Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Stiff-legged, bristle-naped, the dog circled him slowly as if penning him. From its clamped jaws came a low monotone growl. When it pushed its snout into his calf and left it there, awaiting its next command, a rank stink rose from its hide.

Lucius knew better than to move or speak. Feeling the blood drain from his face, he averted his gaze as a dog will, eyes half closed as if sleepy. He could only hope that his own fear smell would not fatally incite this morose animal.

“If Junior tole him to, ol’ Buck’d go for a bull gator,” Mud said. “Junior can lay a T-bone by his nose and go out to the store and Buck won’t touch it lest he’s tole to.”

Lucius contained his shaking with main strength. “I’m not armed,” he told them. “Call him off.”

“Think I don’t know what your fuckin brother wanted?” Crockett yelled. “Think I ain’t seen Speck’s name on that damned list? Should of blowed his head off!” At that shout of anger, the dog snouted his calf harder, pushing with hind legs, shivering.

“Only we didn’t,” Mud reminded Crockett. Mud looked scared. Even Dummy seemed uneasy, adjusting his genitals through his greased coveralls.

Lucius said, “I made that fool list years ago. Means nothing.”

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

Crockett whistled the dog into his truck, which Mud took as a sign to march Lucius back to his car, haranguing him all the way. “You got more guts than brains, know that? You don’t know who you’re foolin with.” He jerked his head in the direction of Crockett’s truck. “Your brother run off and hid on us. We don’t know where he’s at. So don’t come back no more.”

Shoving the dog into the other seat, Crockett had climbed into bad cuntry and slammed the door. Mud joined Dummy in the red truck. “Hold on!” Lucius protested, extending his arms. Gunning his motor, Mud jolted across the ditch as Lucius jumped onto the running board, trying to hang on to the window. Dummy’s paw shot out and seized his shirt and yanked him hard against the cab and carried him a good ways down the road before he pushed him away hard and sent him sprawling. The black truck, following close behind, honked its approval,

Jeers drifted back as the big machines headed east toward Gator Hook. Shock and pain. His brain was ringing. He pushed himself up onto all fours, then rested on his knees a moment before staggering to his feet, his scraped forearm packed bloody with limestone road bits, Dummy’s musky smell still in his nose. Slapping distractedly at his dirtied pants, he knew he’d accomplished nothing. Yet for all his outrage and frustration, he felt unaccountably relieved, even queerly elated. He felt free.

Though the Everglade Lodge had replaced the Storter trading post and the Storters had moved to Naples, Hoad returned here often. Lucius found him in a wicker chair on the lodge porch overlooking the tidal river, expounding on the river scene to a little boy who looked much like him, chipmunk cheeks and all. Hanging back, Lucius listened to his friend explain everything from the net booms on the big shrimp boats to the gold-purple bronzing on the heads of the spring pelicans on their crude nests on the high mangrove walls across the tide.

Hoad hailed him cheerily and waved him to a seat. “Cap’n Lucius Watson, fish guide! Same old khakis and salt-rotted sneakers!” But Lucius was too restless to sit down, and seeing his exhaustion and the silence in it, Storter gave him time to collect himself while he finished describing to his son how he and Cap’n Watson netted pompano off the Gulf beaches, mostly at night, following the schools from Captiva Island south to the middle Keys. “Wasn’t that something, Lucius? To have your own boat at your own dock and go to work only when the tide was right?” Hoad whistled in amazement. “Mullet schools two miles across, not a mile out of Caxambas!” he told the boy, who was twisting in his seat.

The boy ran off and Hoad sat back, a little sad. “Way things are going, our children will never see a mullet school as big as that, poor little fellers.” He frowned. “Heck, I have nothing to complain about, I know that. It’s our own darn fault. Sold away our good old river home under the trees for a new house on a new street in Naples with no trees at all. My wife likes it, I guess, but a backyard don’t amount to much compared to riverfront.”

Hoad fell still, awaiting him. He jumped up when Lucius told him what had happened. “We’ll go look for him.” Hoad’s boat was hauled out upriver by the bridge, she only needed to be launched and refueled. They could leave for Chatham first thing in the morning.

They walked along under royal palms toward the village circle, then headed north toward the bridge to see to Hoad’s boat, then back along the river. At the far end of every street, the encircling green mangrove lay in wait, as if after dark it might infiltrate and smother the small settlement, reclaiming it as jungle. Already insolent hard weeds were pushing through big cracks in the broken sidewalk.

Hoping to cheer him, Hoad told him that according to the radio this morning, the E. J. Watson claim on Chatham Bend had been dismissed by the state court. “Looks like the new park is on the way,” Hoad chortled.

At the lodge, they sat outside gazing across the twilight channel where the sun falling to the Gulf out to the west still fired the highest leaves on the green wall. On other days these common miracles were healing, but this evening, the burning mangrove leaves, the dying light’s faint flashes in the current-the quiet beauty in that transience-stirred only loneliness. Arranging with Hoad to meet early next morning, he excused himself and, picking up his glass, went inside and crossed the lobby to the telephone.

Startled when he reached Nell at once, Lucius was shy and awkward, stammering remorse for the neglectful way he’d treated her over the years and his unhappiness about the happiness he’d thrown away. But since he’d lawman made this clear at their meeting in the cemetery, she remained silent, awaiting his explanation of why he had chosen this moment to call. finally, he told her about Rob.

“Oh Lucius, no !” she said. “Oh Rob! When I think how much you missed him all those years-oh Lucius, sweetheart, maybe he’s all right. Will you let me know?”

Overwhelmed by her warm concern, he said, “Nell? Will you marry me?”

Her silence scared him. “Nell?”

“Goodness,” she murmured. “What a strange time to propose.” She asked coolly if he had been drinking. He set his glass down, then denied this, but another silence made it evident that she knew better. He heard a soft clearing of the throat in preparation for some final rejection that would be unbearable. To head that off, he entreated her all in a rush, “I’ve always loved you, Nell, you know that. We could be so happy-”

Gently she cut him off. “Listen to me. Thank you. But since your father died, you’ve never permitted yourself happiness, so how could we be happy? It wouldn’t work.”

He said, “It’s quite impossible, I agree.” Then he said, “Come on, Nell. Marry me anyway.”

He heard her laugh a little as he’d intended. But after a moment, she said that while she was glad she’d seen him after so long and would always consider him her oldest and best friend, she did not think they should meet again anytime soon.

In panic, he pretended she was testing him although in his heart he knew that she was not. “Please, Nell, listen, don’t hang up. I mean it. I’m asking you to marry. Isn’t that what you wanted?” She had put the phone down.