#laboeuf

It took Rooster a while after waking up to remember where he was and what he had been doing. All the whiskey he drank the previous day resulted in a headache and dry mouth the following morning. Past experience told him not to sit up until he had most of his wits about him; otherwise, his head would be spinning, and he risked whatever he ate and drank coming back up and onto the ground.

He curled his lip with a soft growl when he finally remembered what he had been doing for the past several days: wandering through Indian Territory, on the hunt for Tom Chaney and Ned Pepper. The former was for that stubborn sourpuss of a girl, Mattie Ross, on account of her father being killed by the man. Part of the reason he even agreed to the job was because Chaney had apparently been working for Pepper. Kill two birds with one stone, collect more than one reward.

Except he probably wouldn't get any reward now. They had missed their chance of ambushing on Pepper and his gang, thanks in no small part to LaBoeuf, and the trail had gone cold. Though he had been blasted drunk to the point of challenging LaBoeuf to a shooting contest and drunkenly singing as they rode onward, he knew when he had been licked. But it seemed the girl didn't, as she had continued to insist they were getting somewhere. Just before he passed out the previous night, he heard her declaring she wouldn't be going home without Chaney, dead or alive.

He sighed as he finally sat up, slow as he could, and gently shook his head. As much as she was a pain at times, he couldn't help but admire her, even if it was just a little bit. True to her word, she hadn't complained much, if it all, on this trip. And she had already proven herself to be smart and stubborn, to a fault. She was like the daughter he never had.

No, it was more like she reminded him of him.

Speaking of, he didn't see her at their meager camp. He wondered if she had made off with LaBoeuf, or if she set off on her own to find Chaney. No, her horse was still tied up next to his. And a wooden bucket was missing. He wagered she had gone off to fetch water while he was still asleep. How long would it take though? She couldn't have been gone that long. Unless she got stuck somewhere.

He sat where he was, trying to think of how to explain further to her that he was not continuing on this wild goose chase when he heard a shot. His eye widened as he looked off in the direction of the shot, headache forgotten about. It sounded like it came from the river.

His stomach sank as he stood to his feet, but he somehow knew it wasn't beginning to churn because of his hangover.

He walked in the direction of the river, still keeping a lookout for the girl. But as he continued on, without any sight of her, he began to feel... worry. Which was very unusual for his character. He had a reputation for not fearing much of anything, if it all, and he stuck by it. But not today.

“Mattie?!” he yelled out. It barely registered in his mind that this had been the first time he referred to her by her real name, rather than 'Baby Sister' as he had been calling her previously. His heart began to race as he wondered what sort of danger she would be in to warrant shooting her pistol. Especially when he had warned her, the first time they met, that she was liable to fall back upon shooting said pistol.

“I'm down here!” he finally heard her shout back. And she sounded excited. He just barely heard a man groaning something about being shot. “Chaney is taken into custody!”

Chaney? She found him? Seeing as she was so gun-ho about getting him, and knew him down to the black powder mark on his face, there was no doubt in his mind that she had indeed found him. And apparently shot him, seeing as she didn't sound like she was the one in pain.

She had found him... and was all alone with him! And he would bet that Chaney was armed himself, and wouldn't oppose to hurting a child; he did shoot her father in cold blood, after all. This made him run faster through the trees until he could finally see the river.

In said river, he saw two individuals, one smaller than the other. He had seen them just in time to see the larger one hit the smaller across the head and begin to drag them away. “Help me!” a voice cried out.

“Mattie!” Rooster screamed as his heart seemed to freeze in his chest. But he managed to not stop in his tracks. He ran through the brush and light snow, and between the trees, as fast as he could. He thought about drawing his own gun, but realized it would be a foolish and dangerous decision. He ran the risk of hitting Mattie; or winging Chaney, who may proceed to use Mattie as a human shield.

Just past Chaney, who continued to drag Mattie to the other side of the river, two men emerged from the trees and began shooting his way. “Marshal!” she pleaded as he returned their fire. But he was forced to jump back when one of their balls hit the tree right next to him. By the time he looked again across the river, it was pretty much too late.

As he continued to shoot at them, Chaney succeeded in getting Mattie across the water. One of the two men came out and grabbed her. His eyebrows furrowed as he recognized the woolly chaps he had pointed out to Mattie the night they were ambushing the dugout: Ned Pepper.

But before he had time to aim at him, another shot whizzed past his head. And within minutes, the third man was creeping back into the trees. And they were gone.

Rooster stood still by the river, still holding his piece in case any of them had recognized them and returned to finish him off. “God dammit,” he grumbled under his breath, brushing his long hair out of his eye. “Dammit, Baby Sister.”

As much as he wanted to chew her out, whether or not she was with him, he knew it wasn't her fault. All she had been doing was fetching water, as evident by the wooden bucket now floating down the river. Chaney just so happened to be right there.

She had been right, they were close.

When he heard footsteps hurrying his way, he whipped his pistol around again. But the only person he saw was LaBoeuf, holding his hands up with a bewildered expression. Rooster rolled his eye as he dropped his arm. “Wha' happe'?” the other man asked, still slurring around his half-bitten off tongue. “I hear' a sho'!”

“Rooster!” a different voice yelled out. Though it wasn't Mattie this time, he still recognized it. “Cogburn! You hear me?!” After a few silent seconds, he called out again, “You answer me, Rooster! I will kill this girl! You know I will do it!”

Thinking quickly on his feet, Rooster yelled back, “The girl's nothing to me, she's a runaway from Arkansas!” Even as he claimed that, he felt downright dirty saying that. Even if he denied it until his deathbed, his heart knew the truth: Mattie meant something to him. She had, somehow, wormed her way into his cold, hard heart during this journey.

She claimed he had true grit, but he wondered if she knew she had it as well, and in spades.

LaBoeuf nearly charged at him, enraged, but froze when Rooster held his hand up. He fixed him with a stern expression, clearly telling him to wait and be quiet; he held up one finger for good measure.

“That is all very well! Do you advice that I kill her?!”

A lesser man would have told him no, or even urged him not to. But Rooster was not only tough, but smart. “Well, do what you think is best, Ned!” he answered as he slowly walked back in the direction of camp, already thinking of how to get both himself and Mattie out of this mess. LaBoeuf followed, still looking confused, but luckily still quiet. “She's nothing to me but a lost child! Think it over, first!” he advised.

Ned Pepper wasn't stupid either, he knew this very well.

“I have already thought it over! You get mounted, double-fast! If I see you riding over that bald ridge, in the north-west, I will spare the girl! You have five minutes!”

“There will be a party of marshals here soon, Ned! Let me have the girl and Chaney, and I will mislead them for six hours!”

“Too thin, Rooster! Too thin! Your five minutes is running! No more talk!”

“Five minutes,” Rooster scoffed, turning back around and running back to camp. “I'll need more than five minutes, damn bastard.”

“Wha's goi' o', Cogbur'?” LaBoeuf asked again.

“Baby Sister went down to the creek, and apparently ran into Chaney,” he explained as he saddled up Beau as fast as he could.

“Cha'ey?!”

“She managed to shoot him, but he dragged her off before I could get down there. And he is with Pepper, for sure.”

“'ow wha', Cogbur'?”

“I'm gonna take her horse with me to that ridge,” he said, pointing in the direction Pepper had yelled for him to go, “and you are gonna find your way to their camp, secure Chaney if he's there.”

“Wha' bou' you?” He began to saddle Mattie's horse—Little Blackie, if he recalled correctly.

“After I see that they see me on that ridge, I will double-back, tie her horse in the woods, and handle the rest in the meadow. I reckon they'll be down there, headed off to avoid the party of marshals I said would be coming.”

LaBoeuf's eyes widened when he realized the full intentions of the older man. “Tha's suici'e!”

“I know what I am doing. You just keep an eye on B—“

“—Cogbur', I mus' sugges' a differe' course.”

“Well, if you have any brighter ideas, let me know!” Rooster shouted angrily as he mounted Beau. When the other man remained silent, he snorted as he snatched the reins of her horse out of his hand. “Just stay with Mattie! Understand?!”