True Grit - Charles Portis [53]
“That is a shame,” said the captain.
“When we find him we are going to club him with sticks and put him under arrest and take him back to Fort Smith,” said I.
“I wish you luck. We don’t want him down here.”
Rooster said, “Boots, I need a little help. I have got Haze and some youngster out there, along with Emmett Quincy and Moon Garrett. I am after being in a hurry and I wanted to see if you would not bury them boys for me.”
“They are dead?”
“All dead,” said Rooster. “What is it the judge says? Their depredations is now come to a fitting end.”
Captain Finch pulled the barber’s cloth from his neck. He and the barber went with us back to where the horses were tied. Rooster told them about our scrap at the dugout.
The captain grasped each dead man by the hair of the head and when he recognized a face he grunted and spoke the name. The man Haze had no hair to speak of and Captain Finch lifted his head by the ears. We learned that the boy was called Billy. His father ran a steam sawmill on the South Canadian River, the captain told us, and there was a large family at home. Billy was one of the eldest children and he had helped his father cut timber. The boy was not known to have been in any devilment before this. As for the other three, the captain did not know if they had any people who would want to claim the bodies.
Rooster said, “All right, you hold Billy for the family and bury these others. I will post their names in Fort Smith and if anybody wants them they can come dig them up.” Then he went along behind the horses slapping their rumps. He said, “These four horses was taken from Mr. Burlingame. These three right here belong to Haze and Quincy and Moon. You get what you can for them, Boots, and sell the saddles and guns and coats and I will split it with you. Is that fair enough?”
I said, “You told Moon you would send his brother the money owing to him from his traps.”
Rooster said, “I forgot where he said to send it.”
I said, “It is the district superintendent of the Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. His brother is a preacher named George Garrett.”
“Was it Austin or Dallas?”
“Austin.”
“Let’s get it straight.”
“It was Austin.”
“All right then, write it down for the captain. Send this man ten dollars, Boots, and tell him his brother got cut and is buried here.”
Captain Finch said, “Are you going out by way of Mr. Burlingame’s?”
“I don’t have the time,” said Rooster. “I would like for you to send word out if you will. Just so Mr. Burlingame knows it was deputy marshal Rooster Cogburn that recovered them horses.”
“Do you want this girl with the hat to write it down?”
“I believe you can remember it if you try.”
Captain Finch called out to some Indian youths who were standing nearby looking at us. I gathered he was telling them in the Choctaw tongue to see to the horses and the burial of the bodies. He had to speak to them a second time and very sharply before they would approach the bodies.
The railroad agent was an older man named Smallwood. He praised us for our pluck and he was very much pleased to see the sacks of cash and valuables we had recovered. You may think Rooster was hard in appropriating the traps of the dead men but I will tell you that he did not touch one cent of the money that was stolen at gunpoint from the passengers of the Katy Flyer. Smallwood looked over the “booty” and said it would certainly help to cover the loss, though it was his experience that some of the victims would make exaggerated claims.
He had known the martyred clerk personally and he said the man had been a loyal employee of the M. K. & T. for some years. In his youth the clerk had been a well-known foot racer in Kansas. He showed his spunk right to the end. Smallwood did not know the fireman personally. In both cases, said he, the M. K. & T. would try to do something for the bereaved families, though times were hard and revenue down. They say Jay Gould