Rooster took off his deerskin jacket and gave it to LaBoeuf and sent him up on the clay bank to cover the chimney. Then Rooster moved about ten feet to the side and got down on one knee with his rifle at the ready. The jacket made a good damper and soon smoke could be seen curling out around the door. There were raised voices inside and then a hissing noise as of water being thrown on fire and coals.
The door was flung open and there came two fiery blasts from a shotgun. It scared me nearly to death. I heard the shot falling through tree branches. Rooster returned the volley with several shots from his rifle. There was a yelp of pain from inside and the door was slammed to again.
“I am a Federal officer!” said Rooster. “Who all is in there? Speak up and be quick about it!”
“A Methodist and a son of a bitch!” was the insolent reply. “Keep riding!”
“Is that Emmett Quincy?” said Rooster.
“We don’t know any Emmett Quincy!”
“Quincy, I know it is you! Listen to me! This is Rooster Cogburn! Columbus, Potter and five more marshals is out here with me! We have got a bucket of coal oil! In one minute we will burn you out from both ends! Chuck your arms out clear and come out with your hands locked on your head and you will not be harmed! Once that coal oil goes down the chimney we are killing everything that comes out the door!”
“There is only three of you!”
“You go ahead and bet your life on it! How many is in there?”
“Moon can’t walk! He is hit!”
“Drag him out! Light that lamp!”
“What kind of papers have you got on me?”
“I don’t have no papers on you! You better move, boy! How many is in there?”
“Just me and Moon! Tell them other officers to be careful with their guns! We are coming out!”
A light showed again from inside. The door was pulled back and a shotgun and two revolvers were pitched out. The two men came out with one limping and holding to the other. Rooster and LaBoeuf made them lie down on their bellies in the snow while they were searched for more weapons. The one called Quincy had a bowie knife in one boot and a little two-shot gambler’s pistol in the other. He said he had forgotten they were there but this did not keep Rooster from giving him a kick.
I came up with the horses and LaBoeuf took them into the stock shelter. Rooster poked the two men into the dugout with his rifle. They were young men in their twenties. The one called Moon was pale and frightened and looked no more dangerous than a fat puppy. He had been shot in the thigh and his trouser leg was bloody. The man Quincy had a long, thin face with eyes that were narrow and foreign-looking. He reminded me of some of those Slovak people that came in here a few years ago to cut barrel staves. The ones that stayed have made good citizens. People from those countries are usually Catholics if they are anything. They love candles and beads.
Rooster gave Moon a blue handkerchief to tie around his leg and then he bound the two men together with steel handcuffs and had them sit side by side on a bench. The only furniture in the place was a low table of adzed logs standing on pegs, and a bench on either side of it. I flapped a tow sack in the open door in an effort to clear the smoke out. A pot of coffee had been thrown into the fireplace but there were still some live coals and sticks around the edges and I stirred them up into a blaze again.
There was another pot in the fireplace too, a big one, a two-gallon pot, and it was filled with a mess that looked like hominy. Rooster tasted it with a spoon and said it was an Indian dish called sofky. He offered me some and said it was good. But it had trash in it and I declined.
“Was you boys looking for company?” he said.
“That is our supper and breakfast both,” said Quincy. “I like a big breakfast.”
“I would love to watch you eat breakfast.”
“Sofky always cooks up bigger than you think.”
“What are you boys up to outside of stealing stock and peddling spirits? You are way too jumpy.”
“You said you didn’t have no papers on us,” replied Quincy.
“I don’t have none on you by name,” said Rooster. “I got some John Doe warrants on a few jobs I could tailor up for you. Resisting a Federal officer too. That’s a year right there.”
“We didn’t know it was you. It might have been some crazy man out there.”
Moon said, “My leg hurts.”
Rooster said, “I bet it does. Set right still and it won’t bleed so bad.”
Quincy said, “We didn’t know who it was out there. A night like this. We was drinking some and the weather spooked us. Anybody can say he is a marshal. Where is all the other officers?”
“I misled you there, Quincy. When was the last time you seen your old pard Ned Pepper?”
“Ned Pepper?” said the stock thief. “I don’t know him. Who is he?”
“I think you know him,” said Rooster. “I know you have heard of him. Everybody has heard of him.”
“I never heard of him.”
“He used to work for Mr. Burlingame. Didn’t you work for him a while?”
“Yes, and I quit him like everybody else has done. He runs off all his good help, he is so close. The old skinflint. I wish he was in hell with his back broke. I don’t remember any Ned Pepper.”
Rooster said, “They say Ned was a mighty good drover. I am surprised you don’t remember him. He is a little feisty fellow, nervous and quick. His lip is all messed up.”
“That don’t bring anybody to mind. A funny lip.”
“He didn’t always have it. I think you know him. Now here is something else. There is a new boy running with Ned. He is short himself and he has got a powder mark on his face, a black place. He calls himself Chaney or Chelmsford sometimes. He carries a Henry rifle.”
“That don’t bring anybody to mind,” said Quincy. “A black mark. I would remember something like that.”
“You don’t know anything I want to know, do you?”
“No, and if I did I would not blow.”
“Well, you think on it some, Quincy. You too, Moon.”
Moon said, “I always try to help out the law if it won’t harm my friends. I don’t know them boys. I would like to help you if I could.”
“If you don’t help me I will take you both back to Judge Parker,” said Rooster. “By the time we get to Fort Smith that leg will be swelled up as tight as Dick’s hatband. It will be mortified and they will cut it off. Then if you live I will get you two or three years in the Federal House up in Detroit.”
“You are trying to get at me,” said Moon.
“They will teach you how to read and write up there but the rest of it is not so good,” said Rooster. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. If you give me some good information on Ned I will take you to McAlester’s tomorrow and you can get that ball out of your leg. Then I will give you three days to clear the Territory. They have a lot of fat stock in Texas and you boys can do well there.”
Moon said, “We can’t go to Texas.”
Quincy said, “Now don’t go to flapping your mouth, Moon. It is best to let me do the talking.”
“I can’t set still. My leg is giving me fits.”
Rooster got his bottle of whiskey and poured some in a cup for the young stock thief. “If you listen to Quincy, son, you will die or lose your leg,” said he. “Quincy ain’t hurting.”
Quincy said, “Don’t let him spook you, Moon. You must be a soldier. We will get clear of this.”
LaBoeuf came in lugging our bedrolls and other traps. He said, “There are six horses out there in that cave, Cogburn.”
“What kind of horses?” said Rooster.
“They look like right good mounts to me. I think they are all shod.”
Rooster questioned the thieves about the horses and Quincy claimed they had bought them at Fort Gibson and were taking them down to sell to the Indian police called the Choctaw Light Horse. But he could show no bill of sale or otherwise prove the property and Rooster did not believe the story. Quincy grew sullen and would answer no further questions.