Lost Man's River (79 page)

“Hush! He's outside! Want him to hear you? Colonel never said no such fool thing as that! That's only
your
idea! If you ain't aiming to hush up and behave, I'm taking you home!”

“What we heard was, Colonel took his daddy's schooner and sold her at Key West, and maybe he took Cox with him, turned him loose. Them two fellers was close to the same age and they might of been partners all along. Don't seem likely but it makes some sense, cause after that black October day, the ol'
Gladiator
weren't never seen again, nor Les Cox neither.”

“Well, that ain't the way it come down in our family. Cox snuck back into the Glades, lived with the Injuns, him being part of a Injun himself—least that's what Walter Alderman always told us, and Walter knew Cox from his days up around Columbia County when he worked for Watson. No tellin who lives back in them rivers, and they ain't too many has went in there to find out.”

“Oh yes, I fished with Colonel Watson many's the time! Sweetest person I ever knew—
good
sense of humor! I never seen him riled in all my life! He liked his whiskey, too, ol' Colonel did!”

“Still do!” Lucius called cheerily, stepping inside.

The abashed assembly looked shy, but most of the men offered warm smiles, and a few slipped forward to shake his hand. No one seemed surprised to see him, since all had known that Watson's son was on the Bay since his first hour in Everglade the day before.

Though Andy House had been away for years, he had no trouble identifying voices. “Look here who we got with us today!” He welcomed Lloyd Brown and Owen Carr, Charlie McKinney and two Hamiltons, Hoad Storter and assorted Smallwoods, the Roy Thompsons, Lopezes, and Johnsons, a Demere, Weeks and Honey Daniels, down from Fort Myers on a visit—Lucius was grateful for their smiling wave. Over twenty elders were installed—the last of the last generation whose childhood had been lived in “Mister Watson” 's shadow.

“Last time so many of our old families got together,” Bill Smallwood said, “was October twenty-fourth of 1910.”

“Come to give another Watson a warm welcome!” one man called. There came a cackle of malevolence, but the others looked relieved when Lucius laughed.

Holding up a copy of Lucius's
History
, Andy introduced their honored guest. “As you folks know your old friend Colonel Watson is the famous book author Professor Collins!” He added that Colonel deserved their support in his fight to save his daddy's house at Chatham Bend, and that he was completing his research for a biography of his father and would welcome reminiscences from his old neighbors.

Doing his best to appear harmless, Lucius offered a self-deprecating smile. He said they should think of E. J. Watson not as “Colonel's daddy” but only as the subject of a book, and must not worry that they might hurt his feelings.

For a long moment, no one spoke. The few guarded asides were meant for one another. Then talk burst forth like sun through rain and clouds.

“I guess you knew your dad had him a $500 watch, that was a lot of money back in them days. Hunting-case repeater watch, with a thick gold chain that was worth even more! Ever find out what happened to that watch? Ted Smallwood get it? Might be hid down here under this counter right this minute, come to think about it! Ol' Man Ted tucked so much away, he could never recollect where he had it hid!”

“Yessir, that man was all business. They say Ted's spirit is what made this country great.”

“Well, come to spirit, I would have to choose Ed Watson, cause he never let nobody stand in the way of progress.”

“If ever'body goes to makin speeches here, we ain't never going to figure out about that watch. But what we heard, the Sheriff put that evidence in his own pocket for safekeepin.”

“That poor young woman was afraid for her very life, and her children's life. That poor soul drug her kids under the store, and when they come out, they stunk to high heaven from Old Man Ted's drowned chickens! The kids was just whimpering like puppies under there, that's how scared they was, with all the gunfire and them dogs howlin …”

“Was Charlie Boggess in on it or wasn't he? Some say he sprained his ankle in the storm but hobbled right over anyway, cause he was a feller did not like to miss out. His family claims he took no part, on account of Ted was his best friend, but he must of been of a mixed mind, because the rest of his life, he wouldn't say about it, one way or the other!”

“Well, my mama come up as a Boggess, and she recalls how Grandpa Charlie told 'em to stay at home that day no matter what. Said they never seen the shooting but they heard it.”

“One day Grandpa Charlie was out on the store porch talkin about old times a mile a minute, and a feller asked him what he recalled about the death of Watson. Well, that old man stopped his rockin and he fell dead quiet. From inside the house all you could hear was that kind of soft croonin from the chickens. But after a while, his old rocker started up, commenced to creakin, and pretty soon his visitor worked him up to the same subject, said, ‘Well, I bet
that
day was somethin to remember!' And the creakin stopped, and Boggess clammed right up, same as before. He never answered, not a single word!”

“Well, one man said, ‘Let's put a live cartridge just in the one gun so's nobody has to know who shot him.' But none of them others had no confidence that one bullet would do the job, so they loaded their guns and emptied 'em instead.”

Lucius raised his hand and cleared his throat. “If that story is true, doesn't that suggest that everything was planned beforehand?”

“Nosir,” Andy House declared, in a stiff silence. “The House family never knew about no such plan.”

“My dad said the shooting never stopped till them guns was empty. A couple of 'em might even of reloaded, shot again.”

“Them men never took a live shell from this place, that's what Ted Smallwood told me.”

“How did Ted know? He was back there in his house!”

“Well,
I
seen it, cause I was here! Regular Fourth of July!”

“And I seen
you
! Your ma was nursin' you!”

“Them men might of panicked—”

“No sense stirring up all them old lies! Them men weren't panicky! Had something they had to take care of, that's all! Didn't hang back, let other people do the dirty work, like some!”

Hoad Storter said quickly, “Well, for this part of the country, Mr. Watson's house was a good big house!”

“We had pictures of it, boat sheds and all! Hurricane of '35 took the last sheds off the riverbank, cause we have a photo from '38, when Mac Johnson and his Dorothy was on there, and they ain't no sign of them outbuildins, nothin but that bare old house and a few coco palms, and the jungle creeping in over them cane fields. Jungle comes back so fast down there, it's like the tide, you can just set back and watch it come.”

“Dorothy went kind of crazy on the Bend, tryin to burn out them old bloodstains in the front room. Some victim or other, I imagine. Then her brother run off with this young woman, then she run off with a young man, and people laughed at him. So he puts a gun up to his head and dials her number on the telephone. He says real calm, ‘You better hear this, sweetheart.' And darned if she don't hear a
bang
—that was his finish!”

“Yep, Henry Smith's young “uns had a lot of trouble. And some would say this was because their daddy raised his hand against Ed Watson.”

“Oh what nonsense!”

“We have a historic letter in a box here someplace, came from the Surveyor, Joseph Shands, in 1904. I guess this was when E. J. Watson filed his land claim, because Mr. Shands makes mention of ‘friend Watson,' which goes to show that important men of that day estimated Mr. Watson as a friend …”

“He was friendly with the governor, too, they say.”

“Yes, he was,” said Lucius, making a note of that Shands letter. “He knew Napoleon Broward in Key West before the Spanish War, when Broward was running contraband arms to Cuba. He talked with Broward about building Glades canals …”

“That why Parks never burned your house, the way they done the shacks of us poor common folks that never knew nobody? Took years to gather boards enough to put 'em up, but Parks didn't take ten minutes burnin 'em down!”

“Remember Chevelier's old shack on Possum Key? Never burned, because some feller took that shack down for the lumber, took her right down to the ground. That was a while back—”

“We got a pretty good idea about that, don't we?”

“Hardens, you mean?”

“Nosir! Nigger Short! Can't blame
everything
on Hardens! Henry took that lumber and built him a little cabin way back on the inside of North Cape Sable, laid low a good long while down there, all by his lonesome.”

“Whoever taught a colored man to shoot as good as Henry done has got to answer for it to his Maker.”

“Henry Short put his bullets in so close, you could lay a dollar bill acrost the holes—”

“Heck no! They say he never fired but the onct! He hit ol' Emperor right between the eyes!”

Nobody had noticed Sally in the doorway. She said, “Henry Short was there, all right, but he never fired.”

Hearing her voice, the blind man welcomed her. “Folks, you all know Sally Brown. Come sit here, Sally.” Andy stood up and offered her his place. Considering how abrasive she had been, his gentle use of her first name made Lucius's temples tingle. “We was having a good talk about the old days,” Andy said, with a warm smile in the general direction of the door.

“The good old days,” said Sally, edging no farther into the room than a stray cat. Her gaze had fastened on Owen Carr, trapped in the corner. “I don't sit down with murderers,” she said.

Penny Carr's tone was a sharp warning. “You're Speck Daniels's girl, ain't that right, Miss? Married a Harden?”

“That is correct, ma'am. And you know which Harden, too, and probably a lot else that is not your business.” Her gaze remained fixed on the old man in the corner. There came a scattering, a shifting, as the old people rearranged themselves, like setting hens shuffling feathers when the coop door is thrown open to the sun and air. “Roark Harden was my husband's older brother. Roark was shot down in cold blood by that man and his brothers, and nobody on this Bay said a word about it.”

Owen Carr twisted on his seat like a thing burning. “Old Man Owen,” Sally said finally, “who lived to tell the tale, and even brag about it.”

“That was a long time ago,” Hoad Storter said. “And he is kinfolks to your mama. Your kin, too.”

“The Hardens let it die, girl,” Lloyd Brown told her, not unkindly. “It ain't your place to stir it up again.”

“ ‘The Hardens let it die!' Of course! Because otherwise they might have died themselves! Might have been burned out one fine night by a nice Pentecostal lynching party, the sons of the same bunch that lynched Ed Watson!”

The door screen whacked behind her like a pistol shot, and her sandaled feet fled lightly down the steps.

“My, my, my,” sighed Penny Carr, still knitting.

Owen Carr let a tight breath escape, trying to smile. “Her husband's daddy was Lee Harden, he had a temper, too!” He smiled still harder. “Might been my brother Alden made a joke about Lee's sister at one of them old-time Harden shindigs down at Lost Man's. Called her Nigger Libby. And darned if Lee don't take out after him, run him all the way down the beach to where Alden got away into his boat at Sadie's Hole!”

“Guess everybody has their own idea of what's a joke,” the blind man said.

Penny wove a determined stitch and purl. “Honest to goodness! You never told
me
about those Harden shindigs, Mr. Owen Carr!”

“Owen was chasing Edie Harden!” Mary Brown exclaimed, as Owen snickered. “And my brother, he was chasing Edie, too!”

“Edie's aunt Libby was a golden kind of color—a real smooth yeller gold, same as a mango. It was Libby who married up with Nigger Short.”

“
Henry
Short.” Andy bowed a little, in the certain instinct that all eyes in the room had turned toward him. “Times has changed,” he persisted, addressing the darkness with those clear wide eyes. “Even if we ain't.”

“Well, her sister Abbie run off with Storters' man, who was black as they make 'em! ‘Black as Dab's ass'—remember that? I recall that sayin from when I was a boy!”

“This is Sunday, Mr. Owen Carr, case you don't know it!”

Andy persisted in that stolid voice, “Now how come all those boys was courting Edie Harden? Sandy Albritton, too! Wanted to marry her, at least Bob Thompson did. That sure strikes me as peculiar if Hardens were mulatta, like folks called 'em” A bad silence was filled by loud keening of the wasps in the low rafters. “How come nobody thought twice about accepting Hardens' hospitality, sitting right down, eating up their food—same men who wouldn't
never
sit down with Dab or Henry?” He looked all around the room as if he could see deeply into every heart. “Don't make too much sense when you come to think about it.”