIM, the three-fingered stable boy and Millicent, the discarded laundress, had much to commiserate about. Buffum Berrybender, for long Tim’s main source of fornication, had now fallen in love with a tall Ute who carried a lance and a big hatchet. Tim now rarely even so much as said good day to Buffum, for fear that her lover, High Shoulders, might poke him with the lance.

  Millicent had fared no better. For a few months she had been Lord Berrybender’s favorite, had drunk claret with him and indulged him in all manner of hot practices, both day and night; during this period of eminence she had come to rather look down on the other servants, formerly her peers.

  But Lord Berrybender cooled where Milly was concerned; before she could much more than blink, the capricious old lord had married Vicky Kennet— Millicent, without so much as a word of thanks, was back doing laundry again, and Cook, who had been mightily offended by Millicent’s brief elevation to mistress rank, quickly set out to humble her as a means of reminding her not to look above her station. Chores were piled on chores; Cook closely examined every garment Milly washed to be sure she was not cutting corners when it came to doing the Berrybenders’ clothes.

  Thus, scorned by nearly everyone, Tim and Milly found that when they wanted to bemoan their lot they had only one another to apply to. During the day usually, Tim and Milly were required to wander here and there, gathering what firewood they saw—if no wood was to be found, they had to drag around big sacks, filling them with buffalo chips, numbers of which Cook burned when she set about preparing the evening meal.

  So Millicent and Tim wandered the prairies, often at considerable distance from the company, each dragging a large sack. Now and then, despondent, Milly so forgot herself as to permit Tim small liberties—fumblings, probings, a breast revealed here and there. A few times even, in order to take her mind off her disappointing existence, Millicent had been persuaded to open Tim’s pants and pull him off, an action she performed efficiently knowing that the slightest trace of spunk would at once be pounced on by the vigilant Cook.

  Tim, of course, sought even greater intimacies, but these Millicent continued to refuse. After all, she had her pride. The great Lord Berrybender had been her lover—where those noble loins had worked, Milly could not permit a mere stable boy to follow.

  When they saw the Indians coming they had proceeded, with their sacks, some distance from the rest of the company. The plain around them was absolutely bare and flat—even if Milly had been in the mood for a little carnal stimulation, there would have been no way for them to conceal themselves. She was just stooping to pick up half a dozen large, flat buffalo chips when the strange cries first reached her ears.

  “Oh, lordy Tim—I believe it’s savages coming,” she said, very startled.

  Tim glanced at the racing Indians but did not feel particularly alarmed—Indians seemed to prefer to travel at top speed most of the time. Probably these were merely having a race, thinking that whoever arrived first at the wagons would receive the best presents. His time at the rendezvous had convinced him that savages mostly wanted presents.

  “They’re in a hurry for booty, I expect,” he said. “Or maybe they’re friends of that one Buffum likes.”

  “Pardon me, Tim, but you ain’t to call her by no nicknames,” Millicent insisted. “She’s Miss Berry-bender to you, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind, you ugly tub!” Tim yelled, infuriated that a laundress would presume to correct him.

  “Wasn’t it me afucking with her in the stables?” he reminded Milly “I guess I can call her Buffum if I please.”

  So outraged was he that Milly, who was no more than a laundress, would presume to question his references to his old lover that he forgot, for a moment, the issue of the Indians, until the cries got very loud and the sound of pounding hooves very close.

  “Oh lordy, Tim! Lordy!” Milly cried, in terrible panic. She was suddenly so scared that she could scarcely force the words out of her mouth.

  Tim turned and was shocked to see that the Indians, who had been quite distant only a moment before, were now not distant at all, nor did they seem to be bearing toward the wagons, where the trade g
oods were. On speeding horses, kicking up a cloud of dust, they were coming straight for himself and Milly, neither of whom had a weapon of any sort.

  “Oh lordy we’re kilt!” Milly cried; then she screamed at the top of her lungs, but the scream rang only for a second across the prairies before Rattle, startled by the piercing quality of the woman’s cry, stopped it for good and all by splitting her head open with his hatchet; Milly died even as she sagged. Tim turned to flee but made it only two steps before Red Knee stuck him in the throat with his long lance. Slow Possum and the others, angry because they had not got to count the fatal coup, hacked and hacked at Tim, nearly severing his head. The latecomers, four boys on slower horses, jumped down and effected such mutilation as they could. The large woman was scalped, no easy job with her brains spilling out; then the dead stable boy was scalped too, quickly castrated, had his eyes poked out and legs slashed, as the triumphant Pawnees vented their fury on the two lifeless corpses.

  “They won’t laugh at us in the village now,” Red Knee said.

  Rattle had to admit that Red Knee had been right to charge; here they had two easily taken scalps to make up for the mockery they had endured with the haughty Cheyenne.

  “Let’s get some more of them—I see some in a wagon,” Slow Possum cried, pointing to where Lord Berrybender, with the two Europeans holding his guns, bounced over the prairie, uncertain at what was happening.

  After taking a last few satisfying cuts at the two corpses, the Pawnees raced off to intercept the wagon.

  Ranging a mile or more to the south, Jim and Kit heard the high war cries and whirled at once, though they were too far away to see clearly what was happening. Kit, on the big mule, didn’t wait to speculate but broke at once for the scene of combat, with Jim Snow following as rapidly as he could on the short-legged mare.

  Tasmin and Vicky, both sick to their stomachs, heard the cries and looked up in time to see a number of Indians hacking at something on the ground—at first neither could see what. Little Onion knew, however— she started to turn the wagon, so as to cluster with Cook and the others, but before she could finish turning, Pomp and High Shoulders ran up and quickly cut the wagon horses loose. Pomp mounted one, High Shoulders the other, and they raced away in the direction of Lord Berrybender.