Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

“Can’t swim too good,” he gasped. Having no way to wipe the sea out of his eyes, he looked like he was crying. “I reckon my arms ain’t goin to last much longer,” he said next. I blew some cigar smoke down into his face to make him cough. His eyes snapped with black anger over getting himself into this fix, and naturally I was angry, too, yet I had to admit this boy had grit, considering his piss-poor situation. He had stated the facts, he had not begged or whined.

Seeing that Watson wasn’t going to help him, my stowaway knew he had to save himself if he was going to be saved, and he had to do it now while he still had strength, even if Watson planned to shoot him if he tried it. One boot swung up onto the rail, which was all the purchase this quick varmint needed. The rest was cat strength, timing the boat’s roll. Melville was back aboard so fast that I grabbed for the first gun, which was still loaded.

Seeing he’d startled me, he dared a little grin as he eased down out of the wind in his wet clothes. Even now, safely aboard, he hung onto the rail; after that bad scare, he was no threat to me at all. Far at sea off a distant coast, he had more sense than to harm the man who piloted the boat.

“Dutchy is the name,” he said. “You heard of me?” I shook my head, emptying his cartridges into my pocket.

“Don’t want to know what I’m doing on your boat?”

“I know what you’re doing on my boat.”

He nodded. “Emperor Watson!” He grinned some more. “If a man drew down on me on my own boat, I’d blow his head off.”

“After the harvest, maybe.”

“Watson Payday?” He’d heard the bad stories, his grin said, but he kind of liked my style. “Know something, Mister Ed? You wasn’t so sociable last night in Eddie’s Bar so I never got to shake the hand of the Man Who Killed Belle Starr. But the way you turned the tables on me here today? Real slick! I’m proud to know you!”

“One month’s work, no pay. How’s that?”

“Mister Ed,” he repeated softly, nodding his head as if this were his lucky day. He couldn’t get over Mister Watson, I was wonderful. “We’ll see,” he promised cheerfully, wringing out his shirt. “Call me Dutchy, okay, Mister Ed?”

“Okay, Herb,” I said.

I’d guessed correctly that he hated his given name. On the other hand, he was flattered that I knew who Herbie was.

At Chatham, Melville had to learn to take orders from a black foreman. However, he respected Frank’s long prison record and got along with him about as well as could be expected. He wanted to stay on, “take the nigger’s job,” he announced in front of Frank, “cause foreman ain’t no job for a nigger,” but the way he said this made Frank laugh because these two had lawman made friends.

When Melville finally realized I’d meant just what I said-hard work, no pay-he got to brooding, concluding finally that E. J. Watson had taken ad-vantage of his youth and generous nature. In my experience, criminals always feel angry and abused, which partly accounts for why such men turn criminal in the first place. Also, they can be counted on for retribution. They get even.

A fortnight later, returning from a trip with Bembery to Tampa Bay, I discovered that this criminal had gone off on a fishing boat but not before spoiling the thousand gallons of good syrup I had counted on for unpaid salaries and lawyers’ bills and enough supplies to see the plantation through until next harvest. Two months after that, a picture postcard came from New York City:

While you was at Tampa drinking up my pay I had some fun mixing terpentine and sirup. Now I am up here seeing all the sites. Mery Chrismas Mister Ed and hello to all from Yr. Frend Dutchy.

To my friend Dutchy it was all a joke but for Chatham Bend it was a crisis. For a fortnight or more, I forgot my vow that never again would I raise my hand in violence. Every time I thought about that devil, my head split with that old pain out of my boyhood, so violent that I had to sit or I would fall. If I’d had the money, Jack Watson would have taken ship for New York City and finished that young villain once and for all.

I told my crew I was dead broke but would pay them when I could. Some bitched, of course, but most blamed Dutchy Melville. As for Kate, she had always been unhappy that I hired wanted men, fearing that one of them might harm our children. When I told her about our loss, she cried, “Well, that’s what comes of harboring these outlaws, Mr. Watson! Why can’t we live like ordinary, decent people?” And I said, “Didn’t you tell me just last week that you were fond of Dutchy?” Kate went off sniffling after admitting that the children liked him, too. They did. Followed him everywhere. The Hamilton and Thompson kids rowed all the way north from Lost Man’s Beach to see Dutchy and his six-guns, same way they used to come to see my trained pig Betsey. Everybody liked that rascal, even Lucius, even Reese, and even “Mister Ed,” who had vowed to kill him.

After I was acquitted, I had written a long letter to Nap Broward, thanking him for his kind interest and assistance. In that letter I outlined some long-range proposals for the Everglades, “the last American frontier,” and requested an appointment at the statehouse as soon as I could afford the railway fare to Tallahassee. Surely the governor would be interested in my idea for a Broward ship canal that would follow old Indian water trails across the southern Glades from Fort Dallas on the Miami River to the Lost Man’s headwaters; the dredged spoil from this canal could become the bed for a cross-Florida highway. While acknowledging the difficulties of the terrain, I mentioned the much more challenging canal under construction in Panama, with locks to lift great ships over the mountains.

The only answer to my letter was a typewritten copy of a document from the archives of his predecessor in office. Though unaccompanied by any note, it could not have been sent without Broward’s approval. Dated Chokoloskee, Florida, February 1896, it was addressed to Governor Henry Mitchell:

To his Excellency Gov. Mitchil. Sir, I wish to call your attention to a crime perpetrated against the Laws of the state.

I was in Key West on business some time ago when I met the perpetrator of the crime. He came up to me in a store and shook hands with me. We had a few civil words. He wound up by saying that he was not afraid of any man. I in reply said that neither was I, whereupon he immediately slapped his knife, which I suppose from the quickness of his act he must have had open in his pocket, into my neck, coming very close to severing the jugular vein. He drew his pistol but could not make use of it as the leather case came with it. I seized him by both wrists and held him until he was taken in charge by an officer who was nearby and lodged in jail, being unable to give bond. Some days after his lawyer procured a man who was willing to stand on his bond. The bond was accepted and the prisoner was released. When the time came for the trial the prisoner was not forthcoming but sent two negroes to swear that he was sick and not able to go to court. It is a provable fact that but a short time before court he went to a store some twelve miles distant from his home and purchased a quantity of ammunition. The prisoner not being present in the court there was no trial…

Is it any wonder that there are so many lawless acts committed by linching offenders when the law is so loosely executed? Let the Law be administered in justice and without fear, favor, or affection and linch law will be done away with. But until that is done we must expect the people to take the execution of the law into their own hands.