Shadow Country (18 page)

E. J. was talking very fierce, pounding his palm. “If the Ten Thousand Islands have a future,” he declared, “then those who place themselves above the law have no place in our peace-loving community!” Everyone stared and he stared back with a great frown like Jehovah. “A-
men
!” he shouted. Except for Isaac, who would laugh at the Devil Himself, my Ted was about the only one who dared to smile. Then Charlie T. smiled because Ted had smiled, and Isaac whooped again and slapped his thigh, and everybody got to laughing but C. G. McKinney. Naturally our more pious females started hissing about sacrilege but they couldn't keep it up. Heck, they were thrilled! And the silliest just tittered happily,
tee-hee-hee-hee.

I wasn't smiling, not because of sacrilege but because this man was treating us like ninnies. He saw that I saw this—saw that Mamie House Smallwood and her brother Bill were not folks liable to forget about those Tuckers or forgive either. Knowing what he was up against with our House family, he did not scowl to scare or threaten, he did something worse: he disarmed me with a wink, a reckless confidential wink that made my righteous indignation feel downright foolish, made everything he'd told this crowd a joke, made all our hopes and struggles in this world simply ridiculous for the fundamental reason that our precious human life, for all its joys, was blood-soaked, cruel, and empty, with only sorrow, fear, disease at its dark end, fading to nothingness. Staring back at him, I thought, Was this a society of human beings or some purgatory where folks was condemned to live their lives with a laughing killer loose amongst them like a wolf?

Ted leaned and whispered it was only fitting to put 'em up in our house for the night. A murderer? That was my first reaction, I admit. No, I didn't want to do it.
No?
I
had
to! After all, I told myself, no one else had a spare room. The real truth was, I didn't want some other household claiming our famous visitor. Hadn't my Ted called this man his friend before most of these other folks had even met him?

Aunt Lovie Lopez—Penelope Daniels she was, married Gregorio—Aunt Lovie was jealous, and she could not hide it. “You'd shelter a desperado under the same roof as your little children? You ain't scared?” I was uneasy, yes, I whispered, but my man's wish was good enough for me. “Wouldn't be near good enough for me,” Aunt Lovie humphed. Course her Gregorio “come with the bark on,” as the men said, he was
rough.
A Spaniard with any kind of pride had to act crusty in those patriotic days when we ran 'em out of Cuba and the Philippines. Right from Injun times, the Spaniards been disliked here in south Florida and that won't change.

That evening E. J. gave Ted news of Columbia County where the Smallwoods came from. In the kitchen, young wide-eyed Mrs. Watson described the new house her husband had built north of Fort White and how his hard work got that land producing after years of erosion and ruin. Yes, she confided, she knew all about the blame laid on her Edgar in his youth due to his hellfire temper, as she called it, but if she'd heard anything of his reputation in the Islands, she did not let on. She was out to redeem him, it was plain to see, she'd made that her holy mission in this life, she got all breathless just whispering about it. Mister Watson called her Kate but all the rest of us who came to love her called her Edna.

“E. J.'s got a bad feud brewing in Columbia County,” Ted whispered when he came to bed.

“That why he's suddenly so homesick for Lee County?”

Ted reached across and put his hand over my mouth, lest our guests hear me from the other side of a slat wall. I was irked that my husband seemed so proud of having a killer for a friend. Saying nothing, I just lay there in the dark. I felt an intrusion in my heart, like a poison tendril twitching through the wall from the spare room. Ted was puffing, he was dreading my sharp tongue, yet just as eager as the rest of 'em to be first with his Watson news. Finally he muttered, “Family trouble over land. He come back south till things cool off. Didn't care to shoot nobody in self-defense.”

There was something hungry in his voice I didn't want to hear, something I picked up every time he told his tales of the bloody mayhem he had witnessed up around Arcadia or over on the east coast, Lemon City. Being a peaceable good man who hated fighting, he was bewitched by men of violence, of which we had more than we could use down around south Florida. Most of our Chok neighbors were just as bad, yet under their patched shirts and scraggy beards, they were gentle fellers, same as he was. For all their big talk, they were boys and pretty childish.

I kept after him. “That man Quinn Bass that Daddy knew up in Arcadia—didn't your ‘friend' call that self-defense, too? If your friend is such a peaceable feller, how come all these men try to attack him?”

“Mamie, his wife believes in him, you seen that for yourself, and she was up there with him in Columbia and knows his family a lot better'n we do. Heck, she's a preacher's daughter. If she believes in him, we got no reason not to.”

“Maybe those kinfolk are in his way like those poor Tucker people. One day your family might get in his way, too, ever think of that?”

My husband said, “It just ain't fair to talk like that. We know he cut Santini but that's all we know for sure
.
All the rest is rumors. There ain't no proof he ever killed a single soul.”

My Ted has a fine head of hair, big black mustache, and a big deep voice he only has to raise to clear the drunks and drifters from the store. Generally “his wish is my command,” as Grandma Ida likes to say about her feisty husband, Mr. D. D. House. This was different. E. J. Watson had Ted Smallwood in his pocket, others, too, and no good could come of it. Ted fought off my questions, getting angry, but our little kids were right under this roof with Mister Watson. I would see this through.

“How come he dusted out of here so fast after that Tucker business? And again two years ago when his carpenter just happened to die, too?”

“Weren't his fault that feller's heart quit! E. J. knew the blame would be laid on him, and by golly, it was. When Guy Bradley got murdered a hundred miles away, who was the first man they laid it on? He might of been lynched! He's scared of men taking the law in their own hands and you can't blame him.”

“I don't believe he was
ever
scared our men might lynch him. He's too hardened by his sins to be scared of anything.” Thinking about that wink of his, I got upset all over. “Does what he pleases, then laughs at us, dares us to stop him.”

Ted's big hand covered my mouth again; he pointed toward the wall. And suddenly I was so frightened that I wept and trembled. He took me in his arms. “E. J. is a fine farmer,” he murmured, starting in on the little speech that most all the women got to hear that night in every shack on our scared little island. “A real hard worker with a good head for business, always ready to help his neighbors. They ain't a family in the Islands won't say the same.”

But this time the old refrain of his same old song left him still restless. “All right, sweetheart,” he whispered. “But maybe this new family will steady him down. He opened an account this evening, paid down two hundred dollars in advance. I got no choice but to give that man a chance.”

“It's your friendship he has paid for, Mr. Smallwood. Paid in advance. He thinks if he's got the postmaster on his side and the House clan, too, Chokoloskee won't give him any trouble. Well, he hasn't got the House clan. He hasn't got Daddy nor my brother Bill, nor young Dan neither, only Mr. Smallwood.”

“And Smallwood's wife? You always liked him, Mamie.”

Ted rolled over with his back to me when I didn't answer. We lay awake for quite a while. I wanted to holler in his ear. “Where does his money come from? You said yourself, If E. J. had no money, he'd be on the chain gang to this day for the attempted murder of Adolphus Santini.” But Ted would assume that E. J. had made money on his farm crop in north Florida and tell me to hush up and go to sleep.

Ted's esteem for E. J. was sincere, of course. Even Daddy House admired the man's enterprise and plain hard work. And because folks liked him, our local families were all set to give him the benefit of any doubt. “E. J. Watson ain't the only one who makes his own law in south Florida,” Ted always said. “Those plume hunters and moonshiners will take and shoot at anyone who messes near their territory! Look what they done to young Bradley!”

It was Gene Roberts visiting from Flamingo who notified our community all about that murder. The Florida frontier is far behind the nation's progress, Mr. Roberts said, because men continue to settle their accounts with knives and pistols. But when I asked Ted if that included his friend Watson, who was suspected in the Bradley case, Ted rolled away again with that big sigh that said,
There's no sense talking
no
sense to a woman.

With Ed Watson's return, folks would be waiting to see what my menfolk would do. Ted and Daddy were leaders in our community and my brother Bill was thought to have good sense. If these three men made up their minds to give Ed Watson a fresh start, the rest would go along. Charlie Boggess, Wigginses, and Willie Browns were already on E. J.'s side, and that was close to half the Island families.

I gave in to Ted after a while. I had to admit that once they got used to the idea, most folks were content to have Ed Watson back: he took some interest in our common lives, which we had thought so dreary. He was full of curiosity, he kept things lively, and his great plans for the Islands gave us hope that the Twentieth Century progress we had heard about might come our way. Maybe we weren't so backward as we thought if a man as able and ambitious as Ed Watson chose to live here.

CARRIE LANGFORD'S DIARY

C
HRISTMAS, 1908

When Walter and Eddie and Captain Cole came back from Papa's trial in Madison County, Jim Cole was the only one who even mentioned it. Was your daddy innocent, Mis Carrie? Well, we got him acquitted, didn't we? If I frowned, I knew, he'd guffaw even louder, thinking I'm charmed by him. The man's so stuck on himself and so insensitive! “That old piney-woods rooter,” that's what Mama called him.

Papa will sell his Fort White farm to pay his lawyers and return to southwest Florida for good, so Walter says. This evening I asked Mr. John Roach in front of Walter if a position could be found for Papa at Deep Lake. Mr. Roach's tactful answer was, “Well, your dad has some excellent qualifications, we all agree.” But my own husband, interrupting, burst out, “Absolutely not!”

Walter
never
speaks to me so sharply. “It's not as if my father were a
criminal,
” I protested later. “He was acquitted!”

That may be, Walter insisted, in that measured voice that warns me he is digging in his heels, but if Captain Jim had not pulled a lot of strings, it might have been a very different story. “Was he guilty, then? Is that what you were trying to say in front of Yankee strangers?” “If John Roach was a stranger,” Walter reproved me, “why did we name our little boy for him?” At the mention of our lost little John, I wept. Walter took me in his arms, patting my shoulder blade, that brisk little pat-pat-pat that has no warmth in it and precious little patience. “I don't claim to know about your daddy's guilt or innocence. All I know is, you are very cold with Captain Jim, considering all he done for Mr. Watson.”

“Did,”
I said, picking the wrong moment to correct his grammar. Walter took a deep breath and let me go. For the first time in our married life, I cannot sway him. He says, “I perjured myself for your sake, Carrie. That don't mean he's welcome in my house.” Walter wants nothing more to do with Papa. And though I flew at him, said hurtful things—“You're just scared your bank partners won't like it!”—he would not relent. He went off to the bank as miserable as I was.

D
ECEMBER 30, 1908

Papa showed up on a Tuesday with Edna and her two little ones. Faith and Betsy shrilled
Grandpapa!
from an upstairs window; I heard them come thumping down the stairs. I cut them off as they rushed toward the front door and made them cry by shooing them back upstairs to their uncle Eddie, who is living here until the boardinghouse has a free room. Eddie had testified for the defense that one of the slain men had tried to ambush Papa at Fort White, but now he only parrots Walter, saying perjury was as far as he aimed to go. He did not come out to greet his father and Lucius, of course, was away at Chatham Bend.

Through the curtains I watched Papa give the knocker a sharp rap. The others hung back, out in the street. His darkie was a sullen-looking man in dirty overalls. In a cart behind them, dragged from the railroad station, was their sad heap of worldly goods, right down to the bedsteads and the burlap sacks of tools; I thought of those desperate homesteaders we felt so sorry for during the land rush into Oklahoma Territory.

Papa was unshaven and pasty-white from months in jail, his teeth were bad. His Edna looked holloweyed, drained of her color, and their sallow children too worn out to whine. It's hard to think of these forlorn creatures as my brother and sister when they're even younger than my little daughters.

The girl asked if she should show them in. I shook my head. Just bring some milk, I whispered, and a plate of cookies. I went to the door and opened it and we all faced each other. I was trying not to witness my father's humiliation. Then I realized that humiliation was not what he was feeling; was it only my imagination or was there something haunted in his gaze? “Oh, Papa,” I said, taking his hands, “I'm so relieved about that awful trial!”

My voice sounded false and faraway. He saw right through me. Though he mustered a smile, there was no spark in his eyes, and the smile turned sardonic as he waited to see if I would ask them in. He made no attempt to hug me, which was most unusual; was he afraid I might not hug him back?

“Happy New Year, Carrie,” Papa said. “Where are the children? Are those sweet things hiding from their bad old grandpa?” Because they adore him and have fun with him and always fly to the sound of his growly voice, he was stung that Faith and Betsy had not even called out. How shameful to make my father feel unwelcome just when he needs his family most!

A dreadful pause—where oh where were the milk and cookies? Because Papa was trying to be cheerful, I tried not to weep.

Then his face closed. He said abruptly that they would not come in, having only stopped by to say hello on their way to the dock to catch Captain Bill Collier and the
Falcon.
As he spoke, the girl appeared with milk and cookies. She set the tray down too quickly on the steps, everything sliding and askew. The silly thing was deathly scared of Papa, all the darkies are, though how they hear those dreadful rumors I don't know.

I came forward and hugged his gloomy kids and pecked the wan cheek of my stepmother. After days of hard travel, they all smelled like poor people. I said good morning to the black man, who did not respond or even lift his hat. Mama taught us that what people call sullenness or stupidity in darkies is often no more than fear and shyness; they have learned that it is much more dangerous to act decisively and make mistakes than to be passive and slow, despite the abuse and contempt they will surely suffer. Nonetheless I was surprised by the man's rudeness and astonished by Papa's patience. When Papa spoke to him in a low murmur, the man gave a violent start like a dog in a nightmare and removed his hat. As if unaware I had already said good morning, he muttered, “Yes'm, thank you.” Papa said, “He went to trial with me up north. Maybe he's not quite over our close call.” He drew his finger under his chin and popped his eyes out like a hanged man, but he was very angry now and those eyes had no relation to his smile.

That black man never heard me, I now think, because he was sunk in dreadful melancholia. Later I asked Walter if Negroes suffer melancholy the same way we do and Walter said that he supposed so, though he hadn't thought about it. Overhearing, Eddie burst out, “That's ridiculous!” Eddie is most vehement when most uncertain.

I encouraged the children to take a cookie. “They're not pets,” said Papa, pointing at the plate, which still sat on the step. Mortified, I snatched it up and offered it. “Of
course
they're not, Papa!” I burst into tears for he had turned, saying, “Good-bye, then, Daughter.” He stalked away. Watching him lead his little group toward the river, I could not know that we would never speak again.