Lost Man's River

by Peter Matthiessen

  “Whidden? I’m sure Mister Colonel knows the rest of it—”

  “This was back in World War I, when he was gone.” Stolid, stubborn, Whidden said to Lucius, “When them fellers come through here, Abbie Harden fell in love with Leland, wanted to run off with him. Well, her parents said no, and next thing she knew, that young bank robber was killed on Chokoloskee. Aunt Abbie was wailin and screechin how that tragedy would not have happened if she had been allowed to go with that young man, and she threatened she might destroy herself almost any day. Course Abbie weren’t a young girl no more, and she might of thought that Leland Rice was her last chance in life. And Leland bein dead and buried, we never got to hear his side of the story.

  Abbie Harden was tall and slim, she never got heavy like her sisters, and she had them nice manners that she learned in Key West convent school. You might recall her helpin out at some of your daddy’s parties, makin sure that everything looked nice. A lot of local boys was after her but she weren’t interested, she had her own romantical ideas.

  “Abbie took after her brother Earl, she was ashamed of the dark ones in the family. Probably it was Earl taught her to think that way. Whenever she went up to Chokoloskee, folks would find ways to humiliate her because her sister had married Henry Short, and she was furious because her own family saw nothing wrong in that. ‘It’s not bad enough,’ she screeched, ‘that we’re called mulattas up and down the coast, without Libby marrying up with some darned nigger?’ Well, Grandmother Maisie grabbed her daughter by the scruff of her white neck and washed her mouth out with lye soap. Yelled, ‘Girl, are you fool enough to listen to them mean-mouth hypocrites up on the Bay? Didn’t Henry tell us he was part Indian, the same as us? He is a good Christian man and would not lie about it!’ And she told Abbie she should count her blessins, having such a fine man in the family, told her she didn’t care to hear no more about it.

  “You recall my grandma, Mister Colonel? From her Seminole side, Grandma Maisie was darker than anybody in her family except Uncle Webster, but because her daddy was John Weeks, the first pioneer to settle Chokoloskee, she was a white woman and that was that. She never paid her own color no attention, so nobody else did neither, only Earl and Abbie. Abbie Harden vowed she would never forgive her family, she was out to spite them. And what she done, she run off with the Storters’ man Dab Rowland, from Grand Cayman Island. This young Carribean man at Everglade was the only other black person around the Bay, and he weren’t wheat color like Henry, he was black—”

  “Other black person?” Sally looked cross. “You’re saying Henry Short was black?”

  “In them days Dab was fishing with Claude Storter, and he played the banjo for our Harden parties. Well, one night Abbie drank too much, which she weren’t used to, and she grabbed that banjo picker and run off with him and got married by the Cape Sable constable, same way Aunt Libby done. Maybe she told Dab she would holler rape and see him lynched if he didn’t go along, because Abbie was as headstrong as the rest of ’em. If Abbie had married out of love instead of spite, things might been different, but Dab was so black that it seems like she picked him out for his wrong color. Poor feller must of woke up in the mornin and knew he was fixin to get lynched no matter what. Some folks wondered why that nigra would let that wild young woman risk his life, but one way or another, I don’t reckon he had no say about it.

  “Aunt Abbie announced that marryin Dab Rowland was all she could think of to get even with her family for ruinin her life by lettin Libby marry Henry. Because, said she, Henry Short was a nigger just as much as Dab, a nigger was a nigger, there weren’t one speck of difference between niggers.”

  Andy said sorrowfully, “That’s the way folks seen it—there weren’t no difference between Henry and Dab.”

  “Whatever he was, Granddad Robert disowned her, not so much for marryin a black man as for marryin him out of spite to wreck her family. Granddad Robert knew who he liked and who he didn’t, and family had damned little to do with it. He never liked his oldest boy and never pretended that he did, which is probably why Uncle Earl always lived near that old man hopin to change his daddy’s poor opinion of him.

  “Dab and Abbie went to Key West for a trip, then back to Everglade, where Dab had some protection from the Storters. But Earl believed that Abbie was flauntin her black husband on the Bay to pay back her family for disowning her, and some of our Weeks and Daniels cousins came over from Marco with a plan to string Dab from the big mahogany out front of the trading post, same ol’ tree that is standin there today.

  “My pa was about the only one took up for Abbie. When his brother Earl was fixin to join up with the lynchin party, he stepped in. He told him, ‘That man’s wife is our little sister, so Hardens will stand by ’em.’ And Earl paid some attention, too, because Pa was very strong, with that fiery temper. If Lee Harden give you his word, you could lay your life on it, men always said, so I guess Earl figured if he took a part, he could lay his life on his brother’s promise he would kill him. Earl Harden never forgive his brother for makin him back down about Dab Rowland.

  “Course the Bay families liked Earl better’n Lee because he was more like them. Earl was friends with the same folks who became Hardens’ worst enemies and whenever my pa run into trouble, it always seemed like Old Man Earl was hid behind it.

  “Lee Harden went to Everglade and warned his sister that the lovebirds better fly, so they went over there to Arizona. Wrote back to inform us that out in the West where nigras ain’t so plentiful, the Injuns and Mexicans are treated even worse. Just ain’t enough black people out there for good Christians to get worked up about, cause they already have their hands full, bein mean to Injuns. Aunt Abbie never had no children, but they adopted a little black boy and they sent his picture and we sure liked the look of him. She ended up enjoy in her black family.”

  Whidden stopped to sort his feelings. “In some way, the Hardens’ troubles went back to their friendship with Mr. Watson,” he said finally. “I ain’t blaming him, Mister Colonel—I said, went back to him. Because his friendship with Hardens was a warning to the Bay people: leave these folks be. Maybe all he wanted was the support of Harden guns, like some has said—that worked both ways. As long as Mr. Watson was known to be our friend, nobody messed with us. But after his death, the Hardens was resented worse than ever, especially Lee Harden, who called the men who gunned down his old friend ‘a mob of outlaws.’ Even the ones who took no part had kinsmen in that crowd, and they resented it. Mamie Smallwood purely hated what her dad and brothers done that day, but she never forgive Lee Harden for them words. That woman had it in for Hardens till the day she died.

  “Once Mr. Watson was out of the way, the men took to fishing farther and farther south toward Lost Man’s River, and pretty soon, the Fish Wars started up again. The Harden clan was outcast more than ever, and when one sister married Henry Short, it got worse still, and when another run off with Dab Rowland—well, she ruined her family. Aunt Abbie give our enemies all the argument they ever needed that Hardens must be some kind of mulattas who had no right to run no white men off that Lost Man’s coast. The Bay fishermen and the trappers, too, was after our Harden territory, and it got so they were huntin an excuse to come down here in a gang and wipe us out.”

  “My cousins! Carrs and Browns—!”

  “Your line of Browns had nothin much to do with that feud with Hardens. Matter of fact, your uncle Harry stayed pretty good friends—remember Dollar? Called him that name because back in the old days, he sold his Lost Man’s Key claim to my dad for one silver dollar. Dollar was always selling somethin, he was full of big ideas, a real finagler. It was Dollar who invented commercial stone crabbing, he was the first man around here to set him a line of deep water traps floored with cement that would sink to the bottom and set upright in fifty foot of water. Stone crabs crawl better in winter and rough water and at night, and they are partial to a good tough bait like stingray.

  “Anyways, it was Dollar Bill who wa
rned my pa that the Lopez bunch might try to run him off this Lost Man’s claim. Lopezes lived at Mormon Key for quite a while, raised some sugarcane because fishin was so poor—two cents a pound was all we was gettin for pickled mullet—and they was very jealous of our territory. Pa always believed it was one them Lopez cousins who caught him from behind one night at Chokoloskee, cut him up like pork chops with an ax. Pa went to the hospital for the first time in his life, and when he got out, he stopped off at Smallwood’s on his way home. Didn’t suspect Old Man Ted was behind it, just pretended that he did, knowin Ted was friends with the ones who probably done it. Stood there awhile not sayin a word, just watchin Ted tryin not to look at him, cause his face was all ripped up and swollen purple. He was waitin to see if Ted would come apart, and he damn near did, he couldn’t hardly speak. So finally Pa said, ‘The day I catch up with the man who carved this Halloween mask you are lookin at’ ”—and Whidden tapped his own face, his eyes squinted—“ ‘that man is as good as dead.’ Old Man Smallwood says, ‘No, no, no, Lee! I never knew a thing about it!’ And he probably didn’t. But he spread the word about what Pa said, until even the innocent ones got nervous, in case Lee Harden decided it was them.” He shook his head. “Pa wore them heavy face scars all his life. And every year the tensions between Hardens and the Bay kept growin worse.

  “Takin a life was about the only way them wars was goin to end, and both sides knew that. Even the weather give us warning signs, like that strange cold breath out of the sky before a thunderstorm. That atmosphere along this coast had to bust like a woman’s water before anybody could breathe easy again.

  “Seems terrible to say it but my pa said this himself: if them ones that tried to kill him with an ax had knowed their job, and drawed off that dangerous head of steam by killin him, my brother Roark and my cousin Wilson might not of lost their lives down at Shark River.

  “Dollar Bill might been the only Brown who ever did our family a kind deed, and the only one was welcome at our musical parties after them murders. But one day Dollar got drunk and run his mouth off, trying to patch the feud. He was lettin on how it weren’t nothin but a tragical misunderstandin, and how Hardens should quit holdin a grudge against his young Carr cousins. Pa run him right off Lost Man’s Beach, told him he weren’t welcome anymore.”

  “Why should the Hardens begrudge the Carrs a couple of ol’ murders?” His wife glared at Whidden, who lay back on the sand again, looking resigned. “Damn it, Whidden,” Sally said then, “Mister Colonel better hear our side of that old story!”

  “Honey, he already knows our side.” Whidden pointed across the river mouth toward Lost Man’s Beach. “He was livin right down the beach over there when it happened.” He folded his arms across his knees, his expression enigmatic in the firelight.

  It was true that Lucius knew the tragic story. He did not know how the Hardens perceived it decades later, and when Sally looked at him, he urged her to go ahead. Anxious to pull herself together, to set her emotions aside, she folded her hands upon her lap and for almost a minute sat in silence, in her instinct that the recounting of human death deserved formality.

  “Roark Harden was eighteen years of age and his cousin—Earl’s boy Wilson—was just one year older. One day Wilson came over from Wood Key to pick up Roark in his skiff. They sailed out to the Gulf sky to pick up wind, then took a bearing southward. Sadie Harden was worried by bad dreams, and she watched from shore until they disappeared.

  “The family knew that the two boys planned to spend their first night at Shark River Point. Nobody owned that country down around Shark River, that was Indian country. The boys hoped to make a grubstake trapping coons back of Cape Sable, then go hunting crocodiles out of Belize.”

  “They was going across to Belize in a sailing skiff?”

  “Mr. House? They were going to Key West, catch a coast trader!” She took a long deep breath.

  “Now this was the worst time of the Fish Wars, too many bullets too close to people’s heads, and Roark decided to leave Lost Man’s River before he killed somebody or somebody killed him. Roark and Wilson were real hotheads, they wanted to get away for a while until they simmered down, but they weren’t out hunting trouble, they were avoiding it.

  “Those boys were never seen again except by those who killed them! But Roark’s daddy knew who trapped around Shark River and which ones had it in for Hardens. He had no proof but he was sure it was the sons of Walker Carr, who was living at the Watson Place on Chatham Bend.”

  Once again, the Bend had been involved in a dark and violent episode in Island history. Lucius wondered if this thought had occurred to Andy House, who lay beside him, staring sightless at the canopy of ocean stars high overhead as if to receive some vision of existence. When the blind man shifted with a weary sigh, Sally stopped talking and awaited him.

  “If they was headed for Belize, Mis Sally, and they never come back home, how did their families learn that they was missin? How did Hardens know them boys never got no farther than Shark River? You ever talk to your own family about this?”

  “I never talk to my ‘own family’ at all!”

  Andy sighed again and lay back on the sand as if expiring, and Sally waited pointedly before resuming.

  “The Harden men had hunted for their sons for two long years, even visited a Georgia prison on a rumor. With each failed search, they became more convinced about what actually happened, and Lee Harden was so upset that he swore when he was drinking that he was going after those damned Carrs and no more talk about it. By that time there were plenty of rumors, and Walker Carr had removed his family from the Watson Place, and his sons steered clear of Harden territory, never went south of the fish house at Turkey Key.

  “Sadie Harden never doubted that her missing boy was right there in Shark River, killed by Carrs. One time she shot at Cap Daniels’s boat because it looked like a Carr boat.”

  Whidden laughed, “Poor Cap went back to Fakahatchee and painted that darn boat of his a different color!”

  “For years those Carrs denied the rumors, just barefaced denied them. I believe it was the youngest brother, Alden, who spat up the truth. He was camped there at Shark River with his brothers Owen and Turner, and he’d seen what happened. Couldn’t live with it, I guess, he was having nightmares. He did not know that the Johnson boy he was drinking with at Tavernier was a Harden cousin.

  “Alden Carr told the Johnson boy that some coon hides had been taken from their camp. They thought the Harden boys must have them, so they went over there to take them back. Owen Carr was leader, and he crept up and shone a carbide lantern, and when Wilson heaved up on one elbow, he shot him in cold blood where he lay there on the ground under his mosquito bar. Later he claimed the Harden boys were threatening to fire, and another time he kind of hinted that his little brother Alden got buck fever and fired that first shot. But Alden claimed he never fired, he was screeching at his brothers not to shoot.

  “Roark sat up at the noise and turned to face them. Seeing his gun was out of reach, and seeing poor dying Wilson there beside him, he was very frightened. According to Alden, he put his hands up, begging them to spare his life. The panicked Carrs yelled and argued right in front of him, waving their guns around. ‘We don’t kill him, he’ll run home and tell, and them Hardens will come gunnin for us!’ Can you believe it? While poor Roark huddled in the light beam, awaiting their decision? Can you imagine anything more terrifying for that poor boy?

  “While they were yelling, Roark bolted, scrambling away into the dark. They had that lantern and they chased him down and started shooting, but being scared, not wanting to get close, they just kept firing and wounding him as he crawled away under the stilt roots of the mangroves, until finally he lay down from loss of blood and finally died. They dragged those two boys into their skiff and towed that skiff all the way upriver to the saw grass, then way on up some little creek. They were thinking to bury the bodies, set the skiff on fire, but they were so frightened that they mad
e a mess of the whole business and never finished it. First they heard owls and then a panther screamed, and they just cut and ran!”

  Lucius said quietly, “Well, that was Alden’s story, all right.” He gazed across the firelight at Sally. “That’s what he told me, too. Panther scream and all.”

  “I don’t believe that Alden fired. It was Owen and Turner!”

  Andy House grunted unhappily, sorting his own memories and ruminations. He cleared his throat. “Sally, I ain’t excusin what they done. But when Turner grew up, he married into our House family, and we never found nothin the matter with him. You are tellin this story only from the Hardens’ side, which is all right, but like I say, somebody should speak up for your family if you won’t do it.”

  “The Hardens are my family,” Sally cried, as if he were being dense. Upset, she rose and walked off down the beach, and after waiting a little to give her dignity some room, Whidden rose and followed her toward the point.

  “Well, Colonel, you was here at Lost Man’s then. You know the story.” When Lucius urged him to tell how he perceived it, Andy cleared his throat, frowning in his determination to speak responsibly and to avoid contradicting Sally’s story more than he had to.

  ANDY HOUSE

  In the first part of the Depression, young Roark Harden and his cousin Wilson come up missing. Because they was known to be coon hunting around Shark River, their daddies suspected the young Carrs, who was camped nearby. Only trouble was, they had no evidence. Up to here, Sally and me don’t have no problem.

  That year I was seventeen years old, so I can recall about it pretty good. Our family was truck-farming up near the Trail, so all we had was hearsays, but we knowed Walker Carr’s boys was suspected, knowed all hell broke loose anytime a Carr tried to net mullet south of Turkey Key. And we heard how them Carr boys was claiming that five hundred dollars’ worth of coon hides had been stole out of their camp—a lot of money in Depression times, for folks like us.