Dad said, "Only thing that ain't in doubt, they killed him."
Harry McGill, who later married my sister Maggie Eva, he was among them men who fired. So was Charley Johnson. Old Man Dan House, Bill House, young Dan and Lloyd-them four never denied that they took part. I don't know who else for sure, cause too many of 'em changed their stories, but I heard it was men from almost all ten Chokoloskee families, along with a few fishermen on the way through. Isaac Yeomans, Andrew Wiggins, Saint Demere, Henry Smith-all them fellers might been in on it. They was at least twenty there with guns.
Nelson Noble's daughter Edith, married Sammie Hamilton, she always said her dad was in on it, but he sure wasn't. He was coming around the point with my young brother, like I said. They seen the finish. And others that said they was just there to arrest him, not to shoot him, said they never fired-well, they did.
A lot of people still ask me about Mister Watson. I don't like to speak about him much. I like to talk about him as a gentleman, because that's the way Storters remember him. I didn't know what was inside of him, I just knew him for a jolly friendly man.
Until all this killing started, Ed Watson was all right, wasn't nobody down on him. My dad always said Ed Watson'd give you his last dollar with his left hand, slit your throat with his right. You hear a lot of people saying that today. I can't recall if anybody said it while Mister Watson was alive, but he already had a reputation at the time I knew him.
Folks just got tired of him, I guess.
BILL HOUSE
My Nettie has read me from a famous Florida book where the man who fired the first shot at Watson was Luke Short, a white fisherman. That is dead wrong but about as right as all the rest. Same writer claimed that the leader of the posse, C.G. McKinney, got wounded when Watson fired. Well, Old Man McKinney wasn't leader of the posse, he wasn't even there, and the only man got wounded on that day was E.J. Watson.
All them stories in the books and magazines, they never mention who was on that posse, and that is because nobody would tell 'em. When strangers came around asking nosy questions, nobody would talk to 'em at all. Me, I don't know for a fact who pulled the trigger and who didn't, but from the look of him when they got done, very few hung back.
If Watson's gun had not misfired, my daddy would been deader'n a doornail. Knowing that, he turned his back on all that racket and just walked away. Some way he had busted a gallus and was holding up his trousers with an arm across his belly, walked soft and slow like he had a gut ache or was carrying new ducklings. I never forgot that way he walked, I never before seen my pap as an old man.
We followed him, though us boys wanted to stay, being so bad twisted up over the end of it. Dan was in tears, he was so mad, and didn't even know what he was mad at. The men who shot and the men who stood aside, they felt relief and they felt sick, too, because all of 'em had enjoyed Ed Watson and didn't have nothing personal against him-the most of us had known his generosity, one way and another. We tried to spit it up, over and over. But D.D. House never spoke of it again, and it went bad in him, turned him stiff and sour and old within the year.
When the crowd drifted back into the dark, and the dogs forgot why they was barking, Charlie T. Boggess hobbled down there with a lantern, helped Ted turn him turtle, drag a canvas over him. Smallwood tried to fold the arms across the chest, but ever so slow them arms opened up wide, like the two claws on a crab. Or that's how Charlie Boggess told about it, cause Charlie T., he made up for his short size with his tall stories. He was spooked by them slow-opening arms much worse than by that bloody eye, is what he would tell to visitors in later years, when everyone had forgot the truth, Charlie T. included.
Ted tried to close the blue eye that was left, but he come too late, the dead lid peeled right back off the gory eyeball. So they hunted around amongst the hurricane scraps spread through the bushes, found a boy's flag from the Fourth of July to lay across his face. Might been a sacrilege up North, who is to say. In the South it wasn't fifty years yet since the War Between the States, and D.D. House, who had rode off for a soldier, he never did get used to the Stars and Stripes.
Leaving a body out all night on the cold ground was bothersome. Didn't feel no guilt or nothing, just couldn't sleep with Watson laying down there by the water, so I went and paid my respects under the moon. Ted and Charlie aimed to drag him under cover but they didn't, and I went down with the same plan, didn't touch him neither. There was no place for him, he wasn't even welcome where he was. Dogs or boys had snapped away the tarp and tore that flag off him. I tucked him in again as you might say, then took my hat off and said, Mister Ed, I stand by what was done, but I want to say it sure weren't nothing personal.
One-eyed Ed Watson stared up at the stars, arms wide in welcome. Looked kind of strange with his black hat off, you didn't often catch him out without it. Hadn't been no rain at all, not since the hurricane, and the beard and mouth was caked with dust and blood, like a bear that's snuffled out a gator nest. In the lantern shine, that one bald eye was glaring through the black snakes of dry blood down his forehead. One of them little cowboy boots was shot away, and the other stripped off for a souvenir, and his small feet looked like gray-white dough, with yellow toenails. That broad tooled cowhide belt from the Wild West was missing, and that good black hat from Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Already kids was acting out how Bloody Watson fell, you could hear the yelling pow-pow-pow-pow all over the island. Got too excited altogether, it took 'em a good week to calm down-course this was natural, Watson being the first violent death they ever seen. Charlie and Ethel's boy Dinks Boggess, down the street, I believe that Dinks was one them little fellers prowled around that body, and he might could recall which one of 'em got Watson's revolver. More likely Dinks won't talk at all, cause Dinks don't like invaders. Willie Brown's boy Billy, he was there, too, but he's another one don't take too good to questions.
That night it was agreed without no argument that there wouldn't be no burial on Chokoloskee, cause even dead, that man still scared the island. It was voted we would take him out to Rabbit Key. By the time we went to scrape him up, at sunrise, he'd lost his good eye to a crow or gull, or a poked stick.
In the hard daylight you could see how E.J. Watson was pretty well shot to pieces, mostly buckshot but plenty of bullets, too. Them nice clothes was black-caked with blood-Bloody Watson!-a stiff blind carcass in the dirt, shirt ripped, hairy belly-button, black pellets deep under the skin and all them mean red holes like bites, and the flies buzzing. The mouth in them sunburnt dusty whiskers was the worst of it. His front teeth all busted out, lip tore and stretched like he was snarling, but a little twist to his expression like a smile. Seeing that, the men scared themselves all over again, telling how Mister Watson grinned as he kept coming at the crowd through the hail of fire.
Looking around, I seen no sign of Edna Watson. My sister was making sure she didn't see him. "Give us a hand," I told the men, but only Tant stepped forward, who had took no part. Tant was tearful, might of had some drink. He took the ankles. Hoisting him, he give the opinion that dead men are heavy cause their bodies yearn for rest deep in the ground. Well, Tant, I said, he's full of lead, besides.
"It ain't no joking matter, Bill," Tant says, because Tant loved him.
"No, it sure ain't," I said.
A angry moan come from the burial party when we swung that bloody carcass to the gunwale. Wouldn't help hoist him over, lay him in the cockpit, wouldn't even touch him-as if touching him might be bad luck-though I reckon it was more some kind of horror. Some then announced they would not travel with him in the boat, you'd of thought one slow black drop of Watson's blood might could start a plague. We had to hear all this superstitious horseshit while we was still struggling to get him in.
Then the boat rolled and Mister Watson got away from us, slid off the gunwale, flopped into the mud. Now that was the real horror, and it made me mad. I hollered out, To hell with it, let's get this done with! I was in outrage and did not know why
, but there ain't no doubt I was too rough, and some would bring that up against me long years later as a way to show how Houses had it in for E.J. Watson. I grabbed some line, bound up his arms and run a hitch around his ankles, yanked it up hard like he was some kind of dead gator, then run a bridle off the stern cleats of his boat. Then I cranked his engine and dragged the body off that shore like some old log. That rolled him back over on his belly, and he come along backwards and face down, and the kids darting right into the shallows, kicking and flailing him. I seen Jimmy Thompson, Raleigh Wiggins, Billy Brown, one-two others. It might been Raleigh who was wearing Watson's hat.
"Get away!" My own voice sounded cracked, half kind of crazy. Where in hell were their parents, who claimed to be Watson's friends? How come they let their kids behave like bad-trained dogs? Night before, not one of them so-called friends of his had tried to warn him, wave him off, nor even advise him to put down his gun. Were they that scared to go up against their neighbors? I don't think so, not them Lost Man's fellers. They was always pretty ornery, went their own way.
My opinion, even his friends knew that his time had come, and his reckless behavior makes one wonder if Ed knew it too, though there ain't a soul I know of who agrees with me. Smallwood knew, too, for all his protest. But I will say this for Ted, he didn't watch it. The rest stood in a line there by the store and watched us kill him.
On the way to Rabbit Key, the body caught up on an orster bar, got tore up worse. Them little feet come twisting up out of the water as he rolled. The grisly head was thumping on the bottom, I could feel the thrumming when I took in on the bridle-damn! It turned my guts. Finally we got him in the channel, and he towed all right the whole rest of the way. But that was a very long slow trip, cause a boat motor in them days had more pop than power, and that dead weight down there dragged like a sea anchor. By the time we got to Rabbit Key, the clothes was tore off him and what was left of his face, too. Didn't hardly look like a man, he looked like something from the ocean deep thrown up by storm. He was scraped so raw you could not say what kind of sea monster this might of been.
Same rope was used to haul the body from the shallows to the pit, trussed like a chicken. Them men were still so fevered that they buried him face down. "Give that bloody devil a good look at Hell" is what one said. They dragged two slabs of coral rock right in on top of him, one across the upper legs and the other across the back, to make sure this thing-cause a thing is all he was, with legs and arms bound tight and no damn face on him-make sure this thing would not rise at dusk and come hunting the ones that turned against him. Before throwing the sand back in on top, one of them brave fellers who boasted how he'd emptied his gun into the body-I won't mention his name, him being kin-he rigged a noose around the neck, hitched it up tight, then run the bitter end across to that big old twisty mangrove that stood alone out on the point, the only tree left standing by the storm.
These same brave fellers was the most confused about the killing of their neighbor E.J. Watson, cause he never fit their notion of a bad man-shifty-looking, dirty, don't you know, pocked skin and scars, maybe an ear gone, or one eye. Watson didn't look that way at all. Oh yes, you'd hear 'em talk about "them crazy Watson eyes," and it was true, those soft blue eyes could set real hard, they kind of fixed you. Mostly they was a mild pale blue, as Nettie said, that went good with his ruddy skin and chestnut hair. He was strong and handsome and his clothes was clean, altogether a fine-looking man. Maybe they hated him and feared him, the way they say today, but they esteemed him, too.
His boldness, facing 'em down that way, disturbed 'em bad, but that temper got the better of him, that was the end of him. And now he was all shot to pieces, it was real pathetic. He wasn't "Mister Watson" anymore, and they could take out on this meat lump with no face the anger and despising he had made so hard for 'em while he was still alive-while he was still "made in God's image," like the rest of us.
Wouldn't be surprised it was me started it, the rough way I dragged him off the landing, but I didn't want no part of mutilation. I was relieved that he was dead, but I missed him, too. I run into many a man in life was a lot less likable than E.J. Watson, I'll tell you that much.
Over by the shore, ol' Tant was telling how Mister Watson treated him so good all them long years. When we seen them fellers lead that rope out of the grave, Tant only shrugged, he just stayed out of it, but I went back over to see what was what, and got too hot about it. I told that feller to take that noose off his damn neck right now cause he were as dead as the law allows already.
Man said, Well, ol' Bill thinks hanging is too good for this fine feller, that right, Bill? And another said, Now, Bill, don't you go getting lathered, we just rigged a rope so's them cattle kings can find him, case they send down for the body.
Around the neck? I said.
But them others backed the first one, cause they was feeling ugly, they was spoiling for a fight, same way I was. I was so disgusted I just washed my hands of it.
That's how that story started up about crackers who shot Watson to pieces, then hung his neck to a lone tree and piled on coral slabs so big that it took a couple chain-gang niggers to lift them off when his Fort Myers kin sent down for Mister Watson a few days later.
Sheriff Tippins was down from Marco with the Monroe County law when we got back to Smallwood's, long about noon. Bill Collier brought these lawmen on the Falcon.
The men told the law how nobody killed Watson, they fired all at the same time in self-defense. "Did he fire at you first?" says Tippins, and the men scratched their heads and looked around to see if anybody could remember. Isaac Yeomans didn't care much for that question. "Nosir," he growled.
"He tried," I said.
Tippins looked me over, that's his habit. Then he mimicked me, kind of ironical, you know-"He tried." And then him and his Monroe County sidekick exchanged a look that was supposed to mean something, except it didn't, cause they didn't know nothing.
Right from the start, Frank Tippins seemed as tangled up about this death as we was, couldn't set still for a minute, he was fuming. Only difference was, he had somebody to take it out on. "Your name's House," he said, like the name had me incriminated right from the start. "You was the ringleader, they tell me."
"We didn't have no ringleader. No leader, neither."
He looks me over again, so does his Monroe sidekick, who's got a cowboy hat on too.
"How come you're so fired up? You ashamed of something?"
"Nosir, I ain't. I ain't got a thing to be ashamed about."
Tippins was trying to make us mad so we'd bust out with something. Mister Watson's death was homicide, he said, and "those responsible" had to go to Fort Myers for a hearing, and any man who did not come of his own free will would go in handcuffs.
Charley Johnson asked the postmaster to come along to testify to our God-fearing characters, Ted being the closest thing we had to a upstanding citizen. Bill Collier said he'd be glad to take Mrs. Watson and her family at no extra charge.
After Watson's death, Ted Smallwood had to hold his wife in Chokoloskee. Mamie was scared and she was horrified, she didn't want to live in such a place no more, she wanted to leave the Ten Thousand Islands for good. She knew Ed Watson for what he was and never said no different, but she hated the way them men licked his boots, then turned and shot him down, is the way she said it. My sister took it hard.
Them men weren't bootlickers, not by no means. We were just ordinary peaceful fellers, never knew how to handle this wild hombre till we had him laying face down in the dirt. If ever a man brought it on himself, it was Ed Watson, but somehow we was getting blamed for doing what the ones who blamed us wanted.
I never cosied up to Ed like some, and I never had no regrets, that day or later. We done what we had to do, and I stand by it. But I will admit I am still ashamed of how the crowd kept shooting after he was dead, as if trying to wipe the memory of him off of their conscience. Some of them men shot and shot until their guns was empty, wasn't o
ne live shell that left that place that day. There was a young boy run in afterwards, shot his.22 into the body. His older brother was standing right there with us and never stopped him.
The boys agreed we would leave Henry Short out of it, we didn't want to cause Henry no trouble, because word had come down from Deep Lake that around Frank Tippins, things went hard with niggers. Never did find out what happened to Watson's colored man who come to Pavilion Key and was handed over to the sheriff at Fort Myers. Can't recall his name if they ever give him one. They say he was sent to Key West, but there ain't many as believes he ever got to go to his own trial.
One thing I ain't never going to forget. After all that noise, there come this echoing silence, like the Lord was about to send down word from Heaven. There was only the fool chant of a scared bird. Then we heard Edna Watson's high clear voice, Oh my God, they are killing Mister Watson! By that time, of course, he was in Hell already.
Mamie stood guard where Watson's little family had sunk down before the store all in a heap. My sister wore a look of last perdition, bored right through me. I knew from my Nettie that our Island ladies had shunned Edna Watson for some days, and I seen at once that the poor woman was plain terrified that this night crowd of armed men that had tasted blood might put to death the victim's wife and little children. I hate to say it, but knowing how feverish some of 'em got, she had good reason.
The ones who was most dangerous in that crowd was the same ones as had looked the other way for years and years, same ones who said Ed Watson never killed a soul down there cept maybe a nigger or two that had it coming. These very same fellers was the ones that eased their nerves by pumping every last bullet that they had into his carcass, the very same ones was so angry he had scared 'em that they had to scare Mrs. Watson just as bad, scare her so bad that she grabbed her kids and crawled under the store on hands and knees before Mamie could stop her. They was the ones liked to dirty joke about how lucky Old Man Watson was to mount this firm young filly, and jeered and hooted at the fine sight of her hips in her nice petticoats when her store-bought dress got hung up on a slat as she crawled down in the filth to get away. If E.J. Watson could of seen how that crowd terrified his poor young wife and children, he'd of stood right up in his life's blood, come straight back from Hell to kill us all.
Killing Mister Watson Page 37