Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

“Them Grahams took Henry aside, had a real visit. Left him a letter from their mama. Henry must of read them words a thousand times, eyes shinin like he seen a miracle. Then he refolded it very careful, like there was a gold piece wrapped in there that might slip out. He never showed his letter to our family, never spoke about it, and we knew better than to ask him. Now and again, he might refer to things it said-he had it memorized-and finally we had the story pieced together.

“I reckon you heard that Henry’s father was burned and hung and his white mother whipped severely; you might not know that her daddy took his ruined daughter back. Took her baby, too, till the age of four, then sold him to a man on his way south. Henry finally wound up in our family. Him and me was close to the same age so we come up together.

“Well, this white girl’s daddy found some older man willin to take her and she give that man two boys before he died. When the boys was growed, she confided to ’em about Henry. Said that little boy had never left her heart, she purely yearned to know what ever become of him. I reckon her two white sons loved her dearly because even after they located Henry, they came south every other year to make sure he was getting on all right. Steady men of average size, polite and quiet. We couldn’t get over ’em. Their mother might of been a sinner but she must of been a very good woman, too, if she could raise up two fine sons who took on the responsibility for a mixed-blood half brother they had never seen, a field hand in south Florida who never even knew that they existed.

“Knowing Henry, he most likely thought them half brothers was plain crazy to go up against common prejudice that way. All the same, he was very very grateful. Hummed and whistled, little secret smiles, he glowed for days after they left, couldn’t get over it. We never seen him smile that way in his whole life. Course Henry would never tell us what they talked about and we never tried to work it out of him. Probably thought we might tease him, or to speak about it was some way unlucky and might spoil the only experience of his own blood kin he ever had.

“One time before his white brothers came to see him, Henry whispered, ‘The onliest thing more no ’count than a dumb nigger mus’ be a white woman that traffics with a nigger.’ But after his brothers come and claimed him, and told him how his mother had sent after him, we never heard him speak that way no more. I believe he was tore up, just sick at heart, that he had talked so cold and hard about his mama.

“The last time his brothers came to Turner River, we was so glad to see their truck that we waved and hollered, invitin ’em to come on over to the cabin, eat some good hambone stew. But them words hangin in the air sounded all wrong, so we waved at Henry to come ahead, he was invited, too. But a-course we knew he wouldn’t never set and eat with us, all we done was make him more uncomfortable, and when his brothers seen that, they smiled real polite and said, ‘No, thank you, Mr. House,’ and turned right back to Henry’s little fire. The sight of them three brothers down on their hunkers, chucklin and swappin stories while they served each other’s plates like Henry had ate with white men all his life-well, I never forgot that.

“What them Grahams stood for, so simple and so clear, made me ashamed. It woke me up and turned me right around, changed my whole way of thinkin about nigra people. Yessir, I was mightily impressed, and I am today. I only seen them brothers two-three times over the years and am real sorry I never knew ’em better.”

On their way north, Lucius was so quiet that his companion grew uneasy, asking him finally how he felt about traveling with a House, and perhaps Bill House especially. Though Lucius reassured him, he soon fell silent again, being worried about where Rob was now and what might become of him.

Up the road they met a dusty road-gang truck with a plier-faced guard at the wheel; his sunglasses twitched in their direction as they passed like the huge black eyes of a fly. Two black convicts and two white ones stood on the truck bed in pairs. The young whites swayed recklessly in the center of the bed, thumbs hooked in the hip pockets of their jeans, while the two blacks, indifferent, maintained easy balance with one fingertip on the high sideboards. Being unshackled, any of the four could have jumped and run, but apparently they understood that Plier Face was not a man to pass up a free shot at a human target. In the front seat, a hard-eyed white con was wearing the guard’s black cowboy hat. As the truck passed, his tattooed hand, raised above the dented roof, erected a finger in contempt of any values other vehicles might represent.

“Road gangs used to be very bad all over Florida, all over the South, I reckon,” Bill House said. “Black convict or white never made much difference, not when it come to chains and rawhide whips. Chain gangs was why them outlaws run away to Watson’s-Cox, y’know, and them men Cox killed, and plenty of others, too.”

In the west, a lonesome turkey vulture tilted down across the wall of a long cypress strand. “Ever seen Deep Lake? Deep small lake over yonder in a two-hundred-acre hammock; that’s where Langford and his partners had them citrus groves. In the dry season, a man can feel that good fresh water.

“For many years, Frank Tippins sold convict labor to that outfit. That’s why he had his prison camp way to hell and gone out here in the Big cypress. Companies paid next to nothing for his nigras and the sheriff kept every penny them poor devils earned, being as how it was against state law for them terrible criminals to receive payment. Them Deep Lake partners was rich men, never had to think about them human beins that made ’em all their money. Maybe your brother-in-law knew how Tippins worked things, maybe not, but too much blood and tears fell at Deep Lake.

“Sheriff Tippins learned a live-and-let-live attitude: let him live if his skin ain’t the wrong color. That time he killed a nigra prisoner in his own jail-saved that darned nigra from committin suicide, I reckon-the sheriff called it an escape attempt. Later claimed this man was the only prisoner he ever killed in the line of duty. Must of forgot all them poor sinners that never went home from his labor camp out here.

“Tippins kept up his polite reputation in Fort Myers but didn’t behave right out in this backcountry where nobody weren’t watching. Handcuffed his prisoners, then knocked ’em down, to give ’em a taste of what was comin if they didn’t work all out in this heat until they dropped. Sooner or later, every last one that could still walk tried to run off. All swamp country out here where it ain’t sand and thorn so they never got too far. Miskeeters and the heat took the last fight out of ’em and anyways, he paid Injuns to track ’em. Left sign any Mikasuki could foller blindfolded and walkin backwards. Never had to catch ’em-had to rescue ’em! Hauled ’em back to camp more dead than alive, and the ring leader was usually whipped to death or shot, make an example. They buried ’em in the soft fill on the railway spoil bank. Buildin this road, the county dug up so many bones it was embarrassin.”

“Think that spoil bank might have been the source of those bad stories about old bones dug up on Chatham Bend? What some called ‘Watson Payday?’ ”

House remained silent a few seconds too long. “Well, we blame too much on your daddy, that is correct,” he said at last. “We forget how much competition that man had on the frontiers when it come to common killin. And I ain’t talkin only about plume hunters or moonshiners or backwoods varmints such as Killer Cox. I’m talkin about Christian businessmen who work their feller men to death to make more money, I’m talkin about all them miserable lost lives that gets wrote off to overhead. So if Ed Watson killed a few workers like they say, he weren’t the only boss who done that, not by a long shot.”