Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

I believe Lucius felt much better, hearing these things.

Few years later, another warden named MacLeod was waylaid at Charlotte Harbor. Found his sunk skiff, found his hat, which had two ax marks through it. They never came up with the body and nobody was ever brought to court. Of course I was blamed for that one, too, but Lucius knew I was in Fort White throughout that period. He loves his Papa and I love him back as well as I know how, which is probably not as well as other dad-dies. On the other hand, I am the best he’s got.

William Parker Bethea, a Baptist minister, sharecropped a piece of the plantation across the Fort White Road from Joe Burdett, and his family grew close to the Burdetts and Porters. His widowed daughter from his first marriage came to visit, and John Porter, a born meddler, suggested to both parties that Mrs. Lola McNair and Mr. E. J. Watson might take kindly to each other. Having nothing in the world against sweet widows, I fluffed up my whiskers, borrowed the red trap with bright gold spokes in which Billy Collins had once courted his Miss Minnie, and sparkled over there of a nice Sunday to pay my respects.

The Reverend in black preaching suit, white socks, and high black shoes was sitting in a rocker on his front porch. “Good day, sir,” said I. “E. J. Watson is my name. I am a friend of John L. Porter, come a-calling.” When I lifted my hat and introduced myself, he rose from his chair as if preparing to defend his hearth and home. Like so many in the preaching line, he looked like a more steadfast man than he turned out to be.

“Yessir,” he said in a stiff voice. “We know who you are.”

Hearing those cold words, I almost left without another word. But even as he spoke, Preacher Bethea was hastening out into the sunlight for a better look at my red trap with its fringed canopy, and after an uneasy kind of pause while he scratched his neck, this man of God stuck out his knobby hand. I gave it a good honest shake and he waved me up onto the porch, saying, “Make yourself to home here, Mr. Watson.”

Watching me was a young girl in a white frock who stood behind his rocker like a servant. She had wide brown eyes in a calm and kindly face and long soft taffy-colored hair down past her shoulders. This was not Lola but her younger sister Catherine Edna, who was of that age when a female of our species can be handsome and pretty both. Showing nice manners for that part of the country, she curtsied to her father’s guest and ever so winsome skipped away to fetch her sister.

What Preacher Bethea was up to in that moment only his Lord knew, but my guess would be, he was tussling with the Devil. And ol’ Beezlebub whipped God’s messenger well and quick, because even before I flapped my coattails up and sat my arse down in his rocker, I knew this man would never give me trouble. As farmer and preacher, he was well acquainted with my neighbors, including his landlord, the loud and loose-mouthed Tolen, and surely he’d heard rumors about E. J. Watson. Yet never once, on this day or later, did this man seek to assure himself that this stranger of dark repute would not sully his daughter.

By the time I left that afternoon, I had concluded that the Preacher’s plan was to sweep out the leftover girls from his first marriage, make room for the second batch coming along. He had two new kids and a third one in the oven, and no doubt dreaded the burden of the widow and her children somewhat more than permitting the younger sister to fall into the grasp of a known criminal.

By now Catherine Edna had returned, busting out onto the porch all in a flurry. When she smoothed her skirt and bowed forward a little to sit down on the steps, I could not help but note the apple bosom swelling in her frock. However, that was my own need, there was no guile in her. If she noticed all my noticing, she gave no sign, just beamed into my face like a fresh fruit pie. By the time Mis Lola and her little girl had joined us on the porch, it was already too late, I had my wicked sights set on her sister. All in a moment, Catherine Edna, whom I would call Kate, had twisted my loins harder than any female since poor Charlie Collins, who had moldered in the Bethel graveyard many a long year by the time this randy man of God, panting and croaking, had clambered aboard and fired up the womb of his late wife, setting this sweet child on the path of Life and Glory.

“Expected you Saturday,” the Preacher said, a little sour. “Lola’s just fixing to leave.”

The Widow Lola had the same calm, kindly manner as her sister, but also the sad quiet in her face of a young woman suddenly condemned to live mostly in the past who expects little or nothing from the future. Her hair was up in a big roll on her head, the way all married women wore it, and childbearing had thickened her a little through the midriff.

Lola McNair did not stay long. She was taking the afternoon train to Lake City, and the Reverend went off to hitch up his buggy to drive her and her children to the Junction. When she rose to go, she took my hand, smilng a little, having sensed what was already taking place. “So-o”-she drawled that small word slowly-“Mr. Watson.” I bowed, we exchanged a smile. Releasing my hand, she said how much she’d enjoyed meeting me, adding, “Next time, y’all come calling just a little sooner.”

Miss Lola was not flirtatious and she was not teasing me, only herself, having lost a suitor before she had even laid eyes on him-even before she knew whether she might want him. And she did not mind that I had seen her bittersweet glimmer of regret-all of that went back and forth between us with not one word spoken. That woman and I were friends from the first moment, as if we had been lovers in some other life. I loved her sister but I loved her, too, being full to overflowing with a grand bold feeling. Yet she was protective of young Kate, and her eyes were troubled. Unlike her father, she did not pretend she had not heard the rumors-that shadow went back and forth between us, too.

By reputation, I was two men in this district, the jovial, hardworking brother-in-law of Billy Collins and the coldblooded desperado-the Man Who Killed Belle Starr. While the Preacher might claim he knew only of the first, he stood ready to practice his divine Christian forgiveness on the second or know the reason why, for this man Watson had not arrived straddling a dusty mule like the rest of the young bucks around this section. He was a planter and a gentleman of property with a second plantation in the southern islands, a man of fine manners who came calling in a pretty two-horse trap, bright red with a gold trim, the only one like it this side of Lake City. Once the Preacher had seen this E. J. Watson, the other one went right out of his mind. His wish was to make a good marriage for his daughter as I had done for my Carrie in Fort Myers, so it wasn’t for me to condemn this hungry man. However, I know this: a caller with Ed Watson’s reputation would have gotten nowhere close to my young daughter, no matter how rich that rufous rascal seemed to be.

Although Bethea didn’t know it yet, I wasn’t rich-I had borrowed that red trap-but I was an old rascal, no doubt about that. From the first day I met his daughter, all I could think about was snuffling up under that sweet dimity like some bad old bear, just crawling up into that honeycomb, nose twitching, and never come out of there till early spring. Think that’s disgusting? Dammit, I do, too, but that’s the way male animals are made. Those peculiar delights were created to entrap us, and anybody who disapproves can take it up with God.