Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Black feller from Mist’ Watson’s showed up Saturday evening with the story. He had escaped, he was near starved, he talked too much out of his fear. Not wanting to pay for his mistakes, I eased away into the dusk and Mist’ Hoad follered me. Said I best sleep aboard Captain Williams’s ship in case there was trouble. That black man was brought on board right after me, they locked the two coloreds in the same cabin for safekeeping. One man said to Mist’ Hoad, “That’s all right, ain’t it? Both bein niggers?” Mist’ Hoad looked across at me, see how I took that. Him and me and Mist’ Claude Storter been fishing partners for some years, he knew me pretty good. I shrugged to show I understood. There weren’t nothing to be done about it.

When the white men were gone, this feller said, “What they fixin to do with me?” I said, “All I know is, you best calm down and get your story straight.” He jeered real ugly, “Who you, boy, the pet nigger around here? That cause you so white?”

“This ain’t no time to go picking fights,” I warned him.

“Nosir, Mr. Nigger, it sure ain’t,” he said, his voice gone quiet. He lay down on the floor, turning his back to me.

Raised up and living all my life in a frontier settlement where black folks were not tolerated, I have only talked to few but I can say I never met a black man hard as this one. Course a lot of his anger likely come from nerves. He was scared, all right-he’d be a crazy man not to be scared-but he weren’t panicky.

I couldn’t sleep and I knew this man weren’t sleeping so when he rolled over next, I asked his name. He said that “Ed”-he used that name!-always called him Little Joe, which worked as good as any. From this I knew he was a wanted man same as them others. Said he’d knew Ed for some years but could not recall where they first met. This was a lie and he never tried to hide that: this feller knew plenty about Mist’ Watson and his foreman, too. He shrugged me off, saying this fool conversation weren’t none of his idea and anyway it weren’t my business so leave him alone. But in a while he muttered, “Name ain’t Joe. It’s Frank, okay?” He rolled back toward me. “Mights well get my real name just in case they got a nigger guestbook down in Hell showin who passed through.”

With no way to know what might be coming down on him in the next hours, he must have needed somebody to hear him out, even if only just another nigger, cause when I didn’t ask him no more questions, he started talking on his own-not to me, not to nobody in particular, he just wanted to get it off his chest once and for all. Talked along in a dead voice about the awful deeds done at the Watson place and why he reckoned he weren’t slaughtered like them others. All the while he spoke, he kept his face hid and his voice low like this was a secret God Himself should never hear.

Mist’ Ed Watson took Dutchy along to Chokoloskee, leaving Cox and the others behind. The restless weather all that week before the storm had riled up everybody’s nerves, they were all drinking. From out in the kitchen, this black man listened to everything, including Cox’s nigger jokes told specially for him to overhear.

The trouble started when Green Waller went to the boat shed for another jug, came back in howling that the Injun girl was over there hung by her neck. Big Mis Hannah took to blaming Cox because he raped that girl and made her pregnant so the least he could do was go take her down and close her eyes, lay her out decent. Cox said, “What she done to herself, that ain’t my business.” Said if Big Hannah wanted her took down so bad, she better go take care of that herself “or let the nigger do it,” meaning him.

So then Mis Smith come out with something rough about the foreman’s manlihood, and he called her back by a filthy name this man Frank would not repeat out of his respect for Big Mis Hannah. Green Waller yelled, “That ain’t no damn way to go talking to a lady!” And Cox said, “I ain’t talking to no lady, Pigshit, unless you mean this here big freak out of the circus.” And Waller comes back, “White trash like you wouldn’t know a lady if she come from church to help your mama off the whorehouse floor!”

Cox said, “That done it.” He pulled out a pistol. Mis Hannah screeched at Green to shut his mouth, didn’t he know that white trash loves their mothers good as anybody? Waller was scared to death but wouldn’t quit. The man was plain crazy in love, showing off for his sweetheart so she could see her man weren’t just some drunken hog thief the way Mister Watson said. He pointed at his own chest, said to Cox, “How about it, kid? You yeller enough to shoot a man in his cold blood that is twice your age?”

Maybe Mist’ Green Waller had Cox figured for another Dutchy Melville, Frank said, dangerous talker but not all bad at heart. Mis Hannah Smith did not make that mistake. She was struggling up out of her chair trying to get between them, telling Cox, “Don’t pay no attention to that idjit!” Frank claimed he called in from the kitchen, “Nemmine, Mist’ Les, Mist’ Green was only foolin.” But like Frank said, Cox had more excuse already than his kind ever needs. Bein drunk, arm wobbling, he said, the foreman had trouble getting Waller in his sights. “Sit still, you sonofabitch,” he yelled, “don’t make me go wastin these here bullets!”

Mist’ Green Waller finally understood the fun was over. He brought his hands up slow and careful so as not to flare the man behind that pistol. Cox lowered his weapon into his lap, then fired anyway underneath the table. Ever hear a gun go off in a small room? Their ears exploded with that noise. Even Cox looked stunned. “That was a accident,” he muttered. But this nigra swore that Cox done that on purpose, shot him in the belly cause that hurts the worst.

Mist’ Green was still setting at the table clutching his belly. Looked kind of sheepish, Frank said. “Well, Hell,” he whispered. Them were his last words. Scowling, he leaned into the table, then toppled over soft onto the floor.

Mis Hannah had barged out of her chair. She flew and shook him, moaning, “Christamighty, Green, ain’t you never going to learn? Oh, Christamighty, sweetheart!” Howled with woe and headed for the kitchen. Cox jumped up with his pistol, took off after her and she darned near beheaded him, splitting that door frame with the big two-blader ax which she kept leaned in the corner behind the kitchen door. Cox went down but sat up and fired before she could try him again. She took a bullet in the shoulder, dropped the ax, crashed off the wall, threw a pan at Cox with her good arm, then headed for the stair.

Cox picked himself up, very bad scared by his close call. He was furious Frank never warned him. Pointing his gun, he said, “Stay right there, nigger. I got business with you.”

Miss Hannah was cumbersome climbing the stair and Cox overtook her before she reached the landing. Knowing how strong she was, he gave her room, stood a step below while they got their breath. Miss Hannah weren’t the kind to beg for mercy and she knew she’d never get none if she did. She screeched, “Run, Little Joe! We’re done for! Run! He’ll kill you, too!”

Time he heard that, he was already outside, out past the cistern. Two shots came, then another. From the wood edge he could hear a thump, thump, thump of someone falling, then a queer high laugh like a horse nickering. Being drunk, Cox had shot so poorly that he had to sneak around behind, give her a brain shot, he told Frank later. Only she weren’t done yet cause her big leg kicked, knocked him off balance: he slipped on the blood, fell down the stair, but never hurt himself, being so drunk. That nickering noise weren’t nothing but his nerves. When he seen Frank was gone, he commenced to holler, told him to come give him a hand with this here manatee before she bled all over, nastied up the place for Mis Edna. The dead woman went a good three hundred pound and he could not work the body down the stair. Couldn’t stop hollering out of his excitement. “Ah Jesus, will you look at that damn mess!” he moaned. “Know who will catch hell for this? Les Cox, that’s who!”