True Grit

TWO

Lawyer Daggett had gone to Helena to try one of his steamboat suits and so Yarnell and I rode the train to Fort Smith to see about Papa’s body. I took around one hundred dollars expense money and wrote myself out a letter of identification and signed Lawyer Daggett’s name to it and had Mama sign it as well. She was in bed.

There were no seats to be had on the coaches. The reason for this was that there was to be a triple hanging at the Federal Courthouse in Fort Smith and people from as far away as east Texas and north Louisiana were going up to see it. It was like an excursion trip. We rode in a colored coach and Yarnell got us a trunk to sit on.

When the conductor came through he said, “Get that trunk out of the aisle, nigger!”

I replied to him in this way: “We will move the trunk but there is no reason for you to be so hateful about it.”

He did not say anything to that but went on taking tickets. He saw that I had brought to all the darkies’ attention how little he was. We stood up all the way but I was young and did not mind. On the way we had a good lunch of spare ribs that Yarnell had brought along in a sack.

I noticed that the houses in Fort Smith were numbered but it was no city at all compared to Little Rock. I thought then and still think that Fort Smith ought to be in Oklahoma instead of Arkansas, though of course it was not Oklahoma across the river then but the Indian Territory. They have that big wide street there called Garrison Avenue like places out in the west. The buildings are made of fieldstone and all the windows need washing. I know many fine people live in Fort Smith and they have one of the nation’s most modern waterworks but it does not look like it belongs in Arkansas to me.

There was a jailer at the sheriff’s office and he said we would have to talk to the city police or the high sheriff about the particulars of Papa’s death. The sheriff had gone to the hanging. The undertaker was not open. He had left a notice on his door saying he would be back after the hanging. We went to the Monarch boardinghouse but there was no one there except a poor old woman with cataracts on her eyes. She said everybody had gone to the hanging but her. She would not let us in to see about Papa’s traps. At the city police station we found two officers but they were having a fist fight and were not available for inquiries.

Yarnell wanted to see the hanging but he did not want me to go so he said we should go back to the sheriff’s office and wait there until everybody got back. I did not much care to see it but I saw he wanted to so I said no, we would go to the hanging but I would not tell Mama about it. That was what he was worried about.

The Federal Courthouse was up by the river on a little rise and the big gallows was hard beside it. About a thousand or more people and fifty or sixty dogs had gathered there to see the show. I believe a year or two later they put up a wall around the place and you had to have a pass from the marshal’s office to get in but at this time it was open to the public. A noisy boy was going through the crowd selling parched peanuts and fudge. Another one was selling “hot tamales” out of a bucket. This is a cornmeal tube filled with spicy meat that they eat in Old Mexico. They are not bad. I had never seen one before.

When we got there the preliminaries were just about over. Two white men and an Indian were standing up there on the platform with their hands tied behind them and the three nooses hanging loose beside their heads. They were all wearing new jeans and flannel shirts buttoned at the neck. The hangman was a thin bearded man named George Maledon. He was wearing two long pistols. He was a Yankee and they say he would not hang a man who had been in the G.A.R. A marshal read the sentences but his voice was low and we could not make out what he was saying. We pushed up closer.

A man with a Bible talked to each of the men for a minute. I took him for a preacher. He led them in singing “Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound” and some people in the crowd joined in. Then Maledon put the nooses on their necks and tightened up the knots just the way he wanted them. He went to each man with a black hood and asked him if he had any last words before he put it on him.

The first one was a white man and he looked put out by it all but not upset as you might expect from a man in his desperate situation. He said, “Well, I killed the wrong man and that is why I am here. If I had killed the man I meant to I don’t believe I would have been convicted. I see men out there in that crowd that is worse than me.”

The Indian was next and he said, “I am ready. I have repented my sins and soon I will be in heaven with Christ my savior. Now I must die like a man.” If you are like me you probably think of Indians as heathens. But I will ask you to recall the thief on the cross. He was never baptized and never even heard of a catechism and yet Christ himself promised him a place in heaven.

The last one had a little speech ready. You could tell he had learned it by heart. He had long yellow hair. He was older than the other two, being around thirty years of age. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, my last thoughts are of my wife and my two dear little boys who are far away out on the Cimarron River. I don’t know what is to become of them. I hope and pray that people will not slight them and compel them to go into low company on account of the disgrace I have brought them. You see what I have come to because of drink. I killed my best friend in a trifling quarrel over a pocketknife, I was drunk and it could just as easily have been my brother. If I had received good instruction as a child I would be with my family today and at peace with my neighbors. I hope and pray that all you parents in the sound of my voice will train up your children in the way they should go. Thank you. Goodbye everyone.”

He was in tears and I am not ashamed to own that I was too. The man Maledon covered his head with the hood and went to his lever. Yarnell put a hand over my face but I pushed it aside. I would see it all. With no more ado Maledon sprung the trap and the hinged doors fell open in the middle and the three killers dropped to judgment with a bang. A noise went up from the crowd as though they had been struck a blow. The two white men gave no more signs of life. They spun slowly around on the tight creaking ropes. The Indian jerked his legs and arms up and down in spasms. That was the bad part and many in the crowd turned in revulsion and left in some haste, and we were among them.

We were told that the Indian’s neck had not been broken, as was the case with the other two, and that he swung there and strangled for more than a half hour before a doctor pronounced him dead and had him lowered. They say the Indian had lost weight in jail and was too light for a proper job. I have since learned that Judge Isaac Parker watched all his hangings from an upper window in the Courthouse. I suppose he did this from a sense of duty. There is no knowing what is in a man’s heart.

Perhaps you can imagine how painful it was for us to go directly from that appalling scene to the undertaker’s where my father lay dead. Nevertheless it had to be done. I have never been one to flinch or crawfish when faced with an unpleasant task. The undertaker was an Irishman. He took Yarnell and me to a room at the back that was very dark owing to the windows being painted green. The Irishman was courteous and sympathetic but I did not much like the coffin he had placed Papa in. It was resting on three low stools and was made of pine planks that had not been cleanly dressed. Yarnell took off his hat.

The Irishman said, “And is that the man?” He held a candle in his face. The body was wrapped in a white shroud.

I said, “That is my father.” I stood there looking at him. What a waste! Tom Chaney would pay for this! I would not rest easy until that Louisiana cur was roasting and screaming in hell!

The Irishman said, “If ye would loike to kiss him it will be all roight.”

I said, “No, put the lid on it.”

We went to the man’s office and I signed some coroner’s papers. The charge for the coffin and the embalming was something over sixty dollars. The shipping charge to Dardanelle was $9.50.

Yarnell took me outside the office. He said, “Miss Mattie, that man trying to stick you.”

I said, “Well, we will not haggle with him.”

He said, “That is what he counting on.”

I said, “We will let it go.”

I paid the Irishman his money and got a receipt. I told Yarnell to stay with the coffin and see that it was loaded on the train with care and not handled roughly by some thoughtless railroad hand.

I went to the sheriff’s office. The high sheriff was friendly and he gave me the full particulars on the shooting, but I was disappointed to learn how little had been done toward the apprehension of Tom Chaney. They had not even got his name right.

The sheriff said, “We do know this much. He was a short man but well set up. He had a black mark on his cheek. His name is Chambers. He is now over in the Territory and we think he was in the party with Lucky Ned Pepper that robbed a mail hack Tuesday down on the Poteau River.”

I said, “That is the description of Tom Chaney, there is no Chambers to it. He got that black mark in Louisiana when a man shot a pistol in his face and the powder got under the skin. Anyhow, that is his story. I know him and can identify him. Why are you not out looking for him?”

The sheriff said, “I have no authority in the Indian Nation. He is now the business of the U.S. marshals.”

I said, “When will they arrest him?”

He said, “It is hard to say. They will have to catch him first.”

I said, “Do you know if they are even after him?”

He said, “Yes, I have asked for a fugitive warrant and I expect there is a Federal John Doe warrant on him now for the mail robbery. I will inform the marshals as to the correct name.”

“I will inform them myself,” said I. “Who is the best marshal they have?”

The sheriff thought on it for a minute. He said, “I would have to weigh that proposition. There is near about two hundred of them. I reckon William Waters is the best tracker. He is a half-breed Comanche and it is something to see, watching him cut for sign. The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn. He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don’t enter into his thinking. He loves to pull a cork. Now L. T. Quinn, he brings his prisoners in alive. He may let one get by now and then but he believes even the worst of men is entitled to a fair shake. Also the court does not pay any fees for dead men. Quinn is a good peace officer and a lay preacher to boot. He will not plant evidence or abuse a prisoner. He is straight as a string. Yes, I will say Quinn is about the best they have.”

I said, “Where can I find this Rooster?”

He said, “You will probably find him in Federal Court tomorrow. They will be trying that Wharton boy.”

The sheriff had Papa’s gun belt there in a drawer and he gave it to me in a sugar sack to carry. The clothes and blankets were at the boardinghouse. The man Stonehill had the ponies and Papa’s saddle at his stock barn. The sheriff wrote me out a note for the man Stonehill and the landlady at the boardinghouse, who was a Mrs. Floyd. I thanked him for his help. He said he wished he could do more.

It was around 5:30 P.M. when I got to the depot. The days were growing short and it was already dark. The southbound train was to leave some few minutes after 6 o’clock. I found Yarnell waiting outside the freight car where he had loaded the coffin. He said the express agent had consented to let him ride in the car with the coffin.

He said he would go help me find a seat in a coach but I said, “No, I will stay over a day or two. I must see about those ponies and I want to make sure the law is on the job. Chaney has got clean away and they are not doing much about it.”

Yarnell said, “You can’t stay in this city by yourself.”

I said, “It will be all right. Mama knows I can take care of myself. Tell her I will be stopping at the Monarch boardinghouse. If there is no room there I will leave word with the sheriff where I am.”

He said, “I reckon I will stay too.”

I said, “No, I want you to go with Papa. When you get home tell Mr. Myers I said to put him in a better coffin.”

“Your mama will not like this,” said he.

“I will be back in a day or two. Tell her I said not to sign anything until I get home. Have you had anything to eat?”

“I had me a cup of hot coffee. I ain’t hongry.”

“Do they have a stove in that car?”

“I will be all right wrapped in my coat.”

“I sure do appreciate this, Yarnell.”

“Mr. Frank was always mighty good to me.”

Some people will take it wrong and criticize me for not going to my father’s funeral. My answer is this: I had my father’s business to attend to. He was buried in his Mason’s apron by the Danville lodge.

I got to the Monarch in time to eat. Mrs. Floyd said she had no vacant room because of the big crowd in town but that she would put me up somehow. The daily rate was seventy-five cents a night with two meals and a dollar with three meals. She did not have a rate for one meal so I was obliged to give her seventy-five cents even though I had planned to buy some cheese and crackers the next morning for my daytime eats. I don’t know what her weekly rate was.

There were ten or twelve people at the supper table and all men except for me and Mrs. Floyd and the poor old blind woman who was called “Grandma Turner.” Mrs. Floyd was a right big talker. She explained to everybody that I was the daughter of the man who had been shot in front of her house. I did not appreciate it. She told about the event in detail and asked me impertinent questions about my family. It was all I could do to reply politely. I did not wish to discuss the thing with idly curious strangers, no matter how well intentioned they might be.

I sat at one corner of the table between her and a tall, long-backed man with a doorknob head and a mouthful of prominent teeth. He and Mrs. Floyd did most of the talking. He traveled about selling pocket calculators. He was the only man there wearing a suit of clothes and a necktie. He told some interesting stories about his experiences but the others paid little attention to him, being occupied with their food like hogs rooting in a bucket.

“Watch out for those chicken and dumplings,” he told me.

Some of the men stopped eating.

“They will hurt your eyes,” he said.

A dirty man across the table in a smelly deerskin coat said, “How is that?”

With a mischievous twinkle the drummer replied, “They will hurt your eyes looking for the chicken.” I thought it a clever joke but the dirty man said angrily, “You squirrelheaded son of a bitch,” and went back to eating. The drummer kept quiet after that. The dumplings were all right but I could not see twenty-five cents in a little flour and grease.

After supper some of the men left to go to town, probably to drink whiskey in the barrooms and listen to the hurdy-gurdy. The rest of us went to the parlor. The boarders dozed and read newspapers and talked about the hanging and the drummer told yellow fever jokes. Mrs. Floyd brought out Papa’s things that were bundled in the slicker and I went through them and made an inventory.

Everything seemed to be there, even his knife and watch. The watch was of brass and not very expensive but I was surprised to find it because people who will not steal big things will often steal little things like that. I stayed in the parlor and listened to the talk for a while and then asked Mrs. Floyd if she would show me to my bed.

She said, “Go straight down that hall to the last bedroom on the left. There is a bucket of water and a washpan on the back porch. The toilet is out back directly behind the chinaberry tree. You will be sleeping with Grandma Turner.”

She must have seen the dismay on my face for she added, “It will be all right. Grandma Turner will not mind. She is used to doubling up. She will not even know you are there, sweet.”

Since I was the paying customer I believed my wishes should have been considered before Grandma Turner’s, though it seemed neither of us was to have any say.

Mrs. Floyd went on, saying, “Grandma Turner is a sound sleeper. It is certainly a blessing at her age. Do not worry about waking Grandma Turner, a little mite like you.”

I did not mind sleeping with Grandma Turner but I thought Mrs. Floyd had taken advantage of me. Still, I saw nothing to be gained from making a fuss at that hour. She already had my money and I was tired and it was too late to look for lodging elsewhere.

The bedroom was cold and dark and smelled like medicine. A wintry blast came up through the cracks in the floor. Grandma Turner turned out to be more active in her slumber than I had been led to expect. When I got into bed I found she had all the quilts on her side. I pulled them over. I said my prayers and was soon asleep. I awoke to find that Grandma Turner had done the trick again. I was bunched up in a knot and trembling with cold from the exposure. I pulled the covers over again. This happened once more later in the night and I got up, my feet freezing, and arranged Papa’s blankets and slicker over me as makeshift covers. Then I slept all right.