Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

They rode Sam Lewis to the jail at Juno, Florida. When the homesteader died a few days later-this was July of 1895-the men went to Juno and took Sam Lewis out and lynched him, and shot the nigger jailkeeper while they was at it. Made what you might call a nice clean job.

Anyways Ed Brewer figured that bringing in the famous E. Jack Watson would improve his reputation with the sheriff on top of earning the reward. But Chevelier warned him there was no way of coming up on Watson by surprise. The small stretch that overlooked the Bend was the only break in them green walls, cause the place was surrounded on three sides and more by a mangrove tangle a greased Injun couldn't slip through. Besides that, everybody knowed how that high ground, in storm, drew every critter on these rivers, it was one of the worst places for rattlers, let alone cottonmouths, in all the Islands. Them vipers piled up on Chatham Bend, time of high water, and they never left.

"We'll come down the river in the dark," Ed Brewer said, "surround the house, and take him when he comes out in the morning."

Lige Carey's chuckle didn't sound too good. "Mister Watson never goes unarmed, and he is a dead shot," Lige says. I catch the tightness in his voice and so does Brewer, who says, "That so, Cap'n?" He takes up his rifle and steps out the door and shoots the head clean off a snake bird that's craning down from the top of a dead snag over the creek. He let that bird slap on the water and spin a little upside down, legs kicking. Then he comes back in, sets his gun back by the door, and says, "I reckon three can handle one, we put our mind to it."

I ain't spoke up for a while so I says, "Better make it four!" I ain't got one thing in the world against Ed Watson but I don't want to miss out, and I shoot pretty fair, too, if I do say so. (Also I want to make damn sure that none of these drunks goes over there and shoots poor Henry Thompson, who is somber enough already without getting shot.) Them men just scoff cause the way they see it, I am still a boy. So I missed my chance to join a Watson posse, had to wait another fifteen years.

In Captain Lige's opinion, which me and the Frenchman got to hear a lot, we gentlemen was sick and tired of violence in south Florida. Why, taking the law in your own hands was worse in Florida, yells Lige, than out in the Far West, where men was men, what with so many desperadoes and bad actors hiding out down here in our trackless swamps like dregs in the bottom of a jug of moonshine. Ol' Lige come right out and shouted the word moonshine! as a hint to our guest to do his bounden duty, he give me a big wink when he done it, and Ed Brewer sloshed some shine in my tin cup, glug-glug, glug-glug, to get the whippersnapper liquored up long with the rest.

"Now you take this Watson fellow!" Lige was shouting. Down in Key West, most people said that Dolphus Santini was smart to take that money-well, Elijah P. Carey disagreed and didn't care who knew it, he slapped his hand down on the table, spilling drinks. "Watson had that sum right in his pocket! Nine hundred dollars! And every red cent of it ill-gotten, you may rest assured!" What happened to a leading citizen should not go unpunished, Captain Carey said. Well, nine hundred dollars were pretty good punishment back then, was my opinion; that's what Smallwoods would pay for Santini's whole damn claim on Chokoloskee. Lige Carey never knew Santini, never knew how he got to be leading citizen in the first place. You show Dolphus nine hundred dollars, his eyes would glaze right over like a rattler. He was a rich man by our standards, and he earned every penny, and I guess you could say he earned it this time, too.

Anyway, he took Ed Watson's money. Maybe Dolphus was worried about lawyers' fees, or maybe he thought the federal attorney, who was one of Watson's drinking partners, might bring a poor attitude to the case. This weren't unlikely, cause ol' Ed was just as popular as not around Key West. And maybe Watson had him scared so bad that he didn't want to rile him any further. He had no choice about the scar, so he decided he would take the money. This way, next time they met, there'd be no hard feelings. Watson could say, How's that ol' scar doing, Dolphus? And Dolphus could holler, Why, just fine, E.J.! Coming along fine!

Elijah Carey was still shouting. "How could Santini accept a bribe after such an experience, instead of putting that villain behind bars where he belonged? Gentlemen," he yells, "I am astonished!"

"Astonish!" sniffs the Frenchman, inching a little more lightning into his glass like it was medicine. "I am astonish from first foking day I set foots in America. What is require is la guillotine, in every foking vee-lage in this foking con-trie."

Might seem sassy for a boy to interrupt, but being from Chokoloskee Bay, I was the only one acquainted personal with D. Santini, and the time had come to tell my partners what was what. "Nothing astonishing about it, gentlemen!" pipes up young House.

The other citizens all stared at me, kind of impatient, and I had to get my say in quick before Chevelier could shoo me off. "Old Man Dolphus likes money, that's why he's got so much. For nine hundred dollars he can buy what little farm land he don't already own on Chokoloskee."

There was no law in the Islands, I reminded 'em, a man took care of his own business, and a killing was not what you might call scarce-though the Islands was kind of like them Hamiltons, as Tant Jenkins used to say, they never was as black as they was painted. However, Key West was trying out some law after a long spell without none, so Watson paid Dolphus in hard cash not to take the case to court, let bygones be bygones. That was that. Nobody at home thought much about it.

"It's the principle of the thing!" Ol' Lige cries out. "The principle!" And the Frenchman wags a finger- "Le pran-seep!"

Them two gentlemen are frowning at me kind of outrageous, but I seen from his wink that Ed Brewer thought the same way I did, being a common swamp rat, same as me.

To make a long story somewhat shorter, this Brewer could shoot him a blue streak, and he was a man without no fear of man nor beast, or so he advised us by the time we had his liquor polished off. Chevelier and Carey could shoot pretty good, too, and it sure looked like this deadly bunch had Watson's number. But Cap'n Lige from start to finish had no heart for the job. Maybe he seen that one of his partners was a drunk outlaw with his eye on Watson's property, and the other a loco old Frenchman so fed up with life he couldn't see straight, let alone shoot.

Every few minutes Ol' Lige described Ed Watson cutting loose down in Key West, shooting out light bulbs in the saloons, never known to miss. If he said it once he said a hundred times that drunk or sober, E.J. Watson was no man to fool with, but his partners was just too liquored up to listen. First light, they fell into the skiff and pushed off for Chatham Bend, figuring to float downriver with the tide. Cap'n Lige never had the grit not to go with 'em.

Come Sunday, I snuck off to Chatham Bend. Henry Thompson and me tied up to a mangrove and baited us some snappers while we compared our lowdown on that posse. I told Henry how them three deputies was up all night getting their courage up, and he told me what happened the next morning. Maybe they was bad hung over and their nerves wobbly, he said, because what they done was stand off on the river and holler out, "E. Jack Watson, come out with your hands up! You are under arrest!" That river is pretty broad there on the Bend, and they was way over on the farther side, so they had to shout with might and main just to be heard.

Watson got up out of bed and poked his shooting iron through the window. He knowed Ed Brewer from saloons down to Key West, so Henry said, knowed him for a moonshiner and durn east coaster, and he also knowed that the Key West sheriff weren't likely to appoint no wanted man to be his deputy. So when Brewer reared up in the boat and hollered, Watson let a bullet fly that clipped that feller's handlebar on the left side. When that bullet sang and Brewer yelped, Cap'n Carey and the Frenchman near fell out of the skiff, that's how hard they put their backs into them oars.