Lost Man's River: Shadow Country Trilogy

by Peter Matthiessen

  “At Gator Hook, where they go through his stuff, what do they find but a revolver and some extra rounds and the list with all the names crossed out, all but the one.” Whidden studied the casuarina needle that he twirled between his fingers. “They brought your brother here next day. But them boys weren’t in Everglade an hour when Mud went blabbin the whole story to his girlfriend. The news that the Gasparilla Gunman was in town was all around the Bay before the day was out, and naturally someone called the Lee County law.”

  Andy nodded. “I heard the same story. Moved him out before the cops come, from what they was telling me here at the motel. I didn’t say nothin about it because there ain’t one thing you can do about it, Colonel, without riskin his life. If the law gets in too close, that old man might fall overboard or something. You best let them boys cool off a little. You don’t want to push that kind, not when they’re jumpy.”

  Whidden told him that finding that stuff in the possession of a Watson gave that gang a lot more excuse than such men needed. Asked if he meant “excuse to kill,” Whidden nodded, though he doubted they would go that far without clearing it with Speck, who was at the Bend. Probably they were headed down that way already. “From what they was sayin, I figured out that they got some kind of business on the Bend that they have to finish before the Parks people show up for Dyer’s meeting. You go to crowding boys like that when they don’t want no witnesses around, they might just shoot somebody. So we better give ’em another day, then run on down there first thing in the mornin, see if we can talk some sense into their heads. Speck won’t take a human life without he has to, that’s the difference between a mean old moonshiner and these loco war vets who was trained to kill.” When Lucius gazed at him, inquiring, Whidden looked unhappy. “Crockett and them took a lot of human lives. They won’t mind doin it again. We all signed up together, got to serve together. I done my duty, too, right alongside ’em. But I never got the taste for it, not the way they did.”

  When Whidden fell quiet, Andy asked if he might go with them to Chatham River. He confessed to an unexpected yearning to visit that old Watson place just one last time. “You never know, a blind man might come in handy,” he said wryly. “With me along, they might shoot over your head, at least the first time. I was born on Chokoloskee, and Mud Braman is kin, and Speck and me always got on pretty good, don’t ask me why. Flaw in my character, I reckon.”

  Lucius and Whidden glanced at each other, and both shrugged—why not? They told Andy they were much obliged.

  “I reckon my family owes something to Watsons,” Andy mused as they walked back up the road. “The House men done what they thought was right, and I ain’t backing off it, but they helped kill your daddy all the same.”

  ANDY HOUSE

  Bill House swore Henry never fired at Ed Watson. Said he only fired past his head tryin to distract him.

  Whether Dad’s own bullet struck home, Dad never knew. All he knew was, a red hole jumped out on Watson’s forehead. He was done for. That double-barrel was already comin down.

  One thing Dad never forgot, and Granddad neither: Ed Watson’s hand reached and broke that gun as he was fallin! That takes a man that’s been around guns all his life. But later some said that a man killed quick as that wouldn’t never have no reflex time to break his gun. They said he must of been breakin it already, must been gettin set to hand over his gun when he was gunned down.

  That’s what Uncle Ted told his boy Ned, according to Ned Smallwood, but I don’t know how they knew so much, do you? Uncle Ted was over in his house, and Ned, he wasn’t nowhere near to being borned yet.

  Exceptin Ned, no man can say whose bullet killed Ed Watson. Only Ned knows for a fact that Watson never pulled his triggers, never even raised his gun to fire! Well, maybe Watson pulled his triggers, maybe he didn’t. Anybody check for firing-pin marks on the caps of them dead shells? All we know for sure, them shells was damp, and they come apart. He broke that gun and them long barrels tipped down and that buckshot rolled right out onto the ground.

  When he gets cranked up, Ned enjoys tellin how his own House cousins shot Ed Watson in the back. Now it could be that all that gunfire spun Watson right around. Might even kept him upright for a moment, cause the way some tell it, he was staggerin and spinnin, he was pitching towards ’em! They said he circled thirteen times before he fell! Thirteen times! Now I don’t know who was in that crowd who could count up to thirteen, let alone keep his head in all that noise and do the counting. But I do know this, that a man who spins all the way around, spins thirteen times through a hail of fire, might get a bullet in his back if he ain’t careful!

  Course Cousin Ned, he likes to say that his daddy knew Ed Watson better than anybody on the southwest coast, so naturally would know the most about the case. Says his daddy weren’t no liar, neither, not like some. Comes to my house maybe once every two years, gives me that message, turns purple in the face, and drives off snap-cracklin like a bucket of blue crabs. He’ll be back next year a-cussin and a-hissin just so’s he can tell me it again. I never figured out why Ned comes so far to see me just to do that. That feller will pick a fight with anybody in the family who might care to have one.

  Before he died a couple of years back, my dad remarked how some folks were still busy twisting up the truth, never mind all the long years in between. “Don’t pay no attention to young Ned,” he told me. “Ask the opinion of them men was in that line, dry-mouthed and miskita-bit and all set to soil their pants from staring down the gun barrels of E. J. Watson. Us House boys was scared from start to finish, same as all the rest, and we never denied it.”

  It’s true most of ’em lost their heads, kept right on shooting after Watson was down and stretched flat on his face. Done that to ease their nerves, I reckon, out of pure relief, but it made my dad ashamed he had took part in it.

  Funny thing how a man’s reputation changes once he’s dead, according to the need—not his own need, I don’t mean, but just so folks can feel a little better. My dad thought on this a lot, and I did, too. Because a few years after Watson’s death, when this community was pretty well recovered, folks’ notions about Mr. Watson begun changin. Them Pentecostal missionaries, Church of God, they come in here and baptized the community, purified the sinners, told ’em they was born again and marchin alongside of Jesus on the road to Glory. All them dark and fearful days seemed like some hellish fever that had broke with that man’s death. Next thing you know, your dad was gettin credit for turnin the Lord’s attention to our sinful ways and bringing in salvation, you would almost thought he died to save us all.

  Most settled for makin him some kind of a local hero. Ol’ E. J. was pretty wild, all right, he probably killed a few, but so did Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok! —that’s the way some of them men commenced to talking. They wasn’t ashamed of E. J. Watson, nosir, they was proud about him! Used to brag on their friend Ed to every stranger who come down the coast! And some of ’em are proud about him yet today. But when writers came in to get more dirt on “Bloody Watson,” “Emperor Watson”—his neighbors never used them names, only the writers—them ones who claimed to be so proud about him was the first to repeat all the worst stories, cook up a lot of stuff that never happened. Some would tell any damfool thing to make it seem like themself or their daddy was the only man Ed Watson would confide in, the only one who knew what really happened. Do that to get their picture in the paper pointin out the spot where Watson died: Muh daddy was Ed Watson’s drinkin buddy, and he always did say Good Ol’ Ed was the nicest feller you would ever want to meet. Give ye the shirt off his back with the one hand, slit your damn throat with the other—that was Ed! Oh yes, that sayin was famous around here. I bet you heard that one a few times—two thousand, maybe? And they’d cackle and squawk at that old sayin like it had just popped out like a fresh egg!

  Well, Bill House did know Watson pretty good, knowed him eighteen years from when he first showed up down in the Islands. Kind of liked him, too, the same as e
verybody—said you couldn’t help it. But Bill House made no jokes about him, cause E. J. Watson weren’t no laughin matter. My dad never forgot how it was that dark October, that black drought hanging over this coast like the Almighty had given up on us forever.

  A lot of people who was secretly relieved to see their friend Ed Watson shot to pieces was the same ones who hollered later on how he deserved a trial—the same ones who pointed fingers at the House family and called us lynchers. That cousin of mine is still sayin that today, don’t know the first thing about the truth and don’t care neither. Well, the House men never lynched nobody. Never had no plan to kill Ed Watson in cold blood, and never fired till he swung that gun up.

  All his life my dad would talk about that piece of history that happened here on this little stretch of shore. Talked about that October twilight, talked about that death like it happened yesterday—“clear as stump water,” them was his words. What he meant by that: when the sun catches it right, the little pool of water in the heart of an old stump shines as deep as a black diamond, dark silver black but full of holy light, like that shine in them little limestone sinkholes in the hammocks. In them deep small holes, they ain’t a breath of wind to rile the surface, nothin but some little leaf that might drift down and float on that black mirror just as light as teal down or wild petal or dry seed, with the treetops and clouds and the blue sky all contained in the reflection. “Clear as a deer’s eye”—that’s the way Bill House described how clear that moment was, every detail, right to the bright red of Watson’s blood flecks on his rifle barrel, right to the hairs the evening wind was stirring on the dead man’s neck where he lay face down.

  That’s the way Bill House recalled the death of Mr. Watson. He never mentioned Henry Short at all.

  The Harden men weren’t there that day but later years, they asked Henry for the truth about what happened. Hardens weren’t liars, neither, they was honest people, and from what Henry told ’em, they concluded that Henry never fired at Ed Watson. Course bein a black man back when lynchin nigras didn’t hardly make the papers, he would never admit to shooting at a white man, not to Houses and not to Hardens, neither. Not to God in Heaven! Because if that one he told ever let on, them men would say, “That dang nigger bragged he killed a white man”—say that real sweet and soft, you know, which is the sign amongst them fellers that some poor nigra is headed for perdition. But so long as he never bragged on it, it was all right, because he had the whole House clan behind him, seven men and boys.

  Now them other men was very glad that Henry Short was in that line, and his rifle with him. Later years, a few of ’em took on about it some when they was drinking, but they liked Henry and they was grateful, and I don’t believe they would of raised their hand against him. It was them men’s sons who hated to admit that a black man had took care of Watson while the white men only finished off the job. So pretty soon certain ones was saying that Henry Short had lost his head and murdered Watson. We gone to stand for some damn nigger shootin down a white man? Who in the hell give him the idea he could get away with that? Who give him that damn rifle in the first place? And maybe, they said, Henry’s bad attitude come from the way them Houses spoiled him, and anyways, Houses done wrong to arm that nigger, never mind lettin him foller ’em over to Smallwood’s. The way some of the younger ones was carrying on when they got drunk, you would have thought that Henry Short was the only armed man there. Then someone would say, Ain’t he the one married that Harden down to Lost Man’s River? And a few of them fools started in to saying, “Well, who’s going to teach that boy his lesson?”

  Course they was not so much bad fellers as big talkers. They never rightly understood what a terrible fear had weighed on our community. And their daddies went along with it, they kind of nodded. In their hearts, they knew Henry was there that day because they wanted him there, but bein a little bit ashamed, they would not discuss it in the family. The fathers never admitted to the sons how scared they was of Watson—scared enough so for that one day, they forgive a man his color because that man could shoot better’n they could and might of kept some of ’em from getting hurt.

  So Henry Short never told nobody he fired that gun, not even my dad, who was raised with Henry and was standin right beside him when he done it. And Dad would never think to ask, because Henry was dead honest all his life, and Dad would never want to be the one to make a liar of him. Henry Short never had no choice about what he had to do. From the very first minute after Watson’s death, he was setting a backfire, trying to keep that firestorm away.

  That same evening after dark, Henry slipped away to Lost Man’s River. Before he left, he told my dad he might be gone awhile from Chokoloskee. Far as I ever heard about, he never come back. Never said nothin about Mr. Watson, but Dad knew. He said, “Them men ain’t goin to bother you none, Henry. Hell, they like you!” And Henry nodded, give a little kind of smile. Then he said, “Spect so, Mist’ Bill. They liked Mist’ Watson, too.”

  THE WATSON POSSE

  Daniel David House

  Bill, Dan Junior, and Lloyd House (the oldest boys)

  Harry McGill (married Eva Storter, whose dad, R. B. “Bembery,” was best friends with Papa. Harry told Eva’s brother Hoad that he had fired, but he said he was not proud of it and hoped he’d missed.)

  Hiram McGill (always tagging after Harry; probably missed, too)

  McDuff Johnson

  Charley Johnson, his son

  Isaac Yeomans

  Saint Demere (his daughter Estelle D. Brown says he took part)

  Jim Demere

  Henry Smith (visiting that day from Marco)

  Gene Gandees

  Young Gene Gandees (later let on to his wife, Doris, that the so-called posse was planning to do away with Watson “no matter what”; he was not alone in this opinion.)

  Crockett Daniels (over from Marco that day with Henry Smith. “Speck” was only twelve or so, but some say he fired; others say he was also with those boys who came up later and shot into the body.)

  Walter Alderman (worked for Papa in Columbia County; probably in the line of men due to social pressure, but would later claim he never pulled the trigger.)

  Horace Alderman (his brother, visiting from Marco; joined in “for the heck of it,” Walter said. Hanged in Fort Lauderdale in 1925 as “the Gulf Stream Pirate.”)

  Andrew Wiggins (his parents, Will and Lydia, were good friends of Papa, but Andrew apparently took part. He was renting the Atwell place on Rodgers River but had come back north after the storm.)

  Leland and Frank Rice (three transient fishermen took part, including the Rice boys, according to reports. Both now dead.)

  Note: According to rumor, the third fisherman was that John Tucker who showed up a few years later with the Rice-Alderman gang and drowned while trying to swim across the Bay.

  All agree that “about 20 men” were in “the posse.”

  SUSPECTS

  There are stories that the following took part—in one case, his participation was confessed by the elderly suspect himself! But it seems more likely that these men were not involved, or if they were, that they did not pull the trigger.

  C. T. Boggess (Most people agree that Charlie was across the island with a swollen ankle sprained in the hurricane and couldn’t have limped that far in time. Asked about it, he always harrumphed, wouldn’t say a word. He never objected when, years later, a story started up that he was in on it.)

  Judge George Storter (Liked to display “the gun I used that day,” but nobody recalls him being there. In 1910 he was Justice of the Peace in Everglade, but on the date in question, he is listed in the Sheriff’s records as a juror in Fort Myers.)

  Claude Storter (Now deceased. Most people say Claude was away on Fakahatchee.)

  Old Man Gregorio Lopez (C. G. McKinney’s column of Chokoloskee news in the American Eagle puts him in British Honduras at the time.)

  Joe, Fonso, Greggy Lopez (in Brit. Honduras with their father)

  Not
e: Apparently the Lopez clan was sorry to miss out on the shooting, and Joe and Fonso were among those who would imply in later years that they had been present.

  Jim Howell (As father-in-law to Bill House and Andrew Wiggins, Jim might have gone along, but he once worked for Papa on the Bend and stayed good friends with him, and nobody believes Jim pulled the trigger.)

  Henry Short (He accompanied the House men to the landing, and all agree that he was armed, but whether or not he fired is another question. In view of the Jim Crow climate of the time, and Henry’s famous prudence, it scarcely seems credible that he aimed his rifle at a man such as E. J. Watson. Short has assured L. H. Watson and the Hardens that he did not fire, and has never wavered in that story.)

  Frank B. Tippins (For the record, a reliable source reports the following: “When I was a teenager, Frank Tippins stood on our back porch and told my folks and me how he and three other men killed Mr. Watson, how they put four men in the mangroves, two on each side. Mister Watson came in, standing in his boat, his double-barrel shotgun laying beside him. He heard something, reached for his gun, and then Frank shot him—they all four shot, Frank said, but he shot first.” However, it is very well-established that Sheriff Tippins, who wished to take Watson into custody, did not arrive at Chokoloskee until the following day. Like so many others—among them Justice Storter, Old Man Lopez, Nelson Noble, perhaps Charlie Boggess—he appears to have been afflicted in his later years by a need to have participated in the Watson myth, at least among Fort Myers people unacquainted with the facts.)