Charles Portis - True Grit

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! Once 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.”