I put that idea aside for just a minute. Buddy’s shoe slaps were pounding down on us, our meeting was coming to a close. I put my face close to the bars and fixed Jim’s eye and muttered fast and cold, “If I were you—and by that I mean a thieving white-trash Tolen—I would clear out of Fort White, because folks who have already had enough of your ratfuck family might just want to finish up the job.”
To talk in that disgusting way once in a while does the heart good.
Tolen cocked his head back like a musket hammer and snapped it forward, shooting his chaw into my face. My hand darted through the bars and grabbed his stripy shirt, and the cheap cloth tore as the guard spun him away, exposing a chicken chest so white under his red neck that a man might almost imagine he had bathed.
“Naw!” Jim howled. He was clawing at that tear like he’d been scalded. “That’s my new shirt!” I cackled just to rub it in, reeling back and rolling off my wall, making the most of it. But life is peculiar and the truth is I felt bad about Tolen’s cheap shirt. I wanted to tear his rodent head off but tearing a poor man’s Sunday shirt was something else.
Then it hit me like a mule kick: Jim Tolen was not a poor man, not anymore. His dirty pockets were stuffed with money that rightfully belonged to Watsons and he was still selling off our land. The blood rush to my temples nearly felled me. “You and your brothers stole our plantation and you will pay for that the same way they did.” Those words escaped my tongue beyond recapture and my desperate laugh to divert attention clattered like an empty bean can on the concrete floor.
I pressed my forehead hard to the cold steel. My foe stood dim and ghostly, making no sound. The prosecutor’s shadow neared, the guard behind like Death’s attendant, as if all listened to the echo of those dire words, as if the People of the State of Florida stood in judgment on this caged human being. I felt not lonely but cut off from humankind.
Then time resumed, the morning fell back into place, the redbird sang anew outside my cell window, the prosecutor smiled thinly. “The same way they did? Guard? You heard what the prisoner said, correct?”
“I ain’t deaf.” Buddy gave me a reproachful look, shrugging his shoulders.
“Remember his words carefully, Guard. You’ll be called to testify.”
“How about me?” Tolen complained. “I sure ain’t likely to forget them devil’s words!” When Buddy grumbled, “Can’t write nothin except only my X,” Tolen instantly produced a scrap of paper and a pencil stub and started scrawling, to prove that he suffered no such limitation.
The prosecutor tipped his hat. “Three witnesses to an unsolicited admission of a deadly motive. I am confident, Ed, that the jury will see it that way, too. I advise you to accept the State’s generous offer—”
“Generous offer?” Jim shrilled in alarm. “Goin to turn that killer loose? He’ll hunt me down and shoot me in cold blood like he done my brothers!” But thin Jim wasn’t afraid of that, not really. When the guard dragged him away, he wore a twisty grin, hard as a quirt.
Bad as it looked, I concluded that Ed Watson would not hang. For all his bluster, this state’s attorney was a stupid man. His political career was the carrot rigged in front of the donkey, it was all he saw. In his effort to cajole me, he had lunged after that carrot, scared of losing.
I got a whiff of what was in the wind from Carrie’s note as well as from Walter and Eddie: better a jailed father than a hanged one. They were dead scared of the scandal of a public execution. The guilty plea they wanted me to make would cut their losses, get the black sheep locked away. I could make the mistake of pleading guilty only if I was so greedy for survival that I would accept a life of being caged and fed and watered behind bars like a wild animal. I was not that greedy, or at least not yet. If I kept my head, I was going to be acquitted, because none of my family had the guts to see me hung.
THE KNIFE
Ladies sometimes ask why such an amiable man so often finds himself in so much trouble. And I say, “Ma’am, I never look for trouble”—here I let my voice go soft, lower my eyes a little, tragic and mysterious—“but when trouble comes to me, why, I take care of it.”
Les Cox loves that kind of guff as much as my Kate fears and despises it. It’s not entirely nonsense, and even when it is, it can be useful. But behind bars in that torrid summer of 1908, I faced the fact that I had not always taken care of trouble the right way. I had never admitted, for example, that a lot of it was of my own manufacture.
Grandfather Artemas’s gentleness and weakness had undermined our Carolina plantation; the bad character and weakness of his ring-eyed son had completed the loss and driven the grandson into exile. But was I weak too, in some other way? Plainly my ruinous start in life had forced me to desperate measures in my struggle to restore our Clouds Creek name—all in vain, it seemed, for here I was, past fifty years of age, jailed and disgraced, with my neighbors howling to see me hung and all my savings pissed away to pay the lawyers.
“Darn it, Ed,” as Bembery once said, “this ain’t the first time and it ain’t the second, neither, so you better think about mending your ways.” Hell, all my life I have tried to mend my ways and I always believed that next time I would make it and I still believe that.
Some would say that Edgar Watson is a bad man by nature. Ed Watson is the man I was created. If I was created evil, somebody better hustle off to church, take it up with God. I don’t believe a man is born with a bad nature. I enjoy folks, most of ’em. But it’s true I drink too much in my black moods, see only threats and enmity on every side. And in that darkness I strike too fast, and by the time I come clear, trouble has caught up with me again.
I have taken life. For that, I can only be sorry. But excepting that one time in Arcadia, I have never done it for financial gain. Starting way back with those shipowners and merchants who trade in human beings and destroyed thousands of lives, how many founders of our great industries and family fortunes can say the same?
For my edification while in jail, Carrie sent along her mother’s Twain books—a do-gooder I could not abide and yet read furiously.
The new trial started on July 10 and testimony concluded on August 3 when the hung jury, unable to agree upon a verdict, was dismissed. In September, Cone won another change of venue and in October Judge Palmer moved the trial to Madison County. If I lost at Madison, I decided, I would break out of jail, run for the Islands.
(When I told Reese about my plan, he whispered gleefully, “We is fixin to ex-cape, just like old times!” Remembering how we crossed the Arkansas, a lilt came into Black Frank’s voice, almost as if he hoped we would be convicted. Only once and only briefly had this man reproached me for dumping that shotgun in his furrow, even though that heedless act might cost his life. For his forbearance, I sincerely thanked him, assuring him he was a credit to his people whether white folks strung him up or not.)
Our third round took place in Madison County in mid-December. Getting nerved up three separate times for the same trial was like building up three times for the same act of love. Naturally there was a letdown, but the defense was off to a promising start in the local paper: “The defendant Watson is a man of fine appearance, and his face betokens intelligence in an unusual degree. That a determined fight will be made to establish the innocence of the defendants is evidenced in the imposing array of lawyers employed in their behalf.”
That array, in fact, was so imposing that we had to sell off some Fort White land to pay their fees. I was deeply in debt to my son-in-law and Kate was warning me that we were broke: we could not afford to have the bread-winner go to prison (although having him hung, as I told Frank, might be somewhat worse).
Jim Cole bent every ear in the state capital, cajoling them to talk sense to the judge. After that, he came to Madison, helped pick the jury. By trial time, Fred Cone had six assistants who kept themselves busy running up my bills in heroic efforts to suborn witnesses. Meanwhile, the prosecution’s “jailhouse confession by Defendant Watson” was not panni
ng out as Larabee had hoped, the defense having led the jury without difficulty to mistrust Jim Tolen.
Nonetheless, this trial might go badly. I asked Kate to get word to Leslie. Being afraid of him, she was upset, but I hushed her protests. Cox came in and looked over the jail and we soon agreed on the details. Shaking hands on it, he squinted man to man, and I squinted right back for old times’ sake—the frontier code. I owed him that much.
On her next visit, Kate seemed strangely distressed: when I took her in my arms, she confessed that she felt sick. She entreated me to turn away while she tended to her person—modestly preparing, as I thought, to perform her wifely duty. Instead, she produced a clothbound packet containing a small sheath knife in light deerskin, which Cox had told her I had ordered for the escape. She was to conceal it “in her person”—saying this, that vicious boy had winked at her. Mortified, Kate wept, she could scarcely look at me. When she did not understand, he grinned and whispered that she was “to stick it up her you-know-where, and kind of squeeze it, hold it snug there” till she was safely in my cell and could remove it. “He said those were your instructions,” my wife whispered.
I roared with rage. When the guard came running at my din, I bribed him to step out for a long smoke. Made shy by our necessary haste, Kate removed her undergarments and knelt astride me as I sat on the thin cot. I raised her skirts and settled her warm sweet hips onto my lap, gently rocking her, then not so gently. She murmured into my ear that she still hurt from the knife, but it was too late then, it had been too long, I had to have her.
Afterward I sat her beside me and took her hand and warned her I was not a man to tolerate a hanging far less labor my life out on the chain gang. If I was convicted, I intended to escape back to the Islands. I would send for her once I was sure that all was well.
“All will never be well, Mister Watson,” poor Kate mourned. “Not in the Islands.” I had never seen her look so stricken. What had made Chatham almost bearable for Kate had been her dear Laura Collins, whose husband was now estranged from us due to the bitter feelings in our family. Kate said hurriedly that what she meant was that year-round exposure to fever-ridden climate might be bad for children. When I said she need not return permanently but could spend more time at Fort White, she cried out, “How can I stay at Fort White? You can’t imagine how those people look at me!”
Around her eyes was a shadow like a bruise. “If you two didn’t do it, then who did?”
“Kate?” I lifted my fingers and gently brushed the hair out of her eyes, which were streaming tears. “What would you like me to say?”
She made a little squeak like a caught mouse. “We can never go back to Fort White, it is too dangerous!” Jumping up, she rushed to the cell door. I tried to soothe her while she waited for the guard but she only clapped her hands over her ears and shook her head. Though she knew this was unreasonable under the circumstances, she could scarcely believe that her own husband would permit Leslie Cox to testify in his defense.
The one witness left who might do harm was Calvin Banks, who was concentrating on his duty as a citizen while forgetting that his testimony might get me hung. Having given up trying to bribe him, the defense wanted him off the stand as fast as possible.
Testifying for the defense, Cox had made a good impression, declaring earnestly that Mr. Watson had always liked and respected Commissioner Tolen, which was true. But Leslie’s real mission here, as Lawyer Cone explained, was to “influence” Calvin Banks. At one point in Calvin’s testimony, Leslie feigned outrage at Calvin’s account, jumping up to point a warning finger at the witness. Next, he tried to spook him, rising up in the back row like a haunt until Calvin noticed him, then running his forefinger across his throat. Though Cox sank down quick before the prosecutor could protest, that mule-headed old nigra stopped speaking and was silent. Cone whispered, “He is finished.” I knew better. Calvin was frightened but he wasn’t finished.
Fierce as a prophet, the old man raised his arm and pointed a crooked finger straight at Leslie. The courtroom saw that bony finger aimed at the young man in the back row, as if Cox, not Watson, were the man on trial. There was a stir as Cox stood up and left the room, scared that old Calvin would identify him to the judge as the second man standing over the body on the road. Puzzled, the judge struck his gavel, calling for order, and Calvin Banks returned to his dogged testimony.
• • •
The jury was out less than an hour, enjoying Jim Cole’s cigars. When they came back, we stood. Mr. E. J. Watson was acquitted, then the negro Reese. When the verdict was read, Frank watched our lawyers smiling but showed no emotion.
The judge discharged us there and then and went so far as to bid me Merry Christmas—I’d clean forgotten it was Christmas the next day. Attorney Cone smiled and shook my hand and shuffled his papers back into his case: a man’s life or death was all in the day’s business. Jim Cole came forward with a hearty shout and slapped my back as he might slap the rump of whore or heifer. He owned me now, that slap informed me. “Dammit, Ed, we sold our souls to get you off,” he wheezed, “so see if you can’t stay out of trouble on the way home!” His mouth was laughing but his eyes were not as he stood ready to receive my gratitude. I felt none. Suppose I had pled guilty, the way this man wanted? And if I had pled guilty, how about the innocent Frank Reese?
I opened my mouth but not a word came out. I let Cole grab my hand and shake it but he moved away without my thanks, flushed red to bursting.
Winking and joking, the state’s attorney was congratulating the defense attorney. “Why are you hanging around here, Ed?” Larabee called, throwing his arm around Cone’s shoulders. “You going to miss us?” And Cone, easing out from beneath that arm, laughed, too, although only a little.
There had been no trial—amateur theater, maybe, some light farce. All the attorneys on both sides that day were in on this big joke, having learned in advance from Tallahassee how E. J. Watson’s trial for his life had been decided—whether his life was to continue or it wasn’t. Realizing this, I could scarcely thank my lawyer and his staff, who had taken every penny that I had.
I looked past all these smiling men at Reese. Having no place to go, he had simply sunk down after the verdict and resumed his old place at the far end of the bench. The bailiff would soon notice and evict him.
Leaving that building, I was all nerved up and edgy. Old Calvin was across the street, saddling up his mule for the long journey home across north Florida to Ichetucknee. He would wear his white shirt and Sunday suit all the way there, sleep where night found him. Kate clutched at my arm but I shook her off and walked over to confront him. “I’se glad, Mist’ Edguh,” is what that old slave said as he hitched his cinches. “I sho is mighty glad dey has set you free.” Then why had he testified against a man he had known nearly forty years?
Calvin blinked and turned to look at me, surprised. “Mist’ Cory Larabee, he say, Tell nothin but truth, so help me God, Mist’ Edguh. Tol’ me speak out,” he continued. “Called dat de bounden duty of de citizen, called dat de solemn duty of de negro. Said black folks dat doan speak up for de truth, doan speak up like mens, dem ones might’s well go back to bein slaves again. Mist’ Larabee instruct me. Den he say I mights well say de truth cause what ol’ darkies say doan nevuh make no difference in no court of law. Promise me dat Mist’ Edguh Watson gone to walk out of dat courthouse a free man. And here you is!”
But Calvin’s voice had diminished as he spoke. He cleared his throat, then asked me almost shyly if I aimed to kill him. To throw a scare into him, I said my neighbors might take care of that. This ornery old feller dared to smile. “Nosuh, Mist’ Edguh, ain’t Calvin they gwine take care of. I was you, I’d stay away from dem home woods a good long while!” Then his smile faded like water into sand, he looked tired and sad, considering this member of his old plantation family who had gone so wrong, with nothing to be done about it any longer. “I sho’ did hate to tell ’em whut I seed, Mist’ Edguh. I sho is than
kful dat dem white folks paid dis ol’ man no mind.”
“Watch out for Leslie,” I said gruffly and I walked away.
Frank Reese appeared. He could not go home to Fort White, either. Even if Cox weren’t running around loose, he was not safe there and probably never would be, which meant he would lose Jane. Frank looked as beaten as a man can look who is cold and hungry on a winter night at Christmas, without friends, family, future, or one dime in his pocket, and no place to sleep.
“Frank,” I said, “you come on south with us.”
CHAPTER 9
MODERN TIMES
On the first day of 1909, on the new railway, E. J. Watson and family crossed the Alva Bridge over the Calusa Hatchee and rumbled downriver into Fort Myers Station. I sent Frank over to Niggertown—Safety Hill, as it was called, because black folks felt safe there after evening curfew—to round up a few hands while bags and baggage were transferred to Ireland’s Dock to be loaded aboard Captain Bill Collier’s Falcon.
Since the arrival of the railroad, the WCTU had sent Miss Carrie Nation, and a circus had also paid a call, complete with elephant. The first stock-roaming ordinance, fought by the cattlemen for years, now protected the public thoroughfares and gardens. Indian mounds up and downriver were being leveled for white shell for cement streets and Thomas Edison had leased Cole’s steamer to bring in royal palms from the Island coasts to ornament his Seminole Lodge and decorate Riverside Avenue for the tourists.
When Henry Ford came to visit Mr. Edison, Walter and Carrie were invited there to dinner, and not long after that, Cole and Langford bought Ford motorcars and went tooting and farting north and south the entire quarter mile from one end of our manure-strewn metropolis to the other. Jim Cole’s self-esteem was geared to ownership of the newest, best, and biggest—this year, the most expensive automobile in town. Quick turnover of everything from real estate to cattle had been the secret of his success, and he soon replaced his Model T with a bright red Reo.
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