True Grit - Charles Portis [14]
MR. GOUDY: Thank you, Mr. Barlow. How long did you say you have been a deputy marshal, Mr. Cogburn.?
MR. COGBURN: Going on four years.
MR. GOUDY: How many men have you shot in that time?
MR. BARLOW: An objection.
MR. GOUDY: There is more to this shooting than meets the eye, your honor. I am trying to establish the bias of the witness.
JUDGE PARKER: The objection is overruled.
MR. GOUDY: How many, Mr. Cogburn?
MR. COGBURN: I never shot nobody I didn’t have to.
MR. GOUDY: That was not the question. How many?
MR. COGBURN: Shot or killed?
MR. GOUDY: Let us restrict it to “killed” so that we may have a manageable figure. How many people have you killed since you became a marshal for this court?
MR. COGBURN: Around twelve or fifteen, stopping men in flight and defending myself.
MR. GOUDY: Around twelve or fifteen. So many that you cannot keep a precise count. Remember that you are under oath. I have examined the records and a more accurate figure is readily available. Come now, how many?
MR. COGBURN: I believe them two Whartons made twenty-three.
MR. GOUDY: I felt sure it would come to you with a little effort. Now let us see. Twenty-three dead men in four years. That comes to about six men a year. MR. COGBURN: It is dangerous work.
MR. GOUDY: So it would seem. And yet how much more dangerous for those luckless individuals who find themselves being arrested by you. How many members of this one family, the Wharton family, have you killed?
MR. BARLOW: Your honor, I think counsel should be advised that the marshal is not the defendant in this action.
MR. GOUDY: Your honor, my client and his deceased father and brother were provoked into a gun battle by this man Cogburn. Last spring he shot and killed Aaron Wharton’s oldest son and on November second he fairly leaped at the chance to massacre the rest of the family. I will prove that. This assassin Cogburn has too long been clothed with the authority of an honorable court. The only way I can prove my client’s innocence is by bringing out the facts of these two related shootings, together with a searching review of Cogburn’s methods. All the other principals, including Marshal Potter, are conveniently dead—
JUDGE PARKER: That will do, Mr. Goudy. Restrain yourself. We shall hear your argument later. The defense will be given every latitude. I do not think the indiscriminate use of such words as “massacre” and “assassin” will bring us any nearer the truth. Pray continue with your cross-examination.
MR. GOUDY: Thank you, your honor. Mr. Cogburn, did you know the late Dub Wharton, brother to the defendant, Odus Wharton?
MR. COGBURN: I had to shoot him in self-defense last April in the Going Snake District of the Cherokee Nation.
MR. GOUDY: How did that come about?
MR. COGBURN: I was trying to serve a warrant on him for selling ardent spirits to the Cherokees. It was not the first one. He come at me with a kingbolt and said, “Rooster, I am going to punch that other eye out.” I defended myself.
MR. GOUDY: He was armed with nothing more than a kingbolt from a wagon tongue?
MR. COGBURN: I didn’t know what else he had. I saw he had that. I have seen men badly tore up with things no bigger than a kingbolt.
MR. GOUDY: Were you yourself armed?
MR. COGBURN: Yes sir. I had a hand gun.
MR. GOUDY: What kind of hand gun?
MR. COGBURN: A forty-four forty Colt’s revolver.
MR. GOUDY: Is it not true that you walked in upon him in the dead of night with that revolver in your hand and gave him no warning?
MR. COGBURN: I had pulled it, yes sir.
MR. GOUDY: Was the weapon loaded and cocked?
MR. COGBURN: Yes sir.
MR. GOUDY: Were you holding it behind you or in any way concealing it?
MR. COGBURN: No sir.
MR. GOUDY: Are you saying that Dub Wharton advanced into the muzzle of that cocked revolver with nothing more than a small piece of iron in his hand?
MR. COGBURN: That was the way of it.
MR.