True Grit (17 page)

When we had eaten our fill, Mr. McAlester's wife asked me if I did not wish to lie down on her bed for a nap. I was sorely tempted but I saw through the scheme. I had noticed Rooster talking to her on the sly at the table. I concluded he was trying to get shed of me once again. "Thank you, mam, I am not tired," said I. It was the biggest story I have ever told!

We did not leave right away because Rooster found that his horse Bo had dropped a front shoe. We went to a little shed kept by a blacksmith. While waiting there, LaBoeuf repaired the broken stock of his Sharps rifle by wrapping copper wire around it. Rooster hurried the smith along with the shoeing, as he was not disposed to linger in the settlement. He wished to stay ahead of the posse of marshals that he knew was even then scouring the brush for Lucky Ned Pepper and his band.

He said to me, "Sis, the time has come when I must move fast. It is a hard day's ride to where I am going. You will wait here and Mrs. McAlester will see to your comfort. I will be back tomorrow or the next day with our man."

"No, I am going along," said I.

LaBoeuf said, "She has come this far."

Rooster said, "It is far enough."

I said, "Do you think I am ready to quit when we are so close?"

LaBoeuf said, "There is something in what she says, Cogburn. I think she has done fine myself. She has won her spurs, so to speak. That is just my personal opinion."

Rooster held up his hand and said, "All right, let it go. I have said my piece. We won't have a lot of talk about winning spurs."

We departed the place around noon, traveling east and slightly south. Rooster called the turn when he said "hard riding." That big long-legged Bo just walked away from the two ponies, but the weight began to tell on him after a few miles and Little Blackie and the shaggy pony closed the distance on him ere long. We rode like the very "dickens" for about forty minutes and then stopped and dismounted and walked for a spell, giving the horses a rest. It was while we were walking that a rider came up hallooing and overtook us. We were out on a prairie and we saw him coming for some little distance.

It was Captain Finch, and he brought exciting news. He told us that shortly after we had left McAlester's, he received word that Odus Wharton had broken from the basement jail in Fort Smith. The escape had taken place early that morning.

Here is what happened. Not long after breakfast two trusty prisoners brought in a barrel of clean sawdust for use in the spittoons of that foul dungeon. It was fairly dark down there and in a moment when the guards were not looking the trusties concealed Wharton and another doomed murderer inside the barrel. Both men were of slight stature and inconsiderable weight. The trusties then carried the two outside and away to freedom. A bold daylight escape in a fat barrel! Some clever "stunt"! The trusties ran off along with the convicted killers and very likely drew good wages for their audacity.

On hearing the news Rooster did not appear angry or in any way perturbed, but only amused. You may wonder why. He had his reasons and among them were these, that Wharton now stood no chance of winning a commutation from President R. B. Hayes, and also that the escape would cause Lawyer Goudy a certain amount of chagrin in Washington city and would no doubt result in a big expense loss for him, as clients who resolve their own problems are apt to be slow in paying due bills from a lawyer.

Captain Finch said, "I thought you had better know about this."

Rooster said, "I appreciate it, Boots. I appreciate you riding out here."

"Wharton will be looking for you."

"If he is not careful he will find me."

Captain Finch looked LaBoeuf over, then said to Rooster, "Is this the man who shot Ned's horse from under him?"

Rooster said, "Yes, this is the famous horse killer from El Paso, Texas. His idea is to put everybody on foot. He says it will limit their mischief."

LaBoeuf's fair-complected face became congested with angry blood. He said, "There was very little light and I was firing off-hand. I did not have the time to find a rest."

Captain Finch said, "There is no need to apologize for that shot. A good many more people have missed Ned than have hit him."

"I was not apologizing," said LaBoeuf. "I was only explaining the circumstances."

"Rooster here has missed Ned a few times himself, horse and all," said the captain. "I reckon he is on his way now to missing him again."

Rooster was holding a bottle with a little whiskey in it. He said, "You keep on thinking that." He drained off the whiskey in about three swallows and tapped the cork back in and tossed the bottle up in the air. He pulled his revolver and fired at it twice and missed. The bottle fell and rolled and Rooster shot at it two or three more times and broke it on the ground. He got out his sack of cartridges and reloaded the pistol. He said, "The Chinaman is running them cheap shells in on me again."

LaBoeuf said, "I thought maybe the sun was in your eyes. That is to say, your eye."

Rooster swung the cylinder back in his revolver and said, "Eyes, is it? I'll show you eyes!" He jerked the sack of corn dodgers free from his saddle baggage. He got one of the dodgers out and flung it in the air and fired at it and missed. Then he flung another one up and he hit it. The corn dodger exploded. He was pleased with himself and he got a fresh bottle of whiskey from his baggage and treated himself to a drink.

LaBoeuf pulled one of his revolvers and got two dodgers out of the sack and tossed them both up. He fired very rapidly but he only hit one. Captain Finch tried it with two and missed both of them. Then he tried with one and made a successful shot. Rooster shot at two and hit one. They drank whiskey and used up about sixty corn dodgers like that. None of them ever hit two at one throw with a revolver but Captain Finch finally did it with his Winchester repeating rifle, with somebody else throwing. It was entertaining for a while but there was nothing educational about it. I grew more and more impatient with them.

I said, "Come on, I have had my bait of this. I am ready to go. Shooting cornbread out here on this prairie is not taking us anywhere."

By then Rooster was using his rifle and the captain was throwing for him. "Chunk high and not so far out this time," said he.

At length, Captain Finch took his leave and went back the way he came. We continued our journey eastward, with the Winding Stair Mountains as our destination. We lost a good half-hour with that shooting foolishness, but, worse than that, it started Rooster to drinking.

He drank even as he rode, which looked difficult. I cannot say it slowed him down any but it did make him silly. Why do people
wish
to be silly? We kept up our fast pace, riding hard for forty or fifty minutes and then going on foot for a piece. I believe those walks were a more welcome rest for me than for the horses. I have never claimed to be a cow-boy! Little Blackie did not falter. He had good wind and his spirit was such that he would not let LaBoeuf's shaggy mount get ahead of him on an open run. Yes, you bet he was a game pony!

We loped across open prairies and climbed wooded limestone hills and made our way through brushy bottoms and icy streams. Much of the snow melted under the sun but as the long shadows of dusk descended in all their purple loveliness, the temperature did likewise. We were very warm from our exertions and the chill night air felt good at first, but then it became uncomfortable as we slowed our pace. We did not ride fast after dark as it would have been dangerous for the horses. LaBoeuf said the Rangers often rode at night to avoid the terrible Texas sun and this was like nothing at all to him. I did not care for it myself.

Nor did I enjoy the slipping and sliding when we were climbing the steep grades of the Winding Stair Mountains. There is a lot of thick pine timber in those hills and we wandered up and down in the double-darkness of the forest. Rooster stopped us twice while he dismounted and looked around for sign. He was well along to being drunk. Later on he got to talking to himself and one thing I heard him say was this: "Well, we done the best we could with what we had. We was in a war. All we had was revolvers and horses." I supposed he was brooding about the hard words LaBoeuf had spoken to him on the subject of his war service. He got louder and louder but it was hard to tell whether he was still talking to himself or addressing himself to us. I think it was a little of both. On one long climb he fell off his horse, but he quickly gained his feet and mounted again.

"That was nothing, nothing," said he. "Bo put a foot wrong, that was all. He is tired. This is no grade. I have freighted iron stoves up harder grades than this, and pork as well. I lost fourteen barrels of pork on a shelf road not much steeper than this and old Cook never batted a eye. I was a pretty fair jerk-line teamster, could always talk to mules, but oxen was something else. You don't get that quick play with cattle that you get with mules. They are slow to start and slow to turn and slow to stop. It taken me a while to learn it. Pork brought a thundering great price out there then but old Cook was a square dealer and he let me work it out at his lot price. Yes sir, he paid liberal wages too. He made money and he didn't mind his help making money. I will tell you how much he made. He made fifty thousand dollars in one year with them wagons but he did not enjoy good health. Always down with something. He was all bowed over and his neck was stiff from drinking Jamaica ginger. He had to look up at you through his hair, like this, unless he was laying down, and as I say, that rich jaybird was down a lot. He had a good head of brown hair, had every lock until he died. Of course he was a right young man when he died. He only looked old. He was carrying a twenty-one-foot tapeworm along with his business responsibilities and that aged him. Killed him in the end. They didn't even know he had it till he was dead, though he ate like a field hand, ate five or six good dinners every day. If he was alive today I believe I would still be out there. Yes, I know I would, and I would likely have money in the bank. I had to make tracks when his wife commenced to running things. She said, 'You can't leave me like this, Rooster. All my drivers is leaving me.' I told her, I said, 'You watch me.' No sir, I was not ready to work for her and I told her so. There is no generosity in women. They want everything coming in and nothing going out. They show no trust.

Lord God, how they hate to pay you! They will get the work of two men out of you and I guess they would beat you with whips if they was able to. No sir, not me. Never. A man will not work for a woman, not unless he has clabber for brains."

LaBoeuf said, "I told you that in Fort Smith."

I do not know if the Texan intended the remark to tell against me, but if he did, it was "water off a duck's back." You cannot give any weight to the words of a drunkard, and even so, I knew Rooster could not be talking about me in his drunken criticism of women, the kind of money I was paying him. I could have confounded him and his silliness right there by saying, "What about me? What about that twenty-five dollars I have given you?" But I had not the strength nor the inclination to bandy words with a drunkard. What have you done when you have bested a fool?

I thought we would never stop, and must be nearing Montgomery, Alabama. From time to time LaBoeuf and I would interrupt Rooster and ask him how much much farther and he would reply, "It is not far now," and then he would pick up again on a chapter in the long and adventurous account of his life. He had seen a good deal of strife in his travels.

When at last we did stop, Rooster said only, "I reckon this will do." It was well after midnight. We were on a more or less level place in a pine forest up in the hills and that was all I could determine. I was so tired and stiff I could not think straight.

Rooster said he calculated we had come about fifty miles --
fifty miles!
-- from McAlester's store and were now positioned some four miles from Lucky Ned Pepper's bandit stronghold. Then he wrapped himself up in his buffalo robe and retired without ceremony, leaving LaBoeuf to see to the horses.

The Texan watered them from the canteens and fed them and tied them out. He left the saddles on them for warmth, but with the girths loosened. Those poor horses were worn out.

We made no fire. I took a hasty supper of bacon and biscuit sandwiches. The biscuits were pretty hard. There was a layer of pine straw under the patchy snow and I raked up a thick pile with my hands for a woodland mattress. The straw was dirty and brittle and somewhat damp but at that it made for a better bed than any I had seen on this journey. I rolled up in my blankets and slicker and burrowed down into the straw. It was a clear winter night and I made out the Big Dipper and the North Star through the pine branches. The moon was already down. My back hurt and my feet were swollen and I was so exhausted that my hands quivered. The quivering passed and I was soon in the "land of Nod."

*

Rooster was stirring about the next morning before the sun had cleared the higher mountains to the east. He seemed little worse for the wear despite the hard riding and the drinking excesses and the short sleep. He did insist on having coffee and he made a little fire of oak sticks to boil his water. The fire gave off hardly any smoke, white wisps that were quickly gone, but LaBoeuf called it a foolish indulgence, seeing we were so close to our quarry.

I felt as though I had only just closed my eyes. The water in the canteens was low and they would not let me have any for washing. I got the canvas bucket and put my revolver in it and set off down the hill looking for a spring or a runoff stream.