Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

“Might ask how come you never mentioned them four field hands when you told your story over on the shore.”

He looked surprised. “Never thought about it,” he confessed. “You really think them white people would of cared about them fellers?”

“No, I don’t,” I said, “but they might try to test your story.”

“Maybe them boys come out okay,” he said. “Go fuck yourself,” he said, resentful. “How do I know what happened to them poor damn bastards? All I know is, I couldn’t take ’em with me.” I believed that and was sorry-sorry for Frank, too. Those four young men would always be his lonely secret.

Next morning when they let me out, I turned in the cabin doorway to tell him something but I found no words. He come forward and said quietly, “I didn’t kill nobody, Henry. You believe that?” When I nodded, he nodded, too. Said, “Tell them white people my story, then. Remind ’em how this nigger come here on his own and never had no reason to tell lies.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised.

He said calmly, “Nothing you can tell ’em gone to save my black hide, I understand that good as you do, Henry. But knowin that the real truth has been heard, that makes it better. Not okay, just better.”

He stuck his hand out, cracked a little grin. “So long, nigger,” he said. I could not find a smile to give him back. I said, “Good luck, then, Frank,” and went away very sad and angry. Might have been wanted, like I say, but he weren’t all bad and he weren’t sorry for himself. It was me was sorry. Sorry a brave man had to die so bitter.

The men were troubled by the wind shifts and nobody liked the looks of that hard sky. Folks took those murders at the Watson place for an evil sign like that white swath of light across the heavens in the spring, so far away in deepest night, beyond all knowing.

Saturday morning a report came in over Cap’n Thad’s ship radio that the strong offshore storm coming up the Gulf had sheered off westward. Thad didn’t trust that and by midafternoon had everyone aboard that hadn’t already taken off in their own boats. The only person who refused to leave was Mrs. Josie Jenkins. She came down to the shore, put her young daughter on board, and stayed to call good-bye, waving her baby son’s fat little arm. Mother and babe would brave the storm alone, she cried, because even her own brother had forsaken them. That was more guilt than poor old Tant could handle, so he left Pearl in the care of Josie’s latest husband and returned ashore to reason with her. Got nowhere because both of ’em were drunk. When Tant’s friends went to moderate and failed to return, Cap’n Thad got fed up. It was too damned late to sail today, he would sail without fail at daybreak Sunday, and any fools that weren’t on board would be left behind.

Sunday dawned with light winds and fair weather, all but that cold purple off to westward like a deep bruise in a pale sky.

I and Claude and Henry Short went north in our own boat. I told Henry I was sorry about locking him up the night before with that black prisoner. He said the man’s real name was Frank and reminded us that Frank was the one witness to what really happened, because even if Leslie Cox was caught, he would surely lie. Then he told the story. Claude asked Henry if he believed that story and Henry said yessir, he did. That man had took too big a risk to go making up lies for just another nigger, Henry added.

I had never heard Henry speak in that hard way. Henry knew how he had sounded, too, and tried to smooth it over. Said he believed this man had implicated Mister Watson because Watson had betrayed Melville to Cox.

Henry caught our quick exchange of looks. “Frank and Dutchy were friends some way,” Henry explained. “Feller fugitives,” he said, ironical again.

Claude ignored this new Henry, being worried about what would become of that tough black man. “Think they’ll hang him?” he asked me. When I nodded, Claude looked kind of sorry.

Soon after word come about them murders at the Bend-this was mid-October-Mister Watson turned up out of nowhere. We heard that motor from a long ways off, come across the wind like muffled rifle shots but steady. Then that popping stopped, leaving a hollow in the silence, and the Warrior came drifting down around the point. He poled her over to our dock, took his coat off, and begun to tinker with his engine. Hardens had no quarrel with him, nothing to be afraid of, but I had to wonder why his boat just happened to break down so close to our place.

Owen was back in Lost Man’s River seining mullet with his brothers. My mother-in-law said, “I sure do hope them boys heard his darned motor.” They heard it all right and came quick as they could but that weren’t quick enough.

We always went down to the shore to welcome visitors or run ’em off, that was the custom amongst Island neighbors. But this day Daddy Richard stayed back in the cabin, sore as a darned beetle blister cause what he called his arthur-ritis had flared up on him. What with the life pains he was feeling, he was very quick to cock his rifle and draw a bead on Mister Watson’s heart as soon as that man shut his motor down and straightened. When me’n Ma Mary started outside to go to meet him, Daddy Richard growled, “Mind you women stay well clear of my line of fire.” His wife was disgusted, told him to stop scaring his own womenfolk for nothing. He snapped back that he knew what he knew, and I reckon he still did, most of the time.

Ed Watson seen straight off he was unwelcome. Never left his boat, just tinkered, closed the hatch again. The onshore wind held her snug against the dock, though with that chop, she lifted and thumped against the pilings. “Good day, Mister Watson!” Mary Harden’s work-red hands was white, that’s how hard she clenched ’em, but I believe she was more upset about not offering our neighbor a bite to eat than fearful that this man might do us harm.

Though he doffed his hat, Mister Watson did not answer. He was holloweyed and grizzle-chinned, his clothes looked slept in. Seeing Daddy Richard’s boat moored off the dock, he must of wondered if his old friend was in the cabin and why he never came out nor even called hello. He studied all around a while, the better to listen to the silence in that clearing, which any moment was going to explode. Out of the corner of his eye, he kept the cabin window covered, never lost sight of it, as if he knew that though that hole in them gray boards looked black and empty, our old man was crouching down behind it, fingering his trigger. When Mary Harden moved a step, put her big body between him and the window, he pretended he never noticed, but now he knew for sure. “And a good day to you, Mis Mary,” he said finally. “Richard around?”

As he watched Ma Mary struggle with her lie, his smile was quizzical. Told us he was on his way north from Key West where he’d spent some days on business, told us he was calling in to see if there was anything we needed in Fort Myers, where he would be headed in the next few days. I thanked him, said we lacked for nothing.

Ma Mary blurted, “The men’s just over yonder!”-a bad mistake, because hearing they were nearby might make him stay. To get his mind off that, I squawked, “How’s Topsy? She still doing tricks?” Mister Watson shook his head. Topsy had et up all her shoats so he had a mind to slit her bristled throat, eat her: might teach her not to try that trick again. When he winked, I giggled out of nerves.