Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

Our colored boys was along to dig the hole, but them two knew much better than to touch her. Every man was boiling mad to see a good woman gutted out like a damn animal. Even Tant didn't make no jokes that day. Once she was covered, the men talked about going up to Watson's place, ask a few questions. But they never went, and he never come down from the house to see what they was up to in his cane patch.

Starting downriver, they come upon Dutchy Melvin in the mangroves. He was swole up and rotted, too, but not so bad they couldn't see the gator bites. They threw a hitch on him and towed him back, laid him right in there alongside them others, practically poured him into Hannah's grave. Tant almost upchucked, and he weren't the only one.

All the way back to Pavilion Key, Tant never spoke, the only time Tant held his tongue in his whole life. Henry Daniels asked what he was thinking, and he said he was thinking about Mister Watson.

You can go down there yet today and see that lonely grave. Looks square and maybe sunk about a foot, with nothing growing, ain't that funny? As if you picked up a old tabletop stuck in the marl. There's three lost souls laying down in there if tides ain't took 'em. You can open up that grave, have a look at Hell.

When we got back from burying Miss Hannah, in come this nigra from the Watson Place, dark husky feller in torn coveralls, pretty good appearance for a nigra. He had took a skiff and got away from Chatham Bend-a desperate act, cause he were a field hand and no boatman. He had wore the skin right off his hands, that's how hard he pulled on them old splintery oars. One minute he was moaning and blubbering so much you couldn't hardly make him out, next minute he was very quiet and his eyes was calm. Henry Smith give him a cuff to make him talk straight, and finally he hollers out how three white folks was dreadful murdered on the Bend.

"We know that!" someone shouts. "Who done it?"

"Yassuh! Mist' Watson's fo'man!"

Tant asked if Mister Watson ordered them three murders. This man said yes. We heard him say it. Said Watson was at Chatham Bend when Cox killed Dutchy.

There come a ugly silence in that crowd, part dread of Watson, part disapprovement of a nigra who would try to get a white man into trouble. Looked like he'd figured out in that burr head of his that we'd go along with any blame he laid on Watson. Well, he might been right. Captain Thad Williams got rough with him then-Are you accusing Mister Watson? And the man stared bug-eyed at the crowd, you know, looked too scared to speak. I believe right to this day he were playing possum. Cap'n Thad advised him to be careful who he went accusing, cause Thad knew them men was all excited, might string him up before their supper if they took a mind to.

Tant Jenkins and his sister Josie, and Aunt Netta Roe who run the post box at the little store-all that whole Jenkins-Daniels bunch that used to live at Chatham Bend and was what you might call kissing kin to Mister Watson-they wanted to put a stop to that darn nigra then and there. And seeing the way the wind was blowing, the nigra switches his whole story, says Nosuh, he sho' mistook hisself! Mist' Watson was done gone to Chokoloskee, never knowed nothin about nothin!

When the nigra was told how that big woman's body had rose up out of Chatham River, he lets out a yell, Oh Lawdamercy! They slap him again, to keep him quiet, because everyone's trying to think what they should do and his nigra racket is getting on their nerves. But in a minute he finds his tongue again and yells about how Mist' Cox done told him he was done for if he didn't shoot into the bodies and lend a hand in the gutting and hauling, and if anyone asked, just blame this mess on Mister Watson.

That nigra had to be so terrified or crazy to tell them men something like that. He'd confessed he had took a part, confessed he'd shot into the body of that white woman and maybe worse. Maybe he was in on it from start to finish-that's the way them men started to talk, that's how upset they was. There come a kind of ugly groan out of that crowd, and one of them Weeks boys started slapping on that nigra, looking for a way to ease his nerves. You shot a white woman, that what you said, boy? Laid your black hands on her?

Going off half-cocked, is what they were. Good thing they wasn't no big limb out on that key or they would of took and strung him up right there.

But if he was guilty, why was he there? Why would he ever say a word? I couldn't believe that man had been so foolish. I caught his yeller eye again, and I shook my head, as if to say, Boy, you have asked for it! And again his gaze give me the feeling that nigra did just what he aimed to do-reckless, yessir, but he weren't no fool.

Papers reported that this here nigra was young and frightened, done nothing but moan and carry on like the Devil was after him. Well, maybe he looked young but he weren't, because I seen him, I seen the little gray along his temples. He acted scared, but back of all that nigra shout was something cunning. It was only after he got Watson suspected that he switched his story, tried to save his life. Next time he looked up, I seen that quiet in him, and he knew I seen it, cause he cast his eyes down. He was more angry than scared is what I seen, and bitter, bitter, bitter.

Henry Short and Erskine Roll-we called him Pat-had eased out of the crowd, not wanting to pay for this feller's mistake. Claude and me walked along with 'em to our boat, case there was trouble, told 'em to go on across, sleep on Little Pavilion, come back pick us up first thing next morning.

By the time we got back to the clammers, the men was angered up and frustrated. They started in to drinking and concluded pretty quick that Watson's nigra would be much better off lynched, just to be on the safe side. Captain Thad was shouting at the crowd that his vessel was the only one could carry 'em safe home from Pavilion Key if a bad storm come down, which sure seemed likely in a day or two, from all the signs. Said any man tried to come aboard to harm that nigra would get left behind.

Captain Thad locked the nigra in his schooner cabin for safekeeping. Later on I went on board and told this black boy to calm down and make sense cause his life depended on it. He was still pretty bad shook up, or played that way, but what scared him most was Cox or Watson finding out what he had told.

Asked his name, he said Little Joe was what Mist' Watson usually called him. Seemed kind of funny, cause he wasn't little by no means. Said that name was as good as any, from which I knew he was a wanted man, most likely, same as all the rest of Watson's people. Said he had knowed Mist' Watson for a good number of years, both here, he said, and there, though he couldn't quite remember where "there" was. Just wouldn't talk straight, everything he said had two-three meanings to it. There was a lot else he knew about Cox and Watson, I could feel it boiling back in there behind his eyes, but all he would tell over and over was his story about the murders at the Bend.

Trouble started, he said, when the Injun hung herself cause Cox had got her in a family way. Figuring her people would kill her and the child, she done it first. I said to him, You had her too, I bet, and he said, Nosuh.

Mister Watson had went to Chokoloskee to see to his family, he took Dutchy with him. The other three was drinking pretty good, that restless weather all that week before the storm had riled up everybody's nerves the way it will, and the nigra in the kitchen fixing supper heard everything they said about the Injun girl that Waller had found hanging in the boat shed. Hannah was upset and she told Cox, The least thing you could do is bury her. Cox said, That squaw ain't my business. Said if Hannah wanted her buried so damn bad, then go bury her herself or let the nigger do it.