Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

(Later, Ma Mary exclaimed, “A man who could joke about his sow eating her shoats had killing on his mind, for sure!” Daddy Richard said, “A female who could say such a fool thing as that don’t know the first thing about killers!” He never talked to her so sharp before; his nerves was wound tight, too.)

Mary Harden stood twisting her hands, never offered our neighbor so much as a cup of water, and still he acted like he never noticed. And all the while she was shifting to stay in Daddy Richard’s line of fire, in case our visitor went for his pocket handkerchief, thinking to blow his nose, and our jumpy old man hauled back on the trigger. Mister Watson watched her peculiar movements and he watched her eyes. I believe he knew his old friend had a bead on him.

A restless wind out of the northeast was racketing the sea grape and palmettas. The wind had held in that quarter for two days, with squalls and rain. This was Saturday, October the fifteenth, when the radio was already reporting that a strong offshore storm was sheering off toward the west, through the Yucatan Passage, but we never had no radio back then, we went by the winds and sky; the men was troubled by that wind and didn’t like the look of the horizon.

Mister Watson said kind of matter-of-fact that he believed a hurricane was coming. Said he’d like nothing better than to set awhile but had to get back to take care of his people. When he stooped half out of sight to spin his flywheel, Ma Mary screened him, spreading the wings of her big brown dress like a broody hen. He saw this, too, because when he straightened-knowing she’d never hear his thanks over the motor-he put one hand behind his back and made that kind of fancy bow men do for queens and such; that bow startled my mother-in-law so bad that she tried to bow back in a kind of a gawky curtsy. Smiling, he tipped his hat toward the empty window and shouted out over the motor, “My respects to Mr. Harden and the boys!”

We watched him head his boat offshore and turn toward the north. His outline at the helm was hunched and black against a narrow band of light out to the west where that wall of weather was slowly moving in off the Gulf of Mexico.

In early October when E. J. Watson brought his family, he told us all signs pointed to a hurricane. “Something bad is coming down on us”-those were his very words. I don’t know how he knew about the hurricane but he sure did, though it held off for another fortnight. You reckon that man felt it in his bones? Inkling of his own dark fate or something? Said he trusted his house on Chatham Bend to stay put in any storm, but with Baby Amy only five months old, he was taking no chances on a flooded cistern and bad water, and Chokoloskee was the highest ground south of Caxambas. Later he told Sheriff Tippins he’d brought his family here to Chok because “John Smith” was a killer, but he never said anything like that to us. By this time it was well known that John Smith’s real name was Leslie Cox.

E. J. Watson came back here alone on October 16th, a Sunday. Late that same day, young Claude Storter came in from Pavilion Key with word of dreadful murders. Claude’s news caused a hubbub of excited talk about arresting E. J. Watson, talk that was still going on when Watson came into the store and took a seat with its back into the corner. When no one could look him in the eye, he eased onto his feet again and straightened his coat, gazing around the room. Maybe he didn’t growl the way Charlie Boggess told it, but he sure smelled trouble, and he picked out the Storter boy right away. “Something the matter, Claude?” Seeing E. J.’s burning face, the poor boy whispered as soft as he knew how what some nigger said Cox had perpetrated at the Bend.

“By God,” Watson swore, “that skunk will pay for this!” He was off to Fort Myers to fetch the sheriff before “that murdering sonofabitch-if you’ll forgive me, Miss Mamie-can make his getaway!” Well, it was E. J.

Watson made the getaway, right from under the men’s noses. His determination to seek justice was so darn sincere that it put ’em off the scent, or so they told each other after he was gone.

Was I the only one suspected that E. J.’s outrage was put on to fool us? You never saw an upset man with eyes so calm and clear. Runs upstairs, hugs his wife and children, comes down again with that double-barrel shotgun, shouting out how he had to rush to catch Captain Thad at Marco and question that black man. He was out the door before anybody thought to stop him, they were falling all over themselves to clear his way.

Our men weren’t cowards-well, not most of ’em. My brothers were all strong young fellers who enjoyed a scrap and most folks would speak up for a few others. But that day the men were upset and confused and they had no leader. Mr. Smallwood was across the island on some business with Mr. McKinney and my dad and Bill were harvesting down at House Hammock.

E. J. Watson took our island by surprise.

Sunday evening in strong southeast wind with the barometer falling fast, Mister Watson crossed over to Everglade. His Warrior was low on fuel and anyhow too small to weather a bad storm on the open Gulf. It was urgent that he confer with the sheriff, he said, and he offered good money to my dad to carry him as far as Marco first thing next morning.

Captain Bembery said he sure was sorry but even for his friend, he would not risk his ship and crew in such black weather. His crew was his two boys. Mister Watson kept after him, he was a hard man to say no to. Mother was frightened for her men but also for her house in rising waters, because Everglade was little more than a mudbank on a tide creek, with no high Indian mounds like Chokoloskee. Also, we had brought the news of the murders at the Bend, so she feared that Dad’s old friend might do away with him, being a desperate man who might try anything.

By daybreak the wind had backed around to the northeast. It was gusting to forty knots and more by the time we came out through Fakahatchee Pass into the Gulf; our little schooner was banging hard and shipping water. We didn’t like the strange cast of the dawn light nor the ugly way those purple clouds off to the west were churning up the sky. Off Caxambas at the south end of Marco Island, the wind veered back to the southeast, then around to the southwest in a whole gale, sixty knots or better. Worried about home, my dad notified Mister Watson that we could not take him as far as the Marco settlement but would drop him at Caxambas before heading back.

Mister Watson went all wooden in the face, knowing he’d have to walk across the island to Bill Collier’s store at the north end, then find someone else to carry him to the mainland. When he jammed his hand into his pocket, I was scared he would pull a weapon and force us to keep going, or maybe shoot us, dump us overboard, and take the helm. Cussed a blue streak but gave that up when he saw it would do no good; he must have figured he had trouble enough without killing his old friend. When we set him ashore in the lee of the clam factory dock, he thanked us warmly, got all wet shoving us off-that man was strong!-and wished us a safe voyage home before striding off toward the north, rain slicker flying.

That Sunday night in our Smallwood store, our menfolk got real busy spreading blame. No sooner was E. J. Watson gone than some started arguing how he should have been arrested; others said it must have been Cox who made that nigger put the blame on E. J. Watson. Well, now, I said, no nigger with the brains to get away to Pavilion Key would be fool enough to accuse a white man and implicate himself while he was at it.