True Grit

by Charles Portis

  On hearing the news Rooster did not appear angry or in any way perturbed, but only amused. You may wonder why. He had his reasons and among them were these, that Wharton now stood no chance of winning a commutation from President R. B. Hayes, and also that the escape would cause Lawyer Goudy a certain amount of chagrin in Washington city and would no doubt result in a big expense loss for him, as clients who resolve their own problems are apt to be slow in paying due bills from a lawyer.

  Captain Finch said, "I thought you had better know about this."

  Rooster said, "I appreciate it, Boots. I appreciate you riding out here."

  "Wharton will be looking for you."

  "If he is not careful he will find me."

  Captain Finch looked LaBoeuf over, then said to Rooster, "Is this the man who shot Ned's horse from under him?"

  Rooster said, "Yes, this is the famous horse killer from El Paso, Texas. His idea is to put everybody on foot. He says it will limit their mischief."

  LaBoeuf's fair-complected face became congested with angry blood. He said, "There was very little light and I was firing off-hand. I did not have the time to find a rest."

  Captain Finch said, "There is no need to apologize for that shot. A good many more people have missed Ned than have hit him."

  "I was not apologizing," said LaBoeuf. "I was only explaining the circumstances."

  "Rooster here has missed Ned a few times himself, horse and all," said the captain. "I reckon he is on his way now to missing him again."

  Rooster was holding a bottle with a little whiskey in it. He said, "You keep on thinking that." He drained off the whiskey in about three swallows and tapped the cork back in and tossed the bottle up in the air. He pulled his revolver and fired at it twice and missed. The bottle fell and rolled and Rooster shot at it two or three more times and broke it on the ground. He got out his sack of cartridges and reloaded the pistol. He said, "The Chinaman is running them cheap shells in on me again."

  LaBoeuf said, "I thought maybe the sun was in your eyes. That is to say, your eye."

  Rooster swung the cylinder back in his revolver and said, "Eyes, is it? I'll show you eyes!" He jerked the sack of corn dodgers free from his saddle baggage. He got one of the dodgers out and flung it in the air and fired at it and missed. Then he flung another one up and he hit it. The corn dodger exploded. He was pleased with himself and he got a fresh bottle of whiskey from his baggage and treated himself to a drink.

  LaBoeuf pulled one of his revolvers and got two dodgers out of the sack and tossed them both up. He fired very rapidly but he only hit one. Captain Finch tried it with two and missed both of them. Then he tried with one and made a successful shot. Rooster shot at two and hit one. They drank whiskey and used up about sixty corn dodgers like that. None of them ever hit two at one throw with a revolver but Captain Finch finally did it with his Winchester repeating rifle, with somebody else throwing. It was entertaining for a while but there was nothing educational about it. I grew more and more impatient with them.

  I said, "Come on, I have had my bait of this. I am ready to go. Shooting cornbread out here on this prairie is not taking us anywhere."

  By then Rooster was using his rifle and the captain was throwing for him. "Chunk high and not so far out this time," said he.

  At length, Captain Finch took his leave and went back the way he came. We continued our journey eastward, with the Winding Stair Mountains as our destination. We lost a good half-hour with that shooting foolishness, but, worse than that, it started Rooster to drinking.

  He drank even as he rode, which looked difficult. I cannot say it slowed him down any but it did make him silly. Why do people wish to be silly? We kept up our fast pace, riding hard for forty or fifty minutes and then going on foot for a piece. I believe those walks were a more welcome rest for me than for the horses. I have never claimed to be a cow-boy! Little Blackie did not falter. He had good wind and his spirit was such that he would not let LaBoeuf's shaggy mount get ahead of him on an open run. Yes, you bet he was a game pony!

  We loped across open prairies and climbed wooded limestone hills and made our way through brushy bottoms and icy streams. Much of the snow melted under the sun but as the long shadows of dusk descended in all their purple loveliness, the temperature did likewise. We were very warm from our exertions and the chill night air felt good at first, but then it became uncomfortable as we slowed our pace. We did not ride fast after dark as it would have been dangerous for the horses. LaBoeuf said the Rangers often rode at night to avoid the terrible Texas sun and this was like nothing at all to him. I did not care for it myself.

  Nor did I enjoy the slipping and sliding when we were climbing the steep grades of the Winding Stair Mountains. There is a lot of thick pine timber in those hills and we wandered up and down in the double-darkness of the forest. Rooster stopped us twice while he dismounted and looked around for sign. He was well along to being drunk. Later on he got to talking to himself and one thing I heard him say was this: "Well, we done the best we could with what we had. We was in a war. All we had was revolvers and horses." I supposed he was brooding about the hard words LaBoeuf had spoken to him on the subject of his war service. He got louder and louder but it was hard to tell whether he was still talking to himself or addressing himself to us. I think it was a little of both. On one long climb he fell off his horse, but he quickly gained his feet and mounted again.

  "That was nothing, nothing," said he. "Bo put a foot wrong, that was all. He is tired. This is no grade. I have freighted iron stoves up harder grades than this, and pork as well. I lost fourteen barrels of pork on a shelf road not much steeper than this and old Cook never batted a eye. I was a pretty fair jerk-line teamster, could always talk to mules, but oxen was something else. You don't get that quick play with cattle that you get with mules. They are slow to start and slow to turn and slow to stop. It taken me a while to learn it. Pork brought a thundering great price out there then but old Cook was a square dealer and he let me work it out at his lot price. Yes sir, he paid liberal wages too. He made money and he didn't mind his help making money. I will tell you how much he made. He made fifty thousand dollars in one year with them wagons but he did not enjoy good health. Always down with something. He was all bowed over and his neck was stiff from drinking Jamaica ginger. He had to look up at you through his hair, like this, unless he was laying down, and as I say, that rich jaybird was down a lot. He had a good head of brown hair, had every lock until he died. Of course he was a right young man when he died. He only looked old. He was carrying a twenty-one-foot tapeworm along with his business responsibilities and that aged him. Killed him in the end. They didn't even know he had it till he was dead, though he ate like a field hand, ate five or six good dinners every day. If he was alive today I believe I would still be out there. Yes, I know I would, and I would likely have money in the bank. I had to make tracks when his wife commenced to running things. She said, 'You can't leave me like this, Rooster. All my drivers is leaving me.' I told her, I said, 'You watch me.' No sir, I was not ready to work for her and I told her so. There is no generosity in women. They want everything coming in and nothing going out. They show no trust.

  Lord God, how they hate to pay you! They will get the work of two men out of you and I guess they would beat you with whips if they was able to. No sir, not me. Never. A man will not work for a woman, not unless he has clabber for brains."

  LaBoeuf said, "I told you that in Fort Smith."

  I do not know if the Texan intended the remark to tell against me, but if he did, it was "water off a duck's back." You cannot give any weight to the words of a drunkard, and even so, I knew Rooster could not be talking about me in his drunken criticism of women, the kind of money I was paying him. I could have confounded him and his silliness right there by saying, "What about me? What about that twenty-five dollars I have given you?" But I had not the strength nor the inclination to bandy words with a drunkard. What have you done when you have bested a fool?


  I thought we would never stop, and must be nearing Montgomery, Alabama. From time to time LaBoeuf and I would interrupt Rooster and ask him how much much farther and he would reply, "It is not far now," and then he would pick up again on a chapter in the long and adventurous account of his life. He had seen a good deal of strife in his travels.

  When at last we did stop, Rooster said only, "I reckon this will do." It was well after midnight. We were on a more or less level place in a pine forest up in the hills and that was all I could determine. I was so tired and stiff I could not think straight.

  Rooster said he calculated we had come about fifty miles -- fifty miles! -- from McAlester's store and were now positioned some four miles from Lucky Ned Pepper's bandit stronghold. Then he wrapped himself up in his buffalo robe and retired without ceremony, leaving LaBoeuf to see to the horses.

  The Texan watered them from the canteens and fed them and tied them out. He left the saddles on them for warmth, but with the girths loosened. Those poor horses were worn out.

  We made no fire. I took a hasty supper of bacon and biscuit sandwiches. The biscuits were pretty hard. There was a layer of pine straw under the patchy snow and I raked up a thick pile with my hands for a woodland mattress. The straw was dirty and brittle and somewhat damp but at that it made for a better bed than any I had seen on this journey. I rolled up in my blankets and slicker and burrowed down into the straw. It was a clear winter night and I made out the Big Dipper and the North Star through the pine branches. The moon was already down. My back hurt and my feet were swollen and I was so exhausted that my hands quivered. The quivering passed and I was soon in the "land of Nod."

  *

  Rooster was stirring about the next morning before the sun had cleared the higher mountains to the east. He seemed little worse for the wear despite the hard riding and the drinking excesses and the short sleep. He did insist on having coffee and he made a little fire of oak sticks to boil his water. The fire gave off hardly any smoke, white wisps that were quickly gone, but LaBoeuf called it a foolish indulgence, seeing we were so close to our quarry.

  I felt as though I had only just closed my eyes. The water in the canteens was low and they would not let me have any for washing. I got the canvas bucket and put my revolver in it and set off down the hill looking for a spring or a runoff stream.

  The slope was gentle at first and then it fell off rather sharply. The brush grew thicker and I checked my descent by grabbing bushes. Down and down I went. As I neared the bottom, dreading the return climb, I heard splashing and blowing noises. My thought was: What on earth! Then I came into the open on a creek bank. On the other side there was a man watering some horses.

  The man was none other than Tom Chaney!

  You may readily imagine that I registered shock at the sight of that squat assassin. He had not yet seen me, nor heard me either because of the noise made by the horses. His rifle was slung across his back on the cotton plow line. I thought to turn and run but I could not move. I stood there fixed.

  Then he saw me. He gave a start and brought the rifle quickly into play. He held the rifle on me and peered across the little stream and studied me.

  He said, "Well, now, I know you. Your name is Mattie. You are little Mattie the bookkeeper. Isn't this something." He grinned and took the rifle from play and slung it carelessly over a shoulder.

  I said, "Yes, and I know you, Tom Chaney."

  He said, "What are you doing here?"

  I said, "I came to fetch water."

  "What are you doing here in these mountains?"

  I reached into the bucket and brought out my dragoon revolver. I dropped the bucket and held the revolver in both hands. I said, "I am here to take you back to Fort Smith."

  Chaney laughed and said, "Well, I will not go. How do you like that?"

  I said, "There is a posse of officers up on the hill who will force you to go."

  "That is interesting news," said he. "How many is up there?"

  "Right around fifty. They are all well armed and they mean business. What I want you to do now is leave those horses and come across the creek and walk in front of me up the hill."

  He said, "I think I will oblige the officers to come after me." He began to gather the horses together. There were five of them but Papa's horse Judy was not among them.

  I said, "If you refuse to go I will have to shoot you."

  He went on with his work and said, "Oh? Then you had better cock your piece."

  I had forgotten about that. I pulled the hammer back with both thumbs.

  "All the way back till it locks," said Chaney.

  "I know how to do it," said I. When it was ready I said, "You will not go with me?"

  "I think not," said he. "It is just the other way around. You are going with me."

  I pointed the revolver at his belly and shot him down. The explosion kicked me backwards and caused me to lose my footing and the pistol jumped from my hand. I lost no time in recovering it and getting to my feet. The ball had struck Chaney's side and knocked him into a sitting position against a tree. I heard Rooster or LaBoeuf call out for me. "I am down here!" I replied. There was another shout from the hill above Chaney.

  He was holding both hands down on his side. He said, "I did not think you would do it."

  I said, "What do you think now?"

  He said, "One of my short ribs is broken. It hurts every breath I take."

  I said, "You killed my father when he was trying to help you. I have one of the gold pieces you took from him. Now give me the other."

  "I regret that shooting," said he. "Mr. Ross was decent to me but he ought not to have meddled in my business. I was drinking and I was mad through and through. Nothing has gone right for me."

  There was more yelling from the hills.

  I said, "No, you are just a piece of trash, that is all. They say you shot a senator in the state of Texas."

  "That man threatened my life. I was justified. Everything is against me. Now I am shot by a child."

  "Get up on your feet and come across that creek before I shoot you again. My father took you in when you were hungry."

  "You will have to help me up."

  "No, I will not help you. Get up yourself."

  He made a quick move for a chunk of wood and I pulled the trigger and the hammer snapped on a bad percussion cap. I made haste to try another chamber but the hammer snapped dead again. I had not time for a third try. Chaney flung the heavy piece of wood and it caught me in the chest and laid me out backwards.

  He came splashing across the creek and he jerked me up by my coat and commenced slapping me and cursing me and my father. That was his cur nature, to change from a whining baby to a vicious bully as circumstances permitted. He stuck my revolver in his belt and pulled me stumbling through the water. The horses were milling about and he managed to catch two of them by their halters while holding me with the other hand.

  I heard Rooster and LaBoeuf crashing down through the brush behind us and calling out for me. "Down here! Hurry up!" I shouted, and Chaney let go of my coat just long enough to give me another stinging slap.

  I must tell you that the slopes rose steeply on either side of the creek. Just as the two peace officers were running down on one side, so were Chaney's bandit friends running down the other, so that both parties were converging on the hollow and the little mountain stream.

  The bandits won the foot race. There were two of them and one was a little man in "woolly chaps" whom I rightly took to be Lucky Ned Pepper. He was still hatless. The other was taller and a quite well-dressed man in a linen suit and a bearskin coat, and his hat tied fast by a slip-string under his chin. This man was the Mexican gambler who called himself The Original Greaser Bob. They broke upon us suddenly and poured a terrible volley of fire across the creek with their Winchester repeating rifles. Lucky Ned Pepper said to Chaney, "Take them horses you got and move!"

  Chaney did as he was told and we started up with the horses. It was hard clim
bing. Lucky Ned Pepper and the Mexican remained behind and exchanged shots with Rooster and LaBoeuf while trying to catch the other horses. I heard running splashes as one of the officers reached the creek, then a flurry of shots as he was made to retreat.

  Chaney had to stop and catch his breath after thirty or forty yards of pulling me and the two horses behind him. Blood showed through on his shirt. Lucky Ned Pepper and Greaser Bob overtook us there. They were pulling two horses. I supposed the fifth horse had run away or been killed. The leads of these two horses were turned over to Chaney and Lucky Ned Pepper said to him, "Get on up that hill and don't be stopping again!"

  The bandit chieftain took me roughly by the arm. He said, "Who all is down there?"

  "Marshal Cogburn and fifty more officers," said I.

  He shook me like a terrier shaking a rat. "Tell me another lie and I will stove in your head!" Part of his upper lip was missing, a sort of gap on one side that caused him to make a whistling noise as he spoke. Three or four teeth were broken off there as well, yet he made himself clearly understood.

  Thinking it best, I said, "It is Marshal Cogburn and another man."

  He flung me to the ground and put a boot on my neck to hold me while he reloaded his rifle from a cartridge belt. He shouted out, "Rooster, can you hear me?" There was no reply. The Original Greaser was standing there with us and he broke the silence by firing down the hill. Lucky Ned Pepper shouted, "You answer me, Rooster! I will kill this girl! You know I will do it!"

  Rooster called up from below, "The girl is nothing to me! She is a runaway from Arkansas!"

  "That's very well!" said Lucky Ned Pepper. "Do you advise me to kill her?"

  "Do what you think is best, Ned!" replied Rooster. "She is nothing to me but a lost child! Think it over first."

  "I have already thought it over! You and Potter get mounted double fast! If I see you riding over that bald ridge to the northwest I will spare the girl! You have five minutes!"