Lost Man's River

by Peter Matthiessen

  “Mostly he stayed pretty calm about it. In his own way, Eddie Watson is as mulish as his daddy. He aimed to be a fine upstanding citizen no matter what. Got himself seen regular at church and stuck to business, went bird hunting once in a while, played golf at the new country club, tried to fit in. For a while he even headed up the Masons! Eddie would not back up, no matter what, and he weren’t about to change his name.

  “Only thing, in recent years, he kind of forgot to keep up his appearances. He even give up on Mr. E. E. Watson for a while, begun to call himself Ed Watson, Junior. Took a kind of pride in that—not in his daddy, not exactly, but in being the son of somebody so famous. Made him a somebody in his own right, and it brung in customers. People might stop by the agency to take a gander at Bloody Watson’s son, and buying a policy was their excuse to shake his hand. Eddie was always a businessman, first and foremost, and he discovered that a nice dark past paid off!

  “Them last years before he lost the agency, Eddie got to hinting to the winter visitors that he was some kind of a chip off the old block. Local folks always thought of him as pretty meek and mild behind his bluster, but to outsiders he might hint he had a violent streak, same as his daddy. Even hauled out this darn list he’d put together of those Chokoloskee men who finished E. J. Watson, and let on about how he went down there and took care of the ringleaders. ‘Didn’t have no choice about it,’ Eddie said. ‘Had to defend the honor of the family!’ ”

  Lucius took a long deep breath but he said nothing.

  Honey was getting to her feet. The day was late. “Of course one untruth leads to another,” she murmured. “His Neva was hardly laid to rest before Eddie took his secretary to marry, and he hardly got that woman home before she upped and left. So he took a third one, never bothered to let on about the second!”

  Weeks smiled at Lucius, clinging to his hand an extra second. “When you first went back to the Islands, Colonel, you used to say you had no family to speak of, but you always had our Jenkins-Daniels bunch. Well, you still have us, what is left of us. Come see us, hear?”

  Lucius took their hands—all three held hands—so that they stood in a small circle on the sidewalk. “I was lucky to have the Jenkins-Daniels bunch,” he murmured with emotion, “and I’m truly sorry I lost touch. Never taking the trouble to find out what became of Pearl—that’s inexcusable! I never was the brother to her that I should have been.”

  Honey said, “Colonel? I have Pearl’s phone number right in this purse someplace.” And Weeks Daniels said, “You accepted her as your sister. That’s a lot more than the others done.”

  Pearl

  Pearl had been nine or ten when their father died, a self-starved creature, a pale fugitive from the sun. Even in those days—she clung to this sad adornment most of her life—she wore a thin white ribbon in her thin blond hair. It was that ribbon which gnawed at his heart now. Pearl had been struck speechless by her father’s death, while Aunt Josie, who had lost the dead man’s baby boy in the hurricane only the week before, had torn her hair and fled down the storm-rutted cart tracks at Caxambas, shrieking in woe.

  His sister Pearl, he mourned, his sister Carrie. Lucy Summerlin. How would dear Mama have judged his failure to protect the tender lives and eager feelings entrusted to his care? Hearing Pearl’s thin voice over the wire, he was stricken by sadness, self-disgust.

  Who are you? Who is calling me?

  Pearl?

  Who is calling me? Hello?

  This is Lucius! Your brother Lucius.

  Brother Who?

  Pearl, this is Lucius! This is Colonel! I called to say hello! I called to see how you were getting along!

  Why are you hollering? Did you say Colonel Watson? Oh Good Lord! Oh Colonel Lucius honey, are you sure you are all right? I was so worried, sweetheart! I went to see Miss Lucy Summerlin to ask where you were and she told me how she only wished she knew! She was so sweet to me, you know! She said I looked like you! Miss Lucy loves you dearly, do you know that? Why did you abandon her? You broke her heart! O yes I know, I know, that was some years ago. Lucius? Can you believe our life has gone so fast? Do you look as terrible and old as I do? Where are you? What are you doing there? Why are you calling me? What do you want?

  I don’t want anything, Pearl. Please don’t be upset. I only wanted to speak to you, see how you were. Pearl honey? I feel just terrible that I haven’t called before, that I didn’t even know what had become of you!

  Well, what’s become of you, sweetheart? What are you doing?

  I—well, I’m gathering information for a book about Papa.

  Who?

  About our father.

  Our Father Who Art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom Come—that’s my Father! Who Art in Heaven! Those men blew your father to Kingdom Come—

  Pearl, listen, he was your dad, too—

  Do you know about the J for Jack? In E. J. Watson? My mother was married to Jack Watson! She was a lovely person! My mother was married seven times—one husband twice—and she outlived the whole darn bunch! But she only had one daughter by her E. Jack Watson—that was me!

  Pearl, listen to me—

  Lucius? Remember how you always stopped by to see us on your way north and south from Chatham? Remember those beautiful days on the salt water? When we went everywhere by boat because there were no roads? It was hard times—a lot of work and children and hard times, remember, Lucius? When did we stop calling you Lucius? Lucius, how come you forgot about me? What do you want now?

  Honey, I wanted to ask about your memories of Papa—

  He’s dead. I am retired now. Who gave you my phone number? What are you going to do with my information? I really don’t care, I am so glad to help you. Oh, I’ve missed you, Colonel!

  Pearl? Don’t cry—

  It’s late in the day to try to understand what happened, but don’t you give it up, you keep on trying. One man who claimed to be real close to your daddy, that was Wiley Bostic. Old Man Bostic got drunk one night at Barfield’s, he told me he oiled up Daddy’s shotgun cartridges so’s they wouldn’t fire, said he didn’t want to see nobody hurt! You believe that? Because everyone claimed a lot of things back at that time.

  Everyone wanted a claim on Mr. Watson, for some reason.

  My mother was married to your father and you used to come visiting at Caxambas and now here we are, right on the telephone! It’s a small world!

  Well, yes, it is, Pearl.

  Jack Watson died while my mother was married to him. He was with Belle Starr before that. Also Jesse James and that crowd. A lot of people didn’t like him, but I loved him.

  I imagine your mother loved him, too.

  Yes, she did! The only thing, she was leery of his temper, he might put a razor to her neck. I don’t know if he had a drinking problem or what. Course all the men drank. They never considered heavy drinking a real problem back in those days, not the way they do today.

  Pearl, I wanted to check somebody’s story with you. Did your mother ever speak about the hired hand our father killed at Chatham Bend because this man insulted her nice peas?

  No, I did not hear about insulted peas. Which doesn’t mean that he might not have killed somebody.

  Did he ever threaten you?

  No! No! No! He loved all his children! You know something? I saw the man who killed him. After we got run out of Caxambas, we were living across the canal in Naples, which was not Colored Town back then. They had real boundary lines to keep out black people. Only the whites could cross, isn’t that crazy? Because our local coloreds never bothered people, it was those ones from up North who caused the trouble. Anyway, my mother pointed her finger. She said, “That mulatta over yonder killed your daddy.” I don’t recall his name. I do recall he was very light in color. But my mother never held a thing against him, no she didn’t. Said he never would have done that on his own, he was put up to it. She blamed the white fellers.

  Pearl? You must be talking about Henry Short—

&
nbsp; That’s the one. Before Earl Helveston run off on me, we had a talk about my daddy. Earl just purely loved Jack Watson, maybe because he was practicing up to be that way himself! He discussed some things, bad deeds, y’know. Swore me to secrecy! Said them Marco boys would kill him just for the knowing of it. I have got it all wrote down someplace. Earl always said, “I love that man no matter what he did.” Said, “That man tell me do something, I would jump to it.”

  That’s the effect he had on some people, all right.

  One time he sent word to Lost Man’s Key to tell this man to get off of his property. Said, “I will give you so much time, then you better be gone.” Cause if he had something coming to him, he wanted it right then, he didn’t care to wait until tomorrow. But the man sent back a sassy note—that was his finish. It’s like Earl said, “If Jack Watson told you he would kill you, he would do it. Being a man of his word, he expected the same integrity in others.”

  Sounds like the Tucker story. Down at Lost Man’s Beach.

  Those young folks were killed and had rocks around their necks and they were found out in the water by the Harden men and that mulatta feller I was talking about. And after that, this Henry Short grew superstitious about Papa, he was scared to death of him. This stuff didn’t come from any book, my Mama told me. Earl said to me, “Know something, Pearl? A lot of people did not care for your daddy, but I loved him!” It was only lately I figured out that when our daddy died, Earl Helveston was only ten, a kid like me! So I can’t for the life of me figure out how he knew my dad so well, but he sure loved him! Earl and Speck both.

  Isn’t that something? A lot of young men—

  My mother was in that Hurricane of 1910 and lost her baby. You know who that baby’s daddy was?

  Yes I do, Pearl.

  It was all so hush-hush, you know, back then.

  Did you ever hear the rumor that the baby lived?

  Speck tell you that one? He’s a damn liar, then! Excuse my language, sweetheart! But I never knew why Speck wanted so bad to join up in our family, when all the rest of ’em were trying to get out!

  Hello? Are you still there? Hello? Can you still hear me, Pearl?

  Who are you anyway? Whoever you are, you must be a liar! My brother Lucius would have called me before this! He would have called me! I’m his baby sister! They say I look like him! Lucius loves me more than anybody in the world!

  Please don’t cry, Pearl. Please don’t be upset. I am ashamed I never called. I’ve thought of you so often—

  Who are you? Who is calling me? You tell my brother to call me, hear? I’m all alone in this sad place! They won’t let me go home because they say I have no home. They say Mrs. Barfield’s Hotel is gone, can you imagine such a thing? They say I have no job there anymore! It’s been years and years since anybody came to see me! Lucius Watson never came! And my name is Pearl Watson! I’m his baby sister!

  The Niece

  Lucius rang up Eddie’s daughter the next morning—she who had led her unbeloved stepmother to the cemetery and told her the truth about E. J. Watson—whichever truth she had decided to bestow, since as she now declared over the telephone, she knew “nothing worth knowing” about Grandfather Watson. She had little information about family history and no interest whatever in acquiring more. “I scarcely heard Grandfather mentioned until I was sixteen, and even then, I was only told that he came from good family in South Carolina and died of a heart attack. Aunt Carrie’s daughters, Faith and Betsy, they were told the same!”

  Having scarcely laid eyes on him since she was a child, she did not hide her suspicion of this stranger on the telephone, who might or might not be her long-lost uncle Lucius. She finally agreed to receive him at her clothing store downtown, but when he turned up, she rushed to intercept him even before the little bell over the door had finished tinkling.

  In place of the rather pretty girl he had remembered stood a cracked vessel in bony horn-rimmed glasses and a mad red dress. Katherine Watson was bitter, offhand, sharp, with a pained laugh like the rasping of a tern. “Why did you ask about my mother? If you are Uncle Lucius, then you knew my mother. Neva Watson died in 1924. I suppose you remember Dorothy? Your own niece? My sister was very beautiful, like Aunt Carrie’s daughter, but she died many years ago in an automobile accident up north, as you would surely know if you are who you say you are. That’s every last thing I know about the Watson family, so you needn’t waste any more of your good time!”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, Katherine. Why did you agree to see me?”

  Katherine’s voice went a little higher. “Your phone call startled me, I wasn’t thinking! You told me you were Lucius Watson, but I have no idea who you are or what you’re up to!”

  His niece glared at him in alarm and dislike. He scarcely recognized the tight-pinched mouth, the worried hair, the famished shins. Was Walter’s funeral the last time he had seen her? “This is family business!” she cried fiercely, darting sharp flashes off sharp corners of modern spectacles into his eyes. “I can’t recall one thing worth speaking of about our family,” she repeated, “because nobody bothered to remember anything. That’s the way the Watsons are—indifferent!”

  He could not seem to reassure this frantic person, and, in a sense, what she had said was true. Compared with his siblings and their children who had lived out their lives in the deep shadow of the scandal, he was not “family” but a feckless drifter.

  “You see, I’m kind of a historian, apart from being your uncle. I’m trying to dispel some of those lurid myths about your grandfather. And I have to ask about a list of names—”

  “It’s family business!”

  The lone customer turned to look at them. His niece gave up trying to back him through the door to the bright street and herded him instead into the shoe department.

  “Did Eddie—did your father ever speak about his older brother?”

  “No! I can’t remember! An older brother? A half brother visited just once that I remember—I was still a child then, eight or nine. He didn’t stay long. This man came in search of Uncle Lucius, and became unpleasant because my father didn’t know or care where Lucius was. My father and his brothers were never close. My father always told us that his younger brother—is that you?—had upset the family by wasting his good education and going to live among lowlife rednecks in the Ten Thousand Islands. He said he never saw you after that. But as I said, I don’t think it was hostility so much as plain indifference!”

  He sought to reassure her by relating a few details of his recent visit with her cousins in Fort White. She interrupted him. “I beg your pardon? They told you my father cooked when he came to visit? I never knew he cooked. We always had a colored person to do the cooking. Aunt Carrie never went back to Fort White, but my father lived there for some years after his mother died. He considered that place home, don’t ask me why! We had to go there every summer, stay at the Collins farm, and my sister and I just hated it! They were nice people, I suppose, good country people, but as poor as church mice!

  “My father trained us to be snobs from an early age. We were poor ourselves a good deal of the time, but he was determined to be snobbish all the same. Oh yes, he always had a darkie, to keep up appearances, but he never had nearly as much money as Uncle Walter, so he had to be extra friendly to make up for it. When he had money, he joined up—what? Just about everything there was to join! A real glad-hander. He flattered folks, he made bad jokes, he bragged.

  “What’s that? Why do you say that? Did you like him? I don’t think compensating for his father’s reputation had a thing to do with it! That’s just the way he always was—a braggart! Yes! My father is a braggart and his wife’s a fool. Augusta reveres my father for some reason, but that woman is nothing but a fool. She tries so hard to be genteel, but she never had one nickel she could throw away. And now that he’s retired, of course, I have to help them—well, that’s not your business, I’m sure,” she added bitterly.

  “Actually,” he
said gently, “I was hoping you might help me with a question that I’m afraid your father just won’t answer.” Had she ever heard about a list of names of the men who’d killed Grandfather Watson? A list given originally to Lucy Dyer? Lucy Summerlin? “I’m trying to find out who has this list—”

  “No!” Katherine cried, rising abruptly in her torment, hard heels clacking on her hard new floor like hooves in a stone court. “I’ve already told you! I’m not interested in my family! I’m not interested in your lists and pictures! I don’t even care that we are related, if we are related! Why should I bother my head about an uncle who fled this godforsaken family when I was a little girl? Not that I blame you, Lord knows! I don’t blame you! I’d have done the same!” She gasped for breath, pointing at his notes. “If my grandfather was a monster, I can’t help it! It’s got nothing to do with me, that’s all I know!”

  “Katherine, go ahead and take care of your customer—”

  “No!” Beside herself, his niece hurried him toward the door. When he turned to say good-bye, she snatched off her glasses and wiped frantically. Without her horn-rims, she looked strangely naked, like a baby bird. She blew again upon her glasses, wiped them with another tissue fetched up from the hard bodice of that cantankerous red dress, then set them on her nose again to get him back in focus. “I guess you’re Uncle Lucius, all right,” she complained. “But I told you I couldn’t help before you came. So if you’ll just excuse me, please, I have a customer!”

  Was she saying that he should not wait? She nodded gratefully. “I’m sorry,” she said, polite now that he seemed to be departing. And once again, glimpsing the prettiness that had forsaken her, he was touched by this bristling niece of his, though he couldn’t for the life of him think why.

  The customer departed and they watched her go.

  “I’m sorry, Katherine.”

  “And don’t you go pestering Aunt Carrie either! She has not been well!” She banged the door, with its small bell of greeting and farewell.