Sin Killer (The Berrybender Narratives) by Larry McMurtry

Author:Larry McMurtry [McMurtry, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published: 2010-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

30

The stars above were secure in their courses . . .

AT night, with the steamer Rocky Mount safely moored, George Aitken liked to sit on deck and study the stars. With his erratic crew he could do little; with his even more erratic passengers he could do nothing. His relaxation came at night, when he could get out his little book of tables and constellations and contemplate the heavens. As they moved north of the Platte the North Star, his favorite star, seemed to increase in brilliance nightly. Captain Aitken respected the river, but he loved the stars. As summer passed into autumn the nights grew chill, but Captain Aitken had a great thick coat; he wrapped himself up in it warmly, filled his short pipe, and let starlight be his balm.

No one else on the boat, it seemed, was susceptible to being soothed by the heavens. Since the capture of the two young ladies and the departure of Lady Tasmin, the painter George Catlin had become increasingly frantic. He often interrupted the captain’s restful stargazing with futile pleas involving Lady Tasmin—he wanted a search mounted, an effort Captain Aitken knew to be quite futile. Lady Tasmin had left of her own accord—if she ever reappeared it would also be of her own accord.

“The ice, Mr. Catlin—the ice,” Captain Aitken repeated. “We mustn’t let the ice catch us. We must get to the Yellowstone, where there’s a fort. If the ice catches us with no fort to winter in, the Indians will pick us like berries. They’ll not only take the rest of the women, they’ll take the guns and all the provisions. We’ll be eating shoe leather, if we ain’t lucky.”

George Catlin scarcely listened. The loss of Bess Berrybender and Mademoiselle Pellenc was bad enough, but Tasmin’s apparently willing departure shook him so badly that he considered going ashore himself to mount a search; he was only dissuaded by Toussaint Charbonneau, whose own efforts to locate the missing Big White had convinced him that the shores were too dangerous to risk. Charbonneau said the prairies were cut by many horse tracks, signifying warring bands, who would not be likely to deal gently with a white man so green as to suppose a huntsman could attract antelope by wiggling his legs.

“Best to stay aboard, Mr. Catlin,” Charbonneau advised. “Probably we’ll find the young ladies when we get to the Mandan villages—there’s a pretty brisk trade in captives goes on there.”

Old Gorska, since the death of his son, had given himself up to drink and weeping, weeping and drink. Over and over again he repeated to anyone who would listen that he had never seen an Indian—he had merely looked around and discovered that his son was dead.

Mary Berrybender was devoting a great deal of time to the Hairy Horn, receiving instruction in the Sioux language. With Lady Berrybender dead and Lord B. just able to hobble about with the aid of a crutch fashioned by the skillful Signor Claricia, chaos had descended on the English company.

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