Next day early, in a southeast wind, Mister Watson crossed over to Everglade in his launch, paid down good money to my dad and Claude to carry him as far as Marco that same morning. Uncle George Storter would take care of the Brave, Mister Watson being one of his best customers. I don't know why he didn't take the Brave-no fuel, I guess. Also the barometer was falling fast, so it made more sense to go in a bigger boat.
R.B. Storter never cared to go in that black weather, but being as how they was old friends, he did. My mother got pretty bad upset that Dad was leaving right into a storm, she was scared for him and scared for Claude and scared for the home ones left behind in the rising waters, because Everglade weren't nothing more than mud banks on a tide creek back in them days. To make it worse, she was afraid that Watson might up and do away with 'em, cause the awful tale about the killings was all over the Bay, and she knew him for a desperate man that would try anything. But Mister Watson were a hard feller to say no to, it was always easier to go along.
There was northeast winds gusting to fifty by the time they came out Fakahatchee Pass. The Bertie Lee was banging hard and shipping water, and near to Caxambas, it wasn't a hard blow no more, it was plain some kind of storm was on the way. That wind had gone southeast to south, then around to the southwest, and building steady. From Marco Island all the way north to Punta Rassa, a small boat could mostly stay inside the barrier islands, but my dad didn't like the way them clouds was churning down that sky, ugly purple and yellow, like the firmament itself was torn and battered. He was more and more worried all the time about the family, and finally he told Mister Watson they could not take him to Fort Myers but was going to leave him at Caxambas and head on back. He'd have to walk from there to the Marco settlement, at the north end of that island, where somebody might carry him to the mainland.
Mister Watson looked 'em over for a minute there, went all wooden in the face the way he did sometimes. Had his hands in his coat, and Claude was scared he would haul out his revolver, order our dad to keep on going. Maybe he'd shoot 'em, dump 'em overboard, take the boat himself. But I guess he figured he had trouble enough without killing the brother of the justice of the peace, and his nephew thrown in. Cussed 'em out pretty darn good, but when he seen that wasn't going to change nothing, he give it up. Anyway, he always liked my dad. When they set him on the dock there at the clam factory, he wished them a safe voyage home, and waved good-bye, and strode off toward the north, his slicker flying.
The Bertie Lee never made it back to Everglade, she had to put in at Fakahatchee, where Dad and Claude took shelter with Jim Martin. That night the schooner dragged her anchor, drifted up into the mangroves. Claude and Dad never got a wink, that's how frantic they was about the family, and next morning Dad borrowed a skiff and rowed the last eight miles to Everglade. Found out how Uncle George come over to our house, took everybody aboard the big old lighter that Storters used to carry cane across from Half Way Creek. Herded half the settlement onto one lighter, that's how few was living there back then! Men pushed and poled upriver far as she would go, but Storter River-that's what us old-timers call it-rose ten or twelve feet before midnight till that barge tore loose and carried farther up into the trees. Tide turned before dawn, and barrels, boxes, cows, and all Creation drifted by, and the next thing you know, along come the new schoolhouse! Us kids had a high old time waving it good-bye! But all that while, we was worried sick about Dad and Claude. Never knowed if they was drowned or what, till our dad showed up the day after the storm, asked how we was.
That storm in 1910 lasted thirty hours, seemed like the world was coming to an end. Barometer at Sand Key Light, down by Key West, registered 28.40, the lowest ever recorded in the U.S.A. The Great Hurricane of 1910 was a dreadful, dreadful hurricane, worst in memory along this coast before nor since.
Folks was quick to connect that terrible hurricane with that sky fire that showed up in the springtime of that year and set the sky ablaze night after night. The Great Comet was first seen due east from Sand Key, April 22nd, twenty-five to thirty degrees above the horizon, with the scorpion tail of it curling right over us like an almighty question mark in Heaven.
Brother Jones was ranting on about a great war between Good and Evil, and how that comet was a messenger of Armageddon. The Good Lord aimed to wipe out the whole world, punish us poor sinners for good and all, leave just a few of the pure in heart to get the world cranked up again. By the time that man of God was done with us, the pure-in-hearts was the only ones breathing easy. But pure-in-hearts was never plentiful around the Bay, and once the sinners went to Hell, it might of got pretty lonesome around here, crying in the wilderness and all like that.
So when this angry storm come down right after word come of them bloody murders, it was seen as the first blast of Judgment Day. In the ruin and silence on the land, no one could doubt that Satan had reared His ugly head amongst the sinful folk of the Ten Thousand Islands. All these signs from Heaven and earth could only be God's wrath at E.J. Watson, and maybe the Lord God Almighty had still worse up His sleeve, for all we knew.
MAMIE SMALLWOOD
That Sunday night in the old store, our menfolks got real busy spreading blame. No sooner was Mister Watson safely on his way than some started hollering how he should been taken prisoner, and others hollered, Why, hell no! Ed was right here on Chokoloskee! There ain't no possibility he done them crimes! Other ones said it must been Cox that made that nigra put the blame on Watson, and "anyways you could never trust a nigger." Well, now, some said-and could be I was one-even if Cox had put a gun up to his head, no nigra would be fool enough to lie about a well-estimated man like Mister Watson.
Ted heard me say that and he didn't like it, but I just set my jaw and wouldn't look at him. In my belief I said the truth: Ed Watson's nigra must of had a reason.
By that time Mister Watson was long gone, headed for Everglade. He knew from hard experience, he'd told us, how quick a gang of flustered men can turn into a mob that has to do something, and somehow he sweet-talked R.B. Storter into running him north as far as Marco even though the hurricane was on its way. Had to pay Bembery pretty good, I shouldn't wonder, them Storters never give you much for nothing. That's what Storters say about us Smallwoods, too.
The storm came in next morning and built up all day. Our house was the old Santini house, come with the property Ted bought, 1899. Santinis built her well above the drift line of the hurricane of '73, and that were good enough in '96, and again in 19 and 09, but it weren't near good enough for that hurricane of 1910, which come roaring in around us like a dragon. Rain and sea was all mixed up together, the trees all around lost in the swirl until we couldn't see 'em anymore. Gray thick waves heavy as stones pounded our shore as if our island was way out on the open Gulf, and the island grew smaller, smaller, smaller, as the water rose. Seemed like our little bit of land had been uprooted and had gone adrift, far out to sea.
According to C.G. McKinney, who passed in these parts for somewhat educated, nine tenths of Chokoloskee Island and ten tenths of Everglade was underwater. Had to abandon our poor home and then the schoolhouse, which was ten foot above sea level. Edna Watson was up there with the Aldermans, he carried Addison, she had little Amy and was leading her Ruth Ellen by the hand.
Storm water rose up to its highest maybe four o'clock that morning, left a line on the wall ten inches higher than the school-house floor. The men begun to make a raft out of the schoolhouse, and the bang of hammers was all that could be heard over that wind. Meanwhile we hurried all the kids to the top of Injun Hill.
Poor Edna was close to hysterics. Having been raised far inland from the sea, she never believed such a fearful storm was possible. She promised her kids they would all stay in the schoolhouse and face together whatever dangers was to come. That way they would not get rained on, Edna told 'em. Finally we persuaded the poor thing that she better come uphill long with the rest of us.
By the end of it, all ten families on the island was perched ou
t like wet birds in the black weather. It was late October, don't forget, our teeth were chattering in the cold rain. All night we were staring at that rising water, until finally the Good Lord heard our prayers, and the thundering eased a little and that coast got a breath, and we seen that the seas weren't climbing any more but sucking themselves back down into the torrents, leaving behind dark dripping silence, mud, and ruin.
At daybreak, this was the eighteenth, there was no real dawn at all, it stayed half-dark. The water still swirled around our house, and what goods from the store weren't gone into the Bay were washed way back up into the woods. I lost my whole new set of china, and seeing that, I just shook my head and laughed and cried. Grandma House was hollering, How can you laugh, girl, with all your livelihood lost in the mud? The former pert Miss Ida Borders of South Carolina was pretty disappointed in the Lord, seemed like to me. And I said, Well, Mama, I am thankful we are all alive and in one piece and lived to tell about it. This ol' mud looks pretty good to me.
Only one hurt was Charlie T. Boggess, who threw out his ankle bad, tending the boats. Jumped off a boat where the dock was underwater, and the dock weren't there no more. Fetched Old Man McKinney over here to yank him straight again and bind him up, and after that Ted lugged him on his back all the way across the hill to his own house, told him to stay there and not cause any more trouble. That's why Charlie T. still limped so bad, and why he was bringing up the rear when the posse came down to our landing here a few days later. He made it, though, he never was a feller to miss out on nothing.
SAMMIE HAMILTON
Sunday had some sun and a light wind, but by ten that evening, the sixteenth, the barometer commenced to fall too fast, with wind from the northeast, thirty, forty, fifty miles, and climbing. At dawn high tide come right up to the cabin, the seas was washing all across the ridge back of Lost Man's Beach. By noon that day the wind, still building, shifted over to southeast, then south, and that afternoon of October 17th, when she blew hardest, she blew steady out of the southwest, all the way across the Gulf from the Yucatan Channel.
I was only a little feller then, seven years of age, but I never forgot how the sky fell, that black and awful sky rushing off the Gulf and looming over us, the whole earth turning black at noon. Seas come in off the horizon, crashing on the coast, couldn't hear one wave break no more, it was all thunder. And the rain slashing straight across in sheets, and that groaning wind twisting the trees when the gusts struck us. When the thatch tore off of our poor cabin, what few worldly goods we had was snatched away. By nightfall, we knew we was the last ones in the world, with the whole universe caving in on us poor lost souls.
The cabin begun to shift a little after dark, though when high water come it was past midnight. We abandoned our old home for the skiff, let the wash carry us well up in the black mangroves, lashed the boat tight, and prayed to the Lord Almighty for deliverance. All huddled up, white-faced as possums on a limb, hour after hour, and worried sick the whole damn time about Aunt Gert's family. Well, them Thompsons rode the storm out in a skiff tied up into the mangroves, same as us. Shine Thompson-that's my cousin Leslie-Shine was just a little feller then, and Aunt Gert set a washtub over Shine to keep him dry. The hurricane washed Uncle Henry's sloop so far back in the swamps we never got her out. Might be there yet.
By daybreak, the worst of it was past, the wind was down, but all the banks of Lost Man's River was broken snags and thick gray marl, like a coat of death on every living thing. We could see ripped trees swirling past with wild things clinging, staring back as they was carried out to sea. Lost Man's Key was awash in a tide so high that the river looked a mile across, and the sea and the river were jumbled up together, thick chop and wind roil of a dead lead-gray, like all life color had been bled away.
I asked our mama was this Judgment Day that was spoke of so much in her Holy Bible? Was we in Purgatory or in Hell? And she said, No, honey, best I can make out, we are still on earth. And Grandpap James says, That is Hell enough for me. And Frank Hamilton, my daddy, told us, This here is like the Flood of Noah's time, come around again as warning from the Lord. And we knew he was thinking about Mister Watson.
Over that long night, Grandpap James Hamilton fell quiet, wouldn't talk at all, and after the wind died out a little, he looked all around that silence like he just woke up. Everything poor Grandpap put together in a lifetime was twisted down to trash or washed away, but he didn't act jagged and mean no more, he looked round-eyed as a little child. Finally he started in to murmuring, never stopped again. He was speaking in tongues, that's what my daddy told us, but I believe it was mostly his old memories of days gone by.
Come Wednesday, Henry Thompson took a row skiff up the rivers to the Watson Place, and was kind of surprised no one answered him when he sung out. Said that big house looked like she drifted in and stranded, cause everything around her was smashed flat, boat sheds, bunkhouse, little cabin, most of the trees, too. Uncle Henry come to the conclusion that Mister Watson had taken the whole bunch away before the storm. His schooner had rode it out all right, because somebody had lashed her tight to them big poincianas by the house, and they was about the only trees left standing.
Henry Thompson figured Mister Watson would not mind if he brought the Gladiator south and took us Hamiltons aboard for Chokoloskee. Andrew Wiggins had walked Lost Man's Beach from the mouth of Rodgers River, him and his wife and homeless baby, they was with us, too.
We arrived on Chokoloskee the 21st of October, 1910, and that was when we first had word about the murders. That news give Henry Thompson a bad start. Now that he thought about it, he recollected evil in the air, said the silence on the Bend was something terrible, said the reason Cox never sung out was because he had a bead on Henry from up under the eaves. Way we imagined it, Cox's mouth was set the way a snake's mouth sets, kind of a smile, while that shiny black forked tongue slithers in and out.
Fortnight later when my dad told Grandpap that the Chokoloskee men had killed Ed Watson, the old man shook his head. He did not believe it. Said, "You just tell that bloody-headed devil he is welcome to my Lost Man's claim if he can find it."
Most of Richard Hamilton's gang moved to Lost Man's River after the Hurricane of 1910 swept 'em off Wood Key. People would perch from time to time on our old territory, but them Choctaws or whatever the hell they called theirselves, they was about the only ones that never left. I'm talking about good steady folks was trying to make a life down in the Islands, not moonshiners nor renegades that came and went.
My grandmother Sallie Daniels and old Mary Hamilton was Weeks sisters from Marco Island, so Walter and Gene and Leon and the girls was Mama's cousins. But the two families wasn't close because we was not so proud about 'em, they was another bunch of dogs entirely. Some of 'em was pretty dark, though the dark ones had good features and the girls was comely. Mama and her sister-in-law, Aunt Gertrude Thompson, decided we weren't no kin whatsoever. How they figured that one out they never said.
I guess I wasn't proud about our cousins, but they never bothered me, we got on good. Like I say, I never was ashamed about 'em, ceptin maybe the one who acted shamed about himself. No, me and Dexter never had no trouble with them boys. They was all nice fellers and fine fishermen, they just wanted to be left alone, but folks didn't like their standoffish attitudes, wouldn't let 'em be.
Way I heard it, one time Old Man Richard Hamilton was telling Henry Short from Chokoloskee how he was Choctaw Injun out of Oklahoma. And Henry told him, You ain't Choctaw, you're chock full o' nigger, just like me! Henry Short was a good nigger, and I reckon he still is if he ain't died or something.
In the spirit of its epigraph ("No Stormy Weather Enters Here, Tis Joyous Spring Throughout the Year") the Fort Myers Press ran the headline THE STORM CAME BUT WE ARE HERE. It conceded the devastation caused by the Great Hurricane of October 17, reporting, however, that "All Are Optimistic" and that "No fear for the Future" could be detected.
FORT MYERS, OCTOBER 20, 1910. In Key
West, the storm disabled the anemometers at the weather observation office, along with seven hundred feet of new concrete dock being installed by the War Department, and finished off the three-story concrete cigar factory of the Havana-American Company, severely damaged in the hurricane the year before. Winds reached their greatest velocity on Monday afternoon of the 17th, with gusts up to 110 miles per hour. The rainfall, however, could not be measured, the gauge having been carried out to sea.
The recent storm occupies the thoughts of everyone…one's sympathies are with the small householders, who in many instances have spent their savings in erecting a little home, often built in the cheapest style, which was ill-fitted to withstand the violence of the storm, and is either shattered or so injured as to require considerable outlay in repairs before becoming habitable. The colored population has in these ways encountered heavy losses…
ESTERO, OCTOBER 20, 1910. One peculiarity of the wind was that it would blow steadily for a minute or more with increasing violence, bending the trees before it, then there would come a hard puff that appeared to have a circular motion, twisting and whipping the trees until it seemed they must be torn to pieces or lifted out of the ground. About midnight the wind began to shift from northeast toward the south, until by Tuesday morning it had veered around to almost the opposite direction, that is, from the southwest… then abated…
CHOKOLOSKEE, OCTOBER 21, 1910. We are all in a fearful condition here. Some are destitute of a house, or clothing, only what they happened to have on when the gale struck on the night of the 17th.
Killing Mister Watson Page 32
