Shadow Country

by Peter Matthiessen

  “I am his daddy, after all,” I added gruffly.

  “First time you acted like it. You never even took the time to go register his name so we named him Elton.”

  “His name is Robert. After his great-uncle, Colonel Robert B. Watson of Clouds Creek, South Carolina.”

  A wail rose from the ill woman within. “Elton!” she cried. The boy was already through the door, both arms wrapped around a little bindle.

  “Whatever happened to you, Edgar?” Curry Collins said, very sharp and cold. “You were a pretty nice young feller when you first come around these parts, as I recall.”

  “Say thank you and good-bye,” I told the boy.

  Robert Briggs Watson stuck his hand out, saying, “Good-bye, Grandpa,” but winced and shifted in discomfort, I noticed, when the old man leaned down to peck him on the head—no doubt old breath. “Good-bye, Elton,” Collins called after him in muffled voice as the boy ran to my horse. He looked defeated but he kept his dignity and did not call again.

  I swung the child up behind me. “Your name is Robert now,” I notified him. “You ready, Robert?” “Yessir,” he said. As we rode away, Mr. Collins lifted a slow hand which his grandson never saw. The boy had his arms around me, face pressed hard, and I guided his small hands to my belt loops, feeling a coolness where his tears wet my shirt. “I knowed you’d come,” came his small muffled voice. And in a moment, he said, “Papa? I been waiting and waiting.” Not knowing how to answer that, I said, “Don’t set so far back on his withers, boy. Makes the old fool buck.”

  Even before we arrived home, I knew this boy would bring his mother’s ghost into our house—just what I feared most. I glared at Mandy when she came running out with a big smile. “You wanted him so bad so you take care of him.” I swung him off and galloped away down the woods roads, headed for nowhere, riding my heart into the ground. In the next days I drank, worse than before. Morning after morning, I woke up sick to death on some sawdust floor or in some shed or ditch, and finally in a stinking Suwannee jail, bruised, bilious, broke, and mean down to the bone.

  WILD

  That day, riding homeward through Lake City, who should I see but Miss SueBelle Parkins in a rose-decked yellow gown tilting down the sidewalk; plainly she was in that painless state in which she might share her bounteous person with a friend. I eased up behind her. Low and soft, I whispered, “sweet sweet Sooee gal,” and a tipsy grin inched all the way back under her ears. Even drunk, she knew better than to display acquaintance with a white man, but she hummed a little as she sashayed her hips back and forth to tease me, blocking my path and murmuring under her breath, “Doan you go to whisperin sweet Sooee, Mistuh Wil’ Man, cause SueBelle ain’ no white man’s li’l shoat.” Already those firm smoky hips shifting along under that cloth had fixed me hard as a bird dog up on point, and Sooee knew this, never had to look. She was having such fun lighting the fire in her Wil’ Man that she clean forgot to move aside to let a white man through. Folks coming out of church had stopped and some were pointing.

  Recalling that day on the square at Edgefield Court House when the neighbors jeered at Ring-Eye Lige for challenging General Butler to a duel, my brain hammered and heat swelled my face. In the next moment, with no warning, Jack Watson banged the hard heel of his hand between her shoulder blades—Out of my way! The blow pitched her forward and she almost fell. Finding her balance, she reeled around and squinted at me with a cunning smile, hollering “Wil’ Man? Dat you? Ain’ you my own big brutha?” What had she meant? Could this be why she had been so full of dread? Did this explain Aunt Cindy’s iron coldness toward my father?

  Thinking herself safe in the bright sunlight of a Sunday morning, Sue-Belle grinned saucily, waving her perfumed lace whore hankie as she pirouetted. “How come,” she cried out loud and clear, “you never come around no mo’ to visit?” Only then did she see Jack Watson and squawk and skedaddle in her haste to flutter off that sidewalk, but she was too late. Jack’s hand flew from behind and cupped her forehead, pulling her head back against his chest. The other hand held the knife blade to her throat. Her eyes and mouth popped open as he bent her head back onto her shoulder blades so far that her face was almost upside down, eyes staring out from beneath the nose and gasping mouth. That upside-down mask of terror startled Jack and stayed his hand, but not before he feigned a pass across her throat, using the rough nail of his forefinger.

  When his hand withdrew, she remained motionless, eyes rolled upward, mouth opening and closing as if struggling to find air. Her eyes entreated but she made no sound. Slowly she sagged, slowly, slowly to her knees, as her fingers wavered up under her chin, dislodging one cheap tinsel earring as her thumbs pressed up to hold her life in. There was only a faint crimson thread, a minute trickle that, seen on her fingertips, she took to be the first freshet of the fatal spurt. At the sight of it, she groaned and coughed, then vomited, soiling her yellow gown.

  Church bells. Figures transfixed. The dying bells. No one drew near. When I straightened, the figures backed away.

  I left her there. Refusing to make way, a drunken whore had sassed a white man. He had scared her to teach her a lesson. That was that. And I was thankful Jack had done her no real harm. Yet a bad murmur followed me down that street and around the corner. Trouble-making nigras should be taken care of after sundown and somewhere out of sight, and inevitably Edgar Watson would be blamed for an unpleasant offense committed in broad daylight on a Sunday in front of an assembly of decent citizens. Why, that ruffian came within an inch of spilling nigger blood on our new sidewalk, right down the street from church! He had no call to give God-fearing folks such a bad fright!

  When SueBelle vanished from Lake City, the madam started rumors that Edgar Watson knew more about her disappearance than perhaps he should. Hadn’t he killed some nigra back in Carolina? Soon the word was out that this Ed Watson hated blacks, shot ’em left and right. In Lake City, the coloreds shied across the street to get out of my way, causing painful embarrassment to my family, when the truth was, I got on fine with nigras, always had, ever since early childhood with the slaves back at Clouds Creek. Treated ’em as people in those days when most whites hardly knew one from another, couldn’t be bothered.

  Our Watson ladies at Fort White heard all the gossip thanks to Sam Frank Tolen, who spared ’em no detail, not even those he had made up. However, in my star-crossed mood and ugly disposition, nobody dared ask questions, not even Mandy. Perhaps she didn’t care to learn more than she had to. But Great-Aunt Tabitha passed the word to Captain Getzen, who knew no way but to ride straight out and confront me in his field.

  Captain Tom was a Confederate war hero, a small, fierce, feisty feller. He did not touch his hat when he rode up but stayed stiff in the saddle, whacking his peg leg smartly with his crop; that crop rapped that hardwood shin like the snap of rifle fire. I rested my hoe, touched my cap, and smiled politely, asking what I could do for him; he cleared his throat and said it might be best if I cleared out of this south county for a while. “Best for whom?” I said. He didn’t answer. “Cleared out?” I said. I much disliked the way he’d spoken, as if I were some kind of po’ white drifter. I reckon he saw that in my face, for he danced his horse back as I came forward, raising his crop just enough to give me warning. This good old man no longer trusted me not to attack him, and that hurt, too.

  “Best for you,” he said.

  I bowed my head as if to pray and took a few deep breaths. Then I said that Edgar Watson was the man who should determine what was best for Edgar Watson, who had been driven unjustly from his own plantation in South Carolina and did not intend to be driven out a second time, having done no wrong.

  “No wrong, you say.” Tom Getzen shook his head, extracting a money packet from his coat. He refused to give reasons or name my accusers. I dropped his money in the mud and left at once, before Jack Watson could appear to worsen matters.

  Confronted, Billy Collins said that “the family” agreed with Captain Tom: I sh
ould leave the county. “Which family do you speak for, Billy?” I demanded. “You weren’t a Watson, the last time I heard.” He shrugged that off, advising me I could come back when things blew over. “It’s not up to you to give me that permission,” I told him. “Anyway, don’t act like I’m the only one who has brought trouble to this family.” At this, Minnie fled the room.

  “The reason my brother killed a man—if Lem was the killer—was self-defense.” Billy set himself as I swung off my horse, for he was nerved up now or at least felt safer in the proximity of my sister and my little nephews.

  “If? What are you saying, Billy?”

  From the other room, his Minnie screeched, “Tell Edgar you’re sorry!”—the boldest thing I ever heard my sister say, which only shows what a terrified creature she was. Billy blurted, “How about Aunt Cindy’s man, back in Carolina?” I raised my hand in warning. “Never say that, Collins. It wasn’t me.”

  “And those knife fights over in Suwannee? One of those men nearly died! And that darkie prostitute? Lake City? What became of her?”

  I took out my clasp knife and opened it and tested the fine edge with the ball of my thumb. “You aim to insult me every time you open your damned mouth?” When I raised my eyes to his, his nerve ran out. An opened blade will do that to a man. He said, “You’d even murder your own sister’s husband? A man half your size?”

  Billy was a Collins, he was proud; I was content to let his own shrill voice and shameful plea ring in his ears. I pared my nails. “As for your brother,” I resumed after a pause, mostly to reassure my sister, “I only advised him to leave this county because otherwise someone might be killed, most likely him.”

  It must have been Billy who reported his version of Watson’s “confession” to the sheriff, which was all it took to implicate me legally. It wasn’t even evidence, it was just hearsay, but the sheriff issued a warrant for the arrest of E. A. Watson as an accessory before the fact in the Hayes murder. Knowing he had no real case, he leaked word of his warrant in the honest hope I might get lynched or flee the county as Collins had done, leave him in peace.

  Job, my old strong-hearted roan, was spavined from long months of hard riding. Since it looked like I might need a sound horse in a hurry, I hunted up another roan of the same temperament and gave him that same name. Sam Tolen came to warn me. “Looks like you might be havin you a necktie party,” said pig-eyed Sam, who was all read up on the Wild West, knew all the lingo. “Better light out for the Territory,” he added. Sam’s little brain was working fast, I could hear it sizzle. He was after my prime hogs and he wanted ’em cheap with my gratitude thrown in.

  I said, “Hell, no,” to his insulting offer. “Those hogs are the county’s best.”

  “That’s why I’m buyin ’em,” Sam grinned, hauling out his greasy wad. “You’re runnin out of time, Ed. Better take it.”

  “They say a Tolen will short-change you even when he’s cheating you,” I said, counting the money. Sammy guffawed and clapped me on the back. I told him not to laugh too hard, he just might hurt himself, but Sam didn’t scare as easy as his daddy. He was always a nervy sonofabitch, from lack of imagination or a fatty brain. In his view, fate had nothing disagreeable in store for such a fine fat feller. “Don’t forget to write!” he yelled, breaking wind in a loud carefree manner as he departed.

  NIGHT ROADS NORTH AND WEST

  Anger and rotgut, burning bad holes in my lungs, made each breath hurt. I slung my farm tools into the wagon. Seeing my expression, even Mandy was alarmed. “Mister Watson,” she cautioned, raising her hands almost in prayer, “we have each other and we have our children. We will make a clean start somewhere else.”

  “Clean start!” I turned my back on her. “How many do I have to make?” But remembering how often she’d been patient, and seeing anew the honest goodness in her face, I took my dear wife in my arms. “You don’t have to go with me, Mandy,” I whispered. “Oh, I do, dearest, I do.” She hurried off to pack provisions and our few possessions.

  I rode over to my sister’s house to settle my account with Billy Collins, who had brought this banishment down upon my head by running to the sheriff. He knew I would be coming, too, because his horse was gone. Minnie ran out, fell to her knees. Clutching little Julian, she begged her good, kind brother to have mercy and not harm a little family which loved him dearly and hoped and prayed for his safe journey and deliverance wherever he might go.

  “So long as he goes far enough and never comes back.” I pushed past her and sat down on the porch in Billy’s rocker to await her husband.

  Darkness seeped in from the woods. Hunched in the cold, I suffered a kind of rigor mortis of the spirit. Billy would not be coming home, not with Job hobbled out there by the road. Maybe his wife had begged him to hide and maybe I was relieved I would not have to take revenge—I was too weary. I only knew that I was destitute as ever, still looking for a place where I might prosper.

  I rose and went in to Minnie where she was sniveling amongst the crockery; she snatched her baby Julian from the floor as if fearing I might step on him. I told her to tell my friend Will Cox that he could have my cabin, being the one man I could trust to give it back. Knowing we might never meet again and feeling doomed, I took my frightened sister in my arms and gave her a gentle hug, even kissed her brow—the first time ever. Bursting into tears, she hugged me back and kissed me, too, got my face all wet and sticky with the baby’s clabber, which she had been eating up for her own poor supper.

  Minnie’s breath was sour from her frightened hours. “Oh Edgar, please don’t harm my Billy. You are a good man, deep in your heart, and we won’t forget you.”

  “Don’t,” I growled, “because I aim to be back.”

  I rode on home. Dismounting at a little distance, I circled in through the silent pines, making no sound on the needle ground, eye peeled for any trap. Mandy had the wagon packed and I backed the big roan into the traces, hitching the gray filly to the back of the wagon while she piled the children in under our blankets. Sliding the loaded shotgun under the seat, I climbed up and snapped the reins—Gid ’yap!—and Job the Younger kicked the wagon boards a lick that rang off through the trees. I talked him down into a good fast-farting trot.

  Pale-faced Sonborn sat up straight, peering back along the ghostly lanes. As if awakened from a bad dream, he cried, “Where are we going?” Mandy hushed him. My wife looked drawn and fearful, which she was. The poor thing thought she was leaving her life behind her, which she was. She thought that armed men might come after us—quite likely, too—and that our children might be harmed. But never once did she complain, nor ease her nerves by fraying mine with foolish questions. “Miss Jane S. Dyal from Deland,” as she had bravely dubbed herself when we first met, was a very good young woman who forgave her husband, though she knew he had named that pretty filly for his own lost love and was dead broke and on the run with no known destination.

  Under the moon, the hooves thumped soft as heartbeats on the white clay track, which flowed like a silver creek through the black pines. So quiet was our passing that surely an owl heard little Carrie’s pretty sighs or Elijah Edward’s greedy suckling at the breast. A solitary light still burned when we passed Herlong’s, where the dogs were barking; the silhouette darkening that window was righteous Dan Herlong who had blackened my name with his tales from South Carolina. I’ll be back, I promised when the figure vanished and the light was snuffed. Had Herlong heard the wagon wheels? Had he sensed something out there in the dark that frightened him?

  At the road I turned the wagon north, taking the night roads north and west under frozen stars which shone on the unknown land where we were going.

  CHAPTER 3

  IN THE INDIAN NATIONS

  Toward dawn, I pulled the wagon off into the woods and picketed the horse beside a little branch. We slept all day, taking turns on watch, and at dusk we ate a small pot of cold hominy. That night we crossed the county line and traveled all night past Live Oak and Suwa
nnee Springs. Beyond the Suwannee River was new country, but taking no chances with my evil luck, I moved through darkness by the light of the half moon until the Georgia border was behind us.

  From Valdosta, the way west through chilling rains crossed the Flint River and the Chattahoochee and finally the great Mississippi, crossing from Vicksburg on the ferry to Louisiana, and from there north and west again to the Arkansas Territory, where I had heard that a man plagued by the law might catch his breath.

  Already the season had turned cold, numbing our spirits. The Indian Nations was no place to arrive as November was setting in, with its promise of cold and hungry misery for little children, and so I was lucky to find harvest work for a horse and wagon on a late cotton crop in Arkansas. There we wintered. I rented a small farm to make a pea crop before heading westward after summer harvest. In early autumn of ’88, I reached Fort Smith and crossed the line into the Indian Nations, Oklahoma Territory.

  This hill country of plateaus and river buttes had been assigned to the Cherokees and Creeks, with a few Florida Seminoles thrown in. Some of these Indians still had the slaves they took west with ’em back in the thirties, when Andy Jackson ran these tribes out of the East. Stray blacks had drifted out this way after the War, and a lot more showed up after ’76, when Reconstruction was finally put a stop to. Plenty of Southern cracker boys and some hard Yankees, too, because the local government was Northern even if most folks were Southern—Texas, Missouri, Mississippi. In short, all breeds of the human animal were mingled here in various shades of mud, like the watercolors in my sister’s little paintbox back at Edgefield Court House, and every last man with a cock between his legs considered himself your equal if not better, since any stranger was likely on the dodge or worse. The buffalo soldiers with Comanche scalps strung on their belts were maybe the most arrogant of all. I kept an eye out for my shadow brother, asked a few questions, and these boys told me that Corporal Jack Watson, having taken care of the local white ladies to the best of his abilities, had been mustered out and gone back east, headed for Georgia.