Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

“Tolen and the Cox boy was friendly for a while because Sam had the diamond and Les was his star pitcher. America was crazy about baseball then. Every boy aimed to be a professional ballplayer and every community that could scrape up nine young men had ’em a ball club. The Tolen Team would go from place to place and teams came here to play, had games every Saturday all spring and summer. Find some horn players, have a parade out to the field before the game. Played some grand old Confederate marches and some new tunes, too.

“My brother Brooks was catcher for Les Cox and when them two played we wasn’t beat too often. Les could throw the hardest ball I ever heard of and he never minded throwing at your head. Batters was scared to stand close to the plate: just poked at the pitch as it flew by, got no real cut at it, he’d strike ’em out as fast as they come up. We figured Leslie had the fastest fastball in the U.S.A. and I guess Les thought so, too. Sam Tolen said them Major League scouts was bound to hear about this boy, come get him, pay him a hundred dollars every month just to play baseball. Might of went to his head cause he grew kind of overbearing, and he had him a hard and raspy tongue would scrape the warts off you. Made some noise, he jeered a lot, but he never had too much of a sense of humor. Local hero when we won and when we lost, he blamed his team. Took razzing all wrong, wanted to fight, same as Ty Cobb on the Pirates. No matter what, Les always figured he weren’t getting a fair deal and that give him a real ugly disposition. Folks pretended to like him because he was a baseball star but in their hearts nobody liked him much. I imagine Les was kind of lonely but maybe he wasn’t-very hard to tell.

“As I remember Les at age nineteen, he was five foot and eleven, maybe six, not extra tall but husky for his age and looked much older. They say he had some Injun from his mother’s side, dark straight hair and them high cheekbones, and maybe his revengeful streak come from the breed in him. My sister’s best friend, May Collins, was crazy about Les but her daddy thought Coxes was po’ white, wouldn’t allow him in the house. Pretty soon Billy Collins died-this was before all the bad trouble started-and with May’s mama sick most of the time, Les hung around the Collins place, which is probably how he got to know Ed Watson.

“Sam Tolen drank heavy, and when that man was drinking, he had no friends. One day Sam cussed out Les’s daddy. Will Cox was one of his sharecroppers, had a log house right there at the southwest corner of this crossing where I’m pointing at. Hearing Tolen talk rough to his dad, Leslie went inside and got Will’s rifle, come back out on the stoop without a word: he was fixing to shoot Sam Tolen dead and might of done it if Will hadn’t knocked away the barrel. Seeing that rifle, Sam wheeled his horse, he just departed. But he hated being run off by a boy because folks heard about it and they laughed, and after that, Sam was spoiling for a showdown, never mind that this young feller was star pitcher on his team.

“Freight train came south from Lake City in the morning, went back north in the afternoon: see that old railbed shadow through them trees where these two lanes meet? There was crossties piled there. Les was setting on them ties a few days later when Tolen rode up drunk, threatened to kill him, which ain’t a good idea around backcountry people.

“Sam never lived long after that. He was waylaid along the road-growed over now-that used to cut back through these woods to Ichetucknee Springs. Rumor was that Edgar Watson might of been involved but there weren’t no evidence and no one looked for none. These old woods kept their secret,” the Deacon said, peering about him.

“That was the finish of Sam Tolen and our Tolen Team. Sam loved baseball more’n he loved people. His brother Mike had trouble with him, too, but in those days, with our kind of folks, you might not like your brother but you stood behind your family all the same. At Sam’s funeral up in Lake City, Mike declared over the grave that he knew who killed his brother and he would take care of it-very bad mistake! Course the killers couldn’t act too quick without drawing suspicion so they laid low till March of the next year. Mike was ambushed right here at this crossing.

“Down here on the west side of the lane is a big old log cabin in a oak grove-see there yonder? That was Mike’s place. Kinards took it over from Mike’s widow. When our family moved here, there was nothing left inside but some old broke cane chairs, cedar buckets, a bent pot. Dead silence. Bat chitterin and cheep of crickets and the snap of rats’ teeth in old mattresses stuffed with graybeard moss right off these oaks. Our dad burned them mattresses and us kids was glad, cause with so much blood on ’em, they drawed the ghosts. There’s stains on the wall in there right now from the day they brought Mike home, that’s how much blood there was. Rat musk everywhere, I can still smell it. A house can have bloody rape and murder or shelter folks who live good churchly lives-either way don’t mean nothing to them rats. Gnaw a hole in your body or your Bible, just depending.

“So these ol’ woods was buzzing like a hornet swarm, and the men gathered, all riled up and ready to go. When the sheriff showed up from Lake City, his deputy come across hoof prints in the woods and followed that track south a mile to Watson’s place. Folks suspected Leslie was in on it but he run off someplace. Anyway, they didn’t have nothing on him.

“Ed Watson stood boldly in his door though he surely knew what that crowd of men was there for. Come time to step forward and arrest him, there weren’t no volunteers, nobody weren’t as riled as what they thought they was. So Josiah Burdett-that’s Herkie’s daddy-Joe said, “Well, I will go.” Just upped and done it. Dogged little fella, y’know, soft-spoken, he seemed to hide behind his scraggy horse-tail beard that come down like a bib right to his belt buckle, but when he said that he would go get Watson, they knew he meant it. My brother Brooks was so impressed that when another volunteer was called for, Brooks raised his hand and said, ‘Well, I’ll go with him.’

“Them two went up the hill to Watson’s gate. Watson had gone back inside, so Joe called, ‘Edgar, you better come on out!’ When he came out, they had their guns on him but didn’t have no warrant, so Watson said, ‘I’m sorry, Joe, but if you have no warrant then I can’t come with you.’ And Joe Burdett said, ‘Well I reckon you better come.” Probably didn’t care to shoot him down in front of his boy Herkie’s childhood sweetheart.’

“Watson took that very calm, never protested. ‘If you boys aim to arrest an innocent man,’ he said, ‘let’s get it over with.’ Seeing Herkie’s dad, Edna busted right out crying, and her babies, too. ‘Uncle Joe, Mr. Watson ain’t done nothing wrong! He’s been home here right along!’ But Joe Burdett only shook his head, so Watson said, ‘Well, then, I’ll just step inside, change to my Sunday best, cause I don’t want to give our community a bad name by going up to town in these soiled overalls.’ Burdett says, ‘Nosir, Edgar. You ain’t going back inside.’ So Edna brought him his clean clothes and Watson says, ‘I’ll just step into my shed to change, be with you fellers in a minute.’ Joe Burdett was too smart for that one, too. Told Brooks, ‘Go take a look, make sure there ain’t no weapon hid in there.’ And sure enough, Brooks found an old six-gun, loaded, back of a loose slat on the crib wall.

“Ed Watson changed his clothes outside on a cold March day, stripped right down to his long johns. Joe told him he better instruct Edna what he wanted done around his farm, and Edgar said, ‘Nosir, that will not be necessary, cause bein innocent, I will not be gone for long.’ Said he would sure appreciate it if he could just step inside while he give his dear wife a kiss good-bye. Joe Burdett shook his head. Let Watson get a foothold, see, there wouldn’t a-been no Josiah Burdett and no Brooks Kinard neither. Watson, he knew how to shoot, he didn’t miss.