Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

Oh, Mister Watson dearly loved that bony feller, he'd take about anything off Tant where he'd of took his knife to someone else. He'd knowed Tant since Tant and Henry Thompson lived at Chatham Bend, they was kind of family, and he never did offer to fight him, not even once, even though Tant left him for good after the Tuckers. And since the Tuckers, Tant's teasing had an edge to it. Tant would just strut all around, tossing his head back, y'know, looking him up and down, sneer at him, spit near his boots. Hell, I ain't a-scared of you just on account you're packing so much hardware under that coat you cain't hardly WALK! And he'd go to dancing in and out around Mister Watson, fists up, snorting, little mustache bristling, saying, Step up here and take your punishment if you are man enough!

With Tant around, Mister Watson laughed till he wiped his eyes. Tant purely made him feel good, you could see it. But if Tant himself ever dared to laugh, even a little, Mister Watson's mouth closed tighter'n a clam, and Tant would roll his eyes back in his head like his last moment was at hand. And Mister Watson might clear his throat, maybe he'd take that watch out, maybe not. Then he would say something like, Ever hear about that feller who died laughing? And Tant would only shake his head and kick the ground. He'd never go back to teasing Watson that day, not even if you paid him fourteen dollars. Tant just knew.

Anyways, Mister Watson was well liked in our family, we never seen nothing the matter with him.

Down in the Islands back in them days, weren't too much of enough to go around, and families would help other folks get by. Sometimes we'd go up Chatham Bend to borrow something, and Mister Watson would give my dad, Frank Hamilton, a gallon of his fine syrup, one of them four-sided tin cans. Used to take us kids around the place, show us his horse that he named Dolphus Santini, show us his cows and his hogs. I'll never forget it. Nicest man I ever met in all my life. Had great big hogs, y'know, tamed to pet by hand, and a grizzled kind of old man name of Waller to take care of 'em. Had one pig, Betsey, that they'd trained up like a dog, she could do tricks.

Overseer down there then was Dutchy Melvin, a Key West desperader. Burned down a cigar factory or two on account them Cubans wouldn't pay him not to. Dutchy claimed he killed a lawman who tried to keep him from his work, and escaped the noose due to his youth and winning ways, but others said they caught him looting after that October storm of 1909. Whatever he done or didn't do, he got sent out on the chain gang and escaped. First place he thought to go hide out at was the Watson Place, because it was known around Key West that Mister Watson weren't particular about his help so long as a man weren't afraid of work.

Dutchy Melvin never went nowhere without his guns, wore 'em right out where everyone could see 'em, to avoid confusion. Dutchy said, I'll go to hell before I go back on that chain gang, and I ain't going neither place without I take a few of my feller men right along with me. Meant what he said, I do believe, cause the Florida chain gangs, they was hell on earth, no place at all for a well-brung-up young feller.

Dutchy Melvin was a common-sized man, maybe one hundred sixty pounds, kind of dark-complected. My daddy knew his people in Key West, nice people, too, but if you didn't know how much he hated Spaniards, you might of seen a hair of Spaniard in him. In one way young Dutchy was like Mister Watson, very soft-spoke, nice to meet, and everybody liked him, but he was a bad actor all the same. Even Watson, so they say, was kind of leery of him.

Dutchy Melvin was a real acrobat. One day there on the dock front of the Watson Place he took off his gun belts, give 'em to my brother Dexter Hamilton to hold for him, and did a front flip for us kids, not a somersault but a real front flip, he landed on his feet just like a cat. Only time I ever seen that feller with his guns off.

The first year Dutchy come, Mister Watson made him foreman, cause Dutchy's guns scared the help so bad they was glad to work as hard as they was told. They knew this feller hadn't one thing left to lose, and if he got the idea to blow their heads off, he might do it. But him and Mister Watson quarreled because Watson wouldn't pay him, not till they got the last cane in and boiled the syrup.

So that boy waited until Watson was away, and then he spoiled maybe a thousand gallons of good syrup, he threw salt in it. Lit out for New York City, some such place, sent back a sassy postcard, Well now, Mister Watson, while you was roaring around pleasuring yourself down to Key West, I was passing the time taking some sweet out of your syrup. Mister Watson was swearing mad and never cared who knowed it, but my aunt Gert's husband, Henry Thompson, he was running the schooner at that time and brought the mail, Henry Thompson told the family that Mister Watson read that card and laughed! This was a fortnight after Dutchy spoiled his syrup, and he had cooled off just a little, and he stood there on his dock and read that card he got from Dutchy Melvin and just laughed! Said, That young feller knew enough to get up to New York before he wrote me that!

Well, that crazy fool popped up again, summer of 1910, had jokes for everybody. He had swore he would not go back onto the chain gang, and had no other place to put his feet up, and anyway he was so cocky he thought Mister Watson probably still liked him. Probably true, but "like" don't mean "forgive" and never did.

By that time a stranger had showed up there, took Dutchy's place as foreman. When the census come around, spring of 1910, this stranger called himself John Smith, but it come out later that his rightful name was Leslie Cox.

I seen this Cox a time or two but never got acquainted. While he was here, he never left the Bend. He weren't around here long enough so folks can picture him. Had hair short on his head and down his neck, same length all over, looked like fur. It's like Uncle Henry Thompson used to say, I can't recollect just what Cox looked like, but I do recall I never liked his looks.

Cox was a wanted man, and wanted bad, but nobody knowed that at the time. Some way Cox was acquainted with Ed Watson, and come looking for him, fetched up on the Bend. Some said Cox was Watson's cousin, and some said he saved Watson's hide one time, out West, but later we heard he was a killer, he'd run off from the chain gang, same as Dutchy. Leslie Cox was quiet-spoken, too, from being on the run, spoke in a kind of low and raspy voice, had a bad mean mouth. Uncle Henry used to tell us all about it.

Dutchy Melvin wasn't mean, he always had a friendly word, but he didn't take to Cox, wouldn't take his orders. He was fixing to run that somber sonofabitch right off the property, that's what he told Mister Watson. Dutchy grinned when he said that but he meant it. Wasn't room down there for both of 'em, young Dutchy swore. Said he made his grandmother a solemn promise never to consort with common criminals, which was why he had felt honor-bound to run off from the chain gang. Mister Watson thought that was pretty good about honor-bound and common criminals, and him and Dutchy had a good laugh over it, and then Mister Watson sat back a bit, the way he often done, watched that boy laughing. Uncle Henry Thompson, who never did find out how to have fun, Uncle Henry noticed the way Mister Watson done that. But Dutchy was too tickled to notice. That was his mistake.

In them days Injuns wouldn't work for nobody, but Tant Jenkins, hunting in the Glades, come back that spring with a young squaw girl, left her off at Chatham Bend. Her family had turned their back on her for laying with Ed Brewer to settle up her bill for Brewer's moonshine, and if Tant hadn't of run across her, back up Lost Man's Slough, she might of died. Mister Watson took her in to help young Mrs. Watson with the children, cause Hannah Smith had other business to attend to.