“His mother, I mean,” Charbonneau continued. “Captain Clark called her Janey—could never quite manage her Indian name.”
“I’m going to be with him now,” Tasmin said told him. “Will you be coming, monsieur?”
Charbonneau shook his head—he was staring, blank-faced, at the hills across the river. The two short Europeans lingered with him.
When Tasmin reached the arena of the operation, William Ashley was prancing around, looking officious and bossy.
“The danger will be when the arrow comes out,” he was saying. “Very likely our Pomp’s life will come with it.”
“Get out of here and don’t talk like that, you goddamn fop!” Tasmin yelled, suddenly furious. There was something she didn’t like about Ashley—he seemed the kind of man who might wear scent.
Shocked, William Ashley backed away. Hugh Glass’s mouth dropped open—he had been with Ashley on the day of his great defeat by the Arikaras, ten years earlier, but had never seen the man so dismayed—although, on the former occasion, men had been dropping dead all around him.
Tasmin looked around for her husband—as she always did, when she let slip an oath—but Jim was not there.
“Him and Kit went to stand guard,” Eulalie Bonneville explained. “Drum Stewart’s dead, you know—killed in the first minute, horse bolted, right into the Utes, Jim says.”
“Jimmy will never trust the Utes again,” Milt Sublette remarked.
The news of the Scot’s death barely registered with Tasmin. She moved around by Pomp’s head and kept her eyes fixed on him as Father Geoffrin began his work. Tasmin put her mouth close to Pomp’s ear and whispered to him.
“I’m here, Pomp,” she whispered. “I’m here to help you—don’t die, don’t you dare.”
Very quickly, Father Geoffrin made two cuts and, to everyone’s surprise, lifted out the arrow; but before anyone could speak he shook his head.
“Save the bravos,” he said. “There’s a tip I failed to get—the arrow must have hit a rib. If Cook will just let me have those long tweezers …”
Silently, Cook handed him the tweezers—the probe was longer this time. Tasmin kept her eyes on Pomp— she whispered again in his ear. She did not want him to get the notion that he was allowed to go.
Pomp, drifting in deep and starless darkness, heard Tasmin speak softly in his ear, saying she was here, she was here; but he couldn’t answer. The easeful darkness held him in its lazy power; he floated downward, deeper and deeper into it, as the soaked leaf sinks slowly to the bottom of a pool, to a place deeper than light. Helpless as the leaf he sank and sank, until, instead of Tasmin’s voice, he heard, “Jean Baptiste … Jean Baptiste!” Then the darkness gave way to the soft light of dream, and there was Sacagawea, his mother, sitting quietly in a field of waving grass, as she had so many times in his dreams. Though her dark eyes welcomed him, the look on her face was grave.
As always in his dreams of Sacagawea, Pomp wanted to rush to her, to be taken in her arms, as he had been as a child; but he could not move. The rules of the dream were severe—old sadness, old frustration pricked him, even though dreams of his mother were the best dreams of all.
As usual, when she visited him in dreams, Sacagawea began to talk in low tones of things that had happened long ago.
“When we were on our way back from the great ocean I took you up to the top of those white cliffs that rise by the Missouri,” she said. “I wanted you to see the great herds, grazing far from the world of men; but you were a young boy then, not even weaned, and I held your hand so you wouldn’t step off the edge of life and go too soon to the Sky House, where we all have to go someday. Now that old Ute’s arrow has brought you to the edge of life again, but the woman who whispers to you wants to pull you back, as I pulled you back when you were young.”
Sacagawea was looking directly at him—Pomp wanted to ask her questions, and yet, as always in his dreams of his mother, he was gripped by a terrible muteness; he could ask no question, make no plea, though he knew that at any time the dream might fade and his mother be lost to him until he visited her in dreams again. With the fear that his dream was ending came a sadness so deep that Pomp did not want to wake up to life, and yet that was just what his mother was urging him to do— she wanted him to listen to Tasmin.
“I did not wean you until you had seen four summers,” Sacagawea told him. “My milk was always strong—I filled you with it so that you could live long and enjoy the world of men, the world I showed you when we stood together on the white cliffs. Obey the woman who whispers—it is not time for you to come to the Sky House yet …”
Then, with sad swiftness, his mother faded; where her face had been was Tasmin’s face, leaning close to his. Pomp tried to smile, but couldn’t, not yet. Even so, Tasmin’s eyes shone with tears of relief.
At last Father Geoffrin, who had been probing very carefully, withdrew the long tweezers, which contained the tiny, bloody tip of a flint arrow.
“There … it’s out—and he’s not bleeding much,” Father Geoffrin said. “I think our good Pomp can live now—if he wants to.”
Tasmin had been watching Pomp’s face closely. Her heart leapt when he opened his eyes.
“I’ll see that he wants to!” she said, overjoyed that her friend had lived.
Father Geoffrin—priest, surgeon, and cynic— raised an eyebrow.
“I expect you will, madame,” he said. “I expect you will.”
Praise for Larry McMurtry’s
New York Times Bestselling
Adventures of the Berrybender Family
THE WANDERING HILL
“Larry McMurtry may well be the most reliable American novelist of his generation.”
—The International Herald-Tribune
“A page-turner.”
—The Orlando Sentinel (FL)
SIN KILLER
“Exquisite descriptions. . . . Simply irresistible storytelling, rich and satisfying.”
—New York Times Book Review
“A sprawling parody of the frontier encounter. . . . Sin Killer is a zany, episodic ride. With gusto and nonstop ingenuity, McMurtry moves his cast of characters and caricatures steadily upstream.”
—The Washington Post
“An adventure-filled, lighthearted farce.”
—People
“A story as big as the West itself. ... If Sin Killer is the standard, the other three [Berrybender Narratives] can’t get here fast enough. . . . Lewis and Clark, meet Monty Python.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A goofy jaunt through the Wild West.”
—San Jose Mercury-News
“Sin Killer is without a doubt Larry McMurtry’s most enjoyable book in years . . . Part soap opera . . . part romance . . . part farce . . . and altogether thoroughly wonderful.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Quirky. . . . It’s never less than entertaining and is often fascinating.”
—Fort Worth Star Telegram
“It’s excellent for sure, and a lot more.”
—Daily Neves (New York)
“This is a very good book. . . . The Berrybender Narratives promise to be McMurtry’s finest works since Lonesome Dove.”
—Sunday Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)
“[A] bright, boisterous parade of a novel. . . . Energetic and big-hearted.”
—The Seattle Times
“Sin Killer is a comedy, though it can be downright grim—a balance that McMurtry achieved on his last novel, Boone’s Lick, and that no other writer of westerns has quite matched.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Sin Killer promises a variety of excitement to come. . . . You’ll want to be along for the journey.”
—The Orlando Sentinel
“[A] hilarious good time. . . . Wonderfully funny and smart. . . . The wait for the next installment will be far too long.”
—The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
“Sin Killer is full of captiva
ting characters as fun to love as they are to hate, characters at the mercy of a cunning and mischievous creator. . . . Loaded with incident and steeped in ribald humor.”
—The Columbus Dispatch
“Wild adventures and colorful characters. ... A fine effort by one of the nation’s best writers.”
—The Tampa Tribune
“Another ambitious, larger-than-life adventure . . . comic, witty, and bloody.”
—Edmonton Journal
“This is McMurtry at his best.”
—Houston Chronicle
PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR
LARRY McMURTRY
“A poet, a resonant scene-setter and a master of voice.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“What an imagination he has! When it comes to spinning a good yarn, few writers can do it better than McMurtry.”
—Houston Post
“Larry McMurtry has the power to clutch the heart and also to exhilarate.”
—The New Yorker
BY LARRY MCMURTRY
By Sorrow’s River
The Wandering Hill
Sin Killer
Sacajawea’s Nickname: Essays on the American West
Paradise
Boone’s Lick
Roads
Still Wild: A Collection of Western Stories
Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen
Duane’s Depressed
Crazy Horse
Comanche Moon
Dead Man’s Walk
The Late Child
Streets of Laredo
The Evening Star
Buffalo Girls
Some Can Whistle
Anything for Billy
Film Flam: Essays on Hollywood
Texasville
Lonesome Dove
The Desert Rose
Cadillac Jack
Somebody’s Darling
Terms of Endearment
All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers
Moving On
The Last Picture Show
In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas
Leaving Cheyenne
Horseman, Pass By
BY LARRY MCMURTRY AND DIANA OSSANA
Pretty Boy Floyd
Zeke and Ned
LARRY MCMURTRY
BY
SORROW’S RIVER
THE BERRYBENDER NARRATIVES, BOOK 3
POCKET BOOKS
New York London Toronto Sydney
The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2003 by Larry McMurtry
Originally published in hardcover in 2003 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0-7434-5143-0
First Pocket Books paperback edition April 2004
10 987654321
POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Cover design by John Vairo Jr.
Jacket painting 1968.40—After Albert Bierstadt, The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, 1869. Courtesy of Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Manufactured in the United States of America
For information regarding special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or business@simonandschuster.com.
THE BERRYBENDER NARRATIVES are dedicated to the secondhand booksellers of the Western world, who have done so much, over a fifty-year stretch, to help me to an education.
BOOK 3
At the end of Book 2, The Wandering Hill, the Berrybender party, as well as the mountain men, have made their way to a great fur traders’ rendezvous in the Valley of the Chickens, west of South Pass. A foggy early-morning battle with some attacking Utes leaves Bobbety Berrybender and the Scottish sportsman William Drummond Stewart dead; in this foggy fight the Ute chief Walkura and No Teeth, an old shaman, are also killed. Pomp Charbonneau, near death from an arrow wound, is saved by the unexpectedly skillful surgery of Father Geoffrin, assisted by a dream visit from Pomp’s mother, Sacagawea, and by the fierce determination of Tasmin Berrybender, who refuses to let Pomp die.
Contents
Characters
1. PLATITUDES
2. PERILS OF DEMOCRACY
3. TRAPPERS IN LOVE
4. TASMIN WIPES A TEAR
5. KIT SUGGESTS A TRADE
6. THE BALLOONISTS ARRIVE
7. LES OISEAUX
8. TWO SCOUTS WHO CAN’T AGREE
9. A WET PROSPECT
10. THE SIN KILLER LEAVES
11. A NOVEL REVENGE
12. A PAINFUL DISCOVERY
13. AN ANIMAL VICTIM
14. A LOVE REVEALED
15. THE ALTAR OR NOTHING
16. SLEDGEHAMMER AND ANVIL
17. INNOCENCE THWARTED
18. THE SIN KILLER TAKES FRIGHT
19. A PLAGUE
20. YOUNG WIVES OR OLD AGE
21. A SERVANT UPBRAIDED
22. VEXATION OF TASMIN
23. A RUDE SURPRISE
24. A HASTY RETURN
25. A MOONLIT REUNION
26. AN IDEAL LOOKOUT
27. PRACTICAL COPULATION
28. SEVEN PAWNEE BOYS
29. STABLE BOY AND MAID
30. AFTERMATH OF BATTLE
31. A WIFE REBUFFED
32. A THIRSTY PASSAGE
33. PERILS OF THE PLAINS
34. AN UNPALATABLE DRINK
35. AN OX APPEARS
36. A THORN POISONOUS AS A SNAKE
37. FATIGUES OF JOURNALISTS
38. A BEAR REPULSED
39. PERPLEXITIES OF PASSION
40. ENDING WITH EAGLES
41. A BRIDE ASSESSES HER GROOM
42. AN UNWELCOME ARRIVAL
43. AN UNCONVINCING CALL
44. A SLAVER REFLECTS
45. AN UNEXPECTED STRIKE
46. WINTER WINDS
47. A THIRSTY MAN
48. IMPATIENCE OF SLAVERS
49. AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL
50. THE TRADER FELLED
51. TASMIN SETTLES IN
52. A DISAPPOINTMENT
53. A HUSBAND PREPARES TO DEPART
54. A LITTLE BOY WAVES
55. WILLY DOES HIS DUTY
56. LITTLE ONION AND SIGNOR CLARICIA
57. A WEDDING IN NEW MEXICO
58. A SUDDEN ARREST
59. CAPTIVES
60. A SOLDIER’S BITTERNESS
61. POMP DECLINES TO FLEE
62. REVENGE
CHARACTERS
BERRYBENDERS
Tasmin
Bess (Buffum)
Mary
Kate
Lord Berrybender
Monty, baby
Talley baby
Piet Van Wely
Cook
Milly
Eliza
Tim
Signor Claricia
Señor Yanez
Venetia Kennet
MOUNTAIN MEN
Jim Snow (The Sin Killer)
Kit Carson
Jim Bridger
Tom Fitzpatrick (The Broken Hand)
Eulalie Bonneville
William Ashley
Maelgwyn Evans
Hugh Glass
Bill and Milt Sublette
Ezekiel Williams
Joe Walker
Pomp Charbonneau
Toussaint Charbonneau
Rabbit, baby
INDIANS
High Shoulders, Ute
Coal
Little Onion
Greasy Lake
The Partezon, Sioux
The Bad Eye, Gros Ventre
Fool’s Bull, Sioux
Hollow Foot, Brulé Sioux
Draga, Aleut
Takes Bones (The Ear Taker), Acoma
Red Knee, Pawnee
Rattle, Pawnee
Slow Possum, Pawnee
Duck Catcher, Pawnee
Thistle-Pricks-Us, Pawnee
Prickly Pear Woman, Laguna
Corn Tassel, Chippewa
Owl Woman, Cheyenne
MISCELLANEOUS
Charles Bent, trader
Willy Bent, trader
Amboise d'Avigdor
Benjamin Hope-Tipping, journalist
Clam de Paty, journalist
Obregon, slaver
Malgres, slaver
Ramon, slaver
Maria Jaramillo
Josefina Jaramillo
Lieutenant Molino, Mexican soldier
Captain Antonio Reyes, Mexican soldier
Doña Esmeralda, duenna
Who been here?
Fishprick.
Where you lie?
Making itch in Sister’s thigh.
KISKATINAW BOGEY SONG
(TRANSLATED BY SUSAN MUSGRAVE AND
SEAN VIRGO)
Pater semper incertus est. . .
OLD WORRY
BY
SORROW’S RIVER
1
It was a day of fine sunlight.
“LA VIE, voyez-vous, ça n’est jamais si bonne ni si mauvaise qu ’on croit,” said Father Geoffrin, relaxing, for a moment, into his native tongue. His patient, Pomp Charbonneau—educated in Germany, competent in several languages—spoke good French. Tasmin Berrybender’s français, while decidedly casual, was probably adequate, the priest felt, to such a common platitude: life was never so good or so bad as one thought—a proposition which no one who had much acquaintance with the French classics would be likely to dispute.