Charles Portis - True Grit

“No, Ned would not do that.”

“Why not? He and his desperate band killed a fireman and an express clerk on the Katy Flyer last night.”

“Ned does not go around killing people if he has no good reason. If he has a good reason he kills them.”

“You can think what you want to,” said I. “I think betrayal was part of his scheme.”

We reached J. J. McAlester’s store about 10 o’clock that morning. The people of the settlement turned out to see the dead bodies and there were gasps and murmurs over the spectacle of horror, made the worse by way of the winter morning being so sunny and cheerful. It must have been a trading day for there were several wagons and horses tied up about the store. The railroad tracks ran behind it. There was little more to the place than the store building and a few smaller frame and log structures of poor description, and yet if I am not mistaken this was at that time one of the best towns in the Choctaw Nation. The store is now part of the modern little city of McAlester, Oklahoma, where for a long time “coal was king.” McAlester is also the international headquarters of the Order of the Rainbow for Girls.

There was no real doctor there at that time but there was a young Indian who had some medical training and was competent to set broken bones and dress gunshot wounds. LaBoeuf sought him out for treatment.

I went with Rooster, who searched out an Indian policeman of his acquaintance, a Captain Boots Finch of the Choctaw Light Horse. These police handled Indian crimes only, and where white men were involved the Light Horse had no authority. We found the captain in a small log house. He was sitting on a box by a stove getting his hair cut. He was a slender man about of an age with Rooster. He and the Indian barber were ignorant of the stir our arrival had caused.

Rooster came up behind the captain and goosed him in the ribs with both hands and said, “How is the people’s health, Boots?”

The captain gave a start and reached for his pistol, and then he saw who it was. He said, “Well, I declare, Rooster. What brings you to town so early?”

“Is this town? I was thinking I was out of town.”

Captain Finch laughed at the gibe. He said, “You must have traveled fast if you are here on that Wagoner’s Switch business.”

“That is the business right enough.”

“It was little Ned Pepper and five others. I suppose you know that.”

“Yes. How much did they get?”

“Mr. Smallwood says they got $17,000 cash and a packet of registered mail from the safe. He has not got a total on the passenger claims. I am afraid you are on a cold trail here.”

“When did you last see Ned?”

“I am told he passed through here two days ago. He and Haze and a Mexican on a round-bellied calico pony. I didn’t see them myself. They won’t be coming back this way.”

Rooster said, “That Mexican was Greaser Bob.”

“Is that the young one?”

“No, it’s the old one, the Original Bob from Fort Worth.”

“I heard he was badly shot in Denison and had given up his reckless ways.”

“Bob is hard to kill. He won’t stay shot. I am looking for another man. I think he is with Ned. He is short and has a black mark on his face and he carries a Henry rifle.”

Captain Finch thought about it. He said, “No, the way I got it, there was only the three here. Haze and the Mexican and Ned. We are watching his woman’s house. It is a waste of time and none of my business but I have sent a man out there.”

Rooster said, “It is a waste of time all right. I know about where Ned is.”

“Yes, I know too but it will take a hundred marshals to smoke him out of there.”

“It won’t take that many.”

“It wouldn’t take that many Choctaws. How many were in that marshals’ party in August? Forty?”

“It was closer to fifty,” said Rooster. “Joe Schmidt was running that game, or misrunning it. I am running this one.”

“I am surprised the chief marshal would turn you loose on a hunt like this without supervision.”

“He can’t help himself this time.”

Captain Finch said, “I could take you in there, Rooster, and show you how to bring Ned out.”

“Could you now? Well, a Indian makes too much noise to suit me. Don’t you find it so, Gaspargoo?”

That was the barber’s name. He laughed and put his hand over his mouth. Gaspargoo is also the name of a fish that makes fair eating.

I said to the captain, “Perhaps you are wondering who I am.”

“Yes, I was wondering that,” said he. “I thought you were a walking hat.”

“My name is Mattie Ross,” said I. “The man with the black mark goes by the name of Tom Chaney. He shot my father to death in Fort Smith and robbed him. Chaney was drunk and my father was not armed at the time.”

“That is a shame,” said the captain.

“When we find him we are going to club him with sticks and put him under arrest and take him back to Fort Smith,” said I.

“I wish you luck. We don’t want him down here.”

Rooster said, “Boots, I need a little help. I have got Haze and some youngster out there, along with Emmett Quincy and Moon Garrett. I am after being in a hurry and I wanted to see if you would not bury them boys for me.”

“They are dead?”

“All dead,” said Rooster. “What is it the judge says? Their depredations is now come to a fitting end.”

Captain Finch pulled the barber’s cloth from his neck. He and the barber went with us back to where the horses were tied. Rooster told them about our scrap at the dugout.

The captain grasped each dead man by the hair of the head and when he recognized a face he grunted and spoke the name. The man Haze had no hair to speak of and Captain Finch lifted his head by the ears. We learned that the boy was called Billy. His father ran a steam sawmill on the South Canadian River, the captain told us, and there was a large family at home. Billy was one of the eldest children and he had helped his father cut timber. The boy was not known to have been in any devilment before this. As for the other three, the captain did not know if they had any people who would want to claim the bodies.

Rooster said, “All right, you hold Billy for the family and bury these others. I will post their names in Fort Smith and if anybody wants them they can come dig them up.” Then he went along behind the horses slapping their rumps. He said, “These four horses was taken from Mr. Burlingame. These three right here belong to Haze and Quincy and Moon. You get what you can for them, Boots, and sell the saddles and guns and coats and I will split it with you. Is that fair enough?”

I said, “You told Moon you would send his brother the money owing to him from his traps.”

Rooster said, “I forgot where he said to send it.”

I said, “It is the district superintendent of the Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. His brother is a preacher named George Garrett.”

“Was it Austin or Dallas?”

“Austin.”

“Let’s get it straight.”

“It was Austin.”

“All right then, write it down for the captain. Send this man ten dollars, Boots, and tell him his brother got cut and is buried here.”

Captain Finch said, “Are you going out by way of Mr. Burlingame’s?”

“I don’t have the time,” said Rooster. “I would like for you to send word out if you will. Just so Mr. Burlingame knows it was deputy marshal Rooster Cogburn that recovered them horses.”

“Do you want this girl with the hat to write it down?”

“I believe you can remember it if you try.”

Captain Finch called out to some Indian youths who were standing nearby looking at us. I gathered he was telling them in the Choctaw tongue to see to the horses and the burial of the bodies. He had to speak to them a second time and very sharply before they would approach the bodies.