Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

On her next visit, Kate seemed strangely distressed: when I took her in my arms, she confessed that she felt sick. She entreated me to turn away while she tended to her person-modestly preparing, as I thought, to perform her wifely duty. Instead, she produced a clothbound packet containing a small sheath knife in light deerskin, which Cox had told her I had ordered for the escape. She was to conceal it “in her person”-saying this, that vicious boy had winked at her. Mortified, Kate wept, she could scarcely look at me. When she did not understand, he grinned and whispered that she was “to stick it up her you-know-where, and kind of squeeze it, hold it snug there” till she was safely in my cell and could remove it. “He said those were your instructions,” my wife whispered.

I roared with rage. When the guard came running at my din, I bribed him to step out for a long smoke. Made shy by our necessary haste, Kate removed her undergarments and knelt astride me as I sat on the thin cot. I raised her skirts and settled her warm sweet hips onto my lap, gently rocking her, then not so gently. She murmured into my ear that she still hurt from the knife, but it was too late then, it had been too long, I had to have her.

Afterward I sat her beside me and took her hand and warned her I was not a man to tolerate a hanging far less labor my life out on the chain gang. If I was convicted, I intended to escape back to the Islands. I would send for her once I was sure that all was well.

“All will never be well, Mister Watson,” poor Kate mourned. “Not in the Islands.” I had never seen her look so stricken. What had made Chatham almost bearable for Kate had been her dear Laura Collins, whose husband was now estranged from us due to the bitter feelings in our family. Kate said hurriedly that what she meant was that year-round exposure to fever-ridden climate might be bad for children. When I said she need not return permanently but could spend more time at Fort White, she cried out, “How can I stay at Fort White? You can’t imagine how those people look at me!”

Around her eyes was a shadow like a bruise. “If you two didn’t do it, then who did?”

“Kate?” I lifted my fingers and gently brushed the hair out of her eyes, which were streaming tears. “What would you like me to say?”

She made a little squeak like a caught mouse. “We can never go back to Fort White, it is too dangerous!” Jumping up, she rushed to the cell door. I tried to soothe her while she waited for the guard but she only clapped her hands over her ears and shook her head. Though she knew this was unreasonable under the circumstances, she could scarcely believe that her own husband would permit Leslie Cox to testify in his defense.

The one witness left who might do harm was Calvin Banks, who was concentrating on his duty as a citizen while forgetting that his testimony might get me hung. Having given up trying to bribe him, the defense wanted him off the stand as fast as possible.

Testifying for the defense, Cox had made a good impression, declaring earnestly that Mr. Watson had always liked and respected Commissioner Tolen, which was true. But Leslie’s real mission here, as Lawyer Cone explained, was to “influence” Calvin Banks. At one point in Calvin’s testimony, Leslie feigned outrage at Calvin’s account, jumping up to point a warning finger at the witness. Next, he tried to spook him, rising up in the back row like a haunt until Calvin noticed him, then running his forefinger across his throat. Though Cox sank down quick before the prosecutor could protest, that mule-headed old nigra stopped speaking and was silent. Cone whispered, “He is finished.” I knew better. Calvin was frightened but he wasn’t finished.

Fierce as a prophet, the old man raised his arm and pointed a crooked finger straight at Leslie. The courtroom saw that bony finger aimed at the young man in the back row, as if Cox, not Watson, were the man on trial. There was a stir as Cox stood up and left the room, scared that old Calvin would identify him to the judge as the second man standing over the body on the road. Puzzled, the judge struck his gavel, calling for order, and Calvin Banks returned to his dogged testimony.

• • •

The jury was out less than an hour, enjoying Jim Cole’s cigars. When they came back, we stood. Mr. E. J. Watson was acquitted, then the negro Reese. When the verdict was read, Frank watched our lawyers smiling but showed no emotion.

The judge discharged us there and then and went so far as to bid me Merry Christmas-I’d clean forgotten it was Christmas the next day. Attorney Cone smiled and shook my hand and shuffled his papers back into his case: a man’s life or death was all in the day’s business. Jim Cole came forward with a hearty shout and slapped my back as he might slap the rump of whore or heifer. He owned me now, that slap informed me. “Dammit, Ed, we sold our souls to get you off,” he wheezed, “so see if you can’t stay out of trouble on the way home!” His mouth was laughing but his eyes were not as he stood ready to receive my gratitude. I felt none. Suppose I had pled guilty, the way this man wanted? And if I had pled guilty, how about the innocent Frank Reese?

I opened my mouth but not a word came out. I let Cole grab my hand and shake it but he moved away without my thanks, flushed red to bursting.

Winking and joking, the state’s attorney was congratulating the defense attorney. “Why are you hanging around here, Ed?” Larabee called, throwing his arm around Cone’s shoulders. “You going to miss us?” And Cone, easing out from beneath that arm, laughed, too, although only a little.

There had been no trial-amateur theater, maybe, some light farce. All the attorneys on both sides that day were in on this big joke, having learned in advance from Tallahassee how E. J. Watson’s trial for his life had been decided-whether his life was to continue or it wasn’t. Realizing this, I could scarcely thank my lawyer and his staff, who had taken every penny that I had.

I looked past all these smiling men at Reese. Having no place to go, he had simply sunk down after the verdict and resumed his old place at the far end of the bench. The bailiff would soon notice and evict him.

Leaving that building, I was all nerved up and edgy. Old Calvin was across the street, saddling up his mule for the long journey home across north Florida to Ichetucknee. He would wear his white shirt and Sunday suit all the way there, sleep where night found him. Kate clutched at my arm but I shook her off and walked over to confront him. “I’se glad, Mist’ Edguh,” is what that old slave said as he hitched his cinches. “I sho is mighty glad dey has set you free.” Then why had he testified against a man he had known nearly forty years?

Calvin blinked and turned to look at me, surprised. “Mist’ Cory Larabee, he say, Tell nothin but truth, so help me God, Mist’ Edguh. Tol’ me speak out,” he continued. “Called dat de bounden duty of de citizen, called dat de solemn duty of de negro. Said black folks dat doan speak up for de truth, doan speak up like mens, dem ones might’s well go back to bein slaves again. Mist’ Larabee instruct me. Den he say I mights well say de truth cause what ol’ darkies say doan nevuh make no difference in no court of law. Promise me dat Mist’ Edguh Watson gone to walk out of dat courthouse a free man. And here you is!”

But Calvin’s voice had diminished as he spoke. He cleared his throat, then asked me almost shyly if I aimed to kill him. To throw a scare into him, I said my neighbors might take care of that. This ornery old feller dared to smile. “Nosuh, Mist’ Edguh, ain’t Calvin they gwine take care of. I was you, I’d stay away from dem home woods a good long while!” Then his smile faded like water into sand, he looked tired and sad, considering this member of his old plantation family who had gone so wrong, with nothing to be done about it any longer. “I sho’ did hate to tell ’em whut I seed, Mist’ Edguh. I sho is thankful dat dem white folks paid dis ol’ man no mind.”