Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

That storm in 1910 lasted thirty hours, seemed like the world was coming to an end. Barometer at Sand Key Light, down by Key West, registered 28.40, the lowest ever recorded in the U.S.A. The Great Hurricane of 1910 was a dreadful, dreadful hurricane, worst in memory along this coast before nor since.

Folks was quick to connect that terrible hurricane with that sky fire that showed up in the springtime of that year and set the sky ablaze night after night. The Great Comet was first seen due east from Sand Key, April 22nd, twenty-five to thirty degrees above the horizon, with the scorpion tail of it curling right over us like an almighty question mark in Heaven.

Brother Jones was ranting on about a great war between Good and Evil, and how that comet was a messenger of Armageddon. The Good Lord aimed to wipe out the whole world, punish us poor sinners for good and all, leave just a few of the pure in heart to get the world cranked up again. By the time that man of God was done with us, the pure-in-hearts was the only ones breathing easy. But pure-in-hearts was never plentiful around the Bay, and once the sinners went to Hell, it might of got pretty lonesome around here, crying in the wilderness and all like that.

So when this angry storm come down right after word come of them bloody murders, it was seen as the first blast of Judgment Day. In the ruin and silence on the land, no one could doubt that Satan had reared His ugly head amongst the sinful folk of the Ten Thousand Islands. All these signs from Heaven and earth could only be God's wrath at E.J. Watson, and maybe the Lord God Almighty had still worse up His sleeve, for all we knew.

That Sunday night in the old store, our menfolks got real busy spreading blame. No sooner was Mister Watson safely on his way than some started hollering how he should been taken prisoner, and others hollered, Why, hell no! Ed was right here on Chokoloskee! There ain't no possibility he done them crimes! Other ones said it must been Cox that made that nigra put the blame on Watson, and "anyways you could never trust a nigger." Well, now, some said-and could be I was one-even if Cox had put a gun up to his head, no nigra would be fool enough to lie about a well-estimated man like Mister Watson.

Ted heard me say that and he didn't like it, but I just set my jaw and wouldn't look at him. In my belief I said the truth: Ed Watson's nigra must of had a reason.

By that time Mister Watson was long gone, headed for Everglade. He knew from hard experience, he'd told us, how quick a gang of flustered men can turn into a mob that has to do something, and somehow he sweet-talked R.B. Storter into running him north as far as Marco even though the hurricane was on its way. Had to pay Bembery pretty good, I shouldn't wonder, them Storters never give you much for nothing. That's what Storters say about us Smallwoods, too.

The storm came in next morning and built up all day. Our house was the old Santini house, come with the property Ted bought, 1899. Santinis built her well above the drift line of the hurricane of '73, and that were good enough in '96, and again in 19 and 09, but it weren't near good enough for that hurricane of 1910, which come roaring in around us like a dragon. Rain and sea was all mixed up together, the trees all around lost in the swirl until we couldn't see 'em anymore. Gray thick waves heavy as stones pounded our shore as if our island was way out on the open Gulf, and the island grew smaller, smaller, smaller, as the water rose. Seemed like our little bit of land had been uprooted and had gone adrift, far out to sea.

According to C.G. McKinney, who passed in these parts for somewhat educated, nine tenths of Chokoloskee Island and ten tenths of Everglade was underwater. Had to abandon our poor home and then the schoolhouse, which was ten foot above sea level. Edna Watson was up there with the Aldermans, he carried Addison, she had little Amy and was leading her Ruth Ellen by the hand.

Storm water rose up to its highest maybe four o'clock that morning, left a line on the wall ten inches higher than the school-house floor. The men begun to make a raft out of the schoolhouse, and the bang of hammers was all that could be heard over that wind. Meanwhile we hurried all the kids to the top of Injun Hill.

Poor Edna was close to hysterics. Having been raised far inland from the sea, she never believed such a fearful storm was possible. She promised her kids they would all stay in the schoolhouse and face together whatever dangers was to come. That way they would not get rained on, Edna told 'em. Finally we persuaded the poor thing that she better come uphill long with the rest of us.

By the end of it, all ten families on the island was perched out like wet birds in the black weather. It was late October, don't forget, our teeth were chattering in the cold rain. All night we were staring at that rising water, until finally the Good Lord heard our prayers, and the thundering eased a little and that coast got a breath, and we seen that the seas weren't climbing any more but sucking themselves back down into the torrents, leaving behind dark dripping silence, mud, and ruin.

At daybreak, this was the eighteenth, there was no real dawn at all, it stayed half-dark. The water still swirled around our house, and what goods from the store weren't gone into the Bay were washed way back up into the woods. I lost my whole new set of china, and seeing that, I just shook my head and laughed and cried. Grandma House was hollering, How can you laugh, girl, with all your livelihood lost in the mud? The former pert Miss Ida Borders of South Carolina was pretty disappointed in the Lord, seemed like to me. And I said, Well, Mama, I am thankful we are all alive and in one piece and lived to tell about it. This ol' mud looks pretty good to me.

Only one hurt was Charlie T. Boggess, who threw out his ankle bad, tending the boats. Jumped off a boat where the dock was underwater, and the dock weren't there no more. Fetched Old Man McKinney over here to yank him straight again and bind him up, and after that Ted lugged him on his back all the way across the hill to his own house, told him to stay there and not cause any more trouble. That's why Charlie T. still limped so bad, and why he was bringing up the rear when the posse came down to our landing here a few days later. He made it, though, he never was a feller to miss out on nothing.

Sunday had some sun and a light wind, but by ten that evening, the sixteenth, the barometer commenced to fall too fast, with wind from the northeast, thirty, forty, fifty miles, and climbing. At dawn high tide come right up to the cabin, the seas was washing all across the ridge back of Lost Man's Beach. By noon that day the wind, still building, shifted over to southeast, then south, and that afternoon of October 17th, when she blew hardest, she blew steady out of the southwest, all the way across the Gulf from the Yucatan Channel.

I was only a little feller then, seven years of age, but I never forgot how the sky fell, that black and awful sky rushing off the Gulf and looming over us, the whole earth turning black at noon. Seas come in off the horizon, crashing on the coast, couldn't hear one wave break no more, it was all thunder. And the rain slashing straight across in sheets, and that groaning wind twisting the trees when the gusts struck us. When the thatch tore off of our poor cabin, what few worldly goods we had was snatched away. By nightfall, we knew we was the last ones in the world, with the whole universe caving in on us poor lost souls.

The cabin begun to shift a little after dark, though when high water come it was past midnight. We abandoned our old home for the skiff, let the wash carry us well up in the black mangroves, lashed the boat tight, and prayed to the Lord Almighty for deliverance. All huddled up, white-faced as possums on a limb, hour after hour, and worried sick the whole damn time about Aunt Gert's family. Well, them Thompsons rode the storm out in a skiff tied up into the mangroves, same as us. Shine Thompson-that's my cousin Leslie-Shine was just a little feller then, and Aunt Gert set a washtub over Shine to keep him dry. The hurricane washed Uncle Henry's sloop so far back in the swamps we never got her out. Might be there yet.