Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

The only man who stood back a little was my oldest brother, who would puzzle over E. J. Watson his whole life. Bill never stopped working long enough to get any kind of education but he had more sense than most when it came to people. He had often talked with Henry Short, who helped those young mulatta men with that Tucker burial, and though Henry would never accuse a white man in so many words, Bill had to conclude that E. J. Watson was the killer.

Bill had grown up broiled beef-red by the sun, broad-shouldered and steady as a tree. I reckon Mister Watson felt his eye. He turned around and eyed him just a little bit too long, then said real quiet, “Hello, Bill.” And Bill said, calm and easy, “Mister Watson,” tipping his straw hat to the young woman. “Glad to see you again,” Ed Watson said, like he was testing him.

Bill House hated all his life to seem unfriendly but he hated false friendliness even worse; he could not go that far with E. J. Watson so he didn’t. Looked amiable enough, I guess, but all he did was nod and put his hat back on by way of answer. Mister Watson considered that before he nodded back. But maybe because Bill was a well-respected feller he wanted on his side, my brother was the first man Ed Watson introduced to Mrs. Watson and his baby girl, who had the same auburn red hair as her bad daddy.

Kate Edna Watson was a handsome taffy-haired young woman, serious, not solemn, with a sudden shy beguiling girlish smile. Mister Watson said, “This fine young lady is a preacher’s daughter so you boys watch your language, hear?” He was just teasing along, just being sociable, but my mama Ida Borders House was determined not to take it like he meant it. Nearly knocked herself cold, that’s how hard she sniffed; she dearly liked to make a point with that big sniff of hers. Then she said loudly, “Praise to goodness, there’s no call to instruct First Florida Baptists about blasphemies !” But Mama could not meet Ed Watson’s eye, even when his expression was as pleasant as it was now, and she was glaring someplace else by the time she finished.

All this while, young Mrs. Watson soothed her infant. She had nice manners by our local standard, smiled politely, but she was tuckered out from travel, with a babe in arms and another on the way. I watched her face to see how much she knew. She cast her eyes down when she caught me looking, from which I saw that she’d heard plenty but did not know what to think. Then she looked up again and smiled as if she’d spotted me as a new friend of her own age. I went forward to welcome her and the women followed.

Ed Watson acted more tickled to be home than the Prodigal Son.

Declared how homesick he had been for fresh palm heart and his canemash-flavored pork at Chatham Bend, and how fine it felt to be back here in the Islands. Never raised his voice, just toed the ground with his tooled boots, waiting for these folks to inspect the Watsons and be done with it. But even while he smiled and nodded, he was looking our men over one by one, as if he might see from some shift in their faces who had spoken out in favor of his lynching.

Ed Watson broke that uneasy silence by looking at the ground, looking up again, then declaring he’d be proud to have a look at our new store. Leading the way, he took his hat off as he climbed the steps and crossed the porch, and most of the others, pushing in behind him, snatched off their hats, too-the first customers I could recall who ever came in bare-headed.

Looking around, our guest smote his brow in wonder, unable to believe his eyes. He was just brimming over with congratulations to Ted and his “Miss Mamie,” said no place of business had Smallwoods beat this side of Tampa. He reminded Ted of the good old days when they first met at Half Way Creek, back in the nineties, and how far both had come in the decade since.

Well, E. J. Watson built him a fine house and plantation in the Islands beyond any that was seen down there before or since, but he never did near as well as Ted, who never had to kill to get ahead. My man worked hard for everything he had: getting him to stop work was the problem! Lord knows where Watson’s money came from or how much innocent blood might have been spilled to pay for those fancy boots and a linen suit, not to mention that new motorboat.

Our man of God (who would last no longer than the others) came hurrying down to meet the newcomers, tell them how welcome they sure were to worship with us on a Sunday, when the Good Lord hung His hat in Chokoloskee. This young man was small-headed with droopy ears, looked more like a sheep than like our shepherd: he raised his eyes to Heaven and said “Amen!” in a little bleat when E. J. Watson told him that while Chatham Bend was a long distance from a house of God, he aimed to continue his lifelong custom of reading aloud from the Good Book on the Lord’s Day whether his people needed it or not.

When everybody laughed, C. G. McKinney frowned. He pulled his long beard and coughed real loud and sudden to warn folks not to joke about Sunday worship. Being our local humorist, Mr. McKinney was never one to encourage jokes from other people: if any jokes were to be cracked, it was

C. G. McKinney who would crack ’em or know the reason why. So C. G. told his trusty story of the first man of God to reach the shores of Chokoloskee Bay. When Reverend Gatewood arrived at Everglade back in ’88, his first sacred duty was to preach last rites over the body of a man slain in a dispute with the skipper during the voyage.

I reckon E. J. Watson knew the Gatewood story but he had the manners to pretend he didn’t. Said he sure hoped that darned boat captain paid dearly for that sin cause what was needed in the Islands was some law and order. Hearing those words from a desperado, Isaac Yeomans whooped and hooted until he heard his own voice in the quiet and fell still.

While Mister Watson was away, a story spread that after he had killed Belle Starr, he “throwed in” with the James and Younger boys who rode with Quantrill in the Border Wars and later became outlaws. Our men could talk of nothing else for weeks. You would have thought those bloody renegades were the greatest Americans since General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Robert E. Lee. And some way, just for knowing outlaws and getting the credit for killing that outlaw queen, Ed Watson became some kind of a hero, too. If he’d showed up here a few years back with a jug of moonshine and a bugle, yelling, “Come on boys, we’re headed for them Philly-peens to kill us some dirty Spaniards, are you red-blooded Americans or ain’t you?” why, half the fool men on the island would have marched off after him, tears of glory in their eyes, without once asking where or why they might be going, or what was wrong or right in the eyes of God.

E. J. was talking very fierce, pounding his palm. “If the Ten Thousand Islands have a future,” he declared, “then those who place themselves above the law have no place in our peace-loving community!” Everyone stared and he stared back with a great frown like Jehovah. “A- men !” he shouted. Except for Isaac, who would laugh at the Devil Himself, my Ted was about the only one who dared to smile. Then Charlie T. smiled because Ted had smiled, and Isaac whooped again and slapped his thigh, and everybody got to laughing but C. G. McKinney. Naturally our more pious females started hissing about sacrilege but they couldn’t keep it up. Heck, they were thrilled! And the silliest just tittered happily, tee-hee-hee-hee.

I wasn’t smiling, not because of sacrilege but because this man was treating us like ninnies. He saw that I saw this-saw that Mamie House Smallwood and her brother Bill were not folks liable to forget about those Tuckers or forgive either. Knowing what he was up against with our House family, he did not scowl to scare or threaten, he did something worse: he disarmed me with a wink, a reckless confidential wink that made my righteous indignation feel downright foolish, made everything he’d told this crowd a joke, made all our hopes and struggles in this world simply ridiculous for the fundamental reason that our precious human life, for all its joys, was blood-soaked, cruel, and empty, with only sorrow, fear, disease at its dark end, fading to nothingness. Staring back at him, I thought, Was this a society of human beings or some purgatory where folks was condemned to live their lives with a laughing killer loose amongst them like a wolf?