Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

I never had nothing against E.J. Watson, but I believe that hurricane is all that saved us. What we found out later was, the dreadful doings at the Watson Place had happened on October 10th, a Monday, just three or four days before he had stopped by. Another thing: He told us he come up from Key West but he didn't. The men heard his motor from way off upriver. He come down the inland route along the creeks, then Lost Man's River to First Lost Man's Bay, Drifted the delta on account he didn't want nobody along that coast knowing where he come from or where he was going.

Pretty soon my dad showed up with my two uncles. Always see light like that before a hurricane, he humphed, when we told him about Mister Watson's warning. All the same, Mister Watson said it first, there weren't no talk of hurricane before his visit. Dad was running around all flustered up, tying our few worldly goods into the trees. Dad always done things inconvenient, as Mama complained the whole rest of her life. She couldn't find a pot while that storm hung fire, hung around over that Gulf and would not come in.

October 1910, my brother Claudius and me and Henry Short and our own nigra was fishing them bayous northwest of the Chatham River mouth-on the chart it's Storter Bay today-and selling our catch to the clam diggers on Pavilion Key. Coming and going along Chatham River, we might pass the Watson Place, and knowing that, Henry Short took his rifle in the boat. Never went without it, and never said what it was for. Nobody asked him questions, neither, we was glad he had it. Weren't nothing but one them old 1873-model Winchester.38s with lever action, but that colored man knew how to work it. He was a fine hunter and a expert shot, I never seen him shy away or lose his head. But one way and another, he just dreaded Mister Watson, he was scared to death of him.

One evening we was selling mullet at Pavilion when who should come in all in a uproar but Jim E. Cannon from Marco and his boy Dana, who was farming vegetables on Chevelier's old place on Possum Key. Folks suspected that Jim Cannon was hunting the Gopher Key treasure that Chevelier was supposed to have left buried. Some said it was the Frenchman's own misered-up money, some said it was Spanish gold that come into the hands of the Calusas back in days of yore. Either way, this treasure was the reason why Mister Watson went and killed Chevelier. By now they was laying everything on Mister Watson, made him responsible for every killing in southwest Florida. If he'd still been in jail up in north Florida, wouldn't of made one bit of difference. There was one I could tell you about but better not, one that was planned and got away with clean, in the knowing that Mister Watson would get blamed for it.

The Cannons was provisioning the clam crews, same way we done. Bananas and guavas was still thick on Possum Key in years the damn bears didn't clean 'em out, and there was two alligator pear trees, and key limes, all put in by the Frenchman. Over the years the garden was kept cleared and the cistern fresh-that's why Injuns always camped there when they come along inside the Islands, north through the salt creeks from Shark River. The house that belonged to Old Chevelier had disappeared after his death-not rightly knowing what become of it, people blamed Richard Hamilton-and someone burned Lige Carey's house down to the ground, probably cause he put a padlock on it. Another house built at the turn of the century by a feller name of Martin, who cleared off there after Tuckers was killed, that one went, too. Plume hunters and moonshiners used Possum Key after Jim Martin moved to Fakahatchee. Probably they got drunk, set things afire.

The Cannons hoed 'em out a real nice garden, but after Watson had come back for good, early 1909, they never cared to stay the night at Possum Key. I like to wake up in the morning, is how Jim explained it. Camped with the clam crews on Pavilion Key and went to and fro up Chatham River on the tides. Jim Cannon Bay is on your chart today.

Going upriver with the tide that morning, it was dark and squally, but the boy seen a pale thing swaying in that raining river, and he yells, Pap, I seen a foot sticking up, right over there! And Old Jim Cannon says, Foot? No, you ain't never! Must been a ol' snag or something! But Dana says, Nosir! I seen a foot! Well, Jim Cannon paid no mind, and they went upriver.

His boy knowed what he had seen, and coming back, he was on the lookout, and pretty soon he's hollering again. Know that eddy two hundred yards or so below the Watson Place, north side the river? You don't? That's where it was.

So Old Man Jim swung the boat in there, seen something unnatural sticking out, kind of white and puffy, and sure enough, a human foot is swaying and trembling in the current. The ebb was so strong curling around it that they had to tie up to it just to stay put. They seen it was a woman's foot, but there weren't nothing to be done, they could not come up with her. That female was heavy as a manatee, and fast to something way deep in the river, and they pretty near capsized trying to boat her.

Looks like she's hung up bad! Jim Cannon hollers. Jim had him the almighty creeps, and the boy was scared and getting scareder. He figured that giant gator that was seen sometimes in Chatham River must be hanging on to her, right down below their boat in that dark water. Staring at the ghosty face mooning around in the dark current, and the hair streaming like gray weed, so old and sad, that little feller bust down in tears. So Jim said to hell with it and let her loose, he come up with some kind of a prayer instead, said, Rest in peace. By the time he had the Amen finished, he had to shake his boy to get some sense back into him, cause Dana was having some kind of a fit, and had got seasick.

Jim said, We'll row back to the Bend and report this here calamity to Mister Watson. But the boy had more sense than the father, always did. He pipes up, No, Pap! I ain't going! Young Dana had heard the stories about Mister Watson, he was scared stiff, and soon as he got done being sick, he commenced to cry again.

So Jim told Dana to hush up so he could think, and he set there and give the situation some more thought. I thought long and I thought hard is what Jim told us. Even saying that, he frowned like anything. Said he had noted from the rough way she was gutted that the woman was not drowned but murdered, and whoever done such a foul deed had nothing to lose by getting rid of witnesses, maybe gutting 'em out and throwing them into the river right alongside her! The more Jim thought, the more frighted he became, and all of a sudden he decided they would go and ask the clam diggers' advice. So the Cannons took off to the clam bar, brought the news.

Early next day some men went up the river with Tant Jenkins, cause Tant was about the only one who wasn't deathly scared of Mister Watson. Tant and them got Hannah floated, hauled her out. Sure enough, that poor big woman, going on three hundred pounds, was gutted out same as you'd gut a bear. She was anchored off with an old flywheel, worm rock, pig iron, and who knows what. But Hannah Smith were a stubborn soul and always was. She had never took no for a answer all her life and didn't aim to start now she was dead. So she bloated up and dragged that pig iron back up off the bottom and used her foot to wigwag the first boat to come along.

Big Hannah had her hog-thief boyfriend still tied to her apron strings, as you might say. Somebody looked down and there he was, he was weighted, too. If things was left to poor old Green, they would probably stayed put on the bottom, but he never had no say about it, she raised him up right along with her.

Nobody wanted to look at 'em, let alone smell 'em-made their eyes water. They dug 'em a pit and buried the pair of 'em across the river and down a little way, thirty-some feet back of the bank on that point where Mister Watson had his other canefield. Maybe someone mumbled a few words and maybe not. Wasn't too many in our section had much practice.