Shadow Country (39 page)
Lucius tried to keep his voice calm. “You the one who winged that bullet past my ear, down Lost Man's River?”
In the quiet the customers awaited them. Crockett Daniels told the room, “Mr. Gene Roberts at Flamingo thought the world of E. J. Watson, said he was as nice a man as ever lynched a nigger. So in later years, when Watson's boy here was layin low down there, Mr. Gene told them Flamingo fellers not to run him off or sink his boat but let him work that coast. Told 'em he'd fished with E. J.'s boy and drank his whiskey with him, cause Looshus here liked his whiskey and a lot of it, same way his daddy done. Gene would say how E. J.'s boy had the sweetest nature he ever come across and all like that”âSpeck turned to himâ“not knowin that his sweetness weren't but weakness.”
“Course it's possible,” Speck said, holding his eye, “that Looshus here would do you hurt if you pushed him hard enough. But I believe this feller is weak-hearted. He just wants to live along, get on with ever'body, ain't that right, Looshus?” He paused again, then added meanly, “Makin a list of them ones that killed his daddy but afraid to use it.”
Speck cocked his head, looking curiously at Lucius as if to see how far he'd have to go to make him mad. “I always heard you was a alky-holic,” he said softly. “Any truth to that?”
Lucius turned away from him. “The man I'm looking for calls himself Collins,” he told the onlookers. “Has a nicknameâChicken.”
“Chicken Collins?” a woman called. “He ain't but four damn feet from where your elbow's at. He's comin off his drunk under the bar.”
Annoyed, Speck followed Lucius around behind the bar. The man lay on a soft bed of swept-up cigarette butts, wrapped in a dirty olive blanket black-poxed with burn holes. Daniels toed the body with a hard-creased boot, eliciting an ugly hacking cough. “When this feller first washed up here, Colonel, we made him janitor, paid him off in trade. All he could put away and then some and he's still hard at it. Come to likker, the man don't
never
quit! Don't know the
meanin
of the word.” Speck toed the body harder. “Come on, Chicken. Say how-do to your visitor cause he's just leavin.”
Greasy tufts emerged from the olive blanket, then reddened eyes in a soiled, unshaven face. This wasn't Cox. The ears were wrong and the mule hoof scar was missing.
From beneath the blanket rose a stale waft of dead cigarettes, spilled booze, old urine. At the sight of Lucius, the eyes started into focus. A scrawny claw crept forth to grasp the tin cup of mixed spirits from abandoned drinks which Dummy ladled for him out of a tin tub; he knocked the cup back with one great cough and shudder. Then the head withdrew. “Go home,” he muttered from beneath the blanket.
Lucius went down on one knee and shook his shoulder gently. “Mr. Collins? It's Lucius Watson. You sent for me.”
From beneath the blanket came more coughing. “Hell, no. Get on home, boy.”
“Come with me, then. We have to talk.”
With his big hand jammed under his armpit, Crockett Junior hoisted Lucius to his feet. “That man's sick!” Lucius protested. “I'll take him with me!” But Junior impelled him toward the screen door where Braman, entering, got in the way. Placing his palm against Mud's face with fingers on both sides of his nose, Dummy shoved hard with one thrust like a punch, sending the man out through the loose screen door and down the outside stair. A scaring
whump
rose from the bottom of the steps. Stepping outside onto the landing, looking down, Speck shook his head. “That fool has flew down them damn steps so many times you'd think he'd get the hang of it but he just don't.”
On hands and knees, panting with shock, Mud wiped the blood from his gashed brow with the back of a grimy hand. “See how they done?” he complained to Lucius, who had jumped down the stair to help him. Braman waved him off, crawling away through the weeds to the pink auto and dragging himself into the backseat. He tried to shut the door behind him but the rusted hinges and rank weeds kept it from closing. “Any man,” Mud hollered from within, “thinks Mud R. Braman gone to take any more shit off them dirty skunks better think again!”
Lucius walked toward his old Ford as Speck called from the landing. “
Looshus
Watson! Ain't nowhere near the man his daddy was.”
Speck stood rocking on his heels, hands in hip pockets, grinning. “Don't aim to tell us how that ol' list of yours is comin?” Getting no answer, he rasped angrily, “What I hear, Nigger Short ain't on your list, and he ain't never died off that I heard about. Or don't a nigger count, the way you look at it?”
Lucius turned his old car around and cranked the window down so he could hear better. Over the roof peak, a turkey vulture circled, the red skin of its naked head like a blood spot on the blue.
Speck said in a low voice, “You and me ain't the same breed, I am proud to say. If I believed a man helped kill
my
daddy, I sure wouldn't go to drinkin with that feller like you done this mornin and I sure wouldn't need no damn ol' list to tell me what to do about it, neither. That man would of come up missin a long time ago.”
“Crockett Daniels.” Lucius pronounced the name slowly, as if to lock it in his memory. “I do believe that is the last name on the list.”
Wobbling the clutch into gear, he exulted at the flicker in Speck's grin, but as he drew away, his heart was pounding. A man as wary as Crockett Daniels would hear those words as a threat, and a threatened man, as Papa used to say, was not a man to turn your back on in the backcountry.
WATT DYER
One day at the Marco store where he picked up his mail, Lucius received a formal letter from Attorney Watson Dyer, in Miami. Attorney Dyer urged the family to refile the late Mr. Watson's claim on Chatham Bend before the U.S. government condemned the property, which lay within the boundaries of the proposed Everglades park. In closing, he offered his own services and a phone number. Oddly, the letter made no mention of the fact that he was Nell's brother, or that Lucius might remember him from years ago.
Lucius went straight to the pay telephone. When Dyer answered, they barely exchanged greetings, far less spoke of Nell, before Watt got busy explaining that should the new park go through, any property under pending claim would revert to the federal government. Furthermoreâpursuant to federal policy that a new park be returned to its natural condition as a wildernessâthe last signs of man's presence would be eradicated, not only the ramshackle habitations but docks, rain cisterns, crops, and trees. Even the well-built Watson house would not be spared unless it was established that a claim had been pending in advance of the first park proposals, in which case it might be approved as an in-holding within the park for which life tenure, at least, might be negotiatedâ
“What do they mean by ânatural condition'?” Lucius inquired. “Before Indian settlement or after? Because if they want Chatham Bend the way it was, they will have to shovel the whole forty acres into the river. It's nothing but shell mound, don't they realize that? One huge Indian midden. To eradicate all the shell mounds and Calusa canals in the western Everglades would cost millions, and anyway, it couldn't be done without gouging out far more man-made scars than they were eliminating.”
Like an unseen presence in the dark, the lawyer's silence commanded him to be still. Then Dyer said, “Indians don't count.” His tone was less cynical than flat, indifferent. He went on to say that his specialty was real estate law and large-scale land development and that in this field, his extensive political contacts would prove useful. Would the family authorize him to pursue this matter?
Lucius suggested that the Watson family might waive its claim if the new park would restore the house and take good care of itâperhaps make it a historic monument to pioneer days? Dyer sighed. An offer of waiver before the claim had been reinstated could only undermine its legal standing.
“I'm afraid I can't afford a lawyerâ”
“Pro bono. Sentimental reasons, you might say.” The lawyer forced a snort of mirthless laughter. He finally reminded Lucius that Fred Dyer was caretaker at Chatham Bend just after the turn of the century and that he himself had visited in summers as a schoolboy. “You don't recall Wattie Dyer?” Another disconcerting snort. Lucius tried to picture the boy Wattie, wondering what the man at the far end of this phone line might look like. He hesitated. His sister had mentioned that Nell and her brother had never been in touch, not even after their mother died during the War. Small wonder, he thought, recalling now how Watt had bullied her as a little girl. Parting Nell's hair to crack his hard-boiled egg upon her pate then exhaling his hated egg breath into her squinched face was a favorite diversion. Occasionally, Lucius had felt obliged to intervene. For this the boy had hated him as much as he loathed everyone else. From an early age, Watt Dyer had made himself disliked by everybody on the Bend. He was especially unlucky, Lucius reflected, because he had always known this without really knowing what he knew.
All he required for the moment, Dyer was saying, was power of attorney in order to file for a court injunction against any attempt by park proponents to burn down the house before approval of the park charter became final. In Dyer's opinion, the Watson claim could not be summarily vacated or dismissed if E. J. Watson's heirs renewed the claim in time. Well, said Lucius, Rob was unavailable and Carrie and Eddie would want no part of any action that might stir up old scandal. As for the children of the second family, they had been given their new stepfather's name and might not even know that they were Watsons.
“Looks like it's up to you, then,” Dyer interrupted. “You'll be hearing from me.” He hung up abruptly before anything had been decided, leaving Lucius frustrated and annoyed.
AFFIDAVIT OF BILL W. HOUSE
Completing his research for the biography of E. J. Watson, Lucius had placed notices in local newspapers requesting information. These notices attracted the anticipated motley of old Watson anecdotes, but astonishingly, they also produced a copy of the affadavit given by Bill House in the Lee County Courthouse after his father's deathâthe document that his brother Eddie had refused to show him.
My name is Mr. William House residing at Chokoloskee Island, Ten Thousand Islands, Florida.
Mr. Ed J. Watson was at Chokoloskee when the story come about the Chatham murders. He swore that Leslie Cox had done him wrong and not only him but the three people he murdered. Watson left to fetch the Sheriff and the men thought they'd seen the last of him. This was Sunday evening, October 16, the eve of the Great Hurricane.
Three days after the storm, Ed Watson come back through. Mr. D. D. House advised he better stay right there until the Sheriff come and Watson said he didn't need no Sheriff, said he knew his business and would take care of it himself. Aimed to go home to Chatham River “and straighten that skunk out before he got away”âthem were his own words. He promised to return with Cox or Cox's head.
Watson was red-eyed in his appearance, very wild, and nobody didn't care to interfere with him. The men there at Smallwood's landing figured he'd keep right on going, head for the east coast railroad or Key West. This time they'd seen the last of him for sure. But last Monday October 24 toward evening, his motor was heard coming from the south'ard and a bunch of fellers went to the landing to arrest him. Watson seen that crowd of armed men waiting but he come on anyway, he was that kind.
The hurricane had tore the dock away, weren't nothing left of her but pilings, so he run his launch aground west of the boat way. He jumped ashore with his shotgun quick and bold, got himself set before one word was spoken. Had his weapon pointed down but hitched, ready to swing. He told the men he had killed Cox but the body fell off his dock into the river and was lost. He drawed a old hat out of his coat, showed the bullet hole from his revolver. Then he shoved his middle finger through that hole and twirled the hat on it and laughed. Some of us seen he was laughing at us. Nobody felt like laughing along with him.
Mr. D. D. House was not the ringleader, never mind what some has said, but no other man stepped forward so my dad done the talking. I and my next two brothers, Dan Junior and Lloyd, stood alongside him. Mr. D. D. House reminded Watson that a head was promised and a hat weren't good enough so the men would have to go to Chatham Bend, look for the body. And he notified Mr. Watson he must hand over his weapons in the meantime. That brought hard words. After a short argument, Watson swung his shotgun up at point-blank range. Some has said the man just meant to bluff the crowd back while he escaped: I believe he aimed at us with intent to kill, only his shells misfired. We opened up on him all in a roar and he fell down dead.
Some has been trying to point fingers, claiming we was laying for him, fixing to gun him down no matter what. Might of been true of some of 'em. Houses never knew nothing about no such thing.
Others give hints that one man lost his head and fired first and that this man was the only one responsible. I don't rightly know who fired first and they don't neither on account of the whole bunch fired together. We took the life of E. J. Watson to defend our own and all present was in on it from start to finish.
X
[
William W. House: his mark
]
Transcribed and attested: (signed) E. E. Watson, Dep. Court Clerk Lee County Courthouse, Fort Myers, Florida, October 27, 1910
Oddly, this document had been sent anonymously, without a note, in a coffee-stained envelope mailed from Ochopee, a construction camp post office out along the Trail. What startled Lucius was his brother's signature as deputy court clerk: he had almost forgotten that Eddie had transcribed the testimony of those men. In his biography-in-progress, Lucius sought the historian's objective tone: