True Grit - Charles Portis [15]
MR. COGBURN: I always try to be ready.
MR. GOUDY: The gun was pulled and ready in your hand?
MR. COGBURN: Yes sir.
MR. GOUDY: Loaded and cocked?
MR. COGBURN: If it ain’t loaded and cocked it will not shoot.
MR. GOUDY: Just answer my questions if you please.
MR. COGBURN: That one does not make any sense.
JUDGE PARKER: Do not bandy words with counsel, Mr. Cogburn.
MR. COGBURN: Yes sir.
MR. GOUDY: Mr. Cogburn, I now direct your attention back to that scene on the creek bank. It is near dusk. Mr. Aaron Wharton and his two surviving sons are going about their lawful business, secure on their own property. They are butchering a hog so that they might have a little meat for their table—
MR. COGBURN: Them was stolen hogs. That farm belongs to the Wharton squaw, Minnie Wharton.
MR. GOUDY: Your honor, will you instruct this witness to keep silent until he is asked a question?
JUDGE PARKER: Yes, and I will instruct you to start asking questions so that he may respond with answers.
MR. GOUDY: I am sorry, your honor. All right. Mr. Wharton and his sons are on the creek bank. Suddenly, out of the brake, spring two men with revolvers at the ready—
MR. BARLOW: An objection.
JUDGE PARKER: The objection has merit. Mr. Goudy, I have been extremely indulgent. I am going to permit you to continue this line of questioning but I must insist that the cross-examination take the form of questions and answers instead of dramatic soliloquies. And I will caution you that this had best lead to something substantial and fairly soon.
MR. GOUDY: Thank you, your honor. If the court will bear with me for a time. My client has expressed fears about the severity of this court but I have reassured him that no man in this noble Republic loves truth and justice and mercy more than Judge Isaac Parker—
JUDGE PARKER: You are out of order, Mr. Goudy.
MR. GOUDY: Yes sir. All right. Now. Mr. Cogburn, when you and Marshal Potter sprang from the brush, what was Aaron Wharton’s reaction on seeing you?
MR. COGBURN: He picked up a ax and commenced to cussing us.
MR. GOUDY: An instinctive reflex against a sudden danger. Was that the nature of the move?
MR. COGBURN: I don’t know what that means.
MR. GOUDY: You would not have made such a move yourself?
MR. COGBURN: If it was me and Potter with the drop I would have done what I was told.
MR. GOUDY: Yes, exactly, you and Potter. We can agree that the Whartons were in peril of their lives. All right. Let us go back to yet an earlier scene, at the Spotted-Gourd home, around the wagon. Who was in charge of that wagon?
MR. COGBURN: Deputy Marshal Schmidt.
MR. GOUDY: He did not want you to go to the Wharton place, did he?
MR. COGBURN: We talked about it some and he agreed Potter and me should go.
MR. GOUDY: But at first he did not want you to go, did he, knowing there was bad blood between you and the Whartons?
MR. COGBURN: He must have wanted me to go or he would not have sent me.
MR. GOUDY: You had to persuade him, did you not?
MR. COGBURN: I knowed the Whartons and I was afraid somebody would get killed going up against them.
MR. GOUDY: As it turned out, how many were killed?
MR. COGBURN: Three. But the Whartons did not get away. It could have been worse.
MR. GOUDY: Yes, you might have been killed yourself.
MR. COGBURN: You mistake my meaning. Three murdering thieves might have got loose and gone to kill somebody else. But you are right that I might have been killed myself. It was mighty close at that and it is no light matter to me.
MR. GOUDY: Nor to me. You are truly one of nature’s survivors, Mr. Cogburn, and I do not make light of your gift. I believe you testified that you backed away from