All the same, Walter said, in that low, stubborn voice that warns me he is digging in his heels-all the same, he said again, if Jim Cole had not arranged some things, it might have been a very different story.
Was he guilty, then? I asked him later. Is that what you are trying to say in front of Yankee strangers?
John Roach is not a stranger, Walter said, offering to take me in his arms. (I will not tolerate this when he has been drinking.) Didn't we name our little boy for him? he said.
The very mention of our poor dead little John drained all my spirit. I wept, and went to Walter, and he patted my shoulder, the brisk domestic pat-pat-pat that has no warmth in it, and precious little patience.
I don't claim to know about your daddy's guilt or innocence, he said into my hair. All I know is, you are cold with Captain Jim, considering what he done for your daddy.
Did, I said, picking the wrong moment to correct him. Walter gave me one of his flat looks and let me go. Did, he said.
DECEMBER 30, 1908. For the first time in our married life, I cannot sway Walter. (If it were anything else, I might be glad!) He says, I had to lie for him, perjure myself. We all did. That don't mean he's welcome in my house. Though he doesn't say it in so many words, Walter believes Papa is a killer and always has been, he wants nothing more to do with him. And though I flew at Walter and said dreadful things, he would not relent. He went off to the bank feeling miserable, too.
Papa showed up on Tuesday with Edna and her two little ones. Fay and Beuna yelled Grandpapa! and rushed toward the front door but never reached it. I made them cry by sending them upstairs with their Uncle Eddie.
Eddie is living here until his lodgings at Taff Langford's boardinghouse are ready, and meanwhile Frank Tippins has found him a deputy clerk's job at the courthouse. Eddie testified for the defense at Madison, he told them how one Tolen man tried to ambush Papa at Fort White. But now he imitates Jim Cole's curled lip and Walter's words, says perjury was about as far as he aimed to go. He did not even come out to greet his papa, and Lucius wasn't home. Not knowing his daddy would arrive, he'd gone off bird hunting.
Through the curtains I watched my father at the door. He gave it a good rap, he had his chest out, but the rest of 'em hung back, out in the street. It was very plain their money was all gone because they brought no help at all, only a somber Negro man in dirty overalls. In a cart behind them from the railroad station was the sad heap of their worldly goods, down to boxes and bedsteads, reminding me of those poor "Sooners" we children felt so sorry for back in the Territory.
It looked like this time he was headed south for good.
Papa was unshaven and pasty-white from jail, and his Edna looked hollow-eyed, drained of her color, and the tear-streaked children were too worn out to whine. It's so hard to think of these forlorn small creatures as my brother and sister! Goodness! They are younger than their nieces! And they smelled like poor people!
I sent the servant to the door while I composed myself. She asked if she should show them in. I shook my head. Just bring some milk, I whispered, and a plate of cookies.
I went to the door after a moment, and we faced each other. There seemed to be some sort of mist between us. I was trying not to look at something wild and scary in my papa's gaze, something that horrifies me. Or was it only my imagination, after all this rumor? Oh, Papa, I said, taking his hands, I'm so relieved about that awful trial!
My voice sounded false and faraway. He saw right through me. Though he smiled, there was no spark in his eyes, he looked burned to ash. He just nodded, just a little, waiting to see if I would ask them in. Just wanted to wish you folks a Happy New Year, Papa said. And because he was trying to sound cheerful, I had to fight back tears. How shameful to make my own dear papa feel unwelcome in my house, just when he needed his family most, and was reaching out for help!
He made no attempt to hug me, which was most unusual. Poor Papa feared I might not hug him back, was that it? Then he said quickly they would not come in, thanks, they were just on their way to catch Captain Collier, who would carry them south on the Eureka to Pavilion Key and arrange for a clammer to take them home, up Chatham River.
Before he left, he asked about the children. Are those sweet things hiding from their bad old grandpa? I saw he was hurt that Fay and Beuna had not even called out, because they do love him and have fun with him and usually fly to the sound of his growly voice. Eddie must have hushed them, held them back.
The girl came with milk and cookies for Ruth Ellen and Addison. The silly thing was deathly scared of Papa, all the darkies are, though how they hear these things I do not know. She set the tray down too quickly on the steps between us, everything askew. Unable to bear it, I came forward and hugged those poor soiled little creatures and pecked my stepmother, who is younger than I am, and said good morning to the colored man.
Papa frowned when his field hand did not look at me or take his hat off, far less answer. Mama always taught us that what people call stupidity or sullenness in darkies is usually no more than common fear, but all the same I was astonished by his rudeness, and terrified, too, that Papa might assault him on the street. But Papa just touched him gently on the shoulder, and the man started violently, like a dog in nightmare, and took off his hat. Seeing the cookies, still unaware that I had said good morning, he murmured, Thank you.
That poor man wasn't rude, of course, he was just sunk in some dreadful melancholia. (Later I asked Walter if he thought Negroes become melancholy the same way we do, and Walter said that he supposed so, he just hadn't thought about it. Overhearing, Eddie burst out, That's ridiculous! Eddie gives these big opinions when he's feeling most uncertain of himself.)
Papa said, "This man got tried with me up north. He's not quite over his close call yet." Smiling, he drew his finger under his chin and popped his eyes out like a hanged man. Papa was angry, and his eyes had no relation to his smile. The whites seemed to swell under those blue pupils, and Edna gave a peep of fear and turned away.
I tried so hard for Papa's sake, tried to encourage the children to take a cookie. But he had seen my struggle, and he would not help. He pointed at the children's plate on the steps between us.
"They're not pets," he said.
"Of course they're not!" I snatched up the plate and offered it, bursting into tears.
"Good-bye, then, Daughter," Papa said. Those were the last words he ever spoke to me.
BILL HOUSE
Watson had went home again to Columbia County, where he took him to wed a Baptist preacher's daughter. I sure liked the little that I seen of her. My sister Mamie knew her good, said Edna Watson was a very fine young woman. Folks hoped she'd calm Ed down a little, although he was the calmest man to meet you ever saw. But Watson went back to his farm up north, this was long about 19 and 07, and got himself into a scrape with his own kin. They tried him for murder but some way he got clear of it, and come back south after nine months in prison. Said he was home again for good, and damn glad of it. Probably he told 'em the same thing in Columbia County back in 1901 when he showed up there again after fourteen years.
The men was scared of Watson now, including the ones who told him Welcome home! And Watson knowed people was leery of him though he pretended not to notice. No one messed with him. They kept on pretending everything would be all right so long as they stayed on the good side of ol' Ed, who never been nothing but friendly to his neighbors.
In the old days, Watson hid his past and was touchy about people telling tales, but he had learned how he could use all the attention come his way for knowing them famous outlaws in the Territories, he made the most of all them bad-man stories. Didn't encourage but never quite denied them. Knowing how few had the guts to ask him for the truth, he only smiled. Mostly he thought it was a pretty good joke, or that's what he told Henry Thompson. His reputation as a fast gun and willing to use it was what kept deputies off the Bend and helped him stake claims on abandoned mounds, which was pretty near all that was left dow
n on the rivers.
One day at Everglade, Watson come in to Storter's for his mail, took some coffee and tobacco in trade for a crate of syrup. Watson was first to put up syrup in them screw-top gallon cans, six to a crate. I had some rum in me that day and was feeling cocky-grinning, you know, teasing him a little, the way Tant Jenkins done. I got along with Watson well enough. There was some other men around, and I guess I figured he'd hate to shoot us all, so I asked him how come such a good farmer was always getting into so much trouble.
Another day Ed might have grinned, you never knew how anything was going to strike him. But this day the eyes under that hat faded out to a pale smoky blue, like that dead blue scale on a snake's eye when it is shedding. He didn't speak for a long time, just looked me over, trying to see behind my question. Them eyes hunted out each man there in the store, one at a time, see if anyone else had something smart to say. You could of heard a little tree toad sip the air. Weren't a man in the place would of claimed acquaintance with Bill House, not if I'd went up to him, paid out ten dollars.
Storter's black hound was laying in the sunshaft in the door. That there was the lovinest dog, always picked the place she was most underfoot, just so you touched her. Damn if that bitch don't sidle out the door, tail hunkered under, like she'd been caught making off with the church supper. When Watson's eyes come round to me again, my ol' tail was tucking under, too, that's how much I wished that ol' black hound had took me with her.
I knowed that day how a treed panther feels, snarling and spitting at them hounds, and the hunter coming, taking his sweet time, walking in across the clearing. That's when you yell and jump, do something stupid, just to end that tightness.
Watson held my eye for quite a while there, wouldn't let me go. He never blinked. I was blinking, all right, but I stayed right with him, that grin stuck on my teeth. I grinned right into them blue eyes like a damn mule.
"When trouble comes hunting me, boy, I take care of it." And he looked all around again, just to make sure that no man there had missed that message.
My sister Mamie recollects how he said this to her, but it was me.
An interesting source of background material for Chokoloskee Bay is the writing of Mr. C.G. McKinney in The American Eagle. Mr. McKinney, storekeeper and pundit, contributed the Chokoloskee column (usually signed "Progress"), which he commenced in 1906, not long after Ted Smallwood took over as postmaster.
On June 3 of 1909, the week Count Zeppelin's airship was disabled by a tree-the week in which, in burgeoning Fort Myers, "electric lights have been placed along Riverside Avenue as far as Mr. Edison's residence, and the rush of automobiles and the tooting of their melodious horns make the night hours lively"-McKinney reported that Chokoloskee "had a lot of drunken Indians with us this week… Mr. D.D. House is on his farm, hoeing out his cane…"
The following week, as a national "Committee of 40" announced plans to raise five million dollars for "the uplift of the Negro," two Negroes were "strung up" at Arcadia. The lynchings evoked editorial cautions against crazing Negroes with cocaine to get more work out of them. At Fort Myers (where the price of eggs had risen to 25 cents a dozen) the "craze" was baseball. At Chokoloskee, Mr. D.D. House, whose doings were ever prominent in his friend's column, was preparing to plant tomatoes, alligator pears (avocados), and corn. Louie Bradley and parents were visiting from Flamingo, Andrew Wiggins was moving to the Lost Man's region, and Mr. Waller came in from McKinney's farm at Needhelp reporting forty rotting carcasses of deer skinned out by Indians for the buckskin trade.
In early July, "Mr. House the cane man was up on Half Way Creek looking at Mr. Wm. Wiggins and Dr. Green's fine cane." William Wiggins was being visited by Gene Roberts and family from Flamingo, who were soon to acquire his son Andrew's house on Chokoloskee. Waller was down again from Needhelp, where he was growing melons, beans, and corn, and Bill and young Dan House had gone off "prospecting" to British Honduras. Caxambas reported the return from "Sheviler Bay" of Mr. J.E. Cannon, who was farming these days on Chevelier's old place at Possum Key.
In mid-August, Mr. Waller was preparing for a "gator hunt," and the island's erstwhile preacher, Brother Slaymaker, "has invested in the bicycle business." McKinney also reported that "Mr. E.J. Watson was with us this week."
In early September, Waller reported that Miss Hannah Smith, now in residence at Needhelp, was "ailing." McKinney, observed, "We had some drunken folk on the Island last week. We think it was drinking brackish water that caused their troubles." In his twenty-three years at Chokoloskee, he had never seen sandflies so bad or guavas so plentiful.
On September 23rd, it was reported that the House boys, gator hunting in Honduras, were doing fairly well, and that George Storter was "logging heavily" up Turner River. "Mr. E.J. Watson and family have been with us this week."
In early October, tomatoes were blooming. D.D. House was bound for Key West with a cargo of cane, while Gene Roberts was going back and forth from Chokoloskee to his cane-fields at Flamingo. At Fort Myers, dispute over cattle in the streets was raging, and meanwhile Captain Cole had left for New York to buy a passengers-and-freight steamer for service between Punta Rassa and Key West. Weather on the coast was dark and ugly, despite little rain.
On October 12, the coast was struck by the "West Indian Hurricane," with winds up to 120 mph, which did such damage at Key West that the city was put under martial law to deter looters. Ninety-five vessels were driven out to sea, ashore, or sunk; nine cigar factories were utterly destroyed; the roof was removed from the First National Bank. Among those who lost their boats was Mr. D.D. House, who had discharged his cargo, loaded up provisions, and set out on his return before the storm drove him back into Key West, where he lost everything.
In late October, Mr. Charley Johnson slaughtered his hogs and sold the meat at 15 cents a pound. Mr. Waller had departed Needhelp and was "working for Mr. E.J. Watson at Chatham River."
In November, the trading vessel Ruth loaded at Chokoloskee for her last trip of the season. "Chokoloskee will be dead then," McKinney wrote, "or at least deader than usual. We have no preacher, no Sunday school, no dancing, but we have noticed someone being around once in a while with some low bush lightning [moonshine]." Up at Needhelp, Miss H.M. Smith had "chills and fever. She is very brave to face all that wild woods and chills and fever alone."
In early December, Hannah Smith came to Chokoloskee to be treated by Mr. McKinney. Mr. Waller was expected back at Needhelp to help her finish up her business. Gene Roberts, Charlie McKinney (the columnist's son), Andrew Wiggins, and Jim Howell were hunting deer and turkey around Needhelp, and once again, the column lamented deer slaughter by Indians for the buckskin trade.
Hookworm was "rife" at Chatham Bend. Mr. D.D. House was still shipping tomatoes from his Chokoloskee place but had returned now to House Hammock to commence syrup-making.
In late December, while the cattle in the Fort Myers streets ate Mr. Edison's newly donated royal palms on Riverside Avenue, Charlie McKinney and Jim Howell killed ten gators in one night up Turner River, under the dark of the moon. The Indian Charlie Tommie, who came in to sell 15 otter pelts to George Storter for $9 each, reported that Miss Hannah Smith had suffered a fall and broke her rib at Needhelp, and that Mr. Waller was there assisting her. Bill and Dan House, discouraged by Honduras, returned home in time for Christmas with a monkey and four parrots.
The Key West trading ship, carrying Christmas goods, had not arrived. "We learn from Mr. E.J. Watson that he [the captain] was not in Key West last Monday at 9 a.m."
Cold weather at the end of December 1909 ruined the last of D.D. House's tomatoes. Ice was seen in an old boat. In early January, in his column in The American Eagle, C.G. McKinney reported that the hunters were still taking coons and otters. (Ft. Myers reported that on a visit to Immokalee, Sheriff Frank B. Tippins shot a turkey.) The Chokoloskee school reopened, and not long thereafter a new preacher came. Hens were laying again despite lot of showers "unusual for this time of year."
D.D. House, William Wiggins, and George Storter were producing fine syrup-Storter's cane mill was "running full blast"-but everyone was short of syrup tins; Mr. Wiggins put up his syrup in white bottles.
In February, Miss Smith at Needhelp dug her last crop of potatoes, which traveled to Chokoloskee in Charlie Tommie's dugout. Andrew Wiggins was raising potatoes and cane in Rodgers River. Bill House traveled to Key West to buy a boat.
Halley's Comet was glimpsed, it would return in May.
(Increase Mather of New England witnessed "the Star of Bethlehem" on its traverse of 1682, when Edmond Halley gave his name to it, and exhorted his flock not to persist in their sinning until "God sends his arrows from Heaven to smite them down into the grave." In 1910, in the Huge consternation caused by the Great Comet, it was predicted that the earth's passage through its streaming tail might bring about the extinction of the human race by "cyanogen gas." Though unfamiliar with the perils of cyanogen gas, Chokoloskee residents had little doubt that the comet portended the arrival of Judgment Day upon the earth in the form of storms, floods, droughts, and plagues and other natural afflictions, among which not a few would be laid at the door of Mr. Watson.)
"Mr. E.J. Watson will finish syrup-making this week [early March]. He reports having made nearly twenty thousand gallons."
Miss Hannah Smith has dug 2000 lbs. of "malangoes," killed her last hog, plans to leave Needhelp with her dog and two cats once she has harvested her cabbages, which she plans to ship to the Key West market on W.W. (Bill) House's new boat, the Rosina. Bill House and Young Dan are now partners in the shipping trade, and are loading cargoes of cane, syrup, fruit, and oysters.
Charley Johnson and Walter Alderman have contracted "Honduras fever," and are talking about seeking their fortune in Honduras.
"Everyone approves the new preacher, Brother Jones, but the teacher, Mr. Daughtry, has closed the school for want of pupils."
The Eagle reports much excitement over the upcoming fight between the black champion Jack Johnson and Mr. Jim Jeffries, the White Hope.
Killing Mister Watson Page 26