As the ladies hissed and shushed, their elderly men scratched thin silvery ears, cracked knobby knuckles. Lucius tried to smile. He had expected that resistance would be doughty. After all, Watson Redeemed was a far less colorful figure than Desperado Watson, who was not to be reduced to the common clay by some scholarly recital of dull virtues.
An old man in red galluses and a green shirt buttoned right to the gullet stood up and removed his hat. “I'm Preston Brown, age ninety-four,” he told the hall. “Had me a stroke so I ain't as good as what I was but most days I got some idea what I am talking about. And these old eyes seen Ed J. Watson in the flesh many's the time, and this old hand shook his'n, and they ain't too many in this hall can say the same.
“Now Ed J. Watson and young Tucker had a run-in so Watson went down to Lost Man's Key and killed him. For many years you could see the blood on that old driftwood tree. Tucker's nephew tried to hide back in the mangroves but Watson sent his boy Eddie in to finish him.”
Before Lucius could object, Owen Harden scraped his chair back and rose to challenge Brown. “You old-timers been trading that nephew tale for years and it's all wrong.”
The old man squared around to glare at Owen. “Wrong?” He seemed to be sucking on his tongue tip. “I bet you're a Harden, aint'cha.”
“Wally Tucker and his wife Bet were good friends of my family at Lost Man's,” Owen continued. “No nephew weren't involved in it at all.”
“One them damn Hardens,” a voice said loudly, but when Owen looked around the room, no one met his eye. In a level voice he said, “Any man who cares to tell me to my face why he don't like Hardens can find me right outside after the show.” His tone was quiet but it carried nonetheless, like a voice from far away across open water.
In the stir and murmur, Mud Braman spoke up from the doorway, “Hell,
we
know Owen Harden. Ain't one thing wrong with that boy that a bullet wouldn't cure.” Everyone laughed including Owen, who sat down, waving his hand in salute to Mud over his shoulder.
Preston Brown was unperturbed. “Been fishin and guidin down around Lost Man's all my life. Knew Ed Watson, fished with his younger boy many's the time. Had him a nice round-stern cedar skiff. Liked his whiskey, too. Still does, I reckon.” The old man peered hard at the speaker.
“Killed that plume bird warden right while I was livin at the Bend.” snarled the man in the stained Panama hat. Though he would not face Lucius as he spoke, Lucius recognized Nell's father, Fred O. Dyer. “I was foreman on his cane plantation. Ed was over to Flamingo. Word about him murderin Guy Bradley got back before he did so I packed my family aboard the mail boat, got away from there.”
“Heck, I knowed Bradley,” Old Brown said. “Plume-hunted right alongside us fellers but went over to wardenin. Aimed to clap Watson in the jail and so Ed shot him.”
Lucius said sharply, “Mr. Brown? Guy Bradley was murdered by a plume hunter named Walter Smith.”
“Cap'n Walt Smith! That is correct! Got turned loose at Key West cause word had got around it was Watson done it.”
“That's wrong, too,” Lucius snapped, regretting the sharp tone that was casting a pall over the room. “And another correction, sir, if you don't mind. His son Eddie was still a schoolboy in Fort Myers. He was nowhere near Lost Man's when the Tuckers died.”
“Yep! Eddie Watson! Sure as I am settin here this evenin!”
Lucius gazed bleakly at the audience, appealing to its good sense. “You see? These tales are passed down from our parents and grandparents and we just repeat them, until finally errors become legend.”
“Who the hell is
we
?” a man's voice called. “You come from around here?”
“He sure does!” Fred Dyer hauled himself up straight again and pointed a bent arthritic claw. “That's Watson's younger boy! That's Lucius! Standin right there under them false pretenses!” He glared wildly around, seeking support, and again his neighbors turned away as if deaf to him.
Old Brown brooded. “Yep. Young Ed helped his daddy kill 'em, like I said. Thems that told me had no reason to lie so no dang professor can't just walk in here and call 'em liars.” The crowd muttered approval as Brown said accusingly, “He's coverin up for Eddie, looks like, cause it sure weren't Colonel done it. I knowed Colonel all my life, he been on my boat about a thousand times. Liked hard spirits, visited all the bars. I had nothin against spirits, I was in there, too. Nicer feller you would never want to meet. And you know somethin funny?” Preston Brown pointed at the podium. “This man talkin to us here puts me in mind of him.”
“Ain't that what
I
said? Jesus!” Querulous, Fred Dyer took his hat off, scratched his scalp, put it back on again.
“It wasn't Eddie and it wasn't Colonel, Mr. Brown,” Lucius said gently. He glanced toward the night windows and asked Rob's forgiveness. “If E. J. Watson killed those Tuckers, and if he was not alone, the only conceivable witness was his oldest boy, who disappeared.”
“How's that? I ain't never heard about no older boy.” Like a helmsman peering through the fog, Preston Brown raised three fingers as a brim over his eyes to study this dang know-it-all up on the podium. “Yep! Got it wrote right here on my program, âL.
Watson
Collins'âthat's the Watson part.” The audience fretted and shifted, scratched and coughed.
“L. Watson Collins is a pen name,” Lucius said, lifting his gaze to the room as it fell silent. He scanned the audience, taking a deep breath. “Mr. Dyer was correct: I'm Lucius Watson. E. J. Watson was my father.”
The silence burst. A woman shrilled, “I knew it! I just
knew
it!” A man's voice hailed him, “Hey there, Colonel. How
you
been doin, Colonel? I been tellin the wife how much you looked like you.” At this, Hoad Storter in the front row shared a smile with Lucius. In his bright yellow sweater, Hoad looked like a seated lemon.
A lady near the back held up his history. “If you are Lucius Watson, how come you're ashamed to use your rightful name on your own book?”
The hall hummed with excitement. Old Brown tried to recapture the floor. “He's just makin it up about that older brother! It was
Eddie
!”
“Tell that cock-eyed old idjit to sit down and shut up!”
Rob's shout had come from the doorway behind Crockett Junior and the others, who ran out after him. Excusing himself, Lucius jumped down from the stage, ran up the aisle, but by the time he made his way outside, they were all gone. He returned frustrated, making his way back toward the front.
In his absence, voices had arisen.
“Well, what we heard when we was comin up, Killer Cox snuck back into the Glades, lived with the Injuns, him bein part of a Injun hisself.”
“Might be in there yet! No tellin who's skulkin around back in them rivers, and they ain't many has went in there to find out.”
“âso Colonel says, âIf you dang feds set fire to this Watson house to clear the way for your dang park, you will have to set fire to a Watson.' We sure don't want ol' Colonel going up in smoke!”
“Nosir, it weren't nobody but Henry Short killed Watson, way I heard it. Put his bullets in so close you could lay a dollar bill acrost the holesâ”
“Thing of it is, Short were a colored man. Still is, far as I ever heard about it. Nigger Shortâ”
“
Henry
Short,” called Lucius, reclaiming his place at the podium.
Old Brown was still standing, fingers working the back of the folding chair in front of him, life fluids all aglimmer in his eyes; he would not sit down, as if afraid that his decrepit corpus might never again propel him to his feet. Raising his hand, he cleared his old throat thoroughly by way of commanding audience attention to an oft-told tale about Ed Watson and the sheriff 's deputy. This time Lucius cut him off, reminding the audience that, as a historian, he had to discard undocumented anecdotes, however intriguing.
When Old Man Brown, his tale discounted, suddenly sat down, the faces pinched closed like frost-killed buds and chairs creaked loudly in disapproval. By questioning an elder's recollections, the speaker had undermined local tradition, and now his audience made it plain that any diminishment of the Bloody Watson legend, even by his son, would not be tolerated. In twos and threes and then in rows, the audience rose with a loud barging of chairs and moved off toward the exits.
Lucius hailed their backs: “Good night!” His E. J. Watson evening had spun into a shambles. To avoid confrontations, he remained at the podium, pretending to shuffle notes into some sort of order as Hoad came forward to confirm their plan to dine at the new fishing lodge in Everglade in the next day or two.
Last to depart was Nell's father, who limped past in syphilitic shuffle, evading the speaker's eye. When Lucius followed him up the aisle and touched his elbow, he swung around, alarmed, then backed like a crayfish into the space between two rows of chairs.
“I'm surprised you recalled me, Mr. Dyer,” Lucius said. “I wasn't much more than fifteen when you left the Bend.” Scowling, the man emerged from the row and continued on his way with Lucius in attendance. “Your son's not here?” Lucius inquired. “I kind of expected him.”
“He's your damned kin, not mine.” Fred Dyer looked him in the eye for the first time. “What's he up to anyways? Cold-hearted sonofabitch! Couple months ago, he tracks me down where I'm drinkin, orders me a round while he sits there suckin on his sarsaparilla. Says you still telling people I'm Ed Watson's son?
Hell, yes!
You willing to make that statement in a affidavit?
Hell, yes!
Next thing I know, there's a legal paper slapped down on the bar.
âIt is the opinion and sincere belief of the undersigned Frederick O. Dyer that the infant male christened Watson Dyer, born December 4 of 1894, at Fort Myers Florida, is the natural son of the planter E. J. Watson of Chatham River.
' ” He shook his greasy head. “Them words on that legal paper burned into my brain, what I got left of it, although I been saying the same damned thing for years. And now this feller who threatened to sue anybody who even hinted such a thing has turned around, got me to certify he's Watson's bastard. Made it official.”
Fred Dyer seemed bewildered, even a little hurt. “I said, âFor Christ's sake, Wattie, what's this all about? Ain't this here a little late in life?' And he puts his arm across my shoulders where I'm settin on my stool, says, âFred, I'm tired of living a damn lie and I bet you feel the same.' First time he ever touched me, let alone called me Fred. Looked real lost and pathetical, so I felt sad, too, and signed his paper. When I look up again, my ex-son is grinning like a alligator. Tucked away that paper quick and disappeared. Never paid my whiskey nor said thanks, never give me so much as a wave good-bye.”
At the door of the hall, Fred Dyer yanked his bent straw down on a head of yellowed silver hair that straggled over his soiled collar. “You was always a nice young feller, Lucius, but from what I heard, you never done right by my daughter.”
Lucius said, “I aim to do right by her from now on, sir, if she'll have me . . .”
“Ever try askin her?” With a sour look, Fred O. Dyer moved away under the streetlights.
ATTORNEY WATSON WATSON
Outside, Crockett Junior loomed at his elbow. “Where's my brother?” Lucius demanded. The big man seized his arm and yanked him toward the street where a black car waited with its motor running. The front passenger door swung open. Crockett pushed him in and, careless of his ankles, slammed the door behind him.
“Your crazy brother tried to kill me,” Watson Dyer said, easing his car forward.
“That's nonsense. All he did was shoot out your rear tires.”
“We'll see,” Dyer said. He drove his black car to the oceanfront, stopping just short of the beach edge and leaving the motor running. Beyond the sparkle of small breakers, a moon-spun silver swath of sea extended westward to the lowest stars above the Gulf horizon. Gazing straight into the earth galaxy for minute after minute, Watt Dyer saw nothing but his windshield, Lucius guessed: he looked sealed off, impervious to wonder, his window rolled tight against the fresh sea air. “Brother Lucius knows all about my shot-out tires. Brother Lucius was a witness.” Dyer turned to look at him. In the bad light of an old-fashioned street lamp, his moon face was moon-colored. “Brother Lucius could go to federal prison as an aider and abettor because he knew Robert B. Watson was armed and dangerous and he did not stop him.”
“I hadn't realized he was armed and I don't believe he's dangerous. Reckless, maybe. Otherwise quite harmless.”
“Escaped convict? Attemped murder? No court will ever call that âharmless.' ” Dyer's bloodless hands clenched the wheel tighter and his eyes closed in that slow tortoise blink. He said, “We have him. If he is delivered to the authorities, he'll be returned to prison and resentenced with due consideration of his prior conviction and escape. He will die in federal custody. Whereas if his brother cooperates, the law might settle for that black lunatic with the carving knife. Teach that kind of smart-mouth nigger a good lesson. Nice tight case. Plenty of witnesses saw him storming out and can testify to his aggressive state of mind.” He watched Lucius's face.
Lucius said, “But
another
eyewitness in the parking lot spotted a white man shooting at the victim's car from a hotel window; saw him plenty well enough to testify that it wasn't some big black man in a white cook's outfit who got loose some way on the sixth floor.” He turned to meet Dyer's eye. “Anyway, you don't know Rob. He'll never let that black man go to jail for him. He feels bad enough that we got him fired.”
“That your testimony?” Dyer glared in disbelief. “You'd let your long-lost brother get locked up for the rest of his life just to save some black maniac who assaulted a white man with a carving knife? Slit his stomach?” He drew his power-of-attorney form out of his briefcase. “We both know you're not going to sacrifice Robert so why don't you just sign this and shut up.”