Larry McMurtry's Berrybender Narratives by Larry McMurtry

Author:Larry McMurtry [McMurtry, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2010-05-29T07:00:00+00:00

3

Among the wild, undomesticated company . . .

AMONG the wild, undomesticated company of the mountain trappers, it was generally considered that rotund Eulalie Bonneville knew the most about women. Bonney as he was called, was no mean gambler, besides. None of the mountain men could recall seeing Bonney actually trapping any beaver, much less skinning them out. The icy ponds and streams where the other trappers waded to set their traps did not tempt him—keeping his feet warm was a first principle with Eulalie Bonneville; yet at the end of the season, through a succession of clever trades and successful card games or dice rolls or random bets, he generally trekked out of the mountains with more furs than anyone—and better furs too; and yet his prowess as a fur trader drew considerably less attention from his comrades than his expertise with women—for it was exactly that expertise that few of the others could claim, their amours for the most part being brief and drunken wallows with river-town whores or compliant Indian women, engagements seldom free of anxiety, since several of their colleagues had had their scalps lifted as a result of lingering too long in the toils of Venus with dusky maidens. And yet Eulalie Bonneville, as broad as he was tall, was said to have at least one wife in every tribe from the Kaw River to the Marias: Minatarees, Otos, Hidatsas, Teton Sioux, Assiniboines, Shoshones, Pawnees, Cheyennes, and Utes. So far only the women of the Piegan Blackfeet were absent from his scattered harem, a fact old Hugh Glass found curious.

“I’d have thought you’d have taken a Blackfoot wife by now, Bonney” Hugh remarked. Hugh and Joe Walker, the Sublette brothers, and young Jim Bridger were all lounging around camp on this bright morning, the bulk of their trading completed for the summer. The bear cub Abby lay at old Hugh’s feet. From time to time all the men directed their glances at the clump of bushes near the river, behind which Tasmin Berrybender was assumed to be bathing her lovely body. The bushes were one hundred yards away—even if Tasmin had chosen to exhibit herself naked, the trappers would not have seen much, and yet they couldn’t stop looking.

“I wish I did have a Blackfoot wife,” Bonney replied. “Marrying into a tribe is the best way to get a little trade started, but the Blackfoot won’t have me.”

“I figured that was why you collected all them wives,” Joe Walker commented. “It was the trade you were after, I expect.”

“I don’t despise the trade, but I also happen to like a rut, when I can get it,” Bonney admitted.

“So how many wives are you up to, Bonney?” Jim Bridger asked. He himself lacked even one wife, and could not but be envious of the chubby trader’s progress.

’An even dozen, unless some of my Missouri River wives have died,” Eulalie admitted. “I fancy I could handle about twenty wives, if I could keep them spread out well enough.”

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