It was our own Papa who told Walter about that. Papa knows about these things, he always has these sure-fire ideas that he can't act on. There are still Indians out there today, but Papa declares that Indians will be no problem, there aren't enough of them to stand in the way of planters who mean business. Walter rode that wild country a lot in his cow hunter days, and says that the Indians' grown-over plantations have the richest soil anywhere south of the Calusa Hatchee.
The main problem will be getting the produce to market. From Deep Lake it is a terrible distance across the Cypress to Fort Myers but only thirteen miles south to the Storter docks at Everglade, and Mr. Roach feels that a Deep Lake-Everglade rail line might be just the answer. (And to whom does John Roach credit this idea?-to our dear Papa!)
Papa has earned a fine reputation as a planter, his "Island Pride" syrup, which he sells wholesale in Tampa, is already famous in these parts. One day Mr. Roach chanced to tell Walter what a pity it was that E.J. Watson was confined to forty acres in the Islands, considering what such an inspired farmer could do with those two hundred black loam acres at Deep Lake. But when I asked if there might not be some way that he could join their business, Walter shook his head. "It may be best if your daddy stays in Monroe County"-that was all he said.
The first time Walter met Papa was on Capt. Bill Collier's schooner going down to Marco, that time he visited the pineapple plantation. Papa had been in Fort Myers on business. That was in 1895, the year we came from Arkansas to Columbia County, and stayed with Granny Ellen near Fort White. The Langfords and Papa used to get along just fine, that's how T.E. Langford became Mama's doctor. But these days Walter has withdrawn from Papa. Everyone seems to know something that I do not.
Friday last, Papa stopped over at Fort Myers with a cargo of his "Island Pride," consigned for Tampa. He took Mama along, and they went to a concert by Minnie Maddern Fiske at the Tampa Theater! Mama did not really wish to go, she is feeling poorly these days and looking very old for thirty-six. No one seems to know whether poor spirits or poor health gives that scary yellow-gray cast to her skin. But she took advantage of some episode in Tampa-some drunken sally yelled across the street-to warn poor Papa that his presence at the wedding might cause difficulties.
"He refuses to be banished from his daughter's wedding," Mama sighed when she came home. "He refuses to bow to these provincial people." She was very tense, and so was I, all the more so now that Papa knew and was so angry. For such a self-confident, strong man, Mama says, our Papa's feelings are hurt easily, though he is too proud to wince, he only squints. For all his jollity, he keeps his feelings private.
Before heading south, Papa took me for a walk, nodding in his courtly way to everyone we met. He is such a strong vigorous mettlesome man with his snapping blue eyes and bristling beard, stepping out smartly down Riverside Avenue with his adoring daughter on his arm, as handsomely tailored and well-groomed as any man in town. If Papa has anything to be ashamed about, he doesn't show it. He looks the world right in the eye with that kindly crinkle and ironic smile, knowing what our busybodies must be thinking!
I finally asked if he knew about Hell on the Border. The muscles in his forearm twitched as if he had been spurred, and after a little pause he nodded, and I felt ashamed. We walked along a little ways before he said, That author imagines Mister Watson is dead, and will therefore take these insults lying down.
At first I didn't see he'd made a joke, and then my laugh came like a shriek because his strange and still expression had unnerved me. When he makes such jokes, there's a bareness in his eyes, one has no idea at all what he is thinking. He watched me laugh until, desperate to stop, I got the hiccups. Not until I'd finished did he smile just a little as we walked along-not amused by his own joke, not really, but by something else. We didn't speak about the book again.
Papa confessed that, at the start, he'd been dead set against the wedding, not because he disapproved of Walter (he likes Walter well enough, everyone does), but because he disliked any meddling in our life by Captain Cole, who has appointed himself spokesman for the Langfords now that Walter's father is so ill. This damnable Jim Cole, he said, seemed to regard Ed Watson's daughter as a piece of negotiable property-"like some nigger slave wench!" Papa exclaimed. (Mama tries to persuade him to say "darkie" but he just ignores her.)
Out of breath with sudden anger, he stopped on the sidewalk. Is my lovely little Carrie to be led to the altar like some sacrificial virgin just to restore respectability to the Watson family? Because this family is already a damn sight more respectable than some damned cracker clan from Suwannee County! And he set off on one of his tirades about how his forebears had been landed gentry, about how Rob's namesake, Colonel Robert Briggs Watson, was a decorated hero, wounded at Gettysburg-all those old honors that obsess poor Papa-while I glanced nervously up and down, alarmed because some passerby might overhear.
Papa calmed down then and apologized for all his cussing. It was too long, said he, since his knees had suffered the chastisement of a hard church floor. All the same, the very mention of Jim Cole and his insinuations-he made me laugh with a deadly imitation of that mud-thick drawl-got him furious. I'll grab that gut-sprung cracker by the seat of his pants and march him down the street and horsewhip him, growled Papa, right in front of this whole mealy-mouthed town!
Not long before, a cattle rustler out in Hendry County had stung up Mr. Cole with a few shotgun pellets. Too bad that hombre didn't know his business, Papa said, with a very hard expression.
We walked along toward Whiskey Creek in silence. Papa knew what I was thinking, always had and always would. Soon he said in a cold formal voice that he had consented to this marriage because it was beneficial to our family. He stopped short, took my arm from his, and faced me. "I gave in, Carrie, I accepted their conditions. I am not in a position, not today, to dictate my own terms. But one day I shall be, you may count on it. I intend to protect my family to my utmost ability from the mistakes I have committed in this life."
I told him I was not quite clear about who "they" were, and he brooded a moment, then he growled, "This marriage is best for you, too, daughter, take my word for it." His expression stopped me when I tried to speak-"Please let me finish!" He squinted and muttered a little longer before taking my hands in his with great formality. "Don't ask your own father to stay away, you hear? I agree to stay away." He took a deep breath. "It is best I stay away. Please inform your mother."
"Don't blame Mama," I said. "It's my weakness, too-!"
"Your Mama is not weak," he said sharply. "She is merely frail. A weak woman would not have faced me as she did. No, she is strong!"
I was sobbing, I was so ashamed, and still I tried hard to pretend that what I wept over was his decision to stay away. His hope had risen once again, yes, I saw it, for he waited a moment, eyes wide as a child's. When I did not try to change his mind, he nodded as if everything had come out for the best, which made me sob anew and all the harder.
"And Rob?" I sniffled. "Will Rob come?"
"No, he will not."
This curtness was all the punishment he ever gave me. He was not reproachful, but he peered into my eyes, squeezing my fingers urgently in his hard brown hands. "I shall always be very careful in Fort Myers, Carrie," he said. "Please tell your mother that, as well." He squeezed my hands hard as he spoke, until he hurt me. "His family has nothing to fear from Mister Watson."
He released my hands, and we walked back to the boat without a word. I thought of my tomboy days at Chatham Bend, and Henry Thompson's wandering eyes, and how Papa would growl that he'd tie net weights to my skirts if I climbed trees!
A darkness descended on my heart, but I would not let it in. After the Gladiator slipped her mooring, I ran along with her, waving desperately to Rob as the old schooner drifted downriver with the tide. Poor Rob and Papa were going home alone to that new house Papa had built to welcome his long-lost family to Chatham Bend-oh, how his pain twisted my heart!
I
was jumping on the riverbank like some distracted thing, waving both arms to summon enough love to banish so much bewilderment and hurt. Seeing me, poor scowling Rob straightened and stared. When Papa bellowed from the helm, he lifted his hand a little and went on back to coiling up the lines.
HENRY THOMPSON
Aunt Jane Watson looked too old for a woman not so far into her thirties. Had a shine to her pale skin, like a rabbit pelt been scraped too thin, so the shadow of the sun come right on through. Soon after the old Frenchman died, she got so sickly that Mister Watson took her to Fort Myers, but she never abandoned him out of her own woe. She made up her mind to go that very day her husband shot the mustache off Ed Brewer. She didn't want her children in a place where strange men might come gunning for her husband-I heard her tell him that myself, and when she did, he took out that big watch and looked at it, which is as close as Mister Watson come to a nervous habit, though it made other folks a heap more nervous than him. There weren't too much that he could say. Also, George Storter in Everglade was sending his kids up to Fort Myers to go to high school, and Mister Watson already had the idea he would do the same.
When Mister Watson took Aunt Jane to see Doc T.E. Langford, Mrs. Langford said, That island life is too darn rough for someone gently reared, you're coming to stay with us until you're better! Miss Carrie stayed on, too, helping take care of her, and Eddie and Lucius was lodged someplace, and went to school. Mister Watson told 'em all good-bye and come on back to farming his plantation.
That fine white house, so proud on Chatham Bend, was built for Mrs. Jane Watson and her children, and when the family went away, it seemed to mope like a old dog off its feed, a mite dirty, y'know, and kind of smelly. We was like strangers come in off the river, camping there and messing them nice rooms. Mister Watson had lost interest in his house. He was real somber for a year, he set inside a lot, and more and more he took to heavy drinking. I missed them children, especially Miss Carrie, and her father missed her even more than I did. Him and Rob hardly spoke a word from one week to the next.
When I asked Rob why he had not gone with his family, he snarled, "Because that's not my family, any more than she is your Aunt Jane!" He was feeling sarcastical, I guess, and made me feel awful. "Reckon you miss your natural mother pretty bad," I said. And Rob said, "Wrong as usual, stupid. I never knew her."
Me and Rob was close to the same age, and I was willing to be friends but he just wasn't. All the same, we was never far apart, cause even enemies could pass the time better than nobody. After Bill House went away, after the Frenchman died and the Hamiltons left to spend a year down to Flamingo, we never saw another boat along our river.
Miss Carrie was soon spoken for by Walter Langford, who was kin to Sheriff Tom W. Langford, so Mister Watson knew he'd get no trouble in Lee County that he didn't ask for. Mister Watson's rowdy ways got him throwed in jail in Tampa and Key West, but he went out of his way to avoid trouble in Fort Myers, and so far as I have ever heard, he never had none.
After the family left, around '97, we traded mostly in Fort Myers so's he could visit with his people. Sail up the Calusa Hatchee in the evening, passing Punta Rassa after dark. In Fort Myers, Mister Watson dressed real nice and talked real quiet, never wore a gun like them drunk cow hunters, at least not on his belt where you could see it. But he always had a weapon on him somewhere, and he kept his eye peeled. We never went to no saloons and never stayed long, just tended to business first thing in the morning and went back downriver.
One time when Walter Langford's friend Jim Cole come up behind him at the Hendry House, slapped him on the shoulder, Mister Watson told him, "Better not come up on me so sudden, friend." When he called a man friend, that was a warning, you could not mistake it. And Jim Cole, big talker though he was, backed off so fast he stumbled off the boardwalk, splattered mud on his new trousers, got himself whistled at by some drunk cowboys. Mister Watson turned and said, "I made another enemy"-not sorry, you know, but more like it was Cole who better watch his step from that day on. Didn't say it to no one in particular, not even me.
Round about '98, maybe '99, Mister Watson found Miss Jane a nice house on Anderson Avenue, which wasn't for colored like it is today, and Rob went away one season to Fort Myers school. He was older than any kid in class, and done poor cause he didn't try. He got in trouble, give his stepmother all kind of fits. Rob declared he would never be a bona fide member of her family, said he belonged at Chatham Bend if he belonged anywhere, said it so often that finally she agreed. His father brought him back to make a boatman of him, and it seemed right that he would take my place. Rob were Mister Watson's rightful son, and I never forgot it.
Not long after she moved to her new house, Miss Jane begun to waste away. That cheered her up, her husband claimed, being as how she was tired of life and knew her death was not so far away. I looked real close to see if he were teasing about death, the way he often did, and he said, No, Henry, I am serious. She makes a joke of it. The other day I said to her, You're not afraid of death, I see. And Mandy said, I guess I had it coming.
Telling me this, he had to smile, though I never knew if he was smiling at her joke or smiling because she could joke about such a thing or smiling because he seen I didn't get it. That is the trouble with no education-I guess I still don't get it. It was just some little joke between theirselves.
Mister Watson got lonely sometimes, too. We'd go to visit Henrietta and her Minnie, who was living these days at George Roe's boardinghouse there at Caxambas, and he got to know Tant's sister Josie Jenkins, who was kind of what you might call hanging fire. One day he brought Josie home to stay, but not before asking Henrietta if she minded, cause Josie were Henrietta's young half sister. Netta aimed to marry Mr. Roe, and later did so, but this night she had drunk some spirits and was feeling sassy. She said, "Mister Ed, I don't mind a single bit, just so long's you keep that durn thing in the family." They all laughed to beat the band, and I did, too, that's how good we felt, being members of our family.
Aunt Josie Jenkins was a spry young woman, small and flirty as a bird, always winking with some secret she might tell you if you coaxed her right, and tossing her big nest of black curls. Aunt Josie said she had come to Chatham Bend to make sure that Tant and me and "that poor Rob" was being treated good by that old repper bait, but I believe she was really there to look after that old repper bait under the covers. Aunt Josie would flirt her eyes and wings, dance away when he reached out for her, but them two didn't waste no time getting together. Aunt Josie said, "This place ain't built for secrets!" and us boys was told to sleep down in the shed.
Mister Watson were in his forties then, still vigorous, God knows, and his wife had been a invalid for years. I don't blame him for bedding down Aunt Josie, cause she was a lively little thing, had a lot of spirit. Sometimes we was visited by her daughter Jennie. Can't recall who Jennie's daddy was, and I ain't so certain Josie would know, neither. Might could been the one they called Jennie Everybody, because she wasn't so particular, but she was a beautiful young woman, next to Miss Carrie the most beautiful I ever saw.
Aunt Josie had a baby while she lived on Chatham Bend, called her Pearl Watson. So what with Rob and Tant and Jennie, and all our kin at Caxambas and Fort Myers, Mister Watson and me had us a family once again.
Tant was only a young feller then, not much older than me. He was Ludis Jenkins's son with his last wife, who was my grandmother Mary Anne Daniels. When Old Man Ludis got sick of life and killed himself, Grandma and her children went to live with her son John Henry Daniels on Fakahatchee. Uncle John Daniels's wife was part some kind of Injun, and a lot of it, cause wasn't one of them Daniels boys but was black-haired and black-eyed, Injun in appearance. There was bunches of Danielses and bushels of their kin, and they all kept moving from one island to another, so there was plenty of rundown Daniels cabins Tant could choose from. By the time they got done-well, they ain't done yet!-there weren't hardly a soul on the southwest coast that didn't have some Daniel
s in the family.
Tant was more Irish in his looks, black hair but curly, had a little mustache and Josie's small sharp nose. Tant was a sprightly kind of man, made people feel good. I never quite could get the hang of how he done that. Tant played hell with the deer and coons and gators, and he brought his venison and jokes and fleas from one Daniels hearth to the next one, all his life.
Tant never farmed nor fished if he could help it, called that donkey work. Even in his youngerhood he came and went in his little boat, you never knew where Tant would be from one day to the next. He was always a loner, never married, never lived a day under his own roof. Soon as Mister Watson went away, he was off hunting, and when he was at Chatham Bend, he fooled around making moonshine from the cane. I'm living off the land, said Tant, and drinking off it, too.
Tant were mostly drunk even when working. Sometimes he would lean way over to whisper in Mister Watson's ear, Ain't none of my damn business, Planter Watson, no sir, it sure ain't, but it looks to me like that damn worthless Tant is drinking up all your profits. How Mister Watson could grin at that I just don't know.
We hardly seen hide nor hair of Tant come time for cane cutting, late fall and winter. He persuaded Mister Watson how he'd save him money supplying victuals for the harvest workers, venison and ducks and turkey, or gator tail, or gophers, sometimes a bear. A great hunter like him would be plumb wasted in the cane field, is what he said. That's right, boy, Mister Watson would agree, kind of exasperated. Because you are bone lazy to start with and too weak for a day's work on account of drink! And Tant would moan real doleful, saying, Oh, Sweet Jesus, ain't it the God's truth! And Mister Watson cursed and laughed and let him go.
Killing Mister Watson Page 15
