Charles Portis - True Grit

The man that was with Haze said, “What difference does it make? Let us change horses and get on out of here. We can get something to eat at Ma’s place.”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Let me think a minute.”

The man that was with Haze said, “We are wasting time that is better spent riding. We have lost enough time in this snow and left a broad track as well.”

When the man spoke the second time Rooster identified him as a Mexican gambler from Fort Worth, Texas, who called himself The Original Greaser Bob. He did not talk the Mexican language, though I suppose he knew it. I looked hard at the mounted bandits but mere effort was not enough to pierce the shadows and make out faces. Nor could I tell much from their physical attitudes as they were wearing heavy coats and big hats and their horses were ever milling about. I did not recognize Papa’s horse, Judy.

Lucky Ned Pepper pulled one of his revolvers and fired it rapidly three times in the air. The noise rumbled in the hollow and there followed an expectant silence.

In a moment there came a loud report from the opposite ridge and Lucky Ned Pepper’s horse was felled as though from a poleax. Then more shots from the ridge and the bandits were seized with panic and confusion. It was LaBoeuf over there firing his heavy rifle as fast as he could load it.

Rooster cursed and rose to his feet and commenced firing and pumping his Winchester repeating rifle. He shot Haze and The Original Greaser before they could mount their horses. Haze was killed where he stood. The hot cartridge cases from Rooster’s rifle fell on my hand and I jerked it away. When he turned to direct his fire on the other bandits, The Original Greaser, who was only wounded, got to his feet and caught his horse and rode out behind the others. He was clinging to the far side of his horse with one leg thrown over for support. If you had not followed the entire “stunt” from start to finish as I had done, you would have thought the horse was riderless. That is how he escaped Rooster’s attention. I was “mesmerized” and proved to be of no help.

Now I will back up and tell of the others. Lucky Ned Pepper was bowled over with his horse but he quickly crawled from under the dead beast and cut his saddle wallets free with a knife. The other three bandits had already spurred their horses away from the deadly cockpit, as I may call it, and they were firing their rifles and revolvers at LaBoeuf on the run. Rooster and I were behind them and a good deal farther away from them than LaBoeuf. As far as I know, not a shot was fired at us.

Lucky Ned Pepper shouted after the riders and pursued them on foot in a zigzag manner. He carried the saddle wallets over one arm and a revolver in the other hand. Rooster could not hit him. The bandit was well named “Lucky,” and his luck was not through running yet. In all the booming and smoke and confusion, one of his men chanced to hear his cries and he wheeled his horse about and made a dash back to pick up his boss. Just as the man reached Lucky Ned Pepper and leaned over to extend a hand to help him aboard he was knocked clean from the saddle by a well-placed shot from LaBoeuf’s powerful rifle. Lucky Ned Pepper expertly swung aboard in the man’s place without so much as a word or a parting glance at the fallen friend who had dared to come back and save him. He rode low and the trick-riding Mexican gambler followed him out and they were gone. The scrap did not last as long as it has taken me to describe it.

Rooster told me to get the horses. He ran down the hill on foot.

The bandits had left two of their number behind and we had forced the others to continue their flight on jaded ponies, but I thought we had little reason to congratulate ourselves. The bandits in the snow were dead men and could “tell no tales.” We had not identified Chaney among those who escaped. Was he with them? Were we really on his trail? Also, we found that Lucky Ned Pepper had made off with the greater part of the loot from the train robbery.

The thing might have fallen out more to our advantage had LaBoeuf not started the fight prematurely. But I cannot be sure. I think Lucky Ned Pepper had no intention of entering that dugout, or indeed of approaching it any closer, when he discovered the two stock thieves unaccountably missing. So our plan had miscarried in any case. Rooster was disposed to place all the blame on LaBoeuf.

When I reached the bottom of the hill with the horses he was cursing the Texan to his face. I am certain the two must have come to blows if LaBoeuf had not been distracted from a painful wound. A ball had struck his rifle stock and splinters of wood and lead had torn the soft flesh of his upper arm. He said he had not been able to see well from his position and was moving to a better place when he heard the three signal shots fired by Lucky Ned Pepper. He thought the fight was joined and he stood up from a crouch and threw a quick shot down at the man he had rightly sized up as the bandit chieftain.

Rooster called it a likely story and charged that LaBoeuf had fallen asleep and had started shooting from panic when the signal shots awakened him. I thought it was in LaBoeuf’s favor that his first shot had struck and killed Lucky Ned Pepper’s horse. If he had been shooting from panic would he have come so near to hitting the bandit chieftain with his first shot? On the other hand, he claimed to be an experienced officer and rifleman, and if he had been alert and had taken a deliberate shot would he not have hit his mark? Only LaBoeuf knew the truth of the matter. I grew impatient with their wrangling over the point. I think Rooster was angry because the play had been taken away from him and because Lucky Ned Pepper had beaten him once again.

The two officers made no move to give pursuit to the robber band and I suggested that we had better make such a move. Rooster said he knew where they were going to earth and he did not wish to risk riding into an ambush along the way. LaBoeuf made the point that our horses were fresh and theirs jaded. He said we could track them easily and overtake them in short order. But Rooster wanted to take the stolen horses and the dead bandits down to McAlester’s and establish a prior claim to any reward the M. K. & T. Railroad might offer. Scores of marshals and railroad detectives and informers would soon be in on the game, said he.

LaBoeuf was rubbing snow on the torn places of his arm to check the bleeding. He took off his neck cloth for use as a bandage but he could not manage it with one hand and I helped him.

Rooster watched me minister to the Texan’s arm and he said, “That is nothing to do with you. Go inside and make some coffee.”

I said, “This will not take long.”

He said, “Let it go and make the coffee.”

I said, “Why are you being so silly?”

He walked away and I finished binding up the arm. I heated up the sofky and picked the trash from it and boiled some coffee in the fireplace. LaBoeuf joined Rooster in the stock cave and they strung the six horses together with halters and a long manila rope and lashed the four dead bodies across their backs like sacks of corn. The dun horse belonging to Moon bolted and bared his teeth and would not permit his dead master to be placed on his back. A less sensitive horse was found to serve.

Rooster could not identify the man who had returned to rescue Lucky Ned Pepper. I say “man.” He was really only a boy, not much older than I. His mouth was open and I could not bear to look at him. The man Haze was old with a sallow wrinkled face. They had a hard time breaking the revolver free from his “death grip.”

The two officers found Haze’s horse in the woods nearby. He was not injured. Right behind the saddle the horse was carrying two tow-sacks, and in these sacks were about thirty-five watches, some ladies’ rings, some pistols and around six hundred dollars in notes and coin. Loot from the passengers of the Katy Flyer! While searching over the ground where the bandits had made their fight, LaBoeuf turned up some copper cartridge cases. He showed them to Rooster.