Ted was leery of this stranger right from the get-up-and-go. Said, Sure'n hell, that hombre has run off from someplace, way a tomcat runs off to the woods, goes wild and mean-Ted took agin him soon's he come into the store. Kept tugging at my apron strings, with all his whispering. Young man that's lived according to God don't never have a face as hard as that one! That durn frock coat might be hiding a whole arsenal! I never paid Ted much attention, knowing how excited my man got when he smelled an outlaw.
We asked John Smith if he might be kin to Miss Hannah Smith down Chatham River, or to Henry Smiths, who was one of our ten families here on Chokoloskee. He said, real short, "They ain't no kin at all." He was looking for an E.J. Watson, and he wasn't bothered the least bit to hear that Mister Watson was away down in Key West, with his wife expecting. "I'll wait on him," that's all he said.
This man paid John Demere to run him down to Chatham River. After he'd gone, my husband said, "Ed might be tickled pink to see this hombre, but I doubt it. I believe this could be that feller from the north he's always talked about."
When Ed Watson returned from Key West with his wife and baby, they traveled by steamer to Fort Myers, then came back on the mail boat far as Chokoloskee before they went on home to Chatham River. Ted warned him on the way through that a stranger had come lately, and was waiting on him. Mister Watson turned real quick, to check behind him, then glared at Ted kind of impatient. Ted said, "I mean, waiting at Chatham Bend."
When Mister Watson got took by surprise, he kept his mouth shut, not like most people. Making that little bow, he asks me, Please Miss Mamie, could he impose on my hospitality again? Would we take in Edna and the children while he looks into the situation at Chatham Bend? As I enjoyed her company, I did not mind.
Before he left, he said, "This man look Injun?" and Ted said, "Dark straight hair. Might be a breed." Watson said, "Does he look like some kind of a defrocked preacher?" This time it was me who nodded, but Ted said crossly, "No, he don't look like no preacher." Ted Smallwood would not tolerate the least resemblance between that stranger and a man of God.
I didn't contradict my husband, but Mister Watson never missed much, and when he seen me nod, he had to smile. Said, If this John Smith was who he thought it was, he might look like a preacher but he wasn't.
When I asked, Is John Smith his real name? he said, "Today it is," and went on out.
Next day he came back for the family, and him and Edna had a quick cold quarrel up in our spare room before she came down all teary-eyed to pack the children. Whoever this stranger was, it was pretty plain that his coming was a dreadful blow to that young woman, and all the way down to the dock, she done her best to persuade her husband to let her stay behind. Going aboard his launch with her new baby on her arm, she waved back at me real sad, you know, shaking her head. I didn't pester her about the stranger, and Edna would never tell me nothing, then or later. She always said, "Mister Watson wouldn't like it," even after Mister Watson was stone dead.
A few months before the stranger came, Mister Watson's gun-slinging young foreman done some vandaling down there and then run off someplace. Mister Watson made this John Smith his new foreman because Old Waller drank too much, but next thing you know, the first feller was back, asking after "Mister Ed." On his way through, he told Charley Johnson he would get his job back or his name weren't Dutchy Melvin.
Ted said straight off, "There is going to be trouble." And I said, "Fine. Them two young devils might shoot each other dead, which is good riddance." But the one I resented most was Mister Watson, for bringing these hellions into our community.
Mister Watson always dealt fair with us, and he done a right smart amount of trade with Smallwood's store. One year syrup sales was slow, and Snow and Bryan up in Tampa paid him off in trade goods for several hundred gallons of his syrup, and we took those goods and sold 'em on commission. In Watson's years the store was in our house, long with the post office; wasn't until 1917 we rebuilt it down beside the water, and wasn't till 1925 that we had sense enough to put it up on pilings, way it is today. Nick of time, cause that Hurricane of '26 would of cleaned her out. That was a bad one, killed a lot of folks when Lake Okeechobee busted out its dykes, but it wasn't near so terrible as the Hurricane of 1910, not in the Islands.
Now that storm of October 1909 was plenty bad enough, tore away half of Key West, blew the cigar business all the way to Tampa. We plain wasn't ready for another one still worse in 1910. But there was that comet in the sky, April and May, that was bad sign, and the worst drought in years all that long summer, with our crops withering, poor fishing everyplace. Even Tant Jenkins had to go dig clams to make a living.
Through all that hot dry summer of 1910, Edna Watson and her children visited regular at Chokoloskee, she spent more time here than at Chatham Bend. Stayed with us, stayed with the Wigginses, stayed with Alice McKinney and with Marie Lopez, who married Walter Alderman under that dilly tree at Lopez River-first real wedding with a preacher we had around these parts in years and years. Walter Alderman had worked for Mister Watson up Columbia Country, but he left there quick when Mister Watson got arrested, Marie said, so's he wouldn't have to testify in court. Forbid Marie to tell us anything about what happened, that's how scared he was that you-know-who might come at night and shut him up for good.
SAMMIE HAMILTON
Ed Watson were as nice a fella as you'd ever want to meet, and as good a farmer as has ever cleared a piece of ground; he could make anything grow. My uncle Henry Thompson worked for Watson quite a good number of years, Tant Jenkins, too, and never had nothing bad to say about him.
Now my uncle Lewis Hamilton was married a little to Jennie Roe, who claimed that she got raped by Mister Watson. Nobody put too much stock in that one. Jennie Roe was a beautiful young woman, but she wasn't so particular. Her mother might been Josephine Parks, unless it was Henrietta Daniels-had to been one of them two sisters, what I heard. Them Caxambas families was all tangled up, and both half sisters had little girls by Mister Watson. Netta's Minnie was first, she was born the year Mrs. Jane Watson come home from the Wild West. Minnie had her daddy's chestnut hair. Aunt Josie's straw-haired girl, she was born at Chatham Bend round the turn of the century, they called her Pearl. Minnie growed up sweet, got married in the year of the Great Hurricane, 19 and 10. He was a Key Wester named Jim Knowles, his daddy might been ol' Bob Knowles, cooked for Bill Collier on the Eureka. Minnie was still living at Key West, last thing I heard, and Pearl stayed up around Caxambas.
Tant was more hunter than fisherman, you know, and he weren't no farmer at all-never had a hair of farmer in him. He'd cook a little if he had to but it weren't much good. Even when he worked for Mister Watson, fish is all he ever done besides go hunting, maybe run the boat. But now the wild critters was too scarce even for Tant, and he'd took work digging clams for his half brother Jim Daniels, who was the clam crew boss on Pavilion Key. Tant was going partners with Henry Smith of Chokoloskee, who was kin to that same Daniels bunch, had the same black Injun hair as they did.
Last time Mister Watson was over to Pavilion, that was late summer, he weren't hardly on the shore before ol' Tant was hollering, Lookee who's coming! Be damn if it ain't that dreadful desperader! See that wild and crazy look in them damn eyes?
Everybody was looking for a place to hide, but Mister Watson, he just grinned. And seeing that, Tant got cranked up, started showing off-Well, I'm tellin' you now, Mr. S.S. Jenkins don't aim to take no shit off this dang feller just because he s'posed to be Ed Watson!
Oh, Mister Watson dearly loved that bony feller, he'd take about anything off Tant where he'd of took his knife to someone else. He'd knowed Tant since Tant and Henry Thompson lived at Chatham Bend, they was kind of family, and he never did offer to fight him, not even once, even though Tant left him for good after the Tuckers. And since the Tuckers, Tant's teasing had an edge to it. Tant would just strut all around, tossing his head back, y'know, looking him up and down, sneer at him, spit near his boots.
Hell, I ain't a-scared of you just on account you're packing so much hardware under that coat you cain't hardly WALK! And he'd go to dancing in and out around Mister Watson, fists up, snorting, little mustache bristling, saying, Step up here and take your punishment if you are man enough!
With Tant around, Mister Watson laughed till he wiped his eyes. Tant purely made him feel good, you could see it. But if Tant himself ever dared to laugh, even a little, Mister Watson's mouth closed tighter'n a clam, and Tant would roll his eyes back in his head like his last moment was at hand. And Mister Watson might clear his throat, maybe he'd take that watch out, maybe not. Then he would say something like, Ever hear about that feller who died laughing? And Tant would only shake his head and kick the ground. He'd never go back to teasing Watson that day, not even if you paid him fourteen dollars. Tant just knew.
Anyways, Mister Watson was well liked in our family, we never seen nothing the matter with him.
Down in the Islands back in them days, weren't too much of enough to go around, and families would help other folks get by. Sometimes we'd go up Chatham Bend to borrow something, and Mister Watson would give my dad, Frank Hamilton, a gallon of his fine syrup, one of them four-sided tin cans. Used to take us kids around the place, show us his horse that he named Dolphus Santini, show us his cows and his hogs. I'll never forget it. Nicest man I ever met in all my life. Had great big hogs, y'know, tamed to pet by hand, and a grizzled kind of old man name of Waller to take care of 'em. Had one pig, Betsey, that they'd trained up like a dog, she could do tricks.
Overseer down there then was Dutchy Melvin, a Key West desperader. Burned down a cigar factory or two on account them Cubans wouldn't pay him not to. Dutchy claimed he killed a lawman who tried to keep him from his work, and escaped the noose due to his youth and winning ways, but others said they caught him looting after that October storm of 1909. Whatever he done or didn't do, he got sent out on the chain gang and escaped. First place he thought to go hide out at was the Watson Place, because it was known around Key West that Mister Watson weren't particular about his help so long as a man weren't afraid of work.
Dutchy Melvin never went nowhere without his guns, wore 'em right out where everyone could see 'em, to avoid confusion. Dutchy said, I'll go to hell before I go back on that chain gang, and I ain't going neither place without I take a few of my feller men right along with me. Meant what he said, I do believe, cause the Florida chain gangs, they was hell on earth, no place at all for a well-brung-up young feller.
Dutchy Melvin was a common-sized man, maybe one hundred sixty pounds, kind of dark-complected. My daddy knew his people in Key West, nice people, too, but if you didn't know how much he hated Spaniards, you might of seen a hair of Spaniard in him. In one way young Dutchy was like Mister Watson, very soft-spoke, nice to meet, and everybody liked him, but he was a bad actor all the same. Even Watson, so they say, was kind of leery of him.
Dutchy Melvin was a real acrobat. One day there on the dock front of the Watson Place he took off his gun belts, give 'em to my brother Dexter Hamilton to hold for him, and did a front flip for us kids, not a somersault but a real front flip, he landed on his feet just like a cat. Only time I ever seen that feller with his guns off.
The first year Dutchy come, Mister Watson made him foreman, cause Dutchy's guns scared the help so bad they was glad to work as hard as they was told. They knew this feller hadn't one thing left to lose, and if he got the idea to blow their heads off, he might do it. But him and Mister Watson quarreled because Watson wouldn't pay him, not till they got the last cane in and boiled the syrup.
So that boy waited until Watson was away, and then he spoiled maybe a thousand gallons of good syrup, he threw salt in it. Lit out for New York City, some such place, sent back a sassy postcard, Well now, Mister Watson, while you was roaring around pleasuring yourself down to Key West, I was passing the time taking some sweet out of your syrup. Mister Watson was swearing mad and never cared who knowed it, but my aunt Gert's husband, Henry Thompson, he was running the schooner at that time and brought the mail, Henry Thompson told the family that Mister Watson read that card and laughed! This was a fortnight after Dutchy spoiled his syrup, and he had cooled off just a little, and he stood there on his dock and read that card he got from Dutchy Melvin and just laughed! Said, That young feller knew enough to get up to New York before he wrote me that!
Well, that crazy fool popped up again, summer of 1910, had jokes for everybody. He had swore he would not go back onto the chain gang, and had no other place to put his feet up, and anyway he was so cocky he thought Mister Watson probably still liked him. Probably true, but "like" don't mean "forgive" and never did.
By that time a stranger had showed up there, took Dutchy's place as foreman. When the census come around, spring of 1910, this stranger called himself John Smith, but it come out later that his rightful name was Leslie Cox.
I seen this Cox a time or two but never got acquainted. While he was here, he never left the Bend. He weren't around here long enough so folks can picture him. Had hair short on his head and down his neck, same length all over, looked like fur. It's like Uncle Henry Thompson used to say, I can't recollect just what Cox looked like, but I do recall I never liked his looks.
Cox was a wanted man, and wanted bad, but nobody knowed that at the time. Some way Cox was acquainted with Ed Watson, and come looking for him, fetched up on the Bend. Some said Cox was Watson's cousin, and some said he saved Watson's hide one time, out West, but later we heard he was a killer, he'd run off from the chain gang, same as Dutchy. Leslie Cox was quiet-spoken, too, from being on the run, spoke in a kind of low and raspy voice, had a bad mean mouth. Uncle Henry used to tell us all about it.
Dutchy Melvin wasn't mean, he always had a friendly word, but he didn't take to Cox, wouldn't take his orders. He was fixing to run that somber sonofabitch right off the property, that's what he told Mister Watson. Dutchy grinned when he said that but he meant it. Wasn't room down there for both of 'em, young Dutchy swore. Said he made his grandmother a solemn promise never to consort with common criminals, which was why he had felt honor-bound to run off from the chain gang. Mister Watson thought that was pretty good about honor-bound and common criminals, and him and Dutchy had a good laugh over it, and then Mister Watson sat back a bit, the way he often done, watched that boy laughing. Uncle Henry Thompson, who never did find out how to have fun, Uncle Henry noticed the way Mister Watson done that. But Dutchy was too tickled to notice. That was his mistake.
In them days Injuns wouldn't work for nobody, but Tant Jenkins, hunting in the Glades, come back that spring with a young squaw girl, left her off at Chatham Bend. Her family had turned their back on her for laying with Ed Brewer to settle up her bill for Brewer's moonshine, and if Tant hadn't of run across her, back up Lost Man's Slough, she might of died. Mister Watson took her in to help young Mrs. Watson with the children, cause Hannah Smith had other business to attend to.
Nobody at Chatham Bend spoke Injun enough to even tell that girl where she should sleep at, they figured Injuns probably slept out in the woods. Leslie Cox didn't hold with talk, just took her over to the shed and raped her, done that regular. Got her pregnant, too, is what we heard. And knowing her people would never take her back, knowing she had no place in this world she could ever go, the poor young critter got so lonesome and pathetic that she hung herself, unborn baby and all, down in the boat shed.
That was a story that never got out about the Watson Place until long after. The nigger told it but nobody believed it, cause by the time the men went down to Chatham Bend, her body was gone. But I was friendly with the Injuns when I lived on Possum Key in later years, and they all knowed about it. How they took care of it they would not say.
My granddaddy James Hamilton and my dad and uncles, they was pioneering at South Lost Man's when Mister Watson got the Atwell claim, which was Lost Man's Key and the farm patch at Little Creek, across the river. My other granddad, Captain Jim Daniels, was down there at tha
t time. Him and his boy Frank, they seen the smoke of Tucker's sloop, burning away as she drifted out to westward in the Gulf, with the sunset like a halo all around her. Looked like she'd been set afire by that ball of light and just melted down into the sea.
Mister Watson got so scarce for a few years that we figured he was probably gone for good, so our bunch started in to farming Little Creek, which had growed over since the Tuckers' day but was handy to our place on Lost Man's Beach. Next thing we knew, Ed Watson had come back, friendly as ever, like he never even heard of Wally Tucker, and he made no trouble over Little Creek. For a start, he had enough to do bringing the Bend back to production and taking care of his north Florida farm. His young wife had him calmed down some, and anyway, he didn't need no fight with neighbors.
However, he had no money left and more work than he could handle, so he took any labor he could get. Chatham Bend got a bad name for escaped convicts and stray niggers, and pretty soon a rumor went around that people down there was just disappearing. Course there was no way to keep track of them runaways that worked that man's plantation, cause nobody knew who was down there in the first place, but more and more, people was saying that Mister Watson was scaring people off the islands, and killing his help when the time come to pay 'em, and who was to say that he would let it go at that? He was a man who had killed before, he had the habit of it, and they couldn't hang him twice if he tried again. Had a carpenter named Jim Dyches there with his wife and children that last summer, and them folks got so nervous at the Watson Place that one day they just left without Jim's pay, took off on the mail boat with Gene Gandees.
Killing Mister Watson Page 28
