Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

Ted was leery of this stranger right from the get-up-and-go. Said, Sure'n hell, that hombre has run off from someplace, way a tomcat runs off to the woods, goes wild and mean-Ted took agin him soon's he come into the store. Kept tugging at my apron strings, with all his whispering. Young man that's lived according to God don't never have a face as hard as that one! That durn frock coat might be hiding a whole arsenal! I never paid Ted much attention, knowing how excited my man got when he smelled an outlaw.

We asked John Smith if he might be kin to Miss Hannah Smith down Chatham River, or to Henry Smiths, who was one of our ten families here on Chokoloskee. He said, real short, "They ain't no kin at all." He was looking for an E.J. Watson, and he wasn't bothered the least bit to hear that Mister Watson was away down in Key West, with his wife expecting. "I'll wait on him," that's all he said.

This man paid John Demere to run him down to Chatham River. After he'd gone, my husband said, "Ed might be tickled pink to see this hombre, but I doubt it. I believe this could be that feller from the north he's always talked about."

When Ed Watson returned from Key West with his wife and baby, they traveled by steamer to Fort Myers, then came back on the mail boat far as Chokoloskee before they went on home to Chatham River. Ted warned him on the way through that a stranger had come lately, and was waiting on him. Mister Watson turned real quick, to check behind him, then glared at Ted kind of impatient. Ted said, "I mean, waiting at Chatham Bend."

When Mister Watson got took by surprise, he kept his mouth shut, not like most people. Making that little bow, he asks me, Please Miss Mamie, could he impose on my hospitality again? Would we take in Edna and the children while he looks into the situation at Chatham Bend? As I enjoyed her company, I did not mind.

Before he left, he said, "This man look Injun?" and Ted said, "Dark straight hair. Might be a breed." Watson said, "Does he look like some kind of a defrocked preacher?" This time it was me who nodded, but Ted said crossly, "No, he don't look like no preacher." Ted Smallwood would not tolerate the least resemblance between that stranger and a man of God.

I didn't contradict my husband, but Mister Watson never missed much, and when he seen me nod, he had to smile. Said, If this John Smith was who he thought it was, he might look like a preacher but he wasn't.

When I asked, Is John Smith his real name? he said, "Today it is," and went on out.

Next day he came back for the family, and him and Edna had a quick cold quarrel up in our spare room before she came down all teary-eyed to pack the children. Whoever this stranger was, it was pretty plain that his coming was a dreadful blow to that young woman, and all the way down to the dock, she done her best to persuade her husband to let her stay behind. Going aboard his launch with her new baby on her arm, she waved back at me real sad, you know, shaking her head. I didn't pester her about the stranger, and Edna would never tell me nothing, then or later. She always said, "Mister Watson wouldn't like it," even after Mister Watson was stone dead.

A few months before the stranger came, Mister Watson's gun-slinging young foreman done some vandaling down there and then run off someplace. Mister Watson made this John Smith his new foreman because Old Waller drank too much, but next thing you know, the first feller was back, asking after "Mister Ed." On his way through, he told Charley Johnson he would get his job back or his name weren't Dutchy Melvin.

Ted said straight off, "There is going to be trouble." And I said, "Fine. Them two young devils might shoot each other dead, which is good riddance." But the one I resented most was Mister Watson, for bringing these hellions into our community.

Mister Watson always dealt fair with us, and he done a right smart amount of trade with Smallwood's store. One year syrup sales was slow, and Snow and Bryan up in Tampa paid him off in trade goods for several hundred gallons of his syrup, and we took those goods and sold 'em on commission. In Watson's years the store was in our house, long with the post office; wasn't until 1917 we rebuilt it down beside the water, and wasn't till 1925 that we had sense enough to put it up on pilings, way it is today. Nick of time, cause that Hurricane of '26 would of cleaned her out. That was a bad one, killed a lot of folks when Lake Okeechobee busted out its dykes, but it wasn't near so terrible as the Hurricane of 1910, not in the Islands.

Now that storm of October 1909 was plenty bad enough, tore away half of Key West, blew the cigar business all the way to Tampa. We plain wasn't ready for another one still worse in 1910. But there was that comet in the sky, April and May, that was bad sign, and the worst drought in years all that long summer, with our crops withering, poor fishing everyplace. Even Tant Jenkins had to go dig clams to make a living.

Through all that hot dry summer of 1910, Edna Watson and her children visited regular at Chokoloskee, she spent more time here than at Chatham Bend. Stayed with us, stayed with the Wigginses, stayed with Alice McKinney and with Marie Lopez, who married Walter Alderman under that dilly tree at Lopez River-first real wedding with a preacher we had around these parts in years and years. Walter Alderman had worked for Mister Watson up Columbia Country, but he left there quick when Mister Watson got arrested, Marie said, so's he wouldn't have to testify in court. Forbid Marie to tell us anything about what happened, that's how scared he was that you-know-who might come at night and shut him up for good.

Ed Watson were as nice a fella as you'd ever want to meet, and as good a farmer as has ever cleared a piece of ground; he could make anything grow. My uncle Henry Thompson worked for Watson quite a good number of years, Tant Jenkins, too, and never had nothing bad to say about him.

Now my uncle Lewis Hamilton was married a little to Jennie Roe, who claimed that she got raped by Mister Watson. Nobody put too much stock in that one. Jennie Roe was a beautiful young woman, but she wasn't so particular. Her mother might been Josephine Parks, unless it was Henrietta Daniels-had to been one of them two sisters, what I heard. Them Caxambas families was all tangled up, and both half sisters had little girls by Mister Watson. Netta's Minnie was first, she was born the year Mrs. Jane Watson come home from the Wild West. Minnie had her daddy's chestnut hair. Aunt Josie's straw-haired girl, she was born at Chatham Bend round the turn of the century, they called her Pearl. Minnie growed up sweet, got married in the year of the Great Hurricane, 19 and 10. He was a Key Wester named Jim Knowles, his daddy might been ol' Bob Knowles, cooked for Bill Collier on the Eureka. Minnie was still living at Key West, last thing I heard, and Pearl stayed up around Caxambas.

Tant was more hunter than fisherman, you know, and he weren't no farmer at all-never had a hair of farmer in him. He'd cook a little if he had to but it weren't much good. Even when he worked for Mister Watson, fish is all he ever done besides go hunting, maybe run the boat. But now the wild critters was too scarce even for Tant, and he'd took work digging clams for his half brother Jim Daniels, who was the clam crew boss on Pavilion Key. Tant was going partners with Henry Smith of Chokoloskee, who was kin to that same Daniels bunch, had the same black Injun hair as they did.

Last time Mister Watson was over to Pavilion, that was late summer, he weren't hardly on the shore before ol' Tant was hollering, Lookee who's coming! Be damn if it ain't that dreadful desperader! See that wild and crazy look in them damn eyes?

Everybody was looking for a place to hide, but Mister Watson, he just grinned. And seeing that, Tant got cranked up, started showing off-Well, I'm tellin' you now, Mr. S.S. Jenkins don't aim to take no shit off this dang feller just because he s'posed to be Ed Watson!