True Grit - Charles Portis [67]
I hurriedly cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. The charge exploded and sent a lead ball of justice, too long delayed, into the criminal head of Tom Chaney.
Yet I was not to taste the victory. The kick of the big pistol sent me reeling backward. I had forgotten about the pit behind me! Over the edge I went, then tumbling and bouncing against the irregular sides, and all the while I was grabbing wildly for something and finding nothing. I struck the bottom with a thump that fairly dazed me. The wind was knocked from my lungs and I lay still for a moment until I had regained my breath. I was addled and I had the fanciful notion that my spirit was floating out of my body, escaping through my mouth and nostrils.
I had thought myself to be lying down, but when I made to get up I found I was stuck upright in a small hole, the lower part of my body wedged in tight between mossy rocks. I was caught like a cork in a bottle!
My right arm was pinned against my side and I could not pull it free. When I tried to use my left hand to push myself out of the hole I saw with a shock that the forearm was bent in an unnatural attitude. The arm was broken! There was little pain in the arm, only a kind of “pins and needles” numbness. The movement in my fingers was weak and I had but little grasping power. I was reluctant to use the arm for leverage, fearing the pressure would worsen the fracture and bring on pain.
It was cold and dark down there, though not totally dark. A slender column of sunshine came down from above and ended in a small pool of light some three or four feet away on the stone floor of the cavern. I looked up at the column and could see floating particles of dust stirred up by my fall.
I saw on the rocks about me a few sticks and bits of paper and an old tobacco sack and splotches of grease where skillets had been emptied. I also saw the corner of a man’s blue cotton shirt, the rest of it being obscured by shadow. There were no snakes about. Thank goodness for that!
I summoned my strength and cried out, “Help! LaBoeuf! Can you hear me!” No word of reply came. I did not know if the Texan were alive or dead. All I heard was a low roaring of the wind above and dripping noises behind me and some faint “cheeps” and “squeaks.” I could not identify the nature of the squeaks or locate their origin.
I renewed my effort to break free but the vigorous movement made me slip a bit farther down in the mossy hole. My thought was: This will not do. I stopped maneuvering lest I drop right through the hole to what depths of blackness I could only imagine. My legs swung free below and my jeans were bunched up so that portions of bare leg were exposed. I felt something brush against one of my legs and I thought, Spider! I kicked and flailed my feet and then I stopped when my body settled downward another inch or so.
Now more squeaks, and it came to me that there were bats in the cavern below. Bats were making the noise and it had been a bat that attached himself to my leg. Yes, I had disturbed them. Their roosting place was below. This hole I now so effectively plugged was their opening to the outside.
I had no unreasonable fear of bats, knowing them for timid little creatures, yet I knew them too for carriers of the dread “Hydrophobia,” for which there was no specific. What would the bats do, come night and their time to fly, and they found their opening to the outer world closed off? Would they bite? If I struggled and kicked against them I would surely shake myself through the hole. But I knew I had not the will to remain motionless and let them bite.
Night! Was I to be here then till night? I must keep my head and guard against such thoughts. What of LaBoeuf? And what had become of Rooster Cogburn? He had not appeared to be badly hurt in the fall of his horse. But how would he know I was down here? I did not like my situation.
I thought to set fire to bits of cloth for a signal of smoke but the idea was useless because