Lost Man's River

by Peter Matthiessen

  Carrie

  Carrie Langford lived nearby in a small house in a court off First Street, almost in the shadow of the bank. Dreading recriminations, he had not announced his visit, and turning the corner, he found Carrie outside fetching the newspaper. In pale blue breakfast gown, she straightened by the gate of her rose fence, unkempt gray head in a bright morning aura of trellised wisteria and bougainvillea. At the sight of him, her hands rose to her hair, her temples, and she tottered a little before steadying herself on the white post.

  “I was just going out. You almost missed me.” Cross that her poor lie was so transparent, Carrie fussed with the pink satin on her collar. “You could have called first, Lucius.”

  “I’m sorry, Carrie.” He paused at the fence. “I suppose Eddie warned you I was here.”

  “He said you were hobnobbing with those Daniels people. The Backdoor Family,” she added coldly. “I never thought you’d bother to come here.”

  “I ran into them. They are good old friends.”

  “Good old friends. And how about your sister?” She raised her palm to ward off any blustering. “Well, come on in, since you are here. I suppose you want something.”

  It made things more painful that his sister moved like an old lady. Slowly she led him up onto the porch, swinging her left leg first for each upward step, and he held the screen door as she preceded him into a small sitting room stuffed up with dark antique furniture from the much larger house at the Edison Bridge. “From the good old days,” she said, with a tired wave. In the louvered shade, in the whir of fans, the dark and silent room seemed to bar the southern light, as if somewhere within, Walter’s body lay in state.

  Carrie indicated a hard chair by the door, in sign to him that his stay should be a brief one, and he perched well forward on the edge to show that he understood this, and would depart promptly when the time came. Carrie herself sat on the sofa, but she sat erect, hands folded on her lap, awaiting him. He handed her Dyer’s petition form in regard to Chatham Bend.

  “This why you came?” She glanced over the paper. “Should I trust you, Lucius?” She signed it carelessly and tossed it back.

  “It was my excuse to come. I wanted to see you—”

  “Spare me.” She raised her hand. “No, it was not Eddie who warned me you were here, it was his daughter. You mustn’t mind our poor unhappy Katherine. She just can’t bear any talk about the family. Never cared for her father, let alone her stepmother, and her husband went off with someone else, and her sister died in an auto accident up north.” She gazed at him. “You missed the funeral, of course. Dorothy Watson, in case you don’t recall her, was the most beautiful girl in all Lee County.”

  “Carrie, listen, I don’t want to make excuses. I know what a poor brother I have been. But I always thought that you and Eddie disapproved—”

  “Don’t lump me in with Eddie, if you don’t mind! Whatever you may think of us, Eddie and I are not consulting about Little Brother!”

  “Good.” He offered a small smile. “I mean, he might persuade you not to see me.”

  “He knows better than to try any such thing.”

  To ease matters, he talked about Ruth Ellen and Addison, reminding Carrie that her Faith was about Ruth Ellen’s age. Those two little girls must have stared gravely at each other when Papa’s new family came through town on the journeys between Fort White and Chatham River.

  “Our dear stepmother was eight years younger than I!” Carrie shook her head. “I scarcely remember their names,” she added curtly. “I’m afraid I have always thought less of Edna for running away before a decent burial could be arranged. And then, of course, she changed the children’s names. Made everything much easier, I imagine.”

  But Carrie had no heart for her own unkindness. Abruptly she faced him, her face crumbling. “Lucius, you refused to understand what I had to deal with, how much my in-laws disapproved of Papa. Walter got upset every time he came, reminding me over and over that his father-in-law’s reputation ‘was not exactly an asset in the banking business.’ You may remember Walter as quite wild in his youth, but later on he was conservative, extremely strict.” She laughed despite herself, that delighted laugh that he’d almost forgotten. “Dear Walter could be so darned dignified that our girls joked about it—how their daddy had ordered stiff-collared pajamas!”

  Her mood shifted again, like a wind gust over water. “I honored the family decision about Papa, but those dreadful writers pestered me year after year, they would not let that scandal die a merciful death. And sure enough, someone would show me another lurid article about ‘Bloody Watson,’ just slapped together in a hurry to make money, no regard for truth. Well, the rest of that day I would just sit quiet, all shrunk up into myself, looking straight ahead and not saying a word. On those days I told my girls not to come near me. And it was on those days that I thought to myself”—here she looked up—“how badly I needed my dear brothers, how much I longed for Lucius to come see me.

  “It made me sad, of course, that I never saw Rob either, because I loved him, too. But the little brother I adored, who lived right here in southwest Florida and never bothered to inquire how we might be getting on even when he was right here in the city!”

  Though Carrie wept in her pent-up emotions, she was less sorry for herself than overjoyed to see him. “I know, dear, I know! I do! You had all you could handle, maybe more! I never forgot that, and I never stopped loving you all these years—”

  He was close to tears himself. “I don’t forgive myself, Carrie. I—”

  How sad, he thought later, that just as they drew near, a visitor should come tapping on the screen, a small man in a dark suit with sallow skin and dark pouches under his eyes. Seeing Carrie, he entered, then stopped short at the sight of Lucius. Carrie introduced them, adding, “Mr. Henderson is my kind neighbor, my gentleman caller. Stops by every day to ask if I am dead, and if I am not, offers to run an errand.”

  Lucius smiled and she smiled back, but she was not quite ready to be mollified. She did not send Mr. Henderson on his way, as Lucius hoped she would, and the man perched himself like a chaperone on a side chair, folding cold hands together. Carrie paid him no further attention, as if he had been leaned into the corner, but her tone with her brother had turned cool. “Faith and Betsy are your other pretty nieces,” she reminded him, directing Lucius’s attention to piano pictures of her daughters and grandchildren.

  In a photo of Walter and Carrie taken in New York City about 1917, Carrie made a handsome subject, proud-bosomed in a white dress, and Banker Langford in a houndstooth tweed appeared portly and prosperous. His hairline, slicked back hard for the big city, had receded, but his lifelong amiability seemed undiminished. If he no longer resembled the lean-faced young cow hunter of Ruth Ellen’s photos, neither did he look the least bit like a man whose liver was to fail him three years later.

  “You were off in the World War when that was taken. Walter had to meet people from New York City, he had to go there now and then, and the president of our First National Bank couldn’t very well behave like a cracker cowboy! In New York City, he hired a governess to teach his children manners, teach his wife how to conduct a formal dinner—all of the things our family had to know in order to do well in the banking business. And we studied hard right beside our children, read the same books of etiquette, learned how to dress.”

  “Oh I’m sure there was no need of that!” Mr. Henderson exclaimed, and Carrie laughed, delighted by his consternation. She cried, “Oh yes, Mr. Henderson, yes indeed there was! Folks couldn’t believe what that cowboy and that Oklahoma tomboy had turned into! We could go anywhere and feel that we belonged! But Walter never became snobbish, he always remained a kind and generous man. We had our beautiful old colonial house on First Street, then the brick house near the bridge, remember? Did you ever see it?”

  “Carrie? I came to Walter’s funeral! I arrived late—”

  “Forgive me. Of course you did.” Carrie Langford nodd
ed. “But that was very long ago, and I don’t really know you anymore.” Unable to hide the tremor in her voice, she would not look at him. Then she relented, and her eyes misted. “Lucius, I needed you back then. I got almost no help from Walter’s partners, and could not accept charity from others, even my own brothers. Had they offered it. Which they did not. For different reasons. You, at least, were always generous when you had anything, I will say that.” Again, she raised her hand to ward off explanations or regrets. “I made my own way and did my best to be gallant in misfortune, as poor Papa had to do so often! I was never a good businesswoman, but even fools do famously in real estate. I saw to it that my daughters married well, and we came out all right in the end. Betsy was always after me for money, and she always got it.”

  Her gentleman caller shot a warning glance, which she ignored. He cleared his throat as smoothly as an undertaker. “Carrie Langford is one of the most gracious hostesses in all of Florida,” he intoned. “Before Mr. Langford’s untimely demise, she entertained Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Alva Edison in her gracious home, and also their friend Mr. Henry Ford, and many other prominent Americans.”

  “My goodness, Mr. Henderson, you sound like a brochure!” Bemused, she contemplated this circumspect little man before turning her attention back to Lucius.

  “Two years ago I wasn’t well, and I thought, Darn it all, I want to see Lucius before I die, so I told Eddie to go hunt you up. He learned you were living scarcely thirty miles away, on some old houseboat! I wanted you to come for Christmas, a real visit, but Eddie said you were drinking too much, that all you wanted was to rot on your old boat, live like a hobo.” She paused, searching his eyes. “Said you seemed to think your family was ashamed of you, and that it might be best if you stayed away.”

  Lucius had never said such things to Eddie, whom he had scarcely seen before today, but he’d said them to others, it was true—he had said as much this very day. When he did not defend himself, she said, “Well, those words broke your sister’s heart. Were they supposed to?”

  Mr. Henderson hitched forward in his chair in case Mrs. Langford needed his assistance. However, he flinched when Lucius looked at him. Lucius stood up.

  “Perhaps I should come back later, Carrie.”

  “Now, now,” she teased him. “Mr. Henderson is like one of the family, which cannot be said for you!” More kindly, she added, “Did I ever show you what my Faith wrote about her grandpa in her school paper?” Carrie located the paper in a desk, read it aloud:

  “ ‘I remember my grandpa with his big chest and broad shoulders and bright blue eyes and ginger brows and beard a wiry dark red, with silver in it, and his skin deep sunburned, a deep reddish brown, and always a nice warm smell of fine tobacco. He was so jolly and kind around us children—we just loved him!’ ” Reading this, Carrie smiled at her brother fondly. “ ‘He would come to our house and perch me and Betsy on each knee and tell us stories about the big old owls that lived on Chatham Bend. And as he told about the owls, he would pop his eyes open, like this!’ ”

  Imitating her child, Carrie popped her eyes at Lucius, then gave that clear peal of delight which brought back their warm childhood days in a great rush.

  With both parents dead and Rob and Lucius vanished from her life, the loss of her husband and her two girls married, all Carrie had left in the way of family was her brother Eddie. So it was fortunate, she said with a small smile, that Eddie so adored her. Lucius said with the same smile that he’d always supposed that their esteem was mutual. Carrie cocked her head. “Let’s just say,” Carrie said gently, “that dear Eddie felt a little more kindred to his sister’s spirit than she felt to his.”

  As her gentleman caller peered at them, they nodded at each other. They were starting to have fun.

  “Eddie can be very courtly, as you know. He has a sort of old-fashioned charm, at least he used to. And in the old days, he would laugh a good deal more, although his eyes would never, never smile. And that was because the poor old thing has never relaxed in all his life, he is always out to gain something or prove something.

  “You were always the opposite—quiet, rather melancholy. But when you smiled, your whole face lit up, and your eyes, too.” The memory of his smile made her smile herself, and he was smiling with her. “See?” she said, pointing at his eyes. “As a young man, you were very handsome, Lucius. You still are. All the Watsons were handsome—beautiful or handsome. But like all the rest, you drank too much.” She took a deep hard breath, and her face darkened. “The Watsons were all handsome, and they all drank too much, myself included,” Carrie told Mr. Henderson rather too harshly, “and I married another handsome drunk while I was at it.”

  Beside her on a bare table lay a simple leather book with a single bookmark. “I’ve waited for thirty years to show you this.” She opened the journal to the bookmarked page and handed it across to him.

  January 16, 1921

  Not long after Walter died, Eddie came over with a thin bearded stranger in worn and dusty clothes. We were still in our brick house. Eddie said shortly that this man was our long-lost half brother (Eddie said “half brother” right in front of him!). Robert is not a Watson anymore, he said, rolling his eyes in suspicion for my benefit. These days he is calling himself R. B. Collins.

  I had not seen Rob in twenty years, and would not have recognized him, yet the moment his name was spoken, I knew him—that jutting black hair crudely hacked off, the dead pale skin, with feverish red points on his cheeks, the big dark hollow and wild eyes, like a religious martyr in old paintings. I go by my mother’s maiden name, Rob told me in a flat voice, not dignifying Eddie’s contempt with an explanation.

  It’s you, Rob? I inquired shyly, and he nodded and extended his hand formally, making no attempt at an embrace. I said, Oh Rob! For goodness’ sake! I took his stiff thin body in my arms, and he gave me a quick wiry strong hug. Oh Rob! I cried. Do you remember the last time you saw me? That afternoon before my wedding, right out here on the riverside, when you sailed away with Papa to the Gulf? We waved and waved and then you vanished from my life! Until today!

  With this foolish outburst came a flood of tears. Rob looked dismayed but could find no words so he gave the poor small speech he had prepared. Sister, he said in a cracked voice, I am sorry to learn that your husband is deceased. May I meet your daughters?

  He’s looking for Lucius, Eddie interrupted, sulky and impatient. It turned out Rob had chastised him in front of Neva and the girls for his indifference and unloving attitude toward our little brother. I can’t help him, Eddie added.

  I was forced to confess that I couldn’t help him, either. I felt dreadfully ashamed. We have no idea where Lucius might be living. I wonder why, Rob said, cold and sardonic. When Eddie told him that Lucius might be living in the Islands, I said how much it worried me to have my brother at the mercy of those people. You are right to be worried, Rob said. I am worried, too. That’s why I came. Eddie said sourly, Sure took you long enough! and Rob snapped back that he could not have come here any sooner. He seemed just as angry and restless as the Rob of old who defied Papa every chance he got!

  I gave him Lucy Summerlin’s address, saying she’d been close to Lucius and might know his whereabouts. Rob said he would not stay for supper but must use this time to locate Mrs. Summerlin. That same evening, he would travel south to Marco, where a boat might be found to take him on to Lost Man’s River.

  To escape from Eddie, who remained sullen, we went outside. I took Rob’s arm and walked with him a little way downriver. I said, Here you turn up for the first visit in many years and you won’t stay for dinner!

  I never learned if he found Lucius in the Islands. I never learned if he had a family, or where he lived, or what his life might be. I have never seen Rob since, or Lucius either.

  Lucius set the journal down. Carrie retrieved it, holding it upright like a hymnal on her lap. “If only you’d come back from those dreadful islands and married poor dear Lucy!” She smiled, e
ncouraging a confidence. Unable to think of one, he rose to go.

  His sister accompanied him to the door, waving back Mr. Henderson, who was so accomplished in the social niceties that he could frown at Lucius without meeting his eye. “Please don’t stay away forever, darling. Please come back,” she whispered. “Please, Lucius dear.” They took each other’s hands. “I will,” he said simply, and she knew he meant it, for she went up on tiptoes like a girl and kissed him on the cheek. At last they hugged each other. “I’m counting on you, Lucius!” Carrie whispered. “Don’t forsake me.” He waved from the rose gate.

  Lucy Summerlin

  The old Fort Myers cemetery lay within walking distance, in a faded neighborhood off the river road which ran east to La Belle and Lake Okeechobee. In banyan shade by the cemetery gate, under dark branches which extended out over the street, a small figure in Easter hat and white lace collar sat in her old auto looking straight ahead. He trod heavily so as not to startle her as he came along the sidewalk from behind, and Lucy Summerlin did not look around or even stiffen—he admired that. Even in a run-down neighborhood, her stillness said, a Southern lady waiting outside a cemetery was inviolate, and no self-respecting thug or hooligan would dare to interfere with her in the smallest way.

  “Goodness gracious, Lucius Watson, is that really you?” Her voice on the telephone had faltered a moment, then returned briskly. “Have you paid your respects out at the cemetery? Well, meet me there! I’ll be the rickety old contraption by the gate. Me, not the automobile—oh, don’t be silly! It’s high time I got out there anyway, saw to the flowers!”

  At his approach, she emerged from her car, wincing a little at the loud creak of the hinge, or her own stiff joints, or both. “This pesky flivver,” she declared, “is as out of date as I am!” When she slammed the door, it screeched again. “My auto and I,” she said, smoothing her dress. “We’re in this darn thing to the finish.” Still unable to look at him, she went around to the far side and reached in through the window for her graveside flowers. Half-hid behind the shield of blossoms, she raised her eyes, then burst into a joyful smile, laying the flowers on the hood and holding out both hands. “Oh Lucius!” she whispered. “Oh my darling!”