Captain Finch thought about it. He said, “No, the way I got it, there was only the three here. Haze and the Mexican and Ned. We are watching his woman’s house. It is a waste of time and none of my business but I have sent a man out there.”
Rooster said, “It is a waste of time all right. I know about where Ned is.”
“Yes, I know too but it will take a hundred marshals to smoke him out of there.”
“It won’t take that many.”
“It wouldn’t take that many Choctaws. How many were in that marshals’ party in August? Forty?”
“It was closer to fifty,” said Rooster. “Joe Schmidt was running that game, or misrunning it. I am running this one.”
“I am surprised the chief marshal would turn you loose on a hunt like this without supervision.”
“He can’t help himself this time.”
Captain Finch said, “I could take you in there, Rooster, and show you how to bring Ned out.”
“Could you now? Well, a Indian makes too much noise to suit me. Don’t you find it so, Gaspargoo?”
That was the barber’s name. He laughed and put his hand over his mouth. Gaspargoo is also the name of a fish that makes fair eating.
I said to the captain, “Perhaps you are wondering who I am.”
“Yes, I was wondering that,” said he. “I thought you were a walking hat.”
“My name is Mattie Ross,” said I. “The man with the black mark goes by the name of Tom Chaney. He shot my father to death in Fort Smith and robbed him. Chaney was drunk and my father was not armed at the time.”
“That is a shame,” said the captain.
“When we find him we are going to club him with sticks and put him under arrest and take him back to Fort Smith,” said I.
“I wish you luck. We don’t want him down here.”
Rooster said, “Boots, I need a little help. I have got Haze and some youngster out there, along with Emmett Quincy and Moon Garrett. I am after being in a hurry and I wanted to see if you would not bury them boys for me.”
“They are dead?”
“All dead,” said Rooster. “What is it the judge says? Their depredations is now come to a fitting end.”
Captain Finch pulled the barber’s cloth from his neck. He and the barber went with us back to where the horses were tied. Rooster told them about our scrap at the dugout.
The captain grasped each dead man by the hair of the head and when he recognized a face he grunted and spoke the name. The man Haze had no hair to speak of and Captain Finch lifted his head by the ears. We learned that the boy was called Billy. His father ran a steam sawmill on the South Canadian River, the captain told us, and there was a large family at home. Billy was one of the eldest children and he had helped his father cut timber. The boy was not known to have been in any devilment before this. As for the other three, the captain did not know if they had any people who would want to claim the bodies.
Rooster said, “All right, you hold Billy for the family and bury these others. I will post their names in Fort Smith and if anybody wants them they can come dig them up.” Then he went along behind the horses slapping their rumps. He said, “These four horses was taken from Mr. Burlingame. These three right here belong to Haze and Quincy and Moon. You get what you can for them, Boots, and sell the saddles and guns and coats and I will split it with you. Is that fair enough?”
I said, “You told Moon you would send his brother the money owing to him from his traps.”
Rooster said, “I forgot where he said to send it.”
I said, “It is the district superintendent of the Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. His brother is a preacher named George Garrett.”
“Was it Austin or Dallas?”
“Austin.”
“Let’s get it straight.”
“It was Austin.”
“All right then, write it down for the captain. Send this man ten dollars, Boots, and tell him his brother got cut and is buried here.”
Captain Finch said, “Are you going out by way of Mr. Burlingame’s?”
“I don’t have the time,” said Rooster. “I would like for you to send word out if you will. Just so Mr. Burlingame knows it was deputy marshal Rooster Cogburn that recovered them horses.”
“Do you want this girl with the hat to write it down?”
“I believe you can remember it if you try.”
Captain Finch called out to some Indian youths who were standing nearby looking at us. I gathered he was telling them in the Choctaw tongue to see to the horses and the burial of the bodies. He had to speak to them a second time and very sharply before they would approach the bodies.
The railroad agent was an older man named Smallwood. He praised us for our pluck and he was very much pleased to see the sacks of cash and valuables we had recovered. You may think Rooster was hard in appropriating the traps of the dead men but I will tell you that he did not touch one cent of the money that was stolen at gunpoint from the passengers of the Katy Flyer. Smallwood looked over the “booty” and said it would certainly help to cover the loss, though it was his experience that some of the victims would make exaggerated claims.
He had known the martyred clerk personally and he said the man had been a loyal employee of the M. K. & T. for some years. In his youth the clerk had been a well-known foot racer in Kansas. He showed his spunk right to the end. Smallwood did not know the fireman personally. In both cases, said he, the M. K. & T. would try to do something for the bereaved families, though times were hard and revenue down. They say Jay Gould had no heart! Smallwood also assured Rooster that the railroad would do right by him, providing he “clean up” Lucky Ned Pepper’s robber band and recover the stolen express funds.
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?”