Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Some way the Gladiator had rode it out lashed tight to them big poincianas and the busted dock. With my sloop gone, I reckoned Mister Watson would not mind if I used his ship to carry our Lost Man’s folks to Chokoloskee. Owen told me Hardens would stay put, start rebuilding right away, but Thompsons and Hamiltons sailed north next day, taking Andrew Wiggins along with wife and baby. Having lost their boat, that family abandoned the Atwell place and had picked their way along the shore to Lost Man’s Beach from the mouth of Rodgers River. We was anchored off Smallwood’s by early evening and got our first word about the Chatham massacre an hour later. Hearing that news, and recalling that silence on the Bend the day before, give me the creeps all over again, cause me’n Owen never knew about them dead, never imagined this man Cox might of been watching through some broken pane. Maybe he never answered because he had drew a bead on us, to kill us, too. That night I had a ugly dream about Cox laying in wait, mouth set in the way a snake’s mouth sets, little fixed smile.

By the time the hurricane struck in, Cox was all alone on Chatham Bend, if you don’t count that dead squaw in the boat shed or the corpses across the river or Mister Watson’s old horse running wild, shrieking and crashing through the cane. Maybe Cox never believed in God, no more’n me and Mister Watson, but if he did, he must of figured God had come to blast him straight to Hell for his black sins. We was down there in the rivers and we seen it: the roaring of the Hurricane of 1910 would of scared the marrow out of anybody, let alone a killer that has slaughtered feller human beings and gutted out their carcasses like they was hogs. Cox would of spent that storm night on his knees wild-howling for forgiveness, never knowing there weren’t nobody to forgive him.

At Pavilion Key, Tant hoisted Aunt Josie into the mangroves, but waves broke all across the island and tore her babe out of her arms. Found him by miracle at low tide next morning, little hands sticking up out of the sand-like he was cryin for his mama to come pick him up, Tant said. Maybe folks made too much of it that Mister Watson’s offspring was the one soul lost but it makes you wonder, don’t it? Even if you don’t believe in God.

After all them years, the time had come to say good-bye to Lost Man’s River. Thompsons come out all right, far as our health, but that hurricane blowed what fight was left out of our families. Lost our boats, our homes, had to take charity from kinfolk that didn’t have nothing neither. We moved Grandpap James Hamilton to Fakahatchee but he never found his way back from that storm and died soon after.

Them Hardens swept off of Wood Key settled again near our old ground back of Lost Man’s Beach. The dark one, Webster, built a cabin a good ways up into the river like he wanted to hide from hurricanes (or maybe his own niggerness, as I told Gert). All them people ever wanted was, Let us alone. Course mulattas never had no right to that proud attitude, never mind all the good fishing ground they claimed, but say what you like about that family, them Hardens was the only ones that never left. I’m talking about real pioneers trying to make a life down in the Islands, not moonshiners nor fly-by-nights that came and went.

When that black prisoner was delivered to Fort Myers, I telegraphed the Monroe County sheriff that he could find his witness in my jail. That same day, I traveled south as far as Marco, which was an unholy mess after the storm. Collier’s Mercantile Store, built of burnt oyster shell, had a wall crack three inches across from roof to ground and was still draining the eighteen inches of floodwater inside. The homes were worse, and having no place to roost, nearly every man in the small settlement was in there drinking hard to ease his nerves. Left their women and kids sloshing around back in the shacks, waiting in darkness for a scrap of food or maybe another beating if the husband was a drunkard, which many were on the Florida frontier.

“You boys know Sheriff Tippins,” Bill Collier said when I came in. Worn by the hurricane to a nervous edge, the unwashed men looked snarly, set to bait me. These people complain that they have no law so they have to make their own, but when the law shows up, there’s not much of a welcome. One man belched and another rasped, “Finally turns up when he ain’t needed.” Another wiped a stubbled chin with the back of his hand, got me in focus. “Them bankers and cattle kings gone to cover up for him again, ain’t that right, Sheriff? Got you in their pocket, too, from what we heard.”

Collier put down the ax blade he was filing and hoisted this small feller off the floor and set him down again, facing the other way. Teeter Weeks turned, drawing his fist for a roundhouse punch while letting himself stagger back to a safe distance. There he spat on his hands and commenced bobbing and weaving. “Cap’n Bill? You lookin for a scrap? You found the right man this time, Cap’n Bill!”

Bill Collier was storekeeper and postmaster, trader and ship’s master, shipbuilder and keeper of the inn, also the owner of the dredge that worked the clam flats at Pavilion Key. Had a copra plantation of five thousand palms and a citrus grove on the mainland at Henderson Creek with fifteen hundred orange-bearing trees. So naturally it was this lucky feller’s spade that struck into those Calusa treasures back in ’95 while getting out muck for his tomatoes. Having done much and seen more in life, he had no time for the likes of Teeter Weeks; he banged his ax head on the counter to command attention for the sheriff and resumed filing.

I asked what anyone could tell me about the whereabouts of E. J. Watson or his foreman. So far as they knew, Cox was still at Chatham Bend. As for Watson, he had come through yesterday on his way north to Fort Myers, looking for me.

“If I’da knowed what I know now, boys, I’d of never saved his life.” The men half-listened as Dick Sawyer told his story of that day he’d hailed the Gladiator at Key West and had gone aboard and found his friend Ed down sick with typhoid fever: he had run to fetch a doctor. “Not a word of thanks for saving the man’s life,” Sawyer complained, “and that is funny, cause Ed’s manners is so excellent.”

Jim Daniels grinned. “Friend Ed is a mannerly man, for sure, especially when he has you where he wants you.”

“Had a couple of your sisters, Jim, right where he wanted ’em. Netta, and then Josie-”

Jim Daniels cut him off just by sitting up straight, but Sawyer, drunk, refused to let it go. “Them Hardens now, they’s kin to you, ain’t that right, Jim?”

Bill Collier intervened smoothly. “I bet Dick ain’t forgot that time E. J. needed a boat ride back to Chatham River because Hiram Newell setting over there who was Watson’s captain at that time had Watson’s boat up on the ways. So them two went over to Sawyer’s, that right, Hiram? And Hiram hollered through the winder that Mister Watson was outside, wanted to know if Dick would take him home to Chatham River. Thinking Hiram was joking, Dick sings out, ‘Why don’t you and your damned Watson go to Hell?’ But when he seen who was standing at his door, ol’ Dick turned nice as rice. Said, ‘Howdy, Ed! You needin a ride home?’ ”

Hiram Newell cleared his throat. “Well, I ain’t ashamed to be in friendship with Ed Watson. If Cap’n Bembery or Willie Brown was here tonight, he’d say the same. Under that rough bark, Ed got him a big heart-”

“Jesus, Hiram!” Jim Daniels wheeled around. “Too bad them Tuckers ain’t here tonight to tell us about that big heart of his! Jesus Sweet Christ!”