“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, weakened as he was by his bad arm and broken head. “It’s no use!” he said. “I will try the horse!”
In a matter of minutes he had fastened the rope to a pony. “I am ready!” the Texan called down to us. “Take a good hold!”
“Go!” said Rooster.
He had looped the rope about his hips and once around his waist. He held me with the other arm. We were jerked from our feet. Now there was power at the other end! We went up in bounds. Rooster worked to keep us clear of the rough sides with his feet. We were skinned up a little.
Sunlight and blue sky! I was so weak that I lay upon the ground and could not speak. I blinked my eyes to accommodate them to the brightness and I saw that LaBoeuf was sitting with his bloody head in his hands and gasping from his labors in driving the horse. Then I saw the horse. It was Little Blackie! The scrub pony had saved us! My thought was: The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.
Rooster tied the cud of tobacco on top of my hand with a rag. He said, “Can you walk?”
“Yes, I think so,” said I. He led me toward the horse and when I had walked a few steps I was overcome with nausea and I dropped to my knees. When the sickness had passed, Rooster helped me along and placed me in the saddle astride Little Blackie. He bound my feet to the stirrups and with another length of rope he tied my waist to the saddle, front and back. Then he mounted behind me.
He said to LaBoeuf, “I will send help as soon as I can. Don’t wander off.”
I said, “We are not leaving him?”
Rooster said, “I must get you to a doctor, sis, or you are not going to make it.” He said to LaBoeuf as an afterthought, “I am in your debt for that shot, pard.”
The Texan said nothing and we left him there holding his head. I expect he was feeling pretty bad. Rooster spurred Blackie away and the faithful pony stumbled and skidded down the steep and brushy hill where prudent horsemen led their mounts. The descent was dangerous and particularly so with such a heavy burden as Blackie was carrying. There was no way to dodge all the limbs. Rooster lost his hat and never looked back.
We galloped across the meadow where the smoky duel had lately occurred. My eyes were congested from nausea and through a tearful haze I saw the dead horses and the bodies of the bandits. The pain in my arm became intense and I commenced to cry and the tears were blown back in streams around my cheeks. Once down from the mountains we headed north, and I guessed we were aiming for Fort Smith. Despite the load, Blackie held his head high and ran like the wind, perhaps sensing the urgency of the mission. Rooster spurred and whipped him without let. I soon passed away in a faint.
When I regained my senses, I realized we had slowed. Heaving and choking for breath, Blackie was yet giving us all he had. I cannot say how many miles we had ridden full out. Poor lathered beast! Rooster whipped and whipped.
“Stop!” I said. “We must stop! He is played out!” Rooster paid me no heed. Blackie was all in and as he stumbled and made to stop, Rooster took his dirk knife and cut a brutal slash on the pony’s withers. “Stop it! Stop it!” I cried. Little Blackie squealed and burst forth in a run under the stimulation of the pain. I wrestled for the reins but Rooster slapped my hands away. I was crying and yelling. When Blackie slowed again, Rooster took salt from his pocket and rubbed the wound with it and the pony leaped forward as before. In a very few minutes this torture was mercifully ended. Blackie fell to the ground and died, his brave heart burst and mine broken. There never lived a nobler pony.
No sooner were we down than Rooster was cutting me free. He ordered me to climb upon his back. I held fast around his neck with my right arm and he supported my legs with his arms. Now Rooster himself began to run, or jog as it were under the load, and his breath came hard. Once more I lost my senses and the next I knew I was being carried in his arms and sweat drops from his brow and mustache were falling on my neck.