Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

In later years them two ladies who had kept house at the Bend would relate wild stories about Mister Watson to get attention to theirselves, claim some credit out of a hard life. Netta and Josie was hooked hard on that man and always would be, so it seems kind of funny it was them two women started up a rumor that Ed Watson was killing off his harvest help on what folks took to calling “Watson Payday.” Naturally his business competition was happy to pass along a story which explained why Mister Watson done so much better with his cane than they did.

That puts me in mind of his old joke down in Key West. Feller might ask him, “What you up to these days, Mister Watson?” And he’d wave his bottle, maybe shoot a light out, yelling, “Raising cane!” I would laugh like crazy every time I heard that story, tell it every time I had the chance. Warmin up them ones that might of missed the joke, I always laughed a little more while I explained it: “Raisin Cain-C-a-i-n! You get it?” And one or two might laugh along with me a little, but in a way that made me feel bad, kind of left out. When folks finally told me I might as well forget it, I’d sing out, “Well, nobody can’t say that Erskine Thompson got no sense of humor!”

Mr. C. G. McKinney made the bad mistake of losing track of his post office cash: when the federal inspectors showed up, he didn’t have it. I’m not saying it was stolen, only loaned out or mislaid, but by law he had to have it handy. Mr. Smallwood lent him the money to keep him out of jail and got appointed postmaster instead. By now my Ted was the biggest farmer and biggest trader and owned most of Chokoloskee, so I guess you could say that Smallwoods had replaced Santinis as our leading family.

Nobody forgot that day in 1906 when E. J. Watson brought his new young wife to Chokoloskee. Paid a call on Storters over in Everglade, opened a new account, then done the same with us. Not only that but he showed up in his new motor launch, pop-pop-popping down the Pass from Sandfly Key. (Called her the Warrior but the men called her the May-Pop because she didn’t always start when he cranked her flywheel.) Though not all of us knew it, we were way behind the times and hungry for a look at something new, so folks left their tomato patch and hustled along after the children who came flying and hollering down to our landing.

Even a quarter mile away out in the channel, we recognized the helmsman, the strong bulk of him and that broad hat. My heart skipped like a flying fish- he dared come back ! When he saw the crowd, he lifted his hat and the sun fired that head of dark red hair-the color of dried blood, said my mama, Mrs. Ida House. A quiet fell like our community had caught its breath, like we were waiting for lightning to break from those dark clouds that in deep summer build in mighty towers over the Glades: a great split of thunder, then that cold breath of coming wind and rain.

“Speak of the Devil,” Mama sniffed, though nobody besides herself had spoken. Ida B. House was looking straight at Satan and she knew it. Some of our fool women moaned and gasped, raised fingertips up to their collarbones and rolled their eyes, O Lord-a-mercy, staring wall-eyed like a flock of haunts. Then all together they dared look again, with a grisly moan of woe like Revelation. Wouldn’t surprise me if I moaned right along with ’em. Regular Doomsday! Nobody tore their hair far as I know, but a few God-fearing bodies went squawking and scattering like fowl, hurrying their offsprings home, not because they really thought E. J. Watson might do them harm but only to show the other biddies how decent Baptist women should behave when faced with a Methodist murderer.

As Mister Watson came into our dock, a young woman with a babe in arms stood up beside him. The females fleeing, hearing a babble from the other women, turned right around, picked up their skirts, tripped down the hill again. Might have been scared of Mister Watson, but they were a lot more scared of missing out on something. By the time he helped the new young wife step out onto the dock, it was a barnyard around here, pushing and squeaking and flapping off home to find a bonnet or a pair of shoes for such a high-society occasion.

Say what you like about Ed Watson, he looked and acted like our idea of a hero. Stood there shining in the sun in a white linen suit and her on his arm in a wheat-brown linen dress and button boots. When she picked up her sweet baby girl in sunbonnet and pink bow frock, that handsome little family stood facing the crowd like they were posing for a nice holiday photo. That’s the picture I see every time I recall how that man died on that very spot on a dark October evening only four years later, with that young woman huddled in my house staring out at the coming dark, and that little girl like a caught rabbit, squeaking in the corner in the wild crash of men and their steel weapons.

Since that bad business at Lost Man’s Key, we’d heard plenty of talk that if Ed Watson dared to show his face around these parts again the men would arrest him, turn him over to the Monroe County sheriff, or string him up if he offered the least resistance. I guess Mister Watson knew that, too, because when he came back the first few times, he steered clear of Chokoloskee; he stopped off quick at Chatham Bend and was gone quicker, after burning off his cane field. Though we never heard he’d been there till after he was gone, we got used to the idea that he’d be back.

I will say I admired the man’s nerve. He took all the steam out of them that said he would never dare return, that he’d have to sell his house and claim and his cane syrup works. Turned out he’d been back every year, tending to business all along; he’d even seen the Lee County surveyor about getting full title to his land. Brought in a carpenter to build him a front porch, gave the house a new coat of white paint-not whitewash, mind, but real oil paint. But some way that carpenter died there on the Watson place, and bad rumors started to fly again, and next thing we knew Watson was gone.

When he didn’t show up for another year, it looked like we’d seen the last of him for sure. The men concluded he was on the run, having killed that carpenter along with the Frenchman and the Tuckers and probably Guy Bradley, that young warden. Lynch talk started up again, and Charlie Johnson, that boy Earl Harden-some of these fellers got just plain ferocious.

Well, here was their chance: the villain had walked into their clutches, but no one seemed to recollect about that lynching. Those same fools jostled for a look when Ed Watson stepped ashore, that’s how bad they wanted to step up and shake his hand. Not a man hung back when his turn came to show how much he thought of Mister Watson, and joke and carry on with our longlost neighbor. Charlie T. Boggess wanted to know what kind of motor Mister Watson had in that there motorboat, and the man said, “Why, that’s a Palmer one-cylinder, Charlie T., and she’s a beauty!” And all the rest of ’em winking and nodding as if any man but Charlie would have known that motor was a Palmer soon’s he heard it pop-pop-popping up the Pass. Charlie and Ethel Boggess, they’re our dear old friends, they were married back in ’97, same year we were, but that man was a pure fool around Ed Watson, and he wasn’t near as bad as some of the others. Probably told their wives later, “Well, them Tuckers was just conchs, y’know, goldurn Key Westers. Might have had it coming for all we know.”

Young Earl Harden was here who was all for lynching E. J. some years back. A young Daniels had some drink that day and told that Harden boy, “It ain’t your place to go talkin about lynchin no damn white man!” And Earl said, “You sayin I ain’t white?” Oh, those two had one heck of a fight behind our store! Well, here was Earl Harden gawking with the rest and smiling like his life depended on it, too.