True Grit - Charles Portis [17]
I said, “They tell me you are a man with true grit.”
He said, “What do you want, girl? Speak up. It is suppertime.”
I said, “Let me show you how to do that.” I took the half-made cigarette and shaped it up and licked it and sealed it and twisted the ends and gave it back to him. It was pretty loose because he had already wrinkled the paper. He lit it and it flamed up and burned about halfway down.
I said, “Your makings are too dry.”
He studied it and said, “Something.”
I said, “I am looking for the man who shot and killed my father, Frank Ross, in front of the Monarch boardinghouse. The man’s name is Tom Chaney. They say he is over in the Indian Territory and I need somebody to go after him.”
He said, “What is your name, girl? Where do you live?”
“My name is Mattie Ross,” I replied. “We are located in Yell County near Dardanelle. My mother is at home looking after my sister Victoria and my brother Little Frank.”
“You had best go home to them,” said he. “They will need some help with the churning.”
I said, “The high sheriff and a man in the marshal’s office have given me the full particulars. You can get a fugitive warrant for Tom Chaney and go after him. The Government will pay you two dollars for bringing him in plus ten cents a mile for each of you. On top of that I will pay you a fifty-dollar reward.”
“You have looked into this a right smart,” said he.
“Yes, I have,” said I. “I mean business.”
He said, “What have you got there in your poke?”
I opened the sugar sack and showed him.
“By God!” said he. “A Colt’s dragoon! Why, you are no bigger than a corn nubbin! What are you doing with that pistol?”
I said, “It belonged to my father. I intend to kill Tom Chaney with it if the law fails to do so.”
“Well, that piece will do the job. If you can find a high stump to rest it on while you take aim and shoot.”
“Nobody here knew my father and I am afraid nothing much is going to be done about Chaney except I do it myself. My brother is a child and my mother’s people are in Monterey, California. My Grandfather Ross is not able to ride.”
“I don’t believe you have fifty dollars.”
“I will have it in a day or two. Have you heard of a robber called Lucky Ned Pepper?”
“I know him well. I shot him in the lip last August down in the Winding Stair Mountains. He was plenty lucky that day.”
“They think Tom Chaney has tied up with him.”
“I don’t believe you have fifty dollars, baby sister, but if you are hungry I will give you supper and we will talk it over and make medicine. How does that suit you?”
I said it suited me right down to ground. I figured he would live in a house with his family and was not prepared to discover that he had only a small room in the back of a Chinese grocery store on a dark street. He did not have a wife. The Chinaman was called Lee. He had a supper ready of boiled potatoes and stew meat. The three of us ate at a low table with a coal-oil lamp in the middle of it. There was a blanket for a tablecloth. A little bell rang once and Lee went up front through a curtain to wait on a customer.
Rooster said he had heard about the shooting of my father but did not know the details. I told him. I noticed by the lamplight that his bad left eye was not completely shut. A little crescent of white showed at the bottom and glistened in the light. He ate with a spoon in one hand and a wadded-up piece of white bread in the other, with considerable sopping. What a contrast to the Chinaman with his delicate chopsticks! I had never seen them in use before. Such nimble fingers! When the coffee had boiled Lee got the pot off the stove and started to pour. I put my hand over my cup.
“I do not drink coffee, thank you.”
Rooster said, “What do you drink?”
“I am partial to cold buttermilk when I can get it.”
“Well, we don’t have none,” said he. “Nor lemonade either.”
“Do you have any sweet milk?”
Lee went up front to his icebox and brought back a jar of milk. The cream had been skimmed from it.
I said, “This tastes like blue-john to me.”
Rooster took my cup and put it on the