Even Uncle Henry Thompson didn't like the feeling in that place, not by the end of it. Uncle Henry will tell you that himself, and he was a feller never failed to speak up for Mister Watson.
In May 1910, Mr. McKinney reported that the weather remained dry and the fish few. The pear crop was poor and the horseflies bad, but there were no mosquitoes yet to speak of. At the end of the month, it was "dry, dry, dry: limes, grapefruit, guavas will all fail; fish still scarce."
"Jim Demere reports no luck on gator hunt."
"Bill House has shipped on the Rosina a cargo of wood, hogs, eggs, chickens, and pickled rabbits."
"Walter Alderman has moved into the Andrew Wiggins house vacated by Gene Roberts and will go fishing."
"The most of us have seen the comet but now we are expecting to get another look in the west soon."
In June, the Rivers and Harbors Act authorized the dredging of the Calusa Hatchee, whose white sandy bottom had been increasingly covered with silt due to the widening of the Okeechobee Canal. Under Governor Napoleon Broward (who would die that same year on October 1) widespread canal dredging had been resumed, and big sales campaigns had started up for the sale of Everglades land.
The Monroe County census taken in May listed Green Waller, 53, and Mrs. Smith (cook), 40, at Chatham Bend, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Watson and their two young children-the third child was born later in this month. There was also Lucius Watson, age 20, a fisherman, and another white man, "John Smith, age 33."
Early June brings warm and cloudy weather, with mosquitoes. "I have been here twenty-four years and have never seen the fruit trees so near dead as now, near the first of June… don't know what the effect will be when the rain comes, if it ever does… We see the comet in the west now, but not so brilliantly as in the east…"
His brother Horace from Marco visits Walter Alderman. He will move onto the island in July. (Horace Alderman became notorious in later years for his exploits in the rum-running and Chinese-smuggling trades. He was hung at Fort Lauderdale in the mid-twenties for the murder of two Coast Guardsmen who had detained him.)
Mr. George Storter, his two sons, and Henry Short have "fair luck" on a gator hunt and go again.
Game laws protecting alligators are passed in Lee County, since in the dry season the gators dig out water holes used by the cattle.
"Mr. C.T. Boggess and family have moved on the island to dwell among the righteous for a while."
At the end of June, the rainy season arrives at last, nearly two months late, with lots of Indians, mosquitoes, and "blind tiger" (moonshine).
Walter Alderman, Henry Smith, C.G. McKinney, Jim Howell, Willie Brown, D.D. House, Charlie Boggess all growing vegetables for the Key West market.
In early July (as Admiral Peary claims discovery of the North Pole) McKinney teases the preacher Brother Jones, who chronically defers his visits due to the torments visited upon him by the "swamp angels" (mosquitoes).
Henry Smith and Tant Jenkins go to dig clams at Pavilion Key until the fishing improves.
Charlie McKinney and Kathleen Demere are married at the schoolhouse on July 28 by Justice George Storter.
In early August, the Rosina, which now sails twice a month, leaves for Key West with Mr. and Mrs. John Henry Daniels.
"Green peas and beans are being harvested; fish are fat."
"Mr. Walter Alderman has a (chronic) infected foot."
McKinney reports lots of rain, thunder, and lightning for late August, also "low bush lightning." The "truckers" (truck farmers) are setting out their crops. McKinney is getting in his pepper crop while fighting rabbits.
A baby girl is born on the island to Andrew Wiggins and his wife on August 20. She is the former Addie Howell. His father, William Wiggins, has moved to Fort Myers, but his younger brother, Raleigh, is on Chokoloskee.
Bill House and Miss Nettie Howell are wed at the school-house on the last Sunday of August, "just as we have been expecting for two years." They have their honeymoon at Key West on the Rosina, and will live on the boat. Dan House now plans to acquire his own boat.
In early September, Miss Lillie Daniels, daughter of Jim Daniels, marries Capt. Jack Collier at Caxambas. "Lucius Watson was here [Caxambas] Sunday for the first time since April." (One may guess that he was visiting the Daniels-Jenkins clan, including his young half-sisters Pearl and Minnie.)
Henry Short has gone back fishing. The fishing is good but the hens are not laying.
School reopens. Gregorio Lopez and sons have gone to Honduras hunting alligators, while Lovie Lopez and the younger children move to Chokoloskee "for the school season."
BILL HOUSE
Somewhere around October 10, Mister Watson brought his family up to Chokoloskee. His wife and children visited commonly at Chokoloskee after the baby's birth in May. She told my sister and Alice McKinney she could not tolerate Chatham Bend with Leslie Cox there. She would never let on what she knew about Cox, she only said that wherever that man was, trouble would follow.
Mister Watson had one of his outlaws with him. The men liked Dutchy Melvin, what they seen of him, they was leery but allowed as how he was full of fun. That October day at Chokoloskee, there was some tension between him and Watson, something to do with Cox. Dutchy got drunk and foul-mouthed, sneered at Mister Watson to his face, in front of everybody. Pretended he was fooling but he wasn't. Even dropped the "Mister," called him "E.J.," even "Ed." Said, Don't know what's eating on you, Ed, but how about let's you and me settle this fucking goddam thing right here and now.
Mister Watson explained calmly to that young feller that no man, not even E.J. Watson, could draw as fast out of his coat pocket as a feller drawing from a holster. You want me dead as bad as that, you better shoot me in the back, Mister Watson said. And Dutchy said, I heard back-shooting was your specialty. Mister Watson raised his eyes and cocked his head. After a little while he said, You're not careful enough for a feller who talks as smart as that. And Dutchy said, I'm getting more careful all the time. But under Mister Watson's gaze, his eyes shivered just a little, the men seen it.
When Mister Watson turned his back on him, there come a gasp, but Watson knew his man. Dutchy was no back-shooter and never would be. What was needed was another drink, Ed Watson said. They got some more booze from the Lopez boys and drank together, took the jug along for the trip to Chatham Bend. That's the last we ever seen of Dutchy Melvin.
Henry Daniels likes to tell about the day when Mister Watson come in to see Pearl and Minnie at Pavilion, maybe visit a spell with Josie Parks while he was at it. And Tant Jenkins yelled some teasing at him by way of telling him hello, and Dutchy Melvin, hearing that, made the bad mistake of figuring, Well, if that fool Tant could do it, he could, too. So what he done, he teetered Mister Watson off the plank that led across the mud flats to the shore, done it to show them clam diggers and whatnot that Dutchy Melvin weren't afraid of E.J. Watson. Got Mister Watson's good boots wet in the salt water, and the pant legs of his city britches, too, and hooted just to see him slog ashore. Nobody else who seen it laughed at all.
Dutchy Melvin thought a heap of Mister Watson, he was like a barking pup jumping around, trying to play with a quiet dangerous dog. He was excited to see what that man would do, and looked kind of crestfallen, Henry said, when nothing happened.
Mister Watson never once looked back, he kept right on going. But Henry Daniels seen Mister Watson's face as he went by, said he knowed right then that Dutchy's days was numbered. Would of bet money on it, Henry Daniels said.
SAMMIE HAMILTON
If Mister Watson killed them Tuckers for that Lost Man's claim, there weren't nothing to keep him from coming farther south, kill a few Hamiltons. Grandpap James Hamilton figured Mister Watson might suspect we had some money saved, might demand them savings as due rent, on account he'd paid the Atwells for the claim at Little Creek but we was farming it. That goes to show how fear grew in the rivers. Fear was always in the air, like the scent of haze from far-off fires in the Glades. The
more us young fry thought about it, the more certain we become that Mister Watson would come get us, sooner or later. I was having nightmares. Mister Watson would loom up in the window, just the outline of him, that big barrel chest and that broad hat, and the moon glinting on his gun and whiskers.
Our mama never put no stock in it, I know that now-He's been our generous neighbor, not a thief!-but even Mama used him as a bogeyman. You don't jump in that bed quick, Mister Watson'll gitcha! Toward the end she give up, she seen how scared we was, and maybe she'd got a little nervous too.
Sure enough, Mister Watson came, maybe two-three days before the hurricane. We heard that motor popping from a long ways off, coming up across the Gulf wind, a sound like muffled rifle shots, but steady. He called that launch the Brave but us kids called her the May-Pop, on account she didn't always run too good. Later on Gene Hamilton had a launch just like her, but the Brave was the only motorboat down in the rivers before 1910, so we had no doubt about who was on his way.
When the motor stopped, kind of too sudden, we thought he'd beached her and was sneaking up along the shore. But soon he come drifting around the point on the flood tide, poling, y'know, the way the Injuns do it. He worked her over to our little dock, where he took his coat off and begun to tinker with his engine. My uncle Henry Daniels at Pavilion Key had fixed that engine earlier that season, and she had got the man all the way here. Not being so sure why she broke down smack at our place, we become uneasy.
My dad, Frank Hamilton, was back inland with Uncle Jesse Hamilton and Henry Thompson, grubbing out royal palms on the Johnson Mound, cause times was very hard and getting harder. Mama said, I hope our men have heard that motor. They heard it, all right, and they come quick as they could, but that weren't quick enough.
At that time, fall of 1910, we had just got word that the state of Florida had passed more laws against the plume trade, and gator and otter already so scarce down in the rivers that it didn't hardly pay to hunt no more. We couldn't compete in the fishing trade with them other Hamiltons, who had a rancho out there on Wood Key and a dock where the runboats could bring in ice and take their fish away. Our few vegetables didn't mean a thing no more in the Key West market, even when we could get 'em down there without spoiling. Wasn't nothing much left but grubbing out royal palms for Fort Myers streets or ricking buttonwood for charcoal. Got to cut ten cords a day, tote 'em and stack 'em, then cover the pile with grass and sand until it's airtight, all but a few holes at the bottom to fire it and a vent on top. You get you a crookback and maybe twenty bags of charcoal for all that heat and dirt and donkeywork, and twenty bags ain't going to buy a living.
Grandpap said, "Get up at daylight, work like mules till dusk, lay down stinking and half bit to death by skeeters, too damn tired to wash. Get up next morning daylight, do it all again, year in, year out. See any sense to it?"
Grandpap weren't up to the cutting and stacking, not no more, not ten cords in a day. No old man is going to last long ricking buttonwood, and this one figured to die in the attempt. Down to Shark River, they cut mangrove for tanning, one of the Atwell boys was in on it, but that work was too heavy for Grandpap, too. It sure looked like we would have to leave all our hard work behind, say good-bye to Lost Man's, go to Pavilion Key, where Granddaddy Jim Daniels was foreman of the clam crews and Uncle Lewis Hamilton cooked on the dredge-either that or work in the Caxambas cannery longside the niggers. So Mister Watson was standing by to take over our claim on Lost Man's Beach, and Grandpap had it in for him on general principles, not on account Mister Watson done him wrong but on account he'd used up his old heart at Lost Man's, and it was too late in life to start again.
Our family always ambled out to welcome visitors at the landing, that was the custom among Island neighbors. But this day Grandpap stayed back in the cabin, sore as a damn beetle blister cause his arthuritis had flared up on him, he couldn't work. What with them life pains he was feeling, Grandpappy had his rifle cocked, and had drew a bead on Mister Watson's heart. He told his daughter-in-law before she went out to the dock, "You hear me, Blanche? That outlaw makes just one false move, I aim to shoot!" And he told her to keep her children clear of his line of fire. My mother was disgusted, y'know, told him he had frightened us kids for nothing. He hollered back that he knew what he knew about this Watson, and I guess he did.
Mister Watson seen straight off that he weren't welcome. He never got out of that boat, never tied up. The onshore wind held her snug against the dock, but with that chop she made a steady bump against the pilings. I ain't never forgot that hollow thumping, like a shit-quick's ghosty booming in the swamp.
"Good day, Mister Watson!" calls my mother. Her hands was dead white, that's how hard she clenched 'em, she was almost whimpering. But she was a long sight more upset about not offering him a bite to eat than she was about him killing us to get our money.
That man took off his hat but he did not answer. This was unusual, being his manners was so up-to-date. His clothes weren't soiled but they looked slept in, he was hollow-eyed and grizzle-chinned, and we smelled whiskey. But he never seemed bothered by the silence in that clearing, which any moment was going to explode. He studied all around awhile, just listening, trying to feel out what was in the air. He must of wondered where my dad was, and Henry Thompson, whose boat was tied up at our landing, and why Grandpap James Hamilton stayed back into the house, never called hello.
Mister Watson was careful not to stare, he covered that window out the corner of his eye. It's like when a bear ambles out of the brake much too close by. You load quick but you load real easy, and no extra motions. You don't startle him, and you don't look in a bear's eyes, cause a bear can't handle any kind of challenge, he might charge.
Mister Watson studied up on the whole clearing but he kept coming back to the cabin window. In them gray old weatherboards, that window looked black as a square hole, and crouched back of there was Grandpap Hamilton, muttering and agitating with his trigger.
Poor Mama had the twitches, she was swaying back and forth like some old woman with St. Vitus dance. Ain't it strange? Mama was a plain embarrassment to me and Dexter even though we was fighting a hard fight not to piss our pants. Mister Watson stayed calm, smiled kind of quizzical, like he hoped some little bird might tell him why these Hamilton kids was acting so scared stupid and their mother crazy. Later we knew Mister Watson's calm was his way of getting set, like a cottonmouth gathering its coils.
Mama moved a step too quick between Mister Watson and the window. He paid no mind, like he never knowed she done it, but he knowed, all right, cause he kept his hands out wide so's to be seen by whoever might of drawed a bead on him. "And a good day to you, Miss Blanche," he says at last, with a warm smile for us children. "Henry around?" It had been so long before he spoke that his quiet voice made Dexter squeak.
Mama says, "Why, yes, he is! Frank, too! And Jesse!" Aiming to show how well we was protected, she done just the opposite. Anyway, she regretted it right off, cause hearing our men was near might make him stay.
To get his mind off it, I squawked, "How's Betsey?" My voice was changing and my brother hooted, but Mister Watson shook his head, real serious. Betsey, he said, had ate her shoats and he had a good mind to eat her. Might teach her not to try that trick again, he said. And he give my mother a wink, and she busted out giggling, mostly from nerves. As she said later, A man could joke about his sow did not have killing on his mind, and Grandpap snapped, A female says such a fool thing as that don't know the first thing about killers!
A few years later it come out on his deathbed that Grandpap himself knew a thing or two along that line, which was why we lived at Lost Man's River with no neighbors-unless you would count them other Hamiltons, who were not our kind of people, Aunt Gert said. Well, maybe they had a nigger in the woodpile, maybe not. I always liked 'em. So far as we heard, they never had no killer in that family, and they had more claim to their family name than we did.
That day, Mister Watson told us he was
calling in on his way back from Key West, just wanted to know if Henry Thompson could make a run for him to Tampa, cause he had four thousand gallons of last winter's syrup set to ship. If there was anything we needed in Fort Myers, why please say so, because he would be heading north in the next few days.
My mother thanked him kindly, said we lacked for nothing, meaning there wasn't a sack of beans that we could pay for. When she just stood twisting her hands, never invited him to eat, Mister Watson acted like he never noticed. Said that he'd like nothing better than to visit with us for a little, but he had to be getting back to his wife and children, and soon as he got his boat cranked up, he'd be on his way.
Her small moan told how shamed poor Mama was, it was all she could do not to bawl her head off over menfolk foolishness. Wasn't Mister Watson kinfolks, in a manner of speaking, with daughters by Aunt Netta Daniels, and Aunt Josie? But she bit her lip hard and said something polite, still shifting and swaying, still trying to keep herself in Grandpap's line of fire, in case Mister Watson went for his handkerchief to blow his nose and the old feller hauled back on the trigger.
Mister Watson noticed her peculiar movements and he watched our eyes. He did not know who was hid back in the house, but he sure knew somebody was there. At that range Frank Hamilton could drill him dead on the first shot without no trouble, and Grandpap, too, if he wasn't too worked up to put his mind to it.
The wind was out of the northeast, had held in that quarter for two days, with squalls and rain, and we was already wondering about a storm. Didn't have no radios in them days, we just had to go by signs we knew. Mister Watson looked at that dark sky and said he believed a hurricane was coming down on us.
That wind was gathering a little, sure enough, racketing the sea-grape and palmettas, yet all around, the world seemed deadly still. Later we learned there was a federal warning-this was around October the 13th-but where did Mister Watson hear about it? He knew, all right. Said he'd already taken his own family up to Chokoloskee, and he'd be proud to take us up there, too.
Killing Mister Watson Page 29
