Charles Portis - True Grit

“That was what it was. It didn’t belong to you.”

“It never troubled me in that way. I sleep like a baby. Have for years.”

“Colonel Stonehill said you were a road agent before you got to be a marshal.”

“I wondered who was spreading that talk. That old gentleman would do better minding his own business.”

“Then it is just talk.”

“It is very little more than that. I found myself one pretty spring day in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in need of a road stake and I robbed one of them little high-interest banks there. Thought I was doing a good service. You can’t rob a thief, can you? I never robbed no citizens. I never taken a man’s watch.”

“It is all stealing,” said I.

“That was the position they taken in New Mexico,” said he. “I had to fly for my life. Three fights in one day. Bo was a strong colt then and there was not a horse in that territory could run him in the ground. But I did not appreciate being chased and shot at like a thief. When the posse had thinned down to about seven men I turned Bo around and taken the reins in my teeth and rode right at them boys firing them two navy sixes I carry on my saddle. I guess they was all married men who loved their families as they scattered and run for home.”

“That is hard to believe.”

“What is?”

“One man riding at seven men like that.”

“It is true enough. We done it in the war. I seen a dozen bold riders stampede a full troop of regular cavalry. You go for a man hard enough and fast enough and he don’t have time to think about how many is with him, he thinks about himself and how he may get clear out of the wrath that is about to set down on him.”

“I think you are ‘stretching the blanket.’”

“Well, that was the way of it. Me and Bo walked into Texas, we didn’t run. I might not do it today. I am older and stouter and so is Bo. I lost my money to some quarter-mile horse racers out there in Texas and followed them highbinders across Red River up in the Chickasaw Nation and lost their trail. That was when I tied up with a man named Fogelson who was taking a herd of beef to Kansas. We had a pretty time with them steers. It rained every night and the grass was spongy and rank. It was cloudy by day and the mosquitoes eat us up. Fogelson abused us like a stepfather. We didn’t know what sleep was. When we got to the South Canadian it was all out of the banks but Fogelson had a time contract and he wouldn’t wait. He said, ‘Boys, we are going across.’ We lost near about seventy head getting across and counted ourselves lucky. Lost our wagon too; we done without bread and coffee after that. It was the same story all over again at the North Canadian. ‘Boys, we are going across.’ Some of them steers got bogged in the mud on the other side and I was pulling them free. Bo was about played out and I hollered up for that Hutchens to come help me. He was sitting up there on his horse smoking a pipe. Now, he wasn’t a regular drover. He was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he had some interest in the herd. He said, ‘Do it yourself. That’s what you are paid for.’ I pulled down on him right there. It was not the thing to do but I was wore out and hadn’t had no coffee. It didn’t hurt him bad, the ball just skinned his head and he bit his pipe in two, yet nothing would do but he would have the law. There wasn’t no law out there and Fogelson told him as much, so Hutchens had me disarmed and him and two drovers taken me over to Fort Reno. Now the army didn’t care nothing about his private quarrels but there happened to be two Federal marshals there picking up some whiskey peddlers. One of them marshals was Potter.”

I was just about asleep. Rooster nudged me and said, “I say one of them marshals was Potter.”

“What?”

“One of them two marshals at Fort Reno was Potter.”

“It was your friend from the war? The same one?”

“Yes, it was Columbus Potter in the flesh. I was glad to see him. He didn’t let on he knowed me. He told Hutchens he would take me in charge and see I was prosecuted. Hutchens said he would come back by Fort Smith when his business was done in Kansas and appear against me. Potter told him his statement right there was good enough to convict me of assault. Hutchens said he never heard of a court where they didn’t need witnesses. Potter said they had found it saved time. We come on over to Fort Smith and Potter got me commissioned as deputy marshal. Jo Shelby had vouched for him to the chief marshal and got him the job. General Shelby is in the railroad business up in Missouri now and he knows all these Republicans. He wrote a handsome letter for me too. Well, there is no beat of a good friend. Potter was a trump.”

“Do you like being a marshal?”

“I believe I like it better than anything I done since the war. Anything beats droving. Nothing I like to do pays well.”

“I don’t think Chaney is going to show up.”

“We will get him.”

“I hope we get him tonight.”

“You told me you loved coon hunting.”

“I didn’t expect it would be easy. I still hope we get him tonight and have it done with.”

Rooster talked all night. I would doze off and wake up and he would still be talking. Some of his stories had too many people in them and were hard to follow but they helped to pass the hours and took my mind off the cold. I did not give credence to everything he said. He said he knew a woman in Sedalia, Missouri, who had stepped on a needle as a girl and nine years later the needle worked out of the thigh of her third child. He said it puzzled the doctors.

I was asleep when the bandits arrived. Rooster shook me awake and said, “Here they come.” I gave a start and turned over on my stomach so I could peer over the log. It was false dawn and you could see broad shapes and outlines but you could not make out details. The riders were strung out and they were laughing and talking amongst themselves. I counted them. Six! Six armed men against two! They exercised no caution at all and my thought was: Rooster’s plan is working fine. But when they were about fifty yards from the dugout they stopped. The fire inside the dugout had gone down but there was still a little string of smoke coming from the mud chimney.

Rooster whispered to me, “Do you see your man?”

I said, “I cannot see their faces.”

He said, “That little one without the hat is Ned Pepper. He has lost his hat. He is riding foremost.”

“What are they doing?”

“Looking about. Keep your head down.”

Lucky Ned Pepper appeared to be wearing white trousers but I learned later that these were sheepskin “chaps.” One of the bandits made a sound like a turkey gobbling. He waited and gobbled again and then another time, but of course there was no reply from the vacant dugout. Two of the bandits then rode up to the dugout and dismounted. One of them called out several times for Quincy. Rooster said, “That is Haze.” The two men then entered the cabin with their arms ready. In a minute or so they came out and searched around outside. The man Haze called out repeatedly for Quincy and once he whooped like a man calling hogs. Then he called back to the bandits who had remained mounted, saying, “The horses are here. It looks like Moon and Quincy have stepped out.”

“Stepped out where?” inquired the bandit chieftain, Lucky Ned Pepper.

“I can make nothing from the sign,” said the man Haze. “There is six horses in there. There is a pot of sofky in the fireplace but the fire is down. It beats me. Maybe they are out tracking game in the snow.”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Quincy would not leave a warm fire to go track a rabbit at night. That is no answer at all.”

Haze said, “The snow is all stirred up out here in front. Come and see what you make of it, Ned.”