Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

Rob passes for handsome with that straight black hair and fierce black brows and fair white skin that must have come down from his poor dead mother. The only thing he shows of Papa are the round red dots high on his cheekbone and those blue blue eyes from the highest heaven where blue comes from. Blue eyes with black hair are kind of scary. Those dots jump out like spots of blood, that's how fair his skin is, where Papa is so weather-browned and ruddy that the dots don't hardly show only when he's angry. Then they glow like fire, Mama says. Us kids can't wait to see our Papa glow like fire.

I don't look like Papa nor like Mama. I feel like some strange little thing people call Carrie but they don't know where she came from. Papa is heart-faced while Mama's face is long, and mine is somewhere in between, not fat-faced and not thin-faced but high cheek bones with full kind of lips, "bee-stung lips," as Mr. Browning wrote in Mama's poem book. I have brunet hair, Lucius and Mama sort of ashy blond, while Papa's is dark reddish chestnut, with gold hairs in summer.

Eddie takes after Papa more, he'll be big and broad and strong like that, with reddish coloring, though his hair is corse and skin more fair. His hole manner and expresion, Mama says, is very diferent, as if Papa's fire had died down or had no heat in it. (I am most like Papa, Mama says, I have his "prominent and penetrating eyes," what Granny Ellen calls "those crazy Watson eyes.")

Lucius has Mama's narrow feetures and that crooked little twitch that so seldom breaks out in a real smile. His eyes are dark and deep, look kind of shadowed. He'll be the tall one. (I am quite tall, too, there'll be quite a lot of Carrie, Mama teases.) Lucius is gentle, very sensitive. All the same our little boy is not so sereous as Rob and Eddie, he has got more fun in him. I'm light-hearted, too. Mama says what I am is light-minded, can't stick to my studies, I want to jump up and run outside and see. What should a person do who is plain cureous?

I was first to see the sail, white as a seabird's wing, way down toward the mouth of the Peace River. I knew it was Papa, no one else. I'd never seen a sail before, and I wanted to run right over to the landing, wave and wave. But Mama went pale, said, We don't know it's Mister Watson, we shall wait right here.

Pretty soon the sail was so close we could hear it ticking in the breeze, and Mama said, In case that's Mister Watson, we'd best stand up so's he can see us, not make him go over there to that hotel for nothing. So we all stood up in a line outside the depo, all but Rob, who was slowched off to one side. Rob wouldn't put on his Sunday suit, he wanted to make it plain as plain that he had no part in this hole dumb plan of the family taking Papa's charity down in south Florida.

It was pretty close to noon, there was no shade, and we stood in the hot wind watching the shore. In the glare they looked like two black creeturs, a thick one and a thin one, kind of shimmering. I thought the sun had made me dizzy. I cried, Mama, let me run to meet them! But she shook her head, and so we stood there, stiff as sticks.

A big man in black Western hat with a tall thin boy behind came walking across the white sand flat between the landing and the depo. Here came our long-lost Papa, and not one person smiling! I felt sorry for him! But our line never broke, and finally he stopped a few yards away and took off his broad hat and made a little bow, and nobody came up with a single word. He still had his gold watch on a chain, and took a look at it. "I'm sorry we are late," he said. "Rough weather." His voice was deep and pleasant, kind of gruff, as if he had no claim on us, not yet. He came no closer.

Mister Watson was dressed in a linen suit and black string tie, boots glissening and mustash waxed, and kept his hat off. He looked real glad to see this gloomy bunch, saying My O My with a big smile for us four frights all in a line that dared to call our selves his family.

I could see Mama yerning to smile back but she just couldn't. The lovely new rose bonnet she had scrimped for, saying over and over how buying it was a plain disgraseful waste cause who knows she might never wear this thing again-that pesky hat had gone all lopsided like it was melting and she never even noticed, that's how wore out the poor thing was from no sleep and bad nerves. Her red hands she was so ashamed of were clenched white at her waist and her long elegant face looked pale and peaked. Seeing her this way, I felt heart-broken, because our Mama has been sad and poorly. I wonder if that is why she wrote to Papa.

Papa said, "Well, Mrs. Watson, that's a fine-looking family you have there!"

Mama nodded, too upset to speak. The best she could do was give a smile to the strange boy to make him welcome, cause he looked just as shy and scared as all the rest of us. He was skinny and real brown-skinned with sun-whitened hair, and very long legs in his outgrown pants, the kind that other boys called High-pockets in school because his pants hung so high above his dusty ankles. Cepting his long bare brown feet, he was dressed like Rob, rough shirt with no collar and a pair of gallises yanking his pants up, maybe underwear, too-what Rob calls Injun underwear cause it creeps up on you. Except I don't hardly imagine this boy wore any underwear which I admit is none of my fool bizness. I will say he looked cleaned and didn't smell much.

I gave him a big sudden smile and turned it off again real quick, just scarred the daylights out of him. That boy went tomato red, frowned something terible, he looked straight up at the sky serching for birds, and when he came down again, he was faced away from us, trying to whissle.

Papa, too sudden, stepped across the space toward Mama, holding out both hands for her to take, and I watched her red hands give each other a last clutch as if for courage. The poor fingers started up, then quit and grasped each other, and Mister Watson let his own hands fall. His hands was opening and closing, just a little. The four hands at a loss were just so sad!

I couldn't stand one bit more suspense, someone had to do something or dumb little Carrie would bust into tears! I let out a yip and darted forward, threw my arms around our Papa and hung on for dear life, hoping for the best. I knew he was looking at his wife over the top of my red ribbon bow. Then I felt it, he let out a breath, and something eased in his hard chest, and his arms hugged me.

Sure enough, when I turned around, Mama was smiling. And darn it all if that silly little Carrie didn't start to blubering, and Mama, too, but she was smiling all the same, like sun in rain. It was a beautiful smile, kind of unwilling, crooked, full of hope, I never saw such a dear expresion on that lonesome face, it made my temples tingle.

Her smile was like a signal to the boys to run and jump onto their father, not because they loved him the way I did, they were much too young, but just the way that boys will do, for the old heck of it. Mama was covering her tears up pretty well by scolding those boys for wrinkling Mister Watson's linen suit, but Papa Bear was woofing and rolling around just like he used to, thretening to run off into the woods with a hole arm lode of kids that he would eat up later in his cave. Eddie was screeching to ease his nerves, pretending to be frightened, but little Lucius, only six, let himself be bounced and tossed without a sound, turning his head so's to watch Mama over his Dad's sholder, just to make sure she didn't go away.

All this time that poor fool Rob never budged an inch from where he was, just rocked on his heals, hands stuck in his hip pockets, and gave that serly stare to Mister Watson. So finely everyone was forced to look at his bad maners and his old curled lip, the way he wanted. But Rob could not meet his father's eye, so he jerked his chin at the strange boy as if to say, What's it to you? You better keep your durn eyes to yourself or I'll punch your nose off!