“So it weren't the fathers but the sons who got hard with Henry. Hated to think that a black man might of took care of Watson and their scared daddies only finished off the job. That's why some of 'em went to hollerin about Nigger Henry, Nigger Short;
âWho in hell give that nigger the idea he could get away with that?'
Pretty soon they was sayin that maybe Short's bad attitude come from the way them Houses spoiled him. Next, some liar spread a story,
âThat dang nigger bragged on killin a white man'
âsay that real sweet and soft, you know, which is the sign amongst that coward kind that some poor nigra is headed for perdition. Pretty soon they was tellin how the whole thing was Henry's doin.
âWhy hell, that nigger lost his head, the way they do! Committed heenious murder! We gone to stand for some hare-brain nigger shootin down a white man in cold blood? We just gone to stand here chawin about it? Ain't we men enough to go learn that boy his lesson?'
But Henry Short had our House clan behind him, seven men and boys, so nobody would lay a hand on him that weren't lookin for more feud than they might have wanted. And their daddies kind of nodded along and shrugged and kept their mouths shut. It never come to much and finally died down, because most of them boys was not so much bad fellers as big talkers, and on top of that, in them first years, they couldn't find him.
“Anyways, I believe today that Henry and me fired shots so close that every man but Daddy House heard just the one, and I don't believe no other shots was ever needed. In them days, I passed for a expert with a rifle, some would say I was right up there with your daddy, but from all our years huntin together, I knew our colored man was better and shot faster. So when Daddy said he heard two shots, I was scared at first it was Henry's bullet killed Ed Watson. Well, it weren't. He never aimed at him, y'see. I did.”
Lucius said flatly, “Henry killed him, Bill. Killed him first, anyway.”
“He tell you that?” House raised his eyebrows. “Well, if Henry told you, Colonel, that is good enough for me.” House stared out the window, digesting his mixed feelings. “In the back of my mind, maybe I knew the truth of it. That hole smack in the foreheadâthat bullet weren't mine. I aimed for the heart and I don't believe I missed. Only thing, he was still on his feet when I fired. Already dead, I reckon.”
“To all intents and purposes,” Lucius said shortly.
“Henry went home quick because right away them ones that was drinkin wanted to know who brung along that nigger. Course they knew it was Houses and we spoke right up but that didn't stop 'em, nosir, they was huntin trouble.
“Henry didn't need no warnin. By the time we got home, he already had his gear in his old skiff. Pap had left before the crowd started to turn ugly so he said, âThem men ain't goin to bother you none, Henry. Heck, they
like
you.' And Henry said, â 'Spect so, Mist' Dan. They liked Mist' Watson, too.' He left that night.”
A few minutes later, Bill spoke up again. He could not put the burned man out of his mind. “Whilst you was over talkin with his brothers, Colonel, Henry told me he was through with life but life weren't through with him. I just hated to see him so bad hurt that he would say somethin like that.” He looked stricken. “And knowin no words I could say to help when he was dyin, that made me ashamed.
“After all the years that good man give us, after we promised Daddy House we would protect him, how come we never kept track of him? Let him know he weren't forgotten by our family; tell him we was wonderin how he might be gettin on? I never done that, nosir, I did not. Too much pains to take over a nigraâwas that my thinkin?
“Funny, ain't it? My cousin-in-law over to Marco, the one helped lynch that colored feller some years back cause they give him a white man's job in the clam cannery? That cousin never missed a meal till the mornin he never come down to eat his breakfast. Died peaceful in his sleep at home after a nice long life. How do you figure that one, Colonel? You reckon God just thundered down,
âAll is forgiven, Boy, cause you ain't nothin but a redneck idjit that never knowed no better. It's them ones like your cousin Bill that knowed better and turned away that I am abominatin in My sight.' ”
Bill shook his head. “I never did commit a crime against a black man and darn glad of it but I never done nothin for 'em neither, not even when I had the chance. You reckon that's why I feel so bad about Henry? Because I
knew
better?”
House lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the westering sun that fired the windshield.
“Kind of late to help him now. I missed my chance. Sins of omission, they will call it where I'm headed for.”
From here and there across the prospect of Golden Years Estates came the grind and bang of earth-moving machinery. At Panther Crescent, finding Bill's wife away at church, they sat outside sorting the day's events.
Bill said, “So Lucius Watson finally learned Henry Short's story and made friends with the House clan, tooâthat mean you're through with it?”
“Know something, Bill? I might be. But first I have to get to Hell and hear my father's side of it.”
“Lordamighty.” Bill House laughed. “Where you off to, Colonel, this late in the day? Which ain't none of my darned business,” he added hastily when Lucius remained silent. “What I mean, don't wait around here just to keep me company. You got a long drive home.” Lucius assured him he'd be happy to wait until Bill's wife came back in case Bill needed a hand with all those panthers.
Hearing a car coming, they got to their feet. Bill House waved with a broad smile of welcome as his wife climbed out with a food basket on her arm. For how many long years, Lucius Watson thought, had there been nowhere he was expected, no dear friend to greet him with warm supper? All that awaited him was that stranded barge on a remote salt creek; he felt invaded by a dread of home.
“He's back safe, Mrs. House!” he called. “I never got a chance to bump him off!” But he had hailed her with a gaiety he did not feel, and Bill House turned to look at him. “Listen,” Bill said. “Better stay and eat some supper with us, Colonel. Talk about old schooldays with Miss Betty here.”
“Thank you, I have to go,” he said, lest they think he'd been awaiting an invitation. Awkward, he thrust out his hand and House, still puzzled, shook it warmly. “So long, Colonel. Hope we ain't seen the last of you,” he added, as Betty House said shyly, “Lucius? I sure am happy to meet up with you again. Will you come see us?”
When his car started up, the Houses waved. “You ain't such a bad feller, Colonel,” Bill called after him. “Maybe you never was.”
By the time he reached Caxambas, there would be a moon. His mind turned and returned to that brass urn. Was that what he'd been dreading? That waiting presence, gathering moon glints in the window? The thing spooked himânot those brown bones but the spirit sealed in with them. He had no wish to be alone with Papa in defenseless sleep.
Making his way along the woods road to the old sheds by the creek, he took pains with the potholes. He shut the car door carefully when he got out and made his way out to the barge over the spindly walkway. Down the still creek, a raccoon fishing mud clams at the tide edge sat up to peer around and watch him pass.
Noisy on purpose to warn away the ghosts, he wrenched open the salt-swollen door. Framed in the window, in silhouette against the mirror of the creek, the urn awaited him. Stopped short on the threshold by unnamable emotions, he was startled when his own voice said, “Papa? I'm home.”
In a tumult of unsorted memories and premonitions, he crossed to the window and with both hands lifted the urn, touching it to his forehead to break its spell. “May God forgive you, Papa”âhow inappropriate this was, since, like his father, he had lost faith in any deity. What should he do with this damned thing?
He lay down wide-eyed on the moon-swept cot, clasping his hands on his gut to quell his restlessness. In the morning he fetched Rob's envelope from the car, made coffee, sat out on the deck.
NIGHT RIVERS
Luke:
I am writing down as best I can remember the events of New Year's morning, 1901, so you will better understand why I ran away. It takes all the courage I have left to let you read this. I'm taking you at your word that it's the truth you're after.
You and Eddie were still in school, living with Carrie and Walter in Fort Myers, when Wally Tucker fled Key West with his pregnant sweetheart to escape bad debts and scandal, having heard that Mr. Watson at Chatham River would employ them. Some months later, your father's hogs sniffed out two shallow graves beyond the cane fields. Wandering out there calling in the hogs, the Tuckers discovered the remains of two young cane cutters. These men had told Wally that they wished to quit but were owed more than a year's back wages and could not get “Mr. Ed” to pay attention.
The Tuckers fled the Bend without their pay. I found them rushing their stuff down to their little sloop, almost hysterical.
He murdered Ted and Zachariah!
“That's impossible,” I said. “He paid those boys last month and took them to Fort Myers. I saw them off myself.”
Well, we did, too, but it's Ted and Zachariah all the same!
Though they didn't dare say so to his son, they were terrified of what might happen if the Boss found out what they knew. When I got angry, asking Tucker if he was accusing Mr. Watson, he did not back down.
Who else
? he said. He was in tears.
I ran out through the cane fields to that place and I smelled those bodies long before I got there. The ground was hog-chopped all around. I went in close enough to look and had to get away on that same breath to keep from puking. The bodies were all bloated up, half-eaten, but there was no question it was Ted and Zachariah.
By the time I got back, the Tuckers were gone. Papa lay like a dead man in the house. He was drinking very heavily that year. According to Aunt Josie, who came flying out to warn me to stay away from him, Wally put his Bet aboard their sloop, then took his gun and walked up to the house and pounded on the wall to wake the Boss, demanding the wages they had coming. Your father was furious because two workers were quitting without notice with the cane harvest hardly begun; he was further incensed when he threatened to strike Wally and Wally raised his gun. “You point a gun at E. J. Watson, you conch bastard, you better damn well shoot him. Go on! Shoot!” That drunken bellow terrified Aunt Josie because it sounded so insane, but as usual, E. J. Watson knew his man. Wally Tucker was no killer, never would be. Moving to strike him, Papa reeled and stumbled and fell down and the Tuckers fled.
I was very frightened. I saw his jug of moonshine on the table. I jolted a big snort to nerve myself, then opened the storm shutters to let in air and light. Your father lay snoring on his bed with muddy boots on. When I shook him awake, he opened one eyelid, raw bright red as the slit throat of a chicken. Then he rolled over, dragging a pillow over his head; he couldn't take the light or stand the sight of me.
I told him what had happened. His voice growled from beneath the pillow that he knew nothing about it. Then he said that Mr. Wally Tucker better be damned careful about spreading slander against E. J. Watson. This reminded him that they'd left him short-handed; he reared up with a roar, rolled off the bed, but blacked out again and crashed against the wall.
At these times, “hair of the dog” was all that helped him. By the time I fetched the jug, he was sitting up holding his head, wheezing for breath. His skin was blotchy and his breath came out of Hell. He opened his eyes and glared at me, then looked away. He did not bother to lie. “How could I pay 'em, Sonborn?” he said quietly. “Nothing to pay 'em with.”
Sick as he was, he went with me after dark. This time I puked and so did he: maybe the first thing we ever did together! We heaped and scraped those remains onto some burlap, made a big sack of it, filled the pits and scattered brush, lugged that sack between us to the river downstream from the boat sheds, and let it go into the current. All that while, we never spoke a word. He was sober now and trying to suggest that Ted and Zachariah had been thieves as well as troublemakers and maybe the other hands had killed them. I wanted badly to believe that. Anyhow, he said, there was nothing to be done about it, and for the sake of our plantation's good name, I must forget what I had seen. Being too needy, too eager to please him, I agreed. He was very worried that the Tuckers might spread lies.
With the Tuckers gone and Tant off hunting, there was no one to talk to but the harvest crew and Josie. I was all alone in my awful knowledge. I don't believe Josie ever learned about those hog-chewed cadavers, but even if she'd known, she would have claimed that no matter who did 'em in, they probably had it coming. Her “Mister Jack” paid no attention to what Josie overheard, knowing this little woman was so crazy for him that no secret that might do him harm would pass her lips.
Unpaid and penniless after their long year of hard work, the Tuckers were taken in by Richard Harden at Lost Man's River. Because they risked jail at Key West, he suggested they camp on Lost Man's Key, which was quit-claimed by the Atwell family up in Rodgers River but uninhabited. Lived aboard their sloop and subsisted mostly on palm tops and on shellfish while they built a driftwood shack, having borrowed tools, gill net, and seed corn from the Hardens. They planted a piece of ground across the river mouth, near the spring at the north end of Lost Man's Beach.
Toward the end of 1900, your father bought that quit-claim from the Atwells, who took back his rough note warning Tucker to remove himself in three days' time. With his vegetables still green and his wife near term, Tucker was outraged: he sent word back reminding Watson that “as was well known or soon would be,” he and his wife were still owed a year's wages, and until these were paid, they would not leave Lost Man's Key “come Hell or High Water.” My heart sank when I saw that message, knowing your father would take it as a usurpation of his quit-claim and a threat.
On the last night of the old century, your father broke out a new jug of Tant's moonshine and sat down heavily at the table. Aunt Josie came in with Baby Pearl in hopes of New Year's cheer but took one look at his closed face and went right out again. She knew better than to break his mood and she didn't need to warn me to keep my mouth shut. We sat in the dark kitchen in deep gloom.
Josie warmed up beans but we hardly ate. Your father read Tucker's note over and over; he drank and brooded until nearly midnight. Finally he took a last big slug and shoved the jug across the table, commanding me (as he often did) to hide it from him. I put it on that ledge under the cistern coverâyou remember, Luke?âwhere I placed the buckets when I fetched in water.
In a while he staggered out onto the riverbank to check the tide. We knew where he was going. When he came back in, he took his shotgun off the wall but dropped it on the floor. I picked it up for him, astonished to see him drop a weapon, drunk or otherwise.
Praying he might sag down and sleep, I complained that I was wearyâ“Sleep, then, damn you!” Maybe we should wait till daylight to depart. “
We?
You're staying here!” In the doorway, Aunt Josie put a finger to her lips. But desperate to save him from some terrible mistake, I slipped ahead of him into the sailing skiff, which he nearly capsized when he crashed aboard. By that time, he'd forgotten that he'd ordered me to stay behind. Glaring balefully at the full moon, he muttered, “Row then.”
There was no wind. I rowed upriver on the rising tide. Drunk though he was, he had planned for that tide, staying our departure until after midnight. Leaving Possum Key to starboard, I rowed south down Chevelier Bay, and all that hour, silhouetted on the moonlit water, he sat motionless, jutted up in the stern like an old stump. Sometime later, we went ashore on Onion Key. It was still dark when he woke me. Exhausted, I protested: it was not yet daybreak. His silence warned me not to speak again. He had sobered some by now but his mood was ugly.
We descended Lost Man's River on the falling tide as he had planned. I rowed hard anyway just to keep warm. Soon there was breeze. He pointed at the mast and I raised her small canvas. With the dark bulk of him hunched at the tiller, the old skiff whispered through cold mists across broad discs of current, westward over the gray reach of Lost Man's Bay.
At daybreak, we slid the skiff into the mangroves on the inland shore of Lost Man's Key. Telling me to wait there, he set off at once, rounding the point to the Gulf beach. I followed. My teeth chattered in the damp and my voice shook when I nagged him: Why were we sneaking up in darkness? Why not just run them off our claim? Distracted by my pestering, he stepped into a hole and twisted his ankle and cursed violently in pain.
Where Tucker's small sloop on her mooring could be glimpsed through the big sea grape leaves, he dropped two shells into the chambers of his double-barrel. On the beach ridge, a small thatch roof had come in view. One last time, I begged him not to harm them. He fixed me with a look I could not read. Was it contempt? I don't think so. Then he limped forward.
The Tuckers had no lamps; they lay down at dark and rose at daybreak. Wally was already outside, perched on a big driftwood tree mending his cast net. His rifle leaned against the silver trunk beside him. It was too late to warn him: if he laid one finger on that gun he would be killed.
Favoring his bad ankle, your father moved out of the sea grape in stiff short steps like a bristled-up dog. I heard no sound though I was close behind him but Tucker picked up some tiny pinching of the sand. His hand dropped the net needle and flew for his rifle, only to stop short in midair and sink back slowly as he raised his hands.
“You people get the hell off of my claim,” your father saidâsomething like that. He tossed his head toward the shack. “Tell your bitch to clear her trash out before I burn that pigsty to the ground.” Wally Tucker went all pale and blotched like someone slapped, but sensing perhaps that this man had spoken brutally to provoke an attack he only blinked back tears of rage and fear.
“Go get her,” Papa ordered me. “Trot her out here.”
I shook my head. “Please, Papa, I can't do thatâ”
“Oh for Christ's sake. Keep him covered, then,” Papa said, disgusted. He tossed me the shotgun. Hungover and exhausted, he was jumpy, on the point of rage. He drew his revolver and limped toward the shack. Wally whispered, “Please, Rob. Don't let him harm Bet.” I sensed a distraction and backed off a step, yelling, “Don't try it, Wally!” but he had lunged and grasped the barrels. The morning exploded in red haze. In the same moment that I shrieked, your father shouted with great violence. “SHIT!”
Fucking Sonborn! Hadn't he told me not to come? Now we were ruined
âall that was included in that one furious word.
Having spun toward Wally, he had not seen Bet rush outside, clutching a pot. At the sight of her man's body twisting on the sand she moaned and staggered, but she kept her head; she did not run to him but dropped her pot and fled for the shore wood. I see her still, round with child in her white shift, sailing away like a child's balloon over the sand.
I believe murder might have been his intention when he left Chatham Bend, but after he'd sobered during the long hours of the river journeyâwho can say? Perhaps he never knew himself. He looked bewildered, unimaginably weary. He did not rage at my inattention, only said dully, “Damn fool tried to kill us.” He eased himself down like an old man on that same limb on which the dying man twitching on the sand had bent to his mending moments earlier, as if considering how we might start over and relive this sunrise scene in a sane way; he sat with his hands square on his knees, boot toes not five feet from the body, which he didn't look at. Only then did he recall Bet Tucker; he turned in time to glimpse her before she disappeared. Realizing I must have seen her flightâseen it and not warned himâhe said nothing, simply handed me the revolver. Still in shock, I dropped it. He picked it up, thrust it at me again. Imagining that out of his remorse he was inviting me to kill him, I raised and pointed it at his unblinking eyes. “No, Rob,” he said. I lowered the weapon. Would I have shot him? I don't know. In the expression on his face, this man enthroned on the silver tree seemed stranger than any stranger. He had called me Rob.
“He attacked us, you said!”
“Yes, he did. The gun went off by accident. Who will believe that?”
The families on Lost Man's Beach, his voice said urgently, might come to investigate the shot; we could not stay long enough to make a search, we had to catch her quick; if she got too deep into that scrub, we just might lose her. I stared after her, unable to take this in. Then his voice broke through. “You hear me, Rob? We have to finish what we started.”
I could not look at Wally's death throes without retching. My agony burst through. “What
you
started, Papa!”
“I can't catch her,” he said calmly, after getting to his feet, testing his ankle. “I'm too fat and too lame. I'm sorry, boy.”
Swallowing and shivering, teeth chattering, I protested wildly. To shoot Bet Tucker in cold blood would be terrible and crazy, we would burn in Hell! He folded his arms upon his chest, saying, “Well, boy, that is possible. But meanwhile, she is the only witness and if she gets away, we are going to hang.”
All was unbearable, every breath. To run that girl down, put this hard heavy weapon to her head and pull the triggerâI wept helplessly. “Don't make me do that, Papa. I can't do it.”
He was losing patience, though still calm. “Why, sure you can, son,” he told me then, “and you best jump to it. It's her life or ours.” That exhausted look returned into his face. “You are innocent in all this, boy, no matter what becomes of us. But will that save you?” He turned away, looking toward the wood edge. “Too late for tears,” he said.