Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Speck sipped his coffee, watching Lucius over the rim. “Way I heard it, that black blood-”

“Man lost his arm in the cane mill, bled to death up in the house- never mind that !” Lucius barely veered away from losing his temper.

“Nigger man? Took him right into the house?”

“Come on, Speck!”

“Damn fool poured some kerosene out of a lamp. Damn near set his daddy’s house afire, and we had munitions hid under them gator flats stacked up in there. Boys flung out whole stacks of prime flats so’s they could haul them crates before all hell broke loose, and them things was still outside when it heavy-rained. Left to rot,” Speck complained. “That’s a whole hell of a lot of gators, bud! Just a pitiful waste!”

“I think they murdered him and I think you know it.”

“Figure it any fuckin way you want. It ain’t my business. All I know is, they had to load that heavy ordnance, ferry those crates off the Bend in a big hurry. Never had time to fool with no crazy Watson.”

“Dyer wanted him dead, isn’t that it? That’s why they took him there.”

“Nosir, it sure ain’t. Man was on the run, needed a hidey-hole, like I said.”

“Answer my damned question then. Where is he now?”

“What it was, they seen him from the dock settin that fire. Hollered a warning but he wouldn’t quit.” Speck shrugged. “Had to stop him, Colonel.”

“They shot him?”

“Well, that ain’t how they told it. Never exactly said they had to shoot nobody. Shot over his head, maybe. They said he run out, hid in the trees. They went ahead, got them crates loaded, said they hollered at him before they left. He never answered.”

“Where are they now? Let’s see if they tell me the same story.”

“You heard their story. I just told it. Anyways, they’re at their camp-and never mind askin where that is cause I ain’t tellin you. For your own damn good. You go accusin boys like that, you’ll only get yourself bad hurt or worse.”

Lucius went out. He started down the stairs but halted on the steps at a loss as to what to do. Speck came out and handed down his cup of coffee. “C’mon, Colonel. You think fellers wanted by the law are goin to admit to shootin somebody even if they done it, which I ain’t sayin they did?” Speck sat down on the top step. “But if they did-speakin fair now-”

“It might have been for the best?”

He sank onto the step. They drank their coffee. “I want to know the truth.”

“Don’t know the truth. Probably wouldn’t tell it if I did,” Speck stretched and yawned. “Huntin too hard for the truth ain’t a good idea, y’know,” he added. “By the time you stumble over it, it ain’t the truth no more. Unless there’s death in it. I reckon death is about as close to truth as a man can come.” Slyly he said, “Only question is, did he get that blood out.” He cut off his own snicker. “I am sorry, you know that? We was purty good old friends. And I believe them boys are sorry, too.”

Speck went inside, came back with his brown jug. “Sad day,” he said. “Let’s you’n me get drunk.”

Lucius went on down the stair.

“Fuck it,” Daniels said. Dragging the rawhide string of bullets from beneath his shirt, he gathered them into a ball and tossed them down. “I reckon that belongs to Watsons,” Daniels said, and went back inside.

He had to talk to someone. Carrie? Nell? Hoad was in Everglade at the new lodge. He would talk to Hoad first, they would take Hoad’s boat, go look for him. He drove the rough road recklessly.

Across a slat bridge over a ditch was a small clearing where two swamp trucks, beds jacked high on outsized wheels, were parked outside a low decrepit cabin. Loose-fendered junked autos baked in the thick heat. The yard glinted with metal scraps and bottle caps and broken glass, its edges strewn with defunct batteries, lube buckets, bald tires. Gaunt kids and dragged-out women came to the cabin doorways to see who had pulled over and spavined hounds emerged from beneath the trucks. One swamp machine was a dark gurry red, the other dull crankcase black. On the red truck’s door was wild hog jambaree in daubed black lettering; the black one bore the name bad cuntry in crude jagged red. Lucius was suddenly so frightened that he had to force his unsteady legs to walk the plank across the ditch.

Dummy and Mud lounged like whores against the trucks, lipping cigarettes and gasping beers. Dummy seemed torpid and indifferent, kneading his testes in a languid manner, but scraggy Mud grinned hungrily at the scent of trouble.

Crockett Junior lay sprawled across the black hood of bad cuntry, using a big hunting knife to scrape crisped insects off the windshield. A heavy key chain at his belt scraped scars on the truck paint when he shifted. “Fuckin Mud! Don’t go nowhere at all he ain’t got a beer can stuck into his face. He don’t know fuck-all, that stupid fuck. I ain’t lettin him nowhere near this rig. Wouldn’t have fuckin nothin left of it, time he got done!” Ignoring the intruder, he wheezed with his exertions, levering his torso with strong hairy shoulders, thrashing on the stump of the lost arm. Behind his knife hand, the crude head of his dog loomed in the windshield.

When Mud and Dummy straightened and came forward, Lucius stopped. In a voice hoarse with nerves, he said, “Where’s my brother?”

“Wants to know where his brother’s at.” Mud glanced at Crockett for approval. “Never heard of him, ain’t that right, Junior?”

Crockett scraped. When Lucius warned them that witnesses at Naples had seen them seize Robert Watson, that they would be charged with kidnapping or worse, Mud took a long slow gulp out of his beer can. Pulling it away, foam on his scraggy beard, he came up with an aggressive belch, wiping his hairy mouth with the back of his hand. “That so? How come you ain’t called the law? That because the law’s after him, too?” He hooted gleefully. “ ‘Armed and dangerous’! Come on the radio this mornin. Turned out to be a real bad feller, Chicken did.”

“Turned out to be one them fuckin Watsons.” Crockett Junior’s wet snarl opened his beard stubble like a wound. “Oughta had his fuckin neck broke. This one, too.” He turned back to his scraping. In the sunshined air and hot scrub silence, the knife blade squeaked on the dry glass. “Get goin, mister.” He spoke in a low voice without turning.

Lucius nerved himself. “Not till I find out what happened.” He knew he had to persevere in the full knowledge it was useless.

Crockett Junior laid his knife down on the hood. He hiked himself onto his stump, then took hold of his big belt buckle with his freed hand in order to hike and shift himself. The maneuver took considerable effort, and he gasped and panted as he made it. Retrieving his knife, he slid off the hood. “You don’t listen good,” he said.

Dummy kept his eye on Crockett’s knife, mouth fallen open. Mud’s scared voice warned Lucius, “Never heard Junior tellin you, Get goin ?” Mud stood ready to snarl or jeer according to the one-armed man’s first shift in mood, but he seemed concerned for the intruder, too. “You keep pesterin,” Mud blustered, “he’ll set that dog on you, run your ass right off this road. So just you back up and get goin like the man told you, hear? Cause us dumb-ass redneck boys don’t know nothin about no Robert Watson. Only fuckin thing we know to tell you is the fastest fuckin way off this here propitty.”

When Crockett Junior yanked open the truck door, the dog sprang to the seat edge, taut for the next command-a knob-headed male dog of a bad tawny color blotched with dark brown. Shivering in loin and tendon, it strained toward Lucius as he yelled in fear, “Hold that damned dog!” Then Crockett whistled and the creature sprang, striking the ground with a hard thud of bone-filled paws.