The Berrybender Narratives

by Larry McMurtry

  “Still, here we are and there she is, breathing the odors of the stables,” Tasmin replied. “No doubt these Mexican beauties have their pride.”

  “You didn’t mind stables when Master Tobias Stiles was tupping you in ours, back home,” Mary reminded her, wickedly.

  “Why should you remind me of those ancient efforts?” Tasmin asked. The time when she had eagerly offered up her innocence to the vigorous Master Stiles seemed very distant indeed. Now she was attached to a husband who lived by his own rules, not her rules, and she was in love with Pomp Charbonneau, a calm man who lacked Master Stiles’ s lusty enthusiasm. The one thing that struck her, on reflection, about her early connection with Master Stiles was how uncomplicated it had been. She had been a happy young woman then, being had by a servant in the stall of her father’s stailion . It had not seemed wicked at all. That her virginal little sister kept bringing it up was annoying.

  “It’s time you stopped talking about such things, Mary” she said. “Here we are, comfortably quartered, and we’re likely to be here all winter. It’s time you and Piet got down to it—just do it!”

  “I will try, but Piet is sadly reluctant,” Mary admitted.

  “Once you wean him from flagellation I’m sure he’ll do well enough.”

  “He fears inadequacy,” Mary confided. “He is only a short, fat botanist—and he’s not a man of our class.”

  “Ha—does he suppose my husband, Jim Snow, or Buffum’s finely made Ute are men of our class?” Tasmin asked. “We’re in a raw trading post on the American frontier. Who knows what horrors await us? Since you obviously love him, who cares whether he’s a man of our class?”

  “Piet cares. After all he is a European, brought up to show due respect for his betters.

  “I’m afraid I’m one of his betters,” Mary said, rather sadly. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “If you can get the man alone I’d suggest undressing,” Tasmin advised. “You’ve a pretty little body. It might be that thoughts of class will recede.”

  “Possibly,” Mary allowed, “but my new friend Josefina reports the same problem with Kit. She wants to start right in making babies, but Kit won’t cooperate.”

  “Kit was mine, you may recall,” Tasmin mentioned. “He used to respond to my every whim—now he’ll scarcely look at me.”

  “Selfish Tasmin—you already have two men,” Mary chided. “It is certainly only fair that you surrender Kit.”

  “I prefer to decide what’s fair,” Tasmin told her. “Go make a man of Piet and leave me alone. It’s only to a limited degree that I have any man. Even Monty, on the whole, prefers Little Onion.”

  “That’s because you scare him, Tassie,” Mary said, as she left the balcony.

  Tasmin stayed where she was, reflecting on Mary’s charge. When in a bad temper, she did scare Monty; when in a lustful state, she embarrassed Pomp; and when generally out of sorts in a demanding way, she exasperated Jim. Three men, and yet not one that really knew what to do about her.

  Annoyed by that conclusion, she stared insolently down at Maria Jaramillo and her aunt, who, no less insolently, stared back. Tasmin didn’t flinch from these hateful looks. Here at least was direct emotion, one she could meet just as directly; no need to peer into the shadows or examine complications where Maria was concerned. Hate, Tasmin could readily understand; it was hesitancy she could not tolerate, particularly the hesitancy of men.

  As usual when she was filled with hot annoyance, Father Geoffrin appeared at her elbow—angry vibrations seemed to draw him.

  “Now’s there’s a fine enemy you’ve made,” he remarked. “That girl would cheerfully see you dead.”

  “So what? I’d rather have an open enemy than a sneak like you, Geoff,” Tasmin told him. “What do you think of Monsieur St. Vrain?”

  “Very handsome, if somewhat cynical,” Father Geoffrin declared. “What are you thinking, my sweet?”

  “I ain’t your sweet and I’m not thinking, I’m merely looking,” Tasmin said.

  52

  . . . he felt that few of their rivals . . .

  LOOK at Charlie,” Kit told Jim. “His face is red as fire—I think he’s about to throw a fit.”

  “Let him—it won’t be his first or his last,” Jim Snow said. He had secured an awl and some tough sutures of deer gut, and was repairing his moccasins. Charlie Bent’s hot temper didn’t interest him.

  “Charlie’s had at least one fit every day when I’ve been around him,” Jim Bridger observed. “He was never taught to control himself.”

  “How would you teach a fool like Charlie to control himself?” Kit wondered.

  “By beating the tar out of him every time he acts up,” Jim Bridger suggested. “Willy’s not big enough to get the job done.”

  “I’ll whop him, if he throws one with me,” Jim Bridger assured them. “I won’t waste no time.”

  “Well, he’s had a setback—you can’t blame him for being a little hot,” Jim Snow reminded them. “He’s got eight wagons ready to go east and now he’s lost his best guide. At least, he has if Hugh Glass is telling the truth.”

  Hugh Glass had appeared only that morning, wandering off the prairie minus the Sublette brothers, whom he had been scouting with. Hugh had passed through Taos on his way to the post, where, by pure chance, he witnessed the abrupt end of Teddy Tombali, Charlie Bent’s head caravanner—a man who had safely guided several commercial expeditions to Saint Louis, with the loss of only one man and a few horses.

  “Teddy was dancing with a plump seftorita,” Hugh reported. “Some fool had left a rifle leaning against the wall and a caballero kicked it and it went off. The dern bullet went right through Teddy’s heart.”

  Charlie Bent, on hearing the bad news, suspected conspiracy—he felt that few of their rivals would scruple at murder.

  “I wonder who that caballero was working for,” he said.

  Hugh Glass didn’t care for Charlie Bent—in fact he resented the rooster of a fellow, pecking at him with questions about everything.

  “Where’s Abby Mr. Glass?” Tasmin asked innocently, looking around for the young bear.

  “Dern, we et Abby,” Hugh admitted; the news shocked everyone within hearing distance. Even Jim Snow was surprised.

  “We was for four days without food,” Hugh Glass explained—everyone wore horrified looks. The Broken Hand turned white at the news, and Pomp Charbonneau, who had caught the bear cubs in the first place, let slip a sigh of sadness.

  “It was that or eat one of ourselves,” Hugh went on. “Of course, she didn’t suffer none—she was sound asleep when we shot her—never opened her eyes.”

  Then the old trapper gulped and looked strange.

  “It was wrong—I’ll never live it down, for that bear trusted me!” he said. “We should have et Billy Sublette, but Milt didn’t believe he could help eat his brother, so poor little Abby it had to be.”

  Then, overcome, the old man howled like a wolf and burst into tears—seeing the rough old trapper so broken brought tears to many an eye. Kit Carson, who had loved the little bear, cried like a baby himself—all the weeping astonished the Bent brothers, who could not quite grasp the tragedy. All these tears because Hugh Glass and the Sublettes had eaten a bear?

  “You never met her—you fool!” Kit Carson stammered. “She was our pet.”

  Charles and Willy, startled by the fact that everyone was looking daggers at them, were about to walk off when Hugh recovered himself sufficiently to mention the fate of Teddy Tombali, a man acknowledged by all to be a very superior wagon master, after which it was Charlie Bent’s time to be upset. There was just time, in his view, for the wagons to make it across the barren lands without the handicap of seriously bad weather; but that was hardly the only consideration. Teddy Tombali had not been sent to Taos only so that he could indulge his taste for dancing with plump seftoritas. He had been sent to collect a cartful of silver work from the pueblos along the Rio Grande. It was Charles Bent’s
opinion that pueblo silver would soon catch on with their customers in the East. Belts hung with conchas of silver, heavy rings with turquoise stones set in them would someday be fetching a pretty price once they were distributed to fashionable merchants in Cincinnati or Philadelphia. The loss of reliable Teddy Tombali was bad enough, but the loss of a cartful of salable silver was an outrage that had Charles Bent hopping mad. None of the merchants in Santa Fe, Mexican or American, would be averse to fleecing the Bents should they get the chance. Where was their silver now? Charlie tried to question Hugh Glass in detail, but Hugh was not much help. He kept breaking into loud sobs at the memory of the dead bear cub. When asked if he had seen a cart, or any silver, Hugh— in Charlie’s experience a tricky old fellow himself— grew extremely vague.

  “I didn’t see no cart,” he insisted, “and didn’t even know the dead man was Teddy until they turned him over.”

  Even when primed with a cup of brandy, Hugh Glass was little help. In no time he drank himself into a stupor and stumbled off to have a nap in the rear of the blacksmith’s shop.

  Under the circumstances, Charlie felt the need of an immediate consultation with his partners, Willy and St. Vrain.

  “We need that silver—you better go, Vrain,” Charlie said. “They trust you in Taos.”

  St. Vrain shrugged. “The silver is gone, and you’re wrong about the trust,” he said. “No one trusts anyone in Taos.”

  “We need that silver,” Charlie repeated.

  “Dern it, you’ve said that sixteen times,” Willy scolded. “It’s gone, Charlie—what you ought to be thinking of now is who’s going to lead this wagon train to Saint Louis.”

  “That’s simple, you are,” Charlie said. “I’m getting married in two weeks—I can’t do it,” Charlie continued. ‘And I need to keep Vrain here to help out with the politics.”

  Willy had expected some such answer—his brother could always be counted on to pick him for irksome tasks—and struggling across the plains, with winter coming, drought already there, and the Indians troublesome, was as irksome as any task could be. In his opinion it was already too late in the season to safely start such a journey; and the reason it was late in the season was that Charlie kept cramming peltries and anything else he thought might sell into the wagons. Six wagons would have been plenty; eight were too many to protect.

  “I don’t want to go,” Willy said, though without heat. The wagons were loaded and ready; somebody would have to lead them, or a whole season’s profits would be lost.

  “I’d send Kit but the little fool’s getting married too,” Charlie explained.

  “Weddings can be postponed,” Willy pointed out.

  “Not this one—the governor’s coming,” Charlie reminded him.

  “I’ll go if I can have Jimmy Snow to help me,” Willy said—he saw no reasonable way out of the dilemma.

  “Jimmy would do—but his wife’s with child,” Charlie said. “He may not want to leave her. Why not take Jimmy Bridger?”

  “Nope, I need Jimmy Snow,” Willy insisted. “He’s the Sin Killer—the Indians know better than to crowd him. At least the Cheyenne won’t, nor the Osage.”

  “For that matter you could take both Jimmys,” Charlie went on. “I have no reason to keep Jimmy Bridger here all winter, eating my grub. He eats enough for five or six men—it’s a pointless expense. Take ’em both.”

  “I won’t—Jim Bridger’s too unpredictable,” Willy said, firmly. “He don’t follow nothing but his own nose. He’s likely to turn off and head for Texas, or China. I won’t have him.”

  Charles didn’t argue the point. Jim Bridger was known among the mountain men for his abrupt, even whimsical departures from whatever route he had been set.

  “What if that bossy English girl won’t let Jimmy Snow go?” he asked.

  “Jimmy may be married but he don’t look married,” Willy told him. “You look a dern sight more married and you ain’t even had the wedding yet.”

  Charlie sulked at that. There was no doubt that Maria’s hurtful action with the pot had cost him a certain amount of face—also, though he tried not to show it, a certain amount of confidence. He had assumed that once Maria had agreed to marry him, she would comport herself properly, become a docile wife. But now he wasn’t so sure, and besides that, there was the expense of a big wedding to be borne. With the English occupying the main suite of rooms, the governor of New Mexico would have to be housed in a first-class tent, which was even then being set up in the courtyard, as far from the English quarters as possible, so as to minimize friction between the testy old Lord Berrybender and the equally testy governor. The governor was bringing a military escort, which was only prudent, but there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t turn it on the Bents. Relations with the Mexican government were never entirely smooth—it was mostly through St. Vrain’s diplomacy that mutual distrust was kept at a handleable level.

  Under the circumstances the last thing Charles Bent needed was to lose a cartful of silver—and all because the otherwise trustworthy Teddy Tombali had been too fond of dancing. It was vexatious, all of it, but one thing Charles Bent had learned was not to waste time brooding about matters that could not be changed. Action was what had got him what he had—action would enable him to get more, and to secure it. The eight wagons were ready to move out. It was time to start them.

  Charlie was headed across the courtyard to put a proposition to Jim Snow when he saw, to his intense vexation, that his brother Willy was mounted and almost out the gate of the stockade. With a roar Charlie just managed to stop him. Willy, looking annoyed, turned his horse and trotted over to his brother.

  “What in hell do you want now?” Willy asked.

  “I want to know where you think you’re going— that’s what!”

  “To visit my wife, where else?” Willy told him. “I’m going to see Owl. You didn’t suppose I’d head off to Saint Louis without visiting my wife first, did you?”

  “But the wagons are ready to start—can’t you see that?” Charlie protested.

  “So? Do you suppose I intend to walk every step of the way with them?” Willy countered. “Hire Jimmy Snow, get him started, and tell him I’ll catch up with him in three days. Nobody’s likely to bother him in that length of time.”

  Charlie would have liked to pull Willy off the horse and give him a good thrashing, but of course there were several idlers watching, so he shrugged and turned away.

  In a moment Willy was out the gate and gone, heading for the Cheyenne village where Owl Woman lived with her family—as a respectable young woman of the Cheyenne she had found it impossible to tolerate the cramped, close ways of the whites. She had spent only two nights in the trading post—she did not like the smells of closed-in people and had insisted on returning to the plains, where the cleansing winds soon blew away bad odors. Owl Woman was very fond of her husband, Willy Bent, but that was no reason to lead a smelly, closed-in life, with a lot of terrible odors in one’s nose. Owl Woman, rather fastidious, didn’t see why she should change her healthy way of living for one that was obviously not as good.

  53

  Tasmin had been yawning . . .

  “GO! GO! GO immediately! You have my fondest blessings!” Tasmin said, when Jim came into the room and told her that Charles Bent had just offered him money to lead the goods caravan back to Saint Louis— or, if not all the way to Saint Louis, at least to the Missouri River, by which point the worst dangers would have been passed. She had stretched out on her bed, attempting to read Mr. Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, a copy of which had been discovered in the trading post—Tasmin found the work so bland and tedious that she had laid it aside and was about to nap when her husband entered. Monty and Talley had been taken by Little Onion to inspect a tiny lamb which the sheepherders had brought into the trading post, judging it too weak to survive outside.

  Before the drowsiness induced by Mr. Goldsmith’s bland prose had come over her, Tasmin had been vaguely wishing that Pomp mi
ght appear. She had been thinking restless, vaguely carnal thoughts. But it was Jim, not Pomp, who entered to inform her that he had just been offered a job that would take him away from her for two months.

  “I didn’t make no promises about Saint Louis—just to help get them to the river,” Jim said. “Once they’re on the river, Willy can manage it well enough, I expect.”

  Of course, Charles Bent had pressed him to go all the way, the reason being that he considered Jim’s judgment, on the whole, to be better than his brother’s. But Jim remembered how irked Tasmin had been when he left her while she was pregnant with Monty. He knew she would be irked again if he was gone when the second child came—but he felt he could easily make it to the Missouri River and back with time to spare—and Charlie had offered him more money than he had ever expected to make. It had become more and more obvious to Jim that he would need to begin to earn money at some point. Sooner or later he and Tasmin would probably find themselves in a place where the frontiersman’s subsistence skills were not enough. Here was a chance to earn cash, something he had rarely had before.

  Tasmin had been yawning when Jim entered—he supposed she would be angry, as she generally was when he proposed to leave. The other two times he had just gone off—this time he thought he had better deliver the news himself. He was very surprised when Tasmin indulged in another great yawn and merely waved her hand, as if his impending departure was a thing of little moment.

  “I knew as soon as we got here and I saw all this bustle that you’d soon be leaving,” she told him. “You don’t enjoy company much, Jimmy—it’s rather amazing that you still seem to like me. Besides, there’s really no reason why you should spend the winter watching my belly get bigger—it can’t be a particularly attractive sight.”

  Tasmin was right—the bustle of the trading post did irritate him—but that was not the main reason he had accepted Charlie Bent’s offer. The main reason was money.