Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

According to a comical card sent by Sam Tolen, the Santini episode had made headline news in the Lake City paper, the culprit Watson being locally well known as a dangerous drunk and an alleged accomplice in the killing of John Hayes. My Mandy, who had arrived in Fort White with the children, made no mention of those lies in her affectionate letter, which simply inquired if my family might come join me. After all her poverty and suffering-and five long years in the Indian nations with no word from her wandering husband-this excellent woman held no bitterness. She had always known the dark side of my nature and deplored it-she would not pretend-but for some reason she still had faith in me and I was grateful.

As for the children, I missed my pretty Carrie and young Eddie and was somewhat curious to see how baby Lucius had turned out. “He favors me a little, more’s the pity,” Mandy had written. I chuckled, imagining her shy smile as she wrote that, but a moment later, that innocent sweet memory was ousted by a vision of the warm pink muffin of her rump, which stirred my dog loins all the way from Columbia County.

Netta smelled trouble. I told her straight she would have to make room for my lawfully wedded wife and legal children. “Make room?” Her tone annoyed me. Come to think of it, I said, she’d better clear out down to the last hairpin and take her little Min right along with her. “Clear out, you said? My little Min?” She stood right up to me. “Mis-ter Desperado Watson! Huh!” First time I ever saw this woman truly angry. She called me a liar for persuading her that common law was binding and for never mentioning my “awful lawful wife,” as Tant would call her. Her phony husband having turned out to be some kind of dirty Mormon, she was only too happy to depart forever, never to return, and many other words to that effect.

I was sad for I loved Netta in her way, but my past had overtaken us and that was that. I left the Bend that afternoon so as not to have to listen to her any further. Stopping briefly at Caxambas, I notified Captain Jim Daniels that his sister needed fetching at the Bend. From there I went on to Fort Myers to talk business with Dr. T. E. Langford and a Mr. Cole who wished to invest in Island Pride, my cane syrup operation.

Since the Santini story had arrived ahead of me, I was astonished that two such upright citizens would entrust me with their dollars. Seems they were much less interested in Santini’s throat than impressed by what Capt. Bill Collier had told them about how fast that feller Watson got his cane plantation up and running, said Ed had enough brains and ambition to develop the Ten Thousand Islands single-handed. Only thing, Bill warned ’em, that man has a hot temper and never lets too much stand in his way. Jim Cole just grinned. For a good businessman, Cole observed, there were few better recommendations than a nose for opportunity and the nerve to see it through.

Jim Cole was a big man in cattle and shipping who became one of the first county commissioners. He had married into the Summerlin family which owned the cattle yards at Punta Rassa and was engaged in various enterprises with the Hendrys, who owned half the town. Because he had political ambitions, Cole was noisily civic-minded, claimed he aimed to drag Fort Myers into the Twentieth Century whether folks liked it or not. A few years later, he paved over the white seashell streets for his new auto, the first such contraption folks had ever seen. I associate concrete with Jim Cole-he loved that stuff.

To ensure their support, Cole put people in his debt. I took his money to build up my syrup business but instead of feeling grateful, I resented it. I reckon he knew that-I never tried to hide it-but as a politician, he could not tolerate unfriendliness and never understood why I disliked having my back slapped by such a big loud jokey feller when most men got along with him just fine.

Jim Cole was out to win Ed Watson to his side or know the reason why. Hearing that the Key West sheriff was still nagging me about Santini, Cole sent Knight a wire saying, “Friend Watson rode in out of the Wild West, he’s one of that freewheeling breed that made this country great.” Knight wired back, “Freebooting, you mean? Don’t tell a lawman not to do his job.” Cole thought this exchange was pretty funny. He looked rattled when I didn’t smile.

All the same, it was Jim Cole who lined up the local business interests to capitalize my operation and advance me credit, and Dr. T. E. Langford went along. In financial matters, the Langford family did what Cole told them. Before anything could occur to change their mind, I placed an order with Bill Collier for a cargo of Dade County pine, then hired two carpenters to come to Chatham Bend and help me build a good big house, a better dock, a boat shed and attached dormitory for harvest workers, with down payment in advance and the balance billed to the account of the Watson Syrup Company, Chatham River, c/o Chokoloskee, Florida, U.S.A.

The great day came when I sailed north with Erskine Thompson to meet my family at the new railroad terminus at Punta Gorda. For the first time since he was one month old, I gazed upon Lucius Hampton Watson, a fair-haired handsome quiet little boy, aged seven. Squealing, my sweet Carrie ran to jump and hug me- Papa! Papa !-while Edward Elijah Watson frowned at his sister and furrowed his brow before stepping up and shaking hands in a stern manly fashion. “Good day, Father,” this young fellow said. “I am very happy to renew our acquaintance.” And finally Mandy shyly took my hand, bending her forehead to my chest to hide her tears. Only Sonborn-I might have known-stood to one side, spoiling for a showdown. I was struck afresh by his resemblance to his mother, the pallid, almost pretty face with the vivid red spots on the cheeks and what Mandy called a poet’s long black lock of hair over his eyes.

I led my poor exhausted troupe to a dinner at the Hotel Punta Gorda, an immense pile of masonry with corner turrets and big central tower, thrown together a few years before when this Gulf fishing camp became the southern terminus of the west coast railroad. The hotel contained over five hundred empty rooms, more than enough to bed every human being on this southwest coast. As Eddie rolled his eyes for his father’s benefit, Carrie ran wild down the corridors with Lucius hard behind, although both were near tears with fatigue from their long journey.

At supper, my rambunctious daughter declared for the whole dining room to hear, “I bet they wouldn’t never dare to serve us beets!” Then the waiter arrived, and he says, “Folks, if there’s one item on our menu you just better try, that’s our fresh beets.” And Carrie sings out, “Well, Mister Waiter, if I was you, I’d just hold back on them beets. If it looks like a beet or tastes like a beet, let alone stinks like a beet, don’t you dare bring it to our Watson table.”

The boys seized this excuse to whoop, we were all laughing, even Rob, although Mandy pretended to be shocked by her daughter’s “wild deportment, uncouth speech, and frontier grammar.” Even Erskine Thompson, who was to sour at an early age, smiled a smile as thin as a hairline crack in glass.

Sailing south next day, we stopped off for the night at Panther Key to let my inland family hear sea stories told by old Juan Gomez, famous ex-pirate and world champion liar who came to an end a few years later when he tangled his foot in his old cast net and threw himself overboard and drowned at his official age of one hundred twenty-three. Next morning we trolled fish lines south, had good fishing all the way to Chatham River. Infected by old Gomez with the ambition to be pirates, the boys shouted in excitement as the schooner came in off the Gulf and negotiated the river’s hidden entrance. I pointed out the tropic hardwood forest rising behind the mangrove walls as we tacked upstream, and the red gumbo-limbos found on Indian mounds and in swamp country near high water which were always sign of high ground and good soil. “Gumber-limber,” Lucius laughed, enjoying those funny words, as Eddie shook his head in pity.