True Grit

Content Warning: This section of the guide features depictions of violence and death.

Mattie rides with Rooster and LaBoeuf. Though they do not stop to eat, she forces herself to say nothing. Eventually, they stop at a small store by a river. Rooster speaks to the owner and bargains with two young boys to transport the traveling trio across the river on the ferry. On the other side, they ride through the cluttered trail. The storeowner told Rooster that Lucky Ned Pepper was recently spotted at another store owned by a man named McAlester. Ned was riding with two men: a criminal named Haze and a Mexican man. Rooster believes that they can locate Ned before the gang flees.

Rooster and LaBoeuf agree to ride another 15 miles before stopping for the night. They are still 60 miles from McAlester’s store. In spite of herself, Mattie cannot help but groan. Rooster mocks her, but Mattie insists that she is fine. LaBoeuf asks whether Chaney was spotted with Ned. Chaney was not at McAlester’s, Rooster explains, but he was almost certainly with the gang when they robbed the train recently.

Eventually, the trio stops for the night. Mattie is fatigued, but she drags water in a bucket from the nearby stream. When she arrives at the camp, however, she announces that she will not do so again. LaBoeuf criticizes her for complaining and launches into a long-winded explanation of the difficult terrain in Texas. Mattie mentions to Rooster that LaBoeuf is a Texas Ranger; Rooster does not care. He mocks the Rangers and LaBoeuf’s vanity, which he believes is typical of Texans. LaBoeuf, in turn, mocks the US marshals. The trio eats corn dodgers, and Mattie asks whether the men would like to tell ghost stories, with each man playing a speaking role. Neither accepts her offer. Mattie tries to sleep, but the ground is hard and uncomfortable. The following day, she wakes up beneath a blanket of snow. If the snow continues, Rooster warns, they will need to find shelter.

After a day of riding through the rain, the trail becomes difficult to find. LaBoeuf hunts a turkey and ties it to his saddle to eat later. When Rooster finally accepts that McAlester’s is out of reach for the day, they divert to a small dugout nearby. The dugout is a structure built into the narrow end of a valley. When they arrive, however, there is already smoke coming from the chimney. Rooster, rifle in hand, approaches. When the door opens, Rooster explains that he and his companions need shelter. The cabin is full, a voice says from inside, and the door is slammed. Rooster sends LaBoeuf onto the roof to use a coat to block the chimney. When the shelter fills with smoke, the men inside burst out, firing guns. Rooster fires back, then announces his status as a federal officer. As the sides shout back and forth, Rooster recognizes the voice of Quincy. If Quincy does not come outside, Rooster threatens, then he and the team of marshals will burn the shelter down.

Quincy explains that his friend, Moon, is wounded. Quincy drags Moon outside, where they are searched, and their weapons are taken away. Back inside the shelter, Moon is given a handkerchief to cover the bleeding wound on his leg. A big pot of food is cooking on the fire. Quincy claims that the food will be both dinner and breakfast. Rooster grills the two men about Ned. Quincy insists that he knows nothing about Ned, but—under heavy questioning from Rooster—Moon begins to break. Rooster offers Moon medical assistance lest his leg be amputated. Quincy becomes nervous and angry, telling Moon to say nothing. LaBoeuf scouts the exterior, finding six horses that Quincy and Moon may have stolen.

Rooster grills Moon as the others prepare the turkey. Moon sips whiskey for the pain. When he glances at Mattie, she announces her plan to capture Chaney and bring him to justice. She offers Moon the help of her lawyer if he helps her. Quincy again tells Moon to be quiet. Mattie and Quincy argue; LaBoeuf suggests that they separate the two men, but Rooster believes that Moon is about to talk. In a tense exchange, Moon finally admits to a recent encounter with Ned. Quincy threatens Moon, who agrees to tell Rooster everything in exchange for medical help. Quincy swings a knife and cuts off Moon’s fingers. LaBoeuf shoots Quincy as Mattie jumps for cover. Moon, with severed fingers and a knife wound in his chest, recognizes that he is mortally wounded. He tells Rooster that he saw Ned and Haze at McAlester’s store. They have another train robbery planned, he says, and will soon return to collect the horses outside. Moon asks Rooster to make arrangements for his funeral and his possessions, then dies.

Rooster finds a California gold piece in the dead Quincy’s pocket. Mattie is thrilled. With Ned soon to arrive, however, Rooster and LaBoeuf hatch a plan. They will wait on opposing ridges for Ned’s gang to return. They restore the shelter to its previous state, hoping to lure the criminals inside. LaBoeuf criticizes the vague plan as involving nothing “but a lot of killing” (200). Rooster does not care. Ned and his men will put up a fight, he believes. The criminals know that they will face the gallows if they are caught, so they are incentivized to fight.

Outside, the trio take up their positions. Beside Rooster, as time passes, Mattie asks him about his life before he joined the marshals. Rooster held many jobs, he explains. He fought in Missouri during the Civil War and lost his eye in Kansas City. In one shootout, his life was saved by a bandit named Cole Younger. Younger was sentenced to execution, Rooster notes, but he was innocent of the crime of which he was accused. The real perpetrator was Jesse James, who Rooster may or may not have met. He does not remember.

Mattie asks Rooster how he feels to be employed by the “Yankees” (203) after fighting for the Confederates in the Civil War. Things have “changed” (203), Rooster grumbles. He explains how he surrendered to the Union soldiers alongside Potter. They fled their jail, he explains, as a major from Kansas was supposedly scouring the prisoners for possible bushwhackers. They went their separate ways, Potter to Arkansas and Rooster to Illinois, where Rooster took on a new identity. He married a widow and opened a restaurant. He fathered a son. Eventually, however, his wife grew weary of his drinking and his attitude. She left, taking the boy with her. Rooster closed the restaurant and traveled to Texas, where he hunted buffalo. Rooster denies the rumors that he was a bandit in years past. He did, however, rob a number of high-interest banks, which he believes was a public service. However, he never robbed a citizen, he claims, though he was forced to flee to New Mexico. During this time, he claims to have been confronted by seven armed men. He faced them down, taking his reins between his teeth and charging them with a pistol in each hand. They ran scared, he claims. Mattie does not believe the story. Rooster continues his anecdotes until Mattie feels increasingly tired.

One of Rooster’s stories involves him being arrested by Potter after shooting a man. Potter, he says, pretended not to know his old war buddy. Once they were in Fort Smith, however, Potter freed him and made him a marshal. Potter was a “good friend” (207), Rooster claims. Mattie falls asleep.

Mattie is awakened by Rooster when Ned and the gang are spotted. Mattie counts six men but cannot see Chaney among them. Haze calls out to the shelter but receives no reply. Ned fires three times in the air, at which point LaBoeuf opens fire. He shoots Ned’s horse, and chaos breaks out. Rooster begins to fire, cursing LaBoeuf for breaking cover too soon. The gang frantically scrambles for their horses as they fire into the ridges of the valley. Haze is shot, and Ned is helped from the chaos while a bandit named The Original Greaser Bob hangs acrobatically from his horse for cover.

When the fighting is over and the gang has fled, the trio gathers the abandoned horses. Rooster accuses LaBoeuf of firing too soon. LaBoeuf is too preoccupied with a wounded shoulder. He explains that Ned’s three shots tricked him into believing that the fight had started just as he was moving to a better spot. Mattie interrupts, urging the men to take action. LaBoeuf suggests that they give chase. Rooster would rather take the horses and dead men back to McAlester’s so that they can establish “a prior claim to any reward” (211), lest anyone else try to take credit for capturing Ned. Rooster finds a specific type of bullet in one of the saddle bags. It belongs to Chaney’s favored weapon, which Mattie insists is another clue. She helps to treat LaBoeuf’s wound, and then the trio departs for McAlester’s store.

A passerby tells the trio about the train robbery carried out by Ned’s gang. Two train employees were killed, the safe was stolen, and the passengers were robbed. The trio discusses the robbery on the way to McAlester’s. LaBoeuf also tries to goad Rooster into talking about the war; he was too young to be on the front lines, so he worked in a Union office for six months until the end of the war. Rooster is reluctant to discuss the matter. Eventually, however, he admits that he fought alongside the notorious Captain Quantrill. LaBoeuf is about to reproach Rooster, but Mattie intervenes, feeling a fight brewing between the men. She distracts them long enough to reach McAlester’s.

At McAlester’s, LaBoeuf has his wound treated while Rooster takes Mattie to visit his friend, a man named Captain Boots Finch. Finch is the commander of the law enforcement who police the Indigenous territories. Ned recently passed through, Finch explains, with both Haze and The Original Greaser Bob. Finch takes care of the dead bodies and the horses, agreeing to split any rewards with Rooster, who claims that he will pursue the gang. Rooster does not believe that Mattie should continue the hunt. She insists, however, and LaBoeuf gives her credit. He says that she has “won her spurs, so to speak” (221). Reluctantly, Rooster agrees. They leave at noon, riding hard after the gang.

After 40 minutes of hard riding, the trio stops. Captain Finch is behind them, and when he reaches them, he reveals that Odus broke out of the jail. Mattie notices that Rooster does not seem perturbed by this. Rather, he is amused that the lawyer Goudy will struggle to convince the President of Wharton’s innocence now. He is thrilled that the lawyer will lose money and face. Rooster also mocks LaBoeuf in front of Finch, prompting LaBoeuf to defend his composure during the firefight. Finch reassures LaBoeuf: Many people have missed Ned, he says, including Rooster. By his estimate, Rooster may soon miss Ned again. In response, Rooster drinks heavily from a bottle of whiskey. He hurls it into the sky and takes aim, hoping to show off his marksmanship. He misses the bottle. Wandering over to the fallen bottle, he unloads his pistol and—finally, after several shots—smashes it. He reloads, complaining about the bullets sold to him by Lee. LaBoeuf mocks Rooster, claiming that the sun was in his eye. Angered, Rooster shows off his talents by hurling corn dodgers into the air and shooting them down. LaBoeuf tries the same, as does Finch. The three men compete frantically to shoot corn dodgers, with very little success. Mattie tries to refocus them on the task at hand: finding Ned and Chaney.

Rooster is now very drunk. As they resume their ride, he drunkenly reminisces to himself. He seems so lost in his whiskey-soaked memories that Mattie is not sure whether he realizes that she and LaBoeuf can hear him. Perhaps, she wonders, he takes pleasure in forcing them to listen to his long, drawn-out stories. Later, Rooster is so drunk that he falls from his horse. They ride well past the sunset. Eventually, Rooster declares that they are likely just four miles from the bandits. Mattie is so tired that she quickly falls asleep when they make camp.