Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

“Nosir, I never did.”

“Ain’t nobody forgot Jack Watson, not around here,” Mr. Smith was still disturbed. “White as you or me to look at but called himself a nigger. ‘Nigger to the bone!’ Had to be crazy as a shithouse rat but he showed plenty of sand there at the last of it.” Eager to relate the whole grim story, he was only restrained by my show of indifference. “Lynchings are all pretty much alike,” I said, “when you get right down to it.”

Mr. Smith invited me home to wash my feet and meet the daughters. There were four if I counted correctly, and every one a head taller than their guest, huge strong young females twice my weight who ate like stallions and drank me right under the table. Once their daddy had turned in with a loud snoring, those giant girls came down there after me and played hell with the clean duds their dad had lent me while mine got a wash. I never saw such love-starved critters in my life. The biggest lugged me over to her cornshuck mattress to finish up the job and I do believe the others had their way with me before the smoke cleared. I did my best but never got the hang of ’em some way, they just weren’t built right. I was glad to make my getaway next morning, clawed and gnawed up pretty good but in one piece.

The daughter known as Little Hannah would loom into my life again years later, by which time, with no sisters around to steal her thunder, she was called Big Hannah. By then we couldn’t quite recall just what had taken place under that table, but it made Hannah blush. “You had you a whole heap of young womanhood, for sure,” she giggled, “and done pretty good with it, too.”

Crossing into Florida, I headed south along the river road on the west bank of the Suwannee. All the world is sad and dreary everywhere I roam -that’s how that old song really feels to a man way down upon the Suwannee River in swamp forest in dark winter weather, all that Spanish moss like dead gray hair and doleful vultures hunched on the black snags. I sorely missed dear Mandy and the children and worried how they might be getting on. I didn’t even know if Baby Lucius had made it through his first hard winter. For his sake, I kind of hoped he hadn’t.

Cypress Creek, White Springs on the Suwannee. Next day I crossed the county line into Columbia but waited till night to ride down past Lake City. No one at Fort White was looking for me but I stayed close to the woods, taking no chances. On the books I was a dead man, drowned in the muddy Arkansas, and I meant to keep it that way, because being dead was the only way I’d ever found to stay out of trouble.

Determined to get things straight with Billy Collins, I went to his house first. Little Julian Edgar, close to my Eddie’s age, was already a fine young feller, four years old, and we went hand-in-hand to find his mama. A second boy was toddling around the stove and an infant was toiling at my sister’s breast, keeping an eye on me over the tit. With the baby fussing, Minnie did not notice our delegation in the cookhouse door, being pleasured in her nursing in a way that is rarely hidden by that innocent air of milky sweet selfsatisfaction peculiar to young mothers, who imagine themselves and their yowling stinky bundle on a golden cloud at the heart of all Creation. But standing back to consider my sister after these years away, I had to acknowledge that other men might admire this scared creature. With her alabaster skin and full red lips, Minnie was pretty, even beautiful, but to me her flesh looked spiritless as ever, with no more spring in it than suet.

“Company for supper, Nin,” I whispered.

She gasped, backing away. Deathly afraid for her dear Billy, her eyes implored me even as she babbled how overjoyed she was to see her long-lost brother. If she stayed out of the way while I finished up my business with him, everything would probably come out all right, I told her. Not knowing what “probably” might mean, she started crying.

When Collins came, I was sitting on his porch, in the exact same spot I had sat five years before. He stopped short at the gate. Seeing little Julian on my knee, he mustered up some courage, came ahead. “Well, Edgar,” he started, kind of gruff, “this sure is a pleasant surprise.”

“So I imagine.”

Minnie came rushing out to greet her husband before her brother had a chance to do away with him. She told us both how thrilled she was that I was making such good friends with little Julian. I waved her back inside, wishing to query her husband in peace about local attitudes toward Edgar Watson. Was it safe to come back here, send for my family? I demanded an honest answer, granting him a little time to think that over.

A lovely girl with a shadow in her skin brought a pail of milk, waved cheerily, and went away again. “Who’s that?” I said. “Depends,” said Billy, “but she is called Jane Straughter.” Our eavesdropping Minnie giggled from inside, and Billy said, “Her daddy might be your old friend J. C. Robarts.” I thought about Jane Straughter all that evening. She had made me very, very restless. I wondered later if I knew right then that I meant to have her.

At supper I told most of my news, how a son Lucius had been born in Arkansas, how I had paid a call on our male parent. Minnie said, “O Lord, Edgar, you didn’t-” She could not speak it and I did not explain. Minnie would never believe the truth, not even if I’d shot her father with six bullets and nailed him tight into his coffin, to end her dread that Ring-Eye Lige might one day track her south to Florida. She would be rapturous with re-lief at first, then flail herself because she hadn’t grieved. My poor sister was condemned by her badly broken nature to find torment in every circumstance while seeking in all directions for forgiveness.

Having stolen Cousin Laura’s foolish heart, Sam Frank Tolen was hot after her money and had already renamed our place Tolen Plantation. Sam had made such a mess of the family cabin that Auntie Tab had gone ahead with the construction of the two-story plantation house that William Myers had been planning when he died. Meanwhile dear Mama, Minnie said, had been made to feel unwelcome under the Tolen roof and was anxious to come live in this small house, help take care of her grandchildren. “Unless she brings Aunt Cindy, she’ll be no help at all,” Minnie complained. “We’ll be sure to give her your respects,” she added nervously as if I were just leaving.

I wasn’t figuring on going anyplace, I said, I wanted to come home and settle down. I turned to Billy, who frowned deeply, weighing his words. “If I were you, Edgar, I would not come home just yet,” he said, all in a breath. This community still figured that somebody should pay for the Hayes killing. I was sure to be arrested. And even if I escaped conviction I was a

wanted man in Arkansas where I would be returned in chains.

“Wanted in Arkansas? And how do you know that?”

Billy was ready. “Sheriff ’s office in Lake City was notified by telegraph to be on the lookout for an E. A. Watson.”

“That was the first news we had that you might be alive!” cried my pale sister, as her babe suckled, watching me sideways out of shining eyes.

“Also,” Billy continued, “Will Cox has been taking good care of your cabin so you won’t have to worry about that.”

I sat silent, thinking my life over. Life was great and life was terrible and life could not be one without the other, that I knew, which don’t mean I understood this or approved it. Doesn’t. I was saddle sore and weary and begrimed by life, and mortally homesick for a home I had never had unless it was across these woods in my old cabin with Charlie. I couldn’t go home to Clouds Creek and I couldn’t come home to Fort White. I would have to start all over someplace else.