Free True Grit by Charles Portis Page A

out of the bunk and spilt his coffee and sent the cat squalling. He reached for me but I moved quickly out of his grasp and got behind the stove. I picked up a handful of expense sheets from the table and jerked up a stove lid with a lifter. I held them over the flames. "You had best stand back if these papers have any value to you," said I.

    He said, "Put them sheets back on the table."

    I said, "Not until you stand back."

    He moved back a step or two. "That is not far enough," said I. "Go back to the bed."

    Lee looked in through the curtain. Rooster sat down on the edge of the bed. I put the lid back on the stove and returned the papers to the table.

    "Get back to your store," said Rooster, turning his anger on Lee. "Everything is all right. Sis and me is making medicine."

    I said, "All right, what have you to say? I am in a hurry."

    He said, "I cannot leave town until them fee sheets is done. Done and accepted."

    I sat down at the table and worked over the sheets for better than an hour. There was nothing hard about it, only I had to rub out most of what he had already done. The forms were ruled with places for the entries and figures but Rooster's handwriting was so large and misguided that it covered the lines and wandered up and down into places where it should not have gone. As a consequence the written entries did not always match up with the money figures.

    What he called his "vouchers" were scribbled notes, mostly undated. They ran such as this: "Rations for Cecil $1.25," and "Important words with Red .65 cts."

    "Red who?" I inquired. "They are not going to pay for this kind of thing."

    "That is Society Red," said he. "He used to cut cross-ties for the Katy. Put it down anyway. They might pay a little something on it."

    "When was it? What was it for? How could you pay sixty-five cents for important words?"

    "It must have been back in the summer. He ain't been seen since August when he tipped us on Ned that time."

    "Was that what you paid him for?"

    "No, Schmidt paid him off on that. I reckon it was cartridges I give him. I give a lot of cartridges away. I cannot recollect every little transaction."

    "I will date it August fifteenth."

    "We can't do that. Make it the seventeenth of October. Everything on this bunch has to come after the first of October. They won't pay behind that. We will date all the old ones ahead a little bit."

    "You said you haven't seen the man since August."

    "Let us change the name to Pig Satterfield and make the date the seventeenth of October. Pig helps us on timber cases and them clerks is used to seeing his name."

    "His Christian name is Pig?"

    "I never heard him called anything else."

    I pressed him for approximate dates and bits of fact that would lend substance to the claims. He was very happy with my work. When I was finished he admired the sheets and said, "Look how neat they are. Potter never done a job like this. They will go straight through or I miss my bet."

    I wrote out a short agreement regarding the business between us and had him sign it. I gave him twenty-five dollars and told him I would give him another twenty-five when we made our departure. The fifty dollars balance would be paid on the successful completion of the job.

    I said, "That advance money will cover the expenses for the both of us. I expect you to provide the food for us and the grain for our horses."

    "You will have to bring your own bedding," said he.

    "I have blankets and a good oilskin slicker. I will be ready to go this afternoon as soon as I have got me a horse."

    "No," said he, "I will be tied up at the courthouse. There are things I must attend to. We can get off at first light tomorrow. We will cross the ferry for I must pay a call on an informer in the Cherokee Nation."

    "I will see you later today and make final plans."

    I took dinner at the Monarch. The man LaBoeuf did not appear and I hopefully assumed he had moved on for some distant point. After a brief nap I went to