Sin Killer by Larry McMurtry

Author:Larry McMurtry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2010-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

31

The plains were covered with the great brown beasts .

BESS steeled herself—the fat, friendly puppy was licking Mademoiselle Pellenc’s face. Mademoiselle could not seem to move; she let the puppy lick her.

“Mademoiselle, we must,” Bess said, well aware that the half-breed woman, Draga, was watching them impatiently. Any delay and Draga would seize a stick from the fire and beat them with it—beat them with the smoldering stick until she could no longer lift her arm. Then Draga might direct one of her daughters to seize other sticks and continue the beating until Bess and Mademoiselle were scorched, scarred, and almost insensible.

“Mademoiselle, s’il vous plaît! Draga is watching,” Bess insisted. Finally Mademoiselle seized the puppy and held it firmly. Bess at once hit it sharply in the forehead with the blunt end of the hatchet. The puppy barely squealed. Mademoiselle flinched, but at once took up the skinning knife and began to skin the warm, limp carcass of the little dog.

Draga stood by the campfire, watching. Bess glanced at her fearfully—Draga was just waiting for some sign of sloth, waiting for any excuse to beat them—even without an excuse she would beat them, sooner or later. Bess had become inured to the blows themselves, but not to the hot sticks, which left blisters all over her back.

“Maybe they will let us have a little of the petit chien,” Mademoiselle said. In three weeks she had gone from being a woman of such refined appetite that she had thought nothing of returning a loin of pork to Cook if she thought it a moment overdone to a woman so racked with hunger that she would eat anything—bones, guts, any cast-off morsel. Always skinny, Mademoiselle had grown so thin that the warriors scarcely bothered to amuse themselves with her anymore—the chubbier Bess drew more of their attention now. Terrible at first, these assaults had come to seem minor when compared to the threat of Draga, who had left no doubt in either of their minds that she would beat them to death, stab them, or even burn them alive if they faltered and were slow to do their chores.

“Hurry, Mademoiselle—she’s watching,” Bess said.

Mademoiselle hurried—in her country childhood she had often watched peasant women cutting up hares or lambs; she soon disjointed the puppy and took the pieces to Draga, who dropped them one by one into the stew pot.

The weather had turned cold—there had even been sleet in the afternoon, which meant a hard night for Bess and Mademoiselle. They had to huddle together in whatever little nest they could make in the long grass. They had no blanket but had managed to capture a deer hide that the dogs had been worrying. Mainly they used it to wrap their feet, which were bloody, scratched, and cold. They had to be up early, to scour the plains for firewood. Both of them knew they would die when the real cold came, unless they were rescued or managed to escape. In the night,

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