True Grit - Charles Portis [59]
Chaney did as he was told and we started up with the horses. It was hard climbing. Lucky Ned Pepper and the Mexican remained behind and exchanged shots with Rooster and LaBoeuf while trying to catch the other horses. I heard running splashes as one of the officers reached the creek, then a flurry of shots as he was made to retreat.
Chaney had to stop and catch his breath after thirty or forty yards of pulling me and the two horses behind him. Blood showed through on his shirt. Lucky Ned Pepper and Greaser Bob overtook us there. They were pulling two horses. I supposed the fifth horse had run away or been killed. The leads of these two horses were turned over to Chaney and Lucky Ned Pepper said to him, “Get on up that hill and don’t be stopping again!”
The bandit chieftain took me roughly by the arm. He said, “Who all is down there?”
“Marshal Cogburn and fifty more officers,” said I.
He shook me like a terrier shaking a rat. “Tell me another lie and I will stove in your head!” Part of his upper lip was missing, a sort of gap on one side that caused him to make a whistling noise as he spoke. Three or four teeth were broken off there as well, yet he made himself clearly understood.
Thinking it best, I said, “It is Marshal Cogburn and another man.”
He flung me to the ground and put a boot on my neck to hold me while he reloaded his rifle from a cartridge belt. He shouted out, “Rooster, can you hear me?” There was no reply. The Original Greaser was standing there with us and he broke the silence by firing down the hill. Lucky Ned Pepper shouted, “You answer me, Rooster! I will kill this girl! You know I will do it!”
Rooster called up from below, “The girl is nothing to me! She is a runaway from Arkansas!”
“That’s very well!” said Lucky Ned Pepper. “Do you advise me to kill her?”
“Do what you think is best, Ned!” replied Rooster.
“She is nothing to me but a lost child! Think it over first.”
“I have already thought it over! You and Potter get mounted double fast! If I see you riding over that bald ridge to the northwest I will spare the girl! You have five minutes!”
“We will need more time!”
“I will not give you any more!”
“There will be a party of marshals in here soon, Ned! Let me have Chaney and the girl and I will mislead them for six hours!”
“Too thin, Rooster! Too thin! I won’t trust you!”
“I will cover you till dark!”
“Your five minutes is running! No more talk!”
Lucky Ned Pepper pulled me to my feet. Rooster called up again, saying, “We are leaving but you must give us time!”
The bandit chieftain made no reply. He brushed the snow and dirt from my face and said, “Your life depends upon their actions. I have never busted a cap on a woman or anybody much under sixteen years but I will do what I have to do.”
I said, “There is some mix-up here. I am Mattie Ross of near Dardanelle, Arkansas. My family has property and I don’t know why I am being treated like this.”
Lucky Ned Pepper said, “It is enough that you know I will do what I have to do.”
We made our way up the hill. A little farther along we came across a bandit armed with a shotgun and squatting behind a big slab of limestone. This man’s name was Harold Permalee. I believe he was simpleminded. He gobbled at me like a turkey until Lucky Ned Pepper made him hush. Greaser Bob was told to stay there with him behind the rock and keep a watch below. I had seen this Mexican gambler fall from Rooster’s shots at the dugout but he appeared now to be in perfect health and there was no outward evidence of a wound. When we left them there Harold Permalee made a noise like “Whooooo-haaaaaaa!” and this time it was The Greaser who made him hush.
Lucky Ned Pepper pushed me along in front of him through the brush. There was no trail. His woolly chaps sang as they