Charles Portis

Pursuing a murderer who has escaped into Indian Territory, U.S. Marshal Rooster J. Cogburn teams up with a bounty-hunting Texas Ranger and Mattie Ross, a cantankerous young lady who is bent on revenge.

Jimmy Burns is an expatriate American living in Mexico who has an uncommonly astute eye for the absurd little details that comprise your average American. For a time, Jimmy spent his days unearthing pre-Colombian artifacts. Now he makes a living doing small trucking jobs and helping out with the occasional missing person situation-whatever it takes to remain "the very picture of an American idler in Mexico, right down to the grass-green golfing trousers.†?...

Sent on a mission to New York he gets involved in a wild journey that takes him in and out of stolen cars, freight trains, and buses. By the time he returns home to Texas, Norwood has met his true love, Rita Lee, on a bus; befriended the second shortest midget in show business and 'the world's smallest perfect fat man'; and helped Joann 'the chicken with a college education,' realize her true potential in life. As with all Portis' fiction, the tone...

"Mattie Ross ... is determined to avenge her father's blood by capturing Tom Chaney ..., the man who shot and killed him for two pieces of gold. Just fourteen, she enlists the help of Rooster Cogburn ..., a one-eyed, trigger-happy U.S. Marshall with an affinity for drinking, and hardened Texas Ranger LaBoeuf ... to track the fleeing Chaney. Despite their differences, their ruthless determination leads them on a perilous adventure that can only have...

A rough-edged deputy marshall teams up with a strait-laced missionary to track down a band of murdering bank robbers. During the pursuit of the outlaws, a warm rapport develops between the rough-and-tumble lawman and the flinty reverend's daughter.

The cantankerous Rooster is hired by a headstrong young girl (Kim Darby) to find the man who murdered her father and fled with the family savings.