True Grit - Charles Portis [40]
Rooster gave Moon a blue handkerchief to tie around his leg and then he bound the two men together with steel handcuffs and had them sit side by side on a bench. The only furniture in the place was a low table of adzed logs standing on pegs, and a bench on either side of it. I flapped a tow sack in the open door in an effort to clear the smoke out. A pot of coffee had been thrown into the fireplace but there were still some live coals and sticks around the edges and I stirred them up into a blaze again.
There was another pot in the fireplace too, a big one, a two-gallon pot, and it was filled with a mess that looked like hominy. Rooster tasted it with a spoon and said it was an Indian dish called sofky. He offered me some and said it was good. But it had trash in it and I declined.
“Was you boys looking for company?” he said.
“That is our supper and breakfast both,” said Quincy. “I like a big breakfast.”
“I would love to watch you eat breakfast.”
“Sofky always cooks up bigger than you think.”
“What are you boys up to outside of stealing stock and peddling spirits? You are way too jumpy.”
“You said you didn’t have no papers on us,” replied Quincy.
“I don’t have none on you by name,” said Rooster. “I got some John Doe warrants on a few jobs I could tailor up for you. Resisting a Federal officer too. That’s a year right there.”
“We didn’t know it was you. It might have been some crazy man out there.”
Moon said, “My leg hurts.”
Rooster said, “I bet it does. Set right still and it won’t bleed so bad.”
Quincy said, “We didn’t know who it was out there. A night like this. We was drinking some and the weather spooked us. Anybody can say he is a marshal. Where is all the other officers?”
“I misled you there, Quincy. When was the last time you seen your old pard Ned Pepper?”
“Ned Pepper?” said the stock thief. “I don’t know him. Who is he?”
“I think you know him,” said Rooster. “I know you have heard of him. Everybody has heard of him.”
“I never heard of him.”
“He used to work for Mr. Burlingame. Didn’t you work for him a while?”
“Yes, and I quit him like everybody else has done. He runs off all his good help, he is so close. The old skinflint. I wish he was in hell with his back broke. I don’t remember any Ned Pepper.”
Rooster said, “They say Ned was a mighty good drover. I am surprised you don’t remember him. He is a little feisty fellow, nervous and quick. His lip is all messed up.”
“That don’t bring anybody to mind. A funny lip.”
“He didn’t always have it. I think you know him. Now here is something else. There is a new boy running with Ned. He is short himself and he has got a powder mark on his face, a black place. He calls himself Chaney or Chelmsford sometimes. He carries a Henry rifle.”
“That don’t bring anybody to mind,” said Quincy. “A black mark. I would remember something like that.”
“You don’t know anything I want to know, do you?”
“No, and if I did I would not blow.”
“Well, you think on it some, Quincy. You too, Moon.”
Moon said, “I always try to help out the law if it won’t harm my friends. I don’t know them boys. I would like to help you if I could.”
“If you don’t help me I will take you both back to Judge Parker,” said Rooster. “By the time we get to Fort Smith that leg will be swelled up as tight as Dick’s hatband. It will be mortified and they will cut it off. Then if you live I will get you two or three years in the Federal House up in Detroit.”
“You are trying to get at me,” said Moon.
“They will teach you how to read and write up there but the rest of it is not so good,” said Rooster. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. If you give me some good information on Ned I will take you to McAlester’s tomorrow and you can get that ball out of your leg. Then I will give you three days to clear