Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

“May ben sewer!” cried Chevelier, who had to recapture control at once or jump out of his skin. Was this not an affirmation of de Crиvecoeur? And he read out a passage that Mandy kindly regurgitatated for my benefit: What, then, is the American, this new man? He is neither a European nor the descendant of a European; hence that strange mixture of blood you will find in no other country. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men! The Frenchman cited “the half-a-breed Hardens,” as typical of these new Americans, embodying the tough, enduring qualities of the black, red, and white races. The Hardens, he said, with grudging admiration, represented the essential character of “thees fokink ray-poo-bleek.” I interrupted as he glared: the Hardens were by no means the only family on this coast with dark genes that had sifted down through generations, and they may or may not have manifested his new race of men, but they were good people and the best of neighbors in the Lost Man’s country.

To gall him, I added what Napoleon Broward had remarked, that it was the destiny of E. J. Watson to develop this southwest coast. The old man scoffed rudely, Lemper Roo-er! Lemper Roo-er Vot-sawn ! And my wife smiled to chide me for my boasting: I had not heard the last of “Emperor Watson.”

Chevelier was wildly emboldened by her smile. When Mandy suggested that the Ten Thousand Islands, with their myriad channels, evoked the Labyrinth in Greek mythology, he speedily retorted that if the Islands were the Labyrinth, Madame’s own mari must be the fokink Mee-no-tore. Squeezing my arm to restrain me, Mandy said that the fearsome Minotaur could also be very gentle. “Minotaur Watson?” she would tease me later. “Emperor Watson? Which do you prefer?” (She had never cared for sentimental stale endearments for her husband; she preferred her own pet names, all of them quirky, slightly disrespectful.)

Msyoo le Baron Jean de Chevelier had the gall to be galled by Mandy’s fondness for her husband and did not trouble to hide it: he stared at us half-mad, mouth twisting cruelly. (Elderly indigestion, she suggested later.) Plainly this bachelor gentleman had been smitten by an educated lady and was trying to court her with his hard-earned rare knowledge, and when my wife hinted at his real emotion, overtaking him too late in life in this painful way, it seemed absurd to be angered by his insults. Standing up, I reminded him that his bullet-punctured hat still hung on a kitchen peg, to be returned on his first visit to the Bend. Which would be most welcome, Mandy added.

Leaving Mrs. Watson to accept his fond adoos, I bid him good-bye-we did not care to shake hands-and went back to the boat. Mandy thanked him for his kind hospitality, though this old misery hadn’t offered us so much as a cup of rainwater. “Bun shawnce, share Madame! Bella fortuna!” he called after her (wishing her good luck in two languages, she would explain, to compensate her for the dark fate of her marriage to a minotaur).

All the way home we talked with animation, though I knew my wife had to quell ascending sadness. At the dock she said, “Wait, Edgar, please,” too weak to leave the boat. She was watching the silver mullet down along the bank, leaping skyward as if to escape their natural element, only to fall back with those thin little smack s into the darkening water.

“Something’s after ’em, that’s all. Coming up from underneath.”

“Hush,” she murmured. “Watch.”

Hand on her shoulder, I watched with her, indifferent to this everyday sight but content in our shared sadness. The children, worried, came out on the screened porch. Sensing something, they observed us but they did not call. At last she offered her pale hand and I half lifted her onto the dock. She did not explain her sudden dread and said it was not serious but I knew she’d had some sort of premonition.

Mandy seemed to waste away, perishing from the inside out like a hollow tree. Finally I took her to Fort Myers and put her in the care of Dr. Langford, who lived in a big house near the river between Bay and First Streets. Carrie went along to tend her and the younger boys followed in late summer and stayed on for the school year. The only one left at Chatham Bend was Sonborn.

One gray day, feeling a hollow stillness back in the mangroves, I went ashore at Possum Key to see how that mean old man was getting on. He had not answered when I hailed the cabin and so I was not overly surprised when at the door I was met by the smell of death. Then I saw the long white whiskers in the shadows, the small paws in the air above the chest. The Frenchman lay stiff as a poisoned rat. I removed my hat.

I dug his grave in the soft soil of his garden. Putting rags over my hands, I returned into the cabin and lifted the light bundle in its mildewed blanket and carried him like a smelly little bride over the doorsill and out into the sun. Sinking to my knees, I lowered him into the earth, remaining there a few moments out of respect. As an unbeliever, I had no prayer to give, and anyway, no prayer could bless this ferocious God-hater in the hereafter or anywhere else.

“Le Baron Jean de Chevelier.” In that great quiet, with the swamp forest listening, I tried to pronounce his name in French the way Mandy had taught me. I had nothing else to offer by way of earthly witness. I had pitied him a little, yes, toward the end, but I had never liked him much and would not miss him.

Quock! The tearing squawk of a flared heron overhead startled me badly; I never saw the bird, only its shadow. Msyoo had loved birds better than people: his grim crier had come. In the next moment, on a limb, I saw a young owl, all woolly with astounded eyes, that must have attended the burial; it did not fly off into the wood until I’d finished spading the black soil into the pit. These odd birds spooked me a little, I must admit.

Before some hunter came by and stripped the cabin clean, I poked around for excavated treasures but was able to depart with a clear conscience, having been tempted by nothing in the place. At the boat, I ran afoul of two young Hardens come to clean and feed him; knowing how much that old man had detested E. J. Watson, these boys were shocked to see me. When I told them Msyoo Chevelier was dead, young Earl glanced at his brother, growing scared, and I knew right then that no matter what I said, Ed Watson would be blamed for the Frenchman’s death.

In his theory about the great Calusa clam bed, the Frenchman had tried to distract me from whatever he was up to back on Gopher Key. Even so, his guess was correct. Coming up the coast one day at dead low water, I eased myself barefoot over the side. Right away my feet located hard shapes under the sand: upright clam valves in what proved to be a clam bed close to a mile wide-I mapped it out-extending almost six miles north from Pavilion Key. This was exciting. Establishing a clam fishery so close to home where I could keep an eye on things might finance my whole operation. I would stake a claim and form a company as soon as my harvest was finished in late winter.

At this time, young Bill House was working upriver from the Bend on his dad’s new plantation at House Hammock. For a year or two, he had collected rare bird eggs for the Frenchman, and old Jean must have mentioned his clam cannery idea to decoy that boy away from Gopher Key, because one day I came by House Hammock and found Bill constructing a crude dredge. What’s that for? I inquired. Bird eggs? When he grinned sheepishly but said nothing, I changed the subject quick: knowing this young House for a slow mover, I was not discouraged. I sailed to Marco the next day and confided my great discovery to Bill Collier, inviting him to join me as a partner. This man had been unusually successful in his business enterprises and had the experience and capital I lacked. To my surprise, Collier seemed skeptical of the whole proposition, even when I mentioned my clam-dredge idea. I would have to find a partner or at least a backer among my business acquaintances in Fort Myers.