The Berrybender Narratives

by Larry McMurtry

  Every night for a week Julietta went to the blacksmith’s—she offered caresses that Joaquin had never known before. Doña Eleanora thought her niece had lost her mind. She didn’t bathe, her clothes were sweated through, she reeked. But when she attempted to remonstrate, Julietta merely looked scornful.

  “You should try Joaquin sometime,” she advised her aunt. “He’s learning a few tricks. If you tried him you wouldn’t be so dull.”

  “You’re mad,” Eleanora told her. “You should be locked up.”

  But she did sometimes think of what Julietta suggested.

  Joaquin proved to be good for a week, but only a week. By the time he had become bolder, Julietta was bored. One night she abruptly left him; he was erect and pleading—but she left, went home, ordered the sleepy servant girls to draw a good bath. She threw away her sweaty clothes, bathed, slept soundly. Joaquin often looked at her window but Julietta didn’t allow him even a glimpse.

  A week later she told Lord Berrybender exactly what she had done with the blacksmith. She went into detail, described intimacies that she had not yet permitted His Lordship. Lord Berrybender was eating a bowl of green chili stew at the time. He looked idly up at his outrageous young mistress, but didn’t lay down his spoon.

  “So that’s where you’ve been,” he said mildly. “A blacksmith—sturdy specimens, I suppose.

  “And younger than me,” he added. “That’s the crucial point. Age is rarely kind to lechers. I suppose he was a bit grubby, this fellow—part of the appeal. I enjoy a grubby girl myself, from time to time. Get my fill of ladies with their pouts. Juppy’s mother was rather a grubby girl. Giantess from Santo Domingo. Juppy’s nearly the size of his mother.”

  “Now there’s a stallion,” Julietta remarked. “I wonder what he’s like.”

  “Juppy doesn’t carry on with women,” Lord Berrybender told her. “Never known him to.”

  “What a pity,” Julietta said.

  23

  . . . for some hours she could not be consoled.

  I WISH YOU’D just stop meddling,” Jim told his wife. “It’s better to just let people be.”

  Tasmin was in a mood to agree. She had made an attempt to settle the matter of Little Onion’s divorce from Jim—in view of her obviously deepening bond with Signor Claricia—only to have everything go wrong. When Buffum, with High Shoulders’ help, explained the matter to Little Onion, the girl burst into tears—for some hours she could not be consoled. Tasmin was horrified. She had meant to help the girl yet had only hurt her. That bringing up divorce might make Little Onion feel a failure had not occurred to her—and yet that was exactly what Little Onion felt. If her husband no longer wanted her for a wife, then she had not been good enough, and the only thing to do was go back to her people, a discarded woman. That Jim had never tried to be a husband did not seem very important to Little Onion—she had done her very best to be a good wife anyway—she had done the chores and kept the children. And yet it was over; she was not wanted, she had failed.

  When it was explained to her that no criticism was intended, that they had merely supposed she might want to marry her Mr. Aldo, Little Onion looked even more horrified and burst into tears again. She shook her head vigorously; she wanted nothing of the sort. Mr. Aldo was her friend, and she wanted it to stay that way. Jim, finding himself in the middle of an unnecessary crisis, went to Little Onion himself and did his best to smooth things over. He assured her that she had been a fine wife—he had never wished to divorce her. Little Onion had already packed her few things, intent on leaving; but Jim persuaded her to stay, and Tasmin and the family, deeply embarrassed, lavished affection on her. Little Onion agreed to stay, but she was skeptical and, for a time, sad.

  A little later she realized that her friendship with Mr. Aldo might have just confused the white people. She liked the old man and wanted to see that he took care of himself. She fed him, kept his clothes mended, doctored him when he was ill; but she did not want to lie with him—nothing of the sort. Lately, it was true, he had become feisty; she sometimes had to fight him off. But that was merely the way of men. Finally Little Onion realized that it was Mr. Aldo’s behavior, not hers, that had confused the white people. Slowly, she recovered from her sense of hurt. Someone should just have asked her point-blank about her feelings for Mr. Aldo—then they could have all laughed about it together.

  All the Berrybender women were sorry to have hurt Little Onion, but Tasmin was the one who felt the deepest self-reproach. Jim was right; she ought not to meddle. She loved Little Onion—she didn’t suppose her children would have survived the dark months of her grief without her Little Onion’s loving attention. She did her best to win back the girl’s trust—and, in time, she did.

  “I suppose it’s hopeless, trying to know what others are feeling,” she confessed to Jim. “I don’t even know what you’re feeling unless you hit me—then I know you’re angry. I could have sworn a romance was brewing between those two—and I was completely wrong.”

  “You got enough to do—don’t be worrying about Onion,” Jim said. “She can take care of herself.”

  “I fear meddling is just what families do—particularly families crammed together in a foreign place,” Tasmin countered. “In England we’d have drifted apart by now, most of us.”

  Then Buffum came in, looking tearful. High Shoulders had been gone on one of his hunts. He had not been seen in ten days—Buffum was overcome with worry, as she always was if her husband was absent more than a week.

  “I need to know he’s safe,” she told them. “Be glad you aren’t married to this one,” Tasmin said. “He thinks nothing of absences of six months or more.”

  Jim quietly left. He didn’t want to quarrel about his absences. Only yesterday he had quarreled so violently with Tasmin that he struck her. She had suddenly informed him that she and the children were going to accompany him on all future trips, no matter how arduous they promised to be—yet she knew perfectly well he couldn’t do the jobs he was assigned with a wife and three babies in tow. It was absurd—and yet Tasmin flared and he flared— Jim felt cornered, as he always did if he was inside a house.

  As he walked past the nursery his daughter spotted him. Petal was still feeling her way with her father. He was a difficult conquest; he could not simply be bossed, like other people. Flirting and cajoling didn’t work either, though they worked on Juppy, the brown giant her father had brought back with him.

  Nonetheless she pointed a finger at Jim, in a commanding way.

  “Come see me, I’m a spider,” Petal commanded. Jim did as ordered. “Spiders sting,” he said. “What if I don’t want to be stung?”

  “Then behave good,” Petal advised. “Behave good, Mr. Sin Killer.”

  Jim was startled. “Auntie Mary says that’s your other name,” Petal explained. “Only I don’t know what sin is.”

  “It’s stealing your brothers’ toys,” Jim informed her. She was holding a small leather burro that he had brought specially for Monty. Petal sat the burro on the floor.

  “It followed me,” she explained.

  “Telling lies is also a sin,” her father informed her.

  “Fibbing—only fibbing,” Petal insisted. “But I was good in the kitchen. I didn’t turn over the pudding.”

  “If I was you I’d give Monty back his donkey,” Jim advised.

  Petal made no move to comply. “You isn’t me,” she pointed out.

  24

  Even as he and Kit stood whispering . . .

  UNABLE TO SLEEP inside the house, Jim usually spread his blankets behind it, near two Dutch ovens Cook sometimes used for baking. Tasmin sometimes joined him there, but not often, since the whole nursery was likely to follow her, trailing along like so many little ducks. All six of the children would soon be shivering in the cold, spoiling Tasmin’s hope of spending a quiet hour with Jim. Usually she gave up and led the brigade back inside, leaving Jim in peace. The Plaza seldom quieted down early; horsemen, cavalrymen mostly
, would clatter across it at all hours.

  Kit Carson could move with stealth if he wanted to, and on this occasion he particularly wanted to avoid sentries and soldiers. He materialized at Jim’s side, pressing a finger to his lips, indicating that Jim should follow him. Jim took his gun and did as Kit suggested, wondering what brought Kit to Santa Fe at that hour of the night.

  They were on the far side of the sheep pens before Kit felt it was safe to talk. He came right to the point.

  “They’re arresting the bunch of you tomorrow in the morning,” Kit told Jim bluntly. “Josie heard it from someone in the Palace.”

  Jim didn’t question the information. Josie was usually reliable where matters in Santa Fe were concerned. She had lived in the Palace herself at some point. If she said the Berrybenders were being arrested, it was probably true. What it meant could be debated, but that the Mexicans meant to rid themselves of Americans and English alike he didn’t doubt and had never doubted. From the Mexican viewpoint, it was get rid of the Americans before the Americans got rid of them.

  Even as he and Kit stood whispering, the first hint of dawn showed in the east. Jim would have liked to slip in and warn Tasmin, but knew it might be a fatal mistake. Pomp had let himself be taken; Jim didn’t intend to make the same mistake.

  “They were already under house arrest,” Jim pointed out. “I suppose arrest means they aim to ship ’em out.”

  “That’s it—that’s Josie’s view,” Kit agreed. “Charlie Bent thinks there’s going to be a war for Texas anytime. I suppose the Berrybenders would make good hostages—the Mexicans might trade ’em for a general or two.”

  Day was breaking—Kit grew nervous. “We better go if we’re going,” he said. “I’ve no time to warn the family but I have to get my mare,” Jim said. He crept through the sheep and soon was back with the mare. The tip of the sun just broke the horizon.

  “High Shoulders is out hunting,” Jim said. “I better go find him or he’ll come back and get arrested himself.”

  In the distance Kit could already see a few soldiers, just waking up.

  “I’m going,” he said. “If you come to my house, come in the night.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Jim said. “Thank Josie too—don’t let her whup you too bad.”

  Kit, suddenly nervous, was on his way to Taos— he felt he could not spare the time for gratitude.

  25

  Lord Berrybender, apoplectic . . .

  I’M SO GLAD High Shoulders is hunting,” Buffum said, as the whole Berrybender household, considerably disheveled, were being urged into wagons. Lord Berrybender, apoplectic at being disturbed so early, was allowed to use his buggy, with Signor Claricia to drive; but that was the only favor the English were allowed.

  “I would have liked a word with the Governor—he’s a friend, after all,” Lord Berrybender said to the head of their escort, a graying major named Leon, a careful man, not brutal, not young, and not especially familiar with the English gentry and their ways. He had been allowed a skimpy escort of only eighteen young soldiers and was well aware that it might not be enough. Their destination, the port of Vera Cruz, was very distant; the country they had to cross was hard country. The essential thing was to get started.

  “I will do my best to make you comfortable,” Major Leon assured them—the English had been two hours assembling themselves, and one or another of the women was still darting into the house to search for some important article that had been forgotten in the haste and gloom of the dusty morning. The dog Mopsy was only remembered at the last minute.

  “In fact, Major, you’ve only made us uncomfortable,” Lord Berrybender grumbled. “Wouldn’t have minded a bit more sleep.”

  “It’s better to travel while the day is cool,” Major Leon replied. He felt uneasy. With such talkative, grumbly people it was not easy to choose correct remarks, as Lady Tasmin at once reminded him.

  “It’s the fall, Major—that’s not a summer breeze that’s blowing,” Tasmin pointed out. They were all swaddled in blankets, the children big-eyed and solemn at the prospect of departure.

  Lord Berrybender, very annoyed, had not given up on protocol.

  “I still think I ought to be allowed to say goodbye to the Governor—he’s been most generous with us,” he asserted. “Besides, he’s a friend.”

  “There is a problem,” the Major admitted. “He may still be your friend, but he is no longer the governor.”

  He did not elaborate, but signaled to the drivers to get the wagons going. Soon a buggy, three wagons, and eighteen supply mules, and the escort, eighteen strong, filed out of the Plaza. Joaquin, the blacksmith, just stirring his forge, yawned as they went by.

  “But where’s Julietta? Stop!” Lord Berrybender exclaimed. It had just dawned on him that his mistress was not in the wagons.

  The Major didn’t stop. “We seem to have forgotten Señorita Julietta Olivaries,” Lord Berrybender insisted. “We must fetch her. I’m sure she’d want to come.”

  “Unfortunately that is not the case,” Major Leon replied. “The señorita is in Santa Fe for her health. She is staying with her aunt.”

  The Major’s eyes hardened. Who was this old English fool, to think that he could summon a lady of the Spanish nobility at will? It was intolerable. Hauling this old lecher away from Señorita Julietta was a pleasant part of his task.

  Signor Claricia had not been feeling well— Juppy was driving the buggy. The reins looked like threads in his big hands.

  “I think you better let that one go, Papa,” he advised. “The Major wants to be making time.”

  “Thank you, señor,” the Major said. “We cannot go back for anyone. The time for good-byes is past.”

  Then he trotted to the head of the column and led the party south, into the desert, along the Camino Real—the road that, if they could survive it, would take them to the City of Mexico and beyond.

  26

  Except for the biting, blowing dust . . .

  TRAVEL IS NEVER as neat as one imagines it will be,” Major Leon admitted. “Even military travel is rarely neat. One must heed these calls of nature.”

  “Indeed, and right now she’s calling rather too often,” Father Geoff allowed. “I’ve been twenty times. The water, I suppose.”

  Except for the biting, blowing dust which swirled around them constantly, chapping lips and irritating eyelids, reducing the children particularly to life beneath a kind of tent of blankets, the journey south had not yet been too harsh. Major Leon kept his word about trying to make them comfortable. He exhibited no compulsion to hurry, a relief to the mothers and to Cook, all still trying to organize their resources and equipment for what would surely be a long trip.

  “One cannot hurry an ox,” the Major pointed out. “We must remember the fine fable of the tortoise and the hare.”

  Stimulated by this reference, Piet Van Wely roused himself and gave an impromptu lecture on the differences between the tortoise, the turtle, and the terrapin. He too was suffering from bowel complaints—they all were. The precise, well-regulated columns that Major Leon liked to maintain ceased to exist, as the complaint attacked cavalrymen and hostages alike. The English were jumping out of wagons and hurrying desperately through the sparse vegetation, in hopes of finding a bush behind which to answer the frequent calls in private.

  “It’s quite clear that this is amoebic,” Piet informed them, so weak by this time that he could scarcely sit up. “These waters contain bad amoebas.”

  “That’s not very cheering news,” Tasmin pointed out. “These are the only waters there are.”

  “Piet is merely speaking as a scientist,” Mary replied—she was always quick to defend her Piet.

  “Fine, I’m speaking as a sufferer,” Tasmin told her.

  Petal popped out of her tent community from time to time, surveying the weakened company. She herself had not been afflicted.

  “But I don’t see my Jim,” she said. “Where is my Jim?” She had grown to like
her Jim. But where was he?

  “This wagon is too bumpy,” she added, a complaint everyone could sympathize with. Her grand-father’s buggy was better, but her grandfather seemed to be angry at the moment; he could tolerate no one but Juppy, who muttered soothingly while her grandfather grumbled.

  “I’m surprised Albany didn’t shoot somebody,” Vicky said, to Tasmin. “Now he’s without his pretty little mistress—and he’s not a man who likes to have his pleasures snatched away.”

  “It means you’ll be seeing more of him one of these cold nights,” Tasmin remarked. “He’ll be wanting a little coziness, pretty soon.”