Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Ted returned in time to hear me say that, and his frown told me he didn’t care for strong opinions from his woman in men’s company. But after all, I had only spoke the truth, I told him later; to risk his life that way, that nigger had to have a reason. “Nigra,” Ted complained.

Anyways, it was too late. Watson was long gone, headed for Everglade, where he sweet-talked Bembery Storter into running him as far as Marco Island even though the hurricane was on its way. (Had to pay Bembery pretty dear, I shouldn’t wonder; those Storters never give you much for nothing.)

First time the wind gusts quaked our house came after dark on Monday evening. Santinis had built this house above the drift line of the ’73 hurricane, plenty high enough for the ’96 storm and also 1909. But it weren’t nearly high enough for the Great Hurricane of 1910, which came roaring in with wind and seas all jumbled up together. Chokoloskee Bay is three miles inland from the Gulf, but big waves broke through the outer islands to come pound our shore, and our island shrank smaller and smaller as the water swirled around us. When we finally lost sight of the mainland, it seemed like our little tuft of land had been uprooted and was drifting out to sea, and that was when we fled uphill to the schoolhouse, which was ten foot above sea level. Edna Watson and her kids were staying with the Aldermans: Wilson Alderman lugged little Addison while Edna toted Baby Amy and led Ruth Ellen by the hand.

The storm flood rose till four that morning, left a line on the wall ten inches above the schoolhouse floor. According to C. G. McKinney, who passed for somewhat educated, nine tenths of Chokoloskee Island and ten tenths of Everglade went underwater. Finally the men knocked our schoolhouse down, made rafts out of the walls; their hammers were all that could be heard over the wind.

Coming from an inland county, Edna Watson had never imagined such a fearful storm. She had promised her kids safety in the schoolhouse only to see that last shelter destroyed. The men dragged their rafts to the top of the highest mound we call Injun Hill, and all nine families were up there in that weather without cover, every last soul huddled together, teeth chattering, turning blue, and staring out blind into the storm, scared to death those rafts might break apart. The kids were crying and Edna was close to hysterics but she kept her head. Finally the Good Lord heard our prayers and the roar eased a little. The seas weren’t climbing anymore but slowly falling, leaving behind dark dripping silence, mud and ruin.

No real dawn. We trooped downhill in the half-dark to see what we had left. Goods from our store that weren’t washed into the Bay were carried back into the scrub; I lost my whole new set of china. I broke down then, just shook my head and cried, but in a little while I got the nervous giggles. My mama shrilled, “How can you giggle, girl, with everything you possess lost in the mud?” Oh, Grandma Ida was real disappointed in the Lord. And I said, “Well, Mama, I am very thankful we are all still here and still alive, so this ol’ mud don’t look so bad to me.”

Only person hurt was Charlie Boggess, who dislocated his ankle jumping off a boat onto our dock when it weren’t there no more. My Ted took him up under the arms, leaned back, and let him holler when C. G. pulled his heel straight, let the ankle bone snap back into her socket. Ted carried him on his back across the island, told him to stay put at home and not cause any more trouble. But being a feller who hated to miss out, Charlie T. was right back at our landing when E. J. Watson showed up again a few days later.

Sunday had thin sun and a light wind, but by ten that evening, the barometer commenced to fall too fast, with gusts to thirty, forty, fifty miles, and rising. By noon next day she’d shifted, coming out of the southeast, then around out of the south. That afternoon of Monday, October 17th, is when the sky turned black and the storm blew hardest, rolling all the way across the Gulf from the Yucatan Channel.

That’s when the walls budged. Our thatch roof shifted, even lifted once as the wind moaned, trying to pry the lid. At high tide, the seas washed over the shell ridge into the cabins. We floated the skiff right to the door and threw some stuff in. Something banged and something tore and the roof was gone and the storm exploded amongst the walls and the door frame was suddenly empty. Rain slashed straight across in sheets, whipping our faces. The sky caved in and the Gulf of Mexico crashed on our coast, so wild and heavy that the waves was lost, there was only roil and thunder. We took to the boats before they disappeared, they was jumping on their moorings like wild horses.

Wood Key was flooded over when we chopped the lines, let the storm carry the boats away inland. Where they finally snagged, we lashed ’em tight into the jungle trees. Hour after hour, our folks prayed to the Lord Almighty for deliverance; in the next tree, a family of possums, white faces staring out, seemed to pray, too. My Sarah cried, “Are we in Hell?” And Daddy Richard yelled into her ear, “No, girl! We are still here on God’s earth!” Ma Mary screeched, “Well, then, God’s earth is Hell enough for me!”

Them winds of the Great Hurricane of 1910 lasted thirty hours, seemed like the world was coming to an end. When the barometer blew away at Sand Key Light, down by Key West, it already registered 28.4, the lowest pressure ever recorded in the U.S.A. until that day.

When the storm eased some toward morning, a great emptiness came in behind it although there was still considerable wind. We were very thirsty but at least could catch a breath. All agreed that the Great Hurricane was foretold by that silver light across the heavens in the spring. Such a terrible storm, just seven days and seven nights after so much bloody murder, could only be sign of the Lord’s Wrath, but Mister Watson’s infant boy, drowned at Pavilion Key, was the only life He took on this whole coast.

Our sloop drifted us way back into the woods. Gert set her washtub over our smallest, trying to keep him dry. By daybreak, the worst of it was past, the wind was down, but the sloop’s hull got stove in, all busted up. She never made it back to the salt water.

All the world looked heavy dead lead-gray, like all life and color had been bled away. The river was thick with mud and broken branches; gray marl crusted the banks and trees like a disease. With Lost Man’s Key awash from end to end, the river mouth looked a half mile across, with tide and current jumbled in thick roil and tree trunks passing. Some trees had varmints clinging tight, looking back where they come from as they was rode far out to sea. After that long night, the women and kids was all wrung out exhausted, and seein them wild things starin back as they passed away forever is what finally gave our kids their excuse to cry.

The shore was empty, all our cabins gone. Hamiltons lost about everything except their lives. Seeing what had befell him in that one black night, Mr. James Hamilton looked all around him like a little child woken up. Everything that old feller had put together in twenty years’ hard work was twisted down or washed away. Never cursed nor wept nor acted jagged, only stared around him hour after hour. After that day, talk didn’t interest him, he hardly spoke again, just took to murmuring his memories of lost hopes in times gone by.

Having no regular family, then marrying young Gert, I become kind of a Hamilton, and like the Hamiltons was not so proud about our Harden kin, but when Owen come over from Wood Key to see how we was farin, I was glad to see him-took that storm to make us talk like neighbors. Him and me sailed his skiff north to the Watson place to see who might be left. That white house was still there but she looked stranded, up on her bare mound, and the outbuildings was all smashed flat: boat shed and bunkhouse swept away and the cabin, too. Called and called but got no answer, only silence. Neither of us made a move to go ashore. We never spoke about it. It weren’t we were ashamed so much as havin no words to explain what we was feeling.