How It All Goes Down
- Day Seven.
- They wake just before sunrise and have some coffee. (Hopefully cowboy coffee.)
- Mattie walks down the steep hill to look for water, carrying Papa's gun in the water bucket. There's some splashing, and she sees a man and some horses on the other side of a little creek.
- Who is the man?
- Who do you think, you big dummies? (JK, love you.) "That man was none other than Tom Chaney!" (7.4)
- Chaney sees and recognizes Mattie. He aims his shotgun at her, then grins and puts it over his shoulder.
- Now it's Mattie's turn to aim a gun. She tells him he can either come back to Fort Smith with her, or she'll shoot him.
- He thinks this is hi-larious, right up until she shoots him in the side. Then he's just mad.
- Mattie hears Rooster and LaBoeuf call out to her and she calls back to them.
- Chaney tries to grab a big piece of wood, and Mattie tries to shoot him again but her gun won't fire. Her percussion caps were bad or something—don't ask us.
- Chaney throws the wood at Mattie, knocks her down, then runs across the stream to smack her around a little before hauling her back across the creek, grabbing two horses as he runs.
- As LaBoeuf and Rooster are running down the hill on one side of the creek, Lucky Ned Pepper and The Original Greaser Bob are running down the hill on the other side of the creek.
- It's all very exciting. There's some shooting and horse-grabbing, and then Ned throws Mattie on the ground and puts his boot to her neck. He yells down to Rooster and LaBoeuf that they have five minutes to get to the northwest ridge and show themselves retreating or Mattie gets it.
- Rooster agrees and Ned takes Mattie higher up the mountain to the bandits' camp on a rock ledge. Two more robbers, Harold and Farrell Permalee are up there.
- Soon, Rooster and LaBoeuf appear on the northwest ridge, show themselves, and retreat.
- Mattie is Not Happy that they've abandoned her.
- Ned gives each man his share of the plunder, then says that he, Bob, and the Permalee brothers will ride on to a hideout.
- Chaney will stay at the camp with Mattie until nightfall, then take her to a place she can stay overnight with somebody to take her to McAlester's store in the morning. Oh, and Chaney will only get paid if Mattie is safe.
- Uh-huh. Great plan, guys.