Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Miz Ida sunk down a-weeping and a-praying, got the Good Lord on her side for sure. I known right then that Henry Short was done for. I mumbled, “Yes’m,” went to fetch my old Winchester.30-30, which I kept oiled and polished up like new. “See there!” she yelled. “ ’Member how Mr. House give you that rifle, Henry? How he done spoiled you? So mind you load it good! You never know!”

Oh I knew, I knew.

As I passed the store, Mist’ Smallwood warned me I was making a mistake, but being a nigger, I never had no choice. I was praying, praying, praying for some sign. All I wanted was some place I could hide out from life till I was safe again. In them days, his safety was all a black man could ask for.

When I got back from House Hammock, Mamie told me that Watson came through and some men collected and our dad told Watson he must wait there for the sheriff. Watson declared he’d seen him just the day before at Marco, said unless they stood aside, the killer Cox was going to escape. Claimed it was his bounden duty to them good friends that perished on his property to straighten out that blood-splattered sonofabitch once and for all. They never realized his shotgun was empty all the while he was bluffing them to let him go. My dad still wanted to arrest him, put a stop to Ed J. Watson once and for all, but none of them others had the stomach for it. Not till his boat was under way and disappearing out of sight did the men start in about how they would of grabbed him but for this and that and how they aimed to take care of him the very next time he tried his tricks around these parts. That sheepish bunch that was aiming to detain Ed Watson lined up instead to wave good-bye. He had talked his way into the clear again, just like he done so many times before. That feller was a borned politician, could of got to be president if he stayed sober and didn’t shoot nobody on the train to Washington, D.C.

Daddy House was hopping mad. Naturally he blamed his stupid son for staying at House Hammock to clean up after the storm the way he told me to. Said his fool neighbors was “bamboozled” by Ed Watson, as if he weren’t nothing but some bystander. Already-because they wanted it so bad-those neighbors had convinced themselves that if Ed did not kill Cox, Cox would kill Ed, and either way this coast had seen the last of ’em. Never occurred to ’em that Watson might of went straight to the Bend to help his partner make his getaway. When two days went by and he never come back, a story spread that he’d carried Cox down to Florida Bay and across to the Key West railroad, which laid rail that year as far south as Long Key: heading north up the east coast was their best chance of escape. So long as Watson lit out with Cox, maybe we could just forget about them murders, that was their thinking, though they never owned up to that out loud. It wasn’t justice folks was after but a good night’s sleep.

We was just ordinary people that didn’t care to go up against no desperader; we was grateful to be buffaloed out of a showdown if E. J. Watson would just go away and keep on going.

Our house was not far east of Smallwood’s store. When that pop-pop-pop come on the south wind toward the dusk, Daddy straightened up to listen, set his chisel down. “That’s him,” he said.

With no sign of the damned sheriff, we was obliged to arrest the man ourselves. We had talked it out. Daddy and me and Dan Junior and Lloyd loaded our rifles and went on down to Smallwood’s landing. My father-in-law, Jim Howell, who lost his house in the hurricane, come along soon after. By the end of it, eighteen to twenty was there, almost all the Island men and a few others visiting. Some might of only carried guns so’s not to be thought cowards by the rest; others, I ain’t saying who, was declaring for the past three days that if Watson dared show up again, we should lay for him and shoot him down, ask questions after. Better to finish him for sure and get some justice, them men said, because otherwise, what with all his son-in-law’s connections, he was bound to wriggle free like he done before. Claimed to be worried about justice but I believe they was a lot more worried that Ed Watson, left alive, would settle up his business quick with any man who had dared stand up against him. Ed always aimed to clean up his accounts, like Smallwood said.

Ted would not join the posse. Said E. J. was his best customer, all paid up fair and square, said he had nothing against him, never did. Anyway, he was down with his malaria, he said, though on that very afternoon, as we all seen, he felt strong enough to crawl under his house after them drowned leghorns. The more Ted talked, the harder it was to tell what he really hoped would happen, and I doubt he knew.

According to my sister, her husband was the only man with enough guts to speak out against the murder of a neighbor. Well, he wasn’t. Willie Brown done that and he done it louder, and Bembery Storter, too, but those men being from Everglade, they were not present. As for them neighbors that straggled in from the Lost Man’s country after the hurricane, them men stayed back by the store, they only watched. Even Erskine Thompson, who was kind of backdoor family to Ed Watson, never raised no sand. In their hearts, I believe, them Lost Man’s fellers was as anxious as the rest to see this business finished. Wanted the suspense over and done with.

The men was bunched up on the shore. Near dusk but plenty light enough for him to see that body of armed men before he come in range. Why did he keep coming? Stood straight as a statue at the helm, never hesitated, never even slowed, just peered around kind of quizzical, pretending like he never noticed all his neighbors till that moment; then he waved and smiled, tickled to see such a fine welcome. Never paid no attention to them hefted weapons.

The hurricane had took away Ted’s dock so the Warrior come in just east of the boatway. Cut his motor maybe twenty yards out, let her wake come up under the stern and ride her high onto the shore.

Grounding her fast and hard like that, with that loud crunch, Watson took the whole crowd by surprise. The fellers behind us give a grunt and snort as they backed up, jostling like steers at the chute, and somebody shit his pants cause we could smell it.

Some has said he never left his boat. Well, our House gang was right up front and seen it. Timed his move forward as she went aground and jumped as the bow struck, holding his shotgun up across his chest and twisting in the air so’s to land where he could cover the whole crowd. Must of knowed he risked getting hisself shot by the most nervous one out of buck fever, cause right away he dropped his barrels down along his leg, no threat to nobody but where he could still swing ’em up fast if he had to.

E. J. Watson knew his neighbors, knew we lacked experience at pointing guns at feller men, never mind pulling the trigger. All of us stood stock still and staring, feeling stupid, as if we’d come outside at evening to have us a bat shoot or something. On that twilight shore on October 24 of 1910, the only man who appeared easy-the only man who “leev in his own skeen,” as the old Frenchman used to say-was E. J. Watson, but I believe that underneath he was as scared as we was.

Knowing how quick and wily Watson was, we had no doubt he had calculated his chances pretty close long before his bow struck ashore. Probably figured if he made it into court, he’d beat the charge, because only his nigra had him implicated, and even that man had backed off his own story, put it all on Cox. As usual, there really weren’t no good evidence against him. But being so smart, he would also figure that some of us might be smart enough to know that, too, and might just lynch him.