Charles Portis - True Grit

“We will need more time!”

“I will not give you any more!”

“There will be a party of marshals in here soon, Ned! Let me have Chaney and the girl and I will mislead them for six hours!”

“Too thin, Rooster! Too thin! I won’t trust you!”

“I will cover you till dark!”

“Your five minutes is running! No more talk!”

Lucky Ned Pepper pulled me to my feet. Rooster called up again, saying, “We are leaving but you must give us time!”

The bandit chieftain made no reply. He brushed the snow and dirt from my face and said, “Your life depends upon their actions. I have never busted a cap on a woman or anybody much under sixteen years but I will do what I have to do.”

I said, “There is some mix-up here. I am Mattie Ross of near Dardanelle, Arkansas. My family has property and I don’t know why I am being treated like this.”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “It is enough that you know I will do what I have to do.”

We made our way up the hill. A little farther along we came across a bandit armed with a shotgun and squatting behind a big slab of limestone. This man’s name was Harold Permalee. I believe he was simpleminded. He gobbled at me like a turkey until Lucky Ned Pepper made him hush. Greaser Bob was told to stay there with him behind the rock and keep a watch below. I had seen this Mexican gambler fall from Rooster’s shots at the dugout but he appeared now to be in perfect health and there was no outward evidence of a wound. When we left them there Harold Permalee made a noise like “Whooooo-haaaaaaa!” and this time it was The Greaser who made him hush.

Lucky Ned Pepper pushed me along in front of him through the brush. There was no trail. His woolly chaps sang as they swished back and forth, something like corduroy trousers. He was little and wiry and no doubt a hard customer, but still his wind was not good and he was blowing like a man with asthma by the time we had ascended to the bandits’ lair.

They had made their camp on a bare rock shelf some seventy yards or so below the crest of the mountain. Pine timber grew in abundance below and above and on all sides. No apparent trails led to the place.

The ledge was mostly level but broken here and there by deep pits and fissures. A shallow cave provided sleeping quarters, as I saw bedding and saddles strewn about inside. A wagon sheet, now pulled back, served for a door and windbreak. The horses were tied in the cover of trees. It was quite windy up there and the little cooking fire in front of the cave was protected by a circle of rocks. The site overlooked a wide expanse of ground to the west and north.

Tom Chaney was sitting by the fire with his shirt pulled up and another man was ministering to him, tying a pad of cloth to his wounded side with a cotton rope. The man laughed as he cinched the rope up tight and caused Chaney to whimper with pain. “Waw, waw, waw,” said the man, making sounds like a bawling calf in mockery of Chaney.

This man was Farrell Permalee, a younger brother to Harold Parmalee. He wore a long blue army overcoat with officers’ boards on the shoulders. Harold Parmalee had participated in the robbery of the Katy Flyer and Farrell joined the bandits later that night when they swapped horses at Ma Permalee’s place.

The Permalee woman was a notorious receiver of stolen livestock but was never brought to law. Her husband, Henry Joe Permalee, killed himself with a dynamite cap in the ugly act of wrecking a passenger train. A family of criminal trash! Of her youngest boys, Carroll Permalee lived long enough to be put to death in the Electric Chair, and not long afterward Darryl Permalee was shot to death at the wheel of a motorcar by a bank “dick” and a constable in Mena, Arkansas. No, do not compare them to Henry Starr or the Dalton brothers. Certainly Starr and the Daltons were robbers and reckless characters but they were not simple and they were not altogether rotten. You will remember that Bob and Grat Dalton served as marshals for Judge Parker, and Bob was a fine one, they say. Upright men gone bad! What makes them take the wrong road? Bill Doolin too. A cow-boy gone wrong.

When Lucky Ned Pepper and I gained the rock ledge Chaney jumped up and made for me. “I will wring your scrawny neck!” he exclaimed. Lucky Ned Pepper pushed him aside and said, “No, I won’t have it. Let that doctoring go and get the horses saddled. Lend him a hand, Farrell.”

He pushed me down by the fire and said, “Sit there and be still.” When he had caught his breath he took a spyglass from his coat and searched the rocky dome to the west. He saw nothing and took a seat by the fire and drank coffee from a can and ate some bacon from a skillet with his hands. There was plenty of meat and several cans of water in the fire, some with plain water and some with coffee already brewed. I concluded the bandits had been at their breakfast when they were alarmed by the gunshot down below.

I said, “Can I have some of that bacon?”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Help yourself. Have some coffee.”

“I don’t drink coffee. Where is the bread?”

“We lost it. Tell me what you are doing here.”

I took a piece of bacon and chewed on it. “I will be glad to tell you,” said I. “You will see I am in the right. Tom Chaney there shot my father to death in Fort Smith and robbed him of two gold pieces and stole his mare. Her name is Judy but I do not see her here. I was informed Rooster Cogburn had grit and I hired him out to find the murderer. A few minutes ago I came upon Chaney down there watering horses. He would not be taken in charge and I shot him. If I had killed him I would not now be in this fix. My revolver misfired twice.”

“They will do it,” said Lucky Ned Pepper. “It will embarrass you every time.” Then he laughed. He said, “Most girls like play pretties, but you like guns, don’t you?”

“I don’t care a thing in the world about guns. If I did I would have one that worked.”

Chaney was carrying a load of bedding from the cave. He said, “I was shot from ambush, Ned. The horses was blowing and making noise. It was one of them officers that got me.”

I said, “How can you stand there and tell such a big story?”

Chaney picked up a stick and pitched it into a big crack in the ledge. He said, “There is a ball of rattlesnakes down there in that pit and I am going to throw you in it. How do you like that?”

“No, you won’t,” said I. “This man will not let you have your way. He is your boss and you must do as he tells you.”

Lucky Ned Pepper again took his glass and looked across at the ridge.

Chaney said, “Five minutes is well up.”

“I will give them a little more time,” said the bandit chieftain.

“How much more?” said Chaney.

“Till I think they have had enough.”

Greaser Bob called up from below saying, “They are gone, Ned! I can hear nothing! We had best make a move!”

Lucky Ned Pepper replied, “Hold fast for a while!”

Then he returned to his breakfast. He said, “Was that Rooster and Potter that waylaid us last night?”

I said, “The man’s name is not Potter, it is LaBoeuf. He is an officer from Texas. He is looking for Chaney too, though he calls him by another name.”

“Is he the one with the buffalo gun?”

“He calls it a Sharps rifle. His arm was hurt in the fight.”

“He shot my horse. A man from Texas has no authority to fire at me.”

“I know nothing about that. I have a good lawyer at home.”

“Did they take Quincy and Moon?”

“They are both dead. It was a terrible thing to see. I was in the very middle of it. Do you need a good lawyer?”

“I need a good judge. What about Haze? An old fellow.”

“Yes, he and the young man were both killed.”