Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

“As for them court records, you might be correct. Eddie Watson was so scared of talk that he might of wiped his daddy’s name clean off the books. Might of been his own idea or maybe not. And Tippins comin from Arcadia, he might have got that taken care of, too, as a favor to the Langfords.”

Breaking a rust-rotted shoelace-“Shit!”-Daniels kicked his sneaker off before stretching out, hands behind his head. Enjoying his role as an authority on the Watson case, he was annoyed when Lucius rose to leave. Speck said, “Don’t aim to thank the man that found Bill House’s testimony?” He grinned at Lucius’s disbelief. “Found it right in Tippins’s own desk. Chicken Collins stole it off me but it was mine by rights.” He studied Lucius meanly. “Goddamn Chicken stole my nice souvenir from that historical-type day when us upstandin citizens wiped out Bloody Watson.”

“So it was a lynching. You admit that.”

Daniels shrugged. “I only joined up in that line of men to see what was goin on: I weren’t much more than a boy.” Speck considered this a moment. “Well, later I was bothered some and will admit it. Ed Watson had daughters by two Daniels females and treated our whole Caxambas bunch like family, so them ladies are still scoldin me for takin part. Hell, Josie’s Pearl ain’t spoken to me since.” He grimaced at his own attempt to excuse his role. “You Watsons got nothin to be ashamed about, is all I’m sayin. Ed Watson was his own man, done what he thought was right. Like ol’ Tant Jenkins always said, Ed never killed a livin soul that didn’t need some killin. Which puts me in mind of a nice story for your book-story Tant’s sister used to tell about how good she was took care of by her man Jack Watson.”

“One fine day on the Bend they was settin there eatin their supper. The white cutters on the harvest crew ate with ’em at that big pine table and this one feller was findin fault with Josie’s peas. They wasn’t salted, wasn’t this, that, nor the other. So your daddy was rumblin to warn that cutter not to hurt Miss Josie’s feelins. The man shut up but pretty quick he commenced to grumblin again. Knew a bad pea when he et one, this feller did.

“Mister Ed didn’t have no more to say about it. Set his fork down, wiped his mouth, pushed his chair back, and got up real quiet. And there come a hush and this cutter stopped his eatin cause he knowed that somethin terrible was comin down on him. But he was too scared to beg or run, he only set there starin bug-eyed out the winder as if that big ol’ croc that hunted that broad water at the Bend was clamberin right out on the near bank, comin to get him. Your daddy stepped around behind his chair and drawed his head back by the hair-didn’t yank it, Josie said, her Jack wasn’t rough with him or nothin. Laid his knife acrost his throat sayin, ‘Please excuse us, folks,’ then stood this feller on his feet and marched him outside before he slit his throat so’s not to mess up Josie’s nice clean floor.”

Speck frowned hard to show how serious his story was. “Nobody cared much for that cane cutter to start with, that’s how Josie explained it. Prob’ly some kind of a criminal is what her Jack told ’em whilst he washed his hands before settin down to her fine lemon-lime pie.

“When he finished his pie and got done wipin his mouth, he told ’em he was well known for a patient man but could not be expected to put up with such a criminal at his own table. Said, ‘Darn it all, the world is better off without that darn ol’ criminal!’ As Josie recollected it, he still had lime cream on his handlebar mustache when he hitched around to look out through the door at that carcass that was nastyin up his yard. ‘Lookit that barefaced sonofabitch,’ he says. ‘Layin out there like he owns the place!’ ”

Unable to maintain his poker face, Daniels guffawed. “Nosir, Josie never did deny that her Jack put that knife to her own throat a time or two when he was in his liquor, get her to shut up her mouth and mind what she was told. She would of been the first to say it: ‘When my Jack told you to do somethin, you done it, cause he never was a man to tell you twice.’ Hell, them were the days when men was men. Don’t make red-blood Americans like that no more!” The moonshiner was doubled up with mirth, hacking to ransack his lungs and farting gleefully.

“Whilst they was washin up the dishes, they all agreed it might be best to let bygones be bygones, say nothin more about it,” Daniels told him. “So what they done, they took and flung him to that big croc in the river. Maybe somebody give him a prayer, maybe they didn’t-they was purty busy in the harvest season. But Aunt Josie always told young Pearl that she never got her Mister Jack out of her heart on account of how sweet he was that day about her peas, how darn considerate about her tender feelins.” Speck nodded a little, wiping his eyes. “If that ain’t a nice romantical little story for your book, I don’t know what.”

“I’m not looking for stories. I’m looking for the truth about his death.”

“Man wants the truth about Ed Watson,” Daniels jeered. “Where you aim to find it? Smallwoods’ll tell you their truth, Hardens’ll tell you theirs. Fat-ass guard out there, he’ll tell you his and I’ll give you another. Which one you aim to settle for and make your peace with?”

Mistaking Lucius’s silence for acquiescence, he pointed a hard finger at his eyes. “Maybe nobody don’t need this truth you’re lookin for, ever think about that? Us kind of fellers always thought your daddy was all right the way he was.” He lay back on the bunk, one leg cocked across the other knee, old sneaker swinging. “Think I ain’t truthful, Colonel? Think I’m a liar just makin up stories about peas?” He yanked open the top buttons of his shirt, exposing a necklace of dull-burnished leaden lumps strung on a rawhide thong. He removed it, pushed it forward. “Count ’em. Thirty-three.”

Punched in the heart, Lucius made no move to touch them. The last time he had seen those leads they were black with coagulated blood, heaped in a rusty coffee can on Rabbit Key.

“Got ’em off the coroner’s man. Still had the blood on ’em. Paid eighteen dollars in hard cash and wouldn’t take a million.”

One sneaker on, one sneaker off, he sat up on his bunk edge. “It was Tippins showed me that fuckin posse list of yours-almost forgot that.” He nodded when the other turned. “He was holdin it for evidence, Lucius. In case you was to go crazy, Lucius, start in shootin people such as myself, Lucius. And you know who give it to Tippins, Lucius? Eddie Watson.”

“Eddie had no right to it. I want it back.”

“Tell that to Chicken. He stole it off me along with the House testimony. Anyways, that Christly list don’t mean nothin no more. Purt’ near all dead on there or half dead anyways. Lest you would count that nigger.” Daniels lay back, swearing.

“No colored man on that list as I recall.”

“Course not!” In fury, Daniels cocked his knee and kicked the bottom of the upper bunk so hard that he split the cross slats under the thin mattress. “Ever think how a man might feel, seein his own name on a death list? Ever think what kind of a damn loon would make a list like that?”

Crockett Daniels’s rage turned low and cold as the blue mineral flame in a wood fire. He wiped spittle from his unshaven mouth with the backs of his fingers and stropped it on his pant leg. “Chok fellers might be interested to see that list, you think so, Colonel? Them men might be mostly gone but they know there ain’t nothin to keep a Watson from makin do with a man’s son. Unless that Watson was put a stop to first.”