“It is not important where he hangs, is it?”
“It is to me. Is it to you?”
“It means a good deal of money to me. Would not a hanging in Texas serve as well as a hanging in Arkansas?”
“No. You said yourself they might turn him loose down there. This judge will do his duty.”
“If they don’t hang him we will shoot him. I can give you my word as a Ranger on that.”
“I want Chaney to pay for killing my father and not some Texas bird dog.”
“It will not be for the dog, it will be for the senator, and your father too. He will be just as dead that way, you see, and pay for all his crimes at once.”
“No, I do not see. That is not the way I look at it.”
-Mattie and LaBoeuf
Mattie's character and attitude is specifically just so in order for the story to play out the way Charles Portis intended it to. If Mattie were not a stubborn girl, she may not have cared where Chaney hang, and therefore see no need to embark on the journey of hunting down Tom Chaney with Rooster and LaBoeuf. By portraying her as a rather headstrong, boyish character, Portis once again alludes to white male supremacy.
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