Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

Over by the shore, ol' Tant was telling how Mister Watson treated him so good all them long years. When we seen them fellers lead that rope out of the grave, Tant only shrugged, he just stayed out of it, but I went back over to see what was what, and got too hot about it. I told that feller to take that noose off his damn neck right now cause he were as dead as the law allows already.

Man said, Well, ol' Bill thinks hanging is too good for this fine feller, that right, Bill? And another said, Now, Bill, don't you go getting lathered, we just rigged a rope so's them cattle kings can find him, case they send down for the body.

Around the neck? I said.

But them others backed the first one, cause they was feeling ugly, they was spoiling for a fight, same way I was. I was so disgusted I just washed my hands of it.

That's how that story started up about crackers who shot Watson to pieces, then hung his neck to a lone tree and piled on coral slabs so big that it took a couple chain-gang niggers to lift them off when his Fort Myers kin sent down for Mister Watson a few days later.

Sheriff Tippins was down from Marco with the Monroe County law when we got back to Smallwood's, long about noon. Bill Collier brought these lawmen on the Falcon.

The men told the law how nobody killed Watson, they fired all at the same time in self-defense. "Did he fire at you first?" says Tippins, and the men scratched their heads and looked around to see if anybody could remember. Isaac Yeomans didn't care much for that question. "Nosir," he growled.

"He tried," I said.

Tippins looked me over, that's his habit. Then he mimicked me, kind of ironical, you know- "He tried." And then him and his Monroe County sidekick exchanged a look that was supposed to mean something, except it didn't, cause they didn't know nothing.

Right from the start, Frank Tippins seemed as tangled up about this death as we was, couldn't set still for a minute, he was fuming. Only difference was, he had somebody to take it out on. "Your name's House," he said, like the name had me incriminated right from the start. "You was the ringleader, they tell me."

"We didn't have no ringleader. No leader, neither."

He looks me over again, so does his Monroe sidekick, who's got a cowboy hat on too.

"How come you're so fired up? You ashamed of something?"

"Nosir, I ain't. I ain't got a thing to be ashamed about."

Tippins was trying to make us mad so we'd bust out with something. Mister Watson's death was homicide, he said, and "those responsible" had to go to Fort Myers for a hearing, and any man who did not come of his own free will would go in handcuffs.

Charley Johnson asked the postmaster to come along to testify to our God-fearing characters, Ted being the closest thing we had to a upstanding citizen. Bill Collier said he'd be glad to take Mrs. Watson and her family at no extra charge.

After Watson's death, Ted Smallwood had to hold his wife in Chokoloskee. Mamie was scared and she was horrified, she didn't want to live in such a place no more, she wanted to leave the Ten Thousand Islands for good. She knew Ed Watson for what he was and never said no different, but she hated the way them men licked his boots, then turned and shot him down, is the way she said it. My sister took it hard.

Them men weren't bootlickers, not by no means. We were just ordinary peaceful fellers, never knew how to handle this wild hombre till we had him laying face down in the dirt. If ever a man brought it on himself, it was Ed Watson, but somehow we was getting blamed for doing what the ones who blamed us wanted.

I never cosied up to Ed like some, and I never had no regrets, that day or later. We done what we had to do, and I stand by it. But I will admit I am still ashamed of how the crowd kept shooting after he was dead, as if trying to wipe the memory of him off of their conscience. Some of them men shot and shot until their guns was empty, wasn't one live shell that left that place that day. There was a young boy run in afterwards, shot his.22 into the body. His older brother was standing right there with us and never stopped him.

The boys agreed we would leave Henry Short out of it, we didn't want to cause Henry no trouble, because word had come down from Deep Lake that around Frank Tippins, things went hard with niggers. Never did find out what happened to Watson's colored man who come to Pavilion Key and was handed over to the sheriff at Fort Myers. Can't recall his name if they ever give him one. They say he was sent to Key West, but there ain't many as believes he ever got to go to his own trial.

One thing I ain't never going to forget. After all that noise, there come this echoing silence, like the Lord was about to send down word from Heaven. There was only the fool chant of a scared bird. Then we heard Edna Watson's high clear voice, Oh my God, they are killing Mister Watson! By that time, of course, he was in Hell already.

Mamie stood guard where Watson's little family had sunk down before the store all in a heap. My sister wore a look of last perdition, bored right through me. I knew from my Nettie that our Island ladies had shunned Edna Watson for some days, and I seen at once that the poor woman was plain terrified that this night crowd of armed men that had tasted blood might put to death the victim's wife and little children. I hate to say it, but knowing how feverish some of 'em got, she had good reason.

The ones who was most dangerous in that crowd was the same ones as had looked the other way for years and years, same ones who said Ed Watson never killed a soul down there cept maybe a nigger or two that had it coming. These very same fellers was the ones that eased their nerves by pumping every last bullet that they had into his carcass, the very same ones was so angry he had scared 'em that they had to scare Mrs. Watson just as bad, scare her so bad that she grabbed her kids and crawled under the store on hands and knees before Mamie could stop her. They was the ones liked to dirty joke about how lucky Old Man Watson was to mount this firm young filly, and jeered and hooted at the fine sight of her hips in her nice petticoats when her store-bought dress got hung up on a slat as she crawled down in the filth to get away. If E.J. Watson could of seen how that crowd terrified his poor young wife and children, he'd of stood right up in his life's blood, come straight back from Hell to kill us all.

I felt terrible, and sick. I went to my knees and I called in there to Mrs. Watson, It's all right, ma'am, ain't nothing to be scared of! Poor woman must have thought I was a crazy man, to say something like that with my gun still warm and her husband, too, still warm and bleeding, and boys and dogs running around, gone wild.

Well, I weren't one bit better than the others. No, that young woman had got deep under my skin, though she never knew it, and she stirred my desire then and there, may God forgive me. And here I was just newly wed to Nettie Howell! I was so ashamed that I hollered at the others, shoved them away, like we'd caught some lady in the bushes by mistake.

The swamp angels was something terrible that evening, but that poor little family crouched back in the dark with them putrefied chickens for damned near an hour and never made so much as a whimper, that's how frighted they was. They lay there just as still as newborn rabbits. Mamie done her best to soothe 'em, murmuring down through the storm-raised boards in the house floor, same sweet way as a young girl she talked a scairdy cat out of a tree. When finally she got the poor things calmed, and coaxed 'em out of there, them Watsons stunk so bad of rotten chickens that the people where they was staying wouldn't take 'em back. Said they wasn't fit to set foot in a decent house with that stench of Hell on 'em, and here it was dark, and three scared hungry little kids whimpering for their daddy and no place to turn to, and their mama's poor mind starting to unravel, what with all her terror.