True Grit - Charles Portis [54]
I advised Rooster to get a written statement from Smallwood to that effect, along with an itemized, timed and dated receipt for the two sacks of “booty.” Smallwood was wary about committing his company too far but we got a receipt out of him and a statement saying that Rooster had produced on that day the lifeless bodies of two men “whom he alleges took part in said robbery.” I think Smallwood was a gentleman but gentlemen are only human and their memories can sometimes fail them. Business is business.
Mr. McAlester, who kept the store, was a good Arkansas man. He too commended us for our actions and he gave us towels and pans of hot water and some sweet-smelling olive soap. His wife served us a good country dinner with fresh buttermilk. LaBoeuf joined us for the hearty meal. The medical-trained Indian had been able to remove all the big splinters and lead fragments and he had bound the arm tightly. Naturally the limb remained stiff and sore, yet the Texan enjoyed a limited use of it.
When we had eaten our fill, Mr. McAlester’s wife asked me if I did not wish to lie down on her bed for a nap. I was sorely tempted but I saw through the scheme. I had noticed Rooster talking to her on the sly at the table. I concluded he was trying to get shed of me once again. “Thank you, mam, I am not tired,” said I. It was the biggest story I have ever told!
We did not leave right away because Rooster found that his horse Bo had dropped a front shoe. We went to a little shed kept by a blacksmith. While waiting there, LaBoeuf repaired the broken stock of his Sharps rifle by wrapping copper wire around it. Rooster hurried the smith along with the shoeing, as he was not disposed to linger in the settlement. He wished to stay ahead of the posse of marshals that he knew was even then scouring the brush for Lucky Ned Pepper and his band.
He said to me, “Sis, the time has come when I must move fast. It is a hard day’s ride to where I am going. You will wait here and Mrs. McAlester will see to your comfort. I will be back tomorrow or the next day with our man.”
“No, I am going along,” said I.
LaBoeuf said, “She has come this far.”
Rooster said, “It is far enough.”
I said, “Do you think I am ready to quit when we are so close?”
LaBoeuf said, “There is something in what she says, Cogburn. I think she has done fine myself. She has won her spurs, so to speak. That is just my personal opinion.”
Rooster held up his hand and said, “All right, let it go. I have said my piece. We won’t have a lot of talk about winning spurs.”
We departed the place around noon, traveling east and slightly south. Rooster called the turn when he said “hard riding.” That big long-legged Bo just walked away from the two ponies, but the weight began to tell on him after a few miles and Little Blackie and the shaggy pony closed the distance on him ere long. We rode like the very “dickens” for about forty minutes and then stopped and dismounted and walked for a spell, giving the horses a rest. It was while we were walking that a rider came up hallooing and overtook us. We were out on a prairie and we saw him coming for some little distance.
It was Captain Finch, and he brought exciting news. He told us that shortly after we had left McAlester’s, he received word that Odus Wharton had broken from the basement jail in Fort Smith. The escape had taken place early that morning.
Here is what happened. Not long after breakfast two trusty prisoners brought in a barrel of clean sawdust for use in the spittoons of that foul dungeon. It was fairly dark down there and in a moment when the guards were not looking the trusties concealed Wharton and another doomed murderer inside the barrel. Both men were of slight stature and inconsiderable weight. The trusties then carried the two outside and away to freedom. A bold daylight escape in a fat barrel! Some clever “stunt”! The trusties ran off along with