Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

"Watson said that?" Jim Daniels looks surprised.

"I don't have no friends -that's what he said! You ask Tom Braman!" Dick Sawyer looks all around the place, triumphant. "Then Ed put his black hat back on and went down to the wharf to where his schooner was. On the way, he run into a deputy, and he says, Depitty, best get your ass on up to Eddie's Bar before they kill someone. Course by that time, he had one them niggers killed already, and the other one figuring he might as well be dead. By the time a posse got back down to the wharf, his boat was gone, and nobody went north eighty miles to Chatham River after E.J. Watson, not on account of no dead nigger."

"Way I heard that one, Dick, you wasn't even there! Heard it right from Braman and you wasn't there!"

"I wasn't there, Jim? Where was I at, then?"

"Way I heard that one, wasn't no niggers messed up in it at all. Ed Watson had some mixed-breed feller on the floor and was hauling out that goddam bowie knife, said, Maybe I'll fillet this one here in case he's a damn Spaniard, cause I never got to go to San Juan Hill.

"The Roberts boys, Gene, Melch, and Jim, was over from Flamingo, tried to talk him out of it. Gene Roberts was always Watson's friend, and he'd tell you that today. And Gene said, Come on now, Ed, you're looking for some trouble, and you don't need no more. You better listen here to us, cause we're your friends. And Watson looked around at all them men, then blinked as if he was coming up out of a dream. He wiped his knife off on the Spaniard's hair and snapped it shut, let that half-dead bleeding feller crawl away like he'd never noticed him in the first place. Got up and put his knife away and dusted himself off. Then he looked all them men over once again, and said real quiet, Boys, I ain't got no friends."

"Haven't got no friends, more like it," Sawyer says. "Ed don't say ain't."

Hiram Newell, who had served as Watson's schooner captain, clears his throat. "Well, I ain't ashamed to say ain't, Dick, and I ain't ashamed to be in friendship with Ed Watson. If Tant was here tonight, he'd say the same. Ed Watson got him a big heart-"

"Jesus!" Jim Daniels snorts, and stamps the floor. "Got him a big heart, all right, to go with them good manners. Too bad them Tuckers ain't here this evening, tell us their opinion! Jesus Sweet Christ!"

"Where is Tant, anyway?"

"Pavilion Key, unless he been washed off." Daniels scowls again at Josie's husband. "Had to stay on there, tend to his baby sister."

"Your sister, too, ain't she? Half sister anyway."

"Big family," Jim Daniels says.

"The reason Ed and me ain't friends no more," Dick Sawyer says, taking advantage of a silence, "he got in trouble some way in Wakulla Springs and was headed back to Chatham Bend. Come through here, asked me to take him home. No moon that night and no stars neither, I didn't want to go. But I seen that stare he gets sometimes, and knew not to say no. We weren't hardly clear of Marco when he went below to sleep it off. Pretty quick he stuck his head out of the cuddy and looked around him at the night. He shook his head, says, Can't see much, from the look of it. And I said, Can't see is right! Can't hardly navigate! I was thinking he would tell me to turn back. And he said, Partner, if you run this boat aground, I guess I'll kill you.

"That was the first time I was not so sure Ed Watson was my friend. Might been one of them little jokes he makes when he is drinking, but I couldn't count on it. So what I done, I headed way off shore, let the flood tide rise a little before I tried them flats off Chatham River.

"Well, we never once scratched bottom. Landed Ed safe on his dock, and he yawned and stretched and told me then, You come on in and drink with me, have a bite of supper. So I said, I'd be proud to do that, Ed. Be with you in a minute. But when he went on up to the house, I just slipped my lines and drifted off downriver. He come out of his house and looked, but he never called. Just stood there in the moonlight up against that big white house and watched me out of sight around the Bend."

Since my chance of finding Cox is small, I had to locate E.J. Watson. That's what I'm thinking when the door bangs open in the wind, bangs closed again with a man backed up against it, as the Marco men heave back, groaning like cattle. Hand hid in his baggy coat's right pocket, the man is watching nobody but me. Picked me out through the window, and picked out his own vantage point, as well. He knows that every man in this small settlement would be here in Collier's store, leaving the women to huddle where they could.

"Mister Watson."

Bill Collier's greeting warns the room. Collier gives me a blank gaze of comical astonishment, but Watson hasn't missed the shift I make to free my holster, so I elevate my knee real slow with both hands clasped on it, resting my boot carefully on a keg of nails.

Watson acknowledges the signal with a small nod of his chin and draws his hand out of his pocket. He stays where he is against the door, to cover his back and the whole room at the same time. He looks windblown and sleepless, waterlogged, his ruddy sunburned face packed with dark blood, his breathing hoarse. Also, he appears alert, even exhilarated, not the least likely to make a move that would put him at our mercy. Being endangered, he is very dangerous.

"Mister Watson." E.J. Watson nods. He grins. He has been drinking. But Watson could come in here dead drunk and buck naked and still have us buffaloed, that's how surprised we are. Where did he come from, how did he get here? Worn stubbled faces are turning toward me to see what the sheriff will do. What I am trying to do is to think clearly.

Teet makes a half move toward the door. When Watson turns, Teet freezes like a dog on point, and his tin cup clatters to the floor. A voice whines "Jesus!"

Watson removes his hat and sets it on a peg. Keeping his hands loose at his sides, he spreads his feet a little. He is wearing a soiled white shirt missing the collar, and a frayed Sunday frock coat over rough pants. On his face the friendliness subsides like a wash of tide sucked down into the sand.

"I didn't do it, boys. Let's get that straight."

The room is silent. Sawyer says, "Ed? Ain't no one says you done it, Ed."

Watson nods sourly, as if Sawyer's plea only confirmed his poor opinion of the man. Watson says, "What brings you out in such weather, Sheriff?"

I tip my hat. I could try an arrest with all these Marco men behind me, but if I do, Watson will resist, and somebody will get hurt, most likely me.

"Heard you was looking for me, Mister Watson."

"That depends. Maybe we better discuss it, Sheriff, see who's looking for who."

I get up slowly, taking a deep breath to calm myself. Here is the meeting that I'd always wanted, and my stomach rumbles as my guts go loose, and my voice is reedy, saying, "You fellers stay here."

"Nobody's going no place," says Bill Collier, braiding line.

When Watson holds the door open, I don't want to turn my back. However, I walk straight on out. The door bangs behind me, cutting off the light.

In the wind and darkness his gun barrel prods me and he takes my gun.

"Someone set you on shore someplace? You walked here?"

"Know Caxambas? South end of the island?" He prods me toward the dock.

Black ragged clouds race across the moon, which casts dim light on the white sand. Already we have left the glow from the store lantern. With the open hole of the gun barrel behind me, my back feels naked.

At the dock where the Falcon is tied up, I turn my head, keeping my hands out to the side. I cannot make out the face under the hat, only the barrel-chested silhouette and the small feet. "After you, Frank," E.J. Watson says politely.