Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

In my belief, he told the truth the first time, and he went over to Pavilion Key to tell it. If Jim Cannon and his boy had not passed by on the day that woman rose out of the river, the sharks and gators would have beat us humans to the evidence, and if that nigger hadn't told the truth at Pavilion Key, no man would have ever known what fate befell those three lost souls, never mind the squaw. There would only be more rumors about Watson.

I signed the prisoner over to Sheriff Jaycox for transport to Key West. On the dock Jaycox summed up his understanding of the situation with the prisoner standing right in front of him.

"White woman. Foul-murdered, mutilated and left for nude," Clem Jaycox said.

"That is sure right."

"No jury ain't going to stand for that, what do you think, Frank? Don't hardly seem fair to ask the citizens of Monroe County to waste their money on no trial, when we know the verdict 'fore it starts."

"No, it sure don't."

Jaycox straightened his hat and waited. I didn't like this much. His prisoner wouldn't sit down on the cargo where I pointed, just stood up straight, hands tied behind, observing us.

"What you looking at, nigger boy?" Jaycox said, real soft and low, hiking his belt.

"The prisoner is now in Monroe custody," I said, "so you got to do what Monroe thinks is right." Clem Jaycox winked at me to show he understood, which he probably didn't. "It's surely been my pleasure working with Lee County, Frank." And he winked again.

I was still trying to stare down that nigger, but never once did he lower his eyes. He knew he had nothing more to lose, I guess.

I said, "Your last chance, boy. Did Mister Watson order those three deaths or didn't he?"

But he never even blinked, nor moved his head. A very, very dangerous type of nigger. Wasn't surprised when a rumor came back from Key West how he fell overboard and drowned trying to make a getaway.

When Carrie Langford visited the courthouse to ask after the remains, the posse was already gone-a mercy. I was full of admiration for her courage. Upon learning from Eddie that their father's "gruesome carcass"-those were Eddie's words-had been towed four miles to a sand spit on the Gulf and dumped in a crude pit without a box, Carrie busted out in tears about "those dreadful men" and the lonesome fate of her poor papa. I had my chance to take her in my arms, the first time ever. Told her I'd be happy to arrange with Captain Collier to have the remains brought to Fort Myers for a decent burial, as she wished.

"The remains," she said.

I told her the sheriff would go, too, to make sure everything was decent, and next day I decided to take the coroner along. Jim Cole wanted to know why, since neither the family nor the state desired an autopsy, nobody wanted that autopsy except for me. Anyway, as Doc Henderson pointed out, it could have been done more efficiently "at home." There was plenty of rotted dead men in Doc's line of work, and the fair sex, too, without having to hear shovels scrape the bones. That body would have to be boxed, I said, no sense doing it twice, so bring a coffin. He finally admitted he was scared to see Ed Watson glaring up at him out of the sand. "It's okay, he's face down," is what I told him.

Lucius Watson favored his late mother, very gentle, graceful in his ways. He often hummed some little tune to let people know that he was there, that's how hard it was to hear him coming. This quiet of Ed Watson's younger boy was already unsettling to certain people, and so was his determination, which was not what you expected from the look of him.

I told Lucius, You're not going, son, and that is that. But Lucius followed me to Ireland's Dock, came up behind as silent as my shadow. That tall slim boy-he was going on twenty-one-could do handsprings in the courtroom and you wouldn't hardly know that he was there, while his brother Eddie could peek in the window and you'd feel his weight all over the damn building.

Lucius said softly, "I am going, Sheriff. I aim to make sure he's treated with respect."

The day before, he had protested the family decision not to prosecute his father's killers, which his brother and his sister had approved. Lucius thought those men from Chokoloskee should be prosecuted. He said he'd lived at Chatham Bend for the past two years and seen no evidence whatever for their stories, whereas the evidence of his father's murder had never been challenged even by the perpetrators.

"Well, now, it is not that simple, son-"

"Murder is murder. You could have charged them with or without his family's cooperation."

Though Lucius was furious, he never made it personal, in fact, he never raised his voice. And he had an argument, no getting around it. Bill House and the others might have told me nothing but the truth, but it wasn't the whole truth, and I knew it. Lucius admitted he had no experience with death and didn't really know how he might react. "You're not going," I said, as he stepped aboard the boat. "One day you'll thank me."

Mister Watson lay face down beneath two crossways slabs of coral rock that the hurricane broke loose and heaved ashore. His wrists and ankles were lashed tight to discourage locomotion, and the gray flesh of his mortal coil had swollen so that it almost hid the twine. Dick Sawyer threw a hitch onto these bindings, and the body, like a side of beef, was hoisted by my niggers from the hole and set on a canvas tarpaulin brought by the coroner. The terrible sight and stench of Mister Watson scared a yell out of the diggers, who tried to back away.

Doc, a trim and silver man, said "Ready?" His voice was muffled by the gauze over his nose. When he rolled the body over, Lucius turned and peered away to sea over his handkerchief.

The late E.J. Watson was crusted with blood-black sand and blind, with bullet-smashed teeth, nose and lower lip half shot away, black-and-blue face and neck and arms and dead-white farmer's body turning a bad gray-purple around the bullet holes and buckshot rashes, and sand fleas hopping all over the whole mess.

I shuddered hard but only once, the hard shiver of a horse, or a wet dog. Lucius was coughing, and went off to be sick. He was back quickly. He knelt and cut his father's bonds, looking surprised that the unbound limbs didn't spring free.

Lucius said vaguely, "Are you sure it's him?"

Doc whipped around on Lucius, clutching his small knives, as if his handiwork had been insulted, and I told Lucius, Go back to the boat.

"Looks like something washed in from the sea," Lucius was whispering, very pale, and I came up close behind in case he fainted.

"Not to me he don't," said Doc, whose hands jittered when he got upset. "What he looks like to me is the goriest case of homicide I ever come across in my career!"

Lucius stood up, swaying, going white again, starting to tremble, and I said sharply, "You seen what you came to see? Then walk away from it, and don't look back." But he didn't hear me, and began to shake. I slapped him hard across the face three times, shouting at him with each slap, Forget it! Then I took him by the shoulders, turned him away, and led him to the boat. "You set right here until it's finished."

Doc cut the last rags off the body. Small knives flashed. The autopsy was done in the hard sun and sea air, with little Gulf waves rolling up on the white sand and the green water shimmering on the boat's white paint of the hull, and gulls crying in the smoky light of the last hot day in that long shadowy October. An hour passed with only the small slitting sounds, low gasps for breath. Doc never bothered about buckshot. Thirty-three slugs, one by one, clunked into the coffee can.

Lucius was back. He cleared his throat and said in a soft voice, "You've cut him up enough, wouldn't you say so?"

Doc's ears turned red, and his hands stopped, but he did not look up. "Probably a few more in there yet," he said.