Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Spring of 1910, a stranger come. “John Smith.” Turned out later that his rightful name was Leslie Cox. Some said Cox was Watson’s cousin and some said he saved Watson’s hide one time up north, and later we learned he was a killer that run off from the chain gang, same as Dutchy. Cox had a voice deep as a alligator and a sly mean mouth, said Isaac Yeomans, who run him down from Chokoloskee to the Bend, but he weren’t around here long enough for folks to picture him. Some said his black hair was long like a Injun, some said it was cropped short, looked more like fur. Maybe that was their imagination. I seen him myself a time or two but don’t recall what his hair looked like, only that I didn’t like his looks.

Tant Jenkins, out hunting in Lost Man’s Slough, come downriver in late spring with a young Mikasuki squaw and dropped her at the Bend. Injuns wouldn’t work for whites, wouldn’t work for nobody, but this girl was a drunk whose people had turned their back on her for laying with Tom Brewer to settle what she owed for Brewer’s moonshine; she was huddled on the bank dead sick, and if Tant hadn’t of come along, she might of died. Nobody at Chatham Bend spoke enough Injun to tell that girl where she should sleep at; probably figured that redskins mostly curled up on the ground out in the woods. Watson ordered her to help his wife with the chores because Big Hannah had men’s work to attend to. Girl never understood a word he said but with Ed Watson, people generally got the drift of what was wanted.

Leslie Cox didn’t hold with no cajolery. He took and raped that girl, done that regular and got her with child, is what we heard. And knowing her people would never take her back, knowing she had no place to go, the poor critter got so lonesome and pathetic that she hung herself to death out in the boat shed.

That was a story that never did get out until long after, cause by the time the posse went to Chatham Bend, her body was gone. But I got friendly with them Injuns in later years and they all knowed about it. How they took care of it they would not say.

With Dutchy gone and Green Waller mostly drunk, Mister Watson made Cox his foreman, but in the late summer of 1910, Dutchy popped up again with a friendly word for everybody, told ’em he was real glad to be home. Only thing, he didn’t care for the new foreman, flat refused to take his orders, said he aimed to take back his old job. “I’m fixing to run this somber sonofabitch right off the property,” he told his boss with Cox standing right there. Said he made his ma a solemn swear never to consort with common criminals, which was why he had felt honor-bound to run off from the chain gang.

Common criminals and honor-bound, coming from the mouth of this young killer, purely tickled Mister Watson, and him and Dutchy had a good laugh over that. Dutchy was so cocky he actually thought the Boss was smiling on him like a son; that boy thought a heap of “Mister Ed,” thought Mister Ed was sure to let bygones be bygones over that spoiled syrup. Might of been true that Watson liked him but “like” don’t always mean forgive, not when it comes to a year’s worth of hardearned money.

When a bear rummaging around too close raises up when he gets your scent, you load quick but you load real easy, with no extra motions that could startle him, and you don’t ever look him in the eye cause a bear can’t handle that and he might charge. Dutchy Melville was not the kind that took precautions, he was only excited to see what the bear might do; he was like a pup barking and jumping around that bad ol’ bear, scaring the on-lookers by trying to play, cause the bear don’t know the pup is playing and don’t care.

Weeks Daniels likes to tell about the day when Melville tagged along with Mister Watson when he went to Pavilion to see his little daughters and while away the afternoon with Josie Jenkins. Hearing Josie’s brother holler insults by way of telling his old boss hello, Dutchy figured, well, if that fool Tant can ride him, I can, too. Wanted to show them clam diggers and riffraff that Dutchy Melville had no fear of man nor beast nor E. J. Watson neither. So what he done, he follered his boss and teetered him off the plank walkway across the tide flats, hooting like hell to see him slog ashore. nobody else who seen this laughed because Watson got his good boots ruined by saltwater mud.

Watson never looked back. Waded ashore, kept right on going over to Josie’s shack. But Tant seen his face as he passed by, claimed he knowed right then that Dutchy’s days was numbered.

That last summer of living in the Islands, the hunting was so poor that me and my cousin Harvey Daniels and my sort-of cousin Crockett tried setting set gill nets on them sea trout flats northwest of Mormon Key. One early morning before light-we was still anchored, half asleep-we was woke by the motor of a boat coming out from Chatham River. Not many motorboats back then so every man knew any boat from a long ways off. Sure enough, Watson’s black Warrior come sliding into view. The coast was empty, then there she was, clear of the last mangrove clumps, popped up like she come downriver underwater. Thirty-foot long and nine-foot beam, with a trunk cabin forward, canvas curtains aft, and that black hull.

Next thing we knew, she swung off course headed straight in our direction. Never hailed us, only circled us where we lay anchored, with nobody out on deck, no sign of life. Round and round she went, two-three-four times, slow and steady as a shark. All our guns was loaded, set to shoot, that’s how spooked we was, though we was fellers who liked Ed most of the time, him being so friendly with our Daniels family. If he wanted us off them fishing grounds, all he had to do was wave us off and we’d go someplace else.

Not knowing what he was fixing to do next, we could only whisper and sit tight and wait for him to recognize us, leave us alone. I’d worked for him right up until that Tucker business and was still friendly with Lucius. Harvey’s dad was his old friend Jim Daniels, Aunt Netta’s brother and captain of the clam dredge, and Harvey was the engineer on Bill Collier’s Falcon, which carried the clams north to the factory. On his day off, Harvey worked on other boats as a mechanic: just recently he’d done motor repair for Mister Watson and was owed eighty-five dollars, which could buy you a rebuilt motor back in them days. Two-three Sundays at Pavilion, Harvey had worked on Mister Watson’s boat right alongside him. What I always recall, when you seen Ed Watson from behind, them ginger whiskers under that black hat would be sticking out from both sides of his head.

Mister Watson was generally a fair man to do business with, but this day was along toward the end when he was broke from his troubles in north Florida and behind on all his debts and slow from booze. His black boat circled us four times, then come ahead from dead abeam like she aimed to cut our little boat in two. Crockett and me jumped up, waving our guns, but Harvey had more sense, being the oldest; said he had no wish to trade shots with E. J. Watson, especially when we couldn’t even see him. Told us to lay them guns down quick, making sure Watson seen us do it, and then get set to dive over the side and swim underwater far as we could, come up for a quick breath and down again, cause we might not make it to the shore if we was full of lead. But at the last second-we was yelling at each other to get set-the black boat sheared off and headed north. Was that all he wanted? Scaring us, I mean?

Speck-that’s what Watson called Crockett, I can’t rightly recall why-Speck were now close to sixteen and pretty reckless, so being bad spooked was hard for him to handle. He promised Harvey, “If he don’t pay you what he owes real quick, we’ll slip upriver on a night tide, set in the reeds across from his damn house, and first time he steps outside, I’ll pick him off for you.” He meant that, too. Never killed nobody far as I heard but you knew this boy could do that if he had to. It was something you seen in certain fellers: Crockett Daniels was that kind. And he was a boy who could pick up his rifle and nail the small head of a floatin terrapin spang to the water.