Shadow Country (7 page)

According to Ebe Carey, both men were drunk. Watson never spoke a word, just kind of nodded, like what the man was saying made good sense. But while he nodded, he was moving toward Santini, and the whole crowd skittered to the side like baby ducklings, that's how fast they made that man some room. And this was before they knew what they know now about Ed Watson.

It was the look on Watson's face that scared 'em, Ebe opined. Mister Watson could cuss him a blue streak when he got aggravated, but the louder he cussed, the easier you felt, knowing he'd end up yelling something so outrageous that he'd bust out laughing. When he was truly angry, his face went tight. That day them blue eyes never blinked but once, Cap'n Carey swore, and that one blink was very, very slow.

The auction room fell still. Watson hadn't touched Santini but he stood too close, having slowly backed him up against a counter. Maybe he hadn't heard too good, he whispered, but it sure sounded like some dirty guinea slander. Would Mr. Santini care to make his meaning plain? Watson's soft voice should of been his warning, but Dolphus was too puffed up to hear the quiet and he probably thought he had this feller buffaloed. He winked at the onlookers and said, “Nosir, our great sovereign State of Florida don't welcome desperaders, Mr. Watson.”

Watson's knife was at his throat before he'd hardly finished. Watson told Santini to get down on his knees and beg his pardon. Santini kneeled but was too scared to speak. Hearing no apology, Watson shrugged, then drew that blade along under his jaw just deep enough to spatter blood onto the cucumbers. Looked calm and careful as a man slitting a melon. But when they grabbed his arms, he just about went crazy, and he was so strong it took four or five men to rassle him to the floor. By the time they got his knife away, the man was giggling. “Dammit all, I'm ticklish!” he told 'em.

Somebody run quick and fetched a doctor, and it was known Santini would survive by the time the news got back to Chokoloskee, though he carried that thick purple scar for life. Later on, Dolphus told his boy that Watson reached around him from behind and cut his throat without no warning. Might be true but that ain't the way Ebe Carey told it.

At the hearing Watson raised up his right hand, swore on the Bible that he never meant to kill Mr. Santini because otherwise it stands to reason that he would have done it. Said this so innocent and so sincere, them blue eyes wide, that the crowd had to laugh to see the indignant Dolphus strangling with rage inside them bandages. Mister Watson paid Santini nine hundred dollars in hard cash not to take the case to court and that was that. But the Monroe County sheriff weren't so sure that justice had been done, so he used his new telegraph machine to see if this man had a record. An Edgar A. Watson was the only man taken to court for the murder of Belle Starr, “Queen of the Outlaws,” in Oklahoma Territory, back in '89, but Edgar A. was killed a few years later in an escape from Arkansas federal prison. However, an Edgar J. had been suspected in a slaying in Arcadia just a few months before Mr. E. J. Watson first turned up in Monroe County. By the time word come to arrest him, ship him back to the Arkansas penitentiary, he was safe at home in Chatham River.

The man killed in Arcadia was named Quinn Bass. Our House family homesteaded in Arcadia a while before we drifted south to Turner River and my pap had knowed the dead man as a boy. From the point of view of his community, he said, that feller might be better off deceased. De Soto County sheriff must of thought so, too, cause he let Ed Watson pay his way into the clear, same as he done in Key West with Santini. Only difference was, Quinn Bass never sat up to count his money.

That's how word got out on the southwest coast that E. J. Watson was a wanted man, which explained why he come to the Islands in the first place. And even though plenty of other men was known to have come to the Everglades frontier for the same reason, folks begun to worry. We felt more at home with common ol' backcountry killers than with some well-dressed desperader out of the Wild West.

Not that anybody put hard questions to this feller. If lawmen was hunting him across four states, that was not our business. His life was his own responsibility and he took it. If any man could of used a change of name, it was Ed Watson, but except for changing “A” to “J,” he was always exactly who he said he was, never denied it and was not ashamed. You had to respect that. He was a hard worker and a generous neighbor, and for many years we done our best to live with him.

Ted Smallwood knowed Ed Watson from their days at Half Way Creek, they was always friendly. Both come here from Columbia County, in the Suwannee River country of north Florida. Ted worked for my dad up Turner River for a while, married our Mamie in '97, bought a small property from Santinis when he went to Chokoloskee that same year. About the only settlers on the island then was Santinis, Browns, Yeomans, and McKinneys. A half dozen families was at Half Way Creek, another half dozen at Everglade, with a few more perched on such high ground as could be found down through the Islands.

C. G. McKinney started out by farming them old Injun mounds back in Turner River. Wonderful black soil but once it was cleared, the full sun killed that land. Burn off another mound, make a fine crop, and the next year it wouldn't grow an onion. McKinney come on to Chokoloskee, built a house and store, got in his supplies from Storters' trading post in Everglade. His billhead said, “No Borrowing, no Loaning, I Must Have Cash to Buy More Hash.” Sold extra-stale bread that he called “wasp nest.” Set up a sawmill and a gristmill, founded the post office, tried his hand at common doctoring without no license, done some dentistry, delivered babies; the kids all thought he brought them babies in that big black satchel.

Mr. McKinney was a educated man who didn't hold with plume hunting. The Frenchman used to rant and rave about plume bird rivals such as Watson but he hollered
“Eepo-creet!”
about McKinney, who went on just one egret hunt, then give it up for good. C. G. seen all them crows and buzzards picking on the nestlings, figured what they'd went and done was not God's will.

Ted felt the same way about plume hunting but he had a blank spot in his heart when it come to gators. The year after he married our Mamie was the great drought year of '98 when a man could take a ox cart across country. Every alligator in the Glades was piled up in the last water holes, and one day out plume hunting, I come on a whole heap of 'em near the head of Turner River. Got wagons and a load of salt, got a gang together and went after 'em. Me'n Ted and a couple others, we took forty-five hundred gators in three weeks from them three holes that join up to make Roberts Lake in rainy season. They was packed so close we didn't waste no bullets, we used axes. Don't reckon them buzzards got them carcasses cleaned up even today. Skinned off the belly skins, what we call flats, floated our flats down Turner River to George Storter's trading post at Everglade and got good money. That year Cap'n Bembery Storter's
Bertie Lee
carried ten thousand flats up to Fort Myers out of that one hole, and after that, it was war against the gators. Hides was coming from all over, deer and otter, too. Trader Bill Brown from Immokalee, he brung in one hundred eight otter on one trip, got a thousand dollars for 'em, along with gator flats by the oxwagon load. Another trip he hauled twelve hundred seventy flats into Fort Myers after selling eight hundred there not three weeks before. Said he'd brain every last gator in the Glades before he'd see one wasted. Thousands of God's creatures was laying out there skinned and rotting before we seen that even gators can't stand up to massacres. The gator trade was pretty close to finished.

Them wilder Injuns up the southwest rivers was close to finished, too, though they didn't know it. Injuns, now, they never had good guns nor traps, and bein lazy and not greedy, they only took enough to trade for what they needed. They never killed 'em out, not the way we done.

Ted Smallwood never cared to say if all that slaughter was in God's service or not, but he sure had some nice cash set aside, cause pretty soon he bought the whole Santini claim on Chokoloskee. Santinis being one of our pioneer families, some folks was surprised to see 'em pull up stakes. Dolphus's brother's wife's sister was Netta Daniels who had a child by Watson, and maybe that time at Key West, Dolphus said something ugly about Watson's morals that he wished he hadn't. Anyway he sold his place, sailed around to the east coast at the Miami River, about as far from E. J. Watson as he could get.

ERSKINE THOMPSON

Mister Watson had a wife and children but never said too much about 'em in front of my mother, Henrietta Daniels, who come to keep house for us at the Bend the year before. I thought they must be crazy to get into the same bed the way they done first night she got there but she said she loved him and she went ahead and had his child. Also she brought along Tant Jenkins, her half brother, skinny as a fish pole with black curly hair. That day Mister Watson come home so excited, Tant was off hunting in the Glades. He snuck upriver every time Mister Watson went away, left the chores to me.

Henrietta—he called her Netta—was setting there on the front stoop, her little Min hitched to her bosom, and I'm down at the dock helping with the lines. Mister Watson ain't hardly tossed the bow line before he hollers, “Netta honey, you best start thinking about packing up, I have my people coming!” And he laughed out loud about the happy turn his life had taken.

Mister Watson was so overjoyed that he clean forgot about our feelings. I didn't know where to look, that's how shamed I was for me and my mother both. After two years, Chatham Bend was home, the first real family home I ever knew. I seen Mister Watson kind of as my dad and he let me think so, that's how kind he treated me.

My mother was good-hearted, never mind her loose bosom and blowsy ways. When she first come to Chatham Bend, I already been on my own for a few years, so she seemed more like an older sister. With her and Min and Tant and Mister Watson, we made a regular family at the table, we got to feeling we belonged someplace. And here he was fixing to toss her out like some ol' shiftless nigger woman and his own baby daughter along with her. Me'n Tant'd have to start all over with no place to go.

I felt all thick and funny. When he swung that crate of stores up off the boat deck and across to me, I banged it down onto the dock so hard that a slat busted. That
bang
was somewhat louder than I wanted and the noise surprised him cause his hand shot for his pocket. Then he straightened slow, picked up another crate, carried it off the boat hisself, and set it carefully on the dock longside the other.

“Swallowed a frog, boy? Spit it out.”

I set my hat forward on my head and spit too close to them Western boots he wore when he went up to town. Scared myself so bad I couldn't talk knowing my voice would come out pinched or all gummed up; I give him a dirty look and stacked the crates, to let him know Erskine R. Thompson was here to do his work and didn't have no time for palaver.

He was waiting. Stone eyes, no expression. Put me in mind of a big ol' bear I seen with Tant one early evening back of Deer Island, raring up out of the salt prairie to stare. It's like Tant says, a bear's face is stiff as wood. He never looks mean or riled, not till his ears go back, he just looks
bear
down to the bone, that's how intent he is on his bear business. Mister Watson had that bear-faced way which let you know he had said his piece and weren't going to repeat it and didn't aim to take no silence for no answer.

I couldn't look him in the eye. “You want me to tote this crate or what?” But my sassy voice come out all squeaky so I cleared my throat and spat again just to show who didn't give a good goddamn. Mister Watson gazes at his boot, nodding his head, like inspecting another feller's spit is common courtesy. Then he's looking me over again, still waiting.

“Well, heck now, Mister Watson, sir, ain't you the daddy of that baby girl up in the house? Ain't
we
your people, too?”

He blinks for the first time, then turns his gaze away like he can't stand the sight, same way that bear done when it give a
woof
and swung down to all fours and moved off into the bushes. He steps back over to the deck and swings me another crate, hard to the chest. “What I'll do,” he says, “is train my oldest boy to do your job—”

“I knew it! Gettin rid of us—”

He raised his palm to still me. “And you and Tant can run the boat. I'll need a full-time crew.”

He seen the tears jump to my eyes before I could turn away. Know what he done? Mister Watson stepped over to the dock and took me by the shoulders, turned me around, looked at me straight. He seen right through me. “Erskine,” he says, “you are not my son but you are my partner and my friend. And Ed Watson needs every friend that he can find.” Then he roughed my hair and went off whistling to make his peace with Henrietta Daniels.

I picked up a crate, set it down again, turning away to dab my eyes with my bandanna in case they was laughing at me from the house. At sixteen years of age, a man could not be seen to cry. For a long time I stood there, thumbs looped into my belt, frowning and nodding like I might be planning out ship's work. My first plan was, I would be the captain. Tant might be four years older and a better hunter but he wouldn't never want the responsibility.

That afternoon, to get away from Henrietta, Mister Watson brung his hoe into the cane. Me and the niggers clearing weeds was near sunk by the heat and Mister Watson outworked everybody. Sang all about “the bonnie blue flag that flies the single star,” and straightened only long enough to sing the bugle part—
boopety-boopety-poo! tee-boopet, tee-boopet, tee-boopet, tee-poo!—
as he marched around us, hoe over his shoulder like a musket.

Mister Watson usually wore a striped shirt with no collar that Henrietta sewed him from rough mattress ticking. Never took his shirt off, not even when it stuck to them broad shoulders, but no ticking weren't thick enough to hide the shoulder holster that showed through when he got sweated. Even out there in the cane, he had that gun where he could lay his hand on it. Never hid it from the niggers, neither; they hoed harder. “Keeping your shirt on in the field is just good manners,” he said. “You never know when you might have a visitor.”

Tant spoke up. “From the North?” Mister Watson turned and looked at him then said, “Don't outsmart yourself,” which wiped the smile off that boy's face almost till supper.

That was the day that Mister Watson, chopping a tough root with his hoe, swung back hard and struck me up longside the head. Next thing, I was laying on the ground half-blind with blood, and them scared niggers backing off like I'd been murdered. Mister Watson went right ahead, finished off that root with one fierce chop—“
That
got her!”—then stepped over and picked me up, set me on my feet. Blood all over and my head hurt bad. “Got to give a man room, boy, that's the secret.” Never said he was sorry, just told me to go get Netta to stick on a plaster.

Henrietta was caterwauling in the kitchen. “I bore his
child
!” she howled, jouncing poor Min, kicking hens, and banging a tin pot of sweet potatoes on the stove. When my mother seen my bloody face, she gasped straight off, “He done that a-purpose!” That scoundrel was out to murder her poor boy, she concluded, having heard tell that he had killed in other parts. She was taking me straight back to Caxambas was what she yelled as he come up on the back porch. “Don't
never
turn your back on that red devil!” Folks might say that Netta Daniels was short on good sense as well as morals but no one ever said she lacked for spirit.

Mister Watson paid her no mind whatsoever. He washed his head at our new hand pump from the cistern—the only pump down in the Islands at that time, we was pretty proud about it. But when he straightened up to mop his face, them blue eyes sparking like flints over the towel, he caught me gawking at the dark place under his arm where the sweat outlined his weapon. He held the towel there under his eyes until Henrietta stopped her sputtering, started to whimper. Then he snapped it down, gleeful cause he'd scared her. He got out his private jug of our cane liquor and sat down to it at a table in the other room, keeping his back into the corner same as always.

For once, she was too scared to nag him for tilting chairs back and weakening the legs—her way of showing what good care she took.
Home Is Where the Heart Is At
was needlework hung on our parlor wall to make things cozy and hint what a good wife she would make a man of taste who could appreciate the fine points.

Mister Watson took him a long pull and sighed like that old manatee when Tant shot her baby calf for sea pork. Finally he whispered, “Mind that loose tongue, Netta. Even a red devil gets hurt feelings.”

She pulled me out onto the porch. “I ain't leaving you alone with that man, Erskine!” She was whispering loud in case he might be deaf, and he made a funny bear growl for his answer; he was laughing at us. “You're coming home with me, young man, and that is
that
!”—the very first time since I was born that Henrietta ever planned to take me anyplace. She never even brought me here, it was me brought
her,
and she didn't have no home no more'n I did.

“Home,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Where's home at? Where the heart is?” I felt meaner'n piss.

“That nice needlework come down in our own family!”

“
What
family?”

“
Our
family! Your grandma married Mr. Ludis Jenkins that pioneered on Chokoloskee twenty years ago! Jenkinses and Weekses and Santinis!”

Old Man Ludis never come to nothing, I knew that much, Jenkinses neither. Had enough of it one day and blew his brain out. I said, “Tant's daddy weren't no kin to me at all.”

Tears come to my young mother's eyes, made me feel wishful. All the same I whispered, “I ain't leavin, Netta.” And she said, “Don't you dare to disobey, you are my child!” And I said, “Since when?” That hurt her feelings, too. Anyway—I am still whispering—“I ain't no kid no more, I am the new captain of that schooner.” “Since when?” she said, rubbing the blood off my hair too rough, like she was scraping vegetables. “Look out!” I yell, “I ain't no sweet potato!” “Since
when
?” she said. We break out giggling like kids, our nerves, I guess. She hugs me then and cries some more, wondering where her and Little Min would go to starve to death.

I went all soft and lonesome then and hugged her, too. I missed somebody real bad but didn't rightly know who it could be. I ain't so sure I found out to this day but it sure ain't Jesus. Mister Watson was the one cured me of
that.

“Called her Minnie after his rotten old sister. I hate that name and Min will hate it, too.”

When Mister Watson is drinking, his silence comes right through the wall. That talk about his sister Minnie made me nervous and I hushed her.

“Get in here, Captain.” Mister Watson's voice was so low and hard that Henrietta clapped her mouth, her big eyes round. Had that man heard us? As Tant says, Mister Ed J. Watson could hear a frog fart in a hurricane. That don't come so much from hunting as from being hunted.