Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Not very long before the wedding, a book entitled Hell on the Border arrived in southern Florida and turned up at the Thursday Reading Club in town. Among its bloody tales of the Wild West was the author’s version of the life and death of Mrs. Maybelle Shirley Starr, in which “a man named Watson” was identified as her slayer. It was soon confirmed by Sheriff Tippins at Fort Myers (who had learned of it from the sheriff at Key West) that this same Watson, an escaped felon from Arkansas State Prison, was none other than Mr. E. J. Watson of Chatham River.

Word spread quickly and pretty soon all sorts of stories had sprung up, a few of which, to my regret, Carrie brought to her mother’s attention. I went to Carrie and commanded her to relate the mean things being said, but all she knew was the gossip overheard at Miss Flossie’s Notions Shop by Walter’s aunt Etta and aunt Poke.

The story was that Edgar Watson, born to wealthy plantation owners in South Carolina, was the black sheep of a fine family, causing so much trouble that he had to flee. He opened a gambling joint someplace on the Georgia frontier (there were fallen women, too, one lady whispered) with the Outlaw Queen Belle Starr. Belle’s method was to have “big winners” followed, killed, and robbed, with Belle herself handling this end of the business if no henchman was handy. “Oh, Edgar and Belle were bad as bad can be!” Carrie mimicked Aunt Etta, smiling to show me how ridiculous all this stuff was, but it was plain that my gallant daughter was truly disturbed.

“There’s more, Papa. The Langfords-” She was unable to continue. I turned to Mandy, who told me the rest of it, trying bravely to amuse me.

It seems that Mr. Desperado Watson had a telescope in a lookout high up under the eaves of his white house from where he kept close watch on Chatham River. Desperado spent most of his day scanning the Gulf in case men came after him or “his past caught up with him,” as some would have it. One day he shifted the channel marker at Shark River (actually a drift timber stuck into a sandbar) and on a night of storm, he shone a light to attract a Spanish ship that was on her way north to Punta Rassa to pick up a cargo of cattle for South America. Since she could not continue up the coast and round the shoals of Cape Romaine in such high seas, she took shelter in the river mouth, missed the channel, and went hard aground just as Desperado had planned. Ever so courteous, Desperado rowed over and worked hard to help get her off and afterward they invited him aboard to drink some rum. As soon as those Spaniards got drunk (as was their wont as “Romans”) he slew every last man and took the gold they’d brought to buy the cattle, then towed the ship out to deep water and chopped a hole in her and sank her, having locked the cabin so that no telltale bodies would float to the surface.

“Telltale bodies.” I nodded with approval. “Looks like Mr. Desperado knew his work.”

“Mr. Desperado’s Island neighbors revealed that story to somebody’s lawyer’s sister,” Mandy assured me, “so it must be true.” We were both nodding now. “However, everyone is mystified since all agree that Mr. Despersado is unfailingly considerate and kind to his grateful wife. Unfailingly.” Here she batted her eyes primly, doing her best to smile away her tears. “Also, it turns out that Belle was not killed after all, her death was just a trick Belle and Edgar played to get her out of trouble. Belle even came east and helped him nurse his invalid wife while she wasted away down there in those awful Islands.” When Carrie left the room, Mandy looked up. “Do you suppose these ladies have confused Maybelle with that woman you had living there when I arrived?”

This teasing was as close to a reproach about Netta Daniels as she ever came. Mild though it was, it changed her mood: she chose this day almost a decade later to ask me quietly if I had been Belle’s slayer. “I answered that question back in Oklahoma,” I said shortly. “I know you did,” she said, gaze unrelenting. I only huffed as if too offended to answer. She nodded carefully, closing her eyes as if content, which she was not.

One evening at the Bend, Mandy had reminded me that the man she married was a Mr. E. A. Watson and inquired politely what that new middle initial might stand for. I resented this question for some reason. “How about Jesus?” I suggested rudely, going right on with what I was doing, which was molding bullets at the table. A moment later, I looked up, defiant. She was awaiting me as I knew she would be, a born poker player gauging me over her cards. Eyebrows raised a little in that way she had, pale brow as clear as porcelain even in that heat, she held my gaze. Her fixed expression gave me the feeling she was looking straight through my pupils at Jack Watson, who had dropped his gaze in shame, for Mandy had an unmuddied soul and could outstare Jack Watson without even trying.

Arranging a bank loan on good terms, I had bought my wife a little house. “It’s small,” I told her, “but I reckon it will hold both cats.” Mandy smiled in a soft burst of joy, so happy was she at the prospect of living privately under her own roof while she was dying.

By 1900, Tampa Bay had its first automobiles and cobbled streets where shod horse hooves might skitter on the fresh manure. The Tampa Electric Company had more business than it could handle, and the cigar industry was booming, with over two hundred small factories at Ybor City. To avoid complications at Fort Myers, I conscripted field hands in the Scrub, a makeshift settlement east of Ybor where black folks huddled in their shacks in the scrub palmetto, but my business dealings took place mostly in saloons.

One afternoon, forsaking the saloon to pick up my supplies at Knight & Wall Hardware, I grew somewhat impatient with the clerk, who kept the line waiting while he demonstrated some silliness he’d picked up at the dancing school. To command his attention, I stepped forth, drew my revolver, and fired holes into the floor around his shoe. “If you prance as fancy as you talk,” said I, “let’s see you prove it.” Someone ran out, the deputies arrived, and after I was overpowered, I was marched to jail. One deputy said, “I’m sorry, Ed, but nobody saw no fun in that exceptin you.”

Tampa Bay was becoming a large port where few folks knew me; when I grew unruly, Fort Myers rarely heard about it. However, my luck had now started to change, because news of this episode reached Fort Myers before I did.

As everyone knows, Americans love a desperado, not the scurvy villain with a scar but the suave rascal of style and courtly manner. Having lawman made a dangerous reputation at Key West and Tampa, I couldn’t walk the street without folks pointing. Almost overnight, Mr. E. J. Watson had become the most celebrated citizen in town after Tom Edison-or perhaps the most notorious, as Jim Cole liked to say, trying to bend things in the Langfords’ favor in the transactions over the terms of Carrie’s marriage.

Cole had already seen to it that I was no longer welcome in the business circle and now it appeared that he’d persuaded the Langford family that a fugitive from justice and accused murderer could not be permitted to be seen at a decent wedding. Though Carrie assured them I was not Belle’s killer, the social pressures finally proved too much, and in the end, it was suggested on behalf of both families that I stay away from my beloved daughter’s wedding. As sad as I had ever seen her, Mandy agreed with the request, adding, however, that she would abide by whatever her husband decided.

I was too shocked to speak about this sensibly: if I was unwelcome, I would not attend the wedding with my family, but I might damn well invade it and outrage them all. Of course I did not really wish to do that, and to make certain I didn’t, I stalked out of the house and went down to the boat, intending to go home to Chatham River. “We’re sailing,” I told Sonborn, coming aboard. Without a word, he set about preparing to cast off.