Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Bill House had said over the phone that his place was the only inhabited “estate” on Panther Acres. Lucius soon spotted the big florid man in khaki shirt and trousers who filled the doorway of his naked house, peering outward at the desolation. “See any panthers?” House inquired as Lucius got out of his car and walked toward him. Neither offered to shake hands. “Chose Panther Acres on account of all the panthers,” House continued wryly. “Hoped I might hear one screamin in the night.”

House contemplated the battered landscape as if to fathom the mystery of its great ugliness. “They’re clearin these ‘retirement estates’ way out in the swamp-and-overflowed, sellin most of ’em by mail order. Florida boom! Dredge out ditches, call ’em bayous and canals, build up some high ground with the fill, call that prime waterfront property. All you need is some old swamp and you’re in business.”

He waved vaguely at the wasteland. “I kind of looked forward to them musky smells and swamp cries in the night. Owls, y’know, bull gators roarin in the springtime. I reckon you heard that sound up Chatham River.” House turned back into his doorway. “We won’t be hearin no bull gators, let alone panthers, cause these developers ain’t never goin to stop dredgin and drainin, strippin off cypress to make way for all them Yankees, God-a-mighty! Smashed this forest flat, never put aside no money to clean up. And now the boom is dyin down and hard times startin up so they can’t find no more fools to buy more swamp; they run out of money and before I could back out of the whole deal, I run out, too.” He rapped the thin wall of his new house. “You ever need a retirement estate, I know where you could buy one pretty cheap.”

Indoors, the small house was neat, with all blinds drawn against the desolation. “Here’s Lucius Watson, honey.” In the kitchen door, a pretty woman wiped her hands on her apron, peeping out fearfully at the guest. “Don’t make no false moves, Colonel,” House said for her benefit, pointing Lucius to a chair at the table, “cause that little lady you see there is deathly afraid of Watsons. Scared you might of come out here to bump me off.”

When Lucius grinned, House smiled guardedly for the first time. “You might recall Miss Betty Howell from your school days,” he said when his wife reappeared. “Her dad Jim Howell worked a year at Chatham.”

The two waved shyly at each other as Bill House nodded, bemused by his own memories. “E. J.’s son in the house of a dang House. Now ain’t that something?” He folded his big fair-haired hands upon the table. “You recollect that day you come to Chatham lookin for Henry? And snuck in so quiet? I still see that blue cedar skiff, how she tacked up-current, lost her headway, kissed that dock light as a butterfly. Never touched an oar nor cranked his motor,” he told his wife as she set down the tray. He shook his head in admiration. “Colonel sung out a hello but waited where he was cause that was Island custom. Good thing, too, cause I had my shootin iron leaned inside the door.”

House turned serious. “Let’s go back a ways. My dad never took to your’n the way Ted Smallwood done. Never pretended to be his friend like some. I weren’t no different. I always said straight out and plain that I fired at E. J. Watson, probably hit him, and that was about all I aimed to say about it.”

Betty House, who had perched nervously on a chair at his behest, shifted her feet like a bird about to fly.

“Sure, I felt bad about what happened, far as his widow and her kids, but when D. D. House died off, 1917, I was the oldest, I had the responsibility. And in the twenties, here come Watson’s son askin his questions. By then I’d heard about that list so I was leery, knowin Houses was bound to be first ones that son might come a-huntin; I also heard how good that son could shoot. So I reckon I weren’t so friendly when you showed up at our dock-your daddy’s dock, I mean. I spoke rough and you went redder’n a redbird!

“By then, the Watson story was all skewed around: the House men had waylaid Ed Watson cause we was jealous of his cane crop and big syrup boiler. Houses was the masterminds in a lowdown dirty ambush, Houses shot him in the back.” Considering Lucius, House set down his glass of lemonade. “I never had nothin personal against you, Colonel. I was leery, yes, but mostly I was worried somethin bad might happen and we’d have us another Watson layin dead and some more ugly stories.” Bill House grunted. “I thought you was crazy to come back to the Islands, I admit it, but some way I respected that kind of crazy. Took some guts.”

“No guts at all. I made that list just to be doing something before I realized I did not have what it took to act on it-go gunning for revenge, I mean, eye for an eye. I’m glad I didn’t but I wasn’t glad back then. I was ashamed.”

“Well, you’re honest. That’s what I heard, too.” House changed the subject. “Ain’t like your brother. Couple years ago, I was in Fort Myers so I went in and bought some insurance off of him to show there weren’t no hard feelings on our House side. E. E. Watson acted like he felt that same way, he was real polite. But after my insurance was all bought and paid for, he let me know that he was a good Christian who done his best to practice Christian forgiveness but Mr. House should of took his business someplace else. Boy, I come out of there just steamin. That darned Christian forgive me for just long enough to take my money.”

Mrs. House gasped and stood up before Lucius could object. House flushed. “Sorry, Colonel. Eddie’s all right, I reckon. Never killed nobody as I know of.” He blushed deeper still as his wife fled back into her kitchen. “But like I was sayin, with my family on the Bend, I couldn’t take no chances-not that I ever thought you was real dangerous. I mean, you weren’t nothin like your daddy, you just weren’t that kind.”

For some reason, this remark made Lucius cross. “But as you say, you couldn’t count on that. You could never be quite certain.”

“Nosir. You was Ed Watson’s boy. I could never be one hundred percent certain, and I ain’t today.” Irritated in return, House snapped, “That what you’re up to after all these years? Trying to scare folks?” His wife’s small cry from the kitchen was a plea to soften his harsh tone, but her stolid husband wore a dogged look, unable to refrain from telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God. “I’m speakin my mind plain, Betty,” he told her, “same way I done last time.”

House was watching Lucius as if appraising him. “Might have some grit but you sure ain’t got good sense. You keep snoopin around this backcountry askin damfool questions, keepin lists, how’s them boys s’posed to know you ain’t a fed?”

“The men on that damned list are mostly dead-”

“I ain’t dead far as I know and Speck Daniels ain’t neither, not lest he went yesterday.”

“Oh hell, if I’d wanted revenge-” But still unsure what he’d wanted, he fell silent.

“That a fact? If you was Speck, would you take a Watson’s word for that?”

Lucius drank off his lemonade, discouraged. “Anyway, that’s why I wanted to see Henry. Wanted to hear his account of it firsthand-”

Bill House interrupted him. “You come after Henry and now you’re back; don’t look like you’re makin too much progress, Colonel.” Briefly, ruefully, they both grinned, to ease matters.

The silence returned. House’s clear gaze was a question. Lucius knew that the more he insisted on his peaceable intentions, the more sinister his pursuit of Henry might appear. Finally he rose to go. He understood, he said, why his host had to be careful, but if he’d wanted to harm Henry, he’d had plenty of chances in years past to catch him alone down in the rivers and nobody would have said a word about it.