Shadow Country

by Peter Matthiessen

  “You can’t promise that. And if a mob gets to me first, I’ll get no chance to clear my name.” He hauled a small flask from his pocket, found two blue tin cups. “Deputize me, Sheriff. I’ll go get the man you want.”

  “He’s still there?”

  “No way to get off. John Smith can’t run a boat, can’t even swim, and he’s dead scared of the water. Doesn’t know where the nigra went, doesn’t know anything went wrong. I can come right up on him because he won’t suspect me.”

  “Something went wrong, then?”

  “If you were John Smith and the only witness to your crimes got away to Pavilion Key and shot his mouth off, I reckon you might conclude something went wrong.”

  “If I was Ed Watson, I might feel the same.” I paused. “Mr. Watson, you are under arrest.”

  Grimly he considered me. “Am I a suspect, then? I wasn’t even there.”

  “Your nigger said you were behind it.”

  “ ‘Nigger said.’ That good enough for a Lee County jury?”

  “Why don’t you use John Smith’s real name, Mr. Watson?”

  “Because he don’t.”

  “What was his motive?”

  “That boy don’t need a motive. Not to kill.”

  “Yet you kept him at Chatham Bend with your wife and children.”

  “They stayed away.” He shrugged. “Owed him a favor.”

  “You still owe him? Why should you be trusted as a deputy?”

  He picked up my weapon, making a face as if to say, You’re asking too many stupid questions for a man at the wrong end of this revolver. He sipped a little. “Tastes like some lawless sonofabitch been distilling my good syrup.”

  I spoke carefully. “You’re resisting arrest. You have disarmed and abducted the Lee County sheriff. You want a fair hearing, Mr. Watson, you better stop breaking the law.” I was talking too much and too fast because he made me nervous.

  “Look,” he said, suddenly impatient. “I traveled to Fort Myers in a hurricane to report a dreadful crime. I wanted to tell you my side of the story before a damn mob put a rope around my neck. If I was guilty, would I chase after the law?”

  “In Fort Myers, I have no jurisdiction, as you know. And you have family and friends—”

  “My daughter’s friends. They’ll do their best to get me off to avoid a family scandal, yes, but it’s a gamble.” Watson offered the flask. I shook my head. “I thought about running. Very simple. Railroad north or a ship out of Key West.” He looked up. “Where would I go this time?” He shook his head. “I’m tired of running. Anyway, I’m innocent.”

  We sat silent for a time, listening to the schooner creak against the pilings, the clack and rustle of her rigging. Over by the store, torn metal banged on metal.

  “I never told Cox to kill those people. You ask about his motive—how about mine? I have the best plantation in the Islands. Most every household, Tampa to Key West, uses my syrup. One day you’ll find it on every table in the country.” He paused. “I have grown children, pretty grandchildren, a fine young woman for my wife and three new kids. I have a land claim pending and a great plan for developing this coast. Emperor Watson! Ever heard of him?” He grinned briefly. “Why would Emperor Watson ruin his imperial prospects?”

  The ship lifted and banged.

  “It’s no dream, Frank. I get things done and I know powerful people. I know Governor Broward. Hell, I knew Nap Broward at Key West back in the days he was running guns on the Three Brothers. He came to my rescue in north Florida and he’ll help again.”

  “Mr. Watson?” I cleared my throat. “The governor is dead.”

  Shocked despite himself, he raised his gaze, making sure I had told the truth. “That’s too bad,” he said then, seemingly indifferent. “You met the Chicago railroad man, John Roach? Bought Deep Lake with Walt Langford for growing citrus?” Watson sat back, eyes alive and shining. “Those men have as much as promised that if I stay out of trouble, I’ll take over there as manager, because Deep Lake has serious labor problems, transport problems, and I have ideas. As John Roach told my son-in-law, any planter who can prosper on forty acres of hard shell mound way to Hell and gone down in the mangrove rivers, there’s no limit to what such a man could do with three hundred acres of black loam at Deep Lake!” He was nodding to himself. “No limit,” he repeated. “With new canals draining Okeechobee and the Glades, you’re going to see modern agriculture across this state and I’ll be in on it. Why would I risk such a great future by doing something stupid at the Bend?”

  He sounded reasonable, sincere, yet something was very wrong. Did he really think coldblooded murder was merely “stupid”?

  “I want my children proud instead of nervous and ashamed. I want my Carrie proud.” He eyed me carefully, nodding a little, and I saw he had always known I loved his daughter. “If I was the killer some folks say, do you think my family would be loyal? The only man against me is the biggest crook in southwest Florida. Uses the law to break the law.” Holding my eye, he nodded. “I bet you don’t like him any more than I do, Sheriff.”

  “Weren’t for Jim Cole, you might have been hung up north, from what I hear.”

  “Rigged the jury, that what you heard? Probably did. Spared Langfords a big scandal and got damned well paid for it.” He continued drunkenly, as if suddenly determined to make things worse. “Pays you, too, I hear.” He cocked his eye. “Slave labor at Deep Lake?”

  Sending county road-gang labor to Deep Lake to help our friend Walt Langford had been Cole’s suggestion. But the original idea, Cole told me once, came directly from this man across the table.

  “I can’t wait for Deep Lake,” he was saying. “Know what Glades drainage means? A big road across the state and development of both coasts in your lifetime.” Wind-whipped sand from the bare yard scoured the schooner cabin. His gaze searched my eyes. “But not in Ed Watson’s lifetime—that what you’re thinking?” He drank off his cup.

  “We’re wasting time. Why would I want those people dead? Hell, they were friends of mine. Miss Hannah? Green? Some days I even liked young Dutchy!” His voice was rising. “Think I don’t know the rumors? Sure I have debts. Those lawyers ruined me. But killing off hands on payday—that’s not going to help! I’m a businessman, dammit. I pay my goddamned bills. Ask Storters. Smallwoods.” In his despair, he seemed to lose his thread. “Just deputize me. I’ll take care of Cox.”

  “Deputize a man pointing a gun at me?”

  Watson opened his hand, let my cartridges roll across the table, then extended my revolver. He extended it barrel first, pointed straight at me. I pocketed the cartridges, then I took hold of the barrel. For a moment he did not let go. “All right, Frank? Yes or no?”

  “If Cox is taken alive,” I said, “it becomes your word against his, and his word might get you hung even if you’re innocent. If I deputize you, you can go kill him legally or help him escape.”

  Disgusted, he released the revolver. “Don’t try reloading.” He took up his own weapon. I rose carefully to my feet. “Mr. Watson, you are under arrest.” I stuck my hand out to receive his gun. “Your clean record in Lee County will help, of course—”

  “Just shut your stupid mouth, all right?”

  Waving me ahead of him onto the deck, Watson turned his back as he closed the door behind him. Was he inviting me to jump him, try to overpower him? To the back of his head, I said, “If you go down there and shoot Cox, you’ll be making a bad mistake. You’ll be suspected of those murders and charged with a new one.”

  Watson said, “You’re a fucking idiot.” Seeing his expression, I was suddenly so scared I had to piss. “Just trot over to the store,” he said, contemptuous, “and don’t look back.”

  In a stew of bad emotions, I crossed the moonlit sand. Before going inside to brave the questions, I reloaded my gun, peering about into the night. My nerve had unraveled, I was exhausted. I had no idea where he had gone and no stomach for pursuit. I should go back to Fort Myers, wait for t
he Monroe sheriff, find some deputies. Whatever I did, Ed Watson would reach Chatham Bend with a three-day head start.

  In the heavy wash of seas in the night channel, I pissed my fear and my defeat into the roaring dark.

  MAMIE SMALLWOOD

  When E. J. Watson came back south on October 21st, he was red-eyed with hard travel, looked half crazy with exhaustion; his eyes were dull and his teeth mossy, and that shiny auburn hair looked dank and dead. While Ted fueled his boat, he stretched out on our long counter with his revolver on his chest, breathing heavy, one eye on the door. Told us Sheriff Tippins had refused to deputize the only man who could come up on John Smith unsuspected so he had no choice but to deputize himself. We advised him to shoot Smith down same as a panther or a wolf, and he said he needed a few buckshot loads to put a stop to that mean varmint. (By this time, of course, we knew from Wilson Alderman that John Smith’s real name was Leslie Cox.)

  Back then, most shotgun shells were paper-wrapped so all we had were storm-soaked loads, all swollen. “These ain’t the shells you want when you go man-hunting!” Ted told him. And E. J. said, “If these are the best you’ve got, they will do fine.” Which my brother Bill would take to mean he weren’t too serious about shooting Leslie Cox.

  That day Bill was working at House Hammock. When Daddy House and Charley Johnson, a few others, showed up with a plan to arrest him, he had his double-barrel out where the men could see it, said he’d come too far to tolerate interference. He called to Edna, “I’ll be back for your birthday, sweetheart!” as if to warn them not to try to stop him. Picked up the gun, walked down to the shore kind of sideways, pushed off in his boat.

  Daddy House, who had some dander, called out, “If you are aiming to come back, you better bring Cox with you.” Ed Watson said, “Is that a warning, Mr. House?” And Daddy said, “Take it any way you want to, Mr. Watson.” E. J. didn’t like that, not one bit. “Dead or alive?” he said, and Daddy said, “I reckon dead will do.” And Watson said, “If I don’t bring him, I will bring his head. That good enough?” Gunned his motor loud to drown out Daddy’s answer.

  If that feller had one bit of sense, we’d seen the last of him, those men promised one another, same as they did earlier that week. Maybe we were finished with him but he weren’t finished with us, I thought, not with his family left behind for hostage.

  E. J. was hardly out of sight when Edna felt a shift in the air like a cold draft through the door crack. Folks moved out of her way, wouldn’t meet her eye. It got so bad she couldn’t let her kids out of her sight for fear they might be harmed. The silence that followed that poor body all around our ruined island was nothing but pure fear turning to hate—fear of her husband and his murdering outlaws, and more fear yet because her being here with his three children might draw that devil back. All of a sudden they resented this fool girl who had never learned what bloody breed of man fathered her children—that’s what Mama and some other biddies took to muttering. And coldest of all, poor Edna told me after it was over, were those fair-weather Watson friends where she and her kids were lodged.

  HENRY SHORT

  On that first Black Monday come three murders at the Bend. Second Monday, that was the Great Hurricane. Third was Monday October 24th of 1910, goin on toward evening.

  House men was ready. Hearing that boat, Old Mist’ Dan and his three boys loaded their guns and headed over to the shore. Mis Ida waved me to the cookhouse, told me to go with ’em. Look after Mist’ Dan, she said, on account he was all agitated, fired up, might take and do some foolishness, get her boys killed. But it was her was agitated, not Mist’ Dan. Mr. D. D. House always knew just what he wanted, he had set like glue.

  I stood there looking straight ahead like I was hit by lightning. No nigger had no business over there, she knew that, but being so frightened for her men, she never cared what fool thing she told a colored man to do.

  When I started to foller ’em, Mis Ida called after me, “Where is your rifle, Henry? You take that rifle, hear?” I was so scared I sagged down to my knees, went to rolling my eyes back like some gospel nigger.

  “No ma’am, no please no, Mis Ida, Mist’ Dan ain’t told me come! Ain’t no place for no nigger with no shootin iron, no, ma’am!”

  Miz Ida got all flustered up and angry. Commenced to hollering how I owed my life to Houses on account Mist’ Dan done saved this colored child back up the Georgia road and raised him up in a fine Christian family. Was this the gratitude they got? Those was the words I was most afraid of—how these kin’ly white folks saved this pickaninny’s life so the very least that he could do was give it back.

  Miz Ida sunk down a-weeping and a-praying, got the Good Lord on her side for sure. I known right then that Henry Short was done for. I mumbled, “Yes’m,” went to fetch my old Winchester .30-30, which I kept oiled and polished up like new. “See there!” she yelled. “ ’Member how Mr. House give you that rifle, Henry? How he done spoiled you? So mind you load it good! You never know!”

  Oh I knew, I knew.

  As I passed the store, Mist’ Smallwood warned me I was making a mistake, but being a nigger, I never had no choice. I was praying, praying, praying for some sign. All I wanted was some place I could hide out from life till I was safe again. In them days, his safety was all a black man could ask for.

  BILL HOUSE

  When I got back from House Hammock, Mamie told me that Watson came through and some men collected and our dad told Watson he must wait there for the sheriff. Watson declared he’d seen him just the day before at Marco, said unless they stood aside, the killer Cox was going to escape. Claimed it was his bounden duty to them good friends that perished on his property to straighten out that blood-splattered sonofabitch once and for all. They never realized his shotgun was empty all the while he was bluffing them to let him go. My dad still wanted to arrest him, put a stop to Ed J. Watson once and for all, but none of them others had the stomach for it. Not till his boat was under way and disappearing out of sight did the men start in about how they would of grabbed him but for this and that and how they aimed to take care of him the very next time he tried his tricks around these parts. That sheepish bunch that was aiming to detain Ed Watson lined up instead to wave good-bye. He had talked his way into the clear again, just like he done so many times before. That feller was a borned politician, could of got to be president if he stayed sober and didn’t shoot nobody on the train to Washington, D.C.

  Daddy House was hopping mad. Naturally he blamed his stupid son for staying at House Hammock to clean up after the storm the way he told me to. Said his fool neighbors was “bamboozled” by Ed Watson, as if he weren’t nothing but some bystander. Already—because they wanted it so bad—those neighbors had convinced themselves that if Ed did not kill Cox, Cox would kill Ed, and either way this coast had seen the last of ’em. Never occurred to ’em that Watson might of went straight to the Bend to help his partner make his getaway. When two days went by and he never come back, a story spread that he’d carried Cox down to Florida Bay and across to the Key West railroad, which laid rail that year as far south as Long Key: heading north up the east coast was their best chance of escape. So long as Watson lit out with Cox, maybe we could just forget about them murders, that was their thinking, though they never owned up to that out loud. It wasn’t justice folks was after but a good night’s sleep.

  We was just ordinary people that didn’t care to go up against no desperader; we was grateful to be buffaloed out of a showdown if E. J. Watson would just go away and keep on going.

  Our house was not far east of Smallwood’s store. When that pop-pop-pop come on the south wind toward the dusk, Daddy straightened up to listen, set his chisel down. “That’s him,” he said.

  With no sign of the damned sheriff, we was obliged to arrest the man ourselves. We had talked it out. Daddy and me and Dan Junior and Lloyd loaded our rifles and went on down to Smallwood’s landing. My father-in-law, Jim Howell, who lost his house in the hurricane, come along so
on after. By the end of it, eighteen to twenty was there, almost all the Island men and a few others visiting. Some might of only carried guns so’s not to be thought cowards by the rest; others, I ain’t saying who, was declaring for the past three days that if Watson dared show up again, we should lay for him and shoot him down, ask questions after. Better to finish him for sure and get some justice, them men said, because otherwise, what with all his son-in-law’s connections, he was bound to wriggle free like he done before. Claimed to be worried about justice but I believe they was a lot more worried that Ed Watson, left alive, would settle up his business quick with any man who had dared stand up against him. Ed always aimed to clean up his accounts, like Smallwood said.

  Ted would not join the posse. Said E. J. was his best customer, all paid up fair and square, said he had nothing against him, never did. Anyway, he was down with his malaria, he said, though on that very afternoon, as we all seen, he felt strong enough to crawl under his house after them drowned leghorns. The more Ted talked, the harder it was to tell what he really hoped would happen, and I doubt he knew.

  According to my sister, her husband was the only man with enough guts to speak out against the murder of a neighbor. Well, he wasn’t. Willie Brown done that and he done it louder, and Bembery Storter, too, but those men being from Everglade, they were not present. As for them neighbors that straggled in from the Lost Man’s country after the hurricane, them men stayed back by the store, they only watched. Even Erskine Thompson, who was kind of backdoor family to Ed Watson, never raised no sand. In their hearts, I believe, them Lost Man’s fellers was as anxious as the rest to see this business finished. Wanted the suspense over and done with.

  The men was bunched up on the shore. Near dusk but plenty light enough for him to see that body of armed men before he come in range. Why did he keep coming? Stood straight as a statue at the helm, never hesitated, never even slowed, just peered around kind of quizzical, pretending like he never noticed all his neighbors till that moment; then he waved and smiled, tickled to see such a fine welcome. Never paid no attention to them hefted weapons.