True Grit - "With No Lodestar In Sight", Mattie/LaBoeuf, T
Title: With No Lodestar In Sight - 8/12
Author: lindentree
Rating: T
Character(s): Mattie Ross/LaBoeuf, Rooster Cogburn
Word Count: 6,087
Summary: Five years after her adventure in the Choctaw Nation, Mattie Ross runs afoul of a fugitive. She soon finds herself in familiar company, if not familiar territory.
Notes: I have agonized over this chapter for weeks, and enough is enough. I hope it's okay. Thanks to ishie for putting up with all my handwringing, and to allgreycats for the cheerleading.
I stole a line from Ruby Thewes of the Civil War film Cold Mountain (which, if you are enjoying this fic, may I heartily recommend the novel by Charles Frazier?) and put it in the mouth of Rooster Cogburn. Ruby Thewes is what would happen if Rooster and Mattie procreated and their daughter was allowed to raise herself in the hills of Appalachia. Picture it. Anyway, it's the line about "sweethearts" - you'll know it when you get to it - and I understand it's a take on a regionalism that Rooster may have been familiar with, so it seemed fitting.
Warning: This chapter contains quite a lot of graphic violence, as well as sexual violence much like what was in the prologue of this story. If you have any triggers with respect to such topics, please use your discretion when reading. Thanks.
a life of wickedness
Mattie froze in place, stunned. She had been so occupied with losing her temper that she had not given a thought to the danger of wandering the woods where they knew Cunningham to be hiding. And now here he was, at last, right in front of her.
Cunningham looked up from his work and clapped eyes on her, and Mattie knew it was too late to flee back into the woods.
“Who are you?” he asked, slowly rising to his feet. There were tufts of bloody rabbit fur on his hands and the sleeves of his shabby coat, and in one hand he clutched a hunting knife. His face was thinner than when last she saw him, and the clothes he wore hung loosely on his bony frame. His shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, and there Mattie could see he wore a grimy neckerchief which was stained brown with old blood. His skin was sallow, and dark circles rimmed his blue eyes. Altogether, he did not look well.
“My name is Mattie Ross,” she replied.
He stared blankly at her; he did not seem to recognize her at all. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
Mattie swallowed. Her first thought was to tell him exactly who she was and what she was doing here, but she was unarmed. She glanced at the knife in his hand, and then back up at his face.
“I am on a coon hunt in these woods, and I have become separated from my party and am lost,” Mattie replied.
“Coon hunt?” Cunningham repeated, frowning. “Then your dogs will find you.”
“We have no dogs. It is only myself and my party.”
“That is strange, hunting coon with no dogs,” Cunningham said. He waved his knife vaguely in her direction. “I have little in the way of supplies, here, so do not ask me for food.”
He sat down heavily on the log behind him, and continued with his work - removing the rabbit’s pelt.
Mattie stared at him. She wanted to explain to him the rudeness of having nothing whatsoever to offer a guest, but she did not. The knife, and the blood on his hands, hands which had already nearly throttled her to death, stopped her from speaking. She felt the urge to put her hand to her throat, although the bruises had finally disappeared. Instead she made a fist, the burn across her palm stinging as she did so.
Cunningham removed the rest of the rabbit’s pelt, and went about preparing it for a makeshift spit he had spanned over the flames. He paused and looked up at her. She had not moved.
“You need not stand there like a scarecrow,” Cunningham said. “Sit down by the fire.”
Mattie stepped forward and sat on a low stump across from him. The fire was meagre, but it provided light and warmth enough to pierce the dark night around them. Mattie looked up at Cunningham. He secured the rabbit on the spit, and then stood, seeming to search for something.
“Do you see a bottle lying about?” he asked, peering down at the ground around him.
“I suppose you mean a bottle of liquor,” Mattie replied.
“I do. It was prescribed to me by a bona fide medical doctor,” he said earnestly.
Mattie did not reply to this. Instead she watched as he moved away from the fire, kicking at the carpet of leaves and sticks on the forest floor, muttering to himself.
Her mind raced as she kept her eyes trained on Cunningham. She had stormed away from LaBoeuf and Rooster in a temper, but surely they would expect her return, would they not? When she did not come back in short order, certainly they would search for her.
Apprehension settled coldly in her stomach, and she fought against the feeling of panic which loomed over her. Certainly they would search for her.
Cunningham had become a mere moving shadow in the gloom beyond the light of the fire, the only signifier of his presence the sound of his footsteps in the underbrush. Mattie glanced down at the fire then, and saw his bloodied knife resting against a rock. She did not dare hesitate. Before Cunningham could spy her, she reached over and snatched up the knife, sliding it gingerly into her sleeve.
Cunningham did not even seem to notice, so occupied was he with locating his bottle of moonshine.
Mattie’s heart pounded in her chest. Surely he would notice his knife had disappeared. The moment he returned to the fire, he would know. What would she do then, if he pounced on her? She swallowed.
Cunningham meandered back to the fire, a sour expression on his face. He gave the log a kick before sitting down again. He scratched fitfully at the stubble on his face, and looked up at her. His brows drew together in a glower which he slowly lifted to direct at her. Mattie met his eyes, holding tight to the last of her nerve.
He stood again, and came around the fire, stopping at her side. He stared down at her for a moment longer, and then he bent over. He was so close to her she could smelly the filthy, stale liquor smell of him. She held her breath and began to slide the knife from her sleeve.
But Cunningham straightened before she could move. He brought his hand up, and in it was a half-empty bottle of liquor. He shook it, sloshing the murky contents about.
“It was right there next to you, in the leaves. You ought to have said something,” he said. He returned to his seat on the far side of the fire.
Mattie found she did not have the breath to say a single word. Instead she continued to watch him while trying to slow her racing heart.
Cunningham took a healthy swig from the bottle. When he finished, he swiped his arm over his face, wiping his mouth on his dirty coat sleeve. He eyed her for a moment, and then his brow creased as his gaze dropped to her short arm. He fixed on it, a strange expression crossing his face. He raised his eyes to meet hers, and Mattie shivered to see the dark look there.
“How did you get like that?” he asked. It was the same question he had asked her before, when they first met. Mattie’s eyes searched his face for some hint of his intentions. She still could not tell if he recognized her or not. When she did not immediately answer, he frowned at her. “I want to know how you came to lose that arm,” he said, more insistently.
Mattie’s eyes narrowed. “I do not see what business my arm is of yours,” she replied.
He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “I do not see why you should be so shy. I am only curious.”
“If you are only curious, then you will not mind it if I tell you nothing of how I came to lose my arm, and if I also say that asking such questions is impertinent indeed.”
“You are a wrathy thing,” Cunningham observed. His tone of voice was calm, but there was something strange and eager in his look that Mattie did not like. “Shame no one ever took the tar out of you, proper like. Your pa should have. You might have been a sweet, meek little cherry, then.”
Mattie sneered at him, repulsed. “Someone ought to have taken the tar out of you. Then perhaps you might not have fallen to a life of wickedness.”
Cunningham did not respond. He stared at her, his eyes searching her face. Suddenly he smiled, and exhaled an odd kind of laugh. Mattie could see in his smile that he might have been handsome, if not for the awful rest of him.
“A life of wickedness?” he asked. “What makes you think I live a life of wickedness?”
Mattie paused a moment, sensing her mistake. She raised her eyebrows in what she hoped was an honest look. “When I said that yours was a life of wickedness, I was referring to your drinking.”
“You are a teetotaller,” Cunningham said, and then fell silent, distracted by adjusting the rabbit over the flames. What little fat there was in the skimpy creature dripped off and sizzled in the fire. The sight of it did not whet Mattie’s appetite. If anything, it turned her stomach.
“I am very hungry and do not wish to share this,” he said then, sitting back on his log. “I have not eaten in some days, for I have no money.”
Mattie thought of the young woman back in Texarkana. It seemed he had enough money for that. Or perhaps he did not, and that was why they had fallen to quarrelling.
Cunningham looked up at her. “That is a sour expression you have. You ought not to scowl at people so. One day some person may take offense to your sauce.”
Mattie thought of LaBoeuf and felt her heart sink. Whether he and Rooster were troubling themselves to search for her did not matter. Cunningham could turn on her at any moment and kill her, long before they arrived. He seemed docile enough now, but she did not trust it, and she supposed herself to be next to useless at placating him.
“The face God gave me is the one I must live with, as must everyone else,” Mattie replied.
“You still have not told me about your arm. Were you born with that deformity?”
“I lost my arm when I was fourteen years old,” she said, fed up with his rude questions. “I shot the man who killed my father in Fort Smith, and the Sharps-Carbine I used kicked me back into a pit, where I was bitten by a rattlesnake. The wound festered and the arm had to be removed. Does that satisfy your curiosity, which you ought to know is indecent and impertinent?”
“Your father is dead?” he asked.
“Yes, he is.”
Cunningham went quite still, staring down into the fire with a frown on his face. He lifted his eyes to look at her. “And are you from these parts here?”
“I am,” she lied. “I live outside Texarkana.”
“What was your father doing in Fort Smith?”
“He would go there sometimes for trade,” she replied.
“That is a peculiar place to go for trade when you are already near Texarkana,” Cunningham observed.
“My father was a peculiar man,” Mattie said simply.
Cunningham stared at her for several more moments, seeming to give great consideration to her words. Finally he looked away, grabbing a stick to poke the embers of the fire.
“You may pass the night here if you like. It will be easier for you to find your way back to your party in the daylight,” Cunningham said.
Mattie considered the options before her as she watched Cunningham through the smoke. Rooster and LaBoeuf may well be searching for her, she thought, but it was dark and she did not know how far she had wandered. It could take hours to pick up her trail if they started off in the wrong direction. With only a hunting knife at her disposal, she did not think herself capable of disarming him. She could get up and leave, she supposed, but she did not know where she was, and what was much worse, she would be letting Cunningham escape. She did not care to stay in his company, but she did not know what else to do. She would have to “sit tight” and await the moment when she might take his gun and overpower him that way. That was the only sensible course of action.
Neither of them spoke any as Cunningham tended the fire and cooked his supper. When the rabbit was cooked, he ate it right off the spit. He ate ravenously, as though he had not eaten in weeks, and soon his food was all but gone and his face and hands were a greasy mess. He held the spit out to her.
“You may have what’s left, if you like,” he said.
Mattie eyed the carcass. He had picked the bones clean and there was hardly anything left to have. “I am not hungry,” she replied.
“You suit yourself.” Cunningham stood then, and tossed the leavings of his supper off into the woods. Mattie frowned. The man obviously knew little about how to manage a proper camp. He was liable to attract wolves and bears and every manner of troublesome wild creature that way.
Cunningham then settled down with his head leaning back against a log, and his bottle of spirits clutched in the crook of his elbow. He closed his eyes and did not speak, but he did not sleep either, for he took regular swigs from the bottle.
Mattie sighed, and propped her shoulders against the log behind her, her feet towards the fire. She wrapped herself more snugly in her coat, shivering against the cold. The fire provided precious little warmth, but she was unwilling to get up and fetch more wood. She would simply have to suffer it until Cunningham fell asleep and she could take his gun.
“You are too old to be out on coon hunts. You ought to be at home,” Cunningham said eventually, without opening his eyes.
“What I ought to be doing is no business of yours,” Mattie replied.
“You would not be in this unhappy situation, lost as you are, if you had stayed home where you belong.”
Mattie said nothing, although she could not help but agree with the basic truth of what he said.
Cunningham fell silent, and Mattie awaited the sound of his snores, or some other sign that he was asleep. As she waited, she turned her predicament over once again in her mind. She could not help but think of what LaBoeuf had said, about what price she might have to pay for her vengeance. It would be something; that much was certain. But what would it be? She thought of the farm, of the winter garden and the cold weather crops. She thought of Mama, Little Frank, and Victoria. She thought of Rooster. She thought of LaBoeuf.
What would God take from her, if she took Cunningham’s life? What toll would there be for this errand, undertaken to retrieve her one hundred dollars, yes, but also to avenge the trespassing of her land, and the wounding of her body, her dignity?
Mattie closed her eyes against the ugly visions that troubled her. There was nothing for it now. She was too far from home to entertain such fears. If she had to defend herself against Cunningham, she would do so by any means necessary. And if God would take something from her in kind, then that was His will. She was as subject to it as any other creature.
But if anything happened to those people and places she held dear, she knew it would be on her head until Judgment Day.
It was cold, and the ground hard, and Mattie longed for her bedroll and the large fire Rooster always insisted upon. She longed also for the silent comfort of the nearness of her friends.
With that thought she must have fallen asleep, for it was the last thing she remembered when she stirred sometime later. She was confused for a moment before she recalled where she was. She blinked blearily to adjust her eyes to the deep blue pre-dawn light, and jolted when she realised Cunningham was kneeling right next to her.
His hand came down and clamped firmly on her throat, as if he had been waiting for the precise moment she awoke. Grimly, she realised he probably had.
“I see now,” he said in a low voice. “I see what you are and why you have come. You think you can get at me, make me turn myself over to the law.”
Mattie’s thought was that taking him alive was about the last thing she wanted right now, but she held her peace.
“You are not lost,” he continued. “You are not on a coon hunt at all. You are here to bedevil me.”
“I do not know what you are talking about,” Mattie replied hoarsely. “I am here for the reasons I told you, and I have nothing to do with the law.”
“You are nothing but a foolish girl,” he continued. “Do you not know your scripture? God gave man dominion over all living things. That includes women.”
“I suppose that is how some might interpret that passage,” Mattie replied.
“That is the only way to interpret that passage,” he said, shaking his head. It was difficult to see his expression in the dimness; he was a dark outline against the trees and the sky. “I find I am tired, very tired indeed of this business. I would shoot you dead, for that would be hardly any trouble at all, except that I do not have much shot to waste. I could leave your body to rot in these woods and no one would find you for weeks.”
The dying fire hissed and popped, and Mattie felt smoke in the back of her throat. She swallowed dryly against the pressure of his hand.
“You think I do not know who you are?” he asked, easing one knee between hers and kneeling there, pinning her in place. “I know I am being pursued, and I know you are the one who follows me. I remember you. I remember it all. I guess you thought I was a fool, but I’m no fool. You are the homely cotton farming girl from Arkansas. You are the one who tried to cut my throat. You do not think I would forget such a thing as that, do you?”
He squeezed her throat then, and Mattie squirmed as the edges of her vision turned black. He released his grip just as suddenly, and Mattie coughed and gasped for air.
Without removing his hand, Cunningham moved again, digging a sharp kneecap into the flesh of her thigh. Mattie winced and squirmed, but it was impossible to move.
“Did you think you would catch me?” he asked, his voice hushed. “You are not the first. I have been hounded by others, but none has caught me. I have dug too many graves to be caught by a one-armed harridan who don’t know her place.”
He pulled at her coat, yanking the buttons free. Mattie’s thoughts raced, terrified, but she tried to keep a rein on it. If she panicked, she would be lost.
“You may scream and cry if you like,” he said congenially. “There is no one around to hear you.”
Mattie nearly told him that a former Federal Marshall and a Texas Ranger were in fact around to hear her, but she stopped herself. There was no wind; the woods were utterly still. Even if they were far away and not searching for her, it was possible they would still hear her if she was loud enough.
Mattie had never been one to scream or cry when she was small. Victoria had been much better at it, and had often, due to Little Frank’s torturous ministrations, been able to produce a sound from her little body that rivalled passing locomotives.
As Cunningham continued to pull ineptly at her clothes, Mattie took as deep a breath as she could, and forced a sound that matched Victoria’s best efforts.
She carried on shouting and crying out and making as much noise as possible for several moments, until Cunningham abruptly drew back and hit her across the cheekbone with his closed fist.
“Enough of that,” he hissed, as Mattie reeled from the harsh blow. He hit her again, and bright spots of colour mixed with patches of blackness swirled behind her eyelids as she closed them, trying to make the world stop spinning. The crack must have gotten her nose as well, for she felt blood slide down and pool at the back of her throat. She coughed, and turned her head to spit the blood out.
“Now see what you have done,” Cunningham said. He allowed her a moment, and then shifted his weight so he was lying on top of her, holding her down by the shoulder of her short arm. He paused and stared down at her, and she stared back up at him. She flexed the fingers of her hand, and felt the dirty steel blade of his knife under her wrist.
Just tell me when, Lord, she thought. Present me with a moment and I will do what I must.
“I suppose you want a kiss first,” Cunningham said. He tilted his head curiously at her. “Sometimes they are easier if I do that, although I do not like it myself.”
Revolted, Mattie did not reply. Crushing the breath out of her with his whole weight, he put his face near hers. The reek of spirits was putrid, and Mattie knew that although his strength was greater than hers, his intoxication gave her an advantage. Seizing her opportunity, she eased the knife out of her sleeve and, gripping it as firmly as she could in her shaking hand, stabbed it into him at the first point she found, right between his ribs.
Cunningham jerked and cried out, and Mattie pulled the knife back, feeling hot blood spill over her hand. In confusion, Cunningham reeled back and, kneeling over her, hit her again. But Mattie was ready and she rolled with the force of it, knocking Cunningham off of her.
She hopped to her feet, backing away from him and holding the knife out in front of her.
“What is this now?” he moaned, clutching his side and rolling in the leaves. “Why would you do me such harm? Where did you find this weapon?”
“It is your own knife,” Mattie replied, her voice wavering harshly as her heart pounded. “I took it off you hours ago, and you would have noticed had you not been so fixated on finding your bottle of spirits!”
Cunningham struggled to his knees, still holding his side. His hands were covered in blood. “Damn you. I should have strangled you while you slept.”
“Yes, you should have, but you did not,” Mattie replied.
Cunningham moaned in pain, sitting back on his heels. He coughed, making a wet, rattling sound, and spat a mouthful of blood on the ground. “You put a hole in my goddamn lung,” he groaned.
Mattie did not reply, instead casting her eyes about for his gun. She had not yet seen it, but she knew he must have one. He had shot that poor horse with it, and he had mentioned having one, besides.
Cunningham was crouching in the dirt and muttering to himself. Mattie could not hear much of what he was saying and it seemed to be nonsense, but then he raised his voice.
“Ma always said if I had to do it I ought to go for weak ones, but here you are, standing over me. How can this be?”
Mattie stared at him, her mouth agape. “I knew your mother was helping you to evade capture, but I never -”
“Quiet!” Cunningham barked, pointing a bloodied finger at her. “Don’t you say a word about my ma!”
“You think that you killed because your victims were weak?” Mattie asked. He only strangled out a cough in reply. “You have it backwards! You killed because you are weak in character, and ugly inside, and because you are greedy. They died because they were unfortunate enough to make your acquaintance. I have escaped you twice because you are so foolish that you cannot stay sober long enough to kill me properly!”
“Damn you,” he mumbled, slowly getting to his feet. His knees shook as he did so, but he managed to stand. Mattie gripped the knife tighter.
“If you take but one step closer to me, I will see that this time I cut your throat much deeper,” Mattie said.
Cunningham ignored her warning, lurching towards her. Mattie stood her ground, holding the knife out before her. He clutched his bleeding side with one hand and made to grab her with the other. She jerked her hand, catching the sleeve of his forearm, and took a large step away from him.
“Damn the day I ever set foot in Arkansas!” he hissed. He bent over a moment, holding his forearm with his bloodied hand. When he straightened, Mattie could see that the whole side of his shirt was stained dark with blood. She took another large step back, still holding her knife up.
“I warned you once and I will not warn you again,” Mattie said. “Where are you hiding your gun?”
Before Cunningham could say a word, there was a snapping sound from in the woods, as though someone had stepped on a dry branch. Mattie and Cunningham both went still.
“Who is that, there?” Cunningham said, peering off into the trees. His voice carried through the still dawn, echoing.
There was a pause, and then the sound of a voice nearby.
“I am a Texas Ranger, and if your name is Cunningham, I have come to apprehend you and take you back to Texarkana.”
Mattie could not help herself - her heart jumped in her chest and tears of relief sprang to her eyes.
“Best to give yourself up, son. We got you surrounded, and can shoot from cover.” It was a second voice, Rooster Cogburn’s, from another direction.
“If you release that young woman there unharmed, it will go all the better for you,” called LaBoeuf.
“I am here!” Mattie called. “It is our man, Cunningham, and he has a gun although I do not know where it is!”
Cunningham lunged towards her, and Mattie held up her knife. “I said I will cut your throat if you come near me,” she said firmly.
The man held up his bloodied hands in a placating motion, and backed away a step, stumbling as he did so. His expression took on a look of despair, and suddenly he reached behind him into the waist of his trousers and produced a pistol. He pointed it at her for a moment, and then pulled the trigger. Mattie yelped in surprise and ducked, but the bullet went astray, to the side of her head someplace. Cunningham turned and fired two shots off into the woods in the direction from which LaBoeuf’s voice had come.
“Mr. LaBoeuf!” Mattie cried, her eyes searching the woods for any sign of him.
There was another shot, and she felt the hot spray of blood hit the side of her face, followed by the sound of a heavy collapsing thump on the forest floor. Mattie spun about to look.
There, sprawled on the ground but two feet from her, was Cunningham. Cautiously, Mattie took a step closer and peered at him. A circle of blood was spreading into the dirt all around his head, and his pistol was still clutched in his hand.
The man had shot himself.
Mattie barely had a moment to comprehend the horrible sight before someone called her name and she felt hands on her shoulders, turning her about. Stunned, she found herself looking up into LaBoeuf’s worried face.
“You are not injured? He did not harm you? Thank the Lord,” LaBoeuf said, his fingers digging urgently into her shoulders. Mattie attempted to form a reply, but LaBoeuf pulled her into his chest, holding her tightly to him. Mattie froze in the band of his arms, her face pressed into his shoulder, unable to move. After a moment, LaBoeuf’s hold loosened and he pulled back to look at her. One hand came up and brushed her hair from her face, and he had the strangest look in his eyes as he regarded her. “If anything had happened to you, I do not know -”
“LaBoeuf! Where the hell are you, you shitpoke? You were supposed to send the signal!” It was Rooster, his voice echoing out from somewhere nearby.
“Ah, yes,” LaBoeuf said, abruptly letting Mattie go and lifting his revolver to look at it. “I did neglect to send the signal. We are here, Cogburn! Mattie is fine.”
LaBoeuf replaced his revolver in its holster, and turned to regard her once more. “I am sorry I did not follow you. It is unforgivable that I let you go off into the woods, alone and unprotected. Even worse that I was so foolish as to attempt to force you from this place. I ought to have known... I am responsible for what has happened to you.”
“I do not see how that is so,” Mattie replied. “Your decision not to follow me had no bearing on my stumbling upon Cunningham. That was providence of a kind, I suppose.”
LaBoeuf’s eyes searched her face. “Ever stoic and impassive, even standing here, battered once again, this villain’s blood on your skin. Do you not know fear? When it became clear that you were not coming back to me, I knew it. I knew fear.”
Mattie gaped at him, rendered speechless by the distress in his voice. Her mouth gone dry, she swallowed. “Mr. LaBoeuf, I -”
Rooster emerged from the woods then, coming from a different direction than LaBoeuf had, and he groaned an inarticulate sound of complaint. “Never had you pegged for a poet, LaBoeuf,” he said, chuckling to himself as though he had made a very funny joke. “Never had you pegged for one to be taken in by poetry, neither, sis.”
“I have not been ‘taken in,’” Mattie replied, embarrassed. She stood apart from LaBoeuf, swaying slightly on her feet.
“Cogburn, you could sooner catch a weasel asleep than see Mattie Ross ‘taken in’ by any man,” LaBoeuf interjected, sounding perturbed.
“Hmph,” said Rooster. He wandered over to Cunningham’s side and looked down at the still body. “You ever want to get three feet up a bull’s ass, just you listen to the things sweethearts say to one another.”
“Sweethearts?” Mattie repeated. “Sweethearts, indeed!” She glanced at LaBoeuf, and noticed for the first time that the upper arm of his coat was torn and bloodied. “Mr. LaBoeuf!” she cried. “You are shot!”
“What? Oh, so I am,” he replied distractedly, glancing down at himself. “I suspect one of these days I will injure that arm beyond repair.”
Rooster came to stand beside them, one of his pistols in his hand. He cocked his head and peered at Mattie. He let out a low whistle. “Looks like he got you good. That face of yours is going to be black and blue, make no mistake.”
Mattie sighed, and turned to meet LaBoeuf’s eyes, which were trained once more on her face. The fear had gone from his expression, and he was looking at her with something like admiration.
“How did you fight him off?” he asked.
“I took his knife hours ago and hid it in my sleeve. He did not notice. He woke me some time ago with what I suppose were wicked intentions, and when he had me pinned, I stuck the knife between his ribs,” she explained. Her head throbbed, and for the first time she became properly aware of the new bruises and aches on her body.
“You are a good man to have in a tight spot,” Rooster said, smiling wryly.
LaBoeuf cleared his throat. “I will fetch Alma. She is most anxious to see that you are all right.” With that, he turned and walked off into the bush.
“Have a seat there, little sis,” Rooster said, pointing at one of the stumps near the fire. Mattie did so without complaint, for she was exhausted and unsteady on her feet. She watched as Rooster returned to Cunningham’s body and bent down to examine him. He removed the pistol from the dead man’s hand. Mattie turned away.
“When we figured you weren’t returning to the camp last night,” Rooster said, “we set about looking for you. Couldn’t find no trace in the darkness. It’s plum good luck that we heard your yelping some time ago and followed the sound of it here.”
“I hoped you would hear me, or else I would not have given him the satisfaction,” Mattie replied, casting a disgruntled look at Cunningham’s corpse. “As it is, I feel very foolish now for having run off in such a fashion.”
“Worked out in the end,” Rooster said. “You flushed Cunningham out, even if you did not mean to. Anyhow, it’s done and there’s nothing else for it. If it helps you, the whole affair had him in quite a state.” Rooster jerked his chin in the direction LaBoeuf had gone, and then turned back to looking through Cunningham’s pockets.
Mattie frowned. That did not help her at all.
LaBoeuf emerged from the woods a few minutes later, leading the three horses behind him. The two men then stood discussing how best to get them and their new “cargo” back to Texarkana.
Mattie sat in stunned silence, almost as though she could not hear a word they said. Some strange feeling had come over her, and she became aware that she wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to see her mother.
“Mattie?”
She looked up to see her two companions standing before her, watching her with similar expressions of concern on their faces. With some amusement she realised that she had gotten her wish - they were getting along all right, at least for the moment.
“Here, little sis,” Rooster said, taking a bottle of liquor from his coat pocket. He held it out to her. “You’ve had yourself a powerful scare, now. A swig of this will put you back on your feet.”
LaBoeuf threw Rooster an exasperated sort of glance, and then looked back at her. “We know how you feel about it, but I do not believe anyone would think ill of you if your nerves have been rattled. Under these circumstances I think you could consider it a medical application of spirits.”
Mattie took a deep breath and stood, shaking her head in refusal. “My nerves can take a bit of rattling. Shall we depart?”
LaBoeuf nodded, and helped her onto Alma without another word about it. Mattie did not reject the help; she was too tired to bother with it. She looked down at him as he tightened Alma’s girth and adjusted the stirrups.
“Mr. LaBoeuf?” she asked.
He paused his work and looked up at her, his hand resting on her knee. “Yes?”
“Cunningham took his own life.”
“He did,” LaBoeuf agreed.
“And I am alive.”
“You are.”
“What do you think I will have to give up for this? Do you think it will be something so dear as before? Dearer, perhaps?”
LaBoeuf looked at her, a furrow in his brow. He did not seem to know what to say to her. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Mattie, it is not always... That is, did Cunningham hit you with anything harder than his fist? It is not like you to ask me these kinds of questions. Rather I am used to having them answered by you, whether anyone has asked them, or not.”
He was making fun of a kind, she supposed, but she did not feel compelled to laugh. She continued to look at him, and he frowned.
“We had better get you back into town,” he said. He must have realised then where his hand rested, for he abruptly removed it and, giving the straps on the saddle a final tug, turned away.
Mattie watched as LaBoeuf and Rooster tied Cunningham’s body to Sal’s back. The horse laid her ears back and showed the whites of her eyes. She tossed her head and LaBoeuf spoke softly to her, petting her forelock. Eventually the only way Sal would walk on was with LaBoeuf’s spare shirt tied over her eyes. Rooster led the way out of the forest, back the way they had come, and Mattie rode at LaBoeuf’s side as he walked next to Sal.
They did not talk much at all on the way back, exhausted as they were to find themselves at their journey’s end. They rode into Texarkana in the blue light of dawn.
Chapter 9
Author: lindentree
Rating: T
Character(s): Mattie Ross/LaBoeuf, Rooster Cogburn
Word Count: 6,087
Summary: Five years after her adventure in the Choctaw Nation, Mattie Ross runs afoul of a fugitive. She soon finds herself in familiar company, if not familiar territory.
Notes: I have agonized over this chapter for weeks, and enough is enough. I hope it's okay. Thanks to ishie for putting up with all my handwringing, and to allgreycats for the cheerleading.
I stole a line from Ruby Thewes of the Civil War film Cold Mountain (which, if you are enjoying this fic, may I heartily recommend the novel by Charles Frazier?) and put it in the mouth of Rooster Cogburn. Ruby Thewes is what would happen if Rooster and Mattie procreated and their daughter was allowed to raise herself in the hills of Appalachia. Picture it. Anyway, it's the line about "sweethearts" - you'll know it when you get to it - and I understand it's a take on a regionalism that Rooster may have been familiar with, so it seemed fitting.
Warning: This chapter contains quite a lot of graphic violence, as well as sexual violence much like what was in the prologue of this story. If you have any triggers with respect to such topics, please use your discretion when reading. Thanks.
a life of wickedness
Mattie froze in place, stunned. She had been so occupied with losing her temper that she had not given a thought to the danger of wandering the woods where they knew Cunningham to be hiding. And now here he was, at last, right in front of her.
Cunningham looked up from his work and clapped eyes on her, and Mattie knew it was too late to flee back into the woods.
“Who are you?” he asked, slowly rising to his feet. There were tufts of bloody rabbit fur on his hands and the sleeves of his shabby coat, and in one hand he clutched a hunting knife. His face was thinner than when last she saw him, and the clothes he wore hung loosely on his bony frame. His shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, and there Mattie could see he wore a grimy neckerchief which was stained brown with old blood. His skin was sallow, and dark circles rimmed his blue eyes. Altogether, he did not look well.
“My name is Mattie Ross,” she replied.
He stared blankly at her; he did not seem to recognize her at all. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
Mattie swallowed. Her first thought was to tell him exactly who she was and what she was doing here, but she was unarmed. She glanced at the knife in his hand, and then back up at his face.
“I am on a coon hunt in these woods, and I have become separated from my party and am lost,” Mattie replied.
“Coon hunt?” Cunningham repeated, frowning. “Then your dogs will find you.”
“We have no dogs. It is only myself and my party.”
“That is strange, hunting coon with no dogs,” Cunningham said. He waved his knife vaguely in her direction. “I have little in the way of supplies, here, so do not ask me for food.”
He sat down heavily on the log behind him, and continued with his work - removing the rabbit’s pelt.
Mattie stared at him. She wanted to explain to him the rudeness of having nothing whatsoever to offer a guest, but she did not. The knife, and the blood on his hands, hands which had already nearly throttled her to death, stopped her from speaking. She felt the urge to put her hand to her throat, although the bruises had finally disappeared. Instead she made a fist, the burn across her palm stinging as she did so.
Cunningham removed the rest of the rabbit’s pelt, and went about preparing it for a makeshift spit he had spanned over the flames. He paused and looked up at her. She had not moved.
“You need not stand there like a scarecrow,” Cunningham said. “Sit down by the fire.”
Mattie stepped forward and sat on a low stump across from him. The fire was meagre, but it provided light and warmth enough to pierce the dark night around them. Mattie looked up at Cunningham. He secured the rabbit on the spit, and then stood, seeming to search for something.
“Do you see a bottle lying about?” he asked, peering down at the ground around him.
“I suppose you mean a bottle of liquor,” Mattie replied.
“I do. It was prescribed to me by a bona fide medical doctor,” he said earnestly.
Mattie did not reply to this. Instead she watched as he moved away from the fire, kicking at the carpet of leaves and sticks on the forest floor, muttering to himself.
Her mind raced as she kept her eyes trained on Cunningham. She had stormed away from LaBoeuf and Rooster in a temper, but surely they would expect her return, would they not? When she did not come back in short order, certainly they would search for her.
Apprehension settled coldly in her stomach, and she fought against the feeling of panic which loomed over her. Certainly they would search for her.
Cunningham had become a mere moving shadow in the gloom beyond the light of the fire, the only signifier of his presence the sound of his footsteps in the underbrush. Mattie glanced down at the fire then, and saw his bloodied knife resting against a rock. She did not dare hesitate. Before Cunningham could spy her, she reached over and snatched up the knife, sliding it gingerly into her sleeve.
Cunningham did not even seem to notice, so occupied was he with locating his bottle of moonshine.
Mattie’s heart pounded in her chest. Surely he would notice his knife had disappeared. The moment he returned to the fire, he would know. What would she do then, if he pounced on her? She swallowed.
Cunningham meandered back to the fire, a sour expression on his face. He gave the log a kick before sitting down again. He scratched fitfully at the stubble on his face, and looked up at her. His brows drew together in a glower which he slowly lifted to direct at her. Mattie met his eyes, holding tight to the last of her nerve.
He stood again, and came around the fire, stopping at her side. He stared down at her for a moment longer, and then he bent over. He was so close to her she could smelly the filthy, stale liquor smell of him. She held her breath and began to slide the knife from her sleeve.
But Cunningham straightened before she could move. He brought his hand up, and in it was a half-empty bottle of liquor. He shook it, sloshing the murky contents about.
“It was right there next to you, in the leaves. You ought to have said something,” he said. He returned to his seat on the far side of the fire.
Mattie found she did not have the breath to say a single word. Instead she continued to watch him while trying to slow her racing heart.
Cunningham took a healthy swig from the bottle. When he finished, he swiped his arm over his face, wiping his mouth on his dirty coat sleeve. He eyed her for a moment, and then his brow creased as his gaze dropped to her short arm. He fixed on it, a strange expression crossing his face. He raised his eyes to meet hers, and Mattie shivered to see the dark look there.
“How did you get like that?” he asked. It was the same question he had asked her before, when they first met. Mattie’s eyes searched his face for some hint of his intentions. She still could not tell if he recognized her or not. When she did not immediately answer, he frowned at her. “I want to know how you came to lose that arm,” he said, more insistently.
Mattie’s eyes narrowed. “I do not see what business my arm is of yours,” she replied.
He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “I do not see why you should be so shy. I am only curious.”
“If you are only curious, then you will not mind it if I tell you nothing of how I came to lose my arm, and if I also say that asking such questions is impertinent indeed.”
“You are a wrathy thing,” Cunningham observed. His tone of voice was calm, but there was something strange and eager in his look that Mattie did not like. “Shame no one ever took the tar out of you, proper like. Your pa should have. You might have been a sweet, meek little cherry, then.”
Mattie sneered at him, repulsed. “Someone ought to have taken the tar out of you. Then perhaps you might not have fallen to a life of wickedness.”
Cunningham did not respond. He stared at her, his eyes searching her face. Suddenly he smiled, and exhaled an odd kind of laugh. Mattie could see in his smile that he might have been handsome, if not for the awful rest of him.
“A life of wickedness?” he asked. “What makes you think I live a life of wickedness?”
Mattie paused a moment, sensing her mistake. She raised her eyebrows in what she hoped was an honest look. “When I said that yours was a life of wickedness, I was referring to your drinking.”
“You are a teetotaller,” Cunningham said, and then fell silent, distracted by adjusting the rabbit over the flames. What little fat there was in the skimpy creature dripped off and sizzled in the fire. The sight of it did not whet Mattie’s appetite. If anything, it turned her stomach.
“I am very hungry and do not wish to share this,” he said then, sitting back on his log. “I have not eaten in some days, for I have no money.”
Mattie thought of the young woman back in Texarkana. It seemed he had enough money for that. Or perhaps he did not, and that was why they had fallen to quarrelling.
Cunningham looked up at her. “That is a sour expression you have. You ought not to scowl at people so. One day some person may take offense to your sauce.”
Mattie thought of LaBoeuf and felt her heart sink. Whether he and Rooster were troubling themselves to search for her did not matter. Cunningham could turn on her at any moment and kill her, long before they arrived. He seemed docile enough now, but she did not trust it, and she supposed herself to be next to useless at placating him.
“The face God gave me is the one I must live with, as must everyone else,” Mattie replied.
“You still have not told me about your arm. Were you born with that deformity?”
“I lost my arm when I was fourteen years old,” she said, fed up with his rude questions. “I shot the man who killed my father in Fort Smith, and the Sharps-Carbine I used kicked me back into a pit, where I was bitten by a rattlesnake. The wound festered and the arm had to be removed. Does that satisfy your curiosity, which you ought to know is indecent and impertinent?”
“Your father is dead?” he asked.
“Yes, he is.”
Cunningham went quite still, staring down into the fire with a frown on his face. He lifted his eyes to look at her. “And are you from these parts here?”
“I am,” she lied. “I live outside Texarkana.”
“What was your father doing in Fort Smith?”
“He would go there sometimes for trade,” she replied.
“That is a peculiar place to go for trade when you are already near Texarkana,” Cunningham observed.
“My father was a peculiar man,” Mattie said simply.
Cunningham stared at her for several more moments, seeming to give great consideration to her words. Finally he looked away, grabbing a stick to poke the embers of the fire.
“You may pass the night here if you like. It will be easier for you to find your way back to your party in the daylight,” Cunningham said.
Mattie considered the options before her as she watched Cunningham through the smoke. Rooster and LaBoeuf may well be searching for her, she thought, but it was dark and she did not know how far she had wandered. It could take hours to pick up her trail if they started off in the wrong direction. With only a hunting knife at her disposal, she did not think herself capable of disarming him. She could get up and leave, she supposed, but she did not know where she was, and what was much worse, she would be letting Cunningham escape. She did not care to stay in his company, but she did not know what else to do. She would have to “sit tight” and await the moment when she might take his gun and overpower him that way. That was the only sensible course of action.
Neither of them spoke any as Cunningham tended the fire and cooked his supper. When the rabbit was cooked, he ate it right off the spit. He ate ravenously, as though he had not eaten in weeks, and soon his food was all but gone and his face and hands were a greasy mess. He held the spit out to her.
“You may have what’s left, if you like,” he said.
Mattie eyed the carcass. He had picked the bones clean and there was hardly anything left to have. “I am not hungry,” she replied.
“You suit yourself.” Cunningham stood then, and tossed the leavings of his supper off into the woods. Mattie frowned. The man obviously knew little about how to manage a proper camp. He was liable to attract wolves and bears and every manner of troublesome wild creature that way.
Cunningham then settled down with his head leaning back against a log, and his bottle of spirits clutched in the crook of his elbow. He closed his eyes and did not speak, but he did not sleep either, for he took regular swigs from the bottle.
Mattie sighed, and propped her shoulders against the log behind her, her feet towards the fire. She wrapped herself more snugly in her coat, shivering against the cold. The fire provided precious little warmth, but she was unwilling to get up and fetch more wood. She would simply have to suffer it until Cunningham fell asleep and she could take his gun.
“You are too old to be out on coon hunts. You ought to be at home,” Cunningham said eventually, without opening his eyes.
“What I ought to be doing is no business of yours,” Mattie replied.
“You would not be in this unhappy situation, lost as you are, if you had stayed home where you belong.”
Mattie said nothing, although she could not help but agree with the basic truth of what he said.
Cunningham fell silent, and Mattie awaited the sound of his snores, or some other sign that he was asleep. As she waited, she turned her predicament over once again in her mind. She could not help but think of what LaBoeuf had said, about what price she might have to pay for her vengeance. It would be something; that much was certain. But what would it be? She thought of the farm, of the winter garden and the cold weather crops. She thought of Mama, Little Frank, and Victoria. She thought of Rooster. She thought of LaBoeuf.
What would God take from her, if she took Cunningham’s life? What toll would there be for this errand, undertaken to retrieve her one hundred dollars, yes, but also to avenge the trespassing of her land, and the wounding of her body, her dignity?
Mattie closed her eyes against the ugly visions that troubled her. There was nothing for it now. She was too far from home to entertain such fears. If she had to defend herself against Cunningham, she would do so by any means necessary. And if God would take something from her in kind, then that was His will. She was as subject to it as any other creature.
But if anything happened to those people and places she held dear, she knew it would be on her head until Judgment Day.
It was cold, and the ground hard, and Mattie longed for her bedroll and the large fire Rooster always insisted upon. She longed also for the silent comfort of the nearness of her friends.
With that thought she must have fallen asleep, for it was the last thing she remembered when she stirred sometime later. She was confused for a moment before she recalled where she was. She blinked blearily to adjust her eyes to the deep blue pre-dawn light, and jolted when she realised Cunningham was kneeling right next to her.
His hand came down and clamped firmly on her throat, as if he had been waiting for the precise moment she awoke. Grimly, she realised he probably had.
“I see now,” he said in a low voice. “I see what you are and why you have come. You think you can get at me, make me turn myself over to the law.”
Mattie’s thought was that taking him alive was about the last thing she wanted right now, but she held her peace.
“You are not lost,” he continued. “You are not on a coon hunt at all. You are here to bedevil me.”
“I do not know what you are talking about,” Mattie replied hoarsely. “I am here for the reasons I told you, and I have nothing to do with the law.”
“You are nothing but a foolish girl,” he continued. “Do you not know your scripture? God gave man dominion over all living things. That includes women.”
“I suppose that is how some might interpret that passage,” Mattie replied.
“That is the only way to interpret that passage,” he said, shaking his head. It was difficult to see his expression in the dimness; he was a dark outline against the trees and the sky. “I find I am tired, very tired indeed of this business. I would shoot you dead, for that would be hardly any trouble at all, except that I do not have much shot to waste. I could leave your body to rot in these woods and no one would find you for weeks.”
The dying fire hissed and popped, and Mattie felt smoke in the back of her throat. She swallowed dryly against the pressure of his hand.
“You think I do not know who you are?” he asked, easing one knee between hers and kneeling there, pinning her in place. “I know I am being pursued, and I know you are the one who follows me. I remember you. I remember it all. I guess you thought I was a fool, but I’m no fool. You are the homely cotton farming girl from Arkansas. You are the one who tried to cut my throat. You do not think I would forget such a thing as that, do you?”
He squeezed her throat then, and Mattie squirmed as the edges of her vision turned black. He released his grip just as suddenly, and Mattie coughed and gasped for air.
Without removing his hand, Cunningham moved again, digging a sharp kneecap into the flesh of her thigh. Mattie winced and squirmed, but it was impossible to move.
“Did you think you would catch me?” he asked, his voice hushed. “You are not the first. I have been hounded by others, but none has caught me. I have dug too many graves to be caught by a one-armed harridan who don’t know her place.”
He pulled at her coat, yanking the buttons free. Mattie’s thoughts raced, terrified, but she tried to keep a rein on it. If she panicked, she would be lost.
“You may scream and cry if you like,” he said congenially. “There is no one around to hear you.”
Mattie nearly told him that a former Federal Marshall and a Texas Ranger were in fact around to hear her, but she stopped herself. There was no wind; the woods were utterly still. Even if they were far away and not searching for her, it was possible they would still hear her if she was loud enough.
Mattie had never been one to scream or cry when she was small. Victoria had been much better at it, and had often, due to Little Frank’s torturous ministrations, been able to produce a sound from her little body that rivalled passing locomotives.
As Cunningham continued to pull ineptly at her clothes, Mattie took as deep a breath as she could, and forced a sound that matched Victoria’s best efforts.
She carried on shouting and crying out and making as much noise as possible for several moments, until Cunningham abruptly drew back and hit her across the cheekbone with his closed fist.
“Enough of that,” he hissed, as Mattie reeled from the harsh blow. He hit her again, and bright spots of colour mixed with patches of blackness swirled behind her eyelids as she closed them, trying to make the world stop spinning. The crack must have gotten her nose as well, for she felt blood slide down and pool at the back of her throat. She coughed, and turned her head to spit the blood out.
“Now see what you have done,” Cunningham said. He allowed her a moment, and then shifted his weight so he was lying on top of her, holding her down by the shoulder of her short arm. He paused and stared down at her, and she stared back up at him. She flexed the fingers of her hand, and felt the dirty steel blade of his knife under her wrist.
Just tell me when, Lord, she thought. Present me with a moment and I will do what I must.
“I suppose you want a kiss first,” Cunningham said. He tilted his head curiously at her. “Sometimes they are easier if I do that, although I do not like it myself.”
Revolted, Mattie did not reply. Crushing the breath out of her with his whole weight, he put his face near hers. The reek of spirits was putrid, and Mattie knew that although his strength was greater than hers, his intoxication gave her an advantage. Seizing her opportunity, she eased the knife out of her sleeve and, gripping it as firmly as she could in her shaking hand, stabbed it into him at the first point she found, right between his ribs.
Cunningham jerked and cried out, and Mattie pulled the knife back, feeling hot blood spill over her hand. In confusion, Cunningham reeled back and, kneeling over her, hit her again. But Mattie was ready and she rolled with the force of it, knocking Cunningham off of her.
She hopped to her feet, backing away from him and holding the knife out in front of her.
“What is this now?” he moaned, clutching his side and rolling in the leaves. “Why would you do me such harm? Where did you find this weapon?”
“It is your own knife,” Mattie replied, her voice wavering harshly as her heart pounded. “I took it off you hours ago, and you would have noticed had you not been so fixated on finding your bottle of spirits!”
Cunningham struggled to his knees, still holding his side. His hands were covered in blood. “Damn you. I should have strangled you while you slept.”
“Yes, you should have, but you did not,” Mattie replied.
Cunningham moaned in pain, sitting back on his heels. He coughed, making a wet, rattling sound, and spat a mouthful of blood on the ground. “You put a hole in my goddamn lung,” he groaned.
Mattie did not reply, instead casting her eyes about for his gun. She had not yet seen it, but she knew he must have one. He had shot that poor horse with it, and he had mentioned having one, besides.
Cunningham was crouching in the dirt and muttering to himself. Mattie could not hear much of what he was saying and it seemed to be nonsense, but then he raised his voice.
“Ma always said if I had to do it I ought to go for weak ones, but here you are, standing over me. How can this be?”
Mattie stared at him, her mouth agape. “I knew your mother was helping you to evade capture, but I never -”
“Quiet!” Cunningham barked, pointing a bloodied finger at her. “Don’t you say a word about my ma!”
“You think that you killed because your victims were weak?” Mattie asked. He only strangled out a cough in reply. “You have it backwards! You killed because you are weak in character, and ugly inside, and because you are greedy. They died because they were unfortunate enough to make your acquaintance. I have escaped you twice because you are so foolish that you cannot stay sober long enough to kill me properly!”
“Damn you,” he mumbled, slowly getting to his feet. His knees shook as he did so, but he managed to stand. Mattie gripped the knife tighter.
“If you take but one step closer to me, I will see that this time I cut your throat much deeper,” Mattie said.
Cunningham ignored her warning, lurching towards her. Mattie stood her ground, holding the knife out before her. He clutched his bleeding side with one hand and made to grab her with the other. She jerked her hand, catching the sleeve of his forearm, and took a large step away from him.
“Damn the day I ever set foot in Arkansas!” he hissed. He bent over a moment, holding his forearm with his bloodied hand. When he straightened, Mattie could see that the whole side of his shirt was stained dark with blood. She took another large step back, still holding her knife up.
“I warned you once and I will not warn you again,” Mattie said. “Where are you hiding your gun?”
Before Cunningham could say a word, there was a snapping sound from in the woods, as though someone had stepped on a dry branch. Mattie and Cunningham both went still.
“Who is that, there?” Cunningham said, peering off into the trees. His voice carried through the still dawn, echoing.
There was a pause, and then the sound of a voice nearby.
“I am a Texas Ranger, and if your name is Cunningham, I have come to apprehend you and take you back to Texarkana.”
Mattie could not help herself - her heart jumped in her chest and tears of relief sprang to her eyes.
“Best to give yourself up, son. We got you surrounded, and can shoot from cover.” It was a second voice, Rooster Cogburn’s, from another direction.
“If you release that young woman there unharmed, it will go all the better for you,” called LaBoeuf.
“I am here!” Mattie called. “It is our man, Cunningham, and he has a gun although I do not know where it is!”
Cunningham lunged towards her, and Mattie held up her knife. “I said I will cut your throat if you come near me,” she said firmly.
The man held up his bloodied hands in a placating motion, and backed away a step, stumbling as he did so. His expression took on a look of despair, and suddenly he reached behind him into the waist of his trousers and produced a pistol. He pointed it at her for a moment, and then pulled the trigger. Mattie yelped in surprise and ducked, but the bullet went astray, to the side of her head someplace. Cunningham turned and fired two shots off into the woods in the direction from which LaBoeuf’s voice had come.
“Mr. LaBoeuf!” Mattie cried, her eyes searching the woods for any sign of him.
There was another shot, and she felt the hot spray of blood hit the side of her face, followed by the sound of a heavy collapsing thump on the forest floor. Mattie spun about to look.
There, sprawled on the ground but two feet from her, was Cunningham. Cautiously, Mattie took a step closer and peered at him. A circle of blood was spreading into the dirt all around his head, and his pistol was still clutched in his hand.
The man had shot himself.
Mattie barely had a moment to comprehend the horrible sight before someone called her name and she felt hands on her shoulders, turning her about. Stunned, she found herself looking up into LaBoeuf’s worried face.
“You are not injured? He did not harm you? Thank the Lord,” LaBoeuf said, his fingers digging urgently into her shoulders. Mattie attempted to form a reply, but LaBoeuf pulled her into his chest, holding her tightly to him. Mattie froze in the band of his arms, her face pressed into his shoulder, unable to move. After a moment, LaBoeuf’s hold loosened and he pulled back to look at her. One hand came up and brushed her hair from her face, and he had the strangest look in his eyes as he regarded her. “If anything had happened to you, I do not know -”
“LaBoeuf! Where the hell are you, you shitpoke? You were supposed to send the signal!” It was Rooster, his voice echoing out from somewhere nearby.
“Ah, yes,” LaBoeuf said, abruptly letting Mattie go and lifting his revolver to look at it. “I did neglect to send the signal. We are here, Cogburn! Mattie is fine.”
LaBoeuf replaced his revolver in its holster, and turned to regard her once more. “I am sorry I did not follow you. It is unforgivable that I let you go off into the woods, alone and unprotected. Even worse that I was so foolish as to attempt to force you from this place. I ought to have known... I am responsible for what has happened to you.”
“I do not see how that is so,” Mattie replied. “Your decision not to follow me had no bearing on my stumbling upon Cunningham. That was providence of a kind, I suppose.”
LaBoeuf’s eyes searched her face. “Ever stoic and impassive, even standing here, battered once again, this villain’s blood on your skin. Do you not know fear? When it became clear that you were not coming back to me, I knew it. I knew fear.”
Mattie gaped at him, rendered speechless by the distress in his voice. Her mouth gone dry, she swallowed. “Mr. LaBoeuf, I -”
Rooster emerged from the woods then, coming from a different direction than LaBoeuf had, and he groaned an inarticulate sound of complaint. “Never had you pegged for a poet, LaBoeuf,” he said, chuckling to himself as though he had made a very funny joke. “Never had you pegged for one to be taken in by poetry, neither, sis.”
“I have not been ‘taken in,’” Mattie replied, embarrassed. She stood apart from LaBoeuf, swaying slightly on her feet.
“Cogburn, you could sooner catch a weasel asleep than see Mattie Ross ‘taken in’ by any man,” LaBoeuf interjected, sounding perturbed.
“Hmph,” said Rooster. He wandered over to Cunningham’s side and looked down at the still body. “You ever want to get three feet up a bull’s ass, just you listen to the things sweethearts say to one another.”
“Sweethearts?” Mattie repeated. “Sweethearts, indeed!” She glanced at LaBoeuf, and noticed for the first time that the upper arm of his coat was torn and bloodied. “Mr. LaBoeuf!” she cried. “You are shot!”
“What? Oh, so I am,” he replied distractedly, glancing down at himself. “I suspect one of these days I will injure that arm beyond repair.”
Rooster came to stand beside them, one of his pistols in his hand. He cocked his head and peered at Mattie. He let out a low whistle. “Looks like he got you good. That face of yours is going to be black and blue, make no mistake.”
Mattie sighed, and turned to meet LaBoeuf’s eyes, which were trained once more on her face. The fear had gone from his expression, and he was looking at her with something like admiration.
“How did you fight him off?” he asked.
“I took his knife hours ago and hid it in my sleeve. He did not notice. He woke me some time ago with what I suppose were wicked intentions, and when he had me pinned, I stuck the knife between his ribs,” she explained. Her head throbbed, and for the first time she became properly aware of the new bruises and aches on her body.
“You are a good man to have in a tight spot,” Rooster said, smiling wryly.
LaBoeuf cleared his throat. “I will fetch Alma. She is most anxious to see that you are all right.” With that, he turned and walked off into the bush.
“Have a seat there, little sis,” Rooster said, pointing at one of the stumps near the fire. Mattie did so without complaint, for she was exhausted and unsteady on her feet. She watched as Rooster returned to Cunningham’s body and bent down to examine him. He removed the pistol from the dead man’s hand. Mattie turned away.
“When we figured you weren’t returning to the camp last night,” Rooster said, “we set about looking for you. Couldn’t find no trace in the darkness. It’s plum good luck that we heard your yelping some time ago and followed the sound of it here.”
“I hoped you would hear me, or else I would not have given him the satisfaction,” Mattie replied, casting a disgruntled look at Cunningham’s corpse. “As it is, I feel very foolish now for having run off in such a fashion.”
“Worked out in the end,” Rooster said. “You flushed Cunningham out, even if you did not mean to. Anyhow, it’s done and there’s nothing else for it. If it helps you, the whole affair had him in quite a state.” Rooster jerked his chin in the direction LaBoeuf had gone, and then turned back to looking through Cunningham’s pockets.
Mattie frowned. That did not help her at all.
LaBoeuf emerged from the woods a few minutes later, leading the three horses behind him. The two men then stood discussing how best to get them and their new “cargo” back to Texarkana.
Mattie sat in stunned silence, almost as though she could not hear a word they said. Some strange feeling had come over her, and she became aware that she wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to see her mother.
“Mattie?”
She looked up to see her two companions standing before her, watching her with similar expressions of concern on their faces. With some amusement she realised that she had gotten her wish - they were getting along all right, at least for the moment.
“Here, little sis,” Rooster said, taking a bottle of liquor from his coat pocket. He held it out to her. “You’ve had yourself a powerful scare, now. A swig of this will put you back on your feet.”
LaBoeuf threw Rooster an exasperated sort of glance, and then looked back at her. “We know how you feel about it, but I do not believe anyone would think ill of you if your nerves have been rattled. Under these circumstances I think you could consider it a medical application of spirits.”
Mattie took a deep breath and stood, shaking her head in refusal. “My nerves can take a bit of rattling. Shall we depart?”
LaBoeuf nodded, and helped her onto Alma without another word about it. Mattie did not reject the help; she was too tired to bother with it. She looked down at him as he tightened Alma’s girth and adjusted the stirrups.
“Mr. LaBoeuf?” she asked.
He paused his work and looked up at her, his hand resting on her knee. “Yes?”
“Cunningham took his own life.”
“He did,” LaBoeuf agreed.
“And I am alive.”
“You are.”
“What do you think I will have to give up for this? Do you think it will be something so dear as before? Dearer, perhaps?”
LaBoeuf looked at her, a furrow in his brow. He did not seem to know what to say to her. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Mattie, it is not always... That is, did Cunningham hit you with anything harder than his fist? It is not like you to ask me these kinds of questions. Rather I am used to having them answered by you, whether anyone has asked them, or not.”
He was making fun of a kind, she supposed, but she did not feel compelled to laugh. She continued to look at him, and he frowned.
“We had better get you back into town,” he said. He must have realised then where his hand rested, for he abruptly removed it and, giving the straps on the saddle a final tug, turned away.
Mattie watched as LaBoeuf and Rooster tied Cunningham’s body to Sal’s back. The horse laid her ears back and showed the whites of her eyes. She tossed her head and LaBoeuf spoke softly to her, petting her forelock. Eventually the only way Sal would walk on was with LaBoeuf’s spare shirt tied over her eyes. Rooster led the way out of the forest, back the way they had come, and Mattie rode at LaBoeuf’s side as he walked next to Sal.
They did not talk much at all on the way back, exhausted as they were to find themselves at their journey’s end. They rode into Texarkana in the blue light of dawn.
Chapter 9