Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

“Edgar told his wife to calm herself, he’d be home soon, on account he was innocent and had a alibi. Never turned to wave, never looked back. That man walked down to where the crowd was waiting, looked ’em in the eye, and strode off down the road like they’d made him their leader. They had to hurry to keep up.

“For years after, all them fellers spoke about Ed Watson’s inner strength that saw him through. If he was afraid he never showed it, and that scary calm got poor Brooks worrying that Mr. Watson might be innocent just like he said; Brooks prayed for guidance from the Lord when he went to bed. But our older brother Luther told him, ‘Boy, a guiltier man than Edgar Watson ain’t never drawed breath in this county so don’t you go pestering the Almighty. The Good Lord got plenty to take care of without that.’

“Watson hired fancy lawyers, got his trial moved after a lynch mob went to get him in Lake City. Luther Kinard was in that mob. These were the men most outraged against Watson. But when Watson ducked the noose, and Les Cox, too, they were the ones most frightened, knowing that them killers knew who had wanted to see ’em lynched and was honor bound to seek revenge. Might show up after dark, y’know, drill a feller coming from the barn or through the winder while he ate his supper. All that winter, the whole countryside was on the lookout. So when Edna’s family passed the news that Edgar had took her away to Thousand Islands, folks was overjoyed. Then came that January dusk when someone seen Cox walking down the road.

“That spring there weren’t no Tolen Team so Leslie tried to pitch for Columbia City. It was so pitiful that I felt bad for him because his nerves was gone. Lost his control, he was just dead wild, and the worse he pitched, the harder he threw, till the other team become afraid to go to bat. The crowd sat quiet, watched him fall to pieces. I can see him yet today, slamming his glove down on the mound, raising the dust. Finally his own team wouldn’t take the field behind him, he was out there on the pitcher’s mound alone. So naturally Les picked a fight, punched some feller bloody till they hauled him off. Went stomping off the field in a bad silence because nobody dared razz him. Far as I know, he never pitched again.

“Les finally seen there was no place for him, not around here. He wanted to go to Watson’s in the Islands but he needed money and he knew just where to get it. I reckon he felt humiliated, and when that feller felt humiliated, someone would pay.”

“Beyond that line of pecan trees is where the Banks family had their cabin. Two rooms with a kitchen shed out back, same as the rest of us. Calvin Banks had him a farm, run eighty head of cattle, worked hard cutting railroad ties, and done odd jobs. That nigra aimed to get ahead and had sense enough to save some money but not enough to take it to the bank. Calvin was taught that Jesus loved him so he trusted people. Carried his dollars in a little old satchel over his shoulder, and when he bought something, he’d take that satchel out and pay, so people seen he had money in there, twenty-dollar gold pieces and silver dollars and some greenbacks, too. My dad would say, ‘If he don’t look out, somebody’s liable to take and rob that nigra.’ Well, somebody done that, robbed and killed Calvin and his wife and another nigra along with ’em, and that somebody was William Leslie Cox.

“We figured Les tried to scare Calvin into telling where his money was hid, then shot him when he wouldn’t do that. Calvin Banks was maybe sixty and Aunt Celia well up into her seventies, near blind and she had rheumatism, couldn’t run no more: might been setting on the stoop warming her bones. Looked like Les shot her right out of her rocker but some has said she slipped down off the stoop, tried to crawl under the cabin. Don’t know how folks knew so doggone much unless Les bragged on it, which knowing Les, I reckon he sure did. Killed the old man inside, Aunt Celia on the stoop, then the son-in-law out here on the road. Didn’t want no witnesses, I reckon.

“Story was that Leslie got thirteen thousand dollars but our dad said it weren’t no more than maybe three hundred at the most. Back in them days a field hand got paid twelve to fifteen dollars a month, so even three hundred was a lot of money. One thing for sure, Les tore through that little cabin. I seen the mess next day. They said it was him took that metal box that two years later turned up empty in the woods, said it contained all silver dollars, so his mule had a tough time, had to walk lopsided. Les borrowed that mule from his cousin Oscar Sanford who told my brother Luther all about it.

“Our family field was directly west across the Fort White Road. On that late autumn afternoon us Kinards was picking cotton when Oscar Sanford come along, headed toward the Banks place on his mule. We heard one shot across the fields and then another, then in a little while another. Stood up to listen but finally decided someone was out hunting. Not till next day did we learn it was them poor coloreds getting killed.

“At the sound of those shots, Oscar turned that mule around and headed back home in a hurry. My brother Luther was putting in a well for Sanfords that same day, stayed over so he could finish work early next morning. In the evening Cox come by all pale and out of breath. Made my brother nervous, cause Luther had joined the Watson lynch mob and Les knew it. But Les paid no attention to him, just jerked his head toward the door, and him and Oscar went outside to talk. Might have wanted the borrow of that mule to go fetch that metal box.

“Because Bankses was nigras, Les might of got away with it, except folks knew that this young feller was mixed up in the Tolen business and most likely the guilty one; them killed nigras give ’em a second chance to see some justice. Luther Kinard was his teammate on our baseball club but even Luther turned state’s evidence against him. Folks wanted that mean sonofagun out of the way.

“Will Cox was good friends with the sheriff but his boy was convicted all the same. Les spoke up in court, ‘You’re giving that life sentence to a young feller that can’t tolerate no cooped-up life! I weren’t cut out to make it on no chain gang!’ Maybe the judge winked, as some has claimed, maybe he didn’t, but everybody heard him say, ‘You’ll be all right, boy.’ That judge knew what he was talking about, too.

“Les was sent to prison for the rest of his natural life and stayed three months. He was on the road gang out of Silver Springs. One day his daddy was out there talking to the guard and a railroad car got loose some way while Les was on it. Rolled down the grade to where he jumped off and run. Never been seen since, not by the law. Supposed to be dead but there’s plenty who will tell you he came back in later years hunting revenge. nobody around this county could believe Les Cox was dead and they don’t today.”

At the paved highway they turned south toward Fort White, then west again on the Old Bellamy Road. Where wisteria and a few old pecan trees recalled to him a long-gone homestead, Mr. Kinard said, “As a young feller, Edgar lived a while in an old cropper’s shack used to be right over yonder, shade of them oaks. Later years, he bought some Collins land just down the road here, built his own house and farmed several hundred acres. Good farmer, too, cause if he’d of been a poor one, we’d of knowed about it.”

On a hilltop on the north side of the road stood a sallow house with a dark-shaded porch and a rust-streaked tin roof shrouded by the Spanish moss on an immense red oak. “That’s the place. That’s where Brooks Kinard and Joe Burdett served him that warrant. I was up there one day with my dad, we was driving him a well, fixing his pump, so I remember Edgar. He was thick through the shoulders and uncommon strong, my daddy told me.”