True Grit - Charles Portis [65]
It was not to be! Just as I came to the edge of the rock shelf, Chaney grabbed my coat from behind and pulled me up short. My thought was: I am certainly done for! Chaney was cursing me and he struck me on the head with the pistol barrel. The blow made me see stars and I concluded I was shot, not knowing the sensation caused by a bullet striking your head. My thoughts turned to my peaceful home in Arkansas, and my poor mother who would be laid low by the news. First her husband and now her oldest child, both gone in the space of two weeks and dispatched by the same bloody hand! That was the direction of my thoughts.
Suddenly I heard a familiar voice, and the words were hard with authority. “Hands up, Chelmsford! Move quickly! It is all up with you! Have a care with that pistol!”
It was LaBoeuf the Texan! He had come up the back way, on foot I supposed, as he was panting for breath. He was standing not thirty feet away with his wired-together rifle trained on Chaney.
Chaney let go of my coat and dropped the pistol. “Everything is against me,” he said. I recovered the pistol.
LaBoeuf said, “Are you hurt, Mattie?”
“I have a painful knot on my head,” said I.
He said to Chaney, “I see you are bleeding.”
“It was this girl done it,” said he. “I am shot in the ribs and bleeding again. It hurts when I cough.”
I said, “Where is Rooster?”
LaBoeuf said, “He is down below watching the front door. Let us find a place where we can see. Move with care, Chelmsford!”
We proceeded to the northwest corner of the rock shelf, skirting around the pit which had figured in Chaney’s ugly threats. “Watch your step there,” I cautioned the Texan. “Tom Chaney says there are deadly snakes at the bottom having their winter sleep.”
From the far corner of the ledge we had a clear prospect. The timbered slope dropped off sharply below us and led to a meadow. This meadow, level and open, was quite high itself and at the other end there was a further descent leading down out of the Winding Stair Mountains.
No sooner had we taken up our vigil than we were rewarded with the sight of Lucky Ned Pepper and the other three bandits emerging from the trees into the meadow. There they mounted their horses and headed them west, away from us. They had hardly started their ride when a lone horseman came out of the brush at the western end of the field. The horse was walking and the rider took him out to the middle of the open space and stopped, so as to block the passage of the four desperadoes.
Yes, it was Rooster Cogburn! The bandits checked up and faced him from some seventy or eighty yards’ distance. Rooster had one of the navy revolvers in his left hand and he held the reins in his right hand. He said, “Where is the girl, Ned?”
Lucky Ned Pepper said, “She was in wonderful health when last I saw her! I cannot answer for her now!”
“You will answer for her now!” said Rooster. “Where is she?”
LaBoeuf stood up and cupped his hands and shouted down, “She is all right, Cogburn! I have Chelmsford as well! Make a run for it!” I confirmed the news by shouting, “I am fine, Rooster! We have Chaney! You must get away!”
The bandits turned to look up at us and no doubt they were surprised and not a little disconcerted by the interesting development. Rooster made no reply to us and gave no sign of leaving the place.
Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Well, Rooster, will you give us the road? We have business elsewhere!”
Rooster said, “Harold, I want you and your brother to stand clear! I have no interest in you today! Stand clear now and you will not be hurt!”
Harold Permalee’s answer was to crow like a rooster, and the “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” brought a hearty laugh from his brother Farrell.
Lucky Ned Pepper said, “What is your intention? Do you think one on four is a dogfall?”
Rooster said, “I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned, or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker’s