Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

A jay’s blue fire crossed the sun from one wall of spring leaves into another. In the stillness, a stray thrush song came in wistful query from the wood. He turned to listen. Nothing. Only the fall of a lone acorn, a small point of sound on the surface of the silence, a point of emptiness in the great roar of the turning earth.

At the hotel, he found an unsigned note. “Fort White was a bad idea. Look for message at Gen. Delivery, Fort Myers.” Fear of exposure at Fort White explained Rob’s resistance to coming, Lucius decided, but why had he changed his name? Was he a fugitive?

He telegraphed Rob in care of General Delivery and sent him money, assuring him that his brother was neither angry nor upset but only looked forward to finding out who the hell was in that urn.

Before checking out, Lucius rang Hettie to apologize and say good-bye. She seemed relieved to hear from him, saying she quite understood why he might have wished to conceal his identity; she’d worried about him ever since he’d left, realizing how shocked he must have been by the sudden resurrection of his long lost brother. “Please tell Rob how happy we would be to welcome him back into the Collins family. And Lucius, too,” she added, her soft smiling voice warming his heart. He asked if one day he might pay another visit and she told him that she dearly hoped he would. “Come soon,” she said, by which he knew she shared his premonition. He said, “I will, Hettie, I will,” and put the phone down.

Catching his own sappy smile in the lobby mirror, he thought of Nell and reviled his inconstant heart. His despair was sincere and yet he was still smiling.

South of Fort White, Lucius followed the old county road across the worn-out cattle range of the Alachua Prairie. The potholed road passed a humble church then a few poor habitations patched into the scrub edge.

Will Cox, winding down his days in a blue shack surrounded by junked autos, stood in his narrow doorway with his hat on. “Next time you might find my grave but you won’t find me,” he sang out cheerfully, as if this stranger had turned up late on a long-awaited visit. Paying no heed when Lucius got out and introduced himself, he crossed the yard with bony steps and climbed into the backseat. “Been a while since I seen where I am headed for,” Mr. Cox said. “Let’s go have us a look.”

The little church back up the road had been founded by Will Cox after his family had been “hated out” of the Fort White district. He mentioned the exile without bitterness, far less self-pity.

Lucius helped the failing man out of the car. His Second Adventist church consisted of one white room with a cheap upright piano and small narrow pulpit; the unfenced yard was bare hard clay haired lightly by sparse weeds. No bird call brought the hot scrub wood to life, no color refreshed the petals of the artificial flowers in the rusted wire holders at the graves. “Be here for good before you know it,” Will Cox declared, gazing about with satisfaction. “I am just ate up with cancer, so they tell me.”

Cox shuffled forward, removing his old felt, and pointed a proud trembling finger at twin stones ten inches high and barely wide enough to carry the small initials. “W. W. C. That’s William W. Cox only I ain’t in there yet. And C. F. C., that’s Cornelia Fralick Cox. She’s down there now, bless her heart! Before she knows it, she’ll be layin beside her darlin same as she always done.” Will Cox contemplated his wife’s grave. A toppled jam jar lay behind the stone. “Been aimin to get me and Ma a big ol’ tombstone but I been down sick about ten years and never got to it.”

Asked if he’d seen Leslie in recent years, Mr. Cox said, “My boy Leslie Cox weren’t a-scared of nobody. ” He glanced behind him in case Les might have turned up at last out on the road. When Lucius pressed him-had his son ever returned?-he shook his head. “If Les ever come back, folks would of knowed him, cause Les had a scar right to his ear where that mule kicked him, laid him out stone cold. We thought that boy would never sit up again. And when he did, his momma seen into his eyes, then whispered, kind of funny, “ ‘This here ain’t the same boy no more as we have knew.’ ” Out of respect for his loved ones, he took his hat off, put it on again, and stood a while, hands folded simply on his breast. “Had a big picture of Les up on the wall before our neighbors burned us out and we come here. Him and his wife May, they was both on there. Burned down to nothin.

“Les weren’t never a bad boy the way they say. Went to church regular and done his lessons, got to be star pitcher on the ball club. Folks thought the world of Les. Never had no trouble before Watson come.” Saying this, the old man gave his visitor a hard sharp look. “You’re a Watson, I reckon.” When Lucius nodded, he did, too. “Yessir. We been waitin on you.” When he did not explain this, Lucius caught a fleeting scent of backwoods menace, like the quick sharp musk of mink on a night road. “Let me know if you get tired, Mr. Cox,” he said.

“I stay tired,” the old man said, holding his eye. But in a moment, his attention wandered. “Now that is a thing I wouldn’t hardly know,” he muttered, responding to some inquiry in his own head. “That was way back yonder, long, long time ago. Ed Watson warned me. ‘Listen, Will, these Tolen skunks raise hell with croppers so you got to go along with ’em somewhat.’ And I says, ‘Nosir, Ed, I don’t got to go along with nobody if they don’t do right.’

“Along about that time, Sam Tolen showed up at our fence, told me what I could do and could not do, carried on like he founded the damn county. Our rent was settled but Tolen claimed there was more land than he figured so he needed more money. I told him, ‘Mister, have it surveyed out, and if I owe more money, I will find it some way.’ ” Cox shook his head. “Nosir, we wasn’t lookin for no trouble but Tolens brought it and my boy Les took care of it.

“Where it started, Jim Tolen done Ma’s sister wrong so Ma swore a feud against all Tolens. Knowin I don’t hold with blood feuds and the Fralick boys bein all killed off or in the pen, she went and mentioned to her oldest how he had to revenge poor Sister’s honor, bein as how she was fresh out of brothers. My boy went to Watson for advice. About that time Jim Tolen slunk off home to Georgia, so maybe Watson advised Les to make do with the next one.” He gazed admiringly anew at the small C. F. C. stone in the sand. “Cornelia Fralick had a piece of Hell in her, y’know. When them deputies come to arrest Leslie for Sam Tolen, she reared so high they had to put the cuffs on her till they got him away.”

Was Mr. Cox saying that his son dealt with both those Tolens? Will Cox lifted his felt hat to scratch his scalp before he nodded. “I reckon. I reckon it might been Les who done ’em both.” The direct question had not bothered him, since unlike the Collins clan, so proud and prim, the Coxes were unashamed and unequivocal: whatever Leslie might have done, he was their blood and, for better or worse, had stood up for his family.

Had he never believed Ed Watson was involved?

The old man frowned. “I thought a lot of E. J. Watson, had a very high opinion of that man, but I never heard Les say Watson was in on it.” He pulled his ear. “Judge sent my boy to jail for life after that nigger trouble. Had to run off from the rail gang.”

“Guards never tried to catch him?”

“Nosir, not so’s you’d notice.” Will Cox almost smiled. “Our boy come home, worked in our field the same as always. His wife was livin with us, too, on account of her own people didn’t want her. Our family thought the world of Miss May Collins! Then some fool seen Leslie in the field, told Will Dick Purvis, ‘That boy is up to Coxes, Sheriff, best go git him.’ So Les hid up under the roof when Purvis come. Will Dick never tried to hunt him, he just sung out, ‘Well, if I was Les, I’d sure head out for other parts, cause if he gets caught in this neck of the woods, folks just might hang him.’ ”