Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

Nobody never counted Old Man Ludis, cause he come to nothing, he got enough of it and shot himself. I didn't remind her about that. I said, "Tant's daddy weren't no kind of kin at all."

Tears come to my young mother's eyes, made me feel wishful. But this was the first time Henrietta ever said she aimed to take me with her, and it kind of confused me. She was a young girl when she had me, and I left by the back door. She never brought me here, it was me brought her. I got her work with Mister Watson, and Tant, too. She didn't have no home no more'n I did.

I whispered I weren't going to go. And she said, Don't you backtalk me, you are my child! And I said, Since when? That hurt her feelings, too.

Anyway, said I-I am still whispering-I am the new captain of that schooner, I ain't no kid no more! Since when? she said, rubbing the blood off my head much too rough. Look out! I yell, I ain't no sweet potato! Since when? Netta said again, and we broke out giggling like little kids, I don't know why. She hugged me then and started in to cry, cause she didn't have no idea at all where her and Little Min was going to go.

I go all soft and lonesome then, and hug her back. I missed someone bad but didn't rightly know who it could be. I ain't so sure I found out to this day, not even when the deacons told me it was Jesus.

"Called her Minnie after his rotten old sister," Henrietta blubbered, "and I hate that name, and Min will hate it, too!"

That talk about his sister made me nervous. Mister Watson is doing some drinking now and his silence is coming through the wall. I hush her quick. From the gumbo-limbo by the cistern comes the voice of a small greeny-yellow bird that sings even in summer, wip-dee-chee! and pretty soon the same again, over and over.

Mister Watson calls in a hard voice, Get in here, Captain, there is business to discuss!

Henrietta tugs my sleeve, her big eyes round. How had that man heard my whispering, heard all my bragging? But as Tant used to say, Mister E.J. Watson could hear a frog fart in a hurricane. That don't come so much from hunting, Tant said, as from being hunted.

SEPTEMBER 15, 1895. The train south from Arcadia stayed overnight at Punta Gorda before heading on back north, and the kind conducters let us sleep on the red-fuzz seats after brushing off the goober shells and what not. Papa had wired his instructions that we were to put up in the new hotel as soon as we arrived, to get some rest, but Mama said she has learned her lesson not to count on rest in life or anything else. We should not spend good money on hotels in case something went wrong as it usely did and Mister E.J. Watson failed to appear. Anyways, this might be the wrong man, cause her husband was Mister E.A. Watson when she knew him. Mama was in a funny mood and no mistake.

Last night I was so tuckered out I was sleeping and sleeping. Had a nightmare about crocadiles but did not wake up. At day-brake they helped us off the train and left us in a little pile here on the sand. The train gave a great whistle and hard clank and pulled away, getting smaller and smaller, it went right down to a black smudge where the rail shine made a bright steel point against the sunrise. We waved and waved and waved then the train was gone and not even an echo, just two thin rails like silver fire piercing away north to where we came from.

The depo is locked until next week and not one sole to be seen. Buzards tilt back and forth across the sky. This sky in southern Florida is white with heat as if ash was falling from the sun. In the hot breeze, the spiky little palms stick up like clusters of black knives, and the fire ball coming up out of the palms sharpens their edges. With the sun up, the wind dies, and the redbirds and mockers fall dead quiet, and a parched heat settles in for the long day, just dry dry dry.

Mama tries to cheer us up, she gives that funny little smile. She says Well, well, here we are at the end of the line in farthest southern Florida! as if this dead silence and this scary white sun, all this hot sand and dry thorn, was what we'd pined for all of our hole lives.

And still no sign of Mister Watson and no word.

I call him "Mister Watson" just like Mama, who is very very strict about our maners, and sometimes says when she is blue that maners is about all that we have left. But in my heart I think of him as "Papa" because that was what I called him back in Arkansas. Oh, I remember him, I really do! He was most always so much fun that he made up for our dear Mama when she was sereous and sad. He brought toy soldiers from Fort Smith, and sat right down with us on the cabin floor to play. (Rob was too old, of corse, he was out slopping the hogs, he'd scoot as soon as he heard Papa coming.)

I gave Eddie the "dam-Yankee" bluecoats, him being too young to know the diffrince. Lucius was only a baby then, he can't remember Papa hardly, just pretends. But Eddie and me-Eddie and I?-have never forgot our dear dear Mister Watson, and surly our Rob never forgot him either.

Plenty of time for you, Dear Diary, because Rob is serly, Mama is thinking, and I am dog tired of trying to soshalize with little brothers. It was Papa who gave me the idea of my dear diary so long ago when I was a little girl. I found him out under the trees, writing away in a leather book. I asked him what that was, and he took me in his lap and said, Well, Carrie honey, it's a kind of jernal. I'm calling it Footnotes to my Life. He smiled in the shy way he does sometimes when he doesn't think he has amused you. Said his spelling was no good because as a boy back there in Carolina in the War Between the States, taking care of his mother and sister with his father gone, he had very little chance to go to school. But he kept up his jernal from his youth because that was a tradition in our Watson family.

Papa's jernal had a lock on it, and he swore he would never show it to a sole, even when I powted and looked saucy. I asked him, Never? Perhaps one day, Papa said. I knew Mama was terified to pick it up let alone read it the few times she laid eyes on it, but I thought I was diferent. He warned me that any diary that is not completely privet is no longer a diary, no longer quite honest, and therefore no longer "a trusted friend." So I keep mine secret from the hole hole world, and also Mama.

Rob was near twelve when Papa rode away. That was back in Crawford County, Arkansas, when Lucius was just a very tiny baby. Rob stood right up to those rough men that came galoping in. He told 'em they was trespissing on Papa's propity and they'd better look out or get shot between the eyes. And one of the men said to another, "In the back, more likely," and Rob went after him before Mama could shriek. It was just terifying, that pale dark boy socking so fureous on that man's knee, which was as high as he could reach. Got his hand cut bad by spurs and got knocked sprawling.

Mama told us that Papa had to leave on business, gone to Oregon. We was all alone quite a few years before we left Arkansas and went on back to Columbia County Florida and stayed a year with Granny Ellen Watson and Aunt Minnie Collins and our cousins.

Rob acted mean about coming to see Papa. He made Mama admit she had wrote to Papa, and that Papa never sent for us until she did that even though he was doing fine on his new farm. Probably has another woman now is what Rob told her. Rob is rude about poor Papa, rude to Mama, reminding her every two minutes that she's not his mother and how he doesn't have to mind her less he feels like it. And Mama says clamly, I may not be your mother, Rob, but I'm all you've got. Just goes clamly on about her business, leaving Rob staring after her. Those times he looks all twisted up and funny like he'd fell off a horse onto his head. Once he caught me looking at him when he felt twisted up that way and he came over and he hit me hard but never said one word.