Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

I don't know how that man knew about the hurricane but he sure did. You ask me, this was his inkling of his own dark fate.

Mister Watson brought his children here because Chokoloskee was the highest ground south of Caxambas. He trusted his strong house to stay put, but with Baby Amy only five months old, he didn't want to take no chances on a flooded cistern and unsanitary water. Later he claimed to Sheriff Tippins that he brought his family here on account of Leslie Cox was out to kill them, but he never said nothing about that to us.

Young Dutchy was with him when he brought his family, and Dutchy went back with him to Chatham Bend, and a few days later Mister Watson returned all by himself. That was October the 16th, a Sunday.

Late Sunday young Claude Storter came up from down coast with the news of dreadful killings at the Bend. Said Watson's nigra got away, out to the clam shacks on Pavilion Key, and the nigra claimed that Mister Watson ordered the three killings. Mister Watson's backdoor family was living on that key, and when Josie Parks-Jenkins, she was-challenged his story, the nigra switched and laid it all on Leslie Cox.

Hearing Claude's story, there was talk among our men of arresting Mister Watson, holding him here for Sheriff Tippins. Well, right about then, speak of the Devil, Mister Watson come into the store! Took his usual seat with his back into the corner, and told us he thought the hurricane was on its way.

When no one could look him in the eye, Mister Watson gazed all around the room, and then he eased onto his feet, straightened his coat. Maybe his back hairs didn't rise and his throat growl, the way Charlie T. Boggess has described it, but he smelled trouble. He picked Claude Storter right out of the crowd. He said, "Something the matter, Claude?" And knowing his temper, and knowing what he wore under that coat, Claude bravely advised him as soft as he knew how about the dreadful murders at the Bend. The only part he decided to leave out was the name of the man the nigra accused first.

Mister Watson had sat back kind of slow, but now he jumped right up again, startling a lot of 'em back out onto the porch. By God, he swore, someone would pay for this! Someone would hang! He was off to Fort Myers to fetch the sheriff before "that murdering sonofabitch-if you'll forgive me, Miss Mamie!-could make his getaway!" Well, it was E.J. Watson made the getaway, right from under the men's noses. His determination to seek justice seemed so darn sincere that it let all the steam out of their plans, or so they was telling one another for years afterwards.

Seems like yours truly, Mamie Ulala, was the only one suspected that his outrage was put on to fool us. You never saw an upset man with eyes so calm. Runs upstairs, hugs his sweet wife and children, comes down again with his big shotgun, he's well armed and out the door before anybody thinks to stop him. They was falling all over theirselves to clear his way.

Our men were not cowards-well, not most of 'em-but Mister Watson took 'em by surprise. My brothers were young men who enjoyed a scrap and most folks would count a few others pretty fearless, but them men was confused and angry, and they had no leader. They knew Ted was a friend of Mister Watson, Willie Brown and William Wiggins, too. Gregorio Lopez was gone down to Honduras, D.D. House and Bill was on House Hammock, and C.G. McKinney, who lived across the island, claimed he never heard a thing about it.

Sometime that week before the storm, Mister Watson was seen by the Frank Hamiltons at South Lost Man's, claimed he went there hunting Henry Thompson. He was gone another day or two before he come back to Chokoloskee. That was Sunday evening, the sixteenth. When we come in from Pavilion Key and Claude told him the news, all he could say was, Where in hell they got that damn fool nigger?

Captain Thad had took the nigra up the coast, aimed to hand him over to Sheriff Frank B. Tippins. When Mister Watson learned the nigra was in custody, on his way north, he said he was off to fetch the sheriff, then go to Chatham Bend, straighten things out. We reckoned he chose Sheriff Tippins because his son-in-law was a big shot in Fort Myers, so Tippins would have a better attitude than the Monroe County sheriff in Key West. And maybe he thought he'd catch up with the nigra at Marco, get to him before the sheriff did.

Next day early, in a southeast wind, Mister Watson crossed over to Everglade in his launch, paid down good money to my dad and Claude to carry him as far as Marco that same morning. Uncle George Storter would take care of the Brave, Mister Watson being one of his best customers. I don't know why he didn't take the Brave -no fuel, I guess. Also the barometer was falling fast, so it made more sense to go in a bigger boat.

R.B. Storter never cared to go in that black weather, but being as how they was old friends, he did. My mother got pretty bad upset that Dad was leaving right into a storm, she was scared for him and scared for Claude and scared for the home ones left behind in the rising waters, because Everglade weren't nothing more than mud banks on a tide creek back in them days. To make it worse, she was afraid that Watson might up and do away with 'em, cause the awful tale about the killings was all over the Bay, and she knew him for a desperate man that would try anything. But Mister Watson were a hard feller to say no to, it was always easier to go along.

There was northeast winds gusting to fifty by the time they came out Fakahatchee Pass. The Bertie Lee was banging hard and shipping water, and near to Caxambas, it wasn't a hard blow no more, it was plain some kind of storm was on the way. That wind had gone southeast to south, then around to the southwest, and building steady. From Marco Island all the way north to Punta Rassa, a small boat could mostly stay inside the barrier islands, but my dad didn't like the way them clouds was churning down that sky, ugly purple and yellow, like the firmament itself was torn and battered. He was more and more worried all the time about the family, and finally he told Mister Watson they could not take him to Fort Myers but was going to leave him at Caxambas and head on back. He'd have to walk from there to the Marco settlement, at the north end of that island, where somebody might carry him to the mainland.

Mister Watson looked 'em over for a minute there, went all wooden in the face the way he did sometimes. Had his hands in his coat, and Claude was scared he would haul out his revolver, order our dad to keep on going. Maybe he'd shoot 'em, dump 'em overboard, take the boat himself. But I guess he figured he had trouble enough without killing the brother of the justice of the peace, and his nephew thrown in. Cussed 'em out pretty darn good, but when he seen that wasn't going to change nothing, he give it up. Anyway, he always liked my dad. When they set him on the dock there at the clam factory, he wished them a safe voyage home, and waved good-bye, and strode off toward the north, his slicker flying.

The Bertie Lee never made it back to Everglade, she had to put in at Fakahatchee, where Dad and Claude took shelter with Jim Martin. That night the schooner dragged her anchor, drifted up into the mangroves. Claude and Dad never got a wink, that's how frantic they was about the family, and next morning Dad borrowed a skiff and rowed the last eight miles to Everglade. Found out how Uncle George come over to our house, took everybody aboard the big old lighter that Storters used to carry cane across from Half Way Creek. Herded half the settlement onto one lighter, that's how few was living there back then! Men pushed and poled upriver far as she would go, but Storter River-that's what us old-timers call it-rose ten or twelve feet before midnight till that barge tore loose and carried farther up into the trees. Tide turned before dawn, and barrels, boxes, cows, and all Creation drifted by, and the next thing you know, along come the new schoolhouse! Us kids had a high old time waving it good-bye! But all that while, we was worried sick about Dad and Claude. Never knowed if they was drowned or what, till our dad showed up the day after the storm, asked how we was.