Shadow Country

by Peter Matthiessen

  Though arguing back and forth this way made him feel a little better, he knew he was skirting his father’s apparent willingness to send his son to silence that young woman. And how could an honest biographer account for the execution of those two cane cutters which had brought about the Tucker episode in the first place?

  So near its finish after all these years, his life’s work would be utterly invalidated were he to accept Rob’s testimony. “The one surviving witness,” Rob had called himself. How different his biography might have been had that sole surviving witness never reappeared—this was the unwelcome thought he had to banish.

  BLOODY WATSON

  Arriving that evening at the Naples Church Hall, Lucius lingered outside before his talk, prowling the darkness. At noon that day, a radio report had described the attempted shooting of a prominent attorney outside the Gasparilla in Fort Myers. Already in custody was the leading suspect—a “furious negro” who earlier that evening had threatened the victim with a carving knife and terrified other diners in the restaurant. Though relieved for Rob’s sake that Dyer had escaped uninjured, Lucius hated the fact that an innocent man had been unjustly charged, yet saw no way to right this wrong without risking life imprisonment for his brother.

  Observing Lucius benignly from the side doorway of the hall was a small slight man with round chipmunk cheeks and a delighted smile. His linen trousers and navy blue shirt, new deck shoes, and a lemon-yellow sweater caped over his shoulders looked tacked on to his wind-burned fisherman’s hide. “Professor Collins, noted Watson authority, or I miss my guess!”

  “None other.” Lucius grinned as they shook hands.

  “Good thing no Storters got mixed up in that darned shooting,” Hoad Storter said. “Of course Uncle George, after all those years of telling visitors the Ed Watson story, concluded he wouldn’t know so doggone much unless he had taken part in it himself. Lucky thing that week’s newspaper reported that Justice Storter was away on jury duty at Fort Myers or he might have wound up on some old posse list.”

  Lucius laughed—“Oh Lord!”—as Hoad patted his shoulder to take any sting out of his teasing, saying, “Storters stayed friends with everybody on both sides of the story and we’re friends today.” Asked what he meant by “both sides of the story,” Hoad said, “Ambush versus self-defense.”

  Before Lucius could respond, the program director of the Historical Society rushed forward to identify her speaker and tug him toward the side entrance nearest the podium. “You’re late!” Already offended by his tardy appearance and failure to report at once to the official in charge, namely herself, this female was aghast at his plan to identify himself to her audience as E. J. Watson’s son. She could not permit that, she said. His own son’s view of the notorious Bloody Watson would scarcely inspire trust, she complained, and indeed, she already mistrusted him, having caught him red-handed with grain spirits. “Surely you know,” she hissed, pointing at the glass, “that intoxicants are strictly prohibited in a church hall.”

  “Mineral water,” Lucius advised her.

  “Don’t you dare bring that inside!” She hurried through the door and up onto the stage, where she introduced “our guest this evening” as Professor Collins. The applause startled him. Before he could compose himself, this awful woman was beckoning him to the podium. Too suddenly, he found himself exposed in public while still clutching the glass he’d neglected to set down. Smiling hard, she tried to snatch it from him as he drew near and they actually tussled for one hate-filled moment before he was sprung free. Turning that murderous smile upon the audience, she rolled her eyes in abdication of any further responsibility for this speaker’s behavior.

  In hard, flat light, Lucius found himself confronted by an assembly of Baptist elders fanning the worn-out heat. The ladies wore variants of gloomy dark blue dresses with white polka dots and prim white collars; their consorts—mostly smaller, as in hawks and spiders—favored high black shoes and tieless white shirts buttoned to the throat. From the severe lines of the thin mouths, the asceptic glint of lenses and steel spectacles as the old heads leaned and whispered, he suspected that the identification of this so-called “Professor Collins” as that alcoholic fisherman and lifelong loser Lucius Watson was already epidemic in the hall. (He had decided to cooperate and withhold his real name but acknowledge it at once if he were questioned.)

  The back rows were mostly empty. Three shag-haired, sunbaked men lounged in the doorway. One whistled and another clapped, urging the speaker to get on with it. With a start of alarm, he recognized Speck Daniels’s gang from Gator Hook. Owen Harden was there, too, a few rows closer to the front, and Sarah was with him. Sarah made a small wave of greeting, her expression a warning that he read as a plea for discretion. Un-nerved, he drank off his glass and rapped it down smartly on the rostrum: “Evening, folks!” Far from eliciting warm smiles, his forced heartiness caused the oldsters to glance uneasily at one another as if this speaker had turned up in the wrong hall.

  “Tonight,” he began, “I’d like to tell you what I have discovered in my researches into the colorful but controversial life of Planter E. J. Watson—research based on reliable first-hand accounts by folks who actually knew him.” Though his biography of Mr. Watson was nearing completion, he said, he would welcome comments and corrections after his talk.

  “Controversial, you said? I don’t think so, mister! Folks was pretty much agreed he was bad news!”

  “Well, no doubt you’ve all read that E. J. Watson killed the Outlaw Queen Belle Starr and many others. Certain tales may have elements of truth but none have proof. And how many of these writers ever laid eyes on the real Ed Watson, far less knew Ed Watson, shook his hand or had a drink with him, heard him sing or tell a story? Did you know he was a marvelous storyteller? And that most of his neighbors liked him? Even those who lynched him?”

  Another blunder. An arm shot up, another wig-wagged. “Hold on, Mister!”

  “Hold it right there! Ain’t you his boy?”

  This speaker’s features were empurpled by long falling years of drink. Holding body and soul together, his arms were folded tight across his chest, and on his head perched a sadly stained Panama hat. Because he wore his hat indoors and looked disreputable, no one sat near him, nor did they pay the least attention to his provocative question.

  When no one else challenged him, Lucius hurried on, presenting a synopsis of E. J. Watson’s life, from boyhood in South Carolina during the War Between the States to the successful establishment of his hardy strain of sugarcane at Lake Okeechobee a few years after his death—

  “WAIT! Darn it, Mister!” The first voice had returned to the fray. “You sayin his neighbors ‘lynched’ him?! Who are you to come and tell us local folks about local stuff we know a hell of a lot more about than you do?”

  “No, no, Ed weren’t near so bad as what them writers try to tell you, not when you knowed him personal the way we done. Give ye the shirt off his back with one hand, put a knife in yer back with the other.”

  As the ladies hissed and shushed, their elderly men scratched thin silvery ears, cracked knobby knuckles. Lucius tried to smile. He had expected that resistance would be doughty. After all, Watson Redeemed was a far less colorful figure than Desperado Watson, who was not to be reduced to the common clay by some scholarly recital of dull virtues.

  An old man in red galluses and a green shirt buttoned right to the gullet stood up and removed his hat. “I’m Preston Brown, age ninety-four,” he told the hall. “Had me a stroke so I ain’t as good as what I was but most days I got some idea what I am talking about. And these old eyes seen Ed J. Watson in the flesh many’s the time, and this old hand shook his’n, and they ain’t too many in this hall can say the same.

  “Now Ed J. Watson and young Tucker had a run-in so Watson went down to Lost Man’s Key and killed him. For many years you could see the blood on that old driftwood tree. Tucker’s nephew tried to hide back in the mangroves but Watson sent his boy Eddie in to
finish him.”

  Before Lucius could object, Owen Harden scraped his chair back and rose to challenge Brown. “You old-timers been trading that nephew tale for years and it’s all wrong.”

  The old man squared around to glare at Owen. “Wrong?” He seemed to be sucking on his tongue tip. “I bet you’re a Harden, aint’cha.”

  “Wally Tucker and his wife Bet were good friends of my family at Lost Man’s,” Owen continued. “No nephew weren’t involved in it at all.”

  “One them damn Hardens,” a voice said loudly, but when Owen looked around the room, no one met his eye. In a level voice he said, “Any man who cares to tell me to my face why he don’t like Hardens can find me right outside after the show.” His tone was quiet but it carried nonetheless, like a voice from far away across open water.

  In the stir and murmur, Mud Braman spoke up from the doorway, “Hell, we know Owen Harden. Ain’t one thing wrong with that boy that a bullet wouldn’t cure.” Everyone laughed including Owen, who sat down, waving his hand in salute to Mud over his shoulder.

  Preston Brown was unperturbed. “Been fishin and guidin down around Lost Man’s all my life. Knew Ed Watson, fished with his younger boy many’s the time. Had him a nice round-stern cedar skiff. Liked his whiskey, too. Still does, I reckon.” The old man peered hard at the speaker.

  “Killed that plume bird warden right while I was livin at the Bend.” snarled the man in the stained Panama hat. Though he would not face Lucius as he spoke, Lucius recognized Nell’s father, Fred O. Dyer. “I was foreman on his cane plantation. Ed was over to Flamingo. Word about him murderin Guy Bradley got back before he did so I packed my family aboard the mail boat, got away from there.”

  “Heck, I knowed Bradley,” Old Brown said. “Plume-hunted right alongside us fellers but went over to wardenin. Aimed to clap Watson in the jail and so Ed shot him.”

  Lucius said sharply, “Mr. Brown? Guy Bradley was murdered by a plume hunter named Walter Smith.”

  “Cap’n Walt Smith! That is correct! Got turned loose at Key West cause word had got around it was Watson done it.”

  “That’s wrong, too,” Lucius snapped, regretting the sharp tone that was casting a pall over the room. “And another correction, sir, if you don’t mind. His son Eddie was still a schoolboy in Fort Myers. He was nowhere near Lost Man’s when the Tuckers died.”

  “Yep! Eddie Watson! Sure as I am settin here this evenin!”

  Lucius gazed bleakly at the audience, appealing to its good sense. “You see? These tales are passed down from our parents and grandparents and we just repeat them, until finally errors become legend.”

  “Who the hell is we?” a man’s voice called. “You come from around here?”

  “He sure does!” Fred Dyer hauled himself up straight again and pointed a bent arthritic claw. “That’s Watson’s younger boy! That’s Lucius! Standin right there under them false pretenses!” He glared wildly around, seeking support, and again his neighbors turned away as if deaf to him.

  Old Brown brooded. “Yep. Young Ed helped his daddy kill ’em, like I said. Thems that told me had no reason to lie so no dang professor can’t just walk in here and call ’em liars.” The crowd muttered approval as Brown said accusingly, “He’s coverin up for Eddie, looks like, cause it sure weren’t Colonel done it. I knowed Colonel all my life, he been on my boat about a thousand times. Liked hard spirits, visited all the bars. I had nothin against spirits, I was in there, too. Nicer feller you would never want to meet. And you know somethin funny?” Preston Brown pointed at the podium. “This man talkin to us here puts me in mind of him.”

  “Ain’t that what I said? Jesus!” Querulous, Fred Dyer took his hat off, scratched his scalp, put it back on again.

  “It wasn’t Eddie and it wasn’t Colonel, Mr. Brown,” Lucius said gently. He glanced toward the night windows and asked Rob’s forgiveness. “If E. J. Watson killed those Tuckers, and if he was not alone, the only conceivable witness was his oldest boy, who disappeared.”

  “How’s that? I ain’t never heard about no older boy.” Like a helmsman peering through the fog, Preston Brown raised three fingers as a brim over his eyes to study this dang know-it-all up on the podium. “Yep! Got it wrote right here on my program, ‘L. Watson Collins’—that’s the Watson part.” The audience fretted and shifted, scratched and coughed.

  “L. Watson Collins is a pen name,” Lucius said, lifting his gaze to the room as it fell silent. He scanned the audience, taking a deep breath. “Mr. Dyer was correct: I’m Lucius Watson. E. J. Watson was my father.”

  The silence burst. A woman shrilled, “I knew it! I just knew it!” A man’s voice hailed him, “Hey there, Colonel. How you been doin, Colonel? I been tellin the wife how much you looked like you.” At this, Hoad Storter in the front row shared a smile with Lucius. In his bright yellow sweater, Hoad looked like a seated lemon.

  A lady near the back held up his history. “If you are Lucius Watson, how come you’re ashamed to use your rightful name on your own book?”

  The hall hummed with excitement. Old Brown tried to recapture the floor. “He’s just makin it up about that older brother! It was Eddie!”

  “Tell that cock-eyed old idjit to sit down and shut up!”

  Rob’s shout had come from the doorway behind Crockett Junior and the others, who ran out after him. Excusing himself, Lucius jumped down from the stage, ran up the aisle, but by the time he made his way outside, they were all gone. He returned frustrated, making his way back toward the front.

  In his absence, voices had arisen.

  “Well, what we heard when we was comin up, Killer Cox snuck back into the Glades, lived with the Injuns, him bein part of a Injun hisself.”

  “Might be in there yet! No tellin who’s skulkin around back in them rivers, and they ain’t many has went in there to find out.”

  “—so Colonel says, ‘If you dang feds set fire to this Watson house to clear the way for your dang park, you will have to set fire to a Watson.’ We sure don’t want ol’ Colonel going up in smoke!”

  “Nosir, it weren’t nobody but Henry Short killed Watson, way I heard it. Put his bullets in so close you could lay a dollar bill acrost the holes—”

  “Thing of it is, Short were a colored man. Still is, far as I ever heard about it. Nigger Short—”

  “Henry Short,” called Lucius, reclaiming his place at the podium.

  Old Brown was still standing, fingers working the back of the folding chair in front of him, life fluids all aglimmer in his eyes; he would not sit down, as if afraid that his decrepit corpus might never again propel him to his feet. Raising his hand, he cleared his old throat thoroughly by way of commanding audience attention to an oft-told tale about Ed Watson and the sheriff ’s deputy. This time Lucius cut him off, reminding the audience that, as a historian, he had to discard undocumented anecdotes, however intriguing.

  When Old Man Brown, his tale discounted, suddenly sat down, the faces pinched closed like frost-killed buds and chairs creaked loudly in disapproval. By questioning an elder’s recollections, the speaker had undermined local tradition, and now his audience made it plain that any diminishment of the Bloody Watson legend, even by his son, would not be tolerated. In twos and threes and then in rows, the audience rose with a loud barging of chairs and moved off toward the exits.

  Lucius hailed their backs: “Good night!” His E. J. Watson evening had spun into a shambles. To avoid confrontations, he remained at the podium, pretending to shuffle notes into some sort of order as Hoad came forward to confirm their plan to dine at the new fishing lodge in Everglade in the next day or two.

  Last to depart was Nell’s father, who limped past in syphilitic shuffle, evading the speaker’s eye. When Lucius followed him up the aisle and touched his elbow, he swung around, alarmed, then backed like a crayfish into the space between two rows of chairs.

  “I’m surprised you recalled me, Mr. Dyer,” Lucius said. “I wasn’t much more than fifteen when you left the Bend.
” Scowling, the man emerged from the row and continued on his way with Lucius in attendance. “Your son’s not here?” Lucius inquired. “I kind of expected him.”

  “He’s your damned kin, not mine.” Fred Dyer looked him in the eye for the first time. “What’s he up to anyways? Cold-hearted sonofabitch! Couple months ago, he tracks me down where I’m drinkin, orders me a round while he sits there suckin on his sarsaparilla. Says you still telling people I’m Ed Watson’s son? Hell, yes! You willing to make that statement in a affidavit? Hell, yes! Next thing I know, there’s a legal paper slapped down on the bar. ‘It is the opinion and sincere belief of the undersigned Frederick O. Dyer that the infant male christened Watson Dyer, born December 4 of 1894, at Fort Myers Florida, is the natural son of the planter E. J. Watson of Chatham River.’ ” He shook his greasy head. “Them words on that legal paper burned into my brain, what I got left of it, although I been saying the same damned thing for years. And now this feller who threatened to sue anybody who even hinted such a thing has turned around, got me to certify he’s Watson’s bastard. Made it official.”

  Fred Dyer seemed bewildered, even a little hurt. “I said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Wattie, what’s this all about? Ain’t this here a little late in life?’ And he puts his arm across my shoulders where I’m settin on my stool, says, ‘Fred, I’m tired of living a damn lie and I bet you feel the same.’ First time he ever touched me, let alone called me Fred. Looked real lost and pathetical, so I felt sad, too, and signed his paper. When I look up again, my ex-son is grinning like a alligator. Tucked away that paper quick and disappeared. Never paid my whiskey nor said thanks, never give me so much as a wave good-bye.”

  At the door of the hall, Fred Dyer yanked his bent straw down on a head of yellowed silver hair that straggled over his soiled collar. “You was always a nice young feller, Lucius, but from what I heard, you never done right by my daughter.”