True Grit - Charles Portis [47]
I was just about asleep. Rooster nudged me and said, “I say one of them marshals was Potter.”
“What?”
“One of them two marshals at Fort Reno was Potter.”
“It was your friend from the war? The same one?”
“Yes, it was Columbus Potter in the flesh. I was glad to see him. He didn’t let on he knowed me. He told Hutchens he would take me in charge and see I was prosecuted. Hutchens said he would come back by Fort Smith when his business was done in Kansas and appear against me. Potter told him his statement right there was good enough to convict me of assault. Hutchens said he never heard of a court where they didn’t need witnesses. Potter said they had found it saved time. We come on over to Fort Smith and Potter got me commissioned as deputy marshal. Jo Shelby had vouched for him to the chief marshal and got him the job. General Shelby is in the railroad business up in Missouri now and he knows all these Republicans. He wrote a handsome letter for me too. Well, there is no beat of a good friend. Potter was a trump.”
“Do you like being a marshal?”
“I believe I like it better than anything I done since the war. Anything beats droving. Nothing I like to do pays well.”
“I don’t think Chaney is going to show up.”
“We will get him.”
“I hope we get him tonight.”
“You told me you loved coon hunting.”
“I didn’t expect it would be easy. I still hope we get him tonight and have it done with.”
Rooster talked all night. I would doze off and wake up and he would still be talking. Some of his stories had too many people in them and were hard to follow but they helped to pass the hours and took my mind off the cold. I did not give credence to everything he said. He said he knew a woman in Sedalia, Missouri, who had stepped on a needle as a girl and nine years later the needle worked out of the thigh of her third child. He said it puzzled the doctors.
I was asleep when the bandits arrived. Rooster shook me awake and said, “Here they come.” I gave a start and turned over on my stomach so I could peer over the log. It was false dawn and you could see broad shapes and outlines but you could not make out details. The riders were strung out and they were laughing and talking amongst themselves. I counted them. Six! Six armed men against two! They exercised no caution at all and my thought was: Rooster’s plan is working fine. But when they were about fifty yards from the dugout they stopped. The fire inside the dugout had gone down but there was still a little string of smoke coming from the mud chimney.
Rooster whispered to me, “Do you see your man?”
I said, “I cannot see their faces.”
He said, “That little one without the hat is Ned Pepper. He has lost his hat. He is riding foremost.”
“What are they doing?”
“Looking about. Keep your head down.”
Lucky Ned Pepper appeared to be wearing white trousers but I learned later that these were sheepskin “chaps.” One of the bandits made a sound like a turkey gobbling. He waited and gobbled again and then another time, but of course there was no reply from the vacant dugout. Two of the bandits then rode up to the dugout and dismounted. One of them called out several times for Quincy. Rooster said, “That is Haze.” The two men then entered the cabin with their arms ready. In a minute or so they came out and searched around outside. The man Haze called out repeatedly for Quincy and once he whooped like a man calling hogs. Then he called back to the bandits who had remained mounted, saying, “The horses are here. It looks like Moon and Quincy have stepped out.”
“Stepped out where?” inquired the bandit chieftain, Lucky Ned Pepper.
“I can make nothing