Charles Portis - True Grit

“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.”

LaBoeuf came in lugging our bedrolls and other traps. He said, “There are six horses out there in that cave, Cogburn.”

“What kind of horses?” said Rooster.

“They look like right good mounts to me. I think they are all shod.”

Rooster questioned the thieves about the horses and Quincy claimed they had bought them at Fort Gibson and were taking them down to sell to the Indian police called the Choctaw Light Horse. But he could show no bill of sale or otherwise prove the property and Rooster did not believe the story. Quincy grew sullen and would answer no further questions.

I was sent out to gather firewood and I took the lamp, or rather the bull’s-eye lantern, for that was what it was, and kicked about in the snow and turned up some sticks and fallen saplings. I had no ax or hatchet and I dragged the pieces in whole, making several trips.

Rooster made another pot of coffee. He put me to slicing up the salt meat and corn dodgers, now frozen hard, and he directed Quincy to pick the feathers from the turkey and cut it up for frying. LaBoeuf wanted to roast the bird over the open fire but Rooster said it was not fat enough for that and would come out tough and dry.

I sat on a bench on one side of the table and the thieves sat on the other side, their manacled hands resting between them up on the table. The thieves had made pallets on the dirt floor by the fireplace and now Rooster and LaBoeuf sat on these blankets with their rifles in their laps, taking their ease. There were holes in the walls where the sod had fallen away and the wind came whistling through these places, making the lantern flicker a little, but the room was small and the fire gave off more than enough heat. Take it all around, we were rather cozily fixed.

I poured a can of scalding water over the stiff turkey but it was not enough to loosen all the feathers. Quincy picked them with his free hand and held the bird steady with the other. He grumbled over the awkwardness of the task. When the picking was done he cut the bird up into frying pieces with his big bowie knife and he showed his spite by doing a poor job of it. He made rough and careless chops instead of clean cuts.

Moon drank whiskey and whimpered from the pain in his leg. I felt sorry for him. Once he caught me stealing glances at him and he said, “What are you looking at?” It was a foolish question and I made no reply. He said, “Who are you? What are you doing here? What is this girl doing here?”

I said, “I am Mattie Ross of near Dardanelle, Arkansas. Now I will ask you a question. What made you become a stock thief?”

He said again, “What is this girl doing here?”

Rooster said, “She is with me.”

“She is with both of us,” said LaBoeuf.

Moon said, “It don’t look right to me. I don’t understand it.”

I said, “The man Chaney, the man with the marked face, killed my father. He was a whiskey drinker like you. It led to killing in the end. If you will answer the marshal’s questions he will help you. I have a good lawyer at home and he will help you too.”

“I am puzzled by this.”

Quincy said, “Don’t get to jawing with these people, Moon.”

I said, “I don’t like the way you look.”

Quincy stopped his work. He said, “Are you talking to me, runt?”

I said, “Yes, and I will say it again. I don’t like the way you look and I don’t like the way you are cutting up that turkey. I hope you go to jail. My lawyer will not help you.”

Quincy grinned and made a gesture with the knife as though to cut me. He said, “You are a fine one to talk about looks. You look like somebody has worked you over with the ugly stick.”

I said, “Rooster, this Quincy is making a mess out of the turkey. He has got the bones all splintered up with the marrow showing.”

Rooster said, “Do the job right, Quincy. I will have you eating feathers.”

“I don’t know nothing about this kind of work,” said Quincy.

“A man that can skin a beef at night as fast as you can ought to be able to butcher a turkey,” said Rooster.

Moon said, “I got to have me a doctor.”

Quincy said, “Let up on that drinking. It is making you silly.”

LaBoeuf said, “If we don’t separate those two we are not going to get anything. The one has got a hold on the other.”

Rooster said, “Moon is coming around. A young fellow like him don’t want to lose his leg. He is too young to be getting about on a willow peg. He loves dancing and sport.”

“You are trying to get at me,” said Moon.

“I am getting at you with the truth,” said Rooster.

In a few minutes Moon leaned over to whisper a confidence into Quincy’s ear. “None of that,” said Rooster, raising his rifle. “If you have anything on your mind we will all hear it.”

Moon said, “We seen Ned and Haze just two days ago.”

“Don’t act the fool!” said Quincy. “If you blow I will kill you.”

But Moon went on. “I am played out,” said he. “I must have a doctor. I will tell what I know.”

With that, Quincy brought the bowie knife down on Moon’s cuffed hand and chopped off four fingers which flew up before my eyes like chips from a log. Moon screamed and a rifle ball shattered the lantern in front of me and struck Quincy in the neck, causing hot blood to spurt on my face. My thought was: I am better out of this. I tumbled backward from the bench and sought a place of safety on the dirt floor.

Rooster and LaBoeuf sprang to where I lay and when they ascertained that I was not hurt they went to the fallen thieves. Quincy was insensible and dead or dying and Moon was bleeding terribly from his hand and from a mortal puncture in the breast that Quincy gave him before they fell.

“Oh Lord, I am dying!” said he.

Rooster struck a match for light and told me to fetch a pine knot from the fireplace. I found a good long piece and lit it and brought it back, a smoky torch to illuminate a dreadful scene. Rooster removed the handcuff from the poor young man’s wrist.

“Do something! Help me!” were his cries.