Lost Man's River (100 page)

“Runnin guns to the Spanish countries, now that is a good business,” Speck said cheerfully when nobody else spoke. “Course some say it's a cryin shame to haul that ordnance so far south and come back with a empty hold. Might's well find you a return cargo, might's well haul some of that marijuana weed and make you a nice livin. First feller who done that, over to the Keys, the other men looked down on him somethin terrible, but now there's more of 'em startin up into that trade, so I been thinkin it couldn't be too bad. And we got us a smuggler's damn paradise here in the Islands, least for the ones like Whidden here that knows these shaller waters.”

He eyed Whidden, still picking his teeth. “What you think about you 'n' me runnin some of them drugs? Want to try it? I'm studyin up a little bit about this dope business, cause ten years from now, there ain't goin to be a fishin family on this coast that don't have men in it. Young fellers has to support their families, ain't that right?” When Whidden said nothing, Speck sucked the last fish bits from his teeth and spat into the fire. He drank from his flask while his eyes searched anew, and this time his gaze came to rest, with shining hard malevolence, on Lucius Watson.

“I reckon you knowed Colonel from the old days,” Harden said warily, trying to head him off.

“Knowed him all my life,” Speck said in a voice as hard as gravel. “He is the feller I am here to see.” He nodded. “Still diggin up your poor dead daddy, Lucius? What you want with him?” Speck gnawed off a chaw of bread and masticated with his mouth open, awaiting him.

“I want the truth, I guess.”

“You want the truth. Where you aim to find it at?” He pointed his fork at Andy, then Whidden, and finally at his own chest. “He'll tell you his truth, he'll tell his, I'll give you another. Which one you aim to settle for and make your peace with?”

Daniels switched the fork toward Lucius's eyes. “Maybe nobody don't
want
this truth, ever think of that? Maybe your daddy weren't so bad the way he was.” Putting his hands behind his head, he lay back on the sand, one leg cocked across the other knee, old sneaker swinging. “What I'm saying, Lucius, you'd be very smart to let sleepin dogs lie—
well
, now!” Speck sat up again as his daughter approached the fire. He adjusted the small hat with the painted feather as if sartorial precision might tend to sober him a little. “Evenin, Sally! You remember me?”

Sally said shortly, “Yes, sir, I sure do.”

Her father had actually heaved himself onto his knees, but seeing her hostile expression, he gave up the struggle to be courtly and sank back down beside the fire. In doing so, he tipped over his flask. Cursing, he brushed sand off its mouth, nodding in Sally's direction as if his daughter could be depended on to bring him this bad luck. “Baby daughter,” he said. “Ain't she sweet? Got herself hitched to this young Harden that was borned right here on Lost Man's Key. At that time, I was settin net around Shark River, so I been acquainted with my son-in-law all his whole life.”

He contemplated Whidden with a curious mix of indulgence and malevolence. “Us fishermen was always friendly with you Hardens. Went huntin with you, ate at your table, never thought a thing about it. Only time there was hard feelins was one night when you made Nigger Short set down at your table, eat his food with us. Give that boy the wrong idea”—and here he shifted, leaning on one hand to observe Lucius—“cause next thing we knew, he killed this feller's daddy.”

Harden said flatly, “It weren't Short who killed his daddy. Anyway, you wasn't never at our table. You just heard about it.”

“And anyway,” Sally Brown added, “Mr. Henry Short was
not
a ‘nigger.' ”

“
Mr
. Henry Short?” Speck glanced incredulously at Andy House, who was not quite smiling. “
Mr
. Henry? Weren't a nigger?” He grinned at each of them, hunting the joke, and finding none, he cackled anyway. “All right by me.” He scratched his ear. “Never too late to learn, I guess! One time Mr. Robert Harden was lettin' on to Mr. Henry Short how Hardens was Choctaw Injuns at heart—”

“Speck?”

“—and Henry says …” Daniels thought better of this. “To hell with it,”
he said, setting his painted hat upon his head. “One thing I
do
know, ol' Desperader Watson took some killin. Old Man Gene Roberts, now, he was close with Watson, and pretty friendly with the House boys in that crowd that lynched him—”

“One of those House boys was my daddy,” Andy said. “And they didn't lynch nobody, and you know that, too, because you was right there with 'em.”

“Well, now, let's see.” Speck squinched his nose like a cat straightening its whiskers. “I never had no bones to pick with Nigger Henry—
Mr
. Henry. I recollect we used to speak about Black Henry, so's not to confuse him with Henry Smith and Henry Thompson. Used to chuckle because both of them White Henrys had hides that was somewhat darker than Black Henry!” Speck Daniels cackled. “I do know Mr. Henry moved south for a good while after Colonel come skulkin back here to the Islands. He was scared to death of Colonel for some nigger reason. Lived on False Cape Sable and up Northwest Cape, some little lakes way back in there that us old-timers call Henry Short Lakes yet today.

“That country back over by Whitewater Bay is sparse and lonesome, so he must been afeared someone was after him, likely this same Watson we got settin here this evenin. Mr. Henry fished and hunted, took care of his own needs—very good hunter and tracker, got to give Mr. Black Henry his due. Dug him a sand well for his water—ever try that? Put a barrel in a sand pit with the bottom knocked out and small holes drilled into the sides? Get brackish water?”

Not interested in their response, Speck lay back again with his hands behind his head, watching the night fill to the brim with stars and wind. “Some used to say Mr. Henry Short was huntin the gold that Ponce de León hid on Northwest Cape. Don't know why of Ponce would hike way out across them salt flats and clear on over to Henry Short Lakes, do you? Prob'ly said to himself, Now darn it, Ponce, it stands to reason that the Fountain of Youth is right next to them Henry Short Lakes over yonder!”

Speck Daniels's chest heaved in waves of drunken mirth which he did not care if the others shared or not. “Ol' Ponce!” he exploded. “Probably lookin for that fountain cause his pecker weren't so perky. Let him down too many times when he was out rapin Calusa princesses and such. Likely that's what Ponce was up to when them redskins come along and put a stop to that greaser sonofabitch once and for all.”

“Speck? You got your daughter settin here.”

“That's why he talks that way,” she said.

“When Short was livin at the Fountain of Youth, he never come around
the Cape far as Flamingo. Went back north when he went anywhere.” Speck winked at Sally. “
Mr
. Henry Short, we're talkin about here.”

“Sadie Harden told me that Henry did not banish himself because he was afraid,” Sally told Lucius. “He needed solitude because he was recovering from a broken heart.”

“Broken heart?” her father marveled, as if this affliction had been heretofore unheard of among black men. “Mr. Henry Short?”

Lucius demanded, “What makes you so damn sure that Short killed E. J. Watson?”

“Common knowledge.
Got
to be common, if I got it.” Speck laughed some more.

“It might be common,” Sally said, “but it's not the truth.”

“No?” Speck Daniels measured her a long hard moment. “If I was you, Miss, I'd speak more respectful to your own blood daddy.”

“Your dad witnessed it, Sally,” Andy cautioned her.

“That never made him tell the truth before.”

Speck lay back again, ignoring her. “I seen this famous female on a TV show on the Wild West, and they claimed she was killed by a Florida desperader by the name of Watson. Clamanity Jane or some such of a name—called her Clam for short, wouldn't surprise me.” He winked dirtily at Whidden. “When Mr. Nigger Short killed Mr. Desperader Watson, they found Clam's name wrote down in Watson's diary. Seems like there was fifty-five names in there, one for every last soul that he sent howlin to perdition.”

“It's
Calamity
,” Sally informed her father. “Anyway, you're thinking of Belle Starr.”

Lucius said, “My sister kept a diary because our father did, and he showed her what his journal looked like. She described it as a rawhide leather book with a small clasp lock and a title burned onto the cover.
Footnotes to My Life
. I don't recall seeing that journal, but it seems unlikely that she made that up.”

Whidden said, “Mister Colonel? My ma seen that same journal once. Leather book with them same words burned on the cover. Said when he was drinkin, your daddy liked to tease. Claimed he'd took a life for each year of his own. And he called them deaths the footnotes to his life.”

“Fifty-five human beings? Does that make sense to you, goddammit, Whidden? I mean, why would the Hardens remain friendly with a maniac who had killed fifty-five people!” Lucius rose abruptly and went off down the beach in an effort to control an immense frustration. “And that ain't countin niggers!” Speck called gleefully.

Lucius turned around to find Speck grinning at him. “Now let's don't tell
him that I said so, but this Watson we are lookin at right here this minute ain't but the shadder of his daddy. Course it's possible”—Speck held his eye—“that Colonel Watson would do you hurt if you pushed him hard enough. Leastways that's what he wanted us to think, back when he was makin up his list. But I believe this feller is weakhearted. Just wants to live along, get on with ever'body.” He paused again, then added meanly, “Wants to keep lookin for his Lucius truth and just make goddamn sure he never finds it.”

Lucius stood transfixed at the edge of firelight. He could not seem to think, far less move away or return into the circle.

“One time a feller was tellin me how Mr. Watson took his boy to the red-light district in Key West, this was in the last years of Watson's life. Lucius must been twenty years of age, but this was the first female he ever fooled with, and damn if he don't get a good dose of the clap the first time out! Now I heard plenty said about Lucius Watson, but nobody never said he was a lucky feller.”

Sally muttered something and her father turned on her. “Excuse me, Miss? You sayin, Miss, that
Mister
Colonel is not a man that would catch a dose of gonorrhea? Well, I might not know so much as you about gonorrhea, Miss, but he sure had the clap. What them Navy boys down to Key West call ‘a chancre on your anchor,' ever hear that one, Miss? While you was studyin up on gonorrhea?”

Startled by this attack, Sally's sharp tongue faltered, and she groped for a response, flushed close to tears. “Have you ever felt the least respect for women? Ever in your life?”

Speck dismissed her with a grimace and turned back to the men. “See, folks was only scared of Colonel on account of his last name. Even Flamingo people was a-scared of him when he fished down there in the twenties, after his fool list made things hot for him up around home. Feller name Maxwell was Parks ranger up Little Coot Bay, and he was gettin on to Colonel for some reason. And a feller says to him, ‘Maxwell, you best leave that man alone! You keep on messin, one of these days you gone to come up
missin
! Don't you know who that man is? Hell, Desperader Watson was his
daddy
!' Well, that news took Maxwell's cold, cold heart and turned it right around, and after that, them fellers always said, they never seen nobody nicer than what this Maxwell was to Colonel Watson.”

“I believe Sandy Albritton was the one who told me how when Edgar Watson first come to southwest Florida, the train stopped someplace—was it
Arcadia?—and there was a man had another feller man down and was beatin on him somethin pitiful. So Mr. Watson swung down off that train and he walked over there and said, ‘How come you onlookers don't stop this man from beatin this here feller half to death?' ‘No, no,' they said. ‘They ain't
nobody
can't stop him, cause that is Quinn Bass, the meanest hombre in all Manatee County!' So Desperader Watson said, ‘Well, I can stop him.' And darned if he don't step over there and shove his revolver into the burl of that man's ear. Never advised him to quit or nothin, he weren't the kind to tell another man his business. Just squeezed the trigger and climbed back on the train and went on south.”

Infuriated, unfairly defeated, Lucius had returned and sat down across the fire. Sally leaned toward him and whispered, “I don't believe Sandy Albritton ever told any such story!” Her father gave her a funny smile, then reached and whacked her blue-jeaned thigh above the knee. She reared around at him, tears in her eyes. “Keep your cotton-picking hands to your damned self!” Father and daughter measured each other, tasting old bad episodes in their past history, and he raised his brows in unabashed appreciation of her pretty bosom, which was heaving in emotion, Speck picked a broken horsefly off the sand by the gauze wing and turned its glass green body between thumb and forefinger, catching the firelight. “Sharpshooters,” he said. “That's what old-timers used to call 'em.” He turned to Lucius.