Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Lucius knelt. He touched the forehead with his finger. He said, “God be with you, Papa.” He laid the lid, took up the hammer, and did his best to nail that stink in tight, but any man going ashore on Rabbit Key can get a whiff of Mr. Watson yet today.

It’s over now. I am sunk down with exhaustion, as if I had fled this day for twenty years.

This leaden ache of loss and sorrow, made much worse by shame: His daughter turned her father from her door. Shame that is never to relent, that is the awful knowing.

Oh Mama, our Lord seems far away. I open my torn heart to you, knowing you know how much I loved him, praying that wherever you have gone, you might hear me and forgive me.

It’s for the best -that’s all Walter can offer me in solace. It’s for the best, says Eddie, who sounds as pompous when he copies Walter as Walter sounds when he copies Mr. Cole.

Mama, I need you to hug me! Because I’m glad it’s over. Do you forgive me, Mama? I grieve with all my heart yet I am glad. I repent but I am glad. May God forgive me, I am glad. I’m glad ! And yet I am ashamed.

I can’t imagine what goes through Eddie’s head. I love my brother dearly and it hurts to see his nature so congested, yet I long to kick him. As a boy he was still open to life, but when he returned here after Papa’s trials in north Florida, something had thickened, he had lost all curiosity. He talks too much, he drones, he blusters, he is conceited about his clerk’s job at the courthouse though everyone knows it was invented for him by Frank Tippins. He flaunts his small official post like a loud necktie.

When I commiserated with him about how terrible it must have felt to commit to paper the lies told at the hearing by those awful men, he sighed, shrugging philosophically. “They are not awful men, dear sister, they are merely men.” Good grief! But that’s the kind of wearisome stale thing he says these days. He affects a brier pipe, which doesn’t suit him, only encourages him to weigh his words (which have no real weight so far as I can tell!).

Eddie goes deaf when Papa’s name comes up. He was living with Papa at Fort White when all that trouble came, but he won’t discuss it with Lucius or me, just frowns and mutters about some “family code of silence” with our Collins cousins. We’re your brother and sister, I cried, we’re his children, too! And Papa was found innocent, isn’t that true? Wasn’t he found innocent? And finally he grumped, “The defendant was acquitted, which is not the same.” The defendant !

Because of this unspeakable hurt we share, we are estranged. Is it possible to love your brother but detest him?

Lucius seems less bitter about the slayers than about Papa’s so-called friends, men like Erskine Thompson who looked on but failed to intervene. Lucius went straight to Eddie for the list of men brought to the courthouse but Eddie told him it would be improper for the deputy court clerk to reveal the names of prospective witnesses. Lucius retorted that the deputy court clerk seemed less concerned about his father’s murder than his own official title, which wasn’t nearly as important as he imagined. They had this ugly argument in public, nearly came to blows. Oh, what can folks think of our poor ruined family!

To lose his head and shout that way is so unlike our Lucius, who is taking Papa’s death harder than anyone: he can’t seem to deal with it without great anger (though I’m not sure he knows what makes him angry unless it’s the fact that Papa died for Cox’s crimes). Lucius lived mostly at Chatham Bend and was friends with those poor wretches who were murdered-that’s part of it, of course. He refuses to believe that his jolly generous Papa was the killer people talk about now that he’s dead.

When Lucius demanded a copy of the W. House deposition from Sheriff Tippins, Frank was sympathetic but refused him, saying his investigation of Mr. Watson’s death was not yet over. Meanwhile, Lucius has talked to someone who claims to have witnessed the whole terrible business; he has actually started a list of those involved! He is too intense about this; I am really worried. Even Eddie says he is concerned about his “little brother’s” safety. Yesterday evening Eddie warned him to “leave bad enough alone.” Eddie’s words showed disrespect for Papa, according to Lucius, who jumped up and demanded that Eddie take them back or step outside.

Leave well enough alone, then, said Eddie, winking at Walter, who just rattled his paper unhappily, trying not to notice. And Lucius said bitterly, “What’s well enough for you may not be well enough for me.” I saw Eddie’s fists clench but he controlled himself and merely sneered, as if nothing his younger brother might say should be taken seriously. His attitude enraged Lucius all the more, and Walter had to walk him out of doors.

When Walter came back inside, he said, “That list of names is just his way of making sense of all his grief. He won’t hurt anybody.” I snapped, “Of course not, Walter! Can you imagine Lucius hurting somebody?” Walter sat down and picked at his paper, saying, “Eddie’s right. He’d better not go questioning those men.”

“Stop him, then!” I cried. But Walter doesn’t care to interfere in Watson family matters, never has and never will. He hid behind his paper. “That boy is stubborn,” his voice said. “If he has his mind made up, there ain’t nobody can stop him.”

“Isn’t!” I cried, jumping up and snatching his paper away to make him face me. “ Isn’t nobody can stop him,” Walter said, taking his paper back. “If I know Lucius, he’ll be asking himself hard questions all his life.”

My stepmother is four years my junior. I paid a call on her at Hendry House (where they are kind Walter’s guests). She has a glazed look, a dull morbid manner. How changed is poor young Widow Watson from the girl Papa brought south only four years ago! Miss Kate Edna Bethea, as I still think of her, lacked our mama’s elegance and education. Papa truly admired those qualities in Mama, but I suspect that Kate Edna’s girlish spirit, her high bust and full haunches, her prattle about farmyard doings back in Fort White, suited his coarser tastes and needs better than Mama’s indoor virtues ever had.

Oh, she was his young mare, all right! I don’t care to think about it! Papa walked and spoke like a young man again, he fairly strutted, and this only four years ago. He had stopped drinking-well, not quite, but he had regained control-and he was full to bursting with great plans for the Islands, full of life !

At the hotel, Kate Edna tried her best to be polite but she can scarcely bring herself to talk. Isn’t it peculiar? The matronly daughter wept and sniffled while the young widow never shed a tear, just sat there stunned and scared, breaking her biscuit without eating it, scarcely sipping her tea. Edna won’t go to her people in Fort White but to her sister in west Florida where no one knows her. She wants to get clean away, says she, so she can think. What her simple brain wishes to think about I cannot imagine.

Edna’s clothes are nice (Papa saw to that) but she was wearing them all wrong, as usual, and of course they looked like she had slept in them, which no doubt she had. I urged my darling girls to play with their little “aunt” Ruth Ellen, but Papa’s second batch of kids are muted desperate creatures and no fun at all. The boy Addison pulls and nags at Edna- When is Daddy coming? Where is Daddy?- and Amy’s big eyes stare out in alarm even when she’s nursing. Five months into human life, poor little thing, and scared already.