Crossing the flats, I seen a keel track in the marl. My heart give a skip and I hollered out, cause it never come to me before that I knew Watson's boat track when I seen it. Must of watched his big old skiff cross a flat somewhere back up into the bays and made a point to notice what his boat track looked like.
"Mist' Watson," Henry said.
Henry Short recognized that track the same time I did. Come to think of it, most men in the Islands would probably know that keel mark when they seen it. Noticing small signs is a good habit when you take your living from wild land. Maybe we all had the same instinct, to know where that man was, to know his markings.
I could feel Bet near, and pretty quick I seen her, though I couldn't rightly say what I was seeing. When you know a piece of country good, what nags you first is something in the view that don't belong, but sometimes it takes a blink or two to pick it out.
During the night poor Bet had surfaced in a kind of little backwater behind the point where a thing floating downriver might fetch up. Face down in the river, silted up, ain't no way at all to find a pert young woman big with child who laughed and waved the last time you ever seen her. I pulled Bet in toward the boat, using an oar, and she rolled over very slow, spun loose again. What I took for river silt was small black mud snails, giving off a faint dull glinty light. Them snails was moving as they fed, they was pretty close to finished with Bet's face. Weren't no blue eyes to reproach us, thanks to Jesus, and no red lips neither. Without no lips, them white buck teeth made that pretty little thing look like a pony.
Gene had ahold of her long skirt, and he hauled up on it and grabbed an ankle stead of taking the time to get a proper hold under the arms. Gene is always in a rush, that's the life itch in him. Not wanting no scrap with him that day, I took the other ankle, but when we hauled on her, her head went under and her skirt hitched high on the oarlock coming in, and we seen the white thighs and hair and sex of her, and swollen belly. The indecent way we done it made me mad, and when I yanked that flimsy skirt back down her legs, it tore halfway off her hips cause it was rotted.
Being Gene, he has to holler out "Show some respect!" Much too rough, he stripped that canvas right off Wally's carcass, rolled that dead man out into the bilges, and flung it across to me so's I could cover her. "Make her decent!" he yells, giving the orders as usual.
Bet Tucker had a bullet through her head. There was no way to make that poor soul decent, never again. But what was most indecent came from Gene's hurry, so he scowls at Henry. "Don't want no niggers looking up her skirts, ain't that right, Henry?"
Henry Short don't show no more expression than poor gray Tucker laying in the bilges, so Gene hollers louder.
"That right, boy?"
"We heard you, Gene," says Walter. "No niggers allowed."
Now and again Walter is poked into the open, and even though Gene shuts his mouth, Walter don't let it go. "We heard you, Gene," says Walter. "No damn niggers." The bodies have him very bad upset, long with the rest of us.
Though he is older, Walter is the underdog, so I hoot at Eugene to back Walter up. Naturally Gene glares at Henry, not his brothers. Henry Short don't meet that glare but he don't cast his eyes down neither. He looks straight over Gene's shoulder like he's trying to read the weather in the summer distance, and his squint looks kind of like a wince.
Gene goes red, he snarls at Walter, "You want to call yourself a nigger, go ahead!"
Gene wants to grow up to be a cracker, so he thinks like his friends in Chokoloskee Bay. That's why they like him. When me and Walter hoot at him, he says, "Dead people laying here and you make jokes? Show some respect!"
We went ashore and hunted around till we come up with Wally Tucker's shovel. There was high ground behind the bank, and we dug two graves in the sea grape above tide line, lashed together two crosses and stuck 'em in the sand. We buried Bet Tucker, mud, blood, unborn babe, and all. Gene was fixing to throw the sand down on her face, though he was looking pretty shaky, but Walter stopped him, took off his old shirt, spread it across her.
"That smelly shirt don't do no good," Gene muttered, and Walter said, "Just you shut up. Just shovel."
I went to the boat, took a deep breath, and grabbed her husband under the arms, got him hoisted up a little, leaking. Walter and Henry took his ankles. In the sun, he was warm on the outside, but under that warmth this fair-haired boy was cold, stiff, smelly meat, like some sun-crusted old porpoise on the tide line.
A dead man totes a whole lot heavier than a live one, don't ask me why. When I hoisted the head end so he'd clear the gunwales, his cold hair flopped forward over his face, and he seemed to sigh. When his belt caught, I had to grab a breath to wrench him free, and near gagged on a stink so sweet and heavy that I ain't cleared it from my nose hairs to this day.
We laid him in the ground face up, one arm beneath him-couldn't unravel him, he'd went too stiff. His eyes was bruised-looking, gone gray, but they still stared at the sky. When I closed his lids, they sagged back open like he didn't trust us. I felt ashamed of humankind, myself included. "I'm sorry we come late"-them words twisted right out of me, and tears behind 'em, but Gene didn't hear me, and he didn't see. He leans on the shovel and spits the dead-man's taste across the sand.
Before I puked, I grabbed that shovel and covered Tucker as fast as I could swing, covered that swollen-up face that was straining toward high heaven, crying for mercy. Never stopped to take off my own shirt-I wouldn't copy Walter out of pride. I closed both of them gray sockets with one shovelful, and with another filled that thirsty mouth. But throwing hot sand into his mouth shook me so bad that I let out a groan, and the next load hit Gene in the gut, to stop him smirking. Gene knew better than to say one word.
After that, I swore with every shovelful. Don't know what terrible things I hollered, I just hollered. I buried men since then, I buried children, but them poor Tuckers was the worst job in my life.
When the graves was banked, I looked around, getting my breath. It was so quiet on that little island, under that white sky, that I could hear the beat of my own heart. If I think about that morning beach, and it's been fifty years, I remember that silence and I smell him still, now ain't that something? Smelling a dead man after fifty years?
Being the oldest, Walter stood up straight, jammed the shovel blade into the sand, and growled a prayer: Almighty God, here's two more meek inheriting the earth. Something like that. Me and Henry said Amen, but Gene just hee-hawed and slapped Walter's back.
I took deep breaths, trying to figure out what should be done. I felt like heading straight for Chatham Bend to put a bullet through the crazy brain of that red bastard. Anyone else would of buried them bodies, at least got rid of 'em someplace, run 'em out into the Gulf and dumped 'em over-had the common humanity, I mean, to clean up his own mess, though he must of knowed there was no hiding from the Lord.
One time not long before he died, the Frenchman warned me about Watson. "Is truly charmant, I am as-tonish! I like vair much, I cannot help." He nodded, pointing at my eyes. "Also I hate Watson, you understand? John Leon! I warning it to you! This man is not vermins ordinaire, he is other thing, he is…!" Chevelier struggled for the word, and failed. "Crazy?" I said. At that, he wagged his finger hard, tapped his temple, waved both hands, like a speared frog. "No, not foo! He is-accurs-ed?"
We never got cured of Chevelier's idea that Watson could not help himself, that he was cursed. That was the excuse we give ourselves for liking him. My Sarah, who had real good sense, thought the Frenchman must be right, and so did some of 'em in Chokoloskee. But now I ain't sure what we meant by "cursed," unless God cursed him. If God did that, then who was we to blame, God or Ed Watson?
Chokoloskee never known the Tuckers-not to eat and joke with, the way we done, not to bury-and in a few years the whole story got changed. Henry Short, he knew the truth of it, but he had sense enough to keep his mouth shut, even when a rumor come up from Key West about some young boy who had been visiting with Wally T
ucker, and it was recalled how the Atwells thought they seen him. Smallwood and them put out that story how Watson killed "Tucker and nephew," not wanting to believe such a good neighbor would put a bullet through the head of a young woman. It took them Hamiltons, people said, to make up such a frightful story. And by the end of it, my brother Gene, who had seen right up Bet Tucker's skirt, came to agree with 'em.
We don't know a thing about no boy. But Watson-or somebody-killed Bet Tucker, and the four of us buried her that direful day.
Two deputies showed up a few days later, said the Key West sheriff had been advised by a Mac Sweeney that foul murders had been done at Lost Man's River. This Sweeney declined to name no suspects, but Sheriff Knight had reason to suspect Mr. E.J. Watson. "Told us to deputize you mulatta boys here at Wood Key," one feller said.
Pap never give 'em a flat no, just started in to teasing. Pap never teased lest he was angry. Spoke in a big muddy groan, more like a cow, moaning and mumbling and taking on how his only begotten sons was too young to die just cause these deputies was looking to get their ears shot off, and anyways, Mister Watson was their friend and generous neighbor, and how could Hamiltons turn around and go against him?
Walter had went out the door as soon as the law come in, that was his answer. How 'bout you, boy? Two dollars just for guiding us, they said, and I said, Nosir, I sure won't. I felt sick angry at Ed Watson, and wondered what Pap might have said if he'd seen and smelled and handled that cold flesh, but I told the deputies I didn't want no part of it.
Our mam was snorting loudly in disgust-she was disgusted most all of the time, on general principles. Pap said, Maybe you fellers can deputize that big white woman that's setting over there fixing them snap beans. She's tough as a nut, can shoot a knot out of wet rope, and won't settle for no ifs, ands, or buts.
Mam banged down her pot and went inside.
The deputies was scared of Mister Watson, and their nerves was short, so what they done, they advised Richard Hamilton that this were a pure case of cold-blooded murder and no time for no damn mulatta jokes. And I said, that's twice. Better take care who you go calling mulattas.
Pap hushed me. He said then, Don't you men get us wrong. This family don't hold with cold-blooded murder, nor warmblooded neither, cause unlike some of your more common Christians, us Romans don't hold with murder of no size nor shape, nor race, color, nor creed. And some people was bloody murdered, they had that part right, but he hadn't seen no proof against Ed Watson.
Gene had come in just in time to catch our daddy playing possum. Hell, Pap, he yelled, we seen his keel track! Ain't that proof? And Daddy said, Might been proof, but like I say, I never seen it.
He was finished now, and his face closed down, but Gene did not take warning, he was too busy showing off for them two men. He stepped forward and got deputized, proud as a turkey, he even threw 'em a salute. Once he was deputy, he got to jeering, said, "Looks like Pap and his precious John Leon is scared to death of ol' Ed Watson."
Pap grabbed my wrist before I went for my own brother. You said a mouthful that time, Gene, Pap says, and now he's talking in his normal voice, only dead cold. You might got something there, Gene, who's to know?
Time Gene left to guide them deputies up Chatham River, he had already begun to sweat. Looked back over his shoulder, hoping his father would forbid his son to go. But Pap took no notice, he just set there in the sun, whittling him a new net needle out of red mangrove. He was finished with Gene, who had went against his father. Rest of his life, he was civil to him, but he never spoke to him again like his own son. That's the way our daddy was. Never got angry, but when he dropped something, he was finished with it, like he'd took a crap. Life was too short to waste time looking back, is what he said.
When the boat was out of sight, Pap said, "Maybe Eugene was cut out to be a sheriff's deputy, what do you think?" And late in life, a sheriff's deputy is exactly what Gene Hamilton become.
When the deputies dropped Gene off on the way back south, they wasn't going to let on what they seen. Gene was raring to tell but he was told, You ain't got no authority to comment. However, once Liza got to flirting 'em along, it come out quick as a squirt out of a goose.
They had found the Watson Place empty, cleaned right out. On the table was poor Wally's crumped-up message, the big letters printed onto it with pencil. Ed Watson never burned the evidence, and the deputies never bothered to collect it, cause they couldn't read. It was Gene had sense enough to bring it home. When he pulled it out, them deputies told us kind of cross that in a court of law handwrit notes weren't hardly worth the paper they was printed on.
Miss Sarah Johnson took one look, then sung out kind of sharp, This here note might mean nothing to deputies, but it is proof to anyone can read that Wally Tucker was the fool who got Bet murdered! Through her tears, she read out loud:
MISTER WATSON
I WON'T GET OFF OF LOST MAN'S KEY TILL AFTER HARVEST
COME HELL OR HIGH WATER
Hell showed up quicker than poor Wally Tucker had expected, and high water, too.
References to E.J. Watson's career in the Ten Thousand Islands appear at least as early as Florida Enchantments, published in New York in 1908. This account (referred to previously) describes the turn-of-the-century adventures in the South Florida wildernesses of a wealthy northerner, Mr. Anthony Dimock, and his son Julian, who served as his photographer.
At least three figures in the Watson history are associated with the Dimocks. Bill House and George W. Storter Jr. (later Justice of the Peace) served him as guides, and Walter Langford apparently received the author at Langford's Deep Lake citrus plantation in the Big Cypress. Because Mr. Watson was still very much alive, his name is changed in this lively account from E.J. Watson to J.E. Wilson, but there is no question of the real identity of that "genial" man referred to here as "the most picturesque character on the west coast of Florida." The otherwise ironical author seems in awe of "J.E. Wilson" and fascinated by the legends already beginning to surround him-the first but by no means the last writer to come under our subject's powerful spell.
While making no specific mention of the Santini episode, the Dimocks confirm Mr. Watson's reputation as the barroom terror of Key West. (In this regard, see also "The Bad Man of the Islands," in Pioneer Florida, by the noted cattleman and former mayor of Tampa, Mr. D.B. McKay-specifically a lively account of an episode in the Knight & Wall hardware store in Tampa when Mr. Watson, arriving drunk, overheard a conversation about a dancing school, whereupon he "drew a large pistol and fired a shot in the floor near [his] feet and ordered, 'Well, let us see how nice you can dance!'" No one was hurt, and the miscreant was taken off to jail.)
The Dimock book refers to Brewer's failed arrest attempt and another such attempt by a Key West deputy who was disarmed and put to work in Watson's canefield. (Just when this oft-attested-to event occurred I have been unable to determine, due to the disappearance of old sheriff's records from Key West.) According to Dimock, this former deputy became his captor's admirer and friend, and on a later occasion introduced him in a Key West saloon as "Mr. J.E. Wilson of the Ten Thousand Islands" who was preparing to shoot out the lights, whereupon the clientele ran out the door. Whether or not this story is true, it seems safe to assume that Mr. Watson was chronically uproarious at Key West.
The Dimock book supports the local contention (and my own) that E.J. Watson was but one of many malefactors in this wild region:
Conditions in south Florida are primitive. Much of it has changed little since its recesses enabled the Seminoles to prolong a resistance to the United States Government that never was fully overcome. Three counties, Lee of the Big Cypress Swamp, Dade of the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee, and Monroe of the Ten Thousand Islands, contain the most that is left in this country of uncharted territory and wilderness available for exploration…
Throughout these islands society is as loosely organized as it is sparsely distributed. One of the principal men of the coast told
me that court justice was too expensive and uncertain for that country, and that people were expected to settle their own quarrels, a homicidal custom that has cost me four guides during the years of my own explorations…
The mazes of the Ten Thousand Islands have proved a sanctuary for the pursued since before the Civil War. At that time they harbored deserters from the Confederate service, some of whom continue their residence within its boundaries in apparent ignorance that the need therefor has passed… Often, in the cypress or mangrove swamps which border the Everglades, you will meet men who turn their faces away, or if they look toward you, laugh as you ask their names… These outcasts trap otters, shoot alligators and plume birds, selling skins, hides and plumes to dealers who go to them secretly, or through Indians who often help and never betray them… Sometimes these outlaws kill one another, usually over a bird rookery which two or more of them claim. I passed the camp of two of them beside which hung a dozen otter skins and a few days later learned that both of them had been killed, probably in a quarrel, but possibly by some third outlaw, tempted by their wealth of skins…
The Dimocks describe what seem to have been the plantations of the Atwell family on Rodgers River, "all abandoned, all for sale, and all without purchasers. On them are splendid royal and date palms, palmettoes and tamarinds, but occupants have found skull-and-crossbones notices upon these trees, which latterly they have obeyed, influenced thereto by seven mysterious deaths which have occurred in the vicinity. The story of the murders, and the names of those who doubtless committed them, are upon the lips of even the children on the coast, but positive proof is lacking." Despite the judicious use of the plural pronoun in that final sentence, there is no question in the context that the suspected murderer is Wilson/Watson. (Ted Smallwood's memoirs also mention that Watson was accused in the death of seven men, including Quinn Bass and "Tucker and his nephew," but at least two of Smallwood's unlucky seven appear to have perished after the Dimock account was published.)
Killing Mister Watson Page 20