Shadow Country

by Peter Matthiessen

  Dutchy Melville was a common-sized man, kind of a dirty complexion. Folks knew his people in Key West, good people, too, but if you didn’t know how much they hated Spaniards, you might of seen a hair of Spanish in ’em. In one way Dutchy was like Mister Watson, very soft-spoke, nice to meet, and everybody liked him, but some way wild and crazy all the same. Wore big matched revolvers on a holster belt for all to see. One day there on Watson’s dock, young Dexter Hamilton from Lost Man’s Beach got to hold his gun belts while he did a real front flip, landed on his feet soft as a cat like a regular acrobat out of a circus.

  First year Dutchy come, Mister Watson made him foreman, cause those six-guns scared the crew so bad they was glad to work any way the foreman told ’em. Dutchy made fast workers out of slow ones by letting ’em think he had nothing left to lose; if he got the idea to blow their heads off, he might just do that for the target practice. But after him and Mister Watson quarreled over money, Dutchy spoiled a whole year’s worth of syrup while Watson was away, took off on some boat and wound up in New York City. From there he wrote his boss a sassy postcard. Mister Ed, Hope you enjoyed yourself spending up my pay at Tampa Bay. Watson stood on the porch and read that card he got from Dutchy Melville and just laughed, Erskine Thompson told us. Said, “That young feller knew enough to go a thousand miles away before he wrote me that!” Then he swore he would kill him the first chance he got.

  Spring of 1910, a stranger come. “John Smith.” Turned out later that his rightful name was Leslie Cox. Some said Cox was Watson’s cousin and some said he saved Watson’s hide one time up north, and later we learned he was a killer that run off from the chain gang, same as Dutchy. Cox had a voice deep as a alligator and a sly mean mouth, said Isaac Yeomans, who run him down from Chokoloskee to the Bend, but he weren’t around here long enough for folks to picture him. Some said his black hair was long like a Injun, some said it was cropped short, looked more like fur. Maybe that was their imagination. I seen him myself a time or two but don’t recall what his hair looked like, only that I didn’t like his looks.

  Tant Jenkins, out hunting in Lost Man’s Slough, come downriver in late spring with a young Mikasuki squaw and dropped her at the Bend. Injuns wouldn’t work for whites, wouldn’t work for nobody, but this girl was a drunk whose people had turned their back on her for laying with Tom Brewer to settle what she owed for Brewer’s moonshine; she was huddled on the bank dead sick, and if Tant hadn’t of come along, she might of died. Nobody at Chatham Bend spoke enough Injun to tell that girl where she should sleep at; probably figured that redskins mostly curled up on the ground out in the woods. Watson ordered her to help his wife with the chores because Big Hannah had men’s work to attend to. Girl never understood a word he said but with Ed Watson, people generally got the drift of what was wanted.

  Leslie Cox didn’t hold with no cajolery. He took and raped that girl, done that regular and got her with child, is what we heard. And knowing her people would never take her back, knowing she had no place to go, the poor critter got so lonesome and pathetic that she hung herself to death out in the boat shed.

  That was a story that never did get out until long after, cause by the time the posse went to Chatham Bend, her body was gone. But I got friendly with them Injuns in later years and they all knowed about it. How they took care of it they would not say.

  With Dutchy gone and Green Waller mostly drunk, Mister Watson made Cox his foreman, but in the late summer of 1910, Dutchy popped up again with a friendly word for everybody, told ’em he was real glad to be home. Only thing, he didn’t care for the new foreman, flat refused to take his orders, said he aimed to take back his old job. “I’m fixing to run this somber sonofabitch right off the property,” he told his boss with Cox standing right there. Said he made his ma a solemn swear never to consort with common criminals, which was why he had felt honor-bound to run off from the chain gang.

  Common criminals and honor-bound, coming from the mouth of this young killer, purely tickled Mister Watson, and him and Dutchy had a good laugh over that. Dutchy was so cocky he actually thought the Boss was smiling on him like a son; that boy thought a heap of “Mister Ed,” thought Mister Ed was sure to let bygones be bygones over that spoiled syrup. Might of been true that Watson liked him but “like” don’t always mean forgive, not when it comes to a year’s worth of hardearned money.

  When a bear rummaging around too close raises up when he gets your scent, you load quick but you load real easy, with no extra motions that could startle him, and you don’t ever look him in the eye cause a bear can’t handle that and he might charge. Dutchy Melville was not the kind that took precautions, he was only excited to see what the bear might do; he was like a pup barking and jumping around that bad ol’ bear, scaring the on-lookers by trying to play, cause the bear don’t know the pup is playing and don’t care.

  Weeks Daniels likes to tell about the day when Melville tagged along with Mister Watson when he went to Pavilion to see his little daughters and while away the afternoon with Josie Jenkins. Hearing Josie’s brother holler insults by way of telling his old boss hello, Dutchy figured, well, if that fool Tant can ride him, I can, too. Wanted to show them clam diggers and riffraff that Dutchy Melville had no fear of man nor beast nor E. J. Watson neither. So what he done, he follered his boss and teetered him off the plank walkway across the tide flats, hooting like hell to see him slog ashore. nobody else who seen this laughed because Watson got his good boots ruined by saltwater mud.

  Watson never looked back. Waded ashore, kept right on going over to Josie’s shack. But Tant seen his face as he passed by, claimed he knowed right then that Dutchy’s days was numbered.

  TANT JENKINS

  That last summer of living in the Islands, the hunting was so poor that me and my cousin Harvey Daniels and my sort-of cousin Crockett tried setting set gill nets on them sea trout flats northwest of Mormon Key. One early morning before light—we was still anchored, half asleep—we was woke by the motor of a boat coming out from Chatham River. Not many motorboats back then so every man knew any boat from a long ways off. Sure enough, Watson’s black Warrior come sliding into view. The coast was empty, then there she was, clear of the last mangrove clumps, popped up like she come downriver underwater. Thirty-foot long and nine-foot beam, with a trunk cabin forward, canvas curtains aft, and that black hull.

  Next thing we knew, she swung off course headed straight in our direction. Never hailed us, only circled us where we lay anchored, with nobody out on deck, no sign of life. Round and round she went, two-three-four times, slow and steady as a shark. All our guns was loaded, set to shoot, that’s how spooked we was, though we was fellers who liked Ed most of the time, him being so friendly with our Daniels family. If he wanted us off them fishing grounds, all he had to do was wave us off and we’d go someplace else.

  Not knowing what he was fixing to do next, we could only whisper and sit tight and wait for him to recognize us, leave us alone. I’d worked for him right up until that Tucker business and was still friendly with Lucius. Harvey’s dad was his old friend Jim Daniels, Aunt Netta’s brother and captain of the clam dredge, and Harvey was the engineer on Bill Collier’s Falcon, which carried the clams north to the factory. On his day off, Harvey worked on other boats as a mechanic: just recently he’d done motor repair for Mister Watson and was owed eighty-five dollars, which could buy you a rebuilt motor back in them days. Two-three Sundays at Pavilion, Harvey had worked on Mister Watson’s boat right alongside him. What I always recall, when you seen Ed Watson from behind, them ginger whiskers under that black hat would be sticking out from both sides of his head.

  Mister Watson was generally a fair man to do business with, but this day was along toward the end when he was broke from his troubles in north Florida and behind on all his debts and slow from booze. His black boat circled us four times, then come ahead from dead abeam like she aimed to cut our little boat in two. Crockett and me jumped up, waving our guns, but Harvey had more sense, bein
g the oldest; said he had no wish to trade shots with E. J. Watson, especially when we couldn’t even see him. Told us to lay them guns down quick, making sure Watson seen us do it, and then get set to dive over the side and swim underwater far as we could, come up for a quick breath and down again, cause we might not make it to the shore if we was full of lead. But at the last second—we was yelling at each other to get set—the black boat sheared off and headed north. Was that all he wanted? Scaring us, I mean?

  Speck—that’s what Watson called Crockett, I can’t rightly recall why—Speck were now close to sixteen and pretty reckless, so being bad spooked was hard for him to handle. He promised Harvey, “If he don’t pay you what he owes real quick, we’ll slip upriver on a night tide, set in the reeds across from his damn house, and first time he steps outside, I’ll pick him off for you.” He meant that, too. Never killed nobody far as I heard but you knew this boy could do that if he had to. It was something you seen in certain fellers: Crockett Daniels was that kind. And he was a boy who could pick up his rifle and nail the small head of a floatin terrapin spang to the water.

  Harvey was the other kind, thoughtful and steady—sooner lose his pay than see a man shot dead on his account. Also, he knew that bein so hotheaded, Crockett might not have such a cunning plan as what he thought. Harvey said, “Maybe you ain’t doing this to settle up my debt. Maybe you’re doing this just to prove that you ain’t scared of him.”

  Speck got somewhat hot, of course, but he don’t really deny it. “One of these damn days,” he swore, “I’ll take and fix that sonofabitch to where he don’t scare nobody no more!”

  BILL HOUSE

  Hurricane of October 1909 tore away half of Key West, blew the cigar trade all the way north to Tampa Bay. Who could have known that a storm much worse would strike in 1910? Maybe the Great Comet in our night sky in April-May was our first warning.

  Ed Watson’s house at Chatham Bend was strong constructed, and she sat up on a Injun mound as high above the water as any place south of Chokoloskee, probably as safe a place as you could find on this low coast. So you have to ask why, a few days before the hurricane, Watson run his family back to Chokoloskee unless he knew what might happen at the Bend and wanted his people safe out of harm’s way. Watson told Smallwood he had brung his wife and kids because his crazy foreman was out to kill somebody. And all this time he called him “Smith,” as if hiding his identity, which seemed suspicious at the time and does today. Edna confided in my sister and Alice McKinney that she could not abide Chatham Bend with “John Smith” there. Never let on what she knew but only said that wherever that man went, trouble would follow.

  Somewhere around October 10, Watson come here visiting his family, bringing one of his outlaws along with him. Folks was leery of this feller Dutchy Melville but allowed as how he was always full of fun. That October day at Chokoloskee, Dutchy got foul-mouthed, sneered at Watson to his face in front of everybody. Called him Ed. Said, “Ed? How about let’s you and me just settle this fucking goddamn thing right here and now?”

  Watson told him calmly that no man could draw as fast out of his pocket as a feller drawing from a holster. “You want me dead as bad as that,” he said, “you better shoot me in the back.” And Dutchy said, “Back-shooting, Ed? I always heard that was your damned specialty.” Mister Watson cocked his head, eyes just a-shivering. Told Dutchy, “You ain’t careful enough for a feller who talks to me as smart as that.” Then he turned his back on him, kind of contemptuous.

  There come a gasp but Watson knew his man. Dutchy was no backshooter and never would be. “What this young feller needs is another drink,” Ed Watson said. They drank together, took the jug along for the trip home to Chatham Bend. That was the last we ever seen of Dutchy Melville.

  OWEN HARDEN

  All that long summer of 1910, crops withered in the worst drought Daddy Richard could remember. With fishing so poor and the last clam beds off Pavilion staked out by Bay crackers, all we had left was ricking buttonwood for charcoal.

  For ricking, a man has got to cut ten cords a day. Tote ’em and stack ’em, cover the rick with grass and sand to make it airtight, all but a vent on top and a few holes at the bottom to fire it. Get twenty bags of charcoal at the most for all that donkey work and still don’t make a living. Man winds up with a sooty face and a crook-back, is about all.

  For fishermen used to open water and Gulf breeze, ricking is killing work in the wet heat. Up at first light, work till dusk, lay down stinking cause you’re too tired to wash. Get up bone stiff, sore, half bit to death, still stinking, do the same damned thing all over again, day after day, year after year. See any sense to it? Daddy Richard weren’t up to the chopping and stacking, not no more, not ten cords in a day. No feller that age is going to last long ricking but our stubborn old man aimed to die in the attempt. Down at Shark River, they was cutting out the last of them giant mangrove trees for fuel for tanning, but that work was too heavy for him, too. So it looked like Hardens might have to leave all our hard years behind—clearings, cabins, fish docks, all our gear. Say good-bye to Lost Man’s and our old free life, go to Caxambas to work in the clam cannery because Daddy Richard had worn out his heart down in the rivers and it was too late in life to start again.

  Up till very near the end, my folks never bothered their heads about all them Watson stories. Hadn’t Ed been our good neighbor? (But maybe they were forgetting certain stuff, cause when I was little, my ma used our neighbor as the Bogeyman: You don’t jump into that bed real quick, John Owen Harden, Mister Watson’ll gitcha!) Only now in his despair did Richard Harden listen to Earl’s gossip about “Watson Payday.” He came to fear that his friend Ed Watson would take over Wood Key as soon as our family left to find work elsewhere. “Well, that’s better than before we leave, like Tuckers!”—that was Earl and for once nobody hushed him. Dread was growing in the Islands, dread was always in the air, like haze from Glades wildfires over eastward, and finally Hardens got infected, too. In my nightmares—I never mentioned ’em to Sarah—Mister Watson loomed up in the night window, the moonlight glinting on his gun and whiskers.

  HOAD STORTER

  Early October, with my brother Claude and Henry Short, I was fishing the bayous up inside the Chatham delta (what’s called Storter Bay on the marine charts of today), and selling the catch to the clam diggers on Pavilion Key. My good old friend from boyhood, Lucius Watson, usually came downriver to fish with us, but Lucius had left the Bend after some trouble, he was in Flamingo.

  One evening we were at Pavilion selling mullet when Jim Cannon from Marco and his boy came in and caused a uproar. The Cannons were farming vegetables on Mr. Chevelier’s old place on Possum Key. Some said they were prospecting for the Frenchman’s treasure (or maybe the miser money folks claim Ed Watson killed him for) but Jim was just provisioning the clam crews, same as we were. Bananas and guavas were still thick on Possum in the years bears didn’t clean ’em out, also the gator pears and Key limes put in by the Frenchman. His garden was kept cleared and his cistern fresh by Indians who camped there on their way north from Shark River.

  After Watson came back to Chatham Bend in early 1909, the Cannons never cared to stay the night at Possum Key. Camped with the clam crews on Pavilion, went upriver each day on the tide. On that dark squally morning, Jim’s boy saw a pale small thing breaking the surface. “Pap,” he calls, “I seen something queer stick up, right over there!” And Jim Cannon says, “No, you ain’t never! Must been some ol’ snag or somethin.” The boy hollered, “Nosir! It was white!” Well, Cannon paid him no more mind, and they went on upriver. But that boy worried all day about what he’d seen, and coming back that afternoon, he was on the lookout, and pretty quick he’s hollering and pointing.

  Know that eddy just below the Watson place, off the north bank? Jim Cannon swung the boat in there, saw something white and puffy sticking up that turned out to be a woman’s foot. The current curling past it was so strong that they had to take a hitch around the ank
le just to stay put, but there was nothing to be done, they could not come up with her. That corpse seemed moored to something deep down in the river and they pretty near capsized trying to boat her.

  The boy was scared and getting scareder: he figured that the giant croc reported from this stretch of river must have a hold of her. Staring at that ghosty face mooning deep in the dark current and the hair streaming like gray weed, he burst into tears of fright, he was shivering in some kind of a fit. So Cannon cut her loose, said, “Never mind, son, we’ll just go ashore, report this here calamity to Mister Watson.” Having more sense than the father, the boy screeched, “Nosir, I ain’t going!” He had heard those stories about Watson, he was scared stiff.

  Jim told him to hush up so he could think. He concluded that whoever committed this foul deed had nothing to lose by getting rid of witnesses and he’d better go back to Pavilion, find some help.

  Next morning, a party went upriver. Henry Short was very much afraid but he went with us. Kept his old rifle handy and nobody objected, the body being just below the Watson place. That giant woman had been gutted out like you’d gut a bear, then anchored off with sacks of bricks left over from the syrup works and some pig iron. When she bloated up and floated all that iron off the bottom, that one foot broke the surface and wigwagged the first boat that came along. Every man was boiling mad to see a woman as good-hearted as Hannah Smith treated so brutally. Some of ’em were talking big about going up to Watson’s house, but except for Henry we weren’t armed so we never went, and nobody came out of that house to see what we were up to.