True Grit (12 page)

"They have been known to wake up," said Rooster.

I said, "Let me have a rope too. I am not fond of snakes."

"A snake would not bother with you," said Rooster. "You are too little and bony."

He put an oak log in the fire and banked coals and ashes against it and turned in for the night. Both the officers snored and one of them made a wet mouth noise along with it. It was disgusting. Exhausted as I was, I had trouble falling asleep. I was warm enough but there were roots and rocks under me and I moved this way and that trying to improve my situation. I was sore and the movement was painful. I finally despaired of ever getting fixed right. I said my prayers but did not mention my discomfort. This trip was my own doing.

When I awoke there were snowflakes on my eyes. Big moist flakes were sifting down through the trees. There was a light covering of white on the ground. It was not quite daylight but Rooster was already up, boiling coffee and frying meat. LaBoeuf was attending to the horses and he had them saddled. I wanted some hot food so I passed up the biscuits and ate some of the salt meat and fried bread. I shared my cheese with the officers. My hands and face smelled of smoke.

Rooster hurried us along in breaking camp. He was concerned about the snow. "If this keeps up we will want shelter tonight," he said. LaBoeuf had already fed the stock but I took one of the corn dodgers and gave it to Little Blackie to see if he would eat it. He relished it and I gave him another. Rooster said horses particularly liked the salt that was in them. He directed me to wear my slicker.

Sunrise was only a pale yellow glow through the overcast but such as it was it found us mounted and moving once again. The snow came thicker and the flakes grew bigger, as big as goose feathers, and they were not falling down like rain but rather flying dead level into our faces. In the space of four hours it collected on the ground to a depth of six or seven inches.

Out in the open places the trail was hard to follow and we stopped often so that Rooster could get his bearings. This was a hard job because the ground told him nothing and he could not see distant landmarks. Indeed at times we could see only a few feet in any direction. His spyglass was useless. We came across no people and no houses. Our progress was very slow.

There was no great question of getting lost because Rooster had a compass and as long as we kept a southwesterly course we would sooner or later strike the Texas Road and the M. K. & T. Railroad tracks. But it was inconvenient not being able to keep the regular trail, and with the snow the horses ran the danger of stepping into holes.

Along about noon we stopped at a stream on the lee side of a mountain to water the horses. There we found some small relief from the wind and snow. I believe these were the San Bois Mountains. I passed the balance of my cheese around and Rooster shared his candy. With that we made our dinner. While we were stretching our legs at that place we heard some flapping noises down the stream and LaBoeuf went into the woods to investigate. He found a flock of turkeys roosting in a tree and shot one of them with his Sharps rifle. The bird was considerably ripped up. It was a hen weighing about seven pounds. LaBoeuf gutted it and cut its head off and tied it to his saddle.

Rooster allowed that we could not now reach McAlester's store before dark and that our best course was to bear west for a "dugout" that some squatter had built not far from the Texas Road. No one occupied the place, he said, and we could find shelter there for the night. Tomorrow we could make our way south on the Texas Road which was broad and packed clear and hard from cattle herds and freighter wagons. There would be little risk of crippling a horse on that highway.

After our rest we departed in single file with Rooster's big horse breaking the trail. Little Blackie had no need for my guidance and I looped the ends of the reins around the saddle horn and withdrew my cold hands into the sleeves of my many coats. We surprised a herd of deer feeding off the bark of saplings and LaBoeuf went for his rifle again but they had flown before he could get it unlimbered.

By and by the snow let up and yet our progress was still limited to a walk. It was good dark when we came to the "dugout." We had a little light from a moon that was in and out of the clouds.

The dugout stood at the narrow end of a V-shaped hollow or valley. I had never before seen such a dwelling. It was small, only about ten feet by twenty feet, and half of it was sunk back into a clay bank, like a cave. The part that was sticking out was made of poles and sod and the roof was also of sod, supported by a ridge pole in the center. A brush-arbor shed and cave adjoined it for livestock. There was a sufficiency of timber here for a log cabin, although mostly hardwood. I suppose too that the man who built the thing was in a hurry and wanted for proper tools. A "cockeyed" chimney of sticks and mud stuck up through the bank at the rear of the house. It put me in mind of something made by a water bird, some cliff martin or a swift, although the work of those little feathered masons (who know not the use of a spirit level) is a sight more artful.

We were surprised to see smoke and sparks coming from the chimney. Light showed through the cracks around the door, which was a low, crude thing hung to the sill by leather hinges. There was no window.

We had halted in a cedar brake. Rooster dismounted and told us to wait. He took his Winchester repeating rifle and approached the door. He made a lot of noise as his boots broke through the crust that had now formed on top of the snow.

When he was about twenty feet from the dugout the door opened just a few inches. A man's face appeared in the light and a hand came out holding a revolver. Rooster stopped. The face said, "Who is it out there?" Rooster said, "We are looking for shelter. There is three of us." The face in the door said, "There is no room for you here." The door closed and in a moment the light inside went out.

Rooster turned to us and made a beckoning signal. LaBoeuf dismounted and went to join him. I made a move to go but LaBoeuf told me to stay in the cover of the brake and hold the horses.

Rooster took off his deerskin jacket and gave it to LaBoeuf and sent him up on the clay bank to cover the chimney. Then Rooster moved about ten feet to the side and got down on one knee with his rifle at the ready. The jacket made a good damper and soon smoke could be seen curling out around the door. There were raised voices inside and then a hissing noise as of water being thrown on fire and coals.

The door was flung open and there came two fiery blasts from a shotgun. It scared me nearly to death. I heard the shot falling through tree branches. Rooster returned the volley with several shots from his rifle. There was a yelp of pain from inside and the door was slammed to again.

"I am a Federal officer!" said Rooster. "Who all is in there? Speak up and be quick about it!"

"A Methodist and a son of a bitch!" was the insolent reply. "Keep riding!"

"Is that Emmett Quincy?" said Rooster.

"We don't know any Emmett Quincy!"

"Quincy, I know it is you! Listen to me! This is Rooster Cogburn! Columbus, Potter and five more marshals is out here with me! We have got a bucket of coal oil! In one minute we will burn you out from both ends! Chuck your arms out clear and come out with your hands locked on your head and you will not be harmed! Oncet that coal oil goes down the chimney we are killing everything that comes out the door!"

"There is only three of you!"

"You go ahead and bet your life on it! How many is in there?"

"Moon can't walk! He is hit!"

"Drag him out! Light that lamp!"

"What kind of papers have you got on me?"

"I don't have no papers on you! You better move, boy! How many is in there?"

"Just me and Moon! Tell them other officers to be careful with their guns! We are coming out!"

A light showed again from inside. The door was pulled back and a shotgun and two revolvers were pitched out. The two men came out with one limping and holding to the other. Rooster and LaBoeuf made them lie down on their bellies in the snow while they were searched for more weapons. The one called Quincy had a bowie knife in one boot and a little two-shot gambler's pistol in the other. He said he had forgotten they were there but this did not keep Rooster from giving him a kick.

I came up with the horses and LaBoeuf took them into the stock shelter. Rooster poked the two men into the dugout with his rifle. They were young men in their twenties. The one called Moon was pale and frightened and looked no more dangerous than a fat puppy. He had been shot in the thigh and his trouser leg was bloody. The man Quincy had a long, thin face with eyes that were narrow and foreign-looking. He reminded me of some of those Slovak people that came in here a few years ago to cut barrel staves. The ones that stayed have made good citizens. People from those countries are usually Catholics if they are anything. They love candles and beads.

Rooster gave Moon a blue handkerchief to tie around his leg and then he bound the two men together with steel handcuffs and had them sit side by side on a bench. The only furniture in the place was a low table of adzed logs standing on pegs, and a bench on either side of it. I flapped a tow sack in the open door in an effort to clear the smoke out. A pot of coffee had been thrown into the fireplace but there were still some live coals and sticks around the edges and I stirred them up into a blaze again.

There was another pot in the fireplace too, a big one, a two-gallon pot, and it was filled with a mess that looked like hominy. Rooster tasted it with a spoon and said it was an Indian dish called sofky. He offered me some and said it was good. But it had trash in it and I declined.

"Was you boys looking for company?" he said.

"That is our supper and breakfast both," said Quincy. "I like a big breakfast."

"I would love to watch you eat breakfast."

"Sofky always cooks up bigger than you think."

"What are you boys up to outside of stealing stock and peddling spirits? You are way too jumpy."

"You said you didn't have no papers on us," replied Quincy.

"I don't have none on you by name," said Rooster. "I got some John Doe warrants on a few jobs I could tailor up for you. Resisting a Federal officer too. That's a year right there."

"We didn't know it was you. It might have been some crazy man out there."

Moon said, "My leg hurts."

Rooster said, "I bet it does. Set right still and it won't bleed so bad."

Quincy said, "We didn't know who it was out there. A night like this. We was drinking some and the weather spooked us. Anybody can say he is a marshal. Where is all the other officers?"

"I misled you there, Quincy. When was the last time you seen your old pard Ned Pepper?"

"Ned Pepper?" said the stock thief. "I don't know him. Who is he?"

"I think you know him," said Rooster. "I know you have heard of him. Everybody has heard of him."

"I never heard of him."

"He used to work for Mr. Burlingame. Didn't you work for him a while?"

"Yes, and I quit him like everybody else has done. He runs off all his good help, he is so close. The old skinflint. I wish he was in hell with his back broke. I don't remember any Ned Pepper."

Rooster said, "They say Ned was a mighty good drover. I am surprised you don't remember him. He is a little feisty fellow, nervous and quick. His lip is all messed up."

"That don't bring anybody to mind. A funny lip."

"He didn't always have it. I think you know him. Now here is something else. There is a new boy running with Ned. He is short himself and he has got a powder mark on his face, a black place. He calls himself Chaney or Chelmsford sometimes. He carries a Henry rifle."

"That don't bring anybody to mind," said Quincy. "A black mark. I would remember something like that."

"You don't know anything I want to know, do you?"

"No, and if I did I would not blow."

"Well, you think on it some, Quincy. You too, Moon."

Moon said, "I always try to help out the law if it won't harm my friends. I don't know them boys. I would like to help you if I could."

"If you don't help me I will take you both back to Judge Parker," said Rooster. "By the time we get to Fort Smith that leg will be swelled up as tight as Dick's hatband. It will be mortified and they will cut it off. Then if you live I will get you two or three years in the Federal House up in Detroit."

"You are trying to get at me," said Moon.

"They will teach you how to read and write up there but the rest of it is not so good," said Rooster. "You don't have to go if you don't want to. If you give me some good information on Ned I will take you to McAlester's tomorrow and you can get that ball out of your leg. Then I will give you three days to clear the Territory. They have a lot of fat stock in Texas and you boys can do well there."

Moon said, "We can't go to Texas."

Quincy said, "Now don't go to flapping your mouth, Moon. It is best to let me do the talking."

"I can't set still. My leg is giving me fits."

Rooster got his bottle of whiskey and poured some in a cup for the young stock thief. "If you listen to Quincy, son, you will die or lose your leg," said he. "Quincy ain't hurting."

Quincy said, "Don't let him spook you, Moon. You must be a soldier. We will get clear of this."