Shadow Country

by Peter Matthiessen

  When they weren’t fooling in the boats, the children sailed toy boats across the cistern, which was straight-sided and slippery with green algae.

  Lucius rigged a rope ladder, just in case, but knowing a child would panic with the first mouthful of black water, I finally forbade them to go near. Any child who falls in there is a goner!

  Sturdy and stubborn, Ruth Ellen disobeyed me. One day I came up behind and grabbed and held her way out over that black tarn. The little girl screamed until she lost her breath. Kate got very upset with me for scaring the child so badly. “Better scared than dead,” I said. We spoke no more about it. After that day, Ruth Ellen dreaded the cistern and would not go near it and would not let Addison anywhere near it, either. She would fly around him yapping like a sheepdog, chivvying our little boy away from such a dreadful fate.

  Like all children, they loved to hear about wild creatures, panthers and reptiles especially. Lucius described the big panther scat he’d found in the scrub behind Cape Sable on the hot white sand mound of a croc nest. The scat had been dropped fast in the cat’s escape—Lucius reconstructed the whole event from tracks—when what must have looked like a drift-wood log back in the salt brush turned suddenly into a crocodile, risen on its short quick thick legs to drive the prowler from her nest. Lucius dug up the cache of leathery white eggs to experience the feel of them, then put them back; he described the warmth and firmness and the slow throb of ancient life in those strange oblong shapes.

  On another day, east of Flamingo, he had traveled far up Taylor Slough to the hardwood hammocks, where in the airy stories of the huge mahoganies, he had seen a small flock of nine lime-colored parakeets—the beautiful bird so often spoken of by Jean Chevelier, who had sought them in vain along the rivers of our coast.

  It pleased my son greatly that America’s last wild Indians lived not far south of us on hammock islands in the Shark River drainage, and that every attempt to open up their last territory with a road had foundered in the muck and broken limestone of this water wilderness. Unlike most, Lucius saw the Glades as beautiful, especially far up beyond the tidal reach where the mangroves were replaced by vast sparkling wet grasslands that stretched away forever to the north and east. “And that damned sawgrass,” I’d protested, “taller than a man, with nothing underfoot but muck and jagged limestone holes that will tear a man’s boots to pieces in a day.”

  “And poisonous snakes, even poison trees—all sorts of fascinating things,” he agreed, enthusiastic, which was why the Everglades might yet prevail when all the rest of the wild places in the country had been overrun by roads bringing more people. He never criticized my ideas for west coast development, only the new canals east of Okeechobee: the canal projects were encouraging more talk of a cross-Florida highway which would lay open the Everglades once and for all. My son only hoped that all that dredging in the headwaters, muddying the rivers, would not spoil our paradise on this wild coast.

  “Paradise!” cried Kate. “My goodness, Lucius!” Yet Kate loved him because he was so good with the children—an antidote to her old brute of a husband, I suppose. He cheered her and kept her company—they were the same age—and offered the kids whatever time he had to spare, showing them such mysteries as the round and pearly glow of the star spider.

  THE STOWAWAY

  Key West is and always was half-Yankee, and even back before the War, its attitudes were jumbled up when it came to coloreds. Many good people clung to old bad prejudice including my friend Gene Roberts and his brothers, who ran the old Estelle from Flamingo to Key West, carrying outbound mail and cargo and bringing back supplies.

  Melch, Jim, and Gene—the Roberts boys—refused to tolerate blacks mixing with whites, they would not put up with it. They’d go over to Key West, have a drink or two, then walk arm-in-arm down the sidewalk, and any black man who failed to get out of their way, they’d knock him down. One time they went into a restaurant, sat down, ordered their breakfast, Gene was telling me, and the next thing they knew, a great big buck came walking in, sat down at the next table. When those boys reared back and glared at him and he didn’t leave, Melch got up without a word and took his chair and wrapped it over that man’s head. Hauled him up off of the floor, Gene said, and booted his black ass into the street.

  Of course Key West had no use for these Mainlanders. On the way to jail, the sheriff would say, “Well, here ye are again! The Mainlanders!” And they’d say, “Yessir, we sure are, and proud to say so!”

  Returned to office, the sheriff was as truculent as ever about E. J. Watson. One day he accosted me at Duval and First as I came out of W. D. Cash Provisions and Ship Chandlery. He’d heard that a fugitive killer might be hiding out at Chatham Bend, in which case I was flouting the law again by harboring a known criminal.

  Young Herbie Melville, known as Dutchy, had been notorious at Key West for several years. Back in 1904, when my friend Deputy Till tried to arrest him for breaking into a coffee shop at White Street and Division, this young feller grabbed Clarence’s pistol, beat him to the floor with it, then drew his knife, apparently to scalp him. Bleeding, Clarence broke away and ran to borrow a weapon; he returned to that coffee shop without waiting for reinforcement and Melville shot and killed him.

  Dutchy Melville was convicted and sentenced to be hung, but because his family had local influence, the charge was reduced to manslaughter and a one-year sentence. During his detention, the enterprising jailer rented Melville’s labor to the fire station, a part-time job which provided him the leisure to rob stores, covering his tracks by burning these places down. In destroying the Cortez Cigar Factory, however, he went too far. Murdering a law officer was bad enough but damaging rich men’s property was far more serious: the indignant judge sentenced the young arsonist to thirteen years at hard labor.

  Recently young Dutchy had escaped the chain gang, but not before confiding to another convict (who had the ear of the authorities) that he hoped to hide out at the Watson place at Chatham Bend. And the reason for that, the sheriff said, looking me straight in the eye, was because this man Watson was notorious for hiring fugitives and other undesirables as low-paid field hands.

  This was true. I sometimes recruited harvest workers at Key West, mostly blacks but some white drifters, too. These men were called Doc and Slim and Blackie and John Smith: I never asked if they were fugitives, that was a man’s own business. They accepted whatever pay was offered with no back talk and they never stayed long, field labor in the cane being hard and dangerous. That way everyone came out ahead—sound business practice.

  I informed the sheriff that I knew no Dutchy and no Herbie either, and also that I did not care for his insinuation that E. J. Watson had no respect for law and order. The sheriff said, “Them words sound all right, Watson. But a man gets knowed by the company he keeps, ain’t that right, too?”

  And I said, “Well, in that case, Sheriff, we’d best part company right now because I have my good name to think about,” whereupon I tipped my hat and kept on going.

  Eddie’s Bar had a stylish sign—dining and dancing, nine to eleven, fighting from eleven to two—and the cost of a drink was all that was required to enjoy this lively social situation. With so many good fights to choose from, any man of healthy tastes could fit right in. Knives and pistols were frowned upon, of course, but that same night I had to wrench a brandished six-gun from a client who was dead drunk but still dancing, threatening to shoot. I gave this fool a taste of his own medicine. “Let’s see can I work this thing!” I hollered, waving it around the same way he had. It kept going off, made one hell of a racket, and with each shot I yelled to warn him lest he stagger and cross the half circle of holes his own six-gun was punching through the floor around his toes.

  When the six cartridges ran out, he came up quick with a small revolver he had in his boot and made me dance in that same foolish fashion. I tried to grin, stay calm about it. “Not many men, let alone boys, would try this game on Ed Watson,” I warned him, but he onl
y hooted and went right ahead. When his friends dragged him out of there, he was still laughing. It was only after he was gone that Dick Sawyer sidled up and said, “Ain’t that Dutchy a ripsnorter, Ed?”

  I was disgusted. This ripsnorter had killed Clarence Till, a fair and well-liked lawman, and also robbed businessmen and committed wrongful arson, and yet he was a local hero whom folks talked about with shining eyes. To join his pals at Eddie’s Bar with a reward posted, then draw attention to himself, show off with weapons at the risk of being sent back to the chain gang? His arrogance was criminal, never mind the rest, but because he got away with stuff like that, he made it seem dashing and defiant. I laugh at your law. And what will you do about it? Nothing!

  Headed home next day, I was somewhere off Shark River when the sky turned black and the Gladiator was caught in a hard squall. When I stuck my head into the forward cuddy to dig out my oilskins, I found myself looking straight into the muzzle of a six-gun. Naturally, I backed out and raised my hands. “What’s that cannon for? Piracy on the high seas?”

  “If I was you, I wouldn’t talk so smart.” The man climbing out after me was green olive in his color from being pitched and rolled in that hot cuddy, but he looked like a pirate all the same—big nose, pocked skin, hard black wire hair, and a second pistol stuck into his belt. He also looked like the self-same sonofabitch who had danced me in Eddie’s Bar, so I knew better than to mess with him. These cocky greenhorn pistoleros out to prove themselves tend to shoot first and think afterward, if they think at all. Ever since Billy the Kid caught the nation’s fancy, the country had been plagued by boys like this, out to play and die as fast and hard as William Bonney.

  “Maybe I’d better grab the helm before she yaws on a big sea and capsizes,” I warned him. A flicker of fear crossed that swart face: he waved me toward the stern. Starting aft, I felt a whole lot better. If this kid had spent even one day on the water, he’d have noticed that the helm was lashed, with no risk of yawing or capsizing.

  I freed the tiller while he guarded me, standing up straight, and at the first chance, I swung her off the wind and let her jibe. In a rush of canvas, the boom swung back across the hull and knocked him flying; he’d heard that creak of wood behind him but not knowing he should duck, he spun right into it. If he hadn’t grabbed a shroud, he would have gone overboard and stayed that way because I sure had no plan to go back after him. As it was, he’d had to drop his gun to grab that line, and now he was dragging in the water, hanging on to a rope fender with both hands.

  Very quick, he hauled himself halfway up and got one leg over the gunwale. I leaned over and yanked the second Colt out of his belt and whapped his fingers with the barrel. “Damn!” he said as he lost his hold and went back down. Clutching the fender in the wash along the hull, he was very pale, he thought he was a goner. Having emptied the chamber of the Colt and tossed it into the cockpit after the first one, I lit up a cigar and took the tiller, letting him drag while the Gladiator resumed her course.

  “Can’t swim too good,” he gasped. Having no way to wipe the sea out of his eyes, he looked like he was crying. “I reckon my arms ain’t goin to last much longer,” he said next. I blew some cigar smoke down into his face to make him cough. His eyes snapped with black anger over getting himself into this fix, and naturally I was angry, too, yet I had to admit this boy had grit, considering his piss-poor situation. He had stated the facts, he had not begged or whined.

  Seeing that Watson wasn’t going to help him, my stowaway knew he had to save himself if he was going to be saved, and he had to do it now while he still had strength, even if Watson planned to shoot him if he tried it. One boot swung up onto the rail, which was all the purchase this quick varmint needed. The rest was cat strength, timing the boat’s roll. Melville was back aboard so fast that I grabbed for the first gun, which was still loaded.

  Seeing he’d startled me, he dared a little grin as he eased down out of the wind in his wet clothes. Even now, safely aboard, he hung onto the rail; after that bad scare, he was no threat to me at all. Far at sea off a distant coast, he had more sense than to harm the man who piloted the boat.

  “Dutchy is the name,” he said. “You heard of me?” I shook my head, emptying his cartridges into my pocket.

  “Don’t want to know what I’m doing on your boat?”

  “I know what you’re doing on my boat.”

  He nodded. “Emperor Watson!” He grinned some more. “If a man drew down on me on my own boat, I’d blow his head off.”

  “After the harvest, maybe.”

  “Watson Payday?” He’d heard the bad stories, his grin said, but he kind of liked my style. “Know something, Mister Ed? You wasn’t so sociable last night in Eddie’s Bar so I never got to shake the hand of the Man Who Killed Belle Starr. But the way you turned the tables on me here today? Real slick! I’m proud to know you!”

  “One month’s work, no pay. How’s that?”

  “Mister Ed,” he repeated softly, nodding his head as if this were his lucky day. He couldn’t get over Mister Watson, I was wonderful. “We’ll see,” he promised cheerfully, wringing out his shirt. “Call me Dutchy, okay, Mister Ed?”

  “Okay, Herb,” I said.

  I’d guessed correctly that he hated his given name. On the other hand, he was flattered that I knew who Herbie was.

  At Chatham, Melville had to learn to take orders from a black foreman. However, he respected Frank’s long prison record and got along with him about as well as could be expected. He wanted to stay on, “take the nigger’s job,” he announced in front of Frank, “cause foreman ain’t no job for a nigger,” but the way he said this made Frank laugh because these two had lawman made friends.

  When Melville finally realized I’d meant just what I said—hard work, no pay—he got to brooding, concluding finally that E. J. Watson had taken ad-vantage of his youth and generous nature. In my experience, criminals always feel angry and abused, which partly accounts for why such men turn criminal in the first place. Also, they can be counted on for retribution. They get even.

  A fortnight later, returning from a trip with Bembery to Tampa Bay, I discovered that this criminal had gone off on a fishing boat but not before spoiling the thousand gallons of good syrup I had counted on for unpaid salaries and lawyers’ bills and enough supplies to see the plantation through until next harvest. Two months after that, a picture postcard came from New York City:

  While you was at Tampa drinking up my pay I had some fun mixing terpentine and sirup. Now I am up here seeing all the sites. Mery Chrismas Mister Ed and hello to all from Yr. Frend Dutchy.

  To my friend Dutchy it was all a joke but for Chatham Bend it was a crisis. For a fortnight or more, I forgot my vow that never again would I raise my hand in violence. Every time I thought about that devil, my head split with that old pain out of my boyhood, so violent that I had to sit or I would fall. If I’d had the money, Jack Watson would have taken ship for New York City and finished that young villain once and for all.

  I told my crew I was dead broke but would pay them when I could. Some bitched, of course, but most blamed Dutchy Melville. As for Kate, she had always been unhappy that I hired wanted men, fearing that one of them might harm our children. When I told her about our loss, she cried, “Well, that’s what comes of harboring these outlaws, Mr. Watson! Why can’t we live like ordinary, decent people?” And I said, “Didn’t you tell me just last week that you were fond of Dutchy?” Kate went off sniffling after admitting that the children liked him, too. They did. Followed him everywhere. The Hamilton and Thompson kids rowed all the way north from Lost Man’s Beach to see Dutchy and his six-guns, same way they used to come to see my trained pig Betsey. Everybody liked that rascal, even Lucius, even Reese, and even “Mister Ed,” who had vowed to kill him.

  LINCH LAW

  After I was acquitted, I had written a long letter to Nap Broward, thanking him for his kind interest and assistance. In that letter I outlined some long-range proposals
for the Everglades, “the last American frontier,” and requested an appointment at the statehouse as soon as I could afford the railway fare to Tallahassee. Surely the governor would be interested in my idea for a Broward ship canal that would follow old Indian water trails across the southern Glades from Fort Dallas on the Miami River to the Lost Man’s headwaters; the dredged spoil from this canal could become the bed for a cross-Florida highway. While acknowledging the difficulties of the terrain, I mentioned the much more challenging canal under construction in Panama, with locks to lift great ships over the mountains.

  The only answer to my letter was a typewritten copy of a document from the archives of his predecessor in office. Though unaccompanied by any note, it could not have been sent without Broward’s approval. Dated Chokoloskee, Florida, February 1896, it was addressed to Governor Henry Mitchell:

  To his Excellency Gov. Mitchil. Sir, I wish to call your attention to a crime perpetrated against the Laws of the state.

  I was in Key West on business some time ago when I met the perpetrator of the crime. He came up to me in a store and shook hands with me. We had a few civil words. He wound up by saying that he was not afraid of any man. I in reply said that neither was I, whereupon he immediately slapped his knife, which I suppose from the quickness of his act he must have had open in his pocket, into my neck, coming very close to severing the jugular vein. He drew his pistol but could not make use of it as the leather case came with it. I seized him by both wrists and held him until he was taken in charge by an officer who was nearby and lodged in jail, being unable to give bond. Some days after his lawyer procured a man who was willing to stand on his bond. The bond was accepted and the prisoner was released. When the time came for the trial the prisoner was not forthcoming but sent two negroes to swear that he was sick and not able to go to court. It is a provable fact that but a short time before court he went to a store some twelve miles distant from his home and purchased a quantity of ammunition. The prisoner not being present in the court there was no trial..