Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

“That a threat?”

“Nosir. That is a warnin.” Daniels rolled over on the bunk, facing the wall.

Lucius said to his back, “I lived in the Islands long after I made that list and never harmed anyone. Why would I start now?” To his annoyance, his voice had gone tight and froggish.

“Yep.” Speck’s voice sounded like he was grinning into the mattress. “Men has got to be very leery of this Lucius Watson. You ever come back into our country, you better not turn your back no more’n you have to. And here’s another warnin: don’t go tellin family secrets on your damn attorney.” Speck lowered his voice. “Big-time attorney, y’know, big -time attorney. Watt Fuckin Dyer is the fixer for all the fat boys in this state, from Big Sugar and the KKK up to the governor, and he’s got his own political future to look out for. Yessir, they’s big money involved in this park fight, that’s the story. Dyer’s the mouthpiece for them east coast developers that has fought that park idea for years; them boys are workin day and night to grab that real estate before all them nature-lovers and such get the Glades nailed down by the federl gov’mint. You ain’t seen all that stuff in the papers? Gettin the public fired up against the feds for wastin half of Florida on this big green nothin? Stead of sellin off that land and cuttin taxes?”

“You a taxpayer these days, Speck?”

“Yessir! Mr. Crockett Senior Daniels! First man up to the winder every year!”

But Speck’s grin faded quickly. “Taxes is rigged to help the rich, come out of the poor man’s hide. And any poor man asks the wrong questions, them bureaucrats’ll paper him to death, scatter the blame all over the fuckin gov’mint. Feds can’t pour piss out of a boot that has the instructions wrote down on the heel but when it comes to coverin their butts, you just can’t beat ’em.

“What I’m sayin is, with so much money on the line, that man won’t want no story comin out about how he is Bloody Watson’s bastrid boy. He’ll get a chokehold on your book in court, then hit you with a lawsuit. If that don’t put you out of business, he’ll be comin after you, and he is goin to get you, and he don’t care how.”

“Oh, come on-”

“That’s the story. Might get beat up or you might get a bullet. They say he’s got spicks over to Miami will do a nice clean job for fifty bucks.”

“Threat number three.” Lucius went out and this time he kept going.

“Well, here’s another, then!” Speck Daniels hollered after him. “Stay the hell out of my territory! And we won’t need no fuckin Spaniards neither!”

“Eddie Watson? Lives over here on Second Street.” The deputy walked him to the door. “Lately your brother been tryin to sell me your daddy’s famous shootin iron. Bolt-action, single-shot, looked like a made-over rifle with a shotgun barrel-hell of a lookin thing!” Seeing Lucius’s expression, he laughed. “Eddie swore this was the weapon used by Desperader Watson on the day he died, claimed it was well known to be his daddy’s from the black scorin on the stock. Not only that but this selfsame gun wiped out Belle Starr, the Outlaw Queen-no extra charge! Said it was priceless so naturally I give him fourteen dollars for it.” He hiked his belt. “Might been priceless but it sure weren’t what Eddie said it was cause later I got a chance to handle the real-life weapon your dad was toting on that day.”

“That thing still around?”

“Twelve-gauge Remington ridge-barrel, twenty-eight or thirty-inch twin barrels? Short forearm with the old wood split, put back together pretty solid with squarehead screws? Safety busted, welded back, busted again-that sound familiar?” They nodded together. “Course the stock is all raggedy-lookin from bein shot up so bad and the barrels pitted from layin too long in the salt water. Some fool had went and flung her into the bilges of your daddy’s boat, never stopped to think that one day that ol’ gun might be worth good money. Sheriff Tippins fished her out, kept her for court evidence, but nobody thought to give her a wipe of oil or nothing, from the looks.”

“Who’s got it now?”

“I reckon Speck still has it. Claims the sheriff give it to him but it wouldn’t surprise me if that rascal misplaced it to where he could find it again after Tippins went over to Miami. Speck collects old Watson stuff, y’know.”

Lucius thought about the string of lead slugs hanging on Daniels’s neck. “I know,” he said.

Walking down to the river, Lucius passed the old red Langford house between Bay and First streets where he had lived with his mother in his early school days. Mama! The thought of her made him sad: he had missed her more and more over the years. And how kind she had been to her difficult stepson-had Rob appreciated this? And how brave she’d been to reprove Papa for the cold way he treated him.

In the riverside park, a gaggle of pubescent girls in new white sneakers, shrilling and giggling, squirting life, were observed without savor by decrepit men fetched up in the corners of the benches like dry piles of wind-whirled leaves. In the river light, the noisy nymph troupe juxtaposed with those silent figures was unreal. One of these men could be Leslie Cox, drink-ravaged, syphilitic.

Queerly, one man removed his toothpick and pointed it straight at him. In the sun’s reflection off the river, the wet pick glinted like a needle. “That you, Lucius? Where you been hidin, boy?” The man was not old, simply worn out. He shifted a little to make room on his bench.

Tant Jenkins, whose mustache had gone to seed, seemed unaware that they had not crossed paths for years. They talked at angles for a while, finding their way. When Lucius mentioned he’d just seen Tant’s cousin Crockett, Jenkins said unhappily, “One them Cajun Danielses. We ain’t hardly related.” He looked away over the water, where gulls planed down the wind between the river bridges. “Which is a lie. It’s just I ain’t so proud about it.” Tant tried to laugh. “One them Cajuns scratched his head, said, ‘I’ll be doggoned if my own dad ain’t my son-in-law!’ ”

Lucius mustered a chuckle at this old joke to shield Tant’s dignity. “Is he kin to me, too? He used to think so.”

“Well, I have heard that, which don’t mean it’s true. Speck weren’t born a Watson, he were born a liar. Never had no first-hand experience of the God’s truth-just flat don’t care about it. Course Josie and Netta lived a while at Chatham Bend, had daughters there…” Tant spoke cautiously, not certain how much Lucius might care to acknowledge.

“My half sisters, you mean.”

“I reckon that’s right,” Tant said, relieved. “But back in the nineties, when your dad first showed up, he met a young Daniels girl one night that ran so wild they called her ‘Jenny Everybody.’ Just the one time, far as I know, but she claimed her kid was his, never mind that Crockett was kind of dark, looked like a wild Injun. Course nobody never knew for sure just who the father was, not even Jenny.

“Netta’s Minnie, now, she has her daddy’s color, blue eyes, that dark rust hair. Lives in Key West, never signed up as a Watson, but Netta called her ‘E. Jack Watson’s love child.’ Netta liked to recall how E. Jack Watson ‘ravished’ her, and when Josie was drinkin, she’d get that same idea: ‘That darned Jack took me by storm !’ Them ladies weren’t one bit ashamed about Jack Watson, they were proud about him.”

Tant reminded Lucius of Pearl Watson’s visits in his Lost Man’s days, how she’d hitch rides on the runboat that picked up the Hardens’ fish just to go warn him about the Chokoloskee men, beg him to leave. “Young Pearl was out to mother you,” Tant said, “and here she was half your age.”