True Grit - Charles Portis [70]
“Help!” I called. “I need help!”
Rooster’s voice came booming down, saying, “Are you all right?”
“No! I am in a bad way! Hurry up!”
“I am pitching down a rope! Fasten it under your arms and tie it with a good knot!”
“I cannot manage a rope! You will have to come down and help me! Hurry up, I am falling! There are snakes all about my head!”
“Hold on! Hold on!” came another voice. It was LaBoeuf. The Texan had survived the blow. The officers were both safe.
I watched as two rattlers struck and sunk their sharp teeth into Tom Chaney’s face and neck. The body was lifeless and made no protest. My thought was: Those scoundrels can bite in December and right there is the proof of it! One of the smaller snakes approached my hand and rubbed his nose against it. I moved my hand a little and the snake moved to it and touched his nose to the flesh again. He moved a bit more and commenced to rub the underside of his jaw on top of my hand.
From the corner of my eye I saw another snake on my left shoulder. He was motionless and limp. I could not tell if he was dead or merely asleep. Whatever the case, I did not want him there and I began to swing my body gently from side to side on the bone axle. The movement caused the serpent to roll over with his white belly up and I gave my shoulder a shake and he fell into the darkness below.
I felt a sting and I saw the little snake pulling his head away from my hand, an amber drop of venom on his mouth. He had bitten me. The hand was already well along to being dead numb from the cramped position and I hardly felt it. It was on the order of a horsefly bite. I counted myself lucky the snake was small. That was how much I knew of natural history. People who know tell me the younger snakes carry the more potent poison, and that it weakens with age. I believe what they say.
Now here came Rooster with a rope looped around his waist and his feet against the sides of the pit, descending in great violent leaps and sending another shower of rocks and dust down on me. He landed with a heavy bump and then it seemed he was doing everything at once. He grasped the collar of my coat and shirt behind my neck and heaved me up from the hole with one hand, at the same time kicking at snakes and shooting them with his belt revolver. The noise was deafening and made my head ache.
My legs were wobbly. I could hardly stand.
Rooster said, “Can you hold to my neck?”
I said, “Yes, I will try.” There were two dark red holes in his face with dried rivulets of blood under them where shotgun pellets had struck him.
He stooped down and I wrapped my right arm around his neck and lay against his back. He tried to climb the rope hand over hand with his feet against the sides of the pit but he made only about three pulls and had to drop back down. Our combined weight was too much for him. His right shoulder was torn from a bullet too, although I did not know it at the time.
“Stay behind me!” he said, kicking and stomping the snakes while he reloaded his pistol. A big grandfather snake coiled himself around Rooster’s boot and got his head shot off for his boldness.
Rooster said, “Do you think you can climb the rope?”
“My arm is broken,” said I. “And I am bit on the hand.”
He looked at the hand and pulled his dirk knife and cut the place to scarify it. He squeezed blood from it and took some smoking tobacco and hurriedly chewed it into a cud and rubbed it over the wound to draw the poison.
Then he harnessed the rope tightly under my arms. He shouted up to the Texan, saying, “Take the rope, LaBoeuf! Mattie is hurt! I want you to pull her up in easy stages! Can you hear me?”
LaBoeuf replied, “I will do what I can!”
The rope grew taut and lifted me to my toes. “Pull!” shouted Rooster. “The girl is snake-bit, man! Pull!” But LaBoeuf could not do it,