Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

Course them two hens turned right around when they heard that eager squabble from the other women, picked up their skirts and come tripping down the hill again. Might been scared of Mister Watson, but they was more scared yet of missing out on something.

When Mister Watson tipped his hat and bowed, who should stand up right beside him but a young woman with a babe in arms! Next thing we knew, he was handing her out onto our landing! After that, it was a barnyard around here, pushing and squeaking and flapping off home to find a poor bonnet or a pair of shoes for such a high society occasion.

Say what you like about Mister Watson, he looked and acted like our idea of a hero. Stood there shining in the sun in a white linen suit and a light Panama hat, not one of them rough straws we plait down here. And her on his arm in a wheat-brown linen dress and button boots, and sweet baby girl in brown frock and sunbonnet and big pink bow-you never seen a more upstanding couple!

For a few moments that fine little family stood facing the crowd like they were posing on a holiday. I see that picture each time I recall how he stood alone in that very selfsame spot on a dark October evening four years later, with that young woman turning slow to stare at me in my own house, and his little girl squeaking her heart out in the corner like a poor caught rabbit, in that wild crashing of men and their steel weapons.

Since that bad business down at Lost Man's River there'd been plenty talk that if Ed Watson ever showed his face round here again, the men would right away form up a posse to turn him over to the Monroe sheriff, maybe string him up if he gave 'em any back talk. But Mister Watson stayed away from Chokoloskee when he came through in 1904, he stopped off quick at Chatham Bend and was gone quicker. Returned later that same year, stayed a bit longer, burned off his plantation, which had mostly gone back to scrub palmetto. Never heard that he'd been there till after he was gone, but meantime folks got used to the idea that he might come again.

Whether that was his plan or it wasn't, you had to admire Mister Watson's nerve. He took all the steam out of the men, who told each other he would never stay, told each other he was fixing things up so he could sell the place on Chatham Bend, told each other everything that they could think of. And all this time he was tending to his business, seeing the Lee County surveyor about getting title to his land, bringing his own carpenter from Columbia County to build him a front porch, giving the house a new coat of white paint. Not whitewash, mind, but real oil paint. Only house with a coat of paint was ever seen down in the rivers. But that carpenter perished down at Watson's, and bad rumors naturally started to fly, and next thing we knew he was gone again. This was the year poor Guy Bradley was killed, and some pinned that one on him too, once he departed.

When he didn't show up for a year, and it looked like we'd seen the last of him for certain, the men concluded he had killed that carpenter along with the Frenchman and the Tuckers, and the lynch talk started up again. Some of these fellers got just plain ferocious.

Well, here he was, walked right into their clutches, but I never heard no mention of a posse. Most of them fools were jostling when E.J. Watson came ashore, that's how bad they wanted to step up and shake his hand. Nobody wanted to hang back when it came to showing how much they thought of Mister Watson, they wouldn't hear a hard word said against him. Told their wives later, Well, them Tuckers was just conchs, y'know, goldurn Key Westers. They might have had it coming, who's to know?

Yep, they joked and carried on with Mister Watson that day, he weren't nothing but our long-lost Island neighbor. Charlie T. Boggess asked what kind of motor Mister Watson had in that there boat, and he said, Why, that's a Palmer one-cylinder, Charlie T., and she's a beauty!-and all the rest of 'em nudging and winking, nodding like a row of turkey gobblers, as if anyone but Charlie T. would have known it was a Palmer soon's they heard it coming up the Pass. Charlie and Ethel Boggess is our old dear friends, they was married back in '97, same year we was, and my Ted always held a good opinion of him, but Charlie T. was a pure fool around Ed Watson, and he wasn't near as bad as some them others.

Eugene Hamilton was here that day, who helped bury them poor Tuckers down at Lost Man's, and was all for lynching Mister Watson some years back. A young Daniels told him at that time, Ain't no damn difference if the man is guilty, boy, it ain't your place to go talking big about lynching no damn white man. And Eugene said, You saying I ain't white? and they had one heck of a fight right here behind the store, Gene Hamilton like to killed his own darn cousin. But this day he stood gawking with the rest.

The only one who took no part in all the hubbub was my brother Bill, and I was proud of him. Bill House was curious, no doubt about it, he puzzled over Mister Watson his whole life, but Bill had talked to Henry Short, who had helped the Hamiltons with that burial. Though Henry Short would never accuse nobody, Bill concluded that Mr. E.J. Watson was a cold-hearted killer, and never seen nothing else to change his mind. Bill had no kind of education, he took over for Dad when Dad went too hard for his age and crippled himself with his ax, down at House Hammock. Taking care of our House clan the way he done, Bill was always too busy to improve himself, but he had more sense than the whole bunch when it came to people.

Mister Watson must have felt Bill's eye cause he turned around in the middle of a sentence, eyed Bill a little bit too long, then said real quiet, "Well, hello there, Bill." And Bill said, calm and easy, "Mister Watson," and took off his hat to the young woman, and shook hands all around. Bill had growed up broad-shouldered and blond, broiled beef-red by the sun, steady as a tree. "Glad to see you again," Mister Watson said, like he was testing him. But Bill wouldn't go that far with him, and didn't, though he had House manners and purely hated all his life to seem unfriendly. Oh, he looked amiable enough, but he just nodded without speaking and put his hat back on by way of answer.

Mister Watson sized him up a minute before nodding back. But Bill House was a man he wanted on his side, and Bill was the first one on the island that her husband introduced to "Mrs. Watson."

I see her today as she was then, a handsome taffy-haired young woman of about my age, holding a pretty baby girl with the same auburn hair and sleepy smile as her bad daddy. And Mister Watson said, Now you boys watch your language, hear? Because this young lady is a preacher's daughter. That was just a joke, of course. Wasn't a man in Chokoloskee would dare to curse in front of all them women.

Ida Borders House was plumb determined not to take it like he meant it-nearly knocked herself out cold, that's how hard she sniffed. Mama dearly liked to make a point with that big sniff of hers, didn't care too much whether or not her point was called for. So she said real loud, "Well, praise to goodness, ain't no need to instruct First Florida Baptists about blasphemies!" But she was glaring someplace else by the time she finished. It was very hard to meet Mister Watson's eye.

I watched the young wife's face, see how much she knew. She caught me looking, and she cast her eyes down, and I seen that she knew plenty but not all of it. Then she looked up again and smiled, as if she'd spotted me as her new friend, or as her enemy. I went forward to welcome her, and the women followed.

For all the grinning and good fellowship, everybody there was bone-uneasy about what happened to them Tuckers down at Lost Man's-or seemed like it happened, as Ted says, cause there wasn't never any proof, and nobody left alive to tell the tale. Knowing that, Mister Watson stood there quiet and easy, very patient, hands folded behind his back, nodding and smiling, more tickled to be home than the Prodigal Son. Never raised his voice nor cackled loud the way them others done, just acted sheepish about being gone so long. Just toed the ground with them nice boots of his, waiting for these folks to look him over and be done with it.