There's only two of you.
Go ahead and bet your life on it!
How many of you is in there?
Just the two of us.
But my partner's hit.
And he can't walk.
Is that Emmett Quincy?
(Rooster humming)
You said it was a man on the roof.
I thought it was Potter.
You was always dumb, Quincy, and remain true to form.
Here’s an awful lot of sofkee.
You boys looking for company?
That is our supper and breakfast both.
I like a big breakfast.
Sofkee always cooks up bigger than you think.
Hmm, a good store of whiskey as well.
What are you boys up to, outside of cooking banquets?
We was just having our supper.
We don't know who was outside in weather like this.
Might have been some crazy man.
Anyone can say that he is a Marshall.
My leg hurts.
I'll bet it does.
When is the last time you seen your old pard Ned Pepper?
I do not know him. Who is he?
I'm surprised you don't remember him.
Skinny fellow, nervous and quick. His lips all messed up.
That don't bring anybody to mind.
There's a new boy,
that might be running with Ned.
He's got a powder mark on his face, black place.
He call's himself Chaney.
or Chelmsford sometimes.
Carries a Henry rifle.
That don't bring anybody to mind.
Black mark, I would remember that.
You don’t remember nothing I want to know, do you Quincy?
What do you know, Moon?
He don't know those boys you're looking for.
I don't know those boys.
I always try to help out the law.
hmm, By the time we get to Fort Smith
that leg will be swelled up tight as Dick’s hatband.
It will be mortified.
Then they'll have to cut it off.
Then if you live, I'll get you two or three years in the federal house.
-Up in Detroit, there. -You're trying to get at me.
They'll teach you how to read an write up there, but
The rest won't be so good.
Them boys, they can be hard on a gimp.
You're trying to get at me.
Now.
You give me some good information on Ned.
I'll take you down to Bagby's store tomorrow, and get that ball taken out of your leg.
Then I'll give you three days to clear the Territory.
We don't know those boys you're looking for.
-It ain't even his leg. -I would say...
Don’t go to flapping your mouth, Moon. It's best you let me do the talking.
-I would say I... -We are weary trappers.
Who worked you over with the ugly stick?
The man Chaney with the marked face killed my father.
He was a whiskey drinker like you and it lead to killing in the end.
If you answer the Marshal's questions he will help you.
I have a good lawyer at home, and he will help you too.
I'm puzzled by this.
Why is she here?
Don’t go jawing with these people, Moon. Don’t you go jawing with that runt.
I don't like you. I hope you go to jail. My lawyer will not help you.
My leg is giving me fits.
No, a young fellow like don't want to loose his leg.
-We seen... -Easy now!
He's trying to get at you.
-With the truth. -We seen Ned and Hays two days ago. We's supposed-
Don't you act the fool. If you blow, I will kill you!
I'm played out, I need a doctor.
We met Ned and Hayes two days ago.
God damn it.
(Moon gasping)
Oh Lord.
I'm dying.
Do something.
Help me.
I can do nothing for you, son.
You partner's killed you, and I've done for him.
Don't leave me lying here.
Don't let the wolves rip me up.
I'll see you're buried right.
You tell me about Ned, where'd you see him?
Two days ago.
Bagby's store.
They're coming here tonight to get remounts and sofkee.
They just robbed the Katy Flyer at Wagoner's Switch.
I'm gone.
Send the news to my brother, George Garrett.
He is a Methodist circuit rider in South Texas.
Shall I tell him you was outlawed up?
It don't matter.
He knows I'm on the scout.
I will meet him later, walking the streets of Glory!
Well don't be looking for Quincy.
What do we do when they get here?
Well they will ride up.
What we want is to get them all in the dugout.
I will kill the last one to go in and then we will have them in a barrel.
You will shoot them in the back?
Mmm, will give them the know our intentions is serious.
Then I'll call down,
see if they'll be taken alive.
If they won't,
I'll shoot them as they come out.
I am hopeful that three of their party being dead will take the starch out of them.
You display great poise.
Aw, It is just a turkey shoot.
There was one time in New Mexico,
we was being pursued by seven men.
I turned Bo around and taken the reins in my teeth,
rode right at them boys firing them two navy sixes I carry on my saddle.
Well..
I guess they was all married men who loved their families as they scattered and run for home.
Well that is hard to believe.
-Was it? -One man riding at seven.
Well, it's true.
You go for a man hard enough and fast enough,
he don’t have time to think about how many is with him—he thinks about his self.
how he may get clear of the wrath that is about to set down on him.
Why were they pursuing you?
I robbed a high interest bank.
Can't rob a thief, can you.
Never robbed a citizen.
Never took a mans watch.
It is all stealing.
That's the position they took in New Mexico.
One man.
I did not figure them to send a scout.
Damn.
It is LeBoeuf.
We have to warn him, Marshal!
Too late.
What will we do, Marshal?
We sit, what does he do.
Him in the woolly chaps is Lucky Ned.
Well, that’s that.
Well that didn't pan out.
You managed to put a kink in my rope, pardner.
Ah, I'm severely injured.
Yes you got drug some.
I was also shot.
By a rifle.
That is quite possible. The scheme did not develop as I had planned.
You've been shot in the shoulder, but the bullet passed through.
What happened to your mouth?
I believe I bit myself.
Couple of teeth loose, and ah yeah.
Tongue bit almost through.
Do you want to see if it will knit or should I just yank it free?
I know a teamster,
bit his tongue off being thrown from a horse.
After a time he learned to make himself more or less understood.
I'll just yank it free.
What’s that now?
What's that now?
Knit. It will knit.
Ah, very well.
It's impossible to bind a tongue wound.
To bad, we just run across a doctor-
-Marshal? -of sorts but I do not know where he was headed.
I saw him too, that's how I came to be here.
Neither of these men are Chaney.
I know it. I know them both.
That ugly one is Coke Hayes.
Him uglier still is Clement Parmalee.
Parmalee and his brothers have a silver claim in the Winding Stair Mountains
And I'll bet that's where Lucky Ned's gang is waiting.
Well, we'll sleep here.
Follow in the morning.
We promised to bury the poor soul inside.
Grounds to hard.
That man wanted a decent burial they should have got themselves killed in summer.
Sleep well, Little Blackie.
I have a notion that tomorrow we will reach our object.
We're hot on the trail.
It seems that we will overtake Tom Chaney in the Winding Stair Mountains.
I would not want to be in his shoes.
Chelmsford, as he called himself in Texas.
Shot the Senator's dog.
When the Senator remonstrated.
Chelmsford shot him as well.
Now you could argue that the shooting of the dog was clearly an instance of malum prohibitum.
But the shooting of the Senator is indubitably a instance of malum in shay.
Malla-men what?
Malum in se.
The distinction is between an act that is wrong in itself,
and an act that is wrong only according to our laws and mores.
It is Latin.
I'm struck,
that LeBoeuf,
has been shot, trampled, and nearly severs his tongue.
Not only does not cease to talk but spills the banks of English.
I was within three hundred yards of Chelmsford once.
The closest I have been.
With the Sharp's carbine that is within range.
But I was mounted, and had the choice of firing off-hand,
or dismounting to shoot from rest,
which would allow Chelmsford to augment the distance.
I fired mounted-
and fired wide.
You cannot hit a man three hundred yards if your gun was resting on Gibraltar.
The Sharp carbine is an instrument of uncanny balance and precision.
I've no doubt that the gun is sound.
(Sings "Greer County") *My clothes is all ragged and my language is rough.*
*My bread is corn dodgers, both solid and tough*
*And yet I'm happy, and live at my ease*
*On sorghum molasses, and bacon, and cheese*
Greer county bantler.
I do not believe he slept.
(Rooster humming drunkenly)
Fort Smith is a healthy distance, LeBoeuf
but I would encourage the creature you ride to head southward.
Out here a one-armed man looks like easy prey.
And a one eyed man who can't shoot.
Why don't you turn back, Cogburn?
I will do fine.
I know where the Parmalee’s claim is. I am uninjured, well provisioned—and we agreed to separate.
In confidence you cannot shy our agreement. You're the one that shot me.
Mr. LeBoeuf has a point, Marshal.
It is an unfair leg-up in any competition to shoot your opposite number.
God damn it. I do not accept as a given that I did shoot LeBoeuf.
There was plenty of guns going off.
I heard the rifle, and I felt the ball.
You missed your shot, Cogburn, admit it.
Missed my shot!
You are handicapped without the eye, then I without the arm.
I can hit a gnat's eye at ninety yards.
That chinaman is running them cheap shells on me again.
I thought you were going to say, the sun was in your eyes.
That is to say, "your eye".
Two at one time.
I will to chuck one high.
Hold fire.
-There. -There!?
-My bullet! -Your bullet?
If you hit what you aim at, explain my shoulder.
Gentlemen, shooting cornbread out here on the prairie is getting us no closer to the Ned Pepper gang.
One more. This will prove it.
Please hold fire.
Find our way back!
Lucky Ned?
Lucky Ned!
Very good, Cogburn.
Now what?
Oh, god damn it.
Cogburn does not want me eating out of his store.
That is silly. You have not eaten the whole day, and it is my store not his.
Let him starve!
He does not track!
He does not shoot-
except at foodstuffs!
That was your initiative.
He does not contribute!
He is a man who walks in front of bullets!
Mr. LeBoeuf drew single-handed upon the Lucky Ned Pepper Gang
while we fired safely from cover.
-We? -It is unfair to indict a man,
when his jaw is swollen and tongue mangled and who is therefore unable to rise to his own defense!
I can speak for myself.
I am hardly obliged to answer the ravings of a drunkard. It is beneath me.
I shall make my own camp.
Elsewhere.
It is you who have nothing to offer, Cogburn.
A sad picture indeed.
This is no longer a man hunt.
It is a debauch.
The Texas Ranger,
presses on, alone.
Take the girl.
I bow out.
A fine thing to decide once you have brought her into the middle of the Choctaw Nation.
I bow out, I wash my hands.
Gentlemen we cannot fall out in this fashion.
Not so close to our goal, with Tom Chaney nearly in hand.
In hand?
If he is not in a shallow grave, somewhere between here and Fort Smith, he is gone!
He is gone.
Long gone!
Thanks to Mr. LeBoeuf, we missed our shot!
We barked, and the birds have flown!
Gone, gone, gone!
Lucky Ned and his cohort, gone!
Your fifty dollars, gone!
Gone the whiskey,
seized in evidence!
The trail is cold, if ever there was one!
I'm....I'm a foolish old man who has been drawn into a wild goose chase
by a harpy in trousers—and a nincompoop!
Well, Mr. LeBoeuf
He can wander the Choctaw Nation for as long as he likes;
perhaps the local Injuns will take him in
and honor his gibberings by making him Chief!
You, sister, may go where you like!
Our engagement is terminated.
I bow out.
I'm going with you.
Oh, that is not possible.
Have I held you back?
I have a Colt’s dragoon revolver which I know how to use,
and I would be no more of a burden to you than I was to the marshal.
That's not my worry.
You've earned your spurs.
That is clear enough.
You've been an regular old hand on the trail.
But Cogburn's right.
even if I would not give him the satisfaction of conceding it.
The trail is cold.
And I am,
considerably diminished.
How can you give up now, after the many months you've dedicated to finding Chaney?
You have shown great determination.
I misjudged you.
I picked the wrong man.
I would go on in your company if there were clear way to go.
But we'd be striking out blindly.
Chelmsford's gone.
we have chased him right off the map.
There is nothing for it.
I'm bound for Texas.
It's time for you to go home, too.
The Marshal, when he sobers,
is your way back.
I will not go back. Not without Chaney, dead or alive.
I misjudged you as well.
I extend my hand.
Mr. LeBoeuf! Please!
Adios.
I know you.
Your name is, Mattie.
You're little Mattie, the bookkeeper.
Isn't that something.
Yes, and I know you, Tom Chaney.
What are you doing out here?
Come to fetch some water.
Oh, then what are you doing in these mountains, here?
Well I have not been formally deputized,
but I am acting as an agent for Marshal Reuben Cogburn
and Judge Parker’s court.
I have come to take you back to Fort Smith.
Well I will not go.
How do you like that?
There is a posse of officers up there who will force you to go.
That is interesting news.
And how many is up there?
Right around fifty.
They're all well armed and they mean business.
What I want you to do now is come on across the creek and walk in front of me up the hill.
I think I will oblige the officers to come after me.
Well if you refuse to go, then I'll have to shoot you.
Oh.
Well you had better cock your piece.
All the way back.
-Til it locks. -I know how to do it.
You will not go with me?
Naw, it's just the other way around.
You're going with me.
I will...AAAH!
I did not think you would do it.
-What do you think now? -One of my short ribs is broken.
You killed my father when he was trying to help you.
I have one of the gold pieces you stole from him. Now give me the other.
-Nothing has gone right for me. -MATTIE!
I'm down here.
Now I'm shot by a child.
Chaney is taken into custody!
Help me.
MATTIE!
Marshal.
Take them horses you got and move!
Tom, get on up that hill! Don’t you stop..
Who all is down there?
Marshal Cogburn and fifty more officers.
Tell me another lie and I will stove your head in!
Just the Marshal.
Rooster.
Cogburn!
You hear me?
You answer me, Rooster!
I will kill this girl!
You know I will do it!
The girl is nothing to me! She is a runaway from Arkansas!
That is all very well.
Do you advise that I kill her?
Do what you think is best, Ned.
She's nothing to me but a lost child.
Think it over first.
I have already thought it over!
You get mounted double fast!
If I see you riding over that bald ridge to the northwest,
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!
Get on up that hill.
Quiet there!
Well, see to Tom's wound.
Can I have some of that bacon?
You help yourself.
Have some of the coffee.
I do not drink coffee, I am fourteen.
Well we do not have buttermilk, and we do not have bread.
We are poorly supplied.
-Where she is. -What are you doing here?
I will ring your scrawny neck.
You let that go.
What happened, huh?
I will tell you and you will see that I'm in the right.
Tom Chaney there shot my father to death
in Fort Smith and robbed him of
two gold pieces and stole his mare.
I was informed Rooster Cogburn had grit and I hired him out to find the murderer.
A few minutes ago I came upon Chaney watering the horses.
He would not be taken in charge and I shot him.
If I had killed him I would not be now in this fix. My revolver misfired.
They will do it.
It will embarrass you every time.
Most girls like to play pretties, but you like guns, do ya?
I do not care a thing in the world about guns. If I did I would have one that worked.
I was shot from ambush, Ned.
The horses was blowing and making noise. It was that officer that got me.
How can you sit there and tell such a big story?
That pit is a hundred feet deep, and I will throw you in it.
I'll leave you screaming in rot.
-Now how do you like that? -No you won't.
This man will not let you have your way. He's your boss and you have to do as he tells you.
Ain't nothing going my way.
Was that Rooster waylaid us night before last?
It was Marshal Cogburn and myself.
You and, Cogburn.
Quite the posse.
Let us move, Ned.
In good time, Doctor.
What happened to Quincy and The kid?
They are both dead.
I was in the very middle of it. It was a terrible thing to see.
Please, let us move, Ned.
The Marshal's gone.
Do you need a good lawyer?
I need a good judge.
What happened to Coke Hayes,
the old fellow shot off his horse?
Dead as well.
These depredations have come to an end.
Your friend Rooster does not collect many prisoners.
He is not my friend.
He has abandoned me to a congress of louts.
You do not varnish your opinions.
Are we off?
Let us cut up the winnings from the Katie Flyer.
They'll be time for that at The Old Place.
I will mount the grey.
I have other plans for you.
Must I double-mount with the Doctor?
-No! -Nope.
Too chancy with two men up if it comes to a race.
Tom, you wait here with the girl.
When we reach Ma’s house I will send Carroll
back with a fresh mount.
You will be out by dark
and we'll meet you at The Old Place.
I do not like that.
Let me ride with you, Ned. Just out here anyway.
I was short a horse.
Marshals will come swarming.
Hours, if the come here at all.
They'll think that we've all gone.
I am not staying here by myself with, Tom Chaney.
That's the way I will have it.
He will kill me.
You heard him say it. He's killed my father, and now you will let him kill me.
He will do no such thing.
Tom, you know the crossing at Cypress Forks, near the log meetinghouse?
When you mount it, you take the girl and leave her there.
You understand, Tom?
Any harm comes to that child,
you do not get paid.
Harold, let me ride up with you.
Harold, I will pay you fifty dollars out of my winnings!
I am not happy.
Do the calf again, Harold.
Everything is against me.
You have no reason to whine.
If you act as the bandit chief instructed, and no harm comes to me, you will get your winnings at The Old Place.
Lucky Ned has left me, knowing I am sure to be caught when I leave on foot.
Must think over my position and how I may improve it.
Where's the second California gold piece?
What have you done with Papa's mare?
Keep still.
Are you thinking about The Old Place?
Look here, if you let me go
I will swear to an affidavit
and once you are brought to justice, it may go easier on you.
I tell you I can do better than that.
I need no affidavit.
All I need is your silence.
Your father was a busybody like you.
In honesty, I do not regret shooting him.
He thought Tom Chaney was small.
And you!
You would give me an affidavit.
You're all against me! Everything....
So that is Chelmsford.
Strange to be so close to him at last.
Mr. LeBoeuf, how is it that you are here?
I heard the shot,
and went down to the river.
Cogburn outlined a plan.
Mind your footing, there's a pit there.
His part,
I fear is rash.
He returns for Lucky Ned.
Yo, Rooster!
Will you give us the road?
One against four. It is ill advised.
He would not be dissuaded.
Hello, Ned. How many men are with the girl?
Just Chaney.
Our agreement is in force.
She was in excellent health, when last I saw her.
Farrel, I want you and your brother to stand clear.
You as well, Doctor.
I have no interest in you today.
What is your intention, Rooster?
Do you think one on four is a dogfall?
I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned.
Or see you hanged at Fort Smith at Judge Parker's convenience.
Which will you have?
I call that, bold talk
for a one-eyed fat man!
Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!
Shoot them, Mr. LeBoeuf!
To far, moving to fast.
Well, Rooster?
I'm shot to pieces.
Seems neither of us,
is to see Judge Parker.
Wahooo!
Some bully shot.
That was four hundred yards at least.
Well,
the sharps carbine, is a...
Stand up, Tom Chaney.
M...Mr. LeBoeuf!
Are you alive?
Mr. LeBoeuf!
Are you there?
I'm here.
Can you clamber out?
I cannot.
There are snakes!
They awake?
Yes!
I am bit!
Does Mr. LeBoeuf! survive?
He does—even a blow to the head could silence him for only a few short minutes.
Where are you bit?
Look away, now.
I have her!
Up with us!
Worked Mr. LeBoeuf! Take her.
Snakebit.
We are off.
I'll send help for you as soon as I can.
Don't wander off.
We are not leaving him!
I must get you to a doctor, sis, or you are not going to make it.
I'm your debt for that shot, pard.
Never doubt the Texas Ranger.
Come on.
Ever stalwart.
We must stop.
Little Blackie is played out.
We've miles yet.
Come on you.
NO!
No.
That's it, come on now.
No, stop.
He's getting away.
Who's getting, sis?
Chaney.
No.. NO!
NO, no, no.
Oh, no.
No, stop.
I've grown old.
(Grown up Mattie) A quarter century is a long time.
By the time we reached Bagby's store,
my hand had turned black.
I was not awake when I lost the arm.
The Marshal had stayed with me, I was told.
'til I was out of danger.
But he departed before I came around.
Once home. I wrote him with an invitation,
to come by, the next time he found himself near Yell County.
And collect the fifty dollars I still owed him.
I did not hear back from Marshal Cogburn.
And he did not appear.
Then one day I received a note from the Marshal, with a flyer enclosed.
He said he was traveling with the Wild West show.
Getting older and fatter.
But I like to come visit him when the show came to Memphis, and swap stories with an old trail mate.
He would understand if the journey were to long.
Brief tho his note was.
It was rife with misspellings.
Yesum?
I am, Cole Younger.
This is Mr. James.
It grieves me to tell you that you have missed, Rooster.
He passed away three days ago.
When the show was at Jonesboro Arkansas.
Buried him there at a Confederate cemetery.
Reuben had a complaint what he referred to as “night hoss”
And I believe the warm weather was to much for him.
We had some lively times.
What was the nature of your acquaintance?
I knew the Marshal long ago.
We too had, lively times.
Thank you, Mr. Younger.
Keep your seat, trash.
I had the body removed to our plot and I had visited it over the years.
No doubt people talked about that.
They say, "Well, she hardly knew the man".
"Isn't she a cranky old maid".
It is true, I have not married.
I never had time to fool with it.
I heard nothing more of the Texas officer, LeBoeuf.
If he is yet alive. I would be pleased to hear from him.
I judge he would be in his seventies now.
And near eighty in seventy.
I expect some of the starch has gone out of that cowlick.
Time just gets away from us.
*What a fellowship, what a joy divine,*
*Leaning on the everlasting arms.*
*What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,*
*Leaning on the everlasting arms.*
*Leaning, leaning,*
*safe and secure from all alarms.*
*Leaning, leaning,*
*leaning on the everlasting arms.*
*Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,*
*Leaning on the everlasting arms*
*Oh, how bright the path grows from day to day,*
*Leaning on the everlasting arms.*
*Leaning, leaning,*
*safe and secure from all alarms.*
*Leaning, leaning,*
*I'm leaning on the everlasting arms.*