Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

"Look. I want someone to hear my side, that's all. Just hear my side. Then you make up your own mind, all right?" He cocks his head, squinting at me over his glass. "I never told Cox to kill those people. You ask about Cox's motive-how about mine? I have the best plantation in the Islands, the best house. Every kitchen from Tampa to Key West uses my syrup. I have grown children and two granddaughters you've seen yourself, there in Fort Myers. I have a young wife and three pretty little kids. I have a good strong land claim pending, and a plan to develop this whole coast! And I have the goodwill of the governor's office. Why would I invite more trouble? And for what? Hell, I knew Broward at Key West way back in the days he was running guns to Cuba on the Three Brothers."

The ship lifts and bangs.

"Governor Broward died. Two weeks ago."

Watson shrugs. "You know John Roach? Bought Deep Lake with my son-in-law for growing citrus? Those two are counting on a new cross-Florida road to get their produce out, but the way the politicians work, that could take years. They're growing citrus, all right, but it's rotting." Watson leans forward. "Henry Ford came to Fort Myers a few years ago to visit Edison, and those boys met him. I said to Roach, How about you lay twelve miles of small-gauge rail from Deep Lake down to Everglade, use a Ford motor on a freight car, take that citrus out by sea, Key West or Tampa?"

Watson sits back, expansive, blue eyes bright. "John Roach was tickled pink. Those men have as much as told me that if I can stay out of trouble a few years, I'll take over at Deep Lake as manager, because Deep Lake has problems and I have ideas. Even Cole admits Ed Watson has a head for business. And now that Broward got those canals started, it's going to be just one big farm out there, right across the state. That's progress! And I aim to be in on it!"

I keep my face closed, not knowing what to say.

"A man who can prosper on forty acres of hard shell mound way down there to hell and gone in the damn mangrove-what do you think that man could do with three hundred acres of black loam at Deep Lake?" Watson drinks again. "That was the question Roach asked Langford!" He clears his throat, then speaks more quietly. "Think I don't want Carrie proud instead of always nervous and ashamed?"

I feel tired of Watson, why is that? And tired of Frank Tippins, come to think of it. With Watson's references to Carrie, a kind of dog-eared sadness has come over me, I feel indifferent. My two boys bring more headaches than pleasure, much like the former Fannie Yates of Georgia, their dear mother.

"If I was the killer some folks say, do you think my own people, who know me best, would still be loyal? Does that make sense? The only man against me is Jim Cole, and Cole himself is the biggest crook in your damned county. Backs temperance laws to raise his bootleg liquor prices, uses the law to break the law, that's what it is!"

"That is a serious accusation-"

"And that's bullshit! You can't catch him, or you won't catch him is more like it. You are in his debt, the same as I am, but you don't like that big-mouth bastard either. Buys and sells but don't produce a thing. Bought the Royal Palm Hotel, had it sold again within the year. Bought the first home automobile, too, that damn red Reo he ran up and down the streets last year, scaring the horses. He's sold her off already, got a Cadillac."

"Weren't for Cole, you might been strung up two years back, from what I hear."

Watson has a fit of coughing. "Rigged the Madison County jury, that what you heard? Well, he did his part. Spared the Langfords a scandal, and he'll get himself well paid, you wait and see." He nods drunkenly. "You'll have to pay him, too, one of these days." He cocks his head. "Deep Lake? County road-gang labor fees?" He shrugs. "Don't know what I'm talking about, Sheriff?"

Sending county road-gang labor to Deep Lake to help Walt Langford-that was Jim Cole's sneaky suggestion, but the original idea, Cole told me once, came from this man here.

"Your idea, right?" I shrug.

"Look," he says, "I have great plans, I'm not waiting for Deep Lake. Know what these plans for Everglades drainage mean? Progress up and down this coast! That's going to happen in our lifetime!"

At the stubborn hope in him my spirit sinks.

"Not in Ed Watson's lifetime-that what you're thinking?"

The wind carries sand from the bare yard against the window.

"Why would I want those people dead? Hell, they were friends of mine! Miss Hannah? Green? Some days I even liked young Dutchy!" His voice is rising. "Think I don't know the rumors going around? Sure, I'm in debt! Those lawyers ruined me. But a few paydays saved- that's not going to help!"

I wait.

"Look, I'm a businessman! I keep my credit up! Ask Ted Smallwood, ask C.G. McKinney. I've had no trouble since I came back to the Islands! My wife warned me I shouldn't let Cox stay, but I owed him something, that's what it was, a man has to repay an obligation. 'Honor is the highest good'-ever heard that? Plato said that. Never read Plato?" When I shake my head, Watson shakes his, too. "Well, I paid Cox back that obligation, and he'll pay me this one. If you deputize me."

"Deputize a man pointing a gun at me?"

Watson opens his hand, lets my cartridges roll across the table, then returns my revolver, barrel first. "Take it," he says. When I take the barrel, which is pointed at my chest, he grips it, holding my eye before releasing it. "Don't load up," he says.

Putting the gun away, I lay both hands flat on the table in sign that our talk is over, but he raises his hand abruptly when I start to rise.

"All I want-"

"If Cox is taken alive, then it's your word against his, and due to your past reputation, his word might get you hung even if you're innocent. So either you kill him or you make sure he escapes." I'm feeling out of breath. "You want to go down there and kill Cox, because killing Cox would destroy a witness, maybe tend to show Ed Watson's heart is on the side of justice. And you want the sheriff alongside of you, to make it legal."

Watson nods. "That what you think?" Slowly he takes up his own gun and looks it over. "Man that cold-blooded, now, no telling-"

"I don't know what I think." Seeing his face, I am so scared I have to piss, I don't want to hear the end of Watson's sentence. Where's Bill Collier? All those men? Why don't they come?

Later I wonder why I got so scared, and why, so suddenly, my chest has eased and I grow calm enough to say, "You're a suspect, Mister Watson. I can't throw in with you, and I wouldn't do it if I could." I take a breath. "As far as Lee County is concerned, you are under arrest." When Watson says nothing, inspecting the gun, I rise carefully to my feet. "You have a clean record in Lee County-"

"Oh, shut up!" He lurches to his feet, waving me at pistol point into the night. He totters and stumbles, heaving around to close the cabin door, turning his back to me. He doesn't hurry, that is his contempt. He knows I won't jump him from behind, and shout for help. He knows I won't try an arrest, though whether out of fear or pity, he will never know, and I won't either.

To his back, I say, "I'm heading to Fort Myers, meet the Monroe sheriff. If you kill Cox or take him off the place before we get to Chatham Bend, you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

Watson considers me, but already his mind is someplace else. With me in Fort Myers, he will have three days head start.

"Just you trot over to that store," he says, "and don't look back."

Crossing the sand to Collier's store, I duck out of the light. Under the eaves, in a stew of bad emotions, I piss my tension and relief into the dark, nagged hard by the night wind, the heavy wash of seas in the night channel. When I get my breath, I fish out my cartridges, reload my gun.